TheBlog.org.uk

Gordon Brown's Upcoming Speech

2008-08-04T16:33:00.004+01:00

"Ladies and gentlemen, over the last few days, you have heard speculation about a leadership challenge. What is missing from this speculation is consideration for democracy or the British people. Before the 2005 election, Tony Blair promised that he would not serve a full third term. Fulfilling this promise, I took over the leadership in 2007.

"There was, of course, a process in the Labour party for selecting a new leader. Because of this, Tony could promise to step down, but he couldn't make any promise to the British people about who the new leader might be. I think it would be fair to say, though, that most people expected it to be me. The public was not short-changed; they got Tony followed by me, as they expected.

"If my party wants a second change of leader then I will of course step down—but this would not be something the public could have anticipated when deciding who to vote for in 2005. Fairness would therefore demand that we call an immediate general election. To avoid cheating the British people, if the decision is taken to replace me, then on my last day in office I will ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament. Alternatively, people wanting to replace me could simply organise a confidence vote in the House of Commons. If this vote was lost, an election would automatically follow, so the effect would be the same."

So what do you think, Gordon? No one in the Labour party wants a general election at the moment, so this should buy you another couple of years. My agent will be in touch with the price...

(Sorry about the lack of posts at the moment, by the way, I'm horribly busy.)

BNP Admits to "Problems with Oddballs"

2008-07-21T15:00:00.001+01:00

The BNP has just published a draft of its "Activists' Handbook". Anyone interested in running a cult should download a copy—the rules of a dodgy political party could easily be adapted to serve the purposes of a dodgy religion. For example, complaints are only to be directed "up the chain of command". If you have a problem with some aspect of the BNP, you are not supposed to take the obvious step of discussing it with your friends. Instead, you are supposed to pass it up the chain of command (whatever that is, in a volunteer organisation) and then presumably your complaint—or you—will be dealt with.

"In any organisation made up of large numbers of volunteers," says the handbook, "there will inevitably be problems with personality clashes and oddballs." Oddballs? In the BNP? Really? Oh yes. There was BNP member Mark Bulman, who set fire to a mosque with a petrol bomb. There was Tony Lecomber, who was injured when his nailbomb detonated unexpectedly. There was Andy McLorie who petrol bombed a policeman's home. There was Paul Thompson who was jailed for six months for his part in a fight after a football match. Need I go on?

"The Internet is also populated by superficially convincing conspiracy theorists. A few of these theories may actually be true," conspires the handbook, "but the general public are unlikely ever to work that out, so for nationalists to accept and publicise them would only allow the media to portray us as cranks." Guess what, though: I don't need an excuse to portray the BNP as a bunch of cranks!

"Every now and then local activists come up with the idea of setting up local BNP websites or blogs. Unfortunately ... Many victims of Britain's lousy education system are totally unaware of the fact that they can't write proper English." Cranks and uneducated. The handbook continues, "This rule [against local websites] may occasionally be waved." I think the word they were looking for was "waived".

"Making a meeting look professional is very important ... Have a carafe or bottle of water and glasses on the top table (not tins of lager!)."

David Davis: It Was All Worthwhile

2008-07-17T15:00:00.000+01:00

In his heart, does David Davis wonder if he was right to throw away his career, just to make a stand on civil liberties?

No.

This is the moment when he realised it was all worthwhile. It wasn't Shami Chakrabarti that he did it for, it was Gemma Garrett, otherwise known as Miss Great Britain.

(And yes, this is a joke, so you can only sue me if you make the writ funnier than my article.)

The Post Office Closures that Don't Save Money

2008-07-14T19:46:00.004+01:00

We have just heard that our village Post Office is to close. We will then be 2.9 miles from the nearest Post Office, just within the government target of three miles.

Our Post Office will be replaced by an "outreach service" which will be open for the same number of hours, and which will provide essentially the same services. It will, however, be based at one of the village pubs instead of the village shop. The village shop is willing to host the outreach service, but the Post Office doesn't seem to favour that option, perhaps because it would then look as though nothing had changed.

Given that this new service will be a Post Office in all but name, what exactly is the point? There will be a big upheaval moving the Post Office from the building it occupies now, which will cost money and harm the village shop. Once the move is complete, the outreach service will need to be staffed just like the Post Office, so presumably it will cost a similar amount of money.

The Post Office consultation document doesn't seem to be available on line, though they accept responses by email. I suppose it makes a kind of stupid sense that the Post Office uses its own product—the letter—when it communicates with you. However, at the end of the document, it says that they are particularly interested in "local demographics (such as age, sex, disability, race, religion and ethnicity)."

I can understand that elderly people or the disabled might be affected disproportionately by the closure of a Post Office. That makes sense. However, what is the relevance of other factors? Are ethnic minorities more in need of a Post Office than white people? Is there a religion that worships letters? And sex? What can I say? Yes please? Are there actually any villages where the sex ratio isn't approximately 50/50?

If the Post Office sacked all their diversity consultants, would they be able to afford to keep our branch open?

