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sir_quirky_k (

sir_quirky_k) wrote,
@ 2008-07-08 16:05:00

Quirks flirts with the right, yet again, and solidfies a few things
The old Tories are back.

And my initial reaction was of complete agreement. Not complete disagreement - complete agreement.

I'm of the opinion that encouraging individual responsibility should be at the heart of governmental policy. That's why I support a shift towards indirect taxation. If it is regressive, it is only because the poor make poor expenditure choices - and if they do not make poor expenditure choices, either it will not be regressive or they will be less poor.

A certain degree of equality is necessary. Equality of opportunity is more important, and correcting mechanisms to reduce unfavourable behaviour is more important still. Ironically, this does include relatively high tax on high earners to reduce inequality, because many (most?) very high earners are engaging in 'unfavourable behaviour' (and furthermore, inequality fuels crime). That said, an aspirational society is essential.

How all this affects those with disabilities is causing me a massive headache. I feel, deep down, I should be on equal terms with neurotypical individuals, and that any weaknesses I have are not to be compensated for. Other people I know strongly disagree, hence the suggestion of part-time study. Could it be that I am accepting key parts of the right-wing consensus precisely because I would be a loser from it? It's the kind of irrational thinking that would go with depression, and while I have never been diagnosed with it (mostly because I expect diagnosis to lead to the enforced consumption of useless and damaging drugs - and by implication NHS wastage, which of course feeds into this right-wing spiral) it is not totally unreasonable to assume I do have it, or some other personality disorder. Visiting a doctor has to happen, but I'm terrified of doing so.

My mind's a mess. No wonder I ended up so close to the centre of the compass when I did the test - I'm taking sometimes contradictory extreme positions, and my attempts to rationalise them leads to a garbled centrist mess.

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(and they promised us the world)

daweaver
2008-07-09 05:03 pm UTC (link)

The old Tories are back.

It is, I believe, generally more instructive to read the whole speech, rather than the filleted version offered through the lens of the newspapers. (Why does the Indytab not offer a link to this source text? Possibly because it would explain the foolishness from other politicians better than the bits they do report. Why do supposed papers of record not print such speeches in full? Answers to be written on parchment with a quill, then sent via stagecoach to Mr. Murdoch at his warehouse in Wapping.)

Mr. Cameron is arguing that society is broken from general atomisation, encouraged by the current government. And its predecessor administration, though he rather neglects to point out that salient fact. Though most of his speech was to address the symptoms, not the causes, the bit about a lack of morals, a lack of right and wrong, is interesting. It's a Big Moral Idea, expressed with passion and something approaching conviction. Readers may compare and contrast with Mr. Brown and his attention to persnickety detail. (That's pernickety detail - GB)

I'm of the opinion that encouraging individual responsibility should be at the heart of governmental policy.

I will certainly agree with you, and indirectly with Mr. Cameron, that the best regulation is self-regulation. To be utterly idealistic, there should be no need for the state to step in; realistically, there will.

That's why I support a shift towards indirect taxation. If it is regressive, it is only because the poor make poor expenditure choices - and if they do not make poor expenditure choices, either it will not be regressive or they will be less poor.

In effect, you're proposing that the major element of taxation should be sin taxes. In turn, that pre-supposes a consensus on what is a sin. I might propose far higher taxes on oil-based products, and run the risk of offending the car lobby. You might ask for higher taxes on alcohol, and annoy those who enjoy the odd pint.

But what if the sin is done other than during consumption? I would argue, for instance, that the activities of most share traders in the City of London are highly immoral, and they should be taxed at something far higher than the normal 41% marginal rate. What about the sin of accumulating vast amounts of wealth for no purpose? By phasing out taxes on income, by not imposing a wealth tax, only some sins are being punished. That lacks in equity.

I'm also missing the link between indirect taxation and individual morality. Maybe I'm just being a bit dense with all this rain.

An aspirational society is essential.

