Democracy is a bummer, eh?

Richard Murphy has woken up to idea that party politics might not be all that great. [Emphasis mine—DK]

But that means we need a political system that reflects the reality of division within the country. The politics we have can longer support the uniformity of opinion that first part the post demands.

Why, oh why, can’t we now liberate debate with a proportional representation system?

Because we held a referendum on a version of PR in 2011, and the British people overwhelmingly rejected it.

Isn't democracy a bastard, eh, Richard?

George Osborne is not a cunt...

... because, being a straight man, I think that cunts are rather pretty and certainly desirable.

George Osborne, however, is a total fucking fucktard with all of the economic talent of a field mouse. Honestly, the man can't keep his own promises, and he has barely got a grip on anything else. In fact, George Osborne makes Gordon Brown look like a fucking giant of economic competence.

I could talk about why he is such an unmitigated shit-stick, but Simon Heffer has done it for me.

Fucking hellski: Osborne is (and forgive me—I can't think of a better word) such a cunt.

My message to Matthew Hancock

I have sent the following message to Matthew Hancock, who piloted the fake charities clause.

Matthew,

As the originator of the phrase “fake charities” (and the website that, once, accompanied it), I would like to thank you for championing the clause that forbids charities to campaign with state money.

Do not give in to the inevitable screams of outrage that will emanate from the Left and the Third Sector (tautology, perhaps?): please believe that there are many working taxpayers out here, in the land that you represent, who are grateful that their money is no longer going to be squandered on “charitable” political campaigns with which we do not agree, never voted for, and would never support.

Regards,

DK

I hope that it encourages him to do more.

This fight is far from over...

No, I am not a corporation—and the charities should shut up

The thoroughly sound blogger, Dick Puddlecote has been rather kind about your humble Devil, re: the whole Fake Charities thing.

Mr Puddlecote, quite rightly, points out that I did not do it because I was in the pay of some shadowy corporation, conglomerate or think-tank—I funded the whole thing out of my own pocket and my own time (as did the volunteers who helped).

You will hear a lot of bluster from the charities who have been caught with their hands in the nation's till over this; they will try to blame corporations, or perhaps those nasty think tanks and their shadowy funders. But it is incontestable that this egregious abuse of taxes was first discovered by a guy who just enjoyed recreational political writing; was never paid for his work; did it in his spare time; and just knows a wrong 'un when he sees it.

It was a victory for the blogosphere and was a grass roots campaign which has gone from a corner of the internet to the upper echelons of the state, resulting in a rule which is - as we speak - prompting 'charity' meetings up and down the country to formulate plans as to how to keep their noses in the trough.

Quite so.

The charities and their various hangers-on are accusing the government of "silencing free speech".

This is a total fucking lie.

Charities can still say precisely what they want: they just cannot use money—extracted by force from you and me—to do so.

Good.

A fake charities victory!

2009-01-19T03:47:08Z

That was the date and time that your humble Devil first registered the fakecharities.org domain—19th January 2009. I built the first fakecharities.org site that night, using a simple Open Source CMS called WebsiteBaker.

I then populated this simple site with a few organisations that I, and Kitchen contributor the Filthy Smoker, had identified as being particularly egregious specimens of the type we called "fake charities".

A few days ago, and a mere seven years later (!), the work of that night—and the efforts of many grassroots and blogosphere contributors—became a significant victory.

As regards the genesis of Fake Charities, I wrote a retrospective of the whys and wherefores some years ago, in June 2012.

Some years ago, your humble Devil and his Kitchen colleague, the Filthy Smoker, noticed that more and more charities were being cited by news media—and, most especially, the BBC—in connection with government initiatives.

These charities almost always reinforced these policies: and these policies were almost always ones that aimed to reduce freedom and liberty in this country.

Out of curiosity, we started to investigate these charities in a very simplistic way: when a charity was quoted as being in favour of yet more grossly invasive legislation, we went to the Charity Commission website and looked up the public accounts.

In the majority of cases, we found that these quoted "charities" were, in fact, largely funded by the government whose policies they were enthusiastically endorsing.

I would like to say that what we unearthed shocked us, but that would be a lie. What did surprise us was just how many of these organisations there were.

People tend to think of charities as being... well... voluntary organisations, doing actual, physical good deeds in the community—whether that be running soup kitchens, cancer hospices or homeless shelters.

