Alex Smiles

It's time for my wee survey again. Here's the last one.

My contention is that the UK's government is centralised way beyond what's typical in similar countries. That in turn means that most of the top private sector jobs are in the South East, not because of market forces but as an inevitable response to where big government is located. From that follows our inability to sort out transport and urban sprawl. The figures are from the current issue of Chartered Secretary.

London: population share 12.2%; job share 56.7%
Southeast: population share 13.6%; job share 24.4%
East: population share 9.2%; job share 3.3%
Southwest: population share 8.4%; job share 1.1%
West Midlands: population share 9%; job share 1.1%
East Midlands: population share 7.1%; job share 4.5%
Wales: population share 4.9%; job share NIL
Yorkshire: population share 8.4%; job share 1.1%
Northwest: population share 11.4%; job share NIL
Northeast: population share 4.3%; job share 3.3%
Scotland: population share 8.6%; job share 4.5%
Northern Ireland: population share 2.9%; job share NIL

So London and the Southeast with 25.8% of the UK's population have 81% of these pretty high-powered jobs.

As I wrote back in 2002:

If we want to see a more economically balanced Britain we can either reduce government expenditure to, say, 10% of GDP, or we can spread government more evenly throughout the country. I support the first option. I suspect that neither will be implemented.

No wonder Alex Salmond is smiling.

Just near here...

This is in the same street as my doctor:

A building in Edinburgh has been cordoned off after several suspected radioactive packages were found inside, the fire service said.

Emergency services placed a cordon around the Regent Language Training School in Chester Street after the discovery of the three small packages.

It is believed the packages may contain radioactive material.

Granny Muggers

They're at it again:

Bank of England deputy governor Rachel Lomax yesterday signalled a willingness to cut UK interest rates further to try to counter a painful slowdown in economic growth, but only if people's expectations of future inflation remained anchored.

What on earth does she mean by "anchored"?

Let's see:

"... a temporary spike in inflation did not necessarily mean that members of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee needed "to tolerate a significant weakening in demand"

Temporary! Who does she think she's kidding? Money supply growth is out of control, and not only in the UK.

And now there are rumours about another bank:

Jitters return to the banking sectors amid rumours of an emergency Bank of England meeting with one of the clearing banks in trouble

Enough of this fiat money nonsense. Why should imprudent borrowers be bailed out by stealing from your granny's savings? We need a commodity based monetary system and we need it now.

The people's Rock is deepest red

And this sums the whole thing up:

If you have a Northern Rock mortgage and a Labour MP with a narrow majority then paying the mortgage is now optional. Watch the "payment holidays" go through the roof.

And just who is my MP? Yep, a Labour one whose own coat is on a very shoogly nail. None other than Alistair Darling himself! And, like a mug, I've already paid off the mortgage. Perhaps he'll give me one of those inflation-linked government pensions as compensation...

BoJo to Scotland: Drop Dead!

OK, so Boris Johnson's a clever chappie. And he's a lot more fun on the TV than most politicians. If I still lived in London I suppose that I'd vote for Boris as a way of removing Ken Livingstone from the mayoral suite. I've even had a go at Ken myself in the old days.

But for those of us living in Scotland Boris is a menace:

"Domestic flights in this country are a crime, they are a sin. You will not find, under a Johnson mayoralty, 381 officials taking flights within this country. That's absolutely criminal" - Boris

So, if Boris gets his way, we can say goodbye to Edinburgh's financial sector. It depends on all those "criminal" domestic flights. The idea that the Scottish business community could rely on the existing train service is a joke.

Don't get me wrong - I prefer to travel by train. But the current service isn't good enough. Scotland needs those flights.

There is an alternative of course.

Move the UK capital to Scotland and we wouldn't need to fly up and down.

Stop crime. End sin. Boris for Lord Provost!

A foggy day in Jedburgh

Jedburgh
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

More photos from Sunday are here.

The Berwick question

Fellow bloggers have been covering this story:

English politicians have vowed to repel a cross-border raid to take Berwick-upon-Tweed back into Scotland. Calls to redraw the border and return the town to Edinburgh control would cause major upheaval and require "massive negotiation", it was warned.

Nationalist MSP Christine Grahame has lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament calling for Berwick to return to "Scottish nationhood".

It calls on Scottish ministers to begin negotiations with Westminster to secure Berwick-upon-Tweed's "restoration" as part of Scotland.

I think that people are missing something here.

