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Tories "enthusiastically supported" wartime Euro-integration - by Richard... Tuesday, March 20, 2012
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| Reynold News, 5 May 1940, p 3. Click to enlarge. |
This has emerged from a newly re-discovered article in the left-wing weekly newspaper Reynolds News, unearthed from the Priestley Collection in Bradford University, where one of only two complete archives in the world is maintained.
The article, dated Sunday 5 May 1940, was published five days before German forces crossed the border of neutral Holland as the preliminary to the invasion of France. Then, the political correspondent of Reynold News reported that there were already "sweeping plans" to merge the economies, administration and culture of Britain and France.
Previously, it had been thought that such plans only emerged after France had been invaded, on 15-16 June, days before the French government capitulated.
It is said that Jean Monnet, later known as "Father of the European Union", then sought to broker the Franco-British Union, as a last-ditch attempt to keep France in the war and bolster her government's resolve. His plans, it is generally held, were first revealed to Churchill at a meal with de Gaulle, either on the 15th or 16th June.
The text of the Monnet proposal was read out in the House of Commons on 16 October 1940, specifying the creation of "joint organs of defence, foreign, financial, and economic policies".
This, however, shows its remarkable similarity with the proposal revealed on 5 May, when the key issues being discussed were the unification of fighting services and defence policy, co-ordination of trade and merging currencies, abolition of all tariff barriers, and the setting up of a joint supreme Cabinet for foreign policy defence, economic decisions, and "similar questions common to both nations".
Plans, at this time, were "in embryo", says Reynold News but it was anticipated that they would be put forward "as a basis for a democratic bloc" – a putative European Union - to which all states would be invited to join, whence "wide support" was expected.
Tory "propagandists" for the plan, said Reynolds News, were "more inclined to stress that it would "enable the two States to maintain military domination of Europe and will cope with expected industrial unrest after the war".
Although no other contemporary newspapers seem to have reported this development, some clues as to the existence of the earlier plans come from writer Eleanor M. Gates in her 1981 book "End of the affair: the collapse of the Anglo-French alliance, 1939-40". She avers that that the 16 June plan did not arise "parthenogenically", as had been claimed by Churchill. It had been "kicking around in somewhat inchoate form since the early part of the year".
The question of some sort of permanent union, she wrote, had in fact been taken up as far back as November 1939, at the behest of Arnold Toynbee, then director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. And while the Reynold News article does not indicate the source of the May plan, it may indicate that Toynbee's plans were much further advanced than has been previously realised.
Gates, an academic at the University of California, claims that by mid-June, "the necessary groundwork" for the plan offered by Monnet "had already been laid".
This independent corroboration is supported by academics Michael L. Dockrill and B. J. C. McKercher in their 1996 book, "Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890-1950".
From a study of their work, it can be taken as almost certain that the Reynolds News article was referring, inter alia, to the so-called Hankey Committee, set up by Halifax under the chairmanship of Lord Hankey, former Cabinet secretary and then minister without portfolio in Chamberlain's war cabinet. It had first met on 30 April - the Tuesday before the Sunday publication of the paper.
The plans themselves had been produced by Sir Alfred Zimmern of Chatham House, in conjunction with Toynbee and with Rex Leeper, a propaganda expert from the Foreign Office. The work was called: "A Draft Act of Perpetual Association between the United Kingdom and France", or the "Zimmern memorandum" for short. It had been on the agenda at the Hankey Committee at its first meeting.
The collapse of the French government meant that plans for Anglo-French union had to be postponed, and it was to be twenty years before European integration was again "enthusiastically supported" by a Tory prime minister.
This time it was Harold Macmillan, who started the process which led to Britain joining in 1973 what was to become the European Union. And that came about under another Tory prime minister, Edward Heath, the eventual transition to the European Union being agreed by yet another Tory prime minister, John Major, in the Maastricht Treaty.
With David Cameron showing increasing enthusiasm for what amounts to Anglo-French union, on the back of his support for membership of the European Union, we now have a line stretching back over seventy years, where Tory politicians have "enthusiastically supported" European integration.
Interestingly, back in 1940, it was Labour politicians who were suspicious of the integration agenda, leading to a long history of euroscepticism which was only reversed under Tony Blair. It may well return to dominate the Parliamentary Labour Party, and even win it an election.
COMMENT THREAD
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| Motorways: we've already paid for them through our taxes. Now Cameron wants us to pay again through tolls. |
So Cameron wants to "privatise" roads, citing the water industry model as an example of where private ownership enables capital to be liberated to fund new infrastructure projects.
But, given the recent example of the almost complete failure of the water "model", one could be tempted to wonder which planet The Boy inhabits, except we have stopped speculating on this a long time ago – it is a totally fruitless endeavour.
However, the substantive point is that the motorist is already being charged £42 billion annually in taxes, of which a mere £9 billion is returned. The idea of having to pay a second time via tolls is not one that is going to fly (or even drive).
That The Boy can even think of this, much less be incautious enough to cite water as an example, simply demonstrates how completely our of touch he really is. Why he has to keep reminding us though is anyone's guess.
COMMENT THREAD
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| The F-35B undergoing carrier trials. Will we buy it, or will we won't? |
The state we're got ourselves into with the carrier project is almost unbelievable – or would be if we had any faith that government could get it right in the first place. And part of the problems are not ours, as the delay to the F-35 programme is not the fault of the British government and we are to a very great extent dependent on the American builders.
That said, Thomas Harding in The Daily Telegraph charts the latest development in this rolling disaster.
First, we decide to buy the F-35B – the short take off and vertical-landing variant, and design the carriers accordingly (then deciding to mothball on of the two). Then we go for (in my view) the better option of the F-35C, the carrier-based variant, catapult and arrester hook fitted – having then to redesign the carrier at inordinate cost.
And now, we want to go back to the F-35B, which apparently is going to cost £250 million to reverse work already done.
Why this is the case I really don't want to know, finding myself in agreement with Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, who says that the reversal would be "one of the biggest public procurement messes for many decades".
In fact, this is probably the biggest disaster since Conservative defence secretary Michael Portillo ordered the Nimrod MR4 in 1996, ending up with nine aircraft at £3.8 billion which were then cancelled … by a Conservative administration.
As always though, neither party comes out at all well out of our never-ending list of procurement disasters, wasting more money overall than many countries actually spend on defence. The only thing we seem now capable of mastering is incompetence.
COMMENT THREAD
"That was stupid", says Sandy Woodward – former task force commander who took the expeditionary force to rescue the Falklands in 1982.
