Half a century ago I had to summon up courage to reach up to the top shelf for a copy of Health & Efficiency, then endure the disapproving glare of the newsagent as he placed it into a brown paper bag. Now -apparently- porn can just pop up on your mobile phone spontaneously.
How excruciatingly dreadful it must have been to be Neil Parish at the centre of the media frenzy, with even colleagues demanding instant execution. Imagine the humiliation and embarrassment of attempting to explain it to your wife, or your mother.
There are people, including children, who are addicted to online pornography. I recall an excellent and hilarious play about the condition, but it is no joke. My former colleague Claire Perry campaigned tirelessly against it and I remember being summoned to a meeting at Poulner Baptist Church to be cross-examined about what we were going to do about it. Not much yet, is the answer to that one, although we expect the Online Harms Bill to be in the Queens Speech on 10th May (though there are many legitimate reservations about the bill).
We can sometimes be understanding of addictive behaviour such as gambling or alcoholism.
Watching Porn in the Commons reveals a lamentable want of judgement. Perhaps some of the coverage has revealed a want of charity too.
It’s Time to give Rwanda our best shot
This year, with estimates ranging from 60,000 to 80,000 for the number of people who will arrive on our shores in small boats, it is clear that we need policies that both reduce incentives and act as a deterrents.
First, incentives – why do so many people fleeing the war zones and economic basket cases travel all the way across continents to get to Britain?
From some constituents I still hear the prejudiced nonsense that they come to take advantage of easy access to our state benefits system. Actually, the benefits available in some other European jurisdictions that they pass through are significantly more generous. On the contrary, they choose to come to Britain because it is here that it is so much easier to find work.
Notwithstanding record numbers of vacancies, we forbid asylum applicants from working. Instead, we pay them modest allowances insisting that they remain idle. Many of my parliamentary colleagues believe that this is absurd and that we should allow them to work in all those enterprises keen to employ them.
In my estimate this would be a mistake: it would increase the very incentive to travel all the way to Britain eschewing the opportunities to settle elsewhere along the route.
What we need to address is the ease with which illegal work can be had here.
Second, deterrence: If you make it to Britain, even if your application for asylum is rejected, there is little prospect of you being deported, So, If we are to reduce the numbers arriving across the Channel we need the deterrent effect of that danger and expense ending up with the probability of deportation elsewhere. Some of the measures in the Borders Bill currently going through Parliament (if we can get them through the House of Lords) will address aspects of this by doing away with endless appeals and other abuses.
The plan to deliver arrivals to Rwanda however, has the potential to completely undermine the people-smuggler’s market: why risk thousands of pounds only to end up in Rwanda?
I do not underestimate the difficulties of implementing this plan. I drew attention to those problems in this column on 19th November 2021 Channel Crossings 2 (desmondswaynemp.com)
It will be expensive, controversial and beset with snags that we will need to overcome (and I drew attention to one of them in the Commons this week), but it might just work, as it has done for Australia.
Those who describe it as scandalous and contrary to God’s law need to come up with an alternative to the current scandal of the squalid camps around Calais, vulnerable people being fleeced by gangsters, and the dangers of the Channel. So far, all they have offered us is the hope of better co-operation with the French authorities – ignoring the fact we’ve already been paying them handsomely. And ‘opening up more safe routes to UK’. The naivete of this suggestion is breath-taking: those that fail to secure an official safe route, will carry on anyway with the traffickers.
I know Rwanda very well. It’s time to give it our best shot.
Fixed Penalty Notices
When I voted to make Boris leader of my party it was to win an election and ‘get Brexit done’; in that respect he has delivered. When I made my decision to support him I did so in the full knowledge that he came with a cupboard full of skeletons. Life and politics are about choices and priorities.
When ‘partygate’ first broke, I responded to emails by observing that those who ‘have broken the law deserve to face the full force of the law’. Well, if the full force of the law is £100 fine, then so be it.
It is true that we require MPs to quit when guilty of serious crimes for which imprisonment is the penalty, but not for a fixed penalty notice. In the end, it comes down to how seriously you consider the PM’s breach to be.
