Ideal Job

Historian, newspaper columnist, book reviewer, public intellectual and much-quoted homme serieux.

Offers welcome.

David Palmerston Aaronovitch

Liberal interventionism flows from pretty much the same mindset as that which produced the Anti-Social Behaviour Order - I don't like what you do, and I'm going to use force to stop you.

Relying as it does on the both the threat of force and the use of force, on limbs getting rent and skulls getting cracked, liberal interventionism is anything but liberal, of course - and it's sad to see David Aaronovitch, one of our more intelligent new Palmerstons, display his ignorance of some basic history when making the case for a humanitarian intervention in Burma in today's 'Times'.

By positioning the adjective 'needy' immediately beside the noun 'Burmese', Aaronovitch, to his credit, passes The Cohen Test with flying colours. Yet he writes of state control,

"...after the Second World War there grew up a kind of admiration of the mobilisatory capacities of totalitarian governments. Stalin had saved Soviet heavy industry from the Germans by moving it physically from Belorussia to the Urals. The command economy had proved its worth by building gazillions of T34 tanks. By the late 1950s and 60s this was translated into praise for the Sputniks and Gagarins of the Soviet space effort and in the 70s into warm words about Cuba's health system.

It was a hallucination. The democracies had done as good a job in war production as the dictatorships, and were to prove massively superior at technological innovation. By the late 1970s it was becoming clear that the only thing real communism - or any totalitarianism, including theocracy - was good at, was repression".

While his ultimate point is true, he seems not to know that the reason the democracies were as good at war production as the totalitarians was that they were just as ruthless at grabbing the means of production; indeed, in the comparative cases of the UK and Germany, even more so - the UK was pretty much geared up to a full war economy by 1939, while Germany did not fully mobilise the home front until 1941 at the very earliest.

Being good at winning wars has absolutely nothing at all to do with whether you're a democracy or a totalitarianism. If you don't understand this, then you've got precisely the same problem as market fundamentalist economists - you don't understand it's neither the 'who' nor the 'why' that matter, but the 'how'.

Aaronivitch concludes his piece soberly, and soberingly, by writing,

"How often do we need it proved? The issue isn't whether we have the right to intervene - because the consequences of vicious dictatorships usually catch up with us in time - but whether or not, practically, we can. "

All very high minded and moral, for sure, but just a little too vague, aggressive, insolent, and Palmerstonian for my taste.

The Globalisation Lie

Writing in today's 'Telegraph' on how a state of affairs whereby no business doing business in Britain being owned by Brits would apparently be a very desirable thing and all to the greater good, Tracy Corrigan states,

" The loss from the FTSE 100 of a string of long-established household names - Boots is now owned by a US private equity group; ICI was acquired by Dutch chemicals group Akzo Nobel - has further eroded our sense of British corporate identity. But such departures are the result of forces which we are powerless to resist - the globalisation of financial markets and the rise of the multinational corporation."

Whether deliberately or otherwise, Corrigan is not telling the truth. Globalisation is a policy, not a process. It has not just 'happened', it is a consequence of quite deliberate political decisions made without a popular mandate and under the influence of an overly powerful corporate lobby. It suits them and nobody else and anyone who thinks otherwise is either an ideologue or a fool.

Apologia For A Murderous Gerontocracy

Although Chris Patten's comment that he "would like to see the number of our Chinese students continue to grow", can be attributed to his desire, as its Chancellor, to see the University of Oxford make as much money off the backs of foreign students as it can, his question, "Would the rest of us be better off if China was still dirt poor?" actually beggars belief, if only because it shows his complete detachment from day to day reality.

We'd be paying lower prices for our food, for a start. Let's hope that none of his precious Chinese students are fifth-columnists or spies; I'd like to see the old tango dancer try to tango his way out of explaining that one.

Some Thoughts On The Nature Of Moral Authority

In yesterday's 'Observer', Nick Cohen was blasting off that 'We must not shrink from our moral obligation to Burma'.

In today's 'Times', it's Rosemary Righter blasting off that Burma's crisis is a 'test of the UN's moral authority'.

