People and parliament

The Fred the Shred business raises one interesting question of political and constitutional theory. Is it possible for Parliament to act ultra vires?

There are two competing approaches to government in democracies: popular sovereignty, in which power derives from the consent of the governed; and parliamentary sovereignty, in which Parliament in supreme. Formally, the United Kingdom's constitutional structure is of the latter sort. Parliament does as Parliament wills: future parliaments may do otherwise, and may repeal Acts of former parliaments.

Popularly, however, popular sovereignty reigns. We think that the government only governs at our good pleasure, although it is only at their good pleasure that we get to express ours through the ballot box. This means that we think that if the public wishes for something to happen, then it should happen.

However, this is self-contradictory as it assumes implicitly that Parliament is, after all, supreme: for otherwise there may be limits to what Parliament could legitimately do. If power derives from the consent of the governed, then an equivalent way to express that is that the government has no powers except those delegated to it by the governed. Since I cannot delegate a power I do not have [1], the government has no powers except those which I delegate to it. And therefore, Parliament is not supreme, but rather bound by the same limitations of action as I (or at the very least, analogous ones). To take the current example, if it is immoral for me to expropriate the pension of a retired banking chief when he has done me no wrong, then it remains so for the Government.

And to take another example, this goes some way to explaining why liberty in the United Kingdom is in such a parlous state. Parliament is simultaneously supreme and supine, and we have no recourse to constitutional objections. We are left having to call from the side-lines to representatives all too often more bothered about their Select Committee Chairmanship than defending those who elected them, and to applauding the Third Estate and those who can write eloquently on the loss of our freedoms.

[1] This (janhelfeld.com) is a wonderful video from '97–'98 where the interviewer corners Bill Richardson, then US Ambassador to the UN, on precisely this point.

Wrong, said Fred

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!" cried the butcherous Dick; our contemporary mood simply substitutes "bankers" for "lawyers", perhaps to the immediate relief of at least one of my readers. No matter for whose neck and blood the mob bays, nonetheless, it is an ugly and reprehensible sentiment, and today, the howls of outrage are directed at Sir Fred Goodwin. Let it be clear: I do not particularly think that he is worth his £650,000 p.a. pension, but it is not my decision.

Nor, however, is it the decision of the Government. The pension was agreed before the Government became the majority shareholder, and to the extent they had an opportunity to stop the pension payment, they failed to take it. The Prime Minister's threat of pursuing "all legal means" could turn out to be completely evacuated, if it transpires that in fact there is no legal means short of retrospective legislation.

As Danny Finkelstein in Comment Central put it, Sir Fred must stay strong. Not for his own right standing, since that is dubious in the extreme, but for the sake of the rule of law. Mob justice must not rule.

One final thought: Sir Fred drove his bank into the ground, and the Government want to stop his pension. If we have to go to the IMF, does anyone think that they will accept the precedent they have set and forego their very comfortable pension entitlements?

And it was good

Scott Clark brought attention to the accusation (utterly muddled) that Reformed theology is essentially Pelagian, simply because we believe that in the state of creation, man was able to fulfill God's commands. I was cogitating over this, and see a link to the question of the ancient heresy of Apollinarianism, thus:

The Apollinarians taught that Christ had a human body and a human seat of emotions, but that his higher intellect and spirit were divine. In effect, they viewed Christ as a human marionette under the manipulation of a divine puppeteer. Apollinarianism is not dead, which is perhaps no surprise: it is, so I understand, a common misunderstanding among African and Asian Christians who wish to preserve Christ's deity and sinlessness.

And it is this sinlessness point which is where the link to Pelagianism and the nature/grace debate kicks in. The reasoning for Apollinarians was that we can 'guarantee' Christ's sinlessness if his human body was animated by a divine soul. However, by so reasoning, the Apollinarian must assume that human nature is not, in its created state, capable of resisting evil and doing good: some form of sublimation of the human in the divine is necessary in order for humanity to rise above sin.

Here, then, is the core of the problem: the Roman and Eastern desire for divinisation is tied inevitably to their view that human nature, in its created state, needs a special grace in order to avoid sin; denying that human nature can avoid sin requires that Christ's own sinlessness be according to his divine nature and not according to his human nature; requiring thus leads us to conclude that Christ's divine nature and will over-rode his human nature and will; and this is but a short step to Apollinarianism. From that staging post, the reasoning undermines the gospel in its application of Christ to us, since his obedience was not human obedience in the place of Adam's disobedience, his satisfaction was not human satisfaction in place of Adam's debt, and all the moral perfections of his life cannot be given to us, since we cannot become, as he is, incarnate deity.

I do not claim that Roman and Eastern theologies lead inexorably to Apollinaris, since clearly that has not happened. But I cannot see how they can avoid the central charge: they, in error, say we are Pelagian, but how much more so must they be Apollinarian!

credo in laboram

Our Glorious Prime Comrade managed to get himself some column space in yesterday's Observer, and the comments are a sight to behold. Recall, this is the most left-wing mainstream Sunday paper, and the comments are almost universally negative. Critical of his writing style, critical of his policies and above all, critical of him. That there are so many pleas to him just to go is astounding. But enough of all this dull negativity (and once Gordon's stopped writing, I shall do likewise). I don't know whether a parody of the Nicene Creed is technically sacrilege, but here is a rather amusing one, from a CiF commenter named Soutie:

I previously posted this under Polly Toynbee's latest sermon, but I feel that I must share her creed with the object of her worship.

WE BELIEVE in one Labour,
the Party, the Almighty,
saviour of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Prime Minister, Gordon Brown,
the only Successor of Blair,
eternally begotten of Labour,
Labour from Labour, Light from Light,
New Labour from New Labour,
anointed, not elected,
of one Being with J M Keynes.
Through him all policies were made.

For us and for the worlds salvation
he came down from Scotland:
by the power of the Party Conference
he became incarnate from the Party Membership,
and was made Prime Minister.

For our sake he was crucified in by-elections;
he bottled and was buried in the polls.
On the third day of the Global Financial Crisis he rose again
in accordance with the Writings of Polly Toynbee;
he ascended in the polls
and is seated at the right hand of Keir Hardy.

