This isn't a conspiracy theory: of course the intelligence services exist, just not under the names MI5 and MI6. These designations aren’t offical titles - the former became the Security Service in 1931, and the latter didn’t have a name at all until 1994, because it didn’t officially exist. It was publicly acknowledged in the Intelligence Services Act of 1994, however, and took on its previously informal title, the Secret Intelligence Service.
The terms MI5 and MI6 are so popular, however, that the services even use those titles for their official (and surprisingly snazzy) websites. James Bond has a lot to answer for.
MI5 and MI6 are far from being the only MI (Military Intelligence) units in British history. By the end of World War II, there were a full 15 others: MI4 provided maps, MI7 governed propaganda, MI9 debriefed escaped PoWs and provided false documentation, while MI15 was concerned with aerial photography. These departments were later disbanded or merged, leaving just two (that we know of…) plus GCHQ, which is largely concerned with intelligence-gathering and the security of information (ie writing and breaking codes).
MI5 deals with covert domestic intelligence – in the words of the Security Service Act of 1989, “the protection of national security and, in particular, its protection against threats from espionage, terrorism and sabotage.” It is based at Thames House on Millbank in London, and is responsible to the Home Secretary. Fans of the BBC1 MI5 drama Spooks will be disappointed to learn that “Thames House” in that show is actually the Freemasons’ Hall on Great Queen Street.
MI5 files are gradually destroyed as they become obsolete, or are released into the National Archives if they are of historical interest. Recent releases include evidence that the leader of the British Union Of Fascists in the 1930s had, almost endearingly, written to Mussolini asking for a signed photo.
Another file highlights MI5’s suspicion that the black American singer Paul Robeson was a communist, while also expressing admiration for his voice after attending a concert. Swallows And Amazons author Arthur Ransome was a suspected Bolshevik, too, but then he did marry Trotsky’s secretary.
The overseas intelligence division MI6 was created in 1909 when Britain decided to establish a permanent secret service (though there have been British government spies in Europe since the time of Henry VIII at the very latest). Its first chief, Mansfield Cumming, was a Naval officer who was enticed into the job by Admiral AE Bethell with the suitably enigmatic note: “My dear Mansfield Cumming […] You may perhaps like a new billet. I have something good I can offer you and if you would like to come and see me on Thursday about noon I will tell you what it is.”
Ever the workaholic, Cumming turned up for work a week early. Disappointingly for those who romanticise espionage, he was obliged to note in his diary, “Went to the office and remained all day but saw no one, nor was there anything to do.”
Cumming ran MI6 out of a succession of flats for his entire life (he worked such long hours that he preferred not so much to work from home as live at the office), but the Service has been based at London’s Vauxhall Cross since 1994. The gigantic, green-and-beige, Lego-style building is so far from being a secret headquarters that it featured in a mortar-attack sequence in the Bond movie The World Is Not Enough. A year later, life imitated art when terrorists (suspected to be the Real IRA) fired a rocket at the building from Vauxhall Bridge.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Thursday, 18 September 2008
WRONG: There are four gospels
The Bible isn’t carved in stone, so to speak – the books that make it up were decided at a series of synods and councils between the 4th and 15th centuries. The four you’ve probably heard of, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are the accepted “canon”, but there are many more that didn’t make the cut. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, is believed to date from the first century CE, and is a collection of Jesus’ sayings written by his (spiritual) “twin”, Thomas.
The Gospel Of Peter, also from the first century, is notable for presenting the cross that Jesus was crucified on as being able to speak. (It says “Yea”, which may not be the sermon on the mount, but is pretty good for a lump of wood.)
Other books of dubious origin from the second century or thereabouts include:
• The Gospel Of James, who claims to be Jesus’ step-brother.
• The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (nothing to do with the other Gospel of Thomas), one version of which records that a boy punched the infant Jesus, who responded by cursing him to death. When the neighbours complained, Jesus blinded them with his powers. Meek and mild, my arse.
• The Gospel of Judas, which doesn’t claim to be by Judas, but asserts that he betrayed Jesus under direct orders from him.
• The Gospel of Nicodemus, which includes a passage that purports to be Pontius Pilate’s report to the Emperor Claudius.
• The Gospel of Mary, which may refer to Mary Magdelene or the Virgin Mary.
• The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, an account of the Virgin Mary’s childhood.
