The Quiet Road

Over in the UK someone has hacked into the computer system at the University of East Anglia. Specifically the server used by the Climate Research Unit. Information was stolen and then publicly posted on the internet. It’s resulted in a field day for Climate Change Deniers. Indeed a piece in the Daily Telegraph proclaimed the stolen data as “the final nail in the coffin” of man-made Climate Change.

Sadly, it isn’t. Though few things would make me happier if it was. Frankly I can think of no better news than the revelation that anthropogenic Climate Change is some kind of scam cooked up by 95% of the world’s climate and meteorological scientists; that global industrial activity isn’t doing nearly as much harm to our ecological systems as previously feared. But the leaked information suggests no such thing.

What the stolen information does appear to reveal, however, is the fairly shoddy attitudes of a few climate scientists working at the University of East Anglia. They appear to have made some pretty callous comments about the death of a prominent Climate Change Denier. Perhaps more worryingly, though, the released information includes emails that seem to suggest that the scientists had made attempts to suppress data that might have contradicted their own results and put pressure on scientific journals to refrain from publishing papers by those who disagreed with them.

This is all very unfortunate and I’d like to think that these revelations will prompt swift apologies and perhaps even resignations if it can be proven that someone genuinely did falsify data or actively engage in censorship (as opposed to merely suggesting it in a frustrated email). Climate Change is too damn important an issue to become dragged down into the mud by the kind of fools who would risk adding to the scepticism and doubt by engaging in dirty tactics and scientific censorship.

That said, I do think this should all be placed into perspective. Any dirty tactics and scientific censorship that may have been carried out at the University of East Anglia are reprehensible, but they are as nothing when compared with the tactics of the fossil fuel lobby and those they have in their deep pockets. The scientists at the centre of this latest brouhaha are simply guilty of trying to fight fire with fire. It’s unacceptable and they should, as I said, do the decent thing and apologise, maybe even resign. But for Climate Change Deniers to cry “foul” is a bit bloody rich.

The evidence for man made Climate Change is entirely convincing, and there’s nothing in this latest controversy that changes that. Despite this — and for years before the University computer was breached — a vast campaign to suppress and discredit was indeed underway. But by and large it wasn’t being undertaken by climate scientists. Rather, they were the target.

I’m dismayed and more than a little outraged by the scientists who sought to emulate this malign campaign of disinformation and censorship. But I’m also rather contemptuous of those deniers who claim dismay and outrage at today’s disinformation, while gleefully championing yesterday’s and tomorrow’s.

While the question is implied in my previous post, I’d like to spell it out directly here in the hope that someone can provide an answer.

Why is it a criminal offence to possess cannabis?

The recent admission by the British Home Secretary that their policy is not based upon scientific advice is merely an unusually candid statement of a well-understood truth.

Stephen Whitehead, in the comments to my last post, suggests that the policy might be a product of “values and social norms”. But which values, specifically? And how does one pin down “social norms” long enough to legislate and incarcerate based upon them?

I’d argue that the values of a liberal society are actively transgressed by a government that chooses to destroy the lives of those who engage in a private activity that harms nobody except in extremely rare cases, themselves. Intoxication is not itself a transgression of any western values. And social norms are a dreadful basis for legislation. Those who speak of the wisdom of crowds have never studied group psychodynamics. Groups of people can be manipulated into accepting almost any set of social norms one cares to mention. For good or for ill.

So if a government acknowledges that drug prohibition is not based upon the harm caused by drugs (and indeed seems to exacerbate that harm), then what is it based upon? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. Up until now I assumed it had something to do with our laws being made by a generation of people who were ignorant and fearful of drugs and who erroneously assumed drugs were more harmful than prohibition. Now, however, we have law-makers who were adolescents in the 1960s and 70s, many of whom admit to having tried it themselves* and who have received clear advice from experts in the field that prohibition simply doesn’t have a scientific justification.

What worries me is that Stephen Whitehead may well be right. Drug prohibition, like so many other areas of policy, is indeed based upon “values and social norms”. But “values and social norms” is little more than a respectable way of saying “the editorial position of tabloids”. Our law-makers (and this goes for us over here in Ireland as well as my friends in Britain) appear infinitely more concerned with keeping The Daily Mail and The Sun happy than they are with passing rational laws and doing the right thing.

