LibDems and The Other Place

I briefly mentioned Lords Reform on here the other day, but it seems to be top of the agenda for politicos, so I'm going to have another crack at it.

The House of Lords needs reform. As it stands it is home to a bunch of retired politicians and those who donated large sums to one of the three main parties (largely Labour, unbelievably, no charges were ever made over the Cash for Honours scandal). Nobody gets a say in who is appointed, except the PM. It is a terrible system we have now, worse than having wholly hereditary peers, at least they were unlikely to turn up and make a mess of things. Expenses in the Lords has also been an issue, possibly worse than in the commons, and unlike the commoners, we, the public, have no way of removing the rot.

So, I am very much in favour of reforming the House of Lords. That is pretty much where my agreement with Cleggy on this stops. The reforms suggested by him seem designed specifically to give him and his cronies a retirement home (see above), but with a bit more pretence of legitimacy. Of course, there is no real legitimacy here, 15 year terms? FIFTEEN! And a closed party list to boot! This is not democratising, this is just the elite giving themselves an easier job, I believe at higher pay (though I could be wrong) with pretty much no chance of getting kicked out until they retire. The dream for our 'elite'. I don't see any reason for any of these proposals other than in these corrupt terms. Fifteen years is a huge chunk of a career, only a career politician could think it reasonable to be in politics that long without having to persuade the people of your good works somewhere in between.

So, I do not support these proposals, if what was put before the house now was put to the people in a referendum, I would vote 'no'. That's not to say the current bill could not be reformed to be workable; my support can be gained. However, I am not to be asked, says Clegg, I, who have voted LibDem in local elections (mainly to try to get out Labour incumbents), am being told "we know better than you", by a guy who is purporting to be against unjustified privilege.The Whig tendency in the LibDems in dead. Giving the people a say? Ha! It isn't like this is a constitutional issue or anything, or an issue that deeply divides party political opinions. No, there is to be no referendum, and if the Conservatives don't like it, we'll threaten to  stop the boundary changes going through. Killing two Whig birds with one stone.

Well Mr. Clegg, you just lost any chance of getting a tactical vote out of me ever again, I know it was unlikely, but you represent nothing I stand for, you would rather rip up your manifesto than stop the privilege of your party mates. The current reforms don't really fix any problems and I really can't stand the idea of Sarah Teather, Vince Cable, Simon Hughes, Tim Farron or any other LibDem or other politician of that sort getting to sit in the Other Place for 15 years without facing election. We need less career politicians, not more.

The Samsung/Apple Patent Fight

The current patent system is completely broken, I don't think patents should exist anyway, but if we had a more robust system, I probably wouldn't care too much (I'm not going to go into the philosophy of this now, but there is much to consider on both sides with regard to property rights). As it stands though, the current system does not protect single inventors, nor does it increase the amount of investment made. It has simply become (or always was to some extent) a way for large companies to buy or make loads of patents and spend all their money and time using the system to push smaller companies out of the market.

Now, onto the current case between Apple and Samsung, which has seen Samsung win the latest round. The  case has been going on for over a year, which has stopped Samsung from being able to sell its product (and rival to the iPad) in some countries. To the detriment of consumers. What is their offence according to Apple? What idea did Samsung steal? None, it was a line drawing of a tablet with rounded corners. Now, according to the general principles, this should never have been awarded as a patent (it is not clearly distinct from other ideas), but it did, and so do many, many other "ideas" that are not justified patents.

In a bizarre statement, the presiding judge, instead of saying that the patent should itself be thrown out, or anything justified, he just insults Samsung into them winning. I'm not sure how a high court judge can decide if something is cool or not, but I digress, coolness is something subjective and I'm not sure our legal system should be based on anyone's opinion on whether something is "cool". Not exactly a sound legal principle. One would hope that this is the end of the saga, but I can see it rumbling on as Apple try to force competitors out of the market and establish something of a legal monopoly - despite not inventing the tablet idea in the first place.

