A classic non-answer

Following up the "constitutional concept" lie, Tory MP Ann Winterton asked the foreign secretary, in a written parliamentary question, to define the terms "constitutional concept" and "constitutional treaty". Europe Minister Jim Murphy replied as follows:

As the then Prime Minister (right hon. Tony Blair) set out in his statement to Parliament on 25 June, the Reform treaty will differ fundamentally from the Constitutional treaty in both form and substance.

The Reform treaty rejects the Constitutional treaty approach. The mandate for the Reform treaty agreed by the European Council states clearly: "The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called 'Constitution', is abandoned."

This is a classic non-answer. And not only does Murphy not answer the question, he offers the unsolicited assertion that, "the Reform treaty will differ fundamentally from the Constitutional treaty in both form and substance."

Technically, that might be true, since the one amends the existing treaties while the other replaces and adds to them. But the existing treaties, as amended by the "reform" treaty, will be fundamentally the same as the constitutional treaty, "in both form and substance".

It's how you tell 'em, I guess, but they really do not want to answer that question.

COMMENT THREAD

They are all so enigmatic

I think one can assume, unless there is evidence to the contrary, that western commentators are not going to understand what is going on in Russia. The number of arguments I recall having about Putin when he first came to power with people who now fall over themselves to tell us that, of course, the man is an authoritarian ex-KGB colonel, who is taking Russia back somewhere or other. At the time they insisted that he was merely introducing order after the chaos of the Yeltsin years. Oh and getting rid of the unpopular oligarchs. What he was actually doing is putting his own oligarchs into place.

As it happens, President Putin is not yearning for the Soviet Union, despite the fact that he had served in the KGB, spending much of his career in East Germany, working with the Stasi. He did once say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century and he has made quite sure that attempts to find out and discuss details of Soviet history have met as many obstacles as possible.

Largely, that is working on the good old Russian principle that the less people know the quieter they will be. Actually, it does not always work as numerous rebellions throughout that country’s history have shown but it is worth a try.

Interestingly enough, during the great war of the Estonian bronze soldier that we followed quite closely on this blog, it was Russian nationalism and Russian patriotism that was brought to the fore both in Estonia and in Russia by the young members of Nashi. There was little emphasis on Soviet emblems and, indeed, as soon as some members of the Communist Party in Estonia tried to introduce them, Russian support went quiet.

The recently described summer camp for members of Nashi, may have reminded people of the old Komsomol events (with a little more emphasis on marriage and child-bearing) but the symbolism was that of new Russia – strong, authoritarian, determined to destroy its enemies inside and outside the country.

The boys and girls at the camp came away, if not married or about to be married, at least certain that the likes of Gary Kasparov were fascists who are determined to destroy the country.

None of this is particularly surprising and neither is the reaction of western commentators. Most of them find it impossible to understand even what the Soviet dissidents were or are about.

Some, like the much missed Andrei Sakharov, were easy to understand – they spoke the language of freedom and democratic politics. Others are a little more enigmatic. I shall not tackle the problem of Vladimir Bukovsky yet again except to point out that his assumption that having been brought up in the Soviet Union he can understand everything in the entire world better than anybody else (an assumption that is shared by a number of Russians, dissident or otherwise) is not particularly helpful.

His extraordinary theories about the European Union, based on next to no knowledge, have, unfortunately, been picked up by too many eurosceptics and repeated as gospel truth. Easier than actually finding out some facts and thinking things through, I suppose.

Now it is the GOM of Soviet dissidence, Alexander Solzhenitsyn himself, who is causing consternation. Well, actually, he has always caused consternation, not least among a large number of Russians who dislike his nationalist authoritarian views. Many have accused him of anti-semitism but that is a hard one to discuss without detailed quotations.

I have to declare an interest. I have never thought Solzhenitsyn to be a great or even particularly good writer. His first published work, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” was extremely good largely because it was heavily edited by Alexander Tvardovsky, who was then in charge of the journal Novy Mir. Since then, I believe, Solzhenitsyn insisted on publishing the lengthy original version but I have not come across anyone who has read it.

His other novels I have found largely unreadable and gave up on The Red Circle sequence somewhere around page 5 of the first book, “August 1914”. Naturally, I read “Gulag Archipelago” from cover to cover, all three volumes, while despairing of the style and lack of co-ordination.

