The balance of power is moving against us

Tweet

 

There is a lot of unease about the way in which the government and police forces are extending the use of Live Facial Recognition technology, using it at a range of events to pick out people who are suspected of committing an unrelated crime in unrelated circumstances. There is a lot of good evidence to suggest that, in its current state, the technology is prone to bias: having largely been trained on white male faces, for instance, it is less effective at correctly identifying faces of a different colour or gender. There’s no reason why, with time and effort, using a wider range of faces to retrain the software, that bias can’t be overcome; on a rational basis, the undoubted bias is more a reason for caution in rushing to apply the technology than for rejecting it.

Proponents claim that no law-abiding citizen has anything to fear from the technology in itself; it’s merely an example of police forces using the latest techniques to improve their record of apprehending criminals and suspected criminals. Again, it’s a rational position to take: who wouldn’t want the police to use the best and most effective methods and technology to reduce crime and its impact?

None of that removes the unease, however. Part of that is a fear of how the data could be misused: recording who was at which event on a giant database could enable authorities to put together a lot of information about the movements of individuals who have never been suspected of anything. It doesn’t have to be used that way, of course – but there is a natural and, on the basis of experience, not wholly unreasonable lack of trust about governments and police forces. Even if there are rules and regulations governing the recording and retention of data about the movements of individuals who are, at the time, of no interest to the police, how certain do we feel that the authorities will keep to those rules? And never be tempted to trawl back through old recordings and images?

The underlying issue is about the relationship between the citizen and the state. Theoretically, the principle of democracy is that the state is there to serve the citizens, but the practical truth is that the state has always served, primarily, the interests which control it. That was bad enough when the capacity of the state to control and surveil was limited by the capacity of the state’s forces, primarily manpower. But when backed up by what is, for a finite population within a defined geographical area, a virtually limitless capacity to store data, the balance of power shifts significantly. With both the traditional ‘main’ parties having fallen under authoritarian leaders, who are becoming more so in the belief that that is what Farage’s prospective voters want, the idea of the state as the protector of citizens, rather than the controller of walking economic resources, is fast receding.

The question we face is a simple one: in the interests of preventing crime and apprehending those who commit it, how much extra power to monitor and record the movements and activities of all of us – criminals and non-criminals alike – are we prepared to cede to the state? I fear that the trade-off isn’t being well understood, but if we don’t think about it now, it gets harder to see how any new use of technology will ever be rolled back at some future point.

Badenoch's alternative suggestion is no better

Tweet

 

The leader of the Tory Party seems quite exercised about the idea that anyone could believe that she has only got to her current position because she’s a black woman. In fairness, the suggestion that there is a sufficiently large group of Tory MPs and members prepared to vote for her out of some desire to pursue a policy of positive discrimination really isn’t credible. That just isn’t the Tory Party as we know it. It’s much simpler to accept the obvious alternative explanation, that those MPs and members who elected her really did believe that she was the best person to be the leader of the opposition and the party’s candidate for PM. Or the even simpler explanation that she actually is the best that they have to offer. I’m happy to accept either of those explanations, but I’m not at all sure that they paint either her or her party in a better light than the suggestion that it’s a result of positive discrimination.

Bad news for savers?

Tweet

 

Yesterday’s official figures for government ‘borrowing’ showed that it was down significantly compared to the same month last year. It was reported as though it was unalloyed good news. But the wonders of double-entry book-keeping mean that there is also another way of looking at it: the government took in a lower amount of people’s savings in July this year than it did the previous year. Whether the news is quite as good as it was portrayed as being depends on which side of the equation matters most.

That’s an oversimplification of a complex series of financial transactions, of course, but the basic point is this: debt and deposits must always net out to zero. Every pound of what the government regards as debt is a pound of assets to someone else – and most of those to whom the government ‘owes’ money are UK citizens and companies (and because of the process of quantitative easing, a significant amount of government dent is actually owed to a wholly-owned subsidiary of the government in the form of the Bank of England – effectively it owes that money to itself, meaning it isn’t really a ‘debt’ at all in any meaningful sense).

The Chancellor and government complain about the cost of paying interest on the money which they have ‘borrowed’, but that expenditure on interest looks like income to those who have deposited their savings with the government – a group which includes all those of us who have any sort of pension scheme from a source other than the state. The problem isn’t with the principle of government borrowing, or even with the amount (the Chancellor’s fiscal rules are entirely arbitrary and self-imposed), it is with way the assets and debt are distributed. The debt is treated as a liability for all of us, but the assets are overwhelmingly in the hands of the wealthiest in society, including those who have the biggest pension pots. The outcome of the government’s approach to tax and borrowing isn’t, as they like to suggest, that we are creating debts for future generations to repay, it is that the system is one of the many ways in which wealth ‘trickles up’, not between generations but within them. And it doesn’t seem to matter which party is in government.

Legitimising tyrants and wannnabes

Tweet

 

In talking about what concessions should be made to Putin, some commentators have referred to the need to address his ‘legitimate fears’. But what makes a fear ‘legitimate’? I can understand why Putin might not like the idea of a successful democracy – or even semi-democracy – on his doorstep; I can understand why he might not want another Nato member on his border; I can even understand why he might not be happy about Ukraine becoming part of the EU economic bloc, but what turns these aspirations and wishes into ‘legitimate’ concerns? Ukraine posed him no threat, and the ‘fears’ seem to have been more of an excuse to indulge his fantasy about recreating the Russian Empire than about being afraid of anything. We, and especially Ukraine, have no choice but to deal with him because of his military power and willingness to use it, but that doesn’t endow his wishes with one iota of legitimacy, and our use of language shouldn’t do so either. Recognising the reality of raw power and ruthlessness isn’t at all the same thing as agreeing that there is any justification for it.

Something similar applies, in a very different context and on a wholly different scale, to the ‘legitimate’ concerns of those opposing all migration. What, exactly, is the difference between blatant xenophobia and paranoia on the one hand, and ‘legitimate’ concerns on the other? And when and how does the one morph into the other? The distinction is not at all clear to me, but politicians are increasingly falling into the habit of using the word ‘legitimate’ to describe the motivations of those opposing migration, as if they are afraid to confront the much darker motives driving many of those opponents. Actually, I think that I can answer my own question: what legitimises fears or concerns is using the word legitimate to describe them. The language we use is important. Those referring to Putin’s fears as legitimate strengthen his hand, just as those who refer to legitimate concerns about migration strengthen the hand of the Farages of this world. Whether we’re dealing with the actual real world authoritarian in the Kremlin, or the wannabe authoritarian of Reform, legitimising part of what they say doesn’t make it easier to debate the matter rationally, it merely encourages them to bank the win, and expand their demands.

