Seventy-two Minutes of Brilliance

Daniel Hannan at The Centre for Policy Studies

Daniel Hannan is as incandescently brilliant a political orator as the English speaking world can boast today. He has no rivals. For the record here are some of the competition: Jonah Goldberg, George Will and George Galloway. I admire the first two of these unconditionally both for their oratory and their positions. GG is a phenomenon – wrong about everything but an extraordinary speaker.

Please watch this ten point argument for political disengagement from the EU. Imagine him being opposed by Ken Clarke, Leon Britain or Nick Clegg. He could take them on simultaneously and comprehensively defeat them.

He will never be a minister. However, he is too precious a treasure in our political life to make this any cause for serious regret.

This speech is a master class in how to think and how to argue. Who were his masters in rhetoric? Disraeli was long dead before Hannan was born. It is a mystery. It is native brilliance.

One of the points he makes is this. In 1973 what has morphed into the EU accounted for 36% of world GDP. It is now 25% and by 2020 it will be 16%. It is the only trade block in the world which is shrinking. We are specifically forbidden from signing trade agreements with, for example, India. India’s economy is growing at 7% per annum. The language of business in India is English. We have accounting traditions in common. There are over a million Britons of Indian descent. Iceland (pop about 300,000) makes its own trade agreements with India. We cannot. Beyond absurd.

Another point: EU law takes precedence over UK law, not because of treaty obligations but because of judicial activism by EU courts. Democracy?

Do listen. DH is an education.

Climate Change (Again!)

I am moved to post again on this hoary topic not because it is in the news – but because it is not! For sure, the usual suspects carry on as if the science were ‘settled’. The serious scientists, eg Tim Ball and Richard Lindzen can be found on YouTube with totally convincing arguments as to why the ‘bedwetters’ have no case.

I am still bewildered about the way the battle lines are drawn. With few exceptions, the sceptics are right-leaning or libertarian in outlook, whereas the ‘true believers’ are passionate in their conviction that there is scarcely any arena in which government should not ‘do good’ whenever and wherever it can.

The left has little interest in cost/benefit analysis. They are primarily concerned about feeling good about themselves. One of the reasons Margaret Thatcher was such a breath of radical fresh air was that she brought a housewife’s perspective to Westminster politics. She had an instinct for affordability. It is astonishing that Gordon Brown, brought up in a Scottish manse, was so profligate with taxpayers’ cash.

I shall briefly rehearse the reasons I have for opposing the climate alarmists. This is not an exhaustive list. I am not going into the technical reasons – I am not technical myself. Nevertheless, I am certain that my list is comprehensive enough to persuade any open-minded person to be sceptical of the alarmist position.

·         Climate changes. It always has and always will. These eight words are commonplace among the sceptics – almost embarrassingly so.

We are (and it is universally agreed) in an interglacial period in Earth’s History, thanks be to God. We are emerging from the Little Ice Age of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – lucky us! Australia’s Bob Carter demonstrates conclusively that there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about our current situation. The Roman Period was warmer than what we are going through, likewise the Medieval Warm Period. The CO₂ content of the atmosphere has been both higher and lower than it is at present. In any case, it is clearly the fact that, insofar as there is any correlation between CO₂ and temperature, higher temperatures precede high levels of carbon dioxide. Al Gore’s graphs made this plain. QED – already.

·         The link between carbon dioxide and warm temperatures is extremely contentious (see above). CO₂ is undoubtedly a ‘greenhouse’ gas. But nobody denies that water vapour accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect. There are billions of tons of it in the atmosphere, which is what you would expect of a planet about 70% of whose surface is covered in water constantly warmed by the Sun. There is no doubt that we have substantially increased the CO₂ in the atmosphere. But, and it is a very big ‘but’, most of the increase in temperature over the last century or so occurred before the massive increase in consumption of ‘fossil fuels’ after WWII. I put quotes around ‘fossil fuels’ because there is some evidence that hydrocarbons (which are detectable in comets) do not exist as a result of the decomposition of pre-historic plants and animals.

