Tuesday 31 December 2013

Happy New Year!

Hewenden Reservoir and Viaduct, Cullingworth
Forget about predictions, favourite people, best music - another year has passed and another begins.

And it's in our hands to make 2014 a good one.

So let's start at least with a smile on our face, hope in our hearts and a beer in our hands!

Happy New Year - have the best 2014 you can.

....

After the Bitrush - a comment on the politics of money


Well, I dreamed I saw the silver
Space ships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun,
There were children crying
And colors flying
All around the chosen ones.
All in a dream, all in a dream

The predictions - oh yes, the predictions! Everywhere we see them, all giving their take on the future of money following the remarkable growth of Bitcoin.

But first let me tell you of a little story. It's not my story, it's Neal Stephenson's story. And it's the story of in-game money and the way that money (and assets created in the game by that money) 'leak' into the real world. Moreover, like Bitcoin's recent ups and downs the focus is on China and the desire of rich Chinese folk to get round their government's tight control of money leaving for other countries.

Remember folks that this desire is real - it actually happens. Here's something from an article back in 2006:

In one extreme case last year, an online gamer in Shanghai killed another player who had taken his cyber-weapon, called a Dragon Sabre in the popular online game Legend of Mir III, and sold it for 7,200 yuan (US$871).

The gamer almost forfeited his real-world life for doing so when he was handed a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

Still, Tencent spokeswoman Catherine Chan said in a written statement that the company's virtual money did not pose a threat to the real-world economy.

Q coins were created to work as tokens for the consumption of the company's online services, and the Q coin "is definitely not a currency," she said.




All sounds a bit familiar, eh? And, if the bubble theorists and tulip fans are right and Bitcoin falls over, there will be another way for people to circumvent the nosiness of government. Another on-line system - call it a currency or an exchange system, maybe even a game, it doesn't matter. People will use it to get round the arbitrary controls governments place on our actions.

Ms Chan, quoted above, is right - virtual money isn't a threat to the real-world economy, it's a threat to government. Hence the concerns about taxation and the polemics about Bitcoin being evil. I would therefore leave you will an alternative view - not from some techno-whizz or Randian obsessive but from Hayek:

"We have always had bad money because private enterprise was not permitted to give us a better one.  In a world governed by the pressure of organized interests, the important truth to keep in mind is that we cannot count on intelligence or understanding but only on sheer self-interest to give us the institutions we need.  Blessed indeed will be the day when it will no longer be from the benevolence of the government that we expect good money but from the regard of the banks for their own interest.”

Those who believe that the only safety is the safety of government guarantee are wrong - cruelly wrong. This supposed guarantee is a fraud, corrupted by inflation and fed by the need of bureaucracy to fulfil Parkinson's Law.  It doesn't matter whether or not Bitcoin is a good investment, whether it is safe or whether other people use it for illegal acts. It really doesn't matter because the stopper is out of the bottle - the genie of liberated money is out of the bottle and is a weapon for those who would tear down the castle.

How we respond to these changes will be a measure of how much we want liberty and whether we prefer choice to government edict.

....


Monday 30 December 2013

Another report on housing that ignores the planning system....

There is a growing number of people who think that the lack of housing - affordable or otherwise - in the UK is some sort of failing of capitalism and that, if we had a different system things would be all fine and dandy.

Here's a fine example of the genre from Michael Bauwens on the P2P Foundation blog:

The high cost of housing is draining money out of the productive economy, mainly through land and house price inflation, with damaging effects for national and individual household budgets. Many new homes are unaffordable to ordinary working people, some offer poor value for money in terms of quality or construction, design and energy performance, and cost pressures frequently drive out good design in the spaces between buildings and in the concept of supporting new neighbourhoods. Many new developments are socially, environmentally and economically obsolete from the moment they are conceived, let alone designed or built.

This is great but the author fails to adequately answer the question as to why housing is so expensive. Instead we have a straw man built for the author to attack:

...in Britain, only 0.6% of the population – 36,000 people – own about half of the land. This is a significant structural reason for soaring housing prices and continuing wealth inequality.

Now this is true but there's a big problem with the argument. This ownership structure has absolutely nothing at all to do with the price of housing. Take a peek at the map of the UK. Most of the land these 36,000 people own isn't about to be used to build housing. Indeed, much of it is of pretty limited value - agricultural land values remain at below £10,000 per acre (in Scotland the value is below £5,000 per acre).

 Residential land values are another matter altogether - in 2010 the English average for residential land was about £950,000 per acre. In simple terms land for building on is nearly 100 times the value of the land for growing stuff. And more to the point, those 36,000 people our author thinks are the problem don't own most of this building land.

The problem isn't a question of market failure but a consequence of intervention in the market. We told in the article how wonderful the garden cities movement was:

The most notable example is the new town of Letchworth, 34 miles north of London, which was created in 1903 when developer Ebenezer Howard acquired 4,000 acres of farmland. He worked with ethical investors, Quakers, philanthropists and others to build a town whose land values would be community owned. 

The essential point here isn't that Howard had a wizard wheeze but that he was able to buy farmland and build houses on that land. And in building houses on the land (and shops, pubs, hospitals, etc.) Howard made it possible to capture (in our author's slightly partisan words):

...both the “unearned increment” of land value increases as well as “economic rent” of land (the excess returns commanded by a finite resource), so that everyone, not just investors, could benefit.

Howard was able to go into the market, buy agricultural land at agricultural land values and then get more value from the land by 'farming' houses rather than wheat or sugar beet. In England today this is not possible for the simple reason that residential land is worth ten times what agricultural land is worth. It doesn't matter whether you're running a co-operative, setting up a 21st century new town corporation or a wicked capitalist developer, you will pay nearly £1,000,000 per acre to the land owner (and a great deal more than that if you're anywhere near London).

The reason for the huge gulf between agricultural land values and residential land values isn't to do with capitalism, it isn't to do with who owns the land and it isn't to do with the uneven distribution of wealth. It's because of this:

In recent years the idea that physical planning should be conceived as a national, rather than a local, responsibility, has gained ground. The establishment of a Ministry of Town and Country Planning in 1943 was followed in the same year and in 1944 by statutes which brought this goal nearer to fulfilment. But the main weaknesses persisted. The 1947 Act seeks to cure them by solving the financial problems of local authorities and at the same time erecting a new structure of planning machinery to ensure that planning will be centrally co-ordinated and also effectively executed. 

