The Edge of England's Sword

The Anglosphere Remembers Ronnie

Lady Thatcher's moving and heartfelt tribute to President Reagan is here. I was also impressed by Brian Mulroney's well-delivered eulogy (here) and have no idea why Andrew Sullivan found it boring. We often forget that today's Anglospheric Three Musketeers had their forerunners in Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney. I find myself much more in agreement with John Derbyshire's take than Andrew's, although I'm glad someone else noticed Bubba with his eyes closed. Kris suggested he might be praying. Let's be charitable and accept that.

There were a couple of moments that touched me surrounding the service. First was Mikhael Gorbachev, sat next to Mrs T, pointing something out to her in the programme. I wonder what? Second was Laura Bush's pat on Tony Blair's shoulder as she came into the Cathedral, perhaps an indication that the strength of the Bush-Blair friendship is as strong as the Reagan-Thatcher one. I did notice Tony had his head bowed a lot. I wonder if he was praying for his party, or simply watching the results come in on his Blackberry?

For the record, I cried three times watching the ceremonies today.

By the way, does anyone know what words the choir was singing to 'Jerusalem'?

Other views

Best analyses of the results so far (aside from Political Betting, referred to below). Mr Spin is gritting his teeth and conceding that the Lib Dems did very well in Newcastle. The ever-reliable Anthony Wells has lots of interesting commentary, of course. EU Referendum has some interesting early snippets on the Euro elections.

Maybe it's because they're Londoners...

Well, Red/Cuddly/Loonybins Ken won more handsomely than many predicted, a result that Political Betting explains by reference to Livingstone's personal vote, with 1 in 6 Tories and 1 in 4 Lib Dems voting for the man. Amazing.

The Assembly, however, now sees the Tories as largest party and there essentially being 3 power blocks: the Tory/UKIP block (11 seats), the Lib Dem/Green block [there's so little difference these days] (7 seats), and Labour (7 seats). I imagine a great deal of horsetrading is going to go on, but Ken should be able to get most of his legislation through with just a few environmental concessions, I'd imagine. He declared London a nuclear-free zone, so I can see him declaring it a carbon-free zone soon.

But the real story in London as far as I can see it is the rise of the minor parties. Over a quarter of Londoners voted for someone other than the big three parties. UKIP on the right and the Greens on the left got 8% each, and the extreme parties, the BNP and RESPECT, got about 5% each. That's a major change in British politics, especially if reflected in general elections (I haven't seen the overall figures for the minors in the locals broken down by percentage yet). It would not surprise me if this led to more calls from the minors (UKIP probably excepted) for PR (proportional representation). It would also not surprise me if the two majors strengthened their stance against it, avowedly to keep the extremists out of government. The more intelligent Lib Dems might also realize that they stand to gain much less from PR than they would have a decade ago if the following of the other minor parties continues to rise.

We also see that even the PR system used in London isn't true PR. Parties oted for by 1 in 10 Londoners gained no seats, while the Lib Dems gained 5 seats as opposed to the UKIP and Greens gaining 4 between them, despite more Londoners voting for those two parties combined than for the Lib Dems. Something must be done about the electoral system so blatantly favoring the Lib Dems...

See Labour lose in 3D

Looks like a pretty good night for the Conservatives in the local elections, winning seats from both Labour and the Lib Dims (who have lost more councils than they're gained so far), and a bad one for Tony Blair. Most of these councils are urban, and therefore more naturally Labour in the post-Thatcher political world, yet they're still losing. They lost Newcastle, for goodness' sake (and I wonder how Mr Spin will react to that).

Anyway, you can watch the gains and losses via a dead cool graphic on the BBC site.

Instant analysis? Prescott and Blunkett are putting it down to Iraq, but if that's the case, why didn't all the votes go to the Lib Dems? The only possible construction I can see is that it was down to a combination of Iraq and honor. The Tories were for Iraq, but aren't perceived as lieing about it to the people. That's the only way I can see it. More likely, however, the voters are just generally dissatisfied with a government that appears to have run out of steam. We've been there before, not too long ago...

