Cassilis

From the Economist's Charlemagne column last week evidence that EU commitment to addressing climate change is, at least occasionally, little more than hot air:

"EU leaders then asked for a range of protective policies to be spelled out. Germany backed a carve-out for the most energy-guzzling factories, giving them continued access to free carbon credits from the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS) after 2012, by which time other polluters will mostly be buying emissions allowances at auction. Endless bigwigs said heavy industry would move to countries with “lower standards” unless helped to stay. This argument even has its own jargon: “carbon leakage”, an ugly term gaining currency in Euro-circles, to convey the threat that carbon-spewing firms might move to places with weaker environmental laws."

As the Economist pointed out 'helped to stay' in this context actually just means introducing those same lower standards in the EU - or at least postponing the introduction of higher ones. If that just means business will relocate to somewhere they can operate as before then nobody wins.

Have a good weekend...

It's always interesting to see how other countries perceive your national politicians. I can't speak or read French but if I could it'd be interesting to see how the French media have reported our obsession with Nicolas and Carla over the last few days.

In an op-ed piece in today's Washington Post we get a glimpse of what former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson thinks of Cameron's Conservatives and in particular Iain Duncan Smith's work on social justice:

"the Conservative approach on social policy is increasingly creative. [Cameron] has opted against boldness on economics and foreign policy [so] his main appeal is likely to be on quality-of-life issues. And he has been wise enough to turn for ideas to an exceptional politician named Iain Duncan Smith. As a former leader of the conservative opposition, Smith was largely discredited by his close identification with the Iraq war. But since losing his leadership post, he has dedicated himself to the cause of social justice within the conservative fold, gaining broad respect in the process. As chair of a policy think tank called the Center for Social Justice, Smith has gathered a group of bright young policy researchers who have published thick volumes of proposals on issues from prison reform and education to crime and family stability. British conservatives are proposing reforms that would allow parents to organize and run their own schools, that require "work for the dole," that encourage marriage and family as a way to fight poverty, and that invite voluntary associations to aid in the provision of welfare services."

Not sure I'm quite that gushing about IDSs work (or that it was his Iraq stance that discredited him!?!) but it's still interesting to see a US take on our domestic politics. The thrust of the Gerson piece is that John McCain could learn something from what Cameron has done to the Tories and it's worth a read if only for a few more of those left-field observations on our politics:

"most American conservatives would find Cameron's positions on moral issues troubling. Under his leadership, the Conservative Party has not taken a stand against recent Labor legislation on bioethics that would allow the moral monstrosity of animal-human hybrids, as well as the creation of "savior siblings" who would have their genetic material harvested for ill children. On life issues in Britain, the slippery slope has become a vertical drop, with a respectable, noncontroversial, scientific barbarism at its bottom."

Mmmm... much as I'm enjoying the Obama / Clinton fight and can't wait for November prose like that makes me glad they have their politics and we have ours....

It’s unlikely anyone who supported yesterday’s ridiculous motion at the NUT conference calling for a halt to military recruitment in schools will be persuaded by Magnus Linklater’s rebuke in today’s Times. Stirring talk of ‘defending the realm’, ‘saving the nation’ or ‘army values of courage, discipline and respect for order’ is just the sort of stiff-upper lip, typically British conceit for our armed forces that always inflames the passions of the militant left. That’s a shame because for all his bluster Magnus is on the right side of the argument.

The NUT position is basically their blunt, adolescent and wrong-headed response to the more nuanced and valid criticisms in last month’s Joseph Rowntree report – “Informed Choice? Armed forces recruitment practice in the United Kingdom” [PDF]. It highlighted a number of ‘ethical shortcomings in armed forces recruitment practice’ including:

“failing to inform potential recruits sufficiently about the risks associated with a forces career; failing to inform potential recruits about vital rights and privileges; severely curtailing recruits’ right to withdraw consent from their employment; depending upon those who are socially and economically vulnerable to enlist for negative reasons; and recruiting minors without adequate safeguards.”

The report says is should be “possible to move towards an ethical recruitment policy without detriment to staffing levels by making a number of progressive changes to recruitment and retention policy and practice”. Whatever those changes include it’s certainly not the banning of recruitment in schools as called for yesterday in Manchester. In passing the motion the NUT is guilty of the very thing it’s accusing the MOD of doing – presenting a partisan view of war. Whatever members views on Iraq or Afghanistan the fact is they have absolutely no place in a discussion about recruitment to the armed forces – no more than their personal views about lawyers, doctors or politicians should have any bearing on how they support students interested in those professions.

Nobody is denying the difficulties here – it’s not easy to properly characterise a career that could include everything from storming an Afghani rebel stronghold to wearing silly hats at Buckingham Palace – that those doing so tend to downplay the negatives and talk up the positives is hardly news. But there’s no evidence the gap between the reality and the sell in the armed forces context is any greater than in other professions. The NUT’s readiness to dismiss anyone who joins up as either a victim of propaganda or stupid is evidence of the middle-class condescension the left often have for the working class – the ‘they know not what they do’ sort of attitude. It’s perfectly possible to make a politically neutral case for joining the armed forces – if the NUT can’t make the distinction between that and political differences then they are failing the students they teach.

