Liberal Vision

It’s that time of year again: teen-lesbo-erotic A Level results day

A-level results … congratulate the kids … record passes … record A grades … not enough University places … dumbing down … getting easier every year…

yadda…

yadda…

And yadda again.

But this year, thanks to the interweb, you need not even buy a copy of any of Fleet Street’s finest rags; for THIS WEBSITE has compiled all the best shots of busty, ecstatic 18 year olds clutching result papers while screaming and taking up the classic “about to hug” lesbo-erotic pose that excites so many old Torygraph-reading retired Colonels.

Here’s my favourite of all time:

Do you think it’s airbrushed? Should the shots include more boys?

H/T: Alec van Gelder.

You don’t have to be beautiful to be a fascist, but it helps

Gisele Bündchen has been in the news for reasons other than being pretty and well dressed and probably-airbrushed, recently.

According to the Brazilian supermodel, “I think there should be a worldwide law that mothers should breast-feed their babies for six months.”

This is a typical example of knee-jerk conservativism: a desire to use power to impose virtue on others. To re-frame this all-too-common viewpoint into a general statement: “I think that x is important/valuable/worthwhile, therefore the law should require that you do x as well.”

Let us take as read the justified criticism by Pam Lacey of the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers, who noted that “Some women have medical reasons as to why they can’t. A lot of new mothers hit a problem.”

Others, one might add, simply don’t take to it. Or they may not be available to breast feed whenever the child is hungry. In some cases, it is preferable to the child’s development that the mother does not spend six months at home – after all, not everybody has a $150m fortune and the resulting freedom from the need to provide materially for their family.

What matters to very young children more than anything else is that they are nurtured in a happy home, rather than one where their mother is stressed and depressed by having to make decisions that they would not choose.

However, this is not the extent of Ms. Bündchen’s error. Imposing breastfeeding with the threat of force is bad enough, but we need also to consider her demand for “worldwide law”. There are very good reasons why we do not have worldwide laws. For one thing, the law is best made and administered at a level closest to those that it will affect, which is why liberals support devolution, subsidiary, state rights etc. A second and related point is that many laws are culturally-specific: what applies in Guyana may not apply in Guinea.

But perhaps most importantly, a single world government (necessary for any meaningful “worldwide law”) would be so far removed from those that it governed that it would inevitably become either a bureaucracy (in the strict sense of the word, with officials exercising power without constraint) or an autocracy (even if the ruler were elected).

Ms. Bündchen has since rushed out to ‘clarify’ her words: “I understand that everyone has their own experience and opinions and I am not here to judge,” she wrote on her website, though whether she thinks their experiences and opinions count for much is doubtful, considering she would use legal sanctions to impose her will on them. She also said that she regretted that her comment sounded so “black and white”, as though banning a practice was nuanced. “My intention in making a comment about the importance of breastfeeding has nothing to do with the law”, she added, having previously said “there should be a worldwide law that mothers should breast-feed”. One might doubt her subsequent sincerity.

If Ms. Bündchen were not a famous supermodel, it is unlikely that we would ever have heard her authoritarian suggestion. Unfortunately, like participants at a Miss World competition, it seems that we have to listen to her views of the world as well. Beauty is hardly a prerequisite for authoritarian views, but if you want to get your ideas heard, it clearly helps.

Catch us on Newsnight…..

Julian Harris (Director of our very own LV) has been interviewed for tonight’s Newsnight, looking at the Lib Dems conference agenda and what it means for our role in the Coalition. Goodness only knows what that means …or indeed what he has said…..fingers crossed!

For your tax money today… @2degreelimit

It comes to my attention that the Foreign Office (FCO) are employing a Digital Campaign Manager for Climate Change.

Jolly good.

As part of her no-doubt-vital remit, she’s posting stuff on Twitter under the name “Climate Charlotte”.

Click here for this crucial service: http://twitter.com/2degreelimit

Note: the above appeared on Guido this morning. Apologies for not citing, only just became aware of this.

Sorry for the down-time

It seems like you kids just can’t get enough of us. Due to going over our limit, this blog went down at the end of last month, and yesterday too.