This plain-speaking man of the sea says it was a mistake not to have made more noise, "to make sure people realised it was the Navy that had done the job, not the bloody Air Force or the Army". The Air Force, he adds, "dropped one bomb on target. There were more Commandos, who are naval soldiers, than there were Army".
Now, Woodward is into selling his book – and best of luck to him – but he is also supporting the service from which he has retired, indulging in the special pleading that typifies inter-service rivalry.
Characteristically, to do so he is relying on a myth - in this instance the "myth" that the Royal Navy saved the Falklands. This possibly qualifies as a "true myth", but whether it does or not, he relies on its power to support his case that, in order to continue protecting the Falklands, we still need a powerful navy.
The beauty of this is that it illustrates the archetypal myth, and how it is used. Specifically, myths are narratives (true or false) about events past, presented in such a way as to shape our thinking, how we react to current events and thence how we behave.
Woodward, in fact, is demonstrating one of the primary functions of the myth, that of supporting one faction in competition for funding between departments of state or, as in this case, within departments such as the three military services in the MoD.
This is a perennial feature of government, as much in the past as it is currently. And it was for precisely this purpose that one of the most significant Battle of Britain myths was developed and deployed – not in 1940 but in 1945.
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| Barrier Miner, New South Wales, Tuesday 23 October 1945, p 3 |
What you see from the cutting above is a scene-setter (the exact timing is not important) which tells us that, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, demobilisation is taking place and the armed forces are being cut back to a fraction of their former strength. It also has Churchill, now leader of the opposition, calling for the RAF to be "maintained on a very large scale".
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| The Daily News, Perth, Saturday 15 September 1945, p 20 |
The interesting thing is that this is not the invention of the media, or a revisionist historian, but is an official statement from the Air Ministry, delivered with such impeccable timing that it gets published worldwide (these pieces from the Australian press).
Yet, from a review of the contemporary records, we learn that there were no shortages which in any way prejudiced operations. Churchill had in fact visited 11 Group HQ, at the heart of the air battle on 31 August, and had on 2 September reviewed progress at a secret War Cabinet meeting. "We had every right to be satisfied,” he said, "our own Air Force was stronger than ever and there was every reason to be optimistic about the 1940 Air Battle of Britain".
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| Mirror, Perth, Saturday 15 September 1945, p 8 |
As regards the aircraft supply, the situation was tight in August 1940. Peter J. Dye in the Air Force Journal of Logistics for the winter of 2000, records that against a total wastage of 594 Hurricanes and Spitfires, new production and repair could provide only 527 aircraft.
The difference, however, was made up from the immediate reserve stocks and, by September the position had been returned to a positive balance of some 50 aircraft on the month. In October, after three months of steady attrition, Fighter Command's front line stood at some 98 percent of its established strength, slightly higher than when the battle of Britain opened.
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| The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, Thursday 27 September 1945, p 2 |
Nevertheless, some versions of the myth are relatively harmless, where the intent was merely to remind the politicians and the public of the danger of running down the air force. What are more insidious are those that have a political dimension, affecting the way we relate to the political classes. Such is the Battle of Britain "invasion myth" which limits the battle to that one phase, ignoring the strategic objectives of the Blitz. By this means, it has the British people relying on the RAF for their salvation, rather than on their own resources and fortitude.
Debunking the political myths is now more important than it has ever been - as Britain is once again under existential threat. And that was the task I set myself in The Many Not The Few. Worryingly though, Duff and Nonsense is suggesting that the book should be filed under the category "Gallant but Futile Effort" – not for any pejorative reason, but simply reflecting the size of the task I have set myself (and my likelihood of success).
However, if I acknowledged that my labours were futile (whether gallant or not), I would give up now. That, I cannot do because the myths of the past are still current, framing the population as passive dependants, who need to rely on their political and technocratic élites to guide them through the crises of life.
The "true myth" though, is that there is no crisis so bad that our politicians cannot make it worse and that, in times of crises, there is only one set of people on which we can rely – ourselves. To pursue that line may be futile, but we simply cannot afford to abandon what is probably our only hope of salvation.
COMMENT: "MAKING OF A MYTH" THREAD
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| The chattering classes in conference - but who is in charge? |
Front page of The Sunday Telegraph offers a prolonged lament about the effects of the EU's working time directive, recording the huge amounts spent on temporary staff to fill the gaps created by the rules. Hospitals, we are told, spent more than £2 billion on temporary clinical staff in the two years since the rules came in, a sum which could have paid the wages of 48,000 nurses or 33,000 junior doctors over the period.
In response to this obscene waste, a spokesman for the Department of Health is cited, saying that trusts should always seek to negotiate the best value prices for locums. He adds that the government understood there were "real concerns" over the impact of the directive, and had begun EU negotiations to revise it.
Earlier, we published an item which has Charles Moore complaining in The Daily Telegraph that the "civil servants are the masters now". But these "masters" apparently can't even affect a situation where billions of pounds are wasted on absurd and unnecessary rules, and must go trotting over to Brussels to ask permission to make changes.
It is evidence such as that which clearly indicates that, in vital aspects of our administration, the British civil service is most definitely not in charge. Similarly, it can hardly be Jeremy Heywood who is running the country, as Quentin Letts asserts. Had he such power, he would doubtless wave a magic wand and bring the absurdity to an end.
When it comes to the effects of the working time directive, however, doubtless the Brussels eurocrats did not intend to impose such a burden on the NHS. But, as it stands, they too are powerless to make changes – without going through due process, which will take years, if indeed it happens.
In the meantime, while money flows down the drain and taxpayers get steadily poorer, we have the unedifying prospect of legions of legislators and officials doing nothing but tell us their hands are tied.
Not for nothing did I once remark that the most prevalent activity, even on a European scale, was group bondage. But we should also recall a fascinating interview with Lord Salisbury recorded in July 2009. Then he said: "The parliamentary muscle is atrophying and we now have a vast, complicated, self-referential bureaucracy".
Whitehall, said Salisbury, is "mired in treacle". A clear line of authority from officials to ministers has been lost and must be restored. And, of Cameron trying to implement his own agenda, he declared: "He will go into Whitehall and pull the levers and find that nothing works. I don’t think he realises how Whitehall has become so broken".
Yet still we get the ineffable lightweights like Charles Moore, his ponderous prose mistaken for gravitas, completely failing to understand the malaise which afflicts modern government.
Thus, to spell it out yet again, as I did in December 2008, no one is in overall charge – there is no one to get a grip and sort the problems out. Everything is compartmentalised and detached, everyone doing their own little bit, without reference to their impact on other areas.