There were few planning constraints on Howard's development at Letchworth or the later Welwyn Garden City meaning that the 'collectivist' model he preferred was fundable without government support or involvement. Since the 1947 Town & Country Planning Act and the creation of 'green belts' the model proposed here - an updated garden city movement - is simply not possible.

The reality is that any discussion of housing that doesn't mention the planning system misses the main barrier to lower values and more construction - planning. And we've seen the outcry when pretty minor changes to the planning system are introduced as the National Trust, the CPRE and national media plonk their heavy guns on the government's lawns.

Mutual systems of housing ownership and housing finance are a fine idea (although we should be careful what we wish for) but the real debate should be about how to balance the desire to protect open country and community identity - the reasons for the 'green belts' - with the equally pressing need for new housing, especially in the South East. And any report offering solutions to our housing challenges that ignores the planning system - as our author does here - is simply a waste of paper.

....

Populism (or is it prejudice) du jour...

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Ah yes, let's roll out an anecdote to justify our prejudice:

“I’m influenced by my time as MP for Stoke-on-Trent. I remember talking to a young, second-generation Pakistani British lad who was concerned about the speed of change in the community as a result of the failure to introduce controlled migration from the EU accession states last time,” 

So the child of immigrants doesn't like others doing what his parents did? And we should construct public poilicy on this basis?

....

Sunday 29 December 2013

Bitcoin threatens government ergo Bitcoin is evil

****

This is the essence of Paul Krugman's argument suggesting Bitcoin's sinful nature. And this evil is defined in a quote Krugman takes from Charlie Stross:

BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions. 

It is on this basis that Krugman makes the judgement that Bitcoin is evil. Indeed, he recognises that the debate about the morality of private money is very different from the debate about how (or whether) the private money actually does the job that state money does.

Krugman's core criticism of Bitcoin - and one assumes other means of exchange (or value storage) that aren't controlled by government - is that is undermines big government. Moreover, if private money succeeds (and the jury is out on this) then there is no foundation for monetary systems that drive these big state, big corporation systems - what we can call 'national accounting arithmetic' or 'magic money tree' models.

This is only a moral question is you accept that there is a moral basis for taxation.

Since I don't believe there is any moral case for taxation (as opposed to pragmatic, practical cases) then I see no reason at all to be concerned that private money makes it hard for the government to monitor my financial transactions.

What happens under this system is that government has to make the case for raising taxes - to set the price of government at a level where people willingly pay. Just as importantly, such a change more or less destroys the use of  income taxes to promote 'equality'. Taxes become what they should always have been - means for government to provide the services that people require of that government rather than a blunt instrument of social control.

We still have a way to go - these private monies are risky and unproven. But if the direction is towards a smaller, less intrusive and consent-based government then, far from being evil, Bitcoin is a source of moral salvation.

....

Saturday 28 December 2013

Exchange and the essence of society

****

So here we all are. Sat with a mug of tea in that slightly hazy period between Christmas and the New Year. And wondering.

Some of the wondering is prosaic and practical. When will the headache fade enough to make opening the curtains worthwhile? Where are the car keys? Are we going to go shop or try and scrape together another creative culinary masterpiece from amongst the festive leftovers?

Perhaps the wondering is more romantic - love found or lost, good stuff remembered or, better still anticipated. The prospect of more party, of the New Year's celebrations.

Or maybe the fading of Christmas goodwill into the reality of normality prompts something more philosophical? A little more chewing on the bones of metaphysics or picking at the carcass of 'why'.

If the last of these things, here's a question.

Humans are both social creatures and also individuals. We are very conscious of our personality and identity for they are uniquely ours. Yet we also know that this identity is as much a mirror of that around us as it is a self-contained uniqueness. So are we an element of society, of some greater whole? Or are we, as Margaret Thatcher would have it, individual men and women that create society through our joint, mutual actions?

Before you leap to the obvious in assessing this question, it's not a simple as it seems.  Nor is accepting the former idea - that society is greater than the sum of its human parts - some sort of reject of individualism or justification for government. It could be argued that government is necessary because in an imperfect world (less than compliant with the expectations of society) it serves the function of policing the imperfectly compliant.

Such a position assumes that society is created, is a deliberate act of human ingenuity rather than a consequence of humans behaving as social creatures. It also reckons that man can be made perfect
through the administration of society. but only where that administration is by mandarins, by Plato's philosopher kings.

Such an argument is commonplace in socialism (although not exclusive to left-wing beliefs). And it's counter is to say that man is not perfectable, that to attempt such a project is hubris. Society is organic and essential. It is the consequence of human exchange for mutual benefit - you can call this exchange 'collaboration', 'cooperation' or even 'trade' but it is what makes us human and what makes our human society.

When we try to make a different society, to pretend that we can make one that isn't based on exchange - on trade - we fail. It doesn't matter whether this is communism's ordered society or Ayn Rand's selfish individualism, if it denies that mutual benefit through exchange it also denies the essential nature of society.

Society is greater than the sum of its parts. Not in the way that some socialists might argue. The value - in the broadest sense of that word - we get from exchange is that 'greater sum', the advantage society gives us is the benefit of trade. If we stop free exchange we damage human society.

....


Thursday 26 December 2013

All the king's men - a parable of liberty

****

Once upon a time many years ago everything belonged to the king. The waters, the land, the fish in the water, the crops on the land. Everything.

In those days nothing that took place did so without that action, in some way, being the king's. Every tiny deed even to sitting outside on a log with a cup of tea. Nothing.

Then something changed. A man sat there, cup of tea in his hand, and wondered why it was that everything was the king's? And how it came about that only things the king permitted were allowed?

In that act of innocent denial - it's my time, my thoughts, my cup of tea - was born the idea of freedom. That those things are not the king's by some mark of god but merely by an act of force, because of the threat of violence.

Each generation has to learn again what that man - and many others - learned while sitting on a log with a cup of tea. That kings - or pharaohs, emperors, priests, presidents - do not own us. They have no right, other than the threat of violence, to command our behaviour, to determine our choices or to require us to do something that we do not wish to do.

Each generation are told by those kings (and their courtiers) that giving up some of that freedom is in our interests. That the king will deliver great wonders that would not be possible if we cling stubbornly to that idea of freedom.

Each generation are told also that it is not fair that we have freedom since it means that some have things and some do not. Much better that things are owned by the king so he can ensure everyone has the same (except for the king and his courtiers for whom special needs require special benefits).

