In praise of a capitalist

I wrote about Mr Vettriano's problems with the arts establishment some time ago. Nothing has changed:

The national galleries in Scotland and England refuse to display his work, and declined to comment on their reasons when asked by the South Bank Show for a programme on Vettriano broadcast last night.

There's no reason for Mr Vettriano to be surprised about his rejection, which is not despite his being Britain's most popular painter but precisely because of that. The people who run the arts establishment are tax-consuming welfare recipients. Vettriano is a successful capitalist. Perhaps, deep down, Vettriano knows that his taxes are financing those who think that his work isn't good enough to be displayed in the "national" galleries. Well, that's the sort of world we live in. Mr Vettriano should be proud of his success and pay no more attention to the arts parasites.

The modern world: All Greek to us?

Wer nicht von dreitausend Jahren sich weiss Rechenschaft zu geben bleibt im Dunklen unerfahren mag von Tag zu Tag er leben.

(Goethe)

(He who cannot give account of the last three thousand years rests in darkness unexperienced though he lives from day to day.)

It looks as though future generations of Scots will indeed rest in darkness:

LATIN and ancient Greek are on course to die out as academic subjects in Scotland according to leading education figures.

The prediction comes in the wake of Strathclyde University’s decision to scrap the last available course for students to qualify as classics teachers.

On second thoughts, do we want future generations to learn about thirty centuries that were dominated by dead white imperialistic males? Instead of teaching classics Strathclyde is offering something far more "relevant" and "appropriate": a BA in Community Arts,

with the opportunity to specialise in music, art, dance or drama in work with young people and adults, with a bias towards those discriminated against by society.

But isn't "society" now discriminating against would-be classicists?

Creating money out of thin air

So, "Scotland" has hit the jackpot:

SCOTLAND is to get an unexpected £600 million Budget boost thanks to Gordon Brown’s decision to increase spending on education and science in England and Wales.

Isn't that wonderful? Another £600 million goes into the Scottish economy.

Not quite. A bit further into this rather misleading article there's this little observation:

As a result of the Barnett Formula, the Scottish Executive will have at least £183m extra in 2006-7 and a further £407m in 2007-8.

Aha! It's not "Scotland" that gets the £600 million, but the Scottish Executive. Not quite the same thing. Now I know that some of our friends down south think that all of Scotland's public expenditure is financed by England, but there are some of us up here who actually pay taxes. According to some previously issued government figures we do in fact pay our full way in the union. So this "£600 million Budget boost" is merely (sic) another transfer from the taxpayer to the taxconsumer. Hardly newsworthy, is it?

Free speech

They're at it again. The EU wants to restrict freedom of speech:

A proposal known as the "Rome II" agreement is currently being drawn up in Brussels with the aim of making it easier for European citizens to make cross-border claims for compensation in cases such as road accidents or the sale of faulty goods.

However, the deal as currently framed also extends to the laws of defamation, which publishers fear could trigger an avalanche of costly lawsuits against UK newspapers and magazines all over Europe.

This is not good news:

Glasgow media lawyer Campbell Deane believes the proposal would be a disaster if it were introduced in its current form.

"As a legal adviser, you would potentially have to be aware of the legal issues in not just one jurisdiction, but 25 different legal frameworks," he points out. "If a British newspaper published a story about someone who lives in France, for example, and that person claims that they have been defamed or their privacy has been invaded, they would be able to sue in France."

A spokeswoman for the Periodical Publishers' Association says:

What’s at issue is that Brussels is harmonising rules which don’t need to be harmonised.

In America, the states all have different legal systems and they’ve never seen fit to harmonise the rules.

But they do need to be harmonised - if you're in the EU. That's what it's for. Duh!

By the way, sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that I occasionally comment about Scotland. Please note that I do not live in Scotland; I have never been to Scotland; I have no idea where Scotland is. People offended by this blog should note that it is written from a satellite that is in geosynchronous orbit above 50.52N, 4.22E, and my homemade, nuclear-powered ray gun is aimed at this building.

Wrong statue?