Er-hang on a minute

There's an article on NRO about oil that's a tad confused. First of all, can we please settle once and for all this myth that the settled origin of oil is from 'dead dinosaurs' which is one of those eternal urban legends that just won't go away. Oil does not originate from dead dinosaurs, the accepted theory is that oil originates from organic rich sediment exposed to great pressures and temperatures at some point after burial. The origin of the organic matter in the shales is not dinosaurs but tiny planktonic organisms known as Dinoflagellates, which are among other things responsible for the phenommenon of 'Crimson Tides'.

The origin of this 'abiotic' theory is cited as being some Russian scientists in the 1950s. That is all well and good but since the 1950s the geological sciences have undergone a wholesale revolution with the introduction of the theory of Plate Tectonics, which has touched every other part of the discipline in some way or another (for instance in this context providing mechanisms which might explain why oil was to be found in places that were unexpected in the 1950s). Soviet science was one of the lasting holdouts against the theory and only really got on board in the 1970s and 1980s. It should also not be forgotten that the Soviets funded some pretty weird stuff (but thinking about it their 'odd' research was sort of like us throwing money at the BSE brigade and the Global Warming lobby).

I can't comment at this stage on the detail of the theory or suggestions about western interest in the 'abiotic' theory itself as I've not had the chance to look at the links provided, but I will endeavor to have a go at that and report back later. What is absolutely clear cut is that we are not running out of oil - a fact which is clear whatever the origins of black gold - and never have been. Current known oil reserves provide for at least two centuries of affordable oil, and with improvements in exploration and extraction technology there is no doubt that the known reserves are a fraction of the total. And that is before we even approach the technology needed for investigating oil and gas deposits at the margins of deep ocean basins...

Oh good grief

Michael Ancram has a plan to win the Wars Against Terror - with chit chat. How very nuanced and continental.

Michael Ancram has called for renewed co-operation and dialogue between mainstream Islamic countries and the West - in a move to outflank the international terrorist organisation al Qaeda.

The Deputy Conservative Leader has written to Tony Blair highlighting his paper "From Clash to Dialogue: An Answer to al Qaeda", in which he proposes a "big initiative" based around a new Grand Congress of Reconciliation.

I think the Tory webmasters feel the same way about this as I do - I detect a little dose of sarcasm in the fact that the title of this page is "Michael Ancram's answer to al Qaeda."

Swivel-eyed and proud

"I agree with the Tories on Europe, but Labour on everything else." said the girl on the bus.

That was nearly five years ago, yet it remains clear as if it were today. After all its not everyday that one hears ordinary people discussing politics in public. That summer the Conservative Party, had stunned the media-political classes by winning the European Elections by a landslide (and had the old FPTP system been used, rather than the vile undemocratic PR system now in place their victory would have been more comprehensive). The overheard comment confirmed what I had suspected about the elections - that contrary to the spin being put about (Labour voters staying home, only Tories voting) the voters had deliberately chosen to vote for the Eurosceptic option - because they were fed up with what was being done to their country without their consent.

Sadly, William Hague and his advisers also drew the wrong conclusion. They decided that Europe would win them the next election, and concentrated on it to the exclusion of all else, resulting in the debacle of 2001.

Well, as Iain has commented below, it rather looks like the successes of 1999 are not going to be repeated for the Conservatives this Thursday - though people looking for results should remember that the votes won't actually be counted in the Euro elections until Sunday night lest their being counted on Thursday influence the continentals who vote on Sundays.

This year, the Eurosceptic vote is not going to the Tories in the wake of their pathetic campaign (once Blair promised a referendum on the Euro-constitution the entire Tory manifesto was rendered obsolete), but looks like it will transfer to the UK Independence Party. All I can say is good. Michael Howard will get a kicking for his incompetence and spinelessness and then, he needs to find a way to reconnect with those voters he's lost. And calling us 'extremists' won't cut it.

Yes, us. Until now I have voted Conservative in every public election I've been able to, and I've been leafletting for the local party candidate in my ward the past few weeks. The local party kept my vote, but in the Euro elections I went for UKIP for a variety of reasons.