And each generation are fooled.

Today we're told that we only have the things we have because of the king. All those good things were only possible because those selfless courtiers acted in our interests. That the man on the log with his tea, talking of freedom, is myth maker, a threat to out safety and corrupter of youth.

We must listen to the voice of reason, take heed of our masters' advice and behave. And free acts are treasonous to this voice, to the king's advice. The consequence of such selfishness are the great sins - nonconformity, noncompliance and choice.

Our masters wish to rebuild the state as a slave household, as the oikos, wherein all acts by all men a directed to the betterment of the kingdom. Where all acts that those masters determine to be anti-social are to be punished and where ideas of self- reliance, independence and personal choice are the acme of sedition.

We trade liberty for comfort, sameness and a full belly. And we are the poorer for it, for a world where the value we earn from exchange is ripped from our hands by the king's men. With such action justified less by the need or desire of the king's government to provide things for all our benefit than by the intonation of the magic formulae of macroeconomics - 'fiscal contraction', 'economic growth', 'monetary policy', 'counter-inflationary strategy'.

The next generation faces the same choice. And the king will tell them that his aim is a better place, a better society and a better world. That we will all be richer, safer and happier if we reject independence, choice and the idea of liberty.

The king is wrong.

....











Sunday 22 December 2013

Pioneers wanted! Capitalism, Marxism and living on the moon.





"Space travel leading to skylife is vital to human survival, because the question is not whether we will be hit by an asteroid, but when. A planetary culture that does not develop spacefaring is courting suicide. All our history, all our social progress and growing insight will be for nothing if we perish."

Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski, Skylife, 2000

Starting a discussion of capitalism - in space or anywhere else for that matter - by quoting Rosa Luxemburg isn't a good plan. Dear old Rosa believed that capitalism needs a frontier - a periphery - to succeed. And, like most Marxists who talk about capitalism as if they own the term, Rosa gets it wrong. Still this didn't stop the chap from Lenin's Tomb getting all confused about space (and capitalism) in the Guardian.


Capitalism really isn't the point when we talk about space exploration. Google 'commercial exploitation of space' and you get pages of learned, legal tomes with titles like:


Law and Regulation of Commercial Mining of Minerals in Outer Space
Commercial Utilization of Outer Space: Law and Practice

Creating a legal framework for the commercial exploitation of outer space

Now this writing suggests two things to me - firstly that the capitalists really are interested in space. And secondly that the controlling hand of government is placing constraints on making money out there in the great blue beyond.

More importantly, exploration - and that's all we've done so far - never really interested capitalists, even the ones who termed themselves "merchant adventurers". Where we are familiar with space, commercial exploitation is commonplace and successful:

On 10 June 1995, International Launch Services was established, upon the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta companies, to market Proton and Atlas launch services to the commercial satellite telecommunications marketplace worldwide. Prior to the merger, each of these companies were competing in the commercial launch services market with the Proton and Atlas rockets. Lockheed entered the launch market in 1993 with the establishment of Lockheed-Khrunichev- Energia International (LKEI), the joint venture to exclusively market the Russian Proton launch vehicle. Similarly, Martin Marietta had entered the commercial launch arena with the family of Atlas launch vehicles. Neither rocket was new to the market, however, and provided a combined heritage foundation of more than 450 launches at the inception of ILS.

Despite the persistence of government controls and restrictions on space exploitation, capitalist progress has been made (and I guess we shouldn't mention Richard Branson selling over-price trips into space to celebrity millionaires).

The real problem here is that our Marxist confuses the fact that lots of goodies undoubtedly lie below the surface of the moon (and all over the solar system) with whether those goodies are actually worth exploiting. Right now we're doing a pretty good job (whatever the greenies say) of fuelling our world - in most cases we're not running out of stuff and where we are there are some pretty useful alternatives that don't require us to go to the moon to get them.

What we have to consider here is that we need a sort of unholy alliance between the controlling government and the free spirit. People like John Leeming are needed:

“You seem to fit the part all right. Your technical record is first-class. Your disciplinary record stinks to high heaven.' He eyed his listener blank faced. 'Two charges of refusing to obey a lawful order. Four for insolence and insubordination. One for parading with your cap on back to front. What on earth made you do that?'

I had a bad attack of what-the-hell, sir,' explained Leeming.” 

So the government gave Leeming a state-or-the-art super-duper scout ship to explore the galaxy. Just as government funded Columbus, subbed Magellan and encouraged (if turning a blind eye to piracy is what we mean by 'encouraged') Drake. Because it got them out of the way by sending them off into unexplored oceans. If they died, it was their risk. But if they found something the government could take the credit.

Our Marxist lives in something of a binary world - the choice is between timid capitalism:

Of course, under capitalism the state's ability to explore the unknown is limited by its priority of making things work for business, or developing a greater war machine. States don't need an immediate return on investment, but if they're to justify taxing profits, they need to demonstrate some sort of plausible return. Hence, there's always more money for military arsenals than spaceships. 

And glorious socialism:

So, this is what we need. First, international socialism. And to paraphrase Lenin, socialism = soviet power + interstellar travel. Don't ask me how we get that, we just need it as a precondition for everything else. Second, an international space exploration programme, funded with the express purpose of adding to the sum of stuff and human knowledge. Third, a popular space tourism programme. 

I'm not intending to try and unpick the ignorance of demanding a system that is a myth to replace a system that is a fact. Instead, I want to offer another alternative - we'll call it the Eric Frank Russell system. We'll invite independent minded, pioneering sorts (with a scattering of John Leemings) to go and live on the moon. Not a few of them but lots - we'll charge them with the task of creating the means to live there, the ways to reach the moon and the way they'll run the place when they get there.

And hopefully what we'll get won't be international socialism or corporatist capitalism (the two choices our Marxist offers us) but this:

...;

Saturday 21 December 2013

The most influential humans ever...and a Merry Xmas!!

There was a list - there's always a list. It claimed to contain the most influential people in history (but contained Elvis Presley and omitted Confucius - reminding us of American parochialism).

However (and you may disagree) the two most important humans - probably women - were those who invented baking and brewing.

Think about it - imagine life without bread or beer!

Have a good Christmas with plenty of beer, bread and pleasure.

Cheers!



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Friday 20 December 2013

Accountability, choice and a new political divide

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet. 

