The great charity scandal

A gentleman named David Craig has written a new book, called The Great Charity Scandal, which he summarises in an article over at the Daily Mail.

The figures are astonishing. There are more than 195,289 registered charities in the UK that raise and spend close to £80 billion a year. Together, they employ more than a million staff – more than our car, aerospace and chemical sectors – and make 13 billion ‘asks’ for money every year, the equivalent of 200 for each of us in the UK.

Indeed.

In England and Wales there are 1,939 active charities focused on children; 581 charities trying to find a cure for cancer; 354 charities for birds; 255 charities for animals, 81 charities for people with alcohol problems and 69 charities fighting leukaemia. 

All have their own executives, administrators, fundraisers, communications experts and offices, but few will admit they are doing exactly the same thing as other charities. Take the case of Ethiopia. Two decades ago there were 70 international charities operating there, today the figure is close to 5,000. 

A 2013 parliamentary inquiry into the charity sector found there were so many charities that the Charity Commission for England and Wales was struggling to ensure that most registered charities were genuine, rather than tax avoidance schemes or political campaigning groups.

Yes: it's a colossal industry.

Many other charities have also been tempted away from their main focus, into campaigning. 

Charities such as Forum for the Future, Friends of the Earth and Green Alliance have been very successful in influencing government policy. Their greatest success was probably in 2008 when the Climate Change Act was passed into law, which by the Government’s own estimate will cost £760 per household every year for four decades. 

But many of these charities are funded predominantly by the taxpayer, rather than public donations. Indeed, a number of commentators have identified that many do little in the way of good works, but are actually campaigning organisations or ‘fake charities’.

Yay! As I have said before, this phrase—indeed, this concept of "fake charities"—is my only meaningful contribution to the political conversation (other than coarsening it!).

About 27,000 British charities are dependent on the Government for three quarters or more of their funding. Without Government cash, many would collapse. Nevertheless they spend much of their time and money lobbying the Government rather than doing what most people would consider ‘charitable work’.

Indeed. And, ultimately, whose fault is this disgusting state of affairs? Yes—it's the fault of Saint Tony and his monocular Scottish idiot sidekick, the Gobblin' King.

Britain’s charities haven’t always been so politically active. Until 2004, any form of political lobbying by a charity could only be ‘incidental or ancillary to its charitable purpose’ and could not be a charity’s ‘dominant’ activity.

But it suited the NuLabour government to ensure that its place-men and women were in  position to lobby the executive to pass new and ever more draconian laws. Because people might rebel against the idea of government interfering in their private lives.

But—ah!—if charities (who, after all, only exist to do good, eh?) insist that such legislation is required, to save the people from themselves, then it must be a public good. And therefore the laws must be right.

And the charities got their reward—cash. And fuck-tons of it...

Oxfam, for example picked up almost £137 million from taxpayers in Britain and abroad during the last year – 37 per cent of its revenue. Save the Children also got close to £137 million from taxpayers and Christian Aid was given about £39 million – 41 per cent of its funds. 

Some charities refer to this money as ‘voluntary income’, though it’s not clear taxpayers would be so generous with donations if they knew how much of their money the charity was already receiving.

It is pretty clear—both from the reaction that Fake Charities got at the time, and in my conversations with people since—that people most certainly would not be so generous. In fact, they would be scandalised.

It's time that it stopped.

This is science fiction...

In an on-going argument with Martin Ford, Timmy (writing at Forbes) describes a situation that will be familiar to those who read a particular type of science fiction.

For a job, an income, isn’t in fact what any of us humans want. What we want is the ability to consume (consume houses, food, clothes, cars etc, all of which are now being made by machine recall) and and income and or a job are only methods of achieving that. So, if the machines are doing all of the work then, well, who is going to be consuming the output? As there’s only us human beings to do so I pretty much guess that it will be us human beings consuming all of the output. And if we’re able to consume all of this output being produced by the machines then why would we care about having a job or an income? We get to consume without either, don’t we?

All of our material needs are being fulfilled by the machines. We are thus able to be:

A farmer in the morning, a laborer in the afternoon, and a philosopher in the evening.

We’re able to be communists in short. Potter around growing a tomato or two in the morning (nothing quite like it for the spirit, to actually nurture and grow a plant then eat the produce), labour a little in the afternoon at that tennis backhand or lay the crazy paving (yes, the machine could and would do it better and faster but the spiritual rewards of hand work are, as we are told, considerable) and in the evening we can yammer with our friends over silliness (that is what philosophers do, yes, yammer with friends over sillinesses?).

A world in which the machines made everything would be a world in which there was no shortage of anything and in such a world what on earth would any of us actually desire a job for?

Of course, for anyone who has ever read any of Ian M Banks' Culture novels, this whole scenario will be entirely familiar.

The Culture is characterized by being a post-scarcity society (meaning that its advanced technologies provide practically limitless material wealth and comforts for everyone for free, having all but abolished the concept of possessions), by having overcome almost all physical constraints on life (including disease and death) and by being an almost totally egalitarian, stable society without the use of any form of force or compulsion, except where necessary to protect others.

And, indeed, it seems to be a rather desirable way in which to live. Although, having said that, most of The Culture novels are about how that society spends its time interfering in less developed societies...

The Art of Suppression

The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition since 1800 by Christopher Snowdon.

Your humble Devil has received his gratis copy of Christopher Snowdon's new magnum opus, The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition since 1800.

In the last few years, Chris has become an essential authority on prohibition, Righteous campaigners and fake charities—mainly because he treats his subjects with a lightness of touch and sense of humour that those same authoritarian bastards do not allow us mere taxpayers. As such, I am proud to have provided the cover for the third of his publications...

A review will appear here fairly shortly but, in the meantime, I highly recommend wandering over to his place and ordering your copy...

Diana Wynne Jones is dead

This is a strange experience, for I have never mourned the death of any celebrity or other "person of renown" before. However, it is with a feeling of genuine sadness that I note the death of Diana Wynne Jones, one of the finest writers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy—actually, of any genre—in the English language.

Jones's fiction is relevant, subversive, witty and highly enjoyable, while also having a distinctly dark streak and a constant awareness of how unreliable the real world can seem. Disguises and deceptions abound. Though avoiding criminally dysfunctional families or unwanted pregnancies, her cleverly plotted and amusing adventures deal frankly with emotional clumsiness, parental neglect, jealousy between siblings and a general sense of being an outcast. Rather than a deliberately cruel stepmother, a Jones protagonist might have a real mother far more wrapped up in her own career than in the discoveries and feelings of her child. The child protagonist would realise this, but get on with the adventure anyway.
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Her career began as a playwright, with three plays produced in London between 1967 and 1970; her first novel, Change- over (1970), was adult humour; since then her work has been written for younger readers. Besides the two series already mentioned, she wrote the Howl books, beginning with Howl's Moving Castle (1986; filmed in 2004 by Hayao Miyazaki), and two sequels, and the Dalemark sequence (1975-2003), dark-tinged fantasies set in that eponymous country.

Some of her best and most enjoyable books are stand-alones, in particular The Ogre Downstairs (1974), The Time of the Ghost (1981) and Fire and Hemlock (1985), each a remarkable blend of pathos and genuinely funny writing. Archer's Goon (1984), extravagantly mixing fantasy with science fiction, was serialised for television by the BBC in 1992. Her most recent novel, the light-hearted Enchanted Glass, appeared last year.

Diana Wynne Jones was a fantastic writer, genuinely witty and fiercely original—I cannot recommend her work enough. For those who are interested, my personal favourites are:

• Hexwood—mind-bendingly complicated conceptually but a compelling romp with a bitter edge.


