Understanding risk

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One of the reasons why ruling classes remain in power – at almost all times and in almost all places – is that they are good at deflecting blame. One of the most obvious recent examples is the way in which so many have fallen for the lie that housing shortages or NHS waiting lists are the fault of immigrants rather than being indicative of a systemic failure by successive governments to properly provide for the population of the country. Another is the idea that the poorest – those on benefits, especially – are somehow to blame for their own misfortune, rather than a system which prioritises the protection and accumulation of the wealth of the minority.

I fear that we’re seeing another example in the way that some groups are being scapegoated for the rise in coronavirus cases. That’s not to deny that some people are thinking only of themselves, or being reckless in ignoring guidelines, but the desire of so many to stigmatise others and demand ever greater punishments for transgressions is a very effective way of diverting attention from the incompetence of those who’ve got us into such a mess in the first place. And, without seeking to excuse the transgressors (who must, of course, take some responsibility for their own actions), concentrating on them is letting the decision-takers off the hook.

It’s understandable that people look at guidance from government and see inconsistencies and illogicalities. Why, for instance, is it considered ‘safe’ for a year group of 30 to interact in school, but ‘unsafe’ for 10 of that same group to hold a party in a house? The truth, of course, is that neither is ‘safe’, and governments (both in Wales and in London) have been misleading us when they claim that one of them is. There are risks in both cases, but increasing the level of social contact increases the level of risk, and those who do both are thus more likely to help spread the virus. Governments have prioritised work and education (whether that’s right or wrong is another question), and the policies are effectively based on a judgement that allowing both of those adds enough (probably more than enough) risk of spread, so that other types of social mixing still need to be controlled. But instead of treating the population like adults, they have simply issued dictats wrongly claiming that some activities are ‘safer’ than others. The result is that what people hear is ‘because I say so’ rather than a reasoned argument. Couple that with a government which both takes a cavalier approach to obeying the law itself and overlooks obvious and repeated transgressions by its own members, and why wouldn’t some people start to believe that the rules are ‘open to interpretation’ in ways that suit themselves? It’s a rational response.

With a new virus circulating to which there is, as yet, no vaccine or cure, and to which some people show no symptoms despite being infectious, then ALL social contact is potentially a risk of spread. But it’s also true (as the deniers point out) that ALL human activity inherently carries a level of risk, whether there is a pandemic or not. The question which arises is a simple one to ask but an extremely difficult one to answer: what level of risk are we willing to run, individually and collectively? That is the question facing ministers and, every time that they decide which activities to allow or disallow, they are taking a risk with an unknown number of lives. Instead of being honest with the population and having a sensible conversation about risks and consequences, they resort to wild and inaccurate claims that everything they are doing is ‘safe’. It isn’t. It’s a difficult conversation to hold, but to put it bluntly just how much disruption to everyday lives of the many is one life worth? It’s a utilitarian question, but I suspect that the answer which many would give in the abstract would be rather different if they knew that the one life was their own, or that of someone close to them.

Telling young people not to kill their granny, as the English Health Minister did this week, is a complete cop-out. What we need is not more scapegoating and evasion but a more honest conversation about risk. Expecting an honest conversation didn’t ought to be a risible proposition.

The power has always been theirs not ours

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It’s hard to understand why devolutionists are getting so upset about proposed Westminster legislation ‘undermining’ the devolution settlement by taking back powers from the Senedd and exercising them in London. This is, after all, the nature of devolution. Powers were only ever loaned to Wales; the whole existence of the elected legislature in Cardiff depends not on the will of the people of Wales but on the whim of the parliament in Westminster. This is what supporters of devolution sold us, even if it doesn’t match the label that they placed on the tin. Power devolved is, always was, and always will be power retained. There is one and only one practical way of entrenching the power of the Senedd and that is through independence. An independent Wales could (and should, although that’s an argument for another time) discuss with its neighbours both on this and nearby islands and on the European mainland how and when to pool some of its powers, but the only way of legislating for them not to be simply taken away by someone else is through securing the full formal title to them in the first place. Devolution has never been a legal stepping-stone to independence, it has always been merely a means of securing some rights to divergence and self-rule within the greater whole, and the centre has always had the power to undo it.