Still and all, the man was a symbol of the fight against the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, one needs to go beyond that and look at what he has said and at how he has behaved. This, presumably, is what Flemming Rose has not done. Otherwise, he would not be quite so surprised by the fact that Solzhenitsyn has expressed his support (not for the first time, incidentally) for President Putin, accepting a state prize from him, something that he always refused from Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

In an interview with Der Spiegel Solzhenitsyn, now 88 but that is irrelevant, explained that he could accept this prize as he was nominated by a committee of experts for his achievements in studying the Russian experience in the twentieth century. In any case, Putin may have been a KGB colonel but he was not a bad chap really – never ran a labour camp or conducted any investigations. What on earth did he do, one asks oneself.

Solzhenitsyn sees nothing wrong with Russia as it is developing now, despite distinctly Soviet overtones in some of the developments. The important point is that Russia is, once again, a strong country, not the weakling it seemed at the end of the Cold War and for fifteen years afterwards. It is a country that Europe and the United States have to take into account, says the writer happily, and for whose favours they have to bid in order to secure an alliance.

Whether, given past and present experience, that alliance is worth anything, is another matter and one that Alexander Isayevich prefers not to discuss. This is Russia. How can one criticize it? It is not like other lands.

Sad but true: the leopard does not change his spots. Solzhenitsyn’s dislike and distrust of the West, his complete ignorance and disdain for the country that took him in and gave him everything he wanted, his authoritarian nationalism have not changed. Neither has his inability to understand what is really going on.

Shortly before the disintegration of the Soviet Union he wrote a pamphlet in which he discussed the future. He was wrong on almost every count, including his certainty that Ukraine and Russia will stay together because they are brothers under the skin. It did not happen and that must be the wicked West’s fault.

The East European countries, who, Solzhenitsyn wrote, were living off the Soviet Union (the precise opposite of the truth) are not doing badly at all without big brother to direct them. That, too, must be the wicked West’s fault.

But we shall show them. As Vladimir Putin so Alexander Solzhenitsyn – they both display conviction that Russia has regained her economic and political clout.

If all these people spent less time shouting defiance and bullying all around them they might actually do something good for that country, whose economy depends on oil, gas and arms and whose political might is routinely defied by all those around her. Acknowledging that and planning for a way out, would be living by truth but it is a truth that is harder to acknowledge than to blame everything, including the Soviet system on somebody else.

COMMENT THREAD

Diversionary tactics

It is probably a coincidence that, in addition to The Times, there was a letter in The Telegraph today, both supporting in their own ways the EU's revamped constitution.

That cannot be taken for granted though, as it is now well known that the Europhiles harnessed the letter pages of the national newspapers (and particularly The Times in support of Britain's entry into the EEC).

Anyhow, the Telegraph letter is from MEP Hans-Gert Poettering, now president of the EU parliament and formerly president of the EPP Group, of which the Conservatives are still members.

Poettering is also writing to take the newspaper to task, this time over an article which reported him as saying that the EU's new "reform" treaty is in essence a repackaged European constitution the implication of which, Poettering avers, is that the "Government in London" (he does not call it the British government) has engaged in some kind of "fraud" against the British public.

However, while he admits that "a great deal of what was best in the original draft constitution has been retained," he claims that "the situation in the United Kingdom is quite different to that in the other 26 member states." The new treaty, he argues, involves a de facto British opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as a much wider British exemption in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) than previously conceded.

He thus concludes that, since making the Charter legally binding and extending community competence to JHA were two of the most important features of the original constitution, the deal struck by Tony Blair in June means that - for better or worse - much of its substance will simply not apply in Britain.

So, now we see a European politician supporting the UK government line that the treaty is not as bad as it is made out, focusing on Blair's infamous opt-outs. But, since these are largely a red herring – and the core of the treaty-to be is the changes to the institutional structures – then the letter is nothing other than another diversionary tactic.

Neither Poettering nor any of the other Euros will ever address the substantive points and will always play around at the margins hoping that, if they do not refer to them, no one else will. And, so far, he is largely right in his choice of tactics.

COMMENT THREAD

The acid test

In the event that Gordon Brown calls a snap election in October, The Telegraph is telling us that Cameron will make an EU referendum a key general election issue, giving a commitment to hold a referendum on the treaty.

The relevance of this relies on unattributed claims from "Labour MPs", who are saying that Brown had pencilled in 25 October as a possible date for an early general election, aimed specifically to catch the Tories off guard. However, the paper also adds that next May is seen as a more likely option if Labour remains well ahead in the opinion polls – although that does seem unlikely.