But most of these organisations were indulging in little more than flat-out lobbying. And they were using our money to do it. In our view, these charities were being deliberately disingenuous.

And we came up with a name for these organisations—"fake charities".

In that post, I reiterated what we defined as a fake charity.

We define a Fake Charity as any organisation registered as a UK charity that derives more than 10% of its income—and/or more than £1 million—from the government, whilst also lobbying the government. That lobbying can take the form of calling for new policies, changes to the law or increases in (their own) funding.

When we were (inevitably) attacked in various articles by the BBC and the Third Sector, they tended to ignore the "lobbying" clause—we were horrible, sweary, libertarian bloggers who wanted to do down the valuable work that charities were doing. Nevertheless, all these protests did was to bring the concept of fake charities to a wider audience—with the phrase becoming regularly used amongst the politically-aware.

The libertarian blogosphere, of course, had already latched onto the term with aplomb, and it gradually began to gain wider recognition. Contributors to the site increased, and repeated submissions made: the Filthy Smoker and I conscientiously reviewed every suggested charity, manually reviewing their accounts on the Charity Commission website. It was hard work, and took up much of our free time, and we were only ever able to cover a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of organisations that qualified. Finally, various technical server issues, and a further reduction of available time, meant that the website went offline (although I still own the domain).

Luckily, we had gained a powerful ally. Chris Snowdon, now of the IEA, had the resources to compile much more comprehensive research into the sock-puppet eco-system. A few of these reports are listed below:

• Sock Puppets: How the government lobbies itself and why;
• Euro Puppets: The European Commission’s remaking of civil society;
• The Sock Doctrine—What can be done about state-funded political activism?

Importantly, the IEA was a respected think-tank, and thus able to bring much more clout to bear on the new Coalition government.

Gradually, awareness was raised, and we began to chip away at the fake charities. I heard rumours that the part of the Cabinet Office responsible for charities had had to redraft its rules—awarding contracts rather than grants. A pamphlet, released by Eric Pickles' DCLG, advised local governments to save money by ceasing funding to "fake charities and sock puppets".

Finally, a few days ago, we saw a massive victory, as reported by The Telegraph: Charities to be banned from using public funds to lobby ministers.

Charities in receipt of Government grants will be banned from using these taxpayer funds to engage in political lobbying, The Telegraph can disclose.

A new clause to be inserted into all new and renewed grant agreements will make sure that taxpayer funds are spent on improving people's lives and good causes, rather than covering lobbying for new regulation or using taxpayers’ money to lobby for more government funding.

It will not prevent organisations from using their own privately-raised funds to campaign as they see fit.

The Institute of Economic Affairs, a right of centre think-tank, has undertaken extensive research on so-called “sock puppets”, exposing how taxpayers’ money given to pressure groups is paid to fund lobbying campaigns on policies such as a sugar tax and the environment.

Officials are hoping that the clause will ensure that freedom of speech is protected, while stopping taxpayers’ money being diverted away from good causes.

Matt Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister, told The Telegraph: “Taxpayers’ money must be spent on improving people’s lives and spreading opportunities, not wasted on the farce of government lobbying government.

“The public sector never lobbies for lower taxes and less state spending, and it’s a zero sum game if Peter is robbed to pay Paul.

“These common sense rules will protect freedom of speech–but people won’t be made to foot the bill for political campaigning and political lobbying.

It seems only appropriate for the article to include a quote from our best supporter (even if they do spell his name wrong)...

Chris Snowden, head of Lifestyle Economics at the IEA, said: “This is very good news for taxpayers who will no longer be forced to pay for the government to lobby itself.

“At every level—local, national and European—people have been subsidising political campaigns that they may not know about and might disagree with.

“Campaigning is an important part of a thriving democracy but charities and pressure groups should not be doing it with taxpayers’ money.”

And the precise phrasing to be inserted?

The exact phrase that will be inserted into all new and renewed grant agreements reads: “The following costs are not Eligible Expenditure:- Payments that support activity intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, Government or political parties, or attempting to influence the awarding or renewal of contracts and grants, or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action”.

This rule was successfully been piloted by the Department for Communities and Local Government over the last year.

Whilst the fight is very far from over—the Left and the charity sector are, of course, kicking up a stink—this is a very welcome development.

