YouGov have the Lib Dems at 12%
July 31st, 2010| Pollster/publication | Date | CON | LAB | LD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YouGov/Sun Times | 30/07/10 | 42 | 38 | 12 |
| YouGov/Sun | 26/07/10 | 42 | 35 | 15 |
| MORI/Reuters | 25/07/10 | 40 | 38 | 14 |
| ICM/Guardian | 25/07/10 | 38 | 34 | 19 |
| YouGov/Sun | 21/07/10 | 44 | 35 | 13 |
| ComRes/Independent | 27/06/10 | 40 | 31 | 18 |
| YouGov/Sunday Times | 25/06/10 | 43 | 36 | 16 |
| ICM/Sunday Telegraph | 24/06/10 | 41 | 35 | 16 |
| YouGov/Sun | 24/06/10 | 43 | 34 | 17 |
Is this a reaction to the Robinson programme?
The latest daily poll from the YouGov panel has the Lib Dems down to one of their lowest shares in a long time - just 12 points.
I wonder whether this is in part a reaction to the big political story on Friday, when the fieldwork was taking place, of the Nick Robinson BBC TV programme about how the coalition came about.
It should be said that that YouGov has proved to be (see table below) the most volatile pollster when it comes to the third party. In the three years before the election it had shares ranging from 11% - 34% and it was the only one of the mainstream firms to have it ahead of both the Tories and Labour.
Clegg and his team will, no doubt, point to the vast gap between the YouGov numbers and those from ICM only a few days ago when the party share was put at 19%.
I’m hoping that we’ll see a survey in the next day or so from one of the phone pollsters that finished in the top half of the 2010 polling table. Will that back YouGov up?
If it does and that follows through to the conference season then it will make life even more uncomfortable for the yellows.
Polling the LD 2005 - 2010
| Pollster | Final poll ‘10 | Range ‘05-’10 | Top LD position |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICM | +2.4 | 14%-31% | 2nd |
| Populus | +3.4 | 12%-31% | 2nd |
| Ipsos MORI | +3.4 | 11%-32% | 1st= |
| ComRes | +4.4 | 12%-31% | 2nd |
| YouGov | +4.4 | 11%-34% | 1st |
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
First?
You think voters reacted negatively to Cleggs dishonesty over the referendum and when he changed his mind on cuts?
I think you may be right.
Loads of people I know are saying they won’t vote LDem ever again. I’m one of them!
Ahem, 8th best pollster.
Plus we’ll have a coupon election fought where labours advantages in the electoral system are removed.
Lib Dems shouldn’t be worried the election is 5 years away.
What we really need a proper Lib Dem sex scandal involving dead pets and an attempted murder trial.
The Screaming Eagles @4:
And when that happened in 1979 they only dropped two seats net. The former Liberal leader, it will be recalled, went on trial for conspiracy to murder on the Tuesday after the election.
They don’t do scandals like they used to.
5 - “They don’t do scandals like they used to”
They don’t.
I’m hoping for a sex scandal that involves both parties and makes the mind boggle.
Something involving Menzies Campbell and Caroline Nokes.
Let’s be really stupidly generous, and give half the remaining lib dem voters to labour, and assign the rest to Tories (there is a much greater case for giving them to Tories, seeing as they in coalition with the same)
The result? Labour 44; Tories 48.
Which is what we knew. Britain is basically a conservative country. England is practically fascist.
Labour governments are, by definition, an aberration.
rinka is innocent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U
Peter Cook at his best.
Apols for innumerable typos btw, the ipad is sexy as Paris Hilton in oestrus, but it’s a bore to blog on.
dr spyn @8
The story that’s still to come out over that affair is the role that the young Jack Straw played.
Wouldn’t YouGov’s “volatility” simply reflect that they do an awful lot more polls than everyone else?
Are 3% of the population even aware the nick robinson programme happened?
10. Allegedly omething to do with N I records?
9 - Buy the keypad. Makes typing long stuff easy.
Finally caught up with the programme yesterday, I thought it quite interesting for the politiking that is going on even now. Biggest losers, Clegg, the Libdems and Ed Balls. All ended up looking shifty and conniving, not their finest hour. Oh, by the way, it reminded of how mean minded Brown was to worry about leaving Downing Street in daylight having lost, yet happy to see an incoming PM arrive in the manner Cameron did. Yet again, Brown really isn’t capable of doing dignified, him first and the rest of the country second.
I voted LibDem and I am happy to see that the current ‘tory” government has been modified, by LibDem input, in such a way that their more egregious policies such as IHT cuts and married tax allowances have been put on the backburner and effectively replaced by a commitment to reduce taxes on lower paid workers.
I feel my LibDem vote has helped prevent a tired and pointless 4th Labour term as well as preventing an unnecessarily right wing Tory first term.
It doesn’t feel like a coalition as such, but what we got seems to me to be better than either of the alternatives.
Am I naive?
15 posts and no comparisons between the SNP and sliced bread? Weird.
13:Why was Browne worried about leaving Downing Street in daylight?
13 - What was wrong with the way Cameron arrived in Downing Street?
“An impressive start by David Cameron, but a start is all it is
There’s a big potential danger for this government in trying to run before it has fully learned how to walk”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/01/david-cameron-coalition-andrew-rawnsley
14 - No, you seem to express the thoughts of several of my friends.
Evening all.
For those on Facebook, feel free to add me if you know my real name.
I’m still stunned at having to write about a day of frankly astonishing sporting success.
Makes a lovely change.
16&17.I thought that Brown’s behaviour, or that of his team was really mean at the time. I remember how he got Blair to name the day and then his huge set piece entrance into No10, as always, his pettiness just doesn’t allow for anyone else to have their moment.
Why should we be surprise that a new PM turns up in the dark after being stuck in traffic and locked in uncertainty with Brown as the outgoing PM? It sums up his whole premiership.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the Robinson programme was unhelpful to Clegg - I didn’t see it myself, but I’ve heard others (not particularly supporters) say it showed him in a shifty light.
However, what proportion of the voters will have seen it - 5%? It can’t have had a huge effect on its own. Rather, it’s the nearly half of LibDem voters who say they’re not happy with the coalition who are gradually slipping away. If you regularly support a party that you feel has made a mistake, you don’t walk away at once, but if it keeps getting worse, then eventually you do. It’s a process that still has some way to go.
38%!!!!!
Draft Harriet!
I see the Budget may have been unlawful…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/01/budget-legal-challenge-women-equality
- I somehow don’t think the court will buy it, but if they did, presumably Parliament would have to be recalled to have another go? That’d be popular on the backbenches.
21- Cameron didn’t arrive in the dark.
Nick Palmer @22
Nick, one day you will wake up and take a good hard look at the Labour party and the task it faces. The answers to Labour’s current dilemma won’t be painlessly fixed by the errors of the Tories or the Libdems. Any party that allowed Brown to be elected with out any opposition or evidence of leadership qualities, and then left him in place without any signs of a backbone isn’t going to admit they have a problem. Its quite sweet, all the excitement about increased membership figures etc, I know that I bloody well made sure that my membership was promptly renewed when I realised that there was leadership contest in 2005.
18 - that’s an outstanding article by Andrew Rawnsley. The observation about IDS, Liam Fox and Ken Clarke should make Lib Dems wince. They will need to fight their corner.
On topic, we are seeing a revival of two party politics. Why vote Lib Dem?
(On Topic) No, because most ordinary voter-proles didn’t watch the programme and weren’t even aware of it.
(Off Topic) Those who thrive on statistics will be thrilled to note that in the Official League Table for August 2009 to July 2010, Hunky Harry has gone up from 3rd place with 88 votes to 2nd place with 111 votes. In July 2010 alone he got 23 votes. The other main changes are that Daniel Radcliffe has gone down from 10th place with 32 to 13th place with 19, and Amir Khan has dropped out of the league table completely. Full details are on the WAAAAGH page of my website.
tim @25:
Youtube - Cameron arrives at No10 Downing Street
The lights were clearly on in Downing Street and the cars had their headlights on.
25 He jolly well got ‘Eastenders’ postponed till the following day-more prime time disrubtion than Brown and Blair between them!
28 - Does this chap float your boat?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1299330/X-Factor-winner-Joe-McElderry-thanks-fans-overwhelming-support-coming-gay.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I can’t believe that made a splash. Pope comes out as Catholic?
29 - not dark though was it, plenty of things to criticise Brown for without hallucinating.
The Lib Dems, as we knew them, will be a memory soon. And this will be a good thing also for the Lib Dem entity that remains.
27 antifrank
“Why vote Lib Dem?”
For the first time in my lifetime, but with AV around the corner probably not the last, the centreist/none-of-the-above option actually matters. No more wild swings between left and right.
Why vote LibDem? Because they moderate the political excesses of the other two.
I appreciate I’m being simplistic.
31. No, but he’s obviously very cute. I don’t quite understand the report in the newspapwer yesterday saying that he has just come out as gay, because he did that ages ago and it was widely reported earlier. Anyway, two out of three is quite a good score:
http://i31.tinypic.com/vcyqgk.jpg
14. No, you are quite right. The Coalition is much better than a Conservative majority government would have been. I didn’t vote Conservative because I was worried about the dangers of a Conservative government becoming arrogant and going back to the old habit of eroding civil liberties - or not being serious about rolling back Labour’s erosion of them. I didn’t vote Lib Dem because of their EU-fanaticism. But the combination of Con+LD is much better.
Out of the ten candidates in Croydon Central, I would have listed them (in an AV election) with Con as my 4th preference and Lib Dem as my 7th. But if a general election were to be held today, I would (assuming I had to choose between the same candidates) probably put them as 1st and 2nd respectively.
But the difference is that there wouldn’t be the same candidates; the Coalition is so good that I would not stand against it. I would probably stand in Croydon North instead.
24 - NP Translator - There’s another piece of legislation that should be gotten rid of, if it allows such nonsense. Also a Quango for shrinking in there as well. Absolutely pathetic.
26 - of course he won’t. Study the tone of his post-election posts. Still hanging around… Somewhat embarrassing but fun for those who dig schadenfreude…
My town is just down the road from Nick P, south of Broxtowe - and Labour are not coming back here, bar a miracle, after Andy Reed was voted out. Nice guy - but party stooge at national level and in the election that was going to hurt - like Palmer… in both senses… Reed at least has had the sense to back off now he is not an MP…
Re Brown and his leavetaking of Downing Street, the one thing that struck me was his frogmarching his children down the road - he strode maniacally ahead dragging two small kids with the wife valiantly taking the slack behind. Tells you all you need to know. Check out the vid - it’s actually disturbing.
Re the Coalition - I’ve been in many different social/geographic situations since May and even the Labour voters I know (who seemed embarrassed by their party but would hang true as tribalists) seem, however reluctantly, at least capable of wishing them well. They know we are in the XXXX - well, most of them. Only a fool wouldn’t. Pretty much everyone else, middle ground people who could go either way, also are prepared to give the Coalition the benefit of the doubt - for the time being. There is also a palpable sense of relief that Labour - and Brown - have gone. Intgelligent Labour supporters are looking to re-group and recognise it will take time. Only the mad-eyed ones are looking for trouble (0n either side - met a few each way) - but there aren’t many of them. Six months time - who knows? Coalition equals volativity by definition - unknown ground so could suddenly change. This is a very subjective take on things - a new Labour leader may turn the game around - at the moment it seems unlikely. What have they got to offer? Needs some time to figure out - negativity will fail you (to misquote Bob Dylan)…
Annoying thing is I had a bet on Harriet H way back to be leader - and with more prescience than I would have given her credit on the evidence, she decided not to run… Come on Abbot…
38. I have posted on here before that the EHRC should be quite simply closed down.
Why on earth are we wasting £70m per year on this total nonsense whilst having to make cuts which will affect real public services used by real people?
It is £70m a year of public money so that people can indulge in lefty politics and also stir up trouble.
And the point is that it does not have public support. The public hate to see money wasted on this nonsense. Scrapping it does not just save money - it is a massive vote winner.
40
The cuts seem to be a massive vote winner for the Labour party as well.
What the LDs should be worried about is that ALL the polls vastly over-estimated them at the election…
Who says that YouGov aren’t over-estimating them anymore?
Fact - Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) now joining President Obama in tacit anti-Snookie alliance in dissing the Garden State’s most notorious skank.
Question - Will GOP now read Christie out of the party, the way the did his partial namestake, Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida????
THANK YOU AUSTRALIA!
>>> as a PBer, for giving us a bloodless coup AND an unexpected general election!
>>> as a Seattleite, for giving us (or rather loaning us) Lauren Jackson of the WNBA Seattle Storm - we love her!!!
SSI at 43 I believe the spelling is Snooki without the e. And I’m ashamed I know that. But at least I’ve never watched the show.
45, TT - now you’ve accused me of the Sin of Dan Quayle! And just as I was starting to forgive you (and y’all) for (re)invading Maryland!
BTW, Obamaa went you (and me) one better, said he didn’t know who she was? Which I can well believe, even the most detailed briefing can’t cover EVERYTHING. And reckon that for the Obamas, tabloid news shows let alone “Jersey Shore” are HIGHLY unlikely to be Must See TV.
Of course now that he and Gov. Crisitie have forged their unholy alliance against Ms S.
Like mad dogs and Englishmen, she enjoys being out in the sun OR better yet on the sunbed WAY too long. So naturally shhe brought the force majeur of both federal and state government (and waiting for UN and EU to weigh in) down up her lard-filled head, by publically attacking Obama for raising taxes on . . . wait for it . . . tanning salons!
