Time running out

There is an element here of Mervyn King covering his back, but nonetheless his warning is clear. Britain is at risk from a fundamental crisis, he says, and governments have not yet addressed the underlying problem of overspending that is at its root.

I don't know how many more times that is going to have to be pointed out, or how many more times we have to say that, despite the BBC and other "leftie" rhetoric on "cuts", public expenditure (and the national debt) is increasing.

Yet every day one sees examples of wild government spending while at local government level, reduced grants from central government are not triggering restraint but merely more inventive ways of raising money.

Says King, the only answer to debt problems is for countries to "adopt compatible policies so that they can credibly service their internal and external debts". This is not exactly rocket science, yet it is something which seems to be beyond our current leadership. There is no serious attempt at reining back expenditure.

Thus are we condemned to watching the slow-motion train wreck. We can all see it, except those in the bubble, who seem oblivious to OUR impending fate. One wonders if they have the first idea of what is going on.

COMMENT THREAD

The Fox is shot

The scale of Fox's defiance of Whitehall rules was laid bare yesterday evening when it emerged that he had blocked civil servants attending key meetings alongside Adam Werritty, failed to tell his permanent secretary that he had solicited funds to bankroll his close friend, and ignored private office requests to distance himself from the relationship.

In a damning report criticising Fox's lack of judgement and failure to meet the standards expected of a minister, Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, also reveals that Fox was repeatedly warned that his relationship with Mr Werritty carried risks. But he chose to ignore the warnings.

This so much chimes with our own experience. With Fox at the helm, the Tory defence team was like a black hole. You could send information into it, but nothing ever escaped. Communication was strictly one way and, no matter what you told them, it was invariably ignored.

The O'Donnell report, however, stands on its own. And even on its own, it sketches out a man unfit for high office. We trust we will now see the gushing eulogies fade away, and with it any talk of a return. The man never was fit for office, he is not now and never will be.

However, the matter should not be left there. The very obvious inadequacies of Fox reflect badly on the man who appointed him, David Cameron – the faceless wonder (click pic to reveal). A good judge of character would have detected in Fox the very flaws that brought him down, and he would never have been appointed.

Perhaps the reason why Cameron did not see the flaws, though, is because he shares them. And that is worrying.

COMMENT THREAD

That referendum debate

The supremely irrelevant House of Commons is now planning to conduct a debate on whether there should be an EU referendum, supposedly on 27 October. I have made my views abundantly clear on this, but my erstwhile co-editor makes the points needed on this episode.

To summarise my view, I see our continued membership of the EU as a symptom of a bigger, more pervasive problem. Leaving the EU, therefore, would not actually solve anything. On the other hand, fix the inherent defects in our system of government and leaving the EU would become a necessary consequence of such reforms. Thus, one might say, it is better to turn off the tap before mopping up the water from the overflowing bath.

It seems to me that the campaign for an EU referendum – and the europlasticism that passes for Tory euroscepticism – has become a vast displacement activity, an intellectual cul-de-sac which gives the appearance of activity but which actually keeps attention off the more important issues. And surely, no one can seriously be expecting a bunch of MPs in a Commons debate to offer anything useful or sensible about the EU?

England Expects dismal predictability, and he is right. Witterings from Witney gives us the draft motion. The third option (option C) offers to "re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation". That's what the europlastics will go for – never-never land. It will be hailed as a great victory, but we will be no further forward than when we started.

Hence, as Helen points out … this is not something to get excited about.

COMMENT THREAD

The guilty ones

This is the voting list for the Climate Change Bill – 28 October 2008. The vote is 463 for, three against. Some 200 went AWOL, but not – as it turns out – Cameron or the current chancellor, George Osborne. It is even worse than Witterings from Witney records. Both Cameron and Osborne voted for "Labour's Climate Change Act".

The three who voted against were: Christopher Chope, Peter Lilley and Andrew Tyrie. Tellers for the Noes were Ann Widdecombe and Philip Davies.

Particularly notable for his intervention in the very short debate was Steve Webb, Lib-dim member for a Bristol constituency.

"The Bill is welcome and important", he said. "Many people asked", he added, "whether the target of 80 percent was too tough and whether it was achievable. I believe that history will judge that it errs on the low side—new evidence and information suggests further, faster, deeper. I fear that we may have to revisit the targets to strengthen them to avoid the dangerous climate change that we are united in fearing".

Well, how times change. No longer, it seems, are we quite so united in fearing.

COMMENT THREAD

Why are they surprised?

Annual inflation surged to 5.2 percent last month as rising utility bills piled more pressure on households, "surprising economists expecting a smaller increase and putting the Bank of England in an uncomfortable position".

Consumer price inflation has not been higher since the series began in 1997, though it also hit 5.2 percent in September 2008. The retail price index rose to 5.6 percent, the highest for more than 20 years.

Once again, therefore, we see the so-called experts caught out by reality, completely out of touch with the gravity of the situation. Given Huhne's disgusting performance yesterday, though, it is only to be expected that ministers have lost the plot.

But they are now being told in no uncertain terms that their obsession with green taxes is driving up energy bills, bringing financial pain to millions of families.

Did they really think they could load all these charges onto utility costs and for them to have no effect? And bear in mind that the CPI does not measure increased taxation – or most local authority charges. Before even the headline inflation figure, we were already worse off.

They either have to ditch the greenery, or pay the political price.

COMMENT THREAD

And now it's Labour's Act

Rather overshadowed by events at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester last week, I wrote, was a line in George Osborne's speech which could mark the start of a long overdue political transformation in Britain.

The Chancellor acknowledged that a decade of environmental laws had been piling unnecessary costs on households and companies, adding that Britain was not going to save the planet by putting ourselves out of business.

