Before the current hackinggate crisis broke, I wrote that the problem of the 'free press' principle is that much of the press operates from the gutter. The full truth of that is now being revealed. But where to go when most of the dust has settled ?
What we are looking for here is not, I think, complex solutions, but some fundamental principles upon which we can anchor any future legislation or regulation. One such principle does come to mind. It is this :
The media shall be free to publish all information 'as long as it has been legally obtained'. This would mean that any information obtained illegally might result in both/either criminal or civil action by definition. This leads to the question, 'what is legal and illegal ?' Just for a start, 'illegal' could mean information obtained on private property (without permission of the subject) or from private communications (letters, e mails, texts, voice mail etc.). This will not eliminate difficulties, of course, but at least they could form a strong legal foundation on which we can work.
The remaining question, I suppose, is what would happen to investigative journalism, much of which may be carried on within the definition of illegality I suggest here we would have to apply the 'in the public interest' test. That will need more complx definitions and subsequent case law. It may, regrettably, mean that the onus of proving 'public interest' would fall on any person accused of obtaining information illegally, rather than the other way round.
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Thursday, 7 July 2011
NotW affair now out of control
As we write this NotW episode seems to be spinning out of control. The changed nature of the scandal is the fear that is clearly being generated. The police are afraid of the journalists, journalists are afraid of editors, and politicians are afraid of red tops in general. This is no longer a case of ' are we justified in reglating a newspaper in case it is the thin end of the orwellian wedge' ? It now has undertones, as has already been suggested, of the mafia in Italy. There is hope - that the rats will realise the ship may be sinking and turn on each other so we will hear the whole sorry story. But one suspects there will be too much obfuscation and fudging for that. Both the police and the journalists may be constratined in case the blame arrives back at their door - even the door of number 10.
So, if this now transcends the issue of press freedom, how do we proceed ? Appeals to moral regeneration are unlikely to last long as they face the blizzard of the profit motive. Legal action looks draconian and dangerous. With a sigh (because I suspect it will not actually work), a public boycott of the offending newspaper is the best answer, underpinned by the flight of the advertisers. In other words, put them out of business. And, of course, there must be the fullest. most genuine inquiry possible with prosections to follow. Enron here we come. It is a pity the Americans are not doing it. They know how to lock people up !
So, if this now transcends the issue of press freedom, how do we proceed ? Appeals to moral regeneration are unlikely to last long as they face the blizzard of the profit motive. Legal action looks draconian and dangerous. With a sigh (because I suspect it will not actually work), a public boycott of the offending newspaper is the best answer, underpinned by the flight of the advertisers. In other words, put them out of business. And, of course, there must be the fullest. most genuine inquiry possible with prosections to follow. Enron here we come. It is a pity the Americans are not doing it. They know how to lock people up !
Friday, 1 July 2011
Time to tax
In all the furore about Greece, the cuts, pensions etc., have we forgotten a key issue ?
This is the question of tax collection. certainly it has always been true that all 'successful' economies have efficient tax collection systems. Britain is among these countries. Greece, on the other hand, is notorious for tax evasion, especially among the wealthy. In Italy it is a national sport, and what price on tax evasion being an Olymic sport in Rio ?
The question we should now ask is - is the Government spending as much time and effort thinking about collecting more tax from those who evade and avoid as it is making cuts in public services and pensions etc ?
Without suggesting what solutions might work, I offer three ideas :
1. We could publish the amount of direct tax all British citizens (wherever they claim to live) and companies have paid (I wouldn't go as far as Norway where full tax returns are available on line). This would flush out the evaders.
2. Introduce more draconian tax laws, perhaps levying income tax on all citizens wherever they live and wherever they have earned their money (if one did this, any direct taxes paid in their country of domicile would be subtracted).
3. Introduce more tax collection 'at source'. It is clearly unequal that most people experience PAYE, wheres high earners are not taxed at source for various reasons.
