It was announced that Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Opposition leader, had cancelled a trip to this country, because a British judge had issued a warrant for her arrest.
Her crime seems to have been that she was a minister during the Israeli/Gazan troubles recently.
We do not know who sought the arrest, although it sounds as if it was granted on the basis of Human Rights. So are we now to assume that anyone who is connected to any opposition to one of the in-groups, such as Hammas, as downtrodden and innocent, may effectively be black-balled or even arrested? Would such a person be tried here for an "offence" committed elsewhere? Can we invite, and allow safe entry to, any foreign political leader who belongs to a party or state not in favour here?
Do British judges now claim the power to judge cases of alleged abuses conducted abroad? Add to this the fact that we are powerless to return known trouble-making terrorists to their countries of origin in case the little darlings are prosecuted, and you wonder what protection we, the law abiding, actually get under the Human Rights legislation.
If protesters can now prevent a democratically elected leading member of a liberal democracy visiting us, where are we going? This sounds more like ideological justice rather than the rule of Law, and it sounds as if some members of the judiciary are allowing their own prejudices to swamp their judgments.
The proposed bill of rights, based on something like Magna Carta, cannot some too soon, with rights enshrined in constitutiona , and not subject to arbitrary suspension or interpretation.
Above all, we must eject any judicial activism.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Good for the Irish!
The Irish, just about the only country with a more threatening economic situation than our own, are preparing savage cuts in order to produce a prospect of balance. They have little choice, because they have signed away any latitude by fixing their exchange rate as a Euro currency member.
At the same time G.Brown is proposing to spend even more, in some wild dash for growth or electoral salvation. He is invoking the name of Keynes, as are many others, who in the face of a credit-caused recession are recommending still more credit creation.
There is no time to explain the Theory evolved by Keynes, but merely its main thrust. When there is unemployment, he suggests, and therefore inadequate total spending, the government should spend to make up some or all of the shortfall. Few, I think, would doubt this in the case of a full-blown depression such as in the 1930s. (It should be remembered, however, that despite massive public works programmes and social benefits, in 1931 unemployment stood at 17.4% and the Dow Jones Index at 140 and by 1938 unemployment was still at 17.4% and the Dow had dropped to 121. If the Keynesian remedy was working, it was working rather slowly!
There is an alternative view - that unemployment is not merely from a lack of total demand, but also from a serious imbalance in the economy which requires serious correction. Keynes's prescription does not deal with this.
In the early 1980s 285 ( or however many) economists (Keynesian devotees) wrote their famous letter, protesting at what the Thatcher government was doing. It was a hard time for many, but the Thatcher remedy worked, and for a few years we had one of the strongest growing economies in the world.
That might not be the best example, but there is also the Swedish example in the early 1990s, where cuts solved their problems very quickly, a process which Cameron and Osborne are known to have thought about.
Everyone quotes, as I have, the 1930s experience of the USA, but fail to mention the earlier depression of 1920. President Harding was pilloried for having a policy of cuts and balance, but Keynes had not yet written and the opposition had no theoretical underpinning. Harding cut taxes and cut expenditure. He paid off a third of the government debt. More importantly, by the late summer of 1921 the economy was visibly recovering.
The Keynesian "solution" is intuitively attractive, but it ignores the complexity of the economy, with its sundry imbalances and unpredictable expectations, reactions and outcomes. In 70 plus years the possibility of a depression may have been unrealised by the confidence it bred. Once we are in a recession, and Keynes policy was a failure in the 1930s, there is more rationality in allowing the complexity of the system to sort itself out, with government support of victims, rather than perpetuating imbalances and maladjustments and dragging out the process.
In our present situation, out-of-control government spending has deepened and prolonged our recession, and there seems little recommendation to continue it, except ideological and electoral considerations.Further government credit expansion could cause problems in financing and interest rates, and the famous "second dip".
At the same time G.Brown is proposing to spend even more, in some wild dash for growth or electoral salvation. He is invoking the name of Keynes, as are many others, who in the face of a credit-caused recession are recommending still more credit creation.
