What is and will be

One difference between climate realists and warmists is that the former deal with what is – as here, at the Mount Washington Alpine Resort which is still open for skiers and snowboarders this weekend. This winter, the resort received more than 60 feet of snow — the deepest in resort history — and it claimed the deepest snow pack in Canada before opening day in December.

With so much snow still on the hill, the mountain will be opening in early July, the same time as it opens for summer operations with its Mile High Chairlift rides. What is becoming Mount Washington's longest-running season was a record-breaking one.

As for what will be, locally there is the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation, which is asking, "What would it mean to Canada if we could no longer play outdoor hockey for most of the winter? Or if opportunities to ski and snowboard were to diminish across Canada?" It then declares: "And it could be the harsh reality for Canada's winter sports culture if we don't take international action to reduce global warming".

Thus, point to Mount Washington in the here and now, and the warmists such as David Suzuki will point you to some unspecified period in the future, when all their predictions will come true, if you don't take enormously expensive action now.

They do have a slight problem in that their recommendations to avoid their future demonstrably could not have the effect they claim, even if their predictions were sound – the warmist creed is absurd, and obviously so.  But it does not make any difference.  These are religious beliefs here. They have nothing to do with reality and you can't destroy them with reality.

So why is it that the creed holds sway in the highest offices of so many nations, and grips the minds of the most prestigious scientific establishments of the world? Well, the answer is in that one word, "prestigious". The warmists have cultivated "prestige ".

A picture and story by journalist Lindsay Chung of the Comox Valley Record doesn't cut it. A glossy brochure and this sort of guff from David Suzuki has "prestige" and wins the day. As Gustav le Bon noted, whatever has been a ruling power in the world, whether it be ideas or men, has in the main enforced its authority by means of that irresistible force expressed by the word "prestige".

Prestige underpins power in all walks of life, we are not going to prevail until we recognise this, accept that it is the most fundamental issue in our fight against the orthodoxy, and start learning how to deal with it.

COMMENT THREAD

Softening the line?

Fear is turning to anger, but the EU bureaucrats will still screw us writes Charles Moore, adding that, as an outsider, Britain has little chance to alter this crisis which "now threatens political order". So, he observes, the question of what Britain should want in all of this is a difficult one.

But, are we alone in thinking that the great man's tone is softening. In this piece, the self-proclaimed eurosceptic says that the way the euro was conceived, written and performed has been dreadful, "but it does not automatically follow that we should wish for its collapse".

Then, for a man who has consistently opposed the euro, he tells us that, "There is some logic in the existence of a common currency for large parts of mostly northern Europe", adding: "There is misery if it all falls apart".

Now look was he was writing almost exactly a year ago (18 June 2010, to be precise), when Cameron was also at the European Council in Brussels. "The euro's inevitable failure will be horrendous for all of us", he told us, the single currency is a disaster, but the cost of its life support will devastate Europe's economies.

"Again and again in politics, great schemes don't work – Soviet Communism, for example, and now the euro". But bad political schemes are usually given up "only when they have been tested literally to destruction". It would be much better for Europe if the euro had never happened, and I long for it somehow to fade away, but the process of destruction will be horrendous, and it is only just beginning, he concluded.

Now wander back to 20 October 2007 and we are told: "Brussels dictatorship will face day of reckoning". The European project, he wrote, now resembles the state of the eastern European Communists after 1968, when party members gave up believing in their doctrine and just settled for comfortable jobs. They shored up their power and ignored their unpopularity.

After 20 years, it all collapsed, because people started to take down the Berlin Wall, and no one quite dared stop them, he reminded us, venturing that the EU is not such a sharp oppression as was Soviet Communism, but it is similar in this respect - it tries wherever possible to avoid the democratic judgment of the people it rules. When that judgment does come, therefore, it will be merciless.

And so to 4 June 2005 when Moore writes about the German magazine Stern advising readers to check their euro banknotes. The notes issued in Germany, it explained, begin their serial numbers with "X"; those issued in Italy begin with "S". Hold on to the former, was the suggestion, and get rid of the latter while you can.

Stern's X-factor advice was based on the idea that the euro zone might break up, wrote Moore, now adding: "I do not know whether the euro zone will break up (though I wouldn't mind taking a small bet that it has less than 18 months to go in its present form), but Stern's advice interests me for the same reason as the results of the Dutch and French referendums".

They are, he said, "all symptoms of that exciting moment in politics when reality starts to intrude upon the lives of statesmen". This is part of the fun of following politics: the relation to reality is generally delayed, but is always there in the end.

Unreal schemes often appear and even dominate for a time - fascism, Communism, the League of Nations are examples. But the truth eventually finds them out. He then concludes:

One expects most of the European political leaders to go on pretending that everything will be all right. They have lived for years on the metaphor that the EU is like a bicycle that must not stop moving, and now they may die by it, peddling ever more frantically and absurdly to avoid falling off, like a troupe of circus clowns. They may even succeed for a surprisingly long time.

In that last observation, he is absolutely right. Six years ago, we were talking about the demise of the euro, with Moore putting its end by December 2007. But here we are, still talking about the demise of the euro.

Then, as now, we willed it to happen, as one way of seeing the end of the "Brussels dictatorship". But, now the collapse is nearly upon us, Moore tells us "it does not automatically follow that we should wish for its collapse". Has he changed his stance and, if so, is this reality biting, as he confronts the enormity of the potential consequences?

Or is there something else going on here, that I have missed?

COMMENT THREAD

The epitome of ignorance

The poor little darling Cameron, in Brussels, is reported to be "appalled" on seeing a glossy 16-page brochure advertising Herman Van Rompuy's new £280 million HQ.

The Guardian steps up to the plate to tell us that the Darling Boy seized on an opportunity to voice "immense frustration" at the lavish spending of the Brussels élite after being handed a glossy brochure promoting the European council's soon to be finished €300m (£270m) headquarters.

The brochure was distributed to EU leaders as they sat down to dinner at a Brussels summit on Thursday evening, with Europe facing one of the gravest crises in memory amid predictions of the breakdown of Greece and the potential death of the euro single currency.

Well, you can imagine our "immense frustration", as we ran the story on 19 September 2009 (pictured above - with a rather appropriate headline), on the back of a story by Bruno Waterfield. If Cameron had been on top of his game, he would have known about it years ago, rather than being "appalled" now, when it is far too late to do anything.