My vote was initially shaken from the Tory tree by Michael Howard's opportunistic attacks on the occupation of Iraq and President Bush. Oh, I know Howard is playing what he thinks is a clever game - winking at the anti-war brigade while telling those of us who support the war that we needn't worry about a future Conservative Government's ability to back the USA. I'm unconvinced. What with the Tories proposing Defence cuts in wartime and the entire editorial staff of the Spectator sticking their heads into the sand in the hope that the jihadis will look elsewhere, I rather doubt that even if he wanted to, PM Howard could muster the courage to, say, bomb Syria. The point about that is that when people tell me, as the Spectator did last week, that a vote for UKIP is a vote for Blair, my only response is 'good - I can help him, without actually having to vote Labour'.

But beyond that (and what probably motivates most UKIP voters) there is the complete failure of the Conservative Party's Europe policy to make any sense. In Britain they claim to be Eurosceptic and they call for pulling out of the Common Fisheries Policy (which everyone knows none of our judicial overseers will permit) but in Brussels they sit with the Federasts. Either they are naive or Michael Howard has no control over his own MEPs or they are pulling a Daschle. None of those options makes me want to vote for them.

Iain's friend claims that Kilroy-Silk has had a huge effect on things. Sorry, colour me un-spun. I've seen very little talk about Kilroy, apart from among the pundit class complaining about UKIP being populated by freaks and loons. Guess what? Message: we don't care. We're not selecting a government, we're selecting a delegation to a parliament whose sovereignty many of us don't recognise in the first place. The fact of their election is as important as what they'll actually do once there because this appears to be the only way we'll get a message to our political class that as Melanie Phillips puts it, we want our country back.

Now, we're pragmatic enough to appreciate that right now the Tories are not going to promise outright withdrawal. All that we are looking for is some evidence, that a future Tory government, on hearing that "our European friends" have said no to their precious renegotiation, will do something other than say "OK" and knuckle under. In other words reassurance that Michael Howard won't do exactly what John Major did every time he lost a fight in Europe. Because without that he's no better than Blair.

And of course the Tories would get killed if they brought up straight withdrawal now, but that should not stop the idea from being brought into the mainstream by being floated as the alternative option should renegotiation fail. (Why, incidentally, is it extreme to support [as 40% of the country does] withdrawal from the EU, but moderate to support [as barely 10% do] signing our freedom away into a Euro Empire?)

If the Tories don't recognise this message. If they persist in smearing people who voted for UKIP. If they continue (as Iain's friend does) to talk down to the 'punters' about this (when the 'punters' are more clued up than most MPs), Michael Howard's honeymoon will be more than over. He will wind up having done what John Major, William Hague and IDS all failed to do: drive the core of the Party's voters away.

Stupid, stupid, stupid?

A friend of mine still involved in Tory politics in the UK writes:

So are you right in thinking the Tory Europe policy is 'stupid, stupid, stupid'? I think that's much too harsh. As another of my friends has written (my highlighting in red):

"the apparent success of UKIP has taken me by surprise and strikes me as highly ironical. When Hague sought to play the EU card, he was widely condemned. IDS ignored the subject. Howard has placed the issue back on the Agenda and has said some eminently sensible things (and I think struck the right balance - because to argue for outright withdrawal would destroy his credibility as an alternative PM). We know where he comes from. And his reward is to be abandoned atthe moment when he needs a psychological boost. And yet plenty of my friends are, I know, planning to vote UKIP."

We're playing for the general election. The party was foolish in building up expectations ahead of the European elections as we polled extremely well last time round and the number of seats up for grabs is being reduced. However all the polls show that the UKIP supporters recognise that this is a European election and not a general election. If the Tory strategy has gone awry it's in not having been more appreciative of this fact for fear of annoying Tories who choose to vote UKIP.

I personally believe that the only time the Conservatives could credibly argue for withdrawal is in Government after showing that we have fought several times for reforms and been blocked by Brussels on each occasion. Then we'd call a poll on membership at the same time as a snap election (if we're still allowed to do this following the creation of the Electoral Commission which is meant to govern how referenda are fought). The press would slay the Party if we campaigned on the same manifesto as UKIP (and you cannot possibly understand from the US how much the announcement of Robert Kilroy-Silk as a candidate has boosted their cause - without him there is no way they would be polling as well and they wouldn't have had half the press attention).

