Another rant

Long overdue, this one. I just hate sensitivity. Here it is on Your Freedom and Ours.

The real cost

While the warmists and their political groupies are happily chuntering about increasing the cost of energy, all to combat their obsession with the vanishing global warming, the Citizens Advice Bureau has come up with some daunting information.

The number of people seeking assistance with fuel bills, is says, has "soared" by nearly 50 percent during the past six months to the end of September, compared with the same period of the previous year.

Undoubtedly, that is a reflection of the economic crisis, the effects of which are filtering through the system, but it also illustrates the impact of higher energy bills, which are set to go even higher as the warmist creed takes an increasing grip of energy policy.

Furthermore, these figures do not reveal one of the industry's closely-guarded secrets – the number of households now fitted with pre-pay meters. These enable companies to avoid the politically sensitive enforced disconnections, effectively forcing people to "self-disconnect" when they run out of cash to buy their tokens.

Such is the "disconnect" of a different kind, exhibited by our political classes, that they can happily prattle on about "saving the planet" from global warming, piling on costs to an already over-expensive energy system, without being in the least aware of the downstream effect.

While they prattle on, however, fuel poverty - as the Citizens Advice Bureau is showing – has already become an issue and is set to become an even bigger issue as the effects of the continued mismanagement of energy policy take hold.

What needs to be made clear – but probably will not be – is that this is a politically-generated and wholly unnecessary problem, stemming from the failures of not just this but successive governments, made infinitely worse by the fatuous obsession with global warming.

In many instances, it is too easy to blame the politicians for societal ills but, in this case, the blame should fall squarely in their lap. They are to blame and, as they sit in their centrally-heated House of Commons, they would do well to reflect on the misery caused by their failures.

They might also reflect that their continued preaching on the need to curb global warming does nothing more than incite thoughts of perpetrating the most foul violence on their persons.

COMMENT THREAD

One small setback for man ...

EU finance ministers failed to agree on the funding it will give the developing world to cope with global warming, "a setback for the deal negotiators hope to deliver in Copenhagen."

A call from the chancellor, Alistair Darling, for the EU to commit to €10bn, of which Britain would contribute €1bn, went unheeded. The European Commission has proposed €15bn a year by 2020. The European parliament's environment committee this week put the figure at €30bn, but environmental lobby groups talk of €35bn.

"It's a disappointing outcome," admitted Anders Borg, the Swedish finance minister, who chaired the meeting. "There's obviously been a lack of commitment."

They're throwing figures around like confetti. Who is this Anders Borg to talk "about lack of commitment"? When he starts spending his own personal money, that will be the time to listen.

But then, there's only 48 days to save the planet ... when we have one giant leap ... backwards for mankind, if the greenies have anything to do with it.

COMMENT THREAD

Does anything change?

I have been reading a fascinating account of the action in Waziristan, from which this passage comes:

These tribesmen, it should be remembered, are all Muhammadans and fanatical in their faith and hatred of the infidel. Excepting in Baluchistan our government has never succeeded in taming them and to-day they are almost as irreconcilable as when we first mixed in frontier matters.

And another delightful snippet:

The Mamunds ... had been left alone by our troops ... although they did much to merit severe punishment, and they simply joined in the present disturbances from that pure love of a fight which is second nature to the Pathan and becomes additionally attractive when the feringhee or infidel foe is the objective.

The account is by H Woosnam Mills, and he is referring to the Pathan revolt in north-west India, 1897.

I have writen a longer piece, now up on Defence of the Realm ... but you do wonder why our own people cannot read a bit of history. They might actually learn something.

COMMENT THREAD

Don't you love these warmists

Read this and then this. I just love that sweet smell of corruption in morning. And there's only 49 days left to save the planet.

COMMENT THREAD

An intellectual quagmire

With all eyes on South Waziristan, Afghanistan - for a short while, one presumes – has become almost a side-show, even more so the machinations of that sad little tribal leader Hamid Karzai and his bid to stay on the gravy train.

However, the Karzai situation is coming to a head, with diverse reports recording that the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has pulled the plug on his vote-rigging supporters. It has downgraded his share of the vote from 55 to 48 percent, upping the share of his main competitor, Dr Abdullah, from 28 to 32 percent.

This means, according to the rules, there must be a run-off but, as might have been predicted, Karzai is digging his heels in and refusing to accept the result. Even though a run-off is the last thing his Western paymasters actually want, such is the fantasy land in which he and his supporters dwell that Mohammad Moin Marastyal, an Afghan MP and leading Karzai supporter, claims the commission has "twisted the facts" in a deliberate attempt to trigger a run-off vote.

This is not yet the last stage of this current drama though. Procedurally, the ECC delivers its report to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), a body notionally appointed Karzai as a sop to the idea that as president, he actually exercises sovereignty on behalf of the Afghan people.

In theory, it is the final arbiter of the election results and must declare a result. But the ECC has "ordered" the IEC "to invalidate a certain percentage of each candidates votes in six separate categories". The IEC is expected "to implement those orders with haste and move swiftly to issue the final certified results or the need for a run-off as required by Afghan electoral law," says Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN in Kabul.

Where we go from here is anyone's guess but, whatever the final outcome – which looks a long way off – the whole electoral process is irrevocably tainted, and Karzai is holed below the waterline. Even in the unlikely event that he could rally the nation behind him, he has lost the trust of the "international community", whose money, troops and bodyguards have kept him in power.

Already, the shock waves are beginning to be felt in Kabul with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel warning that president Obama is minded to delay a decision on committing up to 40,000 extra American troops to the conflict. He prefers to wait until the election crisis pans out and it becomes clear whether there is "an Afghan partner" worth fighting for.

