Social starts shortly - 1 comment

I'm leaving for the B4L social shortly. Here's what to look out for, if you're coming too. Directions are here.

Sophistry on faith-based discrimination - 7 comments

I've come to this quite late, but I might as well set out some of my own views, for the record. To start off, though, Andrew at Wongablog has an excellent post on the Archbishops of York and Canterbury's defence of "individual conscience" in matters of sexuality-based discrimination. Here's a stand-out sentence:

I’m not criticising her [Ruth Kelly] because of her faith affiliation, I’m criticising her because her arguments make no sense. [...] But I wouldn’t say she’s not fit to hold public office - she gives every impression of being a very intelligent and competent woman, it’s just that the evidence seems to suggest she has a blind spot when it comes to faith-related matters.

I might have summarised the issue as simply as this:

Treating people differently on the sole basis of their sexual orientation is a clear breach of universal human rights. End of story.

A couple of supplementary points, though. Given that there are no limits on faith, and no mechanism through which they can be evaluated conclusively (by definition), it should be obvious that we cannot accept one faith-based argument without accepting all such arguments, including contradictory ones. So until the various Churches decide to use moral, or practical arguments (based upon evidence), or else insist upon an individual's general right to discriminate as their conscience demands, their call for individual consciences to trump our moral principles in particular cases, is without any merit whatsoever. What's particularly pitiful is that the Archbishops are either unwilling or unable to use the teachings of their own religion to bolster their case, so meek are they. Aware that none of the above strategies can extricate them from their impossible position, they resort to sophistry in an attempt to steal the argument, covering their backs to avoid direct criticism, perhaps hoping the political heat might tell on ministers. What reasonable people they are - how cold we must be:

Those discussions have been conducted in good faith, in mutual respect and with an appropriate level of confidence on all sides. [...] As you approach the final phase of what has, until very recently, been a careful and respectful consideration [...]

I'm ashamed to say that I consulted Nick Robinson's blog for the "talk among the backbenches", and found something almost as ludicrous as the Archbishops' statements (my emphasis):

[...] Allow me to delicately suggest, however, that the attitudes being displayed now towards Catholics in public life must feel to them like a form of prejudice and discrimination.

Saints preserve us! We really should display this more prominently:

B4L Facebook Group - no comments

If Facebook is your thing, you might like to join the Labour Bloggers group I've just set up.

Bloggers4Labour Social V - 4 comments

Just a reminder, this will take place on Thursday, January 25th in London.

Update (21/01): This is the plan: we're going to meet up in The Lord Moon Of The Mall [map] in Whitehall, London, from 7.00 pm.

We held the 2nd B4L get-together there last February, so I hope you won't mind if I direct you to last year's post, where you'll find directions and Google Earth maps to the venue.

It was a tad busy last year, but with a little perseverance we were able to accommodate two tables-worth of bloggers comfortably. It's a perfectly decent pub, and while it might have made a change to go to The Salisbury, a series of petty/pedantic/hostile reviews at BeerInTheEvening (which I'm no longer going to use as any kind of guide) made it too much of a gamble, considering I haven't been for a couple of years, and need to keep at least a dozen bloggers in the manner to which they're accustomed.

I hope to see as many bloggers as possible on Thursday. We had a good time, last year, and I'm sure we will again.

I've added an entry for this event in our Events Diary.

Thanks to people who've offered to help us organise get-togethers around the country. I'll be in touch shortly, so we can get some more events organised.

Don't get fooled again - no comments

Possibly the least convincing email scam (click for full-size) ever perpetrated? Even the links are broken.



Well, so long, eBay, we'll miss you.

Economic nationalism v. self-determination - 1 comment

I was going to post about this anyway, but Tom Miller's comment on my Iraqi Oil post gave the plan some added impetus.

The issue there was whether a population's chances of economic self-determination (the ability to act freely) are improved by an industry - or the economy in general - being owned/managed by their government, rather than by foreign companies (I should add that the most obvious alternative - ownership by domestic companies - wasn't mentioned explicitly). There is a sense in which that desire for self-determination could have been intended to apply to the country as a whole, but that idea really takes us back to a model of countries on a war footing, desperate to secure "strategic" resources. That's something for aspiring despots like Chávez to worry about, and isn't helpful for a discussion that should focus on open economies, and differences in economic power within those economies.

I don't think we can, or should generalise about the economic freedom/autonomy of individuals solely on the basis of the ownership of the largest economic assets. Incompetent or corrupt governments can - and do, throughout the developing world - subjugate their own populations, and deprive them of the means (legal, material, social, etc.) to enjoy economic freedom, just as others can - and do - expose them to the predation of private companies. That those companies might be owned, or based abroad, doesn't in itself alter the motivation to take advantage of the economically powerless.

The idea that people cannot enjoy economic autonomy - either individually or collectively - without state ownership, "strategic resources", "national champions", or widespread restrictions on economic activity, is both prevalent and destructive, and reduces our ability to explain and to tackle our own economic inequalities, let alone those in the developing world.

