Stumbling and Mumbling: The world's most expensive penis enlargement

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June 22, 2006

The world's most expensive penis enlargement

Whatever happened to evidence-based policy-making? That's the question raised by Brown's promise to buy a new nuclear deterrent at a cost of - well, think of a big number and double it.
Back in 1999, New Labour issued a white paper, Modernising Government, which said policy should be "shaped by the evidence rather than a response to short-term pressures." In 2001, a Cabinet Office paper, Better Policy Making (pdf) described evidence-based policy-making thus:

The advice and decisions of policy-makers are based upon the best available evidence from a wide range of sources; all key stakeholders are involved at an early stage and throughout the policy's development. All relevant evidence, including that from specialists, is available in an accessible and meaningful form to policy makers.

Brown's announcement, which seems unaccompanied by published research, flouts these principles; an independent nuclear deterrent might be a good idea - but Brown gives us no evidence to believe so.
He's just raising questions: who could be deterred by British nuclear weapons? In what circumstances would our weapons be used, independently of the US? Where's the cost-benefit analysis to show that spending of £400 per person (£25bn) on such a programme is justified?
In particular, what's changed since 1984, when Brown described Trident as "unacceptably expensive, economically wasteful and militarily unsound"?
Well, we all know the answer to that. What's changed is Brown's own position. He wants nuclear weapons so he'll look big on the "world stage" and tough at home. In short, he wants the tax-payer to buy him the world's most expensive penis enlargement.

June 22, 2006 in Public choice | Permalink

Comments

Yes, that would give a whole new meaning to going 'naked into the conference chamber'....

Posted by: Igor Belanov | June 22, 2006 at 01:25 PM

..and public expenditure decisions are supposed to be Green Book appraised for feasibility and how they address market failure etc.

Where I work, we regularly get policy imperatives from government where its pretty apparent there has been no analysis of evidence and no Green Book appraisal.

...and HM Treasury are probably the worst part of government of the lot at this!!!

Gordon Brown blunders on with small, and big initiatives to grab the headlines. He always has done. He's crap at the implementation bit too.

Posted by: angry economist | June 22, 2006 at 01:30 PM

I've never belonged to, or supported, CND and regarded the Labour election manifesto of 1983 as ridiculous - the longest suicide letter in history, as Gerald Kaufman aptly put it in retrospect. Tony Blair was first elected to Parliament at that election. Had Labour won, the new government would have been committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament.

During the Cold War, a British nuclear deterrent made sense - the Soviets maintained a substantial superiority in conventional armour in Europe and were placed to mount a blitzkrieg attack across the north German plane. With the ending of the Cold War, the policy issue now is whether it makes any sense in the prevailing context to commit to the huge costs of replacing the ageing Trident submarine force for delivering nuclear bombs which can only be used with permission of the US administration to access the essential satellite guidance system for targeting:

"Firstly, we cannot fire cruise missiles without US permission. The British nuclear-powered submarine fleet is being converted wholesale so that it is dependent on Tomahawks, the stubby-winged wonder-weapons of the 21st century. They transform warfare because of their awesome video-guided precision. But Britain can't make, maintain or target Tomahawks. The US agreed to sell us 95 cruise missiles before the Iraq war, the first 'ally' to be thus favoured. They are kept in working order by Raytheon, the US manufacturer in Arizona. Tomahawks find targets via Tercom, the American terrain-mapping radar, and GPS, its ever-more sophisticated satellite positioning system. The Pentagon, meanwhile, is trying to block Galileo, a European rival to GPS, which the French think will rescue their country from becoming a 'vassal state'."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,999605,00.html

By his own account, Michael Portillo doesn't think it worthwhile to replace Trident so the issue is not a simple question separating leftist and rightist politics.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1660237,00.html

Posted by: Bob B | June 22, 2006 at 02:04 PM

Come, come, Sir Humphrey explained. If the frogs have it, we must have it.

Posted by: dearieme | June 22, 2006 at 02:55 PM

Yep - more than simply looking tough, he (and much of the Labour party) are haunted by the ghost of Michael Foot and think that anything other than this stance may result in them losing the election. You could say Brown intends to spend 25bn to ensure this doesn't happen. I've heard of state funding for political parties but this is ridiculous.

===>Trident so the issue is not a simple question separating leftist and rightist politics.====>

I agree but I don't think most Labour backbenchers would.

Posted by: Shuggy | June 22, 2006 at 03:28 PM

nope, I can't understand why we need'em.

** paging Oliver Kamm **

Posted by: Luis Enrique | June 22, 2006 at 04:50 PM

Oliver will probably suggest we point them at Noam Chomsky.

Posted by: Justin | June 22, 2006 at 09:10 PM

Indeed. My concern with Mr Kamm is that he may have lost his damn mind.

Posted by: Shuggy | June 22, 2006 at 10:05 PM

Shuggy; as a relative newcomer to this blogging lark; was there a time Oliver had a mind? I've given up finding sind of sanity...

Posted by: MatGB | June 22, 2006 at 11:25 PM

Hmmm, not sure but I've been worried about him for a long time. It's a combination between the Chomsky fixation and the suit. What's with the suit? He looks like a cheerful hamster-like undertaker - adding to the overall impression that he may have lost his damn mind.

Posted by: Shuggy | June 23, 2006 at 09:21 AM

I have a certain amount of sympathy with Ollie with regard to the Chomsky obsession. It's a surprisingly easy obsession to acquire & a hard one to shake - facilis descensus Averno and so forth. Step one is to read one of Uncle Noam's meticulously-constructed arguments to the effect that it has been demonstrated on numerous occasions that the colour black is in fact grey, and that (with some exceptions) this grey is in fact paler than the colour 'white', at least as represented by its most widely-acclaimed examples. Step two is to put your name in print over the statement 'Chomsky says black is white'. Step three is the shitstorm. Go through that a couple of times and you'll be left with a weird compulsion to repeat the experience - /*next* time you'll win the argument, surely.../ BT, DT.

Posted by: Phil at work | June 23, 2006 at 11:57 AM

Ach, I'm being frivilous and more than a little childish as usual. I dare say Ollie's very meticulous in his pursuit of the Gnome but is there much point? Chomsky's one of these types that people make their minds up about very quickly and from then take very entrenched positions about. Are any of Chomsky's groupies going to have their minds changed after reading one of hamster-boy's pieces? The man was voted top public intellectual, after all. The quasi-religious fervour responsible for that absurd outcome isn't going to be overturned with rational argument.

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