The bubble across the pond

Despite the almost non-stop Clinton – Obama soap opera being played out in the media here, there was some slight coverage of a meeting of the World Bank development committee in Washington yesterday (Sunday).

Voice of America captured the flavour of what little coverage there was, with a quote from World Bank President Robert Zoellick. He was cited as saying that help is needed for countries in which sharply higher food prices are causing hunger. Zoellick is calling for a $500 million emergency feeding programme to be set up.

Whether coincidence or not, Fox News ran a series of features yesterday morning on Darfur, although there was no direct connection made with global food prices.

Zoellick, however, is characteristically blunt, saying: "We have to put our money where our mouth is … So that we can put food into hungry mouths. It's as stark as that."

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who participated in the Sunday meeting, warned that the inflationary effect of higher food prices could push millions back into poverty. "All that has been done [achieved over the past decade] can be undone very rapidly by the crisis coming from the increase in food prices," he says.

In truth, though, although the "great and the good" in the tranzie world are getting worked up about the global situation, it isn't really registering here as a mainstream issue. On top of the presidential election, the credit crunch and foreclosures are dominant themes, with very little thought given to the global economy.

That, of course, applies as much to UK coverage, so this is not an attempt to convey any sense of moral superiority. It just an observation that the the growing global economic crisis – particularly as it affects the developing world - is something of a minority concern.

However, with the big wigs meeting here on Wednesday at the IMF, Gordon Brown amongst them, this may possibly up the ante. The "problem" though – if it can be called that – is that the arrival of Pope Benedict may upstage them all. This visit is now being played big, although it is very difficult to divine whether the pontiff has any specific message for the wider world, or even the United States, when he arrives.

Some commentators are suggesting he will speak very loosely to the concept of maintaining human rights as a Western cultural artefact, avoiding any specifics that might have a political edge in an increasingly fraught presidential contest. Few if any seem to expect him to break free of the enigmatic aura which he has acquired.

With a lack of direct substance, the media may have little that it can get its teeth into. It needs little excuse to concentrate on the spectacle and this, rather than any papal message, may become the preoccupation, so drowning out any message we get from the IMF or any broader appreciation of the global picture.

As outsiders looking in, even in our own country, here we sense a similar detachment from reality which so perplexes us about our own political caste. We lack, however, the insight into US politics which would qualify us to make any profound statements, other than to say that mere proximity to the centre of action in itself does not confer any great leap in understanding.

The worst of it is, though, that one does get the suspicion that the grasp of global politics is no wider this side of the pond than it is in the claustrophobic little world that we have left. We may be looking at a different "bubble", but it is still a bubble.

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Life as normal in Bulgaria

As the Bulgarian government is part of our government, the country being one of the most recent members of the European Union, it is of some interest to us what happens with ministers in that country.

The latest news is that the Minister of Interior, Roumen Petkov has finally resigned, having been accused of corruption and links with organized crime. He explained that his resignation was not an admission of guilt but merely an attempt to allow Bulgaria to move forward, especially as the country and the government are under pressure from the EU, which had taken them in despite warnings about the state of organized crime there, to clean up its act.

It is not so much the existence of organized crime that is the problem – after all, most countries have that – but the links with the authorities and what is laughingly described as forces of law and order.

Last week saw the murder of writer Georgie Stoev, who wrote many books about Bulgaria's mafia bosses. Prosecutors did not believe his allegations, and on Monday he was found shot through the head.

There have been more than 150 gangland killings since 2001. But Bulgaria has failed to convict a single suspect, nor has it charged any official with corruption.

If there was a reason for Mr Petkov to resign, as he added in his statement, it was the fact that he had hired the two police officials who have now been arrested for alleged links with organized crime.

According to the Bulgarian news agency, Novinite, the Deputy Minister of Interior, Kamen Penkov, has also offered to resign, possibly because he, too, was involved in hiring or, perhaps, promoting the two senior police officials.

Associated Press sums up:

The coalition government survived a parliamentary no-confidence vote on Friday, though the prime minister vowed after that Cabinet changes would be made.

Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, could face sanctions if the European Commission's mid-2008 report on the country's progress in fighting corruption and organized crime is negative.

One wonders what those sanctions might be.

The real thing

Well, we dun the tourist bit - or some of it - including a visit to the Smithsonian, a trot round the White House and all that. We were not invited in for coffee! Weather cold and windy, and just started to rain, so we've taken refuge in the hotel for a little while.

Some things never change

While great events are afoot – both the Pope and Gordon Brown are following the trail blazed by the Booker/North team to Washington – the French have a firm sight of their own priorities.

French agriculture minister Michel Barnier, it seems, is pushing for the CAP to be put back on top of the EU agenda.

At a meeting of the farm ministers in Luxembourg tomorrow, he is to float the idea of a "European initiative on food security" throughout the world, picking up on a warning by EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel, who is telling us that the soaring prices of basic foodstuffs could cause a "humanitarian tsunami".

France, of course, takes on the EU's "rotating presidency" and this is a warm-up for what is expected to be a major French initiative to turn back the EU's drive to reduce agricultural subsidies.

Oddly, this is not the major news item on the TV channels over here in Washington, but you can see which way the Euros are moving. "Europe, with its high-performing farming sector and its common policy must clearly play a providing and regulating role on world food markets," says French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, European affairs minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet and human rights minister Rama Yade, among others in a published joint statement.

"The increase in the cost of food paradoxically presents an opportunity, to revive investment in the farming sector," they add.

As we said, some things never change.

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Arrived safely

Equivalent to 4 am UK time ... complimentary internet in the room and, as you can see, it works. Wow!

Will blog properly later today.

Falling down on the job

It was to be expected but not, perhaps, quite so soon after Dr North's departure for the land of the free and the brave. Yes, I had a whole list of blogs I was going to write today but this evening I went to see the RSC's production of "Henry V". Great play, great production, excellent cast. Restored my faith in British theatre.

A drink in a bar near the Roundhouse and a long bus journey home meant that those precious blogging hours were lost.

The news as I got to my computer? A large and so far unexplained explosion in Shiraz, in southern Iran. No group has claime responsibility but it may be used by the government to crack down on dissidents and to wipe out the remaining members of the Baha'i group. One to watch, as my colleague would say, particularly in the light of Iran's apparent failure in Basra and refusal to support Muqtada al-Sadr.

Tomorrow there will be a far more important event: the Italian elections. I can hardly wait.

Marching orders

As my colleague explained he and Christopher Booker are on their way to Washington DC to meet and talk with various people there. I happen to know that they will get a chance to discuss the EU as well but it strikes me that asking Americans to solve our problems for us is a little pointless.

