More news on this story as it breaks.

Is up at Philobiblon, who also being added to my Blogroll. Natalie Bennett's a feminist greenie, but she writes well about history and politics intelligently, even if I disagree. Always good to have different perspectives, which is why I'm such an enthusiastic supporter of the Britblog project.

Yesterday's Guardian contains an article, of quite stunning spitefulness (which I will attempt to outdo) by some lumpen-faced harpy with a mouth like a dog's arsehole called Michele Hanson complaining that former Sun Editor and

"Smasher of glass ceilings"

Rebekah Wade Brooks has decided to take her new husband's name. Hanson thinks...

"...she'll be letting down all those thousands of women, from 1850s Massachusetts suffragette Lucy Stone onwards, who have fought for women to retain their own names and independence"

But women have a man's name anyway. Either that of their father, or if they are from a single parent family, that of a Grandfather, or if they're from a council estate of special grimness and there are multi-generational single parent families, a great grandfather; whichever man was the last one to stick around.

Names in this society are patronymic. Get over it.

Now let's think about it from the point of view of the man marrying one of these women who insist on keeping their father's name. She keeps "her" name, it says something about her view of the permanence of the marriage and the extent to which she identifies with the union. I'll call the divorce lawyers and open a secret offshore bank account now, shall I? Or should he cut off his balls instead? His wife would rather have another man's name than his. The family is not going to carry his name, but that of his Father-in-law.

Hanson is clearly of the 1970s Androphobic school of activist feminism for whom marriage is slavery, an attitude she sneeringly reveals. Rebekah Brooks is

"...the last sort of woman you'd expect to opt to take the back seat, yet here she is, giving up her own name like an ordinary little wife."

"I never married" Hanson reveals later in the article... I wonder why.

Via DK, here's another addition to the blogroll, the estimable Juliette who seems like my kinda woman. The blogroll hasn't been updated much so if anyone has any suggestions as to blogs which should be there, and blogs which shouldn't... let me know.

Anyway, while I'm blogging about blogging, I've just started using google reader. How did I exist before? (do you know I used to go through my Blogroll daily and check to see whether anything had come up?) Now everything is nicely laid out, and all my work websites too. And the newspapers. All on one page, with no clicking. From being stuck for something to get worked up about to BANG! suddenly there's a new article at Lefty Conspiracy to get the fisking juices flowing.

I know. I'm slow at catching on at all this technology stuff. Feel free to take the piss.

And given this is a miscellaneous post, here's Labour's response to yesterday's Tory attack ad.



Bless them - they think the electorate are scared of spending cuts. Whisper it, in case Gordon notices, but I think the public realise that monstrously unsustainable public spending plunging the Nation into catastrophic debt is not best solved by a Government who boast about spending ever more. If you don't believe me, listen to Mervyn King.

I am regulated by the Financial Services Authority. And because I am self-employed, I pay their fees myself, out of the money I earn the state sees fit to let me keep. This is not some abstract post about the costs to business, this is about a serious cut to my disposable income. These fees used to be a fairly reasonable £58 a month. But from now, it has tripled, and there is nothing I can do but pay, if I want to continue doing what I do.

This means the bits of the investment industry that didn't spectacularly fail are having to bail out the people whose failure was the most egregious: Gordon Brown's shiny modern regulator. Now, you know I think that "regulation" beyond the enforcement of the law of contract is, at the best of times, somewhere between useless and counter-productive, but at £58 a month, it was worth it to be able to say to my clients that "I am regulated" and give them a warm cosy feeling. But I resent paying £160 a month or so for the same privilege, only to have some wet-arsed prat who couldn't make it anywhere else, come round, interrupt me for a day to ask stupid questions which merely serve to show what a complete useless bunch of cunts they are.

Oh yes. They did not ask a single question about the assets I advise my clients to buy, merely that I had ticked all the boxes. That my records were kept. That my phone calls were recorded. That I had passed my exams. That client agreements were MiFID compliant. Not one question designed to measure my actual competence (for exams are next to useless at that), or the suitability (or even existence) of the stock-selection process I use. Or at least none that demonstrated any sort of understanding.

And every day, the compliance department, a sort of statist fifth column in every regulated business, bombard me with stupid queries that could most accurately be answered by someone who knew what they are doing interrogating the dealing system. Some form has to be filled pretty regularly to the effect that the retired warehouseman who sold his hard-earned Tesco's shares to go on a retirement cruise with his wife, is not laundering money for the Taliban or some offshoot of the Medelin cocaine cartel.

All of which takes time from stock selection, reading and talking to clients, which is what I do for a living. NOT FILLING IN MORE BASTARD FORMS.

I wouldn't resent them as much if the FSA had the foresight to... I dunno... tell RBS that it was sailing a bit close to the wind by reducing its core capital ratios to 5% on the acquisition of ABN Amro (like the Bank of England probably would have done with a simple raise of the Governor's eyebrow). But they didn't. And they're tripling my fees anyway. If you think Fred Goodwin's been rewarded for failure, have a look what's going on at the FSA. More of the feeble-minded, uncomprehending box-ticking, clipboard Gestapo, on bigger money.