He was referring in particular to the Climate Change Act, famously passed by the House of Commons in October 2008 by 463 votes to three, even as the snow was falling outside. By the Government's own estimate, it would cost £404 billion to implement – £760 per household every year for four decades.

And now … in a magical feat of which Houdini would be proud, it is suddenly transformed into Labour's Climate Change Act.

"The real need", says former Tory chancellor Lord Lawson, "is not to have these absurd commitments and then have to run around bribing vulnerable businesses at taxpayers' expense so as to prevent them from closing down or leaving the country – it is to amend the [emissions] targets".

"We must make it quite clear that we are not going there if the rest of the world isn't", he adds. Although it looks part of the same quote, it is the Mail that then tells us: "Under Labour's Climate Change Act, the Government is legally bound to cut emissions 35 percent by 2022 and 50 percent by 2025".

There is something unutterably tacky about declaring this a "Labour" Act. Such is the grip of the paper's low-grade tribalism that it cannot even admit that all parties supported something that was a crock of horse manure.

We do, of course, welcome the Lawson's intervention, but why does the paper think we are so stupid that we don't remember that the Act was agreed by all sides of the House, not least by The Boy, with his commitment to leading the greenest government ever?

COMMENT THREAD

Anyone but Huhne

I suppose that, if you call a couple of minor tremors "earthquakes" and then let the Greenies loose, you can make a non-event sound quite serious.

Those with slightly longer memories, however, may remember the great earthquake of 2008, with an earth-shattering magnitude of 5.2. I remember it well, as the shelves rattled for a second or two. And that was it – although some houses further south were damaged, and one lad was injured.

By comparison, the magnitude 2.3 tremor which "shook" the North-West last April, and one the following May, with a magnitude of 1.5, were barely detectable to human senses, the strongest being a thousand times less powerful than the 2008 episode.

That Huhne should be making a big issue out of these minor tremors, therefore, is absolutely bizarre – one might almost think that he did not want Britain to benefit from an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas – preferring instead the more expensive and less reliable windmills.

And even if the process of fracking does cause some minor damage to buildings, why does this matter? Systems for remedying mining subsidence are well established, and the processes could easily be transferred across.

Fortunately, as Dellers observes, even the media and other clever-dicks are beginning to notice that there is something rather odd going on with the Cleggeron energy policy.

It was rather different three years ago, when they hadn't yet discovered the subject. But we should be thankful for small mercies. Now, rather than switching energy providers – as that idiot Huhne wants us to do – all we need is to switch energy ministers. Noddy or Kermit would do as an alternative. Anything would be better than Huhne.

COMMENT THREAD

Death and taxes

The Daily Mail continues to pick up on the theme of council charges, highlighting the increases in charges for burial plots. Death and taxes are not only certainties – but are coinciding. It cites Caerphilly in South Wales, where the cost of burial plots will more than double over the next five years from £1,043 to £2,437. In Watford, the paper says, the price for plots doubled from £405 to £810 in April.

While that paper is to be commended for raising the issue (no other nationals seem to have noticed, apart from the ST with Booker), what it does not seem to have realised is the scale of these charges.

As of 2009-10, they exceeded £25 billion for the first time and, with the current torrent of charges being announced – increasing at a rate of well over a billion each year - we will see the total income exceed that of Council Tax.

Effectively, that means that the true rate of local taxation – albeit heavily disguised – is twice that of the headline Council Tax rate, costing households an additional £1000 a year on average, with no real say on how the councils spread the burden.

The relationship between Council Tax and charges is seen clearly in this report, where a "freeze" on Council Tax in Sheffield – following a grant from central government of £4.9 million – is translated into an increase of charges "by up to three per cent".

On the other hand, the weakness of central government is seen in a statement from Housing Minister Grant Shapps. He warns councils not to use local people as cash cow. "If local authorities cut excessive chief executive pay, share back offices and root out wild overspends they can safeguard frontline services", he says.

With that, local authorities are already intent on milking their residents for as much as they can get away with, and our updated "Greed Index", now with 25 councils, shows that many are not fussy about the source of their money.

This is not quite a ten percent sample (although it probably covers ten percent of the householders who actually pay Council Tax), and nor is it properly randomised. But, on the basis of what we have collected so far, we seem to be looking at an impost of about £220 million last year. This current year, the amount will probably be closer to £250 million, with so many councils having increased their charges.

What, of course, distinguishes the charges here – for summonses and liability orders – is that the larger part is undoubtedly illegal, amounting to a structured theft in excess of £200 million each year.

From the latest figures, what also comes over is the huge range of charges. Bradford – which stays at the top of the league – extracts £16.89 per capita, more than eight times the average amount levied by the lowest (East Dorset), on £2.05 – and twice the overall average.

Returns continue to be slow coming in, and many are still incomplete, but the process goes on and we will continue until it is complete – even if every one of the defaulters have to be referred to the Information Commissioner.

The fundamental point illustrated by the Index, though, is that councils have become so greedy and so arrogant, that they have lost sight of the law and are stealing money. And this gives us the opportunity to challenge them in the courts, which is currently in the planning stage.

But it also illustrates our original premise that councils, and their spending, is out of control. Grant Shapps demonstrates that central government has no real control, and if anyone really thinks the electoral system gives voters any better control, then they are in the land of a fayries.

As local government accounts for nearly one quarter of public expenditure (£162 billion in 2009-10), the idea that there such be such slender control over such large amounts of money is unacceptable. And the longer term answer to that is obvious.

COMMENT THREAD

That's revenge?

The operative was blocked in, so he called a colleague for assistance and for the police to attend, "as he felt increasingly distressed and threatened and had been unable to leave". After police "intervention", the family end up paying an increased fee of £660. And that's revenge? But whose revenge?

COMMENT THREAD

Who is this "we"?