Even if this does play into the hands of a president who is fast becoming known for his indecision, Obama does have a point. The whole concept of a counter-insurgency campaign rest on the fiction – honoured more in the breach than the observance – that the military is acting in support of the civil power.

With a tarnished and weakened figurehead, even the fiction is hard to sustain, framing the coalition military activities in their true light – a multi-national occupation force, bolstering a puppet government for its own ends. That is something the Taleban and the so-called "anti-Afghan forces" will be – and have been – quick to exploit.

How precisely we got ourselves into this mess is relatively easy to see – albeit that hindsight affords a certain clarity. Unwittingly, the Independent's Kim Sengupta puts his finger on it, writing in his "analysis" that the elections held in Afghanistan in August "were meant to show how democracy has taken root in the country since the overthrow of the Taliban."

The essential flaw was (and is) the delusion that "democracy" in any shape of form had taken root in Afghanistan, and thus the belief that this second presidential election could or would be a continuation and a strengthening of the process imposed by the international community when Karzai was first elected president in 2004.

Although the structures of a western democracy were imposed, giving Karzai the superficial appearance of a democratically elected president, he retained the mindset and mores of the man he had become, a tribal chief in what is essentially a pre-feudal society. And, in the traditional manner of such, he did what any tribal chief would do in power – he used the resources and apparatus of the state to strengthen his power base, rewarding his allies and forging new alliances.

Sengupta remarks of the current election round – apparently with some surprise – that "instead" (of following the model of a western election), "the polls became mired in massive fraud". Rather than the word "instead", however, he should have used the word "inevitably", as no tribal chief was ever going to give up power voluntarily or take the chance of losing it.

For our brave reporter then to suggest that "this reopened historic, ethnic and political divisions", is almost laughable for its naivety. Those divisions were never "closed" – they are there and have always been there, and are driving the political process, as they have been throughout Karzai's administration. To complete his fog of incomprehension, though, Sengupta observes that this has "led to questions about why Western troops are being sent to fight and die for a seemingly corrupt and cynical government."

Therein lies the core delusion. Karzai's government, in its own terms, is neither "corrupt" nor "cynical". As its president, Karzai has simply been following traditional precepts, acting in accordance with the mores and norms of his tribal society. And if he was to be "democratically" replaced tomorrow, his successor would behave in exactly the same way.

It is into this "quagmire", of course, that British and other coalition troops have been pitched, but what we are beginning to see is that the true "quagmire" is the intellectual swamp. It is that which has trapped the western powers into their current impasse. And, as we can see, their increasingly desperate thrashing is doing no more than suck them deeper into the cloying mud.

UPDATE: Under "heavy international pressure", Karzai has agreed to a run-off. As if he had any option. And as if it was going to make any difference.

COMMENT THREAD

UKIP "hammered"

Mixed feelings attend the news that the Nigel Farage Party UKIP has been "stung by a devastating court ruling, which ruled £367,697 of donations were impermissible" and are subject to forfeit.

Farage is now suggesting that the party could collapse because of the case, which is the culmination of a two-year saga. It arose in the first instance when the party accepted 67 separate donations from Alan Bown and his company Nightech Ltd, without checking that Bown's name was on the electoral register.

Originally "fined" in Westminster Magistrates Court a sum of only £18,481, the Electoral Commission appealed the decision, which brought today's ruling which has UKIP "staring at the political abyss."

Those in the know suggest that this is a spectacular "own goal" by Farage who personally intervened to prevent a response to the Electoral Commission which would have kept the issue out of court, more-or-less goading the Commission to take action in what has become a battle of wills – from which there could be only one loser.

For the dwindling membership of UKIP, however, this is a hard and undeserved blow. Up against the might of the established parties, with the tainted record of their leadership making it harder than ever to attract substantial donations, they had been hoping to field up to 550 candidates for the general election.

Although many candidates are expected to pledge their own funds to the campaign, to put up a full slate will require external funding. Unless new donors are forthcoming, today made it just that bit harder.

The primary beneficiary of this will, of course, be Mr Cameron's Modern Conservative Party (whose marketing gurus don't seem to realise what MCP stands for), which otherwise would be battling in the marginals for a share of the decisive eurosceptic vote.

Without a four-letter word (UKIP) to turn to, voters disaffected by Cameron's "Europe" non-policy will be having to consider three letters, either BNP or ABC. In the absence of UKIP, however, the MCP may get a more comfortable ride than it deserves.

COMMENT THREAD

Some people in London might be interested

The New Culture Forum is holding a discussion about the post-Danish cartoon situation tomorrow evening at 7 in Committee Room 4 of the House of Lords. Some people in London or nearby might be interested. More information here.

Give us a referendum

The Daily Telegraph leader says "Cameron must be true to his word on Europe". They mean the European Union, of course.

Haven't time to do a full review, so this is a place holder - I'll do it when I get back from Manchester. Cameron really does have a problem. It ain't going to go away!

COMMENT THREAD

Food parcels

The Red Cross is preparing to hand out food parcels to vulnerable populations in ... wait for it ... Europe (i.e., the EU). According to the Swedish Red Cross Gen Sec Christer Zettergren, his Spanish colleagues are preparing to hand out food to hundreds of thousands of people in Spain. The same thing is happening in Italy and in Hungary, where the hand-outs have already started.

The Red Cross and Red Crescent have published a report on the socio-economic situation in Europe and near-Asia. Although the report is not a "fact-rich environment", it paints a pretty poor picture. The message is not a good one. They are certainly fearing the effects of a hard winter.

And so, for the first winter since the immediate post-war years, when international help organisations will have to send food-aid to countries in middle and western Europe, the leaders of the world will gather in Copenhagen to discuss ways to stop global warming. Meanwhile, the greenies want to close down what little industry we have left.

