There are two ways to take this little snippet of news:
The average pay gap between men and women continued to decline last year, falling by 0.4 percentage points, but still leaving a 12.2 per cent difference, according to the Office for National Statistics.
If that gender pay gap is something you worry about then that is good news: it's getting smaller. As it has been for decades. You can also complain about it, as some did:
A spokesman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “The improvement in the gender pay gap is something to be welcomed and we hope this trend will continue.
However, he added: “If this rate of decline continues it will be another 17 years before women and men will be earning equal pay."
But then I would also say that this was good news for those who worry about the gender pay gap. Only 17 years to close something which has been with us for millennia? How wonderful that is in this world that is simply getting better by the day!
But beneath that snark and flippancy there is a much more important point. Solutions and corrections to the perceived problems of said world do not pop up overnight. Even if we hit upon the magic set of actions they still take time to work through society. So the call to action should not be based solely upon the existence of a problem: it should be based on whether that problem is already in the process of being solved or not before we insist on yet more actions to solve it. So it might be with these gender pay gap figures: whatever it is that we needed to do we've already done, the problem will be gone in a couple of decades and Hurrah! let's go and worry about something else.
We might apply the same logic to other problems: recent decades, those recent decades of that hated globalisation and "neo-liberalism", have seen the greatest reduction in human poverty in the history of the globe or our species. Huge great plans to "solve poverty" are thus not needed: we just need to continue doing what we're doing, trading with our fellow humans as we have been and the problem will solve itself. We have, if you wish, already alighted upon the solution and simply need to carry on as we are.
This isn't, of course, a popular thought amongst those who insist that we must do something, now, to solve all the ills of the world but it is a general truism. Many of the perceived problems are already being solved it's just that time as well as solutions are needed.
Tony Blair's chances of becoming the first president of the European Council are reported to be fading fast. With the horse-trading culture of the European Commission, attention now turns to how the UK might be compensated for failing to secure the top job. The name of David Miliband was raised as a possible candidate for the EU's first 'high representative,' to encourage European countries to show more co-ordination on foreign policy, but the Prime Minister has said he 'couldn't be spared,' and was 'never a candidate.' Now the Evening Standard reports a story from Le Monde that Lord Mandelson's name is being considered for the post.
It would be a bold but controversial choice. Lord Mandelson twice had to resign his cabinet posts after allegations of impropriety, but was cleared of wrongdoing. He had enjoyed a successful stint at the DTI (as it was) and as Northern Ireland Secretary managed to win the trust of all sides. His spell as EU trade commissioner was also a relatively successful one, and with limited room to manoeuvre, he managed to work for generally freer trade.
It would be good for Europe and the world if the high representative were someone with a transatlantic perspective, and someone with a track record in favour of opening trade borders. The danger of Europe setting itself up as a 'counterweight' to the USA and Russia would be diminished if he were appointed. He is an accomplished diplomat and negotiator, and has shown himself quite prepared to back words with deeds when necessary.
His appointment would come at a bad time for the Labour government, and would be seen by some as a public acceptance of the defeat that everyone privately knows is coming.
Madsen Pirie has just published "101 Great Philosophers," summarizing the ideas of significant thinkers.
David Cameron has stressed the need for a cultural change in Britain, and indicated how big a task this will be. Nowhere is this needed more than in officialdom. A report yesterday told how a 67 year-old grandfather was arrested for using one swear word to a council official. Six days after the incident, police staged a dawn raid on his home at 5.35am, made him dress, took him to the station, held him in a windowless cell for 6 hours, took his fingerprints and DNA, and fined him an £80 fixed penalty.
Some might think this an excessive over-reaction, questioning the need for a dawn raid and detention over such an incident. Some might even suggest, as the hapless victim did, that maybe there could be more pressing demands on police time, given the volume of more serious crimes taking place.
