The Fisk

Iain Murray: Give free market environmentalism a chance

Iain Murray is a Senior Fellow in Energy, Science and Technology at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington DC and Vice-Chairman of the DC branch of Conservatives Abroad.

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph ran an opinion piece by Zac Goldsmith, prospective Conservative candidate for Richmond-upon-Thames. Sadly, the piece represents a regression to a paternalist approach to the environment, advancing arguments that dress up a government-directed approach in terms of the free market. What follows is a running critique of Mr. Goldsmith’s article followed by recommendations for a genuinely free-market approach to the issue of climate change.

Let the free market fight climate change

We’ll come back to the title later…

In just two years, the environment debate has jumped from the margins to the mainstream. It used to be so far down the list of priorities that the pollsters rarely bothered to rate its importance.

According to Ipsos-Mori, which has been tracking the most important issues to the British public since the 1970s, 19 percent of people polled regard the environment as one of the top three issues facing Britain today. This is certainly a high level compared with recent years, but nowhere near the high water mark of 1989, when at one point 35 percent expressed the concern. For comparison, 37 percent name crime, 36 percent defence/terrorism and 22 percent education. The current high level of concern looks like a blip, like the concern over transport in 2002.

Things couldn't be more different today. Big businesses write open letters to the Prime Minister calling for stronger policies. High-street retailers battle to out-green each other.

So? That’s because they see competitive advantages to them. Big business loves to get hand-outs from Government because they come without that messy business of having to sell things that people want. They also love to see entry barriers to stop competition. These things are good for individual businesses, but bad for the economy as a whole.

The issue has mushroomed, principally because the evidence is mounting. Not all scientists agree on the gravity of the problem, but we're as close as science allows to a consensus. Nicholas Stern calculated in his report last year that there will be more than 200 million refugees by 2050 because of sea-level rise alone.

Stern “calculates” no such thing. He merely cites a twelve-year old study, which he admits has not been rigorously tested. It is also difficult to square this estimate of millions at risk from sea-level rise with the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which suggests we will see only 23-51 cm sea level rise by 2099 in the severe scenario that Sir Nicholas chose (second worst in the range of 6 on offer).

Even Gordon Brown feels obliged to address green issues. He mentioned climate change once each year before David Cameron took over as Conservative leader. Last year, that jumped to 16. He's made three major speeches on the environment: all since 2005.

But Brown doesn't get it. He talks about shifting the fiscal system away from taxing ''goods'', towards taxing ''bads'', but the actual level of green taxation has fallen since 1997 from 9.4 per cent to 7.7 per cent, while the tax take has soared. The Government's Sustainable Development Commission has described his use of the tax system as a ''significant failing''.

There is little to object to here.

The Chancellor's doubling of air passenger duty following the release of the Stern Review will have zero impact on the environment; it will do nothing to encourage operators to be more efficient, and can be interpreted only as yet another stealth tax. The fact that it was applied retrospectively to people who had bought tickets suggests it was not designed to discourage flying.

There is little to object to here, either, beyond the implication that we need to reduce flying. We can in fact expand flying while reducing the environmental impacts by exploring other means than the price signal, such as “free flight” approaches to air traffic control or the “green landings” that have been so successful at Stockholm airport.

Brown has failed to spot the opportunities presented by climate change. We're not going to reduce emissions without huge investment in new, clean technology. The transition to a low-carbon economy represents one of the greatest windows of all time for wealth creation.

Unfortunately, this is Bastiat’s “broken windows” fallacy – breaking a window provides employment for a glazier, but the economy actually suffers from broken windows.

Crucially, where companies have invested in low-carbon technologies and energy efficiency, they are being rewarded. Dupont has reduced its emissions by 72 per cent since 1990, saving more than $3 billion.

Good for them. Efficiency savings are good business. However, when government provides incentives for such savings beyond the incentives of good business, a search for them becomes a search for windfall profits. DuPont is a leading advocate for emissions credits for their savings, which would earn them a windfall, on their own assumptions, equivalent to a 9000 percent return on investment. That sort of rent-seeking is damaging to the economy, because those windfall profits aren’t new money, merely a transfer from customers and the taxpayer to the carbon cartel that DuPont’s favored policies would create.

There's a risk that clumsy initiatives will exhaust public appetite for green solutions. That's why the Conservative approach is so important. We are looking through a lens of opportunity that will see a shift in tax, not additional taxation. Years of stealth taxes have eroded people's trust, which is why the shifts we make in taxation will need to be transparent and honest. We also want a change in regulatory approach, away from obsessive policing of processes, towards a focus on outcomes. If the regulatory system is too prescriptive, there is no room for innovation and higher standards.

So far, all I am hearing about the ‘free market’ from Mr. Goldsmith is taxes and regulations. That’s a funny definition of ‘free market.’ This is a point worth returning to later.

Fundamentally, we need a new approach to market economics that takes into account the planet. Stern described climate change as a catastrophic market failure. The market is blind to the value of the environment; but the market is a powerful force for change, and the challenge is to price the environment into our accounting system so that pollution becomes a liability, not an externality.

How sad that Arthur Seldon is no longer with us. As he said, “Almost all economic activities…have external effects…In many instances the effort to prevent or control them may be more costly than their effects, and it may be better to tolerate some of them as unavoidable consequences of human fallibility.” This is probably the case here. Pricing the environment in the way Mr. Goldsmith suggests would incur opportunity costs. If those costs worsen the human condition, by putting people out of work, forcing industry overseas and thereby potentially increasing emissions or deluding us into thinking we’re doing something about malaria in the future when we could well nigh eradicate the disease now for a fraction of the economic cost, we have to ask whether the price is worth paying.

The debate on climate change will continue. But that shouldn't prevent action today, not least because the things we need to do to tackle climate change need doing even without climate change. According to the Building Research Establishment, basic energy efficiency measures could reduce energy use by a third, with capital costs being covered by savings within three or four years. It makes sense. So does fuel efficiency, and efforts to design waste out of our economy.

There are certainly “no regrets” options we could take, which would both reduce emissions and be economically beneficial. Yet the fuel efficiency argument is instructive. In terms of miles per gallon, the American automobile is no more efficient than it was many years ago, yet the cars are unmistakably better. What has happened is that the automobile efficiency gains have been traded, following consumer demand, for other things than gasoline usage – safety, amenities, passenger capacity to name but a few. When fuel efficiency was forced on the auto makers and customers via the CAFÉ regulations, the National Academy of Sciences found that the resulting downsizing of the fleet led to 2000 extra deaths on the road each year. That’s a big price to pay for a few more mpgs.

