Let them eat cake!

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The Daily Mail (my guilty reading pleasure) has written that the best way to tackle the British obesity problem is to impose a ‘fat tax’, following a report by the World Health Organisation. Not content to vilify the smokers, it seems yet another organisation is calling on the government to bully us out of our sweet treats and force us to eat more healthily.

In my view the fat tax is a terrible idea. Government is supposed to serve society, not micromanage its eating habits. Although some of these reports give persuasive statistics on the projected reductions in premature deaths and obesity-related diseases, the fat tax would represent another nanny state intervention leaving the consumers worse off. An increase in the cost of food will ultimately impact the poor most of all, taking a greater percentage of their food budget than well-off families. Taxes should be paid by those who can afford it, but this tax would hit the poorest hardest.

Secondly, the role of taxation should never be to constrain behaviour. As Madsen argued in his book ‘Zero Base Policy’, the legitimate purpose of taxation is to fund the essential activities of government and to do so in ways that interfere as little as possible with the wealth-generating processes of the economy. Taxes shouldn’t be used to enforce the government’s moral priorities on the public, nor should they be used to penalise purveyors of junk food. After all it won’t be just the consumers who are left out of pocket, but also the kebab van man, the local takeway restaurants and small businesses who currently seek to address a consumer demand which may decline with government intervention through a fat tax.

In a free society, people should be free to eat and drink as we please. Our bodies are our property and not owned by the state. Some of my male friends seem impossibly thin whilst living on a diet of burgers and chocolate brownies, whilst others struggle to keep their weight under control due to a weakness for Starbucks and cheese. It’s not as easy as blaming the whole obesity issue on junk food, nor is it fair to make me pay out more to consume the saturated fats I so badly crave on a Friday afternoon.

The fat tax is fundamentally a tax on choice and in a free society, government should keep their nose out of our dietary affairs. If only they'd pay attention to the size of our wallets rather than that of our waistbands.

Don't get too excited by Professor Nutt

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The article on the dangers of drugs published yesterday by Professor David Nutt is a welcome development in the drugs debate, but I am afraid that it may be a false dawn for people who want to liberalize drugs. The crux of the article is that alcohol has a greater social cost than most drugs, and that certain Class A drugs like ecstasy are less harmful to users than legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol. This is welcome ammunition in the fight to liberalize drug laws, but relying on it heavily may leaves the pro-liberalization side exposed.

Most people know that ecstasy and the like are less dangerous than alcohol. To have a widely-respected public figure like Prof Nutt saying so, and being publicized widely in the media, is a very good thing and a step towards destigmatizing open discussion about drugs. This open discussion is needed so we can have a clear, level-headed debate about drugs and an acceptance that people must be free to make their own choices even if those are bad choices. The article is a useful demonstration that the dangers of drugs compared with legal substances are not clear-cut, and not something that the state should try to make blanket bans on.

The problem is that using expert testimonies like that of Prof Nutt is playing with fire. Yes, this article shows that drugs are not unequivocally harmful compared with alcohol and tobacco, but that is only a part of the argument for legalization – the other part being that the state should not make laws to protect adults from themselves. This is the part that is motivated by a love of liberty, rather than a technocratic harm reduction analysis.

The liberal side of the pro-legalization argument is fundamental to belief in a free society – that adults should not be treated like children. Many things carry risks and benefits, and the cost benefit analyses involved in choosing which to use and which to reject is a personal, subjective one.

My worry is that embracing Prof Nutt too closely will undermine the philosophical argument for drug legalization, and leave liberals and libertarians vulnerable to changes in Prof Nutt’s calculations about harm causation. I welcome this article, and I’m encouraged by the ripples it has made, but at best it is a small part of a much bigger argument.

Restoring lost liberties

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The foiling of a terrorist plot on Friday has once more pushed the issue of national security into the headlines. Apart from the direct security risks, a worrying consequence of this is the impact it will have on counterterrorism laws that are currently being reviewed.

There has recently been cause to question the Coalition’s commitment to civil liberties, particularly in regards to the existence of control orders. When the government appointed Lord Macdonald to carry out the internal Home Office review of counter-terrorism measures, it seemed that that it was showing a commitment to civil liberties – MacDonald’s liberal views on this subject are well known in Westminster.

