Mouth/Trousers Distribution Error

Recent news that Britain leads the world in the number of "skilled workers" choosing to emigrate has caused some concern, not to least to Matt Sinclair:

"Ever higher levels of tax; little to show by way of public service results for that huge drain on private incomes; an overly meddlesome state that leaves people bereft of control over their own lives. Yesterday's emigration numbers should be a wake-up call for a nation whose government is attempting to do too much and doing a very poor job of it. "

You might think that's reading a lot into emigration statistics. And you might think Matt doesn't rate the UK, or its government. But you'd be wrong. As Matt himself says, it's not what you say, but what you do that matters:

"Surveys, opinion polls, personal anecdote and other ways in which people express their opinion can often be misleading or distorted … It is often better to look at revealed preferences; how people actually behave when faced with actual decisions in real life…"

Given which, the following point cannot be over-stressed: Matt Sinclair lives and works in the UK.

Choices, choices

Mr Eugenides is on good form here, attacking proposals to stop supermarkets from marketing booze "like candy" and thus forcing people "to make a conscious decision to buy". Mr E's got a point - it's ridiculous, on the face of it, to suggest that people are so collectively stupid that they buy booze they don't "really mean" to buy, and can be tricked into becoming alcoholics.

But of course, supermarkets do things the way they do for a reason. So we can't say that fiendish marketing techniques like putting booze near the entrance, or 3 for 2 offers, or great big displays "make people choose to buy" What we can say, however, is that these techniques do "make booze sales go up". It was very recently my job to help beer companies sell more beer and they had two basic retail techniques:

1) Sell it cheaper.
2) Get it in people's faces as they walk round the shop.

It's no surprise that 1) works. The only problem is that this race to the bottom had hit the stage where even major brands were struggling to be profitable (20 cans for £16 was bad enough - when it moved to 30 for £22 margins were membrane thin). So that left 2) - hitting more eyeballs. This devolved into first fighting for space in the beer aisle (both against rival beers and against wines and spirits) and secondly going for "dual-siting" - e.g. out of the beer aisle and next to food, next to the entrance, by the till - basically anywhere else, just so long as shoppers would stumble over it.

This works. And it doesn't just work for booze. Replace the extra stacks of Carling with Andrex, and I guarantee you'll sell more toilet paper. Why? Do people start making the rational, independent decision that they're going to wipe more? Are we unearthing a deep-seated need for cleaner bottoms that people somehow forgot about until a teetering stack of tissue paper rose up in their peripheral vision? Let's hope not.

What's happening, of course, is that the supermarkets aren't neutrally presenting a set of items which might buy and we might not. They're framing the experience so that buying beer seems like the obvious thing to do.

... the term framing refers to an inevitable process of selective influence over the individual's perception...

The more often you make people think about putting beer in their trolley, the more often they'll do it. Supermarkets aren't going to be shy about encouraging people to buy their wares. (And if they do the same thing with fruit and veg, we don't object at all.)

The point isn't that Mr Eugenides is wrong to oppose these proposals to tell supermarkets how they can sell beer. But the fiercely individualistic psychology he proposes, whereby people can't be swayed, influenced or cajoled into making decisions they otherwise wouldn't isn't necessarily the best way to argue the point.

Tedious political pointscoring

Here's a knotty question: is it better for government to be rapidly decisive, or to review its policies in depth before committing to action? It's a difficult one to get right, as witness the following two criticisms of the government. First, the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition gives us a stirring call to action:

Mr. Cameron: When will the Prime Minister understand that it is not reviews but decisions that people want?

Secondly, no less a person than the Shadow Chancellor demonstrates his own preferred means of policy formulation:

Former chancellor Lord Howe is to lead a review of taxation policy for the Conservative Party.