One of the people quoted in the Red Cross report says, "our future is a vacuum". Thus, a reader suggests that, had he been a Marxist, he would have said that we are looking at revolutionary conditions. But you don't have to be a Marxist ... we are looking at revolutionary conditions. We really are going to have to shoot them.

COMMENT THREAD

Is there a link?

British children are the worst in Europe for switching out lights and saving electricity, despite knowing the most about climate change, says a press release from the Energy Saving Trust, copied out in The Daily Telegraph by Louise Gray.

I dunno about "saving the planet". That woman has the easiest job on the planet ... cutting and pasting press releases from the greenies, under the guise of journalism.

Anyhow, despite our kids being stuffed with greenie propaganda, they are doing what kids always do – taking not a blind bit of notice, and doing their own thing. The more you lecture them, the less notice they take. And when even the kids can see though this garbage about carbon "pollution", there is hope for us yet.

There is a thought, though ... if you look round at the drongos who are ruling us, yer average anarchic kid might look at the hype about "destroying the planet" and say to themselves, "bring it on". If we are saving the world to make it a better place for greenies - and Ms Gray's kids - it ain't worth saving.

COMMENT THREAD

The way the cookie crumbles

There were many pieces waiting to be written yesterday, and for the overnight piece which we call the "Horlicks" – for obvious reasons. But there is only so much time in the day, and I ended up writing three, long, difficult pieces on Defence of the Realm, the latest one here.

Generally, I find the readership levels for each piece are in inverse proportion to the care taken and the depth of research and writing. That is not a complaint - I choose to do long, difficult pieces - merely an observation, and a wry reflection on life in general. The harder you work, the less the "reward". There must be a lesson there.

It is also an indicator for those who see the primary objective of a blog as chasing hits: keep the posts short, light and fluffy. Better still, do very little research and keep your comment and analysis at the "man in pub" level.

I'll try, but probably fail, to pick up some of the loose ends later today, although some time will have to be spent driving to Manchester airport to pick up a friend (we do still have a few). That means blogging may be relatively light, after the morning post. Meanwhile, have a read of this. "Negotiators have 50 days to save the world from global warming," Brown is going to tell us.

How can you trust anyone who comes up with such utter tosh?

COMMENT THREAD

Unravelling the unknowable

The current offensive Pakistani offensive in the South Waziristan tribal area can be reported on many different levels, the simplest being that projected by some analysts as "the mother of all regional conflicts".

However, it has been said of Irish politics, that if you think you understand what is going on, you haven't been listening. If anybody thinks they know what is going on in this region, they need a very powerful hearing aid.

Our "take" is over on Defence of the Realm.

Done it at last

A longish piece on the Geert Wilders's visit, that demo and other matters to do with freedom of speech over on Your Freedom and Ours.

Nemesis

Sooner than he might have wanted, David Cameron is facing the prospect of having to "fess up" and admit that a referendum on the constitutional Lisbon treaty is no longer on the cards.

His nemesis is likely to come some time in early November when the Czech constitutional court clears the way for Vaclav Klaus to sign the ratification instrument, the last of 27 EU member state leaders to do so.

And sign it he will, having indicated to the Czech newspaper Lidove noviny that it would be futile to do otherwise. "The train carrying the treaty is going so fast and it's so far that it can't be stopped or returned, no matter how much some of us would want that," he told the newspaper. (However - see health warning on the forum.)

Although some eurosceptic campaigners have been clinging to the hope that he might delay ratification until the election, thus paving the way for a Cameronian referendum, Klaus made his position very clear by adding: "I cannot and will not wait for British elections, unless they hold them in the next few days or weeks."

Booker, in his column, salutes the man whom he calls "Europe's last democrat". In a melancholy way, he writes, it has been vastly entertaining to see the rage provoked in Brussels and Europe's political class by his continuing dalliance.

Now, though, the game is drawing to a close – a treaty which has taken eight years in the making, built on a foundation of lies, deception and bad faith, rejected by the electorates of France, Holland and Ireland, is shortly to come into force. And Mr Cameron is going to have to tell us what he proposes to do about it.

Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley, is possibly pointing to a way out for the man who would be prime minister – but in fact will be a satrap of Brussels. He (Davies) says, "If the treaty is fully ratified I have never believed there is any point in having a referendum on it. It would be futile gesture politics." Instead, he wants Cameron to stage a vote on repatriating powers from the EU.

In purely practical terms, Davies is right – but politics is not always about practicalities. Holding a referendum on the treaty would be enormously symbolic, drawing a line between the Labour administration and the Conservatives, and making a powerful statement to Brussels.

Cameron would not, of course, be obliged then to de-ratify the treaty – and nor could he affect its course. By then it would be in force and it would be virtually impossible to unravel the new treaty provisions specifically for the UK.

But, armed with a substantial vote against the treaty, Cameron would have a strong mandate to demand from the other member states an intergovernmental conference (IGC), to which he could present substantive proposals for a new status for Britain, including the repatriation of powers, of which so much has been made.

An alternative course would be for him to set out detailed proposals for dealing with Brussels in the Conservative Party manifesto, with a promise of a referendum to approve whatever deal he manages to negotiate, in the manner of Wilson's 1975 referendum.

Either line, though, is fraught. It is not within Cameron's gift to promise renegotiations. Any substantive changes will require treaty changes and these can only be secured through the medium of an IGC. This requires the "consensus" of the member states, determined if necessary by a vote on which there must be a simple majority in favour.

