Boris Johnson will kill children
Boris Johnson is threatening to kill some children and worsen the educational outcomes of many more.
The reason for this is straightforward. He intends to remove the western extension zone of the congestion charge, and delay phase three of the low emission zone, which would charge polluting vans more for entering London.
The effects of these will be to increase congestion and emissions of carbon and nitrogen oxide. Such emissions, however, are quite strongly associated with pre-natal health, as a new paper by Janet Currie and Reed Walker demonstrate.
They studied the impact of the introduction of E-Z Pass in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. This system allows cars to travel onto toll roads without stopping to pay manually. They therefore greatly reduce congestion and emissions around the toll plazas.
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Why the debate on the deficit is dumb
The debate about government borrowing shows how backward our political class and media are. It's being conducted within the wrong framework. It’s about what the parties will or will not do, when in fact it should be about the range of policies they are considering.
To see what I mean, here is my view of the deficit, which I suspect is reasonably mainstream among economists.
We haven’t a hope of cutting the deficit significantly by policy measures alone; Osborne‘s proposed measures aren’t just a tiny fraction of borrowing, but are a tiny fraction of the forecast errors for the deficit. Our only chance of getting the deficit down seriously is to grow our way out of it.
This requires that the private sector start borrowing again, which means that policies that “encourage saving”, such as the raising of the pension age, might actually raise the deficit.
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The BBC is good for household debt
The financial crisis suggests there’s a strong argument for the BBC remaining state-owned and not carrying adverts.
Yes, this claim looks bald. But the reasoning’s simple.
Let’s start from the assumption (which might be questionable) that high levels of personal debt were a contributory factor to the recession, and/or that a desire to pay down this debt might hold back the recovery.
The question then arises: why is debt so high?
TV advertising, that‘s one reason. A new paper by Matthew Baker and Lisa George establish this very cleverly. They exploited the fact that TV’s spread across the US in the 1950s was uneven, with some areas getting it earlier than others. They show that, in those areas where TV reception arrived earlier, households were more likely to take on debt.
In other words, TV – and TV advertising – contributes to household borrowing.
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Open borders is the mainstream view
Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, is on the wireless tonight advocating scrapping immigration controls. What puzzles me, though, is the BBC’s description of this position as iconoclastic.
In truth, Philippe’s position is mainstream. What’s odd and extreme is the argument for immigration controls. Look at this from three perspectives.
1. The invisible hand. Perhaps the dominant strain in liberal thinking is the Smithian-Millian argument that liberty promotes aggregate well-being. Immigration controls are a denial of this. They raise the question. If a freedom as basic as the right to work where one chooses diminishes overall well-being, is there a consequentialist argument for any liberties at all? Of course, you can argue that immigration brings negative externalities. But I’m not at all sure these are any greater than the externalities created by many other market transactions.
An attack on the right of immigrants is an attack on the fundamental argument for a market economy. It’s a radical view.
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The BNP and our sick democracy
The question of whether the BNP should appear on Question Time raises a worrying question for the health of our democracy.
Matthew Syed thinks the BNP should appear, on the Millian grounds that:
The more oxygen they are given to publicise their views, the more the British people will choke on their bigotry and hatred.
But this runs into Paul Sagar’s objection – that QT is not a platform for debate but merely a zoo in which soundbites are vomited into an audience who clap like hyperactive seals.
There’s a danger that Nick Griffin could actually emerge well from such a show.
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Tories remain confused on tax credits
The Tory right is, yet again, showing its ignorance of the income distribution and tax system. The Speccie’s leader says:
Mr Cameron has been criticised for telling Mr Marr that he would remove tax credits for households which earn more than £50,000 a year. This…would hit 130,000 families immediately and unsettle many more. It is a proposal that would undoubtedly hurt Middle Britain. Considered in isolation, this would indeed be an objectionable and vindictive proposal.
The first flaw here is an albeit mild version of the middle England/Britain error – the notion that the well-off are just ordinary folk. In truth, a two parent household with two children and earnings of £50,000 a year is better off than almost two-thirds of the population.
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Why does the right keep believing in grammar schools?
Why do so many people think grammar schools are a way of improving social mobility? It’s not because the social research says they are. I suspect instead that plain error is involved.
One such error is the availability heuristic, mixed with survivorship bias. The handful of working class people for whom grammar schools were a means of upward mobility have high profiles, make lots of noise and get lots of attention. It’s easy, therefore, to over-estimate their numbers.
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Journalism vs Truth
Here are four items:
1. Fraser Nelson says “The internet is the perfect medium for lie-detecting”, whereas much of the MSM has allowed Gordon Brown’s lies about spending to go unchecked.
2. PZ Myers complains about a BBC report that doesn’t question creationists sufficiently. He says:
Every article about creationism needs to eschew the subtleties and pound hard on the obvious, that creationism is bunk and its proponents are ignorant.
3. In last week’s Radio 4 Feedback (5′30″ in), Roger Bolton asked why the BBC hadn’t checked whether UKIP’s claim that three-quarters of our laws start in Europe. The Beeb’s Rick Bailey replies that this claim isn’t a matter of fact but of political dispute.