The Ernst & Young ITEM Club, which uses the Treasury’s forecasting models, warns today that the economic situation is "worse than we thought", says the Failygraph. But actually, it's you … we have known this all along. Just you lot, in the bubble – the so-called "experts" – you are the ones having difficulty coming to grips with reality.

The clue lies in the comment, "George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, are becoming increasingly exasperated at the lacklustre response of European leaders to the ongoing single currency crisis".
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The reason why the response is "lacklustre" is because it is being treated as a political crisis – which to the "colleagues" it is – rather than an economic issue. The integrity of the EU and the eurozone comes first. They would see the global economy wrecked before they will give up on their integrationalist dream.

And that is why the euro is going to collapse. That is why it was always going to collapse. That it is "worse that we thought" is simply a reflection of the opaqueness of the bubble in which you live.

COMMENT THREAD

Help when you need it (not)

Remember this from last year, and this? We have there the story of the incorrectly-fitted condensing boilers, which during the winter freeze cost thousands of their unfortunate owners hundreds of pounds to sort them out after their drains had frozen up.

If ever there was an issue that should have been sorted by government, it is this – the boilers became a statutory requirement in 2005 (for all new installations) and there is clear evidence that installers failed to fit them correctly.

But despite intervention by Tory MP Philip Dunne, absolutely nothing has been done. With more than eight million having been installed though, British Gas – which has sold almost a million of them – is now urging its customers to fit a new cold-resistant pipe. In a letter to 46,000 customers who suffered boiler breakdowns last year, the energy giant is saying it will fit the new pipe for £149.

So, despite it having been responsible for many of the faulty installations, it wants to charge its customers for remedying the problems it caused. And just so that you know whose side the government is on, the Department of Energy and Climate Change declined to comment on the issue. A spokesman said: "Customers should take this up with British Gas".

It is so nice to know they care.

COMMENT THREAD

I am not going mad

… but, as I read with growing incredulity, the mounting eulogies, about the latter-day saint, Liam Fox, to say nothing about the staggering drivel being written on the subject, even I begin to wobble.

On that, I had a recent talk with one of my bestist friends, the Dellers, who did point out that I am agin an awful lot of things and people. So, with "everyone else" singing the praises of Fox, how is it that I (and Booker) can claim to be right in assessing him as a loser?

Then you have to do a double-take. Earlier this year, the general consensus was that the SDSR had been botched. As recently as August this year, even the mighty Telegraph was saying: "This newspaper has warned repeatedly that the SDSR was botched because it was driven not by strategic requirements but by cost-cutting" (piece illustrated above).

And now, after being driven out of office under the tawdriest of circumstances, he becomes the great hero? Why? What is going on here?

The clue might be in the fatuous Montgomerie. Fox has been the champion of the enfeebled Tory "right", who have taken him to their hearts. To admit that their hero has feet of clay - that he always was a low-grade loser - is to admit that their judgement is flawed. That will never do, so history has to be re-written.

But I am not wrong on this. As we pointed put earlier, the SDSR was a failure. And while the strategic direction from Cameron was indeed seriously lacking, much of the failure must be put down to Fox.

That the Tory "right" and its supporting media cannot see straight on this is thus a reflection of them, not me (or Booker). Furthermore, if anyone can't see that a secretary of state who indulges is such a tacky relationship with his associate isn't fundamentally a wrong un, they need to think very seriously about themselves.

All this seems to be part of the political malaise from which we are suffering, though. But if we take our political thinking from the sad crew who can't see straight or think straight, then we are a sad bunch as well. And yes, I'm agin a lot of things … but there are a lot of things to be agin.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker

When judges break their own laws, we really do have problems. But the likes of Moonbat are more interested in subsidy machines and boilers – while the Greens invest in a fleet of 4x4s and Fox loses his sense of outrage.

All in a day's work for Booker – a man Moonbat wants fired.

COMMENT THREAD

Above the line – below the line

During a 12-month period almost £150,000 was paid into Pargav's bank account, based at a branch of HSBC in the Buckinghamshire town of Gerrards Cross, 30 miles from the central London home of Mr Werritty, 33, who used it to pay for his lifestyle as he travelled the globe in style.

The money was spent on first-class travel and five-star hotels, as well as tailored clothes, expensive shows, and entertainment, including a trip to Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, a topless bar in New York.

During the period that I advised Ann Winterton on defence, including writing and researching the Defence of the Realm blog, I was paid £700 a month, as a parliamentary assistant – taxed at source … equivalent to just over £8,000 a year. I found my own expenses.

Meanwhile, the American chief executive of Atlantic Bridge has told The Sunday Telegraph that the organisation's British arm, whose sole employee was Mr Werritty, "did nothing" and was "a shell game" - a reference to a US-style street confidence trick.

I suppose that all goes to show that, in this world, you don't always get what you pay for. And sometimes you get a lot more. But then, at least I can sleep at night - and look at myself in the mirror.

COMMENT THREAD

Occupying the low ground

Mary Ellen Synon offers us an outrageous example of EU profligacy in pursuit of its own propaganda, the like of which should have us marching the streets.

The facts of life, though, are that such things – however outrageous – will not get the protesters out. The issue is too distant, the impact too remote and, in the final analysis, is not something which the average person can affect. In the nature of things, people only tend to get worked up about things over which they can have some influence.

Thus, the issue that is getting the good citizens of Kington in Herefordshire worked up is car parking charges, with more than 2,000 people in this tiny rural town signing a petition against the decision to introduce fees at the High Street car park.

This is neither selfish nor illogical, but conforms exactly with the specifications of an issue which will bring people out on the streets (pictured). It is local, it has a direct, measurable impact, it is perceived as being unjust or unreasonable and, crucially, it is amenable to change, given a modicum of direct action.

