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How Dominic Cummings should have handled his press conference

May 26, 2020 – 3:45 pm

Cummings should have done is this:

1. Pointed out the wording of the guidance/law which said that people with children in special circumstances could use their judgement and ignore the rule.

2. Every time Cummings was asked a question about how he justified his behaviour he should have simply referred the questioner to the special circumstances passage in the guidance/law. The reptiles would soon have lost interest.

3. Offered to resign if

a) every one of the reptiles who beseiged his London home is fired from their job for not observing the social distancing rules and not reemployed in the media.

b) if any member of the Commons or Lords who breaks the rules is forced to resign.

Cummings most stupid mistake was his claim that his drive to Barnard Castle was to test his eyesight. He made the classic error of someone trying to plug a hole in a story only to find he had created a bigger hole.

However, if he had done what I propose the Barnard Castle trip would have been put on the back burner as the politicians and the media ran away from attacking him when their own position was threatened. If he had to give an explanation for the Barnard Castle trip he should have said his car was playing up on his drive to the NE – a knocking noise would do the trick – and he wanted to make see how the car was running before the 260 mile drive home.

This would prompt the question “Why did you not seek the help of a mechanic? ”

Best answer: because I did not want to breach the lockdown rules.”

Worst answer: there weren’t any mechanics available. ”

The worst answer is the worst answer because it leads off to another line of questioning – “What efforts did you make to find a mechanic ” and such forth.

The best answer is a simple one which leads nowhere beyond the answer itself.

Finally, I do not know what the problem is with the Cummings child, but having put the “my child has special problems” into play Cummings needed to play it to its uttermost, ie, say clearly what the child’s problem is.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Elite Mischief, Politics | Also tagged law | Comments (0)

Bruges Groups meeting 24 September 2014 – The EU’s attack on Britain’s most successful industry [the City]

September 28, 2014 – 10:43 pm

Prof Tim Congdon (Founder of Lombard Street Research)

Dr Gerrard Lyons (Chief Economic Adviser to Mayor of London )

Lars Seiet Chistensen (CEO Saxo Bank)

Robert Henderson

The three speakers were all agreed on this

The desirability of Britain’s financial services sector continuing to grow.
The dominance of London as a purveyor of financial products.
The damaging effect of the EU on the City in particular and British financial services in general, both at present and the great potential for much more destructive EU policies in the future.
The resentment of other EU members, particularly the large ones, of Britain’s dominance as a financial centre. Congdon and Christensen suggested that this resentment led to active attempts by the EU to take away this British dominance through EU legislation.

Other points to note were (a) Congdon and Christensen being certain that the only way forward for Britain was to leave the EU because Cameron’s promised renegotiation would produce nothing of consequence and (b) Lyons coming out with the “London benefits from immigration” fantasy (exactly who benefits?) and claiming, curiously , that what was needed was the “financial equivalent to the Luxembourg compromise” to protect the City, curiously because the Compromise, if it has any practical force at all (which is dubious), already covers such financial matters because it embraces all aspects of the EU open to majority vote, viz “Where, in the case of decisions which may be taken by majority vote on a proposal of the Commission, very important interests of one or more partners are at stake, the Members of the Council will endeavour, within a reasonable time, to reach solutions which can be adopted by all the Members of the Council while respecting their mutual interests and those of the Community”.

“However, the Compromise, which is only a political declaration by Foreign Ministers and cannot amend the Treaty, did not prevent the Council from taking decisions in accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community, which provided for a series of situations in which qualified-majority voting applied. Moreover, qualified-majority voting has been gradually extended to many areas and has now become normal procedure, unanimity being the exception. The Luxembourg Compromise remains in force even though, in practice, it may simply be evoked without actually having the power to block the decision-making process.”

It is a little bit disturbing that someone advising a powerful politician such as Boris Johnson is so ill informed about the reality of the EU.

The great omission from the event was any consideration of what the British public wants. All three speakers completely ignored the democratic will of the British people. The British may not like the EU, but neither do they like globalism. It will be impossible to win a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU if the electorate know that all they are being asked to do is to swap the overlordship of Brussels for the ideological despotism of free trade and mass immigration. (The laissez faire approach involved in globalisation is those with power enforcing an ideology by refusing to act to protect what the vast majority of human beings regard and have always regarded as the interests of their country and themselves. It is a tyranny caused by the neglect of the rightful use of state power for the common good.)

Come questions from the audience I was unable to get myself called. Had I been able to do so I should have raised the question of the democratic deficit and the impossibility of persuading the British electorate to vote to leave the EU if the alternative was more state sponsored globalism. Sadly, those who were called to ask questions complete ignored these vital questions

After the meeting I managed to speak to Congdon and put the question I had been unable to ask to him. Congdon’s response was a simple refusal to discuss the question of protectionist measures. Indeed, he became extremely animated in his refusal saying he would have no truck with such ideas. This is par for the course when I attempt to debate with laissez faire religionists. They either do what Congdon does, refuse to debate or become abusive. These are the classic behaviours of religious believers when their ideas are challenged. These people know in their heart of hearts that their religion, whether it be sacred or profane, cannot stand up to close examination so in the vast majority of cases they a either refuse to debate or resort to abuse which has the same effect.

Congdon also made the fantastic statement that come an IN/OUT referendum, the British would vote to come out because they “have always valued freedom”. Apart from this being historically a highly questionable claim, the vast demographic changes over the past 60 years wrought by mass immigration have both diluted the Britishness of the population and the British population as a whole has been cowed by more than half a century of political correctness being enforced with ever increasing ruthlessness by those with power in the country.

The other issue I raised with Congdon were the implications that ever deeper devolution had for the UK’s relations with the EU . I put forward a plausible scenario: an in/out referendum is held. England votes 70% to leave while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland vote 70% to stay in. I asked Congdon what he thought would happen if such a vote occurred. Amazingly, he said he had no idea.

I need not have weighted the votes so heavily towards a vote to leave in England. The discrepancy in size between England and the other home countries is so huge that England would not have to vote YES to leaving the EU by anything like 70 for and 30% against to ensure the referendum was won by the leave the EU side.

The official number of registered electors qualified to vote in Parliamentary elections at the end of 2012 and their geographical distribution was as follows::

The total number of UK parliamentary electors in December 2012 was 46,353,900, a rise of 0.5 per

cent from December 2011.

The total number of parliamentary electors in each of the UK constituent countries and the

percentage changes during the year to December 2012 are:

England – 38,837,300, a rise of 0.5 per cent
Wales – 2,301,100, a rise of 0.1 per cent
Scotland – 3,985,300, a rise of 1.1 per cent
Northern Ireland – 1,230,200, a rise of 1.4 per cent

Assuming for the sake of simplifying the example that there is a 100% turnout, 23,176,951 votes would be needed for a vote to leave the EU. If England voted by 60% to leave that would produce 23,302,380 votes to leave , more than would be required for a simple majority.

But that is obviously not the full picture, There would be a substantial vote to leave in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The combined electorate of Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland in 2012 was 7,516,600. If 70% of those voted to remain in the EU that would only be 5,261,620 votes. There would be 2,254,980 votes to leave. If England voted 54% to leave (20, 972,142 votes) the votes to leave in the whole of the UK would be 23,227, 122 (20, 972,142 +2,254,980) , enough to win the referendum.

Of course that is not how the vote would be in the real world. The turnout would be nowhere near 100%, although it might well be over eighty per cent if the Scottish referendum is a guide. How Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would vote is of course uncertain, but I have allotted such a generous proportion of the vote to the stay in side in those countries that it is unlikely I have seriously over-estimated the vote to leave. What the example does show is that under any likely voting circumstances there would not need to be a very strong YES to leaving vote in England to override a very strong vote to remain part of the EU in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If there was such an unbalanced result, that is with England voting to leave and the other three countries voting to stay or even if just one of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland voting to remain in the EU, this would ostensibly produce a potentially incendiary constitutional crisis, especially if Westminster politicians keep on grovelling to the Celtic Fringe as they did during the Scottish independence referendum ( a practice which grossly inflated the idea of Scotland’s ability to be independent without any pain in many Scots’ minds).

I said an ostensibly incendiary situation because in reality there would be little appetite to leave the UK if the hard truths of what leaving the UK and joining the EU would mean were placed in front of voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England or England plus one or two of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be a completely different kettle of fish compared with Scotland leaving the UK with the rest of the UK still in the EU. If any of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland wished to leave the UK they would and join the EU with the rest of the UK or just England outside of the EU, they would be faced with an England or a remnant UK state which had regained its freedom of action and would not be bound by EU law.

The strategy of those in who want the UK to leave the EU should be to reduce the idea amongst voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that leaving the UK and joining the EU after a UK vote to leave has taken place would be an easy choice. To diminish the vote to stay in those countries a pre-emptive strike is required before the referendum laying before voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the realities of their relationship with the EU and the UK if they seek to leave .

This is something which should have been done during the Scottish referendum. Indeed, the refusal of the Better Together side of the argument to point out these realties was one of the prime reasons for the NO vote not being much larger than it was, handsome as that result was. The unionist side generally was deeply patronising to the Scots with their line that only Scots could have a say in the debate and that the rest of the union had to keep quiet for fear of upsetting the Scots and driving them to a YES vote. It implied that Scots are essentially less than adults who could not either bear contrary views or have the wit to listen to hard facts.

The primary things the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish should be reminded of are:

Wales and Northern Ireland are economic basket cases which rely heavily on English taxpayers to fund their public expenditure. To lose that subsidy would cripple them both. Nor would they get anything like as much extra funding from the EU – assuming it would have them as members – as they would lose from the end of the English subsidy.

Scotland is in a better position because it is larger and has for the present at least significant oil revenues. But it is a very narrow economy relying very heavily on public service employment – a significant part of which deals with the administration of English public service matters – while the private business side of is largely comprised of oil and gas, whiskey, food, tourism and financial services.

The figures below are the latest official estimates of the tax raised in each of the four home countries to the end of the 2012/13 financial year. These figures should not be treated as exact to the last million because there are difficulties in allocating revenue to particular parts of the UK, for example, with corporation tax, but they are broadly indicative of what each country collects in tax I give two sets of figures to show the differences when oil and gas is allocated on a geographical and a population basis.

Table 1 Total HMRC Receipts (Geographical Split of North Sea Revenues), £m

UK England % Wales % Scotland % N. Ireland %

2012‐13 469,777 400,659 85.3% 16,337 3.5% 42,415 9.0% 10,331 2.6%

Table 2 Total HMRC Receipts (Population Split of North Sea Revenues), £m

2012‐13 469,777 404,760 86.2% 16,652 3.5% 37,811 8.0% 10,518 2.6%

Compare this with public spending for each of the home countries in the calendar year 2013 (I was unable to find expenditure figures for the financial year but they would be little different) :

England £456.2 billion – difference of £56 billion approx. between tax raised and money spent

Scotland £53.9 billion – difference of £12 billion approx. between tax raised and money spent

Wales £29.8 billion – difference of £13 billion approx. between tax raised and money spent

Ireland £19.8 billion – difference of £9 billion approx. between tax raised and money spent

NB differences between I tax raised and money spent are based on Table 1 figures which give the most favourable interpretation of Scotland’s tax position.

The approximate percentage of overspend (spending less tax collected) by each of the home countries is

England 12%

Scotland 22%

Wales 43%

Ireland 45%

The three smaller countries are accumulating debt at a much greater rate than England. In addition, small countries which go independent would find raising the money to meet their overspends would be much more expensive than the cost of financing the debt as part of the UK

It is also worth noting in passing the per head differences which are substantial between England and the other home countries.

In 2012/13, public spending per head in the UK as a whole was £8,788.

– England £8,529 (3% below the UK average).

– Scotland: £10,152 (16% above the UK average)

– Wales: £9,709 (10% above the UK average)

– Northern Ireland £10,876 (24% above the UK average).

If public spending per head was reduced to the present English level in the other three home countries approximately £16 billion would be removed from the UK budget.

The vast majority of their trade is with England. Barriers created by England’s departure from the EU could have very serious economic consequences any of other home countries remained within the EU.
Much of what they export to countries outside the EU has to pass through England.
All three countries would be net takers from the EU budget not contributors. The EU are unlikely to welcome with open arms three more small pensioner nations. There would be no guarantee that the EU would accept any or all of them as members, but even if they did they terms they would have to accept would be far more onerous and intrusive than they experience now. In particular, they would almost certainly have to join the Euro as this is a condition for all new members.
An England or a reduced UK outside of the EU would have to impose physical border controls because any part of the UK which seceded and joined the EU would be committed to the free movement of labour within the EU (more exactly the European Economic Area – EEA). That would mean any number of immigrants from the EEA would be able to enter either England or a reduced UK via whichever part (s) of the UK had seceded and joined the EU.
Being part of the UK gives the smaller home countries great security because the UK still has considerable military clout – ultimately Britain is protected by nuclear weapons – and the size of the population (around 62 million and rising) is sufficient in itself to give any aggressor pause for thought. The proposal for armed forces made in the SNP sponsored White Paper on independence recommended armed forces of 10,000 regulars to start with rising to 15,000 if circumstances permitted. That would be laughable as a defence force for a country the size of Scotland which has huge swathes of land with very few people on the land. An independent Wales and N Ireland would be even worse off.
They could not expect to walk away from the Union without taking on a share of the UK national debt and of taxpayer funded pension liabilities proportional to their population, have a currency union to share the Pound, have UK government contracts for anything or retain the jobs exported from England to do administrative public sector work for England, for example, much of the English welfare administration is dealt with in Scotland.

If this is done, with any luck the enthusiasm for leaving the UK to join the EU if England or England plus one or more of the other home countries has voted to leave the EU will diminish sufficiently to make a vote to remain in the EU unlike or at least reduce the vote to stay in to level where there is not an overwhelming vote to either stay in or leave.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Economics, Europe | Also tagged immigration, nationhood, patriotism | Comments (0)

If there had been no post-1945 mass immigration into Britain …

April 22, 2014 – 9:46 pm

Robert Henderson

Without mass immigration we would not have ….

1.. A rapidly rising population. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/06/uk-population-rise-ons

2. Ethnic minority ghettoes. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100047117/britains-ethnic-ghettos-mean-liberals-can-wave-goodbye-to-their-dream-of-scandinavian-social-democracy/

3. Race relations legislation, most notably the Race Relations Act of 1976. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74

4. Gross interferences with free speech such as those in the 1976 Race Relations Act and 1986 Public Order Act arising from the British elite’s determination and need (from their point of view) to suppress dissent about immigration and its consequences.

5. Native Britons being charged with criminal offences and, in increasing numbers of cases, finding themselves in prison for expressing their opposition to mass immigration or for being non-PC about immigrants and British born ethnic and racial minorities. http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/the-oppression-of-emma-west-the-politically-correct-end-game-plays-out/

6. Native Britons losing their jobs simply for beings non-pc about immigration and ethnic and racial minorities. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1239765/Park-ranger-sacked-racist-joke-wins-40k-compensation-tribunal-tells-council-skin-colour-fact-life.html

7. Such a virulent political correctness, because the central plank of the creed – race – would have been removed or at least made insignificant. Without large numbers of racial and ethnic minorities to either act as the clients of the politically correct or to offer a threat of serious civil unrest to provide the politically correct with a reason to enact authoritarian laws banning free discussion about the effects of immigration, “antiracism” would have little traction. Moreover, without the massive political leverage race has provided, political correctness in its other areas, most notably homosexuality and feminism, would have been much more difficult to inject into British society. But even if political correctness had been robbed of its dominant racial aspect whilst leaving the rest of the ideology as potent as it is now, it would be a trivial thing compared to the ideology with its dominant racial aspect intact. Changes to the status of homosexuals and women do not fundamentally alter the nature of a society by destroying its natural homogeneity. Moreover, customs and laws can always be altered peacefully. A country with large unassimilable minorities cannot be altered peacefully.

8. State sponsored multiculturalism, which is now institutionalised within British public service and the state educational system. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994

9. Islamic terrorism. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/mi5-history/mi5-today/the-rise-of-the-islamist-terrorist-threat.html

10. The creeping introduction of Sharia Law through such things as the toleration of sharia courts to settle disputes between Muslims provided both parties agree. The idea that such agreement is voluntary is highly suspect because of the pressure from within the Muslim population for Muslims to conform to Sharia law and to settle disputes within the Muslim population. But even if it was always entirely voluntary, it would be wrong in principle to have an alien system of law accepted as a rival to the law of the land because inevitably it would undermine the idea of the rule of law and further isolate Muslims from the mainstream. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10778554/The-feisty-baroness-defending-voiceless-Muslim-women.html

11. Muslims Schools which fail to conform to the national curriculum at best and at worst are vehicles for the promotion of Islamic supremacist ideas. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10777054/Ofsted-chief-to-take-charge-of-probe-into-Islamic-school-plot.html

12. A calamitous housing shortage. http://www.jrf.org.uk/media-centre/shortage-homes-over-next-20-years-threatens-deepening-housing-crisis

13. Housing Associations which cater solely for ethnic and racial minority groups. http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/the-truth-about-social-housing-and-ethnic-minorities/

14. A serious and growing shortage of school places, especially primary school places . http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23931974

Health tourism on a huge scale http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8880071/international-health-service/

16 Benefit tourism on a massive scale. http://www.migrationwatchuk.co.uk/pdfs/BP1_37.pdf

17 . Such crowded roads and public transport. http://www.london.gov.uk/media/assembly-press-releases/2013/10/fears-of-future-overcrowding-due-to-167-million-more-london-bus

18. Such a low wage economy. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/17/eastern-european-immigration-hits-wages

19. Such high unemployment and underemployment. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/13/uk-employment-figures_n_4265134.html

20. Such a need for the taxpayer to subsidise those in work because of the under cutting of wages by immigrants. http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/majority-of-new-housing-benefit-claimants-in-work/6521183.article

21. Areas of work effectively off limits to white Britons because either an area of work is controlled by foreigners or British born ethnic minorities, both of whom only employ those of their own nationality and/or ethnicity, or unscrupulous British employers who use foreigners and ethnic minorities because they are cheap and easier to control. http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/800000-uk-jobs-advertised-across-europe–and-foreign-jobseekers-even-get-travelling-costs-8734731.html

22 As much crime (and particularly violent crime) because foreigners and British born blacks and Asians commit a disproportionately large proportion of UK crime, for example see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522270/Foreign-prisoner-total-11-000.html

and

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269399/Race-and-cjs-2012.pdf

and

http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/the-black-instigated-and-dominated-2011-riots-and-the-great-elite-lie/

23. Double standards in applying the law to the white native population and immigrants, with the white native population being frequently treated more harshly than blacks, Asians and white first generation immigrants. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/07/female-gang-who-attacked-woman-spared-jail_n_1133734.html

24. Female genital mutilation. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/15/fgm-first-suspects-charged-court

25. “Honour” killings. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/honourcrimes/crimesofhonour_1.shtml#h2

26. Forced marriages. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/honourcrimes/crimesofhonour_1.shtml#h2

27. Widespread electoral fraud. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10557364/Election-watchdog-demands-action-amid-fears-of-Asian-voter-fraud.html

We would have ……

1. A very homogenous country, as it used to be.

2. No fear of speaking our minds about race and immigration.

3. No fear of speaking our minds about foreigners.

4. No fear of being proud of our country and Western culture generally.

5. No people being sent to prison for simply saying what they thought about race and ethnicity.

6. Much less political correctness.

7. Equality before the law in as far as that is humanly possible.

8. A stable population.

9. Plentiful housing, both rented and for purchase, at a price the ordinary working man or woman can afford.

10. Abundant school places.

11. An NHS with much shorter waiting lists and staffed overwhelmingly with native Britons. Those who claim that the NHS would collapse with foreign staff should ask themselves one question: if that is the case, how do areas of the UK with few racial or ethnic minority people manage to recruit native born Britons to do the work?

12. A higher wage economy .

13. Far more native Britons in employment.

14. No areas of work effectively off limits to white Britons because either an area of work is controlled by foreigners or British born ethnic minorities, both of whom only employ those of their own nationality and/or ethnicity, or unscrupulous British employers who use foreigners and ethnic minorities because they are cheap and easier to control.