If we address climate change, we'll emerge with a cleaner, leaner, more efficient economy. If we don't, and the scientists are right, the economy will be the least of our worries.

On the other hand, our descendents at the end of the century will be many times richer than us. It may well be that they’ll be able to absorb the costs of global warming, if any arise, quite comfortably. Mr. Goldsmith is right that the British economy will be leaner if it follows his prescriptions – it will be shorn of the weight of manufacturing industry and the burden of having the world’s busiest international airport for a start. That may be his definition of an ‘efficient” economy, but I doubt the unemployed of Hounslow would agree with him.

Make no mistake, I regard the Conservative decision to open the environmental debate as both savvy politics and a good thing generally. What disappoints me is the way in which the advances of classical liberal thinking as it relates to the environment have been ignored in the rush to come up with a framework approach. It is almost exactly fifteen years since Terry Anderson and Don Leal published Free Market Environmentalism, which emphasized the important role of incentives, transaction costs and well-defined property rights as solutions to environmental problems. On top of that we have important insights like public choice theory and the “Baptists and bootleggers” theory of Bruce Yandle that can inform our thinking, awakening us to the realization that environmental organizations are special interests like any other. These thoughts and insights need to be applied to conservative thinking on the environment. How, for instance, can we apply the effective solutions of property rights to the atmosphere, for instance? Anderson and Leal have suggested that technologies are within reach that would allow us to deploy chemical “tags” that allow monitoring of the atmospheric effects of carbon emissions.

Indeed, Anderson himself is contemptuous of the idea that cap-and-trade, which appears to be Conservative party policy, is much better than command-and-control. He calls approaches such as Mr. Goldsmith’s Market-Like Environmentalism, or MLE. In the latest issue of PERC Reports, the magazine of his excellent environmental think-tank, based near Yellowstone Park, he writes:

"A carbon tax and tradable carbon credits pre-suppose that we know the appropriate amount of carbon to be emitted and whether achieving that level is worth the cost. Neither is the case. Unilateral reductions of carbon emissions by the United States will not reduce global temperatures. Indeed, if all countries met Kyoto targets, the commonly predicted 2'C temperature increase over the next century would be reduced by only 0.1'C.

In contrast, FME relies on markets to signal benefits and costs of global warming and lets individuals respond to those signals. Higher insurance rates and cancelled policies for Florida homeowners send a price signal to coastal dwellers. Coastal land values will decrease if sea levels rise, and interior land values will increase if moisture and warmth make them more productive for agriculture. Such market signals will provide better information and accounting for benefits and costs than will MLE taxes and regulations."

The Conservative Party deserves a proper debate on environmentalism and the insights that the classical liberal thinking that have served us so well for thirty years bring to it. Sadly, that debate does not seem to be happening at all. We can indeed let the market solve this problem, but not if the Conservative Party believes that it knows all the answers without exploring what the market can tell us first.

Cranmer: Rebuffing Revd Dr Giles Fraser

The vicar of Putney has written for today's Guardian, accusing "Fissiparous evangelical Christians" of "being reunited by hatred"...

"Apparently, it's agreed by all that the current row over gay bishops is threatening to shatter the Anglican Communion."

Don’t you just like it when the Church follows the obsessions of the world? Sex, sex, sex. It is meant to be preaching the Good News, feeding the poor, housing the homeless, welcoming strangers, etc, etc. If vicars devoted half the time to writing articles for national newspapers on those pursuits that they devote to the issue of gay sex, there may indeed be hope for the Church.

"I think almost the opposite is going on."

There, he’s spotted it - the true raison d’etre of the Church of England. It was built upon conflict of opinion and compromise, and the fact that the Vicar believes the opposite of the ‘all’ he speaks of above, is indicative of the via media the church has always faithfully pursued.

"Sure, there's a crisis at the top."

Observant chap. The ‘top’ is supposed to lead, but it is not true that ‘conservative Anglicans’ yearn for a leader of the Anglican Communion with the convictions and spiritual authority of the Pope. This, Vicar, is why we had a Reformation. To be ‘first among equals’ guards against claims to infallibility.

"And the American church may yet be expelled for its theological liberalism."

Since when has ‘theological liberalism’ been a sin? Who defines it? Half the Church of England has always been theologically liberal; it balances the theologically fundamental. A church of either extreme is not a whole church.

"But alongside all this - indeed precisely because of it - there's emerging a new style of confident and unified global Anglicanism brought together by a shared antipathy to liberal values and gay sex. Not only has the present row raised the profile of the communion, it's also brought about an unholy togetherness among conservatives."

What a load of absolute tosh. ‘Confident and unified global Anglicanism’ contains so many oxymorons, His Grace cannot be bothered to unravel them. Anglicanism is not unified, and neither is it confident. The ‘common enemy’ does not exist for it in the same way that the Soviet Union or the Axis of Evil is used to unify the United States of America. The Church no longer believes in Satan – he has been relegated to the level of Santa Claus and the tooth fairy - and ‘liberal values’ and ‘gay sex’ will never render a confident and unified church. Liberal values and sexual sin reside in us all. Christians are at their worst when they judge the sins of others, not least because their own hypocrisies invariably lie concealed. And what is ‘unholy’ about the ‘togetherness’ of conservatives? In that togetherness is the very koinonia demanded by the Lord, and if the Vicar bothered to examine the Holiness Code demanded by God throughout the Old Testament, he might just discover that in that in the pursuit of that holiness lies a remnant of the true church.

"Evangelical Christians are always falling out with each other, splitting to form new churches and splitting again - all sides denouncing the others as having betrayed the true gospel. Monty Python got it spot-on: it's the People's Front of Judea versus the Judean People's Front."

Thus it ever was. But why deride only the Evangelicals? Liberal Christians are also always falling out with each other. As each former sin is legitimated, there is invariably a liberal group that finds it a liberation too far. The Vicar doubtless uses his own pulpit to persuade others of the rightness of his own views, and thereby himself undermines the very unity of the Church that his Lord exhorts him to seek.