He will come again in glory to judge the rich and the selfish,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, the saviour of the world,
who proceeds from Keir Hardy and Clement Attlee.
With Keir Hardy and Clement Attlee he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through Polly Toynbee.
We believe in one holier-than-thou Labour Party.
We acknowledge taxation and redistribution for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of our electoral hopes,
and the life of the Party to come.

Immigrants, or babies?

There is an interesting and simple reductio ad absurdum regarding immigration controls. If you are in favour of immigration controls then you must either be a xenophobe or else in favour of controls on the birth rate, since newborns are at least as draining on scarce economic resources as immigrants. "Social cohesion" objections to immigration are no different in substance, although different in tone, from the BNP's own; only the nutty Deep Greens like Porritt and his Optimum Population Trust think that we ought to be limiting the birth rate.

With racists to the right of me, and jokers to the left, where are you?

(Thanks: Walter Block for the point about babies.)

The Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme isn't working

Well, it may not have quite the same ring to it as "Labour isn't working", but it is true. Last night's Question Time had a contribution from a frustrated "small business" owner (I use quotes since he said he employs six hundred people in Peckham, which stretches the definition of "small") who was trying to get access to the government's much-vaunted guarantee scheme, only to find that it was a headline and nothing more. The poor chap was being passed from pillar to post and back again without ever finding out how he could get a loan made under this scheme: the bank passed him to a government office, the office back to the bank. He was tearing his hair out, and understandably so.

This is one good reason for not bothering with the whole scheme. In order to get this loan, this chap has to become not only a good businessman but also adept at navigating the backwaters of governmental bureaucracy. In fact, it makes a successful business the one which is best able to access government money, rather than the one which is best able to supply customer wants, which is a nutty basis for business survival.

A far better way to help small businesses would be to cut small business taxes (you could also go for employer's NI, but I am focusing on help aimed at small businesses here). Instead of the failed VAT cut (£12bn) and the EFG (£1bn est., although inaccessibility may cut this cost…), the government could have completely eliminated small business corporation tax (£12bn, HMRC pdf) [1]. Cutting corporation tax would make small businesses more profitable and thus more attractive as credit propositions. And it can be done without needing to make businessmen into bureaucrats.

[1] The rate had been increasing by 100bp a year for a couple of years and was set to increase a further 100bp next year, ostensibly to dissuade the self-employed from incorporating for tax efficiency. The planned increase was stopped in the pre-Budget report, for obvious reasons. I could not possibly divine which nutcase it is who thinks that increasing corporation tax is a sensible way to dissuade tax avoidance when it clearly dissuades economically fruitful activity as well. Surely to deal with tax avoidance, you tighten the rules and not the rate.

The best argument for changing the voting system

I am not in favour of the Lib Dems' proposals for a radical over-haul of the Commons, but I had not realised, until today, quite how uncorrelated the vote share can be with the seats share. It is not simply than the parties come in in the "correct" order but with the "wrong" number of seats: you can check for yourself that the UK Polling Report swing-o-meter will give the following figures, provided with hopelessly unrealistic figures for the national vote share:

	Con	Lab	LD
Vote (%)	31	25	37
Seats	213	215	189

The calculator assumes a uniform swing across the country, so it is safe seats which are skewing the results. And look at how skewed they are! You can see that the Lib Dems earned far and away the largest share of the vote, and Labour the smallest, yet Labour just pipped the Tories to first place in terms of seats. The Lib Dems managed to come in third, despite as I say gaining the largest share of the vote.

That is the key point about the electoral system: not that a party got 20% of the votes but only 10% of the seats, but rather that a party might get the largest vote but—of the three big parties—the smallest number of seats. It is not a matter of the electorate's will being imprecisely reflected (the first objection), but inaccurately reflected (the second).

I believe strongly in the constituency link, and proportional representation would entrench politicians who have oozed their way to the top of their party's list. Nevertheless, I can well see the case for reform, if this kind of result is possible. (Incidentally, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem proves that we cannot be perfectly accurate; but surely there must be a more accurate means of reflecting the people's will.)

Phelpses' plans pulped

The Home Office has banned patriarch and daughter from entering the country (BBC). After the Wilders business, this is hardly a surprise. With somewhat less gusto, I also oppose this ban on entry; as daughter Phelps observed, there are Westboro cultists not called Phelps, who will be less conspicuous and could still arrive and go about their "business". In other words, the ban will not really work, and it will impinge on free speech, which I have, with reluctance, to support even for the Phelpses and their vile attempts to caricature true Christian faith. Lest anyone miss the point, it is my view that the Westboro cult attempts to incite people to religious hatred against Christians (in the sense that they incite people to hate Christians because of their religion; I am deliberately echoing the legal language but make no legal claim), and as a Christian I support even their right to do that.

[UPDATE: John H in the comments suggests this ban was to prevent a public order offence. If that is the case, then I see no objection to it; however, I would point out that the UK Border Agency said that they were opposed to "extremism" and referred to the Phelpses' "inciting hatred against a number of communities." On that basis, I still think that the Government's reasoning was to prevent speech and not actions. The Phelpses are odious and reprehensible, and as such form one of the most serious of tests to our commitment to freedom of speech.]

Brilliantly fielded, frankly

In Tuesday's Independent, Frank Field, the thoughtful and independent-minded Labour MP for Birkenhead and minister in Blair's first term as PM, knocked it so far out of the park that I think he accidentally hit an orbiting satellite.

This crisis demands a new politics

Politicians must learn to get off the backs of families and communities

Wrote Field, "Our indebtedness enfeebles the range of our responses to what are cataclysmic forces." This is the key problem. We have pulled the debt and inflation lever too many times, and a gilt strike is a real danger now. If we cannot issue new debt, then highly inflationary policies beckon, the result of which will be serious and structural economic pain:

Let us put aside that all this borrowing is about a Keynesian reflationary package. The plans are to borrow 10 per cent of GDP. Keynes would be apoplectic at deficit financing on this scale. Unless resolute action is taken here, there is a very serious possibility of a sterling crisis (a real achievement with a floating exchange rate) reacting with a gilt strike of such severity that the British economy will be permanently damaged.

Field proposes five policy goals to be pursued in the short-run—at the next Budget, he says:

1. Increase taxes.

2. Cut government expenditure.

3. Return parts of the State's functions to civil society, notably pensions.

4. Increase savings.

5. Change the relationship between the State and individuals so that the people are freed to work together for common goals, and "to improve the conditions of their families and friends."