There is no time to explain the Theory evolved by Keynes, but merely its main thrust. When there is unemployment, he suggests, and therefore inadequate total spending, the government should spend to make up some or all of the shortfall. Few, I think, would doubt this in the case of a full-blown depression such as in the 1930s. (It should be remembered, however, that despite massive public works programmes and social benefits, in 1931 unemployment stood at 17.4% and the Dow Jones Index at 140 and by 1938 unemployment was still at 17.4% and the Dow had dropped to 121. If the Keynesian remedy was working, it was working rather slowly!
There is an alternative view - that unemployment is not merely from a lack of total demand, but also from a serious imbalance in the economy which requires serious correction. Keynes's prescription does not deal with this.
In the early 1980s 285 ( or however many) economists (Keynesian devotees) wrote their famous letter, protesting at what the Thatcher government was doing. It was a hard time for many, but the Thatcher remedy worked, and for a few years we had one of the strongest growing economies in the world.
That might not be the best example, but there is also the Swedish example in the early 1990s, where cuts solved their problems very quickly, a process which Cameron and Osborne are known to have thought about.
Everyone quotes, as I have, the 1930s experience of the USA, but fail to mention the earlier depression of 1920. President Harding was pilloried for having a policy of cuts and balance, but Keynes had not yet written and the opposition had no theoretical underpinning. Harding cut taxes and cut expenditure. He paid off a third of the government debt. More importantly, by the late summer of 1921 the economy was visibly recovering.
The Keynesian "solution" is intuitively attractive, but it ignores the complexity of the economy, with its sundry imbalances and unpredictable expectations, reactions and outcomes. In 70 plus years the possibility of a depression may have been unrealised by the confidence it bred. Once we are in a recession, and Keynes policy was a failure in the 1930s, there is more rationality in allowing the complexity of the system to sort itself out, with government support of victims, rather than perpetuating imbalances and maladjustments and dragging out the process.
In our present situation, out-of-control government spending has deepened and prolonged our recession, and there seems little recommendation to continue it, except ideological and electoral considerations.Further government credit expansion could cause problems in financing and interest rates, and the famous "second dip".
Bungling and inept
In 2004 Gordon Brown, as chancellor, vetoed the purchase of additional Chinook helicopters for Afghanistan. In 2013, if we are still involved there, we shall have the aircraft available. So 12 years after entering Afghanistan we shall have the helicopters for which the military have been calling for six or seven years already. (If I were a relative of a serving solider in Iraq or in Afghanistan, especially if he or she had been killed there, I would be very angry.)
We shall have them, but at a cost. The cost is reductions in military capability elsewhere. We have been trying to fight long and expensive wars from essentially a peace-time budget, and plundering other aspects of the MOD budget to pay the costs of war.
We shall have two new aircraft carriers in due course, with delay and postponement putting up the cost from ££4.09 billion to £5.13 billion. Whether we shall be able to afford aircraft for them is another matter - Harriers are being withdrawn and sold, in order to save money. Even the extra £150 million to protect our troops from IEDs will require penny inching elsewhere.
The MOD has a black hole of £36 billion in its equipment budget, partly from bungling and errors, and also from the aim to finance two wars from annual budgets and nothing extra.
Despite Brown's regular visits and prancing about, the military have never been a priority of Labour, except to save jobs. Blair used them for his own purposes, but never arranged sufficient preparation or finance.
We shall have them, but at a cost. The cost is reductions in military capability elsewhere. We have been trying to fight long and expensive wars from essentially a peace-time budget, and plundering other aspects of the MOD budget to pay the costs of war.
We shall have two new aircraft carriers in due course, with delay and postponement putting up the cost from ££4.09 billion to £5.13 billion. Whether we shall be able to afford aircraft for them is another matter - Harriers are being withdrawn and sold, in order to save money. Even the extra £150 million to protect our troops from IEDs will require penny inching elsewhere.
The MOD has a black hole of £36 billion in its equipment budget, partly from bungling and errors, and also from the aim to finance two wars from annual budgets and nothing extra.
Despite Brown's regular visits and prancing about, the military have never been a priority of Labour, except to save jobs. Blair used them for his own purposes, but never arranged sufficient preparation or finance.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Higher and higher?
Consumer price inflation in November rose at its highest rate since May.
The index (CPI) in 2009 was 1.9 % higher than in the same month in 2008. There had been an expectation of about 1.8%, so you could argue that the experts mostly got it right in advance. In 2008 there had been falls in the cost of transport, but this year a rise in November.