This isn't intended as a criticism of our current leaders - Chesterton's poem in all its glorious cynicism was written long ago before any of them were born. But it is a common comment on the state of politics, it reminds us that the wisdom of our rulers is always to be doubted and questioned.

Nor am I about to launch into a rant about the inadequacies - even the evils - of government. Rather I want to take you on a personal journey and to show that, despite its current mass and majesty, the days of big government are numbered. I observe that I write this at a time when the power of government is plain to be seen - the bans, the controls, the surveillance, the ordering about, the seizures and the arrogance dominate our news.

Alongside the Chesterton quote I'm taking a reference from Alan Massie in The Spectator. It happens to be about Ed Miliband but it could apply in some measure to any of our current leaders and to too many of those who aspire to be leaders in the future:

Ed Miliband is a puritan.

And a hopeless, nagging, fish-faced puritan at that. A ninny, in other words.

The Labour leader has a rare gift. He knows, you see, how you should spend your money. What’s more, if you fail to spend your cash in the proper Miliband-approved manner he thinks he should be – nay is! – entitled to coerce you into changing your miserable behaviour.

This is, in every way, the essence of government today. The idea that matters need organising, directing and managing. The belief that most people are too stupid or too gullible to be trusted with such simple ideas as advertising, budgeting or the consequences of personal choice. And the certainty that only those investments (and I use this word in the deceiving meaning pioneered by Gordon Brown) under the aegis of government are "good" investments.

I write a great deal about what I term 'nannying fussbuckets' - those New Puritans who think it right that government control and direct - even prevent - personal choices. Mostly, I write about this because it makes me angry - not just the manner in which the evidence is abused but from a principled and essentially Tory belief in personal responsibility. Most of the time it simply isn't someone else's fault. It was your choice.

These are simple matters that everyone can understand - do we ban smoking in pubs, should we fix the price of booze, how much tax should we have on whiskey and can people be trusted with gambling. The typical voter can grasp the argument here - for many these are personal choices they want (or don't want) to make.

But there's another scale, a level at which we don't understand, where these same New Puritan preferences apply - the means by which we pay for something, whether we can sell something we own to someone in another country, where we are able (or allowed) to live and the manner in which we work. These are all things that are matters, largely speaking, of personal choice. Yet, just as with smoking, drinking and eating, our government wants to control and direct our personal choice and, on occasion, prevent us from making that choice.

US singer Kelly Clarkson has been thwarted in her bid to take a ring which once belonged to Jane Austen out of the UK.

We are expected to applaud as this vital piece of heritage is "saved for the nation". But the salvation was only achieved by preventing Ms Clarkson from taking the ring out of the country - as far as I know the singer simply wanted to wear the ring, which seems to me a better use of the treasure than sticking it in a glass case for tourists to gawp at.

Government also want to prevent us from making what we want, where we want. The best examples of this needless (and damaging) tendency is the "protected geographical indication' (PGI):

Only cheese produced in the Yorkshire Dales will in future be allowed to use the name Yorkshire Wensleydale.

The European Commission has awarded the cheese Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status.

The decision means the name can only be applied to cheese which is produced within an area around Hawes in North Yorkshire.

Our sense of Yorkshire pride covers over the truth that this is simply protectionism - we may as well protect Lancashire Hotpot, Oldham Rag Pudding and Jellied Eels. And it is especially annoying in Yorkshire:

A cheesemaker has lost a five-year battle with the EU to keep calling her product Yorkshire Feta.

The European Court of Justice said only cheese made in certain areas of Greece can carry the name feta.

Everywhere we look we see the same - government justifying itself through the imposition of rules that to many seem like a good thing but, when you slice into them, turn out to be either a solution to a problem that either doesn't exist or else is deliberately exaggerated so as to justify the law.

The divide in our society is no longer between workers and owners, kings and serfs, middle- and working-classes but between those who believe that their neighbours' lives are proper things for government intervention and those who do not. This isn't to deny government but to say that too much of modern government, the bans, the cameras, the secret courts, the whole rigmarole of 'post-democracy' addresses an audience of the scared and the servile.

The alternative - personal choice, independence, self-determination and responsibility - is dismissed as 'libertarianism' with its supporters badged as uncaring, selfish and intolerant. The reality is that the position I describe is not 'libertarian' (although many libertarians will agree with it) but a traditional, mainstream conservative position. And the selfish, intolerant, uncaring ones are those who hand caring, choice and community over to the government not the 'libertarians'.

As technology advances, these two positions - the New Puritan nanny state and a society founded on free choice, association and enterprise - become more starkly defined. The technology allows for government to watch us more closely, to record and store what we do and say, and to manage the manner in which we interact with those around us. At the same time that technology affords us greater choice, more free time and wealth - meaning that we have less use or need for government.

There won't be some revolution or overthrow of government. It will gradually become less relevant - the choices and decisions about our bins, the roads, healthcare and education will shift from the contested political sphere to a more sustainable consumer-producer relationship. The great edifices of government will break up, localise and be forced open by us as citizen consumers. And we will be better for this change.

Rather than grand committees of experts planning and directing as if in some Kafka-esque dystopia, we will have more local choices - some private, some government but all of them responding to the consumer, to us as people exercising our right to choice. A right newly empowered by the might of the on-line world with its connections, its forums and its ability to raise an army where once there were just one or two with paper and a pen.

But in getting to this state we will face resistance from that New Puritan state. From the people who believe that pleasure is addictive and should be stopped for the sake of health. From those who want us all watched from morn to night out of fear that one or other of us might do something wrong. From those who want to police our words, who find offence in anything and everything. And above all from those who, like Saruman, are beguiled by the false hope that power can be wielded without corrupting its wielder.

In the end government will always serve the interests of government before it serves the interests of the governed. But the closer those governed are to government, the less that government is able to ignore the interests of those people. I wrote the other day that democracy isn't enough. Someone asked me was was enough - I think the answer lies in accountability - not just the accountability of the politician to the electorate but the direct accountability of the people providing services to the people receiving services.

....

Bogus booze and fake fags...

****

Prices soar thanks to the government's ravenous desire for our cash and the urging of the Church of Public Health to ban everything that gives pleasure (because pleasure is addictive). And the consequence is that the criminals arrive:

As shoppers prepare to stock up on alcohol to celebrate the festive season, Essex County Council's Trading Standards team is warning that bottles of counterfeit spirits, particularly vodkas are in circulation. 