There’s nothing ‘legitimate’ about invading a neighbouring country or about spreading deliberate untruths to whip up hatred of migrants and foreigners. Suggesting that there is merely facilitates them.

Tough words won't cut it

Tweet

 

In their response to Trump’s support for Putin’s position on Ukraine, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Finland, along with the presidents of the European Council and European Commission, issued a strongly worded statement, in which they made clear their view that “Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine‘s pathway to EU and NATO”, and “International borders must not be changed by force.” Brave words, but ultimately meaningless. Putin does not need a direct veto on Ukraine’s membership of Nato when his willing puppet in the White House has one, and has made it clear that he’s ready to use it. And the international borders of Ukraine have effectively already been changed by force. Indeed, the whole history of international borders shows that force is the most usual way in which they are changed. There are few – if any – international borders which are not the result of armed conflict at some point in the past. We might wish that the world had learned better by now, but it hasn’t, and the fine words of an assorted group of leaders don’t change that.

The situation in Ukraine remains where it has been for the last three years, with only three potential outcomes. The first is that Ukraine’s allies provide the resources, both weaponry and personnel, to defeat Russia and restore previous boundaries. There is little doubt that the capacity to do this exists, although whether it would ignite an even bigger problem is an unknown. The second is that Ukraine’s allies continue to supply just about enough weaponry to keep the war going until one or both sides – most probably Ukraine, as the smaller of the two – lose the will and the manpower to continue fighting. The third is that some sort of accommodation is reached with Putin under which new de facto, if not necessarily de jure, borders are agreed. None of these is palatable, but only one offers the hope of an early end to the slaughter.

Leaders like to be seen to be talking tough, but tough rhetoric solves little. As a statement of the way the world should be, it’s hard to fault what they say; but as a recognition of reality it’s a dismal failure. And what’s lacking above all is any sense of an understanding that the world isn’t as they want it to be – let alone of the fact that they are some of the key players who should be working to change the way the world works.

Does homelessness stop Trump getting the Nobel Prize?

Tweet

 

Lurking somewhere in the back of my mind is a vague recollection of a TV series fronted by James Burke back in the 1980s in which he explained how a change – sometimes quite a small change – in one factor could lead to large changes in apparently unrelated fields. Or maybe that rogue memory is based on one of Douglas Adams’ books: he was, as I recall, something of a proponent of the idea of the interconnectedness of everything. In any event, it set me to wondering whether Trump’s clampdown on homelessness and crime – the scale of which is, in his vivid imagination, enormous – in Washington DC is related to his overwhelming desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Bear with me here.

We know that he strongly believes that he is entitled to the award, and cannot tolerate the fact that Obama was given one and he has not been. The desire runs to extreme lengths, with reports today that he personally phoned the Norwegian Finance Minister, as the latter was going about his business on the streets of Oslo, to tell him that he wanted the prize. Just for good measure, he also discussed possible tariffs. No connection between the two things I’m sure, and certainly not a case of ‘nice country you’ve got there; shame if anything bad happened to it’. Maybe.

We also know that he seriously believes that bombing Iran was what ended the brief war with Israel and should therefore be counted as part of his record of bringing peace to troubled places. And we know, because he’s told us, repeatedly, that he is the only man who can end the Russia Ukraine war, and that he stands a 75% chance of doing just that in Alaska today. I hesitate to make such a wild claim, but it is at least possible that he has enough self-awareness to know that pulling off such a deal might just improve his chances of being invited to Oslo. But one of the obstacles to such a deal is, in his view, whether and to what extent Putin respects both Trump and the US. An objective observer might see that as problematic, given that Putin seemingly respects almost no-one, but I’m sure that it doesn’t look that way to Trump.

And that brings us back to the imagined disaster zone as which Trump sees Washington DC. He’s already told us that the rest of the world disrespects the US because of the dirt, crime and homelessness which exists in defiant denial of all statistical evidence to the contrary, and that he’s going to clean up the imaginary mess in order to earn back that respect. The route to winning his much-coveted prize therefore runs through deploying the National Guard to bulldoze homelessness camps, deport anyone who he doesn’t like the look of, and clear the slums. I realise that there is a danger in making his acts look almost rational, but it’s an explanation which might actually be closer to the truth than anything else.

Double standards usually apply

Tweet

 

It’s probably reasonable to assume that US Vice President Vance didn’t know that he needed a licence to go fishing on the lake at Chevening. Whether he would be so indulgent about a visitor to the US breaking a local law of which (s)he was ignorant is another question, but being fair-minded and reasonable doesn’t depend on reciprocity. Lammy, however, and the staff at Chevening should have known, and he certainly would have known had he been an avid angler.

It's apparently a non-trivial offence: it seems that the fine for fishing without the requisite licence is up to £2,500, even if you’re fishing in your own lake on your own land to which there is no public access, although unless you’re dull enough to invite a photographer to film the crime, you’re unlikely to be caught. It does sound a bit like what politicians normally like to call unnecessary red tape. In Lammy’s defence, inviting a photographer to capture the scene is hardly the action of someone who knows that he is breaking the law. My best guess is that he’s never fished before, and angling is one of those life-long passions which politicians suddenly remember when a good photo-op presents itself. That, though, begs the question – where did the rods come from? It’s possible that they are kept at Chevening for the use of guests (which might make this a case of serial offending) or that some underling was sent out to acquire them. In either case, someone should have known that a permit was required, even if that someone wasn’t Lammy himself.

Lammy has owned up to the problem, paid for a licence and apologised, and that seems to be the end of the matter. I can’t help wondering, though, whether offering to pay for a licence retrospectively would have worked the same magic for those who have been fined for similar offences, or whether double standards are in operation. Lammy has actually handled it rather well – none of the usual bluster about no wrongdoing, just a rapid apology and retrospective purchase of a licence. It does still, though, underline the eternal truth: them what owns or controls the land can get away with more than the rest of us.