Blair's announcement of a referendum on the Constitution was vitally important too. The whole Conservative message was based around such a referendum. That wasn't stupid, but it's made it terribly hard to point to the benefits of voting Conservative without this string in the bow. Look at it the other way: what are the consequences of someone voting UKIP rather than Conservative?

Answer: there aren't many, but there are a few. Now let's try explaining these to the average punter. Power in the European Parliament is chiefly exercised by the two big blocs of the PES and the EPP (which I'll come on to shortly). These blocs tend to be dominated by the countries supplying the biggest wedges of MPs. Hence the UK, Germany and Spain have traditionally had the biggest say, and so have gained a bigger share of committee chairmanships and the like than they might have done had we previously voted for more 'fringe' parties. By contrast, the French vote all over the place at the European elections and have little influence in the European Parliament. For British business and I'm sure the population at large, this matters.

Unfortunately, this can now matter as the European Parliament has co-decision on an ever-wider amount of legislation, and the Social Affairs Directorate of the European Commission often works in tandom with Socialist MEPs to overturn an agreed common position among the member states by pushing for European Parliament.

Whilst I have no doubt UKIP MEPs will also work to prevent additional legislation coming our way, they won't carry as much clout as power goes with the larger groups in the European Parliament. (Remember that there isn't a similar surge in Euroscepticism in other member states - a neo-fascist surge, perhaps, but that helps no-one and UKIP won't get into bed with them as they're not neo-fascist.)

The power of the blocs explains why Howard decided to throw in his lot with the EPP. I'm not happy about this, but I cannot possibly believe that this decision is actually costing us votes up and down the country. Also, arguably, it would be better to wait until all the new member state centre-right MEPs had joined the EPP before fomenting a revolt from within. Whatever, I'm confident that a sounder right-of-centre grouping can emerge in time.

Finally, Roger Helmer won't lose his seat as he's number one on his region's list, as per most of the other sceptics and Thursday night will be fine - that's just the locals. Friday will be the Mayor of London and the GLA (if we pick up one more seat I believe we can block the mayor's budget even if Livingstone wins, so that would be a huge success and I'm reasonably confident of that). The European results won't be out till Sunday.

I saw your seats predication on Anthony Wells' site. I hope you're right. My guess is that we'll do better in London than the rest of the UK for the Europeans, gaining a seat more than Labour here, as UKIP doesn't have the same resonance in the city (the parties will need roughly 9% in London for every MEP elected I reckon, as opposed to 5% for a GLA member). While canvassing, it's impossible to tell which way people will vote. We ask 'will you vote Conservative' and they say 'yes' but don't tell us for which election. There certainly aren't the huge numbers of UKIP posters that are apparently seen elsewhere in the country. I find it difficult to believe that the Tories and Labour together won't poll more than 50% of the vote, but we'll see.

A useful perspective, but I still find the strategy unconvincing. As I replied to my friend, I still think the massive vote haemorrhage to UKIP will be used time and time again to Labour's advantage and that the EPP point is actually very important to a lot of those who are voting UKIP (join a few of the Euroskeptic mailing lists and you'll see exactly how clued in they all are to the minutiae of Europe). I'm also sure, because European politics is all about compromise, that we could have come to some sort of arrangement that would have got us the same weight as a large group outside EPP as a now much smaller group within EPP. Oddly, I think that our reduced circumstances probably make us better off within EPP, but that's a pretty small consolation.

I'm also pretty sure that withdrawal has reached or is close to a tipping point. It certainly shouldn't be taboo any more. A Tory policy of "We will propose certain necessary reforms. If they are not accepted, we shall have to consider withdrawal" would have the same effect as the strategy you propose, but would play better with the UKIP voters. The Ken Clarkes could be asked what they object to about the reform agenda and made to put up or shut up.

I continue to think that soft-balling Europe was a huge error of judgment and that Howard will be hurt badly by it. I hope I'm wrong (which will have the side-benefit of exposing YouGov as a bunch of lucky shysters, which methodologically they have always seemed to me to be), but I don't think so.