What this does, though, is demonstrate yet again how ignorant our masters really are. I've remarked before on how we tend to think of them as "all-knowing", but the fact of the matter is that, on a whole raft of issues, they know considerably less than you could possibly imagine.

But it is only thus imbued with the most profound ignorance that anyone could possibly be in favour of Britain's continued membership of the EU ... which tells you a great deal about this ignorant boy.

COMMENT THREAD

Escape from Brussels

The Boy may be enjoying the media spotlight in Brussels today, but behind the scenes – according to Hürriyet Daily News, all is not well with the press corps. Brussels is falling out of fashion and the number of foreign journalists in the city has declined by 25 percent in just one year, from 1,200 to about 900.

There are two reasons given for this "escape from Brussels" - the diminishing role of the EU in international politics, as reflected in the recent Arab spring, and the debt crisis that continues to ravage the eurozone, forcing many European media companies to cut costs.

"Most mainstream media organizations do not have foreign correspondents in Brussels anymore", said Marc Gruger, the director of European Federation of Journalists. Media institutions in Germany, France and the Netherlands have already cut the number of reporters in Brussels significantly, in part deterred by the costs.

Employers have to pay monthly nearly €4,000 per reporter, in addition to renting an apartment in central Brussels. The local tax system obliged companies based abroad to pay Belgium for their reporters does not help, either. This tax is around half of the €4,000 euros.

However, it is Demir Murat Seyrek, a managing partner of Brussels-based Global Communications, who put his finger on an interesting trend which has become all too evident. "Copy-paste journalism has paved the way for the press corps to leave the city, he says, adding that: "Many foreign reporters rely on press releases from EU institutions, with not much added value in terms of journalism".

So there is the guilty secret – not that it is much of a secret, but it is one that allows TM News, a major Italian news agency, to employ only one journalist instead of the previous four in Brussels.

The survivor, Lorenzo Consoli, also a former president of the International Press Association, says that many editors think there is "no use in being in Brussels anymore. The EU seems weak and slow in decision-making most of the time". Consoli cites the Libya crisis, charging that Brussels was "completely non-existent", except for humanitarian support.

"Journalists have given up [on Brussels] due to fruitless long discussions and meetings. The lack of leadership and hesitations … has resulted in a decline in interest toward the EU - not only among journalists, but for everyone", Consoli concludes.

Jean Lemaitre, director of the Brussels-based Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales, reminds us that many reporters from Eastern Europe came to Brussels to cover what was going on in the EU after enlargement in 2004.

"People in those countries were full of hope after accession. Nowadays, after the economic crisis, a kind of disenchantment has replaced euphoria. This disenchantment was clearly visible when many Brussels-based journalists went back home", he said.

That, of course, leaves them with the situation with which we are increasingly familiar, where we have long been used to a London-centric, self-obsessed media, concerned mainly with trivia, personalities and the doings of the slebs, while our supreme government continues to run our affairs unchallenged.

COMMENT THREAD

A field for them all

Go play.

COMMENT: ELEPHANT THREAD

Green jobs – Boeing jobs?

Yesterday, to compensate for bending one of its prize exhibits at the Paris airshow (pictured) and having to stand down the A-400M display because of a "gearbox failure", Airbus has received an order worth $7.2 billion for 72 aircraft from Indian carrier GoAir, the latest in a series of Indian airlines scrambling to meet growing demand in Asia's third-largest economy.

Today, however – according to the Financial Times (no link), China has rained on Airbus's parade, blocking a multi-billion dollar order for ten Airbus A-380s in what is termed "a sharp escalation of Beijing's protests against Europe's plan to bring international airlines into its emissions trading scheme from the start of next year".

When the scheme comes into force, airlines operating in Europe will have to buy carbon credits from the EU's Emission Trading Scheme to cover each ton of CO2 they emit in excess of a cap set by the EU.

This could cost Chinese airlines as much as 800 million yuan ($123 million) next year and 3 billion yuan ($461 million) by 2020. For the aviation industry as a whole it is estimated that the EU cap could cost it up to $2 billion in 2012, which analysts say will drive carbon credit prices as well as the cost of flying.

Hence, we now see China taking action. Its order was supposed to be coming from Hong Kong Airlines, worth at least $3.8bn at list prices, and was due formally to be announced at the Paris air show earlier this week. But Airbus learned over the weekend that the agreement was being blocked by Peking and the announcement did not go ahead.

Crucially, these are by no means the only orders taken hostage by the Chinese. "The A380s are the first", says one Airbus executive, adding there were other deals with Chinese carriers in the pipeline, and others with Hong Kong. The bottom line, therefore, could be far more than today's figure, while other countries may follow suit.

Interestingly, Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, recently teamed up with a number of airlines to write to EU climate commissioner and professional moron, Connie Hedegaard, warning her that it was "madness to risk retaliation" from such influential players as China over the issue.

Needless to say Hedegaard, alongside José Manuel Barroso, deployed a dual digit response, answering that Brussels has no intention of caving in to such threats. To do so would set a worrying precedent, said the Hedegaard, because "it is up to the Europeans (sic) to decide European legislation".

UKIP, which is the first political party to respond to the announcement, has said the obvious, that "the EU should stop chasing the chimera of Climate Change, and let us concentrate on real people, real jobs and real lives". It, like the rest of us, is mindful of the constant claims of "green jobs" arising from climate change measures – but no one ever thought they would be going to Boeing.

COMMENT THREAD

Never let it be said

... that our news values are anything other than spot on: "Sovereign and banking strains are the most material and immediate threat," says the Financial Policy Committee, chaired by the Bank of England governor, in its inaugural report.

This is why we've been "banging on" over the past weeks. We are faced, truly, with a threat so serious that it should rarely be off the front pages, for which the government should have set up an emergency committee, and on which parliament should be getting daily reports and holding debates.

Instead, what passes for a government is obsessed with its "grid", the newspapers insist on treating this as a "business" issue and the MPs are in the land of the fairies. Yet, as this latest news indicates, we are past the point of no return.

Come what may, we are in for a shit-storm. I, for one, would like to know what our idiots-in-power intend to do about it ... whether indeed they are sufficiently in the land of the living to realise what is going on.

