AN OUTSIDE VIEW

In today's Observer is an article by journalist John Gray with the title "Monarchy is the key to our liberty - The institutions that attract the keenest scorn are actually what protect our democracy today." This has attracted plenty of comment. Most of it is hostile and ridicules the stance he is taking. I am no flag-waver and would not bother to turn out on the street to see the Queen if she came to town on an official visit. However, I find it depressing to read the barrage of comment which shows how little the British "intelligentsia" understand the way the British constitution works and where the built-in safeguards lie. The problems with reform of the House of Lords have demonstrated the problems that can come with attempts to change matters of constitution. The growing inequalities in British society have nothing to do with the monarchy and everything to do with poor economic management by elected politicians and the advisers they have chosen. For what it ...

Skoklosters slott Originally uploaded by Björn Sahlberg . This was one of the organised visits we made. Due to the coldness of the winters here, the fact that the house has been little occupied throughout its history and that the tides of war have never swept over this part of the world, what can be seen is a time capsule. The upper floors do not have electricity and the curtains are kept drawn to preserve the colours of the textiles. There is a most magnificent collection of largely seventeenth century artefacts including paintings, tapestries, furniture and weapons. Strangely, there is also an English long case clock with a brass and silvered dial and case in the Chinese style. Such palaces were no doubt not so unusual in Europe before the First World War, but now one has to come to Sweden to see this kind of thing. The Swedes have a minimally-invasive approach to conservation and avoid the over-restoration seen elsewhere. But it does mean that that things can appear dull, and flaki...

I have been looking at the Guardian's comment pages over the last few days here . A few of my own responses have been copied into this blog. On the whole the comments to be found on the Guardian's discussion pages are thoughtful but neither the readers nor the authors of the original articles seem to go to the core of the issues they are talking about. This is strange because often the issues are at root simple and straightforward. Perhaps it is the starkness of the issues that makes people ignore basic principles and get immersed in the complexity of the details. Staying in a student hostel in Uppsala and the other activities I have been engaged in has given me the opportunity to engage with local people, many of them young. So many of the discussions I have had would just not be possible with British people of the same age and social group. IN my own circles there is a widespread refusal to look beneath the surface of things. People here seem to be more willing able to stand ...

Economics pundit Jeffrey Sachs was writing on the subject today, with a lot of comment afterwards. If the issue of land tenure and land ownership is not addressed, development results only in an increasing gap between rich and poor. Mostly, the land issue is just ignored. As there was next to nothing on the subject either in the original article or in the discussion, despair is the most appropriate response.

There was an article on this subject in the Guardian today, with reference to India. It begged the perpetual question of precisely who pays and who benefits from aid. There are many poor people in Britain and most other "first world countries". This is due to maldistribution. Because of the way tax structures are loaded against them, the poor in the rich countries contribute disproportionately to any aid that comes from their governments. Conversely, there are plenty of wealthy people in "poor" countries. Indeed, some "poor" countries are blessed with great natural resources such as mineral wealth and the problem is one of distribution within the countries concerned. It is also the case that the main beneficiaries of aid from "rich" countries to "poor" ones tend to be the wealthy people in the poor countries. There is no "trickle-down" mechanism. Again, there is maldistribution. Ultimately, the problem can be resolved only by ...

This was the title of an article in the Guardian today. The big accountancy firms were blamed. But surely it is the tax system that is at fault? Neither the author of the original article, nor any of he commentators, made this point. Underneath all the fog of discussion there lies a simple reality. Taxes can ultimately be levied only on one of the three factors of production. These three factors are land, capital and labour. Wealth is created when people, with the aid of capital, apply their labour to land. If labour is taxed, this increases the cost of labour and discourages people from employing. This has two results. The first is unemployment. The other is to encourage people to move the employment elsewhere. If individuals are taxed, they will move themselves, if they can. If capital is taxed, then the tendency again will be for capital either not to be created in the first place of for it to be destroyed (remember the de-roofing of factories to avoid rates, and look at the large a...