Field is arguing that we need to save more in the middle of a recession, and he really means it: "Increased savings is what the banking system is crying out for." He is absolutely brilliant, absolutely right, and absolutely not going to be listened to because most politicians are in love with big government "solutions".

One more step along the world

You may recall that a week ago, I criticised Martin Fletcher for his counsel of despair concerning the possibilities of the MDC reforming Zimbabwe without Western aid. My first point was that the MDC could, with no help from the outside, dollarise the economy. Today, the Times reports that this is a little closer, as the new Finance Minister (Tendai Biti, MDC) has announced that all public employees will henceforth be paid in hard currency. In addition to full dollarisation, I await the announcement that the land grabbing is stopped, the borders are open for trade and the violence is at an end.

A debauched King

Apparently, Unswervin' Mervyn has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking for permission to start making up new money to stave off deflation. After all, if you have dropped rates as low as they can reasonably go, the next stage in making money cheap is to print the stuff with gay abandon. The economic logic is certainly sound, but I do wonder about the theory underpinning the policy prescription. We keep getting told, as though repetition makes it true, that deflation is bad. But surely deflation is just negative inflation? I can see the argument for the existence of a deflationary spiral, which the Great Depression is said to have been; but from exactly the same era the Weimar Republic proves the existence of an inflationary spiral. In fact, inflationary spirals have been more common than deflationary ones: the Roman Empire fell prey to them. Both kinds of spiral are dangerous, so why are we so scared of a little deflation, but not scared of a little inflation? Is there good econometric evidence to suggest that deflationary spirals start earlier than inflationary ones?

As far as I can tell, people insist that the Great Depression was a deflationary spiral, but ignore the fact that deflation theory only really applies in modern economies with fiat currencies. At the time of the Great Depression, everyone was on the gold standard. On the other hand, Austrians and other gold-bugs tell us that deflation is no worry at all, but their evidence is also from the gold standard era. So again I ask, is there any evidence, under a fiat currency, that deflationary spirals occur earlier than inflationary ones?

The only reasoning I can really see is for someone to take the view that economic policy should serve the interests of net debtors. Given that a good economic policy would neither favour nor disfavour anyone, I see that thesis as profoundly immoral and politically corrupt. There surely ought to be a better reason than that for printing money.

Debauching the currency is a serious measure and not one to be taken lightly. If it were to turn out that, in fact, the effects of inflation and deflation are equal in magnitude and opposite in effect, then the Bank of England's current inflation target and consequent plans for "quantitative easing" would look extremely dodgy.

A local revolution

I had a brief look at the Tory Green Paper "Control Shift" [src], and possibly the biggest constitutional change it contains is very much down-played. They say,

The implications of this new statutory presumption are (intentionally) vast.

I think that under-states it by about a factor of a squillion bazillion. They propose (and don't all laugh at once…) giving councils a "general power of competence", meaning that councils will have the right to do anything, within the remit of the law and subject to the ballot box if they do really stupid things. Sir Humphrey will have a fit!

This would be a profound constitutional shift and broadly, I think it would be a good one. It would reflect, in a very British way, the Tenth Amendment to the United States' Constitution, which reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

And that is a very sensible statement indeed.

Much hope in today's news

In today's Guardian, David Cameron quotes Tony Benn, although it is slightly disingenuous as we all know that Dave and Tone are not talking about the same kind of things: I suspect that the reasoning is more akin to "What Tony Benn wants is, at points, laudable, but his methods are not at all." Even Conservatives, as a rule, want wealth to be spread more widely; the point is that free markets and free trade are actually the most effective means we know of in achieving this. The Economist recently reported that sometime in the last couple of years, the middle classes (defined both economically and sociologically) became the majority population in the world; this is plainly a good result of globalisation and free trade.

So when David Cameron says that he wants to devolve power down to people, I hope that he not only means it (I believe he does) but that he is not only able to achieve his modest goals, but also more ambitious ones. It would be great to see local people exercising choice in health and education services, encouraging excellence through competition.

In other news, Dame Stella Rimington's interview with the Spanish La Vanguardia has hit the Telegraph; in it she warns that we are on the way towards the aims of terrorists who seek to force us into a police state. It is very interesting to hear a former head of MI5 saying that she fears that the Government is doing terrorists' work for them and that she thinks we have to defend liberty to protect against terrorists. One hopes she had some leeway to express those views in office, and that her successors think and speak similarly.

And on the theme of civil liberties, the Westboro cult is coming to Basingstoke this week. I hope they are not banned from entering the country, and I hope they find no support whatsoever from local people. In particular, I think we can all hope that local churches find some way of dissociating themselves from the cultists: it might be hard to attend a counter-protest given that our position is more nuanced than, say, Stonewall's, but there must be some means of doing it. Perhaps something practical, like passing round hot drinks and biscuits for the protestors? [EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt, I mean any counter-protestors who turn up, and not the Westboroists.]

You just can't make it up

First Blair got shunted off to try and make peace in the Middle East; now Jackie Ashley is trying to tell us that Merkel thinks Brown would make a good candidate for "global financial regulator-in-chief plenipotentiary" or some equally over-blown title (it would have to be that over-blown to mask the complete incapacity as regards any real action). Firstly, to believe this story would require thinking that the German Chancellor either (a) has absolutely no intellect, or else (b) has a wicked sense of humour. Is either of those seriously credible?

The French, of course, are not so bad at mad-cap schemes (not to mention mad CAP schemes), so lest it emanate from the city on the Seine, we had better take the proposal itself on its, um, merits. Now, we keep hearing about the need to go back to exports, but I am not convinced that we should really seek economic prosperity from fobbing the rest of the world off with our ex-Prime Ministers. In fact, I think Blair on his own has successfully cornered the market. It would probably be unwise to foist yet another former Labour Prime Minister on a weary world full of its own cares.

Still, we could have a good slogan: "part of the problem, part of solution", and we would get to see the back of him here, I suppose. But to make life simpler, could we not just have an election?

Saving rate-payers' money

At ConservativeHome, Harry Phibbs, Conservative councillor, lists a hundred different ways councils can save money, without as he put it, cutting key services. I think they can be divided into three categories: yes, no, and controversial.

Take numbers seven and eight:

Place more children for adoption. Reducing the number of Looked After children by placing more of them in permanent loving homes is principally good news for them. But it is also good news for the Council Taxpayer. …

For those children who remain in care, where possible send them to boarding schools.

