Liberal Vision

A wave of referendums coming our way?

YES, if Simon Cowell has his way……

 

In an interview with Newsnight this evening Simon Cowell admitted to giving serious thought to a political X Factor style show. In the interview he talks about picking a topic each show e.g “Should we be in or out of Afganistan and Iraq” ….”Knife crime” … (Capital Punishment???) , talking about it ( a bit vague on detail), a panel of “experts” to comment – and then “the public vote”.

What seems to tickle his fancy is the idea of “the people having their say”…well eventually . Ok what he probably means is telephone voting (a nice little earner for his company and the TV channel broadcasting the show no doubt) but the idea is intriging and will doubtless send waves of fear/excitement reverberating around Westminster. With a Simon Cowell show this would not be “a poll” of 900 people from some pre-selected panel, balanced by blah blah blah – this would be hundreds of thousands, millions possibly, making their views felt. Politicians doorstepped the next-day for their views on their party’s policies in light of the results……oh the chaos….

What sounded optimisitic was his idea that he could run 5 or 6 of these before the next general election (well that might prompt Gordon Brown to pull his finger out at least). But what Simon Cowell wants, Simon Cowell gets (can you really see a cash-strapped ITV turning down ANY Simon Cowell project right now?). 

This has a real chance of  getting off the ground. If he is serious….Cowell’s reputation would (a) almost certainly ensure that his programme would be snapped up by the lucky channel he talks to because  (b) Cowell’s reputation would undoubtedly guarantee substantial viewing figures to at least trialling it. After that it will down to just how good the show actually is – and he is as good as it gets – I cant see it being a turkey myself. 

Personally I liked the idea of the “red telephone” – enabling NO10 to call at any time during the show. Kirsty Wark could envisage Brown falling over Mandelson falling over Balls to get to the phone first … I am not so sure… but I can see Mr Hilton and David Cameron (as indeed Tony Blair would have) realising the wonderful opportunites that this might present. 

So could this be the new age of democracy?

Could Simon Cowell be the man needed to re-enage the public with politics? Will any of us like the answers the public gives us ? Could he actually achieve what Rupert Murdoch has tried so hard to do for soooooo long (financing loss making enterprises such as Sky News along the way) to influence politics in a significant way. The answer to the last question is yes, he could, and make money out of it. I have no doubt.

So brace yourselves, “Simon Cowell – the KING of Entertainment”, might just be set to be the “Simon Cowell – the most influential person in politics”. As Newsnight says…”The X man cometh”….

Tags: Newsnight, politics, Simon Cowell, X Factor

“last night a DJ saved my life”…..

…or rather

 “last night a state police announcement nearly took my life”

…Let me explain. Thursday night…. approaching London from the east I ran into “Ultimate Chaos 2″…The blackwall tunnel shut, the Greenwich ferry was only running one ferry, the rotherhithe tunnel was chocker chocker block. East London gridlocked. So a 2 hour journey from my mums to Battersea took 6 hours rather than the usual 2. Ok stuff happens….but not this……

I had seen 3 or 4 police cars with sirens blazing as I approached the Limehouse tunnel – listening to a rather engaging programme on radio 4 about climate change. As I went into the tunnel and with out warning I was plunged into what I thought was the 4 minute warning. The police grabbed the airwaves. Yes – really – my radio was seized by the police . Iwas in a state of panic…

“Bing bong …bing bong” …. “POLICE ANOUNCEMENT……..CAUTION….. HAZARD AHEAD……SLOW DOWN” . Sh*t I thought we are being attacked ..about to approach a tunnel with only a flimsy soft top to protect me….WHAT THE HELL ? Thank god i was only doing 2mph. Had I been travelling at 40 mph 20 yards earlier, my immediate instinct would have been to avoid the tunnel (who wants to be in a tunnel in a soft top with a bunch of terrorists?)…I really would have swerved through juggernauts  to avoid the tunnel …

I entered the tunnel with fear and trepidation, heart pumping. A weaker heart would have given out by now. I tried to change channel in case I had reached some freak cod-broadcast by a bunch of nutters… but every channel i switched to carried the same ominous message. No police anywhere to calm my nerves. I attempted to call someone on my phone …had the four minute warning gone out? Did I only have minutes to tell my mum I loved her? No mobile reception. I was truly on my own. Except I wasnt… The guy in the next lane called over  ….”what the f*ck is happening? the radio has gone mental..can you get mobile reception ?…” . I told him I had no idea and my mobile was blocked too, yes my radio had gone mental… Yep… this was it. We were all soon-to-be-dead…. I could not send a text, if I wrote a note it would be incinerated . 

I passed several cars and lorries – verrrryyyy slowly – and they passed me . Questions were passed to each other.. shrugs….one woman actually crying. Me too, if I am honest. Who wants to die in a dingy tunnel far from those you care about?   

After a while however, fear was replaced by anger. People weren’t fleeing for their lives. There was no police presence calmly escorting drivers from their vehicles. AND I was missing a great radio programme (ok may be I was losing it a bit …it was an ok programme- but it was MY choice of programme until it got hijacked..) . This was either a sick joke or the crassest piece of police intervention yet (murders and beatings aside). So, I recorded the message. Noted my speed. Tried other radio channels. Every channel carrying the same message. 

