Scottish Political News

For my college studies I decided to try and get a grip on the old-media-shakin’, internet-quakin’ event that was Rathergate. During my research I got help from various members of the place where it all started: Conservative online forum Free Republic. Amongst the various ‘freepers’ I spoke to was the prime instigator himself, Buckhead, aka Harry Macdougald, Atlanta lawyer and major fan of the English Soccer Premier League! Later on I was honoured to be allowed to interview Mr MacDougald . . . read on for a profile of a real ‘Net Legend’:

 

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He speaks in the slow drawl you’d expect of an Atlanta resident and has the impeccable manners associated with the US South. But make no mistake, when riled, 48-year-old Harry MacDougald will pin you down with a fierce debating style finely honed over his 21 years as a civil litigator. Just ask US broadcasting giant CBS.

 

On the night of 8 September 2004 – just two months before the presidential elections — CBS’ primetime investigative show 60 Minutes Wednesday aired internal memos which the show’s presenter, Dan Rather, claimed were proof a young George W. Bush had exhibited a less than perfect war record in 1972 while serving in the Texas Air National Guard.

After the programme finished CBS uploaded copies of the documents to their website for the world to see. A staunch Republican and sceptical of 60 Minutes’ claims, MacDougald downloaded the PDFs for a closer look. He instantly noticed something about the fonts that didn’t quite gel, so while the New York-based 60 Minutes team went home for the night congratulating itself on a job well done, MacDougald logged on to Conservative forum freerepublic.com under his online moniker of Buckhead (an Atlanta suburb) and the rest is history:

“. . . every single one of these memos is in a proportionally spaced font. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts. I am saying these documents are forgeries. This should be pursued aggressively.” Post #47, freerepublic.com

Pursued it certainly was. The story soon snowballed from freerepublic, onto other blog sites and then into the realm of talk radio before it was picked up – not without a certain amount of Schadenfreude it must be said – by rival networks. The resulting ‘blogswarm’ was an epochal moment in the internet’s short history.

For 12 days CBS stood firm behind 60 Minutes and the show’s producer Mary Mapes, before conceding they could not authenticate the documents. After an internal investigation, Mapes and three colleagues were unceremoniously sacked and an apology was aired. Dan Rather eventually retired from CBS in July 2006.

Very few blogswarms have had such a clearly identifiable source and media activity over Buckhead’s identity was frenzied until a clever journalist worked it out from clues in the forum.

MacDougald is modest about his role however, insisting if he hadn’t done it someone else would and refutes those who say that his typographical savvy is so specialist he must have been a plant:

“The premise was that it was a particularly arcane bit of knowledge; the domain of experts. The premise is false. Anybody in my age cohort who worked during the transition from typewriters to word processing had the basic information at hand. There are millions of people who had the information in order to draw the same conclusion. It was pure coincidence that it happened to be me.”

In an ironic twist, once MacDougald’s identity was out, the tables were turned. How did it feel being on the receiving end of press flak?

“I had to endure a great deal of speculation that I was a part of a Karl Rove plot, which was false and crazy. My employer treated me very shabbily and was, in my view, extremely stupid. I nearly lost my job. One of my regrets is that I did not tell my firm to go f themselves. I was very, very close and held back for reasons I don’t regard as very courageous: I didn’t have enough money in the bank; I have a wife and two kids depending on me, a mortgage, car payments, etc. It rankles still.”

MacDougald has since moved to a new company but still continues to participate in Republican web forums such as freerepublic and powerline. In the polarised world of US politics these sites, along with left-leaning rivals like dailykos, play an increasingly influential role.

I’m wary of branding MacDougald part of Hillary Clinton’s “vast right-wing conspiracy”, so it’s with some trepidation that I suggest that the red-half of the blogosphere, backed up by talk radio, has the advantage over the blue. MacDougald is remarkably candid and feels it’s simply a reflection of market forces:

“That’s right. There’s an audience for the viewpoints expressed on talk radio and in the centre right blogosphere and clearly there’s an audience for the centre left but it’s significantly smaller. Look at a 5-year chart on the stock price for the New York Times. They’re going steadily downhill. These all reflect where the market is compared to where the centre-left viewpoint is. There are not enough people out there that agree with them and that’s why they’re not doing well.”

Judging a media company’s credibility by its stock value may seem odd to public service broadcasters but it sure is telling. Later on I make a quick visit to an online stock site and punch in ‘NYT’; sure enough the 5-year chart begins with a gentle decline but soon careers away like a ski slope. From the steepness of the decline I reckon it’s probably a black.

It’s a pessimistic view indeed, but what does MacDougald think of non-commercial broadcasters such the BBC?

“The Beeb is monolithically liberal, and unremittedly hostile to Blair’s policy in Iraq and to the policies of President Bush. You could argue that proves they are free from political influence, but the fact of the matter is that governance of the BBC, though isolated to some extent from No. 10, is nevertheless a government institution. As such, its policies and practices are by definition political in nature,” MacDougald contends.

