EU Referendum

A point of principle

2012-01-27T22:39:00.004Z

The parents of a newborn baby left with horrific injuries and fractures all over her body walked free from court today, despite admitting child cruelty charges.

This because the judge asserts the father and his partner "were let down by the social services, who have a duty to provide for you". Judge Ticehurst also ordered an investigation into the case, stating that there had been a "grave failure" by social services at North Somerset Council.

Now this raises intriguing point of principle. Cast as the regulatory authorities in this case, North Somerset social workers fail in their duty and thereby fail to prevent a crime, whereupon the criminals are spared the full penalty for their crimes. This is bizarre, not least because - one would have thought - the duty was to provide for the child first, not the parents.

But there are broader issues here. If one applies this same argument to the PIP breast implants, arguably, Jean-Claude Mas goes free because the regulators failed to detect that he was using substandard silicon.

This surely has to be wrong. Crimes must be punished. The point must be that, if the regulators' neglect enabled or exacerbated the crime, then the responsibility is shared. The issue has then to be that the regulators are also penalised - not that the criminals are let off.

Following this judge's logic, we see car thieves being let off because the police were not around to prevent their larceny, or because the car owners had not fitted stronger locks.

Nevertheless, the judge has made it easier to argue that regulatory authorities do have some responsibility for crimes committed on their watch, when there was the capability and the duty to prevent them. Can we now see that point of principle applied to PIP?

COMMENT THREAD

Game over

2012-01-27T17:50:00.001Z

If anyone had any residual belief that there was anything salvageable from our current system of government, forget it! The children have taken over and all we are left with is the wreckage.

This illustrates my fears about the state of British government and our leaving the EU. On current evidence, we have - as pointed out previously - lost the ability to govern ourselves, in which case a fully independent UK in the hands of these clowns would be a disaster.

That is not to say that we should not leave the EU – far from it. But it does say that merely campaigning to leave is not enough. Additionally, we have to have plans to rebuild our government and put the grown-ups back in charge.

COMMENT THREAD

No more law

2012-01-27T13:22:00.004Z

Reuters is reporting on a survey commissioned by the EU on shale gas, which concludes that no additional EU law is needed to regulate the exploration phase - although changes might be needed to protect the environment once the development phase is entered.

This is a highly significant development, as the Greenies have been hoping that the EU would step in and regulate shale gate out of existence, amounting to an effective ban. But energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger says that energy mix is the prerogative of member states and only they can decide on implementing a ban.

One suspects that the commission is unwilling to take on Poland, which is in the advance guard when it comes to shale gas exploration, and it will also be conscious of the political implications (and advantages) of reducing dependency on Russian gas.

I will take a look at this 104-page survey report, and write again in detail, if needed.

COMMENT THREAD

No more than a rounding error

2012-01-27T12:37:00.005Z

I had a long talk with Autonomous Mind the other day about the state of the political blogosphere in the UK.

Unfortunately, we were forced to conclude that the independent sector (as opposed to the clogosphere, comprising the efforts of the MSM, plus sundry politicians and interest groups) had not taken off in the manner of the US blogs and was still struggling to get its voice heard.

Now, confronted with this on the Daily Mail website, we see the size of the task before us, as even the best of us is no more than a rounding error, compared with that hit rate.

Nevertheless, I am not particularly depressed. For me, blogging is also a research tool which I apply to other fields of activity, while the forum has developed into a community of its own which has a value which transcends mere numbers.

Then, of course, much of the Mail traffic is drawn to its "sleb" coverage which, as presented, is very little more than soft porn. And it says something of the power of the internet (and the human condition) that porn is the most popular sector. Thus, feeding that obsession gets easy hits.

Then we have the sport coverage - and the tittle tattle, the usual diet of trash which provides the mainstay of MSM coverage. In terms of the ground covered by the independent blogosphere, the Mail figures will only be a fraction of its gross figures. We are not as far apart as the gross figures would indicate.

Nevertheless, AM and I did agree that there is something in the British character – a leaden, conformist tendency – which makes readers reluctant to turn to the blogs.

From my own personal perspective, I am a profession writer and researcher. The material that goes on this blog is of the same quality, but of much greater depth and breath, than my occasional pieces in the MSM. Yet, while my MSM pieces will benefit from the brand-name platforms and attract hundreds of thousands of hits, the same pieces on the blog will attract only thousands.

Similarly, a significant number of Booker column stories are based on posts published on this blog, yet even when Booker specifically draws attention to that, such as in the Concordia piece, we see no discernible increase in our hit rate. People will read it on the Sunday Telegraph site, but not on the blog.

Thus, I conclude that my relatively modest hit rate is neither my fault nor, in some respects, my problem. I can do no more than write as best I can, on a wide range of topics, with the best and most careful research I can manage. On top of that, the blog is professionally designed, is well presented and its graphics and picture selection are a cut above the rest. I really can do no more.

To that extent, as regards the wider audience, I am casting pearls before swine. People do not read blogs because they don't want to read blogs - that is nothing to do with what we are and what we produce. They want to stay in their comfort zones, with the information pre-packaged and served up to them in bite-sized chunks, free from any "disturb" factor. That is their fault, not mine and it is not within my power to change it.

Unfortunately, that consigns us, in volume terms, to be being no more than a rounding error, in comparison with the bigger MSM sites (the second biggest being the New York Times). Fortunately, though, when it comes to making changes, it is not the meek, but the "rounding errors" who shall inherit the earth.

Are we thus downhearted? Not in the least bit.

COMMENT THREAD

Round and round in circles

2012-01-27T00:02:00.001Z

The Boy commits to making new regulations, if needed, to improve ship safety. But, oh woops! He hasn’t implemented the last lot yet, and his EU masters are getting rather cross.

And we also getting done in the ECJ. The EU commission is taking Britain (and Ireland) to the court because, it says, inadequate gas infrastructure is limiting competition. "The maximum interconnection capacity is not offered in the UK and Ireland as the pipeline connecting Northern Ireland and Ireland is not open to the market" the commission said.

This, strangely, is part of the Single Market, about which The Boy is so keen. If we had a halfway decent opposition, it could have rather a lot of fun at the Boy's expense.

COMMENT THREAD

Going up

2012-01-26T19:24:00.001Z

You know, I really dislike self-publicists. There is something not quite British about them. But I'm so tickled by getting number two slot, that I couldn't resist the temptation, especially as the hero of my book - "J B Priestley" – (if he can be called that) turned down a peerage.

Strangely, Ministry of Defeat is also doing moderately well, so I'm a happy bunny – although I promise I won't let that last. At least I'll never have the problem of deciding whether to turn down an honour.

COMMENT: "NUMBER FOUR" THREAD

Madness begins at home

2012-01-26T15:08:00.004Z

The man masquerading as our prime minister is in Davos, telling the "colleagues" that "Europe" must "stop throttling growth with excessive bureaucracy".

It this the same man who supports the Single Market, and its burgeoning regulations which support the CE marking? Is this the same man who, when questioned about the Costa Concordia, responded with a pledge to produce more regulations, if needed?

Indeed, is this the same man who is rolling out a massive amount of climate change legislation, and the same man who supports Basel III and the EU's programme of turning it into law?

And if it is the same man, what precisely is the "excessive bureaucracy" that he would like stopped? Does he not realise that, when it comes to "madness", this begins at home?

COMMENT THREAD

Number four!

2012-01-26T12:59:00.002Z

The Many, Not the Few is (briefly) number four on the Amazon best-selling list, for books about the Battle of Britain – not bad for a book that is not yet published! They've still got the cover wrong, though, and it's 435 pages, not 256 as advertised.

I am "reliably" informed by my publishers that the book will absolutely, definitely, without hesitation or deviation, be published on 17 February. I have actually received my first ration of author's copies, and – just from a production point of view – it looks an extremely handsome volume.

Advance orders are taken on Amazon and there is some talk of a major newspaper serialising the book. That would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.

COMMENT THREAD

What they would prefer us not to know

2012-01-26T11:53:00.008Z

At the time, in January last year, we did it here, here, here, here, here and here, pointing out that the Queensland floods were largely a man-made disaster. We were joined by Booker on 15 January, one of the very few MSM journalists who pursued this issue.

Needless to say, the Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh was talking of "exceptional events", and the BBC happily chirped about the "freak of nature" – an attempt to reinforce the subliminal message that nothing could have been done, while the rest if the British MSM sat on its hands and said nothing of the involvement of the dam management and the dire effect of the green agenda.

But now, there seems to be a concerted attempt to cover up the role of the management of the Wivenhoe Dam. The top-level Commission of Inquiry is charged with "overlooking" crucial documents about the management of dam in the days before the inundation of Brisbane.

These documents, leaked by The Australian last year, indicate that on the crucial weekend of 8-9 January last year the dam's managers were operating under a low-level release strategy rather than a more urgent strategy to prevent flooding, contradicting evidence given to the inquiry.

The cover-up looked even more sinister it was revealed that a top civil servant was seconded to a senior new job advising premier Anna Bligh on the floods inquiry after he had provided the documents to the inquiry that suggested flood engineers were using the wrong strategy to operate Wivenhoe Dam.

However, new evidence how now emerged - an exchange of e-mails between two of Queensland's most senior water officials seems to confirm that the wrong strategy was being used to manage Wivenhoe Dam, and that water officials have been lying to the inquiry.

Some commentators now believe that the inquiry will be a whitewash, and are pinning their faith on a class action, which seeks damages on the basis of corporate and government negligence, even though the inquiry has been recalled to hear the new evidence.

But, while the Australian media is running with this issue, the British media is, of course, silent. Despite the broader implications, which would be of some considerable interest to British readers, the media would rather us not know how badly the Greens screwed up.

COMMENT THREAD

They cannot have it both ways

2012-01-26T09:31:00.003Z

Jean-Claude Mas, 72, founder of Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), has been arrested at the home of his partner in Six-Fours in the Var, south of France. He was taken into police custody just before 7am this morning. The house was being searched by investigators. A deputy chief executive was also arrested at his home.

So we have the likelihood of criminal charges being preferred against this (French) man, for the sale of substandard goods, purporting to conform with the highest of EU standards, under the aegis of the French government.

Since the products carried the CE marking, attesting that they had been produced in conformity with EU standards, underwritten by the French and British governments, in what way should the clinics which fitted them now be liable for replacing them?

Further, since the UK complied with EU law in this instance, and accepted the provenance of the CE marking – as it is obliged to do – in what way should the British taxpayer be liable for remedying for what, on the face of it, is a series of criminal acts, and a regulatory failure?

And herein lies an important point of principle. If the regulators, in whole or part, dictate the means by which a product should be considered marketable, and then underwrite a marking scheme that attests to quality and safety, with that comes responsibility when things go wrong.

They cannot have it both ways – dictating and monitoring standards, requiring a compulsory marking which attests to conformity, then walking away when their system fails. With power comes responsibility.

COMMENT THREAD

Necessity being

2012-01-26T00:02:00.002Z

In my brief tenure as an advisor on transport to a shadow cabinet minister, I argued strongly that we should not only be looking at transport provision, but at demand reduction.

Specifically, I argued, many people could work from home, if not all the time, than for a few days a week or month. If we could get on average the office population of central London working one day a week without travelling to work, we would get a 20 percent reduction in transport demand for that cohort – a prize worth having.

Needless to say, no one listens - until now, when necessity becomes the mother of invention. During the Ghastly Games and the Paralympics, staff across Whitehall and the public sector will be ordered not to commute to work for up to seven weeks to prevent London's public transport network from becoming over-congested.

A series of unprecedented "planning exercises" have been scheduled to "check [whether] officials can work from home". From 6-9 February, thousands of civil servants have been told to work from home under "Operation Stepchange". They will be asked to check that teleconferencing facilities are operational and that remote computer networks work.

And of course they can do it … just as I have been doing for the last 30 years. But it takes something like a potential gridlock to make it happen on a larger scale. The good thing is that we might get a legacy from the Games that might be worth having.

COMMENT THREAD

Re-writing history

2012-01-25T16:54:00.005Z

What happened in the past really doesn't matter if people have short memories and you can re-write the narrative according to how you would wish things to have been, rather than as they actually were.

It is no surprise that Winston Smith, Orwell's hero in 1984, was charged with re-writing the London Times, to ensure the "facts" matched the prevailing narrative. Personally, I don't think it was an accident that he was named Winston, after the great wartime leader – a man who was also not ill-disposed to re-writing his own part in history. But that is another story.

However, one of the more egregious examples of a history re-write (apart from Churchill's Second World War) is the story of the origins of the European Union but, having thus distorted the early history, the "colleagues" clearly think that this is a process that should continue.

So we have The Guardian teaming up with five leading European newspapers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland "to explore the benefits and drawbacks of the European project".

Under the (highly original) brand of "Europa", in a series of articles over two days, journalists from the EU's six biggest countries "will delve into the biggest crisis in the European Union's history and seek answers to two critical questions: what is the EU for? And where does it go from here?"

Completely in tune with this searching objective, you might think, we then see a story in today's, written by Raul Limon of El Pais, extolling the outfit building the A-400M transport as "a very European success story" (above).

One is tempted to ask that, if the A-400M is a "success story", then what on earth is a failure? But the claim, to be precise, is of a "European success story" which, like the euro, is a very different kind of success. Clearly, the definition of a "European success" is not the same as the ordinary, common and garden variety.

This is perhaps just as well for, as The Guardian well knows, the A-400M is years late, massively over-budget and has failed to meet its design specifications. The construction of the A-400M also raises very serious questions as to whether the use of advanced composites, of which it is built, is at all suitable for military transport aircraft and the rugged conditions they must endure.

By any normal measure, therefore, the aircraft – and its production company, which should have crashed and burned but is only being kept alive for political reasons - is an abysmal failure.

But, as long as you can then re-write history in the manner of Winston – Smith or Churchill - and reclassify failure as a "success", that is all that matters. Better still, it is a "very European success", and everything is now right with the world. Nobody will ever remember otherwise, or be given a chance to argue the toss ... not in The Guardian at least.

COMMENT THREAD

Which comes first?

2012-01-25T13:22:00.003Z

Angela Merkel, according to Reuters, has rejected as "unfounded" stereotypes about a domineering, dogmatic Germany whose economic strength hinders growth in the rest of Europe, saying such clichés did not help the cause of European integration.

So what is she really worried about – the "unfounded" stereotypes, or that they did not help the cause of European integration?

COMMENT THREAD

The beat goes on

2012-01-25T11:06:00.011Z

Today's agenda, the politico-media establishment has decided, is the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, hence The Boy toddling off to that French city to make an inconsequential and carefully guarded speech on the subject, about which we are supposed to throb with excitement.

Somewhere, the idea of "sovereignty" will get mentioned – if not by The Boy, then certainly by some hacks, but even as they expostulate, that very thing drains away from the entity loosely described as the British nation.

No one, however, can ever complain that is passage was not recorded, but in the most obscure and secret form, in such a manner that it almost certainly never sees the light of day – the "Written Ministerial Statement".

Two such of interest were promulgated yesterday, the first one from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne): and The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning).

This was "to update the House on the Government's response to the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, which hit rocks off the Italian island of Giglio overnight on Friday 13 January" – not that it will do so as so few MPs will read it – but the key passage is below, which the point of greatest interest emphasised:

At this time, the cause of the accident remains unknown. We must wait for the results of the investigation by the Italian authorities before deciding whether any action is required to ensure the safety of other vessels. Should the conclusions of the investigation suggest a need for revisions on any aspect of cruise ship design or operation, then the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) will be the forum for agreeing improvements. The development of passenger ship regulations is an iterative process based on practical experience. By applying the lessons from previous incidents the cruise industry generally enjoys an excellent safety record.

Compare and contrast this with what The Boy was saying, now exactly a week ago during PMQs, viz: "if changes need to be made … of course we will make them".

What he actually meant to say, as we now see, is that the British parochial council will go toddling along to the Albert Embankment in London, where the IMO houses its secretariat, to get its instructions.

In due course, i.e., after interminable meetings, the 170 member states (and the EU, which will also be represented) will come to a conclusion (sort of). This then will be adopted by the EU, either in the form of a regulation or (more likely) a directive, which our parochial council will turn into British law.

So much for making changes, which neatly brings us to the second statement of interest, this one on: "PIP Breast Implants and Regulation of Cosmetic Interventions". Here, we are reminded by the secretary of state for health (Mr Andrew Lansley) of his oral statement to the House of 11 January 2012.

Then, he described the immediate action which the Government were taking to address the concerns of women who have received breast implants made by the company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP), saying that:

… in the light of these events, we needed both to review the lessons that could be learnt, and to consider the wider issues of ensuring the safety of people who are considering cosmetic surgery and similar treatments. I therefore announced two reviews, one to be led by my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Earl Howe) which will look at what happened in the United Kingdom in relation to PIP implants; and the second, to be led by the NHS Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, to look at the wider issues of clinical safety and regulation.

One will notice immediately, the complete absence of nay mention of the "elephant in the room" but now, in the written statement that so few will see, it comes out to graze. The review to be carried out by Earl Howe, we are now told, will report by the end of March 2012 and the terms of reference are set out thus:

In the context of current EC directives on the regulation of medical devices and the information generally available at the time on the risks associated with breast implants to review …

Then we find that the review will advise the secretary of state "on what lessons can be learned for application should similar circumstances arise in the future, and on implications for UK input to the ongoing review of the European Medical Devices Directives".

As regards the review to be carried out by Sir Bruce Keogh, this will take into account "the Government's Better Regulation framework and the concurrent review by the EU of current arrangements for the regulation of medical devices".

The purpose, as one might expect, is to "make recommendations to Ministers, including interim recommendations if appropriate, and to inform the UK contribution to the EU review".

That, as "revealed" by written ministerial statements, is how modern government works. On the one hand, a foreign shipping disaster is to be referred to an international committee and, eventually, the EU will reach down and make more laws, which we will adopt without question.

On the other hand, with a domestic medical "disaster", the great and the good are summoned to carry out reviews, the effect of which is "to inform the UK contribution to the EU review". When it has finished its own review, the EU will then reach down and make more laws, which we will adopt without question.

Interestingly, had we by now left the EU, we would still be talking to the IMO, but would be adopting its recommendations directly, instead of via the EU. As regards the breast implants, were we to have joined EFTA and via that the EEA, we would still be waiting for an EU review and adopting any regulations that came from it. Nothing much would have changed.

The key thing, though, seems to be that, as long as the politico-media establishment doesn't actually know (or care) how modern government works, it can go on pretending that The Boy and his ministers are still in charge and, until we give away the Falklands, that the sun never sets on the British Empire.

COMMENT THREAD

Getting it so wrong

2012-01-25T00:02:00.001Z

Yesterday, it was one of those relatively rare evenings when I watched the BBC television news, finding that the Petroplus story was lead item, with the hand-wavers hyperventilating about shortages of petrol and diesel. We got it right, I think, but if you want a greater authority, one can refer to the Wall Street Journal.