Or, for rather more lucid and persuasive coverage, try this - Cooperative Islands in a Capitalist Sea? :

If everyone capable of benefiting from the alternative economy participates in it, and it makes full and efficient use of the resources already available to them, eventually we'll have a society where most of what the average person consumes is produced in a network of self-employed or worker-owned production, and the owning classes are left with large tracts of land and understaffed factories that are almost useless to them because it's so hard to hire labor except at an unprofitable price. At that point, the correlation of forces will have shifted until the capitalists and landlords are islands in a mutualist sea--and their land and factories will be the last thing to fall, just like the U.S Embassy in Saigon.

And much more. I don't agree with all of it, but it offers a model of economic empowerment that no amount of grant or subsidy can conjure up.

Update (21/01): fixed typo

Iraqi Oil - 1 comment

Few arguments are more likely to kill an intelligent conversation on world politics than the one that sets out that the toppling of Saddam Hussein was "all about oil", especially as to retort with a political (whether well-, or poorly-intentioned; well-, or poorly thought-out) or moral argument is to be derided as hopelessly naive. Also popular is what I would call the "blood and oil" argument, namely that a country's natural resources are for the sole "use" of that country's inhabitants, and that the involvement of foreigners (especially Westerners) can be construed as "raping" a country's land/assets, etc. Of course there's an environmental case for leaving natural resources where they are, but generally when we have an asset we try to use it, extracting from it the greatest possible economic value we can. Given that we can't drink oil, or build houses out of it, we can either refine it ourselves, or sell it to someone who can do a better job, if they'll make us more money, cause less waste or damage in doing so, invest in local facilities, recruit and train local workers, and so on.

Economic nationalism, however, is one of the basic economic errors that causes governments to allocated assets to individuals, or to companies, who share the same nationality, when there are foreigners willing and able to make better or more profitable use out of them. The dangers of nationalism are even more expensive in developing countries, where scrutiny is weak, when a government takes control over the use of the resources, providing opportunities for it to use the revenue corruptly, to siphon off revenue, manipulate employment, curtail investment, or to top-up falling revenue elsewhere.

Economists can suggest and exhort policies, however, there's a time and a place to raise objections like these - and higher priorities. Reflecting this, a new petition has been set up at the Downing Street site, headlined:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to not allow the privatisation of Iraqi oil, against the wishes of the Iraqi people.

The key point is "the wishes of the Iraqi people", which is why you should consider signing this one. Here's a back-of-an-envelope order of policy-making precedence:

1. The policy must be: Democratically approved
2. The policy must be: Transparent and accountable
3. The policy must be: Economically aware/well-informed
4. The policy must be: Efficient
5. The policy must: Reflect public biases
6. The policy must: Reflect public biases abroad
   

I don't know that the Iraqi people have actually voted on who should process their oil, but once the arguments have been put forward, they must approve any policy. Besides, the petition states that Tony Blair gave assurances about the dispersal of oil revenues back in 2003. The next priority is that revenue doesn't subsequently disappear into the government machine, to be used corruptly - the effects of that would be worse than any economic policy. If we're OK with (1) and (2), the next priority should be that the government at least researches the opportunities available to it, and then that it attempts to maximise revenue and minimise waste, and it's at this stage that any privatisation decision can be made. Far less important a consideration must be the nationality of oil firms, and even further down the scale is the question of whether the decision appears to armchair critics to be a defeat for America, a victory for imperialism, etc.

So if, as the petition suggests, Western corporations really are pressurising the Iraqi government into making a decision other than what is in the best interests of Iraq, that's totally unacceptable. It's another good reason to sign the petition, and support democratic forces in Iraq (which will be a first time for quite a few people), which could really do with not losing legitimacy in the face of what looks like a stitch-up. Nonetheless it would be a shame for Iraq if future economic decisions had to be made on the basis of what was necessary for national cohesion, and what minimises the chances of a backlash against foreigners. It may be essential in the medium term, but closing the economy can only make it poorer it in the long term, and this isn't a happy situation for anyone.

Jon Cruddas: an opportunity wasted - 16 comments

Warning: this post contains criticism of Jon Cruddas. One of the difficulties that arises when spreading the writing of a post across a day two days is finding public opinion shifting against you, making it seem all the more churlish to appear to pick upon a decent bloke. This awareness does motivate me, what with my being a human being, your sufferance of my occasional rants on these pages, and the target being a Labour MP who has impressed many. Nonetheless, I try to criticise when I think it's due, and I'm happy to publish and be damned. So, onward.

*

Having read Liam Byrne and Bill Rammell's earlier article ("An utterly false choice"), I can see why Jon Cruddas might have been riled, but I found his response [via Stuart] equally gloomy reading.