The United Nations' track record shows it to be a profoundly amoral body; attempts to invest it with some kind of 'moral authority' flow from the same flawed thinking that handicapped the United Kingdom for decades, through unnecessary spending to maintain what was believed to be its rightful place at the top table of affairs, the mindset rightly savaged by Correlli Barnett.

People who seek to invest secular institutions with moral authority inevitably fail; and if you want proof for that contention, what is noticeably missing from Cohen's piece is any indication that he actually gives a monkey's toss for the poor bloody Burmese, starving and up to their armpits in new water features. It's all 'aid' this' and 'governments' that, without any indication that he could give a damn about the corpses in sarongs. To her limited credit, Righter at leasts gives them a nod.

Morality, like charity, begins at home, and not in the debating chamber or the newspaper column; and hopefully without getting unduly Old Testament or Savonarolan with her, this is a lesson that might be learned by the devout Catholic Cherie Blair.

According to today's 'Telegraph', the cheeky scally Scouser's memoirs apparently record that her youngest child was conceived at Balmoral because she "had not packed (her) contraceptive equipment out of sheer embarrassment". Unless she was planning to take the Pill with her entree, I can't imagine what she had to embarrassed about - the Queen's a mother of four, and given her particular constitutional role I expect that she's been around the gynaecological block.

One of the most misinterpreted passages of the New Testament is 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone'. I smoke too much, drink too much, occasionally swear -although only on days that end in a 'y' during the months between January and December - and have been known to have a Vesuvian temper. However, one of the principal duties you sign up to as a recipient of Catholic sacramental marriage is to procreate children - it's entirely voluntary and there's not too much room for doubt.

But I don't suppose Cherie Blair is not the sort of woman to be told what she'll do by anyone - after all, how many buy-to-let flats in Bristol does the Pope have?

The Public Choice Fallacy

In discussing public choice economics, Tim Worstall writes,

"...the great insight of public choice economics is that all governments are like (Burma's): it’s only a matter of degree. Do we think that every member of the House of Commons is there for the selfless struggle to better the lives of their constituents? That every Ministerial decision is made solely with the benefits to the population in mind? That there are no MPs, no Miinisters, there for the pleasures and aggrandisement it gives them, and them alone?

Quite, they’re all at it. It’s a matter of degree.

And that’s what those boring things like civil liberties, laws about what they may not do to us, are all about. Limiting their ability to do as they wish for themselves at our expense."

Apart from being rather sweeping, Tim forgets precisely how these 'civil liberties' came to be on the statute books. It was because representatives enacted them.

If Tim is looking for an example of an MP who does give the impression of being there 'for the selfless struggle to better the lives' of his constituents, I'd nominate Frank Field - the last man standing on the patriotic left.

He Stoops To Conkers

Kalum Lamptey has been given an ASBO preventing him from carrying marbles.

One wonders whether he will stoop to conkers.

Hat tip - Laban Tall.

Bring On The Referendum

Apparently unlike Alan Cochrane, I welcome an early referendum on 'independence'; if only because in the poorer and less free separate Scotland that would be created from the act of national self harm of a vote in favour, I would have the lifelong pleasure of being able to say, 'I told you so'.

Some Thoughts On Atheism (And Atheists)

The BBC reports that,

"The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem".

Believers may be partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a "fact in the world", he said in a lecture.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers. "

With the greatest respect to His Eminence, one knows that must love one's neighbour as oneself, turn the other cheek and all that - but I have yet to encounter an atheist who hasn't told me they're an atheist within five minutes of first introductions.

Atheists seem profoundly insecure in their lack of belief - and while I respect their persons and right to be wrong if they so wish, I do not, should not, actually must not respect views which put Man at the centre of the universe, and which hails him as the fount of creativity. That's just guff - like, show me the chimp that's written an opera .

Some Thoughts On Swearblogging

"People who are anxiously frivolous or self-consciously out to shock become tedious" -

David Thomson, 'England In The Twentieth Century', 2nd edn, Page 87.

As Isidorus the Cynic remarked of Nero, swearbloggers make good use of ancient ills, and ill use of modern goods.