That, in a very real sense, I wrote, is the general paradigm. It was not always like that. But with power and responsibilities split, and spread between national and international bodies, no one person or entity – like the British government – has any longer the wherewithal to resolve even pressing issues.
And so the money pours down the drain and governance falls apart in front of our very eyes, while the MSM laments, without even beginning to understand what is happening. In pointing this out for the umpteenth time, though, I sometimes wonder what it is going to take to acquaint our chattering classes (pictured above) with reality.
COMMENT THREAD
After ploughing a lonely furrow for so long, Booker has finally gained some high profile support on the "stolen kids" issue – not from his own newspaper, which keeps him firmly locked away in the "ghetto", but from The Daily Mail. Much of what this newspaper does is toe-curlingly bad, but just occasionally, it rises to the occasion with a superb piece of journalism which only the Mail can do with such style (headline below).
Furthermore, this is but one of two pieces, The Mail has run, the first dealing with how the family court system is relying on a closed circle of incompetent experts, who are perverting the system in a terrifying way. Thus – at last – is Booker able to remark in today's column that "a long overdue scandal hit the headlines last week".
He is referring to a "semi-official report" which has exposed one of the murkiest corners of our child protection system – the way that supposed professional "experts" help social workers to remove children from their parents.
The author is professor Jane Ireland, a forensic psychologist. For the Family Justice Council, she has examined 126 psychological reports trawled at random from family court documents. She found that two thirds of them were "poor" or "very poor" in quality and that 20 percent of their authors had no proper qualifications.
Alarmingly, no fewer than 90 percent of the report authors were not practising psychologists but appeared to earn their livings, wholly or partly, from writing reports for social workers. And, featured in the second Mail piece, one psychologist, whose company has made nearly half a million pounds a year from such reports, is under investigation by the General Medical Council.
The picture prof Ireland conveys, writes Booker, is one with which he is only too familiar. He has seen (and reported) how families can be torn apart largely on the basis of highly dubious psychological evidence.
This is designed, as John Hemming MP puts it, to " suit the demands of local authorities". One mother lost her children, for instance, on the basis of a 235-page report, costing £14,000, which found that she was "likely to have a borderline personality disorder" – without the author ever having met her.
Such seems almost unbelievable – so much so that one is inclined to dismiss it, or mark it down as a tragic exception. This is what children's minister, Tim Loughton, sought to do, when Booker told him what was going on, face-to-face. And, despite the steady trickle of cases that Booker has reported on – only a fraction of those he has seen – the flatulent Loughton has maintained his stance.
Another example, for instance, was a woman found by a psychologist to be a competent mother” – so the social workers went to a second witness, who found the same. They then found one of these "rent-a-psychos" who came up with what they wanted: that the mother had, again, a "borderline personality disorder". On that basis, her three children were sent for adoption.
Then a married couple lost their daughter because the father, who had had four "psychological assessments" from these psycho-frauds, saw no reason to submit himself to a fifth. The Court of Appeal found that he seemed to be putting his "emotional needs before those of his child” " and ordered that the child be adopted.
Damning as Prof Ireland's report is, her remit was only to look at psychological assessments. An equally disturbing picture might emerge from examining other groups of medical "experts" who earn thousands of pounds from evidence which parents may not be allowed to challenge or even read.
One contentious area, for instance, is where parents are accused of having injured infants who are found to have small fractures to their bones. A fashionable theory, pioneered by a Dr Kleinman in the US, holds that such fractures are a sure indicator of "non-accidental injury", i.e., the child must have been abused.
In one case (which Booker was able to report last year because the judge, unusually, published his judgement) it was clear that all the four medical witnesses had supported this "Kleinman theory", unquestioningly accepted by the judge.
But other experts strongly disagree, citing studies which suggest that such fractures may quite often arise naturally from a deficiency of vitamin D (as tests had shown was the case with this particular mother). When Booker showed the judgement to a doctor expert in this field, he immediately recognised three of the witnesses as doctors who "go round from one court to another to support the Kleinman theory".
Sadly, since no one was in court to challenge them, the heartbroken mother – like many before her – lost her son.
What we are going through, of course, is wearyingly familiar. Several scandals have hit the headlines in recent years involving doctors struck off after making a reputation as witnesses, pushing some theory about "brittle bones", "shaken baby syndrome" or "Munchausen syndrome by proxy" which was eventually exposed as fallacious.
But these causes célèbres have centred on criminal courts, where evidence can be put more rigorously to the test than is required by the much laxer procedures of family courts, which allow the incompetence, dishonesty and self-interest to be obscured by a wall of secrecy.
And as Booker has observed before, once a court system is allowed to hide itself away behind that wall of secrecy, the chances are high that it will become corrupted. A perfect example is the role played in our family courts by many of these professional "experts".
Thus, the good work prof Ireland has begun cannot be allowed to stop there, Booker concludes. Perforce though, he is being too gentle. These faux experts can only exist in a system where the judges allow them to operate, where the lawyers support them, and the local authorities pay for them, with our money.
In Booker's conclusion, the hint is there. The whole system is corrupt, from the judges downwards. It needs to be stripped down, taken apart and rebuilt from the ground upwards. And although too much to hope for in a society that is also corrupt, those responsible should also be brought to book.
That, though, is not going to happen, a fact that should be remembered the next time the supposed protector of children, Tim Loughton, seeks re-election. He had the power to challenge the abuse, but sat on his hands and did nothing.
COMMENT THREAD
Slowly, hesitantly, and with some diffidence, the hacks, high and low, are beginning to realise that something is wrong. First, there is Quentin Letts in The Spectator, charting the rise and rise of Jeremy Heywood, "the man who really runs the country".
Then there is the Great Charles Moore, who declares that the "civil servants are the masters now", complaining that "our democracy suffers" as a result.
Actually, they are both wrong. How can Heywood, or anyone in this administration be "in charge" when so much of government has been outsourced to Brussels? In truth, no one is actually in charge – and that is the problem. Government has become so amorphous, so diffuse, spread between so many different agencies – local, regional, national, and international – that there is no discernible chain of command. And, without that, there is no accountability and no one assumes responsibility when things go wrong, as they so often do.
It is a bit rich, however, for the likes of Moore, to complain about the loss of democracy. We have never really had one in this country.
The real complaint from these "above the liners" – one higher than the other – therefore, is that the old order (of which they are part) has been degraded. The previous structures no longer exist. Thus, the politicians of old, who held some semblance of power, are no more, and the old "establishment" no longer calls the shots.
But none of these people, neither Moore nor Letts, nor the rest of the bubble, have any real idea of what is going on. All they can understand is that they and their ilk no longer have it, and thus assume that it must have gone to the next in line, the civil servants. While Witterings from Witney can see what is happening, these great sages are struggling.
