A Sunday Times profile on Mark Lynas. It seems like the Green Party’s view is irrationally squeamish and not based around up-to-date evidence. I find it rather ironic that I can sign on happily to measures such as the “Green New Deal”, but when they stop talking about economic and social policy (invariably infused with Social Democracy) and begin talking about matters environmental they appear to me to grow wrong-headed. Their views are backed on speculation, hear-say and supposition more than fact, much like India Knight (never knowingly right about anything) in her article in the same newspaper. Nuclear appears to be the most viable solution possible and the establishment of an orthodoxy against it is highly unwise for the environmentalist left.

Biased media? Yes, with good cause.

Purge yourself with this:

(Via Miller and the Anonymous Liberal counter-respectively.)

The idea of an all-powerful market without any rules and any political intervention is mad. Self-regulation is finished. Laissez faire is finished. The all-powerful market that is always right is finished.

Nicholas Sarkozy

Outspoken leftie Rachel Maddows scores “surprisingly” successful ratings. Certainly no surprise to me, I’ve been an admirer of Maddows since her coverage of the primaries (which she described as ensuring the candidates didn’t take over the asylum) and her ascent is entirely deserved and her ratings utterly understandable. She presents her views in a firm and forthright fashion that is lacking from much of the left, refusing to squander the confidence she and her ilk have earned through rational superiority and supreme empirical support. Instead of cowering before right-wingers she confronts them, instead of weaselling her views into nothing she states them without fear.

The rest of the American Left, not to mention the British, could do well to learn from her example.

The news that the Tories are opposing a third runway brought about the response of “about time” from me. As Her Majesty’s Opposition it’s the sort of thing that they should have been up to a long time ago. It’s also a sound piece of populism: protests in opposition of Heathrow Expansion have been well attended and I met a pair of rank & file protestors returning from one recently who were strikingly articulate. They were also the sort of “Swing voter” that politics is largely fought around. Opposition in my area of London (West) is by no means difficult to find. The campaign is well organised and well supported, with propoganda peering from numerous windows and posters over various trees.

This intersection of local and national politics is inevitably going to benefit whichever party promotes the policy popular amongst locals: as they are the ones most affected they are the ones who have the matter as a priority. For the most part the expansion is an immensely minor issue for voters, if indeed it registers at all. It thus makes good sense for the Conservative’s to oppose this policy: it will lose them roughly no votes and gain them ones from those who do not wish the noise and disruption they fear from a Third Runway inflicted upon them.

The difficulty for Labour is considerable: they can either fall in line and seem to become a Party in reaction rather than in power, or continue to enrage a set of voters with a party to turn to. This is by no means the typical Triangulation (when the alientated have no alternative) that New Labour covets. It shall be enlightening to observe their reaction.

I note also that the Tories rejected a Third Runway at Heathrow, yesterday. Do they really expect the announcement to have any impact when their most prominent elected figure believes we need another airport entirely, and that one would fit rather nicely in the middle of the Thames Estuary? Replacing one runway with two doesn’t make for a sound environmental plan. Or sound mathematics, for that matter.

I didn’t watch Boris’ Conference speech yesterday. I’d spent the previous evening drunk and crying on a friend’s shoulder, so didn’t really feel up to the inescapable horror of a Tory Conference.

I did, though, read the papers this morning. They told me much what I’d expected; our Mayor made a speech heavy on witticism and low on content. What content there was didn’t impress. Quoth BoJo:

“I say to the Labour government – you will not make this country or its capital more competitive by driving away talent. You cannot regulate your way out of a recession. You can certainly regulate your way into one,”

“No matter how much you may dislike the Masters of the Universe, my friends, there are plenty of other parts of the universe that would welcome them.”

Note the obvious flaws in his statement. Individuals who permit their institutions to lend money to people who can’t afford to pay it back, buy up similar debts, borrow on the anticipation of receipt of those initial debts to pay off these debts and so drive those institutions to the wall when credit or repayment runs out can hardly be described as “talent.” Nor can their creation of jobs be much applauded when they take those jobs back with the same ease.

The assault on regulation, meanwhile, lacks impact. Doesn’t he consider that it’s possible to institute some, limited regulation and so solve a problem without regulating businesses into the ground? Regulation occurs by degree, not by monolithic bloc. You can provide some regulation to protect both customers and institutions from certain irresponsible employees (to prevent the sheer amount of fiscal incestuousness inherent in this degree of entanglement, for example) without regulating everything. And that’s what is necessary.

Not, of course, that Boris provides any working alternative or hint of what he feels might be necessary. The policy he did provide proved predictable:

“I am pleased to announce that for the first time since the GLA was created, for the first time since London has had a mayor. I will not be coming back to the people and asking them for more money in tax. There will be no increase in our share of the council tax next year,” he said.

Well done, Boris. You cut taxes, and phrased it in the language of concern for individuals. You also failed to mention that this cut in tax would be funded by comes alongside a sizable rise in public transport fares; 11% in fact. A move which shifts the burden of payment from those who can afford it - that is, those with higher bills vaguely detirmined by your wealth - to those who can’t.

Odd that you can apply the logic that the credit crunch will make life difficult to some Londoners, but not others. Many who use public transport use it because they can’t afford a car; and so they need it, and they need it to remain affordable. The same cannot usually be said of those who pay higher rates of council tax, and who’ll benefit now.

Johnson claimed the content of his speech illustrated just what a Conservative would do in government. I worry intensely for 2010; that speech equated to a declaration of pride in the belief that the rich should pay less and the poor more, and that government just shouldn’t try to redress that balance. Just like Thatcher, then.

EDIT: I mistook which money came from which pot. See comments.

I am normally not one to relish attacks of the left upon itself, although they unquestionably are much required. As far as I can see the excessive vigour and enjoyment many gain from attacking those of like mind hinders their efforts against their actual opponents (that is to say, the right). This negates the advantage which would be obtained through having a movement dissassociate itself with particular undesirable elements and leaves a far more splintered structure. This, however, is better than most.

Excellent news:

Trust Britain’s youth to be characteristically ungrateful. The Government goes to all the effort of making a website for 16 to 25- year-olds to express their views on identity cards, and all they get in return is a solid mixture of scorn, sneering and scepticism smattered across their fancy new forums.

In a bid to get the country’s youngsters on board the controversial scheme, the Home Office has launched MyLifeMyId.org, where 16 to 25 year olds “can have their say about identity issues in the UK.”

But anyone browsing the discussions on the site would be hard pushed to find a single positive comment, with contributors branding the controversial scheme as “creepy,” “dirty” and “illegal” and the website itself as an “online propaganda machine”.

There’s little public support for ID Cards - and the government can’t create it. Their plan to introduce the scheme by stealth rather falls to pieces when one of those degments initially targetted refuses to cooperate.

(Hat-tip: Back Towards the Locus)

Best news I’ve heard for a while. An indication (if ever one were needed) that the views of parents don’t inexorably shape those of the children. The fear of reactionary writers such as Mark Steyn that Muslims will overwhelm the European world appears to depend upon the premise that they will, but from this evidence it would seem otherwise. Admittedely Yasmin is an exceptional case but she serves also as a testament to the power of western culture.

I only hope that this article does not cause her to be a target for the more brutal elements.