Labouring The Point

Whilst David Cameron should be condemned in the strongest possible terms for using apparent confusion within the Labour Party over policy concerning the future of the Union for party political purposes - all Unionists, of whatever hue, should consider the Union to be above party - Gordon Brown should also be condemned for attempting to dominate, micromanage and undermine what has been the most politically courageous act of Wendy Alexander's career thus far.

By calling for a referendum on the act of national self harm called separation to be conducted now, Alexander has called the Nationalists' bluff - and Brown's megalomania and libido dominandi have prevented her from being able to ram the point home and put them on the defensive. Instead of being able to go into First Minister's Questions today and put Salmond on the back foot, she will now have to answer questions about the level of co-operation between London and Edinburgh in the formulation of Labour policy. Like Robespierre, Brown seems to be jealous of those who come up with good ideas other than himself - and that psychological flaw has robbed his party, and an apparently close colleague, of credibility, and given ammunition to their opponents.

Corpses In Sarongs

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

A 'Yes Or No' Vote On Ending The Union Is Not Enough

Contrary to what Wendy Alexander and the rest of Scotland's pattering classes seem to think, there is a caucus of opinion - OK, it might just be me - that wishes to see the devolution 'experiment' ended, the Scotland Act repealed, direct rule from Westminster reinstated and the Holyrood building to be allowed to fall into disrepair as a moral warning against hubris.

Don't we get a say in how Scotland should be governed?

What Russia Under The Rule Of Boris Berezovsky Might Be Like

"All who return to reign, from banishment, reign bloodily" -

Suetonius, 'The Twelve Caesars', Tiberius.59.

Lenin...Khomeini...looks like the advice still holds good...

A Canticle For Kelly

Like the monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz struggling to rediscover electricity in the post-apocalyptic darkness, I managed to get the new laptop online today.

Fiat Lux.

Laptop Blues

Yesterday, I purchased a laptop from a household name retailer. It was only during discussion with the sales assistant that it became clear that I would require to purchase Microsoft Office and Norton separately, as they were not installed on the machine - and which, as I want to use it to get on the Internet and word process, I did. Together, they added £100 to the advertised purchase price.

Having been unable to install broadband, I contacted my ISP's technical support helpline. After a full diagnostic was performed, I was told that because the laptop has Windows Vista, it would be USB-incompatible and that an ethernet cable would be required instead. I last saw the ethernet cable which came with the external modem when it was installed - in March 2005. This is not their fault, but mine. Indeed, the ISP and their staff cannot be faulted.

Accordingly, I now have to purchase an ethernet cable - something which I was unable to do today, on account of having come out without my ATM card. Ho hum....

The Scottish National Party's Hatred Of The Liberties Enjoyed By Scots...

can be seen in its suggestion that the size of Scottish juries could be reduced.

This shows The Copfighter-General really wanting to stick the boot in, really wanting to kick the Scots in the ba-privates, really stamp on their heads until they're stunned and defenceless. The problem with the size of Scottish juries is not that they are too big, it is that those of all other jurisdictions are too small. The historic number sitting on a Scottish jury is 15; there is no reason to change it; and if it's proposed to reduce it on account of cost, that will show either that the SNP confirms that the national stereotype of Scots as being miserly and pennypinching is correct, or that they want to increase the "productivity" of the courts through shorter deliberation periods - and the liberties of Scotland and the Scots be damned. How did Scots become worth the consideration of only 12 of their fellows, when before they were entitled to that of 15? Has "Scottishness" somehow been devalued, and nobody's told us?

For donkey's years one has listened to the Scottish Nationalists tout the unique status of the Scots law as something about Scotland to be proud of - and yet once they get their hands on the levers of power, they talk of abolishing one of its most unique features. Wha's like you, eh, Kenny? Certainly not anyone who doesn't vote SNP, for sure...

Adam Smith was right...

The Teachers Strike (Again)

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

A Scotsman Reflects On St. George's Day

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

A Solution To The Grangemouth Oil Refinery Dispute

How about this - instead of Scotland possibly closing down because of a threatened strike at its only oil refinery, why doesn't the government nationalise it (without compensating the owners, of course) and put its staff on a no-strike agreement?

Their dispute is not our problem. If they want to make it our problem, we are entitled to propose solutions.