An interesting position, and one that you might care to expand upon. Is growth the be-all and end-all of a viable economic policy? Might it be equally valid to aim for greater security for all? Or for an equal distribution of income? In order to have an aspirational society, it's necessary to have an aspiration; what is the one you suggest for the world?

Could it be that I am accepting key parts of the right-wing consensus precisely because I would be a loser from it? It's the kind of irrational thinking that would go with depression. Visiting a doctor has to happen, but I'm terrified of doing so.

I would gently and politely encourage you to do so. It is entirely possible that the first step may be to talk matters through with someone who is trained in the art and craft of listening, and/or someone who is experienced in this kind of thought.

Go well...

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Re: (and they promised us the world)

sir_quirky_k
2008-07-09 09:54 pm UTC (link)

You are entirely right. It is very pleasing to be in contact with someone whose left-liberal views are held more firmly. Indeed, I've been in this space politically before as a teenager - at least partly in reaction to bullying - and vividly recall that the party I created in a group exercise in 2000 (when I was 13 and recovering from glandular fever) was decidedly right-of-centre. It's a cliché, I know, but Iraq changed everything, and made me rethink my entire political philosophy. More of the void than I'd previously care to admit was down to you, so it is especially welcome to see you post in reply to this.

You are quite right to take the 'aspirational society' line and ask for a further definition. Indeed, I think it could be said that every society is aspirational but has different aspirations - equality of income (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia), economic growth (most of the Western world), security (Scandinavia?), or something else. I think that a society that provides security for all, but the ability for individual aspiration to be met where this does not damage the wider fabric of society, is somewhere close to optimal.

Which leads neatly onto another criticism. City traders were precisely the kind of people I was thinking of with the line many (most?) very high earners are engaging in 'unfavourable behaviour', and it's chastening to think that if I'd followed my heart in 2004 then I'd have graduated in 2007 (...or would I?) with a degree good mostly for becoming... a City trader. On the other hand, Western economies, at the very least, are heavily dependent on such roles to create wealth for the rest of society. It may be that this wealth is a mythical creation of financial engineering; if we're going to find out, the next five years will be the time.

(Actually, there's another reinforcing element for some kind of right-wing thinking; the Thatcherite revolution meant the UK economy created many more jobs that actually suit my skill set, at the expense mostly of those which do not. Biting the hand that feeds, and all that.)

*reads the speech*

This line worries me: Saying to police officers you are responsible and the targets and bureaucracy are going but you must account to an elected individual who will want answers if you fail. Read: the highly motivated ultra-authoritarian paranoid-parent lobby will control the police by proxy.

You're absolutely right on the sin taxes element; society must agree on what is sinful.

This post, to be honest, probably serves well as a lightning rod for many issues of political economy. They are issues that I need to consider myself, and they are issues others need to consider also. I doubt this is the last time I look at this post...

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Re: (and they promised us the world)

daweaver
2008-07-10 05:35 pm UTC (link)

In a note that's germane to the original discussion, but is mostly irrelevant to this reply, see Deborah Orr remembers that we're assuming everyone is as clever as we are.

I've been in this space politically before as a teenager and vividly recall that the party I created in a group exercise in 2000 was decidedly right-of-centre.

That may be something to do with where you've been raised. I don't know the social composition of the Weymouth - Dorchester area, but from everything you've said, I have a suspicion that it's similar to the country villages around Wolverhampton. These are places so large-C Conservative that they returned a council of that colour in the Great Tory Wipeout of 1995. But I digress. To coincide with the 1992 election, our sixth-form ran a mock election with six candidates. The results were, from left to right:

* So far left-wing that the candidate found the hustings so oppressive that they wouldn't turn up: 1 vote (lost deposit).
* The Labour Party Candidate: 8 votes.
* Liberal Democrat: 8 votes.
* Plant Liberation Party [1]: 55 votes.
* Conservative: 12 votes.
* Progress and Performance Party [2]: 84 votes.

