Two letters in the Times for September 18 enthusiastically supported the Eurofighter programme, on the grounds that for the first time in four decades the RAF has a world class multi-role jet, that jobs in the North of England and Scotland would be imperilled without such programmes, and that if it were cancelled virtually no cost savings would be made anyway.
Only the third point has any validity. The first and last consideration in defence procurement should be obtaining the best quality equipment for our forces given the resources available, not in providing a substitute unemployment benefit for the incumbent government’s marginal constituencies. I would far rather have to inform a factory worker that he or she is being made redundant than have to explain to a soldier’s parents that their child has been killed due to inadequate equipment. And the fact that it has taken four decades to produce a worthy partly-British built combat jet is an argument against, not for, attempting any such folly in the future.
The only actual combat role which it is possible to conceive the Eurofighter undertaking is that of supporting ground troops against insurgents. Such a role can be carried out more effectively - and cheaply - by unmanned drones (which can loiter for many hours and involve no risk to pilots) and attack helicopters.
Strategic bombing would be more effective, cheaper, and far less risky to personnel if undertaken by cruise missiles (or stealth aircraft, which the Eurofighter is not) rather than conventional fast jets. Air combat, if it is ever undertaken again, will be determined by whichever side has the better early warning and control systems, and air to air missiles, not dogfighting skills.
The United States’ military budget exceeds the next largest by a factor virtually unprecedented in recorded history, and the cost-effectiveness of purchasing American equipment often corresponds. Further, there is no chance of Britain undertaking major combat operations without at least some American equipment and assistance or - it might as well be conceded - political approbation. Our troops would be best served by acting upon, not trying to deny, those facts.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Nicholson v Grainger
It was, I suppose, a fairly uncontroversial move in the first instance to try and outlaw religious discrimination in the workplace. Someone shouldn’t be fired or otherwise discriminated simply because of their personal religious beliefs, at least on the assumption that those beliefs don’t interfere with their ability to do their job. Unfortunately, as the recent Employment Appeal Tribunal case of Nicholson v Grainger plc demonstrates, it is one thing to have an uncontroversial idea, quite another to transpose it into uncontroversial regulation.
Parliament’s effort in this regard is represented by the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 (EER 2003). Paragraph 2(1) provides: “(1) In these Regulations – i. “religion” means any religion, ii. “belief” means any religious or philosophical belief, iii. a reference to religion includes a reference to lack of religion, and iv. a reference to belief includes a reference to lack of belief.”
One can imagine the thought process which led to para 2(1). The starting point no doubt was the notion I referred to above, namely not discriminating against a particular religion (human history being riddled with odious examples of religious minorities being persecuted). Secularists objected to religion receiving apparently preferential treatment, hence the definition of belief was extended to include absence of belief, however inaccurately that may define atheism.
It is, however, illogical to single out religious beliefs (and the positive absence thereof) for special protection. In the United States in the 1960s if one could prove to the authorities’ satisfaction that one was a practising Quaker then, without more, one might gain exemption from the Vietnam War draft. Yet Mohammed Ali, who made the entirely cogent secular argument that he objected to fighting a war on behalf of a country which subjected him to racial discrimination, against an opponent who had never harmed or threatened him, was answered with a sentence of imprisonment. So too would someone who had written a brilliant Harvard Phd on pacifism, yet it is entirely unclear why either the hypothetical Harvard scholar or Ali had a weaker case than a Quaker.
Therefore the definition was extended to include philosophical beliefs, presumably to cover such secular philosophies as pacifism, and it was under this aspect of the definition that Mr Nicholson alleged that his climate change principles fell.
He contended that he believed that “we must urgently cut carbon emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change.”
The objection is that such a contention doesn’t really amount to a philosophy, but a view on a disputed area of science. Indeed, proponents of the anthropological global warming theory (AGW) were anxious that it not be classified alongside philosophy or religion, or its scientific credibility might be undermined. Either the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial or other human activities are having a significant detrimental effect on the atmosphere or they are not. Such is to be proved or disproved like any other scientific theory.
Mr Justice Burton was not troubled by this point. He said:
“In my judgment, if a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science, as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection by the Regulations. The Employment Judge drew attention to the existence of empiricist philosophers, no doubt such as Hume and Locke. The best example, as it seems to me, which was canvassed during the course of the hearing, is by reference to the clash of two such philosophies, exemplified in the play Inherit the Wind, i.e. one not simply between those who supported Creationism and those who did not, but between those who positively supported, and wished to teach, only Creationism and those who positively supported, and wished to teach, only Darwinism. Darwinism must plainly be capable of being a philosophical belief, albeit that it may be based entirely on scientific conclusions (not all of which may be uncontroversial).”
I do not see how it can be argued that Darwinism is a philosophical belief – either it is true we are evolved from other forms of life or it is not. It may not be possible to prove it to every scientist’s satisfaction, but that does not move the theory into the realms of philosophy, it simply leaves it as an unproven scientific theory, as for example the tectonic plate theory once was. Nevertheless, for the purposes of the regulations, discriminating against someone because of their acceptance of the theory of evolution is at least as objectionable as discriminating against them because of their philosophical beliefs, so for that reason I suppose it is arguable that we should live with Darwinism and climate change being lumped in with “philosophy” however objectionable that might be to a scientist. Unless, of course, the definition is altered yet again to include “scientific belief” as well.
We seem to be heading therefore to a regulation that covers pretty much any sort of belief whatsoever. During the course of the judgment Burton J also stated that “philosophical belief” could include political belief. This seems unobjectionable: Marxism, or the theories of John Rawls, or Robert Nozick, can properly be described as philosophy.
At various points Burton J caught himself short on two grounds: (i) some religions or belief systems are pretty objectionable, discriminating against women, other ethnicities and so on; and (ii) some might be seen as trivial. Having reviewed various authorities he came up with the following mesh to sift out offending belief systems: (i) the belief had to be genuinely held; (ii) it had to be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available; (iii) it had to be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; (iv) it had to attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; and (v) it had to be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
In other words it has to be a belief system of which the state approves. We can I suppose simply be grateful that the present state of the United Kingdom is fairly tolerant by historical standards in that regard.
There remains, however some confusion about the consequences of belief protection. Fair enough that someone should not be fired because they hold certain beliefs, but there is a problem if they start to contend that their beliefs impose positive requirements on their employer. For example, they might argue that they need prayer facilities at the employer’s expense, time out for prayer during the day and religious festivals (without any obligation to make up the time later), and to be excused from doing certain tasks on the ground that their religion precludes it, eg selling meat if they are a vegetarian.
The answer is, or at least should be, that the obligation in a free society is that one is required to respect a person’s right to their beliefs, but not to respect the beliefs themselves. So it’s perfectly acceptable for employee A to hold her religious beliefs, but not for that to impose any cost on her employer or her fellow employees. Otherwise it is compelling them at least partly to accept those beliefs, which might of course be contrary to their own.
Parliament’s effort in this regard is represented by the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 (EER 2003). Paragraph 2(1) provides: “(1) In these Regulations – i. “religion” means any religion, ii. “belief” means any religious or philosophical belief, iii. a reference to religion includes a reference to lack of religion, and iv. a reference to belief includes a reference to lack of belief.”
One can imagine the thought process which led to para 2(1). The starting point no doubt was the notion I referred to above, namely not discriminating against a particular religion (human history being riddled with odious examples of religious minorities being persecuted). Secularists objected to religion receiving apparently preferential treatment, hence the definition of belief was extended to include absence of belief, however inaccurately that may define atheism.
