Brains in the posterior position

When you think about it, it is a pretty bizarre idea, interviewing one of your employees and putting the result on the front page of the product which you insist – with decreasing conviction – on calling a newspaper. But then, when it comes to Boris Johnson, pretty bizarre rules seem to apply all right, including a belief in some quarters that this man is a serious politician with anything intelligent to offer.

By no measure, though, should anyone take seriously any article or statement – as with this one - which complains that a plan will "wreck democracy in EU". The concepts of democracy and the EU are so far apart that any idea of juxtaposing them is totally off the wall. Anyone who seeks to link them simply is not worth listening to.

Frankly, that applies in general to anything produced by Boris, including his latest nostrums for solving the eurozone crisis, which fail to recognise that the "colleagues" are reacting to the crisis politically, and are therefore not in the least minded to listen to a man who has a long history of shallow thought, and an appeal to the masses which is, frankly puzzling.

Here we have a nation that took Churchill to its heart (albeit getting rid of him in 1945), but which then embraces a man who, even on a good day, would struggle to qualify as a lightweight fool.

Part of the reason, of course, is to do with the essential triviality of the media, and its insistence on reducing serious issues to soap opera status. For the ineffably lightweight political journalists of today, the ineffably lightweight Boris Johnson is the perfect foil.

But there is also underlying this the lamentable failure within the political classes, but also the mindless Failygraph reader to think past the extruded verbal material (EVM) and think about what the man is actually saying.

For how many years have we all be complaining about the lack of democracy in the EU, to the extent that it is an anti-democratic organisation, on then to have this buffoon make his ludicrous comment about democracy? And the response, rather than universal scorn, has a goodly proportion of the readership braying "right on Boris!" or words to that effect.

One can only observe that, when in a political culture that embraces this refined stupidity, those that indulge in it get everything they deserve. The big, and almost insoluble problem, however, is that the rest of us do not deserve to have our politics dictated by those with their brains in the posterior position.

COMMENT THREAD

A Booker trio

Three stories from Booker this week, two in one tranche and another instalment of "stolen children" which gets its own separate slot.

For obvious reasons, I have had less to do with the making of these stories than normal, although Booker usually runs his own show on the "stolen children". Even though I fully support him in his endeavours, it isn't really my bag.

This week's tale, though, is a good one, harping back last month when the plods banged up a 14-year-old girl for "assaulting" four of their number, after they tried to take her into "protective custody" for the crime of being found at home with her mum.

Arresting the victim of police violence is a classic plod ploy, but in this case four plods against a 14-year-old looked a bit excessive even to the CPS and we learn that they have now abandoned the case.

The girl's lawyers are now considering bringing a case against the police and, as so often before, Booker raises the question as to why the plods seem so willing to intervene mob-handed to seize children on behalf of social workers, when too often there seems not the slightest call for such aggressive behaviour.

There must be a sensible answer to that, but it is one which has so far eluded us.

A question Booker does not ask, in respect of his global warming story, is why anyone still listens to or watches the BBC on this issue – or another other, for that matter. Instead, he goes into rather more detail than I would have cared to on quite how biased the Corporation is when dealing with the subject.

This, Booker goes into even more detail in a forthcoming pamphlet which, although in ursine excretory behaviour territory, does provide useful background on the Beeb status.

This then gives way to a classic Booker "red tape folly" story, with the added poignancy of being an EU tale, just at a time when The Boy is implausibly describing himself as a Euro "sceptic", making reference in his Guildhall to "pointless interference, rules and regulations" from Brussels.

Personally, I think Cameron should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act, for passing himself off as a eurosceptic, although I guess we could just change the vocabulary. We could call ourselves "outers" and be done with it. That leaves Cameron looking fatuous, as he does here, in other sad tale of pointless interference that makes a lie of any pretence he might have to dealing with the burden of EU regulation.

Three vintage tales then … no answers, unfortunately, but I think we know those already.

COMMENT THREAD

Jesuits at large

There is much huffing and puffing at the refusal by the European Food Safety Authority to accept the health claim that – as the Daily Wail asserts – "drinking water stops dehydration".

One is always reluctant to rush to the defence of the "colleagues" but, between them and the Wail, one is sometimes pushed to choose which to support. However, in this case, the "colleagues" very much have it as, to accept what the advertising claims would wish to assert, would be an offence against logic.

The issue, of course, is way beyond the pay grade of yer average Wail hack – and most certainly any UKIP MEP. But the learned "colleagues" had to consider whether "regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration and of concomitant decrease of performance".

The logical problem, however, is that, for a health claim to be made in respect of a food, the legislation allows only that such claims can be couched in terms of reducing "risk factors". It must significantly reduce a risk factor in the development of a human disease. That is what the law says.

In this context, a soothing infusion of herbal tea, which went toward reducing stress, could support claims of reducing hypertension, the former being a "risk factor" in respect of the latter.

When it comes to dehydration, though, the claim is made that drinking water actually reduces this condition. But, dehydration is a measure of the disease, not a risk factor leading to it. And, as any good Jesuit will tell you, one could not possibly allow the effect – actual disease reduction – to be characterised as a reduction in the risk of acquiring that disease. St Ignatius would turn in his grave at such a proposition.

Thus, despite the ignorant posturing of the British media, the refinements of the Continental mind have prevailed, and we are saved from the fate of having sellers of over-priced water committing egregious offences against logic.

It was things such as this for which we really joined the European Union, and thank goodness we did. It was not a moment too soon.

COMMENT THREAD

The trivia fairies

One can really empathise with Mary Ellen Synon and her non-report on the EU budget, where a two percent rise for next year to €129 billion has been agreed.

I can remember, she says, when the EU budget was a big story … Now, out of a press corps of "maybe 900", by ten o'clock last night at the council press centre, there were perhaps seven reporters hanging on to wait for the official result and (we hoped) press conference. She adds:

By midnight, there were just five of us left. When the word came down at 12.40 a.m. that it would be another hour at least before we'd have the white smoke, I showed my lack of moral fibre and went home. So then, as in the Agatha Christie mystery story, there were four.

It is rather interesting how perspectives change. Things that were once hugely important are less so now. My current problem though, in scanning the media in general, is finding anything of importance.

Did something happen last week, while I wasn't looking, and let the trivia fairies take over?

COMMENT THREAD

Chamberlain was a heavyweight

There is something about Germany that brings out in the British media some of its least desirable characteristics. And when you have in Volker Kauder, the CDU's parliamentary leader a stage Hun with all the sensitivity of a plank, and an IQ to match two short versions, you have the setting for a perfect storm.