Let's continue counting to three by identifying three consequences of widespread tax evasion or avoidance among the rich :
1. It is a clear moral issue.
2. It promotes inequality as it is the rich who are most efficient in avoiding tax and the poor who cannot (there are exceptions, notably in the building trade, but this is not on the same scale).
3. It has great economic consequences which are obvious, notably in cutting the budget deficit.
Time to look more closely at this issue, I think.
This is the question of tax collection. certainly it has always been true that all 'successful' economies have efficient tax collection systems. Britain is among these countries. Greece, on the other hand, is notorious for tax evasion, especially among the wealthy. In Italy it is a national sport, and what price on tax evasion being an Olymic sport in Rio ?
The question we should now ask is - is the Government spending as much time and effort thinking about collecting more tax from those who evade and avoid as it is making cuts in public services and pensions etc ?
Without suggesting what solutions might work, I offer three ideas :
1. We could publish the amount of direct tax all British citizens (wherever they claim to live) and companies have paid (I wouldn't go as far as Norway where full tax returns are available on line). This would flush out the evaders.
2. Introduce more draconian tax laws, perhaps levying income tax on all citizens wherever they live and wherever they have earned their money (if one did this, any direct taxes paid in their country of domicile would be subtracted).
3. Introduce more tax collection 'at source'. It is clearly unequal that most people experience PAYE, wheres high earners are not taxed at source for various reasons.
Let's continue counting to three by identifying three consequences of widespread tax evasion or avoidance among the rich :
1. It is a clear moral issue.
2. It promotes inequality as it is the rich who are most efficient in avoiding tax and the poor who cannot (there are exceptions, notably in the building trade, but this is not on the same scale).
3. It has great economic consequences which are obvious, notably in cutting the budget deficit.
Time to look more closely at this issue, I think.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Bank shares for the masses
Nick Clegg really needs to look at his history of the 1980s. When Margaret Thatcher sold off many nationalised industries she declared that it was to to be the start of a 'share and property owning democracy'. This was a genuine aspiration. She was right, of course, that property owning was to be immensely popular, but those members of the public, me included, who bought blocks of shares in the privatised industries got shot of them as soon as a tidy profit was in the offing.
The same will happen with shares in the banks when they are sold back into the market and freebees are given to the public. There will be a stampede to cash in and the shares will end up in the same corporate hands that contributed to the very crisis that led to the banks being part-nationalised.
This leads to the question, what will happen to the quick profits enjoyed by the lucky public ? Well, if they spend it at home, all well and good. If they go abroad there will be little benefit to UK plc.
OK, so it's a reasonable way of pumping money into the economy, but his concept of dispersing ownership of the banks in the hope of making them more accountable is bound to go the same way as Thatcehr's plan.
The same will happen with shares in the banks when they are sold back into the market and freebees are given to the public. There will be a stampede to cash in and the shares will end up in the same corporate hands that contributed to the very crisis that led to the banks being part-nationalised.
This leads to the question, what will happen to the quick profits enjoyed by the lucky public ? Well, if they spend it at home, all well and good. If they go abroad there will be little benefit to UK plc.
OK, so it's a reasonable way of pumping money into the economy, but his concept of dispersing ownership of the banks in the hope of making them more accountable is bound to go the same way as Thatcehr's plan.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
A Scottish State or Scottish Republic ?
It is many years off, I know, but I am fascinated by the prospects for some kind of devolution plus for Scotland.
Of course, the ultimate option for Scotland is that it should become a sovereign state with its own elected (presumably) Head of State. There is, by the way is an intriguing question - who would be Scotland's first president in, say, ten years? I suppose Alex Salmond would be favourite, and what price Gordon Brown (suitably well into his sixties by then ? I think figurehead presidents should, on the whole, be well into their sixties). Then there are wackier choices such as Sean Connery or Billy Connelly or Lulu even.
