After years of lobbying, Westminster Council finally granted our request and renamed Great Smith Street as Adam Smith Street…
The absurdity of trade policy
We do grasp the justification that people use for trade barriers and tariffs. But why should British, domestic, producers have to face that competition from those nasty foreigners? To which the correct answer is that we should be running the economy for the benefit of consumers, not producers - the competition is the very point of trade.
But even if we put that simple truth to one side we still have this:
The UK will officially join CPTPP next year, after legislation has been passed and ratified. The Treasury estimates the deal will be worth £1.8bn a year for the economy within a decade.
Other allowances made under the terms of the deal include reduced tariffs to accommodate imports of bananas from Peru, crab sticks from Singapore, and rice from Vietnam.
For at least two of those three we have no domestic production at all. Rice and bananas simply do not grow on or in our sceptered and silver girt isles. So why does it take some grand and vast international agreement to stop taxing ourselves into poverty on these items?
Now that we have left the European Union such import tariffs are our own decision - as evidenced by this deal itself. But how did we end up with a polity that hasn’t, doesn’t, make us richer by doing the obvious thing that we’ve now the power to do? Make us all richer by abolishing import tariffs?
Answers on a postcard to Ms. Badenoch please.
Let us have our liberty and laugh
In banning nitrous oxide the government has once again shown its aversion to individual freedom. According to the government, people taking laughing gas risk psychological harm and damage to their nerves. The substance is said to contribute to anti-social behaviour, the littering of public spaces, and to making those environments unsafe for children.
Stopping users from harming themselves, and others around them, is said to warrant a prohibition on its consumption. No liberal can accept this case, for the individual harming himself is no warrant to restrict his freedom, and, the harms to others, while wrong, cannot condemn the consumption of nitrous oxide itself.
Everyday millions of people smoke, drink, and eat themselves into poor health and an early death, and we accept they should be free to do so. By the same reasoning individuals should be free to take laughing gas, even if it does result in poor health and an early death, too.
Perhaps though it is believed individuals should be free generally, even to moderately harm themselves, but not free to consume those substances which may seriously harm them, which some might say includes laughing gas.
If you believe people should be free to moderately harm themselves only (e.g. by drinking), they should still be free to take laughing gas too. According to the government’s own drug advise service, FRANK, most of the negative effects come in the form of severe headaches, dizziness, and short-lived paranoia. Not much worse than a heavy drinking session.
Of course, if someone uses loads of laughing gas there is a danger of nerve damage via victim B12 deficiency, and death is possible too. The ONS has found the number of annual deaths due to nitrous oxide to be just five though, tragic, but almost nothing compared to the 9,641 alcohol specific deaths recorded in 2021.
Even adjusting this figure of five to assume everyone does laughing gas though (as opposed to only 2.3% of people currently) only produces the figure of 217. So basically, if you believe alcohol should be legal, then you have to believe laughing gas should be legal too.
To drive home this point, it is worth pointing out even the government’s own Advisory Council on The Misuse of Drugs has urged against criminalising laughing gas, believing the penalty of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (for Class C substances it’s two years jail or an unlimited fine), which would be applied to it, would be disproportionate to the harm it does to its personal users. This is in addition to the burden commercial users such as chefs and dentists would have to undergo, due to additional regulation and checks.
At this point I expect many paternalists will suddenly shift the whole weight of their case onto the prohibition being warranted to stop harms to others, with anti-social behaviour being the chief example. This is ridiculous. If someone peacefully takes laughing gas, as almost everyone does, it is wrong to punish them simply to pre-emptively stop the noise nuisance, trespassing, and rowdy behaviour of a tiny minority of irresponsible users (who should, of course, be punished). And this is what a prohibition would do.
What is the state going to do next, ban steak because it increases testosterone levels, which in turn increases the probability of physical violence. Clearly this argument would warrant banning alcohol, too, which relates to about £2bn of violent and non-violent crime annually. And no liberal can countenance that!
No doubt if there was a drug which, once taken, made all its users commit crime, it would be permissible to prohibit it on the harm principle. However, for the vast majority of drugs, certainly including laughing gas, this is very far from the case; it ultimately remains a choice to engage in anti-social behaviour.
And if it does not remain a choice, if someone creates a noise nuisance, how could they be punished for it? Given everyone believes these users should be punished, it is clear most people really do believe they are responsible after all. Hence, they cannot argue for prohibiting laughing gas because it is responsible for anti-social behaviour, for they have conceded the individual actually is responsible.