It is, however, illogical to single out religious beliefs (and the positive absence thereof) for special protection. In the United States in the 1960s if one could prove to the authorities’ satisfaction that one was a practising Quaker then, without more, one might gain exemption from the Vietnam War draft. Yet Mohammed Ali, who made the entirely cogent secular argument that he objected to fighting a war on behalf of a country which subjected him to racial discrimination, against an opponent who had never harmed or threatened him, was answered with a sentence of imprisonment. So too would someone who had written a brilliant Harvard Phd on pacifism, yet it is entirely unclear why either the hypothetical Harvard scholar or Ali had a weaker case than a Quaker.
Therefore the definition was extended to include philosophical beliefs, presumably to cover such secular philosophies as pacifism, and it was under this aspect of the definition that Mr Nicholson alleged that his climate change principles fell.
He contended that he believed that “we must urgently cut carbon emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change.”
The objection is that such a contention doesn’t really amount to a philosophy, but a view on a disputed area of science. Indeed, proponents of the anthropological global warming theory (AGW) were anxious that it not be classified alongside philosophy or religion, or its scientific credibility might be undermined. Either the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial or other human activities are having a significant detrimental effect on the atmosphere or they are not. Such is to be proved or disproved like any other scientific theory.
Mr Justice Burton was not troubled by this point. He said:
“In my judgment, if a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science, as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection by the Regulations. The Employment Judge drew attention to the existence of empiricist philosophers, no doubt such as Hume and Locke. The best example, as it seems to me, which was canvassed during the course of the hearing, is by reference to the clash of two such philosophies, exemplified in the play Inherit the Wind, i.e. one not simply between those who supported Creationism and those who did not, but between those who positively supported, and wished to teach, only Creationism and those who positively supported, and wished to teach, only Darwinism. Darwinism must plainly be capable of being a philosophical belief, albeit that it may be based entirely on scientific conclusions (not all of which may be uncontroversial).”
I do not see how it can be argued that Darwinism is a philosophical belief – either it is true we are evolved from other forms of life or it is not. It may not be possible to prove it to every scientist’s satisfaction, but that does not move the theory into the realms of philosophy, it simply leaves it as an unproven scientific theory, as for example the tectonic plate theory once was. Nevertheless, for the purposes of the regulations, discriminating against someone because of their acceptance of the theory of evolution is at least as objectionable as discriminating against them because of their philosophical beliefs, so for that reason I suppose it is arguable that we should live with Darwinism and climate change being lumped in with “philosophy” however objectionable that might be to a scientist. Unless, of course, the definition is altered yet again to include “scientific belief” as well.
We seem to be heading therefore to a regulation that covers pretty much any sort of belief whatsoever. During the course of the judgment Burton J also stated that “philosophical belief” could include political belief. This seems unobjectionable: Marxism, or the theories of John Rawls, or Robert Nozick, can properly be described as philosophy.
At various points Burton J caught himself short on two grounds: (i) some religions or belief systems are pretty objectionable, discriminating against women, other ethnicities and so on; and (ii) some might be seen as trivial. Having reviewed various authorities he came up with the following mesh to sift out offending belief systems: (i) the belief had to be genuinely held; (ii) it had to be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available; (iii) it had to be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; (iv) it had to attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; and (v) it had to be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
In other words it has to be a belief system of which the state approves. We can I suppose simply be grateful that the present state of the United Kingdom is fairly tolerant by historical standards in that regard.
There remains, however some confusion about the consequences of belief protection. Fair enough that someone should not be fired because they hold certain beliefs, but there is a problem if they start to contend that their beliefs impose positive requirements on their employer. For example, they might argue that they need prayer facilities at the employer’s expense, time out for prayer during the day and religious festivals (without any obligation to make up the time later), and to be excused from doing certain tasks on the ground that their religion precludes it, eg selling meat if they are a vegetarian.
The answer is, or at least should be, that the obligation in a free society is that one is required to respect a person’s right to their beliefs, but not to respect the beliefs themselves. So it’s perfectly acceptable for employee A to hold her religious beliefs, but not for that to impose any cost on her employer or her fellow employees. Otherwise it is compelling them at least partly to accept those beliefs, which might of course be contrary to their own.
Coda # 1: Some thoughts on Music and the Law
At the moment I am spending some time on a new blogging project. This one will be done under the aegis of my employer, and therefore won't necessarily be a distraction from work (the main reason I had to give up doing this one on a regular basis). I have drafted a few pieces which for various reasons I decided I didn't want to post on the new blog, so they are finding a home here. The first concerns music and the law.
In its final batch of judgments before re-branding itself as the Supreme Court, the House of Lords allowed the appeal of Gary Fisher, the former lead singer of Procol Harum who had claimed joint-authorship of the band’s best known song A Whiter Shade of Pale. Fisher claimed that it was he who was responsible for the organ heard in the song, which he said should render him a joint author. The trial judge agreed and although the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal of the defendant, that finding of fact was never challenged.
The decision was a pretty straightforward one on the facts. Mr Fisher had the idea for, and the execution of, the organ part, which is unquestionably an integral part of the famous version of the song, and therefore he was entitled to a share of the royalties.
It is, however, possible to think of rather more difficult examples. In considering the legal test for entitlement to royalties for records, we are of course dealing with the altogether more philosophical and esoteric question of what constitutes a song at all.
Ordinarily a song is considered to consist of lyrics and the melody, and whoever is responsible for those would be considered the composer or composers. Immediately one can single out A Whiter Shade of Pale as an exception, given that Mr Fisher had written neither. In some cases the riff would be seen as the signature of the tune, particularly in the genre of classic rock: Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water, or Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love (familiar to anyone who remembers Top of the Pops at least), for example. In traditional Blues music many of the classic 12 bar arrangements tend to be generic and it would be impossible to agree on their origins (save for the certain point that even if the original composer or composers could be identified, they would have been dead for many decades and therefore their copyright would have expired years ago).
More difficult still is virtually the entire body of music that would fall under the rubric of jazz. In most live performances there is a significant degree of improvisation. For example, Duke Ellington, the received master of the art, revived his career in the late 1950s with a legendary performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. The climax of his set was a rendition of his Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. The most famous part (coincidentally my least favourite) is a saxophone solo by bandmember Paul Gonsalves which was virtually completely ad-libbed. Should he, rather than, or at the very least as well as, the Duke therefore be considered the composer of the piece? What of the fact that his intended solo was far shorter but the Duke waved him on throughout as he discerned the crowd’s reaction?
Nor is jazz improvisation confined to the music. Ella Fitzgerald forgot the words to Mac the Knife when performing in Berlin, yet she ad-libbed them anyway and the resultant performance is almost as well known as those by her contemporaries Louie Armstrong and Bobby Darin. Cab Calloway also forgot the words once when he was singing live and, lacking Ella’s ability to fashion an instant lyric, instead just improvised with harmonic sounds, in the process creating the new sub-genre of Scat by himself. (In the Blues Brothers film he appears singing Minnie the Moocher, a Scat classic.)
I suppose in each of the above examples the performer in question would have had a strong case for co-authorship with the original composer, though the CD details rarely acknowledge as such. Perhaps on the odd occasion at least this is down to modesty on the part of the improviser. Eric Clapton has played countless Robert Johnson songs, of which he never claims to be a composer or joint-composer. Yet in many of them, such as the live version of Crossroads when he was with Cream, the song really should be considered his and those parts borrowed from Johnson purely incidental. (That said, Johnson is often reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical gift, so perhaps Eric was erring on the side of caution by continuing to credit Johnson least he provoke an irate response from the true original composer.)
