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Climate Change
Blog Archive
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▼
2011
(1596)
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▼
January
(145)
- Fun and games
- UK consumers are ripped off
- Comment removed
- Stitched up in spades
- Record breakers
- She is out at last
- Simply reckless
- Back to the Nursery
- An article of faith
- Multi-tasking
- Are they at all surprised?
- Through the worst
- ET don't phone home
- Nimrods home to roost
- Nice one
- Built on a lie
- Three hundred metres
- Buy euros
- Myrtle the Judas goat
- "Experts warn"
- On being stitched up
- Groundhog day
- A "disproportionate" response
- Last one out?
- A neat asymmetry
- Biting my tongue no longer
- They were only playing leapfrog
- Walking the dark side
- Out of touch
- Wrecker greens
- Goldy
- Before and after
- Avoiding the debate
- "Unusually strong"
- It's Booker time
- He took the hint
- Sucking at the public teat
- Hope springs eternal
- It was always going to happen
- Stormy weather
- You can hide
- Shale gas
- The "finality" of an election
- It's only weather
- Plumbing bottom (not)
- One cannot help but observe
- Wholesale plunder
- Rescue on hold
- Gullible greens
- Retreat into childhood
- Helping it on its way
- Dedicated to Booker
- Redressing the balance
- Bribery and corruption
- A reunited shambles
- Galileo leaks
- Corruption should not begin at home
- It's not over
- The new politics
- Managing the webspace
- Herod to investigate deaths of first-born
- Joining a new ship?
- The icebreaker dance
- They would kill us all
- Ahead of the game
- BBC bias
- She's out – one to go!
- That dam
- Booker rampant
- In days to come
- The madness of green
- MSM on the ropes?
- A man-made disaster?
- The faux election
- In serious trouble
- Questions may be asked
- A crack in the façade
- Pity poor Brazil
- Without benefit of human intellect
- Kill them*
- Essex bobbies
- Off and on it goes
- It was bound to happen
- Go for the lot
- The Loughner affair
- Killing with kindness?
- This is what it has come to
- Just sit back and watch the chaos
- The dance of the trolls
- Fail!
- Fuel for thought
- Who plods the plods?
- Speaks for itself
- A little local difficulty
- Mr Plod scores again
- Why do we put up with this?
- A confusion of conspiracies
- Another green catastrophe
- Worrying
- Bobbies get bonuses
- More of the same (sort of)
- The faux rebellion
- Barking mad
- Is this a disgrace?
- And the betting is?
- More corporate customer care
- The fish rots from the head
- The game's afoot
- Tar baby
- Handmaidens to the government
- Gated minds
- We must lose ours
- Rescue delayed
- A rubbish piece
- Booker flames the Met
- A cracked record
- One more on its way?
- Getting there
- One down
- Another landmark
- Open thread
- It goes on
- The Okhotsk crisis deepens
- Falling off the map
- The limitations of language
- Another local event
- And then there were (still) five
- Insult to injury
- How so very convenient
- The cavalry rides to the rescue?
- I will not be a member of such a mongrel party.
- Re-writing history
- Kill the cows
- Not real scientists
- Nice one
- A distinct nip in the air
- And they don't mess about
- Your money, their waste
- It's back!
- Crises in the East
- Bastardi and Corbyn
- And so it came to pass
- Troll fodder
- The costs multiply
- Happy New Year
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▼
January
(145)
Bruno has a cracking story, picked up from the Dutch Volkskrant newspaper, although it has been widely trailed in the Dutch press - here for instance (use Google translate).
The story concerns Maarten Engwirda, a former Dutch member of European Court of Auditors for 15 years, who retired 10 days ago. He has alleged that abuse of EU funds was swept under the carpet by the ECA. "There was a practice of watering down if not completely removing criticism," he says.
Siim Kallas, the EU commission vice-president, responsible for anti-fraud measures from 2004 to 2010 (now transport commissioner) is accused of putting "heavy pressure" on investigators to water down findings of abuse.
However, Engwirda, who also describes an endemic "cover-up culture" within the court and wider EU institutions that had prevented the true extent of fraud from being disclosed, also claims that changes made to the system in 2008 meant that procedures were "drastically changed" and the same degree of obstruction is no longer being experienced.
One takes that with not so much a pinch as a shed-load of salt, especially as Engwirda tells us that: "All these abuses never came out into the open because of the Kremlin-style information we provided". The process may be different but the abuse most certainly goes on.
Meanwhile, MPs have overwhelmingly voted against amendments to the EU bill, as we anticipated, defeating them by 39 to 314, and the dismal Cash has rolled over with a promise from the government that it will re-write the explanatory notes to the Bill.
Thus, Cameron escapes with his tawdry, contemptible Bill, and the tawdry, contemptible EU continues to steal our money. Once again, therefore, the question emerges: why do we put up with this? The secondary question is one you can imagine. Its day must surely be coming.
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