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October 29, 2004
Trevor Phillips Exaggerating Racism Yet Again
In The Times today Trevor Phillips contends that ethnic groups still suffer from racial discrimination and that we need ‘more vigorous enforcement of existing anti-discrimination laws’. The evidence he gives is selective and takes the form of examples of disproportionate representation of ethnic groups in various walks of life: 22% of white British children live with one parent compared with 55% of African-Caribbean children; or ethnic minorities are eight times less likely to ‘visit the countryside’.
If there is a single belief underlying a free society it is the moral quality of all individuals. The founders of liberty drew their inspiration from our Christian heritage. All were equal in the sight of God and, if all were to come face to face with their maker at the end of their lives, they must be allowed to take personal responsibility for choosing truth from error and right from wrong. The underlying idea is that we should judge people according to the things they can do something about. We can’t help where we are born, or whether we are black or white, male or female. But we can control what kind of people we become. Consequently, all the great defenders of liberty believed that we should all be equal before the law. Yet, what we now have is laws under which some people are more equal than others. A crime with a racial motive is now more serious than one without, and the force of law will be used against employers who fail to meet racial quotas (woops, forgot to call them ‘targets’) which can only be met by giving additional weight to race at the expense of personal qualities or fitness for the job. In a world dictated by Trevor Phillips, an employer who treated candidates as moral equals and ignored ascribed characteristics like race, would be at fault.
Recent guidelines from the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), chaired by Trevor Phillips, reveal the dangers. The guidelines require employers to discriminate in favour of non-whites, so that their workforce reflects the ethnic make-up of the wider society. If ethnic minorities make up 8% of the population, then every workplace must be 8% non-white.
The CRE defends the new guidelines by insisting that racism still exists and claims that the under-representation of non-whites in particular workplaces proves its point. But the underlying assumption that the disproportionate representation of ethnic groups in an occupation must be the result of discrimination is profoundly misguided. Discrimination is a possible cause, but there are many other more likely explanations. Among the most obvious is that people in ethnic groups might prefer other jobs. People of Indian origin, for instance, are heavily over-represented in the NHS. They can’t simultaneously be doctors and police officers or business executives.
No less important, the low average age of non-white groups means that a higher proportion are too young to go to work. About 30% of non-whites in the last census were under 16, compared with only 19% of whites. Moreover, a higher proportion of non-whites are newcomers to this country, unfamiliar with its culture and language. They are at a disadvantage because command of English and knowledge of a different way of life can only come with time. In 2001, 54% of people of Indian and Bangladeshi origin, about 45% of Pakistanis, and 42% of ‘Black Caribbeans’ were not born in the UK.
Attitudes to family and work also affect recruitment to workplaces. About 74% of white British women, and 72% of Black Caribbean women are ‘economically active’. But only 28% of Pakistani women are in the work force. When asked the reason for not working, 75% of Bangladeshi women and 65% of Pakistani women said it was to look after their family or home. Among white British women, only 46% gave that reason.
These factors, not to mention personal choice, make it inevitable that people from ethnic minorities will be under-represented in any workplace. To alter our law to allow racial discrimination in reverse, when racial prejudice is not the problem in the first place, would be a betrayal of our liberal heritage.
The proposed guidelines follow the earlier imposition of racial targets in the public sector, but when the Government set race targets as proof of its hostility to racism it gave no sustained attention to the dangers, despite American experience of racial preferences which have led many American blacks to be among the strongest critics. For many African Americans, preferential treatment, whether in the form of quotas or guidelines, has come to be seen as a kind of humiliation, implying that ethnic groups can’t make it on their own merits.
Moreover, racists assume that race is the most important characteristic of an individual. But a moment’s reflection reveals that it is not, probably not even for Trevor Phillips. We all have several identities, such as race, nationality, father, mother, son, daughter, friend, good or bad writer, good or indifferent footballer, loyal friend, hard worker, decent neighbour, brave, funny, honest or dishonest. Which one is the real us at any one time? For most people, their race (in practice their skin colour) is a trivial part of their self conception. It only seems important because it has been politicised and now it is advantageous to give prominence to one’s race because it can be used to gain valued positions, such as university places or a well-paid job. We already have racial quotas in the public sector, which means that civil servants, police and firemen are being appointed because of their race, not according to their personal qualities.
The CRE chooses to assume that all unexplained statistical disparities are caused by discrimination, contrary to evidence easily seen by glancing at figures published on the Internet by the Office for National Statistics. The CRE is not only encouraging reverse discrimination to compensate for existing prejudice; it is creating discrimination where none exists. The chief beneficiaries of Trevor Phillips’ demands will be lawyers, bent on multiplying grievances in the hope of creaming off their share of the compensation claims.
Posted by David Green at 05:22 PM | Comments (3)
October 28, 2004
John Locke Died 300 Years Ago Today
John Locke, the great defender of the English Revolution of 1688, died 300 years ago today. Click here for an explanation of his contribution by Professor David Conway.
Posted by David Green at 02:11 PM | Comments (1)
October 27, 2004
Why the BBC's Charter Should not be Renewed
‘Accurate, impartial and independent journalism is the principal way we support informed citizenship. Our journalism and editorial values are the cornerstone of the BBC’s remit and constitute a core rationale for public funding.’
So runs a statement on the opening page of the introduction to a submission by the BBC on behalf of the renewal of its Charter entitled,the BBC's Contribution to Informed Citizenship .
The statement carries a clear corollary the corporation seems willing to accept. This is that the BBC would not merit public funding were its news and current affairs coverage substantially inaccurate, partial, or unduly influenced by outside pressure or interference.