First, it's clear from the view from the East Coast Mainline as one enters Berwick that the town looks as if it is in Scotland. The architecture is Scottish and the river is the natural boundary.

But there's something far more significant.

Look at the map. If the River Tweed became the boundary a huge chunk of the North Sea and its oil reserves would become Scottish...

Who's been a naughty boy then?

Yours truly.

Let me explain.

When we lived in London I drove an Alfa 75. Why? Because the company I worked for had the Alfa advertising account. It was cleaned very regularly.

After moving to Edinburgh I became responsible for the servicing bills, and boy, did they rise...

When one bill came to over £1,000 and the insurance went up to over £600 pa I called it a day. I bought a Hyundai.

Yes, I know, boring and not nearly as flash as an Alfa - and I do miss that purring sound. But it cost £6k or thereabouts and included a five year guarantee and three years' free servicing. Insurance went down to £230 and the mpg is low. The problem is that I hardly ever drive nowadays. Princes Street is a ten-minute walk away and one can't easily park downtown anyway. Taxi fares back here are reasonable.

Wrongly I'd ignored the gradual build up of tree-gunge, bird droppings and all the rest of the strange stuff that is accumulated on a city centre car and which was seemingly impossible to remove.

After yesterday's trip down to the Borders I'd had enough.

But there's always Google. And through them I found these guys.

When I arrived I noticed several taxis in the washing queue. A good sign: the authorities insist on their cleanliness. When I returned a couple of hours later and the car was like new. I was told that I'd been under quoted, such was the de-gungeification required, but they stuck to the deal. That's the real spirit of capitalism. Needless-to-say I'll be going back regularly despite the horrific tram preparation work on Leith Walk. No more Mr "naughty boy".

"Social" housing in Glasgow

Here's a sad tale:

RESIDENTS at a plush riverside development have been sacked by their factor - because so few of them are paying for communal areas to be maintained.

Glasgow-based factor Life Property Management says it was forced to pull out of Kingston Quay, Tradeston, at the end of last month because only a small number of owners are paying for shared services such as electricity, water and repairs.

The rest are absentee landlords who rent out their flats and don't bother paying factors bills - leaving the development more than £110,000 in debt.

Of the 370 flats only around 100 owners pay up. And more than 70 flats are in the process of being repossessed.

Things sound pretty bad:

"The lifts have been broken for two years, there's no security entry, the communal parts are filthy and there's holes in the walls.

"People feel afraid for the safety of their children. Neds drink in the communal corridors and last year a drug addict overdosed in the doorway.

So what's really going on here?

One of the commenters writes:

I once viewed an apartment here when the development was still very new - two different estate agents told me to avoid it as the Buy To Let flats had been taken over by anti-social tenants who had been evicted from elsewhere, drug dealers or were being used as brothels - at the time (about 3 years ago) there were apparently at least 3 on the go.

It seems to me that there is no market failure here despite the anti-capitalist statements one reads. The problem is those "anti-social tenants" who are housed in these "plush" flats courtesy of the taxpayer, including the residents who do pay their factoring charges. In other words, we have the antithesis of a market, and the decent folks are getting it in the teeth.

God damn the Scottish Labour party.

Druid's Law

Unsurprisingly the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury have caused outrage across the blogosphere:

The adoption of some aspects of Islamic Sharia law in Britain "seems unavoidable", the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

I'd be spending the rest of the week were I to link to all of those websites that are up in arms about this.

But here's Matt Wardman with another angle:

Reading those three paragraphs, one can conclude that the ABC is proposing that Sharia Law as it operates in (for example) Saudi Arabia will trump British Law. He isn’t. He is saying something closer to the fourth paragraph:

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

Let's look at this from a libertarian perspective.

Libertarians fall into two camps. The consequentialists essentially say that liberty works and is therefore to be defended. Natural rights libertarians support liberty on principle. I fall into the latter camp - perhaps because the first libertarians I met were natural rightists but sometimes I think that it was the result of being educated in the old fashioned, pre ZaNu-Labour, Scottish education system. Needless-to-say, we natural rights folk happily note that libertarianism works anyway.

So what about the law?

Natural rights libertarianism is based on the non-aggression principle: no one should initiate force or fraud against anyone else. Some think that justifies a state, but only so long as it exists solely to defend us against those who do initiate force or fraud. That means limiting the state to providing a military (to defend us against foreign aggressors), a police force (to defend us against domestic aggressors) and a system of courts to decide on guilt or innocence and to impose any necessary restitution.