A Short Reflection On The Career Of Alex Salmond

As the leader of a freedom and civil rights movement, The Tartanissimo doesn't seem to have done very much.

Unlike Gandhi, I don't ever recall him leading mass marches demanding independence.

Unlike Martin Luther King, I don't ever recall him doing things that might get him arrested in the cause of independence.

Unlike Aung San Suu Kyi, I don't ever recall him going on hunger strike to make himself a martyr for independence.

Of course, he may know full well that if he had tried any of that, the Scots would just laugh at him, and, if I have any measure of the man's character, if there's one thing he won't take from anyone it's being laughed on any terms other than his own; but it would be nice to think that he thought his vision for Scotland, and the Scots, worth a little bit of effort - like dying or going to jail. Even Tommy Sheridan's done a wee bit of stir in the pursuit of his beliefs.

The day may yet come when Scotland's Unionists will be called upon to follow the examples of these giants of humanity in pursuit of our principles. If it does, one hopes one has the courage to do as they did.

We Shall Overcome.

What History Can Teach The Scots About The Scottish National Party, Part I

"The Bulgarian intelligentsia turned into a class of alienated men who fell far short of developing lose and lasting ties with their people as a whole. As nationalists, these activists loved their people - but they loved it as an abstraction. When the people failed to measure up to their image of it, the intellectuals turned on it with disdain. Although such an attitude might serve as a legitimate way to cure societal defects, the social criticism of the Bulgarian intelligentsia had a negativism about it that bespoke something else - the rejection by a cultured elite of what it in its frustration came to regard as the uncouth masses" -

Thomas A. Meininger, 'The Formation of a Nationalist Bulgarian Intelligentsia 1835-1878', quoted in Glenny, 'The Balkans', Page 118.

Loving the people as an abstraction? Turning on them with disdain when they don't measure up? Regarding them as uncouth? Sounds just like Christopher Harvie MSP to me...

What History Can Teach the Scots About The Scottish National Party, Part II

"In a related way, the (Bulgarian) intelligentsia established hardly any relationship at all with that part of the population which by and large was the people - the peasantry. The nationalist idealized the peasantry as the simple but sturdy backbone of the nation. In practical terms, however, they overlooked the problems of the peasants and they did not train themselves in the things they needed to know. " -

Meininger, op.cit.

One wonders just how many members of the soi-disant, ersatz 'Scottish Government' would know how to complete a Housing Benefit application form, would be able to live on the derisory sums paid in contribution based Jobseekers' Allowance or would know how to work the touchscreens in the Job Centre. These may not be the grand constitutional issues, folks; but they are the peoples' concerns...

Keep On Walking

On a personal note, this morning I have been able to walk unassisted for the first time in three months.

The pins are, of course, as stiff as a four day old corpse, and, if previous form is anything to go by, will probably collapse at about three o'clock this afternoon, meaning I get to do it all again tomorrow. However, even for a short time, walking to the train station does not feel like taking The Silk Road by the long route, nor climbing stairs like mounting The Hillary Step; and for that, one has this stuff and this lady to thank.

Here's hoping the remission/improvement/whatever continues. Deo Gratias.

Is Boris Berezovsky Skint?

Today's 'Telegraph' reports that this blog's least favourite balding Armand Assante lookalike is suing Roman Abramovich for $2 billion.

Even by Boris Abramovich's unusually low corporate standards, as outlined by George Soros in 'The Crisis of Global Capitalism', this is cheeky - or else the caviar train is finally grinding to a halt.

Maybe's he's never been as rich as he liked to make out. Maybe he's just another sub-prime emigre with a bad dose of Black's Disease - a millionaire who thought he was a billionaire.

One wonders what Paul Klebnikov might have made of it all...God rest his soul...

The Thoughts Of Timothy Garton Ash

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

Foreigner Perpetrated Crime: Compare And Contrast

BBC News, 16th April 2008:

"The influx of migrant workers into England and Wales from eastern Europe has not led to the crime wave that some have suggested, a police report says.

Since 2004, about 800,000 people have registered for work in Britain from many eastern European countries.

