Intensely political

With two more British soldiers killed today, there is every indication that the defence debate raging in today's newspapers is about to ramp up a notch, especially as one of the reported casualties is a soldier from The Light Dragoons, who was killed by an IED. The Light Dragoons are known to operate Jackals and a recent Dragoon casualty, L/Cpl Nigel Moffet, was also killed in a Jackal.

According to The Times, however, the Light Dragoons soldier was killed by an explosion while he was on foot and the other soldier, from the Mercian Regiment, died when he was hit during a rocket-propelled grenade attack against his Scorpion (sic) armoured reconnaissance vehicle. That does not sound right – the Mercians do not operate Scorpions (which were withdrawn in 1994), while the Dragoons actually operate Scimitars. There may be a mix-up here.

Anyhow, despite the intensity of that debate in the media, as we have observed several times in the last few days, it really is quite remarkable how the political classes have opted out. For once, the MSM has its finger on the pulse but go to the British political blogosphere and you would hardly be aware of the controversy. Other matters are of more concern.

Peter Hitchens has a thing or two to say about this, and the Conservatives in particular, which rather puts contemporary party politics into perspective – hence the picture. While the Tories and their blogging claque indulge in their own obsessions, the world goes on without them.

Hitchens himself expresses his frustration about the response to Lt-Col Thorneloe's death and the use of "unsafe" Vikings, asking why it is that the Opposition has not demanded a proper debate about it. But then, as we have noted, the Tories – along with Labour and the rest of the MPs - don't "do" defence any more, along with "Europe", immigration and many other issues.

The trouble is that, in leaving the debate to the media, you get the sort of editorial we see in The Sunday Telegraph, telling us that "Frontline troops must now be a spending priority". This frames the debate in a way that neither government nor opposition politicians would prefer.

With pressure on public spending, like never before, the last thing the Tories will want when they take over the administration next year is to be confronted with the prospect of increased defence spending – and exactly the same complaints of "underfunding" that they have been flinging at Labour.

Had the Tories got their wits about them, there is plenty of evidence in the MoD of waste and miss-directed spending, sufficient for them to argue that defence effects could be achieved with little or no extra spending, and even with a modest reduction.

However, having opted out of the debate, the way is left clear for The Sunday Telegraph to argue that the purchase of the weapons and vehicles that "those serving on the front line need and demand – must not merely be maintained. It must be increased." Anything less, the paper says, "would be a criminal failure to honour the responsibility politicians have to the men and women they order into battle."

In the Observer, we see a similar line taken, with Henry Porter asserting that, "The soldiers give all, while the politicians starve them of cash". And, with The Times yesterday also equating equipment shortfalls with lack of cash, offering the strap, "Money is scarce but there is no excuse for conducting a battle with inadequate equipment," the terms of the debate are being set outside the control of the politicians.

That is the bizarre aspect of this whole issue – politics without politicians, the latter having vacated the field. They, as well as our troops and ourselves, will be the losers.

COMMENT THREAD

This is politics

We've known for a long time that we've got the focus of this blog wrong, wasting our time on issues like global warming, immigration, defence, the EU and other, sundry trivial matters. We should follow in the footsteps of the Great Leader and concentrate on the important things.

COMMENT THREAD

Unsustainable

In the News of the World yesterday, Fraser Nelson writes a piece under the heading "Condemned by silence".

He notes that, three weeks since BNP's election triumph, no party has started to discuss immigration. Westminster parties have kept their baffled silence and are giving the BNP a monopoly over the most explosive issue in politics.

You'd think, writes Nelson. Gordon Brown and David Cameron would have been shocked into action after seeing Griffin win a seat in Brussels, his party taking almost a million votes.

Immigration was always a "big subject" and it is bigger now because layoffs in the recessions are hitting British-born people hardest. Directly from the Office for National Statistics – but not openly published – Nelson has found that there are fewer UK-born workers in the private sector than 12 years ago.

In the last year there are 119,000 more migrant workers in UK jobs, but 615,000 fewer UK-born workers. In recent months, both are falling. But UK-born workers are being laid off at five times the rate. Workers, he says, can see it with their own eyes, and ask: why? And because no mainstream party has an answer, the BNP prospers.

Other statistics gleaned include the nugget that 1,000 Britons are emigrating every day, although they are not working in Europe. Although Alan Johnson, now Home Secretary, claimed a figure of 1.5 million British working in Europe, that is actually seven times the real number. Of immigrants in the British workforce, the official figure is two percent but the real total is fourteen percent.

But, while Thatcher killed off the National Front in the late 70s by taking the issue immigration head-on, Cameron is silent. The subject scares away voters in the marginal seats he needs to take power. Westminster only cares about swing voters in swing seats - so millions are forgotten. Thus writes Nelson, the silence from Westminster suggests that the BNP's "shocking success story" is far from over.

Taking a broader perspective, it is not just immigration on which the political classes are silent. We have all been impressed with the US treatment of the climate change bill over there. It may have been rammed through the House of Representatives but at least it is as political issue. Here, the silence of the politicos is deafening.

Similarly, defence in the United States is an issue – discussed widely in the media and on the Hill. Here, although a debate has started, it has been led by the military and the media. Over the pond, it was kick-started by defence secretary Gates.

One by one, you can tick off the "big issues" – the European Union also comes to mind – and our politicians are silent. They have their own agendas, but these increasingly are not ours. The gulf between the politicians and the people may have been greater, but in recent times it is hard to imagine when. Thus, to use a word beloved by politicians, whether new or not, the current gap is "unsustainable".

COMMENT THREAD

We're going nowhere

Charles Moore believes we don't need many new laws to reform Parliament - just the will to change.

MPs could, he writes, insist that the timetable of Commons business be handed from the Government to their own, elected business committee. They could get rid of the automatic guillotine on Bills. They could elect the chairmen of select committees instead of allowing the whips to appoint them. They could vote to debate European legislation properly. They could force the House to debate Bills petitioned for by the public. And, of course, it is the duty of MPs, not of the Government, to work out what their pay and allowances should be, in the open, and without passing the buck to somebody else.