Whether that which is legally and constitutionally acceptable is also politically acceptable is ultimately down to the people of Wales. Whilst de jure sovereignty may reside elsewhere, we can make de facto sovereignty reside here any time we want by voting for politicians committed to bringing that about. Spoiler: they won’t be devolutionists.

On the substance of the power grab, it is entirely true, of course, that having a common set of rules is key to the working of the UK’s internal market; the issue is whether the way to ensure that commonality is via discussion or imposition. It is clear that the UK Government is starting from the viewpoint that it is unwilling to discuss anything with the devolved administrations and wishes to simply impose its own view. I really liked the comment by our not-so-beloved Secretary of State, Simon Hart, who said “Our trade takes place overwhelmingly with the rest of the UK and it is vital that it continues to be seamless, safeguarding thousands of Welsh jobs. For all parts of the UK to grow and thrive, products, ideas and investment must continue to flow unhindered”. Well yes, indeed. Substitute the UK for Wales and the EU for the UK and you have the classic argument in favour of the EU single market and customs union. In fairness, though, there is a common thread here, and it’s about that business of seeking agreement. The UK is leaving the EU because the English nationalists in charge are unwilling to be in any way constrained by having to agree common trading rules with other EU states, and it is centralising powers over internal trading rules because the same people are unwilling to be in any way constrained by having to seek agreement with the other nations in the UK. It leaves them having to argue both that the internal UK market cannot work without a common set of rules and that the EU are being unreasonable in not allowing the UK full access to the Single Market whilst reserving the right to set its own rules unilaterally. It’s neither logical not consistent but is the result of an exceptionalist view of the world which assumes the compliance of ‘others’ – a compliance which is simply not going to be forthcoming.

Can the state choose winners anyway?

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One of the issues at the heart of the failing trade talks with the EU is the question of state aid to industries. It’s a long-standing myth that the EU forbids such aid; it does not, it merely insists that all member states follow a common set of rules so that no member state can give an unfair competitive advantage to companies based in its territory. And that ‘level playing field’ is a key precondition of allowing tariff and quota-free trade across borders. Despite the way in which the Brexiteers have presented the issue, the EU is not, as I understand it, insisting that the UK abide by the precise same set of rules, merely that the rules are sufficiently equivalent that they do not confer an unfair advantage. The obstacle in the talks is that the UK a) is unwilling to share its proposed new rules, and b) takes the position that allowing the EU any oversight of such rules is an infringement of absolute UK sovereignty. The second point is undoubtedly true; absolute sovereignty is necessarily restricted by any requirement to agree changes to any rules with a trading partner, but that does rather overlook the fact that the same will be true of any trade agreement with any country or bloc. All trade agreements involve some degree of common rule-setting and any party which then unilaterally changes the rules (which is what the UK is insisting it has the right to do) can expect the other party or parties to retaliate by restricting trade in affected goods or services.

The first point is the more curious one. It’s possible that the UK’s reluctance to share its proposals is simply down to the fact that the government doesn’t itself have a clue about any proposed new regime. Given the levels of incompetence shown to date on other issues, that is certainly a strong possibility. Another suggestion is that there will be no strategy other than responding to events and opportunities as and when they arise. Again, the ‘seat of the pants’ approach to government which we’ve seen to date makes it impossible to rule that out. What is certain is that no sensible trading partner is going to sign up to a tariff and quota free agreement with a state which insists that it can unilaterally start giving out subsidies on a whim. 

