Perpetuating the delusion - by Richard... Sunday, June 05, 2011

Perpetuating the delusion - by Richard... Sunday, June 05, 2011

Only a fool could write such as this: "When David Cameron was elected as Conservative leader, it seemed as if the party's 20-year civil war over Europe had been resolved. Cameron's own Eurosceptic credentials were irreproachable ... ".

Now, faced with a conflict between his belief that the Boy Cameron is a Eurosceptic, and the reality – that he is (and always has been) a rabid Europhile, that fool. Peter Oborne writes a piece trying to reconcile his delusion with the reality. Thus he blandly informs us:

Newly elected ministers have a choice of two methods when they deal with Brussels: they either fight in a bloody-minded way for British interests, as Margaret Thatcher or Nicholas Ridley did, or they join the club. Osborne's decision set the tone: without exception, Cameron's ministers have joined the club.

This, of course, is ex post facto rationalisation. Cameron was always "in the club", so the current outcome was inevitable – and predictable. Oborne's piece, therefore, continues his own delusion, that Cameron was a Eurosceptic. He has to go with that delusion, otherwise he has to admit that, for years, he got it wrong. That would never do.

His stance, though, is almost as delusional as Tim Montgomerie "revealing" what Conservative Party members "really think" of David Cameron and his Cabinet. If the members could actually think, they would have run the Boy out of town and elected a Conservative.

But, "Scratch the surface, and they are disappointed that Cameron isn't being more robust about crime, eurozone bail-outs and the tax burden... ", the Montgomerie tells us. Oh, dearie, dearie me. The little Tories are "disappointed". I weep for them.

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Unsustainable libraries - by Richard...

DESPITE ALL the talk of "cuts", the fact remains that Government spending continues to rise and that certain budgets, such as overseas aid, continue to soar, even though the state has to borrow nearly £3 billion a week to cover them. Nearer to home, the equivalent of overseas aid seems to be "climate change", on which councils spend money like there is no tomorrow (which presumably is the justification they might offer for their profligacy).

So writes Booker, on a theme that is familiar to EURef readers. It would have been really interesting to have known what the result of a Council Tax referendum might have been in Camden Council - where the libraries are being closed. Some commenters suggest that we need to be able to vote on categories of expenditure, in order to prevent this sort of thing. And what would the government do if the voters then blocked Councils from spending on items that were a statutory requirement and/or required by the EU?

You can thus see why the government would be reluctant to allow people to have real power. They might spend the money on libraries instead of sustainability officers, and that would never do. For sure, local decisions can be made by local people – as long as they don't actually change anything.

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We've been there before - by Richard...

From the school of nothing new under the sun, a reader points out that, inFebruary 2001, Labour-controlled Bristol City Council held a referendum on its Council Tax, asking voters whether they preferred to increase it by two, four or six percent, or to freeze it at then current levels.

Much to the chagrin of the Council, which had expected otherwise, more than half of the voters opted for a freeze. Sentiment was such that, had a reduction been on offer, the indications are that this would have been the preferred choice.

According to the BBC, more than 115,000 people took part in the referendum - the turnout significantly higher than at the local elections. Some 61,664 voted for no rise, 11,962 for a two percent rise, 20,829 for a four and 19,841 for a six percent rise. Thus, even the total for some sort of a rise, at 51,732, was outnumbered by the "freezers".

Nor was Bristol on its own. The Council was just beaten to the punch by theLondon Borough of Croydon, which on 14 February 2001 asked its 235,000 registered electors to decide whether Council Tax should be increased by two percent (in real terms, an effective freeze), 3.5 percent, or five percent. Council tenants also voted on whether their rents should be increased.

Again to the chagrin of the Council, 56 percent of the voters opted for the lowest possible rise in Council Tax. A total of 80,383 voted, a 34.2 percent turnout. Thirty-two percent voted for the 3.5 percent increase and a mere five percent went for the five percent hike.

Of the 4,190 council tenants responding to the rents referendum (24.1 percent turnout), just over 58 percent voted for a rent freeze, keeping average rents at £65 a week. On offer to the tenants had been a community patrol service, community grants, money advice and debt counselling services – all of which were rejected.

