UK General Election : The Clown vs. the Cold Warrior

I've only just moved from the UK to Australia, but I spent 14 years living there and so have been through three general elections, and the EU referendum.  The 2019 general election wasn't meant to happen, but it was inevitable after the 2017 general election that didn't need to be called, because the 2015 general election gave the Conservatives a majority for the first time since 1992 and the UK has five year electoral terms.

Most coverage will claim that this is a Brexit election, and although it is a major factor, for me it isn't the number one factor.  Sure, if you want Brexit done you'll vote Conservative (except for a tiny handful of seats where the Brexit Party has a much better chance than the Conservatives), given Labour is campaigning on a second referendum (where it will negotiate a different deal with the EU, and then Corbyn will be neutral on it) and the Liberal Democrats are campaigning on remaining in the EU.

However, to me although that is important for many reasons, it is much less important than what SHOULD be the biggest issue of this election - stopping the election of a hardcore socialist and his team, who are fundamentally opposed to capitalism, individual freedom, property rights and highly sceptical of the values of the Enlightenment and Western liberal democracy.

I wont say much about Boris Johnson because I don't like him.  He's a flake, a showman and a clown.  He is enthused about vanity projects (there were plenty when he was Mayor of London) and when he isn't interested in anything he wont worry about detail and wont focus.  An entertaining raconteur and journalist, a great philosopher he is not.  He lies and obfuscates, and changes his position to suit whatever is popular.  There are many reasons why he didn't proceed to be a candidate for leadership in 2016, but he is the man of today - and he is beyond doubt profoundly preferable to the entity on the other side.

Corbyn is a mediocre mild-mannered pathetic little man, who has surrounded himself with sinister flunkies who range from the moronic to the despicable.  His record on openly supporting the IRA, including inviting senior members to Parliament days after the Brighton bombing, is well known.  You can almost guess his position on every single international conflict and issue by working out which side is supported by the West and be sure he is on the other side.  He did shows on the Iranian propaganda TV channel Press TV, his first instincts are always to believe the side that isn't a member of NATO, which isn't a Western liberal democracy and always isn't Israel.  He even backed General Galtieri - the Argentinian military dictator - over Britain in the Falklands War. 

His most senior advisors are not just Cold warriors but actually pro-Soviet and in one case pro-North Korea Marxist-Leninists (Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray).  He himself bemoaned the fall of the Berlin Wall because of the loss of the "achievements" of the German Democratic Republic (not those shot dead trying to cross the Berlin Wall of course).  Corbyn cheered Venezuela's Chavez regime as being a model for the world, and he openly celebrated the Cuban regime as well.  This was quaint and vile as the MP for Islington North, as potential PM for the world's fifth largest economy, NATO's second most powerful member and a nuclear power, it's simply scary.

The anti-semitism is well known, as his Labour Party has sheltered and selected candidates who have openly anti-semitic views.  At best he has a blind spot and doesn't know what is anti-semitic, at worst he simply thinks Jews aren't an oppressed group because, of course, they tend to be wealthy and successful, but worst of all, Israel - a country he has spent his political life campaigning against.

Beyond that are the policies his Labour Party are promoting this election.  Not just higher taxes and more spending, but a quantum leap in spending every year.  Some of the more sinister policies include requiring all businesses with 250+ employees to hand over 1% of the company shares to employees each year, over ten years.  Effectively a form of confiscation of the business.  There are mass nationalisations, with the Government deciding how much it will pay for them, no negotiation, effectively a third world style confiscation of businesses (and the reasoning behind it being that they are "profiting too much" from consumers, except that energy prices are capped, water prices are regulated by Ofwat and rail prices are determined by the Minister - none of the nationalised sectors bear much resemblance to a free market).  Labour wants to exchange shares in private businesses for newly issued public debt - because that's what you want, a promise from a socialist government with its heavily devalued currency, to pay you. 

For those who say there is nothing to worry about, let's be clear what a vote for Labour is in this election.   It's a vote to say:

• Capitalism should be overthrown;
• Private property rights are worthless, the state can take businesses off you to give to whoever it wants or take for itself;
• The Government should monopolise education (no private schools)
• Businesses should get permission from government to open (any business with at least 50 employees will need state certification for being gender neutral)
• The media to be "fairer" to the policies, politicians and opinions of the Labour Party and its ginger groups;
• Israel shouldn't exist;
• Russia, China and Iran are morally equivalent to the United States at best, and morally superior at times;
• State control of prices is good for everyone;
• Calls for Islamist government aren't to be feared (just blank out the misogyny, homophobia and anti-semitism)
• Identity politics is central to public policy (all business will have to report their sex and race pay gaps and explain themselves to a bureaucracy why they are apparently sexist and racist)
• Jews should just put up and not complain, because the anti-semitism they say they get is just because they back Israel (which is an apartheid state little different from Nazi Germany).

I didn't mention Brexit because honestly, it pales into insignificance.    Yes it is an opportunity to free the UK from the EU's overweening control, and its commitment to a fortress against free trade from the outside, and protection of sunset industries.  However, as good as that opportunity is, the UK doesn't have a major political party willing to take advantage of much of that, in fact the Conservatives are promising to maintain and enhance labour and environmental laws, and beyond opening up trade to the world, there is little sense of the opportunity to liberalise domestic laws outside the EU.