At least, however, der Spiegel sums up the real importance of the current, and largely engineered spat between Merkel and Cameron. Put bluntly, The Boy is so fundamentally unserious and his concerns so slight that the grown-ups across the water are scarcely bothered with him. Why indeed the meetings of yesterday went ahead is something of a mystery, but they will be soon forgotten as the "colleagues" get back to work on the substantive issues.

That, of course, is the truth of which the British MSM could never speak, being from the same soap-opera school of politics which reduces every issue to one of personalities, with plot lines as challenging as Strictly Come Dancing.

But at least The Boy has been given a hearing, given his brief moment in the limelight, in a carefully stage-managed press conference, and sent packing, where he can prattle in his own time, to his own venal media, without wasting any more of everyone else's time.

So it was that the Merkel meeting has proved, more so than even we imagined, an unsubstantial piece of theatre, entirely devoid of content and deeper meaning, demonstrating the child-like qualities of the Great Leader, who is even more at sea on the European stage as he is on the domestic scene.

Virtually nothing of interest has emerged from the media reports, nothing of interest came from the press conference and the whole affair has the lasting substance of the Chinese meal. Life will go on and the crisis will go on. But The Boy has been sorted, who can now largely be ignored. By comparison, Chamberlain was a heavyweight.

And, unlike past times, as TBF so aptly puts it, the enemy is within.

COMMENT THREAD

Countdown to failure

UPDATE: "... that's the end of the press conference. Not sure we learned a huge amount", says The Guardian. I'm shocked, I tell yer ... shocked!

After his breakfast in Brussels with José Manuel Barroso, ready for his meeting with Angela Merkel today, it was too much to expect of The Boy that he would be seeking seriously to capitalise on the eurozone disarray, by seeking a claw-back of powers - despite this wishful thinking boilerplate from David Davis.

Rather, it appears that The Boy is to concede the game, supporting the German chancellor in her moves to strengthen economic union, all in return for Merkel's assurance that the Tobin tax will not be foisted on the City of London. This he does not need to do, as the UK can block procedurally any EU commission plans.

That the game is to be conceded is the Financial Times' "take" of the situation. It is billing today's meeting as "tense" and, doubtless, it will be high-octane theatre. In fact, from the British perspective, that is probably all it will be. Cameron's main aim will be to convince his own Party and the nation that he has a grip of things, thus avoiding the worst accusations of a cave-in which are inevitably going to follow in his wake.

What we seeing today, therefore, is the very worst of all situations, where the different players are speaking to their own domestic audiences, while trying to reconcile the EU dimensions and also trying to calm the markets. Reports will become increasingly lurid throughout the day, as journalists struggle to deal with the tedium of covering these mind-numbing summits, while supplying their editors with something fresh to publish.

Working out what is actually going on, therefore, is and will be near-impossible. Much of the media coverage will be expressed in soap opera terms, while anyone who pretends they have a handle on events will simply not know what is happening.

Later, much will depend on market sentiment on the day and, with the disastrous jumps in Spanish, Italian and French bond yields, there is absolutely no sign that the escalating crisis has been contained, or anything like it. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard pins this down, citing David Heathcoat-Amory to tell us that Germany will do whatever it takes to save EMU, but will still fail – because this is a currency rather than a debt crisis.

Thus, as it was in the beginning, so it is in the end – the fundamentals are wrong. Weaker states are uncompetitive, and without being able to devalue externally, are locked into an internal deflationary cycle which, even at its most draconian, still cannot achieve the necessary results.

Through the next few days, this is something to latch on to. It does not matter what they say or what they do. Their plans cannot work. They are going through the motions and whatever they do, they must fail. It is just a matter of time. No matter how many "secret plans" she has, Germany is not going to fix it. Merkel is no more in command of events than King Kong.

I just wish we had someone more credible our end, capable of looking after the national interest, for when it finally goes belly-up. Instead, as Raedwald observes, we are sending in the Second Eleven to bat.

COMMENT THREAD

The elective rip-off

In what should be the death knell for the very idea of elected mayors, we read in the Daily Fail that former MP Sir Peter Soulsby, and now mayor of Leicester, is in line for an 80 percent pay rise.

This is despite his own council making £70million-worth of spending cuts, and cutting back 1,000 council jobs, in a move that could see his pay go up from £56,000 to £100,000. Soulsby's deputy could more than double his salary from £34,000 to £75,000. Six assistant mayors would pocket 65 percent increases from £26,000 to £40,000, and all 47 city councillors would see their basic allowances go up 20 percent from £10,000 to £12,000.

Therein lies the ultimate outcome of the misplaced vogue for "democratising" local government by adding yet another layer of highly-paid elected officials to the structure. One can well see why the political classes like the idea, but all one ends up with is another layer of highly-paid elected officials to the structure, with no demonstrable enhancements in standards of government.

The problem, of course, resides in the fatal confusion between elections and accountability, it being assumed that the need to get re-elected exerts a restraining influence on the greed of ambitious officials. But given that, as an MP, Soulsby employed his two daughters, Lauren and Eleanor, as junior secretaries and his wife, who earned £25,000 a year as office manager, there was never much chance of such restraint.

Wittering for Witney explores further the failings of representative democracy here, arguing that change is required to our system of democracy. And as long as there are troughers such as Peter Soulsby around, he is not wrong.

It really is about time somebody did some serious thinking about the nature of this democracy of ours and where we are going, breaking away from the simplistic notions that currently govern our structures. Not least, we need to recall that politics is about power, and the ability merely to select one's tormentors (very often from a rigged list) without any means of controlling them is no democracy at all.

COMMENT THREAD

Struggling for coherence

Maybe it is just post-operative blues, but I'm struggling to get back into the frame, with the news agenda lacking any apparent coherence. We are seeing much the same EU stories as before, nothing has been resolved and the UK political position is no further forward.

I am grateful, therefore, to Witterings from Witney, for picking up a comment of mine on the Norwegian situation, brought up by Cameron in his Lord Mayor's Banquet speech, and supposedly rebutted by Farage.

This affords me an opportunity to display some irritation (hey! I'm entitled occasionally) at the limitations of our "own" side. For, while one expects nothing of Cameron – or any of the other Tories who seem impervious to knowledge on the EU – one would hope that our own would take the time to find out something of the organisation of which they speak.

In the case of Norway, this is quite important, as the situation is deemed to be a weak point in the eurosceptic armoury. Even outside the EU, it is held, Britain would have to adopt common trading law, as does Norway but, unlike currently, we would lose any influence in its framing, having thus to adopt in the manner of Norway, laws sent to us by fax from Brussels - the so-called "fax law" option.