That people are reaching the limits of tolerance is illustrated by events in Wiltshire where a downturn in car park income has triggered the classic (and economically illiterate) response from the local council. It has put up charges to make up its income shortfall, the effect of which – according to local traders – has driven business away.

Such is the level of protest here that the council leader has not ruled out a U-turn at a full council meeting on 8 November, again illustrating how, when expressed at a local level, people power can have an effect.

Arguably, there is a lesson here for all of us. Given that controlling government is about limiting the money supply, much more revenue generation needs to be originated at a local level. Instead of the bulk of money being raised through centrally determined taxes – and then passed down to localities – the flow could benefit from reversal.

What we could see is a variation of the pattern already adopted, where local councils collect money for counties, where they have them, the passenger transport authority, the police and fire brigades, and pay a precept to keep them functioning.

Thus we could see the bulk of taxes – such as sales, income and corporation - raised locally, with central government paid a precept according to means. And where money flows upwards, so does the power.

Ideally, one might see a situation where local authorities decide on the best mix of taxes and charges to suit the locality, with provision for healthy tax competition between districts.

Add to that real people power, with an annual referendum on the budget – with the ability to veto – and you would be beginning to see the emergence of real democracy. In this, there is no avoiding the central issue. Democracy occupies the low ground, not the heights.

COMMENT THREAD

Fox on the run

There are several good reasons why greater attention (and credibility) than normal should be given to this piece by Matt Cavanagh.

I can't tell you all the reasons because, if I did, I'd have to kill you. Suffice it to say that although Matt is currently an associate director at IPPR, he was an "adviser" on defence to the government between 2005 and 2010.

However, he was not an advisor in the Werrity sense. Rather, he was a fully paid-up SPAD, with top security clearance, working in the highest reaches of Whitehall, first in the Defence Ministry as advisor to Des Browne and then from the Cabinet Office as Gordon Brown's personal defence and security advisor.

Although his name is barely known within the Westminster bubble, this man is a former Oxford don, a rare intellect and no stranger to controversy, with a unique appreciation of defence policy, having seen it from the very highest of levels.

Personally, I think Matt has been rather gentle about Fox, but his analysis – worth reading in full from its original - makes a welcome antidote to the fawning sycophancy that we see in Tory and media circles.

What is especially helpful is the insight on the strategic defence and security review (SDSR), conducted by Fox. What must be remembered is that, as shadow defence secretary, Fox had four and a half years shadowing the brief in which to work out his plans.

Yet, throughout that period, it was evident that there was a policy vacuum on the Tory front benches. And, as we explored this further, the more alarming it became. Fox's speeches in the House and elsewhere lacked strategic dimension, to the extent one got the feeling that he was talking the talk but never really understood what his speechwriters were putting in front of him.

Thus, as Matt points out, after Fox became defence secretary in May 2010, it soon became clear that he lacked any real blueprint for what he wanted to do. As a result, the process degenerated into a fairly superficial spending review, with little focus on strategy. Officials complained that neither he nor the new National Security Council gave them useful guidance.

Most significant of all, though, was Fox's failure to break free of the familiar end game in which the big decisions were left to haggling between the chiefs of the three services.

The most infamous example, the decision to scrap the Harrier, thereby leaving Britain with aircraft carriers with no aircraft to fly from them, makes no sense from either a financial or military point of view – until you realise that it saves face for both the navy chief, who got to keep the carrier, and the RAF chief, who got to keep the Tornado.

Thus writes Cavanagh:

Even viewed in more limited terms as a spending review, the SDSR failed: it did not close the budget gap, let alone create any headroom to allow the MoD to respond to new events and trends. It hid behind over-optimistic assumptions about "efficiencies", which were not underpinned by serious analysis, and soon unravelled.

After a few months the gap reappeared, and programmes which had been on ice since the election remained embarrassingly frozen. After protracted wrangling between the MoD and the Treasury, Fox was forced into a hasty announcement of further massive cuts to the army, a mere nine months after the SDSR.

Reviewing the rest of the Fox legacy, the brightest hope is the procurement reform programme Fox set up under Lord Levene and Bernard Gray. If that can succeed where the SDSR did not, if Levene and Gray can tackle the systemic failings – the bureaucracy, the inter-service haggling, the tendency to spend money on the wrong things, and the ever-increasing unit cost of fast jets, surface ships and submarines – then some of the sacrifices and reductions in capability which Fox presided over may come to seem justified.

If they do not, concludes Cavanagh, history's verdict is likely to remain unkind. And that is where he is too kind. In fact, while procurement is and has been a significant problem, the far greater problem is one of definition – deciding what you need to buy, and why.

It is here, with his absence of strategic grasp, that Fox has left the MoD almost bereft of guidance, "inspired" by nothing more than the limited vision of an over-ambitious and ultimately failed politician who, at the outset came to politics as a country doctor and was never able fully to escape this narrow and self-limiting background.

Should history be kind enough even to remember him, it will brand him as a nonentity who did not even manage to make a decent failure of his brief. Yet this was a man who would be prime minister. Armed only with ambition, but not capability or humility, he has flown too close to the sun.

COMMENT THREAD

An ex-secretary

Now that he has gone, Liam Fox's departure will not be mourned by this site. We have made no secret of our dislike for a man who is not only incompetent but also embodies the very worst of the "greasy pole" tendencies of over-ambitious politicians.

There was a time when we worked very closely with Fox, on an issue of some importance to one of his constituents. This was the EU directive on slaughterhouses and, for a time, Fox was one of the most effective backbench MPs in the House, with his probing questions then directed at agriculture minister John Gummer.

Working as I was then, in 1992 and early 1993, for the small slaughterhouse association - and with Booker - I kept Fox fully briefed on developments in a fast-moving situation. To assist the process, he gave me his office number, his constituency number, fax, mobile phone and even his home number. We were constantly in touch.

