Dec 07 2008
When will we get some fairness?
Labour use the language of fairness all the time. They use the idea of fairness to justify all sorts of limitations on liberty and tax attacks on the many. One of the biggest disappointments and surprises is just how unfair they have turned out to be.
I feel a speech coming on like Neil Kinnock’s best one, adapted to modern conditions:
I warn you, do not be a saver under this government. They will slash your interest rate, undermine the value of your currency, and tax you on the meagre proceeds of your prudence.
I warn you, do not be a motorist under this government. They will try to regulate and tax you off the road, blaming you for all the environmental crimes of the planet.
I warn you, do not be a resident of the Home counties. They will tax you more to pay for the rest, and will build all over your remaining greenfields.
I warn you, do not be a small business owner creating jobs. They will hurl the regulatory book at you, undermine your market by bad economic policy and tax any success you may still have.
I warn you, do not seek to avoid dependence on the state to keep your independence. The Inspectors and Regulators will still come after you to capture your every personal detail and movement for their databases.
I warn you, do not think you live in a democracy with freedom of information. If you criticise the goverment and publish some government information, you may be hounded and harried.
I warn you, do not seek to have thoughts that are different from the government’s. The thought police will monitor your blogs, listen to your conversations, and charge you with thought crimes if you offend the politically correct nostra.
I warn you, do not own a TV under this government. If you do you will be expected to pay a Poll Tax and dutifully accept Labour propoganda put out by the BBC in so many of their editorial choices of questions, guests and story lines.
I warn you, do not be well educated under this government. To be have done well at school and university shows you are privileged, and part of the problem as the governent sees it.
I am all for more fairness for the disabled, the elderly, and those who cannot compete in this fast moving competitive world. That does not require a government which treats many of the prudent, responsible, independent people as the enemy. It just requires a government which runs the economy and public spending well enough for the active and successful so there is enough money at sensible tax rates to be generous to those in need.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Nice piece; don’t disagree with any of it. It is my opinion that the voters will humiliate Gordon Brown at the next General Election. In fact, they won’t wait - they’ll do it at next year’s Euro election. I don’t care what the opinion polls say - people don’t LIKE him.
What we need is for your party to spell out how they are going to correct things to comply with your points. What are you going to do for the motorist for instance?
If you don’t, you’ll still win the next election - but on a minority vote. And for me that means you will lack legitimacy.
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jean baker Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Supporting the principles of democracy is perfectly legitimate. Wins, marginal or otherwise, do not diminish it.
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Those comments could have been written on the BNP web site which I read once a week. Either they are going lefter or you are going righter.
Reply: They and I disagree about other matters.
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APL Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 10:58 am
John: “Either they [the BNP] are going lefter or you are going righter.”
The issue, if I may say, is not left or right. Those terms are meaningless today.
You are mistaken to think in terms of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, more accurate would be individual freedom or Socialist Fascist collectivism. Note I have no problem lumping Socialist and Fascist together, their ideologies may differ in some minor respects, but the impact of those ideologies are pretty much identical.
Repression then, when that does not work, Terror.
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adam Reply:
December 8th, 2008 at 1:30 am
It is Labour who are like the BNP
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How right you are.
What we are experiencing is plain deceit.
Deceit by a government which has an ideological socialistic bureaucratic programme of change which purports itself to be the herald angel of freedom and enterprise, liberty and justice, yet this could not be further from the truth when you analyse what is actually happening in every facet of our society.
The financial industry is not the only area suffering this torment of idiosy but it’s everywhere, our schools, hospitals, social work, police and justice systems. It has even infested our democratic principles, our sovereignty, our government offices and into the minds of many people who are lost in this sea of mind numbingly stupid deceitful bureaucracy where keeping control of the political arena is the only aim of government and not the well being of the state, the country and its peoples.
An ideology which doesn’t care about anything other than how it is in control through its armies of tick-boxers.
It is the difference between kick-boxers and tick-boxers.