Nevertheless, this raises an intriguing possibility that Brown could be suckering Cameron, allowing him to commit to a referendum as a central plank of his election campaign, only to cut the ground from under his feet by conceding a referendum, as did Blair in 1997 on the euro and in 2004 on the constitution.

That much was raised by The Independent yesterday, and by Political Betting which speculates that such a move could undermine Cameron's attempts to unify an increasingly fractious Party.

All of this can, of course, be dismissed as political fluff, except that Party strategists from both sides will have to consider such issues in their planning for the Party conferences in late September and October.

Either way the outcome will be fascinating as it will give some clue as to Gordon Brown’s true commitment to the European Union – whether he will use the treaty for domestic political gain or whether he will sacrifice the advantage to appease the "colleagues". In many ways, though, the referendum issue could prove the acid test for both leaders.

COMMENT THREAD

I am putting this book on my list

Not only that but I am going to suggest that it be made compulsory reading for every fatheaded undergraduate and academic, not to mention organizers of art exhibitions. How can you resist a book called "Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him".

Humberto Fontova, who has already written about Cuba under Fidel Castro, the author of this extremely useful tome, has given a long interview on the subject to CNS News, which has published the first half of it.

To sum up briefly: Fontova describes Che as Castro's Himmler, a psychopathic mass-murderer and trigger-happy executioner, trained by the Soviet military intelligence, the GRU. Eventually, he proved to be too much even for Castro who packed him off to South America, where he proceeded to create mayhem and murder many more people. It seems he was particularly fond of killing young boys.

Interestingly, when captured in Bolivia he showed himself to be an arrant coward. Far from facing the enemy courageously, he pleaded desperately for his life.

The fifth column

You would not think, from the opening paragraph in its statement of principles, that the Henry Jackson Society would be an overtly Europhile organisation.

However, appearances can be deceptive as up pops James Rogers, Director of Operations of the said society, with a strongly Europhile letter in today's Times.

Headed "EU treaty benefits", Rogers takes to task the paper's Saturday leader, which complained of the loss of sovereignty if the revamped EU constitution goes ahead.

He starts with the old canard, that we member states have "pooled" rather than "lost" sovereignty, an assertion that is so easily countered that you wonder why he bothers. Simply, sovereignty is like virginity – you either have it or you don't.

Nevertheless, Rogers has bigger fish to fry, posing "the bigger question" of whether Britain can retain sovereignty without the reform treaty – or indeed the European Union – in the years ahead. Britain's power and authority in the world, he writes:

… is going to decline in the coming years, as an expansive China, a growing India, an increasingly wild and truculent Russia and a myriad of regional powers assert themselves on the world stage. And as the United States becomes more concerned with Asian politics and security, Europeans are likely to be left on their own.

With the stage thus set, he then goes for the killer point:

As a leading member state, Britain should be actively bolstering European Union military power and its ability to represent our interests in the wider world. By providing some of the instruments and institutions necessary to increase our leverage in foreign countries, the reform treaty will enhance the security and sovereignty of all Europeans, thereby producing a better environment for domestic cohesion and the generation of economic wealth.

This, of course, is the "run to mother Europe" ploy – the vision of Britain abandoned by the USA, so weak and isolated that its only option is to accept the warm embrace of the European Union. Only within the Union will it be able to deal with vicissitudes of the modern world and counter the threats from all those nasty countries out there, whence we are able to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

Needless to say, the likes of Rogers never actually deal with the detail of the treaties and the reality of the European Union. So warm and comforting is their vision that accepting the treaty-to-be is but a small price to pay.

But the really interesting thing is the list of Mr Rogers's supporters in the Henry Jackson Society. They include Michael Ancram MP, Gerard Baker, Assistant Editor of The Times Prof. Vernon Bogdanor, Paul Cornish Carrington, Professor of International Security, Chatham House, Michael Gove, Denis MacShane and Gisela Stuart.

And the organisation they support considers that the world's most powerful democracies, the United States and the European Union (yes, that's what it says) – under British leadership – must shape the world more actively by intervention and example.

If this isn't a fifth column, then it is a very good imitation.

COMMENT THREAD

Own goals galore

It was very nearly two years ago that we wrote a long piece about the importance of avoiding collateral damage from air strikes.

