The expert speaks

Reminding us of the days when men were men and newspapers actually had news in them, The Daily Telegraph has republished its edition for 4 September 1939, announcing the outbreak of war.

One could not help but smile, though, on reading the views of the paper's then resident military expert, Major-Gen A C Temperley, styled as the "military correspondent", who is asked to assess the calibre of the new German army.

Right up front, his view is expressed in the headline, which reads, "Germany lacks experienced officers" with the strap reinforcing the point, telling us: "limited number of trained reserves available". This Temperley works out from his assessment of the peace-time strength in 1938, when the Wehrmacht was said to have had 51 divisions.

On this basis, expanding to 120 divisions war-time strength would mean that many of the new divisions would lack a cadre of fully-trained officers. Temperley contrasts this unfavourably with the French army, which has a "solid block" of 5,000,000 soldiers "that have done their full service in the ranks". The lack of experienced officers will be one of Germany's great handicaps in the war, he concludes.

Helping him on his way to this conclusion is his earlier attendance at German manoeuvres in 1936 and 1937, when the only officers of seniority (that he saw) were the battalion and battery commanders. Apart from that, the officers were mostly "2nd lieutenants" and not more than one of them per company or battery.

What Temperley could not have known – and clearly did not know – was that every German NCO and officer was fully trained in the duties of the rank immediately above his own, an army built for rapid expansion, which meant that the officer corps was far stronger than he had anticipated.

Further, even as he was writing, he had grossly under-estimated the size of the Wehrmacht, putting the number of Panzer divisions at five, when there were already nine, with a number of independent brigades and attached regiments which were to form the nucleus of even more. And against Poland alone, Hitler had 60 divisions ranged, including seven Panzer divisions.

In retrospect, however, nothing more jars than Temperley's comments about the Polish army. The Poles are "no mean adversaries", he writes. They have a population of 30 million and 30 peace-time divisions. Their morale is excellent and they will fight to the very end.

Then does the great man tell us: "All recent fighting with the machine gun arm, increased as that has been, goes to show that the greater power lies with the defence and the Poles should be able to take full advantage of it. Their Army should render a good account of itself." A mere 24 days later, Warsaw had capitulated and it was all over by 6 October when the last Polish troops surrendered.

Temperley had, of course, failed completely to follow the writings of Fuller and Liddel-Hart (or ignored them - Liddel-Hart had written several times to Temperley), neglecting the power of the formed tank division. Neither does he mention the Luftwaffe which in doctrinal terms was a branch of the Wehrmacht, acting as its assault artillery.

With some insight, however, Temperley writes that "all wars now are wars of petrol and oil, which is for Germany a great difficulty. She has not got the petrol for a long war unless she succeeds in obtaining access to the Rumanian petrol supply or Soviet Russia is prepared to supply her extensive needs."

As it turned out, Stalin was more than willing to supply Germany, right up to the point when Hitler turned on him, but then his armies did succeed in "obtaining access" to the Rumanian oil fields. That, in the event, was to be Hitler's undoing, sending his forces south instead of putting all his energies into taking Moscow. But, with the capture of the Ploesti oil fields, we were in for a long war.

What is so striking about Temperley is that he gets virtually everything wrong. Yet, this man, of exalted rank who, after all had "been there" – in Germany, and seen the Wehrmacht on manoeuvres – doubtless was regarded with great respect as the authority of his day.

It is perhaps worth remembering that, not only were the Germans comprehensively underestimated, so too were the Japanese, a fatal error which enabled a force of 30,000 to defeat the British in Singapore with a force more than three times larger.

With the gift of hindsight, it is so very easy to see quite how wrong Temperley was. But, even at the time, there were people saying he was wrong. They were ignored. The Temperleys of that world were the "experts" and they had the ear of the high and the mighty. There are similar experts in a wide range of fields today, who are listened to with just as much respect. And many are just as wrong.

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Progress of a kind

It is ironic that, on the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, we should be reviewing an article in Der Spiegel which catalogues a tale of woe concerning the dire state of the German military in Afghanistan. How the mighty have fallen, one might observe.

In a dreadfully familiar litany, we hear that "German Troops Bemoan 'Critical' Deficits in Training and Equipment", with "damning reports" emerging from the forces in Afghanistan, claiming that cooperation with civilian agencies is abysmal, equipment is lacking and training is insufficient.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Snout in the trough

Through the MPs' expenses scandal, one occasionally heard noises off from our European "partners" who seemed to be amazed that there should be so much public outrage about what is, in other climes, perfectly normal behaviour.

Now, it seems, the Germans are having their own version. Social Democrat Health Minister Ulla Schmidt has raised a storm of protest after it emerged that she had flown out to Spain on holiday while instructing her official chauffeur to drive her ministerial limousine down from Germany to meet her at her holiday destination.

After the 3,000-mile trip in the official Mercedes, the chauffeur was kept on duty for two weeks, at the beck and call of his minister, being paid handsomely as overtime, while he shuttled her to and from the beach.

Embarrassingly, the chauffeur never got to do the 3,000-mile return trip as enterprising Spanish thieves nicked the motor, thus leading to the revelations in the press about the minister's little arrangement.

Interestingly, the minister was perfectly within the rules to use her official car for this purpose – so we have another "I was only obeying the rules" scenario, which went down so well in the UK.

The revelations have come at a particularly unhappy time for Frau Schmidt, now dubbed "S-Class Ulla" after the Mercedes model that disappeared. With a general election in the offing, the Social Democrats are positioning themselves as the party best equipped to lead the country out of the economic and financial crisis.

In her defence, I suppose, Frau Schmidt could claim that she was creating employment – not least for Spanish car thieves – and no one could complain that these were ruinously expensive "green jobs" so beloved of our ruling classes.

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A dangerous self-indulgence?

Twice we've called "time" on the controversy over equipment for our troops in Afghanistan, yet it continues almost unabated. It was with more than some interest, therefore, that we watched author and analyst Michael Griffin on BBC News 24 yesterday, expressing similar puzzlement over the intensity of the "debate".

Viewed wholly objectively, with the focus narrowed down to whether troops have enough helicopters, there is nothing to sustain it. As it stands, there is no shortage of helicopters in theatre to support current operations. The prime minister is right on this.

That most of the helicopters are American is neither here nor there. But there are Dutch, Canadian and British as well, all "pooled" in a vast coalition fleet which is being used not for British or American operations, but for coalition operations, of which the national contingents are an integral part.

In that sense, complaining about the shortfall of British helicopters is about as rational as anyone arguing against the use of B-17s of the US 8th Army Air Force to extend the strategic bombing campaign against Germany in 1943. Allies work together, and harness their collective assets to the common cause. That is what we did then and that is what we are doing now.

In seeking to explain the furore, however, Griffin linked the campaign in Afghanistan with Iraq, suggesting that in the latter, the British Army had not performed well, to the disappointment of the Americans. And in Helmand too, its grasp of counter-insurgency had been maladroit, again leading to a less than admiring response from the Americans.

To an extent, ventured Griffin, the military were seeking to transfer the blame for their own poor performance onto the politicians. Similarly, he felt, the military had some considerable control over the types of helicopters purchased and their deployment. Problems could not be laid entirely at the doors of the politicians.