It cites a number of analysts saying that weak demand and over capacity in Europe's refining sector will likely cushion the impact in oil markets of the closure of one of Europe's largest refiners Petroplus Holdings AG.

Thus we have James Zhang, strategist at Standard Bank, saying The price of product futures barely registered the event", and: "The market reaction was quite muted". "European refinery utilisation rate is around 82 percent, so there's plenty of slack in the system to replace the lost capacity form Petroplus and distillate demand was around 250,000 barrels a day less in Europe in December because of the warm weather," he added.

The BBC story – in retailing its dire warnings of major shortages – was, therefore, totally off the wall, completely wrong in all its major aspects. Not once was there any mention of stock surpluses, weakness of demand, and over-capacity, all of which suggests that there will be no structural shortage of petroleum products.

Interestingly, the has now changed its focus to major on job losses (see illustration), although the broadcaster was by no means the only media outlet to get it so wrong.

One really does wonder though, what there agenda is here. The hacks and their editors cannot all be so stupid and ignorant that they cannot ascertain what is in fact a well-established situation in what is a long-running saga. It was reasons of over-capacity and weakness of demand that led BP to sell the Coryton plant in the first place.

As for the bigger picture, oil prices actually slipped yesterday "on revived concerns about the eurozone's debt problems and their potential to slow the global economy". But you would not have got any of that from the BBC – it would have spoiled the narrative.

The wonder is, then, that so many people still watch BBC news – and the MSM in general. Getting it wrong these days is what they do, so wrong so often that it is getting embarrassing.

COMMENT THREAD

A brain disconnect

2012-01-24T16:06:00.004Z

On Sunday, Booker was telling us how Salmond is going to fiddle his hubristic pledge that 100 percent of Scotland's "gross electricity consumption" will come from renewable sources by 2020,

To become notionally self-sufficient in power supply, he will have to have built windmills roughly three times more plated capacity than is required for the notional maximum consumption, which means that at times Scotland will be producing more power than it needs.

The scam is, it would appear, that Salmond aims to sell this power to England, at up to three times the price of electricity produced with fossil fuel, while making up the shortfall when the wind doesn't blow enough – or at all – by buying in power from England, at fossil fuel prices. By this means, he hopes to make profits of billions of pounds.

But, in order to make this happen, a fortune must be spent on connecting the windmills to the grid, and then providing the interconnectors so that power can be pumped over the border, in both directions.

And lo and behold, Ofgem is to allow the two major Scottish utilities to add £7.7 billion to their charges for "modernisation" of the grid to enable this to happen. In terms of the Scottish population, that is over £1,500 for every man, woman and child.

Of course, Salmond thinks the Scots can get their money back from England. With the British government under-performing on its EU renewables quote, he thinks that it will have no option but to go for its one for the price three "blackmail" and cough up.

Whether he can pull it off is anyone's guess, but according to a commenter here, another £17.6 billion will be required for the National Grid and, with transmission losses of 10-15 percent just between Scotland and England, much of the money will be spent on heating up the atmosphere.

This happens to be George Wood, retired head of Technical and Economics, Balancing Services, National Grid. He simply does not understand this madness. It is "as though there has been a brain disconnect by our politicians", he says.

And who could possibly disagree?

COMMENT THREAD

Not enough

2012-01-24T14:30:00.005Z

As government debt breaks the £1-trillion barrier, we have Dellers arguing that "we need to see where our tax money goes", an idea that was floated yesterday by Philip Johnston, and picked up by Whitterings from Witney. But it does not improve with re-telling.

Just giving us a "receipt" is not enough. What does it profit a man if (as indeed he will) he gets his Barclaycard statement, listing the excesses of his spendthrift wife? What we need is for government to be very clear on what it would wish to spend money, while we have the right to cut up the credit cards – exercising a veto on government spending plans.

We have to be able to stop the expenditure before the money is wasted. And until that happens, there is no democracy.

COMMENT THREAD

A permanent loss?

2012-01-24T12:03:00.004Z

Much excitement and doom-mongering attends the closure of the Coryton refinery in Essex, as its Zurich-based owner Petroplus files for insolvency, after lenders put the company on notice to pay off its debts triggering a default on $1.75 billion of senior notes and convertible bonds.

In an interesting piece, Man in a Shed takes a pessimistic view, arguing that "the UK must not lose another refinery". However, in complete contrast, Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of Total says that he believes the current financial woes of Petroplus confirm the view that there is considerable overcapacity in Europe's refining sector. Far from being a disaster, Petroplus' demise could ease supply conditions and help boost margins.

Equally, competitors will be keen to jump into any gaps. "Essar's (ESSR.L) Stanlow refinery is operating as normal and if there are opportunities to fill gaps in the market caused by the absence of Coryton we would obviously look to do so," said a spokesman for the Indian energy group.

And indeed it is the case that there is refinery overcapacity - on a global scale. According to this source, this can be attributed to opposing trends: demand continues to fall while refining capacity is steadily increasing, despite generally unfavourable conditions. In 2008, surplus capacity stood at 2 MMbpd, while today it has risen to 7 MMbpd.

But what is fascinating is that the distribution of capacity (and changes in provisions) are by no means uniform. In the Asia-Pacific region, refining capacity has been largely unaffected by the slowing world economy. After a period when capacity rose only moderately, new capacity was created at a rapid pace in 2009 (+6.4%). At the same time, growth in demand for oil slowed to 1.3%, resulting in mild overcapacity (0.8 MMbpd).

In Europe and the developed world, however, we have seen the adoption of increasingly stringent emissions standards and product specifications, burdensome regulatory requirements for refineries (for combating local pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions), and stiffer competition from new fuels.

All of these structural factors are weakening the sector, making it more attractive to import the finished product from Asian refineries, where costs are lower and regulatory demands are less severe (and can be mitigated still further by well-placed bribes).

Thus, while we may see temporary and very localised shortages, mainly London and the Southeast, no great perturbations are expected from the demise of Petroplus – other than the loss of over 1,000 jobs at the Essex refinery.

Linda McCulloch, national officer at the Unite union, wants "joint action by the owners and government", to help secure the business, but one suspects this is not going to happen. The shutdown at the former BP-owned refinery - with a total capacity of 175,000 barrels of crude oil per day – looks as if it might be permanent.

And although it will never be said – especially by the likes of the BBC - the fingerprints of the EU are all over this. But the murder weapon has many different hands upon it, so the case will never go to court.

COMMENT THREAD

That referendum

2012-01-24T00:02:00.000Z

England Expects points out that the Croatian referendum was heavily rigged, giving some of the detail of how it was done. Witterings from Witney then makes the obvious but necessary point that, should we ever be given a referendum on the EU, it too would be rigged.

That is the way the "colleagues" play the game in EU politics. We have to play smarter.

COMMENT THREAD

A global muddle

2012-01-23T17:49:00.009Z

One minute we are the lambasting the media for not acknowledging the "elephant in the room", but the very next thing we see is the media fingering the EU for something that is not primarily its responsibility.

Up front are the Failygraph and the Daily Mail. They are complaining about "a draft directive of reforms to make banking safer and rules more uniform", the effect of which is to bring forward mortgage foreclosure proceedings from 180 days in the UK to 90 days.

It takes the Financial Times, however, to identify the legislation involved. It appears we are dealing with the capital requirements directive (CRD 4) "package", which aims "to improve bank safety by making it easier for investors to compare them and allow regulators to impose uniform capital requirements".

The specific proposal (one of several) was actually published in July last year, running to 154 pages, accompanied by a working paper, running to 226 pages, the proposed directive going under the fearsome title of:

Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms and amending Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate.

This is scheduled to go to the EU parliament committee in April and for its first reading in June, possibly to come into EU law by the end of the year.

But it is the documents which give the game away, telling us that the package implements the international Basel accord on banking supervision, the so-called Basel III agreement. The key objective of the proposal, we are told:

… is to address the shortcomings exposed during the financial crisis, to move towards a single rulebook regulating credit institutions in order to prevent recent problems from reoccurring in the future, and to ensure that risks linked to the issues of financial instability and pro-cyclicality are more effectively contained.

Unsaid is that many of those "shortcomings" were in the Basel II agreement, but the point relevant to this current rush of publicity is that we are not dealing primarily with EU law.

What we have here is an example of global government, about which we have written previously, specifically the secretive Bank for International Settlements in Basel, which hosts the equally secretive Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

It is this body - in which our own Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, plays a central role – which actually makes the rules. The members of the key sub-committees are not disclosed, the meeting are in private, the rules of procedure are not declared and the voting record is secret. By comparison, the EU is a model of transparency – except of course, that the EU is a major player in this committee, where the real power is held.

This situation, therefore, casts the EU in the role of middle man. It takes the "recommendations" from the Basel committee and processes them into actionable legislation – some as commission regulations and some as directives, for the member states to adopt into their own legislative codes.

The one thing the EU cannot do, however, is make any substantive changes. The rules have been decided on a global scale and the EU is now just the regional authority implementing them – a relationship not dissimilar to that between the EU and the IMO.

In this context, to blame the EU for the result is, to say the very least, otiose. But that is what the media does when it suits it. Possibly, the real reason though is that, like our own MPs and so many others, they no longer have a very clear idea of how we are governed or who actually governs us.

Fortified by their own ignorance, the hacks thus go for the easy shot – and none of us are better informed. Small wonder though that the powers that be are thinking of selling off the Houses of Parliament. If they do, there is certainly no need to replace them.

COMMENT THREAD

Going home from Nome

2012-01-23T13:17:00.003Z

Icebreaker, Healy, and tanker Renda are on their way back from Nome, having successfully delivered 1.3 million gallons to the ice-bound port. Coast Guard spokesman Adam De Rocher says the vessels were about 100 miles south of Nome on Sunday. He says they left the town on Alaska's western coast on Friday.

Once the Renda hits open water (if such an unfortunate phrase can be used), it will head for Russia. The Healy will go to Dutch Harbour, Alaska, to drop off supplies before heading home to Seattle.

COMMENT THREAD

Where lies Greece?

2012-01-23T12:43:00.003Z

The "colleagues" seem to have reached an agreement on oil sanctions for Iran. Although we haven't seen the small print, this would seem to be bad news for Greece, which is still having trouble resolving the price of haircuts.

Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing. Does the right hand even know what the right hand is doing?

COMMENT THREAD

A culture of denial

2012-01-23T11:06:00.004Z

Breast implants are back in the news today, with a call for the banning of cosmetic surgery advertisements. This was picked up by the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

Noting that the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) was "calling for an outright ban on the advertising of all cosmetic surgery", it had Fazel Fatah, president of BAAPS, and Sally Taber, director of the Independent Healthcare Advisory Services (IHAS), which represents the cosmetic surgery industry, to "discuss the necessity of such a ban".

Needless to say, the "elephant" was not at all represented – even though the BBC is fully aware that such issues are the competence of the European Union, having in fact told us of EU involvement, the day before Booker went to press on the issue (below).

As regards the banning of cosmetic surgery advertisements, this cannot be done under EU law. There was a case on precisely this before the ECJ in January 2008, with a final ruling in July 2008 when it was ruled that prohibition of advertisements constituted "a restriction on freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services".

Nonetheless, the BBC reports on prof Sir Bruce Keogh, "who is leading a government review of the trade after the PIP breast implants scandal". The Great Man has said an insurance scheme for the sector, similar to that in the travel industry, could be introduced. The government is also considering the introduction of a breast implant registry to make a record of all cosmetic operations.

Ironically, it is these recommendation that are cosmetic, as these issues are also an EU competence. They are not within the power of the British government to implement. Furthermore, they have been under discussion by the EU since 2001.

It was then that the commission announced it was "to propose tighter controls on the safety of breast implants, and reinforced mechanisms to check that these rules are observed", telling us that it would also "ask for an upgrade of the European standards for breast implants".

Ironically, in July 2002, the commission decided that, for medical devices, the regulatory framework was sound, but could be better implemented. Enterprise commissioner Erkki Liikanen then said: "Providing access to the best medical technology and devices, that meet the highest standards of safety and improve the quality of life, is a key objective of the Commission policy towards European citizens".

Having failed to ensure that the devices meet the highest standards of safety, the commission is at last admitting that reform is needed – which only it can decide upon. But that does not stop the British government, with the help of the BBC and the media in general, going through its elaborate charade, pretending it is doing something in the hope of convincing people that it is still in charge.

So the culture of denial continues where, strangely, those who are the most avid supporters of the EU seem to be those who are also keenest to deny its involvement in so many aspects of our lives.

COMMENT THREAD

And then there were 28?

2012-01-23T00:04:00.005Z

Croatia voted yesterday in a referendum on joining the European Union, a move the government says offers the former Yugoslav republic its only chance of economic recovery despite the turmoil in the 27-state bloc.

Early results, with 51 percent of the vote counted, have 67 percent of those voted saying "yes". It is interesting how people are allowed to vote to join the EU … but not to get out of it … but the former seems to depend on them being willing to say yes.

With a population of 4.3 million, slightly less than that of Scotland, the result will no doubt be watched closely by Mr Salmond. There are, after all, some parallels, the state of Croatia having been formed after the break up of Yugoslavia, which Scotland – as a state – being forned (Mr Salmond hopes) with the break up of the United Kingdom.

Neither Croatia nor Scotland, however, are big enough to alter the destiny of the EU. One is about to – and the other hopes to – shackle itself to a corpse. The Guardian is triumphant. But it will have plenty of time to repent.

On the other hand, Your Freedom and Ours - coming in with an update - notes that it was not exactly an overwhelming vote.

About 31 percent were against, while the rest of the ballots were invalid. About 42 percent of eligible voters were estimated to have taken part in the referendum, illustrating voters' apathy toward the EU, she tells is.

For those Croatians who did not bother to turn out to vote against joining the EU if they did not feel that they were in favour, they will, no doubt complain vociferously when things go wrong.

COMMENT THREAD

Wake up judge!

2012-01-23T00:02:00.000Z

Thus writes Peter Hitchens, who goes on to say:

Akulic, who, like you and me (though I'd much rather not be), is a citizen of the European Union, drifted unhindered into the Euro-region formerly known as Great Britain in 2010. Nobody cared that he had spent much of his adult life in prison for violence, or that he had once raped a seven-year-old girl.

As Lady Justice Hallett (of course) reduced his prison sentence on appeal last week, she asked in some astonishment: "Do we let in just anyone?" The answer, of course, is: "Yes, Judge".

Her spluttering amazement came after Akulic's lawyer explained that the Lithuanian rapist was an EU citizen, and so has as much right to be here as you and I – a simple point I have been trying to get across for years.

This is rather like the ship surveyor who doesn't realise that the EU is now in charge of ship safety – as appears to be the case from the comments on the Booker column.

We have here a whole generation of middle to upper class people living in denial, be they journalists, politicians, ship surveyors or judges – people who wilfully close their eyes to the steady encroachment of the EU on our lives.

Quite why this is the case is difficult to work out, but it is a very real and serious phenomenon. It is as if these people cannot cope with the idea that we are no longer an independent nation and are ruled by aliens – some of them British.

Hitchens is right, therefore, to call for the judge to wake up. But we need the whole nation to wake up. Pretending the EU takeover isn't happening won't make it go away.

COMMENT THREAD

The new Heath?

2012-01-22T20:04:00.001Z

It is a good question to ask, but the Guardian is obviously incapable of sensible analysis. Larry Ellott also asks: whether the prime minister be another moderniser who arrives in power bouncing with optimism but for whom it all goes wrong? He goes on to say:

There are differences as well as similarities: Heath presided over a largely pro-European party and considered his greatest achievement to be Britain's entry into what was then the European Economic Community. Cameron leads an overwhelmingly Eurosceptic party and would like a less binding relationship with the European Union. Heath would have signed up to the euro without question; there is no earthly chance of Cameron taking Britain into the single currency.

These "left-wingers" just don't do subtlety. Theirs is a monochrome world of black and white. It is no wonder they are so ill-tempered – they must be bored witless.

Thus, to the average Guardian reader, Cameron is a right-wing eurosceptic leading an "overwhelmingly Eurosceptic party". Dialogue is impossible. There is no meeting point, or frame of reference from which we can start.

COMMENT THREAD

A man for all soundbites

2012-01-22T16:49:00.003Z

Cameron is trying to pull as fast one over the ECHR in an attempt to defuse the anger over the recent decision over extremist Islamic cleric Abu Qatada. But he is mercilessly dissected by Autonomous Mind, who shows his posturing up for what it is – posturing.

COMMENT THREAD

British interests

2012-01-22T11:30:00.001Z

Official figures, we are told, show that 45 percent of students from EU countries who were liable to start repaying loans had disappeared or were in arrears as of last April. Thus, the total outstanding debt liable to be repaid by EU borrowers at the end of 2009/10 was £47.4 million, according to the Department for Business (BIS), which published the figures.

But that means, according to Failygraph education correspondent Julie Henry, "If the thousands of students missing or in arrears never pay, more than £20 million would be lost to the Treasury". I am not sure I follow that line of reasoning. At the moment, the debt is already at £47.4 million and, if no more payments are made, more than £20 million will be lost? Technically, that may be correct, but it is an odd way of putting it.

However, flash back to February 2009 – nearly three years ago, and you will get a much better idea of what is going on from The Daily Mail. It correctly predicted this insult, then telling us that tens of thousands more from the EU were currently at university, having borrowed £124million to cover tuition fees, which then stood at £3,145-a-year.

With 45 percent of EU students who were liable to start repaying loans having now disappeared or in arrears as of last April, therefore, we are exposed to a sum well in excess of £60 million and, as the fees go up to £9,000 a year and more EU students are processed through the system, that sum can only increase.

Back in 2009, though, the Student Loans Company insisted that measures to identify and trace EU students would be in place by April 2010, when large numbers of EU students began to graduate.

Compare and contrast this with the statement today from Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, who says that non-repayment by overseas students is "inherent in the system." "Many EU students will never pay back their loans. We were never going to be able to recover loan debts from EU students to the same level as domestic students.

Back in 2009, we were remarking: "The real question, though, is why we are giving foreign students loans in the first place. And the answer is … EU rules. Under the non-discrimination provisions of the Treaties, whatever applies to UK nationals must also be given to any Jacques, Fritz or Toni who happens on these shores".

The writing was on the wall ever since the ECJ made a judgement on the issue in 2004, and now we are well and truly stuck.

Then, a spokesman for the Department for Universities, Innovation and Skills said trace agents are being used to hunt down students who failed to repay their loans. So, in the darkest regions of Naples, we suggested that, amid the mounds of rubbish, "we can be assured that British interests are being looked after".

Yeah, right! And so the pigs flew over in squadrons.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker on Concordia

2012-01-22T00:02:00.000Z

The column takes a look at the Concordia capsize, picking up the EU element that we raised on this blog. His piece took account of this narrative on the ship's last-known movements, and explores some of the issues I raise in this piece.

Without having to speculate on the causes of this incident, it is possible to make the perfectly valid point that the sequence of events which led directly to the capsize is distinct from the sequence that led to the collision – and that the capsize was not necessarily an inevitable consequence of the hull rupture.

