Light scorching of the quangos.

So much for buggering off for a blog free weekend, but there's just a couple of things I want to touch on before I look up directions to the town of Off in the atlas and fuck there with alacrity. For this post that's the not-quite-bonfire of the quangos.

Sounds good, eh? Well, no, not really. For starters twice as many will survive as will definitely be chopped, and that's nothing to get excited about. Maybe there'll be more abolished, possibly as many as 94, but maybe that'll be the lot. And secondly, a lot of the functions of those quangos are not being abolished at all, just brought back into Whitehall (my emphasis).

The biggest cuts concern the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with more than 50 bodies to be abolished, and the Department of Health, where about 30 bodies will be cut or have their functions transferred back to the department.

For which the department will no doubt demand an increase in its budget so as to take on staff to deal with the increased workload, and if DEFRA is the only one I'd be very surprised. The Cobbleition have failed to realise that it's not just the quango that must be made to justify its continued existence and funding, it's the function being carried out that must be justifiable as well, as explained by Raedwald.

... the test applied, you see, is whether the quango has been shown to perform a technical role that cannot be better discharged by government, or sufficiently demonstrated their independence from government, i.e. from tax funding. Not whether the technical role is necessary at all, or can better be discharged locally, or whether the function needs to be discharged at a national level.

Which means, as he says, that the state has at best lost a little weight, but retains almost all of its strength and its grip on power. The Cobbleition Twins will no doubt present it as a great reform that blahblah and blah for the blahblahblah people but the reality is that it's probably no more than a minor set back for the quangoracy. The powers aren't gone and they can be re-issued to new quangos by future governments, and possibly even by this one when everyone's forgotten and it can be done without attracting attention.

Nice opportunity squandered, fellas. Fuck you. Fuck you very much.

How much? (Part 2)

Temporarily removed for correction

I'm feeling sorry for Nick Clegg.

Pity the poor Younger Twin. It was a good idea, that Your Freedom website, even if it did go tits up almost immediately because it couldn't cope with the traffic. But it's real problem is that it relies on a democratic process where anyone can chuck in whatever thoughts are fizzing around their brain as a serious suggestion. In turn this means that there have been suggestions for the repeal of laws that don't actually exist, suggestions that are totally irrelevant and suggestions for new laws to be brought in instead of existing ones to be repealed, and more often than not these tend towards the illiberal. I read through a few and just shook my head with despair.

Under the section 'Restoring Civil Liberties' (and these are all copied and pasted with absolutely no adjustment on my part, just some bracketed comments here and there) we have such gems as:

• "Magic Eye" PIR switches to turn off escalators when no-one is using them!
• Restriction on sale of tobacco and alcohol products only to non-welfare recipients
• we should change the silly rule in some leisure centres in this country alone that doesnt allow you to take a photograph of your own child when they go for a swim.
• Restore Christmas Decorations
• ban ratzinger
• Support Hollobone's fight to ban Burkas' in public places.
• Make it law that labour can NEVER take office in Britain EVER again!!!!!!
• Abolish height barriers to car parks
• Abortion is an international disgrace which must come to an end.
• No one person should be allowed to own more than two residential properties.

Under the section 'Repealing Unneccesary Laws':

• Re-nationalise the Railways
• repeal the Abortion act (again - AE)
• Introduce Caning for Minor Offences and Anti-Social Behaviour
• Raise the drinking age to 21
• Bring back Hard Labour for Prison Inmates
• Tax Caravans
• STRICT DOG LAWS NEEDED NOW
• Capital punishment (he wants to bring it back, natch - AE)
• Death Penalty (ditto)

Under the section 'Cutting business and third sector regulations':

• Bring Life back to the High Street and Local Store (by capping numbers of out of town shopping centres, free High St parking etc - AE)
• Death Pentalty (another one, but unusually this one seems to think it would help businesses - AE)
• Automatic Copyright for 3D Products, Inventions etc. like Books etc. Patents cost too much (fucking cheapskate - AE)
• Ban sub-contracting
• Scrap RIPA’s (not clear if this is something about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act in the wrong place or what - AE)
• Creating high streets for communities (by doing what exactly - AE)
• Cut leisure facilities in prisons
• Force supermarkets to charge for their car parks to help support high street shopping