Then, in June 1993, Fox was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to then Home Secretary, Michael Howard. The day after, when I tried to get in touch ... silence. Phones went unanswered, messages left were not returned. Fox had started up that greasy pole, and now had no time for any of us.

Latterly, as he climbed the political ranks and became shadow defence secretary, it became very clear that he was not master of his brief. Even worse, he was playing a political game at the expense of the military, pretending to care but in fact milking public support for political advantage. In power, he abandoned those very issues of which he had made such play while in opposition, while proving to be very far from the eurosceptic that he pretended to be.

What has since emerged is how unutterably tacky and seedy his activities in the Ministry of Defence have been. And it is these that have brought him down. One would have liked to have seen the man fired for incompetence, but that was never going to happen with our media - or with The Boy. But it is enough that the man has gone. We are well rid of him, as indeed is the MoD.

Whether any replacement will be much better, however, is difficult to assess, but if it is Philip Hammond, then we are not in for any great improvement. But he could not be worse than Fox. No-one could ... er ... of that we can be sure?

COMMENT THREAD

My sentiments entirely

TBF has an entirely rational pop at Guido, his linking policy (not) and his rather stunning lack of self-awareness.

I've said this before, but it is worth repeating – links are the lifeblood of the blogosphere or, as Guido rightly says: "Linking works in our mutual interests". He then links with selected MSM organs and largely ignores the independent blogosphere.

That is primarily why we ignore him – and other selfish bloggers with similar tunnel vision. The deal is very simple – link to us and we'll link to you. But for those blog authors who are sooooooooooo self-important that they don't believe in reciprocation, we will maintain our policy of indifference.

On the other hand, if you have linked to us and I've missed you out, let me know. Contrary to all rumours, I am human (just) and therefore (occasionally) fallible.

COMMENT THREAD

Foundations of sand

Mercifully limited in media coverage, finding its way into a Press Association report and the Daily Express - and very little else – is a report on healthcare by the Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA).

Its self-important press release captures the flavour of the report, telling us that the TPA "can today reveal that nearly 12,000 fewer people would die each year if the NHS matched standards in Europe".

Even this is weasel-worded, though. The comparison is not with "Europe", as might be inferred from the claim, but with some countries in Europe, specifically the Netherlands, France and Spain – chosen because the figures have been collected on a comparable basis - not that that means they are comparable.

And in that last comment lies the fatal flaw. The comparator chosen by the TPA is the "Mortality amenable to healthcare" index, using "aggregate mortality" amenable to healthcare to compare performance between the different system. This does not support the conclusions offered.

To establish this, one need only find that the TPA cites for its methodology Nolte & McKee and a paper in the BMJ in 2003. And here in that same paper, the authors state:

So how can amenable mortality be used to understand the performance of a health system? We argue that it does have some value, but not in terms of the aggregate values (although arguably the rankings produced by amenable mortality have greater face validity than those using disability adjusted life expectancy). Instead, it enables comparison of the elements that make up the overall figure, permitting investigators to dig down to look at specific policies and learn from different experiences.

In other words, while the TPA claims that the measure "is a comparative method that is robust and well respected", that is very far from the case. And just to reinforce that, in a paper later than that cited by the TPA, Nolte & McKee revisit the concept of "avoidable mortality" which underpins the idea of "mortality amenable to healthcare".

Here, they re-affirm that, when the concept of "avoidable mortality" was first developed, it was seen as a way of identifying topics for further study rather than being an end in itself. "This", they add, "is even more true now that it was then". The information can be used to track changes within a national system, but it is less valid as an international comparator.

For this reason, another system is proposed, measuring the difference between amenable and non-amenable causes, which better reflect economic, cultural, lifestyle and ethnic effects, which may be obscured by a single index. Even marital status can have a significant effect on outcomes, independent of quality of intervention.

With that, we find that the OECD - an organisation dedicated to making international performance comparisons – warns that "avoidable deaths" should not be interpreted as absolute measures of outcome. They "do not provide definitive evidence that a particular service is wrong".

Yet, interpreting "avoidable deaths" as an absolute measure is precisely what the TPA does, going on to build a series of recommendations of a highly political nature, on what amounts to a foundation of sand.

One can, of course, concede that there are many things wrong with the NHS and in a highly politicised debate, there are plenty of views. No one is helped, though, by low-grade research of little more value than a polemic, in an area where good quality work is urgently needed. We do not have so many resources that we can afford to waste effort like this.

COMMENT THREAD

Postpone the revolution?

A smashing piece from Witterings from Witney, but he's getting to sound like EU Ref in his calls for a revolution. Actually, we have but a few chances to avoid one, and it is now becoming a desperate race against time to bring our political class under control. Being the incurable optimist, I think we can do it … and I've already suggested that they key is to attack the money tree.

But maybe just basic survival will become our priority – even the MSM is waking up to the potential of Katla, although they are trailing behind as usual and there is nothing recent which would seem to warrant the current alarm. However, a major eruption on the near horizon is certainly a possibility and that could change everything.

Perhaps we should postpone the revolution until we know what we're up against ... or should we get in first?

COMMENT THREAD

A sanctimonious turd

Any which way you look at it, Booker's column last Sunday ran a scoop about council finance, heavily researched, dealing with issues of considerable importance, and well ahead of the game. However, as his "three", he writes a lightweight filler, to make a point about the inefficiency of wind power. And which does George Monbiot choose to focus on in his boring little blog?

That, of course, is why George Monbiot is a sanctimonious turd.

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They did not win

A report from The Daily Mail appears to portray the victory of plucky fighters against the system in what could be presented as the classic "David and Goliath" story. In fact, it is no such thing.

The essence of the report is that a small number of motorists, wrongly issued with penalty notices for parking infringements that they did not commit, have reclaimed the fees or had their fines set aside. And this is hailed as a victory.