The week after next, MPs could choose a Speaker who would compel the Prime Minister to answer questions twice a week, instead of the once-a-week evasion invented by Tony Blair. He could also reprimand ministers whenever they announced new government measures in the media. He could, as it were, Speak up.

But even these modest proposals, he believes are beyond the capabilities of this present crew.

Then, on the other hand, we have Max Hastings tell us that the BNP will only be erased as a force from Britain's political landscape, when those parties which seriously aspire to govern Britain present coherent, realistic immigration policies; when they address an issue about which much of the country cares more than the recession, health, education, Europe - the cultural identity and population stability of the island in which we live.

It ain't going to happen. Simply add Mr Lambert's observations and it's obvious why. We're going nowhere. It was fun while it lasted.

COMMENT THREAD

The BBC mindset

As he was touring the radio studios on Monday morning, Nick Griffin popped in on BBC Radio 5 Live's Breakfast programme for a chat with Nicky Campbell. After a few minutes of jousting, exclusively in the issue of racism, Griffin interrupted Campbell as he tried to read out another text from a listener. "I would think it would be sensible to move on," he said.

The subsequent exchange, or part of it, caught the attention of The Guardian, which reproduced this fragment:

Nick Griffin: The BBC is obsessed with race and immigration. It would be great to talk about something else for once.

Nicky Campbell: What would you like to talk about? What's the thing you'd like to say given this platform to speak to the nation this morning?

Nick Griffin: OK, how about the fact that I believe, along with the Czech politician [Vaclav Klaus] everyone is berating, that global warming is essentially a hoax. It is being exploited by the liberal elite as a means of taxing and controlling us and the real crisis is peak oil. We're running out of proper, real energy. And it is something with an immediate and catastrophic effect in a few years' time potentially — not worrying about floating polar bears in a 150 years.

But what The Guardian forebore to publish was the reaction of Campbell:

Nicky Campbell: Hmm … The reason I talk about race as well as that …

He ignored completely Griffin's point about global warming. The BBC mindset simply cannot cope with it.

However, in due course, once they have absorbed what Griffin had to say, they will make the link with the rest of the "climate sceptics". We will forever be associated with Nick Griffin and the BNP, the Holocaust denier, reinforcing the BBC's image of those who dare to depart from the orthodoxy.

COMMENT THREAD

It's how you tell 'em

In a piece which records UKIP's victory at the polls, we are treated to a photograph of the smiling leader, with the caption: "UKIP leader Nigel Farage is delighted with party's European election result".

That is fair enough. Farage has every reason to be delighted, not least because his party has now acquired the mantle of the establishment's approved protest party.

On the other hand, a full-page feature on the BNP by Philip Johnston has a photograph of Nick Griffin, clearly celebrating his victory. But the text has it: "The smirk on Nick Griffin's face as he walked on to the platform at Manchester town hall in the early hours of yesterday morning said it all … ".

Thus, Farage "celebrates" while Griffin "smirks". The contrast is an interesting illustration of how journalism is shaped by perceptions and then how journalism shapes perceptions. Here, it may be warranted but, every day, in a thousand different ways, our own realities and perceptions are being thus shaped.

Similarly, mainstream politicians are rushing to the barricades, anxious to portray the BNP vote as a reaction to the expenses debacle. This is a legend with which they are comfortable. An alternative scenario, however, is that the major beneficiary of that debacle was UKIP. Had that party not Hoovered up so many votes, the BNP might have gained more seats, not less.

Clearly, there would be difficulty for the politicians is accepting such a scenario. Shorn of this comfort blanket, they would then have to accept that people (some of them, at least) voted for BNP because of such issues as immigration or that they objected to Labour's refusal to give the nation a referendum on the Lisbon treaty – yet did not trust UKIP with that message.

Furthermore, this disease of political myopia extends way beyond the BNP. Challenged on BBC News about the poor performance of the Lib-Dims, Charles Kennedy rejected the suggestion that this was somehow related to his party being out of touch with public sentiment on the EU. To Kennedy, this was simply part of the fallout on MPs' expenses.

Thus do we see the establishment closing ranks. For want of addressing issues about which many ordinary people feel passionately, and which have been neglected (and ignored) by the mainstream, that same establishment is now inventing its own rationale for the events its is witnessing. But in this approach lies a greater danger. Says The Guardian:

To dismiss the BNP as a protest vote is both wrong and dangerous. A consistent voting pattern is emerging, partly driven by material concerns linked to issues of class and race. Yet the notion of the "protest" vote absolves parties from addressing their own shortcomings and the policy issues that are deemed unfashionable within SW1. Unless this approach changes then support for the far right will grow. Now is the time to act and now is the time to fight.

By wilfully refusing to come to terms with the reasons for their own rejection, establishment politicians will thereby perpetuate the very discord they claim to seek to avoid. If the BNP is a disease of the body politic – as some would have it – then the virus is the political establishment.

COMMENT THREAD

There for the taking

With only a week to go to the euro-elections, attention is beginning to shift to the creatures we are to send to Brussels, supposedly to represent us in the heart of evil but, in fact, to represent the EU to us.

And, if our MPs are turning out to have feet of clay – or some of them – the tiny spotlight that is illuminating our MEPs suggests that many are every bit as foul and grimy as the worst of the domestic species.

With The Sun having a go yesterday – and with a reporter full-time in Brussels digging up dirt – today is the turn of the The Guardian, citing a report from Spinwatch on the less than salubrious habits of some of these creatures. Greed, it appears, knows no boundaries – which comes as no surprise at all.

Meanwhile, The Financial Times is desperately trying to stoke up some interest in the elections, countered by Daniel Hannan who wants the EU parliament closed down and the powers handed back to national legislatures. Fortunately for his bank balance, which will be better off to the tune of £83,282 a year – minus 15 percent tax – no one who matters is likely to be listening to Hannan.

Jack Straw, on the other hand - according to the BBC - is with The Financial Times in trying to breathe new life into the euro campaign. But in so doing, he demonstrates the fatuity of the whole idea of an election. His pitch is that there is "anecdotal" and polling evidence to suggest that voters were still interested in the "real choices" they faced on bread-and-butter issues such as law and order. Thus, to win euro-seats, Straw is accusing David Cameron of being "soft" on crime.