Welcome to this weeks Think Tank Roundup with everything from Azerbaijani websites and Cypriot reunification to too much time spent on Bebo & You Tube. As ever please flag anything worthy you think I might have missed...

The Institute for Public Policy Research

• The IPPR anticipates Gordon Brown's final report in the Byron Review of children and new technology (set up last year) with a report of its own highlighting how a generation of children are effectively being raised online. Their research suggests youngsters between 13 & 18 are spending 3 times as long as originally thought - in excess of 20 hours a week - using sites such as bebo, Myspace, Facebook and YouTube.

The Henry Jackson Society

• HJS revisit that tired old theme of 'radical Islam want a global caliphate / you can't negotiate with that / boost the voice of the moderates' - Des Browne, Jonathan Powell and Rowan Williams all get stints on the naughty step while Mark Steyn is lauded for his prescience so that should give you the flavour of the piece! Still worth a read though...
• A slightly more worthy piece from HSJ on a possible, if unlikely, beneficiary of the West's haste in recognising Kosovan independence - Cyprus's reunification. The resumption of talks to that end "has disproved the thesis that recognition of Kosovo would encourage separatism globally, and has in fact vindicated the decision to recognise."
• Then they're back at their belligerent best with a rallying call to the US to encourage NATO to move ahead on membership for aspirants like Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Georgia and Ukraine - "Russia should not be led to believe that Ukraine or Georgia are still under the control of Moscow or that it can dictate NATO policies through threats."

Chatham House

• Great piece in their monthly mag 'The World Today' on how one of the first priorities of the next US President will be to re-order US relations with South America. Entitled "All the friends it can get" Dr Paulo Wrobel argues that 'after eight years of ineffective policies that can be seen as benign neglect, it is time to be more pro-active in Latin America'.
• Also from Chatham a couple of good articles marking the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. The first - "Sixty Years of Israel: Breaking the Logic" - looks at the emergence of Israel from the Palestinian perspective and how the 1967 Six Day war between Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan effectively set the context for current conflict. The second - "Israel at Sixty: Young Country, Same Old Conflict" - looks forward and suggests the anniversary is a good time to reflect and contemplate the directions the state might want to take in years to come.

Elsewhere of interest:

• The Heritage Foundation projects that US Medicare and Social Security programs have over committed themselves to the tune of almost $43 trillion (yes, you did read that right). Since the burden from Social Security and Medicare will fall directly on younger generations it urges Congress to begin a serious overhaul of both programs.
• And the Cato Institute highlights the launch of AzadliqCiragi.org ("Lamp of Liberty" in Azerbaijani) - the latest addition to Cato's international programs promoting ideas of liberty in a language spoken by over twenty five million people, most of them in Iran.

Labels: Think Tank Roundups

It appears the row over his pastor Jeremiah Wright has indeed dented Barack Obama's presidential campaign - it's too early to tell whether it's gifted the nomination to Hillary but it's certainly halted the sense of momentum he had before it broke.

Just by way of a little reminder though we shouldn't forget that Senator Obama isn't the only one with troubling assocations with belligerent and nutty men of faith - watch Senator McCain squirming as Tim Russert questions his volte face over Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell:

That clip is a couple of years old and for those that don't know Russert was reminding him that in 2000 he took a pop at George W Bush for aligning himself with fundamentalist preachers like Falwell and Robertson for electoral gain. It appears in the run up to his successful bid for the Republican nomination Senator McCain suddenly saw merit in Dubya's approach!

A quick search online will enlighten you to the world according to Jerry Falwell but a few gems to save you the trouble:

On the 9/11 attacks: "...throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."

"[homosexuals are] brute beasts...part of a vile and satanic system [that] will be utterly annihilated, and there will be a celebration in heaven."

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals"

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country"

Falwell also supported segregation, referring to 'civil wrongs legislation' and associating himself with segregationist politicians like Maddox and Wallace - his later amended his views on race though.

In anticipation of any comments to this effect let me point out that I'm not drawing strict parallels here - Jeremiah Wright has been (and remains as far as I know) Obama's pastor of some 20 years and is, by Obama's own admission, a spiritual mentor and deep influence on him. It's therefore right that Obama has to put Rev Wright's disgraceful comments in context and go to some lengths to explain his association with him - I happen to think his Philadelphia speech did this admirably, others will disagree.

Senator McCain doesn't have anything like these close ties to Gerry Falwell and so, for all his unappealing electoral opportunism in courting him a couple of years back he still doesn't have the same burden of explanation that Obama does. And of course Jerry Falwell is now dead which, from a media perspective somewhat drains the relevance of the association. But I mention it just, as I said above, in the interests of balance. Of course we draw conclusions about people from the company they keep and it's fair to do so. Few, of any, in public life won't have an association somewhere which they'd rather not have to defend when running for office. But ultimately we should judge people by the things they say & do, not the things said and done by cohorts, however close or distant.

Slate magazine asked the best-known "liberal hawks" who originally supported the war in Iraq to answer the question, "Why did I get it wrong?". In typically provocative style Christopher Hitchens adds the suffix 'I didn't' to his essay.