The blog will be, as Dr North wrote, continued in his absence, undoubtedly with some additions from him. The US is covered with Wi-Fi and there seems no reason why he should not take advantage of it.

I am, however, well aware that for some of our readers the forum is what matters and they cannot live without it. Therefore, it is incumbent upon me to ensure that there are no withdrawal symptoms.

Of course, there are all the existing threads to which people, I trust, will go on contributing. Hint: now is your chance to get going on the defence threads. North will not be able to smite you for a little while.

Over and above that I propose to have an open thread every day with a very general subject. Such as:

“Mao Tse-tung made the trains run on time. Discuss without any reference to the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the mass executions and deportations or the vast network of labour camps.”

“Britain was a much better place in the fifties, sixties and seventies when the union barons ruled. Avoid all mention of wild cat strikes, dockers’ strikes, miners’ strikes, power workers’ strikes, seamen’s strikes, any other strikes, Jack Jones, Arthur Scargill, Derek Hatton, uncleared rubbish, bread shortages, three-day weeks, black-outs, candle shortages, any other shortages etc etc.”

I may yet do it.

However, my first open thread is very general: anything to do with EUReferendum and subjects it has touched though I’d be interested to see if we can get through at least one day’s postings without recourse to immigration as a topic.

If we can get through two or three days I might find it in me to be so kind as to post an open thread on immigration but I cannot promise anything at this stage.

All praises of Dr Richard North will be graded out of ten and passed on to him with marks and comments by me.

I hope to be able to stay out of the discussion but I shall be monitoring the contributions. Usual rules apply. Comment is free even if it is based on lack of knowledge, as long as it is not libellous, racist, anti-semitic or conspiratorial. If you are a 9/11 truther, believe that the world is run by the Bilderbergers or the Trilateral Commission or that the EU is a Judaeo-Masonic plot there are many other blogs and forums out there for you. Leave this one alone or you will be banned. Those are the rules under which we have always operated and nothing is about to change, not even for this week.

So let’s roll. Let’s hear it from the forum on Saturday.

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Scares goes to Washington

Booker and I are off to Washington today, for a week, guests of the Independent Womens Forum who are generously sponsoring the US launch of our book Scared to Death. My co-editor will be keeping the blog warm while we are away and, technology and my competence permitting, I hope to post the occasional missive from the heart of democracy.

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"Fire and ice" threat to the world

On this blog and elsewhere, we have had a number of discussions as to whether inflation or recession presents the greater threat to the global economy.

One school sees the explosive growth in commodity prices fuelling runaway inflation while the other fears that "contagion" from the US credit crunch will drive down growth and precipitate a global recesssion. In that latter scenario, reduction in demand will curtail commodity prices, resolving any inflation problems.

Interesting it is that the ECB remains wedded to a policy of controlling inflation, steadfastly refusing to cut rates in a strategy that is driving the euro to new highs against the dollar and pound (at 3:45 pm the euro had reached 80.36 pence, up 0.6 percent on the day and more than 9 percent so far this year). This, Damian Reece of The Daily Telegraph believes will rank as "a policy blunder of the first order", while Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (back on form) reckons Europe "risks a replay of the ERM crisis in the early 1990s".

The IMF, on the other hand, is hedging its bets by warning that the world economy is trapped between "fire and ice" – the threat of slumping growth and rising inflation. In other words, it is not an either-or situation, but both.

It too is watching rising food prices and does not believe in the "Goldilocks theory" that developing nations' growth will help keep the world economy afloat, also arguing against the economies of rich and poor countries "decoupling". We are all in the boat together.

We can perhaps take comfort in the fact that the IMF – like most financial institutions – rarely get it wholly right, but it is worth noting something from out of left field, that "experts" are now acknowledging that temperatures in 2008 are likely to be cooler.

This is something even the BBC's Roger Harrabin had to admit recently, picked up by The Devil and others when he carried out a silent edit to his copy, to play down the fact that we have had no warming for ten years.

But what no one seems to be doing is putting together the experience of what happened in the winter just past and what might happen in the next. Because the winter crisis was so poorly reported, it has probably not fully registered that there is a higher than average chance of a poor global harvest this year and that, should the run of cooler weather continue (which it looks like doing), harvests in the immediate future might be poor as well.

Needless to say, as the New York Times has observed, the higher food prices are dragging in additional production, which may go so way to mitigating the effects of poorer yields, but there is nonetheless a real possibility of a global shortage of food.

Under those circumstances, the IMF may be close to the truth in predicting both global recession and inflation, a nightmare scenario for which conventional economic tools are ill-suited to address. Then, as they say, things will start to get interesting.

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The dominoes are falling

Slovakia is the latest country to have ratified the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty. There was a kerfuffle as there usually is in the new member states, as some of the opposition politicians boycotted the vote in protest against a new media law, which has also been condemned by the country’s newspapers and the OSCE.

Off-hand it is not clear how the new law could go against the concept of freedom:

Slovakia's opposition parties claimed the law would give readers, state institutions or politicians excessive rights of reply, even if critical articles about them were true.

Then again, almost anything allows for more freedom than our own libel laws, which can be used to punish authors such as Rachel Ehrenfeld if they tell the truth about terror financing in books that have not been published in this country.

The question is, presumably, whether right of reply is reasonable or excessive and how one defines excessive. I can imagine a situation in which newspapers will simply stop publishing anything of interest, so afraid will they be of having to devote enormous amounts of space to various rights of reply.

Back to that treaty. When the time came, one of the opposition parties dropped its boycott and the Prime Minister, Robert Fico, got his vote. His coalition did not have the necessary two-thirds majority without the support of the Party of Hungarian Coalition (SMK), whose leader Pál Csáky seems to show a remarkable concern for Slovakia’s good name abroad.

With the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, signing the law that went through both Houses of the Polish Parliament last week and Austria ratifying it as well, the number of dominoes that have fallen is now nine (or will be as soon as the Slovak president adds his signature). They are Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, Austria, Poland and Slovakia.

On our doorstep

With our far-flung horizons, it is sometimes easy to miss what is happening on our own doorstep.

Yesterday – not that you would know it from the coverage in the MSM - was the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the highly controversial deal that brought a semblance of peace to Northern Ireland, and paved the way for the withdrawal of our troops.

The event is commemorated on Conservative Home with a reflective piece by shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson – now with a number of comments that indicate that the old divides are still there, not even under the surface.

In its own way, Northern Ireland is a mirror for many of the political hotspots throughout the world, where politics are decided on ethnic and sectarian rather than on ideological grounds. Whether it be far-flung Iraq, Nigera, Kenya or - even closer to home – Belgium, when communities decide on such grounds, rather than on the merits of the issues, governance will always lack the maturity and stability which will enable real progress to be made.