However, recent statements from the Home Secretary suggest that the government is only listening to the concerns of the security services instead of those of the country and Parliament. The attempted terrorist attacks may have been given control orders a stay of execution.

Since the introduction of control orders in 2005 there has been much debate about their legitimacy. Their stated purpose was to restrict the movement of any kind of suspects, including British nationals, targeted by the Home Secretary – a huge infringement on our civil liberties. This raised serious concern about the growing power of the government at the expense of our freedom.

When the Coalition was formed back in May, one of the key policy areas that united the two parties was a commitment to civil liberties and to revoke some of the authoritarian policies put in place by the Labour government, including control orders.

Unfortunately, it seems that what was said in opposition seems to count for little in power. We can only hope that the cries for the abolition of control orders from prominent MPs on both side of the Coalition – notably David Davis, who has pledged to vote against their continuation – will help to restore some of our lost civil liberties.

Liberty’s poster boy?

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Is Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg slowly becoming Britain’s poster boy for liberty? His full participation in the UK coalition government’s drive to reduce the size of the state is heartening enough. And now comes news that Mr Clegg would be a suitable challenger to the state’s nanny-ish ways. On the BBC’s Desert Island Discs this weekend, he admitted to smoking cigarettes, going so far as to request a pack of smokes as one of his luxuries on that deserted island. While not advocating smoking, Mr Clegg was refreshingly honest in not declaring any intention to give it up.

It might be too much to expect Mr Clegg to lead any counter-revolution against the deeply entrenched anti-smoking forces within the government but his candour might encourage others to do so.

The beneficial budget implications from smoking are worth trumpeting. Between excise taxes and VAT, smokers contributed some £10.5 billion to HMRC in the last financial year, about enough money to keep the Home Office running. And then there’s the untold billions saved from pension and nursing care costs due to smokers’ shorter life expectancy.

More than this, though, is the libertarian case for smoking. As long as smokers are aware of the dangers from smoking and the externalities of their smoking are controlled, what business is it of the state to harass and bully this particular minority?

Smokers of Britain unite! Reclaim your right to start the day with a strong coffee and that first drag. Indulge that quiet satisfaction of the after-dinner cigar and cognac. Mr Clegg understands you for he told the BBC that “I can just imagine, as the sun goes down, sitting there with my beard flowing down to my knees, just puffing away at a cigarette.”

Yes, Mr Clegg is poised to free us all. A couple of years ago in another interview, he admitted to having had sex with some 30 women. Now, on Desert Island Discs, he admits to an addiction to tobacco while including Johnny Cash, Price, Radiohead and David Bowie in his musical choices.

That completes the sex, drugs & rock’n’roll trinity of true freedom.

The anti-smoking boondoggle

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A new report released today by FOREST (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), the smokers’ lobby, shows the extent to which the government has been funding groups like ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) and No Smoking Day and continues to do so.

In 2009 the government gave ASH £142,000. ASH Scotland received a whopping £921,837 from the Scottish government in 2009 and another £500,000 from the BIG lottery. ASH and No Smoking Day have both received up to a quarter of a million pounds annually over the last decade, and the ‘UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies’ was given over £3.5 million in 2008. Several other lobby groups have received grants of millions of pounds from the NHS to pressurize adults out of smoking.

Apart from the obvious waste of money involved here – does anybody know what ‘tobacco control studies’ actually is? – today’s report shows the alarming habit the government has of pushing people around to fit its own vision of what ‘good’ habits are. Every act has an element of danger and requires the actor to make a judgment about whether the potential payoff is worth the danger. Taking a tube to work is only different to having a cigarette in the judgment made by the actor. Everybody enjoys things differently and puts a different premium on long life – it is silly to suppose that there is a ‘correct’ option.

Furthermore, since we know cuts have to be made to government spending, is it too much to ask that the low-hanging fruit be cut first? I’m not crazy about many government projects, but I recognise that the cuts will hurt. As FOREST’s report shows, small but real savings could be made by abolishing the anti-smoking quangos to no loss to anybody. It's small change in the grand scheme of things, perhaps, but it all adds up and would end the practicd of forcing us to pay for ourselves to be 'educated' in how to be well-behaved.