This case seems to represent everything that is wrong with the current patenting system, far too many unjustified patents being awarded, large companies amassing patents just to sue each other (patent hoarding) and a growing class of legal types abusing the system to everyone else's disadvantage (patent trolls). Investment in new ideas slows as money becomes earmarked to legal cases, small companies who can't afford millions of patents are trampled on and real inventors are left with nothing for their work, simply being unable to pay the fees to keep patents, let alone fight the legal battles. Whilst there are some sound arguments for keeping patents in some form, the complete abolition would be a great deal better than what we have now, for innovation, inventors, small businesses and the general consumer.

This Week in Liberty

So, after a long absence from the blogosphere, I'm back. Degree over and plenty of time to blog between job applications (although I hope that this free time dries up in the form of paid employment soon). To get into the swing of things, I'll just give a quick comment on some stories for the week (maybe I'll do this every Sunday, who knows?).

Libya - So, elections is it? I notice the BBC and the like are very happy with this. Democracy, woo! Whilst I'm glad that the socialist Gadaffi is gone, I'm going to hold my breath at least until this new lot write up the new constitution. If the constitution is not set up to limit government, then I think Libya will just be another illiberal country with a pretence of democracy. I hope that whoever takes over is at least better than Gadaffi.

Barclays and Libor - So, Barclays and several other high street banks, seemingly with the knowledge of the ever dodgy Bank of England, fixed Libor rates. This is fraud, hammer anyone guilty. Sack anyone at the BoE who knew about it and was either compliant or did nothing. I have no faith however, in any inquiry, judge-led or otherwise. More regulation, they will surely say, failing to recognise that part of the problem here is clearly regulatory capture by the large banks. Free Banking I say!

House of Lords Reform - I don't think much of the HoL reform proposals, but the Other Place does need to be reformed away from the ever growing list of Labour party donors and that sort of ilk. Ideally, something like a democratic chamber with more power than the current Lords, with longer term lengths (maybe 8 years, with Commons term reduced to 4?) and staggered voting, to ensure that it doesn't just become a Commons Mk. 2 but bringing in some legitimacy. Honestly, this would be about the last thing I'd rebel over if I was a Conservative MP. Would be more angry over the lack of real spending cuts and tax rises in the budget (the Darling plan would have had deeper cuts!).

Glaxo - They made antidepressants that didn't work and were unsafe, corrupted the regulators and doctors. Now the regulators get to look good by fining Glaxo for something they initially said was safe. Yay for regulatory capture again. Calls for more regulation, anyone? OK, so officially the drugs in question were never meant for children and teenagers, just adults. But if something makes children and teens suicidal (this is an antidepressent?), why would it not do the same for adults? The only reason I can think of is that an adults liver would be able to absorb more of the dangerous stuff. But even then, why would it help? The regulators have a lot to answer for here, as usual.

All in all, an interesting week for the regulators of the world, and I do hope that the Libyans come up with a half-decent constitution, they could become a model nation for that part of the world. Anyway, its good to be back to blogging.

How not to regulate the skies.

Mister ash cloud has, apparently, grounded everything for another day, following the debacle of last year's moronic closing of air space. The problem is, that the air space didn't need to be closed and despite evidently knowing nothing about the situation, regulators across Europe banned air travel. They are now at it again.

The guise of safety was once again thrown out, but what is the risk of flying around the edge of ash clouds or at the very least doing flight tests to find out whether it is safe to fly, before say, banning everyone from flying. As it turns out, both Ryanair and British Airways did test flights through the affected areas - reporting no damage. Why then, did the regulators decide to ban flights? It proved to be safe. The worst that might happen would be that air filters would have to be checked and possibly changed between 'risky' flights.

Let's be clear, the airlines are not going to run unnecessary risks with their planes and passengers. If they took a risk and a crash resulted, they would lose massive amounts financially. The cost of the plane alone would outstrip the benefits of the flight taking place, add to that the legal fees which would result and the loss of prestige and the airlines are going to be very careful with running flights. The regulators do not even need to intervene. The normal market costs were enough to ensure safety.