We can now move onto the flimsiest arguments put forward by the government. First, there is the matter of cannister litter. The preceding argument applies just as well to this case: Why should those who put their rubbish in the bin have their liberty restricted because some are too lazy to do so. Second, Michael Gove argued people need to feel public spaces are being looked after in a way that means they are safe for children. How though is taking laughing gas making parks unsafe for children?
Well, it could be argued it increases the chance of crime, but that befalls the above objection as well. I think the only argument here is children viewing the practise is a bad influence. Maybe. But if we wish to live in a free society this is just something we must accept, or, the alternative is prohibiting all sorts of behaviour in public places, e.g., smoking, drinking or preaching religious or political nonsense.
In sum, it is clear individuals should be free to enjoy laughing gas if they so please. To prohibit its use is to adopt a pernicious paternalism, or worse, to punish innocent users simply to pre-emptively stop the tiny number of irresponsible users who may commit anti-social behaviour. In a liberal society neither of these justifications are acceptable. It is about time the government stops treating adults as if they are children, and instead allows all of us the liberty to laugh in life, whether that be at our own mistakes, or at all the highs we may achieve.
This doesn't sound like a very good idea to us
The Resolution Foundation says that:
In a report highlighting the continued weakness of private and public sector investment, the Resolution Foundation said radical solutions were needed to improve the UK’s performance, including giving parliament and local governments more power over spending that could boost growth.
The first stage of their argument is that there simply should be more public investment. We disagree - we have before us the example of HS2. This is a gargantuan waste of money that will make the country poorer as even the government’s own cost benefit analysis states - when read properly that is. More public sector investment, given the incompetence of public sector investment, is therefore contraindicated.
The second stage is that because the Treasury acts as a firewall against at least some of the money wasting excesses therefore the Treasury should be removed from the process of wasting money. Our problem with this is that it’s an idea which has been tested in recent years. Local councils have been able to borrow at concessionary rates to invest. Those that did so are all largely going bust as a result - vide Croydon and such places.
That is, politics is bad at investing money, local politics is worse, therefore we shouldn't be using politics to decide investment and most certainly not local politics. After all, the aim of investment is to get richer not, as recent experience tells us about political investing, to become poorer.
Carbon border taxes should be based on, well, carbon taxes
We predict that this will go horribly wrong:
Cheap imported products made in polluting factories abroad may face new green import taxes
…..
The government will announce a consultation on a new system of “carbon border taxes” designed to protect UK manufacturers from being undercut by countries with lax environmental rules.
Carbon border taxes are indeed the new big thing. There’s good reason to have them too. If we are to burden domestic manufacturing with the costs of those externalities of climate change then - but no, that’s not the way the argument actually runs.
Instead, what we’re trying to do is change consumer behaviour so that consumption does not lead to those emissions which create the climate change. Therefore any form of production without the emissions works - and should be taxed the same and so on. Or, in the case of carbon taxes, non-emissive production methods should not be taxed.
Now imagine that Britain - yes, we know, ridiculous to even imagine that this could be true - adopts a very expensive manner of reducing said emissions in production processes. Bans fracking, forces up energy prices through ludicrous interventions, loads all of the grid costs onto consumers instead of charging them to renewables investors, and so on and on. Entirely nonsense that anyone would do it so badly but just imagine. Also imagine that other places do this less badly. Say, go nuclear, as France has done. Or hydro as Norway and so on.
Now, what should that carbon border tax be? From France and Norway, nothing, obviously. There’s no carbon embedded in their products. But which way would we all bet that the border adjustment will be made? Yes - it’ll be that British production costs are higher therefore the tax should be high for all non-Brits. That’s just inherent in the way this is being pitched. That the carbon border adjustment is to protect British producers. Instead of being to dissuade consumers from high emission consumption and nudge them, through prices, to low emission consumption.
The theory of carbon border adjustments is fine, logical, dandy even. Externalities exist, Pigou Tax them into prices. But when such logical theory meets politics we fear - nay predict - that it’ll end up as an orgy of simple trade protectionism. The thing being protected the inefficiency of the British domestic plans for reducing emissions.