Bizarrely, Farage concedes this point, although it is not true and can easily be demolished. We have rehearsed it many times and wrote a definitive piece in May 2008, pointing out the actual situation. Most of these laws are not agreed by the EU at all, but by intergovernmental bodies such as UNECE, of which Norway (and the UK) is a member. The legislation is then processed by the EU commission acting in more of a bureaucratic than legislative role.

In other pieces, such as this, I have pointed out that there are dozens of UNECE-type bodies, which would also continue in place even if we left the EU, and through which we would continue to agree international standards, to which EU members would also be bound.  Outside the EU, therefore, we would have just as much influence over single market-type law, adopted by EU members.

The down-side, of course, is that leaving the EU would actually provide less relief from petty regulation than we might imagine, although we could disapply much of it from the domestic market.

This though, is core knowledge which should be shaping the debate. But, tediously, one of the leading players continues to do nothing other than display his ignorance, having never troubled to expand his knowledge-set beyond the basic minimum.

And this is why UKIP risks being left at the starting gate, should we come to a real debate about the mechanics of leaving the EU. The Party has no more to offer than the Tories, and that is perilously little.

One sees, for instance, the halt and the lame in that direction, talking blithely about which powers to repatriate and how they would go about reclaiming them, demonstrating absolutely no practical understanding of the complexities involved.

Strangely, of all the policies at present managed by the EU, the first we should claw back is the research programme. This is quite simply because, to repatriate powers, we must replace policies – otherwise there is no point in so doing. And those that are aware of the processes will be aware that a huge amount of policy development (a complex, expensive and time-consuming process) is funded under the research programme.

Thus, is order to reclaim powers, we must develop new policies and, to do that, we must reclaim the policy-making tools.

And so do we need coherence in the debate. Leaving the EU is eminently practicable, possible and necessary, but only if we are able to offer a credible and realistic pathway. To its shame, the eurosceptic community has yet to deliver on this and, when we hear the likes of Farage parade his ignorance, we wonder how longer we are going to have to wait.

COMMENT THREAD

A national scandal

Following on from Philip Johnston's effort on parking charges yesterday, Simon Jenkins visits the same territory in The Guardian today.

It would be interesting to hear views, but having thought Johnston did not do so well, it seems Jenkins has made a better stab at the issue. Not least is the framing expressed in his strap, which declares: "Capped and cut back, local councils can't raise money by any other means, so it's no surprise they pick on car drivers".

Jenkins asserts that there is coalition government hypocrisy behind the current [local authority] war on motorists. With local taxes held down by government order, the councils are unable to resist increasing parking fees and penalties - what drivers in the capital have come to regard as licensed mugging. What makes it hypocrisy is the attitude of the Treasury, which does nothing to restrict local authorities in turning parking into a cash grab.

For all that, though, Jenkins is wrong to put so much emphasis on parking. As we keep pointing out, the council fees and charges issue is much bigger than just parking, some £25 billion annually as against £2 billion annually extracted thought parking fees and fines.

This broader issue really needs the attention. Despite Jenkins having it that local authority revenue is being "capped and cut back", historically both total income and government grants have never been higher, yet their appetite for additional funds has never been greater.

The ability of local councils – with the complicity of central government - to by-pass national restrictions on taxation levels by ramping up fees and charges, is now "squaring the circle", to the extent that it is a major, if poorly-recognised, national scandal.

COMMENT: "SUPERFICIALITY" THREAD

Making it worse

The Daily Mail, stoking up "anti-Hun rhetoric" is never a pretty sight, and one must always remember that it was Rothermere in the 1930s who was cheerleader for appeasement. Perhaps the newspaper is trying to compensate for earlier sins.

However, the current headlining does flag up an unfortunate, if predictable consequence of the financial tensions in the eurozone, and the conflicting national interests amongst the major players within the European Union. Far from becoming an emollient, the continued drive for political integration has become a serious irritant, adding to tensions rather than resolving them.

Even the more considered words of the Financial Times cannot disguise those tensions, this newspaper talking of "German frustration" over Britain's approach to the eurozone crisis, which has "erupted" on Tuesday after a close ally of Angela Merkel accused the UK of selfishness just days before a meeting between the two countries’ leaders in Berlin.

This a speech to members of the Merkel's CDU party, Volker Kauder, its parliamentary leader, who has criticised Britain for opposing the Tobin Tax, declaring that it was "not acceptable" that the UK was "only defending its own interests" rather than that of the wider European Union.

Anti-German sentiment is still only skin-deep in much of British society, and such comments can only inflame the situation, as indeed will the German insistence in pursuing this expensive and damaging tax. The fault lies by no means with the British, references by Kauder to German "being spoken in Europe" amounting to an extraordinarily insensitive statement for a senior German politician.

With Cameron due to meet Merkel in Berlin on Friday, and himself under pressure to deliver more than his usual europlastic rhetoric, it will not take very much for an outbreak of Hun-bashing to break out in the notoriously jingoistic British media, leaving The Boy politically stranded.

That is yet another consequence of the current stresses. Cameron is trailing so far behind domestic sentiment in his continued support for British membership of the EU that he now risks being caught up in a highly damaging war of words that ends up causing irreparable damage.

How ironic it would be if, in his attempt to keep it all stitched together, The Boy actually contributed to making it worse.

COMMENT THREAD

Confirming our opinion

Under strict orders to take things "easy", so desperate have I become that I was even driven to watching the entire edition of the 6 o'clock BBC television news on Tuesday evening – an experience worth doing occasionally, just to check on how bad the hand-wavers have become.

Strangely, though, throughout this main evening bulletin, there was no mention of this, an emerging scandal reported by The Independent in which BBC World News has been found guilty of concealed or "inappropriate" sponsorship, and displaying editorial bias in the making of "heavyweight documentaries on controversial environmental issues".

Inappropriate sponsors included UNESCO, UNEP, UNDP and UNFAO, all United Nation advocacy bodies, once again confirming the BBC's role as shill for tranzie interests, for which there is evidence that it is now handsomely paid.

BBC Trust has said that it is "deeply concerned", and director general Mark Thompson has ordered his organisation to tighten its systems for commissioning current affairs programmes. The broadcasting regulator Ofcom has announced that it is launching an investigation.

Nothing is likely to come of all this, of course. No jobs will be lost as a result, and no improvements will be made to the lamentable standards of editorial control exercised by the BBC, but at least we can draw some comfort from the events, in confirming our already low opinion of an institution which is long past its sell-by date.

COMMENT THREAD

Superficiality

There was a time when I would have thought this piece by Philip Johnston quite good. He writes of an area that few other journalists address, does it well and intelligently, this time complaining about the steady increases in parking fees by local authorities.