"We were never, if we are honest with ourselves, "lied into war." We became steadily more aware that the option was continued collusion with Saddam Hussein or a decision to have done with him. The president's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, laying out the considered case that it was time to face the Iraqi tyrant, too, with this choice, was easily the best speech of his two-term tenure and by far the most misunderstood...."

Hitchens doesn't doubt the "unarguable hash that was made of the intervention itself". But

"I would nonetheless maintain that this incompetence doesn't condemn the enterprise wholesale. A much-wanted war criminal was put on public trial. The Kurdish and Shiite majority was rescued from the ever-present threat of a renewed genocide. A huge, hideous military and party apparatus, directed at internal repression and external aggression was (perhaps overhastily) dismantled. The largest wetlands in the region, habitat of the historic Marsh Arabs, have been largely recuperated. Huge fresh oilfields have been found, including in formerly oil free Sunni provinces, and some important initial investment in them made. Elections have been held, and the outline of a federal system has been proposed as the only alternative to a) a sectarian despotism and b) a sectarian partition and fragmentation. Not unimportantly, a battlefield defeat has been inflicted on al-Qaida and its surrogates, who (not without some Baathist collaboration) had hoped to constitute the successor regime in a failed state and an imploded society. Further afield, a perfectly defensible case can be made that the Syrian Baathists would not have evacuated Lebanon, nor would the Qaddafi gang have turned over Libya's (much higher than anticipated) stock of WMD if not for the ripple effect of the removal of the region's keystone dictatorship"

And finally, he ridicules the idea that in March 2003 we could just have walked away or continued with sanctions:

"But the thing to remember about Iraq is that all or most choice had already been forfeited. We were already deeply involved in the life-and-death struggle of that country, and March 2003 happens to mark the only time that we ever decided to intervene, after a protracted and open public debate, on the right side and for the right reasons. This must, and still does, count for something."

And with that, I'm off for an Easter break. No blogging till Tuesday...

Patrick Wintour tells us the Cabinet had to endure a ‘brainstorming session’ courtesy of Gordon Brown’s new strategy chief Stephen Carter:

“Ministers were put into groups of six and seven to look at how the party is to raise cash to campaign. Other problems posed were the difficulties of going into a general election as the party of government, and how to turn more than a decade in power to the party's advantage. They were also asked to examine dividing lines with the Tories and how to sharpen them, and how to improve "messaging". Each group then reported its findings to the overall cabinet. The novel format, common in business but less so round the cabinet table, is undoubtedly a product of Carter”

The story will raise a chuckle from the millions of us ‘in business’ who have to endure such sessions regularly – it’s nice to know even the great and the good can’t forever escape the tediums of 80’s management consultancy. But it also got me wondering how typical the session was and what other details might never see the light of day…?

Flipcharts. There are always flipcharts. Usually almost full so you have to rummage through the discarded output from previous such sessions to find a blank page or two. What long discarded ideas from previous Blair brainstorm sessions might Gordon’s cabinet have glimpsed flicking through the flipchart? “Join the Euro”, “Reshuffle – move Gordon to FO, Peter to Treasury”?

Then someone is chosen to ‘scribe’ – and it’s crucially important that it’s described as such rather than ‘write’ or ‘take notes’. If anyone in the group uses the such hideously plain English they immediately identify themselves as a ‘brainstorm novice’ – this alters the power balance significantly and said individual suddenly has to work doubly hard to gain group approval, perhaps offering up ideas at an increased rate or agreeing to ‘feedback for the group’ (see below). It’s common for people to claim really poor handwriting as an excuse not to scribe but this shouldn’t be taken too seriously – even those with a gloriously legible hand will employ this tactic simply because the can’t be bothered standing up. Scribing duties then usually fall to the overly enthusiastic or irritatingly eager members of the group, keen to impress the facilitator or managers in the room – for the Cabinet read Hazel Blears or James Purnell.

Before they kick-off (again, language is important – these sessions never start, they ‘kick off’) there’s normally an unseemly scrabble for materials that should’ve been in place long before everyone got round the table – working pens, blu-tack, post-it notes etc. The poor sod unfortunate enough to sit near door fairs worst here because he / she needs to leave the room and try to ‘source’ (brainstorm for ‘find’) these things nearby. That in turn often involves delicate negotiations and promises of safe return after the session. Worth stressing here that this is again part of the ritual and neither party puts any credence in these promises – tradition demands you leave all materials in the room when you’re done. But, this being a Brown Government brainstorm profligacy with office funds is a more likely scenario – I suspect everyone at the table had their own little pack of flipchart pens, 6 post-it pads, an A4 lined notepad and a nice little ‘No. 10 – getting on with the business of government’ pen. Down the side of the pen there’s a graph showing violent crime rates, the tax burden and national debt – turn it upside down and watch them soar.

Once things finally get underway it’s clear that ‘brainstorming’ is an elaborate illusion designed to elevate a bunch of people sitting in a room talking into a ‘process’. Almost every nuance of the discussion is written down and stuck on the walls lest remembering it becomes too much of a mental strain. Contributing ideas is elevated to something more substantive by virtue of having to ‘write it on a sticky’ and stick it on the wall. And after group work some poor bugger has to ‘feedback’ to the whole group - this means struggling to decipher the scribes handwriting and not being able to remember what was meant by it even when you do. In most cases the other group members end up bailing the speaker out.