Idiocy is what got him the job

Tweet

 

According to the US Ambassador to Israel this week, if Sir Starmer had been the UK’s PM during the Second World War, we’d all be speaking German now. He’s not the first to use the “…all be speaking German now if it weren’t for” (insert saviour of choice here) line, and he probably won’t be the last. It’s like some sort of bizarre corollary of Godwin’s Law, except in this case it’s an argument of first resort rather than last. Those deploying the line usually seem to think it’s an absolute killer line, but all it really demonstrates is an ignorance of history, especially linguistic history.

Even had the outcome of that war been different, the probability that the German overlords would have been able to replace the languages of all the conquered peoples with their own in such a historically short timescale are pretty much negligible. For evidence, one has only to look at what was, perhaps, the single most prolific attempted perpetrator of linguistic and cultural elimination in history, namely the UK itself, in its then guise of the British Empire (and it was, incidentally, the British Empire which declared war on Germany, not the UK). Whilst the language of the colonial administration might have been English, most people in the conquered realms continued speaking their own languages throughout the period of colonisation. And here in Wales, half a millennium of attempted linguistic cleansing succeeded only in reducing the use of Welsh, not eliminating it.

But the real problem with it as a line of argument is the way in which it reduces the consequences of conquest to a rather simplistic question about which language people end up speaking. It wasn't even relevant to the ambassador’s underlying point, which was that providing food to a starving population who have been driven from their homes by a completely disproportionate response by Israel somehow equates to a capitulation to Hamas: he would clearly prefer them to starve to death. Labour’s Emily Thornbury was surely right in saying that “This Ambassador is clearly an idiot,” but isn’t being an idiot his prime qualification for serving as part of the Trump administration?

Throwing people probably wouldn't help

Tweet

 

Yesterday, in advance of Trump’s meeting with Putin later this week to redraw Ukraine’s boundaries, Sir Starmer warned the world that he wouldn’t trust Vladimir Putin “as far as you can throw him”. It’s another of those rare occasions when Sir Starmer has spoken half sensibly. Only half mind, because there is also a major question about the trustworthiness of Trump. And looking at the two men, if it came to a distance throwing contest, I reckon that most of us might be able to throw Putin a millimetre or two further than Trump. It’s probably something to do with the Big Mac consumption ratio.

And that’s the problem with Sir Starmer’s statement backing Trump’s interventions over the Ukraine war: neither of the two parties can be trusted. Putin’s motivation is to get US recognition of his control over as much of Ukraine as possible; Trump’s appears to be earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the bloodshed, at least long enough for him to get to Oslo and collect it, regardless of whether any peace is just or lasting. Most of Europe is saying that Ukraine must be part of any agreement – the country must not simply be carved up between Trump and Putin.

Sadly, the truth about the world in which we live (rather then the one in which we might prefer to live) is that two dictators, each heavily armed with the means to wipe us all out, meeting in Alaska can and will carve up Ukraine and, come to that, any other country that they choose (a side-deal on Greenland, maybe, as a quid pro quo?), and no-one can stop them. Without US support, unless the rest of the world – and particularly Europe – is willing to commit resources, including military personnel, to the defence of Ukraine, then the ultimate outcome is certain, with only the timescale in doubt. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not just, it’s not the sort of world most of us would want, but Trump is surely right to say the cards are stacked against Ukraine. He should know – he’s the one who stacked them.

For decades, we have lived under the delusion that the world order is rules-based, but the US has always had a shaky commitment, at best, to that concept, and has abandoned it completely under Trump. The truth is that we live in a world where the powerful can and do impose their will on those less strong than themselves – Trump has merely shredded the pretence that things were otherwise. Might is right, in practice if not in theory. With the US having gone rogue, the choice is between telling Zelensky to fight to the last Ukrainian, or advising him to accept that some territorial loss is the price of peace, and concentrating on getting back the stolen children and rebuilding what’s left of Ukraine, with absolutely no guarantee that Putin won’t try and grab more of the country in a few years time. It’s not a pleasant choice, but not choosing the second means that Sir Starmer is effectively choosing the first. Slathered in a good dose of meaningless rhetoric about the evil Putin.

How we get to a position where the world can get back to at least the pretence of having a rules-based international order is a much bigger question, to which none of us have the answer. But we can at least start by asking the question, something which Sir Starmer seems unable to comprehend.

A convenient lie

Tweet

 

One of the convenient lies we are told on a regular basis is that governments and politicians make the laws, but the way in which those laws are enforced is ‘an operational matter’, entirely in the hands of individual police forces, who set their own priorities when it comes to using the limited resources allocated to them by those same governments and politicians. Thus it was parliament, at the behest of the Home Secretary, which declared that showing any sort of support for Palestine Action was itself a terrorist act, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but it was the Metropolitan Police who decided that this was such a high priority that it justified arresting over 500 people, many of them for doing little more than holding up a placard, and then bailing them on suspicion of terrorism.

Maybe the Home Secretary, an authoritarian to her fingernails, didn’t actually tell the Met that she wanted the maximum number of arrests to be made. Maybe she didn’t even give them the odd nod and wink about her expectations. Perhaps her expectations were already clear enough for the police to ‘know’ what they needed to do. But there are now two possible outcomes. The first is that the authorities really will charge most or all of those people with terrorism, adding to the courts backlog in order to hear cases, most of which will, at huge public expense, end up with a minor fine or even a discharge given the pettiness of the ‘offences’. The second is that they will, rather more wisely, simply drop all further action to avoid a situation where they look like the complete idiots they have made of themselves.

It's possible, of course, that the police have deliberately been heavy-handed in order to expose the ridiculous nature of the law that they are being expected to enforce, in the hope that the government will back off and allow them to get back to dealing with proper crime. That does, though, require rather more cunning and Machiavellianism than the Met are usually known for. And, in any event, Occam’s Razor applies.

There is little doubt as to the guilt of those holding up placards, although that says more about the silliness of the law than the actions of the protesters or the police. In the meantime, it means that the police have released more than 500 suspected terrorists, each of whom has committed an offence carrying a custodial sentence of up to 14 years, onto the streets of the UK to continue their nefarious activities. We are expected to believe two things at the same time: firstly that these are dangerous terrorists who deserve to be locked up for a very long time, and secondly that it is safe to allow them to roam the country. A rational and sensible government might stop and think about the course they are following, but we’re more likely to see them doubling down on the rhetoric. As well as seeing more protests and more arrests. I suppose it’s what the UK deserves for electing an authoritarian and illiberal government.

