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Sometimes an outsider can see what an insider can’t, thus enabling the insider to get in touch with his real self.

The Times proves that this is indeed possible by first explaining what conservatism isn’t and then, courtesy of Rachel Sylvester, what is really is. Thanks to this vacuous, lefty, moribund paper, we now stand corrected on whatever misapprehensions we might have had.

Commenting on UKIP’s showing at Eastleigh, The Times suggested that the party is weak intellectually. Specifically, as proofs of this cerebral deficiency, it listed such risible policies as opposition to the EU, desire to stimulate growth by cutting taxes and reducing welfare expenditure, support for grammar schools and antagonism to unrestricted immigration. Such policies, said the editorial, aren’t so much conservative as unsound.

Fair enough. But then we must assume that sound conservatism would call for subjugating Britain to the EU, stifling growth by increasing both taxes and welfare spend, eliminating the few remaining grammar schools and inviting the world’s all and sundry to help themselves to our welfare state, which by now would be big enough to accommodate such an influx.

The Times didn’t actually state that in so many words, but in this instance the denotation allows for only one possible connotation. Still, a few things were left unsaid, leaving a gap which Miss Sylvester has now bridged.

In her article Tories Must See the Conservative in Cameron she teaches all us cynics a valuable lesson in penetrating political thought. Dave, according to her, is as conservative as they get. As far as hypotheses go, this one is paradoxical, but then so have been many others. For example, no one could have imagined that matter under some circumstances could act as both particles and field until this paradox was supported by evidence.

So what kind of evidence does Rachel dredge up in support of this counterintuitive proposition?

‘Raised in rural Berkshire, the son of a stockbroker and a magistrate, who went to Eton and Oxford, plays tennis, tends his veg patch and used to hunt…’ Oh well, this settles it then. By these criteria I’m at best a socialist, tennis being the only qualification I possess. Moreover, I now realise that no one I’ve ever met, never mind my close friends, has the slightest claim to being a conservative – they’d fail the Sylvester litmus test in most or all rubrics.

After such a powerful QED argument, it’s surprising that Rachel felt the need to come up with any others. But hey, nothing succeeds like excess. So she continues:

‘His support for gay marriage is based on a deep belief in the importance of marriage’. Crikey. Now we know: all those subversives, who have for millennia taken it for granted that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, have done so because they detested the very institution of marriage. A true conservative can only prove his credentials by supporting marriage between a man and any mammal of his choice. No wonder I don’t number a single conservative among my friends.

Case made, wouldn’t you say? Not yet. ‘His husky-hugging greenery grows out of an instinct to preserve the environment.’ Of course it does. Before long Dave will become so dyed-in-the-wool conservative that he’ll apply for membership in the Green Party and lead it to parliamentary majority in the EU.

‘House of Lords reform is necessary only to protect the credibility of Parliament.’ Such credibility had been sorely lacking for almost a thousand years until Dave’s fellow conservative and role model Tony reduced the Lords to a travesty. It therefore behoves Dave to reassert his credentials by turning the Upper House into a Ye-Auld-England tourist attraction.

‘The ringfencing of aid is a patrician attempt to help the poor…’ Quite. It also betokens aristocratic disdain for wealth (other than his own, naturally), of which most nouveaux are being deprived to keep the ring fence up. Conservatism therefore is all about transferring money from those who earned it to those who haven’t, building up a megalomaniac state in the process.

‘Public service reform is intended to save, rather than dismantle, the NHS and state schools.’ Dismantle those venerable institutions? Perish the thought. God forbid bodies will become healthier and minds better developed. What’s conservative about that?

These deep taxonomic insights were followed by equally profound and original philosophy: ‘Nobody can stop the clocks, still less reverse the progress of time. The world moves on…’

None of my friends would be capable of either such deep insights or such startlingly idiosyncratic turn of phrase. But then we now know that unlike Rachel and Dave they aren’t conservative.

To sum up: conservatism is all about support for homomarriage, espousing the ideas of the Greens, perpetrating constitutional vandalism, building up the welfare state, pumping more money into our exemplary nationalised education and medicine, and expressing oneself in hackneyed platitudes that a generation ago would have earned an F in English at any grammar school.

Oh yes, let’s not forget hunting in Berkshire. Berkshire hunt? It’s best not to go there.

Just one world tour, and US Secretary of State John Kerry is already moving up on the list of my favourite politicians.

I commented earlier on his budding tendency to coin portmanteau names by linking two countries together and thus coming up with a third that doesn’t exist. By fusing Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan he came up with Kyrzakhstan, suggesting that from America’s vantage point all those foreign lands are more or less the same. It’s like a seven-foot giant and a four-foot dwarf appearing equally tiny if you look at them from Mars.

Some may cringe at such ignorance on the part of the world’s top diplomat, but I rejoice. As much as any other man I love to see my prejudices confirmed, and Americans seldom disappoint. I only hope that, if it’s true that war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, Our Lord won’t instigate a global conflict just to give Kerry a remedial class he so desperately needs.

On that same trip, my idol John spoke to a group of youngsters at a crowded Internet café in Berlin. A girl representing an organisation of young Muslims asked John what thoughts crossed his mind when he espied her co-religionists in America.

John’s response strengthened his claim to my lifelong friendship. ‘In America,’ he said, ‘you have a right to be stupid.’ He then added a few qualifiers about tolerance, thereby weakening said claim. He should have left it at the first sentence, with its refreshing, if possibly inadvertent, candour.

However, the framers of the US Constitution with its 27 amendments somehow omitted the right to stupidity, perhaps realising that voracious exercise of it would render democracy inoperable. This showed remarkable foresight, which is confirmed by every recent survey.

For example, only one American in 1,000 could name all five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances). By laudable contrast, 22 percent could name all five members of the Simpson family.  