Now just waiting for Sarah Palin to make her endorsement . . .
Hey TimT, had a chance to visit the Free State’s saving graces in high summertime: the mountains and the shore (note the Jersey one, though that can be great IF you know where to go AND what to avoid)?
US Major League Soccer
1st half, 26 minutes in:
Seattle Sounders FC 1
San Jose Earthquakes 0
Final Seattle 1, San Jose 0
Sounders did good job shutting down SJ after scoring winning goal by Fredy Montero.
Viva Columbia!!! Acres of Clams!!!
Jamie @42:
You need be careful not to make the same mistake that Mike made in assuming the polls would continue to overstate Labour.
When the pollsters get a result wrong, they adjust their methodology to try to fix the problem. They may not go far enough, but it’s just as likely that they’ll overshoot. YouGov could be over-stating the LibDem position, but they could just as well be under-stating it.
Martin Coxall Did you watch “Sherlock” on Sunday? I greatly enjoyed it. It’s always nice to have more Moffat, and I am strangely drawn to Benedict Cumberbatch, the man with the best name in the world after Randy Bumgardner.
I haven’t seen “Sherlock” but I remember Cumberbatch as the actor who played the pasrt of a young version of Stephen Hawking in a bio-docu-drama a few years ago.
———————
notme I like the Daily Mail youtube clip just because it is so well done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
My favourite bit is the picture at 0:14
—————
Some people were discussing “Life of Brian“. I think my favourite bit is the chase through the marketplace, with various religious people preaching, and the gourd and stuff. But I prefer “The Meaning of Life” which is even better. My favourite bit is the Catholic sketch/ Sperm Song.
I went to two Catholic primary schools (the one up to the age of 8 was 80% girls and 20% boys, so my parents decided to send me to an all-boys school for the next two years to toughen me up a bit). The first one had a particularly strong Catholic ethos, with prayers at lunch time and at the end of the day, and a portrait of the Pope on the wall, and the headmistress was a nun, and all that stuff.
Well anyway, when I left the school we had a session at the end of term where people recited poems or sang songs or did their own speciality acts. When it was my turn, I got up on a table and recited a poem which my mother had taught us from her childhood - it was something like this:
This time next week, where will we be?
Not in this academy!
No more German, no more French
No more sitting on a hard board bench
No more Latin, no more Greek
No more [???] to make me squeak
[I can't remember the rest]
Well anyway, I have always thought that it would have been brilliant if I could have gone back in time and sung the Sperm Song instead of that poem. It would have been suitably Catholic for the class of innocent eight-year-olds, and suitably secretly entertaining for the teachers. Unfortunately, the Meaning of Life came out in 1983 but I left the school in 1977.
Edmund in Tokyo @50
Just to add that in all three general elections since YouGov was established the ICM final poll share for the LDs has been more accurate than the YouGov one.
In fact ICM got within one percent in 1997, 2001, and 2005 while coming in best position in 2010. No other pollster has a better record.
This is down to their weightings and the formulation of the question.
3. If all the people who said “I’ll never vote Conservative again” in 1981 or 1985 or 1995 had been telling the truth, or the people who said “I’ll never vote Labour again” in 1977, then no Conservative/Labour government would/could have been elected in 1983/1987/2010/1979/1997/whenever [delete as applicable]. The reason enough people voted Labour in 1997 was because it was a substantially different Labour Party from the one in 1983 or 1987 or 1979 - or at least appeared to be. A lot of you or your acquaintances will be voting Lib Dem again in 2025 or 2020, or even 2015. The Lib Dem vote in the 2015 GE will be 18% or 22%, not 12% or 14%.
Jacqui Smith applying to join BBC Trust. £77,000.
54. torybear
RT @iaindale: Mail on Sunday: “Why have you applied to be dep chair of BBC governers?” Jacqui Smith: “How did you know? F*ck off”. Charming
Hugely surprising poll for Lib Dems. So unfair, for such an honourable and modest bunch.
Anyone feel a bar chart coming on?
24, that’s bloody insane, Mr. Palmer. It’s as mad as giving Luca Badoer Vettel’s seat at Red Bull. As stupid as axing Interlagos and keeping Bahrain. As deranged as Red Bull swapping their flexi-wing for a 400lb woman from Romford.
It’s race day, F1 fans! Will Vettel stall the engine? Will Massa accidentally ram Alonso into the pit wall? Will Webber lean across and punch Vettel in the face at the start?
Libdems on 12%! ‘ang on a year, they’ll be dreaming of 12%. So a programme in which NC admits he was less than honest about the ‘refrendum affair’ might have affected the way the public now see him, how surprising.
There was a time, when on this site, anything involving the EU would raise the hackles of the, ‘usual suspects’ led by SeanT, strange this,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1299278/PETER-HITCHENS-More-broken-backed-Brokeback-rebels-afraid-strike.html
didn’t produce any reaction at all: I wonder why?
58, is it because Peter Hitchens is a deranged man of bizarre opinions divorced from reality?
fr @54:
She’s clearly not suitable but that won’t mean the BBC won’t take the opportunity to make mischief.
The Sec of State makes the final decision. If the BBC put her name forward it won’t be because they want her but to force a row with the government.
Appointed or not, the Coalition will be damned if she is and damned if she’s not. This is a real test for the BBC; if it decides to assert its independence by nominating her then we shall know that it’s more interested in making trouble than standing aside from political conflict.
The old monikers of Blair’s/Browns Broadcasting Corporation will be be even more justified.
Incidentally, watch out for serious passing action at the back of the grid as well as the front. Kobayashi got axed in Q1 due to bad traffic and then suffered a 5 place grid penalty for ignoring a red light indicating he had to stop for scrutineering. So he starts 23rd, out of 24 runners. Banzai!
58,59 re Eurocops (coldstone & morris dancer)
Surely what it shows is that so many of pb’s right wing partisans are more partisan than right wing.
Since the election, rather than promote right wing policies, they defend the coalition.
Dare one say astroturfers?
60 re Jacqui Smith and the BBC (GeoffH)
It is not immediately clear why the current Home Secretary should wish to assert that former Home Secretaries are unemployable.
62, I don’t know the detail of the European Arrest thingummyjig. I suspect it’s a bad thing, from what I’ve read here, and it does not please me that it seems set to go ahead. However, I’m not going to take the distorted ramblings of Hitchens as any sort of accurate representation of reality.
And no, Mr. L. Calling Morris Dancer an astroturfer is silly, especially as I’ve been repeatedly criticial of numerous Cameron policies (ringfencing the NHS, not doing so for defence etc).
Honestly. If you keep being so silly I shall be forced to slap you with an enormo-haddock.
60
Bizarre! Agree or not, PH doesn’t trim. It is surprising that all of those Europhobic attitudes that once dominated this site, seem to have disappeared. Seant’s, ‘I look upon them all as traitors who should be shot’ to describe anyone who supported the EU, very muted now.
I do hope down in Romsey Sandra Gidley will be taking note of this.
Last night, the former Conservative MP who narrowly lost to Mrs Munt at the election in May - after she had made political capital out of his expenses - said that Mrs Munt should stand down if the allegations proved accurate.
Former Paymaster General David Heathcoat-Amory, who spent the election campaign defending nearly £30,000 of second-home expenses claims, including receipts for manure, said that as Mrs Munt had made the allowances controversy a major part of her campaign, she should resign if Claire Laband’s statement is correct.
‘This sounds like more Liberal Democrat hypocrisy over sleaze,’ he said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299313/Lib-Dem-MP-council-tax-probe-affair-GP-lodger.html#ixzz0vKyIJJR2
Not much Coalition Cuddling on show down in Somerset.
http://dizzythinks.net/2010/08/quote-of-day.html
Sandra Gidley please note.
Last night, the former Conservative MP who narrowly lost to Mrs Munt at the election in May - after she had made political capital out of his expenses - said that Mrs Munt should stand down if the allegations proved accurate.
Former Paymaster General David Heathcoat-Amory, who spent the election campaign defending nearly £30,000 of second-home expenses claims, including receipts for manure, said that as Mrs Munt had made the allowances controversy a major part of her campaign, she should resign if Claire Laband’s statement is correct.
‘This sounds like more Liberal Democrat hypocrisy over sleaze,’ he said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1299313/Lib-Dem-MP-council-tax-probe-affair-GP-lodger.html#ixzz0vKyIJJR2
Never mind Ms J Smith, what about Mr D Laws?
Currently in need of additional income and a period of rehab (like Mr R (dipstick) Bacon, who, along with that shouty excitable Irish git have made R5 unlistenable-to.
Laws has perfect BBC credentials - LD (thus ‘leftie’) h0m0sexual, (thus ‘luvvie’).
He’s a shoo-in.
Just imagine his influence on BBC budgets….
OT has anyone else watched the sitcom Rev? I rather like it.
HD2 @68
Are you referring to Nolan or someone else? I used to dislike him but over time he’s got a great deal less judgemental/willing to be put right by his listeners [I have given him ear hole on more than one occasion and he's been a gent].
Bacon is just awful. I can only assume he is sleeping with someone important or has a shoebox full of compromising negatives.
69, I keep meaning to but keep missing it.
Slightly on a tangent, I’m annoyed with stupid BBC schedulers. Sherlock and Top Gear overlap. Honestly. I watch damned few progs on the BBC, yet they manage to put them on at the same damned time.
Personally, I blame Jacqui Smith.
John L @64:
1) The Home Secretary doesn’t make the decision
2) Smith is clearly employable - as a Home Economics supply teacher
72, Mr. H, I must correct you. Mrs Smith is clearly unsuitable for such a role, given her preference for raw meat.
Morris Dancer @73
Good point.
But how about presenter of ‘Location, Location’?
74, that’d be fine (I don’t watch property progs
).
68
HD2
I couldn’t agree more. R5 live gets worse by the day. I don’t know how much more of my intelligence is left to insult.
RE Plato’s comment re Rev.
I didn’t know anything about it until it was featured in an ” interview” on R5 live where an actor? was interviewed by Mr Bacon.
Only it wasn’t an proper interview , it was a 15 min or so plug for the programme.
Plato @69
Rev.
It’s a little gem. Finishes tomorrow night.
look why can’t smithson just accept that the reason the lib dems are doing badly is because the coalition and its policies which he is so in favour of are massively unpopular with anyone who is centre left in the political beliefs, which accounts for the majority of the libdems pre election support?
Do you remember jacquie smith’s sister? The one who has a house in Nunhead that smith would bunk down in? Which smith claimed was her second home?
Well that sister works for the BBC. Surpised?
And the BBC trust people get a nice salary, certainly more than a Home Economics teacher would get.
Left and Right Unite and Fight.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gmb-joins-tory-right-in-campaign-against-vote-reform-2040853.html
25 I can’t see that challenge working. A budget is primary legislation, which Parliament has every right to pass and the “research” on which the claim is based is pretty dodgy in any case.
8. That is one of my favourites. Of course, in the Seventies we also had John Stonehouse as a prologue.
Did Mike mention this?
Support for the Liberal Democrats has fallen to 12%, a third of the party’s peak during the election campaign and half its share of the vote at the election. Nick Clegg, the party leader and deputy prime minister, has suffered an even sharper slump in popularity, a poll for The Sunday Times reveals. After the first televised debate during the election campaign he had a popularity rating of 72 points, close to Winston Churchill’s at the height of his wartime popularity. Clegg’s rating is now eight points.
Wow! telling fibs has its own reward, obviously.
‘Listen Dave you got back and tell ‘em, that I’ve just told you that Labour are offering me electoral reform without a referendum, that should do the trick’
41 At the very least, I would expect to see its budget slashed.
I was thinking, burning an effigy of an elected prime minister is surely a great way to show that said PM was wrong to talk about terror links in your country.
Bad mouth us and we will burn you alive.
Pakistan still c&b Cameron 0
#70 Plato
I thinks it’s Nolan. He does ‘fytintawlk’ on Saturday mornings, which is where his excitable brand of speech works well enough.
Mayo is the greatest loss, though - he’s sublime. The greatest gift an interviewer/presenter can have is that of
a) having done some preparation and thus know enough to ask the right questions
b) the realisation that *absolutely no-one* cares what you, the questioner think, care, or believe. Your role is only to prompt the guest so that they give of their best.
A ‘golden rule’ appears to be that if their name is the sole title of the programme, it’s unlikely to be much good. I’ve been interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire a few times (absent children issues) and she was good, was was Rhod Sharp when I rang in with an answer to as science question that the Aussie (3-4am Wednesdays) could not answer. I felt dead chuffed (why does asparagus make your wee whiff, but my mate says his does not? It has 2 genes controlling whether you a) make the smelly stuff and b) can smell it. Both are dominant and so can be traced through families)
78 - Maybe Ashford exists in a political Bermuda triangle/parallel universe but our membership numbers and deliverers have gone up since the election. Two of our members are unhappy and will probably leave eventually but we’ve ‘done well’ from the Lib Dems having a degree of power. I am of a centre left persuasion (South Wales born and bred, miners family etc) and am not against the coalition at all
Labour will be horrified to have received Clive Tyldesley’s endorsement:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10827320
I’m reminded of the feeling I had when I first heard the rumour that Cliff Richard was gay. There are some people that you want batting for the other side.
Some more China-to-dominate-the-world, and possibly Jupiter, statp0rn.
China will overtake America as the world’s largest manufacturer next year. America has previously been the globe’s number one industrial power since about 1900.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af2219cc-7c86-11df-8b74-00144feabdc0.html
China is now definitively overtaking Japan as the 2nd largest economy:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66T1HT20100730
In just the last five years it has overtaken Italy, France, the UK and Germany. Now Japan.
