Further to my post about the Question Time audience, of all people, being skeptical about the virtues ID cards, it seems the meme has infiltrated as far as the ranks of comedians, no less.

So far I’ve seen Big Blunkett and his ID cards being mocked on Have I Got News For You, Dead Ringers and 2DTV. The jokes mostly play on the uselessness of the cards to stop terrorists, but there was also the one about Blunkett complaining that the details of his private life should be kept private (at least until they get stamped onto an ID card).

Anyway, since everyone likes to have a laugh these jokes are bound to have a far deeper effect on public opinion than any number of bloggers, columnists or home secretaries.

Incidentally, if you haven’t already, sign here.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Civil Liberties at 12:34 AM EST

2 Comments »

I just caught the tail end of the discussion about ID cards on tonight’s Question Time. David Dimbleby announced that a MORI poll found that 80% of people were in favour of the introduction of ID cards. He then conducted a poll of the audience. Only a scattering of people raised their hands in favour of the cards, and most of the audience raised their hands against.

Claire Short suggested that this was because everyone in the audince was from Liverpool, and of course people in Liverpool are an independent bunch. David Dimbleby joked that maybe this told us more about MORI than about Liverpudlians.

That widespread opposition to ID cards can be voiced on the BBC is cause for some hope.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Civil Liberties at 11:21 PM EST

4 Comments »

Not content with increasing the world’s awareness of blogs, the Adam Smith Institute recently issued a report about flat tax. The idea is simple: get rid of all the stupid, complicated tax codes with multiple bands, VAT, investment taxes and double taxes, and replace it all with a straightforward low income tax rate. You can simultaneously lower the overall tax burden, increase revenues, decrease bureaucracy and eliminate all the wasted effort of the armies of accountants that are needed to get anything done these days. As an added benefit, everyone can see exactly how much they’re paying and can invest without having to worry about dodging taxes.

Now I make no secret of the fact that I think all tax is bad, but this idea is such a refreshing step in the right direction that its adoption would give me much to be happy about. People who know more about this kind of thing than I do suggest it might even become a reality some time in the next five years.

Read the whole report, it’s only about twenty pages long and is about the most interesting tax related document you’ll ever read!

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 12:12 AM EST

11 Comments »

I’ve just returned from a round table event at the Adam Smith Institute about democracy and the blogosphere. The speakers were the journalist Stephen Pollard; William Heath, chairman of Kable Ltd; Sandy Starr of Spiked Online; and Perry de Havilland of Samizdata. They each spoke and then there were questions, answers and debate.

There was considerably less blog evangelism than might have been expected. Stephen Pollard said he didn’t have much to say about blogging and democracy, he just writes a blog as an outlet for his views. Sandy Starr prefers writing proper articles for Spiked to blogging, and made the point that if blogging is such a revolutionary tool this will become apparent in time, hype or no hype. Perry de Havilland is no fan of democracy. He said that blogs are a really a tool for individuals to socialise by expressing views and engaging in debate. So it seems that no-one is entertaining the unlikely notion of politicians all writing blogs and daily interacting online with their constituents.

Instead, the value of blogs is that they’re an excellent resource for finding out what’s really going on and what people really think around the world. They’re also great for keeping politicians and journalists in check by fact checking. But the real killer is that they allow people to write and read views that do not get an airing in the mainstream press.

Although there are bloggers of all shapes and political persuasions, I have noticed that most of them who have anything to say on the subject want governments to leave them alone more. It makes sense that bloggers are individualists because people who are happy to agree with the majority just don’t have strong enough views to write about. It is good news because it shifts the balance of debate into a more libertarian direction. And while most people read newspapers instead of blogs, the people who write newspapers are increasingly reading blogs. (Even more so soon, considering the number of journalists at the Adam Smith Institute this evening — listen out for talk of blogging on Radio 4.)

At some point the ideas of libertarian bloggers will enter mainstream conciousness, and such things as a ban on two-for-the-price-of-one cake offers won’t seem like such a good idea to quite so many people. I can hope, at least.

Posted by Rob Fisher as News at 11:47 PM EST

3 Comments »

I’ve just watched an item on the BBC local news about the closure of London’s last remaining independent cinema, The Other Cinema. Apparently the cinema showed such classics as Farenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me, in which some idiot eats nothing but McDonalds for a month and wonders why he gets sick.

Because no-one wanted to watch these films, the cinema petitioned for public funding, because naturally the taxpayer should be forced to pay for films they don’t watch. This failed, presumably because there wasn’t any public money left after all the other important art, Trafalgar Square rallies and bureaucrats’ expenses had been paid for.

But I have seen some very good low budget films, so it would be a shame if all such cinemas failed. Perhaps this failure is something to do with the nature of the independent film industry. I’m speculating, but what if to get onto independent screens you have to win the acclaim of socialist, anti-capitalist, environmentalist, anti-American gatekeepers to whom commercial viability is anathema? And what if no-one wants to see the films that these people like (after all, they’re not commercially viable)? Might there not be a market for independent films that the idependent film establishment doesn’t like?

I can see no reason in principle why you can’t make a good film on a low budget that is also commercially viable. If independent cinemas showed such films they wouldn’t have to choose between coercion or closure.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Introspection at 7:41 PM EST

7 Comments »

Last night I went to see the new Bridget Jones movie. It was jolly entertaining, but one scene revealed something interesting about the writers’ prejudices.

Ms. Jones was at a party where a lawyer was introduced as being against all charitable giving. Bridget suggested that that was the sort of thing only a balding, Tory voting twit would say. But the Tory voting character is a straw man. Tory voters are not against charitable giving at all. Neither are “the right”, libertarians or others in favour of economic freedom. Mention of charitable giving misses the point entirely.

What such people are actually against is robbing from the rich to give to the poor; those who think they know how better to spend it taking money by force. The welfare system is not a form of charitable giving because charitable giving is voluntary. It is this misconception that leads to accusations of heartlessness, and from which the left derives its caring, sharing image.

Quite apart from being funded by extortion, the welfare system suffers from the same inefficiencies that most government endeavours do. It becomes subject to the tyranny of whoever whinges the loudest — funds are spread arbitrarily and are wasted on bureaucracy and equality and diversity officers. Because private charities compete with each other, their money is distributed according to the wishes of the people giving the money — people who can do something about waste when they see it by sending their donations elsewhere.

Taxes paid to support the welfare system starve private charities, diverting money from where it might actually be useful to where it is wasted. Furthermore, these taxes stunt economic growth and diminish people’s ability to save money to look after themselves, causing more people to need charitable help in the first place.

As Eric Raymond wrote, “[t]he kind of charity you can force out of people nourishes about as much as the kind of love you can buy — and spreads even nastier diseases.”

Posted by Rob Fisher as General at 11:03 PM EST

3 Comments »

I went to a fireworks display the other night where I was shocked to find that sparklers were prohibited. Who comes up with these rules, and are these people mad? Surely they will not rest until every risk no matter how small or inconsequential has been eliminated. When that day comes we’ll all want to slit our wrists with our safety scissors because there’ll be nothing fun left to do.

Scott Burgess has list of other things that have been banned recently.

This bonfire safety nonsense is more widespread, as a Spiked article reveals.

Posted by Rob Fisher as General at 9:58 PM EST

4 Comments »