Month: February 2008

It is a pity that the UK and Japan are both so over borrowed that they could not join in a concerted programme of tax reductions to get the advanced economies moving again after the credit crunch.
It is good news that the G7 avoided a public row, and understood the need to make soothing noises about slowdown, not recession.
It will take a combination of interest rate reductions and tax cuts to stimulate growth sufficiently. Both the Uk and Japan need to take aciton to get better value for money from public spending, and to curb their deficits.

It was ominous today to hear on the radio that the Archbishops own advisers at Lambeth Palace are briefing that they warned against his remarks on Sharia law.

The Archbishop’s current defence is that he was misunderstood – that he never wanted Sharia law to be a kind of parallel system in the UK. Yet if you examine the text of what he said, helpfully put out by the Church of England (which may undermine him further), it is clear. There are two important remarks:

1. In response to a question putting to him "the application of Sharia Law in certain circumstances…seeems unavoidable" he agreed.
2. He also said "Individuals might choose in certain limited areas whether to seek justice under one system or another".

It is difficult to say he has been misrepresented. Agreeing to a leading question – or failing to say "No" to it – counts as your statement. Any of us who have been through the media mill know that if someone tries a leading question the safest thing to do is to preface your response by "No", or "I can’t agree with that" or "That is not what I said" before exploring whether there are any words you could use that could bring you nearer to the questioner if you wish to go that way.
The statement on seeking justice under an alternative system was not sufficiently hedged. If he had said that everyone had to obey the same law, but religious groups could set up their own arbitration systems under the common law if all parties to the process were volunteers to it he would not be in the trouble he is now in.

I would suggest that he should withdraw these two remarks, and restate his position, making it clear that there has to be one common law agreed by an elected Parliament. There should then be maximum toleration under that law for different religious groups to act as they wish, where their attitudes and practises are compatible with the general law.

Digby Jones will be accused of making a gaffe today, for daring to speak out against the magpie tendency of the Chancellor. He should keep digging.

For Digby is right – if the government presses on with its greedier version of schemes to tax Non Doms more it will be bad for British jobs and British prosperity.

The British economy needs the organisational skills, the marketing flair and the investment backing from the overseas executives who have come here to run businesses. No-one can be sure at what point the tax and regulatory background becomes too stifling, but now is not a good time to test it to destruction.

The government has presided over two huge deficits – its own borrowing requirement, and the balance of payments deficit. Both need inflows of foreign capital to keep us going. That was why Gordon Brown took his begging bowl to China recently.

It’s not Digby in a hole, but the Chancellor. Digby is offering good advice – so keep digging Digby.

Dr Williams is in a hole. Everyone tells me he is a very intelligent man, but on this occasion he has made an elementary error in the way he thinks about law and society.

There can only be one law in a free democratic society. Everyone has to obey it. The only privilege that should extend to the government is the right to change the law, but only for future actions, not for past.

<a href=’http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/399px-rowan_williams_-001.jpg’ title=’399px-rowan_williams_-001.jpg’><img src=’http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/399px-rowan_williams_-001.jpg’ alt=’399px-rowan_williams_-001.jpg’ /></a>

Dr Williams has confused the need for toleration, with the need for a single law.

I am all in favour of extending toleration. It has worked well for the UK, which is a fairly tolerant society. There are many areas where we do not need to have an agreed single law or rule, where we can tolerate different practises.

We do not need to enforce a law to make people eat pork. We can allow people with religious objections to avoid it. Nor should we enforce a law to prevent others eating pork who have no objections to doing so.

We should not enforce a law to make all women appear in public with a head scarf, as many of us do not believe such clothing is necessary. Nor should we pass a law saying women must not appear in public in a headscarf, as some women would like to for religious reasons, and some for fashion.

A majority of motorists today think driving at 80 mph on a motorway is a safe thing to do. A minority do not, and accordingly observe the speed limit. You could say it is inevitable that we need a law which allows the majority to practise their belilef that driving at 80 mph is safe.

However, we could not move from a law which says 70 mph is the maximum to a law which says 70 mph is the maximum if that is your belief, but 80 mph is the law if you are not a 70 believer. The police need to know which is the law for all, so they can enforce it fairly. That is why our system is based on people arguing and lobbying for changes to the law, and on elected officials who have to gauge where the majority and commonsense lies and change the law accordingly.

Dr Williams should withdraw his silly idea, and understand the important distinction between toleration, which is good, and the need for a single law, which is essential. The Archbishop and the Anglican Church should help those of us who want less law – and therefore more tolerance – to identify the further areas where we can relax and remove the need to boss people about. That would get him out of the large hole he has dug himself into.

Local means national. Devolution means better central control.

In Labour’s world of doublespeak there are many dictionaries telling us how words mean something else to the government.

Gordon Brown and Hazel Blears told us that they would free local government. They sought nothing less than a “reinvention of the way we govern”, “an historic transfer of power from Whitehall to the town hall..”

That was quite a promise. When Hazel Blears finished work on the policy behind it, it turned out very differently.

In the memorable work “The New Performance framework” we are told how 1200 indicators for local authority performance were being trimmed to a neat 198. These in turn would be boiled down to a modest 35 targets amongst the national indicators, supplemented by a trim 17 statutory targets on educational attainment.