"The only thing that can reunite the factions is something they all hate more than they hate each other. The idea of a gay bishop in faraway New Hampshire is an enormously useful tool of unity for otherwise fractious conservatives. They purchase their togetherness with the suffering of gay Christians, especially in places such as Nigeria, where the church is egging on a violent and aggressive homophobia. It's textbook scapegoating."

It is also profoundly anti-Christian. The Vicar might reflect on the fact that in the New Testament era the Church was itself a persecuted group, and many Christians continue to be persecuted in parts of the world today. Pogroms against Jews, gypsies or homosexuals have stemmed from similar misrepresentations, while the New Testament advocates a generosity of accommodation (1Cor. 13:4-7) and mutual respect (Rom. 14). But the Vicar resorts to the same ‘textbook scapegoating’ of which he accuses the Nigerian church, except that his pogrom is against the Evangelicals. The ‘homophobia’ of the African churches may be repugnant to the Vicar, but he might just find his own ‘Evangelophobia’ to be repugnant to God.

"And once they have raised the threat level, they can begin to settle old scores. Again and again, evangelical bishops are popping up to declare theological martial law, insisting with glee that now is the time to prune liberals from the church."

And this Vicar is ‘popping up’ in The Guardian (there’s a surprise) to settle his own score. Pruning people from the Church is a wholesome and scriptural pursuit, but the Lord always began with those who presumed to judge. Those who advocate ‘theological martial law’ exist on both wings of the church: even liberalism can have a Taliban tendency.

"They know that neither the church nor marriage is under threat by what two Christian men or two Christian women might just happen to do with their bits in the privacy of their bedroom."

This is not entirely true, and the Vicar is not justified in presuming to judge the thoughts and fears of his brethren. For many, the uniqueness and sanctity of marriage is distinctly perceived to be under threat. The widespread moral equivalence of cohabitation, and more recently the introduction of civil partnerships, certainly convey a sense of erosion of the foundational purposes and principles of marriage. It is a God-given institution, which the state should support. This, presumably, is why David Cameron is pledged to reintroduce tax breaks for married couples. Politicians as well as theologians perceive marriage to be under siege.

"No, this is all about church politics."

Again, thus it ever was. The Church of England is a state church, and the Anglican Communion has a supreme governor who is a head of state. A church that is not involved in politics is not a church that is engaged with the world, and that demands that the church be political.

"For hard-core evangelicals, this manufactured crisis is a golden opportunity to create new rules to oust the progressive voice from the church, perhaps even to crown Archbishop Peter Akinola as, de facto, the new Anglican pope. Thus evangelicals have a vested interest in keeping an atmosphere of crisis going as long as possible. The best way to mount a coup is to get everybody panicky and confused - and then emerge as a strong leader, the only one able to impose order."

Is it any wonder that members of the Church of England are converting to Roman Catholicism, or even leaving the church altogether? When a church has a strong leader, there is vision; when a church has vision, there is enthusiasm; when there is enthusiasm, there is unity of purpose and growth. Some may say that the Church of England needs a Margaret Thatcher; it is a certain fact that too many more John Majors will destroy hope, and leave a demoralised and decimated fellowship. This ‘crisis’ is not manufactured; it is a direct result of the purposeful successive appointments of archbishops who try to please everybody by avoiding anything that might offend. The cross is meant to cause offence; when it begins to offend Christians, it is justifiable to ask whether they understand the meaning of the faith they profess.

"Bishops and archbishops have always been keen to insist that Anglicanism doesn't end at Dover. The former archbishop, George Carey, may have been sniggered at in England, but on trips abroad crowds of cheering Anglicans would greet him at the airport. Little wonder the higher-ups have always loved the communion, the way the Queen loves the Commonwealth. It's no coincidence: for the communion is little more than the Commonwealth at prayer, the spiritual by-product of British imperialism."

And the England that gave birth to the British Empire bequeathed to the world a marvellous legacy. The assertion of power within the Church of England has held the communion together for five centuries, but it is a serious question whether a church built on the basis of episcopal authority and provincial autonomy can continue.

"There are good theological reasons for the church to see itself as global, such as the promotion of the millennium development goals. And Rowan Williams may be right in arguing that membership of a 78-million-strong organisation gives Christians in places such as Rwanda a voice they would otherwise not have. But there are bad reasons too. For the communion allows bishops of crisis-stricken dioceses to get on a plane and reinvent themselves as players on the world stage. Many parishes see less and less of their bishops as they clock up the air miles."

That is the reality of spiritual promotion or ecclesiastical authority. Does the Vicar think that the constituents of Sedgefield get to see their MP when they wish? No, he is pursuing a greater goal, for the good of the whole. The important thing is that the Prime Minister doubtless cares for his constituents vicariously, and you, Vicar, also act vicariously, for that is your title. Your bishop does not have to be in your parish any more than Jesus has to be, for you are in his place; his representative, his ambassador. It is your job to behave as he would, to be light in the world, to serve with humility and grace.

"In the traditional Church of England, the parish is the unit that matters to most worshippers. And at the level of the parish, the crisis in global Anglicanism is irrelevant. While bishops and archbishops squabble and plot, the local church gets on with saying its prayers and caring for the needy. These faithful are now being badly let down by their leadership."

No, Vicar, the crisis is not irrelevant, or you would not have seen fit to pen this article. It is of immense concern, since a body without a head will simply behave like the proverbial chicken. Indeed, while your bishop, your head, has been away, The Guardian has lured you out to play. The function of which part of the body have you fulfilled?

Ultimately, the whole issue may really be a non-issue because the wrong question is being asked. That the modern era is sex-obsessed is not in dispute; we live in a consumer society, and there is little that is marketed without a glance, a wink, a flirt, a breast, or allusions to sexual intercourse, because ‘sex sells’. If one were to judge by the media (which is more frequently a mirror to society than a catalyst for change), the fascination with people’s sex lives is now more important than politics, religion, philosophy or even Mammon. Jesus may have had to address the latter as the dominating idol of his era; his judgement was that one may not serve both God and Mammon (Mt. 6:24). He did not enter into discussion on the fiscal minutiae of cash, credit, bonds, shares, loans or interest; a macro-warning not to be obsessed with Mammon was sufficient. If one were to apply the same principle to the modern idol – let us call it ‘Eros’ – it is doubtful that Jesus would address its sub-divisions (gay, bi, straight, oral, anal, tantric); he would most likely directly challenge society’s obsessive fixation with Eros, and by so doing confront both those who prioritise issues of sexuality and those in the church who presume to judge them.