Here, it is necessary to make the distinction between "intact stability" and "damage stability", and it is also possible to assert with confidence that current legislation (EU and IMO) does not fully take into account (or at all) of the phenomena of multiple free surface effect and "transient flooding" in large cruise liners, which can play a significant part in causing ships to capsize.

It is thus valid to question whether the regulatory regime was (and is) adequate to deal with potential risks, and to ask whether the perceived inadequacies were in any way responsible for the capsize of the Concordia.

In most of such incidents, cause is quite often multi-factoral, in which context responsibility (and blame) must often rest on many shoulders. It would be a shame if the emphasis on the apparent failures of the ship's captain obscured any failings of the regulators, and allowed them to escape any blame that should otherwise accrue to them.

COMMENT THREAD

Home grown failures

2012-01-21T12:10:00.005Z

The Daily Mail has today in its print edition a plaintive rejoinder from EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier, who is insisting that Britain is free to ban foreign doctors if they cannot speak English or there are concerns about their professional ability (above).

He is responding (in the Failygraph) to claims from professor Norman Williams, president of the Royal College of Surgeons and Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians, who said recently (12 January) that "urgent action" was needed to combat "huge variations" in the quality and training of foreign doctors.

"European laws are putting the lives of British patients at risk by allowing incompetent and poorly trained foreign doctors to work in the NHS, two senior doctors warned today", the Daily Mail then reported (below).

However, someone should perhaps have asked these two esteemed gentlemen why they had not read the newspapers, and in particular the Daily Mail for 4 October 2011. This informed us that foreign doctors would be barred from treating patients unless they have a good grasp of English "under tough rules to be announced by Andrew Lansley today".

The Health Secretary would "pledge to end the scandal which has seen 23,000 doctors from Europe registered to work in the NHS – despite never having been asked if they can speak the language properly" (below).

And even if the good doctors haven't noticed this, the nurses certainly have. The Nursing Times acerbically noted on 6 October, 2011 that "Language tests for nurses less pressing than for doctors, says DH".

It reported that a ban on (central) language testing for nurses is to remain in force, even though the government is overturning that on doctors on the grounds that they pose more of a risk to patients.

The report thus confirmed the Daily Mail report, stating that the Department of Health had announced it would allow the General Medical Council to test the language skills of doctors from within the European Economic Area (EEA) who want to work in the UK.

And, in fact, it has always been the case that language skills of medical professionals have been amenable to testing. EU law does not prohibit it. What EU law does do though is prohibit a uniform ban on employment, by virtue of an inability to speak good (or any) English. Each case must be treated on its merits.

In practice, this meant that regulatory bodies like the Royal College of Nursing and the General Medical Council could no longer make language competency an exclusion criterion under the Professional Qualifications Directive (Directive 2005/36/EC). Instead, the onus was placed on the employer, to ascertain that individuals had suitable language skills for the specific jobs in which they were to be placed.

And therein seems to lie the problem. As late as 14 January, the Daily Mail was reporting that 90 percent of hospitals fail to check on nurses' English before letting them work on wards. Language problems, it said, only come to light when patients' requests were not understood

Then it told us that many hospital chiefs (despite their high pay) were "totally unaware that due to strict anti-discrimination rules imposed by Brussels, it is illegal for the Nursing and Midwifery Council regulator to check the English language skills of nurses trained in EU countries".

The Department of Health and the Royal College of Nursing, said the Mail have told hospitals it is their responsibility to make adequate checks but the guidance was not always passed on to managers in charge of recruitment.

So, we can rightly blame the EU for disrupting established systems, and requiring a cumbersome and expensive regime for individual employers, who now have to ascertain whether potential employees can actually speak and understand English to an acceptable level. But then what responsible employer does not check whether their employees can do the jobs for which they are hired?

We cannot, therefore, blame the EU for the incompetence of those employers who have not realised their own responsibilities, and taken the necessary measures to ensure their staff are capable of doing their jobs. Those failures, it would seem, are home-grown.

COMMENT THREAD

A picture with words

2012-01-21T00:02:00.000Z

A picture may be worth a thousand words but, on occasions, a picture with words is worth a thousand pictures.

Meanwhile, "It's not a crisis of the euro. It's a case of euro-zone economies being in difficulty", says
financial markets commissioner Michel Barnier. Planet, which, on?

COMMENT THREAD

A sombre anniversary

2012-01-20T22:48:00.000Z

The Wannsee Conference. I am surprised that the British media hasn't made something of it. Although Germany has risen to the occasion, with a report in Spiegel online.

COMMENT THREAD

The last moments

2012-01-20T19:58:00.001Z

Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.

This site tells all. After the impact, he loses way, executes a turn hard to starboard and, as the speed washes off to less than one knot, he cuts in the bow thruster to bring the bow round. The current then brings him into shore, with the stern grounding first.

COMMENT THREAD

Blurring the chain of responsibility

2012-01-20T17:55:00.003Z

Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi seems to be rather keen to put distance between himself and his errant captain, Francesco Schettino. He has, according to Reuters, suspended Schettino and the company has declared itself an injured party. They were not aware of unsafe practices involving ships coming close to shore to give tourists a better view, they say.

But it could be that Foschi doth protest too much. Even the fact that Schettino steered his ship too close to the rocks may not be entirely his responsibility if, as is being alleged, the company did actually know of the practice of sailing close to the Tuscan island of Giglio and did nothing to stop it.

However, while the captain may have to take the ultimate responsibility for driving the Costa Concordia onto the rocks, it needs to be remembered that there are many separate and distinct phases to this incident. The collision with the rocks is one – the ship capsizing is entirely separate.

And while the company may succeed in distancing itself from the collision, it may have more difficulty disclaiming responsibility for the subsequent capsize. As set out in my earlier piece, there may be design flaws which caused the ship to capsize, making the disaster far worse than it should have been.

The issue here is that ship like the Costa Concordia are not supposed to capsize. Although they look top-heavy, they are in fact immensely stable. Thus, the regulatory philosophy is that the ship should remain intact and upright in all but the most extreme of incidents, allowing it to become – as the saying goes – its own lifeboat.

But the possibility of there being problems is evidenced by the fact of the capsize, and that the hole in the hull is sticking out of the water. It should be under the sea, a fact noted by professor Philip Wilson of Southampton University. "That is where the water came rushing in," he says. "In other words, the ship seems to be lying on the wrong side".

This possibility is further reinforced, perhaps unwittingly, by a statement on the Costa Concordia today by the EU Commission, a full week after the original incident. It reminds us that, despite new ship safety legislation having been promulgated in 2009 – viz Directive 2009/45/EC - the commission a year later set up another review on passenger ship safety, to ensure the legislation "keeps pace with the latest evolution in design, operational procedures and technology".

The question is immediately raised as to why such a review would be needed if there was any great confidence in the adequacy of current legislation, and suspicions that it might not be adequate are raised with today's statement.

Crucially, we find that the commission is stating that the review must now explore whether current stability rules on passenger ships need further updating. In particular, it says, this must be in relation to ships, damaged and/or exposed to bad weather conditions.

It is this issue of so-called "damage stability" in respect of large passenger ships that especially needs review as the current standards go back to IMO regulations from 1993, before the current work on damage stability had been undertaken.

The EU itself had the opportunity to update damage stability requirements in 2009, having regard to the research which it had funded. But such rules would only have applied to vessels flagged by EU member states and to vessels plying the waters of EU member states – leaving the rest of the world covered by the older and less demanding IMO code.

And what emerges from the legislative review is that the EU is reluctant to go further than the IMO standards, for fear of driving ships operated by EU member states into nations running flags of convenience.

But even without that, competition for the lucrative cruise market is global and ships forced to comply with more onerous EU law, plying the Mediterranean, would be at a trading disadvantage with US registered ships cruising the Caribbean. Customers are motivated as much by price as location.

The IMO has, in fact, been working on updating its own regulations since the year 2000 but has yet to address damage stability issues in large passenger ships.

It too seems to be treating the Costa Concordia incident as a wake-up call. ""IMO must not take this accident lightly", it says. "We should seriously consider the lessons to be learnt and, if necessary, re-examine the regulations on the safety of large passenger ships in the light of the findings of the casualty investigation", it adds, in its formal statement.

It would appear, therefore, that safety regulations are very far from being adequate, but the big question is whether the owners of the Costa Concordia knew this – or should have known.

As part of the Carnival Corporation - the world's largest cruise ship operator – it seems inconceivable that someone did not know. And given that that may be the case, we may still be seeing Pier Luigi Foschi in the dock – unless conformity with regulations is taken to be sufficient for absolution, blurring once again the chain of responsibility.

COMMENT THREAD

Not so much taking it

2012-01-20T12:56:00.004Z

… as giving it. Justice is seen to be done?

COMMENT THREAD

A failure of reorganisation

2012-01-20T12:12:00.002Z

People have short memories, forgetting that the "great leap forward" in the development of quangos came under Thatcher with the launch of "Next Step Agencies", and Major with his Regional Development Agencies.

The idea was to increase visibility and accountability of obscure government bodies, which could hide their spending within the accounts of their controlling departments, while the heads could hide behind the skirts of ministerial responsibility.

These new bodies were to become more like private sector firms, with their own boards of directors and chief executives, separate accounts and their own objectives and targets.

Following the establishment of the "Efficiency Unit" led by Lord Rayner in 1982 and the Ibbs Report in 1988, directly employed civil servants fell from 732,000 in 1979 to 500,000 in 1997, and by 1998, 75 percent of all civil servants worked for agencies or departments run on "Next Step" lines.

As it turned out, though, the only way the private sector was seriously emulated was in the rampant inflation in salaries for CEOs and the "quango queens" who joined the boards, while "accountability" became a farce, as ministers found they had no real control and the bodies were largely autonomous.

So the worm turned and this current administration has decided to claw back the powers of these bodies, which the media insist on calling "quangos", having launched the Public Bodies Reform Programme, run by the Cabinet Office, under the egregious Mr Letwin.

But, according to the National Audit Office, they can't even get this right. In a report issued today, the NAO accused the Cabinet Office of grossly under-estimating the transitional costs of reorganisation, rejecting the estimate of £425 million and suggesting that costs will be at least £830 million.

Furthermore, says the NAO, there is an "insufficient grasp of the ongoing costs of functions transferred to other parts of government", meaning that the government departments have failed to understand that if they absorb quango functions into their own departments, rather than abolish them altogether, they are still going to cost.

Overall, this makes a nonsense of the administration's claims on cost-savings. Originally claimed to be £2.6 billion, the civil service is going to have to find £3.5 billion if they are to meet the net savings target, after the higher costs of transition have been taken into account.

And, says the NAO, despite greater accountability being the programme's primary intended benefit, only one of the six departments examined had proposals for a well-defined, though basic, measure of success for it. In other words, the savings will not actually be anything like those claimed, and any improvements in accountability are likely to illusory.

There is a profound lesson to learn here. Mere reorganisation of government functions is unlikely ever to bring much in the way of improvements, either in costs or accountability, unless accompanied by a fundamental reappraisal of functions (with a strong emphasis on abolition).

There is a similar lesson in relation to our withdrawal from the EU. Just leaving the evil empire is unlikely to achieve anything, per se – and especially not in terms of cost savings - until or unless we rethink the way government is supposed to work and what it is supposed to do.

As for the "bonfire of quangos", it looks as if the great spectacle is, after all, going to be a damp squib. But then, I don't suppose anybody really expected otherwise.

COMMENT THREAD

The European project

2012-01-20T08:47:00.005Z

An interesting tour de table from Theodore Dalrymple, getting back to basics.

Asked by a journalist whether nationalism was dangerous, he answers that the question, "implied that the choice before Europe was between the European Union and fascism: that all that stood between us and the ascension to power of new Mussolinis, Francos, and Hitlers were the free lunches of senior Eurocrats".

Nicely put.

COMMENT THREAD

A bitter taste

2012-01-20T00:02:00.003Z

The past reaches out to bring back unwelcome memories, this time the fate of Acting Corporal Marcin Wojtak, who died on 1 October 2009 when his Pinzgauer Vector drove over a 40lb IED close to Camp Bastion, in Afghanistan.

An earlier report tells us that the Vector had been part of a three-vehicle convoy which had just left a wadi and moved onto higher ground, when it was blown up by the device, comprising "20-25 kilograms of home-made explosives buried about 40cm under the ground".

Now, over two years later, an inquest found yesterday, predictably, that Wojtak was "unlawfully killed", leading to a number of reports in the MSM.

Not untypical of the reports is the story in the Daily Mail which has Wojtak's mother accusing the Ministry of Defence of a "catastrophic failure". Vectors, says the paper (now – although not at the time) were notoriously vulnerable to roadside bombs because of a lack of armour on the underside, and the Government announced a "phased withdrawal" from front line service in May 2009.
.
But the inquest heard they were still being used five months later when the 24-year-old - who had complained in an email home to his father that he felt "exposed and at risk" patrolling in one - was killed.

In a tragic twist, the inquest was told he would have survived if he had been in the heavily-armoured replacement vehicle he was due to pick up the following morning. The replacement was the Mastiff, which, "when it initially went into theatre, soldiers didn't want to get in it because the feeling was that it was just a truck." But, "after a couple of months the lads knew they were safe as houses", and it became the vehicle of choice.

However, its popularity was not just due to the armour. As Ann Winterton had to remind the Telegraph yesterday, it was "because of its V-shaped hull which is designed to deflect rather than absorb blasts", something which the Vector lacked.

But what made the Vector uniquely dangerous was that the driver position was also over the front wheel, in the centre of the "cone of destruction" ensuring that, if the vehicle drove over a device, any explosion would be unsurvivable. In one of the heaviest mined regions of the world, a more unsuitable vehicle could hardly have been chosen, so obvious were its defects.

Yet Wojtak's mother is probably being a little unfair in blaming the Ministry of Defence, per se, for its deployment. Intended as a replacement for the vulnerable Snatch Land Rover, its particular champion was a famous general by the name of Richard Dannatt, who insisted on its purchase for Afghanistan, as his price for accepting the unwanted Mastiff into theatre in Iraq.

The full, ugly story is in my book. Nowhere else will you see the whole story told of the wasted lives and the waste of £100 million from an overstretched defence budget to buy a vehicle that was so dangerous that it had to be replaced, temporarily, by the Snatch Land Rover, up-armoured and re-named the Vixen.

There can be few other instances where a replacement vehicle was deemed so unsatisfactory that it was eventually replaced by the vehicle it was intended to replace, but that is the legacy of Richard Dannatt. And even to this day, it leaves a bitter taste.

COMMENT THREAD

Just a coincidence?

2012-01-19T13:42:00.002Z

So, The Boy is coming out of the woodwork to tell us that he is going to do something about drug-driving. But road safety is, in fact, an EU competence, and the "colleagues" themselves have been showing a great interest in the subject, especially as dealing with this "menace" is part of the European Road Safety Action Programme.

However, while the EU is now responsible for legislating on road safety, drug-driving is, as yet, an "unoccupied field" – there is no specific Community law in place. Thus, with the permission of the EU commission, member states are still allowed to make their own law.

Any such law must, of course, be directed at achieving Community objectives, and be co-ordinated with other member states in this field, so it is interesting to observe that The Boy's initiative comes only months after the completion of a major EU-funded study on drug driving.

This clears the way for a new raft of "evidence-based" legislation, so one wonders whether it is at all a coincidence that Cameron should now pop up with "new" ideas on the issue, which just happen to conform with EU thinking, especially as Cyprus just happens to be following the same route (even if it is more honest about the EU link).

Whether good or bad though, what The Boy (and the media) carefully omits to tell us is that any new law can only be promulgated with the permission and approval of the EU commission. Even if it does not then bear the EU label, it will have the colleagues' fingerprints all over it.

Nevertheless, as long as the media doesn't blow the gaff, it gives The Boy plenty of opportunities for grandstanding, without him actually having to admit how little power is left to him.

COMMENT THREAD

Empty vessels

2012-01-19T12:15:00.001Z

While The Boy was pretending that he could take action over the Costa Concordia capsize, a US congressional committee was announcing the launch of an investigation on the safety implications of the accident. It said US and international maritime organisations need to ensure standards are in place to protect passengers' safety on cruise ships.

"Although it is early in the investigatory process, it appears the Costa Concordia was a preventable tragedy," Rep Frank LoBiondo, the subcommittee chairman, said in a statement. "The committee and subcommittee will use this hearing to review current US laws and regulations in an effort to ensure a similar tragedy does not occur aboard vessels calling on American ports," he says.

Of course, the US makes its own laws in this domain (including implementing IMO resolutions and recommendations), whereas the British government has outsourced maritime safety to Brussels. There would be no point in our toy parliament setting up its own inquiry, as the relevant executive body is the EU commission.

This is despite the fact that unresolved technical issues have been researched by British universities, although here, once again, the EU was the authority of record. It paid for the research – which it has since ignored.

Thus we get Quentin Letts prattling about the idleness of our MPs, without explaining why. As with medical device standards, the power has gone elsewhere, leaving our MPs as empty vessels. One wonders why they too do not capsize.

COMMENT: "DERELICTION OF DUTY" THREAD

Beyond surreal

2012-01-19T00:02:00.000Z

When the history of current events comes to be written, this has to be deemed the point when the financial establishment lost all touch with reality.

As for the cash strapped UK having to borrow £19 billion - nearly eight week's worth of borrowing, paying market rates of interest, and then lending that amount of money to the IMF at a discounted interest rate, all to save the "colleagues'" blushes, this is beyond surreal.

The Grauniad reminds us that the Commons has already given the Treasury leeway to draw down an extra £10bn to give the IMF, but anything further would require a fresh vote in the Commons – and be likely to prompt a backbench Tory rebellion.

That would be an interesting development, although the Tory pussycats tend to talk the talk and then go AWOL when it comes to walking the walk. The issue will come to a head in the Spring, though, about the same time that Greece faces its nemesis, so we are in for an interesting time.

However, there may be a get-out clause, with the preposterous Osborne demanding (unspecified) EU "reform" as a condition of releasing the money. As we know that the eurozone is neither capable of reform, nor willing to dance to the Osborne tune, he could be on a safe bet.

Either way, though, this is funny money – it don't mean nuffink.

COMMENT THREAD

Misleading the House

2012-01-18T19:18:00.002Z

I hadn't thought of it in that way, but I guess it is misleading the House. You should not be telling MPs that you will do things that you cannot do.

COMMENT THREAD

Who's this "we" Cameron?

2012-01-18T16:48:00.001Z

At PMQs today, Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab) asked the man masquerading as our prime minister, the following question:

With the tragic accident involving the cruise ship Costa Concordia and the 50-plus liners of the same size or bigger that will visit Greenock dock on the Clyde in the coming months and year ahead, does the Prime Minister still think that it was the correct decision to close the Clyde coastguard station?

David Cameron gave him this answer

First, the case in Italy is clearly a tragic one, and our hearts should go out to the people who have lost loved-ones - people from countries right across the world. We need to wait and see what the exact cause of the accident was before we jump to conclusions about any changes to regulations or other things. However, if changes need to be made, including on the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises, of course we will make them.