Once one reaches the 1980s and the era of sampling, then at once the issue becomes both more difficult and easier at the same time. If someone has lifted an entire part of an earlier recording then it is hard not to say that the original person should receive the credit: MC Hammer and Rick James, for one. Then again, one would have to judge how much the sampled part actually formed part of the later work. It is unlikely Richard Ashcroft’s view coincides with Mick Jagger’s - though in fairness to Mr Jagger the dispute over Bittersweet Symphony was nothing to do with him personally, it was the record company which brought the claim, yet the song is now credited to Jagger and Richards. Ashcroft later said that it was the best song that the Rolling Stones had written in 20 years (personally I disagree since the last worthwhile Stones album was probably Tattoo You in 1981).
I haven’t even mentioned the issue of producers either. George Martin wasn’t known as the Fifth Beatle for nothing; and a short comparison between Sgt Pepper and some of the early work will illustrate why. Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’ went substantially towards creating a style of music familiar for decades afterwards. Nile Rodgers remains in my view an unheralded genius, and Blondie would have been an awful though long forgotten punk band had it not been for Mike Chapman (try the original cut of Heart of Glass). Equally of course the likes of Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell have a lot to answer for in respect of what has clogged the commercial airways for years. For better or worse, however, the producers should if truth be told be credited as composers in many instances rather than as a separate entity.
Back to the legal definition of song composition. The short answer is that in almost all instances the matter is resolved by contract before the recording is even made. Hence, of the millions of pop songs, only very few have provoked litigation. Occasionally some horsetrading over contractual rights occurs. Or someone gets irked by the finer details: revealing a source of dissatisfaction of similar vintage to Mr Fisher’s, Paul McCartney recently reversed the famous “Lennon/McCartney” attribution on some re-releases.
In those rare cases which do find themselves before the courts, the usual reified legal terms of ‘fact and degree’ together with ‘expert evidence’ and ‘the facts of each case’ are deployed, leaving one to conclude that it is only slightly less arbitrary than a ruling by the Cadi under the Middle Eastern Palm Tree or the foot of the Chancellor of centuries past.
There is, however, usually some entertainment to be had by musical litigation. Somebody really did want to be held responsible for a Phil Collins live CD. Someone else claimed to have been a member of the teen band Busted. The judge rejected this; he described the unfortunate claimant as something of a ‘fantasist’. (In itself this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing – as long as one lived in a happy fantasy world. It would presumably have been happier to have spent one’s days being Keith Richards, but then there’s no accounting for taste). The violin player who considered himself responsible for the intro to the Bluebells’ Young at Heart went to court to prove it. He took his violin with him, and played it too.
Not much humour was found in the Pink Floyd fallout in the 1980s, when former bassist, singer and writer Roger Waters tried to stop the remaining members of the group from using the name after he’d left. There was, however, a touch of irony: if the band was predominately identified with Waters by that stage then it had equally been Sid Barrett’s in 1970, and I doubt it had ever crossed Waters’ mind at the time that in fairness to Sid they should find a new name.
Not every dispute ends in court, either, such as the recent Joyce Hatto scandal. It is worth ending with a few thoughts on this extraordinary event in classical music because it too raises some points about why we appreciate music in the first place. Hatto was a jobbing concert pianist in the 1960s and 70s. She performed regularly to distinctly mixed reviews until one point in 1976 when she collapsed on stage. Thereafter she was neither seen nor heard from in public until the C20, when her producer/arranger husband started to release piano recordings allegedly performed by her. They were of remarkable quality, and the classical music industry – record companies, retailers and critics – were enthralled. A virtuoso was clearly responsible. It was all the more remarkable for two reasons: first, because Hatto was playing virtually the entire classical repertoire – Rachmananov, Chopin, whoever – which was usually beyond all but the most accomplished, and second, because she was in her 70s and in frail health. It was as if a washed up county journeyman aged about 40 suddenly made a comeback and played to the level of Gary Sobers.
In other words, it seemed too good to be true. And so it was proved. Not by one of the learned music critics who had raved about Hatto’s efforts but by a random Wall Street worker who had uploaded a Hatto CD on his IPOD. Unlike the gullible soi-dissant experts, the computer software could not be fooled, and had identified the actual performer. The story unravelled quickly and Hatto’s husband was found to have used old recordings of talented young performers, which he had manipulated slightly to fool the critics, such as changing the left and right channels, compressing the odd note and lengthening others. He had obviously grown lazy over time and hadn’t changed one at all, hence the Itunes Gracenote software spotted it immediately.
Hatto’s husband has never fully admitted what he was up to. Channel 4 interviewed him recently and elicited Nixonian levels of denial and self-pity. Hatto herself died before the scandal broke and her husband has never faced legal action, either criminal for his acts of fraud or civil to recover wrongly-paid royalties. I suspect the reason is that he is fairly elderly and, it is said, made very little money from the adventure. Thus the AG would exercise his discretion not to prosecute and the affected record companies and shops wouldn’t consider it worth powder and shot. Both illustrate the flexibility of the law in practice I suppose.
And yet there’s one point that doesn’t quite make sense. Hatto’s rather gullible expert victims were interviewed by Channel 4 and asked what they intended to do with all the Hatto CDs they still owned. All said they would keep them in an old hat box or similar and never play them again. Before they discovered the true performer, however, they had unanimously acclaimed the recordings as sublime. Presumably they still are musically. So why deny oneself the enjoyment they obviously produce? If it is because the putative listeners are irked by the conduct of those responsible, I suggest they don’t put on a Wagner CD instead.
In its final batch of judgments before re-branding itself as the Supreme Court, the House of Lords allowed the appeal of Gary Fisher, the former lead singer of Procol Harum who had claimed joint-authorship of the band’s best known song A Whiter Shade of Pale. Fisher claimed that it was he who was responsible for the organ heard in the song, which he said should render him a joint author. The trial judge agreed and although the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal of the defendant, that finding of fact was never challenged.
The decision was a pretty straightforward one on the facts. Mr Fisher had the idea for, and the execution of, the organ part, which is unquestionably an integral part of the famous version of the song, and therefore he was entitled to a share of the royalties.
It is, however, possible to think of rather more difficult examples. In considering the legal test for entitlement to royalties for records, we are of course dealing with the altogether more philosophical and esoteric question of what constitutes a song at all.
Ordinarily a song is considered to consist of lyrics and the melody, and whoever is responsible for those would be considered the composer or composers. Immediately one can single out A Whiter Shade of Pale as an exception, given that Mr Fisher had written neither. In some cases the riff would be seen as the signature of the tune, particularly in the genre of classic rock: Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water, or Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love (familiar to anyone who remembers Top of the Pops at least), for example. In traditional Blues music many of the classic 12 bar arrangements tend to be generic and it would be impossible to agree on their origins (save for the certain point that even if the original composer or composers could be identified, they would have been dead for many decades and therefore their copyright would have expired years ago).
More difficult still is virtually the entire body of music that would fall under the rubric of jazz. In most live performances there is a significant degree of improvisation. For example, Duke Ellington, the received master of the art, revived his career in the late 1950s with a legendary performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. The climax of his set was a rendition of his Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. The most famous part (coincidentally my least favourite) is a saxophone solo by bandmember Paul Gonsalves which was virtually completely ad-libbed. Should he, rather than, or at the very least as well as, the Duke therefore be considered the composer of the piece? What of the fact that his intended solo was far shorter but the Duke waved him on throughout as he discerned the crowd’s reaction?