Alex Deane: What an exclusive!

The Independent has, in a rare act of public service, named and shamed the most ignorant people in public life and put colour photographs of them on their front page so that you can spot them coming. 

Oh wait.  Looking more closely, I realise that I’ve misunderstood.  It's a list of people who oppose the renewal of our nuclear capacity.

To fisk it, or not to fisk it..?  Well, it might be to give it prominence it doesn’t deserve, since at the last count this website was read by at least, well, me, which is one more than the Indy’s circulation once you take off the hotel handouts and airline freebies.  But it is the idea of the site, so… to begin at the beginning.   

"Not in our name."

Name?  Singular?  But there are several of you.  Have you a collective name?  What is it?  I could suggest some.  No?  Think I’d be unfair?  OK then I’ll just give you a clue.  It starts with p and ends with rats.

"Exclusive."

The effrontery of labelling this ring-round of their mates an "exclusive" – as if it’s a piece of news that they’re reporting, rather than a self-created, self-serving bit of propaganda – is shocking.  Or rather, would be shocking if one expected this "paper" to actually report anything rather than plod out campaign lit for the leftist dullards of the day.

"A powerful coalition of 100 scientists, lawyers, church leaders, actors, writers and MPs is today demanding a halt to the rush by Tony Blair towards a replacement for Britain's Trident nuclear weapon system."

Bloody hell people, hold back on the defence spending – the actors and writers are against it!  There are some lawyers too – well they must be right then.

Scientists, you say?

"Stephen Hawking, the astrophysicist, is amongst…"

Golly.  Well he is a real brainbox.  They must be right.  What does the good Hawking say?

"To replace Trident would make it more difficult to get arms reduction."

Well that might be right in absolute terms.  But given that umpteen nations are proliferating right now, how realistic is arms reduction anyway?  What difference would Britain disarming make, other than depriving us of a weapon an increasing number of other nations will have?  How does the mechanism you suggest do anything to reach the aim you identify?

But he’s not finished!  He goes on:

"It would also be a waste of money because there are no circumstances in which we would use it independently."

Yes, because it would of course be utterly moral to leave nuclear war to our allies rather than doing anything to contribute ourselves.  Damn keyboard.  I left out an "im".  It would be immoral.  Plus of course that attitude presumes that we will be allies with Uncle Sam forever, a notion that this bunch of pinkos would presumably spit out like the worst rocket offered at the Islington dinner party.

Not in the online edition but available for all you keenos with a hard copy, there's an accompanying photo which has a caption along the lines of "anti-war protestors in 2003" – of course, it's a pic of the "anti-doing anything about Iraq" campaign and nothing to do with Trident, but y’know, it’s all the same, innit? Actually, that’s probably true.  It is always the same people on the wrong side of whatever argument we’re having.  Though accidental, it’s probably the least chunderworthy bit of “analysis” in the whole piece.

But, I hear the protestor cry, these people on the list are all so famous!  And the “newspaper” asked them what they thought about nuclear arms, so they must be experts!  Yes, even Damon Albarn!  They must be right!   

Are they?  The logic that’s on offer is one that presumes nobody really wants to nuke us or our allies anyway.  Well, I doubt that and I prefer to take the news from the fundamentalist horse’s mouth before this lot any day.  Iran’s head lunatic Mr Armageddonjad has made his intention to nuke Israel asap pretty clear.  Then tzatziki of course, but then he’s going to be looking out for new targets.  Who’s to say it ain’t you and me?  Well, the Indy’s merry men, apparently.  But why take their word over Arma’s?

As Professor Colin Gray perspicaciously wrote in this month’s Parliamentary Brief, 

"[Y]ou can’t know that deterrence will work, but it is still an essential asset… We do not and cannot know what the strategic value of a British nuclear force will be in future decades, but we do know enough about the hazards of the twenty-first century to judge that it would be imprudent to discard such a force… we have some good grounds to suspect that the era of inter-state conflict is not over.  To be nuclear armed is to raise the threshold and the stakes for actual and potential enemies considering taking action against Britain"

Which, you might think, contains more sense that the whole edition of the Indypuff.

And as for their list – the thing of note is really what a mediocre list it is.  What a rag-bag of pseuds.  Such effluvia have been whinging throughout history.  For the most part, thank the Good Lord, nobody has listened.  Had they had their way, we’d have seen the Red Army watering their horses at Hendon long ago.  How wise are they, who see the world in shades of grey!  Sadly for them (but not us), those they sneered at kept hold of the reins – those who see black and white, rights and wrongs, saved the West and won the Cold War.  And fortunately, much to the chagrin of this list’s members, those hands are still on the reins (outside of the Indy) even in the benighted Labour Party.

The future is a dangerous place.  I for one would prefer to walk there with a big stick it turns out I don’t need, rather than finding just at the wrongest of times that the stick I discarded would have been very handy indeed.

Phil Hendren: A light morning fisk of Steve Richards

Every now and again I read a column that just enrages me so much I have to do a long post on it because it is so littered with annoyances. This happened when I read this morning's Independent, where Steve Richards has decided to argue about the issue of road pricing now that even more people (well over a million) have now signed the Downing Street petititon. His argument starts off by simply dismissing all those that signed the petition as "short-sighted" and intellectually "lazy" and then, amusingly, proceeds to opine utter rubbish henceforth. He says:

"There is nothing new in this. Progressive government requires strong leadership because quite often it involves taking measures that are unpopular in the short term. The upside is that genuinely progressive policies acquire popularity once they are in place. The congestion charge in London is an obvious example. Ken Livingstone took the risk against the weak populist opposition of the Tories and the silent caution of the Government. He has been vindicated subsequently, including being re-elected against a Conservative candidate who pledged to abolish the charge. Sometimes boldness is necessary even if the voters are grateful only retrospectively."

This is of course absolute and total nonsense. Londoners did not vote for Ken over Norris on the basis that one wanted to scrap the Congestion Charge and the other one didn't. It is quaintly amusing though that Richards would accuse the petitioners of being "short-sighted" and holding "lazy views" and then put forward such a reductionist argument about the outcome of an election. What actually happened is that Londoners were fooled into voting for Livingstone's manifesto on the belief that he was telling the truth when he said bus fares wouldn't go up, and that the congestion charge would remain the same. In the words of The Who, they won't get fooled again. Richards goes on:

"When the Government has dared to take risks it has also been vindicated. Indeed the level of vindication can be measured by the Conservatives' U-turns. The Tories now support policies such as the minimum wage, a London-wide elected body and the higher investment in schools and hospitals, all of which they meekly opposed. Where the Government was weak and cowardly, such as adopting a conservative foreign policy position over supporting the US in the war against Iraq, it is condemned subsequently. It is much better, surely, to be praised retrospectively for courage."

