On the Sunifesto
Feb. 2nd, 2015 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danieldwilliamA little while ago the Sun published its Sunfesto, a list of policies the Tories must support before the Sun will publicly support them. But how many does a sceptical left-libertarian type like me actually support once we get past the shock of agreeing with the Sun.
— Deficit cleared within five years.
DISAGREE. Firstly, a little bit of economic illiteracy or what Chris Dillow calls mediamacro is on show here. The deficit is a rate of change of government debt, not a thing. You can clear debt. You can reduce a deficit to nil. You can’t clear a deficit. Conflating one with the other is poor economics, or poor English. Secondly, I don’t think we should pursue a policy of reducing the deficit and posting small surpluses at the moment. Bond rates are at record lows for our government. We are actually being paid to borrow money and look after it for people. Whilst we *might* need to run a surplus and reduce total levels of debt or debt to GBP ratios at some point in the future the middle of a prolonged depression is not that time. We probably should be looking at other ways of improving debt to GBP ratios, like economic growth.
What I think we need in the UK is a policy of fiscal expansion, a large and sustained programme of spending on infrastructure, training, research and development and energy efficiency.
The short term fiscal stimulus will promote growth and employment in the short term and the improved physical and human capital will improve growth and wages in the longer term.
Also, if we’re going to go bust owing money to foreigners, let’s go really, really bust and end up with lots of neat kit at the end of it. It’s not like they can send the bailiffs in, is it?
— A REAL war on waste, not the usual promises.
AGREE. My experience of large, bureaucratic organisations in both the private and public sectors is that there are lots of opportunities to reduce waste. It’s about the process though. A war is probably the wrong way to think about it. How about trying a really good conversation about waste? Or some really probing management accountancy about waste?
I expect this to yield perhaps £1-2bn. Enough to run Edinburgh for a year or a new bit of medium sized infrastructure each year. Better than a poke in the eye with stick but it’s not huge.
— Government savings to be turned into tax cuts for firms to raise low wages.
DISAGREE. Firstly, I’d rather the savings from (2) be spent on expanding government services, particularly those government services that help people enter and remain in work. Secondly, I’m not convinced that the mechanism sketched out here will work. Tim Worstall (can’t believe I’m referencing him with appropriation) would say something about tax incidence here (followed up a gratuitous remark about the French). If, for example, you cut Employers’ NI there is no guarantee that the extra money would end up increasing low wages. People have low wages for a reason. That reason is low bargaining power when negotiating for wages. Just giving a firm more money to pay people doesn’t address the issue of low bargaining power. Other measures are needed for that, unionisation, improved skills, improved general economic conditions and government mandate.
— Narrowing of the North-South wealth divide through grants and tax breaks outside London and South-East.
AGREE. The North-South divide I think is one of most significant structural problems in what remains our country (I tried to leave in September.) I could be oh so clever and say it’s not as simple as a North-South divide but really, the North-South divide is the name we give to the problem of London doing well and other parts of the UK not doing so well.
— In/out referendum after a tough renegotiation of our position with Brussels.
NOT SURE. In principle I’m in favour of more referenda. In practise I think we might do something bloody stupid although I hope the manifest failure of the Exit Campaign to raise any money from business will result in the right result. On reflection AGREE. Democratic principle trumps fear of the result and if England wants to be bloody stupid, let it, I still have options in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of South Scandinavia.
— A PM willing to lead us out of the EU if renegotiation fails.
DISAGREE. I want a PM who is prepared to tell us we are behaving like spoilt children and that if wanted an alternative to the EU we should have been prepared to fight and win 40 different guerrilla wars to retain the Empire in the 60’s and 70’s.
— Regain ability to control our borders and select migrants by skills.
DISAGREE. Migration is a net economic benefit. We can’t “control” our own borders and remain in the EU and I prefer the EU. Why stop at selecting migrants by skills? There are quite a few numpties who were born here that I’d quite happily get shot of if I could. Also, basic economics. I want these people in my tax area paying for shared infrastructure and paid the same as me, not somewhere else undercutting my wages like the Chinese have been doing since the ‘90’s.
— End to Human Rights Act.
DISAGREE. Because what part of not being tortured, arbitrarily imprisoned and otherwise brutalised by the state is a bad thing.
— NHS cannot continue as bottomless money-pit.