What started off as a silly idea when reading Wintour’s story seems to have got out of hand – 700 + words and I haven’t even got to ‘Objectives for the Day’, ‘Icebreakers’, inevitable buffet lunch etc. Feel free to continue via the comments and I may revisit the theme later myself. Suffice to say the next time I have to endure such a session I’ll do so with slightly better humour in the knowledge that even the PM endures such suffering from time to time…..

Welcome to this weeks Think Tank Roundup - a little shorter than usual, a symptom of how busy I am rather than how prolific the think tanks have been. As ever please flag anything worthy you think I might have missed...

The Institute for Public Policy Research

• Interesting paper on alternative ways to tackle youth crime from Julia Margo and Alex Stevens. Rather than the current punitive approach the paper suggests “a more therapeutic and family-based approach to youth offending. The arguments for the proposed approach appear persuasive – not only on humanitarian grounds, but also in terms of economics and efficacy.”
• Ian Kearns and Ken Gude on the changing context for National Security policy. As well as the more obvious drivers like terrorism the paper assesses the relevance of things like climate change, failing states and globalisation to security policy.And finally from the IPPR.
• Rick Muir adds his thoughts to the row over oaths of allegiance. Despite being on the liberal-left Muir thinks the rush to condemn may have been too hasty and the value of some sort of ceremonial end to citizenship education may have been overlooked. “So, no to monarchical oaths and saluting flags - but yes to making more of what, in a democracy, should be a significant event.”

The Henry Jackson Society

• Worthwhile paper from the hawkish US think tank on what Israeli intelligence has termed ‘2008: The Year of Iran’ – “the international community must retain its resolve in pressuring Iran. It can start by getting stronger with the sanctions and increasing the pressure in the future. If these latest rounds of sanctions are do not keep Tehran up at night, they probably aren’t enough.”
• HSJ also carries a short piece by Murdoch’s ‘economist-in-residence’ Irwin Seltzer sounding a cautionary note for any of us brits being swept along with ‘Obamamania’ – “Britain can prosper economically only in a world in which trade barriers are low, capital and brains can move freely in and out of its myriad financial institutions, and immigrants can easily cross its borders, bringing brawn not available from a native work force that finds welfare benefits more attractive than pay checks. Obama, of course, has promised to opt out of NAFTA if the Mexicans and Canadians do not amend it to suit his trade union backers, to refuse to support any new trade agreements, and to put the Doha free-trade round on ice.”

Elsewhere of interest:

• On Compass Jonathan Rutherford has a great piece on how discussions about migration & race (witness the BBC ‘White’ season) are usually proxy discussions for class and inequality.
• On the Civitas / Centre for Social Cohesion blog David Conway reports on an Inauspicious Start for the Year of Intercultural Dialogue
• Demos flags a couple of seminars it’s hosting under the banner ‘The Cultural Age’ - aimed at investigating how policy-makers can link up with academics to understanding how complex cultural issues can be brought into different policy areas.

Entertaining piece in the NY Times from Steven Heller on the art of political caricature. He asked four caricaturist/illustrators to describe the most critical feature needed to achieve the likenesses of John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and whether or not a single pose best defines the candidate - well worth a read and some great caricatures...

John Harris gets himself in a bit of a lather today over Tory enthusiasm for eighties anti-Thatcher pop:

“Cameron's fondness for the left-aligned music of yesteryear surely speaks volumes not just about the modern frenzy of political cross-dressing, but also the way we now listen to music. It is as if all those songs have been retrospectively robbed of their political charge and rendered kitsch”

Or, John, perhaps they never actually had the ‘political charge’ attributed to them in the first place? For a middle-aged rock critic to lament ‘the way we now listen to music’ is so tiresome that it verges on parody – wasn’t it always better ‘back then’? The blunt truth of course is the anti-Thatcher posture of many of the 80’s acts was borne more of convenience than it was of conviction. Some like Bragg & Weller were undoubtedly genuine in their political convictions but the sheer scale of the movement that grew up around them suggests it wasn’t rooted in any real political passion. The spectacle of Clydebank’s favourite sons Wet, Wet, Wet playing at an event called ‘Jamming for Jobs’ illustrates how broad but shallow the anti-right mob were – Marti Pellow isn’t known for his grasp of politics.

Even Weller, whose convictions and passion aren’t in doubt, belies how puerile and inconsequential much of that protest was. Recalling his residual feelings about the Thatcher years Weller says:

"I think they were absolute f**king scum - especially Thatcher, who I think should be shot as a traitor to the people. I still think that, and nothing will ever change my opinion. We're still feeling the effects of what they did to the country now, and probably always will: the whole breakdown of communities, trade unions, the working class - the dismantling of lots of things."

Given that even the privately educated barrister who eventually led the party Weller campaigned for would’ve dismissed this rant as nonsensical student hyperbole is it any surprise David Cameron can so easily dismiss it too? Weller has an inflated sense of his own importance and, as Harris points out, was on the wrong side of most of those arguments anyway.