If this was genuinely a police message – why not use the bloody tunnel signs. Dont tell me to slow down when I can walk faster than i am driving.  Dont take control of every possible radio station and then only broadcast minimal information- designed to terrify. Just DONT. full stop.

Clearly I did not die. I went through the entire tunnel listening to the same message over and over and over again. Then, as if nothing had happened i emerged the other end, Stuart Hall (radio 5 now) was on the radio recounting some anecdote about George Best or Man City – or maybe both. As quickly as I had been plunged into panic, I was returned to the mundane world of a wet Thursday night in London.

I am alive. I dont know what that whole “police announcement thing” was about. Who gave them permission to do that? Why did I not know about it? How long have they been doing this kind of thing? How long before the police start seizing control of our mobile phones? One minute we are chatting to our mums, dads, husbands, about life…..the next hearing ominous bing bongs from the police state telling us to stay indoors, avoid the city centre, vote Labour…

Ok maybe that’s a step too far. But for me, and many others travelling through East London last night – if this wasnt a hoax… then the the hijacking of the broadcast airwaves was a step way too far.

Maybe I am one of the last people on the planet to know that this kind of thing happens. If so, then I reckon by some sheer weird coincidence all of the “uninformed” people of this country just happened to be travelling along the same bit of road together. So why didn’t the rest of you tell us ? If you didnt know either , then maybe there’s a problem Houston.

Tags: announcement, hijecked broadcast, police

Shirley Williams says there’s a place in the party for me.

I have only met Shirley Williams once, whilst working for Sir Ming Campbell, but I have always deeply admired her. So when I heard her on the radio today talking about her new book “Climbing the bookshelves” on the Simon Mayo show on Radio Five Live I had a thought. There has been much agnst in recent times about “the left” vs the “right” within the party. So why not ask her whether there is a place in this party that I love for free market liberals. (I used the term “free market liberal” because it was radio five and I thought it a more straight forward term than “classical liberal”).

Low and behold five minutes later – there was my question being broadcast across the airwaves. 

And the answer to my question, from Shirley Williams no less, was YES!. The requirement for being a Liberal Democrat is being totally committed to civil liberties and internationally minded; views on the market differ. She did go on to say that given recent events I should rethink my views on the free market – but as far as she is concerned I belong.

Well, I definately tick both boxes on civil liberties andn being internationally minded – so as far as she is concerned I am good to go. Yippee.

You may wonder why I asked the question. Well, I have to confess there are some days when I do doubt whether I fit – these are few however and come largely after aggressive or unpleasant comments from a vocal minority. There are also days when I will shout at the radio, tv or newspaper because of the timidity of our leadership, the confusion over some policy launch, and yes some policy announcement I disagree with. But I doubt I will ever find a party that I agree with entirely on policy or strategy until I start the Angela Harbutt Party (don’t worry – no plans on that score!).

No… the reason I asked the question was because I was pretty sure she would say “yes Angela” there is a place for you. And she did just that. I think it is so easy to focus on the small thinks that divide us and lose sight of the much bigger things that unite us.  Today I feel united.

I will upload the interview, if I can, later this evening. If you can’t wait you can hear the whole of Simon Mayo show here (catch Mark Kermode reviews, interview with Harry Rednap etc …superb programme as ever). The Shirley Williams interview is about 1 hour into the programme.

UPDATE: Ok.. it was a long and wide ranging interview on Radio Five and I struggled – and then gave up – trying to edit it to just ten minutes for YOUTUBE purposes. So I have put up here only Shirley’s answer to my question. I do urge you to listen to the full interview (see above for link to BBC iplayer). If you read post this late or really need the interview sometime in the future when it falls off iplayer, I have captured the full interview so we have it stored and can email it to anyone that asks us for it.

Tags: Liberal Democrats, radio five, Shirley Williams

“Good for bankers”? Are you sure, Vince?

It was somewhat disappointing to receive yesterday’s post-pre-budget report response from Vince Cable.  As impressively prompt as it was, I couldn’t help suspect that the title and opening line were written before the increasingly-destructive Mr Darling had even uttered a word.

“Good for bankers but bad for taxpayers”

So shouted Vince’s headline, seemingly implying that the former is not included in the latter.  An odd response, really. Those of us who live and work relatively near the City aren’t hearing much cheering. Rather, word on the street is how this disastrous PBR will harm everyone, but particularly bankers.

The absurdly populist destruction of Darling’s PBR is to be expected from Labour.  The anti-bonus measures portend all manner of unintended consequences (or at least I assume they’re unintended) and smack of unfairness.  As explained in today’s City AM, a commodities trader at a hedge fund will receive unaffected bonuses, while a commodities trader at a bank will be hammered – causing the bank to restructure its payment system, fiddle its accounts, or risk losing talent to hedge funds and similar groups.  Or, of course, they can just move their people to Dublin, or further afield. But never mind all that because “bankers’ bonuses caused the financial crisis”. Right?