This won't only be in Essex - across the UK enterprising criminals are gaming the gap between the cost of production (or the price of purchase overseas) and the tax-inflated prices in Britain's shops. And the bigger the gap, the bigger the margins for the criminal and the greater the temptation to break the law.

The consequence, of course, is that stuff like this happens:

The illicit substances were tested and it was found the vodka was in fact industrial alcohol and contained a chemical commonly used in bleach, as well as xylene and toluene – two compounds found in paint stripper and dangerous for human consumption.

You see the criminals don't care. They're not bothered if they poison you or make you blind. Nor are these entrepreneurs fussed at all about selling fags and booze to children. And as the nannying fussbucketry continues, as the duty on booze and fags rises, the problem will get worse. Just look at Ireland:

Customs officials have smashed a major smuggling gang and seized nine million cigarettes.

Four men were being quizzed over the massive seizure following the intelligence led operation involving officers from Revenue’s Customs Service, in conjunction with CAB and Gardai.

This bust has an estimated potential loss to revenue of €3.7 million and estimated street value of €4.3 million.

Of course some people continue to pretend that all this isn't a problem -  denying that approach a quarter of the tobacco consumed in ireland is smuggled (because the data comes from the tobacco companies).

It seems wrong that adherents to the Church of Public Health are happy to see people poisoned, blinded or killed and for criminals to make millions from smuggling and manufacturing fakes rather than admit their approach isn't working.

....

Thursday 19 December 2013

Passive vaping and New York's health fascism

I wrote about some emerging research showing no link between passive smoking and lung cancer:

The article describes a large prospective study that "confirmed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer but found no link between the disease and secondhand smoke." 

And, in writing about this I noting that the authors were back-pedalling rapidly on the reasons for smoking bans - 'denormalising' smoking rather than protecting health.

Today, in a development that further reveals the willingness of the Church of Public Health to act without evidence, New York City Council is deciding whether to apply the same controls to e-cigarettes as apply to regular cancer sticks:

In late November, a month after banning the sale of the devices to people under 21, the City Council surprised the sector by introducing a bill that would treat electronic cigarettes like their tobacco counterparts, prohibiting use in restaurants, bars, workplaces and even parks.

There is no evidence to support the main contention of the ban's proponents - vaping looks like smoking so will act to promote the latter. Nor is there evidence that there are any significant health risks that result from vaping let alone from 'passive vaping'. But this doesn't stop New York's nanny-in-chief:

At a recent public hearing of the bill, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley challenged the notion that e-cigs are healthier than tobacco smokes...

Dr Farley knows this is a lie, just as the tobacco controllers have known since the day they proposed smoking bans that passive smoking is at worst a very minor risk factor in lung cancer. What is even worse is that, by effectively banning vaping, New York will remove the incentive for smokers to switch to less harmful e-cigs. And that means more deaths.

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Wednesday 18 December 2013

Today's nannying jobsworth...

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Via Arfur Daley on Facebook:

Fires at an historic city centre pub will have to be put out after a landlord was told it was causing pollution following a passer-by's complaint about smoke in the street.

Graham Rowson, 60, has traditionally lit three fires for customers at his real ale bar so they can keep warm over the Christmas period.

But officials at Preston City Council have now said his 115-year-old Black Horse pub is pumping out fumes - putting it in breach of smokeless zone rules.

Apparently someone (anonymously) complained and the Council leapt into action to force a chilly Christmas onto a popular pub.

It makes you want to cry - such thoughtless, uncaring intervention based on nothing more than the word of some busybody.

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Quote of the day...

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From Graeme Archer, who writes so much better than I:

I did not tramp about London in the rain shoving unread leaflets through disinterested letter-boxes, one small atom in the maelstrom of activity that resulted in the despatch of the New Labour terror from office, in order to continue to be lectured by charities and government officials about the amount of alcohol I swallow. I'm sick of it – the lecturing, not the alcohol.

The health-industry corollary of the Labour nannying is a new medical priesthood, with its litany of anti-smoking, anti-drinking, pro-physical-jerking incantations.

Absolutely spot on!

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Democracy is not enough.

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There are lots of people - from both the left and the right of politics - who like the idea of voluntary, shared or common ownership. In this they see an alternative to the centralising tendency of modern government. For some this is a starry-eyed remembering of past models and idea - the Rochdale Pioneers, the Levellers and mass trespasses on Kinder Scout. Here is a celebration of the co-operative and it still has a powerful voice on the left of politics.

Meanwhile, on the liberal right, we hear of voluntarism, of the charter city and the idea that local government isn't needed - collaboration, market mechanisms and, yes, co-ops will provide voluntary (that is without taxation collected by force of law) management of what we call 'public' services.

There is much to commend both these approaches - by rejecting the big government model they are people-based and, we hope, responsive to needs at the genuinely local, community level. Indeed, in the USA local government is far less constrained by the national political agenda and property ownership rules allow for private collaborative systems that wouldn't be possible under, for example, the UK's laws. The result of this has been the evolution of shared ownership models - co-operative and mutual.

Today some 63.4 million US citizens live in 323,600 places that are members of the Community Associations Institute - that's over 20% of the population living in places where many of the things we associate with local government are provided by a mutual association of members. And:

In a lot of places – probably in most – it’s a sort of government-among-friends, where rules are applied and interpreted with good faith and generosity, where neighbors cooperate on upkeep, and where buildings and communities look better and function better because of it.

Based, as these things are, on some sort of democracy - residents, as members, vote for management committees and these committees commission the services, maintenance and support that everyone needs - cleaning streets, cutting verges, managing shared services and often things such as collecting rubbish. These committees will also set down rules about other things so as to maintain the peace, tranquillity and ambiance of the place.

And it's here where the problems start:

But, in others, homeowners’ associations appear to have more in common with the Soviets than just a communal process.  Writing in The Washington Post, Justin Jouvenal recently reported on a knock-down, drag-out fight over a simple political yard sign placed by a couple on their property during the 2008 election season.  The association’s grievance, apparently, was that the “Obama for President” placard was four inches taller than the association’s covenants allowed. 

Democracy dictates that the collective - or rather fifty percent plus one of that collective - can impose rules (and when you join - buy the property - you sign up to those rules). Thus the row about the political placard. Indeed, the rule-makers in these places determine the 'right' image for the community and act to prevent residents installing solar panels and landscaping gardens:

“Imagine growing a lush, organic garden full of fruit trees and raised beds featuring edible flowers and vegetables. It’s beautiful. And it’s in your backyard. Your slice of heaven. Your respite. The place where you can get your hands dirty growing wholesome, nourishing foods for you and your family.