One might think he was talking about the administration he leads, but considering ship safety is an exclusive EU competence, what does he actually mean by "we"?

Why is The Boy still pretending to have powers that have long since been given to Brussels? Is he ashamed to admit how much has been surrendered, or is it that he just doesn't know?

COMMENT: "DERILICTION OF DUTY" THREAD

On the march?

2012-01-18T14:12:00.002Z

Today is the day for the Greeks, as the meetings with private bondholders resume. And to celebrate the event, thousands of protesters are on the march in Athens, although the LA Times, for one, isn't getting terribly excited about this. According to the Grauniad, today will be the second day of protests, with strikers out in the streets.

But, rather than another day of precipice-hanging, some experts are saying that we will have to wait until March for Greece to default – if ever.

Meanwhile, a potentially more harmful (in the short-term) situation is developing in Hungary, with the EU commission launching legal action against the Fidesz government for violations of European Union treaty law and "erosion of democracy". One gets the impression that if the commission had troops they would at this moment be marching across the border.

And, according to my former co-editor, they are revolting in Romania. Yes, I know they are always revolting in Romania, but the current action is – in part – directed at the EU. There is hope yet, as the CSM tells us, "… protesters find voice after years of apathy".

Maybe, though, three out of 27 countries on the March isn't much to shout about, which is probably why the British media is playing the disruption low-key. When all 27 start, maybe they will take notice – and just report the British end, if I know anything.
.
COMMENT THREAD

A rather silly piece

2012-01-18T12:00:00.001Z

Quentin Letts, one of the more entertaining parliamentary correspondents, writes a rather silly piece today, remarking on how quiet the House is. "A shortage of law-making?" he asks, adding: "We should rejoice, rejoice".

Of course, there is no shortage of law-making. That would indeed be a cause for rejoicing. The reason why it is so quiet is, as Booker remarked very recently (expanded by ourselves), that so much of our legislation has been outsourced to Brussels, making our MPs effectively redundant. They have nothing to do because the EU production line is doing the work for them.

Were things otherwise, we could have the MPs debating medical devices, and demanding new laws. But that is an EU competence. They could also take a look at passenger ship safety, except that that is also an EU competence. Maybe they could discuss occupational pensions? Er … that is an EU competence. How about an oil embargo on Iran? Forget it … also an EU competence.

That so much law is made in Brussels is a major constitution issue, and one of great concern to many people. How typical it is, therefore, that we should get in the Daily Wail such a silly article, that simply trivialises the whole issue. That is the MSM for you.

COMMENT THREAD

We did warn you

2012-01-18T08:23:00.010Z

Reported today by The Independent, Brian Toft, professor of patient safety at Coventry University, warned ministers last July that the CE mark which certifies that a product such as a hip joint or breast implant reaches the European quality standard was seriously flawed and did not protect patients.

There were 113 alerts issued by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) about medical devices last year, ranging from hip joints to surgical instruments, but the agency has no power to check devices until a failure is reported. And that is effectively what we were saying last week on the blog, as repeated by the Booker column on Sunday.

Notably absent from the Independent piece, though, are the words "European Union" and "Single Market", with a similar absence noted when the BBC's Today programme ran the story this morning, until Toft came on. But that is what we are dealing with.

However, the situation is worse than stated. It is not that the MHRA has "no power" to check devices until a failure is reported. A fundamental characteristic of CE marking is that national regulatory agencies are specifically prohibited from carrying out routine checks on devices, that replicate the checks supposedly done by the certifying agency.

Such routine checks are deemed to be "additional controls", having the effect of non-tariff barriers, and have been addressed by a range of ECJ judgements going back to 1979 and the Cassis de Dijon case. Thus, the legislation setting out the rules for market surveillance (Regulation EC No 765/2008 of 9 July 2008) sternly warns that:

It is necessary to ensure that products benefiting from the free movement of goods within the Community fulfil requirements providing a high level of protection of public interests such as health and safety in general, health and safety at the workplace, protection of consumers, protection of the environment and security, while ensuring that the free movement of products is not restricted to any extent greater than that which is allowed under Community harmonisation legislation or any other relevant Community rules.

CE marking is a paper-based system and thus the regulations require that, "Where economic operators present test reports or certificates attesting conformity issued by an accredited conformity assessment body, market surveillance authorities shall take due account of such reports or certificates".

In other words, as long as the paperwork is in order, extra physical checks are not allowed – and therein lies the danger. If the background checks are not being properly done – or done at all – faulty products (as in breast implants) can slip through the cracks.

Effectively confirming this in a meeting with Simon Burns, the Health minister, on 13 September, Toft said CE marks were allocated to medical devices on the basis of "design specifications" without checks on whether the devices were "being made in the way they should be made".

In July, in a presentation to the Committee on the Safety of Devices, revealed by The Lancet, he warned that the CE mark "provides a smokescreen for faulty and dangerous devices that place patients at risk".

This is not an academic issue. Apart from the breast implants scandal, the Failygraph was recently reporting: "Deaths and serious injuries involving medical devices up 29 percent", with "The number of patients killed or seriously injured by medical devices rose by almost a third last year, according to official figures".

Yet CE marking is so central to Community trade that the Single Market could not operate without it. Hence we get the silence of ministers and Tory politicians, all of whom adore the Single Market and prattle endlessly about its benefits. By any measure, though, CE marking is not fit for purpose - right across the board. Like the EU itself, it is fundamentally flawed ... and killing people.

COMMENT THREAD

A dereliction of duty

2012-01-18T00:02:00.006Z

Despite the reassurances from the egregious Janet Archer, and others, on the safety of large cruise liners in the wake of the capsize of the Costa Concordia, the design of this ship - and those like it - is probably unsafe.

This was the finding of EU-funded research into the effect of collision damage, carried out in Glasgow and Strathclyde universities nearly a decade ago. It tested three then current cruise ship designs, all of which complied with current regulations. In the research, 33 damage scenarios were tested, and in 16 cases the vessels capsized within two hours, sometimes rapidly.

In particular, a newly discovered phenomenon was tested, known as the multiple free surface (MFS) effect, where traditional calculation and testing cannot adequately describe the behaviour (and hence the destiny) of a damaged ship.

This is particularly a problem in cruise ships, which have complex watertight subdivision of internal spaces, a phenomenon which "substantially weakens or indeed leads to complete erosion of stability at any of the stages of flooding".

There is also the issue of so-called transient flooding. This has been described as a "mechanism of capsize" relevant to ships with complex watertight subdivision such as cruise ships:

As the hull is breached, water may rush through various compartments at different levels, substantially reducing stability even when the floodwater amount is relatively small. As a result the ship could heel to large angles, even for small damage openings, letting water into the upper decks that spreads rapidly through these spaces and may lead to rapid capsize.

Those questioning the stability of giant cruise ships such Costa Concordia are, therefore, missing the point. The issue is not stability, per se, but post-collision stability.

One of the latest into the general fray is Sky News, but it too is emollient. It cites Robert Ashdown, the European Cruise Council's technical, environment and operations director, who dismisses concerns saying cruise liners are "more stable than they have ever been".

"They can stand up to anything the weather can throw at them. They are designed to strict international standards," he says. In this, Ashdown is probably right, but what he projects is only part of the story - he is talking about the stability of the intact ship.

As to his reference to "strict international standards", he does not spell these out in detail. They do, however, encompass EU law, namely Directive 2009/45/EC of 6 May 2009 on safety rules and standards for passenger ships. Despite the closing comment in my earlier piece, ship safety is already an EU competence, with the EU commission also implementing international standards - in this case IMO (International Maritime Organisation) Assembly Resolution A.749(18) of 4 November 1993, as amended.

What is immediately striking about the EU law and the IMO standards is their relative age, the core IMO standard going back to 1993. And even the date of the EU's 2009 Directive is misleading. It is basically a recast of the Council Directive 98/18/EC of 17 March 1998.

Nothing in these standards, therefore, reflects the work on multiple free surface effect, or transient flooding, either of which could have been responsible for the Costa Concordia capsize, explaining why the ship listed away from the damaged side. Thus, the authors of the ground breaking British research describe the regulatory system as "stretched to breaking point".

However, despite the EU commission displaying a keen interest in safety at sea, its 2007 review ignored its own funded research, in producing the 2009 amended directive.

Further, a EU-funded Passenger Ship Safety Legislative Review, produced by the Milan consultancy Grimaldi e Associati and published in April 2011 fails in any way to address the damage survivability of cruise ships, dealing only with cruises engaged in polar areas.

Nor indeed are international standards bodies addressing the issue. The International Maritime Organisation is focusing on the so-called "return to port" philosophy as its primary safety paradigm.

It believes that the regulatory framework should place more emphasis on the prevention of a casualty from occurring in the first place and that future passenger ships should be designed for improved survivability so that, in the event of a casualty, persons can stay safely on board as the ship proceeds to port.

Such a philosophy is hardly going to work if, as we have seen with the Costa Concordia, the ship capsizes shortly after a collision. Yet, with neither the EU nor the IMO showing any signs of dealing with this phenomena which render current regulatory requirements inadequate, we can have no confidence that a repeat of the Costa Concordia incident will not occur some time in the future.

Thus, while the current focus is on Capatian Francesco Schettino and his dereliction of duty, perhaps more questions should be asked about why this relatively modern ship capsized, and about the regulators' dereliction of duty – why they have ignored post-collision stability problems in large cruise ships.

COMMENT THREAD

Heavy snow kills

2012-01-17T13:30:00.004Z

The report refers to Afghanistan, where heavy snow and avalanches have killed at least 16 people in mountainous north-east, leaving dozens more trapped in their homes.

A week of heavy snowfall cut off main roads in remote Badakhshan province, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach affected villages. "So far 16 people have been killed as a result of heavy snow and avalanches in at least six districts of Badakhshan," provincial spokesman Abdul Mahroof Rasikh told AFP.

Twelve districts remain unreachable, but rescue teams made it to Ishkashim district where around 70 families are still trapped under snow, he added.

And now for the money quotes: "Heavy snowfall and avalanches kill scores of people in Afghanistan each winter ... In 2010, avalanches killed more than 150 people in the high-altitude Salang pass through the Hindu Kush mountain range that connects Kabul to the north".

In Kashmir also, five people are reported killed in Arctic conditions, with temperatures recorded as the lowest for 16 years. This, though, pales into insignificance compared with the reports from New Delhi, home of Rajendra Pachauri.

From there, we are told that North India is reeling under intense cold wave condition that has led to more than 140 deaths across the region. The national capital region of Delhi is under a spell of cold wave with the minimum hovering around 5 degree Celsius on Tuesday morning.

Some of these areas have seen their first snowfall for 60 years, yet in no instance do we see the warmists complaining. They are only interested in death by global warming. Death by freezing is of no importance.

COMMENT THREAD

Declaring an interest

2012-01-17T11:21:00.002Z

Purchasers of the print edition of the Failygraph today have been greeted by a full-page puff for the cruise industry, written by one of the newspaper's cruise sales team, Jane Archer.

As we pointed out yesterday, Archer has a habit of writing emollient pieces on the back of cruise liner disasters, reflecting the commercial interests of her employers, The Telegraph Group, which runs a significant travel business, marketing cruise holidays.

Compare and contrast the Archer puff with a piece by Gwyn Topham, in the Guardian (above) - which does not have the same degree of financial interest in selling cruises. Should politicians (other than ex-EU commissioners) have stood up in the House and made a speech on areas where they had major financial interests, the Failygraph would, no doubt, have waxed indignant about their failure to declare their interests.

But, in the foetid world of the ~~media~~ Telegraph, it seems, hypocrisy is the done thing. Not only may you publish long comment pieces under the guise of objective journalism, aimed at protecting your commercial interests, you can even con people into paying for the privilege of reading it.

COMMENT: "MEDIA BIAS" THREAD

Diagnosing the problem

2012-01-17T09:17:00.002Z

"If you misdiagnose the problem", writes Jeremy Warner, "you are highly likely to prescribe the wrong sort of treatment".

The corollary also applies. In order successfully to solve a problem, you must first diagnose it correctly. Warner has "thought long and hard" about this, about "why Europe should be so bone-headed about the crisis it faces". And he still is nowhere near getting there.

Unsurprisingly, for the chattering classes, he started off on the wrong foot, telling us that "it was tempting to put these failings down to want of intellectual vigour".

Economics, goes the old [lame] joke, is not rocket science; if it was the Germans would be much better at it. "But actually", says Warner, " there are some very fine German economists all of whom fully understand the nature of the problem".

Hence in Warner's book, the problem is worse than that. "What it's really about", he opines, "is refusal to face up to the truth – that monetary union, the imagined crowning glory of the European project, cannot work under the present framework or anywhere close".

"Europe's leaders don't want to hear this", he adds. "They still cling to the belief that monetary union of fiscally sovereign nations can, provided everyone sticks to fiscal disciplines, be made a functioning and transformational engine of growth".

You might have thought he could do better than this. The problem, after all, is very simple. The euro is not an economic but a political project, and the "colleagues" are reacting in a political manner rather than taking the appropriate economic measures.

Their stance is that "the euro must survive", whence they dig their heels in and refuse to budge. They refuse to take the obvious and necessary economic measures because they are at odds with the political objectives.

It really is quite interesting to see how difficult the chatterati find it to come to terms with this very simple point. But the explanation is also quite simple. To do so would require them to come to terms with their own blindness – their own refusal after all these years to realise that the European Union was a political project, not a "trading agreement".

They themselves cling to the belief that the European Union is primarily an economic project, which has somehow gone off the rails, and only needs some economic correctives to bring it back on track. And that "refusal to face up to the truth" is what dooms them. If you start off from the wrong premise, you will always struggle to make a correct diagnosis.

COMMENT THREAD

That precipice again

2012-01-17T00:02:00.005Z

Rescue work was briefly suspended on the Costa Concordia yesterday after the vessel slipped deeper into the water. Although this was less than four inches, it transpires that the wreck is perched on a rock ledge and, with just a small movement, could plunge to the depths in water over 300 ft deep.

And already, we could not resist the temptation of drawing the parallels, but the similarities are getting to be uncanny.

Even while this testament to "continuing harmony, unity, and peace between European nations" was shifting its ground, rating agency Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating of the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone's rescue fund, by one notch to AA+ on Monday, three days after it cut the ratings of France and Austria by the same margin.

In a statement, S&P said the decision was all but inevitable following the cuts to the creditworthiness of France and Austria, which were two of the EFSF's guarantors. "We consider that credit enhancements that would offset what we view as the now-reduced creditworthiness of the EFSF's guarantors and securities backing the EFSF's issues are currently not in place," the agency said.

So there we have it. The euro shifted again yesterday – only a little bit, but it transpires that this wreck of a currency is perched on a rock ledge. Just a small movement could tip it over the precipice and plunge it to the depths. One of those small movements just happened ... the descent is just a matter of time.

COMMENT THREAD

The answer lies in the soil

2012-01-16T17:08:00.003Z

It was sneaked in around December 2009 and now work has progressed to the state where Clean Coal Ltd wants to apply for planning permission for exploratory drilling in Swansea Bay. This is an Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) project. With a billion tons of coal thought to be lying under Swansea Bay – just one of 14 sites licensed for exploration – the potential is huge, possibly bigger than shale gas in the UK.

The initial Swansea programme aims to identify an area with about 30 to 50 million tons or so of coal suitable for underground coal gasification, with seams down to about 1,500 ft underground - too deep to mine, but ideal for producing syngas - a combination of carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen.

So far, there are UCG plants producing gas in Australia and Central Asia but none in Europe as yet. Britain with massive coal reserves. With an estimated 85 percent of these reserves being considered unmineable, the UK is an ideal place to exploit this resource which, worldwide, could amount to five trillion tons of previously unreachable coal.

Once again, therefore, technology is coming to the rescue and confounding the naysayers. And nor can it come too soon as reports reach us that we could lose half our gas imports if the Iranians block the Strait of Hormuz.

Needless to say, the Greens are against it. Presumably, they would want to fill Swansea Bay full of windmills. But, as someone used to say, the answer lies in the soil.

COMMENT THREAD

Media bias

2012-01-16T13:24:00.007Z

From a purely lay perspective, and one that is completely uninformed, the configuration and size of the current generation of super cruise liners seems to be asking for trouble. Apart from concerns about stability, which may or may not be unfounded, there is the very real issue of speedy evacuation in the event of an emergency.

It has been said many times before that the size of the larger cruisers is such that the crew and passenger numbers approach those of a small town. Getting upwards of 6,000 people speedily into lifeboats is no mean feat.

In the case of the Costa Concordia, the ship struck an outcrop of rock at approximately 9.30 pm and the ship began to list at 9.50pm. The signal to muster to lifeboat stations was given at 10.10 pm yet, by 2.30 am the following morning, there were still 300 people aboard awaiting evacuation. On Sunday, stragglers were still being rescued and, currently, 17 people remain unaccounted for.

Given that the rescue was carried out in near perfect conditions, one needs little imagination to speculate on what might have been if the ship had been far out to sea, in rough weather. Casualties could have run to hundreds, if not thousands.

Given the proliferation of such ships, and the fact that there have been previous incidents – for instance, the Sea Diamond in April 2007 – one might have thought that cruise ship safety would become a major issue in the media.

However, in contrast to the readiness of the newspapers to get scares running on all manner of issues, one is struck by the emollient, soothing tones of some newspapers in response to this incident. For instance, The Daily Telegraph's "cruise expert" Douglas Ward, himself a former ship director, believes the tragedy was "an aberration".

Interestingly, this reassuring tone is not unusual for the Telegraph. After a fire on the Norwegian cruise ship Hurtigruten last year, one sees Jane Archer in the paper considering "the dangers of holidays at sea" (below).

"While the thought of an accident at sea is scary", she trills, "I am reassured by the tough safety legislation that has come in since the Titanic disaster that lays down clear emergency procedures". In like tone, she continues:

Get the crew to their emergency positions and passengers to their muster stations so they can be accounted for quickly and easily. Evacuation is a last resort, to be decided by the captain. The captain will give direction to the cruise director, who keeps passengers informed of the emergency.

Passenger Shipping Association director William Gibbons said no one can legislate against cruise ship accidents but emphasised that they are unusual.

"Shipping is highly regulated by international standards which include regulations covering the safety of ships, their crew and passengers", he said. "Crews undertake regular training and drills to cover all possible incidents".

This is at such variance to the reality that, in the light of reports of chaos during the evacuation of the Costa Concordia, one wonders whether there is another agenda at play.

And, of course, there is. Apart from taking a considerable advertising revenue from cruise operators, newspapers such as the Telegraph sell cruises themselves (see advert at the top of this post), including on the Hurtigruten. In the Telegraph's case, this is with the help of the egregious Jane Archer. Furthermore, the paper gives Costa Cruises a nice little puff.