15. A much lower benefit bill for those of working age.

16. Substantially less crime.

17. An honest electoral system.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Conquest by other means, Politics, Social Policy | Also tagged crime, ethnicity, immigration, internationalism, nationhood, NWO, political correctness, race, treason | Comments (6)

Appeal against Operation Elveden’s refusal to investigate Piers Morgan and others

April 6, 2014 – 10:24 pm

DPS Appeals Unit,

Metropolitan Police Service,

22nd Floor ESB,

Lillie Road,

London

SW6 1TR

Email: Appeals@met.police.uk

Rt Hon Theresa May MP (Home Secretary)

Rt Hon Dominic Grieve MP (Attorney-General)

Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (Commissioner)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

Mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

6 April 2014

Dear Sirs,

This is a formal appeal against the refusal of the Metropolitan Police to investigate Piers Morgan and Jeff Edwards for the illegal receipt of information from the police and perjury before the Leveson Inquiry and Det Supt Jeff Curtis (now retired) for a failure to investigate Morgan and Edwards when the complaint was first submitted to the Met.

You will find below the following correspondence in this order:

My correspondence with Operation Elveden (Elveden)

My correspondence with the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS).

The two batches of correspondence are clearly delineated. Each set of emails runs from the earliest to the latest in that order, that is , the latest email will be the last one in the set.

The matter looks complicated simply because of the volume of correspondence. This is entirely due to Elveden and the DPS prevaricating. You will see from the correspondence that I made the complaint in January 2013 and I did not receive a conclusive answer from the DPS until March 2014 and only then after I had written to the Home Secretary to complain.

Stripped of the volume of correspondence the business is very simple. I have provided Elevden with a letter sent by Piers Morgan to the Press Complaints Commission when he was editor of the Daily Mirror in which Morgan admits that he received information from a Metropolitan police officer in circumstances which can only have been illegal. A facsimile copy of Morgan’s letter is attached.

Edwards was the Mirror’s chief crime reporter who wrote the story based on the information obtained illegally from the police. Even without Morgan’s letter it is clear from the Mirror story that information had been illegally obtained because of the nature of the information in the story. I supplied Elveden with a photostat copy of the story

For the perjury complaint I supplied Elveden with the relevant extracts from Leveson stating that they have never obtained information illegally.

As for Det Supt Curtis, not only did he fail to question anyone at the Mirror or examine their records for evidence of payment for information, he did so after promising me that he would be doing both things. I provided Operation Elevden with a tape recording of Curtis making those promises.

The fact that I made the complaints against Curtis 14 years ago and the PCA rejected them is neither here nor there because of the peculiar circumstances which obtained at the time. Tony and Cherie Blair attempted to have me prosecuted and failed in the most humiliating fashion during the 1997 General Election campaign (the CPS sent the papers back to the police within hours of receiving them with NO CRIME emblazoned across them) . The Mirror story concerned the Blairs’ failure to have me prosecuted. After that failure the Blairs set Special Branch and MI5 on to me (I used the Data Protection Act to force both to admit they held files of me) and I consequently suffered ten years of harassment (for Blair’s entire premiership) which the Tory MP Sir Richard Body made public in the following Early Day Motion:

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

Sir Richard Body

That this House regrets that the Right honourable Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters Robert Henderson had written to the Right honourable Member complaining about various instances of publicly-reported racism involving the Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right honourable Member and the Right honourable Member failed to take any civil action against Robert Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert Henderson had been officially cleared of any illegal action.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record – see http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

The reason I could not get the police and the PCA to act is horribly simple: they were not willing to act because Blair was Prime Minister, that is they refused to apply the law for illicit reasons to protect the most powerful politician in the land. This was truly a who shall guard the guards situation. To reject my complaint on the grounds that it is out of time would be perverse in these circumstances. At the least, those at the PCA who refused my complaint should be charged with misconduct in a public office.

As this matter has already been reviewed by the DPS, I presume that they have the full documentation and other items such as the tape recording of Curtis. Should anything be missing let me know and I will supply duplicates. If the DPS do not have the complete papers and other supporting artefacts, the DCI Neligan’s review of the case is by definition a sham.

My grounds for appeal are as follows:

1. I have not been adequately informed about the findings of the investigation or any proposals resulting from the report

As I have already pointed out, the handling of my complaints has been a dismal catalogue of prevarication. In addition, despite my repeated requests to be interviewed byElveden and give a formal statement and to be interviewed by the DPS, astonishingly I have been denied any face to face contact with any member of Elevden or the DPS and consequently have not been able to make a formal statement. This behaviour strongly suggests that both Elevden and the DPS know very well that I have provided cast-iron evidence and are desperate not to be subjected to questioning as to why no investigation has occurred because they know that it is impossible to give a rational reason for why they have not acted on Morgan’s incriminating letter.

I disagree with the findings of the investigation including whether a person has a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct

The findings are absurd because of the Morgan letter alone, but the Mirror story and Curtis’ failure to investigate Morgan, Edwards and the Mirror generally make them doubly ridiculous.

All that both Elevden and the DPS have done is say we do not choose to investigate. They have not meaningfully justified their refusasl. For example, take DCI Neligan’s dismissal of the complaints against Morgan and Edwards,viz:

As Appropriate Authority, I am required to consider the findings and conclusions of complaint investigations to determine:

whether the report should be referred to the Director of Prosecutions (CPS);
whether or not any person to whose conduct the investigation relates to has a case to answer in respect of misconduct, gross misconduct or no case to answer;
whether or not any such person’s performance is unsatisfactory;
what action, if any, we will take in respect of the matters dealt with in the report; and
what other action (if any) we will take in respect of these matters.

After considering these points I am satisfied the outcome does not need to be referred to the CPS.

I can also inform you that it has been determined there has not been a breach of the professional standards by any officer. Furthermore, I have conducted review of the officers’ performance, which I found to be satisfactory. This means that no further action will be taken in respect of your complaint.

Absolutely no explanation of why the complaints were refused is provided , merely the grounds on which they have been considered. That is shamefully inadequate. Worse, there is good reason to believe DCI Neligan cobbled together this judgement after I had panicked him into doing something by writing to the Home Secretary and copying the email to the type of distribution list that is attached to this email. I very much doubt whether he has even read most of the correspondence which arose from the case before it came to his desk.

The evidence is cast-iron and a failure to investigate is clear evidence of misconduct in public office and an attempt to pervert the course of justice by every officer who has handled my original complaint and the referral to the DPS.

3. I disagree with the police proposals for action – or lack of them – in light of the report

I disagree with them for the reasons given in 2, that is the evidence is cast-iron and a failure to investigate is clear evidence of misconduct in public office and an attempt to pervert the course of justice by every officer who has handled my original complaint and the referral to the DPS. Please take this as a formal complaint against all these officers. You have their names in the supporting correspondence.

4. I disagree with the decision not to refer the report to the CPS.

I disagree for exactly the same reasons I have given under 3.

The hard facts which are being ignored are these:

a. The Piers Morgan letter to the PCC is enough to convict Morgan of receiving information illegally from a police officer, conspiracy to breach the Official Secrets Act and conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office and breaches of the Data Protection Act. All that applies whether or not it can ;proved that money or any other material inducement was given to the police officer.

b. Morgan’s letter plus the Mirror story which used the illicit information is enough to convict Edwards of receiving information illegally from a police officer, conspiracy to breach the Official Secrets Act and conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office and breaches of the Data Protection Act.

c. The evidence given by Morgan and Edwards under oath provides strong grounds for investigating them for perjury. If it could be shown that the police officer received money – which was almost certainly the case – they would be open and shut cases of perjury. At the least Morgan and Edwards should be investigated to see whether money did change hands.

d. The Morgan letter, the Mirror story and the tape recording of Curtis promising to investigate Morgan, Edwards and the Mirror generally is enough to convict Curtis or misconduct in a public office and of perverting the course of justice.

I suggest you print out the attached Piers Morgan letter and sit and look at it for a while and ask yourself how on earth a failure to investigate such evidence could be explained in a court or before TV cameras.

Finally, I repeat the request to meet with whoever is going to deal with this case at the DPS and to give a formal statement.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

—————————————————————-

From: robert henderson [mailto:anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: 09 April 2014 17:20
To: DPS Mailbox – Appeals
Subject: Appeal against failure of Operation Elveden to investigate Piers Morgan and others – please acknowledge

Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS)

Appeals Unit,Metropolitan Police Service,

22nd Floor ESB,Lillie Road,

LondonSW6 1TR

Email: Appeals@met.police.uk
9 April 2014

Dear Sirs,

I sent the appeal reproduced below to you on 6th April. I have not received an acknowledgement. Please acknowledge receipt of the original email by return.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

—————————————————————–

Appeals@met.pnn.police.uk
Today [11 April 2014] at 10:51 AM

anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk

Dear Mr Henderson,

Thank you for your appeal regarding your recent complaint against police, reference PC/0455/14. This was received in this office on 6th April 2014.

I regret to inform you it is taking approximately sixteen (16) weeks to consider new appeals. Therefore, you ought to expect not to hear anything in the intervening period. However, we are constantly reviewing cases and that timescale may be reduced. If not, we will write or email you again in 16 weeks time with an update, providing a realistic timescale of when you can expect your appeal assessment to be completed.

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth Gibbs
Police Sergeant
Directorate of Professional Standards
Appeals Team

———————————————————————–

Directorate of Professional Standards

Empress State Building

22nd Floor

Lillie Road

West Brompton

London

SW6 1TR

Telephone: #0207 230 1212

#Email:

Your ref: #

Our ref: # #PC455/14

Date: 16 April 2014

Mr Robert Henderson

156 Levita House

Charlton St

London

NW1 1HR

Dear Mr Henderson,

On 10/03/04 a letter was sent to you, which asked for your representations in relation to the complaints you made concerning Operation Elveden, as it was considered your complaint was out of time. You were given 28 days to make these representations and informed that at the end of this period an application for permission to take the the investigation no further (disapplication) may be made.

This letter is to inform you that due to the lack of representations, or sufficient representations, an application was made to the DOPS Complaints Support Chief Inspector, who has been delegated by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to consider disapplications.

I can now inform you they have decided to grant disapplication on the grounds that this case is out of time. This decision was made on the information and the evidence provided for your complaint and has been deemed appropriate because as explained in my original letter, the events you are complaining about happened some 14 years ago.

As your complaint has been disapplied the DPS Complaints Support Inspector has also considered what, if any, further action needs to be taken with the conduct or performance of any MPS officers or staff. They have decided no further action is required.

You have the right of appeal in relations to the decision to disapply your complaint and the outcome of it, to the Appeals Unit of Directorate of Professional Standards . There is no right of appeal to the IPCC. You have 28 days from the day after the date of this letter within which to make your appeal. The 28^th day is 16/05/14. Appeals received after 28 days may not be allowed unless there are exceptional circumstances.

If you do decide to appeal, this is the address to write to:

DP S Appeals Unit, Metropolitan l Police Service, 22^nd Floor ESB, Lillie Road, London SW6 ITR

Further information about appeals and how to appeal can be found on the IPCC website:

www.ipcc.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

TM Neligan

DCI DPS

———————————————————————–

Tim Neligan

Detective Chief Inspector

DPS SI

Empress State Building

22nd Floor

Lillie Road

West Brompton

London

SW6 1TR

Telephone: #0207 230 1212

#Email:

Your ref: # #PC455/14

Rt Hon Theresa May MP (Home Secretary)

Rt Hon Dominic Grieve MP (Attorney-General)

Alison Saunders (DPP)

G McGill (CPS Head of Organised Crime Division)

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe (Commissioner)

DCS Alaric Bonthron (Head of DPS)

DCI Tim Neligan (DPS)

CI Andy Dunn (DPS)

Commander Neil Basu (Head of Operation Elveden)

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith (Operation Elveden)

John Whittingdale MP

George Eustice MP

Sir Gerald Howarth MP

Mark.lewis@thlaw.co.uk

Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) Appeals Unit

Date: 27 April 2014

Dear DCI Neligan,

I have your letter dated 16^th April which only arrived today, 25^th April. The envelope in which your arrived is postmarked the 23rd April. Why the delay? (I have included a copy of your letter immediately below to inform those on the circulation list).

Your letter is distinctly odd. It could reasonably be interpreted as you saying that I did not make an appeal within the 28 days allowed. In fact, I submitted an appeal on 6^th April which was within the 28 days. Not only that I included you in the distribution list for that appeal. You will find below the original email and add the acknowledgement of its receipt on the 6^th April. The acknowledgement informed me that the appeal was accepted but would probably not be looked at for six months. (Please note that I have copied this email to the DPS appeals section).

Wording such as “This letter is to inform you that due to the lack of representations, or sufficient representations…” is the type of cover-all eventualities phrasing which lawyers use. It does not give any indication of what has actually happened. The use of such wording together with your failure to (1) demonstrate anything but the sketchiest knowledge of the matter or (2) to address questions such as the Who shall guard the guards scenario leads me to believe that you have given this case little study or consideration. That being so please answer these questions:

1. What documents have you received relating to this matter? Please list the documents individually when you reply.

2. Please list the documents you have read.

3. Have you received the tape recording between D Supt Curtis and me in which he promises to question Morgan et al?

4. If you have the tape recording have you listened to it in its entirety? If not why not?

5. Were you aware when you wrote on the 16^th April that I had appealed? If not why not?

6. If you were you aware when you wrote on the 16th April that I had appealed why have you not referred to the appeal in your letter?

7. Before receiving this email, had you read my appeal?

8.Which documents relating to the matter were submitted to the DPS Complaints Chief Inspector? Please list them.

9. Did the DPS Complaints Chief Inspector know of my appeal when he made the decision? If he did not I shall expect you to immediately bring this fact to immediately his attention so that he can consider the matter with all the facts before him.

In none of the correspondence with the DPS has there been any meaningful attempt to address the issues I have raised. To keep saying it is out of time is a nonsense because not only is there no statute of limitations for these crimes, serious crimes are routinely investigated and people charged after far more time has passed than has happened since I made my original complaint to the police.

The reason why my complaints were not initially investigated was the involvement of the Blairs. Once the failure of the police and every other part of the justice system to act on clear evidence of criminality by Morgan and others had happened, the failure itself became a bar to future attempts to get the matter investigated. Both those in authority who had failed to act and those who had not been originally involved but were now in positions of authority, had a vested interest in not investigating when the complaints were re-submitted together with fresh complaints in 2013. The vested interest was both individual and corporate. The latter (the corporate vested interest) meant that those not involved in the original failure to investigate refused to investigate when the old and new complaints were submitted to them, because to investigate would potentially mean criminal trials of those involved in the original cover-up with the subsequent bad publicity for the Met and many other people with power and influence.

I repeat yet again my request to meet with you or another senior officer, for example, the DPS Complaints Chief Inspector, to discuss the affair and give a formal statement.

A reply by return please.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————–

Metropolitan Police

Directorate of Professional Standards

Prevention and Organisational Learning Command

DPS Appeals Unit

22nd Floor

Empress State Building

Empress Approach

Lillie Road

London

SW6 1TR

E-Mail: Appeals@met.pnn.police.uk

Our reference: PC/00455/14

Date: 19th June 2014

Dear Mr Henderson

This letter is about your appeal against the outcome of your complaint against police received on 5^th December 2013. Your complaint was dealt with in two parts. Firstly, you received an ‘outcome of investigation’ report from DCI Neligan, detailing your complaints about DI Smith. Additionally, your complaint concerning retired Detective Superintendent Curtis was subject of something called a ‘disapplication’. You appealed against the outcome of the investigation, in your appeal email dated 6^th April 2014. Upon receipt of a further letter dated 16^th April 2014, informing you of the decision to disapply the latter part (against Mr Curtis) you submitted a further email of appeal, dated 27^th April 2014. Both aspects of your appeal will be discussed and addressed in this letter.

1. Appeal against Investigation

In answer to the first part of your appeal (investigation), the Metropolitan Police Appeals Team’s role in the appeal process is to review the investigation into your complaint, not to re-investigate your complaint. This appeal outcome is completed on behalf of Superintendent Sarti, with delegated authority for dealing with Appeals on behalf of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.

Our decision on your appeal is linked to paragraph 25 of Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002. I have looked at the following issues in concluding your appeal:

· Whether the findings of the investigation need to be reconsidered

· Whether the outcomes, for example in relation to whether any disciplinary or other actions should be taken, are appropriate

· Whether you received adequate information about the findings of the investigation

I have reviewed your email of complaint dated 5^th December 2013, addressed to the Commissioner. You complaint was recorded on 8^th January 2014.

The decisions I have reached in relation to your appeal are outlined below:

1. Are the findings of the police investigation appropriate/ proportionate to the complaint?

Your heads of complaint have been obtained from the following:

Your email of 5^th December 2013 and accompanying attachments/email string

Your complaint was about the decision by Detective Inspector Daniel Smith, and his refusal to investigate three allegations of crime concerning Mr Piers Morgan and Mr Jeff Edwards, repeated below;

1. That Piers Morgan when editor of the Mirror obtained information from a Met Officer(s) in circumstances which can only have been illegal. The letter from Morgan to the PCC which I have supplied to Elveden and which you have a copy of in facsimile conclusively proves this.

2. That Jeff Edwards when chief crime reporter for the Daily Mirror illegally received information from Met Officer(s). Morgan’s letter plus the story printed by the Daily Mirror about me conclusively prove Edwards received such information.

3. That both Morgan and Edwards committed perjury when questioned under oath about receiving information illegally from the police. I provided Operation Elveden with the relevant Leveson transcripts.

In his response to your allegations of crime, DI Daniel Smith responded;

Dear Mr. Henderson,

I write in relation to the allegations you made following your contact with DC Rooke in January of this year. I have reviewed the matters raised by you in this, and subsequent communications, with DC Rooke.

I understand that the matters raised by you relate to an article published in 1997 and that the matter was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Service (Complaints Investigation Bureau). The matter was referred to the Police Complaints Authority in 1999.

I understand that there is no new evidence or information available and as a result I have decided that no investigation will be conducted into the points raised by you.

In relation to the Perjury allegation, having read the transcripts provided, I do not believe there is evidence that shows an offence has been committed. As a consequence this allegation will not be investigated.

Yours sincerely,

Detective Inspector Daniel Smith

Complaint Versus Criminal investigation

DCI Neligan was appointed to investigate your public complaint about DI Smith’s decision, not to investigate the criminal allegations about Mr Morgan and Mr Edwards. That is an important point to differentiate because in your email of appeal you appear to be confusing the two issues.

In the outcome letter sent to you, dated 10^th March 2013, DCI Neligan has identified your complaint and the steps taken to investigate it. I therefore consider that a proportionate investigation has been carried out.

I have considered your grounds for appeal, as set out in your email dated 6^th April 2014.

Point 1, you have appealed on the basis that you have not been interviewed personally by the Investigating Officers, either of the criminal investigation, or the complaint investigation. In my considerations, I have looked at the email strings you have submitted. The details of the criminal allegations are comprehensive and sufficiently detailed upon which DI Smith based his initial assessment in terms of the criminal allegations. Likewise, there is sufficient detail upon which DCI Neligan can base his assessment of his complaint investigation and therefore I do not consider it necessary to interview you at any stage up to those reviews being conducted.

In terms of the criminal investigation, DI Smith had articulated his rationale for not investigating your first 2 criminal allegations (that they were already investigated by the PCA in 1999) as there is no new evidence; there was no merit in further investigation of those allegations. The third allegation, (perjury), was subject to a preliminary review, as DI Smith explained, when he reviewed the transcripts. His assessment was that there is no evidence of the offence of perjury having been made out. Consequently, that allegation would not be further investigated.

In his report, DCI Neligan has elaborated upon these points and provided you with additional information in terms of the police obligations under National Crime Recording Standards as well as the MPS Crime Management Policy.

Point 2, you believe the findings of DCI Neligan’s investigation “are absurd because of the Morgan letter alone, but the Mirror story and Curtis’s failure to investigate Morgan, Edwards and the Mirror generally make them doubly ridiculous.”

I mentioned above, the difference between DI smith’s investigation and DCI Neligan’s, but following on from Point 2 above, it is important to make absolutely clear, the role difference between the two investigations.