It is perhaps a measure of how far we have developed, though, that the piece actually seems lazily superficial. For sure, parking fees are a serious issue, but they are only one small part of a much bigger and much more important picture, the nature of which Johnson does not even acknowledge.

We wrote about that on 9 October, as did Booker, the latter of course being in Johnston's sister newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph. It is perhaps a measure of Johnston that, quite clearly, he has not read the Booker piece - and would not stoop to read a mere blog. He is thus condemned to miss the bigger story – which Booker did better in less space, over a month ago.

But at least Johnston does write about the subject. Despite its importance, very few do and almost all do it badly – especially local newspapers who seem incapable or unwilling to understanding the basics of local authority finance, or the issues attendant upon them.

When what amounts to a quarter of all public expenditure, however, is subject to such poor and very often ignorant scrutiny by the media, you can't really say we have a functioning democracy. As so often, commenters are better informed than the journalists and, when Philip Johnston is the best the media can offer, you can see what a long was they have to go to catch up.

Despite Philip's efforts, therefore, you can also see why newspapers are part of a dying industry and observe that they very much deserve to be. If they cannot do the very basics, they do not deserve to exist.

COMMENT THREAD

A message from Mrs EU Referendum

COMMENT THREAD

Wishing doesn't make it so

In one sense, one would like to think that our political classes were as duplicitous as we all believed them to be, and not simply as stupid as they undoubtedly are.

Such is the case when we learn yet again – on this occasion via the paywall Times - that The Boy is proclaiming that he will "use the debt crisis to help reshape the way Europe does business". One looks in vain for signs of a devious, if coherent, agenda, instead of the obvious moonshine that is on offer.

The occasion of this latest proclamation is the annual foreign policy address to the Lord Mayor's Banquet, where the man-child tells us that the eurozone's chaos presents an opening for the UK to begin loosening its ties with Brussels. "Change brings opportunities", he says, in what the newspaper calls "striking a self-declared sceptic note".

This is, we are told, is "an opportunity, in Britain’s case, for powers to ebb back instead of flow away" Against a pledge by Merkel to "create political union step by step", Cameron says the EU needs "the flexibility of a network, not the rigidity of a bloc".

In more detail, this brain-deficient doctrine is spelled out in The Failygraph, where he insists that leaving the EU is "not in our national interest" but says he feels "very personally" but that now is the time for a fundamental reconsideration of European relations.

For all the headlines, therefore, nothing has changed – not one whit, iota or jot. The Boy is still pushing the same, tired old "reform" agenda, with no material (or any) changes from yesterday, the day before, or ten years before that. In what passes for the "One Nation" Tory brain, time has frozen. It never moves on.

One singular clue to the fatuity of the Boy is, of course, his very platform - the annual foreign policy address. Like so many, including those in the media, the man-child believes (and hasn't the wit to work out otherwise for himself) that the EU is a matter of foreign rather than policy. He cannot deal with the fact that the EU is part of the government of the United Kingdom – in the areas where it has competence, its supreme government.

Needless to say, therefore, The Boy cannot resist his pathetic and unchanged bleating about a new "relationship", demonstrating that it would be easier to communicate with aliens on Ursa Major than the Tory brain.

But this is all part of the pattern. The corporate entity that is the British establishment has never been able to deal with the fact that there are only two options available to the UK – full integration or complete detachment. And unable to admit that the destination is the former, it continues to pretend to itself that there is a middle way.

It is here that duplicity would be nice. Please God that The Boy understands that the only real option is that we have to quit the EU, but is going through the motions of seeking reform in the knowledge that he will fail and will then be able lead us into the promised land of a once-more independent Britain.

Faced with the impossibility of his headline offer ever coming to pass, there are still those who – despite all experience – believe that Cameron will become that latter-day Moses. The media, for instance, are quite content to play this game.

The sad truth, though, is that there is no duplicity. Our political classes are as stupid as they seem. And bizarrely, Cameron has the nerve to accuse the EU of being "out of touch" with European citizens.

COMMENT THREAD

The war goes on

Not a few have drawn my attention to this story the Daily Fail, picking up a report originally in The Sunday Mirror.

Ostensibly about "bailiffs" forcing entry to replace a meter after an alleged unpaid bill, it is unlikely that bailiffs were in fact involved. When armed with a warrant, the legislation permits a supplier to authorise "any officer or other person" to enter premises for the purpose. Suppliers rarely use bailiffs, more commonly relying on specialist contracting firms.

With this and other questions, there are enough dubious aspects to the report to caution against uncritical acceptance of the details but, on the face of it, these "bailiffs" seem to have run roughshod through any guidelines and even the law. Not least, two days notice should be given before a meter replacement.

Amongst the most chilling aspects of the report therefore, is the response of the supplier, Npower. It asserts that: "We will only ever visit a property under these circumstances when all other options have been exhausted - and all personnel on site adhere to strict guidelines and we feel they were fully complied with in this instance".

If the story we read is in the least bit accurate, the Npower assertion simply cannot be true. They cannot have complied with their guidelines. In fact, so distant from any form of reality might be the assertion that one wonders how on earth the company could even think of making it.

And here might in fact be the bigger story. What we could have here is the classic "corporate" which is quite incapable of responding to a complaint or incident with anything other than corporate boiler-plate. They cannot respond otherwise because they cannot see anything of the world outside their own bubble.

This we have noticed with the other corporates, such as the police forces and local councils. Everything is reduced to tick-boxes and procedures, and dredged up a spokesperson to utter the requisite words is simply another part of the procedure.

Corporates do not investigate complaints. Not only do they not know how to, they are fundamentally incapable of recognising their own wrongdoing. Thus, they can't even begin to see the point you are trying to make – the classic dialogue of the deaf.

Thus do we continue to get these absurd and worrying incidents. The behaviour is not the exception but the norm, a symptom of an incurable disease called corporatism.

COMMENT THREAD

So farewell then ...

The Boss is back and in fine fettle and North Jnr can be as snotty as he likes. I care not a jot. It's been fun to revisit but it is time to go my way again. I leave you with this delightful video:






COMMENT THREAD

A dangerous line to walk

Whoever signs the the chit for this one must have a deathwish. Though we cannot take it at face value from the Express, it has just the right ring of of naked stupidity and greed to be true. If it is, Willie Docherty may just be fished out of the Clyde minus certain bodily extremities. And I would raise a glass to whoever did it.

I am told often by citizens of the web that such talk is "uncalled for" and "unproductive", but seriously folks, this sort of thing happens over and over again without elected officials having the power (or the will) to intercept. All we get is boilerplate tripe from the TaxPayers Alliance and a token condemnation from some or other non-entity politician. Nobody is on our side. It is telling of a society that has lost its checks and balances, one that is institutionally paralysed.