As reality nevertheless begins to filter through, Letts does make one very pertinent observation: "Much though we mock the Greeks and Italians for being run by unelected technocrats", he writes, "can we truthfully say that we are any better?"
The answer, as they say, is in the negative. Not better … different, perhaps, but not better.
COMMENT THREAD
What makes it worthwhile is the unexpected outcome, the finding of a review of a book published in 1945 by Guy Eden called a "Portrait of Churchill". The source of the review is the Worker, published in Brisbane on 29 October 1945, describing the book as "the latest and most fulsome of these panegyrics" that "purports to be a biography". "For far-fetched flights of fantasy", it adds, "it beats superman".
Although Winston Churchill is now out of office, the review continues, his barrackers are still busily engaged in building up legends of "Winnie the War-Winner". "Alone he did it", they cry. "He won the war single handed". Not since Bill Adams won the Battle of Waterloo all on his own, has so much been claimed for one man.
Most interestingly, deep within the review we are then told that the most impudent claim in Eden's book is that Churchill and his wife "worked out a plan" for giving Londoners safe and fairly comfortable air raid shelters in the railway tube stations.
This is entirely false, it says – as Douglas Reed (who was there at the time) points out in his book, "A Prophet at Home". The Chamberlain-Churchill Tory Government did nothing for the bombed Londoners beyond providing flimsy surface shelters.
We are then told that it was not until Labour Ministers entered the Government that "a plan was worked out" for providing two million bunks, and a system of booking them, in the tube stations. Two Labour Ministers — Herbert Morrison (Home Secretary and Minister for Home Security) and Miss Ellen Wilkinson — were responsible for the plan. All that Churchill had to do with the plan was approve it.
Still, in spite of the facts, the review concludes, the Churchill myths are being fostered and elaborated by interested parties of the Tory persuasion.
It will, it says, be Miss Wilkinson's duty to see that the true story of the war, and not the Tory fiction, is told in the British school text books; otherwise the rising generation will grow up in the belief that "Winnie the War-Winner" was a kind of demigod instead of a well-meaning old gentleman, rather self -conceited, and with a gift of bombast.
Clearly, Miss Wilkinson, who had been appointed education minister in the Attlee government, failed in her duty. The "Tory fiction" has become the received wisdom.
Remarkably though, Douglas Reed (latterly expunged from history for his "anti-Semitism") has his book, referred to in the review, published in its entirety on the internet and we have but have to go to pages 197 to 199 for the antidote to the Eden hagiography. Having explored the failure to furnish suitable shelters, and the "insuperable difficulties" in providing them, Reed tells us:
But nothing ever betrayed more vividly the total lack of understanding of the people's mind that prevailed in the haunts of officialdom. First and foremost, these harassed East Enders wanted to be quite safe, and they knew they could only find complete safety deep underground.Nothing survives in any of the official records that I have seen. But here again, we have confirmation of the accounts I record in The Many Not The Few that in the early days of the Blitz, police prevented people taking shelter in the Underground.
But apart from that, they wanted, if they were to take shelter at nights for months and years, to be able to sleep, and in those surface shelters the noise would not let you sleep. Apart from that again, they wanted, and had a right to, some minimum degree of comfort, and in these dark and narrow surface-dungeons, which the devil himself might have invented, there was no hope of any.
So, that day, we saw appalling sights. Though it was early morning, long queues of miserable people, clutching shapeless bundles, shivering in the rain, stood at the entrances to the underground stations, waiting for nightfall, when they would stream down into them.
The police, the world-famed London police ('Your police are marvellous!'), had been given no better task to do, in this, London's greatest ordeal since the Plague and the Great Fire, than to stop them from entering. But that was vain.
When night came the people bought the cheapest ticket they could and just stormed the stations. Nothing could have stopped them. Good, that the attempt was never more than half-heartedly made. The "insuperable difficulties" were quickly overcome.
But what is also glossed over is that, when people were forced to make their own provision, in the absence of government planning, the conditions were appalling. Writes Reed, his book published in 1941:
For long enough, the scenes in these underground dens were beyond description by pen or portrayal by brush. A man might have put his hand over his eyes, rather than contemplate them. People lay huddled together, tiny children in their midst, on the platforms, under the railway arches, in the vaults. There was no food for them, unless some local priest militant foraged and found some and brought it to them. There was no heat or water. There was no place for them to relieve themselves in decency. There was no care for their health. Pestilence immediately began to crawl about and breed.After the War, Churchill wrote in his own book, "Their Finest Hour", that he had been "deeply anxious about the life of the people in London". But not only do the War Cabinet minutes not support his claims, this review and the Reed book add to the already substantial evidence that the people of London were initially left to fend for themselves. "True, we were 'all in the front line' in this war", said Reed, "but the English front line had its first, second and third class compartments, like the English railways".
So it was then – and to a very great extent, so it is now. And government is not and never has been an organisation on which you can safely rely, any more than you can rely on the record telling you the truth of what happened, or is currently going on.
COMMENT THREAD
The competition, says the National Audit Office (NAO) in its latest report (pictured right), was launched in 2007 with insufficient planning and recognition of the commercial risks.
Four companies were invited to compete for funds but, by last year, there was only one left, Iberdrola SA (IBE). Developers including BP Plc and EON had shelved their projects. Then, in October, the final bid was scrapped in as Iberdrola was unable to build its proposed Scottish plant within the budget or agree to the contract terms.
"In the context of value for money, developing new technologies is an inherently risky undertaking. Taking calculated risks is perfectly acceptable if those risks are managed effectively; but in this case DECC, and its predecessor, took too long to get to grips with the significant technical, commercial and regulatory risks involved", the NAO adds.
But no one has been fired. No one has resigned. No one has lost so much as a ha'penny from their pensions. All we get from the NAO is the weak-as-dishwater comment that DECC "must learn from the failure of this project".
Actually, by comparison with the Ministry of Defence – which wasted more than £100 million on the Vector project alone, this is small beer. And, at least on this project, no one died. Furthermore, if the project had gone ahead, with a budget of £1 billion, so we would have lost much more. In a sense, we (the taxpayers) have got off lightly.
But this is not the end of it. Unfortunately, it is not only DECC which is incompetent. The NAO is as well. Gulled by the propaganda, it has failed to look into the technicalities of the contract and appreciate that CCS is not technically feasible. Thus, it has not understood that the real reason why the £1 billion contract did not go ahead was because it could not work.
