Gifts to Greece

My first thought this morning was to write about the so-called UK drought again. Maybe I’ll post something on that later.

Then I had a strong urge to comment on the absurdly excessive punishment of Lewis Hamilton (a 5 place penalty or inadmission of his final run – moreorless equivalent punishments – would have been appropriate) after an error by his team in qualifying for today’s Spanish GP. I’d hardly call myself an expert on the sport, but a previous foray into F1 commentary attracted a good deal of attention.

Instead I’m going to channel my annoyance at the spoiling of what might have vaguely resembled a sporting event in Barcelona towards the Greeks.

All I want to convey is one simple point, that the Greek people have benefited hugely from the international loans on which they have already partially defaulted and look increasingly like failing to repay in their entirety.

We haven’t invented this thing we call money just for fun. Money allows resources to be allocated. If you borrow it, spend it and fail to repay the loan, you have acquired or consumed resources that could have been used by someone else. Take the Athens metro railway and all the other billions worth of infrastructure to support the 2004 Olympic Games. How was that funded? I’ll hazard a guess. Borrowed money, at least in part. And what will happen to all that capital investment when Greece defaults? It’ll still be there. These assets will remain in existence indefinitely for the benefit of the Greek people. To the extent they haven’t been paid for, they’ve effectively been stolen from the rest of the world.

Some loans may be riskier than others, because that’s how the world is, but, unlike equity investments, loans are designed to be repaid. Financial disruption – on a global scale over the last 5 years – arises when debts are not repaid. So, because of the knock-on effects, Greece’s default is worse than theft! The entire EU has been plunged into recession in large part because of the need for the financial system to prepare for possible Greek default. Instead of using capital to support new lending, banks have been writing down Greek (and other) debt and taking actual losses.

Obviously we’re just reaping what was sown when Greece and other European sovereigns borrowed unsustainably. The question is how to prevent repeats of this cycle of behaviour?

Let’s mull over that question for a minute. What is the popular conception of what’s going on?

I think it was Arthur Smith I heard on the radio yesterday saying the Greeks should be let off their debts because “it’s not the fault” of those protesting. In what sense is that, Arthur? Are you perhaps saying the average Greek took no executive decisions regarding the nation’s finances? Clearly true. But isn’t a large part of the problem that they haven’t paid and continue not to pay their taxes? What do you think is fairer, that every Greek homeowner should pay a special tax (they’re refusing) or that you and I should find the money?

And isn’t a large part of the problem the Greek public-sector? What do you think is fairer, that Greek workers should take whatever pay cuts it takes to balance the books (as has happened elsewhere in Europe, such as in Estonia – now growing again – Latvia and Lithuania) or that you and I should find the money?

Many non-wealthy Greeks must also be culpable of wilfully participating in a cash economy, benefiting from lower prices for services whilst complicit in tax avoidance. What do you think is fairer, that the Greeks start paying taxes commensurate with their public spending like people in most other countries, or that you and I should find the money?

But the really interesting point is that Greece is a democracy. They’ve chosen their own government since the ousting of the colonels in the 1970s. Collectively, then, they’ve repeatedly elected politicians, at least some of which have overspent, undertaxed and cooked the books, or appointed officials to do so on their behalf. Clearly, collectively, the Greeks have benefited from this behaviour. I’m intrigued, Arthur, whether you’re suggesting that, collectively, the Greek people are also not responsible for the situation they find themselves in.

That’s probably enough. After all, Arthur is a national treasure, practically the new Queen Mother, and perhaps a little fragile. Maybe he just didn’t think. Maybe, like the QM, he inhabits a world where decisions are made by waving a magic wand. Maybe, like the QM, he lives in a world where one need take no responsibility for one’s finances.

I also caught a snippet this morning of someone on the Andrew Marr Show invoking the precedent of Argentina. That great and honourable country, that upstanding, exemplary member of the international community most recently defaulted on their debts about a decade ago. And it’s been great for their economy! Who’d have thought it? It’d be great for my personal finances if I went out and bought a house, a car, new furnishings and white goods, new shoes, clothes and so on and then didn’t bother paying for them. I’m sure I’d feel pretty well off for a few years too.

Let’s pick on someone else. Arianna Huffington writes in the NYT:

“Yes, the Greeks acted irresponsibly before the economic collapse — the same way my father had acted irresponsibly in his private and professional life. But that is not reason to punish the children, to destroy their future as part of a remedy for a past for which they bear no responsibility.”

What Arianna is saying – for some reason “bleeding heart liberal” is the outmoded phrase that comes to mind – is a little more sophisticated than Arthur Smith’s indignant genialism. We have to draw a line, she says, to protect the innocent. Though, I can’t help pointing out yet again, these “innocent” are nevertheless beneficiaries of the misappropriated funds spent in Greece over the last decade or so. Perhaps they’ll remember that every time they hop on Athens’ shiny new metro trains.

The fear gripping financial markets – and contributing to the unnecessary economic hardship and suffering of innocent little children currently taking place in, say, the UK – is that other countries will follow Arianna’s line of reasoning too. Why shouldn’t Ireland, Spain, Portugal and even Italy say “don’t punish the children”? Having elected profligate, irresponsible governments that have given them what they wanted – low taxes, high spending – why won’t they now elect governments to satisfy their new desire for debt writeoff with some kind of moral justification (right wing nationalist or left wing anti-capitalist – take your pick, or, hey, what the hell, you can even pick both!).

If we want financial stability – quite possibly a good thing, I suggest, in light of the 1930s, just as a for example – then debts have to be repaid. And sovereign debts would be a good start.

So how can the international community protect itself against freeloaders? Against those countries who run up debts, fail to collect enough tax and then, in the words of the song about the girl next door and the bathroom floor, plead “It Wasn’t Me”?

Here’s my suggestion. Many of the countries that default are serial offenders. There’s something deeply ingrained, in their DNA if you like, that leads them to spend too much and collect too little tax. So cut them off from international finance for long enough for them to lose thir habits. This would be simple to implement. The financial services industry is highly regulated (all that effort’s been really effective, hasn’t it?). Regulators in responsible countries (say the UK, the US, the EU apart from Greece) could simply demand that no financial institution or its subsidiaries (maybe even no company) lends at all to a government that has defaulted on sovereign debt over the last 50 years – or maybe even more. Or, crucially, to any institution in that country dependent on its government, such as a bank or a company.

Since holding the currency of the defaulted country would constitute lending, all investment in defaulted countries would have to be funded locally in their own currency. Imports would require foreign currency that would have to be acquired beforehand by local institutions or individuals, i.e. by selling goods and services as exports (or small amounts of currency to tourists and other visitors). No publicly funded export credit guarantees would be available to UK companies, for example. In effect, such countries would be forbidden from running a trade deficit.

Such a measure would do two things. It would financially quarantine serial defaulters for a time longer than short-term market memory currently manages (defaulters tend to return to the international markets within a decade). And it would give non-defaulters pause for thought.

