Why a 'hard' Brexit won't work (despite being right on nearly everything about trade theory)

Probably the most important single insight that an introductory course can convey about international economics is that it does not change the basics: trade is just another economic activity, subject to the same principles as anything else.

If you're going to write about trade (and don't want to start with David Riccardo) then Paul Krugman, who got his Nobel Prize for writing about trade, is as good a place as any to start. And Krugman's opening point is that international boundaries don't change the fundamentals of economic theory. There is no essential (economic) difference between me buying something from Basingstoke and me buying something from Beijing. As far as theory is concerned, therefore, making this comparison practically as well as theoretically true should be the point of trade policy. Any other approach would be against the interests of the buyer (and, therefore, by extension favouring the interests of the seller) and bad for the economy.

The problem with trade is that, as they say on Facebook, it's complicated. It's not complicated because Krugman is wrong, it's complicated because sellers - producers - in various nation states and groups of nation states have persuaded their government (quite often - as with US sugar producers - through the extensive use of cash money as a persuader) that their particular business is peculiar and it will not benefit consumers to have access to all the world's production of that good or service. These persuasive folk have spun the point of trade 180 degrees - it's all about national competition, a global race as David Cameron kept telling us. Britain is competing with China and India and the USA and Mexico - we must back our producers even if it means ordinary Brits having to pay more for stuff. Here's Krugman again:

After all, the rhetoric of competitiveness, the view that, in the words of President Clinton, each nation is “like a big corporation competing in the global marketplace”, has become pervasive among opinion leaders throughout the world. People who believe themselves to be sophisticated about the subject take it for granted that the economic problem facing any modern nation is essentially one of competing on world markets, that the United States and Japan are competitors in the same sense that Coca-Cola competes with Pepsi, and are unaware that anyone might seriously question that proposition.

Again, Krugman is right - the point of trade is imports, the stuff us consumers buy, not exports. For sure we need the exports so we can pay for the imports but if we're running a gap in favour of exports then this is simply money that UK consumers would otherwise have spent on buying stuff (this is one reason why China becoming a net importer of goods sometime in the next decade or so is a very significant event - we'll need to find a new set of folk to buy stuff off). So when you hear that familiar Brexit Ultra argument, "they export more to us than we do to them so they need us more", smile sweetly because they've entirely missed the whole point of trade.

The problem, however, is that this position on trade utterly dominates debate - far from us seeking a trade policy that makes buying from Peshawar more like buying from Penge, we seek instead a policy that ossifies difficulties in exchange by pretending that international trade follows a different set of economic rules (or, more to the point, a set of rules defined without reference to economic theory by lawyers and bureaucrats, often at the behest of well-connected lobbies for business interests) to national trade. Here Scott Sumner sums up all this:

Over the past 200 years, debates about trade have occurred on two levels. Academics insist that unilateral free trade is the best option. However the “very serious people” (VSP) who conduct real world trade negotiations act as if open markets are a “concession”. They act as if we were doing other countries a favor by letting them export goods to our market. They view the academic perspective as hopelessly idealistic, even as the VSPs have worked hard to gradually move the world toward the same goal of freer trade, one agreement at a time.

Sumner goes on to say that the VSPs' chickens are returning to roost as first Trump then the EU succumb to managed trade - mercantilist - arguments. The most striking thing about the Brexit debate isn't its economic illiteracy (on both sides) but rather that, in the real world, neither side seems remotely interested in open markets. Indeed many of the arguments should have been put to bed while Wellington's boot was used to describe the oppression of the Corn Laws. Trade is only possible because of incredibly complicated sets of rules contained in huge tomes that only a few are able to understand. It's sad that governments - because of the effectiveness of business lobbies and the delusion of competition between nations - have created the situation where this sclerotic, rules-bound system makes it possible that a willing buyer in the UK is unable to get her goods from a willing seller in France (or for that matter The Phillipines). Anyone who thinks such a system is a good idea is, in my view, the worst sort of deluded fool. And, you'd hope that intelligent people would be trying to make sure such a system didn't come to pass.

It is, depressingly, what we've got. And the lawyers and bureaucrats aren't about to let something like 200 years of solid evidence backing up the best of economic theory get in the way of their lovely rules (there's a whole new can filled with self-interested worms right here). So the job isn't served by doing the right thing in terms of the evidence (more free trade, more open markets, lower tariffs, fewer regulations) but by making sure that, in the case of Brexit, the UK can leave the EU without a bunch of rules merchants crashing our economy simply out of spite. This is the only reason why a "no deal" option should be avoided - international trade still operates in an essentially mercantilist manner with the interests of producers sat round the table alongside the lawyers and bureaucrats and this means any settlement will, wrongly, be concluded on the basis of 'competitiveness', 'export' and 'protection' rather than in the interests of consumers.