There will be a further spur to inflation in January when the rate of VAT is raised back to 17.5%. The Bank of England is prepared for a rate of 3.0 on the CPI, but feels that it could fall back because of the low level of economic activity and high unemployment.
(The more familiar and more inclusive RPI, - Retail Price Index, rose by 0.3% compared with a year earlier, also slightly more than expected.)
Is this of concern? The answer has to be be "No, not as things stand." There could however be other shocks. If sterling depreciates against other currencies, perhaps because of a loss of confidence in sterling by international creditors, then import prices would rise and add to any pressures. Alternatively, if growth is at the level the chancellor claims to expect, then bottle necks and resource shortages could drive up prices, and consumers willing to pay them because of the new-found confidence in the economy, Further tax rises, on income or purchases, could also feed through into higher wages and prices.
We would not want inflation to take off, because that could lead to a rise in interest rates, as the Bank of England tries to moderate the inflation. This could nip any further growth in the bud. This is a point that Osborne has been making recently.
The index (CPI) in 2009 was 1.9 % higher than in the same month in 2008. There had been an expectation of about 1.8%, so you could argue that the experts mostly got it right in advance. In 2008 there had been falls in the cost of transport, but this year a rise in November.
There will be a further spur to inflation in January when the rate of VAT is raised back to 17.5%. The Bank of England is prepared for a rate of 3.0 on the CPI, but feels that it could fall back because of the low level of economic activity and high unemployment.
(The more familiar and more inclusive RPI, - Retail Price Index, rose by 0.3% compared with a year earlier, also slightly more than expected.)
Is this of concern? The answer has to be be "No, not as things stand." There could however be other shocks. If sterling depreciates against other currencies, perhaps because of a loss of confidence in sterling by international creditors, then import prices would rise and add to any pressures. Alternatively, if growth is at the level the chancellor claims to expect, then bottle necks and resource shortages could drive up prices, and consumers willing to pay them because of the new-found confidence in the economy, Further tax rises, on income or purchases, could also feed through into higher wages and prices.
We would not want inflation to take off, because that could lead to a rise in interest rates, as the Bank of England tries to moderate the inflation. This could nip any further growth in the bud. This is a point that Osborne has been making recently.
Sorry they missed us...
People have complained that postmen sometimes leave a card saying that they could not contact us, or that the householders were out. (I have to say that this has happened a few times at our house, though not for a few months, when we were in and would have heard the bell if it had been rung.)
The postal watchdog has recently commissioned a survey to see how widespread the experience is. Amazingly, 55% of respondents said that it had happened to them, and 23% that it had happened on at least three occasions.
It was irritating, to say the least, last Christmas, when we were left a card, and after making our way to the soon-to-be-closed sorting office and parting with £1.18, we were handed a Christmas card with no stamp - either forgotten or had become detached. I could understand this in the old days, when we sometimes received our post at 7.30 am, and the postie perhaps did not want to disturb us, but we now receive our post any time between 9.30 and 2.30!
It seems, by way of explanation, that some posties resent having to take out small packets, or under-stamped letters, but to leave them in the sorting office and put a card, written before starting the round, saying that we were out, is nothing less than deception.
The postal watchdog has recently commissioned a survey to see how widespread the experience is. Amazingly, 55% of respondents said that it had happened to them, and 23% that it had happened on at least three occasions.
It was irritating, to say the least, last Christmas, when we were left a card, and after making our way to the soon-to-be-closed sorting office and parting with £1.18, we were handed a Christmas card with no stamp - either forgotten or had become detached. I could understand this in the old days, when we sometimes received our post at 7.30 am, and the postie perhaps did not want to disturb us, but we now receive our post any time between 9.30 and 2.30!
It seems, by way of explanation, that some posties resent having to take out small packets, or under-stamped letters, but to leave them in the sorting office and put a card, written before starting the round, saying that we were out, is nothing less than deception.
The Acadamies
The Academies, Blair's flagships, have been the subject of study by the think-tank Civitas.
The majority of academies do not publish their results, as they are independent state schools and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. They are, however , inspected by Ofsted, and almost half of those inspected recently were no better than adequate in standard.