You’ve Got to AV a Laugh

Well, laugh or cry, because AV would have made a huge difference to UK politics. Perhaps not immediately, but over the long-term it would have made it possible for a broader political debate, with a larger number of parties.

Today is the first anniversary of the LibCon coalition. Here’s what I wrote precisely one year ago:

“…it seems to me that Clegg is a self-deluding fool. I therefore expect him to go into coalition with Cameron and destroy his party. The pretext will be ‘the national interest’, but the real reason will be the desire for power.

…Clegg’s probably already lost the Lib Dems any chance of AV, let alone PR, for a generation.

Here’s why. Think about it. The Tories have said they will campaign against AV in any referendum they grant the Lib Dems. What incentive will Labour have to support the proposal? None. Sure, they might pay lip-service, since AV was in the Labour manifesto, but, unlike if they were in coalition with the Lib Dems, they will not expend political capital whipping their significant dissenting elements into line. And they’re hardly likely to spend a lot of money on a referendum campaign when they could be saving their pennies for the next election. I simply can’t see the Lib Dems winning a referendum on anything against the Tories, their toadying media supporters AND elements of the Labour party.”

So the outcome of the referendum was totally predictable. I suppose that at least the £200m or whatever it cost provided a small economic stimulus.

I can’t claim to be totally prescient, though. I certainly didn’t expect the mind-blowing incompetence of the Yes campaign.

First, I can still scarcely believe that the Yes campaign failed to get across one simple point. It’s daft to have an electoral system where the outcome depends on whether or not a 3rd or 4th (or other additional) candidate happens to stand.

This is currently the case in every UK constituency. But you don’t have to look back too far for graphic historical examples. Dubya Bush in 2000 benefited from Ralph Nader’s candidature, representing the Green Party, which disproportionately drew votes from, ironically, Al Gore, environmentalist and potential competent President. And maybe the Yes campaign could even have allowed some maverick to point out that divided opposition let the Nazis in.

Second, the timing was absurd. Why the referendum was held so early is a complete mystery to me. The Tories had signalled their opposition and, newly in power for the first time in 13 years, were bound to be speaking with one voice. If time had been allowed for a few Tory splits on the issue to develop (and for Labour to get over the election and be a bit more united) that might have made all the difference. The damage done to the Yes campaign by John Reid wasn’t mirrored on the other side.

Third, the agreement with the Tories should have forced Cameron to declare neutrality. Allowing the office of the Prime Minister to be used could only help the Noes.

Strangely none of these reasons appear in the Guardian Top 10.

But the underlying problem is far more fundamental. There’s no point having a proportional voting system if Parliament doesn’t work in a proportional manner.

Our elections don’t have to be winner takes all. In the long run greater separation of the executive and legislative arms of government is needed, as I also wrote precisely one year ago. This would allow the House of Commons to debate issues without the outcome having been predetermined by the whips, as happened in the dim and distant past.

But Clegg could have made a start. He could have said he’d support Cameron as PM and vote on the merits of bills put before the House. This is pretty much the position he’s now been forced into, but sometimes it’s not about where you are, but how you got there! He could even have relaxed the Lib Dem whip, since, as is now clear, the Lib Dems – having tried to be all things to all men over the years, and respond to local issues around the country – represent a broader spectrum of opinion than either Labour or the Tories.

It is indeed laughable that the Lib Dems thought they could win a referendum on a more proportional voting system at the very same time as they are giving coalition government a bad name. Do they really think the British public is stupid?

Without a broader vision for the evolution of the Westminster political process, we’re not going to see PR in this country for a century, never mind a generation!

On Hulme on Science

This post is an addendum to my previous musings on Mike Hulme’s Why We Disagree About Climate Change. In particular I want to respond to Paul Hayne’s comment that:

“Mike Hulme’s argument is not relativist. He is arguing that there really is no argument that can leverage action, which seems pretty true.”

OK, I suppose – after re-reading Chapter 3 of Why We Disagree – my claim did go a bit far. However, I’m not sure I want to concede the point fully.

First, I’m not the only one who’s confused. What was uppermost in my mind I think were the comments about Why We Disagree made by Peter Kircher in Science (pdf), to which Hulme refers on his website, as detailed in my original post.

I concur with Kircher’s view that “Hulme’s book invites misreading” and his disquiet over Hulme’s infamous passage (p.80-2) discussing how science “must concede some ground to other ways of knowing.” There is, though, a way in which this makes sense, which Hulme doesn’t identify and which doesn’t in any way undermine science.

Second, any critique of science must always address the fundamental precept that science is about testing theories against reality. It either describes the world or it doesn’t. There’s no room for compromise with “other ways of knowing”.

There’s one little fly in the ointment, though, which is very apparent in the social sciences. Concepts are not always easy to define. What is “poverty”, for example? Before you can study “poverty” you have to get out there and translate what people mean by “poverty” into something or things that you can actually measure.

Hulme refers to “local tacit knowledge”, which he patronisingly suggests is “not conventionally classified as scientific knowledge”. He muddles strategies for coping with climate conditions with describing “environmental change” and weather-forecasting, but certainly some of what he’s driving at very much is scientific knowledge – climate science relies on interpretations of subjective historic anecdotal evidence in diaries, ships’ logs and so on.

The issue is merely about communication between scientists and those affected. In the case of climate change, science may need to translate its scientific predictions – expressed in terms of directly measurable parameters – into language that relates to people’s day to day experiences. But those experiences are not “other ways of knowing”.

Let’s take the example of “severe winter weather” in the UK, since “here’s one I prepared earlier”! As I explored recently – there is no direct correlation between measurable parameters and the common perception of, in this case, what constitutes a “cold winter”. No-one writes books about, say, February 1986, which was exceptionally cold, whereas (slightly) milder conditions with more snow, such as the Winter of Discontent (1978-9) and perhaps December 2010, linger much longer in the collective memory.

Science could, in principle, develop a “severe winter” index which included temperature extremes, averages, snowfall, lying snow days and so on. Trouble is, different people would want to constitute the index differently. Hence we all have to refer to the same variables if we want to make comparisons. This is what science is. It doesn’t stop us all making our subjective judgements, though.

So, there’s an inescapable conclusion: we have to agree on a framework, on what we can measure in order to make objective comparisons.

And this is the real weakness of Hulme’s work. In terms of both the science and making decisions on emission trajectories, we need a quantitative framework. Or we simply can’t reach any sort of agreement. It’s all very well to note that people have different values, but we can’t conceivably ever agree what is an acceptable level of climate change based on religious and political views. It is irrelevant on one level that the media distort the debate as Hulme goes on to discuss in Chapter 7, The Communication of Risk. This doesn’t alter the consequences of different courses of action and therefore the optimum path by one iota.

It might also be worth noting, en passant, that it is in fact historically somewhat unusual for public opinion to greatly matter in decision-making. The reason the media has influence is a result of our current political system. At most other times in history a ruler, or elite would simply make the decision. The long-term interest of society as a whole was the responsibility of a small group and not something actively contested between different interests. Maybe, as a civilisation, we need ways of making a clearer distinction between the general interest and the individual and sectional interests that drive our political processes. Tricky stuff!