COMMENT THREAD

The decline and fall

Illustrating why it will never be a serious newspaper, The Independent pronounces with great fanfare: "Victory in the campaign to ban circus animals", claiming: "Government concedes defeat after bribes and intimidation fail to deter rebels".

There has been no "victory", of course. Yesterday's debate was a "take note" motion, which seeks to instruct the government but which has no legislative effect. The government can (and will) ignore it leaving Pritchard with the procedural option of mounting a motion of no confidence – which he isn't going to get.

For the record, the motion reads:

That this House directs the Government to use its powers under section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to introduce a regulation banning the use of all wild animals in circuses to take effect by 1 July 2012.

This is more than a little interesting, because Pritchard was not seeking primary legislation – as in a Private Member's Bill – but was seeking to prevail upon the government to use existing welfare legislation to implement a ban. In so doing – as I pointed out in my earlier piece – he has collided head on with the European Union – and the doctrine of the occupied field. Animal welfare is an occupied field.

Herein lies a fascinating development for, having now had a chance to look at the whole debate, one finds that the EU was briefly referred to by Pritchard – and in a lot more detail by other speakers. The circus elephant was very much in the room, circling the backbenches, trumpeting for all it was worth – the nature of which we are going to have to look at in another post.

Nevertheless, I can happily stand by my original view of this MP, but there are an awful lot of people playing games here, on an issue which, in the UK, actually affects only 39 animals.

Thus, while the man pretending to be our prime minister was jetting over to Brussels to save civilisation as we know it, our MPs were battling with EU law, without the first glimmer of understanding, while HMG, impaled on the hook, was struggling to find more and more ways of explaining why it could not act.

The debate was thus a fine study of impotence, ignorance and stupidity, all combined, with the House frittering away its time and passion discussing the fate of less than two score creatures, about which it has the power to do nothing. What a graphic example this is of the decline and fall of a once-great institution.

COMMENT: ELEPHANT THREAD

The circus elephant in the room

The future of Europe's economy hangs in the balance and our MPs were debating banning circus animals yesterday afternoon. It was only a "take note" motion, fronted by Mark Pritchard, Tory MP for the Wrekin, so it had no legislative effect. But the real stupidity of the debate was that it could not have any effect. This is a matter of EU competence.

Nevertheless, MPs from all sides of the House rallied round Pritchard - who claimed that Downing Street tried to bribe him with the prospect of a government job to get him to change his position – and supported the motion without a division.

In the House, the call for a ban was opposed by Agriculture Minister Jim Paice. He said he shared the views of MPs concerned about the use of performing animals, but warned there could be "legal challenges" to a ban as proposed by Pritchard.

Opening the debate, Pritchard described the government's behaviour as "mysterious", and said he had initially been offered a "pretty trivial job" if he agreed to drop or amend the Commons motion calling for a ban. He also claimed he had received a call from the prime minister's office, telling him that David Cameron would look upon it "dimly" if he pushed for a vote on strengthening protection for animals.

This provoked an extraordinary response from Pritchard who, in rejecting the blandishments and threats, told the House:

Well, I have a message for the Whips and for the Prime Minister of our country—I did not pick a fight with the Prime Minister of our country, but I have a message. I might be just a little council house lad from a very poor background, but that background gives me a backbone, it gives me a thick skin, and I am not going to kowtow to the Whips or even the Prime Minister of my country on an issue that I feel passionately about and on which I have conviction.

There might be some people with other backbones in this place, on our side and the other side, who will speak later, but we need a generation of politicians with a bit of spine, not jelly. I will not be bullied by any of the Whips. This is an issue on which I have campaigned for many years. In the previous Parliament I had an Adjournment debate and I spoke in the passage of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. I have consistently campaigned on this issue, and I will not kowtow to unnecessary, disproportionate pressure.

That may be the case, but one has to observe that his background most certainly does not confer on him any brains. Dim even by Tory standards, Pritchard should know that when the government acts in such a "mysterious" manner, there is usually one very good reason – the European Union.

The problem this idiot has is that legislation on the welfare of circus animals is an occupied field under EU law, which means that while there is no specific EU legislation on the issue, the UK cannot itself pass legislation without the approval of the Commission. This, it would be most unlikely to get, as the Council is already on the case with a declaration on animal welfare, as part of its general policy review on this issue.

That it is an occupied field is demonstrated by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1739/2005 of 21 October 2005, laying down animal health requirements for the movement of circus animals between Member States.

As to an outright ban on "ethical" grounds, there are the underlying treaty principles of the free movement of services and freedom of establishment. This means that, under internal market provisions, even if the British government could ban UK registered circuses from using wild animals (which it cannot), it could not prevent enterprises from other member states from displaying performing wild animals. Hence the "legal challenges" alluded to by Paice, if a ban was imposed. They would come from circus owners as well as the Commission.

Altogether, then, Pritchard and his supporters made complete fools of themselves, but so did the minister – displaying the classic inability, common to successive governments, to admit how much power they have subcontracted to their head office in Brussels. And how desperately sad it is that not a single MP was bright enough to spot that elephant - not in the room but, rather appropriately, in the circus. The whole thing is just an idle charade.

COMMENT THREAD

Confirming the obvious

"In years past, when financial crises in Argentina and Russia left those countries unable to make good on their government debts, they simply defaulted. But this time around, swaps and other sorts of contracts have become so common and so intertwined in the financial markets that there are fears among regulators and financial players about how a Greek default would play out among derivatives holders".

Thus speaks the New York Times, confirming that which we knew already ... that anyone who asserts with confidence that "contagion" is not a risk is talking out of their rear end.

COMMENT THREAD

Wilders is innocent

Cranmer has the story. At last it is established that it is not a criminal offence to offend a group of people about their theology. And not just theology, but political theology.

COMMENT THREAD

The perils of the eurozone

The wry smile is in action again today, at the news of the electrical retailer Dixons posting a £239 million loss after taking a major "hit" from its Kotsovolos retailing operation in Greece, and the closure of its businesses in Spain.

The Kotsovolos losses are particularly interesting and the company was only acquired in 2004 at a final price of acquisition at £61.6m. And now it is taking a £53.2 million "goodwill impairment charge" with profits hit by a market decline of around 25 percent caused by the "gloomy economy".

The Spanish experience has been just as salutary, as the group ceased trading earlier this year, pulling the plug on 34 PC City shops and the web shop PIXmania, all employing just over 1360 people. On top of the £53.2 million Greek loss, the closure of PC City cost £70.6 million and PIXmania£106.3 million.

