Richard's Politics Blog

How can you have both points and a quota?

2007-11-01T08:25:00.000Z

"Dave" Cameron has decided that he's going to have an immigration quota, but he won't say how big - probably because he knows that any actual decision will be unpopular with either the Daily Mail ("too high") or business ("too low"), or - more likely - both.

He's also decided that he's going to have a points system for economic migrants. The problem is that you can't have both. What happens if too many people get enough points?

I suppose you could have a system where you grant visas to the 75,000 people with the most points - effectively like a norm-referenced exam (like the pre-1987 A level). If that is your system, then your points has to be meaningful at all levels, rather than just at the pass-fail level, which makes the scoring much more difficult to set up.

Of course, knowing what you're talking about is not a job requirement of either politicians or interviewers, so no-one has asked Cameron the key question.

Who can vote in the leadership election?

2007-10-17T20:26:00.000+01:00

A clarification:

In the Leadership election, anyone who is currently a member, or joins/rejoins by 16:00 (local time, ie GMT), 31 October 2007 will be entitled to vote. The deadline is for the membership form and fee to be at the Membership department in Cowley Street; if you want to join at the last minute, then do so online.

Confusion has arisen because elections conducted under the rules of the Liberal Democrats in England only grant eligibility to vote to members over the age of 10 who have been members for at least a year and who have renewed their membership at least once. This rule is an anti-packing measure, and applies to the elections of officers and executive committees of Local Parties, to elections of candidates for the House of Commons and the European Parliament, and to elections of Regional Conference representatives. It probably applies to elections of candidates for principal and parish councils and to elections for officers and committees of branches, but that has not been tested. It certainly does not apply to elections for Federal Conference representatives, or to the elections of Leader and President, both of which are conducted under rules established by the Federal Party, and not rules established by the State Parties.

Neither Scotland nor Wales have implemented such rules, so elections conducted under their regulations allow all members to vote, as do elections for officers and executive committees of the three non-GB local parties (Northern Ireland, Hong Kong and Brussels-and-Europe), which do not elect candidates for public elections for obvious reasons.

Finally, Associated Organisations (and Specified Associated Organisations) each have their own rules for eligibility to vote in their internal elections, but I'm not aware of any applying a minimum age limit or a requirement to be a member for a specific period; obviously LDYS has a maximum age limit.

Why Menzies had to go

2007-10-16T20:09:00.000+01:00

I'm just watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and the guy on it - a firefighter and not an obvious idiot - didn't know that Ming was leader, and clearly had never heard of the name because he couldn't pronounce it.

Sorry Ming, but having that total a lack of impact on the popular conciousness: not good enough.

Inheritance Tax dodge

2007-10-09T17:40:00.000+01:00

Darling's inheritance tax cut isn't much of a cut. By making it £600,000 for a couple instead of £300,000 each, all he has done is to hugely simplify financial arrangements for people.

Before today, your will could place all of your assets in a trust, with your spouse getting a life interest in those assets. When your widow died, the trust would end, passing on your assets to your children. In effect, this meant that the couple got two inheritance tax allowances, as long as they wrote their wills correctly.

Now, conventional "mirror wills" will have the same effect as the fancy trust wills. The losers here are the tax-avoidance lawyers who charged £1,000 a time for setting up a pair of fancy wills; you can now use a normal lawyer and pay only a hundred or two, or even draw up mirror wills yourself if you have fairly straighforward beneficiaries (eg split it equally between your children).

The winners are (the beneficiaries of) people who didn't expect to need fancy tax-avoiding wills, and therefore had straightforward ones (or no will at all), because they will get the double allowance of a couple without having to jump through hoops to get it.

Stephen Fry

2007-09-29T01:14:00.000+01:00

Stephen Fry has started blogging. Amazingly, there is now a blogger who writes posts - well "blessays" (aawww, sweet) at even more length than Alex Wilcock

Guinness Advert: Is it just me?

2007-09-28T20:54:00.000+01:00

Watching the England-Tonga game, there's a Guinness advert with black and white cartoon characters playing rugby. I might be being too sensitive here, but I read it as the good, white smaller team, against the bigger, black bad guys.

Is it just me, or is that a racist stereotype?

OK just seen the other advert, where the black team have the ball and score against big scary white players. Point withdrawn...

Why the European debate misses the point

2007-09-18T14:20:00.000+01:00

For some reason, when British people debate the EU, we never seem to debate any of the important questions. For example, the entire debate on the European Reform Treaty is about whether we (ie Britain) should accept it or not - well, and whether we should have a referendum or not.

Strangely, those in favour of the referendum / against the ERT have not adopted the slogan I suggested for them: "Nice is nice". Yet, that is what their position amounts to: let's have the Treaty of Nice, not the ERT. Indeed, I find it utterly bizarre that there is no meaningful debate about the kind of EU that there should be. How can you criticise the European Commission for being unelected and unaccountable - and then not propose elections and accountability?