I am not persuaded that my expectations should be altered by the fact that the rules that the PM breached, were his very own rules. Though, more fool him for having made them.
I opposed those rules. I thought the Government had no place to make them. By the month, as more evidence emerges of the damage that those ruled have done, I am reassured that my stance was the right one.
I spent the first few weeks of lockdown explaining the distinction between guidance and regulation to constituents in order to reassure them that they were entitled to do things that they often thought they were forbidden to do. This was particularly the case for many sole traders who feared that they were no longer entitled to carry on their businesses. There was a clear distinction between a dwelling and a workplace.
In this column on 12th February Another party…and a riot ? (desmondswaynemp.com) I acknowledged that when the PM told the Commons rules were not broken and that there were no parties at number 10, a shudder went down my spine. As I said then, not because I didn’t believe him to be telling the truth, I did believe him and still do, but because I had no doubt that his honest belief of what amounted to a ‘work event’ would be considered to be a party by a great many people. Now the Police have reached that judgement too.
I wasn’t there. I haven’t seen the evidence, but I have my doubts.
(What was clearly a party, and a disgraceful and egregious breach if the accounts are true, was the gathering on the eve of Prince Phillip’s funeral, but on that occasion the PM was in Buckinghamshire.)
The deaths of so many people from Covid-19 were made so much worse by the inhumanity of regulations that prevented friends and relatives comforting the dying and comforting one another at funerals and wakes. My heart goes out to those who have written to me to express their anguish and anger about the way their loved ones died. That anger is justified by the want of judgement at No.10. I accept that, as has the Prime Minister.
My focus remains the much greater folly of what I still consider the disproportionate regulations themselves. I am entitled to blame the PM for them, but I must acknowledge that his Government’s efforts first to relax and then to revoke the regulations, were opposed by the opposition parties now demanding the PM’s head, but they wanted even stricter and prolonged restrictions.
Can a Woman have a Penis?
A Constituent emailed me to ask if I believed that a woman could have a penis.
Clearly, she wasn’t contacting me for an insight into my biological understanding and expertise. Rather, she was seeking to identify where I stood on the question of ‘trans rights’ which has produced so much confusion and obfuscation from front-line politicians when that question has been put to them recently.
I am relieved that the Prime Minister has now brought some robust common sense to the matter.
There is nothing new about transgender issues. It is as old as human experience. As for it becoming a matter of public discussion and interest, I remember reading Jan Morris’s book Conundrum about her own experience, when it was first published way back in 1974.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with people, who are uncomfortable with their biological sex, identifying as the opposite gender. It does me no harm to me and it isn’t my business to enquire after the personal choices of others: live and let live.
There is a proper distinction to be drawn however, when it comes to a man who identifies a woman, yet retains his male genitals, being admitted to exclusive female facilities such as changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards, and even prisons. I find it difficult to comprehend that some people even question this, let alone mercilessly persecute female academics and authors who have sought to protect these exclusive biologically female spaces.
Now let’s come to the question of ‘conversion therapies’: There is little disagreement that the more cruel and brutal parts of conversion therapy should be banned, indeed current legislation already outlaws the more egregious aspects. There are important interventions however, that need to be thoroughly explored and which must not be caught by the ‘chilling effect’ of ill-defined and poorly thought through legislation. It is crucial that teenagers with gender dysphoria receive support from medical and psychological professionals before they take irrevocable decisions about a transition, which they might later regret. This is not attempted conversion, but merely investigating the causes of gender dysphoria, which can be numerous and complex.
There are particular concerns about the exposure of children to radically progressive ideas concerning sex and gender. We must avoid heading down a road where a generation of young people are taught to think that it is normal to transition to a different gender before becoming an adult.
Finally, Women have been fighting for decades for their sport to achieve the same status and prize money as men, yet we now find ourselves in a situation where biological males can announce themselves to be female and proceed to blow their biologically female opponents out of the water. This is ridiculous. Biological men should compete with biological men and biological women with biological women. A compromise might be to create transgender events where those who have transitioned are able to compete against each other on a level playing field, rather than denying those who have been training for an event their whole lives a fair shot at glory.