If that is one element which is driving the controversy, the other is clearly the Conservative Party, anxious to find yet another stick with which to beat the government. The attitude is summed up in the recent comment from Liam Fox, who declares: "It is abundantly clear that we are asking our troops to fight a war for which Labour has not properly equipped them."

Notice there, the use not of the word "government" but of "Labour", revealing an overt partisanship which puts the alleged default wholly in a political context. There is no room in Fox's kitbag for any equivocation or shared responsibility.

Gordon Brown, nevertheless, is playing his own political games, relating helicopter requirements to current operations, but the distinction between these and the "general campaign" is becoming clear, with an acknowledgement that, while troops are able to fulfil their tasks at the moment, there is an overall shortfall of helicopters. This, we are told, is to be redressed by the Merlins which will at last be despatched by the end of the year, by the re-engined Lynxes and, next year, by additions to the Chinook fleet.

That things could have been done quicker, better and considerably more cheaply is indisputable, but the fact is that issues are being addressed, further confirming the "totemic status" of helicopters. In other words, this controversy isn't really about helicopters at all – or even about equipment.

Returning to Griffin, at the end of the interview – to the evident discomfort of his BBC interrogator – he broke away from the script to express his concern over the exaggerated level of publicity about an issue which lacked that substance. He warned that the Taleban would be monitoring programmes such as these, and the furore would improve their morale considerably.

Therein does lie a huge trap, created by the concern over casualties and the focus on helicopters. We have alluded to this before, in that if the Taleban were successfully to bring down a Chinook laden with troops, it is very hard to see how continuing the campaign could be politically sustainable.

The problem is that the Taleban know that, and they will do everything possible to make it so, while seeking generally to maximise the British casualty rate. This much is being recognised, with Dannatt at last taking the IED threat seriously.

As to the remarkable controversy that we have been witnessing for the best part of three weeks, this – if Griffin is right – is a dangerous self-indulgence which we simply cannot afford, motivating the Taleban to greater efforts on the basis that the home front can be so weakened that British troops will have to be withdrawn. We are, unwittingly, sending them a message that there is everything to gain from killing British troops.

This is not a happy message, and one that is difficult to change, as these media storms tend to have a life of their own. But the military, the politicians and the media – and indeed this blog – need to think very hard about the message they are sending, and to whom.

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Not so fast

The news that Iceland's government has decided to apply for EU membership for the country has not been greeted with unalloyed joy and I am not talking just about the people of Iceland. The Commission, naturally enough, has welcomed the application. As far as they are concerned, any application, no matter who submits it and with what popular support or lack of it, is proof positive that the EU is a success.

However, there is trouble in Germany, as EUObserver reports.

Centre-right politicians from Germany's Christian Social Union (CSU) have spoken out against Iceland's bid to join the European Union.

"The EU cannot play saviour to Iceland's economic crisis," Markus Ferber, head of the CSU's members of the European parliament, told Suedduetsche newspaper [Süddeutsche Zeitung] over the weekend.

"We should discuss the structure of the EU before we discuss expanding it," said Alexander Dobrindt, General Secretary of the CSU, which is the smaller sister party to German chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.

The newspaper reports that the manifesto for both parties for the 27 September general election will indirectly oppose further EU enlargement, with the exception of Croatia

Why any German politician should ignore the fact that Croatia will have to be subsidized quite heavily is something of a mystery but, presumably, the country they really do not want in the EU is Turkey.

The story is, naturally enough, reported in Iceland and in Ireland. Jamie Smyth writes in his European Diary in the Irish Times that there is a general disaffection with the whole idea of further enlargement. Given that, as some of us predicted about ten years or more ago, eastward enlargement has not been an unqualified success for anybody, this attitude is not surprising.

The old chestnut of the absolute necessity of sorting out whichever treaty is being held up for the sake of enlargement or, rather, these days, before we can speak of further enlargement comes up with the assumption, natural enough for Mr Smyth that the only thing that matters is the second Irish referendum. What of the German Constitutional Court's decision? In the long term that is likely to be much more dangerous for le grand projet than the referendum.

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Looks like October 2

Brian Cowen, the Taoiseach has told the Dáil that the second Irish referendum will take place on October 2. Propaganda, masquerading as misleading information has already begun or, rather, it never stopped.

RTÉ News informs us that

The campaign was marked by a complex No campaign which raised some issues that did not form part of the Treaty.

Following that vote, the Government put in train an analysis of the reasons the document was voted down.

Arising from that research, pressure was put on the other EU members to accommodate Irish voters' concerns, in order to allow for a second vote with a better chance of success.

A two-day EU summit last month agreed to legally binding guarantees on the application of the Treaty in Ireland.

I'd say every single one of those statements is economical with the truth, especially that notion of legally binding guarantees. Even officially they do not become legally binding until the next treaty, whenever that might happen.

The BBC, not to be outdone in the economical with the truth stakes, also tells us about those guarantees, adding for good measure that the Lisbon Treaty was "aimed at streamlining EU institutions". I suppose abolition of parliamentary democracy does streamline institutions.

If the Irish vote no, presumably the colleagues will go through another exercise of having a dialogue with the people, possibly led by someone other than the Fluffy Commissar. Then they will have another IGC (or two or three, on past showing) and come up with another treaty. This time they might not let the Irish vote on it either.

If the Irish vote yes then it is up to President Klaus to hold his pen firmly above the paper and not sign the treaty. (There is also the question of what kind of legislation will be required in Germany.) If the Conservatives are serious about their opposition to the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty (stop sniggering at the back), they will follow our advice and ask President Klaus to hold that pen aloft, in order to give Britain a chance to vote in that referendum that will surely happen under a Conservative government.

Strategic thinking?

.... there are other, potentially greater, threats to the security of the nation than the distant prospect of an invasion by an unidentified superpower, or an attack by a rogue nuclear state. The consequences of climate change in terms of water supply, mass migration and unrest in parts of the world on which we rely for energy constitute just as great an existential threat as existed during the Cold War.

That is the view of the world's favourite newspaper. The source of this tosh, however, is the IPPR - 147 pages of it. They'll be rolling out the European Climate Change Corps next.

UKNDA believes the IPPR authors are "barking up the wrong tree". The IPPR recommends a move away from Britain's traditional focus on the alliance with the USA, towards a Europe-centred Defence policy. "We must continue to stand alongside America - that is absolutely fundamental ... It would be sheer folly to retreat to the role of European bit-player, heavily reliant on France and Germany," says UKNDA. We could hardly disagree.

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Another one down?

The long-awaited ruling from the German constitutional court at Karlsruhe has been delivered, offering a curate's egg verdict – good[ish] in parts.

According to the BBC, the court has decided that the constitutional Lisbon Treaty is compatible with German law - but has suspended ratification of it pending extra national legislation needed to ensure that the German parliament participated fully in adopting EU laws.

Quite what this latter provision means is not explained and we are not much the wiser from the report in Deutsche Welle. It, however, summarises the court ruling, telling us that, "the constitution says 'yes' to the Lisbon Treaty but demands that parliament's right to participation be strengthened at the national level."

Der Spiegel tells us that the [German] parliament will now be under pressure to rapidly bring in new legislation so that the ratification process can continue.