I want to remind MacDougald that two recent independent reviews have found the BBC’s impartiality not wanting, but the conversation swiftly moves on to the Hutton report. MacDougald agrees with its findings but is vehemently against the whole process.

“I think what the Hutton enquiry did was beneficial in the sense that it caught out some very bad conduct on the part of the BBC. The down side is that it was the government doing the investigating. Hutton was a political inquiry ordered by the legislative branch of government. In the US there could never be a government investigation of that scale and to that level of detail into the reportorial and editorial judgments of a news gathering organization. Now, every time somebody at the BBC considers doing a hit piece on the Prime Minister, they have to worry about the next Hutton.”

It’s a view that may resonate with many who feel that when it came to Hutton, the government appointed its own referee.

MacDougald does however, have praise for the way CBS News operates in highly autonomous groups. Despite his profession, when it comes to press freedom he sees the threat of legal action as something far more insiduous for a free press than the threat of accountability, even if, as one CBS executive put it, the accountability is delivered by a “guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.”

“I think if a journalist has to have all of their reporting vetted by a bunch of pusillanimous lawyers then it’s going to be tremendously diluted and made bland and unappealing,” MacDougald says.

And what of Mary Mapes, the award-winning producer who continues to insist the memos are authentic, does MacDougald have any sympathy?

“If she were more contrite I would. It’s sad to see somebody sort of wreck themselves on a construct which is so clearly false. If CBS had come out the next day and said ‘Oops! We goofed’, she’d still be working there.”

And when it comes to Rather himself, MacDougald just chuckles, “ I hope he’s enjoying his retirement as much as we are.”

In Manchester this evening, and for the nth time this month have had to check an overnight bag into the hold of the aircraft I flew on because of the dangers implicit in carrying Trumpers Extract of Limes shaving cream.

Now, thanks to the market imps at Knowledge Problem, there is relief on the horizon. How soon before this service begins in the UK?

Tory Diary reports that John Reid has been ducking difficult questions by pretending to have lost contact with the studio.

Mr Rawnsley was pressing Mr Reid on whether the most serious presenters had been locked up. Just as the question was being put to Mr Reid in the most direct of ways Mr Reid looked like he was going to answer and then said 'I think we've just been cut off'.

Of course what Rawnsley should have done was to tell Reid that he was an incompetent half-wit and a sheep worrier. If Reid batted an eyelid we would have known for sure that he was faking it.

Tory Diary reports that John Reid has been ducking difficult questions by pretending to have lost contact with the studio.

Mr Rawnsley was pressing Mr Reid on whether the most serious presenters had been locked up. Just as the question was being put to Mr Reid in the most direct of ways Mr Reid looked like he was going to answer and then said 'I think we've just been cut off'.

Of course what Rawnsley should have done was to tell Reid that he was an incompetent half-wit and a sheep worrier. If Reid batted an eyelid we would have known for sure that he was faking it.

Tory Diary reports that John Reid has been ducking difficult questions by pretending to have lost contact with the studio.

Mr Rawnsley was pressing Mr Reid on whether the most serious presenters had been locked up. Just as the question was being put to Mr Reid in the most direct of ways Mr Reid looked like he was going to answer and then said 'I think we've just been cut off'.

Of course what Rawnsley should have done was to tell Reid that he was an incompetent half-wit and a sheep worrier. If Reid batted an eyelid we would have known for sure that he was faking it.

Via the Remittance Man we learn that Councillor Bob Piper has being having a bit of a problem with his application to attend the party conference.

After 30 odd years membership, having held virtually every Branch Labour Party position, having sat on the interminable Constituency Management Committee for over 20 years, and 7 years a Labour councillor... this is what it has come to. Some member of Her Majesty's constabulary is going to decide whether or not I am a fit and proper person to go to Party Conference. Thanks a bunch!

I particularly enjoyed the comment from JuliaM

And there you have NuLabour in a nutshell; hopelessly beauracratic, greedy, incompetent AND petty minded little jobsworths.....

Perhaps it's too much to expect Mr Piper to have learned a lesson from this?

In the meantime the folks at Labour Home are worrying that they're going to look a bit stupid
at the conference:

Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) has ruled out of order 17 motions from CLPs on the leadership election.

If this decision stands, Labour Conference will be the only place in the UK where the issue of the leadership is NOT being discussed, and it risks making us look like ostriches with our heads in the sand, whatever your opinion on the actual question (unless you think like an ostrich, of course).

Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing when you are on the dishing out end.

Via the Remittance Man we learn that Councillor Bob Piper has being having a bit of a problem with his application to attend the party conference.

After 30 odd years membership, having held virtually every Branch Labour Party position, having sat on the interminable Constituency Management Committee for over 20 years, and 7 years a Labour councillor... this is what it has come to. Some member of Her Majesty's constabulary is going to decide whether or not I am a fit and proper person to go to Party Conference. Thanks a bunch!

I particularly enjoyed the comment from JuliaM

And there you have NuLabour in a nutshell; hopelessly beauracratic, greedy, incompetent AND petty minded little jobsworths.....

Perhaps it's too much to expect Mr Piper to have learned a lesson from this?