If you observe the last 56 years of the EU - going back to the Treaty of Paris, it has essentially been a battle between two groups - the functionalists (and their neofunctionalist allies) and the federalists. You can take this all the way back to the beginning - Jean Monnet was the founder of functionalism; Altiero Spinelli the founder of federalism.

You can follow the links to wikipedia on the meaning of functionalism and neofunctionalism, but in the present EU they are essentially anti-democratic pro-bureaucratic forces. Functionalists have quite profound concerns about democracy itself; they think that a government that is too responsive to the people can be overthrown by populists. Examples like Mussolini and Hitler were frequently cited in the forties and fifties; the popular front government that Franco overthrew in Spain might well be cited by more right-wing functionalists. Isolating the people who actually do things - the executive, in effect - from the democratic parts of the constitution is a profoundly functionalist act within the EU context. If anyone has wondered why the Commission is structured as it is, then here is your answer.

I am, as I'm sure it won't surprise anyone, a federalist. A real federal Europe, with a democratically elected legislature, an accountable and sackable executive, an independent ability to enforce federal legislation, and so on, would antagonise the "powers that be" in the EU far more than any of the intergovernmentalist proposals of the alleged eurosceptics - even leaving would be better than smashing the Commission. My God, someone who didn't graduate from ENA might get some power! There might be a public debate about a Directive before the vote! That would never do!

If we are going to have a political debate about Europe, then the debate needs to be what kind of Europe do we want?

I don't know how to achieve this, other than for different people within the UK to propose different kinds of European constitution, but if we never get that debate, then we get driven back to what Ming has acknowledged as the question that the Sceptics ultimately pose: "Europe, yes or no" - a question to which "yes" can be the only answer, of course.

Insane censorship

2007-08-20T15:38:00.000+01:00

This is appalling. The Turkish Government needs to value freedom of speech much higher than it does, and protecting religious believers from hearing things they don't like a lot lower.

I hope that EU member states, including my own Government, will point out that this is the sort of behaviour that makes liberals like me very chary about admitting Turkey to the EU.

Trident and its problems

2007-02-16T22:25:00.000Z

When Trident was introduced, I was in favour. Unlike some people, I hadn't appreciated the impact that Gorbachev was having on the Cold War, and nor had I properly understood the complete lack of independence that the British deterrent has.

There is precisely one country in the world that Britain might reasonably wish to deter. That's the one and only country that what we laughably call an independent deterrent absolutely cannot be targetted at. (for the hard of thinking: the USA).

Terrorists are not going to be deterred by nukes anyway, and anyone else is going to be far more comprehensively deterred by the 20-odd American Trident subs, and the USAFs' B-52s and then there are ICBMs and probably more nukes I've forgotten.

So why do people want to have a weapon that will neither be useful as a weapon, nor as a deterrent.

And as for the Security Council seat? I'd voluntarily surrender that too, making the Council have 14 member instead of 15.

On secrecy and surveillance

2006-11-15T11:07:00.000Z

One point that is often made by those in favour of more surveillance is: "If you're innocent, what have you got to hide?"

I'm struggling to think of examples of things people would want to hide from the state qua state, but the state consists of people, and plenty of these are things that you'd want to hide from other people.

Businesses want to hide their marketing strategies and their business plans from competitors. In any negotiation, both sides - whether that's management and unions or one company and another, or a supplier and a purchaser, or whatever - are going to want to conceal their bottom line from the other side.

At the individal level, no-one wants their current employer to know when they are applying for a job elsewhere until they have an offer in hand.

There are also plenty of things that are morally dubious - not exactly "innocent" - but not criminal and not really of interest to the police, but which people are unlikely to want to be made public.

For instance, if you're having an affair, you probably don't want your wife to find out.

For instance, most customers of pornography don't want that to be made public, and even more so for customers of prostitutes.

For instance, lots of people and businesses make financial mistakes, and manage to pay them off eventually - generally they don't want to create a loss of confidence with their creditors until they are in a position to cover their losses.

You'll notice that the major secrets are financial and sexual - that's because money and sex are two of the most important things to most people - along with their own health and their opinions (political or religious, for example). Generally, a person's opinions are something they express publicly, so there's little to keep secret - though there are closet racists and the like - and your health is not in general something you can conceal, though there certainly are cases - for instance, would you tell your employer if you had been depressed in the past? Would you reveal it on a job application?

I'm trying to collect other examples of legitimate secrets; I think it's key to countering the authoritarian surveillance state that New Labour - especially John Reid - is trying to establish.

Remembrance Sunday

2006-11-12T17:52:00.000Z

Today, we remember all of those who have died as a result of war.

We remember the heroes who laid down their lives to save others, whether or not they won posthumous medals.

We remember the ordinary soldiers of all nations who died of the bomb and the bullet or of starvation and disease in the terrible conditions of an army on the march.