Croydon was to repeat the experiment the following year, with 74 percent of the taxpayers who voted opting for the lowest rise on offer, at 3.65 percent, on a 35 percent turnout. The BBC observed, at the time, that the referendums suggested that Tony Blair "may have his work cut out to persuade the public to pay more for a better NHS". Of course, the voters were not asked.

Interestingly, this experiment in direct democracyhad started in 1999, when Milton Keynes had put to its voters the choice of three levels of increase, ranging from five percent, 9.8 percent and 15 percent.

Residents were able to vote by post or by phone for their chosen option. A 9.8 percent rise would keep core spending at the same level, while the five percent increase would have meant cuts in the core budget and a 15 percent increase would have provided extra revenue). Forty-six percent of those who voted opted for the 9.8 percent rise, thirty percent for the five percent increase and twenty-four percent for the 15 percent hike. The turnout was 45 percent.

Council leader Kevin Wilson told the BBC he was "delighted" by the result. "The referendum gave the people an opportunity to be masters rather than servants," he added, declaring that the referendum had succeeded in its aim of reconnecting people with local government and gave public backing for council tax rises.

Buoyed by the result the following year, Bristol announced that the public would get a chance to vote on their council tax levels, "under plans drawn up to tackle voter apathy". The scheme had the backing of government ministers and, if the public had responded "positively", the plan was to repeat referendums across the country. Clearly, the response was not "positive" enough.

At the time, The Independent was to lament that, "in a victory for the maxim that people vote with their wallets, the results showed few people in favour of extra spending". "Voters of Bristol pick school cuts over taxes", it headlined. The Bristol experiment was not repeated by Labour.

What the experiments showed, however, was that there was some enthusiasm for voting on budgets – even though there seemed to have been very limited local and national media exposure. And in Croydon, voters were not deterred by votes in successive years - turnout increasing marginally on the second year.

The experiments also showed that the electorates were quite capable of dealing with multi-choice votes, a capability which gives much more flexibility than having to stick to a straight "yes-no" vote. Furthermore, there seems to be a willingness amongst the voters to block expenditure. Thus, fears that the electorate will necessarily vote for more spending might be overblown.

With the Labour defeat in the last election, though, the issue is being revisited by the Tories – but in a highly distorted fashion. As of July last year Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has declared that by 2012, he wants people to be able to reject Council Tax levels "if they exceed a ceiling agreed annually by MPs", by voting on them in referendums.

This is based on a promise made in 2007. Pickles calls the plan a "radical extension of direct democracy". It is not. Instead, it is a considerably watered-down version of the earlier referendums – which themselves did not allow for an outright veto. And, needless to say, there is absolutely no suggestion that referendums should apply to central government spending.

Pickles tells us that he is "in favour of local people making local decisions", and also says he wants to reverse "the presumption" that central government knows best when it comes to deciding local priorities. He also wants to make councils more accountable to their constituents for their budgetary planning.

"Let the people decide", he goes on to say – a sentiment with which we agree. But, with Referism, we want to go much further than Pickles and reverse "the presumption" that central government knows best when it comes to deciding national priorities. We are in favour of national people making national decisions.

The Tory plan, therefore, is not anything like enough. To be really in control, the voters must have the power to force down budgets, with the ultimate power of veto if the government does not come into line. A weak as ditchwater block on a preset level of increase is merely a sop, and does nothing the redress the balance of power.

As for costs of the referendums, the Bristol events cost £120,000 each, while Milton Keynes estimated £150,000. Tower Hamlets Council has estimated that a standalone referendum might cost up to £250,000 but, if combined with council elections, the additional cost is estimated at around £70,000. Translated nationally, the total cost of a referendum would be between £30-60 million. For taming the monster, this would be a price worth paying.

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Do not feed the clogs - by Richard... Saturday, June 04, 2011

A long piece on the nature of the blogosphere, "clogs", claques and other matters. The independent political blogosphere is in a fight for survival. It helps if it doesn't feed the enemy.

And, in a separate post, there are some interesting observations on the direction we should take as independent bloggers, plus - on his own blog, we have a robust piece from Autonomous Mind. The blogosphere is finding its own voice.

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The Macaulay effect - by Richard...

As the great debate continues, it is still – predictably – confined to the blogosphere and the web, the latest Google search on "referism" offering 6,750 results from the web and 3,290 results from the blogs. As always, a search in the MSM gives us: "did not match any documents".