That, in itself, is a major hurdle. Once an IGC is declared, it is "open house" for any member state to submit their own proposals – many of which have their own agendas and their own publics to satisfy. Given the bruising experience of the Lisbon process, the last thing the "colleagues" will want to is re-open old wounds, and engage in another round of treaty negotiations.

There will, therefore, be massive pressure to refuse Cameron any negotiations. In the face of a "democratic" vote from the other member states (not the EU, but the member states acting – in theory at least – individually), he has no means of forcing the issue, short of invoking the exit provisions of the treaty and taking the UK out of the EU altogether.

Much is made of the ploy of blocking agreement on the multi-annual budget framework, during the forthcoming negotiations. There, parallels are being drawn with the Thatcher "handbag" ploy on the rebate negotiations. But that is a non-starter. Community law simply does not permit treaty changes without an IGC, so Cameron could not trade what we wanted against approval of a new budget framework.

That leaves Cameron with few options. But, if he is prepared to play the exit card, the "colleagues" may well concede an IGC. Even then, there would be massive hurdles. Any changes will have to be agreed unanimously and, once again, the new treaty will have to be ratified by all 27 member states. That will not necessarily be problem-free.

From start to finish, the process could well take several years and one does not have to be a mind reader to see that, from Cameron's point of view, this would be highly undesirable. The last thing he will want is for his first term to be dominated by bickering – and that it would be – over "Europe".

Given also that Cameron's preferred position is active membership of the EU, his position will almost certainly be to seek a de minimis resolution, which can be concluded as fast as possible. Thus, one possibility is that he will offer largely cosmetic changes, sufficient to convince the electorate that he is "doing something" about "Europe".

He could, as a result, try for something like an "Irish option", extracting from the "colleagues" a number of declarations, which could then be incorporated in one of the accession treaties which may come up.

However, he has also to satisfy the "eurosceptic" wing of his party and keep his europhiles on-side, giving him perilously little room for manoeuvre – even less if public hostility to the EU forces him to make more robust changes than he would prefer.

Ideally, Cameron would like to "park" the whole issue – that has been the default tactic of his leadership to date, but in the face of his oft' repeated mantra that, if the treaty is ratified he "won't let matters rest there", he will shortly be forced to make his position clear(er). Even then, he could simply delay the evil day, promising only to set out his plans in his manifesto.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone, though, states the obvious – of which Cameron will be keenly aware. "Everyone will be expecting clarification of what the Conservative position will be," he says, adding ominously, "the issue of Britain's relationship with Europe is not going to go away."

Moreover, Cameron will not get away with a 1975-style Wilsonian fudge. The EU is far more powerful and visible then it was then, the electorate is that much better informed and, of course, there is the internet. "Europe" most definitely is not going to go away, and the prime minister in-waiting has a real problem on his hands.

COMMENT THREAD

Our money

Plans for Britain's first coal-fired power station equipped with carbon capture technology have been backed by the EU commission. The commission has recommended that a plant in Hatfield, near Doncaster, should receive £164m of EU funding. The sum would be matched by a similar sum from the UK government.

This is real money, our money – all £164,000,000 of it – twice over. And they are going to spend it burying carbon dioxide in a hole in the ground. Why are we not rising up and shooting them?

COMMENT THREAD

It's like a war zone up here

"We had another inch of snow overnight which brings totals at my house to 6 inches. The snow started 10 a.m. Thursday has not stopped since.

Looking at radar this morning, the next round of snow is hovering very close by and it looks like for folks across central PA, those east of State College could get hit hard by 3-10 inches of snow the next 24 hours while those west of State College get less snow.

It all depends on how the upper-level low digs into Virginia today and tonight that will dictate the snow amounts in the marginal situation. Given that only an inch of snow overnight caused the trees to sag once again, the snow over the next 24 hours will cause additional power outages and tree damage. It's like a war zone up here...no kidding..."

And that's just Pennsylvania, home of the mighty Michael Mann - author of the hockey stick.

COMMENT THREAD

Levers of power

The thing about Matthew Parris is that he does have a brain and he can think. Thus, slowly, he's getting there, but he's still trapped in his bubble and cannot make the final, conceptual links which would enable him to work out what is really going on.

However, he makes a start in his latest piece. There, he tells us that the British electorate have an intuitive grasp of politics, but there's one misunderstanding to which the generality is prone.

Parris suggests that we tend to think that driving a country would be like driving a car. Your eye would be constantly and intelligently on the road ahead; miss the brake, let your foot slip, jerk the wheel, or turn round to argue with the passengers, and you’d crash.

Then comes the great revelation: "The truth is different," he writes. "As those who acquire power discover to their dismay, the controls are mushy and indirect, and the machine will run on, driverless, for some time. In the harsh light of experience, the illusion that a British Cabinet is in day-to-day control cracks."

Hurrah! He has finally noticed. And there we were in April 2007 writing of a meeting (which actually happened in 1996) with Roger Freeman, then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Standing in his grand office, overlooking Horse Guards, he likened his position with that of a signalman in an old-fashioned signal box. "I have all these levers," he lamented, "the levers of power". Turning to me he then said, rather sadly, "the trouble is that they are not connected to anything."

Of this, we have written, not once but several times, and now – at last – Parris has also noticed something amiss.

Unable to escape his bubble, though, he looks through the party political prism and blames the "atrophy" on Brown's government. In Tory doctrine, history begins in 1997. Parris, like the rest of them, cannot begin to appreciate that this phenomenon has been going on a long, long time.

Thus, of course, from the learned discourse to which we are treated, two words are missing: "European Union". The man has discovered that the controls are "mushy and indirect", but he cannot – or dare not – tell us why. Not, of course, that it is just the EU – there are many other influences which have diluted and diminished the power of our own elected officials.