What makes this all rather ironic – and hence the wry smile – is that back in 1998, the then chairman of Dixons, Stanley Kalms, was a leading light in Business for Sterling, fronting the campaign to keep Britain out of the euro. Perhaps also, had he spent as much energy keeping his business out of the eurozone, it might have done rather better than it is doing.

COMMENT THREAD

Another one bites the dust

Norwegian electric car maker Think has filed for bankruptcy again, according to the Financial Times, after failing to find long-term financial backing for its business. It is the third time the niche car maker has fallen into receivership over the past decade, having last exited court protection back in August 2009 when American lithium battery firm, Ener1, Valmet Automotive from Finland and Investinor, the Norwegian Government-backed investment fund, all backed the company.

The news is a blow to the embryonic electric car market, says this report, and will support the views of those sceptical that electric cars can achieve a viable market presence. Ain't that the truth, Boris. And how much are you going to waste on your 1,150 charging points?

COMMENT THREAD

A message of peace and love

On being convicted for posting offensive and menacing messages about DUP MP Gregory Campbell on Facebook, Daryl O'Donnell (31), from Belvedere Park in the Foyle Springs area of Derry, admitted posting a message on Facebook about Mr Campbell reading: "He's a dirty Orange lying b*****d and should get a bullet in the head. At least he would have got it for something — scumbag".

He denied that the message was offensive or menacing.

Now compare and contrast. The Boiling Frog highlights an "unintentionally hilarious" piece from the Guardian content partner, lauding fourteen Tory MPs for what it calls "mainstream Eurosceptisim".

This is from Tim Montgomerie, the "futile fourteen" wanting an "EU reform agenda" that includes: taking the taxpayers’ side in resisting further bail-outs; liberalisation of trade; the principle of subsidiarity; wholesale reduction of the waste for which the European Commission is responsible; and getting some value in return for the significant sums that UK taxpayers contribute to the EU's budget.

If that stupidity is what he calls "mainstream", then it is not surprising that he considers Cameron a Eurosceptic. Capture the vocabulary and you win the argument.

But this is in the same league as Mr O'Donnell. If Mongomerie is correct in his description, then declaring of him that, "He's a dirty Tory lying b*****d and should get a bullet in the head," is a message of peace and love. It is not in the least "offensive and menacing".

COMMENT THREAD

Klepturition 7

Network Rail has handed former chief executive Iain Coucher a £1m payoff. This includes a year's pay in lieu of notice, after the man had been unceremoniously dumped, under a cloud larger than the Hiroshima mushroom.

The decision to dispense with his services centred on his "James Bond lifestyle" and allegations that he enjoyed extravagant pay and perks at taxpayers' expense on top of his £600,000 salary. Coucher and his business partner Victoria Pender were accused of being paid up to £180,000 every three months for "unspecified services" on top of salaries, pensions and bonuses.

Despite this, Croucher also gets a settlement related to the company's long-term incentive plan and, what is more, his fellow executives are also expected to receive sizeable payments under the plan. Transport secretary Philip Hammond has condemned the payment, warning that it will "stick in the gullet" of taxpayers and farepayers.

And well he might. But he and his ilk are going to do precisely what about it?

COMMENT: KLEPTURITION THREAD

A very dangerous time

In Money Talks, Michael Campbell interviews financial analyst Greg Weldon, founder of Weldon Financial, recognised as one of the top macro-research firms in the world.

For the "money quotes", Campbell notes that: "What's really bubbling below the surface is this huge need to finance more debt in western Europe and in the United States coming up in the second half of the year when the rubber's going to hit the road". Weldon comments that it's a very dangerous time for global equities:

If you listen to the pop media here in the US about what's happened in Europe you hear a level of complacency and denial, that we are going to be able to bail out Greece and everything's going to be fine. While it allows me to create a business where we dig into the facts and produce research that tells it like it really is, it also makes me cringe. It does such a disservice to the public to put out stuff that is blatantly fraudulent.

In an earlier broadcast, he refers to the structural problems in the euro and in this interview Weldon repeats an oft' repeated theme that the problem goes "as far back as to when the Greek Drachma was incorporated into the euro, a time that we knew the euro was being watered down simply because of the Greek deficit dynamic". A refreshing informality in style does not conceal the level of concern. Says Weldon:

It's coming to a head as they can't continue to kick the can down the road. If we go back to the fourth quarter of '09, when we first started to really focus on Greece, continually officials down there kept coming up with these "bail outs". You know it's like the movie Animal House when the guy is in the middle of the road as the crowd approaching him is about to stampede and he says "remain calm all is fine."

He continues:

This has been the ECB, the EU finance ministers, even the head of the finance ministers Juncker actually admitted to lying to the public and the media recently simply because they are willing to do whatever it takes to try and maintain the single currency.

I just don't see how that's going to be possible. I don’t see how there's any way out of this. They can't paper it over, the way out is austerity and the public's not going to stand for that. We see the unions rallying in the streets, threatening to blockade parliament and so on and so forth. The next thing is going to be the power company which is saying they are going to start selling off assets to rectify the situation. It's not nearly enough money that they are going to be able to raise.

Against this quality of comment, poor Bruno Waterfield is obliged to waste his talents and skills recording the trivial mouthings of Eurofool Cameron. His input into this growing crisis is to tell EU leaders to "agree a plan and to stick to it", citing the "disunited response to the Greek debt crisis" as the significant issue.

This, of course, ignores the very real schisms in the ranks of the "colleagues", who are torn between perpetuating the fantasy that the euro is salvageable, and the reality that there are structural faults that prevent any solution. What Cameron chooses to call "dithering" is more a reflection of what happens when fantasy collides with reality.

It is a bit rich for the king of the U-turns to be telling the "colleagues" that they should be sticking to a plan, but Cameron is nothing without his hubris. What he cannot do, though, is tell us what plan the "colleagues" should stick to. This is none that will work.

We go back to Weldon on this, who says "it does such a disservice to the public to put out stuff that is blatantly fraudulent". Cameron is perpetuating the fraud. And that is one of the reasons why we are living in such a very dangerous time.

COMMENT THREAD

Default blues

Despite little Myrtle's dose of EVM, we now have Andrew Alexander in The Daily Mail stating unequivocally: "Greece will default on its debts, leave the euro and return to its own national currency, the drachma. This is one of the certainties in an uncertain world".