So long as news agencies remain staffed by mere mortals, all news and current affairs coverage will, on occasion, be less than fully accurate. In the present context, therefore, all the BBC’s claim to accuracy in its news coverage can amount to is that, at best, it never knowingly misinforms the public by broadcasting falsehood or withholds what it knows to be true and germane to any issue. At a minimum, this would require it to seek to verify its sources before broadcasting any contentious or controversial claim, as well as broadcast all information in its possession relevant to any issue.
Likewise, for its news coverage and current affairs broadcasting to be ‘impartial’, the BBC would need, in reporting contentious issues about which there were substantial differences of informed and educated opinion, to go out of its way to avoid taking sides. This would require it to be willing to report and provide coverage of all contending viewpoints, neither deliberately suppressing nor expressly or tacitly privileging any.
Finally, for the BBC’s news and current affairs coverage to be truly ‘independent’, its editors and journalists would need to be unyielding to any direct or indirect pressure from government or other outside bodies to tailor the issues it reports on and how it report on them.
In tendering for Charter renewal, the BBC clearly believes, or wants everyone else to believe, its news and current affairs coverage possesses all these attributes. That its coverage does is a claim it constantly reiterates throughout its submission. Mere repetition of it, however, does not establish its truth.
To establish the accuracy, impartiality and independence of its news and current affairs coverage, what the BBC needs to do is address and rebut the claims of those who deny its coverage is accurate, impartial, and independent. Nowhere in its submission does the BBC mention, let alone attempt to answer, the numerous and well-documented charges levelled in recent years against the accuracy and impartiality of its coverage and comment on such issues as the country’s relations with Europe, immigration and asylum-seeking, the Middle East conflict, and the War in Iraq.
These charges have all been in the public domain for so long that the BBC has little room to plead ignorance of them. To do so would simply be for the BBC to reveal a degree of professional negligence so profound as to warrant the forfeiture by the public of all confidence in its news-gathering abilities.
The BBC seems unable or unwilling to acknowledge there is a serious case for it to answer concerning the accuracy and impartiality of its news and current affairs coverage. Alternatively, if, having seen there is such a case, the BBC chooses to leave it unanswered, simply proclaiming the contrary instead, it equally forfeits its entitlement to enjoy the nation’s trust. Why should the BBC be entrusted, let alone the nation forced to pay, for its providing news and coverage of current affairs, when the corporation is unwilling to address serious charges against its impartiality and accuracy?
As such, the document constitutes a damming piece of evidence of the BBC’s unfitness for having its Charter renewed. Rather than, as intended, spelling out the positive contribution it makes to informed citizenship, its submission only reveals how far short the BBC falls from achieving this aspiration. Its submission, thus, inadvertently supplies those called upon to decide whether to renew its Charter with evidence of its unworthiness of Charter renewal. Let it stand as a permanent testament of how manifestly unfit the BBC is in its present form for renewal of its Charter.
Posted by David Conway at 09:17 AM | Comments (1)
October 26, 2004
Losing Control of Our Borders
David Blunkett has admitted that he intends to give up Britain’s ability to veto EU policies on immigration and asylum. He claims that we will not have to accept any policies we do not like, but the EU has never operated that way. The European Court of Justice will impose policies agreed by a majority vote against the Britain’s will. Moreover, once power has been surrendered it has been the custom for it never to be given back.
Mr Blunkett has claimed that abandoning our veto will allow us to force other countries to follow policies we prefer. Mrs Thatcher made the same mistake over the Single European Act in 1986. She acknowledges in her book, Statecraft, that she thought Britain would be able to force other countries to de-regulate trade and commerce. Instead, Britain was coerced. Immigration and asylum will be no exception.
A country that cannot control who lives in its territory has lost the capacity for self-government. Our system of liberty demands much of ordinary citizens. It is only feasible where there is a common language and shared beliefs about fundamentals and it takes time for newcomers not used to the ways of a free people to settle in. Yet in 2002 the net number of foreign immigrants to the UK was nearly 250,000, double the rate before 1997. For accurate information about immigration check the MigrationWatchUK website. For further discussion of immigration take a look at Anthony Browne’s Do We Need Mass Immigration? (PDF).
Posted by David Green at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2004
Aren't these guys supposed to support gun control?
Charlie Brooker writes a regular TV column for the Guardian. In the conclusion to his Saturday piece, Mr. Brooker went on bit of a… well, a tangent, to say the least:
‘On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?’
The article apparently is no longer on the Guardian’s website, and they have apologized by ‘associating’ itself with Brooker’s claim that it was all just a joke:
‘The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer. "Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."’
The Guardian claims that Brooker’s views do not represent those of the paper, and that’s fair enough. However, that the paper could run something that not only speaks to an astounding arrogance (is the whole civilised world really rooting for Kerry, or merely the social circles of self-important critics?) but also makes crass use of murderers for a cheap laugh begs the question: Exactly who is editing this stuff? The Guardian should enjoy the right to publish materials they may not agree with, but its readers should demand they hold themselves to at least a modicum of good taste and good sense. In an election year that has been especially polarized and out-and-out nasty, running pieces that long for a return of presidential assassins further cheapens the idea that elections can actually be about the civilised exchange of ideas. Whatever your politics, you deserve better from your daily.
(Thanks to A Small Victory for this.)
Posted by at 10:49 AM | Comments (1)
October 22, 2004
ASBOs no substitute for effective policing
Crime and anti-social behaviour are amongst the most serious problems we face. Quite apart from the financial costs of vandalism and rowydism, the inability of the forces of law and order to guarantee to law-abiding citizens the right to go about their business without let or hindrance is blighting thousands of lives. If people are too afraid to go out of their houses, or to visit public places like shops or parks, they are suffering a real diminution of their quality of life.
The government’s response to this has been the creation of the ASBO – the anti-social behaviour order. So confident are they of its effectiveness that much has recently been made of a programme to increase the number of ASBOs issued. However, there is little reason for this confidence.