The earlier article seemed content for electoral politics to be pitched at the voters most likely to tilt a General Election Labour's way, with little criticism of the legitimacy of the ambitions and priorities of a few (lucky) slices of that society being made the priorities for a future government, ignoring such trifling concerns as freedom, equality, justice, or the democratic aspirations of the rest of the electorate.

Unfortunately, rather than savaging the original piece for these obvious omissions, or finding some way to engage the entire Labour movement in a plausible crusade against poverty and injustice worldwide (two priorities for any Labour Party, surely), just about all Jon could conjure up with was a vapid appeal to "traditional" values. At no point did we learn what these traditional values are, how they equip us to reduce poverty and meet future challenges, who these "traditional" voters are, or what their needs are, let alone whether those needs are best met by those traditional policies. Does "traditional" really boil down to the following?

Everything anyone remotely likely to vote Labour don't like about politics today, and any favoured policy from the past that is no longer in current use, for whatever reason.

Sorry, but anyone who insists upon using terms like "core" voters (no less silly a term than "swing" voters), and "Labour values" is being abstruse, whether deliberately, or otherwise. It denies potential voters the opportunity to judge candidates and parties on the basis of the policies they might actually carry out, and the chance to judge the accuracy, applicability, plausibility, and likelihood of success of those policies. Sure, there's no General Election in the offing, but there's no harm in a politician who wants to be remembered for their policies to act like there is.

References to "core" and "traditional" remind me of the futility of searching for ideological purity - in our case, the mythical "Real Labour". It's a label more often adopted than bestowed. It's not hard to suggest groups in society - the poorest, for starters - who should expect the most attention from a Labour programme. To what extent their concerns tally with traditional Labour voters (who I'm not yet convinced aren't, in fact, substantially more middle class than is believed), I don't know, but the policies Labour should be pursuing are what work particularly well for the disadvantaged, whether the policies are old or new.

Perhaps this is unfair - there is a little politics in Jon's piece:

Too often the second-term Labour government ... [arrived] at policies such as differential top-up fees that not only owed more to free-market dogma than our traditional values but were also deeply unpopular among swing voters.

This is unhelpful in several ways. The need to address higher-education funding dates back to substantially before 2001, with several different funding/fees options on the table, and this need was felt within the Labour Party just as much as elsewhere, so it's hardly accurate to claim the current policy just materialised. And, hang on, why would a government overly concerned with swing voters stick to a policy that, so it is claimed, fails to deliver those middle class votes? Could it be that there was an impulse behind the policy that Jon's analysis fails to spot?

Appending "dogma" to "free-market" is (I regret to say) a fairly common rhetorical trick on our side, used either to restrict discussion to comfortable or agreeable arguments, or to signal one's statist credentials to supporters, masking off huge areas of policy exploration - for example, road pricing that simply asks drivers to pay the social cost of their driving, then let's them alone - at a stroke. Funnily enough, support for university fees is one of the few policies I've held consistently over the past decade or so, even back to the days when I might have used similar language, but one problem with traditionalists is their tendency to cherry-pick those "traditions" that suit them. For example, I can't help feeling "If you have the means, you're going to have to make a pretty good case before we subsidise you with taxpayer's money, but we'll give the most help to those who most need it" is a better established expression of Labour values than "All potential students have a right to free higher education, whatever the cost, whatever their means; and taxpayers have the corresponding responsibility to pay, whatever their means." You might not agree with my choice, but at least you didn't slap "dogma" on the one you didn't like.

The idea that we need lectures from Rammell, the minister for top-up fees, on winning back aspirant voters frankly beggars belief.

We could, of course, turn that around and say:

The idea that we need lectures from Cruddas, the Member of Parliament for Dagenham, on winning back "traditional" voters frankly beggars belief.

In fact, that's pretty generous: Rammell, after all, was tarred with "minister for top-up fees"; he no more "lectures" than Jon does (though I've already stated that I strongly dislike the inferences of Rammell and Byrne's piece); and besides, Rammell didn't - to my knowledge - make any claims about the popularity of the introduction of (deferred) higher education fees, nor should that be a priority for any Education Minister.

*

I don't have a problem at all with Jon's housing suggestions, but if he can make a difference in that area, wouldn't it be more sensible for him to position himself to take on a future housing portfolio, rather than gun for a Deputy Leadership job that would deny him a direct input?

Likewise - and I'm tailing off a little, here, so bear with me - I don't have a problem with the suggestions about political activity...

They think this is modern, but actually today's voters are more likely to respond to active, campaigning parties that are properly rooted in their local communities.

... insofar as anyone disagrees with that. The statement isn't wrong, or harmful, it's just lost its value through overuse. Saying it might meet our fairly low expectations, but showing that you have a unique solution, or a unique ability to achieve an existing solution, is what will restore value to the fine sentiments.

*

I don't think I'm simply being pedantic here: having the opportunity to write for a popular and influential publication should be an opportunity to appear sensible, thoughtful, accurate, interested in the truth - and what works. Coming across as close-minded, and with a preference for warm, woolly, catch-all terms, doesn't seem to me to adequately reward the reader for their time.

