Author Archives: Paul Evans

About Paul Evans

By day, working for a film and TV industry collecting society. Everything written on this site is written in a personal capacity and in no way represents the views of my employer.

Your opinions annoy everyone else

G20_crowdThe other day, I promised to start answering the question of how I think it can be possible to be a principled politician while avoiding the career-ending pitfalls of principle. This post won’t do it, but it will help build to the answer. I’ll need to make this point on the way.

Imagine we were building a democracy from scratch, after some kind of apocalypse? All property rights would be void, all power-relations would be gone and we’d be working on a blank sheet of paper.

There are all sorts of logistical and logical problems we’d have to solve, but one of the most interesting ones would be the points at which human nature – however you want to define it – reject democracy and work against it. Continue reading →

The Muggle-headed politics of Trout-Dipping

Trout Dipping - the future

I’ve kept this quiet up until now, but it’s time that I came out as a Trout Dipper.

I’ve read detailed studies and shown that it would be very good for our ecosystem if we were to catch every freshwater Trout in British waters, quickly dip them in a harmless green dye, and then throw them back in the water alive. Personally, I’m convinced.

I’m not writing about it here to convince you that ‘Trout-Dipping’ is a good idea, but I hope it illustrates another point that I’d like to make.

It is a counter-intuitive argument. I won’t go into the very sound scientific data behind it (links to follow if I get round to it), and I don’t expect you to think that it’s a good idea until you’ve read the whole thing. I can see the practical problems, and the expense, but if you understood the great arguments, I’m sure you’d realise that it’s worth doing. Continue reading →