As a means of containing and preventing anti-social behaviour, ASBOs are of very limited use. First of all, local authorities have not been willing to issue very many of them, in spite of promptings from above. This is partly because the people affected by yobbish behaviour are often too terrified to give evidence which could lead to them being attacked. Secondly, when issued they are not always effective because there are not the resources to make sure they are observed, and in any case, our criminal justice system is seriously skewed towards giving everyone umpteen chances, rather than enforcing threatened penalties.
The fact is, ASBOs just illustrate the tendency of politicians to make up new laws and procedures to conceal the fact that they are presiding over systems that don’t work, but could work if some real effort were put into solving the problem. The sort of behaviour covered by ASBOs is already covered by the criminal law. Threatening behaviour is an offense. So is being drunk and disorderly in public. So is racial abuse. So is vandalism. The police have all the powers they need to deal with this sort of behaviour as soon as it manifests itself, and long before it becomes an established pattern in an area. They don’t do it because we have abandoned the idea of low-level community policing, nipping in the bud the sort of behaviour that will almost inevitably develop into serious crime.
Today’s Daily Mail reports on a family who have terrorised not only their neighbours but also – incredibly – the police. An ASBO has been taken out against mother, father and three sons, banning them from associating even with each other, and banning them from going into the police station. This is because their behaviour is so threatening to the police that one of the sons threatened to kill a policeman who was questioning him about burglaries. Surely these are the very people who should be in the police station – preferably in the cells. If the police are too scared to tackle them, does anyone really think that the unfortunate officers of the local authority, charged with enforcing ASBOs, will be able to do it?
We need more policeman, on the beat, enforcing the full panoply of laws that we have on the statute book. We don’t need any more PR-orientated initiatives from the Home Office designed to make us think that crime is at ‘historically low levels’.
Posted by at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
F Ofsted -- the Grade its Reports Merit
Ofsted is a governmental body set up by the 1992 Education Act whose full name is the ‘Office for Standards in Education’. Its original remit was to inspect and report on the quality of all state schools. If, based on an inspection, Ofsted judged the quality of educational provision of a school to be unsatisfactory, then, unless the school addresses and rectifies those aspect of provision the report deems unsatisfactory, the school inspected stands in danger of being compulsorily shut down.
Since its creation, the remit of Ofsted has grown steadily, with more and more different kinds of educational establishment being brought under its inspectorial wing. In 2002, Ofsted acquired power of inspection over the country’s private schools. Its powers were extended to them on the alleged grounds that such powers over private schools as the state had under the 1944 Education Act were insufficient to compel those offering inadequate provision to improve the quality of their provision on pain of closure otherwise. Meanwhile, competition between such schools was deemed unable to exert market pressure for improvement, allegedly on the grounds that parents could acquire insufficient information about what went on in private schools to enable them to make informed decisions about which to send their children to.
As from 1 September 2003, independent schools in England and Wales became subject to Ofsted inspections. Such of them it deemed offered unsatisfactory provision became vulnerable to threat of closure, unless they changed their provision in the ways prescribed by the Ofsted reports. The powers Ofsted have over the independent sector are truly enormous, having become sole arbiter of what it is and is not acceptable for them to provide.
The way Ofsted has chosen to exercise its powers over the private sector is anything but re-assuring. In the first twelve month period since it acquired these powers, it found no fewer than 95% of the 60 independent schools it inspected during that period unsatisfactory, requiring them to change in the ways prescribed or face closure.
If the private schools Ofsted judged unsatisfactory were genuinely so, then arguably it would be providing a genuine public service, despite it straining belief to suppose parents able and willing to pay large sums for private schooling of their children to be otherwise unable to know which schools are worth sending their children to.
Overwhelming evidence exists, however, that Ofsted is a very poor and biased judge of what is satisfactory private educational provision. A case in point is the Ofsted report issued earlier this year about Charterhouse Square School, London, based upon an Ofted inspection of it in March 2004. On the strength of what it claimed to find at this inspection, Ofsted deemed Charterhouse Square School failed to meet the requirements necessary for its continued registration as a school with state approval to operate.
Ofsted arrived at its verdict despite acknowledging Charterhouse Square to have an exemplary record in pupil attainment levels for English and mathematics, to offer excellent provision in such non-core subjects as dance and music, and despite finding the morale and behaviour of the children good and parents most happy with and well-informed about it.
Ofsted deemed Charterhous Square School unsatisfactory on the grounds of finding its pedagogy over-reliant on more traditional approaches at the expense of being permissive and child-centred . The school was also judged unsatisfactory for having preferred to focus its five year olds on reading and writing rather than learning IT skills.
What makes the Ofsted report on Charterhouse Square School so disturbing, especially when taken together with the enormously high rate at which Ofsted has found other independent schools unsatisfactory, it is that Ofsted is not delivering comparably unfavourable overall verdicts about state-schools that it knows employ no less traditional teaching methods than Charterhouse Square but which achieve far lower attainment levels in core curriculum subjects like English and mathematics.
A case in point is the Islamia Primary School in Kilburn, London, a comparably sized voluntary-aided mixed primary school in Kilburn, London. Unlike Charterhouse Square School, Ofsted deemed the Islamia School to be ‘an effective school where pupils achieve good standards in English and mathematics’. This was despite its pupils’ attainment levels in English and mathematics being far less good than those of Charterhouse Square school. Likewise, Ofsted found Islamia school ‘good value for money’, despite also finding all the following aspects of its educational provision to be unsatisfactory: its provision for under fives said to be given ‘too few opportunities … to develop an appropriate degree of independence’ , its procedures for child protection and for ensuring pupils’ welfare’, its ‘accommodation’, its learning resources, its attendance rates and its support for those of its pupils for whom English is not their first language.
