Bolitics The New Condem Government

[Awol]

It's national defence not party political defence, and the debate would be far more rational if people saw it in those terms.

I see it in those terms AWOL. It's just that a massive reduction in miltary spending would sit well with me, ideologically.

That's fair enough but I think my point is that political ideology due to it's non empirical nature can often be a fudge where objective realities can be ignored in favour of how we'd like things to be. A make believe world effectively.

Actual defence policy should deal only with reality, the world as it is if you like. The world outside the west isn't going to spend the next 50 years playing happy families and our defence posture should be geared to reflect that, at the same time as encouraging other people to be nice to each other and giving people who currently dislike us billions of pounds in aid.

Simple question though Jon and you don't need to be an expert of any sort to answer this: If something kicks off that threatens our interests directly, the Government of the day wants to deploy our by then reduced forces (including for example, the duty French aircraft carrier) and Paris says "non".

Would we be screwed, or not?

[Awol]

including perhaps yourself when you posted a few days ago that you didn't vote Tory to see them slash the defencfe budget!

I've got a mate who is now in the HoC and had been assured by him prior to the elction that the Tory defence team had no such intention. Osborne and the Treasury had other ideas, hence my sig!

[peterms]

Long post warning...

A governments first and most critical duty to its citizens is to protect them.

Militarily? According to whom?

According to political theory since the year dot. The reason states originally coalesced was the provision of common defence against external threats. Protecting the citizenry is the raison d’être of government and also the only reason we originally started to pay income tax - ironically during a war against France. Pacifists don’t have to like that, but denying it is the case makes any subsequent debate virtually impossible.

There's an interesting question here.

If the legitimacy of the state (eg in Hobbes' argument) derives from a social contract where we accept being ruled in return for being protected, then what happens if the rule is exercised but the protection turns out to be somewhat less than it might be?

For example, in the 80's it became evident that the state was actively planning scenarios for nuclear war which would involve writing off many millions of the population to a grisly death, while advising us to paint our windows white and crouch under the kitchen table with a colander on our heads. Twenty years later, we were led into needless wars through lies and deceit, which have created real and current threats to our safety and security.

In such a situation, is the basis for the political legitimacy of the state not undermined? Is civil disobedience not justified?

[Awol]

In such a situation, is the basis for the political legitimacy of the state not undermined? Is civil disobedience not justified?

Absolutely, but I think it's potentially such a wide ranging subject (when is civil disobedience in general justified?) that it would deserve its own thread - marked with a strict bollitics health warning, of course.

[avfc89]

Clegg is a snake.

[ender4]

Clegg is a snake.

but a very sexy one :?: :|

[peterms]

In such a situation, is the basis for the political legitimacy of the state not undermined? Is civil disobedience not justified?

Absolutely, but I think it's potentially such a wide ranging subject (when is civil disobedience in general justified?) that it would deserve its own thread - marked with a strict bollitics health warning, of course.

Another variant on the idea is to think about what happens when a government conspires against the economic wellbeing of its citizens. For example, when a government whips up hysteria about an economic state of affairs as a cover for redistributing wealth from poor to rich, and dismantling part of the state apparatus which supports and protects poorer people. When it is open to a government to create employment and maintain living standards, and it chooses to do the opposite for a section of the population in order to benefit another, already wealthier, section, then again at that point the argument for civil obedience is undermined.

[Awol]

That depends whether you think the government's responsibilities extend to an obligation to provide a job for every man. They certainly used to believe that in the USSR, but from what I remember that didn't turn out so well.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

Another variant on the idea is to think about what happens when a government conspires against the economic wellbeing of its citizens. For example, when a government whips up hysteria about an economic state of affairs as a cover for redistributing wealth from poor to rich, and dismantling part of the state apparatus which supports and protects poorer people. When it is open to a government to create employment and maintain living standards, and it chooses to do the opposite for a section of the population in order to benefit another, already wealthier, section, then again at that point the argument for civil obedience is undermined.

Brilliant piece of writing there, copied that.

It's weird it's like you know what they are up to and no one else does.

:nod: :nod:

[Risso]

Another variant on the idea is to think about what happens when a government conspires against the economic wellbeing of its citizens. For example, when a government whips up hysteria about an economic state of affairs as a cover for redistributing wealth from poor to rich, and dismantling part of the state apparatus which supports and protects poorer people. When it is open to a government to create employment and maintain living standards, and it chooses to do the opposite for a section of the population in order to benefit another, already wealthier, section, then again at that point the argument for civil obedience is undermined.