Just passing Through :))) Originally uploaded by UK Yorkie . I was reflecting on this as I walked into the town centre at Uppsala this morning. You can see the trains going over the bridge. You will not see a Virgin train or a train in any of the other absurd liveries that have been applied to Britain's trains since 1996. And if you have to travel in a train, you will find enough space for your legs, elbows and luggage. Which made me think about what else I was not missing and then compare with the other UK students who are here. So, here are a few more things that are part of the familiar British scene but rare or non-existent in Sweden. Broken pavements Street litter Gobs of old chewing gum all over the place CCTV cameras Tesco Virgin Chavs People living in shop doorways Drunken young men fighting in the streets Vandalism The flag, used with xenophobic intent Large numbers of seriously obese men, women and children This is not to say that the Swedes are a race of saints or that ...

This poster in the Uppsala University Botanic Gardens shows the family relationship between flowering plants. It was built up not from fossils but from DNA analysis, which largely corroborates what has been deduced from fossils. Why, therefore, anyone should deny the overwhelming evidence for evolution is a mystery. A few months ago I got into a discussion with some Christian evangelicals who had a display, including some anti-evolution books, on a table in the main shopping square in Brighton. I mentioned that I was a Christian and that I didn't have a problem with evolution. I asked why they did. The answer, I was told, is Scripture, so I asked which translation. "The King James version", was the reply. I asked him which language this had been made from, but the fellow didn't know. "Hebrew", I said, and asked which was the oldest version of scripture. He didn't know that either, so I said it was the Septuagint, an early translation into Greek. At this ...

This was the subject of an article in today's Observer. To judge from the article and comments, the issue is not being explored in the necessary depth. 85% of Britain's population live within an area of about 150 miles radius centred roughly on Leicester. This is not because they particularly want to but because that is where the jobs are. There are many reasons for this but the main explanation is that it is an example of the workings of Ricardo's Law of Rent, as it interacts with a tax system that ignores the facts of geographical advantage and disadvantage. The tax per unit of wealth production is the same in, say, the far north of Scotland as it is in the middle of London, and the effect is to make large tracts of the country sub-marginal for economic activity. With a different tax system, taking account of geographical advantage and disadvantage, these marginal areas could sustain viable economies; one need only look at places like Jersey and Iceland where it would be ...

Housing Development Burgess Hill Originally uploaded by seadipper . The Guardian reported today that government's proposed Planning Gain Supplement would be shelved if a better alternative could be found. This is after about four years of work by various appointed committees headed by highflyers like Kate Barker, who came up with the idea, and Sir Michael Lyons, who addressed the issue as part of his remit to reform local government finance. The Land Value Taxation Campaign made submissions pointing out that the most appropriate and practicable way of collecting development value was through the form of Land Value Taxation advocated by the Campaign. When the proposals for the Planning Gain Supplement were announced, the Campaign, amongst many other groups, pointed out that similar legislation had been adopted and failed in Britain four times since 1945 and that precisely the same thing would happen again. So it seems as if after all the work now done, at vast expense, the governm...

sveriges riksdag Originally uploaded by bendus . You can walk through the neat formal gardens in front of the Swedish parliament building and nobody will try and stop you. You would not be allowed to do this anywhere near the British Houses of Parliament, which is fortified, defended and stiff with armed police. Perhaps there is a difference between the British and Swedish parliaments which makes one a more attractive target than the other. What could it be, I wonder?

Piffle proliferates. Today's Guardian carries a report of a study which accuses Gordon Brown of pricing first-time buyers out of the property market. Its research showed that they faced an average stamp duty bill approaching £1,500. '"Policy Exchange, the centre-right thinktank, called for the charge to be cut or abolished after finding that it now posed a barrier to would-be homeowners in most regions. Today's report points out that, although the stamp duty threshold has been doubled to apply to homes sold for £125,000 or more, it has failed to keep up with fast-rising prices. Oliver Marc Hartwich, the thinktank's chief economist, said: "Hundreds of thousands of first-time buyers now have to pay the government to get on the property ladder, whereas they wouldn't have had to pay anything a decade ago. "The government cannot directly control house prices, but it does control stamp duty, and it should help first-time buyers by cutting it or even abolish...