Nevertheless, just as we can only meaningfully discuss and quantify the physical phenomena of climate change within the agreed framework that we call science we can only decide on a course of action in response to global warming by agreeing a framework that permits quantification.

And that framework is called economics.

Musing on “Why We Disagree About Climate Change”

I give in. Over the holiday season I’ve been improving my education by reading Mike Hulme‘s thought-provoking book Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Maybe I’m committing a cardinal sin, but I’m going to try to capture my thoughts on Why We Disagree without a clear idea where they’re leading. Perhaps because I haven’t finished reading the book yet!

Whilst I would recommend Why We Disagree as an introduction to a set of issues that are too rarely and superficially discussed, I find myself alarmed at the way the debate is going. The movement that has grown up in response to the global warming threat is more deeply confused than ever. There is a lack of clarity of thought around far too many aspects of the problem of global warming and how to organise a coherent response.

But what’s prompted me to jump the gun was committing another cardinal sin. I idly followed a backlink to this blog. It was automatically generated, but turned out to be very relevant. It led to a post at Haunting the Library, a new GW sceptic blog, which laid into a truly cringeworthy Guardian CiF piece by a Polly Higgins.

Polly Higgins argues for a “law on ecocide“. She particularly wants to prosecute corporations. Presumably she wants to create a world government or at least rewrite the Treaty of Westphalia.

Preamble: Power and the Law

Putting to one side Polly Higgins’ unwise use of comparisons between ecocide and Nazi genocide – I kid you not, read her piece – she misunderstands the role of the law.  The law expresses power relations between society and the individual.  Once the law proscribes (or prescribes) behaviour of some kind, the norm – for example, “don’t sell drugs” – has been agreed.  OK, the legal system is a contested space, but probably best to fight only battles you have a chance of winning.

Enacting a law does more than express a societal norm.  It also criminalises the behaviour it proscribes (or in the case of civil law recognises plaintiffs’ rights to redress).  There are other options than criminalising undesirable behaviour.  Once you have the power to enforce an agreed norm, e.g. if you’re an elected government, you could tinker with incentives.  In the case of drink, for example, rather than try to enforce a law limiting consumption you can raise taxes on alcohol.  When it comes to drinking and driving, though, a strict legally enforceable limit is considered appropriate.

So, what Polly Higgins fails to appreciate – besides the social norm of avoiding casual comparisons with Nazi atrocities – is the need for a coherent two-step plan:

1. Establish the power to prohibit or limit specific behaviour.

2. Identify the appropriate levers to control said behaviour.

A problem with global warming is that it is global in its diverse causes and global in its diverse impacts.  (1) is therefore difficult to achieve.  This might not matter if we either had a world government with the power to deal with the issue or the states that are prepared to project their power, principally the US, were prepared to do so in support of the cause.

But even if (1) were achievable, (2) also needs to be addressed.  Criminalisation might not be the most effective strategy.  The absurd, prohibitionist “war on drugs”, for example, arguably creates more problems than it solves.   In general, I suggest, it’s not a good idea to try to criminalise behaviour in which many people are engaged.

Where the issue gets interesting of course is in the interaction between (1) and (2).

The more power you have the easier it is to criminalise behaviour.  If you happen to be in control of a totalitarian government you can outlaw whatever you like.

On the other hand you need very little power to change incentives.  Simply by buying something you change behaviour throughout the supply chain.  To make a real difference you need to do a bit more than that.  But people are prepared to accept taxes that increase the price of things they may enjoy, but know aren’t good for them, at least in excess.  Hence tobacco and alcohol duty are accepted and are effective to some extent, whereas prohibition would fail, even if the laws required could be passed in the first place.

In the case of carbon emissions, where on the power-spectrum is Polly Higgins, do you think?

Which brings me on to Mike Hulme’s book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change.

Hulme’s project is an important one, and well executed, but, at least as far as Chapter 6, I fear a critical theme has been omitted and that this undermines the whole discussion.

Society and the Individual

Society is not the sum of individual interests.  Let me repeat that in case anyone missed the point.  Society is not the sum of individual interests.

Consider how behaviour is regulated.

Society as a whole attempts to regulate the behaviour of individuals by legal or other means as seen in relation to Polly’s counterproductive proposal to criminalise “ecocide”.

Individuals’ behaviour takes into account sanctions and incentives society as a whole may put in place.

Society has an interest in maintaining itself indefinitely; individuals may or may not be concerned about the future.  Society and individuals are qualitatively different.  Much of the time we pursue our individual interests.  But we expect certain agents to act in the interests of society.

We have collective values.  We expect society to maintain itself even if it doesn’t directly affect us.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Comparing Markets and Values – a Category Error

Chapter 5 of Why We Disagree, The Things We Believe, is primarily about religion but suggests three categories of solutions: correcting markets, establishing justice and transforming society (section 5.4, p.161-9).

But we’re comparing apples and lemons.  Market interventions are a way of achieving agreed objectives within the whole of society, in this case globally.  Establishing justice and transforming society are motivations of individuals or groups for influencing the objectives.

It is alarming not just that Hulme writes:

“These sweeping ideas for commodifying carbon and globalising its market through either free or regulated trade sit uneasily with many of the beliefs expressed in religious and other spiritual traditions”.

but also that he notes WWF UK have:

“…suggested that there are inherent contradictions in ‘attempting to market less consumptive lifestyles using techniques developed for selling products and services.’ “

This is simply incoherent.  Especially to a WWF “Supporter” who yesterday participated in an online WWF “Membership” survey.  If market research isn’t a “technique developed for selling products and services” I don’t know what is.

If we actually want results, I suggest we have to leave it to the technocrats to determine how best to reduce carbon emissions.  All pressure groups can and should do is build support for objectives, such as to reduce carbon emissions, or perhaps more broadly avoid dangerous climate change.

The problem is all pressure groups have their own over-riding objective – to boost their own support.  They need to have a coherent ideology.  They need to sell the illusion that it is their brand that is effective.

Of course, WWF is easy to pick on, in part because they don’t in fact have Members, only Supporters.  They’re not alone in spinning in this particular way, but to my mind, strictly speaking members have – or at least can have – some kind of influence.  This is not the case in WWF.  Policy is not determined by votes of the members, for example.  WWF is selling you something.  And the ratio of brand to product is very high!

If we really want to stop global warming we need to recognise the constraints on coordinated global action.  Market-based solutions of some kind are pretty much the only game in town.

Society, Individuals and Value

Hulme reports in Chapter 4, The Endowment of Value on the discounting of the costs of climate change as used, for example, in the Stern Report.  Every time I read about this I find myself entirely bemused and Hulme, I think, has unintentionally helped me put my finger on the problem.  What am I saying?  Why give Hulme the credit? – I knew this already, I was just hoping Hulme did too.

Stern’s economic analysis – or at least his use of discounting of future costs – looks at the problem from the perspective of individual actors (people or commercial enterprises, say).  We need to consider society as a whole.