When will it overtake America? The consensus is 2025-2030. But some experts think it could happen in just SEVEN YEARS, as Beijing is forced to revalue the yuan, and let it ascend versus the dollar, giving a truer picture of the size of the Chinese economy.
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2010/06/27/will-china-surpass-the-u-s-as-the-economic-superpower-in-seven/
In seven years America could be toppled. That’s just after the next election.
Oh, and China also has the world’s reserves of cash, a truly astonishing $2.4 TRILLION. In other words, the money China has stuffed behind the sofa is the cash equivalent of the entire UK economy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/7583168/Chinas-reserves-hit-new-high-of-2.447-trillion.html
China gives me THE HORN.
Sea Shanty,
Lauren is a star. I met her in Albury her home town a few years ago and she makes me look like a midget.
Oz campaign about to go VERY negative. The mad ex monk Abbott being lined up as a target as the government essentially admits after its infighting that it has no successful polices it can defend, having kicked the elected PM out through union faction thuggery on a par with BA.
So because of these faceless backroom boys the mad monk has a chance to win, and his party seems sane in comparison, which is quite a shock as he makes Genghis Khan look reasonable on some social issues.
The PM has done a women’s mag 13 page spread, who says sex does not sell.
The treehugging Greens announced today they want to ban recreational fishing. And charge everyone a carbon tax on everything despite the fact the rest of the worlds has a moratorium after Copenhagen until about 2525 so they can grow their economies.
With the balance of power in the Senate likely as there are always 10% of people in a society likely to vote lunatic, be it Greens in Oz or BNP in the UK, the party against any fire reduction in rural areas in case some squirrels die now has the chance to screw up fishing as well.
And Labor on Oz has to say nothing sensible to add as they need the preferences as they struggle to get within 5% of the “losing” tory party in Oz otherwise.
79. Yes another neat example of the nepotistic welfare scheme that parts of the public sector have become. Failed and/or disgraced politicians parachuted into sinecure jobs in the Beeb, quangos and sundry ‘think tanks’ to maintain their privileged status.
Precisely nothing has been learned from the expenses scandal.
90
SeanT loves the Marxist murderers of Tibetan freedom shock.
You never did get around to ranting against this sellout to Europe.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1299278/PETER-HITCHENS-More-broken-backed-Brokeback-rebels-afraid-strike.html
by the Condems, like too now?
SeanT @89:
But that can’t be true. Our resident leftie mongs tell us that the way to grow is to borrow ever more money, not save. In fact saving is an evil tory plan to subjugate the masses.
I think Jacquie Smith’s husband should apply for the BBC job rather than her, clearly he uses the telly more and knows what is on that is good to watch.
I would expect under his guidance, knowing the market, more late night porn could be shown hidden away on BBC4, which on a Saturday night after a few beers would be a good thing.
Adult people pay lots for a licence, so enough of this constant CBeebies tripe, we want stuff people actually pay to watch made available.
Re. the LibDem rating. Well there is probably a core of LibDem voters and then there are those, like me, who voted for them this time but who won’t ever make the same mistake again.
And that’s why they’re in big trouble! It’s also why I don’t agree with Mike that the coalition will be shaken from the Tory right. The LibDem left will kick off before too much more of this.
Re. Radio 5 Live. Peter Allen is still good value.
Re. Smelly wee. Does this theory apply to Sugar Puffs? I was under the impression they made EVRYONE’s wee smell like, erm, sugar puffs.
92. You obviously missed my conversion to europhilia. I despise the EU and the way it operates, undemocratically, but I have reluctantly concluded that - in the face of overwhelming challenges like the rise of the Asian superpowers - the EU has to unite. We need the economies of scale.
The military case is a good example. No one EU power, not even Germany, can really afford a proper and impressively independent nuclear deterrent, not any more, not without huge sacrifices elsewhere.
But a united EU could do it, no problem. Indeed should.
I’m bored of this debate. Let’s have a proper Federal EU, an elected EU president, a proper EU constitution, with no more stealthy power grabs - and with most powers devolved down to the nation states apart from international trade and foreign policy etc.
Let’s just get on with it coz it has to happen anyway.
94. Clearly the answer to the eternal license fee debate. Instead of advertising, the BBC could supplement their income with PPV porn.
15. Ferry. I feel pretty much the same. I didn’t vote Lib Dem but have been pleasantly surprised by Cameron so far. If they changed their name from CONSERVATIVE to almost anything else I reckon they could put on an extra 5 to 10%.
I was disappointed to see David Mill criticize his foreign policy announcements yesterday. I think were all tired of equivocating politicians and It’s time Israel faced some pressure.
98
I predicted at the time you were ranting against the EU, that when the government changed, so would your opinion of it.
Only Labour governments ‘betray’ the UK to the EU, the Tories always steadfastly fight for Britain’s interests, while of course giving in at every opportunity.
p.s.
Those newly adopted Europhile views of yours, best not to espouse them in any public bar West of Looe.
On topic - The opinion polls are not actually measuring voting intention (in anything other than name) at the moment. There’s no way in which they can do so for a while with the differences between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats a little blurred in the public perception.
My own belief is that we should mentally reassign the Conservative figures to “Like the government”, the Labour figures to “Hate the government” and the Liberal Democrat figure to “Unsure/open-minded about the government”.
After the conference season, when all of the parties will seek to define themselves somewhat, we can go back to thinking about Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour.
99. Roger
People call Cameron ‘Charmeron’, I suspect as an insult.
In fact charm goes a long way.
My guess is that, long term, he will be far more popular than his party or this government. He seems to be rising above the mucky business of slashing public spending.
People had a respect for John Major while considering his government to be dreadful. As if he wasn’t really part of it (even though he turned out to have been a very naughty boy!). Heading to the cricket match on the day he was badly defeated reinforced this image.
People respected Tony Blair till his mind wandered in 2003. Indeed many still do, despite his charmless wife.
I think charm goes a long way. Sadly, I think that the Labour candidates lack charm/likeability. I still think “Cheeky Chappy” Alan Johnson would have been a better bet. Hot favourite David Milliband was on TV this morning being very churlish about Cameron. Churlishness is the opposite of charm. Turns my tummy.
Labour should be careful about how they attack Cameron.
Will the Lib’s be in single digits before the summers out? :O
103. Gordon Brown will have been sighted and heard speaking in a public debate before that happens.
103
Labour should be careful about how they attack Cameron.
After Cameron’s comments on Gaza, all Labour have to do, is point a loaded Melanie Phillips at him.
89, China needs an income per head of about $10,000 (compared to $6,000) to have a bigger economy than the US, so I would anticipate that we will see this happen before too long. That said, it doesn’t mean all that much when your standard of living is still only a fifth of your main rival’s.
A revaluation of the Yuan would be desirable all round. It would boost the living standards of China’s population, cause the country to import more, and reduce its surpluses. It would also have the effect however, of bringing its double-digit growth rates to an end.
27.”Nick, one day you will wake up and take a good hard look at the Labour party and the task it faces…”
As a Scottish Tory don’t you think your critical faculties might be put to better use closer to home?
101: That’s an interesting point by cauliflower (who is new to me - welcome to the site if you’re new). I don’t think it’s quite right about the LibDems, though - rather, they’re split three ways, between those like Mike and Ferry upthread who think it’s all pretty good or even great, those like that Liverpool leader who think it’s awful and are clearly wondering whether to quit and a large chunk who like some stuff and are uneasy about the rest.
It’s the last group that should cause Clegg most concern, since the things they like were mostly one-offs (getting rid of ID cards, for instance) while the things that make them uneasy (especially public service cuts) are going to get much more prominent.
Incidentally, there’s a piece on half a dozen of us ex-MPs in the Indy:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/leaving-the-house-exmps-discuss-life-after-the-house-of-commons-2037457.html
No real horror stories. In fact it’s not very exciting (and in my case wrong in a few details) but some of you may find it interesting - Anthony Steen in particular seems to have bounced back quickly from an embarrassing pre-election period to doing something worthwhile.
Coldstone.
Melanie Philips is dreadful. If Melanie Philips, Simon Heffer, Peter Hitchens and anyone else whose lip curls as they pass comment had any traction on public opinion whatsoever, UKIP would be cleaning up. They are not.
However Cameron initially showed a desire to walk to work. If he’s going to be critical of Israel, it’s to be hoped those expensive suits he wears are made of kevlar.
Why does Labour have such high ratings, as all the left wing left the Lib/Dems and moved over?
108. Nick Palmer.
I don’t think everything in the garden is rosy. The country is in a shit-mess.
I am from mining stock and have lived my whole life in solid Labour territory.
Labour messed up in such a way that a tory governmnent looked likely. Time to accept that and move on.
The LibDems have saved us from a very right wing tory government (ridiculous tax breaks etc), therefore I am happy with my LibDem vote.
Please don’t misread my posts.
If Cleggs personal ratings are now 8, then he’s been losing about 5% per week for the last month.
That is one hell of an effort.
102. I’m not impressed by his charm if that’s what it is and I couldn’t stand John Major. (The moment he walked off a plane from a Commonweath conference about apartheid with Thatch claiming they hadn’t yielded a jot to those calling for sanctions he became my second least favourite politician).
What I like about him-so far- is that he doesn’t feel it necessary to chase a Daily Mail agenda. That’s all
110 Essentially, yes.
102/113 Charm goes a long way, but it really is the most overrated quality in a political leader.
By all accounts, Genghis Khan, Idi Amin, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the Heavenly King could all be extremely charming.
At least Dr P and Anthony Steen are doing something useful unlike the elected MP and ex PM in Kirkaldy, Gordon Brown who cannot be bothered to turn up and vote, or contribute to debates or a critque of Coalition policy. It must be a wonderful new tome he is working on, one which will fill the bookshops at Hay on Wye for decades.
As for Susan Kramer, finding time to cook fish in a sea salt crust, does that mean we now have a natural successor to Rick Stein? Perhaps she could present a new programe with Jackie Smith on cooking (the books).
“FREEEEEEEEEEEEDDOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!”
http://subrosa-blonde.blogspot.com/2010/08/poll-results-bbc-and-scottish.html
Dare one say astroturfers?
by John L August 1st, 2010 at 8:27 am
I am sure you have no fear in saying anything, including “Wibble”.
Just News-Googling the words “China overtakes” produces some astonishing stats.
Which is the world’s biggest shipbuilder? Japan, or South Korea? America?
You guessed, its China. Their shipbuilding industry has just overtaken South Korea “five years ahead of schedule” (they have schedules for hegemony??) to become the world’s number 1.
http://tinyurl.com/27yuqog
Which is the world’s largest investor in Br@zil? This has got to be America, right? Wrong. It’s China:
http://tinyurl.com/24frdzr
In 2009 China was the 29th largest investor in Br@zil. Now it’s the biggest.
As we all know China overtook America to become the world’s largest energy user last month.
http://tinyurl.com/3xlul2l
Yawn. Less well known is that Beijing airport is now the world’s busiest (if you discount the US regional hub of Atl@nta), it overtook Heathrow last month:
http://tinyurl.com/22km3cd
And…
And?
Three months ago China overtook America to become the world’s biggest re@l est@te investment market:
http://tinyurl.com/3adcc6z
China has overtaken America to become the world’s biggest investor in green energy:
http://tinyurl.com/23dglh2
China has recently overtaken America to become the world’s biggest car market:
http://tinyurl.com/22jhnml
Two years ago China overtook America as the world’s biggest user of the internet:
http://tinyurl.com/5q8ka5
On and on and on. Relentless. Astonishing. And happening right now, not in 2040, or “towards the end of the century”.
BTW this comment has taken about 20 fecking minutes to get past Mike’s absurd sp@mguard. Doesn’t he like China?
HD2 - that annoying Irish chappy is Colin Murray not Stephen Nolan [he does the late night show usually but standing in for VD IIRC]
I assume the genetic asparagus thingy is the same as the one where if you can roll your tongue you can/can’t taste some revolting chemical that they put in anti-nail biting solutions?? And the guy is Dr Carl. There’s another one called Dr Chris who does the same thing but is ex-Cambridge rather than Oz.
117
As for Susan Kramer, finding time to cook fish in a sea salt crust, does that mean we now have a natural successor to Rick Stein? Perhaps she could present a new programe with Jackie Smith on cooking (the books).
With Jemima Khan’s (is she still a muslim?) brother along as a very skilled helper.
119 - I wonder if we will get the Chinese political revolution five years ahead of schedule.
Oh! talking about salt, here’s some more to rub into an open wound.
By Andrew Woodcock, Press Association
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Share
Close
Diggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditGoogleStumble UponFarkNewsvineYahooBuzzBeboTwitterIndependent MindsPrintEmailText Size
NormalLargeExtra Largesponsored links:
Ads by Google
Remortgage Now from 1.84%
£200,000 remortgage from £307/mo.No Obligation. Get a free quote now
http://www.lendgo.co.uk
Politics
Visit the Open University™ onlineto find out more about our courses.
http://www.open.ac.uk
Heart Problem Symptoms?
Don’t Ignore Them. Contact Us!Our Medical Staff Is Here For You.
SHL-telemedicine.co.uk
Bleak Future for Britain?
After severe disasters, prophecyshows Britain and USA will prosper!
http://www.ucg.org.uk/ad/us
Support for Liberal Democrats has plunged to just 12 per cent - half the level the party secured in the General Election - according to a poll released today.
The YouGov survey for the Sunday Times also recorded a steep nosedive in the popularity of the party’s leader Nick Clegg since he became Deputy Prime Minister by taking the Lib Dems into coalition Government with the Conservatives.
