A prediction

These will be compulsory in a few years time...

First 'anti-stab' knife to go on sale in Britain

Another prediction: it will make no difference.

Searches

The Badman has put his thinking cap on and decided that the way forward for home education is to treat home educators like criminals. No, worse than criminals. Guilt will be assumed, innocence must be proven. Even the most persistent offender doesn't have to do this.

Badman's recommendations have not come as a surprise to anyone who has watched the review unfold - it was clear from the start that the review could have only one outcome: that homes should be inspected, children `interviewed' by a battalion of newly recruited Badmans and that those who resisted would be carted off and incarcerated, their childen taken into "care".

We have been here before. A couple of hundred years ago, another group of Britons found that the Badmans of the day were willing to take similar, draconian steps to stamp out what they saw as a threat to their monopoly. Today, ancient liberties are being tossed aside in order to allow the Badmans to enforce their monopoly over the propagation of ideas (however they might dress it up as child protection). Then, it was over tax revenues. Having imposed taxes on certain categories of imports, Badmans in London were alarmed to see the revenue streams upon which their comfortable lifestyles depended eroded by the actions of smugglers, who were eluding the customs men and bringing in tax-free goods from overseas.

Badmans are, of course, willing to sacrifice ancient liberties at the drop of a hat, and in this case they used writs of assistance as their chief weapon in their fight to retain their rents. These writs were effectively general search warrants, allowing the little Badmans to search the premises of anyone they liked at any time. No suspicion need be shown, no evidence presented. The warrants never expired, and the Badmans could not be sued for any damage they caused. Badmans were above the law.

I'm sure you see the parallels unfolding. Will the battalions of modern-day Badmans break down doors? Will they be liable when they traumatise children and disrupt lives? When educational prospects are destroyed, will any Badman hold his hands up and say "We were wrong!". Will they lose their jobs or their golden pensions?

We know they will not, don't we? Badmans are never liable, never accountable. It's always "within the rules". Nobody ever foresaw what might happen. Badmans were only trying to help. It was for the children.

To return to the story of the writs of assistance, in the face of the hated searches, a group of merchants decided to challenge the writs in court. In a fiery speech, their lawyer, James Otis denounced the writs as "instruments of slavery" and argued that such a general warrant was illegal in English law:

A man’s home is his castle, and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it is declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom house office may enter our houses when they please and we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court, can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient. This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain. What a scene does this open! Every man, prompted by revenge, ill humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor’s house, may get a writ of assistance. Other’s will ask it from self-defense; one arbitrary action will promote another, until society be involved in tumult and blood.

Otis's oration had its intended effect and the crowd of ordinary people watching seemed suddenly to loom threateningly over proceedings. Might violence ensue if the court upheld the writs? The judges, seeing what was happening, delayed a decision, hoping to win themselves some breathing space.  Weeks passed, and then months. It was nearly six months later that the judges dared to bring the case out of mothballs, arranging to have the whole case heard again. This time they got their way and the legality of the writs were upheld.

However this wasn't the end of the story. Unbeknown to the Badmans, Otis and his colleagues had still to play their trump card. It was a trump card from which there was no turning back and from which there would be no negociated settlement. In their worst nightmares the Badmans never dreamed that the people they had abused for so long would ever take a step so drastic or so final.

Proclaiming the rights of Englishmen, the "true, ancient and indubitable rights and liberties" of the Bill of Rights and Magna Carta, Otis and his colleagues - men like Washington and Adams and Jefferson - took up arms against the Badmans, and in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, they won.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Ralph Lucas on constitutional reform

A slightly off the wall, but rather interesting, idea from Ralph Lucas (Lord Lucas to you):

Why not move the seat of government entirely to the Lords?

We'd elect MPs, as now. They'd choose the PM, as now. But the PM would then receive an immediate earldom and move up to the Lords, forming his ministerial team there.

This would achieve the separation of the legislature and the executive that so many are talking about, leaving the Commons as a true legislature, holding the government to account and controlling the finances - and with no legislation at all required to achieve it (though doubtless Lords reform would follow swiftly).

Hitchens on HE

Peter Hitchens discusses Home Ed today, and notes Ed Balls' decision to demand registration of home educators, with compulsory school for those who refuse to comply. Hitchens also notes another interesting decision by Balls. Children who have not received the MMR vaccination will be banned from schools.For these children, home education will be compulsory.

He hasn't thought this through, has he? A bit of a Balls-up, I would say.

Need a new policy idea?

In the US Congress, it looks as though they look across the Atlantic to our own Galumphin' Gordon Brown for inspiration. This might look a bit like getting your chat-up lines from Benny Hill, but it seems that even the salary and perks of a congressman aren't enough to attract candidates who can come up with ideas of their own.

When we first heard the phrase "cash for clunkers," we thought the reference was to a Congressional pay raise. Alas, no, it is the bright idea out of Congress to pay Americans to turn in their old cars so they'll go out and buy a new one. As columnist George Will recently observed, this isn't as insane as the New Deal policy of slaughtering pigs to raise pork prices, but it's close enough for government work.

Full story here.

Human rights kill civil liberties

Canada to remove "truth" as a defence to hate speech laws? The Canadian Human Rights Commission is demanding just that, according to this interview with journalist Ezra Levant. It's that whole Human Rights Kill Civil Liberties meme again.