All paid for by me.

My Verdict: Yup. He's Labour's man (unless he can actually prevent ministers prior briefing the Meeja - and there's close to fuck-all chance of him succeeding in that).

"The public hate the noise" he says. Bollocks. I love it. An last time I looked, I was in the public.

No other legislature puts its executive to such a hostile environment, and PMQs is the one piece of Parliamentary theatre which serves its function. Gordon Brown dissembles and loses votes every time he fails to answer the question. Everyone can see the idiot squirm, and that he's wrong about more or less everything.

The beautiful thing is that Brown actually thinks that state spending is the engine of growth, and the public are scared of "10% cuts" a line he repeats over and over and over. Brown thinks the public don't know that the public finances are a mess, and most people are thinking "10% seems pretty modest, I'll vote for that nice mr Cameron then".

Bercow did not criticise the Tractor production statistics method of question evasion, Nor did Speaker Bercow did criticise Brown for asking questions of the Leader of the opposition (though he did criticise backbenchers).

So he hasn't improved Brown's behaviour. Nor did he show any inclination to.

It is not the hostile atmosphere, nor the wigs and tights which the public hate. It is, if the daily politics e-mail inbox is anything to go by; pathetic, planted questions from feeble-minded Government back-benchers. Mike Smithson should be ashamed of his 'Mate', and St. Douglas of Carswell should be ashamed of who he voted for on Monday.

She was somebody's friend, daughter, girlfriend. Plain-clothed operatives create fear by knifing and slashing from within the crowds, provoking violence in order to justify savage reprisals. And before you start getting inured to the news about Iranians dying on the street, watch what happens when someone gets shot.



They look imploringly at anyone for help, as their life pumps out of their body. Then they are gone. It is profoundly disturbing, and it makes me seethe with impotent anger. How can a state take the life of a young woman, merely to scare the crowd and cling on to power? Why?

But in shooting the innocent, the Basiji may have provided the opposition with the Martyr. The regime shows weakness with every act of repression, and every day people are on the streets demonstrates the impotence of the regime to prevent their power from slipping away.

For this is starting to look like a Berlin Wall moment, rather than Tiananmen Square. The Mullahs are losing their window of opportunity and the protesters' courage may yet be rewarded. Every corpse reveals the true colours of a vile Government and an evil system, from which they cannot hide, however many websites they shut down. I am impotent, but the people protesting are not. Strength to their arms, and courage; Let's hope Neda Soltan, and hundreds like her didn't die in vain.

The Ayatollah described the British as "the most evil". From him, we take that as a compliment.

Enjoy it, Labour; for the Speaker will be the last election you win for a very long time...

Which brings me to a thought with occurred to me as I climbed the hill into work. Labour, it seems are like France, who only win wars when not led by a Frenchman, and even then, not very often. Indeed many claim the last PM, him... you know... The one with the big teeth and ghastly wife, wasn't really Labour. When they did elect a Labour person, a big, fat, useless Scotsman with deep and unpleasant personality issues, they conspired to lose everything since, only "winning" votes when choosing between Tories.

Let me make this clear. I think Bercow will probably do a fine job as speaker. He cannot be worse than the shambles he replaces, and indeed it may be that the Labour party have been sold a pup. I am aware that there is no such convention as the Party "buggin's turn" for the speakership, but a speaker must... MUST have support from all sides of the house, and it is clear... ABUNDANTLY clear, even to the most Stupid and blinkered Labourite that Bercow does not enjoy this. He is therefore the second speaker to be foisted on the commons by a Labour party which arrogantly doesn't care what other parties think. It is this arrogance which is destroying Labour. Well that, and an incompetence which borders on the heroic.

Because as yesterday showed, Labour when displaying their full chippy, tribal plumage, waving their manifest uselessness about like a peacock's tail, they are about as attractive to the electorate as a dose of genital herpes, without being as much fun to catch.

On the bright side, at least it wasn't bloody Beckett. And he will be better than Martin. But Bercow was elected by (within a few votes) of the Labour majority. It is clear to whom he owes his speakership.

However, If I was Cameron, I would get Bercow in, and tell him, in no uncertain terms that he's an interim speaker, nothing more. The last time a speaker was refused assent by the new Parliament was 1835.

This is another unnecessary constitutional crisis caused by Labour tribalism and ignorance. Another nail in the coffin of Labour as an electoral force. One more stupid, venal thing which makes me hate the Labour party and its pathetic, chippy drones in the commons. I can't wait to see tomorrow's papers.

LABOUR ARE VILE.

Is up, over at the ever fragrant Trixy's place.

Oh Sorry, that's a member of the EPP.

The next Labour person who claims that Leaving the European People's Party was equivalent to holocaust denial because one MEP from the polish Law and Justice Party might be a bit of a nutter, or something please just fuck off before I kick them in the guts. I will not take lessons in political extremism from a party which has harboured both George Galloway and Ken Livingstone, and seems to revere the palpably insane MP for Bolsover as some sort of moral giant.