The report by two chief constables has been sent to the home secretary ahead of a meeting with senior officers"

BBC News, 16th April 2008:

"A security guard has been convicted of sodomy against two men and indecently assaulting two others in Glasgow.

Hissein Atie prowled the city's streets looking for men to attack, the High Court in Glasgow heard.

The 30-year-old, who was caught by DNA evidence, committed the offences between January and June last year.

Sentence was deferred for reports and Atie, who arrived in the UK from Chad in 2000, was placed on the sex offenders' register.

Judge Ian Peebles QC said he would consider deporting Atie to the Central African country."

While one would hope that Mr. Atie keeps his back to the wall in the showers, if only to keep his own wee chads from hanging, this does perhaps indicate that, as with much else concerning immigration policy, it's the non-EU aspect that needs examination.

Professor Ferguson's Ready For His Close-Up, Mr. De Mille

I haven't commented on poor old Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard and self-described 'fully paid-up member of the neo-imperialist gang', for a while; but given Niall's penchant for having the portrait on his website showing him either posing in front of a tank or astride the Earth like a study by Caspar David Friedrich, the new one makes me wonder if he's trying to hide his identity; or developing a double chin.

The Final Irony In The Death Of Mark Speight

According to the The Daily Mail,

"Police were today due to perform a post mortem on his body, which was found by builders hanging from a steel beam just two floors above a police station. "

As I said yesterday, Mr. Speight's interests seem to have been ill-served by those in the police service whose wages he paid.

Oddly, Mr. Speight's death now raises a genuine question of national security; for if a depressed celebrity whose face has been in the papers for months, and was thus now much more familiar to a very much wider audience than that to which he was usually accustomed, can gain access to a remote area of one of the country's most important pieces of infrastructure and then commit suicide, it makes you wonder just what a Muslim suicide bomber could do.

Anyone head from Mansfield yet?

The Guardian's Open Letter On Inheritance Tax

Today's Guardian carries an open letter from assorted public sector workers, academics, think-tankers and other goddam pinkos entitltled 'Speaking up for inheritance tax'.

They write,

"The core mission that should underpin progressive politics is that we should not inherit our life chances at birth: our opportunities should depend on our efforts, not who our parents are."

Good, so hopefully none of Will Hutton's children, if he has any, will end up writing for The Guardian.

It continues,

"Inheritance tax matters because it is one of the few tools that directly reduces inherited inequalities"

They do not say how it does this; through the particularly mean method of taking a lump of cash from those who would inherit, and speading that lump very thinly amongst many others. The only type of mobility which it fosters is downward. The writers go on,

"Those arguing against it must know they will entrench social immobility."

No, this is not the case at all. Reform of the education system based on the recognition that not all children are capable of a university education, restoration of the country's manufacturing base and the root-and-branch, slash-and-burn reform of the welfare system would also enhance social mobility; do any of these Solons dare kill any of their own favourite mobility-limiting sacred cows?

It should be politely suggested to these re-probates that, should any of them engage in the avoidance of inheritance tax, they would be accused of hypocrisy; that a lot of them aren't as young as they used to be; and that some people still read the notices announcing the value of estates which are published in the 'Times' and the 'Daily Tlegraph'.

The motto of such progressives is, and always has been, 'Power To The People - All Others Pay Cash'.

Gordon Brown Is Unfit To Be Prime Minister

I think the pressure's getting to him.

According to the BBC,

"Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he understands people's fears over the economy and insisted that keeping it on track was his "sole focus".

'We are on the side of home owners, business and individuals', he said".

Not only is this comment a complete repudiation of socialism, to all intents an apostasy of the beliefs Brown is alleged to have professed since his youth, but it doesn't make any sense.

One is either in favour of the individual or the corporate, but one cannot be in favour of both; and it's an extremely odd remark to make when the nation is engaged in two separate wars, both of which are bloody shambles.

James Maxton's sometime biographer is losing it, for sure. I suppose he's just another proof of the maxim that you should be careful what you wish for...in case you get it...

The Death Of Mark Speight

The discovery of Mark Speight's body is an unnecessarily tragic end to a rather tragic series of events. One wonders what hopes Mr. Speight had for this year - by the time less than a third of it was over, he had lost his fiancee, his career and now his life.