Mr Clegg’s personal satisfaction rating was eight points, compared to the spectacular 72 points he achieved in the wake of the first televised leaders’ debate during the election campaign.
Today’s poll suggested that Tories have not suffered in the same way from going into coalition.
David Cameron’s party were up five points since the General Election on 42 per cent, with Labour gaining ground on them - up eight points since the Election on 38 per cent.
The Lib Dems rating was half the 24 per cent the party won in the election and the lowest since October 2007, when Sir Menzies Campbell was forced out as leader.
The poll came after Mr Clegg admitted in a TV documentary that he changed his mind about the need for spending cuts before the election without making his shift public, and after questions were raised over whether he misled Mr Cameron about the offers Labour had made him on electoral reform.
Signs of unrest have also emerged within his party over the coalition’s position on issues like immigration, schools and university tuition fees.
from the Indy.
Just watched Sherlock - what a cracking programme, well done to the production company for picking out the right bits from A Study in Scarlett/the Holmes-Watson relationship.
It’s weird listening to the old radio plays one minute/watching House do the same thing but in a different context and then another adaptation set in the present day.
Conan Doyle was a genius.
122. With the culinary skills of Mr Edward Balls in a future episode, it must be his next media move a cooking (the books) programme.
I’m surprised by some of those nonchalantly saying the election is 5 years away. Despite the fact we now know the LibDems would sell their souls for power the coalition remains extremely frail. The chances of this parliament going full term or even 4+years are, I suggest, less than about 5%.
Roger: “I couldn’t stand John Major”.
You disappoint me Roger. He seemed like such a nice man.
I always thought he’d make a decent next-door neighbour. Perhaps with Sunny Jim Callaghan at the other side.
Thatcher would have been awful. I could imagine her complaining abut the leylandiis.
The Blairs would have been impossible neighbours. Neither of them would have put your bins out when you were on holiday, and they’d have put tacky plastic Corinthian pillars either side of their front door.
Brown might have been OK. Quiet and bookish, he’d have kept his garden tidy because “it’s the right thing to do” but I don’t think you’d get too many informal barbecue invitations.
The Camerons would make great neighbours. I can imagine SamCam would make an excellent emergency babysitter.
Politics is wonderfully simple. A big part of mine and the other half’s LibDem conversion was they we thought old-socialist Vince Cable seemed like a real gentleman. And that’s the truth.
John L @63:
I think a lot of people genuinely believe what they’re posting at the time they’re posting it - but people take their cues on issues based on the line of the party they like.
This is one potential benefit for the parties in the coalition, especially the LibDems; As well as getting their policies enacted, they have the chance of inserting them into the heads of the other party’s supporters…
BTW, did you ever hear the Howard Stern clip where he asks Obama supporters in Harlem whether they support his pro-life stance and think he was right to pick Sarah Palin as VP?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqAiarOhC2U
Hve you noticed how all, ‘The Usual Suspects’ have developed a sudden interest in talking about TV, sport, the weather, politics nah!!
110
Quite!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1298377/Kidnappings-car-bombs-hit-squads–Live-investigates-Mossad-Israels-secret-service.html
130 – What is it with you and the Daily Mail..? If you think it’s such a crap paper, why would you think your links to it are any less crap?
123. Afraid you’ll have to wait a while for the “Chinese revolution” antifrank.
Reliable opinion polls show that Chinese voters have remarkably positive views about their govermnent (I know you don’t want to hear this, but it is true) - the Chinese government has poll numbers Obama would kill for.
Perhaps this positivity is less astonishing when you consider the economic optimism of the Chinese, which far outpaces the west (unsurprisingly):
http://www.hotelnewsresource.com/article45871China_Outpaces_Europe__U_S__on_Economic_Optimism__Survey_Finds.html
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90778/90859/6977935.html
http://www.gallup.com/poll/141050/economic-outlook-brightest-asia.aspx
Go to China, as I do, and you will not see a country on the verge of revolution. You will see a vast country of many fairly poor people and some very rich people who nearly ALL think they are probably going to get richer, or even richer, quite soon, and who are ALL much better off than they were thirty years ago.
These are not the conditions for revolution.
message for Mr Smithson
The side link to Anthony Wells’s election predictor is out of date. It is amusing to see how wildly different 42: 38: 12 comes out on the old and new predictors.
Is tim having a lie in this morning?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/01/michaelgove-free-schools
132 - the Russian revolution was preceded by stupendous economic growth, growth comparable to the levels China has experienced.
132 - the Russian revolution was preceded by stupendous economic growth, growth comparable to the levels China has experienced.
129 That’s a very amusing clip, and it goes to show how, for many people, policies have no bearing on the way they vote.
127. “Despite the fact we now know the LibDems would sell their souls for power the coalition remains extremely frail.”
By “sell their souls” I presume you mean they wouldn’t prop up the useless previous government?
the Chinese government has poll numbers Obama would kill for.
by SeanT August 1st, 2010 at 10:50 am
…and the Communist party has.
134 - The Free Schools policy was always going to be an ideological sideshow at the margins of the system, but at the forefront of Goves thinking.
No surpise that another of his lists falls apart, I’d imagine the civil servants will have him mistakenly announcing the opening of a cattery before long.
135. This is just utter, utter sh1t.
China is the single most economically optimistic country in the world, by all polls, and its people are the most positive about their future, of any people in the world:
http://www.realclearworld.com/lists/top_5_most_optimistic_countries/china.html?state=stop
Do you really think these are the optimal conditions for revolution? lol.
Of course there may be a fecking enormous Depression in China, sudddenly, for some reason, but even then the people would be a whole lot richer than they were 40 years back, as with Ireland.
You’re just deluded.
132/135 De Tocqueville pointed out that it’s when things are getting better, that the conditions are best for a revolution.
There will come a point when the Communist Party will either have to accept that disagreement with it is not necessarily treason, that its economic interests aren’t necessarily those of China as a whole, or else crack down on the population, or else be swept aside.
All SeanT’s stats are hugely impressive. But what China has yet to do is to create stuff that the rest of the world wants to buy. There are parts of the developing world that are dependent on China, and this could cause us some strategic difficulty further down the line, but China as a country remains dependent on the west to come up with the stuff that it then manufactures and exports. China’s real breakthrough as a major global power will come when it begins to develop and then build what we all want and need. This is what did it for the British, then the Yanks and the Germans, and then the Japanese and Koreans. It’s the “develop” bit that’s really important. And it’s the “develop” bit that the Chinese still have not got to in any serious way.
How many Chinese-owned and created brands do any of us use on a regular basis? It’s when that starts to happen that China will have arrived as a serious world power in the way that the US is now.
141 -http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/1/1658/papers/Borodkin.pdf
SeanT, sometimes you’re just wrong. Rapid growth is itself a vector of major instability and turbulence. Happiness and optimism builds expectations. If they are not met, things could get very sticky indeed for the unelected leaders.
139 - The Chinese government can kill for its poll numbers, of course. And does. That luxury is not open to Obama.
Sean Fear @115:
Godwin’s Law to the power of 6.
134. Funnily enough there is a load of stories on this over at Al Beeb, Mike Barker also contributes to the Guardian as an educational correspondent.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10817537
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10824069
Michael Gove comedy minister in the famous Free Schools sketch.
Man with list walks into a Government Dept.
“I want Free Schools”
“Free Schools?
“Yes, Free Schools”
“There you are, three schools”
Scott P @134
Again, another journalist who thinks asking for information is the same as making an application.
142. Again, drivel. For a start there IS dissent and disagreement in China, it’s just not done quite the way we do it, not in our vulgar, vibrant, raucous western way, but often in a decorous, nuanced, politic, face-saving Asian way.
That doesn’t mean it does not exist. A Thai man, for instance, will often smile and say Yes to a question while really meaning No, but he says Yes because he does not wish to offend you, or lose face himself. He hopes to subtly indicate the No by the style of his Yes.
This is just the way Asia works. They don’t do shouty slanging matches, necessarily.
And why this blithe assumption that western style democracy is the ONLY route to prosperity and happiness? Is an unemployed car worker in Detroit, on state benefits, any happier than an employed car worker in Chongqqing, on a much lower wage? How do you compare? Who defines happiness?
It is very possible the East Asian economies have found a new, collectivist route to capitalist affluence, which avoids some of the distasteful aspects (as they see it) of our vigorously argumentative polities, with our vibrant cultures and our horrible crime rates.
Try reading this for some education:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/opinion/12brooks.html
We are facing the kind of challenge the west hasn’t faced in 500 years. A politico-economic system which, arguably, just might be superior to our own in producing human wealth and happiness..
So its get Gove day again, on low take up on Academies/Free Schools, the get Gove day campaign against scrapping Balls’ insane Building Schools for the Future policy must have failed.
144 - A country that does not trust its citizens is a country that is not sustainable over the long term in this era of global communication. China will change and it will become a country in which its people are free to do and say what they wish. That’s when China will really begin to take over the world. Until then, the US will lead the way.
GeoffH @149 Actually, the Observer article referred to by ScottP @134 is a prime example of the declining standards of journalism that formed part of yesterday’s thread on declining newspaper circulations.
The writer makes no distinction between lodging an “expression of interest” and “making an application” as if the two were identical. The using the difference to make a wholly unjustifiable claim that Gove “exaggerated interest in free schools” to fuel a political row.
Shabby, misleading, deliberately trouble-making and wholly tendentious and a far cry from C P Scott’s dictum, “Facts are sacred, comment is free”.
This why fewer and fewer people are going to newspapers for news.
151. Of course, the article doesn’t match the headline
143. Oh god help us, Southam has joined the argument.
If you want examples of Chinese innovation and mighty Chinese brands, look at Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, all ethnically Chinese, indeed Hong Kong is now in China. They are China’s economic future. And ours.
144. Your comparison is puerile.
The Russian revolution might have been preceded by brisk Russian growth, but it was also preceded by a f*cking global war, the biggest war in history to that point, in which Russia was mauled and millions died. Hence the fertile ground for revolution.
It wasn’t a sudden rise in Russian happiness and affluence under the Tsars which allowed Lenin to take over.
Jeez Louise.
Comment on the Wail on Sunday’s story on Jackie Boots.
“Well if anyone’s going to employ her it would have to be something like the BBC and I bet they have a quite extensive film library, so that could save her and her husband a few bob, eh?
- Juan de Fuca, Saanichton B. C., 31/7/2010.”
The poster’s name is genuine, almost as good as Biggus Dickus.
154 - “The 700 figure was a genuine estimation of the number of interested groups. Our team went through the lists and did a lot of work to see who was genuinely interested,”
LOL.
A guess.
150 - Have those red shirt protestors in Thailand been moved on completely now in that nuanced and ever so Asia way that you are describing? And, of course, you don’t get more nuanced than the Tiannamen Square massacre or the suppression of Tibetan calls for self-determination.
As for crime rates: it depends on what you descrbe as a crime. My understanding is that corruption and bribery are illegal in China -even to the point of being punishable by death - yet they are also endemic; much to the frustration and anger of ordinary Chinese people. Counterfeiting and piracy - stealing, in other words - are also crimnal offences in China, but they are largely ignored. Compare and contrast with crime rates in, say, decadent northern European Scandinavia, for example.
150. Exactly the kind of thing Shaw et al. were saying about the USSR in the 1930s.
Sean Fear! - I dislike disagreeing with you, as it upset the ying-yang balance of the universe, so I thought I’d show you this, which should be of mutual interest.
I might have found a method of execution that is even worse than all the ones you and I have discussed before. It’s Japanese, and it’s called nokogiribiki.
Essentially you were buried in the ground up to your neck, and then passers-by would slowly slice off your head, with a blunt bamboo saw, OVER A PERIOD OF SEVERAL DAYS.
lol. That’s pretty nasty, no?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation
See under *Japan*
155 - In other words, you can give me no examples of any brands creatd and owned in the People’s Reublic of China - the subjct of our conversation, of course - which any of us use on even an irregular basis.
My argument is not with the Chinese people, who are obviously and indisputably gifted entrepreneurs, but with the system that well over one billion of them live under and which will inevitably prevent the full talents of the Chinese people being realised. Just as is always the case with authoritarian regimes. Which is why they always, in the end, get swept away.
150: That’s an interesting angle from seanT, especially this:
——
This is just the way Asia works. They don’t do shouty slanging matches, necessarily.
And why this blithe assumption that western style democracy is the ONLY route to prosperity and happiness? Is an unemployed car worker in Detroit, on state benefits, any happier than an employed car worker in Chongqqing, on a much lower wage? How do you compare? Who defines happiness?
It is very possible the East Asian economies have found a new, collectivist route to capitalist affluence, which avoids some of the distasteful aspects (as they see it) of our vigorously argumentative polities, with our vibrant cultures and our horrible crime rates.
———
The cheap comment is that I’m not sure that Sean himself would flourish in the culture he describes - hard to see him indicating dissent from a viewpoint merely with a modest nod and a discreet flick of an eyebrow. But there may be something in what he says. Japan isn’t all that different either - obviously more democratic, but the same general idea of a ruling class who are a bit corrupt but tolerated if they deliver the goods. And most Western countries have a few dominant families and associates who promote their mates and make it difficult for outsiders. Perhaps truly open multi-party democracy will prove to be a transient phenomenon? Gloomy thought.
Good morning.