Barefaced cheek

There's some moderately good news on the BBC front - the corporation looks as though it will lose some of the licence fee, which will be used to prop up ailing commercial broadcasters. OK, so propping up businesses with obsolete business models is not a good thing of itself, but removing the licence fee is a top priority for restoring a modicum of sanity to public debate in this country.

The reaction of the BBC is an outrage though - Sir Michael Lyons is quoted as saying

People would do well to remember that licence fee payers give us their money in good faith, believing it will be spent on BBC services and content. "To suddenly tell them midway through the settlement that their money is being siphoned off, as some have suggested it should be, would be more than an act of bad faith, it would be tantamount to breaking a contract.

What a travesty that statement is. A contract is freely entered into by both sides. The licence fee isn't. Whichever way you look at it, Sir Michael is living mafia-style off the fruits of an elaborate protection racket. He is a party apparatchik who has reached the position he is in because he is a Labour party loyalist.

We can do without his pious cant about bad faith and breach of contract.

What is the state?

It looks like a fraud against the British public from where I'm standing:

Kinnocks have six state pensions

BBC stars are paid twice

Card fraud probe targets 300 detectives.

These chickens will come home to roost eventually.

Educational philosophies and constitutional acts

One interesting aspect of the Badman review of home education is its demand that parents should once a year submit plans for what they are intending to teach children for the next twelve months. This seems rather extraordinary to me, since the school my children attend claim that they cannot give me such a plan for the following week.

As some have observed, this will signal the end of one important thread of home education, namely child-led, autonomous learning. The whole point of autonomous learning is that it's unplanned.

It's interesting to consider the legal implications of the proposed changes. According to the Human Rights Act,

...the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.

Now if one's philosophical convictions are that education shall be child-led and autonomous, it seems to me that the government will breach the HRA if it insists that autonomous education is verboten. Now of course, the HRA isn't worth the paper it's written on since the courts will not strike down an act of parliament which breaches it. Instead they will merely issue a statement to the effect that a breach has occurred. I wonder though if one could ask the government, or perhaps ask the courts to enquire, if their intention is to breach the HRA. If it is, then it might be reasonable to ask them to say so explicitly.

Beyond the clouds

One of the most hilarious mantras that climate modellers intone in their media appearances is that the models must be right "because they've got physics in". The fact that huge swathes of the physics are parameterised - in other words they are not modelled at all, but are summarised down to a single number that the scientists hope will do the job - is quietly overlooked. Or at least, it's quietly overlooked by the climate modellers. Sceptics, of course, have been yelling about the deficiencies of this approach for years, to complete media indifference.

One of the most egregious parameterisations in the climate models is that of clouds, which are one of the most important feedbacks to the climate system. There has now been an attempt to rectify this failing - Steve McIntyre has picked up a remarkable report from a few years back that raises some interesting questions.

A team of climate modellers decided to take their model that one step further and intead of parameterising their clouds, they built a simple cloud model into each gridcell column (imagine vertical atmospheric columns rising up from each point on the earth's surface). The result was that the Earth turned out to be much less sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously advertised. The clouds essentially stopped some of the heat reaching the Earth in the first place.

Crisis over then? Perhaps. We'll have to see.

In the meantime we can wonder why these results, which were available to the IPCC during its Fourth Assessment of the world's climate, barely warranted a mention in the report. As someone once said, "Hey, it's climate science".

Badman is not good

Terribleman, appallingman, sickoman, tyrantman, evilman, sinfulman, ruinousman, rottenman, putrescentman, baseman, poisonousman, wickedman.

The Badman report on home education is out, and it's monstrous. Forced entry to people's homes is recommended. Revolutions have been started over this sort of thing.

I'm too angry to say anything sensible. Read Lisa instead.

Is this for real?

Kreepy Gerald Kaufman's excuse for claiming £220 for two grapefruit bowls: he has diagnosed himself as having obsessive compulsive disorder and so he has to have them.

This has to be a joke....

.....doesn't it....?

Quote of the day

Drunken sailors generally spend cash that they’ve already earned themselves, rather than running up debt to be paid by others. If our politicians started spending like drunken sailors, it would in fact represent a dramatic improvement.

Glenn Reynolds

Heresy at the Beeb

This is odd. The BBC has allowed someone to write an article that is not fully supportive of the catastrophic global warming thesis.

I wonder if they feel their bets need to be hedged, all of a sudden.

Conspiracy theorising

1. Yesterday Lloyds TSB reported that they are to repay £2bn on their bailout money (the economy has turned).

2. Yesterday again, Gordon Brown, survived a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party which might have been expected to unseat him. Perhaps Labour MPs felt the economy was on the turn.

3. Today, Lloyds TSB accounced that it is to close down all of its Cheltenham and Gloucester branches.

Could it be that these news items are in some way linked? Institutional investors in Lloyds may have needed persuading that the time was ripe to repay the bail-out. The government is, of course, the majority shareholder in the group. Could it be that government agreement to the closure of C&G was the price the investors extracted? It is certainly odd to find a company making major stock exchange announcements on consecutive days. Even odder when you notice that the good news preceded Gordon Brown's moment of truth, while the bad news came later.

If this is right, then C&G would effectively have been closed down in order to allow Brown to take some good news - the repayment of the bail-out - to the House of Commons yesterday.

Interesting thought, isn't it?