And people still wonder why I (and so many others) have begun to hold the democratic process in such contempt. There’s no way of testing it, of course, but I pretty much guarantee that were the editors of tabloid newspapers and Sky News to shift their position on drug prohibition tomorrow that the entire public debate would have changed within a couple of weeks and we would see major changes in the law within a few months or so. And when a handful of media moguls have the power to substantially alter “values and social norms” it becomes quite clear why “values and social norms” should never trump scientific evidence and rational assessment in the arena of public policy.

Update 15:36: And on roughly the same topic…

As I’ve pointed out in the past, the drug policies of most governments are profoundly irrational. They are based upon ideology, spurious reasoning and outright falsehoods. Furthermore there is no evidence whatsoever that they achieve their stated aim. In fact, the circumstantial evidence available seems to suggest they have precisely the opposite effect to that which is desired by policy makers. Prohibition appears to increase drug use, as well as increasing the social problems associated with that drug use.

Never has this bizarre irrationality been thrown into more stark relief than with the British decision to sack Professor David Nutt. Professor Nutt was the UK’s chief scientific advisor on drug policy and chaired the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). In response to his dismissal two more members of the council have resigned and there are rumblings that the entire ACMD is about to dissolve in disarray with Professor Nutt claiming that there is “no future for the council in its present form”.

Nutt is a psychiatrist and pharmacologist. He heads the Psychopharmacology Unit in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Bristol, is a Consultant Psychiatrist to Avon and Wiltshire Partnership NHS Trust and is Head of the Department of Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College London. He was appointed Chairman of the ACMD because he probably knows more about the science of drug use than anyone else in the UK.

Professor Nutt was fired by the British Home Secretary, Mr. Alan Johnson. Johnson left school when he was 15 to stack shelves at Tesco. He then worked as a postman for a while before becoming a career politician.

Science Vs Policy

In a letter to Professor Nutt, Alan Johnson informed him he was being dismissed because “I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy”.

This is a remarkable admission, by the man in charge of UK drug policy, that the policy is not based upon scientific advice. It’s reminiscent of the Bush Administration’s contempt for what they described as “the reality-based community”.

We’ve known for years, of course, that the British government (along with almost every other) do not base drug policy on the scientific advice of those actually qualified to provide it. Professor Nutt’s statements about the relative dangers of various drugs (the statements that got him into all this trouble) are very similar to the conclusions reached by the Wootton Report forty years ago. According to that report (published in January 1969), “Cannabis is less dangerous than the opiates, amphetamines and barbiturates, and also less dangerous than alcohol.”

In Nutt’s case, his indiscretion was to provide a list of commonly consumed drugs in order of the harm they cause based upon the scientific evidence available. Cannabis is listed in 11th position while alcohol is 5th and tobacco 9th.

It’s worth pointing out that this list was published two years ago. In the intervening period, Nutt has essentially watched as every piece of scientific advice provided by the ACMD has been ignored, while at the same time parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee sought the advice of Amy Winehouse’s dad (a cab driver)* on drug policy. One imagines that Professor Nutt’s frustration began to increase when he noted that his advice was not merely being ignored, but that policies were being pursued (the reclassification of cannabis as a Class B substance) which actively contradicted his advice.

I would argue, despite Alan Johnson’s claims, that Professor Nutt was not merely right to inform the public that his advice was being ignored, but actually had an obligation to do so. The public, after all, should know the basis upon which policy is being decided. Particularly if that policy involves the potential criminalisation of between 2 and 5 million people (“In the UK, around 15 million people would now admit having tried cannabis, with between 2 and 5 million regular users.” — Cannabis Use in Britain, PDF).

Professor Nutt, and it’s worth making this clear, never made any specific policy recommendations. He didn’t call for legalisation or decriminalisation and never suggested that cannabis or ecstasy were harmless. He merely made the following observations:

1. most of the drugs for which we currently incarcerate people for using are less harmful than drugs we sell in corner shops and derive tax from.
2. some of the drugs for which we currently incarcerate people for using are less harmful than common recreational activities such as horse-riding.
3. there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the current drug classification system results in a reduction of drug use.
4. the current drug classification system may actually result in significant social harm.
5. numerous statements made about drugs by politicians are demonstrably false (including Gordon Brown’s bewildering comment about “lethal cannabis”).