AGREE – we need to have a serious conversation about health rationing, new drug development and R&D, how we use new and old technology to reduce long term costs, how we cope with an aging population and how much we are prepared to socialise good and bad fortune. Just spending some more money because we find that conversation hard is cowardly.
— [NHS] Needs radical reform, with private sector help.
DISAGREE. I don’t think the NHS needs radical reform. It might benefit from some serious attention from a determined and talented cost accountant or some 1990’s vintage Japanese management but what couldn’t. I don’t see the private sector offering much help. We don’t want a more profit focused NHS and the private sector is as bad as managing large organisations as the public sector.
— No more health tourists or needless cosmetic surgery on State.
DISAGREE. I think the cost of these two “problems” would be dwarfed by the cost of policing them.
— Core values of tolerance, freedom, equality of sexes and rule of British law are paramount.
DISAGREE – the unintentional irony of mandating tolerance and freedom is not lost on me. Also, what is this British law of which you speak? Has the pursuer in Barton Hill’s Coal Company vs Reid (HL 1858 - (1858) 3 Macqu 265 ) lived and sued in vain?
More seriously, this is a clause directed at immigrants. They must conform to our values. Which values? The values of Scotland or England, for they are very different as the unfortunate Widow Reid discovered to her cost in 1858. British values? We’re honestly not sure if that country ought to still exist any longer. London values, with their latte drinking, homosexual approving beard wearing metropolitan elitism or the good old fashioned values of casual racism, sexism, violence, gangland murder and careless stereotyping of others so beloved by your average Cockney.
Could we articulate what we think to be our shared values if we wanted to?
If we could articulate them would we agree that they are actually shared?
If we did agree would we then go agree to insist that other people shared them? Whilst respecting their freedom and tolerating their differences?
And which values from “their” homeland do we not want? We’ve already in this manifesto seen USian private sector involvement in health provision lauded but apparently we want no truck with a Human Right’s Act founded on the same political philosophy that motivated the drafters of the US Constitution and which were supported by the definitively British Sir Winston Churchill
— Migrants must learn English and respect British values.
DISAGREE. For one thing I’m not sure I exactly speak English. Arguably I speak Lowlands Scots with smatterings of Doric. See above for British Values, or rather, don’t see above for British Values.
— They must speak out against extremism.
AGREE – starting with speaking out against extreme but unstructured British Nationalism.
— They [Migrants] must not elevate the traditions of their homeland over ours.
DISAGREE – For starters, which homeland in the UK are we talking about here (again). Am I allowed to run Burns Suppers in London? This is a serious question. “We” arguably already live in a multi-cultural multi-state polity and have done since 1603. Why should I expect Londoners to put up with me drinking whisky, dancing about in a brightly coloured skirt waxing lyrically but unintelligibly about some dead Radical shagger whilst insisting that the spiced offal sausage I’m forcing on them is the latest word in haute cuisine but support them when they ask Jamaicans not to mention Bob Marley or when they try to stop the French going on and on and on about Serge Gainsbourg.
— Expand free schools programme.
DISAGREE – I don’t know much about the free schools programme, it being an English solution to an English problem, but from what I’ve heard of it it’s a middle class amateur educationalists charter which requires me to hand over my Scottish taxes so the London metropolitan elite can have lattes at their school.
— Drive up actual standards, measurable against rest of world, not just exam results.
AGREE – We could always use more and better and education. Our obsession by measuring our children’s school attainment and our education system against the 1950’s seems to miss the point. The point is that our children should be educated in a way that suits them for life and work in the middle of the 21st century and that we should compare ourselves with those we are competing against fictitious school children from the last Age of Austerity.
— Stand up for pupils’ rights over those of teaching unions.
DISAGREE – I think this is another false dichotomy. I don’t see any evidence that teaching unions are in opposition to school children.
— More vocational training over meaningless degrees.
AGREE – sort of. I think we ought to have a look at the way we deliver education with a particular focus on the use of Massively Open Online Course at degree level. I think the transfer of primary liability for tuition fees has already focused young people’s mind on the quality and utility of the education they are now paying for. I think we will see new technology allowing more people to mix study and work and perhaps get a better overall educational experience out of it.
— Reskill Britain – train young people for life, and work.
AGREE – sort of, I’m all in favour of holistic education that also helps people find productive and meaningful work in a prosperous economy. Why stop at young people?
— An end to tribal politics . . . Britain is sick of it.
AGREE – you won’t find any complaints about reducing tribalism in politics from this Reform-minded deliberative democracy supporting pluralist. How?