He then goes on to say, "The decision might be swift or it might be slow, but the question remains when, not whether", exactly mirroring my own position, although he is equivocal about whether Greece's departure from the euro in will lead to economic Armageddon.

Alexander is joined by Andreas Whittam-Smith in The Independent. He says the Greeks can't pay and won't pay, so let them default. It would crash out of the eurozone, re-establish its own currency and suffer a devaluation. Greece would be in a mess, but at least it would be its own mess.

Elsewhere, the Mail had earlier ramped up the crisis with a report that the Greek crisis could cost Britain as much as £336 billion, although the actual direct exposure seems to be round about €14 billion (give or take) – although you get a different set of figures from The Independent.

Meanwhile, Der Spiegel is breast-beating about the euro. It remarks that the German government also seems to care little that the European Central Bank is slipping into serious distress.

It worries about fact that "our financial system" is so tightly interwoven that if part of it fails, we could all fall and then complains that Germany is in an impossible situation. Having "ponied up" hundreds of billions of euros but is nevertheless being pilloried.

Some Greek newspapers refer to Germans as "euro Nazis," and not as a benevolent leading power. The fact that the situation has deteriorated so far does not speak well for statesmanship in Berlin - and that is putting it mildly.

But then does it lament that, if the euro-zone does break apart, it is Germany that will be blamed - because it was the country that could have saved the euro but didn't do so out of short-sighted self-interest. The damage, should it come to that, will be much more than monetary.

Hilariously – and possibly more accurately - Zerohedge takes a completely contrary line, arguing that if Germany is seen as the reason for the collapse of the Euro, it will be branded a saviour, not a villain ... at least by the non-banking population of Europe.

However, while we may enjoy the irony, there is something rather unpleasant closer to home - personal debt. We can rail about nation states, but in the UK, we are the most indebted nation on Earth, per head of population, the total level of personal debt running to a trillion and a half.

Against that, I suppose, Greece is rather small beer – especially when we see the level of default that will follow an economic crash.

COMMENT THREAD

The Green Revolution – part 1

The great labour of referencing the Battle of Britain book is finished, with the completed manuscript delivered to the publishers. Now, with the pressure off for the time being, I can give my full attention to the blog, which has been sadly neglected over the past couple of weeks.

And, as marked up earlier, I promised to take a closer look at the open letter by environmental activist, Charles Secrett, published in The Guardian yesterday. This, I suggested, was potentially every bit as dangerous as what is happening on the furthest edge of Europe. He is calling for a green revolution, repeating a call he made on 13 June, in a piece headed: "Environmental activism needs its own revolution to regain its teeth".

In that piece he charged that "today's protest tactics are not sufficient to alter the destructive path travelled by virtually all governments and most corporations". Tactically, he feels, the environmental movement has stalled and now is he out setting what amounts to a vade mecum for his new revolutionaries.

The good news is that he should feel this way, revealing an insider view of a movement which, from all external appearances, seems to be sweeping all before it. The bad news is that the man seems to have a better grip on the realities of power than many of the wannabe revolutionaries on our side. But that is tempered by the indications that the man has some curious blind spots.

As to this vade mecum, first, Secrett tells the movement, "appreciate how powerful you could be from pooling your efforts", second, stop working in parallel, and unite with other causes – development, human rights, poverty, public health, democracy, community well-being – under one banner: "For people, for the planet".

Third, he says, "every successful revolution has a compelling text at its heart – ideals, goals, words, images and examples that inspire the majority. Where is your equivalent of the Rights of Man, Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, or Little Red Book?"

You need, he thus says, to agree a joint manifesto for life. Mine the library of sustainable development strategies to spell out a route map that can take humanity from where we are to where most want to be. Then, crowd-source the draft "help the public create a new world order".

For his fourth item, he wants activists to build a cross-party political consensus in every nation, observing – with some prescience - "societal change is about power, and who wields it and why. Your regular interaction with government and companies is not the same as real influence".

From this, he declares: "You must systematically generate significant pressure to change the failing business-as-usual provision of energy, food, housing, jobs, welfare and the other things that people require for a good life", then offering the observation that: "Power resides with voters, tax-payers and constituents. No government can rule without citizen consent".

Organise locally in every constituency, he instructs, to build formidable alliances between your supporters, other community groups, unions and local businesses, stating that, "The imperative is to hold government and industry to account at elections and between elections, at AGMs and throughout the year".

And for his fifth point, he wants his activists to target the "markets". Business too needs a license to operate, he says. Consumers, shareholders and investors are the kings and queens of commerce and industry. No company will invest in, make or sell services and products that people won't buy, or shareholders reject. It's another opportunity to organise and mobilise.

Finally, he counsels, accept certain campaigns are not winnable, and simply drain resources. Absolutist positions do not hold up for the majority. Because of climate change, this probably includes total opposition to nuclear power and GM products globally. Focus instead on the conditions where these technologies become acceptable: safe, economic, free of patent control by a few companies, and effectively regulated.

That, in summary, is Secrett's pitch. We'll analyse its strengths and weaknesses in the next post.

COMMENT: REVOLUTION THREAD

The edifice crumbles?

You know how, moments before a building collapses, bits usually start falling off it? Well ... it's happening now says The Failygraph. Banking Times seems to be agreeing. The Irish Independent, today, seems to support their line, which is expanded upon by The Boiling Frog.

Zerohedge, however, is less than impressed, not least as it reported on it last week, with this:

Allied Irish Banks PLC has officially experienced a Restructuring Event. CDS settlement to proceed next. And yes, thanks to daily variation margin on CDS this means absolutely nothing, and should the cash/physical settlement auction clear tight of prevailing prices depending on where CTD bonds trade, it means CDS sellers will (gasp) receive daily margin cash at the end of the day. Yes, contrary to AIG-related stigma, selling CDS on an entity does not mean an automatic default for the sellers of protection. But that won't prevent those who have no idea how the CDS market operates to spread more BS stories, especially as relates to Greek, then all other PIIGS, CDS.

Delicious ... that's exactly the sort of thing I would have written if I knew what I was talking about ... which I don't. We're still domed though.

COMMENT THREAD

Of revolutionary times

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has, we are told survived a confidence vote in parliament, "winning a gamble on his government's survival and the danger of a devastating debt default".