I am forced to wonder, now that Alan Johnson has admitted that drug policy isn’t actually evidence-based (not in those words of course, but it’s the inescapable interpretation), just what he believes it is based upon. Whatever it is, the tories are clearly in on the secret as David Cameron is — unsurprisingly — supporting Alan Johnson on this issue and suggesting that Professor Nutt’s comments about ecstasy were not “a particularly good way of putting it” (it seems Nutt failed to spin the truth sufficiently to make it palatable to Cameron’s irrational hardline stance).

Of the mainstream politicians, only the Liberal Democrats seem to have worked out exactly what’s going on, with Chris Huhne insisting that “any minister who hides away from scientific advisers who are saying clearly what the scientific evidence shows is frankly going to end up with policy which is a complete mess.” He also suggested that the government may as well set up “a committee of tabloid newspaper editors to advise on drugs policy”.

Personally I suspect they already have.

Tune in next week when Gordon Brown appoints a window-cleaner from Stoke to design the next generation of nuclear power stations.

Well, I’m disappointed it went ahead. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Nick Griffin put in a stellar performance. He certainly didn’t. But I never expected him to. That was never the issue. He was always going to look either nasty or idiotic when forced to defend his views. Because his views are nasty and idiotic. That was never in doubt.

There were those who insisted it was actually a good thing that the BNP were appearing. In the comments to my previous piece on this, Joel argues that “it puts his neck closer to the noose so he can hang himself”. And there are many who share this view. He’ll be damned by his own words, they say, so let him speak.

I don’t share that view. Which is not to say it’s wrong. Merely that an appearance on Question Time doesn’t only damn him by his own words. It has other consequences too. Some of which are negative. “The BNP are not being normalised into society by being on Question Time, it’s just having a clown on”, wrote Joel. But I humbly suggest that it’s both. It almost always is. He may indeed have moved a few millimeters closer to the noose. But we tend to hang fascists after they’ve killed a bunch of people.

It’s taken the National Front decades to evolve to the point where their suited representatives now get invited on Question Time. This was never about an overnight bump in the polls, but about how the fascist voice slowly but surely enters everyday political debate. The next decade may well be a fertile breeding ground for fascism. I believe the global economy will begin to absorb the fact that the days of “growth” are coming to an end. I think resource depletion will become a mainstream and frightening idea and even if we succeed in shifting to a sustainable model, the transition period could involve major social upheaval. The kind of environment that the Far Right historically tends to exploit. The very last thing we should be doing as the global economy teeters on the brink is inviting the BNP, and those like them, into mainstream debate.

Just before Question Time last night the BBC News discussed the issue themselves. And the language used very clearly implied that this would be the first of several invites extended to the BNP leader. This very fact… that the BNP leader gets regular invitations to debate with the other parties before an audience of millions… makes it far more likely that Griffin will be replaced sooner or later by someone more effective at the job. And you can pretty much guarantee that by the BNP’s third appearance on Question Time, Dimbleby won’t be dedicating 90% of the show to picking them apart. There’ll be the inevitable couple of “BNP questions”, but otherwise Griffin will get to speak freely on subjects where his views may resonate with millions. I happen to think his positions on the Iraq / Afghanistan wars are fairly sound, for instance, and in that discussion he’ll come across as the sane one compared to the tories and labour. Last night there was one non-BNP question. Next time?

I’m also irritated by how reasonable he made Jack Straw appear. “Contributing to the credibility of Jack Straw” is itself an unforgiveable offence. Both Griffin and the BBC are responsible for that crime against the people.

Overall though, I’m worried that the BBC set a bad precedent last night. It’ll be a long time before we know for sure, but why even take the risk when it comes to fascism?

Question Time is the BBC’s flagship political debate show in which a panel of four or five political figures discuss the issues of the day and answer questions posed by a studio audience. This week one of the panel members will be Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party.

And in my view, this is a mistake. Generally I’m a fan of the BBC, but on this BNP issue they’ve got it wrong. Nick Griffin should never be invited to appear on Question Time.

Context is everything.

See, it’s fine to interview Griffin (on the BBC or anywhere else). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proposing that the BNP or any other political party be censored. By all means invite him onto Newsnight and have Paxman grill him about the legality of his party’s constitution. But when you give a fascist a platform, you must ensure it’s a clearly labelled platform. That kind of ethnic nationalism needs to be ringfenced and signposted. We already know where it leads. And we’ve seen it happen enough times now to be aware that it’s not something that can be ignored. It’s not like we arbitrarily decided to repress some random political ideology. Just plucked it out of a hat on a particularly slow day at the UN. Racial supremacy and ethnic nationalism have a well-established track record. It’s a dangerous tendency and it tears apart societies when it gets strong enough.