— Braver politicians speaking out of conviction, not just trotting out party line.
AGREED – and I hope to achieve this by instituting electoral reform and regional devolution so that it is easier for conviction politicians to be supported (if they are) by the public without the support of a centralised London based Party machine.
— More people with real life experience in Cabinet; fewer ex-“special advisers”.
UNSURE – part of me thinks that the business of being a politician is very different from the business of business or nursing or whatever. The role of a Cabinet Minister, in my view, is to work out which experts to listen to, do some deals and articulate policy and values. Secondly deformation professional is going to kick in. Any one able to behave like a Cabinet Minister is going to become a Cabinet Minister. I AGREE we need more real people involved in politics. My route for this would be deliberative and participative democracy. Things like Citizen Juries, more referenda, local devolution. That I think is where real people can move effectively be brought in to political discourse.
— More women MPs.
AGREED, how? I don’t have a principled problem with a bit of positive discrimination, but I think lots of people do.
— More ethnic minority MPs.
AGREED, how? I don’t have a principled problem with a bit of positive discrimination, but I think lots of people do.
— More honesty, less spin.
AGREED – So I would widen the remit of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility along the lines of Hopi Sen’s In The Black Labour and other suggestions and / or institute the Institute for Fiscal Studies. I’d require every bill to include a sunset clause linked to a formal review of the bill’s aims and objectives. I would have the government fund a number of fact checking and consistency checking services.
— Each party to list five polices they will NOT ditch in coalition negotiations.
AGREED – If we are going to have coalition governments (and we are) we ought to approach them with sensible expectations.
— A proper 30-year plan, including nuclear power.
AGREED – Our energy policy over the last 30 years has been poor and I speak as someone who has written energy policy. We need to have a think about how the world will look in 30 years, what technology will be available, what demand and supply will look like We have significant renewable resources and we should work out how to make them cost competitive with the grid. I would certainly include nuclear power in our mix. I’m not convinced that current Western nuclear reactor design is cost competitive but it ought to be considered. I would like to see more research in to Thorium fission reactors.
— End shameful delays over fracking for shale gas.
DISGREE – I’m in the extend shameful delays over fracking for shale gas. See my answer above about a sensible plan for energy policy. Also, the price of oil has just halved. The problem shale gas was meant to solve has just been shelved for four years.
— MPs must stop dreaming about windfarms... they will never be enough.
DISAGREE. Firstly, the job of MP’s is to dream about different ways of doing things. Secondly, as solar PV has shown renewable technology has the potential to reduce it’s costs to or below grid parity. Which in fact is more or less what on-shore wind has done. Whilst there probably isn’t enough on-shore wind to handle even domestic demand it can make a contribution to exactly the sort of mixed energy supply we will end up with if we sort ourselves out with a proper 30-year plan for energy.
— Prioritise economic future over climate change.
UNCERTAIN – whilst I think that climate change is happening and that human industrial activity is causing it and that the impact of climate change is likely to be great I can also see the argument that policies that starve Bangladeshi children today in order to save their grandchildren from drowning are perhaps sub-optimal.
— No more cuts to forces.
DISAGREE – I’d rather reduce our ability to project force overseas than cut domestic consumption of public services.
— Give spooks/police surveillance powers against terror – but approved by judge.
DISAGREE – I think our security and police forces already have sufficient power to act against terrorist organisations. They will probably struggle with terrorists working alone, like Brivik or Ian Hamilton. Whereas this Sunifesto pledge implies new action I don’t think any changes are required.
— Send ground troops to tackle IS if unavoidable to keep Britain safe.
Strongly DISAGREE. We don’t need to send ground troops to fight Islamic State. For several reasons. Mostly, they are a bit rubbish and can’t leave Iraq or the bits of Syria they already occupy.
http://pando.com/2014/06/16/the-war-nerd-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-too-extreme-for-al-qaeda-i-s-i-s/
http://pando.com/2014/10/16/the-war-nerd-nobody-could-have-predicted-islamic-states-retreat-from-kobane-except-me/
People have been invading Iraq since the invention of the wheel. It’s no big deal.
— Nukes vital as deterrent.
DISAGREE. I’m less in favour of abandoning a nuclear deterrent then some on the left but given a choice between no foodbanks and no Trident or Trident and foodbanks I’ll do without Trident. What is the culture we are fighting to defend here.