I'm not saying it's all bad or even that I disagree with all of the above. Far from it, there are some great suggestions about liberalising gun ownership, scrapping the ridiculous and hopeless prohibition of drugs, repealing the smoking ban and so on, none of which is at all likely to happen and has attracted the all too predictable comments from hoplophobes, busybodies and anti-smoking zealots respectively. There are even some well intentioned ideas up there, though usually with no clear idea what piece of law that want repealed and/or stuffed in a section where it makes no sense and is going to get moderated out. But reading an awful lot of it is like being inside Paul Dacre's head. It says Freedom, right? It asks for laws to be scrapped and how civil liberties can be improved, and what happens? Along come thousands of fucknuts with lists of the things they want other people banned from doing. You could almost think that people tend to be narrow minded, prissy, bigoted nimbys or something. So you see, Cleggy, your idea for a democratic style approach to increasing liberty was nice, but flawed. Democracy really is the worst system apart from all the others. At worst the tyranny of the majority and at best a genteel form of mob rule.

If you're really serious, Nick, I suggest you tear down the law. Seriously, scrap every last law, rule, statute and regulation, the whole fucking lot to cease effect at, say, one second before midnight on a given day. And start again from scratch from 00:00 with the Zero Aggression Principle at it's heart. You ought to be able to get all the law an ordinary citizen will ever need to know on the back of a fag packet. The only question is whether you, Dave and your respective parties have the balls to do it.


PS - On the other hand here and here are a couple of good suggestions:

What's wrong with this picture?

This bloke can stay in the UK despite being, or so we're told, an Al-Qaeda "operative".* Apparently this is because he might be tortured if he's deported back to Pakistan, and is a decision defended by the Younger Twin. However, this gay woman has been refused asylum and certainly can be deported back to Iran, where they are renowned for their understanding and tolerant attitude towards homosexuals. Oh, wait, no... that should read "where they deny the existence of homosexuality while simultaneously flogging - executing, if they keep at it - anyone found guilty of being gay".

[Kiana Firouz] came to Britain two years ago as a student, but while she was here the Iranian intelligence services discovered footage of a documentary that she had been making secretly about homosexuals in Tehran. The Home Office rejected her asylum appeal on the ground that she could conceal her homosexuality if she went home, and that ruling was been upheld by two appeals tribunals this year.

Did the Home Office fucknuts not consider that since the Iranian intelligence services know her identity they almost certainly know she's a lesbian too? What fucking use is there in concealing her sexuality now? Why isn't the same logic (hah!) applied to Abid Naseer and others suspected of being terrorist operatives? Anyone telling them simply to conceal any desires they have to blow up Manchester shopping centres?

No?

Thought not.

“The UK Border Agency only enforces the return of individuals when we and the independent courts are satisfied they’re not in need of protection,” the Home Office said.

So Naseer and his mates need such protection but Kiana Firouz does not, despite being gay, playing a gay character in a film and making a secret documentary - and let's face it, she probably wasn't being secretive about it so as not to spoil the fucking surprise - about people the Iranian President says are non-existent?**

The Younger Twin said of the Naseer case:

"We, like any other civilised nation, abide by the very highest standards of human rights."

Very admirable of you, Nick. But unless you think that doesn't apply to dykes and poofs, and in fairness I very much doubt you do, why not say the same for Kiana Firouk? Why the silence, Nick?

I can only hope he's simply not gotten round to it yet, because watching someone sent off to where they're likely to be flogged or executed for being gay and telling them simply to hide it at the same time as claiming to be a civilised nation who won't send terrorist suspects where they may be tortured is either deeply hypocritical or breathtakingly naïve.


* Not actually charged with anything, though a judge is apparently satisfied that he's a threat. Personally I don't pretend to know how a judge can say that without there being anything so tedious as a trial. Make of it what you will.
** When they're not being publicly whipped for possession of more than one CD of show tunes, that is.