We remember the cowards who deserted and were shot - and those of us who have never had to go to war especially remember that we don't know how brave we would have been ourselves.

We remember the civilians of all nations who were blasted to bit in their own homes, or even in shelters where they thought themselves safe.

We remember the criminals who started wars or who commited terrible atrocities in the course of wars and were executed afterwards.

All of these we remember; we remember that war always kills people and few people positively want to die.

They shall not grow old,
As we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We shall remember them
(Laurence Binyon)

Montana results

2006-11-08T10:48:00.000Z

I'm reassured.

I've just gone through all the partial results for Montana on a county-by-county basis. My approximations are that (a) the proportion of precincts declared is the same as the proportion of votes declared in that count and (b) the remaining votes in the county will split in the same proportion as the votes declared so far. On that basis, the Republicans will close the gap by about 2,000 votes - but the gap is about 5,000 so I'm no longer as stressed. The only heavily-Republican counties that aren't 100% declared are Fergus and Meagher, and both of those are tiny. The rest - Cascade, Gallatin, Lake and Yellowstone - are 50-50 counties on their results so far.

Update 11:11 GMT: Less reassured.

My predictor now says a Republican lead of about 1,100. This is attributable to Cascade County's completed results.

Update 12:30 GMT

R lead on my predictor down to approx 900 (702 plus an estimated 200 for Meagher County where there are no results yet).

Update 13:00 GMT

Democrat lead on my predictor now 1,000 - Yellowstone county has come in with a slight D lead, where my predictor was pointing to a big R lead.

Update 13:30 GMT

All counties have now completed counting apart from Meagher. Democrat lead is 1,586 - which is more than the total number of voters in Meagher County. Congratulations, Senator Tester (D-MT).

US Midterm Elections

2006-11-08T07:12:00.000Z

I've been following these all night, as, I'm sure, have many other Lib Dems.

CNN have just "called" Missouri for the Democrats, which leaves just two seats to be decided in the Senate, and, while there are twenty-odd undecided House seats, the trend in that body is pretty clear.

The Democrats have won back control of the House of Representatives, which they lost in 1994. They have won a victory of near-landslide proportions. Getting on for one in ten of the seats have changed hands, which is amazing when you consider how many seats are gerrymandered to be safe for one party or the other. At the time I type this, CNN have 26 Democrat gains from the Republicans with 27 seats undecided. Essentially all the "undecided" seats were Republican in 2004, and all of them are 50-50. Assuming they split evenly between the parties, that's 39 or 40 Democrat gains, in a chamber of 435 Representatives. Like I said, near-landslide.

Turning to the Senate, which has been close all night, there are 100 seats in the Senate. 67 Senators - 40 Republicans and 27 Democrats - are not up for election this year. Of the 33 that were up, 15 were Republican and 18 Democrat (a reflection of the strong Democrat year of 2000). The Democrats have lost two seats: Vermont to Bernie Sanders, a Socialist, who will sit with the Democrats in the Senate, and Connecticut to Joe Lieberman, the sitting Democrat Senator, who lost in the primary election, but has committed to sit with the Democrats in the Senate. Lieberman is a moderate, so will not be a sure Democrat vote - but that was the case even when he was officially a Democrat.

The Democrats have gained four seats: Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and have held the other 16 seats that were up for election. The Republicans have successfully retained only nine seats. That puts the state of the parties overall at 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two Independents who are allied with the Democrats.

The two remaining states are Montana and Virginia. While Montana is very close, Jon Tester looks to have enough of a lead - 50%-47% with over 70% of the vote counted - that I would expect to see an official "call" made (the point at which the media organisations estimate that only one result is now probable) within the next few hours that the Democrats will win Montana.

Virginia is a completely different story. The official count shows that with 2435 out of 2443 precincts (polling stations) having declared their results, the election is insanely close. The Democrat, Webb, has 1,169,373 votes to the Republican's 1,161,739, a difference of 0.32%. Because Dick Cheney, the Republican Vice-President, has the casting vote in the Senate, 50 Republicans constitute a majority. Apart from Virginia, there are 49 Republicans and 50 Democrats (and allies). So the winner of this tightest of tight races gets to control the United States Senate. Virginia has an automatic recount if the result is within 0.5%. Guess what: 2.3 million votes are going to be counted again. And they're going to be scrutinised to within an inch of their lives. There are still those eight precincts to declare: two in Richmond City (D 72-26), one in Fairfax City (D 56-43), one in Loudon County (D 50-49), two in James City County (R
53-46), one in Isle of Wight County (R 57-41) and one in Halifax County (R 59-40). If there is any trend here, it's Democrat. Averaging those numbers out, the Democrats might expect to win the remaining eight precincts 53-46, which will extend their lead marginally, but is unlikely to be quite enough to get them over that 0.5% threshold.

I think it's unlikely that we'll see three or four thousand votes change hands on the recount, so my final prediction is that sometime in early December the Democrats will win Virginia's second Senate seat and control of the United States Senate - and therefore both houses of Congress.

