The correct response

I live in London, where there is presently a hosepipe ban. Today, and yesterday, my immediate neighbour has spent a total of about four hours using a spray power cleaner on his garden paving. This is connected to a hosepipe. That’s right, about four hours’ worth of hosepipe usage.

What is objectively the correct response to this?

On the one hand I am of the view that state ownership/control of water resources is morally wrong and unhelpful from a purely utilitarian perspective. So why should I give enough of a damn about my neighbour’s hosepipe usage to call the hosepipe hotline?

On the other hand, the schoolboy or prison convict’s mentality of Not Being A Grass is one that instinctively I feel should be anathema to a responsible adult. And I have to concede that, since the water resources are controlled by the government – the water companies are merely proxies – we are all in the same boat and so the government has a point when, as it does with welfare cheats, it encourages us in Soviet style to denounce those who cheat us all. For on the logic of things as they are, people such as my neighbour are indeed cheating me.

Therefore, if I am a responsible adult, what is restraining me from calling the ‘authorities’ and denouncing him? Probably not the fear that he would know it was either me or his other immediate neighbour. Is it that objectively my wish to see water resources taken out of collective state control is best served by seeing that system abused? Am I indolent, insufficiently fired up by the People’s righteous anger at the abuse of their collective rights?

Is there an answer to the moral question of denouncing a neighbour, which exists independently of questions about the rectitude of state control of resources?

Hmmm

Here's an interesting question. I thought so, anyway:

What is the regulatory law applicable to Greenpeace?

I had a quick squiz at their website just now and they appear to be a sort of international confederation of trusts. They claim to publish their accounts every year but, unlike most corporate websites, it appears you cannot download those accounts at any time other than publication. At least, I couldn't find them.

Well, fair enough. Greenpeace is in some sense a private organisation. If it is indeed a network of trusts, it's presumably governed by the law relating to trusts.

And if so, it gets off pretty lightly for an organisation whose raison d'etre is lobbying government for regulation of the activities of others. Maybe business needs to turn its attention to advocating iniquitous legislation to control the activities of the tree-huggers.

Of course, I may be wrong and Greenpeace labours under a weight of awful regulatory paperwork which prevents its staff going about their business. It just doesn't seem terribly likely though, does it?

Sod 'em

Voters in Barking are apprently incensed that the government has 'done nothing for them', by contrast with the freebies doled out to indigent foreigners - hence the turn-out for the BNP at yesterday's local elections.

I can certainly understand irritation at foreigners being sluiced with beanos at my expense. If foreigners want beanos, they can pay for 'em themselves.

But Barkingers? Sod 'em. Anybody who goes through life expecting government to do things for them, much less attempting to trade their vote for such a bribe, deserves all the misery they can find.

Put it this way: from my point of view as a stranger to the welfare state rampant which constitutes much of Barking, the government does nothing for me while delving into the pork barrel on behalf of Barkingers. The argument cuts both ways, plebs.

Oh, dear. More Tory tripe

The Tories have been getting extremely hot under the collar about these foreign criminals who aren't deported. Not for the first time, the bizarre thing about their reaction is that it should take headlines of the sort which have emerged over the past couple of weeks to prompt any kind of Tory call for action.

I mean, if it isn't obvious to the Tories that foreign criminals should be deported as a matter of course, then what is the point of them? This kind of thing should be meat and drink to Tories.

At Samizdata the other day

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2006/05/downing_street.html

Guy Herbert accused me of xenophobia for pointing out that there is in the abstract something distinctly odd about a nation - us - which scarcely notices that of almost 70,000 people in our gaols, at least a thousand are foreigners.

Heigh-ho. On BBC news the night before last, it was revealed that there are in fact about 10,000 foreigners in our gaols.

Speaking truth to power

Today's Evening Standard contains the following headline on page 4:

DARLING APPLAUDS STANDARD CAMPAIGN ON RAIL STATION SAFETY

It goes on:

"The Evening Standard's campaign to improve passenger safety at London's stations has been praised in the Commons by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling."

Bravo, lads! That's telling 'em.

I mean, I'm no great fan of the goldfish bowl world of Fourth Estate agit prop masquerading as political Opposition, but really. This is a story that wouldn't have disgraced Pravda during the Soviet era, you know the sort of thing:

PARTY BOSS PRAISES OUR REPORTS ON STEEL PRODUCTION.