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On planning appeals (and lawyers)

Andrew Lainton reports on the Appeal Court (Mansall v Tonbridge and Malling):

Appeals should not, in future, be mounted on the basis of a legalistic analysis of the different formulations adopted in a planning officer’s report. An appeal will only succeed, as Lindblom L.J. has said, if there is some distinct and material defect in the report. Such reports are not, and should not be, written for lawyers, but for Councillors who are well-versed in local affairs and local factors.

Andrew thinks planning lawyers will have nothing left to do! An excellent outcome (although I doubt it is true).

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Human rights lawyers - Old Billy might have been right

This particular "human rights lawyer" is the lowest sort of humanity - fitting up others so he can profit from the taxpayer:

Phil Shiner, from Public Interest Lawyers, wrote a letter confessing some of his actions to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over his firm’s alleged involvement in false claims being made against British troops by Iraqis.

He wrote that "he accepts" he will now face being struck off. Shiner admits he paid a tout more than £25,000 in referral fees to find clients and admits covering his tracks by doctoring evidence.

Public Interest Lawyers had brought forward nearly 200 compensation claims from Iraqis and more than 1,100 cases of alleged wrongdoing and killings by British military personnel.

He brought thousands of allegations of historic abuse against British troops in Iraq that forced the Government to set up the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) that has pursued criminal investigations against war veterans. Almost all of those claims are now known to be unfounded.

Ordinary tommies had their lives ruined by this man so he could make millions from Legal Aid. What disturbs me most is that Shiner wasn't just a crooked lawyer but a crooked lawyer celebrated as some sort of hero by his fellow lawyers. A reminder that this is a profession without any concept of ethics in its marketing and filled with people ready to patronise the rest of us regular folk. At times Old Billy was definitely right.

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Article 50 Case: Incompetence, lies and the importance of free speech

I may have been misunderstood. Not because of anything I said but because of how some people decided they knew what I'd said or because they knew what I really meant. The starting point was that, following the High Court decision about invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, I was angry. Indeed, I was as angry as I had ever been about something political.

Now if people had noted what I said, they'd have spotted how my anger wasn't directed at those three judges (however much I might think their decision egregious) but rather at the Government. After all they'd proposed and got support for (overwhelming support as it happens) a proposal to have a referendum on our membership of the European Union - something that had been in the manifesto that government stood on in May 2015:

That’s why, after the election, we will negotiate a new settlement for Britain in Europe, and then ask the British people whether they want to stay in the EU on this reformed basis or leave. David Cameron has committed that he will only lead a government that offers an in-out referendum. We will hold that in-out referendum before the end of 2017 and respect the outcome.

So my expectation was that the result of the referendum (and whether you like it or not, we voted to leave) would be implemented. The Government even wrote to us all telling us just that:



All pretty unequivocal. It seems, however, that this isn't really the case, at least as far as those three judges are concerned. Not only was the Government incompetent in proposing a referendum bill that didn't do what it said in the manifesto, they then compounded this by issuing a false statement that this was so. Put simply the Government led by David Cameron was either incompetent or it lied (maybe even both). I feel entirely justified in being as angry with this as I was with Tony Blair's government when it sent young men to die in Iraq on the basis of what turns out to have been a lie. Just as subsequent enquiry revealed Blair's duplicity, the three judges last week revealed the incompetence (or lies or both) of David Cameron's government.

Although I may not be angry with the judges, I do have a great deal of sympathy for the many people - including those writing the front page headlines in some newspapers - who were explosively cross with the decision and those who made it. And I find the reaction of too many, especially lawyers clucking round their superiors, to these headlines deeply concerning. All this stuff about the headlines "intimidating" the judges (by writing in a newspaper - how spineless are they?) and wanting some sort of unspecified action from the Government to deal with the offending editors simply represents an attack on press freedom and free speech. Do we really think a headline in the Daily Mail is going to destroy the independence of the judiciary, however unpleasant and intemperate that headline might be?

