Our governing class is off the leash

From Simon Heffer in the Telegraph:

There is a deal, unwritten and largely unspoken, in this country not just between the rulers and the ruled, but also between the chiefs and Indians within the institutions that keep the state functioning. This deal is in ruins. A public that for some time has been ground down by the sheer weight of Labour's power, and had given up caring, now shows signs of anger and disgust.

Not on your terms minister

So there I am in Sainsbury’s, no more than twenty minutes ago, and I catch sight of a number of people loitering around the newspaper stands. ”It’s unbelievable” I hear, ”Just let them try getting in” says another, ”Graffiti on the wall” it continues. I wander up and notice this particular story on the front page of the Telegraph:

The disclosure follows the revelation that John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, is planning to charge higher tax on homes with patios, multiple bedrooms, conservatories and scenic views.

The Valuation Office Agency sought the advice of the office of the Surveillance Commissioner on entering homes. The commissioner replied that inspectors taking photographs of properties would not contravene the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act or the Human Rights Act, even though those laws were intended to protect citizens' privacy.

It seems that Prescott and his jackboot minions are after more cash and want to enter our homes so that they may evaluate how much spare cash we might have, or something.

This is something that I can never allow to happen, certainly not for the purposes of raising more tax revenue when I feel so heavily overtaxed as it is.

If this comes to pass I will never give permission for these individuals to enter my home. If the law states that they are allowed to do so then I will insist that they carry out whatever action that is permissible for them to take to legally carry out their task. I will not personally open that door. Never. Not under any circumstances. Ultimately this will lead to coercion by way of legal threats, a court order perhaps and ultimately, I guess, forced entry into my home. This will be their doing though, not mine. I will have had no part in it.

Perhaps it will mean me paying even higher taxes than I might otherwise end up paying. Charging at the top end for homeowners that do not allow entry would come as no surprise and would, perhaps, save court time. If that is the price I will have to pay then so be it.

No doubt they will argue that an individual such as myself behaving as I describe is in some way irresponsible. They will fly their vindictive colours and insist that I am not worthy of the privilege of owning shotguns. I must be forced to give them up, they will in all likelihood demand. And that is where it will hurt the most because clay shooting is the last of the truly enjoyable shooting disciplines that I have left open to me.

It will be a sad day but a day that I will allow to pass if it means that I can look at myself in the mirror.

I have noted discussions in the past between shooters who gave up their pistols to the authorities and received “compensation” from the government for doing so. Some regret ever having taking this course of action preferring, if they could make the decision again, to send their property abroad and pay the costs of the storage involved. Others would, in retrospect, have rather destroyed their own property than have taken the money. They have been left with a bad taste in their mouths. A feeling that they have, in some way, belittled themselves and their principles for having accepted the destruction of their property on someone else’s terms.

Not here. Not ever.

On or off?

What with all this talk of getting people registered on the electoral roll it is with some considerable surprise to myself that my instincts are to do exactly the opposite.

Somehow withdrawing myself from the electoral roll would seem to be in many ways compatible with my intention stated as follows:

I will no longer cooperate with the state or any agent of the state unless by withholding my cooperation I am seen to be breaking the law.

However, I am not completely convinced yet whether submitting myself to this roll is me cooperating with the state or the state cooperating with me.

Of course, there is no way that I can carry out my pledge to the fullest extent of my ability because there are simply too many personal inconveniences involved but as a general rule of thumb I am, at this stage, determined to do what I can. So far no clear opportunity to be proactive in my negativity has presented itself but I do wonder if this electoral roll issue could be the first.

I wonder, is it possible to fall off the roll and remain living? How would one go about this? I need to know if it is possible before deciding if it is necessary.

Apparently it's a legal requirement for me to be on the roll so that solves that one. Cheers wonko.

There is no point throwing the toys out of a pram of your own making

Ken, the Eurealist, spots this piece of state manoeuvring in the Telegraph. It seems that Michael Howard (Tory leader) is a little concerned that the prize of ultimate power is being diluted by those tasked with interpreting and passing judgement on matters of law ie judges. You see, some of these judges are proving to be a little inconvenient, getting in the way of parliamentary desire:

“The Human Rights Act has drawn British judges into areas of political controversy through no fault of their own. It is, however, vital for the future of our country that the judiciary exercises these powers with self-restraint, recognising that Parliament, accountable as it is directly to the people, must be allowed to exercise the supreme responsibility of deciding what powers are to be conferred on the executive.