This was followed by several more pieces, most recently this one, in which we drew attention to a report published on 18 February 2004 which set out the case for more discrimination in the use of air power, noting that civilian casualties were an important tool in the propaganda war.

And here we are again, with The Financial Times and others reporting Nato plans to use "smaller bombs" in Afghanistan as part of a change in tactics aimed at stemming a rise in civilian casualties that threatens to undermine support in the fight against the Taliban.

Mounting civilian casualties have been causing considerable concern in this theatre occasioned in part by the reliance by Nato forces on air power to make up for shortages of troops on the ground, and lack of suitable armour.

Another major factor has been a change in tactics used by the Taliban, who have been deliberately increasing civilian casualties by hiding among Afghan villagers and sometimes holding them in their bases against their will.

The result, according to aid agencies, has been the death of at least 230 Afghan civilians, killed by western troops this year – and the rate has been increasing. In 2006 the number of civilians killed by both sides was 700-1,000, the highest figure since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001.

Needless to say, the figures themselves are not agreed, but the very fact that a considerable number of civilian deaths have been caused by Nato air strikes is ammunition enough for the Taliban propaganda machine, to be seized upon by their fellow travellers and anti-war activists.

What is troubling though is that, even without the change in Taliban tactics, collateral damage (i.e., killing civilians) has always been an issue yet, only now, does there seem to be a serious effort to do something about it.

In the first piece we published on this issue, we wrote a rather glowing (and perhaps over-optimistic) account of how technology was being developed to enable more precise targeting which, with the use of smaller warheads, could allow combatants to be killed without harming those in the vicinity.

Yet, from the current reports on the issue, we are reminded that the most frequently used ordnance are 1000lb bombs (pictured), the effect of which is illustrated in the photograph above (from an MoD publicity still of exercises in Poland). The explosion is from a single 1000lb bomb, delivered by a Harrier, exactly analogous to the situation in Afghanistan.

With that size of explosion, it is no wonder that collateral damage is being caused but, even with this, Nato is only talking about using 500lb bombs which, although better, are still fearsome weapons to be used in areas where civilians might be present.

However, it is easy for this blog to pontificate about what Nato should or should not be doing in Afghanistan, except that we were raising this issue two years ago, and others – with greater authority – were doing it much earlier.

When one takes on board also the failure of our own MoD to minimise avoidable deaths amongst our own troops, you really do wonder about the competence of our own government and the military in prosecuting this war.

Time and time again, we have written about the powerful, debilitating effect of propaganda on the ability of western powers to fight low-level wars, the thesis we are promoting being common sense and well known. Despite this, our people continue to score what amount to "own goals", with what appear to be very little (or tardy) understanding of the issues involved.

As I wrote in that other piece, "this, we cannot afford". And indeed we cannot. Our government and the military, needs to raise its game.

COMMENT THREAD

Irish troubles

It is perhaps ironic that, on the eve of the formal termination of Operation Banner – the military operation in Northern Ireland - fresh troubles of an entirely different kind are about to break out in Ireland proper.

These, according to a Reuters report, are to do with the EU's "reform" treaty, which must be subject to a referendum before it can be ratified in Ireland. And Irish Europe minister, Dick Roche, is now conceding that a negative vote is "a real possibility".

The Irish, of course, have been there before, with their rejection in 2001 of the Nice Treaty, and the stitch-up in 2002 when they were made to repeat the exercise. That second poll has left a legacy of distrust, which is still fresh in the memory of many Eurosceptics.

It is also clearly to the forefront of Roche's mind, who had told Reuters that, "Anyone that thinks this referendum will be a walkover will be deluding themselves. It will have to be a very strong mobilisation of the 'Yes' vote - more Nice II and not Nice I where people were taken for granted."

In terms of statistics, the Irish voting pattern was quite interesting. In 2001, the "Yes" vote surged from 453,000 in the first poll to 906,000 in the second after the government managed to mobilise voters to turn out in much larger numbers. Yet the "No" vote also rose, from 529,000 in the first poll to 534,000 in the second, indicating a solid underlay of public opposition to European initiatives.

This time round, there is also at considerable hostility to the EU among Irish farmers and dissatisfaction in some of the business community. The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA), says Reuters are hostile to world trade talks involving the EU and have indicated that they will vote "No" if there is no improvement in the EU's position, while many "business bosses" are concerned over the EU's meddling in corporate tax.

So far has the farming industry deteriorated that the IFA, which represents nearly 100,000 farmers, could even end up campaigning for a "No" vote, which could make the difference between a "Yes" and a "No".