The treaty is supposed to be implemented by the beginning of 2010 at the latest and the parliament is to gather for a special sitting on August 26 for a first reading of a new law which will pave the way for ratification. The vote would then take place on 8 September, weeks before Germany's national election.

Nothing, it seems, will stop the Gadarene rush of national legislatures to divest themselves of powers, handing them over to an alien construct in Brussels.

With Irish commissioner Charlie McCreevy recently conceding that voters in most EU countries would have rejected the treaty, given the opportunity, one wonders what it is that impels our rulers to defy their own people in such an egregious manner.

Possibly, there is now a chance for German MPs to stall the new law before the national elections, although this seems a forlorn hope, which means that, even before the Irish re-run of the referendum, another ratification will be safely in the bag. The vice-like grip of Brussels gets ever tighter.

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Not benefits - but costs

Its has been said before, many times, but now we have a US think-tank, the Beacon Hill Institute, saying it: "green jobs are a cost not a benefit."

The researchers have looked at a number of influential studies, including the UNEP report on "Green Jobs: Towards Sustainable Work in a Low-Carbon World," and find that they are "critically flawed".

Says Paul Bachman, director of research at the Beacon Hill Institute, "Contrary to the claims made in these studies, we found that the green job initiatives reviewed in each actually causes greater harm than good to the American economy and will cause growth to slow."

The BHI study itself remarks that, if the green job is a net benefit it has to be because the value the job produces for consumers is greater than the cost of performing the job.

This argument is never made in any of the studies examined. Thus co-author of the BHI study, David G. Tuerck, notes that "these studies are based on arbitrary assumptions and use faulty methodologies to create an unreliable forecast for the future of green jobs."

He adds, "It appears these numbers are based more on wishful thinking than the appropriate economic models, and that must be taken into consideration when the government is trying to turn the economy around based on political studies and the wrong numbers."

Closer to home, Poland's Solidarnosc trade union is warning that some 800,000 jobs across Europe will be wiped out following the adoption of EU climate change legislation last year.

This is from Jaroslaw Grzesik, deputy head of energy at Solidarnosc, who is in fact referring mainly to Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - although he says Germany, the UK and Scandinavia will also suffer.

The problem here is their reliance on coal for electricity production.
where the requirement to reduce CO2 emissions or buy pollution credits on the European carbon market, will push coal industries to relocate to countries where they are not regulated.

"In Poland, production will move away to Ukraine, a few kilometres away from our borders," Grzesik predicts, deploring the fact that the Polish government and the European had provided "no analysis" of the impact of the EU's climate legislation on industry delocalisation.

He also pours cold water on the notion that job cuts would be offset by the creation of new "green jobs". His estimate is that there will be 800,000 job losses for the whole of the EU, whereas the best estimate for new jobs is 200,000.

"In Europe, without a doubt, it is a problem," said Philippe Herzog, a French economist and founder of Confrontations Europe. "We have not found a balance yet between the definition of European objectives [on climate change] and the implications for jobs."

But then the objective never was balance, or indeed new jobs. The economic illiteracy expressed in the UNEP report surely cannot be real – no one can be that stupid as to believe that wiping out hundreds of thousands of jobs and replacing them with a smaller number is a good thing. Or can they?

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One of those days …

Sometimes, days go by with nothing really significant to report on Defence of the Realm. Other times, the news floods in and it's a job keeping up. Yesterday was one of those days, and we've not finished yet. That European white elephant, the Airbus A400M, has reared its computer-generated head again.

Actually, although the A400M is a military aircraft, this is a political project and, once again, we have the real world impinging on the fantasy construct in which the "colleagues" have invested so much time, money and political capital.

As we left it in March with a contract break in the offing on 1 April – giving the opportunity to the prospective purchasers to cancel – the decision on whether to walk away was postponed until 1 July.

However, with the deadline now racing closer at the speed of an Airbus computer graphics designer, no agreement on the future of the project is forthcoming. But, like the "colleagues" confronted with a "no" vote in a referendum, this lot cannot take no for an answer either. Thus, they have simply extended the deadline for another month.

This zombie-like behaviour – the aircraft proving impossible to kill - was agreed on Monday by the defence ministers of the seven European customer nations.

Needless to say, this is a European month, so it isn't really a month after which the project comes to an end. Explained by French defence minister Herve Morin, the agreement to extend the deadline by one-month is actually a short discussion break to allow time to look into the issues, "in particular the financial questions with the company. "

The outcome of this break is then to decide whether to grant another six-month delay, this one being used to renegotiate the A400M contract with Airbus in an attempt to keep the project alive.

That development represents a partial victory for the French and Germans, who wanted to move straight to a renegotiation. This, however, was blocked by Britain which is getting increasingly concerned at both the costs and the delays. So the answer to a British objection to a six-month delay is to have a one month delay … followed by a six-month delay.

Whether Britain will stay the course still has not been decided. Quentin Davies, representing the MoD has admitted the talks were "difficult" and is warning that there will have to be "a very great deal of progress with (Airbus) in order to save this project."

However, just to add further interest to a messy situation, Airbus has confirmed that the lead customer, Germany, definitely will not see the first delivery before 2014, with the overall delivery timetable having been further delayed.

It then gets even more interesting with the news that the Chinese have completed building their first Airbus model under licence, and are now in a position to challenge the British wing-making monopoly.

Whether that is used as a threat to keep Britain on board is anyone's guess but, if there is a stitch-up in the making, the RAF had better reconcile itself to the prospect of flying computer graphics rather than real aeroplanes. At least, though, that will keep the carbon footprint down.

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Playing politics

Edward Leigh – he of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – is at it again, his committee this time reporting on the ill-starred Type 45 Destroyers.

This warship type, as readers will know, is to form the backbone of the Royal Navy's air defence capability, replacing the ageing Type 42s. To that effect, the ships are fitted with the French manufactured Aster missile, known by the acronym PAAMS (Principle Anti-Aircraft Missile System).

Leigh's main beef is that, although the first (of six) Type 45 will enter service in 2009, "it is a disgrace that it will do so without a PAAMS missile having been fired from the ship, and will not achieve full operational capability until 2011." He (or his committee) also complains that other equipments and capabilities which will enhance the ship's ability to conduct anti-air warfare operations will not be fitted until after the ship enters service in some cases.

As to the committee's diagnosis of the main problem, it notes that, although the Type 45 was based on 80 percent new technology, the MoD failed to take sufficient account of this in its assessment of technical risk or in the commercial construct that it agreed. Thus, it decides that the Ministry "needs to improve its understanding of technical risks at the start of its projects" and should "factor in more realistic allowance for risk on its more technically complex projects."

To say that this is a somewhat superficial finding is something of an understatement. What the committee does not identify is that PAAMS is another of those ghastly European co-operative ventures, with the French having the design lead on the Aster missile. The delays in the deployment of the weapons system, therefore, owe as much to our French partners as they do the MoD.

Further, as we rehearsed nearly four years ago, the genesis of the Type 45 goes back to 1985, with the ill-fated NFR-90 (NATO Frigate Replacement for 90s) programme, a multi-national attempt at designing a common frigate for several Nato nations, including France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the United States and Canada.