• The Gospel of Philip, which suggests that Jesus married Mary Magdalene.
Most interesting of all is the Gospel of Eve, which is almost entirely lost. The only reason we know of it at all is thanks to the early church father Epiphanius, who quoted it and dismissed it as – get this – a heretical justification of oral sex. A tragedy for us all that it was lost.
The fact that there are only four canon gospels is itself largely the result of a second-century theologian’s insistence. Irenaieus of Lyons decreed that, “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds… it is fitting that she [the church] should have four pillars.” The four we have are merely the ones judged by the early church as most likely to be accurate accounts of Jesus’ life. See also WRONG: Jesus definitely existed
The Gospel Of Peter, also from the first century, is notable for presenting the cross that Jesus was crucified on as being able to speak. (It says “Yea”, which may not be the sermon on the mount, but is pretty good for a lump of wood.)
Other books of dubious origin from the second century or thereabouts include:
• The Gospel Of James, who claims to be Jesus’ step-brother.
• The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (nothing to do with the other Gospel of Thomas), one version of which records that a boy punched the infant Jesus, who responded by cursing him to death. When the neighbours complained, Jesus blinded them with his powers. Meek and mild, my arse.
• The Gospel of Judas, which doesn’t claim to be by Judas, but asserts that he betrayed Jesus under direct orders from him.
• The Gospel of Nicodemus, which includes a passage that purports to be Pontius Pilate’s report to the Emperor Claudius.
• The Gospel of Mary, which may refer to Mary Magdelene or the Virgin Mary.
• The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, an account of the Virgin Mary’s childhood.
• The Gospel of Philip, which suggests that Jesus married Mary Magdalene.
Most interesting of all is the Gospel of Eve, which is almost entirely lost. The only reason we know of it at all is thanks to the early church father Epiphanius, who quoted it and dismissed it as – get this – a heretical justification of oral sex. A tragedy for us all that it was lost.
The fact that there are only four canon gospels is itself largely the result of a second-century theologian’s insistence. Irenaieus of Lyons decreed that, “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds… it is fitting that she [the church] should have four pillars.” The four we have are merely the ones judged by the early church as most likely to be accurate accounts of Jesus’ life. See also WRONG: Jesus definitely existed
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
WRONG: “Jedi” became officially recognised as a religion after the 2001 Census
People start religions all the time – some even manage it accidentally. During the Second World War, the natives of the Melanesian island of Tanna encountered black Westerners for the first time, and, more importantly, saw them enjoying large quantities of airlifted goods. Their only previous Western contact had been with white missionaries and planters and they came to believe, somewhat paradoxically, that if they rejected the white way of life, returning instead to their traditional ways, they too would be granted access to all the miraculous wealth of the West. To this day, the cultists believe that a god called John Frum (Possibly a pidgin abbreviation of “John From America”) will one day come to make them rich. His personality appears to be a combination of the local deity Kerapenmun and recent import John The Baptist. If you think that’s odd, Tanna is also home to a cult of Prince Philip worshippers.
In the UK, however, religions don’t really have any special status outside of very specific legal contexts (employment discrimination law and religiously-motiviated violence), so there’s little advantage in seeking official sanction. The government doesn’t particularly care what you believe.
390,000 Britons did indeed enter their religion as “Jedi” on the 2001 Census, believing they were mischievously forcing the government to acknowledge The Force as an official religion. But in the tradition of young Padawans since a Long Time Ago, they were reckless. All the Office Of National Statistics was forced to acknowledge was that 0.7 per cent of the British population got a kick out of writing “Jedi” on an offical piece of paper.
25 of the Jedi adherents were from the tiny Isles of Scilly, 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall – go, Scilly!
In the UK, however, religions don’t really have any special status outside of very specific legal contexts (employment discrimination law and religiously-motiviated violence), so there’s little advantage in seeking official sanction. The government doesn’t particularly care what you believe.
390,000 Britons did indeed enter their religion as “Jedi” on the 2001 Census, believing they were mischievously forcing the government to acknowledge The Force as an official religion. But in the tradition of young Padawans since a Long Time Ago, they were reckless. All the Office Of National Statistics was forced to acknowledge was that 0.7 per cent of the British population got a kick out of writing “Jedi” on an offical piece of paper.
25 of the Jedi adherents were from the tiny Isles of Scilly, 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall – go, Scilly!
