Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesGay marriage? Straight marriage? Just de-regulate marriage
Posted on January 18, 2012The gay marriage debate is back.
The Coalition plans to lift the ban, changing the law to allow same-sex marriage. The Independent reports that David Burrowes MP is (somewhat implausibly) claiming there will be a triple-figure rebellion of Tory backbenchers to defeat the plans.
The Evangelical Alliance claim the proposals signal “the end of conservatism” (despite Evangelical Christianity being a new radicalism, rather than a conservative movement). Ben Summerskill of Stonewall has accused backbench Tories of “old-fashioned homophobia” (on the evidence of only one MP’s comments).
On one side, supposedly the very concept of the family is threatened if the Government changes its regulations. On the other side, unless the Government extends its regulations then a whole tranche of the population are given second class status under the law.
The mud flies, the rhetorical stakes are raised again and again. Questions fly, and few useful answers are delivered.
But what is the libertarian response? The answer must surely be that the State should not regulate marriage at all.
Two people agree to make a private contract between each other. They make it for love, or for family logistics, or for religious belief. They make their vows before God, or before their friends and family or simply before each other. That is down to them.
Marriage is an unusual kind of contract, but it is one nonetheless – each party makes pledges, receiving promises and takes on responsibilities in return.
Where is the Government’s place at the wedding breakfast table? Why should the grey-suited regulator get a save-the-date and a dainty invite?
The best way to banish the acrimony and the legislative to and fro over same sex marriage is to abolish the regulation of all marriage entirely. It is the vowing to each other, the exchanging of rings and the sealing kiss, not the signing of the State’s register, that is the focal point of a couple’s day.
A time for Eurosceptics to become the positive voice
Posted on December 12, 2011The reaction of pro-EU voices to David Cameron’s refusal to support fiscal union has been very revealing.
It has been revealing in that it has demonstrated clearly that the tiny pro-EU rump left in this country are actually happy with the idea that unelected EU officials should be able to overrule democratically elected Governments to dictate how member states’ financial affairs are run.
It has been very revealing that the EU establishment clearly never intended for vetoes to be used, and in fact is happy to circumvent them – ie that they have been a smokescreen all along.
It has also revealed what many of us have been saying in and around Westminster for some time – voters are sick of seeing British leaders roll over to have their tummy tickled at the EU negotiating table. Voters overwhelmingly agree with David Cameron on this one, and he’ll gain from that. Paddy Ashdown, by contrast, must be counting himself lucky that he’s no longer accountable to the electorate, so he can safely run round town shouting the EU’s message.
Most revealing of all, in my view, is the stark demonstration that the pro-EU side of British politics deeply and fundamentally lack faith in the abilities and potential of modern Britain. Without the protective wing of Mother Brussels and her trade barriers to shelter us, we are surely lost, they claim. Not for a second do they mull the idea that Britain has the capability to stand on its own two feet.
When they talk of retaining British “influence”, they mean that we can only retain influence in a reputational sense by sacrificing it in a practical sense. They mean that only by giving up our actual control over how we run our economy, our criminal justice system, our food production, our trading relationships and much more can we retain the cosy feeling of attending EU leaders’ banquets.
This is an insidious and depressing philosophy – talking Britain down, and automatically assuming that British scientists, entrepreneurs, business people and ordinary workers can never make their own way in the world. To use a 1970s term, they want a return to managing the nation’s decline.
For far too long the EU’s cheerleaders have been able to portray themselves as being on the sunny side of the street. They loved to make out that they were the friendly, positive optimists who saw sunny uplands in Britain’s future.
Contrast that to their message today:
“Suez seems mild in comparison. What sort of nation is it that rejoices in its own defeat?” – Labourlist
“At a time of economic crisis, we have made it more attractive for investors to go to northern Europe.” – Paddy Ashdown
“A Britain which leaves the EU would be considered irrelevant by Washington and will be considered a pygmy in the world.” – Nick Clegg
“In a world in which the influences of the old powers is diminishing by the day, Britain’s prime minister has attacked his closest partners and left our country weaker and more isolated” – Chris Davies MEP
There are plenty more bits of negativity where those came from, too. The peculiar and rare strain of politics that is Euro-enthusiasm is now essentially united around the core belief that Britain is a basket case. That’s not an idea which will set the electorate on fire with enthusiasm.