He seems to be a little confused about the nature of conservatism I think. After all, conservatism is about gradualism from the status quo based upon an instinctively averse attitude to making changes without quantifable known outcomes. Thus Conservative "U-turns" on those policies doesn't actually vindicate them at all. It simply states that they are now embedded and therefore part of the status quo, thus should be approached with a traditionally conservative attitude to change. It's a bit like all that privatisation and trade union legislation that Labour didn't reverse. They're not vindicating Tory policies by failing to roll it back, they're just acknowledging it would produce unquantifiable results to do so. Amusingly he then says:

"Transport is a crisis issue. To their credit ministers have done more than the previous Conservative administration, increasing budgets and halting the decline of the railways into what had become a decrepit Third World service. But that has been nowhere near enough. Roads are congested. Trains are over-priced and unreliable. Parts of the London Underground are a disaster area and at weekends do not appear to function at all. In some areas of the country the privatised buses are nowhere to be seen."

So lets get this straight. The transport system was crap. After ten years of Labour the transport system is still crap. The only difference is that Labour have just done more less crap less. Sorry Steve, I think that argument is crap. The fallacies really start coming out now though:

"[Road pricing] recognises that road space must be rationed. Some on the left argue that road pricing would penalise the poorest, but then offer no alternative solution. There are too many cars on a small and congested island. Road pricing would free up some space."

Just because they offer you no alternative it does not make them wrong. Let's see, couple road pricing with the inherent dependency culture fostered by tax credits amongst the poor and you instantly remove another means for social mobility. It is not for critics to offer an alternative, it for policy wonks to solve the much greater issue of restricting the free movement of the already Government-nurtured underclass. There was me naively thinking that the Left cared about the many, not just the few at the top. Richards has kindly helped me out with that perception though:

"The policy should not be seen as a sacrifice, a mistake made too often when new charges are introduced. On the contrary, for selfish reasons I want fewer cars on the roads so I can get to places more quickly."

To quote the ever wise Edmund Blackadder, "Toffs at the top, plebs at the bottom, and me in the middle making a fat pile of cash out of both of them." OK, maybe he won't be making cash, but the inherent point remains, don't bother with aspiration if you're poor, just accept your tax credits, stay in your sink estate, and let us more important elite snobs have our roads back because we can afford them. Pull the ladder up Jack! Richards then starts using London as an example again (I wonder if he actually lives there?),

"Secondly, the revenues from road pricing should be earmarked exclusively for improvements to public transport and cycle lanes. The cash should not disappear in a vacuum. Again, Livingstone points the way by spending cash from the congestion charge on buses in London. The capital is the only part of the country where bus usage is up."

Why do you think buses are so popular in London right now though? Is it because of all the lovely "investment"? No, it's up because all the cars have moved to the outskirts of the congestion zone blocking them up. We don't take the bus out of choice. We do it because we have no choice at all. This said, Richards then proceeds on to his "critique" (and I use the term loosely) of the philosophical argument against road pricing, he states that:

"The civil liberty arguments are a red herring. Some worry that the Government will know where everyone is driving. So what? Unless we are driving to rob a bank I doubt if some imaginary secret police force will be very interested. The Government is having problems sorting out tax credits and tracing foreign prisoners. Everyone is far too busy to make use of film footage of motorists heading for Waitrose or a dodgy motel to conduct some sordid affair. Presumably, there will be no road pricing cameras in the motel to check up on any further mileage."

Oh dear oh dear.... firstly, just because the current administration is utterly incompetent it does not mean that we should build the technological infrastructure to allow a future non-incompetent Government to control and monitor our every move. It would be false to assume that incompetence today will exist in perpetuity. Ask yourself this, would someone like Stalin have found a system that could monitor everyone in their cars useful?

Now, as for this supposed "red herring", using humour to essentially put forward the age old "if you've got nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear" argument, he's actually completely missing the point. Information about ourselves, where we are, and what we are doing is ours, it is not the states'.

We have autonomy over that information and we make the choice when we disclose it. For example, we choose to let supermarket marketing people know what we buy by accepting the loyalty card. We will have no choice over any tracking ability. It matters not whether someone is looking at it or not. It is about the relationship between the state and the individual.

We, as individuals, are the ultimate creators of the state; and we, as individuals are the ultimate arbiters of our information, not the state. It is not about how the information may or may not be used, it is about the assumption of who owns that information in the first place. Richards finally closes his article at this point by saying,

"The petition against road pricing will be scaring everyone from Blair downwards. Yet this Government prevails when it is genuinely bold and stumbles when it pretends to be courageous. It deserves credit for contemplating radical measures. Now it must implement them."

Well excuse me, but I fail to see what is radical about a Labour government introducing another tax for the purposes of spending. Surely that is simply acting to type?

James Cleverly: The art of self-awareness

Polly gave a speech entitled "The art of the column" at the annual Bagehot Lecture organised by Queen Mary College, University of London last week. I missed it, poor me!

However the Press Gazette was kind enough to publish some "highlights" and what interesting reading it is, it highlights Ms Toynbee's a remarkable lack of self awareness.

So let's start fisking:

"Toynbee said: "If you are going to report on the world of politics, you need to have a strong instinctive sympathy for the political process and the very difficult task politicians face in getting anything done at all. "Even if you lean strongly to the right or the left in your views, you need an underlying respect for the business of politics."

Sensible stuff, so why then do we find her own columns peppered with sniping at the Conservatives and anyone else to the right of centre?

"All this goes to the heart of Tory policy, persuading the electorate that tax money is always wasted, public jobs are pointless."Little comments like that don't show a great deal of "underlying respect".

"If you start out assuming that all politicians are ill-intentioned knaves and bounders who are all out to feather their own nests, you will illuminate nothing for your readers and discover very little of interest," she said.

So assuming all politicians are ill-intentioned is bad, but assuming that all Conservative politicians are ill-intentioned is OK?