But it now seems probable that the SNP may settle for devolution plus simply on the grounds that they will not be able to secure a yes vote for full independence. This raises some interesting and unique questions (literally unique that is). The Crown is the big problem. If the British Monarch remains the Monarch in Scotland, what is their role ? Would he/she play the same role as he/she does in the UK presently, that is be the constitutional source of the prime minister's powers ? But if a semi-independent Scotland operated under a new codified constitution, no such source is needed. Under devolution plus Scotland would undoubtedly have its own foreign policy, presumably on thr Swedish neutrality model. A codified constitution and independent foreign policy renders the need for the royal prerogative redundant. On the other hand the Monarch could be totally a token with no political or constitutional role, but merely a ceremonial one. Come to think of it, that model could work for the UK now.
Devolution plus is not federalism. Federalism imples a good deal of sovereignty remaining at the centre, i.e. London. This would clearly be uneacceptable to supporters of Scottish autonomy.
Perhaps what we are looking at is federalism plus. A system where the centre has a very limited set of sovereign powers, extending merely to control of the currency perhaps plus cross-border trade, a bit like the American 'interstate commerce' clause of the of its constitution.
This is just a series of questions really - and we haven't started on the EU yet. I have heard Scottish Nationalists refer to a Scotland under the British Crown but with an independent voice in Europe. Mmmmmmm looks problematic to me.
Having raised all these issues I think there is a real possibility here of some kind of unique constitutioonal experiment. The creation of a kind of 'sovereign state within a sovereign state' . We need to amend our traditional view of sovereignty to countenace this, but why not ?
And, while we're at it, why not Ally McCoist for President ?
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Of course, the ultimate option for Scotland is that it should become a sovereign state with its own elected (presumably) Head of State. There is, by the way is an intriguing question - who would be Scotland's first president in, say, ten years? I suppose Alex Salmond would be favourite, and what price Gordon Brown (suitably well into his sixties by then ? I think figurehead presidents should, on the whole, be well into their sixties). Then there are wackier choices such as Sean Connery or Billy Connelly or Lulu even.
But it now seems probable that the SNP may settle for devolution plus simply on the grounds that they will not be able to secure a yes vote for full independence. This raises some interesting and unique questions (literally unique that is). The Crown is the big problem. If the British Monarch remains the Monarch in Scotland, what is their role ? Would he/she play the same role as he/she does in the UK presently, that is be the constitutional source of the prime minister's powers ? But if a semi-independent Scotland operated under a new codified constitution, no such source is needed. Under devolution plus Scotland would undoubtedly have its own foreign policy, presumably on thr Swedish neutrality model. A codified constitution and independent foreign policy renders the need for the royal prerogative redundant. On the other hand the Monarch could be totally a token with no political or constitutional role, but merely a ceremonial one. Come to think of it, that model could work for the UK now.
Devolution plus is not federalism. Federalism imples a good deal of sovereignty remaining at the centre, i.e. London. This would clearly be uneacceptable to supporters of Scottish autonomy.
Perhaps what we are looking at is federalism plus. A system where the centre has a very limited set of sovereign powers, extending merely to control of the currency perhaps plus cross-border trade, a bit like the American 'interstate commerce' clause of the of its constitution.
This is just a series of questions really - and we haven't started on the EU yet. I have heard Scottish Nationalists refer to a Scotland under the British Crown but with an independent voice in Europe. Mmmmmmm looks problematic to me.
Having raised all these issues I think there is a real possibility here of some kind of unique constitutioonal experiment. The creation of a kind of 'sovereign state within a sovereign state' . We need to amend our traditional view of sovereignty to countenace this, but why not ?
And, while we're at it, why not Ally McCoist for President ?
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Monday, 13 June 2011
Ed must go ?
So the media 'let's get rid of Miliband (Ed)' train has well and truly left the station.
Our experience of these kind of media campaigns is that, once they are up and running, it is almost impossible to stop them. They become part of the political agenda and lazy political journalists will simply resort to the theme over and over again for want of seeking out any original stories.