Socialist Myths Exposed by Ray Lewis

2008-07-07T19:15:00.005+01:00

The Guardian sent a list of questions to Ray Lewis, deputy Mayor of London. The most damaging question asked him why he had been dismissed as a church minister in 1999. As a result of these questions, and the fact that he then falsely claimed to be a magistrate, Lewis resigned. (Lewis had been approved for appointment as a magistrate, but he had never taken up a post.)

It is very reminiscent of the period before the Mayoral election, when the Evening Standard was running stories about ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone's policy advisor, Lee Jasper. Jasper was also eventually forced to resign, but politically it was too late, and Livingstone went on to lose the election.

I always supported the Standard's scrutiny of Lee Jasper, as I believe it is important for public officials to be held accountable. However, some people on the left saw a conspiracy against Livingstone by the Standard. In this version of events, the evil capitalist Evening Standard brainwashed the defenceless working class. As a result, the workers elected a right-wing mayor, even though a left-wing mayor would have served their interests better.

I support the Guardian's scrutiny of Lewis, for the same reason I supported the Standard's scrutiny of Jasper. However, I would like to know whether the people who opposed the scrutiny of Jasper will now oppose the scrutiny of Lewis. In other words, is Livingstone allowed to shelter behind socialist conspiracy stories in a way that the new mayor, Boris Johnson, is not?

If socialists are genuine about their wish to help the working class, they have to credit working people with the ability to form independent opinions. It is insulting to suggest that they are brainwashed by the Standard, when in reality they simply find the case for socialism unconvincing.

I think this is a problem for socialism in general. Socialism may use the language of empowerment, but power-hungry socialist politicians just want control over people's lives. In the minds of these politicians, people's lives would be so much better if they lived them in a certain way. Unfortunately, these people are not the mindless proles they read about in Marxism for Dummies, they are human beings with their own priorities for their lives. When the politicians find their patronising offers of help rejected, things start to get more coercive.

If society became socialist enough, we would need Soviet-style coercion to stop people opting out and just living the kinds of lives they want to live. However, even the luke-warm socialism of Blair shows the beginnings of this authoritarianism:

Blair created academy schools, but parents didn't want them. The government could have changed the programme, to create the kinds of schools that parents and children wanted. Instead, they closed the other local schools, and since school attendance is required by law, people had no choice but to use the academies.

The theory is that state education is about empowerment. The reality is that it has been taken over by socialist do-gooders, who have built the system they think people ought to want. (To add insult to injury, these people often then send their own children to private schools.)
The government decided to create a national system for medical records. No one asked for this. Doctors say it isn't necessary, and patients don't want it because it is insecure. We can only assume that it is another socialist project, introduced because someone in government thought it was a good idea, rather than because ordinary people wanted it.

Initially the government was going to place everyone's records on the system, regardless of any objections they might have. The compromise was that people could explicitly object, and their records would not then be transferred. But as with the academies, no one who used the health service was asking for this system. Instead of the health service providing the health care we want, it is now about providing the health care that government do-gooders think we ought to want.

If this is socialism, give me capitalism. If I'm paying for something directly, the provider has to make some effort to give me what I want. If the government is paying, I risk some government busybody deciding what I ought to want, and giving me that.

John Simpson's Strange Report from Zimbabwe

2008-06-30T18:40:00.003+01:00

Robert Mugabe banned most international news organisations from covering Zimbabwe's recent election. The main exception was al-Jazeera, which often does provide objective coverage in spite of its iffy reputation. However, its coverage of Zimbabwe attracted criticism for being biased in favour of Mugabe. Eventually the network fired its correspondent in Zimbabwe, and the Zimbabwean government promptly revoked its permission to operate there.

John Simpson, meanwhile, managed to slip unnoticed into Zimbabwe, to report for the BBC. He sent this report, entitled "Mugabe's Remarkable Comeback". He describes the "extraordinary turnaround" achieved by Mugabe, and says that his opponent has been "completely outmanoeuvred". Simpson describes a "rather well-made advertisement" which lists opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai with Tony Blair, George W Bush and Gordon Brown as members of the "failures club".

Simpson concludes, "It all adds up to a remarkable sweeping victory for a man who only three months ago seemed to be on the ropes. The moral is clear: never underestimate Robert Mugabe's ferocious determination to stay in power, nor the ability of his political opponents to destroy their own case."

The tone of the article seems outrageously biased, but I will ask just one question: how did Tsvangirai "destroy his own case"? It seems obvious to me that he didn't, and would have easily won a proper election.

Perhaps next time, the BBC will be granted the rights to cover events in Zimbabwe, instead of al-Jazeera.

Royal Family Costs "Less than Two Pints of Milk"

2008-06-28T15:09:00.003+01:00

At a time when many households are struggling, the Royal Family has had a 5.3% pay rise, well above the government's 2% target for public sector pay. In the last financial year, they received £40M, while in the year before, they managed to struggle along on just £38M. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said that the cost of the Royal Family was equivalent to two pints of milk or an MP3 download—per taxpayer.

It reminds me of the old joke that you can get rich by asking everyone in the country to donate 10p. They won't notice the loss of 10p, but you will be rich. Somehow it never happens, though. Someone gave me 5p last week when I had no change for the car park machine, but that's the closest I've got. (If my benefactor is reading this, though, I'm very grateful! That 5p saved my day.)

