CentreRight

It is vital for British industry to have the regulatory burden reduced, which is why, to my mind, the heroes of Tuesday's conference sessions were Ken Clarke and John Penrose.  They announced some excellent new policies:

· Introduce a powerful new ‘star chamber’, chaired by Ken Clarke, which will enforce a stringent ‘one in – one out’ requirement where any new law must include cuts in old laws which, together, produce a net 5% reduction in the regulatory burden;

· Appoint Professor Richard Thaler as a senior advisor to, and member of, the star chamber committee;

· Allow the public to nominate unpopular regulations to be reviewed by Parliament;

· Add a ‘sunset clause’ to all regulators and regulatory quangos;

· Strengthen Parliamentary accountability of regulators and inspectorates;

· Publish detailed information about the expenditure and outcomes achieved by local councils, so that the public can see if their council is delivering value for money;

· Curb the powers of intrusive inspectors by allowing firms to arrange their own, externally audited inspections and, providing they pass, to refuse entry to official inspectors thereafter; and

· Consult carefully on changes that may be required to the employment and discrimination tribunals system, to ensure the system offers fast, cheap and accessible justice, and that it is fair to all sides.

These are all very welcome.  John explained the thinking behind this in a recent blog post.  Real regulatory reform will be as important to the country's economic revival as budgetary tightening.  We mustn't ignore the supply side, and for that reason these reforms deserve as much publicity as George Osborne's announcements.

Of course, given that so many of our regulations come from the EU, this is just the start.  But it is a very welcome start.

Those who are interested in the history of regulatory reform, admittedly from an American angle, can read the "book" on the subject by my colleague Marlo Lewis here.

I was astonished to hear that the geniuses behind the Labour Conference had chosen to introduce Gordon Brown with the song "Sit Down" by James.  If they'd actually read the lyrics, they might have realized what a massive failure of stagecraft this was:

Now I’m relieved to hear
That you’ve been to some far out places
It’s hard to carry on
When you feel all alone
Now I’ve swung back down again
It’s worse than it was before
If I hadn’t seen such riches
I could live with being poor

If that last couplet isn't all about the financial crisis, I don't know what is.  And then there are the lines that seem to sum up the Cabinet, sitting alongside Gordon Brown:

Those who feel the breath of sadness
Sit down next to me
Those who find they’re touched by madness
Sit down next to me
Those who find themselves ridiculous
Sit down next to me
In love, in fear, in hate, in tears
In love, in fear, in hate, in tears
In love, in fear, in hate, in tears
In love, in fear, in hate.

Michael Yon is an independent war reporter.  He has embedded with British and American troops over the past five years or more and covered the day-to-day life and, sad to say, deaths of the soldiers he lives with in a way no other reporter that I know of does.  This is the sort of high-quality, in-depth reporting that we should be paying for when we purchase a newspaper or are forced to turn over our TV Licence fee.  But Michael Yon survives on the donations of his web site's readers.  I can't think of a more stinging indictment of the current media setup than that, but that is beside the point of this post.

Most recently, Michael has been embedded with the British regiment 2 Rifles in Helmand, Afghanistan.  His most recent dispatch is a wonderful example of what he does, and echoes the authentic voice of the soldiery:

Apallingly, after reading this latest dispatch, the MOD cancelled Michael's embed. If you appreciated Michael's reports from our troops, you might want to donate to Michael's cause and perhaps write to your MP, asking them to ask the MOD exactly why they canceled the embed when no possible advantage could have accrued to the enemy from it.

UPDATE: Of course, EU Referendum has more.

Demand for wind turbine blades has slipped, apparently, so an Isle of Wight-based company that makes them, Vestas, has plans to let go 625 workers (or, in the formulaic language of the BBC, "axe 625 jobs").  So some of those being "axed" have decided to barricade themselves into the factory, in the unorthodox but apparent hope that this will stimulate demand.

What is perhaps most interesting about this story is not so much what it reveals about the impermanence of green jobs as the trade unions' attitude to them:

"The court has made its decision, but we will continue with our campaign and the right to work on green energy jobs."

So it seems that on the left there is now a substantive right to a green job. What a happy world this will be, when everyone is paid for saving the planet.  Presumably this right will be secured by a tax on the productive workers, but one has to wonder, just who will they be in this world?

(Cross-posted from Globalwarming.org)

When I was a civil servant I was lucky enough to have an Assistant Secretary who would regularly challenge the over-classification of really quite mundane documents as confidential (or worse).  At one point, I sat down with a marker pen, now presumably owned by the redactor-in-chief in Parliament, blacking out large amounts of perfectly unassuming data from a report that was to be made publicly available.  It occurs to me that one very useful policy that could be put in place on Day One of a new government would be instructions that made much less internal communication classified.

