I find that hard to square with these same 29 prejudiced MPs, one of which is Chris Huhne, getting uppity about scientific advice in this new case.

Did you know that the International Whaling Commission hires a bunch of scientists to produce annual reports, which it then studiously ignores. The scientists have been demonstrating for years that Minke whales are abundant in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean, and that many depleted stocks of other whale species are recovering at encouraging rates. Which is to say that the resource basis for commericial whaling is broader than to support present exploitation.

But the political body, which makes the decisions, refuses to set a catch level at anything other than zero.

It’s not the studies of scientists, but the moral judgement about the great mammals of the sea, the charismatic mega-fauna of the ocean, that sets policy. The moral judgements of people in countries without whaling industries, generally.

I rather think that a lot of the people who are up in arms against the Government for not taking scientific advice in this case haven’t thought through which of their sacred cows might be slaughtered if the scientists had their way.

On one hand, dugs policy and prisons policy would be reformed. Hooray.

But then the whales would be harpooned, and a lot of these right-on liberals would be clucking like outraged biddies at what science had wrought.

I almost forgot! Last April, I addressed the South Norfolk District Council and proposed that Norfolk take control of its own Economy and received much applause. I have also had more than one meeting with Daniel Cox, Leader of the Notfolk County Council on this subject and the idea was received with much sympathy. ATF.

Sure, and so are the BNP: “…old-style socialist methods of
redistributing income down the scale turned out to have harmful effects…” and “…the BNP will use non-destructive means to reduce income inequality…” are quotes from the BNP. Unsettling perhaps to hear this rhetoric, which you and I would both agree with, from them.

Quite apart from the immigration drivel, the BNP speak plently on issues like economics that people are genuinely interested in and want to hear debated, and it often overlaps with public attitudes, e.g. support for co-operatives, stopping factory farming, opposing private laissez-faire control of the economy etc. But the political and media classes keep refusing to engage them on this, and it’s not helping.

We need to find a way to give those workers skills that compete successfuly in the international wage economy so they are not ‘deprived’ or ‘hard done by’.

The problem is we need to join up a lot of dots to do that and we don’t seem to be good at that sort of thing – we would rather blame someone than sort a problem out…that is what makes the BNP so popular – easy targets for blame…

Also, I do think it is not reasonable for someone to leave school with no marketable skills and feel hard done by if they don’t earn much money…there are another set of dots we need to connect – personal effort/investment and reward…I am all for helping people to develop their skills, find a useful role, improve their lot but I am not so sure about paying people inflated wages so they don’t feel ‘under valued’. That would only increase the rate of outsourcing to China and India!

In the context of this piece, we’re not necessarily talking about poverty, but rather the impact of income inequality and cultural & political bias away from low-end employment on particular sections of the electorate. It isn’t necessarily poor people who vote for the BNP – rather people who feel that society as evidenced by government and in the media is working against their interests. ‘Decent living wage’ is a phrase used by the CWU in conjunction with ‘Decent jobs’, and I’m arguing that the diminishing supply of low-skilled jobs that satisfy both these criteria is a factor in the rise of the BNP.

My grandmother had no electric fridge or hot running water for most of her life but did not regard herself as poor. Now we regard those two items as basic, but many people regard not having at least one foreign hoilday as an indication of ‘poverty’.

People can of course lead (within the limits of the law) any lifestyle they chose, but we should be aware that ‘decent standard of living’ does not mean the same thing to everyone.

Perhaps we need to define our terms? Are we talking relative poverty, absolute poverty and by what measure?

I am not denying there is a problem, just trying to figure out the scope of people not earning ‘a decent living wage’.

Jennie – this is very much the case. Doing incredibly tedious work right after graduating was a soul-destroying experience for me; one made worse in retrospect by the knowledge that I may’ve denied a job to someone who needed it more than I.

Annabel – that’s true, but I would find it illiberal if we started trying to proscribe the sorts of lifestyle people can try to lead. The key may be reducing income inequality, to lower the top standard of living in order to commensurably reduce that of the accepted standard of those further down the ladder. However, again, I can’t think of a liberal way to do that – there’s no moral way to proscribe how people should live with respect to this issue.