DI Smith was asked to investigate your criminal allegations. You disagreed with his decisions and have made a public complaint about DI Smith. DCI Neligan was appointed to and has, investigated the complaint about DI Smith. DCI Neligan has not investigated your criminal allegations about Morgan and Edwards. However, in conducting his investigation, DCI Neligan has looked at the actions/decisions made by DI Smith when looking at the investigation of Morgan and Edwards.

I find the steps taken by DCI Neligan, in examining the actions of DI smith, to be proportionate and reasonable.

Point 3, I similarly refer to the response to point 2 above.

Point 4, DCI Neligan is being asked to consider if DI Smith has committed a criminal offence, by his (Smith) not investigating your criminal allegations any further. DCI Neligan has concluded that the actions of DI Smith are correct and therefore there are no criminal actions for the CPS to consider. I concur with that rationale.

On the basis of this assessment the conclusion reached by the Investigating Officer, DCI Neligan is appropriate. I do not uphold your appeal.

2. Is the decision that the police have made about whether an officer has a case to answer for misconduct appropriate?

Yes. The outcome of the Investigation is appropriate and the Investigating Officer has concluded there is insufficient evidence to prove a case of misconduct against DI Smith. I do not uphold your appeal.

3. Are the force’s proposed actions following the investigation adequate?

Yes. The Investigation has not found a case to answer and no action has been proposed. I do not uphold your appeal.

4. Have you been provided with adequate information following the investigation of your complaint?

Yes. The original report by DCI Neligan addresses all of the complaints submitted by you, the rationale behind the conclusions reached, and includes your right to appeal. I do not uphold your appeal.

5. Has the investigation been referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)? If not, is this decision appropriate?

The report has not been referred to the CPS. I consider this decision to be appropriate as the investigation and the underlying evidence does not indicate that a criminal offence has been made out. I refer to my assessment under Point 4 above. I do not uphold your appeal.

After considering all the information available I have now made a decision about your appeal against the outcome of the investigation. I have not upheld your appeal.

You are not able to appeal against the assessment of your appeal. If you have any questions or need more information about the appeal decision please contact me using the details shown at the top of this letter.

2. Appeal against Disapplication

I will now respond to your other appeal, against the decision to disapply the requirements of Schedule 3 Police Reform Act 2002 to your complaint about ex-DSU Jeff Curtis. Your appeal was received on 27^th April 2014. An appeal may be made to the relevant appeal body against a decision to disapply the requirements of Schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002. The Chief Officer (where they are the relevant appeal body) must determine whether the decision to disapply those requirements should have been taken. This appeal outcome is completed on behalf of Detective Superintendent Sarti, with delegated authority for dealing with Appeals on behalf of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service

In determining your appeal, I must consider the following points ;

Has the complaint been, or should it have been, referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)?

The complaint about retired Detective Superintendent Curtis concerned his alleged conduct in 2003 and specifically, that he deliberately failed to investigate your original allegations against Mr Morgan & Mr Edwards despite promises made to you in a telephone conversation. Such a complaint does not meet the criteria for a mandatory referral to the IPCC, nor was it so referred (to the IPCC). The Relevant Appeal Body is therefore the Force itself.

Was the decision to disapply made with the permission of the IPCC?

No. The complaint was not referred and did not require referral to the IPCC. Therefore, permission to disapply was not required from the IPCC.

Was the complainant offered the opportunity to make representations before the decision to disapply was made and if any representations were provided, were these taken into account in making the decision to disapply?

Yes. Within the Outcome of Investigation report, dated 10^th March 2014, included a request for you to provide reasons why your complaint concerning ex-DSU Jeff Curtis ought not to be disapplied on the basis that it was ‘out of time’ i.e. More than 12 months have elapsed between the date of the incident complained of and the making of the complaint, and no good reasons could be shown for that delay.

You responded in your email of 6^th April 2014, and those responses were considered by Chief Inspector Dunn who decided there were no good reasons for the delay of over 12 years in the making of the complaint. I accept that you had previously reported the matters originally to the Police Complaints Authority who had ‘rejected them’.

After considering your email of appeal, dated 27^th April 2014, I consider the decision to disapply your complaint was appropriate. The incident complained of was more than 12 months before the complaint was made and no good reason for that delay has been demonstrated. Your appeal is not upheld.

Actions required of the MPS

The MPS will take no further action regarding your complaints or the appeals. You are not able to appeal the outcome of this appeal assessment. No further right of appeal exists with the IPCC. If you disagree with this appeal assessment, you are advised to seek independent legal advice.

Yours sincerely

David Corbet

Inspector

Appeals Unit

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Elite Mischief, The Scandalous Blairs | Also tagged crime, law, Operation Elveden, police, security services | Comments (1)

The Marxist Ralph Miliband and how he bit the English hand that fed him

October 1, 2013 – 9:50 pm

Robert Henderson

The Daily Mail has put the cat amongst the pigeons by examining the character of Ralph Miliband, the father of David and Ed. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435751/GEOFFREY-LEVY-SATURDAY-ESSAY-Red-Eds-pledge-bring-socialism-homage-Marxist-father.html#ixzz2gSu79fxm)

Ralph Miliband (originally Adolphe Miliband) was born of Polish Jewish parentage in Belgium. There he became a member of Hashomer Hatzair (“Young Guard”), a socialist–Zionist youth group. He fled Belgium with his father in 1940 and came to England. He was sixteen when he arrived in England, A year after he arrived he was writing this in his diary:

” ‘The Englishman is a rabid nationalist. They are perhaps the most nationalist people in the world . . . you sometimes want them almost to lose (the war) to show them how things are. They have the greatest contempt for the Continent . . . To lose their empire would be the worst possible humiliation.’ (ibid)

Interestingly, although Ralph Miliband attacks not Britain but the English, all the present day British media have translated the attack on England into an attack on Britain.

But we do not need to rely on a 17 year old’s words to doubt his feelings for the country which had given him refuge. Ralph Miliband’s unequivocally adult beliefs do that. By its very nature Marxism is incompatible with representative government and democratic control. It also operates completely outside morality, which it dismisses as “bourgeois morality”. The end always justifies the means until the attainment of a universal state of communist development, a state which can never be legitimately changed. Interestingly, it mimics Islam which also has as its end a universal state, in their case an Islamic theocracy (the world Caliphate) which which will brook no alteration once established.

Miliband senior was an exceptionally committed and enduring Marxist, who died still believing in the revolution of the proletariat and the eventual attainment of universal communism. That means by definition he was an enemy of this country because Marxism is antithetical towards British values and traditions. It also means he was a hidebound ideologue and like all ideologues, hopelessly equipped to deal with reality*

Ed Miliband has frothed at the mouth over the Mail’s attack on his father, giving a saccharine description of his father’s “love” for Britain, with his “evidence” being how he had spent three years in the Royal Navy fighting Hitler and how glad he was to return to the country every time he left it (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2439593/Why-father-loved-Britain-Ed-Miliband.html#ixzz2gSuPSzL1) .His service against Hitler can plausibly be put down to the entry of the Soviet Union into the war: as for being glad to return to Britain, this was scarcely surprising because it had been first a place of safety during the war and then a residence in which he and his family did well. But there is nothing in Ralph Miliband’s adult writings or speeches which ever suggested he liked the people or society of the the British. Indeed, the every reverse because his politics involved sweeping away much that was distinctively British or English, especially the ruling class and their institutions. Here he is writing to the American leftist C Wright Mills:“Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, the great Clubs, the Times, the Church, the Army, the respectable Sunday papers . . . It also means the values . . . of the ruling orders, keep the workers in their place, strengthen the House of Lords, maintain social hierarchies, God save the Queen, equality is bunk, democracy is dangerous, etc. ‘Also respectability, good taste, don’t rock the boat, there will always be an England, foreigners, Jews, natives etc are all right in their place and their place is outside . . .” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435751/Red-Eds-pledge-bring-socialism-homage-Marxist-father-Ralph-Miliband-says-GEOFFREY-LEVY.html)

Miliband senior was emotionally committed until the day he died in bringing communism to Britain.His son Ed can scarcely complain that his father’s attitude to this country and his politics were given a public airing because he himself has recently been banging the socialist drum, saying he was going to bring socialism back to Britain (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10325076/Ed-Miliband-Im-bringing-socialism-back-to-Britain.html), something plausibly attributable to his father’s Marxist influence beyond the grave. As the Blairite blogger Dan Hodges remarked, Ed Miliband constantly refers to his parents, and his father in particular, in his speeches and the influence on him. Nor is Ed Miliband unaware of his father’s undemocratic views for in his first speech as Labour leader he said “I suppose not everyone has a dad who wrote a book saying he didn’t believe in the parliamentary road to socialism…”(http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100239016/if-ed-miliband-wanted-his-father-to-be-off-limits-he-should-have-kept-quiet-about-him/).Ralph Miliband gave this country nothing of worth and took much from it. For him it was a milch cow to be exploited.

* By ideology I mean a set of ideas, religious or secular, to which an individual subscribes blindly regardless of the objective and testable truth of the ideology or of any contradictions which it may contain. Read more at https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/against-ideology/

By Robert Henderson | Posted in NuLabour news, Politics | Also tagged authoritarianism, immigration, Marxism, The left | Comments (0)

Piers Morgan, perjury, the police, the Leveson Inquiry and Denis MacShane

October 25, 2012 – 7:37 pm

Note: I attended an Orwell Prize meeting on 24 October at the Frontline Club in Paddington. The erstwhile Labour Cabinet Minister Denis MacShane was one of the speakers. The subject was the misbehaviour of the police and their relations with the media.

When questions from the audience were called for I told the meeting about Piers Morgan’s letter to the PCC in which he admitted receiving information from the police in circumstances which can only have been illegal and the subsequent failure of the police to question Morgan. I then asked MacShane whether he would take up the matter. Amazingly, you may think, the chair of the meeting Jean Seaton (the director of the Orwell Prize) intervened and said he did not have to answer because that was not what the meeting was about This was a rather strange claim because not only was it speaking to the subject of the meeting, but MacShane during his talk particularly emphasised how it was necessary to stop the police from colluding with the media by selling stories to them.

After the meeting I spoke with MacShane briefly and gave him a copy of the Morgan letter. I followed up with the email below. Watch this space for further developments on the Piers Morgan front. Robert Henderson

Update 2/11/2012 : The Standards and Privileges Committee of the House of Commons recommended on 2 November that McShane be suspended for a year from the Commons after they found that McShane had ‘submitted 19 false invoices “plainly intended to deceive”’ and the ‘The Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee said it was the “gravest case” to come before MPs. ‘ (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/9651100/MPs-expenses-scandal-Denis-MacShane-to-be-suspended-as-an-MP-for-twelve-months.html). McShane’s expenses claims were referred to the police in 2010 who closed the investigation without charges being brought in July 2012, although no clear reason was given for the absence of charges. The Labour Party have disowned him following the Standards and Privileges Committee’s report.

McShane loves to engage in moral posturing of the politically correct kind, whilst at the same time behaving immorally. This is one of the classic traits of the psychopath which is given literary from in Emmerson’s “The more he talked of his honour/The faster we counted our spoons.”

Mr Denis MacShane MP (Rotherham)

House of Commons

London WC1

25 10 2012

Dear Mr MacShane,

I will amplify the details I gave last night during the Orwell Prize meeting at the Frontline Club and to you personally after the meeting about collusion between politicians, the police and the media.

I gave you of a copy of the letter sent by Piers Morgan to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) in October 1997. This was sent to me after I made a complaint to the PCC following a highly libellous story about me published by the Mirror on 25 March 1997 at the beginning of the General Election Campaign.

As you will have seen from Morgan’s letter, the Mirror story involved Tony and Cherie Blair. They tried and miserably failed to have me prosecuted for a crime which, as lawyers, they must have known I had not committed. The non-existent crime was a claim that I had breached the Malicious Communications Act in my letters to them. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) thought so little of the attempt to have me prosecuted that they rejected the case on the same day it was sent to them, an extraordinary thing when the pressure to proceed against me must have been immense because of the identity of the complainants. Nor was I at any time contacted by the police about the Blairs’ complaint.

The Mirror story (copy below) falsely accused me of being a dangerous racist who had bombarded the Blairs with hundreds of letters full of crude racist language. As you will see from Morgan’s letter he had never seen any such letters. There was the simplest of reasons for this: they were never written. Fuller details of this episode can be found at https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/when-tony-and-cherie-blair-tried-to-have-me-jailed/.

After the publication of the Mirror story Piers Morgan refused to make any retraction or correction. I consequently made a complaint to the PCC. The PCC released a copy of his incriminating letter to them to me. This shows unambiguously that Morgan had received information in circumstances which can only have been illegal, viz: “The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) ….” If the information had been passed legitimately, for example, in a press conference, there would be no need to refuse to name him. Neither was the information given to any other media outlet. Nor was the information of a nature which could have been given to the media legitimately.

I referred the letter with its admission to the police. It was sent from my local station to Scotland Yard. An “investigation” was supposedly carried out by Detective Chief Superintendent Jeff Curtis. It was a most remarkable “investigation” because when it was concluded Curtis admitted to me that no one at the Mirror – not Morgan, the reporter who wrote the story (Jeff Edwards) or anyone else – had been interviewed. For the full story see https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-failure-to-charge-piers-morgan-with-illicitly-receiving-information-from-the-police/

The PCC refused to adjudicate on my original complaint or my subsequent complaint about Morgan’s admission of having received information illicitly from the police. Mr MP Frank Dobson, who was member of Blair’s cabinet at the time, refused to take up the case. Eventually on 10 November 1999 Sir Richard Body MP put down this Early Day Motion (EDM) in the House of Commons :

CONDUCT OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR SEDGEFIELD 10:11:99

Sir Richard Body

Until Blair left No 10 (a period of ten years) I was subject of continual harassment – my post opened ostentatiously, threats by phone, a hate campaign on social networking sites such as newsgroups inciting violence against me and for all I know my phone was tapped. I suspect this was either Special Branch or MI15, both of which I discovered through the use of the Data Protection Act (DPA), hold files on me, although the information held by them was almost entirely withheld in answer to my Subject Access Requests under the DPA.

This motion is now part of the official House of Commons record.

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=16305&SESSION=702

Leveson Inquiry

I initially submitted to the Leveson Inquiry information about my mistreatment by the Mirror (and other media outlets), the PCC’s refusal to adjudicate on my complaints and the failure of the police to investigate Morgan’s admission that the Mirror had accepted information from the police illicitly. Leveson refused to call me as a witness or accept my information into evidence.

When Morgan gave evidence he perjured himself by claiming that he had never received information illicitly from the police (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/). The writer of the Mirror story about me, the Mirror’s erstwhile chief crime reporter also committed perjury before the Inquiry, viz: ““Q75 I never asked police officers in any way to disclose things they were not allowed to do or tried to push them to give me information they were uncomfortable disclosing.” . As he was the one who claimed to have received the information about me he caught himself in a very stupid lie.

I madea further submissions to Leveson drawing their attention to Morgan’s and Edward’s perjury:

https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/referral-of-piers-morgans-perjury-to-the-leveson-inquiry/

https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/leveson-inquiry-jeff-edwards-and-another-prima-facie-case-of-perjury/

Leveson refused to act on these stone-certain cases of perjury to his Inquiry which took information under oath from both Morgan and Edwards.

Conclusions

My experience shows graphically how there is collusion between politicians, the police, the media and, in Leveson’s case, the judiciary to suppress and fail to act on information which will damage those with power, wealth or influence. You put yourself forward as someone who wishes to expose misbehaviour by such people, especially by the police and the media. You could not have a better story to use for that purpose than the one I have to tell. I hope you live up to your words and use it.

This is an especially good time to put the tale before the public because it looks as though Morgan is going to be pulled into the phone-hacking scandal. If he is, that will mean he also perjured himself before Leveson on that score.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

———————————————————————————-

Daily Mirror 25 March 1997

‘PEST TARGETS BLAIRS’

Jeff Edwards Chief Crime Correspondent

Police called in over string of hate letters

Police are probing a string of race hate letters

to Tony and Cherie Blair.

The deluge of sinister messages sent to the couple

through the Labour Leader’s office at the House of

Commons began last year.

Insiders described them as “personal and

offensive”.

And they feared the letter writer could even

become a stalker.

The man behind the hate mail has been described

as 51-year-old Robert Henderson.

He sparked a huge row two years ago when he wrote

an article criticising black players in the England

Cricket Team for the Magazine Wisden’s [sic]

Cricket Monthly

GRAPHIC

The magazine was successfully sued for libel by

England fast bowler Devon Malcolm.

At first staff at Labour’s HQ in Walworth Road,

South East London, ignored the letters sent to the

Blairs.

But they decided to call in the police when the

TYPED messages became a rant against the couple and

started arriving at the rate of three or four a

week.

Insiders say the letters – with Henderson’s

signature and north London address – are full of

graphic racist filth implying Mr Blair would relax

immigration laws once he gets to No 10.

A Labour insider said last night: “The writer

said things like ‘why are you married to that

idiot? If he gets elected he’ll let in all the

blacks and Asians.’”

Detectives visited the Blairs at Labour HQ last

week.

They were shown dozens of letters which were

taken away for forensic tests.

The letters – posted in London – have also been

studied by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Police said sending such material could result in

an assault charge.

The insider added: “MPs often get threatening

mail which would go in the bin.

“But this is different. It has become a campaign,

a bombardment. The writer displays tendencies

associated with stalkers.

“This writer is unusually persistent. The tone of

the letters has become increasingly nasty.

“He uses sewer language. The letters are racially

insulting.

When the Mirror approached ex-public schoolboy

Henderson yesterday at his council flat, he refused

to discuss the letters.

Last night a Labour spokesman said: “Public

figures getting offensive material in the post are

advised to refer them to police.

“We now consider this man is not worth giving any

more publicity to.”

A Scotland Yard source said: “By sending letters

in a very unpleasant tone the writer has committed

an assault.”

Special Branch, who organise protection for MPs,

have been informed of the situation.

The article was accompanied by a large photograph of me, printed after I had specifically withheld my permission for its use, and was flagged on the front page with the charming headline “COPS PROBE BLAIR PEST – EXCLUSIVE: Fears over race hate mail.”

The Mirror story contained these objectively provable libels: (1) the false accusation of sending ‘Race hate’ letters to Tony and Cherie Blair, (2) the false accusation that I sent dozens of letters to the Blairs, (3) the false accusation of assault, (4) The false accusation of sending letters containing ‘graphic racist filth’, (5) the false accusation of sending letters containing ‘racial insult’, (6) the false accusation of sending letters containing ‘sewer language’, (7) the false accusation that I have ‘tendencies associated with stalkers’, (8) the completely fabricated quote ‘If he [Blair] gets elected, he’ll let in all the blacks and Asians’ and (9) the false statement that I refused to comment on the letters when approached by the Mirror.

——————————————————–

FROM THE EDITOR

By fax (0171-353 8355) & by post

16 October 1997

Your ref: 970738

Christopher Hayes Esq

Press Complaints Commission

I Salisbury Square

London

EC4Y 8AE

Dear Mr Hayes

Mr Robert Henderson

I refer to Mr Henderson’s complaint as outlined in his letter of 23 September.

As you are aware, we have been in contact with Mr Henderson for some time due to his propensity to bombard individuals and this office with correspondence. [RH: Translation: Mr Henderson sent more than one letter because the Mirror refused to reply].

There are certain irrefutable facts that escape emphasis in Mr Henderson’s correspondence.

Far from ignoring any of his correspondence we have written to him on the 20 May, 22 July and 6 August. [RH: The letter of 20 May merely said he was not going to enter into correspondence. The other two letters were from his legal department in response to Subject Access Requests I made under the data Protection Act. These were legally required]. We have consistently made it clear that we have no intention of entering into any further correspondence with him.

Be that as it may I will address his concerns:-

In essence, the basic “sting” of the article, of which he complains, was that he had been sending numerous insulting letters, some with racist undertones, to Mr and Mrs Blair which had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration.

