The Pin Factory Blog

75% of people think cold-calls should be banned. The consumer group Which? questioned 2,092 people, 25% of whom had felt intimidated by these calls. With the estimation that the average consumer receives 6 cold-calls a month, it’s no wonder the majority are fed up to the back teeth.

Unlike doorstep, telephone cold-calling is rather ambiguous. You can’t just put a sign up, and although households can ask to be taken off business’ databases, ringing round is, understandably, viewed as being a rather daunting and time-consuming task.

Although it is not obviously an act of trespass for somebody to cause another person’s telephone to ring, and for that person to hear his or her voice down the line. Conceivably, such an action could fall under the tort of nuisance. The law of tort, being largely judge-made, would need to be altered (this would be largely up to the judiciary to do) to cover telephone calls.

Like a doorstep, a telephone does invite people to call. However, this could be made negative by the electronic equivalent of a “no cold-callers” notice. It is up to the telecom providers, under demand from customers, to facilitate this. For example, a recorded voice could say “no cold-callers”.

But how would this be enforced? With doorstep cold-calling, the owner of the property can lawfully use reasonable and proportionate force to propel the uninvited caller back to the street.

The electronic equivalent of this is hanging-up. But neither stops the call in the first place. Injunctions would be the obvious remedy, but they’re expensive. Therefore, what is required, as opposed to simply banning, is for the telecom providers, acting in concert (they act together anyway to link their networks), to devise and offer a contractual and electronic equivalent.

Labour is urging the government not to scrap ASBOs, asserting them as crucial in keeping crime down, and in preventing communities being left “helpless”. Home Secretary Theresa May said that punishment methods need to move on from the ASBO, and be “rehabilitative and restorative” as opposed to criminalising; the coalition wants to spur a more “common sense” approach to policing.

In the past, ASBOs have been given out for actions ranging from the absolutely bizarre to the mind-bogglingly ridiculous. From a 60-year-old dressed in school uniforms, to flocks of sheep being used to intimidate, the ASBO has been used to quell some of the country’s most eccentric individuals.

The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, which brought in Tony Blair’s “ASBO”, included a list of over twenty instances of anti-social behaviour, including drinking alcohol on the streets, begging, noise coming from alarms, malicious communication, and inappropriate use of fireworks.

Nobody’s denying that certain individuals, or groups, can cause a nuisance, upset and even make life a misery for others. But since their introduction, many have felt the ASBOs, in addition to landing almost four and a half thousand people in custody without trial, often directly breaches the freedoms of self-expression and identity. It is for Parliament, and Parliament alone, to determine what activity is criminal. Under the ASBO regime, a court determines that certain activities (which can be almost anything) is criminal. Criminal law should be the same for everybody, but ASBOs make it a criminal offence for one person to engage in certain activities but not for another person to engage in the same activity. The burden of proof, in imposing an ASBO (i.e. whether behaviour is anti-social) is the civil test of “balance of probabilities”, not the criminal test of “beyond all reasonable doubt”. Behaviour is “anti-social” if it causes “harassment, alarm or distress” to the victim. Worse still, “harassment, alarm or distress” has been said to mean whatever the victim thinks it means.

Human Rights lawyer Alex Gask wrote that the term “anti-social behaviour” covers and extraordinary large and ambiguous area, whilst the contents of ASBOs themselves are equally equivocal. Furthermore, the fair treatment of those accused, and the presumption of innocence are often overlooked. There are more profound social questions as to whether ASBOs are an appropriate way to deal with serious social problems, especially when they are applied to those aged 10 to 17.

And how effective are they anyway? Another “quick fix” solution, and a solution which, in itself, is at best good intentions gone seriously awry, and at worst a persistently botched job. May’s emphasis on community intervention, “people who are closer to the problem have to be driving the solution”, may seem optimistic, but it has to be better than the criminalisation of non-criminal behaviour.

 As it’s the first anniversary of Scottish ministers releasing Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, on medical advice suggesting he only had months to live, it’s interesting to re-examine the logic of his release.

Three months was posited as a “reasonable” life expectancy, but a year on Megrahi’s still alive and kicking (albeit still terminally ill and under palliative care only), whilst Libya continue to celebrate his homecoming, and a Foreign Office spokesperson comments: "The government is clear that Megrahi's release was a mistake.”