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
WRONG: Columbus discovered America
On October 12 1492, having spent two months on board a rancid, crowded ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean with no guarantee of a destination, the Genoese adventurer Christopher Columbus finally made landfall in America. But he wasn’t the first to arrive on the continent. He wasn’t even the first European to arrive on the continent. He didn’t, strictly speaking, arrive on the continent at all – he was on an island that the locals called Guanahani, and which he renamed San Salvador. (It’s now one of the Bahamas, though no one’s sure which one.)
Columbus didn’t actually find mainland America until August 1498, six years later, on his third voyage. He made landfall in Venezuela, describing the natives as being “very numerous, and for the most part handsome in person”. He never made it to North America, and he died convinced that he’d landed in India.
It’s often claimed that Columbus undertook his voyages to prove the earth was round. In fact, there wasn’t a lot of dissent on that subject among the learned, and Columbus actually came to believe that it wasn’t a sphere. “I have come to another conclusion regarding the earth,” he wrote to the King of Spain. “Namely, that it is not round as they describe, but of the form of a pear… or like a round ball, upon one part of which is a prominence like a woman’s nipple.” Sailors, eh?
While Columbus may have started the rush to exploit the New World, other explorers have a greater claim to the title The First European In America (the hunter-gatherers who crossed the Bering land-bridge and colonised America 25,000 years earlier, were, of course, Asian). John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto to give him his proper name, was the first to map the North American coastline in 1497, placing him on the mainland a year earlier than Columbus.
Before the arrival of either of the notable explorers, however, the Vikings had settled Greenland and Newfoundland. In 1960 archeologists discovered the 1,000-year-old remains of a Norse village in L’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Among the debris found on site were a bronze fastening-pin and a bone knitting needle, which makes you wonder a little about the Vikings’ reputation as hammer-swinging berserkers. (The Vikings didn’t have horned helmets either, by the way, that’s a myth.)
Norse sagas also recall Leif Ericsson’s arrival in Vinland (usually identified as Newfoundland) to preach the Catholic faith. They mention lands called Markland (“wood land”) and Helluland (“stone land”) to its south.
Evidence is much sketchier for the claims made for other nations’ expeditions. Among those chancing their arms:
• Ireland – St Brendan was reported as having made a legendary journey to the “Isle Of The Blessed” in the sixth century CE.
• Polynesia – a cross-disciplinary team of anthropologists and biologists claims that their DNA studies of ancient chicken remains prove that the birds, which are native to South-East Asia, must have been introduced to South America by Polynesians no later than 1424. Their thesis is backed up by the discovery of sweet potatoes, an American vegetable, in archeological digs of pre-European Polynesian settlements.
• Australia – Similarities in skull types between Australian aborigines and prehistoric Brazilians have led some to speculate that aborigines somehow found their way to Brazil around 50,000 years ago, 25,000 years before the arrival of bands of settlers across the Bering land bridge from Asia.
• Mali – Drawing from a tradition of oral history and ancient Egyptian documents, the historian Gaoussou Diawara theorised that the Muslim emperor Abubakari II sailed to Brazil in 1312 with a fleet of 2000 small boats.
• China – Gavin Menzies, a retired British submarine commander, wrote a popular book claiming Admiral Zheng He made it to America in 1421 (he must have been practically neck-and-neck with the Polynesians if he did).
• Portugal – There is evidence to suggest skeletons found in Canada may be Portuguese, dating from 1424.
Columbus didn’t actually find mainland America until August 1498, six years later, on his third voyage. He made landfall in Venezuela, describing the natives as being “very numerous, and for the most part handsome in person”. He never made it to North America, and he died convinced that he’d landed in India.
It’s often claimed that Columbus undertook his voyages to prove the earth was round. In fact, there wasn’t a lot of dissent on that subject among the learned, and Columbus actually came to believe that it wasn’t a sphere. “I have come to another conclusion regarding the earth,” he wrote to the King of Spain. “Namely, that it is not round as they describe, but of the form of a pear… or like a round ball, upon one part of which is a prominence like a woman’s nipple.” Sailors, eh?
While Columbus may have started the rush to exploit the New World, other explorers have a greater claim to the title The First European In America (the hunter-gatherers who crossed the Bering land-bridge and colonised America 25,000 years earlier, were, of course, Asian). John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto to give him his proper name, was the first to map the North American coastline in 1497, placing him on the mainland a year earlier than Columbus.