And, seriously, Kilroy-Silk a huge factor? If so, then Britain is completely in hock to the cult of personality and I'll be applying for American citizenship. I really don't think a C-list celeb could have that much influence.

Over at the Commons

I have a few recent posts over at The Commons, on some tendentious claims following The Day After Tomorrow (my review to follow, by the way) and the French decision to constitutionalize the Precautionary Principle. Zut alors!

"A Truly Great American Hero"

I thought I'd leave the tribute to Ronald Reagan to the Briton who knew him best, Margaret Thatcher:

President Reagan was one of my closest political and dearest personal friends. He will be missed not only by those who knew him and not only by the nation that he served so proudly and loved so deeply, but also by millions of men and women who live in freedom today because of the policies he pursued

Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired.

To have achieved so much against so many odds and with such humour and humanity made Ronald Reagan a truly great American hero.

I await the eulogy she has taped for him with nervous pride.

Staying on matters European

I've been meaning to mention the excellent EU Referendum blog maintained by heavyweights Richard North and Helen Szamuely for a while now, but a couple of recent posts are well worth attending to. The one linked here is an excellent analysis of why the Greens are tanking in the Euro polls at the moment. This is a particularly important observation:

Interestingly, in Eurostat opinion polls of approval ratings on EU policies, "environment" shows up consistently as the most popular. The demise of the Greens, therefore, may in part reflect the increasing disillusionment with the EU, which relies on its "successes" in pursuing environmental legislation as justifying, in part, its existence - relying on the tedious mantra "pollution knows no frontiers".

It is perfectly true that environmentalism is one of the leading raisons d'etre of the EU at the moment. This is acknowledged explicitly in the horrifying document mentioned here and elsewhere on the site. I'll have more to say myself on this terrible, terrible document (which I realize is not official EC policy, but which does represent the thinking of the technocratic elite of the European project), but for the moment consider the suggestion that the EU must have significant military strength to impose its model of the world by force, and that the model consciously rejects liberalism...

Better off out?

I haven't commented on British politics for what seems like an age, but today's opinion poll in the Telegraph which gives UKIP 21% of the likely Euro-vote on Thursday is remarkable. Anthony Wells has had some cautionary things to say on these polls, but given that YouGov's burgeoning reputation rests heavily upon them (bottom line: if they're wrong, YouGov will go bust), I'm inclined to give them some weight.

What it shows is that Michael Howard made a massive mistake by taking a Euro-friendly line, refusing to pull out of the EPP and so on. He did this to stop a few fat old Tory wets like Ken Clarke criticizing him and to prevent what? about 5 percent? of the Tory vote from going to the Lib Dems. Instead, he's handed the twenty percent of the likely electorate who feels strongly about Europe to UKIP on a platter.

Let's not underestimate the importance of this. Howard had the opportunity to get the moral triumph of almost getting almost double Labour's vote in these elections. He could have spoken with the clear mandate of reflecting the will of the British people on Europe. He could have used it as the bedrock of an election campaign - the British people support the Tories on foreign policy, and they distrust Labour on domestic policy etc. He could have commanded TV air time. He could have done lots of things.

Instead, the news on Thursday night will be - make no mistake - Labour and the Tories humilated. Howard will look weak and Tony Blair will be able to say the British people have rejected the Tories again. And there's a good chance that some of the excellent Tory MEPs we have, like Roger Helmer, will lose their seats to, erm, swivel-eyed loons.

And there was so little need for it. As a new study from Civitas on the EU's Costs and Benefits makes clear, Britain will be billions of pounds better off out of the EU, and the likelihood of any jobs being lost (as the EU alarmists always maintain) is tiny.

[By the way, if anything the figures Civitas uses are massive underestimates. Compared with the annual per capita cost of new Federal regulation in the US, as admitted by the OMB, the costs used by Civitas are tiny. Unless the EU is really a much less heavily regulated place than the US, which I very much doubt, these figures should be increased massively, which would therefore massively increase the benefit to the UK from withdrawal.]

So I think I'm justified in summing up the current Tory European policy in three words: stupid, stupid, stupid.

