Climate change: the dam is cracking
Andrew Neil sums it up pretty neatly when he states that the IPCC 2007 report on climate change is "crumbling in some pretty significant areas."
I don't like to sound like a smarty-pants, but anyone capable of thinking for themselves, and with the inclination to do some reading, could see this coming. Four months ago, I wrote of the "growing gap between public policy positions on climate change, and the supporting science". I forecast that "in the free market of ideas, expect a correction soon ...."
Not put off by the personally unpleasant emails then sent to me by a publicly-funded official calling me a fascist, I suggested that the "lunatic consensus" was about to break down.
There is a desperate need for those who determine public policy to stop deferring to endless, one-sided experts. Of course we must listen to scientific advice. But we must also think for ourselves.
Posted on 28 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Decentralise control over welfare
The Guardian suggests that the Conservatives may give councils power to set benefits. Apparently, "the Conservative Treasury team are holding talks on handing responsibility to local councils for setting and distributing benefits such as the jobseeker's allowance."
What a great idea. (In fact, it sounds like chapter 7 in The Plan...)
Decentralising responsibility means that councils could tailor their policies to suit local needs. It would allow local caseworkers to exercise judgement, rather than crude "tick box" assessment.
Devolved responsibility means pluralism - which spreads best practice. The freedom to innovate means that local authorities will come up with ideas and pilot schemes that Whitehall would never have dreamed of. Those that work will be copied elsewhere so that, as in the US, councillors start speaking of "adopting the Surrey model" or "introducing Essex-style reforms". Moreover, non-state agents – churches, charities, businesses – are likelier to involve themselves in local projects than in national schemes.
Most important, localised welfare will restore the notion of responsibility: our responsibility to support ourselves if we can, and our responsibility to those around us who, for whatever reason, cannot support themselves.
Here's a more detailed paper on the subject that spells out how such reforms might work in practice.
Posted on 28 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Private Accounts Committee?
Just been quizzing MoD chiefs about the way they spend the defence budget. Not unreasonably, given that it's public money and our armed forces are short of kit, I wanted to know about certain key projects.
Alas, Parliament is quite incapable of holding government to account for such things - as I soon discovered. Under current arrangements, the committee might as well not bother.
I asked a straight question about the A400M 'plane (rumoured to now cost over £100 million per 'plane and to be ridiculously delayed). But, I was told, commercial confidentiality meant I wasn't allowed to know. Unless the Public Accounts Committee went into private session.
Naturally, I refused. "If this session goes private, I will leave" I said. Why put yourself in a situation where you are bound from holding our blundering executive to account?
It is supposed to be a Public - not Private - Accounts Committee.
So much for open government. So much for democratic scrutiny. So much for a sovereign legislature. No wonder voters think politicians are useless.
Posted on 27 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Government out of control
The Supreme Court* today ruled that the government acted unlawfully in seizing control of terror suspects assets. The judges found that the executive created offences without putting it to a vote in Parliament.
On that basis, surely, most things government does could be struck down?
Bankers received a £billion bail out - without a proper vote. Most regulations pass through Parliament on the nod as Statutory Instruments, or as EU dictat. Quangos and statutory agencies make public policy as they please.
If a Commons vote was still a prerequisite for executive policy-making, the legislature would have to do a good deal more, and executive a lot less.
* - the Supreme Court is not really "supreme", now that our highest court is in Europe.
Posted on 27 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Holocaust Memorial Day
A couple of days ago, I visited the Yad Vashem centre in Jerusalem, built to remember victims of the Holocaust.
I was taught about the Holocaust at school, and have read books about it - most recently Richard Evans' Third Reich at War. Yet I found the Yad Vashem disturbing and powerful because, as Daniel Hannan blogs, it shows that the victims were just ordinary people, "as much the centre of his universe as you are".
I'm pleased that my local council now has a ceremony to mark today, and that children from our local schools now take part in programmes run by the Holocaust Education Trust.
Posted on 27 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Which Britain is "more conservative"?
Britain
is becoming more conservative in terms of public attitudes, apparently. More people, they tell us, are of the view that government should do less, and that as individuals we should have greater freedom.
Good. But what about the attitudes of official Britain? The
"official mind" seems remarkably unresponsive to change.
Indeed, the quango state, which actually makes public policy, seems immune to public feeling and attitudes. For example, the people might want less top-down regulation, yet our Whitehall establishment carry on with a Euro-corporatism straight from the 1950s. Our ipod society might take the view that we should have freedom to live as we choose, but this week government issued edicts dictating what our seven year olds must be taught.
The British people may want more freedom and less government. Yet the British state carries on eroding our liberties and imposing government into the nooks and crannies of our lives.
This is why we need direct democracy - to bring state institutions into line with the rest of us.
Posted on 26 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Cheap booze and localism
It's sometimes said that localism is impractical politics. "The theory's fine, Carswell" I keep being told," but just wait 'til the media start demanding that "something must be done".
Then my local newspaper calls me wanting my thoughts on cheap booze; "Shouldn't we ban it? Why not set minimum national prices".
"Do you really want Westminster politicians deciding the price of a pint?" I reply. "Cheap booze is a real problem in some places. But most responsible folk don't need government to run their pubs and clubs. So why not let our local council deal with it case-by-case?"
"Give councils real discretion over licensing. Let them levy any new tax. That way we get a specific solution to each different local circumstance".
"And local people, police and even newspapers, would get to have a real say over what needs to be done".
Which is more plausible? Saying that, or promising yet another regulatory sledgehammer from Whitehall, which would only miss the nut?
Making the case for localism doesn't need to be difficult.
Posted on 24 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Why does the Left hate Israel?
I've an article in this week's Jewish Chronicle looking at the extraordinary double standards applied to Israel by the British left. And indeed, the left-leaning Whitehall establishment.
Posted on 22 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
Edlington case: the state is not on your side
Two brothers who tortured two boys have been given "indefinite periods of detention".
In other words, instead of a court of law handing down clearly defined sentences in public, it'll be left to officials - the kind who put rehabilitation ahead of justice - to oversee the punishment.
Except, I doubt that punishment is going to feature strongly in the minds of the probation officials in charge. They tend to see things more from the criminals point of view, rather than the victim. Compassion is easy to dish out when it's not your rights that were violated and when it's not up to you to forgive.
Already Ed Ball, the minister, has been keen to emphasise that the brothers "get support in custody to turn things around". He goes on the tell us that the review into this case, which apparently catalogues the incompetence of state officials, cannot be made public.
State officials hate public scrutiny because it forces them to answer outward to the public, rather than inward to each other. Answering directly to the rest of us would force those that run the justice system to abandon their sociological excuse-making for savage crimes.
Posted on 22 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell
In a jam
Delighted to discover that a pot of blackberry jam I made has raised £20 in a local constituency charity auction.
Do you suppose home-made jam breaks lots of EU directives? I do hope so.
Posted on 22 January 2010 by Douglas Carswell