Energy Bills
I have received a large number of emails about the rise in energy bills.
Some have asked for a windfall tax on the oil companies to generate revenue that can then be used to reduce consumer bills. I addressed what I consider to be the folly of a windfall tax in this column last week.
The Chancellor announced a £9 billion package in February to provide some relief through council tax rebates and a scheme for spreading costs over the next two years. This will help but it represents only a fraction of the increased bills that we all face.
Energy prices are determined by supply and demand in international markets and are beyond the control of any government. Growth in international demand relative to the supplies available was already driving prices up as economies recovered from the Covid pandemic. The impact of war in Ukraine and the sanctions that we imposed on Russia sent the prices of oil and gas through the roof. As I said in the Commons, when we impose sanctions on Russia, we are also imposing them on ourselves. The only consolation is the privations that we will endure are as nothing, compared to the suffering of the people of Ukraine.There are a number of sources of assistance for people worried about their energy bills or falling into debt. Smart Energy GB has worked with the fuel poverty charity National Energy Action to provide simple and helpful advice which can be found on their websites. Many other organisations also provide advice and support, such as Age UK and the British Gas Energy Trust.
People who prepay for their energy might benefit from upgrading to a smart prepayment meter which provide new ways to top up online, over the phone, by text, or by smart phone apps. The accurate and near real-time data allows energy suppliers support prepay customers more easily, by offering tailored support assistance as emergency payment applied directly to the meter, or advice on managing energy costs.
In the end there is no way of getting over the fact that we have to pay for the energy that we use to heat our homes, and we need to reconcile ourselves to using less of it.When I was a child we didn’t have central heating and we’d often be fascinated on a cold morning by the frosty patterns on the inside of the window panes. My grandparents didn’t have a fridge because they didn’t need one, there was a room that was easily kept cold enough. We all wore warmer clothes.
These days may come again
Afghanistan 6
In anticipation of the forthcoming Afghanistan Pledging Conference, I attended a seminar in which the desperate plight of the situation in Afghanistan was brought home to us: the economy has collapsed and people are starving. The obscenity is that food is available but there is no cash to buy it. The plea, which was made by western charities, was for more Aid and for a solution to the liquidity problem by unfreezing assets held by the Afghan Central Bank overseas and committed to Afghanistan before Taliban takeover.
The presenters insisted that there is now an opportunity to influence the Taliban by the generosity of our response, and that were we not to do so, that influence would instead be acquired by China and Russia with their rather less delicate sensitivities.
I ventured that it was my prejudice that the response of the West would be conditioned by the willingness of the Taliban to demonstrate their commitment to the undertakings they have given on Women’s Rights and to no reprisals against servants of the former regime. Alas, the day after that seminar, the Taliban cancelled the return of girls to secondary schools.
Another question on which we might reflect, given our 20 year commitment to Afghanistan in blood and treasure, is this: As we look at the example of Ukrainians fighting to the death for their country, why was it that such a will to resist on the part of the whole of civil society was not so evident in Afghanistan?
Ukraine 4
A number of arm-chair experts have sent me their criticisms of the Homes for Ukraine scheme that the Government has launched. This scheme hasn’t just been plucked out of the air, rather it is modelled on a successful scheme that was developed and implemented in Canada for Syrian refugees. We hope it will be equally successful here but there is an element of ‘suck it and see’.
Hosts have to commit to 6 months, some won’t manage to stick it out, some will extend their hospitality well beyond and some won’t. Undoubtedly other hosts will come forward to take up the slack, but in the event of there not being sufficient, then the burden will fall on local authorities to find accommodation. In that eventuality it is worth remembering that there are still 12,000 Afghans accommodated in hotels since last August to find homes for.
Windfall
A windfall tax on oil companies, demanded by the opposition parties, would deliver a short-term gain for the exchequer – which could be passed on to hard pressed tax-payers and consumers.