A perfect example of this can be seen in finance, where it is human nature not just there but in any walk of life for people to clamour to make money and finance is no different.
Before the credit crunch / recession / depression / financial crisis, there was lots of it about to be made, and despite how some might feel about the moral aspects which I think we’d agree amounts to greed, it isn’t really where the actual problem lay for the crisis as you can’t really blame a whole society for feeding that greed, nor can you blame the top earners which made vast sums on the back of a throw away, buy now, don’t save, pay later society which naturally clamours for wealth and higher living standards for this is the staff of life.
The FAULT is with the version of a free market which BROWN created in deference to that of Margaret Thatcher.
He thought he could ‘improve’ the free market economy and he thought he could ‘abolish boom and bust’.
Recall the free market under Thatcher which had regulators for each and every part of finance. Finance which is as diverse as the economy itself and not in fact one industry. The finance industry encapsulates a torrent of daily activities in many different arena’s which all help to drive the economy, all play a part in our lives and all work very differently to each other, and consequently those different parts all need different levels of experience and different regulations if they are to work properly.
Margaret Thatcher had people to regulate each of these areas who had vast amounts of experience which had been built up over several hundred years. There had never been a run on a bank for over 140 years and prudent banking was heralded as the essence of Britain’s financial success which had attracted much investment and had given us one of the strongest currencies in the world.
Those prudent bankers and other industry experts were replaced by Gordon Brown when he became Chancellor and instead he put in place a regulator. The Financial Services Authority. Which formulated rules from European Directives and bureaucratic diktat.
The finance industry became regulated by teams of unknowledgeable, inexperienced, poorly trained, tick-boxing clerks and it was akin to removing the fireguard from a blazing fire in a nursery for toddlers whilst simultaneously leaving the toddlers alone to stoke the fire. i.e. Utter madness !
Couple this with the natural tendency people have to make a ‘fast buck’ within a free market which had little in the way of proper supervision, and you have a problem where those toddlers will eventually burn down the nursery and everyone with it.
It is a classic case of incompetence on Brown’s part to have single-handedly destroyed the very fine quality fabric which once held the industry together and in which people were confident and which they respected.
In doing that he threw out donkey’s years of experience and left the toddlers alone with a blazing fire without a fireguard.
Yes there are other culprits of course, but just as in any other walk of life if there are no proper rule makers and experienced people to monitor them in a hands on approach with someone in government to take the blame, then people will naturally take advantage. So the government had a responsibility to understand that and to allow for it and it didn’t. Gordon Brown took the fireguard away and took a completely different course of action of blaming anyone but himself and his sick ideology of excercising ‘control’ through tick-boxers without the skills required or the knowledge to get them !
Brown took away those rules which once protected our finance industry and when he did that he took away the several hundred years of experience which had maintained it properly and thus it was destined, as you have written, “to crash into a wall”.
But that’s not all I see and this type of irresponsibility and maniacal desire to control the world through tick-boxers, hasn’t been isolated just to the finance industry.
We have repeated episodes of child abuse and even deaths occurring and yet much said in the media about the poor quality of social workers. However, many within social work say there are more boxes to tick and less time able to actually spend doing the job as a consequence.
Typically, a 186 question report must be completed for every client a social worker sees, and this is followed by another report which is computer based to show performance indicators to the government.
Then we have the police service which no matter how many new jobs are created, or which minister is in charge, you never see a copper because they’re all obviously up to the eyes with paperwork and sat behind computer screens to give Gordon Brown his ‘figures’.
So too the National Health Service, same thing happening there with less personal attendance, higher costs, charges even if you park your car to visit accident and emergency or a dying relative, and it’s all down to Brown’s Beaurucratic Britain where kick-boxers have been largely replaced by tick-boxers.