What it does illustrate is the culture, both of council officials and of the police. It is indicative of the attitude of bodies which have ceased to regard themselves as public servants and instead regard themselves as masters. The culture of officialdom which engenders such incidents might be a good place for Mr Cameron to start…
There has been much discussion of David Cameron's proposal to enact a law requiring a UK referendum before any new European treaties can take effect. Obviously there must be also be some repatriation of powers from Brussels in areas where we feel our sovereignty is unnecessarily and unacceptably compromised, and the proposed law will do nothing to achieve that. But there are three vital areas which the Cameron law will protect from future encroachment.
There will be no unified European foreign policy without a new, post-Lisbon treaty. There will be no unified European army under European command. And there will be no Europe-wide system of taxation decided in Brussels and levied equally across the EU. Any of these would require a new treaty, and such a treaty would require UK citizens to assent to it in a referendum.
The point is that there are European politicians with such ambitions, people who want to turn the EU into a unified super-state to match the continental scale of the US and Russia. This is one reason behind the almost hysterical abuse heaped on the proposal by some European ministers. They have spotted, correctly, that it will put a permanent limit on their centralizing ambitions.
Much of Europe's progress towards "ever closer union" has been achieved, often by stealth, by the political class of Europe over and against the wishes of ordinary citizens of European countries. That will change once the new bill is passed, enfranchising British voters by giving them a direct say in any future moves. While the proposed law will not solve the problem of present and previous European intrusion into affairs that can and should be decided in Britain, it will draw a line in the sand, making it difficult for more UK sovereignty to be lost without the direct consent of its citizens.
What exactly are the powers of the European Union, whose Lisbon Treaty has now been fully ratified and will come into force in December? What policy areas is Brussels responsible for, and which are reserved to the Member States?
This is an important question for the UK and its next government, which claims it will repatriate certain powers to Westminster. And yet it is not altogether easy to find the answer.
The reason is that the powers of the EU have expanded far beyond those which most people – viewing the EU as primarily a trade bloc, which also co-ordinates its members’ actions on some necessarily international issues – would expect it to have.
Indeed, if you look at the original Constitutional Treaty (really just the Lisbon Treaty presented in slightly less tortuous and impenetrable language), you will see that the real scope of the EU’s powers is really quite extraordinary.
Brussels has ‘exclusive competence’ on five issues: the customs union, competition rules, monetary policy in the eurozone, conservation of marine biological resources, and commercial policy. Only the EU may legislate in these areas.
Then there are ‘shared competences’, where member states can act, but only if the EU has chosen not to. These include: the internal market, social policy, economic social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and fisheries, the environment, consumer protection, transport, energy, health and safety, and the ‘area of freedom, security and justice’. International aid, research and development and ‘space’ are also shared competences, but in these cases EU action does not exclude member state action.
There are also areas where the EU has competence to carry out ‘supporting, co-ordinating or complementary action’: the protection and improvement of human health, industry, culture, tourism, education, sport, vocational training, civil protection, etc.
Finally, the EU is also meant to make ‘arrangements’ for the co-ordination of member states’ economic and employment policies, and to carry out ‘initiatives’ to ensure the co-ordination of social policies. It is also meant to define and implement a common foreign and security policy, including the ‘progressive framing’ of a common defense policy.
To put it another way: almost nothing is reserved for member states, and the EU may take action in more or less wherever and whenever it pleases. And I'm pretty sure that's not what we signed up for...
As I was riding the tube a couple of weeks ago I noticed one of the “text" polls in the paper as I was thumbing through it. The question was straight forward, “Do you Trust David Cameron?" the results, while admittedly not scientific, were both astonishing and yet not surprising. An overwhelming amount of respondents, over 75%, voted No.
While your average bloke on the street could tell you that most people don’t trust Cameron it is surprising to me how much we would rather jump from one boiling pot to another instead of just jumping off the stove. It is a sad state of affairs when we vote for a particular candidate or party that we distrust because we distrust the other more. I believe that democracy cannot continue to survive if it is reduced to choosing between the lesser of two evils because it fundamentally undermines the purpose of the vote.
To a large extent political parties are responsible for this democratic failure by eliminating the need for individual beliefs in elections. Political parties may ultimately prove to be the end of government accountability to the people. Politicians realize that money means more than a happy constituency so they respond more to the party than to the people. Any individual with real aspirations to make the world a better place must first conform to the party standards if they have any hopes of ever reaching political office. This not only waters down the quality of candidates, but reverses the role of government from employee to employer of the people.