"You will be adding to the dangerous anti-democratic mood that is creeping up on us at the moment where every lazy comedian or chat show host regurgitates the current knee-jerk view that Westminster is a palace of rogues who should all be sent packing."

Again, sound stuff. But when you make your business toadying up to the Labour government and pointing to the Conservative benches shouting "monsters" you lose much of the credibility of the argument.

"The right-wing papers are perplexed and affronted that Labour can have been in power so long despite their daily assault. The press is often near hysterical in its hatred of Labour — just look at the ever-more demented Mail and Express.". "There really is no point in becoming a political commentator if you despise the business, no more point than there would be if you became a football writer and you hated football."

Here poor Ms Toynbee misses the point completely; the Mail and the Express may well hate Labour, that is not the same as hating the whole political process. I hate what Labour has done to the political process yet I still want to be a politician. Polly, there is more to British politics than Tony, Gordon et al.

"Most political columnists these days are overtly and strongly opinionated, wearing their views on their sleeves as their brand. Many behave like mini-governments in exile. They're part of the political weaponry of their proprietors."

And you are different... how? Ahhhh, now we get to the meat of this lecture, attacking bloggers:

"The world of media is becoming an ever-noisier and brasher place with ever more competition to be heard among the great cacophony of views."

Hang on, earlier in lecture Polly was worried that communication was becoming less democratic and yet here she calls the broadening of base of commentators a "great cacophony".

"And that's before you even click on the internet and get that great explosion of blogging rawness. The quiet reasoned voice does seem to get trampled under the elephant heard of opinionators."

Humble and reserved Polly clearly puts herself into the "quiet reasoned voice" camp. Polly now shows how completely out of touch with digital media she is by confusing blogs and social networks.

"People say: ‘What's the difference between a blog and column anyway? Isn't MySpace just as good as the Guardian comment pages?' I think not. There is a skill in crafting a column with a beginning, a middle and an end, a coherent argument and at least three facts readers don't know, preferably information gleaned from talking to the leading players in the case."

Sorry, can we just rewind there for a second - "a coherent argument and at least three facts"! Polly, if you managed to do these two things on anything like a regular basis you wouldn't get anywhere near the amount of stick that you get, and sites like Factchecking Pollyanna would have nothing to write about.

"A number of us columnists are anxious about it because it is a different style. It's not crafted, you haven't had the time to ring someone up, they want it now. There's a danger that it becomes more opinionated."

Or might they be anxious because they are losing their strangle-hold on mass distributed opinion? Might they be worried that the most popular blogs are matching their audience sizes and are taken just as seriously by politicians and voters?

Might it also smart a little when people point out that you aren't as good as you think you are?

"I have around 50 arch-enemies who seem to get up at about five in the morning — they have obviously never bought The Guardian, they wouldn't contaminate their fingers with it, and they are right-wingers who hate The Guardian and everything it stands for."

Does it occur to her that these abusive commentators are not anti-Guardian but anti-Toynbee?

Finally Polly demonstrates the most blatant lack of self-awareness, when asked why she is such a hate figure for right-wingers, Toynbee said:

"There's an old traditional thing if you're a woman, middle class, middle-aged — it goes right back to the beginnings of the Labour Party. You are a class traitor."

So, it's nothing to do with what she writes, or what she says or even who she is. It's all about what she is and the fact that we are all sexist, classist and ageist! Poor Polly.

Donal Blaney: Please let it be Hillary

Beth Gardiner is a London-based freelance journalists who writes for The Guardian. Or at least this may be the first time she has written for The Guardian as no other pieces that she has ever written for this august journal of record/lefty rag (delete as appropriate) are listed on the website belonging to the “newspaper”.

Gardiner writes about Rudolph Giuliani, the man who yesterday confirmed that he was indeed in the running for the Republican nomination for the US Presidency. 

“What can the world expect if this pugnacious former prosecutor makes it to the Oval Office? One thing's certain - it won't be dull. The man who became known as "America's mayor" loves a good fight and is always sure he's on the right side.

Maybe there’s a reason that he is always sure he’s on the right side? Maybe – shock, horror for a Republican politician in such a liberal city as New York – he has been proven to be right on so many issues, not least the fall in crime in the Big Apple that means one is more likely to be murdered or mugged in London than in New York – all thanks to Giuliani himself.

"Giuliani has suggested he thinks his big-city street smarts can translate into a foreign policy strategy, saying when he backed George W. Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq that his experience fighting crime in New York showed order and security are key prerequisites to progress. So a mayor known for his tough-guy approach could become a president eager to show both allies and enemies who's boss and ready to use military power to back up his words.”

Unlike Clinton, Obama, Edwards or Romney, Giuliani doesn’t need to convince anyone of his leadership skills. While he may not have enormous foreign policy experience, nor did Ronald Reagan when he became President and Reagan won the Cold War – famously – without firing a single bullet. 

“Diplomatic? Fuhgeddaboudit, as they say in Brooklyn. Despite the caring side he showed when his beloved hometown was attacked, Giuliani as mayor was brash, abrasive and cocksure, unwilling to abide fools and never happier than when he was belittling anyone bold enough to disagree with him. Critics saw him as arrogant and high-handed - not qualities Americans are looking for after the bitterness and partisanship of the Bush and Clinton years - while admirers said his confidence and confrontational style were key to his ability to tackle the many troubles of a metropolis long seen as ungovernable”.

There is a world of difference between being arrogant, high-handed and ineffective – let’s say like Hillary Rodham Clinton – and arrogant, high-handed and effective. Not even the Democrats can rationally attack Giuliani’s record as Mayor of New York. And while Giuliani may well have been a forceful leader of New York, he is savvy enough as a politician to know that the position of the Presidency is a totally different role. 

Miss Gardiner appears also to overlook the fact that America is at war – not a conventional war against another nation, but a war of survival against Islamists and their fellow travellers in the Democratic Party and liberal media. 

“How would that approach play nationally? Americans like a leader who's sure of himself, but a failure to build consensus has sunk the agenda of more than one president. Don't expect President Giuliani to court senators over leisurely lunches - he'd be likelier to tell them, with more than a hint of impatience, what he wanted and when to deliver. And he might have greater trouble with Republican legislators than Democrats.”

Oh dear, oh dear. Giuliani has shown bipartisanship when he was Mayor of New York. Bush showed bipartisanship as Governor of Texas and has offered to do so again with the new Democrat majority in Congress. The trouble with the Left, when they bleat about the need for bipartisanship, is that to them bipartisanship means only one thing. Bipartisanship to the Left means that the Right must kow-tow to the Left’s demands. It rarely means the pursuit of genuine compromise or consensus. 