“(…)Most of all, though, the Lib Dems know that the die is now cast in voters’ minds; if they break with the Government any time soon, they will be crushed at the election that would immediately follow. “That’s why I think the Coalition will go at least most of the distance,” says one Lib Dem backbencher. “We have to stick it out until we’re over the worst and hopefully into a recovery we can claim credit for.”"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7920619/The-public-seems-happy-with-the-breakneck-coalition.html
I suppose with 4.3 trillion dollars in the bank, China could buy Unilever, P&G, Kelloggs, Ford, GM, BP, Shell, HSBC, well just about every well known brand in the world.
From what I read, China is a bit like Britian C19th. Huge economic growth on the back of cheap labour moving from the countryside to the cities, massive empire building (though economic), and some discontent on the western fringes. Much inequality and much poverty.
Somehow Britain managed internal discontent in such a way that were were about the only world power not to have a revolution.
150 I don’t agree with that at all. Japan is a pretty raucous democracy, as are Taiwan and South Korea, who’ve moved towards democracy from authoritarian rule.. Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore are certainly partial democracies.
That suggests to me that East Asians are just as keen on self-expression, and having governments that are accountable to them, as any Westerner.
155 The immediate cause of the revolution was military defeat, (as indeed, was the immediate cause of the near-revolution of 1905). The longer term cause of revolution was the creation, after 30 years of dynamic economic growth, of whole new literate classes who questioned Tsarist authoritarianism. The Crimean War was a massive defeat for Russia, and hugely damaging for its prestige, but did not spark off a revolution, because the intelligentsia was so small, the economy and communications so primitive, and few people questioned the authority of the Tsar at that point.
159. Have you been to China, runnymede, in recent years? I have, many times.
Have you ever visited communist countries? I have. I’ve been to Cuba, perhaps the last economically communist country on earth besides North Korea, and I travelled widely in communist Europe before 1989.
Modern China is not the Soviet Union. I know this, you don’t. End of argument.
158. Many Thais would argue the recent problems in the country are due to an OVER democratisation of a nation that is better adapted to a collectivist/capitalist Chinese model, with a hint of royal feudalism. That is certainly the argument of the Yellows.
Are they wrong? Is vibrant western democracy ideal for everyone? Do you know the answer to this? Really?
As for Chinese treatment of the Tibetans, it was barbaric. Tiananmen square was a different kind of ntragedy, but one that can now be seen in better context: maybe the Chinese were right to go for slow evolution rather than revolution.
And of course, nothing in China’s RECENT history matches the brutal savagery of America, bombing, shooting and butchering maybe half a million people in Iraq and Afghanistan for no apparent purpose - other than a kind of confused and wounded imperial pride.
155 - Your rebuttal is puerile. You seem to have forgotten that in 1905, Russia also had a revolution. That rapid growth had already shaken Russia once and forced substantial concessions by the Tsar. Your blithe assumption that rapid growth = political stability is just simply wrong.
SeanT @150:
They do in the South Korean parliament:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJdZ0TocTlo
160 Yes, I remember that in “Shogun”.
162 No country can ever be purely democratic, IMHO. There will be always be groups of the population who consider themselves qualified to rule, and more importantly, are considered qualified to rule by the public at large.
The closest anyone got to pure democracy was Athens, and even they excluded women and slaves.
#121 Plato
Thanks! The Dr C/Karl name went in a ’senior moment’ when I posted earlier (something to do with being at Mum’s atm), but he is superb in an ‘eccentric boffin’ kind of way!
It was a substitute chap who was on when I rang in (about 5 years ago) as the ‘brain’ on that night was not Dr C/Karl (he’d have known,as a medic himself. The ‘brain’ that night was English, older, and, I think, a physicist.
Despite which, he had a good sense of humour, IIRC.
166. Sean - you are not a fool so I can only assume you are a) being naive or b) provocative, and possibly both.
But either way, these posts are not very interesting. Your tourist jaunts don’t make you an expert, however much you insist to the contrary.
Becoming a genuine expert (and I know two or three) requires years of serious study, not the recycling of half-understood arguments and cliches. I doubt you have it in you to become one on this subject or the many others on which you regale us with your opinions.
165. I lived in Japan for several months. It is not by any standards a raucous democracy, as we would see it. Japan is virtually a one party state, with the odd punch-up in parliament for show.
It is a benevolent and now slightly somnolent capitalist industrio-oligarchy, which seriously needs to up its birthrate.
Malaysia is an apartheid Muslim pseudo-democracy. Thailand is weird: see above. Singapore (which you conspicuously do not mention) is very similar to China itself (autocratic, capitalist, collectivist) it is also highly successful and rich and utterly free of crime.
A lot of people would like to live somewhere like Singapore. Maybe not western bohemian types, but a lot of ordinary folk: no crime? High wages? Good food? Clean streets? Excellent health care? Gimme.
Your best examples are Taiwan and South Korea. Both, I believe, are demonstratively democratic BECAUSE they are trying to prove something to communist siblings (PRC and North Korea respectively); the same way West Berlin was flamboyantly and selfconsciously libertine during the Cold War, in contrast to dour East Berlin.
That doesn’t mean these two examples are wrong, but they are special cases.
Anyway I am not saying there is one Asian route to happiness and prosperity, nor am I saying that I would like to live in these places fulltime; I am saying - like the NYT columnist - that China is for the first time in history offering a real and compelling alternative to western individualism, to aspiring countries of the 3rd world seeking a political model.
And it maybe, just maybe, has something to teach the west, too.
153 – GeofH, You may have a point - and it would appear the author agrees with you..!
“ the Observer article referred to by ScottP @134 is a prime example of the declining standards of journalism”
Anushka Asthana
- “Given that I gave up studying English after taking my GCSEs I never dreamt that I would end up as a journalist.”
http://www.manchesterhigh.co.uk/printer_543.php
Southam Observer @143:
I’m typing this on my Lenovo. (Admittedly they sort-of cheated by buying the Thinkpad brand off IBM.) Also Tsingtao. (Do you have that in the UK? It’s all over Asia.)
But plenty more will be along soon - the trajectory of developing economies tends to be to start off with cheap knock-offs, and progress to creative stuff with strong brands. That’s certainly how it worked with Japan and Korea.
166 - I don’t know whether vibrant western-style democracy is best for everyone. However, what we do know is that with some very rare exceptions, vibrant western-style democracies deliver prosperity in a way that other systems just don’t. Democracy allows for peaceful renewal and also fosters innovation because people are not constrained in what they think and do. Maybe China will prove me wrong. But it has not happened yet and it will not happen for quite a while.
And yes, I have been there a few times and I am blown away every time I go. But never as much as when I go to places like Silicon Valley and the big US universities, where the future of the world is being shaped without inventors and entrepreneurs - many of them Chinese - having to look over their shoulders and second guess the government.
172 - I am sure that China has a lot to teach the west. Nor do I look forward to revolution in China: it would almost certainly be worse than what we have at present. China is building an informal empire. Under new government, that empire would probably be formalised.
171. I spend my life travelling the world and studying this stuff, it’s what I do these days, for me books like.
That doesn’t make me a global expert. But it does mean I know a lot more about it than a crotchetty old duffer like you. Sorry.
Nick Palmer @162:
Not gloomy if we replace it with something better.
174 - The Chinese are very keen to buy foreign brands because they have struggled so much to create their own - and Lenovo is the best example of this. I agree absolutely with your description of moving from knock-off to self-created brands. What differentiates Korea and Japan from China, though, is their systems of government; which kind of makes my point for me.
177. Your ‘knowledge’ is just a thin veneer of impressions, barely understood statistics and pseudo-intellectual theorising. And worst of all, given your profession as a journalist, you are presenting this in a dull and repetitive way.
179. More nonsense. Singapore is a rich version of communist China. Dissent is restricted, media are censored, there is one party rule.
By recent rankings, Singapore beats AMERICA in terms of innovation:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2009/gb20090316_004837.htm
Wow. How can they do this without Prime Minister’s Questions, animal rights demos, that loony in Parliament Square, and the Andrew Marr show? Surely all these things are vital for economic prowess?
172 - Japan is not a vibrant democracy, but it is a democracy. People are able to access information freely and can express themselves freely; there is also predictable and relatively transparent rule of law. And the current government, though not very popular, defeated the previous government in a peaceful election.
The last few days has seen plenty of speculation on PB, regarding the rise of China and India to superpower status.
I agree with those that infer that the rise is of these two nations is virtually unstoppable providing that growth and change continue on the lines extrapolated.
The rise of nations almost always means the lessening of other nations’ power. So who will be the losers?
1) The EU as it is presently configured: having no common foreign, industrial or business policy on anything, and having no military might to back it up, even if it had.
2) The USA, which is wasting its wealth on unwinnable wars, while ruining its economy as the body politic is in its leftist mode.
3) Britain, (which I keep separate from the EU due to its being outside the Euro), Which in its heart still yearns for great power status but has wasted its treasure on I’ll thought out socialist experiments.
There are however, indications that Russia is using this time to oversee changes to its industrial base while building up businesses (and businessmen) together with its electronic and internet capabilities.
Another fly in the ointment is the rise and rise of Militant Islam. This insidious movement, which is a Political/ Religious force, is bent on creating a new Caliphate throughout Europe, the Middle East and vast areas of Africa.
To those who find the previous paragraph unbelievable, I suggest they read Hitchins in today’s Sunday Mail, about Turkey.
Unlike Socrates, who yesterday suggested that Militant Islam was on the wane, I say just the opposite; Islam is still growing.
Other countries with growth potential are Brazil and Argentina, if only Brazil doesn’t destroy the Amazonian Forests and Argentina doesn’t destroy the pampas.
SeanT, have you ever been to Kaliningrad? It seems like one of the tidemarks of history. commentisfree has quite an interesting piece on it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/31/kalingrad-kant-home-return-german
Which country it should belong to seems secondary to me to how to reinvigorate it. It does sound a benighted place.
180. Dear runnymede, nothing is as delightfully predictable on this site as your slightly senescent irascibility.
184. Interesting, and slightly telepathic!
I have long thought about locating a Tom Knox plotstrand in Kaliningrad. I’ve read a bit about it (though never been - hope to go soon) and it sounds just perfect. Mad, and perfect. And Kant led a famously eccentric life there.
Hmm….
Southam. Here is a list of up-and-coming Chinese brands. Coming your way very soon:
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-chinese-brands-2020-2010-7
I particularly relish the car company with 10,000% growth in four years.
181 - Singapore does not beat the US in terms of innovation, not even according to that report. Singapore provides a very strong policy infrastructure within which innovation can occur, but that is a very different thing. You wold expect an authoritiarian governmet such as Singapore’s to be able to put in place legislation that makes it easy to attract funds, as well as providing a strong IP system and so on. But that is only part of the equation - most important is that you have the social and cultural infrastructure that allows people to access all kinds of information, encourages them to ask questions, incentivises them to search out opportunities and permits them to fail without huge penalty.
Look at the quality of corporate and university patent portfolios, IP licensing income on a country by country basis, private sector R&D investment, the world’s most valuable brands, the world’s top ranked universities and you will see that the US leads the way in almost all of them.
135/142 etc. “the Russian revolution was preceded by stupendous economic growth, growth comparable to the levels China has experienced.”
Well yes, but also by a huge and hugely badly managed war.
And the combination is critical. Rapid growth followed by rapid decline accompanied by an incompetent government.
Rapid growth dislocates large parts of the country and breaks down social relationships. Rapid decline produces unemployed and discontents. Evidence of incompetence - especially at a structural level - provides a target for revolution.
In 1913, the Romanov tercentenary celebrations were generally well-received by the population. There was undoubtedly discontent with the ruling classes on various levels - witness the number of assassinations - and Nicholas II wasn’t all that respected as a person but tsardom was not seriously under threat (though perhaps autocracy was).
The Chinese Communist Party is to much the same extent riding the tiger but it’s a more flexible beast than absolute monarchy and if it does get into serious difficulties has more options to make use of. It’s leaders are generally of a higher calibre than Russia’s last tsar.
186 - You shouldn’t miss out this from your visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg
You might even get a topological problem into a Tom Knox novel.
#121 Plato (update)
Yes - the tongue-rolling (like ear-lobes) is a dominant, single-gene trait.
The bitter tasting chemical (PTC or PTU) is more interesting. At *very* low levels, no-one can taste it, and at higher levels *everyone* can.
In the middle is a range of concentrations (I forget which, but very, very dilute) where roughly 1/4 can taste it and roughly 3/4 cannot - and so, when you hand out small squares of filter-paper dipped in PTC/PTU and dried, a small number in the class go ‘yuk’, pull a face and spit it out pronto whilst heading for the tap, whilst the others go ‘I think I can taste *something*’ (no, you can’t, that’s just filter-paper) and seem quite happy.
There’s also the ‘3rd finger longer than the first finger’ trait - tends to be sex-linked (men yes, women no) but it’s not at all hard adn fast in this case.
Crown of hair clockwise or anti is the last one. Easy 5/6th form coursework expts as they simply go off for 1-3 days and each ask 100+ people and score them for each trait then see if there is any linkage between them, and if so, which pairs and at what level (’is it significant or not at the 5% level’?)
If several pupils do that (they can choose their own projects) you can easily have a combined sample size of 500-1000, making the stats more meaningful.
SimonStClare @173:
Well spotted!
Confirmation, I reckon.
On the Chinese Democracy thing, we shouldn’t assume that the alternatives are either revolution or eternal one-party rule. South Korea and Japan (the first time around) both democratized themselves without revolutions.
162. SeanT would survive and prosper in any of these countries. He doesn’t take himself (or indeed anything else) too seriously and there’s just as big a market for satire and the absurd in these places than in the West. It’s one part distraction entertainment and one part pressure-valve (and will be tolerated even when political as long as it’s done within the mutually understood limits).