One day you stroll out to your mailbox to find a letter from your HOA telling you your garden is in violation of HOA rules. According to your deed restrictions, all fruit trees and edible plants should be grown inside a screened in patio. You face $100/day fines for each day that you refuse to tear up your fruit trees and remove your raised beds.”

This is not the action of some brutal uncaring landlord but the imposition of a mutual organisation - cuddly, sharing, democratic.

We discover that democracy isn't enough. It doesn't provide the protection allowing for that resident to do what she wished - plant fruit trees and vegetables in raised beds. The resident could protest, could try to change the rules - but in the meantime that mutual, collective organisation is fining her $100/day.

We are reminded that democracy isn't a guarantor of rights. Nor is democracy reasonable, sensible or flexible. On its own democracy wants to enforce conformity with the norm - or what the democrats see as the norm - and to prevent people putting plastic sharks in their roof or replacing a lawn with a water-conserving, drought-resistant garden.

The consequence of shared ownership is that the majority will dictate how that shared property is used. And if you're in the minority what you want is of no consequence. And that majority will impose its will.

Democracy is not enough.

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Tuesday 17 December 2013

Can we stop getting so hysterical about migration. Mostly it's a good thing.

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It is the end of days. As the hangovers fade in the New Year it will be to witness the spectacle of vast hordes trooping off planes, trains and boats clasping evidence of EU citizenship as proof they can work in our fine nation.

Under “transitional” rules introduced when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, migrants from these two countries can only work in the UK in seasonal jobs such as fruit picking, or if they are self-employed.

These restrictions end on January 1, 2014, and all Romanians and Bulgarians will then have the same rights to work in the UK as British citizens.

The model predicts that over the next five years from January 1 at least 385,000 migrants will move from Bulgaria and Romania – more than the population of Coventry. 

Swamped! Swamped I tell you - the pressures on our creaking public services will be too great, the schools won't have the places, the hospitals will be filled with the grannies of Roma and Bulgar migrants and we'll spend our lives speaking some sort of pidgin English.

Even if I was to accept that there'll be 385,000 arrivals from Bulgaria and Romania, I really don't believe that a country with 70 million people - 200 times that number - can't welcome some new arrivals. For sure, I want to know who is coming in and that they're doing something constructive. I'm all for putting them on a plane back home if they misbehave. But can we have a little less hysteria please?

If we want to challenge in that big bad ugly world - to compete in that ghastly "global race" some folk want to believe in - then we need migration. We need Brits to go an work in France, in Dubai and in Hong Kong. And to retire to Spain, Ireland or Florida. These international connections, the British diaspora is a vital component in our economy, in creating the links with the rest of the world we'll need for future trade and prosperity.

This works both ways. Those Romanians, Bulgarians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Russians, Somalis - all those immigrants we're so rude about - their links home generate new economic activity and benefit our nation. Not because of cheap labour or a willingness to accept the bending of employment rules but because diversity is essential to economic growth:

It is important to note how this ‘[population] churn’ helps cities. Knowledge-based economies run on the quality of ideas. Ideas are not only a function of intelligence or education, but also the depth of information a person, or a city, receives.

London is successful because it is diverse. And it has always been diverse.

So I'm with Sam Bowman from the Adam Smith Institute on this - more free movement is a benefit not a curse:

There are lots and lots of bad things governments do that ruin people’s lives. But few cause as much harm to the poorest people as the state controls of where people can work and live that we call ‘migration policy’. Even a marginal step towards a more liberal immigration policy would allow people to create an enormous amount of wealth, and probably do more good than almost any other possible policy. 

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Monday 16 December 2013

Passive smoking and lung cancer.

One or two of you may have missed the headline news about passive smoking:

The article describes a large prospective study that "confirmed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer but found no link between the disease and secondhand smoke." The study tracked more than 76,000 women, 901 of whom eventually developed lung cancer. Although "the incidence of lung cancer was 13 times higher in current smokers and four times higher in former smokers than in never-smokers," says the JNCI article, there was no statistically significant association between reported exposure to secondhand smoke and subsequent development of lung cancer

In some ways the findings aren't a big surprise, the link between passive smoking and lung cancer has always been more emotional than scientific. However, the obsession with this single risk factor has meant that lung cancer receives the smallest amount of research spending of any major cancer - just five per cent of total research spending into the 20% plus of cancer deaths that are from lung cancer. The research bodies have chosen instead to direct resources into campaigns for smoking bans, advertising bans, higher duty and now plain packaging.

The problem isn't that people want to reduce deaths that result from smoking but that they do so knowing that what they say is inaccurate, even incorrect:

...the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will tell you that "secondhand smoke causes an estimated 3,400 lung cancer deaths among U.S. nonsmokers each year," scientists have long understood that the actual number might be closer to zero.

All those smoking bans - whether you agree with them or not - were introduced on the basis of, at best poorly understood epidemiology and probably with the absolute knowledge that the claims for passive smoking and lung cancer simply weren't true.

It was always about denormalising smoking:

"The strongest reason to avoid passive cigarette smoke is to change societal behavior: to not live in a society where smoking is a norm."

Of course they didn't give that as the reason when they kicked you out from the bar and onto the pavement, did they!

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Labour and the landbanks - good politics but bad policy

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“The homebuilding industry, which owns a significant landbank, does not appear to systematically hoard land with implementable planning permission; most land of this type is under construction.”

This was the conclusion of the Office of Fair Trading back in 2008. And I know times have changed since then what with the financial crash and so forth. However the fundamentals of the industry haven't changed and, to be honest, the 500,000 or so permissions that haven't been built represent a low rather than a high figure - at least in national terms. Indeed, if we take the projections of housing need at face value (I think they're completely barking mad though) then this represents just over two years' supply.

Since the last time Ed Miliband talked about this subject, things have moved on. I'm guessing that his advisors looked at the evidence and discovered that the big housebuilders weren't sitting on loads of land they weren't intending to develop. So the rhetoric has changed - we now talk about land 'hoarding' instead. That and the fact that housebuilder profits have risen!

Miliband will point out that the profits of the four biggest housing developers have soared by 557% this year. He will accuse them of hoarding land to push up its value, with homes being built at the slowest rate witnessed in peacetime for almost a century.