It is no coincidence that the countries with the most powerful political parties are the most authoritarian. Perhaps it is time for people to look outside the political box, and maybe we can find a candidate that is truly trustworthy.
So, after years of handwringing, it has finally happened: the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty has been fully ratified and will now come into force. The Tories say there is no point in Britain holding a post-facto referendum, because it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. The position is that when they’re in government, they will seek to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and repatriate certain powers from Brussels. The opt-out from the Social Chapter will be restored, and so on.
Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. As Fraser Nelson has written on the Spectator’s CoffeeHouse blog, it is more than likely that the EU will be kicked into the long grass as a political issue and that superficially attractive measures like the proposed Sovereignty Bill will be largely symbolic. Meanwhile the Lisbon Treaty will have created a federal superstate without any real constraints on its growth. Brussels will accrue more powers, British sovereignty will continue to ebb away, and the regulations and directives will keep piling up.
That, sadly, is the reality of the situation. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What we need is a completely different set of tactics for dealing with the EU. Polite negotiation will get us nowhere. We should simply repatriate powers unilaterally. We don’t want the Common Agricultural Policy? Fine, scrap it in Britain and withhold the part of our EU contribution that would have gone towards it. Want a real opt-out from the social chapter? OK, just state that no EU measure related to social and employment policy will have any effect in Britain.
The EU won’t like it. They’ll make a fuss and snub British politicians at gravy-train summits. The European Court of Justice will hold that we are acting illegally. But at the end of the day, who cares? The EU only has legitimacy in so far as we acknowledge its legitimacy. Like all matters of international law, the EU depends entirely on the consent of those bound by it, or the willingness/ability of some to impose their will on others by force.
To restate my case plainly: if the Tories want renegotiation, they must present their desired relationship with the EU as a fait accompli. Doing things the traditional way will get them nowhere.
If Guy Fawkes came back today and blew up Parliament, would we notice any difference? In a new briefing published today, ASI fellows Tim Ambler and Keith Boyfield say they're not so sure.
The EU writes our most important laws, and ministers are more accountable to the media than to MPs. New regulations, like those giving councils the power to search our homes and freeze our bank accounts, are never even debated. MPs vote as the party whips tell them, not as their constituents want. No wonder 80% of Brits think that Parliament has lost the plot.
According to their paper, Knaves and Fawkes, MPs keep themselves busy – and not just on fiddling their expenses. But much of their time is wasted on trivia, leaving them overwhelmed by the deluge of new law coming from Brussels and Downing Street. Parliament's founding purposes – to make laws, restrain public spending, hold ministers to account, and represent the public – now exist only in name.
But tempting as it is to blow up Parliament and sell the land to reduce the National Debt, Ambler and Boyfield say we should put aside the gunpowder, because these are vital democratic protections that need to be re-asserted.
However, nobody will trust MPs until they clean up their expenses act, and streamline their operation. Britain has 646 MPs while the United States, with five times the population, has just 435 Members of the House of Representatives. David Cameron's proposed 10% cut in MP numbers does not go far enough, believe the authors, who suggest a far more radical reduction.
And instead of spending hours discussing road closures and drains, the time devoted to both UK and EU legislation should be proportionate to its importance, says the paper. EU regulations should be more effectively scrutinised, and MPs should be told which of the annual 3,500 'statutory instruments' that currently go through on the nod embody serious legislative changes rather than trivial amendments, so that they can be discussed and voted on.
Ambler and Boyfield would strengthen accountability by making regulators like Ofgem, which sets gas and electricity prices, answerable to MPs, and MPs should be able to question civil-servants directly, rather than having to go through ministers. And Opposition MPs should chair the main parliamentary committees to ensure close scrutiny of ministers and officials.
As Eamonn puts it, "Parliament today has lost its power and significance. It should reform itself and not wait to be told what to do by Whitehall, Downing Street, or Brussels – none of whom would be sorry to see it go. Otherwise, they might find the electorate putting a large keg of gunpowder under them all."