The issue is around the discount rate – how much future costs of damage caused by climate change should be reduced by each year when compared with costs in the present.

As Hulme reports (p.126), Stern used two discount rates, a “time discount rate” of 0.1% and a “per capita growth rate” of 1.3% since “we” will be wealthier in the future.

The time discount rate always gets me.  It’s to allow – and this is serious – for the possibility of the human race going extinct before our global warming problems come home to roost.  This is ludicrous.  The logic implies that if we don’t “go extinct” we won’t have invested enough in preventing global warming.  Presumably this is why people don’t save enough for their pensions.  Obviously there may only be a 90% chance of needing the money – you could die or win the lottery.

Imagine if the scenario were just a little different.  Imagine extinction of the human race is certain if CO2 reaches say 500ppm.  We have to spend £10bn now to stop that happening in 100 years.  Ah, but we may be extinct anyway!  So let’s spend just £9bn (that’s £10bn discounted by 0.1% for each of the next 100 years – I know this should be compounded so it’s actually less than £9bn, but that’s not the point.  The point is…).  Damn, we haven’t spent quite enough – CO2 will hit 500ppm and wipe us out.  As I say, this is ludicrous.

OK, so that’s the overall discount rate down from 1.4% to 1.3%.

What about this “per capita growth rate”?  The argument is that it’s not worth spending £1 today to save £1.0129 next year (compounded over time, so it adds up, don’t it), because we’ll be able to create £1.013 worth of goods and services (or capital) next year for the same effort it takes to create £1 this year.

Very persuasive.

Not.

The problem I have with this is that I can’t think of any effect of global warming that won’t rise in proportion with the per capita growth rate.  In fact, it’s very easy to make a case for many costs to rise faster than the per capita growth rate!

Consider the loss of capital assets caused by global warming.  For example, a city may be destroyed due to rising sea-levels or increased storminess or both. The value of that city in the future will be greater than it is today.  Its productive capacity will have increased by as a best estimate – you’ve guessed it – the per capita growth rate.

Or people may be killed due, say, to the effects of a heatwave.  The direct economic loss will be their own individual productive capacity, which will on average have increased from today’s by – you’ve guessed it – the per capita growth rate.

How do we put a value on quality of life?  Well, biodiversity, the preservation of cultural artefacts and ways of living (referred to by Hulme as “natural capital and the aesthetics of living”, p.115) will, at a best guess, be worth as much in the future as a proportion of everything we consume, as they are today.  That is, the costs of damage to the environment will have increased by – you’ve guessed it – the per capita growth rate.

Of course, it’s easy to argue that in the future we will value our own lives, the lives of others and the environment relatively more highly than we do now.  And Hulme even cites Ronald Inglehart who has made the persuasive argument that concern for the environment is a luxury good valued more highly the more wealthy we become.   (Damn, something else I can’t claim to have thought of first!).

I might even add that the only way per capita productivity growth can occur is if we become more interconnected and specialised.  The relative cost of damage to capital and loss of life will therefore be higher in the future.  The more we rely on each other the more costly disruption becomes.

I can see no justification whatsoever for using a discount rate of greater than zero.  Arguably it should be negative.

Stern correctly argued that we should have no pure time preference.  That is, we as individuals may prefer jam today over jam tomorrow (so don’t put enough in our pension funds), but society as a whole transcends time.  We’re all gonners if we do anything other than weigh benefits to me now as at most equal to costs to someone else at some indeterminate time in the future.

Science and Society

Hulme has me really alarmed in his discussion of science (Chapter 3).  We disagree about climate change because we disagree about the science, apparently.  Yes, of course, but society as a whole needs some way of evaluating the risks.

Hulme seems to take a relativist position akin to that of Steve Fuller.  Take this summary from his website:

“In Philip Kitcher’s wide-ranging essay in Science on ‘The Climate Change Debates’ [pdf] I am struck by two things – which are not very new, but which are very important. First, is how the framing and public discourse around climate change differs between countries: as Kitcher puts it, where ‘societies … are inclined to see matters differently’. This is brute fact sociological reality, just as non-negotiable as the radiation physics of a CO2 molecule. Recognising this means that as soon as scientific knowledge enters public discourse – whether this knowledge is robust, imprecise or tentative – different things will happen to it and different social realities will be constructed around it. For me, this is the essence of the climate change phenomenon.

The second, related, thing to emphasise is how predictive claims about the climate future – and its impacts – are inextricably bound up with imaginations (e.g. scenarios) and value judgements (e.g. discount rates) about the future. One could argue that such considerations fall within the legitimate reach of ‘climate science’ and the elite scientific expertise Kitcher claims any genuine democracy needs. But for me it is these extra-scientific dimensions of climate change ‘knowledge’ which motivated me in my book ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’ to challenge a narrow appeal to science for engaging our publics around the idea of climate change. It really is not about ‘getting the science right’. It is just as much about engaging our imaginations, about facing up to the ways different peoples and cultures construct meaning for themselves, about the very different values we attach to the future. And because of this I don’t believe Cassandras such as Jim Hansen and Steve Schneider should have the last word.”

I’m baffled how he can refer to James Hansen as a “Cassandra” – Kitcher’s essay suggests only that Hansen and Schneider “play the role of Cassandra”, standing outside the debate rather than within it. I can imagine accusing the scientists of hubris, perhaps, thinking they know more than they do, but crying wolf [which is what I assume Hulme means - otherwise his comment would make no sense at all - since the point about Cassandra is she was right and nobody listened!]?  No.  Hansen certainly calls it as he sees it – everything I’ve ever seen of his has been rooted in what I would describe as fairly mainstream science.  (Though I’ve ordered “Storms” from Amazon anyway – it’s just come out in paperback).

Hulme urges us to face up to “brute-fact sociological reality”, as if this represents some new way of looking at the world, something that – perhaps with one exception – we’re all missing.  Global warming is a physical phenomenon – and by the way, sociological realities are nothing if not negotiable, unlike the  radiation properties of a CO2 molecule – but of course it’s a sociological problem.  The same way as anything from dying to the financial crisis is only a problem if we want it to be.  All “problems” are socially constructed, by definition.  CO2 molecules don’t have problems, only sentient beings do.

Society defines problems and has to construct ways of dealing with them.

The nature of the global warming problem depends on the physical phenomenon.  Sure, we can choose whether to say “oh, that’s interesting” or to define it as a problem.  But we can’t do that unless we understand the physical phenomenon.

So, in agreeing the extent of the problem, we have to use the best socially-constructed mechanisms we have.  All science is is a method of determining the most effective ways of predicting (and therefore controlling) physical phenomena.  Essentially by testing interventions against outcomes.  There’s some logic in there and quite a bit of institutional gubbins, but unless we collectively – and we’re talking about global society here – come up with a better “way of knowing”, it really is a matter of “getting the science right”.

Once we’ve done that we can argue about what to do about it. Or rather, we have to argue in in parallel, since science – like society – never ends.

But we mustn’t muddle up things we can measure – temperature, say, or precipitation, or the ability of particular species to survive – with how we feel about those things or our desires as to the kind of society we’d like to see in the future.