·         Is all warming a bad thing? Maybe we have contributed marginally to warming of the planet. The ‘urban heat island effect’ is well attested. The panic mongers told us in the 70s that we were headed for global cooling. Deny it if you can: human beings tend to do better in warm climes than in the fridge. Many more people die as a result of bitterly cold temperatures than in warm periods or warm regions. Do we go to Greenland or the Bahamas for our holidays? The much maligned Middle Ages (slandered as the ‘dark ages’) were the period in which we built hundreds of glorious cathedrals.

     During this period the monasteries flourished; they advanced technology, medicine, education and philanthropy to a degree never seen before. The Middle Ages were warm. Food production was cheaper and more efficient. I like warm.

·         Are the proposed solutions likely to have their desired effect? Is shutting down our industrial society a smart move? Is denying the third world the benefits of development just? The most optimistic alarmists make extravagant claims about cuts in CO_2. By their own lights, savage cuts to CO₂ emissions will have next to no effect on temperature. Imagine yourself on a panel. An audience member asks you this: If we (accepting the UN’s assertions, predictions etc) enact swingeing legislation, how soon and by how many degrees will global temperatures return to what you imagine is the ideal? Puleez.

      Bjorn Lomborg, a professional statistician and sometime environmentalist, calculates that on the basis of IPCC figures warming will be delayed (by the end of the century) by about 37 hours, if we implement the suicidal policies recommended by the alarmists.

·         Finally, some non-technical facts: CO₂ constitutes 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere and human beings are responsible for 3% of it. Termites and volcanoes and a plethora of other sources make up the other 97%. The alarmists don’t shout these figures from the rooftops. Of course not. They make the alarmists’ case simply incredible. Without CO₂ plants would not be able to photosynthesise. Without CO₂ we would be in big trouble.

My Physical Condition

A few weeks ago, as I was on my way to bed, I collapsed. I do not remember losing consciousness or hitting the floor. I phoned for an ambulance and was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary. They admitted me and performed a myriad of tests: Electro-cardiogram, Echo-cardiogram, Angiogram etc., etc. They concluded that my aortic valve was defective and should be replaced. I felt no anxiety at all.

After more than two weeks in hospital, I was scheduled for surgery. However, on the very day it was to happen, they discovered MRSA on my skin and determined that this meant that open-heart surgery was too risky. I was discharged. I was put on a regime of body washes and nasal cream to eliminate the bacteria. They would not operate until I had provided three negative swabs from my nose and from my groin. So far I have had two negative results and am waiting for the results of the third next week. If it is negative, I will be admitted for surgery. I still feel no anxiety. I certainly hope that the result is negative and that I get the operation in short order. It’s not so much that I want them to save my life but that I want my ‘quality of life’ to be improved.

I can honestly say that fear of death does not feature in my thoughts. I would like to have more energy. Undergoing the procedure is necessarily risky. There will necessarily be a period of discomfort as I recuperate. I remain in excellent spirits. I regard myself as being undeservedly lucky – particularly with respect to my three sons, three daughters-in-law, three grandsons and two granddaughters. I became a Catholic less than ten years ago. I am a ‘serious’ Catholic. In other words, my world view is informed by my faith. My lack of anxiety is indubitably, at least in part, a consequence of my Catholicism. I always knew that I was mortal, that life is a sexually transmitted and always fatal disease – of course, it far more than that.

My sometime hairdresser tragically lost a child and, consequently, her faith. She suffered what most of us would agree to be the ultimate catastrophe. But she was wrong. She had always known that children sometimes die. That her child died is/was, from a logical point of view, irrelevant. I feel cruel to point this out. It does not diminish my pity and grief one whit.

My life has been, in comparison with billions, extraordinarily fortunate: never hungry, never tormented with other than ordinary worries.

The professionalism of those who cared for me in the MRI was exemplary. I am still not persuaded about socialised medicine.