In the meantime the folks at Labour Home are worrying that they're going to look a bit stupid
at the conference:

Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) has ruled out of order 17 motions from CLPs on the leadership election.

If this decision stands, Labour Conference will be the only place in the UK where the issue of the leadership is NOT being discussed, and it risks making us look like ostriches with our heads in the sand, whatever your opinion on the actual question (unless you think like an ostrich, of course).

Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing when you are on the dishing out end.

Via the Remittance Man we learn that Councillor Bob Piper has being having a bit of a problem with his application to attend the party conference.

After 30 odd years membership, having held virtually every Branch Labour Party position, having sat on the interminable Constituency Management Committee for over 20 years, and 7 years a Labour councillor... this is what it has come to. Some member of Her Majesty's constabulary is going to decide whether or not I am a fit and proper person to go to Party Conference. Thanks a bunch!

I particularly enjoyed the comment from JuliaM

And there you have NuLabour in a nutshell; hopelessly beauracratic, greedy, incompetent AND petty minded little jobsworths.....

Perhaps it's too much to expect Mr Piper to have learned a lesson from this?

In the meantime the folks at Labour Home are worrying that they're going to look a bit stupid
at the conference:

Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) has ruled out of order 17 motions from CLPs on the leadership election.

If this decision stands, Labour Conference will be the only place in the UK where the issue of the leadership is NOT being discussed, and it risks making us look like ostriches with our heads in the sand, whatever your opinion on the actual question (unless you think like an ostrich, of course).

Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing when you are on the dishing out end.

Sometimes you have a dull moment and you just fancy reading something that you know will make you really angry. I usually find the Times "Public Sector" supplement just the job, and last week's edition was no exception.


It's not terribly exciting - we learn that she knows nothing about charities, but has a background in regulation. She was born in Uganda and has done some paragliding. But then this appears at the bottom.

Career:
1979-84 research officer, Consumers in Europe.
1984-86 trainee probation officer
1997-2001 chair, Exeter and District NHS Trust
2000-02 deputy chair, Food Standards Agency
2002-06 chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
2005-06 chair, School Food Trust

Read that again.

She went from being a research officer at an NGO, to training as a probation officer and then, after a gap of ten years was considered suitably qualified to head up an NHS trust. That's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

What on earth was she doing in that ten year gap to suddenly make her top management material? A bit of digging turns up this article which reveals that she was a "homemaker and freelance consumer consultant". So from her published CV she started in her position at the tiller of an NHS trust with no professional management experience whatsoever. This might go some way to explaining the performance of the NHS.

What possible reason can there be for this extraordinary advancement? Perhaps she is just extremely good at interviews or just plain lucky. Perhaps we'll never know.

In unrelated news the Guardian notes:

Dame Suzi, as she has been since January, [is] a committed member of the Labour party.

It's also interesting to compare the press release on her appointment to the FSA to the CV above:

[Sir John Krebs'] Deputy will be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation.

(My emphasis)

Still look on the bright side she says she's going to be robust in making charities submit their accounts on time. Perhaps she'll be dealing with the Moslem Council of Britain who have never actually submitted their accounts since their formation ten years ago.

Sometimes you have a dull moment and you just fancy reading something that you know will make you really angry. I usually find the Times "Public Sector" supplement just the job, and last week's edition was no exception.


It's not terribly exciting - we learn that she knows nothing about charities, but has a background in regulation. She was born in Uganda and has done some paragliding. But then this appears at the bottom.

Career:
1979-84 research officer, Consumers in Europe.
1984-86 trainee probation officer
1997-2001 chair, Exeter and District NHS Trust
2000-02 deputy chair, Food Standards Agency
2002-06 chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
2005-06 chair, School Food Trust

Read that again.

She went from being a research officer at an NGO, to training as a probation officer and then, after a gap of ten years was considered suitably qualified to head up an NHS trust. That's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

What on earth was she doing in that ten year gap to suddenly make her top management material? A bit of digging turns up this article which reveals that she was a "homemaker and freelance consumer consultant". So from her published CV she started in her position at the tiller of an NHS trust with no professional management experience whatsoever. This might go some way to explaining the performance of the NHS.

What possible reason can there be for this extraordinary advancement? Perhaps she is just extremely good at interviews or just plain lucky. Perhaps we'll never know.

In unrelated news the Guardian notes:

Dame Suzi, as she has been since January, [is] a committed member of the Labour party.

It's also interesting to compare the press release on her appointment to the FSA to the CV above:

[Sir John Krebs'] Deputy will be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation.

(My emphasis)

Still look on the bright side she says she's going to be robust in making charities submit their accounts on time. Perhaps she'll be dealing with the Moslem Council of Britain who have never actually submitted their accounts since their formation ten years ago.

Sometimes you have a dull moment and you just fancy reading something that you know will make you really angry. I usually find the Times "Public Sector" supplement just the job, and last week's edition was no exception.


It's not terribly exciting - we learn that she knows nothing about charities, but has a background in regulation. She was born in Uganda and has done some paragliding. But then this appears at the bottom.