• Fire and Hemlock—probably my all-time favourite of her books, this brooding mystery is heavily entwined with the myth of Tam Lin.


• The Homeward Bounders—one of the recurring themes in Jones's books is that of parallel worlds, and this one takes you to a whole host of them.


• Archer's Goon—a tale of how an immensely alien family "farm" a town, this is full of memorable characters and fast-paced storyline.


• Time of the Ghost—a genuinely scary book in which a ghost tries to work out which of four sisters she is... And how to stop the dark force that hangs over their family from claiming a life.


• Power Of Three—set in a version of our world in which "people", Dorig and Giants are in constant conflict: a conflict which is driven by a curse made long ago...

Although these are a few of my favourites, Diana Wynne Jones wrote a huge number of novels and stories, all of which are worth reading—I genuinely have not found a book of hers that I did not enjoy.

Oddly, I was reading about Diana only the other day on Neil Gaiman's site—and today Neil's own obituary for Diana Wynne Jones has appeared.

As an author she was astonishing. The most astonishing thing was the ease with which she'd do things (which may be the kind of thing that impresses other writers more than it does the public, who take it for granted that all writer are magicians.But those of us who write for a living know how hard it is to do what she did). The honest, often prickly characters, the inspired, often unlikely plots, the jaw-dropping resolutions.

(She's a wonderful author to read aloud, by the way, as I discovered when reading her books to my kids. Not only does she read aloud beautifully, but denouments which seemed baffling read alone are obvious and elegantly set up and constructed when read aloud. "Children are much more careful readers than adults," she'd say. "You don't have to repeat everything for children. You do with adults, because they aren't paying full attention.")
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Rest in Peace, Diana Wynne Jones. You shone like a star. The funniest, wisest writer & the finest friend. I miss you.
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I do miss her, very much. I have some wonderful friends. I have people in my life who are brilliant, and people who are colourful, and people who are absolutely wonderful, and who make the world better for their being in it. But there was only one Diana Wynne Jones, and the world was a finer one for having her in it.

Diana Wynne Jones lived her life to the full, enjoying herself immensely—and enriching the lives of thousands of readers, young and old.

Truly, a sad day for British literature.

RIP Diana Wynne Jones (16 August 1934 - 26 March 2011).

UPDATE: FlipC delivers his own eloquent eulogy...

When I first moved to Stourport, and thus gained easier access to the public library, my first forays into the fantasy genre was DWJ; If memory serves—Archer's Goon. I've never looked back since.

Here was an author who didn't write down to me, didn't condescend. Her plots were complicated and forced you to pay attention to what you were reading; and her characters were believable; acting and reacting in ways you could understand. She didn't ram home the differences in her worlds she simply worked them into the story in such a way that you would happily accept this situation as just that which was normal.

She took you by the hand and led you into a strange world and let you do the pointing, gaping and staring.

There's few authors who can do that, and now there's one less.

Indeed.

The common good

Via Counting Cats, I see that Richard Murphy has approvingly reviewed a book called Common Good, by Martin Large.

Now, it really should go without saying that anything that someone as evil, stupid, contradictory and ignorant as Richard Murphy approves of must be repulsive, but what really got me incensed was this extract from the book jacket blurb quoted by our favourite, tax avoiding accountant from Wandsworth.

However, tripolar society is emerging as an alternative, where civil society, government and business push back the market, and work in partnership for the common good.

What is this "common good" exactly? Who are these commoners and who is to decide what is good for them? I would imagine that we are all the commoners and it is to be people like Martin Large and Richard Murphy who are decide what is good for us.

This is always the way, you see: those who espouse socialism are always those who think that they will be the ones doing the telling. (Equally, of course, those who whinge about how people or companies are quite legally avoiding tax are always the ones who have done precisely the same thing—eh, Richard?)

Perhaps it is because I am, once again, reading Atlas Shrugged* that I got so irritated and outraged by the phrase "common good"**. Or perhaps it is simply that I am thoroughly sick and tired of thugs like Martin Large, Richard Murphy and Andrew fucking Lansley telling me how I should live my life.

Why don't you all fuck off to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and fucking stay there...?

* Last week, the trailer for Atlas Shrugged Part 1 was released: it actually looks as though it might be rather good...

** Ayn Rand lived in Soviet Russia: she knew what "the common good" really meant.

Doctors do not have your best interests at heart

As the scum of the medical profession begin, once more, to flex their muscles—having realised that Our New Coalition Overlords™ have absolutely no desire to curb the BMA and their ilk—your humble Devil would like to quote an extract from a book that illustrates just how much the medical profession cares for the working man.

The book is one that I borrowed from the ASI some time ago (and will return, I promise!): it is by David G. Green and is entitled Working Class Patients And The Medial Establishment: Self-help in Britain from the mid-nineteeth century to 1948. The piece that I wish to quote comes from the Introduction to the book, and deals with the success of the friendly societies, co-operatives and other mechanisms of worker empowermen—especially as regards medical care.

It is quite long, so with no more ado, let us proceed. [Inevitably, the emphasis is mine. I have also split up some of the very long paragraphs, in order to make the piece more readable.]

Particularly striking is the success of the friendly societies, whose social insurance and primary medical care schemes had attracted at least three-quarters of manual workers well before the end of the nineteenth century. Until the 1911 National Insurance Act every neighbourhood of every town was dotted with friendly society branches, each with their own doctor, who had usually been elected by a vote of all the members assembled in the branch meeting.

In most large towns the friendly societies had also established medical institutes combining doctors' living accommodation, surgery and a dispensary. These embryo health centres employed full-time salaried medical practitioners, full-time dispensers, and nursing staff under the management of a committee elected by all the members.

The friendly societies were so successful that their arrangements for social insurance and primary medical care formed the model for the early welfare state.

As, in fact, I have recommended in the past, it should have been.

Unfortunately, of course, nothing is ever that simple—especially where vested interests are able to influence—or simply bribe—vain and venal politicians.

But this [their success], ironically, was their undoing. The 1911 National Security Act was originally seen by Lloyd George, who charted it through Parliament, as a way of extending the benefits of friendly society membership, already freely chosen by the vast majority of workers, to all citizens, and particularly to those so poor that they could not afford the modest weekly contributions. But on its way through the House of Commons the original Bill was radically transformed by powerful vested interests hostile to working-class mutual aid.

The organised medical profession had long resented the dominance of the medical consumer, and particularly resented working-class control of medical "gentlemen". The BMA were equally anxious to obtain more pay and, above all, higher status for doctors.

Working-class fraternalism also had another arch-enemy: the commercial insurance companies. They had long disliked the competition of the non-profit friendly societies and saw the 1911 National Insurance Bill as a threat to their business. They were organised into a powerful trade association, called the 'Combine'.

The BMA and the Combine formed a temporary alliance to extract concessions from the government at the expense of the friendly societies. The essence of working-class social insurance was democratic self-organisation: amendments to the Bill obtained by the BMA and the Combine undermined it. Doctors' pay had been kept within limits that ordinary maual workers could afford: under pressure, the government doubled doctors' incomes and financed this transfer of wealth from insured workers to the medical profession by means of a regressive poll tax, flat-rate National Insurance Contributions.

I am reading the rest of the book avidly, for it is, of course, rather more nuanced than the Introduction—which is, after all, essentially a summary of the exposition—but the above paragraphs give a good flavour of the whole.

The essential point to make—before one of my colleagues highlights yet more of their disgusting attempts to control us in order to gain more status—is that the medical profession have never, ever been on the side of ordinary people.

The only people that the organised medical profession give a shit about is the organised medical profession.