There is not the slightest wish here to contest the legitimacy of Osted’s overall verdict on Islamia School being a perfectly adequate school. All that is being claimed here is that Ofsted is being manifestly less than even-handed in the unfavourable verdicts it is delivering on manifestly still-more adequate private schools than the Islamia school. That Ofsted is being such is profoundly disturbing when it enjoys ultimate power of deciding whether such schools can remain open and which schools must close.
Lovers of liberty, not to mention, high educational standards, would do well to be reminded of the words of warning John Stuart Mill issued in 1859 on the dangers of the sate being allowed to become the sole arbiter of what is an acceptable form of education. In his great essay, ‘On Liberty’, Mill wrote:
'A general State education [system] is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another.… [I]n proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendencies to one over the body. An education established by and controlled by the State should only exist, if exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence…. In general, if [a] country contains a sufficient number of persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to those unable to defray the expense.’
In sum, in response to Ofsted’s claim to be champion of educational standards, lovers of liberty might wish to responding by singing altogether in unison, ‘We don’t need your education; we don’t need your thought control’.
Posted by David Conway at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2004
Should Gambling be Regulated?
An unusual coalition against reform of the gambling law has emerged. The Daily Mail is running a campaign but will not have expected support from Polly Toynbee in today’s Guardian. The main thrust of her argument was that deregulation will increase addiction. She also reminds her readers of the experience of Atlantic City in the USA. It was hoped that the introduction of gambling would bring about economic regeneration, a hope that the British Government shares. But, if you drive to the gambling district of Atlantic City, you drive through the same slums that were there before the casinos opened. Moreover, there is even evidence that the casinos have driven out local leisure-related businesses. The free drinks that are liberally dispensed to encourage gamblers to go further, the free or cut-price food, and free shows make it impossible for rivals to survive for miles around.
Gambling is an issue, like drug addiction, that probes the frontier between classical liberalism and libertarianism. Libertarians are inclined to argue that the government should ‘get out of the way’ and let people do as they wish. For them, controlling gambling is an example of the nanny state. However, the control is not so much being exerted on gamblers but rather on people who exploit their weakness. The big profits are in the slot machines where, in a heady atmosphere, punters pull the handles or press the buttons as many times a minute as they can. For many, their mood is a bit like that of a motorway driver who knows he is too tired to carry on safely, but nevertheless presses on to his destination. In other contexts it is a human attribute that leads people to overcome diversity and persevere regardless of hardship.
Gambling corporations have become adept at exploiting such human inclinations to the point of addiction, encouraging people to part with money they and their families often can’t afford to lose. It is a legitimate use of law to regulate organisations who exploit the weakness of other people for monetary gain. Banning gambling altogether would be going too far, but putting limits on the number of outlets and the size of the winnings is sensible, given human nature as we know it.
Posted by David Green at 03:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2004
The Lost Art of Minding Your Own Business
From Guardian Unlimited (some colourful language ahead):
‘Last week G2 launched Operation Clark County to help readers have a say in the American election by writing to undecided voters in the crucial state of Ohio. In the first three days, more than 11,000 people requested addresses.’
Following this is a collection of responses from Americans who had heard of the Guardian’s distress over the state of their democracy. These ranged from the intriguing, to the bewildering, to the out-and-out hilarious (‘Mind your own business. We don't need weenie-spined Limeys meddling in our presidential election. If it wasn't for America, you'd all be speaking German. And if America would have had a president, then, of the likes of Kerry, you'd all be goose-stepping around Buckingham Palace’).
Has the Guardian completely lost the plot in its attempt to demonstrate such Grave Concern over the election? Someone there must have realized that such a plan would likely spark anger amongst Clark County voters; Americans would surely resent being told what to do by anyone, let alone a newspaper whose leftist slant makes the New York Times look like the Daily Mail. (Advocacy journalism such as this does not usually exist in mainstream North American media.) Imagine that you are Joe Undecided in Ohio and you get a letter from your typical Guardian reader imploring you to vote for Kerry: ‘Thank goodness this not-at-all patronising British person knows more than I do about my own nation’s affairs. Heaven knows what took me so long to make up my mind. Why, Britain must be some kind of political Utopia if all they have time to worry about is my vote… and, of course, fox hunting!’
Despite the paper’s unwillingness to admit this may have been a mistake, even the Kerry campaign has expressed its dismay at the stunt. Ohio is a key state and one Bush barely won four years ago and one Kerry’s supporters are desperate for now. Unless something big breaks in the news in the next few days, this election is going to be quite close. In an irony almost too mind-boggling to enjoy, is it possible that the Guardian just helped George Bush get re-elected?
Posted by at 04:04 PM | Comments (2)
The Tomlinson report is a distraction
The Tomlinson report into the education of 14-19 year-olds is a missed opportunity. By common consent our system, supposedly designed to ensure that rich and poor alike receive a good education, fails many of our children.
About 5% reach the end of compulsory schooling with no formal qualifications. Only 42% of 16 year-olds achieve a grade C or higher in both English and Maths GCSE. Many employers find young recruits lacking in basic skills. And worse still, even among those taking A-levels, a significant number of universities find that they have to provide catch-up courses for first-year students.
We should be having an entirely different debate. The introduction of a diploma with entry, foundation, intermediate and advanced stages will, of itself, be irrelevant. Reducing the number of external examinations, as the report proposes, will lower standards. Teacher assessment is notoriously unreliable because it expects each teacher to be a judge in his or her own cause. If a large number of their pupils do badly, perhaps it is because of bad teaching, a conclusion no teacher is likely to encourage. And the attempt to equalise status – parity of esteem – is a naïve absurdity. The status of occupations cannot be dictated by law or determined by a government policy. Such attempts are simply futile.