This new grouping seems pretty reasonable. The Conservatives want to have a grouping in the European Parliament that actually agrees with Conservative policy: That the EU needs substantial reform, but that we don't want to y' know, withdraw at the moment. It should be noted that this is a view shared, it seems with a plurality of British Voters (or at least a plurality of those who care).

Democracy. An anathema to Labour "people".

If, as it appears, John Bercow or Margaret Beckett become speaker today, Labour will have delivered another demonstration of just how unsuitable they are for Government. The election of a speaker must be for the good of Parliament, not narrow political advantage, and speakers should have support from all sides of the house.

The calculation appears to be thus: Bercow is only just a Tory, and has more friends on the Labour benches. In a tied vote, the speaker goes votes for the Government, thus Speaker Bercow would effectively reduce the Parliamentary Tory party by one for the remainder of this parliament, but then be more sympathetic to Labour after their annihilation next year. He has no Tory support. How can Labour MPs see him as suitable?

Beckett is the Ultimate Labour insider, and even led the Party (as a stand-in, following John Smith's death). That alone should rule her out. Sir George Young, for example has stood before, and his former Transport brief was held against him. Beckett, a former Labour leader has no Tory support. How on earth can Beckett be suitable?

Ann Widdicombe has the support of the people (at least those interested in this process). She would be an interim speaker presiding over this fag-end session, is independent minded, and has the presence to impose Order on the house. Above all, whilst she is untainted personally by corruption, she has publicly defended parliament, and those MPs unfairly caught up, and is generally respected for her honesty and as a parliamentarian. She has support on all sides of the house.

As an Interim speaker, with a Public profile she could represent Parliament to the people, and has the integrity to remain impartial in the chair. she MUST* be the best choice, with a permanent speaker being chosen by the next parliament. The next best must be Sir George Young, who at least has a few ideas for reform. I fear, however a ghastly Labour stitch-up. If I thought that evil party couldn't sink any lower, they manage to surprise me.

Anyone would be better than Beckett, who is the current favourite.

*The £20 I have on La Widdi at 15:1 is entirely incidental to this post.

Nightjack has been a feature on my Blogroll for a while, but alas, no more, and those of you who are not obsessive bloggers may not be aware that he has been 'outed' by the Times: Justice Eady ruled that because Blogging is essentially a public activity, there is no right in Law to anonymity.

Nightjack is a Policeman called Richard Horton, who told cynical tales of his life as a detective, most controversially his "guide for decent people". The 'public interest' in ascertaining his name is that he could be prejudicing ongoing enquiries by putting information in the public domain. Which is bollocks, because those cases were only identifiable if you had the officer's name. It's circular. Guido makes the point about Times leaders: why aren't they published under a byline - so we can judge the Author's standing and possible conflicts of interest: the Argument the paper used to justify the naming of the officer.

The public services are particularly sensitive about bloggers exposing to the taxpaying public the time-serving, bureaucratic waste: Civil Serf and any number of Police Blogs have been deleted, but as La Petite Anglaise found out, large private companies are not much better. (I argue that such corporations are merely an arm of the state anyway). Heresy Corner argues that without anonymity, the Public would be poorer without the whistle blowers exposing malpractice. Obsolete thinks it's a "disaster for Blogging and Journalism" and makes the point that, without the anonymity of Twitter, Iranian dissidents would be silenced. Chris Dillow on the other hand thinks the answer is to give employees the right to free speech, arguing that anonymity coarsens debate. Would the Devil's Kitchen, for example say what he says, in the way he says it were he forced to start out writing under his own name? (the answer in this particular case is Yes, he would. He makes a sewer puke with his obscenities in real life too).

I don't think either extreme is appropriate: a good writer with an axe to grind could do great damage writing anonymously and a right to anonymity would prevent victims seeking redress. A right to free speech should not be a right to free speech without consequences - as a libertarian I believe that a job is a voluntary contract: If you don't like it, find another. However employers should not be paranoid about employees having a public opinion, and as far as the public services are concerned we deserve more information than bosses' press releases. There should be a presumption in favour of openness. [update: this is the Line taken by former Diplomat, Charles Crawford]

The solution is somewhere in between: more tolerant of publicly dissenting voices but not a blanket right to free speech on professional matters covered by ones contract with an employer. Nor should there be an absolute right of anonymity. Expressing an opinion about your employer in public should not automatically be grounds for dismissal, as it effectively is at present. If an employer wants to expose and fire a blogger, they should have to demonstrate that the employee was acting maliciously or misrepresenting the facts. The Public interest may be served by retaining anonymity, but should be determined on a case by case basis. Justice Eady got it wrong, demonstrating the law needs to be changed (as does the Law on Libel). And where there is no public interest at all, such as bloggers who write about personal matters, exposing the god-awful Girl With a One Track Mind was clearly wrong and merely served to titillate prurient readers, however well Zoe Margolis has done subsequently.

