Liberal Vision

Chris Huhne goes, but is this the Rule of Law(s)?

So Chris Huhne (and ex-wife Vicky Pryce)  is to be charged with perverting the course of justice as a result of allegations that the former Environment Secretary Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change allowed or persuaded his wife to accept speeding penalty points on his behalf in 2003.

Mr Huhne strenuously denies the charges (and one can’t help but wonder whether Ms. Pryce will be less keen to repeat her allegations now that she is being charged as well) but it has not saved him. He has been forced to resign from the Cabinet.

It’s an odd business, to say the least. Not the charges themselves – this matter needs to be investigated and, if there is a prima facie case, charges should be filed. What is odd is the fact that he has to resign now.

It is a fundamental principle of the rule of law that a person is innocent until proven guilty. In most walks of life, that would extend to whether one has to resign from one’s job as well. If one is accused of a crime, an employer might suspend a member of staff, to distance itself from the issue, but to sack a person (or expect them to resign) while they try to clear their name is usually considered to be unfair.

What is interesting is that different rules appear to apply to politicians – and to other public figures. On the one hand, there is no process for suspending a minister, or allowing them to step aside temporarily, while the matter is investigated. The minister must quit – end of. I suspect that this is a hangover from the origins of ministerial office, with the minister acknowledging their duty to protect the sovereign from embarrassment. It seems to be a bit harsh in the modern world. Chris Huhne, like anybody else, should have the opportunity to prove their innocence without penalty.

And if he’s guilty, he should be sacked, rather than being allowed to resign.

That being said, it has happened, and there is feverish speculation about who will replace him. Will Ed Davey come into the Cabinet? Will Norman Lamb replace Ed Davey as Employment Minister?

Both would be welcome moves, but people seem to be forgetting one obvious potential promotion. It is widely recognised that David Laws is ripe for a return to the front benches. Is this unfortunate event an opportunity to bring about the return of Laws?

Tags: Chris Huhne, David Laws, John Terry

Government priorities gone bananas

I was reading Professor Philip Booth’s excellent blog post yesterday on David Cameron’s red tape challenge to ministers. Here is an extract that caught my eye.. (emphasis is mine) .

“Of course, this is just what we need – more employment regulation. It comes in a long line of announcements and enactments over the last two weeks about executive pay, council house tenancies, the disastrous implementation of the moratorium on employment regulation for small firms, alcohol regulation, the extension of employment rights to temporary workers and the regulation of the scrap metal industry. I am wondering if I have misunderstood the government’s red tape challenge – is the challenge to ministers to produce as much red tape as possible? “

And I found myself cheering his point that..

“If somebody is not very clever but good at building networks, why should they be looked down upon more than somebody who is clever but not good at building networks? The hard work that one puts into networking is not obviously less virtuous than the hard work that one puts into developing one’s intelligence. The good luck that comes from being born with a good brain is no more virtuous (indeed it is not virtuous at all) than the good luck that comes from being born with a set of well-networked parents.”

But that is perhaps because I was not a particularly brilliant scholar but had “the gift of the gab” (though sadly no “connections”). Goodness only knows what job I would have ended up with if my application had gone in “blind” rather than me tracking potential bosses down to seedy pubs to pester them into giving me an interview.

Professor Booth’s point is not that dissimilar to a point I made recently. Why is it that Government seems happy to go after highly paid bankers and CEOs on such issues as bonus’/ pay differentials etc whilst ignoring the vast sums earned by Premier League Footballers, pop stars and the like?  After all the pay differential between the average Manchester United fan and their top players is vast – and the penalty for failure? they get transferred to another team quite often for even more money. Why is it, I wonder, that it’s OK to earn fortunes because you are good at kicking a ball about – but not if you happen to be masterful at running a company? (Note this is NOT a demand that the Government starts meddling in sports pay as well.)

But returning to David Cameron’s challenge – maybe it is time for him to reconsider giving a wider challenge to ministers and put it in really simple terms – since they do seem to be having trouble grasping the point.

“If it doesn’t cut costs, improve effeciency or help business get the economy going, then JUST DON’T DO IT – unless there is a bloody good reason why you have to – Dave”

I know ministers like their headlines, feel the need to be seen to be doing something, but really! Most of us are sitting in our homes wondering what the hell this government is up to? What we want are jobs, an economy that gets going, the clearing of our debts. What on earth has alcohol regulation or executive pay got to do with any of those things?