It is time to seize properly on this issue, and for eurosceptics to become the voice of positivity.
Where those who believe in integration see only weakness, we see great potential in Britain. Where they want protectionism, even at the cost of our economic health and starving bellies in the Third World, we want free trade and new enterprise. Where they look to secure a bed in the Little European retirement home, slowly dwindling away with the rest of the EU’s outdated economies, we want to reach out to trade with the whole world – India, China, Brazil and others.
When you talk to voters about the great issues of the day, they want to know what the future will look like for their children. Would they rather hear someone say “we think they’re done for, so we’ll give up their democratic rights in order to buy a seat in a declining economic bloc”, or “we’ll have faith in them to innovate and trade with the whole world”? The Lib Dems’ reluctance to collapse the Coalition and face an election rather answers that.
Exclusive: David Cameron’s Lib Dem teasing jokes
Posted on October 03, 2011Guido has reported the best joke so far of the Conservative Party conference, which he overheard in one of the conference bars:
The Liberals used to shoot your dog, now they steal your cat
It’s a good gag, but the teller of it was pulling a fast one by passing it off as their own – in fact, I can reveal the joke was originally told by none other than David Cameron himself at a closed meeting of the Party Convention yesterday morning.
That puts it in a whole new setting – we saw Tim Farron and others pleasing the Lib Dem activists a fortnight ago by ranting and railing against evil Conservatives, and there’s been some speculation about whether senior Tories would use the same tactic to keep their own ranks happy. We haven’t seen it on the stage yet, but behind the scenes there’s a fair bit of work being done to reassure people that the Coalition is not an unblemished love-in.
Media moguls past and present
Posted on July 13, 2011An interesting bit of background has arisen with today’s announcement of the inquiry into phone hacking. It’s to be led by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, one of the most senior lawyers in the land and unquestionably someone with a huge bank of knowledge and experience to draw on.
Within his long and prominent career, it seems, is a previous brush with a powerful media mogul. According to this archived article from 1997:
Sir Brian has also been involved in serious complex civil cases including acting for Milford Haven Port Authority following the running aground of the Sea Princess and in hearings connected with the Robert Maxwell scandal.
I can’t find any transcripts from the hearings of the time as yet. It may be that his experience is one of the reasons for his appointment, or it may be that it’s totally irrelevant, but it would be interesting to know what his views on media owners were at the time.
EXCLUSIVE: Charles Moore steps down as Policy Exchange Chairman. *UPDATE*replaced by Finkelstein*UPDATE*
Posted on June 15, 2011I understand that Charles Moore, the journalist and long-serving Chairman of Policy Exchange, is going to announce that he’s stepping down from PX very shortly.
This means one of the most influential jobs in centre-right thinktankery is up for grabs. Who will be taking over at “David Cameron’s favourite think tank”?
We will find out soon, I’m told – apparently it will be a senior centre right commentator with exemplary Number 10 links. Intriguing.
Any guesses?
**UPDATE**
ConservativeHome have just revealed that the new Chairman of Policy Exchange will be Danny Finkelstein.
Five lessons from the AV referendum
Posted on May 09, 2011The dust has settled, the fog of war has dissipated, and every other introductory cliche in the book has been used. What have we really learned about British politics from the crushing victory of the No2AV campaign? There are five implications that I can see for the practice and principle of politics. Here they are, in no particular order:
1) Combat Campaigning is here to stay. For several years now there have been signs that the methods and style of political campaigning have been evolving in Britain.As the old party system has become weaker, there were two voices vying to be its heir: on one side there was combative, streetfighting campaigning built on the belief that a proper dust-up interests people and produces the best ideas; on the other side was a consensus model, founded on the idea that no-one liked a nasty argument and it was much better to build a cosy centrist consensus.
Not only did the two sides in the AV referendum employ these two competing models – with No going combative and Yes opting for cuddles and herbal tea – but their beliefs aligned with them as well. AV is a system founded on the idea that politicians should share body warmth smack in the centre, whilst First Past the Post is about the battle of ideas.
The fact that No won bears out both the model of campaigning they employed and the belief that they were fighting for – people are more interested in a boxing match than a singalong. While Yes tried to argue that real life is preferential and consensual, voters thought otherwise. The campaigning style espoused by No, and pioneered in the UK by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, is successful and on that basis it here to stay.