But there is a logical flaw underlying the entire debate over whether or not he should have been released. Commercial pressure is one thing, but the argument is defective. Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment. “Life” does not literally mean life. If it did, it would be certain that he would die in prison, whether or not that death was foreseeable (i.e. he was terminally ill).

As it is, he was to serve a minimum term of 27 years, which was backdated to 1999. This would take him to the age of 74. As Libyan male life expectancy is 72 (and Megrahi, a Libyan, has lived in Libya for most of his life), there was still a strong likelihood that he would die in prison.

Therefore, terminal illness was not a logical reason for early release, irrespective of the accuracy of the prognosis. If it were, you could have said, at the time of sentence, that he was only likely to live to 72. Therefore, he should only be sentenced to 25 years – indeed, a bit less than that to give him the opportunity to go home to die.

If his conviction was unsafe, then the appeal should have taken its course. But, of course, there is the problem that this might have taken longer than he had to live. The given medical prognosis would have been a valid reason to fast-track the appeal.

If (which we still don’t know for sure) there was compelling fresh evidence, then the court could have granted him bail pending appeal (an appeal which he then dropped). It might even have allowed him back to Libya, (this would have involved the UK, rather than the Scottish, Government). This would have been regardless of his medical condition. As it stands, the debate still rests on medical opinion, when really that seems to be irrelevant.

A study has pinned the blame on bad management for lazy council workers. The average town hall employee spends just 32% of the day working, compared to 44% of those in private companies – which is still exceeded in better performing countries.

Executed by management consultancy group Knox D’Arcy, the study suggested that increasing working rates of council workers would eliminate the need for savage governmental cuts to frontline council services. Instead, up to 27% of workers could be cut.

It’s right to say that raising productivity levels would mean thousands of workers per council could be got rid of. However, if workers want to sit idle all day and there are people prepared to pay them for it, that’s fine! But local authorities don’t have any money; only other people’s. And those other people, the general public, don’t currently have a choice on whether or not they pay council employees. People will work if there’s an incentive to work and won’t work if there’s an incentive not to – and that goes for managers as well.

Bad management may be the proximate cause of lazy council workers, but the ultimate cause is lack of market competition.

The fact is it does not need to be the council who empty the bins, run the local leisure centre or manage tourism. The UK's 410 local authorities spend over £113 billion on day-to-day services, employing more than 2.1 million people and delivering 700 different services. These are all services (the genuine ones; not pseudo-services like equality and diversity) that could be run and managed by private companies, far more diligently and effectively, in a competitive market.

With the population of prisons and the cost of locking people up both rising, ministers have indicated that they want to see fewer people serving short-term jail sentences, and an increase in the use of “Community Payback”.

There are three purposes of punishment (and, before we consider any alternative, we are mainly concerned with prison): deterrent, reform and retribution. The first two do not stand up to logical consideration and the third must always take second place for restitution to the victim.

There is a fourth purpose of prisons, protection. This is not punishment at all; it is protection of the individuals from the criminal. Recalling that, in a libertarian world, all land is private and there is no public space, criminals are excluded, by the land-owners, from all land – except the residual areas we call prisons. They would be essentially the same as prisons as we know them, but their rationale would be exclusion from everywhere except them; not locking people up in them for the purpose of punishment, reform or deterrent.

According to libertarian principles, there are only two parties to a dispute in law: in this case, the victim and the alleged criminal. There is no place for “society”, whatever (if anything) this means. The idea of somehow “paying back a debt to society” (or to the “community”) is spurious. On that basis, there is no place for Community Payback.

It would be different if it were “Victim Payback”: the offender works directly for the victim, doing gardening, housework, or odd-jobs. But this assumes that the victim needs any work done, that he or she wants a criminal about the house (the very same one, perhaps, who has burgled it) and that the offender has the aptitude for the work. And who would pay for the supervision?

Enter, as always, free market principles! Drop “unpaid” from the specification of Community Payback. Let the offender work not for the community but for a private employer (at the moment private companies are often paid by the state to oversee work) and for a pittance (if necessary, below the minimum wage); work which nobody else would be prepared to do. Aggregated over 300 hours, that pittance might go some way towards giving restitution to the victim.