Here's a good candidate, unearthed by the estimable Christopher Booker:

In recent months, in fact, a curious little drama has been unfolding over attempts by Steve McIntyre, a Canadian statistical expert, to get the Met Office and the CRU to divulge the computer data on which they base their temperature record. ...

When Mr McIntyre made Freedom of Information requests to see the data used to construct the HadCrut record (as he has chronicled on his ClimateAudit blog) he was given an almighty brush-off, the Met Office saying that this information was strictly confidential and that to release it would damage Britain's "international relations" with all the countries that supplied it.

The idea that temperature records might be a state secret seems strange enough, but when the policies of governments across the world are based on that data it becomes odder still that no outsider should be allowed to see it. Weirdest of all, however, is the Met Office's claim that to release the data would "damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector".

This classification is, to put it bluntly, contemptuous of the British people.  Go on, Mr. Cameron, pledge to declassify this and a thousand other state "secrets" that have no business being so.

This Independent story about the Conservative Party's supposed plans to rejig the foreign aid budget is overstated but still worrying.  It says:

...the promise on aid has been called into question, with suspicions that the party plans to funnel funds away from aid towards spending to fight global warming. The Tory paper says: "Action to tackle and adapt to climate change will permeate international development policy under a Conservative Government. It requires a multi-faceted approach. We will mainstream adaptation to the impacts of climate change throughout DFID's work by supporting development activities that reflect the changing nature of the climate."

This is both good and bad.  If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is correct (and I'll accept for the sake of argument that it is), then some degree of adaptation will be necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming on the developing world.  So defences against rising sea levels and so on will be necessary in places like Bangladesh.  If DFID is going to help in that, all well and good.

However, the single most effective defence against a changing climate is an increase in a society's resiliency.  In simple terms, that means wealthy countries are better able to shrug off weather-related problems than poorer countries.  We can see that in the difference between what happened in Mexico when two identical strength hurricanes hit the same part of the country.  In 1955, Category 5 Hurricane Janet hit the Yucatan and killed 600 people.  In 2007, Category 5 Hurricane Dean hit the exact same place and killed no-one.  The difference was that a richer, more technologically advanced, Mexico had been better able to protect its citizens.

Tim raises some very good questions surrounding the future of the Institute for Economic Affairs.  As someone heavily involved in running a think tank that is all about free markets over here in Washington DC, I hope that these observations will prove helpful to those who are to decide its future direction.

First, we must recognize that one of the founding principles of the IEA - Hayek's advice to win the war of ideas without engaging in politics - has been rendered moot by technology.  Today, the war of ideas is not fought between dons in Senior Common Rooms, in the lounges of Pall Mall clubs or in the bars of the House of Commons, but between web-based organizations that involve thousands or in some cases millions of people. As a result, the war of ideas and politics have merged together.  This site is a great example, with many people - all experts in their way - contributing ideas on complex aspects of economic policy.  A good guide to the way the web is transforming politics all over the world is available for free at The Webster's Dictionary.  I hope the IEA's Trustees will read it.  None of this is to say that the IEA must merge with the Conservative Party - far from it - but it must recognize that it is part of the conservative movement and act accordingly.

Secondly, this means that the IEA must communicate and advocate.  Its old business model of producing worthy economic papers proved of great value to the conservative movement, but it is no longer enough (although it must continue in some form).  A good free-market think tank must actively proselytise the value of the free market in a political atmosphere that is increasingly hostile to the concept, for various bogus reasons.  That means embracing the tools we now have available - video, chat, social networks, twitter and so on - and finding creative ways to use them that will engage people in realising the value of the free market.  Guido Fawkes and Tory Bear (to take two random examples) between them have probably done more to defend the free market than the IEA over the past two years, and without ever explicitly saying so.  The tools that they use and their messages reinforce the free market (anti-politician = anti-control = pro-market, for instance).  Google shows us 20,000,000 ways to skin a cat.

Is there a connection between the week's two biggest stories about domestic fascists?  Why yes:

Von Brunn sometimes spoke of having fought for the wrong side in World War II, Blodgett said, and the two men sometimes attended meetings in Arlington County of the American Friends of the British National Party, which raised funds for the British white supremacist group.

I wonder whether Nick Griffin will be sending condolences to Von Brunn's family, like Eamon De Valera did for Hitler.

Al Gore is fond of suggesting that the Chinese word for "crisis" consists of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity."  As with so many other things he says, he's wrong about that (see here), but it strikes me that in the depth of this severe political crisis, there is a genuine opportunity for the conservative movement in Britain.  We can capitalize on the anti-politician sentiment most effectively if we adopt, explain and push a series of policies that reduce the power of politicians and their opportunity, not to put too fine a point on it, to rob us blind.

