The road back to Kampala

Alfie Pearce-Higgins has a useful Critic piece on the contagious nature of lawlessness. He uses the ease with which road vehicle laws are evaded to make his point.


Lawlessness is contagious

Enabling the lawless and pursuing the law-abiding will result in mass non-compliance

For several years I helped to build SafeBoda — a motorbike taxi company in Kampala, Uganda. Our aim was to make the roads safe, or at least safer, by improving compliance with traffic laws. One of our most telling findings was that stopping at traffic lights was contagious: if the first two or three motorbikes arriving at a red light stop, others are much more likely to follow suit and hold the line. As soon as one breaks ranks and speeds off, others will follow. This is a lesson that appears to be becoming increasingly relevant both for our roads and our society as a whole.

A parliamentary enquiry recently heard that as many as one vehicle in fifteen on our roads may now be carrying a “ghost plate”. Some are cloned: a driver simply buys a copy of someone else’s registration. The unsuspecting owner of the original then receives a stream of parking and speeding fines and has to prove a negative. More common still are plates that are deliberately unreadable, treated with coatings or fonts that make them invisible to most traffic cameras. Trials of new cameras capable of detecting them logged thousands of offenders a day.


The contagious nature of human behaviour may be familiar, but the whole piece is well worth reading as another aspect of political and official incompetence in the UK.


The inevitable result is mass non-compliance. Having worked in economic development across sub-Saharan Africa I have seen the challenges of a low trust society: an economy weighed down by high security costs, uninsurable risks and uncertain contract enforcement while the government passes endless rules that never become anything more than words on a page. Through our aid budgets we have spent decades and billions of pounds trying, and largely failing, to understand how one builds a higher trust society. What we do know is how to destroy one. Unless laws are visibly enforced and everyone can see they are being treated alike, we are on the road back to Kampala.

Let's unleash our talents

  

British households would be £5,000 richer if we were more innovative. Let's unleash our talents

The coming 10 years are almost certain to be the decade that sees the greatest scientific breakthroughs in a century. The question is whether advances now under way in AI, quantum computing and biology can address cancer, find ways to treat or prevent dementia, and overcome the growing resistance to antibiotics. Can we find sustainable ways to address our energy needs and protect the environment at the same time? Can AI transform the way we deliver education, health and social care to the benefit of millions, as well as advance modern manufacturing strength? And what role can Britain’s inventors, investors and industrialists play in developing these transformative technologies?..

But it is disappointing that only 36% of the British public believes the country is a world leader in science. It is time for innovation to move to the forefront of government policy and the 10-year plan the government is preparing. If we were to raise Britain to Swedish or Japanese levels of innovation intensity we would, over time, leave every household £5,000 better off (according to my calculations)*, and increase our national income by £150bn a year as higher investment in research and development feeds through into productivity. And a jobs plan on the scale that Our Scottish Future has proposed for Scotland would mean about 3m new jobs across the UK.

*My underlining - the piece was written by Gordon Brown.

  

The Charity Business

The National Trust's first-ever indoor furniture collection is here – 7 timeless pieces for a charming country home

The National Trust knows a thing or two about a well-appointed room. Whether that's timeworn kitchen dressers or sideboards that have witnessed a century (or two) of polished silver and proper puddings, its properties are rich with design details worth borrowing.

Now, the charity has partnered with The Cotswold Company on a new heritage-inspired furniture collection that puts all that generational know-how to good use.


As we have the highest authority for assuming that charity covers a multitude of sins, we can hardly be surprised that it should be so generally used for that purpose.

F. Marion Crawford - The Primadonna (1908)

The insidious modern disease of tolerance

Governing establishments have always manipulated tolerance within the general population, particularly tolerance which fails to distinguish between better and worse for ordinary citizens.

Today we might add politically-promoted tolerance which fails to distinguish between better and worse for voters. Or tolerance which fails to distinguish between better and worse for political norms in a healthy democracy.

It isn't a new problem. For example, this D.H. Lawrence quote about two of his fictional characters, Kate and Owen touring post-revolutionary Mexico.


Kate sat trying to sew, but her hand trembled. She could not get the bull-ring out of her mind, and something felt damaged in her inside.

She straightened herself, and sighed. She was really very angry, too, with Owen. He was naturally so sensitive, and so kind. But he had the insidious modern disease of tolerance. He must tolerate everything, even a thing that revolted him. He would call it Life! He would feel he had lived this afternoon. Greedy even for the most sordid sensations.

Whereas she felt as if she had eaten something which was giving her ptomaine poisoning. If that was life!