I don't have anything against the poet Robert Fergusson, who is to be honoured by a new statue:

The statue is to be erected outside the Canongate Kirkyard, where he was buried after dying in an asylum aged just 24. The poet was credited with inspiring Robert Burns, and the memorial marks the end of a four-year campaign to recognise his work. The dedication event is expected to be attended by Scotland’s poet laureate, Edwin Morgan, as well as other leading figures from Scotland’s literary scene.

It's just that a rather more important person is also buried in the Canongate Kirkyard. Surely there should be a statue of Adam Smith in the area. Perhaps I should organise a fund for an Adam Smith statue to be erected outside the new Scottish Parliament building, which is just down the road from the great economist's resting place.

I even have the appropriate quotation for the Holyrood statue:

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs.

L'economie

I have developed an insane desire to brush up on my schoolboy French. A little Googling brought me to this Figaro interview with Jim Rogers. The author of Adventure Capitalist (an excellent book) isn't bullish on the Euro. Or the dollar.

Mob rule?

The Scottish education system has triumphed.

A survey asked people throughout the UK a rather challenging question: Who is the Chancellor of the Exchequer? And the response shocked even this cynical blogger:

The study found 43% of the Welsh could not name Mr Brown, nor could 47% of people in the north of England.

But here in Scotland we know better, don't we?

Well, sort of:

Up to 33% of Scots did not realise that Gordon Brown heads the Treasury, even though he is a fellow countryman.

Of that third, 18% thought Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was chancellor, 4% named Tory leader Michael Howard and some named ex-BBC boss Greg Dyke.

To think that the votes of these people determine who rules the country.

After Wednesday's budget we may wish that Greg Dyke were the Chancellor.

Spend, spend and spend again

I note this call for further government expenditure:

Women drug addicts should be paid to take contraception to stop them having children, according to a drugs expert.

And a response:

Campaign group Scotland Against Drugs called for more support services and warned against infringing human rights.

Yes, there would be an infringement of human rights, but not quite in the way suggested by Scotland Against Drugs. I don't think that anyone is saying that women should be forced to take contraception, so their rights wouldn't be infringed. But the rights of taxpayers would be infringed by the additional public expenditure that this plan would necessitate.

Here's a better idea: Instead of paying women not to have children, why not stop paying them to have children?

Steven Thoburn R.I.P.

The Metric Martyr has died:

A FRUIT and vegetable trader who fought a three-year legal battle after being prosecuted for selling in pounds and ounces has died at his home from a suspected heart attack. He was 39.

Was his early death brought on by stress caused by the prosecution instigated by Sunderland City Council? I don't know, but Steven was a hero. History will remember him.

Schools and houses

Thanks to Andrew Duffin for pointing me towards another excellent article from the Scotsman's George Kerevan.

Mr Kerevan writes about:

... the terrible mistakes made in Scottish education policy in the last decades of the 20th century - mistakes that have left us with poor literacy and low secondary school completion rates.

I believe that the destruction of our world-beating education system is the greatest crime committed by Scotland's cultural Marxists. Mr Kerevan is an ex-Marxist who saw the light. Not too long ago he described himself to me as "a kind of Hayekian anarchist".

Kerevan tells us that Fred Forrester (a former teachers' union leader) has also learned some home truths:

"Almost uniquely among public services, education, if it is to be effective, requires a commitment from those being educated in terms of both individual aspiration and family and community support."

and that:

... aspiration is always associated with housing tenure.

I have always believed that Scotland's weak entrepreneurial culture is connected with the unusually high degree of public housing provision. That's especially true in the Glasgow conurbation.

George Kerevan calls for the introduction of Swedish-style independent schools. I'm sure that would be an improvement on Scotland's Stalinist educational disaster-zone. But it's not enough. We need to get rid of the welfare mentality that is the inevitable result of mass subsidised council housing. Maybe we should just give all the council houses to the tenants and end all further payments. That way we could improve our schools and the prospects for the economy.

The invisible fist strikes again

I noted an interesting new use of technology in the Scotsman the other day:

HOMEOWNERS who previously thought their properties were un-insurable due to flood risk may soon be eligible to qualify for cover again.