The thing with free speech is that it's loud, messy and often pretty unpleasant (trust me on this - I get that same bile directed at me as those judges got). But no part of our state's institutions should be immune from robust criticism - even when that criticism is ill-informed or ignorant. It is disturbing that the Bar Council and a parade of "Important Legal People" think judges should be privileged by newspapers being punished in some way if they dare to criticise. The law - just like other institutions - needs broad public support. If the law's leadership is too thin skinned to make good decisions because a newspaper might have a go at those decision, then perhaps we need to get better leaders?

If the law is excluded from exposure to free speech because of 'judicial independence' then we have a problem. Law in all its forms - and the decisions lawyers and judges make - is central to our lives. If we're not permitted to challenge those laws, those lawyers and those judges then our liberty is compromised. The law becomes vainglorious, privileged and its practitioners untouchable. In a nation that values freedom and the idea of democracy, this cannot be so.

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Nice work this proof reading lark....

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But then she's really a lawyer, so it's a special sort of secret, occult proofreading:

A proof reader employed by Lord Leveson to undertake fact checking work during last year’s media ethics inquiry has been thrust into the spotlight once again after it emerged the work had netted her approaching £220k.

The whole enquiry was a waste of public funds but two hundred grand on a single proof reader reminds us just what a total rip-off the lawyer's scam has become - especially when our taxes are the source of the funds.

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My (irrational but understandable) reason for not liking lawyers

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There are many reasons why England's legal profession needs reform and just maybe the changes to legal aid - whether warranted or not - perhaps might begin to open up this debate. For me though there's a more fundamental problem, one that perhaps makes me unsuited to making proposals for reforming the operation of the law.

You see I really don't like lawyers. Not individually, I've met plenty of lawyers who I've got on with well (I nearly said fine there but that's something you get off with rather than on with). No it's the collectivity of lawyers, the legal profession, that I dislike. There's the occult secret language riddled with pointless Latin. There's the arrogance of believing that no-one who isn't a lawyer can make a judgement. And there's the endless mummery, pomp and pontification, the moots and the semantics.

But these are the faults of other professions - perhaps without the overbearing arrogance of the law but faults nonetheless. And that's not where my loathing of lawyers comes from. That started on the day of my graduation from Hull University back in 1982.

It was an exciting day. My parents (who didn't own a car) had come up from London for the ceremony. We were all besuited, gowned and sporting (if that's the right word) our mortar boards. Lots of slightly nervy chatter, adjusting of clothing (we didn't wear suits often after all) as we awaited the little moment of glory when in front of friends and family we troop up to the stage to get our degree.

And amongst all this the University Chancellor, Lord Wilberforce would address the assembled graduates sending them out into the world with the ringing cheer, support and endorsement of the university community. Except he didn't do this. The Noble Lord spent the entirety of his speech telling 1500 graduates in subjects like English Literature, Geography, Economics, French History and South East Asian Studies what an incredible boon and benefit is was to have a degree in law. We were told how important lawyers were, how lawyers should run business, control the civil service and generally be in charge of everything.

As the speech unfolded, we awaited the moment when Milord might deign to address the 98% of graduates who didn't study law and weren't about to study law. But no, it got worse. No praise for the value of economics, history or English just a sullen, booming conclusion that law stood above all other subjects, more valuable and more important.

And we clapped. Because that's what you do on these occasions.

Since that day I've disliked lawyers.

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Human rights and the curse of laws

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The debate over the Human Rights Act and its parents - the European Court of Human Rights and the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" - is a strange one. Not because the matter of 'rights' is unimportant or even that these laws are without value but because the presumption in all of this is that rights exist only because of our masters' benevolence. The debate seems to treat 'rights' in a way little changed from the rights granted by feudal lords to their most loyal servants - somehow our rights will disappear, melt like snow in Summer, were the Human Rights Acts to be scrapped.

The state constrains rights and then allows, in its benevolence, some of those rights to be freed. The state is not the source of rights but exists - or should exist - to protect those rights. The debate shouldn't be about the existence or otherwise of rights but about the best way to ensure those rights are guarded.

Let it be known that the British liberties are not the grants of princes of parliaments, but original rights, conditions of original contracts, coequal with prerogative, and coeval with government. That many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries even before a parliament existed.

It does not matter at all whether we have signed some declaration, taken part in some international court or passed laws within parliament. All that matters is that our rights are protected, that we can have confidence that authorities charged with upholping those rights will do so and that this will be done without fear or favour.

This is not the case. Take Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that document that we cherish:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Does this say anything about being arrested for being rude about a diver? Or stopped from photographing a police station or an airport? Or the entire edifice now being built around 'hate crime' and 'equalities' - an edifice designed to bully people into accepting the left's newspeak rather than to deal with hate?

