Supreme Power
The entire thrust of modern democratic constitutional development could be summarised as attempting to ensure that power is never exercised without accountability. Jonathan Sumption’s analysis (“The president’s crimes”, October) of the US Supreme Court ruling in Trump v United States is, therefore, excellent yet inconsistent.
Lord Sumption rightly points out that the US Constitution’s framers—intentionally—did not create an executive immunity. Yet he salutes the US Supreme Court as sometimes being the only institution capable of “chang[ing] the law”. If we accept that the framers of the Constitution were specific in what powers the charter did or did not grant, we have to concede that they viewed the Court merely as an interpreter of law rather than as a legislative power itself.
You needn’t have read de Maistre to understand that constitutions as written almost always vary somewhat from how they actually function, but the Court’s role in making laws might play some part in undermining its public legitimacy. Voters can throw out presidents, senators and members of Congress, but Supreme Court justices are effectively unassailable.
There are arguments for justices escaping the bounds of mere interpretation towards acting as legislators—extra-constitutional to supporters, unconstitutional to opponents—but few have articulated an acceptable method for the sovereign populace to hold the Court to account for bad rulings. Until someone does, we will continue to see power exercised without accountability, with all its consequences.
Andrew Cusack, London
Jonathan Sumption is right. The US Constitution is not fit for modern American culture, and the crisis of the Supreme Court shows how severe the problems are. The presidential election will decide whether the Supreme Court is beyond saving. Joe Biden had some proposals for dealing with the Court’s lapse into the service of Maga, but even before his campaign ended it was clear partisan politics would prevent reform. The Maga faction has no interest in changing a situation that gives it overwhelming power, and a vote for change would be blocked.
If Donald Trump wins the election, he has made it clear he is out for political revenge and the Supreme Court will not stop him. If Trump loses narrowly and attempts to violently overthrow the result, the Court will allow it. The US state needs to prepare for a second insurrection. Only if Kamala Harris wins a decisive majority would constitutional reform become possible.
Trevor Fisher, Stafford
Many of Lord Sumption’s observations are true: written constitutions are often inflexible and the judicial supremacy they create inevitably politicises the judiciary. However, he forgets the Democrats’ part in destroying the constitutional norms. No mention of Roosevelt threatening to pack the Supreme Court, or how Chuck Schumer threatened members of the Court for making the “wrong” decisions, or of Democrats routinely threatening to pack the Court since losing their majority. The wrongs of Republicans are seen as high crimes, the wrongs of Democrats as mere peccadilloes.
Jiraiya Erosennin, via the website
Out of this world
I’ve spent part of the day working on my astronomy PhD, and decided to take a break and read about politics and current affairs in the UK. So what a surprise to find a very readable and relevant astronomy-related story (“Roy Kerr: ‘Nobody realised I was providing the solution to the quasar mystery’”, Prospect online, July) outside of a science journal. Thank you very much, and I hope many more of your readers can pick up at least a flavour of just how interesting science research is.
Ian Kemp, via the website
Seeds of change
As Julian Baggini’s enjoyable article shows (“Off the menu”, October), reducing meat consumption and moving to a more plant-rich diet is arguably the most effective way to both feed the population within planetary boundaries and address the climate crisis. Excessive appetites for animal-sourced foods are harmful to human health, damaging to the environment, and inflict suffering on billions of farmed animals. We produce more than enough food to feed the current global population, yet most of it is used inefficiently to feed crops to animals.
To reduce meat consumption globally, we need clear targets that align with the Paris agreement and the Kunming--Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We also need a combined effort from governments, NGOs, producers, financiers, business and consumers to align our dietary guidelines with the principles of the Eat-Lancet Planetary Health Diet.
The UK’s meat is heavily subsidised—from the growing of grain to feed the animals, to externalising the pollution costs from our intensive agriculture system, which is the number one polluter of our rivers and lakes. Around 40 per cent of the UK’s prime cropland is given over to growing food for the one billion farm animals confined in factory farms every year. Farming subsidies and financial institutions continue to drive factory farming, where 85 per cent of the animals we eat are raised by a cruel, outdated and inefficient method.
A shift towards regenerative farming, coupled with consumption of less but better meat and dairy, can help end cruelty to animals, stabilise the climate and safeguard the future of food. We must act now and protect our world as if our life depends on it—because it does.
Anthony Field, head of Compassion in World Farming UK
We will not be able to hit the UK’s net zero goal without tackling food system emissions. This in turn can’t happen without food businesses shifting away from menus and portfolios based heavily on meat. Sixty-two per cent of main meals offered by major UK restaurants contain meat, whereas only 32 per cent are meatless. Yet with meat reduction increasingly being drawn into culture wars we see both businesses and policymakers shying away from action.
Our research shows the vast majority of plant-based meat alternatives bring significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions and water footprints. Despite increasing public concern (in part driven by corporate lobbying) about the healthiness of many plant-based meat alternatives, our analysis of 68 different products did not find evidence that their nutritional profile is notably worse than that of meat, while the proportion of ultra processed foods within plant-based alternative categories varied considerably.