It would however, be an irresponsible expedient at the expense of the long-term interests of the very same tax-payers and consumers.
We live and work in an international economy where we compete for investment to generate jobs, productivity and -so proceeding- greater prosperity. The key to this competitive process is to present ourselves as a stable, predictable and business-friendly jurisdiction. Few things could be more damaging to that reputation than arbitrary taxes imposed on enterprises because the markets have delivered them unexpectedly high profits.
The proper course for a country that wants to become and to remain prosperous, is to design a tax system that incentivises the reinvestment of profits in to more productive enterprises.
Advocates of a windfall, often pray in aid the windfall tax imposed on the Banks in the early years of Lady Thatcher’s government. Though I’ve worshipped at her shrine too, she wasn’t perfect and that tax was one of her mistakes.
Nazanin
The welcome for the return of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was universal. Nothing should dampen the joy of seeing her family reunited. I visited her husband Richard twice during his hunger vigils -once outside the Iranian Embassy and, more recently outside the Foreign Office. He has proved a magnificent and brave campaigner, matching his wife’s courage and endurance at Evin prison in Iran.
The reality we cannot escape from however, is that Iran took Nazanin as a hostage and we have paid a ransom for her return.
The historical £400 million debt that we owed to Iran was indeed legitimate: In the nineteen seventies the Shah of Iran ordered and paid for UK tanks for his army. They were never delivered because the Iranian Revolution brought to power a regime that we could not possibly of have justified arming. That regime, in breach of all international standards and law, took 52 US diplomats hostage. Since when, international financial sanctions, in one form or another, have prevented the settlement of the debt we owed to Iran.
The secret terms of the treaty we signed, we are assured, prevent the £400 million being spent on any of Iran’s current military adventures in Syria, support for the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon or any of its other sponsorship of terrorism. On the contrary, it must be spent on humanitarian objectives. This fig leaf, the exact terms of which we are prevented from knowing, is our comfort blanket, reassuring us that we really didn’t pay a ransom after all; No, we just settled an historic debt that we genuinely owed and that we’ve done the just and honourable thing.
Notwithstanding my joy for the return of Nazanin, I cannot be alone in believing that Iran has secured what it set out to achieve when it took her hostage in the first place.
A precedent has been set and the world is a more dangerous place as a consequence.
Anyone who travels to jurisdictions beyond the ‘rule-of-law’ -as we understand that term in western liberal democracy, places themselves at huge risk.
Ukraine 3
From the very start the UK has been out in front of the pack on Ukraine: We trained 22,000 of their troops over the last few years and armed them with anti-tank weapons: We made public the classified intelligence spelling out exactly what Russia was planning. Some of our allies were sceptical, but our ministers travelled relentlessly to European capitals to repeat the warnings.
When it came to the crunch we froze more Russian Assets than the USA and very much more than the EU.
Our humanitarian assistance to countries bordering Ukraine taking the refugee crisis, has been
faultless.
I have been inundated however, with complaints about our dilatory response on the issue of Ukrainian refugees.
Security is important: bona fides do need checking; there will be Russian agents and migrants from other countries masquerading as Ukrainians: we cannot just open the door without checking.
I have no difficulty with the two schemes that have been announced which strike me as fair and proportionate. I anticipate that family sponsored refugees will mostly dwell with their families that sponsored them. Equally individual and community sponsored refugees will reside in the housing that their sponsors have identified. This is an important consideration. Shortage of housing is easily the biggest headache in my inbox; and we still have 12,000 Afghan refugees in hotels to find homes for.
What has driven me, my correspondents and my parliamentary colleagues into a state of rage is the lamentable implementation of these schemes.
When many thought we were ‘crying wolf’, ministers really believed our own intelligence sources that an invasion was coming with all its predictable consequences – so we had weeks to plan and deploy forward processing centres in countries bordering Ukraine, well in advance of the arrival of refugees. It is deeply regrettable that this week we were still acquiring premises and defining the details on the schemes.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 43
- Next Page »