Perhaps there is a case for declaring some beliefs so dreadful and to merit their expression a crime - but where do we stop with defining those dreadful beliefs? And if it is right to prevent racism by making its expression a crime despite this being contrary to Article 19, surely it is also right to allow the deportation of criminals who constitute a threat to wider society despite their claim of a "right to a private and family life" under Article 8 of the UK's Human Rights Act?

In all the discussion around 'rights', there is an assumption that the Human Rights Act is intended to protect rights and not to contain fundamental rights within a body of law - to bring those rights back under the definition and purview of the state. So free speech is qualified - to such an extent that any protection of our 'right' to speak is nullified by the tools available to agents of government. The protection of "health or morals" seems so broad as to allow almost any statement ot be proscribed. And if this is not enough the Act allows the limiting of free speech to protect 'national security' and to prevent 'disorder'.

The Human Rights Act isn't a universal, sacrosanct declaration but, as with all laws, a flawed, controlling interpretation of the idea of 'rights'. The idea that changing it - even scrapping it - represents a backward step and that somehow our rights would vanish is nonsense. The most important rights - speech, movement, assembly, protest, exchange - these rights are more honoured in the breech by the Human Rights Act. The state is granted so many controls and the 'rights' are so curtailed that it's hard to see that the loss of the Act would make much difference.

In discussing 'rights' we should be talking first about what are the things that make us free and then what are the justifications for limiting somebodies freedom. Instead we indulge in an ever more occult discussion - guarded closely by lawyers - where the parsing of particular sentences and the dissecting of judges' opinions casts a thick mist over any understanding of 'rights'.

Finally, just as 'equalities' rules run the risk of being used to secure advantage, so it the case with the Human Rights Act. And because our judges care more about words than intention - such in the curse of laws - the result is decision-making that does not promote rights but that brings the protection of rights into question. To the ordinary man such inconsistencies, such egregious interpretation of 'rights' means that we run the risk of destroying protection on the altar of lawyerly pedantry.

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Sacking the boss won't make our hospitals better...

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Although getting rid of the egregious Sir David Nicholson - boss of the NHS - will make us fell better and is probably the right thing to do, it won't sort out the problem.

The problem isn't money.

The problem isn't training.

The problem isn't management.

The problem is that the NHS system requires - even urges - otherwise caring people to ignore suffering and do the paperwork.

Sadly all we've done is set on a lawyer to look at the problem. And he's done what lawyers always do, propose new regulations, new systems and more paperwork. It is inevitable that a future government will set on another lawyer to look at the same problem. That lawyer will propose new regulations, new systems and more paperwork.

Sir David is a sympton of the problem - an arrogant, self-serving symptom who had he an ounce of decency would have walked - but still a symptom. Until we end the Stalinist structure of the NHS that Sir David's role typifies, it will carry on killing people.

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Some Council Monitoring Officers are pretty dumb....

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‘Some council monitoring officers are informing their councillors that being a council tax payer is a disclosable pecuniary interest in any Budget debate. Councillors are then informed they would be committing a criminal offence if they speak or vote in that debate unless they obtain a formal dispensation.’

Yes folks, the "Standards" nonsense continues.

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So whose law is it anyway?

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The Telegraph chose to feature the (not entirely unsurprising) revelation that the decisions of judges working in immigration courts often favour those appealing rather than the immigrations services. I’m with the gut of the nation here by thinking that the “family life” defence in human rights law is rather over-played - it seems the lawyers aren't.

However, the article led to a little twitter interchange that ended with:

And really, magistrates are useless (kept as a cost-saving measure) & juries are biased, unfair & easily mislead.

I can only conclude that the comment reflected a view that judge and lawyer led law is somehow fairer, more equal or more open.

So whose law is it then? If magistrates are useless and juries biased must we assume that judges are without fault and lawyers exemplars of human perfection. More importantly we arrive at the point where the law is placed beyond democratic control.  At the moment there is an idea that citizens have a role and duty in the administration of the law.

I have no issue with judicial independence but do not believe that lawyers (and wrongly all judges are now lawyers) are any more infallible than the Pope. Like all human’s they make mistakes and allow prejudice to cloud judgement. Worse – and this is the great lawyers failing – too many of their assumptions and arguments are founded entirely on appeal to authority rather than consideration of the facts. What Lord Justice Bigot said in 1875 is too often of greater significance to our judges than the facts and certainly than the application of common sense.