It is hard to believe, under such circumstances, that newspapers can offer objective information on ship safety. One would not expect totally objective advice from travel agents, and that is precisely what newspapers have become. Thus, true to form, up pops Jane Archer again, telling us that the Costa Concordia cruise disaster "may lead to a drop in bookings, but cruising offers good value and remains the safest form of travel".

This puts media bias in a different league. With newspapers already in hock to their advertisers, we must also expect their other commercial interests to take priority over the objective truth. And where else, one wonders, does money talk?

COMMENT THREAD

A wish overturned

2012-01-16T11:38:00.003Z

The Costa Concordia was so named by its operators, Costa Cruises, as an expression of the wish for "continuing harmony, unity, and peace between European nations".

However, its prominent ring of stars (circled) sends rather a different message. Hitting the rocks and capsizing is such a neat metaphor for the euro and the European Union in general that one is tempted to remark that the Almighty has a wicked sense of humour.

COMMENT THREAD

Could … if, but probably won't

2012-01-16T00:02:00.001Z

The EU’s new pension proposals will make us £600 billion poorer, claims Abhijit Pandya in the Daily Wail today, demonstrating the classic scare technique that invariably amounts to nothing – or very little. Such a scare starts with a hypothesis: "if such and such prevails". Then we get the projected consequences, usually vastly inflated, offering a diet of disaster and dismay. And, as here, another scare is born.

"Make no bones about it", warns the hyperventilating Pandya, "this cost will impact significantly on corporate growth plans, on companies struggling in the recession, and most importantly: the pockets of employees". But it won't. Pandya is cribbing from a story that was doing the rounds on and around 5 January, in specialist journals and the like, which say no such thing.

The story itself is based on research carried out by J P Morgan Asset Management, served up in an 18-page report, which suggests that if the solvency requirements applied by EU law to insurance companies are applied to pension funds, there could be a shortfall £600 billion in the capital fund.

This is in fact a worst-case scenario and has been estimated in response to a review of Directive 2003/41/EC of 3 June 2003 "on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision".

Potentially, there are huge problems, but it is early days yet. Says an earlier report, "there is a good chance the worst will not happen", and even if it does, there are ways of restructuring pension plans which would exclude them from the worst effects of any new law.

But this is not good enough Abhijit Pandya. "Could" becomes "will" and his narrative becomes one of the EU "planning to force companies to increase their pensions pools" through new policy "that will cost, according to the bank JPMorgan Asset Management, the UK’s economy an astonishing and extraordinary £600 billion".

I really do get sick and tired or this. There is a complicated story here – rightful concerns about the way the EU is muscling in on the pension business, and creating all sorts of problems and costs. We could use some specialist help here, but instead we get this sort of inane exaggeration which serves no purpose at all.

We should be able to rely on our media to inform us, but it has long ceased to carry out that function – if it ever did. Here, though, we have a newspaper which ignores the elephant in the room when it comes to breast implants but then goes totally over the top when it comes to a report about pensions.

There is no fathoming this industry – there seems no sense or logic to it.

COMMENT THREAD

The elephant in the clinic

2012-01-15T13:32:00.002Z

Health secretary Andrew Lansley was on the Andrew Marr show today, accusing private clinics which inserted potentially faulty PIP breast implants of "not stepping up to their responsibilities" in removing them.

The egregious Lansley told Marr: "I'm not happy about private providers not stepping up to their responsibilities at all". He adds: "The argument that they somehow can't afford to do so begs the question of where was their insurance, where were they insuring themselves against their liabilities".

However, the health secretary admits that he has no powers to force the clinics to act, stating instead that: "There are clear legal obligations on the providers, as well as a moral obligation for the continuing care to their patients".

But what is completely missing from the discourse is any mention of the "elephant" – the fact that the breast implants carried the EU's CE marking, certifying their safety and performance.

As Booker thus remarks in his column, the clinics were entitled to rely on the marking and cannot be held liable for defects in their manufacture. The legal (and moral) responsibility lies with the manufacturers and the national authority – in this case the French government.

Such arrangements are not new – they are an intrinsic part of the EU's Single Market, and the best thing Lansley could do is pursue the French government, on behalf of the affected women, for appropriate compensation.

Instead, we learn that the government is continuing to pressure clinics to replace implants free of charge. But we are also in the mad situation that, if a private clinic refuses to do so or no longer exists, the NHS will also pay to remove, but not replace, those implants at public expense - if the woman's GP agrees and there is considered to be clinical need.

This is quite clearly a misuse of public money yet the media cannot bring itself to discuss this issue, or the EU involvement. Although the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph carry extensive stories on the implant drama, in common with the rest of the media, they are silent on the "elephant in the clinic".

We are, thus, entering a new dimension in public affairs where the government of the day will wrongly spend public money rather than highlight the EU in an unfavourable context, and the media close their eyes to this abuse.

These are sad and strange times.

COMMENT THREAD

The elephant in the tunnel

2012-01-15T00:02:00.000Z

Booker spills the beans on HS2. In the on-line version the headline has it that: "The continent is the final destination for HS2", with the strap, "The London to Birmingham high-speed rail link is part of a Europe-wide scheme dreamed up Jacques Delors back in 1993".

It is important nevertheless to stress that there is no element of compulsion on the part of the EU, in requiring our politicians to implement the scheme - as we pointed out earlier. But, as Booker identifies, it is a political project, inspired by Delors' dream of an integrated Europe. And that is why our politicians and officials, under its spell, press on with it, regardless of common sense.

Only under the thrall of this spell could supposedly Conservative politicians countenance such damage, illustrating that, when it the EU is involved, anything goes – even electoral suicide.

COMMENT: "MINDSET CONSPIRACY" THREAD

Lucky to get away with it

2012-01-14T19:24:00.005Z

To add to the questions already raised on the safety of the Costa Concordia, we read from the latest Reuters report that:

Passengers crowded into lifeboats, but the mainly Asian staff, few of them able to speak Italian, struggled to bring order to the evacuation. "It was complete panic. People were behaving like animals. We had to wait too long in the lifeboats", said 47-year-old Patrizia Perilli.

This is by no means the first time that there has been chaos reported during the evacuation of a stricken ship. Most famously, there was the tragedy when the liner City of Benares (see also news report – click to readable size) was torpedoed in the Atlantic on 18 September 1940. In total 260 of the 407 souls on board were lost, including 77 of the 90 child evacuees who were being taken to the safety of Canada.

Contemporary reports spoke of the crew rushing to the lifeboats, heedless of the safety of their passengers. In the last lifeboat to be recovered were approximately 30 Indian crewmen, a Polish merchant, several sailors, three passengers and only six evacuee boys.

In wartime Britain, there might be some excuse for hiring half-trained Asian crewmen to man ships, but in the supposedly affluent Europe of the 21st Century, one might expect safety-critical posts to be staffed by fully-trained and competent personnel.

There is a parallel here with hospitals, where foreign staff – sometimes with limited language skills - are put in charge of patients, giving rise to safety-critical communication problems, while indigenous personnel go unemployed.

Reports now indicate that the ship was four miles off course, and the captain and a crew member have been arrested. Yet, despite the reports of evacuation chaos, a spokesman for the Passenger Shipping Association tells us that, "Ships' crews undertake rigorous training, drills and scenarios for emergency situations including the evacuation of a vessel".

The corporates never change. With the Costa Concordia, though, one suspects that the operators have been lucky to get away with it. Had the challenge been more demanding, the casualty rate might have been considerably higher.

COMMENT: "LEFT FROM RIGHT" THREAD

Telling left from right

2012-01-14T11:59:00.008Z

Already the comparisons are being made with the Titanic, as the Costa Concordia runs aground off the island of Giglio, on the Tuscan coast. Such comparisons are inevitable, as this is the hundredth anniversary of the Titanic sinking, it having collided with an iceberg on 14 April 1912.

The similarities, however, are only slight – particularly in terms of the casualty rate - although both ships sustained underwater damage to the beam. The Titanic suffered a gash of nearly 300 ft on the starboard side, but the damage to the Costa Concordia is reported to be more modest, on the port side.

This latter intelligence seems to be based on a report by Coast Guard Commander Francesco Paolillo, who says the vessel "hit an obstacle" - it wasn't clear if it might have hit a rocky reef in the waters off Giglio - "ripping a gash 50 meters (160 feet) across" on the left side of the ship, and started taking on water.

True to form, the Mail then religiously captions a picture (above), informing us that: "About half of the vessel on the left-hand side is underwater". The picture, however, shows the vessel with a substantial part of the starboard side submerged. Associated Press gets it right though. Unhappily, it reports 69 people missing.

Confusion in this case is understandable, especially as a Reuters photographs (immediately above and below), shows the damage to the exposed, seaward side.

Counter-intuitively, the vessel has listed to starboard – the opposite side of the damage, which says little for the integrity of the ship and the effectiveness of watertight bulkheads (unless there is additional, hidden damage). After the Titanic, one always assumed that design changes in ships meant this could not happen.

Thus, we are going to hear more of this episode – and you can be assured that it is only a matter of time before the EU is on the act, with proposals from improving the safety of cruise liners. The "colleagues" are not known for letting benefical crises go to waste.

COMMENT THREAD

Kermits' Kurrency Krunch

2012-01-14T00:02:00.001Z

So, as widely forecast, the Kermits - struggling under the burden of a national debt in the order of £1.4 trillion - have lost their "gold-plated" AAA credit rating. Standard & Poor's (S&P) has chopped them one point to bring them down to a lowly AA.

Such is the latest instalment of the train wreck European economies, which also has Austria on the rack and Italy on its way down to a triple B. Of the 17 eurozone countries, only Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Luxembourg now enjoy the top triple A rating.

For status-conscious France, however, the loss of its top rating is a severe blow, and especially for the Kermit-in-Chief, who has only months before a presidential election sweeps him into the history books.

This is not going to look good when he tries to convince the French electorate that he is the ideal custodian for the French economy. Thus, Sarkozy has called an emergency cabinet meeting for today.

Finance minister Francois Baroin is in damage limitation mode, claiming: "It's not good news, but it's not a catastrophe". France "must follow and amplify reforms", he adds, saying: "We must be bold. We must preserve employment" – thus contradicting himself within two sentences.

There are, however, broader implications. France is one of the major contributors to the European Financial Stability Facility (ESFS) and if as a result of its downgrading this fund also takes a hit, its lending power will be substantially cut.

The EFSF's €780 billion lending capacity, says Reuters is based on guarantees from eurozone governments. Even with six of the 17 contributor governments AAA-rated, all member states still had to provide over-guarantees to ensure that the fund remained AAA rated.

But, with only four holding on to their triple-A status, the overall impact will be to suck power from the EFSF and make it that much harder to scale up the resources that are already committed to the facility – and the borrowing more expensive.

The "colleagues" no doubt will have contingency plans in place, which include bringing forward the European Stability Mechanism, on top of which they hope their new treaty will begin to have an impact if they get it in place by March.

The direction of travel, though, is still all too evident, the expected outcome being a pile of wreckage and a fleet of ambulances queuing to take away the casualties. No one knows yet who will be paying for the petrol – or the medical bills.

COMMENT THREAD

My one's bigger than your one

2012-01-13T19:45:00.001Z

This is totally O/T but I could not resist it … the new XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition detonates either in front of or behind a target, meaning it can be fired just above a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.

Via Small dead animals blog.

COMMENT THREAD

Another day, another precipice

2012-01-13T19:26:00.001Z

The dire warnings are from the chief economist of Toscafund, Savvas Savouri, who claims that introducing a new currency instantaneously in the wake of a euro exit would be impossible. The delay would lead to "a run on banks and evacuation of capital that would make what has already been seen as nothing by comparison".

"The word catastrophic would not do it justice enough", says Savouri, who comes from a Greek Cypriot background. "Those who imagine some post-euro-exit stability would be restored ... quite simply fail to understand the magnitude - social, economic and political - of such an eventuality", he says.

He predicted a range of problems for the country, from hyperinflation, extreme difficulty for the government in raising money on bond markets and an evacuation of people able to leave the country, taking as much wealth as they can with them.

"Inflation in Greece would quite frankly spiral in a way resembling Zimbabwe's experience," says Savouri, who also predicts severe poverty amongst the elderly – not that that requires any great prescience. The elderly are already being badly hit.

On the other hand, there is a substantial school of thought which argues that only by leaving the euro and devaluing the currency can Greece ever hope to get its finances back into balance. The problem there, of course, is that much of the residual debt will be denominated in euros, which means that debt will spiral, leading to an inevitable default, possibly precipitating Savouri's scenario.

Either way, it looks as if the various theories are close to being tested, as Greece once again is teetering on the edge of a catastrophic bankruptcy. This is all about the potential failure of a complex "bond swap" deal which is a key part of completing the second £109 billion bailout. According to the Press Association, the deal involves an unprecedented 50 percent nominal reduction on Greek sovereign bonds, costingt private investors up to €100 billion.

It has "not produced a constructive consolidated response by all parties, consistent with a voluntary exchange of Greek sovereign debt", says the Institute of International Finance (IIF), which is representing the bondholders. As a result, the representatives say they have "paused for reflection", with talks not resuming until next week. As it stands, the negotiations are "very, very tense".

Thus, not two weeks into the New Year and we are on the edge of another financial precipice, awaiting with bated breath the outcome of events which could crash the global economy.

Actually, there is an element of boredom about it all. Tense or not, we can only sit, perched on the edges of our seat for so long, before the shock element wears off. Sooner or later, though, we tip over the precipice. Then we can start being shocked all over again.

COMMENT THREAD

Don't you feel proud?

2012-01-13T15:11:00.003Z

Well, whatever you say about our defence capabilities, it is interesting to see the Navy can excel at something other than giving away iPods to Iranian gunmen. One feels so proud, does one not?

Be careful how you answer.

COMMENT THREAD

There's no place like Nome

2012-01-13T11:06:00.000Z

After all the drama, the Russian tanker Renda is reported to be a mere six miles from Nome. Coast Guard official Adam De Rocher says the ship reached the area early Friday but was waiting until daylight before advancing further. Daylight doesn't come to that part of Alaska until 11:30 a.m. local time.

De Rocher says crews are waiting for light because it will be safer going through the ice and they will have a better idea of where to anchor to start unloading fuel. The Renda does not need to enter the port to unload, being equipped with a mile-length hose so that it can stand-off an ice-choked harbour to make deliveries.

Whether the tanker intends then to make an immediate return journey, or lay up for the remainder of the ice season has not been disclosed. Not a great deal of sense could be gained from the crew, other than a cheery rendition of "Nome sweet Nome".

COMMENT THREAD

Call me (not)

2012-01-13T10:01:00.003Z

The Government is unlawfully using late-payment penalty fines against tens of thousands of small firms who do not file their tax returns on time as a "cash-generating scheme" for the Exchequer, reports the Independent.

And John Williams, the man who took the issue to court, said dealing with the Revenue had become "very much worse". "In the past you had tax inspectors who had the power to look at a case and make a reasonable and fair decision. But now you're left dealing with call centres where nobody takes ownership of an issue".

Why are we not surprised?

COMMENT THREAD

So sad

2012-01-13T09:54:00.001Z

Worldwide, renewable-energy companies are reeling from overcapacity and plunging prices caused by an explosion in manufacturing and competition from low-cost producers in China and other countries. Some big US and European solar companies have gone bankrupt, with more failures expected.

The tears do flow.

COMMENT THREAD

Pragmatic politics?

2012-01-13T00:02:00.000Z

You have to smile. One minute, the EU is breathing hellfire and fury, threatening to do such things to Iran … and just a few days later it does this (above).

Here we have a foreign policy initiative that is supposed to be sending a political signal to Iran and then, because the measures would inconvenience Greece, Italy and Spain, they are put on hold for six months. What sort of signal does that send to Iran?

That said, anyone who anticipated this move could have made a great deal of money. Merely on the rumours that the EU was going to take this action, oil prices dropped below the $100-per-barrel mark or the first time this year. On the New York market, benchmark crude plunged from $101 a barrel to $99 in just eight minutes.

But it doesn't even stop there. Not only is there to be a delay in mounting the embargo, there is also likely to include an exemption for Italy, so crude can be sold to pay off debts to Rome-based Eni SpA (ENI), Italy’s largest oil company.

At any time, it is more than a little difficult to take the EU's foreign policy ambitions seriously. It just got even more difficult.

COMMENT THREAD

A pathetic inadequacy

2012-01-12T10:16:00.009Z

In marked contrast to the Okhotsk Sea drama of last year, which the western media virtually ignored, the Daily Wail is crawling all over the Bering Sea drama which we reported yesterday.

Unaware of last year's background, when the Russians were facing far greater challenges, in terms of the size of the ships stranded, the number, the weather conditions and the thickness of the ice, the Wail is taking the US coastguard spin and bigging up the "feat" when in fact, what we actually have is a demonstration of the pathetic inadequacy of the US icebreaking capability.

That much was rehearsed by the Alaska Dispatch back in October, when it warned of an icebreaker shortage, noting that two of America's three heavy-duty icebreakers – the 1970s-era Polar Sea and the Polar Star – were sidelined in Seattle after years of repairs to keep them going.

It then noted that the 12-year-old Healy was the only working icebreaker in the U.S. Coast Guard fleet. While the Healy boasts first-rate on board scientific labs, the paper said, "it's only able to negotiate through thin ice".

Thus we have chickens coming home to roost. After years of warmist propaganda, Alaska is suffering a ferocious winter, and the US government has been caught out, totally unprepared to deal with the conditions.

That notwithstanding, ice thickness is reported at only 2.5 feet – compared with 20ft hummocks in the Okhtotsk Sea last year. The challenge facing the Healy is therefore relatively modest. Yet the latest report from the Alaska Dispatch has the icebreaker and the Russian tanker Renda losing 4-5 miles of ground drifting south with the ice pack last night, leaving the vessels 100 miles south of Nome.

Yesterday was a "Logistics Day" and Healy was not as focused on icebreaking, rather on safely deploying their on-board helicopter. The helicopter arrived into Nome about 12:30 p.m. to fly out a consultant for Vitus Marine out to the scene. The consultant is retired Coast Guard Admiral Jeff Garrett with extensive ice-breaking experience. With that, little progress was expected.

Back in October last, Alaska Senator. Mark Begich on introduced legislation to address the US shortage of icebreakers by requiring the Coast Guard to operate at least two heavy-duty icebreakers and boosting the Coast Guard presence in Alaska.

Not referred to was the lack of the close-coupled towing capability, for which the Russians (and the Finns and Swedes) are famous. For want of this, the ignorant Wail, reiterating the US Coast Guard spin, tells us that maneuvering (sic) is now a problem.

The tanker must stay close enough to its Coast Guard escort [so that] that the lanes through the ice [do not] freeze back over. That distance, says the paper, puts the two vessels at risk of slamming into each other – which is exactly why the close-coupled tow was developed - see below, with the Bereg Nadezhdy refrigerator vessel under tow in the Okhotsk Sea. (Below that is the Oden - link to YouTube film - doing the honours in the Gulf of Bothnia.)

