A must-read

10:49pm

Since I've broken my promise not to blog, I might as well ignore it. So I'll take this opportunity to tell you about a book I've read this week, truly one of the most riveting and accomplished books I've come across in ages.

It's 'Sex, Science and Profits - how people evolved to make money' by Prof Terence Kealey. I can't remember being so engrossed in a book for a long while. The sweep is fantastic - he goes through all human history and discusses what lies behind economic growth and entrepreneurialism. The fundamental premise of the book is that the Baconian theory of science is wrong: 'pure' scientific breakthroughs are not best achieved through state funding, and pure science does not lead to practical technological advances which make money, rather it is the reverse. Practical advances tend to be incorporated into pure science.

I don't agree with everything he writes - he is decidedly against patents - but I cannot recommend the book too highly, not least for the magisterial way in which he dismisses the ever-present pleas (more like demands) for government funding of science and research.

Really, this is a book which simply has to be read by anyone with an interest in the pursuit of knowledge and economic growth.

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Who'd have guessed it?

11:38pm

I promised myself I wouldn't post while I'm on holiday.

But I've just seen the news about the Terminal Five chaos. And I couldn't stop myself reaching for the Blackberry.

Does anything work in Britain? Ever?

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Back in a bit

1:49pm

Posting will be very light over the next fortnight as I'm on my travels.

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Tee hee

12:16pm

A wonderful piece of research by Cameron's people. At PMQ's he's just revealed that the favourite book of David Muir, newly recruited to No10, is The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organisations.

Cue much hilarity.

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Compelling but plain wrong

4:22pm

No doubt there is a legal reason why I am wrong, but having read the full judgement in the Mills/McCartney divorce, it seems to me that however awful Heather Mills might be, she has a pretty convincing argument that it should not be made public.

First off, the judge is damning in his appraisal of her:

Having watched and listened to her give evidence, having studied the documents, and having given in her favour every allowance for the enormous strain she must have been under (and in conducting her own case) I am driven to the conclusion that much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid. Overall she was a less than impressive witness.

He then goes on to demolish her claims about her success and wealth. And it is, I have to admit, pretty engrossing reading someone's probity and stories being taken apart by a judge

But should it be? Why should I, or anyone else, be allowed to read the intimate details of their marriage and their wealth, simply because they are divorcing? And why must their addresses be published? Isn't that plain wrong? It's a private matter. It ought to stay that way.

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Sir Malcom Rifkind's sick irony

1:21pm

I choked on my metaphorical cornflakes this morning when I heard Sir Malcolm Rifkind on the Today programme attacking Gordon Brown for not meeting the Dalai Lama.

Of course Mr Brown should. That, surely, all of us can agree on.

But to hear Sir Malcolm sounding forth on the need for 'values' and taking Mr Brown to task for not following through on an ethical foreign policy is a pretty sick irony. Sir Malcolm and Lord Hurd made for a disgusting double act in office. As Nick Cohen writes, in a review of Brendan Simms' superb Unfinest Hour: How Britain Helped to Destroy Bosnia:

The conviction that Britain had a superior knowledge of the futility of reforming a wicked world pushed Whitehall into a kind of madness. Only the possession of an unhinged mind can explain how Malcolm Rifkind, a Defence Secretary who had never seen combat, could bellow 'you Americans don't know the horrors of war' at Senator Bob Dole, who lost an arm in World War II. 'Your guys were usually so refined,' an American diplomat said of the Washington Embassy. 'But they were going crazy on this.'

Rifkind's ravings - Senator John McCain came close to slapping him at one meeting - will surprise readers in a Britain where snobbery gives an unwarranted benefit of the doubt to patrician conservatives.

The politicians who dealt with Bosnia were gentlemen of moderate temperament; sophisticates with breeding and manners, who were a cut above the rabble-rousing Thatcherites. Yet Hurd out-Thatchered Thatcher, who honourably opposed Serb aggression, when he declared that 'there is no such thing as the international community'.

He then sank to a depth I can't remember Thatch reaching when he effectively closed Britain's borders to Bosnian refugees. 'The civilians have an effect on the combatants,' he explained. 'Their interests put pressure on the warring factions to treat for peace.' You have to read this disgraceful passage several times before you realize that Hurd was denying sanctuary to the victims of the Serbs (and of his diplomacy) so he could use their misery to force Bosnia to cut a deal with the ethnic cleansers.

There are many reasons to be glad that John Major lost office in 1997. But his government's record in the Balkans stands at the top. There are even more reasons to rejoice that Lord Hurd, who managed the remarkable double whammy of being a disgraceful Home Secretary and a contemptible Foreign Secretary, is now a figure from the past and Sir Malcolm a worthless bankbencher.

UPDATE: It's only fair for me to flag up the comment which Sir Malcolm has left below, in which he says that Brendan Simms' story is nonsense. 

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What's behind the sudden poll shift?