Over at the New Statesman, they are helpful to Ed by casting a wider net on the supposed landbanking:

One reason for this is the practice of land banking, with investment funds, historic landowners and developers sitting on vacant land and waiting for its value to go up.

The essential argument remains unchanged. Houses aren't being built because developers are waiting for values to rise. As we've pointed out, this isn't true for the housebuilders (indeed they've been buying up land because their land supply was drying up) but there is a wider truth, that of development viability.

Put simply, plenty of investors and developers bought land and property prior to 2008 and are regretting it. They paid more than they should and, not surprisingly, are reluctant to realise that loss. As a result plenty of sites with development permissions, particularly in the inner city, are simply not viable.

Worse, the expectations of planners add costs - sometimes these are valid (cleaning up contamination, getting the drainage right) but others are indulgent (zero-carbon housing). To be fair to local councils, they're constrained by the onerous rules laid on them by well-meaning idiots in Whitehall. And by expectations set in the time before the financial crash.

As a result of this developers shun more difficult and marginal housing land and are prepared to wait for better options to emerge. This is a particular problem in London where much of the development land is marginal and expensive to develop. And if it's not viable to build market housing on this land, it's certainly not viable to build social housing.

The answer doesn't rest with compulsory purchases or with new rules and interventions but with the removing of barriers to viability. The current idea of allowing the renegotiation of s106 agreements is a good one but we also need to allow for greater flexibility in other barriers such as the requirement for zero-carbon homes.

Finally a note about those profits. As ever it rather depends where you start from - by picking 2010 when housebuilder profits were very low the rise seem massive. However, the big housebuilders' margins have yet to recover to pre-crash levels (about 17%). Indeed, the recovery in profits are because the builders are doing just what Miliband says he wants them to do:

Until now the biggest driver of the recovery in housebuilders’ margins has been the changing nature of their land banks. Having held expensive, low-margin land bought before the financial crisis – much of which has now been built on, written down or sold – they have found themselves with cheaper, higher-margin land picked up during and after the recession.

The big block to viability - and to sustaining those profits - is our old friend planning:


In addition, many of the bullish forecasts for housebuilders’ margins and profits assume a big rise in sales volumes – which still lie some way off their 2007 peak – and this is reliant on the planning system keeping pace.

What Miliband is doing is finding scapegoats and easy marks (greedy developers, NIMBY councils and profiteering housebuilders) rather than proposing things that might actually ease the process of development. Great politics but pretty poor public policy-making.

Update: some kind folk at Channel 4 have done a fact check and here are the conclusions:

Land banking or hoarding could be a problem, but there is no evidence that the big developers are guilty of hoarding land. In fact, the number of unimplemented planning permissions has fallen since 2008.

Developers appear to be working through their land banks more quickly.

A string of independent reports has found no substantive evidence of the big housebuilders trying to rig the market by sitting on land. All of which suggests that Mr Miliband might be aiming his lance at the wrong windmill here.
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Sunday 15 December 2013

A London Tale: the merely stinking rich shoved out by the filthy rich...

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Andrew Marr, who is pretty rich by most folks standard's is moaning in The Spectator:

A recent victim is Cork Street, for generations the heart of the commercial British art world. But as Spectator readers may know, it is ceasing to beat. Seven art galleries are going after Christmas, mostly to make way for flats for billionaires. Another four are to go next year. In a few years’ time there will still be galleries here but they will be run by international fashion houses who have the money. A unique part of London life, which grew by accident, will be destroyed by speculative investment.

I for one won't miss those galleries. And I'm pretty sure there'll still be a commercial art market for people to write about in The Spectator. However, it won't be in Cork Street - it'll be somewhere else, somewhere a little further out - perhaps New Cross or Stoke Newington.

And in moving out, these rich art dealers will push out what's there now - maybe some pleasant, treasured shops loved by locals. Perhaps the little corner shop where celebrities go once or twice a year in extremis when faced with a shortage of some essential (or a weird craving for a Snickers).

It has always been like this, the city. Changing. Dynamic. Exciting.

And when you get bored with this creative destruction, you retire - in Andrew Marr's case to a nice barn conversion in the Cotswolds or a farmhouse in Sussex. Forgetting, of course, that the barn once had cows in it and the farmhouse provided a home for generations of farmers.

There's something poetic about the various translations of Heraclitus' famous dictum (Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει) in Wikiquote :

Everything flows and nothing stays.
Everything flows and nothing abides.
Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.
Everything flows; nothing remains.
All is flux, nothing is stationary.
All is flux, nothing stays still.
All flows, nothing stays.

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The BBC is completely out of control...

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Yesterday I noted that the BBC had sent 140 people - at the cost of over £1m - to South Africa following the death of Nelson Mandela.

Today a couple more examples of our state broadcaster's egregious waste of tax money:

The BBC is spending up to £500,000 on a major refit of its £1 billion new headquarters because staff have complained their state-of-the art surroundings ‘lack character’.

The high-spec London HQ was only opened in June – four years behind schedule and £55 million over budget.

But the Corporation has already decided to revamp two floors of New Broadcasting House to make them ‘more creative and vibrant’ – following a string of gripes from staff.

And...

The corporation said it had no choice but to have two studios, which are expected to cost it close to £500,000 in building costs and rent...

That's right the BBC is not only lavishing money on the sports coverage of next summer's World Cup finals in Brazil but is planning on sending a whole news team over to Brazil as well. And building them a studio (apparently because of some nonsense about 'broadcasting rights') - in Rio where England aren't even playing!

Accountable? Not in the slightest.

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Saturday 14 December 2013

The BBC really is a joke....

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...a cruel joke on all those poor folk in council houses coughing up for the license fee (and filling up magistrates courts when they struggle to pay it):

The BBC sent 140 crew members to cover Nelson Mandela's memorial despite receiving more than 1,000 complaints over its 'excessive' coverage of his death. The number of staff dedicated to the iconic leader's death was far greater than its rivals, including ITV which reportedly despatched just nine staff to South Africa.

I'll grant it's a leading news story, I concede that it merits high profile coverage but this scale of indulgence - it has cost the BBC over £1m to cover just this one story - is an insult to all the people who fund the BBC.

Apparently this degree of coverage was justified because Mandela was:

 “the most significant statesman” of the last 100 years. 

