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The Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill, introduced by Philip Hollobone MP (Conservative – Kettering), has had its first reading.

Given Mr Hollobone’s previous statements that the burka is ‘against the British way of life’ and ‘offensive’, it is fairly clear to me what its intent is.

Three points.

Firstly, this is deeply illiberal. I shouldn’t need to say much more, but I will. I understand that there are times – airport security, for instance – where we do need to make sure that the person matches the passport and we seem to be managing just fine with providing an area where people who wear the burka can be identified and so on. However, if people are just going about their daily business, I think they should be able to wear more or less what they want. Short of that, this must rank as an extraordinary expansion of the writ of the state and I don’t want the introduction of some sort of sumptuary law.

Secondly, this isn’t the way to go about it. If we assume that the burka is indicative of oppression and isolation, I don’t see how a ban will remediate the situation. If the premise is that women are oppressed and forced to wear the burka, they can be compelled to remain at home or only leave it occasionally. If the premise is that they are an isolated community, ditto, with the additional bonus of feeding into the extremists’ (al-Mujahiroun, the Daily Express…) narrative that it is impossible to reconcile being British with being a Muslim. Mr Hollobone and his fellow-travellers in UKIP haven’t talked about education or reaching out, just about bans.

Thidly, unintended consequences. It is far too easy for me to see how a badly-worded bill could lead to situations like welders’ masks having to be removed if you’re not welding for more than half a minute and not being able to dress up as a ghost for Hallowe’en. The alternative is to specify that this law only applies to Muslim women.

Ultimately, I don’t think this is about covering one’s face. I think that is being used as a proxy for Islamophobia.

I find this proposal abhorrent and I’m glad to say that, as Mr Hollobone came seventeenth out of twenty in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills, I don’t think it stands any real chance of making progress. The second reading will be on December 3rd, by which point the text of the bill should be available.

xD.

Godstone Farm: in defence of health and safety

Posted on by David Landon Cole

You have to feel sorry for anyone involved with ‘elf ‘n safety.

Whenever they get it right, they are joyless jobsworths sucking all the pleasure out of life. When they get it wrong, they are criticised for putting children at risk; viz., Godstone Farm.

The short version of the story is that Godstone Farm, a petting farm, did not have adequate measures in place to prevent people, principally children, from picking up diseases from animal dung. Ninety-three people became ill as a result of infection with a nasty strain of E. coli, O157, and it seems that some of the children who were infected will require dialysis for the rest of their lives. Insufficient attention given to handwashing at the farm seems to have been the original cause, coupled with an inadequate response from the Health Protection Agency. The independent Griffin Investigation reported yesterday.

I would make a few points about what might be considered by some to be unwarranted intrusion on our ancient liberties and so on.

Firstly, it’s not obvious. Just because it’s obvious to you (and as a reader of this blog, I can only assume that you are of quite exquisite intellect and positively overflowing with common sense) doesn’t mean it’s obvious to everyone. While I was aware that rolling in cow dung was probably not a good idea, it’s easy enough to see how the meme about children needing to get exposure to pathogens to strengthen their immune systems coupled with a lack of knowledge about, say, E. coli could lead parents to think the risks are lower than they are; in this case, there was a particular criticism that the risk was considered lower than it should be as, although the probability of it happening was low, the outcomes could be very negative. Moreover,

Secondly, people are used to a certain level of safety. Although we have evolutionary predispositions to react to certain dangers (in my case, to jump out of my skin when I see, hear or suspect a dog), we live in a relatively benign world. People are used to their environments being safe; strangely enough, we don’t like our gas pipes to leak or our computers to electrocute us, so there are systems and processes in place to prevent that and countless other dangers. The result is that we blithely go about our business, perhaps without remembering that there are dangers out there.

Thirdly, it’s about providing information so people can make decisions; in this case, providing better signage and information about handwashing.

Fourthly, if we’re going to draw a line, we have to err on the side of caution.

Fifthly, there have to be systems in place to deal with, for instance, outbreaks like this. The Griffin Investigation talks about greater awareness and co-operation between organisations involved with healthcare near Godstone Farm in particular and open farms in general. It would be very easy for that to be criticised as ‘excessive bureaucracy’ or somesuch. It’s too easy to criticise something where a successful outcome is ‘nothing happening’.

Sixthly, a lot is blamed on health and safety as it is a convenient and believable excuse. I happen to think, for instance, that people should have healthy and safe workplaces and so there are some rules and regulations (turns out asbestos is a bad idea). More frequent than this, I would warrant, are people using ‘elf and safety because they want to avoid litigation or just don’t understand why something has been done.