Mr Henderson himself admits that he sent Mr and Mrs Blair at least thirteen letters. I have no way of directly knowing of the content of those letters because I have not had sight of them. However, clearly they sufficiently concerned Mr Blair’s office to be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service [RH: The CPS said as soon as they saw the letters that they were entirely legal] and I think the Commission is perfectly entitled to draw an adverse inference on the contents of those letters as a result of that referral.

I cannot accept Mr Henderson’s explanation for writing {o Cherie Blair. To do so was clearly designed to intimidate. In Mr Henderson’s draft article “Moral Simpletons Target Innocent Man” the bile that he shows on the second page of that article clearly illustrates his capacity to insult in his letters to Mr and Mrs Blair[RH: an absurd deduction. What I wrote to the Mirror says nothing about what I wrote to the Blairs] (to the extent that they be referredto the Crown Prosecution Service). I would also refer the Commission to Mr Henderson’s gratuitous reference to a “Blaireich”.

He also admits to expressing his disgust (we can only guess in what terms) of the decision of Mr and Mrs Blair not to send their son to a school whereby a white schoolboy was, apparently, murdered by five other boys (and that that murder was racially motivated). [RH: This was the Richard Everitt murder].

The police source of our article (whose identity we have a moral obligation to protect) [RH: thus the police informant behaved illegally by supplying the information] gave us the detail of the letters that we then published. Nothing that Mr Henderson writes has convinced me that the article was anything other than accurate.

Perhaps one can get a flavour of his correspondence with Mr and Mrs Blair by examining the final sentence of his draft article in which he states “It was a cargo of ancient male gonads”.

The Commission may be aware (I am attempting to get hold of the article) that the article of Mr Henderson’s that appeared in Wisden’s Cricket Monthly in 1995 gave rise to an extraordinary amount of controversy and resulted in Wisden paying substantial libel damages to the Cricketer, Devon Malcolm,[RH: Malcolm refused to sue me after I made it clear I would take the case to the floor of a court] whom the Commission will be aware is a coloured fast bowler for England. As I understand the matter, and Mr Henderson will correct me if I am wrong, the article implied that coloured players will not try as hard when playing for England as white players. [RH: The article put it forward as a possibility, no more].

I have discussed the legal position with the newspaper’s solicitor, Martin Cruddace [RH: Cruddace is a proven liar. He made a declaration to my Subject Access Request under the Data protection Action to the effect that the Mirror held no qualifying documents. Eventually after I had done some detective work, he had to admit that the Mirror had a small matter of 118 pages of documents relating to me], and he has assured me that the law has recently developed whereby words (be they written or spoken) can constitute assault [RH: No person in the UK has been convicted of such a crime. The definition of GBH has been extended to non-physical abuse such as abusive phone calls but it requires a psychiatric illness to be proved to be caused by the alleged abusive behaviour. Mere emotions such as fear do not qualify. The failure of the police to consider such a course and the CPS’ immediate definition of the case as “NO CRIME” shows that my letters were entirely lawful] if the pattern of those words is such as to make the recipient of them either anxious or ill. It has developed as a reaction to the former impotence of the law on stalking.

The law has therefore developed since the publication of the dictionary reference on which Mr Henderson relies.

I cannot accept that the taking of the photographs of Mr Henderson, given the clear public interest concerning the subject matter of The Mirror article, could possibly constitute harassment under the Code. [RH: It was a clear breach both because I had advised them of my eye trouble and because they took photographs having come over my threshold.]

I am most concerned not to waste any further time in dealing with Mr Henderson’s complaint but, naturally, if the Commission wishes me to address any further matters then I will endeavour to do so.

However, I hope that the above is sufficient to convince the Commission that the basic “sting” of the article is accurate and that Mr Henderson’s complaint ought to be dismissed.

Yours sincerely

Piers Morgan

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Elite Mischief, Politics, The Scandalous Blairs, The willing censor | Also tagged censorship, free speech, Leveson Inquiry, liberal bigotry, political correctness, Tony Blair | Comments (2)

Why Jeremy Hunt’s claim of no bias is a nonsense

June 5, 2012 – 10:59 am

Robert Henderson

Jeremy Hunt’s defence against accusations of bias when judging the bid of the Murdoch family to gain full control of BskyB is simple: he says that regardless of his own pro-Murdoch views, he behaved with absolute propriety and impartiality in his conduct of the matter, taking what he claims was independent advice throughout and always acting upon it.

The problem for Hunt’s argument is that he was in a quasi-judicial situation. This means that he had to comply with the dictates of natural justice which applies “equally to the decisions of administrative and domestic tribunals and of any authority exercising an administrative power that affects a person’s status, rights or liabilities. Any decision reached in contravention of natural justice is void as ultra vires . There are two principal rules. The first is the rule against bias (i.e. against departure from the standard of even-handed justice required of those who occupy judicial office.) – nemo judex in causa sua ( or in proporia causa) (no man may be a judge in his own cause)This means that any decision, however fair it may seem, is invalid if made by a person with any financial or other interest in the outcome or any other known bias that might have affected his judgement. The second rule is known as audi alteram partem (hear the other side). It states that a decision cannot stand unless the person directly affected by it is given a fair opportunity both to state his case and to know and answer the other side’s case. (Oxford Dictionary of Law 1996 edition P261)

The bias rule means that not only must the person in the judicial or quasi-judicial position behave without bias, they must be seen as having no conflict of interest which could lead to a reasonable suspicion of bias. Like Caesar’s wife, Hunt needed to be above suspicion. Clearly he was far from being that because of (1) his severally expressed desire to see News International gain full control of BskyB , including enthusiastic written support just before Cameron appointed Hunt to replace Vince Cable as the minister responsible for making the decision on the News International bid, (2) the incestuously chummy behaviour of his special advisor Adam Smith when dealing with News Corp lobbyist Fred Michel and (3) his own texts and emails including compromising ones with his political colleagues.

A month before Hunt replaced Cable as overseer of the BskyB bid, he wrote to David Cameron asking for a meeting with Cameron and Cable to discuss the handling of the bid. In the note Hunt was concerned that referring the bid to Ofcom might leave the Government “on the wrong side of media policy” and expressed the view that it would be “totally wrong” for ministers to “cave in” to News Corp’s opponents. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9288966/Jeremy-Hunt-and-the-secret-BSkyB-memo-to-David-Cameron.html). Sir Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary at the time when Hunt was given Cable’s job . O’Donnell’s job was to decide whether Hunt was qualified to be Cable’s replacement for the job of overseeing the News Corp’s bid for total control of BskyB. This judgement included the question of bias. O’Donnell made his judgement inn ignorance of Hunt’s memo to Cameron because neither Hunt nor Cameron disclosed it to O’Donnell.

Just before Hunt was given the job of handling the BskyB takeover bid he was effectively lobbying on News Corp’s’ behalf :

‘Hunt email to [Andy] Coulson, [then the director of communications at No 10] timed at 4.10pm, 21 December 2011: “Could we chat about this. Am seriously worried Vince [Cable] will do real damage to coalition with his comments.”

Two minutes earlier, at 4.08pm, he [Hunt] texted Osborne: “Cld we chat about Murdoch Sky bid am seriously worried we are going to screw this up. Jeremy.”

Almost immediately he fires off another text to the chancellor: “Just been called by James M. His lawyers are meeting now and saying it calls into question legitimacy of whole process from beginning ‘acute bias’ etc.”

Osborne responds to intimate that Hunt has got the job of overseeing the News Corp/Sky bid, texting him at 4.58pm: “I hope you like our solution “. ‘ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/31/jeremy-hunt-george-osborne-bskyb-bid)

Hunt did this despite having been given legal advice that he should not try to influence the outcome of the BskyB bid (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9290934/Leveson-Inquiry-Jeremy-Hunt-tried-to-intervene-in-Vince-Cable-scrutiny-of-News-Corp-bid-for-BSkyB.html)

The extent of the contact between Hunt, the DCMS and Adam Smith and News Corps after Hunt was appointed to the position Cable had vacated is extraordinary. Hunt and DCMS officials exchanged 799 text messages with News Corp; Adam Smith 257 with Fred Michel of News Corp. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9287284/Leveson-Inquiry-DCMS-exchanged-799-texts-with-News-Corp-during-BskyB-bid.html)

The nature and tone of the texts are as remarkable as there frequency. Here are few examples of Hunt’s:

“2011 20 Jan

Michel to Hunt

Following minuted meeting in DCMS with News Corp to discuss the bid:

Great to see you today, we should get little [names of children] together in the future to socialise. Nearly born the same day at the same place! Warm regards, Fred.

Hunt to Michel

Good to see you too. Hope you understand why we have to have the long process. Let’s meet up when this resolved.

Jan 21

Michel to Hunt

You were very impressive yesterday, and yes, let’s meet up when it’s all done. Warmest regards, Fred.

March 3

Michel to Hunt

Mr Hunt had announced he was accepting News Corp’s Undertakings in Lieu, which meant Sky News would become an independent company

You were great at the Commons today. Hope all well, warm regards, Fred.

Hunt to Michel

Merci. Large drink tonight! “

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9287671/Leveson-Inquiry-the-texts-between-Jeremy-Hunt-and-Fred-Michel.html)

No judge would have failed to disqualify himself if he had had such contact with someone appearing before him, although no judge would have dreamt of having such contact with someone appearing before him. Nor would any third party (in this case Adam Smith) have been acting on behalf of a judge in a way guaranteed to compromise the ability of a judge.

Whether Hunt behaved impartially in his consideration of the BskyB takeover bid is actually irrelevant, because the facts of his behaviour both before and after his appointment to adjudicate on the bid give ample ground for suspecting that he would be biased in his judgement. Moreover, it is possible that someone who appears to be biased would act unfairly in the opposite direction, that is, treat unfairly the person whom it was suspected he was biased towards to allay claims of partiality.

There is also the question of whether those opposed to the BskyB bid had a meaningful opportunity to answer the Murdoch case (the second primary rule of natural justice). If Hunt accepted submissions from the opponents of the Murdoch bid, and it would be extraordinary if he did not, those making the submissions would not be able to fully answer the other side’s case because they would not know the facts of what was happening between Hunt and his special advisor and the Murdochs.

The fact that Hunt is trying to hang-on regardless of the mountain of evidence of inappropriate ministerial behaviour and David Cameron is desperately attempting to protect him by refusing to refer Hunt’s behaviour to Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on the Ministerial Code tells you all you need to know about the Coalition, namely, that they have learnt nothing from the various scandals encompassing politicians in the past few years and believe that when shove comes to push that ministers can behave more or less as they wish short of outright criminality provided they retain the support of the Prime Minister. Hunt’s behaviour should have been referred to Allan because the Ministerial Code echoes the bias rule of natural justice , viz: :“ f. Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests” (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/409215/ministerialcodemay2010.pdf).

Cameron’s reluctance to act over Hunt is plausibly linked to his own close connections with the main News Corp/News International players, especially Rebekah Brooks and his appointment of an ex-news international editor Andy Coulson as No 10 Communications chief, a man being investigated over phone-hacking while the editor of the News of the World and now charged with perjury over a separate matter relating to the trial and conviction of the erstwhile Scottish SMP Tommy Sheriden. There is also the fact that Cameron made the decision to appoint Hunt despite knowing of Hunt’s bias in favour of the News Corp bid when he appointed him. To that can be added the approval of George Osborne for the appointment as shown in the text quoted above from Osborne to Hunt in which Osborne describes the appoint of Hunt to replace Cable as “the solution” to Hunt’s worries about News Corp failing to gain full control of BskyB (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/31/jeremy-hunt-george-osborne-bskyb-bid).

There is also evidence that 10 Downing Street aides had a good deal of contact with News Corp generally, viz: :

“Two of David Cameron’s most senior and trusted advisors were having back door text chats with News Corp’s chief lobbyist at the height of the Milly Dowler scandal, it emerged tonight.

Gabby Bertin, the Prime Minister’s press secretary, exchanged numerous messages with Fred Michel in the days after true extent of phone hacking at the News of The World became apparent.

She also contacted the then chief executive of News International Rebekah Brooks to offer her support and was given early warning of the decision to close the News of the World.

At the same time Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s Director of Communications, was also in contact with Mr Michel and the pair met for dinner at a “discreet location” the day after the Dowler revelations came to light.

The text messages also show that there were a significant number of – up till now undisclosed – telephone conversations between Downing Street and News Corp as the extent of the scandal became apparent.” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/cameron-aides-cosy-chats-with-news-corp-7788308.html).

Cameron’s problem is that if Hunt goes he is also in the firing line because he has been too closely involved with both Hunt’s appointment and News Corp generally. .

It is nauseating to compare the ministerial misbehaviour Cameron has tolerated with his 2010 foreword to the Ministerial Code :

“Our new government has a particular and historic responsibility: to rebuild confidence in our political system. After the scandals of recent years, people have lost faith in politics and politicians. It is our duty to restore their trust. It is not enough simply to make a difference. We must be different.

We have promised the people a coalition government united behind the key principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility. Every day of this government we must make good on that promise, acting in a way that reflects these principles.

In everything we do – the policies we develop and how we implement them, the speeches we give, the meetings we hold – we must remember that we are not masters but servants. Though the British people have been disappointed in their politicians, they still expect the highest standards of conduct. We must not let them down.

We must be different in how we think and how we behave. We must be different from what has gone before us. Careful with public money. Transparent about what we do and how we do it. Determined to act in the national interest, above improper influence. Mindful of our duty. Above all, grateful for our chance to change our country.

DAVID CAMERON (Ibid)”

Truly, Britain’s leading politicians have no shame.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Elite Mischief, Politics | Also tagged authoritarianism, crime, law | Comments (2)

“Free markets and “free trade” = elite propaganda”

April 20, 2012 – 2:37 pm

Note: I wrote this long eassay in 2005. The financial crash and recession since provide added grist to my arguments as the rich get richer, most people get steadily poorer, public provision shrinks and the inequality between people swells.

The lessons of economic history tell this story: a strong domestic economy is necessary for sustained economic growth and stability. The freer the trade with foreign states, the less stable and secure the domestic economy.

Post-war economic experience illustrates this nicely. Britain experienced her strongest sustained growth in the period 1945-1972. This was a period of protectionism and much state intervention in the economy. Problems arose in the 1970s, but these were largely due to the oil price spike after 1973, a consequence of globalism. However, even with the oil price spike, unemployment in Britain never went much above 1 million until Thatcher arrived and wilfully destroyed our heavy and extractive industries.

During the period 1945-1979, Britain did not suffer a serious sustained recession. From 1979 onwards, under the Thatcherite ideology we have had three serious recessions: in the early 1980s, the early 1990s and the present recession.

To our post-war experience I would add the fact that England built her commerce then the first Industrial Revolution behind very restrictive protectionist measures such as the Navigation Acts. RH

Robert Henderson 20 4 2012

———————————————————————

“Free markets and “free trade” = elite propaganda”

Robert Henderson

1. Unquestioned ideas

2. The “Free Market” is a state regulated market

3. The “free market” as its proponents conceive it

4. How effective is anti-monopoly legislation?

5. Microsoft and Windows – a natural monopoly

6. The historical trend towards contraction of competition

7. “Free trade”

8. Has “free trade” ever been practised?

9. “Free trade” today

10. Does “free trade” deliver? The lessons of economic history

11. Is society materially enriched by “free markets” and “free trade?

12. What is meant by material enrichment?

13. How the market fails to provide what the customer wants

14. Relative poverty and wealth and happiness

15. Man does not live by bread alone

16. Geopolitics

17. The democratic deficit

18. Does “free trade” increase competition and choice in the long run?

19. The reality of our economic circumstances

20. Why elites are so keen on “free markets” and “free trade”

21. A sane alternative to globalism

22. Free trade as a religion

23. An elite ideology

1. Unquestioned ideas

Because they have the word free in them, the terms “Free markets” and “free trade” have seduced those of all political colours to treat them uncritically as ideas. They are considered good or bad but their intellectual coherence is rarely questioned.

Neo-liberals believe in a childlike quasi-religious fashion in the workings of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, which, moved by enlightened self-interest, supposedly creates the best of all possible material worlds through the operation of the market. Socialists see “free markets” and “free trade” as economic “state of natures” which must be ameliorated by the state before a civilised society can be realised. Conservatives in the traditional sense no longer exist as a recognisable political force in the West, but when they did exist they opposed “free markets” and “free trade” primarily on the grounds of national security and the general disruption to society that they caused. Nationalists of the fascistic kind have traditionally opposed the ideas because they see the nation as a single organism which can only be strong if it is master of its own destiny, something which can only be achieved (they believe) through state direction of both the internal market and of external trade.

There are varying quantities of truth in all these ideological responses, but their utility is seriously tainted by the lack of any objective or even properly defined and permanent prescriptive truth in the concepts of “free markets” or “free trade”. The reality of these ideas is that they are arbitrary chosen bundles of behaviours which are excluded or included at the will of their proponents. Moreover, the bundles of behaviours are not static.

The widespread negligence in examining the coherence of these ideas is all the more remarkable because their incoherence as theories and the arbitrary and dishonest nature of their practical realisation is not only readily apparent but fundamentally undermining of the claims made for them by their champions.

2. The “Free Market” is a state regulated market

There is a splendid irony in the objection of the self-defined “free marketeers'” and “free traders” to state intervention for the natural end of a truly free market is monopoly – or at least greatly reduced competition resulting in oligopoly and the rule of cartels. All so-called “free market” societies recognise this by passing anti-monopoly laws. The “free market” is in fact a market controlled by the state in the most fundamental way, that is, to prevent its natural workings. It is one of the great propaganda triumphs of history that “free markets” have been successfully sold as being what happens naturally without state intervention. Call a spade a spade and substitute the truthful “state regulated non-monopolistic market” for “free market” and the psychological shape of the idea changes dramatically. (Some casuistical “free marketeers”might argue that the “free” in free market applies to the workings of the market rather than the market as a natural phenomenon. That explanation falls because “free marketeers” invariably make the blanket claim that markets only work efficiently without government interference. Their honest position would be to state that they want state regulated markets to prevent monopoly. They will not do that because it would be an acknowledgement that state regulation of the market is legitimate and hence remove any general argument against regulation. That in turn would mean any form of state regulation would be potentially reasonable and consequently each form of regulation would have to be argued down individually on the merits of the case, rather than simply empty-headedly dismissed on the grounds of no regulation = good; regulation = bad.

The state regulated “Free Market” is not even a natural phenomenon made somewhat artificial by rules to exaggerate the natural phenomenon in the same way that we breed animals to exaggerate nature. Rather it is just about as far from being a natural phenomenon as anything can be for it goes against all Man’s inclinations, both individual and social.

Economic history is overwhelmingly a catalogue of market regulation, local and national, from guilds to governments. It would be surprising if it were not because human beings, like all other organisms, naturally behave to secure their own advantage or that of their group. Extended to the nation state, this natural behaviour has commonly resulted in domestic markets being protected against foreign competition. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is another matter – a question I shall deal with later – all I am concerned to do at this point is to nail down that the fact that protectionist behaviour is what is natural.

Historically, whether you were anything from a rich merchant to a poor day labourer it was obviously not in your personal interest to allow others free access to your markets to offer the goods or services at a lower price or to work for lower wages. The merchant might be driven to bankruptcy by competition, the labourer from his job. History also tells us that whatever their previous economic station, such people will probably not be able to find equivalent or better paid employment and often may not be able to find any employment at all where structural unemployment arises. What was historically true not only remains true today, but its effect is much magnified because the opportunities for competition are greatly increased by modern communications and the ease of travel and cargo transportation.

Of course, any individual or sectional advantage causes strains in a society and if the material privilege of any person or group becomes excessive, sooner or later there will be a successful revolt and the wealth in a society will either be shared more fairly through a change in the way the society is structured, for example, through the abolition of tolls, the ending of state monopolies or even through a removal of the rich as a class without any increase in the wealth of the majority.

But wherever wealth distribution through social change has occurred it has normally been done with the express intention of benefiting a particular group or even an individual in the case of monarchs. The odd thing about “free marketeers” is that what they ostensibly advocate is not to privilege any particular individual or group but to benefit society as a whole. Whether free markets do so is another matter, but that is their claim.