Most of you will have seen—in the newspapers and, in particular, on blogs written by members of the medical profession—claims that doctors should be allowed to run the NHS, because they know what they are doing. Of course they do: they want to run your lives and giving the medicos control of the NHS would give them the ultimate tool to do so. That would ensure a much "higher status for doctors" and the edict would be simple—obey us or be left to die.

If you doubt this, just take a long at some of the news stories around, especially as regards the medical profession's urgings to deny healthcare to smokers, drinkers and fat people. True, the BMA tend to side with Fake Charities more than the insurance companies these days, but the process is the same; government-funded "medical advisers"—no less effective or poisonous than Grima Wormtongue—whisper into politicians' rights ears, whilst government-funded "charities" bolster the message from the left.

Our New Coalition Overlords™ promised to take on the vested interests but, narrow-minded as they are, they seem to mean only the bankers and other huge commercial interests whose establishment status flows from the rules and regulations imposed by government.

But no mention has been made of those other vested interests: those—like the medical profession—whose power, privilege and money is propped up by the government and funded by the blood of taxpayers. There are so many of them that a stupid person might find it difficult to know where to start.

But, actually, it is really very simple: if we want decent welfare for all, affordable medical care and freedom, we need to return to "democratic self-organisation". And if we wish to do that, we have to smash and utterly destroy the organised medical profession, and grind it into the dust.

We need to return these arrogant doctors, and their associated scum (a category in which I include politicians), to beings servants of the consumer, not the masters. But whilst the doctors continue to run our medical services, and continue to bribe, bully and poison our rulers—and whilst our rulers still have the power to force us to obey these bastards—we will never be free, and we will never have a proper, functioning society.

To paraphrase P J O'Rourke, when the legislators can decide what can be bought and sold, the first thing for sale are the legislators. And the medical profession bought them a hundred years ago.

Destroy the power of the BMA and the medical profession and we can begin to struggle towards freedom. Leave them in place—poisoning public debate and raping the freedom of ordinary people in order to gain money and prestige—and we will always be slaves.

The Spirit Level Delusion

A few days ago, the IEA blog recounted the story of an ancient Nordic legend, as a way of illustrating the destructive potential of a book called The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.

Once upon a time, an old Nordic legend tells, there lived a princess in Burgundy who owned a huge treasure of gold. One night the treacherous Hagen von Tronje, an advisor to the king, broke into the treasury and looted it; but not for himself, nor for anyone else. Hagen stole the gold so that the princess could not have it. He feared the power gold could buy, so he plunged it into the torrents of the Rhine.

In Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Hagen von Tronje has two worthy modern-day successors. Their book, The Spirit Level, is a radical plea for egalitarianism. Greater income inequality, they argue, is correlated with just about every social problem. But unlike traditional egalitarians, the authors’ aim is not to raise the material living standards of the poor through redistribution. They believe that in the developed world, absolute income levels have become largely irrelevant: “Once we have enough of the necessities of life, it is the relativities which matter” (p. 225).
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So here’s how the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place: as long as inequalities exist, people will not be willing to give up growth, because growth contains a promise - we may see lifestyles more luxurious than our own all around us, but in the near future we too may be able to afford the things that our wealthier neighbours afford today. Wilkinson and Pickett believe that the reverse relationship also holds: if our neighbours lose their luxuries, we too will lose interest in them. Remember, it is the relativities which matter. Eradicate inequality, and the scourges of consumerism and materialism will disappear, and we will live happily ever after in a climate-friendly zero-growth economy.

Those of us who believe in the potential of capitalism, free trade and liberty to make everyone's lives better, more comfortable and, yes, richer, would do well to be worried by this book—especially since it has been quoted in the House of Lords, and mentioned approvingly by our massively-foreheaded Prime Minister.

This latter speech was picked up by Polly Toynbee, whose article was then, in turn, commented on by the Equality Trust.

As Polly Toynbee indicates, The Spirit Level's findings are unequivocal. In order to achieve the benefits of greater equality - and improve health and well-being for everyone in society - we cannot leave the top well alone. It is essential that we narrow the gap between the highest and lowest paid.

I would like you to take note of the language of the first sentence in that quote and, in particular, the word "findings".

"Findings"... Hmmmm. It's the kind of word that one might use when referring to the surprise results of some scientific experiment, is it not?

This is hardly a surprise, because the entire raison d'etre of The Spirit Level is to present a set of results in a pseudo-scientific manner. In practice, this means that epidemiologists (not real scientists) Wilkinson and Pickett have taken some data and drawn some graphs—and then used those graphs to show that the more unequal a society gets, the worse the society gets.

Through so-called "psychosocial pressures"—caused by inequality—the people of these societies suffered from ill-health, massively increased rates of mental illness, crime epidemics, suffering, misery and premature death. Comparing their findings to that of Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister, the authors themselves declared that "Understanding the effects of inequality means that we suddenly have a policy handle on the wellbeing of whole societies."

There is only one problem: as Arnold Schwarzenegger once intoned, it's bullshit—all of it.

The new book from Christopher Snowdon—the author of the excellent Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking—is called The Spirit Level Delusion and it shows just how dishonest Wilkinson and Pickett have been.

Wait—did I say "dishonest"? I didn't mean to: I meant to say, of course, "deluded" (at least until Our New Coalition Overlords™ overhaul the libel laws).

In any case, Chris Snowdon ably demonstrates how Wilkinson and Pickett have cherry-picked data to suit their case, ignored other, obvious causative factors and, in some cases, have become so rampantly... er... "mistaken" that one might almost think that they were deliberately lying.

As with Velvet Fist, Iron Glove, the entire volume is well-researched, very readable (I whizzed through it in one sitting) and utterly comprehensive in its demolition of The Spirit Level's data and conclusions.

"Snowdon's ability to find the methodological flaws within specific pieces of research, unearth and explain contrasting pieces of research, and present this set of conclusions in an accessible manner is a skill possessed by a comparative few and one for which his readers should be thankful."—Foreword by Dr Patrick Basham, Democracy Institute.

The Spirit Level Delusion also addresses some of the lies inaccuracies peddled by Wilkinson and Pickett's antecedents, such as Richard Layard's Happiness and Oliver James's Affluenza; it is important to stress, however, that one does not need to have read either of these books (or, indeed, The Spirit Level) to appreciate The Spirit Level Delusion.

I should, of course, declare an interest at this stage and point out that your humble Devil was, once again, engaged to create the cover for Chris Snowdon's book—but I was happy to do so, for it is a compelling and important read.

Why "important"?

Because The Spirit Level's pseudo-scientific rhetoric appears to have convinced those at high level in our society—including our idiot Prime Minister—that reducing inequality is not simply a necessary evil, but an important moral crusade.

The Englishman put it very succinctly in his review:

I have read the book, not only is it comprehensive in its demolition, it is well written, amusingly thorough and easy to digest. Even El Clegg would be able to understand it.
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We are going to hear a lot more about how limiting growth and reducing inequality will make everyone happier and how we must legislate to make this happen. You need the evidence to show it is guff, you need this book.

You can order signed copies of The Spirit Level Delusion through the website, or through Amazon UK and Amazon US.

You need The Spirit Level Delusion because our leaders are in the grip of The Spirit Level's delusion.

The Hockey Stick Illusion

Like The Englishman, my copy of Bishop Hill's chunky book, The Hockey Stick Illusion, dropped through the door on Friday.

I have barely begun to read it—I might take a couple of days off to get into it properly—but the first few chapters that I have perused have been clear, fascinating and eminently readable.

Like many of my sceptic colleagues, I have followed this story for some years—but only in bits and pieces and, often, the statistical and scientific has been rather over my amateur head. His Ecclesiastical Eminence's book promises to pull the entire story together—plus much of the data released in the CRU documents—and to make it intelligible.

This is going to be fun...