The rise of the BNP can be charted from the depths of the 1980s through to the present. Wherever there has been a gain by the BNP the politicians have quizzically scratched their heads and wondered how it happened. If only they held a mirror in their other hand they would then be able to see who is to blame for turning voters into the arms of the BNP. These voters are the forgotten masses, in the 1980s it was those that felt rejected and let down by Thatcher's closing down of the mines and the general decay of inner cities. Now we see the indigenous population cast aside as the tsunami of New Labour's multiculturalism washes through the streets elevating others above them on a crest of the left's moral wave.
The third way socialism of this century is founded upon the proceeding thirty year's righteous moral competition: the smaller or more insignificant the minority the greater the sense of do-goodery to those championing the cause. If only the left could accept that the greatest way to elevate all from poverty is to accept the spontaneous and natural marketplace. The public space needs few rules to govern it as long as those meeting there respect and are spatially aware of those around them. Ironically Labour are merely reaping the unintended consequences of what they have sown over the past 12 years in power and the previous 40 years in the socialist nirvana of academe.
The rejection of the Labour Party by the British working class is a qualification of the failings of Labour's economic and social policy. They have forced people to become second class citizens in their own country and the bribery of increased benefits has been insufficient compensation. The majority of these new BNP voters aren't racist they are merely disaffected. They support the BNP because the BNP claims to put their wants above others. To solve this crisis the Labour Party have to reject all that they have accepted as gospel over the past 12 years. They have to cease their multicultural pursuits and end the lunacies of both the minimum wage and excessive benefits.
The Home Secretary has been displaying some rather statist behavior of late (see here & here). However, his latest attempt to stifle debate and research contradicting government policy is particularly authoritarian.
As a distinguished scientist, Dr Nutt has proven been unafraid to speak out about the findings of drug research. In this way, he has been able to provide the public with more information on the actual risks of illegal and legal drug-related choices. Yesterday's defense of his position is clear and logical, even if does not call for the legalization and medicalization of currently illegal drugs.
This is not the first time the government has ignored expertise on this matter. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' recommendation not to reclassify cannabis was contradicred by Jacqui Smith. Dr Nutt was also forced to apologize for remarks made comparing the risk of ecstasy to horse-riding. Lucky he did, else the government might have crimanalized that too.
What passes for debate and grown-up discussion of the issues of drugs is pitiful. It is only when the myths are swept away, that reasoned policy will emerge. Close-minded, hypocritical and cowardly; our politicians have a long way to go.
Tony Blair's chances of becoming the first president of the European Council are reported to be fading fast. With the horse-trading culture of the European Commission, attention now turns to how the UK might be compensated for failing to secure the top job. The name of David Miliband was raised as a possible candidate for the EU's first 'high representative,' to encourage European countries to show more co-ordination on foreign policy, but the Prime Minister has said he 'couldn't be spared,' and was 'never a candidate.' Now the Evening Standard reports a story from Le Monde that Lord Mandelson's name is being considered for the post.
David Cameron has stressed the need for a cultural change in Britain, and indicated how big a task this will be. Nowhere is this needed more than in officialdom. A 
There has been much discussion of David Cameron's proposal to enact a law requiring a UK referendum before any new European treaties can take effect. Obviously there must be also be some repatriation of powers from Brussels in areas where we feel our sovereignty is unnecessarily and unacceptably compromised, and the proposed law will do nothing to achieve that. But there are three vital areas which the Cameron law will protect from future encroachment.
As I was riding the tube a couple of weeks ago I noticed one of the “text" polls in the paper as I was thumbing through it. The question was straight forward, “Do you Trust David Cameron?" the results, while admittedly not scientific, were both astonishing and yet not surprising. An overwhelming amount of respondents, over 75%, voted No.
So, after years of handwringing, it has finally happened: the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty has been fully ratified and will now come into force. The Tories say there is no point in Britain holding a post-facto referendum, because it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. The position is that when they’re in government, they will seek to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and repatriate certain powers from Brussels. The opt-out from the Social Chapter will be restored, and so on.
The Home Secretary has been displaying some rather statist behavior of late (see