Cometh the hour, come the men.  Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, both sea-green incorruptibles who have come to public attention recently, have already outlined the perfect policy response in their book The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain (and, incidentally, have used a genuinely innovative print-on-demand service to publish it).  Just try these ideas on the doorstep and see what response you'd get:

• Clean Up Westminster by abolishing MP's perks, binding MPs by the same laws as everyone else and decreasing the size of HMG and the House of Commons.
• A Return to Law, Order and Accountability with directly-elected sheriffs, local control of police and local control of prosecutions.
• Supremacy of the (Reformed) Parliament, by scrapping the HRA, withdrawing from the ECHR and reserving certain powers exclusively for Parliament.
• Independence for State Schools, by scrapping the National Curriculum, granting parents rights to take their children where they'd get a good education and getting HMG out of classrooms.
• True Localism, by avoloshing QUANGOs, granting real powers to counties and replacing VAT with a local sales tax to fund it.
• Putting Patients in Control, by allowing people to opt out of the NHS and into private insurance, reatining a strong safety net and incentivizing prevention rather than cure.
• Neighbourhood Welfare to secure social justice; fighting poverty and allocation of benefits to be local.
• A Great Repeal Bill to get rid of burdensome and costly red tape, provide a mechanism for continuous repeal, and introduce sunset clauses on new laws.
• An Independent Britain, with foreign policy controlled by Parliament and replacement of our current relationship with the EU by a genuine free trade zone.
• Introduce Direct Democracy with the right of citizens to propose laws directly, referenda to block bad new laws and local referenda established as a new way of thinking about democracy.

I can't imagine many areas where this plan would not be applauded if it was put to the voters directly.  What is clear to me is that the pre-financial crisis political consensus has been swept away by the financial downturn and the utter barrage of revelations about just how bad Parliament is.  The public is demanding radical action.  The conservative movement has the blueprint for such radical action, and also some - like Douglas and Daniel - who possess the credibility to advance that platform with the voters. 
Can we put two and two together?  If we do not take this opportunity now, the public will look elsewhere for radical action.

I have been busy so missed the opportunity to post this closer to the actual anniversary of Mrs Thatcher's first election victory.  In any event, I thought it important to reflect on Mrs T's oft-cited policies on the environment.

She tends to be lauded by those in favor of immediate action on global warming, on account of her early interest in the issue.  However, as I describe here, she has been dismayed by the direction in which global warming policy has gone, and anyone who suggests she would be in favour of the sort of policies currently being talked about clearly hasn't read Statecraft. 

In The Downing Street Years she talks about the "cranks and romantics" of the environmental movement and how effectively Nicholas Ridley dealt with them.  I shudder to think how Nick Ridley would respond to, for instance, the 80% emissions reduction target and the bind that puts on so much of a Conservative government's policy in other areas, something that I believe Matt Sinclair plans to write about here soon.

I was a bit mystified when George Osborne, in an otherwise splendid defence of capitalism today, said this:

I was mystified because this is not a critique of any libertarianism I recognize.  Every libertarian I know not just recognizes the need for but insists on the important role of institutions, laws and cultural norms in preserving freedom (and it recognizes these collectively as the Rule of Law).  As I have argued elsewhere, for example, if we are to enjoy our liberty, we must acknowledge property rights, which in turn requires institutions that protect those property rights from abuse - and that entails laws and courts, as well as the social norms against stealing.  It is not libertarians who disdain institutions, laws and cultural norms, but anarchists.

For example, here are libertarian theorist Tibor Machin's most "basic tenets of libertarianism:" 

1. Adult human beings (and children derivatively and with proper adjustments) are sovereign over their lives, actions, and belongings. They have rights, among others, to life, liberty, and property.
2. Human beings have the responsibility in their communities to respect and act in recognition of this fact when dealing with others.
3. Human beings ought to develop institutions that ensure the protection of their sovereignty, delegating the required powers to agents (governments or the equivalent) for that purpose.
4. Such delegation of powers must occur without the violation of sovereignty or individual rights.
5. The agencies to which the power of protecting rights is delegated must exercise this power for the sole purpose of protecting those rights.
6. All concerns, including the protection of individual rights, must be acted on by members of communities without violating those rights.

Most Conservatives today would agree with all or most of those tenets.  It is actually a very old strand of small-c conservative thought that starts from a different set of tenets, to do with natural orders and ordained hierarchies, but I do not think many Conservatives today believe in the class system as the fundamental basis of social order (no doubt Viscount Crouchback will differ in the comments).  Yet the tenets as here described recognize the need for an institutional and legal framework that protects against force, fraud, theft and breach of contract, which are the problems I suspect Mr Osborne is alluding to in his reference to "free-for alls."  So there is no contradiction between libertarianism and a disciplined market.