One of the strange spin-offs from my marketing job is my junk mail collection. No doubt when I die, museums will be fighting to raise money so they can save it for the nation. For now, though, it is a source of marketing ideas. I've got them all: good ones, and cheesy ones that humbug people with nonsense about pints of milk and things like that. So, now the Royal Family is being sold like a downmarket book club, here are a few ideas:

"... at a price you will appreciate!"
"Ask [the Inland Revenue I suppose] about our affordable payment plans!"
"Eminently affordable!"
"... for less than you expected!"
"Get more than your money's worth!"
"Gives you so much for so little!"
"Once in a lifetime savings!"
And last but not least, the magic of ambiguity: "A toast to extraordinary prices!"

Of course the reality is that this sort of treatment devalues the Royal brand. The Royal brand is about mystique, leadership, luxury. So imagine going to a shop selling luxury goods, and seeing a sign in the window saying, "A toast to extraordinary prices!" You would be a bit surprised, and what would it mean anyway? That you can get a £50,000 Patek watch for £45,000?

Soon the monarchy will pass to Charles, as the Queen is already long past normal retiring age. Perhaps we should say instead that, after the death or abdication of the Queen, we will switch to an elected President. Alternatively, we could be the first country with an elected king or queen; that would be reasonable too. Charles would, of course, be welcome to stand and royalists would be welcome to vote for him. On the other hand, the change would have made the country more democratic. It would also protect us from the possibility that the heir to the throne might be someone unsuitable.

WPP's Embarrassing Mugabe Advert

2008-06-23T18:20:00.002+01:00

The WPP advertising group was caught out last week, when it was found to be producing adverts for Mugabe, like this one:

WPP have now announced that they will sell the Zimbabwean advertising agency which was behind these adverts. It is good news that WPP is severing its links with the Zimbabwean regime, but I wonder if there is another reason why they don't want to be involved with this agency any more. The thing is, this advert is not just embarrassing because it was prepared for the Zimbabwean regime, it is embarrassing because it is crap.

Before you can do anything in advertising, you need to be able to write good English, if you write sentences like this one, your adverts are not going to be any good because people are going to find them difficult to read or they will just laugh if they understand English grammar themselves so it's best not to write things like, "The unfair treatment which will never again be seen on our land, which our people were subjected to by the colonial settlers."

People also find it distracting if you change fonts and colours all the time. It's best not to write things like, "I know you Believe, and I Believe that ALL GOOD THINGS ARE POSSIBLE."

Did someone at WPP decide they wouldn't be losing much by letting this agency go?

Three Issues Bottled—in Just One Week

2008-06-16T20:39:00.003+01:00

Last week, BBC sources suggested that British troops might be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. This week, Bush visited, and the sources have gone quiet. Brown's spokeswoman had to deny reports of a rift between the leaders. She may be right that there was no rift, if Bush gave his instructions, and Brown simply obeyed without arguing.

On Friday, Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum. Brown, meanwhile, had bottled this issue by refusing to hold a referendum, as Labour had promised. He said that the Lisbon treaty was not the EU Constitution, so his promise didn't apply, but this didn't make a lot of sense. The Lisbon treaty has the same objectives, and says largely the same thing. Brown bottled this issue for the second time when he boycotted the signing ceremony. He sneaked in and signed away Britain's sovereignty several hours after the rest of the leaders had gone home.

Last week, Brown bottled this issue for the third time, by continuing with Britain's ratification of the Lisbon treaty. Apparently Brown's European masters have told him that a united front is required against the Irish. Rather than respect the decision of the Irish people, and the decision the British people would have made if they had been asked, Brown again obeyed without arguing.

Finally, David Davis stepped down from Parliament last week, to make the case for civil liberties in a byelection campaign. He believes that, contrary to the received political wisdom, people will support civil liberties if the case is made for them. He intends to make that case, and invite people to vote him back into Parliament if they agree with him.

Brown, however, has bottled this issue too. He won't put up a candidate to fight Davis, preferring to dismiss his act as a "stunt that has become a farce". The public seem to have a lot of respect for a politician who is prepared to take a risk for his beliefs, but Brown would rather jeer from the sidelines. Presumably it's easy to laugh at someone with beliefs and principles if you don't have any yourself.

Colour is Only Skin Deep

2008-06-10T17:31:00.003+01:00

I just noticed that Britain's race equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has an interesting feature on its website. By clicking boxes at the top, you can choose the colour of the site. You can have black or white, as well as various other colours that human beings don't come in. It's nice to see that the EHRC doesn't even discriminate by the colour of its website!

Government to Vet Children's Friends

2008-06-09T23:19:00.003+01:00

According to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, any person who is involved with children—even on a voluntary basis—must be vetted. If you are a member of a club which allows children to join, and you may informally supervise or train them, you must be vetted. If you run an Internet service which is mainly for children, even as a hobby, you must be vetted.

The Act claims not to regulate arrangements between friends, and to that end includes an elaborate definition of friendship. However, it doesn't work for the common case where people meet at a club or society, and become friends. You can't be said to be someone's friend until you've met them, so you would need to be vetted before you were allowed to see them for the first time.