Nightjack's blog was as successful as it was because he was an insider saying what the public already know: That the police have been given too much power and have been corrupted by the culture of targets. Every time a new-Labour home secretary suggested that the fall in crime was a success rather than an artifact of statistics, you could point to Nightjack's blog and say "you're talking rot, Home Secretary". There is clearly a public interest in allowing him to have his say, and the public interest is most definitely not being served by the Times' campaign to out prominent bloggers, nor is it by the deletion of an excellent blog, and it is increasingly looking like a dying industry destroying its competition. Chicken Yogurt and Gary Andrews note the hypocrisy of journalists who themselves rely on anonymous briefings and prepared to defend source anonymity in court. Why doesn't that apply to the Bloggers from whom they also lift stories? Nightjack wasn't a chief constable, merely a detective and his exposure was simply done for the sake of the story.

How the argument about waste across Whitehall, for example would look with Civil Serf's regular exposes of time-serving wastefulness is anyone's guess, but I think Labour would have a harder time justifying Gordon's "investment rather than cuts" argument. Miss Snufflupagus is brilliant at demolishing the lies of the race relations industry as far as education is concerned. The Law West of Ealing Broadway is great at talking about the cases that come in front of him. Random acts of reality chronicles the doings of a paramedic, or the the Good Dr Crippen who Blogs about the NHS. All of whom, and countless other bloggers detailing their jobs and lives for readers' interest and a desire to do good, would be in trouble if "exposed". All provide commentary which is certainly a public service. All are nervous after this verdict.

Justice Eady has got it wrong. Again. The law is an ass.

For the record, despite my Nom-De-Plume, I am not anonymous, and can be contacted easily. Really good friends will know whence "Jackart" came, and it has been a nickname since before the Internet. I am also self-employed as these idiots found out, and nothing on here prejudices my professional judgment or relationships.

Via Chris Dillow, whose 'top blogging' sidebar is actually a public service for lazy bloggers, Directionless Bones makes a case for immigration from a leftist view point.

...but united actions by both natives and immigrants (ideally in multiple countries), refusing to accept either their own exploitation or those of their competitors, is a more viable long-term answer than the Quixotic and, to be frank, incipiently fascist goal of exerting state control over mass movements of ordinary people responding to shared economic necessity.

Obviously I disagree that "united actions" are the answer to "exploitation", but that is because I am of the right. However he is absolutely right that a state attempting to prevent people obeying their economic self-interest is, if not "fascist" then certainly something a libertarian should be opposing. I put a poll up recently and it turns out that free immigration wins over a generous welfare state by some margin. Well I would expect that from the readers of this blog. But the country disagrees. Most people would like a generous welfare state and tight controls on who can enjoy its benefits.

Several people said "neither" but one commenter correctly observed that without a welfare state, the "problem" of immigration largely disappears. People arrive on the axles of lorries precisely because they've heard that they (us) give one money and a house, and one is not allowed to work. However grotty the bedsit, that's got to beat subsistence agriculture in a desertified war-zone. So they come, in their thousands from Somalia, Afghanistan and all over sub-Saharan Africa.

And because we subsidise the workshy native-born Briton to sit on their arse and watch Jeremy Kyle, he is unwilling to pick asparagus for the minimum wage, choosing instead relax on the sofa. The left pretend that this doesn't happen, or worse, seem to think that British chavs shouldn't have to demean themselves by taking poorly paid or menial work (who should do it? Immigrants? How is that not racist too?) without realising the habit of work is itself a qualification. Shitty work can and does lead to better jobs. So there are employers crying out for people to pick fruit and veg, stack shelves and clean floors, and even with the official bar on immigrants working, these jobs are largely done by foreign-born people. Even Chris Dillow concludes in his recent post that

"...Immigrants and Natives do different jobs"

And because some of this is black-economy the asylum seeker especially may end up keeping some of the state handouts too. This can however lead to problems as it can give the impression to the poor, ill-educated native that the immigrant is competing for benefit handouts and work that are rightfully "his", however much empirical evidence suggests otherwise. The BNP has two MEPs as a result of playing successfully on this fallacy.

So there are two sides to this "problem". The first is the economic push out of the third world. There is not much we can do about the wars, shitty socialist economics, and downright kleptocracy of regimes in the global south. They will remain shitty hell-holes until they accept that free-markets, liberal democracy and the rule of Law are what makes a country successful and rich. Like India and south-east asia are doing.

The second is the economic pull, and this is in our control. If we did not subsidise idleness so generously, then able bodied chavs would be picking some of the Asparagus in Norfolk rather than this being done entirely by Romanians and Poles, reducing the availability of such work to immigrants. Secondly, if we maintained an open borders policy, but made it perfectly clear that, whilst the UK offered freedom to prosper; cash handouts, minimum wages and free healthcare were benefits for citizens only; then the nature of our economy would see that only migrants certain of their ability to earn their keep, or genuinely desperate to leave wherever it is they are now (i.e. those we would welcome anyway) would come here. There would need to be an incentive to pay your way, and several years' contributions in tax should be sufficient to earn citizenship.

