Stand up for smokers

1969

stand-up-for-smokers

The Government is currently inviting responses to a consultation document on the future of tobacco control in the UK. It includes proposals to ban the display of tobacco in shops and outlaw cigarette vending machines. Forest, which champions the right of smokers to puff in peace, has created an e-card through which you can tell the nannies in the Department of Health to buzz off. It reads:

• I oppose the introduction of unnecessary regulations that will threaten jobs and small businesses, and inconvenience millions of consumers.
• I oppose the proposals to ban the display of tobacco in shops, and ban tobacco vending machines.
• I support measures to educate children about the health risks of smoking, but I oppose measures designed to demonise adult smokers.
• I oppose the stigmatisation of smokers and the erosion of civil liberties by Big Government.

If you want to send one, click here.

The politics of fear

1912

the-politics-of-fear

When Gary Glitter – former glam rocker and convicted paedophile – was released from a Vietnamese jail and deported, the UK government's reaction was comically predictable. Concerned that he might eventually dredge up on her patch, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced a package of 'tough' new measures on sex offenders. They would face more stringent police monitoring. Restrictions on their travelling abroad would be extended. They might even have their passports confiscated.

It seems that when even the humblest sparrow falls, the government feels compelled to announce some new initiative about the problem, and so convince us all that they're on top of it. What does it matter if they haven't bothered to think it out beforehand?

The UK's restrictions on sex offenders are already some of the world's 'toughest'. Do we really need to re-visit them again? Are ministers telling us they got it all wrong the last time? And since only 1% of offenders go on to commit another serious sex crime, aren't the current laws pretty effective? If it's 'evidence-based policy' you're after, that's pretty good evidence.

But of course it isn't 'evidence-based policy' that ministers are after. They are after two things. First, to justify their existence by introducing as many initiatives on as many subjects on as many occasions as they can muster. That's how Westminster careers are advanced. And second, to convince the public that they are on the ball. The trouble is, that by loading 'tough' measure on 'tough' measure, and 'tough' rhetoric on 'tough' rhetoric, they scare the public rather than reassure them. Paedophilia, yob culture, knife crime and the rest are no more common than they were decades ago. It's just that ministerial spin has frightened us into believing that they are. it's a game the politicians can't win - every 'tough' measure makes them look even less in control. Which is undoubtedly the reality.

Homeward bound

1864

homeward-bound

Implementing curfews seems all the rage these days in the United States. Last week a town in Arkansas ordered a 24-hour curfew for all residents in a neighbourhood struggling with high amounts of violence and drug dealing. Peaceable citizens passing through the neighbourhood in any form of transportation could be stopped and searched by officers under the mayor’s orders. Another recent curfew on teenagers was implemented in Hartford, Connecticut. Teenagers less than 18-years of age cannot be out and about past 9PM without a parent or guardian. 

Sure, these curfews are set up to protect innocent bystanders from being caught up in the violence on the streets, but at the serious cost of their civil liberty to move about freely. It is not the government’s job to decide when people are allowed to traverse their own neighbourhood or if they are able to sit outside to enjoy the summer weather. People should be able so make the decision for themselves when to stay inside when the risk of straying past their doorstep is too high. The government should focus on the individual criminals and preventing their ability to commit crimes instead of forcing all citizens to sit under house arrest.

Suffering fools gladly

1859

suffering-fools-gladly

This past weekend I spent my Sunday morning listening to a woman declare that all non-English persons living in London were thieves and plunderers. She identified Indians, all Africans and Italians for her criticism. Not only are these people not wanted in her country, but they also have no right to be here. I have never heard more blatant bigotry and racism anywhere. However, she wasn’t hauled off in the back of a police car, nobody from the crowd of thirty or so took her around the corner for a sound beating, in fact the worst that was thrown her way were a few boos.

This is the beauty of Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. It is acceptable to be a complete fool because it is your right to speak your mind. You don’t have to agree with what’s being said, just accept that it is a person’s right to espouse whatever they like. Even though I live in the United States and freedom of speech is taken for granted, as soon as I learned of its existence I knew I had to see the people on their plastic crates for the pure symbolism of the right to express what you think without fear of prosecution.