Cameron, for his part, is accusing the BNP of being "fascist" – which is rather like accusing a dog of having four legs.

Being confronted at an agricultural show in Somerset by a voter who told him that the BNP "have a point when it comes to immigration", Cameron came up with the most extraordinary statements. "There is a proper national debate that we should have about immigration … I want us to limit the number of people coming to Britain, but do not believe that the way to beat the BNP is to half agree with them. These people are not pleasant people."

The extraordinary thing is that, having studiously ignored – and even suppressed – any debate on immigration, thereby giving the BNP its opportunity, Cameron tells us that there is "a proper national debate that we should have …". The term "should have had," might have been more appropriate. In the last week of the campaign, it is now too late. The moment has passed and the "not pleasant" BNP is going to reap its harvest of neglect.

However, Labour's Alan Johnson is drinking from the same well as Cameron, telling us that the big political debate would take place among the mainstream parties. Labour, he said, "had the ideas and vision for the future".

Call me quaintly old-fashioned, but it used to be the case that politicians had the debate before the elections, in order better to inform the voters and to assist them in making their choices. Now, it seems, we must vote blind on the promise of a future debate, the pitch being that we must only allow this to happen "among the mainstream parties".

In what is already a bizarre campaign, which has been dominated by anything but EU issues, this really takes the biscuit. "Buy now and read the label when you get home," seems to be the message. If we needed any more evidence that the political classes have lost it, it is there for the taking.

COMMENT THREAD

They are already on side …

"It's all about net gain now," said one Conservative strategist. "There is no point in focussing on immigration, Europe and other traditional right-wing areas as it will no longer attract voters as they are already on side. But it might put some voters off.

Already on side? I think not.

Meanwhile, if that is one indication of the Tory strategy, we get another from William Hague, who is calling for Britons to use the euro-elections to cast a "protest vote".

One can only suggest that little Willie ought to be a little more careful about what he calls for. Faced with this, there is an increasing number of people only too happy to oblige. But many people will have a little difficulty with the idea that voting for the Tories is a protest vote.

COMMENT THREAD

Things that matter

"Jaw-dropping" does not even begin to describe the news we read in The Times and elsewhere.

This tells us that a suspect in the alleged Manchester terror plot had been allowed to enter Britain last week, despite irregularities in his immigration papers. One "police source" has told the paper that the decision to admit the suspect at the airport last week had been "a shambles".

The man's documents had been all "over the place" when he had landed but had been allowed to proceed on the basis that he would return for an appointment with immigration and show them correct documents. Said the source, "He was never going to do that. He was effectively left free to do whatever he wanted."

You have to read a little further to find that "security sources" are suggesting that the suspect might have been allowed "to run" in the expectation that he would lead the authorities to other conspirators. That could be true, although it would have been a high-risk strategy, with the possibility that target simply disappeared into the undergrowth.

Maybe the truth – or some version of it – will emerge in due course, although it would be unwise to restrict one's oxygen intake in anticipation of emerging any the wiser.

However, given the lurid headlines in The Daily Mail and other dailies, the impression of our immigration controls being in total disarray is once again reinforced, an issue which has significant political traction.

This is yet another area of public policy where the government displayed its usual level of incompetence but it is also one where opposition parties have been less than diligent in pursuing remedies.

To give him his due, it was raised by Conservative MP Douglas Carswell in June 2006 but it has hardly been high profile since. The last time Tory MPs collectively tackled the subject seems to have been in January 2008, well over a year ago.

With such a lacklustre record, it is a little difficult for the Tories now to take "ownership" of the issue which means that, with it now topping the news agenda, they are left flat-footed once again, leaving the field wide open for the likes of the political BNP to stake a claim.

Predictably, that is precisely what the BNP is doing, with a highly focused "news" story placed on their web site since early afternoon yesterday.

By contrast, the Conservative website has for its top story – dateline Thursday 9 April - Eric Pickles sending his "best wishes to Christians, Sikhs and Jews celebrating the festivals of Vaisakhi, Pesach and Easter this April."

It is hardly any surprise, therefore, that the BNP is taking the high ground and even less surprising that this should be showing up in local elections results. Looking closely at the Manchester (Moston) result has been the political correspondent for the Manchester Evening News. This is David Ottewell, and his findings are quite remarkable (see graphic, right).

In what was a closely fought seat between Labour and the Tories, we saw a near 11 percent drop in the Labour vote, but a catastrophic drop of 14 percent for the Tories. That Ottewell found interesting, remarking on the "the collapse in the Tory vote - in a ward they have previously targeted vigorously, and at a time when they are riding high in the national polls."

Some of that vote might have been picked up by the Lib-Dems, who gained seven percent, but with the BNP getting 23 percent and coming second – in its first appearance in the ward – the Tories plummeted to fourth place, with the Lib-Dems third.

Nor is this an isolated result. Something similar happened in March, in Carlisle, where the Tories also lost more votes than Labour, suggesting that there is – at the very least – a "BNP effect" which is muddying the waters.

Latterly, after Harman's intervention, it seems that Conservative Home is acknowledging that the threat exists, but there is clearly some considerable complacency.

Mainstream politicians are quick to remind voters of the BNP's unsavoury past, claiming that it has not changed. And they may be right. But if that is the case, it is a reflection of the low esteem in which mainstream politicians are held that, despite this, an increasing number of people are prepared to vote for the BNP.

Thus, although Harman is now saying that the BNP could pose a threat to Labour in the euro-elections, it could also cause problems for the Tories. The Manchester result, on the back of Carlisle, should be taken as a warning. Ignoring this phenomenon will not make it go away and nor can it be assumed that any BNP success in the euros will not run into the general election.

Nearly two years ago, Tory MP Charles Walker wrote a monograph on dealing with the BNP. His advice included the injunction that, "We must rediscover our campaigning zeal and let it be known that we value our constituents and their vote."