[1] Plant Lib was a single-issue campaign, calling for plants not to have to wear their pots. Though most people treated it as a Suspiciously Like Monster Raving Loon (But Preferring Her Own Joke) Party, it was actually a very subtle dig against the proposition to make the lower sixth wear uniforms.

[2] Extreme free-marketers who would abolish all social security and put nothing in its place. Other than the huge number of posters they put all around the school.

I think it could be said that every society is aspirational but has different aspirations - equality of income (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia), economic growth (most of the Western world), security (Scandinavia?), or something else. I think that a society that provides security for all, but the ability for individual aspiration to be met where this does not damage the wider fabric of society, is somewhere close to optimal.

Maybe we really should all move to Canada. Or Sweden.

City traders were precisely the kind of people I was thinking of with the line many (most?) very high earners are engaging in 'unfavourable behaviour'.

Ah, you're thinking of high earners as people taking home six-figure sums. I'm thinking of anyone paying 40% income tax as a high earner. Mind the (income) gap. And, of course, those very high earners are grossly undertaxed.

On the other hand, Western economies, at the very least, are heavily dependent on such roles to create wealth for the rest of society. It may be that this wealth is a mythical creation of financial engineering; if we're going to find out, the next five years will be the time.

I would suggest that only the English-speaking economies have concentrated their service industries into pushing around small pieces of coloured paper. The UK has been at the forefront of this experiment, and if it goes wrong, the British will suffer most of all.

This worries me: Saying to police officers you are responsible and the targets and bureaucracy are going but you must account to an elected individual who will want answers if you fail. Read: the highly motivated ultra-authoritarian paranoid-parent lobby will control the police by proxy.

I'm not convinced this is the intention; it could be a bulwark against just this sort of micro-management. However, Mr. Cameron hasn't explained himself clearly (which may be his intention) and I'm fully aware that I could be projecting here.

You're absolutely right on the sin taxes element; society must agree on what is sinful.

How is society to agree on that which is sinful other than by means of a common morality? How is one to have a common morality other than by shared means of cultural transmission? In turn, that presupposes against the atomisation of society. Cor, this is difficult. Quite possibly challenging my views of organised religion, and many other matters.

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Re: (and they promised us the world)

sir_quirky_k
2008-07-10 07:45 pm UTC (link)

Good point on the English-speaking distinction; in particular, Germany has maintained very different regulations on mortgages if memory serves, and as such is almost immune to that part of the late-2000s recession. (No importing country is safe from the other, that of commodity price inflation.)

I think Cameron's police proposal is a case of the law of unintended consequences; he's decentralising police power with the aim of removing micro-management, but many (most?) of the 'elected individuals' will be elected by, and for, the hang-em-flog-em brigade.

Although I may be projecting based on how both Weymouth and Southampton's local papers are distinctly right-wing, the latter effectively the reason the Tories now control Southampton City Council.

I don't know the social composition of the Weymouth - Dorchester area, but from everything you've said, I have a suspicion that it's similar to the country villages around Wolverhampton. These are places so large-C Conservative that they returned a council of that colour in the Great Tory Wipeout of 1995

Dorset was the only county (or was it?) to elect only Tory MPs in 1997. Although this is mostly because Dorset South (Weymouth, Portland, Purbeck and Everywhere In Between) didn't think to vote tactically. The consequences of this were that Jim Knight took his seat in 2001, the Tories (through a spectacular PR blunder we've discussed before) handed Knight a second term in 2005, and that earned him the plum job of Minister For Spinning Grade Inflation And Other School Issues. The school his children went to - as did I, and my mum still teaches there - has been threatened with closure, although by all accounts it is most unlikely to close as grade inflation alone should send its pass rates high enough to save it. Hasn't stopped the right-wing press from doing a hatchet job on it, though.