All the NAO does, therefore, is bitch that "Four years down the road, commercial scale carbon capture and storage technology has still to be developed". It is now standing aside as DECC prepares to make another bid to become a major-league money waster alongside the MoD.
Then, what can you expect from Mr Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office. Paid a miserable salary of £210,000 per annum, the poor man is so close to the breadline that he obviously cannot do better, preoccupied as he is with working out how to make ends meet.
But, if this £64 million had been his money, and it had been the very last £64 million he had, would he have been so relaxed? Would our MPs, who so glibly approved this lunatic scheme have been so keen on it, had the funding come from their own pockets?
And there we have it. As long as these mad, reckless creatures can raid our pockets, and the supposedly independent auditor stands by and does little but whinge about the detail, and as long as there are no personal consequences for grand theft, it will continue.
This is your government. For sure, it has not killed anyone this time – for which we should be grateful. But it is still robbing us blind.
COMMENT THREAD
From this source, the headline is that up to three million British households will be in fuel poverty in 2016, "showing that UK's goal of eradicating fuel poverty by then could be at risk".
The primary source though is Professor John Hills, director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE. But examination of his website reveals multiple sets of figures, which don't always seem to match the Reuters offering.
Nevertheless, the thrust of the report is that 7.8 million people in 2.7 mllion households were in the fuel poverty bracket in England in 2009, compared with 7.2 million people in 2.8 million households in 1996.
These households faced costs to keep warm that added up to £1.1 billion more than middle or higher income people with typical costs. This is defined as the "fuel poverty gap". It is already three-quarters higher than in 2003 and will rise by a further half, to £1.7 billion by 2016.
This means, according to Hills, that fuel poor households will face costs nearly £600 a year higher on average than better-off households with typical costs.
However, while the message being conveyed by the media is about the potential increase in fuel poverty, that isn't what the report is really about, as Reuters actually acknowledges.
What seems mainly to concern Hills, though, is that the current definition of fuel poverty misses out people who are fuel poor, while catching some people who aren't. He wants the definition to change and for there to be a new way of measuring fuel poverty. The end result is a new category of people known as the LIHCs – i.e., those with Low Incomes and High Costs.
Fortuitously, one might say, this has the effect of bringing down the number of households affected by what was once known as fuel poverty from around four million to the 2.7 million cited. This is the figure Hill has retrospectively calculated, using the new measure.
Using this new LHIC indicator and the "fuel poverty gap", we are told, the government can get a better "focus" on the scale of the problem, and the progress in tackling it. Thus armed, Hills suggests that the government – not just DECC but also other Departments – can then set out a renewed and ambitious strategy for tackling fuel poverty. This renewed and ambitious strategy should then reflect the challenges laid out by the Hills report.
And that's it. Actually, it is not quite it. By the time you get past the summary of recommendations, you still have 210 pages of report to read.
That shows that the best way to deal with fuel poverty is, rather conveniently, to improve the housing of those at risk, giving the plebs better insulation. That, we are told, is the most cost-effective way of tackling the problem, cutting energy waste, with large long-term benefits to society as a whole.
Even more conveniently, it seems, that exactly meshes with government policy. This is the way round increased costs of fuel and all those embarrassing issues such as subsidies to wind farms. All you have to do is improve insulation.
And that, of course, is from an entirely independent academic review. It really is quite amazing what those independent academics can do when they are fed with government money. With enough of it spread around, they can always be relied upon to find exactly what the government wants to hear.
COMMENT THREAD
For too long, we have had successive governments blathering about the economics of immigration, suggesting that there is a net benefit - a delusion to which the previous administration was particularly prone, aided and abetted by the BBC.
As we noted recently, though, past claims of benefits downplay the effects on the infrastructure, with the likes of water supply difficulties arising in part through the extra demand. Now we see reported another part of the same problem, with increased pressure on our education system. It too is failing to cope with the population growth.
It seems to me that the government has being playing the usual "fast one" (I'm shocked, I tell you!), talking up the economic benefits while playing down the costs.
But the fact of the matter is that if you import an extra seven million people (net – ass a loose estimate), that is going to have an impact on the infrastructure, with significant cost implications. According to one estimate, costs to the NHS from dealing with illegal immigration alone run to £5.5 billion annually.
Here and elsewhere, we have another example of one set getting the benefits and the people paying the price. But not only do employers benefit from reduced labour costs – the government takes its cut through taxation, from the increased economic activity. Then it short-changes us when it comes to dealing with the consequences of increasing population.
Five years ago, the cost of immigration was put at almost £8.8 billion a year which, over term, given inadequate and deferred expenditure, means that we must have built up a cumulative deficit amounting to tens of billions.
This is typical of the approach of government to the management of our finances. One only has to look at the recent report on the road maintenance programme, where money is freely extracted from motorists, but not put back. They take now – we pay more later.
Without even intending to, therefore, we are drifting into Referism territory. Whatever the reservations some might have about giving people more power, it is inconceivable that the rule of the people could be worse than the standard offered by our current rulers. If there is going to be abuse of power, it is best that we do it to ourselves
COMMENT THREAD
It was on 17 August 2009 that I finally concluded that the mission on Afghanistan was doomed, and that the only sensible option was to bring our troops home. At the time, we had suffered 200 casualties, with The Guardian describing our adventure as "Mission Impossible". And you didn't have to be there, or have been there, to work it out.
But Ben Anderson has been there, and has come to the same conclusion. He could have stayed at home, although he would not then have been a "respected" journalist and documentary-maker. The Economist has stayed at home, however, and it effectively reaches that conclusion as well. Furthermore, it has joined just about everybody else in drawing the obvious conclusion, whether "respected" or not.
Only two people on this planet seem unable to see it: the terrible twins (in suits this time). They want to make out that the expedition has achieved something, and can be drawn to a coherent end – thus elevating self-delusion to new heights.
I suppose we are in new territory here, when these two so-called leaders are on a completely different planet. They can't in fact be called "leaders" as they are just pathetic creatures trapped in a make-believe world which dictates that they should go on pretending they are achieving something, because to say otherwise would be to admit failure.
That's what this is really all about – two macho morons who can't admit to themselves that they are doing the wrong things, and cut their losses. And for that, men must die and fortunes must be spent. "Mad" doesn't even get close.
COMMENT THREAD
Triggered by the recent loss of the Warrior in Afghanistan, I have been revisiting the issue of vehicle mine protection, acquiring some additional photographs in the process. It seemed a pity to waste them as, putting these together in a sequence, even with minimal commentary they make a powerful statement about incompetence. The pictures give testimony in a way that mere words cannot.