His party would do well to take that advice. It might also take note of Martin Luther King's homily (cited yesterday by LGF), that, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." That applies to political parties as much as it does to individuals.

COMMENT THREAD

Capturing the mood

You could pick any number of issues. Take, for instance, the latest terrorist threat, the effects of unrestrained immigration from the EU, or perhaps the insanity of votes for prisoners, driven by the European court of human rights.

You could get worked up about the coming energy crisis, a waste policy that is not only barking mad but ruinously expensive, the terrifying winter energy bills or Brown's Green budget which is beyond parody in its cretinous vacuity.

You could easily get incensed about police thuggery, police stupidity, MPs' expenses or their idleness and/or greedy bankers.

In fact, the list of issues about which we could get really angry is virtually endless, but you would have to go a long, long way to find anyone who thought that the politicians – of any party – had a grip or were doing anything other than making things worse, while lining their pockets.

A little while ago, I wrote about the electorate being in a "funny" mood. Randall has written about anger and I countered with "festering resentment" as a better description of the public mood.

Whatever it is, with a range of slogans and images, the BNP is capturing it. The political claque is going to have a very hard job countering its messages, and the more it remains in denial, the harder it is going to get for them.

COMMENT THREAD

From the House of Lords

There were two EU related Starred Questions in the House of Lords on Tuesday and they elicited interesting responses. The first was asked by Lord Campbell of Alloway:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, as the United Kingdom’s net contribution to the European Community budget is projected to rise from £2 billion in 2008-09 to £6.5 billion in 2010-11, they will withhold a proportion pending a statement of assurance on the accounts by the Court of Auditors.

Not an unreasonable sentiment, one would say. After all, how else can we exercise that famed influence, which we shall lose if we leave the wretched organization, if not by withholding money until the accounts start being even half-way acceptable.

One would be wrong. It seems that we are duty bound to keep sending huge amounts of money to the EU while they are not duty bound to try to make the best use of it and keep accounts that would be passed by the Court of Auditors.

My Lords, the answer is no. The United Kingdom is required to make its contributions under obligations imposed by the treaties. The European Communities Act, and Section 2 in particular, gives effect within the UK to Community law. Inability to gain clearance on the majority of EU expenditure is unacceptable, and the Government will continue to engage with European institutions over these issues and to look for member states taking greater responsibility for the EU funds that they manage.

Unacceptable or otherwise, there is nothing we can or should do about it. How nice. Even nicer is the fact that the situation is improving all the time as Lord Davies of Oldham, speaking for HMG explained in a kindly fashion:

However, as recently as 2003 only 6 percent of the accounts were given a positive opinion by the auditors and last year it was up to 40 percent, so there is improvement.

What are we worrying about? Next time a private company has problems with the dreaded audit it can simply point out that in a few years a considerably higher proportion of the budget (though less than half) has been given a positive opinion. I wonder how that will go down.

Lord Tomlinson suggested that this was a question of statistical errors and Lord Newby intimated that this is not time to go in for saber-rattling. As far as the Lib-Dims are concerned no time is a good time unless we are rattling that saber against the United States or, failing that, Israel. The EU? Pshaw.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch raised the problem of the "former chief accountant, Marta Andreasen, who was sacked simply because she refused to sign off its fraudulent accounts and who has since been treated disgracefully".

This was dismissed as unworthy of consideration.

My Lords, I think that that is a matter of opinion. The noble Lord has articulated that position for several years. The response of the European Community and the British Government to that position is that his views are, at the very least, somewhat contestable.

Except that it is never contested. At best Lord Pearson and his colleagues are swatted aside; at worst they are abused in a very unpleasant fashion.

The other Starred Question was asked by Lord Dykes of whom we have written before. To say he is a europhiliac is to credit him with an ability to think that he shows no obvious sign of.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of the resignation of the Government of the Czech Republic on decision-making in the European Union under the Czech Presidency.

The answer is that there can be no effect whatsoever as the acting government that resembles the one that had resigned to a surprising degree will carry on and, in any case, the country has a president. Indeed, that is what his lordship was told by Lord Davies of Oldham who had clearly drawn the short straw that day.

My Lords, the Government of the Czech Republic continue as a "Government in Resignation", and Ministers and officials will continue to carry out their duties in full as EU presidency.

Indeed, Lord Dykes's follow-up question in which he agree with the assessment makes one wonder why he bothered to ask something as stupid as that. One can only assume that he wanted to have a little dig at President Klaus, a man in every way more eminent than Lord Dykes himself.

My Lords, allowing for the occasional vagaries of President Klaus, does the Minister agree with the comment on page 11 of today's Financial Times that this is a problem more in Prague than in Brussels because of the inherent continuity in the troika system and the maintenance of the agendas running continuously over the presidency period?

He was, I am glad to say, reprimanded by Lord Lawson:

My Lords, will the noble Lord not reflect on his commendation of what his noble friend said a moment ago in his attack on President Klaus? He is the president of a friendly country, a fellow member of the European Union and a man of very considerable distinction who remains unaffected by the resignation of the Czech Government.

Lord Dykes sounds more and more like a sniggering schoolboy of about 13 who thinks funny little comments about adults behind one’s hand are super-intelligent. Most of us grow out of that. Others go into politics and fail in that, too.

Meanwhile the European Union Committee in the House of Lords produced its Seventh Report, which is not of earth-shaking importance but raises an interesting conundrum.

It deals with the problems caused by the fact that Protocol No. 4 in the existing Treaty establishing a European Community gives the UK a supposedly flexible position with regards to EC measures on visas, asylum and immigration. The opt-in was considered to be an example of masterful British negotiation.

Unfortunately, matters never rest in one place. As the Committee points out:

No thought seems to have been given when the Protocol was drafted to what the situation might be if a Title IV measure came to be amended by further legislation, inevitably also made under Title IV and so subject to a United Kingdom opt-in. Both measures would be binding on 24 of the Member States. [Denmark and Ireland are in the same position.] No problem would arise if the United Kingdom opted in to both, or neither. But what if the United Kingdom had opted in to the first, but did not wish to opt in to the second? Or, a fortiori, if it had not opted in to the first, but wished to opt in to the second?