To be honest though, this isn't really this week's news, because the review was launched in 2006:

"Second, I am very attracted to the proposals in the Report to change for good the way tax law is made in this country. I have sat on Finance Committees and watched in dismay as this Treasury produces hasty and ill-thought-out changes to our tax code that then pass into law with little consultation and no scrutiny. That has to change. I am minded to accept the recommendations in this area. The distinguished former Chancellor, and chair of the Tax Law Rewrite Project, Geoffrey Howe has agreed to head a small group that will produce a detailed implementation plan - and I am most grateful to him for that."

George Osborne, Tax Reform Commission Report Launch, 19 October 2006

So, do the people want reviews or not? Difficult to say, clearly, but let's hope so:

"Soon after becoming Tory leader in December 2005, David Cameron announced that he would be setting up policy review groups covering six areas to help the party produce its next manifesto. None of the groups' recommendations are binding on the leadership. This week's [13 Sept 2007] environment group is the final one to report back."

Apparently, some Labour supporters have been heard to mutter that there'd be nothing wrong with a short term in Opposition. They're wrong, but faced so often with the temptation of being able to say any bloody thing without fear of consequence, can you really blame them?

Common ground

Because the Guardian is at the cutting edge of British intellectual life, it offers us a debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeleine Bunting.

It starts badly, because whoever is in charge of this penetrating series of no-holds-barred intellectual smackdowns forgot to specify an actual topic of debate. "Religion and Science and stuff" seems to be as far as they got. But it's worth listening to a) because in intellectual combat terms it's a bit like watching a grizzly bear eviscerate a three-legged puppy and b) because of this money quote from Bunting, in regards to Dawkins unrestrained ridicule of religion:

"this enormous global responsibility we all have to communicate with each other and try to find common solutions"

Communicating with each other - fine. That this is something we should all do - fine. But the common solutions part has its limitations. There are sometimes more important goals than finding common solutions, and there are issues where, with the best will in the world, there simply isn't room for compromise. Rowan Williams' apparent willingness to gloss over this point got him into trouble last week: he didn't actually call for the stoning of adulteresses, as some tabloids' reactions might have suggested, but he didn't seem to draw any bright lines either.

I chose the name of this blog because I wanted to hint at the idea that most of what appears here is probably mistaken in some way, that a rigid certainty about all opinions can be dangerous, and a willingness to revisit your ideas is a good thing. (If I didn't succeed in communicating all that first time round, I can only apologise, and then refer your attention once more to the title.) But there are areas where you have to stick your neck out, some of them apparently controversial. Because compromising on these leaves you adrift in the fog - no bearings, no destination, just vague good intentions. To paraphrase a view on compromise from a Tom Holt novel: Halfway between right and wrong is still wrong.

Clerical error

I've struggled to write anything on the whole "Sharia law inevitable" brouhaha, mainly because I find the whole thing so damn depressing. I'm honestly not sure which was worse:

1) An intelligent and highly educated man failing to understand the importance of the concepts "equality before the law" and "inalienable rights".

2) The hideous knee-jerk airing of some fairly ignorant and offensive stereotypes that immediately followed it, including: "What have the Muslims done for us?", "If they don't like it they can go back where they came from" and "You'd think more people would actually join the BNP and stand up for their country".

Rarely have I felt so damn proud to be British.

So in part I feel sorry for Williams, whose opinion of the standard of public debate in this country is clearly an order of magnitude or two higher than is merited. But then I re-read his speech. I have two basic problems with it: he doesn't recognise the difference between acknowledging problems and dealing with them; secondly, (and understandably given his position) he's altogether too optimistic about the role religion could play in a secular legal system.

So in the first instance, he acknowledges relatively minor issues, such as 'vexatious' claims (e.g. refusing to sell Bibles, despite working in a bookshop) and more major ones, such as the risk of entrenching oppression by limiting victims' access to legal remedy. But there's no attempt to deal with these problems. Of the first, he says "The secular lawyer needs to know where the potential conflict is real, legally and religiously serious, and where it is grounded in either nuisance or ignorance." Fine - but how? Let's say that a member of the Wee Frees, working in the waste disposal industry, refuses to service Catholic homes, is fired and brings the matter to a tribunal. Is this "real, legally and religiously serious"? Let's assume the offender is clearly sincere in his belief. But is it a legitimate belief? His Minister says so - so is that OK? It'll be a brave cleric who publicly admits that a clearly devout member of his flock is somehow ignorant of his religion. Or if we don't accept believers' word on what constitutes a "proper" religious objection, shall we ask non-believers? I can't imagine that would be an acceptable substitute: "We checked your story with a rabbi, an atheist and an imam - and they all think you're talking nonsense."