Was I asked an opinion as to the organisation of the law; it would start with wanting more democracy. The approval of judicial appointments by Parliament, more jury trials and a wider role for magistrates – for example in the family courts - and I would abolish the privileges of barristers. There would be no secret courts and no aspect of the administration of justice unwatched by representatives of the public. 

In the end, the law is not some deity to be served by a collection of bewigged priests and acolytes. The law is not something so occult as to be both frightening and intimidating to the ordinary citizen. Yet that is what we have – a collection of wealthy, powerful people polishing the temples of law, speaking a language understood by only a few and dismissing the concerns of the public as bigotry or ignorance.

If other aspects of life benefit from a healthy dose of openness and democracy, I see no reason why the law shouldn’t too. But we’re up against the “we know better than the public” view that prevails – here’s that tweeter, Matt, again:

'Modern' (post-Blackstone) common law is certainly not 'the people's law', and nor should it be.

Depressing.

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A thought on social mobility - and my Uncle Ray...

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My late uncle Ray was a judge - not a grand high court version of that beast but a more humble sort sitting in County Courts. But then I'm a Tory politician, you'd expect me to have at least one uncle sitting as a judge!

My uncle didn't go to university. Indeed he left school at fourteen and got a job in a solicitor's office doing odds and bits of jobs around the place. By dint of application and night school (not to mention working every hour god sent) Ray got to be a solicitor, then a partner and then a judge.

So Ray, from an ordinary working-class background in South London, ended up in the most bewigged of middle-class professions. All without spending time in and around the dreaming spires, redbrick halls or tatty '60s blocks of a university. And there are plenty of others of Ray's generation who took the same route - school, office job, night school or correspondence college and hard work.

So it rather galls me (someone who swanned from school to university without much thought) when people speak of university access as if it were the only means to resolve issues of social mobility. And I am struck by Alan Milburn's observation about the professions:

"The question posed by this report is whether the growth in professional employment is creating a social mobility dividend for our country - the short answer is not yet. In fact, the lack of progress on opening up the professions to a wider pool of talent risks squandering that enormous opportunity for social progress."

In times past plenty of lawyers, accountants and bankers learnt their skills while doing the job. It was a recognised and celebrated route to the top. For sure, the grand still paraded from Harrow to Oxford to a posh chambers in London but that was not the only route.

It is not just a matter of getting into university but persuading those professions - law, accountancy, nursing and so forth - that a vocational route is as valid for them as it is for quantity surveyors, marketing directors and bakers.

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“...it’s not a matter of whether you win or lose but how you place the blame”

 

I recall a ‘Peanuts’ cartoon that took the rise out of an old saw with:

“...it’s not a matter of whether you win or lose but how you place the blame”

We all smiled but underneath this pleasure at a little witticism lies a darker truth – we do, all of us, seek to lay the blame somewhere other than on ourselves. And with this goes our pleasure – that schadenfreude – at going over past failings so as to point the finger of condemnation, to lay the blame. Such passing of responsibility’s buck has become not only institutionalised but expensive.

The Saville report's numbers are their own indictment – 434 days in session, 12 years from inception to publication, a £191m budget, tens of millions of words and finally a retail price of £572.

It’s not for me to enquire whether this enquiry provided catharsis for those involved or merely a bully pulpit for republicanism but merely for us to appreciate that the blame game now sits at the core of how we behave. Everywhere we look people seek excuses for this mistakes, faults and failings – we have become a nation of Heinz Kiosks crying at every opportunity: “we are all guilty”.

We have become dependent rather than free, supplicants to the state in all its forms and ready to play a fine hand of excuses – race, sex, social upbringing, drink, drugs, peer pressure – whenever something goes wrong. We are no longer prepared – unless forced by authority – to accept personal responsibility for our lives and how we live them.

For the conservative this is a problem – personal responsibility is central to what we believe. Yet human instinct seems to draw us away from accepting that responsibility – the first response of the sales clerk or shop assistant is seldom to apologise. More usually it is to seek excuse – to explain why the product or service failed. As if we care about how short staffed they are or how the supplier let them down or whether they were ill - that is their problem, not mine. It is their responsibility.

The problem is that this culture of dependence and supplication leads us to an expectation that our problems will be resolved by others – parents, employer and, most commonly, the government. The state must act to “create jobs”, to “protect families”, to “promote well-being” – to lay down “solutions” to all the problems of our lives. And when there’s a problem – new or old – there’s a lobby group on hand and opposition politicians ready and waiting to call for action, for “something to be done”.

