How come the super-rich back Democrats then?

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We're repeatedly told by the leftist comentariat that the super-rich are corrupting politics through their crony capitalism and support for 'neo-liberalism' (whatever that may mean). So it is odd to discover that the mega-bucks aren't flowing rightwards at all:

Among the .01 percent who increasingly dominate political giving, three of the largest contributions, besides the conservative Club for Growth, backed by Republican oligarchs, went to groups such as Emily’s List, Act Blue and Moveon.org. Liberal groups accounted for eight of the top 10 ideological causes of the ultra-rich; seven of the 10 congressional candidates most dependent on their money were Democrats.

In one respect this should suggest that big money donations are rather less corrupting (in an 'everything-right-wing-is-wicked' meaning of the word corrupt) than many people would suggest. But what it also suggests is that big government is no threat to the super-rich and even that the regulation, high taxes and intrusion into the lives of ordinary folk rather supports the business interests of the 0.01%. Moreover, since the super-rich are able to move so as to avoid regulation and taxation, they can use these things as tools to protect their business interests without having to suffer the personal consequences of big government.

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Cigars, Bubbles and the Sex Pistols - some thoughts on the Olympic Opening ceremony

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There has been a predictable set of folk seeking to turn last nights Olympic opening into some sort of political debate. Much of this revolves round the slightly bizarre Mike Oldfield section featuring kids jumping on beds and spooky characters from children's literature. Apparently this is a terrible embarrassment for us Tories because we want to "destroy the NHS".

For some the whole episode - and the fact of some predictable socialists getting overly gleeful about the show - makes it unforgivably left-wing. Funnily enough they seem to be the same "we hate the Olympics because (insert grump of choice)" people we heard so much from before the event.

So maybe we don't all think the NHS is a perfect institution (or even remotely so) but that was but a small part of an event that celebrated the triumph of capitalism. For sure there was a nod or two to protest but the main thrust was the building of British power - the celebration of the market economy that made us rich, that allowed us to create and fund the welfare state.

For me the event was a surprise. I expected a more bucolic evocation of England's past rather than such an overt celebration of urban, industrial, capitalist Britain. I loved the IK Brunel moments - the bit from The Tempest setting the scene for industrial revolution, the top hats, the appreciation of Victorian might and the two-fingers at the nanny state with Brunel standing, cigar in his mouth, directing the show.

I guess the success of this comes from that evocation, that - professional grumps and amateur naysayers aside - we can take from what we saw our own sense of England, something to salve our understanding of the things that built Britain. Including the Sex Pistols.

Plus then - in the middle of a musical history - they play 'Bubbles' and in doing that remembered that this isn't merely London's games but the East End's games. Although not all East End folk are West Ham fans, I'm sure they'll have smiled at a little indulgent reference to East London's biggest sporting institution.

Was the show left-wing? I suspect rather more a reflection of received political wisdom - the Victorian made our nation what it is today, the NHS is a good thing, children are important and music - and media - are now at the heart of what Britain does well. And all this was brilliantly portrayed in a 90 minute show that felt like half that time.

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You mights as well say "reassert the primacy of democratic politics over physics"

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I'd never heard of Dr William Partlett, so he fits his own description of "obscure scribbler". However, if he is to fulfil his mission - defined as "overcoming the left-right divide" - he'll need to do better. In truth, Dr Partlett's overcoming the left-right divide is about challenging what he calls but doesn't define or describe. "libertarianism". Apparently the "libertarian right" is intellectually dominant which comes as a surprise to this old liberal.

But the weakness of Dr Partlett's argument is as nothing besides his confusion about economics. Now my understanding is that economics is a field of study focused on how scarce resources get distributed, how people respond to incentives and how the "wealth of nations" comes about. And I do not see that economics is the sole preserve of the "libertarian right" - not if Paul Krugman is anything to go by at least!

So when Dr Partlett says:

Despite a strong mandate and wide discussion of a new FDR-style “New Deal”, President Obama has made only halting attempts to reassert the primacy of democratic politics over the forces of economics.

...he is rather missing the point about economics - after all the "New Deal", whatever we may think of it, was an economic development programme. And, whatever choices governments make none of this changes the reality of economics - those actions may work, they may fail but the underlying rules of supply and demand, utility and such, the toolkit of economics, still apply.