Weller asks “which bit didn't he [Cameron] get?" - the answer is probably the cocky certainty of victory since Cameron, Blair, Brown and anyone with a reasonable IQ knew history was moving in their direction and not Weller's. Damn good tunes though……

Different political traditions have different obsessions or defining traits. Those traits are very hard to alter and can have a significant impact on how voters see them. Before the mid-90’s the public associated Labour with producer interest, discomfort over personal wealth and distrust of the private sector. Those associations were enough to keep Labour from office for a generation simply because the public didn’t share them. Shedding them (or at least appearing to) was key to electoral success. Whether the ideological shift was genuine or not doesn’t matter in this context – the point was the connection in the public mind was severed and the electoral benefits accrued. On top of that Blair found away to articulate a continuity of principle within the Labour movement in general which meant as well as bringing in new voters he kept existing Labour supporters happy. Job done.

In broad terms Cameron needs to pull off a similar trick but the rows over the timing of tax cuts are undermining him. However much it pleases natural Conservative supporters the association between ‘tax cuts’ and the Tories remains an electoral liability rather than an asset. Polls will always show disaffection with the level of taxation under any government – the point is the public voted Labour back into office twice despite this so where the Tory notion that this is fertile campaigning ground comes from I don’t know. The rows make public a split within the party – those that view tax cuts as essential (and essential now) and those that don’t. As with Labour in the mid-90’s the arguments about the merits of each case aren’t the point – the point is having the disagreement so publicly undermines Cameron’s leadership and casts doubt on the idea that the party has shed it’s more ideological obsessions.

Cameron needs to close this off as soon as possible. The Conservative should state clearly they believe in smaller government and lower taxes but will happily breach these principles rather than undermine our education system or health service. In power the Conservatives will have a more focused and prudent approach to public spending and that posture (rather than explicit tax cuts) should be what they sell to the electorate. This is a positive and easy sell – they can draw strong contrasts with Labour’s shortcomings when it comes to prudent stewardship of public money (GP contracts etc.) and it doesn’t open the party to the charge of cutting frontline services.

Public concern over rising interest rates, Northern Rock and the economy in general won’t be assuaged by promises of tax cuts. Yes there’s a robust case that lowering the tax burden in these circumstances can actually help but in our current political climate that case can’t be properly made – the Tories opponents would destroy them over it. Cameron needs to understand that and bite the bullet on this one. His pitch should be simple - Brown has been profligate with your money, the Tories will be prudent....

John Gray had a very powerful piece in the Guardian's Saturday Review section on the rise of secular fundamentalism and the follies of Dawkins, Grayling, Hitchens etc.

"Not everything in religion is precious or deserving of reverence. There is an inheritance of anthropocentrism, the ugly fantasy that the Earth exists to serve humans. There is the claim of religious authorities, also made by atheist regimes, to decide how people can express their sexuality, control their fertility and end their lives, which should be rejected categorically. Nobody should be allowed to curtail freedom in these ways, and no religion has the right to break the peace. The attempt to eradicate religion, however, only leads to it reappearing in grotesque and degraded forms. A credulous belief in world revolution, universal democracy or the occult powers of mobile phones is more offensive to reason than the mysteries of religion, and less likely to survive in years to come. Victorian poet Matthew Arnold wrote of believers being left bereft as the tide of faith ebbs away. Today secular faith is ebbing, and it is the apostles of unbelief who are left stranded on the beach."

Dawkin's groupies won't be persuaded by Gray's argument but anything that takes a decent pop his brand of militant secularism is fine by me. And I say that as someone who usually describes themselves as an atheist - because one of the least appealing things about militant secularism is its readiness to distort the meaning of the word atheism itself.

Atheism used to be simple - it was a denial of the existence of God and an eminently reasonable position given the lack of evidence. But these modern proselytising atheists seem eager to launch a full-on assault on the whole psychology of religious belief itself and actively set out to dismantle the very idea of religious devotion - they also cast anyone of a religious bent as completely deluded and mistaken. This amounts to a fundamental misunderstanding of what religious devotion means or how most religious people experience their faith. Trying to deny or invalidate the very idea of religious belief is like trying to deny the existence of love or jealousy - they have no objectively verifiable cause, can't be 'scientifically' proven to exist. They're emotions which can easily be dismissed as irrational or nothing more than psychological reactions to certain stimuli. But to do so is to fundamentally misunderstand their importance. It's not the objective truth of those emotions that matter but their subjective impact and the behaviour they elicit. What's more, however ephemeral the emotions themselves their outcomes are often all to real and to ignore such outcomes because they were prompted by something that in and of itself can't be proven is daft.

Dawkins only response to this line of thinking is to dismiss it by drawing parallels with belief in 'fairies and goblins' - if individuals choose to believe because it comforts them then that's OK but it doesn't prove an objective truth about those beliefs. In one sense he's right but the attempt to draw a parallel between several thousand years worth or religious devotion, the art & literature or moral framework inspired by it and a belief in 'fairies and goblins' is a startlingly naive position.