It shows that a small campaign, lightly-funded web resources, and a pithy name can change the course of our society. We must fight to ensure that this clause goes through, unamended, and we must keep up the pressure on these fake charities.

In the meantime, let us claim a small victory—and a significant scalp—for the blogosphere. As Chris Snowdon says:

It might seem obvious that the government shouldn't be paying for pressure groups to lobby itself, but the practice has become endemic in recent years. Hats off to Matt Hancock for doing something about it.

Ministers don't get enough credit when they do good things in politics. Hancock will doubtless receive a flurry of complaints from those who see it as their right to use taxpayers' money for their political campaigns, so if you are pleased about him chipping away at the sock-puppet state, do send him an e-mail at matthew.hancock.mp@parliament.uk. I will be doing likewise.

Your humble Devil will also be sending a note.

I urge all of the great bloggers and other volunteers who have supported the Fake Charities campaign over the years to do likewise. Thank you—all of you.

DK

Espousing libertarianism

Over at the Libertarian Alliance blog, Keir Martland has written of what he views as a failure of the LA to advance the Libertarian cause in a significant way, and an analysis of the various other ways that might be tried—ending with the rather depressing idea that we should just carry on with more of the same.

I left the following comment...

As someone who has tried to push libertarianism in a number of channels—through a widely-read and deeply offensive blog (which I know converted a few tens of people); through pushing libertarianism in, and writing policies for, UKIP; to helping start the UK Libertarian Party—I can say that the main problem is that the majority of UK people do not take to the philosophy.

The blog became hard work to continue writing (and started threatening my real life work); UKIP has edged back to more statist policies in order to win votes (especially in the north); and the LPUK has never really gained traction (partly because it is under-funded, and run by part-time amateurs who, like most libertarians, rather despise the political process that they are nominally part of).

So, what is it that the British people do not like about our philosophy? The answer is rather interesting—and gleaned from my (admittedly random and anecdotal) surveys of people in pubs.

People are worried about the effects of a smaller state on other people.

I have spoken to people that are pretty poor, and many who are in receipt of benefits. Some have been aggressive, some dense—but most not. Most people would prefer that the state would leave them alone: most proudly (and perhaps unrealistically) opine that they could make a living without benefits, because they are capable people.

But what (they say) about the really poor people? What will happen to them—how will they cope? Today, these "poor people" are as mythical as the rich, top hat-wearing, cigar-chomping capitalists of Victorian yore: but it these people that ordinary British people become concerned about when one discusses the shrinking of the state, and the curbing of Welfare.

As such, two things need to be done:

• there needs to be a comprehensive libertarian philosophy of welfare. For me, this is based on voluntary contributions, along the lines of the successful Friendly Societies of the late 19th century (and which were destroyed by the introduction of state National Insurance in 1911). A development of this policy enables libertarians to answer the worries of the "man in the pub";
• libertarians need to find a way to communicate to the "man in the pub"—because there are vastly more of them than there are libertarians (currently), and hugely more than there are academics. And the man in the pub most certainly does not read academic treatises.

The way into the discussion of libertarianism should be based on the ideas that the state interferes too much in our day-to-day lives (the man in the pub often likes a smoke, and he certainly likes a drink), and that the promises that the state makes cannot be counted on. If the state promises you welfare, what guarantee do you have that it will deliver? As Lando Calrissian said, "this deal just gets worse."

People are surprisingly libertarian for themselves, but they are also surprisingly worried about these mythical poor people—an underclass whose existence the media and the government have an interest in perpetuating.

Anyway, that's my take on it. For what it's worth.

I also left out one rather crucial element, which those who have read The Kitchen or heard me speak will remember: we need to have a credible transition plan. You cannot simply convert to a system of voluntary Welfare overnight:

• first, the institutions to support it do not exist;
• second, the culture of voluntarily saving for problems does not exist in most people.

Both of these need to be addressed, and both will take time.

Luckily for us, the Tories are trying (with only moderate success) to address the second part: however, and perhaps through necessity, they are using—forced withdrawal of benefits, forcing people to do their own budgeting through Universal Credit—rather than cultural change. It may be, however, that this force is a necessary first step to start this transition—time will tell if this shock therapy works (if the electorate allows it to continue, of course).

Whatever happens, I am pretty sure that speaking to academics (most of whom are on the Left) is going to change very little.

UPDATE: a follow-up comment in response to someone else...

I would generally, these days, call myself a "minarchist libertarian" or "classical liberal".