W: You're a lame duck.

Update: 10:11 GMT Two more Virginia precincts have declared, and they're the key Richmond City precincts. They broke D: 1,313; R: 588 so extending the lead to 0.36%. That will now come back down, but I'm now pretty confident of a Democrat lead going into the recount.

However, I'm starting to worry about Montana, the 3 point lead at 0700GMT is down to 1 point at 1000 GMT with only 15% more reporting - 70% to 85%. Assuming the 70%-85% tranche is representative of the 85%-100% tranche (which is likely), then there's enough momentum to hand the state to the Republicans.

Slowest Western Election in decades

2006-11-07T17:46:00.000Z

The USA has been following a doleful British trend of late - postal voting, or as they call it "absentee voting". I've recently seen figures that the normal proportion of absentee votes is about 5%, that 2004 was about 10%, but that it's expected to be 25% or more this time.

The rules for postal votes in the UK are that they have to be received by the Returning Officer by the close of poll - normally 10pm on Polling Day.

The rules in for absentee votes in much of the US are that they have to be posted on or before Election Day. This is a unversal rule for military voters using the Defense Department postal system (which includes their families).

This means that there are going to be literally millions of votes that are going to take days - maybe even a couple of weeks - to get to the electoral officers. Given that the American system is to make the official declaration only after counting all the votes (normally several weeks after Election Day), my prediction is that it will be impossible to be sure who will win in many races overnight. Unless the Democrats get a landslide of 1994 (US) or 1997 (UK) proportions, there is no way that control of the House will be settled overnight.

Anyone planning on staying up might want to reconsider.

Iraq Inquiry

2006-11-06T11:18:00.000Z

There seem to me to be three main things that we need to inquire into:

1. The process by which the decision was made to go to war in Iraq. This needs to include the questions about the intelligence and the use of intelligence on WMDs, questions about when Blair decided to press for an invasion - and how that interacted with Bush's decision, because some of the information that has come out suggests that Blair had reached his decision independently even before Bush was firmly committed to war.

In looking at intelligence, we need to be going back to the 80s when Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds and the Iranians, and to examine how intelligence looked at the disarmament process; UN inspectors and so on, because I think it's now clear, with hindsight, that the inspectors were more effective than even they believed they were at the time, and that intelligence underestimated the degradation of the chemical and biological arsenalsand completely missed the fact that Saddam didn't have anything left by 2002. The question of how that happened and what could have been done to prevent that mistake in the future is key.

2. The invasion and the proximate aftermath.

This should include both the military campaign itself, the initial occupation, the planning process for that - and a question of what went wrong, where the public sympathy from the Iraqi people was dissipated and how it could have been done better.

My view on the public evidence is that the UK and the US State Department both proposed a colonial solution, with the Allied forces seizing the existing reins of power, and then slowly removing the corrupt and the criminal officials, trying people, establishing the rule of law and establishing public order, and then slowly democratising.

I think there were some voices, above all the neocons - the Project for a New American Century types - that were calling for a total occupation, the replacement of all the political infrastructure by American/Allied occupation personnel, the commitment of a very large military to establish and maintain order and a large civilian presence to reconstruct Iraq and create a rule of law, followed by a rapid democratisation and then a handover of a reconstructed Iraq to the new government.

But, the dominant voice was, I think, Donald Rumsfeld, who saw maintaining Saddam-era institutions and personnel, even at a relatively junior level, as unnacceptable, but also regarded the price the PNAC people proposed as excessive. What he ended up doing was to propose the PNAC methodology and pace, but the State Department/FCO price and troop level.

Unsurprisingly, this was a disaster.

However, I wasn't privy to the internal discussions within the US and UK Cabinets on this, and I think we are owed the details of what really went on.

3. The ongoing occupation and the future

We need to know firstly where we stand; how much of Iraq has established order, how well is the rule of law operating, what kind of state is local government in, where are the Iraqi security forces up to.

Secondly, we need reasonable projections - which indicators are getting better, whch worse, at what rates, and what are the realistic prospects of turning the failures around.

Thirdly , we should look at the realistic options:

a) Reinforce the military in Iraq to enable them to establish and maintain public order more easily and to train the Iraqi forces more rapidly. Where would such reinforcements come from? Do we/the Americans need a more infantry-heavy military for these sorts of duties?

b) Keep on as we are and eventually hand over to the Iraqis - is this realistically ever going to happen? How long will it take?

c) Timetabled withdrawal / cut-and-run. Let the civil war happen, let Iraq get divided, then perhaps offer some reconstruction help to the replacement states.

d) Positive division: Publicly support self-determination for an independent Kurdistan, suggest a boundary between Sunni and Shia and help the mass population movement to get people onto their side of the border, then withdraw. This is nasty and would be seen as supporting ethnic cleansing, but may leave three stable states instead of one civil war. Opening up the boundary question in the rest of the Middle East will destabilise most other Governments, but given they are almost universally nasty dictatorships, is that necessarily a bad thing?

even on ordinary nights, the number of cars burned often reaches 100.