Some people like oranges, some like apples, and some like cigarettes – everybody's tastes are different. This is obvious to most children but, unfortunately, not to the government. If the government is serious about restoring some of the freedoms lost during the Labour years and scaling back the state's presence in our lives, the anti-smoking quangos would be a nice place to start.

The case for privatizing marriage

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 The UK Supreme Court's ruling on prenuptial agreements should get us thinking about the entire nature of the marriage contract – and whether the state should be involved in marriage at all.

By a decisive majority of 8-1, the Court dismissed an appeal brought by Nicolas Granatino, the former husband of German heiress Katrin Radmacher, seeking a much bigger share of her multi-million-pound fortune. This prenuptial agreement was fair, ruled the Court. And that suggests in turn that prenuptial agreements now have some weight in English law, and must be considered – even though they will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

So here's the deal. We have laws about contracts. You can't just sign a contract and expect it to stick: it has to be regarded as fair. Contracts have to be voluntary, so if the courts reckon that one party has been more or less forced into one, or duped into one, it is voided. That seems quite reasonable to me.

Marriage, though, is a strange sort of contract. It implies all kinds of commitments – 'all my worldly goods I thee endow' sort of stuff – plus implications for state benefits, tax and suchlike. As such it conflicts with prenups, and arguably overrides them. Or, after the Court's ruling, does it?

For my part, I can't see what marriage has to do with the state. If people want to enter into a life contract, and that contract is reckoned to be fair – not signed under duress, not unreasonable to the weaker party, and suchlike – then they should be able to. The only role of the state is to enforce the agreement, as it would with any reasonable agreement.

It may be that the state could insist on certain minimum criteria in order for people to qualify for certain benefits or tax allowances. I have no problem with that. Being a bit of a statist, I wouldn't even mind if the government drew up a checklist of agreements that people could use as a template for their life partnership, accepting or rejecting each checkbox as they together deemed fit. The same conditions would be available to same-sex and different-sex couples alike. If you wanted to get married in a religious ceremony, though, your Church might require you checked a certain minimum set of agreements.

So that's it. The state might insist on certain contractual conditions, your religion might insist on others. Apart from that, your marriage agreement should be up to you. You wouldn't need prenups any more because your marriage contract would be literally that – a binding contract. Isn't that fair?

Drug laws kill

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The Evening Standard reports that cocaine use has fallen 14% this year (based on the number of addicts seeking treatment) due to dealers lowering the purity of their product. This illustrates a number of problems with drug prohibition.

The principle problem is the limit to regulatory oversight that can be exercised on the trade due to its illegality. This doesn't just mean government regulation, but the potent voices of consumer groups, the media, and competition, which don't resort to violent means. It is a testament to the power of the market that even considering the power of drug addiction, they have recognised the drop in drug quality and gone in search of substitutes.

Just imagine if the media could easily report on specific cases of drug dealers adding cancer-inducing substances to their products. Imagine if consumer groups could easily assess legal dealers, approving some, and destroying the bad ones through boycotts and low ratings, with addicts easily able to switch suppliers without the threat of violence. Imagine drugs sold with no risk to the dealer, no longer having to rely on the protection of violent gangs for a cut of the profits, but on the law. Coupled with the legalisation of prostitution, how would gangs, terrorist groups and sex traffickers then finance themselves?

The illegal drugs market is dangerous and flawed precisely because it is illegal. "Market failures" of low quality, even dangerous products, along with powerful suppliers with local monopolies enforced by violence, are all caused by prohibition. Without any oversight or the ability of consumers to gain information about the products they buy, dangerous substances will always be used to bulk out the powders sold. Without drug users able to come to the law for help, they will often become pressured and coerced by criminals who are happy to use violence instead of trading. It is remarkable that consumer pressures could have had an effect even with all these obstacles presented to them. The effects of the market with these obstacles lifted would be almost miraculous.

Who polices the police?

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The role of the police is to protect the public from those individuals who commit violence against themselves or their property. As the agency with the monopoly on the legitimate use of force in civil society, the police must be tightly controlled by the law to restrain this force. Thus, the content of a recently leaked report from Sir Paul Stephenson, the head of the Metropolitan police force, to the Home Secretary is particularly disappointing.