Currently there is no acknowledgement of the need to shift diets in the government’s net zero strategy. It must ensure plant-rich diets are a central part of climate change and food policy. And both businesses and government must act to make healthy, plant-based alternatives to meat more affordable, available and appealing to everyone.
Rebecca Tobi, senior business manager at the Food Foundation
Rich pickings
There are more billionaires today than ever before, but it’s impossible to earn a billion dollars. This contradiction cuts to the heart of the economic woes and the breaking of the social contract illuminated by Philip Collins (“Hand-me-down economics”, October).
The average UK worker would have to work 20 times longer than humans have existed to earn as much as the world’s richest man has today. Salaries don’t make billionaires, dividends and rent money do, but we tax such collected wealth much less than we tax earned wealth like salaries and wages.
We need wealth taxes not just to raise urgently needed public money, but to address this two-tier treatment of wealth, to make our economies secure, and protect the earner model our post-war economies are based on. The Tax Justice Network’s recent report shows that countries can raise $2.1trn a year by implementing a simplified version of Spain’s modest wealth tax of roughly 2-3 per cent on the richest 0.5 per cent. This can raise about £24bn in the UK.
We are often asked: “But won’t the super-rich relocate?” No. Only 0.01 per cent of the super-rich in Norway, Denmark and Sweden relocated after wealth taxes were implemented. An LSE study of 35 billionaires found they are very unlikely to move because of tax rises. Access to the arts is a much bigger decision factor. Billionaires find tax havens “boring”.
Mark Bou Mansour, head of communications, Tax Justice Network
Last year, the richest 50 families in the UK held more wealth than the bottom half of the national population, and yet more than four million people in this country could not afford to sufficiently feed themselves or keep themselves warm. At the same time our crumbling public services desperately require funding, not a return to “Austerity 2.0”.
At the JustMoney Movement addressing these challenges is a moral question: as a faith-based organisation we seek the common good—where each and every member of society can thrive.
We agree with the 2020 Wealth Tax Commission that Collins mentions, which proposed a 1 to 2 per cent tax on assets over £10m, laser targeting the ultra-wealthy (just 20,000 people). This could make a wealth tax practicable while raising an estimated £24bn for public services. The Commission didn’t rule out making such a tax annual—we think it should be, along with reforms such as equalising capital gains with income tax and ending some of the vast array of reliefs built into inheritance tax.
As a society we need a grown-up conversation about tax—one that acknowledges the deep unfairness of our current taxation system, and yet recognises its potential role in enabling a society where we can all flourish.
Sarah Edwards, executive director, JustMoney Movement
Local heroes
Duncan Campbell’s article (“Out of time”, October) powerfully sets out the reasons for despair about local news. According to the PINF Local News Map, 4.7m people now live in “news deserts” without dedicated local coverage, either in print or online, and millions more live in “news drylands”, with thin coverage. The areas of lowest coverage correlate with the areas of highest deprivation.
But there are also grounds for optimism. Independent local news providers are springing up to address the information deficit. These outlets may be small—typically with turnover of only £62,000—but they are mighty, with online audiences in the hundreds of thousands.
In order to rebuild local news, we need new commitments from four groups: big tech platforms, which should pay news providers for the value they generate; philanthropists, who need to recognise the vital role of local news in our communities; policymakers, who need to create new incentives for innovation and investment in local news; and the public, who need to start paying for local news, although this won’t change unles local news publishers have content worth paying for, and not just recycled press releases. With these commitments in place, we can build a local news economy for the 21st century.
Jonathan Heawood, executive director, Public Interest News Foundation
805 Lords a-sleeping
The elevation of Baroness Owen (“First a peerage, now a plum job—why does Boris keep promoting Charlotte Owen?”, Prospect online, September) is a scandal indeed. Oddly, Alan Rusbridger seems to think this is a story about Boris Johnson. Surely, it is about our broken constitution. The House of Lords has an astonishing 805 members, many of them party donors or ex-MPs elevated by former colleagues or as a result of political favours. No doubt plenty of them do even less than Baroness Owen. None have been elected by the British people. The Labour party in opposition talked of democratic reform of the Lords, but since the election has said nothing except that it’ll chuck out the remaining hereditaries. Is that worth even one cheer?
Richard Lewis, via the website
Country life and death
Tom Martin writes with scepticism and a little hope about the new Labour government (Farming life, October). But one sentence jumped out: “In fits of first term fervour, Tony Blair had taken a wrecking ball to country pursuits…” Those pursuits seemed to be killing wildlife for fun.
While it is necessary to manage the wildlife around farms, this shouldn’t be for enjoyment or entertainment, nor should there be attempts at extermination, such as badger culling. We have far superior methods available.
Stephen Hubbard, Berkhamsted
The rule of law
DAT Green (Prospect online, August), asked why sentences for violent disorder are lower than those for peaceful protest, noting that the judge’s sentencing remarks for the M25 Just Stop Oil protesters refer to the protests’ impact on ordinary people.
Of perhaps greater importance are later remarks noting the defendants had been convicted of one or more offences in relation to direct action protest and each was on bail for at least one other set of proceedings when the offence took place. The judge notes the individuals’ perspective is that climate change justifies breaking the law, so there is a real risk of each committing further offences unless deterred by exemplary sentences.
Mike Jarrett, Tamworth