Either way, I don't really think that a libertarian government should have any policy on whether mutuals or businesses are best for making money—after all, even our very statist governments don't bother getting into that debate.

And, yes, the state shouldn't dictate what marriage looks like. But it does because it bases some state benefits on defining what marriage is: remove those benefits, and then the state has no business defining marriage.

As I have frequently outlined, the Welfare State puts us all in hock to the state—which gives it licence to define our actions. Remove state welfare, and you remove any moral or economic justification for the state to dictate how we live our private lives (as long as we do not initiate force or fraud against someone else's life, liberty or property).

How many times have you heard some draconian policy justified because "it costs the NHS money"? The Welfare State is the crux of statism—and thus dealing with it *must* be the priority of those who are anywhere on the libertarian spectrum.

Removing it should be a uniting force for our movement: to do that, we need to describe how we would avoid people starving on the streets, etc. All of these are more important to the general people (and voters) of this country than abstract wibblings about esoteric policies that no one understands or cares about.

By the way, I added the links to previous posts here, for reference, but not in the original comments that I left.

UPDATE 2: links to my major essays on Friendly Societies can be found below.

• an expansion of a talk on Welfare, that I gave to the Adam Smith Institute in April 2010;
• an expansion of my part in a debate on liberty that I took part in at the IEA in July 2010.

Both deal with what a voluntary Welfare State might look like, and lean heavily on Friendly Societies to achieve that aim.

Teaching Gruber

John Gruber runs one of the most visited blogs on the entire internet. Most of your humble Devil's readers will never have heard of him, because he writes about technology in general and (largely) Apple in particular.

Today, John is outraged by a particularly stupid Grauniad article (and who isn't, eh?): the article is a comment on Apple by well-known fantasist, Mike Daisey.

But the serious problem is that The Guardian ran this piece (in the Tech section, not Opinion, no less) without any sort of note alluding to the fact that Mike Daisey is a known fabulist who completely made up stories about labor abuses in Apple’s Chinese supply chain.

Mike Daisey doesn’t have zero credibility regarding Apple — he has negative credibility. He’s a liar.

Shame on The Guardian.

Mr Gruber is an American, and so we cannot be surprised at his... well... surprise. Yes, yes—we Brits know that the Grauniad is a joke, whose articles are written by the kind of people on whom you would not piss were they ablaze.

But, as I said, Mr Gruber is an American. So, quite apart from comedically mis-spelling Grauniad, I would like to give John an insight into the British view of that newspaper. And that has been rendered remarkably easy by The Daily Mash, via their excellent line of searingly insightful merchandise.

Perhaps we can all club together to send one of these over the pond to John?

Otherwise, I have a spare somewhere...

Wind power is too expensive at any price, you fool

This morning, CityAM published a spectacularly silly article by Ben Goldsmith on energy provision in the UK (which is, as we know, looking pretty dicey right now).

Upon reading the first part of Goldsmith's piece—which dwells on the mind-bendingly high energy price that the government has signed us up to for the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant—you might find yourself nodding along in agreement. But then you will have read a little further...

It is not surprising that, instead of setting a new competitive low for nuclear generating costs, Hinkley Point has done the reverse at £92.50 MW/h.

The costs of coal and gas power are also rising. Recent Bloomberg research has shown that the price of UK coal and gas power rose by around 17 per cent to £74 MW/h in the past year, despite downward pressure from the advent of US shale gas. Now comes the surprise. Over the same period, the costs of energy from onshore wind fell from £70 MW/h to £55 MW/h–making it cheaper than gas.

Sigh.

Look, running an energy system is not an easy job: you need to be able to keep the energy in the grid at a fairly stable voltage, but demand ebbs and flows considerably—which means that you need to be able to control the supply to the grid too.

And this is where wind power fails spectacularly: not only because it is intermittent, but also because you have almost no control over the output. Even were wind power levels consistent, because the actual output is only a fraction of the theoretical installed capacity (around 29% on average), you would need to install around four times the required capacity to be certain of keeping the lights on.

All of this is made abundantly clear in a recent report by physicist and civil engineer, David Partington (and as reported by Not A Lot of People Know That.

Derek Partington, a former Chartered Engineer, has spent a lot of time in the last six years, researching the effectiveness of wind turbines. His findings are damning:

His report runs to thirteen pages, well worth a read. But some of his tables and charts tell the story.