No wonder we have a lack of skills, lack of experience, lack of people wanting jobs, those with these things fleeing overseas to other countries, abused children, higher levels of violent crime, bust finances and a clapped out Prime Minister who cannot see the things he’s done to make these problems, with a cabinet which is filled with tick-boxers who can’t kick-box because they don’t know how, yet peddle along on the back of their figures driven society where people and their actual experience is held in little or no regard because the government has a number of tick-boxes in place in which to identify the problems which the experienced people don’t actually have time to deal with.
I am convinced that this sick ideology being promoted by Brown and his cohorts, will if not reversed, ruin what’s left of my country along with all who reside here, so in keeping with your topic, I warn the people that unless they get rid of this shower of incompetent ideological tub thumping socialistic evangelists, there’ll be nothing left of Britain and their children will never know what it is like to live in a free, democratic and just society.
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well said
needs one for the nhs letting folk down badly too
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On a somewhat related note…can’t remember if I wrote about this before, but;
I went to the Labour Party web-site to find their email address because I wanted there to be some visibility of the fact that there are people who object to, well, in this case it was Ms.Smiths recent policy to criminalize prostitution.
I wrote something like; Dear Sir, I’m very concerned about this new policy on prostitution, who can I contact to make my concerns visible to the Government?
A day or two later, lo and behold - a reply.
The reply started;
1@new.labour.org.uk wrote:
> Thank you for your e-mail. The Labour Party welcomes
> all comments and feedback.
Followed by a *long* description - a press junket, I think, about a dozen thick paragraphs - of what is being done by Ms.Smith in this new policy.
Followed by;
> Thank you for contacting the Labour Party with your
> views and concerns.
So; I wrote to them asking for a way to let them know I was unhappy about this policy. They wrote back to me, telling me how much the appreciate comments and feedback, with the press release for the policy. And that was *it*.
I replied, pointing this out.
It’s been over a month now, no reply, so I presume there will be no reply.
I leave the reader to draw their own observations.
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John Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Blank Xavier,
I had a similar experience with the Labour party web site. My query was a fear for my safety after protesting about the “gestapo” police tactics. I got the “thank you for contacting us.” reply and nothing else. If I stop writing in this column it will probably be because I have been shot by 25 anti terrorist policemen in my bed.
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rugfish Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Try this address, I hear they respond immediately and with a little more more vigour.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Letters_of_National_Socialist_German_Workers_Party
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Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Your concern is well justified. This whole policy to ‘ban’ prostitution will be as effective as the ‘ban’ on drugs. It is simply law-making by personal prejuduce which will not help women in bondage if the phenomena goes underground. I’m certain the ban will fail because of a trip I made a few years ago to the Islamic Republic of Iran, (my good lady hails from Shiraz, in the South of Iran).
Prostitution exists in Iran today and trust me, they have far, far more severe laws than even Jackie could ever countenance. And if the ban doesn’t work there…. Fill in the blanks.
(Incidentally, speaking of ineffective bans that teach people to ignore the law, I had rather a lot of some quite delicious Shiraz wine, produced locally, along with virtually everyone else I met, local police included!)
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Blank Xavier Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I’m not sure it’s quite so straightforward.
Any industry is naturally regulated by the risk involved and the reward gained thereby.
In Iran, where a few percent of the population exist in extreme poverty (not enough money to buy food), the reward gained for prostitution may well be continued life.
It accordingly therefore requires the most extreme risk to prevent prostitution, and perhaps not even then, for if you threaten to kill someone for it, but they will die if they don’t, they may well still consider the reward from prostitution worth the risk.
In the UK, where social security provides a bare existence, the reward for prostitution is not so great. However, the risks are so far less, I would still expect prostitution to be rewarding.
Of course, all of this has no discussion of the fact that the State has *ABSOLULUTELY NO BUSINESS* banning a voluntary and well-informed contract between two adults.
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Stuart Fairney Reply:
December 8th, 2008 at 7:17 am
In all fairness that is a really well made point. I have to “take my hat off” to you. I had not fully considered this aspect of the issue.
I agree entirely with your final point.