It appears that children can be barred from working with other children, and can be vetted. So it looks as though schools should vet any pupils who will be acting in a supervisory role, such as the captains of sports teams. Presumably in practice schools will apply some common sense, and just ignore the law. Common sense is a good thing. Well written laws, though, shouldn't need to be ignored in this way. Every time someone ignores a silly law, it brings the law as a whole into disrepute, and encourages lawbreaking in general. (On the upside, I suppose this law does create a whole new excuse for avoiding school sport: "Please, Sir, my captain hasn't been vetted!")

A person can be barred from working with children if he harms a child, or pursues "conduct which, if repeated against or in relation to a child, would endanger that child." Since the government evidently didn't think through the implications, let's help them out. Two adults have sex. If one of them was to repeat this "in relation to a child" it seems pretty clear that the child would be endangered, by being exposed to a paedophile. In reality, of course, these adults have a perfectly normal relationship, are not paedophiles, and have no wish to do anything inappropriate "in relation to a child." It only looks that way because this silly law puts them in a hypothetical situation and then blames them for it.

In practice, the parts of this law which are obviously stupid will be ignored. The harm will be done by the parts which don't go quite so far. Many members' clubs are saying they will simply exclude children rather than go through the bureaucracy of complying. At the same time, the government claims to want children involved in constructive activities, rather than hanging around on street corners.

Clearly the government has just destroyed any chance of achieving this. At the same time, by vetting millions of people, it will be easy for the real paedophiles to lose themselves in the crowd. Watching millions of people is really watching no one, because on that scale you never have time to do more than a cursory check. A fake ID is all it will take.

Who will be in McCain's League of Democracies?

2008-05-30T15:38:00.003+01:00

John McCain's proposal for a "League of Democracies" drew immediate criticism. Former UN under-secretary general Shashi Tharoor thought that excluding autocratic countries would make them less likely to become democratic. He also suspected that a "league of autocracies" could appear, led by Russia and China. (If this actually happened, presumably they would think of a better name. It reminds me of the days when the Burmese government was called the "State Law and Order Restoration Council" or SLORC. Eventually they realised that, in English, SLORC sounds like a group of villains from a Bond film—and they changed the name.)

Tharoor's points are all good, but I have a more fundamental one: who will be invited to join? Everyone seems to be assuming that Russia isn't welcome, but they have elections. It might be said that Russia's elections are bent, but that could be a reason to exclude a lot of countries. Should America be excluded because of the issues in Florida during the presidential election in 2000? Should Britain be excluded because winning the most votes doesn't necessarily translate into winning the most seats in Parliament? An election where the same number of people voted for both main parties would be won by Labour, because of the way the constituency boundaries have been set.

Then we would have to decide whether the Middle East's democracies are going to be allowed in. There is Israel, which doesn't give the vote to around half the people it rules. There is Iraq, where the elected government seems almost irrelevant, sitting and watching as others fight over its country. What about Lebanon, where the constitution splits power along sectarian lines, and doesn't grant women the vote on equal terms? Would the Gaza Strip be allowed to join, on the basis that it elected Hamas and is now governed by them, unlike the West Bank where—with the West's approval—Fatah ignored the election result?

McCain may think that, in practice, he can simply invite America's friends into the club. The trouble is, it won't be that simple. For one thing, some countries are clearly democratic on a basic level, but are not friends of America; Venezuela for example. For another, we will all have to listen to Mugabe's speech about the West letting in Israel while excluding Zimbabwe. Just thinking about it makes my hair stand on end.

Can Cameron Beat Stanley Baldwin's Record?

2008-05-23T13:13:00.004+01:00

As you'll probably know by now, Crewe and Nantwich was won by the Conservatives with a 17.6% swing. David Cameron said the result marked "the end of New Labour" and he may not be far wrong. As in the local elections, the swing to the Tories was larger than most commentators had predicted.

Obviously, if there was a swing of this size at a general election, David Cameron would become Prime Minister with a large majority. Working out how large is difficult because of boundary changes. Intriguingly, though, ConservativeHome estimates that the Tories would have 497 MPs. This is an overall majority of 348, and it would be the biggest majority ever achieved under the British system.

A majority of 348 would comfortably beat Blair's 1997 result (179) and Thatcher's 1983 result (144). Going further back, during the Depression in 1931, Stanley Baldwin's Tories won a majority of the votes cast—the only time this has happened since women achieved equal voting rights. Baldwin's majority in Parliament was 324.

The 1929 election was won by Labour but without an overall majority. This is as far back as we can make fair comparisons, because in 1928 women were given the vote on the same terms as men. This changed the political landscape by granting the vote to women who were not part of a property-owning household. In addition, women got the right to vote at 21, the same as men.

I continued heading backwards, looking for an election where the winner got a majority above 348. Gradually the numbers of voters got fewer. Prior to 1918, only male householders could vote. Prior to 1884, male householders in towns could vote, but in the countryside you had to own property. Prior to 1867, you had to own property regardless of where you lived.

Even as the country went through such enormous changes, no party ever won a majority as big as the one ConservativeHome estimated from yesterday's by-election swing. So perhaps just winning the next election is too easy a challenge for Cameron. Instead, he should try to win a majority of votes cast, so equalling Stanley Baldwin's achievement. If this happened, Labour might implode: a fitting end for the party that organised the slaughter of a few hundred thousand Iraqis, and has never been able to give a coherent justification.