2006-10-30T02:42:00.000Z

Can this be right? (click on title)

Is this normal in any city other than Paris?

What is going on in France?

And people wonder why rape convictions are hard work..

2006-10-26T18:24:00.000+01:00

This is scarcely believable.

I thought attitudes like that went out with the ark.

I'm pleased to see so many Muslims sticking their necks out to disagree with this idiot - and I hope to hear that he will be forced to resign over this.

North Korea has a nuclear test

2006-10-10T10:04:00.000+01:00

So, is Japan a nuclear power now, or not?

Bets?

How to fund a political party

2006-03-23T21:36:00.000Z

I note that there has been a certain amount of discussion on this subject of late, in the light of revelations about Labour being funded by some decidedly dodgy-looking loans.

Political party funding has always been a controversial subject; this isn't new, and election campaigns have always been expensive exercises. I'm not going to write an essay on the history of electoral campaigning and the funding thereof, but suffice it to say that money has always been spent in quantity on elections, and that the concept of funding parties through membership subscriptions and jumble sales was never anything to do with the real world.

So where have parties got money from in the past? Mostly, rich individuals with something to gain - either personally wealthy candidates, or donors who got honours, or government contracts. Remember that Lloyd George, as well as selling peerages, funded himself through contract bribes and insider trading. Occasionally, funds have come more openly from businesses, from trades unions, and even occasionally from a mass membership. But the last is very rare indeed - few political parties have enough members to make any impact.

The proposal that is widely bandied about is state funding. Of course, we already have state funding of political parties, in the form of Short and Cranbourne money, as funding for group officers and political assistants on local councils, in the office costs allowance for elected parliamentarians, and in policy development funds. But most of that money comes with strings attached - the one major string in most cases is that it can't be spent on campaigning.

But there are major objections to state funding of political parties.

First, it's clearly unfair for all parties to be funded the same, as tiny minority parties would then get loadsamoney. Other allocation schemes proposed are either mechanical based on votes cast - which will trail public opinion, probably quite badly (imagine how much money the Tories would have been getting in 1996, based on the 1992 General Election, but when they were about to lose in a landslide), or are going to involve subjective measures, or opinion polls. Any measure that takes into account numbers of elected representatives faces both the distortion of the FPTP electoral system and the further distortion of the huge variations in council seat sizes from one council to the next. Coming up with a scheme for allocation that is widely regarded as fair is going to be challenging to say the least.

Second, many people will object to their taxes being put to this use. Hostility to politicians isn't new - That Was The Week That Was is 43 years ago, and the sentiment is older than that - but it is relatively strong at the moment, and many people's antipathy is going to make them very annoyed to see some of their taxes going into political parties' coffers. Some extreme parties are going to provoke even more radical reactions. It's traditional to mention the BNP at this point, but it's not hard to devise schemes to avoid giving significant money to a party with negligible elected representation. But in Northern Ireland that just doesn't apply - Sinn Fein will inevitably gain a great deal of funding, as will the DUP. And there are very few people who will be comfortable with their taxes going to both Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams.

Parties just having less money simply isn't a credible option - they will just come up with "soft money" deals like in the USA, where an arms-length body gets the money. Soft money also creates a problem in that it - by definition - doesn't go into the official structures of the party, which means that it increases the power that a clique of power-brokers have and weakens that mass membership's power.

My solution is this:

When people pay their income tax (ie on their P60 at the end of each year, if they pay by PAYE, or on their tax return if they have one) taxpayers can choose an accounting unit of any registered political party to receive an amount equivalent to 0.1% of the taxpayer's taxable income. If they don't choose to direct money to a political party, then the money goes into the General Fund, the same as the rest of their tax.

A 0.1p income tax should raise about £350m, but I expect a majority of the population to decline to hand the money over to any party, so I reckon we're looking at about £30m per party per year, which is a serious amount of money in party terms, and would mean that regulations to stop parties getting vast wodges of dosh from individual donors would have a chance of being effectively enforced.

The benefits I see:

No-one is compelled to contribute
No-one can see their money given to a cause they oppose
Money goes to party directly, to appear in public accounts and where the party's internal democracy can determine what happens to it.
Putting the money in the hands of accounting units means that people can make their donation to a local party body - a constituency, or a local council, or a region, or whatever, instead of all money going to the centre. This should prevent the centralising effect that you would expect from more conventional state funding.

Some necessary tweaks (the small print, if you like): Taxpayers would be entitled to either appear on a list of donors that the accounting unit recieves along with its cash, or not. The amount they donated would not be revealed. The total number donating to each accounting unit would be public, as would the amount donated. Obviously, parties could have internal transfer processes to move money into poorer areas, or not.