Statehood includes the right to choose a government

Tweet

 

Whether or not Palestine meets the usual requirements to recognition as a state remains in doubt, as noted last week. Israel is certainly doing its utmost to ensure that there are no enforceable boundaries nor any functioning administration with which the rest of the world could deal. That doesn’t take away the right of Palestinians to have an independent state if they so choose, even if statehood may not be exactly the thing uppermost in their minds as Gazans desperately struggle for food. And it surely can’t be right that an occupying power – wherever in the world it might be – can frustrate the right of territories it occupies to gain statehood.

Opponents of recognition claim that it would ‘reward’ terrorism and somehow legitimise the horrific attack by Hamas which sparked the latest round of fighting. It’s true if, and only if, one’s historical perspective on Gaza starts on 7 October 2023. On any longer timescale, terrorism didn’t start then and has never been restricted to one side: indeed, Israel as a state only exists as an internationally recognised state within its current recognised boundaries as a result of terrorist acts by Israeli settlers in the 1940s. And even that is choosing an artificial start date – history doesn’t start and stop neatly at any point in time that we choose. Sir Starmer and others have declared that ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’, one of those statements which is only true up until the point when negotiation becomes the only rational option, and there are numerous historical examples of that.

The leader of the Tories has come up with another obstacle to recognition, claiming that the UK shouldn’t recognise a state led by people we consider to be terrorists. Superficially, it sounds almost rational – after all, does anyone really think that Hamas are the best people to be governing any part of Palestine? It is, though, a deeply colonialist attitude, perhaps not entirely surprising from someone who has newly thrown off any suggestion that she might in any way be Nigerian, with its implicit assumption that the rest of the world can or should determine who the Palestinians might want to represent them. And is she seriously suggesting that, if Hamas stand aside now to gain recognition and the people of Palestine subsequently choose to elect a government led by Hamas, or a similar group under another name, that the UK should then de-recognise Palestine? It doesn’t look like a position to which she has given much thought.

Actually, although it’s surely inadvertent on her part, maybe there is a non-colonialist point to be made here after all. The world might indeed be a safer place for humanity as a whole if certain governments were removed from power by international action (even if we might disagree about which ones). But a world in which states were required to abide by certain globally adopted standards (such as a declaration of human rights, perhaps?) and where governments could be removed by collective action by other states if they did not would require a few things to be in place, not the least of which are a global set of rules and the will and organisation to enforce them. Something about Badenoch’s attitude towards international law tells me that that is most definitely not what she has in mind. Which just leaves opportunistic posturing.

The appearance of action

Tweet

 

There have been suggestions in the past that Scotland could overcome the Labour-Tory Westminster blockage of a new referendum on independence if an election resulted in a majority for independence in the Scottish Parliament and that parliament then declared Scotland to be an independent country. There is no legal requirement for a referendum before independence; many of the UK’s former colonies never bothered with such niceties. Some fought for their independence, others negotiated for it, some (perhaps most notably the USA) simply declared themselves independent. But one of the most important tests of whether a country can become independent without the consent of the state currently in control is the question of international recognition. A declaration of independence which no other state recognised could turn out to be pretty meaningless, leaving the administration unable to trade effectively or make any other sort of international agreements, which is a major reason for the SNP having avoided trying it to date.

Sir Starmer is right to understand the importance of international recognition in the process of establishing a Palestinian state, and were the other essentials of statehood in place, it would be a powerful step to take. The problem is that they are not – and Israel is in the process of making sure that their absence is as irrevocable as possible. Between clearing large parts of Gaza of its population, and encouraging settlers to force Palestinians from their land in the West Bank, there are no longer any clear boundaries for a Palestinian State. There may be internationally agreed lines on a map, but they are largely meaningless. Nor is there much by way of a functioning administration, which could be recognised as the ‘government’ of the new state, in large parts of the territory.

Recognition is symbolic, but of little real effect compared to the other steps that the UK could take in terms of sanctions and cessation of military exports. And delayed recognition is even less effective – merely giving the Israeli government a clear timeline in which it needs to complete the elimination of any viable Palestinian state. But then, symbolism is probably all Sir Starmer really wants: the appearance of action without making any real difference. In fact, that phrase (“the appearance of action without making any real difference”) could well come to be the defining characteristic of Starmer’s Labour. And not just in relation to Palestine.

Can Corbyn change?

Tweet

 

The history of setting up new parties in the UK is not exactly a trail littered by success. One of the main reasons for that is the electoral system which, as long as there are two parties generally perceived as ‘natural’ front runners, allows two main parties to shut others out by each claiming that any vote not for one is, in effect, a vote for the other. It’s a tactic which has been used for decades by Labour and Tory alike, and goes a long way to explaining why neither of those parties has ever embraced electoral reform.

One of the features of such a system, however, is that there is an inherent tipping point; once any third party reaches a certain percentage of the vote it can suddenly have the effect of shutting out one or other of the traditional two main parties. Opinion polls suggest that Reform Ltd may have reached that tipping point, although there is a lot that could, and probably will, go wrong for Farage between now and the next Westminster election. It is in that context that Corbyn and friends have decided to launch a new party. Maybe, if the old system really is reaching the end of the road, the UK could see both the two old main parties being swept aside by two new main parties, however unlikely that might seem in historical terms.

Despite agreeing with much of what Corbyn has said over the years on a range of issues, I have serious concerns about a new party led by him.

Firstly, he has never exactly been an enthusiast for electoral reform. There is, of course, an element of chicken-and-egg about the issue – the best way for a new party to break through is under an electoral system which allocates seats more accurately on the basis of votes cast, and the best way of getting that sort of electoral reform is for one of the parties which is being shut out by the current system to somehow win a majority under the current system. Serious, long term reform of the UK political system depends on implementing a change which clearly runs counter to the interests of those making the decisions. Nevertheless, a clear commitment to reform might be the best way for a new party to encourage others to support it on a one-off basis in a single election. Has Corbyn the vision to understand that?

