I have just read a wonderful book pandering to my prejudices, and I would recommend you to read it too.
James Bartholomew's The Welfare State We're In is a refreshingly critical book about the Welfare State. Easy to read, well argued, informative, historical, provocative, and well referenced.
In some ways it is depressing to contemplate the immense waste and destruction wrought by the often well meaning people who have brought about the welfare state, but it makes me optimistic that someone can pull together such a cogent and devastating critique, showing not just how ineffective and counter-productive the welfare state is, but how it helps explain and give a perspective to the enormous increase in crime and change in morality since the 1950s.
It is sometimes hard to imagine how anyone can any longer begin to challenge the vested interests behind the welfare state, and then reform it, but we have to start with rational critiques like this one, showing how things really are, how they once were, how they might have been, which then point to how things might yet be.
Read it now.
See the website too.
December 30, 2004
December 29, 2004
Subverting British Justice
The ejection of the Law Lords from the House of Lords has moved still closer with the recent announcement that the new Supreme Court will be sited in Middlesex Guildhall.
And so is brought closer another step in the erosion of the UK's constitutional wellbeing.
The change is not being made because there is or has been any problem with the quality of judging or judicial decision making or any lack of judicial independence (far from it), but to correct the supposed failure of the British constitution to separate the judiciary from the executive and legislature, thought to be implicitly required by the Human Rights Act.
The trouble is that removing the Law Lords from the House of Lords removes them from the most independently minded part of our constitutional structure.
As members of the House of Lords, the Law Lords have an independent standing which will be denied them under a government minister. At the moment they can look to the House of Lords itself for protection in the event of a dispute or crisis. And while the principal Law Lord is the Lord Chancellor, himself an eminent professional lawyer, and the Speaker of the House of Lords, he has a status, role, and standing giving him an independence and influence quite unlike other members of the Cabinet, and as a matter of professional integrity, a personal interest in defending the judiciary. It is significant that in Lord Falconer, the current Lord Chancellor doing the hatchet job we have a placeman who does not match the personal and professional profile required for the Lord Chancellorship (but then he was never intended for such a role - it had supposedly been abolished in a press release).
Isolated from the Lords, and without a standing independent of their government department, and run by an ordinary Minister the judiciary's dynamics will change. Their selection will reflect political priorities far more than today - the selection panels can have no true independence from the politicians: our safeguard today is that the Lord Chancellor is not an ordinary politician. The change will affect the career calculations of our leading lawyers, and as the status of our senior judges is diminished, this will in future affect the quality of our leading judges. Above all, it changes the environment in which the senior judges will work, and makes them more vulnerable to political and bureaucratic pressure. It will not just be most senior judges who will be affected - any change in their status and independence will have a knock on effect on the judges below them: we are moving the whole judiciary to an inferior status, making it much more subject to the government, and isolating it from Parliament.
If the separation of powers is so important - how then can the system of drawing the government from Parliament, i.e. the legislature, be countenanced? The whole idea of applying a separation of powers to the UK is based on a misconception of our system of government. Perhaps the intention is in time also to remove the monarchy and elect an executive president?
And so is brought closer another step in the erosion of the UK's constitutional wellbeing.
The change is not being made because there is or has been any problem with the quality of judging or judicial decision making or any lack of judicial independence (far from it), but to correct the supposed failure of the British constitution to separate the judiciary from the executive and legislature, thought to be implicitly required by the Human Rights Act.
The trouble is that removing the Law Lords from the House of Lords removes them from the most independently minded part of our constitutional structure.
As members of the House of Lords, the Law Lords have an independent standing which will be denied them under a government minister. At the moment they can look to the House of Lords itself for protection in the event of a dispute or crisis. And while the principal Law Lord is the Lord Chancellor, himself an eminent professional lawyer, and the Speaker of the House of Lords, he has a status, role, and standing giving him an independence and influence quite unlike other members of the Cabinet, and as a matter of professional integrity, a personal interest in defending the judiciary. It is significant that in Lord Falconer, the current Lord Chancellor doing the hatchet job we have a placeman who does not match the personal and professional profile required for the Lord Chancellorship (but then he was never intended for such a role - it had supposedly been abolished in a press release).
Isolated from the Lords, and without a standing independent of their government department, and run by an ordinary Minister the judiciary's dynamics will change. Their selection will reflect political priorities far more than today - the selection panels can have no true independence from the politicians: our safeguard today is that the Lord Chancellor is not an ordinary politician. The change will affect the career calculations of our leading lawyers, and as the status of our senior judges is diminished, this will in future affect the quality of our leading judges. Above all, it changes the environment in which the senior judges will work, and makes them more vulnerable to political and bureaucratic pressure. It will not just be most senior judges who will be affected - any change in their status and independence will have a knock on effect on the judges below them: we are moving the whole judiciary to an inferior status, making it much more subject to the government, and isolating it from Parliament.