Roche adds that this referendum "will require all the political parties, trade unions and business leaders who believe in this treaty to get behind it," yet Irish trades unions had already indicated their hostility to the EU constitution and may yet fall behind the "No" campaign.

If they do, there will be supported by Eurosceptics from around Europe, who will be using the Irish contest as a proxy, fighting in Ireland because they are not allowed a referendum. Not for the first time, therefore, Ireland is set to take centre stage in the ongoing drama of European political integration.

COMMENT THREAD

The "constitutional concept…" lie

Former Europe minister Keith Vaz is in print today in The Daily Telegraph letters column, arguing that the new "reform" treaty is fundamentally in British and European interests.

He then avers that there is "no need for a referendum on a text that had been directed to abandon the constitutional concept, and meets British demands on foreign policy, tax and the judicial system."

It is interesting how so many of the EU groupies are relying on the weasel-worded "constitutional concept… is abandoned" defence of their sleight of hand and doubly so that they all manage to sing to the same hymn sheet.

As you might have expected, it was the BBC that was one of the first to confuse the term “constitutional concept” with the constitution. This it did as early as 20 June when it noted that Merkel's report to the European Council included the words, the "constitutional concept... is abandoned", which it duly reported under the headline, "EU to drop idea of constitution".

Since then, we have seen Tony Blair, David Milliband, Jim Murphy, Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and now Keith Vaz all relying on the same formula.

What is surprising (why am I surprised?) is the slowness of the Eurosceptic community to pick on this (quite clearly) deliberate confusion, and the failure of the Tories to address in Parliament and at other venues.

Pedantry it might seem, but since the "constitutional concept... is abandoned" lie has developed as one of the central planks on which the Labour government is basing its case for refusing a referendum, it seems logical that attempts should be made to debunk it.

COMMENT THREAD

Going private

If Gordon Brown refuses to hold an EU referendum, the Tories might just back a privately funded poll. That is from William Hague via The Guardian who is looking at an initiative by former minister Lord Young of Graffham.

If Daniel Hannan is right, though, Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, could also call a referendum on the revamped EU constitution.

The SNP, he says, like all the other parties, fought the last election arguing that the EU constitution should not come into effect without a referendum. Salmond could call such a referendum in Scotland, a move that would almost certainly force Brown to do the same on a UK basis.

Sticking to his manifesto promise would differentiate Salmond pleasingly from the oath-breaking Mr Brown, and would allow his voters a surrogate vote on sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the British blogosphere is beginning to stir, with three bloggers (in addition to Hannan) carrying pro-referendum stories yesterday: Critical faculty dojo, Martin Curtis and Rachel Joyce. The day before, we saw Curly’s Corner Shop, the The Purple Scorpion and Pedestrian Infidel.

Others have included The Huntsman, Bill Cameron, Common Sense 4 Britain, the Adam Smith Institute, Devil’s Kitchen and, of course, England Expects plus the excellent Tangled Web.

Considering how significant a role the internet played in the Dutch and French referendums, it is vital that the British blogosphere pulls its weight and it is good to see that it is beginning to mobilise. Gordon Brown may not be aware of the power of blogs but it looks as though he is about to find out.

COMMENT THREAD

Cynicism and modernization

From the moment we all became aware of the Tory jaunt to Rwanda, some of us have been engaged in furious altercations about it. Inevitably, whenever I raised such questions as what can one actually build in two weeks and do these people have any building skills, I was told that I was a cynic, as if that were the worst kind of accusation in politics.

As it happens, I do have my fair share of cynicism, much of it to do with politicians and their shenanigans. It does not seem to me to be particularly sensible to go around pretending to be like the mushy Madeleine Bassett created by the incomparable P. G. Wodehouse, who was given to pronouncements on the subject of stars being God’s daisy chain and babies being born every time a fairy blew its wee nose. She was, needless to say, an idealist, who would not even understand cynicism, let alone experience it, and a considerable pain in the neck to all those around her, especially Bertie Wooster.

There is a longish rant about the real cynics of the Rwanda jaunt and the non-modernization of Dave Cameron's Conservative Party here.

COMMENT THREAD

Government begins at home

If one concedes that there has been an element of climatic warming – an entirely natural cyclical phenomenon that alternates with cooling – then it is also entirely reasonable to postulate that such a change will bring with it consequences. Those include, it has been argued, the extreme weather events that have brought with them the extensive flooding in Yorkshire and, latterly, Gloucestershire and surrounding areas.