Secondly, unless the new party can get its vote share up to around 30%, it could end up with a respectable vote in many constituencies whilst winning precisely no seats. And it could even end up losing seats for the Green Party. Success in the short term necessarily involves a willingness to form alliances. Corbyn is steeped in old Labour Party values, including the one which welcomes co-operation with other parties just as long as those other parties recognise Labour’s hegemony and do as they are told. Can Corbyn put such attitudes to one side and form the sort of cross-party alliances required to bring about electoral success – and in England, that primarily means with the Green Party?

Thirdly, Corbyn has always had a strange blind spot when it comes to Wales and Scotland. This is a man who supports national liberation struggles across the globe, and is a long-time supporter of a free and united Ireland. Yet, when it comes to those parts of the UK which don’t have a stretch of water separating them from England, he somehow seems to see the dominance of England as being part of the natural order of things. Working with others in Wales and Scotland will require a willingness to adapt his attitude towards them – has he the sense to do that?

At the moment, there’s something of a gap where detailed policies should be, and we’ll have to wait and see how that gap is filled. Vague aspirational stuff isn’t enough, even if it generates a few headlines.

When is a tax not a tax?

Tweet

 

The government which decided to reduce pensioner income by scrapping the Winter Fuel Allowance, and which continually hints at the ‘unaffordability’ of the pensions triple lock is, apparently, the same government which is now forecasting a ‘tsunami’ of pensioner poverty. It’s almost as though cause and effect is some sort of alien concept. They’re not alone, of course – the Tories and the Farageists are making similar noises about affordability. The alternative to funding an adequate level of pension through taxation is, it seems, for employees to save more.

Superficially, it sounds rational and logical; those of us benefitting from occupational pensions certainly understand the benefits of saving into a work-based pension plan. The difference, though, is not all it is painted as being. The state pension is nominally funded by tax deductions from employees and employers, and it’s true that those taxes might well need to increase if there are more pensioners and if the level of pensions continues to rise. Mandatory occupational pensions (the government’s preferred alternative), on the other hand, are funded by compulsory payments by employers and compulsory deductions from salary. The payments might not be defined as ‘taxes’ because the money never goes through any government accounts, but their effects on business operating costs and net disposable income are remarkably similar. It turns out that we can indeed afford to pay better pensions if the same people pay the same money to a private company and pretend that it’s nothing at all like a tax.

Whilst the difference might not be immediately obvious to those paying the contributions, there are, of course, some other differences. The first is that private pensions money is invested to pay for future benefits rather than used to pay current benefits. But the difference between an investment-based approach and the current Ponzi-scheme approach for state pensions is a matter of political choice, not an inevitable consequence of a state-run scheme. The second difference is, purely coincidentally I’m sure, that the private pensions company take a slice off the top as payment for administration and profit for their shareholders.

The biggest and most important difference is in terms of who benefits and by how much. The state pension is based on paying a single basic amount to all, even if the contribution rate is based, albeit loosely, on the income of the individual employee. There is, in that sense, an element of redistribution involved. Workplace pensions, however (and this is true, although in slightly different ways, of both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes), pay out a pension amount which is related to the payments made – and thus, in turn, to the salary of the individual. Labour’s preference for a savings-based approach to increasing pensions thus has two main financial effects – increasing profit for finance companies in the City of London, and ensuring that benefits flow to the richest rather than the poorest. All in the interests of pretending to reduce the demands on what they insist on calling ‘taxpayers’ money’ by replacing a potential tax increase with an alternative compulsory levy. It’s hard to find a clearer statement of modern-day Labour Party values.

Blurring the lines isn't firm action

Tweet

 

Terrorism, like some perverse form of beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The term, ‘La terreur’, was first used during the French revolution, when it was very much a state-sponsored method of terrifying a population into submission and acceptance. It underlines the fact that there is no clear, generally-accepted definition of the term – a huge advantage for politicians since it means that they can define it any way they choose. Governments tend to use the word as a catch-all for almost anything of which they disapprove, an approach which leads to Putin using the term to justify his war in Ukraine, and Sir Starmer using it to describe a few people who try and give a new coat of paint to a couple of military aircraft. Whether that latter action actually ‘terrified’ anyone is a moot point, but it doesn’t really matter; once something has been officially defined as terrorism, almost any action is apparently justified in dealing with it.

One of the more alarming aspects of the government’s decision to proscribe a single pro-Palestine organisation is the way in which the police now seem to be extending the definition of terrorism to include anyone who supports the same aims as the proscribed organisation itself. Effectively, they’ve started arresting people (and detaining them under the more stringent conditions relating to terrorism rather than the more usual conditions for other types of crime) for declaring their support for the idea of a Palestinian state, rather than only for outright support for the proscribed organisation. Maybe individual police officers have been inadequately briefed about exactly what the law does or does not permit, but it’s hard to believe that different forces in different parts of the UK would independently have come to such a similar conclusion – which suggests at least implicit encouragement from the government.

There are probably few who would quibble with the principle of proscription as a tool to deal with an organisation taking violent action causing death or injury to citizens in an attempt to force a particular change in policy (although not quibbling with the principle isn’t the same as believing that it’s an effective approach). It ought to be possible, though, in a semi-democracy like the UK to debate when and under what conditions such a sanction should be applied and to question the way in which that sanction is then policed. The government, however, seems determined to close down any such discussion.

War, with all its accompanying death and destruction, invariably ‘radicalises’ people, to use a term generally used pejoratively these days. The horrific war in Gaza is just one example. Whether it’s always the bad thing as which it is presented is another question which they don’t want to debate. The second world war radicalised a generation of people in the UK, and the immediate post-war Labour government under Clem Attlee channelled that into making some of the most significant changes the UK has ever seen. I can’t help but wonder whether the instinctive reaction of the current day Labour Party under Sir Starmer would have been, more likely, to criminalise and imprison those who had been radicalised. Few people in the UK actually support ‘real’ terrorism, but forever extending the definition of the term blurs the lines. It might look like firm action, but it is likely to make enforcement harder rather than easier.

Accumulating wealth isn't the same thing as creating it

Tweet

 

‘Wealth’ is a strange thing. Most of us know whether we’ve got it or not, but that’s not the same as knowing what it is, or where it comes from. And that’s important when it comes to the question of taxing it, a question which has gained a lot of prominence recently. Partly because identifying what it is isn’t exactly a straightforward task, it’s far from easy to tax it; it is a great deal easier to tax income arising from it, as discussed in a previous post. There’s also a lot of confusion between being wealthy and creating wealth, as some of the reports suggesting that millionaires and wealth creators will leave the UK if they are taxed at a higher rate illustrate.