Broadly, I think this is probably correct. Adoption is clearly in the best interests of the child. And I think I could agree that, where children cannot be adopted, it makes sense to "out-source" to a good-quality boarding school where they can get education but also day-to-day in loco parentis care. To one who as a child was brought up on boarding school hi-jinks like Jennings, and as an adult enjoyed Harry Potter, one does tend to believe that Dumbledore is better than Uncle Vernon!

Cllr Phibbs' point in number sixty-two leads us towards the Burkean little platoon, and may we go all the way:

Where extra spending would secure a desirable objective consider whether the money could come from sponsorship rather than the Council. For instance new street trees could be funded by encouraging households to sponsor a new tree in their street, Christmas lights can be sponsored by local business.

Absolutely, and would that people were encouraged to look to themselves and their locality more in providing these things. Like Phibbs' point about local businesses paying for the council's newletter through advertising revenues, he points out that encouraging local action is a public good worth pursuing.

But then there is number nineteen:

Cease funding Law Centres. (A double saving as they often sue the local council so the Council Taxpayers end up paying for the lawyers on both sides.)

It sounds to me like this would deprive people of access to justice. While it is debatable whether it is the job of a local council to provide funding for this, it would be a shame if people lost a recourse to justice because the local council wants to stop its funding.

And controversially, there is number thirteen:

Stop funding translations / interpreting for Council documents and services and funding refugee lobby groups. This money is much better spent teaching people English.

Something in me agrees whole-heartedly that it would be far better for immigrants to read documents in English; however, that takes time, so while they are learning, should we not have translated documents? Of course, the difficulty is that people who really ought to have got to grips with the language by now will free-ride on the back of those who have only just arrived.

Still, if even thirty or forty of these are good ideas, they would do a lot of good in saving money.

Ouch!

The Independent on Sunday's Chief Political Correspondent, John Rentoul, reports on his blog that between the previous poll and the most recent one for the IoS, the Lib Dems picked up seven whole points against Labour, with the Conservatives unchanged. The result was 41-25-22, putting Labour, on those numbers, only three points clear of the Lib Dems. According to UK Polling Report's calculator, that would see a Conservative majority of 74, although Labour would still have more than three times as many seats as the Liberal Democrats.

Well, when it comes to polls, the precise numbers are always a little dodgy. YouGov's latest poll, coming only a day later, has the vote split as 44-32-14, so you cannot even argue that the two polls' Lab-Lib numbers are within each other's error bounds. Nonetheless, this does suggest that if the Lib Dems can pick up some support from the Tories, a hung Parliament remains a possibility.

UK Polling Report is a useful weblog for anyone wanting up-to-date wild guesses polling numbers.

No reason to nationalise

With the recent announcement of write-downs by Lloyds Banking Group, the drumbeat of nationalisation has become less distant once more. I have already written on this issue, but was thinking overnight about it and realised that there are three reasons which people may have for nationalisation which do not stack up. I think these may be the only ones, and certainly if my list is exhaustive then I think there can be no reason to nationalise Lloyds. Here we go.

1. Sticking it to "fat cat" bankers.

By a long chalk, the ugliest of the motivations, and arguably one that is bubbling under almost the entire editorial team at the Guardian and much of the more vituperative commentary elsewhere, vengeance against bankers is a populist political move. Leaving aside the morality of this point of view, nationalisation would fail dismally in achieving that goal. Perhaps the Chief Executive and the Chairman would go, but very few heads would roll at the levels where the wood was most rotten. For the most part, bankers would keep their jobs, if not their bonuses: shareholders, who had little to no influence over their company, would be the ones to suffer. Nationalisation for reasons of vengeance would be utterly insane.

2. Lloyds is in serious trouble and without nationalisation, British banking could yet collapse.

The minor premiss is debatable, but it is the major premiss which is plainly untrue. I was thinking about how to explain these massive write-downs, and here is an example.

Suppose I have a friend with a box of old books, CDs and things and he wants shot of the thing because it is of no value to him. I take a quick look in the box and estimate its value to me at £100. Instead of paying cash, though, I offer him a television of mine which I think is only worth £100. We exchange goods, and when I get the box home, I take a closer look at its contents.

My estimate, it transpires, had been flawed, and in fact the contents were only worth £90 to me. I have to "write off" £10 of value which I had erroneously thought I was buying. But here is the important point: everything has already changed hands, and at no point was hard cash involved. So I have not lost any actual money, but rather had to make an accounting adjustment.

Lloyds' write-downs did not reflect a current loss of money, they reflect an adjustment to the earnings they expect to make off those assets in future. In fact, Lloyds' accounting standards are more conservative than HBOS', so it seems at least plausible that those assets could be worth a bit more than Lloyds thinks, and that it was HBOS which was in trouble, rather than Lloyds which will be in trouble.

Lloyds is not in jeopardy because it has a cash-flow crisis, and it is not in jeopardy because it cannot access credit markets. It is not, in fact, in jeopardy at all, except perhaps from the FSA if their capital ratio was hit by the write-down. I should hope that the FSA would understand that now is not the time to be strictly enforcing stringent capital ratios. Lloyds does not need help, currently; and while I obviously cannot predict the future, I think we are beyond the worst now. This "reason" is presently non-existent.

3. The Government needs a network of banking assets through which to lend to homeowners and businesses.

Now, come on! Do they not have the Post Office, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley? How much more can they need? This reason is completely unreasonable.

There is no present reason, as far as I can see, for nationalising Lloyds Banking Group. Let us hope that the situation continues and that the Government sees sensibly on the matter too.

LATE DISCLAIMER: I have a shareholding in Lloyds Banking Group and held shares in Bradford & Bingley prior to nationalisation.

David, Saul and Picasso

I was thinking about the episode between David and Saul in the cave. You know the one: Saul goes in "to relieve himself". Yes, now you know it! 1 Samuel 24, in which David could kill Saul but does not out of respect for "the Lord's anointed". We had a CU talk about this passage some years ago, and the speaker talked about David as a Christ-like example for us to follow. And I agree that David is held out as a Christ-like example here. I perhaps would take the example in a somewhat different direction, but that is the way I understand the law-gospel distinction.