Instead of restructuring the qualifications framework, we should be focusing on the underlying causes of education failure. Above all, it is because the public sector is a monopoly. The small private sector allows an escape for some, but the real challenge is to create opportunities for the vast majority of the population by allowing new schools committed to high standards in learning to be established. Monopoly tends to diminish the discovery of better ways of meeting human needs and competition increases the chances that better solutions will be found.
Posted by David Green at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2004
Boris Johnson should not have apologised
The editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson, should not have apologised for the leading article in last week’s issue. Instead, he should have offered someone from Liverpool equal space to reply.
The Spectator leader drew attention to legitimate concerns. It may be that, in the light of criticism, the writer would want to amend or tone down some of what was said, but the main concern was valid: that the one-minute silence at the England/Wales football match and the two-minute silence in Liverpool were not justified.
But isn’t it a good thing if people come together in periodic acts of solidarity? Yes it is and, perhaps, we don’t do it often enough. But when a decision is made to display our unity we should be careful about the message that we are sending. The focus of the criticism in the Spectator was on the motivation of Liverpudlians for taking part. They stand accused of wallowing in victim status. In reality, I suspect that many were drawn in, as they were into the public displays of grief after the death of Princess Diana, for far worthier reasons. Above all, they felt a wish to belong, to be part of something bigger than themselves. But such a longing can be made to serve noble or ignoble, wise or unwise, purposes and it is reasonable for us all to ask ourselves what exactly we are giving our loyalty to when we take part in public displays.
In particular, should we not limit demonstrations of national solidarity to celebrations of the best in people? We should not be too severe in our judgements of Ken Bigley. He is very likely to have been tortured or threatened with torture, but we cannot ignore the fact that he made public statements calling for the government to give in to terrorist demands, thus endangering the lives of other British citizens. This has not been true of all kidnap victims. One Italian hostage acted with sheer defiance and, at the moment of his death, shouted ‘I will show you how an Italian dies’. Whatever our sympathies for Mr Bigley's plight, if we are going to carry out a symbolic act of respect, the conduct of the Italian was more deserving of public praise and recognition.
And what message are we sending about the way that Bigley family members conducted themselves. Mr Bigley’s son set an example to everyone. His television appearances were calm and measured. He said that responsibility lay entirely with the terrorists and asked them to show mercy, which could only mean abandoning their demands. Paul Bigley, the victim’s brother, could hardly have behaved more badly. He played the terrorists’ game, tried to direct blame at the British Government instead of at the kidnappers, and allied himself with opponents of the war who milked the situation to embarrass Mr Blair. The message to extremists everywhere was that, if you want draw attention to a cause, it will be well worthwhile kidnapping other British citizens.
Acts of national solidarity are often justified and the desire to belong that leads people to participate should not be belittled. But, before taking part, we should think carefully about the ideals being celebrated and the future consequences. Because the messages are mixed, Mr Bigley’s callous murder was not a good choice for a display of solidarity.
In any event, Boris Johnson should not have apologised. As an editor, he should have given space to his critics and, as a politician, he should have refused to play the apologies game.
Posted by David Green at 11:45 AM | Comments (9)
October 15, 2004
Identity cards
Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten has criticised the Home Office for advertising for a marketing manager for ID cards before the legislation to introduce them has even been presented to parliament. Even worse, the advertisement on the Home Office website makes it clear that the successful candidate ‘will take responsibility for all aspects of positioning and promoting ID cards and ID card services to its customers and stakeholders. During the passage of the Bill, this will include communications with ministers, MPs and others.’
First of all, it is by no means certain that the legislation, should it be introduced, would pass. There is widespread concern over the extent to which identity cards will undermine our traditional notions of the freedom of the individual from state control, and this concern is cross-party. Secondly, it is worrying that a ministry is hiring someone who is clearly going to be lobbying for a controversial bill, on which the Home Office is dead set, but about which a lot of other people have doubts. Is this an appropriate use of public money in a democratic system?
Governments are always keen on new legislation, because it gives the impression that they are doing something. Whether or not the legislation actually solves the problem it is intended to address is another matter. In this case, identity cards are being promoted as a measure to counter crime, international terrorism and illegal immigration.
The fact is, we already have good laws on the statute book to deal with these issues, but they are not enforced. The criminal justice system has been tilted so far in favour of the criminal that it seems he is the Home Office’s ‘customer’ (to quote from the website), rather than the law-abiding citizen. But this could easily be remedied, without passing any new laws. We just have to decide to enforce the ones we have. Terrorism and illegal immigration (which are linked) could also be dealt with by a firm and decisive policy to take back control of our borders.
It would be preferable to try these expedients first, before we decide to increase the powers of the state over us, knowing how these powers are likely to be abused.
Posted by at 11:55 AM | Comments (2)
October 14, 2004
Gangsta Rap and the Public Good
As a rule, Afro-American rap artists are not a group noted for the profundity of their political insight. The wording used by one in an advertisement for an employee reveals him as something of an exception.
Today’s London Times reports Sean “P Diddy” Combs as having advertised for a new butler by declaring himself looking for a white man. ‘I am an equal opportunities employer’, he is reported as having claimed.
On one level, Mr Combs’ advertisement exhibits no more than the sort of anti-white animus all too frequently voiced in the lyrics of his musical fraternity. What Mr Combs appears to be indicating is that he would prefer being served by a white man than by a black man so that he would then be able to triumph over someone of the colour of those who for so long subordinated to themselves those of his own colour. Since to express any such preference openly would violate anti-discrimination employment law, Mr Combs seems to be wittily exploiting the language of affirmative action to get away with doing so. In this way, he seems also to be cocking a further snook at whitey through openly defying his laws. Not much in Mr Combs’ advertisement for a classical liberal to admire, you might think. And were that all there was to it you would be right.
However, there seems more to it. In phrasing his advertisement as he did, Mr Combs is only pretending to be voicing anti-white animus. All who know him will know he is not the slightest bit anti-white, and he knows this. Only because he does is he able to openly voice such a seemingly racist sentiment.
