Bolitics The New Condem Government

[TrentVilla]

Less police should also help reduce the number of court cases I guess

[ender4]

Oh dear.

i take it you disagree?

seems pretty fine to me, unless i am missing reading something between the lines?.

[ender4]

Less police should also help reduce the number of court cases I guess

well thats just daft, as you know, and isn't comparable to deciding which crimes should be tried in which court.

[snowychap]

Less police should also help reduce the number of court cases I guess

Though that may be outweighed by the closure of courts themselves - Torygraph article.

But, as that article suggest, one has to take in to account the reduction in the CPS, too.

I think this is an example of a race to the bottom, isn't it?

[Gringo]

The legal system wasn't one of the driving factors causing the current financial concerns - so why should you cut it to relieve those financial concerns. And the savings - GBP 30m - not even a drop in the ocean. There's probably a reason why over the years the right to trial by jury became so. Throwing such rights away to save a few quid is probably not the best idea.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

They are just being silly now.

[TrentVilla]

Wise words there Gringo or at least they seem it to me.

[snowychap]

Oh dear.

i take it you disagree?

Yes.

[peterms]

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.

I think from some of your earlier comments (though you don't go into any detail, so it's hard to be sure) that you may have swallowed wholesale the popular line about "there is no alternative" and "oh no! A deficit! We're all doomed!".

If in fact you do accept this line as an article of faith, rather than a proposition which a great many economists argue is simply wrong, then I suppose any disagreement with the One True Faith will seem like lefty rhetoric.

What's happening in terms of the effect of the current government's approach, and specifically the relative impact on different sections of the population, with the poorest being hit hardest, has been set out in clear terms, and I imagine you can't see that as rhetoric.

I think it's pretty clear that the present government wishes to reduce the role of the state, and their actions also show that they are choosing to redistribute wealth from poorer to richer. What then is rhetoric? The idea that they don't really believe there's no alternative, and are using a whipped-up sense of danger and threat as a cover for unpopular measures, as a million politicians have done before them? To write off this view as "empty lefty rhetoric" is naive and trusting to a worrying degree.

[peterms]

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

Would it? I wonder how many people charged with trivial offences actually take the case to a higher court, risking harsher sentences. Very few, I think.

There are many problems with the court system, but this one is not the big one.

For example, if you go to a court, you will find dozens of police sat round in the waiting area for most of the day, on the off chance that they might need to give evidence. Witnesses too, having taken time off work to attend. Sometimes cases are even withdrawn but witnesses aren't told until they get there. Some of these inefficiencies have just crept into the system over time, others are there as a by-product of the courts being organised around the convenience of judges rather than around the efficient management of a process.

If we want to make improvements to the way the courts function, we would do better to start with a wide-ranging and thorough analysis of the procedural and logistical factors which create these inefficiencies, followed by a systems redesign to improve flow.

Instead of that, we seem to fasten on a relatively trivial factor, involving the removal of rights.

Funny, that. It's almost as though the waste in the system wasn't the thing they were trying to tackle at all...

[ender4]

What's happening in terms of the effect of the current government's approach, and specifically the relative impact on different sections of the population, with the poorest being hit hardest, has been set out in clear terms...

... and their actions also show that they are choosing to redistribute wealth from poorer to richer.

i think you've been reading to many left-wing newspapers.

[peterms]

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.

Not at all.

The government have taken on themselves the power to act in different ways to influence the economy, from regulation to lawmaking to economic policy.

In that situation, if they knowingly act to the detriment of a section of society (and I would argue especially if they act against that section least able to protect itself), then they place themselves in a situation similar to knowingly failing to defend some citizens against attack.

It is entirely possible to think that the government should act in such a way as to promote growth, stimulate demand, and encourage full employment, without also thinking that the government should directly employ a single more person. As it happens, I think they should employ more people (as do you, at least in some areas), but the point I make is independent of that.

[peterms]

What's happening in terms of the effect of the current government's approach, and specifically the relative impact on different sections of the population, with the poorest being hit hardest, has been set out in clear terms...

... and their actions also show that they are choosing to redistribute wealth from poorer to richer.

i think you've been reading to many left-wing newspapers.

Guilty as charged. There, that should save a spot of court time.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

You don't need a left wing paper to tell you anything, just take a walk and you'll see the amount of people dossing about in poorer areas compared to a year or so ago.

The poor are being hit hard, you'd have to be a fool not to see it.

[blandy]

I think it's pretty clear that the present government wishes to reduce the role of the state, and their actions also show that they are choosing to redistribute wealth from poorer to richer.

Just out of interest, how are they choosing to redistribute from poorer to richer? All the other stuff I agree with you, but I don't feel they are actually doing this part. They're not moving money from the poor and giving it to the rich. No-one is getting given any more money as a segctor of society. There's a lot that points to wards a sizeable number of the less well off being possibly further disadvantaged, and some stuff that points towards "unfairness" with the very rich being hit hardest, then the poor, then the rest, in that order.

There is a kind of massive inertia in what the current gov't are doing and what the last lot did, in terms of really addresing the causes of the mess and in sorting out equitably - banks not being broken up, lack of reform, lack of taxing the problem areas, unwillingness to do more than dick about at the edges, while simultaneously bringing in ideological changes (smaller state), some much needed overhauls (quangos, benefits...) and some bodged mish-mashes like the SDSR and the French thing.