The insurance giant, Norwich Union, has developed a new digital computer model that will identify individual properties at risk of flooding, the company announced yesterday.

The new technology should mean far more accurate premiums for an estimated five million people living in flood risk areas across the UK.

Insurance is based on the principle of accurate risk assessment, and this new procedure will help that task:

Unlike previous systems, which tended to lump all post codes together and penalise some homeowners who had never been flooded, the insurer believes that more people are likely to benefit from the computer model as it may indicate that their property is not in fact at risk, or will not flood as often as previously thought.

So here is a fine example of the market in action. Those living in less-risky areas will benefit from falling insurance premiums and house builders will need to avoid flood-prone sites.

Regular readers may suspect that I haven't got to the punch line yet. And they are correct!

Our friends in Brussels don't approve of the insurance principle. A few days before the article on flooding, the IEA's John Blundell had this to say:

I have just stumbled upon a proposal so ludicrous that I can only take pleasure in putting in the boot. The innovation comes from the European Commission. You may think it a wee bit technical and tedious but there is comedy if you are patient.

"The Impact Directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between women and men in the access and supply of goods and services" sounds mildly virtuous, even blameless. Yet it is a heavy-handed imposition of falsehoods. It requires that insurance companies do not differentiate between men and women, whether it be for motor insurance or pensions.

And so in the name of the sacred religion of "equality" it will be illegal for insurers to discriminate between male and female drivers.

But actions have consequences:

Paul MacDonnell of the Irish Insurance Federation expresses his exasperation: "In motor insurance, where objective sex-specific claims data justifies differences between men and women drivers, particularly amongst younger, less experienced drivers, equalising the premiums to the benefit of young males without improving their risk profile will bring more high risk drivers on to the road, thus making our roads less safe for all road users."

The same nonsense is proposed for pensions. At present, a lump sum of £100,000 will provide an annual pension of £6,658 for a sixty-year-old man, but only £6,331 for a woman of similar age. That's because women live longer than men: the insurance companies' actuaries expect the total payout to be the same for both sexes. But that's "unfair", whine the arithmetically challenged bureaucrats of the Frankenreich, who want both sexes to receive identical annual amounts. So instead we'll get an even more unfair system that will result in men getting a smaller lifetime payout than women.

In reality, of course, single men will simply invest less in private pension plans, thus putting even more pressure on state schemes.

Anti-social workers

16-year-old Thomas Shields was sentenced to life for a vicious murder.

A straightforward case, you may think. Unless you're a "social" worker, that is:

Lord Hardie said that, by law, only a life sentence could be imposed for murder. However, he also had to fix the minimum period that Shields would have to serve before he became eligible for parole which might or might not be granted at the end of the period.

As is customary, the judge had obtained a background report, prepared by a social worker, to assist him in passing sentence. The report looked at non-custodial options.

"For a social worker to be considering options of fines, community service, probation, and discussing probation with the accused and ascertaining whether he would agree to comply with probation conditions, is absurd," Lord Hardie said.

"Quite honestly, it is failing to comply with the obligations of the social work department to the court. To discuss with any person the option of probation in such a case not only confers on the accused a false sense of hope but is a total waste of public money."

Judges are often accused of being out-of-touch. Not this time. We need a mass cull of public sector workers and this case demonstrates that social workers should be at the top of the hit list.

And Soweto is the new tartan ...

The City of Glasgow has launched its new PR campaign:

As well as the promotional material featuring individuals, two posters have been devised with the slogans "Discover Mackintosh's art nouveau masterpiece: It's called Glasgow" and "Glasgow: The New Black".

The latter seems to be a rather unfortunate slogan given recent racist attacks in the city.

I note that the supposedly Scottish version of the Daily Mail has made a bit of a faux pas.

According to the Mail:

... yesterday it emerged that the multi-million pound campaign to bring visitors to Glasgow is being fronted by a Russian model.

Tourist chiefs are "red-faced" about the Eastern lady, and Tory MSP Jamie McGrigor said:

It might have been better to have used a native girl to represent Scotland. There are plenty of pretty Scottish girls.