That is how the Mirror sees it, and you won't read anything very different in the rest of the media. They have all bought into the same fantasy, that there is some sort of settlement. But all Papandreou has done is buy a little time, paving the way for hugely unpopular measures which are going to cause endless grief and solve nothing.

Meanwhile, it is not only the Greeks who are talking revolution. Right under our very noses, another one is being proposed - one potentially every bit as dangerous as what is happening on the furthest edge of Europe.

This is Charles Secrett, calling for a green revolution, and he has a better grip on the realities of power than many of the wannabe revolutionaries on our side – but also some curious blind spots. But there is competition on the block – interestingly, outside the traditional party political process.

This is too important for a "quickie". I'll look at it in detail later today.

COMMENT THREAD

Barking cats

That's completely buggered up Friedman then.

COMMENT THREAD

The bleating starts

Myrtle got in on the act in The Daily Mail today, carving up the extruded verbal material into bite-sized chunks, to earn a bob or two.

Some of the background he sketches out is fair enough, but when the great sage starts his analysis, superficiality and ignorance come to the fore. Thus, does he portentously bleat: To those who believe that Greece pulling out of the eurozone would trigger a calamitous domino effect in Ireland, Portugal and even Spain, I would say: don't believe all the talk about contagion.

He then solemnly informs us that Greece accounts for only 1.9 percent of the EU's economy and, therefore, "its troubles are containable". By such means does he display a lack of grasp of the basics that is really quite staggering. Has the man-goat never heard of how dominoes work? Is he unaware of what is happening in Italy?  Line them all up, knock one over, and they all go.

The trouble is that, now the crisis moves to its end game, and the British MSM have finally woken up to the fact that something is happening in that strange, far-off distant place called "Europe", we are going to get a lot of this garbage, as the clever-dicks move in and stake their claims.

With a factoid or two of their own, a sheaf full of press agency reports and the latest briefing notes from the Uncle Toms at Open Europe, they are anybody's for a few quid, spewing out the EVM like there was no tomorrow.

Over however long it takes for the collapse to occur, no matter how it is disguised, we are going to have to suffer a massively high noise level from the MSM, when sense will be drowned by the prattle of the hired clever-dicks.

More than ever, therefore, it is important to stick to the basics, the single most important fact of which is that Greece is going to fail. And when the first domino goes, the rest will follow. Where it will end we do not know, but we are in for a serious shit-storm. No amount of Myrtle-bleat is going to make it any different - the only thing we don't know is the timescale.

COMMENT THREAD

Greece will fail

"Greece will not be allowed to fail", says the Failygraph, inviting the comment: "What a ludicrous and. ill-informed editorial. This is what happens when AE-P (Ambrose Evans Pritchard) is not around". And there is no dispute that the commenter is right.

But then I have it on very good authority that the bubble-view in the Failygraph office is that the Greek issue is a minor affair and will soon be sorted. Here you have it leaking out into the public domain, offering the idiot sentiment that there is no real alternative to shoring up Greece. We are told that its economy must then be stabilised before serious thought can be given to the long-term restructuring of the single currency, which must now surely be unavoidable.

There is some consolation for this country in that we will not be expected to contribute to this latest rescue mission, other than through our subscription to the International Monetary Fund, we are then told, by a paper that does not seem to understand that our IMF contributions are running to tens of billions.

The big questions now, says the Failygraph are whether the Greek people will swallow their medicine and, even more pertinently, whether long-suffering German taxpayers will continue to stump up billions for their prodigal eurozone partner.

There is so much wrong with this piece that one just needs to highlight it. It does not need fisking – the ludicrous assertions are self-evidently so. That is what happens when you convert a newspaper into part of the entertainment industry.

The fact is though that Greece is beyond saving. The "colleagues" will keep trying, right up to the end, alongside the IMF. But they will fail. If we had a grown-up newspaper, it would tell us that, and then write an intelligent editorial, perhaps telling us what might then be the consequences.

Even the BBC is doing a better job (above), telling us that "some very serious thinkers are starting to think the unthinkable". But even that is "bubble speak". What is about to happen was always going to happen - the really "serious thinkers" were on to it years ago.

It was predictable and predicted. The "colleagues" fudged the euro launch, they fudged the figures to get Greece on board, and now we are all going to pay the price. As yet, there is no one on this planet who can tell us with any confidence what that might be. The only certainly is that Greece is going to fail - and it is going to take the euro with it.

COMMENT THREAD

Bog off

"It's some crack that we have a country in recession and virtually bankrupt but the authorities can afford to put a plane in the sky to spy on turf cutters," says Michael Fitzmaurice, breaking apart a piece of the black, natural fuel in his hands.

"During the cutting season we have had helicopters as well as planes, and we have had officials in vans scouting across the boglands to stop us doing what our ancestors did for centuries. And it's all because they are afraid that the EU will fine Ireland if turf cutting continues".

And, indeed they are. The EU has designated natural bogs as Special Area of Conservation and has ruled that no more turf cutting can take place there in order to preserve the bogs. But now that EU Commission claims it has aerial photos suggesting raised bogs in the Midlands are still being harvested for peat despite the ban.

But what the politicians have agreed between themselves, on the holy ground of Brussels – which isn't even organised enough to provide its own government - now has the Paddy plods scouring the country to put down the bog trotters.

Even the Brits, at their very worst, never attempted this. Another of the refusniks, Tom Gibney, has the deeds to this bog going back to British rule in 1896 framed in glass on my wall at home. "It still has the UK crown on the top of the document", he says, "and now that we are supposedly an independent country I am not giving it up and the right to cut a small piece of it for turf".

Whatever gave Gibney the idea that Ireland is an independent country is anyone's guess, but maybe he has been listening to too many politicians who, in between their Gadarene rush to dump powers in the hands of EU bureaucrats, are only too keen to perpetuate the fantasy that nothing much has changed.

So we end up with the battle of the bogs, the weapon of choice a "reasoned opinion" from Brussels, which has the plods scouring the countryside in helicopters to hunt down the perpetrators ... a bog standard response for an occupied country, one supposes. Sooner or later, though, someone is going to have to tell them to bog off.

COMMENT THREAD

They really are all the same

I guess that if it was put to a public vote, a clear majority would be opposed to EU defence integration. But with the Tories forging ahead at high speed, we now have Labour shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy on exactly the same tack. What we think really is not important.