There are two big problems with this dependence – the first is that is creates a class of folk dependent on the government. Either because they – in ever larger numbers – work for that government or because they are financially dependent on the handouts of that government (rather ironically called “benefits”). But there is a second problem, more insidious yet – the rejection by so many of any responsibility for ordering their lives divides society.

The big divide in western societies is no longer between rich and poor, nor is it between ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes, the big schism is between the dependent and the independent. Between those who, most of the time, act independently of government and those who depend on the state. The growth of the latter – of the state-dependent – squeezes out private action and initiative, stifles innovation. Why get involved, why innovate when there is a benign state to care for us? I recall my mother bemoaning how difficult it was to recruit volunteers for the day centre – the most common reason for rejection: “that’s the council’s job”.

The principle of responsibility has become so compromised that it results in injustice:

Reggie Bush is a good case in point. Playing for the University of Southern California, he won the 2005 Heisman Trophy as the most outstanding college football player in the USA, while his team won the national championship. The results of an NCAA investigation, however, found that Bush knowingly broke the rules by allowing a sports agent hoping to represent him someday to provide free housing for his parents. Although Bush might have to return some awards, he is safe and sound as a very well paid professional football player. His coach at the time of his violations, Pete Carroll, is now coaching the Seattle Seahawks professional football team and will not be punished. The penalties go to the school, USC, and its current football players who will be barred from bowl games for a couple of years. The people most responsible for the violation -- Bush and his coaches -- go mostly unpunished.

And our rejection of personal responsibility has led to a veritable frenzy of lawyers scrapping over the opportunity to extract value from blaming someone else – personal injury claims, employment tribunals, class action cases against smoking or drinking and a host of other lucrative sources of legal business. For sure, I know the defence – sometimes it really is someone else’s fault – but we have reached a stage where the first response of some to a trip or a bump is to ring the lawyer, to lay the blame on some other poor fellow. “Ah, but the insurance will pay” is the cry – as if the insurance company owns a special breed of money tree! And when the premiums rise there’s a lobby on hand to call for government action, for regulation.

As a conservative, I believe I have a primary duty to myself, to my family and to my neighbours. This duty is not discharged by passing across responsibility to government in return for a tax bill. It is discharged by me taking responsibility for my life, for all the crisis and chaos, for all the pleasure and excitement, for all the ups and downs. It is discharged by me doing the right thing by my family, my friends and my neighbours. There is no government in this, no regulation, no lawyers, no church, no god – just me and my responsibility. As Robert Heinlein put it:

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

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Trust me, I'm a politician!

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Trust is a tricky old thing – that headline probably brings out the sense of irony in you (although you don’t know for sure whether or not I actually mean “trust me”). Indeed our default position is, as Martin Vander Weyer points out, more often distrust:

...trust is no longer offered, in any sphere, as it used to be; distrust is now the default response. It’s easy to argue that business leaders, especially in the City, have brought this on themselves by behaving greedily and uncaringly. But that’s not the whole story, which is also about social change.

At the core of this is a presiding sense that they’re out to rip us off. Politicians, lawyers, doctors, journalists – the entire panoply of professions – are cynical, driven by personal success rather than by any concept of service. And our mistrust extends further – we see train drivers striking on boxing day and see self-interest rather than a collective response to injustice, we tell tales or teachers or council officers seeing the “strike day” as an excuse for a jolly and we’ve got used to anger at huge bonuses in large firms and big public organisation that seem merely to reward failure or incompetence.

The other day, Jack of Kent pondered on why everyone hates lawyers and concludes that it is the majesty of the law that we fear rather than its agent, the lawyer:

It is perhaps not so much that lawyers are hated, but that law itself is feared and mysterious.

That this is the case is unfortunate, and it is an entirely fair criticism that many lawyers do not do more to promote the public understanding of law.

Of course, barriers to lay understanding can suit the interests of lawyers. Lawyers have no general interest in enabling potential clients to work out their own legal problems.

And, so to that extent, lawyers really only have themselves to blame.

But it isn’t quite so simple – what has happened is that we have stopped trusting lawyers because they are lawyers, doctors simply for the fact of their doctoring and politicians by dint of their elected authority. The brands of these professions are corrupted by our awareness of their failings, our recognition that lawyers, doctors, MPs and other ‘professionals’ will close ranks, will protect their privileges, rather than have those failings exposed.