Another study concluded that only five percent of Americans could correctly answer three-fourths of the questions asked about economics, 11 percent those about domestic issues, 14 percent those about foreign affairs and 10 percent those about geography. Hence John Kerry can pride himself on belonging to an overwhelming majority, and isn’t this what all modern politicians strive for?

We aren’t talking about the knowledge of recondite facts and arcane references: only about 25 percent of native-born Americans would pass the elementary citizenship test given to immigrants. (Q: Who was the first president of the United States? A: George Washington Bridge.)

It’s therefore not surprising that most US voters don’t know the difference between conservatives and liberals, and in America the distinction is still valid. This explains how someone like Obama could be elected president, finding himself in a position to appoint someone like Kerry Secretary of State.

Lest you might think that the respondents selected for such surveys were deliberately drawn from the particularly obtuse strata of the population, consider the poll conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

There the sample was 14,000 randomly selected students at 50 universities around the country. This elite group scored under 55 percent on a test measuring their knowledge of American civic basics. Hence 45 percent wouldn’t qualify for citizenship if they didn’t have the good fortune of being born in the USA. Interestingly, freshmen tested higher than seniors, suggesting that university education isn’t all it’s cut out to be.

Before you run the Union Jack up the pole, consider the fact that similar studies in the UK show only marginally better results. This raises fundamental questions about one-man-one-vote democracy, the kind of questions these days few ask and no one answers.

As Plato and Aristotle postulated and their fellow Athenians showed, even a limited democracy can function effectively only in a nation possessing a high degree of civic and political sophistication. Unless a vote is cast from a position of responsibility and knowledge, it’s at best useless and at worst subversive.

In a constitutional democracy based on universal franchise, a candidate for political office must be weighed in the balance of the nation’s constitutional history and its fundamental principles. It’s reasonably clear that a stupid populace bone-ignorant about such things is incapable of this weighing exercise. In other words, it’s not qualified to vote.

Therefore even a politician with a firmer grasp of his brief and a greater intelligence than John Kerry would be unable to rely on such attainments to appeal to the electorate. Instead of addressing people’s minds he’d have to tickle the bits located some three feet lower.

A few generations of this sort of thing, and a new political class will evolve, including spivs with a knack for cheap demagoguery and excluding anyone with a talent for statesmanship. The politicians will in their turn promote ignorance and stupidity on the part of the electorate, thus squaring the vicious circle of modernity.

The Founding Fathers, apostles of American democracy, along with Tocqueville, their St Paul, were all aware of such pitfalls. But weaned as they were on the ideas of the Enlightenment, they thought democracy would be able to get around them.

They were wrong because the Enlightenment was wrong. Bien pensant ideas divorced from reality will sooner or later reverse the meaning of every term used to denote such notions.

Enlightenment turns out to be obscurantism, liberalism becomes illiberal, equality leads to tyranny. And democracy turns into the rule of the craven and dishonest over the stupid and ignorant. This is an historical law to which there are no exceptions.

 

My admiration for Dave knows no bounds, certainly no lower ones. As you know, I consider him the greatest British prime minister since Gordon Brown, and I’ll loyally fight his corner against all detractors.

Dave knows this too, which is why he regards me as a friend. He and I often go down the pub together, letting our hair down, our shirts out and our children get lost. At such relaxed moments I sometimes ask Dave to clarify the meaning of his pronouncements whenever I feel they take me out of my, admittedly rather shallow, depth.

This is what I did last night, when Dave and I shared some ideas and pork scratchings at his local. ‘What did you mean, Dave,’ I asked after my second pint of Wife Beater and his fourth, ‘when you said you’ll neither lurch to the right nor plant yourself in the middle between your political opponents? If you’re neither on the right nor in the middle, you’re on the left, aren’t you?’

‘Boot, you imbecile,’ answered Dave in a courageous attempt to conceal his affection for yours truly, ‘even you with your pea brain must understand this. Just read what I wrote. You know how to read, don’t you? “It’s not about being Left-wing or Right-wing – it’s about being where the British people are.” So there’s no need to lurch either to the right or to the left. British people are already in the lurch. Innit?’ he added, realising that other pub crawlers were trying to listen to our conversation.

‘Take gay marriage, for example,’ said Dave and then delivered one of his famous witticisms, ‘please, please take it.’ As I was wiping tears of laughter off my shirt front, he turned serious.

‘Where are the British people on this issue? Not on the left of the body politic and not on the right. They’re planted right down the middle, firmly, to the hilt and for a long haul. They like it up the middle. All I have to do is give’em a little push from behind.’ Then, suddenly aware that he forgot to drop his aitches yet again, Dave added, ‘Djamean?’

‘Yes, Dave, you did say that Britain had been going down for years under Labour,’ I said in a feeble attempt to match Dave’s wit.

‘I said it was going downhill, not down, you retard,’ laughed Dave and playfully punched me in the jaw with a solid left jab. ‘And now we aren’t pushing it fast enough… mate. That’s what makes some people lurch to the right, but they’ll never make us go the same way.’

‘Yes, but Ukip votes cost you Eastleigh, didn’t they?’ I suggested, only to see Dave turn crimson. ‘Nutters!’ he screamed. ‘Morons! Barbour louts! Fascists! Forces of conservatism!’ It took another swift pint of Wife Beater to calm him down.

‘Let me explain this to you in words of one syllable, Boot… er… mate,’ said Dave, helping himself to my onion crisps.

‘The demographics of the Eastleigh electorate are ineluctably intertwined with their socioeconomic situation, thereby inexorably propelling them towards the effluvia of encephalophonic animadversions perpetrated by those psychointellectually disadvantaged functionaries of Ukip…’

‘I get it, Dave,’ I said, even though I didn’t. ‘They don’t like it up the middle after all.’