Pronkssõdur Originally uploaded by kalevkevad . A few weeks ago there was Russian outrage at the moving of the war memorial from a prominent situatin in Tallinn. Here is a picture of it in its new location, which seems to me a sensitive and respectful solution, given the sufferings, over a period of 60 years, of the Estonians under Soviet occupation - and I do not recall any protests about that occupation from the kind of people who are so critical of the Israelis. Surely no government in the world has acted more generously towards its former invaders? As citizens of the EU, they must be the luckiest Russians in the world.

Two languages - two dictionaries. But I am not sure if they are different inside.

Originally uploaded by Karin in Paris . I received an email asking me to sign a petition against a proposed mosque in east London. I will not be signing it. It was not clear exactly what was proposed nor exactly what was opposed but it referred to Britain as being a Christian country. As the email had come from and been circulated among people, whom I have never known to darken the doors of a church, this looks like bare racism and I said as much to the person from Brighton Swimming Club who had sent me the request to sign the petition. If the originator of this is traced and reprimanded, it will be well deserved, but as I am far away, it isn't going to be me. However, all this is not to say that I do not regard the unintegrated Muslim presence as problematic. I am at present in Sweden, which like Denmark, has generously offered hospitality to people in need of refuge, in line with a long and honourable tradition, only to find it abused. So to claim there is not a problem is a dan...

For some reason I have been pondering religion and stuff lately. As a Catholic, I take it for granted, go to Mass on Sundays and sometimes during the week, and confession once a month, which makes it as much a part of my routine as going shopping and washing. It helps me make sense of life, keeps me out of the worst sort of mischief and gets me through the rocky passages that we encounter from time to time. But increasingly I find myself coming under attack, openly, or in an attitude of sniggering, or in a kind of coldness, because I hold to this position. So why do I stick with it? I find the clergy mediocre on the whole, and the hierarchy, at least in England and Wales, unimpressive. And a lot of trouble has been caused by people acting, or claiming to act, in the church's name, to say nothing of recent scandals where people in authority have covered up. On the other hand, there are plenty of front line clergy who do a first-rate job, often in difficult and sometimes dangerous ci...

An hour's research last week turned up a few facts which were both strange and shocking. Long ago, when I was at school, I ate at the same table as a boy from Sweden, the same age as myself. While I was in Stockholm, I looked in the telephone directory, thinking perhaps that we might meet up. His name, which was unusual, was not there so I looked him up on the internet and discovered some disturbing things. First, that he had died earlier this year. Second, that he had been a rabbi, which slightly surprised me as he did not seem the kind of person to go in for that kind of thing. Third, he had become well known as the author of a biography of someone who had become famous as a result of his work in the Second World War, And, finally, that he had been convicted of a serious crime and spent time in prison. This seems to suggest that all sorts of people can get drawn into all sorts of things, without premeditation, probably through just a moment's lapse.

Uppsala Sweden Originally uploaded by lydurs . It is strange the way things happen. We do things we never imagined we could possibly do or would ever have been likely to do. For some reason I can't explain, after three visits to Sweden last year, the first two just passing through when I was on the way to Estonia and back, I have felt the urge to come back yet again, so I signed up for a Summer School run by the Swedish Institute and I am staying for the whole summer and learning the language. So that is a strange experience as one does not expect to be living the life of a student when most of one's contemporaries have long been retired. I am finding I can hold my own with with classmates who are young enough to be my children. With less than ten million speaking it, Swedish is not a language anyone would learn on account of its great utility, unlike French, Spanish or Portuguese, especially for an English-speaking person in a country where English is widely spoken. But if yo...

I was recently on a trip away with a friend who suggested that we go to a gallery which was exhibiting photographs by Andres Serrano, whose name meant nothing to me. The gallery was closed, so I asked my friend about what we had missed. The reply was that his work was "extreme" - that he had done something called "Piss Christ", which I will not reproduce on my blog, but is a photograph of a cheap plastic crucifix in a basin of the photographer's urine. My friend is ok but has a hang-up about Christianity and presumably approves of the work. Apparently, so does the contemplative nun Sister Wendy Beckett, and her's is a valid interpretation, but I doubt if the photographer's intention was anything other than to mock Christianity. Defacing other people's devotional objects is a species of cultural hooliganism no different in principle from leaving pig's heads on the doorsteps of mosques. This sort of thing does not bother me, as the Lord can look af...