Road pricing and stealth taxes - 6 comments

Could have been a contender has alerted me to the fact that the road pricing (or "travel tax" - whatever) e-petition at the Downing Street site has attracted a bit of interest, with the number of signers now over 300,000 (something like 50,000 have been added in the past day, if you think that's credible). The petition's statement is as follows:

The idea of tracking every vehicle at all times is sinister and wrong. Road pricing is already here with the high level of taxation on fuel. The more you travel - the more tax you pay.

It will be an unfair tax on those who live apart from families and poorer people who will not be able to afford the high monthly costs.

Please Mr Blair - forget about road pricing and concentrate on improving our roads to reduce congestion.

Let me summarise why the petition is flawed, and the 300,000 people wrong to waste precious Government bandwidth, starting with the principle of road pricing.

That principle must be to solve the economic problem wherein the financial costs that drivers pay are not the same as the cost of the entire driving experience - from vehicle ownership, to parking, maintenance, fuel, the taking-up of road space, the damage caused by vehicles and drivers, the clearing-up of dumped vehicles, and the emissions produced - that impacts on society, and which is not immediately quantifiable in terms of money. Because the societal costs are almost certainly far higher than the money costs, and because traffic jams and additional tonnes of pollutant cost drivers no money, not only is there no incentive for individuals to reduce their emissions or reduce the road congestion, the lack of pricing information makes it impossible for drivers to know exactly what price they are paying as a result, and even for voters to know the social costs or benefits of any policies they might advocate for reducing car usage, building new roads, etc.

So the primary purpose of road pricing must be to collect the information, and devise the formula, by which we can determine the cost to society of an individual's driving experience. This will be more complex than calculating the cost of someone's use of public transport, though this must also be done, given that a Government keen to reduce emissions must know that increased public transport use will not actually harm society (it's hard to believe this could be so, but it's best not to have to guess). Once we can determine these costs the Government/local authorities can charge drivers an amount of money that's as close as possible to the 'hidden' social cost that they've been imposing on society. Once that's done, the economic problem has been solved, and drivers will able to make an informed decision about their vehicle use, it being a pretty good bet - and borne out by the evidence so far - that the increased cost will encourage them to switch to public transport, reducing congestion and emissions.

At no point have I had to say anything about the total tax take. That could either rise or fall, depending upon how individuals' behaviour changes. If Governments decide to increase or decrease tax revenue, by making driving cheaper or dearer than it should be (the total cost to society), perhaps because they want to dramatically reduce emissions, then that's nothing whatsoever to do with the principle of road pricing. Nonetheless this diversionary argument will be used time and time again to distract from - as well as politicise - what should be a pretty mundane and uncontroversial (hate to break it to you...) debate about road pricing.

Personally, I'm fine with the idea that road pricing could be 'rolled-out' and run in a revenue-neutral way, with the cost of vehicle licensing reduced to better represent the cost to society of that vehicle simply existing and being parked, with the revenue from emission charges increased to match.

So what does the petition say about the principle?

The idea of tracking every vehicle at all times is sinister and wrong.

Well it's patently not wrong - pricing, whether it's applied nationally using tracking, or implemented in (hopefully more and more) cities, solves a problem that causes jams, accidents, pollution, has serious health implications, and damages our economy. There's nothing inherently sinister about tracking by GPRS, if this kind of tracking is even required, and if you use your free choice to start your engine. It could be sinister if run by a sinister Government (and who says it has to be?), in which case you may have more worries than this one.

It continues:

Road pricing is already here with the high level of taxation on fuel. The more you travel - the more tax you pay.

I've already shown this is wrong. It only covers one cost of driving - and besides, if drivers were charged the full social cost, the need for the Government to charge fuel duty would be lessened - and ignores the fact that jams can be extremely costly even though the distance travelled can be very short. Needless to say it doesn't answer the question of why non-drivers must pay the price of polluted air, of having our cities clogged with traffic, and of being run over by drivers, whether drunk, drugged, speeding, or just unlucky (to say nothing of the victim).

It will be an unfair tax on those who live apart from families and poorer people who will not be able to afford the high monthly costs.

I must say that I did make allowance for this in my earlier piece on carbon trading, where I argued that poor people with polluting vehicles would be penalised by road pricing, on the basis of their relative inability to sell/replace the vehicle, and suggested that the Government compensate the poor prior to launching such a scheme. On the other hand, I happened to reach the chapter in the Undercover Economist that has a nice graph (admittedly a few years old) that clearly shows that in the UK - in clear contrast to the USA - the proportion of income spent on fuel increases with income, rather than decreases, therefore road pricing (the fuel component, at the very least) would in itself redistribute money towards the poor, making a compensation scheme unnecessary.

Please Mr Blair - forget about road pricing and concentrate on improving our roads to reduce congestion.