At least though, if Parris is telling us that the government is no longer in charge, some people might be motivated to ask who does hold the levers of power. That is the next step, but we may have to see Cameron founder in exactly the same way that we have seen with Brown's administration, before the penny finally drops.

COMMENT THREAD

Forgive them Lord ...

Charles Moore writes today that "Attempts to regulate MPs by an external authority will prove an utter disaster, because they set that authority above the people we ourselves choose to make our laws. It therefore replaces parliamentary democracy by the rule of minister, judge or bureaucrat."

Every recent scheme, he argues - from state funding for political parties to control of "second jobs" for MPs, Gordon Brown's invention of an Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and even the establishment of a Supreme Court separate from the House of Lords - is guilty of the same error. We entrench more and more "scrutiny", but what we are creating is a quango state.

Asking how this has come about, Moore concludes that MPs forgot that their House was esteemed because it genuinely made the laws for the people it represented, and so they transferred much of that right to Europe.

Having handed over their birthright, MPs then focused on their mess of pottage. Individual offices, more paid advisers, bigger pensions, shorter hours, second homes, free ginger-crinkle biscuits! It is not a coincidence that Tony Blair, the first prime minister in our history ever to show consistent contempt for the House of Commons, was also the first to make the hand-outs really gargantuan.

Moore then notes that David Cameron has been specific about "one or two tough things which he wanted to apply in the next Parliament, such as an end to the MPs' pension scandal." But, he adds, the mood in all the leaderships has been that they wanted to "move on". They are avoiding plans for real reform ... they do not want to strengthen Parliament against the executive which they themselves hope to lead.

That is the truth of it. MPs, having themselves conspired in their own emasculation, are allowing the party leaders to finish the job – while the claque applauds their humiliation.

Moore actually wrote about this in May, and we applauded him. We had another go in June, when there were other voices raising the alarm. But they were too few, too late, drowned in the clamour. And now, Le Bon's "crowd" holds sway, actively clamouring for the accelerated destruction of that which holds it safe ... its own parliament.

A startlingly apt utterance comes to mind – from a different age and a different context. But the words have not lost their power or meaning: "Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do."

COMMENT THREAD

World government

"I read that treaty," says Lord Christopher Monckton, as retailed by Watts up with that. "And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word 'government' actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity."

Yea, right! You've finally noticed. But what about the rest of it? The bit Monckton has got wrong is his assertion that a world government is going to be created. It is already there ... in embryonic form ... and the process has been going on for decades.

It is a "conspiracy in plain sight", just like the EU – which is part of it. Nobody talks about it though – except fringe nutters. If you get serious, you are dismissed as part of the tin hat brigade. Much better to get stuck into Common Purpose, or something nearer home. But at least Monckton has lifted a tiny corner of the rug, and peered at the horrors underneath.

By the time the rest of the world wakes up, it will be too late. It probably already is.

COMMENT THREAD

In the strangest places

Look at this and check out the sidebar links! It does not compute.

COMMENT THREAD

Sack your home and sell your wife

Actually, it might be the other way around. Either way, it is going to cause ructions (is causing ructions) with MPs.

But a survey indicates that the majority of the public has no sympathy at all with the "plight" of MPs, and are in a vengeful mood.

The only problem is that, when all the changes, restrictions, controls and the rest are in place, and all the MPs are little goody-two-shoes, claiming 40p a month salary and selling Big Issue on the side to pay for their beds in the hostels, it is not going to make the slightest difference.

We are still going to have an emasculated parliament – in fact more so – with power spread between the executive, the quangos and Brussels. People forget – it is our parliament, the MPs are to represent us, and protect us from an overweening executive.

Instead, over several generations, MPs have given their power away - our power, held in trust – with the current lot tolerating the decline in parliament whilst living high on the hog.

Vengeance, satisfying though it is, is not solving anything. The gravy train is still intact . All we have managed to do is force some of the lighter weight passengers to get off – but a lot more are climbing on every day, many at a way-station called Brussels.

It will be a few years yet, but once the force of the constitutional Lisbon treaty becomes apparent, we will be wondering what lasting changes we have really achieved.

COMMENT THREAD

They keep trying

If you're dreaming of your next ski holiday and wondering whether the snow cover in the Alps is going to be as bountiful as last season, says The Daily Telegraph, do something else: go shopping, take the dog for a walk, because it's not looking good. But only if you believe the "experts".

The Met Office – which predicted our "barbecue summer" – says that temperatures this winter are going to be "above average" over much of Europe. The Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology shares the same view, but, with refreshing honesty, points out that last year it said a cold winter was "highly improbable". It proved to be one of the coldest on record.

But there is exactly the same dynamic the other side of the Atlantic. Despite the Midwest being covered by an abnormally early blanket of snow, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is saying that this winter should be warmer than usual in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Thanks mostly to the effects of El Nino, "warmer-than-average temperatures are favored across much of the western and central US, especially in the north-central states from Montana to Wisconsin," NOAA says. That applies generally to the Rockies, plains and upper Midwest. It then hedges its bets by stating: "Though temperatures may average warmer than usual, periodic outbreaks of cold air are still possible."

As to the current unseasonal snowfalls, the long-term forecast covers the period from December through February - so they don't count.

(Pic: A car drives through snow after heavy snowfalls hit parts of the Czech Republic, at Vetrny Jenikov in the Czech-Moravian Highlands, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Prague. AP Photo/CTK)

COMMENT THREAD

Dannatt revisited

David Cameron's appointment of General Sir Richard Dannatt as a military adviser was "a very major error of judgment", a former head of the Civil Service said yesterday.

This was Lord Turnbull, giving evidence to the Commons Public Administration Committee, warning that the move would call into question the political impartiality of other defence chiefs.

