Public Health - Private Choice

Despite my libertarian tendencies, I do accept that there are certain things that government has to do and for which government is necessary. The maintenance of basic infrastructure, the enforcement of the rule of law and the defence of the nation for instance are all things that would be very hard to organise properly any other way. 

However, there are many areas where government interference is not just a bad idea, it is expensive and counterproductive.  One such area is "public health": a carefully self-justifying phrase. It sounds like an obviously good thing - after all, that's health for all of us, right? But actually "public health" is generally a euphemism for "telling people what to do".  The constant barrage of "public health initiatives" under this government has not made people any healthier. Despite the enormous amounts of our money spent telling us not to eat junk food, not to eat salt, not to drink alcohol, not to smoke and so on, we are forever being told that as a nation we are fatter, less healthy and more prone to binge-drinking and the resulting general thuggery.

This is not surprising - the "public" is not, as government bodies assume, a single entity, but a group of individuals. As an individual, I will put as much salt on my food as is required to make it taste nice, no matter what the government say. If I had children, I would do the same for them. And if I want to go out and drink beer in the pub with my friends until closing time and then sway gently home, I will do this too. It really doesn't matter how much the government tell me not to: if I like it I'll do it - it's my choice, after all.

And this is why people like Dr Alan Maryon-Davis are so wide of the mark. He is such a fan of these public health initiatives (we pay him to be, whether we like it or not) that he wants to extend them yet further. In the article I've linked to, he proposes banning people from smoking in their car if there is a child on board. But a car is private property - so legislation like this would logically lead to all sorts of other rules about what we can and can't do, even in our own homes. I surely can't be the only person to think that this is not just a bad idea, but wrong. 

Public health sounds like a great idea, but the reality is often expensive, illiberal and ineffective: inform us by all means, but stop the "it's for your own good" nannying. 

The problem with Gaza - we still lack humanism.

It may seem presumptuous to suggest that I know what the problem is with the Middle East. But I think I do. I don't know how to solve it, unfortunately, or rather I have no sensible way of achieving what needs to be achieved, but I can see where we're going wrong.

Gaza is, like so many violent flashpoints, riven by religious divisions. In this particular case, we have to go back to 1947 when the British Mandate of Palestine, designed to provide a "national home for the Jewish people" and accepted by the League of Nations, was interpreted by the UN as a partitioned Palestine: part Jewish and part Arab. Indeed, Jerusalem was to be an international city, presided over by the UN.

The state of Israel, unhappy with this arrangement, then declared independence in 1948, which started a war with its neighbours. A war which has, to all intents and purposes, never stopped. 

The problem here, and it is fundamental, is a lack of humanism. The Jewish people and the Arabs are not different in any significant way. Indeed, one could argue historically that they worship the same god, more or less. But that's just it - worshipping under a different set of rules shouldn't matter.

The Jewish people feel that they have been persecuted over the centuries. This is undoubtedly true, but they are far from being the only religious/ethnic group who have suffered, and they must not use this as an excuse - all it amounts to is "he hit me first" - which has never been accepted by parents dealing with brawling children, after all. 

On the other hand, we currently have Hamas, a bunch of Islamists who are undoubtedly as bad as the serious Zionists. Their presumption (and it drives them) is that people of other ethnicities and other faiths are inherently inferior. Evil, even. This is so ludicrous I almost don't want to discuss it, but I do think it's important to explain why they are wrong.

I don't expect everyone to love each other. That's not how people work. Jesus was a great teacher of loving kindness, but he was an idealist too. Nevertheless, we must understand that if the human race is to operate in any sensible, productive way, we must rise above the ancient religious bickering and start to respect the human. Because we are all human: the reason agnostics in Milton Keynes get upset about the slaughter of children in Gaza is not because they are Hamas supporters; it's because they are witnessing entirely needless human suffering. And it isn't helpful to blame one side or the other.  That merely reinforces an artificial divide. 

The Middle East is being torn apart by the great falsehood of the ancient religions: that by adhering to your particular religion, you become better than those who don't. This isn't true. I hope this is self-evident. A human being is a human being, not inherently better or worse than any other. If that human is doing nothing to harm anyone, it should be left alone to get on with its life. 

This surely shouldn't be so hard. But for millennia it has been. Humans feel threatened by difference, but they shouldn't: if someone is trying to hurt you, they are bad, and you should fight it. But if someone simply wants to live next door, or even share your country then have a good look  - is this person actually any sort of threat? Or are they a simply another human just like you?

Ken's back, and not a moment too soon

It was with great relief that I heard today that Ken Clarke is officially back in the shadow cabinet, after an absence that really has been too long. One of the few really credible, capable and knowledgeable politicians in the House of Commons was wasted on the back benches and if ever we needed him, it's, well, about two years ago, actually, before this whole credit business came to a head. His has been one of the few really sane voices in the whole debate: a soothing balm of common sense to alleviate the pain of being forced to listen to Gordon Brown and his idiots, sorry, team, talking about getting into lots more debt to solve a problem caused by, er, too much debt. Putting out a fire with petrol has never been a good idea.