Inevitably, with such an ambitious project and with such disparate requirements, the project could not succeed and it was abandoned in the early 1990s, after US and the UK had withdrawn, the latter in 1989 after fears that the design would not meet the requirements for replacing the Type 42 air-defence destroyers.

It was then in 1992, on John Major's watch, when he was imbued with the desire to be "at the heart of Europe" that his Conservative government opted for a "European" solution, setting up the Horizon "Common New Generation Frigate" project with France and Italy.

The project comprised two separate but linked projects – the basic platform (ship), and the missile/radar complex. And while the platform was a common venture, and the British elected for their own radar, the missile system – known as the PAAMS (Principal Anti-Aircraft Missiles system) – was to be French-built by EUROPAAMS.

It was a Labour government then in 1999 that abandoned the Horizon project, the MoD then electing to go for a British-built platform, which had been the original intention back in 1985 before a Nato solution had been considered. A year later, a "fixed price" contract was awarded to BAE Systems for twelve ships, scheduled to enter service by the end of 2014.

Interestingly, the entire programme was budgeted at about £6 billion, including PAAMS, the development of which had been agreed in 1995 by a Conservative government, despite fears over escalating costs. The target cost per ship (excluding missiles) was about £270 million, with as much again for the missiles.

The PAC now observes that it is "disappointing" that the MoD has taken so long - over 20 years, it says - to deliver its replacement for the Type 42s. But it then refers to the Type 45 entering service over two years late and £1.5 billion over budget. In fact, it is 20 years late, and more than £6 billion over the originally planned budget.

The crucial issue though is that this is another of those "legacy" procurement projects started in the days when European co-operation was all the rage, and many of the problems currently experienced stem from that – making the Conservatives jointly responsible for the cost over-runs and delays.

It jars, therefore, to find Liam Fox - as always – scoring party political points on this project, claiming that: "This report highlights the extraordinary risk that this Government is taking with our nation's defences in an increasingly volatile world."

"Its appalling incompetence," he adds, "has left the Royal Navy having to "juggle and hope" with only half the new ships it was supposed to have, and a fleet of exhausted Type 42s that are more than three decades old."

But for the Euro-enthusiasm of the previous Conservative government, the Type 42 replacements would already have been in service for some years. And, instead of relying on the European fixation with developing highly sophisticated technical projects like missile systems from scratch, we would possibly have relied – as do the Americans – on evolutionary projects such as an enhanced Sea Dart, developing the technology already in service on the Type 42.

To reduce costs, we could also have shared Spain's philosophy. Put off by the French insistence on a new European combat system, it went for the "proven and ready to go" US sales pitch for its F100 frigate, which features the Aegis system and Standard missiles, the current US maritime anti-aircraft systems.

Spain's IZAR shipbuilders formed industrial bonds with Lockheed Martin, enabling it to build its own platforms while benefiting from state-of-the-art technology, delivering ships with greater capabilities than the Type 45 which included Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-submarine missiles – at around half the cost for each platform.

Arguably, had the previous Conservative government followed this route, the massive cost increases could have been avoided, in which case we would have twelve ships instead of the six now being purchased. Dr Fox, therefore, is playing politics.

COMMENT THREAD

Desperately seeking graphics

The leading producer of imaginative computer graphics of non-existent aircraft (example above) is back in the fray again, this time seeking state loans of €3.6 billion for its latest set of graphics.

Codenamed the A-350, representing a long-range medium-capacity airliner not dissimilar to the Boeing 787, the project is intended to produce a range of high-definition graphics which may be turned into a real aeroplane some time after 2013. The producer, Airbus Industries, is thus turning to France, Germany, Spain, and possibly Britain for the money, which it says will account for 30 percent of the development.

Needless to say, the developer of real aeroplanes, which actually fly and make money, is none too happy at the prospect of having to compete in the crowded computer graphics market and is warning that this could re-ignite a trade dispute between the EU and the US over subsidies.

Ted Austell, Boeing's vice president for public policy, says "We can only reiterate our position that Airbus should finance its computer graphics aircraft development using its own cash and commercial loans."

However, tiring of the existing set of graphics code-named A-400M, government ministers representing France, Germany, Spain and Britain are to meet on 15 June at the Paris Air Show to discuss the new set. They have not been given the approval to work out an agreement, so the negotiations may be protracted, especially as Britain is still considering whether to contribute.

Should Britain decide to take part, the wing representations will be produced in a studio in Bristol by Polish émigrés, ready for presentation to the contributing states in 2017, in time for a loan request for a further €10 billion, in order to generate the wiring diagrams.

Safety experts applauded the developments, remarking that the current generation of virtual aircraft had been almost entirely accident-free. So far, no lives had been lost.

If this trend continues, says Dr Norbert O T Goodenough, the A-350 graphics will outstrip all previous efforts and possibly even exceed the safety record of the A-400M graphics. This can only be spoiled if they actually produce the aircraft, he says, although the chances of this are so slight that Goodenough remains unconcerned.

COMMENT THREAD

European elections 2009

This is our running post, on which we'll follow the UK results as they come in. Updates added at the bottom.

In the 2004 elections the Tories pulled 26.7 percent of the vote and Labour got 22.6. UKIP grabbed 16.1 percent, beating the Lib-Dems into third place, trailing with 14.9 percent. The Greens got 6.3 and the BNP 4.9 percent.

Then, the candidates were fighting for 78 seats, the electorate producing a turnout of 38.2 percent. Under the Nice rules, only 72 seats are being fought.

20.30: It's going to be an interesting night. In the North East, with only three seats up for grabs, Labour seems set to take one. But the shock is that - at this time - the Tories and UKIP are "neck and neck", with the Lib-Dems coming fourth. Last time round, it was the three main parties that took the seats.

20.33: East Midlands … Keith Vaz believes the Labour vote is holding up. This is the region where, in 2005, Kilroy was standing, bringing in two seats. UKIP is on the back foot here.

20.41: First official estimate of the EU-wide turnout - 43.01 percent of eligible voters voted, compared with 45.47 percent last time.

20.49: In Ireland, Brian Cowen's "embattled Government" is under massive strain after its worst ever election meltdown and opposition claims it no longer has any credibility. The Dail will resume on Tuesday with a resurgent Fine Gael, now the largest party in the state for the first time, preparing to table a vote of no confidence.

20.50: A reminder - Northern Ireland takes three seats. The count there does not start until 9am tomorrow. Thus, we only get 69 results tonight. Official results start coming in from 9pm this evening.

20.53: Cornwall: Labour in sixth place?

20.59: Eastern region – UKIP looks as if they could have two, possibly three (outside chance). BNP vote collapsed.

21.00: Denmark - UEN and Greens each gain a seat. Sarkozy gets 11 more seats in France. Not an anti-government vote there, but likely to be an anomaly. Greens also up. Anti-capitalists also up.

21.04: North West - Lib-Dims claiming BNP will not get a seat.

21.10: Labour meltdown in Wales and Scotland predicted.

21.12: Swedish exit polls suggest the new populist Pirate Party has polled 7.4 percent of the vote. The opposition Social Democrats are getting 25 percent, up slightly from 2004. The biggest losers seem to be the the Left Party. Exit polls give it 5.1 per cent.