The system, though, goes on unchanged, not in any way harmed or damaged, continuing in exactly the same way, issuing millions of penalties, a huge number of which are actually fraudulent, and deliberately so.

It is part of the system though that where a few vociferous complainants are persistent enough to surmount the bureaucratic obstacles placed in their way, they are given their money back. But no action is taken against the people who issued the penalties, or those who sought to enforce them – not even when they use vehicles which themselves are in actual breach of parking regulations (below).

Criminal fraudsters would love this sort of system. They could go door-to-door, taking money with gay abandon. Only when caught out would they required to give back the money to the individual complainants, with no further action then taken. You might call this a fraudsters' charter.

And that is what we are dealing with here – criminal fraud. Parking enforcement in many areas has long ceased to be a matter of traffic control and is now primarily a revenue generating exercise – for which there is no legal sanction. Council officials try it on, because they can get away with it, and the system has degenerated into a structured fraud.

Thus, there will be no victory until these criminals are brought to book and some are actually jailed. On the face of it, these council officials are breaching S.2 of the Fraud Act 2006. People wrongly issued with a penalty should be reporting their councils to the police.

And yes, we know exactly what the initial reaction of the police would be – but we have persevered with two cases against bailiffs, where the reaction of the police was dismissive, and will shortly have encouraging news to report.

The long stop is, of course, a private prosecution. Fraud is triable either way, so it is possible to take out a summons and commence criminal proceedings. When a few local authority finance officers start being put in the dock and made answerable for their crimes, we might start seeing some changes.

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A last hurrah?

Anthony Watts notes the early opening of the ski season in Colorado, 10-plus inches of snow at higher elevations in Tahoe and Mammoth, and nine inches on West Virginia’s Snowshoe Mountain. Unexpected snow has also covered resorts in British Columbia.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the port city of Magadan also suffered early snows, at the end of last month finding itself at the centre of a cold weather cyclone which brought freezing temperatures and winds gusting in excess of 60 mph.

Winds and blowing snow downed high power lines throughout the region, and area emergency response crews were struggling to restore electricity to hundreds of homes. The city airport was unable to operate for much of the morning as clearing equipment could not keep up with falling snow.

Elsewhere, we learn of a rapid return of ice to the Arctic, with the fastest growth on record - yet still the scare story persists. Ice-free by 2013 is the latest.

Yet, for all the tales of an ice-free Northern Sea Route, shipping still requires icebreaker escorts, which must erode the profitability of the route – to say nothing of the need for ice-hardened ships. The biggest barrier is not the ice, but Russian bureaucracy, it seems. That is far more formidable than the ice-pack.

In the United States, however, the worry is of lack of ice-breaker capacity, with only two 70s-era ships left, one of which is laid up, while the other undergoes a refit. Years of global warming hype have robbed the programme of funds.

But for this, and for the global warming religion in general, one senses that this winter is going to be make or break. And although the Australians are committing economic suicide, this may be its last hurrah, as the hype is buried in the expected avalanche of snow and reality bites back.

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No easy life

Picked up early by TBF, the resignation of Roger Helmer has been reviewed by Autonomous Mind, who has been careful to applaud "an honourable course of action". Helmer hints darkly that he will have more to say about his imminent departure from the EU parliament, parking his expense account in exchange for a not-ungenerous pension.

However, those who saw him at the Tory conference remarked how unwell he looked. A disillusionment with Tory Party duplicity, therefore, may have combined with other issues, which made a precipitate retirement both desirable and necessary.

Meanwhile, life goes on – on not, when it comes to the British fishing industry – as we find revealed "Spanish Practices ", supposedly recently smoked out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

This is an issue untouched by MEPs, including the egregious Helmer – despite them telling us how much they are needed, in order to look after British interests. Yet this is an area where Britain has been comprehensively shafted, in preference to rapacious Spanish fishermen who have plundered our seas and many others besides.

The root of this, though, goes back to Franco, who ploughed funds into modernising the national fishing fleet, as a means of buying co-operation in communities which were far from loyal to the Fascist dictatorship.

Thus, when Spain joined the Community in 1986, having to cease "state aid" for the fishing industry, a condition of entry became that the EEC and then the EU would keep the funds flowing, all in the interests of political stability.

The direct losses to the British economy – without taking into account the environmental damage – run to at least £2 billion a year. Add the collateral damage, in terms of the destruction of shore-side industries and the loss of business and employment to traditional fishing communities, and the losses exceed £5 billion annually.

Cumulatively, this means an unmeasured cash drain of about £100 billion has flowed from the UK, largely to Spain, which acquired rights in UK waters from 1995 onwards.

Taking on board that single metric, for Helmer, then – but also every other British MEP – their careers end in failure. They do nothing for us, except consume our money, while charting our degradation and humiliation at the hands of the Union.

AM wishes Helmer the best for the future. I wish I could join him, but the collective failure of our politicians – of which Helmer is still one – has meant that many of our fishermen, and the communities that they used to support, no longer have a future.

At least Helmer has a decent pension – paid-for by us – to reward him for his failures. The aimless, drug-soaked kids of Arbroath, who would have once manned our trawlers and brought home the fish we eat, have no such compensation. Until that is sorted, no British politician – of any persuasion – deserves an easy life.

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The feel-bad factor

Pensions are evaporating, unemployment is soaring, and the winter energy bill is set to increase by £2.9 billion, up to £14.7 billion. Rail fares are spiralling, wrecking the economics of commuting, to the extent that, for many people, a spacious living environment is an "increasingly unattainable luxury". Inflation generally is predicted to rise again and manufacturing output has stalled.

But never mind, The Boy is on the case, planning new (but ineffective) controls on net porn – while the media focuses on the increasingly bizarre doings of Fox. We are so lucky to have such a Great Leader – and such Great Media.