Precisely how, and why, Miss Collins came to ingest such a massive quantity of intoxicants is now really neither here nor there. She did, and it killed her, God rest her soul; a tragedy in a string of tragedies.

Yet one can't help but think that Mr. Speight's death could have been avoided; after all, let's face it, he didn't really get much help from the authorities.

Mark Speight's career was over the moment it was announced he had been arrested on suspicion of murder. The fact that he was officially exonerated of all charges in relation to the death of Miss Collins so soon after the announcement was made would not matter - there would be no way that he would have been able to resume any role in broadcasting thereafter.

One has to wonder whether or not Mark Speight might be alive today if someone at the Metropolitan Police had kept their mouth shut about his arrest. One hopes that those representing his loved ones make this point at his inquest. They could also ask why there was what seemed to be an unseemly rush to arrest him when the speed with which he was exonerated might indicate that the evidence was thin; whether or not a promoted detective panicked and went gung-ho when faced with a dead celebrity; or whether or not some malicious bastard, a breed sadly over-represented within our police services, decided they might like their name in the papers at some point in the future.

These are precisely the sort of questions on which radical barristers thrive - I'm sure that Mr. Speights's family could get one to act for them for free. Come to think of it, now that the Diana inquest's over, Michael Mansfield might even be available...

Mark Speight and Natasha Collins - RIP.

'Scotland's First Lady'

Yesterday''s 'Sunday Times' reported that Moira Salmond, wife of the Tartanissimo, is "to take a higher-profile role as Scotland's first lady".

I'm sure that Mrs. Salmond is a perfectly nice old lady, but The Scotland Act 1998 created no provision for the country to have a 'first lady'; like the debate on the council tax rebate, like Trident, this is just another example of the Scottish Nationalists behaving hubristically. Scotland already has a first lady, and her name is Elizabeth II; that the SNP would seek to put a retired civil servant from Buchan in Her Majesty's place shows just how insincere they are when advancing the 'one monarch, two nations' policy, and just how republican they remain.

For Mrs. Salmond to assume the role and title of 'first lady' would be a very grave mistake, for she would then be subject to scrutiny. She might be faced with awkward questions, such as why she contracted a marriage to a politically ambitious man 17 years her junior at the age of 43, and one which a cynical observer might assume was intended to be childless. It must have been a phenomenal meeting of minds. She might be asked just how much influence she has wielded over her husband, for an age gap of 17 years is a big one to overcome. It can be done, goodness knows; one of my relations married a man 15 years her junior, and the marriage was happy and endured for many years.

But on top of that, the wife of an aspiring politician must be prepared to make sacrifices, the nature of which a professional woman, a career civil servant, on the cusp of middle age must be assumed to be capable of understanding. She must have been really dedicated to letting Alex pursue his career; indeed, so dedicated that a less generous observer might think that such a gap in experience could lead to him being very much more heavily influenced by his wife than many other leaders. One might be tempted to wonder just how much of the SNP's intellectual direction has come from her, and not him; indeed whether or not she's been working her husband from the back.

And other even less generous commentators might think that her becoming 'first lady' a few months after her husband's rise to, er, minority government is payback for all those years of support and encouragement in the shadows; Moira finally getting her place. Isn't that nice?

Mind you, given that they met when they were both civil servants, it might also lead to questions as to the quality and impartiality of the advice and support which was given by the staff of the Scottish Office to Unionist Ministers; and whether or not those civil servants who supported the SNP engaged in entryism, a Trojan Horse within the institutions of lawful government. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, we've got laws against that sort of thing; but of course, they're civil servants - they know the law.

If she is declared some kind of 'first lady', I, for one, will refuse to acknowledge the title, and will encourage everyone I know to do likewise. Moira Salmond is not a 'first lady'; she is just another politician's wife. That's all.

Come to think of it, I wonder just how keen Mrs. Salmond really is on that title...she might be better off sticking to the cakes and the muscovy ducks...

The Terror Threat To The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is subject to the threat of terror, and Islam is the cause.

Oops - can I still say that?

A Once In A Lifetime Experience

That would be, er, Margo MacDonald researching assisted suicide.