Leadership in the Labour Party's darkest days

"Crisis: what crisis?"—The British Bullshit Corporation's* Politics front page as of 2.17am on Monday 11 January 2010.

A few days ago I berated Tom Harris MP for his ludicrous assertion that "even in its darkest days, Labour was never short of leadership material at the top of the party."

It was a fucking stupid thing to say then, but it looks almost unbelievably facile in the light of the last few days' shenanigans.

First, of course, we had the ludicrous coup attempt by Geoff "what a total fucking Hoon" Hoon and Patricia "The World's Most Patronising Woman™" Hewitt. As my peripatetic Greek friend pointed out, this was a pathetic pair of would-be assassins.

Imagine being told that you were an incompetent and unpopular liability by Patsy "Best ever year for the NHS" Hewitt and Geoff "Buff" Hoon. Really, this is the state to which the Labour Party is now reduced? As attempted coups go, it's rather as if Operation Valkyrie had been mounted by Hale and Pace.

It's a measure of the Nemo-like depths to which Cyclops has sunk that even this superannuated comedy duo have a chance, albeit a vanishingly slim one, of actually scuttling the ship once and for all. Needless to say, all the hacks are furiously hedging their bets - not surprising, given the way Nick Robinson was made to look like a prize turnip on the box earlier, dutifully proclaiming that there was nothing going on even as the gruesome twosome were executing their painfully incompetent masterful plan.

Indeed, so incompetent was Hoon that it took three—three!—emails to get the damn letter out: this man used to be the bloody Defence Secretary, for fuck's sake!

We were then treated to the unedifying sight of Labour ministers scrambling to be the last to endorse Gordon "Cyclops" Brown—wee Davey Miliband took over six hours to sort out his endorsement. But then, what would one expect from a speccy little coward like Dave?—he bottled the last chance that he had, and he bottled it again this time.

How's that for leadership, Tom?

But all of this is nothing compared to the shit-storm that is being engendered by Peter "Loyalty is a two way street" Watt's memoirs.

As you'll remember, Watt was the General Secretary of the Labour Party when the Donorgate scandal broke; Brown promised to stand by him, then threw Watt to the wolves—and Watt has, through Iain Dale's Biteback Publishing (how apt does that name seem now?) returned the favour.

Some of the juiciest bits have been serialised in the Sunday Mail, and they taste very delightful in my mouth—I imagine that Gordon can taste only ashes (and Polly's cunt juice). And the beauty of it is that the revelations are so very quotable—not least by Guido…

• Mr Brown’s Cabinet ally Douglas Alexander said the PM’s inner circle wanted an early Election partly because even they didn’t like him–and they feared the British public would soon form the same view.


• The day Mr Brown called off the 2007 Election, denying he had ever intended to hold one, Labour chiefs had a fleet of limousines circling Parliament Square ready to take Ministers on the campaign trail, and had 1.5million leaflets ready to be posted. Brown brazenly lied about the planned election to an incredulous press conference.


• No. 10 is ‘completely dysfunctional’ under Mr Brown, who runs the country ‘by making it up as he goes along’.


• After witnessing Brown behave bizarrely at a dinner, Watt's wife told him “he’s bonkers”.

The Labour Party apparently spunked at least £1.2 million up the wall on the election that never was.

As a taxpayer, how do you feel about a party that would so happily waste £1.2 million—a sum that, as an average worker, you are unlikely to earn in your entire lifetime—on absolutely fuck all?

As a Labour donor, how do you feel about the Labour Party so eagerly pissing away your hard-earned cash? Yes, J.K. Rowling—that million pounds that you gave to help "poor and vulnerable families" might as well have been burned in a big fucking fire.

Feel like giving more?

At the very least, these revelations cast serious aspersions on the Gobblin' King's leadership style. In fact, they rather show that there is no leadership at the top of the Labour Party at all. [Emphasis mine.]

Peter Watt, who resigned over the 2007 donations scandal, has written a deeply unflattering portrait of Mr Brown’s preparations for the poll in his memoirs. “Downing Street was a shambles,” he writes. “There was no vision, no strategy, no co-ordination. It was completely dysfunctional.”

Mr Watt says Mr Alexander had said that Cabinet ministers had wanted a general election in autumn 2007 because they felt that the public would grow to dislike Mr Brown. He quotes the minister as saying: “The truth is, Peter, we have spent years working with this guy and we don’t actually like him. We have always thought that the longer the public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.”

All of this is pretty damning—not that you would know about any of it if you got your news solely from the British Bullshit Corporation* (see picture above)—even for the most ardent Brown supporter.

It's pretty damning for enthusiastic Labour supporters too: wake up, you fucking sheep! Your leader has been publicly accused of being a useless, treacherous, fuck-wit, lack-wit, bumbling, incompetent, dislikable, "bonkers" cunt by the ex-General Secretary of your own party, and...

... oh, and nothing. Your so-called leader can't lead, and no one else in your party has the balls—the sheer fucking gumption—even to attempt to depose him (apart from Patsy and Hoon—the Beeb's new sitcom?—who don't count: not because they are completely fucking useless (though they are) but because I don't consider them part of the human race (I'm an optimist)).

So, Tom Harris MP, would you like to tell me who, precisely is going to lead this fucking rabble into the land of milk and honey?

Come on, Tom: you said that "even in its darkest days, Labour was never short of leadership material at the top of the party." So, where the fuck is this leadership material, eh?

Let's face it: at the moment, the most credible leadership material anywhere near the Labour Party is the fluff under the House of Commons benches.

* Blame the wife again.

UPDATE: the Spectator Coffee House seems to agree, via The Scary Fucking Clown.

The Gorgon may be a weapons-grade nasty cunt, but so is any other politician. And the reason that Gorgon has outfaced his plotters is not that he is strong, but that they are even weaker than he is.

He doesn't bestride the ground like a colossus, it's just that he's surrounded by microbes.

So I'll ask again, Tommy-boy: where's the fucking leadership material, big man? Will you, perhaps, tak' yer fuckin' knackers in yer hands and ga'an sort the fucking shite out...?

Or will you, in fact, just slump down in the corner and blot it all out—as so many of your constituents do—with Buckfast and smack?

The Hockey Stick Illusion

This cover's just a placeholder...

Although Bishop Hill and I have been chatting about this project for a few months*, your humble Devil has kept it under his hat until His Ecclesiastical Eminence was ready to announce his new book about the climate change deceptions—The Hockey Stick Illusion.

After the successes of Caspar and the Jesus Paper and The Yamal Implosion, the two postings on this site that have garnered significant levels of attention, a number of readers suggested to me that I write a book about the Hockey Stick. Being an amenable sort, I have done just that and the results of a year's worth of early mornings and late nights are going to become available to the public in the near future.

The Hockey Stick Illusion is a critical history of the affair, tracing the story from its very beginnings in the notorious Deming email, right up to the most recent developments—the release of the Yamal data and the wave of uproar that followed.
...

The Hockey Stick Illusion will be published by Stacey International some time in January. Given the events of the last couple of days it looks as though I may have to try to stick in an appendix though, as many of the emails speak directly to events in the book. I hope there's still time. While I'm doing that you can preorder a copy here.

Your humble Devil has just pre-ordered his copy and is looking forward to reading it. Obviously, the release of these documents over the last few days do affect the book itself and it is to be hoped that the good Bishop has the chance to include some of them in the book.

If you have any interest in this area, I highly recommend that you grab yourself a copy: the Bishop is very good at putting quite complicated concepts into plain and logical English (which is why he's my go-to guy when one of these scandals kicks off) and the book should make for interesting reading.

UPDATING: a list of The Kitchen posts concerning the CRU Emails.

And, just as a reminder, feel free to browse the searchable database.