I think the credibility of the petitioners is pretty threadbare by now, but we can add a veiled threat, and a policy suggestion which - when implemented on its own - has been thoroughly discredited. There's absolutely no reason why road improvement could not take place alongside, and without conflicting with road pricing. Therefore to suggest the two policies are in opposition is illogical and diversionary, along the lines of "How can you even think of doing when there's much poverty in the world?".

I'm not hearing much in the way of reasoned argument from the opponents of road pricing - though I'm all ears (you can also discuss it here, or here) - which inclines me to believe this petition is being promoted by pricing opponents in order to 'scare off' what they believe to be a timorous Government, and to attract a bit of tabloid publicity. There are other criticisms here, some of which are obviously silly, but we could discuss those if there's sufficient interest.

* * *

I've actually heard the term "stealth tax" applied to road pricing, and perhaps you have too if you read the Evening Standard or suchlike, but this couldn't be more wrong. Road pricing adds information that couldn't be quantified before, and makes the component parts of the social cost of driving clear. The only "stealth tax" here is the one that drivers inflict upon society every time they switch on their engine.

Ruth Kelly - 4 comments

Firstly, apologies for a post about tea earning undue publicity at the top of this blog over the past two days. I can't promise there's any more original thought in this post either, as the recent controversy about Ruth Kelly's son being sent to a school in the private sector covers more issues than I'm prepared/competent to sum up in one single post.

One argument I hope we can nail is that Labour politicians - irrespective of their being in Government - have a particular responsibility to use state-provided services even under exceptional circumstances - when it should now be entirely clear that the ending of private sector involvement is not a goal or an ambition in any area of society or the economy, and that they should direct their efforts to encouraging best practice, and to reducing the social and economic barriers that deny ordinary people the chance to make their own choice.

I'm not suggesting that eliminating that argument - one, perhaps, that only mischievous journalists cling onto - simplifies or elucidates the debate much, so I'll just link to four posts I would use as the basis for further thought if I had much more time.

More miraculous powers of tea - 1 comment

Forget secularism, and forget hip priests, the BBC can exclusively reveal the true cause of the decline in Christian worship, and the loss of respect for its institutions:


No doubt the 'powers that be' will have 'corrected' this 'error' by the time you read the article over your breakfast.

Bill Gorman, chairman of the Tea Council, also said the study was "another very positive piece of research for tea as it's clear that the researchers recognise that tea has significant health effects".

This representative of a producer group obviously isn't afraid to put his organisation's credibility on the line:

The researchers tested the effects of tea in 16 humans and on rat tissue.

Euston Manifesto Blog - no comments

A Euston Manifesto blog has been set up - it consists of short posts intermingled with introductions and links to other posts created by Manifesto signers, on a broad range of subjects.

If you've signed the M and would like the ability to post items to the blog yourself, simply email the manifesto contact address at the top of the EM front page.

Am I asking a question? - 1 comment

Here are two possibilities: firstly I might be genuinely curious for an answer, and I might demonstrate that with evidence of my own thought and research.

Alternatively, I might in fact have simply rephrased my own opinion into question form in order to signal my view sufficiently clearly to attract the support of my intended allies. By not committing myself I can retreat with minimal loss of face if the questioning gets too hot and heavy.

It's tempting to take this route, and it's something that's far easier to do in a blog post than verbally, but it's not something I'd recommend (even though I've done it on more than one occasion): it suggests one is more concerned with not being shown to be wrong than in finding the truth in an issue, and that 'reputation' starts high and is lost through 'mistakes', rather than low, and built up through good and interesting argument. It's also a sign of timidity. That should be a wake-up call to either do more research, try to find a fresh angle, or to state your view explicitly and take the hits.

This boring post was inspired by this piece.

Brighton Bloggers / B4L Social - 7 comments

The many Brighton/Hove/Portslade bloggers out there (I can think of 7 leftish political ones off the top of my head) might be interested in the upcoming Brighton Bloggers meetup on Tuesday 23rd. I attended my first in Summer 2004 (under a different moniker) and will be going to this one, hopefully with a few guests.

On that note, there will be a 5th Bloggers4Labour social in London in January. I'm going to start out by proposing that on Thursday, January 25th we - Labour bloggers, and as many of us as possible - meet up at one of the following pubs:

• The Salisbury (a former after-work favourite), WC2N 4AP
• The Coal Hole, WC2R 0DW
• The Chandos, WC2N 4ER
• Or, moving a little closer to the equator, the Lord Moon Of The Mall (venue of our 2nd get-together), SW1A 2DY

As usual, leave a comment (or drop me a mail) to say if that's do-able, or to make other suggestions. I don't have a problem with moving forward a week, or a day or two, if that suits people better.

No fisking required - no comments

News from the front in the War Against The Middle Class Motorists Grammar Schools Secularism Religion [via]:

There's an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It's disguised because the would-be dictators - and there are many of them - all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They - call them secular fundamentalists - are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.