Thus, it is the bloggers making the running in an important constitutional debate, leaving the MSM to pursue their tat and trivia. We do not need the MSM to set our agenda for us, and we see more examples of that with Subrosaand The Purple Scorpion discussing "citizens' initiatives". There is also a beautifully acerbic piece from Witterings on "bubble crap".

But, amongst the latest bloggers discussing Referism is Steve Higham of the Distributed Memory blog. Unfortunately, his is a clever-dickie (i.e., sneering) reference to "the quaint notion that a yearly budget referendum would do anything to check the ruling class".

Nevertheless, in discussing the issue, he puts his finger on an important problem, citing – without identifying the source - the great Lord Thomas Macaulay, and his dictum: "A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury". More recently, democracy has been referred toas "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner".

When it comes to a referendum on the budget, if you add together the public sector, the private sector that relies on the public sector for its income (consultants, defence contractors, etc.,) and then add pensioners and diverse benefit recipients, you pretty much have a majority in favour of public spending. Add the status quo effect - plus the unwillingness of people to rock the boat - and you are fairly well assured that a popular vote under the current system will never reject a budget. The vote must be weighted.

It is this concept, though, which is causing a lot of grief, as there is almost a religious attachment to the idea of one man, one vote (and the women). Few would believe that the experiment of universal suffrage in the UK is less than 100 years old, with no evidence that it has yet (or at all) brought us better government.

Reference has been made to the Prussian three-class franchise, and Nevil Shute's idea of the multiple vote, in his book In the wet. Shute saw it as a necessary reform of democracy and, in his scheme, a person could have up to seven votes. Everyone gets a basic vote. Other votes can be earned for education (including a commission in the armed forces), earning one's living overseas for two years, raising two children to the age of 14 without divorcing, being an official of a Christian church, or having a high earned income. The seventh vote is only given at the Queen's discretion by Royal Charter.

Playing around with this idea, I have been thinking in terms of potentially ten votes per person. One as standard, and then one extra vote for a married person; another for two or more children born within wedlock. Married men or women with two children each could have three votes each.

Anyone in paid employment, paying income tax, gets another vote (amount not specified - as long as the tax is paid). That makes four votes. The owner of an actively trading business, that has submitted accounts for at least two years and has paid tax for those two years, also gets another vote (the amount of tax is not a factor). The owner of a business or a natural person who employs two or more people (not directly related - spouse, siblings, children or parents) gets another vote. That gives the potential for six votes.

I think also, successful completion of a course of higher or further education (at least two years with the attainment of a recognised qualification) should permit another vote. Thus, HND or a degree would be an earner ... but also professional qualifications count. That gives seven votes.

A person who has undertaken continuous, unpaid voluntary service, at a defined level (say scout or guide leader, unpaid manager of a charity shop, special constable, magistrate), for a defined period (say two years) gets another vote. That is potentially eight. I am persuaded that a military vote would not be a good idea, but there could be a "special merit" award, akin to an OBE/MBE award. And then there could be an age award. Anyone over 40 gets another vote - lost on retirement.

Now, this is playing around with ideas. It is not a definitive proposal. But ideas we must have, and some will be both challenging and initially unpopular. But here, we have an interesting piece inWitterings, and an excellent comment from Edward Spalton.

He is just reading Alexander Hamilton's Federalist papers. Says Spalton, Hamilton was writing to persuade the citizens of New York state to sign up to the new US constitution. There were people in newly independent America who thought that the individual states could go their own ways and others who thought they might form three or more separate countries between them.

Spalton also tells us that Hamilton urges Union upon them to replace the looser arrangement which grew out of the War of Independence. He cites the obvious advantages to the people of Britain being one country and so better able to defend their interests.

He (Hamilton) also makes a point that local democracy can become exceedingly tyrannical and overbearing. Restrained within a larger framework, "republican" as opposed to "democratic" institutions would moderate this tendency to tyranny. He assumed, of course, that political parties would be composed of people with real interests in the real economy, not just groups living off the taxpayer.

To draw a parallel - a lynch mob is a democratic institution which proceeds by majority. A jury is a "republican" institution which requires unanimity and is restrained by superior authority. One of Hamilton's near contemporaries, John Adams, cautioned his countrymen against "too democratical" a constitution "Else we will but have exchanged King George for King Numbers".

"King Numbers" brought us the Cleggerons. We can do better. We need to do better.

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