The result as the not very long report shows is something of a mess with nobody knowing quite what does and what does not apply to the UK. Undoubtedly, the solution proposed will be for full participation in all the Title IV measures. There is, however, another solution and it is hereby respectfully suggested.

How about legislating for ourselves with regard to international agreements we sign as fully sovereign states? Could that dispense with this appalling mess of never knowing what is and what is not British law and how it came to be in existence? Because, if the UK fully participates in Title IV measures there will be a great deal of legislation to do with issues that, we are told by politicians, matter to people much more than "Europe" and none of that legislation would have gone through Parliament in any discernible fashion.

COMMENT THREAD

Outside the bubble

Last week, the government announced that people from outside the EU moving to the UK to work or study would have to pay £50 extra for visas to help areas struggling to cope with immigration.

This was immediately condemned by "Westminster insiders", right across parliament, the media and the think tank community, and across all parties. No less than 70 percent of the daily PoliticsHome survey (no link) of senior MPs, journalists and opinion formers across politics rejected the plan. Either it was seen as going too far, or not far enough, or going down completely the wrong track.

Yet, when 1,224 members of the general public were consulted, the results could not have been more different. An overwhelming 83 percent of voters supported the idea. Furthermore, the support was almost exactly the same across Labour, Conservative, LibDem and other supporters. Never, we were told, had the views of the "insiders" contrasted so starkly with the views of the general public.

This comes as no surprise. On a whole range of issues – if the right questions were asked, in the right context – you would find that public sentiment is totally at odds with the views of the political classes. That is one of the reasons why the BNP are doing so well, and are likely to pull seats at the euro-elections.

Most of all though, this indicates that there is something going on, which has not yet been picked up by the polls – much less the chatterati. Another straw in the wind is the ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday. It has Labour closing the gap, with the Tory lead on a mere 11 points, down from a 16-point lead a month ago.

Doubtless, the Tory lead should be much higher – and perhaps it will climb again. But the chances are the result is not showing voting intentions. There is something much more subtle going on, which is hard to pin down. There is no exact scientific description, other than to say that people are in a "funny" mood. You can sense it. Outside the bubble, things are stirring.

Needless the say - as with the visa tax - the "insiders" will be the last to know what people are really thinking. But they will soon enough find out. I suspect they are not going to like it.

COMMENT THREAD

Straws in the wind

Judging by sentiment on the "street" – certainly up here in darkest Yorkshire – the latest headline in The Guardian is almost laughable, on a par with the climate hysterics trying to tell us that the planet is still warming up.

It is difficult to put any other construction on a headline which tells us that, "Labour still has slim chance of winning next election, poll suggests," with a finding that, "Wavering Conservative and Liberal Democrat supporters may switch if economy is recovering by May 2010". In this neck of the woods, Mr Brown has as much chance of attracting popular support as the Pope has of becoming Chief Rabbi.

On the other hand … our constituency, way back – 1989 as I recall – was a Labour marginal, but is now solid Labour. There is no Tory presence worth talking about, and the seat is almost certain to stay with Labour. The only significant electoral moves in the area have come from BNP, which is slowly making gains.

Thus, one cannot help but observe – as many others are doing – that a Conservative opposition which is faced with a government party in self-destruct mode should be scoring much higher in the polls than it is currently, showing only a modest 12-point lead over Labour.

No matter how you to try to cut it, therefore, it has to be recognised that the Tories have failed to inspire any great enthusiasm – although with the general election still over a year to go, it would be madness even to begin attempting to extrapolate from this or any other series of polls. The best one can say is that the mood is volatile, and thus hard to predict.

Nevertheless, we would suggest that our own thesis does much to explain the relatively lacklustre performance of the Tories. Look at their website, look at any of the claque of Tory blogs and you will see an introverted party that is obsessed with "self".

Looking at the predominant themes on this blog, we place a high priority on such issues such as the EU (predictably), defence, energy, climate hysteria, foreign policy, immigration (although we treat it with care) and a few others. On none of these, it is fair to say, do the Tories seem to have any coherent position. On some (actually, most), they seem to hold stances diametrically opposed to ours, even though we would regard ourselves as natural Conservative supporters.

We, like so many other people, therefore, are in a very strange situation. The national mood is hostile to Labour but votors are not yet prepared to buy into Dave's Conservative Party. Once the election draws closer, people will have to come off the fence and make a choice, and – despite The Guardian's frenetic optimism - it seems that Dave will prevail.

All the signs are, though, that it will not be an enthusiastic affirmative – a clear mandate for a new leader. Rather, it will be a sullen, even resentful recognition that this is the best the political classes have to offer. That does not bode well for the nation, nor even the political classes.

Tolerance is already wearing thin and, while this poll may be a straw in the wind, the election could be a different straw – the one that finally breaks the camel's back of an electorate that has lost patience with the entire political system.

COMMENT THREAD

Different agendas

Eco-freaks

Westminster bubble

Real world?

I suspect the latter would be quite happy to tell the former just exactly where to put their light switches. But - as we have noted - if you compare the media coverage, you will find that the vast preponderance of attention is given to the eco-agenda.

This is no longer an academic issue – not that it ever was. There is a major economic crisis developing and no one is under any illusions that it is going to do anything other than get worse.

However, for most people, the detail of the crisis is too complex, too remote, too frightening for them to take in. They will not respond to the detail. They will respond to the effects. And, whether you like it or not, history tells us that a population under pressure starts looking for "scapegoats".

It will, of course, not have to look very far and the reality it, whether the nice, well-meaning "liberals" and multi-cults like it or not, immigration policy is going to come under more scrutiny than ever before. This is not a prediction. It is fact. History tells us this is the case.

The spoilt little eco-brats can have their fun turning out their lights on 28 March. But this is the same lot who were so against Gitmo. In the not too distant future, I suspect someone will be turning out their lights … permanently.

COMMENT THREAD

We will send you our ravening hordes

"Give us your money, or we will send over our unemployed millions," is the message from Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Hungarian prime minister. And, goes the subtext, there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop us. This is what Gawain Towler over at England Expects is reporting, with the benefit of having seen a letter from Gyurcsany, which he publishes in full.