Career:
1979-84 research officer, Consumers in Europe.
1984-86 trainee probation officer
1997-2001 chair, Exeter and District NHS Trust
2000-02 deputy chair, Food Standards Agency
2002-06 chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
2005-06 chair, School Food Trust

Read that again.

She went from being a research officer at an NGO, to training as a probation officer and then, after a gap of ten years was considered suitably qualified to head up an NHS trust. That's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

What on earth was she doing in that ten year gap to suddenly make her top management material? A bit of digging turns up this article which reveals that she was a "homemaker and freelance consumer consultant". So from her published CV she started in her position at the tiller of an NHS trust with no professional management experience whatsoever. This might go some way to explaining the performance of the NHS.

What possible reason can there be for this extraordinary advancement? Perhaps she is just extremely good at interviews or just plain lucky. Perhaps we'll never know.

In unrelated news the Guardian notes:

Dame Suzi, as she has been since January, [is] a committed member of the Labour party.

It's also interesting to compare the press release on her appointment to the FSA to the CV above:

[Sir John Krebs'] Deputy will be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation.

(My emphasis)

Still look on the bright side she says she's going to be robust in making charities submit their accounts on time. Perhaps she'll be dealing with the Moslem Council of Britain who have never actually submitted their accounts since their formation ten years ago.

Sometimes you have a dull moment and you just fancy reading something that you know will make you really angry. I usually find the Times "Public Sector" supplement just the job, and last week's edition was no exception.


It's not terribly exciting - we learn that she knows nothing about charities, but has a background in regulation. She was born in Uganda and has done some paragliding. But then this appears at the bottom.

Career:
1979-84 research officer, Consumers in Europe.
1984-86 trainee probation officer
1997-2001 chair, Exeter and District NHS Trust
2000-02 deputy chair, Food Standards Agency
2002-06 chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
2005-06 chair, School Food Trust

Read that again.

She went from being a research officer at an NGO, to training as a probation officer and then, after a gap of ten years was considered suitably qualified to head up an NHS trust. That's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

What on earth was she doing in that ten year gap to suddenly make her top management material? A bit of digging turns up this article which reveals that she was a "homemaker and freelance consumer consultant". So from her published CV she started in her position at the tiller of an NHS trust with no professional management experience whatsoever. This might go some way to explaining the performance of the NHS.

What possible reason can there be for this extraordinary advancement? Perhaps she is just extremely good at interviews or just plain lucky. Perhaps we'll never know.

In unrelated news the Guardian notes:

Dame Suzi, as she has been since January, [is] a committed member of the Labour party.

It's also interesting to compare the press release on her appointment to the FSA to the CV above:

[Sir John Krebs'] Deputy will be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation.

(My emphasis)

Still look on the bright side she says she's going to be robust in making charities submit their accounts on time. Perhaps she'll be dealing with the Moslem Council of Britain who have never actually submitted their accounts since their formation ten years ago.

Sometimes you have a dull moment and you just fancy reading something that you know will make you really angry. I usually find the Times "Public Sector" supplement just the job, and last week's edition was no exception.


It's not terribly exciting - we learn that she knows nothing about charities, but has a background in regulation. She was born in Uganda and has done some paragliding. But then this appears at the bottom.

Career:
1979-84 research officer, Consumers in Europe.
1984-86 trainee probation officer
1997-2001 chair, Exeter and District NHS Trust
2000-02 deputy chair, Food Standards Agency
2002-06 chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
2005-06 chair, School Food Trust

Read that again.

She went from being a research officer at an NGO, to training as a probation officer and then, after a gap of ten years was considered suitably qualified to head up an NHS trust. That's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

What on earth was she doing in that ten year gap to suddenly make her top management material? A bit of digging turns up this article which reveals that she was a "homemaker and freelance consumer consultant". So from her published CV she started in her position at the tiller of an NHS trust with no professional management experience whatsoever. This might go some way to explaining the performance of the NHS.

What possible reason can there be for this extraordinary advancement? Perhaps she is just extremely good at interviews or just plain lucky. Perhaps we'll never know.

In unrelated news the Guardian notes:

Dame Suzi, as she has been since January, [is] a committed member of the Labour party.

It's also interesting to compare the press release on her appointment to the FSA to the CV above:

[Sir John Krebs'] Deputy will be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation.

(My emphasis)

Still look on the bright side she says she's going to be robust in making charities submit their accounts on time. Perhaps she'll be dealing with the Moslem Council of Britain who have never actually submitted their accounts since their formation ten years ago.

Sometimes you have a dull moment and you just fancy reading something that you know will make you really angry. I usually find the Times "Public Sector" supplement just the job, and last week's edition was no exception.


It's not terribly exciting - we learn that she knows nothing about charities, but has a background in regulation. She was born in Uganda and has done some paragliding. But then this appears at the bottom.

Career:
1979-84 research officer, Consumers in Europe.
1984-86 trainee probation officer
1997-2001 chair, Exeter and District NHS Trust
2000-02 deputy chair, Food Standards Agency
2002-06 chair, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
2005-06 chair, School Food Trust

Read that again.