We might as well reassert the primacy of democratic politics over physics.

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Musings from a thick Tory...

A Thick Tory Ponders Life's Deep Truths

It is quite remarkable that I, as a Conservative, am able to make use of this laptop in order to write coherent sentences. Perhaps this is a credit to the education I received and to the glorious simplicity of the English Language plus of course the forgiving nature of you the reader.

It seems that the great minds of Canadian academe have cast the runes (or whatever it is that psychologists do in order to garner “data” for their published work) and have discovered what my left-wing friends have known for years – Conservatives are thick. Or rather that – as I understand the work in question (bearing in mind that I am a Conservative) – a shadowy cabal of clever people manipulate us thickos through ideology:

Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo".

Now, dear reader, Mr Monbiot who wrote that is left-wing so able to use multi-syllable words without getting severe headaches. We must therefore see clearly that he is right even though those long words hurt our eyes.

Now there’s nothing new in the left explaining to us right-wingers – often in the most patronising tone – that our problem is that we’re stupid. Ergo, we should let them run everything since they’re so much better qualified in the brain department. Here’s grumpy old Liberal John Stuart Mill:

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

Not of course that J S Mill with his belief in free markets, liberty and self-determination would qualify these days as a left-winger. But, hey, it’s a good quote! And since that time Conservatives (with and without the big ‘C’) have lived with the designation of stupidity. And it’s the worst form of stupidity – a sinful, corrupting, evil stupidity that divides not the stupidity of Homer Simpson as idiot savant.

So George Monbiot cries the oldest insult levelled at Tories, one that meant little when J S Mill said it and means little today – “you’re thick you are, what do you know?” And George’s ‘oh-so-superior’ left-wing pals echo him (and some second rate jokester called Brooker) in giggling about how they always knew Tories were stupid and right-wingers were thick. I mean look at what they read! Surely anyone intelligent would read the Guardian?

If there is an antonymic personification to the idiot savant then George Monbiot is that person – so well educated, well read, filled with eclectic ideas, a veritable fountain of knowledge. Yet, at the same time, so comprehensively, categorically and consistently wrong.

Let’s grant left-wingers their superiority, let’s embrace our Tory thickness – for all their knowledge these socialists, progressives and the like have brought us oppression, state control, obscene taxes, political correctness and the nanny state. Anyone who takes more than a moment to look at socialism’s record would conclude that these awfully clever (and mostly wealthy and privileged too) people visited disaster upon the ordinary people for whom they claimed to care.

It’s no use having great brain power if you use it to make the simple complicated, the obvious obscure and the common-sensical illegal. Yet that is the legacy of the progressive left.

If that is “intelligence” then I’m staying right here being “thick”.

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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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Economics quote of the day

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From @MediocreDave on twitter:

Think it's deeply flawed to suggest there is objective evidence for competition providing better results.

The problem with the left is that they believe this rubbish.


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Spain - not a revolution just democracy!

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A great deal of gushing left-wing excitement is littering the web as assorted commentators, bloggers and tweeters get all “oooh, gosh, revolution” about some protests in Madrid. Protests that coincide with today’s municipal elections across the country.

Here a pretty typical example:

The demonstrators have had enough of a political system that fails to represent them, one that restricts their power to expressing a preference every few years for one identikit professional politician or another. This is a far more radical politics. This is a crisis of confidence in democracy under capitalism when the failure of the free-markets is being used as an excuse to extend their poisonous reach.

Well maybe they have but, in truth, there aren’t very many of them are there! A bit like UK Uncut we get a lot of froth and noise, a bit of wanton destruction and some ace sloganising – all of which zooms past the ordinary voter more bothered about their job, the kids’ education and the level of crime. At their peak with a social media whirlwind of promotion and support the protester mustered about 30,000 in Madrid and similar protests in other Spanish cities brought out barely 10,000.

Meanwhile the Spanish voters are setting about visiting the worst defeat on the Socialists since the return of democracy – exit polls are suggesting the PSOE has lost control of Barcelona for the first time in 32 years and this indicates that it will be a pretty dire night for the Spanish left.  And the winners will not be strange coalitions of protesting pseudo-anarchists, bored students or green agitators but the opposition parties – the centre-right, Partido Popular and the assortment of separatist and regionalist groups that make up Spanish politics.