The “free marketeer” says to a population, do what I say and in time society will become richer. He does not say this person or that group will become richer or even all will become richer, but merely that the society as a whole will become richer. This is an extraordinary thing to ask people to trust in. It is also the most wonderful blank cheque ever written to a politician because not only does it absolve him or her of any need to take the responsibility for regulating the economy, it also means that he or she can never be held to account for dishonesty by any individual if that individual is personally worse off. All a “free marketeer” politician has ever claimed is that his economic way will make society richer. Provided society overall is richer, he has met his met his promise.

It is also telling for their intellectual credibility and honesty that “free marketeers” will oppose government interference in such matters as subsidies, quotas, embargoes, wage rates and working hours and grumble about tax rates and public expenditure, but are generally quite happy to see other gross distortions of the market deriving from government action. They not only tolerate patents, copyright and trademarks, but often defend them as property in themselves and as devices which actually improve economic performance because they encourage invention, investment and expansion. In addition, those who constantly bleat about Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” sorting out the business wheat from the chaff insist that limited liability is necessary. This of course is also a violent interference with the market because it means that the individual shareholder never takes full responsibility for their investment. (It is worth noting that the British industrial revolution – the one and only bootstrapped industrial revolution – took place before limited liability became legally possible (Limited Companies Act 1862) and at a time when patent rights were insecure and in practice limited to the domestic British market.)

It is true that none of these things are actually part of what the concept of a “free market” is and that they are inimical to such a market, but the fact that almost all modern “free marketeers” have tacitly incorporated them into their vision of what a “free market” is demonstrates their intellectual confusion (or dishonesty if you prefer).

3. The “free market” as its proponents conceive it

Let us put aside for the moment the fact that “free markets” are state regulated markets and ask the question what is a “free market” as it is conceived by “free marketeers”? A jolly good question. Even if market distortions which appear acceptable to “free marketeers” such as patents and limited liability did not exist, that would leave many other things which prevent unfettered domestic competition. In an advanced modern economy these include:

Taxes

Non tax fiscal measures, for example, control of interest rates

The state of the currency

Exchange controls

Overall Government expenditure

State Subsidies

Industry and trading standards, official and otherwise

Public sector employment

Transport costs

Public ownership

Defence

Direct and indirect Government intervention

The moral and social climate, for example, a tradition of wWelfare or the feeling of the

people, for example, the national feeling of Japanese Practical cultural barriers

such as the difficulty of a language

Dumping

Transport costs

Working hours

Trading laws

Labour laws

Wage rates

Bureaucratic differences

Company laws – particularly the attitude towards foreign ownership

Banking laws

Banking system

Social policy – welfare, health and so on

Physical infrastructure

Honesty of public servants

Foreign policy

National strategic considerations

Education – The amount spent, school leaving age, curriculum,

Limited Liability

Environmental laws

Some of these things such as subsidies, patents, quotas and limited liability could be obviously and legitimately ruled out of order by a “free marketeer” because they are deliberate state interferences with competition, but what of items such as the provision by the state of education or the physical infrastructure of a country? They are undeniably distortions of competition at some level, but they are not deliberate attempts by the state to distort competition. A purist “free marketeer” could just about say such things were no business of the state and still be intellectually coherent because it is possible to conceive of a society without such state provision. But however purist they might be, sooner or later the “free marketeer” will run into features which undeniably restrict competition but which must exist simply because they are an inescapable part of society. The most obvious is tax.

Any modern state needs a large tax revenue to sustain itself, the only questions to determine being how large should be the revenue and what it should be spent on? Some things such as defence and policing are inescapable expenditures for any state, although even there the amounts to be spent are debatable and elastic. Items such as education and welfare are more subject to variable expenditure. Nonetheless, substantial amounts are as a matter of contingent fact invariably spent on such items by all advanced states. Such countries also engage to a lesser or greater degree in all the forms of regulation listed above.

In theory, and even more in practice, the notion of a “free market” seems to rest on little more than anti-monopoly laws, wages and prices set by the market (although in practice this does not happen purely through the market because of welfare provision, tax regimes etc) and a lack (or at least a minimum) of state interference in such areas as health and safety, employment law and company law.

The inclusion of these narrow criteria are merely a subjective choice made from a much larger menu of man-made distortions of the market. Consequently, there is no objective coherence to the concept of the “free market” as it is conceived by the “free marketeers”. It is an arbitrary ideology based on subjective choice.

4. How effective is anti-monopoly legislation?

Anti-monopoly laws operate within the constraints of the type of social and economic circumstances described above. That alone means they are severely limited in what they can do. They must, for example, tolerate state granted monopolies in the form of patents and copyright.

Anti-monopoly legislation generally only effectively attacks the problem from one end. A company can be prevented from growing its market share by taking over other companies but there is normally no meaningful restriction on a company growing its market share simply by expanding the existing company. Microsoft and the domination of Windows is a classic example.

Where companies try to expand by takeover, experience shows that those charged with applying the legislation allow very large parts of a market – 25% or more – to be held by a single company. The consequence is that a market which would seem to be an obvious candidate for competition, for example, food and domestic supplies retailing, can easily come to be dominated by three or four major players (as is the case in Britain).

There are also those products which are either natural monopolies because of the physical location of their infrastructure – railways, roads, the utilities such as gas – or which are inevitably going to have few entrants in the field because of reasons of cost, for example, aerospace, motor cars, ship building.

Finally, there are those rare markets which are dominated by one company simply because of the nature of their business. The classic example of this is Microsoft and their Windows operating system.

5. Microsoft and Windows – a natural monopoly

In South Park: The Movie, there is a glorious scene where, under martial law, Bill Gates is executed for falsely promising that Windows 98 would be “faster, easier to use and more reliable”. Many long-suffering Windows users doubtless wish that life had imitated art in that instance. Yet despite widespread dissatisfaction Windows remains the overwhelming dominant operating system.

At first glance it might seem that operating systems should be just the type of product which is open to fierce competition because software is a market which potentially has low entry costs. It is true that most areas of programming are competitive – within the constraint of the dominant operating system (OS) – but operating systems are the odd man out. The reason is simple. Once a single OS gained dominance, the chances of any other system effectively competing were very small. This is because the weight of programs available to run under the dominant OS soon became much greater than those which could be run under any other OS. Thus, it becomes inefficient to choose any other OS. That in turn means most of the software is written in a way to make in “friendly” to the dominant OS systems’ users. This further excludes OS competitors and the software to run under them because users, especially employers, do not want to spend the time training their employees on completely new systems, converting data and so on.

The consequence is that Microsoft still has a stranglehold on the pc market. Moreover, if anyone wants to write any other software, they are constrained by the practical need for it to run under the Microsoft OS if they wish to reach the mass computer user market.

The near monopoly has lasted a long time. It has done this despite considerable attempts by both rivals and the US government to diminish their market position. Windows’ dominance looks secure for the foreseeable future.

6. The historical trend towards contraction of competition

As remarked previously, the logical end of a free market is monopoly. The reason is obvious: competition tends to reduce the number of competitors through the natural process of success and failure and the takeover of one firm by another. In some trades this does not create an obvious serious anti-competitive difficulty because the initial capital investment is small and entry to the trade within the reach of many. But entry to a considerable and growing number of areas of manufacturing and service provision is too expensive for all but a few.

In a significant minority of trades starting a business from scratch is practically impossible for any one individual or even a group of private investors. The car industry is a first rate example, the number of companies now being small (and becoming smaller) compared with the number of even 40 years ago. Moreover, many of the car companies which do still exist do so only because of state subsidy and protection.

7. “Free trade”

“Free trade” is frequently treated as synonymous with international trade. In principle it does not have to be restricted to international dealings because the concept may be applied to any market, whether that be within a global, regional, national or even a local context. The United States for example displays considerable differences in local tax rates between not only states but within localities within a state, and, indeed, the ultimate aim of the “free trader” is to create a single world market. However, there are considerable differences in practice between domestic markets and international markets, not least because the criteria which are deemed to fall within the concept of “free trade” are not identical with those which are said to be a necessary part of the concept of a “free market”, for example, laws to prevent monopoly are redundant when it comes to international trade because one country will either supply or not supply goods and services to other countries and a country with a monopoly of an important good or service can as a matter of fact only be persuaded to supply the good or service against its will by extra-legal action, ultimately force or the threat of force. Consequently, it is convenient to treat “free trade” as being economic intercourse between nation states and that is what I shall do.

What does and does not constitute “free” international trading? In times gone by, people would have pointed to those honest workhorses of restriction: embargoes, quotas and tariffs and navigation laws and not much else. But in the modern world things are much more complicated as we discover almost daily during the seemingly interminable EU squabbling and the GATT rounds.

Some things are obviously incompatible with “free trade” such as embargoes or state subsidies, but what of different tax regimes, welfare provision or labour regulations? Why should they be excluded from the things which should not be tolerated in a “free trade” regime? After all, a low company tax regime could be regarded as a form of state subsidy to business and all welfare provision could be regarded as a subsidy to wages.

But even such items are straightforward compared to others. What of national sentiment which gives a preference to home produced goods regardless of whether they represent the best value when judged purely by price and quality? Should a country be forced to take the cheapest of any particular equivalent good or service, regardless of the wishes of the people of that country, on the grounds that not to purchase that which gave “best value” constituted “unfair competition”? A reductio ad absurdum? Well, consider the fact that public bodies within the EU (which for these purposes includes any organisation drawing part of their income from public funds) must allow any company within the EU to bid for any work put out to contract, and if the lowest bid is not accepted, the public body risks being fined for a breach of the Single Market rules.

Even more problematic are things which are simply effects of economic activity. Take true dumping, not the state subsidized export regimes which often pass for such, but a simple economic practice to maximise profit.

True dumping works like this. Imagine that a company can make 2,000 units a week. It covers its costs for all 2,000 units if each week it produces and sells 1,000 units at œ1 each. The company finds it can sell a maximum of 1,500 units in the home market at œ1. If it reduces the unit price to 75 pence it could sell all 2,000 but that would only produce the same amount of revenue as selling 1,500 at £1 each.

Consequently, it sells 1,500 in the domestic market at £1 each and the other 500 at 50 pence each (carriage paid by buyer) in foreign markets. Total sales are £1,750 instead of £1,500.

That is a very simple model of dumping but something akin to it happens regularly with differential pricing from country to country (the European car market is a prime example of this). No state subsidy has been given, no state intervention of any sort has occurred. Why should it not be considered as reasonable a practice as the toleration of different national wage rates? In fact, why should it not be considered more reasonable because wage rates are directly linked to such hidden subsidies as those of welfare and low company taxation? (in fairness, the economic activity of the dumper would also be linked to wage and tax subsidies, but the connection would be more remote.)

Most contentious perhaps is the question of immigration. Does “free trade” require the movement of people as freely as goods and services? This is generally accepted as self-evident by purist “free traders”. Yet there is no logic to the claim. Economic forms are made for men not men for economic forms. We know as a matter of practical experience it is possible to have the exchange of goods and services without the mass movement of people. If a society decides that the benefit gained from the free movement of people is outweighed by the social disruption caused by such migration, it is a perfectly rational decision. A people may decide that they will have or not have free exchange or movement just as they may decide to have this or that level of taxation or welfare provision. It makes no more sense to say a society which restricts immigration – which all advanced states in practice do – is not a “free trader” than to say they are not a “free trader” because their income tax rate is higher or lower than that of their competitors.

The treatment of human labour as merely a factor of production (along with land and capital) is also incompatible with the liberal democratic tenets of the equal worth of each person and the rights and obligations of citizens. Allowing mass immigration to reduce wages or the exporting of jobs to cheaper labour overseas is treating human beings as being of no more account than inanimate objects. It is inhuman.

So what does “free trade” actually mean? Does it require merely that countries may trade with one another without any formal barriers such as tariffs and quotas? Or should it take into account all those items such as national tax regimes, non-tax fiscal measures, wage rates (where these are set by the state), standards of practice and manufacture (official and otherwise), and the size of the public sector. All of these are controllable either entirely or to some degree by men. In other words, they could be removed or altered.

If a definition of “free trade” is accepted which includes these and other non-traditional elements of market distortion, the ultimate logic of the definition is that “free trade” as a global concept cannot exist until all peoples and countries are reduced or elevated to the same general economic condition.

Those who run the European Union would say that is precisely what is required, at least within the EU. But the experience of trying to create unified trading conditions at a supranational level in the most advanced of supranational political and economic entities, demonstrates just how difficult it is to create a supranational market in which there is a broad uniformity in the trading conditions within its constituent national parts. Despite nearly half a century of trying through treaty after treaty and the covering of the EU members with an avalanche of EU directives, there is no meaningful economic uniformity within the EU, either in the circumstances of private enterprise competition or in the function of the state. The introduction of the Euro has painfully revealed exactly how disparate the economies of even the richer EU states still are with Germany needing low interest rates to re-inflate and Italy requiring high rates to control public spending and the European Central Bank paralysed by their inability to square such an economic circle.

The Holy Grail of “free traders” is comparative advantage. This is a first rate example of a neat and emotionally satisfying (to a certain type of mind) intellectual idea which bears little relation to reality. The idea is that every country concentrates on making what it is best at and the overall global product rises because of increased efficiency. Even in theory this is rather dubious because it ignores every other aspect of society than a narrow view of economic relationships and assumes tacitly that a comparative advantage will last. David Landes in his The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (Little, Brown and Co 1998) cites the instance of the Englishman John Borrow, who in 1840 urged the states of the German Zollverin to concentrate on growing wheat, and sell it to buy British manufactures and comments: “This was a sublime example of economic good sense: but Germany would have been the poorer for it. Today’s comparative advantage…may not be tomorrow’s.”

The truth is that any definition of “free trade” is as subjective as that of a “free market”. It has no natural boundaries because the implications of both ultimately embrace the whole of human material endeavour and there are no true natural variables on which to base a definition – even those which might at first glance appear to be objectively and naturally set, such as wages and prices, are determined by matters other than the market, for example tax regimes and welfare provision.

8. Has “free trade” ever been practised?

Between 1860 and 1914 Britain operated the best approximation to “free-trade” the world has seen. In the period 1840-1870 not only did she by degrees open her markets to all regardless of whether other countries reciprocated, but the size of the British state was so tiny that the distortions of government expenditure and taxation were minuscule compared with the present day. But achieving the best approximation to “free trade” was not difficult to achieve because no other country of any size has ever seriously attempted it for any length of time.

For a quarter or a century or so, Britain got away with the ill-effects of being a reckless “free trader” whilst other major countries remained protectionist to varying degrees. She escaped the consequences for three prime reasons: Britain’s industrial dominance, long distance transport of bulk goods remained cumbersome and expensive and the fact that America and Europe were strangely slow to follow Britain’s example and industrialise.

That all changed in the 1870s. Bulk transport was becoming much easier and cheaper. Railways – ironically more often than not built with British capital and technical expertise – had begun to have a considerable influence on the continent and in America and were beginning to snake across Australia and South America. Perhaps most importantly the age of the practical steamship and refrigeration arrived. Manufactured goods, food and raw materials could now move around the world in volumes which dwarfed anything which had gone before. British farmers were especially badly hit when the Americas and Australasia flooded the British market with food and wool.

To these developments, and arguably in part as a consequence of them, there was a widespread retreat into a deep protectionism in the 1870s, most notably by the USA and Germany. Britain failed to respond to these developments by guarding her own markets.

The period of 1870-1914 saw the predictable results of Britain’s quixotic refusal to guard her markets when all about her were assiduously doing so: she lost her general industrial predominance, well nigh destroyed her farmers and failed to dominate vital new industries, such as the chemical, which at one time she had led – Britain produced the first synthetic dye (Perkin 1856) and the first synthetic plastic (Parkes 1855). Two of the most enthusiastic protectionists, the USA and Germany, became the first to exceed Britain’s GDP.

Bismarck summed up what had happened in a speech in 1882 when he said: “I believe the whole theory of free trade to be wrong…England abolished protection after she had benefited from it to the fullest extent. That country used to have the strongest protective tariffs until it became so powerful under their protection that it could step out of those barriers like a gigantic athlete and challenge the world. Free trade is the weapon of the strongest nation, and England has become the strongest nation in the world owing to her capital, her iron, her coal, and her harbours and owing to her favourable geographical position. Nevertheless, she protected herself against foreign competition with her exorbitant protective tariffs until her industries became so powerful.”

But even the “free-trade” Britain practised was far from complete. Government contracts were generally given to British companies. Ditto municipal contracts. Moreover, there was a strong sense of patriotism in the country which, as with the present day Japanese, mitigated the effects of free-trade. Nor, of course, was there a WTO, EU or any other body to question and interfere with the internal economic workings of Britain such as taxation, interest rates or working conditions.

British “free trade” was further complicated by the existence of the Empire and a widespread imperial sentiment which created the opportunity and the desire to trade with members of the Empire rather than the rest of the world. It does not do to over-egg the effects of this because British trade with the world outside the Empire, especially the USA, always remained strong, but it undoubtedly significantly distorted British trade.

9. “Free trade” today

If “free trade” was a gigantic gamble for an industrially, commercially and politically dominant Britain in 1850, it is vastly riskier for any country now. Transport even after the arrival of railways and the steamship was still expensive, slow and cumbersome compared with now. The electric telegraph was the height of sophistication. Most parts of the world could not engage in international trade on their own terms because they were colonies, under the practical control of foreign powers or unindustrialised.

Today physical transport is fast and cheap. In place of the telegraph, we have the internet. Many countries have industrialised. The age of formal empires is over.

But there is more than political and technological change which makes a difference between our own time and the last outbreak of “free trade” mania. The “free trade” being advocated now is doctrinaire to the point of idiocy, namely the god of comparative advantage (the idea that each nation should concentrate on those products which are most profitable and forget the rest) is to be applied to everything, even (in the EU) to all public contracts, including those for weaponry. Childishly doctrinaire as they were as they played with their untried intellectual toy, even the most extreme “free traders” in the 1830s and 1840s saw that some parts of the economy could not be reasonably opened to competition for strategic reasons, military supplies being the prime case.

Let us suppose that we had a perfect “free trade” world now, a world in which there were no tariffs or quotas or embargoes or “standards” to meet; that all the artificial restraints on trade were removed; that no government subsidized productive employment in any way and all that remained to differentiate countries were market decided labour rates, carriage costs and the cost of nonproductive public works such as justice and the army. What then?

The consequences would be extremely dangerous for the West. Farmers in the First World would be on their knees and mass production of virtually anything in general demand would quickly become impossible because whatever a company’s efficiency, it simply would not be able to compete with labour which was a tenth or less of the cost of its own native workforce. All such countries could do is try to make high-value goods,

Even if the redundant working populations of the First World could find alternative employment, which is dubious, their countries would be left utterly at the mercy of those who now produced their food and most of the manufactured goods they consumed.

10. Does “free trade” deliver? The lessons of economic history

Free traders base their case primarily on the increase in prosperity which they believe will only come through increased global trade. The general answer to that claim is that Man does not live by bread alone. Moreover, even if there is a general rise in the global product at present, it does not necessarily follow that the same or better result could not be achieved by other means. The experience of all industrialised countries to date is that industrialisation is best achieved – perhaps can only be achieved by protecting the national economy. Indeed, there is a powerful logic in the idea that developing nations today require protection more than the early industrialising states because the early industrialising nations had little competition.

But even if it could be shown indubitably that the global product is increased more by “free trade” than by protection, it does not follow that it is in a particular country’s interest to adopt free trade. Consider the position in a national market which operates “free trade” within that market, but protects its trade and industry from foreign competition. Companies go bust if they do not compete. But successful companies take their place and continue to provide employment at broadly similar rates of pay. The logic of global “free trade” is that countries which cannot compete will go bust and not be replaced by others in the domestic market. There will be no replacement jobs within the bankrupt country because the successful competitor is abroad.

The most lethal ammunition to discharge at “free traders” is the fact that no country in the history of the world has industrialised successfully without very strong protectionist measures being in place. That includes the first industrial nation, Britain, which spent a couple of cosy centuries behind the Navigation Acts, the first of which was passed in 1651, before becoming a free trader. Not only that, but Britain only adopted “free trade” principles after she had become heavily industrialised and did so at a time when the country was still the dominant industrial power in the world by a long chalk and her exports were more or less guaranteed to sell in foreign markets.