The Civitas study found that the schools were very interested in achieving good grades, however, but disappointingly boosted the marks by encouraging students to study easier and vocational courses, rather than the more academic.We had been told that the academies had improved GCSE grades at twice the rate of "ordinary" secondary schools, although it was admitted that many had been reformed failing schools and so started from a lower base. (In 2008-09 the academies produced students of whom 36% gained five decent GCSE passes, including maths and English. Other schools nationally achieved 48%.)
The Tories have also made a policy emphasis on academies, so this must be a concern for them. The academies were supposed to be "models of excellence", and so must be thought to some extent failing this.
The challenge is how to achieve independence without dilution of standards. The answer might be to adopt the "Swedish" approach, as advocated by Michael Gove, with extremely local control and full publication or knowledge of what is going on.
The majority of academies do not publish their results, as they are independent state schools and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. They are, however , inspected by Ofsted, and almost half of those inspected recently were no better than adequate in standard.
The Civitas study found that the schools were very interested in achieving good grades, however, but disappointingly boosted the marks by encouraging students to study easier and vocational courses, rather than the more academic.We had been told that the academies had improved GCSE grades at twice the rate of "ordinary" secondary schools, although it was admitted that many had been reformed failing schools and so started from a lower base. (In 2008-09 the academies produced students of whom 36% gained five decent GCSE passes, including maths and English. Other schools nationally achieved 48%.)
The Tories have also made a policy emphasis on academies, so this must be a concern for them. The academies were supposed to be "models of excellence", and so must be thought to some extent failing this.
The challenge is how to achieve independence without dilution of standards. The answer might be to adopt the "Swedish" approach, as advocated by Michael Gove, with extremely local control and full publication or knowledge of what is going on.
Short-sightedness?
We listened with amazement at the decision of the Unite union to organise a strike to cause maximum damage to their company, British Airways, and maximum difficulty to hundreds of thousands of travellers over the Christmas period. As the last strike was in 2007 and cost £80 million, it seems that the union has something of a death wish for its members.
It is never easy for an outsider to know what is behind such disputes, (I am not sure that voting members fully understand either.)
It seems that the company, which in the last financial year lost £400 million, could lose as much as £600 million this year even before the strike, which itself could cost as much as £300 million, had attempted to cut the number of stewards and stewardesses. This was in an effort to compete with the low cost airlines. The company claimed, and the union has not challenged it, that their staff are better paid than those on Virgin Airways. It is clear that staff savings had to be made. Did the company impose the changes without full consultation? Is this what it is really about?
Whatever the facts, it remains that the company which has seen a near doubling of its pension fund black hole to £3.7 billion - the largest in the private sector, will lose customers not only at Christmas but permanently. There must be a real question about the ability to remain a large carrier.
The Communication Workers are also slowly committing suicide, but they have a government and public sector behind them. B.A. staff have no such protection, and are risking their jobs when there are many unemployed who could fill them, and many competitors who would be pleased to take their traffic!
A very short-sighted decision!
It is never easy for an outsider to know what is behind such disputes, (I am not sure that voting members fully understand either.)
It seems that the company, which in the last financial year lost £400 million, could lose as much as £600 million this year even before the strike, which itself could cost as much as £300 million, had attempted to cut the number of stewards and stewardesses. This was in an effort to compete with the low cost airlines. The company claimed, and the union has not challenged it, that their staff are better paid than those on Virgin Airways. It is clear that staff savings had to be made. Did the company impose the changes without full consultation? Is this what it is really about?
Whatever the facts, it remains that the company which has seen a near doubling of its pension fund black hole to £3.7 billion - the largest in the private sector, will lose customers not only at Christmas but permanently. There must be a real question about the ability to remain a large carrier.
The Communication Workers are also slowly committing suicide, but they have a government and public sector behind them. B.A. staff have no such protection, and are risking their jobs when there are many unemployed who could fill them, and many competitors who would be pleased to take their traffic!
A very short-sighted decision!
Monday, 14 December 2009
We must have something to fight!
In the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s, we were told that there was concern about an impending mini ice age. Strangely, that has been forgotten and temperature graphs now show no fall in temperature in that period, although they did at the time. I remember vividly the warnings about the imminent arrival of plunging temperatures.