In the second instance, let's say a divorce goes through a sharia court in which the woman gets a massively inequitable settlement. So she brings the matter to the "universal" courts. In defence, the husband produces a signed agreement that sharia law will apply to any divorce. "Ah" says the wife, "I was coerced into signing that by my father, brothers and husband-to-be." What then? Obviously agreements signed under duress are no agreements at all - but what's the standard of proof for duress? If you simply have to claim it to overturn a sharia ruling, then the whole exercise is pointless. If you have to prove the content of conversations that took place years ago, you're basically doomed. And more importantly of course, what of the women who never complain, because they are still under duress? From one perspective, they're no worse off under the new system than they are now (that is, very badly off indeed) but now there's a patina of respectability covering their situation - the law connives at the pretence that this what they want. Otherwise, of course, they'd have brought the matter the courts, and we'd have dealt with it - like a shot, by golly.

Finally, there's the Archbishop's insistence that there is a greater role for theology in law, and that the Enlightenment values which gave us the rule of law, human rights, etc. are all an elaborate trap which will deny our very humanity and bring us to a new Cultural Revolution. This is where I get depressed again. Those Enlightenment values were in direct opposition to theology in law (e.g. Divine Right) and far from denying humanity give us all the basic freedom (or "space" to use the Archbishop's jargon) to exercise that humanity. Freedom that will be lacking once God starts telling us what to do.

When soundbites bite back

Inspired, apparently, by the Dutch (a tendency which could lead to some really interesting policy announcements) the Tories want to give every mother a free maternity nurse. When I say give, I mean of course, pay for out of general taxation. As some sharp thinker realised, this might seem to contradict a key piece of Conservative rhetoric:

"The leadership accepts that the policy marks a big step, but insists that it is not adopting the 'nanny state'."

Heaven forfend.

Incidentally, the duties of these putative Poppinses (for all mothers, whether they need it or not) include:

• Showing new mothers how to breastfeed and bathe their baby;
• Looking after older children and making sure healthy meals are provided;
• Taking care of laundry and light household cleaning;
• Monitoring visitors to the mother's home to ensure that rest times are not interrupted;
• Keeping a diary with details of the mother and baby's progress for use by doctors and midwives.

The astonished italics are mine - is the government really going to pay for people to have a personal servant/bodyguard? A tax-paid maid? And what if you are already well-off enough to hire a nanny of your own? Might she become tax-deductable? How splendid.

Still, it's good to know the electoral strategy of bribing the middle-classes is still well-favoured. If you're reading Dave, I'll take the £20/week marriage bribe and the free nanny - find some way of paying for my holiday in Tuscany and you've got yourself a vote.

Probably the most reassuringly expensive beer in the world

You know how it goes. Planning a bit of a big Friday night out, you prudently load your wallet with enough cash to get you through the evening, and a bit extra for the rest of the weekend. Stirring sluggishly on Saturday, you rifle through your pockets to find that some blaggard, as well as using the inside of your skull as a mosh-pit, has only gone and taken every last penny. You couldn't have spent that much, could you? Could you?

You could.