“Indeed, Giuliani's own party is probably the biggest obstacle to his ambitions. He favors abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, all positions that go against the most deeply held principles of many Republicans. For powerful social conservatives, nominating him would mean swallowing a bitter pill - the possibility that Giuliani, despite his Catholicism, might appoint Supreme Court justices who would uphold rather than overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion, and expand gay rights instead of limiting them.”

While she is right to observe that Giuliani does not appeal to social conservatives’ hearts or minds on their core issues of “God, Guns and Gays”, she is entirely wrong to assert that social conservatives are so powerful that they can destroy a candidate’s candidacy (as was shown in the Republican primary battle in Pennsylvania when Senator Arlen Spector kept the nomination despite a strong challenge from a conservative opponent). 

Moreover I would imagine that Giuliani will focus on appointing a conservative to the Supreme Court – not simply because Roe vs Wade might be ameliorated or reversed, but for the simple reason that the Judicial Branch has become too active and Giuliani, as a legal and constitutional mind, will want Supreme Court Justices who are faithful to the original intentions of the Founding Fathers. 

“Race could be another hot button. It was a central issue in polyglot New York during Giuliani's years as mayor - his relationship with minority voters went from bad to worse as he stood by police through a series of shootings and a notorious abuse case, making many black and Hispanic New Yorkers feel he was deaf to their concerns.

When cops fired 41 bullets at unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999, simmering anger against Giuliani and the NYPD exploded. The mayor dismissed the criticism, defending police and himself in angry press conference tirades. Republican presidents never count on much backing from black voters, but Giuliani's record could mean his support from that quarter is as weak as Bush's.”

Giuliani made it clear that the way to get people of different persuasions to support Republican  (and even conservative) policies was to appeal to those individuals as individuals and not to patronize them by pigeon-holing them into different groups (eg: gays, blacks, disabled and so on). He focused on the fact that blacks were more likely to be victims of gang violence and street crime  - and he therefore focused the efforts of the NYPD on reducing crime in those communities. 

Race industry zealots and stirrers of racial hatred and disharmony might have objected but the facts are simple: crime fell throughout New York and all communities, including blacks, benefited. 

“The first family would be the source of plenty of juicy gossip in a Giuliani White House - his personal life is even messier than Bill Clinton's. He acknowledged a close friendship with another woman while he was mayor, and very publicly divorced his second wife, Donna Hanover, who said she learned of his desire to separate from a televised press conference. Giuliani temporarily moved out of the official mayor's residence, Gracie Mansion, to stay in the nearby home of two gay friends, and he authorized his lawyer to make harsh public attacks on Hanover.

That bitterness badly sullied his reputation, although the damage was mostly undone after 9/11. Still, if Judith Giuliani, then the other woman and now the former mayor's third wife, is hosting state dinners as first lady two years from now, it will show that Americans have become downright French in their disregard for politicians' personal lives.”

His personal life is messier than that of Bill & Hillary Clinton? Really? To my knowledge Mayor Giuliani never accepted financial contributions from foreign government agents, raped women, had a string of illicit affairs, had sexual relations with staffers in his office, lied under oath, was impeached, was struck off from practising as an attorney, became embroiled in murder enquiries involving his former personal attorney or a host of other areas where the Clintons found themselves in trouble. 

Character is not, with respect, an issue that I would focus too much on if I were Hillary Clinton. That is one of a number of areas where she – and her errant husband – will be found wanting. 

“Even before the attacks, he always relished a crisis. Giuliani loved to pull on his Yankees cap and take the helm at his emergency command center during blizzards and heat waves. He always seemed a little silly exhorting New Yorkers to remember their gloves or stay hydrated, but his larger-than-life, father-knows-best persona found its match when the city faced its most terrifying crisis.

That brand of wise, authoritative firmness is what Americans look for in their commander in chief, and it's why Giuliani is polling so well. Bush has sought to convey a similar aura, but while the image was convincing in the days after 9/11, for many Americans it has since worn thin, ruined by the disasters in Iraq and New Orleans.”

New Orleans was Bush’s fault as well? Iraq is an outright disaster? Nothing good has come out of Iraq at all, Miss Gardiner?

One cannot help but feel that Miss Gardiner is one of those people who would blame Bush if she stubbed her toe as she went to the kitchen to eat tofu or lentils. “It’s all a conspiracy and Bush is to blame”, she might wail. 

“At a moment when America is plagued by fear about the future, could Giuliani, with his tireless self-confidence and can-do attitude, be the one to reinvigorate it? His pushy Noo Yawk personality is worlds away from Ronald Reagan's sunny demeanor, but he might hope to change Americans' feelings about their country just as Reagan did when he brought optimism to Washington in the midst of economic stagnation.

Can he do it? We may never know. But if he convinces his own party to make him its standard-bearer, New Yorkers may finally get the clash of political titans they were denied in 2000 when prostate cancer forced Giuliani out of what would have been a Senate race for the ages: Rudy vs. Hillary. Only this time the stakes would be far greater.”

Barack who? Ex-Vice Presidential candidate John who? Please, oh please, fantasises Beth Gardiner, let it be Hillary. Please, oh please, say I too. America will not elect Hillary Clinton as President. Let us be thankful for the Founding Fathers’ wisdom in creating the Electoral College. 

Even if she won a plurality of votes throughout the US (concentrated in big cities such as LA, DC, Chicago and even New York) there are enough voters – and enough Electoral College votes – to keep America safe from the threat of another President Clinton.

Alex Deane: The bonkers Indy

This morning’s big story was the series of raids in Birmingham on homes of those suspected of plotting to kidnap, torture and murder a British Muslim serving in our armed forces.  Every paper led with it.  Except The Independent.  That august publication chose instead to run with this (left).

It is, a story about poor treatment that a family of Muslims has apparently received from various government bodies, culminating in their deportation.  Its appearance today, one would guess, is motivated by a misplaced desire to show "the other side" of the story.

I freely admit that this is nothing new – The Indy has been doing bonkers things with its front page for years.  But the "other side of the story" exists within the kidnap story.  As (for example) The Telegraph reports:

"Shabir Hussain, who preaches at the Ludlow Road mosque near to Jackson Road, said… "We came here to work hard and bring our children up as good British citizens. What has gone wrong?"