Maybe the speaker only wanted to focus on the one character, so I would not criticise him for only dealing with David. But there is a second character here, and he also is set out as an example, only this time for us to avoid. Saul is here, pretender to the throne of Israel. David may look to all the world like a rebel, but in fact the real rebel here is Saul, whose kingdom was forfeit a long time back over the incident with the Amalekites. By rights, David is king and Saul's place on the throne should be long over. And the true king had the opportunity to destroy this rebellious usurper once and for all. But he did not, he showed him grace; and yet the usurper, when shown his situation, does not respond by yielding to the rightful king, he does not respond by giving up the throne and he does not respond to the true king's grace. Instead, he hardens his heart and tries to extract a guarantee for his posterity. He is still concerned about himself and his line! And thus is Saul set forth as a bad example, one to be avoided.

What has that to do with Picasso? Well, this: I think you could draw an analogy between a Cubist painting, with its multiple perspectives squashed onto one canvas, and this passage, where two characters are placed before us as showing Christ and a bad response to Christ. You cannot reconcile the twin understandings very easily, as though to see them both at the same time, and yet they are both painted before our eyes, as though they were two sides of the same coin on one canvas. And that, I think, makes quite a nice entry illustration for explaining this passage and, more importantly, I think it makes quite a nice illustration of how law and gospel relate in Scripture as a whole: you cannot hold them together and reconcile them in quite the way we would like to, but both are drawn together on the one canvas.

From today's press

Charles Moore, writing in today's Telegraph, shows that I am not the only person to have detected an undercurrent of anti-Islamic sentiment in the Home Office's most recent capitulation to extremists:

Go back to the letter from [Jacqui Smith's] office. Mr Wilders's words and film "would threaten community harmony and therefore [Moore's italics] public security in the UK", it says. What the Home Office means is, "If you upset Muslims, there will be violence". With the single word, "therefore", Miss Smith is making a link which is itself insulting to Muslims. Would she say the same about upsetting Christians, or Jews, or farmers, or socialists, or vegetarians? Of course not. It is only Muslims that scare her. So she is saying much the same thing as Geert Wilders!

Richard Holloway is contributing to the Guardian's "Another Thought for the Day" series, a humanist/atheist rival to the BBC's spot for religious reflection. Holloway has spent most of his career protesting that he is a Christian, despite abandoning every tenet of the orthodox faith; can we now assume that he has given up the fight?

Oi, Peston, try reading!

Robert Peston is an idiot. Today, Lloyds Banking Group announced that their new acquisition HBOS was likely to make a loss of some £8.5bn [1], mostly due to £4bn of "market dislocation" and £7bn of impairments on HBOS' corporate arm. "Market dislocation" is a favourite phrase of Lloyds'; impairments just means write-offs. Lloyds' share price consequently slid from around 100p down to 60p [2]. Peston wrote, "The profits warning just released by Lloyds is shocking." [3] Shocking only to those who have not been paying attention, Robert. Here is Sir Victor Blank, back in November:

Based on a review of non-public information provided by HBOS, Lloyds TSB has made a preliminary assessment that net negative capital adjustments of no more than £10 billion after tax would need to be made to HBOS's financial position for Core Tier 1 capital purposes as a result of the Acquisition. [4]

Ahem. Capital adjustments of no more than £10bn may be needed. Sir Victor also said that Lloyds had identified

a positive fair value adjustment for the Enlarged Group's net tangible assets in respect of HBOS's own debt. This is of a similar magnitude to the capital adjustments affecting Core Tier 1 capital (excluding the AFS reserve adjustment) but will be affected, and could theoretically be eliminated by, inter alia, movements in credit spreads on HBOS's debt between the date of the review and the Effective Date.

Presumably his alia did indeed get inter, leaving us with a write-down of £10bn as warned. Of course, the offer documents and so on are long, and I did not read them myself [5], but then I am a long-term investor; Peston, on the other hand, is a journalist who gets paid to look at short-term trends. So why is he shocked? Lloyds warned us that these losses could arise, and they arose.

All I am hoping is that the Government is made to understand that Lloyds had anticipated these losses, and that therefore the deal was not as bad as some journalists and traders are trying to make out. We do not need another round of nationalisations.

[1] Here, under "Trading Statement".
[2] See this chart; after the weekend you may need to tweak the settings.
[3] Here.
[4] Here, under "Capital position".
[5] This was brought to my attention by elem100 at the Motley Fool.

Whose business model is flawed?

Watching last night's Question Time (and do; there was a brilliant segment towards the beginning where Dimbleby absolutely nails Liam Byrne), Salma Yaqoob of Respect claimed that there are businesses who are "sound in themselves" but going to the wall because they cannot get banks to lend to them. Is this new orthodoxy challengeable, or must I mindlessly agree?

After all, fuelling a business with debt is not a necessity: you can in principle do everything, even make payroll, without ever needing a credit line. Whereas suppliers and customers are always necessary in a business, banking facilities are not necessary, even though they are almost universally used [1]. And therefore, businesses which go bust because their plans assumed a supply of credit, even though a credit crunch is a once-in-a-hundred-years event, were not sound in themselves. Why should they be baled out when the chap who refused to rely on lines of credit survives because he realised the dangers?

So when people complain that their business was sound but it went under because the bank went bust, what they really mean is, "The business might have survived if it hadn't been so hazardously financed." But it is far easier to blame others, whether it be the Government blaming America, or small business owners blaming banks. We all took risks, in various ways: will we ever take responsibility?

[1] In fact, banks themselves can even do without "suppliers" in the sense that one could run a private partnership bank on equity alone, without needing to go to the markets for debt. The business would be less profitable, but far more stable.

Keeping the faith

Apparently, Moldova elected a communist government eleven years ago. Wikipedia describes them as "the only communist party to be democratically elected to government in the former Soviet Union." That assessment is rather tempered, though, by the fact that Wikipedia goes on to report that, "it has privatized several state-owned industries." Yep, that there is real communist government, that is.

Prudence lives yet

So says the Economist, reporting on how savers get absolutely screwed by governments the world over.

No one offers to help them out, even though saving is needed to allow business investment which, in turn, generates growth. Asians, told off in the 1990s for their current-account deficits, now get lectured for saving too much.

This is quite a different paradox of thrift from the usual one. In theory, everybody regards thrift as a virtue. In practice, they treat it as a vice.

See? Savings are needed for investment which generates growth.