UKIP Fail to Make Progress in Crewe and Nantwich

2008-05-22T12:14:00.002+01:00

UKIP don't seem to be making much progress in Crewe and Nantwich...

(Click here for a full size picture.)

Your (Tory) Party Needs You!

2008-05-16T15:29:00.003+01:00

Another day, another email from the Tory party. "Unlike Labour," says David Cameron, "we're not backed by the trade unions, so we need everyone who is fed up with what's going on in our country to join our movement for change."

Over the past four quarters, the Tory party received five donations that were above £250,000. One donation, from Lord Laidlaw, was for £2,990,582.20. (I'm sure the odd 20p was very important to them. Did he empty his piggy bank or something?) If you join the party, and can't afford to give this kind of sum, you might feel that your annual subs are a bit of a drop in the bucket. Membership costs £25 per year.

If you can afford a bit more, there are a range of "donor clubs" to choose from. They range from Fastrack at £250 per year, to the Renaissance Forum at £15,000 per year. If you join the Renaissance Forum, you are offered "dinners and political debate with eminent figures from the world of business and members of the Shadow Cabinet."

Clearly, far from being awash with union cash, Labour need to get in on the act. How about a donor club where you get to throw rotten fruit at Gordon Brown? Plenty of people would stump up £250 for that, including half the Cabinet.

Don't Let the Holy Spirit Overflow

2008-05-11T11:00:00.001+01:00

Unless you go to church today, you probably won't have noticed that it's Pentecost. Pentecost commemorates a bit of early-morning drinking by Jesus' apostles. I'll let the Bible tell the story in its own words:

[Acts 2:1] Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all with one accord in one place. [2:2] Suddenly there came from the sky a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. [2:3] Tongues like fire appeared and were distributed to them, and one sat on each of them. [2:4] They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak. [...] [2:12] [The onlookers] were all amazed, and were perplexed, saying one to another, "What does this mean?" [2:13] Others, mocking, said, "They are filled with new wine."

[2:14] But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke out to them, "You men of Judea, and all you who dwell at Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to my words. [2:15] For these aren’t drunken, as you suppose, seeing it is only the third hour of the day."

We see, then, the author of Acts admitting that the apostles looked drunk. But, apparently, they were not drunk. There is a complicated story to tell about a great rushing sound and tongues of flame and how you can speak much better French after a few beers.

Tongues of flame over people's heads would have been pretty striking, but none of the bystanders mentioned them. Does that mean that they couldn't see them? Do you only see tongues of flame over other people's heads if you're drunk yourself?

Or perhaps it is all true. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was poured out in excessive quantities, and when it overflowed, the excess burned off as a tongue of flame over each Apostle's head.

Gordon Brown Tripped Up by a Joke—Again

2008-05-08T17:37:00.003+01:00

My MP, Shailesh Vara, asked Brown a rather nasty question:

As the right hon. Gentleman is the only person in the House with experience of unseating a sitting Prime Minister, what is his own estimate of how long he has got?

Brown's response:

Once again, the big policy questions of substance. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the Government have done under two Prime Ministers. We have created the highest employment in history; we have cut child poverty and pensioner poverty; we have doubled investment in health and social services; we have got the best education results in our history—and none of that would have happened under a Conservative Government.

Yawn. If Brown doesn't get a sense of humour soon, the answer may be, "Not long at all." Thatcher may have been both humourless and successful, but times have changed. These days people expect their politicians to be witty, even though I suppose it is true that humour has little to do with running the country.

Of Two Unworthy Candidates, London Picks the Unworthy One

2008-05-03T00:22:00.003+01:00

Boris Johnson has won the London election, by around the margin predicted by the YouGov polls. While it will be tempting for Johnson to see this as success, in reality he is only just beginning. He must show Londoners that he can rise above his well known shortcomings.

He must govern for all Londoners, avoiding any suggestion of racism. Calling black people piccaninnies was disgraceful when he was a journalist, but it would be inexcusable now he is mayor. He must be seen to treat everyone equally.
He must be seen to take the job seriously. For all his faults, Livingstone put a lot of work into his job, and Johnson must do likewise. Enjoying a joke is fine, but treating the job as a joke is not.
Finally, Johnson must leave his doubtful past behind him. The Bullingdon Club is not a joke: in a civilised society, you cannot smash people's property, even if you pay for the damage. Darius Guppy's assault on a journalist was not funny either, and nor was Johnson's offer to help.

Johnson may, however, offer London a new start in some areas that have been badly managed by Livingstone:

Livingstone spied on Londoners to an alarming degree. The pre-paid Oyster card, used on public transport, records details of every journey made by the owner. These details are then shared with other public authorities (rather than just being used for billing). The congestion charge cameras record details of car journeys made into the city centre. Livingstone refused to appear at a pre-election event organised by the privacy pressure group No2ID.