Seriously - not Churchill who led Britain through the war, not Kennedy who started the space race, not Gandhi who help create the world's biggest democracy, not Thatcher and Reagan who with Gorbachev brought the 'Cold War' to an end, not Roosevelt who led America through depression and war, not Kohl who unified Germany, not any of these people.

I give up with the BBC. And so should the rest of us, it doesn't serve us, it just exploits our credulity and indulges its own bias. At an unnecessary cost in taxation.

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Diana Carney - another eco-authoritarian arrives to lecture us

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The eco-folk love a bit of middle-class judgementalism:

While she admits she is tempted by low prices she argues people should be “paying more” and “consuming less” as current clothes production is causing a “trail of devastation” in the communities where cheap cotton is grown. 

Got that folks - you should be buying organic stuff certified by the woo-merchants at the Soil Association. And, into the bargain, destroying the jobs of a whole load of poor people in places like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Egypt.

I do so wish that millionaire pseudo-celebrities like Mrs Carney would stop offering this false solution to the rest of us - the solution that things should cost more money. By all means indulge in some sort of cod, frugality, revel in your right-on greeniness and force the rest of your family to live with your warped ideas - but can you refrain from thrusting this nonsense at the rest of us. And especially stop implying that your so-called morals - this green nonsense - are better than those of others who chose to shop at Primark.

And Mrs Carney should also bear in mind that she has a choice - loads of money makes that possible. For many people out there, cheap clothes are the only choice.



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Friday 13 December 2013

Some Councillors just don't get it - the case of York's leader and his deputy

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The leader and deputy leader of York City Council appear to dislike the publics' opinions:

A report brought before City of York Council’s audit and governance committee at the request of leader Coun James Alexander and his deputy, Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing, this week recommended speakers should not criticise the authority’s officials, should avoid “party political” and “frivolous” points and should ensure anything they say is “factually correct”. 

As it happens the committee wisely sent the document straight back to this couple of oversensitive political leaders with some choice word. But the question is whatever possessed them to propose gagging public comment and cuffing the prerogative of meeting chairmen?

This is from the same book as banning fair reporting, stopping photography and preventing filming - all things that self-important councillors have done in recent times.

We really should stop trying to make out that we are so grand that any criticism of our actions, debates or decisions must be prevented.

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Thursday 12 December 2013

BMA silent on e-cigs evidence...

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The BMA wants to ban electronic cigarettes. Recently 'Sense about Science' wrote to them:



We sent this letter to the BMA on November 15th asking for the evidence behind their claims about ‘re-normalising smoking’ and ‘passive vaping.’ Despite a number of reminders, we have not yet received a response.


This is probably because there isn't any evidence to support their ban proposal. None.

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We sent this letter to the BMA on November 15th asking for the evidence behind their claims about ‘re-normalising smoking’ and ‘passive vaping.’ Despite a number of reminders, we have not yet received a response. - See more at: http://www.senseaboutscience.org/news.php/364/whats-the-evidence-for-banning-electronic-cigarettes#sthash.qa29sXWF.dpuf

Martians, ignorance and rudeness: on reading the Spectator's 'Books and Arts" section...



I read the Spectator every week. In the old-fashioned way by sitting or lying holding the words printed on paper and reading them. None of this fancy la-di-dah modern technology malarkey - a little moment when part of the mind thinks Ogden Nash was right about progress:

Progress might have been alright once but it has gone on too long

Really though I read the front part of the magazine - the politics bit - and then arrive at the page labelled: "Books and Art". At this point I enter a bewildering world filling with things I know nothing about and that, even after reading the words of clever Spectator contributors, I remain completely confused by.

A masterpiece of this confusing genre is a piece written by Philip Hensher that begins:

It’s important not to be too immediately dismissive of poor Craig Raine. Book reviewers and editors like him, who invent rigid literary principles and then dismiss anything that fails to embody them, have been on the decline since the 1970s. It’s true that one would probably sooner go for guidance to a generous reader who tries to discover what an interesting book is seeking to do, and how it achieves it. But the principle-wielder is an endangered species, and however ill-founded the principles themselves may be, as readers we might welcome the existence of one or two.

I am, my friends, immediately at a disadvantage since, until this moment, I had never heard of Craig Raine (although I have heard of Craig Davies). What I gleaned from this paragraph is that Philip Hensher doesn't like Craig Raine very much. In the spirit of adventure and discovery I venture further into the article - this is a full two page hatchet job with a cartoony picture (presumably of Craig Raine) and find out that the target of Philip Hensher's wrath is, or was, a poet:

Raine has carried on publishing poetry since his heyday in the late 1970s, when he founded a minor fad called ‘Martian’ poetry. 

'Martian' poetry tickled my mind a little so I looked some up - here's a chunk from one called "A Martian sends a postcard home". I leave you to judge:

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

I think the poem's OK but it was, Philip Hensher says, "a minor fad" so what do I know.

Further into the article - after the bleeding corpses of Raine's novels are left twitching in the dust of this arena, we get to read about the actual book being reviewed. But first we meander down the side alley of Raine's magazine - Areté. Nope, I'd not heard of it either. Philip Hensher doesn't like it:

...I picked up a recent issue to find an essay by Raine attacking Penelope Fitzgerald. He found her similies, as well,  lacking — being not extravagant enough (Raine’s poetry was praised back in the 1970s for its extravagant way with simile). 

I am drowning in my ignorance now as - not only had I not heard of Philip Hensher or Craig Raine but I've not heard of Penelope Fitzgerald either. Although having checked, I should since she's one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945" according to The Times (in some list designed to depress folk like me who won't have read much by anyone on that list).

The article continues - and my ignorance extends - as Philip Hensher actually comments on the book he's reviewing:

Don Paterson is done over; Raymond Carver is ingeniously declared to be a less brilliant writer than his editor, Gordon Lish; the wonderful Derek Walcott is savaged. These are all quite entertaining essays— though twice as long as they need be — and are fine examples of what Oxford used to specialise in: the perverse case, vigorously made.

A glimmer of hope here - I'd vaguely heard of Derek Walcott (although if asked "who is Derek Walcott", I would probably have answered that he's a West Indian cricketer) but otherwise more of someone I don't know of writing about another person I have never heard of writing about some other people I've never read. I must admit to feeling no loss at this lack of knowledge if it is to create such gushing unpleasantness as Philip Hensher's article.

I have learnt from this read that I am ignorant, Philip Hensher is rude (but not ignorant) and Craig Raine wrote some OK poems about - well not really about, as such - Martians.

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