‘But they do, mate, you retard, that’s exactly what they like. Gagging for it,’ explained Dave. ‘That’s why we’re not going to lurch to either side, and especially not to the right. And we’ll eschew every “cynical attempt to calculate the middle distance between our political opponents”, just like I wrote. Take those Ukip nutters out of the equation, and there is no bloody distance between us and our opponents. And there won’t be unless we lurch to the right, which we won’t.’

What I like about Dave is that he has the power of his office… sorry, I mean convictions. Like no other politician, he can ringfence his beliefs and stay sitting on the ring fence for ever. This throws light on the point he made the other day. After all, if you sit on a fence, a lurch to either side means you’ll fall down.

‘I understand now, Dave’ I said. ‘You’re “on the side of hard-working, decent, patriotic people”, just like you wrote. That’s what makes you different from all those nutters. They’re on the side of the lazy, the evil, the treacherous. But you’re on the right side, mate, which means you don’t have to lurch anywhere.’

‘You got it in one, Boot,’ said Dave and ordered his Special Branch bodyguard to tell the landlord we’re switching to shorts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My lower-case conservative friends are enthusiastic about UKIP finishing ahead of both Tories and Labour in the Eastleigh by-election. By contrast, I’m upset about UKIP finishing behind the LibDems.

Is Nigel Farage’s pint glass half-full or half-empty? This depends on whether one looks upon it from an aesthetic or pragmatic vantage point.

Aesthetically it’s most satisfying that UKIP has shown its potential to consign the morally and intellectually bankrupt Tory party to roughly the role traditionally played by the LibDems. It’s now a fair assumption that when UKIP contests a seat, the Tories will be unlikely to win it. It’s as fair an assumption that neither will UKIP.

That’s where pragmatism comes in. This was once explained to me in simple words by a formidable Tory front-bencher. ‘A vote for UKIP,’ she roared in response to my cri de coeur, ‘is a vote for Labour.’ Or for LibDems, as the case was yesterday. Either way, she had a point.

Do we seriously think that the Milibandits, in or out of coalition with the Cleggies, will be better than the Cameroons? Of course we don’t. At their best, they’ll be just as bad. At their normal, they’ll be even worse. At their worst, they’ll make the Brits seek refuge in Romania, not the other way round.

True conservatives are counting on UKIP to knock the Tories out of their shilly-shallying stride, making them act like, well, Tories, rather than Blair clones. UKIP then is supposed to do for the Tories what a spoiler does for a car. It keeps it on the straight and narrow.

The recent travesty with referendum promises shows how forlorn this hope is. His mind honed by PR trickery, Dave made a sop to anti-federalism by half-promising a referendum (a half-promise on anything is the best Dave can make – just look at his track record, or indeed his face). This, however, has not so much strings as a noose attached.

For, in common with most modern politicians, Dave is incapable of looking beyond the next election. Hence the referendum carrot can’t be eaten unless he remains at Downing Street after 2015 – and Eastleigh shows how improbable this is. Moreover, no promise has been made on the wording of the big question, and any market researcher will tell you that this is often decisive.

If you ask the people ‘Do you wish to stay in the EU so we can continue to trade with Europe?’, you’ll get one answer. If you ask ‘Do you wish to leave the EU so Britain can become independent again?’ the answer will be different.

In other words, Dave made no binding or substantive promise. He merely tried to neutralise what’s commonly perceived as UKIP’s single issue. The trick didn’t work in Eastleigh. Whether it’ll work nationally remains to be seen. In the unlikely event that it does, the Tories may yet win the next election. In the almost certain event that it doesn’t, Labour will win. In either event, we’ll lose.

It’s naïve to expect that a tectonic shift can occur in any major modern party. Those embarking on spoiling raids may toss bricks through windows all they want – the spivocrats will paper the windows over and remain almost as cosy as before. And historically, our first-past-the-post culture consigns any third party to such petty thuggery at best.

All this achieves these days is making the spivocrats conjure up new and more devious cardsharping tricks. Sure enough, voters can satisfy their platonic cravings by casting a protest vote in a by-election or even nationally, but this would mean something only if there were a real difference between the two main parties. But there isn’t, so it doesn’t.

Much as we may love UKIP, and Nigel Farage personally, it’s hard to say that the party is being triumphant in its spoiler role. The Tories are just as spivocratic as before, and UKIP still doesn’t have a single MP. Moreover, the party now has half as many members as it did in 2004. It does well in European elections, but that only goes to show how trivial most Brits consider these to be.

If UKIP is to succeed, it must stop snapping at the Tories’ ankles. It must kick them into touch. And the only way to achieve this is by reinventing itself as the true conservative party, one that can engage and win a debate on the economy and health, education and defence – on every issue of vital interest to the country.

The only meaningful way of winning such debates isn’t to field better debaters – it’s to offer better solutions. For such solutions to be taken seriously, the party must position itself as a serious force. UKIP must show itself to be ready not to trip up Tory nincompoops but to form a government.

As it is, UKIP is sending mixed signals, which is why it’s delivering mixed results. On the one hand, the party broadens its appeal by placing itself on the side of the conservative angels on such issues as grammar schools, immigration, same-sex marriage. On the other hand its top functionaries suggest, as one did to me a few months ago, that UKIP would disband the moment we leave the EU.

Such a silly remark in a private conversation wouldn’t matter, but unfortunately this is the general impression the party conveys to the electorate. Unless this changes, a vote for UKIP will indeed mean a vote for Labour.

What can be done? Not being an expert in political free-for-all, I can only suggest a broad strategy, not concrete tactical steps.

First, UKIP must come up with an all-embracing political philosophy, positioning itself as the true conservative party, the only one capable of upholding the country’s ancient constitution, making it prosperous, just and free. This is harder than it sounds, for no more or less universal understanding of conservatism is discernible at present.