D.H. Lawrence – The Plumed Serpent (1926)


Kate is disgusted by the bull fight, the behaviour of the crowd and contemptuous of the posturing matadors but her anger isn’t about bull fights. She is angry with Owen’s acceptance of it all and his supine adoption of the insidious modern disease of tolerance. A century later we have come to know it too well.

The media myth of the Badenoch bounce

Niall Gooch has a useful Critic piece on the media circus surrounding UK politics and Conservative attempts to boost voter approval of Kemi Badenoch. 


The media myth of the Badenoch bounce

Kemi Badenoch has had stronger performances but Conservative triumphalism is premature

In Britain, the traditional media’s coverage of politics relies heavily on an endless merry-go-round of stock stories — the wacky rigmarole, as it is sometimes derisively referred to online. There is the “gaffe”, so-called, when a politician tells the truth at a place or time they were not meant to. There is good old-fashioned sleaze, usually financial. Sexual misadventures at Westminster used to be a tabloid favourite, but such reports are becoming rarer, due to changing social attitudes and the various shots fired across the bows of a free press by a censorious establishment. Backbench plots against party leaders, real or imagined, keep the circus rolling on for a few news cycles, as do rumours about chaotic scenes in 10 Downing Street or yet another round of shady briefings about some minister’s inability to manage their civil service underlings.

Then of course we have the “bounce”, i.e. a putative increase in popularity for some individual or their party, usually said to have followed a change of leadership or a big speech or some exciting new announcement, or even a series of strong performances in the House of Commons.

The whole piece is well worth reading as the embarrassing shabbiness of UK politics seems to have become a feature rather than a temporary difficulty.

It is quite possible, given the volatility of the British political scene, that in a year or two’s time the Tories will be recovering strongly in the polls. The Burnham honeymoon will be over by the spring, with a looming fuel crisis, high energy costs, and very little fiscal headroom for the government. But the Tories being the beneficiary of Labour’s looming troubles is far from guaranteed. They are still viewed with suspicion and hostility by great swathes of the electorate, not least on the right. Despite the leadership’s big talk about lessons learned, and their robust rhetoric on key issues like national identity and crime, there remains an influential liberal faction within the party, which will attempt to derail any serious attempt to unpick the Blairite settlement by, for example, repeal of the Equality Act or the Human Rights Act. Badenoch can talk a good game and build a strong personal brand, but talk of a bounce is misleading at best given that, if an election were called tomorrow, the Tories would struggle to hold on to their historically low tally of 118 seats.

Report finds that a disturbing number of scientists may not be incompetent

Scientists who put faith in technology less likely to take climate action

‘Techno-optimism’ may lead to reliance on unproven solutions at expense of societal changes needed

Scientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by the climate crisis are less likely to engage in civic action on the issue, according to a study.

The report from the London School of Economics found they are 23% less likely to sign petitions or take part in protests than peers who doubt that technology is the answer. They are also 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes, from reducing flights to changing to a vegan or vegetarian diet...

The study surveyed more than 9,000 scientists across 115 countries. Overall 27% said they agreed with the statement “technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change” and 44% disagreed (29% neither agreed nor disagreed).


“Listen, Stavrogin. To level the mountains is a fine idea, not an absurd one. I am for Shigalov. Down with culture. We’ve had enough science! Without science we have material enough to go on for a thousand years, but one must have discipline. The one thing wanting in the world is discipline. The thirst for culture is an aristocratic thirst. The moment you have family ties or love you get the desire for property. We will destroy that desire; we’ll make use of drunkenness, slander, spying; we’ll make use of incredible corruption; we’ll stifle every genius in its infancy. We’ll reduce all to a common denominator! Complete equality!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Demons (1871-72)

Almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy

Robert Bradley Jr has an interesting MasterResource piece on Bill McKibben's desperate efforts to preserve the purity of decarbonization doctrine in the US. 

Worth reading, especially as Ed Miliband has been side-lined here in the UK.


‘Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future’ (trade group under fire)

“Bill McKibben is desperate. Instead of accepting reality, he continues his magical thinking of wind and solar dominance. But as James Hansen, the father of the alarm, stated: ‘Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy’.”

It’s an old story in the futile, wasteful decarbonization effort. Should natural gas be part of the solution, displacing diesel oil and coal in home heating and power generation? Or should natural gas be condemned as a “fossil fuel” just like oil and coal. Enter Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, a trade/lobbying group espousing “Our Path to a Clean Energy Future.”

Their tag line reads: “Climate progress, along with energy affordability and reliability, starts with renewables and natural gas working together.” But the climate activists want little to do with this pitch...

The dash-to-gas is on despite the gas turbine shortage from the misdirection of production of industrial wind turbines. Bill McKibben is desperate. Instead of accepting reality, he continues his magical thinking of wind and solar dominance. But as James Hansen, the father of the alarm, stated:

Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.