Let's dump.....whoever campaigns are debilitating things. They must take up a huge amount of the time of the victim and his/her advisers. They sap political will and take attention away from real political issues - the ones that people actually care about.
But this is now a serious problem for Ed Miliband and Labour. Does the party dump him now to give themselves plenty of time to recover lost ground, or do they hang on with ever more damaging consequences? It is, of course, a disgrace that the media should hound someone out of office on such flimsy evidence, but they do; that is the world we live in.
The flimsy evidence is not good. As someone recently said (was it a Times or Observer editorial ?) the Archbishop of Canterbury is currently looking like a more effective leader of the opposition. A managerial aproach to opposition won't work. The passion of the Archbishop's words was most telling. Ed lacks passion - of course he does. He is an academic social democrat. Politics needs to be more visceral when you are in opposition. The issues facing Labour now are about growing poverty, deprivation, inequality, unemployment and fear of unemployment. These are not intellectual issues. They are real and they are moral.
Unfortunately for Labour the main alternative is Ed's brother and that kind of handover would be equally disastrous. Labour seems to be stuck wih its own managerial political class and lacks any real options. Talk about creeks and lack of a paddle !
Nevertheless if I were Labour I think I'd do the dumping now.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Our experience of these kind of media campaigns is that, once they are up and running, it is almost impossible to stop them. They become part of the political agenda and lazy political journalists will simply resort to the theme over and over again for want of seeking out any original stories.
Let's dump.....whoever campaigns are debilitating things. They must take up a huge amount of the time of the victim and his/her advisers. They sap political will and take attention away from real political issues - the ones that people actually care about.
But this is now a serious problem for Ed Miliband and Labour. Does the party dump him now to give themselves plenty of time to recover lost ground, or do they hang on with ever more damaging consequences? It is, of course, a disgrace that the media should hound someone out of office on such flimsy evidence, but they do; that is the world we live in.
The flimsy evidence is not good. As someone recently said (was it a Times or Observer editorial ?) the Archbishop of Canterbury is currently looking like a more effective leader of the opposition. A managerial aproach to opposition won't work. The passion of the Archbishop's words was most telling. Ed lacks passion - of course he does. He is an academic social democrat. Politics needs to be more visceral when you are in opposition. The issues facing Labour now are about growing poverty, deprivation, inequality, unemployment and fear of unemployment. These are not intellectual issues. They are real and they are moral.
Unfortunately for Labour the main alternative is Ed's brother and that kind of handover would be equally disastrous. Labour seems to be stuck wih its own managerial political class and lacks any real options. Talk about creeks and lack of a paddle !
Nevertheless if I were Labour I think I'd do the dumping now.
http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01.
Monday, 6 June 2011
Love Thy Neighbour
Talking to an old family friend recently, a Manxwoman who married an American and has lived ever since in the Mid West, she informed me that she was a Tea Party supporter. This brought to mind a blog I had been meaning to write. So this is for you, Elaine, as well as anybody else who is interested.
When Jesus Christ preached that we should ‘love thy neighbour’, he was asked ‘who is my neighbour?’ It was this point that he told the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who helped a complete stranger (who would normally be his enemy) who had been attacked at the roadside. Well, you know the rest.
Tea party supporters and other neo cons call state sponsored public health schemes ‘socialism’. But the story of the Good Samaritan tells us that they are actually Christianity expressed in action .
America claims to be a Christian country.
Americans.....think about it.
When Jesus Christ preached that we should ‘love thy neighbour’, he was asked ‘who is my neighbour?’ It was this point that he told the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who helped a complete stranger (who would normally be his enemy) who had been attacked at the roadside. Well, you know the rest.
Tea party supporters and other neo cons call state sponsored public health schemes ‘socialism’. But the story of the Good Samaritan tells us that they are actually Christianity expressed in action .
America claims to be a Christian country.
Americans.....think about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)