State education is inferior to private education in almost every case. In some poor countries poor people choose to pay for their children’s education rather than send them to free government schools. In our country we have seen how miserably the state ran car manufacturers. Why should medicine be different from anything else? Why should medicine not benefit from competition and deregulation? We would not contemplate state run supermarkets. Food is surely as important as health care.

The Koran

The Koran in English

There are some converts to Islam who say that it is the perfection of the Koran which has led them to believe.

It is a commonplace among Muslims that the Koran is a miracle, that no human can produce anything which is comparable: Islam is therefore true – QED. Islamic apologists think that this reasoning is irrefutable. They, of course, reserve to themselves the right to adjudicate on whether any human sentence is or is not indeed comparable. They thereby render their assertion irrefutable. Clever!

Being, I hope, a fair minded man, I have (not for the first time) had a look at the text. Not the Arabic, which is allegedly the only authoritative version, but an English rendition of the meaning by pious Muslims.

It is astonishing – astonishingly turgid, repetitious, boring, unstructured and impenetrable.

I have some sympathy for Muslims who might maintain that it is only to the eyes of faith that the truth and beauty are revealed. I encounter many attacks on Christianity which are opaque to me: that isn’t what I believe, I inwardly protest.

Christian and Muslim attitudes to scripture are radically different. There is scarcely a writer in the Christian tradition who maintains that the Bible is the literal Word of God, certainly not in the Catholic tradition. I believe that the prophets and saints were men and women whose thirst for God were rewarded by God’s drawing near to them. Every one was a fallible sinner. Muslims believe that the Koran is the eternal Word of God, given by the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed. I think that this exposes the Almighty to the charge of being the worst stylist in the history of literature.

Many scholars have drawn attention to the contradictions and inconsistencies in the Koran. If Muslims are right, this cannot be. So, they have an answer. Although the whole Koran is perfect, verses which were revealed later may ‘abrogate’ verses which were revealed earlier. This puts me in mind of Animal Farm: All animals are equal; but some are more equal than others. Regrettably, the earlier irenic Meccan verses are abrogated by later warlike Medinan verses. Reason is thus discarded at the outset. This has put the Islamic world at a disadvantage.

I very much doubt that any of you will have the patience to read all the suras in the URL to which I have linked above. Good luck!

Absolute Basics

Drifting off to sleep last night I wondered vaguely if there are any absolute principles that every society can or should share. It is a very much more difficult question than I first assumed.

Let us take one principle which seems to be common enough: that order is better than chaos. But the moment you take it an inch further you are faced with secondary questions: eg, is the order of North Korea, perhaps the most regimented society on earth, better than, say, the Wild West, where many men carried guns and where, to some extent, each gunslinger felt entitled to enforce his own view with his Colt 45? Koreans are taught that their state is ordered by a semi-divine family which no Korean can or should even question. Granted that there were stage coach and bank robberies west of the Mississippi, most of us in the western world have a romantic view of that world of individualism and self-reliance. For myself, Dodge City beats Pyongyang. The order of North Korea is not worth the price that Koreans pay.

Equality is a principle which is fiercely debated. Again, for myself, except for the principle of equality before the law, which is sacrosanct, equality is an absurdity, only ever achieved by levelling downwards. Even equality before the law is problematical. Do muggers and rapists have equal rights with other citizens? We spend billions of pounds on our criminal justice system, examining every case to determine whether or not X is indeed a mugger or a rapist.

Is it equality to allow a rich man the right to hire better defence lawyers than a poor man?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This admonition has not stopped us from treating others in ways which would outrage us were we the victims. Does it apply equally to men and to women, to all races, to children as well as to adults, to the unborn? You will get lip service paid to the principle by many, perhaps most, and still find yourself endlessly disagreeing as to how it should be applied. Chattel slavery exists and has done for almost all human history. I have just been reminded that Kant’s Categorical Imperative formulates the Golden Rule in philosophical terms.

You would like every other human on the planet to be extravagantly generous to you – me too. Which of us applies the Golden Rule like that? Do our obligations to our nearest and dearest apply equally to the stranger within our gates and to strangers outside our society? The question answers itself.