"You talk to the admirals and they are incandescent," he said. "It subverts the chain of command. One day the Chief of Defence Staff has this guy as his deputy, a few months later he is issuing instructions to him."

Turnbull adds that it risks politicising the military. "They will be thinking, 'Now which way is he going? Is he one of those New Labour people, is he a Conservative?'"

The Labour chairman of the Committee, Tony Wright, asked Turnbull if he thought the error was on the part of Gen Dannatt or David Cameron. Turnbull replied: "I'll leave you to judge that."

According to The Guardian though, "Dannatt is dead in the water." It gets that from a shadow minister who says that "Cameron is ruthless enough to realise he has made a bad mistake and will correct it."

Rather puts the views of all those little Tory Boys and Girls in perspective – they thought Dave had been so clever. What will they say when their hero puts the General back in his box? Come to think of it, what will the "Army legend" say?

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We need a revolution

From the great sage David Cameron, via Witterings from Witney, who has a few terse words to say on the subject.

Addressing the Sustainable Consumption Institute conference, Dave outlined "five approaches to create a Green Consumer Revolution". But first, he wanted to get a few things straight. "There is now widespread agreement about the nature and scale of the threat posed by climate change," he said, adding:

Let me give you just one fact. If the Himalayan glaciers melt, three-quarters of a billion people will be without sufficient water. We cannot pretend that this would not have serious consequences for all of us – in terms of global conflict, the mass movements of people and our national security. Of course, there will always be some who deny the science and the scope of the threat posed.

They say ninety percent certainty is not good enough. But that is not a justification for inaction. I say to them, would you ask your children to live in a house which ninety percent of the experts told you was going to burn down?

Mr Cameron's message to all of us is "one of optimism tinged with urgency ... Yes, our resources are low. Yes, our planet is in peril. And yes, the alternative to action doesn't bear thinking about."

What is particularly disturbing is the Boy's rather distorted logic, even accepting his premise at face value. Ninety percent of "experts" agreeing with a proposition is not "ninety percent certainty". Certainty is a scientific attribute, not a headcount. Ninety percent of "experts" can be wrong - and very often are.

On one thing, though, we can agree. Methinks we do indeed need a revolution – but it ain't the sort young Dave is thinking about.

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Geert Wilders in town

Attendant on the meeting organised by the Lord Pearson were some jovial young chaps in the street.

They were making the most of their right to freedom of speech, cheerily waving banners saying "Shariah is the solution, freedom go to hell" and "Geert Wilders deserves Islamic punishment". They then kindly advised us all of the superiority of Sharia law, playfully suggesting that those who did not agree should have their heads detached from their bodies.

Our tireless constabulary patiently mediated, to ensure that these young chaps were given every opportunity to express their views – something previously denied to Mr Wilders - and the BBC diligently recorded their message for onwards transmission to a wider audience.





The Home Office, meanwhile, said a final decision would be made on whether to appeal against the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal's decision to allow Mr Wilders into Britain to purvey his hateful creed, the man whom the Muslim Council of Britain has so wisely described as a "relentless preacher of hate".

Our gifted co-editor was there, and has beamed the photographs to us. She will report on the meeting later.

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Unexpectedly severe

Unseasonable weather has killed at least four Poles. Three of them, including a shepherd, froze to death in the mountains of southern Poland. The other, a man, died when his car was blown off the road in the north of the country. Some Polish villagers suffered because they had not yet bought coal for the winter.

Meteorologists said that snow flurries were not uncommon in Poland in October, but the conditions had been unexpectedly severe this week.

In northeastern parts of the Czech Republic roads and railway lines have been blocked by fallen trees after strong winds and snow about 20in deep in the mountains. The CEZ power group declared a state of emergency in eight Czech districts because of power line damaged. A malfunction in a heating plant left many of the 40,000 residents in Jablonec and Nisou without heat and the mayor was considering closing schools.

This, as they say, is not normal.

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A Gray day

Almost since we first started writing this blog, I have been making the same point about defence spending. The message has been simple, direct, and to the point - "underfunding" is not the issue. Not only is the MoD is pouring money down the drain, the systemic defects are so profound that giving it more money would simply enable it to waste even more money at a faster rate.

And now, much delayed, we finally see the Gray Review of Defence Acquisition and we read:

Simply granting the MoD more resources cannot ... solve this problem. More resources will probably lead to more military output, but since the ambitions will also expand and the behaviours have not been changed or controlled, the same problems of delay and cost overruns will reassert themselves at the higher level of funding.

You can read more on Defence of the Realm.

Join the EU and see the world

The 300 workers in the Anglesey Aluminium plant in Holyhead could hardly have imagined that our membership of the European Union would bring them exciting new opportunities – and riches – the like of which were beyond their wildest dreams.

But, entirely due to the beneficent action of the EU, and its far-sighted action in closing down their industry, new horizons beckon, offering limitless prospects.

Redundant aluminium workers are being targeted by a company developing the world's biggest smelter complex nearly 4,000 miles away in the Middle East. Emirates Aluminium Company, which is building a $5.7bn giant smelter at Khalifa Port between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, has launched a recruitment campaign to target the redundant workers.

Founded in February 2007, Emirates Aluminium (Emal), an $8bn joint venture of Dubai Aluminium and Abu Dhabi government-owned investment vehicle Mubadala Development Company, aims to create the world’s largest single-site smelter complex. And now they want the workers to help staff the smelter complex where production is set to start in 2010.

Just think, if it hadn't been for Heath's inspired wisdom in bringing the UK into the EEC, all those years back, these workers would be stuck in their dead-end jobs in an island off North Wales, with absolutely nowhere to go.