Can you even begin to imagine a Britain where the BNP polled enough of the (white) vote to establish a government? Imagine the consequences of such a social divide! That’s what the BNP is actively seeking and campaigning for, never forget it; a disaffected Britain, paranoid and riven with internal fractures. An ugly place dominated by viciousness and suspicion and hatred of The Other. You’d imagine we’d have moved past that by now, learnt the lessons — the numerous lessons — of history. Does Britain really want ethnic violence on the streets? Because the BNP… they kind of do. And worse perhaps? You only need to ask the people of the Balkans how quickly things get out of hand when that kind of ideology gains enough traction.

So when the BNP — or any ethnic nationalist — appear in the mainstream media, that’s the context they should be presented in. Introduce them as fascists, let them speak their piece, then remind everyone they’ve just been listening to fascists.

What the BBC should not be doing, is inviting the BNP onto Question Time as though they were just another feature on the political landscape. This is effectively normalising the fascist voice. Removing the ringfence. Bringing it to the discussion and lending it the same weight as any other voice. That right there is a textbook example of ethnic nationalism starting to gain traction.

The BNP are a fit subject to be discussed on Question Time. They should not be participants.

Is the BNP racist?

This is a brief addendum to the last post, rather than an article in its own right. But I wanted to post it separately for search ranking reasons. It goes without saying that the British National Party (BNP) understand that being publicly labelled as “racist” loses them more votes than it gains. As a result, they do much to avoid the word. They claim they’re simply an “organisation concerned with one community or race”. As such, they insist, the BNP is just like other such organisations (such as the Black Police Officer’s Association, or the Action Group for Irish Youth).

This is, of course, complete nonsense. And in this article — Is the BNP racist? — Matt Wardman explains exactly why.

Is the BNP a racist party? Yes. It is. And don’t let them try to pretend otherwise.

UPDATE (20:23) FlyingRodent makes an excellent point about the BNP.

I hope it’s not too extreme to point out that our granddads’ response to their generation’s Nazis was to bomb them and strafe them from the air; to shoot them with machine guns and rifles; torch them with flamethrowers, incendiaries and white phosphorus; to crush them with tanks, blow them up with grenades and high explosives and so on, and then march their supporters off to prison. I don’t know how people could’ve missed this, since we have well-publicised memorials at which we salute their courage for kicking Nazi arse so righteously, every single year.

Not that I think this would be a reasonable response to the BNP, of course, but it sure puts all this Oooo, we must understand the motivations of poor, misguided racists who consciously vote for Nazi organisations in perspective.

It’s particularly amusing when you consider that lots of the right wing commenters here spend much of their time grousing about a lack of chimpanzoid chest-thumping and ostentatious moral outrage in modern liberalism – yet suddenly, when we’re talking about an openly racist and fascist organisation, we have to understand.

Well, Bollocks

FlyingRodent (over at Liberal Conspiracy)

(via PDF)

Over in the UK, the leader of the far-right BNP, Nick Griffin, was elected to the European parliament. As was another member of his party. On a very low turn-out, over 800,000 British people decided a bunch of thinly-disguised racist thugs were the best people to represent their views. That’s almost a million self-declared cretins.

See, I just have to go with the “easily manipulated idiot” explanation. The idea that so many people could rationally decide to vote for the BNP, in full knowledge of what they truly represent? It’s just too damn depressing. Mind you, we don’t live in a world where the depressing has an inverse relationship with the true.

We are none of us entirely free of prejudice. A wise man once said that “racism is the water through which we all swim”. But the idea is to swim against the current, folks, not get swept along with it. We challenge our racism whenever it appears in us. And we do so not because we’re being oppressed by political correctness, but because ultimately racism lessens us as individuals, it attacks the foundations of the society we live in and it’s no less than a direct assault upon the human soul.

Yeah, you heard me. For whatever the soul may be, whatever you believe it to be, it must surely include the imperative to rise above those blind prejudices that damage us. It is, if it is nothing else, that which inspires us to compassion and empathy. Much of what happens in politics and business… in modern life itself… is a direct assault upon the Sacred. But when people like Nick Griffin are carrying out the assault in such an overt and brazen manner, then we are obliged to challenge it.