Moreover, the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson is centrist, it is promising to spend billions more and has abandoned fiscal discipline in favour of trying to compete modestly with Corbyn's absurd levels of promises of spending.   Anyone who claims Boris and the Conservatives are far right, are either ignorant or just revoltingly minimising what actual fascism is - because there is little difference between the Conservatives and Blair's Labour - the main difference being the end of the EUphilia of the Blair era.  The Conservatives are still regulating the energy market to raise prices for a transition away from fossil fuels, they are still planning to ban the sale of fossil fuel powered motor vehicles and they are unrepentent about supporting more money for the world's biggest civilian bureaucracy - the NHS.

Yet don't think it can't happen that Corbyn can win.  He raised Labour's vote in 2017 to 40% from 30.4% in 2015, primarily by raising turnout.  The great failure of the Conservatives (and indeed the Labour right) has been to not confront, challenge and undermine the philosophy of socialism and Marxism, in fact the UK education system has been a vehicle for some to promote it, and this has been reinforced by the broadcast media (especially Channel 4 and the BBC, both state owned) and universities.  The Conservatives, by and large, don't push more trust in individuals and markets, they embrace interference, tax, spending and regulation.  So why be surprised when the party that BELIEVES in central planning, control, socialism and a big state is more convincing, especially to the young.

Realistically if Boris doesn't win, it is more likely the UK has some cobbled together coalition of the left, with Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and a handful of others maybe able to create a majority government (but they wont get support from any Northern Irish MPs, because Sinn Fein refuses to sit in the House of Commons - that so many of its members at one time wanted to blow up).  If it does, it will be because of Boris and because of a long legacy of failure to communicate and present a clear choice.  In 1983 Margaret Thatcher took on Michael Foot's socialist Labour Party, and won convincingly, because it was a fight between a similar level of Marxism as Corbyn, and Western liberal capitalist democracy.  Sadly in this election, Boris is no Margaret Thatcher and more frighteningly Corbyn is no Michael Foot (at least Foot was no anti-semite)

Islamist censorship is appeased in Britain

So in the past week or so in the UK:

- The Liberal Democrats are debating whether to suspend a Muslim Parliamentary candidate who tweeted a Jesus and Mo cartoon image saying he was not offended by it (and, according to his opponents, using "colourful" language to describe his Islamists opponents).

- Channel 4 and the BBC, both state-owned broadcasters, have refused to broadcast images of the said cartoon, in reporting the story (specifically showing the image with the depiction of Jesus, but concealing the depiction of Mohammed).  The reason given by the BBC was that it would be "gratuitously offensive" to some viewers, yet it was central to understanding what the fuss was about.

This is it...

More on this story here on my UK blog.

Meanwhile, George Galloway, fresh from spreading pro-north Korean propaganda on Russian propaganda channel, RT, is campaigning vehemently against the Liberal Democrat candidate.   There aren't words to describe the creature.

Even a few on the "liberal" left, which has shamefully appeased Islamist views for so long, is finally starting to wake up.

Free speech is under attack, and it is in the heart of the left liberal establishment that the challenge is happening, and they are shaking, shivering and fearful.

For there is no right to be protected from offence in a free society, and the fundamental problem is that the "liberal" left have pushed for laws to essentially do this.  To prohibit views that are offensive to many (and indeed to many libertarians and conservatives too), to seek to socially-engineer views, rather than confront them with debate, boycotts and voluntary action, but to use the state to shut them down.

The problem for them is that in creating this artificial construct, they have deemed it impossible for people of protected "oppressed" groups to be capable of committing the offences they created.  It is why it is politically impossible for many on the left to accept that people of non-European extraction can be racist, or that women can be sexist, or that the religious bigotry of non-Christians (or non-Jews) is a concern.  This doctrine is fed "protected oppressed group" identity students relentlessly, and is seen most recently in the "white privilege", "male privilege" slapdown, designed to shut down debate with a pejorative that implies you are not entitled to participate, because of your background.

Quite simply, until those of the "liberal" left eject this post-modernist collectivist identity politics fantasy, they cannot credibly take Islamists on.

So if those who proclaim opposition to racism, sexism, oppression of homosexuals and promotion of secularism cannot take on an ideology that is racist, sexist, oppresses homosexuality, oppresses any deviation from its religion, then their philosophical foundations are found wanting.

Leveson's demand for legislation would breach European law

After the Leveson report,  Ed Miliband and leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, were only too quick to agree with the entire report including the recommendation of press self-regulation, which included legal sanctions for newspapers that did not wish to participate.

The subtlety of the position of the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party, to support all of the recommendations, except enshrining industry self governance in legislation (which would have meant licensing newspapers), was lost in the tirade of victim worshipping, venom about Rupert Murdoch and utterly false hyperboles about the "power" of that one newspaper proprietor.