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Our dilemma

Having written about Geert Wilders and his various travails several times, long before the topic became trendy, we were pleased to hear the news that the ridiculous ban on his entry into the UK, imposed by the then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, in February has been overturned.

Actually, Philip Johnston is not entirely accurate in his comment about the Appeal Court. It was the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that ruled against the ban, arguing that "that there was no evidence a previous visit had caused problems and said it was more important to protect freedom of speech".

The Home Office thinks otherwise, as the BBC reports:

Following the tribunal's decision, a Home Office spokesman said: "We are dis appointed by the court's decision. The government opposes extremism in all its forms.

"The decision to refuse Wilders admission was taken on the basis that his presence could have inflamed tensions between our communities and have led to inter-faith violence. We still maintain this view."

They obviously do not consider freedom of speech important, the right to discuss matters important and equate extremism with an ability to get other people angry. They are also considering whether to spend more of the taxpayers’ money to appeal against the Tribunal's decision.

So far, so good. Freedom of speech has been confirmed and legality upheld. Written judgement will be handed down next week and, in the meantime, Mr Wilders will be giving a press conference in London tomorrow. It is sponsored by Lord Pearson of Rannoch but is not a UKIP event, no matter what anybody might think. I shall be there and shall report on it.

The question is to what extent the decision was based on the notion of EU free movement. In other words, did the Tribunal make the right decision, using EU law to overrule the Home Secretary? If so, we are faced with a dilemma. Not on whether to support the decision – we do that unreservedly; the real problem is how to convey the idea that it should be our government making the rules and not the EU, when our government is so utterly stupid and feeble. And don't tell me we can throw them out. Have you seen what is waiting in the wings?

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Drivel

Louise Gray is producing her usual line of enviro-porn today. But they are all at it - the BBC, The Times, The Guardian - the lot of them, all piling in.

One comment on The Telegraph site speaks for us all: "When you have your next editorial meeting to figure out why the Telegraph's credibility is heading south, consider your willingness to print drivel like this." Apply that to the whole of the MSM.

And the picture? Bavaria, this week, where autumn has been cancelled.

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AFPAK in the House

For those that might otherwise complain about the parliament in Westminster being marginalised, prime minister Gordon Brown did at least reserve the official confirmation of what had been widely forecast – an increase in force levels in Afghanistan – for an official statement in the House.

For some time now, I have set myself a general objective of running a continuous narrative on the Afghan mission and thus, in pursuit of this self-appointed task, I have summarised the statement over on Defence of the Realm. This is the first of several posts on what could be a landmark event – which could either set us on the road to success or failure.

As always, there is a lot more to the statement than meets the eye, not least the background to the "conditionality" related to the troop uplift. This, and more, we'll try to analyse in the later posts.

Fact-checking

From The Guardian:

Atkins defended his project, saying the onus was on the newspaper to corroborate what it publishes. "Had those fake stories been fact-checked by the newspapers before they were printed, they would have realised – I think within minutes – that they were about to publish complete and utter babble."

This is a story of an outfit that deliberately set up fake stories on "celebs" and fed them to the media, to see what would happen. Sure enough, they got printed. Yet still there are people who believe what they read in the newspapers.

Come to think of it, how do I know this one is true? We have the ultimate paradox here: "I am a liar, so nothing I say can be believed".

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So that's a yes?

So it came to pass that Ann Winterton won the parliamentary lottery and got to ask the first question at PMQs today. She chose to ask the prime minister:

"When the Lisbon treaty comes into force, the European Council will become a formal institution of the European Union. As the UK member of that institution, will the Prime Minister confirm that he is bound by its rules and is thus obliged to further the objectives of the European Union in preference to those of the United Kingdom?"

The prime minister replied: We joined the European Union in the 1970s, and we hold by our obligations to the European Union, but that does not prevent us from representing the national sovereignty of this country.

Unfortunately, the "mice" got at the question in the early edition (on-line), with the Hansard converting the "European Council" into "Council of the European Union", which is the current name for the Council of Ministers.

As originally recorded in Hansard, therefore, the question did not make sense. The "Council of the European Union" (aka Council of Ministers) was one of the original community institutions, set up by the Treaty of Rome. The European Council – starting as an informal meeting of the heads of states and governments – did not exist then, and has never formally been integrated into the community structure, until now.

Having now checked the original video recording, Ann most definitely said "European Council". For some bizarre reason Hansard had changed what she had said. To the spoken version though, Brown's answer was revealing – as much for what he did not say as what he did.

"Will the Prime Minister confirm that he [as a member of the European Council] is bound by its rules, and is thus obliged to further the objectives of the European Union in preference to those of the United Kingdom?" he was asked. Did he answer the question?

What he does tells us is that: "we hold by our obligations to the European Union". Yet the constitutional Lisbon treaty will amend Article 9 of the TEU to incorporate the European Council as an institution of the Union. As such, it:

... shall aim to promote its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States, and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions.

That "obligation", according to Mr Brown, "does not prevent us from representing the national sovereignty of this country." Well, we can all be mightily reassured by that. The prime minister is not stopped from representing the national sovereignty of this country.

But, what of the question of whether advancing the objectives of the EU and serving its interests takes precedence over serving the interests of its citizens and those of the Member States?

Bearing in mind that the European Council is also obliged to "ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its [the EU's] policies and actions" – with no mention of member states, where does that leave the prime minister, as member of the European Council?

Answer, of course, there was none. He can represent us ... but his duties and obligations are clear. And, as we all know, EU law takes precedence over UK law. The prime minister, and his successors, are duly obligated to obey.

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Stupid question

PMQs today were described as "very sombre", with the prime minister opening the proceedings by making tributes to the 37 soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the House last sat. That, inevitably, set the tone for the rest of the session.