Time for something completely different

1843

time-for-something-completely-different

The black economy exists in almost every country. In the UK it is now estimated to be worth about £40 billion a year and run by 27 "Mr Bigs", many of whom are actually in prison!

Imagine, that this was actually a single company, operating legitimately within Britain and making a massive profit. The calls for windfall taxes would be increasing daily. But as it's illegal all we ask is that the state try those tired and tested methods of the past – tougher law enforcement and harsher penalties. Whether re-branded or re-tweaked, so as to seem new, they remain ineffectual.

Even though they are operating outside the law, criminals still pursue a natural human ambition: profit. As Deputy Chief Constable Jon Murphy, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), put it: "They will form loose coalitions, sharing their specialist skills in pursuit of the highest profit with the least risk."

The mainstay of all operations within this part of the economy is violence, partly because the returns are so high (due to the illegality and risk of their operations), but mostly because the rule of law has been supplanted by the rule of brute force. It is time for a new approach, one that could bring both revenue to the government and less violence to communities; there is a need to bring this world into the light.

The authoritarian drug legislation of the past 100 years has achieved little, except for criminalising many and driving others into a life of violence. We should be able to approach drugs in a mature and rational way – free from tabloid hysteria – and allow people to make their own informed choices. Unfortunately, it is far easier to pander to an historic, outdated view and perpetuate a drug war that criminalises millions and plunges thousands into a life of misery each year.

Batman is watching

Last night I went and saw the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. First off, it was brilliant and I recommend seeing it if you enjoy a good action movie. But secondly, many of the themes that I noticed reinforced some of the opinions bandied about at the ASI.

Without giving anything away, (and trust me if this was all there was to the plot, it would not have been very good) Batman uses cell phone technology to create a vast tracking network. With this network he can find anybody’s location using voice recognition and sonar technology (at least that’s how my minimal tech knowledge understood it). The point here is that Bruce Wayne created a system that could find and track anybody, which is somewhat along the lines of a Bluetooth experiment being conducted in Bath.

Now it made me wonder, is it acceptable for the “incorruptible Batman", to use the words of the Joker, to monitor people in the name of protection and “good". Most certainly not, as his good friend and Bat-suit designer, Morgan Freeman, points out. So finally to my point: if Gotham’s saviour of the night, who performs his service in the name of ending crime and personal safety for all without any personal agenda isn’t a good enough authority to monitor ordinary citizens, what makes government more qualified?

They aren’t and they should take a page out of Batman’s script: no one should infringe upon citizens’ civil liberties of privacy in order to protect them. That is why expansion of FISA and an internet communications database are unacceptable and gross violations of rights.

Being civil to civil servants

1774

being-civil-to-civil-servants

The Times brings us the rather starling news that you can, when in France, be punished for insulting a civil servant.

The offence — which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a €7,500 fine — dates from Napoleonic times and is designed to protect “the dignity ... of a person charged with a public service mission". Behind the legalese is the belief that civil servants are the embodiment of a French State that deserves the respect and support of all its citizens. The number of prosecutions for insulting police officers and other civil servants has risen from 17,700 in 1996 to 31,731 last year in what critics say is an abuse of government power.

I agree that calling a policeman un connard (roughly, a stupid bastard) isn't perhaps the wisest of things to do, but making it a criminal offence punished by a month in jail for calling the Interior Minister a "bloody Hungarian" does seem to be going a little far. Insulting the President's mother might not be polite, but a similar sentence seems way over the top, as does a €3,500 fine for Gerard Depardieu for calling three HSE inspectors "jokers".

Leaving aside all of the free speech implications (where would blogging, indeed political commentary, be if such rules were enforced here?) what the law really betrays is a wildly different conception of the State. There it is something which the citizenry should not just obey but also admire. Here we have a rather different idea (however much it is honoured only in the breach). There are some things which both have to be done and have to be done collectively, with the powers of compulsion that are available only to the State. We thus contract that those things will indeed be done by said State but agree that it's a necessary evil rather than something desirable in and of itself, certainly not something to be admired in anything other than its effects.