Britain's overstretched armed forces should be much more integrated with those of other European nations to help cut costs and bolster Nato, Murphy is arguing. He says that that greater European defence co-operation is "critical", especially in the procurement of new weapons and hardware, as well as in training.

The idea of "co-operation" is, of course, fatuous – and about as productive as sitting down with an adult tiger and discussing lunch. But all our politicians seem to dwell on this fantasy, presumably because they can't cope with the reality of what they are really proposing.

It goes without saying that this is an agenda that the Lib-dims fully support, so once again we see the three main parties partaking of common receptacle micturition (CRM). As always, this makes a mockery of any idea of democracy. You can vote for any party you like, but don't expect any difference. Three parties – one policy. You know it makes sense.

COMMENT THREAD

A repentant sinner?

I've never really gone with this Luke 15-7 stuff. Why should the "repentant sinner" get all the glory, when the ninety-nine "righteous men" got it right first time?

So it is with the applause for the new "hero" on the street, the wandering fool otherwise known as Steve Hilton who, according to The Mail, is now backing Tory calls for Britain to pull out of the European Union.

The Downing Street "director of strategy" is said to have swung behind moves for the UK to go it alone after "being shocked to discover how much sovereignty has switched from Westminster to Brussels".

We also learn that his "growing frustration" with the EU is one of the reasons he has been involved in heated exchanges in No 10 which have fuelled reports that he may walk out in protest at the government's failure to press ahead with radical reforms to the NHS, Whitehall and other institutions.

Here, one really does have to ask what sort of a "director of strategy" for a political party is "shocked" by the degree of penetration by the EU into the affairs of the UK. If he wasn't already aware of that, then he's been taking money under false pretences.

But there is an interesting point here. We often assume that the bubble-dwellers are pushing the EU agenda knowingly, with malice of forethought. It is difficult to appreciate quite how pig-ignorant these people really are. Now, though, we have what appears to be a graphic confirmation – the idiot child is "shocked" after finding out something he should already have known.

Before we get over-excited about this "repentant sinner" therefore, one needs to step back and look at what the Hilton is said to be shocked about – namely "how much sovereignty has switched from Westminster to Brussels". Now, thirty-five years ago, we would have rejoiced in such a convert to the cause. More than three decades on, though, the thinking and understanding has moved on.

As with the great discovery that "Soylent Green is people!", we have learned that the European Union is an integral part of the British government, and the British government is an integral part of the EU. So much are they one and the same thing that one is provoked into crying: "The EU is our government".

On that basis, no more can a British government pull out of the EU than can Cameron extract his brain from his own cranium, assuming that is where he keeps it. The EU and the UK government are one and the same, indivisible parts of the one. The issue therefore – as we have long recognised – is no longer that we should seek to withdraw from the EU. We can no longer do this. One might say, you can take Britain out of the EU, but you cannot take the EU out of Britain.

Thus, the real objective is one of regime change. We have to take down the current government, revisit the constitutional settlement and rebuild an entirely new one. And yes, we are talking revolution. The only question is whether it is going to be peaceful or violent. But it is going to happen - simply because it has to.

Little dimwits like Hilton, though, are so far behind the curve that they are not even in the game. From his position at the centre of the bubble, doubtless he feels he is "the man", but he knows nothing. And that is why, whenever there is fundamental change in progress, it comes from outside. The bubble-dwellers will be the last to know. Give Hilton another thirty-five years, and he might just have caught up. But, by then, the game will be over.

He and his likes won't even have seen it coming.

COMMENT THREAD

It would be a mercy

There's only one suicide I would cheerfully assist, writes Peter Hitchens. If the Tory Party wants to go to Zurich and end it all, I will accompany it, hold its hand, help it swallow a cocktail of poison, refuse its pleas for water at the last moment (for its own good, of course) and listen to its death gurgles. It would be a mercy.

If he needs any assistance, he only has to ask.

COMMENT THREAD

A threat to our security

If Carlsberg did a defence blog, this would be it ... currently narrating the latest in the tale of the Nimrod MR4, and how the slow, greasy Fox is lying through his rotting teeth. As one of his commenter puts it: "Here we have prima facia evidence that the biggest threat to the security of this country is our own Government and the MoD".

In my opening epigram in Ministry of Defeat, I use the apocryphal tale of the officer walking down Whitehall and asking for directions to the MoD. He knows roughly where it is, so when he hails a passer-by, he simply asks: "Which side is the Ministry of Defence on?" The reply comes: "Ours, I hope".

In the book, I remark that, in southern Iraq in 2003, that hope was not fulfilled. But it would have been surprising is it was ... or ever was. We win wars and defend our territories in spite of, and not because of, the politico-military establishment represented by the MoD.

But it is not so much that they are on the "other" side, as their own. This sub-set of the wider "establishment" is primarily on its own side ... its primary concern being Selznik's famous beast, "self maintenance". And, as the Friedmans once observed, you would be foolish to expect anything else.

But we see that reality, naked in tooth and claw when another commenter observes that, "if every word spoken about Nimrod by the government was complete horse crap, then so what?" At worst for the government, he says, this (the Nimrod debacle) would end up as a ten minute segment on Newsnight. He concludes: "The general public doesn't care, and has been largely unaware of Nimrod in any form - no electoral damage, no problem".

Therein lies our problem. The ideal constitutional settlement would comprise a system where the institutional self-maintenance needs of the government would coincide with those of its electorate. Thus, in order to survive, it would have to respond its needs. Where – as is the case, so aptly pointed out by Wittering for Witney – there is a divergence, the needs (and concerns) of the electorate must be ignored.

The Nimrod saga illustrates this in spades. In the days to come therefore, perhaps whimsically, the Nimrod MR4 might become a symbol of the UK resistance movement, the one that is taking its first, faltering steps towards emergence.

It will have to join the queue though. I have in my possession a tie, embroidered on which is the silhouette of a Sunderland – another maritime surveillance aircraft (pictured). Representing the home town of the Metric Martyrs, wearing that tie is a small, subtle gesture of defiance. And that is where the road to freedom starts – one small step ...

COMMENT THREAD

Greenpeace in our time

The joke is too good to miss, as Booker picks up on the IPCC "Greenpeace" controversy – or should we be calling it "Greengate". And Josh has risen to the occasion, putting Pachauri in same frame as Chamberlain, waving his piece of paper and declaring "Greenpeace in our time".