12:44pm

Daniel Finkelstein highlights the recent, staggering - at least at first glance - shift in the polls. He mentions Tim Hames' theory:

Last week was the first time where the R word (recession) became real to people - they realised that the UK economy was in trouble and that no one official was attempting to deny it. This changed the atmosphere.

I'm sure this is right. It reminds me of my time at the Fabians when, after the Tories' 1992 victory, the polls started to shift dramatically to Labour. The John Smith strategy was to say and do nothing; with the shift in the polls, the argument went, the next election was Labour's to lose so it should keep shtum lest it frighten the horses. Even more deluded was the Smith line that the polls actually reflected his and Labour's popularity.

We pointed out that this was nonsense - the polls were nothing more than a reaction to the economic news. (UPDATE: As a commenter points out, this includes Black Wednesday.) We published an article by Nick Raynsford ('Sleepwalking to oblivion') which argued that saying and doing nothing was a catastrophically stupid strategy. Major had campaigned on the theme of voting Conservative for prosperity. The economic figures more or less immediately after the election showed this was quite wrong. And when the reality of recession hit home, the polls swung. Labour had almost nothing to do with the change in the polls.

In June 1994, Labour was already on 47.9 per cent, and the Tories on 24.9%. Blair realised that the lead was built on sand and took the necessary steps to cement it.

We will never know this, but I am certain that had John Smith remained leader, the economic recovery would have been reflected in a collapse in Labour's poll leads.

Tne issue now is whether a Tory lead again based, as Tim Hames' theory has it, on the reality of recession, is a peak for the party or is able to be turned by Mr Cameron into a foundation.

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Mills and McCartney

4:33pm

I couldn't agree more with Daniel Finkelstein:

But I just have to ask - why does Heather Mills get £24 million for being married to McCartney for four years?

Did she play a role in making the money? No, he earned his fortune before he met her.

Did she sacrifice her earnings or earning power while standin' by her man? No, she is certainly more marketable now than before she met McCartney. And any deterioration that has taken place in the last year has been as a result of her behaviour since the divorce.

Does she need £600,000 a year? No, nobody needs £600,000 a year. There might have been a case of her having become accustomed to it during their marriage, except for this - she was only married to him for a very short time.

Isn't it for the child? There is a separate sum - £35,000 plus nanny and school fees - for the child.

The question has nothing to do with Ms Mills seeming to be a spectacularly unpleasant woman. Even if she had been a veritable saint, it seems ridiculous that she - or anyone else - should be handed such a sum for four years of marriage to a man whose success and fortune had nothing whatsoever to do with their marriage.

One might suggest that it is Sir Paul who deserved compensation for four years of marriage to Heather Mills. But that would be ungallant, so best not.

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Between Ken Livingstone and a clown, it's no contest (The Times)

6:46am

I have a piece in today's Times on the London mayoral election. This is the gist of it: 

Four years ago I committed the only political act of which I am thoroughly ashamed. I shudder with self-loathing when I look back at how blinkered and wrongheaded I was. I voted for Ken Livingstone to remain Mayor of London.

...So when I read David Aaronovitch in The Times last week, the full horror of my actions came flooding back. “Ken,” he wrote, “wrong on all the things that don’t matter in a London mayor, has been right on almost all the things that do.” The mayor, he concluded, should be re-elected on May 1.

...Four years ago I decided that there was one overriding issue in the election: the congestion charge. Steve Norris opposed it. Ken Livingstone had introduced it. QED, as a supporter of the charge and of the mayor’s emphasis on renewing public transport, I should vote for Ken.

How could I have been so blinkered? It’s obvious to me now, after four more years of Ken Livingstone, that such a calculation is positively idiotic. The things that you say don’t matter in a London mayor – such as the invitations to the Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who supports suicide bombing and the stoning of homosexuals; the hero-worshipping of tyrants such as Fidel Castro; the shady deals with Hugo Chávez; the smear campaigns against opponents such as Trevor Phillips; and the City Hall fiefdom of incompetents and leeches on the taxpayer – do matter. A lot. They go to the heart of what it means to be mayor of a cosmopolitan, vibrant city.

...A vote for Ken is not simply a vote for better transport. It is, and can only be, an endorsement of Ken Livingstone in all his guises.

In choosing a buffoon such as Boris Johnson as its candidate, the Conservative Party has revealed its own contempt for the electorate. But like it or not, the next mayor will be one of these two. And the idea of re-electing a man who defends clerics who want to stone homosexuals surely means that there is only one option.

 

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Ken or Bertrand?

7:03pm

The mayors of Paris and London have at least one thing in common: they are up for re-election.

One thing they do not share, however, is their view of Israel.

Last week, one of them described the creation of Israel as an "accomplished miracle". He went on:

The creation...certifies that in spite of everything, right and freedom remain accessible to will. It is in order to pay tribute to this accomplished miracle that we gave the name of Theodor Herzl, who inspired the state of Israel, to a square in [.....]

Which mayor do you think it was?

Not exactly a brain teaser. The aquare named in honour of Theodor Herzl is in Paris.

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