Ann Winterton got to ask her question about the constitutional Lisbon treaty and we'll look at that later, when we have the Hansard transcript.

The Guardian covered the session, and missed the point – as you would expect it to – and gave more attention to Tony Wright, (Cannock Chase) who had a "good, pithy question".

What is more dangerous, he asked, politicians becoming generals, or generals becoming politicians? There's a laugh, recorded the newspaper, then telling us: "Brown says he thinks he knows who Wright is talking about and he says he wants to thank Sir Richard Dannatt (who has just joined the Tories) for his service."

You expect stupid questions from politicians, so we weren't disappointed, but to realise quite how stupid, you have to read this.

Interestingly, The Times publishes a poll on Afghanistan today, which records that calls for British troops to leave have risen sharply, standing at 36 percent – up from 29 percent in mid-September.

The poll also asked about attitudes to Dannatt joining the Tory ranks. Nearly half the public (48 percent) believes he was wrong to have become involved in party politics within six weeks of retiring as head of the Army, with 42 percent saying he was right.

However, Tory voters (62 per cent) back him, the only group to do so, which is very illuminating. This is the group you would expect, instinctively, to deplore the blurring of the line between the military and party politics. It demonstrates, more than anything, the power of tribalism and the way it distorts judgement. And we think, compared with the Afghanis, that we're civilised?

Following PMQs, there was a statement by the prime minister on Afghanistan, during which, as expected, the troop level was raised to 9,500. We will also report on this in detail once the Hansard transcript is up on the net.

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Catching up

It's interesting how they do catch up ... eventually. The Daily Mail is running a piece headed: "Whatever happened to global warming? How freezing temperatures are starting to shatter climate change theory".

In the freezing foothills of Montana, it tells us, a distinctly bitter blast of revolution hangs in the air. And while the residents of the icy city of Missoula can stave off the -10C chill with thermals and fires, there may be no easy remedy for the wintry snap's repercussions. The temperature has shattered a 36-year record. Further into the heartlands of America, the city of Billings registered -12C on Sunday, breaking the 1959 barrier of -5C.

Closer to home, we are informed, Austria is seeing its earliest snowfall in history with 30 to 40 centimetres already predicted in the mountains. Such dramatic falls in temperatures provide superficial evidence for those who doubt that the world is threatened by climate change. But, the paper continues, most pertinent of all, of course, are the growing volume of statistics ...

Actually, you could have read most of the snow news (and more) here, here, here and here. We've been at it since Saturday. We missed Austria (although the Mail missed Tibet) but there are details here. It is indeed the earliest Autumn snowfall in years. Furthermore, there are predictions of snow down to 400m in the provincial capitals of Innsbruck, Salzburg and St Polten, which would be the first time it has snowed this low before 20 October since records began. This is – as we pointed out elsewhere is not normal.

However, that the Mail is even talking in these terms about "climate change" is significant, and it is happening in other newspapers as well. On Sunday, the Sunday Times review section ran a big feature (not on-line but front page pictured) and the Australian press is having a go. The Financial Post is picking up the vibes as well and gradually, it seems, the media is getting the message – global warming is a crock.

Needless to say, the politicians and that fool Rowan Williams are way behind the curve – and still the evil b******s are trying to tax us to death. But otherwise, the tide is turning ... or the cold draught of reality is blowing in, whichever you prefer. I wonder how long it will actually take the politicians to wake up – but then, they have much more important things to worry about. They really are blowing it, in a very different way.

Meanwhile, today there will be PMQs. The very first question to Gordon Brown will be on the constitutional Lisbon treaty. Staying in wondering mode, what's the betting on whether the media pick it up and report it?

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Operational art

When the Strategic Studies Institute, part of the US Army War College, publishes a paper saying that the military have gone too far in the prosecution of war, and it is time to bring politicians back in the loop, it is time to sit up and take notice.

The paper, under the slightly whimsical title of "Alien: how operational art devoured strategy" is written by two Australians, Brigadier Justin Kelly and Dr Michael Brennan. It deals with what might seem to be an arcane subject – known as "operational art" - but this is a mainstream and important issue which strikes at the very root of the relationship between politics and the military, with direct and immediate relevance to the mission in Afghanistan.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Options and national discretions

The EU commission, we learn, is discussing "harmonisation of national rules governing access to mortgages". This is in the wake of the beneficial financial crisis which "exposed the excessive risks taken by credit institutions in the housing market."

Faced with a worsening economic situation in Europe, internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy sent member states and relevant market "actors" a document in July listing possible changes to EU capital requirement rules, aimed at reducing risk taken by credit institutions and reaching "maximum harmonisation" among EU nations in a number of areas.

The commission proposed a range of amendments to the current rules, meant to "remove options and national discretions," according to the text.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what the EU is all about ... removing "options and national discretions". The subject, the circumstances and the problems might change, but there is always only one solution, to "remove options and national discretions."

But it is done little bit by little bit, always for the best possible motives and reasons, we are told at the time. Until, one day, we wake up and find we have no "options and national discretions" left at all. That day is close at hand and comes closer when the constitutional Lisbon treaty comes into force.

And as we gaze upon the benign face of our oppressor (pictured), and find we are completely out of "options and national discretions", what do we do then?

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We have been there before

A little-known historical perspective is offered on the campaign in Afghanistan, over at Defence of the Realm. It provides a sharp contrast to this report, and makes this piece, by Lt-Col Robert Thomson, CO of 2 Rifles, look naïve to the point of being delusional.

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Not normal

Seeing snow this early is not normal. This is only the third time in the last 60 years that there's been measurable snow twice in the Twin Cities in the first half of October.

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