Wrong, of course, but let’s move on: the budget is appallingly bad for the rest of us folk who work considerably less hours than bankers and are thus less reviled.  The usual surreptitious hiking of NI further increases the burden of income tax, while our unprecedented deficit of £178bn is well reported. According to Darling it’ll all be ok because the economy will grow by at least 3.5% the year after next.  Sure it will.

But the point here is that there’s ample scope for attack from a good Liberal like Vince–without resorting to populist attacks on a minority of the workforce.  Sure, banker bashing may win votes, may be popular among the greater mass of voters, but that doesn’t make it right. And call me sanctimonious, but we’re supposed to be above all that.  As Cicero rightly bemoaned the other day, we mustn’t become just another party.  Sadly Vince’s missive, or at least its headline message, present us as just that.

Tags: Alastair Darling, budget, PBR, Vince Cable

LUDWIG VON MISES (1881-1973) LIBERALISM (1927

Mises was an Austrian in the sense that he was born into a high bourgeois  German speaking family in the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Mises was from a high bourgeois Jewish family which had roots in Vienna.  However, he was born in Lemberg, now the Ukrainian town of Lviv, which has been also been part of Lithuania and Poland.  The range of languages and ethnicities in the town reflected that history and in Liberalism he refers with great emphasis to the conflicts and suffering of that situation, arguing that the situation can only be experienced in that way in a non-liberal society.

His father was a liberal politician, and Liberalism also refers with great emphasis to the decline of the old liberalism, the liberalism of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries.  The family moved back to its roots in Vienna, and Mises attended the university there, first becoming qualified in law, and the coming under the influence of the ‘Austrian School’ economists Carl Menger and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk.

Mises became an economist in that school, and for many Austrian School economists and libertarians now, he is the most important figure in that school.  Hayek was his student, when Mises became an academic economist.  Mises also worked as an adviser to governments and the Vienna Chamber of Commerce until 1934 when he moved to Switzerland.

He moved to New York in 1940 to escape Nazi-dominated Europe and had some difficulty finding an appropriate niche, but was able in the end to become a recurrent visiting Professor at New York University, though this was privately funded by sympathetic business people.  In his time in Europe, his students included many future economists, government advisers and politicians.

At least some of the more liberal aspects of post-war European economics were under Mises influence.  His students, and others under his influence, in the United States ensured the continuation of the Austrian School, most famously the economist and Anarcho-Capitalist thinker Murray Rothbard.

Mises’ most influential books are probably: Socialism (1922), a lengthy critique of socialism in many aspects and varieties; and Human Action (1949), developed from Nation, State, and Economy (1919), a long treatise which grounds economics in the broadest categories of human life.

He also took part in a famous 1920  debate with the Marxist Oscar Lange about the possibility of economic calculation under socialism.  Mises denied the possibility of economic calculation without a price mechanism guiding the decisions of economic agents.  As he argues in Liberalism, the pursuit of a completely planned economy can only collapse into chaos as decisions will be made with no regard to the best allocation of resources. Liberalism, though probably not one of his most influential books, is a convenient place to introduce his ideas.

We shall return to the other books, and to Rothbard.  Mises was not an Anarchist, and is at great pains in Liberalism to establish that liberalism is not opposed to the state.  His vision of the state is very minimal though, and he strongly condemns deviation from such a view.  This leads to him to reject John Stuart Mill as an authentic liberal, because of Mill’s increasing tendency over time to think that society could evolve towards socialism, or even communism, and preserve liberty.  Mises’ reaction seems harsh in relation to On Liberty and some other Mill texts.  It’s true that at the time of On Liberty, Mill toys with the idea of socialism in Principles of Political Economy, but very briefly and it is only later that Mill makes sustained gestures towards socialism.  In any case, this illustrate Mises’ view that in every way real liberalism has been declining since the mid Nineteenth century, and has become a form of moderate socialism.  Mises does not quite adopt the minarchist view that the state only exists to protect life, liberty and property, but he certainly regards these as the essential aspects of liberalism and rejects most forms of state action going beyond them.

He argues against unemployment benefits, on the grounds that they increase unemployment, and hold back changes in the labour market, of a kind necessary for economic development.  He does think that labour exchanges to help workers find new employment are allowable.  Mises does not completely exclude education from the state sphere, but certainly thinks that in the circumstances in which he grew up that compulsory schooling is dangerous, because it inevitably creates problems about which languages are preferred and more or less disguised pressures to adopt the majority language.  In this context, he also argues that a large state machine worsens relations between different groups, because of the competition to control the state in order to gain economic benefits that results.

Only liberalism respects both individual rights and objective sociological and economic realities.  Wealth is only created if there is private property and associated laws and institutions of the market, which allow the incentives to invest and produce.  Anyone who rejects this rejects reality and is a neurotic.  Mises supports the idea of the League of Nations (the forerunner of the United Nations), arguing it needed stronger powers to prevent war and to prepare colonies for self-government.  Though he supports a world structure to prevent aggression, he opposes European federation on the grounds that this would just promote a European level version of statist nationalism.

Tags: liberalism, ludwig von mises