If we have no democratic mechanisms to prevent it, then somebody, soon, WILL make these people pay the price for their brazen and unapologetic theft from the public purse. When that door is opened, a new era will begin. One I hoped I would never see. On that day, a state of cold war will exist between the people and their government.

We already know where the authorities stand. When the bailiffs and the police come to your door, they do so for the benefit of men like this. They have chosen which side of the line they stand on; and it's the opposite side to us.

This is not some idle threat from a loudmouth blogger. This is a prophecy, a message, a prediction to those who hold elected office: Keep this up and there will be blood. You are walking a dangerous line. Not everyone is as patient as me.

COMMENT THREAD

Officially out

I've been reading John Toland's biography of Hitler while in hospital, his picture on the front of the book exciting much comment, not least from an intensive care nurse who, on seeing it laid on my bed, remarked, "Ah! My Boss!"

Having nearly finished the beast, I am not impressed. It is strewn with errors and unsupported assertions. Important parts of the narrative are missing. But I was nevertheless amused by the account of an assassination attempt on Hitler 1929, foiled because the perpetrator went to the toilet while waiting to detonate his bomb and got accidentally locked in the cubicle, unable to carry out the deed. Thus was history changed by the stuff of farce.

In a tiny way, the same happened today. Owing to some quite stunning work by the Nuffield health team, I was discharged early this afternoon, less than seven days after entering – and only six days after they had bolted me back together. Everything was going swimmingly ... I was two days ahead of medical expectations, and had great blogging plans for the evening. Then I sneezed.

God, that hurt so much!

I'll pick up the threads tomorrow.

COMMENT THREAD: "LIGHT BLOGGING"

On the brink of fragmentation

The front edge of this wishful thinking in the Observer is, we are told, a sharp rebuke to eurosceptics from José Manuel Barroso.

Barroso warns that all members of the EU need to unite and "advance together", citing Remembrance Sunday to warn that that "actions have consequences". He then repeats the familiar mantra that "peace and prosperity will best be furthered by Europeans supporting and trusting EU institutions, rather than allowing the continent to fragment politically and economically".

What are interesting though are his further comments, where he writes: "In this defining moment, we either unite or face irrelevance. Our goal must not be to maintain the status quo, but to move on to something new and better," he says.

He adds: "I hope when historians look back on these unprecedented times, they will understand that we stepped back from the brink of fragmentation. I hope they will see how the UK fully engaged with fellow member states and institutional partners to ensure the stability of the EU".

Flogging a dead horse though he might be, this is an important statement – an official recognition from the commission president that the EU is "the brink of fragmentation". Such may have been obvious to most of us for some time now, but this is akin to the captain of the Titanic admitting his ship is sinking.

All we need to do now is help it on its way.

COMMENT THREAD

In the "stupid camp"

The European Union, now and for as long as it continues to exist in its present form, will remain in crisis. One side-effect of that is we will have to tolerate a procession of fools, airing their ignorance of diverse aspects of the subject, having neglected the basics for so long that they are completely out of their depths.

Amongst those are the panjandrums of the Today programme, James Naughtie and John Humphrys who, Booker reports in his column, are at last beginning to ask whether the EU is a democratic institution. More charitable than I, Booker announces this as one of the few pleasures to come from watching this self-inflicted shambles unfolding day by day. Personally, I think it it is pathetic.

Just as an aside, one way of illustrating the fatuity of the discussion is to ask whether a supersonic jet bomber is luxury cruise liner. The answer (polite version) might be that a supersonic bomber is not designed as one and should it miraculously became a luxury liner, it would no longer be a supersonic bomber. The question really is that stupid.

This much Booker also tells us, in a more measured manner – it being his penance to suffer these fools. Had they studied the history of the object of their admiration, Booker says - much less earned the money for which they were excessively paid - they might long ago have realised that the "European project" was never intended to be a democratic institution.

Giving the pair a free history lesson that they are too idle to arrange for themselves, the idea first conceived back in the 1920s by two senior officials of the League of Nations – Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter, a British civil servant – was a United States of Europe, ruled by a government of unelected technocrats like themselves.

Two things were anathema to them: nation states with the power of veto (which they had seen destroy the League of Nations) and any need to consult the wishes of the people in elections.

As we showed in our book The Great Deception, this was the idea that Monnet put at the heart of the "project" from 1950 onwards, modelling his "government of Europe" on precisely the same four institutions that made up the League of Nations – a commission, a council of ministers, a parliament and a court. Thus, step by step over decades, Monnet's technocratic dream has come to pass.

But now, even with Papandreou gone and Berlusconi just resigned, the events of last week were by no means the first time that an elected prime minister has been toppled by the Euro-elite.

The most dramatic example, Booker reminds us, was in 1990, when Mrs Thatcher had emerged as the biggest obstacle to the next great leap forward in their slow-motion coup d'etat, the Maastricht Treaty, creating the European Union and the single currency.

Following her ambushing at a European Council in October 1990, when she was outnumbered 11 to one, the trap was sprung. An alliance between the European elite, led by Jacques Delors, and our own Tory Europhiles, led by Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine, brought her down within weeks.

They had disposed of the greatest political obstacle to the onward march of their project just as ruthlessly as they were later to brush aside all those referendums expressing the objections of the French, the Dutch and the Irish to their Constitution. The one thing for which there has never been any place in their grand design is democracy.

And thus do we get the conclusion to the column that it is a pity the Today programme didn't wake up to that years ago. But it was never to be. These "above the line" people simply do not have the mental framework to understand the things they are told.

Unfortunately, they are not alone. The Times leader yesterday pretentiously told us that "the euro crisis is unfolding far from its people and the democratic mandates of government". Well, no shit Sherlock! We needed a newspaper to tell us this?

Then witness the bizarre pretentions of Charlie Moore, who is Mrs Thatcher' biographer and should know a great deal more than he does.

He employs the traditional trick of burying his own ignorance in layers of apparent erudition, filling space without having to resort to detail or understanding. But, like the Today duo, he too fantasises about the need for democracy, going so far as to assert that there is common cause between Left and Right on this issue.

Left and Right in their anti-establishment forms – should agree that this is not the time for technocrats and Frankfurters. I have a more original idea, says Moore. How about a few democrats?

That is the measure of the man who sees in this the principles that should guide the coming, inevitable renegotiation. Not yet (or ever) can he cope with the idea that the European Union is a failed experiment – one doomed to failure – and its only and only future is one of abolition.