Before the arrival of either of the notable explorers, however, the Vikings had settled Greenland and Newfoundland. In 1960 archeologists discovered the 1,000-year-old remains of a Norse village in L’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Among the debris found on site were a bronze fastening-pin and a bone knitting needle, which makes you wonder a little about the Vikings’ reputation as hammer-swinging berserkers. (The Vikings didn’t have horned helmets either, by the way, that’s a myth.)
Norse sagas also recall Leif Ericsson’s arrival in Vinland (usually identified as Newfoundland) to preach the Catholic faith. They mention lands called Markland (“wood land”) and Helluland (“stone land”) to its south.
Evidence is much sketchier for the claims made for other nations’ expeditions. Among those chancing their arms:
• Ireland – St Brendan was reported as having made a legendary journey to the “Isle Of The Blessed” in the sixth century CE.
• Polynesia – a cross-disciplinary team of anthropologists and biologists claims that their DNA studies of ancient chicken remains prove that the birds, which are native to South-East Asia, must have been introduced to South America by Polynesians no later than 1424. Their thesis is backed up by the discovery of sweet potatoes, an American vegetable, in archeological digs of pre-European Polynesian settlements.
• Australia – Similarities in skull types between Australian aborigines and prehistoric Brazilians have led some to speculate that aborigines somehow found their way to Brazil around 50,000 years ago, 25,000 years before the arrival of bands of settlers across the Bering land bridge from Asia.
• Mali – Drawing from a tradition of oral history and ancient Egyptian documents, the historian Gaoussou Diawara theorised that the Muslim emperor Abubakari II sailed to Brazil in 1312 with a fleet of 2000 small boats.
• China – Gavin Menzies, a retired British submarine commander, wrote a popular book claiming Admiral Zheng He made it to America in 1421 (he must have been practically neck-and-neck with the Polynesians if he did).
• Portugal – There is evidence to suggest skeletons found in Canada may be Portuguese, dating from 1424.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
WRONG: Jesus definitely existed
Next time you’re in Japan, make a journey to the village of Shingo at the far north of Honshu island. You’ll find a road sign marked "Christ Grave", leading to a tomb with a cross on it. Local legend has it that rather than die on the cross, Jesus fled through Russia to Japan and lived out his days in Shingo as a rice farmer with his wife Miyuko and his three daughters.
(The dead guy on the cross was apparently Jesus’ brother Isukiri, who sneaked up there when the Romans weren’t looking so that Jesus could escape.)
The Bible disagrees. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus lived and died in Palestine roughly between 1 and 38 CE. (CE, the secular equivalent of AD, stands for Common Era. The dating of Jesus’ birth by those who accept he existed is pretty vague in its own right. Estimates by historians place it between 18BC and 1AD.)
The trouble is, there’s no proof outside of the Bible itself. The New Testament (the part of the Bible written after Christ) is an assemblage of books written at different times by different authors, and the authenticity of the ones claiming to be eyewitness testimony is suspect. Parts of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, for example, contradict each other, while other parts appear to be copied from the Gospel of Mark. Mark, meanwhile, is suspiciously confused about Palestinian geography for a native.
Mark, incidentally, also mentions Jesus having sisters. Look it up – chapter six, verse three.
The earliest non-Biblical reference to Jesus was by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian born in 37CE. In his Antiquities Of The Jews, written about 93CE, he – improbably for an ultra-orthodox Pharisee – describes Jesus as being “the Christ”, or Messiah. Even The Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges that, “The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations,” meaning it is very likely that the key sentences are a forgery, inserted into the text by 4th-century Christian translators.
Writing in 112CE, the Roman historian Tacitus described in his Annals Nero’s persecution of Christians 50 years earlier and mentioned their founder “Christus”. Errors in his description of Pilate imply, however, that his sources were Christians in Rome rather than offical documents. The passage itself is open to question – the radical former clergyman Robert Taylor claimed that there was no evidence for it even existing in copies of the Annals before the 15th century. More pesky forgers.
Suetonius, author of The Twelve Caesars (120CE) referred to “disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus” among Jews in Rome, though Chrestus was a common Greek name and may simply have been a local troublemaker. Aside from these three, the dozens of Greek, Roman and Jewish historians writing at the supposed time of Christ or in the century after made no reference to him whatsoever.