I note that the BBC has done a ring-round asking a smallish sample of MP’s whether they had confidence in Speaker Martin.Somewhat surprisingly in the circumstances only 30 odd subscribed to this notion.This ring-round hardly indicates institutional left-wing bias on the part of the BBC, as the Speaker’s (non) involvement in the current police inquiry is very much a Conservative hobby horse which the BBC seems to want to keep going as a story.The BBC is more unbiased than you think perhaps: its treatment of Chavez is hardly adulatory; not a lot of “Hands off Cuba”either.
Reply: Just listen to the run of questions they ask on the typical BBC news programme. Most of them come from Labour spin dopctors, or are based on the premise that big government is good and b igger government is better. The BBC have not run the true government borrowing story from this site (based on government figures) nor have they run the runaway bank of Ebngland balance sheet sotry - again presumably because Labour does not want it to run. They use government partial figures to understate the former, and government/Bank spin saying using the B of E like this is an option for the future!
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APL Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 11:07 am
DBC REED: “This ring-round hardly indicates institutional left-wing bias on the part of the BBC, ..”
Other than it is a great opportunity to rubbish one of the long established offices of the established state.
Pity about the current incumbent.
One other thing that occurred to me. Mr Speaker being a Scot, might reasonably be ignorant of the history and duties of the speakers office.
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jean baker Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Does Brown’s behaviour as Chancellor & PM likewise stem from the fact he’s a Scot ?? !!
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JABITheW Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 10:31 am
If you really think the BBC is non-partisan, I suggest you listen to this atrocious interview with Cameron where the interviewer interrupts him to tell him that he’s wrong.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7772000/7772723.stm
Can you see them doing that to Brown or Darling?
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DBC Reed Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Strikes me that Cameron gives a pretty good account of himself.He hardly
needs special treatment.What he is saying is flying in the face of the conventional wisdom and the interviewer (E.D?) would be pretty remiss not to point this out .They both say what the other is saying is wrong (which is fair enough:one of them must be).BTW Why is Cameron fronting up this economic strategy? Why no George Osborne? Or John Redwood for that matter,since this approach has his dabs all over it?
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APL Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
DBC REED: “He hardly needs special treatment.”
Who is asking for special treatment? What we want from a state broadcaster is *impartial treatment*.
DBC REED: “What he is saying is flying in the face of the conventional wisdom and the interviewer ..”
It may be ‘conventional wisdom’ for a leftie, but in is not conventional wisdom.
At one point ‘conventional wisdom’ had it the world was flat. Or the Earth was the centre of the universe, or the solution to every serious illness was to bleed the patient.
Bravo, Mr Redwood. I look forward to the next Conservative Govt overturning the mass of mind-numbing legislation which has been introduced over the last eleven years. The country is struggling (and increasingly restive) under the weight of the Blair/Brown years.
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James Morrison Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I wouldn’t hold your breath Susan, incoming governments don’t make a habit of overturning laws set by previous incumbents, and that includes the conservatives. Hence why we find ourselves living in an increasingly socialist country, nay world.
Mr Redwood is a rare voice of common sense in the wilderness that is the political elite.
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Susan Reply:
December 8th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Then the Conservatives should recognise that people’s disenchantment with Labour started well before the economic problems took hold and, unless they roll back the authoritarian state, misgivings will rumble on. There must be an end to this socialist nonsense in Britain; the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh are not known, when push comes to shove, for submission to injustice.
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James Morrison Reply:
December 8th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I couldn’t agree more Susan.
Sadly I just don’t think anything much will change. Cameron is, for me, a Blair clone.
Well, the BBC is run by the Guardian-reading classes. Shame the audience reads the Telegraph or Mail!
Therefore, they are against free enterprise and in favour of the state. They are against the Tories and against the USA. When commenting on the US they are against the Republicans and for the Democrats.
They are so predictable that it’s not worth listening to them.
What are you going to do about them?
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I disagree with the BNP on many economic policies, but I do agree with them on many matters of patriotism (putting the health of society first before selfishness) population and culture. I have spent many of my adult years helping to integrate various people into British culture, and it is about time we were allowed to debate such subjects and the best way forward.