Overwhelmed by Spam

I have just deleted 231 spam comments from one post alone. As I cannot figure out how to get MT-Blacklist to work, I have no alternative but to close down the comments sections to prevent the site from crashing out of control.

I shall therefore be going through every post manually closing comments over the next few days/ weeks (let's be honest). New posts will have comments open as the exception rather than the rule.

I regret this very much, especially as I hope to start posting again regularly soon.

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus met in Denmark in the last week of May. The project described itself as follows:

“The goal of the Copenhagen Consensus project was to set priorities among a series of proposals for confronting ten great global challenges. These challenges, selected from a wider set of issues identified by the United Nations, are: civil conflicts; climate change; communicable diseases; education; financial stability; governance; hunger and malnutrition; migration; trade reform; and water and sanitation.

“A panel of economic experts, comprising eight of the world’s most distinguished economists, was invited to consider these issues. The members were Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago (Nobel laureate), Bruno Frey of the University of Zurich, Justin Yifu Lin of Peking University, Douglass North of Washington University in St Louis (Nobel laureate), Thomas Schelling of the University of Maryland, Vernon Smith of George Mason University (Nobel laureate), and Nancy Stokey of the University of Chicago.”

The project ranked four projects as representing very good value for money. They were: new programs to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS; reducing the prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia by means of food supplements; multilateral and unilateral of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, together with the elimination of agricultural subsidies; and the control and treatment of malaria.

On climate change, the Consensus project considered a paper authored by William R. Cline of the Center for Global Development and Institute for International Economics, which suggested that the benefits of action now on climate change would outweigh the costs by $166 trillion to $94 trillion. However, the only way the paper was able to achieve such a benefit: cost ration was by using an unfeasibly low discount rate for the benefits of 1.5 percent. The panel rejected this economically nonsensical methodology.

In fact the panel ranked all three suggestions for action – an “optimal carbon tax,” a “value-at-risk carbon tax” and the Kyoto protocol as bad investments. The final report summarized:

“The panel looked at three proposals, including the Kyoto Protocol, for dealing with climate change by reducing emissions of carbon. The expert panel regarded all three proposals as having costs that were likely to exceed the benefits. The panel recognized that global warming must be addressed, but agreed that approaches based on too abrupt a shift toward lower emissions of carbon are needlessly expensive. The experts expressed an interest in an alternative, proposed in one of the opponent papers, that envisaged a carbon tax much lower in the first years of implementation than the figures called for in the challenge paper, rising gradually in later years. Such a proposal however was not examined in detail in the presentations put to the panel, and so was not ranked. The panel urged increased funding for research into more affordable carbon-abatement technologies.”

So is this all bad news for climate alarmists? You wouldn't think so if you read the Denver Post:

In addition to oil prices hovering at record levels, some economists say a carbon tax would encourage Americans to curb wasteful energy consumption that contributes to global warming.

Three prominent economists appearing here for the global economics conference "Copenhagen Consensus" agreed that the chances of approving a carbon tax during an election year are slim. Consumers would face the tax at the gas pump. ...

A carbon tax would be a more efficient means of addressing problems tied to global warming than many other measures that have won favor on the world stage, according to the economists: William Cline, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.; Harvard University professor Robert Mendelsohn; and Stanford University professor Alan Manne.

... While the men agree that a carbon tax would be one financially sound way to fight global warming, they disagree about how high the tax should be.

Quite how this squares with the final report of the consensus project - that three out of the four carbon tax proposals (including Kyoto, a tax in all but name) represent bad value for money, and that the fourth is not developed enough to judge - is beyond me.

Clout

A year ago, Lady Drake and I were in South Dakota. On our previous visit to Lady Drake's mother, we'd ended up with a pair of free tickets to anywhere in the lower 48 states, and after some thinking about where we wanted to go on our 2003 trip we decided that instead of doing a short break in a city, we wanted to do something different. So we decided to go and see Mt Rushmore and buffalo. Its a decision that I'm very glad we made, for we had a wonderful time. Since the time of George Armstrong Custer people have been visiting the Black Hills and sending back reports of their overwhelming beauty, and I can only say that they have been right. And South Dakota definitely felt like our kind of place - from the banners in Rapid City Airport welcoming the 28th Bomb Wing back from Iraq, or the fact that the airport shows Fox not CNN, to the free newspaper we picked up in a gas station in Hill City, which contained articles laying into the UN and environmentalists! Plus there was plenty to do - from visiting Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse mountain or the wonderful Custer state park, to driving back onto the plains and out to the Badlands. No, we can't recommend it enough. If you have the opportunity to go there, do it - you won't regret it.