In reality, what Mr. Combs’ advertisement seems to be voicing animus towards is not whites but all bleeding–heart left-leaning liberals who consider themselves free of racism but who reveal themselves tainted by it in supporting the use of affirmative action on behalf of minorities such as his. In playfully using the language of affirmative action to pretend to express anti-white racial prejudice, what Mr Combs seems to be doing is draw attention to the covert racism of all who feel resort to it necessary if minorities are to succeed in the workplace. What Mr Combs seems to be suggesting is that use of such language is racist because its use betrays belief that without resort to it minorities could not succeed on merit alone.
Assuming, as seems plausible, such criticism of the race relations lobby is what really lies behind the form of words used in Mr Combs’ advertisement, and is the reason why it is so amusing, he is to be applauded rather than condemned for having so skilfully exploited the language of affirmative action to draw attention to its shortcomings.
Respec’ bro’, as one day we might all be forced to say in the name of diversity!
Posted by David Conway at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)
The New Vitriol
‘I rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying! You people all deserve to die in another 9/11. You are destroying the world.’
You might expect to hear these sentiments on Al-jazeera, but certainly not from an English woman attacking a tourist on a bus. But it happened.
From my own experience, I'm often asked what part of the United States I'm from. When I reply, 'Oh, I'm Canadian,' many people quickly apologize for offending me or insulting me. I've found this puzzling--but I've also noticed when I first moved here, people warmed to me much quicker when my national identity was clearly established.
Therefore, we ask our American and British readers to please comment on this entry and share their experiences about US bashing here and abroad. As the linked article suggests, it’s well on its way to becoming more than merely fashionable.
Posted by at 12:24 PM | Comments (6)
Live and Let Live in the European Parliament
Members of the European Parliament want to prevent Mr Rocco Buttiglione from becoming the EU Commissioner for Justice because he has said that homosexuality is a sin. As a Catholic he does think it is wrong, but he has confirmed that he has no intention of using his public office to criminalise homosexual conduct.
The mainstream liberal principle has been that the realm of law enforcement should be kept small in order to enlarge the realm of conscience. Christians, including Catholics, have long accepted that the law should not be used to enforce every moral precept they uphold. In matters such as sexual preference it is accepted that we should not resort to law, but rely instead on individual decisions made in the light of public discussion and the call of conscience. But for there to be a moral sphere we have to allow freedom of speech, so that we can all learn from one another through public debate.
The new brand of puritanism represented by the MEPs is profoundly illiberal. They are not defending free speech, but the suppression of it by demanding that people who disagree with their preferred opinions should be driven from public office. If they win, we will have come rather a long way from a ‘live and let live’ society. Moreover, does anyone imagine that if Mr Buttiglione were a Muslim, whose faith also regards homosexuality as sinful, the same demands to ban him from office would be made?
Posted by David Green at 10:47 AM | Comments (3)
Sticks and Stones
Freedom of speech should mean one thing: freedom of speech. It should not mean, ‘Say what you like but please don’t be mean’, or ‘Yes, speak your mind but don’t say anything too unpopular.’ However, as we are told to continue red-flagging our language, freedom of speech increasingly becomes an unnecessarily murky terrain about what you can say and, more crucially, whose feelings you can hurt.
I’d long ago given up any hope that my home country would have the courage to protect free speech, which should be as simple and basic a human right as you can have, but this news should still raise Canadian eyebrows. In Quebec, a car salesman has been ordered to pay $1000cdn fine to a man he called a ‘fifi’ (French insult for gay). According to the judge:
"Calling someone a 'fifi' constitutes a scornful way of referring to homosexuals," Judge Michele Pauze concluded. "The use of this term wounds and adds to the disgrace and lack of respect of human dignity a person (can suffer), homosexuals in particular."
(The last sentence is particularly ludicrous, as who else besides a homosexual would feel hurt by being called this particular name?)
Regardless of how cretinous the car dealer may be, have we gone so far about making sure the state can protect everyone’s sensibilities that we think we can pick and choose the speech we want to protect? I’ve been called a lot of names in my life, but never had the good fortune to be able to cash in on the resulting loss of my ‘human dignity’ simply because I was a) taught the valuable lesson that people are sometimes cruel in life, or b) occasionally, deserved the insult. As distasteful as it is for us to admit, the right of homophobes, racists and run-of-the-mill jerks to shoot their mouths off stems from the same rights and freedoms we all enjoy. Letting them have that same right, that’s the tough part.
Posted by at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2004
The moral authority of the United Nations
There has been a lot of attention this week to the report of the Iraqi Survey Group, which confirmed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. However, the far more important revelation is that United Nations sanctions were being circumvented and that voting in the Security Council by France, Russia and China was distorted by secret payments made by Saddam Hussein. Andrew Neil relates the facts in this week’s The Business.
Posted by David Green at 07:31 AM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2004
Work Until You Drop
The independent commission, chaired by Adair Turner, has warned of the need for pension reform. Some groups are demanding an increase in the basic pension at the taxpayer’s expense, others an end to means testing, and a few are calling for raising the pension age.
A basic safety net is a necessity, but if we want to remain a free people and to enjoy independence in old age, the best safeguard is to rely on self-help: save as much as you can during your working life and ‘work until you drop’. Further discussion.
Posted by David Green at 04:39 PM | Comments (5)
October 11, 2004
British Crime Survey under-estimates crime
According to a report on the Today programme and a report in the Observer on 3 October, the Government is wrong to attach so much weight to the British Crime Survey (BCS), which substantially under-estimates crime. The report is by a new think tank, the Crime and Society Foundation, established by Kings College London. It confirms the case that we at Civitas have argued for the last three years, namely that the BCS probably only measures about half of actual crime and possibly much less.
