I confess to not being Tim Harford's greatest fan. But he reached new lows in the FT this weekend when saying:
The central banks got plenty right during the crisis and, given the sorry state of politics at the moment, technocracy has a certain appeal. If the UK appointed Mr Carney supreme dictator for life and bought him a nice dress uniform, he surely couldn't do a worse job of running the country than the elected politicians currently attempting to interpret the “will of the people”.
He might dismiss this as irony.
I beg to differ. I never think suggesting dictatorship ironic.
At their best comments like this are the way in which the road to the end of democracy is paved.
At their worst they are much more cynical than that.
I am sure Tim Hartford will protest that he is a democrat to his core, and I will believe him. But in that case I will accuse him of reckless carelessness on an issue too important for that risk to be taken.
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I agree wholeheartedly: as someone who lived under a military dictatorship, a supposedly “serious” journalist and newspaper giving even a whiff of credibility to the notion of a dictatorship being an acceptable solution to the UK’s current problems is beyond disgraceful. On the other hand, he’s possibly right about Carney being more capable of running the country than May’s incompetent crew, but then a collie dog is – it wouldn’t tolerate stragglers for a start.
Our so-called UK “democracy” requires a large number of significant repairs just to make it worthy of the title and this, along with climate change, should be our priority, not endless bickering about ideological issues and personal advancement while our economy is flushed down the pan.
P.G. (Plum) Wodehouse would not have agreed. His depiction of Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup made the nature of dictatorship very clear indeed.
Indeed – this is no jesting matter – especially given the virtually dictatorial actions and attitudes taken by Theresa May as a supposedly ‘democratic’ PM at Westminster. She is behaving more and more as though she possessed, deserved and intended to use increasingly authoritarian powers, with no obsrvable regard for the norms of our supposedly democratic system.
In the absence of a written constitution and buttressed by the “peculiarly English concept of the ‘sovereignty of parliament’ which has no place in the law of Scotland” (Lord Cooper), these are very real and present dangers.
Paul Kavanagh’s robustly eighteenth century style of political censure might normally seem more savage than strictly necessary but his latest piece “The definition of tyranny” is so on the point here that readers here might value the link.
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/the-definition-of-tyranny/
Well we certainly don’t want the opposite of a dictatorship which would be rampant democracy, referenda, and devolution to the lowest possible local authority level. Such an outcome would take us out of the EU and end up with us being something like Switzerland with its crazy levels of gun ownership and wine production among other things.
Surely there must be an intermediate level of dictatorship. I suggest a panel of yourself, Jonathan Bartley and Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez. If I had the money I’d give you an island in the Caribbean, of perhaps 40,000 square miles, just enough to have a balanced economy, and let you crack on. Tim Harford, John Key and Chloe Westley can have a similar sized unit in cold North Western Europe.
No thanks….
I have only disgust, as a scientist, for a technocracy.of banker-witch-doctors. I’ll take up the Caribbean autarky though, once I’ve found my cricket kit. Carny is a prime example of futility, let the planet burn Imperialists who really run the show. Utsa Patnaik would be better, though she does point out Britain ripped about £47 trillion out of India through people like Carny.
I think we can joke about anything, but not everywhere.
His irony effort might be welcome in his kitchen, not so much in the very public FT, read by some balanced and some not so balanced people.
Fair!
I see this attitude a lot amongst the commentariat (and beyond). I also heard it around the dinner table, prior to the Great Financial Crisis (New Labour politically connected). Whether people proclaim themselves as democrats is immaterial. It is in their actions (and words) that they reveal their distain for the general populace. Part of the reason we are where we are is due to a strong bias against ordinary people, whether conscious bias or not. A lack of respect for people’s inherent value and their intellect runs right through our society. And a strong inclination to control people, to manage people and to render them voiceless. So much for Enlightenment.