A carbon border adjustment at the $80 per tonne CO2-e social cost of emissions? Fine and dandy. A carbon border tax to protect the vast expense of the British manner of trying to deal with climate change? No, not what should be happening at all. Sadly, we expect the second to be what does happen.
Achieving energy self-sufficiency at an acceptable cost
To achieve energy self-sufficiency without breaking the bank, the UK could adopt a number of practical measures. Firstly, by enhancing energy efficiency, it could reduce our energy consumption, for example, by insulating buildings, employing energy-efficient technologies and optimizing industrial processes. This would decrease its reliance on imported energy.
Secondly, investing in renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydro power could provide a sustainable and cost-competitive energy supply for the UK. The cost of renewable energy has decreased substantially, so it can now effectively compete with traditional energy sources.
Thirdly, energy storage technologies, such as batteries and pumped hydro, can address the challenge of intermittency associated with renewable energy. Storing excess energy generated during peak periods and releasing it when needed would provide a reliable and consistent energy supply, and reduce the need for imported fossil fuels.
Fourthly, the UK could invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. CCS technology captures carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and stores them underground. This would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while still utilizing fossil fuels such as gas derived from hydraulic fracturing until the transition can be made to renewable energy sources. The UK is in a favorable position for CCS owing to its North Sea oil and gas infrastructure.
Fifthly, the UK could play a significant role in facilitating the development and use of synthetic fuels. These can be made using carbon from the atmosphere with hydrogen produced by electrolysis to make methane and other hydrocarbons up to and including aviation fuel in ways that involve no fossil fuels, and which can be engineered to emit water vapour instead of pollutants as their exhaust.
By pursuing these practical measures, the UK could reduce its dependence on imported energy sources, and progress towards self-sufficiency in energy without excessive spending.
Having established that it could be done, the question moves on to one of whether it should be done. The answer to that bears upon whether the UK decides that it needs to be less dependent on fuel obtained from increasingly assertive and aggressive foreign autocracies.
Actual punishment here would concentrate minds wonderfully
We have been less than happy - and said so - over the years about the Post Office’s Horizon scandal. The original mistake was of such mindnumbing stupidity that it’s difficult to believe a system containing actual live, capable of breathing, human beings made it. The smokeblowing and backfilling over it were worse. So much so that one of us has, in another place, called for substantial punishment:
There’s plenty of blame to go around over the Horizon computer and accounting program and we might include parts of the Post Office management, Fujitsu the contractor and others. But Byng’s historic example shows that the right response is simple. In fact, why not go further back than Byng and go Viking on the guilty?
Matters are not getting any better:
Postmasters whose reputations were left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal are being offered a maximum of just £10,000 for “severe” reputational damage, it has emerged.
Abject stupidity allied with bureaucratic cover up leads to a payment for reputational damage less than the costs of hiring a libel solicitor?
We’re normally very vocal in our insistence upon saving public money but this is one of those occasions when we argue entirely the other way. Here the State, the powers that be, screwed up big time and they need to compensate, swiftly and properly. We can have the discussion about whether to reopen Tyburn for the perpetrators a little later.
Action this day as the man said.
Let's go from 7 recycling bins to none, shall we?
As we’ve noted over the years, recycling that adds value is worth doing, recycling that requires subsidy possibly isn’t. But over and above that there’s the method of recycling to be used:
Households could need as many as seven bins to comply with new national waste-collection plans being drawn up by the Government.
The average new build in the UK currently has some 76 square metres of space. If each bin has a footprint of 1 m2 then we’re using 10% of the hovels we allow the proles merely to store the recycling until the council can be bothered to come around and collect it. If half that size then it’s still 5% - an excessive amount even then.
Or, we can think of this the other way. A useful estimate of the time it takes a household to sort and prepare materials for recycling is 30 minutes per week. With roughly 30 million households that’s 15 million hours a week of labour required. Or, the full time labour of 400,000 people at the usual 37.5 hour work week.
At which point why not muse on the benefits of economies of scale and mass production? If we were to change our system so that instead of praying to Gaia separately, each in our kitchens, we were to bundle everything off in the one bag to be sorted automatically in large factories? Such do exist, after all, it is merely a choice that is being made here about the method to be used in recycling.
Note what this would mean. If said factories required the labour of fewer than 400,000 people for the country as a whole then that would be the more efficient use of human labour. And isn’t it continually said that labour productivity flatlining is one of the major problems that afflicts us?