For most of us, our ‘wealth’ is almost entirely a result of home ownership: take away the ‘value’ of our homes and we have very little left. That property-based wealth certainly seems to be growing, but who is actually ‘creating’ that extra wealth? It’s not home owners – they do nothing except buy a house and watch the monetary value increase over time. Another form in which much of the UK’s private ‘wealth’ is held is stocks and shares. But those who buy shares aren’t investing in the companies – the companies don’t see a penny of the value of share sales. Most business investment comes from commercial loans, not share issues. The value of those stocks and shares might increase over time, adding to the total stock of wealth, but who is ‘creating’ that extra wealth? It certainly isn’t the shareholders, yet they are the ones benefitting from that increase in value. Most of those who can be described as millionaires in the UK are actually wealth accumulators, not wealth creators.

It means that we need to examine rather more carefully the bleating of those who claim that taxes on wealth (or the income derived from wealth) will drive wealth creators to leave the country. Most of them aren’t even wealth creators in any meaningful sense in the first place. There’s also a question about the extent to which they can really take their wealth with them. They can certainly sell their homes and their shares and take the monetary value with them – but the assets won’t have moved. It’s obvious in the case of bricks and mortar that the homes will stay in the same place under new ownership, but so, in general terms, will the real assets underpinning share values. Even in the case of a successful business built up by a successful entrepreneur (which might be a genuine case of wealth creation) who decides to emigrate and take his wealth with him, the way to realise the best value for his assets is to sell them to a new owner, not to destroy them. And the extent to which people can continue to own assets whilst domiciled elsewhere and avoid UK taxes in consequence is a matter of UK taxation policy, not an automatic result.

There are some good arguments against trying to assess and tax wealth. There are even some not-quite-so-good arguments against doing more to tax income arising from wealth. Fear that a few whingeing millionaires will emigrate just isn’t one of them.

Save the alligators!

Tweet

 

Americans have a saying that when you’re up to your waist (although they generally refer to a similarly-located part of the anatomy) in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp. In less expressive language, sometimes, even if people start a project with a clear objective, the practical difficulties encountered along the way can assume such a significance that the aim becomes more of a distant aspiration: killing alligators becomes an end in itself.

To the surprise of no-one except the current and previous governments, reducing net immigration (assuming one thinks that to be a problem in the first place), turns out to be rather more complex than their rhetoric has ever suggested. ‘Stopping the boats’ is really just one – and not a particularly large one at that, in the scheme of things – element of the problem. Short of starting a war with France by forcibly landing people back on French beaches, deliberately killing the occupants of the boats, or simply ignoring international commitments and regulations such as the law of the seas, there isn’t actually any way of stopping the boats at all. Once they enter UK territorial waters, the UK government has a legal obligation to ensure the safety of the occupants, and prior to that point, the French government has a similar responsibility.

Sir Warmonger’s latest wheeze to address the issue is to make an agreement with France for a ‘one in, one out’ policy, initially capped at a maximum of 50 each way per week. The mathematically competent (a category which obviously excludes government ministers) will immediately note two things about this proposal. The first is that minus one plus one nets out to nil; the proposal would reduce the total net migration into the UK by precisely zero. And the second is that 2600 a year is around 6% of the total number making the crossing; a proposal to swap 6% of those making the journey for a different 6% is supposed to deter the other 94% from even trying, presumably by encouraging them to wait to see if they can get into the select 6% who will be allowed a safe crossing. Clearly, the PM hopes that those members of the electorate salivating over the prospect of deporting people in chains are as mathematically challenged as himself.

Interestingly, one of the main arguments put forward by those who think that the use of force, detention, and deterrence to stop people crossing is the wrong approach has been that a better alternative is to allow safe crossing and perform a proper assessment of asylum claims before deciding whether or not to deport. The proposal looks a lot like doing exactly that, except on such a small scale as to make no difference. It’s all a form of scope creep in reverse. Reduce net migration becomes stop the boats becomes stop some of the boats becomes swap some of those arriving by boat for some others who didn’t get in a boat. Then, it can be declared to be a huge success. Just about the only certainty is that absolutely no alligators get killed in the process. I suppose the animal rights lobby might be pleased about that, even if the alligators were only ever an allusion.

But who decides the selection criteria?

Tweet

 

Reluctant as I am to agree, ever, with anything which escapes the mouth of Nigel Farage, he does occasionally come up with half a good point. There was an example last week with his suggestion that it ought to be possible to appoint non-politicians to positions as government ministers if they have particularly relevant experience and knowledge, along with the corollary that the act of being elected to the House of Commons doesn’t magically confer relevant knowledge, experience, or even basic ability on those elected to the extent that they suddenly become capable of running a government department.

There are at least three reasons why it’s only half a good point, though. The first is that, if being an elected member of parliament for the majority party does not confer the necessary qualifications for becoming a minister, then being the leader of such a party doesn’t confer the necessary qualifications for becoming prime minister either – he is hoist by his own argument, which ends up sounding like an argument against democracy. The second is that governments can already appoint non-elected politicians to become ministers by the simple expedient of giving them a peerage. And the third is his counter assumption that being a successful business person somehow does confer the necessary attributes for becoming a minister. That overlooks the fact that there’s a huge difference between supplying goods or services to make a profit and supplying goods and services to meet identified social needs.

One of the theoretical strengths of the US system (although, as we are seeing currently, it’s more theoretical than actual) is the clear separation between the three branches of government – the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. It’s a distinction which the vague and not fully codified constitution of the UK fudges, leaving us with a legislature full of people most of whom are, have been, or want to be part of the executive. It’s prejudicial to them delivering critical scrutiny. A clearer separation might well lead to better scrutiny and accountability – the idea that people have to sit in the legislature in order to be scrutinised and held to account might be familiar, but it is a strange one when analysed more carefully. And a legislature which focussed more clearly on its key role of legislating might do a better job of it than one where threats and blandishments ‘encourage’ people to toe the government line. Electing the executive and the legislature separately clearly has some advantages.

