Do shut up, Big Brother

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I'm not at all surprised to hear that government spending on advertising and marketing has risen by nearly 40 percent in the last year, to £253m. As someone who regularly goes to the cinema and watches a fair amount of television, I have to sit through a lot of this rubbish – and every time I do it irritates me. In the last year I've been treated to adverts telling me not to speed, not to drink and drive, to give up smoking and to avoid saturated fats. I have been advised to 'talk to Frank' about my drug use. I've been told to cut my energy use and recycle. I've been informed that studying maths is fun and that there is nothing more rewarding than teaching in a rough inner-city school. I've been warned countless times about how to avoid swine flu and how to spot someone having a stroke. I've been told by the TV licensing authority that "London is in our database" and "Evaders will pay". The Department of Work and Pensions has told me that they are spying on benefit cheats, while the DVLA has said my car will be confiscated and crushed if I don't pay my road tax on time. And then there's that curiously (and presumably unintentionally) erotic advert where the breathy-voiced woman says "sexually transmitted diseases are spreading fast" as, on screen, lots of attractive people grope each other. This stuff is simply infuriating – I don't want to be bombarded by messages from our crypto-fascist overlords while I'm trying to relax and have a good time. Nor do I want them wasting my money on a pointless exercise in Soviet-style self-promotion. Or as Mike Gannat, a former head of the Government Information Service, put it, "of course, it's a gross waste of public money". A couple of recent ad campaigns really take the biscuit though. The first, which involves a TV advert and posters all over London's public transport, essentially tells people that it's there fault if they become victims of theft, because they clearly weren't being careful enough with their property. The other is the advert below, which employs lots of celebrities to convince us that direct.gov.uk is "the nation's official website". Please excuse me while I throw up.

Buster's World propaganda

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A couple of weeks ago it emerged that Ed Ball’s Buster’s World – an education resource children "helps you find out about the world around you" – took the same name a fetish website. As the fetish site is top of a Google search for "Buster’s World" this resulted in many irate parents and embarrassed apologies from the Department of Children, Schools and Families.

Buster’s World – the government site, not the gay fetish porn website – is in fact a tool for political propaganda that any right thinking parent should keep their children well clear of. Of the games here are my top three to avoid:

Footprint

In ‘Footprint’ children are given the opportunity to find out much carbon they and their family are producing and how to stop it. Recommended especially for parents who want make their children feel guilty for being born.

Fair Shares

This is great for teaching children that without government, the whole world comes to halt through a realistic simulation of how a town works. For example, if one reduces taxes the words ‘Tax Level: Extremely Low‘ flash on screen. I managed to do awful job as in no time at all I lost with the message: “Oh no! People were very unhappy with the way you ran the DirectgovKids town. You didn’t get the balance between raising money through taxes and spending money on services. You made bad decision about the town’s finances.” the trouble is there is no private sector in Buster's World.

PM for the Day

Here your child will be free to choose between any of these policies:

Emergency Services

1. Increase the number of police on the beat
2. Increase the number of ambulances in hospitals
3. Invest in new fire engines and equipment for fire fighters

Education

1. Make the school day finish at 1pm
2. Make sure every school has a swimming pool
3. Give free school dinners to every pupil

Health

1. Ban junk food advertisements on TV
2. Raise the No Smoking age from 16 to 21
3. Raise the amount of tax on alcohol

Environment

1. Make all fur trading illegal
2. Ban all cars in town centres
3. Double the number of parks and nature reserves in the UK

Transport

1. Double the number of cycle lanes in the UK
2. Gives everyone under 16 free travel on public transport
3. Lower the speed limit on roads from 70 mph to 60 mph

Sport and Culture

1. Build more local sports centres
2. Bid for Birmingham to host the Commonwealth Games in 2022
3. Make all museums and galleries free to enter

Personally, I would keep children as far away from this nonsense as I would the fetish website

Buying and selling

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When I was 17, I gave a floor speech in a Cambridge Union schools debate against the motion ‘this house believes politics is an honourable profession in Britain”. Writing this now makes me feel old, but it couldn’t have been that long ago that this was a serious topic for debate.

My comments centred around the lucrative careers in the “private” sector that politicians enjoy on leaving office. Clearly one of the most lucrative of these is in lobbying, as Tory backbencher Andrew Mackay and, according to some reports, his wife Julie, know all too well. Having been forced to give back all that expenses money, they are apparently so desperate for new revenue streams that they are becoming lobbyists.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with lobbying per se – the right to petition the government is in both the British and American Bills of Rights. The problems arise only in our “mixed-market economy” where politicians have so much control over private companies - enough control that it is becoming increasingly harder for companies to succeed without lobbying governments. As PJ O’Rourke said – “when buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators”. Andrew and Julie Mackay prove the point only too well.

Mummy, what is that man Thomas Friedman for?

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Getting the wrong end of the stick would seem to be the correct answer. In his column in the New York Times, Thomas "Airmiles" Friedman, tells us that:

Banks, multinationals and hedge funds often hire foreign policy experts to do “political risk analysis” before they invest in places like, say, Kazakhstan or Argentina. They may soon have to add the United States to their watch lists.