We are perhaps as far from answering my original question as ever in our thousands of years of history.

Reflections on the General Election 2015

I was in hospital during the election and its aftermath. I was terrified that Milliband would be the next prime minister, ruling with the support of the SNP.

I was as astonished as anybody that Cameron won an outright majority – and hugely relieved that my worst fears were not realised. I hope that he will continue to tackle the deficit. Of course, until he succeeds in getting it down to zero, the total debt will continue to rise. I hope we get the promised referendum on the EU sooner than later.

The catastrophe inflicted upon the Labour party and the Lib Dems is balm to my soul.

I was one of those who voted against AV when we were given an opportunity to do so. I have changed my mind. Our Electoral system is broken. UKIP polled more votes than the Lib Dems and the SNP combined. The SNP won 56 seats, I think. The Lib Dems won 8. UKIP won 1. This is an absurd outcome. ‘First past the post’ sort of worked when there were essentially two political parties. It doesn’t work anymore. Millions of voters have been disenfranchised. Not good.

Environment Debate

This is what is taking place on The Daily Politics at this very moment. Although I have strong opinions on the subject, I have switched it off – it is too depressing. From the way the leftists (Labour, Lib/Dems and the Greens) talk, we are complete idiots on the subject – and I fear they may be right. Even the UKIP spokesman paid lip service to renewables.

What’s not to love about fracking? It is cheap energy with relatively low carbon emissions. It provides affordable heating for the old and infirm. By reducing industrial costs it encourages employment. It reduces our dependence upon nasty and unstable regimes. Fracking rocks. The bed-wetters (as Monckton calls them) would have us panic over seismic effects. The ‘tremors’ caused by fracking have variously been compared to what you would notice if you dropped a bag of sugar, or if a bus passed your front door. There are scare stories about ‘inflammable’ water. This phenomenon occasionally happens naturally. I have seen it with my own eyes. If it can be demonstrated that water supplies are contaminated by the fracturing process, then the perpetrators must be made either to desist or to pay compensation. We need no new legislation for this to happen.

Credible stories about deleterious effects on health are very rare. The solution is in place: stop or pay up.

The number of people killed in the process is still nil, making fracking far safer than pretty well any other source of energy.

Wind farms are staggeringly inefficient – which is why they only ever get constructed with massive subsidies. Many people find them ugly. Actually I rather like them (or would if they were not economically absurd). They slice birds and bats into pieces. For me, this would be a price worth paying, if the damned things actually produced affordable energy.

Is there ever a case for subsidising industries? I suppose there might be; but the presumption should be against it.

Burt Folsom is very good on the subject: The Myth of the Robber Barons

We are stupid. The logic (and the history) of government interference are plain. It is bad news. This whole campaign is about what the government can and should do about education, health, welfare, industry and practically everything that affects the individual. The news about healthcare and education standards is never good. You know me to be a fan of Tesco. Actually, there aren’t any supermarkets I don’t like. Any which failed to please me would forfeit my patronage. People don’t complain about supermarkets. Would that Tesco or Waitrose were in the healthcare and/or education business.

The most hateful bleat of all is: People before Profits. This is an incandescently stupid thought. When is a profit incurred? When people make an exchange. They only ever do when both parties perceive themselves to be better off. I get my fish fingers, Tesco gets a pound. What’s not to rejoice about? Tesco (and they have been going through a rough patch of late) have to stay on their toes to make their profits. When a supermarket fails, the executives and management have occasion to tremble. When a school or hospital fails, money is injected. Bureaucrats are routinely rewarded for failure. Those who squeal about fairness should ponder this dismal indictment of our system. Many bureaucrats in the NHS are paid huge salaries. If Mr Leahy gets millions, it is because he is worth it. Tesco shareholders cheerfully pay his salary. Are taxpayers cheerful about inflated bureaucratic salaries? Are they fish?

Will the tide turn? I think it probably will, in a generation or two. But it will take a revolution in moral and economic thought. The BBC never challenges the candidates on basic principles: Why do you think that government should have anything to do with energy policy, with education, with healthcare?