Overall then, what comes over is not only the pathetic inadequacy of the US Coast Guard, but the similar inadequacy of the general media when it comes to telling the full story and getting to the real issues. And, as always, what is not reported is more interesting than what is actually on offer.

But, as long as people only read the MSM, they will never know.

COMMENT THREAD

A failure of regulation

2012-01-12T00:02:00.004Z

In an interesting twist to the ongoing "breast implants" drama, the BBC reports that the Harley Medical Group, which fitted more PIP breast implants than any other UK cosmetic surgery firm, says it will not replace them free of charge. It claims that replacing the banned implants would put the company out of business.

On the other hand, the government says private clinics which fitted implants have a "moral duty" to remove them, a stance which is disputed by Mel Braham, chairman of the Harley Medical Group.

He says the government must accept "moral responsibility" for replacing the PIP implants. "We're only sitting here today because the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), their own regulatory authority, has approved these implants and obviously hasn't done their proper checking".

He adds: "We're an innocent victim like everyone else, we're attempting to do our best for our patients", then asserting: "We can't take on this whole thing on our own, especially when it wasn't our fault".

Braham is not on his own. Nigel Robertson, the head of the cosmetic surgery firm Transform, says: "Private sector providers with large volumes of patients do not have the resources to ensure the removal and reaugmentation of all PIP implants free of charge".

He then declares that the government plans are "unworkable" and again blamed "a catastrophic failure of the regulation" by the MHRA.

And these two men are right to pin the blame on a regulatory failure. But the failure goes much further than the MHRA. It strikes at the very heart of the regulatory system which is wholly a creature of the European Union.

At the front end, however, the MHRA describes itself as "the government agency responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe" and tells us that it keeps watch over medicines and devices, and takes " any necessary action to protect the public promptly if there is a problem".

The MHRA itself exercises control through detailed legislation, which currently includes four sets of Medical Device Regulations. These, though, simply implement EU Medical Devices Directives and amendments, specifically the Council Directive 93/42/EEC of 14 June 1993 concerning medical devices. This has been amended many times with a consolidated version also available, the latest amendments coming into force in the UK in March 2010.

The central part of the legislation - part of the Single Market corpus - is a system of prohibition from marketing unless the product (or "device") conforms with detailed technical standards, with assured manufacturing and quality control measures in place, subject to ongoing inspections and approval by the regulatory authorities. If all conditions are met, the device is awarded a CE mark, which acts as a marketing authorisation.

As regards breast implants, these are covered by the Directive, the applicable standard being EN ISO 14607:2009 which refers to "Non-active surgical implants - Mammary implants". The particular requirements are set out in ISO 14607:2007.

The trouble is that these particular implants were manufactured in France and therefore came under the control of the French authorities. They actually shut the firm down last year, but not before 40,000 British women had been fitted with the implants.

Herein lies the problem. The British agency, ostensibly responsible for maintaining standards in the UK, is also obliged under EU law to permit the import and marketing of any device which bears a CE mark, even though it has no direct jurisdiction over the manufacturer.

Furthermore, unless it has direct evidence to suggest that there might be something wrong, the MHRA is not even allowed to carry out its own tests to ensure that imported products bearing the CE mark conform with the required standards.

Thus, the actual failure rests with the French authorities, who approved a substandard product, and allowed as many as 300,000 to be sold. But the ultimate failure rests with EU legislation which has created a system which is beyond the control of the British authorities, and enables substandard products to be marketed in the UK, with no domestic checks.

Bizarrely though, health secretary Andrew Lansley cannot admit to what amounts to the failure of the Single Market, so beloved of Tory politicians and the Dear Leader. "Every provider has a responsibility to put things right," he says, without mentioning the EU. He then adds: It is not fair for the taxpayer to foot the bill and that if the NHS was forced to remove an implant "the government would pursue private clinics to seek recovery of our costs".

Certainly, it would be unfair for the taxpayer to foot the bill, but Lansley needs to focus on where the blame really lies – first in Paris with the French government, and then in Brussels, which has foisted us with a dangerous and unworkable system.

Lansley has announced a review of how the situation emerged in the UK: "The blame for what happened lies with PIP, but this review will enable us to learn lessons to improve future regulatory effectiveness," he says. But he has no powers in this matter, and nor can his remit extend to looking at the French failures.

The competence rests with the French government and the EU commission, and his only remedy is to go cap in hand to Brussels to beg for improvements, the current code being: "We will be working closely with other health departments and regulators in Europe to consider whether there are wider implications for the regulation of implants and other medical devices".

The worst of it is that there are no regulatory changes that can be made that will improve the situation. Back in July 2004, we made the point that drug companies (and by inference, device manufacturers and surgical users), as a rule, actually favour tight regulation. The "market authorisation" (and CE marking) effectively insulates producers from claims by users who have been harmed by their products – as anyone who has tried to sue a drug company will readily attest.

And so it is today. Without legislative intervention, Common Law "duty of care" provisions would apply and every affected woman would be entitled to a remedy from her supplier (the fitting clinic).

But all we get from this complex web of EU law is an egregious failure which blurs responsibility and makes it more difficult for those affected to gain a speedy resolution - enabling the likes of the Harley Medical Group (rightly) to duck the blame.

Yet this is another of those wonderful benefits of our membership of the EU – and another reason why we should leave.

COMMENT THREAD

A provisional victory?

2012-01-11T17:52:00.001Z

In the latest draft of the intergovernmental treaty, this version of Article 1:

By this Treaty, the Contracting Parties, as Member States of the European Union, agree on a "fiscal compact" and on a stronger coordination of economic policies, involving an enhanced governance to foster fiscal discipline and deeper integration in the internal market as well as stronger growth, enhanced competitiveness and social cohesion.

… becomes this:

By this Treaty, the Contracting Parties agree, as Member States of the European Union, to strengthen the economic pillar of the Economic and Monetary Union by adopting a set of rules intended to foster budgetary discipline through a fiscal compact, to strengthen the coordination of economic policies and to improve the governance of the euro area, thereby supporting the achievement of the European Union's objectives for sustainable growth and employment.

And this, we are told is a "provisional victory" for The Boy. God help us if he is ever defeated.

COMMENT THREAD

Doing it differently

2012-01-11T17:07:00.003Z

According to a report - reviewed by the Daily Wail - entitled Criminality's Grip on Business, the various Mafia groups across Italy make a profit of around £116 billion a year.

Extortion and intimidation is used to extract millions from shopkeepers, restaurants, cinemas, construction companies and thousands of other businesses as the godfathers spread their criminal enterprises across the whole of the country.

However, there is no cause of any moral superiority on our part. We just do it differently here, with our quango queens, local council CEOs, police bosses and our over-paid bank chiefs with their bonus culture.

The difference is that we have legalised extortion and intimidation, so that the council chiefs on their £250k "packages" can send out their bully-boy bailiffs, and thugs in blue, to scoop up the goodies without having to get their hands dirty.

At least in Italy, there is some – albeit slender – hope that the authorities might get to grips with the Mafia. In the UK, the authorities are the Mafia.

COMMENT THREAD

This snow is not happening

2012-01-11T15:33:00.001Z

Peter Hardy in the Failygraph reports that, shortly after 7am on December 16, the pisteur charged with measuring the snowfall at the permanent weather station just above Courchevel 1850 shook his head in astonishment. Then he crouched down on the edge of the piste to check and recheck the figures.

"It couldn't be true, but it was", Hardy writes. "In just 10 pre-Christmas days more snow had fallen in the Trois Vallées than during the whole of last season. At other resorts across the Alps an avalanche of similar records has since tumbled – and still the snow has continued to fall in prodigious quantities".

But, of course, it can't be true. On 21 May 2008, the same Failygraph reported on a study of snowfall spanning 60 years, which had indicated that the Alps's entire winter sports industry could grind to a halt through lack of snow.

The study, reported in the New Scientist magazine found a dramatic "step-like" drop in snowfall at the end of the 1980s which has never recovered. The average number of snow days over the last 20 winters was lower than at any time since records began more than 100 years ago.

"In some years the amount that fell was 60 percent lower than was typical in the early 1980s", said Christoph Marty, from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, who analysed the records. "I don't believe we will see the kind of snow conditions we have experienced in past decades," he added.

And how can a scientist from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research be wrong? Our modern-day the pisteur must be dreaming. This is a collective delusion.

COMMENT THREAD

The perils of referendums

2012-01-11T12:08:00.002Z

It is easy to be suspicious of the sudden rush of publicity over the timing of a referendum on Scottish independence, especially as the basis of the argument seems thin.

Given how reluctant The Boy is to have a referendum on EU issues, his enthusiasm for referendums on other subject and his keenness to have an early referendum on this issue, one wonders whether this is, in part, a diversionary tactic to keep the media and the voters entertained and preoccupied - and away from more sensitive issues.

What does come over, however, is that all parties to the current dispute appear to think timing is important, underlining the fragility of ad hoc referendums as a tool of direct democracy.

As long as the politicians have control of the process and are able to decide whether a referendum is held on any particular issue, the timing of a vote and the question(s) to be asked, the people are not really in control. The whole process is far too easily manipulated.

On the subject of Scottish independence, there is an element here of bald men fighting over a comb. Increasingly, the "big decisions" are taken by the EU, and that will remain the case even if Scotland does break away.

Thus, the choice for the Scots is whether they are ruled on local matters by London or Edinburgh, when for many the preference is neither. Salmond does not really speak for Scotland, and the fate of the Union is far too important to be left to the machinations of this self-serving politician.

On the other hand, if the Scots really do want full independence, then it is in our interests to see an orderly transition, if for no other reason than we can then have a guilt-free gloat as we cut off their £26 billion annual subsidy, and watch their lights go out as Salmond's windmills fail to perform.

For the time being though, we the people assume our traditional posture as spectators, while the politicians play their games, deciding on when to allow the Scottish people their bit-part to endorse what has already been decided for them.

Whichever way the charade goes though, it should not be confused with democracy.

COMMENT THREAD

A mindset conspiracy

2012-01-11T00:02:00.003Z

With the formal approval for HS2 high-speed rail scheme in the bag, we can now look forward to another of those grandiose schemes, so beloved of politicians, this one aimed at spending £32.7 billion by 2026, to have 1,200 ft-long trains capable of holding 1,100 passengers, whisking them on a 140-mile route from London to Birmingham in just 45 minutes.

However, we are also informed that, once the network is complete, a trip from Birmingham to Paris will take just over three hours, compared with four at present. And with extensions further north, a direct train service from Leeds and Manchester to Paris will then take three and a half hours – a saving of one hour. This much improved access to the continental rail system will be possible, according to the Failygraph:

… thanks to the decision to include a direct link between the new high speed line and the existing track from London to the Channel Tunnel in the first phase of the project, which was the biggest surprise in the Transport Secretary's announcement.

Immediately, the finely tuned nasal apparatus detects a highly odiferous rodent, one picked up in November by Witterings from Witney, which goes under the name of the EU's Trans-European Network (TEN). Through this scheme, says WfW, the United Kingdom is being integrated within the European Union state in ways that are not publicised.

The man is right in one sense. We are being integrated within the EU, but there is no secret about it. The TEN has been a key part of EU policy, since the scheme was presented by Jacques Delors – then EU commission president - to the European Council in Brussels on 11-12 December 1993.

Delors was concerned to present a big idea to cure "Europe's structural unemployment" and, at the same time to demonstrate the supposed benefits of "Community action".

The "big idea" he presented to the Council was a massive scheme of public works which he equated to the "New Deal", a scheme to build the "trans-European infrastructure", interconnecting energy transmission systems and a series of cross-border road and rail projects, of which high-speed trains were a major part.

Originally expected to cost about £260 billion, the core idea was to provide a massive boost in employment, but there was no element of compulsion. The EU commission could only provide "guidelines" and help co-ordinate the plans of individual member states, using the budget to part-finance some of the schemes in the less-developed areas.

Even then, the EU was not alone. So gargantuan was the scheme that even the United Nations got involved through UNECE, which produced its own Master Plan. However, it was also absorbed into the Lisbon Strategy and plays an equally central role in the attainment of the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, both of which the UK fully supports.

Thus it is that the UK has "volunteered" to spend huge amounts on completing the British end of the TEN, attracting the warm approval of the "colleagues", but initiated primarily because the political classes all have similar thought processes, and have agreed to act together.

This I advanced as the "mindset conspiracy", arguing that you could take individuals from the political classes across Europe, separate them and place them on their own desert islands. But, give them the same inputs and, entirely separately, they would make exactly the same decisions. There is no conspiracy as such, but the effect is the same.

Nevertheless, once a member state decides to provide a facility, compulsion does kick in, through Council Directive 96/48/EC (as amended). This, together with other instruments, requires interconnection and interoperability of national networks as well as access to such networks.

If there was any surprise in the Transport Secretary's announcement that the scheme should be linked to the European network, there should not have been. The moment the administration had decided to go ahead with HS2, a connection would have been mandatory.

The scheme itself, though, is a national own goal, and underlines the problem we have with withdrawing from the EU. You can take Britain out of the EU, but it is not so easy taking the EU out of the British government. The minds of the "colleagues" and our politicians and civil servants are so perfectly attuned.

The ironic thing is that, if the government was that concerned to improve the transport system and create thousands of jobs, massive works are required to eliminate the epidemic of potholes, with an estimated price tag of £13bn.

But such an option – for which the hard-pressed motorists have already paid – would never fly. It lacks the glamour and the photo-opportunities afforded by HS2, and would actually do some good. This, the politicians could never allow.

COMMENT THREAD

And they think the EU is mad?

2012-01-10T19:23:00.003Z

There can be few things more insane than this. I suspect that our government would be only too pleased to take lessons though.

COMMENT THREAD

"Shrinking ice" stops tanker

2012-01-10T16:49:00.004Z

It may be relatively mild in Britain, but not so in Alaska which is suffering an "exceptionally harsh" winter with snow at crisis point in some locations.

Thick ice in the Bering Sea is also giving problems. The US coastguard's only functional icebreaker in the area, the USCGC Healy, is having difficulty getting to grips with ice up to 2.5 feet thick in the approach to the seaboard town of Nome, which is running out of diesel and gasoline.

After a ferocious November storm prevented the November delivery, the Russian tanker Renda has been despatched to deliver 1.3 million gallons of petroleum products.

Escorted by the icebreaker, the tanker was due to dock yesterday, but now no arrival date has been scheduled, with the ships about 165 miles away from the port.

Interestingly, Cmdr. Greg Tlapa, executive officer of the Healy, complains of the ice conditions changing constantly. When they reach heavier ice, he says, the path is closing between the two ships. In such cases, the Healy has to double back to relax the pressure from the surrounding ice.

The scale of the mission is unprecedented for the Coast Guard in the Arctic, Tlapa says, perhaps regretting that the US is not equipped with heavy icebreakers capable of close-coupled towing, of the type we saw a year ago in the Okhotsk Sea.

One does wonder about the National Snow & Ice Data Center, however, which is reporting that "Arctic sea ice continues to shrink", with ice extent "particularly low on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, most notably in the Barents and Kara Sea".

One really hates to think what the ice might have been like if there had been no global warming.

COMMENT THREAD

Not a happy bunny

2012-01-10T13:19:00.003Z

Your Freedom and Ours has a look at the "Ganley revival". Helen is not a happy bunny, even if she is highly amused by this peculiar man.

COMMENT: "BLAST FROM THE PAST" THREAD

Living history

2012-01-10T12:39:00.002Z

I suppose, in a sense, we should be grateful, having been offered such clear evidence of the decay of the train wreck they call the media – alongside a fine illustration of the power of the narrative.

Thus do we have the Daily Wail blathering about David Cameron's "historic veto", the Independent has Clegg calling for the EU to "bypass Cameron's veto", and the Financial Times reports him as seeing the "EU veto as 'temporary'".

Somewhat down market, the Express tells us that Clegg is plotting "to sink David Cameron EU treaty veto". Even further down the food chain, the Mirror has the Lib-dim leader mocking the veto, while The Sun has Nick Clegg the "traitor" for declaring that Britain "must back the treaty David Cameron vetoed last month".

If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious – but at least we do have that compensation of seeing the MSM getting it so spectacularly wrong. The media is devalued coin, not able even to report with accuracy the very basics of EU politics.

COMMENT THREAD

No monetary union without political union

2012-01-10T09:40:00.002Z

But ... "It is an idea that I think in the end will backfire", argues Klamer. "If you centralise this power too much, then what we will see is a lack of dynamics, a lack of flexibility as we see right now because it takes forever to make these decisions. It takes forever to get it through all these different parliaments. And then it takes even longer to implement it".

It's been said before, many times ... but it needs repeating, again and again.

COMMENT THREAD

Well, there's a surprise

2012-01-10T00:02:00.000Z

Earlier today, Nick Clegg met Liberal counterparts from other EU countries to discuss what he described as an "ambitious agenda" for economic reform in the EU which would have competitiveness at its heart … rather similar to the Merkozy rhetoric.

But somebody else was listening. "While the surrounding rhetoric was pro-EU in tone", says europlastic mastermind George Eustice, "a willingness to accept reform is an encouraging sign and we Conservatives should give him the benefit of the doubt".

Meanwhile, that self-same Nick Clegg has called for the intergovernmental treaty to be "folded into" existing EU treaties. He does not want permanent, parallel treaties "working separately from each other".

So the game plays out. The Lib-dims remain uncompromisingly pro-EU, while the Tory europlastic agenda is being used to keep them on board. There are two possibilities here … either they are trying to keep things together to avoid an early dissolution of parliament, or they want to keep the coalition intact for the 2015 election – or both.

Either way though, there is no difference in principle between the Tory and Lib-dem agenda on "Europe". A "constructive part in real reform" is the game. Euroscepticism, as in getting out of the EU, is most certain not part of that agenda – never has and never will be. And the country drifts away.

COMMENT THREAD

This is embarrassing

2012-01-09T19:15:00.002Z

Cameron and his first Cabinet of the year. This is the sort of half-assed stunt you expect from third world countries, not Her Majesty's Government.

COMMENT THREAD

Sarkozy on the rack

2012-01-09T17:26:00.003Z

The French ferry firm SeaFrance went into official liquidation today after the EU commission ruled a bailout by the French government was illegal – with about 800-1000 jobs at stake.

In four months' time the poison dwarf faces a presidential election, and this is only one disaster in what is turning out to be an industrial meltdown. Heavy job cuts are expected from a number of businesses, and with unemployment standing at a twelve-year high, this is bound to have an electoral impact.

Ironically, though, Sarkozy has been meeting Merkel in Berlin talking about the need "to boost European growth and competitiveness". Yet Merkel is not exactly helping: "We want to make clear with a combination of solid finances and growth stimulus that we are not only committed to preserving the euro but that we also want a strong, modern and competitive Europe," she says.

With this line of rhetoric, the Socialists now look electable, with Francois Hollande currently leading Sarkozy in the opinion polls. And four months is plenty of time for things to get much, much worse.