Some 12 million or so Spaniards have taken part in real democracy today – electing councillors, mayors and regional assemblies. Tens of thousands of Spaniards have actively campaigned in support of favoured candidates, thousands have put their name forward for election and millions have discussed and debated what should happen. The people protesting in Madrid are put a small part of this debate – it isn’t a revolution, it’s just the untidiness of democracy in action.

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It's just protectionism...

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The article may be bordering on barking, may promote the earth-shattering linking together of a few nutty left-wing websites and may talk endlessly about the supposed strategies of elites but in the end - like much of modern left-wing cant - it's just advocating protectionism and autarky.

Across Latin America, various novel and interesting forms of socialism have been emerging and evolving for some time, since an earlier generation experienced the miseries resulting from the imposition of the Washington Consensus.

It seems the solution to world poverty, the democratic deficit and the plight of the oppressed working-class is good old fashioned, Latin, anti-yankeee-ism!

I suppose I won't help them to say that it's free trade that makes us richer - all of us everywhere. An anti-trade strategy will just make us poorer - all of us everywhere (bar the cosy monopolists who get the nod from powerful governments).

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Where have all the bloggers gone?

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Since it has become all the rage to discuss why all those libertarian swearbloggers have disappeared from the world of blogging I thought maybe to add my tuppence worth of comment. I was going to set it all to music - perhaps adapting Pete Seager's immortal words:

Where have all the bloggers gone, long time passing?

Where have all the bloggers gone, long time ago?

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Gone from the Internet every one

When will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?

To be fair, the (ever-so-slightly-smug-and-self-satisfied) comments in CiF and elsewhere do point to one truth:

We no longer have a mendacious, incompetant, nannying and offensive government under the direction of perhaps our worst ever prime minister.

And it’s pretty hard to be so cross with David Cameron – such a nice bloke (although my close friend and colleague Huw feels very differently about David’s sidekick, George).

But there’s another reason. Sheer boredom.

It seems to me that there’s a natural limit to the blogging game – assuming that it’s done for personal satisfaction, pleasure or, of course, as a safety valve for explosions of rage. We can only make the same point so many times before we begin to feel like Douglas Adams’ bowl of petunias.

If the only thing you feel motivated to blog about is the total uselessness and stupidity of government (and, dear reader, you will know I have some sympathy with this position) then eventually you’ve actually said everything there is to be said – that governmental uselessness has been described over and over again - in technicolour and in detail - and, if the folk out there haven’t got it yet, they are clearly lacking in little grey cells.

Now I can hear you thinking. Surely, there will come a new cadre of aggressive, sweary bloggers dedicated to the overthrow of the “Coalition”? Surely left-wing bloggers will take up where the right-wing bloggers left off. And maybe those left-wing bloggers will be more libertarian in outlook? Maybe. But maybe not – and here’s why.

Obnoxio, Constantly Furious, Mr Eugenides and others were angry at what the Government was doing to their lives. It was the cameras, the speed restrictions, the food rules, planning regulations, police behaviour, smoking bans and obscene levels of punative taxation. It was the personal aggrandisement, the quangocrats, the inflated salaries, the lack of accountability, the waste, the vain belief that there is ever any justification from stopping something just because you disapprove of it.

These were direct attacks by the Government on the bloggers' lifestyle, their choices. And this was what motivated the outpouring of anger and bile.

Some left-wingers might be so motivated but most – I suspect – will talk instead of how the bad “Coalition” is affecting the lives of others. And the anger displayed is a faux-anger compared to the indignation of attacks on me and mine. The emphasis will be on shroud-waving and the weilding of begging bowls rather than a defence of individual rights - or more importantly the individual rights of the blogger concerned.

Were left-wing bloggers to adopt the stance of attacking attacks on their lives – well they'd stop being left-wing bloggers and become….

…a new generation of right-wing, swear bloggers.