4. Gaby Charing complains that the Guardian is not taking a stand on whether Caryl Churchill’s play Seven Jewish Children is anti-semitic or not.
There’s a common theme here, about the nature of journalism. In all four cases we have a complaint that journalists are not reporting the truth, but merely putting both sides of the story, and leaving their audience to make up their mind.
Why I’m not voting
Many good people are urging me to vote today. But I can’t feel motivated to do so.
For one thing, I know very little about European issues. I’ve got a feeling that a key issue – the optimum distribution of power between Brussels and national governments – can be illuminated by the economics of transactions costs, social contracts and public goods. But the election campaign has not, to my knowledge, addressed this.
Indeed, no party has tried much at all.
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Public finances: the left’s problem
It’s insufficiently appreciated just how much of a problem the state of the public finances poses for the Left. The difficulty is: how can public borrowing be reduced without sacrificing leftist objectives?
Even by 2012-13, the Treasury expects net borrowing to be £118bn, 7.2% of GDP, with most of this (5.5 percentage points) being “structural” – that is, not blameable on the state of the economy. And even this forecast is predicated upon what Polly Toynbee calls “savage cuts” in vital public spending.
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Why the left should argue for a small state
David Semple thinks the left should join American tea parties, which protest against high taxes. I think I agree. The desire to shrink the state should be a leftist aim. I say so for four reasons.
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So what if religion is irrational?
This piece by Madeleine Bunting has attracted much criticism, but I suspect the outline of her argument can be revived.
Oliver Kamm provides the starting point: “religious faith is…a species of irrationalism.” This is not so much an insight as a tautology. Faith, by definition, is irrational. However – and here Bunting is right and the new atheists mistaken – irrationality is a ubiquitous and in some ways desirable aspect of life.
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Gordon Brown: the market’s verdict
I’ll not pick apart everything Dan Hannan said in that speech. But there’s one point to question. He said:
Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so. The European Commission has said so. The markets have said so, which is why our currency has devalued by 30%.
But not all markets have said this. The stock market hasn’t.
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The financial end is not nigh
The failure yesterday of the DMO’s auction (pdf) of 4.25% 2049 gilts – bids fell 7% short of the £1.75bn offered – has led to some hysteria, such as some of the comments here.
I fear, however, that the truth is rather more mundane.
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Review: The Rotten State of Britain
Eamonn Butler’s The Rotten State of Britain aspires to be The State We’re In for the 00s. It’s not – and not just because it is a much easier read than Hutton’s tome.
Whereas his was a narrative about our economy and society, most of The Rotten State of Britain is a series of attacks upon New Labour’s failures, with chapters such as ’spin’, ’snoopers’ and ‘nannies’. Naturally, some of these hit their targets better than others.
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Labour needs to create a new electorate
This Times opinion poll shows the abject failure of New Labour. It shows that only 26% of public sector workers support the government. Which means that the billions of pounds the government has thrown at them has not won it much support.
This matters. It is not just the case that electorates choose governments. Governments also choose electorates, by building or facilitating the growth of client groups – people who believe that their self-interest lies in voting for the government, or failing that, people who are grateful for what government has given them.
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Defending Gordon Brown on the economy
Gordon Brown says he has “has nothing to apologise for” about the recession. You know, I think he has a point.
For one thing, the UK economy, so far, is not doing especially badly. Yes, the 1.5% fall in UK GDP in Q4 was worse than that suffered by France or Canada, but its less than that suffered by the US (1.6%), Italy (1.8%), Germany (2.1%), or Japan (3.3%). By G7 standards, then, we’re doing OK. Only a silly little Englander can believe this is an unusually British recession. What’s more, it’s not obvious what exactly Brown is to blame for. The allegations don’t stack up.
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Should lone parents work?
Laurie Penny is keeping up her attack on James Purnell’s Welfare Reform Bill, and in particular the plan to get single mothers back into work.
She has a point. If we look at the DWP’s own figures (big pdf), the returns to work for low-skilled lone parents are small. Table 1.2f suggests that a mother of one child who works 30 hours a week on the minimum wage is £56.87 better off in work than out. This is an effective wage of just £1.90 an hour.
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Towards a police state
I don’t often disagree with ScepticIsle, but I do on one point. He says we’re sleepwalking towards a police state. I fear we’re marching there.
From today, it will, in effect, be illegal to photograph policemen, as Kate has pointed out below.
Of course, the government will claim that the intention of this act is to stop terrorists preparing to kidnap policemen. This is phooey.
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The rationality of Valentine’s Day
Paul Walker says Valentines day is irrational. Giving a woman money, he says, is Pareto-superior to dinner and flowers.
Now, I’m not famed for understanding women. But my hunch is that a man who says: “I can’t be bothered with that Vally day bull. Here’s a £100 – get yourself another pair of shoes,” will not be getting any action for a while.
Giving women what they want is rational. Some women want romantic gestures. And this demand can be rational, especially for a woman who is looking for commitment. I say this for four reasons:
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» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
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