Why not privatise the Royal Mail

2006-03-07T07:55:00.000Z

Just realised that my original post on this didn't explain why we shouldn't just privatise the Royal Mail - I very carefully explained that selling any shares would either be tantamount to privatisation, or else they wouldn't sell, and then didn't say what was wrong with privatisation in the first place.

Firstly, if our policy is to be privatisation of the Royal Mail, then the case for privatisation has to be made openly and publicly, rather than simply be a consequence of a motion that is passed for other reasons and argued on some other basis. I don't think it's right to commit the party to effective privatisation of the Royal Mail without Conference knowingly voting for privatisation.

Secondly, Royal Mail letter delivery is a natural monopoly. This is because of a very ingenious scheme devised by a Mr. Rowland over a century and a half ago. In the modern delivery sector, it's known as the USO - the Universal Service Obligation. The rule is that the Royal Mail is obliged to deliver to every address in the country at the same rate and cannot offer discounts to that rate based on the location of either the sender or of the addressee.

Without USO, delivery prices would be based on cost, which would competitively drive down prices in urban areas, and drive up prices in rural areas, especially in remote regions such as the Scottish Highlands and Islands. If you don't believe me, check out courier prices, which is a genuinely deregulated market.

The monopoly on letter delivery (which is enforced by requiring anyone other than the Royal Mail to charge a minimum of £1 per item) is natural, in that there is an expensive infrastructure that would be very costly to duplicate for a competitor. The simplistic solution of removing the monopoly, but simultaneously imposing the USO on any competitor wishing to move into the same market, would result in no competitor entering the market - the Royal Mail has a large, expensive, fully amortised infrastructure, and any competitor would need to build one from scratch and would then have to pay for the financing costs, while simultaneously needing to undercut RM to build market share. It's only interesting if you can drive RM out of the market and then raise prices to take a large monopoly rent once you own the market yourself.

Is there really a big infrastructure cost? Yes: post boxes, and the delivery network. The sheer number of postmen is huge, and would cost a fortune to recruit. The rest of the network is equivalent to something the couriers already have, but just on a much bigger scale; still, they certainly could scale up the sorting/processing function. It's also massively inefficient to have multiple delivery networks. With letter post, you really do need to have a postman passing every delivery point every day; with couriers, you only need a van down a given road once a week or so. Change that to vans of two or three different companies sharing that demand and it's fine; change to two or three postmen and you're paying two or three times the infrastructure cost.

OK, so it's a monopoly. Private monopolies are a problem; they seek to obtain monopoly rent and to turn that into profit. With barriers to entry on the scale of the USO/postal service, any private monopoly could easily raise letter prices significantly to take a large monopoly rent.

So we have the option of scrapping the USO, which would make for cheaper postal services in urban commercial areas (where each delivery point is getting a sackful daily anyway), not much difference for suburban areas, and increases for rural areas, with big increases for genuinely remote areas as they lose the cross-subsidy.

Or we have to accept the natural monopoly that is implicit in the USO and cross-subsidy. If we accept that, then our options are a regulated private monopoly, a public sector operation, or a third-sector public-interest corporation.

The arguments against the pure public-sector operation, in an area where a profitable business is possible, are manifold. The two principal problems are political interference in commercial decisions, and the public sector's tendency to take out all the profit and not leave in enough for reasonable infrastructure investment.

The arguments against a regulated private monopoly are more to do with regulatory capture, and the perennial struggle against monopoly rent in a case where ultimately the important business decisions are being made by a regulator which is inevitably not in possession of the full facts, as the business will be continually arguing for ever higher stamp prices and bending every rule in sight to get them.

Public-interest corporations, well-designed, do not have the incentives for monopoly rent that the private sector does - there is neither dividend, nor any possiblity of senior management directly benefitting through stock options, or even large salaries.

Now, if it's a pure staff co-operative, without customer involvement, then there is a risk of taking monopoly rent to finance excessive staff levels and over-generous salaries and benefits. A customer co-operative, like the mutual model for building societies and the likes of the Co-operative Retail Society and the Co-operative Bank, should avoid the worst of that model, though there may still be a tendency to a bit of excess fat in a non-competitive environment.

Anyway, that's the case on ownership models proper, that I failed to make in the previous post.

Privatising the Royal Mail

2006-03-06T21:17:00.000Z

This motion we passed in Harrogate was not clever, but it wasn't a straight privatisation either. Mind you, not that is matters - the media and the other parties will talk endlessly about privatisation in any case.

I can understand the desire to raise some large chunk of money to try to save local post offices, but there are two essential weaknesses in selling off a minority shareholding in the Royal Mail to do so:

The sell-off gets in capital money, not revenue, and the Post Office network needs money every year, not a one-off infusion of cash.
Either the minority shareholding will mean that the Royal Mail is a commercial profit-taking business, in which case we might as well have privatised it in the first place, or the co-operative/state sector 51% will be able to resist short-term profit-taking pressures, in which case the shares won't be worth anything and we won't raise the money we want to.