Nothing offends me more than the sight of people being arrested for nothing more than working, especially when we're paying our compatriots to sit idle at vast expense. Whilst I've nothing against a safety net, a few month's payments to tide one over between jobs, the Long-Term unemployed lose the habit of work. I simply do not believe that there are "no jobs" out there. But the risk of losing benefits means that casual work of the sort needed to maintain the habit of work will actually cost the jobseeker money in lost benefits, so these are the ones taken by immigrants. The welfare state therefore creates a perverse economic incentive to wait for a "good" job. I, for example, would love to be Heidi Klum's breast-massager on a quarter of a million a year, but that job isn't open at the moment. Instead, I sit in front of a flashing screen for eight and a half hours a day.

Our grossly complex benefits system maintains unemployment needlessly high, keeps a class of permanent benefits recipients just above the subsistence line, and provides a massive hurdle to get into productive work. It also leaves a huge economic sector - the menial jobs - undone. Without immigrants this country would cease to function, unless we can mobilise that 15% of the population who choose to do no work.

My solution, for what it is worth, is to remove most border controls, stop controlling who can emply whom, and end the minimum wage. A much reduced and curtailed benefits system should see the jobs currently being done by immigrants being done by chavs. An anciliary benefit is the chav will therefore not be standing bored outside poundstretcher with a bottle of white lightning, looking for someone to mug, because he's picking Asparagus for me instead. After which he's too tired to go out on the piss, and kick off at Ritzy's. Furthermore, the prospect of working next to spotty Wayne rather than stunning Olga means that the shitty job on offer at home in Romania looks a lot more attractive.

The benefit bill goes down, the border bill goes down, crime goes down, employment and therefore tax reciepts go up. And we still welcome anyone who still wants to come here. Who doesn't benefit from a cut in benefits and open borders?

I wonder what the apologists for the Islamofascist regime in Iran make of this



The regime is fighting for survival, and has all the cards in its hands. In truth, I have no idea whether the votes were counted accurately. Perhaps the urban sophisticates are merely divorced socially and culturally from their rural conservative compatriots. Maybe the ballot boxes were stuffed. We just don't know. I know my prejudices lead me to want to believe in a liberal Iran brutally repressed, but at best that Iran is half the country. There is a large constituency in the country which remains actively and enthusiastically behind the Government.

But the beating that unfortunate man received - long beyond the point of restraint and well into torture (proper torture, not Guantanamo bay "torture") serves to indicate what the regime thinks of the opinions of its people. I know which side of the debate in Iran is right. And it's not Mr Armadinejad's thuggish agents of a theocratic mediaevalist state.

Mr Eugenides is rightly skeptical of the right of western Bloggers to opine from the comfort of our liberal state. But should an Iranian stumble upon this page or his, he or she might just take a crumb of comfort that the world is aware of what is going on, and that we wish we could do something. But it is an important lesson for us too. For whatever power the Iranian president has, it is as nothing to that wielded by the council of Guardians. Even if Mir Hossein Mousavi took Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's job, the policies which make Iran an opponent of the west: Support for less than savoury people in the Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; support for international terrorism and their desire for a nuclear arsenal with which to threaten Israel, would remain. The executive is too powerful and the legislature does not offer a check or restraint to that power whoever wins elections. The power remains in the same, unelected place, and all the legislature can do is talk about it. Another organisation a bit closer to home has a similar arrangement. The lesson is that ignoring your people can work for a generation or two, but eventually the people win.

So... there's nothing the west can do for the time being, but offer moral support to those protesting, and avoid playing into the regime's hands: they are wanting to portray the protesters as western stooges. We know they are not. It is up to the Iranians to make their Government obey their wishes, as it should be.

Constitutional reform is one of those Memes which is particularly appealing to the political class: It involves ferocious complexity, is subject to deep idealogical divides and is totally opaque in its effects. Above all, the voting public don't care, so these issues can be thrashed over for years, without losing a single vote. It's especially popular amongst leftists, who fervently believe that they represent "the masses" and have been frotting themselves to this thought for decades. "If only..." they bleat, "we could make the system... 'fairer', then the eeeeevil Tories would not win the next election, or indeed, any election." It's a fantasy which has maintained the Liberal Democrats as a party for decades and now sustains some on the Labour benches, as they march towards decades of opposition.

The problems in Westminster are caused by in part Labour's badly thought out and half-baked constitutional reform, and the remainder by a shoddy and incompetently administered rule system which inadequately scrutinised claims by MPs leaving them open to temptation, to which some succumbed. The voting system has nothing to do with it. Though some have claimed that safe seats were more likely to be occupied by a "trougher" there are absolutely safe seats under PR too, however you structure it; and these problems will not go away: some politicians will always be corrupt.