I am grateful to the excellent BreakingViews financial news website (subscription or trial required) for alerting me to a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the scale of the UK's fiscal problems.  It makes for sobering reading.  Some highlights:

• The UK's deficit to GDP ratio is 11%, half again higher than the 7% that caused Callaghan to go to the IMF.
• The debt to GDP ratio is 42%.  The IFS projects that at current trends it will reach 90% by the 2050s - and stay there.
• To balance expenses and revenues by 2015, HMG will need to find another 39 billion Pounds from somewhere.  Interest expenses alone will be 1.5% of GDP.
• With no further spending cuts, that will require an additional 1,250 Pounds of annual taxation per family.
• No further tax rise will require spending cuts of over 1% per annum.
• The implications of a 90% debt to GDP ratio sugget that any fiscal stimulus package will "pale into insignificance relative to the underlying weakening of the public finances.

BreakingViews' Edward Hadas suggests that printing money may prove more attractive to HMG than accepting any of these unattractive options.  Of course, that will risk uncontrolled inflation.  In any event, I hope the Treasury team is reading this analysis alongside today's findings from the CHome party members' poll.

Come now, Tim, remember the last time they tried to intimidate City workers?

But that's not the point of this post.  I am astonished not to have seen anything here about the despicable actions of South Yorkshire Police in preventing willing neighbours from attempting to rescue a family that perished in a fire, saying they must wait for the Fire Brigade to come.  The ever-excellent Natalie Solent at Samizdata has some insightful things to say:

One of the lesser known sights of London is the Watts Memorial in Postman's Park. I gather it featured in the film Closer, starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law. No, I am not being funny, suddenly veering off into a travelogue in the middle of a post about the deaths of a family. I wish there were something to laugh about. The memorial was set up by a Victorian artist, George Frederick Watts, to commemorate those who died saving others. It consists of hand made plaques each bearing the name of a person who sacrificed his or her life and a brief citation. Very quaint they are, with their crowded lettering with the extra-large initial capitals and little swirly plant motifs and curlicues in the corners. Even the names are quaint, laboriously given in full. Police Constables Percy Edwin Cook, Edward George Brown Greenoff, Harold Frank Ricketts and George Stephen Funnell are among them. I wonder what PC Percy Edwin Cook, for instance, who perished when he "Voluntarily descended high tension chamber at Kensington to rescue two workmen overcome by poisonous gas" would have made of his successors in the South Yorkshire force.

Congratulations to those brave souls who are prepared to brave the angry anti-capitalists tomorrow in a small counter-demo.  As the organiser says:

I hope a few more people will join them and that they will get some press exposure, at least allowing the other side to be heard.  I'd be there if I could.

I am distressed that Boris Johnson has once again fallen for the hype of "green jobs," saying

To give Boris the benefit of the doubt, this is wishful thinking.  Study after study of "the new energy economy" in the US demonstrates that green jobs are hype rather than reality.  Even an alliance of trade unions and green pressure groups admitted that what green jobs there are in the US are of low quality (of course the solution to that, the report claims, is strong unions).  The truth seems to be dawning even in California.

That's the US, of course, but there's a new study out from King Juan Carlos University in Spain that examines the effect of policies aimed at promoting green jobs there.  Prof. Gabriel Calzada found that for every green job created, 2.2 jobs were lost in traditional industries.  I also understand that the study (there isn't an English version available on line yet as far as I can tell) points out that the jobs that were created were mostly transitory, and that 40,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the solar industry this year.

This should, of course, be blindingly obvious.  I don't think anyone has summed up the green job mythologising better than Catherine Bennett in The Guardian, of all places, back in 2004, satirising the thinking of HRH the Prince of Wales:

Don't fall for the hype.  Turn again, Boris, before it's too late!

Tim,

First of all thanks for the opportunity to post here.  It's a fine venue with a fine crowd.  For my first post I thought I'd add some thoughts to what you have to say below.  It is right and, indeed, essential, for conservatives (of all stripes) to involve themselves in "environmental" issues.  However, to do so by borrowing a set of policies from a movement that is opposed to conservativism in virtually every sense is just foolish, and that is what most conservatives who talk about environmentalism have in effect done.  They have ignored not just the conservative tradition of stewardship that you mention, but also the important and respectable theories of Free Market Environmentalism (FME). One of the many reasons why the Quality of Life policy group went so far off the rails was because it failed to include, or even reach out to, leading British thinkers on FME like Prof. Julian Morris of the International Policy Network.

The fact is that we can tackle virtually every "environmental" issue without going down the road to ecological serfdom (and actually inducing environmental disaster as a result) by applying these two principles - even the vexed subject of global warming.  In fact, that's the subject of the last chapter of my book. We conservatives have the will, and we have the principles, but the party has not put the two together.  I've offered before privately, but will do so now publicly, to come over and brief the party on the principles of stewardship and FME and how they can produce a credible, proven, genuinely conservative environmental policy.  I'm not expecting any response, however.