— Falls in crime welcome, so too stricter sentences for serious crime.
AGREE. Firstly, we ought to acknowledge and understand that crime is falling and has been for decades. Probably because we’ve taken out lead from petrol. I do agree with strict custodial sentences for violent crime or crimes involving significant organised dishonesty.
— Too many jail terms for non-violent crimes: fines better and greater deterrent.
AGREED. I hold to the view that fear of detection is a greater deterrent than the potential punishment. I also hold to the view that non-violent criminality can probably be better addressed with attempts at non-custodial rehabilitation. I’d reduce prison spending and spend the money on forensic science to aid detection and rehabilitation programmes.
— End scandal of endless police bail, which ruins lives.
UNCERTAIN – Do we have police bail in Scotland?
— Automatic mechanism to cut pump prices in line with falls in world oil market.
DISAGREE. WE already have this mechanism. It’s called the free market. Tends to work reasonably well.
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2015/01/micro-efficient-macro-inefficient.html
— Government should encourage and help fund a huge house-building programme.
AGREED. We should have been doing this since Thatcher brought in right to buy. I like the idea of people being able to own their own homes. In a world where 49% of current Western jobs are subject to being automated by robots or machine intelligence owning your own home is a lovely hedge against a hostile economy and a great way to save for retirement. However, we ought to have replaced social housing stock.
— Welfare only as a last resort to prevent hunger and homelessness.
AGREED. It already is, unless you are a pensioner, in which case your pension is probably preventing you from going hungry and homeless. So, welfare, turns out to be pretty a last resort to prevent hunger and homelessness. Well done welfare.
— Current cap too high at £26,000 a year.
DISAGREE. Welfare is a form of social insurance. It ought to insure you for your needs not at some arbitrary ratio to some political touchstone wage.
— Child benefit capped at two children for new claimants.
DISAGREE - This is a benefit for the child. Each person is one person. Why cap my benefits just because I have the misfortune to have more than one sibling?
— Ditch handouts such as bus passes for well-off OAPs.
DISAGREE – it’s financially more efficient (although not intuitive) to provide these benefits universally rather than means test them. Secondly, there is something important about solidarity. Thirdly, if you’ve paid National Insurance what you’ve been paying for is stuff like free bus passes. It’s not your fault we got the pricing wrong when we sold you the insurance policy. Fourthly, self-driving buses in about ten years’ time will make bus travel worth providing free to everyone one in a city.
— Decriminalise failure to pay the licence fee.
DISAGREE – unless we are decriminalising the failure to pay all debts.
— Cut BBC to core mission of first-class original programming, broadcast on multiple platforms.
DISAGREE – well sort of. I think that first-class original programming broadcast on multiple platforms ought to be what the BBC does. It looks like that is what it is doing. And cheap at the current license fee.
— Scrap guarantee that 0.7% of our GDP be given away in foreign aid.
DISAGREE – Foreign aid, by helping to creating large populations who are willing and able to buy our goods and services in exchange for providing their own goods and services to us to our mutual benefit is a massively efficient, if slow way, of ensuring our own continued prosperity and a peaceful, politically stable world in which to enjoy that prosperity.
— Each aid case to be rigorously overseen by British officials.
AGREE – I think we ought to be able to audit all of the programmes we finance. Getting round auditors is a long cherished British skill which we can pass on to recipient nations and thus strengthen their institutions. Seriously, if foreign countries don’t accept that we have some internal political difficulties and the consequence is that we’re going to want to see their books when we give them money well, they are then naive.
— No taxpayers’ money to corrupt, or already rich, regimes.
AGREE – end the injustice of subsidising London. More seriously,
— Government must be brave enough to ignore a social media mob.
AGREE. They must also be brave enough to ignore a tabloid front page.
— Police to stop policing social media “offence” if no law broken.
AGREE, on balance, the police are not the right organisation to deal with most social media comments.
— Britain must be free to speak, within the law
AGREE. I mean I agree with the sentiment that free speech ought to protected, in fact promoted, and the chilling effect of leering threats of official interest in speech. On the other hand, currently everyone is already free to speak, within the law. That’s the basis of the rule of law. The bigger question is whether free speech ought to be protected from significant limitations by the law. I tend to favour this, on balance.
The answer turns out to be 25 out of 52. (Ish) so just under half.
— Deficit cleared within five years.