The most important thing to remember is WHY constitutional reform is being grasped with such alacrity by the morose incompetent in No. 10: The people are saying "something must be done", this is "something", so let's do it. It has nothing to do with improving the system, and is being used as a means by which cyclops can hang onto power.

It has been said that it is better if major constitutional reform is undertaken by (small 'c') conservatives, because they legislate with the rub of the existing system. If you're too radical, you're more at risk of unintended consequences. That is not what is going on in the UK today. What is important is that any system be stable, (unlike, say, Jockish devolution, or Lords reform) and have democratic legitimacy (unlike, say, the constant power-grab by the EU). Most of what New Labour has wrought on the constitution has therefore been a disaster.

Constitutional reform, however much it bores the electorate, is hugely important. Get it wrong, and we're the Weimar republic. Which is why, whoever tinkers with the constitution, it must not under any circumstances be Gordon Brown.

Is up over at Charles Crawford's place.

Via Stumbling and Mumbling, I find that Harvard professor Greg Mankiw digs out the fact that tall people are richer and happier than runts midgets short-arses people under 6', and proposes that utilitarians should therefore want to tax height. This is a favourite topic over at Chris's blog, and he brings it up regularly. Do economists think they are clever or witty by digging this old canard out? Is it some sort of academic in-joke to propose this and wait for screeds from irate lanky twats* whilst sniggering at their great joke?

It is of course an argument against utilitarianism rather than for height taxes and is guilty of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: correlation does not imply causation. It is also an argument usually presented by *ahem* physically unprepossessing gentlemen.

Tall people are better nourished, have better genes and may have suffered fewer childhood traumas than their shorter colleagues. All of these things are also tightly correlated to intelligence and physical attractiveness, which are much more likely to be the ultimate causes of success, not height. I would also wager that the effects are vastly different between the sexes: do short women suffer as much as short men? I doubt it.

But above all, the idea of taxing physical characteristics is just repellent. Why should the poor Masai for example pay more tax than the rich Japanese? Wealth is also reasonably well correlated to skin tone... anyone want to deal with that can of worms?

Thought not.

*Jackart is 6'3"

This is my new Brompton bicycle. Now I know there's a whiff of lentil about these things, and outside london they are usually seen under people with beards and sandals wearing loosely fitting vaguely ethnic clothing, but underneath the smug greenwash, they are very impressive pieces of engineering. I ordered mine in Team Lotus colours: BRG and yellow as an homage to another example British engineering genius.

Mine is the S3R - Meaning the sports handlebars, 3 hub gears and a rack, not a standard option pack. There are further options to have titanium componentry and extra gears. Other options include luggage, and hub dynamos, none of which justify the extra cost to my mind.

If you're a cyclist, you'll want to know what it's like to ride. It feels very different to what I am used to, which is an all-out road bike. Naturally, with small, fat tyres, the rolling resistance is much greater than the skinny ones on my Condor (also British-made). The Brompton is not a road racing bike, and if you are used to one, you will find it relatively heavy going, but no worse than an average mountain bike. The main difference is the stability: with the low axles and small wheels, you're pushing longer levers to move the bike from side to side, and there is less gyroscopic resistance from the tiny wheels. When you first get on, the bike feels twitchy. Getting out of the saddle for hills also takes some getting used to, for the same reason. Normally my commute takes about 16 minutes through country lanes, and it took 19 on the Brompton this morning. This gives an indication of the effect of the compromises. It is possible to get the skinnier tyres, but I went for maximum puncture resistance.

However, I have ridden just 4 miles on it, and by the end of the ride, the package felt natural, less a part of me than my road bike, but I've been riding that and bikes like it for 15 years. I've just been up one of the steepest hills you'll find anywhere, and I've only got 3 hub gears. The range was enough to deal with that, though if you lived in Hampstead, I think I would want a slightly wider range. I do miss the tight intervals on my Road bike. With 3 gears you cannot keep to an optimum cadence.

Of course the tricksy thing is the fold, and this is the genius of the design.

Bob Crow massively well-paid baron of the Rail, Maritime & Transport Union, suggested that his lot didn't cause the recession, and therefore shouldn't suffer because of it. Hence he's taking his already generously remunerated brothers out because they want 5% over inflation and a guarantee of no job losses.

Obviously if we had a Government at the moment, the answer would be "fuck off". But we don't and this thuggery will work because Gordon and Co aren't spending their money, and they want to avoid a summer of Discontent. A part of the scorched earth policy ahead of a Tory victory.

I would never do anything as illiberal as ban strikes, but they shouldn't be cost free. So here's my solution to tube strikes. When the RMT go out, which is their right, some choose not to. The difference between these two types of worker should be made apparent to the travelling public the next day, perhaps by the wearing of a distinctive hat by the workers who chose to have a nice day out in the sun take part in industrial action.

I'm sure the equally "blameless" travelling public will make their feelings known in a civilised way....

Is now up over at Slugger O'Toole.