2) The “Progressive Majority” doesn’t exist…except in the minds of Islingtonians who can’t bear to imagine that anyone might disagree with them. Whether it’s LeftFootForward, Laurie Penny, Polly Toynbee or Liberal Conspiracy there’s an in-built smug sense of virtue to the new British Left – they think something, they know they’re the most compassionate and sensible people on the block, so therefore everyone must think the same, right? I mean, almost every TV comedian does, so obviously the rest of the population are on board too? Nope. It turns out that only Islington, Camden, Hackney, Cambridge, Oxford and part of Glasgow supported AV, the “Progressive Majority’s” new favourite child – and nationally on 6.1 million people even support AV, never mind the Progressives’ supposed vision of Britain. The referendum proved that those who shout loudest are not automatically the most numerous.
3) There is no such thing as Progressive. Not only is there no majority in favour of it, there is actually no such thing as Progressivism. In effect it could be defined accurately as: Progressive, noun, Someone nice, ie in agreement with me.
The really notable thing about this referendum is the way that it split the Left. The Lib Dems and the self-declared “Progressive Majority” – a broadly young rump of Labour, the NUS and the SWP’s twitterati and commentariat – divided from the mass base that they normally assume they can ignore and still gain funding from.
I’m only an outsider looking in on the Left, but if you viewed yourself as “Progressive” before the referendum, only to be told that if you voted No then you weren’t in the club any more, you’d now be reassessing whether you’re a “Progressive” any more.
4) No-one likes a whinger. Someone – I can’t remember who – once said that “It isn’t fair” is the most powerful message in British politics.
They were right, but the Yes camp ably demonstrated that this is only true when your situation genuinely isn’t fair. It’s not fair that if you join the Army you end up buying your own kit. It’s not fair that if you save all your life and provide for your kids you get hammered with extra taxes while others get a subsidy at your expense. It’s not fair that the Gurkhas risked their lives for this nation then told them to do a running jump.
When your opponents in a referendum campaign starting hitting you hard by digging up quotes that prove you’ve done an about-face or talking about Nick Clegg, that certainly is fair. You’re not going to gain any fans by trying to get judges to enforce Marquess of Queensberry Rules – in fact, you’re going to make people think you’re a bit of a wet blanket and don’t deserve their vote. So don’t moan, fight back.
5) People want more power. In the run-up to the referendum, everyone was saying that turnout would be apocalyptically low, threatening the idea that people wanted to be allowed to vote on important matters. It’s understandable why they thought people might not turnout – AV was a proposal hardly anyone had heard of previously and even fewer people actually liked (including most of the Yes campaign).
But that’s not how it turned out. Even on a boring proposal which had been brought forward as a result of political shenanigans in Whitehall back-offices, more than 40% turned out. That’s not bad given the topic. Imagine how many would turn out to vote in a referendum on, say, EU membership?
Student Union turnouts shows the Unions lack a mandate
Posted on March 04, 2011The NUS and the Student Unions have made great play in the last few months about the Coalition’s supposed lack of “democratic legitimacy” or a “mandate”. Cameron and Clegg, we are told, don’t really represent the voters.
The Student Union establishment is on shaky ground here, as today’s news from Sheffield University shows. In publishing the results for their SU elections they proudly boast that they have achieved “the highest ever election turnout for a Students’ Union election in the UK”.
So what was this staggering percentage? Erm, 23.82%
Yes, you read that right. They who complain about the democratic legitimacy of the Government can only achieve a turnout from their own constituents that would make most local councils blush.
Thom Arnold, the Sheffield student president elect, received 1,933 first preference votes out of 6765 cast – a miserable 28.5% of the 23.82% of the constituents who bothered to vote. It was only after six rounds that he was able to go through on others’ lower preferences.
This is the same old story – most Student Unions are far worse. I remember when I was elected to represent Durham at the NUS conference (for my sins) we had a miserable turnout of 10% or so. When we arrived at the conference we were amazed to find that most other delegates viewed our “high” turnout as a remarkable success.
At the core of this news is a simple truth that they don’t want to accept – the so-called “student leaders” are utterly disconnected from the people they claim to represent. They don’t inspire attention from most students, never mind confidence or actual support. Next time they throw stones at the Government, they might want to pause to consider their own glass house.