Yes, there are mistakes; I suspect, though, that the media take those few examples of poor decision-making and represent them as symptomatic of the entire health and safety culture, leading people to think that there are armies of clipboard-equipped bureaucrats just waiting, after a risk assessment, to jump out and ban whatever it is you enjoy doing.

xD.

PS Before anyone says anything, I know this came under the remit of the HPA rather than the HSE, but the points stand.

Blog Nation: what would I like to see discussed

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Sunny ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ Hundal is organising a follow-up to 2008’s successful ‘Blog Nation’ event. Details over at Liberal Conspiracy, but Sunny asks what we’d like to discuss; below the fold, then, are some thoughts.

In terms of logistics, I would make three suggestions. Given the layout, it’s important that each table isn’t talking amongst itself thereby making so much noise that you can’t hear the speaker. Secondly, there are two breakout rooms. I would like to see the two used for an hour each for anyone to stand up a present an idea for five minutes. Thirdly, I’d like to see it recorded and ideally live streamed. Certainly, the plenary sessions could be on uStream or BlogTV.

Continue reading “Blog Nation: what would I like to see discussed” →

I miss Tony Banks…

Posted on by David Landon Cole

EDM1255 (2004)

That this House is appalled, but barely surprised, at the revelations in M15 files regarding the bizarre and inhumane proposals to use pigeons as flying bombs; recognises the important and live-saving role of carrier pigeons in two world wars and wonders at the lack of gratitude towards these gentle creatures; and believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again.

xD.

Against recall elections

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Recall elections are a bad idea. They would lead to homogenised, bland, UHT-milk MPs who are unwilling or unable to take on controversial or unpopular issues.

So far as I could tell, the three party leaders have come out in favour of recall elections to remove ‘corrupt’ MPs. The mechanism, as I understand it, would involve collecting a given number of signatures of electors requesting a recall vote. I welcome the sentiment, but I can’t help but feel that this is what Jay and Lynn called the Politician’s Syllogism:

  1. We must do something
  2. This is something
  3. Therefore we must do it

The idea is simple enough; if an MP has had their hand in the till, so to speak, their constituents should have the opportunity to remove them sooner than the next election. Implicit in this is the idea that something like the Standards Board for England (which for some reason has been renamed Standards for England) or the Committee on Standards in Public life or similar should not be able to remove an MP from office. I presume the assumption here is that only electors should have the right to cashier their elected representative. Following on from the suspension of Ken Livingstone, against which he successfully appealed, there was a general sentiment that it was undemocratic for the Standards Board to be able to suspend him for four weeks, let alone remove him from office.

All well and good so far.

If the principle stands that only electors can cashier their MP, their cannot be a gatekeeper, either. If the vote were dependent on someone agreeing that there was a case to answer, they would effectively have a veto on the will of the people. If the did not exercise said veto, they would be making it impossible for that MP to win the recall election as they would have given a huge amount of ammunition to the opposition as well as encouraging that MP’s party to tap said MP on the shoulder and invite them to step aside for the good of the party. Either way, you set up what you are trying to avoid – an unelected body that can fire the elected.

The result, then, is not just a means of getting rid of corrupt MPs but a general ability to recall MPs. That is profoundly dangerous in the current political climate.

We have recently seen Birmingham Hall Green Labour run a leaflet against the LibDems on the basis that the latter feel prisoners should have the right to vote. Imagine if an with a marginal seat were to promote something unpopular but right in Parliament; this would be license to threaten a recall.

Add to this mix demagogues like Nadine Dorries. In the run up to the votes on restricting abortion, Ms Dorries said on her website:

Each day, I am going to highlight MPs who may need to think very seriously when voting on the issue of reducing the upper limit to 20 weeks, because if they don’t, they may see their majorities wiped out at the next election.

Dorries was saying that she felt abortion was an issue that could cost MPs their seats, that she would seek to make it cost MPs their seats if they didn’t vote with her and that she would organise to that effect. Fortunately for us, she is incompetent, but abortion remains an emotive issue. It is a conscience vote in Parliament because there’s no point whipping for most MPs, as it’s a die-in-the-ditch issue. The same is true outside Parliament, and more so when someone is whipping people into a frenzy. It is the sort of issue where someone like Dorries might try to make headway.

It is not the only emotive issue. It’s really not hard for me to see how, at the time of the fox-hunting ban, outraged country-folk, seeing the issue as tantamount to an abuse of the constitution, antient liberties and all that, would take anything available.