It is easy, however, to suggest that old enmities, the memories of hurts and historical injustices should be forgotten, all in the interests of forging on to the sunlit uplands, where everyone lives in peace, harmony and justice, ruled by a band of Platonic guardians, whose only motivation is the welfare and the wellbeing of their peoples. But life isn't like that.

Real life is about resentments, old rivalries, manoeuvring and positioning for advantage, and the venality of humans who themselves vary in competence, capabilities and in their depth of understanding.

Thus, like the rest of the world, Northern Ireland is messy, and will remain so. But, as long as people are not actually killing each other, and as long as life can be conducted without the fear of being ripped apart by a random bomb, then that is progress of a sort. Whatever its manifest imperfections, the Good Friday Agreement, and that which went before, achieved that much. It is a start.

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Beyond imagination

Used as we are to the machinations of our supreme government in Brussels, there is very little that surprises us. But this one, even by EU standards, is a gem beyond imagining – a law produced by the commission which, although everybody was expected to obey it, it refused to publish.

To its credit, this Kafkaesque situation was picked up by the European Court of Justice, specifically by the Advocate General, Eleanor Sharpston – the British barrister who prosecuted metric martyr Steve Thoburn on behalf of Sunderland Council.

The case itself, which attracted uncommonly robust condemnation from Mz Sharpston, concerned a Dr Gottfried Heinrich. On 25 September 2005, he had committed the heinous crime of boarding a passenger airliner at Vienna-Schwechat Airport carrying as part of his cabin baggage some tennis racquets which he intended to use on his holiday.

He had been stopped at the security control and warned that these were "prohibited items" but nevertheless did board with the tennis racquets in his baggage, only to be summarily ordered off the aircraft.

The point – to which Mz Sharpston took very great exception - was that there was no way that Dr Heinrich could possibly know that his tennis racquets were prohibited items.

Although such items were listed in the Annex to Commission Regulation (EC) No 622/2003 of 4 April 2003 "laying down measures for the implementation of the common basic standards on aviation security", the commission had decided that the Annex should not be published. It should only be made available "to the appropriate authorities". This was even despite two amending regulations stating, in their recitals, the need for passengers to be clearly informed of the rules relating to prohibited items.

Dr Heinrich brought proceedings before the Unabhängiger Verwaltungssenat im Land Niederösterreich (Independent Administrative Chamber for the Land of Lower Austria) which referred questions to the ECJ asking whether regulations or parts thereof "can have legally binding force if they have not been published in the Official Journal".

The ECJ had no hesitation in finding that the commission was in clear breach of Article 254 of the EC Treaty, which provides that regulations shall be published in the Official Journal. Mz Sharpston noted that the duty to publish regulations is, "unequivocal and without exception" and thus considered that the failure to publish constituted "a violation of an essential procedural requirement, resulting, at the very least, in invalidity."

However, given that that non-publication had been neither accidental nor unintentional, Mz Sharpston suggested that the Court should go further and declare the regulation to be non-existent.

The "persistent and deliberate disregard of the mandatory publication requirement of Article 254 EC", she said, was one "whose gravity is so obvious that it cannot be tolerated by the Community legal order." Such a step, she added, "would make it very clear that non-publication of regulations or parts thereof - all the more so when deliberate - is unacceptable in the legal order of the European Union."

Certainly, judgements do not get more unequivocal than that, and this one makes delicious reading. But there is a coda to the story.

The only organ of our loathsome British media to report the ruling (so far) is The Times. Yet, over a by-line from David Charter in Brussels, it offers the headline: "Airlines rebuked over hand luggage racket". And, with the airlines almost completely in the frame, all we get on the EU commission on its secret Annex is that it has "agreed to publish the full list soon."

Just precisely what does the commission have to do to get criticised in this town?

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Win some, lose some - part 2

We have already written about one rather unfortunate aspect of the Bucharest NATO summit, Germany and France acting as proxies for Russia in internal discussions. I still find it astonishing that so many British commentators (Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Anatole Kaletsky via the excellent CharlesCrawford.biz spring to mind) found it necessary to applaud the situation and to emphasise how important it is that Russia’s worries should be taken into account.

When they say Russia, they mean the Kremlin and as Edward Lucas has pointed out in his book “The New Cold War”, the Kremlin menaces both the West and Russia itself. Pandering either to their foot-stamping bullying or to their whining victim mentality does not help Russia or the Russians. It helps the Kremlin and the siloviki in it to consolidate their power.

From the immediate point of view of Western Europe, Britain and NATO the worrying aspect is, as Mr Lucas points out in his book and in the many talks he has given on the subject, Russia’s ability to use her gas supply and her bullying tactics to divide and rule. We have now reached the stage that in matters of international politics some members of NATO and, let us recall, of the EU respond with the question “how high” when President (soon to be Prime Minister) Putin says “jump”.

Mr Lucas thinks that the answer is a stronger EU who will stand up to Russia on matters of energy security, that not being NATO’s remit. He advanced this theory again in very strong terms in a talk-cum-discussion that took place at a club for journalists on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, for Mr Lucas’s theory, in my opinion, and I did suggest this to him as well, his own examples belie it. Clearly, Germany, backed by France, possibly Spain and certainly the Benelux countries would like nothing more than putting pressure on the East European and Baltic countries in order to stop them complaining about Russian bullying and demands.

Equally clearly if the EU does manage to have a single voice on these matters, it is much more likely to be the voice of those “pragmatic” countries together with one or two others who have decided to succumb to Russian pressure. The only reason why Europe does stand up to Russia when that country’s leadership tries to throw its weight around, mostly to produce a sense of isolation and siege mentality among the people, is that the uppity Balts and East Europeans refuse to become part of a single European voice.

It would appear that NATO is now entering a similar phase. After the great Franco-German triumph of acting as proxies for Mr Putin came the more official statements that told a slightly different story of President Bush being closer to getting what the United States wanted than Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy, not to mention Prime Minister Zapatero may have realized.

This is not the first time that matters panned out in that way. As we wrote last November in connection with a projected trip to Washington by Chancellor Merkel, whose purpose was to sort out President Bush on Iran:

It seems unlikely that she will succeed. President Bush has a track record of seemingly agreeing with his European “instructors” and then doing exactly what he thinks is right. Remember the much-vaunted Merkel victory over climate change? When the dust settled (well, there is rather a lot of it what with global warming and all) it became obvious that the agreement was really along the lines the United States had advocated for some time.

We predict that Chancellor Merkel and her husband will come back, basking in the success of her mission, only to find that she had been once again diddled by the “Texas cowboy”.

And so it came to pass. Who can even recall what that conversation was about?

In the same posting we asked where Britain with her then relatively new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was in all the negotiations President Bush was conducting. We might ask the same question now. Where does Prime Minister Brown stand on all the issues that split NATO in Bucharest a few days ago?