As Bertrand Russell wrote, “Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if he did we do not know anything about him.” Even the things we think we know are dubious. Belgian historian Franz Cumont, for example, uncovered the following details about Mithras, already an enormously popular deity among Romans and other gentiles by Jesus’ time. Mithras was worshipped as “The light of the world”, he was part of a holy trinity in a cosmology that invoked heaven and hell, and he would redeem his worshippers on the Day of Judgement. His birthday festival was on 25 December, and he took part in a last supper before he died and ascended to heaven. His worshippers underwent baptism, ritually consumed bread and wine on Sundays and celebrated a rite of rebirth in late March/early April[3][4]. Quite a coincidence.
(The dead guy on the cross was apparently Jesus’ brother Isukiri, who sneaked up there when the Romans weren’t looking so that Jesus could escape.)
The Bible disagrees. As far as Christians are concerned, Jesus lived and died in Palestine roughly between 1 and 38 CE. (CE, the secular equivalent of AD, stands for Common Era. The dating of Jesus’ birth by those who accept he existed is pretty vague in its own right. Estimates by historians place it between 18BC and 1AD.)
The trouble is, there’s no proof outside of the Bible itself. The New Testament (the part of the Bible written after Christ) is an assemblage of books written at different times by different authors, and the authenticity of the ones claiming to be eyewitness testimony is suspect. Parts of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, for example, contradict each other, while other parts appear to be copied from the Gospel of Mark. Mark, meanwhile, is suspiciously confused about Palestinian geography for a native.
Mark, incidentally, also mentions Jesus having sisters. Look it up – chapter six, verse three.
The earliest non-Biblical reference to Jesus was by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian born in 37CE. In his Antiquities Of The Jews, written about 93CE, he – improbably for an ultra-orthodox Pharisee – describes Jesus as being “the Christ”, or Messiah. Even The Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges that, “The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations,” meaning it is very likely that the key sentences are a forgery, inserted into the text by 4th-century Christian translators.
Writing in 112CE, the Roman historian Tacitus described in his Annals Nero’s persecution of Christians 50 years earlier and mentioned their founder “Christus”. Errors in his description of Pilate imply, however, that his sources were Christians in Rome rather than offical documents. The passage itself is open to question – the radical former clergyman Robert Taylor claimed that there was no evidence for it even existing in copies of the Annals before the 15th century. More pesky forgers.
Suetonius, author of The Twelve Caesars (120CE) referred to “disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus” among Jews in Rome, though Chrestus was a common Greek name and may simply have been a local troublemaker. Aside from these three, the dozens of Greek, Roman and Jewish historians writing at the supposed time of Christ or in the century after made no reference to him whatsoever.
As Bertrand Russell wrote, “Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if he did we do not know anything about him.” Even the things we think we know are dubious. Belgian historian Franz Cumont, for example, uncovered the following details about Mithras, already an enormously popular deity among Romans and other gentiles by Jesus’ time. Mithras was worshipped as “The light of the world”, he was part of a holy trinity in a cosmology that invoked heaven and hell, and he would redeem his worshippers on the Day of Judgement. His birthday festival was on 25 December, and he took part in a last supper before he died and ascended to heaven. His worshippers underwent baptism, ritually consumed bread and wine on Sundays and celebrated a rite of rebirth in late March/early April[3][4]. Quite a coincidence.
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
WRONG: You can still be executed in Britain for High Treason, Piracy and Arson in Her Majesty’s Shipyards
For some reason, this old saw is still lingering wherever pedants meet pubs.
A ridiculous number of offences have been punishable by death in Britain over the years. So many, in fact, that the statute books of the 18th century later became known as “The Bloody Code”. Alongside murder, you could be executed for treason, stealing from a shipwreck or from a rabbit warren, writing graffiti on Westminster Bridge, poaching, stealing letters, sacrilege, blacking-up your face at night (this was more a measure against robbery than minstrels), impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner (again, a measure against benefit frauds, rather than impressionists), cutting down young trees, being in the company of gypsies for a month and, remarkably, “strong evidence of malice” in 7-to-14-year-old children. According to the Lord Chief Justice, in 1801 a boy of 13 was executed for stealing a spoon.