Tom Peck suggests that “The Brexit we appear to be gearing up to receive is one which liberates Dominic Cummings to invest vast amounts of public money in risky tech start-ups; this was always the entire point of Brexit”, and that Cummings believes that “...in the future, only countries at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution will be able to shape the future”. It’s a credible suggestion, and if that’s the aim, no-one should be surprised if the rest of Europe is unwilling to conclude a trade agreement with a country using state aid in pursuit of dominating the technologies on which they all depend. There are, however three problems with such an approach, regardless of the EU's attitude towards it.

The first is that it depends on Cummings and his ilk being better at identifying winners and losers than anyone else. The only person who believes in his omniscience is the man himself, but there is no credible evidence to back it up. And, as Richard Murphy points out here, the idea that the state is best placed to pick winners is complete anathema to traditional Conservatives in any event. It’s also contradicted by decades of experience.

The second is that, although the ‘UK’ has a very good record in science and technology, many of the scientists and technologists working in the UK are either themselves non-UK citizens or else are working in collaboration with international teams. Whilst the government ‘bigs up’ developments achieved in UK universities, for instance, it seems to overlook the underlying international nature of many of those achievements. Making it more difficult for the UK to attract EU citizens and cutting the UK off from some significant sources of collaborative funding don’t look like decisions that a country which seeks to be at the forefront of technology would take.

The third is simply one of size. China, with a population of 1.4 billion, could put 60 million people (equivalent to the entire population of the UK) to work in the same fields, and even if they were only 10% as effective, they would still achieve more. The idea that a small offshore European island can ever compete with that is a silly one; the only way that the UK can hope to compete is in co-operation with others.

And that brings us to the heart of what Brexit is about. The world’s past was all about competition and rivalry; the future, with issues such as climate change to deal with, has to be about co-operation and teamwork. The EU is a far-from-perfect vehicle, but at its heart is the idea that countries which competed with, and fought, each other in the past can build a better future by acting together. Brexit, on the other hand, is based on reviving old rivalries and conflicts, to the ultimate detriment of all.

Consequences are for others

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An election slogan used by the Democrats in the 1960 Presidential Election between Nixon and Kennedy is probably one of the most striking I’ve ever seen. Using a picture of Nixon looking even more devious than usual, it simply asked “Would YOU buy a used car from this man?”. It turned out that quite a few would; although Kennedy won a large majority in the electoral college, he only defeated Nixon very narrowly in the popular vote – less than 0.2%. It also turned out that Nixon was even more devious and dishonest than those devising the slogan had ever imagined, although that only became obvious after he won at his second attempt in 1968.

Today’s news that the PM is proposing legislation which will unilaterally over-ride the Withdrawal Agreement which they signed just a few short months ago must inevitably make the EU27 ask themselves whether they’d even buy a new car from this man. They’ve been incredibly patient with him – many people would not even bother to negotiate with someone whose word simply cannot be trusted. It’s not as if they weren’t warned – even before signing up to controls over the movement of goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, Johnson repeatedly asserted that his government would implement no such controls, yet the EU were still willing to sign a formal international treaty on the basis that the PM of a previously reputable country like the UK would not simply renege on it. No-one can argue that the character defects of a man who has a demonstrably distant relationship with fact and truth haven’t been entirely obvious for many years.

However, if there’s one thing that Johnson’s personal life experiences have taught him it is that dishonesty pays. He may have been sacked twice for lying and dismissed as Foreign Secretary for not being any good at the job, but somehow he’s always bounced back; not only have there been no long term consequences for him as a result of his actions, he’s actually gained from them. From his perspective, consequences are for other people. I don’t know whether Nixon had a similar mindset when he authorised unlawful activities, but he was eventually forced out. But although the current government was elected on a minority of the popular vote, a distorted and undemocratic voting system has given Johnson a safe majority. Safe, that is, until enough people in his own party develop enough of a spine to put a stop to the dishonesty. It’s not looking imminent. In the meantime, Johnson is right about one thing – consequences are, indeed, for other people. And that means most of us.