She went from being a research officer at an NGO, to training as a probation officer and then, after a gap of ten years was considered suitably qualified to head up an NHS trust. That's a neat trick if you can pull it off.

What on earth was she doing in that ten year gap to suddenly make her top management material? A bit of digging turns up this article which reveals that she was a "homemaker and freelance consumer consultant". So from her published CV she started in her position at the tiller of an NHS trust with no professional management experience whatsoever. This might go some way to explaining the performance of the NHS.

What possible reason can there be for this extraordinary advancement? Perhaps she is just extremely good at interviews or just plain lucky. Perhaps we'll never know.

In unrelated news the Guardian notes:

Dame Suzi, as she has been since January, [is] a committed member of the Labour party.

It's also interesting to compare the press release on her appointment to the FSA to the CV above:

[Sir John Krebs'] Deputy will be Ms Suzi Leather, who has twenty years of experience in consumer representation.

(My emphasis)

Still look on the bright side she says she's going to be robust in making charities submit their accounts on time. Perhaps she'll be dealing with the Moslem Council of Britain who have never actually submitted their accounts since their formation ten years ago.

According to Iain Dale, this is the 96th best non-aligned political blog, thus confirming my belief that there are around a hundred of us non-party bloggers.

Thanks for the mention though!

According to Iain Dale, this is the 96th best non-aligned political blog, thus confirming my belief that there are around a hundred of us non-party bloggers.

Thanks for the mention though!

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I've occasionally come across people who call themselves left libertarians but I've always thought it something of a contradiction in terms. You can't force people to do things and then tell them they're free.

Chris Dillow is one such, and he's written a piece at Philosophy etc, explaining why he's not a classical liberal. It's quite interesting in that it has helped me understand some of the thinking which underpin LL ideas. I can't say I'm impressed.

There's lots to take issue with.

1. A missing theory of property duties. [...] To justify inequalities of property, you must demonstrate that the poor have a duty to respect the rich's property. How can this be done?

John Locke had one answer. Private ownership, he said, was OK as long as it left "enough and as good" for others. We should therefore respect others' property simply because it's doing us no harm - there's enough and as good land for us to use. Even if this proviso held in Locke's time, it obviously doesn't hold today. So how can we justify property inequality?

It's not obvious to me that there's no longer enough and as good land for us to use. The quantity of available land hasn't changed - it was all owned by someone then and it's all owned by someone now. If you want it, you just have to buy it.

Besides the whole focus on land as a synonm for property is completely irrelevant in the twenty first century when most wealth is not derived from land, but from industry. "Property" has to be considered in its broader sense. Once you realise this, then it quickly follows that you should respect others' property because they have earned it (or inherited it, or won it in a game of poker) and not you. You should respect it because this is the only basis for a civil society; because only in a civil society can you expect any respect for your property.

2.Autonomy is a real value, not a notional one. Classical liberals [...] devote much effort to defining liberty and justice as the absence of state coercion. They devote less effort to saying why these conceptions are so valuable. Left libertarians, by contrast, believe values matter to the extent that they promote human development and thriving. In some (many?) cases, the mere absence of coercion does not suffice to do this.

Imagine a man dying of thirst in the desert, whilst a bystander has plenty of water, but no inclination to help him. Classical liberals say this is a just position - there's no state coercion.
But most of us would think things would be better if the state did intervene, to force the man with water to help the dying man.

I would have thought that most classical liberals define liberty as the absence of any coercion (as indeed does my dictionary). Slavery was a private institution, after all. Most of the libertarian literature I've read (which is not a great deal, I might say) is quite clear that this is the only basis by which humankind can develop and thrive. Forcing them into particular actions which the state deem important or beneficial doesn't cut the mustard.

The example given, of a failure to save a dying man, looks like a straw man fallacy. I imagine most classical liberals would not condone manslaughter, which is what this is.

3. Self-ownership doesn't justify inequalities. A cornerstone of Nozick's libertarianism is the principle that we own ourselves, so that any effort to tell us what to do is a form of slavery.

This principle, though, doesn't justify inequalities of income, because incomes are jointly produced by individual talents and social circumstances. Thierry Henry's skills as a footballer, Bill Gates' as a software developer or Paul McCartney's as a songwriter would have earned them little 100 years ago. Even if they own their talents, they've no right to the social conditions in which these talents can thrive.

This statement (One might equally turn it around and ask the left libertarian whether equality justifies slavery) is flat wrong. Incomes are not jointly produced, they are recompense to an individual's contract of employment. So what if these people wouldn't have made money 100 years ago? (Computers hadn't even been invented!). People receive reward in proportion to the demand for their services and how much competition there is in the supply of it. If people currently don't want their services very much then they need to be doing something else. Surely it can't be argued that people should be forced to pay more for a service that nobody actually really wants - this doesn't seem very, well, libertarian. (One could be very facetious and wonder if, in 1885, Bill Gates might have argued for billions of dollars a year in payment for the software he was going to write after computers had been invented).