Executions were popular public events. In 1807, 40,000 came to see the hanging of the murderers Owen Haggerty and John Holloway at the Old Bailey – so many that a sudden rush near a pie stall caused more than thirty spectators to be trampled to death. Given the circumstances, the irony may have been lost on them.
By 1861, various parliamentary reformers had managed to reduce the list of capital crimes to four: murder, high treason, arson in royal dockyards and piracy with violence. A century later, the Murder Act (Abolition Of The Death Penalty) of 1965 introduced a five-year moratorium on execution for murder that was made permanent in 1969. Outstanding death sentences were commuted, but it was too late for Gwynne Owen Evans (also known as John Welby) and Peter Allen, a pair of small-time thieves who stabbed a workmate of Evans’ to death during a robbery. They were simultaneously hanged in Manchester and Liverpool respectively, becoming the last people to be executed in Britain.
High treason ceased to be a capital crime in 1971 and the Crime And Disorder Act of 1998 put an end to the remaining two. In 1999, Jack Straw signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention On Human Rights, formally abolishing the death penalty, though the Convention does contain the proviso that any signatory state may employ it during time of war. In 2002, the penalty was abolished in the Turks and Caicos islands in the West Indies (see here for more about British overseas territories), meaning that it is now impossible to be executed for any crime on British territory anywhere in the world, no matter whose rabbit warren you’ve been caught with your hand in.
A ridiculous number of offences have been punishable by death in Britain over the years. So many, in fact, that the statute books of the 18th century later became known as “The Bloody Code”. Alongside murder, you could be executed for treason, stealing from a shipwreck or from a rabbit warren, writing graffiti on Westminster Bridge, poaching, stealing letters, sacrilege, blacking-up your face at night (this was more a measure against robbery than minstrels), impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner (again, a measure against benefit frauds, rather than impressionists), cutting down young trees, being in the company of gypsies for a month and, remarkably, “strong evidence of malice” in 7-to-14-year-old children. According to the Lord Chief Justice, in 1801 a boy of 13 was executed for stealing a spoon.
Executions were popular public events. In 1807, 40,000 came to see the hanging of the murderers Owen Haggerty and John Holloway at the Old Bailey – so many that a sudden rush near a pie stall caused more than thirty spectators to be trampled to death. Given the circumstances, the irony may have been lost on them.
By 1861, various parliamentary reformers had managed to reduce the list of capital crimes to four: murder, high treason, arson in royal dockyards and piracy with violence. A century later, the Murder Act (Abolition Of The Death Penalty) of 1965 introduced a five-year moratorium on execution for murder that was made permanent in 1969. Outstanding death sentences were commuted, but it was too late for Gwynne Owen Evans (also known as John Welby) and Peter Allen, a pair of small-time thieves who stabbed a workmate of Evans’ to death during a robbery. They were simultaneously hanged in Manchester and Liverpool respectively, becoming the last people to be executed in Britain.
High treason ceased to be a capital crime in 1971 and the Crime And Disorder Act of 1998 put an end to the remaining two. In 1999, Jack Straw signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention On Human Rights, formally abolishing the death penalty, though the Convention does contain the proviso that any signatory state may employ it during time of war. In 2002, the penalty was abolished in the Turks and Caicos islands in the West Indies (see here for more about British overseas territories), meaning that it is now impossible to be executed for any crime on British territory anywhere in the world, no matter whose rabbit warren you’ve been caught with your hand in.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
WRONG: Inflation is a bad thing
Inflation, or the ongoing rise in prices that reduces the spending power of money, is the bane of every national treasury. For the uninitiated, it’s the mysterious tendency of the pound (or cruzeiro, or baht) in your pocket to buy you less and less each year. It’s measured against the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the cost of a literal (and big, and unlikely) shopping basket of goods. The basket for 2007 included:
•olive oil
•broccoli
•frozen pizza
•an electric fan
•a toothbrush
•chicken kievs
•a digital radio
•tracksuit bottoms
•wallpaper paste
•kiwi fruit
•nursing home fees
•motor oil
•a dvd recorder
•an acoustic guitar
•compost
•a hamster
•squash court hire
•fish and chips
•“corn-based snacks”
The following is one very simple model of inflation (the “cost push” model, if you really want to know):