Opposition fear aids government's ideologues

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Between the plans to end the furlough scheme and the proposal that banks should force into bankruptcy any company that is unable to repay its Covid-19 related loans, the estimate that there will be only 3 million unemployed in the UK by the end of the year looks like an increasingly optimistic scenario. The Chancellor is actually right to argue that the government cannot and should not protect all jobs for ever, and even right when he argues that some of the jobs where people have been furloughed no longer exist in any meaningful sense. We have zombie jobs in zombie companies, no doubt at all. What he does not know – and can’t know – is which jobs those are. Neither he nor anyone else can know with any degree of certainty which companies (and therefore jobs) will no longer be viable in a post-Covid world. What that means is that the actions he is taking (or in the case of refusing to extend furlough, not taking) will kill not only those companies which are no longer going to be viable, but many others which could potentially remain viable. Trying to force people back into work before the demand for the goods and services which they provide has recovered is another element of an overall policy which seems designed to maximise rather than minimise the numbers of jobs lost. His insistence that tax rises and/or spending cuts will be necessary because of the size of the deficit – an insistence based on dogma and ideology rather than economic necessity – will also add to the toll of jobs.

In that context, the suggestion gaining some support in Tory ranks that the pension age should be increased to 75 is the complete reverse of what is needed. What the economy needs is for demand to recover, and that means not only that the pandemic is seen to be under control, but also that people have both the confidence and the financial wherewithal to spend. Increasing the rate of bankruptcies and joblessness and delaying the pay out of pensions all have precisely the reverse effect. If, on the other hand, the state pension were to be doubled (which would bring it up from the bottom of the world’s developed economies and closer to the average) and the pension age reduced to 60 at the same time, the effects would be very different. Nobody would (or should) be forced to retire at 60, but many of those about to lose their jobs would then have the financial security to be able to make that choice if they wished. That would reduce the number of people seeking jobs (and therefore improve the chances that those looking for jobs might find them), and give more people the confidence to spend, thereby boosting demand and potentially creating more jobs.

It won’t happen, of course. Not because it can’t happen; the government could implement such a policy tomorrow if it wished to do so. One thing that the pandemic has demonstrated is that a government which enjoys a sufficient degree of monetary sovereignty can do almost anything up to the point at which its spending causes inflation. No, it won’t happen because too many politicians, from multiple parties, have invested too much effort and credibility over too long a period promoting the myth that deficits are inherently bad and that governments must balance the books, just like households. What that means is that the scale of the recession, the level of corporate bankruptcy, the numbers of unemployed people, and the level of relative poverty are all deliberate political choices being made by the UK government. Worse, they are being implicitly supported by the official opposition which lacks the courage or ability to point out the fallacy in the household analogy. Opposition politicians who are afraid to challenge because they fear the ‘how will you pay for it?’ question are almost as much to blame as those implementing the policies, because they are perpetuating a myth which serves only the wealthy and powerful.

There will be no 'new' union

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A number of Unionists have been suggesting recently that the ‘Union’ should be reformed in some way, on the basis of an understanding (which I think entirely correct) that the current situation is not going to last for much longer and the choice facing the UK is reform or collapse. Amongst them this week was the ever-thoughtful David Melding MS. Unlike many others who are proposing changes, Melding does at least touch on the how as well as the what, with his reference to a referendum. I can’t help feeling that most of the others, when talking about a new Act of Union defining the relationship between the parts of the UK, are assuming that the Westminster parliament can simply pass such an Act and it would then come into force. In strict legal terms, they may be right, but any new Act of Union which does not have the consent, both individually and collectively, of the participating nations will not solve the perceived problem.

The Union with Wales is the exception: it never involved any consent, it was simply an incorporation of Wales into England. But the Union with Scotland was implemented by resolution of the parliaments of both countries acting separately. (Northern Ireland, as ever, is a rather more complicated situation.) It is entirely possible that a new Act of Union would pass though Westminster with majority support from MPs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (the latter aided by the fact that most nationalist MPs don’t take their seats), but I can see no electoral outcome in Scotland in anything like the near term (Melding expects the union to end before the end of the decade without reform) which will lead to a majority of Scottish MPs supporting such a new Act. What then? Imposition on the basis of a majority in Westminster does nothing to resolve anything. Indeed, it would serve only to highlight the problem with the current situation.