187. Have I ever denied that, at the moment, America is the technological/academic leader of the world in most fields? From universities to Nobel prizes to patents, she leads. Still. I agree. I never disagreed. It’s a zero brainer.
But you seem wilfully blind to even the possibility that a non-western-style collectivist capitalist country can also be powerfully innovative, and create prosperity. The fact that a serious business magazine can rank autocratic Singapore above America for innovation doesn’t even strike you as, well, striking?
You’re not having an argument. You’re not presenting evidence. You have a view and that’s that, so there is little point in our continuing the debate.
But at least we have livened up a couple of hours and successfully derailed the thread when, the horror!, we were about to talk about the bleeding Lib Dems.
161. “155 - In other words, you can give me no examples of any brands creatd and owned in the People’s Reublic of China - the subjct of our conversation, of course - which any of us use on even an irregular basis.”
Huawei, if you are in the UK you are probably using their kit right now.
187. Your praise of American enterprise and institutions is astonishing Southam, considering you’ve spent the last 13 years years supporting Labour governments that delighted in destroying whatever enterprise there remains in these Islands.
172 I did mention Sinapore, in my category of partial democracies. The ruling party is dominant, but there are elections, and sometimes as much as 40% of the vote goes to opposition candidates.
Singapore also, unlike China, does have independent Courts, and secure private property rights, and minimal corruption.
192 When antifrank sparked off this discussion, I don’t think he necessarily envisaged violent revolution. If China were to become a democracy, peacefully, it would be a non-violent revolution.
Pakistan nearly all out at Trent Bridge.
194 - Indeed!
Just to clarify, though. My argument is not with the notion that China is already a major global player of that as “a non-western-style collectivist capitalist country” it cannot “also be powerfully innovative, and create prosperity”. It can do all these things and will do.
Rather my argument is with the notion that the world is inevitably going to be dominated by China as the country is currently constituted politically; which is what I have always taken your argument to be.
I believe China has mammoth potential, just as you do. My belief - and it is a belief, of course, nothing more (just like yours) - is that China cannot fulfil its potential until the state trusts the people. Because that’s where sustainable, decade after decade rises in living standards come from. While the Chinese state exists primarily to maintain the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, China will never be what it could be.
Anderson swoops for his first match ten for
Pakistan simply woeful
BBc F1 feed online just went down…
Hurrah, it came back
23 minutes to go.
196 - There is a whole lot wrong with the US, but it is an incredibly dynamic, self-renewing, innovative, generous and optimistic country.
As someone who has helped build a relatively successful - though still quite small - company over the last 10 years in the UK I have never seen the British government as an obstacle, though it has sometimes been a useful shield for executives whose companies have not succeeded for certain reasons that may be closer to home than is comfortable for them to acknowledge.
Nick @ 162. Multi-party democracy is in many ways a perversion of true democracy and parties are only necessary as the medium through which voters views are translated into a parliament. There’s a good argument that true democracy would be a parliament of independents or direct decision-making.
Neither was possible in the 20th century (or, for those countries that had enlarged electorates, in the 19th). Technological advances may make direct democracy possible in the 21st - and that may tend back towards independents, as in mayoral elections.
Whether either is desirable is open to question. That reopens old debates long considered closed about the scope of the franchise. A univeral franchise is possible because the serious decisions are subcontracted to the political elite.
And as for whether democracy is necessarily the best system, a question. Rome had a democratic system in the first century BC and an autocratic one in the first century AD. Which worked better for it?
183. The idea that Islam is growing is not the opposite to Militant Islam being on the wane.
197. Apologies. Missed it. Singapore feels identical to me, politically, to coastal China (just a fair bit richer). The public attitudes to dissent and crime and identical, they are Asian shame cultures. Indeed Singapore felt MORE autocratic to me than chaotic free-wheeling China.
(Malaysia is the most oppressive-feeling of all, the only country where people whispered to me, like they used to do in communist countries).
I know this is anecdotal, but the Singapore-is-a-rich-more-autocratic-China meme is supported by the fact that largely Chinese Singapore has only had one party in power since the war, like, er, China.
And here is one Singaporean’s version of your “partially democratic” Singapore:
“We have a press which is entirely owned and controlled by the government. Every news media, TV and Radio are all controlled by the government; the judiciary is entirely corrupt, in the sense, they are there to do the government’s bidding, not necessarily to uphold the law; a police force that has been told to deny the citizens any means of expressing their views publicly, unless it is in praise of the government…
“a civil service which is entirely at the mercy of Lee Kuan Yew and his minions, and not for just and fair administration of laws; where each day people live not knowing what Mr. Lee will have in store for them tomorrow. In other words, a country without a constitution, without just and fair laws, without an impartial judiciary.”
Er…
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/2008/02/singapore-one-party-totalitarian-state.html
198 - I don’t envisage China becoming democratic. Or perhaps “democratic” only in the same way that Russia currently is formally democratic.
183. It’s also worth pointing out that the USA, even in Obama’s supposedly leftist mode, still has far lower state spending than Britain under Thatcher (which the same people usually salute as a dynamic economy). I think some people need to judge these things on the fact base, rather than the rhetoric of hysterical commentators.
Pakistan all out!
209. While that is true, the direction of travel also matters. State involvement in the economy fell under the Thatcher government, not least because of the privatisation of government-controlled industry and services. I’ve not seen the figures but I’d guess that the state’s involvement in the US under Obama has been going up.
208. “Or perhaps “democratic” only in the same way that Russia currently is formally democratic.”
Free to elect Mr Putin or one of his pals. If you have a problem with that stay away from high windows.
Didn’t Adam Smith say that “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
A government is going to find it difficult to provide peace, good order and fair administration of justice without the consent of the vast mass of the population – legitimacy if you like. Democracy is good way of ensuring this legitimacy, but I agree that it is not essential. Indeed, I can foresee situations where democracy could lead to division, high taxes and an arbitrary, populist attitude to justice.
@207:
I would argue that Singapore is the world’s one true remaining fascist state, in the precise technical meaning of the word.
208. We agree! Barring war or major economic/environmental collapse, I reckon China will progress to be something like Japan crossed with Russia, not quite a democracy as we understand it, but still a flexible polity with opportunities for dissent and change - within a fairly autocratic, consensual, collectivist system.
I also think this China will be the dominant economic force on the globe, but I understand I may possibly have made that point already.
“Rome had a democratic system in the first century BC and an autocratic one in the first century AD. Which worked better for it?”
Rome had a partially democratic system in the first century BC, but the aristocrats were the senior partners in its government. In the next century, it was a combination of autocracy and oligarchy, in both cases, subject to civil wars being launched by political dissidents.
Rome’s Republican constitution worked very well for it, until it became a Superpower. The autocratic/oligarchic model worked well as long as the Emperors were men of sense, but was disastrous when they weren’t.
For those interested in objective assessments of Singapore:
Freedom House puts them as being towards the “unfree” end of the middle “partially free” category:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2010&country=7915
The Economist puts it as a “hybrid regime”, the third worse of four categories:
http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20081021185552/graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf
For what it’s worth, I think SeanT has a strong argument, though ultimately I disagree with him. I believe strong and stable growth and more than enough to prevent the dissatisfaction with government that leads to demands for democracy. This is only possible as they catch up with richest nations. Once people stop having such huge rises in incomes, they start to notice other issues more and begin to protest, and governments typically can not be responsive enough to satisfy the public with regards to every problem.
In democracies, we have a safety fuse, i.e. a change in government, which resets the public mood. In authoritarian states, they can hold off dissatisfaction through controlling the press etc, but this is more difficult in the information age, and as your population becomes more educated. I believe Singapore as an exception, as its very small size allows it to be much more responsive than an empire the size of China.
However, the big danger is that the People’s Republic protects itself from democratic demands by encouraging baser instincts: Chinese nationalism, intolerance of minorities, anti-Americanism. That could see something very nasty indeed.
“I wonder whether this is in part a reaction to the big political story on Friday, when the fieldwork was taking place, of the Nick Robinson BBC TV programme about how the coalition came about.”
Mike, I think the damage was done during the coalition talks, this programme merely reminded us of the big political story of that five days. Its was the way that the Libdems were publicly discussing a coalition with the Tories while secretly rushing off to meet Labour away from the electorate that jarred. That is what in effect destroyed their USP.
@215:
Everything that China has done post-Deng Xiaoping has been driven by a fear of repeating the chaos and wide-scale suffering and civil unrest brought about by Glasnost and Perestroika up to and after the collapse of the USSR.
The PRC is driven by the concept of “China’s Peaceful Rise” and “The Harmonious Society”. The guiding principles of a vast, neo-Capitalist, post-Maoist state are necessarily going to lead to very different political outcomes than those of the West.
I don’t see China as moving towards Western democracy, partially because it’s not very desirable or practical for a society on China’s scale.
216. Indeed. It’s a question of horses for courses. The idea that democracy (and a particular form of democracy at that) is always best for a country is a hugely arrogant one on the part of its proponent and almost always betrays a lack of cultural and political understanding. Democracy and politics are merely means to ends, after all.
Despite the arbitrary timeframes, they work fairly well. As you say, Rome’s democracy (which was very much biased in favour of the rich aristocrats), worked well for an enlarged city-state but wasn’t viable for a vast empire. Likewise, the imperial form worked with men of quality. Arguably, it was the size of the empire as much as anything that prompted the civil wars but the nature of its politics certainly made them more likely and more frequent when their rulers needed to win / control votes.
219. China’s only four times larger than the United States, and a similar size to India. Why is it practical for the US and India but not China?
Ugh, lost that tip. Damned Vettel.
217. But you ignore the possibility, which is surely at the base of this whole argument, that we are applying western mindsets to an entirely unwestern world.
Maybe “our” criteria, or the “Economist” rankings, or the “Freedom House assessment” are simply inapplicable, a conceptual misprision, like claiming that a penguin has “failed” in our ranking of “birdness” because it cannot fly.
China could be evolving to a new kind of system we can’t yet conceive. Free in a DIFFERENT way to us. Who knows.
Interesting times, anyway.*
*come on, someone had to say it
220. Actually, I find the idea that democracy and rights are great for us Englishmen but not really appropriate for those yellows in China to be arrogant, and a little offensive. Similar views have been held in the past towards the Latin cultures, the Slavs, the Japanese etc.
@223:
I think we can all be thankful that China’s rise has been so peaceful. Never before has a superpower arisen so quickly with so little military aggression.
In fact, China appears to have no interest in imperialism at all, which makes it categorically different from every other superpower that has risen. It’s instructive to ask why that might be.
218
The LD’s would have been mad to do a deal with the Conservatives without finding out what Labour had to offer. After all, most people think that an alliance with Labour would have been more “natural” for the LD’s.
As for secrecy,given the huge media scrum, it was inevitable that discussions would be done secretly, as were the discussions with Cameron and Clegg.
Nevertheless the LD vote share must be worrying for them, but its at considerable variance to ICM.
Does this behaviour take place in the UK at election time ?
Political party insiders could be banned from betting on the outcome of elections amid reports senior Labor figures have placed significant bets on the coalition winning marginal seats at the August 21 poll.
“I think it’s pretty crook to bet against your own team,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in eastern Sydney on Sunday.
Fairfax newspapers say the political figures punting against their party include parliamentary staffers, advisers and senior party officials.
Centrebet primary analyst Neil Evans was reported as saying: “I can’t tell you who, but I can tell you this: these are people very high up.”
They were betting on some of the critical seats, he said.
“I can tell you they don’t always stay faithful to their party - they swap sides.”
@224:
The important point is, as a Westerner, you believe you have a right to dictate what is and what is not appropriate to the rest of the world?
225 - That’s not true. On the ground in Africa, the extent of Chinese control is extraordinary. And the Tibetians and Uyghur would dispute your claims hotly.
225. That’s not really true though is it? The leaders of China threatened to invade Hong Kong during negotiations with the UK. Taiwan can’t declare the independence that it wants because China would invade. It backs the terrible regime of the Kims because it doesn’t want any Western-aligned states on its borders. South Korea just had to hold military exercises on its Eastern coast because China banned it from doing so in international waters on its Western coast. The People’s Republic has now expanded one of its “core interests” from being the waters around the Spratly Islands to the entire South China Sea. Meanwhile it is investing heavily to create China-aligned states throughout Africa and Latin America.
It’s not that China dislikes imperialism, it’s that it knows it’s not powerful enough to confront the US yet.
219. Spot on. China’s rise is also guided by the “friendly neighbour” foreign policy, where it has sought to resolve all territorial disputes along its frontiers, seek negotiation and arbitration rather than confrontation, offer aid along with trade, etc.
Only with Taiwan does it do any sabre rattling, and that’s a special case. It is definitely NOT an imperial and expansionist power, beyond its present borders. Yet.
At the same time China sometimes seeks to shyly hide its economic prowess, and play down its success (cf the denials about overtaking America in energy use), in a slightly odd way, as if they are afraid the world will suddenly notice that they are on the way to Number 1 status, and America will hit them with a frying pan.
Softly softly, catchee Yankee.
It is also worth noting that it is an essential feature of any autocratic state that the rule of law is not absolute. The rulers need to be able to strip even the wealthiest of citizens of everything, to avoid them wanting to exercise political as well as economic power.
SeanT @223:
Living in Japan for a while, I’ve ended up being very skeptical of this kind of claim. What made me suspicious was:
1) A difference in the way something is done being attributed to some deep cultural difference, then a couple of years later something gets deregulated and everybody suddenly starts doing it the non-Japanese way, and nobody’s brain explodes.