21.17: Romania's ruling coalition won the most votes. Each are expected to take one third of the 33 MEP seats on offer. The centre-left Social-Democrats have won 30.8 percent of the vote. The centrist Democrat-Liberals were just 0.3 percent behind. Each party is expected to win about 11 seats.

21.23: Eastern region: UKIP looking almost certainly three seats. UKFirst lead the rest of the minority groups, beating BNP.

21.36: In Lebanon, on the other hand, the turn-out was 52 per cent; somewhat higher than across the EU. Just thought I'd mention it.

21:40: Orkney led the pack, beating all the other local authority areas to announce its outcome. Lib-Dims secured 31.9 percent, SNP second on 20.2 percent, the Conservatives on 15.2 percent, Greens on 9.2 percent, UKIP on 8.5 percent, and the Labour Party trailing in sixth place on 7.0 percent. Turnout was 25.9 per cent.

21.43: North East: Labour 147,338, Cons 116,911, Lib-dims 103,444, UKIP 90,700, BNP 52,700, Greens 34,081, English Democrats 13,007, Socialist Labour Party 10,238, No2EU 8,066, Christian Party 7,263, Libertas 3,010, Jury Team 2,904. Labour gets one seat, second goes to Tories and the third to the Lib Dims. No change ... UKIP misses out with 15.4 percent of the vote, up 3.2. Labour down nine percent, Tories up one. At a rough count, the "tiddlers" (apart from BNP, Greens and UKIP) took 43,000 votes. If half had gone to UKIP, it would have got the seat.

21.48: Farage very defensive on BBC.

21.55: Tories might top the poll in Wales. UKIP might just get the fourth (of four) seats.

21.59: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives suffered around a six-percentage-point fall in their share of the vote but had a clear lead over other parties. The vote is seen a litmus test for Merkel ahead of the general election in September. FDP set to take 12 seats.

22.09: Less than 35 percent turnout in Germany.

22.14: Highest turnout recorded in Belgium at 91 percent.

22.17: The Fragrant One (Margot Wallstrom) calls the low turnout "a bad result." It shows the need to work to "change the perception" that the European Union is detached from its citizens. Not that the EU is "detached" - this is just a "perception". The voters got it wrong again.

22.32: Projections show Germany's Social Democrats heading for their worst showing in a nationwide election since the Second World War. But, with a 35 percent turnout (against 37.5 percent in 2004) it is difficult to judge. The Incidentally, the largest federal Land, North Rhine-Westphalia, only polled 18 percent.

22.33: Bruno Waterfield reports that the EU parliament has passed 404 laws since the last elections in 2004. Another 233 are in the pipeline, meaning that MEPs are currently "churning out" two pieces of EU law a week.

22.36: Yorkshire - Con Home suggests 2 Cons and one each for Lab, Lib-Dims, UKIP and BNP.

22.40: Count almost finished. Looks as if the Yorks result stands ... BNP's first seat, outperforming the North West.

22.44: Turnout in the North West was 31.9 percent. Manchester and Liverpool well down at 24 and 27 percent respectively. Results expected at around 11.30pm.

22.47: East Midlands expected in half-hour. UKIP vote well down.

22.50: Spain: "Right wing" People's party wins its first national victory for nine years. Socialist prime minister Zapatero sees a loss of 3.75 percentage points just 15 months after winning a general election.

22.51: In Cornwall, South West Region, the Cornish Nationalist Party seems to have beaten Labour, pushing it into sixth place.

22.52: Three updates have gone AWOL while everything the boss puts up stays up. I suspect a plot. If this goes on there will be a rebellion in Shepherds Bush.

23.00: One last attempt to report on a few items from other countries. If this does not work, the rebellion will take off. It will be painful for all concerned.

In Denmark Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen's Liberals are expected to keep their three seats while the Social Democrats, though in the lead, may well lose one to the Danish People's Party, usually described as anti-immigrant. It is, also, a centre-right conservative party that opposes further erosion of Danish sovereignty and Denmark's entry into the single currency. The People's Movement against the EU, which campaigns for Danish withdrawal from the bloc, is expected to hold on to its one seat. But the Eurosceptic June movement will not gain any MEPs. The turn-out was actually higher than in 2004 at 51 per cent, up from 47.9 per cent.

In Hungary the opposition FIDESZ party is set to take 16 seats out of the 22 allotted to the country. The Social Democrats are likely to have 4, down from 9 and the right-wing nationalist party, the Jobbik, looks like taking 2.

In Finland the Eurosceptic 'True Finns' party and the Finnish Christian Democrats are each expected to win two seats. The centre-right National Coalition Party, the liberal Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party are all projected to lose a seat each, taking them down to three, three and two MEPs respectively.

The Greens and the Swedish People's Party, who are also in the government, are expected to maintain a seat each.

23.12: Eastern Region result - Conservative 500,331 (31.2 - up 0.4 percent), UKIP, 313,921 (19.6 - no change), Lib Dims 221,235, Labour 167,833, Greens 141,016, BNP 97,013, UKFirst 38,185, English Democrats 32,211, Christian Party, 24,646, No2EU 13,923, SDP 13,599, Animals count 13,201, Libertas 9,940, Independent 9,916, Jury Team 6,354, Rejected 13,164. MEPs ... three Con, two UKIP, one LD, one Labour. Labour loses six percent.

23.28: Yorkshire: First BNP victory - Two Con, one Lab, one UKIP, one Lib-Dem, one BNP. Andy Burnham says "a sad moment". Share: Conservatives on 25 percent (no change) Labour down 8 percent.

Detailed results: Cons 299,802 (24.5 percent, down 0.2), Lab 230,009 (18.8 percent, down 7.5), UKIP 213,750 (17.4 percent, up 2.9), Lib-Dims 161,552 (13.2 percent, down 2.4), BNP 120,456 (8.5 percent, up 1.8) Greens 104,456 (8.5 percent, up 2.8), English Democrats 31,287, SLP 19,380, Christian Party 16,742, No2EU 15,614, Jury Team 7,181, Libertas 6,268. Turnout 32.3 percent - 1,226,180 voted out of an electorate of 3,792,415.

24:44: Wales: One Conservative, One Labour, One Plaid and one UKIP.



00.01: A quick break from the UK results. Why, incidentally, is it taking so long to count them? Counting started at 4pm and so far we have had three results. What is keeping the others? Can find nothing about London, incidentally. Surely, those drongos aren't leaving the counting till tomorrow?

Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic the centre-right ODS has done reasonably well. It has gained 28.9 percent of the vote and retained nine seats. The Social Democrats gained 24.6 per cent and will have 7 seats. The Communist Party, unreformed since 1989, saw its vote drop from 20.3 to 15.5 percent and therefore lost two seats. The Christian Democrats gained a second seat, despite seeing their share of the vote drop from 9.6 to 8.2 percent.

00.09: Welsh results: Conservatives 145,193 (21.2 percent, up 1.8), Labour 138,852 (20.3 percent, down 12.2), Plaid 126, 702 (18.5 - up 1.1), UKIP 87,585 (12.8 - up 2.3), Lib-Dims 73,082 (10.7 - up 2.0) Greens 38,160 (5.6 - up 5.6) BNP 37,114 (5.6 - up 2.5) Christian Party 13,037, SLP 12,402, No2EU 8,600, Jury Team 3,793.