Meanwhile, Vladimir Socor of the highly regarded Jamestown Foundation has been parsing the outcome of the summit, with special regard to what it might mean to Ukraine and Georgia. He came up with an interesting analysis.

While postponing a decision on a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for those two countries, a plan, incidentally that does not mean membership but a long process towards it, as Russia’s proxies failed to make clear, the Alliance did commit itself clearly to “to the political and strategic goal of Ukrainian and Georgian membership in the Alliance”.

This is what the official statement said:

NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP.

Therefore we will now begin at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding, pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia.

There is no timetable for the membership application, much less fulfilment but there would have been no suggestion of a timetable with MAP anyway. For all of that, we have a definite commitment and a plan whereby the MAP application can be decided without another summit. The Foreign Ministers can do so by themselves, though it is likely that the German and French ones will continue holding out at the December 2008 meeting.

As Vladimir Socor points out this is the first time NATO has announced a political commitment to the future membership of two countries. This is not, one assumes, what Chancellor Merkel, President Sarkozy and their followers wanted. At present it looks like a victory for the supporters of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership and another blow to European solidarity with Russia losing another diplomatic round as a result of serious miscalculations on President Putin's part.

The following day Mr Socor returned to the subject. In it he pointed out that once again the new members paid a crucial part by refusing to align themselves with Old Europe:

Aligned with the United States, Canada and two small West European countries, the new members formed the critical mass that opened NATO’s door to Ukraine and Georgia.

The article gives further details of the way the countries lined up:

The new member countries’ informal alignment on this issue is a natural follow-up to the Vilnius Ten process, in which these countries had earlier joined forces as aspirants to NATO membership. Launched in 1999, the Vilnius Ten process culminated in the accession of seven countries to NATO as full members in 2004 (the Baltic states, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria). The group of earlier entrants--Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary--was closely involved with the Vilnius Ten all along. Two more participants in that process, Croatia and Albania, were invited to commence accession procedures at the Bucharest summit.

The new member countries regard Ukraine’s and Georgia’s future as a matter of vital interest to themselves and to NATO. In the run-up to the summit they signed, alongside Canada (the United States remained in the background), a joint declaration urging approval of Ukrainian and Georgian MAPs in Bucharest. Only the Socialist-led Hungarian government, engaged in a mini-Ostpolitik of its own, dropped out of that group and joined the anti-MAP countries at the summit.

Denmark was set to sign the pro-MAP declaration ahead of the summit, but the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs persuaded its Danish counterpart to delay that gesture. Danish political leaders, however, prevailed; and the country joined the pro-MAP countries at the summit, as did Iceland. Against this backdrop, the work of U.S. President George W. Bush throughout the summit made the decisive difference for opening the door to Ukraine and Georgia.

So we ask again, where is Britain in all this? After all, this is an important issue. Maybe not as important as Britain’s role in Basra but quite high up. There is the question of NATO and its future role; the problem of Russia, how to deal with her aggressvie bullying and whether she will be able to put pressure on NATO members; the problem of stability and security in Eastern Europe and the Caspian. Do we, as a country, have a view?

Not really, it would seem.

Britain remained on the sidelines throughout the presummit and summit debate. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Bush that his government was for the MAPs in principle, but would not pursue the issue. Moreover, “We are agnostic--if there is a consensus, we would agree, but we don’t support pushing for it now.”

Well, that’s just the way one expects the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to behave. Who would have thought that one might feel nostalgic for Tony Blair, who, at least, had some view on what he would like to see happening on the international scene. He was frequently muddled and found it hard to sort his thoughts out but he was aware of the fact that there were problems out there and they needed sorting.

For the first time in a very long period we have a Prime Minister who has absolutely no knowledge or understanding of foreign affairs. None at all.

While we are on the subject, where is our Parliament? Where is Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition? Is this not the sort of subject that should be debated? This is not EU competence so it should be taken seriously by our politicians and more seriously by our media, though to be fair the Times did say in its editorial on April 4

In this debate, one voice has been notably, embarrassingly, absent. Gordon Brown, attempting to sit on the fence, has missed a huge opportunity.

But the editorial came to no particular conclusions either except to assume, once again, that the United States and President Bush somehow are in need of British advice and guidance.

So the saga of NATO’s relationship with Russia and the countries around her will be played out without British participation and, it would seem, despite much of Old Europe taking a somewhat pusillanimous position.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski has already stated “that he wants Poland to maintain its veto over EU talks with Russia regarding a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement unless major West European EU states agree to put Ukraine and Georgia on a clear path to NATO membership”.

While State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov is quoted as hoping that other EU member states will not back this “senseless” proposal, the chances are that Russia will not be able to manipulate the whole of the EU through its proxies as it has not been able to manipulate NATO precisely because these organizations do not speak with one voice.

The way we are governed

A long-running controversy about the "environmental performance of tyres" has just burst back into the open, with the European Tyre & Rubber Manufacturers' Association (ETRMA) protesting against EU commission’s proposals for reducing the rolling resistance of truck tyres.

This, on the face of it, is one of those boring, technical issues best left to the technocrats, and of no concern to ordinary mortals, much less the high-flying politicians of Westminster, who are concerned with much weightier things.

In fact, though, this is the very stuff of politics. Behind the ETRMA's disquiet (which may or may not be self-serving) are a number of complex and highly controversial issues which have a direct and continued bearing on many aspects of our lives – not least in deciding whether some of us live or die.

At the heart of the current controversy is the EU commission's obsession with driving down carbon dioxide emissions from road vehicles. With vehicle manufacturers reaching – or very close to reaching – the technical limits for reducing emissions from engines, the commission is turning to other aspects of automotive technology to achieve more cuts, and has fastened on the option of reducing the rolling resistance of tyres as an option.

The problem for the tyre-makers, however – or so they claim – is that the goals set by the draft proposals for truck tyres are simply not technically feasible with current technology. Furthermore, should they ever be met, tyres with less resistance on the road would be at risk of losing their grip when the surface is wet, significantly raising the risk of accidents.

Furthermore, the commission is not just pushing the envelope on rolling resistance. It is also proposing to require a substantial cut in the noise level from truck tyres, from a range of 75-79 decibels to 70-73. This is also of some significance as tyre noise when vehicles are travelling from mid- to high speed is very often more dominant than engine noise, thus affecting the quality of life of the many people who live near main roads.

This, therefore, is quite evidently a controversial issue and one which needs resolving, not least as the tyre manufacturers say that much or more of what is being attempted could be better and perhaps more cheaply achieved by changing the materials used in the construction of road surfaces, an option which would require a change in direction on public spending.