Before Britain dropped her old colonial protectionist system in the mid 19th Century, she had industrialised in the modern sense from scratch and expanded her GDP massively. Perhaps most impressively she had managed to continue to largely feed herself without the price of corn going sky high, despite the fact that the UK population almost doubled between 1801 (the first Census) and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

As described above, Britain’s experience during her most committed “free trading” period was one of declining market share and commercial and industrial dominance while rigid protectionists such as Germany and the USA experienced massive growth. Of course, Britain could not hope to remain so dominant but her decline was remarkably rapid. In 1870 Britain was the richest country by GDP in the world: by 1914 both Germany and the USA had larger GDPs. Moreover, by religiously adopting open markets, for capital as well as goods and services, Britain seriously distorted her economy. Vast capital exports resulted in underinvestment in Britain and foreigners manufacturers and traders took full advantage of Britain’s open doors. The result was that by the Great War in 1914 her farmers were on their knees and modern industries such as the chemical and pharmaceutical were sadly undeveloped because of foreign competition (this distortion of the economy was soon to be a great national embarrassment during wartime when many industries were found to be inadequate to replace imported goods).

Here is a German voice from 1913: “By its free trade policy England has been more useful to us than its numerous political machinations have been harmful to us. Where would our sugar industry – one of the first items to help us in our economical rise – have been today, or our textile and iron industries, had it not been for the free markets of England? Nowhere: we should have been entirely without our new German capital, our financial resources. On the back of free trade England we grasped at and secured our economical world-power….Industrial and political supremacy go together. Warships are machines, and the nation which succeeds in attracting the centre of capital is the nation that can afford to build most. The present rulers of England represent the fourth generation of dictators to the world. It will not be easy for them to give up the role of ‘primus inter pares'”. (Prof von Schulze-Gaevernitz quoted – p347 -in The fall of protection 1840-50 by Bernard Holland)

Britain limped on with “free trade” after the Great War until 1931 when the secular religion was abjured, at least temporarily, during the Great Depression. Although unemployment remained high by historical British standards until WW2, the British economy behind protectionist barriers recovered quickly compared with most of the rest of the world. Most interestingly, the newer high-tec industries such as the motor, chemical and electrical recovered and grew fastest following their protection.

From 1945 to the mid eighties of the last century at least, Britain continued in an essentially protectionist system, as did the rest of the world. The world economy grew strongly during the period despite the protection. Even within the EU the “free market” mania did not really get under way until the Single European Act of 1985.

It is true that since protectionist barriers have come down over the past 20 years economic growth has been strong in the First World, but then it has been strong behind protectionist barriers and, indeed, with state direction of the domestic market. Germany under Hitler in the 1930s recovered amazingly quickly, despite the fact that the Nazis pursued an economic course which was probably as close to autarky as it is possible for a major modern state to bear. Imports and exports were regulated according to what was perceived to be necessary to make Germany strong through self-sufficiency. What Hitler did not do was attempt to run industry directly. Instead, the Nazis allowed private enterprise to run commerce and industry whilst directing what was produced and supplied.

All that tells us three things: that “free trade” is not necessary for rapid economic growth, that state regulation of the domestic market and international trade is not a recipe for disaster and that being a “free trader” when the rest of the world is not reciprocating is a mug’s game.

11. Is society materially enriched by “free markets” and “free trade?

This is an impossible question to answer categorically because there is no way knowing what would have happened if protectionism had remained full blooded throughout the last century and a half. One can compare growth rates under stronger or looser protection regimes, but they really say little because the other determining factors such as public expenditure have varied so greatly. These variables also blur judgement about the comparative merits of controlled and “free” domestic markets.

The most certain thing one can say from the economic experience of the developed world is that governments running commercial industries such as coal and steel directly is generally a mistake. (Governments are the natural suppliers of universal services such as healthcare only because private provision of such things is never adequate.)

What is certain is the fact that the material effects of “free trade” are far from uniform. It is no consolation to those who suffer along the way that others may benefit from their disadvantage. The next generation or the generation after that may be richer but why should their benefit be brought at the cost of disadvantaging a prior generation? Certainly no politician or political party standing at an election would dare to do so on a platform of “we shall make many of you poorer to make future generations richer.” Those living at any point in time have their own moral context and needs.

The constant economic turmoil caused by “free trade” and its inevitable concomitant, the supranational corporation, undeniably leads to circumstances which greatly disadvantage large swathes of the population in the First World through the removal of First World jobs to the rest of the world. At worst, these people become the perpetual victims of structural unemployment (try getting a job in an area where the main employer closes and you have no scarce or easily transferable skills or you are middle-aged or, indeed, try opening a new business or becoming self-employed in a depressed economy): at best they are driven into ill-paid and uncertain employment.

12. What is meant by material enrichment? Britain as a case study

The assumption is that the material conditions for most have improved considerably over the past two hundred years. Any economics textbook will plot economic improvement in terms of rising real wages. But those supposedly rising real wages are based on measures which are often questionable, incomplete or derived from very narrow data such as corn prices. Even modern measures such as the Retail Price Index (RPI) are not static, their content and weighting being regularly revised. Nor do such measures fully represent the true costs of necessities, the most notable distortion in Britain being the failure of the Retail Price Index (and its successor index the Consumer Price Index) to reflect housing costs fully. Any comparison between different times based on such measures needs to be treated with caution.

Of course no one in their right sense would question whether there has been massive material advance in the past two centuries. A more interesting question in our context is whether most people are materially better off now than they were in 1960s, by which time a fully fledged welfare state was bedded in, housing, both owned and rented, was reasonably priced, social housing was being built in massive quantities, university education was not merely free but students subsidized with grants, unemployment was tiny and inflation low.

Today the welfare state is constantly under attack by the British political elite and in some areas such as NHS dentistry already seriously inadequate, while the state pension is much reduced as a fraction of the average wage following two decades of increases linked to the cost-of-living pegging rather than increases linked to the average national wage.

Housing of all sorts in most parts of the country is presently absurdly costly and social housing is greatly reduced through Right-To-Buy and minimal new building since the 1980s.

The cost of university education is rocketing and grants are a distant memory.

Unemployment remains high today (2005) even by the official figures – approximately 950,000 by the claimant count and around 1.5 million by the most widely used international measure – figures which most probably severely understate the real unemployment level because it ignores the considerable disguised unemployment within the 2 to 3 million people currently on long term sick benefit payments (the 1980 figure for such people was 600,000). The increase in those staying on at school after the age of 16 and going on to university has also reduced the present figures by taking hundreds of thousands out of the jobs market for years. From 1945 to the late seventies unemployment never rose above a million on the official claimant count and for most of the time was considerably lower even with little disguised unemployment and far fewer people staying in education after the school-leaving age (which was only 15 until the mid sixties).

There are other fundamental social changes which bear upon the material state of the nation. Many more people today have to travel long distances to work than they did forty or fifty years ago. That is costly both in terms of fares and time. More generally, it is increasingly difficult for someone on the average wage to support a family on that wage. That often means both parents have to work not from choice but necessity.

Taxation bears much more heavily on the poorer part of the population now than it did in the past. Direct taxation – income tax, national insurance, inheritance duty – applies to many more people now than it did in 1960, primarily because a failure to maintain personal allowances and tax bands at a reasonable level. Direct taxation is also broader in scope, for example VAT compared to purchase tax. Such taxation takes proportionately more of the income of the poor than the rich.

It is a moot point whether overall people are generally materially better off than they in 1960. They may own more trinkets such as TVs and computers and some imported goods such as clothes may be at least much cheaper, but those are small advantages to set against the great increase in housing costs and commuting fares and the diminishment in social provision. Doubtless a section of society has benefited, but it would be a brave man who wanted to argue that the condition of the vast majority has improved, especially the poorest third of the population.

Many will read this with astonishment, saying but we have so much more today, dazzled as they are by the many new products. It is important not to confuse technological advance with “free markets” and “free trade” or general material wellbeing. People are undoubtedly better off in 2005 in terms of being able to purchase such things as cars or electronic goods then they were in 1960. But people in 1975 were also better off in those respects than those who had lived fifteen years before. That improvement was long before “free markets” and “free trade” had become the elite ideology. It is worth adding that new products often result in additional expenditure regardless of whether the individual really wants the product – any product which becomes widely used is difficult to resist. Technological innovations are particularly prone to induce reluctant purchases.

13. How the market fails to provide what the customer wants

There is no better modern example of the market failing to provide what the customer both needs and wants than the computer industry. If it was driven by the customer, the computer industry would produce hardware and software which was easy to install, had continuity of use, was simple to use and was supported by adequate help lines and manuals. The industry signally fails to do any of these things.

Hardware and software are of course purchased in ever greater volume and computer services, including maintenance, continue to swell. But that is not an indication of customer satisfaction. Rather, it is simply a reflection of how computers have become an inescapable part of our lives, not only as obvious computers but also in the guise of so many of the other machines we use – everything from phones to intelligent clothes. Business and public administration have become so dependent on their use that they cannot do without them. That being so, whatever is on offer, however unsatisfactory, is bought out of sheer necessity. The computer companies have the modern world over a barrel.

It might be objected that although most people cannot completely escape computers at their work, they do not have to bring them into their private lives. Yet increasing numbers buy computers for private use.

Why do they do that if the machines are so unreliable and demanding? Simple: once a significant minority have private computers and business uses them very widely, it becomes very difficult for the rest to resist, not least because businesses and government increasingly require those dealing with them to do so by computer. But there are other pressures as well.

We have long passed the point where a handwritten document is likely to be read by most people in business unless it is an order or payment. Now, except between social contacts, everything must be word-processed to be acceptable. A word processor or access to one has become a sine qua non for anyone who wishes to be taken seriously. Even amongst private individuals a letter is increasingly seen as unusual or even quaint.

With emails, we have not come to the stage that telephone ownership reached a quarter of a century ago when not to have a phone became considered eccentric, but we are rapidly moving towards it.

Employers increasingly wish to contact employees by email wherever they are and this means the choice is often between having a computer and email at home or not having a job.

Those with school age children, whatever they think of computers, find it next to impossible to deny their children not only a computer but access to the internet, both because the children want it to match their peers and because they have been brainwashed into believing that a computer is essential.

In short, people are increasingly being driven to become computer owners and users not because they actively want to, but because they feel isolated and excluded if they remain computerless. Again, as with the analogy between telephones and emails, within the foreseeable future, someone without a computer is in danger of becoming in the eyes of the majority as much as an oddity as someone without a TV is now considered.

14. Relative poverty, wealth and power

Even if most people or even all people were in absolute terms better off as a consequence “free trade”, that does not mean that their general situation has improved in power terms.

Wealth is not merely an advantage for what it can directly buy but also for the power it brings. The poor are doubly disadvantaged by their poverty by their restricted ability to purchase what they want and their subordination to those who can purchase anything they desire. Consequently, the ordinary man or woman may well be happier and freer in a society which is materially poorer overall but which is less oppressive through the absence of great differences in wealth. Charles Darwin in the Voyage of the Beagle describes a port in South America which suffered an earthquake while the Beagle was there in harbour. The town attached to the port was virtually destroyed and its inhabitants were reduced at least temporarily to the same material level. Darwin noted the happiness, almost gaiety, of the population after this happened.

The example of Britain is instructive when it comes to relative wealth. Until the 1970s inequalities in wealth were narrowing. Despite all the puffing of the “trickle down” of wealth which supposedly results from Thatcherite “free market” practices, wealth distribution has not changed dramatically over the past quarter century of “free market” policies by successive British governments.

A Royal Commission (1976-79) on the distribution of income and wealth found that in 1976 the top 1 per cent of the population owned 25% of all personal wealth, the top ten percent raked in 60% and the bottom eighty per cent had a measly 23% (Penguin Dictionary of Sociology p72). The Inland Revenue figures for wealth distribution in 2002 are show the top 1 per cent own 23% of national wealth and the bottom fifty per cent of the population have a staggeringly small 6% (Office of National Statistics (ONS) website – published 2004). Those figures, eye-opening as they are, conceal the fact that wealth inequality in 2002 would be much greater than 1976 were it not for the increase in home ownership and the rise in house prices.

Another ONS report (2005) entitled “The long shadow of childhood” (TLSOC) based on research by the London School of Economics concludes that there has been remarkably little change in social mobility in Britain over the past 30 years. The study was based on census records between 1971 and 2001.

TLSOC also demonstrated how the social and economic status of children is very much tied to that of the parents. For example, more than two thirds of those with parents in professional or managerial jobs managed to take a degree: of those with semi-skilled/unskilled parents, 14 per cent had a degree.

15. Man does not live by bread alone

Even if the “free traders'” claims of an overall increase in the wealth of a society were true, there would still be strong arguments against the policy because a society is more than its crude economic relationships.

Human beings do not like too much uncertainty. A certain amount of stress is good for them, but only so much. Like masochists and physical pain, human beings are comfortable with stress only in so far as they feel it is within their control. Manifestly, for many people the uncertainty they experience is utterly outside their control. This widespread insecurity leads not merely to individual suffering but damages the social fabric by generally diminishing confidence in the future and the ability to cope in the here and now.

A 2005 study (Molly Watson Western Mail 31 9 2005) by a Cardiff University Department of Psychology team led by Prof Aylward Mansel suggests that the general level of happiness in the Depression was greater than it is now (the team analysed data from surveys of assessing happiness and contentment from the past 70 years.) This conclusion might seem absurd to most people living today who, if they have any conception of the Depression, it is one of a dire time packed with the most horrendous stress. Yet the findings of the report have a certain plausibility because in the 1930s there was undoubtedly a greater sense of social solidarity, especially amongst the working class, than there is now and civil society was far stronger then – the working class not only lived in close-knit communities which offered support to those who fell on hard times, but they were woven into supportive institutions such as the co-operative movement and unions. They were anything but socially isolated whereas today people are often isolated. Social involvement, the Cardiff University study found, was the single most important cause of happiness or unhappiness.

One must be cautious with such studies because however scrupulous the researchers a degree of subjectivity is inevitable. Nonetheless the equation of isolation with unhappiness will, I think, strike a strong chord with most.

There is also the question of a people’s self-confidence. If a nation’s visible and everyday manufactures are predominantly foreign, it tends to produce a sense of dependence in the individual. A man looks around and can find next to nothing he can identify as produced either in his own country or made by companies owned by his countrymen. Not unnaturally he begins to lose confidence in the ability of his own country to stand alone. Peoples throughout history have allowed themselves to be conquered simply because they believed themselves to be generally inferior to those who confronted them and slaves have been routinely controlled by owners who deliberately attempted to reinforce their sense of inferiority.

16. Geopolitics

Free trade is postulated on an absurdity, namely that the world will no longer see wars which will significantly disrupt trade, or at least the trade of the First World. It is a fool’s paradise.

Those with memories greater than that of a goldfish may recall the help and support Britain received from her supposed EU “partners” in the Falklands. Remember how France supplied military equipment in the form of missiles to the Argentine during that war. Imagine what would have happened if Britain at the time had relied largely on equipment which was either wholly or partly produced abroad. Suppose, for example, her main fighter aircraft had been produced by an EU consortium (as it soon will be), what guarantee could Britain have had of fresh supplies of spare parts and weapons during the Falklands war?

The dependence on foreign suppliers affects even the greatest states. The New York Times (29 Sept 2005 – “More US weapons have foreign roots”) documents the reliance of the US military on foreign suppliers. This is still small as a percentage of the whole defence budget but it is growing and already encompasses important areas such as bio-chemical warfare protective suits.

17. The democratic deficit

“Free trade” emasculates democracy. It does this by confining politics within narrow limits. The present “free trade” agreements mean that no political party can easily stand on a platform of extending state intervention, whether by nationalisation, trade restrictions such as embargoes or the subsidy of its own industries. A party which wished to do any of these things could of course propose to withdraw from the treaties, but that would be in practice a very difficult course to follow, especially where the treaty obligations go beyond mere trade such as those involved in membership of the European Union.

Loss of democratic control is obviously to the disadvantage of the masses. However, it also has implications for competition. The prevention of the formation of monopolies and cartels can be done at the national level, but it is impossible when companies become supranational. You offend against America’s anti-trust laws? No problem, you remove your manufacturing abroad to countries which are happy to have you (or at least their clients are) regardless of what arrangements you may have made with competitors or the any monopoly position.

18. Does “free trade” increase competition and choice in the long run?

In the industrialised world at least, the experience of less restricted trade since 1945 is that competition has reduced not merely in the capital intensive industries and occupations but in those which are not obvious. The numbers of farmers has greatly contracted, but so have the number of storekeepers as chain stores and supermarkets have overwhelmed the individual proprietor. In fact, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find a mature field of economic activity, that is , one which has not sprung up since 1945, which has not displayed reduced competition within the post-war period.

Some of this reduction in competition is simply due to the working of the domestic market towards monopoly, for example, the growth of chain stores, but much of it is directly related to the removal of protection for First World economies.

It is true that large parts of the world have industrialised and increased the number of international competitors, but the overall number of businesses in the developed world has been reduced. multinationals control much of the economic activity of the Third World and, in some industries, dominate the national markets of the First World.

The car industry is a wonderful example of the squeezing of competition. All over the world car companies are being taken over by the giants and many car companies which do exist rely on state aid and favours. The number of companies now being small (and becoming smaller) compared with the number even 40 years ago. Moreover, many of the car companies which do still exist do so only because of state subsidy and protection.

Other traditionally important industries where competition is greatly reduced are aerospace, aviation, shipbuilding, oil, chemicals, steel and farming.

19. The reality of our economic circumstances

What we have does not even fall within the arbitrary and narrow definitions of “free markets” and “free trade” which most of their adherents espouse. States still protect their economies with state subsidies, favourable tax regimes, quotas and tariffs. Nonetheless, protectionist barriers have been reduced sufficiently to severely damage first world industries through products from the developing world with their absence of labour laws and wages many times less than those of developed economies.

First World economies have also exported vast numbers of jobs to the developing world. These range from manufacturing to skilled white collar work such many IT functions. The old middle-class belief that they were immune from the effects of globalisation has received a rude buffeting.

At the same time as jobs and industries have been exported, the industrialised world has increasingly allowed the purchase of native companies by foreigners. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this has been the complete transfer of London merchant banks to foreign ownership.

The fourth strand in the modern “free trade” web is immigration. Since 1945, with the exception of Japan, the First World has allowed through a mixture of design and neglect of border controls, vast numbers of immigrants into their territories, most of whom have been unskilled or low-skilled.

The primary consequences of the slowly evolving post war international economic regime have been two. The first has been the gradual growth of dependence on the imports of vital goods and services by the developed world and a loss of governmental control of companies within their borders, not least because any large multi-national can hold the threat of upping sticks to another country if a government does not play ball.

The second consequence has been the degradation of the economic circumstances of those whose jobs were most at threat from the internationalisation of trade. Those affected are mainly the poorer and less qualified workers and their dependents. They have found their opportunities for work much reduced and the pay and conditions for the suitable work which remains eroded by extra competition from both native workers chasing fewer jobs and immigrants competing for the same jobs.

Those whose jobs opportunities have been degraded have suffered a form of theft. Had mass immigration and the export of jobs been prevented, the wages for the jobs taken by immigrants would have been higher than they are when subjected to the additional competition of immigrant labour and the exported jobs would not have been exported, which in itself would have tightened the labour market. In societies of rising aspiration, this could result in jobs considered menial being better rewarded than those which enjoy high status under “free trade” circumstances. It might be necessary to pay a sewage worker as much as a doctor. Doubtless many would throw their hands up at this. But there is no logic to such a response, because in a society with a large private enterprise component a wage is simply a response to the value the market puts on a job. Unskilled workers may not earn as much as the average doctor or lawyer at present, but skilled tradesmen such as plumbers and builders often do.

20. Why elites are so keen on “free markets” and “free trade”

“I just think that a lot of modern corporate capitalists — the managerial class basically — has no loyalty to any country anymore, or any particular values other than the bottom line.” (Pat Buchanan quoted by Daniel Brandt in his article “Class Warfare” in issue 13 of Namebase Newsline -http//www.namebase.org/news13.html).