4. Inequality is a form of market failure. This matters, because it shows that the wealth of these people is the result of luck - the luck of being born into the right time, or into the right society.

I don't buy this argument at all. You can't have a labour market unless there are unequal outcomes (ie prices for labour). If the reward is the same to all, regardless of supply or demand for the service, then you have no pricing mechanism, no way to know what services are demanded, no way to know which are not. You have no market in other words. Inequality is a feature, not a bug.

5. Markets don't work perfectly. Classical liberals believe free markets do indeed promote human thriving. This is deeply true - up to a point. But there are problems. Markets generate creative destruction, imposing losses, albeit temporary, upon millions. They don't give people self-determination and autonomy at work, because most firms are ruled by a hierarchical managerialist ideology which might be out-dated.

My response has to be "So what?". The question is whether there is a better way than free markets, the fact that there are failings in markets does not make the case that there is a better way. Besides, most of what are fingered as failings are no such thing. Creative destruction is again a feature, not a bug. It means that the market stops people supplying goods and services that nobody wants. Losses are its way of saying "Stop". Nobody has self-determination and autonomy at work, no. This is because there are other parties with an interest in what you are doing - namely the customer and the employer (who the individual has agreed to take orders from). Nobody can seriously argue that the individual is operating in a void.

6. Demands for equality won't go away. There's another way in which classical liberals are strangely Stalinist. They seem to want to over-ride the huge public demand for state intervention. This ignores the question: how can we preserve and expand economic liberty in the face of this?

This is nonsense. The whole point of liberalism (and libertarianism) is the belief that the individual has an area of autonomy from the state (whether democratically elected or not). The mere fact that a large number of people want something does not, to the liberal or libertarian, justify it.

I've occasionally come across people who call themselves left libertarians but I've always thought it something of a contradiction in terms. You can't force people to do things and then tell them they're free.

Chris Dillow is one such, and he's written a piece at Philosophy etc, explaining why he's not a classical liberal. It's quite interesting in that it has helped me understand some of the thinking which underpin LL ideas. I can't say I'm impressed.

There's lots to take issue with.

1. A missing theory of property duties. [...] To justify inequalities of property, you must demonstrate that the poor have a duty to respect the rich's property. How can this be done?

John Locke had one answer. Private ownership, he said, was OK as long as it left "enough and as good" for others. We should therefore respect others' property simply because it's doing us no harm - there's enough and as good land for us to use. Even if this proviso held in Locke's time, it obviously doesn't hold today. So how can we justify property inequality?

It's not obvious to me that there's no longer enough and as good land for us to use. The quantity of available land hasn't changed - it was all owned by someone then and it's all owned by someone now. If you want it, you just have to buy it.

Besides the whole focus on land as a synonm for property is completely irrelevant in the twenty first century when most wealth is not derived from land, but from industry. "Property" has to be considered in its broader sense. Once you realise this, then it quickly follows that you should respect others' property because they have earned it (or inherited it, or won it in a game of poker) and not you. You should respect it because this is the only basis for a civil society; because only in a civil society can you expect any respect for your property.

2.Autonomy is a real value, not a notional one. Classical liberals [...] devote much effort to defining liberty and justice as the absence of state coercion. They devote less effort to saying why these conceptions are so valuable. Left libertarians, by contrast, believe values matter to the extent that they promote human development and thriving. In some (many?) cases, the mere absence of coercion does not suffice to do this.

Imagine a man dying of thirst in the desert, whilst a bystander has plenty of water, but no inclination to help him. Classical liberals say this is a just position - there's no state coercion.
But most of us would think things would be better if the state did intervene, to force the man with water to help the dying man.

I would have thought that most classical liberals define liberty as the absence of any coercion (as indeed does my dictionary). Slavery was a private institution, after all. Most of the libertarian literature I've read (which is not a great deal, I might say) is quite clear that this is the only basis by which humankind can develop and thrive. Forcing them into particular actions which the state deem important or beneficial doesn't cut the mustard.

The example given, of a failure to save a dying man, looks like a straw man fallacy. I imagine most classical liberals would not condone manslaughter, which is what this is.

3. Self-ownership doesn't justify inequalities. A cornerstone of Nozick's libertarianism is the principle that we own ourselves, so that any effort to tell us what to do is a form of slavery.

This principle, though, doesn't justify inequalities of income, because incomes are jointly produced by individual talents and social circumstances. Thierry Henry's skills as a footballer, Bill Gates' as a software developer or Paul McCartney's as a songwriter would have earned them little 100 years ago. Even if they own their talents, they've no right to the social conditions in which these talents can thrive.

This statement (One might equally turn it around and ask the left libertarian whether equality justifies slavery) is flat wrong. Incomes are not jointly produced, they are recompense to an individual's contract of employment. So what if these people wouldn't have made money 100 years ago? (Computers hadn't even been invented!). People receive reward in proportion to the demand for their services and how much competition there is in the supply of it. If people currently don't want their services very much then they need to be doing something else. Surely it can't be argued that people should be forced to pay more for a service that nobody actually really wants - this doesn't seem very, well, libertarian. (One could be very facetious and wonder if, in 1885, Bill Gates might have argued for billions of dollars a year in payment for the software he was going to write after computers had been invented).