The report showed that Sir Paul believes the police should be shielded from legal action launched by the public. In the appendices of the leaked report, he called for the government to make it harder for individuals to mount cases against the police. Furthermore, Sir Paul also asked for a greater financial barrier to be put in place in obstacle to the public obtaining general information about the police through the use of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

Despite the cost to the police of fighting legal battle, it is the fundamental right of the public to mount such a case. So too are FOI requests, which give an open, transparent and accountable environment that allows the public to access information about the government that they are paying for. Though public institutions must cut costs, the costs of litigation against the police and FoI requests are cornerstones of our right to hold public bodies answerable for the decisions they make.

Sir Paul’s view of the protection from the law that he wishes for the police are disturbing. They come from a person who represents the police force – the foundation of our legal system. While the police hold criminals accountable for their actions, the police themselves must also be accountable to the public. Without this recourse to the courts, the current justice system would be even more illiberal than it currently is. Police must be answerable to civilians for their actions, and without the ability of the public to legally question them they are putting themselves above the justice system.

First, we take Berlin

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National stereotypes can have a basis in truth, but they can also be a lazy way of thinking about the individuals within a country. As such, it is always good to be confronted with a reality at odds with preconceptions, and my recent trip to Berlin did just that. Visiting bar after bar, I was struck by the sweet smell of freedom: cigarette smoke.

Not only are smokers tolerated, they are actively encouraged, with a polite message welcoming smokers affixed to many doors. Not all bars are smoking bars, but this is one of the joys of the system – smokers are also tolerant of non-smokers. Locals know where to go if they want to avoid the smoke, and where to go to avoid those that wish to avoid them. This is how a polite society functions. While most smokers in other European capitals have caved in under pressure from their governments, the Germans have simply ignored the legislation.

The freedom to smoke in private establishments has become a signature issue for proper liberals. It is one that we should continue to push, not because it is the most popular, but because it is one of the most flagrant attacks against the ability of people to choose the kind of life one wants to lead. Onerous government legislation combined with public subservience has dramatically undermined that most glorious of stereotypes: The freeborn Englishman.

In this country schools are indoctrinating generation after generation to hate smokers. A counterculture is being formed in reaction to the nanny state, which might in time subvert the statist status quo. But better to turn off the tap of hate, relax, and live and let live (or die for that matter). If not, we might as well be learning German.

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion...

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...and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

- JS Mill, On Liberty.

Geert Wilders’ trial in the Netherlands for allegedly inciting hatred against Muslims is a damning indictment of the state of free speech in that country. I strongly disagree with most of Mr Wilders’ statements on Islam – most of the problems associated with mass immigration could be resolved by limiting the welfare state’s privileges for migrants, and Mr Wilders also makes little distinction between his objection to the Islamic faith and to Islamic people themselves. This is unpleasant, but irrelevant. The law cannot pick and choose between the statements it likes and does not like, and nobody should be restricted from saying something simply because it is unpopular.

There are two reasons for this. The first and most important reason is a simple one of justice. Since Mr Wilders is not causing harm to anybody else by speaking critically of Muslims and Islam, it is unjust to punish him for his speech. The fundamental basis of a society in which people are free is the freedom of individuals to do what they want, so long as it doesn’t impede other people’s ability to do the same. The state steps in when those spheres of personal freedom inhibit each other. Clearly, Mr Wilders’ speech, irrespective of what he has said, doesn’t affect anybody else’s freedom of action. To violate the principle of free speech in any case is to disregard the individual’s sphere of private liberty and it should not be done in any case.

The second reason to respect Mr Wilders’ freedom of speech, even if you don’t believe in the intrinsic value of individual liberty, is that it would have highly negative consequences for society at large to disregard the principle of free speech. If the state is to judge the value of each statement on a case-by-case basis, it will prevent unpopular but potentially true things from being said. Few people knew better the importance of free speech than Socrates or Galileo: Arguments in favour of prosecuting Mr Wilders imply that the trials of people like these were flawed only in their use of evidence, not in their fundamental approach to speech. The truth is often unpopular, and the only way to ensure that society progresses is by protecting the rights of everybody to speak, no matter what they have to say.