Hugh Grant for one continues to make an utter fool of himself with his ranting Marxist hysteria that media barons run the country, of course he says this on the state owned taxpayer funded BBC that owns and operates more TV and radio stations than any other broadcaster.

While those like myself who think that the state should not licence those who wish to print newspapers or magazine get smeared by the likes of him, and the unfortunate victims of illegal behaviour by some journalists, the Director of human rights organisation "Liberty", Shami Chakrabarti, has been reported in the Mail on Sunday as saying that that one dimension of Leveson would be contrary to UK law, which is the British implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Bear in mind Liberty is not libertarian, but rather a liberal leftwing "civil" liberties group, highly regarded by leftwing intellectuals and politicians, and the European Convention on Human Rights is warmly embraced by the Liberal Democrats (and excoriated by conservatives).

Some of her points have been:

- The so-called "Hacked Off" group of celebrities doesn't really know what it is talking about "There has been a great deal of ill-informed debate, with people bandying about terms such as “statutory underpinning” with little grasp of what this would mean".  Indeed, the sheer contradiction between saying that a system created by politicians, overseen by a body appointed by politicians is "truly" independent, eludes them, because they are actors, authors and singers.  Not lawyers, not policy wonks, not philosophers.

- A compulsory legal press regulatory framework "would mean the press was being coerced in being held to higher standards than anyone else, and this would be unlawful.’ On Miliband, she commented on the fact that when he made his promise to back the report on the day it was published, he could not possibly have read or weighed up the contents of its 2,000 pages.  ‘He should have been more careful about what he said,’ Ms Chakrabarti said.  ‘To declare his full support so early, when he cannot have read it, was hasty. He should have reflected on it. This is a policy that must not be rushed.’

Now it is right to want another source, given the Mail on Sunday tends to be a conservative newspaper and regularly expresses hatred of European laws generally, so the Liberty website explains further:

- "The Leveson Report recommends a robust independent self-regulation of the press of a kind that has not been provided or suggested by the industry up to now....It must set and promote ethical standards, handle complaints and crucially offer a swift and cheap alternative to court action for members of the public whose rights (e.g. privacy and reputation) have been violated. No statute is needed to create such a body and editors and proprietors should take the Leveson characteristics and seek to build one without delay"

- "Leveson does not recommend compulsory statutory regulation of the press and Liberty believes that he is right not to do so. However, he moots the very difficult question of what would happen if all or significant portions of the press failed to rise to the challenge of his Report and create and support a sufficiently robust and independent body. He reflects on (without recommending) the possibility that parliament and the public might feel the need to impose some level of compulsory statutory regulation on outlets that refused to play their part. It is this alternative that Liberty cannot support and which would in our view, breach Article 10 of the ECHR and Human Rights Act. As this last-ditch alternative is not even a recommendation of the Report, it is misleading to suggest that Liberty or its director is in any way dropping a "bombshell" on the Lord Justice's Report, not least as this position was clearly footnoted in it."

Behaviour that is illegal has been disgraceful, but when the law hasn't been followed or enforced then the answer is not to create another law.   Just because someone hates a particular newspaper proprietor does not mean it is right that the newspapers, which say things they don't like, should be subject to state control or regulation.  

Defending free speech means defending the right of those you despise, whose views you find reprehensible, to express themselves.  It means books, photos, songs, movies, newspapers and tweets you find offensive are not to be banned just because you find them offensive.

Unfortunately, all too much of the rhetoric around Leveson has been from those who say free speech is important, but...

There is no but...

Minimum alcohol pricing is empirically and philosophically wrong

If you want to see the "conservative" in the Conservative Party and see how little "liberal" there is in the Liberal Democrats then you only need consider that the UK Government is about to announce plans to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol in England and Wales (the Nationalist Socialist People's republic of Scotland has already announced similar plans, but half of the population there is probably so sloshed it hasn't noticed yet).

According to the Daily Telegraph:

- 45p per unit of alcohol will be the minimum price set;

- BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offers with alcohol will be banned.

Of course the plan is motivated (isn't it always) by a desire to do good.  It is to save alcoholics from themselves, to save binge drinkers from themselves, to put a price barrier upon behaviour that politicians and bureaucrats have deemed to be bad for people (and of course, drinking to excess your entire life can kill you).  It is also being sold, absurdly, as an antidote to anti-social behaviour in evenings, because it is believed that people wont be drunk and obnoxious in any serious number any more.

Few policies can show such a direct distinct gap between the general public and what they perceive as a ruling elite of politicians and health do-gooders who believe they know what is good for others.

Of course, it punishes everyone who drinks alcohol, particularly the poor.  Of course retailers agree, because it will obvious reduce sales, even though minimum pricing raising their revenue per product, they obviously know that this isn't market pricing, so wont be revenue maximising.   Those on the left and health do-gooders  of course have no time for the retailers, as they profit from high levels of consumption, but unlike them the retailers are actually making two sets of people happy - themselves and their employees, and the people buying the products, who health do-gooders want to treat like children.

It is easy to picture the average pensioner who likes a wee dram in the evenings, now having to pay more, because highly paid health do-gooders want her treated no differently than a lager lout.

How dare they?