With or without warming, though, extreme weather events are a fact of life. And what is emerging from the extensive press coverage over the last few days (not least here), is how ill-prepared the public authorities have been to deal with the events of past weeks.

Enter Booker is his column, who picks up on the warning by Baroness Young, head of the Environment Agency, that we all face soaring water bills to pay for the deficiencies in "infrastructure" brought to light by the recent floods.

As most of us are aware, writes Booker, water bills have already been soaring in recent years but, by far the greater part of that money, has been spent, not on repairing pipes and drains, to avoid floods and provide us with extra water, but on complying with three over-the-top EU directives on water purification, which absorb time, energy and cost at all levels.

Booker's figure is based on the government admission extracted by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, which told us that EU water directives have so far cost us no less than £65 billion, leaving the water companies with only £14 billion to spend on infrastructure. And, says Booker (as indeed have we), anyone genuinely wanting to know why our water infrastructure and flood defences are in such poor shape, this is where they might start looking.

However, it is not only the money that us at issue, but the distortion of priorities and the diversion of attention and blame

It is these issues, perhaps, that have the most malign effect. Consider the amount of time spent on the EU agenda by national politicians, the Environment Agency, local authorities and all the other agencies which deal directly and indirectly with issues such as water supply, drainage and water treatment, and then think what the effect might have been if that resource and effort had been devoted strictly to national issues.

There can be no better example of that distortion of priorities than the recent commission policy paper "water scarcity and droughts" – to which Booker also refers.

For sure, in Southern Europe, this is (currently) a real problem. For us, last year, it was a problem – although the bigger problem was leakage and lack of investment in reservoirs. And that highlights the fact that, as far as the UK goes, there is no European problem. The problems we have need to be addressed at a national level and the only contribution of the EU is to diverst resources away from them.

Nor is this the only area that the EU has this effect. Whether it is transport, waste management, air purity, food hygiene, animal welfare, road safety – and a host of other issues – our priorities do not accord with those perceived as important by the EU. We should not be looking for "European" but national solutions.

There is the rub. If the treaty-to-be comes into effect, the situation gets immeasurably worse. Our own government and those of the member states become even further integrated into the maw of the Union and the national perspective will be relegated further down the line.

Water, therefore, provides the object lesson which we need to re-learn: government begins at home.

COMMENT THREAD

It certainly isn't going away

No less than five pieces in The Sunday Telegraph today: a front page story, a background piece, a robust opinion piece from Gisela Stuart, a leader and Booker.

"One of Tony Blair's last acts was to renege on a promise and it is almost unbelievable that one of Gordon Brown's first has been to do the same," says Gisela Stuart . "There is still time for Gordon Brown to put this right."

It is not the lie that offends so much as the brazenness, adds the leader. When Gordon Brown claims that the EU's "Reform Treaty" is different from the rejected constitution, he is making a claim so risible that an eight-year-old would see through it.

And from Booker, we get:

Yet the more we examine this plan to hand over, irrevocably, all our remaining powers to govern ourselves to this new form of government, the more apt it seems that the final extinction of our parliamentary democracy should be rammed through on the basis of such a breathtakingly shameless lie.

On top of that, we get references in The Observer and The Sunday Times.

However much Brown may wish it to go away, the EU referendum is remaining firmly fixed in the media.

COMMENT THREAD

The Saturday "toy"

A Lynx Mk8, one of the Royal Navy display pair, taken at Teeside Airport this afternoon. The aircraft was returning from Sunderland where it had been performing at the beachside airshow.

COMMENT THREAD

That's the way to do it

Courtesy of Defencetalk this little snippet comes our way:

In Iraq, an MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle observed insurgents fire two mortar rounds then load the tube into the trunk of their vehicle before striking the target. The Predator then launched a Hellfire missile at the mortar team in the vehicle. The missile impacted the front of the car and it was destroyed.

The success of this missile strike highlights an issue we have been "banging on" about for some time, with miltiple posts (and here) written on and around this issue.

With technology such as the Predator available, there is very little excuse for tolerating the daily routine indirect fire attacks on British bases yet, recently, we have lost four servicemen to such attacks, one killed at Basra Palace and the other three at Basra Air Station.

The MoD is extremely reluctant to talk about force protection measures – except when it suits it - and while we accept that counter-measures are improving and will continue to improve, whatever is being done is not enough or fast enough.

