Remind me which Party we belong to?

This morning I received an e-mail from a colleague, with the above title, and drawing my attention to two fringe meetings at our Party Conference next week.  Both are sponsored by (this should set alarm bells ringing) The Fabian Society, Res Publica, and Centre Forum.  One (Sunday, 3:00 p.m.) is about “Fairness”.  The other (Tuesday 8:00 a.m.) is about “Jump Starting Green Jobs”.
 
So what’s wrong with fairness?  Surely we all believe in fairness, along with cream teas and roast beef?  But the trouble is that “fairness” is one of those weasel words, a trap set by the mendacious to confuse the unwary.  I believe in fairness, by which I mean the right of everyone to opportunity, to making the most of their lives, and to selling their labour on a free market to the highest bidder.
 
Unfortunately, what doctrinaire socialists (like the Fabian Society and Vince Cable) mean by “fairness” is quite different.  They mean social engineering, they mean creating dependency, they mean excessive welfare, and disincentives to work.  They also mean redistributive tax policies and soaking the rich.  I don’t like that kind of “fairness”, because it means damaging the life chances of millions; promoting fecklessness; and damaging our national growth prospects.   Above all, I don’t like that style of fairness because – well – it isn’t fair.
 
I believe that the broadest shoulders should carry the heaviest burden.  I believe it’s fair for a man who earns twice as much to pay twice as much.  I don’t believe he should pay four times as much.  That’s why I’m against penalising the prosperous with punitive and progressive tax rates.  That’s why I’m against a graduate tax.  That’s why I’m against Labour’s 50% income tax rate.  That’s why I’m in favour of the Flat Tax.  And I hold these beliefs because I think they’re fair and common sense, but also because I believe that they will stimulate economic growth, so that in the medium term everyone will be better off than under Vince Cable’s socialism.
 
And Green Jobs?  As Disraeli might have said, “There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Green Jobs”. Put simply, green jobs are one of the biggest lies which the Warmists and the socialists and Chris Huhne are trying to sell to a gullible public.  Yes, you can create short-term jobs by erecting wind turbines.  You can also create them by paying men to dig holes and paying other men to fill them in again.  But in neither case do you create value, or wealth, or contribute to national prosperity.
 
The best studied case history is that of Spain, which invested heavily in wind power, and of course promised green jobs.  You can find the study, undertaken by Dr. Gabriel Calzada here.  And his conclusion?  Most of the jobs were temporary.  And every green job in wind power actually cost 2.2 jobs in the real economy.  It’s not difficult to see why.  First of all, you need massive subsidies (and practically bribes to land-owners) to get the turbines erected in the first place.  Then you need massive subsidies (or renewable obligation certificates or feed-in tariffs) to support the pathetic intermittent trickle of electricity from the turbines.  All that takes money out of the real economy, leaving less for investment and consumption, and leaving industry to cope with unnecessarily high electricity prices.  Green energy is a double whammy to investment and to competitiveness.
 
Little wonder then that some of the early adopters of wind power, like Germany and Denmark, are now facing a backlash – and rightly so.
 
Of course these issues will be discussed, but I suspect that the Labour Party Conference would be a more appropriate place for them.