The two public policy problems identified are:

- Criminal behaviour whilst drunk; and

- Diseases due to excessive alcohol consumption.

In both cases it is grossly unfair to target all those who drink alcohol.  Only a small minority of people who drink alcohol get drunk and assault, vandalise or threaten others.   That is where the state has a role.  At the places and times where such behaviour becomes an issue, the Police should be present as a deterrent and to take away those creating danger to others and their property.   More could be done if the public areas where this happens were privatised, and placed under the control of adjoining property owners - who could then choose to ban drinking outside, they could choose to hire their own security staff who could order people to leave if they are causing trouble.   Bear in mind that shopping malls don't tend to have this behaviour, because of that reason.   

On the health concerns, there is already taxation on alcohol that is meant to reflect this, but the bigger issue is that the vast bulk of people in the UK (and in most Western countries) have decided that the costs of health care are to be socialised, and so everyone pays in proportion to the taxes collected from them.  If you accept this then part of accepting it is that some people will not look after their own health, others will do so, and it will seem very unfair that some impose enormous costs upon taxpayers and others do not.   Yet if you want to fix this, the only fair way to do so is to have people pay either directly or to an insurer that assesses risk.  Fiddling with alcohol pricing becomes the thin end of a wedge that already includes tobacco, and should also target foods high in saturated fat, salty foods, foods high in sugar, adventure sports and contact sports (for injuries), sunbeds, holidays in the sun, sedentary jobs, driving or riding buses short distances, etc. 

The potential scope for health do-gooders to tax and regulate everyone's lives to protect a few is substantial, and it is philosophically ground in the view that some adults not only know best what is good for other adults (which objectively may be true in some circumstances), but that they have the right to force them to do what we want or force others to penalise or reward them, whether by regulation, taxation or subsidy.

Furthermore, the Adam Smith Institute has released a study that demonstrates that the empirical evidence for the value of minimum alcohol pricing is flawed.  It argues that "the estimates of how minimum pricing will affect health outcomes have overwhelmingly come from a single computer model—the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model." the study "argues that the model is based on unreasonable assumptions which render its figures meaningless."

The executive summary states it as follows:

"Amongst the problems with the Sheffield model is its false assumption that heavy drinkers are more likely to reduce their consumption of alcohol as a result of a price rise. Its calculations are based on controversial beliefs about the relationship between per capita alcohol consumption and rates of alcohol related harm. Its assumptions about the relationship between price and consumption have frequently been refuted by real world evidence."

The Sheffield model provides figures without estimates of error and ignores statistical error in the alcohol-harm relationship. Data is drawn from different populations and applied to England and Scotland as if patterns of consumption and harm are the same in all countries. When data is not available, the model resorts to what is essentially numerology. Insufficient data is provided for the model to be recreated and tested by third parties.

The model ignores the likely effects of minimum pricing on the illicit alcohol trade, it disregards the health benefits of moderate drinking and fails to take account of the secondary poverty created by regressive price rises. The decline in alcohol consumption seen in Britain in recent years has not led to the outcomes predicted by the model.

We conclude that predictions based on the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model are entirely speculative and do not deserve the exalted status they have been afforded in the policy debate.

Minimum alcohol pricing may have a modest effect on alcohol consumption, but it will have that effect disproportionately on the poor, and disproportionately on people who do no harm to others.   As such it is a grotesquely regressive measure that should be opposed not just by libertarians, but those on the left who purport to care for the poor.

It will have a negligible effect on alcohol abuse, and a negligible effect on health, but will look as if "something has been done", which is the pressure that the predominantly statist media puts on politicians.

It should not be implemented.  If the concern of government is about behaviour, then it should undertake its core function and police the streets, and change welfare from being a handout of cash to being another form of payment that can't be used for alcohol, at least directly.   If its concern is about health, it should challenge the state religion of the NHS.  

Of course what it really cares about are small groups of feral welfare dependent chavs being drunk and obnoxious to middle class restaurant and theatre goers on Friday and Saturday nights.   That's a matter for the Police, but also to note that the welfare state is funding many of those people to drink.   The left wont tackle that, because it will see the idea that welfare recipients drink away their benefits as being a generalisation and unfair on those who don't - which is correct - yet the fact remains that taxpayers do pay for the alcohol consumed by those on welfare.

Meanwhile, it should emphasise that alcohol consumption is a matter for adults to decide for themselves, and get off their backs.

Sick jokes are a crime in the UK

Today, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, spoke at the Conservative Party conference and said:

Do we want to see the internet become an unpoliced space? No. Do we want to see terrorists, criminals and paedophiles get away scot-free? No. We are the Conservative Party, not the Libertarian Party. As Conservatives, we believe the first duty of government is to protect the public. That is why the Conservative Party will always be the party of law and order.

She's right of course.  Law and order is about protecting people's freedoms, but she mentioned the word "freedom" once by saying We need to give the police the freedom to use their judgement.

Yes, well if you want the difference between conservatives and libertarians then this case is one of them.