Force protection is not an academic issue but central to the successful prosecution of a counter-insurgency operations. We remarked on this recently: the MoD and Army must begin to understand that the currency of counter-insurgency is soldiers' deaths. As we noted, "The more the casualty rate builds, the harder it is to sustain operations in the face of mounting public opposition."

These indirect fire deaths come firmly in the category of "avoidable deaths" – and neither is the mounting toll of injuries (many of them serious) at all acceptable. If Brown (and Browne) have any hopes of maintaining even the vestige of support for their operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, they must focus on this issue and deal with it. And Mr Predator shows the way.

COMMENT THREAD

It isn't going away

We are entering the "Bermuda Triangle" of the silly season, when political news dries up and, we predicted, coverage of the EU treaty-to-be would disappear. But it isn't so – not just yet.

The leading tabloid newspaper, The Sun carries the referendum in its leader, using the hook of the statement by former Labour minister, Frank Field, which we covered yesterday, while its sister paper, The Times, also offers a longish opinion piece.

There is just a glimmer of hope that the issue will run through what is laughingly called "the summer", ready for a rise in the tempo come the conference season starting in September. Perhaps on this, the media can see the weakness of Brown and scents blood.

COMMENT THREAD

Have these people no shame?

Contrary to some people’s opinion, it is not often that I get incandescent with anger. But the story of the Elders, chaired by Bishop Desmond Tutu, which I have posted about once, is one of those that get me into that state. I am told that I give good interviews on such occasions, so something useful comes out of the process.

This afternoon I recorded a brief interview on the subject with More4, from which they were going to pick one or, maybe, two comments. I don’t know which ones they picked but they were all absolutely furious.

What was it, they asked me, that I so disliked about it, the concept or the people involved. Both I said unequivocally, the concept being fatuous and a number of the people involved despicable.

Let us have a look at the concept. A number of past politicians of dubious record and some present tranzi activists are going to get together at the behest of Richard Branson, whose business, I should have thought, requires some attention at the moment, and Peter Gabriel, another fading rock musician.

The Elders will be independently funded by a group of "Founders", including Branson and Gabriel.

Desmond Tutu serves as the chair of The Elders—who will use their collective skills to catalyze peaceful resolutions to long-standing conflicts, articulate new approaches to global issues that are or may cause immense human suffering, and share wisdom by helping to connect voices all over the world. They will work together over the next several months to carefully consider which specific issues they will approach.

What could be more fatuous? These people have no wisdom to share as they are demonstrating by assuming that all global issues that cause immense human suffering can be solved by the same people. Even Edgar Wallace’s “Four Just Men” did not take anything like that on.

As it happens, I have an immediate suggestion for Bishop Desmond Tutu, ex-President Nelson Mandela and his wife, Graça Machel. There is this country, called Zimbabwe, right on your doorstep. Plenty of immense human suffering there. You have time to spare on world problems, which all just happen to be caused by the United States in President Mandela’s estimation? Well, how about spending some of it on that country on your doorstep?

Or if you think matters have gone too far there and one needs to nip problems in the bud and conflicts when they start brewing (as they did in Rwanda when former SecGen Kofi Annan refused to strengthen the UN contingent more than ten years ago), then how about South Africa?

There are numerous indications that the country is not having a good time and that time is going to get worse. Why not try to solve those problems now? An added advantage will be that you will not have to leave carbon footprints all over the world, which is undoubtedly a consideration for the Elders, as you are already there.

Of course, former SecGen Kofi (father of Kojo) Annan and former President “Jimmah” Carter will have to fly out to help you but that cannot be helped.

Well, said the interviewer, you don’t like the concept but it was based on the African idea of an Elders’ council. I think I came near to taking off into the stratosphere. Africa? I spluttered. Africa is hardly an example to the rest of the world politically or economically. Surely, we want Africa to become the rest of the world (well, some of it) not the rest of the world like Africa.

I am surprised, I added caustically, that they have not asked that African Elder, President Robert Mugabe to join the group. Now, there is a man who knows how to settle conflicts. Or what about former President Giscard d’Estaing, erstwhile best friend of Emperor Bokassa?

So much for the concept. Now, let us have a look at the members of this august organization: Nelson Mandela we have spoken about and Desmond Tutu. Then there will be, as I mentioned in the previous posting, former SecGen Kofi Annan, the man responsible for the Rwanda genocide and the Iraq oil-for-food scandal to mention but two of the best-known episodes in his life. Our readers can be assured that I mentioned both of them.