Dorset West (Dorchester and Points West, roughly speaking) has been Tory-held for longer than either of us has been alive, though Oliver Letwin survived a challenge from the Lib Dem decapitation strategy of 2005. The failed candidate, Justine McGuinness, was last seen organising the McCann media circus. That's McCann.

It may not even be my surroundings - though the two openly Marxist sixth-formers I met in late 2002 probably instigated more of my swing to the left than I thought, not least because I read their copies of The Morning Star and suddenly realised something was up with the case for Gulf War II - but the family that rubbed off on me. At this point, Mum still read the Hell, and my grandad continues to do so. With bullying such a live issue at this school - and a skinny kid with glasses, unusual habits such as sticking fingers in ears owing to a fear of the bell and a high level of academic attainment is going to be bullying target number one at any school - I ended up seeking some kind of message of swift justice, and the right seemed to offer it.

A corollary may be drawn with the politicised victims-of-crime groups.

I'm glad I have been thoughtful and thought-provoking even in my darkest and most irrational of times, and wonder whether this rubbed off on the main blog post on car tax.

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Re: (and they promised us the world)

daweaver
2008-07-11 05:53 pm UTC (link)

Good point on the English-speaking distinction; in particular, Germany has maintained very different regulations on mortgages if memory serves, and as such is almost immune to that part of the late-2000s recession. (No importing country is safe from the other, that of commodity price inflation.)

See discussions on European Tribune passim; the site is a little unfriendly to the casual visitor, and dominated by a small clique, there are enough nuggets to make a reasonably regular visit worth my while. Reading, not posting.

I think Cameron's police proposal is a case of the law of unintended consequences; he's decentralising police power with the aim of removing micro-management, but many (most?) of the 'elected individuals' will be elected by, and for, the hang-em-flog-em brigade.

I'm not clear whether he's proposing an elected chief constable, or making the CC report to their local councils. If it's the former, you're spot on; if the latter, I don't think there would be a tremendous change from the present arrangement.

Dorset was the only county (or was it?) to elect only Tory MPs in 1997.

(says another prayer to Boothroyd.)

Surrey also turned the trick: Blunt, Ainsworth, St Aubyn, Beresford, Hammond, Mrs. Bottomley, Hawkins, Malins. St Aubyn would lose his Guildford seat to the Lib Dems in 2001.

I'm never sure whether Brighton classes as West Sussex, East Sussex, or an adjunct of Hove. The remaining members from West Sussex - Mr. Bottomley, Flight, Gibb, Tyrie, Loughton, Maude, Soames - were an all-blue crew.

All the seats validly declared in Hampshire were Conservative (Winchester's first vote, of course, was subsequently invalidated). Buckinghamshire was all blue if you don't count Milton Keynes (which is the right thing to do, I'm fiercely told).

It may not even be my surroundings

Do not underestimate the constant drip-drip-drip of your environment. It sneaks in while young, and causes people to accept the bizarre as normal.

though the two openly Marxist sixth-formers I met in late 2002 probably instigated more of my swing to the left than I thought, not least because I read their copies of the Morning Star and suddenly realised something was up with the case for Gulf War II

Ah, the good old newspaper of the left. Fine for people who don't have the time to read much but want more literate stuff than the tabs. The most sensible warning I can give is that the paper doesn't cover the full spectrum of left-wing thought, and far too many of the articles preach to the converted. On the graph, its contributors tend to be clustered not too far from the origin, and mostly in the 2nd quadrant. It feels more like the house journal of the EG-EFA than anything else, and some owners are asking that the paper heads more distinctively down that road. Maybe in the next ten years...

A corollary may be drawn with the politicised victims-of-crime groups.

Which brings us to Haltemprice and Howden, where the following result held:

Votes against 42-day detention: 19,597
Votes in favour: 3,142
Votes for candidates expressing no opinion: 466

The most visible candidate campaigning in support of vengeance came in sixth, behind the pair of tits - indeed, behind both pairs of tits - and only just beating the loon.

wonder whether this rubbed off on the main blog post on car tax.