Professor Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, has said the use of illegal drugs should be decriminalized, ‘drastically reducing crime and improving health’. Contrary to the government’s view, Gilmore has commented that the present system (the Misuse of Drugs Act was introduced in 1971) is simply not working, and that there is a strong case for trying a different approach.

"I’m not saying we should make heroin available to everyone – but we should be treating it as a health issue rather than criminalizing people." Decriminalizing drugs would not mean legalization. People would not be able to buy heroin and cocaine like they can alcohol. The government would have licensing controls, and would attempt control on things like manufacture and supply. Whilst individuals would not be prosecuted for possession, trying to trade using a personal supply would be illegal.

One has to ask, why should people be punished for using drugs? In punishing someone a disability is imposed upon him. Just because an individual’s drug use may lead to ‘bad social consequences’, does not equate it with the requirement of justice to impose punishment only on one who has violated rights (of another individual). Punishing drug users suggests that an individual should be punished purely because if they are not punished, they may continue to commit the act they are being punished for. This is what makes the criminalization of drugs unique; we would not invoke that kind of rationale for a thief or murderer.

In punishing individuals solely because their actions may encourage other to do the same, the medical and mental position of that person is utterly neglected. Those who support decriminalization say it should be combined with diverting money from police to drug treatment services because criminal trafficking would dramatically decrease. The Home Office has said its priorities are clear: to reduce drug use, crack down on drug-related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good. But, many believe this is only possible through decriminalization. The government claims decriminalization sends the wrong message, encouraging young people to think substances aren’t harmful. Nonetheless, a vast proportion of drug-related crimes within the drugs market come from the fact drug sales are illegal, and medical complications such as the numerous complications that come from dirty needles and contaminated drugs (Gilmore said it was rarely the drugs themselves which caused further difficulties) originate in the illicit nature of drug taking.

Everyone will accept that drugs have bad effects – mental and physical. Arguments for the complete legalization of drugs fall foul of effectively setting out how side effects would not become massive hindrances to the individual and to others. However, to prohibit because to allow would be somehow ‘wrong’, ignores the freedoms one has with alcohol. More seriously, it means many who should be treated as patients are being branded criminals. And, the basic axiom of self-ownership is all but forgotten.

For the 2.5 million people who eat a fast food meal every day, there may be an answer to helping prevent high cholesterol. UK researchers are suggesting fast food outlets hand out the cholesterol-lowering drugs, which would cost about 5p.

Yet again, it seems ill-founded medical advice is being used to regulate and control people’s lives. Whilst the researchers at Imperial College London have apparently taken "data from trials of almost 43,000 people to calculate whether the statins could override the effects of eating a junk food diet", finding that a daily statin can ‘neutralise the risk of cardiovascular disease linked to a daily intake of a 7-oz cheeseburger and a small milkshake’, one wonders why the debate has to arise in the first place.

Although statins do have occasional side effects, they have transformed the lives of many people with high blood cholesterol. Those with high dietary cholesterol are going to see very little effect from a drug developed to control cholesterol produced by the liver. A very large and prolonged intake of junk good will feed through into the blood to some extent, but statins won’t affect that part of cholesterol.

The idea from Imperial is that the effect of the statins will off-set the effect of junk food; it will not directly neutralize it. However, there are drugs, such as ezetimibe, that actually inhibit the absorption of dietary cholesterol, and these might be more appropriate. Ezetimibe appears to be under-prescribed, probably because it encourages people to eat junk food.

If statins are appropriate for individuals, then they are appropriate irrespective of whether they eat junk food. It is a matter for them and their medical advisers – not the nanny state.

The legalization of brothels, cannabis and medically-assisted dying have formed the radical liberal agenda put to Nick Clegg by members of his own party. Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, appealing to the half-Dutch Clegg, urged for a more ‘grown-up’ approach to such things, commenting that the Dutch seem to have fewer hang-ups than the British. Just focusing on prostitution – each topic deserves more space than one blog post, anyway – there are several points to be made.