Matthew Woods is a rather vile young man.  He posted a joke that the Police deemed to be grossly offensive, on the website Sickipedia.  The joke was about April Jones, the 5 year old girl who went missing 11 days, and now presumed murdered.  I don't care what the joke was, because it is likely to be grossly offensive to me.  However, that's not the point.

The Guardian reported:

He pleaded guilty at Chorley magistrates court to sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive. The chairman of the bench, Bill Hudson, said Woods's comments were so "abhorrent" he deserved the longest sentence the court could hand down.

He is getting 12 weeks in prison.  

Is this really a matter for the criminal law?  Would he have faced a conviction if he had simply said it to another person?  How about if he wrote it on a piece of paper?  If not, why is an electronic communication so bad that it is time to be precious about vile jokes?

The Guardian also notes there is a long list of similar cases:

- A 56 day sentence for a racist comment about a footballer who collapsed;

- A community order for saying "all soldiers should die and go to hell" on Facebook;

- A teenager visited by the Police for being disgustingly rude to Olympic diver Tom Daley on Twitter;

- A man convicted (later quashed) for jokingly saying on Twitter that he'd blow up Doncaster/Sheffield Airport if it closed for the snow.

Now the last case probably justified a query, given fear of terrorism, but the rest?  Has British society become so precious that people who offend others deserve a criminal record?  Or is there genuine fear that if there isn't a criminal law against it, that people will throw ever more disgusting insults around in a snowball of nihilism and vileness?  If so, is the right response to offensive speech not simply to insult the person saying it, or to ignore it?

As John Kampfer in the Guardian said:

Direct incitement to violence is one thing. But we cannot and should not sentence people for bad jokes, poor taste and terrible manners. That is an issue for parents, teachers and, most importantly, peer groups.

Quite.

Most people in their lives will encounter bores, bullies and a range of rude pricks who will call you names, who will be offensive to you and seek to upset you.  It isn't a crime to insult someone, except it is, now.

I don't blame the Conservatives any more than the other parties.  Labour introduced this law, and both the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have happily let it be.  However it is wrong.

Free speech is for those who offend as well as those who inspire.  The state should not be policing what offends people, for when will it stop?  Will you be able to call the Police if someone calls you a name?  Will books and songs be banned for offending Christians or Muslims?  Will politicians get people arrested for calling them lying corrupt pricks?

I don't doubt that the latest example of using this law is about someone who has been vile, but then comedian Frankie Boyle is vile, the lowlifes who sell t-shirts to celebrate dancing on Margaret Thatcher's grave are vile, but I don't want the state arresting them.  I don't want the state arresting me because I blaspheme against Islam, or call Russel Norman a prick, or call Sue Kedgley a hysterical control freak, etc etc.

It is time to speak up for free speech, including the free speech of that which offends, for no one should have a conviction because they said or wrote something that upset someone else.

UPDATE:  Peter Cresswell has written about people getting offended by what some politicians say.  He uses a quote I nearly used, which is Stephen Fry's about people thinking that when they are offended, they gain some sort of new right to "something".  No you don't.

Liberal Democrats deserve obliteration at next general election

I have a naive fondness for a few elements of the Liberal Democrats in the UK.  It solely comes from the era during which it actually did advocate for less government, less intrusion of the state in both economic and personal lives and it was - at the time the Liberal Party - a real choice compared to the comatose Stalinist-lite economics of Labour and the "slowing down the inevitable trip to socialism" of pre-Thatcher Conservatives.

However, those days are long gone.  The Liberal Party made a convenient alliance with the breakaway Social Democratic Party, which left Labour at a time when its policies included neutrality in the Cold War and economic planning that was, seriously, barely one step removed from that of the like of East Germany.  However, Labour abandoned that under Blair and the Liberal Democrats stayed still becoming a party to the left of Labour, opposing military action against Iraq and calling for higher taxes and at one point for Britain to join the Euro.

Few would doubt today that the party was wrong about that, and although Nick Clegg, to his credit, decided that a coalition with the Conservatives was a better move than trying to prop up the spendthrift remains of Gordon Brown, the party has continued to show itself to be little more than the electable version of the Green Party.  The one area where it could add real value, which is to reduce the surveillance state, the party has proven to be impotent and incompetent.  It has defended the extension of surveillance powers to now require all telcos and ISPs to keep records of every website everyone in the UK visits, every email address they send emails to, on the basis that they already are forced to keep records of every phone call and it is just about keeping up with technology.   So the British state now gets to require records kept of what you're reading, what you're looking at, what you're searching for, but don't worry - if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear right?

That alone should disqualify this lot from being a party with any liberal credentials at all.

Its passionate love of the European Union, obsession over climate change and the "need" for unilateral British action regardless of cost and who pays that cost, and wet attitude to foreign policy and defence are little compared to the latest ramblings - which is that everyone earning over £50,000 should pay more tax because it is "fair".

The Liberal Democrat's main contribution to discussion over reducing the budget deficit is not liberal in that there is no interest at all in shrinking the state.  This party believes that the current 45% of GDP dedicated to state spending is about right, and the way to reduce the deficit is to increase taxes (whilst reducing taxes on the very poorest).  It is pure redistributionist socialism, and it is envy mongering.