And when we come to try to put into effect what we’ve decided to do, maybe it would be a good idea to use methods that are to some extent predictable, and perhaps those that past experience would suggest are most likely to be successful – which probably won’t include implicating much of the global population in a new heinous crime of “ecocide”.  As I said, we’ll have to give it to the technocrats.  Who will almost certainly use markets to do a lot of the heavy-lifting.

We can afford individuals to be irrational, but society itself has to be rational and objective.

I suspect Hulme is going to go on to tell me in subsequent chapters that society is not rational and objective.  Quelle surprise!

The whole point is that when it comes to existential threats we can’t afford not to be rational and objective.

Maybe global warming isn’t in fact an existential threat.  Maybe we can use it as terrain we can contest with our various views of how we’d like the world to be.

But before we conclude that we can afford to disagree about climate change, it would be a good idea, perhaps, for us to remain rational and objective long enough to determine the nature of the physical phenomenon within somewhat tighter constraints than at present.

At the moment we disagree about climate change because, like naughty children, we think we can get away with doing so.

(to be continued…)

Whining Wind Turbine Nimbys Winning

I was disapppointed, but not surprised, to read in this morning’s Independent of the UK’s failure to build onshore wind turbines.

As I was saying yesterday in the context of housing:

“The first failing [of our political system] is a confusion: are we making policy on the basis of reason or emotion?”

A corollary to this is that we have great difficulty balancing decision-making processes between local influence – self-centred and emotional – and national influence – dispassionate and reasoned.

I heard on the radio today how a family had been displaced by the Three Gorges Dam in China.  One of them said something along the lines of: “It might be bad for my family, but it’s good for the wider Chinese family”.  Maybe it’s a cultural difference, maybe it just reflects the different situations in China and the UK, but you’d never hear that here.

The Coalition government supports “localism” – it seems to be one of the philosophical threads that bind the Lib Dems to the Tories.  In fact, this bizarre idea has become so influential that even the Labour Party pays lip-service to it, even though the roots of localism lie partly in opposition to Labour’s statism.

To my mind “localism” is nothing more than window-dressing for a good old-fashioned land-grab.  Property-owners wishing to extend their influence beyond the boundaries of their own estates have been egged on by opportunistic politicians – mainly the Tory and LibDem parties during their period of opposition at a national level.

Now, any and every planning proposal faces vociferous objection.  Take Frank Lampard’s basement, for example.  This is not a planning issue as such.  The neighbours should have no say at all.  When completed it will not affect them one iota.  As long as Frank abides by relevant building regulations designed to prevent subsidence, noise, pollution and so on, he should simply be allowed to get on with it.  There are no reasonable grounds for neighbours to object on.  One worry they have is traffic associated with the building works, which they describe as “disruption”.  Well, sorry, that’s what the road’s for.  And it doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to all of us.  Rights to use it are subject to rules that apply to everyone.  We don’t go about our daily business at the whim of those who happen to live on our route.

One effect of localism will be with us for some time.  Unlike in several other European countries, we’ve failed to develop an onshore wind energy industry, despite excellent resources.  Nimbys must take most of the blame. Even if local decision-makers had the best will in the world (rather a big if), they are simply not in a position to weigh the general benefits of wind turbines against local impacts.  That’s what we have a government for.  As the Chinese well understand, but we seem to have forgotten.

The result of this short-sightedness will be more expensive electricity.  Offshore wind costs around twice as much as onshore.  And we’re unnecessarily spending huge sums on a dribble of solar PV.  (Btw, is it just me, or is everyone getting deluged with Google ads from PV system installers?  Must be a lot of profit to be made, methinks!).

Not only that, British wind energy technology companies have been disadvantaged and that’s carrying over into offshore wind.

Given the crippling economic costs to the nation of the current massive undersupply of housing and infrastructure of various kinds, including wind turbines, you’d think politicians would spend a lot of time thinking very carefully about how to organise the planning process so as to balance the national (or regional or even less local) interest will the local interest.  Indeed, Labour made some attempts, but these are already being reined back, as the Indy describes:

“The situation is typified by instances such as those in North Yorkshire, where local politicians recently vetoed plans to build seven turbines in the face of official advice that they should go-ahead [sic] after a concerted local campaign.

Permission for the windfarm was later granted on appeal to the Planning Inspectorate but Maurice Cann, head of planning at Hambleton District Council, said that might not happen under the Government’s new localism plans.

‘The court of public opinion plays a big role here,’ he said. ‘I can see the situation getting worse. Some of these structures are 125 metres high and have a huge visual impact. It does not surprise me at all that so many applications are getting rejected.

‘With the Government’s agenda to give a stronger voice to local politicians this is only going to become more of an issue.’

Local councils are to get more power to make planning decisions in their areas and the Planning Inspectorate, which has given the go-ahead to a number of wind farm projects turned down by local planning authorities, will no longer have this power.

It now takes on average nearly two years from the point of application for windfarms to be approved by local councils and even then up to three-quarters will be unsuccessful, according to the report by RenewableUK, which represents the windfarm industry.”  [my stress throughout excerpt]

It seems strangely appropriate to suggest we’re going to Hell in a handcart!

Joe Romm’s New Scapegoat

This is unseemly, I know.  But it’s very disappointing when someone you thought was on you side reveals their true colors.  Ask Obama how he feels about General McCrystal.

BP’s CEO Tony Hayward has wisely decided to go into hiding.  So a new scapegoat has been found.  A Senator Joe Barton has dared to describe (Youtube clip) the $20bn the President has demanded as a “shakedown”.  He makes some perfectly reasonable comments.

Clearly the word “shakedown” must be incredibly offensive to Americans.  Much more offensive, I presume than using the term “veddy veddy” to (presumably) mock the English accent.

I don’t know how many readers Joe Romm has, but I would imagine a good proportion of them are in the UK.  I would have thought alienating them was straight out of the Tony Hayward school of poor PR.   Once again, the irony of it!

Oh, and maybe there are only 60 million Brits.  But there are over a billion Indians.  And they’re noticing the double standards being applied.

Shockingly, my comment in support of Joe Barton on Joe Romm’s silly post has been “awaiting moderation” since this morning.  I can only conclude I’ve been ostracised.  Lucky I have a thick Brit skin.

Anyway, here’s my shocking point of view:

“Well, I think Joe Barton has a valid point. There’s no legal basis for expropriating the $20bn from BP. It’s for consequential losses (e.g. the effects on tourism, fishers etc) for which the legal framework is compensation by fines per barrel of spill. So maybe BP is going to have to pay twice. Who knows?

Btw, to declare an interest, or rather not, I invest my spare pocket money in alternative energy not oil companies (though some Big Oil shares might be part of my managed pension fund). Anyway, I’m underweight BP, so I shouldn’t be so bothered. But this is a point of principle.

Joe Barton is just being shouted down by public opinion.

Since when are opinion polls a reliable guide to what’s right or wrong, true or false?