Of course, we should be polite to civil servants, but this is a matter of manners not the threat of the law. We should be polite to all our servants, all those we employ: for as long as they do remember that we employ them, of course. As and when the beneficiaries of our largesse fail that test and start to think that they rule at anything other than our pleasure we're entirely entitled to call them anything and everything under the sun.

Given what said State has done to places like Glasgow East and other such sink areas over the decades connard, joker and bloody (fill in epithet of choice here) seem a little too mild actually.

A decently liberal move

1769

a-decently-liberal-move

The French government have just relaxed the strictures of the 35 hour work week and it's worth applauding this as a decently liberal move by them.

French workers were in mourning yesterday for their cherished but controversial 35-hour week, after Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right party pushed through an employment reform that effectively kills off one of the socialist era's defining policies.

The law, due to come into effect as early as August, will allow companies to decide how many hours and how much overtime their employees clock up every week. Instead of the current maximum of 218 days a year, white-collar workers could be expected to work as many as 235 days.

Sarkozy, who was elected last year with the campaign slogan "work more to earn more", regards the 35-hour week as a major drag on the French economy, arguing that those who want to work more should not be stopped from doing so.

That the law had an effect on the economy is true, but I don't actually celebrate its passing on the grounds that the economy will now improve. The economy, after all, isn't everything (despite what people tend to think about people like me). No, I raise a cheer because of the point in that last line of the quote: it's an increase in freedom and liberty, which are to my mind everything.

Your or my work life balance is something that you and I, as free adults, should, and must be allowed to, decide for ourselves. My choice has been to do light work as a policy wonk, a theory being the worst thing I will ever wrassle with. Others prefer longer working hours and higher incomes, there are those who decide that life without a beach and a surfboard is not worth living. To each their own and it's certainly not the business of government to insist that we should work some maximum number of hours, just as it isn't their place to insist that we should work some minimum (with the proviso that we're not claiming benefits, of course). Of course, we've still not reached the perfect level of non-involvement by government in such decisions, we've a lot further to go yet.

But I do wonder, as with President Bush's question about whether French has a word for "entrepreneur", do they have a phrase that means the same as "à chacun ses goûts"?

Knock knock!

1743

knock-knock

In the past 11 years, the government has come close to doubling the number of laws that allow police to enter your home without permission - and it's not as if there weren't enough of those laws to start with. No, the magic number now is 1,000, up by almost 420 in the last decade. 

That's right; there are now 1000 reasons that a policeman can give you and you will be obliged to stand aside while they remove your old refrigerator or check if you're illegally gambling.  Don't want the state barging in? OK, but be prepared to pay a £5,000 fine for refusing entry.

Parliament is set to approve 16 more such laws in the coming weeks. The Centre for Policy Studies hits the nail on the head with their major criticism of these laws; when police can demand entry to "search for non-human genetic material" or look for "undeclared carbon dioxide," it is impossible for people to keep track of exactly what their rights are.

After all, what the heck is "undeclared carbon dioxide?"  If I've been breathing more than normal, need I allow the police in? Does the mosquito I swatted last night count as non-human genetic material? If the police came knocking said they were looking for carbon dioxide, most people would have no idea whether they had overstepped their legal bounds. What's not so difficult to see is when the laws themselves have overstepped the bounds of reason, and having 1000 laws that allow the state into homes is definitely over that line.

When in Rome...

1721

when-in-rome

Don’t despair good Britons, your civil liberties may be impinged upon more and more every year, but it could be worse. Rome’s Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, elected in April is cracking down on common, everyday activities in the city centre.  A new law was passed that prohibits littering, graffiti, sticking up posters, sleeping, shouting, eating and drinking on the street, singing and selling merchandise without a licence.

Most of these make sense; littering and vandalism should be fined, and it’s probably not the safest thing to fall asleep in heavily trafficked areas. But not being able to sing or shout (how do you classify a shout anyway; does it only include angry shouts or are shouts of joy prohibited too?) in the streets or even eat a picnic lunch next to the Trevi Fountain seem a little tight around the collar. Not to mention the damage done to the merchants who go around selling flowers or serenading diners on violins. This new law basically criminalizes the tourist industry in Rome and ruins part of the pleasure of visiting the city.