What we should have proposed is to turn the Royal Mail into a third sector public-interest corporation. Whether that should be a workers' co-operative, a customers' co-operative, a trust or some new legal status, either created specifically for the purpose, or made generally available to other third-sector corporations is the sort of question that the high-powered working group should have been working on. But there are too many economists and financiers on this group for me to regard the idea that 51% is still state/co-operative owned as anything other than an attempt to convince conference representatives into supporting privatisation without realising that is what they were doing.

If we feel that an injection of cash from the Royal Mail will turn the Post Office network back into a profitable business, then bonds could be issued on the open market on behalf of the Royal Mail corporation before it is separated from the public sector, with that money turned over to the Post Office. If a more long-term revenue stream is wanted, then give a chunk of the RM shares to the PO – that would create a long-term stream of revenue. Obviously, if the money is to be directed to unprofitable sub-post-offices, then it would need to be done through a trust mechanism, rather than directly to the top-line of POCL.

Beyond Gay Marriage

2006-03-06T17:37:00.000Z

This post was transferred from my original blog

This is an attack on polyamory. I'm not poly, but I have many friends who are. The entire argument seems to be that it will negatively affect the upbringing of children:

"Once the principles of monogamous companionate marriage are breached, even for supposedly stable and committed sexual groups, the slide toward full-fledged promiscuity is difficult to halt."

My entire reaction to that is: So What? It might mean more promiscuity, but I think you need to prove there's something wrong with promiscuity.

"Polyamory websites are filled with chatter about jealousy, the problem that will not go away."

So is nearly any discussion of monogamous marriage.

"Once monogamy is defined out of marriage, it will be next to impossible to educate a new generation in what it takes to keep companionate marriage intact."

Companionate marriage is, itself, a deeply unstable institution. Economic, arranged marriage, is stable - as long as expectations are low enough. Though it's well worth remembering that the arranged marriage era is also the era of the formally established official mistress.

Fish Swim

2006-03-06T17:34:00.000Z

This post was transferred from my original blog

Fishing is a big environmental problem for a reason that can be summed up in two words:

"Fish Swim"

I know it sounds silly, but bear with me.

National waters are those within 12 miles of the nearest shore, and belong to the same nation as that nearest shore. Beyond that, out to 200 miles, is the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), which is not national territory (so ships of any flag can travel through EEZ waters even without the consent of the country). In the EEZ, the country can regulate economic exploitation of the resources of the sea - ie fishing and offshore oil.

The problem is:
Nations regulate fishing in their EEZ to preserve fish stocks The fish swim out of the EEZ and get caught by fishermen of a different country
The nation then has to reduce fishing even more Fishermen get pissed off because they can't fish and people from other countries can. Fish stocks still decline. This makes regulating fishing extremely difficult. Even worse is that most fisheries extend outside of EEZs altogether, which means that exploitation can't be restricted - sure, national governments can restrict landings in their ports, but you only need one country not to have limits.

I'm not proposing a solution here, just explaining why fisheries policy is such a nightmare.

The EU can reasonably set policy for the Baltic and Irish Seas (The Russian EEZ in the Baltic is tiny). But it needs to negotiate with Norway for the North Sea and with at least Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the USA for the North Atlantic. And parts of the North Atlantic are completely outside of the EEZs.

So, even if the CFP was fixed instead of being a shambles, it still wouldn't work!

A fishery: the range of a single species of fish, or the combined ranges of several species where they overlap and get caught together (so if one species only covers areas A and B and another covers B and C but anyone fishing in B will catch both and can't just catch one or the other, then A B and C form one fishery).

Michael Crichton talks sense

2006-03-06T17:09:00.000Z

This posting was transferred from my original blog

On the environment as it happens. Crichton isn't always the most profound thinker, and I know that historically his research has turned out to be interesting rather than 100% accurate, but the basic concept here is sound. The problem that environmental scientists have is the same one that evolutionary scientists have: they're not prepared to say anything that confronts the orthodoxy because there are so many people who will jump on it to claim something that is driven by non-scientific motives.

For the environmental scientists, their opponents are driven by commercial motives. For instance, if you acknowledge that all we have on climate change at the scales we're looking is a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, and a correlation between CO2 emissions and CO2 levels in the atmosphere, that we have no certain knowledge of the feedback effects and that it's entirely possible that we could be headed for another ice age, not a major temperature rise, then the combustion industries (oil, motor vehicles, and air transport above all) will jump on this and say "we don't know, so let's not worry about it and carry on buyng our stuff". The problem is that lack of proof of danger is seen as proof of safety, where what you really have is cause for concern.