I am very tired of this debate being closed down, the result is nothing but unhappiness all round. Michael Howard was quite right in his 2005 campaign. Enoch Powell was right in his warnings - based as he did on the events he saw in India in the 1940’s.
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Well said, thank you.
Your observations exemplify - “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; it’s inherent value is the sharing of misery” - Churchill.
Nulabor seeks to silence any voice other than it’s own and party members; the means applied are deviant and vile.
Churchill had an inherent understanding of psychotic ‘minds’.
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This wasn’t the govt’s fault it was the bankers, either that or it started in America. I don’t know which one, but I’m sure at least one will be to blame. You seem to have left out hard working families as well.
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John. You are so right about the need for Government & regulators to get together to work out a way to help Bank’s customers and the Banks themselves in a spirit of calm and without political point scoring.
There are too many conflicting demands from people who have never been Bankers. The situation is complex.
Pensioners need bank dividends into their Pension Funds, business customers need to be able to trade and consumers need to be calmed. All these things are desireable for all of us.
Getting the balance right is hard.
Let’s give up being “holier than thou “and blaming others. We are in this mess together, like it or not, and the way out is through listening and then working together.
I see you likened it to driving forward and looking forward.
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I run my own small business. From time to time, my photography business requires that I create a temporary job for a trainee. I pay taxes and depend on the state for nothing. I am proud to be British and do not owe a penny in debt.
Why then, in the last three years, have I been stopped by Police, been searched and had my details noted, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, three times?
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adam Reply:
December 8th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Police state Britain. Well done Labour.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RKl2sEN4yNM
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Perhaps you try and give your speech during your next BBC interview!
Keep up the good work.
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From a limited experience of journalism, my guess is that any journo asked to get up a story for a national daily on the Bank of England balance sheet would be scratching around: no personalities to attach it to,no climactic event. With luck the piece might find its level as a backgound piece in a weekly or monthly magazine.Or it might head up the leaders on a heavy paper.
The Conservative Party obsession with the BBC is a distraction (in both senses of the word).
In the Gilligan farrago Tory members of the BBC Board of Governors ( such as Lady Hogg wife of Douglas Hogg) and Pauline Neville Jones (now Conservative Shadow Minister !) went for Greg Dyke hoping to get rid of this very fountainhead of left-wing propaganda when the real issue was Blair getting the country into a war in Iraq on false pretences.
Antipathy to BBC “socialists” blinded Conservatives to the story of the era.
If there is any general linguistic bias in the BBC it is the Daily Mail/Express practice of reporting house price deflation as” bad news “.This stupidity has played its part in wrecking the capitalist system .But as a Land Value Taxer I am used to being ignored.There has never been a TV programme on this simple flick of a tax switch that could very well save the system.Rather than impute dark motives to the TV programme makers we tend to believe that they either don’tget it or don’t think much of it.
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I see the Telegraph have printed the top 100 geniuses.
Whilst there are some British names amongst them, sadly none are politicians.
I would have expected to see your name there though John.
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On the subject of biased BBC, you should have watched This Week on Thursday. It was a wonderfully anti-government show. Please stop being silly about the BBC. I find it on the whole to be an impartial organisation. No-one is perfect, accept it and move on.
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Pam Reply:
December 8th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
This Week is one of the very few programmes that gives an objective view of what is going on. The “news” programmes are full of government spin and rarely give airtime to opposing points of view. I normally check what ITV and the other news channels say, because I don’t trust the BBC any more, and I resent being unable to stop paying the licence fee. Why does the government have such a stranglehold on the BBC’s output?
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It was all a lot more simple under the Tories as I remember.
Don’t ever get sick, be poor, underprivileged or grow old. Do exactly what you’re told.
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Lola Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Oh dear. I see you are on the standard lefty ‘let’s re-write history to fit our argument’ tactic again.