It's so brilliantly disguised that author, Tobias Jones, is unable to provide the slightest bit of evidence to support his claims. Honestly, I've read it all, and it's pure conjecture - like The Evening Standard for pseuds:

There's also the fact that we live in a cultural milieu dominated by postmodernism.

It's a fact, so it's no use you denying it. The brilliance of the disguise is probably why you can't see that this is true.

These new militants, however, believe themselves to be the only arbiters of taste; they want to eradicate the root and cause. They will dictate what you can wear and what you can say. That, after all, is what totalitarians do.

Oh shut up already. I think the message is clear: stay away from CiF if you want to hear thoughtful people discussing moral or religious issues.

Neal Lawson's illiberalism - 2 comments

Says the Don (who also links to several other critiques), Compass Chair, Neal Lawson, is "a man with a track record of inept and counter-productive support of a range of good causes". The latest mission: using your own ignorance of economics and philosophy, and reluctance to engage with other's arguments, erect a straw man, and call him The Political System. Then, contrarian, demolish with whatever argument you fancy: here, the lukewarm platitudes of priests.

Where do we get moral leadership from today? As we pick up the pieces of another swiped out festive season it's a fitting question. Is there something more to life than the endless cycle of overconsumption? How can the Iraq war or exorbitant city bonuses be justified? Increasingly it is our religious rather than political leaders who attempt to answer these difficult and pressing questions.

The mainstream media in this country undoubtedly trivialises politics in the UK, but the world is full of moral guidance (leadership, if you must): throughout our lives we watch, listen to, and read about the activities of people ranging from family members, to schoolteachers, businesspeople, politicians, and people with many different points of view and ideology, and we respond to what we take to be the positive and negative consequences of those actions, adapting towards what we hope to be 'the good life'. It's central to Lawson's argument that humanity is incapable of any such growth; without the moral leadership - and Lawson clearly has specific moral leadership in mind - the result is disaster. After all, what else could "overconsumption" mean? It's impossible to prove either way, it can be defined any way Neal likes, it sounds bad, and it plays on our guilt, so it's an essential part of the vocabulary for any budding puritan.

I had intended to post just before Christmas in defence of consumerism. It seems to be used overwhelmingly in a puritanical, as well as a snobbish manner, implying that self-appointed arbiters are a better judge of what people spend their money on than they themselves, that the general population is too unsophisticated to see through advertisers' messages, that most shoppers - unlike the happy aesthete - shop out of habit, and for the sheer love of money, and possessions. Consumerism^* also implies the population, free to walk the streets, and the puritan fears this kind of mass movement. What is this moral guidance that the religious authorities have to offer? An anti-democratic contempt for the above, but without anything so controversial as an appeal to charity, humility, or generosity? Nothing but platitudes appear in Lawson's piece, just the unfalsifiable "Something (what?) is wrong; something must be done!" that we expect from a Cameron or a Princess Di.

To sacrifice the concept of individual freedom, as Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor appears to advocate - something that the powerless have struggled to seize from the powerful (religious leaders very much included) throughout human history - in favour of some hot air about "the fundamental questions on the sense and direction of our lives", seems designed to return humanity to the stupefaction of centuries past. If Lawson were to realise that it is attempts by religious authorities to increase their presence in schools, to advocate and enforce dress codes (those affected naturally only become "some of society's most vulnerable people" for Neal when the rules are challenged, and the religion takes offence on the individuals' behalf), to defend blasphemy laws, to suppress freedom of speech, to meekly tolerate violence against their own communities, or to tolerate and even advocate the preaching of violence against others - rather than the peaceful faith of individuals - that is a matter of legitimate public concern over the influence of religious representatives, he might be less inclined to impugn atheists, secularists, rationalists, and politicians, not to mention workers at Goldman Sachs.

Our politicians have forgotten that power and principle are two sides of the same coin. Politics has stopped being a different vision of the good society and is instead a job for technocrats and for self-proclaimed rationalists.

To suggest that those involved in politics aren't interested in visions of a good society is a pretty ignorant comment for someone loosely involved with the blogosphere, and who must encounter individual politicians and political bloggers frequently. Neal might have a point if he has "managerialism" in his sights, but substituting the idea that unelected religious teachers should "lead and motivate the nation", in place of elected politicians doing so, hardly seems an attractive one, even if you believe that people have to be led. The fact that individuals, companies, or collectives, could be empowered to tackle society's problems in a more decentralised way seems hardly to have been considered. Now who's out of touch?

Not content with using the current state of Iraq to say "we were right" to the disparate group known as "opponents of the war", whatever the arguments - some 'realistic', some repulsive - those individuals employed, what Lawson implies is a kind of victor's justice, under which those who fall into the "supporters of the war" camp are to be judged moral criminals, morally vacuous, timorous, or 'careerist', irrespective of the arguments they used, and the principles they sought to promote and defend. Whatever kind of politics could produce this, it's not liberal. Only a tyrant - or a mob - could celebrate the chaos in Iraq - or indeed any argument they believe themselves to have won - with a victimisation of their opponents, as if the moral case was done and dusted, and the continuing debate pushed to one side. Norm's piece on this is a breath of fresh mountain air in comparison.