Because he is such fun to call an idiot a thousand different ways, let us turn to one of Keynes' bons mots quoted in the article: "Whenever you save five shillings, you put a man out of work for the day." This too is meaningless: presumably I should not only spend every penny I earn, but borrow as much as I can. In fact, the logical conclusion is that we should make work as arduous as possible, and set up economically-useless projects purely to create "employment". Well chaps, I hope you liked the modern era: Keynesianism sounds more like the Stone Age to me.

The writer, coming at this from an American perspective, also puts his finger on a crucial point in what will become, if not stopped, the sheer scandal of British pension provision.

In Britain state benefits are means-tested. An elderly person with more than £22,250 ($32,000) in savings, hardly a golden nest-egg, has to pay the full cost of nursing-home care, which can easily exceed £40,000 a year. Those Britons who have saved money in the form of a personal pension must turn the bulk of their pot into an annuity by age 75; if they drop dead at 76, the insurance company keeps the lot.

Thanks a bunch, Gord. Such prudence to discourage saving, and such fair-mindedness to force us into buying expensive financial products we neither need nor want. Brilliant. We owe you one. Add it to all the other debts you clocked up for us.

Home Office: Muslim = terrorist

They hardly put that in a press release, of course, but they certainly implied it. Geert Wilders, who sounds like an utterly odious little racist, has landed at Heathrow after being invited by Lord Pearson—who disagrees with Wilders' views—and barred by the Home Office. He was invited to show his film about Islam, as part of a public debate that the UKIP peer wishes to see take place. The reason for the ban was that his presence could cause a "public order offence".

Does the Home Office so distrust the Muslim population in the UK that they would sooner bar someone with Wilders' views than make it plain that criticism, no matter how trenchant, offensive or ill-informed, must be combatted with words and not with weapons? At least Wilders is openly offensive!

Chris Huhne has also come out of the closet as an authoritarian:

"Freedom of speech is our most precious freedom of all, because all the other freedoms depend on it," he said. "But there is a line to be drawn even with freedom of speech, and that is where it is likely to incite violence or hatred against someone or some group."

"Likely to incite hatred" covers an awful lot of things and is an incredibly low bar. You could probably level it against almost any blogger: is it yet a crime to incite people to hate and despise the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, and the entire Treasury team? If he is incapable of standing up for liberal and democratic principles, Huhne should be removed from the Liberal Democrat front bench.

Wilders is not crying, "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, and as such he should be seen off in open debate. Suppressing the views of racists and fascists only lends them legitimacy; showing the world what they truly are is the solution.

Saving for Britain! Or at least your future…

The Guardian has a piece looking at places to save in the recession. It is rather good, and even mentions Zopa, about which I am pleased, except really I want to see more borrowers and not more savers. Savers are my competitors; borrowers are my customers!

The article is not, however, uniformly good. The conclusion to the article is,

If we all save rather than shop, won't the economy collapse?

Er … yes. Keynes called it the paradox of thrift. It's a great idea individually. But if we all do it businesses will go bust and you will be out of a job. And it will be very difficult to save then.

Granted, if we all saved and never spent, not ever again, then we would be a little badly off. But no-one can only save and never spend: we all need food, shelter, clothing, warmth and so on. And since savings get turned into business investment, I think it is safe to conclude that if no-one saved, businesses would go bust, no new businesses could be set up, we would all be out of our jobs and it would be very difficult to earn money to eat or be clothed or have somewhere to live. Only spending and never saving is a far more financially plausible proposition, and therefore also far more dangerous.

You can see, I hope, that the obverse of the "paradox of thrift" is a "paradox of spending": in fact, it is precisely the effects of this paradox with which we are now living as we over-spent and reap the bitter harvest.

Chilling effects on religious freedom

Today's Telegraph reports that a five-year old was told off by her teacher for talking with a classmate (one assumes that the classmate was a willing listener). It did not end there, though. The girl's mother worked as a receptionist at the school, and the headmaster, who had called her in to discuss another matter, started to express his dismay to her about her daughter's behaviour. She then sent an e-mail to ten friends at church explaining the situation and asking for prayer; somehow this e-mail got forwarded to the head, who took her to task and has instigated disciplinary proceedings for professional misconduct. This is madness.

This is also evidence of the "chilling effect"—"chilling" being used polysemously here—that legislation like the Religious Hatred Act can have on freedom of expression and religion. We have not (yet?) resisted to the point of shedding blood, and may that day not come; but clearly between legislation and culture there is a slow increase in opposition to Christians speaking openly as Christians.

(Thanks to beeswax007 at the Motley Fool for raising this.)

Two good votes

Today, General Synod voted to support a motion about the uniqueness of Christ and the necessity of evangelism. Good. (Peter Ould)

Yesterday, the Church of England voted to ban clergy from joining the BNP. (Guardian)

Good also, I think. It is a little more touchy because, of course, the BNP is a legal political party. Indeed, the secretary-general warned that the proposal could run into legal difficulties for precisely the reason. Obviously I have no knowledge of the legal point, but morally, the Church of England should have the right to proscribe activities which remain legal at large. For instance, membership of the Lodge has long been considered incompatible with a profession of Christian faith, and there was a time—a time forever gone?—that a clergyman found philandering could be defrocked (again).

Private organisations should have the right to "police" their membership in the sense that office-holders can be stripped of post and members of membership if they are in breach. I am unsure whether this principle has since been abandoned or challenged in court. Perhaps there would be legal difficulties, but in that case, the law is an ass.

"The MDC can reform nothing without Western aid."

Thus says Martin Fletcher in today's Times, before going on to state that, "there will be no aid while Mugabe remains."

Dambisa Moyo, who just published Dead Aid, might beg to differ, and I would demur somewhat, too. The MDC can reform lots without Western aid, though I fear Mugabe may wear none of it.

1. They could completely dollarise the economy. Abolish the Zimbabwean dollar, as it is already a dead currency, and use the world's reserve currency instead. The economy is already unofficially dollarised, and a couple of weeks ago the Finance Minister announced that the use of US dollars would be permitted; all that is left is to abandon the charade of an independent currency, thus ensuring that people are not even implicitly encouraged to trust the Zimbabwean dollar.

2. They could get rid of Mugabe's private army. The thugs who intimidate successful farmers, people who are providing gainful employment to compatriots, are doing their nation a grave disservice. I have few illusions about how difficult this will be.