Another feature of militant secularism is the tendency to characterise people who act according to a deeply held religious conviction as somehow inherently more dangerous or unstable than those who act according to a particular secular doctrine (usually liberalism). This is nonsense since it assumes that secular motives are, by default, scientific in nature and free from any element of faith or belief - clearly this isn't the case. A belief in racial or sexual equality for example, or the efficacy of free markets is no more scientifically verifiable than a belief in Jesus Christ. The secular politician who claims to be guided by lofty liberal values has no more scientific basis for their beliefs than the overtly Christian politician. Dangerous ideologues can rise from the ranks of committed socialists or free-marketeers as surely as they can among Christian or Muslims.

Like many people happy to call themselves atheists I'd shrink from lending my name to this more militant and fundamentalist strain of it. Attacking religious belief with such ferocity might actually bring about the very thing they're hoping to avoid - religiousity taking stronger root in our public life. In the US, where religion and the state are legally separated, it's hard to envisage any politician achieving significant office without a very public claim to religiousity (usually Christian) and this applies to both Democrat & Republican politicians. Here in the UK we have an established Christian church but religion is far less important in UK political life and the electorate would be suspicious of an overtly religious politician.

It feels like we have the balance about right so I wish the likes of Dawkins, Hitchens etc. would think carefully before they start moaning about religion all the time....

So, the Economist thinks Scotland (or in particular Edinburgh) is insufficiently proud of one of its most famous sons, Adam Smith:

"This indifference to one of Scotland's greatest sons in the city where he spent much of his adult life is curious, but consistent. His house, recently a municipal centre for troubled boys, has a small, tarnished bronze plaque recording it as the town house of the Earls of Panmure and the home of Adam Smith. His grave just off the High Street was overgrown until 2006 when, thanks to £10,000 from an expatriate Scottish oilman, it was cleaned; visitors still have to hunt for it. This disregard stems more from modern Scottish politics than from historical ignorance. Smith's most famous work, “The Wealth of Nations”, which describes wealth creation in a competitive commercial economy dominated by the market's invisible hand, has long been appropriated by right-wingers and anathema in left-leaning Scotland."

The article highlights recent efforts by the left to appropriate Smith to their cause but the explanation holds some truth. The blunt facts are Smith's infamous 'invisible hand' has, of late, been more inclined skelp the Scots violently on the back of their collective nut than redistribute any wealth in their direction. But perhaps there's something else at play in our attitude to Smith.

National pride is a strange and often irrational thing – happy to the stress the best among one’s fellow countrymen without giving due credence to their failings or those that fall short. There's a myopia that kicks in with nationalism where people can't see past the glories of their own. I like to think Scottish national pride has a bolder streak of realism running through it. We are, of course, fiercely proud of our heritage but not so blinded by its highs that we lose all perspective or shrink from criticism when appropriate. Following the fortunes of the national football team is the most obvious manifestation of this and it's not unknown when Scotland are nearing the end of a particularly heavy defeat for the Tartan Army to cheer their opponents in full throated irony.

The reaction to Adam Smith is no different - we recognise his contribution to political thought but that doesn't put him beyond criticism or make him without flaw. We see this in other areas too - we gave the world Burns, Scott and RL Stevenson but that doesn’t excuse the imposition of Irvine Welsh, we proudly champion Mackintosh, Peploe and Fergusson but can’t escape responsibility for Vettriano. And where Rod Stewart was once a great rock'n'roll front man we now recognise his status as third-rate lounge act in an ill-fitting suit and bad haircut and we're sorry. For me these are signs of a healthy & grounded nationalism, rooted in a realistic understanding of our place in the world.

Regular readers are aware that I enjoy dabbling in web design and mess around with my template quite often. One thing I never do though is criticise or ridicule the aesthetics or design of anyone else's site, even if I'm sometimes tempted to - that wouldn't be fair. Until today.

I think I can do this with a clear conscience since the object of my ridicule isn't some poor individual blogger but the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm not referring to their main site which, while not particularly impressive is at least functional and reasonably professional looking. I'm talking about their 'Top Ten Most Wanted' page here.

It's absolutely awful. The page bears no relation to the main site at all with no FBI logo and few clues to what you're looking at. Then there's the ITV2-style logo which again doesn't reference the FBI seal and would shame a 1st year graphics student. The box below with the 10 fugitives in it is shaded a lovely lilac and the 10 photos are of varying quality and misaligned. And the whole thing clings to the left of the browser with a huge white space on the right - perhaps that's supposed to represent how much they know about the whereabouts of the ten.

My web design career remains more of an aspiration than a reality but since my only client so far was the reasonably high profile Iain Dale perhaps it's not that ridiculous for me to approach the FBI and offer my services...?

Week 6 on the Think Tank Roundup and a varied selection this week. I'm probably going to change the format slightly (see below) but as ever please flag anything worthy you think I might have missed...