I don't deny that there will be religious figures (and to reiterate, I'm not talking about individuals with religious faith) who, on the basis of their brains, imagination, humanity, and so on, have acquired a moral authority of their own - or who bring evidence to discussions - and have earned the right to be listened to by thoughtful people. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who believes they enjoy the same right on the basis of their status within their particular sect, or on the basis of a personal recommendation by Neal Lawson (for whom "overly rationalist" is a censure, rather than a precondition for an intelligent debate), can get to the back of a very long queue.

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^* My dictionary gives an additional definition of "consumerism", namely "the protection or promotion of the interests of consumers". Is this also frowned upon?

New Bloggers (October-January) - 2 comments

I've left this a bit too long, but here are the 53 blogs (including 5 MPs) that have been added to B4L since I last published a list. The current total is 360. They appear in reverse order of discovery/submission, and descriptions appear where one was supplied, or else I found a bit of text that seemed like a good summary:

• The Labour Humanist Group - The Labour Humanist Group exists to spread awareness of humanism and humanists within the Labour Party and to promote humanist and Labour values.
• The Blair Era - Marking 10 years of progress for Britain with Tony Blair as PM, looking forward to further progress with a new leader.
• And another thing... - Random stream of consciousness from Glasgow South MP
• Idiots for Labour - either Left or Right but always Wrong
• stroppyblog
• Welfare Reform Blog - Jim Murphy, Minister for employment and welfare reform's blog
• Bushey Chronicle
• Cllr Nigel Ash - represents Ashton Ward on Wigan MBC.
• The Glass House
• Paul Macmanomy
• Cllr Paul Kenny - News & Views from a Warrington Labour Councillor
• Dave's Part - Ex-punk. Ex-Trot. Unchanged attitude problem.
• The Daly Planet
• South Staffs Labour Blog - The blog of South Staffs Labour Party
• Gordon Labour News - News from the Scottish Labour Party in the Gordon constituency in North East Scotland
• Citizen Andreas - A Labour activist on ID cards...
• The UK Today
• Cardiff Fabians - Only membership based left of centre think-tank
• Mike Hobday - Labour parliamentary candidate for Welwyn Hatfield
• The site where i prove the right are wrong
• Labour Movement for Europe (LME-LSE) - The Labour Movement for Europe is the organisation for people that care about EU politics within the Labour Party. This is a group blog from the London & The South East branch.
• red lead
• Renewed Labour - Offering views on the future of the labour party and general current affairs and politics
• Political Penguin - Penguins are political too.
• Rupa Huq's home on the web
• Dan's Blog - Personal blog of a Labour Student
• Emma Goes Green - Green issues have finally hit the top of the agenda. As someone who has taken an interest over the long-term, the last six months have marked a fundamental shift in how green issues are regarded. No longer is being kind to the environment a nice thing to
• Tha London Diaries - I support The Labour Party (and anyone who wants to refer to it as NuLabour or any other abbreviated handle can meet me in a dark alleyway to discuss matters, lol).
• Aaron Farrugia`s Diary (Malta)
• Plural Identities - "The freedom to determine our loyalties and priorities between the different groups to all of which we may belong is a peculiarly important liberty which we have reason to recognize, value and defend" Amartya Sen
• Alun Davies - Labour's lead candidate for Mid and West Wales
• Jamie C's Political Hotspot
• Huw Lewis AM - Labour Assembly Member for Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney
• Sandy Mewies AM - Labour AM for Delyn
• Carl Sargeant AM - Labour AM for Alyn and Deeside
• The Pamphleteer - Argument not opinion
• John Denham MP - Labour MP for Southampton Itchen
• James Knight: Campaigning For Labour - I'm a Labour Party member and activist in Cardiff. With my comrades in the Labour movement I fight for a free, fair and equal society that can only be achieved by Labour governments in Westminster, in Wales and in Cardiff.
• The Reporters: US mid-terms - This is the BBC's US mid-term elections blog, with analysis and comment from all the BBC journalists covering the polls.
• Phantom of the Labour Party - "Wandering Labour Party, so lost, so helpless, yearning for my guidance..."
• Mark's Edinburgh North & Leith Blog - Comments on international, national and local issues from the Labour/Co-op MP for Edinburgh North & Leith.
• The World of Mika Illmann-Walker - The son of an over active Labour Party member who should spend more time with his family.
• Roy Pennington (official) - Labour Councillor for Brighton Regency
• Warren Morgan (official) - Labour Councillor for East Brighton
• Labour in Haggerston
• Gorton Young Labour - Working in partnership with Manchester Labour students as well as Manchester Central, Blackley, Withington and Wythenshawe and Sale East CLPs
• Trafford Labour - Blog for LP Members in Trafford, Gtr. Manchester
• Little Atoms - the blog of the "Little Atoms" Radio show, broadcast fortnightly on Fridays from 16:30 to 17:30 on Resonance 104.4fm.
• Medway Tory Watch - Here to expose the failings of one of the most inept Tory run councils in England And the lies, damn lies of The Conservative Party
• Jon Cruddas MP - Labour MP for Dagenham
• The Provisional BBC - The Provisional BBC is a paramilitary organisation which split from the BBC in October 2006 in protest at its toleration of poor writing and liberal democrats.
• CroydonLife - Life in Croydon - if there is such a thing
• Labour Online - A blog trying to experiment with the new web technologies and how they might apply to UK politics.