The value of this photo essay though, is that it transcends the subject of military vehicle design. When push comes to shove, we see the problem, we see that a solution exists. And then we see the British response. Crucially though, we find that it was concocted by senior officers in the Army, devised by British industry, accepted by civil servants, authorised by ministers, approved by the Treasury, endorsed by Parliament (which has a select committee look at it), and lauded by the media.
Thus, not one but hundreds of people contributed to getting it wrong, in a very visible way. And if they can do that, when it is so visible, what about all the other decisions, where there isn't the same visibility and the consequences are not so immediate and dire?
Well, we know the answer … even if the result is not so easily illustrated … so here goes:
Mining of roads by guerrilla forces has always been problematic, but one of the early and most extensive examples stems from the Rhodesian "Bush War" of 1966 to around 1980.
During that period, there were 2,504 vehicle detonations of landmines (mainly Soviet TM46s), killing 632 people and injuring 4,410. The mining of roads increased as the war intensified; indeed the increase from 1978 (894 mines or 2.44 mines were detonated or recovered a day) by 233.7 percent in 1979 (2,089 mines or 5.72 mines a day).
A typical result is illustrated above – a Land Rover which has taken the full force of a blast, demolishing the engine compartment and front wheels. The fate of the driver and passenger(s) is not known.
As a result, the Rhodesian security forces devised a number of specialist vehicles, mainly conversions from existing vehicles, although they were almost entirely rebuilt. The example above is the Kudu light patrol vehicle, based on a Land Rover "donor" vehicle. Note the protected v-shaped armoured cell, set back, with the driver well clear of the front wheels.
So successful were the design concepts that they were adopted by the South Africans who built a range of specialist vehicles. The one above is the RG-31, issued to US forces in Iraq - the photograph was published in a British newspaper in June 2006, illustrating the value of a mine protected vehicle, from which the crew had emerged with only very slight injuries.
The response of the Army/MoD to the outcry over inadequately protected vehicles was in August 2006 to order another hundred of these 7-ton Pinzgauer Vector "protected patrol vehicles" at a cost of £100 million, for service in Afghanistan. Officials and ministers, briefed by the Army, argued that "mobility" was more important than "protection" and that armouring against mines an IEDs would add weight and impair the performance of the vehicle.
But what we see from the picture so clearly is that the military geniuses who specified the vehicle had the driver and his mate over the front wheels, right where they were most vulnerable to blast. After five had died, and many more were injured, the vehicles were withdrawn in 2009.
Now, after the denials, obfuscations and prevarication, we now have a custom-built protected patrol vehicle, called the Foxhound, ready to be introduced into Afghanistan this year, six years after we entered in force and two years before we are due to depart. About the same weight as the Vector, they are actually cheaper (£90 million for 100), and of similar if not better performance.
Thus, more than forty years after the Rhodesians had devised a solution, after the waste of millions of pounds and the unnecessary deaths of dozens, and the serious injury of many hundreds - costing us many millions in ongoing care - we finally have an answer ... just as we are about to leave.
This is your government for you. If you allow it to do so, and are unwise enough to trust what it tells you, it will kill you. And even if it doesn't kill you, it will rob you blind.
COMMENT THREAD
Surprisingly though, the paper doesn't look at the bigger picture – and has not always been so critical of water companies. It took The Guardian to do that, last year, when it noted that in 2009/10 Thames Water lost through leaks 669.9 million litres of water a DAY – equal to 32 percent of the total it delivered.
But even then, we do not see the full picture. Annualised, that leakage rate is 54 billion gallons a year, or more than ten percent of the total 520 billion gallon storage capacity for the whole of England and Wales – more than the current shortfall which is recorded at ten percent.
Thus, this one water authority alone wastes in one year more than the amount needed to make up the entire supply deficit that is giving raise to the current water restrictions.
With water bills imminent, one really does get sick of the water companies and their special pleading. Of course they have technical and logistical problems, but they are also local monopolies, which give water users no choice as to their suppliers.
Each year, they are there with their hands out, demanding more and more money – and this year will be just the same. And each year, they fail to perform, denying the very rationale on which privatisation was based … that they would be able to provide the capital needed to deal with the failing infrastructure.
Add to this the failure to deal with the issue of increased demand from a growing population, and we have a glorious mess for which the "customer" is being required to pay. Why we put up with it, I really do not know.
COMMENT: "INTOLERABLE" THREAD
In the historiography of British politics, the period c.1880-1920 is traditionally the era that has generated extensive paradigm-changing work. But the period that encompasses the Second World War to the rise of Thatcher could become conceptually the most exciting era of modern history.
So writes Robert Crowcroft in Attlee's War, and his sentiment certainly does presage a need to rethink much of that period and to vanquish some of the myths that still abound.
Thus we are told: "It makes sense to begin in 1940 rather than in 1945 as the greater political and cultural changes came between those two dates with the Labour government continuing the work of those years".
And why does that matter?
Well, in the short term, more and more, I find myself unmoved by the MSM agenda, and it thus gets increasingly difficult to post topical, relevant news pieces. We are not, in any event, a news site, and I have never pretended that we could or would slavishly follow the MSM.
Actually, though – even though we disguise it and frequently digress - we remain a campaigning site, and the primary objective is our departure from the European Union. And, above all else, the EU is a creature of history and a captive of it.
It relies on a distorted and fundamentally dishonest narrative, as indeed does the ruling élite of this country. Destroy the myths and re-write the history so that it represents that which actually happened, rather than how those who rule us wish it to be, and you undermine their power base.
That is important. What Peter Oborne thinks about Britain and the US, or Sue Cameron on Clegg's bigger desk, simply isn't. We need to be setting our own agenda, rather than charting the next instalment of the bread and circuses offered in an attempt to keep us distracted.
COMMENT THREAD
The BBC is informing us that the EU is calling in member state governments to include data CO2 emissions from farming and forestry in their national inventories of "greenhouse gas" emissions. It is difficult to see how this is news though, as a "new framework" was announced last year. Nevertheless, the commission seems to think it is new, having made the announcement two days ago.
What is sinister about this announcement though, is this is regarded as "a first step towards incorporating removals and emissions from forests and agriculture into the EU's climate policy", with the BBC helpfully pointing out that this will mean eventual inclusion of agriculture (and forestry) in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
We should, of course, have seen that coming. Two years ago, we were mightily entertained by tales of "farting cows", but behind that was a huge and expensive research effort, all leading towards this objective.
Thus, while our own climateers warble on about winning the intellectual arguments, which indeed they are doing, the great EU climate steamroller trundles on regardless, fuelling by the millions extracted from unwilling European taxpayers.