But then, we have a lot of people in the "stupid camp", some like Charles Crawford who are so keen to parade their own ignorance that nothing is going to save them. They have worked hard for their exalted positions, and they are not easily going to yield to lesser mortals.

This fool, like the rest, is another one talking about "renegotiation", one glibly referring to rumours swirling that "Eurozone 2.0" will emerge from the current shambles: tighter, tougher, more honest, more "federal". This is another man who wants to turn a supersonic bomber into a luxury cruise liner. They just cannot see their own stupidity.

And so it is that, day-by-day, the "stupid camp" becomes more and more populated. Its denizens will never change – they cannot. The world is going to have to move on without them. A whole new generation will grow up, one in which the current brand of stupidity is taken as read. Then, and only then, will we make serious progress.

COMMENT THREAD

Lite blogging

Ok, so my excuse isn't quite as good as open heart surgery, but I have things to do this weekend so there will be light blogging, unless Helen surfaces and hasn't actually taken her bat home. There is also the outside chance of RN getting his lazy ass out of bed and getting back to work.

P.S. Mum respectfully asks "no late phone calls". She's knackered!

COMMENT THREAD

The whole point is that we don't

Those with memories slightly longer than those of a demented gnat will agree with the sentiments articulated by Witterings From Witney. It was also Cameron who started down with path of brand detoxification, and set apart the "modernisers" as something special and different. It was he who made it clear that traditional Conservatives were something not wanted on passage. Despite our considerable reservations, it was he that dumped as - not the other way around.

And, today, now he has the Gall to tell us: "We stand together to honour the incredible sacrifice that generations of men and women who have given their lives to protect the freedoms we enjoy today".

The point is that we don't stand together. A man who so easily ceded yet more power to the EU, Cameron has made it clear he does not represent us and does not reflect our values. And nor do we want him to. He is a shallow, vain man who has not even the gravitas to acquire the mantle of office that goes with his assumed rank. To this day I cannot think of him as a prime minister.

COMMENT THREAD

Gripping – and frightening

"It’s the question that is gripping – and frightening – Tory backbenchers: does the Government actually have a policy on Europe?" says Iain Martin in the Telegraph.

Of course it does; to do whatever it is told, to say nothing of it and to silence the people who speak against it. But as we speak, the party faithful are tugging their forelocks.

Within their party, there is a great deal of unease about this. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, and his ally Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland Secretary, have told the Prime Minister that he really must start applying himself to the issue. For if closer integration among the 17 members of the eurozone does happen, it will mean that the interests of the 10 EU members not in the single currency need to be defended and advanced. If the eurozone collapses, it will necessitate a return to a much looser collection of nation states. Either outcome will require Britain to provide leadership, and offer a strong counterpoint to Germany and France.

Defended and advanced? Our interests were never defended or advanced. It's a little late to start pretending now, and the last thing this needs is the intervention of the Boy. For all the influence this pygmy has, we would be better off sending a scarecrow.

What I take from this is that the Tories haven't realised we have long since been written out of the script. Our opinion was never sought, only our obedience and our wallets, in or out of the Euro. Whichever bag of cement we send to the table, it's game over.

When the Euro does go the way of the pterodactyl, it won't matter what they command because those wooden blocks on the map are just wooden blocks. The bunker is sealed, the cyanide capsules are being handed out and all that remains is to pull the trigger before the mob arrives at the gate.

It is no longer, if ever it was, within their capacity to control. Everything they have thrown at it has been swallowed whole and the beast has asked for seconds. We may as well be firing pea-shooters at a Tiger tank.

If there is a plan B for Europe, there is no dynamism, personal or economic, left in the UK. In all matters but currency we have been the first lemming in the rush over the cliff. It is difficult to think of a single industry we have not voluntarily sabotaged in the name of co-operation or sacrificed on the altar of global warming. Why does Martin think Europe would value the input of one David Cameron? Just because we were not in the bank hall when the robbery occurred does not mean we weren't willing accomplices waiting outside with the engine running.

Furthermore, when the meekrob does hit the fan, Cameron will not last in office long enough to forge "a new Europe". "It is not the job of a British Prime Minister to get foreign leaders to like him." says Martin. Just as well really.

COMMENT THREAD

The tax the unelected are desperate to have

Another guest post today, this one by Greg Browne. The topic of the "Robin Hood Tax" is one which keeps coming back and it seems like good time to give it an airing. You can tax the banks all you like but it is always we who pay, one way or another, as Greg points out...

The Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), Tobin or Robin Hood Tax, what ever you want to call it, is gaining more and more supporters. However few seem to be commenting on the real reason that would be world leaders are pushing for this tax. Of course, in 2005 Dr North, told us that similar moves were “in effect a proto-European tax, the Holy Grail of the integrationalists, who see such a move as the ultimate answer to their liberation from perpetual reliance on member states for funding”. The FTT does promise much, such as:

A tax to overcome the perceived lack of an adequate insurance facility for the global economy, according to the IMF. A new global authority, based on the 'international common good' rather than on 'individual national interest'. The Oct. 24 publication of a 20-page document by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace advocated this.

The Roman Church's stance followed from its 2009 “encyclical letter caritas in veritate” in which the pope stated:

Para 67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. (My emphasis)

Which is surprising since in 1920, in the encyclical, Bonum Sane Pope Benedict XV warned:

"The coming of a world state is longed for, by all the worst and most distorted elements. This state, based on the principles of absolute equality of men and a community of possessions, would banish all national loyalties. In it no acknowledgement would be made of the authority of a father over his children, or of God over human society. If these ideas are put into practice, there will inevitably follow a reign of unheard-of terror."

Infallibility is temporary, or so it seems.

Fidel Castro, from his 2001 speech to the U.N. World Conference on Racism summed up the feelings of many on the left.

[He] “advocated the Tobin Tax specifically in order to generate U.S. financial reparations to the rest of the world. He declared that "the tax suggested by Nobel Prize Laureate James Tobin" should be imposed in order to generate "one trillion US dollars annually to save and develop the world."

The IMF, with the UN in the background, began to see the opportunities and started to get involved in this great revenue raising scheme. At the 2009 Pittsburgh meeting of the G20 the truth began to emerge, according to aim.org:

The "Leader's Statement" endorsed by President Obama and released at the event declares on page 10 that "We task the IMF to prepare a report for our next meeting with regard to the range of options countries have adopted or are considering as to how the financial sector could make a fair and substantial contribution toward paying for any burdens associated with government interventions to repair the banking system."

The term "fair and substantial contribution" is code for a global tax. Other misleading terms for global taxes include "innovative sources of finance" and "Solidarity Levies."