I've got a book index to finish - a job I seriously hate doing, so EU Referendum Towers is in snarl mode until it is done ... three or four days of hell. Perhaps things will be brighter when I get to "z".

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We would never have guessed

Norman Lamont is telling us in the Daily Mail why the single currency was never going to work - and how any attempt to save it now is utterly dishonest.

We could say we were shocked ... truly, deeply shocked! How could we ever have known such things without the great and mighty Lamont to tell us such things. We should bow down and shield our eyes from such scintillating brilliance.

But, to be fair, he's been saying such things for a long time - the above in 2002, on the tenth anniversary of Black (white) Wednesday.

It is quite entertaining then to revisit Heseltine's views: "Joining the euro is the next logical step in the single market. It will give a great boost to our competitiveness in Europe and simplify transaction costs or avoid them", he said.

"In contrast, staying out deters inward investment, affects the City of London and leaves us out of the mainstream of European politics". Oddly, we don't seem to hear much from Mr Heseltine these days

Go back ten years to 1992, though, and we have The Independent telling John Major that he should emerge from the Birmingham European Council with fully agreed conditions for re-entry to the ERM, duly approved and supported by the Bundesbank.

It also opined that Major should tell Conservative MPs some unpleasant truths about today's constraints on British economic and monetary sovereignty. "To undeceive Europhobes, who live in a world of their own imagination, will not be easy", it said. "They seem to think Britain is a large enough economic entity to behave like the United States or Japan. They should know better".

This is almost twenty years ago, and it is hard to conceive that the paper could reprint such unmitigated tosh without being laughed out of court. Yet it was to do so again with climate change, proving that there is no fool like a media fool.

But then, even a few months earlier and we had er ... Norman Lamont supporting his stance on the ERM. Dishonesty, it seems, cuts both ways. But the villain now becomes the hero of the hour. Next step John Major, hero of Maastricht?

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Permanent austerity

It's good to think that the EU Commission has an answer for something. Unless you are a Commissioner – or on the EU staff, of course, it believes you should live your life out in genteel and ever-increasing poverty. But there must surely be a limit to EU officials filling their boots, before outraged populations call a halt.

Trichet may believe that this is an economic crisis, but the way our political classes are playing it, they are looking to turn it into a public order crisis, the like of which has never before been experienced. The EU is really close now to its objective – uniting the peoples of Europe.

The unity, though, is only in our detestation of our politicians and their money-grubbing officials. Yet still they have not realised how much they are hated. We can only hope - for their own sakes - that they eventually get the message.

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A measured response

As the survey of Council Tax summons and liability order costs continues apace, illustrated (left) is the sort of response we are getting – this one from Ashfield District Council.

You will note that they have very helpfully appended my question to the response letter (click to expand), and then the answer below. But if you compare the two, you will find that the answer is incomplete. They have not given us the total fees charged, as requested.

You might think that you could simply multiply the number of summonses by the fees charged, but that does not give an accurate sum. In many instances, multiple summonses are sent to single householders, as partners and those with shared mortgages are jointly and severally liable. But only one fee is raised per household. Thus, we have to have the totals from the local authority.

What is interesting is that all the recent replies have made the same "mistake" and in each case we have to go back to the authority and ask again for the information. In the case of Birmingham, we've been back three times, and still haven't got the information requested.

However, an interesting element to emerge from Ashfield is the amount by which the combined fees have gone up. In 2003/4 they were £25.00. Now, they are £70.00. According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, if the fees had been adjusted solely to add in inflation, they would currently stand at £30.82.

Thus, even if costs had been recovered on the basis of what was "reasonably incurred" in 2003, this cannot be the case now. By their own measured response, Ashfield are admitting to a near-£40 illegal profit on each set of documentation. It is no wonder that it and other local authorities are proving so reluctant to provide the information we are requesting. They have a lot to hide, and a lot to answer for.

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Even the Greens don't believe it

The irony is almost too delicious to bear, as Britain's premier Green Party lairage buys in gritters to deal with the coming winter.

One just so much loves the idea of the Greens purchasing a fleet of 4x4s, after the local authority received nearly 4,000 complaints about gritting in 2009/10. A report produced by the council said the public mood was "angry, vitriolic and even venomous".  Eat your heart out Caroline.

No longer green, in failing to stick up for their principles, one might even consider them yellow – except for the sad truth that even the Greens don't believe in global warming any more.

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Getting the point

Ross Clark has seen the point - that council charges are side-stepping the cap on Council Tax. He adds some useful colour and detail, but he and the MSM have a lot of catching up to do. They haven't yet latched on to the scale of the looting, much less the illegality.

But then, you can only expect so much of sleb writers. The fact is, though, that they are trailing in the wake of their own commenters, and have read neither this blog nor the Booker column - which would have strengthened the story immensely.

But at least they have noticed something amiss, which is more that the politicians and the ra-rah Tory sites have done. I suppose they are waiting for the brilliant Carswell and Myrtle show to tell them what to think.



There is no sign of the "groundbreaking" TaxPayers' Alliance either. Still, they have just discovered "Europe", so their little brains have probably overheated. But they're sooooooooooo in touch with public opinion, says Timmy (above), so they'll get round to discovering this issue in due course. Then we can all stand round and applaud their brilliant brilliance for noticing it months after everyone else.

Meanwhile, in the real world, you only have to read the comments of real people to realise how serious this issue is.  But then, if you are above the line, you don't deal with grubby little oiks and real-world issues. One is so important that such matters cannot be allowed to tarnish one's brilliance.

What these precious little above-the-liners don't even begin to understand, though, is how close to the edge some people already are, as the predatory bailiffs gather for their prey, keeping the money flowing to top up the salaries and pensions.