4. Inequality is a form of market failure. This matters, because it shows that the wealth of these people is the result of luck - the luck of being born into the right time, or into the right society.

I don't buy this argument at all. You can't have a labour market unless there are unequal outcomes (ie prices for labour). If the reward is the same to all, regardless of supply or demand for the service, then you have no pricing mechanism, no way to know what services are demanded, no way to know which are not. You have no market in other words. Inequality is a feature, not a bug.

5. Markets don't work perfectly. Classical liberals believe free markets do indeed promote human thriving. This is deeply true - up to a point. But there are problems. Markets generate creative destruction, imposing losses, albeit temporary, upon millions. They don't give people self-determination and autonomy at work, because most firms are ruled by a hierarchical managerialist ideology which might be out-dated.

My response has to be "So what?". The question is whether there is a better way than free markets, the fact that there are failings in markets does not make the case that there is a better way. Besides, most of what are fingered as failings are no such thing. Creative destruction is again a feature, not a bug. It means that the market stops people supplying goods and services that nobody wants. Losses are its way of saying "Stop". Nobody has self-determination and autonomy at work, no. This is because there are other parties with an interest in what you are doing - namely the customer and the employer (who the individual has agreed to take orders from). Nobody can seriously argue that the individual is operating in a void.

6. Demands for equality won't go away. There's another way in which classical liberals are strangely Stalinist. They seem to want to over-ride the huge public demand for state intervention. This ignores the question: how can we preserve and expand economic liberty in the face of this?

This is nonsense. The whole point of liberalism (and libertarianism) is the belief that the individual has an area of autonomy from the state (whether democratically elected or not). The mere fact that a large number of people want something does not, to the liberal or libertarian, justify it.

I've occasionally come across people who call themselves left libertarians but I've always thought it something of a contradiction in terms. You can't force people to do things and then tell them they're free.

Chris Dillow is one such, and he's written a piece at Philosophy etc, explaining why he's not a classical liberal. It's quite interesting in that it has helped me understand some of the thinking which underpin LL ideas. I can't say I'm impressed.

There's lots to take issue with.

1. A missing theory of property duties. [...] To justify inequalities of property, you must demonstrate that the poor have a duty to respect the rich's property. How can this be done?

John Locke had one answer. Private ownership, he said, was OK as long as it left "enough and as good" for others. We should therefore respect others' property simply because it's doing us no harm - there's enough and as good land for us to use. Even if this proviso held in Locke's time, it obviously doesn't hold today. So how can we justify property inequality?

It's not obvious to me that there's no longer enough and as good land for us to use. The quantity of available land hasn't changed - it was all owned by someone then and it's all owned by someone now. If you want it, you just have to buy it.

Besides the whole focus on land as a synonm for property is completely irrelevant in the twenty first century when most wealth is not derived from land, but from industry. "Property" has to be considered in its broader sense. Once you realise this, then it quickly follows that you should respect others' property because they have earned it (or inherited it, or won it in a game of poker) and not you. You should respect it because this is the only basis for a civil society; because only in a civil society can you expect any respect for your property.

2.Autonomy is a real value, not a notional one. Classical liberals [...] devote much effort to defining liberty and justice as the absence of state coercion. They devote less effort to saying why these conceptions are so valuable. Left libertarians, by contrast, believe values matter to the extent that they promote human development and thriving. In some (many?) cases, the mere absence of coercion does not suffice to do this.

Imagine a man dying of thirst in the desert, whilst a bystander has plenty of water, but no inclination to help him. Classical liberals say this is a just position - there's no state coercion.
But most of us would think things would be better if the state did intervene, to force the man with water to help the dying man.

I would have thought that most classical liberals define liberty as the absence of any coercion (as indeed does my dictionary). Slavery was a private institution, after all. Most of the libertarian literature I've read (which is not a great deal, I might say) is quite clear that this is the only basis by which humankind can develop and thrive. Forcing them into particular actions which the state deem important or beneficial doesn't cut the mustard.

The example given, of a failure to save a dying man, looks like a straw man fallacy. I imagine most classical liberals would not condone manslaughter, which is what this is.

3. Self-ownership doesn't justify inequalities. A cornerstone of Nozick's libertarianism is the principle that we own ourselves, so that any effort to tell us what to do is a form of slavery.

This principle, though, doesn't justify inequalities of income, because incomes are jointly produced by individual talents and social circumstances. Thierry Henry's skills as a footballer, Bill Gates' as a software developer or Paul McCartney's as a songwriter would have earned them little 100 years ago. Even if they own their talents, they've no right to the social conditions in which these talents can thrive.