Parliament must be supreme. Aggressive judicial activism will not only undermine the public's confidence in the impartiality of our judiciary, but it could also put our security at risk - and with it the freedoms the judges seek to defend. That would be a price we cannot be expected to pay."

As Ken points out, Howard is moaning about the very thing that his and his kind are directly responsible for:

But Howard misses or ignores the point that it was Parliament that gave the judges the power, it was Parliament that allowed the Human Rights Act, and it was Parliament that told the judiciary to apply the Human Rights act, and it is now our Government who are trying to ignore the Human Rights Act. It is within the power of Parliament to remove the Human Rights Act and tell the judiciary to apply some other law.

What they cannot do is to have the Human Rights Act or any international treaty which has the same effect of removing the power of Parliament, and then complain that they do not have supreme power.

Quite. Let the toad try to wriggle out of that one. Without spin, any attempt to do so would be an exercise in broadcasting a vacuum.

This issue puts me in mind of Sean Gabb's Free Life Commentary (131) where he argues that there is a counter revolution going on in the judiciary against the runaway state:

The headline news is grim. We have just had imposed on us a Prevention of Terrorism Act more subversive of due process than any law made in peacetime since the 1650s. Add to this the Civil Contingency Act, the abolition of the double jeopardy rule and the allowance of similar fact evidence made by the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Proceeds of Crime Act, and all the lesser invasions that have come and are yet to come from this current Parliament, and we might suppose all was already lost. And look before this Government, to the Thatcher and Major Governments – those, to be fair, laid the foundations on which the present structure of despotism is now being raised. But look beyond Parliament, to those quiet places where the lawyers gather and discuss what the politicians have in mind for us, and there is a counter revolution under way.

It may be worth giving our support and best wishes to those charismatic outsiders who are now beating on the doors of Parliament. It is still more worth while, though, to thank and support those old men in wigs, whose often pedantic and always long decisions about pounds of bananas and hunting bans are restoring to fact what once seemed the theory of a limited constitutional order.

Howard and his kind have always been aware of the inconvenience of an independent judiciary. There's a triangle you see. It used to be a square before the government decided to knock off one corner with the liberal use of the Parliament Act and self interested reforms. It's The State - An Independent Judiciary - The People. In that triangle the only real threat to the state's ephemeral mandate is the judiciary and it is that particular corner of the triangle that the state is finding itself increasingly pressed up against.

Look for more serious reforms of the judiciary. That's the current front. How far do they dare go?

Underpaid, oversexed, and living in my house

This just in from Mrs. England Project who has, for some time, strongly suspected that the government has been deliberately keeping some of her money without good reason. She wrote to them saying as much. They wrote back saying please take some time out and work for us on a temporary and unpaid basis. We need someone to update our records and we think it would be spiffing if you could be that person:

I have just received two tax returns for the years to April 2003 and April 2004 - as a result of me trying to claim a tax rebate I'm sure. I only earned about £not muchk each year and they owe me about £100 and for my trouble I now have to sift through piles of paperwork for them!!!!

Of course, this shared opinion is an overreaction to a necessary evil, but honestly, the good lady has other things to attend to. Most of them will come to mind quite soon I am sure.

Oh my sweet, sweet pint

DumbJon on the demonisation of booze and a TV programme by our beloved public broadcaster:

The program itself, The Booze Business: Consuming Spirits, was a masterpiece of the Beeb's po-faced, finger-wagging moralising. The program tracked a group of young ladies out on the town. Now take a wild shot in the dark which town it was filmed in ? Yep - Newcastle. Let no man say the Beeb is obsessed with stereotypes. The actual report was a perfect example of the 'gorillas in the mist' style Beeb reporters adopt every time they pass the Watford Gap, combined with the aforementioned sermonising, and no little humbuggery. The voice-over informed us that the ladies had spent over £100 on booze - no, actually they'd spent £20 on booze and £80 on tax. Hearing a whiny Liberal complain that people are spending too much on booze when it's people like him who have driven prices up in the first place is like hearing the guy who killed his parents lay claim to the sympathy of the court because he's an orphan.

