Crap: A Guide to Politics - The Blog

An Excerpt from Chapter 7: Misleading Crap and an example from Gordon Brown

"So each pound of extra tax payable has already inhibited the division of labour, and thus reduced output by 67p, before the tax is received.  Even though government still receives its pound of flesh and spends it, the economy as a whole, including the tax-and-spend, has shrunk by 67p. (This excludes their 20% cut.) Similarly every pound of tax-relief produces a further 67p to the economy as a whole.  (These are my estimates; I suggest not incredible when one remembers that 100% total tax would lead to no division of labour at all!)

Please bear this in mind for all that follows.

The more that people catch on to this, the more desperate the politicos will get, which perhaps explains the fact that “misleading” gets closer and closer to out and out lying.  As politics gets bigger, so does its immorality and corruption." - From Chapter 7 of the book.

Gordon Brown gets plenty of coverage in my book, for his dodgy dossiers of statistics.  But at the 2006 conference I quoted him only once, and that was for his cheek (Chapter 5, Cheeky Crap).

“Let us remind the country that the NHS is our greatest achievement and I am proud that free at the point of use we can aspire to it being for all people the best and fairest insurance policy in the world”.

My retort (leave aside the grammar) was that we had been aspiring for over 50 years whilst the NHS slid down to one of the worst insurance policies in Europe.

This year, his speech of over 7,000 words provides enough crap for about three chapters, particularly Meaningless Crap, Misleading Crap, and Cheeky Crap.

A good example follows on from his Cheeky 2006 piece:

“They [the British People] know that when they have a medical emergency the NHS is there for them and at its best.  They tell me of their huge admiration for our doctors, our nurses, and our NHS staff….”

By this reckoning, Gordo, cancer is not an emergency, because survival rates are amongst the worst in Europe.  And in what sort of a Health Service would only a third of staff be happy to be treated in their own hospital – as was discovered by the Healthcare Commission only a couple of years ago.

More generally Gordon’s election speech was just a one-man advance auction of stolen goods* (Misleading Crap or worse).  Gifts from Santa are coming to the sick, carers, children, pensioners, couples (who I’m sure will love the promised “social housing”).   Who is left?   We all know who – taxpayers; the word tax is used only once in the speech (as is Iraq) whereas “I want” makes a dozen appearances.

Nice one, Gordo.

* From H L Mencken;  Elections are advance auctions of stolen goods

More crap from the Lib Dem conference

More Crap from the Lib Dem Conference, this time its leader Ming Campbell:

In Chapter 1 of the book (Newspeak Crap) our wordsmith gave us the following from the Lib Dems 2006 conference.

“Real liberalism means leading public opinion not following it”

(Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrats Conference 2006)

To which I responded that there was I, thinking that it was about letting people do their own thing.

There was plenty more, and his Newspeak is undimmed a year later in his “Leader’s Speech” at Brighton on 27th September 2007:

"Nearly sixty years ago that great Liberal William Beveridge identified ‘Five Giants’ which had to be tackled:

Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

The language is out of date but the challenges posed in the twenty-first century are every bit as compelling.

Having led the fight against the Five Giants, we Liberal Democrats should now lead the fight for Five Freedoms.

Opportunity, good health, personal security, prosperity for all and a clean environment.”

(Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrats Conference 2007)

Ignorance and Idleness – out of date?  Really?

More important, Ming, you would impose five obligations on taxpayers to provide five “freedoms” for others (who are often taxpayers as well – the pols love recycling us).  Tax Freedom Day, Mingy, came in June; up to that point we were working solely for you and your ilk – in fact probably until this month if you count regulations and other government depredations.  It’s called slavery, Ming.  And if you argue that we can all exercise our “freedom” to push off somewhere else, then you’d better hope we don’t, or you’ll see that you have caused enormous reductions in those five “freedoms” for the remainder, probably to third world levels.

The result of 60 years of the Farewell State industry is the entrenched poverty of its customers.  At least the aim of the great Victorian charities was to restore independence to recipients, ASAP.

Crap from the Lib Dem conference

The Party Conference season provides plenty of Crap from all the parties. Chapter Three of my book (Meaningless Crap) has a good example from Vince Cable, the Lib Dems Treasury spokesman, one year ago.