That basic issues are well covered, but Booker then focuses on the "even greater scandal" - the astonishingly one-sided nature of the rest of the report, which reads less like a scientific document and more like a propaganda puff for the world's renewable industries.

But, of course, that is precisely what it is – the IPCC being a body which masquerades as a scientific institution in order to promulgate an agenda which keeps its paymasters happy.

Their infatuation with the chimera of wind power ranks alongside the creation of the collapsing euro as one of the supreme follies of our age, which makes it a pure delight that Pachauri's "piece of paper" should coincide with those warnings from an array of US scientists that the current dramatic decline in solar activity might herald the approach of a "mini-ice age".

But, says Booker, as the great global warming scare continues to fade away, the real problem is that our politicians have so much collective ego invested in this delusion that, even when hell freezes over, they will still find it impossible to admit they got it wrong.

Unfortunately, hell freezing over is a downstream event. Currently, as long as the IPCC can keep the international caucus well supplied with reams of printed matter which the politicians can wave in the air, Pachauri will stay in favour and the bird choppers will keep turning – on the occasions when there is useable wind.

For the moment, then, the politicians see no need to change. Why should they? They have the power, and our money. There is doubtless another piece of paper on the horizon to keep us whingeing, and thus preoccupied, which ensures we will achieve little else.

No wonder Pachauri always seems to have a silly grin on his visage.

COMMENT THREAD

Klepturition 6

It is possible that I might have made an observation of this nature before, but in my view no one is worth this sort of money, especially someone on the payroll of a public utility.

One has to say that, should one happen upon this man about to be ripped apart by an riotous crowd and it was within one's power to save him, the distinct likelihood is that inaction would rule the day.

KLEPTURITION THREAD

A nosedive of morale

Cameron's drive to reduce the size of the Armed Forces, even to the extent that he is forcing Service chiefs to call for redundancies, is undoubtedly marking the final stages in the decline of the UK as a political power. It would be a fool, however, who did not expect this to have a knock-on effect within the Services, so the news from Thomas Harding that morale is at "rock bottom" comes as absolutely no surprise.

He tells us that this, together with concerns that the Army is in a "permanent state of decline" has led to twice as many people applying for redundancy as expected. They include several future battalion leaders and two officers singled out as potential generals. Six brigadiers have volunteered for redundancy and 48 majors, with an average of 16 years experience each, have asked to go.

The important thing here though is that we are not just talking about the over-paid and over-privileged officer corps throwing a hissy fit. The Army is expected to lose a substantial number of senior NCOs, and has also been inundated with applications from corporals, sergeants and staff sergeants.

This we picked up independently, a little time ago, when we learned that the trigger for departure was a tour in Afghanistan. Once they had experience the shambles, hardship and danger of that theatre – with no obvious reason why they should – few are willing to repeat it. Now, so desperately short of junior NCOs are some units that soldiers only a few months out of training are being promoted.

Whatever the MoD and government propaganda might proclaim, we are fully aware that the official accounts are biased and incomplete, on top of which the Army is haunted by its institutional memory of failure in Iraq.

Cynicism has thus become a dominant sentiment and there is a massive sense of the futility of the Afghan operation, Furthermore, the failure of the Army to come to terms with its experience in that theatre has carried over into Afghanistan.

We are thus seeing an institution which has lost faith in itself, the result being dangerous haemorrhage, ending up with the ranks populated by children, as the older, more seasoned troops leave, commanded by a higher proportion of the inexperienced, the incompetent and disillusioned.

Military historians will undoubtedly be able to tell us things have been worse – and the inter-war period when disarmament was the vogue, must have been pretty dispiriting. Nevertheless, when the Army chiefs asks for 25 colonels to volunteer for redundancy and receives 52 applications, it must be agreed that the situation is dire.

One wonders, though, whether in the short to medium term the situation it recoverable, and whether indeed there is any serious political will to make any improvements. One cannot help but feel that the people masquerading as our leaders are content with the way things are developing, and will be most happy when our Army looks like the picture above.

COMMENT THREAD

Revolution on hold?

In the first three months of this year 15,450 families were evicted from their homes in Spain over failure to meet mortgage repayments – 36 percent more than the same period of 2010. But there should have been one more family, except that action was blocked by a "flash demonstration" - an intriguing idea and a tactic which outflanks the police. It must surely keep them on edge.

But it is also obvious that the traditional demonstration is alive and kicking in Spain, with reports this week of about 2,000 demonstrators clashing with police outside the regional parliament in Barcelona. There were 36 injuries claimed.

Some politicians could only reach Catalonia's parliament using police helicopters. Scuffles broke out when police pushed back protesters so other lawmakers arriving on foot could get in. The politicians were heckled and at least two were sprayed with paint.

But what is particularly interesting is how in Australia, demonstrations are being planned against the CO2 tax, as opposed to Canada, where they seem to be having hockey riots.

By and large, it seems, the wrong people are demonstrating about the wrong things, even in New York where "tens of thousands" of New York City public employees, teachers, private sector workers and students joined protests against "impending budget cuts, mass layoffs and rising unemployment".

Exactly the same dynamic is being seen in Hungary, where thousands of Hungarians, some dressed as clowns, protested this week against government moves to roll back early retirement benefits for the armed forces, police and firefighters and abolish the system of negotiating with unions.

Nothing of this, though, has a revolutionary feel about it. Mostly, we are seeing self-interested public sector groups attempting to protect their own privileges and income. Only the demonstrations in Australia really stand out – seeking to block a new tax rather than maintaining existing government spending, although the Saudi women drivers embody more than a hint of rebellion, where getting a traffic ticket becomes a revolutionary act.

If you want real rebellion, though, go to Syria - were the costs are high, as Syrian troops shoot dead 16 protesters. Since the protests erupted in mid-March, President Bashar Assad has unleashed the military to crush street demonstrations. Human rights activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained.

Developed western countries, though, seem to have lost the art of truly political protest, the people seemingly more interested in their own well-being than any specific points of principle. Unrest, therefore, is unfocused, predictable and lacking widespread popular appeal. If there is revolution in the making, it is not yet apparent in the streets. As yet, it appears to be on hold.

COMMENT THREAD