Your last piece from the defence standpoint was interesting and thought provoking. The above is just empty lefty rhetoric.

[blandy]

Another variant on the idea is to think about what happens when a government conspires against the economic wellbeing of its citizens. For example, when a government whips up hysteria about an economic state of affairs as a cover for redistributing wealth from poor to rich, and dismantling part of the state apparatus which supports and protects poorer people. When it is open to a government to create employment and maintain living standards, and it chooses to do the opposite for a section of the population in order to benefit another, already wealthier, section, then again at that point the argument for civil obedience is undermined.

Aye, but we're not talking about New Labour...

[blandy]

ANd back to the French thing SImon Carr

They met outside one of our great aristocratic town houses, attended by our golden-breasted guardsmen. Later, amid the glittering gold leaf inside – and watched over by topless angels – the leaders signed the two treaties. (They're expensive, these signing ceremonies – we did two-for-one.)

"A shared history," David Cameron said. We were going into a 50-year nuclear partnership with France and our PM assured us it was on the basis of our shared history. Blimey you don't want to bring that up!

So, Nick Robinson did. If there was a crisis in the South Atlantic, he asked, would we be able to borrow the French aircraft carrier to sort it out? Nicolas Sarkozy rolled his shoulders, flashed different parts of his strangely feminine face at us and said: "It would take a hell of a crisis." That was probably true. "Do you imagine our British friends facing a crisis and France folds it arms and does nothing?" We didn't imagine that, any of us.

Though doing nothing would be an improvement on selling Exocets to the enemy, to be sure. M le Président looked round at us in the way we all admire and asked: "What idea do you have of France?" There's more than one answer to that, but it wasn't the time or place.

However, you could tell there was a submerged sense of unease in our new friend about "our shared history" as he described the next question on the British rebate as "slightly perfidious". Ah yes, in our shared history there it was: the ancestral insult.

Perfide Albion betrayed France out of its global inheritance; cunningly we won all the wars, treacherously we invented industrial production, perfidiously we held the line against the Nazis...

Whatever our passing leaders say, our national narratives chatter in the background saying the same sort of things over hundreds of years.

To cover over this inconvenience, Sarkozy span us a number of genial lines. "The fact is, Britain is France's closest neighbour." (It isn't). "Our values are the same." (They aren't); "When Britain succeeds, it is a success for Europe." (Pull the other one, chum.)

So, to the point. Would he stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain over the rebate? If he'd been wearing a monocle like his periwigged antecedents he would have opened his eye and let it fall. As it was he did the trick with his ear and the translation earpiece fell out. It lacked elegance but it made his point. "Five years is a long time. Can you trust the French for 50 years?" ITV asked the PM. The correct answer is a question: "To do what?"

Cameron may not be here in five years and neither of them will be in 50. Much of this entente frugale depends on the personal qualities of them both and no doubt on the new frugality.

What happens to our nuclear amours when it all passes?

[Ads]

If the legitimacy of the state (eg in Hobbes' argument) derives from a social contract where we accept being ruled in return for being protected, then what happens if the rule is exercised but the protection turns out to be somewhat less than it might be?

Then we return to the state of nature or in more modern terms, we become a failed state. I think it applies to both external threats and internal problems. The unified Italian state for example had certainly failed in Sicily until the 1990’s, as it was the mafia clans who monopolised violence in-place of central or local Italian authority.

For the government not to perform its part of the pax is a failure and a breakdown, so I’d agree with both you and Awol on what the respose may be from the citizens.

[snowychap]

According to political theory since the year dot.

According to conventional political theory? According to some people's political theory, don't you mean.

According to whose political theories since the year dot?

For example, though it has been a number of years since I read it, I don't remember much of The Republic about the first/main duty of the government being military protection of the citizens.

Protecting the citizenry is the raison d’être of government...

I'm sorry, Jon, but that is just another repetition of a maxim.

Along the same lines as I said to Ads, just to repeat such does nothing, really, other than comment on your views.

What does one mean by 'protecting the citizenry'?

To just define that in terms of military defence, national security and the likes is to show one's prejudice in the debate. Now there is nothing wrong with that prejudice and it's a political discussion but, again, it is not an indisputable truth.

I'm not disputing that it (defence, national security, &c.) is an integral part of any government's approach to working in the public good but to elevate it to the first duty, under any circumstances, as some kind of immutable, universal necessity makes any subsequent debate virtually impossible.

...also the only reason we originally started to pay income tax - ironically during a war against France. Pacifists don’t have to like that...