COMMENT THREAD

A blast from the past

2012-01-09T16:38:00.003Z

How interesting it is that we see Declan Ganley coming out of the woodwork again. We never did trust him, and he hardly covered himself with glory in the Lisbon campaign. But he was always a man to watch.

Mary Ellen Synon now says of him that his desire to see the member states of the European Union turn into a federal union based on the United States is just blush-making. Her piece is well worth a read in its entirety. It is too long and too detailed, and too finely written, to summarise adequately.

Booker and North and The Great Deception come out of it well though.

COMMENT THREAD

The narrative develops

2012-01-09T11:21:00.003Z

"Hero of the veto" Cameron strikes again with a second veto, according to the Daily Wail, thus firming up The Boy's credentials as a eurosceptic. On the table this time is the financial transaction tax – the so-called Tobin tax. Since this requires unanimity, The Boy is at liberty to block the measure at an EU level, applying what can correctly be called a veto.

This has always been an option – more so than demanding "protection" for the City as a quid pro quo for agreeing a treaty on fiscal union – so what we are seeing is a public relations exercise, building up The Boy with the help of his europhile media friends.

Actually, it is only the Wail which so blatant in its support for the Boy, picking up the statement made by Cameron on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, where the main media focus was on [excessive] executives' pay.

This is now conflated with a Reuters report that the French are thinking of going it alone. Presidential adviser Henri Guaino has said that there would be a decision by the end of the month, and state secretary Benoist Apparu says a bill could be put to parliament in February.

For France to go it alone does not make sense, given the international nature of the financial services industry – which could up stakes from Paris and move over the border – so this must be seen as posturing in order to strengthen the arguments for a Europe-wide tax. But, as long as the UK stands firm, this is as far as it gets, giving The Boy a welcome publicity boost.

In broader terms for the eurosceptic movement, these are dangerous times. From the "Lisbon rat" who deprived us of the chance of a referendum on the new treaty, Cameron has now reinvented himself as a born-again eurosceptic.

With the help of his friends, he is now building on a myth, the ultimate aim of which is to erode the UKIP vote. No doubt, the Tory focus is on the EU parliament elections in 2014, and then the general the following year. And from the Tory perspective, the strategy seems to be working admirably.

In the meantime, of course, nothing has changed. We see the dreadful Ashton, for instance resiling on her promise to make the EU diplomatic service a "revenue neutral" operation and demanding an extra £22 million for her budget.

In other words, nothing is changing other than the perception offered by Cameron and his friends. But perception means everything … the reality really doesn't matter.

COMMENT THREAD

That draft treaty

2012-01-09T09:27:00.003Z

DRAFT INTERNATIONAL TREATY ON A REINFORCED ECONOMIC UNION

THE CONTRACTING PARTIES ...

CONSCIOUS of the obligation of the Contracting Parties, as Member States of the European Union, to regard their economic policies as a matter of common concern,

DESIRING to promote conditions for stronger economic growth in the European Union and, to that end, to develop ever-closer coordination of economic policies within the euro area,

BEARING IN MIND that the coordination of the economic policies of the Contracting Parties, as Member States of the European Union, is based on the objective of sound and sustainable government finances as a means of strengthening the conditions for price stability and for strong sustainable growth underpinned by financial stability, thereby supporting the achievement of the Union's objectives for sustainable growth and employment,

BEARING IN MIND that the need for governments to prevent a government deficit becoming excessive is of an essential importance to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole, and accordingly requires the introduction of specific rules to address this need, including the need to take necessary corrective action,

CONSCIOUS of the need to ensure that their deficits remain below 3% of their gross domestic product at market prices and that government debt is below, or sufficiently declining towards, 60% of their gross domestic product at market prices,

RECALLING that the Contracting Parties, as Member States of the European Union, should refrain from adopting any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the Union's objectives in the framework of the economic union, notably the practice of accumulating debt outside the general government accounts,

BEARING IN MIND that the Heads of State or Government of the euro area Member States agreed on 9 December 2011 on a reinforced architecture for Economic and Monetary Union, building upon the European Treaties and facilitating the implementation of measures taken on the basis of Articles 121, 126 and 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

BEARING IN MIND that the objective of the Heads of State or Government of the euro area Member States and of other Member States of the European Union remains to incorporate the provisions of this Agreement as soon as possible into the Treaties on which the European Union is founded,

TAKING NOTE, in this context, of the intention of the European Commission to present further legislative proposals within the framework of the Union Treaties regarding a mechanism of ex ante reporting of debt issuance plans of the Member States of the European Union, a procedure of economic partnership programmes detailing structural reforms for euro area Member States in excessive deficit procedure as well as a new coordination procedure at the level of the euro area for major economic policy reform plans,

TAKING NOTE that, when reviewing and monitoring the budgetary commitments under this Agreement, the European Commission will act within the framework of its powers as provided by the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union, in particular Articles 121, 126 and 136 thereof,

NOTING in particular that, for the application of the budgetary "Balanced Budget Rule" described in Article 3 of this Agreement, this monitoring will be made through the setting up of country specific reference values and of calendars of convergence, as appropriate, for each Contracting Party,

NOTING that compliance with the obligation to transpose the "Balanced Budget Rule" into national legal systems at constitutional or equivalent level should be subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in accordance with Article 273 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

RECALLING the need to facilitate the adoption of measures under the excessive deficit procedure of the European Union for euro area Contracting Parties whose planned or actual government deficit to gross domestic product exceeds 3%, whilst strongly reinforcing the objective of that procedure, namely to encourage and, if necessary, compel the Member State concerned to reduce a deficit which might be identified,

RECALLING the need for those Contracting Parties whose government debt exceeds the 60% reference value to reduce it at an average rate of one twentieth per year as a benchmark,

RECALLING the agreement of the Heads of State or Government of the euro area Member States on 26 October 2011 to improve the governance of the euro area, including the holding of at least two Euro Summit meetings per year, as well as the endorsement of the Euro Plus Pact by the Heads of State or Government of the euro area Member States and of other Member States of the European Union on 25 March 2011,

STRESSING the importance of the Treaty establishing the European Stability Mechanism as an element of a global strategy to strengthen the Economic and Monetary Union,

HAVE AGREED UPON the following provisions,

TITLE I

PURPOSE AND SCOPE

Article 1

1. By this Treaty, the Contracting Parties, as Member States of the European Union, agree on a "fiscal compact" and on a stronger coordination of economic policies, involving an enhanced governance to foster fiscal discipline and deeper integration in the internal market as well as stronger growth, enhanced competitiveness and social cohesion.

2. The provisions of this Treaty shall apply to the Contracting Parties whose currency is the euro. They may also apply to the other Contracting Parties, under the conditions set out in Article 14.

TITLE II

CONSISTENCY AND RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LAW OF THE UNION

Article 2

1. This Treaty shall be applied by the Contracting Parties in conformity with the Treaties on
which the European Union is founded, in particular Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union,
and with European Union law.

2. The provisions of this Treaty shall apply insofar as they are compatible with the Treaties on which the Union is founded and with European Union law. They shall not encroach upon the competences of the Union to act in the area of the economic union. In accordance with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, European Union law has precedence over the provisions of this Treaty.

TITLE III

FISCAL COMPACT

Article 3

1. The Contracting Parties shall apply the following rules, in addition to and without prejudice to the obligations derived from Union Law:

a) The budgetary position of the general government shall be balanced or in surplus. The Contracting Parties may temporarily incur deficits only to take into account the budgetary impact of the economic cycle and, beyond such impact, in case of exceptional economic circumstances, or in periods of a severe economic downturn, provided that this does not endanger fiscal sustainability in medium term.

b) The rule under point a) above shall be deemed to be respected if the annual structural deficit of the general government does not exceed a country-specific reference value, that is in line with the country-specific medium-term objective referred to in Article 2(a) of Regulation(EC) No. 1466/97, as amended by Regulation (EC) No. 1175/2011, and which ensures an adequate safety margin with respect to the 3% reference value mentioned under Article 1 of the Protocol (No 12) on the excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty on European Union and to the TFEU (hereinafter 'Protocol No 12') as well as rapid progress towards fiscal sustainability, also taking into account the budgetary impact of ageing. The Contracting Parties shall ensure convergence towards their respective country-specific reference value. The country specific reference value shall not exceed 0.5% of nominal GDP.

c) Where the debt level is significantly below the 60% reference value mentioned under Article 1 of Protocol No 12, the country-specific reference value for the annual structural net deficit may take a higher value than specified under point b), but in any case no more than 1.0% of nominal GDP .

2. The rules mentioned under paragraph 1 shall be introduced in national binding provisions of a constitutional or equivalent nature. The Contracting Parties shall in particular put in place at national level and on the basis of commonly agreed principles, a correction mechanism to be triggered automatically in the event of significant deviations from the reference value or the adjustment path towards it, as specified under the law of the Union. It shall include the obligation of the Contracting Parties to implement a programme to correct the deviations over a defined period of time. It shall fully respect responsibilities of national Parliaments.

3. For the purposes of this Article, definitions set out in Article 2 of Protocol No 12 shall apply. In addition, "annual structural deficit of the general government" refers to the annual cyclically-adjusted deficit net of one-off and temporary measures.

(exit exceptional circumstances definition)

Article 4

When the ratio of their general government debt to gross domestic product exceeds the 60% reference value mentioned under Article 1 of Protocol No 12, the Contracting Parties shall reduce it at an average rate of one twentieth per year as a benchmark, as provided for in Article 2(1a) of Regulation (EC) No. 1467/97 as amended by Regulation (EC) No. 1177/2011.

Article 5

1. The Contracting Parties that are subject to an excessive deficit procedure under the Union Treaties shall put in place a budgetary and economic partnership programme including a detailed description of the structural reforms necessary to ensure an effectively durable correction of their excessive deficits. The content and format of these programmes shall be defined in the law of the Union. They shall be submitted to the European Commission and the Council for endorsement.

2. The implementation of the programme, and the yearly budgetary plans consistent with it, will be monitored by the Commission and by the Council.

Article 6

The Contracting Parties shall coordinate their national debt issuance. For that purpose, they shall report ex-ante on their national debt issuance plans to the European Commission and to the Council.

Article 7

While fully respecting the procedural requirements of the Union Treaties, the Contracting Parties whose currency is the euro undertake to support the proposals or recommendations put forward by the European Commission where a Member State whose currency is the euro is recognised by the European Commission to be in breach of the deficit or debt criterion in the framework of an excessive deficit procedure, unless a qualified majority of them is of another view. A qualified majority shall be defined by analogy with Article 238(3)(a) TFEU and with Article 3 of Protocol N°36 to the EU Treaties on transitional provisions and without taking into account the position of the Contracting Party concerned.

Article 8

Any Contracting Party which considers that another Contracting Party has failed to comply with Title III may bring the matter before the Court of Justice of the European Union. The European Commission may, on behalf of Contracting Parties, bring an action for an alleged infringement of Title III before the Court of Justice of the European Union. The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union shall be binding on the parties in the procedure, which shall take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment within a period to be decided by said Court. The implementation of the rules put in place by the Contracting Parties to comply with Article 3(2) will be subject to the review of the national Courts of the Contracting Parties.

TITLE IV

ECONOMIC COORDINATION

Article 9

Building upon the economic policy coordination as defined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Contracting Parties undertake to work jointly towards an economic policy fostering the smooth functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union and economic growth through enhanced convergence and competitiveness. In this context, particular attention shall be paid to all developments which, if allowed to persist, might threaten stability, competitiveness and future growth and job creation. To this aim, they will take all necessary actions, including through the Euro Plus Pact.

Article 10

In accordance with the procedural requirements of the Union Treaties, the Contracting Parties undertake to make recourse, whenever appropriate and necessary, to measures specific to those Member States whose currency is the euro as provided for in article 136 TFEU and to the enhanced cooperation on matters that are essential for the smooth functioning of the euro area, without undermining the internal market.

Article 11

With a view to benchmarking best practices, the Contracting Parties ensure that all major economic policy reforms that they plan to undertake will be discussed ex-ante and, where appropriate, coordinated among themselves. This coordination shall involve the institutions of the European Union as required by the law of the Union.

exit art12, devient art. 13 idem

TITLE V

GOVERNANCE

Article 12

1. The Heads of State or Government of the Contracting Parties whose currency is the euro, (hereinafter "the euro area Heads of State or Government"), the president of the European Commission, the president of the Euro Group and the Commissioner responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs shall meet informally in Euro Summit meetings. The President of the European Central Bank shall be invited to take part in such meetings. The President of the Euro Summit shall be appointed by the euro area Heads of State or Government by simple majority at the same time the European Council elects its President and for the same term of office.

2. Euro Summit meetings shall take place, when necessary, and at least twice a year, to discuss questions related to the specific responsibilities those Member States share with regard to the single currency, other issues concerning the governance of the euro area and the rules that apply to it, and in particular strategic orientations for the conduct of economic policies and for improved competitiveness and increased convergence in the euro area.

3. Euro Summit meetings shall be prepared by the President of the Euro Summit, in close cooperation with the President of the European Commission, and by the Euro Group. The follow-up to the meetings shall be ensured in the same manner.

4. The President of the Euro Summit shall keep the other Member States of the European Union closely informed of the preparation and outcome of the Euro Summit meetings. The President will also inform the European Parliament of the outcome of the Euro Summit meetings.

Article 13

Representatives of the competent Committees within the Parliaments of the Contracting Parties will be invited to meet regularly to discuss in particular the conduct of economic and budgetary policies, in close association with representatives of the relevant Committee of the European Parliament.

TITLE VI

GENERAL AND FINAL PROVISIONS

Article 14

1. This Treaty shall be ratified by the Contracting Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union.

2. This Treaty shall enter into force on the first day of the month following the deposit of the fifteenth instrument of ratification by a Contracting Party whose currency is the euro.

3. This Treaty shall apply as from the day of entry into force amongst the Contracting Parties whose currency is the euro and which have ratified it. It shall apply to the other Contracting Parties whose currency is the euro as from the first day of the month following the deposit of their respective instrument of ratification.

4. By derogation to Paragraph 3, Title V of this Treaty shall apply to all Contracting Parties whose currency is the euro as from the date of the entry into force of the Treaty.

5. This Treaty shall apply to the Contracting Parties with a derogation as defined in Article 139(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, or with an exemption as defined in Protocol No 16 on certain provisions related to Denmark annexed to the Union Treaties, which have ratified it, as from the day when the decision abrogating that derogation or exemption takes effect, unless the Contracting Party concerned declares its intention to be bound at an earlier date by all or part of the provisions in Titles III and IV of this Treaty.

6. Within five years at most following the entry into force of this Treaty, on the basis of an assessment of the experience with its implementation, an initiative shall be launched, in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty on the European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, with the aim of incorporating the substance of this Treaty into the legal framework of the European Union.

COMMENT THREAD

Fantasy politics

2012-01-09T00:21:00.003Z

It is hard enough following real politics, but we are now residing in a surreal new world where rival politicians are fighting over things that don't even exist.

First there was the non-existent EU veto, but now we have Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander complaining that Cameron's pledges on the EU were "rapidly unravelling" after "a draft EU agreement suggested Britain could be left out of decisions affecting the single market".

This cropped up a few days ago when Cameron pledged to keep single market issues out of the new treaty.

But such pledges are about as relevant as would be a government promise to keep wild elephants out of Lewisham High Street. As there are no wild elephants in the darkest reaches of London, so there is no mention of the single market in the new treaty – as even a basic search will show (see also above - this can be searched on the Chrome browser - use "ctrl F").

The implications of this new development, though, are profound. There can now be no limits to the issues over which our politicians can fight, and score off each other. We could, for instance, have Mr Cameron refusing to offer equal rights to Martian settlers, or promising to cut subsidies for the Brazabon airliner.

Come to think of it, so much fun could be had from fantasy politics that we could park the real version in Brussels and allow our politicians free rein on any subject that takes their fancy. Considering what use they are, this at least would introduce an element of entertainment into an otherwise moribund subject.

COMMENT THREAD

Cooking the books

2012-01-08T18:21:00.002Z

In the 2010 Queen's speech, 46 separate measures were announced. By contrast, the EU in its 2012 equivalent set out 129 initiatives – a measure of how much power has shifted from Westminster to Brussels.

The EU's plans for 2012 were duly noted by Booker in the second part of his column, the contrast triggering a search of the government archives. The intention was to show how the focus of legislation has changed, from Acts of Parliament to statutory instruments (SIs), implementing Brussels legislation.

Booker used regularly to report on the rising numbers of SIs. Just over 20 years ago they began to grow inexorably, from an average of 2,600 a year in the 1980s to well over 3,000 a year in the 1990s and more than 4,000 a year in the Blair era. This coincided with a dramatic drop in the number of Acts of Parliament, reflecting just how much of our law was coming from the EU.

To our surprise, however, these developments are no longer reflected in government statistics. In the year 1992, for instance, when we recorded 3,355-plus SIs being adopted, the government site only lists 1,923. This drastic downwards revision also applies to Act of Parliament.

Puzzled, Booker asked for an explanation of a change which has made it impossible to make historical comparisons. He ended up talking to National Archives who say that the figures now show only "those SIs which are published on our website" – so that many of those formerly included in the totals for earlier years have vanished.

They concede that this change in methodology should perhaps have been explained, and that a statement to this effect may be added to their website. But Booker also pointed out, as an unfortunate consequence of the change, that the new figures seem to show the numbers of SIs issued in 2010 and 2011 as very much higher than those for any years previously.

This gives the "red-tape czar", Oliver Letwin, something of a problem. Despite his efforts to reduce regulation, the way the statistics are now presented, it looks as if the coalition is producing a record amount of legislation. What was that about "when you first practice to deceive"?

COMMENT THREAD

The theatre continues

2012-01-08T12:29:00.007Z

The inability of the MSM correctly to report on European Union affairs is manifest in an article today in the Sunday Express (pictured above) which has europhile analyst Peter Ludlow warning that:

If Cameron is stupid enough to try and block the use of the institutions it would be a very, very dramatic development which could only have grave consequences in terms of Britain's own interests.

Even though Ludlow then goes on to record that "all the messages" he is getting are that Cameron will not do this, this does not stop the newspaper delivering its thoroughly misleading headline. This refers not just to blocking the use of EU institutions, but to the treaty as a whole. We know he cannot do that.

Of greater interest though is Ludlow questioning the description of Cameron's "veto". He says: "He didn't veto, the negotiations were terminated by his partners who could see he had no negotiating position".

This is about right, but it glides past the Express reporter, with the observation tacked on to the end of the piece – even though it makes a nonsense of the whole article.

It also makes a complete nonsense of Farage's most recent comments. Rather bizarrely, he tells us:

Cameron may have used the veto once, but he is going to have to use it again and again and again … 2012 is gonna be the year when we see that actually the veto, fun though it was, isn't really worth a row of beans.

This is playing into the hands of the Cameron. It promotes the idea that he is committed to fighting a long-running battle against the "colleagues", reinforcing the "battling for Britain" meme, as he seeks platforms for talking tough.