I'm sure that Jamie understands the difference between Scottish and English girls. The "Scottish" Daily Mail apparently doesn't, for it turns out that the "Russian" model:

" ... was born and raised in the mainly Muslim town of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan."

Oh dear.

Repeat after me: Just as Scotland isn't (and wasn't) part of England, Uzbekistan isn't (and wasn't) part of Russia. Like Russia, it was part of the USSR. (Assuming that it's not still part of the USSR of course.)

Spring has arrived ...

... and I photographed these in Charlotte Square today:

Unfortunately this attractive building in the Square ...

... has been misappropriated from the people:

A little later I spotted this notice outside Haymarket Station:

Here's a link to the website.

Maybe it's because I'm a Glaswegian!

Some Glaswegian teenagers are beginning to sound like Londoners:

Previous investigations have found English accents were creeping into the Glaswegian parlance, with many people pronouncing "bother" as the Cockney "bovver" instead of the more traditional "nae bother".

Other examples include the word "think".

In EastEnders the word is often pronounced "fink" and according to academics it is becoming more prevalent than the typical Glasgow "hink".

What's amusing is to note that many of the victims of this Cockney imperialism are the future voters of our all-too-numerous socialist parties:

The Glasgow results challenge the theory of face-to-face influence because the children who displayed these tendencies were not the younger, more mobile, middle-class speakers, but typically non-mobile working class adolescents.

This has led to speculation that exposure to soaps might be responsible.

I wonder what the Scottish Socialists will make of the true Scots accent being confined to the genteel suburbs while the denizens of Glasgow's council estates sound like Thatcherite Essex Boys.

Thank goodness £124,000 of taxpayers' money is being spent investigating this phenomenon...

Tory handicap

Michael Howard doesn't think too much of some university courses:

Mr Howard said he would like to see a reduction in the number of off-beat courses which universities offer in increasing numbers, claiming the students involved would be better off gaining practical experience.

He used the example of golf management, which has recently been introduced as a BA course at Birmingham University.

But why is this any of Mr Howard's business? He's not a university entrepreneur; he's just another overpaid tax consumer. Howard should be demanding that education be removed from the state sector altogether.

It may well be true that "people who want to be involved in golf management might find their time better spent on the course rather than writing essays" but how can we possibly know without a free market?

Only the unfettered free market is "fair".

It's not too often that we see a good letter in the Glasgow Herald. This one from Michael Palmer is an exception:

My point was entirely the opposite: it is not resources that are the deciding factor in a country's wealth but productivity. How else could Hong Kong with millions of people in a tiny area be so much better off than all of the economic basket cases in the world with infinitely greater natural resources?

Exactly. Scotland would have better off without the oil but with a capitalist culture that respects property rights.

(Hopefully I have worked out how to link to the new Herald website. You may have to press an extra key or two.)

Balanced Budget Shock

Yet another row has erupted in the nightmarish world of Scottish public sector finance. This time, it's in the Borders:

Andrew Tulley, the high-profile leader who stepped down two years ago in the wake of a £4 million overspend by the council’s education department, said the new administration had failed to learn the financial lessons of that debacle.

So has Mr Tully seen the light? Does he now recognise that his regime's "overspending" was a mistake?

Not quite:

Mr Tulley said: "The information in the latest report on the revenue budget, including the massive £3.5 million underspend clearly shows the council is not yet back on a sound financial footing.

Underspend! Good grief. What a disaster.

But not to worry:

... David Parker, the leader of the ruling coalition of independents and Conservatives, said: "Taking financial advice from Drew Tulley would be like taking childcare advice from King Herod.

Nice turn of phrase, although probably politically incorrect.

Mr Parker continued:

In real terms there will not be an underspend, but a break-even budget at the end of the financial year.

Well, that's OK then. Surely no one would expect the Tories to underspend. That might have led to calls for a tax cut.

But a break-even budget's not too bad these days. Should we move the Scottish Parliament to Hawick?

Edinburgh views

A few days ago Andy Wood asked for a photograph of Adam Smith's grave and here it is:

This one gets in a bit more closely:

Finally, this is the view seen from Smith's grave in the Canongate Kirkyard looking towards the former Royal High School building.