Nor is jazz improvisation confined to the music. Ella Fitzgerald forgot the words to Mac the Knife when performing in Berlin, yet she ad-libbed them anyway and the resultant performance is almost as well known as those by her contemporaries Louie Armstrong and Bobby Darin. Cab Calloway also forgot the words once when he was singing live and, lacking Ella’s ability to fashion an instant lyric, instead just improvised with harmonic sounds, in the process creating the new sub-genre of Scat by himself. (In the Blues Brothers film he appears singing Minnie the Moocher, a Scat classic.)
I suppose in each of the above examples the performer in question would have had a strong case for co-authorship with the original composer, though the CD details rarely acknowledge as such. Perhaps on the odd occasion at least this is down to modesty on the part of the improviser. Eric Clapton has played countless Robert Johnson songs, of which he never claims to be a composer or joint-composer. Yet in many of them, such as the live version of Crossroads when he was with Cream, the song really should be considered his and those parts borrowed from Johnson purely incidental. (That said, Johnson is often reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical gift, so perhaps Eric was erring on the side of caution by continuing to credit Johnson least he provoke an irate response from the true original composer.)
Once one reaches the 1980s and the era of sampling, then at once the issue becomes both more difficult and easier at the same time. If someone has lifted an entire part of an earlier recording then it is hard not to say that the original person should receive the credit: MC Hammer and Rick James, for one. Then again, one would have to judge how much the sampled part actually formed part of the later work. It is unlikely Richard Ashcroft’s view coincides with Mick Jagger’s - though in fairness to Mr Jagger the dispute over Bittersweet Symphony was nothing to do with him personally, it was the record company which brought the claim, yet the song is now credited to Jagger and Richards. Ashcroft later said that it was the best song that the Rolling Stones had written in 20 years (personally I disagree since the last worthwhile Stones album was probably Tattoo You in 1981).
I haven’t even mentioned the issue of producers either. George Martin wasn’t known as the Fifth Beatle for nothing; and a short comparison between Sgt Pepper and some of the early work will illustrate why. Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’ went substantially towards creating a style of music familiar for decades afterwards. Nile Rodgers remains in my view an unheralded genius, and Blondie would have been an awful though long forgotten punk band had it not been for Mike Chapman (try the original cut of Heart of Glass). Equally of course the likes of Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell have a lot to answer for in respect of what has clogged the commercial airways for years. For better or worse, however, the producers should if truth be told be credited as composers in many instances rather than as a separate entity.
Back to the legal definition of song composition. The short answer is that in almost all instances the matter is resolved by contract before the recording is even made. Hence, of the millions of pop songs, only very few have provoked litigation. Occasionally some horsetrading over contractual rights occurs. Or someone gets irked by the finer details: revealing a source of dissatisfaction of similar vintage to Mr Fisher’s, Paul McCartney recently reversed the famous “Lennon/McCartney” attribution on some re-releases.
In those rare cases which do find themselves before the courts, the usual reified legal terms of ‘fact and degree’ together with ‘expert evidence’ and ‘the facts of each case’ are deployed, leaving one to conclude that it is only slightly less arbitrary than a ruling by the Cadi under the Middle Eastern Palm Tree or the foot of the Chancellor of centuries past.
There is, however, usually some entertainment to be had by musical litigation. Somebody really did want to be held responsible for a Phil Collins live CD. Someone else claimed to have been a member of the teen band Busted. The judge rejected this; he described the unfortunate claimant as something of a ‘fantasist’. (In itself this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing – as long as one lived in a happy fantasy world. It would presumably have been happier to have spent one’s days being Keith Richards, but then there’s no accounting for taste). The violin player who considered himself responsible for the intro to the Bluebells’ Young at Heart went to court to prove it. He took his violin with him, and played it too.
Not much humour was found in the Pink Floyd fallout in the 1980s, when former bassist, singer and writer Roger Waters tried to stop the remaining members of the group from using the name after he’d left. There was, however, a touch of irony: if the band was predominately identified with Waters by that stage then it had equally been Sid Barrett’s in 1970, and I doubt it had ever crossed Waters’ mind at the time that in fairness to Sid they should find a new name.
Not every dispute ends in court, either, such as the recent Joyce Hatto scandal. It is worth ending with a few thoughts on this extraordinary event in classical music because it too raises some points about why we appreciate music in the first place. Hatto was a jobbing concert pianist in the 1960s and 70s. She performed regularly to distinctly mixed reviews until one point in 1976 when she collapsed on stage. Thereafter she was neither seen nor heard from in public until the C20, when her producer/arranger husband started to release piano recordings allegedly performed by her. They were of remarkable quality, and the classical music industry – record companies, retailers and critics – were enthralled. A virtuoso was clearly responsible. It was all the more remarkable for two reasons: first, because Hatto was playing virtually the entire classical repertoire – Rachmananov, Chopin, whoever – which was usually beyond all but the most accomplished, and second, because she was in her 70s and in frail health. It was as if a washed up county journeyman aged about 40 suddenly made a comeback and played to the level of Gary Sobers.
In other words, it seemed too good to be true. And so it was proved. Not by one of the learned music critics who had raved about Hatto’s efforts but by a random Wall Street worker who had uploaded a Hatto CD on his IPOD. Unlike the gullible soi-dissant experts, the computer software could not be fooled, and had identified the actual performer. The story unravelled quickly and Hatto’s husband was found to have used old recordings of talented young performers, which he had manipulated slightly to fool the critics, such as changing the left and right channels, compressing the odd note and lengthening others. He had obviously grown lazy over time and hadn’t changed one at all, hence the Itunes Gracenote software spotted it immediately.
Hatto’s husband has never fully admitted what he was up to. Channel 4 interviewed him recently and elicited Nixonian levels of denial and self-pity. Hatto herself died before the scandal broke and her husband has never faced legal action, either criminal for his acts of fraud or civil to recover wrongly-paid royalties. I suspect the reason is that he is fairly elderly and, it is said, made very little money from the adventure. Thus the AG would exercise his discretion not to prosecute and the affected record companies and shops wouldn’t consider it worth powder and shot. Both illustrate the flexibility of the law in practice I suppose.
And yet there’s one point that doesn’t quite make sense. Hatto’s rather gullible expert victims were interviewed by Channel 4 and asked what they intended to do with all the Hatto CDs they still owned. All said they would keep them in an old hat box or similar and never play them again. Before they discovered the true performer, however, they had unanimously acclaimed the recordings as sublime. Presumably they still are musically. So why deny oneself the enjoyment they obviously produce? If it is because the putative listeners are irked by the conduct of those responsible, I suggest they don’t put on a Wagner CD instead.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Intro and the Outro
A recent promotion and one or two other events in real life have left me with insufficient time to spend on this blog. As a result, and with some considerable regret, I have decided to end it. This will accordingly be the last post. It will also be the first post for anyone who happens to stumble across the blog in the future. I thought I would therefore try and say a few words about the blog and the blogging experience by way of both conclusion and introduction.
This is, or was, the blog of a half Kiwi/half English lawyer who likes cricket, current affairs, law and various bits of Western civilisation. It contains a few arguments and rants by me on various issues, usually whatever was current in the daily press, and also links to other sites I find interesting. More information on my personal tastes can be found on my profile on the right hand side of the screen.