The situation, once again, was not left to the market. The regulators came to the rescue, and once again, went into overdrive. Of course, the government is not prepared to pay for the loss they caused the airlines. Whilst there is some risk to high density areas of ash, the overkill on the regulators part is simply destructive. In low density areas of ash, the ash will simply burn up in the engine, it is only when the ash in the air is dense enough that any threat of build-up inside the engine will take place. To achieve this, you have to be going through rather thick ash clouds.

Once again, regulators appear to be putting 'safety' fears above reality and common sense. The precautionary principle strikes again - and once again, it does a good deal of damage, and little to no benefit.

Johnson: 'Deficit is bullsh*t' - Deficit Denier edition

[I would have posted this earlier had it not been for the lack of decent computer access. With a new laptop at hand, I can forge ahead].

Last week, the Right Honourable Alan Johnson MP, former Home Secretary and Shadow Chancellor, came for a little visit to my University's Labour Club (the former Labour Society collapsed due to infighting a year or so ago, to my knowledge). I assume he expected a receptive and sycophantic audience and for the most part he did. There were a few troubling questions though.

He had to deal with things relating to AV (anyone who is against AV is old-fashioned of course), its effects on Northern Ireland, a case he dealt with whilst Home Secretary and one other question.

As usual Johnson followed the typical Labour Party line, in that, all of the deficit was due to the Global financial crisis, caused of course, by America (evil capitalists). My question was simply "if that's true, why did you run up a deficit every year between 2003 and 2007?" (I should have noted that 2002 also had a budget deficit - I was without notes). Johnson was taking questions three at a time and initially "forgot" to answer mine (I suspect he was attempting to come up with some answer). Eventually he returned to my question - I was not impressed by his response.

After some initial wrangling, he managed to say something along the lines of "most economists agree that the structural deficit is wrong. Its just bullshit." He went to to explain that Labour could have slowed down the economy around 2003, but didn't. He also says that it's a reasonable debate to have over how large the state is, but of course, the deficit can be ignored. Not important says Postie.

Now, a structural deficit is, essentially a deficit run when the economy is doing well, one that occurs year on year (FT definition). It would be very difficult to argue that there isn't a structural deficit based on this terminology. Every year from 2002 the UK has had a budget deficit - and the deficit was rising all the time. So, no, it is real, and we have it, Johnson. The thing is, this appears to be roughly the official Labour Party line - surely someone in the party has some founding in economics?

Next up, 'slowing down the economy'. This is derived, I assume, from the Keynesian C+I+G formula. Government spending being the magical ingredient to fix any problem. The problem is, those years where Labour didn't reduce the deficit (prior to 2007) were 'good years'. Even using Keynesian theory, the government should be operating balanced budgets/surpluses in order to pay off the debts amassed during the previous crash (we still had plenty of debt to pay off - so no excuse not to follow this). Given the post 2001 general election splurge, surely, if Johnson is right, we should have seen a massive growth increase, right? 2002 above average? What about 2003? In fact, no year breached the target 3.5% growth that Brown was after. So much for the magic G. Overcrowding? Perhaps. This doesn't exactly decimate the neo-Keynesian, however it does highlight that Labour had no idea what they were doing with the economy and are still, firmly in denial of the facts.

And this could have been our next Chancellor.

No Question Anymore

The BBC is now beyond any measure of neutrality. They are for the big state with no questions asked, they are now publishing articles in support of a 'nanny state'. Apart from the articles being blatantly incorrect, suggesting that the libertarian position was mainstream in order to attack it, it strikes me as obscene that the BBC could publish an article so opposed to freedom.

Among the errors is a picture of Piccadilly Circus, with the sentence 'A truly libertarian state would have no advertising at all, remaining entirely neutral' underneath. That isn't libertarian, that is communist, surely? What we would have is the government not telling us what to do - how poorly does the BBC have to represent the libertarian position before it is realised that the BBC is deliberately doing so.

