Davie Fotherington-Cameron may "say no tax cuts yet", but Stephen Norris has raised the old cry "Government taxing and spending over 40% of GDP is too much." Can everyone not see this is nonsense?
That 40%+ tax included the National Insurance contributions I paid when at work, and today's 40%+ total government expenditure includes the OAP I get as a result of those contributions. Also included are unemployment and other benefits. "Transfer Payments" such as these comprise some 15% or so of government expenditure. I get the payment and how I spend it is my choice, not the government's.
The core of government spending - on health, education, defence, sweeping the roads - is just 25% or so, nothing like that 40%+ claimed by the band of economically illiterates that Stephen Norris has now joined.
Oh dear! I've just seen that there's a "special collectors edition" of Mill's 'On Liberty' - published by the National Rifle Association, Washington DC.
Interest in the current flurry of stuff about happiness has led me to re-read John Stuart Mill's essay "On Liberty" - in the bicentenary year of his birth. [A second generation Utilitarian, he modified the utilitarian objective of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" to include some non-hedonistic qualities of life.] What a wonderful man he was! "On Liberty" was published 147 years ago, but it could have been yesterday, so topical is his thinking and understanding of society. He sets out with the utmost clarity why the individual should be free to express whatever opinion he or she likes regardless of what the government or the majority believes. Likewise freedom of action, regardless of what harm might befall the individual, provided that it does not harm others. But Mill's robust defence of individual liberty is not the anti-social individualism of modern libertarians; it is always set in the context of the good of the community. Dr John Reid should have it by his bedside and read a chapter each night.
Two examples of how little things have changed in 150 years. "… every one lives as under the eye of a hostile censorship. …. Even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds …peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes." And (in pre-Gallup days): "In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. "… governments make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses."
Independent School/Oxbridge types predominantly staff the media, according to a report last week by the Sutton Trust, . Significantly this was not reported in either The Times or The Telegraph. Will Hutton commented in yesterday's "Observer" that the media are one of several professions in which new entrants benefit from having well-heeled parents able to subsidise living in London early in their careers and so freeze out the less well-heeled. "The British Middle Class is operating a closed shop."
I benefited from a Grammar School and University education financed by local government. But I have always been conscious that this was denied the majority of my contemporaries who "failed" the eleven-plus (or "The Scholarship" as it was known in my day) – who knows how narrowly. So I have always favoured the Comprehensive ideal. Norman Tebbit (to my surprise) caused me to think again. It's only fair, he says, to keep Grammar Schools to give working class boys and girls a chance to compete with the products of private education.
The trend, however, is the other way. Increasingly top universities and top jobs are no-go areas for state school children. Could a Norman Tebbit rise in the Tory ranks today – or in the Labour Party for that matter? These two parties are led by wealthy Public School/Oxbridge types and most of their associates come from the same background. As I blogged before, that was one reason why I voted for Ming Campbell as leader of the Lib-Dems. Is much of the media criticism levelled at him – and John Prescott – consciously or unconsciously class-based (they've risen above their station)?
What can be done about the Independent Schools? Their tax-exempt status is a scandal. Why not remove their status as charities and require them to pay corporation tax and VAT on fees? No chance: the people with money and power went there and send their children to them.
(Email comments welcome)
So Ming Campbell has made it. Three cheers! One thing the BBC commentators and analysts didn't bother about was the effect of the Single Transferable Vote. In the first round, Cambell had 45%, Huhne 32% and Hughes 23%. So Hughes' voters' second preferences were allocated. If the Media insistance that Hughes was left-wing, Huhne right wing and Campbell in the middle was correct, then most of Hughes second preferences would have been for Campbell. In fact, while 6% had no second preference, the others split in almost exactly the same proportions as the first preferences for Campbell and Huhne. The differences between the three are in personality and style rather than policy.
I've done it. After much hesitation I've sent off my ballot paper. With Simon Hughes third, I was torn between Chris Huhne and Ming Campbell for first choice . There is so little between them in policy and ability. In the end I must admit it came down to a class thing. We have enough Public School toffs in leadership positions, but Ming is a Grammar School kid made good - and the man for me.
I sent this yesterday by email to the Financial Editor of The Guardian:
The first page of yesterday's Business Section had an article headed "High street suffers worst July for a decade". The plain sense of this is that we are to believe sales in July 2005 were lower than in July 1995! But this was reporting the British Retail Consortium's estimate that sales in July were 1.9% down on July 2004. Maybe this was the biggest decline between successive Julys in a decade, but following quite a lot of growth during the previous nine years. I submit that your heading – and similar comments on TV News were unduly pessimistic