The prejudice that lurks within our collective psyche can leak out in any one of us when tempers run high or emotions take control. And we must always be on our guard against that. But to deliberately and with premeditation walk into a polling booth and give voice to it? There’s something wrong there. Those 800,000 voters need to wake up.

This isn’t about the BNP. I still think this will do them damage in the long term as I question their competence and their ability to handle the inevitable internal rifts this will create. It’s about the people who voted for them. Let others try to coax them with promises and warm platitudes. I’m telling them to fricking sort themselves out. To wake up. We live in a profane world. And they are making it that much worse.

A couple of discussions sprang up on the U-Know! message board regarding Griffin’s election. One concerned the recent protest at his public press conference. For those unaware, Griffin was shouted down by a crowd who also threw eggs (personally I was dismayed. None of the eggs appeared to hit him).

I was a little surprised, however, to find this question being asked…

Sure, the question is coming from the message-board’s resident Tory, but it represents a theme that I’ve found emerging both in the mainstream media and on blogs. The protest was counter-productive, they say. Or it was hypocritical… restricting the free speech of fascists is surely the tactic of fascism, they say. Let him have his say and he’ll dig his own grave, they say.

They say a lot of things. But they are generally talking shit.

See first thing to point out is that this isn’t really a Free Speech (capital letters) issue. The “right to free speech” is about the freedom to express your views — yes, even reprehensible ones — without fear of prosecution. What it isn’t about, is guaranteeing anyone the right to be the loudest speaker in a given public place. The BNP have the right to stand for election. They have the right to distribute leaflets, publish a web site, hold meetings and so forth.

But when they start to spout their vile garbage in public, then others have the right to express their disgust. To heckle. To shout them down if they see fit. As for what this achieves…? It is a stark message to those 800,000 voters — and to anyone tempted by the rhetoric of fascism — that these views are contemptible. As are those who espouse them. It is a demonstration that those who would give voice to racism will be challenged. A reminder that the rest of us won’t allow this prejudice to gain ground.

Griffin should not be arrested for stating his views. But each time he does so in public, he should be challenged. And each public utterance of racism should be drowned out by a thousand voices in opposition.

Over in Britain, the MPs expenses palaver continues to shock and amuse in equal measure. Not because of the (relatively trivial) sums of money lost to the treasury, but because of what it says about those in power. It’s sneaking a peek behind the curtain, so to speak. And it has revealed some genuinely sordid and unsavoury behaviour. Better yet though, have been the confused attempts to mitigate it, to explain it away. They have revealed a group of people utterly disconnected from those they represent. So disconnected, in fact, that they don’t realise waving personal cheques around on national TV isn’t entirely appropriate right now.

Or take Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who appears to defend the lax expenses rules (in an article in The Independent) by insisting that MPs don’t get paid enough. The public, it seems, do not believe MPs are worth paying what Dorries insists they’re worth. As a result, they naturally had to find some other way of getting the money that Dorries says they’re worth.

Except, as Tim Worstall points out, this isn’t an entirely sound defence, as it amounts to:

I’ll let you in on a little secret. When I was in industry, I never felt as though I were getting paid enough. And I mean that in all seriousness. This isn’t just a piece of rhetoric. I did not feel as though my actual value to the company (my contribution to the bottom line) was in any way proportionately reflected in my salary. As a result, I felt little guilt about using company resources (in the form of paper, printing and photocopying) to publish a few small-circulation zines.

Here’s the point though… if I’d been discovered, I would have — justifiably — been held to account. In truth the infraction was so small and my value to the business large enough that I could probably have retained my job if I’d been contrite enough and made amends and gave guarantees that it would never happen again, etc. etc. But there’s no way around the fact that I would have been in hot water. It’s not like I didn’t know the salary when I took the job.

Dorries then goes on to suggest that by shining a light on the expenses of MPs and telling the British public where their money is being spent, newspapers are guilty of a “McCarthyite witch hunt”. That MPs are being subjected to “a form of torture” which may even drive someone to suicide.

Interestingly, there may be something to her concern. Public humiliation is one of those strange pressure points that can trigger extreme behaviour in some people. And I suspect there might even be something to the idea that the kind of person who is most susceptible to public humiliation would be drawn towards a career in the public eye. That’s just idle speculation though, and there’s probably not much to be done about it. It’s certainly not a reason to overlook petty corruption in politics. Being neurotic sadly does not exonerate you from all wrongdoing.

I only wish it did.