He then goes on to say that this political risk analysis is all about how inflation might return, the currency crash, competitiveness erode....no Tom, that's not political risk, that's economic risk. Political risk is something entirely different.

Say, you invest in an oil and gas project in the Far East of Siberia, billions upon billion of dollars worth, and when you've started to pump out the fuels which will pay for it all then the government comes along and changes the rules on you. As happened to Shell on Sakhalin. Or similarly to BP with TNK. You sink hundreds of millions into a copper mining project having agreed the royalties you will pay and then when you've spent the money, when you're committed, the government decides to tear up the contract and impose higher royalties. As recently happened in Zambia. Or you spend $80 million prospecting for gold and are then told you can't lift it for "environmental reasons"....and when you try to claim back your $80 million under the original contract the government reneges. As is happening in El Salvador now.

That's political risk: that politicians will abrogate the rule of law, will violate the contracts they themselves signed.

As to why people might add the US to lists where they have to worry about such things how about this?

In 1995, when oil prices were very low, Congress tried to encourage deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico by giving oil companies relief from some of the royalties they incur for producing oil and gas on public land.......Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts hopes to put things right with a bill that would clarify the law and prevent companies from signing new leases in the gulf until they renegotiate the old ones and pay royalties that are due.

Now that BP has spent those billions and found oil 6 miles deep the politicians have them over a barrel (umm, sorry) and wish to renege on the deal. Or in our own sweet England, where we invented the very concept of the rule of law:

In an extraordinary ultimatum that has shocked some of the City's biggest companies, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) told bank bosses that 60pc of all pay must be deferred, with no exceptions, even for those whose contracts conflicting with the edict.

We're not even bothering with Parliament, just allowing a bureaucrat to provide that political risk.

Why might people be considering the political risk of investing in the US or the UK? Because the politicians in both countries have recently shown that political risk is something that has to be considered in those countries. The result being that just like every other country where there are such risks incoming investment will be lower and thus the people poorer.

Power 2010

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Considering the expenses scandal and a looming general election likely to be fought on gesture politics more than real vision, it is all too easy to become disenfranchised-from our political parties, the state of democracy and our country's governance as a whole. However, the Power2010 campaign seeks to shake up this apathy and get the public involved in the functioning of our democracy. Created by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it aims to find the public's 5 most popular political reforms, and asks all prospective MPs to adopt them as a pledge.

In September, Power2010 asked the public to come forth with the democratic reforms they wanted to see at the next parliament. The response was huge; over 4,000 proposals were put forward. These ideas were whittled down by a representative sample of the population, and any securing above 50% support are now up as a shortlist of proposals on their website. Until 22nd February, you can vote for the changes that mean the most to you. Following this, the 5 most popular demands will form the Power2010 Pledge. This will be taken to all those standing for election, with a request for their own pledge to clear up politics.

There are some great suggestions on the shortlist such as 'Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state', 'English Votes on English Laws' and 'Expand the Freedom of Information Act'. The only way to ensure that the ideas that appeal to you make the final pledge is to vote for them. The campaign has brought about ideas from people across all backgrounds and party ties, and by keeping the suggestions limited to ways of enhancing democracy there is little political bias.

The number of parliamentary candidates that will take up the Power Pledge remains to be seen, but the more that those who care about parliament's health support the campaign, the better. Making it clear to parties where the public stands on civil liberties and transparent government is perhaps one of the best safeguards against the situation disintegrating further.

Click here to find out more.

The Queen's anniversary

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Saturday marks the anniversary of the Queen's accession in 1952. I hate to say it, but as a constitutional monarch, she has been pathetic. Over her reign, she has allowed government politicians to accumulate frightening power. She has merely stood by as they cast aside all restraint, including the basic rights, liberties and institutions that were fought for precisely to protect us from arbitrary authority.

At first, of course, they were intended to protect us from the power of absolute monarchs. In time, though, Parliament replaced the monarch as sovereign; but these same rules worked equally well at restraining politicians too. Ministers knew that they were only the temporary custodians of the public trust; and that their power was checked and balanced by MPs, the civil service, and the courts.

Indeed, the monarchy itself became one of these balancing institutions. It may seem bizarre in a democracy that the monarch is notionally the head of the government, the church, the peerage and the army; but the reason we keep it that way is not so that monarchs can wield power, but so as to keep unlimited power out of the hands of politicians. For most of the time, our monarchs have had a better grasp of the mood of the people, and of the importance of their rights and freedoms, than have ministers: so this has proved a useful arrangement.

The key constitutional role of monarchs today, then, is to stop politicians from usurping power and turning themselves into an elected dictatorship. But the Queen – perhaps confusing the exercise of this role with political interference – has allowed precisely that to happen. With Magna Carta, the Queen’s distant ancestor agreed to fundamental principles such as our right not to be held without trial, and to be tried by a jury. Yet in her own reign (starting perhaps in 1971 with internment in Northern Ireland, but escalating fast in the last dozen years) these rights, and more, have simply been signed away.