By 2010, the IMF had started drawing up plans:

The IMF is set to propose new taxes on global financial institutions. The double-tax plan, which was leaked in Washington yesterday, proposes one levy, a Financial Stability Contribution (FSC), to fund any future government support, and another, a Financial Activities Tax (FAT), that will place a tax on the profits and pay at financial institutions. ... "The recognition that banks should make a contribution to the society in which they operate is right," said Alistair Darling. "Any agreement has to be international and that unilateral attempts would simply risk being undermined."

But back to the real reason that this tax is so 'popular'. As Bruno Waterfield, reminded us in June in his article £3 billion a year in 'stealth taxes' to be levied on Britain:

Janusz Lewandowski, the European budget commissioner, wants tax raising powers to shift EU funding from national government transfers to EU-wide taxation on energy, travel or banking. "I have as an objective a future budget being fed two thirds, 66 per cent by member state contributions, and own resources, one third, or 33 per cent,"

Like Lewandowski, the unelected in regional or global governance positions must find a way to generate revenue that is not at the whim of nation states to withhold, or as Lewandowski put it euphemistically, "We want to make it less politicised" and as Dr North put it in 2009:

One of the restrictions against which the "colleagues" in Brussels chafe is the need always to go cap-in-hand to the member states for their funding. As long as the purse-strings are held in this way, the member states at least have some control over the wilder ambitions of the project.

The FTT, FAT or whatever you want to call it, can be levied by the UN, IMF or EU or all three and suddenly the cries of No Taxation Without Representation begin to strike home in a meaningful way. Of course, these taxes will be minuscule to start with, but once the principle is established and the mechanisms are in place, what is to stop other innovative taxes being imposed and slowly ratcheted up. But, of course, it will be all for the common good of mankind, wont it? The FTT is only an opportunity for the financial sector to repay the global community for all the benefits it has accrued in all these years of globalisation.

Dr North, from 2005 again:

And there you have it… little bit, by little bit, the ratchet tightens and, once the "ice is broken" the way is clear for a "European tax", which can then be extended from its hypothecated base to cover broader expenditure issues. As we said, this is definitely one to watch.

And from the european tax to an international tax, which of course will eventually need an international currency, which will require international financial governance and...

(Note: The FTT idea started life more than 30 years ago)

COMMENT THREAD

A hard days work for the Easter Bunny.

It's a good job there isn't an international monetary crisis or anything like that. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to throw money away. Especially since we have better things to do.

But at least we now know where the BBC stands on the matter...

I know there is a battle being waged behind closed doors in Whitehall over the cost and direction of energy policy and the obvious anger of some environmentalists is probably stoked by a belief that we gave succour to the "enemy".

Meanwhile, Guardian reading property owners are not happy. The cut to green energy subsidies will "hit the poor". Apparently. The good news is that the elderly can give the poor their money back, and thanks to global warming, they won't need it.

COMMENT THREAD

Missing the point.

If you've been following the blog this year you'll have noticed the steady rise in council chief executives taking home offensive salaries and benefits. Not a week goes by without (at least) one of these reports crossing my desk. While Wiltshire has ditched its own parasite in what appears to be a purge of such useless suits, the looting continues elsewhere unabated.

While we welcome any move to contain this vile, corrupt epidemic, the TPA has again missed the point with its offerings.

The Bath branch of a national campaign group has launched a drive to cut the pay of the city’s next council chief executive. A petition has been started by the Bath TaxPayers’ Alliance group aimed at persuading Bath and North East Somerset Council to follow the example of a London borough in reducing the salary of the top position at the Guildhall.

It is not that we pay them too much. It is that we pay them at all. If an elected council is not its executive, what is the point of having them?

COMMENT THREAD

There will be jobs.

If you thought you had seen the back of socialism in the UK motor industry, think again. If the government decrees "there will be jobs", then there will be jobs. In the midst of a downturn gearing toward a depression we are expect to believe that people are queuing round the block to buy luxury off-roader's.

It could be demand generated by all those departing council chiefs, but more likely, this is the manifestation of your money, as announced back in April.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, announced in April that the Birmingham-based car maker would receive a share of £450 million from the Regional Growth Fund, a new government scheme. It was aimed at helping the private sector create new jobs to replace those being lost in the public services because of funding cuts.

I guess this is a "Five-Year Plan" to build more Chelsea Tractors.

COMMENT THREAD

Knock back the doubters

After a Citigroup report warning investors to exercise "extreme caution" before investing in Scottish renewable energy, we are set straight by SSE, aided gladly by the BBC.

With its half-year figures, the Perth-based company formerly known as Scottish and Southern Energy has pointed out that it already operates in the Republic of Ireland as well as across devolved boundaries in the UK.

"Different constitutional arrangements apply in each of these jurisdictions," it points out. "They are, however, all within the EU and there is a common EU energy policy, the central goals of which (security of supply, competitiveness and sustainability) are laid down in the Lisbon Treaty.

"This means, for example, that all member states are required to support the achievement of legally-binding targets for more renewable energy.

"The EU Renewable Energy Directive aims at 'facilitating cross-border support of energy from renewable sources' and 'introduces optional co-operation mechanisms between member states which allow them to agree on the extent to which one member state supports energy production in another and on the extent to which the energy production from renewable sources should count towards the national target of one or the other'."

To put it another way, the common European energy policy gives each state a target for reducing emissions, and it makes sense for them to buy their renewables from the part of Europe that produces renewable energy most efficiently. For marine and wind power, that would be Scotland.

So SSE is telling its investors to cheer up and Citigroup to pipe down.

So there you have it. Pay no attention. Our masters decree that there shall be wind farms. Economic realities be damned, you will pay. Free money, stolen from you. What's not to like?

COMMENT THREAD

The future?

COMMENT THREAD

Not long now

The Boss is clearly on the mend though the hospital is wisely keeping him out of action for a day or so longer. My stint is coming to an end, particularly as several other bloggers have kindly chipped in. I shall not say farewell yet, but soon.

I'm back

Not really compost mentis. Stunned and grateful for all the kind wishes. I'm a day behind schedule, so it'll be a day yet before I can do a serious post.

COMMENT THREAD: "LIGHT BLOGGING"

The European Spring?

Guest post by Autonomous Mind

The term 'Arab Spring' entered the vernacular this year as ordinary people and various groups in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya overhauled the leadership in those countries using a varying amount of protest and force. There were protests elsewhere too. Among them the civil revolt in Bahrain was ruthlessly stamped out with the aid of a show of force by Saudi Arabian soldiers.

The uprising in Yemen built upon the existing insurgency in that country as the military and government both split into factions. And the rebellion in Syria continues to rack up the body count behind the media blackout imposed by Assad Jnr.