Then UKIP must translate this philosophy into the kind of sound bytes that can penetrate the consciousness of a public that has been systematically and, one suspects, deliberately corrupted and dumbed down.

Unlike the first two tasks, the next two would cost. UKIP must employ the best talent to carry the sound bytes to the populace – widely, incessantly and effectively. This would be impossible without finding big backers, but a cursory inspection suggests they’re there to be found.

Finally, the party must contest every election, communicating to voters its seriousness of purpose. The electorate must be made to realise that UKIP’s intention is to form the government, not to keep it marginally more honest.

True, this is all easier said than done, especially the last two parts. But unless it’s done, UKIP will be limited to providing good, clean fun. Tory candidates will weep into their pillows. Labour will snigger. And the country, now properly entertained, will laugh all the way to disaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The EU has finally figured out a way to solve all its problems in one fell swoop. Unrest throughout Europe? Finished. Euro crisis? Over. Recession? No longer.

All these problems are behind us, with a bright future beckoning but a few steps up the road. For the EU is about to pass a law capping bankers’ bonuses at an amount equal to a year’s salary.

This announcement filled my heart with so much joy that my mind emptied of coherent thought. Since filling an article with nothing but ‘hooray!’ ‘bravo!’ and ‘hear, hear!’ would compromise my intellectual integrity, I’ve had to seek outside help.

This came from a Russian visitor to London, I.L. Kutchaheadoff, former pickpocket, then Second Secretary of the GULAG Party Committee, currently a member of the Duma, owner of three football leagues in Britain, nine newspapers in Spain, an oil trading company in Zurich (registered in Panama, operating in Goa) and a Korean massage parlour in Courchevel. Mr – or rather ‘Comrade’, as he prefers to be called for old times’ sake – Kutchaheadoff kindly agreed to share his views. Here’s what he had to say:

‘Comrades! I, along with all progressive mankind, welcome the EU announcement. It’s about time bankers, those hyenas of capitalism, running dogs of usury, skunks of imperialism, had their ears clipped. If Comrade Marx were alive today, he’d be happy, even though in an ideal world his preference would be to slash not bankers’ bonuses but their jugular veins.

‘However, much as I’m happy about this measure, I hope this is only the first of many. Didn’t Comrade Mao teach that a journey of 1,000 miles starts with a small step? So I’d like to take this opportunity and recommend a few subsequent steps, nay giant leaps on the road to our glittering future.

‘As far as caps go, a year’s salary is meaningless unless we also set an upper limit on said salaries, for example €15,000 a year. This is far in excess of the average wage in Saransk, Comrade Depardieu’s new hometown, but for the time being we must allow such iniquity.

‘The EU must then ban the charging of interest on bank loans, and our forward-looking English comrades have already taken a step in that direction. This measure was also proposed by Comrade Marx, but for appearances’ sake we can refer to the Old Testament instead – with apologies to Comrade Marx, who not only disliked both Testaments but also hated the Yi… I mean persons of Hebraic origin.

‘Since the banks will then become unable to produce surplus value, they’d have to be nationalised once and for all, with operational control passing on to the Financial Union (FU for short) and the regional EU Secretary.

‘Also I couldn’t help noticing, comrades, that your shops sell goods for considerably more than what they pay the manufacturers. This outrage must be corrected immediately, along with the anarchy reigning in the retail trade. Not only do shops overcharge the toiling masses, but they also choose their merchandise. This has to stop. The EU Central Committee must issue pan-European circulars mandating that, for example, shoe shops may not carry more than three most popular styles (e.g. jackboots, bast sandals, felt knee-boots). Ideally, shoe shops should sell no shoes at all to avoid complacency on the part of the toiling masses.

‘Neither should manufacturers who supply the shops be allowed to make what they wish, charge what they want and pay their employees whatever they fancy. To follow on my example, Church’s (to be renamed ‘Party Committee’s’) shall sell only the three styles of footwear specified above. They’ll pay their managers no more than €10,000 a year and will charge no more than €5 for a pair of stylish jackboots.

‘But this means de facto nationalisation, I hear you say. I agree with you, comrades; such palliatives must be outlawed. That’s why both industry and retail trade must be nationalised de jure. This means by an EU Central Committee decree to be greeted with mandated enthusiasm by the toilers of Europe.

‘Our English comrades have already nationalised healthcare, making the NHS the largest employer in Europe and fifth largest in the world, and I applaud them. It goes without saying that this progressive model must be followed across Europe, with private medicine banned once and for all. Doctors’ pay shall be calculated in line with that of a cobbler or a medium-level banker (€10,000 a year being the benchmark).

‘The English, who’ve seen the error of their imperialist ways, are also planning to introduce control of the press, telling the papers what they can’t write. My fur hat’s off to them. But their plans, commendable as they are, don’t go far enough. Tell the hacks what they can’t write by all means – but they also have to be told exactly what they must write. This is called telling the truth (Pravda in my native language).

‘Education? Here too our English comrades are leading the way by turning On the Origin of Species into the gospel of science, just as Das Kapital must be reinstated as the gospel of economics. To be on the safe side, however, all books that disagree with the two gospels (including the so-called Bible) must be removed from school libraries and, ideally, burned.

‘Pupils must be taught only those subjects that will enable them to advance the common cause: iron casting, gold exploration, uranium mining, laser guidance, barbed wire manufacturing, goose-stepping, money laundering. If asked, I’ll be pleased to draw up the detailed curricula.

‘And don’t get me started on publishing… Oops, have to run, comrades. There’s a recalcitrant editor who needs sacking and an anti-Marxist blasphemer to be execu…, I mean re-educated. One last thing before I go: shouldn’t the EU be renamed the EUSSR? Think about it, comrades. And keep up the good work.’

 

 

 

 

In an attempt to pull the economy out of the doldrums, the Bank of England is planning to cut its base rate to below zero. In parallel, it’ll shift its printing press into a higher gear and add to the £375 billion of worthless currency it has already run off in the last few months.