PS. This is in lieu of a 'proper' post, as I'm too busy at the moment.

Guinea pigs sought - no comments

I'm testing some new events functionality, and if you're registered on the forum, you can help. Here's where to go if you have a few minutes free.

Against Nihilism - 4 comments

I should read the Drink Soaked Trots more; here's a great article from Eric (via Paulie), though sadly it may mark his farewell from blogging:

Much has been written by commentators about the so-called arrogance of those "liberals", for want of a better word, who wish to impose Western democracy on other cultures (a straw man in itself) and who wish to protect their own liberal democracies from totalitarian and reactionary forces who will use violence to further their cause. In reality, the more arrogant voice of liberalism is that coming from those downplaying the threats, who big up the (non-existent) threat of an authoritarian centrist government (Labour or Conservative). It's as though they believe that democracy is some sort of natural condition, not susceptible to attack or degradation. That it exists in some other parallel universe, never at threat from external forces in the world.

And also:

Politicians are attacked for providing answers, yet the media do not create the space for sensible public debate in the game of cat and mouse they play. It isn't just the media either, it is a wider malaise and disenchantment within the political class - and by that I mean in the very broad sense of all those who actually pay any attention to politics. Has there ever been a time before when there have been so many people utterly unhinged about contemporary politics?

Read it all, it's intelligent blogging.

Logic Problems - no comments

Idiots for Labour, who devote their time to trawling the blogosphere for examples of inane, poorly-thought-through, and downright illogical comment from our own side, are asking readers to help track down dodgy and embarrassing articles, and submit them via email.

Free speech is a fine thing, but any blogger who puts their opinions into the public domain - especially if they have influence, and take it upon themselves to be a representative of the left, and especially the Labour Party - should expect these opinions to be challenged in a robust manner. That's not to say I4L is necessarily always going to be correct (though they seem to be doing pretty well, so far), but the challenge can be a wake-up call.

Leaps, and failures, of logic are phenomenally widespread. The BBC's article on train fare rises is pretty dangerous territory in that regard, as well as the first half-a-dozen or so user comments I could be bothered to read this morning. See also Tom Hamilton's article on dangerous dogs. Now I don't want people to think I'm picking on Compass, but one recent comment is a bit of a classic, and has remained unchallenged since 21 December (OK, I do disagree with it, but there's more). This is Lee Roberts on Trident renewal:

The Government's lack of logic needs to be relentlessly attacked.

Why should Britain need an updated deterrent unless it plans to provoke attack by joining in future American-led acts of aggression ? [...]

He questions the Government's lack of logic and, in order to demonstrate that lack, takes a logical leap from an uncontroversial premise to a possible conclusion that is about as controversial as one could be, but also the most convenient for his own argument. The very next paragraph probably tied Lee in knots, forcing him to leave it in limbo:

Name one enemy, against whom a Trident update would be a deterrent, who has plans to attack Britain, given indications of such a desire, would have the incentive to do so, and would be crazy enough to actually attack given the devastating consequences of such stupidity.

He's having his cake and eating it: allowing himself the luxury of arguing against the Trident update, 'reinforcing' his argument with a conclusion that could only come from having it. Either way, given that supporters of the Trident update want nuclear attacks on the UK to be deterred, and don't particularly care by what mechanism this happens, Lee has provided a very good point in support of the upgraders. We now leave the world of logic, as the descent into lunacy is breathtakingly sudden:

Why should any erstwhile enemy of the UK believe government claims that the upgrade is purely for deterrent purposes ?
[...]
And why should an erstwhile enemey (sic) believe a government that is lock-step with a bunch of crazed loonies across the pond who frequently announce that their intention of using their nuclear weapons as a first strike, pre-emptive measure ?

Iranian TV sure must be compulsive viewing.

All the more reason to ensure that the Blairites dont remain in charge of the Party, and if they do, that they lose the next election.

Maybe thinking that someone who posts at Compass, and refers to "the Party", is probably from a Labour background was an assumption too far, but, no, I'm confident it's within Idiots for Labour's remit to fisk this chap ruthlessly. It is a charming idea that somehow "the Blairites" could lose, and yet not the Party, but I fear electoral rules are quite strict on this kind of thing. Anyone who fancies challenging those at the top needs to organise around a sensible alternative - Lee's approach is just a distraction.