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The stupidity of "No Platform" & the fight against the BNP

There are two ways to deal with unpleasant political organisations – one works, the other doesn’t. Which is why the decision of the BBC to invite the leader of the BNP onto Question Time is a welcome breakthough. It will expose the BNP’s policies to proper scrutiny from the public, from other politicians and from the media. Those policies will not survive such scrutiny. But while celebrating this decision by the BBC, let’s remind ourselves of the idiocy that is the alternative - the “No Platform” policy.

1. Back in the 1980s the Conservative Government – in one of its populist (aka silly) moments – decided that the way to deal with the unpleasant apologists for murderers in Northern Ireland was to ban them from the telly. The result was that Sinn Fein – and the odd goon from the loonier wings of loyalism – got onto the telly but with a (rather better spoken) actor dubbing the voice. “No Platform” didn’t work.

2. A few years earlier – while I was supposedly studying for a degree in Hull – the Students Union adopted a “No Platform” policy of such broadness that we had to smuggle in the (admittedly rather right-wing) local MP Patrick Wall. And that drawing of the definition of “fascist” meant that we could not support “No Platform” – seeking instead to undermine it at every opportunity (mostly by trying to get motions banned or by creating daft right-wing groups like the “Men’s Reaction Group”). “No Platform” didn’t work.

3. More recently, when the BNP were first elected onto Bradford Council in 2004, the Labour Party (and the few stray Greens in the chamber) created a delightful – faintly pythonesque – series of moments as they tried to exit the chamber so as not to be caught in the same room as a fascist asking a procedural question! Fortunately for the dignity of Council, the BNP are so monumentally useless that they failed to realise the chaos and confusion they could cause just by standing up to exercise their right to speak. “No Platform” didn’t work.

4. “No Platform” is just pointless posturing that gives easy publicity to the BNP without actually reducing that party’s ability to campaign. It is adopted by the mainstream Labour left as some kind of mark of righteousness and is a position even the wittier and wiser among them struggle to justify. I recall when Iain Dale interviewed the BNP deputy leader, Hopi Sen (who was sharing the polling day broadcast with Iain back in June) left the studio. Hopi just sounded silly. “No Platform” didn’t work.

The contention from the left is that “No Platform” removes legitimacy from the BNP and takes away their opportunity to spread their “poisonous message”. But it doesn't, it just gives that Party a glorious opportunity to play the martyr card

“LibLabCon are excluding us” is the cry. “They’re frightened of our message – the interests of working Britons are being betrayed by a corrupt political elite.”

The BNP get sympathy and coverage without having to do anything to explain or justify their policies.

For some on the left, typified by Unite Against Fascism (UAF), the solution doesn’t lie in debate – in the power of honest argument – but in “mobilising” and “organising”. In the main this involves various of the left’s badly dressed groupuscules clustering in corners of pubs and, when the endless internecine disputes of these groups are briefly set aside, getting sort of organised to gather outside another dingy pub where the “fascists” might be meeting. This usually means that a couple of skinheads are having a beer or six somewhere and waiting for the UAF to turn up so they can have a scrap. Rather foolishly those silly lefties oblige – creating a disturbance and taking up inordinate amounts of police time keeping order. And the UAF then gather back at their favoured haunt to share tales of the latest mobilisation – if they could agree on it they’d be giving out campaign medals (which the fascists probably do)!

The BNP love these campaigns – it motivates their activists, provides a ready source of recruits from those mistakenly targeted by the UAF (or who just like to beat up a few hippies) and allows that party to go on pretending to the skilled working class that it is a right-wing party with their interests at heart. Immigration policy aside (and that’s moot), the BNP – like all its predecessors – is a party of the authoritarian left. It shares with the tankies a penchant for autarky and with the trots a preference for confrontation, strikes and even violence as a means of prosecuting a political objective. The BNP should have had the same electoral impact as the multitudes of left-wing parties, from the WRF to Respect – almost none. But “No Platform”, “organising”, “mobilising” and confronting the fascists has changed that – it is the single biggest factor in the BNP’s limited success.

Give the BNP a platform, challenge what they say, show how their policies divide and destroy our culture. Doing this will change how people see them and will show them up for the embarrassment they are. Keep on with “No Platform” and watch their strength grow and grow. It’s a simple choice.