However, the interesting and highly relevant point – for this blog – is that, while our own transport ministry is involved and various lobby groups are all making their pitch, the one organisation that should be representing our views, and eventually making the decisions, is not in any way involved.

We write, of course, of our own parliament. As with the food additives, it has no locus in the matter, it is not consulted and is not involved in the debate, which is focused entirely on Brussels.

In the fullness of time, when our central government in Brussels has made its decision – with some input from our own provincial government (although the issue is decided by qualified majority voting) – technical regulations will be handed down, which will not even need to be approved by parliament. The new standard, whatever it might be, will become the law of the land the moment it is "done in Brussels".

And that, dear readers, is the way we are governed. Unsurprising it is that MPs are increasingly seen as irrelevant. That is precisely what they are.

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The limits of power

Across a wide range of studies, over a number of years, the evidence of harm caused by the addition of certain artificial colours and other additives to food – particularly in terms of the adverse effect on child behaviour – looks persuasive.

One measured review last year summed up the state of play, with this observation:

Artificial food colourings, in particular, are of no nutritional benefit to children. In fact they are often used to make non-nutritious food more appealing. Given the additional public health problem of childhood obesity, and the ensuing drive to promote "healthy eating", a coherent food policy which considers both the physiological and the potential behavioural impact of removing such foods from young children's diets seems to be likely to do more good than harm.

On the back of a more recent study carried out by Southampton University in 2007, our own regulatory authority, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), is now sufficiently convinced of the potential for harm that it wishes to see a ban on six specific artificial food colourings.

There are no circumstances where such a body should have the power to implement a ban – this is (or should be) for government to propose and for parliament to approve, after weighty consideration of the issues and an opportunity for debate.

However, that is no longer how our system does work. No longer does the British government or parliament have any jurisdiction in the matter, as the power rests entirely in the hands of the EU commission, which alone can decide whether there should be a ban. And, as we saw last month, our masters have considered the proposition and rejected calls for a ban.

This, as the BBC reports, leaves our FSA impotently to ask our provincial ministers to plead with UK food manufacturers to consider a voluntary ban, a measure that could in any event only apply to UK manufacturers. No measure could be taken to prevent manufacturers in other member states from exporting products using these additives into this country.

The best we can get out of the European Food Safety Agency is that the "effects of the food colourings on children's behaviour were small but, as the there were no nutritional benefits from the additives, there would be no cost or risk to the child in removing them from the diet." This allows us to call for voluntary action by our own industry, but nothing more.

In the fullness of time, our ministers may – or may not – be able to convince their colleagues in the other member states to ask the EU commission if it would mind awfully producing a proposal to ban the additives, but even with the best will in the world, the process would take many years.

In the meantime, our government is impotent, and parliament is totally excluded from the process – it has neither locus nor authority. It, like the rest of us – if it is so minded – can simply complain.

And there lie the limits of power. It may be a small issue in the grander scheme of things, but it is also an issue about which large numbers of people are very passionate. But, since they no longer have a government in London, and must hang on the words of our masters in Brussels, they would have good reason to ask why we still need the vast apparatus of state which used to govern us.

Well might they ask – but answer there will be none.

COMMENT THREAD

European defence – an unrealisable dream?

Much has been said and written recently on the implications of the constitutional Lisbon treaty for European defence integration. We have been meaning to write about it for some time and, finally, the mouse has laboured.

Perversely, we do not see Lisbon as much of a threat. The more immediate challenge comes from Sarkozy and his new-found enthusiasm for Nato - as well as his apparent conversions Atlanticism, which is much more (and less) than it seems.

Our arguments are set out in a longish essay on Defence of the Realm.

She chose the wrong day …

Up on the Euractive site recently was a glowing puff about the fragrant Margot who was happily warbling that her "Plan D" had been a "success".

It had succeeded in its goal of organising a "broad public debate on the future of the European Union," said the fair Wallström, speaking at a press conference on 2 April. She highlighted a number of Plan D's key achievements in the 2005-2007 period, notably "increased internet debate, increased contact with national parliaments and civil society, increased dissemination of information to European schools and a number of cross-border citizen consultation projects."

Thus she burbled: "We are now beyond the reflection period," noting that the commission had learned a number of lessons, above all the need to achieve a "more active European citizenship" through consulting and empowering citizens in EU policymaking.

Helping herself to large doses of magic mushrooms, she went on to say that Plan D had helped to "change the perception that the EU debate is too abstract from EU citizens," adding that it has represented a significant step towards "building an open European public sphere".

If ever there was a sign of the total detachment of our European political classes, this surely has to be it. With our finger on the pulse of EU affairs, as you might expect, we find that European Union issues – never well covered – have almost disappeared from the public consciousness.

Days go by in the media without the slightest reference to the EU. A visitor from another planet might be forgiven for not realising that we were even in the EU, much less that it was our supreme government, such is the paucity of coverage.

Of course, as Booker observed last Sunday, the very last thing in the world the EU commission wants is a frank and open debate about the future of the European Union. But it is nevertheless remarkable that Wallström, in her little bubble, can really believe – if she does – that she is reaching out to the great unwashed.

Clearly, her press conference was a day late. April 1 would have been more plausible.

COMMENT THREAD

Thou shalt not be efficient

There will not be many readers of this blog who would rush to accuse us of having any great respect or regard for the Italian government.

When it comes to its policy of buying helicopters for military and civil government uses, though, it seems to adopt the eminently reasonable idea of purchasing standard machines – such as the Augusta A109 (pictured) – for its Army, its coastguard, its para-military forces such as the Carabiniere and its civilian corps such as the Protezione Civile.

The fairly obvious rationale is that that servicing, pilot training and operations can be standardised and since there is not quite the same distinction between the military and civilian authorities as we see in, say, the UK, the machines purchased primarily for civilian use can also be transferred into military service should the need apply.

Such good sense, however, it totally beyond the grasp of the European Union and, in particular, its judicial arm, the European Court of Justice. They see the cause of integration as far more important than the efficiency of the Italian government (if that is not a contradiction in terms) and its pursuit of reasonable economies.

Thus, in a case brought by the EU commission, the ECJ has just ruled that the Italian government is guilty of the heinous crime of breaching EU procurement directives by not putting out to competitive tendering contracts for the purchase of helicopters, "the use of which for military purposes is hardly certain." These machines, it has ruled, must be subject to the EU's competitive tendering procedure and not, as is the case currently, purchased through a "negotiated procedure" direct with the manufacturer.

There is, of course, an exemption under Article 296(1)(b) EC which allows any member state to "take such measures as it considers necessary for the protection of the essential interests of its security and which are connected with the production of or trade in arms, munitions and war materials". This permits the Italian – and any other member state – government to make its own arrangements for the purchase of military helicopters without recourse to the procurement directives.