Let's look at another false statement:
"The foibles of citizens should be placed beyond comment or criticism, for fear of turning government into that most reviled and unpalatable kind of authority in libertarian eyes - the nanny state."
The foibles of citizens will be open to comment from other individuals and, in certain circumstances, businesses and non-governmental organisations. The government shouldn't be making comments on individuals, why would we want them to? They are there to serve the people, not comment and criticise them. The most reviled thing for libertarians is not a nanny state, but an authoritarian dictatorship and a nanny state is just one step in the direction to that. We hate the idea of a nanny state because we hate the idea of government controlling our lives and taking away freedoms because apparently some people know better than us. This is exactly the logic of the Bolshevik leaders when they dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918, after just 13 hours of sitting. They knew what was best for the people.

The article had numerous other errors in what was at best, an absurdly poorly researched article, or at worst (and given the detail, the more likely), a deliberate attempt to misplace the libertarian position to ridicule it. It might just be one guy, but given that Alain de Bottom (from the left-wing Indy) is regularly allowed to use the BBC as his mouthpiece, it seems that anyone under the impression that the BBC is neutral is simply and unquestionably in denial. As for it just being 'a point of view', the question is, when is there a rebuttal?

Why do I have to pay for someone to misrepresent me and not be questioned for it?

Lord Monckton and James Delingpole have both recently seen the obscene side of BBC programming, and here is a clear example of the BBC website chiming in. The BBC hates libertarians, they are against the expansion of the state, the BBC hates climate 'sceptics' because they don't bow down to orthodoxy, they generally dislike people who don't fit into their  left-'liberal' mould. It surely is time that the BBC was, at the very least, radically altered, because there cannot be a question of this anymore, can there? The BBC has an institutional bias and it isn't going to go away.

"We should bring down the Israeli government!" - Those lefties again...

An Israeli diplomat called Ishmael Khaldi was invited to the university, and today he gave a talk on Israel and security. I say again, a diplomat, more, a Bedouin Arab, Israeli diplomat came to speak on the issue of security in the middle east and his life as a diplomat (as well as maybe talk about his book, not that he got the chance).

The left came out in force, no banners though, but still they came to heckle and insult and generally disrupt everyone else. What did it achieve? Nothing, everyone else saw them as the childish, incoherent, moronic fools that they are - their actions won them no converts. They used up time with pointless irrelevancies and prevented others from asking more prescient questions than "what is wrong with Israel?" after talking about unicorns. I kid you not, they brought up unicorns.

What is it with these people who come into meetings around the country, in talks and meetings in universities and public arenas to systematically disrupt and shout down others? Why is this useful or necessary? What goes through the minds of these people when they hold meetings to draw up notes on what to shout. They failed to convince anybody and the rest of the audience was more disdainful of the interruptions than the guest.

The stated suggestion of the lefty's leader, who self-identifies as a Trotskyite (and one of my uni's NUS delegates), is to bring down the Israeli government. He offers no suggestion of what to do afterwards. Now, I would concur that removing statism would improve the lot of the people living there, but I'm not sure just some vague suggestion of bringing down governments does anyone any good.

It was clear that this group wanted nothing more than to make themselves sound superior to others, to self-please until nobody else existed. It was a horrible (if utterly predictable) sight to see. My uni being embarrassed because some people were unable to sit and listen like adults is not something I want. Given that nobody was coerced to go, it seems rather more than puerile to attend just to annoy others.

If you are unable to talk to others in a reasoned manner, please don't turn up and ruin it for the rest of us, it is not welcome. It will never be welcome. Whether you're a far-left Trot, a 'green' campaigner', a conspiracy theorist or anything else, learn to talk like an adult before instead of throwing your faeces out of the cage. Grow up and listen to others - if you intend not to listen to what others have to say, then go away and let more open-minded people do it instead.