Buchanan is grasping a demon which he only dimly apprehends. What is happening is vastly more significant. We are presently witnessing the creation of an international class of plutocrats who care for nothing but their own class. They have the potential to form a true international aristocracy. If that happens, the imperfect democratic control the masses have been able to exert over their elites in the past century will end. The prime tool for the creation of such an international aristocracy is “free trade”.

There are parts of Western elites which are more or less reluctant to embrace “free markets” and “free trade”, but the general economic trend is clear: the internationalist, globalist creed is the dominant philosophy when it comes to trade and increasingly the idea of “free markets” in the domestic sphere is being accepted in practice if not in overt political policy.

Why have these elites moved from their previous socially oriented nationalism to internationalism? The answer to this question reveals the nature both of elites generally and the particular philosophy they currently support.

In most circumstances throughout history the wishes of the mass of a population have been of little or no account in any formal sense. The masses made their presence felt through rioting and social disturbance or as pawns in the service of elite members who wished to rebel. An elite took note only when they were frightened enough – the creation of a form of national public assistance by the Poor Law of 1601 is a classic example of such behaviour.

Eventually, representative government evolved to the point where the masses began to have a direct say in the political process through the vote. The elite as a group did not welcome this but felt it could not be resisted. It was not democracy to be sure but elective oligarchy, which was buttressed by elite constructed devices to exclude new entrants into the political process such as first past the post voting, election deposits and a very strong party system. Nonetheless, once the franchise was broadened the masses were able to exercise a large degree of democratic control because politics was still national and a political party had to respond to the electors’ wishes. The elite resented this control over their behaviour as all elites do and looked around for a way to diminish democratic influence. They found the means to do it through internationalism.

In a sovereign country elected politicians cannot readily say this or that cannot be done if it is practical to do whatever it is. That is a considerable block on elite misbehaviour. So elites decided that the way round this unfortunate fact was to commit to treaties which would remove the opportunity for the electorate to exercise control. The most notable example is the Treaty of Rome and the subsequent treaties which have tied Britain into the EU.

Vast swathes of policy are no longer within the control of the British Parliament because of these treaties. Add in the treaties tying Britain to the UN and the WTO and the commitment of every mainstream British party to them, and democratic control has essentially gone.

But internationalism is not simply a bureaucratic elite device to weaken democratic control, it is a sociological event in itself. An elite thinks of itself as a separate group, a group which may in some circumstances extend beyond national boundaries and jurisdictions. The medieval aristocracies of Western Europe thought themselves part of a chivalric whole. When Charles I of Egland was executed in 1649 the monarchs of Europe were horrified because they thought it would set an example for other royal killings.

The ruling elites in the First World today have a class interest which binds them more closely to one another than to the people they rule. Indeed, there is arguably a greater sense of international elite solidarity than ever before. This is because modern communications allow people, goods and ideas to move with an unmatched ease. Because of this the international class can constantly revitalise and extend their group solidarity.

The advantage to the elites of this culturally based international solidarity underwritten by many personal elite relationships across national boundaries, is that it allows them to weaken even further their dependence upon their immediate (native) populations, because not only does a particular national elite have a ready made excuse for not doing something – our treaty obligations will not permit it – but the personal relationships and the growing sense of class solidarity increases the confidence and hence the willingness of the various national elites to act ever more in the international elite class interest.

Indeed, the more they are together and the more they act together, the more natural it will seem.

It is important to understand that elites are not engaged as a group in a conscious conspiracy against the masses. What happens is that the psychological and sociological forces which press upon us all lead the elite to adopt policies which always lead to their retention of power. It is not difficult to see how this happens.

All human beings have a powerful ability to write a narrative in their heads which will persuade them that they act not from self-serving or disreputable reasons but honourable and socially useful ones. The consequence of this is that while individual members of an elite will consciously comprehend the likely effect of their ideology, the majority will simply accept their ideology at face value. This helps to bolster and stabilise the elite’s position because no elite ideology ever overtly states that the masses will be disadvantaged if the ideology is followed, and in the case of formal democracies, the ideology positively claims to materially better society as a whole. This will emotionally reassure most elite members, who will bolster their acceptance of the ideology through inter-elite conversations – if most or all those in a group are positive about something, that is most powerful social reinforcer.

21. A sane alternative to globalism

Economic history suggests that the most effective general strategy to promote economic development in a country is to allow competition within the domestic market (where it does not create serious social discord) whilst regulating international trade through protectionist measures sufficient to maintain the general capacity of a country to point where it can maintain itself in an emergency such as war or blockade and be sovereign in most circumstances.This would require the judicious use of embargoes, tariffs and quotas to ensure that all the vital industries remain as a presence in Britain.

A few industries should be in principle wholly supplied from the British market. These are defence equipment and the various energy sources. The reasons for defence equipment provision being domestic are simple: any foreign supplier can cease to supply goods for political reasons or simply be unable to produce the goods when wanted at all or in sufficient quantities.

Energy supplies should be domestic because if they fail the whole of society is brought to a halt. Self-sufficiency in energy in any advanced country could be achieved in the medium term by nuclear power supplemented perhaps by new sources of energy such as wave and current power and bio-fuels.

A country should also build up a stockpile of essential materials such as metals and the minerals used in the chemical industry. Five years national supply should be a minimum.

A country should be able to feed its population from its own production at a pinch. In Britain this is possible with modern crop yields and animal husbandry. Crop yields are considerably greater than they were even in WW2 and the opportunities for increasing the volume of animal products have multiplied greatly over the past 60 years, for example, in the massive development of poultry farming since 1945.

75% of the market in every other vital industry should be reserved for the domestic market. What is a “vital industry”? Try these for starters: metal (especially steel), chemical, biotech, computers, robotics, motor vehicles, shipping, aerospace, clothing, building, machine tools.

I would also reserve to domestic production at least 25% of the market for goods that are useful but not vital to provide a base for an expanded home production in times of emergency. Trade in wholeheartedly nonessential goods – Christmas trees, pogo sticks and suchlike – could be “free”.

I am not arguing for autarky. What I am advocating are trading circumstances which allow a nation to defend its national interests, particularly in time of war or international crisis. The measures I propose would produce self-sufficiency in food where necessary, the maintenance of the ability to manufacture a complete range industrial goods and most importantly the maintenance of an arms industry which can produce a full range of weapons necessary for the defence of the country.

Such a system would provide the security the state requires and permit very substantial international trade even in essential goods.

Obviously such a regime could not be followed in its entirety by most states. However, all could exist within those parts of it suited to their circumstances, for example, Britain could manage the entire regime, many third world countries could be self-sufficient in food.

22. “Free markets” and “free trade” as a religion

Free marketeers fancy themselves to be rational, calculating beasts. In reality, their adoration of the market is essentially religious. They believe that it will solve all economic ills, if not immediately, then in the medium to long term. Armed with this supposed objective truth, they proselytize about the moral evils and inefficiencies of public service and the wondrous efficiency and ethical outcomes of private enterprise regardless of the practical effects of their policies or the frequent misbehaviour of those in command of large private companies. Their approach is essentially that of the religious believer.

Like the majority of religious believers, “free marketeers and traders” are none too certain of the theology of their religion. (I am always struck by how many of them lack a grasp of even basic economic theory and are almost invariably wholly ignorant of economic history). They recite their economic catechism sublime in the concrete of their ignorance.

The religion has its roots in the first half of the 18th century when there were occasional attempts to suggest tariff reform, but the idea only became a serious political policy in the 1780s with the advent of Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister in 1784 who long toyed with “economical reform”.

The 18th century also provided the religion with its holy book, The Wealth of Nations by the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith. This strongly argued for “free markets” and “free trade”, but Smith also recognised the demands of national security, the need for government to engage in social provision such as road building and maintenance which would not otherwise be done and, must importantly, the nature of a society and its economy. Here is Smith on the Navigation Acts: “…the Act of Navigation by diminishing the number of buyers; and we are thus likely not only to buy foreign goods dearer, but to sell our own cheaper, than if there were a more perfect freedom of trade. As defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence, the Act of Navigation is, perhaps, the wisestof all the commercial regulations of England.” (Wealth of Nations Bk IV. ch ii)

But Smith and his book suffered the fate of all those who found religions, secular or otherwise. As the decades passed Smith’s cautious approach was redrawn in the minds of his disciples to become a surgically “clean” mechanical ideology in which all that mattered was the pursuit of profit and the growth of trade and industry through the application of the “holy edicts” of open markets and comparative dvantage. The disciples, like other religious believers, avidly quoted the passages from their holy book which suited their purposes and ignored those which did not. They also found a further holy text in homas Malthus’ Essay on Population of 1802, whose predictions, although unproven by events, could be used to demonstrate that economic expansion was vital if widespread starvation was not to occur.

The clinical, soulless and inhuman nature of the laissez faire idea as it evolved is exemplified by the English economist David Ricardo. Here is a flavour of his mindset: “Under a system of perfectly free commerce each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to both. The pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most economically, while increasing the general mass of the production it diffuses general benefits, and binds together by one common tie of interest and intercourse the universal society of nations”. (David Ricardo in The fall of protection p 174).

The Napoleonic wars largely foiled Pitt’s wish for broad reform and placed “free trade” in suspended animation as a serious political idea until the 1820s, when cautious attempts at tariff reform again were made. But underneath the political elite was a radical class who were very much enamoured of wholesale economical reform. With the Great Reform Act of 1832 they were given their opportunity to become part of the political elite. They took it with both hands, their most notable and extreme proponents being John Bright and Richard Cobden backed by the intellectual power of David Ricardo – all three became MPs.

Within a dozen years of the first election under the Great Reform Act’s passing, Parliament had been captured by the disciples of Adam Smith and the pass on protection had been sold by of all people a Tory prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, an action which kept the Tories from power for most of the next 40 years.

Such was their religious credulity that the “free traders” advocated not merely opening up Britain’s markets, both at home and in the colonies, to nations who would allow Britain equivalent access to their markets, they advocated opening up Britain’s markets regardless of how other nations acted. The consequence was, as we have seen, disastrous for Britain.

Disraeli in a speech on 1st February 1849 cruelly dissected this insanity:” There are some who say that foreigners will not give us their production for nothing, and that therefore we have no occasion to concern ourselves as to the means and modes of repayment. There is no doubt that foreigners will not give us their goods without exchange for them; but the question is what are the terms of exchange most beneficial for us to adopt. You may glut markets, but the only effect of your attempt to struggle against the hostile tariffs by opening your ports is that you exchange more of your own labour each year for a less quantity of foreign labour, that you render British labour less efficient, that you degrade British labour, diminish profits, and, therefor, must lower wages; while philosophical enquirers have shown that you will finally effect a change in the distribution of the precious metals that must be pernicious and may be fatal to this country. It is for these reasons that all practical men are impressed with a conviction that you should adopt reciprocity as the principle of your tariff – not merely from practical experience, but as an abstract truth. This was the principle of the commercial negations at Utrecht – which were followed by Mr Pitt in his commercial negotiations at Paris – and which were wisely adopted and applied by the Cabinet of Lord Liverpool, but which were deserted flagrantly and unwisely in 1846″. (The fall of Protection pp 337/8″).

Ironically, the “free traders” make the same general errors as Marxists. They believe that everything stems from economics. For the neo-liberal the market has the same pseudo-mystical significance that the dialectic has for the Mar ist. Just as the Marxist sees the dialectic working inexorably through history to an eventual state of communism (or a reversion to barbarism to be exact), so the neo-liberal believes that the market will solve any economic problem and most social ills. Neither ideology works because it ignores the realityof human nature and its sociological realisation.

The one track economic mentality of the early “free traders” is well represented by the father of J S Mill, James Mill:”The benefit which is derived from exchanging one commodity for another arises from the ncommodity received rather than the from the commodity given. When one country exchanges, or in other words, traffics with another, the whole of its advantage consists of the in the commodities imported. It benefits by the importation and by nothing else. A protecting duty which, if it acts at all, limits imports, must limit exports likewise, checking and restraining national industry, thus diminishing national wealth.” (The fall of protection p 174). And to Hell with any social or strategic consideration or changing economic circumstances.

After the Great War and the fall of “free trade” as public policy in 1931, the religion went underground for nearly fifty years. When it re-emerged as a political idea in the 1970s the politicians who fell under its spell were every bit as unquestioning and credulous as those of the 1840s. Tony Blair’ statement on Globalisation, ie, free trade, at the 2005 Labour Party Conference shows that it is alive and kicking today.

Scorning any attempt to discuss Globalisation, Blair said of those who wished to oppose it “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer”. (Daily Telegraph 1 10 2005.)

None of this would matter very much now if those who believe in “free markets” and “free trade” were without political power. Unfortunately, theirs is the elite ideology of the moment and the past 25 years. In Britain, the Tories may be more fanatical in their devotion to the market as panacea, but Blairite Labour have caught more than a mild dose of the disease. A good example of this is their response to house price hyperinflation where they desperately and futilely attempt remedies within the constraints of what they perceive to be “free market” disciplines rather than opting for the obvious state generated remedies such as restricting immigration, building a great deal of social housing and forcing developers to release land for building.

Both the traditional Left and Right have been duped by globalisation. The Left initially welcomed globalisation as a dissolver of national sovereignty, but they are discovering by the day just how restrictive international treaties and membership of supra national groups can be. As things stand, through our membership of the EU and the World Trade Organisation treaties, no British government could introduce new socialist measures because they cannot nationalise companies, protect their own commerce and industry or even ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent in Britain with British firms. A British government can have any economic system they like provided it is largely free trade, free enterprise.

The Right are suffering the same sickness with different symptoms. They find that they are no longer masters in their own house and cannot meaningfully appeal to traditional national interests because treaties make that impossible.

But there is a significant difference between the position of the two sides. The traditional Right have simply been usurped by neo-Liberals in blue clothes: the traditional Left have been betrayed by a confusion in their ideology which has allowed their main political vehicles to be surreptitiously by the likes of Blair.

The left have historically objected to “free-trade” on the grounds that it destroys jobs and reduces wages. But what they (and especially the British Left) have rarely if ever done is walk upon the other two necessary planks in the anti-“free trade” platform: the maintenance of (1) national sovereignty and (2) a sense of national cohesion. The consequence is that the Left has been and are still struggling with two competing and mutually exclusive ends: internationalism and the material improvement of the mass of the people.

23. An elite ideology

The best way of judging any political ideology is to ask cui bono? (who benefits?) The obvious answer in the case of “free markets” and “free trade” are those who believe (with good reason) that they nor their dependants will never be amongst those who will suffer the ill-effects of free trade. These people are and will continue to be overwhelmingly drawn from the middle and upper classes for the same reasons that such classes have always maintained their superiority, namely that such people will have inherited wealth, social connections and superior opportunities for education which are denied to the majority.

The new international elite is neither left nor right. Its ideology is simply designed to promote the interests of the elite. It has aspects of right and left, but they are merely the policies which allow the elite to both disguise their true intention and to give a pseudo-moral camouflage to their ends. They speak of the internationalist equivalent of “motherhood and apple pie” with exhortations to “end world poverty” and fund a “war on disease worldwide”. If I had to find a term to describe this elite I think I would settle for neo-Fascist because so much of what is proposed is reminiscent of fascism.

It is also telling that Western businessmen who ostensibly support the idea of the positive effects of competition arising from “free markets” and “free trade” never want it for themselves. They always happily grab a state subsidy or an embargo if it is to their advantage. None of the US airlines had any hesitation in grabbing billions of dollars from the Federal government after 911. Large companies publicly complain of government regulation while secretly welcoming it because they can bear the cost of it more easily than their smaller competitors. Multinationals shamelessly play one country off against another in their search for massive subsidies and other favours before they deign to operate in a country.

Countries play the same game, cheating wherever they can. And the more powerful the state the greater the cheating, both in terms of helping particular industries with direct state aid and in the formulation of the treaties governing world trade. Hence, the USA presents itself as the ultimate champion of free enterprise whilst being both now and throughout its history one of the greatest of protectionists and state subsidisers of its industries – that it is seen widely as an enterprise society is one of the great propaganda triumphs of history. Its behaviour after 911 is symptomatic of the unequal nature of modern “free trade”.

The US not only handed, as mentioned above, billions to its ailing private airlines, but put up protective tariffs to protect its steel produces.

It was ever thus. The two greatest names of the early Industrial Revolution, Josiah Wedgewood and Matthew Boulton, were happy to climb on the Enlightenment bandwagon with its beliefs in the universality of Mankind and advocate lesser tariffs and freer trade -until the proposed freeing threatened their own businesses.

What goes for businessmen goes for the individual worker. Who has ever met someone whose job was threatened by “free trade” speaking in favour of it?

Abe Lincoln’s used to put this question to pro-slavers who said slavery was a boon for the slave because they were provided for and were free of normal responsibilities: “What is this good thing that no one wants for himself?” An equivalent question should be put to the “free traders”.

The truth is simple: “free markets” and “free trade” are simply part of an elite ideology and like all elite ideologies they serve the purposes of the elite first, second and last. Those not of the elite who espouse it act merely as useful idiots to promote the interests of the elite.

Opposition to globalisation should not be a Left or Right issue. The socialist and the Conservative should both resist it because it removes the ability of the electorate to control those with power and the power of their political movements to realise their ends.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Economics, Politics, Social Policy | Also tagged free markets, free trade, NWO, patriotism, Plutocracy, welfare | Comments (9)

The globalist lies about the British Labour market

November 19, 2011 – 7:23 pm

Robert Henderson

One of the great lies of the modern liberal is that in developed countries such as Britain unskilled and low skilled jobs are a rapidly shrinking commodity. Daniel Knowles of the Daily Telegraph was at it on 17 November with Our greatest social problem: there are no jobs left for the dim (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielknowles/100118217/our-greatest-social-problem-there-are-no-jobs-left-for-the-dim/). He tried to explain away Britain’s growing problem of youth unemployment by arguing that the less bright, less educated British youngsters of today are unemployed because “Robots and Chinese people have taken over the sorts of jobs that 16 year olds could get without any qualifications straight out of school and work in for a lifetime. The only jobs left for the under-educated, or often just the less academic, are in service industries: serving coffee, cleaning toilets, stacking shelves. These jobs are not the first rung on the ladder. There is no ladder; no one hopes to work in Pret a Manger for life.”

There are several interesting aspects of Knowles’ comment. First, he assumes that offshoring jobs to places like China is something which cannot be reversed and the practice carries no moral opprobrium. Second, he makes the assumption that everyone wants a career rather than just a secure job which allows them to live independently. Third, he makes no mention of the role mass immigration has played in creating unemployment amongst the young, something which can only be explained by Knowles being of the generation which has been brainwashed into pretending that the ill effects of immigration do not exist.

Knowles’ ideas about the young could be as readily applied to British workers of all ages if one accepts his interpretation of the state of the labour market. He is right on the superficial detail that less well-qualified Britons British workers are increasingly being left without unskilled and low-skilled work, but wrong in understanding of why this is and his implied assumption that Britain’s economic circumstances cannot be changed.

The “we have to live in a globalist world” lie

Britain does not have to be, in the cant of the globalists, a post-industrial society. To begin with Britain still undertakes a good deal of manufacturing, albeit this has become across too narrow a range of goods. The base to expand industrial production is still there if only Britain’s politicians forsook the globalist fantasy and concentrated on protecting the domestic British economy, for example, by having a policy to be self-sufficient in food and energy or by making it illegal to use a call centre outside of Britain to serve Britain. This would necessitate Britain leaving the EU. Withdrawal from the EU would also allow Britain to re-establish control over immigration. Turning off the immigrant labour tap would force British employers to take on native Britons.

Such actions would place restrictions on what Britain could sell overseas and lessen the opportunity for Britons to work abroad, but it would be a case of economic swings and roundabouts . The swings of being an independent judiciously protectionist nation again would most probably exceed greatly exceed the roundabouts of other nations’ restriction. This is because the central lesson of economic history is that a strong domestic economy is necessary for a country to be economically successful. It is worth adding that Britons who go to work abroad today are, unlike the majority of foreigners who come to work here, amongst the better qualified part of the population. Consequently, any restriction on their ability to emigrate would be to Britain’s advantage.