As to cricket, I am entirely high church, without apology. That is to say, test cricket, and little else, holds my attention. I tried to enjoy the last limited overs world cup; I failed. Five nil defeats in the Ashes provided more enjoyment, and that's saying something (and nothing good either).
Politically I suppose I incline towards the Classical Liberalism of JS Mill. Needless to say I find it hard to identify with any of today's political parties. Hence I find so much political comment in the UK so tedious. Too many commentators blind themselves to the failings of their own whilst aggressively traducing the 'other side'. Even esteemed journalists like Polly Toynbee aren't immune; indeed, she might be the paradigmatic example. Besides, virtually all of British Politics was neatly summed up more than twenty years ago by Yes Minister.
As well as issues of the day, I have posted some modest efforts on somewhat weighty topics such as religion, climate change and animal rights, which I'm beginning to wonder might be the same thing, or at least variations on a theme. I have also attempted to discuss discrimination and multiculturalism and learned how much of a hornet's nest one might end up poking.
Looking back I see I have 81 posts tagged "Law", but I hope most have been written on a subject and in a way that might be of interest to general readers too.
Culturally I am unapologetically in favour of classical Western Civilisation, at least when there was such a thing. Modern art I despise. Most (though not all) of what is in the Tate Modern and almost every Turner Prize entry in history is crap. Some is literally crap. A torn canvass is not a work of art. Nor is a screwed up piece of paper. Nor a room with the light flickering on and off. Gangsta’ Rap and Simon Cowellesque fluffy pop music is not as good as Bach or Beethoven or Pink Floyd or Clapton or Led Zeppelin or Alison Krauss. Enough said.
Similarly, I disdain witchdoctors and spin doctors. Homeopathy does not work. It cannot, on its own terms. Nor does astrology. The Easter Bunny isn't real either. I could go on. I have, at length, already.
This is, or was, the blog of a half Kiwi/half English lawyer who likes cricket, current affairs, law and various bits of Western civilisation. It contains a few arguments and rants by me on various issues, usually whatever was current in the daily press, and also links to other sites I find interesting. More information on my personal tastes can be found on my profile on the right hand side of the screen.
As to cricket, I am entirely high church, without apology. That is to say, test cricket, and little else, holds my attention. I tried to enjoy the last limited overs world cup; I failed. Five nil defeats in the Ashes provided more enjoyment, and that's saying something (and nothing good either).
Politically I suppose I incline towards the Classical Liberalism of JS Mill. Needless to say I find it hard to identify with any of today's political parties. Hence I find so much political comment in the UK so tedious. Too many commentators blind themselves to the failings of their own whilst aggressively traducing the 'other side'. Even esteemed journalists like Polly Toynbee aren't immune; indeed, she might be the paradigmatic example. Besides, virtually all of British Politics was neatly summed up more than twenty years ago by Yes Minister.
As well as issues of the day, I have posted some modest efforts on somewhat weighty topics such as religion, climate change and animal rights, which I'm beginning to wonder might be the same thing, or at least variations on a theme. I have also attempted to discuss discrimination and multiculturalism and learned how much of a hornet's nest one might end up poking.
Looking back I see I have 81 posts tagged "Law", but I hope most have been written on a subject and in a way that might be of interest to general readers too.
Culturally I am unapologetically in favour of classical Western Civilisation, at least when there was such a thing. Modern art I despise. Most (though not all) of what is in the Tate Modern and almost every Turner Prize entry in history is crap. Some is literally crap. A torn canvass is not a work of art. Nor is a screwed up piece of paper. Nor a room with the light flickering on and off. Gangsta’ Rap and Simon Cowellesque fluffy pop music is not as good as Bach or Beethoven or Pink Floyd or Clapton or Led Zeppelin or Alison Krauss. Enough said.
Similarly, I disdain witchdoctors and spin doctors. Homeopathy does not work. It cannot, on its own terms. Nor does astrology. The Easter Bunny isn't real either. I could go on. I have, at length, already.
I do, however, enjoy military history, in particular the Great War, where curiously the popular British view seem to be the opposite of party politics: they dish the dirt on their own, whilst blinding themselves to the failings of others. I also enjoy films, particularly those of Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Martin Scorcese. Most of my cultural witterings were done under this link or this one.
It only remains for me to offer thanks to all those who have contributed to the comments over the time I have been writing it, they have enriched the blog immensely. I would like to say a few words about everyone out individually, but fear that I have neither the time to say it properly and, worse, would be bound to forget someone! I will still try and visit my favourite blogs when I have the chance - and, who knows, like a professional boxer, will unwisely decide to come out of retirement from time to time here. For now, however, it is time for a break, and a substantial one at that.
Thanks once again for stopping by.
Thanks once again for stopping by.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
The Financial Crisis
During the Vice Presidential debate the candidates were naturally asked about the present financial crisis. I was interested to hear Governor Palin for the Republicans (answering according to her prepared script, of course) ascribe it to greed on Wall Street; that no doubt is one of the causes and will remain the media's favourite, but it is by no means the only one.
Greed in borrowing money, after all, requires two to tango: a greedy borrower wanting money that he or she can't afford to repay, and a greedy lender prepared to lend it. The benighted individuals who racked up the national debt of a small third world country on their credit cards were as greedy as the lenders who kept moronically dolling out the cash. The media were irresponsible for promoting the consumer culture and the public were irresponsible for buying into it. The state in Britain didn't regulate the lending market and the market didn't regulate itself. As a result we developed in many instances a pyramid-scheme economy.
The first manifestation of the pyramid economy was in personal debt. Credit cards were offered so easily that many (including some sophisticated city workers of my acquaintance) were tempted to borrow and borrow by the offering of no repayments for substantial periods coupled with 0% on balance transfers for new customers. As long as they could, at the end of the 0% interest period, shift the ever increasing balance onto a new provider, the cycle could continue. Necessarily the run would have to come to an end at some point, but too many people turned a blind eye to that mathematical certainty.
The second pyramid scheme involved mortgages. As long as the housing market continued to increase, people were tempted to borrow and borrow against the theoretically increasing equity. Others were tempted to try their hand at becoming property tycoons, by continually buying-to-let with as much borrowing as they could find. On paper in a rising market they were multi-millionares; once the bubble burst they were on paper very broke indeed. Once again, the housing market could not increase forever, but the borrowing culture depending upon it doing so. Therefore, it was a mathematical certainty that the market would crash in that respect too.
The third manifestation of the pyramid scheme came in how the banks dealt with the ever-increasing amount of mortgage debt on their books. A mortgage is a transaction whereby the lender makes a profit out of the fact that the borrower pays back the capital sum plus interest. Therefore, the profit is made once the borrower starts - and only to the extent that he continues - paying back the debt and interest. Yet the banks acted as though the very act of signing up a mortgage generated a profit in itself. Salesmen were awarded commissions by signing up new mortgagors. They were therefore given every incentive to sign as many as they could. The lending departments of a bank would be rewarded for this activity, as would those in charge of the bank. None of that bore any relation to the underlying profitability - or non-profitability - of the mortgage contract itself. The bank would therefore have to generate money to pay for it all. A favoured tactic was to dress up the mortgage and sell it into the securities market. Here many buyers made the mistake that small investors often do: assuming that because the product they were buying came from someone with a good name, it must be a good product. But junk mortgages disguised as Bear Sterns securites products were still junk mortgages. As each was bought and sold the vendor would have to take a cut to make the deal profitable. Thus the underlying transaction would be even less profitable each time it was bought and sold. And so, once again, a spiral with only one end was created.