DISAGREE. Firstly, a little bit of economic illiteracy or what Chris Dillow calls mediamacro is on show here. The deficit is a rate of change of government debt, not a thing. You can clear debt. You can reduce a deficit to nil. You can’t clear a deficit. Conflating one with the other is poor economics, or poor English. Secondly, I don’t think we should pursue a policy of reducing the deficit and posting small surpluses at the moment. Bond rates are at record lows for our government. We are actually being paid to borrow money and look after it for people. Whilst we *might* need to run a surplus and reduce total levels of debt or debt to GBP ratios at some point in the future the middle of a prolonged depression is not that time. We probably should be looking at other ways of improving debt to GBP ratios, like economic growth.
What I think we need in the UK is a policy of fiscal expansion, a large and sustained programme of spending on infrastructure, training, research and development and energy efficiency.
The short term fiscal stimulus will promote growth and employment in the short term and the improved physical and human capital will improve growth and wages in the longer term.
Also, if we’re going to go bust owing money to foreigners, let’s go really, really bust and end up with lots of neat kit at the end of it. It’s not like they can send the bailiffs in, is it?
— A REAL war on waste, not the usual promises.
AGREE. My experience of large, bureaucratic organisations in both the private and public sectors is that there are lots of opportunities to reduce waste. It’s about the process though. A war is probably the wrong way to think about it. How about trying a really good conversation about waste? Or some really probing management accountancy about waste?
I expect this to yield perhaps £1-2bn. Enough to run Edinburgh for a year or a new bit of medium sized infrastructure each year. Better than a poke in the eye with stick but it’s not huge.
— Government savings to be turned into tax cuts for firms to raise low wages.
DISAGREE. Firstly, I’d rather the savings from (2) be spent on expanding government services, particularly those government services that help people enter and remain in work. Secondly, I’m not convinced that the mechanism sketched out here will work. Tim Worstall (can’t believe I’m referencing him with appropriation) would say something about tax incidence here (followed up a gratuitous remark about the French). If, for example, you cut Employers’ NI there is no guarantee that the extra money would end up increasing low wages. People have low wages for a reason. That reason is low bargaining power when negotiating for wages. Just giving a firm more money to pay people doesn’t address the issue of low bargaining power. Other measures are needed for that, unionisation, improved skills, improved general economic conditions and government mandate.
— Narrowing of the North-South wealth divide through grants and tax breaks outside London and South-East.
AGREE. The North-South divide I think is one of most significant structural problems in what remains our country (I tried to leave in September.) I could be oh so clever and say it’s not as simple as a North-South divide but really, the North-South divide is the name we give to the problem of London doing well and other parts of the UK not doing so well.
— In/out referendum after a tough renegotiation of our position with Brussels.
NOT SURE. In principle I’m in favour of more referenda. In practise I think we might do something bloody stupid although I hope the manifest failure of the Exit Campaign to raise any money from business will result in the right result. On reflection AGREE. Democratic principle trumps fear of the result and if England wants to be bloody stupid, let it, I still have options in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of South Scandinavia.
— A PM willing to lead us out of the EU if renegotiation fails.
DISAGREE. I want a PM who is prepared to tell us we are behaving like spoilt children and that if wanted an alternative to the EU we should have been prepared to fight and win 40 different guerrilla wars to retain the Empire in the 60’s and 70’s.
— Regain ability to control our borders and select migrants by skills.
DISAGREE. Migration is a net economic benefit. We can’t “control” our own borders and remain in the EU and I prefer the EU. Why stop at selecting migrants by skills? There are quite a few numpties who were born here that I’d quite happily get shot of if I could. Also, basic economics. I want these people in my tax area paying for shared infrastructure and paid the same as me, not somewhere else undercutting my wages like the Chinese have been doing since the ‘90’s.
— End to Human Rights Act.
DISAGREE. Because what part of not being tortured, arbitrarily imprisoned and otherwise brutalised by the state is a bad thing.
— NHS cannot continue as bottomless money-pit.
AGREE – we need to have a serious conversation about health rationing, new drug development and R&D, how we use new and old technology to reduce long term costs, how we cope with an aging population and how much we are prepared to socialise good and bad fortune. Just spending some more money because we find that conversation hard is cowardly.
— [NHS] Needs radical reform, with private sector help.
DISAGREE. I don’t think the NHS needs radical reform. It might benefit from some serious attention from a determined and talented cost accountant or some 1990’s vintage Japanese management but what couldn’t. I don’t see the private sector offering much help. We don’t want a more profit focused NHS and the private sector is as bad as managing large organisations as the public sector.
