Wednesday 22 December 2010

Nationalisation

Remember that word? Most areas of human activity have one or two taboo or quasi-taboo concepts. Use of drugs? You've got 'decriminalisation'. Sex? Of course, 'masturbation'. I always think it should be spelled massturbation but a discussion of that suggestion would take me in a completely different direction and I will resist the temptation. Until relatively recently, in religion, the whisper of 'atheist' would turn heads and elevate eyebrows in polite company. But back to 'nationalisation'.

Basically, the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. It is still the primary tenet of Communist Manifestos worldwide and, as Clause 4, it was foundational to the Labour Party Manifesto until 1995 when it was completely ditched. But have we thrown the infant out with the sudsy H2O? Bear in mind that several banks had to be part-Nationalised following the recent Credit-Crunch. Think on.

It is generally accepted that modern Capitalism cannot be completely laissez-faire; it needs to be centrally regulated. I suggest that a modern, and more enlightened, version of Nationalisation would involve only some 'industries' and the public ownership of just a controlling interest; say, a 51% stake. Which industries? Well, off the top of my head, I can suggest two criteria that may be relevant to the justification of  'New Nationalisation'. Firstly, any industry that is so important that it would have to be bailed-out with public money if it was in danger of collapse. No cigar for being able to think of an example. Secondly, any industry that needs national coordination and/or would be subject to 'cherry-picking' in the wider, free-enterprise economy; example - public transportation.

So there you have it. The suggestion is to consider 'NewNat' for some of our industries and enterprises. What say you?

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Vince Cable -- What a Twit!

For reasons that are well understood among evolutionary theorists in particular, young women often find powerful men attractive. This is well-known to men; sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously. Therefore, in the presence of young women, men will often 'big up' their power; be it of a physical, financial, intellectual or political variety.

Two young women, purporting to be mothers concerned about benefit cuts, came to see Mr Cable at his regular constituency surgery. They cleverly steered the conversation away from the cuts and toward Mr Cable's influence on the decision-making of the Coalition Government of which he is Business Secretary. In fact they were undercover Daily Telegraph reporters and wired for sound ; our Vince was sailing into very dangerous waters. He told them that, if Cameron and the Conservatives tried to push him too far to the right, he could always press the "nuclear button" and resign. He opined that this would bring down the Government of the UK. His subliminal message: 'I'm a big fish. Are you not impressed' ? The young women can be heard to giggle their appreciation of the point and the fact that they had steered our Vincent onto a substantial submerged rock. Encouraged by their success, the girls raise the subject of Murdoch's bid to get control of BSkyB. Obviously of direct concern to our young mothers (?) But Mr Cable can't resist telling them that he makes the decision on this issue and that he is "at war" with Mr Murdoch. He makes it clear that there is no way that he is going to agree to the move by Murdoch. His subliminal message: ' I'm a big fish. Are you not impressed.' More girly giggles of appreciation. With the tape running, he is now fatally holed below the waterline -- He cannot adjudicate impartially on such an issue if he has made up his mind before receiving evidence from his Civil Servants.

After publications by The Daily Telegraph and the BBC outlining the gist of this episode, Mr Cameron has now transferred responsibility for the Murdoch/ BSkyB decision to the Culture Secretary. Vince is lucky to survive. Ironically, this has demonstrated that he is indeed a big fish. Anyone else would have been sacked. He survives, not because he has shown himself to be a safe pair of hands - he has shown quite the opposite - but because he is the essential lynch-pin that joins the left-wing of the Lib-Dems to the rest of the Coalition. Perhaps he is tempted to recall the duplicitous young ladies to his constituency office to tell them that events have shown that he is indeed a large sea-dwelling creature that breathes with gills.

So much for the folly of men and the power of young women in their presence. Don't forget to watch his moves on the dance-floor on Xmas Day. Expected subliminal message: Ladies - look at how gracefully I could guide you through the stormy seas of life!

Friday 17 December 2010

UK Drugs Policy

At last, a glimmer of political light falls on our disastrous drug policy. The scientific community have been calling for a rethink for some time but, until now, the politicians have been ducking the issue. They have known the 'war on drugs' is a losing battle but have been too afraid of public opinion and the media to say so. Politics is about leading.

I Disagree with Nick

No single party won this year's UK election. It was right for the Lib Dems to agree to form a coalition with the Tories for the sake of political stability. It was understandable that the Lib Dems had to compromise on some of their policies including Student Tuition Fees; the reasonable agreement reached was that the Lib Dems would abstain on the issue. So far, so reasonable.

However, for senior Lib Dems to claim a Damascean conversion from a pre-election signed promise to oppose any increase in fees to voting for a three-fold increase to the maximum fee chargeable is a u-turn too far. The cry of 'foul' from students was foreseeable and eminently justified.

Boy, do I disagree with Nick on this one! As a consequence, I have resigned my Lib Dem membership.

Wikileaks

Just a minute! What's to debate? I understand that the US Administration are distributing this kind of information to 3 million US citizens. The idea, I have heard, is to ensure coordination between CIA, FBI etc. Eh? That just doesn't make sense. Why as many as 3 million? Someone is bound to leak it.

Some of the information is fairly innocuous; just undiplomatic tittle-tattle. Some seems to be sensitive; such as a list of sites important to US security but vulnerable to attack. In the wrong hands, this is dynamite information. Shame on the US for not holding it more securely; shame on Wikileaks for distributing it.

Where is the common sense in all this? I smell a buck!

Thursday 16 December 2010

Bad Logic

The religious often use the argument that secular states are obviously undesirable since most of the notorious 20th Century totalitarian regimes were secular; Nazi, Soviet, Mao etc. This is an example of bad logic. These regimes were bad because they were totalitarian, not because they were secular. Suppose all the leaders of these states happened to wear bow-ties. We wouldn't argue that regimes in which the leader wears a bow-tie seem to be undesirable would we?  In the discipline called logic there is a formal description for this faux pas; 'correlation doesn't imply causation'. Even if it were true that notoriously bad regimes tend to be secular -  many are fundamentally religious - it wouldn't follow that it would be the secularity causing the odour. As I said, it would be the totalitarian nature of the regime causing the stink.


Totalitarian regimes will often chose to be secular in order to negate the political and social influence of the religions. However, the power of some contemporary totalitarian states are wholly integrated with a particular religion; notably with Islam. This can be associated with intolerance of other religions, thus adding to the oppressive nature of the regime. Have secular totalitarian regimes had a history of active repression of religion? In general, the Nazis did not whereas the Soviets certainly did. The point is that there is no reason at all why a basically secular democratic state would, necessarily, need to oppress either its religious or its non-religious population. The Scandinavian countries are exemplars.