We have, on the one hand, public opinion, rather than the pre-existing legal framework, determining how much compensation BP should pay.

But, on the other hand, we have global warming, where, many would argue, we hope our leaders will listen to the science and not fickle public opinion.

Smart move, guys. Smart move.”

Joe Romm’s Veddy Veddy Thin Skin

The Climate Progress blog is a useful assemblage of climate-related news stories. I visit often. I’m therefore especially sad that it’s become a casualty of Victim Syndrome. Yes, it’s part of human nature – more acceptable in some cultures than others, perhaps, or maybe it’s behaviour that can be indulged in more by the powerful – that perceived wrongs justify any kind of retaliatory behaviour.

Joe Romm, the owner of Climate Progress, has chosen to indulge in anti-British rhetoric over the BP Gulf of Mexico spill. In fact, the Climate Progress site lists no less than 177 posts under “BP Oil Disaster”, a number of them attempts at “humor”. One in particular grabbed my attention. It appears on Climate Progress under the title “By any other name ‘British Petroleum’ still smells bad”, and also at a site called Salon, as “It’ll Always be British Petroleum to me” subtitled “Memo to Brits: Quit whining about the name. Americans are incredibly pissed about what BP has done in the Gulf”.

The subtitle alone appears to say “your feelings don’t matter because ours are obviously more important”. Lucky isn’t it that we Brits aren’t, like, really upset then, isn’t it? Maybe then we’d be obliged to write: “Memo to Yanks: Quit venting, we’re really miffed.” Where would it all end?

To give the flavour of Romm’s “humorous” piece here are a couple of quotes:

“So are the Brits really saying that calling their veddy, veddy British company ‘British Petroleum’ is somehow an insult, a threat to our ‘special’ relationship?”

“We never thought of you as whiners until the CEO of your big oil company started saying stuff…”

and the conclusion:

“So, man up. We’re gonna keep calling it British Petroleum. And if you keep complaining, we might start calling it the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Let’s see what that does for business.”

I’d never come across “veddy, veddy” before. I had to look it up. Apparently it’s: “Jocular or derisive of the way Englishmen are supposed to pronounce the letter r”. So that’s all right then.

The very first comment at Salon (undeleted by the moderator) gives a flavour of the sort of people smart-ass intellectuals like Joe Romm are egging on:

Tony Hayward, goggle-eyed sodding wanker Brit.

Man up, you gormless twits and own your monumentally stupid oil company, helmed by the most repulsive specimen of corporate clueless assholery ever to slither from an oil slick, Tony ‘I want my life back’ Hayward-Shithead. Today we in the US are looking at the results of your criminally incompetent, utterly negligent corner-cutting favorite company. A year from now I expect we’ll be looking at a dead ocean after the millions of barrels of oil, weaponized by a toxic dispersant, work through the water column of the northern Gulf of Mexico, poisoning every living thing in its path. Hayward should be shoved face first into a dead whale’s asshole. British Petroleum, a company stolen fair and square from the Iranians, should be nationalized by the US government and sold off in pieces of cover the as yet uncalculated and likely incalculable environmental and economic losses. Don’t like it? Fuck you. Start a war with the US, invade Washington, and burn down the White House. Please.
—robwriter

My first reaction to Romm’s rant was that the job of persuading people of the dangers of climate change requires clear-thinking and detachment. The point is that we might not be able to do everything we want. We might for instance have to take the difficult decision to leave some fossil fuel in the ground. It seems to me that such an already difficult task is incompatible with letting your emotions run riot. So I posted a very restrained comment at Climate Progress saying so.

But that wasn’t good enough for Joe Romm. No, he put his own comment on my comment. I replied. And get this: my second comment has not appeared. I would have thought this was a breach of netiquette. In fact, I would have thought any self-respecting blogger owes it to themselves not to selectively filter and therefore skew the comments on their own posts. What could I have said that was so offensive that it must not appear on the internet? And remember, the standard we’re talking about is one where “Tony Hayward, goggle-eyed sodding wanker Brit” is perfectly acceptable.

Here’s what I said to Joe Romm (it’s a bit of a ramble, so I’ve highlighted what I now realise is the insightful point – it’s not calling BP “British” that matters as such, it’s the deliberateness of it, which leaves the recipient trying to guess what’s behind the usage – it’s a “what are you trying to say mate?” situation):

JR wrote: “I have been to Great Britain many times and I’ve always admired you folks for your dry sense of humor. [Yeah and don't we just love being the subject of patronising generalisations]. I read the piece again and it is light stuff. [I've seen worse, but why is this sort of thing necessary: "We never thought of you as whiners until the CEO of your big oil company..."? Nobody's whining, mate, though there'd be every reason too - we just thought it was about time we stepped in to defend our interests.] Also, I don’t think there was ever much chance the company could be put out of business [I hope not, but plenty of people have been arguing that could happen. There's no legal basis for the $20bn, e.g. paying for other oil companies' idle workers is absurd - the decision to suspend all deep-sea drilling is tantamount to admission of regulatory negligence - so we've no idea what the US authorities are going to do next] — but why would you care if it’s not an specially British company? [Because "its stock happens to form a large proportion of UK pension funds", as I said before].

BP likes to tout itself as a veddy veddy [I've no idea what you're trying to communicate with this affectation, but I doubt it's complimentary] British company when it suits his purposes, likes to pretend it is Beyond Petroleum when that suits its purposes. [OK, I think we can all agree that BP's rebranding was too clever by half, they should have gone for "International Petroleum" - I gather British Airways/Iberia is going to become "International Airways" - but the fact of the matter is it's called "BP". To knowingly call it something different must surely be to make a point of some kind, even if the listener has to make up their own mind precisely what point]. The point of calling it British Petroleum is not so much the “British” part as the “petroleum” part. [I simply don't believe you].

BTW, What “load of abuse” did the British people get? Seriously, what? “Politely”? [Yeah, politely - the op-ed pieces very gently pointed out the connection between politicians saying "British Petroleum" accidentally on purpose and the sort of abuse in the very first comment on your piece at Salon]. That is dry. Anyway, the piece was marked as humor. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.”

Three points:
1) A company is not a single entity, much as that would be convenient. It’s a web of many different interests. So when BP has to pay for the spill it is in fact the shareholders’ capital that is used. Fair enough – there’s a risk in holding shares. But as soon as politicians start making up the rules the fairness evaporates. And the perception over here is that a) BP may end up paying more than necessary – and of course we’re talking big bucks – and b) other companies and the regulator are not getting their share of the blame – and, in the case of Anadarko, trying to squirm out of their share of the bill. I’m shocked that the President feels it necessary to inflame rather than calm the situation. Given that this sort of behaviour often occurs around the world, though, I wonder whether an international court should be established to rule as a last resort on disputes between nations and multinationals. This would give investors a little more confidence in an era when political risks seem to be increasing.

2) You are engaged primarily in trying to convince the public of the rational arguments of the dangers of climate change. I came to your site today looking for your latest on Arctic sea-ice, and I found this garbage. I’m very puzzled why you would want to taint your brand by getting involved in this sort of irrational mudslinging. It undermines your credibility.