Among the crimes excluded are murder, drug offences, fraud and all crimes against commercial premises and against under 16s. In 2003-04 the BCS reported 11.7 million crimes, but our estimates (based on a method accepted by the Home Office) show that there were at least an additional 10.9 million. You can check out the Civitas estimates at this link.
Posted by David Green at 07:59 AM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2004
Inventing racism where none exists
Ethnic minorities suffer from ‘passive apartheid’ in rural Britain, according to Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality. Speaking on the Today programme, he pointed out that in the South West region of England ethnic minorities were found in the ratio ‘one in 85’, whereas in the UK as a whole the ratio was ‘one in 11 or 12’. John Humphrys put it to him that immigrants go to the cities because that is where the jobs are. Phillips strongly denied this and claimed it was due to hostility.
But, the only proof of this hostility was that, when you go in a local village shop, the shopkeeper tends to be a bit suspicious. Humphrys pointed out that people were suspicious of him when he went back to Wales, the land of his birth. In other words, they were not hostile so much as wary of strangers. But that did not satisfy Phillips, who was intent on inventing racism where none exists.
His underlying assumption is that any disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities must be the result of discrimination (passive apartheid). But there are many reasons for disparities in racial representation that have nothing to do with discrimination. Some of some are described in Liberal Anti-Racism, published in Prospect Magazine.
The original reason for establishing the Commission for Racial Equality was to improve racial harmony. But, this most recent of the periodic outbursts from the CRE, will have the opposite effect. Perhaps the time has come to abolish it.
Posted by David Green at 10:32 AM | Comments (1)
October 07, 2004
Irreversible
In an interview with Le Metro today French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin says, “for the first time, Europe has a shared Constitution. This pact is the point of no return. Europe is becoming an irreversible project, irrevocable after the ratification of this treaty”.
For some other revealing insights into the real motives of some of the European elite take a look at the Vote No campaign website.
Posted by David Green at 11:24 AM | Comments (1)
Statistical Blunders and Manipulations
Something has gone badly wrong with the Home Office statistical service. Not all that long ago you could place reasonable reliance on official statistics. Today a mixture of bungling and deceit seem to be the rule.
I recently sent an email to the Home Office about the prison statistics asking them to clarify a figure on page 173 (Table 9.10) of Prison Statistics 2002. One row refers to 'Males aged under 17' and the next row to 'Males aged 18-20'. If interpreted literally,this means that the figures for males aged 17 are not included.
I asked the Home Office if the phrase 'Males aged under 17' should be 'Males aged 17 and under'?
They replied a few weeks later by saying that 'under 17' means under 17.999 recurring. Here is the exact quotation:
“In response to your recent enquiry regarding the above, the 'aged under 17' refers to those aged 17 or under in whole years (so up to 17.999..... years).”
Unless I am sadly mistaken, it would surely be much clearer to say ‘under 18’.
This was probably an example of bungling, but the Home Office is also not above statistical manipulation that can not be put down to error. Take a look at this short report on the Government’s policy targets.
Posted by David Green at 09:49 AM | Comments (1)
October 06, 2004
Less than Full Marks for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools
In a speech made yesterday to a secondary school in County Durham, Mr David Bell, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools for England and Wales, laid out his vision of what purposes our schools should serve in today’s ever more globalised world. According to Mr Bell, they should seek to accomplish two main purposes.
The first is to teach the 3 R’s. This assertion of Mr Bell may come as a pleasant surprise to all traditionally minded individuals more used, in recent times, to hearing pronouncements by educationists on the purposes of schools that seem to view their prime function more as adjuncts of the social services than as educational establishments.
What Mr Bell identifies as the second main purpose of schools gives less cause for reassurance. He claims that, aside from imparting these basic skills, today’s schools should seek to prepare their pupils for their future life as responsible citizens, and to do so in ways that foster social cohesion as well as encourage their self-awareness as citizens of a wider world-community beyond their country with attendant moral responsibilities. This function schools are supposed to fulfil today through their teaching ‘citizenship’, newly introduced as a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum.
At first glance, what Mr Bell identifies as the second main purpose of schools may appear no less innocuous or meritorious than what he identifies as being their first. What, it might be wondered, could be more innocuous or worthy of endeavour than that schools should seek to turn out morally responsible and politically literate alumni aware of their wider moral responsibilities as well as the civic ones associated with their national citizenship?
The answer to this question is nothing. But this is provided schools and their Inspectorate can be relied on to have correctly identified which responsibilities associated with each of these two roles their pupils should go on to fulfil. Unfortunately, other remarks by Mr Bell in his speech, plus the way the citizenship curriculum is increasingly coming to be specified and delivered, suggest what is being purveyed under that term in today’s schools is very different and altogether more questionable.
Worryingly, what is being offered in today’s schools as citizenship education, and is seemingly being offered with the full knowledge and blessing of the Chief Inspector, is nothing short of a systematic attempt to subvert the formation in their pupils of any robust sense of national identity or pride in their country, and their replacement by a cosmopolitan sense of global citizenship in which there is no form of identification with any single nationality.
For example, after remarking innocuously enough that ‘citizenship education … offers us a forum … for looking at ways of resolving conflicts and living together in mutual respect’ and that ‘education has an urgent and important part to play in promoting social cohesion’, Mr. Bell proceeds immediately by remarking that: ‘[This] begs [sic] questions about who we are, about national identity. Over the summer I know many of us reflected on what the numerous crosses of St George displayed for Euro 2004 really meant. Were they signs of the cheerful camaraderie of loyal football supporters – or was there something more sinister in the public expression of Englishness?’
From the context in which Mr Bell posed his question, it is clear he intended it as a rhetorical one and hence as an implicit assertion that any affirmation of or pride in English national identity is tacitly xenophobic and an insult to religious or ethnic minorities.