As shadow Business Secretary, Ken is up against Peter "Mandy" Mandelson, whose return has not helped at all. Here's hoping that Call Me Dave actually listens to Clarke - we might even end up with some vaguely sensible alternative economic policies from Her Majesty's Opposition. 

The Conservatives will have to do better than a desperate housewife

Last night's BBC Question Time panel was a woeful sight. From left we had:

Lembit Opik, whose calls for a "mature debate" sit uncomfortably with his childish publicity-seeking behaviour.

Will Self, the self appointed guru of pessimism, who clearly (erroneously) believes himself intellectually superior to the rest of the human race. Sitting next to Lembit Opik, his face looked almost normal.

Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP and former nurse who appeared to have no real opinions at all as she sought to say almost anything which would get her a bit of applause.

Jim Knight (who?), the Schools Minister, who sat and merrily parroted the script he'd had written for him in an affable but vacant way.

And the awful, horse-faced Esther Rantzen, whose recent time in the jungle appears to have so addled her brain that she thinks Gordon Brown has been a great steward of our economy.

Most depressing, for someone who cherishes the prospect of a new, better government in the near future, was that the Conservatives had seen fit to put forward Nadine Dorries. She was so out of her depth she really needed a snorkel, and she wasn't up against the hottest political opposition, either. It was like listening to one long vox pop from a suburban housewife who had read a Conservative press release, rather than a spokesman for Her Majesty's Opposition. Even Lembit "I'm a Cheeky Boy, look at my Segway" Opik sounded serious by comparison.

Come on, Dave, you can do better than this. At a time when proper Conservatism is more important than it has been for years, we need to hear credible Conservative voices, not token blonde women.

Welcome to Devon

This weekend I went to Budleigh Salterton, near Exmouth for a pretty hectic 48 hours. In this time I was struck be just how friendly and helpful the locals were (with the exception of the staff in the CoOp, who were deeply suspicious of us) and how relaxed the whole place seemed to be. As a Londoner, the following story more or less sums it up.

At the end of the first night, after a rehearsal with the band and a trip to the pub, I was walking back to my hotel. Unfortunately, I was walking back a different way to the way I had driven earlier, and I had taken a wrong turning, and ended up in an unidentifiable residential street - street lighting is sparse. When I realised this, I stopped to get my Sat Nav out of my rucksack, which seemed the sensible thing to do to find out where I was. As I did this, a police car approached. I thought nothing of it - in London, police cars are around all the time. But the policeman (who was alone in the patrol car) stopped and asked me if I was alright and if I knew where I was going. I told him where I was staying and said I was going to check on my Sat Nav (which I had in my hand), so I was fine. He got there first with his and offered me a lift. In fact, he insisted on giving me a lift to my hotel, sympathising with my plight - "it all looks different at night, don't it?". 

A policeman with so little to worry about that he can give a lift to someone who is perfectly capable of finding his own way? That's Budleigh for you.

New info in the sidebar

Courtesy of http://www.conservatives.com/ I now have a widget (to the right of this post) to show me what my current share of the national debt is, updated in real time. It's also your share of the national debt, of course. And everyone else's.

Gordon Brown is a complete idiot

I know this isn't an original sentiment. And I know it may seem like an obvious, if blunt thing to say. But I think on the evidence of recent days and weeks it is so self-evidently true that it needs to be said. I shall explain my reasoning.

First of all, Gordy has lost all sense of proportion. Whenever anything unfortunate happens and is heavily reported in the media, he has now decided that he must promise "change". This means that, in addition to everything else he has got on, he now has to find time to prevent a small child ever being abused by a parent and to prevent anyone ever raping a relative again. This is silly - of course they are hypothetically laudable ambitions, but they are also impossible, and he knows it.

Second of all, El Gordo and his puppet chancellor Alistair "Captain" Darling have decided to sell the whole country down the river because they're determined to be seen to be doing something about the inevitable recession (inevitable, of course, because of their terrible stewardship of the economy). In particular, they have decided to something immensely expensive (knock 2.5% off VAT) which will make no real difference. I know this, because I asked an expert: me. Me, I said, will you now go out and spend more money because Captain Darling has reduced VAT to 15%? No, I replied, it won't make a tiny bit of difference, especially since he has carefully made sure that the fun stuff, like whisky, won't be any cheaper. So why all the extra borrowing to finance it? And why punish those of us who are actually working by putting up National Insurance contributions?

Thirdly, Gorders has developed a messiah complex. Everything he does now is as a sort of superhero, come to save the world. And from what? Mostly things of his own making. His current behaviour is disastrous - both for the economy of this country in years to come and for any chance of sensible reactions to unfortunate, isolated incidents. He can't save Baby P, he won't save the economy and he should do the only sensible thing and leave well alone. As P.J. O'Rourke so incisively put it, "Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and the car keys to teenage boys". Trouble is, Gordy B has already got through a bottle of Old Moorhen's Shredded Sporran and is currently attempting to drive the British economy backwards up a motorway in rush hour.