With this in mind it struck me as utterly ludicrous to hear talking heads on BBC radio this morning referring to the 'European Spring'. The resignation of George Papandreou in Greece and the announcement by Silvio Berlusconi that he would be calling a general election in Italy in which he will not be a candidate, does not constitute a 'European Spring' in any way. Quite the opposite in fact.

The departure of these two Prime Ministers has nothing to do with submitting to the wishes of their countrymen or giving way to popular protests aimed to sweep away the political elite in those countries. What we have seen are the first EU revolutions. For it is not the people, but the bureaucrats supported by the Franco-German axis known as 'Merkozy', who have swept away these two political figures. It is not the interests of the people being served, rather the ambitions of the integrationists being given complete priority.

Rather than a cry for democracy and political accountability, the effective coup d'etat being witnessed in Greece and Italy are their antithesis. The EU, for so long resolute in its effort to subvert representative democracy in order to enable the political class to govern in the interests of the elite and the corporates, is for the first time overtly asserting its control over its provinces.

From the moment Papandreou raised the collective blood pressure in Brussels, by flashing a tantalising glimpse of real democracy within the bloc with his talk of a referendum, his career was over. In little over a week he has gone from presenting himself as the champion of the people to reading out his resignation statement on Greek television. His masters have spoken. An EU approved replacement will be duly delivered into his vacant seat.

The loose canon Berlusconi has long been an embarrassment to the EU elite. Bouncing along from scandal to cock up and back again has long infuriated the faceless legions in Europe. He was always on borrowed time. Now the bond markets have put pressure on Italy and the EU can see a gigantic bail out request looming out of the mist, Berlusconi's time is up. Speculation that his announced departure is a ploy is wide of the mark. The EU will not allow him to remain. It's off to play with his billions and bunga bunga to his heart's content.

It is hard to tell what is more disturbing. The fact this is the face of 21st Century Europe, or that 66 years after the end of a war to overcome tyrrany, the talking heads casually drop into their analysis that the deeper integration required to preserve the Euro will result in less democracy - as if it is an irrelevant triviality.

While people (and opportunists) in parts of the Arab world campaigned, protested, fought and died in an effort to bring about democracy and make their voices the sound of their country, the people of Europe are having democracy dismantled and their voices silenced to serve the vested interests of the political and financial elite.

European Spring? More like a European sink.


COMMENT THREAD

Editors note... AM requested I illustrated the piece with someone with their mouth gagged. Even with safe search on, that's not something I can google at work. Pass the eye bleach please!

HMG replies to two questions

One straightforward one from Lord Willoughby de Broke and one rather strange one from a member of the Kinnock Enterprises Inc on Your Freedom and Ours.

The resignations just run and run

Talks to form a unity government in Greece have collapsed and there ain't no Sanity Clause either.

In a day that was bizarre and chaotic even by Greek political standards, Papandreou wished his successor well and headed off to meet the president -- only for it to emerge that there was no successor due to feuding in the political parties.

Earlier, party sources said senior members of the socialist and conservative camps had settled on the speaker of parliament, veteran socialist Filippos Petsalnikos, barring last-minute snags.

But snags did indeed emerge, with large sections of Papandreou's PASOK party and the conservative New Democracy refusing to back Petsalnikos after a three-day hunt for someone to lead the coalition until early elections in February.

So who is the Greek Prime Minister? Do we even care? It appears that talks will start again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we are assured that the eurozone has not plans to rescue Italy, which was never on the cards anyway. Whether Italy is too big to fail or not is a moot point but it is certainly too big to rescue.

French and German officials are discussing a smaller eurozone. It is not immediately clear whom they will shed but they might start with France. Of course, a smaller eurozone is as good as no eurozone, given that this was a political project from the very beginning, aimed at a fiscal and economic unification of however many countries there might be in the EU at any given time. That project has, to all intents and purposes, been abandoned.

The Italians hope to avoid the Greek political mess and a possible successor to Silvio Berlusconi when he finally goes has been mooted. Then again, it looked like the Papandreou succession was all stitched up as well, yet here we are.

Theresa May is definitely not resigning. Not today, anyway.


COMMENT THREAD

That man again.

If ever you needed confirmation that Chris Huhne is dangerously deluded, this is it.

Natural gas is a critical part of our energy mix today, as it will be tomorrow and beyond 2030. As old coal and nuclear power stations shut down, gas can provide flexible and reliable back-up electricity to complement the next generation of renewable energy.

This is a man obsessed, who can only see the realities in terms of his own grand delusions... a turbine on every hillside.

COMMENT THREAD

Yeah, pretty much.

If I was in the mood to write anything today, this would have been it. Good old Dellers has done it for me.

Guest posts

The plan was that as well as contributions from Helen, I was going to write a few posts but I am exceptionally busy with day job stuff at the moment. I have a new SQL Server to play with and so there is little chance of me seeing daylight for some time.

Since the current ethos of this blog is to promote intelligent and considered opinion from the blogging underworld, I thought we could throw it open for the next week or so. If any of you bloggers fancy doing a guest post and plugging your blog, please email me at mrnorth303@gmail.com.

You know what we go for, so if you're up for it, drop us a line. The floor is yours.

Are they going? Any minute now

Berlusconi is still promising to step down but that, apparently, is not going to save Italy and her economy.

Italy's borrowing cost has soared to a record high, despite Silvio Berlusconi's promise to step down as prime minister.

Mr Berlusconi had said he wanted to show global markets that the country was "serious" about sorting out its finances.

But on Wednesday morning, Italy's 10-year government bond yield - the rate the country pays in interest to borrow money - rose above 7% for the first time since entering the euro.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano called for an immediate commitment to economic reforms to restore confidence in panicked financial markets.

Bond yields of more than 5% are considered unsustainable in the long term as governments cannot afford to pay that much over a long period.

Would it have been different if the man had paid any attention to his job and/or stepped down earlier? Quite possibly.

The Boy-King has come out fighting (well, sort of) for the beleaguered (I believe that is the correct expression) Theresa May. Her position thus becomes unassailable. Let me say that again, unassailable.

Hereditary Prime Minister Papandreou is all set to resign and this time he will really, really, do it. Well, he has to; after all, he told Sarko. In the fullness of time he will tell the people of Greece as well.

What with all this going on plus the IAEA officially announcing that Iran is becoming something of a problem, it is not surprising that the students' march for more money to be handed out against those terrible cuts in education has somehow disappeared from people's consciousness. Bad luck chaps and chapesses. And just a hint: try not to display Socialist Worker placards quite so prominently.

COMMENT THREAD