I’m sure that savers and pensioners, whose livelihood will be destroyed, are finding solace in knowing that the country’s economy is in safe hands. Managers of building societies must be ecstatic too: they’ll no longer have to get up early to go to work. The rest of us wonder what other weapons of mass fiscal destruction our rulers will deploy against us.

It’s axiomatic that the state’s fiscal policies affect people’s economic behaviour. The lending crisis of 2008, or rather the ongoing crisis that started in 2008, was caused by many factors. But by far the most pernicious of them all was the fiscal policy of the US administration and other Western governments. Collectively they encouraged banks and individuals to behave foolishly and irresponsibly.

By keeping the base rate artificially low and providing incentives for banks to lend, the US government created the subprime mortgage crisis that delivered to the world economy a blow from which it has never recovered.

In the subsequent panicky attempts to get their economies up from the floor, governments started pumping funny money in, trillions’ worth. The money was indeed funny because it didn’t reflect any underlying value. Ostensibly it came from the printing presses activated by the levers held in the hands of quasi-independent central banks. But the real culprits were Western governments exerting pressure on the banks.

‘Quantitative easing’ is by its nature inflationary – it increases the money supply without increasing the amount of goods and services available. Sure enough, for several years now the interest on savings and government bonds has been lower than the inflation rate, roughly by half.

The new bright idea will hit the economy with a double whammy: it’ll increase the inflation and further punish responsible individuals by plundering their savings. Add to this the surreptitious but progressively sharper pinpricks of higher taxes, and we find ourselves bleeding white.

Saving will now be even more of a losing proposition than before. The pot will simply grow smaller every month until it’s empty. Borrowing, on the other hand, seems to make every sense in the world – why not take on a second, third or fourth mortgage if there’s practically no interest to pay? The value of your properties will grow at no cost to you; it’s like getting rich by investing somebody else’s money.

This is the kind of mentality that has proved ruinous already. Derisory interest rates to the state are what a piece of cheese is to a mousetrap. Encouraged to take gambling risks with their money, millions of human mice reach for the cheese, only to see the trap slam shut behind them.

For at some point in the near future the lending rates will go up, as they did in America a few years ago. As thousands of overextended people got caught in negative equity and impossible repayments, a spate of defaults hit America, along with all those dominoes leaning against it in our globalised world.

So, if saving is silly and overextending ourselves in the property markets fraught with danger, what else are we to do with our money, what’s left of it after the state has taken its growing cut? We could either spend it or take gambling risks. But what about those of us who are by nature neither gamblers nor wastrels? Historically, there used to be viable options, but this has changed.

The up side of low interest rates was that they encouraged active, rather than passive, investment. For example, rather than letting money sit in a savings account, in the past we could invest it in the shares of our manufacturing concerns and then grow with them.

In those days, the price of shares and the amounts of dividends reflected the real value of the firm. That’s why shares were held for years, often for generations. Rather than putting money into a building society, people would buy shares in solid firms and live off dividends. If the company was doing well, the dividends were high. If not, they were low. But by and large the marginally greater risk of such investments was offset by returns higher than those available at a bank.

This situation has changed. Hardly anyone buys shares for the dividends any longer. People gamble on a rapid increase in the shares’ face value, and with the advent of High-Frequency Trading (HFT) fluctuations are very rapid indeed. Share ownership first began to be measured in months, then in days and now – courtesy of HFT – often in seconds.

Most HFT traders sell their whole portfolio in one day, and in America about 70 percent of all trading is done that way. This means that share values no longer reflect a company’s long-term performance – more and more they depend on imperceptible, and often unaccountable, factors  changing by the second.

Under such circumstances buying shares has become sheer gambling. The choice is no longer between putting money in a bank or investing in the stock market – it’s between buying shares or roulette chips.

Hence the government’s strategy is just what we’ve come to expect from this lot. They’re counting on a short-term upsurge in growth that’ll last until the next election. If they win it, they’ll handle the inevitable fallout then. If they lose, this becomes somebody else’s problem.

Don’t you just love these chaps? Alas, even as we no longer have reasonable choices of investment, neither do we have any reasonable choice of government. The lads waiting in the wings are even worse.

The Nobel economist Milton Friedman, the great champion of modern economies, titled his bestseller Free to Choose. I wish.

Certainly not the man responsible for US foreign policy.

Speaking ex cathedra before his first foreign tour, the new Secretary of State John Kerry praised his department for securing democratic institutions in the former Soviet republic of Kyrzakhstan.

This was quite an achievement, made even more remarkable by the unfortunate fact that no such republic exists. It’s a portmanteau word made up of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Brought together in this fashion they remind one of the Americans’ refreshing ignorance of foreign lands. Even taken separately, neither of them testifies to Americans’ success in taking their deified democracy to the infidels.

In fact, their proselytising efforts to turn tribal societies into American-style democracies have been ending in consistent and predictable fiascos. Target countries hold some kind of elections to secure American aid (or to escape bombing raids) and then revert to business as usual – or worse.

Americans don’t seem to realise that no democracy can be born at the ballot box unless it’s already born in the people’s hearts. To them ‘all men are created equal’ is supposed to mean that all countries either are or yearn to be just like the good old US of A. And Americans are genuinely upset when this turns out not to be the case.

There are many reasons for this deficit of sensitivity, and one of them is pandemic ignorance of the world’s political geography, history and culture. Hence President Ford declaring at a 1975 press conference that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Thinking he had misheard, the reporter repeated the question, this time specifying Poland, all but a Soviet colony at the time. ‘That’s what I’m talking about too,’ insisted Ford. Fast-forward to 2008, and we have George W. Bush warning that at risk in the Russo-Georgian war was ‘Russia’s duly elected government’.