This is a good thing although we still give too great a credence to the self-interest of the Law Society, the BMA or the ‘senior backbencher’. However the growing doubt as to motive means that trust must be earned. It’s perfectly possible to trust a lawyer, a doctor, even a politician but only in so far as we trust the individual behind the badge.

When I urge you to trust me because I’m a politician, I’m asking you to trust the idea of such a person rather than to trust me. Such heuristics damage society by granting to a given organisation, professional body or political party the power to bestow trust.

You should trust Simon Cooke because he has proven himself trustworthy not because he has the stamp of politician.

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More on those interests (just for the lawyers among you)

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Following Bradford's recent debate on what have been dubbed 'pilgrims', I commented on the somewhat odd advice regarding interests:

I found it exceedingly odd how the City Solicitor deemed that receiving a declared donation to an election campaign or other political activity isn’t a prejudicial interest. I’m pretty sure that the same answer wouldn’t apply to me if the matter concerned say, Cullingworth Conservative Club (I sort of asked but got something of an equivocal answer from the City Solicitor).

So we asked for a definitive answer and here's an excerpt from the City Solicitor's response:

I stated at the meeting that I felt the creation of a prejudicial interest was ‘borderline’.  There are two reasons for my view.  Firstly the Code of Conduct states that a Member does not have a prejudicial interest in any business of the Authority where that business does not affect their financial position or the financial position of a person or Body described in paragraph 8 (the trade union).  It is debatable whether the withdrawal of facility time would automatically have a financial impact on the trade union.  It is not payments made directly to the trade union, but rather the provision of facility time for trade union officials.  Whilst I appreciate this represents a cost to the tax payer, it is by no means certain that that would automatically be reflected in a cost to the trade unions. 

Secondly, I considered the significance test in terms of whether the interest created (the payment towards election expenses) is sufficiently significant that it is likely to prejudice the judgement of what is in the wider public interest.  Standards for England have considered this significance test and their advice is that almost any degree of personal involvement or knowledge of a particular circumstance is likely to affect a Member’s judgement.  However, they recognise that a Member may well have been elected precisely because of his or her local knowledge or position/opinions on particular matters.  For an interest to be prejudicial it must be ‘likely to prejudice’ the Member’s judgement.  In other words the interest must be likely to harm or impair the Member’s ability to judge the public interest.  Standards for England are clear that the mere existence of local knowledge or connections with the local community will not normally be sufficient to meet the test.  There must be some factor that will positively harm the Member’s ability to judge the public interest objectively.  Further, Standards Board for England consider that if a Member shares a personal interest with a large number of people, it is less likely that a prejudicial interest will exist.

All very lawyerly but still pretty odd. But this little paragraph did make my eyebrows twitch a little:

Having regard to this guidance in the context of the matter under debate, although I agree it is borderline, my opinion is that the payment of election expenses is not sufficiently significant to create a prejudicial interest.

Bear in mind that we made a distinction between mere membership of a trade union (where I guess the individual gives the trade union money) from having your election expenses paid by the union.

As I said, I bet this wouldn't apply if Cullingworth Conservative Club were to pay mine!

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Educating future lawyers...

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Let me introduce you to Dr Ian Grigg-Spall:

Dr. Ian Grigg-Spall is Director of Studies of all undergraduate law courses at the University of Kent, and solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. He also acts as the liaison officer with the English Law Society and Bar. He taught previously at the University of Cambridge, and at the Boalt Hall School of Law, Berkeley, California.

And - courtesy of Samizdata:

The Left needs to defend the riots; not to valourise the burning of grannies’ cars, but to make clear that we reject the whole bourgeois construction of events, that we stand in solidarity with the oppressed and that, when it comes to it, we will, without hesitation, join the “rioters” to overthrow the legitimised exploitation, state-sanctioned violence and sham “democracy” that oppress us all.

Hey, I might be wrong but I bet he went to public school!

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Lord, please save us from lawyers!

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According to Bradford Council's top lawyer, a Councillor who signs a petition to save a swimming pool in his ward from closure has prejudged his decision and can't take part in the meeting.

Yes, dear reader, you heard that - how on earth these lawyers expect us to do our job as ward councillors god alone knows? Implicit in this lawyerly advice is that, as councillors we can't be allowed to take a position - to express support or opposition for something the council may decide on - ahead of the meeting where that matter is discussed.

This is beyond stupid. It is an affront to democracy. Lord, save us from lawyers. Please.