Having drafted the above, I picked up a copy of the Spectator, which had a further explanation for the US mortgage disaster behind so much of the global chaos. According to this article by Dennis Sewell:
The root problem was not financial — it was political, and those truly responsible for this fiasco were not bankers, nor even Bush Republicans; they were Clinton Democrats.
For generations, America’s bankers have been firmly refusing credit to those they judged unworthy of it. Yet the mountain of toxic subprime debt that has threatened to overwhelm the entire financial system, and the astonishing number of mortgage foreclosures across the United States, is proof that, at some point in the relatively recent past, bankers radically altered their behaviour and began to shower mortgages on borrowers who had no realistic prospect of keeping up their repayments. What could possibly have induced them to act so recklessly, and so out of character? The facile answer to that question is greed, the lure of a fast and easy buck. The correct answer is that banks were bullied, cajoled and coerced into lowering their lending standards by politicians in pursuit of an ideological agenda.
(...)
The main thrust of the Clinton housing strategy was to increase home ownership among the poor, and particularly among blacks and Hispanics. White House aides, in familiar West Wing style, could parrot the many social advantages that would accrue: high levels of home ownership correlated with less violent crime, better school performance, a heightened sense of commun-ity. But standing in the way of the realisation of this dream were the conservative lending policies of the banks, which required such inconvenient and old-fashioned things as cash deposits and regular repayments — things the poor and minorities often could not provide. Clinton told the banks to be more creative.
(...)
[W]hen little or no overt or deliberate racial discrimination was discovered among the mortgage lenders, [the state] turned to trying to prove ‘disparate treatment’ of minority groups, a notion similar to that of unintentional ‘institutional racism’. If a bank refused loans to proportionally more black applicants than white ones, for instance, the onus would fall on it to prove it had good grounds for doing so or face settlement penalties running into millions of dollars. A series of highly publicised cases were brought on this basis, starting in 1994. Eventually the investigators would turn somewhat desperately to ‘disparate impact’, a form of discrimination so abstract and rarefied as to be imperceptible to its supposed victims, and indeed often only discernible at all through the application of multivariate regression analysis to information stored on regulators’ databases.
How much blame can truly be apportioned to the Clinton Administration's interventions, as opposed to the general increased recklesness of banks I cannot answer. In Britain there was not the state did not act in the same way (in Britain we tend to respond to low income/minority housing problems with council stock). The pyramid scheme I described above was clearly driven by greed and short-sightedness. The American crash, whatever its cause, only hastened the inevitable. I tend to answer the question of whether it was the greedy public, the irresponsible media, the greedy lenders, the slack regulators or the non-existent self regulators, with the short answer that it was all of them.
The much more important question is what to do next. Talk of a taxpayer bail-out needs more detail. Take the housing market. Are we to give taxpayers' money to the homeowners, thus giving them a windfall for silly borrowing (at the expense of those such as myself who deliberately maintained conservative mortgages)? Or are we to give it straight to the lenders, thus giving them a windfall for silly lending and enabling them to reposess the houses of the failed borrowers and give themselves a second windfall, and thus also enabling them to continue the pyramid scheme lending system for longer? This I find particularly infuriating given that those in charge of the lending institutions have paid themselves absurdly high bonuses over the years (most of which they pumped into the housing market thus fuelling the boom and the continuation of the pyramid scheme) and didn't always pay taxes with any enthusiasm, the taxes they now seek to have given to them to save them from themselves.
Stephen of Rough Trade gives his thoughts here. I agree with his conclusion that the chips should be left to lie where they fall. The only argument I can see for the state intervening is that it would have to deal with the fallout of the destroyed savings accounts should it come to it (by the social welfare safety net) and so if it could intervene to prevent that happening it might as well. But I'm not comfortable with the proposed uses of taxpayers' money that I have seen. The British state is guaranteeing deposits up to £35k; the Irish and Greek governments have offered unlimited guarantees. This is the sort of rash financial act that caused the crash in the first place: if things got really bad, the only way the state could make good that promise would be by printing more money a la Germany in the 20s or Zimbabwe today; far from saving everyone's savings it would render them worthless. Else the state just borrows and borrows on more and more unfavourable terms and leaves the next generation to pay the bill (in other words, just like rash credit card behaviour ....).
Better, I would submit, that we allow the market to take the consequences. If the state must intervene, let it do so to only to the extent of ensuring an orderly wind-down of failed institutions. In other words, no more Northern Rocks. Let the state appoint administrators to selll off the assets in an orderly fashion and decide the best way to deal with those that are left broke, but no more lending and no more allowing unsustainable businesses to continue. In the usual course of events, of course, it is illegal for a company to trade whilst insolvent. There are sound reasons for this, and they apply with equal force when it is the state behind the insolvent company.
That proposed solution may seem harsh. But if it means a lesson to this generation on the value of things as well as their price, then so much the better.
Post script: here, from Stray, is an entirely different way to reach the same conclusion.
Greed in borrowing money, after all, requires two to tango: a greedy borrower wanting money that he or she can't afford to repay, and a greedy lender prepared to lend it. The benighted individuals who racked up the national debt of a small third world country on their credit cards were as greedy as the lenders who kept moronically dolling out the cash. The media were irresponsible for promoting the consumer culture and the public were irresponsible for buying into it. The state in Britain didn't regulate the lending market and the market didn't regulate itself. As a result we developed in many instances a pyramid-scheme economy.
The first manifestation of the pyramid economy was in personal debt. Credit cards were offered so easily that many (including some sophisticated city workers of my acquaintance) were tempted to borrow and borrow by the offering of no repayments for substantial periods coupled with 0% on balance transfers for new customers. As long as they could, at the end of the 0% interest period, shift the ever increasing balance onto a new provider, the cycle could continue. Necessarily the run would have to come to an end at some point, but too many people turned a blind eye to that mathematical certainty.
The second pyramid scheme involved mortgages. As long as the housing market continued to increase, people were tempted to borrow and borrow against the theoretically increasing equity. Others were tempted to try their hand at becoming property tycoons, by continually buying-to-let with as much borrowing as they could find. On paper in a rising market they were multi-millionares; once the bubble burst they were on paper very broke indeed. Once again, the housing market could not increase forever, but the borrowing culture depending upon it doing so. Therefore, it was a mathematical certainty that the market would crash in that respect too.
The third manifestation of the pyramid scheme came in how the banks dealt with the ever-increasing amount of mortgage debt on their books. A mortgage is a transaction whereby the lender makes a profit out of the fact that the borrower pays back the capital sum plus interest. Therefore, the profit is made once the borrower starts - and only to the extent that he continues - paying back the debt and interest. Yet the banks acted as though the very act of signing up a mortgage generated a profit in itself. Salesmen were awarded commissions by signing up new mortgagors. They were therefore given every incentive to sign as many as they could. The lending departments of a bank would be rewarded for this activity, as would those in charge of the bank. None of that bore any relation to the underlying profitability - or non-profitability - of the mortgage contract itself. The bank would therefore have to generate money to pay for it all. A favoured tactic was to dress up the mortgage and sell it into the securities market. Here many buyers made the mistake that small investors often do: assuming that because the product they were buying came from someone with a good name, it must be a good product. But junk mortgages disguised as Bear Sterns securites products were still junk mortgages. As each was bought and sold the vendor would have to take a cut to make the deal profitable. Thus the underlying transaction would be even less profitable each time it was bought and sold. And so, once again, a spiral with only one end was created.