"[Globalization] brings great benefits but also has the capacity to tear societies apart. One of the reasons why we have adopted a more egalitarian tax policy is not that rich people are bad – indeed they are necessary for wealth creation – but that without some pooling of resources and risk we cease to exist as a society in any meaningful way."

(Dr Vince Cable, Liberal Democrats Conference 2006)

My retort was:  Meaningfully meaningless, then? What’s really going on here, Dr Cable? What are you a doctor of, by the way? I’m told you’re an economist but if you’re genuine you’ll be scrapping the minimum wage (see Chapter 6) and I see no sign of that. Anyway, good that you see the ‘need’ for rich people although I wouldn’t put it quite like that myself. But are you saying that the greedy and jealous may want to live off the back of other people – so you’re thieving from the rich to stop them being lynched, or what?

This year Vince is at it again, according to The Times of Sept 19th. This one veers more towards Ideological Crap (chapter 8) and One Rule For Them Crap (Ch 9)

“The rich and well-advised exploit loopholes and end up paying 10 per cent tax rather than 40 per cent. Non-domiciles taking advantage of offshore trusts avoid capital gains tax and people avoid stamp duty by registering their house as being owned by a company,” he said.  The only trouble is that in the same article The Times tells us that “The Liberal Democrats have been accused of hypocrisy after The Times discovered that the party’s biggest business donor is controlled by a company in an offshore tax haven.”  The day before, Vince had already disclosed hypocrisy over principle by telling us that “taxes on the very rich would be popular with voters”. That’s all right then; steal away.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems Education spokesman David Laws tells the conference that “You don’t improve schools just by changing the nameplates”. Of course not, David.

But what’s this, David, in the same speech?

"Just as the independent Bank of England brought stability and credibility to one aspect of economic policy, we should do the same for education.  So my second proposal today is that we consider establishing a fully independent Educational Standards Authority, to replace the Government controlled Qualifications and Curriculum Authority."

In other words, change the nameplates. Meaningless crap. A rose by any other name……
And as for Bank of England independence, who are you kidding, David?

And of course his “vision” is “the empowered citizen” not just “ the empowered local politician in the enabling state”. Because “Choice is not a dirty word: it is one of the essential freedoms in a liberal society”

Sounds just like Cameron on the NHS, doesn’t it? Choice, of course, does not extend to giving you your money back, or even a voucher,  to spend on the school of your choice, as they do in Denmark, Holland, and even Chile – you know, those socialist or otherwise authoritarian places.

Anything that involves more tax is great for the pols. Concentrate on the benefits (??) to the recipients and ignore the losses to the taxed – Misleading Crap. So Laws goes for “more quality early years education” (funded by tax of course) even though as I say in my book, there is plenty of evidence that the highest reading levels at age 9 are associated with a school starting age of 7. Keep your kids out of the hands of the State for as long as you can, I say.

Author Biography

Terry Arthur was educated at West Hartlepool Grammar School, Manchester University and Cambridge University.  He qualified as an Actuary in 1966 and became well known and highly regarded in both the profession and the world of institutional investment consultancy – despite successfully publishing the first edition of this book in 1975 under the irreverent title of  “95 per cent is Crap; a Plain Man’s Guide to British Politics”!

Nowadays he concentrates on a handful of non-executive positions, alongside writing for various organs.  A keen sportsman, he won a blue at rugby in 1962, and played for England in 1966.  He reads a lot and with his wife travels, sees their children and grandchildren, and plays golf and bridge.