Why concentrate on income tax? Did people not pay taxes, tithes, &c. beforehand?

Yes, often these taxes which were raised by lords, landowners, royals and others were used for prosecuting wars, personal military follies and the like but I think it would be a mistake to conflate that with being used for the benefit (or protection) of the citizenry.

[snowychap]

The unified Italian state for example had certainly failed in Sicily until the 1990’s, as it was the mafia clans who monopolised violence in-place of central or local Italian authority.

A quick aside - do you think it's much different now?

As far as I'm aware even Berlusconi's bribes and autocratic attempts to enrich himself to the detriment of the locals often gets rather short shrift there.

[Ads]

A good example would be the Pax Romana. The contract between citizens and non-citizens was simple- you paid poll tax and you paid an out-put tax and the state will provide the means to protect you from external and internal threat.

Other responsibilities for a government can and do rise, but they’re not as integral as that simple contract, expanded upon in Leviathan 1800 years later.

[snowychap]

I think the argument is that just because some people have chosen to frame their political theories in such terms does not mean that it is necessarily so - the argument is not that no one has chosen to do so.

[snowychap]

Cut jury trials

The right to trial by jury for many lesser offences should be ended in England and Wales, the Commissioner for Victims of Crime has proposed.

Louise Casey said almost 70,000 Crown Court cases each year could be heard in magistrates' courts, saving £30m.

Ms Casey said the move would benefit victims of serious crime who suffer due to delays in "clogged up" Crown Courts.

The pressure group Liberty stressed that the coalition govfernment had promised to protect juries.

Ms Casey's call comes as the Ministry of Justice cuts the budget for courts and prisons.

She said a jury trial should not be viewed as a right for crimes known as "either-way" offences, which can be heard by magistrates or sent to trial in Crown Court.

"We should not view the right to a jury trial as being so sacrosanct that its exercise should be at the cost of victims of serious crimes," Ms Casey said.

"It is known that waiting for a criminal trial often means that victims put their lives on hold; bereaved families of murder victims cannot grieve until the trial is over," she said.

"Defendants should not have the right to choose to be tried by a jury over something such as the theft of a bicycle or stealing from a parking meter."

Sentencing increases?

BBC legal affairs analyst Clive Coleman said the call was radical and designed to save money which could be spent on helping victims of serious crime.

What was likely to prove controversial with civil liberties groups was that while the value of a stolen bicycle may be very small, the consequences of a conviction for an individual were very significant, he said.

Eight out of 10 of these cases are dealt with by magistrates. But the lower court sends 60,000 of them to Crown Court every year with a further 9,000 defendants also asking for jury trial.

Ms Casey, who took up her role in March, said the figures showed that very often this was a massive waste of time and money and trials of serious crimes were being "stacked up waiting for court time".

In 50,000 of the cases sent to Crown Courts, defendants eventually plead guilty, wasting £15m of the Crown Prosecution Service's money, she said.

She said if just half of either-way cases remained in the lower courts, some £30m would be saved straight away.

Ms Casey also criticised defendants who "hold out to see if witnesses turn up" before pleading guilty at the last minute.

"It is an abuse of the system, and puts an intolerable pressure on victims and witnesses that could be called a form of witness intimidation.

"We need to stop the abuse of the process which allows defendants and their solicitors to string out a case at the expense of victims and the public."

She said she had full confidence in magistrates to properly dispense justice.

Ms Casey also backed calls for magistrates' sentencing powers to be doubled from six months to one year per offence, so they could avoid referring more borderline cases to the crown court.

Isabella Sankey, director of policy at civil rights group Liberty, said the coalition had pledged to protect juries, which "ensure one class doesn't sit in permanent judgment over another".

"Ms Casey was a political appointment of the last government and has a long record of hostility to Britain's fair trial traditions," she said.

"But victims, witnesses and defendants are all disregarded if no- one gets a fair hearing before their peers."

In a separate report, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary estimated that better management of prosecution casework could save £40m a year alone.

It said it found an example of a shoplifter who was caught by police and sentenced in court two hours later. But it also said that it could take 1,000 steps to deal with a simple domestic burglary.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "We are considering how best to encourage guilty pleas at an earlier stage, while preserving a person's long-standing right to have their case heard before a jury.

"We are committed to ensuring that every victim can access the support they need to help cope with the consequences of crime, and we are working to improve the help available during the investigation and court hearings process."

[ender4]

makes sense if it speeds up the court system for serious crimes.

[snowychap]

Oh dear.