We are assured that “The national indicator set will be the only measures on which central government will manage outcomes delivered by local government”. Well there’s a relief then. They only cover a few minor matters like the economy, the environment, equality, health and wellbeing, children and young people, stronger communities and safer communities. That should leave plenty of scope for local government to do other things that are different!

The detail of the slimmed down regime is bizarre. Local Authorities have to track the proportion of “local people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality”, the engagement in the arts, perceptions of anti social behaviour, satisfaction with how the police and the Council are dealing with it, the ethnic composition of offenders on Youth Justice systems disposals, the emotional health of children, healthy life expectancy, the proportion of decent Council homes, non principal roads needing maintenance, bus services running on time, active management of biodiversity sites, and many others.

The strategic objectives are as wide ranging as the indicators are detailed. Councils have to make communities safer, reduce the risk of terrorism, secure a healthy natural environment, encourage more widespread enjoyment of culture and sport, achieve world class standards in education and create sustainable patterns of consumption and production amongst others.

These Ministers are crazy. There is no way they can control the level of detail in 198 indicators, or fairly asses Councils in respect of so many wide ranging and grandiose aims. Anyone who has experience of managing knows you have to keep targets simple and few in number. They need to be stretching but achievable. You also understand that if you attempt to drive everything by such targets you are running a highly centralised system, not a devolved one.

Now wonder performance in the public sector is often so poor. An army of people is needed to collect the figures, to fathom out ways of presenting them more favourably or getting round them. They completely distort what Councils are trying to do. Money is doled out in part in relation to these targets and in part as a result of the star system of rating based on these targets.

The old idea was we elect Councillors to set a course and run the management of our local Council. If they do well we re-elect them, if they do not we replace them. That was accountability. The government has hijacked it with its rules, circulars and targets from Whitehall. Slimming down to 198 still leaves the whole system ossified and centalised. It makes it dear, reluctant to innovate, and resentful of the centre.

No wonder there is so little local democracy and so little interest in local elections. People realise their Council has been hijacked from the centre. Gordon Brown and Hazel Blears clearly hate local democracy, which is why they have invented this overweening set of levers, controls, circulars and regulations. It makes everything much dearer, and means better Councils cannot show how much better they could be.

I welcome the government’s decision to place the Northern Rock debt on the government’s own balance sheet. It always belonged there, as the Bank of England is wholly owned by the Treasury on behalf of taxpayers.
It is there as a reminder of the importance of getting this money back as quickly as possible. It does not help the government’s fianancial standing, given the high level of new borrowing being undertaken.

Richard Littlejohn says today there are no great issues and big ideas in UK politics.

Please Richard, read Hansard for this week. We are battling to try to keep a Parliamentary democracy in these islands, against a government which wishes to give what remains of our important powers of self government away.

We are battling to preserve and extend our civil liberties, damaged by this government’s surveillance society.

We are battling to try to deregulate the UK, to cut through the jungle of red tape, quangos and political correctness.

And yes, some of us are battling for lower taxes as well.

I would have thought that might count as some big ideas!

Today I learn that the Chancellor has become a mortgage salesman again. He is lecturing us to take long term mortgages at fixed rates. Has no-one reminded him that his government has made mortgage selling a regulated activity? I doubt if the Chancellor has bothered to fix himself up with the necessary regulatory approvals to start selling the fixed rate proposition so actively.

Is he aware that mortgage salesmen need to know their client? Does he grasp at all that long term fixed rate mortgages may work out dearer for some people? They do not make much sense if you plan to move on and repay the mortgage in a relatively short time period. The relative cost of floating rate and fixed rate mortgages can vary sharply as interest rates change. In a period of falling interest rates – which many think we are now in – locking yourself into a fixed rate mortgage may not be a good idea.

I hasten to add I am not a regulated mortgage salesman either, so anyone needing a new or different mortgage should go to a professional to seek advice geared to their own circumstances. This site general views and comments, but avoids individual advice on savings, borrowings and investments as these do require professional (and regulated) advice based on knowledge of the individual’s circumstances.

I find it extraordinary that our Chancellor is making this further foray into the world of lending and borrowing, after his last disastrous one just before the run on Northern Rock. Regular readers of this site will recall that I was very critical of his famous speech about how lending institutions had behaved irresponsibly, and would not in the UK be bailed out. His resolution to avoid helping the banks lasted but a few hectic days, before he bowed to the need to guarantee all deposits in all banks under pressure in UK jurisdiction!

He should also remember that as the taxpayer’s representative and principal bank manager to Northern Rock he is no longer above the fray on mortgage bank products. I just hope he has remembered to ask the management of Northern Rock to make sure they have plenty of the types of mortgages he favours available for their customers, before journalists come asking difficult questions about that.

On second thoughts, isn’t the government’s close involvement with a mortgage bank another very good reason why the Chancellor should have said nothing about mortgages to avoid any conflict of interest?

The main reason he seems to be offering us his thoughts is fear. He is afraid there will be a sharp fall in house prices. He does not seem to understand that it is in a way government policy to try to bring house prices down, as they are constantly telling us housing is not affordable and needs to become more affordable. He hopes that if more people take out fixed rate mortgages, more people will be able to pay the mortgage through difficult times. The only thing to be said about that is, at least he realises he is presiding over tricky times. Maybe spending a bit more time thinking about how to unstick them would be a better way to proceed. Lower interest rates will help. Lower interest rates make fixed rates a worse deal!