But, when it comes to equipment which is used primarily for other purposes – even if to be purchased by military corps for civilian use - then the EU rules governing the award of public contracts apply.

Although in this case, the Italian government argued that a common fleet type was "necessary to ensure the interoperability of its fleet of helicopters, in order, particularly, to reduce the logistic, operational and pilot-training costs," the court was entirely unmoved.

The government, it said, had not demonstrated, "in what respect a change of supplier would have constrained it to acquire material manufactured according to a different technique likely to result in incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance."

On might take a certain sly pleasure in the discomfort of the Italian government in what has been described as a "flagrant violation" of EU rules, except of course, what applies to Italy also applies to us. And our supreme government is quite clearly telling us that efficiency, cost saving and other desirable attributes of our local government are as of naught when it comes to the pursuit of integration.

But then, I guess we knew that already.

COMMENT THREAD

When is a riot not a riot?

When it is in Egypt and not in Gaza. When is a teenager shot in the head not a murdered child? When it is the Egyptian police that is doing the shooting. Sandmonkey covers the story with joy though not many details. We shall try to get other links - this one, for instance.

Why do I bother?

On April 4 the Financial Times carried an article entitled EU art levy threatens ‘catastrophe’. It’s all about a report produced by the Intellectual Property Office that says – and it is then confirmed by grandees like Anthony Browne, chairman of the British Art Market Foundation – that once the infamous droit de suite is fully implemented, the now buoyant art market of this country will suffer.

At present it is restricted to living artists only, who are unlikely to benefit from this cumbersome and officious system. From 2010 it will extend to the dead ones as well and the sums that will have to be paid out will make life very difficult for art dealers.

The French Ministry of Culture, France being the only other member state in the EU with a largish market in modern art, though there is always the Maastricht Art Fair, has already suggested that the droit de suite should continue to be limited to living artists only. Unlikely to happen. The directive is in place and has been implemented in all the countries.

Well, I never. So the droit de suite, opposed by every British political party but passed through QMV by the Council of Ministers mostly representing countries that have no art markets, is going to harm the successful British one. Where have I heard this before?

Actually, more to the point, where have I written this before? Well, apart from articles in the European Journal and eurofacts in the past (first time in 1998), as well as several briefing papers for friendly peers, I wrote about it on EUReferendum on February 15, 2005, December 20, 2005, December 22, 2005, January 25, 2006. On the One London blog I wrote only twice, in connection with the fatuous report produced by Angie Bray, that stalwart member of the Conservative Party, on December 21, 2005 and on February 1, 2006, the latter showing some choice examples of fatuousness both on the part of Ms Bray and of Hizonner the Mayor.

Over and above that I wrote the One London Minority Report that was attached to Ms Bray’s rather idiotic (I have overused the word fatuous) official report.

Groundhog day, anyone?

At least I can safely say that everything I wrote about in all those pieces will be coming true. The Financial Times says so.

A Roman Catholic Union

Archbishop Cranmer is shadowing the unearthly bishops’ conference of the European community (COMECE), citing COMECE president, Monsignor Adrianus van Luyn, who says:

Behind the day-to-day business of politics, the vast majority of people can no longer recognise or fathom why things are going in one direction or another. Behind politics resides metapolitics, which forms the values upon which all political action is based, above and beyond party lines.

That, more than anything, is the true legacy of the European Union, which has destroyed any idea of linkage between electing a government and expecting it to deliver policies that are in the interests of the people who elected it.

The bishops' agenda, writes Cranmer, was clearly exposed when a COMECE spokesman said of their Spring plenary assembly that it had given bishops, "the chance to reflect on the fundamental question of how citizens' support for the EU can be mobilised and how this might be translated into concrete goals".

Cranmer also informs us that the COMECE Bishops acknowledged the achievements of Mgr Noël Treanor, Secretary General of COMECE since 1993, and his efforts "to assist the Catholic Church as a proactive partner in dialogue with the EU institutions".

That the Roman Catholic church is so evidently in bed with the European Union is disturbing, but it is just another cog in the vast network of influence that is subverting the political system, and what is laughingly called "civil society" in this country.

So deeply embedded is this political cancer that one fears that attempt to root it out will all but kill the patient.

COMMENT THREAD

The lies and deception continue

Our government yesterday decided to commit €3.4 billion of our money to its vanity project, aka the Galileo satellite navigation system, thereby finally turning its back on its guarantee of November 2000 that "public financing in the form of subsidies" would not be needed after 2007.

The figure, like the system, is pure moonshine, €3.4 billion being nowhere near enough to get the full constellation launched and operational - €10 billion being closer the mark, with additional through-life costs to maintain the system.

This development, therefore, represents the latest in a long line of lies, deception and incompetence that stands as a glorious testament to the true nature of the form of government that constitutes the European Union.

Needless to say, because the decision has been taken by our real government in Brussels, rather than our etiolated rent-seekers in Westminster and Whitehall, the British media – other than the BBC website - has found itself incapable of reporting it.

The Houston Chronicle managed to carry the story, as well as the Chinese Peoples' Daily Online, but not the great British media. This remains as much in denial as to the true nature of our government as are our politicians (and political blogs), and prefers to wrap itself in the warm glow of domestic issues, in the manner of local papers reporting on the machinations of their local councils.

Not for our great fourth estate is there any wider horizon beyond the shores of its foetid "little England", which is of course why those lying, cheating bastards in our Brussels government (of which our own local government forms part) get away with so much.

COMMENT THREAD

Declaration of interests - 2

This posting will be slightly different from the first part. I am, in a way, declaring my interests on this blog in that I do not think human rights to be a negligible or peripheral issue. I fully accept my colleague’s argument that the issues in Tibet and China are more complicated than they might appear from the slogans. Most political developments are more complicated than slogans carried by demonstrators.

The real trick is to produce slogans that encompass at least some of the complications and appeal to the hunger for simplicity at the same time. Whether the ones that demand freedom for Tibet and for the many Chinese dissidents have managed that trick is not quite as important as it may seem.

There was not going to be a revolution or political change in China as a result of these demonstrations. But it is always good to remind tyrants that even if they have the support of all the tranzis and the left liberals are afraid to criticize them too much, there is such a thing as public opinion.

Despite all Chinese efforts the 2008 Olympics will not be an enhanced propaganda coup for Communist China. More than that, the mess and violence of the demos, the presence of the obviously highly trained Chinese military or special police who appeared to take over the policing of London’s streets from Plod Blair’s finest, all of this will reflect on the image of the Olympics in general. And not a moment too soon.