When I lived in America, I never revolved in such elevated circles, but I can testify from personal experience to the natives’ ignorance at the grass roots. My first job there was as translator at NASA in Houston, where all my bosses were men with advanced university degrees.

One of them, the Texan in charge of the documentation support (including translation) for the Apollo-Soyuz mission, once asked me, ‘Are y’all from Russia?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘D y’all speak German at home?’ Thinking this was a joke, I replied in the same vein. ‘We do sometimes. But usually we speak Russian.’ Jack earnestly thanked me for teaching him something new.

This wasn’t an isolated incident – I had to field similar questions every day. Then a Harvard-educated friend explained that Russia and Germany were so often mentioned together in history lessons that most denizens assumed it was the same country. Moreover, Russian and German were grouped together in the language departments of most Texan universities (in Europe, Slavic and Germanic languages are wisely kept apart).

Once another boss reprimanded me for having a lot of ‘discrufancies’ [sic] in my translations. In my defence I asked for an example. ‘Well, look how y’all translated the word “ball”,’ he said. ‘In English it has four letters and the last two are the same. In y’all’s translation it has five letters and none are the same.’ I laughed at the joke, only to realise it wasn’t.

According to the same helpful friend, our bosses believed that translation meant transliteration: taking English words and writing them out in Cyrillic alphabet. ‘If you probe them,’ he added, ‘you’ll find they don’t know the difference between Austria and Australia, Sweden and Switzerland, not to mention Slovakia and Slovenia.’

Back in Texas I knew many old people who had never been farther than 20 miles away from their home towns. Then I moved to New York and met quite a few Brooklyn residents who had never been to Manhattan, a short subway ride away. With notable exceptions, Americans tend to be happy in their own skin and in their own country. And even hereditary Ivy Leaguers like Bush or Kerry only bother to turn their attention to foreigners under duress.

By itself this sort of parochialism is quite touching. It’s also reassuring that there exists a nation where people are so happy with their immediate surroundings that they have no curiosity about faraway places, or even those not so far away. The problem only starts when such a nation tries to assume the mantle of a world empire.

This is a role for which the USA has no qualifications other than the purely physical ones, and even those are dwindling away. For it takes more than just military and economic power to bring half the world together within one political culture. To assume an empire-building mission, the metropolis has to learn about other cultures first – their spiritual and historical roots, their prejudices and idiosyncrasies, their loves and hates.

This kind of learning can’t be purely academic – it requires centuries of experience in rubbing shoulders with outlanders, learning their ways and teaching them one’s own. Europeans tend to acquire such experience naturally, simply because they’re all bunched together on a small continent, or a narrow channel away. That’s partly why the British Empire was so successful for so long – its administrators weren’t just teachers; they were also learners.

Americans have never been learners, which is why they fail as teachers. Witness their crude, ill-advised efforts to turn the Middle East into a political replica of America’s own Midwest. In a decade of violent nation-building, no nations have been built. However, many have been destroyed or at least taken to the brink of destruction. Moreover, the region has become thoroughly Islamised and radicalised – so much so that the whole world is now a more dangerous place.

Bulls don’t build china shops; they smash the china. Americans will do well to keep this clichéd observation in mind.

Meanwhile, I wish John Kerry a safe journey on his foreign foray. One hopes for all our sakes that he’ll learn a thing or two on his travels. Such as that Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are two different places. So are Sweden and Switzerland. So are Austria and Australia.

Above all, let’s hope he and his  countrymen will realise that they aren’t yet ready to build nations. Their own is barely finished. The scaffolding is still up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Themes of emotional instability recur in my prose, usually in the context of a world gone mad or else particular personages acting in ways that make one doubt their mental health.

I’m man enough to admit that this is a copout, a feeble substitute for deep and detailed analysis. So every day I decide to avoid any more references to psychiatric disorders. Then I scan the papers and my good intentions go the way of all flesh. But look at today’s press and judge for yourself.

Professional Tories like Ken Clarke and Tim Montgomerie respond to our loss of the AAA rating by suggesting that this development proves the government in general and George in particular are on the right track. To emphasise this indisputable point, the rating agency Moody’s now regards Britain as a greater credit risk.

As the pound heads for parity with the pre-euro French franc, one wonders where the country would end up if it weren’t on the right track. In a soup-kitchen queue? On the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean? Actually, any speculation along these lines is unnecessary. We’ll soon find out the answer empirically.

If any residual belief in Dave’s sanity had persisted, Lord Ashcroft’s announcement that he’ll stop financing the Tory party should dispel it once and for all. The party’s biggest donor has introduced a note of sanity by refusing to throw good money after bad because the Tories aren’t Tories any longer.

Specifically he cites Dave’s madcap obsession with marginal issues such as homomarriage, at the expense of what really matters. Such as the economy which, according to our professional Tories, has received a ringing vote of confidence from Moody’s and the currency markets.

This insanity, claims the dejected Croesus, curries favour with the metropolitan elite and no one else. How is this possible? Lord Ashcroft is sane, which explains his consternation. His world and Dave’s virtual reality exist on different and never intersecting planes, which is why they can never understand each other.

Lord Ashcroft wants to have a real Tory government because he knows the country would be much better off under one. By contrast, our self-proclaimed ‘heir to Blair’ wants to emulate his idol not only in but also out of office, the territory he’ll inhabit in a couple of years.

Tony, the great champion of the downtrodden working classes, is raking in millions on the lecture circuit. Have you ever attended one of his paying engagements? Neither have I. Tony’s present, and Dave’s future, audiences come from precisely ‘the metropolitan elite’ Lord Ashcroft holds in contempt. Dave may be mad, but there is method in his madness. One fails, however, to discern any method in a party that would have him as its leader or in a country that would have him as its prime minister.