00.16: West Midlands - could be two UKIP.

00.18: Nigel Farage says: "So far there are tremors but before the end of the night we could have created a political earthquake."

0021: Vote share (BBC projection): Cons 27 percent, UKIP 17 percent, Labour (third place) 16 percent, Lib Dims 14 percent, Green 9 percent, BNP 6 percent. "The bottom end of Labour's expectations - it would be difficult for a major national party to do any worse."

00.22: London result delayed by "computer failure". (Typical. HS)

00.23: Turn-out in Slovakia was 19.6 percent, up from 2004 when it was 16.7 percent. Centre-left are in the lead. European Voice calls Slovakia the most apathetic country in the EU. Maybe they are just more honest about their politicians.

00.29: Worst Labour result in Wales since 1918.

00.34: Richard Corbett is the casualty in Yorkshire. He is deputy leader of Labour MEPs - and a rabid europhile.


00.36: BBC projects thirteen seats for UKIP.

00.42: London: Conservatives 479,037, Lab 372,590, Lib-Dims 240,156, Greens 190,589, UKIP 188,440, BNP 86,420, Christian Party 51,336, Ind - Jananayagam 50,014, English Democrats 24,477, JT 7,284, N2E 17,758, Pl 8,444, SLP 15,3006, SPGB 4,050, Yes 2 E 3,384, Ind 1,972, Ind, 4,918, Ind, 3,248, Ind 1,603, Rejected 11,374

Three Conservatives, two Labour, one Lib-Dim, one Green, one UKIP. One less seat ... Labour loses one, otherwise no change. UKIP vote down 1.6 percent.

00.51: BBC predicts UKIP and Labour will gain same number of seats.

00.53: East Midlands. Two Con, one Lab, one UKIP, one Lib-Dim. Kilroy effect strikes ... UKIP down 10 percent, loses one seat. Lib-Dims gain one.

1.02: Pirate Party in Sweden will take only one seat with 7.1 percent of the vote. Shame. The four government coalition parties (moderately centre right) have won 42.5 percent of the vote. The Social Democrats and their allies, the Left Party and the Greens won 41.1 percent. Voter turn-out 43.8 percent, which is actually up on 2004.

1.07: According to the BBC UKIP is now in third position with 1,096,380, which is 15.5 per cent and 6 seats. Labour is second with 1,263,567, 17.8 per cent and 7 seats. Conservatives lead with 1,911,549, 12.0 per cent (1.6 per cent up) and 12 seats.

01.21: South West Region: BNP 60,889, Christian Party 21,329, Conservatives 468,742, English Democrats 25,313, Fair Pay, 7,151, Jury Team 5,758, Lib-Dims 266,253, Cormwall 14,922, No2EU 9,741, Pension 37,785, Libertas 7,292, SLP 10,033, Greens 144,178, Labour 118,716, UKIP 341,845, YD 789, Ind 8,971

Three Conservatives, two UKIP, one Lib-Dim. Cons gain one – no Labour MEP, in fifth place.

01.26: South East Region: (partial results) BNP 101,769, Christian Party 35,712, Conservatives 812,288, English Democrats 52,526, Fair Pay, 7,151, Jury Team 14,1725,758, Lib-Dims 330,440, No2EU 21,455, Pension 16,768, Libertas 7,292, Greens 144,178, Labour 192,592, UKIP 440,002.

Four Cons, two UKIP, two Lib-Dim, one Green, one Labour. No change in seats. Hannan gets back in. Labour in fifth place. Marta Andreasen is in. Could be fun. She knows where the bodies are buried.

01.29: "Nothing is solid anymore," says The Guardian. Where do they get them from?

01.32: Eight declared ... two to go tonight. NI and Scotland tomorrow.

01.43: Polly Toynbee calls for Brown to stand down.

Labour down seven percent overall, on results so far declared. Philip Webster, The Times's political editor is reporting that Gordon Brown's allies and at least some of those who want him out appeared to agree yesterday that he should be given a breathing space after the shock of the European election results.

01.55: UKIP is on course to finishing second after the Conservatives and there are rumours that Nick Griffin has won a seat.

01.56: West Midland: Tories two, UKIP two (as predicted), Labour one, Lib-Dims one. BNP and Greens didn't make it. Only one more to go. Hurrah.

02.01: North West - unofficial declaration. Nick Griffin gets in. Three Tory, two Labour, one UKIP, one Lib-Dim and one BNP. Labour loses one. That's it folks. More later today.

02.11: Heh! North West declares officially. Conservatives: 423,174, 25.6 percent (+1.5), 3 seats - no change; Labour: 336,831, 20.4 percent (-6.9), 2 seats - lose 1; UKIP: 261,740, 15.8 percent (+1.7), 1 seat - no change; Lib-Dims: 235,639, 14.3 percent (-1.6), 1 seat - no change; BNP: 132,094, 8.0 percent (+1.6), 1 seat. Nick Griffin is in. More details in the morning. This time truly so.

COMMENT THREAD

Filling the vacuum

Where one would like to see the blogosphere leading the charge, dominating the political debate as it is doing in the United States, the heart sinks when we see the desperately trivial contribution to the "great constitutional debate" made by Tory Diary.

Oblivious to the discussions going on around him, Tim Montgomerie suggests only what amount to marginal changes, failing to address the fundamental failures in the system, arguing for such things as a five percent annual reduction in taxpayer funding of political parties until it is completely eliminated. Even his one substantive point, "A renegotiation of our relationship with Europe that will see key powers returned to Westminster" is weak, building on the Conservative myth that renegotiation is in fact a possibility.

Elsewhere, in the much-derided MSM, we get two intelligent contributions. One is from Adrian Hamilton in The Independent on reform of the Select Committee system. The other is from David Green, director of Civitas, in The Daily Telegraph.

Green offers "a radical solution would be to ensure the complete separation of powers by emulating countries such as Germany, France and the US, where government ministers are forbidden to serve in the elected assembly."

As for Hamilton, he argues that most select committees are led by placemen, made up of the mediocre and tasked with the irrelevant. He is worried that calls for reform are directed at the wrong problem. The aim, according to the reformers, he says, is to enable parliament better to hold the executive to account. Yet is setting up Commons Committees as attack dogs on the government really their most useful function, he asks. Hamilton thus continues:

If the problem were an overweening central government out of control, as the reformers suggest, that might be so. But the problem of government in Britain is not really an untrammelled executive, for all the size of recent parliamentary majorities. It is that policy making and legislation is so poor.

The failures of health and education policy, the negligence of financial regulation, the mistakes of military procurement, the lack of North Sea depletion policy or a balanced energy strategy, the perversion of Public-Private Finance Initiatives, the timidity of the transport approach, the tardiness of environmental measures – all these arise not from an over-strong executive, but a political system that has been unwilling or unable to work through and discuss alternative approaches to central issues.

Select committees ought to fulfil this function.

That is a good point, arguing for a more proactive involvement by committees. Riding a populist bandwagon after the event is not fulfilling any special public duty, says Hamilton, echoing our argument on defence procurement, where the committee should be involved before a purchasing decision is made. It should not be left merely to comment on the failures, some time after the event, when money had been wasted and men have died.