Nor do they realise that the state police have become a revenue protection agency, their first concern to gather income, which comes well before any duty to fight crime or protect people and their property. The plods are now the main threat to our safety and prosperity.

Still with our money, councils are happy to throw huge sums at vanity projects and green insanity, such as here, with Hull city council throwing £10 million at capital projects such as a scheme to kick-start wind turbine manufacture – money which goes straight into the pockets of German-owned Siemens.

Any idea that councils have any duty to provide services, such as schools, for which we pay them, has long gone out of the window, with this couple being told to teach their own child, because there was no place for her in the local school.

The only inventiveness we see coming from local government is more and more ingenuity in devising ways of extorting money, with road charging and tolls back on the agenda. And, as always, there are the old favourites, ripping off the motorist with more and more parking charges.

This is the developed world, though, where we roll over and whinge. They seem to have a better handle on it in Lahore, where two motorway policemen were beaten bloody by a gang of lawyers at the Lahore High Court (LHC), because they had ticketed a lawyer for speeding. Now there is true localism for you.

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A sense of betrayal

You can understand how the man feels, and then look with growing dismay at the posturing of The Boy. Wiittering is dead right when he observes how, unable to address the more pressing problems, the government indulges in displacement activity, while the tacky little charade of 13th Century Fox goes on.

It is unlikely that UKIP will provide an answer for Lord Hesketh but, by comparison, anything is better than the not-the-Conservative Party, proximity to which leaves one feeling soiled.

COMMENT THREAD

Reality bites

Families are suffering an "unprecedented collapse" in living standards as high inflation and low wages wipe £2,000 off typical household incomes, says The Failygraph. It bases its report on work done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but we didn't need this to tell us. We can see it all around.

But what the report does not mention is taxation and council charges, which are also adding to the burden, plus the diverse green levies that are adding to the costs of home energy and transport.

For some families, there is also the very real burden of the youth unemployed, with figures out tomorrow expected to confirm the worst youth unemployment figures for nearly 20 years.

For the million NEETs, it is the lack of hope, as much as the lack of jobs, that is dangerous, says The Independent. For families trying to maintain a degree of cohesion, the raids on the bank of mum and dad weaken the financial base. – as private sector pensions become increasingly unaffordable and the value of savings plummets.

What is terrifying though is that our masters – in central and local government – have not joined the dots. People who have less money have less money to pay in taxes and charges. Further, they are likely to be more resistant to increases in charges, and are less resilient when it comes to dealing with financial shocks.

Yet local councils in particular seem to be loading on charges as if there is no tomorrow. Their actions are provocative and asking for trouble. And they are going to get it. People are running out of patience – and tolerance. The good times are over and the mood will get steadily uglier as reality bites.

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Only half the story

Typically, the MSM – spoon-fed by a special interest group - tells only half the story. Different papers run the story, but they are all variations on the same theme. It is ironic really. If you want the big picture, you won't get it. You have to read Booker, go to the blogs, and read EU Referendum.

Unsurprisingly, some of the commenters are far better informed than the journalists. Says "James", "The Tory government has frozen council tax, meaning greedy unelected bureaucrats in councils have to get their hands on more money and what better way than the proven cash cow of motorists and their cars, it is just another way round the council tax freeze, start questioning the reason we have local councils and give some serious thought to what benefits you get from them being there ...".

Parking charges and penalties are indeed an issue, but they are only one part of the picture, and by no means the largest part. There is wholesale looting afoot, across the board. And it takes James to identify the reason.

COMMENT THREAD

A scent of rebellion

"By ignoring the party conferences, we committed a small but important act of rebellion against the oligarchy. More and better acts of rebellion will be required". So writes Brendan O'Neill, who, with a bit of effort, might catch up with us. Even trailing in our wake, though, he is right in advocating more acts of rebellion.

It is a pity that Spiked thinks of itself as unique. If it looked around a bit, it would find that there are a lot of people out there saying the same things. The scent of rebellion is already in the air.

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A cat-a-strophic tail

One wonders whom The Guardian detests most, Teresa May or Nigel Frage, although in this case May seems to have won the contest, with honours going to Farage. The occasion is May's conference speech, in which she made reference to an illegal immigrant who, allegedly, had been allowed to remain in this country under the Human Rights Act, having formed an attachment with a cat.

Of such trivia is modern politics made, and there it would have rested, but for a current claim - apparently initiated by Chris Huhne that May had lifted the reference from a speech given by Farage in Eastleigh last July. To bolster the claim, the local newspaper offers a YouTube recording and narrative which points to superficial resemblances in the accounts, with both speakers assuring their respective audiences that they were "not making this up".

Apart from the fact that both were making the story up (or retailing a made-up version) – and that the stories were wrong, although with different details – copycat behaviour by May is unlikely. Unlike Farage, she actually offers three examples of Human rights "sillies".

Two of these, including the reference to the cat man, are mentioned in a piece in The Daily Mirror on 13 July 2011, in which Teresa May is also mentioned (see above).

This, most likely was the source of Farage's story, the egregious UKIP leader referring to a case "a couple of weeks ago", which was then when it had appeared in the Mirror, even though it had actually been first reported in 2009. Because she was mentioned in the piece, May could well have seen it, and it would almost certainly have been included in her cuttings file. Like as not, this was the source of her anecdote at the Manchester conference.

What is fascinating, though, is that both politicians – relying on erroneous press reports – got the story wrong, although Farage went one better and embellished the story with errors of his own. But, attractive though the copycat story is to The Guardian, the odious Huhne's attempt at smearing May is probably misplaced.

Funnily enough, on 14th July 2011, a report was submitted to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the House of Commons, warning that the cat man story was wrong. But one would not expect Teresa May or any of her researchers to note anything said in or to Parliament.

One likes to think that she (or her researchers) took the Mirror to be a far more reliable source for, as we all know, everything we read in the MSM is true.

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