Having drafted the above, I picked up a copy of the Spectator, which had a further explanation for the US mortgage disaster behind so much of the global chaos. According to this article by Dennis Sewell:
The root problem was not financial — it was political, and those truly responsible for this fiasco were not bankers, nor even Bush Republicans; they were Clinton Democrats.
For generations, America’s bankers have been firmly refusing credit to those they judged unworthy of it. Yet the mountain of toxic subprime debt that has threatened to overwhelm the entire financial system, and the astonishing number of mortgage foreclosures across the United States, is proof that, at some point in the relatively recent past, bankers radically altered their behaviour and began to shower mortgages on borrowers who had no realistic prospect of keeping up their repayments. What could possibly have induced them to act so recklessly, and so out of character? The facile answer to that question is greed, the lure of a fast and easy buck. The correct answer is that banks were bullied, cajoled and coerced into lowering their lending standards by politicians in pursuit of an ideological agenda.
(...)
The main thrust of the Clinton housing strategy was to increase home ownership among the poor, and particularly among blacks and Hispanics. White House aides, in familiar West Wing style, could parrot the many social advantages that would accrue: high levels of home ownership correlated with less violent crime, better school performance, a heightened sense of commun-ity. But standing in the way of the realisation of this dream were the conservative lending policies of the banks, which required such inconvenient and old-fashioned things as cash deposits and regular repayments — things the poor and minorities often could not provide. Clinton told the banks to be more creative.
(...)
[W]hen little or no overt or deliberate racial discrimination was discovered among the mortgage lenders, [the state] turned to trying to prove ‘disparate treatment’ of minority groups, a notion similar to that of unintentional ‘institutional racism’. If a bank refused loans to proportionally more black applicants than white ones, for instance, the onus would fall on it to prove it had good grounds for doing so or face settlement penalties running into millions of dollars. A series of highly publicised cases were brought on this basis, starting in 1994. Eventually the investigators would turn somewhat desperately to ‘disparate impact’, a form of discrimination so abstract and rarefied as to be imperceptible to its supposed victims, and indeed often only discernible at all through the application of multivariate regression analysis to information stored on regulators’ databases.
These mortgage banks, which have been responsible for issuing about three quarters of the dodgy subprime loans that are proving troublesome today, quickly took the hint. From the mid-1990s they began to abandon their formerly rigorous lending criteria. Mortgages were offered with only 3 per cent deposit requirements, and eventually with no deposit requirement at all. The mortgage banks fell over one another to provide loans to low-income households and especially to minority customers. ...
The national banks, responsible for the remaining quarter of the current subprime loans, were put under a different kind of pressure by the Clinton team to boost their low-income and minority lending too. Changes were made to the Community Reinvestment Act to establish a system by which banks were rated according to how much lending they did in low-income neighbourhoods. A good CRA rating was necessary if a bank wanted to get regulators to sign off on mergers, expansions, even new branch openings. A poor rating could be disastrous for a bank’s business plan. It was a different kind of coercion, but just as effective.How much blame can truly be apportioned to the Clinton Administration's interventions, as opposed to the general increased recklesness of banks I cannot answer. In Britain there was not the state did not act in the same way (in Britain we tend to respond to low income/minority housing problems with council stock). The pyramid scheme I described above was clearly driven by greed and short-sightedness. The American crash, whatever its cause, only hastened the inevitable. I tend to answer the question of whether it was the greedy public, the irresponsible media, the greedy lenders, the slack regulators or the non-existent self regulators, with the short answer that it was all of them.
The much more important question is what to do next. Talk of a taxpayer bail-out needs more detail. Take the housing market. Are we to give taxpayers' money to the homeowners, thus giving them a windfall for silly borrowing (at the expense of those such as myself who deliberately maintained conservative mortgages)? Or are we to give it straight to the lenders, thus giving them a windfall for silly lending and enabling them to reposess the houses of the failed borrowers and give themselves a second windfall, and thus also enabling them to continue the pyramid scheme lending system for longer? This I find particularly infuriating given that those in charge of the lending institutions have paid themselves absurdly high bonuses over the years (most of which they pumped into the housing market thus fuelling the boom and the continuation of the pyramid scheme) and didn't always pay taxes with any enthusiasm, the taxes they now seek to have given to them to save them from themselves.
Stephen of Rough Trade gives his thoughts here. I agree with his conclusion that the chips should be left to lie where they fall. The only argument I can see for the state intervening is that it would have to deal with the fallout of the destroyed savings accounts should it come to it (by the social welfare safety net) and so if it could intervene to prevent that happening it might as well. But I'm not comfortable with the proposed uses of taxpayers' money that I have seen. The British state is guaranteeing deposits up to £35k; the Irish and Greek governments have offered unlimited guarantees. This is the sort of rash financial act that caused the crash in the first place: if things got really bad, the only way the state could make good that promise would be by printing more money a la Germany in the 20s or Zimbabwe today; far from saving everyone's savings it would render them worthless. Else the state just borrows and borrows on more and more unfavourable terms and leaves the next generation to pay the bill (in other words, just like rash credit card behaviour ....).
Better, I would submit, that we allow the market to take the consequences. If the state must intervene, let it do so to only to the extent of ensuring an orderly wind-down of failed institutions. In other words, no more Northern Rocks. Let the state appoint administrators to selll off the assets in an orderly fashion and decide the best way to deal with those that are left broke, but no more lending and no more allowing unsustainable businesses to continue. In the usual course of events, of course, it is illegal for a company to trade whilst insolvent. There are sound reasons for this, and they apply with equal force when it is the state behind the insolvent company.
That proposed solution may seem harsh. But if it means a lesson to this generation on the value of things as well as their price, then so much the better.
Post script: here, from Stray, is an entirely different way to reach the same conclusion.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
The Gurkhas and the Chagos Islanders
Stephen of Rough Trade correctly applauds the court decision to allow former Gurkha soldiers to settle in the UK. He contrasts their victory with the continuing plight of the Chagos Islanders, who were evicted years ago so the Americans could build their base on Diego Garcia and keep it secure (from those well-known insurgent islanders ... or not ....). I have commented thus:
The two cases are distinguishable, if on a morally tawdry basis. The Gurkhas are about the most respected fighting unit in any army in the world; they have given magnificent service to Britain in every single conflict in which they have been involved. Whichever demented idiot thought they ought to be excluded from living in the country for which they have fought with such distinction ought to be taken out the back and physically re-engineered with a Kukri knife. This is, after all, the country which can't bring itself to deport admitted terrorists. I despair.
The Chagos Islanders are innocent people who got turfed out of their homes because our very much bigger brother the Americans decided they wanted the land for defensive (and often offensive) purposes. As we are in thrall to our bigger brother, we complied. Much as there was no arguing with China when they wanted Hong Kong, irrespective of what anyone actually living there might have wanted. So we can write off the unfortunate plight of the Chagos Islanders to realpolitik, but there isn't the beginning of an excuse - bad or otherwise - for the prior exclusion of the Gurkhas.
The two cases are distinguishable, if on a morally tawdry basis. The Gurkhas are about the most respected fighting unit in any army in the world; they have given magnificent service to Britain in every single conflict in which they have been involved. Whichever demented idiot thought they ought to be excluded from living in the country for which they have fought with such distinction ought to be taken out the back and physically re-engineered with a Kukri knife. This is, after all, the country which can't bring itself to deport admitted terrorists. I despair.