Arguably, these two issue of "separation of powers" and reform of the select committee system are amongst the most important we need to address. But they seem to have passed the political blogosphere by, and are sadly absent from Montgomerie's offerings.

Some long time ago, we reviewed a report on the political blogsophere, and not much seems to have changed since. The commentary is still largely lightweight and derivative, and the MSM is still making the running. The blogosphere needs to up its game.

Nor is this an academic issue. Despite the "right" preening itself on dominating the blogosphere, the BNP – as the above graphic shows – is still the lead political website by a long chalk. And yesterday, we saw another by-election success for the BNP, where it took 19 percent of the vote in Middlesborough's North Ormesby & Brambles Farm ward, coming second after Labour and relegating the Conservatives to third place.

Unless we as a collective are able to offer better, real improvements to the system, the BNP will win the argument by default. Either we fill the vacuum or they do.

COMMENT THREAD

Safety in numbers

If there was ever a reason for going to war with Germany again, it is that stage Hun Hans-Gert Pöttering, EU parliament president.

He was on his high horse recently, warning anyone who will listen – which is not very many people, as he spoke on Monday – that "extremist parties" could benefit from low turnout in the euro-elections. It was, therefore, up to parliamentarians to increase turnout. "I think it's very worrying if we don't get a good turnout," he said.

Pöttering also had a kindly word for the fourth estate, declaring that it was "not adequate" to concentrate so heavily on national politics. "Almost all questions have something to do with the EU," he stated. Perhaps so. The Daily Telegraph should be doing a session on MEP expenses.

But our stage Hun is at his most adamant when it comes to his own colleagues, saying, "We have to do our upmost to get people to vote because if the people who are in favour of Europe will not vote or are not interested, then the extremes will be very strong, from the very left and from the very right."

He adds, "I don't want that those who want to destroy the EU have an important role to play in the future of the EU. So let us be engaged, let us do our utmost to gather participation in favour of the pro-European parties."

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen also had a go, saying it was "essential to make Europe a political choice". "We're not getting people out to vote … unless they understand that the majority of the European parliament is close to being as important as the national parliaments they know so well," he declared. "I think we should make it crystal clear that you need to go out voting because this majority in the European parliament is of enormous importance."

The only thing is that little Nicky Clegg does not seem to have got the message. Yesterday, according to the BBC, the only thing of substance he could think of as a reason for supporting the project was that, in an unsafe world the EU offered "safety in numbers".

Now there's a message to inspire the troops: "hold on to nanny, children …".

COMMENT THREAD

A little more on the Czech situation

My first reaction to the suggestion that I should blog again about the Czech Republic and the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty was "yeah, whatever", which is the way I react to people's suggestions that I should do something I don’t want to do. But, well, whatever, I'd better bring people up to date.

First of all, here is the full text of President Klaus's statement made in the wake of that vote in the Senate:

I must express my disappointment that following unprecedented political and media pressure from both foreign and domestic sources, some Czech Senators retreated from the publicly expressed views they held until recently, undermining thereby their own political and civic integrity, and have agreed with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

They thus turned their backs on the long-term interest of the Czech Republic, putting before that the short-term interests of current governmental office-holders as well as their own personal interests.

It is a sad evidence of another failure on the part of a significant element of our political elite, which parallels other bad moments in Czech history. Our politicians
have always found some cowardly reasons for actions of this sort: We are too small, too weak; we do not mean anything in the European context; we must conform even if we do not agree with what we are conforming to.

This is something I reject. We either regained our sovereignty after November 1989, and together with it the responsibility for the fate of our country, or it was all a tragic mistake. This is a very topical point to make in the year of the twentieth anniversary of November 1989.

Now I will wait to see if a group of Czech senators, as some of them previously announced, request our Constitutional Court for another scrutiny of the Lisbon Treaty in relation to our Constitution. If this takes place, I will not be considering my decision to ratify the Lisbon Treaty or not before the Constitutional Court issues its decision.

My views on this matter are known and clear. I cannot afford to be resolutely against something at one moment, and then, because it fits in with my personal political career objectives, to pretend to change my opinion.

Let me emphasize that for this moment, the Lisbon Treaty is dead, because it was rejected in a referendum in one of the Member States. That is why my deciding on the ratification of this Treaty is not the issue of the day.

It is good to see that he is placing blame where it belongs – on the shoulders of Czech politicians because history tells one that the latter are apt to blame other people for their own shortcomings.

The outgoing Prime Minister, Mirek Topolanek, for instance, has been trying to convey the impression that he does not really like the treaty but that he is being forced into supporting it because otherwise the Czechs will be sidelined within the EU. Presumably, if things go wrong and questions are asked why nothing was gained and much was lost by the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty, he can wring his hands just as President Beneš did in the run-up to the Second World War and afterwards.

It is, as ever, a pleasure to hear unelected Commission President Barroso talk absolute rubbish, solemnly and uncritically reported by the Financial Times:

"This is very good news," said José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president. "The vote reflects the Czech Republic's commitment to a more democratic, accountable, effective and coherent European Union."

Fascinating. I wonder if the Commission President has actually read the treaty; or maybe he just does not know what the words democratic and accountable mean. Given his political career the latter is entirely possible. He is, after all, a man who has gone from being a Maoist to being President of the European Commission with a few stages in between but no real changes in his views, one suspects.

Meanwhile, Die Welt, of all newspapers is suggesting that the EU could work very well with the treaties as they are now and there is no real need for the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty, should it fail at the second Irish referendum. That may have more reference to the situation in Germany than in the Czech Republic.

COMMENT THREAD

It's snowing all over the world

Ice in the Arctic is often twice as thick as expected, report surprised scientists who returned last week from a major scientific expedition. The scientists - a 20-member contingent from Canada, the U.S., Germany, and Italy - spent one month exploring the North Pole as well as never-before measured regions of the Arctic.

Among their findings: Rather than finding newly formed ice to be two metres thick, "we measured ice thickness up to four metres," stated a spokesperson for the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific organisation.

Then we get this from the United States: "Sorry, Al Gore, but Public Cares About the Economy, Not Global Warming".

Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Al Gore's campaign against global warming is winning. "It's just not caught on," says Newport. "They have failed." Or, more bluntly: "Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore's losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned." What the public is worried about: the economy.

He adds: "As Al Gore I think would say, the greatest challenge facing humanity . . . has failed to show up in our data."

On the British front, we get reported by The Daily Mail, "Ed Miliband's global warming law 'could cost £20,000 per family'", with a report stating: "Laws aimed at tackling global warming could cost every family in Britain a staggering £20,000 - double the original forecast."

This follows the Met Office forecast for a "warmer than average summer". It has been cold and wet ever since that report – we even had the central heating on here. And skiinfo.com reports, "It's snowing all over the world", even telling us: "Last week of winter in France, but it's still snowing", with the southern hemisphere ski season starting five weeks early.

Sooner or later, even our loathsome media are going to put two and two together. Then, those idiot politicians who have embraced the global warming scam are going to look even more stupid than they do already. The reckoning may be delayed, but it will come.