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Lawyers £2,600,000,000; NHS 0

Clinical negligence claims have cost the NHS £2.6bn over the past three years, with payout costs almost doubling in the past year, latest figures have shown.

Either doctors have been getting a lot more sloppy or we've a problem with lawyers.  Bit of both maybe but, in the end, I'm with The Eagles on this:

"The more I think about it old Billy was right, let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight," 

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You've gotta love lawyers!

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Kick an innocent man when he's down:

Hogan Lovells, the international law firm that acted for AB, is seeking nearly £500,000 costs from Mr Hunt including £80,000 AB spent on lawyers from other firms before Lovells took up the civil case.

The law firm had initially acted pro bono – free of charge – but after four months, in June 2008, switched to a "conditional fee arrangement" (CFA). This meant that although no fees would be charged to Mrs AB it could claim back its fees from Mr Hunt if he lost the case. The fees claimed would exclude the work carried out before the CFA came into effect.

The firm was voted runner-up for the 2010 Wig and Pen prize, awarded by London law societies, for its pro bono work on the Hunt case. 

So it wasn't pro bono after all - I guess Hogan Lovells will be handing back the prize?


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Smells like political interference...

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There was a meeting of the Shipley Constituency Area Committee - one of Bradford's Area Committees - this evening. Item 10 on the agenda for the meeting was entitled:

Review of decision on gypsy/traveller encampments

The gist of this item was that the resolution of the Committee back in December was contrary to the Council's Constitution. The relevant part of the resolution said:

"That the Chief Executive, in consultation with other Local Authority Chief Officers that he considers appropriate, be requested to press the Government to introduce more robust legislation to deal with the problematic and persistent unauthorised encampments as part of a strategy to manage the needs of travelling communities."

The City Solicitor deems that this resolution is outside the remit of the Committee as it does not have "...the authority to instruct the Chief Executive to lobby the Government to change the law as that would be a policy decision."  According to the City Solicitor the Constitution states that Area Committees can only "contribute to the formulation" of policy.

Unfortunately the City Solicitor wasn't in attendance so could neither explain nor defend her decision. However, it seems to me that the Committee's resolution did not breech the Constitution since is does not "instruct" the Chief Executive, it "requests" an action from that person.

Moreover, since the issues that led to the resolution related directly to a series of events in Bingley - within the Shipley constituency - it seems to me that the Committee was acting well within its remit to:

"Consider and address issues raised through neighbourhood forums, liaison groups, parish and town councils and other community bodies"

Much though I like the City Solicitor, it seems to me that this decision raises two serious concerns:

1. The Committee has been constrained in seeking reasonable actions to address specific issues relating to the Area it serves

2. There was a four month gap between the original resolution and today's date - this seems an excessive time for one individual to consider a given resolution that raises concern

The whole affair smells a funny colour - call me a cynic but I sense political interference.

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Saving law from the lawyers

The Bar Council - that trade union for the bewigged closed shop that is appearance in the higher courts - is in a bit of a funk over changes to the funding and structure of legal aid. You see, our expensive elite of clever lawyers think that the result of the changes will be that folk decide to represent themselves:

We fear these attempted cuts, being so crude and brutal, will cost more than they save. They will trigger a surge in DIY litigants which risks gridlock in the courts, as they struggle to get justice.

Note here the real problem - rights to represent people in a court of law - rather than the fake problem identified by the Bar Council. What barristers cannot countenance is that ordinary lawyers - or for that matter well-informed laymen with the ability to marshall an argument - might muscle in on their cosy little protection racket. After all DIY is the only alternative to using a barrister! So the barristers join all the other special interests and wave shrouds:

“Barristers who practise in crime and family work are in the front line. They want to deliver the best service to their clients. But in these and other practice areas, the threats posed by the Government’s proposals are real and potentially brutal. In family cases, men or women suffering from serious psychological abuse may go unrepresented in private law proceedings. Parents, without representation, could face the removal of their children into care if the court finds reasonable grounds for believing that the children are suffering significant harm. Consumers suffering at the hands of negligent corporate entities may have to fund their own claims. The list is extensive.”

You see, dear reader, that barristers feel only they have that special magic that is needed to appear before a judge - not surprising given that the judge will also be a barrister and therefore inclined to prefer the cosy, lucrative ramp that is our legal system. Sadly, we are not making the right changes - sweeping through law's Augean stables to find a system where DIY representation (or even getting help from some other person, maybe a trade union official, a human resources specialist, a social worker or a planner) is not only possible but encouraged.

But the barristers are just protecting their interests, I guess.

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