For instance, how capacity utilisation can vary wildly from month to month.

It's well worth reading the whole thing—but, for now, I will just repeat the conclusions.

Over the period studied, January 2013 to December 2014 inclusive, wind turbine operational capacity connected to the UK Grid has increased from 5,894MW to 8,403MW. The operational capacity in January 2011 was 2,490MW; therefore there has been an increase of almost 3.4x over the four year period.
The conclusions to be drawn from the data analysis are:

1. An increase in the operational capacity does not improve average output. In fact the average monthly capacity factor has fallen over the periods studied, dropping from 33.2% in 2011 to 28.8% in 2014.
2. An increase in the operational capacity does not reduce the periods of low or very low output as measured by the number of hours per year when output was low (less than 10% of installed capacity) or very low (less than 5% of installed capacity). There is a variation from year to year but no pattern emerges. The mean low output over the four years was 1,617 hours/year with a standard deviation of 197 hours/year and the mean very low output was 599 hours with a standard deviation of 96 hours.
3. An increase in the operational capacity does not reduce intermittency. If taken as a measure of intermittency, the average monthly minimum expressed as a percentage of installed capacity was 1.9% with no significant variation from year to year.
4. Taking maximum rise and fall in output over one hour period as a further measure of intermittency, the National Grid is now having to cope with variations in output of over 1,100MW over one hour periods, with this variation increasing by about 250MW per year. This is very significant as it represents the changes in output which the Grid has to cope with and which has to be compensated by conventional fossil fuelled power stations.
5. An increase in the operational capacity does not indicate any possibility of closing any conventional, fossil-fuel power stations as there is no correlation between variations in output from wind turbines and demand on the Grid. Often the opposite is true – when demand rises, output from wind turbines falls and vice versa. This has a significant negative effect as back-up has to be provided from conventional, fossil-fuel power stations not only to cater for increase in demand on the Grid at peak times but also to cover for any possible fall in output from the UK wind turbine fleet at the same time.

Therefore, taking the four criteria above, there is no case for a continued increase in the number of wind turbines connected to the Grid.

As stated in my previous report, it is incumbent upon the Government to ensure that the British consumer is getting value for money from industrial wind turbine installations and that they are not just paying subsidies to developers and operators (through ROCs) whilst getting nothing back in return in terms of CO2 emission reductions through the supplanting of fossil-fuelled power generation.

Based on the results of this and my previous analysis I cannot see why any policy for the continued increase in the number of wind turbines connected to the Grid can be justified.

So, to return to Mr Goldsmith's article, and his lunatic assertion that onshore wind power is "cheaper than gas"... Well, this is clearly barking insanity of the very first order: wind power does not provide stable and controllable power outputs; as such, it does not provide what we require from a power generation source and, therefore, is too expensive at any price.

So, since you would have to be an idiot not to understand all of this, one has to pose the Polly conundrum—is Goldsmith ignorant or is he stupid?

Actually, that is unfair. Because there is a third option in the conundrum, and it is this—"or is he shilling something?" And it is, of course, this last option that explains the article.

Accompanying the piece, in typical (usually decent) CityAM style, is a short biography that coyly explains that Goldsmith is "the founder of Menhaden Capital and WHEB Group". These are investment firms, of course, but what is their speciality? Well, given that Goldsmith is brother to environmentalist nut-job Zac, I think you can guess.

And you'd be right.

Ben Goldsmith, brother of Conservative MP and environmental campaigner Zac Goldsmith, is floating an investment fund backed by high-profile business figures to invest in green businesses.

Menhaden Capital will target business opportunities that specialise in saving resources such as energy and water or cutting waste.
...

Goldsmith said investment in green projects was no longer an act of faith and that there were many opportunities to make good returns from backing environmental businesses.
...

Ben Goldsmith is the founder of WHEB, an investment firm focused on energy efficiency, clean technology and sustainable development.

Can it be that "investment in green projects" is, in fact, "an act of faith". And could it be, with the government steadily rowing back from subsidising these white elephants, that Mr Ben is having trouble persuading people to invest money into his fantasyland adventures?

You might say that: I couldn't possibly comment...

Quote of the Day...

... comes from an anonymous Labour advisor on the subject of Jeremy Corbyn.