Perhaps the moves of the government should be applauded. Indeed, when it comes to prostitution, the state takes a neutral moral stance. Prostitution per se is not illegal, but almost every ancillary trade that facilitates it is. Stemming from the ‘in private’ element of legislation on sexual activity, the illicit nature of the sex trade as a whole germs far worse things: human trafficking, protection rackets, etc.

It might be sensible for those calling for the three legalizations to think about drugs and prostitution in general. It cannot be ignored that the prostitution industry of today is deeply linked to drugs. The Ipswich serial murders in 2006 provided anecdotal evidence that, to a first approximation, all prostitutes are drug addicts. And, those who are victims of trafficking more often than not turn to drugs. A drug habit is extremely expensive, too expensive for the majority, and certainly too expensive for those who are already addicted. Crime and prostitution are the only ways to fund such a habit.

Ideally, there would be no public spaces, in particular streets, only private ones. It would be for street owners – who would normally be collectives of owners with properties fronting them – to decide whether or not prostitutes could operate. Soliciting and brothels would be decriminalized.

Under market forces, it would be likely that there would be certain streets where prostitutes operated, both in terms of soliciting on the street and premises. These would be secure; they could either be gated or patrolled by private police firms funded by the prostitutes collectively. This type of scheme would mean safer working environments; prostitution could operate there free from the drugs trade, human trafficking or protection rackets.

Sexual mores is a subjective matter for the individual. In a truly free market, where everyone’s individual position is accommodated, other areas, where those with objections to prostitution could happily reside, would see no prostitution, either on the streets or in premises.

The wholesale privatization of streets is a long-term project, and not one Clegg or any other major politician is going to be contemplating. However, private enterprise and secure ‘red-light’ areas could be established tomorrow if there was decriminalization of ancillary trades.

It may seem well-meaning, but Cameron’s ‘localist’ approach still has ‘statist’ written all over it. After all, a local authority is still the state, just at a local level. His support for ten Greater Manchester councils’ plan to pass bylaws addressing public disorder and health problems caused by binge drinking would, he said, complement a localist approach – a good idea then. The bylaws would include a law that each unit of alcohol must cost at least 50p. Bylaws, enacted by single councils, could be challenged under competition rules, commented Cameron, as surrounding areas would be selling alcohol for less. There must also be serious doubts about the powers of local authorities to legislate in this way.

These measures would be fundamentally anti-free-market and must, therefore, be wrong in principle. Even leaving that aside, there is little reason to expect that restrictive measures on pricing will curb alcohol abuse. In the United States, prohibition infamously led to a black market and gangsterism. A clamp-down on heavy drinking in Scandinavia has done nothing but maintain a high incidence of alcohol-related issues.

Where the state has not restricted or limited, but enabled, thing appear to be a lot better. In the Netherlands, for example, the providing of ‘disco buses’ to ferry people back after nights out has drastically reduced fights and other forms of public disorder over the 23 years it has been running. Yes, approaches should, of course, be tailored to suit individual areas, but restricting does nothing more than force people to act illicitly.

Furthermore, the state has no reason to get involved unless adults, who have chosen to stay up late at bars, nightclubs and pubs, cause harm or nuisance to others. In a Libertarian world, of course, it would not be the state, but private, more effective groups invested in by individual communities; true ‘localism’, if you like. Restriction would be replaced with exclusion, and the default position would be one of freedom.

The Department of Health’s comment that we need a better understanding as to why people drink does raise a good point; many people may drink too much, and they drink unthinkingly. But whose job is it to deem this to be the case? And then to act on it in a way they consider will lead to a ‘better’ outcome?

The closure of several small Welsh universities sparked different reactions from within government, after the Education Minister Leighton Andrews announced the plans in June. Whilst some ministers have seen the move as a step forward – a smaller number means a stronger few, and there would be no decrease in student numbers – fears have been sparked over whether the move denotes centralization, rather than democratization.

However, the fundamental point here is that there should be a free market, not a state-sponsored monopoly, in higher educational establishments. The comment of the vice-chancellor of Swansea University, “Merger is a no-brainer if as a result you get better delivery for students.” hits on the right end, but not on the right means. There should be no restrictions on mergers, but neither should there be any barriers to new entrants. It should not be for the state, by central planning, to decide on it; it should be for the market.