2) A difference in the way something is done being attributed to some deep cultural difference, then ending up doing things the Japanese way myself, because it turns out that the Japanese way is actually the Japanese-tax-efficient way.
Good thread, isn’t it? To respond to David Herdson at 205: I’ve lived for 18 years in Switzerland, which is probably the closest current approximation to a direct democracy. It works pretty well. A few points:
- A big plus is that decisions, once passed by referendum, are generally accepted as legitimate even by people who don’t like them.
- Politicians are to some extent seen as advisers rather than decision-makers, since anything important can be overriden by voters. That means that the follow-me-chaps-I-know-I’m-right type of politician like Tony Blair don’t flourish, which makes politics duller, less innovative but also more consultative and consensual.
- Turnout is not usually very high (30-60% range), since the country is in general in good shape so people don’t feel they desperately need to change stuff, and many think that they should only vote if they’ve studied the issue and they don’t want to bother.
- It helps to have Swiss voters! It’s common for Swiss families to spend an evening reading the extensive explanatory booklets on proposals and discussing the pros and cons. I’m not sure that it’d be common in Britain, though perhaps it could become so.
As David says, modern technology makes it a more feasible model. But it’s clearly against the interest of anyone who currently has power or expects to get it, so it’s hard to see it being introduced on a widespread scale.
223. “Maybe “our” criteria, or the “Economist” rankings, or the “Freedom House assessment” are simply inapplicable, a conceptual misprision, like claiming that a penguin has “failed” in our ranking of “birdness” because it cannot fly.
China could be evolving to a new kind of system we can’t yet conceive. Free in a DIFFERENT way to us. Who knows.”
There are two assumptions that are always present in such discussions, neither of which are necessarily true, a) that all possible systems of government have been tried, and b) that liberal democracy is the best of them. China may find a new non-democratic system (in our eyes), that produces better outcomes for them, be they economic, stability, development of whatever criteria China considers important.
224. Just because it’s what we’ve evolved doesn’t necessarily mean it’s ‘right’ for us, in the sense of ‘potentially most effective’. It’s what we have, what we’re used to and what has by and large worked but that doesn’t make it inherantly superior for all time in all circumstances.
Notably, European states didn’t move to full democracy until they had already high - by contemporary levels - standards of living. Non-PC to say so but that didn’t seem to adversely affect those countries’ growth, nor social progress.
220. We can also apply an economics framework to this. Rome coped with having god-awful rulers for long periods because it was a monopolistic power in its part of the world. Countries in the modern world are in a highly competitive market, where bad governance could be very costly, and would increase much strong pressures to reform. Indeed, once the Germanic tribes became a lot more powerful, Rome suffered dramatically from the lack of engagement of Gallic Romans with their government.
228, 230.
Martin Coxall is at least partly right. China has deliberately adopted a “Good Nighbour” policy where it seeks non-confrontation and peaceful resolution of disputes; this is very unlike, say America’s aggressive defence of its interests:
http://www.ipsnewsasia.net/bridgesfromasia/node/80
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a713606293
Whether this will stay the same once China reaches the top, is an entirely different question, as Socrates implies
220 All political systems are means to an end. If the end was free thought, accountable government, protection from oppression etc. then Rome’s Republican model was best. If the end was to maximise the amount of territory under Roman rule, and collect tribute from it, then the latter model was better. Trying to pursue both ends through the Republican constitution was impossible.
IMO, a democratic political system, or at least one that is partially democratic, with institutions that are independent of government (such as the British State c. 1860) is the one that is the most likely to be innovative, to generate prosperity, to limit oppressive government, to minimise corruption, and be accountable to the population.
@229:
Oh, China has an enormous amount of influence outside its borders, but it’s all soft power. Influence bought by being non-judgmental and generous in its commerce.
One of China’s great strengths is its grasp of soft power, something the West does not (and probably never will) get.
Ah two party politics.. nice!
Safety car out.
Nick Palmer @234 Don’t like to miss a chance to plug the way to get the best of both worlds, which is Direct Democracy With Delegation. (Some people talk call this “Liquid Democracy”.)
Let me vote on all issues myself, or delegate my vote to somebody else to use it for me.
If the political parties are really good, we’ll all just delegate all our votes to them, and the system will be the same as it is now.
If they political parties are crap, we’ll use the votes ourselves, or delegate them to somebody better.
@230:
I think you’re confusing China’s robust defence of its own territorial interests (of which few would doubt Taiwan and Hong Kong are a part) and its utter refusal to engage in any kind of aggressive brinkmanship outwith.
China’s approach to dealing with its strategic interests abroad are almost diametrically opposed to the Do-As-We-Say-Or-We-Shoot-You approach typified by the US.
236. But they did still have the “pressure valve”, which could change government when the economically powerful became dissatisfied. Of course, the fact that this pressure valve only cated for a segment of the population meant pressure built up among the disenfranchised - when the valve was eventually put in, all the steam came pouring out in the election of the Labour movement, which threw our democratic system through a spin. However, it was at least released, rather than exploding into violent revolution like in other countries.
240 - This is a good deal more than soft power. China has bought the local elites and they have sold the poor of Africa. This, for example, is rather more than soft power:
“In Angola, where Western companies rely primarily on local labour, Chinese companies bring 70-80% of their labour from home. For instance, while nearly 90% of Chevron’s workers are Angolan, including specialised personnel such as engineers and managers, Chinese oil companies employ fewer than 15% Angolans and usually at the end of the pay scale.
In 2006, at a Portuguese-run construction site in Maputo, Mozambique, there were only five Portuguese out of 120 workers. Nearby, a Chinese run site had 78 Chinese workers and only eight locals, three of whom were night watchmen.
The influx of thousands of Chinese migrants into Africa is becoming a major source of grievance for local populations. In Angola, Chinese street sellers are fast putting out of business thousands of locals and Malian sellers who have been there for generations. The fact that many Chinese tend to live in isolation with little or no contact with the local population further aggravates the resentment already present.”
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091127123027932
@246:
I would call that sort of thing the very definition of soft power.
Notably, European states didn’t move to full democracy until they had already high - by contemporary levels - standards of living. Non-PC to say so but that didn’t seem to adversely affect those countries’ growth, nor social progress.
by David Herdson August 1st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
How true David. The supreme example of a Demi or Semi Democracy in 19th century Europe was Germany. This state had a democratic (for the time) parliament in which Socialist policies were enacted against the will of a Semi-Feudal Kaiser who used to rage at his MP’s.
It was only when that same stupid parliament Voted for War, that the Kaiser, through the army could exert his power.
Edmund in Tokyo, I bow to your superior knowledge of Japan, indeed I have a similar but humbler anecdote of my own, from when I lived there.
I remember being told that (horrible) Japanese squat toilets were what the Japanese wanted, because that’s the way Japan went to the khazi, and it was a cultural difference thing, domo sayonara etc.
Then I went on the bullet train and I saw wealthier Japanese people literally queuing to use the one single western “throne” type toilet, while the squatters were unused. Given the choice, they wanted our western bogs! Cultural difference my enthroned Cornish butt.
So you have a point.
But there is a counter example. Crime. Asian societies (esp places like Japan, singapore, Hong Kong) are wonderfully and gloriously free of crime in a way that is almost unimaginable in the west, and entirely unimaginable in high crime societies in Africa and Latin America.
This IS a significant cultural difference, I am sure. They are shame cultures we are guilt cultures. In terms of crime, their way is better.
Would I rather live in a society where I am free of the fear of crime, or where I am free to criticise my government?
That’s a harder question than it looks, many poorer westerners living in high crime neighbourhoods might opt for the former.
Didn’t Rome have an awful lot of slaves?
244. I personally don’t believe an independent state that rules over an independent people is any part of China’s territorial interests. But even if you do include that, how does the declaration of the entire South China Sea as a “core interest” fit into that?
I completely agree China is currently being non-aggressive, as it doesn’t want to upset anyone that might try to contain its rise. But it is laying down all sorts of markers that could be invoked later when it has more comparable might to defend them. In many ways this is similar to the Monroe Doctrine, which the US knew it couldn’t enforce, but was a handy “marker” for later use. What will matter for China is how its incentives are aligned once it is the global superpower.
I also disagree with your assessment of the United States foreign policy, even while I disagree with parts of it (i.e. Iraq). But that’s another debate and I’m expecting company soon…
207 Sean T “….only one party in power since the War” Not quite, Lee Kuan Yew came to power about 15 years after that. His predecessor at the end of the colonial era did not run the place at all well and elderly Singaporeans remember that. Also the setting up of Malaysia, then Singapore’s exit from it are other things Singaporeans haven’t forgotten. The whole story could have ended so much worse, especially if ‘Confrontation’ had succeeded.
I certainly wouldn’t claim to be an expert on Singapore or Malaysia, though I worked in Borneo for while in the 1960s (a year in Sarawak and two in Sabah). My wife’s parents were Singaporean and we still have close family ties with both countries and visit fairly often.
Your observations on Asia, ‘recreational’ activities apart, seem so much closer to what we are familiar with than some of the more theoretical stuff posted in this thread. I don’t think the degree of democracy in a country necessarily correlates with the extent to which that the State bosses it’s citizens around.
250 - They are free of certain types of crime. Other types of crime are far more endemic than they are in the west.
Many innovaive Chinese companies would probably prefer to operate in countries, such as those in the west, where counterfeiting and piracy are not as endemic as they are in the PRC. Likewise, many ordinary Chinese may prefer to live in countries where corruption and bribery are not part of the everyday of getting things done.
First draft of Cameron speech to the Beijing Parliament.
“Have you seen that Dalai lama eh?
What’s all that about, purple f+cking dress?
And as for those Japs, seen them tourists? how many cameras does one man need?
Taiwan? Tai-nil China one I reckon, tow it back to the mainland”
Mike! print this off, frame it and hang it on your wall.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6180603/the-coalitions-lib-dem-conundrum.thtml
Not upside down though.
@252:
Well, neither Taiwan nor Hong Kong are independent states, which makes your argument somewhat irrelevant.
Are you familiar with the history of the Chinese civil war? It never ended, the current arrangement is at best a stalemate, with both the CPC and the Kuomintang claiming to be the government of *all* China, including Taiwan and the Pescadores.
Since they can’t both be right, and in the absence of a formal ceasing of hostilities and armistice between the CPC and the Kuomintang, Taiwan exists in a state of “constructive amibguity”. But it is not an independent state, nor does it seem to have any especial desire to become one.
In any case, cross-strait relations are pretty good these days, since the PRC and the ROC resumed normal economic relations. Money smooths over old wounds once again.
254. I’m talking about Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, as you can see from my comment.
Exactly what type of crimes are “more endemic” in these countries than they are in the west?
Moreover, for ordinary people the *worst* and most feared kind of crime is violent crime - robbery, murder, rape, mugging, burglary, assault. Unquestionably these are far more common in the west than in Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
@254:
Perhaps one of the West’s biggest stupidities is in considering piracy a “crime”? Do you consider that maybe Asia’s embracing a culture of sharing might actually be the more humane response?
257. I’m very familiar with the history, and while I’ll give you Hong Kong (even though it does show a willingness to use force when necessary), Taiwan is, in reality, an independent state. It is even recognised with diplomatic relations by a couple dozen smaller countries aroung the world after intense lobbying from the Taiwanese government. Of course the big powers don’t want to offend China, the far bigger power, so they do haven’t followed suit. But Taiwan does indeed want to go its own way, and debates in the Legislative Yuan are generally about the best way to do that while not provoking China to the point of invasion, as it seems ready to do. This is why they have just bought weapons stockpiles from the US, and why they are rewriting their school history books to stress its independent nature, and why they claim Taiwanese is its own language despite it being identical to what is spoken on the nearby China mainland. The policy of cuddling up to China with rhetoric is to give them more room to do these sort of things. The country would renounce its claim to anything outside of Taiwan very quickly, but China has made it clear it would invade at a stroke if it did so.
Almost ‘everyone’ you here seems to be saying the LibDems are finished. Whereas Conservative look like they are compromising, LibDems look opportunist. Looks like its moving back to more of a 2 horse race. I doubt many people sympathetic to Labour will ever vote tactically for LibDem again. The Conservatives had a very good start, but abolishing ASBOs is worrying/looks bad
260. But when the PRC gets rich enough, it will surely reunite with Taiwan, as it did with Hong Kong. The cultural ties are too close, independence for Taiwan will start to seem pointless - even pernicious - to the Taiwanese themselves.
Could take 50 years though. And no doubt some autonomy arrangement will be made. But the motherland will gather in her own.
89 - and you ommitted to mention that China has by quite a few measures the biggest property bubble in history. I’m sure you were one of the ones saying the same thing about Japan in the late 1980’s - when China falls it’s going to fall very hard indeed.
Great Hungarian GP unfolding, just a shame that Lewis is out of it. Morris Dancer - at least your Vettel leading at the end of the 1st lap tip came off!
245 I think that only very elderly Taiwanese would now consider themselves part of China’s “territorial interests”. De facto, it is an independent country, albeit, one that is careful not to provoke China.
Under Mao, at least, China was pretty imperialistic in the normally accepted sense of that term.
259 No.
America’s “victory” in Iraq:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10831069
“Last month, 535 people were killed and 1,000 injured in bomb blasts or other attacks, official Iraqi figures say”
How can Americans still continue to claim they “won” this horrible war with their “surge”. I heard some CNN pundit enunciate this fatuous lie the other day. Iraq is still in brutal chaos, and thousands are still dying.