The Chagos Islanders are innocent people who got turfed out of their homes because our very much bigger brother the Americans decided they wanted the land for defensive (and often offensive) purposes. As we are in thrall to our bigger brother, we complied. Much as there was no arguing with China when they wanted Hong Kong, irrespective of what anyone actually living there might have wanted. So we can write off the unfortunate plight of the Chagos Islanders to realpolitik, but there isn't the beginning of an excuse - bad or otherwise - for the prior exclusion of the Gurkhas.
Monday, September 29, 2008
RIP Paul Newman
Lord Reith, who was the head of the BBC in the days when that was something to be proud of, issued many sound edicts. One was that the word 'famous' was redundant. If someone was famous, he reasoned, they didn't need to be called so, and if they weren't famous, they shouldn't be called it. If that axiom was in force today, most of Britain's 'celebrity' media would be out of a job, and I for one wouldn't be shedding any tears.
One person who was genuinely famous however was Paul Newman, who died over the weekend. He was most famous to an older generation than mine, it is true; not simply for his great acting skills or his looks (there was a trace of irony behind his piercing blue eyes: he was in fact colour blind) but also his salad dressings. Here is a good example of Newman's greatness and the accompanying smallness of most so-called 'celebrities'. It began when he asked a shopkeeper to sell some leftover salad dressing of his. The shopkeeper agreed, but only if he could put Newman's face on the bottles, or no-one would recognise the connection. Newman agreed, but reasoned that if he was going to do something that tacky (his word), the money ought to go to a worthwhile cause. And thus one of his extensive charitable causes began. That's the sort of thing great people used to do.
Back to Newman's acting. I suppose modern audiences might not be so familiar with Cool Hand Luke, The Sting or The Hustler. They might, however, have seen Newman's last film, Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition. It also stars Tom Hanks and Jude Law, amongst others. Newman effortlessly acts them off the screen. That's what great actors have always done.
One person who was genuinely famous however was Paul Newman, who died over the weekend. He was most famous to an older generation than mine, it is true; not simply for his great acting skills or his looks (there was a trace of irony behind his piercing blue eyes: he was in fact colour blind) but also his salad dressings. Here is a good example of Newman's greatness and the accompanying smallness of most so-called 'celebrities'. It began when he asked a shopkeeper to sell some leftover salad dressing of his. The shopkeeper agreed, but only if he could put Newman's face on the bottles, or no-one would recognise the connection. Newman agreed, but reasoned that if he was going to do something that tacky (his word), the money ought to go to a worthwhile cause. And thus one of his extensive charitable causes began. That's the sort of thing great people used to do.
Back to Newman's acting. I suppose modern audiences might not be so familiar with Cool Hand Luke, The Sting or The Hustler. They might, however, have seen Newman's last film, Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition. It also stars Tom Hanks and Jude Law, amongst others. Newman effortlessly acts them off the screen. That's what great actors have always done.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Cricketing thoughts
Some fine words here by Mukul Kesavan, trenchant and depressing in equal measure. I agree with every word, and that's why I am in a rather more glum mood than normally obtains on a Friday:
"You can't help feeling that at the very moment that Twenty20 cricket, in the shape of the second IPL season, threatens to take centre-stage in world cricket because of its showbiz potential, its silly money and its compressed excitement, the Indian Test team is about to lose the star quality that sustained it in recent times. Ganguly's gone; now think of the Test team without Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Kumble. You're left with one quality batsman, Virender Sehwag; one promising one who's yet to make his Test debut, Rohit Sharma; one spinner who occasionally runs through a side, Harbhajan Singh; and a bunch of interesting but injury-prone seamers. Not the best ingredients with which to sustain interest in Test cricket at a time when the long game is under siege.
In contrast the limited-overs teams are full of exciting young players made for that format: Dhoni, Yuvraj, Raina, Robin Uthappa, Praveen Kumar, Rohit, the brothers Pathan - the list seems endless. If I were a young boy excited about cricket today, why would I follow the fortunes of a middling Test team packed with players of moderate ability once our veterans have retired, taking their glorious careers with them?
Worse still, the Australians, who single-handedly kept interest in Test cricket alive by geeing up the Test game, upping the run-rate, forcing results (generally wins for themselves), and nearly making the draw extinct, are themselves entering a period of ordinariness and decline. It's typical of the times that the most celebrated new entrant into the Australian Test squad is Shane Watson, the quintessential Twenty20 player, who made such a huge impression on the first season of the IPL. And I don't think Jason Krejza and Bryce McGain are going to take the Test world by storm simply because Australia have been scraping the barrel in search of spinners to replace Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. It costs me to say it but this golden age of Australian cricket, from Mark Taylor to Ricky Ponting via Steve Waugh, through which they produced a whole regiment of modern greats, gave Test cricket a longer lease of the cricketing limelight than it might have had in the normal course of cricket history. If we're at the end of Australia's modern heyday, we might well be looking at the end, not of Test cricket, but of its reign as the hegemonic form of the game."
Certainly test clashes between Australia and India without Warne, McGrath, Langer, Gilchrist, Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and others won't have the same ring to them, but as the author suggests, this could be a far greater malaise indeed.
"You can't help feeling that at the very moment that Twenty20 cricket, in the shape of the second IPL season, threatens to take centre-stage in world cricket because of its showbiz potential, its silly money and its compressed excitement, the Indian Test team is about to lose the star quality that sustained it in recent times. Ganguly's gone; now think of the Test team without Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Kumble. You're left with one quality batsman, Virender Sehwag; one promising one who's yet to make his Test debut, Rohit Sharma; one spinner who occasionally runs through a side, Harbhajan Singh; and a bunch of interesting but injury-prone seamers. Not the best ingredients with which to sustain interest in Test cricket at a time when the long game is under siege.
In contrast the limited-overs teams are full of exciting young players made for that format: Dhoni, Yuvraj, Raina, Robin Uthappa, Praveen Kumar, Rohit, the brothers Pathan - the list seems endless. If I were a young boy excited about cricket today, why would I follow the fortunes of a middling Test team packed with players of moderate ability once our veterans have retired, taking their glorious careers with them?
Worse still, the Australians, who single-handedly kept interest in Test cricket alive by geeing up the Test game, upping the run-rate, forcing results (generally wins for themselves), and nearly making the draw extinct, are themselves entering a period of ordinariness and decline. It's typical of the times that the most celebrated new entrant into the Australian Test squad is Shane Watson, the quintessential Twenty20 player, who made such a huge impression on the first season of the IPL. And I don't think Jason Krejza and Bryce McGain are going to take the Test world by storm simply because Australia have been scraping the barrel in search of spinners to replace Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. It costs me to say it but this golden age of Australian cricket, from Mark Taylor to Ricky Ponting via Steve Waugh, through which they produced a whole regiment of modern greats, gave Test cricket a longer lease of the cricketing limelight than it might have had in the normal course of cricket history. If we're at the end of Australia's modern heyday, we might well be looking at the end, not of Test cricket, but of its reign as the hegemonic form of the game."
Certainly test clashes between Australia and India without Warne, McGrath, Langer, Gilchrist, Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and others won't have the same ring to them, but as the author suggests, this could be a far greater malaise indeed.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Elegantly Dressed Wednesday - Glamour Girls of the 1960s
Taken at the Goodwood Festival of Speed over the weekend, these finely turned out young ladies are supposedly representative of the 1960s. I wasn't alive in that decade, so am unable to confirm either way, but if it wasn't the 60s, maybe it should have been. Rose-tinted spectacles might explain the colour of the outfits anyway.
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