The Tax Payers’ Alliance’s new Book “Ten Years On – Britain Without the European Union” turns out to be a somewhat disappointing read. The book aims to describe Britain’s improving lot ten years after leaving the European Union. It is written as a retrospective comment on the developments that took shape during the ten years after an anticipated Tory election victory in 2010.

The obvious charge against the book is that it is too optimistic: in its view of the future, Britain is freed not only from EU bureaucracy and excessive regulation, but common sense prevails at home and leads to widespread reform.

While it is worthwhile to point out that the EU would not have an easy task isolating an independent Britain -and would not stand to benefit from doing so- it is clearly a shortcoming not to address possible problems along the way and how they could be dealt with.

Another improvement would have been an appendix with references to back up included factual information about the recent past and the present situation. As it stands, the book is preaching to the converted. Being one of the converts, I enjoyed it, but it did not give me any facts or arguments to convincingly make the case for EU exit.

To see what exactly Daniel Hannan said about Powell, take ten minutes and watch this. It is a ten minute clip worth watching. As for Powell himself, Hannan did specifically refer to his views on national independence (not surprising for a Eurosceptic) and advocacy of small government, not his views on immigration.Anyway, it is nice to see some room for dissent in a major party.

Yet another fence post: The telegraph calls these ‘restraining orders for violent partners’, yet the article makes it clear that no evidence, just an accusation of violence is needed:

“Judges will now be able to approve an order following any offence and if they are acquitted but the court feels there remains sufficient evidence to require restraint.” (source)

If the court feels there is evidence! Who needs facts when you have emotions?

In discussing Labour’s decade of totalitarian legislation, Adam LeBor draws the following comparison in The Times:

“The phrase Big Brother has entered common parlance. But Orwell’s book was published in 1949 as communist regimes in Eastern Europe cemented their control through “salami tactics”. These were invented by Matyas Rakosi, Hungary’s communist leader from 1948-56. He sliced away freedoms sliver by sliver, until he established one of the most feared dictatorships in Eastern Europe.

(…)

In my more cynical moments I imagine Labour ministers following a similar methodology. They would never say openly: “We intend to criminalise public protest; to grant sweeping blanket powers of arrest to the police and change the very foundation of law, making citizens prove their innocence, rather than have the police and judiciary prove their guilt while demonstrating.”” (source)

Actually, labour has been even more blunt than LeBor imagines in his most cynical moments. Here is a quote from Blair’s respect speech:

“ASBOs came into being where general behaviour not specific individual offences was criminalised.
This has, bluntly reversed the burden of proof. …
Now, as I shall say later, we want to take these powers further. Today I focus on anti-social behaviour. Shortly we will do the same on serious and organised crime.
But the principle is the same. To get on top of 21st century crime, we need to accept that what works in practice is a measure of summary power with right of appeal, alongside the traditional court process.” (Source)

I am hard pressed to imagine a more blatant statement of contempt for due process and individual liberty. If only more journalists were “cynical” enough to bring such clarity to a wider audience.

The title of this post comes straight from Ross Clark’s book on the surveillance society: “The Road to Southend Pier”. In many ways, this is a worthwhile book, showing how the surveillance state –frighteningly omnipresent in theory- is in reality breathtakingly inefficient at takling crime in the conventional sense while creating new, spurious offences.

One passage seems ill thought through though: “For those who flippantly describe Britain as a ‘police state’, an admission by the Home Office in 2007 must have come as something of a shock: Britain’s police forces, it was revealed, have lost contact with 322 registered sex offenders.” (The Road to Southend Pier p.61)

The argument, in short, is that Britain can’t be a police state because the police is laughably inefficient, being tangled up with red-tape and politically driven initiatives. How then should we define a police state?

I would think of a state in which the police has almost unlimited powers over citizens, may not be accountable even within the exercise of those generous powers and may be deployed as an instrument of political opression. It is easily conceivable though that the police in a police state may be amazngly inefficient at fighting crime, while concentrating on political targets or plain self-interested corruption instead.

In Britain, the police certainly have very far reaching powers, even if some restraint in using them is still exercised, relative to what would be theoretically possible. Within the exercise of their powers, the police still seems to be accountable, by and large, but they have been known to harass people who dared to express political dissent in public –and not only in the usual context of organized protests.

It is not immediately clear if Britain is a police state or how fast she is heading in that direction. Being concerned about the increasing power of the police and its political consequences is hardly flippant though.

The Economist –back in May—offered some strange musings on the fate of Britain’s Muslims:
“The unhappiness of British Muslims is easy enough to explain: their living standards tend to be low and relatively few of the women work.” (source)
Hmmm… these two demographic data are presented in juxtaposition as if they were simply two external negative influences from which Muslim households tend to suffer. Could it be that one leads to the other? Could it be that households who, on average, have fewer second earners also tend to have lower household incomes?
Where the low female labour market participation is driven by religiously conservative lifestyle choices I struggle to see how this unhappiness should be seen as anything but self-inflicted. The Economist then continues:
“They are also less likely than Muslims elsewhere, Gallup found, to see learning the local language, finding a job or getting a better education as a precondition for integration. That may be because they are remarkably unambitious; but it could reflect Britain’s official tradition of encouraging cultural diversity.” (source)
Being less likely to see the preconditions for integration as preconditions for integration makes you less likely to integrate of course. And while ‘encouraging cultural diversity’ may have had an influence, it hardly relieves anyone of responsibility for their own ambitions and attitudes.
All in all, the Economists article shows a well established attitude of seeing Muslims as victims, even where their condition is most likely a product of their own choices. Islamist identity politicians seem to be well aware of this in Britain and elsewhere, and this is clearly illustrated by where and how they complain:
“In Denmark a newspaper printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and the Muslim world erupted in anger. Today that same Muslim world seems to be mute, deaf, and blind, and is oblivious to the violence and discrimination suffered by the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group, at the hands of the Chinese government.” (source)
It seems that Islamist community leaders (and national representatives) quite simply know when it pays to complain. Western nations seem to reflexively engage in self-flagellation at the slightest excuse –and hence get bombarded with complaints over cartoons and other trivia. The Chinese state clearly values its right to slaughter as many of its citizens as it likes –so no one bothers to complain about it. Maybe Europe should find a middle way here. We won’t really need to kill anyone, but couldn’t we just stop pre-emptively taking the blame for everything?

“We’ll start by putting back in place the protections of personal freedom that Labour have taken away.

…

So we will make some important changes. The next Conservative government will revoke the unjustified and unreasonable powers that let people enter your home without your permission.

And we will review the operation of the Extradition Act – and the US/UK extradition treaty – to make sure it is even-handed and works both ways.” (Source)

Let’s remember that and remind him when the time comes …

“If revolutionaries exist outside a revolutionary situation, they easily become comical figures.” Ralf Dahrendorf, who died yesterday, addressing Rudi Dutschke.

When Tasers were introduced in Britain they were only for self defence. The vice chairman of the police federation said at the time “It’s not fair to compare us with US-style policing. … Officers will use it responsibly.” (source) Judge this claim for yourself.

From David Friedman:

“We can learn a little more by looking at a different Great Depression—the one that didn’t happen. From 1920 to 1921, the consumer price index fell by 10.8%, more than in any year of the Great Depression; it fell another 2.3% in the next year. Unemployment rose to about its 1931 level. Looking just at that data, it’s obviously the start of a depression.” (Source)