3. They could stop the idiotic policy of "land reform". I know that there is an historical problem with seized lands which are worked by white Africans, and that this is a sore point for black Africans. I know that there are historic injustices which need to be addressed. But the policy which Mugabe has pursued has made a basket-case of the bread-basket of Africa. Reports suggest it may be reined in; it needs to be stopped.

4. They could embrace freedom to work, invest and trade. You knew I'd say that. And you know it makes sense. Zimbabwe is a net food importer, and frankly at present, food which comes from European dumping is better than no food at all. Making sure that people are free to trade and work will, over time, do wonders for Zimbabwe. Perhaps one day, she can again be the bread-basket of Africa.

Four things the MDC could get done—arguably the second would be the hardest—without Western aid. Four reforms which would make a real difference. Of course Western aid will be important in helping Zimbabwe to rebuild. But let us not kid ourselves: the most important reforms will come from within Zimbabwe herself. There are four of them. Let us hope they can achieve them.

Who's out of touch?

According to Christopher Hitchens, "Religion belongs to the fearful childhood of the race." (Independent) Oh, Chris, get with the times! That's so 1960s! We grew out of that childish way of thinking, like, decades ago!

Who owns my genes?

Genetic mapping of babies by 2019 will transform preventive medicine, reports the Times' Science Editor. The head of the world's leading genome sequencing company has predicted that within a decade, every baby born—in the developed world, one assumes—will be able to have a DNA profile, which will be of great aid in medicine and other fields. And we should be pleased that our understanding of genetics is so advanced.

Yet, there is a nagging worry, and it is in the question about data privacy. My genetic code is my own, and does not belong to anyone else. The same goes for a child's code, and it is the parents' right to refuse access to that code. Of course, in a "free market" healthcare system, insurers and hospitals could make it difficult for people without a genetic passport to get treatment, but I should think that there would be people willing to fill any such gap in the market, for a price, just as some insurers are willing to take on extreme sports enthusiasts at a price.

But the problem comes, as we have seen with smoking, in a country where our healthcare is almost entirely publicly-run. Since we all fund the NHS, run it collectively and benefit from it when needed, there will be pressure to make it illegal to withhold your genetic profile, for the good of the system. Such testing, a great benefit when optional, could well be made mandatory and become another burden placed on the backs of the public. And lest you miss the point, once the NHS has made it mandatory to supply your genetic code "for health purposes", the Coroners and Justice Bill going through Parliament now would make it legal for the government to spread that information to whomever it deems necessary in the pursuit of policy goals.

This is one of the fundamental tensions with a nationalised health service such as our own, and I do not know what to make of it. I want the NHS to continue to exist, but I recognise that behind the smiling face lurks a viciously illiberal nanny who wants to control any aspect of our lives which may affect our health, a nanny who will decide that she needs to know everything about us, and has the power of law to back her up. How can we make sure that the Ministry of Health is our servant, and not our master?

The credit crunch, "two cows" style

There was a parody, some years back, of the examples used to introduce first-year undergraduates to the rigours of economic thinking. Perhaps you remember them? They all began "You have two cows" (or an appropriate variation on the theme), and featured gems such as:

THEORETICAL COMMUNISM: The government has two cows. Everyone shares the milk equally.

PRACTICAL COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both. Milk is banned.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage.

COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

(Adapted from about.com)

Well, here is the credit crunch—specifically, the AIG mess—in "two cows" mode. Enjoy. (Thanks to Netsmith of the ASI blog.)

New "politics" button added

With thanks to Jim Knight for his helpful inspiration, I have added a new button to my political buttons. Here it is in a larger format, or see it in the list on the sidebar. Set schools and parents free!

Now see, this is all a matter of perspective

[David Cameron's] plan to create a new wave of comprehensives, existing outside local authority control, was attacked.

Schools minister Jim Knight called it an "unregulated free-for-all." (BBC)

Yes! That's the whole point! It is a free-for-all. Celebrate it! Set parents and schools free to educate their children properly!

The Schools Minister, typically for a politician in general and a Labour one in particular, is a control freak. He needs to have everything under his thumb, run from Whitehall [1]. David Cameron is proposing that this monopoly of provision be broken up and fresh blood be brought in to run Britain's schools, all the while maintaining funding from the state. In fact, he is also proposing a pupil premium for children from disadvantaged backgrounds [2], to help and encourage schools with those children and to fund the kind of special help that they often need.

Now, I strongly prefer the Liberal Democrat approach, where national policy is to devolve education down to local councils, and then the desire is that local policy should be to devolve power down to headteachers and parents, and to allow outside institutions to found new, independently-run and state-funded schools [3]. However, the Tories are simply more likely to get elected, and so we take our breaks where we can get them. Education is one area where the Conservatives are more nearly right than Labour, and Jim Knight ably demonstrates why the Government just does not get it. Freedom is scary for government ministers, who think that they can solve the world's problems, but it is exciting for the rest of us. Bring it on.

[1] Yes, Minister fans will note that those two objects are mutually exclusive.
[2] Originally a Liberal Democrat policy, folks. This is why, even if they never get into government, they are a good force to have around: they can produce innovative policy proposals which eventually get picked up by one of the main parties.
[3] On which, watch this speech by David Laws at last year's LibDem party conference.

Quick, report me to the Guardian!

I am a tax avoider. Not an evader, a tax avoider. I get paid irregularly for teaching work, and I am planning to ensure that my next pay-packet (which will, for once, use up a fair amount of my personal allowance) arrives this side of the tax year rather than next year. This is in anticipation of paying income tax legitimately next year, and a concomitant desire to reduce my taxation burden by ensuring as much money as possible hits this tax year when I still have personal allowance left over. I estimate that this will save me something like £150. Not a lot by others' standards, but still worth doing, I should think you would agree.

All this week, the Guardian has been running a series on corporate tax avoidance: legal methods which companies use in order to avoid paying tax. Note that: they are legal methods; we are not talking about illegal evasion, but legal avoidance. As legal, in fact, as asking your payroll office to pony up before April the 6th in order to make use of some unused personal allowance. The only difference is that corporate tax efficiency measures are necessarily more complicated, a result of the complexity of corporate finances more generally.