It matters not that the EU is losing the argument – this is not a democracy, where such things matter. The EU has the power, our money and a policy framework. To do its deeds, it needs nothing else.
COMMENT THREAD
To my delight, our local paper has picked up on the Many Not The Few. The piece, written by Jim Greenhalf, who has already blogged his views on the book, takes a very local perspective, looking a "Bradford boy" J B Priestley, and my comments on his role as a political broadcaster during the war.
That he was, in fact, a towering figure, a rival to Winston Churchill, has largely been forgotten. It is a classic example of how even prominent figures can be airbrushed out of history.
Yet, in my view, through the dark hours of 1940, it was Priestley – with a combined audience of over 14 million through his weekly broadcasts and newspaper articles – who helped shape political opinion to such an extent that he paved the way for the Labour victory in the 1945 general election.
While Churchill was ready to appeal to the past, urging support for the three pillars of the establishment, Empire, King and Country, Priestley's message was more down-to-earth and direct.
For example, in his broadcast on July 14, 1940 – four days after what was subsequently defined as the official start of the Battle of Britain - Priestley told the BBC's Home Service listeners: "We're not fighting to restore the past – it was the past which brought us to this heavy hour – but we are fighting to...create a noble future for all our species".
The following Sunday he spoke again of the need to go forward "and really plan and build up a nobler world...in which ordinary, decent folk can not only find justice and security but beauty and delight". This, he said, "is our real war aim".
On the record, Churchill adamantly refused to specify his war aims, other than in the broadest terms of defeating the Nazis, on 20 August during his "Few" speech rejecting out of hand calls for him to make a statement.
Effectively rejecting Priestley's agenda, this drew adverse comment in the left-wing press, including the The Daily Mirror. It even brought an implied rebuke from "George" Strube in the Express political cartoon (above).
He depicted his trademark "little man" holding a large bunch of flowers, labelled "bouquet". Surrounded by a circle of eleven men, each in different guises – from airman to anti-aircraft gunner and ARP warden – he was puzzling who to give it to. And well he might. Each man was pointing his neighbour. So much for “the few” – here was a graphic depiction of the many.
Most voluble was the Reynolds News, continuing a controversy that was to grumble on until the general election. Ignored by most contemporary writers, these articles - and many more – underlined the fact that Churchill was not only engaged in a shooting war against the Germans but also a domestic political battle, which he was subsequently to lose.
However, as Jim notes in his piece, Churchill won the war of words, as he had to. And even though he lost the 1945 General Election, he was back in 10 Downing Street in 1951. On Battle of Britain Day that year he broadcast to the nation from the BBC.
"Had it not been for those young men whose daring and devotion cast a glittering shield between us and our foe, we should none of us be sitting at rest in our homes this Sunday evening, as members of an unconquered and, as we believe, unconquerable nation".
"His triumph was complete", writes Jim – but it was a victory based on a myth that Churchill himself had a hand in making. Recovering our history from the grip of this myth is the task I set myself.
In the epilogue, I wrote that the Battle of Britain was a victory of the people of Britain – in fact Priestley's people more than they were Churchill's people. They were the ones who endured a most grievous and terrifying assault, held fast and survived, without tearing down their government and crying for peace.
But, as we have seen, over the years, credit for that most important victory has been stolen from them. They have been recast as supplicants and passive beneficiaries, rather than active collaborators in their own salvation.
To restore that history, I say, is to change the way we think about ourselves. We are part of a nation which, in time of great peril, rallied and by collective endeavour engineered its own salvation. That makes us a different people from the passive, shadowy inhabitants of a myth – and all the more powerful. What we could do once, we can do again.
We not only can do it, but we need to do it. That is why we need to look through the myths of the past and rediscover ourselves. More than anything, we need to rediscover our own power, when confronted with what Boiling Frog reminds us is often the real enemy – our own government.
COMMENT THREAD
One of the more important issues being discussed by Cameron and Obama in the United States is the withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan. Already a failed campaign, upon its final outcome will depend the lives and well being of many, and well decide to a very great extent on whether some people live or die.
When our politicians discuss such matters, we expect a certain gravitas from them. This is not a Sunday afternoon pub chat. Out leaders are discussing serious affairs of state and, when the fate of so many hang in the balance, we expect them to look the part, and behave accordingly.
Spending a "relaxed day" in Dayton, Ohio, watching an NCAA tournament college basketball game between Mississippi Valley State and Western Kentucky, while dressed in casual attire (above), simply does not cut it. It sends the wrong message – not only to our friends but to our enemies.
Compare and contrast with the above ... the "big three" at Yalta. No-one would be under any illusions as to the gravity of the meeting. Yet now we have two fundamentally unserious lightweights, men who invite contempt and can be treated with contempt. In a dangerous world, we need serious leaders – not posturing sports fans.
COMMENT THREAD
Not content with ripping off their taxpayers big time, nearly a hundred senior local council employees are using tax avoidance schemes to minimise the amount they put back into the pot. Although these people are paid as employees of their respective authorities, they have been allowed to set up limited companies, as fronts into which their inflated salaries are paid.
These arrangements enable them to by-pass the PAYE system and offset their expenses against tax, reducing the overall amount of tax paid. They also have the option to pay themselves via dividends, which attract a lower tax rate, and can pay national insurance contributions at a lower rate.
Unsurprisingly, given the contempt with which they treat their taxpayers, Hackney Council is the biggest transgressor, allowing 39 of its permanent staff to be paid through external companies.
Another tax-dodger is Nick Johnson, chief executive of Hammersmith and Fulham council's housing arm. He was paid more than £900,000 through his company over a four-year period. In all, eleven Hammersmith and Fulham posts were paid in this way. Craven in North Yorkshire had eight and St Edmundsbury in Suffolk and Ashfield in Nottinghamshire each had five.
The system has now become endemic in the upper echelons of the civil service, quangoes and now local authorities have joined the club, proving the aphorism so neatly coined by billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley, that "only the little people pay taxes".
What we are seeing here, though, is much more than systemic tax abuse. We are witnessing the gradual breakdown of society, where public officials have lost sight of the public service ethos and are serving themselves only, in an orgy of self-enrichment.
In a properly ordered society, public servants live up to their responsibilities, and we in turn have obligations to them, paying our taxes to make the system function. But, as this looting becomes the norm, that fragile deal is increasingly at risk. Obligations we have no longer. Only coercion remains.
COMMENT THREAD
Britain's rainfall is nothing if not variable and, in the Southeast and Eastern parts of the country, we are currently undergoing one of those periodic rainfall deficits. The rainfall in January in the Southeast region is down to 66 percent of the long-term average.