That theme is picked up by Bruno Waterfield in The Telegraph, who retails Gyurcsany's warning. Issued on behalf of the Central and Eastern European members of the EU, it states that the economic crisis threatens to split Europe, with the economic equivalent of an "Iron Curtain" – the rich countries on one side and the poor on the other.

Gyurcsany then goes on to say that unless €190 billion is thrown across the line, to prevent the curtain falling, there would be, "A significant economic crisis in Eastern Europe". This, he writes, "would trigger political tensions and immigration pressures."

Then comes the punch-line: "With a Central and East European population of around 350 million of which 100 million are in the EU, a 10 percent increase would lead to at least five million additional unemployed within the EU." The result would be "a flood of unemployed immigrants travelling to Western Europe in search of jobs."

The message was apparently adopted by nine Central and Eastern European countries – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania. They held an "unprecedented breakaway summit" before the meeting of all 27 EU member states in Brussels yesterday, and presented the rest with what amounted to an ultimatum.

The reporting from the likes of The Guardian, however, presents a different picture. Its hacks together with most of the others (pictured above), dutifully followed the EU commission script, telling us that "European leaders" had sought to banish the spectre of protectionism stalking the EU, responding to the financial crisis by underlining the "sanctity" of Europe's single market.

The use of "sanctity" is a very interesting choice of word for something that is supposed to be part of a political system. Perhaps "integrity" would have been a better choice, but the term actually used betrays the mindset … this is a quasi-religious institution, not a political movement.

Another word with quasi-religious overtones, very much in evidence was "unity". This was, we are told, the Holy Grail for which the "colleagues" were struggling – and in vain, so it seems. The heads of government from the member states "remained deeply divided".

That much was echoed by The Times, which followed Bruno with the "apocalyptic warning". It too retails the threat that if the Central and Eastern European countries do not get their money, we will be submerged by the "Eastern hordes" of unemployed workers heading west to steal the jobs from under the very noses of our suckling babes.

The response of the "colleagues" to this is rather interesting. With Merkel in the vanguard, the call for an "Eastern Europe aid fund" was summarily dismissed. Merkel went so far as to say: "I see a very different situation among eastern countries, I do not advise going into the debate with massive figures."

We then got the ritual incantations. Up went the cry that the only thing standing between us and the ravening hordes was the benign intervention of our masters in Brussels. Thus do we get the call for holy "unity" which will bind us all together and ensure that the misery is equally spread – except in the restaurants of Brussels of course.

Somewhere in all that lot is Gordon Brown. He seems to want shed-loads of (other peoples') money thrown at the problem, and is calling for the International Monetary Fund to intervene, although he has been somewhat vague about where he thinks the IMF will get the money.

What is worrying the shit out of the "colleagues" is indeed the prospect of a significant crisis in Eastern Europe and the reality of "political tensions". That is a cosy euphemism for the great unwashed taking to the streets and ripping the throats out of their benign leaders. It is a fear that rather explains their resort to quasi-religious slogans – in much the same way that Stalin reverted to calls to save "Mother Russia" when the ravening Nazi hordes were at the gates of Moscow.

Basically, though, they do not have the shed-loads of money, being rather too busy bailing out their own collapsing economic systems. The only thing the "colleagues" were able to manage, therefore, was a rather lame statement fromn José Manuel Barroso declaring: "There was consensus on the need to avoid any unilateral protectionist measures."

Little José is beginning to sound a bit like Marie Antoinette - "let them eat consensus", he is saying. Mr Gyurcsany seems to have other ideas.

COMMENT THREAD

At the end of the road …

Reluctant as we are to enter the loathsome cockpit of parochial politics, it is interesting to note that Iain Martin in today's Telegraph suggests that Mr Brown's government is disintegrating.

That much is self-evident and has been true for a long time. But it is also true that British government in general has been disintegrating for some time, even before that charlatan Blair parked his rump in Downing Street. That looming presence in Brussels had a great deal to do with that – its primary objective being to undermine national governments.

However, with the decay thus evident and a general election looming ever-closer – and the euro-elections even closer - you might think that the Labour luvvies would be most concerned with their putative successors, the erstwhile Conservatives. But not a bit of it.

There are several pointers as to why this might be, not least today's YouGov poll which shows that the one subject of immigration tops the polls as the issue about which people feel most strongly.

Some fifty-two percent of respondents wanted an incoming Conservative government to deal with it. Interestingly, the party split had forty-two percent of Labour voters and sixty-two percent of Tory supporters putting it at the top of the list.

The other pointer comes from the same poll which puts voting intentions for the Tories at 41 percent, still showing a comfortable lead over Labour, on 31 percent, and the Lib-Dims mouldering on 15 percent. What is significant though is that all three of these parties have lost share – the Tories losing three points - while the "others" have climbed to 12 percent of the vote. And, tucked in there are the BNP at four percent, with UKIP trailing at two.

Expressed on a national scale for a party that has patchy representation, that four percent for BNP probably under-estimates the appeal of the party. This is possibly indicated by last week's by-election victory in the Swanley St Mary's Ward seat, when the BNP took 41 percent of the vote compared with 34 percent for Labour and 25 percent for the erstwhile Conservatives.

Given that the Tory vote is failing to soar – despite the dire performance of Mr Brown's government – it is the performance of the BNP which is really worrying the luvvies. Thus we have Labour MEP Glyn Ford warning that the BNP could win up to seven seats in the euros, especially after the collapse of UKIP as a credible party.

It has not gone without notice that Swanley was virgin territory for the BNP and that in Bromley, a few weeks previously, the BNP narrowly missed winning a council seat by only eight votes. Yet this area is UKIP heartland, having returned two UKIP MEPs in the last euros, not least the fun-loving Nigel Farage.

But Bromley is also the scene of (one of) Mr Farage's greatest humiliations, when he fought the Bromley parliamentary by-election and achieved merely eight percent of the vote, despite spending a record £100,000 on his campaign.