It seems quite clear to me that the British state (assuming that it exists) should be based on our traditional legal principles. That's to say Scots Law plus other forms of law commonly used in the more benighted parts of the Kingdom...

Sharia Law is surely incompatible with the continuance of the British state.

Ah, but not all libertarians support the very existence of the state. Anarcho-capitalists believe that the state is not necessary at all. Defence, police and law services can be provided by the market. And what would that mean for the Sharia question?

Let's see. Suppose that the territory now known as Bradford had been discovered ab initio and homesteaded by a Muslim. Anarcho-capitalism surely implies that the founder would be entitled to apply his own legal system to those voluntarily living in his territory. Note the "voluntarily". Interactions between residents of Bradfordistan and, say, a Kirkcaldy legitimately controlled by the descendants of Adam Smith, would have to be on mutually agreed terms.

But note some other factors. The robust residents of Kirkcaldy would be free not to interact with the Bradfordistanians - for any reason whatsoever, no matter how politically "incorrect". These decisions would not be limited to economic matters. And the same would apply to the rest of the anarcho-capitalist island of Britain.

It seems to me, then, that even under anarcho-capitalism, a Sharia law Bradford would probably find it extremely difficult to co-exist with the rest of this island and would almost certainly languish in poverty.

So I contend that Sharia law is compatible with libertarianism but only if its supporters legitimately "own" the territory in which it is to be applied (not Bradford, as it happens), only if it has no claim to financial or other support from the rest of the community and only if it interacts peacefully with those neighbours who reject its tenets.

Citibank's rope

Lenin once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

I rarely agree with Lenin, but he was right about the rope market.

Consider this:

Credit cards are to be withdrawn from 161,000 Egg customers who it believes pose an unacceptably "high risk".

OK, fair enough for Egg to cancel the credit cards of its risky customers - subject to the contractual arrangements of course.

But what Egg (owned by Citibank) is saying isn't the whole story. Read some of the comments. This is typical:

I received the letter yesterday. What angered me most was the suggestion that the decision may have been the result of some detrimental entry to my credit report, causing me to fear that I may have been the victim of identity theft. This put me to the needless expense of obtaining a copy of my credit report, which of course is fine. The letter from Egg consisted of a tissue of lies which were merely a smoke-screen for the real reason behind the decision which I suspect is that I don't use the card enough. Why couldn't they just be honest and say that - but then I suppose the two words "honest" and "banking" don't sit well together these days do they! Chris O'Shea, Woking, Surrey

Another one:

After receiving my letter yesterday, I checked my credit rating. It's one of the highest possible. I told egg and they agreed that I was a "perfect customer" but they will not reverse their decision. There is no information on how to appeal in their letter. Kirsty, London

I have no problem at all with a credit card company that said honestly that those who pay off their balances in full each month are unprofitable and should pay some sort of fee but that's not what Citibank's doing. This is precisely the sort of behaviour that gives capitalism a bad name. Not that socialism is any better of course.

If Citibank turns out to be one of the coming casualties it'll serve them right. With or without the rope.

(SCRAMBLED EGG UPDATE: It's looking like one of the great customer relations disasters of all time.)

Les Frogs are in town

And, for the record, they seem to be supporting Italy today. Is it something to do with this?

The locals are supporting Ireland.

There hasn'ae been a murrdurr...

Earlier today I paid a visit to Calumet, a very good photographic outlet.

The Glasgow branch is located in Maryhill, home of Glasgow's best-known cop.

As I was getting my purchase wrapped I noticed the shop assistant's nametag.

Yes, it was Taggart!

And, yes, he's heard all the obvious comments many, many times before. When his best friend phones him up, the friend always starts - of course- by saying: "There's been a murder."

...as if led by an invisible paw

We libertarians don't have much faith in central planning. Hayek brilliantly explained how the natural workings of a free society - a spontaneous order - far outperform any top-down plan.

And now, unsurprisingly, Hayek's insights are confirmed in the animal world:

THEY say good breeding counts for a lot in this dog-eat-dog world. But when it comes to intellect, it seems that a cross-breed can outsmart a pedigree dog most of the time.

Researchers have found that cross-bred dogs have better spatial awareness and problem-solving skills than their pure-bred counterparts.

Planning can work in a few limited cases, but you just can't beat that spontaneous order:

"Pure breeds are bred to be good at a particular job and are not so good if you try to get them to do something else," she said.