My problem with the BNP is they are knuckledragging idiots peddling a nationalist socialism: British Jobs for British Workers, nationalisation etc...(oh sorry, that's Labour). The BNP are racist, hateful, socialist, ignorant, and have almost no support. It was therefore pleasing to see Griffin skewered on air on Election night - very easily. Just ask him how "you just know" who is "British", and watch him start blaming the Muslims. The BNP were given rope to hang themselves, and they did. Comprehensively.

The reason the knuckledraggers got elected is that senior Labour politicians persistently presented the issue of the "rise" of the BNP as the reason to vote Labour. Indeed this was the only message coming out of the Labour Party centre which addressed issues specific to the ongoing election campaign. The BNP vote didn't go up, it stayed about the same. Labour's on the other hand, collapsed. Two strategically-shaved primates now represent the UK in the European talking-shop. Mainly because the Labour party has given up. The BNP aren't a threat to British Democracy, nor are they "on the rise".

It is time to use sunlight as a disinfectant. It is time for the mainstream parties to rethink the 'no platform' stance when dealing with the BNP. It hasn't worked, and now the knuckledraggers have democratic representation, such a stance undemocratic. The electorate wanted to send a message that they are disgusted with the mainstream politicians. Under these circumstances Labour politicians begging people to vote for "anyone but the BNP" is likely to have the effect of shoring up their support. The howls of outrage indicate the votes have had the desired effect. A Campaign by Harriet Harman to "vote BNP in order to give hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of tax-payer funded expenses to Nick Griffin" would probably have worked better.

If there is one thing, beyond Harperson telling you to not vote for them that is bound to increase the appeal of the BNP, it is the risible Unite Against Fascism, whose spokesman interviewed on Channel 4 News this evening used the word "hitler" about a dozen times. Do these people realise that they are playing into Griffin's hands? BNP "news conferences" would have been roundly ignored, had Griffin not been pelted with eggs by a tosspot. Griffin's unchallenged assertions about "lies" from the media would not have been on the evening news had a simpering left-wing twat not hit him with a placard. Instead of apocalyptic warnings of violence on the streets (tip: If you threw and egg at me, I would hit you too), try ridiculing them in debate. Laughter at the Roderick Spodes is more dangerous to them than any number of be-dreadlocked cunts with green hair and megaphones. If you give the BNP the oxygen of publicity, they will self-immolate rather than grow. If you fight them, they will enjoy feeling victimised, which will reinforce their hateful message.

If these "anti facsist" activists actually wanted to stop the BNP they should perhaps try to persuade the electorate. I wonder how many "activists" were pushing leaflets through letterboxes for a party which could have stopped them before the election. I wonder how many "activists" take the view I heard from activists in Camden last week, that "to vote only encourages them [presumably, by that they mean 'the man']". Instead of actually doing something as simple as voting, they scream themselves hoarse in stupid, pointless, counterproductive, self-indulgent "protest" when others vote in a way of which they disapprove.

This country is pissed off with politicians, not racist. The BNP on the other hand are, and all you need to do is let them show their true colours. The best way to combat the BNP is to debate them. Investigate them. Let their true message shine through. Hell, go to their website and find out for yourself. Then trust the British people to make the right decision.

Gordon Brown is a political master. Schooled in the gutter politics of the Scottish Labour Party when it regarded that benighted nation as its fief, he learned to twist arms, threaten and bully his way into positions of power. It is clear from the last few days that it is these skills to which he owes his ongoing political life. He has never needed to face a competitive election and owes all his success to such back-room scheming.

And in these dark arts, he is the most able man in the Labour party. That's not to say that he's anything other than a chippy, stupid, economically illiterate, short-termist, partisan disaster of a prime-minister, but I for one cannot see the genial non-entity Alan 'postie' Johnson, or any of the other potential 'leaders' being much better at running the country. After all, at least he's good at something.

The fact is the most damning indictment of the Labour party is that Gordon Brown is the best man for the job amongst the shallow pool of lickspittles, apparatchiks and lackwits who infest the Labour benches. Non-entities who ask leaden, stupid partisan full tosses at prime-minister's questions lack any qualification for the role. Such people have no inkling of concepts such as 'holding the government to account'. They see the role of a "good constituency MP" as identical to that of the social worker that so many of them were. Their hatred of the Conservatives is even deeper than my hatred for the Labour party, and thus they see 'party advantage' and 'good of the country' as synonymous. That is what is meant by a "moral crusade" which the Labour party is meant to be: Leftists cannot agree on anything except their tribal loathing for the Tories. For all their faults, no Tory MP would put the Conservative party above the good of the Country. But the Labour party were persuaded that they couldn't ditch Brown. Not one of them want an immediate election, and would rather have a year in office to draw salaries, and prepare for unemployment.