Socialists like Livingstone often seem to be tempted by the idea of controlling people's lives. I suppose as a socialist, you go into politics with the intention of helping the poor, only to find that they would rather get on with their lives instead. So then you try to control their lives, so you can fix them. Johnson should throw out this nonsense, and give Londoners back their privacy.
Livingstone was a waste of money. When I lived in London, I remember a time when the boroughs couldn't afford to run the schools, because Livingstone had taken all the money for City Hall. It is unclear what this extra money bought, especially bearing in mind that the congestion charge has raised substantial sums for the centre too. Johnson should cut the City Hall budget sharply, and return the surplus to council tax payers.

Good luck Boris and good luck London!

Labour Does Worse than the LibDems

2008-05-02T10:45:00.003+01:00

The full local election results are not yet in, but results so far suggest that Labour has done worse than the LibDems: 24% to 25%. The LibDems haven't beaten either of the two main parties at a general election since 1910 (at which time they were called the Liberals). If they repeated today's performance at a general election, it would change the political landscape. People would know that, eventually, the Tories would become unpopular again—and when they did, would their support flow to Labour or the LibDems? Could the LibDems get into government again?

The Tories exceeded most predictions with a result of 44%. The BBC Swingometer suggests that this would give a Tory majority of about 200, if repeated at a general election. This would be the Tories' best result since 1935, comfortably beating Thatcher's 1983 majority of 144.

Later in the day, the result of the London mayoral election will be announced. I wonder if David Cameron is hoping for a Tory victory. From Cameron's point of view, today's results are good enough, even if they lose London. On the other hand, if they win London, there is the risk that Boris Johnson will embarrass the party between now and the general election. As ex-Tory Minister Michael Portillo said, the leadership will be "holding its breath for the next four years" in case he turns out to be an "embarrassment."

The Universal Language of Music is not German. Honestly.

2008-04-21T22:30:00.004+01:00

In 1985, Beethoven's Ode to Joy was adopted as the European Union anthem. Apparently the Ode expresses the "idealistic vision of the human race becoming brothers." But there was a snag. The Ode to Joy is a German poem, set to music by a German composer. This, of course, wouldn't be acceptable to any EU member except Germany and perhaps Austria.

Normally EU documents are translated into all the official languages of the Union. This wouldn't work with the Ode, though, because the music was written to fit the German version. So, in a typical EU fudge, the words were taken out. As a result, the EU's anthem is only a piece of music. The meaning is given by the words which are traditionally sung with that music, even though the words are not sung when it is played as the EU anthem. Apparently the meaning is still conveyed, through the "universal language of music." Whatever.

Herbert Von Karajan was asked to write three versions of the Ode: for solo piano, for wind instruments, and for a symphony orchestra. Can I suggest that the EU standardises on the wind version? I think it would be quite appropriate for the EU to have an anthem which is a load of hot air.

Another Innocent Man Shot with a Taser

2008-04-18T18:27:00.003+01:00

The police should be careful taking part in programs like Traffic Cops. We get to see them at their best—and their worst. In the programme broadcast on April 9th, there was a case of mistaken identity. A man was collecting a prescription in Withernsea, east of Hull. Unfortunately for him, he got mixed up with someone who had held up a supermarket.

An armed response unit was sent to the town, who rushed over and shot him with a Taser, with no warning. The man collapsed to the floor in agony, and required treatment at the scene from an ambulance crew.

Apparently this was the first time Humberside Police have used a Taser on a person. PC Steve Cole, one of the firearms officers, was impressed with the way it had worked. "I didn't see any aftereffects at all," he said. It is true that the man was not physically sick, but I think he may be dealing with the psychological effects for some time. If he needed to do some shopping the next day, I doubt he would feel comfortable walking down the high street of his town. This man may have lost the sense that he is safe going about his everyday life, and that is something very precious.

After questioning, the man was found to have no connection with armed robberies, and was released without charge.

In this case, the victim was white; this was an equal opportunities assault. There are, however, disturbing parallels with the case of Daniel Sylvester, a black man who was stopped in his car last December as a result of "firearms related intelligence". He got out of the car and was surrounded by officers, some of whom carried automatic weapons. At some point, someone fired a Taser into the back of his head. He wasn't as lucky as the man in Withernsea: he broke a tooth when he fell down, and for some reason he was then given repeated shocks even though he was lying on the pavement unable to move.

Sylvester also turned out not to have a gun, and his case is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Because of the repeated and apparently unnecessary shocks, his case is likely to be stronger than the man in Withernsea. In Sylvester's case, there is also the possibility of a racial motive. However, as a country, we need to decide how much we are willing to see the Tasers used.

If the alternative to using a Taser is to shoot someone with a conventional gun, the Taser seems to have a big advantage. However, using a Taser carries risks. Amnesty International has documented nearly 150 deaths which have occurred after someone has been shot with one of these weapons. It is difficult to prove that the Taser caused death directly, though it seems likely. For example, it is known that electric shocks in the chest area can cause a heart attack. Some of the victims were suffering from heart disease, and seem to have had a heart attack after receiving the shock. It seems likely that the electric shock, acting on an already weak heart, was enough to cause a cardiac arrest.

So when are the police permitted to use Tasers? Lambeth Community Police Consultative Group attempted to find out, only to be told that the document concerned is restricted. Some information has been released indirectly, however. This magazine discusses Taser use in particular scenarios, rather than giving formal rules of engagement, but it gives an insight into current police thinking.