Not that one specifically, it was something I've been chivvying along with for a month or more. You might see the discussion reflected more over the week-end.

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Re: (and they promised us the world)

sir_quirky_k
2008-07-11 06:38 pm UTC (link)

Bang on with the Morning Star, it is to the moderate liberal left as the mainstream tabloids are to the moderate authoritarian right; a concise, regularly updated set of articles preaching to the converted. The difference (besides ideology) is that the Morning Star doesn't pad its sixteen pages to four times that number through inane gossip on celebrities.

I certainly did get that drip-drip from the family environment. There's a tangent here, in the connection between my aversion to sex and drugs and rock'n'roll* and my background, and additionally my sensory issues, that is worthy of a post in its own right. But the fact I saw nothing unusual in not going out at the age of 14 or even later - and the fact that most social activity from my peers was Quirks-friendly on at least one level or another, usually the sensory level - probably explained why my teenage rebellion was so desperately belated. I needed something to rebel against, something that autonomy could actually get me. These turned out to be parental theft of my DLA and the ability to choose my own university, respectively. It is also possible to add to the latter group the ability to have singing lessons, for at that time the only way I could have done them was in school, with paperwork through the family, and this terrified me.

Anyway. Yes, you do exclude Milton Keynes (my birthplace, would you believe, but I moved at four and have literally zero recollection of the place. I win!) from Buckinghamshire, certainly now where it is a unitary authority separate from Buckinghamshire. (Was it in 1997?) Similar arguments for Brighton, there is a Brighton and Hove unitary authority these days. (There are also separate Poole and Bournemouth unitary authorities, utterly bizarre as they are not wildly different places to say the least, and they completely merge into each other. There is a reason I refer to them as a singular entity, The Amy Studt Conurbation.)

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Re: (and they promised us the world)

daweaver
2008-07-14 09:08 pm UTC (link)

The difference (besides ideology) is that the Morning Star doesn't pad its sixteen pages to four times that number through inane gossip on celebrities.

There have been occasional reports over the past few years about a Serious newspaper, providing a lot of world news, a dash of commentary and arts coverage, a soupcon of sport, and (er) that's it. Twenty-eight tabloid pages, 50p (in 2003), break-even in 100,000 sales. Never came to fruition, sadly.

Yes, you do exclude Milton Keynes (my birthplace, would you believe, but I moved at four and have literally zero recollection of the place. I win!) from Buckinghamshire, certainly now where it is a unitary authority separate from Buckinghamshire. (Was it in 1997?)

Good question. I know the (first tranche of) Unitary Authorities were carved out in the late 1990s, but I don't recall, and cannot quickly source, a date for Milton Keynes's divorce from civilisation. What? 1960? Very possibly.

In other news, it looks like the only time I'll be able to take in September is the week commencing 8 September, possibly rolling for a day or two into the week before or the week after. Is this good for you?

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	...and offered us TTTVland sir_quirky_k 2008-07-15 07:29 am UTC (link)
	That does allow me to go back in time for EM's recital, so fine on that front. The only thing stopping me is the prospect of a move-in date in that week, but this is almost certainly avoidable. Good heavens, this time last year I was preparing to leave Glasgow for Carlisle. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: ...and offered us TTTVland daweaver 2008-07-15 05:43 pm UTC (link)
	Right. I've just put together a post on the private blog outlining thoughts. Given everything there, and assuming I can get the time off work, I think it's best that we aim to travel up on Thursday 4th or Friday 5th, returning around a week later. Do please hold off making any firm bookings for a day or two, until I've confirmed the leave is OK. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: ...and offered us TTTVland daweaver 2008-07-16 05:41 pm UTC (link)
	Further to this, I have the boss's signature for leave on 4-12 September. All we've got to do now is check people's availability, and plan a route. (Reply to this)(Parent)