The Institute for Public Policy Research

• Plenty of comment around today on Lord Goldsmith Citizenship paper and the IPPR has a research paper it contributed to the review. Entitled "Beyond Naturalisation: Citizenship policy in an age of super mobility" it looks at how "how a government committed to progressive notions of citizenship might respond to the fact that fewer people are willing to take up British citizenship or able to establish long-term roots within communities" (PDF of full publication)
• A call from the IPPR for Alastair Darling to focus his attention today on lifting the working poor out of poverty. According to research "half of all children in poverty now live in a working household" and "Wednesday’s Budget is the Government’s last chance to make significant changes to meet the 2010 target to reduce child poverty; it is currently 1.1 million short of its pledge"

Demos

• On the Demos blog Duncan O'Leary weighed in on the row over John Hutton's speech to progress on city salaries. According to Duncan " markets produce wage inequality, so the political decision is when – and to what extent – this inequality is acceptable or should be redressed through the state"
• Also on Demos a short think piece by Jamie Bartlett on how western security services regularly misunderstand the appeal of violent Islamic extremism. "Most work written on the subject attributes the rise of violent extremism to broad structural factors such as foreign policy, societal discrimination, and a lack of local leadership. While important, this tends to ignore another vital aspect: that for some young people, al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda inspired groups are glamourous and exciting"

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation

• Interesting paper from JRF on the apparent disjoin in government policy between 'person' focused policies and location focused ones. "While the Government has sought to tackle disadvantage across a number of fronts since 1997, person- and place-based policies have mostly developed separately and often in isolation from each other. This separation does not reflect the relationships between places and the poverty and disadvantage of people who live in them."
• Also on JRF a thorough review of policy & practice in Scotland on tackling anti-social behaviour, with a particular focus on the challenges that face social housing associations.

The Centre for Social Cohesion \ Civitas

• On the Civitas-aligned Centre for Social Cohesion blog David Conway adds his thoughts to the wealth of comment on Margaret Hodge's speech on the Proms - according to David "The musical celebration of Britain offered by the last night of the Proms is no less inherently inclusive than is the Notting Hill Carnival. That fewer non-Caucasian faces are to be found among the audience there than Caucasian faces are to be found in the crowds at the Carnival probably has as much as anything else to do with the fact that the former event makes an admissions charge, whilst attendance at the latter event is free"
• Also on the CSC blog James Brandon flags the Home Office study that estimated the alarming statistic that 3,000 women are forced in marriage every year in the UK .

I use a feed reader to monitor output from the think tanks and then construct this post each week. I still intend to flag particularly worthy or interesting pieces as above but will probably also add another more succinct list of things I spotted that might interest others e.g.

• The Heritage Foundation on Gordon Brown's surrender of sovereignty.
• Council on Foreign Relations on Hugo Chavez exploiting FARC
• Chatham House on the rules of the Global Economy

Labels: Think Tank Roundups

Fairly predictable reactions all round to the suggestion emerging from Lord Goldsmith’s Citizenship review that school pupils take an oath of allegiance to Queen & Country. By happy coincidence Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone writes in today’s LA Times about the California loyalty oath, which all state, city, county, public school, community college and public university employees are required to sign:

“A mathematics teacher named Marianne Kearney-Brown, who is a Quaker and a pacifist, declined to sign the oath because she felt that it might later be construed as committing her to take up arms to defend the nation, which would violate her religious beliefs. The state finessed the situation by agreeing that the oath would not be interpreted in that manner.”

Stone goes on to trash the whole idea of loyalty oaths and ground them in the McCarthy era paranoia of 1950’s America. In his view loyalty oaths reverse the essential relationship between the citizen and the state since citizens of a self-governing society must be free to think and talk openly and criticise the government of the day. They are designed, according to Stone:

“not to protect the nation against real subversion but to frighten, intimidate and punish individual citizens for exercising their constitutional right to question and criticize the government.”

While remaining ever vigilant against the petty partisan comments found on other blogs I can’t help but remark that their appeal to New Labour is suddenly very clear….

To my delight I've discovered that Larry David blogs occasionally on The Huffington Post - below his typically acerbic reaction to Hillary's '3am in the White House' ad:

Mrs Thatcher's speedy release from St Thomas' hospital on Saturday morning probably elicited a very, very small groan of disappointment among the nation’s journalists and bloggers. I'm not referring to the mean-spirited and tribal disappointment of political opponents that wish her ill - although I'm sure that was there too - but the sense of professional anticipation thwarted with the realisation that profiles, obituaries and tributes must remain on file for the time being. Indeed, the best indications of how voluminous that outpouring will be when the inevitable happens are the few bits that broke to the surface anyway - witness reaction in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail to a brief hospital visit.

I've always found the political hagiography that surrounds Mrs Thatcher just as troubling and misguided as the deep, deep hostility she undoubtedly attracts from the left – both camps seem to suffer from the same wilful ignorance of context. Such was the state of the country in the late 1970’s that few would deny the merit (and necessity) of her early economic reforms but the characterisation of Thatcher’s time in office as some sort of golden age is a nonsense few serious pundits would entertain. She was a politician, not a religious leader – why this implied sense that her press office never spun a story or that she never changed her mind on any political issue? Why are so few of her supporters willing even to acknowledge how divisive a figure she was and how painful (even if necessary) many of her reforms were? It’s laughable that a press that denounces Brown as a workaholic control freak who brooks no dissent should still revere someone with Mrs Thatcher’s character. A control freak you agree with is still a control freak.