Your humble Devil's off-the-cuff effort with the book's original title.

^* The Bishop had wanted your humble Devil to have a stab at putting together a cover and I threw something together—which I show here as I still rather like it—as an example of what might be done; I consciously wanted to avoid it looking like a niche "science" book—the aim was that it would stand out on a bookshelf and look like the easy-to-read and revealing tome that it is.

We ended up chatting about ways and means of publishing the book: the Bishop had contemplated self-publishing through Chris Snowdon's Little Dice imprint.

Obviously, the good Bishop's contract with Stacey International superceded all of these discussions, but this is good: the book is likely to be seen by more people—as it should be.

Rand, IP and being charitable

Mr Civil Libertarian has a long post up about his objections to Ayn Rand. Your humble Devil does not count himself as an Objectivist (although I think that the nightmare society that she posits in both The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged is gradually becoming a reality), but I felt that I should comment on what I saw as... not misconceptions, exactly, but oversights.

Re: the charity thing. Richard North raised a similar concern on the EU Referendum board—I include his sentence and my reply.

That [Ayn Rand] opposed private charity as well is a separate issue and one on which I part company with the lady.

OK, I have only read Atlas Shrugged, but as a manifesto of beliefs it is pretty comprehensive.

From that, I would not say that Rand opposed private charity, but that she opposed charity for certain reasons. You should give to charity if you yourself take value from the act of giving; however, it is incumbent upon you to assess those who you are giving charity to. If you give them charity because the person to whom you are giving demands your charity as a right, and they are unwilling to stir themselves but are merely content to live off alms, then it is wrong to give to them. It is wrong to give to those in these circumstances, regardless of your personal motives, because your charity will trap them in a cycle of evil because they will then never have to bestir themselves to live by their own talents and hard work -- a situation that Rand believed to be absolutely immoral.

If, however, your charity will improve their lot or you give because that person has given you value (they are a friend, or have performed some past service), then you can give to them -- as long as you wish to do so. You should not do so because you feel guilty about it, but because your charity will help them to reclaim their lives and to make more of themselves through their own efforts.

That, at least, is my reading of her views; and, given the amount talked and written about, for instance, the Benefits Trap, it seems an entirely reasonable stance to take.

Furthermore, you admit that the act of "helping people out often is in your own self interest- what better way to get the community to see you as a good person".

What Rand argued, as I understand it, was that you should not do it purely for your own interest. It might make you feel better to support someone on charity, but they then cannot get a job because they have been on support for so long (a big gap in working is one of the prime reasons for CV rejections) and you have thus impoverished yourself and harmed the other person by denying—or at least facilitating—their wasted potential.

As for the idea that Rourke court speech was a defence of patents... That's bollocks. Like Rearden, Rourke had actually made something and, when it was defaced, he destroyed it.

You might not understand this concept—I find that those who are not artists usually don't. However, I like to consider myself an artist in my vainer moments, and I would be seriously upset if someone took one of my pieces of work and bastardised it.

This is actually why, in many cases, artists tend to support IP instinctively: not because of the money factor (you'll find that it is the artists' backers, the music companies, etc. who squeal most about that), but because the idea of someone taking your carefully crafted work and then ruining it is painful.

The above is not, of course, an argument for IP—but you should not dimiss IP without considering it. That goes for you too, Charlotte [Gore—who also left a comment]: how would you feel if I copied your blog design absolutely but, instead of cats with glowing eyes, I put cats with glowing vaginas? And put signs in their hands saying "Rape is fun!" And kept the name "Charlotte Gore" at the top of the blog?

In application, IP is a difficult one to apply—I had a long discussion about it with a new member of LPUK on Saturday. But, since you are talking in practicalities, there is nothing wrong with the state protecting IP—just as there is nothing wrong with the state protecting physical property. As I said to you on Twitter, why is it wrong to steal a computer, but not wrong to steal the ideas that made it possible?

If you say it is because society gets richer, you are acknowledging the practical can override the philosophical and then your objection to state protection of property is on shaky ground too.

I could go on although, as I also said on Twitter, this is one of those subjects on which I have to be convinced either way. But I'll let you respond first...

Posted here for reference: I shall also post any reply. However, IP is a tricky one, I think—and a subject that I have had a number of conversations over in the last few weeks...

The Trouble with Capitalism

The Trouble with Capitalism is, apparently, everything that governments do to try to mitigate the trouble with capitalism, according to Harry Shutt.

It all starts with boom-and-bust, something economists assure us is a natural feature of the capitalist paradigm. In the nineteenth century, all of this capital floating around was ploughed into industrial ventures in the expectation of its generating stuff (good) and more capital (also good), which could then be ploughed further into more ventures, etc. This snowballing of prosperity was occasionally punctuated by hideous crashes, such as the stock market crash of 1873, when invested capital failed to produce more stuff or more capital, either through failures in the level of demand or because the prospective stuff had been over-valued in the first place.

All well and good, except for all those people adversely affected by the busts, who also tended to be the same people who accrued the least advantage during the booms. This was all quite scary; and then two world wars came along, which were also very scary - so frightening in their death toll and genocide and nationalism that the obvious response was to entrench

...the inescapable responsibility of the state for the maintenance of minimum economic security for all citizens.

Shutt says some stuff here that suggests the reasoning behind this was that the disaster that was World War II was caused, in part, by the economic suffering of the common people in the fascist countries, who turned to nationalism/fascism because it promised to protect them from boom-and-bust. Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace suggests differently, but I'm getting away from the point, which is that, for whatever reasons, insulating people against the crappy part of the capitalist cycle became a priority for Western governments.

So what did those governments do?

...in order to maintain full employment governments could and should 'adopt a compensatory fiscal policy to offset the irreducible fluctuations in the private sector of the market'...

...which they did...

...by using the tools of demand management (monetary as well as fiscal policy) to manipulate the level of economic activity so as to keep unemployment below the level at which the fiscal costs of the welfare and social-security budgets would become too burdensome.

They also:

...became significant promoters of investment, whether through state subsidies or incentives to private investment, or else through direct state equity participation in enterprise.

And this all trundled along quite nicely, because in the couple of decades post-war, Western economies enjoyed such a massive growth spurt that unemployment was almost non-existent and even many of the poorest in society experienced an unprecedented increase in their quality of life.

But then the 1970s happened. Growth slowed dramatically; saturation had occurred in many markets, especially that of consumer durables; the need for non-durables was fairly static; and essentially demand grew in line with population growth, governed by replacement rather than first-time purchases. Companies diversified; new markets were sought. Universal employment and social welfare turned out to be government policies that could only really be practical as long as the economy continued to grow at a quite high rate. When growth slowed, unemployment grew, as did the demands on the welfare state.

Government response was, inevitably, fiscal and monetary stimulus.

And therein lies the problem Shutt identifies: rather than adjusting to lower rates of growth, and attempting to define a new understanding of prosperity in the absence of tremendous growth, governments adopted policies that merely put off the day of reckoning whilst at the same time ensuring that when the reckoning did occur, it would be infinitely worse due to that delay.

There was now, on the one hand, an excess of labour: reduction in demand and production meant that not only could there now not be full employment, but the price of labour shrank as well.

More worryingly, however, there was now an excess of capital. Monetary stimulus had created a lot of money that had to be invested somewhere, and traditional avenues for investment were now not as profitable as they had once been; gone were the days of a 12-15% return. New markets were slow to open up; where, then, could all this money go?

The answer turned out to be riskier investments; the possibility of collapse was high, but if successful, the returns would also be correspondingly huge. Property, for example, futures, derivatves, junk bonds: this is where the money flowed, even as people understood, as time went on, that the assets backing them might be tremendously over-valued.

