Chris Whiteside's Blog

"Conservatives shouldn't sit side by side with autocrats" (Paul Goodman, former MP and now executive editor of Conservative Home, in an article here published yesterday on why Conservative MPs should break ranks with Putin's party in the Council of Europe.)

Before he became prime minister David Cameron once said that "too many tweets make a twit" (or something similar). So many people use Twitter now that I have found it an interesting means to look out for stories, indeed, for me it has overtaken Political Betting as my principle means to check what political stories people on the web are discussing. However, the very short length allowed for the messages, and the chatty and immediate style makes it very easy for people to make a fool of themselves, especially of you don't realise what sort of audience may see what you post. Yesterday I had an indication of how what you write may spread where you don't expect. I was tweeting about Labour's #Costacoffeecrisis, previously covered on this blog, and mentioned that my nearest Waitrose is 77 miles away. It happens to be in Hexham, so I included the fact. I did not write anything derogatory about Hexham - I've never had a chance to stop there but from what I...

"Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, the Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more." (Thomas Sowell) For the avoidance of doubt, Sowell was not endorsing that course of action, and nor am I. Actually I suspect that in the majority of circumstances John Maynard Keynes would not support that kind of "Keynesianism" either, but some of his acolytes have not merely supported it but implemented it.

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we havn't taxed enough: we have a trillion dollar debt because we spend too much." (Ronald Reagan)

The Spectator magazine reports here  that Labour's shadow communities minister Andy Sawford has written to every MP with a local Waitrose asking them to campaign against the offer by Waitrose of free coffee to members of their myWaitrose loyalty scheme, something many people didn’t know about until Labour helpfully pointed it out. My nearest Waitrose is in the Hexham area, some 77 miles away, or I would be tempted to join the scheme. Labour's argument is that a few cups of free coffee will supposedly destroy the British High street. With the country still stuggling to start clearing the mountain of debt they left us when last in power, huge challenges facing the NHS, large chunks of the country suffering from flooding, relations with Russia going to hell in a handcart thanks to the situation in Ukraine which has the potential to turn very nasty, have Labour really nothing more important to complain about than a few cups of free coffee. I don't even ...

"The government was set to protect man from criminals - and the constitution was written to protect man from the government." (Ayn Rand)

"For the next three or four years, Germany and the UK look like being the main drivers of the EU economy. That is not a boast, it is an observation ." (Hamish MacRae, veteran economic commentator, writing in the Independent/I)

In the past few weeks as we watch the bewildering pace of change in the Ukraine, I have been left hoping that it works out better for them than some recent revolutions have - although this one appears to be far better founded in a wish to respect the ballot box than some recent unheavals such as those in say, Egypt. The destiny of Ukraine is for the people of Ukraine to decide and there is not a great deal which the UK can or should do about it, though that has not stopped a range of people putting forward all sorts of different and contradictory criticisms of the UK government. I stopped reading one egregiously silly critique which suggested that Tory Euroscepticism was hampering Britain from adopting an effective policy on Ukraine when I reached the point where the writer suggested that almost any policy which annoyed Vladimir Putin was a good thing. Now I have all manner of serious concerns about President Putin, but the idea of deliberately annoying him for the sake of it...

Hamish McRea, who has been an economics correspondent at various newspapers since I was a sixth former, has a good piece in yesterday's Independent and "i" about Britain and Germany. He points out that for various reasons Britain and Germany are both doing a lot better economically than the rest of Europe, analyses the two countries' different strengths and suggests that both could benefit by learning from the other. He also explains why it is vital for both Britain and Germany to foster economic reform in the EU and other European countries, that the two countries have a lot in common, and it is very important to both that we work together. The "i" version is called  "It's no good glowering at Germany " and the Independent version has the wordier title " Angela Merkel will be welcomed with full honours tomorrow and for good reason: our two countries need each other." You can read the full article here .

"I owe all my success in life to always having been a quarter of an hour beforehand." (Horatio Nelson)

"Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon." (Horatio Nelson)

I was flabbergasted by the two-inch high banner headline in the News and Star today which said that no fewer than 40 officers of Cumbria constabulary had been arrested. But when you actually read the article, it turned out to be saying that 44 arrests of police officers and support staff had been made by their colleagues over the four and a half year period from January 2008 to June 2013. As there are about 1,100 police officers and 650 support staff in Cumbria Constabulary this represents an arrest rate of about half a percent per annum, and the rule that a person is innocent until proven guilty then applies - most of these arrests did not result in convictions or cautions. The chairman of the local branch of the Police Federation put it very well when he said "The public needs to know that complaints against police officers will be dealt with in the same way and with the same vigour as they would be with anyone else."

“ The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.” (Senator Daniel Moynihan)

I respect the views of those on both sides of the debate in Cumbria about whether the element of council tax which goes to fund the Police should have been increased. I have always wanted to see council tax kept as low as possible. But I also want to see the police service in our county properly resourced. What I find surprising is that nobody has mentioned the context - e.g. the current rate of inflation. The Police and Crime Commissioner, after considerable discussion with the Police and Crime Panel, has decided to proceed with an increase of 1.93% in the Cumbria Constabulary element of the council tax. The current rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index is 1.9% In other words the increase is pretty much in line with the rate of inflation. It does not represent a material change in real terms.