Last week I spent an entertaining evening debating 'the death of capitalism' with Terrible Tory Girl, The Devil, whose brand of anglo-saxon rhetoric it has to be said did not carry the crowd in Camden's Inspiral Cafe; Tom Papworth a Lib Dem councillor, who spoke sense and was roundly ignored, A dishonest fare-dodging harpy from 'climate rush' and an old man of left-wing activism, founder of Class War, and [suspended] professor Chris Knight. The last two of these in particular represent a breed of politician so deeply wrong that they have never had any appeal outside a faithful few.

And this is where the Labour party is going. In believing Gordon's protestations that he will change, and in accepting the power-hungry principle-vacuum at the heart of Brown's project, the Labour party has signed up to annihalation at the next election, from which they will not recover as a main-stream opposition. I see the faith of the remaining Labour membership and can fortell their future: one with few clubs in the old Northern heartlands, where bitter old men reminiss under fading trades-union banners as the world gets richer without them. Just as Chris Knight, and the malodourous climate Harpy enjoyed the plaudits of an activist movement which never numbered more than a few hundred, Labour politicians will talk to an ever declining band of Socialist faithful, and continue to believe they speak for the masses long after they've become risible..

It may be, as North Briton Hunter and everyone else says, that there is no love for the Tories. There never has been. The absurd optimism which greeted Blair, and now gushes for Obama is the exeption. The Tories are the natural party of Government because they are right on most issues, and the ERM debacle aside have proved themselves competent to deliver. Taxes should be as low as possible, not aim to punish the rich. The state should not seek to interfere in the average person's life. Property rights and free movement of goods, capital and labour underpin the functioning of a Market economy on which the staggering prosperity of the west in the last 300 years has been founded.

Capitalism and the free markets, even now, won. Comprehensively absolutely and completetly save for a few holdouts like Chris Knight who act like Japanese soldiers still loyal to their emperor long after the war is over. Labour is part of the same 'thought' process: but there's no need for a 'Labour' party any more. It's raison d'etre is no more, and like the dinosaurs, was unsuited to a new environment and will therefore die, out-competed by nimbler idealogical beasts. We need a left-of centre alternative to the Tories which is not wedded to an out-of-date totalitiarian economic screed, doesn't bankrupt the country every time it gets power, and has some comprehension that human liberty in practice means people doing things of which it is easy to dissaprove. It's time for the Liberals to make their return to the political front line after a century in the wilderness.

15% of the voters who bothered to turn out, backed Labour. They came third, behind a Minor, single issue party, and were 5th across the whole of southern England, where just a few days earlier, they had been annihilated in the local elections.

Labour now hold NO county councils in England, have NO legislative agenda, and has No will for the fight. The party has given up and appears to be existing simply to enjoy their last remaining months in office, which is also the argument which is being offered to Labour backbenchers to continue backing Gordon Brown.

Despite constant repetition of the mantra that the Tories are the 'Do Nothing' party, Labour's plan it seems, is to continue the reckless spending which played such a large part in getting the country into this mess, rather than take the necessary action to reduce public spending and start to pay off the obscene borrowing run up by Gordon Brown as Chancellor. Any plan to deal with the public sector borrowing is going to involve massive public spending cuts, which the Labour party knows is going to fall hardest on their client state. Gordon Brown would rather lie to the electorate continue the spending: their plans only involve cuts after the election.

Their economic policy is based on low electoral concerns, not the good of the country. They are merely trying to avoid a catastrophic defeat from which they will never recover.

Regular commenter North Briton Hunter makes much of the cyclical nature of politics, claiming the buggins' turn means the Labour Party will inevitably come back. He, and other Labour people forget the opposition they face for centre-left votes. Labour has been a complete disaster every time it has got power. Everything it has wrought, from the welfare state, to uncontrolled mass immigration has been a disaster. Labour's legislative programme since 1945 has culminated in the NHS and and an overgenerous welfare state bankrupting the country, whilst maintaining piss poor standards across public services. We now have two neo-fascists representing the UK in the European Parliament, which must surely rank high amongst the damning indictments of the Labour party.

As I write this, there has been another resignation from the Government - Jane Kennedy (no, me neither) as well as one more Back-Bencher, Sally Keeble who has come out and called for Gordon to Quit. One or two a day... the Executive is losing the last vestiges of its credibility, and every day loses another few thousand votes in the country. The longer Gordon goes on, the worse for the country, and the worse for the Labour party.

What are the Labour Party for any more? They aren't for freedom, their totalitarian agenda gives the lie to that leftist myth. They aren't for the old working class, who have deserted them for the BNP. They aren't for equality - the rich have done very well, and the bottom decile, who subsist mainly on benefits, have seen the ladder kicked away by the obscene marginal tax/withdrawal rates they face upon returning to work. These are the people who suffer most from pathetic state education and uncontrolled immigration. The only people who have done well out of this useless, incompetent Government are public-sector apparatchiks and their unionised, subsidised workforces.

If the Labour party is for anything other than the obstinate maintenance of Power for its own sake, then the Parliamentary Labour Party must get rid of their useless leader this evening, and force a General Election. For they will have to find a purpose whilst in opposition or sink slowly into complete and irreversible irrelevance.