Melding suggests that Boris Johnson should call a referendum in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on the terms of an alternative model at the same time as the second Scottish independence referendum. It’s an interesting suggestion, but it throws up a number of potential problems. If Scotland were to vote against independence but hadn’t been part of the referendum on the new form of the union, where does that leave them? Alternatively, if Scotland votes for independence, might that not change the dynamic in both Wales and Northern Ireland, meaning that the result of a referendum held at the same time might look rather different than the result of a referendum held at a later date? After all, the 'union' would look very different in the different scenarios. And then – the really big question – what if Wales, Northern Ireland, or even both, voted in a different way to England – how is the result then decided? Is a rejection of the new alternative to be interpreted as a vote for retaining the status quo or for something different again? Any serious attempt at designing a ‘new’ union must involve the freely given consent of all the parties to it; by its very nature it thus recognises the sovereignty of the different nations to enter freely into union or not.

That, of course, is one of the reasons why it won’t happen. Outside a thoughtful few who really do understand the need for change, the prevailing view amongst unionists is that there’s nothing wrong with the current arrangements, it’s just the whingeing Celtic fringes who are unable to understand that they owe everything to generous and civilising rule from London. That’s why the biggest threat to the union comes from the unionists themselves. And, fortunately, they’re mostly beyond help.

Following instructions

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For some strange reason, it seems that some Tory MPs are finding it increasingly difficult to support their government’s policy because that policy keeps changing at short notice. Apparently, they are not over-keen on defending a policy strongly one day, only to find out the next that it has changed. I can almost sympathise – it must be very hard to wake up in the morning not knowing what it is which they sincerely believe, but being aware that it’s probably the opposite of that which they sincerely believed the previous day. Even worse, they know that they’ll probably sincerely believe something different again by mid-afternoon. I’d always thought that 1984 and Animal Farm were a sort of warning, but the current government seems to be treating them more as instruction manuals.

Is Boris Johnson a secret Luddite?

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One of the consequences of the pandemic has been that businesses have come to realise that, with modern technology and a degree of trust, many people can work from home at least as effectively – and often more effectively – as they can in a city centre office. It’s not universal, of course; some staff still need to attend offices at least some of the time, but overall, there are benefits for both staff and businesses in a more flexible approach. It seems likely that a new pattern has been established which will only be partly reversed as the pandemic eases. There are, though, some other side-effects of the switch. Retail and hospitality businesses in town centres saw a drastic reduction in custom during the lockdown, and a long term reduction in the numbers of staff working in city centres on any one day is likely to be terminal for some of those businesses.

Government ministers have been increasingly pleading with people to return to offices, and with businesses to insist that their staff should do so, with hints being dropped that businesses could sack staff who don’t return to their normal place of work, a hint which the CBI has quite rightly been quick to reject. As part of the government campaign, one former minister, Damien Green, has said that more jobs are at risk if people do not return to work, adding that a lot of businesses and jobs "that depend on big city activity... will just die." I can’t deny the truth of that, but the question which we need to ask is whether people should continue commuting to and from offices when that has become an outdated mode of working simply to support businesses which have become otherwise unviable as a result of changes in technology and working practices.

I seem to remember the Tories giving very short shrift to the idea that industries such as mining should continue even if coal could be sourced more cheaply from abroad because of all the people and businesses which depended on those industries, but I suppose that mines were a long way away from the everyday experience of any London-based minister. It is, though, a central tenet of capitalism that innovation leads to change, and that change means that some businesses fail whilst others are formed doing new things to take their place. Whilst I’m not personally a big fan of allowing that process to be governed entirely by the market rather than managed in the interests of working people, it’s rather strange to see a Conservative government arguing against the principle itself, and demanding that people continue unnecessary commuting in order to prevent innovation from impacting jobs. It’s almost as though a Johnson premiership has revealed a long-hidden Luddite streak in the Conservative Party.