Predictably, though, the supply industry is failing to step up to the plate, and widespread shortages in local stocks are reported, even if overall reservoir stocks in England and Wales are 90 percent of capacity. With mandatory restrictions on use being imposed, the domestic consumer is paying for a product they are not getting, and are fined up to £1000 if they actually dare to use it under certain circumstances.
Needless to say, it does not stop there. We get the classic response this via Michael Norton of the Institute of Civil Engineers, where we are told that we must pay even more for the product we are not getting. And, with the usual dire predictability, we get the media opening its arms to the flood of propaganda, without in any way mentioning the underlying problems that have brought us to this situation.
Firstly, of course, with near unrestricted immigration having been allowed, the UK population has grown from 56 million since water privatisation in the 1980s to 62 million currently (2010), an increase of nearly eleven percent. Just to stand still, therefore, the water companies should have been increasing their storage capacity by that amount – but actually more in the Southeast and Eastern parts of the country, where immigration has been highest.
Currently, the total reservoir capacity of water companies in England and Wales is reported at 520 billion gallons, a figure that has been virtually static since privatisation, when even then storage capacity was deemed to be insufficient.
But as well as paying directors and chief executives enhanced salaries, and repaying loans incurred by largely foreign owners, our money – over £65 billion of it - has gone on meeting irrelevant EU purity standards and other diktats.
Only a fraction of this level of expenditure has gone on the other side of the supply equation, renewing the creaking infrastructure in order to reduce the torrent of leaks. Time and again, companies fail to meet annual targets, with our old favourite here, Yorkshire Water losing 72 million gallons a day through leakage, nine percent above its target of 66 million gallons.
That is equivalent to 26 billion gallons a year, or five percent of the total storage capacity in England and Wales, amounting to half the current shortfall. And that is just one water authority.
Putting all this together, the real problems with our water supply are inadequate investment in storage capacity, which was inadequate before even our population increased by eleven percent, inadequate spending on leak prevention, all combined with excessive expenditure on EU measures.
The ultimate irony is that, with the increased size of the customer base must come increased funding, yet to make up for the deficiencies in the supply, we the customers are to be told that we must now be prepared to pay more.
Although a supporter of Thatcher's privatisation, I have never liked water privatisation, which has simply shifted monopolies from the public to the private sector, with nothing much to show for it other than increased charges.
When, as is the case, these companies fail to deliver the product for which we pay, and then want more money even to provide a basic service, this amounts to corporate blackmail. From unacceptable, we are moving to the intolerable.
COMMENT THREAD
A propos the discussion on mine protected vehicles and the Warrior, I happened (as one does) upon this superb collection of pictures of early Rhodesian mine-protected vehicles.
The two shown (above and below) are of the Cougar – front and side views – illustrating perfectly the v-shaped conformation. It also shows how the designers put distance between the protected cell and the front wheels, as the expected point of impact.
You can also see very clearly, that the parts external to the protected cell are designed to be blown off, thereby absorbing energy from the blast. And thus, with the armour (which is relatively thin) we see four of the five principles of mine protection being used. And this was in 1975 … nearly 40 years ago.
Yet, despite decades of experience, this (pictured above) is what BAE Systems would rather sell. From the contractors' point of view, the problem with the extremely effective range of mine protected vehicles is that they are too cheap. From the crunchie point of view, they look too much like boring old trucks. They want to go to their deaths in something "cool".
The only people who don't get a look in, of course, are the taxpayers. We get hit both ways, paying for the expensive toys and then the funerals.
COMMENT THREAD
My ongoing interest in the affairs of Rebekah Brooks and her "millionaire husband Charlie" is so slight as to be close to the vanishing point, and there is far too much attention being paid to her and her ghastly crew.
That she had such a close relation with Carmeron and his cronies comes as no surprise – slime is quite naturally attracted to slime. But even we must crack a smile at the news of this morning's arrests, this pair being amongst six arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Since Rebakah Brooks has already been interviewed by the plod several times, one can assume that this is something more than an inept, high-profile fishing expedition – not that we really care. But, in this case, one does expect substantive charges.
Even if this goes full course though, it will come to nothing very much – a short jail term in a soft open prison, interspersed with day leave and made even shorter by early release. The riches and ill-gotten gains of the malefactors will be left untouched.
Nevertheless, the fact that all this is happening is a sign that the palace revolution is failing and that the slime are losing their grip. But this is but the revolution of the courtiers, which has no relevance to the wider world. There, power has migrated offshore, leaving only the trappings to be fought over, as the gilded children squabble amongst themselves.
As a modern version of "bread and circuses", I suppose it has it uses but, one day, one hopes, sanity will be restored and the adults will return. Until then, there are many more episodes of this tedious soap opera to endure.
COMMENT THREAD
Reuters has a happy little tale about a recent Swiss referendum where voters have rejected an increase in their annual paid holiday over fears it would put their economy at risk. The proposal, initiated by the trade union Travail Suisse, would have brought the mountain nation in line with most other West European countries.
The union had argued that four weeks holiday was insufficient because the pressure of work had increased so much in recent decades, causing rising stress and health problems. But Swiss television reported that the proposal had been rejected by a clear 67 percent of voters.
This is an interesting development as it shows that citizens are prepared to vote for the greater good, against their own immediate personal interests – which augers well for the idea of referism. People are not necessarily going to vote for populist motions.
To an extent, this contradicts the pessimism expressed by Peter Kellner, that we discussed recently, expanded upon by Witterings from Witney. It is Kellner whose opinion polls purport to show that people have no understanding of democracy per se, let alone representative democracy. But whether or not that is the case, there is that elusive "wisdom of the crowds" on which we rely, and which appears to be found in good measure in Switzerland.
Generally, reasons for opposing referendums, though, include the difficulties that can arise when politicians can dictate the issues, the timing of a vote and even the question(s) – and the campaign funding. Those facets can turn an ostensibly democratic exercise into a tool for despots.
On the other hand, with referism, there is a single vote each year, with the timing fixed and the same question asked each year: do you approve the budget – yes or no? Those that would deny the people the chance to answer that question are, it would appear, content to leave it to the tyranny of the whips who ensure that the executive's diktats are passed into law.
But, if the Swiss people can be sensible enough not to damage their own economy on such a manner as holiday allowances, the British people surely are not going to destroy their economy out of perversity.
If you believe in democracy, you have to trust the people. We have nothing else between us than that trust and the elective dictatorship which becomes more tiresome and dangerous with each passing year. Barring violence and revolution, there is no alternative but to give the people more power.
COMMENT THREAD