The latest news is that French officials, having twice extinguished the torch and relit it from the sacred flame that is carried round with the torch, otherwise known as the nearest gendarme’s lighter, have now abandoned the last lap of the relay in Paris. Then again, according to this report by Associated Press, it is the Chinese officials who did all the extinguishing (five times, it appears) and deciding to abandon the last lap.

Next stop San Francisco where certain excrementary material really will hit the fan.

This is not, however, a posting about the Olympics but about the importance of human rights as a political concept.

So, let me declare my interests. I am a blogger, a journalist, a writer. I prefer to have the freedom to write as I see fit (tempered by the need to earn money) and I think all those in my position should have that right, no matter where they are or what their government says.

Anyone courageous enough to stand up to tyranny in the name of freedom of speech has my support. This, naturally enough, does not apply to people who stand up to one form of tyranny, say the Egyptian government, in the name of another and possibly worse form, Islamism. But it applies to such people as Kareem in Egypt or Hu Jia in China.

Experience of working with dissidents in the Soviet Union tells one that people in countries where they cannot express their views freely need and want support from their more fortunate colleagues. Ah yes, I had better declare an interest here, as well. I helped, not as much as many people but a little, Soviet and East European dissidents before 1989.

Let me declare another interest. Being female I am deeply offended by societies and those wonderful “nation” states, which treat women as chattels, cover them in black from top to toe, throw acid in the faces of those who try to disobey, consider family and marital violence that includes, if necessary, murder, against women to be just fine and dandy and think nothing of stoning them to death.

Then again, without any interest in the matter I am deeply offended by societies that hang boys accused of homosexual behaviour from cranes.

And I loathe and despise all westerners, no matter which side of the political spectrum they affirm themselves to be, who support such systems. I have no time for people who pounce on every thing that goes wrong in our societies to prove that we are no better, perhaps even worse.

Naturally, things that are wrong in our societies need to be noted and changed if possible. I think this blog has a reasonable track record of, at least noting what may be wrong with us, our politicians, our media and our establishment in general. But that does not make us as bad as, or worse than China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or, even, Russia. Not nohow.

That’s enough declared interests. I appreciate that as far as the very sensible and commonsensical readers of this blog are concerned, such matters are piffling. What does matter is economic factors. All else is unconsidered trifles.

Well, I have a surprise for these commonsensical individuals. Human rights are essential to economic factors.

In the first place, societies that have a sizeable measure of freedom is much more likely to solve economic difficulties. Of course, the market is the best way of doing so and even a highly imperfect one is better than an oppressive planning system in which people who complain or criticize find themselves behind barbed wire.

Secondly, information is vital to understand what is going on in any country and it is hard to have any dealings with those we know next to nothing about. Not nobody not nohow knows what is really going on in China because there is no real information. Which means, all predictions and assumptions are fantasies.

In the last few years while journalists, analysts and writers of potboiler books of politics fell over themselves to predict a fantastic future for China, telling us all that the country will take over in a decade or so from everybody, all I could ask was “how do you know”. Answer came there none. My own very cautious predictions of likely tensions and troubles are beginning to look considerably more correct than all those whoops of triumphalism. And still we do not know.

Remember how wrong Sovietologists, economists, political scientists were about the Communist states of Europe because they accepted official figures with some adjustment? East Germany would have been easier to understand than China but the mess its economy was in reality came as a complete shock to all but a few hardened “cold warriors”. Certainly, it was a shock to Chancellor Kohl and the West German government.

Germany and the rest of Western Europe are still paying for that ignorance, caused entirely by a lack of human rights, which meant no reliable information. We may pay even more heavily for our assumptions based on highly limited information about China.

More immediately, lack of human rights translated into lack of free information means that we have no understanding of what is happening in Iran and why have the Mad Mullahs with President Ahmadinejad at the head abandon Moqtada al-Sadr, as they seem to have done.

Not peripheral by any stretch of imagination.

The end of the beginning?

Despite the determination of The New York Times and even our own Daily Telegraph to paint as black a picture in Iraq as possible, Rick Moran of American Thinker and Neo Neocon think our boy dun good.

We tend to agree and said so at the time. We take a quiet pride in being one of the very few British blogs which followed the crisis through from the very start and then saw through the hype.

That Malki judged correctly in taking on the Mehdi Army is now largely confirmed by a report in The Times today – one of several – which has Moqtada al-Sadr offering "voluntarily" to disband his militia, a "surprise" move (to follow his "surprise" move in ordering his troops off the streets) which came after Maliki threatened to exclude Sadr from the political process unless he stood his forces down, garnering support from a coalition of Kurds, Sunnis and Shias, who were willing to back him.

Sadr is attempting to save face by calling on Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to "advise" him to do so, in so doing referring to a long-standing political enemy in what can only be described as a fig-leaf.

The Mehdi Army itself is under severe military pressure from Iraqi and US forces who are poised to enter its Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City for a final showdown, in a fight that they look to be winning as support for the militia melts away.

According to The Times, an Iraqi police commander whose forces have sealed the eastern approaches to Sadr City said that raids would resume today when a government deadline for the militia to disarm expired. "I think this time they're finished," said Brigadier Ali Ibrahim Daboun. "In all the previous battles, they were attacking and we were on the defensive. Now it's the other way round."

The interesting thing here is the reluctance of the Western media to acknowledge that we seem to be at a turning point, relying on a diet of burning Iraqi vehicles (above - this one is an Iraqi "Badger", the 6x6 version of the Force Protection Cougar, on which the Mastiff is based) to project a pessimistic picture.

It is often said that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan, but here we seem to be seeing the reverse. The largely left-wing US media have a strong desire to see "Bush's war" fail, as do the right-wing British media and politicians (who feel the same about Blair's war), while the anti-war political left is equally embarrassed by Blair's joint venture with Bush.

Even now, coverage of events in the British media is slight, but there is truly a sense that, after five long years, we are approaching an end game in Iraq. To paraphrase Churchill, this may only be the end of the beginning, but even that is progress. One wonders how long though, that Maliki's success will remain an orphan.

COMMENT THREAD

A question of subsidy

An utterly mad piece comes from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph today.

Usually our favourite economic commentator (well, mine), he has been in Oviedo, northern Spain, writing an unashamed "puff" for the wind industry, headed, "Spain's gain from wind power is plain to see".

Windmills pay, he writes: "On a breezy Saturday at the end of March, Aeolian Parks scattered across the hill-top ridges and off-shore sandbanks of Spain produced 40.8 percent of the country's electricity needs - 9,862 megawatts to be precise."

The much-derided turbines, he tells us, produced enough wattage to power the great cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Toledo, Cordoba, Granada, Santander, Bilbao, and Zaragoza combined. The workday record on a Tuesday, 5 March, was 28 percent.