1. Everyone wants higher wages.
2. As wages go up, employers pass on the cost of the raises to consumers by putting up prices.
3. If prices are up, everyone wants higher wages.
4. Go to Stage 2.
Monetarists, who are generally followers of the economist Milton Friedman, would say inflation is the result of changes to the money supply. The more money there is in circulation, the less it is worth, as the German government of the 1920s discovered when they printed so many banknotes that people found it cheaper to burn them than buy firewood. In Hungary in July 1946, prices more than tripled every day, leading to the issue of the quite remarkable 100 million trillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000) pengo note. It was worth about 10p, and meant the smaller denomination notes had the same value – and possibly the same use – as a sheet of toilet paper. The treasury, presumably clamping their hands over their ears and shouting “La la la la la,” printed an even larger 1 billion trillion pengo note, but it was never issued. Instead, sadly, the pengo was replaced with the forint, which doesn’t sound nearly as much like an animated penguin.
A similar case is occurring in Zimbabwe today – at the time of writing, the weekly national lotto prize stands at 1.2 quadrillion dollars.
It should be noted, however, that “money” does not only mean cash. It covers spending of all kinds.
Followers of John Maynard Keynes (the fact that the names of the two most prominent 20th-century economists combine to form “Milton Keynes” is a coincidence. The Buckinghamshire new town’s name originated as a corruption of “Middleton” and a Norman landowning family called Cahaines) argue that money supply is only a small factor among the causes of inflation. Aggregate demand – a combination of government spending, public consumption, investment, and the export/import balance – is the key. Other schools of economic thought have different opinions, and so far there is no clear consensus on the exact causes of – or remedy for – inflation, though monetary controls have historically proved effective.
The unexpected conclusion that most economists have come to, however, it that inflation isn’t always a bad thing. As long as it is slow and wages are matching it, then it’s a good sign that the economy as a whole is growing, and is controllable because it is predictable. Deflation – a sustained downward trend in prices – sounds great in principle, but actually reflects an unwillingness to spend, as in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
•olive oil
•broccoli
•frozen pizza
•an electric fan
•a toothbrush
•chicken kievs
•a digital radio
•tracksuit bottoms
•wallpaper paste
•kiwi fruit
•nursing home fees
•motor oil
•a dvd recorder
•an acoustic guitar
•compost
•a hamster
•squash court hire
•fish and chips
•“corn-based snacks”
The following is one very simple model of inflation (the “cost push” model, if you really want to know):
1. Everyone wants higher wages.
2. As wages go up, employers pass on the cost of the raises to consumers by putting up prices.
3. If prices are up, everyone wants higher wages.
4. Go to Stage 2.
Monetarists, who are generally followers of the economist Milton Friedman, would say inflation is the result of changes to the money supply. The more money there is in circulation, the less it is worth, as the German government of the 1920s discovered when they printed so many banknotes that people found it cheaper to burn them than buy firewood. In Hungary in July 1946, prices more than tripled every day, leading to the issue of the quite remarkable 100 million trillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000) pengo note. It was worth about 10p, and meant the smaller denomination notes had the same value – and possibly the same use – as a sheet of toilet paper. The treasury, presumably clamping their hands over their ears and shouting “La la la la la,” printed an even larger 1 billion trillion pengo note, but it was never issued. Instead, sadly, the pengo was replaced with the forint, which doesn’t sound nearly as much like an animated penguin.
A similar case is occurring in Zimbabwe today – at the time of writing, the weekly national lotto prize stands at 1.2 quadrillion dollars.
It should be noted, however, that “money” does not only mean cash. It covers spending of all kinds.
Followers of John Maynard Keynes (the fact that the names of the two most prominent 20th-century economists combine to form “Milton Keynes” is a coincidence. The Buckinghamshire new town’s name originated as a corruption of “Middleton” and a Norman landowning family called Cahaines) argue that money supply is only a small factor among the causes of inflation. Aggregate demand – a combination of government spending, public consumption, investment, and the export/import balance – is the key. Other schools of economic thought have different opinions, and so far there is no clear consensus on the exact causes of – or remedy for – inflation, though monetary controls have historically proved effective.
The unexpected conclusion that most economists have come to, however, it that inflation isn’t always a bad thing. As long as it is slow and wages are matching it, then it’s a good sign that the economy as a whole is growing, and is controllable because it is predictable. Deflation – a sustained downward trend in prices – sounds great in principle, but actually reflects an unwillingness to spend, as in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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