A Billion Dollars is Not Enough

2008-04-16T10:02:00.003+01:00

J. K. Rowling is a dollar billionaire, thanks to the Harry Potter series, but she is still finding time to sue the small American publisher RDR Books. First of all, Steve Vander Ark created a website about the Harry Potter universe, called the Harry Potter Lexicon. Rowling never complained, and in fact admitted that she used the website on occasion to remind herself about facts from earlier books.

The problems began when the website was turned into a book, which was going to be published by RDR Books. Now money was involved, and Rowling's opinion changed. Even though she had used the website on which the book was based, she said the book was "sloppy, lazy, and [took her] work wholesale."

Rowling's eyes filled with tears as she was asked what Harry Potter meant to her. "It means setting aside my children, everything," she said. So it's not about the money, then. Right. She went on to describe the shortcomings of the Lexicon. Apparently it doesn't mention that the name Remus Lupin was derived from the Latin name for a wolf, canis lupus. It also missed a reference to Occam's razor in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Do omissions like this make the book sloppy and lazy? No, in my opinion; there is a difference between imperfection and sloppiness. But if Rowling was this offended by the omissions, why didn't she just send a quick email asking for them to be put right?

In a statement, Rowling said she was happy about books which comment on or criticise Harry Potter. This is convenient, since such books are explicitly protected by copyright law, and are not normally considered to be plagiarism. However, she says that the Lexicon is different because it provides no analysis. In fact, the Lexicon website contains a great deal of analysis—it's just that this analysis is not conventional literary criticism.

The Lexicon website, and other fan sites, have contributed enormously to the success of Harry Potter. Vander Ark gave Rowling years of unpaid support, but now he has become a nuisance, so he will be stabbed in the back. I am sure that Harry would see such a back-stabbing as both vindictive and pointless, yet Harry's creator is happy to follow it through to the bitter end.

Government Rigs the Mortgage Market

2008-04-14T16:17:00.002+01:00

The chancellor is calling on the banks to cut the interest rates on their mortgages. While I can see that this would be helpful politically, it would do immense harm to the economy.

If property prices are rising, mortgages are virtually risk free for lenders. If the borrower fails to pay, they can repossess the house and get their money back that way. However, at the moment, property prices are falling. This means that repossessed houses might not fetch enough money to pay off the mortgage, and as a result the lenders could lose out. To cover this risk, lenders need to charge extra interest. If a few borrowers default, the extra interest paid by others will hopefully cover any losses.

The government says that rates should be cut "in return for" the emergency funding it has been providing. If the government wanted, it could make its funding conditional on the banks cutting interest rates—I accept that. The government should, however, resist the temptation. We can't solve our current economic problems by forcing the banks to make unprofitable loans, and in fact this would make the situation worse.

Over the last few years, the government has allowed a property price bubble to inflate. It has now burst, and in time this will make home ownership affordable again for millions of people. In the meantime, though, many people are going to lose money and this will cost the government votes. So, they are embarking on a futile mission to keep a burst bubble inflated.

It reminds me of the French paper money crash. Until the early 1700s, France had always used coins which were valuable simply because of the precious metal they contained. However, John Law, a British economist, managed to convince them to adopt paper money.

A modern £5 note reads, "I [that is, the Bank of England] promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five pounds." This seems odd and superfluous, because if you have a £5 note, you already have five pounds. John Law started out, though, with a more meaningful promise. You would be paid the appropriate sum in coins, and in those days that meant that you would receive a certain weight of precious metal.

To begin with, the notes and the coins had essentially equal value. However, there was always the temptation to raise money by issuing more and more notes. Eventually, this caused inflation and the system collapsed. Just like our present government, though, the French government made desperate efforts to keep air in the bubble:

On December 1st 1719, John Law's company announced that it would no longer pay out coins. People owed money by the company would receive it in notes instead.
On December 21st, it was made illegal for anyone to pay a debt over a certain size in coins.
On January 28th 1720, the notes were made legal tender, so creditors could no longer insist on being paid in a currency that was worth something.
On February 27th, ownership of more than a certain amount of gold or silver was made illegal.
On April 1st, clauses in contracts which required payment in gold or silver were voided.

Of course it didn't work. The value of the paper money sank to effectively nothing, and John Law had to flee the country. But Alistair Darling apparently doesn't know his history, and he thinks he can legislate house prices up again. If it works, perhaps he would like to try amending the law of gravity. He could create an exemption for aircraft, cutting fuel use and global warming at the stroke of a pen.

Vote Conservative

2008-04-11T17:04:00.003+01:00

Advertising doesn't change as much as some agencies would like you to think. Over the last hundred years, adverts may have moved from the printed page to the Internet, but the aim is still the same. Because of this, the adverts tend to be very similar. "Go to Work on an Egg" is just as good today as it was when it was made, back in the '50s. (The only difference is that the adverts can no longer be shown on television, because of healthy eating concerns.)

A lot of old Conservative election posters are now available online, and as you will see, not much changes. Also, I had to laugh because one of the worst posters was produced only last year, for the election that never quite happened.

If you find any of the posters too small to read easily, just click them for a larger image.

It's 1909 and subtlety is out. Is there some association between socialism and ape-like monsters that I'm missing?