Thankfully we’ve given them a shed load’a cash to stop this happening again, so fingers crossed.

Thanks for your patience.

Democracy

Democracy is a term we use to dignify the mechanisms by which the few govern the many. The many generally bear this subjection with stoicism. Occasionally they rebel and seek to establish a genuinely populist movement. But soon the new populism falls into the hands of its own elite, self-serving, self-referential and indignant when challenged.

Jonathan Clark
Hall Distinguished Professor of British History
University of Kansas

Four economists on fiscal stimulus

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Sir… many of the troubles of the world at the present time are due to imprudent borrowing and spending on the part of the public authorities. We do not desire to see a renewal of such practices. At best they mortgage the Budgets of the future and they tend to drive up the rate of interest – a process which is surely particularly undesirable at this juncture, when the revival of the supply of capital to private industry is an admittedly urgent necessity. The depression has abundantly shown that the existence of public debt on a large scale imposes frictions and obstacles to readjustment very much greater than the frictions and obstacles imposed by the existence of private debt. Hence we cannot agree… that this is a time for new municipal swimming baths, &c…

“If the Government wish to help revival, the right way for them to proceed is, not to revert to their hold habits of lavish expenditure, but to abolish those restrictions on trade and the free movement of capital… which are at present impending even the beginning of recovery.

We are, Sir, your obedient servants,

T E GREGORY, Cassel Professor of Economics

F A VON HAYEK, Tooke Professor of Economic Science and Statistics

ARNOLD PLANT, Cassel Professor of Commerce

LIONEL ROBBINS, Professor of Economics

University of London, October 18

Okay, it was 1932, but if that was their view during the Great Depression, it must surely apply in today’s recession.

Their original letter, a response to an earlier letter by six economists including Keynes and Pigou, can be downloaded here. Hat tip to Dr Richard Ebeling.

The sterile politics of distributionalism

Labour bloggers at Left Foot Forward have written a thorough post with their take on the distributional impacts of today’s Budget. They make a case that in percentile terms the Budget is marginally more regressive than progressive.

Nick Clegg conversely has written to Liberal Democrat party highlighting how the budget lays the foundations for a “fairer society”.

What is gripping about both articles though is… not a lot.

The main issue with distribution rhetoric is that it very hard to relate any sense of good, bad, right or wrong to the shape of the Lorenz curve, an economists tool for assessing income distribution, and the associated language of progress and fairness. Equality of income does not tell us whether a society is fair or not. You can have a highly equal society with very little political freedom, and all high tax and spending systems limit your options to choose the good life for yourself.

The quality of political decisions for the long-term cannot be judged coherently on micro-shifts in percentages of averages applied to collectivised deciles today.

Left Foot Forward for example have made a great deal of noise about the fact that raising income tax thresholds does not immediately help the poorest in society. This is self-evident, the very poorest in society don’t have an income, they live on benefits. But what does that tell us?

In substance all it tells us that for LFF it is a better world if more people live on benefits than if they work. They want to entrench poverty. A nonsense position in direct contradiction to the aspirations of the Labour movement to create full employment.

For distributionalists like LFF and in the Liberal Democrats the Social Liberal Forum, it matters not whether gaps between benefits and jobs encourage people to work, or whether allowing people to keep more money they earn, or from investing what they earn, creates more jobs. All that matters is the Lorenz curve looks as straight as possible.

Or at least it matters inconsistently. LFF ’s negative reaction to the decision to cut an £80m loan to a private nuclear business in Sheffield that would have cost £450,000 per potential job created, on Monday, suggests their progressive principles are disposable when other sectional Labour interests are at stake. The Social Liberal Forum believes the poor should subsidise the children of middle-income parents through university.

In that respect the Clegg missive is more instructive, looking at the actual impact of the budget on real people. Low-income workers for example will take home more of what they earn. But it is all still couched in language that implies there is some end goal in sight where society will be fair.

What a fair society is for most people has very little to do with the Lorenz curve and much to do with their own subjective perspective of what is fair to them.