Anyone who so thinks will likely wish to use the citizenship slot in the National Curriculum to downplay the salience of traditional conceptions of national identity and to elevate the status of global citizenship in the hope the latter will provide a sufficiently robust and accommodating sense of common identity as is needed for social cohesion. Despite the best of intentions, however, any such a policy is liable to increase rather than reduce social fragmentation and to erode rather than increase social cohesion.
It took the saner voices among the educational establishment well on twenty years to realise the folly and complete ineffectiveness of the more progressive methods for teaching literacy and numeracy once canvassed and widely adopted in schools and against which Mr Bell rightly inveighs. Let us hope it will not take a civil war, Sarayevo or Kosovoa-style, to alert the educational establishment to the need for a common culture to foster social cohesion, or to make them appreciate that England’s traditional tolerant and liberal culture is far better suited for the purpose than any artificially manufactured new one, dreamt up by educational progressives concerned to give equal billing to every minority for fear of offending or failing to give equal respect to any, however bizarre or illiberal it might be.
So, ‘ten out of ten’ to Mr Bell for having rightly recognised the importance of schools teaching numeracy and literacy. A lower grade is warranted for his ill-considered claims about what their civic function should be.
He and his fellow enthusiasts for multicultural citizenship education would do well to do some more homework on this subject. They could do worse as a start than by reading Samuel Huntington’s recent book, 'Who Are We? America’s Great Debate'. If, as they all claim, citizenship education is something that should go on beyond school years, they would find it an instructive and timely way for them to practise what they preach.
Posted by David Conway at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2004
New poll on Europe
A new poll carried out by ICM for the New Frontiers Foundation finds strong support for the idea of taking back power over trade, employment, and civil rights, and for creation of a new global trade and defence alliance. The full findings and an analysis are available at this link. It's well worth a look.
Posted by David Green at 07:23 AM | Comments (1)
October 04, 2004
What the Treasury can learn from the Private Health Insurance Companies
Today’s Times carries a report that a private health insurance company, PruHealth, intends to charge a lower premium to customers who maintain a healthy life-style by not smoking, regularly visiting the gym, etc.
Surely, the Treasury could and ought to consider offering comparable kinds of rebate in connection with NHS charges? At present the Government seeks to encourage healthier life-styles but without offering the taxpayer any real inducements to do so beyond making smokers and drinkers pay extra taxes for indulging their taste for tobacco and alcohol.
Surely there are many other ways people can improve their state of health besides choosing not to smoke or drink beyond moderation.
Especially as an aging population will have to continue in paid employment longer than earlier generations, those who make the effort to look after their health by sensible diet and exercise deserve some compensation beyond their simply enjoying the opportunity to work longer and contribute more to the Treasury.
The only real issue is whether such differential charging would be unduly intrusive into people’s privacy. Surely, however, there are ways to incentivise the adoption of healthier life-style that could not be so considered.
Posted by David Conway at 01:41 PM | Comments (2)
Reducing punishment will increase crime
According to the Sunday Times, the police are shortly going to be encouraged to give offenders who steal goods up to £200 a fixed-penalty notice, similar to a parking ticket. It means that shoplifters and other thieves will be able to ply their trade without getting a criminal record.
Past experience of downgrading punishments should serve as a warning. The Criminal Justice Act of 1988 downgraded unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle to a non-indictable offence, encouraging courts to use non-custodial sentences. The result was that 30% more people had their cars stolen. In 1987 there were 20 thefts per 1,000 population. By 1990 there were 20% more and by 1993, over 30% more (26.2 per 1,000). The number of thefts only started to fall when the Government increased the use of imprisonment from 1993 onwards.
Posted by David Green at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2004
Educational Opportunity
This week the Higher Education Funding Council ‘named and shamed’ 17 universities for not meeting their quota of pupils from state schools. Threatened with the prospect of losing state funding if they do not discriminate against children from private schools, some universities have publicised their strategy for meeting their quota. Exeter University, for example, asks for only one A and two B’s for pupils from state schools, when it would require 3 A’s from a private school student.
The Government’s policy is a strategy of hard-line egalitarian social engineering, concealed behind a smokescreen of ostensible concern for less fortunate pupils. It is an advantage to have committed and supportive parents, but the present government sees this advantage as unfair.
However, a genuine concern for children with un-supportive parents would focus purely on how best to help them overcome their difficulty, not on penalising the others. Schools would be urged to make up for disadvantage with remedial teaching and extra support. It would also be legitimate to urge more fortunate parents to consider it their duty to try to help out in their local primary school, perhaps by volunteering to spend time giving additional reading practice to slower pupils.
But there is another inconsistency, which gives a clue to the Government’s real motivation. A determined policy of discrimination against children who had gained an advantage from having supportive parents would also penalise children whose parents had purchased private tuition. After all, the more money the parents have, the more easily they will be able to afford private tutors. Money is clearly buying results.
The trouble with targeting private tuition is that rather a lot of party comrades have resorted to it. But, in any event, the real target of the policy is to undermine independent schools. These schools, with their honour boards, ‘school spirit’ and legendary ‘old-boy’ and ‘old-girl’ networks, are the bitter enemies of the class-war zealots who now control policy making.
Posted by David Green at 09:56 AM | Comments (1)
October 01, 2004
Equalizing People
Tony Blair’s illness is a reminder that old-Labour collectivism could easy re-assert itself under a different leader. One of the dominant trends under Gordon Brown has been the increasing use of means-tested benefits. In 1951 only 3% of the population relied on the old national assistance and unemployment benefit. Today about 22% of households of working age receive half or more of their income from the state.
Gordon Brown’s contribution: Despite a huge fall in unemployment, there were 240,000 more people on benefits and welfare tax credits in 2003 (6,383,000) than in 1997 (6,143,000).
Posted by David Green at 12:29 PM | Comments (4)