Contents and Introduction

Contents

Foreword vi

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

1 Newspeak Crap 4
2 Contradictory Crap 16
3 Meaningless Crap 25
4 Statistical Crap 37
5 Cheeky Crap 50
6 Illogical Crap 64
7 Misleading Crap 79
8 Ideological Crap 93
9 One Rule for Them Crap 108
10 Fashionable Crap 120
11 Economic Crap 137
12 Prolific Crap 153

Conclusion 170

Index of Names 171

Subject Index 175

Introduction

No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe when the legislature is in session.
(Mark Twain)

The impetus for the original edition of this book (95 per cent is Crap: A Plain Man’s Guide to British Politics) was twofold. Firstly I discovered in the early 1970s that a particular objective (to do with Trade Unions as I recall) was easily achievable by repealing a previous Act of Parliament whereas in fact a new Act was piled on top of the old one. Silly, but great for the political class. Secondly I read all the manifestos for both of the 1974 general elections and was appalled by the extent of the crap – explicable only by large dollops of both stupidity and vested interests. I did not vote in either election and have not voted since. A cop out? No, because whatever I do it has no chance whatsoever of affecting the result, so why say yes when you mean no?

Unrestrained voting for unrestrained government always ends in tears; it can never be better than the divine right of majorities and in practice becomes the divine right of Big Government – whoever you vote for, Big Government gets in. Some will veer slightly towards more warfare, others towards more (so-called) welfare. In other words we’ll get statism in any case. The last hundred years has seen government spending (as a proportion of output) multiply by ten, to 50 per cent. One thing is certain; a repeat performance is impossible.

As I hope will become clear, we have fallen for a Left versus Right hoax. Warfare and Welfare are two sides of a coin called Bigness and indeed are friends not enemies. (I hope that, too, will become clear. Basically Welfare leads to protectionism rather than free trade, and if goods don’t cross borders armies will, while Warfare brings a bigger and more intrusive role for government that is never relinquished thereafter.)

This book is a plea against both, in favour of Top versus Bottom where Top is small and Bottom is big. As Lord Acton said, power corrupts, and the damage caused by Big Government is enormous. Every opportunity should be taken to give discredit where discredit is due – which is most of the time. Big Government is bad for everybody – except for the political class, referred to in this book as politicos. Three short appendices cover slightly more technical issues, respectively on global warming (Chapter 6), a vital but little-discussed drawback of ‘public sector’ entities (Chapter 8), and monopoly (Chapter 11).

Thank you for reading this book and I hope that you laugh a lot – until you cry.

The underlying approach remains true to the first edition (1975) – direct quotations with appropriate remarks, split into chapters according to the nature of the crap rather than the subject matter. The sources are similar too – Party Manifestos and Conferences plus news and comments picked up mainly from one newspaper, this time The Times instead of the Guardian. Both have strong statist leanings but The Times is more in tune with today’s BGC – Big Government Conservatism.

This time I have occasionally peeped over the waters – particularly westward to the USA (the home of BGC) and the United Nations, and sometimes eastward to the European Union. A new chapter is also required for this edition, namely ‘One Rule for Them’ – an offshoot of Cheeky Crap, whereby the politicos are blatant about the double standards between Them and Us. To keep the book fairly compact, something has had to give, namely two chapters and a few organisations. Yes and No Crap and Useless Crap could fill many books but, like the politicos  themselves, are essentially hot air. For example, in the first edition of this book we had Ted Heath telling us that his government will take ‘whatever action is necessary’ to do a host of things including conserving the nation’s energy supplies; we now have Home Secretary John Reid telling us (in the Sunday Telegraph, 21 January 2007) that he will do exactly the same thing to resolve the mess that is the Home Office.

Looking at the minority parties, the British National Party and the Greens are strikingly similar, essentially fascist anti-trade home-grown foodies – the fastest way to join the third world. (The only good thing about the Green Party is its research document showing that the Lib Dems did not oppose the Iraq War.1) Communism was founded on ignorance and hasn’t changed. UKIP is a self-confessed single issue party. (To anybody who wants smaller government, leaving the European Union is a no-brainer, but this book isn’t about single-issue politics.)

The TUC and CBI, once proud corporatists regularly supping in Downing Street and governing by nods and winks and hints, have been sensibly sidelined; unfortunately corporatism (an alliance of Big Government and Big Business) hasn’t. Instead, specific legislation and regulation, promoted as often as not by Big Business aiming to exclude competition by law, and governed by state regulators often masquerading as consumer champions, is the order of the day. It’s ironic to think that Dr Gertrude Kelly, born in 1862 and one of the earliest feminists in the United States, considered the free market to be a cure for capitalism – by which she meant corporatism.

Are you ready? Then let’s go.