And this is where, the reader begins to feel, Shutt is getting pretty fucking angry. Because this whole process of crazy investment with the capital glut has been going on since the late 1970s. And every time the risks don't pay off, government response has been to 'mitigate' the problem with further stimulus—thereby worsening the capital glut, which was the original problem. And of course, in the process, creating a tremendous deficit burden.

Of course, stimulus has not been the only response, just the worst one. Governments have also tried to open up new avenues for investment: new geographical markets, privatisation of state services, corporate subsidies, etc. All of these good intentions have resulted in corresponding problems: exploitation in the third world, fraud, corruption, organised crime, corporatism.

All of these 'solutions,' Shutt claims, are understood to be empirically imperfect; they are all predicated on the belief that, one day, growth will return to its post-war levels, sucking up excess capital and labour once again and freeing the government from the penalties of its Keynesian overspending. Except that this return to huge growth keeps not happening.

Shutt wrote The Trouble with Capitalism in 1998, perfectly predicting the bust that has been occurring in the past two years. You can see why he's irritable:

The resulting financial and economic collapse [of 2007-2008], which is by now perceived as the most serious crisis of global capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s (if not in its entire history), is clearly in line with the predictions made in the book. Yet, while to that extent it may appear to have been vindicated, its analysis of the causes of the crisis is still very far from being generally accepted. Indeed mainstream analysts have devised some bizarre explanations for the onset of the crisis, while steadfastly ignoring its long-term, fundamental causes.

If he's right, then his frustration is wholly justified, because governments' response to this bust has been to do exactly what he claims will exacerbate the problem further.

Such deliberate distortions of reality reflect a more general, and all too understandable, tendency on the part of the global establishment to try to ignore the longer-term factors behind the crisis. In particular they seek to divert attention from the chronic relative stagnation of the world economy since the 1970s, which has made it increasingly impossible to find sufficient outlets for reinvestment of inexorably accumulating corporate profits—not to mention the artificially stimulated flows of capital into pension funds and other savings vehicles—in productive assets, as opposed to unproductive and highly risky speculation. The central theme of the book...is how the would-be saviours of the capitalist profits system have since the 1970s resorted to ever more ingenious methods to overcome this inescapable tendency—the essence of the business cycle, familiar from the earlier history of capitalism since the nineteenth century.

His thesis - and this makes a lot of sense—is that the way to mitigate the more destructive parts of the cycle of profit-motivated capitalism is not to encourage further that profit motive by creating more capital and more risky ways of generating profit. And if it is true, as Shutt claims, that growth has forever stagnated, then it is true that we need to redefine some way of measuring value besides the accumulation of profit:

It is self-evident that free-market, profit-maximising capitalism is incompatible with a low-growth or no-growth economy, since to survive it requires the possibility of perpetual accumulation of profits and expansion of shareholders' funds. From this it must follow that the untrammelled pursuit of profit maximisation by corporations can no longer be accepted as their primary objective, at least as long as they enjoy the privilege of state protection or subsidy.

What, then, can we put in its place? This is where Shutt's work falls: 'How can we measure value apart from profit?' 'I dunno, let the people decide':

Any criteria used as alternatives to the supposedly impersonal one of profit maximisation would need to be derived from conscious political choices....it must be the presumption under a democracy that the purpose of any economic system is, broadly speaking, to provide the mass of people with what they want - or, ideally, what they would want if they had full knowledge of the choices open to them. Handing responsibility for deciding this to bureaucrats or politicians is never likely to provide durably satisfying results. Mechanisms will therefore need to be devised to enable the wishes of citizens to be reflected in the determination of priorities in resource allocation.

Some of what he suggests is stuff we need anyway: more frequent consultation of the electorate (including referenda), decentralisation, limits on political funding, greater transparency in government and greater scrutiny of public officials, a more critical media, and greater accountability. He also warns against protectionism and advocates a more globalist approach.

The rest? Redistribution of wealth and resources from rich to poor, equality of outcome, and the European Union.

Thus the book ends on a most unsatisfying note; quite apart from that fact that there are many who would assert that growth can recover and markets can expand, either through the advancement of technology or geographically if we stopped stifling growing economies with 'development aid' that props up their corrupt governments (to be fair, Shutt does address this as a problem), democratic redistribution of wealth and goods does not really seem like a very holistic replacement for the profit motive—ignoring, as it does, the question of incentives. At the moment, the desire for profit is what drives innovation, expansion, and pretty much every other economic action. Is he suggesting, as so many people do these days, that we should be satisfied with the wealth we have so far created, and merely shuffle it hither and thither until everybody has a decent share? Let us not forget that, even now, what most people do with their days is produce stuff; what is the point of producing stuff if not in the expectation of getting other, or better, stuff in return?

Zero Base Policy

Your humble Devil has received the following missive from the Adam Smith Institute, advertising Dr Madsen Pirie's new book—Zero Base Policy.

The Adam Smith Institute gives the next government a "shopping list" of policies needed to rescue Britain. In a report "Zero Base Policy", released today, the Institute's President, Dr Madsen Pirie, says minor change to existing policies is no longer an option, given Britain's dire economic and social fabric. Instead the need is for "zero base" policies to provide new and effective ways of achieving policy objectives.

Topping the agenda is economic change. The ASI sets out measures to turn Britain from a high tax, high debt economy into one on the virtuous circle of low taxes and increasing growth and revenues. The ASI calls for rejection of the Treasury's 'static' model of the economy in favour of a 'dynamic' one which factors in the growth impact of lower taxes.

The ASI proposes to lift the low paid out of income tax by raising its starting threshold to £12,000 p.a., corresponding to the minimum wage, or about half the average wage. This eliminates the need for vast welfare transfers to low earners by letting them instead keep what they earn. At the top end the ASI proposes to expand the tax base by successively raising the threshold for the 40% rate until no-one pays it.

They propose overhauling local finance, replacing Council Tax by local sales taxes as in the USA, and setting business rates locally. A radical innovation is their call for local budgets to require popular vote approval before coming into effect.

Civil liberties are to be addressed by the ASI's call for a one-year judicial commission to review them and make recommendations. Meanwhile the ASI report calls for public body CCTV surveillance to be limited to police and security services, and for anti-terror powers to be restricted to cases of suspected terrorism.

Controversially, Dr Pirie describes government policy on drugs as a failure, and calls for a total rethink, under which most narcotics would be made available at medical centres, and the production and sale of recreational drugs legalized under controlled conditions.

The ASI sees the biggest opportunity for reform in education, and calls for parents to be permitted to use their child's education allowance at any school which is non-selective and requires no additional top-up fees.

Regulation is to be addressed by the use of 'sunset' clauses under which regulations expire unless specifically renewed, and for regulation to be implemented by case law, with the findings of tribunals and juries filling in the details of broad statutes.

The shopping list contains 33 radical objectives which it calls upon the next government to pursue, including the abolition of regional tiers of government and agencies, and the phasing out of most capital taxes. It closes with a call for the MPs representing English constituencies to be constituted in Westminster as the English Parliament, with powers similar to those enjoyed by the Scottish Assembly.

"The list," says Dr Pirie, "sets out the objectives which could turn Britain around. While they could not all be implemented within a single term, they should constitute the goals to be aimed at."

This all sounds very laudable. Madsen has, at least, grasped that we need a radical rethink of how this country operates—tinkering at the edges simply isn't good enough. As such, his ideas have about as much chance of happening as mine have.

Anyway, I haven't had the time to read the book—published by the ASI—in detail just yet, but a review will appear at The Kitchen sometime soon.

A Useful Fiction

Use this link to buy A Useful Fiction by Patrick Hannan and earn the Devil a few pennies.

'When it comes to being British, everyone is an outsider.'