“I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern." ( C.S. Lewis , Preface to The Screwtape Letters)

"In a democracy, you believe it or not. In a dictatorship, you believe it or else." ( Evan Esar )

I have been watching in horror as the events in Ukraine have unfolded over the past few weeks and particularly last week. However, with the vote by parliament to sack the President it looks - please God - as though something may come out of it which means that those who were murdered in the carnage of the last few weeks did not die in vain. Predictably the opponents of the move have called it a coup, but unlike the situation in Egypt, it appears quite different. For one thing, this was based around a vote in parliament, not a move by generals and troops. For a second, one of the first things those who were voting for regime change did was set an early and specific date for new elections. That doesn't sound like a coup to me. I don't see why a more democratic Ukraine cannot be friends and trading partners with both the EU countries and with Russia. It seems to me that for Ukraine to be a bridge between Russia and Europe is far more in the interests of the people...

“It has always struck me that one of the readiest ways of estimating a country's regard for law is to notice what arms the officers of the law are carrying: in England it is little batons, in France swords, in many countries revolvers, and in Russia the police used to have artillery.” (Lord Dunsany)

I was interested to see that Nick Clegg has challenged Nigel Farage to a debate on Europe and that the UKIP leader has accepted. I tend to think public debates are in the interests of democracy provided fair arrangements can be made for the major points of view to be covered. Given that we are in the run-up to a European election, I think it would be better if all four of the major party leaders could take part in any such debate.

"The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happpens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing which I will really be proud of will be if some of the work I have done is still cited in the textbooks long after I am gone." ( Milton Friedman )

The Bank of England has upgraded their forecast for 2014 UK economic growth from 2.8 percent to 3.4 per cent. Despite this, and yesterday's good news on inflation and unemployment, chancellor George Osborne has warned that the job is not finished and the recovery not yet secure. "We have to go on dealing with our debt and our deficit - and we have no choice but to do so" he said. "We cannot rely on consumers alone for our economic growth as we did in previous decades. And we cannot put all our chips on the success of the City of London as my predecessors did." He added that his forthcoming budget would be a budget for growth and investment and to help businesses to export.

Still much to do, but further good news on the economy this week with both inflation and unemployment down. The office for National Statistics has confirmed that UK unemployment has fallen by 125,000 to 2.34 million in the quarter to December 2013 and now stands at 7.2%, while the rate of inflation as measured by CPI has fallen to 1.9%, hitting the Bank of England's 2% target for the first time in four years. Because the unemployment rate fluctuates from month to month, the unemployment figures are usually calculated on the basis of a three month average. The fall of 125,000 is the drop between the average during the three months to September and that during the three months to December. More women are in work - just over 14 million - than at any time since records began, the total number in work rose by 193,000 between September and December, and the number of people claiming unemployment benefit dropped for the fifteenth consecutive month. Youth and long-term unemployment...

“The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”   ( Milton Friedman  )

Today is my wedding anniversary. Fourteen years ago today, at our wedding reception, I sang my new wife Brigid the song "Where'er you walk" from Handel's opera "Semele." By an amazing coincidence, when Brigid switched on the TV this evening, she happened to notice that one of the channels was broadcasting an Opera, and asked me what it was. After a few seconds I realised that it was in fact Semele - and a few minutes later we were able to listen to "Where'er you walk." I don't know how many thousands to one the odds against that were, but we both enjoyed the song and it was a lovely reminder of our special day.

Let me make quite clear than in my opinion the balance of evidence supports the view that human activity is contributing to climate change and that preponderance of evidence is more than enough to justify restricting carbon emissions and those of other greenhouse gases. That does not stop me being horrified at the suggestion from the Green party that those who don't share this view should be barred from all senior government positions including those not directly affecting the environment. The earth's ecosystem is far more complex than any of us, from the best informed scientist to the most ignorant person, fully understand. We need to monitor and debate what is happening to it with open minds, and sacking anyone who doesn't conform to the prevailing view is not the best way to do that.

“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”   ( Milton Friedman  )

"Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must." (Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington)

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won." (Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellesley)

The Prime Minister writes ... "This has been a tough week for Britain. The wettest winter in two and a half centuries, some of the worst flooding in decades, and more severe weather on the way this weekend. We're doing everything we can to help: Delivering extra pumps and sandbags Deploying the military wherever needed Providing additional support for local emergency services We will do what is necessary to help families and communities get through this very difficult time - more information is available on the Environment Agency website if you are affected.   We will also help people rebuild their lives and get back on their feet after the flooding , with repair grants of up to £5,000 for homeowners and businesses affected by the floods, and further support for businesses and farms that have suffered.   Amidst all of this, as is so often the case, in the toughest of times we are seeing the best of Britain. Visiting the affected areas this week, I saw...

Six weeks ago I published a blog post here in response to an academic study in America which found statistical evidence that even intelligent and numerate people were more likely to make mistakes which reinforced their existing prejudices. The last words of my article were as follows: "The moral of this story is that if you are analysing a set of data and the results come out exactly with what fits your prior beliefs, you should try to check your analysis as carefully and objectively as possible to make sure you are not convincing yourself that the new evidence conveniently fits what you were already disposed to believe." There were two interesting articles on "plebgate" published in the past few days, both by people who appear not to suffer from this kind of confirmation bias as as they are lefties who were effectively coming to the defence of a former Tory cabinet minister. One of these articles, by Nick Cohen in yesterday's Spectator,  concluded with almo...