Here we go again

Bill Jamieson discusses the cultural differences in the world's major central banks:

The reaction of the US Federal Reserve was swift and dramatic. That of the Bank of England was more cautious and measured. And the European Central Bank responded to pressure to follow the US with a determined 'Non', or, more accurately, 'Nein'.

You might think that libertarians like myself would favour the US position. It's the land of free markets, is it not?

No, actually.

Here's Jamieson again:

US central bank policy, certainly since the mid-1980s under Alan Greenspan, has always seemed especially sensitive to adverse stock market reaction, the memory of 1929-30 being hard-wired into the American financial mind.

But the Fed doesn't seem to have learned the real lesson of the Great Depression:

Since it first appeared in 1963, it has been the definitive treatment of the causes of the depression. The book remains canonical today because the debate is still very alive.

Rothbard opens with a theoretical treatment of business cycle theory, showing how an expansive monetary policy generates imbalances between investment and consumption. He proceeds to examine the Fed's policies of the 1920s, demonstrating that it was quite inflationary even if the effects did not show up in the price of goods and services. He showed that the stock market correction was merely one symptom of the investment boom that led inevitably to a bust.

Plus ca change... Here we go again. Printing and printing, with the same inevitable result as in the 1920's.

The Monstrous Regiment of Statists

Oh dear. John McTernan has really put his (left?) foot in it. And to think that he seemed quite normal when I sat beside him at a dinner a couple of years ago...

You can read about it all here and here:

DES BROWNE, the Scottish and defence secretary, was under pressure this weekend to sack one of his top aides for describing Scotland as a “narrow, Presbyterian and racist”

.

Jamie Hepburn covers the story well:

I am not quite sure why Presbyterianism should bear the brunt of such hostility from Mr McTernan, any more than any other branch of Christianity and I imagine there will be many members of the Church of Scotland pretty insulted by the suggestion that it falls neatly alongside racism and a narrow viewpoint. Indeed, wouldn't it be interesting to know what Prime Minister Gordon Brown - who makes great play of the fact that his moral compass is derived from his Presbyterian upbringing - thinks of John McTernan's outburst?

Here's an interesting thought experiment: would Scotland's education system have sunk so low over the past few decades had it been under the control of the Kirk instead of the Labour party?

(For those new to this blog, I advocate competition in education and don't favour any kind of monopoly.)

Edinburgh photos

Edinburgh
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

Some recent Edinburgh photos are on Flickr and also on the other blog.

Please show your workings

For quite a few years now I have prepared my mother's tax return.

Some of her income has tax deducted at source and some doesn't. Instalments are paid as requested by the Revenue each January and July against the expected balance of tax due. These twice-yearly amounts have been identical for several years and my mother's income has remained fairly constant other than some increase in line with inflation.

A few days ago I got a reminder from the Revenue that it was almost the end of January and that the next instalment would be payable by then - but I had never received a statement telling me how much to pay. I phoned the taxman and was told that the January instalment would be over six times the regular amount. I asked for written details of their workings and they arrived last night. After an hour or so this morning I worked out what the Revenue had done (or rather, NOT done) and phoned them up again. Result! The instalment due is now back down to the normal amount and written confirmation is in the post.

What worries me is this. How many other folk get tax demands that are out by a factor of six? How many of them don't have access to someone who can calculate the correct sums due? How many elderly folk become sick with worry on receiving outrageously wrong tax demands?

Alistair Darling - closet libertarian?

Cheque
Originally uploaded by David Farrer

Save Reg!

Like most people I'd always assumed that The Bill was for real. You know, some sort of documentary. Let's face it - over the years the programme has never failed to portray exactly the correct current gender and ethnic balance that one associates with the Metropolitan Police.

But today I've read some shocking news:

Actor Jeff Stewart, who plays PC Reg Hollis in ITV drama The Bill, has been treated in hospital after being told he was sacked.

Press reports suggested the 52-year-old cut his wrists after being informed.

Goodness me, it seems that The Bill isn't a documentary after all. Apparently they're all actors!

But back to "Reg":

His character also "lives life by a very strong moral code and hates dishonesty or injustice", it says.

So that's why Reg had to go. Not for him the fashionable PC (!) concerns about diversity and all that rubbish. No, Reg just wants to catch criminals. How quaintly old-fashioned.

I've an idea. Let Reg return to Sun Hill for a few weeks and then make him Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. You know it makes sense.