South Dakota has been in my thoughts again lately because of the imminent special election for the state's lone House seat to be held on Tuesday, and of course the impending Senate clash in the autumn. To those who've not been paying attention, in November 2002 former Republican governor Bill Janklow was elected to the House of Representatives, defeating Democrat Stephanie Herseth. Then, last year Janklow sped through a red light, killing someone. After being convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison, Janklow resigned his seat and Herseth was immediately the favourite to win. The Republicans settled on State Legislator Larry Diedrich to try the uphill struggle to hold the seat. This race has become one of the biggest in the country, with out of state donations pouring in for both campaigns, especially as Herseth's lead has dwindled into single figures.

The thing is, while some might characterise this as a litmus test of public opinion, the campaign has run more like a GOP primary. Herseth claims to oppose partial-birth abortion and support both the Iraq war and the Bush tax cuts. Her campaign has been extremely careful to avoid all references to the national Democratic party (positively avoiding links to John Kerry as these pictures attest) and even to Senate Minority leader Daschle despite his position as de-facto head of the South Dakota Democrats. In short she has campaigned as a conservative Democrat - and that seems to be giving her the edge.

The essence of the Republican campaign has been that Herseth is not telling the truth. After all, she is a Georgetown educated lawyer who lives in DC. It is possible that she really is an old style conservative Democrat despite that, but given where her backing is coming from there's a reasonable chance that she is playing the game of being one thing in South Dakota, and another entirely in DC. Which as a strategy has a lot going for it - since it exactly matches Tom Daschle's m.o.

It will probably be enough. Despite a late surge Diedrich will probably lose, though it should be borne in mind that whoever wins will face the voters again in November.

South Dakota is one of the most Republican states in the country, yet both of its Senators are Democrats, so a Herseth victory would make the entirety of the congressional delegation Democrat, in a state that Bush will take with an enormous majority. That is already the case in North Dakota, where the ghastly Byron Dorgan* will be re-elected because the local GOP are too useless to put up a strong candidate. But there is more to this situation than just the ineptness of the Republicans.

I think a part of it is that the Democrats were until recently what used in the UK to be called "the natural party of government". The Dakotas are highly reliant on agriculture and the facts are that (a) agriculture is heavily reliant on politicians in Washington bringing home the bacon and (b) Democrats are far far better at parliamentary manoevering than Republicans, and therefore tend to be more successful than the GOP at (a), and (c) that as the "governing party" the Democrats have tended to be in a better position to deal out the pork. In a single word, this is what the Daschle campaign calls 'clout' - the commodity he trades off as Minority leader, and which is key to his own re-election bid.

But I think a far bigger part of the success of Herseth, Dorgan and others is this: The public is presented with a conservative Democrat, and that is what the public wants to see. I think there are an awful lot of people, particularly in the red states, who would like to be able to vote Democrat, but who recognise that right now the Democrats are far too close to the John Kerry / Ted Kennedy end of the spectrum for comfort.

I hope that people are wrong and that Stephanie Herseth really is a conservative Democrat, and not just posing as one to get elected. If she does win it will be because of her stance as a Bush Democrat that will have done it. And I think that same factor will probably be the undoing of Tom Daschle - for as leader of the Democrats in the Senate and architect of their obstruction programme he cannot pose as conservative Democrat, the way he did in 1986 when he was first elected.

Of course, undermining his 'clout' would probably help too. Daschle's opponent, former congressman John Thune who lost the 2002 senate race by 500 votes is polling within the margin of error of Daschle and has yet to run an advert. Back in 1986, then chairman of the Senate Agriculture committee, Robert Byrd (D-KKK), let South Dakota voters know he had reserved a place for Daschle should they elect him. Maybe Thad Cochran (R-MS) should return the compliment.