Some political debates are very old:

This one is interesting. It's not at all a bad advert, and yet you couldn't imagine it being made these days:

Lloyd George raised various taxes; the top rate of income tax became 8.3%. People were horrified.

On to 1929, and this advert tells us something important. I'm just not sure what it is:

This one is better, but it's too simple. There is no particular reason why people should believe these claims, and I suspect that on the whole they probably didn't.

This one is probably overdone. It's advertising a group of politicians, not the Messiah:

Pretty crude, but this theme will be revisited at virtually every subsequent election:

The National Government was an alliance between the Tories, and groups of MPs who split off from the other parties. Labour Isn't Working (1931):

Labour Isn't Working (1935):

Pretty crude, but this idea will be refined and reused a lot over the years:

I wonder if people believed the claims made in this advert? One thing is for sure, no one would be fooled today:

Appeasement as an electoral strategy:

1945 and the Tories lose the election. If only Churchill wasn't dead, though, the Tories could use this poster today and they would be guaranteed a win. (They should spell out that it's a Tory poster, though. People have a knack of getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, even with apparently simple ads.)

1950 and the Tories get back in, with two very unimaginative posters. You see what I mean about advertising not changing?

1954 and the Tories launch a brand of soap powder:

This 1955 poster was probably pretty effective, even though it's horribly unfair. The rationing was really an after-effect of the war. Labour have never managed to impoverish the country to quite that degree.

It's 1958 and the Tories launch a poster that isn't about the economy or their opponents. It's just about the only one in the whole archive:

1959 and we're back to the same old ideas. I suspect this poster has little emotional resonance with people who read it. It just asserts a load of facts, and people who believe them would probably have voted Tory anyway.

Don't laugh. The one produced for David Cameron last year is even worse.

Again in 1963, the Tories fell into the trap of asserting facts without creating any emotional resonance. This poster, though, is particularly bad because it talks about prices in Britain being "almost" steady. This sounds weaselly, as though they are claiming credit for a situation that actually doesn't exist.

A nice attack ad from 1970:

This one really made me laugh. Building 367,000 homes per year sounds like a big achievement by Labour (if they were needed, which I assume they were) so do the Tories really want to tell everyone?

This poster from 1974 is hopelessly muddled. It's not clear how the picture relates to the message. Also, the level of inflation is the important thing, not the fact that it doubled.

1979 and the most famous political advert of all. The message is good, but I don't like the design of the poster very much. We should see the door of the dole office, with the sign above it, I think.

This poster is also from 1979, and I actually prefer it to the one above, I think. On the other hand, it's not dealing with such a central issue, so it probably had less of an impact on the election.

This poster from 1983 isn't as clever as it thinks it is:

1987, Neil Kinnock, nuclear disarmament. This poster is a bit cruel but it was probably extremely effective:

Also from 1987, this poster seems like a waste of space. Did anyone read it right to the end?

People were quite surprised when John Major won the 1992 election. This poster probably helped a lot:

This was also from 1992 and I like it a lot. There is a lot of text for people to read, but the clever headline catches attention. Because of that, I think a lot of people might have read the whole thing.

Remember this one from 1997? I found it ridiculous at the time. If I see a picture of Tony Blair these days, though, that's what I see. He got more demonic with the passing years.

This ad from 2004 isn't bad, but I'd like to see less assertion of facts and more emotion:

2007, and the Tories are hugging anyone they think might vote for them:

And finally, also from 2007, the worst ad of the lot. Whoever came up with this one should be taken out and shot.

The Yobs are Coming to Your Kids' School

2008-04-09T15:52:00.004+01:00

Children who are expelled from one school will just shift to a neighbouring one, under plans announced by the government. The problem is, getting expelled from school involves doing something pretty serious. Let's suppose that someone is caught threatening a fellow pupil with a knife, and as a result is thrown out. Unfortunately for you, your kids go to the school next door, which under the government's new policy will have to take on this dangerous young thug.

It is unfair to expect civilised people to share a building with someone like this, whether they are staff or pupils. It is all too believable that he could, one day, do someone a serious injury or even kill. Even if he never does, his presence in school will create an atmosphere of tension that will make learning difficult.

Children who can't get a place in any mainstream school end up in pupil referral units instead. It is understandable that the government wants to reduce the numbers who go there, because the outcomes are not very good. It must be very difficult to teach anything in a school whose pupils all ended up there by behaving badly. However, the alternative is that ordinary kids are conscripted into being positive role models for the violent, disruptive ones.

As adults we get to decide how much we "give back to society". Very few of us would choose to live among violent people, in order to be a positive influence. Even people who do voluntary work in prison, for example, don't live there. However, as a child, you don't get to choose—and as a parent, you don't get to choose for your child. Your children will be used as positive role models, even though it is harmful to their education and puts them at risk, and there is nothing you can do about it.

People who live in middle class areas will probably be okay. In places like that, there won't be too many knife-wielding thugs floating from school to school. The same goes for parents who can afford school fees. Obviously private schools aren't about to take on anyone who is a danger to their other pupils. They are businesses who have to look after their customers.

This means that the government's plan will actually reduce the number of poor children who do well at school. Their schools will be disrupted, while the schools attended by middle class and rich kids will be left alone.