For your delectation, ladies and gentlemen, the world's most expensive beer - c.£200 per bottle. Does it taste that much better (even than ordinary Carlsberg)? No. How could it? The taste isn't the point. The beer isn't the point. The point is that people will see you buying it. They will see you walk into that bar and spend £200 on something that, let's face it, isn't what you'd call a long-term investment, and they'll think, "Gosh, isn't that cool? Isn't he cool? What a neat guy." That, at least is the theory:

The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities. In the process of gradual amelioration which takes place in the articles of his consumption, the motive principle and the proximate aim of innovation is no doubt the higher efficiency of the improved and more elaborate products for personal comfort and well-being. But that does not remain the sole purpose of their consumption. The canon of reputability is at hand and seizes upon such innovations as are, according to its standard, fit to survive. Since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific; and conversely, the failure to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark of inferiority and demerit.

But for those you who are finding your native "Eat The Rich!" instincts inflamed by this sybaritic celebration of obscene wealth, let me urge you to counter anger with pity:

This cultivation of the aesthetic faculty requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure in a becoming way.

See, if you're doing it right, pissing money away is hard work.

It'll never catch on...

Global warming is taken sufficiently seriously now that, in the next few years, mankind's collective response to it will wreak some dramatic changes on our way of life. I thought I was prepared for the collective outpouring of sheer human ingenuity this entailed, but I never expected this. A ship, ladies and gentlemen, powered, if you can strain your credulity to breaking point, by the very wind itself.

I know. Tough to believe. Could it even work? Well doubt no more, my friends, because here is photographic proof:

It's not the principle...

The downside of the excessive Health and Safety legislation by which we're so regularly assured that this country is plagued is that we're not producing enough organ donors. Rather than banning lifeguards at swimming pools, the government's plan is to move from opt-in to opt-out and presume the consent of deceased.

No-one is arguing that this wouldn't work. Even moving to a "hard" opt-in scheme where next-of-kin couldn't override the donors wishes wouldn't produce the same increase in healthy donors that opt-out will, because people are lazy, procrastinate and don't really believe they could die next week. Like writing your will, or telling your wife that you love her*, filling in the organ donor form is one of those tedious tasks that somehow never quite gets done.

And yet, there is opposition (of course). It's a matter of principle, as Matthew D'Ancona points out:

"At the heart of this debate – understandably emotional on both sides – is a basic point of principle. Does everything, including our bodies, belong to the State unless otherwise indicated?"

Why is the heart of the debate the point of principle, and not the lives at stake? What's so great about following principles?

Now, don't get me wrong. The principle that we should limit State involvement in our lives is generally a good one, and there are lots of nice and juicy examples throughout history to tell us why. But that doesn't mean that we can mindlessly apply it to every situation, and congratulate ourselves on making the right decision. In this particular instance, the dilemma for those who want to apply the principle of minimal State interference is as follows:

Do the wrong thing: save 1,000 lives per year
Do the right thing: permit 1,000 preventable deaths.

So why is it so important to stick with the principle? Remember, we didn't find this principle carved in the living rock - we derived it by looking at what happened in other situations, where we saw that excessive State interference led to bad results. But those were other situations. In this situation, there are clearly good results to be had. What is the downside of laying aside the principle in this case? There seem to be two basic answers:

1) We should stick with the principle because State interference is bad. This is just a circular argument: it's good to follow the principle, because it's bad to not follow it. What, in this instance, is the downside of permitting State interference? Could it be that there isn't one, other than temporarily, and in specific circumstances, not following the principle?

2) If we abandon the principle now, it'll be harder to argue for it when we need it. This is just weak. If you can't make a case for, say, freedom of the press on its own merits, without needing to buttress your argument with reference to completely different issues, you might wonder how worthwhile the principle is. And again, your future ideological impregnability is coming at a price of 1,000 lives per year.

Principles are good and useful - while they lead us to good ends. The point at which they start leading us to bad ends is the point at which we should be asking just how universal they are.

*Note to my wife: this is a joke. Also, I love you.**
** Note to self: if you get run over tomorrow, this could just be unbearably tragic.

Silver lining

From the Saturday Guardian's Guide section:

"BBC4 presents proof that the Mesopotamian misadventure has at least brought out the best in film-makers"

It's early days, of course, but can 2008 produce a smugger, shallower or more solipsistic sentence?