In the meantime, we are getting the same vibes as Ludlow. The Cameron spat is carefully crafted theatre. There is going to be no serious opposition to the Merkozy initiative. But then, theatre rather than reality is the fare of the media and politicians. There is a lot more to come.

COMMENT THREAD

Read the blog

2012-01-08T09:15:00.002Z

"Military cadet forces in every school, says schools commissioner" in the Sunday Failygraph. "All secondary schools should have a military cadet force in the drive to raise standards, according to a senior Government education official". Now read the blog - Sunday, 26 August 2007, to be precise. You can also read the piece on 2 September 2006.

Of course, we are not the "great and the good" which has every word faithfully transcribed by the MSM, to fill the gaps between the adverts. But, as we wrote back in 2007, it ain't going to happen anyway. The "great and the good" would prefer to wail and wring their hands, speaking from that profound state of ignorance that only the highly educated seem to be able to manage.

COMMENT THREAD

Marking their cards

2012-01-08T00:02:00.000Z

In this week's column, Booker takes on board the administration's "Carbon Plan" and dissects it in his usual clinical style. He takes a different line from my piece, looking at the detail rather than the political aspects. And even at this level, there is no sense to be made of it. The report, writes Booker, "is a tissue of unproved assumptions and wishful thinking".

That is indeed the case and, in addition to his own analysis, Booker cites Tim Worstall, who also had a go at the report. With that, But so transparent are the defects, and so bald and unrealistic are the assumptions, that it is hardly credible that anyone could put their name to the report without squirming in embarrassment.

Yet, not only has Huhne signed it, it bears the signatures of Clegg and Cameron, all three shamelessly giving their endorsement to the report.

Therein lies our problem. These people have no idea what they are endorsing – and they do not care. They have an agenda. This report supports it and that is all they need to know. They have the power and we do not. That they have no legitimacy is neither here nor there.

It might be different if the media gave these three clowns a hard time, but they do not. It would certainly help if MPs held a debate and criticised the report, but they have not, and have no intention of so doing. Thus it is left to Booker to make the running. His is an important voice but, from the ghetto of the Sunday Telegraph, it cannot prevail. It is not enough to make the difference.

But at least it is on the record. We have a public statement, one which points out the fatuity of a report on which the administration intends to rely, and which will be the prelude to the waste of billions and the eventual collapse of our electricity supply system.

That may not be enough, but at least it is something. When we come calling on those who should have known better, those who could have done something and didn't, they cannot say they didn't know or didn't have the opportunity to find out. It is out in the open. Booker has marked their cards.

COMMENT THREAD

Confusing the issues

2012-01-07T13:33:00.005Z

In a bid to preserve The Boy's new-found credentials as a "eurosceptic", the modern-day successor to the European Movement has been hard at work. This is Open Europe, which has managed to place material with three newspapers, predictably the Daily Mail, the Failygraph and the Financial Times.

The headline issue, as presented by ~~The European Movement~~ Open Europe, is an attempt by the "colleagues" to include single market and other measures in the latest draft of the intergovernmental treaty, which will require the use of EU institutions, building on an initiative started by Cameron himself.

In fact, there is very little difference between this latest version and the first draft, which we reported on 17 December, then remarking that it was as close to being an EU treaty as it could be, without actually being one.

In effect, this puts two fingers up to Cameron, and makes a complete mockery of any pretensions that he might be "standing up for Britain" and preventing the "colleagues" from taking their intended action.

Hence, with the safe distance of a month – long enough for memories to have blurred - ~~The European Movement~~ Open Europe is setting up The Boy as the champion in what it is positioning as a second round of the fight.

Thus, we are seeing the focus being carefully shifted to questions as to whether The Boy will "try to block the use of the EU institutions in implementing and enforcing the fiscal pact", or (so we are told), whether he will "merely insist on the EU institutions not being used for single market issues".

Nothing of that latter statement actually makes sense, and there is no mention of the single market in the draft treaty, but the confusion introduced serves to preserve the myth of the veto and keep attention away from the fact that nothing much has changed since the European Council meeting in December.

One thing newly added to the draft treaty though is a passage which firms up on the declared intent of the "colleagues" to incorporate the new treaty provisions "into the treaties of the Union as soon as possible". A time scale of five years from the entry into force of the treaty has now been specified.

Cleverly, having not covered the original statement in any detail, and the first draft of the treaty at all, ~~The European Movement~~ Open Europe can present this to its media clients as something new and different, setting The Boy up as the "hero of the veto", protecting his turf.

Thus does the British perception of EU politics deteriorate into utter fantasy, with the non-existent veto now being "protected" in a contest which only exist in the imaginations of the europlastics, determined to keep the withdrawal agenda out of the headlines.

Nevertheless, by confusing the issues, Cameron's role as defender has been defined, as he girds his loins for battles to come. And so does the fantasy continue.

COMMENT THREAD

Mother nature on our side

2012-01-06T23:15:00.001Z

Following the story we did on the Super Tucano three days ago, I am reminded of just how long ago it was that when we were pursuing the issue in parliament. Notably, it got a mention on 20 April 2009 when Ann Winterton raised it in a procurement debate. She said:

I have consistently argued that we should use aircraft such as the Super Tucano two-seater light attack aircraft … It could assist in the creation of an Afghan air force. If such a force is not founded and developed, the international military force will be required to continue to give air cover virtually for ever. It is interesting to note that the United States has recently leased two such aircraft and they will be used in Afghanistan. It will also be interesting to see whether those aircraft will be procured directly when they have proved to be successful.

The ultimate logic, which we explored on the Defence of the Realm blog, was that we should have been concentrating on building up the Afghan national capability, rather than have the RAF playing with their (extremely expensive) toys.

That, effectively, is what the Americans are at last attempting to do, which suggests that our arguments had some merit. But, even if we are completely right, that is not enough. And this is a lesson that carries right through government. Custodians of public money generally tend to pursue their own interests, rather that what is right.

As yet, we have not worked out any way of changing that. Whether it is getting the RAF to buy Tucano bombers, trying to stop the government supporting useless wind turbines, or convincing it to pull us out of the EU, might rather than right prevails.

This can be rather depressing. It would be nice to think that it is possible to expend energy to effect, and that ultimately our efforts can succeed. Without being pessimistic, the record is not good enough, and we have to change that. But at least it is not all bad news. Mother nature is helping out. And with her on our side, we cannot lose.

COMMENT THREAD

Who needs billionaires?

2012-01-06T17:29:00.002Z

Reuters has George Soros (above) telling us all that the collapse of the euro and break-up of the European Union "would have catastrophic consequences for the global financial system".

His quote was actually in the Business Line newspaper, delivered while he was in the south Indian city of Hyderabad. "Today", he says, "the euro is potentially endangering the political cohesion of the European Union".

He adds: "If the common currency were to break down, it will lead to the break up of the European Union itself. And this will be catastrophic not only for Europe but also for the global financial system".

Soros thinks that the euro crsis is "more serious and more threatening than the crash of 2008". In his view, some euro countries may have to take more austerity measures because of the imbalances between the "creditor and the debtor countries".

"Unfortunately, they haven't yet solved the acute financial crisis and that is causing the situation to deteriorate...and (it) is not at all clear it will have a solution," he concludes.

Thus do we see once again the evidence that being a billionaire doesn't necessarily make you right. He may have got lucky on the ERM, but austerity measures are not the answer. The break-up of the single currency is. And it most certainly will cause problems … but not breaking up will be even worse.

COMMENT THREAD

The eurozone isn't working

2012-01-06T14:57:00.005Z

Unemployment in the eurozone has soared to a record 16.4 million people, up 587,000 on the same month in 2010. This is via The Guardian, which is recording a level of unemployment which represents almost the entire population of Holland.

Predictably, Greece is one of the countries worst hit, with 18.8 percent of its workforce registered as unemployed, up from 13.3 percent the same time last year. Spain, though, now has the highest unemployment rate in Europe, at 22.9 percent.

Overall, the unemployment rate has risen only slightly over the past 12 months, to 10.3 percent, but the big difference is in expectation. Fewer in the PIIGS now are under any illusions that work is going to come their way in a hurry.

Also predictable is the wide divergences within the eurozone. Germany actually delivered a slight fall in unemployment (0.1 percent), bringing in a mere 5.5 percent, less than a quarter enjoyed by the Greeks and its lowest level since reunification.

By way of contrast though, the United States is claiming to have added 200,000 jobs to its economy in December, bringing its notional unemployment down to 8.5 percent. Although some may dispute the figures (it may be a lot higher), it still puts the "colleagues" to shame.

Gone now are the pretensions of matching the economic power of the US. It is survival time.

COMMENT THREAD

Not a major surprise

2012-01-06T10:03:00.001Z

A major study purports to have found that our brains – in terms of cognitive performance, comprising memory, reasoning and comprehension skills - start deteriorating at the age of 45. This, we are told, is more than a decade earlier than had been thought.

However, the study was conducted among Whitehall civil servants over a decade, finding that among those aged 45-49 at the start there was a 3.6 percent decline in mental reasoning in both sexes over the next ten years.

Why this finding is thought to have any application to the general population is, therefore, rather puzzling. It is axiomatic that, if personnel are not already brain dead when they join the civil service, a few years' employment in that capacity will complete the task of destroying any residual brain cells.

Thus, the only surprise is that, at the ages tested, the civil servants were able to demonstrate any cognitive ability at all. It is certain rare to find any demonstrated in routine contacts with the breed.

COMMENT THREAD

Government delays kill over 500 accident victims

2012-01-06T08:11:00.001Z

Our headline sets out the story which should be told. But, instead, we are reading that a drug used to treat wounded soldiers in Afghanistan "is to be fast-tracked for use in the NHS to help the victims of road traffic accidents and violent crime".

This is from the Independent - the only newspaper so far to carry this story in its current form, and getting it completely wrong.

As far as this newspaper is concerned, we have a "good news" story, where our beneficent government is reaching out to permit NHS paramedics to be issued with supplies of the drug Tranexamic Acid (TXA – marketed as Cykloapron or Cyklo-f), which has been successfully used by the British military to treat combat wounds from which "death is imminent".

Then, just so that we are aware how much we owe this wonderful government of ours, we are told that the drug "is the first to be approved under the Government's new 'medicines innovation scheme,' designed to speed up the adoption of promising medication for use in the NHS".

Given its potential, says the newspaper, "Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, intends to make TXA the first drug to be assessed under a new scheme to promote innovative uses for drugs outside their original authorisation. The scheme will be fully running by summer".

In fact, though, this is a distortion, giving an entirely false impression of the role (and powers) of the British government, and concealing a tale of bureaucracy and lethargy which, indirectly, has caused the death of hundreds of people.

In the first instance, Tranexamic Acid is not a new drug. It has been marketed in many EU countries under the trade name Cykloapron for more than four decades, for the treatment of haemorrhage or risk of haemorrhage. It was first authorised under Directive 2001/83/EC in August 1988, which permitted EU-wide use for authorised applications.

What is important here is that contrary to the impression given by the Independent, the British government is not in a position to approve new drugs. This has to be done under EU law, and it is the European Medicines Agency which is the final approval authority.

However, where Lansley has some scope for manoeuvre. EU law permits him to extend the use of "generic medicinal product of an originator product that has been in clinical use for over ten years". In other words, his "medicines innovation scheme" – which seems to have been reported for the first time only today – exists only because the EU allows it to.

The next crucial issue here – unsaid by the Independent - is that the trials for the current use started many years ago, with them having been reported by the BBC in November 2007 (below).

This was a major international trial, called "CRASH-2", carried out in 274 hospitals in 40 countries, investigating 20,211 adult trauma patients. And the final results were reported in the Lancet in June 2010 (many months after the completion of the studies), then reported by the BBC and even the Daily Mirror.

Helpfully, the Independent now tells us that in Britain, TXA could prevent about 280 of the 1,800 deaths that occur each year as a result of bleeding after injury.

But the studies which confirmed the effectiveness of the drug for this use were completed, done and dusted in the summer of 2010 - and interim results would have been known long before that. Yet, under the aegis of Mr Lansley, the drug will only be fully in use by the NHS, nation-wide by this coming summer – two years after its beneficial effects were clinically established (and long after it had been used for the purpose in Afghanistan).

By this reckoning, the two-year delay has caused the unnecessary deaths of well over 500 people, in part attributable to the previous Labour administration, but mainly to the Cleggeron administration which has perpetuated the lethargic bureaucracy which allows people to die in the thousands, for want of rapid drug approvals.

The costs and time taken to approve new drugs is, in fact, an international scandal, made far worse by the complications of EU law. In this case, though, even where the EU graciously permits our health secretaries some discretion, the bureaucracy still moves with glacial slowness.

An alert media would, of course, be asking why it has taken two years to get a well-proven and widely used drug into use in its new, life-saving role – holding the government to account as it claims to do. Instead, we get a leaden, misleading report from one newspaper. It lets the government off the hook, while the rest of the media is silent.

Thus are we (ill) served by the Fourth Estate.

COMMENT THREAD

Nothing can go wrong

2012-01-06T00:02:00.000Z

There can be absolutely no doubt here – this has to be the most important news event of the week: the EU commission is to give "citizens", businesses and non-governmental organisations at least 12 weeks to comment on plans for new policies and legislation, compared to eight weeks previously.

Readers will be delighted to know that this will make it easier for them to get involved in EU policy-making at an early stage. And what is more, this is added to the policy of creating "smart regulation", where the commission aims at involving citizens and businesses in the legislative process "to ensure that it takes all relevant evidence and concerns into account when drafting a legislative proposal".

So there you are. Who needs democracy when you have the commission looking after your interests? How can anything go wrong?

COMMENT THREAD

Agendas come first

2012-01-05T18:41:00.001Z

A small piece of news to start the New Year has had a very small band of defence analysts and journalists intrigued. This is the winner of the light air support (LAS) competition to supply ground attack aircraft to the Afghan Air Force.

The winner was the hot favourite, the Super Tucano, of which 20 examples have been purchased for sums variously described as $355 and $950 million. The competitive Hawker Beechcraft AT-6B Texan II having been ruled out last November.

Hawker have since challenged the contract award and it is temporarily on hold, pending a Federal court ruling but, all things being equal, the Afghan Air Force will soon have this valuable addition to their striking power. Initially, however, the aircraft will be operated by the US Air Force, used to train Afghani pilots.

The implications of this purchase are profound, not only for the Afghan Air Force, but in broader terms. We have long advocated that the RAF would benefit from the capability of this flexible and effective weapons system.

In practical terms, there is very little to chose between the ground attack version of the Harrier, and this aircraft. In cash terms, however, the Tucano is about one fifth of the hourly cost, while it is a mere one ninth the cost of an Apache attack helicopter.

What is interesting, if predicable, though, is that, although this news is covered in the specialist press, it has found no space in the British MSM. Right throughout the whole debate on the merits and possible use of the Tucano, the British press has been silent – apart from Christopher Booker, of course.

For once, though, there was an opportunity to square the circle – providing a killer capability at an affordable cost. But then, neither the media, the political establishment nor the British military actually want to solve problems. Their agendas come first.

COMMENT THREAD

No respite

2012-01-05T12:46:00.002Z

As the working tempo of the New Year gathers pace, there is no respite for the euro.

The fine detail, on its own though, means very little – any more than do daily market movements. But, on balance, the direction of travel is still downwards, with the euro at its lowest level against the dollar for 15 months and French bond yields at an uncomfortably high level.

The Hungarian situation is especially interesting, with the government calling for a standby loan from the International Monetary Fund, to avoid a currency crisis of its own. This adds still more stress to an already stressed system.

The political instability generated by the Iranian situation is also fuelling the crisis, which means that gold is doing well.

However, we have yet to reach meltdown proportions, even if some pundits reckon 2012 is the year of the euro collapse. But then there is always the BBC on which to rely (above). They will keep us on the straight and narrow with their informed commentary.

COMMENT THREAD

"Pragmatic" eurosceptics

2012-01-05T06:59:00.006Z

When the europhile Independent gives pride of place to a Tory MP, lauding her as the new "Iron Lady", one might have suspicions about her.

This is Andrea Leadsom, also described as the "incoming head of Tory eurosceptics". She is a member of the "Fresh Start" group, which has the support of 120 Tory MPs including George Eustice and Foreign Secretary William Hague. She is also co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on European Reform, heavily supported by the reformist Open Europe.

As MP for South Northamptonshire, though, she is recorded as having voted strongly for more EU integration and, most recently, strongly supported The Boy's supposed use of the veto.

We are now told that, as part of the Fresh Start group, Ms Leadsom is drawing up a "shopping list" of functions that should be handed back to the UK by the European Union, set out in an alternative "White Paper" in July. They could include "control of employment laws; health and safety measures; farming and fishing; justice and crime; and structural funds for poor areas".

And, according to the Independent, this move shows that Tory MPs, "while welcoming Mr Cameron's decision to veto a new EU treaty designed to rescue the euro, will press him to go further – even though that would increase tensions with the Liberal Democrats and Britain's UK partners".

But what it does actually show is that the europlastics are running the show in the Tory party, people who have nothing in common with the ethos of the Maastricht rebels. They are running the "same old, same old" repatriation agenda, which has no realistic (or any) chance of success, but which serves to hide europhilic tendencies under a veneer of euroscepticism.

Oddly, some would have us stand alongside the Independent and support these people, on the grounds that something is better than nothing, and that the Leadsom agenda gets us closer to the final objective of leaving the European Union.

However, we see in the reformist/repatriation movement a rearguard action, designed to offer concessions to uncommitted eurosceptics, in the hope of watering down the push for withdrawal, and thereby diminishing the force of any referendum that might actually be held. There is also a strong electoral motivation. The Tories have finally woken up to the damage done by UKIP, and are seeking to claw back votes.

Nevertheless, the "RR" agenda is indistinguishable from the traditional Tory stance on the EU, which basically supports Britain's continued membership of the EU, but argues for some degree of "reform". Go back forty years and you will see exactly the same sentiments, with no better ideas being offered as to how the mythical repatriation of powers should be achieved.

Returning to this agenda is "fishing", but there is no hint of the strategy which we concluded must be followed – a declaration of unilateral withdrawal, followed by a proposal to enter negotiations on issues of mutual interest – on our terms.

And to confirm the europlastic credentials of her group, Leadsom "insists" that the vast majority of Tory MPs want to remain in the EU rather than pull out. Hers is a grouping of "pragmatic" eurosceptics which, with William Hague's support, is being advised by Foreign Office officials on which powers might be returned to the UK.

"We are looking in a very detailed way on what could be done differently," says Leadsom. "The Government is keen on that. There is no wedge between the Government and [Tory] backbenchers on this."

So there you have it. As Helen over at Your Freedom and Ours observes everybody is a eurosceptic now. But, it would appear, we must learn to call Tory europhiles "pragmatic eurosceptics".

This is a hijack in progress, so you will not see any support from this quarter. These people are not our friends. They are not our allies. They are not eurosceptics in any shape or form. They are europhiles in disguise, and form as much a barrier to EU withdrawal as their predecessors.

COMMENT THREAD