For more on South Dakota, check out these blogs:

South Dakota Politics

Daschle v. Thune

* The man whose grandstanding killed the terrorism-futures market study.

Handling the truth

I've been pretty busy of late and not had the chance to compose any posts, however Lady Drake has been moved to put pen to paper by the interminable prattling of the usual suspects on the Abu Ghraib affair:

I have recently been thinking about the scene in A Few Good Men, where Tom Cruise says he wants the TRUTH and Jack Nicholson yells back "you can't handle the truth". I was hoping for a Nicholson style outbreak when Rumsfield et al where being questioned by the Senate. I want him to yell it at every pontificating journalist and opinionista. Hell, I want to yell it from the roof tops. The truth is war is a hard, messy, deadly affair. It is not a romantic game of bravery and daring. It is a hard slog, that is trying at the best of times and wrenching and torturous and terrifying most of the time.

The Abu Ghraib Affair, bothers me because it reflects badly on men and women who serve boldly and with honor. Truthfully, I can't summon outrage on behalf of Ba'athist thugs who had a few snapshots taken in "compromising" positions, especially considering that they are prisoners for being card carrrying members and the muscle men of a regime that had rape rooms and gassed its own people. A bit of me thinks they deserve worse - but not at the expense of our reputation and the honor of the uniform. However, if those pictures were not produced for the entertainment of a very few soldiers, but a result of military orders to use as intelligence tools, fine with me. If a naked and humilated thug means saving the lives of a few good men, fine with me. In fact bring it on.

And that is where one's ability to handle the truth really becomes important. I think we should do almost anything to win this war, and to protect ourselves and our interests. And I really do mean almost anything. If we have to invade Saudi and execute every member of the house of Saud and all the clerics it supports to curb the Wahabbi threat, so be it. If we have to be mean and ensure that the worst elements of global society have a nasty, brutish and short life, bring it on. They offer little to the world but misery and pain and if we send them to meet their maker, it is worth my tax money.

If that is our plan, even on a limited scale, and I think"a policy of preemptive force" is pol speak for it, we should be honest about it. It is not in our interest to be nice , it is in our interest to be feared because no matter what we do we will be hated.

I take it as given that there are people who are vile, corrupt, murdering, raping thugs. They can be found in all segments of every society. There are bad guys bent on destruction, evil geniuses, and power mongers, and if we want the world to be a safe place it is our job as superpower to play super hero. Those who can't accept the first can see no justification in the latter. It is easier for the liberal guilt suffering occupants of stylish lofts, executive McMansions, the Hollywood Hills, and red brick university dorms to blame the victim than accept that their world view is wrong. If September 11 is our fault it will be easier to correct, because we are enlightened people who want everyone to love us and each other...

Correcting that is near impossible when the enemy or as they see it "aggrieved parties" don't want to talk, and still really want you to die.

Whilst our "talk it out" culture can have real benefits, there are limits to its usefulness. And if these people could handle the truth they would be the first to admit it.

Chettering classes

I did a live chat today for globalwarming.org on the subject of the Kyoto protocol. For the moment, you can access it at Global Warming Live Chat.

Attacked by Greenpeace

Nice of them to notice me at last. They have a go at me in their press release, Big screen vs big oil:

Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) dislikes the film almost as much as he dislikes Al Gore. He claims that the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is guilty of bad science when it warns about global warming, and trots out a panel of four "experts" sponsored by the "Cooler Heads Coalition" to prove it. He neglects to mention that the Cooler Heads Coalition was started by his own institute, or that CEI is funded by... no, wait ... surely this is coincidence? ExxonMobil again!

Not a word about my arguments, merely an ad hom attack. They can do better than this, surely, unless actually engaging with the objections raised by the - genuine - experts I cite would be devastating to their argument.

Oh. Of course.

BTW, if you need an explanation for this latest posting hiatus, the current media frenzy over the movie and Russia provide it. The tidal wave caused by global warming alarmism has hit me...

Talking of Russia, you can read my take on President Putin's recent announcement here.