Amongst the revelations during the McCarthyite witch hunt, is the eyebrowing-raising fact that even within the current climate of hostility towards the perceived privileges of power, David Cameron managed to forget how many houses he owns. It boggles the mind. Not just that he said (to paraphrase) “two… oh wait, I think it’s four”, but that once this scandal became a national obsession he didn’t spend ten minutes every morning in front of a mirror rehearsing his answer to “how many houses do you own?”

Is he just thick?

A couple of follow-ups regarding the farrago of sordid pilfering that is the British MP expenses scandal.

Firstly, it’s well worth pointing out that this kind of corruption isn’t unique to Britain. And you don’t need to look to West Africa or Southeast Asia for other examples. Here in Ireland, it’s not much more than a year since our Taoiseach (that’s Prime Minister to you, Johnny Foreigner) had to step down thanks to his own series of “accountancy mishaps”. Who could have imagined, when the Mahon Tribunal started to investigate petty corruption in local politics, that Bertie Ahern himself would come unstuck?

Secret bank accounts and 50 grand cash “donations” that end up as “loans” to Bertie’s mother-in-law. All presented against the backdrop of his strangely selective memory. And the strangely selective memory of everyone around him. He was absolutely certain he hadn’t accepted 50 thousand pounds sterling in cash from a group of businessmen in Manchester. Until it became clear that he had. Then, suddenly, he recalls the money — but it was a private loan between friends to help him out of a bit of a bad patch financially. If a friend of mine loaned me £50k, I like to think I’d have the good grace to remember it.

More than that, Bertie provided us with our very own “Hazel Blears and the 13 grand cheque” moment during his final days in power. At the very same time he was explaining to the nurses that their demands for a 10% pay increase were unrealistic, he was awarding himself a 14% increase. When a journalist wondered if it wouldn’t be a nice gesture of solidarity for him to forego his additional €38,000 (that’s a pay hike higher than the average national wage) he dismissed the idea as “tokenism”.

When the political classes can dash off cheques for £13k despite not really believing they owe the money in the first place, or can imply that 38 grand is a token sum of money, it might be a hint — and I’m just speculating here — but it might be hint that something is wrong. That far from the public becoming disengaged from politics, that politicians have become disengaged from the public.

Which, when you’re looking at the world from behind a moat, is always going to be a danger.

[Personal note: I paid significant amounts of tax into the British treasury during the 15 years I was based there. I’m not just some foreign agitator commenting from afar… I’m also wondering where Oliver Letwin gets off spending my money on his goddamn tennis court]

Rob makes a good counterpoint over at his place. Isn’t this all a bit of a distraction, he wonders in paraphrase, from the rather more important point that the gap between the richest and poorest in Britain has increased significantly of late? Even during the economic good times, “the real incomes of the poorest 10% of the population fell and those of the wealthiest 10% rose”. Isn’t “puppy-killer” Letwin’s two thousand quid tennis court repair, or Straw’s claim for unpaid taxes, kind of trivial next to that revelation? And shouldn’t we, the media and — gasp! — even the politicians be concentrating on that?

It’s a fair point well made. But I wonder if it really gets to the heart of the issue? Isn’t it just possible that a political class so willing to enrich themselves at the expense of the public might be part of that wider problem? David Cameron is leader of the opposition. He’s a very wealthy man from a very privileged background. His constituency is an hour from London by train… he lives just outside Oxford. So why does he even need “a second home” in London? One that he’s claimed over £80 thousand of public money to help pay for?

Yes, we know it’s “within the rules”. I’m not saying it’s not. But when you set your own rules of conduct, then pretty much everything you do is within the rules, right? Like a mafia boss insisting the murder he committed shouldn’t be punished because it was carried out according to the rules laid down by the Cosa Nostra code.

Cameron claims to believe that the public sector is wasteful. I can only assume he’s basing his opinion on a glance at his own finances. Within the rules or not, if the man had any sort of commitment to his own political beliefs — any kind of personal integrity — then he would have taken a look at that second-home allowance of his a long time ago. He’d have wondered if maybe the taxpayer wouldn’t be better served by him taking the train in from Oxford instead?

In some (rather more transparent) democracies, the state commissions a block of small but functional apartments for MPs to use while parliament is in session. The state maintains the place and the MPs live there rent-free. The politicians are allowed — of course — to buy their own place. Even start their own little property portfolio should they wish. But, like the rest of us, they have to dip into their own pocket for that.