— No more health tourists or needless cosmetic surgery on State.
DISAGREE. I think the cost of these two “problems” would be dwarfed by the cost of policing them.
— Core values of tolerance, freedom, equality of sexes and rule of British law are paramount.
DISAGREE – the unintentional irony of mandating tolerance and freedom is not lost on me. Also, what is this British law of which you speak? Has the pursuer in Barton Hill’s Coal Company vs Reid (HL 1858 - (1858) 3 Macqu 265 ) lived and sued in vain?
More seriously, this is a clause directed at immigrants. They must conform to our values. Which values? The values of Scotland or England, for they are very different as the unfortunate Widow Reid discovered to her cost in 1858. British values? We’re honestly not sure if that country ought to still exist any longer. London values, with their latte drinking, homosexual approving beard wearing metropolitan elitism or the good old fashioned values of casual racism, sexism, violence, gangland murder and careless stereotyping of others so beloved by your average Cockney.
Could we articulate what we think to be our shared values if we wanted to?
If we could articulate them would we agree that they are actually shared?
If we did agree would we then go agree to insist that other people shared them? Whilst respecting their freedom and tolerating their differences?
And which values from “their” homeland do we not want? We’ve already in this manifesto seen USian private sector involvement in health provision lauded but apparently we want no truck with a Human Right’s Act founded on the same political philosophy that motivated the drafters of the US Constitution and which were supported by the definitively British Sir Winston Churchill
— Migrants must learn English and respect British values.
DISAGREE. For one thing I’m not sure I exactly speak English. Arguably I speak Lowlands Scots with smatterings of Doric. See above for British Values, or rather, don’t see above for British Values.
— They must speak out against extremism.
AGREE – starting with speaking out against extreme but unstructured British Nationalism.
— They [Migrants] must not elevate the traditions of their homeland over ours.
DISAGREE – For starters, which homeland in the UK are we talking about here (again). Am I allowed to run Burns Suppers in London? This is a serious question. “We” arguably already live in a multi-cultural multi-state polity and have done since 1603. Why should I expect Londoners to put up with me drinking whisky, dancing about in a brightly coloured skirt waxing lyrically but unintelligibly about some dead Radical shagger whilst insisting that the spiced offal sausage I’m forcing on them is the latest word in haute cuisine but support them when they ask Jamaicans not to mention Bob Marley or when they try to stop the French going on and on and on about Serge Gainsbourg.
— Expand free schools programme.
DISAGREE – I don’t know much about the free schools programme, it being an English solution to an English problem, but from what I’ve heard of it it’s a middle class amateur educationalists charter which requires me to hand over my Scottish taxes so the London metropolitan elite can have lattes at their school.
— Drive up actual standards, measurable against rest of world, not just exam results.
AGREE – We could always use more and better and education. Our obsession by measuring our children’s school attainment and our education system against the 1950’s seems to miss the point. The point is that our children should be educated in a way that suits them for life and work in the middle of the 21st century and that we should compare ourselves with those we are competing against fictitious school children from the last Age of Austerity.
— Stand up for pupils’ rights over those of teaching unions.
DISAGREE – I think this is another false dichotomy. I don’t see any evidence that teaching unions are in opposition to school children.
— More vocational training over meaningless degrees.
AGREE – sort of. I think we ought to have a look at the way we deliver education with a particular focus on the use of Massively Open Online Course at degree level. I think the transfer of primary liability for tuition fees has already focused young people’s mind on the quality and utility of the education they are now paying for. I think we will see new technology allowing more people to mix study and work and perhaps get a better overall educational experience out of it.
— Reskill Britain – train young people for life, and work.
AGREE – sort of, I’m all in favour of holistic education that also helps people find productive and meaningful work in a prosperous economy. Why stop at young people?
— An end to tribal politics . . . Britain is sick of it.
AGREE – you won’t find any complaints about reducing tribalism in politics from this Reform-minded deliberative democracy supporting pluralist. How?
— Braver politicians speaking out of conviction, not just trotting out party line.
AGREED – and I hope to achieve this by instituting electoral reform and regional devolution so that it is easier for conviction politicians to be supported (if they are) by the public without the support of a centralised London based Party machine.
— More people with real life experience in Cabinet; fewer ex-“special advisers”.