Whilst early talk was of a "mansion tax" which would simply be an annual tax on the value of homes over a certain value, this has now become a tax on homes worth over £1 million.  In London there are tens of thousands of such properties, more than a few owned by families or retired people who wouldn't consider themselves wealthy per se.  

The latest talk of those earning over £50,000 paying more should be electoral suicide.  This comprises the top 10% of income earners in the UK, but notably in London it is worth saying that this is far from being wealthy.  A decent two bedroom flat in middle class parts of London can cost £1500 a month in rent.  Try feeling rich with £60,000 a year, after tax (which takes away 31% of that with a marginal rate of 42% on each additional pound).

The Liberal Democrats constantly tout the cliche "fairness", yet that 10% earns 30% of income and already pays 50% of income tax.  How fair is that?

The Liberal Democrats are social democrats, and are, as advocates of the status quo and more tax, simply socialists.  They are where Labour now is, under "red" Ed Miliband, the unions' choice, and given the party is keeping the Conservatives in power, deserves to be obliterated at the next general election.

The big debate in 21st century politics is, once again, the role of the state.  On economic policy, there is nothing liberal about the Liberal Democrats, with no interest in abolishing the absurd shop trading laws that keep London's Oxford Street closed before 11am and after 5pm on a Sunday, no interest in liberalising planning laws that mean planning permission is needed in most boroughs for the smallest of works on your own land, and a religious opposition to more airport capacity.  On social policy the Liberal Democrats are uninterested in talking about laws on drugs, laws on censorship and as we have seen, are incapable of understanding state surveillance.  Finally, their attempts at reform of the "constitution" consisted of trying to adopt a version of the Australian voting system and making most of the House of Lords elected with 15 year terms.

Pointless and counter-productive.

The socialists of the Liberal Democrats should go to the Labour Party where they will find the usual interfering busybodies keen to create new laws, spend more money, invent new taxes and be forever committed to thinking that they are uniquely placed to know better how to spend other people's money.   The liberals, wherever they may be, should go to the Conservative Party, and help it dry up and become, once again, the party of less government and more individual responsibility.   For the SDP part of the Liberal Democrats have no raison d'être given Labour is no longer the home of Erich Honecker like economics, and the Liberal part has largely evaporated, in part because the Conservatives are no longer out to bully homosexuals, scaremonger about dark skinned people and fear ambitious women.

Not that I have time for either of them, Labour set the scene for the current recession and for years kept a delusional paranoid megalomaniac in charge of the public finances (so deluded he boasted that he had abolished boom and bust), the Conservatives are now in the thrall of Whitehall and are led by an indecisive whim and poll worshipping pragmatist.  

However, the Liberal Democrats have no purpose anymore.  Voters, who once saw them as a protest vote whenever Labour disappointed them, know this.  In 2015 opponents of the government will mostly vote Labour, supporters will vote Conservative, there is no point in voting for a version of Labour that keeps the Conservatives in power.

It's just a matter of time.

Don't come to London - it will be too busy

They didn't, so it isn't.

The economic story of the Olympics is increasingly damning as it has become abundantly clear to many businesses in London that the net effect has been to scare off tourists from the city and to scare away the locals. The first thing that is noticed is that the public transport system and the roads are quieter than usual. The expected huge delays and overcrowding haven’t happened, in fact it is the other way round. On Monday I retimed my own commute to deal with the expected chaos, but on Tuesday found it quiet. It’s busy around Olympic venues yes, and there was awful weekend traffic in no small order because of the cycling road race both closing a whole series of roads and encouraging hundreds of thousands to head that way to watch.  Otherwise it’s grim for businesses (but a delight to walk around).

 Look at these figures: 

- 50% reduction in foreign visitors to London in July 2012 compared to July 2011 (European Tour Operators’ Association) 

- 4.5% reduction in retail footfall in the West End in July 2012 compared to July 2011

 - 2.6% reduction in retail footfall in the East End (where the games are) in the first few days of the Olympics compared to last year 

- 25% reduction in visitors to the British Museum in July 2012 compared to July 2011 

- Traffic counts in central London are down 17% on previous weeks 

- Major retailer NeXT estimates sales are down 10% in its central London shops.

-  The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association estimates business is down 20-40%.

In short, it has been pretty much what I and others predicted. The Olympics deters as many as it attracts, as many presume prices will be inflated (and they were) and everything will be too busy. However, given that government agencies such as Transport for London have been constantly telling Londoners to make different plans and businesses were told to encourage people to work from home, take leave or avoid unnecessary travel, it shouldn’t be a surprise. People have done what they were told. 

However, politicians are in denial. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that such figures were nonsense saying that “restaurants, theatres and even cabbies who are out of pocket today will reap benefits for years to come.” according to the Evening Standard.  Yet how come the media can't find businesses outside the mall adjacent to the site that are doing well?  He's touting the obvious manufactured claim of his bureaucrats that "businesses who marketed well are doing well", yet how does he realistically think this can make up for the reduced visitor numbers?  Having taken taxes from all of these businesses to pay for these games and told many businesses to effectively cut travel to London or staff commuting in London, how dare he tell off the people who are paying for the games without the credit for it.