Then there is Nick, getting caught in the good old-fashioned cover-up of Lord Rennard’s robust sexuality. Here I must defend Nick against those who accuse him of lying. The notion of lying presupposes that the perpetrator knows the difference between a truth and a lie. To chaps like Nick such real-world categories simply don’t exist. In the virtual world Nick shares with Dave, whatever is expedient at the moment is true. Explaining to them that truth has an independent significance is like trying to persuade a madman that he’s not really Napoleon.

Considering the problems plaguing the Coalition parties, one would expect Labour to run away with the Eastleigh by-election. In fact, the party is on course to finish a distant fourth (also behind UKIP), outside the medals. Could it be because the Hampshire voters doubt the sanity of a party where Ed Balls is in charge of economic policy?

Having been a key figure in the government that reduced the British economy to a loony bin, Ed has taken stock of the list of tricks he employed to achieve that task. High taxation? Tick. Incontinent spending? Tick. Borrowing 60 percent more than we earn? Tick. Uncontrolled import of welfare recipients? Tick. Giving even more powers to the EU to impose growth-stifling practices? Tick. 

This game of tick-tack-toe completed, Ed saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. More of the same, and the Labour economic policy is chiselled in stone. Apparently, the Hampshire worthies don’t quite see it the same way, but the country at large still may. That sort of thing makes sense in our virtual world.

Turn another page, and here are reports of our dear NHS, so envied by all other countries that they refuse to have anything like it. Apparently, this shining example for the world not to follow has decided to emulate Nazi medicine with its propensity for killing people.

And why not? The NHS has already adopted the same hectoring practices, lecturing us on our diets, smoking, drinking, preventive medicine and in general putting its foot down. For example, doctors routinely refuse to treat smoking-induced diseases because they are caused by people’s own behaviour. ‘How about AIDS?’ asks a sane individual. Off to the madhouse with him, that’s where sane people belong in an insane world.

Crushed underfoot are those poor patients who relied on the NHS sticking to its core business: ministering to the sick. They should have known that state enterprises exist for the benefit of state employees, and the NHS is a prime example. Not only is this abomination allowed to survive, but its chief is hanging on to his job. Let patients die so the NHS may live.

Doesn’t all this make perfect sense? In our mad world, it does. 

 

 

 

 

 

In response to Britain’s loss of the AAA credit rating, George Osborne promised to ‘redouble’ his efforts to reduce the deficit.

This is like the captain screaming ‘full speed ahead’ when his ship is heading for the rocks. George’s choice of verb, which comes from poker, also hints at his understanding of the essence of his economic policy. One can only wish that he gambled with his own money, not ours.

He then went on to admit with laudable perspicacity that ‘Britain’s got a debt problem’ which needs solving. How does this tally with his attempts to reduce the budget deficit? About as well as his 2010 promise to maintain our AAA rating relates to its yesterday’s loss.

Economics is simple, and it only appears complicated because of the fog screen constantly laid by economists and public officials. These lads self-perpetuate by hiding behind the wall of formulas, charts, graphs, ratios and projections. George too is one of the chaps for whom economics is too simple to understand.

For the rest of us, it can be easily reduced to a few core propositions that any schoolchild unencumbered by learning difficulties will grasp in a second. Let’s see if any of this would break through George’s resolve to steer his inept course.

Though our debt isn’t as catastrophic as Greece’s or Italy’s, catastrophic it is. This means that for a long time the state’s outgoings have exceeded its income. Now how do we reduce the debt? By taking in more than we spend and applying the difference to paying off our IOUs.

And what does this mean? Only that instead of our budget deficit, the one George wants to reduce, we must have a budget surplus. Will George and the rest of the gang achieve this logical goal? Have they even enunciated it?

No. They continue to spend more than they earn and then declare proudly that the gap is a smidgen smaller than it was under Tony-Gordon, the worst government in British history. But for as long as we have any deficit at all, the debt isn’t going to disappear – it’ll grow. Correct so far?

Next question. How do we eliminate – eliminate, George, not reduce – our deficit first and our debt second? Things are getting a little more complicated now, but they don’t have to become convoluted.

The solution is two-fold: the government must in parallel increase its income and reduce its spending – ideally. At a pinch we’ll accept one or the other, provided that the income remains greater than the expenditure.

God has created only two ways for a government to increase its income: printing (or borrowing) more money or increasing its tax revenue. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who everyone knows is nasty but few realise is stupid, says he’d borrow more. He doesn’t say at the moment that he’d increase the tax rates, but he doesn’t have to: it goes without saying. In other words, he’d revert to the criminal policies Labour pursued while in power. You know, those that got us in trouble in the first place.

The only healthy way for a government to get more in tax is not to increase rates but to make it possible for the economy to grow. Since the government isn’t directly involved in any productive activity, it can only effect growth by not hampering it. In other words, by reducing taxes, regulations, red tape, getting out of the EU (which is greatly responsible for all of the above).

The arithmetic is simple for anyone other than a politician or an economist to understand. Getting 20 percent from a man who earns £1,000,000 a year is better than getting 60 percent from one who makes do with a meagre £100,000. And getting 20 percent from someone who earns £100,000 is better than getting 30 percent from someone who earns £40,000.

The less of our income the state confiscates, the more we’ll be stimulated to earn. An economy isn’t a function of integral calculus; it’s an outcome of human behaviour. That’s why, as Arthur Laffer correctly explained to George’s American colleagues, a 100-percent tax rate will produce exactly the same tax revenue as a 0-percent rate will: none. The inference is logical: the state must get out of people’s hair and let them get on with it. The economy will grow, and tax revenue along with it.

Now the second part: reducing expenditure. We aren’t talking about a cosmetic nick here and there, usually accompanied by increases elsewhere. We’re talking about reducing government spending by at least a third, preferably by half.