So begins the introduction of Patrick Hannan's A Useful Fiction, and he is not far wrong. In my four years as a non-British person living in Britain, the only times I've encountered a 'Britishness' that seems convincing is when the term is applied in contradistinction to someone who is, like me, demonstrably not British. It is not an easily defined identity; Hannan spends three chapters trying to determine just what constitutes Britishness and delivers, at the end of them, a half-hearted shrug. To be British is to be exclusive, it appears: although there are no hard and fast rules, as the British are a nation of many nations, religions, cultures, and even races, yet non-Britishness is readily apparent and obvious; thus in a curious sort of syllogism, Britishness is all that which is not non-British.

Or so A Useful Fiction makes it seem.

Ostensibly, the book's thesis is that, since devolution reared its head in the early decades of the twentieth century, the national and political culture in the United Kingdom has become something that would be unrecognisable to people only a few generations ago, especially since formal devolution took place in the late 1990s. Much of the book is devoted to an exploration of this process, taking in turn Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, and describing the way in which devolution has affected, and been affected by, the prevailing political character in those nations. Hannan also discusses what this has meant for England (the only nation in the United Kingdom without any semblance of home rule) and for the United Kingdom as a whole.

His conclusion appears to be that the ceding of sovereignty to devolved governments in the 'Celtic fringe' has created a bizarre mishmash of governance wherein some authority is shared, some is not, nobody is quite sure where that distinction begins and ends, and further independence (or, indeed, the opposite) depends entirely upon economic circumstance, constitutional reform, and contemporary political expedience. He touches upon many disparate subjects—Welsh language television, the North Sea oil, the Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley, Peter Hain, and that without which no discussion of devolution would be complete, the Barnett Formula—without achieving much in the way of cohesion or organisation. Devolution, he claims, has not been as much of a disaster as its opponents predicted, nor has it been as much of a success as its adherents hoped. National governments have little real power, particularly because the desire for central control at Westminster means that the UK government still holds the purse string; abandonment in Wales and Scotland of traditional party allegiances has created doubt, amongst Labour more than anyone else, that devolution will shore up party power in Westminster.

And whilst devolution has exposed many political and cultural differences that were previously overshadowed by the umbrella of a single British government in Westminster, it has also created an unsteady and perhaps temporary but no less real peace in Northern Ireland, which even thirty years ago few people would have believed possible. Where, then, will it lead the United Kingdom in the coming years? Much of that depends, Hannan claims, upon the outcome of the next general election. Will the Conservatives stand by while voters in Scotland and Wales return another overall Labour majority, even if the Conservatives have carried England, as they did in 1974? Will the call for independence in Scotland, and perhaps Wales, increase in volume if a Conservative government is returned? Either of these outcomes could raise important, and possibly divisive, constitutional questions.

One of the themes that comes across rather blatantly in Hannan's book, amongst a great deal of what I perceive as topic-hopping, is that constitutional reform is the refuge of desperate governments. Whether at the height of their popularity and in need of delivering what it promised its voters—as with Blair in 1998—or at the absolute nadir of its public support and in need of distracting the electorate from other woes—as with Callaghan in 1979—mucking about with the constitutional character of the country is usually done hastily, sloppily, and for ill-considered political advantage. I'm not sure whether Hannan intended this theme to come across as strongly as it did, but it paints a rather depressing picture of what this final year of Brown's government might be like. Already within the past nine months his ministers have considered changes to the Act of Settlement, a written constitution, a bill of rights and responsibilities, further reform of the Lords, electoral reform, and they have created—hastily, sloppily, and unnecessarily, according to many commentators—an independent regulator of Parliament and its members' conduct. Is it right that constitutional change should be undertaken in these ways, and for these reasons? Hannan's book, intentionally or not, answers with a resounding NO. It results, almost always, in the creation of an illogical, anti-democratic mess.

The problem with A Useful Fiction is that these themes and conclusions are extraordinarily difficult to extract. Although it is well written—witty, compelling, and in places downright amusing—it is poorly structured. Its thesis is never explicitly stated, and although the exploration follows a rough plan, with each chapter devoted to the broad subject of Britishness or a discussion of a particular region, within the chapters there is little in the way of topical or visual organisation (no section breaks or subheadings, for instance). The conclusion is also hard to find because, in typical journalistic fashion, Hannan (a journalist, in case you were wondering) finishes the work with a personal anecdote, followed by the rather broad and indeterminate statement:

New frameworks have been created in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and they're not going to be dismantled. In these circumstances England, or the regions of England, may join in. What is clear is that Britishness, being British, is something that in only a dozen years or so has been radically reconstructed. It isn't going to stop there. The builders are still at work.

This statement, as far as I see it, makes the rest of the book obsolete; whilst everything he writes does back it up, he never suggests that there are any arguments against it. Writing a book, however interesting, in support of a broad and rather uninspiring premise nobody disputes seems slightly like a waste of time.

And when I say it 'finishes the work,' I'm actually being slightly inaccurate. The last chapter, which reads like an epilogue, is devoted to the peculiar brand of Britishness exhibited by Enoch Powell. After an encomium on Powell's political astuteness a description of his career (complete with disquisition about his views on immigration), Hannan says:

Yet a quarter of a century on [from 1985] and Britain remains recognisably what it was then and what it was fifteen years before that, when Powell was making the most famous speech of his life at the Midland Hotel, Birmingham. The Tiber has not yet foamed with much blood.

Enoch was about as British as you can get and Enoch was wrong.

This final chapter is the only place in the entire book where immigration is dealt with in relation to what it means to be British. Why is it there? Throughout, there has been an examination of what is Britishness, and what is devolution, and where they commingle; Enoch Powell fits into that scheme not at all. The most generous interpretation I can give of its inclusion is that Enoch Powell was supremely British, and Enoch Powell made a mistake; therefore, of all the things that might constitute Britishness, an exclusive claim to infallibility is not one of them.

Velvet Glove, Iron Fist—earn your favourite sweary bloggers some cash

Buy Velvet Glove, Iron Fist through The Kitchen and help pay for your favourite sweary bloggers...

As some will know, I attended the launch of Christopher Snowdon's new book—Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History Of Anti-Smoking—last week. The event was very kindly sponsored by FoREST (which was also celebrating its 30th Anniversary) and hosted at Boisdales: a very good time was had by all. Well, as far as I remember, anyway...

Anyway, as I have also said before, I have read the book and it is thoroughly excellent—not bee-in-your-bonnet preachy, just a very interesting history of the anti-smoking movements, the sometimes eccentrically charismatic or just plain barking people leading some of them, and a good deal of the research carried out on both sides.

Here are a selection of reviews:

• "Magnificent...I can't speak highly enough of this extraordinary labour of love. I've read many books on smoking and this is best by far. It's a superb read."—Taking Liberties


• "Really very good...a damn good read"—Devil's Kitchen


• "Solidly researched, interesting and only occasionally strident"—The Economist


• "The book is a feast. Prepare to learn a lot, and much in the nature of revelations, from a dedicated researcher and lucid prose stylist."—Forces


• "I am proud to go on record in giving this book a fully deserved five stars."—Michael J. McFadden


• "Fascinating. Extensive research, and extremely well-written...Excellent, excellent book. Would recommend it to anyone because it's such an eye-opener from a number of angles."—Amazon reviwer


• "This is a great example of what history should be. It's thoroughly researched but doesn't get bogged down in the details, and it's so well written that it keeps your interest to the end."—Amazon reviewer

Now you can buy Velvet Glove, Iron Fist through The Kitchen and not only get free postage and packing but also earn money for both your humble Devil and the Filthy Smoker—for both of us contributed to Chris's book in our own small ways.