Being more self-sufficient as a country also has considerable political advantages. There is less opportunity for diplomatic bullying, especially of small countries by the powerful. Domestically, the more things which are within the control of a government the greater the democratic control, because politicians cannot blame ills on international treaties and circumstances to the same extent. For example, suppose the controls over British financial sector had remained as they were before the Thatcher government’s relaxations, the present financial mess would not have touched Britain to anything like the same extent because lending by British financial institutions would never have got out of hand.

As for people not being prepared to do run-of-the-mill jobs for all of their lives, this is what used to happen routinely and, indeed, many people continue to do just that today. Nor is this something restricted to the unskilled. Any skilled craftsman – a builder, plumber or carpenter – or someone with a skill such as HGV driving will do the same basic job all their lives unless they choose to go to another form of employment. The fact they are skilled does not necessarily make the job intrinsically interesting , although it will be better paid generally than those in a low or unskilled employment. It is also a mistake to imagine that skilled jobs which are non-manual are generally fulfilling or prestigious. A country solicitor dealing largely with farm leases and conveyancing or a an accountant spending most of their time preparing final accounts are scarcely enjoying working lives of wild excitement while a The truth is most jobs, regardless of their skill level, are not intrinsically interesting to the people who do them, the interest in working arising from the money reward and the social interaction which comes with the work.

The “there are not enough low skill jobs” lie

Nor is it true that unskilled and low-skilled jobs are diminishing. The large majority of jobs today, require little or no specialised training. Very few retail jobs involve a detailed knowledge of the product; driving a vehicle other than an HGV comes with the possession of an ordinary driving licence; undertaking a routine clerical task can be done almost immediately by someone who is literate. Until the advent of general purpose robots which can do most of the jobs a human being can do, there will continue to be a plentiful supply of low-skilled work. (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/robotics-and-the-real-sorry-karl-you-got-it-wrong-final-crisis-of-capitalism/)

The existence of low-skilled or unskilled work has a positive benefit beyond the work itself. It provides a means of independent living for the least able. In Britain the average IQ is 100. The way that IQ is distributed – in a good approximation of normal distribution – means that 10% of the population has an IQ of 80 or lower. An IQ of 80 is thought by most experts in the field of intelligence testing to be the point at which an individual begins to struggle to live an independent life in an advanced industrial society such as Britain. Without low-skilled and unskilled work the low IQ individual is left with no means to live an in independent life. That means in all probability a heavy dependency on benefits with a likelihood of antisocial behaviour because they cannot live a life of norm al social responsibility. Full employment is a social good which goes far beyond the overt material product of the employment. The nationalised industries may have had a significant degree of over -manning in strict

The “ immigration does not lower wages or take jobs from Britons” lies

The immigration aspect of British unemployment is particularly potent. Since 1997 the large majority of new jobs in Britain have been taken by foreigners , with those coming from Eastern Europe being particularly drawn to low-skilled employments, viz.:

The ONS figures show the total number of people in work in both the private and the public sector has risen from around 25.7million in 1997 to 27.4million at the end of last year, an increase of 1.67million.

But the number of workers born abroad has increased dramatically by 1.64million, from 1.9million to 3.5million.

There were 23.8million British-born workers in employment at the end of last year, just 25,000 more than when Labour came to power. In the private sector, the number of British workers has actually fallen. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1264333/GENERAL-ELECTION-2010-Under-Labour-nearly-UK-jobs-taken-foreigners.htm l –8th April 2010).

The situation has not changed since the 2010 general election. In November 2011 there are 147,000 more foreign born workers in Britain than there were in November 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8894148/Extra-150000-foreign-workers-in-Britain-as-unemployment-rises.html. )

Most of the immigrants to Britain who have entered employment since 1997 have taken low-skilled jobs: –

In the first quarter of 2011, around 1 in 5 workers, or 20.6 per cent, in low-skill occupations were born outside the UK. This figure has increased from around 1 in 11 workers, or 9.0 per cent, in the first quarter of 2002.

This represents an increase of 367,000 non-UK born workers in low-skill jobs, with 666,000 in the first quarter of 2011, up from 298,000 at the start of 2002. Over the same period there was little change in the number of workers in low-skill jobs in the UK, which stood at around 3.2 million. However, the number of UK-born people in low-skill jobs fell from 3.04 million to 2.56 million.

There were also increases in the percentage of non-UK born workers in each of the three higher skill groups, although the increases there were not as large as that in low-skill jobs. Low-skill jobs are those that need a basic level of education and a short period of training, while high-skill occupations normally require a university level of education or extensive work experience.

The 1.7 million increase in the number of non-UK born workers is comprised of:

• 88,000 from EU 14 countries ((Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden)

• 585,000 from EU A8 countries(Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia)

• 1,010,000 from rest of the world countries Looking at workers at each job skill level, the majority of workers at each level were also UK-born, at 79.4 per cent, 87.2 per cent, 87.6 per cent and 86.1 per cent in low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-skill level jobs respectively.

Majority of workers born in EU A8 countries in low-skill occupations As there was a rise in EU A8-born workers in low-skill jobs over the last decade, it was also the case that workers in this group tended to be in low-skill jobs. In the first quarter of 2011, of all those born in EU A8 and working in the UK, 38.3 per cent were in low-skill jobs, while only 7.8 per cent were in high-skill jobs.

Majority of workers in the UK are UK-born Looking at all workers in the UK, the majority were UK-born. However, over the last decade, the number of UK-born workers fell by 223,000, while the number of non-UK born workers rose by 1.7 million. As a result, UK-born workers as a percentage of all workers fell from 91.5 per cent at the start of 2002, to 86.1 per cent at the start of 2011. (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_234559.pdf)

Those are of course only the official figures. There will also be a substantial number of immigrants taking jobs by working in the black economy.

If the 1.7milliion official count jobs filled by immigrants since 1997 had been filled by Britons, UK unemployment would be officially around 900,000 today, not good but still vastly better than what we have. The vast majority of the jobs taken by immigrants could have been done by Britons because they are low-skilled or unskilled. This gives the lie to the idea that the movement to a service dominated economy would mean a famine of jobs suitable for the less able and more poorly qualified. The wilful destruction of much of Britain’s manufacturing and extractive industries in the 1980s and the later offshoring of jobs dealt a severe blow to British employment opportunities, but it did not in itself mean large numbers of Britons would be unable to find work. It is the permitting of mass immigration which has brought that about.

It is not only unskilled British workers who are being squeezed out. Certainly in London where I live, the building trade has been taken over by foreigners, especially those coming from Eastern Europe. The takeover has been achieved very simply: the immigrant plumbers, carpenters, painters and builders have been willing to grossly undercut the wages of the British craftsman. Despite supposed shortage of midwives, British midwives cannot find posts in Britain (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8889007/Student-midwives-struggling-to-get-jobs-despite-shortage.html) and there are examples of skilled Britons being sacked as foreign companies bring in staff from their own country ( http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2125178/huawei-accused-racial-discrimination).

For most of the decade from 2000 politicians of all stripes and the media refused to accept that immigrants were lowering wages. Around 2010 they began to accept what the laws of supply and demand should have told them, more people seeking work equals lower wages and poor non-money conditions of work. (http://www.allbusiness.com/labor-employment/compensation-benefits-wages-salaries/12699472-1.html). This was deeply ironic because following Blair’s election as Labour leader, the left liberal fraternity religiously espoused worship of the market.

The “Britons won’t do the work” lie

Phone-ins, social networking and the individual experience of those around you tell the same story: there are very large numbers of Britons desperate for work, often any work, who just cannot find any. Again and again people tell of how they have tried for dozens, sometimes hundreds of jobs without getting even an interview. Media reports of employers getting large numbers of applicants for even menial jobs are a regular feature( http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/25-people-chase-every-job-in-some-areas-of-london/423.article). Many new graduates are finding that they have been sold a pup about the increased employability of those with a degree and are lucky to find any sort of job. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/26/fifth-graduates-unemployed-ons).

It beggars belief that British employers are employing foreign workers because they cannot find suitable people. Even if there was a problem with the attitude of young Britons, for which I see no evidence for as a general problem, it would not explain why older workers with a good work history are being overlooked. The most likely explanation is that British employers find foreign workers are cheaper and easier to lay off when they want to.

It is also true that where large numbers of people are needed, gangmasters will be used and these are often foreign and only recruit people of their own nationality. There is also the growing practice of foreign companies in Britain bringing in their own people (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2125178/huawei-accused-racial-discrimination). There is also the possibility of corruption especially where public service organisations are concerned, with foreign agencies and the British people doing the hiring enter into a corrupt arrangement whereby the Britons ensure foreigners are recruited and receive a kickback for that from the foreign agents who supply the labour. The foreign agent gains through the fees for finding and supplying the foreign staff.

During the Blair/Brown bubble years there may have been an element of Britons unwilling to do some of the menial low paid jobs, but in our present dire financial straits that cannot be the case now even for low-skilled workers. Moreover even during the Blair/Brown bubble , the rapidly rising property prices and rents and falling wages often made it impossible for a Briton who had social obligations such as a family to support to take those jobs because they would not provide a means to support the family. Most of the immigrants who came in, especially those from Eastern Europe, were young men with no obligations beyond supporting themselves. They are able , even on the minimum wages, to save a few thousand per year and that money in their own country is worth multiples of what it is worth in Britain. Such immigrant workers found that they could work for a couple of years in Britain and save enough to buy a property in their own country. (Give Britons the chance to go abroad and earn enough to buy a house in Britain and you will be trampled in the rush). In short, there was never a level playing field between British and foreign workers.

The obligation of democratic governments

The first responsibility of a government in a democratic country is to promote the well-being of its citizens above those of foreigners. To take the view, as successive British governments have in practice taken since 1979, that immigrants are, in effect, entitled to the privileges accorded to British citizens is to render British citizenship null and void. To think of the world as a single marketplace with labour, goods and services drawn from wherever is cheapest or most immediately available, is to reduce Britain to no more than a residence of convenience which can be used for the purposes of the individual without any concern for Britain as a society. That is what Britain’s politicians and her broader elite are dragging the country towards. All sense of nation has not been lost ye, t but Britons are increasingly seeing themselves as abandoned by those who are supposed to wield power on their behalf and for their good and are in desperation increasingly looking for their own advantage without regard to the effects of their behaviour on the society they live in. .

If Britain had a political elite which acted as an elite should do in a democracy, they would cast aside the globalist fantasy and begin to rebuild a stable British economy and with it a much stronger and more settled society. They would recover Britain’s sovereignty by withdrawing from the EU. They would end mass migration. They would allow Britain to re-industrialise behind protectionist barriers. In doing those things they would produce a situation which would allow Britons to be employed in jobs which were secure and paid well enough, even at the unskilled level, to live a normal family life because Britain would become a high wage economy. This would be because even the least skilled in society would have a value , for the unskilled work would still need to be done and there would not be an immigrant army to do it . This would either put a premium on those willing to do the unskilled work who would command higher pay or the unskilled work would have to be done as incidental work by those doing more skilled work, for example, cleaning the workplace in addition to being a draughtsman. A fantasy? Well, it is what happens in Norway , a very high wage economy.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Conquest by other means, Economics, Politics, Social Policy | Also tagged free markets, immigration, internationalism, laissez faire, liberal bigotry, nationhood, welfare | Comments (0)

The utilitarian case for the monarchy

April 29, 2011 – 10:47 pm

The utilitarian case for the monarchy is not about pageantry, deference or the vulgar belief that it is worth keeping because it acts as a tourist magnet. It is not about the cost of the monarchy compared with a president. It is not about whether the individual members of the Royal family are worthy beings or if its very existence is an insult to ideas of politically correct equality. The utilitarian case is purely political: our monarchy underpins Parliamentary government.

In resisting the abuse of the many by the few, Britain begins with the great advantages of a parliamentary system and an in practice non-executive head of state chosen by a means utterly outside political manipulation short of the outright criminality of murder, blackmail, illicit threats and bribery, namely birth. These provide a massive barricade against a Prime Minister who would be a despot. He cannot act without the support of an elected parliamentary majority. His cabinet in practice must be overwhelmingly drawn from elected politicians. He may change his cabinet but he cannot do so without regard to a cabinet member’s status and popularity within the party on whose support he depends.

Most importantly, the prime minister (or any other politician) cannot become head of state. This is of central importance, because whether the powers of a president be executive or ceremonial, the mere existence of the office of president provides an avenue for those who would subvert parliamentary control of the executive. The example of De Gaulle in France
in the early years of the Fifth Republic demonstrates how easily a President’s powers may be extended by the overtly democratic means of a referendum against the wishes of a Parliament. As things stand, a would be British dictator would have to do one of two things. The constitutionally legitimate path would require him to first persuade Parliament to
adopt the idea of an executive presidential system and then win the backing of the electorate for a change to a presidential system either through a referendum or an electoral mandate. His illegitimate path would consist of either a referendum put to the country against the wishes of Parliament or an outright coup backed by the military and police.

This is not to say that a prime minister equipped with a large majority cannot have a great deal of freedom and personal power. Both Thatcher and Blair achieved this. But however big their majority or great their personal authority they could not routinely make policy without some regard to the wishes of their ministers, backbenchers and the electorate. Whatever dark thoughts Thatcher may have had about mass immigration or membership of the EU, she was in practice hamstrung in doing anything about it by the opposition of powerful ministers such as Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe. Tony Blair’s desire to severely reduce the welfare state was thwarted over many years by his Chancellor Gordon Brown. To those leashes on their dictatorial desires can be added the fact that both Thatcher and Blair left office before they wanted to as a result of dissent amongst their parliamentary parties. Had either been an elected president operating outside parliament, neither would have been removed before the end of their term of office.

A parliamentary system such as that of Britain has other restraints on abuses of power. First-past-the-post elections based on constituencies means that MPs are not solely beholden to their party elite s as is the case with a party list system, and general elections, at least since 1945, have normally produced a single party with a majority in the House of Commons.
This latter fact means that the vast majority of modern British government have not been able to fail to honour their manifestos on the grounds that they were part of a coalition.

If a demand for a president arose in Britain there would be an opportunity for those pressing for such a change to seek an executive president with the executive removed from Parliament on the grounds that it was “more democratic” and provided a check on the power of the executive. . Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should look at the American experience where the powers of the president are constrained by a division of powers outlined in a written constitution administered by a supreme court. The President appoints his cabinet subject only to the agreement of the Senate, the President’s nominees being normally accepted. Supreme Court judges are also nominated by serving presidents and vetted by the Senate. These nominations meet more Senate opposition, but most of those nominated are passed and if one is rejected, the President still gets to nominate an alternative. That means a president will broadly speaking get a judge into the court who is sympathetic to the president’s political views. As Supreme Court judges are elected for life, a president
who is able to get even two new judges onto the court may affect its political bias for decades.

Even if a supposedly non-executive president was adopted with the executive remaining in Parliament, the relationship between the prime minster and head of state would be different. If the president was elected, there would be a second font of democratic authority regardless of the president’s powers. This would mean that there would be a constant temptation for a powerful politician to get themselves or a stooge elected to the presidency and then use their control of Parliament to increase the president’s powers. If the president was simply appointed by politicians a prime minster with a large majority could either take the presidency themselves and use his parliamentary control to increase his powers or place a stooge in as president, use Parliament to increase the presidential powers then control the stooge.

None of this is to pretend that the British system of government is perfect for the executive has found many ways of thwarting proper parliamentary oversight and control . The way it does this is fivefold (1) the entanglement of Britain in treaties, most devastatingly those related to the EU, which remove sovereign power from not only Parliament but Britain; (2) the increasing grip of party elites on the selection of candidates for Westminster seats, something of particular importance with the rise of the career politician who has never done
a job outside of politics; (3) an ever swelling use of secondary legislation, particularly statutory instruments, which provide much less opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation; (4) the increasing appointment of peers as ministers and non-politicians as “Tsars” for particular policy areas and (5) the use of the Royal Prerogative by prime ministers.

There are ready cures for these ills. Treaties could be repudiated to regain sovereignty; the power of selection of Parliamentary candidates invested solely in local constituency parties would greatly reduce the power of party elites; a requirement that a Parliamentary candidate should have ten years work experience unconnected with politics before being able to stand for Parliament would end the career politician; withdrawal from the EU would greatly reduce the amount of secondary legislation and increased time to scrutinise what was left and the use of peers and non-politicians banned.

That leaves the Royal Prerogative which represents a particularly danger to democratic control because the powers exercisable under it are large. This is because of the long, organic
development of the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, the powers and rights of the Crown are little circumscribed by law, although most, and all the important ones, are now invested in practice in the office of PM. The dissolution or proroguing of Parliament and the calling of elections are by the prerogative. The PM and his ministers are appointed by
the Crown. In principle, the monarch could appoint a Government in which none of its members sat in Parliament. No Bill can become a law without the monarch’s signature. Treaties and the making of war and peace can and are made without the assent of Parliament. All foreign relations are in principle within the monarch’s remit. Justice is the monarch’s. The Monarch can do no wrong. Many senior state appointments such as appointments to the higher judiciary and bishoprics are one by the prerogative. The monarch is head of the armed forces. There is prerogative power which allows the Crown to expropriate or requisition private property (with proper compensation) in time of war or apprehension of war. The Crown has limited powers of legislation under the prerogative, principally as respects the civil service and UK dependent territories. This legislation is made by Orders in Council, ordinance, letters patent and royal warrant. A ragbag of other rights such as treasure trove and bona vacantia (the reversion to the Crown of property where there is no inheritor) and arcane rights such as the monarch’s right to (most) swans also exists.

The simplest thing would be to cancel all prerogative rights which have a serious political dimension. This would reduce greatly the power of the PM and consequently pass power to Parliament. Such powers as are left to the monarch should be laid down clearly in law. That would do a great deal to increase the power of Parliament and the ordinary member.
However, more could be done without producing a situation which would leave a Parliament with an executive unable to act. I would ban the whipping of MPs, restrict the size of government to reduce the government “payroll vote” ( modern governments draw in more than 100 MPs) and make the justice system truly independent by removing the political officers – Lord Chancellor, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General – from the process of justice.

The banning of whips would not mean a government with a working majority was constantly defeated because most party members will vote for their party programme. Governments would have to get used to accepting the odd defeat on even important policies as a fact of life not a cause to call a motion of confidence. The reduction of the “payroll vote” would lead
to more independent minded backbenchers who would see being a backbencher as an honourable and worthwhile end it itself. The removal of the politicians from the process of justice is necessary to observe natural justice.

Two other things would be s desirable as a check on the executive: a written constitution designed not to promote a political agenda but to protect democratic control and prevent governments from undertaking anti-democratic policies or reckless behaviour which self-evidently will be damaging to the country. If there is a Supreme Court to administer it, judges should be selected for a fixed period of five years and chosen by a free vote of the Commons. Alternatively, the administration could be done by a reformed second chamber (see below).

The second thing is electoral reform. To address the problem of parties with even less than 40% of the popular vote ending up with large majorities, for the Commons I would suggest double member constituencies with each elector having a single vote. The two candidates receiving the most votes in each constituency would be elected. This would probably both reduce the size of majorities whilst giving any elector a choice of two MPs to go to rather than one.

As for the Lords, if you want a house which will not engage in a democratic mandate war with the Commons or simply replicate the party dominance of the Commons, I suggest selecting a house by lot from all those who put themselves forward to serve a single term of ten years, sufficient time for them to become proficient as a revising chamber.

By Robert Henderson | Posted in Elite Mischief, Politics | Also tagged monarchy, nationhood | Comments (5)

Living In A Madhouse

Tag Archives: democracy

How Dominic Cummings should have handled his press conference

Bruges Groups meeting 24 September 2014 – The EU’s attack on Britain’s most successful industry [the City]

Appeal against Operation Elveden’s refusal to investigate Piers Morgan and others

The Marxist Ralph Miliband and how he bit the English hand that fed him

Piers Morgan, perjury, the police, the Leveson Inquiry and Denis MacShane

Why Jeremy Hunt’s claim of no bias is a nonsense

The utilitarian case for the monarchy

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