Mostly they are getting it wrong and making things worse, mostly they are a bunch of incompetent and ideological driven pillocks, but I still don't thing they're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

[Awol]

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 sure why you chose to omit this from the quotations above:

The reason states originally coalesced was the provision of common defence against external threats

Do you dispute that this is the case? Perhaps my choice of words in stating "political theory" could have been better conceived, but the essential point is that defending a people from external threats is the very reason countries as we know them originally formed - and why soldiering is known as the oldest profession in the world.

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.

As a governments' oldest historic obligation I don't know how you can dispute that it is also the most important. I don't think housing benefit, tuition fees or creating jobs in the civil service really qualifies as being on the same level as ensuring the territorial integrity of the nation. Fail in that duty and everything else is academic. I'm not saying it is their only responsibility, but surely it being the primary function of government is self evident and the thing that then enables all other responsibilities to be discharged?

...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?

[Awol]

but I still don't thing they're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

They are giving to the rich in the sense that tax money is being spent on paying off the debt to our creditors (rich people) rather than poured into HB, disability allowances and other benefits which I suppose could be defined as taking from the poor (or equally witholding free money from poorer people, depending on your POV).

One point though, didn't the last government preside over the biggest transfer of money in peacetime history from the poor tax payers to the rich bankers with virtually no strings attached? The time to force through reform was before they handed out the cheques...

[snowychap]

I'm not sure why you chose to omit this from the quotations above:

The reason states originally coalesced was the provision of common defence against external threats

Because I was addressing those things which I quoted. :?

In the same way that you have just ignored what I posted to return to one point that you originally made.

Do you dispute that this is the case?

I'm neither going to agree not disagree because my historical knowledge on the establishment of the earliest states is not very good. I would be interested to see the historical support for this, what constitutes a state, &c.

Let's just say it was, though.

Firstly, why should an apparent necessity for a time of yore be this immutable law?

Secondly, I am wondering about the interchangeability of states and governments.

Thirdly, the world changes, population increases, technology changes, industry changes, economies and their interactions change: there become, therefore, much more challenges to the peoples who have coalesced into nations (and nations in to other groups, &c.) and therefore the tenet that it is the government's duty to protect its citizenry might be said to necessarily apply to many more things than external threats.

It is an illustration of the centrality of that role in what governments do.

It was more of an attempt at cherry picking parts of history to support a point, I think.

[peterms]

I think it's pretty clear that the present government wishes to reduce the role of the state, and their actions also show that they are choosing to redistribute wealth from poorer to richer.

Just out of interest, how are they choosing to redistribute from poorer to richer? All the other stuff I agree with you, but I don't feel they are actually doing this part. They're not moving money from the poor and giving it to the rich. No-one is getting given any more money as a segctor of society. There's a lot that points to wards a sizeable number of the less well off being possibly further disadvantaged, and some stuff that points towards "unfairness" with the very rich being hit hardest, then the poor, then the rest, in that order.

There is a kind of massive inertia in what the current gov't are doing and what the last lot did, in terms of really addresing the causes of the mess and in sorting out equitably - banks not being broken up, lack of reform, lack of taxing the problem areas, unwillingness to do more than dick about at the edges, while simultaneously bringing in ideological changes (smaller state), some much needed overhauls (quangos, benefits...) and some bodged mish-mashes like the SDSR and the French thing.

Mostly they are getting it wrong and making things worse, mostly they are a bunch of incompetent and ideological driven pillocks, but I still don't thing they're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

Well, for example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has produced an analysis here showing in what ways the tax and benefit changes are regressive. As they say at the end of the presentation, this ignores the cuts in public services. These are relied on more by the poor than the rich, and their effect will be to compound disadvantage. But the impact of the tax and benefit changes alone will be regressive, ie the gap between poor and the better off will be increased as a direct result of the changes, leaving aside all the indirect effects which will make this worse.

Of course there are other things which further contribute to the widening gap between rich and poor. For example in education, we see the scrapping of a plan to extend free school meals to all children below the poverty line, but money for "free schools". In housing, we will be seeing what Boris called ethnic cleansing, shipping the poor out so their housing can be taken over by wealthier people, just like Dame Shirley did in Westminster all those years ago.

There's the wider point made by Jon that the impact of financial intervention is felt by the poor while the benefits are received by the rich, both in bankers' pay and in shareholders receiving profits via dividends while any losses are socialised.

This is against a backdrop of top boardroom pay having increased by 55% (according to Income Data Services) or "only" 23% (Hays Group). These pay increases are not directly caused by government, but are the context in which regressive changes to taxes and benefits must be seen, ie a pretty fiercely regressive environment to begin with.

[ender4]

Just out of interest, how are they choosing to redistribute from poorer to richer? All the other stuff I agree with you, but I don't feel they are actually doing this part. They're not moving money from the poor and giving it to the rich. No-one is getting given any more money as a segctor of society. There's a lot that points to wards a sizeable number of the less well off being possibly further disadvantaged, and some stuff that points towards "unfairness" with the very rich being hit hardest, then the poor, then the rest, in that order.

Mostly they are getting it wrong and making things worse, mostly they are a bunch of incompetent and ideological driven pillocks, but I still don't thing they're taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

i agree with pretty much all of this, the rich are being hit the hardest, then the poor, then the rest. but generally, everyone is being hit.

the bit i disagree with is you saying that they are getting it wrong & making it worse. i would say they are getting it right overall (sure it could have tweaks to make it even better), but generally they are doing the right thing to address the current mess. I'm not talking about the banking crisis, i'm talking about things the govt are responsible for like benefits.