Not only could BNP displace Mr Farage, Glyn Ford is suggesting that it could field successful candidates in the north-west of England, where party leader Nick Griffin is standing, and could also make gains in Yorkshire and the Humber. Ford suspects that many of those people who voted for UKIP people will be encouraged to vote for the BNP. He could be right.

The same spectre is clearly haunting Caroline Flint, currently the minister for Europe. She is warning Labour MPs and trade unions they will play into the hands of the BNP if they continue their campaign against companies they claim recruit "foreign workers" to undercut pay levels.

The fair Flint is not of course suggesting that these Labour MPs and trade unions should do anything about the problem – and nor will the erstwhile Conservatives even begin to address it. The conventional wisdom is that they should stop talking about it, and then it will go away.

Unfortunately for the luvvies, this is an issue which simply will not go away. In fact, as the recession deepens, it will become more strident and demanding, breaking into the cosy conspiracy of silence which the three main political parties have sought to foster.

This, it seems, is matched by an equal stridency from the Tribune Magazine, which is telling its readers that "the fight against the far right in Britain has never been harder – or more important."

It is reporting the "Unite Against Fascism" national conference at Congress House in London last Saturday, when more than 400 politicians, trade union activists, members of Muslim, Jewish, black and Asian groups, and lesbian and gay organisations got together "to sound the alarm about the rise of the British National Party."

The problem for these people, however, is that they cannot address the root concerns of so many people – and cannot even discuss them coherently. Their very existence and tactics therefore exacerbate the problem they seek to resolve, leaving a yawning gap which the BNP will be only too pleased to fill.

The nature of first past the post politics suggests that the BNP is unlikely to do any great damage in the general election, but with proportional representation in the euros, they could indeed make some significant gains.

And, although that does worry the luvvies, it should worry UKIP even more. Should it happen, it will spell the demise of "moderate" euroscepticism in this country and give it an altogether harder edge. For that, UKIP would bear much of the blame. Its performance over the last EU parliamentary term has been, to say the very least, lacklustre.

But the greater blame will be on the luvvies and their pretence that "Europe" and the associated issues of immigration can be safely swept under the carpet for ever and no one will notice. However, as they are about to find, these inconvenient matters come under the category, "deal with them, or they will deal with you".

Despite that, they will not deal with them, even though at the end of the road they are travelling lie the tumbrels. They are not going to be idle for ever. The BNP is merely the interim stage.

(PS: I am the man in the red hat.)

COMMENT THREAD

A summer of anger?

Pointing to more trouble to come, The Daily Telegraph notes: "Thousands of foreign workers exploiting British jobs market".

The issue is "intra-company transfers", through which means international companies can transfer their staff to the UK for supposedly limited periods of time. However, the number of workers taking advantage of this system has increased by almost half in four years. Some 48,010 applications for intra-company transfers were approved in 2008, up 47 per cent on the 32,770 given the go ahead in 2004 and the equivalent of 131 arriving every day.

These figures, says the paper, will further fuel the row over foreign labour as the recession deepens and comes ahead of more damaging immigration and population statistics to be published tomorrow.

Much as the political establishment wants to ignore this issue, numerous stories are doing the rounds, one doing the e-mail circuit at the moment being a report from The Liverpool Echo. This tells of foreign workers being brought in by coach because "a company can't find the skills it needs among the local workforce."

Where this falls apart is that the company is the ship-fitting contractor Trimline, and it is claiming that cannot find skilled ship workers - in Birkenhead.

To add insult to injury, the work is on a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel at the Cammell Laird shipyard, paid-for by the British taxpayer. Polish workers are being bussed in to do the work, despite there being hundreds of skilled British shipworkers left idle after recent completion of major MoD contracts.

A number of media outlets are therefore picking up on the same vibes we reported in our earlier piece, the latest being Reuters. It is recording that the police are warning of a "summer of rage" with mass protests over the economic crisis, the first being the G20 summit in April.

The Met Police are well used to dealing with this sort of thing, and the likelihood is that any disruption will be the usual "renta-mob", using the current unrest as a cover for that which they do anyway. They do not need an excuse. And, with this being so well flagged-up, it could amount to nothing very much.

However, The Daily Mail is also on the case, and it too it picking up the vibes. The concern is that "law-abiding middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year. "

The point that has perhaps escaped the paper – and the police who have made the comment – is that the middle-class is no longer "law-abiding". Submerged under a tide of New Labour laws and forever being picked on by petty officials looking for easy targets, few have avoided brushes with the law. There is, therefore, an underlying reservoir of resentment and contempt which brings a new dimension to this situation.

This may result in developments which are not as clearly flagged-up as the police would like to believe. When people get really angry, they do not always follow the script.

COMMENT THREAD

That totemic figure

Lord M robustly defended his beloved EU rules yesterday, in an emergency statement to the Lords on the foreign workers' crisis. In so doing, he sought to remind us that there are "300,000 UK companies operating elsewhere in Europe".

Operating across the oggin does not, of course, mean that they are hiring British workers, or for that matter, that they are not bringing in foreign workers into the UK. The figure – even if it is accurate – is therefore pretty meaningless. It also sounds somewhat on the high side, given that there are only two million registered companies in the UK. Mandelson's figure would put it about one in six operating over there.

Mind you, Lord M is not the only one given to euro-hyperbole. In January last year, our revered leader claimed that 700,000 British companies had "trading ties to Europe" which sounds even more implausible, although I suppose it depends on what you mean by "ties".

It is interesting though how often the figure "300,000" comes up in official and semi-official statistics. According to the French embassy in 2007, an estimated 300,000 French people were living in Britain, two thirds of them in London and the south-east.

In December 2002, then trade secretary Patricia Hewitt was telling us that EU enlargement could provide up to 300,000 new jobs which could be secured by British firms. At that time, incidentally, she rejected warnings that competition from low-wage economies in the former Eastern bloc would drive out British workers. How droll!

The figure 300,000 cropped more recently, this time in January of this year when the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development estimated that 300,000 people could be made redundant between January and March of 2009. One wonders if those are the same people who gained jobs from EU enlargement – unless, of course, all the French persons in the southeast are now unemployed, or about to become so.