COMMENT THREAD

Update on that treaty

A bit of a slow news day for the time being - although matters are looking a little grim in Georgia - so it might be time to catch up on the latest developments (or otherwise) to do with the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty.

To absolutely nobody's surprise the Irish Minister for European Affairs, Dick Roche, has announced that the second Irish referendum will be held in the autumn.

He added that as part of the process of steering its way out of recession Ireland needed to secure its position within the European Union.

Speaking in Berlin to the German Council on Foreign Relations, the Minister said he wanted to deliver the message that Ireland was coming to grips with its problems and taking decisive action to bring the Government's finances under control, ensure the health of the banking system and improve competitiveness.

He remained a little vague on how exactly the treaty will improve Ireland's economic position but, perhaps, vagueness is all that one can offer at this stage.

Over on ToryBoy blog Jonathan Isaby, correctly in our opinion, is predicting a possible unwelcome headache for David Cameron as a result of the Irish referendum. Then again, the probability of an autumn vote has been very high for some time. David Cameron et al should have been prepared and the words "we shall not let matters rest there" are not exactly an indication of preparedness.

The Czech Senate will be voting on the treaty tomorrow (Wednesday, May 6) and it looks like it will pass, though there will remain the question of the presidential signature. President Klaus has, so far, insisted that he would wait for the second Irish result. Poland's President still has not signed it and Germany has not ratified either [scroll down to second question].

COMMENT THREAD

They can't all be right

EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia is telling us that the European economy is showing some positive signs that it is closer to a recovery than before.

"Looking at some indicators in Europe," he says, "some of them are sending us some positive signals, (but) it is not yet evident that we will start a recovery tomorrow. We still have a lot of difficult tasks ahead of us, but some positive indicators are indeed welcome." Almunia adds that, "If we are not yet in a recovery, at least we are closer to the bottom, and closer to the beginning of the recovery than we were."

Then you get Ambrose reporting that "a clutch of political and labour leaders in Germany have raised the spectre of civil unrest after the country's leading institutes forecast a 6 percent contraction of gross domestic product this year".

This is a slump reminiscent of 1931 and bad enough to drive unemployment to 4.7 million by 2010. Thus does Michael Sommer, leader of the DGB trade union federation, call the latest wave of sackings a "declaration of war" against Germany's workers. "Social unrest can no longer be ruled out," he says.

On top of that, we have Peter Jeggli, of Swiss risk advisers Independent Credit View. He warns that a "second wave" of debt stress is likely to hit the UK and Europe this year as the turmoil moves from mortgage securities to old-fashioned bank loans.

He adds that the financial crisis was "front-loaded" in the Anglo-Saxon countries and Switzerland because their banks invested heavily in credit securities. As tradeable instruments, these suffered a cliff-edge fall when trouble began, forcing harsh write-downs under mark-to-market rules.

It takes longer, we are told, for damage to surface with Europe's traditional bank loans, which buckle later in the cycle as defaults rise. The ferocity of Europe's recession leaves no doubt that losses will be huge this time.

What to make of all this is anyone's guess. For all the doom and gloom – and perhaps false optimism – selective figures and dire warnings can be misleading. For instance, in March 2005, German unemployment rose to 12.6 percent, driving 5.2 million people out of work – and there was no significant civil unrest.

In a world where everybody has an opinion and everyone is an expert, is it permissible to say that we don't have the first idea what is going on?

COMMENT THREAD

Where does Britain stand?

Things do seem to be linked with each other. Just as I started reading up on the latest news about Durban II there was a call from the BBC Russian Service. Could I come in and take part in a discussion about the British position? Well, I could certainly take part in a discussion (what else do I do with my life?) but finding out what the British position was might be a little more difficult.

We have written about the first Durban conference and its deranged participants who turned it into an anti-American, anti-Semitic and, generally, anti-Western festival here and here. (The best site on which the whole farce can be followed is UN Watch. At least it would be a farce if it were not so tragic. We are, after all, funding this appalling event.)

After a certain amount of humming and ha-ing, the United States has, it would appear, decided to boycott the Conference, not least because Secretary of State Clinton might not have wanted the sort of abuse that was hurled at her predecessor, Colin Powell, at the original Durban conference.

President Obama's decision may have annoyed the tranzis who, naturally enough, do not like to see their favourite president follow in the footsteps of their least favourite one, but has the support of various members of the House:

Last week a bipartisan group of House members sent a letter to Obama congratulating him for deciding to boycott the meeting, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

"We applaud you for making it clear that the United States will not participate in a conference that undermines freedom of expression and is tainted by an anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic agenda," said the letter signed by seven members of Congress.

Voice of America confirms the non-attendance:

State Department Spokesman Robert Wood says the US will boycott the conference "with regret" because of objectionable language in the meeting's draft declaration. Wood said Saturday that despite some improvements, it seemed clear the declaration will not address U.S. concerns about restrictions on freedom of expression.

Given that the committee organizing the conference was chaired by Libya, freedom of expression is unlikely to have ever been high on the agenda.

I shall write later on what is going on in Geneva at the Durban II conference and it seems to be rather entertaining. In the meantime, let us have a look at Little Green Footballs, which is listing the countries that are boycotting this noxious event.

Here we go: Australia, Sweden (with Canada and Italy having joined Israel and the United States before), Netherlands, Germany and New Zealand. Poland has announced its boycott as well. There may be others but that is plenty.

Wait a minute. There is a country missing. What is Britain's attitude? Clearly, we are not boycotting or Charles Johnson would have noted that fact. Maybe he has simply missed the announcement. After all, even Homer, they tell us, nodded.

No he missed nothing. Not that I would expect him to – I was just trying to let hope win over experience. Britain is ratting on her allies going to the hate-fest Anti-Racism Conference, organized by the committee chaired by Libya at which President Ahmadinejad, for one, is expected to launch his usual anti-Semitic rant and other delegates are expected to applaud or, at least, look neutral. Quite appropriately, that event will take place some time today, the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth.

We are not sending a very high level delegation but not a particularly unimportant one either. It is led by Peter Gooderham, British ambassador to the UN in Geneva. A nicely judged effort of fence-sitting diplomatic compromise. According to the official explanation, the Foreign Office is "watching how things will develop".

The spokesman said Britain wanted the conference "to get a collective will to fight racism now" but was "under no illusions about the scale of this challenge."

"We wouldn't be able to support a process that was skewed against the West or other countries," the spokesman said, adding that Britain had certain "red lines" on the issues involved that it would stick to.

"We have argued for the concluding document to have sufficient (content) on the Holocaust and combatting anti-Semitism... we would find it unacceptable if the process seeks to deny or denigrate the Holocaust".

Ah yes, those red lines. How reassuring to hear that phrase again. Remind me, how did it work out last time?

France, apparently, is also sending a delegation and this, according to The Telegraph, shows a rift in the EU. Bernard Kouchner, who is leading the delegation, has warned that they would leave if the Iranian President starts making racist or anti-Semitic comments. Given the man's track record that seems an absolute certainty.

The Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, has made it clear that it would have been better if the EU member states had stayed together and followed a common line, preferably that of a boycott. One must admit, that Common Foreign Policy is not looking very good at the moment. But when did it? I am afraid, in this case we cannot blame the EU for our own government's pusillanimity.

COMMENT THREAD