Mark Littlewood has been asked by the Government to help them on red tape. Perhaps the Government needs a similar expert to help them sort out Government priorities – ( I say “expert” all we need is a person with an ounce of common sense and a large red pen). Here is one example concerning my current hobby horse. Why is Andrew Lansley devoting vast amounts of time, money and resource undertaking a consultation on tobacco plain packaging, when we can sit back for six months and wait for the REAL evidence to come from Australia (where plain packaging is about to be introduced). With the time and resource released he could devote that to sorting out the current crisis in the NHS now- and return to plain packs if/when the evidence from down under suggests that it warrants it. It’s just about priorities. Surely?

Enjoy Professor Booth’s musings – definitely worth a read.

Tags: Andrew Lansley, David Cameron, IEA, Mark Littlewood, Professor Philip Booth, red tape challenge

What hope is there for liberty if truth becomes a plaything of militant lobbyists?

Tobacco was unfortunately very much in the news again recently with the BMA launching a campaign to ban smoking in cars probably as a prelude to what will then seem a more reasonable move to get it banned when children are present. I want to focus here not on the ban but on the methods being used by its advocates.

On Radio 4s Today programme Vivienne Nathanson of the BMA was questioned about her evidence:

Nathanson: Well, the evidence is, in fact, that the levels of toxins that can build up in a car do reach 23 times the levels in a smoky bar…

Interviewer: And that is—sorry to interrupt you—but that is peer-reviewed?

Nathanson: Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer: Everyone in the scientific community accepts that it’s true?

Nathanson: Absolutely.

The BMA has since issued a major correction and apology with the explanation that the mistake was caused by human error.  These things happen but as Head of Science and Ethics, Nathanson has a duty to check. I find her glib assertions regarding peer review and scientific consensus indefensible. It is hard to see how they could be made in error.

The same day over on Radio 5, a phone in caller queried the general evidence base for passive smoke harm and Deborah Arnott of ASH countered by emphasizing claims that heart attacks have been reduced by smoking bans:

“There’s very good evidence supported by the BMA, the Royal College of Physicians, the World Health Organisation, the Standing Committee on Tobacco & Health which reported to the Department of Health. The Coalition Government very recently conducted a review of smokefree legislation, and what we’ve seen is a significant decline in heart attacks following the implementation of the legislation. The evidence is incontrovertible.”

In response to criticism that a fall in heart attacks in England post the 2006 Health Act was part of an existing trend, she said:

“Yes, but the decline is greater than trend. And that’s in a peer-reviewed article published in a very reputable journal, and it’s been found not just in England, Scotland, but everywhere that smokefree legislation in public places has been brought in.”

The statistics on heart attack hospital admissions in the UK are freely available to all on line. Here is a link to the NHS data for Scotland.

Using the measure preferred by the tobacco control industry and the hospital admissions data from NHS statisticians (table AC5) we can calculate emergency admissions for heart attacks as follows:

12 months pre ban:             7905
0-12 months post ban:        7250        (-8.29%)
12-24 months post ban:      8913        (+12.75%)
24-36 months post ban:      7707        (-2.50%)

() = % change from pre ban baseline

The word Arnott used was incontrovertible, the claim is a 17% reduction and the intervention was presented by some supporters as certain to have an immediate major impact on public health. Taking all that into account we should see a consistent, trend independent effect in the public record but whichever table or measure we use it is impossible to objectively claim that such an effect exists.

I value sober analysis of NHS statistics more than I do articles authored by tobacco control activists, peer reviewed or otherwise. I am not alone in this view and it is unlikely that Arnott is unaware of the serious credibility issues facing all the studies that support her claim or indeed of the existence of other work that contradicts it. The evidence is very far from incontrovertible.

Arnott is a skilled professional propagandist who is all too aware that, whatever the actual truth; provided that she sounds convincing her version will be believed by enough otherwise ill-informed people to achieve her objective. An article here gives some insight into her personality and the nature of her campaign.

Arnott is correct in saying that there has been a peer reviewed publication in the BMJ that supports her claim.  It claims a 2.4% decrease in heart attacks due to the ban but fails to adequately explain how the result was arrived at. This approach is sadly increasingly common in medical journals. Bearing in mind Arnott’s comment on trends, it is notable that, according to the NHS, the overall decline in heart attacks for the 12 months post ban was 4.26% compared to a 5.19% decline 2 years before the ban. The post ban decline was in fact neither large nor significant. The BMJ paper was produced by a team led by Anna Gilmore.