Income distribution can be an indicator that something is very wrong; in Saudi Arabia for example where a tiny elite control most resources, and restrict the life chances of the rest through authoritarian control mechanisms. But the marginal 2% difference between what the bottom and top 20% of UK society pay in tax (ignoring benefits) tells us little, other than, in that case, that booze and fag taxes disproportionately impact the poor (without that it’s about the same).

There are elements of society that are brutally unfair, that can be tackled, stamp duty for example penalises those wanting to get onto the housing ladder, and the mobile, to the benefit of those with homes staying put.

There are elements that seem unfair and cannot; smart healthy caring parents will more likely (but will not automatically) have smart healthy well-adjusted kids, whatever you do to the education and social support systems. Excellence and success often requires talent, not just a great work ethic and attitude.

And there are many things where it depends entirely where you are standing. The abolition of a flat rate of CGT and replacement with a 28% rate on higher income earners is either progressive social justice or an imprudent imposition on success that will encourage poverty by dissuading investment, depending on your point of view.

But all these matters are best addressed by understanding them discretely and considering the real impact of change on real people, not distributionalist tinkering.

Political debates on the basis of who is the most progressive leave most of the public cold. Nor are distributionalists a factional interest that can ever be satisfied. Child poverty as currently defined, for example, will never be ‘abolished’ ; and if it were, the campaign group would simply change the definition to an ever higher percentage.

The Budget in that regard should be welcomed. In the main it does more good than harm, and the outcome over time should be to put the economy in a better shape for job creation, aspiration, and future growth. That matters. The immediate micro-distributional impacts around it are a footnote not the story. The distributionalists should be ignored.

The Great Repeal Swindle?

The Liberal Democrats called it The Freedom Bill. The Tories called it The Great Repeal Bill. But the essence is the same. The over-mighty state has replaced our free society with one where personal liberty is curtailed and our ability to pursue our (enlightened) self-interest is inhibited. We need to sweep away the legislative and bureaucratic red tape and free ourselves to be the best we can.

The government’s answer is not only to repeal (or so it claims) vast swathes of legislation, but to ask the people what legislation should go: “As we tear through the statute book,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, “we’ll do something no government ever has: we will ask you which laws you think should go.”

Stirring stuff, but is it true? And just how far do the Tories and the Lib Dems really agree on why the bill is needed what it should seek to repeal?

The original Liberal Democrat proposal included a 2,000 word draft Bill. Though they did consult at the time, the draft bill does (perhaps unwittingly) convey a sense that the decision as to the content has already been taken. In that respect one must say that the Conservative proposal did represent a more honest consultation – though that may simply be because it came from two backbenchers rather than the party leadership.

In practice, however, one has to wonder just how genuine this exercise will be. Please don’t misunderstand! I do not think for one moment that our new Ministers are consciously planning to provide us with a sham consultation. But do you really think that in practice they will approach this exercise with an open mind?

For one thing, there are clearly areas of legislation that they would not even give a moment’s thought to abolishing. The National Health Service Act? The Income Tax Act? The Bank of England Act? Okay, those might seem like extreme suggestions, and they would be unlikely to carry much support in the country, but the point remains that it is incredible to believe that the government will really consider any suggestion that the public makes.

(And is it really so unfeasible that a movement might arise that wanted the abolition of Income Tax?).

So let’s take some more mundane suggestions. The bans on fox hunting and smoking in “public” (actually private) places are both examples of meddling legislation that seeks to ban practices based on legislators’ views of the ends that people should pursue. Whether or not you agree with either or both law, they would fit neatly under the rubric of Clegg’s “encroaching centralisation” that has led to “citizens’ rights [being] eroded by the quiet proliferation of laws”. Yet I can’t see the government abolishing either.

And even if there were no “Red Lines”: who will decide which suggestions will be enacted? Will it go to a vote? That would certainly fit with the Conservative’s enthusiasm for “Citizen’s initiatives”, but it seems unlikely that our political masters would accept the will of the mob so quiescently. After all, the Human Rights Act – an assault on which has already been declared a resigning issue by at least two government (including one Cabinet) ministers – is hardly popular with the tabloid-reading masses. Yet if, instead of some sort of referendum, the proposals have to be considered by some “expert panel” of the Great and the Good, it begins to look remarkably like it is the elite, and not the people, that will decide what is to be repealed.