In the late 1970s and in to the 1980s, the warning was about acid rain, and the UK was criticised for all the smoke blowing across the North Sea and killing the trees in Scandinavia. Continental Europeans were labeling us, and the Poles and Czechs, as the dirty men of Europe. I don't recall us doing anything, but the trees have stopped dying.
Now, of course, the problem is global warming, although some observers who haven't seen the supposedly more accurate adjusted figures are reporting no rise in temperatures for well over a decade.
What makes a self-righteous movement become shrill, on the basis of graphs produced from recorded data which we are not allowed to see?
Those of us who are not sceptical by nature, and merely wish to see data with an explanation of why it was adjusted, could be forgiven for being a little concerned at the impoverishment which we are about to heap on our children and grandchildren.
When I first studied statistics I was shown a graph of electricity consumption in the UK up to mid 1925s. It was possible to fit various trend lines, one of which, I remember, suggested that by the mid 1980s there would not be enough energy in the solar system to cater for the UK's energy demand. Which plotted trend line should have they adopted?
There is guilt,- the white man has ruined the environment and kept the underdeveloped countries in poverty. There is arrogance and pride - we understand the very complicated climate system so well that we can predict with exactness and confidence what will happen in the future. There is ambition, - we have the means and the calculations to control such a massive system to produce an outcome which is entirely predictable.
Which one explains the insistence of the AGW industry that anyone who dissents is either mad or bad, and should be denied air-time, publication facilities, data and debate?
In the late 1970s and in to the 1980s, the warning was about acid rain, and the UK was criticised for all the smoke blowing across the North Sea and killing the trees in Scandinavia. Continental Europeans were labeling us, and the Poles and Czechs, as the dirty men of Europe. I don't recall us doing anything, but the trees have stopped dying.
Now, of course, the problem is global warming, although some observers who haven't seen the supposedly more accurate adjusted figures are reporting no rise in temperatures for well over a decade.
What makes a self-righteous movement become shrill, on the basis of graphs produced from recorded data which we are not allowed to see?
Those of us who are not sceptical by nature, and merely wish to see data with an explanation of why it was adjusted, could be forgiven for being a little concerned at the impoverishment which we are about to heap on our children and grandchildren.
When I first studied statistics I was shown a graph of electricity consumption in the UK up to mid 1925s. It was possible to fit various trend lines, one of which, I remember, suggested that by the mid 1980s there would not be enough energy in the solar system to cater for the UK's energy demand. Which plotted trend line should have they adopted?
There is guilt,- the white man has ruined the environment and kept the underdeveloped countries in poverty. There is arrogance and pride - we understand the very complicated climate system so well that we can predict with exactness and confidence what will happen in the future. There is ambition, - we have the means and the calculations to control such a massive system to produce an outcome which is entirely predictable.
Which one explains the insistence of the AGW industry that anyone who dissents is either mad or bad, and should be denied air-time, publication facilities, data and debate?
The Spirit of the season?
Paul Waugh, in his blog for the Evening Standard today, reports the discovery made by a colleague from a written answer by Health Minister Phil Hope.
Just five days after the PBR statement, and when most people not in the Labour government were warning of the parlous state of the public finances and the need for cuts, the Department of Health has excelled itself.
It has erected a Christmas tree at Skipton House, not any old tree mind you, but a tree costing £2,485. It is dressed, however!
This tree is not on public view, but merely there to cheer the 905 DoH staff who work in the building.
Wouldn't they be cheered by a smaller one? Is it that they they accept that there will be savings, and this is a last splurge before belt tightening?
There is obviously a great deal of waste in government, if this is anything to go by.
Just five days after the PBR statement, and when most people not in the Labour government were warning of the parlous state of the public finances and the need for cuts, the Department of Health has excelled itself.
It has erected a Christmas tree at Skipton House, not any old tree mind you, but a tree costing £2,485. It is dressed, however!
This tree is not on public view, but merely there to cheer the 905 DoH staff who work in the building.
Wouldn't they be cheered by a smaller one? Is it that they they accept that there will be savings, and this is a last splurge before belt tightening?
There is obviously a great deal of waste in government, if this is anything to go by.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Nothing changes
"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
"Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"
In the light of the present revelations that many/most MPs still have their noses in the trough, despite all the agitation, these words as as relevant now as they were on 20th April 1653, when Oliver Cromwell used them in speaking to the House of Commons. Need I write any more?
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