I've always wondered why the last 20% of my pint felt the most cherished to me. We need a beer freedom indicator, like a graphic of a pint of the brown stuff, showing how much of the cost is tax.

Or will that be too scary?

Civil Contingencies Bill

David Carr lays into the Civil Contingencies Bill over at samizdata.net. The stated purpose of this piece of legislation is to "make provision about civil contingencies" (okayyyyyy....) but to be a little clearer it basically grants to the state all kinds of special powers in the event of an emergency.

What can the state do once an emergency is declared? Well, just about anything. Take your car, shoot your dog, tell you where you can and can't go. Stop you getting to your kids. A little bit of whatever they fancy. Or a lot.

Now, when you hear about this bill what the government wants you to do is think of some major terrorist attack with half of London on fire or contaminated etc. where the very survival of thousands upon thousands of people will depend upon the powers granted to the state by this bill. In reality it will be used to stop fuel protesters blockading fuel depots and the like.

If you trust this government and all following governments then you will no doubt be in favour of this bill. If you are inherently less crazy then you will, no doubt, feel as I do; that this bill is the most dangerous document that any British government has ever openly advocated.

It will be abused.

The efficient herd

In the olden days, when men were men, women were women and children were children one could have been forgiven for believing that the state was on the side of, to nick a lefty term, the people. Now, it probably wasn’t the case (just consider the real reasons for the firearms act of 1920) but at least they were a whole lot more subtle about things.

These days things are a great deal different and the transparency of the real agenda of the state is astonishing. Brazen even:

Parents are to receive tax breaks worth up to £140 a week to hire nannies to look after their children, the government has said.

”What!”, you may well say, ”How can you possibly spin this into something even partially resembling a statist agenda?” Well, you underestimate The England Project. Come now, think man.

You see back when parents were generally accepted as the people who would have to bring up their own children the government had schemes like the married couples allowance which basically recognised the traditional structure of a family unit. You get married, you have children and one of the parents (usually the woman) stayed at home and looked after them. Ah, halcyon days. This allowance effectively no longer exists and I use its degradation as an example of how little is actually done by government to help maintain the existence of these traditional family units.

To have a parent at home is now a luxury that many cannot afford. The government provides no help in terms of tax breaks in recognition of the advantages of parent reared children whereas the unavoidable taxes on the family imposed by the government and various wings of its machinery rise steadily. High rates of income tax on 50 something thousand pounds regardless on how many people live on that single income. Massive council taxes that the government pretends it is not responsible for. Fuel taxes that are so high that it makes one wonder if your are filling up with petrol or vaporised gold.

Of course, traditional family units were not efficient means for extracting taxation from people. They meant there was usually one person not earning at home, one person at work with tax breaks in recognition of the family, and no family employed tax paying help. It was a situation that was ludicrous, inefficient and embarrassing for any governments account books.

Better to have both parents working and paying taxes and to help them provide further taxable income for the government by employing a third party to look after the kiddies. Now that’s efficient taxation! That’s how to maximise revenue from the herd!

And don’t you even think about banging on at me at how much working mothers actually want to work. I can understand the draw of the workplace. I can understand how there may be benefits in self esteem and satisfaction. I can understand how expensive it is not to have everyone in the family at work as soon as is possiple. I can also understand how not a single working mother that I know actually prefers to be at work rather than at home bringing up their own children. They just can’t afford to. The cost of living is too high and there are too many unavoidable state imposed costs. Having a parent stay at home to look after the children, like with those old fashioned families, is now the prerogative of the lucky few.

So, when the government announce a tax break to help us employ another tax payer to look after our children you will forgive me when I don’t immediately welcome the initiative with open arms. It’s just another step that brings advantage to the government accounts and is only welcomed by the public because they will grasp at anything to help ease the burden that is modern family life.

At least some still have the comfort of their own parents who often help out with childcare. After all, if you can’t bring up your own kids then grandparents are often the next best thing. They are family after all:

The Child Tax Credit is being extended to cover carers who look after children in their parents' homes - but not relatives such as grandparents.

Yep, that figures.

Moooooooo.

Updated to fix some errors. Where is my editor?