UNSURE – part of me thinks that the business of being a politician is very different from the business of business or nursing or whatever. The role of a Cabinet Minister, in my view, is to work out which experts to listen to, do some deals and articulate policy and values. Secondly deformation professional is going to kick in. Any one able to behave like a Cabinet Minister is going to become a Cabinet Minister. I AGREE we need more real people involved in politics. My route for this would be deliberative and participative democracy. Things like Citizen Juries, more referenda, local devolution. That I think is where real people can move effectively be brought in to political discourse.
— More women MPs.
AGREED, how? I don’t have a principled problem with a bit of positive discrimination, but I think lots of people do.
— More ethnic minority MPs.
AGREED, how? I don’t have a principled problem with a bit of positive discrimination, but I think lots of people do.
— More honesty, less spin.
AGREED – So I would widen the remit of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility along the lines of Hopi Sen’s In The Black Labour and other suggestions and / or institute the Institute for Fiscal Studies. I’d require every bill to include a sunset clause linked to a formal review of the bill’s aims and objectives. I would have the government fund a number of fact checking and consistency checking services.
— Each party to list five polices they will NOT ditch in coalition negotiations.
AGREED – If we are going to have coalition governments (and we are) we ought to approach them with sensible expectations.
— A proper 30-year plan, including nuclear power.
AGREED – Our energy policy over the last 30 years has been poor and I speak as someone who has written energy policy. We need to have a think about how the world will look in 30 years, what technology will be available, what demand and supply will look like We have significant renewable resources and we should work out how to make them cost competitive with the grid. I would certainly include nuclear power in our mix. I’m not convinced that current Western nuclear reactor design is cost competitive but it ought to be considered. I would like to see more research in to Thorium fission reactors.
— End shameful delays over fracking for shale gas.
DISGREE – I’m in the extend shameful delays over fracking for shale gas. See my answer above about a sensible plan for energy policy. Also, the price of oil has just halved. The problem shale gas was meant to solve has just been shelved for four years.
— MPs must stop dreaming about windfarms... they will never be enough.
DISAGREE. Firstly, the job of MP’s is to dream about different ways of doing things. Secondly, as solar PV has shown renewable technology has the potential to reduce it’s costs to or below grid parity. Which in fact is more or less what on-shore wind has done. Whilst there probably isn’t enough on-shore wind to handle even domestic demand it can make a contribution to exactly the sort of mixed energy supply we will end up with if we sort ourselves out with a proper 30-year plan for energy.
— Prioritise economic future over climate change.
UNCERTAIN – whilst I think that climate change is happening and that human industrial activity is causing it and that the impact of climate change is likely to be great I can also see the argument that policies that starve Bangladeshi children today in order to save their grandchildren from drowning are perhaps sub-optimal.
— No more cuts to forces.
DISAGREE – I’d rather reduce our ability to project force overseas than cut domestic consumption of public services.
— Give spooks/police surveillance powers against terror – but approved by judge.
DISAGREE – I think our security and police forces already have sufficient power to act against terrorist organisations. They will probably struggle with terrorists working alone, like Brivik or Ian Hamilton. Whereas this Sunifesto pledge implies new action I don’t think any changes are required.
— Send ground troops to tackle IS if unavoidable to keep Britain safe.
Strongly DISAGREE. We don’t need to send ground troops to fight Islamic State. For several reasons. Mostly, they are a bit rubbish and can’t leave Iraq or the bits of Syria they already occupy.
http://pando.com/2014/06/16/the-war-nerd-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-too-extreme-for-al-qaeda-i-s-i-s/
http://pando.com/2014/10/16/the-war-nerd-nobody-could-have-predicted-islamic-states-retreat-from-kobane-except-me/
People have been invading Iraq since the invention of the wheel. It’s no big deal.
— Nukes vital as deterrent.
DISAGREE. I’m less in favour of abandoning a nuclear deterrent then some on the left but given a choice between no foodbanks and no Trident or Trident and foodbanks I’ll do without Trident. What is the culture we are fighting to defend here.
— Falls in crime welcome, so too stricter sentences for serious crime.
AGREE. Firstly, we ought to acknowledge and understand that crime is falling and has been for decades. Probably because we’ve taken out lead from petrol. I do agree with strict custodial sentences for violent crime or crimes involving significant organised dishonesty.
— Too many jail terms for non-violent crimes: fines better and greater deterrent.