3) Why the heck is the US giving up the moral high ground? At the outset there was universal sympathy. BP was paying for everything anyway. In every crisis situation in my professional life, the leader has tried to take the emotion out, not reinforce it: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…” and all that. I’m sure many “Americans are incredibly pissed”, but as soon as the big stick comes out, as it seems to all too readily over there, people over here start thinking: “Hang about, those guys aren’t trying to take advantage of us are they?”. And in this case, there’s the “British” angle, too, so there’s an implication of blame and responsibility attached – we’re thinking you’re thinking that the “British” caused the spill so you’re justified taking what you want from the disproportionately British BP shareholders. But, like any other shareholders, those of BP are entitled to be protected by the law, not presented with bills for anything that pops into the mind of a White House official. Perhaps it feels good to vent, but maybe anger isn’t always the best emotion to nurture.

The irony is that Romm’s whole point is that the “Brits” are supposedly thin-skinned whiners.

I’d be grateful if anyone could explain exactly how I’ve managed to upset a tough American.  If I knew, I could do it again!

Dodging Difficult Decisions

Imagine yourself house-hunting, or just cast your mind back. You’ve worked hard all week, have your normal chores to carry out, but have managed to free up a few hours of your precious weekend. You window-shop, review sheets of details and finally book a time to see some properties. You spend Sunday thinking about them, agonising over your budget, and on Monday take the plunge. Sorry, says the estate agent, the vendor has decided to take that one of the market. Or maybe they’re not so decisive. You arrange a mortgage, pay for surveys, and only then are you given the bad news: sorry, no deal.

This is the awful situation prospective purchasers will once more be in as a result of the abolition of (Home Information Packs) HIPs, by the incoming LibDem Con government. And on the radio at lunchtime I heard a smarmy voice – it seemed to be a politician, but logic tells me it must have been an estate agent or other housing market parasite – justifying the decision as removing an obstacle to homeowners “testing the market”. Look, you twat, Tesco doesn’t let you get to the checkout before saying, sorry, we’ve decided not to sell those today, we might get a better price tomorrow.

I recollect painfully my first attempt to buy property, jointly. If I recollect correctly, we had 5 surveys done and were gazumped in most cases, never buying at that time, in the end. It cost us a fortune in time and effort, yet the (non-)sellers never spent a penny.

The last Government weighed up all the pros and cons and realised that it was fair for sellers to bear the cost of collating information about their properties, in part to show they are entering into discussions in good faith. This involved taking on a number of interest groups.

What have the LibDem Cons done? Yes, without thinking about it, they’ve abolished HIPs, making redundant overnight 3,000 people who had been trained to carry them out.

True, energy certificates have been retained, but you can still market your property without one. What’s the point of them, then, if they’re not available until people have decided which house they want?

So, the first way to dodge difficult decisions is to do the easy thing without any serious thought.

As I reflected on this I realised that the LibDem Con government is set on writing the book on dodging difficult decisions. There are other instances of “doing the easy thing without any serious thought”.

The third runway at Heathrow? Cancelled. Additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted? Refused. Um, shouldn’t we look into it a bit? I mean, no-one wants to concrete over villages, but the previous lot looked into this and reached a different conclusion.

Or take ID cards. Abolished. Now, correct me if I’m being a bit thick here, but isn’t the government also planning to clamp down on immigration? Wouldn’t it be useful for foreign nationals to have id cards? In fact, I thought they already had, so perhaps we can’t actually believe that id cards have really been abolished.

Because when we look more closely at the coalition’s statement of their programme for government (pdf), we say that they also employ other strategies for dodging difficult decisions.

Their second strategy is pretend to take difficult decisions but don’t actually do so.

Remember those Regional Development Agencies that received so much flak during the campaign? This is what the LibDem Cons say:

“We will support the creation of Local Enterprise Partnerships – joint local authority-business bodies brought forward by local authorities themselves to promote local economic development – to replace Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). These may take the form of the existing RDAs in areas where they are popular.”

Unsurprisingly, the LibDem Cons are not very clear, but I think we can be fairly sure that we’re not going to be able to tell the new pigs from the old pigs. George Orwell would be proud.

What about other quangos? Read on:

“We will abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects.”

In other words: “We said during the campaign that we don’t need it, so we’re going to abolish it and reinvent it. Britain needs a new kind of government!”

Maybe we need a new word, for abolishing something, and simultaneously retaining it. It would save a lot of effort if Cleggeron simply stood up and said: “We’re going to abolain the RDAs and the Infrastructure Planning Commission”. Ra ra ra!

It goes on. School league tables? They’re being abolained as well!:

“We will reform league tables so that schools are able to focus on, and demonstrate, the progress of children of all abilities.”

And on. Remember the hated SATs?

“We will keep external assessment, but will review how Key Stage 2 tests operate in future.”

Which brings us onto another coping strategy for political parties that don’t know what they stand for in, especially those in coalition with those who stand for something different, though they’re not quite sure what. Announce a review! There are 27, according to the Guardian.

Then, if you can’t really think of anything, you can simply repeat existing government policy:

“We will apply transitional controls as a matter of course in the future for all new EU Member States.”

“We will seek to attract more top science and maths graduates to be teachers.”

You can go even further and state policies that are in fact the normal business of government. Here’s my favourite:

“We will make every effort to tackle tax avoidance, including detailed development of Liberal Democrat proposals.”

Or you can make meaningless statements:

“We will take a range of measures to encourage charitable giving and philanthropy.”

And if you’re in a real mess, you can engage in complete obfuscation. This is my favourite passage, on the rather important topic of taxation:

“We will increase the personal allowance for income tax to help lower and middle income earners. We will announce in the first Budget a substantial increase in the personal allowance from April 2011, with the benefits focused on those with lower and middle incomes. This will be funded with the money that would have been used to pay for the increase in employee National Insurance thresholds proposed by the Conservative Party, as well as revenues from increases in Capital Gains Tax rates for non-business assets as described below. The increase in employer National Insurance thresholds proposed by the Conservatives will go ahead in order to stop the planned jobs tax.” [my emphasis]

That’s right. They’re going to fund a tax cut with money they aren’t spending. “Mummy, can I have that toy?”; “Sorry, darling, we don’t have any money.”; “Can I have some sweets, then?”; “No!”; “Whaaaah! But we’ve saved money by not buying that toy!”.

The most worrying thing about the LibDem Con “programme for governance” is that there are an awful lot of giveaways: an increase in the personal allowance for income tax, reductions in corporation tax, freezing council tax and so on, and very little in the way of clawbacks.

Either there’s something they’re not telling else, or this government’s going to be a dog’s breakfast.

Woof!

It’s the Executive, Stupid

So, I hear on the radio that the Lib Dems are getting into bed with the Tories for – Heaven help us – 3 or 4 years. “For the good of the country”, of course.