For the evolutionary scientists, the opponents are religiously driven, and I'm sure that this is what has hardened evoluntionary science from "this is the best explanation that fits the evidence we have" to "this is as well-proven as gravity". It's about as well-proven as Einsteinian General Relativity, so while the latter is technically true, it gives off completely the wrong implication (viz. that it's as solid as things going down when you drop them, rather than there is no solid evidence to the contrary, fits all the available evidence and no better explanation has been offered). The other point is that evolutionary scientists regularly get pissed off by Christians trying to argue Intelligent Design in a completely non-scientific manner. So they get intolerant in return and end up with a quasi-religious belief in evolution.

What this goes to prove is that the scientific mindset is hard and is not really natural. Prejudiced, emotional responses are much more natural to the human being. Popperian philosophy (believe nothing, disbelieve only that which you have completely disproven) is, while necessary to science, something that few can maintain.

European Constitution

2006-03-06T16:54:00.000Z

This posting was transferred from my original blog

Well, that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?

Having one, that is.

What does a constitution (of a federal body) do?

It:

Defines the institutions of the federal government.

Defines the powers of the member governments and the federal government.

Enumerates the rights of the people.

and does the basic things that all constitutions must do, that is technicalities like how to amend the constitution and how to resolve disputes on interpretation.

It also should be short and simple enough that you can hold the basic structure in your head and so find the bit you're looking for quickly. Indeed serious constitutional scholars should pretty much know the whole thing verbatim.

Just compare the Constitution of the United States of America:

Constitution
Amendments

It's not well laid out, in that it could really do with Articles I.8, I.9 and I.10 separating out into their own Article covering the powers of the federal government as a whole.

It also does not make clear that interpretation of the Constitution is reserved to the Federal Courts and so ulitmately to the Supreme Court of the United States.

But the whole thing is short enough that you can flick through it and find the bit you're fishing for in no time at all.

Compare:

First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

to:

Article II-10: Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. The right to conscientious objection is recognised, in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of this right.
Article II-11: Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
Article II-12: Freedom of assembly and of association
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association at all levels, in particular in political, trade union and civic matters, which implies the right of everyone to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his or her interests.
2. Political parties at Union level contribute to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union.

And the right to petition is somewhere in Title I

Now that Constitution is a bit unwieldy, and seems to be mostly descriptive rather than prescriptive (that is, it describes the institutions that we already have, rather than creating new ones) but it's still a Constitution. But it has the problem that the EU always has. It's souless. It's OK, but who's going to fight for the right of conscientious objection to be constrained by national law? You're asleep already.

Put the soul back in. Make the language sing. Give me the European Idea. And I'll win you a referendum. But don't ask me to fight for a fudge. I might fight for fudge, especially Thornton's fudge, but not for this political fudge. Give me something magnificent!

A hereditary monarchy?

2006-03-06T16:47:00.000Z

This posting was transferred from my original blog

Worth pointing out that we don't actually have a hereditary monarchy. Since William I, succession by the hereditary heir is not really that common:

Not the hereditary heir to the previous king:
William I, William II, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, Henry IV, Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VII, William II/Mary II, George I, George VI (12)
Took over while a previous king was still alive:
Edward III, Henry IV, Edward IV, William II/Mary II, George IV, George VI, Elizabeth II (7)
Didn't take over on death of previous king, but had to wait:
Charles II (1)
Total with "dodgy" successions: 17

Heir succeeding on death of previous monarch:
Richard I, John, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Richard II, Henry V, Henry VI, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I, James II, Anne, George II, George III, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, Elizabeth II (24)

So that's 23-16 in favour of the hereditary succession in neat order (Elizabeth II is in both categories in that she succeeeded George VI conventionally, but Edward VIII was still alive on their coronations).

Hardly the overwhelming victory for the hereditary principle that you might anticipate from some people's rather prejudiced views of history. Admittedly, I do get some help from the Normans (five successive kings without a conventional succession), but it's still only 2:1 in favour of the hereditary principle if you start from Henry II instead of William I.

Elective Monarchy

2006-03-06T16:26:00.000Z

This posting was transferred from my original blog

Drafted up as a motion to Lib Dem Conference...

Elective monarchy
Conference notes:
1. That all four countries of the United Kingdom have ancient traditions of elective monarchy.
2. That the Act of Succession (1707) establishes that monarchs rule only by consent of the people
3. That each new monarch requires a new grant of that consent through the procedureof acclaim at Coronation.
Conference believes:
1. That acclaim is an outdated and undemocratic means of establishing popular consent.
2. That popular consent to constitutional change is best determined through referendum.
Conference calls for:
1. At the end of a monarch's reign, a referendum should be held, prior to the coronation, on the single, yes/no question of whether the heir in the line of succession should assume the throne. If the heir is rejected, then a second referendum should be held offering alternative candidates for monarch, and also several types of republic. This election should be counted by the Alternative Vote.
2. Procedures should be established in advance for nominating candidates for monarch (including members of the Royal Family) and for deciding which republican options should be offered to the public.
3. The heir to the throne should act as head of state with the title of Prince(ss) of Wales until the referendum(s) are completed and a new Head of State (whether monarch or president) is in place.