If the separation of powers is so important - how then can the system of drawing the government from Parliament, i.e. the legislature, be countenanced? The whole idea of applying a separation of powers to the UK is based on a misconception of our system of government. Perhaps the intention is in time also to remove the monarchy and elect an executive president?
December 28, 2004
State Bullies Fail Children
Why is there not more support for education vouchers and other schemes to give power and choice back to parents, and away from government and its bureaucracies?
See Samizdata.net for another example of the failure of the state system to provide for the needs of children as individuals, and worse, to undermine and bully the attempts of parents who want something a little different for their child.
My own experience with Hampshire's LEA leaves me with every sympathy for the Williams. Hampshire still believes it can act however it pleases, and then stonewall any attempt to bring it to account.
See Samizdata.net for another example of the failure of the state system to provide for the needs of children as individuals, and worse, to undermine and bully the attempts of parents who want something a little different for their child.
My own experience with Hampshire's LEA leaves me with every sympathy for the Williams. Hampshire still believes it can act however it pleases, and then stonewall any attempt to bring it to account.
December 27, 2004
New Drugs Tests For Motorists
The Telegraph reports drivers face new roadside tests, such as standing on one leg:
Surely what should determine fitness to drive is whether you can drive properly, whatever you may or may not have been consuming?
If police judge that the suspect's reactions indicate that driving ability has been impaired by illegal or certain prescription drugs, charges could follow.
Surely what should determine fitness to drive is whether you can drive properly, whatever you may or may not have been consuming?
Useless Tory Proposal To Cut MPs
The Tories will cut the numbers of MPs to save £30m:
Will it enhance MPs' independence? No, because British political parties are increasingly centralised and state funded. The central party machines dominate MP selection, and are insulated from local party associations by state funding.
Will it reduce the payroll vote? No, the number of ministers is not determined by the number of MPs. If a governing party wished to reduce the number of ministries they could do it now.
Will it make for a better Parliament? No, it reduces the pool of available talent. It is what MPs do that matters, not how many of them there are. Far better if MPs actually scrutinised legislation, instead of passing endless enabling Acts which let the UK/EU government legislate by regulation.
Will it save money? Marginally, perhaps, but £30 million is so little in the overall scheme of government expenditure. Leaving the EU would save far more on MEP salaries and expenses - apart from the benefit of having the freedom to reduce the £100 billion annual cost of regulation.
Will it make for a smaller state? The number of MPs has nothing to do with the size of the government machine, or the range of activities it undertakes, or the volume or complexity of regulations. In that sense reducing the number of MPs is irrelevant. It might make some sense if the government's role in society was substantially reduced, and politicians had little to do, but reducing the role of government has to come first. At the moment the problem is that MPs are not doing what they should be doing, viz. representing the electorate and scrutinising legislation and the executive.
Come on Conservative Party! Surely you can do better than this?
The Conservatives have said they will cut the number of MPs, ministers and special advisers by a fifth within five years if they win the election.Another proposal showing the Tories have lost the plot.
Will it enhance MPs' independence? No, because British political parties are increasingly centralised and state funded. The central party machines dominate MP selection, and are insulated from local party associations by state funding.
Will it reduce the payroll vote? No, the number of ministers is not determined by the number of MPs. If a governing party wished to reduce the number of ministries they could do it now.
Will it make for a better Parliament? No, it reduces the pool of available talent. It is what MPs do that matters, not how many of them there are. Far better if MPs actually scrutinised legislation, instead of passing endless enabling Acts which let the UK/EU government legislate by regulation.
Will it save money? Marginally, perhaps, but £30 million is so little in the overall scheme of government expenditure. Leaving the EU would save far more on MEP salaries and expenses - apart from the benefit of having the freedom to reduce the £100 billion annual cost of regulation.
Will it make for a smaller state? The number of MPs has nothing to do with the size of the government machine, or the range of activities it undertakes, or the volume or complexity of regulations. In that sense reducing the number of MPs is irrelevant. It might make some sense if the government's role in society was substantially reduced, and politicians had little to do, but reducing the role of government has to come first. At the moment the problem is that MPs are not doing what they should be doing, viz. representing the electorate and scrutinising legislation and the executive.
Come on Conservative Party! Surely you can do better than this?
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