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Bazman Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Well. I suppose Thatcher did save a lot of miners and steel workers from an early grave. Many of their children however got one instead. Discus and Re-write that kids.
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Andrew Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
@Bazman
As opposed to how it is under Labour:
Don’t have a job, be middle classed, well educated or sensible with your earnings.
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Bazman Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Bleating middle classes that can only afford two holidays this year, have to drive a Ford and send their kids to the local school. Gets you right there.
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Lola Reply:
December 10th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Oh dear. Y’see, there you go again.
mikestallard Reply:
December 10th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
What class do you consider you are? I have often wondered. Were you down the mine, perhaps? Or perhaps a manufacturer in birmingham? Or a merchant seaman like Mr Prescott?
Often and often people who write things on this site talk about Mr Brown being Socialist to the core. Well, today Charles Moore, once an editor of the Daily Telegraph, actually did make out the case, in his old paper, for this being true .
In lots of ways he is so right:
Big state politics paid for with huge taxes and run by a huge “apparatus”.
Economy run from the central bureau with targets fixed by the central apparatus and not by independent entrepreneurs.
Police directly under the control of the political bureau at the centre.
But, most important, must be the idea that the Party comes above the Parliament. This is deeply Socialist. The Speaker was (against precedent) another Labour apparatchik. He appointed (without consulting the Queen) the Serjeant at arms. The MPs are given instructions from the Central Office on exactly what to say and how to vote. The thinnest Queen’s Speech, too, shows that the real source of legislation now is Brussels where an international central committee decides what is to be agreed in the national or international parliaments.
Mr Duncan Smith goes on (rightly) about the disappearance of marriage and the family. In the Communist Manifesto, of course, Marx said that marriage would disappear under Communism. Well, it has!
The most annoying thing is that Socialism has been tried and it is an utter disaster. It was a disaster in Russia and also in its post war Union of Socialist Republics. It was a disaster when it allied with Nationalism to form the National Socialist Party in Germany. It has been a disaster every single time it has been tried in this country.
I do not believe that people can be forced to be free, rich or educated by central experts (cadres). I do not believe that nearly everyone is (even potentially) either a good person or a wrecker. I do not believe that this is year zero and we can rebuild “our democracy” from Number 10 Downing Street.
I do not believe that the people in the central political bureau are the kind of people, anyway, who I would have as my mentors and friends. I do not trust them and they do not trust me.
The Conservatives are bubbling with new ideas. But why I trust them is this: they are not Socialist. They appreciate how very delicate the economy and the constitution are. Like a precious orchid, both of these need nurture, understanding and, yes, love from people actually involved who have the vast legacy of history behind them. The same goes for the Armed Services.
As a Christian (and proud of it too) I want to say that poor people, sick people, and children are especially important. The Conservatives are very often from a strong Christian background too and, because they appreciate history, they carry on this excellent concern, whatever their present beliefs. I really believe that they mean it when they say they have plans to free it all up so that these three groups of people will actually benefit.
The excellent blog today goes a long way to explaining why Neil Kinnock’s words have come true.
“Have you not heard? Socialism is Dead?”(Sorry, Nietzsche!)
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Spot on but we can do little about these matters whilst being dominated by Brussels.
Yes, let’s be at the heart of co-operating with our European partners, where possible, but let’s stop being run by them!
Only then can we shake off the shackles of a Singular failure.
There is a huge well of electoral goodwill out there waiting to be tapped. Citizens do want to be in Europe - it IS the future - but! We are bursting for a different vision, one which lets all nation states breathe their own air.
Let each EU nation forge its own way and let all nations come together in EU co-operation to benefit from a pool of diveristy, creativity, flexibility and, above all, democracy.
Until then, John’s fine words are mere wishful thinking
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Rather depends who’s history and reality we are talking about Lola. The majority or minority of the population? Britain is a very rich country with huge numbers of poor people. That fact cannot be rewritten. Many middle classes think they are clever and that is why they have money, but really its just circumstances.
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