A total of 300,000 also happens to be the number of entry visas wrongly issued by UK immigration officials each year, which means that millions of illegal immigrants may have been let into the country, soaking up all those jobs that the French persons haven't snaffled, one presumes.

Entertainingly, 300,000 is the number of who will lose their existing pension scheme benefits when "planned reforms to workplace schemes come into force in 2012", given that they still have workplaces by then.

And just to show how popular this totemic figure is with government, in 1998, Lord Simon, then the Minister for Trade and Competitiveness in Europe, announced that there had been 300,000 requests for "business preparations for the euro" factsheets from businesses and trade associations. The number might be somewhat less if they were re-issued today.

What we can't tell you, of course, is how many British workers, in total, are employed outside this country, or how many foreign nationals are currently working in the UK. That information would be really useful and interesting which, of course, is why we can't have it. I bet the difference is greater than 300,000 though but I'm taking no bets on which way that balance lies.

COMMENT THREAD

Pictures that tell a thousand stories

The story behind these pictures (see also below) is told on Watts up with that. In a nutshell, these are "before and after" pictures of the Dye 3 radar warning station in southern Greenland, one taken in 1967 and the other in 2006, after it had been abandoned due to the encroaching snow.

At a direct level, this gives the lie to the oft' repeated mantra of the warmists that the Greenland ice cap is melting, adding to the growing body of evidence that suggests that their alarmist creed is totally misplaced.

The wider lesson, however, is that despite the evidence, not only does the warmist creed survive and prosper, but it is embedded so deeply in the body politic that it has driven out any discourse. It has become the received wisdom amongst all the major political parties, not only in this country but elsewhere, not least in the United States.

Driving this is the leaden doctrine of consensus, so beloved of the "colleagues" in the European Union. This is a close relative to totalitarianism, where only the party line is permitted. Any disagreement is treated as heresy, a political crime which must be punished.

Yet, in the "real" world, as demonstrated by Booker's column last Sunday, there is anything but consensus. Over 1,000 comments on the piece attest that the doctrine of global warming, or "climate change" as the believers now like to call it, is hotly disputed and subject to a vibrant – some might say vicious – debate.


The point here is that is debate takes place not in the media proper or within the political classes, but outside on the periphery. Yet there is nothing more inherently political than global warming, driving as it does huge areas of public policy, distorting government responses to a wide range of problems – not least energy – and costing us a fortune in taxes and hidden levies.

That the debate takes place outside the normal political cockpit illustrates one thing – that the political classes have, in effect, opted out of politics. Instead, they entertain themselves prattling about the things they want to talk about, and then expend their energies on trying to tell us that we should take them more seriously than our own concerns.

Therein lies the heart of the disengagement with the political process. It is not, as many politicians would aver (and like to believe), that we have lost interest in politics. It is more that they the politicians – and their groupies - have lost interest. They have become totally detached from reality, wrapped up in their tiny, putrid bubble of self-interest which dominates their lives.

To that extent, global warming is the model. As with this subject, we have the leaden consensus on immigration, on the European Union, on public finance, on law and order, and a host of other issues. Where the public at large would like to see radical change, the political discourse is limited to tiny movements within rigidly defined boundaries.

The political classes will entertain discourse only within those boundaries so that, while we are permitted to have a discussion about how we manage the effects of global warming, we are not allowed to dispute the central premise. We are not allowed to argue that the phenomenon is not man-made – rather it is part of a normal climate cycle and that, quite possibly, we are now entering a much more dangerous cooling phase. That area, to the political classes, is totally out of bounds.

For "global warming" substitute immigration, or a wide range of issues, and the treatment is the same.

In their own way, however, these pictures could also be used to illustrate another story, the fate of those self-same political classes. They are represented by the radar station, built with high hopes twenty feet above ground level, dominating the ground. For "snow" read "public opinion" and the picture is complete. Unable to shift their ground, the political classes have become submerged, wholly irrelevant and useless.

But, buried in their deep cocoon of "snow" they – like the Met Office - have not yet looked out of the windows. When they do, they are in for a shock. And soon after, the oxygen will run out.

COMMENT THREAD

There is more to it …

The latest Guardian report is very illuminating:

… the sheer scale of the destruction has put the ruling New Democrats on the defensive. "It is as if the state [machinery], the government, has collapsed," said Ioannis Rougissis, a spokesman for the opposition Pasok party.

Papandreou lashed out at the New Democrats - who are in power with a wafer-thin majority - for being out of touch with reality. "The whole country, every citizen, is exasperated with a government that doesn't understand the real problems of the people," he said. "Everyone is saying enough is enough."

Then we get …

With many struggling to make ends meet, and one in five living below the poverty line, there is growing anger at the tough fiscal policies of a government determined to reach the prescriptive benchmarks set out by Brussels and rein in budget deficits. The disaffection has been exacerbated by allegations of corruption and a series of scandals implicating members of [prime minister] Karamanlis's inner circle.

Yet interior minister, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, is saying: "We will not tolerate these events …". He speaks like a eurocrat.

"Fear and despair are what these riots are about," the Guardian piece ends. This may not be simply riots we are seeing. This could be revolution – the revolt of the masses against the corrupt élites.

From our Greek correspondent, though, we get an interesting insight:

The Greek government have recently curbed the powers of student organisations to control how universities are run, and they have been sitting on a 'powder keg' ever since. One thing is clear: this has been building up for months, waiting for an opportunity - I had seen the initials "ACAB" appearing with increasing frequency in dialogues amongst Greek youth (ACAB = All Cops Are Bastards).

Immigration in Greece is larger than the 10 percent you indicate: probably nearer 13-15 percent, but immigrants in Greece don't riot - they keep their heads down. Their lives in Greece are far too precarious to risk being involved in such matters. Riots are the domain of the 'usual known suspects' as they are called in Greece: the anarchists, leftists (there are plenty of those), and students with nothing better to do.

One remembers that the 1968 riots in France started in the universities. History never repeats itself exactly, but ...

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