In a parallel story, traders at Greenwich market reported a 60% decline in trading, even though the market is located between the nearest Docklands Light Railway station and the Olympics venue, because of a huge barrier placed on the road to shepherd people from public transport to the venue. It has since been removed.

Of course a small business that takes risks based on a government funded project is always going to be taking a gamble, it doesn't help that Transport for London is still telling motorists to avoid Greenwich altogether and warning people of overcrowding stations in the area.

This follows rude prick and Sports Minister Hugh Robertson saying that businesses had “years” to plan, as if a restaurant in the West End can somehow woo hundreds of thousands of people that have been put off by constant taxpayer funded warnings to stay away. The Prime Minister continues to spout the empty delusion that the Games will generate £13 billion of benefits for the economy. 

Of course not one politician will come out and say the obvious. Hosting the Olympics never made economic sense. The Blair Government had advice at the time that said this. However Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ken Livingstone and their minions, and since then David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and Boris Johnson, have all gone along with this delusion. The money for the games came from taxpayers. The majority of whom don’t live in London so will have seen no net benefit at all. If the businesses that were meant to benefit, by and large don’t, then you’ve been wrong. You’ve all gambled away £9 billion of other people’s money on a fun party. 

Yes the Olympic Games are a great time, and offer fantastic spectacles of people truly achieving their best through effort and training. Yes it’s nice for Team GB athletes to compete on home soil, but if you asked them if it was worth £9 billion of other people’s money for just that, I doubt they would agree. 

However, don’t bother pretending they are an “investment”. Don’t pretend that there are real economic benefits for anyone, beyond the construction companies for the facilities you paid for with other people’s money. London is already one of the world’s most popular tourist destination, it has no shortage of visitors. It was inevitable that a city as crowded and congested as London would need to chase some people away to allow others to come in.   The same thing happened in Sydney.   A study by James Giesecke and John Madden of Monash University indicated that the Sydney games generated a net loss of A$2.1 billion in economic activity.

Well done. 

Now first prize for the UK politician who stands up, after the OIympics I expect, and says “it wasn’t worth it”. 

and no, unlike the grumpy failed politician Gore Vidal, I don't get that much pleasure from "I told you so" when so much money has been wasted.

Second prize if someone simply pointed out that if London wants more visitors, allowing its busiest airport and only hub airport to build a third runway, a project the airport's Spanish owner is able to fully finance itself, would have been a far more effective and enduring way of attracting visitors that building a stadium that still doesn’t have a long term user. 

However, Olympics are a bigger spectacle and far more exciting than a permanent piece of infrastructure, especially when the latter is opposed by hoards of angry environmentalists (the ones who can't and wont protest the extra runway a month being built in China for new airports) and NIMBYs (who wish that 60 year old airport would go away so their property values would go up).

Which is why the government shouldn't be involved with either!

Meanwhile, DO come to London.  There are massive discounts at hotels, flights are cheap and it's easy to get around, and there are sales on if you avoid the crowded Stratford Westfield Mall (and why would you come to London to go to a mall full of eastenders on school holidays?).

Liberal Democrats don't have a market anymore

This weekend has seen the conference of the Liberal Democrats held in Birmingham.  Of course as the junior coalition partner in government one might think it is a chance to celebrate success - which is, actually, what those who are Ministers have been doing.  Yet it is all in the shadow of record low polling results, as hoards of Liberal Democrat voters have abandoned the party they supported - whatever reason it was that they supported it.

Indeed, that is the crux of the problem for this party.  Having been the third party in one form or another for over 80 years, government was almost always never on the cards since Labour usurped the Liberal Party as the major second party.  However, the Liberal Democratic Party is not the Liberal Party, it is a slut of a mongrel that has hobbled from election to election in the last 30 or so years finding whatever gap it could see in the market, bringing along its disparate parts to heel. 

When it was the Liberal Party, it had a market.  It rejected the social conservatism of the Conservative Party that had resisted the social revolution of the 1960s, but also rejected the Marxist planned economy approach of Labour.  It supported the EEC as a means to reduce barriers to trade with Europe.  Bear in mind that until Thatcher, the status quo was socialism, with the Conservatives hoping to contain industrial action whilst the unions made mischief when Labour wasn't in power.   In fact, in that ossified climate, there was a period when the Liberal Party looked like it was in revival, getting 19% of the vote in the first of two elections in 1974 under Jeremy Thorpe (who was easily the best performing party leader at the time, until scandal ended his career).   The election of Thatcher changed all that.

The Liberals merged with a breakaway wing of Labour - because Labour in the early 1980s was a party of neo-Marxism, with policies such as withdrawal from NATO and nationalisation of industries and unilateral nuclear disarmament.  The SDP comprised Labour MPs who wanted none of that, and they took the Alliance, later the Liberal Democrats on a slalom ride over the years.  Initially it was easy, while Labour was old Labour and the Conservatives were the party of Thatcher, but then New Labour came along and the Liberal Democrats took a swing to the left.  Free university education, abolishing taxes for the poor came along with hopping aboard the environmentalism agenda, supporting interventions to address global warming, and so being part of the movement against fossil fuels, in favour of wind and solar power, against aviation and roads, and in favour of trains.  It opposed replacing Britain's nuclear deterrent.  