The constitutional role of an unelected, hereditary monarchy must be limited. But it does have a constitutional role, and must exercise that role as a necessary counterweight to the otherwise unbridled power of an executive that – through its majority and its patronage – is in complete control of Parliament. It is time for both Palace and Parliament to initiate a genuine public debate on that role, and on when and how the monarchy should legitimately intervene to ensure that the rights and civil liberties of the people are preserved.

Reprinted from Dr Butler's new book The Alternative Manifesto (Gibson Square Books).

Fiscally conservative, socially liberal

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In recent years, David Boaz and David Kirby have authored a couple of papers for the Cato Institute on "The Libertarian Vote" – that is, on the question of how many American voters can be said to have libertarian views. On their own strict criteria, they found that 14 percent of those polled were libertarians. This is based on the following questions from the American National Election Studies surveys:

• Next, I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to your own views: ONE, The less government, the better; or TWO, There are more things that government should be doing.
• ONE, We need a strong government to handle today's complex economic problems; or, TWO, The free market can handle these problems without government being involved.
• We should be more tolerant of people who choose to live according to their own moral standards, even if they are very different from our own. (Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, neither agree nor disagree, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly with this statement?)

Only those who said "the less government the better", "the free market can handle these problems", and strongly agreed or agreed that "we should be more tolerant" qualified as libertarians.

However, Boaz and Kirby have also pointed to other polls using less stringent criteria, which found many more people with libertarian leanings. For example, 59 percent of people agreed that they would describe themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal" while 44 percent were happy to describe themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian".

Whichever way you cut it then, libertarians are clearly a significant group in the US. No doubt this goes some way to explaining the remarkable success of the tea party movement - some 23 percent of Americans would vote for a 'Tea Party Party' rather than the Republicans or the Democrats, according to a recent poll. But what kind of results would a similar poll in the UK come up with? And would conducting such a poll be worthwhile? I'd be interested to know what readers think.

P.S. Boaz blogged about the libertarian vote on Cato-at-Liberty yesterday.

The end of consensus on climate change

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[I]t is now clear that the majority of those involved in the IPCC process are not scientists at all but politicians, bureaucrats, NGOs and green activists.

Andrew Neil 'The dam is cracking' Daily Politics.

Libertarianism and the Conservative Party

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Mark Wallace on ConservativeHome argues that based upon British Social Attitudes Survey the people of this country are becoming increasingly libertarian. This would certainly be a welcome development, which if it were to continue would leave the Conservative Party in need of another rebranding.

At present, those in positions of power within the Conservative Party are not keen to be associated with the perceived radicalism of many in the libertarian movement. Cameron’s speech writers have many times built up the straw man of libertarianism in order to try to sell an alternative compassionate communitarian message. Perhaps for electoral reasons they have had good reason to do this (although Thatcher’s success rather questions the logic of this position), but they may be advised by changes in social attitudes to alter their message.

How then could the Conservative Party join up the gaps between its present position and libertarian ideas? As this thoughtful article by David B. Klein sets out, an understanding of Adam Smith would guide the way. Klein argued that “The communitarians should give more consideration to the Invisible Hand, that is, to the beneficial decentralized processes whereby individuals and families choose voluntarily for themselves". As Alexis de Tocqueville learned from his studies of America, when the country was somewhat freer than it is today: “Local freedom, then, which leads a great number of citizens to value the affection of their neighbors and of their kindred, perpetually brings men together and forces them to help one another in spite of the propensities that sever them."

From the welfare state, to schooling, through to regulations and on to almost every facet of government action, the state undermines the community. Cameron’s post-bureaucratic age acknowledges this, but as the new quangos pile up, it looks set to require a lot of bureaucrats to administer. The Conservative Party need to instead embrace the communitarian results of libertarian policies, and build a party that can deliver real radical reform to reflect an increasingly libertarian electorate.

Britain is no longer free

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It's official – the UK is no longer a free country. Well, semi-official, because the judgement comes from the independent Heritage Foundation, based in Washington DC, which has been compiling its influential Index of Economic Freedom for a decade and a half. It surveys 183 countries, assessing them on ten scores including business freedom, property rights, trade, government spending and corruption.

This year, though, after the financial crisis and the regulatory clampdown on banks, investment, and finance, both the United States and the United Kingdom have headed down the scale. By contrast, Switzerland – which is attracting financial firms and their high-flying employees away from the City of London – has been storming up the league table.

The most shocking news, though, is that the UK has dropped out of the top ten for the first time. In the view of the Heritage Foundation, in other words, it is no longer a free country. Well, we could have told them that. The Heritage experts say that it is not just a fall in the UK's financial freedom that explains its slippage. They blame high public spending and workplace regulations, which take decisions out of the hands of individuals and empower officials instead. That growing official power is one reason why the UK is slipping in terms of corruption and the respect for property when compared to other countries.

Sure, we are better than North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Eritrea and Burma, which make up the tail end of the Index. But in any index of free countries, it is a bit galling to fall behind Chile. Galling, but certainly fair.

Dr Butler's new Alternative Manifesto is available here.