But, but, but… Holding a separate election for the head of the executive and then allowing him or her to select the best-qualified people to serve as cabinet ministers only works if the elected head of the executive him or herself has the necessary attributes for the job, including the ability to select the right people for other jobs. As the US is so amply demonstrating at present, electing a narcissistic criminal sociopath to the role can easily make things worse. If the head of the executive then puts total loyalty to him or herself as the main – or only – required attribute, it’s an understatement to say that it doesn’t necessarily lead to an adequate and able cabinet.

The basic point which Farage made – that governments should be able to choose people from outside parliament to run ministries – has a great deal of merit, especially where the legislature is small, such as in Wales (a Senedd where the number of members from the party or parties forming the government is unlikely ever to exceed 50 by very much, and where all of those have been selected on the basis of an internal party popularity contest, doesn’t exactly provide a large pool from which to recruit ministers; and the more powers the Senedd gains over time, the more obvious that will become). All the objections about scrutiny and accountability of people outside parliament can be overcome if the will is there – partly perhaps by giving the legislature a strong role in confirming appointments and the right to dismiss ministers as the ultimate sanction. The problem with Farage’s proposal, however, is that it doesn’t really overcome the perceived problem of appointing people not up to the job, because it doesn’t address the key questions, namely who decides who is suitable for the job, and what criteria do they use? It would be a mistake to completely dismiss the point which Farage has raised; but as it stands it’s over-simplistic, with little sign of any intention to fill in the gaps. But then, over-simplifying complex issues is something of a stock-in-trade for him.

How many people is too many?

Tweet

 

Politicians are increasingly worried, it seems, about the low birth rate in the UK – a situation mirrored in many other developed countries. For some of them, there’s an element of racism in the argument: they are concerned that if we don’t have a locally-born workforce, the gaps will be filled by migration. The 20-year plus lead-time on sourcing new employees by increasing the birth rate is a bit of a problem, of course, but one they largely seem inclined to ignore. The other motivation is an economic one – a concern that a falling birth rate coupled with a rising population of older people means that fewer people are working to support more who are not. But the extent to which that is a ‘real’ problem, rather than one based on a particular ideological construct about economics, is a question which largely goes undebated.

There are various theories around about how many planets’ worth of resources would be needed if we were all to live at the standard of, say, the UK in 2025. There are problems with the detail of all of these, dependent as they inevitably are on a series of assumptions and guesses. The basic underlying point, though, is almost certainly true: the resources of the Earth, as currently being utilised, are inadequate to support extending the lifestyle of the richest countries to all humans. Increasing the population will only make that worse, and inequality is the inevitable result. The sort of inequality, in fact, which is one of the biggest drivers of migration.

There is an article on the Guardian’s website by Larry Elliott which challenges the prevailing consensus that a falling birth rate is necessarily a bad thing. It even suggests that a falling birth rate could be a good thing. He sets out some economic theory behind that: whilst a falling population might reduce GDP in total, it could increase GDP per head, a much more useful way of measuring economic performance as it affects individuals. He also suggests that it would require policy changes. I agree, but I’m not sure that changing a few policies such as getting more people into work will be radical enough. We also need to rethink what the economy is and how it works.

Capitalist ideology posits that there are only two productive forces at work in the economy. The most important (and therefore the one to be most handsomely rewarded) is capital itself, and the second is labour (which is what actually creates value). The political parties don’t often put it in such stark terms, but the persistent references to ‘working people’, as though the rest of us don’t count, are more than a minor clue. In such an economic system, those who provide neither capital nor labour – the young, the old, the sick, the disabled – are a ‘burden’ on those who do, who must give up part of ‘their’ wealth or income to support the non-productive.

It isn’t the only way of looking at an economy, however. An economic system is a human construct, not the result of some divine law. From an alternative perspective, the question is not how we maximise the return for those who supply capital and labour, and squeeze the living standards of everyone else to achieve that, but how successful an economy is in serving all members of the society which hosts it. If the output of an economy ‘belongs’ to all, then tax is not an imposition taking money away from those who’ve ‘earned’ it, but a mechanism for sharing and distributing the rewards of economic activity within the society. ‘Tax’ might not even be the best word to describe that. In such a scenario, a change in the age balance of the population doesn’t require a higher birth rate: that’s an answer to the wrong question. The question we need to be asking is how we shape an economy and share the benefits in such a way that it meets the needs of all. Productivity and equity are more important than demographics, but few seem to be asking the right questions based on that.

It's all about adjusting the variables

Tweet

 

Some websites have slider tools on them where the user can adjust one or more variables and the clever computer will calculate the value of another variable as a result. Things like loans, for instance: you adjust one slider to show the amount required, another to adjust the period over which you wish to repay and the computer tells you the monthly payments. Sir Starmer seems to be using a similar tool for what he rather dishonestly calls welfare ‘reform’.

In his case, the variable he adjusts is the number of people pushed into poverty as a result of any given proposal, and the output tells him the size of any saving to the Treasury and the size of the majority in favour in the House of Commons. He started out with a $5 billion saving, and the first answer it gave him was 250,000 more people pushed into poverty. Sadly – for him, if not for those affected – the second part of the result saw the majority slipping deeply into negative territory. He duly adjusted the slider so that ‘only’ 150,000 more people would be pushed into poverty. The savings came down by about £3 billion, but yesterday morning it became clear that the majority would still be negative. Having run out of time to play with further values in order to assess the outcome, he kicked the ball into the long grass and decided to conduct an in-depth study into possible reforms and their impact. Cue huge sigh of relief from those being dragooned into voting for the bill, and a significant majority in favour of a bill which now has a net saving of around zero – or maybe even a slight net cost.

The issue hasn’t gone away, though. And nor has the basic approach. Whatever fine words are spoken, they’re still asking the same question, which is, in essence, ‘what is the maximum number of people which we can push into poverty and still ensure that enough Labour MPs will vote for it to get it through the House of Commons?’ The review is little more than a cover for spending more time playing with that slider. It’s just going to take a little longer to discover the tipping point of the conscience of individual Labour MPs.