In fact, the 40 percent "record" lasted only a brief period as heavy winds lashed Spain, providing the 40.8 percent of total consumption only because of the low demand during the Easter holiday weekend.

Nor indeed was this record any great advance on the last peak, which occurred on 19 March 2007 when the system produced 8,375 megawatts or 27 percent of Spain's energy – out of an installed capacity of 15,145 megawatts which was then delivering an average load factor of something less than 30 percent.

Furthermore, so exceptional is this contribution to the Spanish energy system that it is not surprising it makes news – not least because only under very tightly controlled conditions, for very short periods, can that amount of power be allowed into the grid system. Supply experts warn that a percentage of 23 percent is higher than the grid can accommodate, forcing power utilities to takes turbines off the grid when the supply peaks, to avoid network collapse due to instability.

This situation, Ambrose coyly tells us, arises from "years of nurture" by the Spanish government which, he says, "have paid off." Spain is a global superpower in the wind race, with 15,000 megawatts of capacity.

"Nurture", however, is an interesting description for what are usually called subsidies which, until recently have been so huge that even the Spanish government has been embarrassed by them. Up until December 2006, the industry was being paid about €97 per megawatt hour, a level described as "exaggeratedly high", which forced a reduction to between €67 and €84.

But it is only that level of subsidy which has enabled Spain in the last eight years to become the world's second-largest producer of wind power after Germany. And, even then, the flow of largesse has barely been checked. Overall, Spain will devote €1.8 billion a year until 2010 to subsidising wind power.

None of these details, however, emerge from Ambrose – a man who usually excels with facts and figures. Instead, he tells us that "every mill costs €2.6m (£2m) to buy and erect, yet the Danish manufacturer Vestas is sold out until 2010," then adding that one leading operator, E.On, "is coy about profit margins." But, with a subsidy of €1.8 billion, is this surprising?

Ignoring this, Ambrose tells us that, "the European operations are flirting with break-even cost," which seems neglect the minor detail that one of the options they are offered is a fixed price of €73.228 per megawatt hour for everything they can generate during the first 20 years of existence of a facility, and €61.200 per megawatt hour after that. Alternatively, they can opt to take the market price for electricity, plus a top-up of €29.291 per megawatt hour for 20 years.

Most producers are opting for this scheme which also means that wind generation is the only way to make money out of electricty. The final electricity price is regulated by the government and, currently, the average final electricity price is slightly lower than average cost of production by conventional (non-nuclear) means.

A beneficiary of this largesse, Frank Mastiaux, the head of E.On's green operations, is nevertheless allowed to say that, "When this began in the 1970s it was a niche play, a nice tax break for German dentists and doctors. Now it is turning into an industrial business. Productivity has grown by 150 times in 25 years."

Mastiaux adds that, "The cost of wind power is €50 to €100 a megawatt hour," – his larger machines presumably coming in at €50, which makes his operation a nice little earner.

Unsurprisingly, he believes that, "Renewables will soon be a €200bn business," remarking that, "I can't think of any other industry with growth like that." Interestingly, we can't think of any other industry with such a generous subsidy regime, which might possibly explain the rate of growth for an industry that produces electricity at two to three times the cost of nuclear energy, even after decommissioning.

However, Wulf Bernotat, E.On's chief, also glides over the subsidy question. Wind power ticks more good boxes than almost any other option, he says. It is clean, nearly silent, emits no CO2, pays its way, and is "home made". "Those who don't like wind power have a duty to offer an alternative. So far they haven't really come up with anything," he says.

Strangely, there are many who have indeed come up with that alternative – "clean" nuclear power at a third of the cost of wind power. But, when the energy companies can milk the system for subsidies - and lose money on other forms of electricty generation - their enthusiasm for "green" power is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that Ambrose has fallen for the con.

COMMENT THREAD

A world gone mad

An intriguing piece in The Times business section tells us that, "Skyrocketing corn prices hit ethanol profits".

We are informed that the continuing surge in the price of corn, "which is punishing households with higher food prices," is also cutting the profits of American ethanol producers and playing havoc with an industry that was blamed for causing the grain shortage.

The price of a bushel of corn soared above $6 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange last week, pushed higher by news that American farmers were planting less corn. Farmers planted a record 94 million acres of corn last year but the US Department of Agriculture forecasts only 86 million acres this year as farmers switch from corn to soya bean, another crop that is generating record profits.

Something which we have flagged up on this blog is also noted by this article – that "expensive corn is hurting the livestock industry," which in turn – surprise, surprise – "will raise the price of meat."

We get quoted Rich Feltes, senior vice-president of commodity research for MF Global, who says: "Hog producers are liquidating sows, the farmers are operating in the red.” This, of course, is exactly what is happening in the UK for, while arable farmers are counting their new-found wealth, livestock producers are bleeding to death.

But the fascinating thing is that the skyrocketing cost of corn is also rebounding on the ethanol industry, which is taking an ever larger proportion of the US corn harvest to manufacture road fuel.

Last week Renova, we learn, an AIM-listed ethanol manufacturer, confirmed that it was struggling to secure finance for a 21 million-gallon plant in Idaho, and last month Pacific Ethanol, a Californian producer, disclosed big quarterly losses, cost overruns and bank loan defaults as the cost of corn hit its margins.

Feltes offers the stunning observation that ethanol has turned an agricultural commodity into a fuel. "It's all about the shortage of land created by a rapid ramp-up of ethanol," he says, apparently unconscious of the fact that, if you use food for fuel, you cannot use it for er… food.

The repercussions of that observation are spelt out in a short, down-page item in The Daily Telegraph which has Gordon Brown being warned that, "Rising food prices threaten economic stability and could trigger riots".

Those riots are, in fact already happening but the sentiment mirrors the piece we did over the weekend and notes the World Bank report that the price of staple foods has risen by 80 percent in the past three years.

As we have been wont to observe, for consumers in wealthy nations such as Britain soaring prices are squeezing household finances and keeping inflation up. But for developing nations they can lead to malnutrition and social disruption.

This, according to António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, is already happening, with the cost of food leading to riots. He says: "The biggest problem today is rising food prices in democratic countries everywhere. This can trigger social unrest."

If we also take on board the bad weather over the winter, and the very real prospect that the global warmists have got it dreadfully wrong and we are, in fact, entering a period of cooling, not only are we facing the growing conflict between energy and food production, as ethanol drives up prices, but we are also going to have to confront a sustained loss of agricultural production.

In the round, it is fair to say that the global food shortage is a real issue and, in the coming years, will become the dominant driver of political unrest throughout the world. Yet, in this mad world, what is on its way to becoming a global crisis is still getting only a fraction of the attention it deserves, while international politics is still obsessed by the prospect of what may be non-existent global warming.

COMMENT THREAD