It would be a conceit too far to think that Polly, Vince and the crew are reading this, and I can only assume that they would agree with me that I am simply being sensible. Nevertheless, I do wonder: why is it all right for me to be efficient with my income and pay no income tax at all, but outrageous when companies are efficient with theirs and pay a reduced bill?

So the BBC does do irony!

You may need to click through (it is my Photobucket site) to read the text.

Now, there is a rule which states that every time you point out a typo, you make one yourself, but I think that is just a supersition.

Totally unsympathetic to Lindsey

It was ten months ago, almost to the day, that I wrote about a Lords report which had concluded that immigration was of "little benefit" to the UK. I argued briefly in favour of free movement of labour, and concluded,

The economic arguments in favour of immigration are compelling. When will we hear them made forcefully and convincingly?

As I observed a couple of days ago, that has happened in recent days, although obviously the issue will begin to wane with the news of an agreed deal. However, I should like to point out two things somewhat less taken up in argument, even though they are perhaps the most obvious points to make.

British labour quality

It is entirely plausible that the British workforce which might have been employed on this job is over-paid in terms of the value that their employer can obtain, resulting in an uncompetitive bid. If Italian workers work harder than their British colleagues for less money, then the British workers' complaint amounts to criticising hard work and solid competitiveness. If this analysis is remotely true, we cannot sympathise with a workforce which is paid more than it earns.

In fact, my sympathy is with even harder-working Angolan (or Congolese, or Laotian, or…) labour which was not allowed a look-in because of the way that the West conspires against them. I want to extend freedom, not break it down!

Common market benefits

The second thing to point out is a "broken window" effect. Total, the refinery's owner, is a French company; the striking workers, therefore, owe their own jobs to the common market, with its freedoms to trade and move and work around the European Union. Had we had no freedom of movement, the market for the refinery's goods might not have existed: with no market, there would be no refinery, and hence no jobs.

Simply put, European free movement is part of what has ensured that we have done as well as we have over the last few years—and to the extent that our European "partners" refuse to implement free-trade policies, they are the losers—and it is a part of what will help the entire continent come out of the recession quickly, if only we will take the other necessary actions in cutting back the state and reducing the burden on hard work and entrepreneuship. Novices I can take or leave, but now is most certainly not the time for a protectionist, whether that be against goods, services or labour.

Incompetence, our best refuge?

I can well recall a Matthew Parris article where he argued that State incompetence should not be feared with regard to illiberalisms such as ID cards: instead, he told us, incompetence would protect us from the most malign effects. Today, Henry Porter tells us otherwise.

Liberalism in the papers

Will one of the best things, in terms of our politics, to emerge from the recession and Lindsey's Total mess be a recovery of freedom on a wider front? Just as the fight for civil liberties has to get tougher, so perhaps our broadsheets will begin to be more vocal in their economic liberalism. Here is a brief round-up of some of the best recent editorialising.

Today's Independent editorial declares itself openly: Our leaders must make the case for economic liberalism. I was glad to hear both Ken Clarke and Lord Mandelson take that side when talking about Lindsey.

On much the same subject, Dominic Lawson points out the political relationships at work here: Nationalism has its roots in socialism as well as fascism. Actually, what he argued—correctly—was that fascism has its roots in socialism as well as nationalism, and that was not even his main point.

In the Telegraph, Boris Johnson argues: If we put a brake on free trade, the world will skid into a crash. Just as a driver's natural instinct on ice is liable to get him killed, so a government's natural instinct in recession is liable to drive us into penury.

At the beginning of the Lindsey saga, the Times' leader writer dealt with the topic of: British Jobs and British Workers. The leader proves that I am not the only person who has noticed that every worker not only takes a job but also creates work.

Today in the Times, David Aaronovitch observes: Fabricated fear and loathing in Lincolnshire.

A few days ago, before Lindsey became an issue, Camilla Cavendish called for the Government to: Lift the barriers blocking the rescue party. To get ourselves out of economic crisis, we do not need more government meddling, but freedom for entrepreneurs.

And now for something completely different…

Yesterday, the Telegraph's Iain Martin blogged: Snow, strikes, Labour in office and a PM which has never won an election. This is uncanny about three hours after I had made a very similar observation. That just goes to prove, you get the same kind of insightful analysis here as in the Telegraph, only I do so free of charge.

One wonders why pollsters bother

Last year, the Economist ran a comparison of British and American views on various subjects, comparing party affiliations and how much more "left-wing" the UK is than the US. It makes for interesting reading, provided you can keep your wits about you, as hacks typically make a mess of anything involving numbers.

The best bit, naturally, is the summary data, which show that the UK is far more favourable to free trade than the US, but the two are almost identical in their scepticism about free trade when it comes to labour and people, or immigration as it is more normally called. And then, there is this, which is the reason for my title.

Which explains the origin of the earth?
The theory of evolution.
The Bible.
"Intelligent design."

How in the name of all things holy is anyone meant to know how to answer that? "The theory of evolution" usually refers to Darwinism, a theory concerning the origin of species, not the earth. To say "The Bible" merely raises the question of what the pollster means by "explains": is this provides an explanation of the mechanism, or guides us to the ultimate, teleological explanation? And then to divorce "Intelligent design" from "The Bible" puts Christians who are ID-friendly in a bit of a bind, since they would wish to answer, "Both."

The question is so badly posed, it can only be answered by someone who does not have the remotest understanding of the issue—I note in passing that 60% of Britons answered "evolution", indicating that 60% of Britons have not twigged that evolution is about life and not rocks. In fact, I rather think it must have been set by someone who does not understand what they are asking. So, why do pollsters bother?

Life on Earth

Snow. Check.

Recession. Check.

Industrial action. Check.

Labour government on its last legs. Check.

This isn't the 21st century… it's 1979!

Lord, if you marked our transgressions, who would stand?

Psalm 130 is a wonderful psalm.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Yahweh!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O Yahweh, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in Yahweh!
For with Yahweh there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

The psalmist is clear about his condition, clear about where his hope is to be found and clear about the implications. He directs his attention, and we direct ours with him, to the God of Israel, with whom there is forgiveness. Lest we miss the point, he calls all of us—for we are grafted into Israel—to direct our focus to Yahweh, the God of the covenant. His word is forgiveness, and his being is love.

And standing this side of the cross, we are directed particularly to focus on the one who endured the uttermost depths, who cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and who is the Redeemer of his people Israel.