What more could you ask for...?

Velvet Glove, Iron Fist

A little while ago, I mentioned the launch of Chris Snowdon's Velvet Glove, Iron Fist—A History of Anti-smoking (to which your humble Devil contributed the cover). I have been reading this great work, and can only echo the sentiments of Simon Clark at Taking Liberties...

I can't speak highly enough of this extraordinary labour of love. I've read many books on smoking and this is best by far. It's a superb read. To use that old cliche, it's a page-turner, which is some achievement. It's packed with information but it's also very readable - serious yet hugely entertaining.

Better still, this is no fire-breathing polemic. The amount of research that has gone into it is staggering. And the tone is moderate throughout which is important because it will appeal to a far wider readership.

The book is really very good; it is being launched on the 22nd June, but you can pre-order it on the website (without Chris being hit by Amazon's exorbitant commission). Plus, of course, every copy of the book pre-ordered through the site will be signed by the author...

I highly recommend that you do so, even if such books do not normally appeal to you: as a study of pressure politics, power play and sheer mendacity, it is most instructive. But also, as Simon says, it is a damn good read...

UPDATE: Taking Liberties outlines the grilling that Tory MSP Mary Scanlon gave the head of ASH Scotland recently. This is textbook fake charities stuff (yes, that site will be back up later this evening, hopefully) and reflects precisely the reasons that I had for setting the site up in the first place.

Full marks though to Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon who gave Sheila Duffy (chief executive of ASH Scotland) a thorough workout, especially on the subject of government (ie taxpayer) funding. This exchange was particularly impressive:

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): The ASH Scotland evidence is highly critical of the funding of the lobby groups from which we heard last week. We asked all the lobby groups where their funding came from and I think that we are aware of how they are all funded. It is only fair that I ask you where ASH Scotland's funding comes from.

Sheila Duffy: ASH Scotland is a registered Scottish charity, so our accounts are publicly available and audited. In common with the national charities that deal with drugs and alcohol, we receive substantial funding from the Government. Because of that, we are reviewed periodically by the Government, which commissions an independent review to look at our cost-effectiveness and funding. I can certainly give you a breakdown of our costs for the previous financial year if that would be helpful.

Mary Scanlon: I do not really want to know your costs; I just want to know where your funding comes from.

Sheila Duffy: Ninety per cent of our funding comes from the Scottish Government; 2 per cent comes from the national health service; 6 per cent comes from other charities such as the British Heart Foundation; and 2 per cent comes from self-generated income and donations from individual supporters. A condition of the public funding that we receive is that we may not use it for campaigning and lobbying. That activity is funded from our earned and voluntary income.

Mary Scanlon: You said that 90 per cent of your funding comes from the Scottish Government. How much is that in cash terms?

Sheila Duffy: In 2008-09 it was £938,000, which went to support a great deal of project work in areas such as inequalities in relation to tobacco, youth development work, partnerships and the development of training for smoking-cessation services.

Mary Scanlon: So, ASH Scotland is receiving nearly £1 million from the Government to fund it to lobby the Government.

Sheila Duffy: No. Under the terms of the funding, we may not use it for lobbying.

Mary Scanlon: You receive nearly £1 million from the Government.

Sheila Duffy: We receive that funding to deliver objectives that are in line with national policy. We are clear and open about the work that we do and the funding that we receive. That is not true of groups that are funded by the tobacco industry. There is no clarity about the tobacco industry—

Mary Scanlon: We heard from those groups last week; they got a good grilling from us all. You are being given nearly £1 million in order to support the Government's national policy on smoking.

Sheila Duffy: I must take issue with that statement, because the money that we are being given is to support objectives and outcomes that are in line with national health policies, including—

Mary Scanlon: Which are determined by the Government. The Government determines national health policies and it gives you nearly £1 million to lobby on those policies.

Sheila Duffy: I must be clear about the point that the public funding that we receive may not be used for lobbying purposes. It is for delivering services and projects that are in line with public health policy in Scotland.

Mary Scanlon: So, of the nearly £1 million, how much is used for lobbying? Can you give us a rough guesstimate in percentage terms?

Sheila Duffy: I have not looked at the exact percentage, but a really tiny percentage of direct spend goes on lobbying. That work tends to be shared with other health charities whose aims are similar to ours.

Full report HERE.

Of course, since ASH Scotland was set up by the government in order to support government objectives, they do not need to spend lots of their cash on lobbying: the government is already on their side because they are simply an unaccountable arm of the government. They are, in fact, a textbook example of a fake charity.

And Mary Scanlon might be my new political hero—I wonder if she is aware of fakecharities.org...?

FoREST and the launch of a book

You can join FoREST on Facebook. You know, should you want to.

Your humble Devil must admit that he has sold his soul, although not for a mess of pottage. I have merely agreed to be on the organising committee for FoREST's 30th Anniversary celebrations, which are occurring this year.

To be honest, I thought that it was the least that I could do, considering how much of their money I have drunk and it is, in any case (and being the heavy smoker that I am), a cause that I support. So, that's the disclaimer out of the way.

As Simon Clark has pointed out on Taking Liberties, the next FoREST event marks a very special occasion.

I am pleased to announce that Forest supporter Ranald Macdonald will be hosting a very special reception on Monday 22 June.

The event, at Boisdale of Belgravia, is to mark Forest's 30th anniversary and the publication of Christopher Snowdon's impressive new book Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking.

Expect cocktails, canapes and live music. Chris will be signing copies of his long-awaited book and I imagine there will be one or two (short!) speeches.

Why is this special? Well, Chris Snowdon is a very good friend of both myself^* and the Filthy Smoker—plus, I am proud to say, the book cover was designed by your humble Devil.

I have been reading my advance copy over the last few days, and it is not only informative and entertaining, but horribly prescient. Chris's description of the tactics undertaken by the anti-smoking lobby is actually rather chilling, and anyone with half a brain will recognise the same strategies being used against drink, drugs and anything else that The Righteous want to ban.

So, your humble Devil will be there, naturally: FoREST always throw a good bash and I haven't seen Chris for a little while now (I can't, alas, speak for the Filthy Smoker, who is rather jealous of his anonymity).

If you want to come along, do pop over to Taking Liberties to see how you can get onto the strictly invitation-only guest-list.

P.S. Last time that we were at Boisdale, Ranald asked my tasting advice on a couple of wines: I hope that I made the right choice. In any case, there is an article about Ranald and Boisdale in the Independent today...

^* I should point out that I contacted him after he gave me the rather generous quote that appears at the top of my Testimonials. Chris and I did not know each other previously...

The Great European Rip-off: special offer

There's another book out about the waste and fraud inherent in the European Union, and TBR has done a swift review over at the LPUK blog.

I finished reading The Great European Rip-off by David Craig and Matthew Elliot yesterday. And I have to say it's one of the best books on modern politics I have read.

Probably the best thing about the book is that it's balanced. While its aim is to reveal EU waste and corruption it does point out where the EU has been successful. For example—in terms of spreading peace, democracy and stability.

The authors also layout a set of proposals to reform the EU. Rather than just concluding that the EU should be scrapped.

However it is difficult for the authors to balance the good and bad considering the amount of waste and corruption present in the EU.

Thanks to the fact that publishers are waking up to the influence of blogs (ha!), your humble Devil was contacted by Random House and is happy to be able to offer readers a big chunk off the retail price of £8.99. How?

Receive 30% off when you purchase The Great European Rip-off from rBooks. Simply visit www.rbooks.co.uk/ripoff, click ‘Add to Basket’ and then add the promotional code GREATRIPOFF before making your purchase. Offer expires 30.06.2009 and cannot be used in conjunction with other discounts.

I have ordered a copy and shall review the book in due course...