Arnott is also correct in saying that there has been a review of the 2006 Health Act. It was written by Linda Bauld.

The authorship of both these papers throws up some very searching questions about ethics at the Department of Health. Surely in a society that allegedly values honesty and transparency we have a right to expect government to review policy and measure its efficacy using the most qualified, objective and unimpeachable resources available. Why then did the DH directly commission two not especially qualified people both of whom have a notable history of anti-tobacco activism? The results were hardly likely to be seen as either credible or objective.

ASH is largely funded by the Department of Health and appears to be in firm control of the government’s agenda.

How can we possibly have a free and liberal society if we allow the truth to become the property of pressure groups directly funded by government departments?  The principles at stake here radiate way beyond tobacco. We urgently need to reform the charity sector and I would suggest also the Department of Health.

Thanks to Chris Snowdon and Frank Davis for giving their time to transcribe the radio interviews.

Written by Chris Oakley.

Tags: Andrew Lansley, ASH, BMA, Deborah Arnott, Department of health, Smoking in cars, tobacco, Vivienne Nathanson

Should your taxes be used to fund a Premier League football club?

 

One of the fastest-growing petitions in recent weeks has been this effort to stop millions of pounds in government funds being handed over to Tottenham Hotspur FC.

You can view it here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14605

Spurs recently announced annual revenue of £163.5m, a significant chunk of which they spend paying their squad of millionaire footballers.

Yet having launched a strong campaign to take over the (tax-funded) Olympic stadium in Stratford, the club is now set to receive a large taxpayer “incentive” to build themselves a new stadium in Tottenham.

Unsurprisingly Mayor Boris is happily trying to chuck the cash their way while the lobbying and rent-seeking is being driven forward by local MP David Lammy.

The riots, which began in Tottenham, are being used as a justification for the funding, which apparently involves “regenerating” the area.

Regardless of the flaws in believing that areas are reformed by chucking a load of cash at them from elsewhere (they aren’t), one must ask if this is the best way of improving the outlook for young people in the neighbourhood.

Is throwing money at the nearest football club, which actually wanted to leave the area, the best way of helping local people?

And if any regeneration is good for impoverished areas, why doesn’t the government fund all private developments in poor neighbourhoods? What about Tesco? They bring jobs to poor areas when the open new stores. What about Lidl and Morrisons? Who decides on the alleged social benefits of each new scheme?

And why weren’t other football clubs subsidised for bringing jobs to their areas when they build new stadia? Down the road, Arsenal invested hundreds of millions on a new stadium and had to build masses of affordable flats and help fund a new recycling centre and put money aside for public transport improvements.

Why did they have to pay the state millions on top of their own costs, when Spurs are set to be subsidised?

Why aren’t the government looking to subsidise new grounds for Chelsea and QPR? Shouldn’t they be “incentivised” to “regenerate” other poor areas in London?

The decision to fund Spurs smacks of the usual corporate cronyism that sadly still pervades the political system. Nearly any development can be dressed up as worthy of “support” by self-interested vote-hungry politicians and manipulated by equally ravenous businessmen.

Sign the petition to stop your taxes going towards Tottenham Hotspur FC.

Australia’s new plain packaging law for cigarettes may have got Andrew Lansley off the hook

 

HAT TIP : Mark Littlewood (formerly of this parish) has posted an interesting article over on the Daily Mail today. It concerns tobacco plain packaging – but considers it from an angle we’ve not seen elsewhere. In it he suggests that the Australian government may have got Andrew Lansley at the Department of Health off the hook. How ?

“Well, he is a Cabinet minister in a government which claims to support deregulation….Fortunately, the Health Secretary does not need to marshal a whole series of arguments to rebut the case for plain packaging of tobacco (which would, in any event, be quite hard to do – as it is difficult to rebut a case based on no credible evidence whatsoever). He can cancel his promised consultation on the subject (originally anticipated to be launched in the next few weeks), thereby saving everybody a lot of time and effort. He can then sit back and wait for a couple of years and see what independent evidence suggests the impact to be in Australia, if the legal challenge from tobacco companies fails to reverse this intrusion into free expression.”

Click on the link above to read the whole article. It’s an interesting thought. Just how committed is this government to deregulation?

Tags: Andrew Lansley, Department of health, Mark Littlewood, plain packaging, tobacco. plain packaging