Foreword

Perhaps we live in such a depressing political system these days because all politicians seem to agree with each other: and in agreeing with each other they all speak the same language, of crap. Mr Arthur’s book brilliantly exposes not just the ludicrous and often meaningless way in which so many of our rulers speak, but also, in doing so, he reveals the confidence trick that is being played upon all of us. What characterizes so much politics these days is the utter absence of principle with which it is conducted. We live, for worse, in the era of the career politician. Soon it will be the exception rather than the rule to have ministers whose life has not taken the following path: PPE at Oxford (or something distressingly similar), then work as a special adviser, spin doctor or researcher, then the backbenches, then office. The question is not just how such people can possibly be acquainted with the realities of the people over whom they rule; it is how, with such an upbringing, they could have ever have hoped to speak a language the rest of us could understand, let alone take seriously.

Mr Arthur has presented us with a user’s manual to politicians. Anyone who reads it will not merely laugh out loud, but will be armed against all future attempts by the political class to lie, obfuscate and prevaricate. To this end some philanthropist should pay for a copy to be sent into every household in the land. However, there is an even more serious point. The continuous theme of this excellent little book is about the evils of the state, and of the importance of keeping politicians out of our lives as far as possible. Time and again their destructiveness, but also their sheer incomprehension and incompetence, are demonstrated: and we are their victims. Nor is this a party political point. They are all at it. Socialists, of course – that is their raison d’être – but also so-called liberals and, of course, in the era of the blessed Dave, so-called Conservatives.

This book holds lessons for us all. It is a further pointer to the fact that we need to get tougher with our politicians, and to abjure them for the way in which they patronise us and insult our intelligence. They have got away with it for too long. We are not a bovine people (or worse, an ovine one) to be herded about obediently by people who are, in fact, our intellectual and moral inferiors.  This book opens a new front against these self-aggrandising, destructive and too often maleficent people. May it not be the last.

Simon Heffer – Associate Editor, the Daily Telegraph

Press Release

CRAP:  A GUIDE TO POLITICS
Terry Arthur

Sept 2007 - PB 978 08264 91398 - £9.99

• The first edition, self-published in the 1970s, struck a chord with the British public and was extremely successful.
• This completely new edition covers not only our current political leaders but also material on George W Bush, the war in Iraq, the European Commission and the UN.
• An essential read for everyone who has ever questioned the purpose of bureaucrats and politicians.  Accessibly and humorously written, this book has bite!

“Behind the jokey title and the lively, entertaining style, Terry Arthur has produced a devastating exposé of the intellectual confusion, political deception and economic ignorance that have come to dominate public pronouncements. His precision of thought, clarity of language and lightly-worn scholarship have resulted in a book that would have won the warm approval of George Orwell.” - Sir Antony Jay, co-author of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister

“Mr Arthur has presented us with a user's manual to politicians. Anyone who reads it will not merely laugh out loud, but will be armed against all future attempts by the political class to lie, obfuscate and prevaricate. To this end some philanthropist should pay for a copy to be sent into every household in the land.” - Simon Heffer, Associate Editor, Daily Telegraph 

Taking its inspiration from Terry Arthur’s thirty year-old classic 95 per cent is Crap: A Plain Man’s Guide to British Politics, this is a down-to-earth exposé of the crap still being peddled by leading politicians today. Humorously but devastatingly written, Arthur exposes twelve very different sorts of political nonsense. Irreverent yet brilliant, this guide is essential reading for everyone who is sick of spin.

Terry Arthur is an actuary holding several non-executive positions. He writes regularly for the broadsheet press and various journals. A keen sportsman, he played rugby for England in 1966.
Praise for the 1975 edition:
“A splendid book – amusing, disturbing and profound.” - Milton Friedman

“Mr Arthur has seen and measured the tip of an iceberg which, amazing though it may seem, most of the other passengers still have not noticed – and he has done so with accuracy and humour.” - Arianna Stassinopolous, The Spectator

Key Dates: Book launch hosted by the IEA on Thursday 11th October, 6:30 pm

Send all interview and review copy requests to Sarah Patel, 
T: 020 7922 0938, E: spatel@continuumbooks.com