More on health food

I saw this in the Royal Mile today. Now we know why Edinburgh is below Glasgow in the slim-towns league.

Glasgow: the healthy city

What on earth can we make of this?

Hull is the chubbiest town in Britain - while Kingston upon Thames is the leanest, an obesity league table has revealed.

And why Hull? It's "Up North" - from an English perspective, that is - and being northern isn't good for you:

The most likely to be overweight were white, working class families who have poor education and do little exercise. In contrast, people in the leanest towns are more likely to have the money to eat well and exercise. The towns with the poorest health were found to be working-class areas where people tended to be less well educated. The majority of the worst 10 areas were in the North of England and Wales, while the majority of the healthiest places were in the south east.

The accompanying chart does indeed show that most of Britain's chubbiest towns are in the north of England, especially Lancashire.

Unsurprisingly, the health food and exercise-minded folk are predominantly to be found in London's most prosperous boroughs and in the Surrey stockbroker belt.

And what of Scotland?

True to its image, middle-class Edinburgh comes in at number sixteen in the list of Britain's slimmest towns, no doubt because the residents have:

... better education about health issues. They will also have the money to buy lower-fat or organic foods.

But, how about this? Beating Edinburgh in the slim-town charts at number twelve is - wait for it - Glasgow!

The report claims that the lardbutt cities tend to contain:

... white working class people living in areas of council flats where diet is poor and exercise isn't taken regularly.

They are fairly old-fashioned communities, with more chip shops than Thai restaurants, for example.

I don't want to perpetuate a stereotype - for I do love the dear green place - but doesn't that sound just a tiny bit like Glasgow?

Was this survey carried out solely in the West End or Pollokshields? Do Glaswegians get an unusual amount of exercise running after rival members of the Old Firm? I think we should be told. In the meantime, perhaps I should catch a train through to Queen Street and treat myself to a large fish supper. Thai restaurants? Bah!

High finance

At the end of 2001 I switched my Standard Life pension policy out of the with-profits fund into the cash fund as I was convinced that the bonus element of my investment was at risk in the stock market bubble that the central banking system had created. This turned out to be an excellent decision as the bonuses have been cut five times since then.

Standard Life's own management haven't been doing too badly over that period:

Standard Life revealed last Friday that its former chief executive, Iain Lumsden, received a pay package, excluding pension contributions, worth about £1m in 2003. His final-year remuneration rose 12 per cent from 2002, and included a performance-related bonus of £125,000.

Now I recognise that these payments are justified by contractual arrangements made previously, but are they wise? I think not, and now Standard Life has decided to allow policyholders to have a vote on directors' remuneration.

However:

Crucially, the vote will not be binding, but it will provide a closely-watched insight into how Standard Life investors feel the management of the group is performing.

What will happen if the members vote against the rises, as I certainly would were I still eligible to vote? Business leaders must be seen to be acting fairly if capitalism is to survive. Mr Lumsden and his former colleagues should share some of the losses suffered by Standard Life's investors.

Didn't politicians used to meet in smoke-filled rooms?

I don't smoke and don't particularly enjoy smoke in pubs. But pubs and restaurants are not public property and in a free society it's up to the owners of those premises to set whatever rules they want.

An Edinburgh pub owner has decided to ban smoking and he hopes to gain business as a result. Good luck to him I say. But I also wish good luck to those publicans who make the decision to allow smoking. We should let the market decide what mixture we get between smoking and non-smoking pubs.

These people understand:

Simon Clark, a director of Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (FOREST) said: "We have always said that there’s clearly a niche market for non-smoking pubs and restaurants and certainly there is a need for this in a city the size of Edinburgh. This shows there is no need for government intervention."

That's the practical and the moral solution to this non-problem. Sadly though, we live in the age of the health fascist:

But the anti-smoking group Ash Scotland and the British Medical Association have condemned Scottish politicians for caving in to pressure from landlords and smoking groups to rule out an outright ban.

Ban, tax, regulate. Ban, tax, regulate.

What miserable lives these people lead. The nanny state will be the death of us all, smokers and non-smokers.