The Liberal Democrats became the party of the left.  On domestic policy it was all about having more for free, for more regulation of businesses, for more spending on education and higher taxes on the wealthy and no taxes on the poorest.  On foreign policy the biggest boost was opposition to the invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and a high profile given to human rights, as well as enthusiasm for the EU.  The Liberal Democrats once advocated Britain joining the EURO for instance.

So in the 2010 election, Liberal Democrat voters were comprised of a lot of people for whom New Labour wasn't leftwing enough.  Refugees from New Labour who would never vote Conservative.  Some Liberal Democrats float between the three parties, but the party built itself up as a party of protest.  No to tuition fees, no to war in Iraq, no to Trident, no to Heathrow expansion, no to Euroscepticism, no to climate change. 

Most Liberal Democrat voters don't expect the party to be in power, so when it chose to go with the Conservatives, it burned off its protest vote credentials, and for many its leftwing credentials.   

Meanwhile with New Labour buried along with Gordon Brown's political career, "Red" Ed Miliband reclaims the left back for Labour.  So where do the Liberal Democrats go?

As they have hitched their wagon to the Conservatives, they believe in addressing the budget deficit.  They believe in having a reduced burden for business, and have gone along with the "free schools" idea.  Yet they have also stymied modest reforms for the NHS, effectively delayed the renewal of Trident and are now vetoing a cut in the top income tax rate.   

The Liberal Democrats are seeking a middle ground, which doesn't really exist.  While Ed Miliband has turned Labour back to the left, it is not the days of Foot and Kinnock, but looks more like the Liberal Democrats.  Rejecting the war on Iraq, supporting a green agenda. supporting more money on the state sector, Labour as the party of opposition with no competition, can now accumulate all opposition to the government.   The Conservative Party, having swung to the centre under David Cameron is now fighting in the middle ground, which despite the shrill rhetoric of the unions and Labour, is not engaging in some major culling of the state, nor radical reforms on any scale.  What do and can the Liberal Democrats stand for?

The quasi-religious environmentalism doesn't get much support in a time of economic malaise, especially with some households harassed by the recycling police and motorists fed up with punitive fuel taxes.  The anti-war rhetoric is worth little now that there has been withdrawal from Iraq and military spending cuts are more an embarrassment than a source of pride.   Claims for spending more money on the state don't wash at a time of modest austerity.   The past EURO enthusiasm is not something Liberal Democrats want reminders of.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, spoke at the conference of cracking down on tax evasion, he told of a half billion pound "infrastructure fund" to "create" jobs  and support infrastructure projects in financial difficulty, whatever that means.   Does he mean projects council have cut back on, or those that have gone wrong - like Edinburgh's tram abortion?

There was a project at the beginning of the coalition to cut unnecessary laws - a "Freedom Bill" - of which there has been little heard, primarily because when the public were asked what laws to abolish, they responded in droves.  The Liberal part of the Liberal Democrats is rarely heard of.

Having opposed serious reform of the NHS, the Liberal Democrats cannot be seen as a party of rational reform.  Having continued to push the green agenda, with calls to limit executive pay and a shrill line of banker bashing and blaming, it is hardly a party that is pro-business.  It can't hope to reclaim its Liberal credentials when it happily supports more government in so many areas.  Yet, it can't be a party of the left while tied to a party of the right.   

There could be a future for a Liberal Party that embraced smaller government, free market reforms and social liberalism, but not much of one.   There isn't a future for the Social Democrats, who are indistinguishable from old Labour - the party of envy, arrogance, belief in the state, belief in forever taxing the successful, and delivering monopoly social services.

It's rather simple after all - the gap the Liberal Democrats once filled were as the "other" protest party against government.  As part of it, they don't stand for anything other than restraining the ruling party.   Yet when 2015 comes along as people want to support the government, why vote Liberal Democrat instead of Conservative?  Whereas if you oppose it, why would you vote for a party that supported it the whole time?  

The ONLY future for the Liberal Democrats is if Labour makes itself so unelectable that Labour voters choose Liberal Democrats to constrain the Conservatives.   Yet that would be self-defeating for them.  For it would simply result in Labour winning less seats and in more cases than not, it would mean MORE seats for the Conservatives, increasing the likelihood of being able to govern in their own right.  

Given that electoral reform as a saviour wont be on offer again for many many years, the future is bleak for a party without a coherent philosophy or an identifiable market.   As a libertarian I hope it splits, and a Liberal Party can once again assert less regulation, social liberalism (including drug law reform), less government overall and lower taxes.   It would also mean rejecting EUphilia.  

Both major parties will be helping to give the impression that the Liberal Democrats are a third wheel.   They'd be right.  It is.  The Greens and UKIP both fill gaps in the market.  The Greens for the far left and UKIP for the Thatcherite Eurosceptic/somewhat libertarian right.  

The Liberal Democrats fill no gaps any more, and if they stay on their present course, face year after year of decline.