This simply can’t be done without changing cardinally the role the state plays in our lives. This means eliminating the welfare state and reducing our social spending to what’s absolutely necessary to protect those who can’t protect themselves. (Note to George: ‘can’t’ doesn’t mean ‘won’t’, it’s something entirely different.)

It also means quite a few other things, such as getting rid of all government departments except half a dozen or so, dropping fully nationalised healthcare and education and so on. I won’t go into details here. Let’s just say that, unless state involvement in the economy and indeed our lives is reduced dramatically, George can double and redouble all he wants – he’ll be called and he’ll lose. More important, so will we.

For as long as he and that lot remain in Westminster, nothing of the sort will ever be done. The deficit will stay. So will the debt. The economy won’t grow enough to make a difference, if at all. The state won’t pay its way. Things will remain dire – regardless of who leads the main parties or which one of them is in power.

Colonel Pride, where are you when we need you?

 

 

 

 

France has much to criticise it for, as do all other countries, even – and I know this will come as a shock to most Americans – the USA. Moreover, France and all other countries must be criticised, especially by those who like and understand them.

Now it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that few Americans like France and even fewer understand it. In general, nuanced sensitivity to foreign ethos isn’t high on the list of most salient American virtues. That’s why, whenever they level opprobrium at other lands, they evince not so much loving concern as obtuse pig-headedness.

Unlike the British, whose understated affection for the French goes back more than 1,000 years, the Americans don’t have such venerable history to fall back on. In fact, but for France’s support during their Revolution, the Americans would today be saluting the Union Jack, not Old Glory.

Much of their resentment is of recent provenance. It goes back about 10 years when the French presciently refused to support the Americans’ concerted effort to Islamise and radicalise the Middle East.

By way of revenge the Americans began to boycott French wine and cheese, which action ought to be mentioned in the dictionary entry for ‘masochism’. They also expurgated the word ‘French’ from their vocabulary, typically replacing it with ‘freedom’, as in ‘freedom fries’ and presumably – I’m guessing here – ‘freedom kissing’, ‘freedom fashion’ and ‘freedom letters’.

This is part of the background to the ill-mannered outburst by Maurice Taylor, CEO of the American tyre maker Titan International. He rudely declined an offer to buy a plant in Amiens, citing the laziness of French workers, the statutorily short hours they work, their long holidays and the time they take for lunch. ‘Do you think we’re stupid?’ he asked indignantly.

No Mr Taylor, I wouldn’t call you stupid. I’d call you ignorant – not so much of France’s work practices as of her ethos, which is fundamentally different from America’s, or for that matter Britain’s.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that the French economy is held back by the country’s stifling labour laws, predominance of vastly corrupt and powerful unions, expropriatory taxation and loyalty to the EU. It’s also true that the French as a nation spend less time at work than the Americans and the British. In fact the French economy is ticking away on 20 percent fewer man-hours than in the UK.

Yet, even though France and Britain have roughly the same population, France’s GDP is greater than ours, which, if my arithmetic serves, suggests their workers are considerably more productive. The quality of the goods they produce, including in the sector served by Mr Taylor, isn’t too shabby either. Show me a man who’d choose Titan’s Goodyear tyres for his car, in preference to Michelins, and I’ll show you someone who knows nothing about driving.

How do they do it, considering all the self-imposed yokes on their economy? I don’t know. But, discounting divine intervention, one could guess at some possible reasons.

For example, for all their recent efforts to reverse the situation, the French are still better educated than either the Americans or the British. They could even be more talented, though something inside me refuses to accept this possibility. It could also be that their absence of maniacal dedication to working themselves into an early grave, something observable in the US, makes French workers happier, calmer, less exhausted and therefore more productive.

Max Weber, who knew a thing or two about such matters, ascribed the rise of capitalism to the Protestant work ethic. One wonders if, should he live today, he’d ascribe some of capitalism’s decline to the same source.

Catholics or, to be more precise and up to date, those raised in a Catholic culture, work to live. Many Protestants, religious or merely cultural, live to work. From their early childhood they have been imbued with belief in the redemptive value of hard work. And even acquisitiveness, to which the traditional Christian attitude is at best tepid, has acquired a religious dimension in Protestant, especially Calvinist, countries.

According to Calvin, wealth is God’s way of telling its recipient that he’s living a righteous life. And hard work is ipso facto a function of virtue. That’s why so many Americans and even Englishmen feel awkward about leaving the office on time, even if there’s no reason to stay late.

To cite the example of the industry with which I’m familiar, advertising on both sides of the Atlantic, someone who heads for the door at 5.30 on the dot draws disapproving glances. Not working weekends is taken as a sign of negligence and moral failure. ‘If you don’t come in on Saturday, don’t bother coming in on Sunday’ is the motto of one of America’s major agencies.

However, many of my American and British colleagues have worked in France, and they have instructive stories to tell. The French leave work early, have more public holidays, take all of August off (‘toute la France est en vacances,’ as they put it), knock off at lunchtime on Fridays, especially in summer. And yet they get a lot done – at least as much as Anglophone admen do.

Part of the reason is that they spend a lot less time in meetings – another Protestant trait. As work to Protestants is a matter of life or death, it can’t be done in a haphazard manner – every ‘i’ must be dotted and every ‘t’ crossed before actual work can start. Reversing the Anglophone practice, the French do a bit of talking and a lot of working, thus saving hours every day for productive labour. This leaves them enough time and energy for their ubiquitous ‘cinque à sept’ trysts – occasionally even for more time with their families.

Personally, much as I deplore French statism, red tape and incipient government tyranny, I prefer the French take on work ethic to the American. It’s understandable that Americans may feel differently, and they may even be right. But before running off at the mouth they would do well to learn a bit more about different cultures. Who knows, they may then learn to treat them with more respect and express themselves with more tact. As it is, the likes of Taylor give ‘tous les Anglo-Saxons’ a bad name.