“We’ve had shit leaders before and we’ve survived,” a longstanding adviser said. “This is politics; anything can happen and we’ve got to do the best we can.”

Indeed.

Labour's fixed that for you

According to the Daily Wail, George Osborne (amongst others) lobbied hard against the Tories' EU referendum pledge.

George Osborne pleaded with David Cameron not to hold an in/out referendum on the European Union, it emerged last night.
Senior Tory sources revealed the Chancellor had repeatedly warned against the move in the run-up to the Prime Minister’s referendum pledge in 2013.

He is said to have warned Mr Cameron that a referendum would not resolve the tensions within the Tory party over the issue, and risked an accidental British exit from the EU.

If we exit the EU, Georgie-boy, it won't be "accidental": it will be the quite deliberate will of the British people—a people who would rather make their own laws and articulate their own priorities (for better or for worse).

But why, George? Why would you do this thing: why campaign against an EU referendum...?

[Osborne] also warned that holding an in/out vote risked putting the Conservatives on the wrong side of mainstream business opinion…

Well, if by "mainstream business" you mean big corporates, yes: if, on the other hand, you mean "the vast majority of British businesses that have to implement a bunch of regulations even though they don't actually trade abroad"—the ones that make up 80% of our trade and commerce—then not so much.

But Georgie is a sneaky little tyke: surely he can just be cuddling up to businesses? Is there, perhaps, some kind of political side to this?

... handing a political gift to Labour.

Ah. I did wonder.

Still, that shouldn't be a problem after September 12.

The Tories will have to worry far less about the opinion of businesses (or, indeed, voters) when the main opposition party is about to elect a terrorist-appeasing Communist, pushing a generally fascist manifesto—the financials of which are cobbled together by an economic illiterate.

George & Co. must be delighted.

Bee calm

Obviously, we are all going to die because... Noooo beeeeeees.

Or not.

Activists insist wild bees are being killed by neonicotinoid insecticides. But as the research paper notes: “[T]he species that are the dominant crop pollinators are the most widespread and abundant species in agricultural landscapes in general.” The variety of wild species that forage on commercial crops is limited, but in terms of population, those species are everywhere. They are by far the most commonly encountered type of wild bee. The study found that, in 99.7 percent of the cases, the wild bees that come into contact with crops (and neonics) are not in decline.

File under "scare stories to sell peer-reviewed journals to naive reporters".

Trading lies

Now, one could be charitable and say that it's an editing issue. However, I choose to believe that Lucy Thomas is, in fact, telling a deliberate untruth in today's City AM debate. [Emphasis mine—DK]

Nearly half of our trade is with other EU countries, and the “outers” cannot say how British businesses would be affected by any of their scenarios for exit.

No, Lucy: "nearly half of our trade" is not with other EU countries, actually.

At any time, around 80% of "our trade" is internal. Our actual trade with EU countries is, in fact, about 10%—very far from "half" (and it is more like 8% when the Rotterdam effect is taken into account).

This might seem like nit-picking, but Lucy Thomas is the campaign director of pro-EU Business for New Europe organisation: we can expect organisations like this to step up the peddling of these subtle lies as the EU referendum approaches.

We need to be aware of them, call out those asserting them, and debunk them on a regular basis.

BRAAAIIINS!

It appears that we are suffering the night of the living dead! For lo! as The Kitchen rises, slowly, from the grave, it seems that Bella Gerens has also uttered started to mutter about "brains"...

BBC armageddon bollocks

Apparently, the Buttered New Potato told Nick Robinson that he was going to close down the BBC.

Mr Robinson said that while travelling on the bus, Mr Cameron dismissed a BBC story claiming that he had told Nick Clegg that the Tories would not win a majority as "rubbish" before adding: "I’m going to close them down after the election."

Mr Robinson yesterday told The Guardian: "What really matters is the impact it has on other people. Some people on the bus regarded it as funny but they generally didn’t work for the BBC. The people who did [work for the BBC] regarded it as yet another bit of pressure...

Oh, diddums.

... and a sort of sense of 'don’t forget who’s boss here'."

Hey, Nick—you know how you could really ensure that Dave couldn't say 'don’t forget who’s boss here'?

Yeah, that's right—by not using the law to force people to pay the Licence Fee. In this way, the government need not be your boss at all. Do you see?

So, unless you're going to do the decent thing and stop stealing people's money by force, might I recommend that you shut your hole?

Cheers.