AGREED. I hold to the view that fear of detection is a greater deterrent than the potential punishment. I also hold to the view that non-violent criminality can probably be better addressed with attempts at non-custodial rehabilitation. I’d reduce prison spending and spend the money on forensic science to aid detection and rehabilitation programmes.
— End scandal of endless police bail, which ruins lives.
UNCERTAIN – Do we have police bail in Scotland?
— Automatic mechanism to cut pump prices in line with falls in world oil market.
DISAGREE. WE already have this mechanism. It’s called the free market. Tends to work reasonably well.
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2015/01/micro-efficient-macro-inefficient.html
— Government should encourage and help fund a huge house-building programme.
AGREED. We should have been doing this since Thatcher brought in right to buy. I like the idea of people being able to own their own homes. In a world where 49% of current Western jobs are subject to being automated by robots or machine intelligence owning your own home is a lovely hedge against a hostile economy and a great way to save for retirement. However, we ought to have replaced social housing stock.
— Welfare only as a last resort to prevent hunger and homelessness.
AGREED. It already is, unless you are a pensioner, in which case your pension is probably preventing you from going hungry and homeless. So, welfare, turns out to be pretty a last resort to prevent hunger and homelessness. Well done welfare.
— Current cap too high at £26,000 a year.
DISAGREE. Welfare is a form of social insurance. It ought to insure you for your needs not at some arbitrary ratio to some political touchstone wage.
— Child benefit capped at two children for new claimants.
DISAGREE - This is a benefit for the child. Each person is one person. Why cap my benefits just because I have the misfortune to have more than one sibling?
— Ditch handouts such as bus passes for well-off OAPs.
DISAGREE – it’s financially more efficient (although not intuitive) to provide these benefits universally rather than means test them. Secondly, there is something important about solidarity. Thirdly, if you’ve paid National Insurance what you’ve been paying for is stuff like free bus passes. It’s not your fault we got the pricing wrong when we sold you the insurance policy. Fourthly, self-driving buses in about ten years’ time will make bus travel worth providing free to everyone one in a city.
— Decriminalise failure to pay the licence fee.
DISAGREE – unless we are decriminalising the failure to pay all debts.
— Cut BBC to core mission of first-class original programming, broadcast on multiple platforms.
DISAGREE – well sort of. I think that first-class original programming broadcast on multiple platforms ought to be what the BBC does. It looks like that is what it is doing. And cheap at the current license fee.
— Scrap guarantee that 0.7% of our GDP be given away in foreign aid.
DISAGREE – Foreign aid, by helping to creating large populations who are willing and able to buy our goods and services in exchange for providing their own goods and services to us to our mutual benefit is a massively efficient, if slow way, of ensuring our own continued prosperity and a peaceful, politically stable world in which to enjoy that prosperity.
— Each aid case to be rigorously overseen by British officials.
AGREE – I think we ought to be able to audit all of the programmes we finance. Getting round auditors is a long cherished British skill which we can pass on to recipient nations and thus strengthen their institutions. Seriously, if foreign countries don’t accept that we have some internal political difficulties and the consequence is that we’re going to want to see their books when we give them money well, they are then naive.
— No taxpayers’ money to corrupt, or already rich, regimes.
AGREE – end the injustice of subsidising London. More seriously,
— Government must be brave enough to ignore a social media mob.
AGREE. They must also be brave enough to ignore a tabloid front page.
— Police to stop policing social media “offence” if no law broken.
AGREE, on balance, the police are not the right organisation to deal with most social media comments.
— Britain must be free to speak, within the law
AGREE. I mean I agree with the sentiment that free speech ought to protected, in fact promoted, and the chilling effect of leering threats of official interest in speech. On the other hand, currently everyone is already free to speak, within the law. That’s the basis of the rule of law. The bigger question is whether free speech ought to be protected from significant limitations by the law. I tend to favour this, on balance.
The answer turns out to be 25 out of 52. (Ish) so just under half.
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no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 04:13 pm (UTC)However, there's a good reason for this, which is that in any other case, the creditor can stop providing the service to the defaulting debtor. Not so with the TV licence, which is why it deserves to be a special case.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 07:02 pm (UTC)I think whether one goes to prison for debt or for contempt of court for willfully ignoring a court order requiring one to pay a debt is a distinction without a difference.
I do agree with you about the difficulty of the BBC removing the service.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-02 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-03 11:33 am (UTC)It's a tiny tiny drain on NHS resources anyway.