Fiddling the rules

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Last week, the Times reported (paywall) that Michael Gove had been ‘enlisting old enemies’ in an attempt to ‘save the union’. The thought of Gove working with George Galloway, former Lib Dem Minister Danny Alexander, and former Labour Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell manages to be both bizarre and entirely credible at one and the same time. That these people all think both that ‘saving the union’ is vital and that they are the people to do it is also entirely credible and more than a little bizarre. On the other hand, to many independentistas it is more likely to look like the dream team they would choose to go up against for the next referendum. Perhaps the unionists actually want to lose. If only they could also persuade Boris to personally lead the crusade against independence, Scottish independence could be more or less guaranteed.

With the polling figures increasingly turning against them, it appears that at least some of them want to try and amend the rules about who can vote. Instead of only those registered to vote in Scotland, Galloway has suggested that the franchise should be extended to Scots living elsewhere in the UK, a suggestion which Gove described as ‘interesting’. The assumption, obviously, is that those Scots who’ve left Scotland to live elsewhere in the UK will be more inclined to vote ‘no’, (although I’m not as certain as they seem to be about the validity of that assumption – ‘Gorau Cymro, Cymro oddi cartref’ as the saying goes) on which basis, the surprising thing is that they’re thinking of restricting it to the UK. Scots living outside the UK might be even more opposed. Leaving aside the ‘minor’ practical difficulty of devising an electoral register across the whole UK which identifies who is Scottish and who is not (have they even thought about how to define that, let alone identify the relevant people?), there is another obstacle as well. If it is to be a vote based on whether a voter is Scottish or not (however that may be defined), on what basis should people who are not Scottish but who choose to live in Scotland be allowed to vote?

Of course, logic and consistency are not words which deserve to be used in the same sentence as Galloway and Gove (unless properly and definitively negated), but the application of that little piece of logic shows that a proposal to base the franchise on the nationality of the voter is a double-edged sword. The only reasonable and fair basis on which to decide whether a territory is to become independent is for the people who are registered as living there to take the decision – whatever their origins. Trying to adjust the electorate to include others on the basis of their nationality is a blatant attempt both to gerrymander the outcome and to turn the debate into one about origins and roots. It’s also likely to be very divisive – so exactly what its proponents want, and something for which they could and would then blame independentistas. The idea is unlikely to disappear as long as the unionists are staring defeat in the face.

Saving the rainforests

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In principle, the idea that legislation should be introduced to ensure that goods on sale in the UK have been produced in a way which does not encourage or promote deforestation is a sound one. The particular approach being proposed by the UK has a number of major flaws however, not least that it depends on the production of raw materials to be ‘in accordance with local legislation’. In states where ‘local legislation’ is either non-existent, badly defective, or hopelessly unenforced as a result of them exercising their own sovereignty, it creates a massive loophole which makes it look more like a gesture than a serious attempt to protect the rainforests. I’m sure that a desirable outcome could be assisted by UK legislation, but it would involve a willingness not only to have an independent international arbiter rather than depend on ‘local legislation’ to determine whether the rainforests are being damaged by producing the relevant products, but also to demand, effectively, that companies operating elsewhere which are selling into the UK market would have to abide by the same rules. It’s a clear instance where legislation in one country will never be enough to prevent environmental damage happening on the other side of the world – countries need to co-operate and work to common rules to ensure change. The UK could lead on this - if it really wanted to do more than make gestures.

In completely unrelated news, it seems that the negotiations over a trade deal with the EU are foundering largely because the UK government considers it utterly unacceptable that the EU should expect third parties (such as the UK) to abide by its rules in relation to issues such as environmental protection, rather than recognise that, as a sovereign state, the UK has the right to set its own rules independently of anyone else, and equally unacceptable that whether it is complying with rules should be determined by anyone other than itself.