I witnessed first hand the impact of those reforms as I watched my father, an intelligent and hard-working man struggle to find work in an economy that offered huge-start up grants and tax rebates to foreign firms who only hung around long enough to soak up those fiscal benefits and then made their employees redundant. Unemployment reached more than 3.5million, the vast majority of whom were decent hard-working people simply unable to find any viable employment – yet the standard Tory narrative on this issue is that these were all layabouts who simply didn’t want to work or that unemployment was somehow the fault of the unions.

This isn’t to deny any of Mrs Thatcher’s achievements and I do think we’re all the better for her early years in office. But there were mistakes so let’s not be too eager to airbrush them out and cast her as somehow beyond politics – let’s at the very least acknowledge the unfortunate consequences of the things that had to be done. And let’s stop treating her time in office with this ridiculous sense of reverence. I think the absence of a grown-up and balanced assessment of her legacy remains one of the things that harms the Conservatives to this day.

From today's Washington Times, professor of economics at George Mason University Walter E. Williams on liberty, socialism and the ethics of forcing people to contribute towards the healthcare of others:

"...if a particular behavior or lifestyle imposes costs on others through tax-supported health care [some suggest the] government had a right to intercede. Similar justification was used for laws requiring helmets for motorcyclists and bicyclists. After all, if one exercises his liberty to ride without a helmet and has an accident and becomes a vegetable, society must bear the expense of taking care of him. The fact that an obese person becomes ill, or a cyclist has an accident, and becomes a burden on taxpayers who must bear the expense of taking care of him, is not a problem of liberty. It's a problem of socialism where one person is forced to take care of another. There is no moral argument that justifies using the coercive powers of government to force one person to bear the expense of taking care of another.

Forcing one person to bear the burden of health care costs for another is not only a moral question but a major threat to personal liberty. Think about all the behaviors and lifestyles that can lead to illness and increase the burden on taxpayers. A daily salt intake exceeding 6 grams can lead to hypertension. A high-fat diet and high alcohol intake can also lead to diabetes. A sedentary lifestyle can lead to several costly diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and heart failure. There are many other behaviors that lead to a greater health care burden, but my question is how much control over your life you are willing to give government in the name of reducing these costs? Would you want government to regulate how much salt you use? What about government deciding how much fat and alcohol you consume? There are immense beneficial health effects of a daily 30-minute aerobic exercise. Would you support government-mandated exercise?

You might argue that it's none of government's business how much fat, salt or alcohol a person consumes, even if it has adverse health care cost implications. I would ask: Wouldn't the same reasoning apply to helmet laws and proposed obesity laws?"

I bring this to your attention not because of any affection for the argument but out of admiration for William's boldness in making it. For me, the simple fact of some 40m US citizens without any healthcare suggests his argument is far too simplistic and of questionable ethics itself - but the fact that in the US they have an open and honest debate on healthcare and are prepared to engage in these moral questions around socialised medicine is no bad thing. Our reverence for the NHS and the principle of 'state-funded healthcare for all' sometimes obscures decent argument and debate about its future. And it's something that demographics alone will, in time, call into question anyway.

I've made my feelings on the EU referendum clear but the Economist this week highlights how important it is for the governments enemies not to make too much of the row or overstate its electoral impact:

Yet for all the political sound and fury, the government has some cause for comfort. For one thing, the public is relatively indifferent. Hardcore Eurosceptics are vocal and tenacious—recent stunts have included unveiling a banner on a crane outside Parliament, and funding unofficial referendums via postal votes. But though most people say they want the chance to vote on the treaty, it is not of great importance to them. They care more about issues such as crime, immigration and health.

Conservatives claimed a moral victory after their amendment was defeated, and the Lib Dems came out of it badly. But the government has yet to be severely damaged by the treaty saga. Voters may want the same say on Europe's high politics as they enjoy on its low-brow pop, but it is too early to tell whether they will punish those who have denied it to them.

I know US / UK political comparisons abound at the moment so apologies for this but...

I’ve been wondering how a UK version of Hillary’s now infamous ‘It’s 3am in the Whitehouse’ (see below) add might play in this country? Most political ads are greeted with ridicule anyway and this probably wouldn’t be different but there’s also the credibility gap that comes with the idea of anyone needing to contact our humble little PM at 3am in the morning. Granted it may happen on occasion but for better or worse (probably the former) our global standing isn’t what it once was so it’s hard to imagine too many scenarios in which Gordon Brown must be roused from his slumber. Probably easier just to fax or text him and he’ll get it in the morning.

In truth I can’t say I’m hugely comforted by the thought of Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Nick Clegg answering the phone in a national emergency. I’m probably more interested in the procedures that come before the need to wake our Prime Minister and the people involved in them. It might be a typically British or naïve view but I kind of like the idea that some faceless (but incredibly smart) bureaucrat or military official is our front line should the world come calling – most problems are better solved before we get the politicians involved.

Final thought on the US version though – it was clearly designed to cast doubt on Obama’s foreign policy credentials and put national security question back into the campaign. But, if US voters were particularly concerned about the wisdom available from the Lincoln bedroom in the early hours would they really have elected this guy…?