Benefit cuts are not really about country vs party at all

Tweet

 

There is a mantra much-loved by politicians about ‘putting country before party’. It sounds pretty lofty and principled, but when broken down is ultimately meaningless, as we’ve seen over the benefit cuts being proposed by Sir Keir Warmonger’s government. The claim is, in essence, that the party doesn’t want cuts, but the country requires them because of the allegedly parlous state of the national finances. The reality is that Sir Warmonger is motivated first and foremost (like all PMs that I can remember) by what he thinks will win him the next election. His definition, when push comes to shove, of ‘the national interest’ is the continuation of his government. And for all the apparent disagreement with his own backbenchers, they also are motivated by the same thing. I’m prepared to accept that they honestly and sincerely believe that a Labour government is better for the UK than a Tory government, but in that sense, the interests of party and country, in their eyes, will always coincide.

The debate isn’t about any conflict between party and country, it’s about which approach is most likely to see the return of another Labour government at the next UK election. In that sense, party always comes first. That doesn’t mean that there is no serious disagreement, it just isn’t really about the substance of the proposals, it’s about their impact on voting intentions. The PM and those around him really seem to believe that their best hope of winning involves appealing to those who think anyone receiving benefits is a shirker and layabout, and are happy to see such people be pushed deeper into poverty as a result. The revolting backbenchers think that their best hope of winning involves placating those constituents who are besieging their offices and mail boxes with complaints about the proposed benefit cuts.

Whilst there’s surely no doubt that what the rebels are saying is closer to what many would see as traditional Labour values, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is those values which are motivating them rather than a desire to save their own electoral skins. It’s a tragedy for the Labour Party that debate about visions for a better future has been replaced by venal considerations about which particular cohort of electors they need to attract. It’s an even bigger tragedy for those who will lose out that the proposed compromise isn’t about whether they’ll lose out or not, but which of them will lose out and by how much.

What makes a target meaningful?

Tweet

 

There is a mantra in management circles that anyone who has more than three priorities actually has none. ‘Three’ is entirely arbitrary, of course, but the basic point is that having too many priorities makes effective management impossible. We can substitute ‘targets’ for priorities, and the same mantra applies. Yet governments love setting targets, preferably for other people, as a means of measuring something or other, but it’s far from clear that they are actually measuring what they think they are measuring. Targets can often provoke behaviours which are more about demonstrating success than about achieving the aims underlying those targets.

I once sat through a meeting which was led through a spread-sheet detailing 93 key performance indicators for an organisation. Some were being met, many were not, and one or two were even being exceeded. Since the purpose of the discussion was to identify ‘efficiency savings’, part of the discussion turned on those targets which were being easily surpassed. It was an obvious opportunity: reducing performance down to the target level would lead to a saving in money and resources. On another occasion, I heard a suggestion in a discussion on primary school league tables that schools could improve their overall attainment levels in standard assessment tests by identifying the small number of individual pupils who were just below the target score and investing more time and effort in helping them. Two classic cases of the way in which setting targets can sometimes encourage the ‘wrong’ sorts of behaviour.

Those examples came to mind when I read Farage’s comments about scrapping the Welsh Government target for one million Welsh-speakers by 2050. He surely has a point, doesn’t he, when he talks about many government targets being meaningless and never being met? Both the date and the desired number of Welsh-speakers look to be essentially arbitrary numbers. In truth, the million Welsh-speakers has always looked like more of an aspiration than a target: a worthy aspiration, of course, but unless backed up by a detailed and achievable plan with adequate resources set aside over the next quarter of a century, it will be little more than a stick with which opposition politicians can regularly beat the government of the day for its lack of progress. And I see no sign to date of a plan which might actually stand a chance of delivering.

The first problem with Farage’s words comes not with his proposal to abolish what he, and many others, might legitimately see as a meaningless and arbitrary target, but with the lack of any meaningful alternative. His vague words about protecting and encouraging the Welsh language are even more meaningless than the target he seeks to abolish. He has no plans, and no interest in the matter. The second problem concerns the extent to which his aversion to targets is specific or general. It seems unlikely that he is going to abandon his own targets for zero net migration (or zero net migration of poor people anyway; the rich are, apparently, welcome). His aversion to targets seems to relate only to things that he doesn’t like. The Welsh language is clearly one of those.

Not so very different after all

Tweet

 

They told us that it would be so different. After the chaos and confusion of a series of Tory PMs who all seemed to think, to a greater or lesser degree, that compliance with the law was optional (especially in the case of Johnson) the new Labour PM was a completely different animal. A man with a long and honourable background as a human rights lawyer, a man for whom the rule of law was part of the very essence of his being. The promise didn’t age well.

When it came to denying power, water and food to the people of Gaza, his initial response was that Israel had a right to self-defence, and he swatted away any suggestions that that right did not extend to mass killings of non-combatants, including children. Perhaps it stems from that other attribute of an experienced lawyer, obliged by the rules of his profession to take on either side in any case, and find the way of prosecuting or defending which gives his client the best chance of winning. From that perspective, whether or not what Israel is doing in Gaza amounts to genocide or not is a matter of opinion which can only be settled by a court case; whether bombing of hospitals was deliberate or not (and therefore whether it amounts to a war crime) is just an allegation until proven at a trial which is unlikely to happen any time soon. For a good lawyer, there is almost always some wiggle room in law, even if not in morality.

When we come to the bombing of nuclear installations in Iran, however, it’s difficult to see how any reputable lawyer could find a way to argue the case in favour of Trump and the US. The prohibition on attacking nuclear installations is there, in clear terms, and the miscreants have actively boasted that the targeting was entirely deliberate. There simply is no wiggle room; it’s a war crime, pure and simple. The government’s attempt to avoid answering the question as to whether they believe it to be a criminal act or not is shameful. The statements by Sir Warmonger after the event, claiming that the outcome (preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, even though there was no real evidence that they were trying to do so) is a good thing is not so much a legal argument as an ‘end-justifies-the-means’ argument.

Even if it were true that preventing one insane man from joining the club of other insane men who already possess such weapons is such a good outcome that it justifies a blatant breach of international law, we don’t know – and won’t for some time to come – what the real outcome of Trump’s decision is. The destruction of the bombed facilities, even if it’s as complete as is being claimed (and the history of previous military adventures suggests that might turn out to be a dubious claim at best) is only one, short-term outcome. Nobody knows what comes next, but the idea that a single military attack can be considered and judged in isolation from both what went before and what will come after is just another form of madness.

It seems that even a long career upholding the rule of law doesn’t prevent a lawyer who transitions into politics abandoning that commitment in pursuit of the simplistic goal of not upsetting His Orangeness. The rule of law turns out to be considered optional after all.