Too many university students

That's according to the CBI:

THE drive to expand university education has produced a generation of poor-quality graduates that employers do not want to hire, the head of the country's leading business organisation has warned.

In a stinging criticism of both the UK and Scottish Governments, Richard Lambert, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, claimed many employers believe "more means less" in terms of increasing student numbers.

My gut reaction is to agree with Mr Lambert but how can we really tell? The only way we'd know for sure would be if all higher education were to be privatised and if students (or parents or sponsors) had to pay the full fees. Then find out soon enough if too many (or indeed too few) graduates were being produced.

At the moment the education system is a producer-run cartel with all that implies. Here's a good example from the school world:

SCOTLAND'S largest teaching union will today call for action to cut class sizes. The Educational Institute of Scotland says all local authorities must do their bit or risk a class-size "lottery".

Actually, it's state-provided education that's more akin to a "lottery". The unions want smaller classes so as more of their members get jobs. Why don't they demand privatisation of education thus allowing good teachers to prosper?

Back to the presents

I got five books yesterday with more to follow when I spend my book tokens. (Thanks to Mrs F&W and my sisters.)

At long last I've got a copy of Radicals for Capitalism by Brian Doherty. Published earlier this year, Doherty has written a "Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement." He gives special attention to the "Big Five" - Mises, Hayek, Rand, Rothbard and Friedman. I met numbers two, four and five. Indeed, I photographed Hayek at Buckingham Palace, chauffeured Rothbard in my car and first met Mrs F&W at a dinner addressed by Friedman. Doherty's book will be one to savour and in the latest issue of Economic Affairs it was highly praised by Dr Tim Evans, President of the Libertarian Alliance.

Next is The Triumph of the Political Class by Peter Oborne. I started this book last night and it is a cracker. Oborne makes the essential libertarian point. The ruling class doesn't consist of capitalist free marketers but of their opposite - a group of exploitative individuals who live by the state and in a just world would die by the market.

Scotland the Best is, well, the best guidebook to Scotland. Every two years Peter Irvine's book is updated with essential information on where to find the best ice cream, the best Indian restaurant, the best scenic drive, the best old-fashioned pub, wherever you are in the country. Don't worry - it also covers the likes of Loch Lomond and Edinburgh Castle...

I also now have a copy of Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging in the UK featuring yours truly.

The name R A Saville-Sneath conjures up an impression of a World War II RAF fighter pilot. Close. In fact, he wrote a book about aircraft recognition and it's been reissued by Penguin. Spitfires and Hurricanes, Dorniers and Heinkels - they're all here. The original book wasn't aimed at hobbyists. It was to make sure that we shot down the right planes!

Sales but no buys

I was rather pleased with myself by finishing Christmas shopping almost a week before the 25th. Like most men I don't really think that Christmas shopping should start before the 24th...

Last year I went to "the sales" a couple of days after they'd started. Big mistake. In the new spirit of non-procrastination I went down to Princes Street at around 10.30 this morning. First the local paper shop was shut so I couldn't get my copy of the Scotsman. Then there was a very long wait for a bus - normally they're every minute or so. Eventually I reached the target and went into Jenners. No suitable shirts, no suitable sweaters and no suitable hats. Why oh why did they sell out to House of Fraser? There ought to have been a law against it! (Oops!)

Then I went to Austin Reed, Crombie, Moss Bros and Brooks Brothers. Nothing!

I'd been to Brooks Brothers once before - in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, where prices were quite reasonable. Not so in George Street. I was about to depart when I saw what looked like a familiar figure. I nodded. He nodded. Ming Campbell, unless I am very much mistaken. (He lives nearby.) "Ming" bought a tie. I made my excuses, left, and went to the pub. And I found a copy of the paper.

Bangers and cash

Here's some interesting information from Money Week.

A Greggs sausage roll costs 90p in London but only 50p in Leeds (according to the Sunday Mirror). That seems reasonable to me, considering the difference in rents and wages.

But then I read that an investigation by the Greater Manchester Police into an incident in which a 12-year-old threw a cocktail sausage at a neighbour cost £20,000!

I suppose it's just as well that the "incident" didn't happen in London. Presumably an investigation by the Met would have cost around £36,000, although perhaps less for the non-cocktail variety.

(It doesn't seem possible to order sausage rolls online, but fortunately Mrs F&W is cooking Cumberland sausages tonight...)