I’m going back to Burke’s Speech to the Electors of Bristol to sum up my feeling:

it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

The argument against this would that political culture would militate against it. The theory would go that people would not sign up for a recall election just because they didn’t like their MP or their policies and, if one was triggered inappropriately, would vote against it. I’m afraid, though, that I don’t believe it. Along with deferential voting and strong party connections, playing by the spirit rather than the letter has gone the way of the dodo.

Add to the mix the charming fourth estate in the UK, and you have a heady cocktail of populism, demagoguery and yellow journalism that can combine to ensure that we have the blandest possible MPs with no capacity for independent thought.

I’m not sure I actually agree with the above, but I think the argument may be sound and is at least worth considering. It certainly should not be put through on the nod in the early part of the next Parliament.

xD.

Requiem for Detroit, elegy for Barking?

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Last night I watched Julien Temple’s excellent Requiem for Detroit? on BBC2. It is, after a fashion, a beautiful film: a harsh beauty, but a beauty nonetheless.

The skill is in the storytelling, so I recommend watching it, but the story itself is simple. Overdependence on the motor industry set the stage for economic disaster if anything happened to the car industry; white flight to the suburbs, possible because many people could afford cars, hollowed out the city centre and the loss of a tax base turned it into a ghetto; the oil shock of the 70’s accelerated everything; racial tensions worsened as people moved from the South in search of jobs. The motor industry and the city recovered as oil prices fell, but the motor industry relied on SUVs and Detroit on the motor industry. The recent economic turmoil has dealt a hammer-blow to the city.

Barking is not a direct match for Detroit, but the closure of Dagenham Ford was a similar economic disaster. This was similarly coupled with bad social planning – specifically, right-to-buy (or, rather, the effects when the tenants who became owners moved out) – and now we have a situation in which the BNP can do well.

Perhaps some of the northern cities of England would be a better match, but Barking seems to be the focus, given that Nick Griffin is standing there and the BNP hope to take the council at the next election.

xD.

Communist America

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The bat-shit craziness of some people never fails to amuse me. A correspondent has sent me a list of the ten planks of the Communist manifesto, and how they have been implemented in the USA, at libertyzone.com.

They are, with my comments underneath each one:

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Americans do these with actions such as the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management (Zoning laws are the first step to government property ownership)

This seems to be a failure in the perception of reality. The doctrine of eminent domain does exist in the US, but it is not being used to take control of all the land of the US in the hands of the government. Nor has private property been abolished – tax is not abolition – and while there are land taxes, they are not the same as all rents of land (all the profit it produces, as I understand it) going to the government.

I’m not sure what the Fourteenth Amendment has to do with this, as it deals with electoral apportionment and debts during Reconstruction.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Americans know this as misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936.; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State “income” taxes. We call it “paying your fair share”.

There are six brackets for US income tax, so you could describe it as graduated. Given that the highest of these kicks in at US$373,000, it can’t really be called progressive. Given that the highest rate is 35%, it can’t really be called heavy.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Americans call it Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

There seems to be an ongoing confusion between the potential for something to happen and something actually happening. As people do actually inherit things in the US at the moment, this falls.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Americans call it government seizures, tax liens, Public “law” 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of “terrorists” and those who speak out or write against the “government” (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process. Asset forfeiture laws are used by DEA, IRS, ATF etc…).

This would have been to stop capital flight, which is not what it is used for today. I am prepared to accept that there are problems in existing legislation, but insisting on paying tax is not the same as confiscation as property, IMHO.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Americans call it the Federal Reserve which is a privately-owned credit/debt system allowed by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) another privately-owned corporation. The Federal Reserve Banks issue Fiat Paper Money and practice economically destructive fractional reserve banking.

Given that there is no exclusive monopoly on credit or a national bank or centralised credit, this fails. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems with the Fed; just that it’s not Narodny Bank.

6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.
Americans call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver’s licenses and Department of Transportation regulations.

No, that’s regulation, not the means of communications or transportation. Regulation isn’t the same as ownership.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Americans call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture… Thus read “controlled or subsidized” rather than “owned”… This is easily seen in these as well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

As the original comment says, controlled or subsidised, which are different from ownership; there are not large, state-owned industries in the USA.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Americans call it Minimum Wage and slave labor like dealing with our Most Favored Nation trade partner; i.e. Communist China. We see it in practice via the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two “income” family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920’s, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000.

Equal liability of labor would be everyone having to work, not everyone who works having certain legal guarantees.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.
Americans call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public “law” 89-136. These provide for forced relocations and forced sterilization programs, like in China.