This statement (One might equally turn it around and ask the left libertarian whether equality justifies slavery) is flat wrong. Incomes are not jointly produced, they are recompense to an individual's contract of employment. So what if these people wouldn't have made money 100 years ago? (Computers hadn't even been invented!). People receive reward in proportion to the demand for their services and how much competition there is in the supply of it. If people currently don't want their services very much then they need to be doing something else. Surely it can't be argued that people should be forced to pay more for a service that nobody actually really wants - this doesn't seem very, well, libertarian. (One could be very facetious and wonder if, in 1885, Bill Gates might have argued for billions of dollars a year in payment for the software he was going to write after computers had been invented).

4. Inequality is a form of market failure. This matters, because it shows that the wealth of these people is the result of luck - the luck of being born into the right time, or into the right society.

I don't buy this argument at all. You can't have a labour market unless there are unequal outcomes (ie prices for labour). If the reward is the same to all, regardless of supply or demand for the service, then you have no pricing mechanism, no way to know what services are demanded, no way to know which are not. You have no market in other words. Inequality is a feature, not a bug.

5. Markets don't work perfectly. Classical liberals believe free markets do indeed promote human thriving. This is deeply true - up to a point. But there are problems. Markets generate creative destruction, imposing losses, albeit temporary, upon millions. They don't give people self-determination and autonomy at work, because most firms are ruled by a hierarchical managerialist ideology which might be out-dated.

My response has to be "So what?". The question is whether there is a better way than free markets, the fact that there are failings in markets does not make the case that there is a better way. Besides, most of what are fingered as failings are no such thing. Creative destruction is again a feature, not a bug. It means that the market stops people supplying goods and services that nobody wants. Losses are its way of saying "Stop". Nobody has self-determination and autonomy at work, no. This is because there are other parties with an interest in what you are doing - namely the customer and the employer (who the individual has agreed to take orders from). Nobody can seriously argue that the individual is operating in a void.

6. Demands for equality won't go away. There's another way in which classical liberals are strangely Stalinist. They seem to want to over-ride the huge public demand for state intervention. This ignores the question: how can we preserve and expand economic liberty in the face of this?

This is nonsense. The whole point of liberalism (and libertarianism) is the belief that the individual has an area of autonomy from the state (whether democratically elected or not). The mere fact that a large number of people want something does not, to the liberal or libertarian, justify it.

Is an apology enough? David Cameron feels that Scotland really shouldn't have been used as a poll tax guinea pig, but is he offering to provide compensation to those who suffered during that murky period? What about clearing people's criminal records for protesting and non-payment. What about compensation for those who struggled to pay such a regressive tax? Of course, not.

Anyway, just another item in a bizarre week in which the Tories tried their best to look pro-Scottish whilst Brown's Labour party tried to out-British Thatcher (whom he admires)!! All very surreal if you are one of those people who hasn't yet cottoned on to the fact that politics as practised in so many countries is not about ideology, passion and commitment, but rather simply about being elected.

Still, it is nice to see things being stirred up again as independence seems to be increasingly acceptable as an option, if polls are to be believed. Of course one could argue that a decent target would be for at least 50% of the population and not just the 44% currently in favour, even if it does outweigh the number against.

What is needed is a much more resilient, firmer base of support from across society. Let's hope those in the Independence Convention who are aiming to achive just this manage to keep on track and don't get overtaken by party political campaigning as the Holyrood election looms. Yes the election will be a key means of attaining the goal and it is crazy to vote for unionist parties if you want autonomy, but the arguments for independence are much more fundamental than alignment with the broad programme of a particular party. The intellectual and economic case is unchallengeable, but unfortunately isn't that readily accessible through current media.

Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea.

The judge's closing remarks in the trial of shoe bomber Richard Reid.

(via the Englishman)

Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea.

The judge's closing remarks in the trial of shoe bomber Richard Reid.

(via the Englishman)

Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea.

The judge's closing remarks in the trial of shoe bomber Richard Reid.

(via the Englishman)

Via Burning our money

The Labour government has just agreed to give their trade union paymasters another £5m of taxpayers' money. Our money.

This time it's ostensibly to fund a "legion of equality watchdogs" in the workplace. But it's actually just the latest instalment of the £10m Labour has promised unions in exchange for their continued financial support of the party.

This doesn't seem to have been reported by the BBC.

Via Burning our money

The Labour government has just agreed to give their trade union paymasters another £5m of taxpayers' money. Our money.

This time it's ostensibly to fund a "legion of equality watchdogs" in the workplace. But it's actually just the latest instalment of the £10m Labour has promised unions in exchange for their continued financial support of the party.

This doesn't seem to have been reported by the BBC.

Via Burning our money

The Labour government has just agreed to give their trade union paymasters another £5m of taxpayers' money. Our money.

This time it's ostensibly to fund a "legion of equality watchdogs" in the workplace. But it's actually just the latest instalment of the £10m Labour has promised unions in exchange for their continued financial support of the party.

This doesn't seem to have been reported by the BBC.

Owen Barder notes Alex Singleton reporting on an FT investigation into Fairtrade cooperatives.

It seems that by buying Fairtrade goods you may be supporting exploitation of the poor. The cooperatives are not voluntary, charge high fees for entry and those in charge exploit the other members.