This brings us on to a second question: just how united is the vision behind the bill?

At first glance, all looks well: Nick Clegg said, in his speech of 19 May 2010, that “encroaching centralisation” has led to “citizens’ rights [being] eroded by the quiet proliferation of laws”; Conservative MP Douglas Carswell wrote that “Laws, regulation and red tape stifle individuals, infantilise communities and strangle enterprise”; Chris Huhne suggested that Labour’s legislative programme has represented “the slow death by a thousand cuts of our hard-won British liberties”.

But a second glance reveals differences – not only between, but even within, parties. For some, the act is about civil liberties and human rights. It is about the abolition of the “Database State” and the power of police officers to shake down anyone they choose. But to others, it is as much about freeing businesses from stifling regulation and removing the absurd burdens that legislation places on daily life (It is, notes the quiz that accompanies the Freedom Bill proposal, illegal to import brazil nuts from Brazil, bring potatoes over from Poland or to sell a grey squirrel).

Both parties in fact have plenty of new regulations planned with which to disrupt individuals and businesses, from bans on airbrushing to minimum prices for alcohol. In practice, the political elite represented in both parties share one thing in common with their ex-Ministerial Labour foes: a belief that they know what is best for society and that – having won the election – they have the right to impose their will upon the citizen.

In practice, therefore – Great Repeal Act or no Great Repeal Act – I suspect that we will see plenty of new legislation in the economic and social sphere, even if our civil liberties may be strengthened in the short term.

Shameful UN need reprimanding by the coalition

International development invariably raises some complex issues but periodically we come across an example of the international community acting in a totally indefensible manner. No shades of grey here- this is morally and politically abhorrent. I am referring to the United Nation’s decision to continue with a controversial prize established in “honour” of Equatorial Guinea’s notorious dictator Obiang Nguema.  If the government wants to get serious about development it must be seen to be outspoken and forthright about such travesties.  Furthermore, the Liberal Democrats must not shirk their responsibility to make their voices heard on issues like these across all departments during this coalition.

The UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences is supposed to be awarded “for scientific research in the life sciences leading to improving the quality of human life.”

The “quality of human life” under Obiang’s regime is a disgrace. According to the World Bank, GDP per capita is $28,103 (richer than Israel), but 77 per cent of the population still live below the poverty line. Part of the problem is that all funds received from the country’s extensive oil reserves pass through Obiang’s personal bank account to prevent “misallocation of funds”. Naturally he has invested wisely for the benefit of the people:  Global Witness report that his son purchased a $15,000,000 Californian mansion in 2006 and that the family owns three Bugatti Veyron cars (each retailing for over $1 million each) along with a healthy compliment of Ferraris, Maseratis, a Rolls or two and the obligatory presidential jet. Not a single free and fair election has taken place since he assumed power in 1979 (Africa’s second longest serving living dictator) and one in three Equato-Guineans  die before their 40th birthday. Corruption, human rights abuses and systemic torture by government officials are reported as being routine practice.

But none of this need concern the UNESCO bureaucrats in Paris who will take half of the dictator’s $3 million donation for “administrative fees” to help them identify worthy winners of this prize. It is perversely ironic that the United Nations, which claims to be in pursuit of  a “better world”, should explicitly endorse, and be in the pocket of, one of Africa’s most repressive and corrupt dictators. The Equato-Guineans suffering daily are unlikely to appreciate the irony.

The UK carries a lot of weight in the international development community and, while Andrew Mitchell controls the development portfolio, this is an issue that should transcends briefs and party divisions. Michael Moore and Norman Lamb  are among those on the Lib Dem benches who have been honourably outspoken about the scourge of corruption upon development before. It’s time for their voices to be heard again. Removing one prize fund won’t change the world overnight- but not doing so sends a terrible message to some of the world’s worst abusers of power.