Just doesn’t resemble the USA of today where there is, I’d venture, a major distinction between the great cities and small town America.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Americans are being taxed to support what we call ‘public’ schools, but are actually “government force-tax-funded schools ” Even private schools are government regulated. The purpose is to train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based “Education” . These are used so that all children can be indoctrinated and inculcated with the government propaganda, like “majority rules”, and “pay your fair share”. WHERE are the words “fair share” in the Constitution, Bill of Rights or the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26)?? NO WHERE is “fair share” even suggested !! The philosophical concept of “fair share” comes from the Communist maxim, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need! This concept is pure socialism. … America was made the greatest society by its private initiative WORK ETHIC … Teaching ourselves and others how to “fish” to be self sufficient and produce plenty of EXTRA commodities to if so desired could be shared with others who might be “needy”… Americans have always voluntarily been the MOST generous and charitable society on the planet.

Well if free education and the abolition of child labour is communist, sign me up. The third I would say has happened to some extent with the rise of vocational training, but this doesn’t count as socialistic when the industries remain in private hands.

A lot of this is based on the notion that any taxation is theft; as this seems to be the sine qua non of communism, this would make the vast majority of the world communist. Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t tax its citizens, wouldn’t be. I submit that this viewpoint is of minimal use.

xD.

The impossibility of arguing with homeopathy – @mjrobbins at #sitp

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Yesterday evening saw the Skeptics in the Pub (the skeptics being of London and the pub the Penderel’s Oak) to hear Martin J Robbins (twitter @mjrobbins), of layscience.net and the Guardian, talk on ‘the impossibility of debating homeopathy’.

Martin has kindly agreed to send me the slides from his presentation and I will post them here in due course.
A brief write-up of the evening follow after the fold and immediately below are Martin’s slides as a Flash presentation. You can also view them as a fullscreen presentation or download them as a PDF or PowerPoint.

[SWF]http://www.davecole.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Martin-J-Robbins-SITP-The-Impossibility-of-Debating-Homeopathy.swf, 520, 390[/SWF]

Please note that these slides are copyright Martin J Robbins and not covered by the Creative Commons license of the rest of this blog.

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What difference does political blogging really make? #wsitp

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The Westminster Skeptics in the Pub gathered last night in a different pub, the Old Monk, for a different type of event- a discussion on ‘what difference does political blogging really make?’

The evening focussed around a couple of questions; what is the relationship between traditional journalism and blogging, and is it sustainable; and what influence do blogs actually have? The event certainly attracted a diverse crowd, many of whom were new to Skeptics in the Pub, which is to be welcomed, and BBC Parliament were there to record proceedings for posterity.

A writeup follows below, but I will start with some general comments.

Although I enjoyed listening to Nick Cohen, Mick Fealty and Sunny Hundall, I’m afraid that I found Jonathan Isaby to be unremarkable; he seems to be a better writer than he is a speaker, although I suspect that he was restricted, for one reason or another, in what he could say.

As for Paul Staines, I cannot do better than David Colquhoun’s tweet

On way home from #sitp polital blogging. Learned that Guido serious about nothing but Guido. Narcisist not journailist.

Being something of a political nerd, it’s no surprise that I blog a bit, and I’ve heard all the points that were made at the event before. It comes down to the funding model for blogging vs volunteerism and whether blogging complements or replaces traditional journalism. Different people have different views. This is not a simple case of the jury still being out, but something more fundamental.

There is no such thing as blogging.

There isn’t even any such thing as political blogging. As we know, there are blogs that concern themselves with everything under the Sun and a little bit more mixing of sometimes siloed conversations would be good. Political blogging could certainly benefit from a healthy dose of skepticism.

However, to group even all political blogs together makes as much sense as saying that the Financial Times, the Daily Sport, the New Statesman and the Downing Street Years should be grouped together because they’re all printed on paper.

There are, within the political realm, blogs that range from the single issue to the generalist, from the ultra-local to the global. They aim to inform, provoke and proselytise. If we look at the question – what difference does political blogging really make – we can’t just look at the Westminster bubble or even just national politics. We have to look with much more detail and much finer granularity to gauge the differences between UK-wide, London, Northern Irish and so on blogging. I am convinced that the distinctive blogospheres in London, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are to do with the devolution of powers to those regions and that further regional blogging will only take off in concert with devolution of powers from Westminster regarding England.

Equally, a blog like the excellent Jack of Kent, focussing on legal matters, is only tangentially part of the main political blogosphere when it should, IMHO, be required reading. Ditto Ben Goldacre and various others.

Moreover, other social media, particularly Twitter, act as a force multiplier so that a given story or action can be replicated by many people with ease and speed.

Anyway, vesti la giubba; a writeup follows beneath the fold.

UPDATE 10 Feb – Sunny ‘Liberal Conspiracy‘ Hundall and Mark Reckons weigh in.

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