Ugh.
SeanT @250:
Are you Alan Johnson?
250 I don’t think it should necessarily be either or.
1930s Britain possessed both very low crime rates, and the ability to criticise the government of the day.
“I’m sure you were one of the ones saying the same thing about Japan in the late 1980s”
No, I wasn’t. Mainly coz I was zonked out my puff on heroin during the late 80s. But even if I had been sober, I wouldn’t have made this daft claim.
I have also said - many times - that China will experience huge crashes and reverses and recessions as she careers towards her date with hegemonic destiny. This is always the case with big and rapidly industrialising powers, cf America in the late 19th century.
But the trend will remain. Anyway, I want to argue about Iraq now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/01/coalition-bonfire-of-environment-76-months-and-counting
Sean T, here’s an article to restore your faith in the Coalition.
258 - It depend where in the “west” you are though, doesn’t it? What is the violent crime rate in, say, Luxembourg?
259 - What a silly little statement. Ask SeanT whether he would prefer people to buy his books or to “share” them.
267. Trouble is, it does seem like either/or right now, doesn’t it?
I would definitely prefer to be poor in Tokyo, Singapore or Hong Kong than poor in London, Paris or New York, mainly because of the crime difference. And the sushi.
271 I think that the correct term is “steal them.”
OT, Japanese crime of the week:
Council officials went along to congratulate the oldest man in Tokyo on his 111th birthday, only to discover that he’d been dead since 1978 and his family had kept his mummified corpse secret so that they could carry on claiming his pension.
Or, if you believe the family’s side of the story, they didn’t know he was dead - he’d gone into his room in 1978 saying he wanted to become a Buddha, closed the door and told them not to disturb him.
The idea of Jackie Smith applying for a BBC job is just nauseating - these people have no shame. I see she hasn’t gone back to teaching - perhaps the £77k + expenses was more preferable and would help to keep her and her husband in the life style that they became accustomed to.
I think the way David Miliband is going after the prime minister and trying to stoke the flames over his ‘pakistan’ comments is an absolute disgrace and does him no credit whatsoever. Whilst it may help his leadership bid, I hope amongst the wider public this will show him to be just another self-serving, nasty, spiteful, sneering Labour politician.
264. Sean Fear. I shall be quite interested to see how things develop though possibly they won’t come to a head in my lifetime. One thing you should be careful not to discount is the enduring nature of Chinese culture. My wife’s father’s family left China in the 1840s. Her mother’s had been in the Straits possibly since the 18thC. She herself was born in a small town in Sarawak which was then run (very well) by the Brook family. There followed the Japanese occupation, a few years of Colonial rule and the beginnings of Malaysia before I appeared on the scene. A couple of years ago we had a holiday in China, our first visit apart from a short trip to Hong Kong 40 years ago. We’d only been in the place a couple of days when it dawned on her that all the people we were meeting were remarkably like the people she had been brought up amongst, except that they spoke Mandarin rather than her own dialect. So where did WW2, Mao’s takeover, the Cultural Revolution and all that go to? As an outsider the only conclusion I could come to was that in huge countries with autocratic regimes the family is all and people keep their heads down as they have done for millenia! Culture isn’t just literature and artefacts.
275 Doing a “Cameron” there Ann..dont mince your words..tell it like it is..
273 - Indeed.
275 - It’s true Ann. There can be no correct view other than Dave’s and anyone who criticises Dave is merely self-serving, nasty and spiteful.
Sean Fear @273No, the correct term is “infringe copyright on them”. Stealing is a different thing. Taking the books off the shelf at Tesco’s and sneaking them out without paying would be stealing them.
279 SO.. Completely wrong..I am not self serving, nasty or spiteful and I disagree with a lot that Cameron does..But he is still better than the last b*gger we had..
209, 233 Antifrank
The Spectator had a good piece arguing that Russia is a feudal society:
“In the absence of functional legal or law enforcement systems, people’s only real protection lies in a network of personal and professional relationships with powerful individuals. And so it is in Russia today — for every member of society with something, however small, to lose, from a market stall owner to the nation’s top oligarchs. Your freedom from arbitrary arrest, fraudulent expropriation and extortion by bureaucrats is only as good as your connections.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/5686623/theres-something-rotten-in-the-state-of-russia.thtml
280 - That would be stealing the physical products from Tescos.
The author owns the copyright. If you take what the author owns without his permission and you sell it, then you are stealing from him.
The author has already been paid by Tescos for the use of his copyright. He has not been paid by you.
@273:
No, stealing is a different thing, Sean. Conflating unrelated concepts leads to the kind of woolly thinking that ends up with people thinking the Digital Economy Act is a good idea.
Who’s your favourite author?
280 Intellectual property isn’t my field, but I think that in certain circumstances, piracy can be a crime, although, generally, infringing copyright, passing off etc. are civil offences.
@283:
And how does my sharing one of SeanT’s books with a friend “deprive him of his copyright”?
Dearie me, you are a bit rubbish on this one.
284 - And believing that everything should be free to copy without compensation for the author leaves you in a world in which creativity is penalised and industries which employ many hundreds of thousands of people - and generate billions of taxable pounds - cease to exist.
285 - It is my field, and it depends on who does it and why.
@287:
Yes, because before there was copyright, there was no creativity, right?
The desire to create isn’t innate in the human spirit, and has to be coaxed out by law.
And it’s well know that no music or literature were created before the early 20th Century.
You’re rubbish at this game. Try harder.
Schuey - do us all a favour and retire, should be black flagged for such a dangerous move. That could have been really horrible.
286 - Share the physical copy you have bought with as many friends as you like - one at a time. If they can’t wait, they can buy their own copy. But if you produce a number of copies - either digitally or in physical format - you are denying SeanT the ability to generate a return for the work he has done and the time and effort he has made.
Southam Observer @283 Stealing the copyright would be a third thing - if I changed all the copyright notices from “Tom Knox” to “Edmund in Tokyo”, persuaded everyone that I wrote it instead of him, and got everybody to give me the royalties instead, that would be stealing the copyright.
@292:
If I shared my copy of The Genesis Secret with another person (which I have done, so f*cking sue me) what, precisely, have I deprived SeanT of?
If I share a copy of The Genesis Secret with my mum (a criminal offence under the European Union Copyright Directive, and Jeremy Hunt’s pet Digital Economy Act), what have I deprived SeanT of?
289 - I believe in a copyright owners’ right to be rewarded for his creativity because that incentivises continued creativity. I also believe that copyright industries create many tens of thousands of jobs and contribute billions to national GDPs.
People will always create, but without copyright and the ability to assign copyright, there will be much less diffusion of creativity, much higher unemployment and far less taxable corporate money. And certain industries - such as those relating to computer software - just would not exist.
284 I have a lot of favourite authors (I hope Sean T will forgive me if I say that while I enjoyed his books, and thought the money I spent on them was good value, he’s not near the top of my list).
For history, it would be Max Hastings, Anthony Beevor, Andrew Roberts, Tom Holland, Paul Cartledge, Robin Lane Fox, Ian Mortimer, Juliet Barker (I daresay I’ve missed a few).
For light reading, Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden, Ed Mcbain, Elmore Leonard.
Horror, HP Lovecraft, MR James, WW Jacobs, early James Herbert, Matthew Lewis (the Monk).
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Tolkein, Ursula Le Guin, Robert Heinlein, Asimov, (some of) Frank Herbert.
Comedy, PG Wodehouse, Jane Austen.
@291:
Ah, there it is. Pigopolist fallacy #1, every shared copy is a lost sale. Almost entirely without foundation, of course, which is why idiots love to assume it without proof when making their stupid arguments in favour of draconian dysfunctional copyright laws.
@295:
Ooh, you share lots of the same fave authors with me. I would never have suspected that…
So, *how* did you discover your favourite authors?
292 - You can’t steal a copyright, it is automatically vsted in the creator of the fxed work unless he/she has assigned the right to a third party.
However, you can steal from the copyright owner. Which is what you are doing when you recreate his work without his permission and then sell it on or “share” it with a number of other people.
@294:
The notion that people have a “right” to rewarded is a curious left wing foible.
What royalty do you pay your plumber when you have a shit, btw?
@298:
Repeatedly saying it, doesn’t make it true.
What have I deprived SeanT of when I lend The Genesis Secret to my Mum?
And now for something completely different
Coalition budget faces legal challenge over claims women will bear brunt of cuts http://gu.com/p/2tmcm/tw
(I think I may now lend The Genesis Secret to my Mum in the vain hope that SeanT sues me for the lulz.)
296 - Where did I say that every shared copy is a lost sale? You are not going to win an argument by making things up Martin. In fact, I agree with you that this is not the case. However, some shared copies are lost sales - it’s a matter of whether you believe the author’s right to maximise his sales takes precedence over the consumer’s right to enjoy the author’s work.
289 Pre-copyright, print runs tended to be tiny (by modern standards), literacy was far less widespread than it is today, communications were poorer, wealthy people would pay (by our standards) enormous sums to hear live performances, and artists of various kinds received patronage from Courts, aristocrats, and clerics.
The world is totally different, now.
IMHO, utilitarian arguments are of secondary importance, here. Tom Knox writes a story. He can keep the manuscript for himself, or licence someone to publish it for him, in return for a royalty or profit share. The story is *his* and he alone has the moral right to decide what should be done with it.
300 - What have I deprived SeanT of when I lend The Genesis Secret to my Mum?
His chances with your mum.
@301:
I bet you a Snickers Duo that doesn’t happen.
@305:
I don’t think he’s ready for that jelly.
Southam Observer @294: I’m in favour of copyright, but this is clearly wrong:
I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff - there are plenty of models for making money creating and distributing computer software that don’t rely on copying restrictions.
300 - Absolutely nothing. And I have no problem with you lending that same copy of the book to one of your friends once your Mum has read it and returned it to you. It’s your copy and you can do what you like with it.
The crucial issue is the selling and/or multiple copies bit.
301. Interesting legal argument, but dangerous precedent.
The article seems to say, removing Tax credits is discriminatory and therefore illegal, by which token it would appear that granting those same tax credits would also be illegal if women benefit more…
@303:
Theft is permanently depriving somebody of their lawful property. So I ask you again.
If I lend The Genesis Secret to my Mum, what have I permanently deprived him of?
You’re making stupid assumptions and you don’t even know what they are. It’s not your fault, I’ve had this discussion so many times, I’m several steps ahead of you, just waiting for you to catch up.
308 - Really, what are they?
311 - See 309.
In other news, “I think we can all agree” with tim that party leaders jumping on bandwagons is to be derided…
http://www.davidmiliband.net/2010/08/01/david-miliband-announces-bold-plans-to-save-britain%E2%80%99s-pubs/
@308:
Of course, the vast Free and Open Source software landscape seems to exist *just fine* thank you, by actively encouraging people to share and enjoy. We might have fewer Microsofts, but I struggle to see that as a bad thing.
And what of Creative Commons?
@311:
So, you think it should be a criminal offence for me to sell my copy of The Genesis Secret?
297 Either in my secondary school library, or through book reviews.
293 As I understand it, UK copyright law (it could well be different in other countries) does allow for reasonable personal use, so lending someone a book, or watching a DVD with friends, should not infringe it.
OTOH, if you publish the Genesis Secret, claiming to be the author of it, or run off 10,000 copies and sell them, without Sean T having licensed you to do so, then he should have legal redress against you.
315 - I think you’ll find that the vast free and open source movement is entirey dependent on the ownership of copyright in order for its contractual terms to be enforceable. Copyright owners are perfectly free to allow people to enjoy their works free of charge. The thing is, though, it’s their choice and is not fosited upon them. That’s what copyright gives you as an author - choice.
new thread
Southam Observer @312
1) Getting paid money for hardware, which isn’t much use without software. (This was how the industry started out.)
2) Getting paid to support and customize software. (I do this. So do Wordpress, who created the software this blog is running on.)
3) Getting paid to solve particular problems, which the software helps solve. (I do this too.)
4) Writing software and not sharing it with anybody, but using it to provide a service instead. (A lot of the code that runs Google isn’t shared with anyone outside Google.)
317 - Not if you have bought it. Once you have bought your copy of the book, it’s up to you to do what you like with that copy. And if you buy two copies, then you are very free to sell them, and the same applies to 20, 200 or 2,000. What I do not believe you have the right to do is to “share”, either for a sum or for free, a copy of the book online if the author has not given you permission to do so. Not because everyone who accesses it as a result would have bought the book, but because some may have and because it is the author’s right to decide how his work is disseminated.
321 - And if I wanted to create software to sell to people how would I do that without copyright? It seems to me that services 2 and 3 you identify depend on some kind of software existing in the first place - otherwise you could not customise it or solve a problem relating to it. Your point 4 works to the extent that Google can keep its source code private, but what happens when the secret gets out? How does Googe protect itself then? Point 1, I think, is an option open to few people in this day and age.
Southam Observer @323 2 and 3: I write the software, or someone else writes it and shares it. This isn’t speculation - it’s how we’re doing it. (We’re using the GPL, which relies on copyright, but if there was no copyright we could put everything in the public domain and it would work OK.)
I’m not saying that copyright doesn’t have a useful function, but claiming that there would be no software industry without it is barking mad.
324 - You could put everything in the public domain, but without copyright you would have no control over how other people used it. Which is why the GPL does rely on copyright.
I wrote up what I think on my blog, the tl;dr version?, I think Clegg can put up with low poll numbers for the moment, not sure whether his party can though.
http://apoliticsnow.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/the-yellow-gamble/