The poor dead babies seem to be operating under the delusion that a coalition is about agreeing a set of policies. It isn’t. That’s the easy bit and would result from the parliamentary arithmetic anyway. For example, the Tories are dropping their proposal for an inheritance tax give-away, which only their 306 MPs support.

No, what government is about is the day to day decisions, the responses to events, dear boy, events. In short, the executive.

So if we put the policy horse-trading to one side, Clegg has steered his party into the arms of the Conservatives in return for a referendum on AV. Which, as I pointed out earlier, will very likely be lost, so will be worse than no referendum at all. Much worse.

The last few days, though, have shown that proportional representation will simply not work in the UK. Power is so concentrated in Downing Street that further constitutional changes are needed as well.

In fact, many constitutional changes are needed. I started a blog post a couple of weeks ago listing things wrong with our political system. I never finished it. There was too much to write. The franchise doesn’t even makes sense, for Christ’s sake, with votes for Commonwealth citizens living in the UK, but not for EU and others working here and also profoundly affected by decisions on how their taxes are spent and the services that are provided.

Looking at my draft now, though, I see how I was waxing lyrical about how we have strengthened our presidential system with the TV leaders’ debates. And the Tories won the battle in a shamelessly compliant media that the Prime Minister must be “elected”. Which is meaningless in a parliamentary system.

With all this in mind, here’s my proposal: separation of powers (throughout the whole election campaign I’ve only seen this mentioned by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian).

We should directly elect a Prime Minister – who appoints a cabinet – and, separately, a fully proportional legislature – the House of Commons – which will be free to pursue shifting allegiances.

The executive vote should be by Alternative Vote (AV), since otherwise the outcome depends on which candidates are on offer, as we’ve seen in the US when Ralph Nader ran against Al Gore.

Single Transferable Vote (STV) in multi-member constituencies makes sense for the legislature, since it is desirable for legislators to have some contact with what happens on the ground. To all intents and purposes, the legislators in this proposal would operate in a similar way to back-bench MPs at present.

There’s a lot more that could be done – for example, power, including the right to set the appropriate tax rate could be devolved to departments such as health, and the executives of such departments elected separately – but my point is that electoral reform in isolation makes no sense in the UK.

Other proposals, such as fixed-term parliaments, also make no sense in isolation. The UK’s constitution relies on a Prime Minister with the confidence of the House of Commons. It’s entirely possible that no-one would be able to “command a majority in the House”. We’re not far off that situation now. AV (or PR) plus fixed term parliaments in fact creates an even worse situation.

I’m not sure I agree with fixed-term parliaments anyway – what’s the point of lame-duck government? – but in isolation it makes no sense.

It seems to me that a whole package of constitutional changes needs to be agreed by all the major parties, as a coherent whole, and put to the British people in a referendum.

Changing the voting system alone would simply exchange one unfair system for another, even more unfair system, where Clegg and his successors remain permanently in power! And as far as the vast majority of the electorate are concerned it will still be a case or Tory or Labour.

Adieu, AV

What does Clegg think he’s doing?

The situation will probably have changed by the time I finish and post this piece, but, as I write, the Lib Dems are back in talks with the Tories, who seem to want a coalition to govern for a full term! That’s just not going to happen, guys.

If I was a Lib Dem, I’d not agree a deal at all. The Tories would just have to try to struggle on with a minority. The news-flow would be caustic for Cameron as his party shows weakness on a daily basis as they struggle to get legislation through.

Here’s one possibility: once Labour has a new leader they could ally with the Lib Dems and others to vote Cameron down on a confidence motion. But then refuse a dissolution (I assume this is allowed in the constitution), instead indicating that Miliband can command a majority. The Queen would have to ask him to form a government. This probably wouldn’t last long either, but would allow the Lib Dems and Labour to control the timing of an election and prepare with some populist legislation and executive action. Maybe they’d even get through a referendum on the Alternative Vote system (AV).

The trouble is, it seems to me that Clegg is a self-deluding fool. I therefore expect him to go into coalition with Cameron and destroy his party. The pretext will be “the national interest”, but the real reason will be the desire for power. Many Lib Dem voters who lean towards Labour or even tactically voted – together possibly a majority of Lib Dem support – will be long gone by the next election. And then there’s the risk that the Lib Dems will be seen to prop up an unpopular Tory government, or will be seen as hopelessly split on whatever issue brings the folly to an end.

And whatever happens, Clegg’s probably already lost the Lib Dems any chance of AV, let alone PR, for a generation.

Here’s why. Think about it. The Tories have said they will campaign against AV in any referendum they grant the Lib Dems. What incentive will Labour have to support the proposal? None. Sure, they might pay lip-service, since AV was in the Labour manifesto, but, unlike if they were in coalition with the Lib Dems, they will not expend political capital whipping their significant dissenting elements into line. And they’re hardly likely to spend a lot of money on a referendum campaign when they could be saving their pennies for the next election. I simply can’t see the Lib Dems winning a referendum on anything against the Tories, their toadying media supporters AND elements of the Labour party.

Especially after what’s happened since last Thursday. It’s same old, same old. Like many voters I might support the Lib Dems if I could just work out what they stood for.

Given all the talk of Lib-Lab tactical voting, I rather hoped we’d see Clegg talking to Brown first. By 6am last Friday morning I was able to sleep because I was contentedly absolutely sure the Tories would have around 10 seats less than the Lib Dems and Labour combined. I didn’t lose a night’s sleep willing on the Lib Dems to reach a position to prop up a Tory government.

It is simply ludicrous for the Lib Dems not to know who their natural allies are until after an election. Clegg may be a closet Tory, but whatever, the strategy is entirely wrong. In fact, it’s more than a strategy, it’s what the Lib Dems are, the way the party has been shaped over decades, so it’s not entirely Clegg’s fault. If we’re going to have PR, or even AV (which gives a slightly more proportional outcome in terms of MPs per vote), the electorate (and MPs of other parties!) needs to understand that the Lib Dems will ally with Labour (or the Tories), if at all possible. Only if the natural alliance is absolutely impossible should allegiances of convenience be considered.

We wouldn’t be where we are now if Clegg had campaigned on the basis of being a more moderate progressive party than Labour, so would seek to form a coalition with them. Or, if the party is really the wet wing of the Conservatives he should have made that clear. If any party wants to be taken seriously they have a duty to tell the electorate what they are voting for.

When the dust settles, I think the Lib Dems will find the voters are really quite cross with them.

Sorry, I’m in favour of electoral reform, but, in my judgement, the British people are simply not going to vote for an electoral system where only one vote counts – Nick Clegg’s.

A future of continual tawdry soliciting by the Lib Dems for coalition partners after every election is not a prospect that can be sold to the voters.

And why the hell the Lib Dems want a referendum they’re likely to lose is beyond me. They won’t get another chance for decades. I guess they simply haven’t thought it through.

Since the Lib Dems’ appeal during the election campaign was to break the two-party mould and usher in PR, I fear – no, I can feel it to be the case – that support is ebbing away from both the policy and the party advocating it. Don’t throw away those red-blue swingometers just yet.

Adieu, AV, it was nice knowing you.