Or, as this also works out, why don’t we make ourselves richer by abandoning this idea of household recycling and moving to factory recycling? Just as we made ourselves richer by moving to industrial farming, industrial spinning and weaving, industrial production of pretty much everything else in fact.
Modernity, it has something of a ring to it.
If food banks solve the problem then Huzzah for food banks
The usual list of the international Great and Good - but possibly logic deficient - take to the letters page of The Observer to tell us that food banks really just aren’t the thing:
The extraordinary efforts of food bank teams, increasingly backed by corporate involvement, should not blind us to the fact that an emergency food parcel cannot do more than temporarily alleviate hunger.
And there we were, thinking that hunger was itself a temporary thing. Solve it once and a few hours later it reappears. It rather definitionally being a thing that doesn’t have a permanent solution.
The latest plea for an essentials guarantee from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Trussell Trust and others is testament to the reality that growing reliance on food banks, backed by surplus food redistribution, is an ineffective substitute for poverty-reducing policies.
This simply isn’t true. Food poverty is reduced by supplying people with food. Food banks supply people with food. Food banks are, therefore, a highly effective means of solving food poverty. To the extent that reducing food poverty reduces poverty then food banks are an excellent substitute.
We’ve long maintained the view that food banks are a new technology - a technology is just a way of doing something. Originating in the US, arriving in the UK just post- 2000, food banks do indeed alleviate food poverty. By the simple mechanism of providing food to people. Sounds absolutely great to us. The task is that hungry people get fed, why knock a system that feeds hungry people?
But the real complaint here is that this problem is being solved the wrong way. Just people organising things by themselves, charity, corporate involvement, waste food being redistributed - the little platoons doing their stuff. This is wrong. For it should be the State in all its inability to handle the details which does this. That’s what the moral insistence is here among said logically deficient:
Guaranteeing the right to food and a living income through real living wages, together with adequate social security provision, is essential to ending the need for charitable food aid in all societies.
We’re pragmatists. Extreme pragmatists perhaps but pragmatists all the same. Food banks feed hungry folk better than governments do. All Hail Food Banks.
All 38 member countries of the OECD now rely on a privatised charitable food aid model, often dependent on volunteer labour. The ubiquity of corporate food charity in high-income countries should provide a stark warning. The European Federation of Food Banks and the Global Foodbanking Network collectively operate in 76 countries, including low- and middle-income states. Their mission is to expand “the presence and influence of food banks all over the world”, further anchoring corporate charitable food aid provision as a means to address hunger through surplus food redistribution.
That’s exactly why this new technology has spread from the US to all of the richer countries. Because it works. The insistence from these Great and Good is that we should stop doing something that works and attempt what clearly doesn’t on moral grounds. Get rid of that nasty charity, cleanse the corporates from the system and accept the hunger as the cost of moral purity.
Err, no, be off with you. If the hungry are getting fed then we’ve solved the problem already.
To change the world first change the language
As Mr. E. Blair pointed out, if you change the language with which people are informed and think thereby you change the information people gain and the way that they think. Which brings us to the recently resigned Food Czar for the nation:
Ultra-processed food — meaning a packaged product, generally high in calories and low in nutrients,
Leave the ultra-processed part out of it - despite the fact that that bans tofu to everyone’s great relief - and concentrate upon the definitional switch done there. Using Our Friend, Mr. Google, the first entry tells us that:
(NOO-tree-ent) A chemical compound (such as protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamin, or mineral) contained in foods. These compounds are used by the body to function and grow.
Calories, from those carbohydrates, are nutrients. Not “calories and nutrients”, but “nutrients, such as calories and”.
It is possible to test this. Lacks of certain nutrients will indeed kill - no Vitamin C through scurvy, no niacin through pellagra, lack of protein through kwashiorkor and so on. A lack of calories will kill through simple starvation. Also, a lack of calories will kill rather faster than any of those others.
Calories are nutrients, an essential part of a human diet.
At which point we really do have to stop and think just for a little bit. We have here someone desirous of planning the diet of the entire nation. Someone who doesn’t, in fact, grasp the very basis of nutrition in the first place. This really might not be quite the place for us to be getting our national plan now, might it?
Not that we should be having a national plan and all that but this herd of nonsense needs to be stopped before it even gets out of the gate.
Calories are an essential part of all animal nutrition. Any discussion of food which tries to ignore this is doomed to logical and medical failure.