The kidnap plot is apparently one of thirty major plots being monitored or investigated by MI5.  The issue at the core of all of them, and the plot to kidnap a Muslim soldier in particular, is the battle within the Muslim community between those who wish to keep the law, and those who don’t – those who wish to be British, and those who subscribe first and foremost to a doctrine of fundamentalist hatred. 

Certainly, Austin Mitchell might write a story for you about a more photogenic story about an example of the former.  There is probably merit in the story, I don’t know.  But to run with it at the expense of the biggest story of the day because, on the face of it, it doesn’t fit with your political agenda… well, you might as well do what The Times used to do, and use your front page to display adverts.

Wat Tyler: BBC Business Editor on the Stern Report

When the Stern Review on climate change was published last October, the BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Peston - along with the rest of the BBC - immediately gave it a big thumbs up:

"The Stern Review says that climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. And on the basis of this intellectually rigorous and thorough report, it is hard to disagree."

Peston had clearly not read the same 700 page dodgy dossier I had, shot through as it was with gross exaggeration and laughable bias (see this blog for some numbers). Luckily he's now been fisked by his BBC colleagues Simon Cox and Richard Vadon, ably assisted by some of the world’s leading climate change academics.

"Intellectually rigorous and thorough"? Professor Richard Tol gives us the real assessment:

"If a student of mine were to hand in this report as a Masters thesis, perhaps if I were in a good mood I would give him a 'D' for diligence; but more likely I would give him an 'F' for fail. There is a whole range of very basic economics mistakes that somebody who claims to be a Professor of Economics simply should not make."

For your information, Prof Tol (both Hamburg and Carnegie Mellon Universities) is one of the world's leading environmental economists. He’s so important, the Stern Review itself cites his work 63 times. Peston goes on:

"If you take the present value (the value in today's money) of the benefits over the coming years of taking action to stabilise greenhouse gases by 2050, then deduct the costs, you end up with a "profit" of $2.5 trillion (£1.32 trillion). Any way you look at it, the financial case for tackling climate change looks watertight."

Watertight. Professor Tol again:

"Stern consistently picks the most pessimistic for every choice that one can make. He overestimates through cherry-picking, he double counts particularly the risks and he underestimates what development and adaptation will do to impacts,"

Then Peston says:

"So here's the winning formula: Stern says spend 1% of world GDP to be 20% richer than we will otherwise be. It looks like a no-brainer."

No brainer. Yale University Economist Robert Mendelsohn says the 1% cost estimate is far too optimistic and the figure could easily be much higher.

"One of the depressing things about the greenhouse gas problem is that the cost of eliminating [it] is quite high. We will actually have to sacrifice a great deal to cut emissions dramatically."

Peston has no time for such tedious detail: we’re talking Biblical truths here: why worry about cost accountancy when you’re staring straight down the barrel of The Apocalypse?

"…droughts… floods… devastating storms… famine… the grotesque market failure that is currently taking us on a path to poverty… How do we start to pay a price for carbon that reflects its true economic and social costs… a price that includes the present value of future climate change?"

Professor Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is rather less hysterical. He says that when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report comes out next week, there will be a big difference between the science it contains and the climate debate in the UK.

"The IPCC is not going to talk about tipping points; it's not going to talk about 5m rises in sea level; it's not going to talk about the next ice age because the Gulf Stream collapses; and it's going to have none of the economics of the Stern Review. It's almost as if a credibility gap has emerged between what the British public thinks and what the international science community think."

There’s certainly a gap between what serious people think and what Robert Peston thinks. Why is he the BBC’s Business Editor again? Anyone would think they didn’t want properly informed business commentary.

Phil Hendren: Brainless Reid talking the talk

Given it's Friday, it's important that any fisking of anything should have an amusing angle to it, and what could be more amusing than a press release issued by John "Where's my brain?" Reid, boasting about how he is giving new powers to immigration officers to "protect" us and the UK borders.

Don't laugh too much, but it says:

"Building stronger borders, tackling organised crime and removing incentives for illegal immigrants to come to Britain are at the heart of the UK Borders Bill published today."

You have to wonder if they did it with a straight face as crime rises, and the paedophiles escape prison. These new powers will apparently include:

"arrest people smugglers or traffickers even if their crimes were committed outside of the UK;"

...but we won't put them in prison, we'll tell them off and ask them not to do it again, and request that they weed some old ladies garden to make up for it.

"detain at ports individuals they suspect of having committed a crime, or those with a warrant outstanding against them;"

We've not decided where we're going to detain them or for how long. Technically saying "stop there" for just a minute is a detention of sort you know! Please don't ask us to define what "detain" means. Pretty please?

"arrest those they believe to have fraudulently been acquiring asylum-support, and to exercise associated powers of entry, search and seizure;"

Do not ask us to explain the difference between arrest and detain, it will just make you angrier.

"access Her Majesty's Revenue Customs (HMRC) data to track down illegal immigrants."

Assuming we can get the IT to work and no one has wiped the emails.

How much longer can Reid survive?

Shane Greer: An appeal for everyone to hate Israel

It doesn’t take much effort for one to see the hidden message behind the Independent’s Christmas appeal: Israel is evil. But let’s pause for a moment and, in a departure from the prevailing wisdom amongst the Independent’s hacks, look at the big picture.

Israel a liberal democracy – a novelty in the region – and friend of the West exists in a state of constant uncertainty; the kind of uncertainty that results from not knowing whether if when one boards a bus it will ever reach its destination. The threat of foreign terrorism is all too real in a state that wishes only to reside in peace. In focussing on apparently dispossessed Palestinian citizens the Independent all too readily ignores the Israeli citizens who live in the northern border regions and face the daily terror of Hezbollah rockets coming from southern Lebanon, and even more readily ignores the enormous fear felt by parents throughout Israel who wonder whether their children will return from a meeting with friends at the local pizza restaurant.

The suffering of innocent Palestinians is of course deeply concerning, but to focus on their plight in-and-of itself to the exclusion of all other considerations ironically results in the cause of that suffering being lost. Any Israeli action that may, accurately or not, be attributed to Palestinian suffering is not itself the cause of that suffering, it is rather a symptom of the real cause; the unwillingness of Palestinian terrorists to lay down their arms and come to the negotiating table with a country that has, time and time again, shown its willingness to work hard for long-lasting peace.