Former President Jimmy Carter, I said, is without any doubt the worst president the United States had in the twentieth century, bar none. Ah but, my interviewer said, he is a very good ex-President. I went back to being incandescent. As an ex-President, I said contemptuously, he certified a clearly fraudulent election in Venezuela as being absolutely free and fair. On top of everything else the man “achieved” he enabled Hugo Chávez. And let’s not even talk about his pronouncements about the Middle East.

Then there is the former Chinese Foreign Minister, Li Zhaoxing. To be fair to my young interviewer, she thought that very peculiar. Exactly how is a Chinese politician an independent person? As Foreign Minister, he represented one of the worst tyrannies in the world, where they arrest and torture people for meditating or writing journalism.

Oh and by the way he was “Deputy Director General and Director General of the Information Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs” when the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square and over the people who were sitting there. Another one who has a fair idea how to solve conflicts.

The rest of the Elders (Mary Robinson, Muhammad Yunus, Ela Bhatt and Gro Harlem Brundtland) are not quite so obnoxious though they are not all that attractive, being the usual bunch of tranzis, many of them, curiously enough also directors of the United Nations Foundation, one of the funders of this global caravan serai. Come to think of it, I wonder how much Gro Harlem Brundtland, the inevitable Scandinavian representative of political wisdom, had to do with Norway’s despicable behaviour over the funding of terrorists in the Middle East.

Well, there we are, ladies and gentlemen, another bunch of incompetent and worse tranzis, who will travel round the world, get themselves photographed in various picturesque places, preferably with lots of suffering people in the background, weeping crocodile tears, blaming America and/or Israel, then demanding that American sort out whatever problems has cropped up.

I ask again: have these people no shame?

COMMENT THREAD

Ratification woes

Funded by the EU commission and living on the same street in Brussels, the European Policy Centre (EPC) is something of a mouthpiece for the project, often flying kites on issues which the commission does not want to express directly. And the EPC is worried about losing the treaty-to-be through the ratification process which suggests, by proxy, the commission is also worried.

So it is that in a short report published today, Sara Hagemann, a Policy Analyst at the EPC, is articulating the fear that the "reform" treaty may be easier to get signed than it may be to ratify.

She does not anticipate problems in Germany, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Cyprus or Malta, as all should ratify with absolute or simple majorities in parliament but those which require two-thirds parliamentary majority are more potentially troublesome. Of those Austria and Finland will ratify, but there may be "complications" in Poland and (surprisingly)Belgium.

Even more problematic are the situations in France, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where three-fifths majorities in parliament are required, although Hagemann predicts that Sarkozy will be able to resist calls for a French referendum and that parliament will ratify the treaty.

But the real danger points are the UK, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Denmark. These are all under intense pressure to call referendums with the UK the biggest threat. She predicts that the result would be a "resounding 'No'" in the UK.

To neutralise the threats from the various quarters, Hagemann argues that there is "no time to lose" if "majorities in favour of the treaty in national parliaments and the wider public" are to be mobilised. Governments must launch a wider debate on the treaty now or face "potentially serious consequences". Leaving it until after the treaty is signed to launch a wider debate would be too little, too late, with potentially serious consequences.

She thus warns that a "carefully orchestrated" process is required to ensure the new treaty is ratified and comes into force, not least to counter criticisms that the entire deal is being "stitched up". Interestingly, she is also worried by the fact that the IGC is sovereign in deciding on the content, form and path of the new treaty, meaning that "the claim that the text is already 'closed and sealed' could be legally challenged."

Ultimately, though, Hagemann writes, "success or failure depends on whether any member state other than Ireland calls a referendum". If they do, it would be difficult for others to avoid following suit. Governments must thus recognise that the support of their parliaments and citizens cannot be taken for granted.

One cannot help but feel, however, that Hagemann is a little too late. When it comes to the "stitch-up", which is undoubtedly going on, the word is already out.

COMMENT THREAD

Will he ever die?

One by one all the truly evil villains of the twentieth century, which seemed to produce a more than average number of them, shuffle off this mortal coil. I have no wish to speculate as to what happens to them afterwards.

There is, however, one who is still around despite numerous and, unfortunately, exaggerated reports of his demise. I refer, of course, to Fidel Castro, the man who not quite single-handedly but with very little help, destroyed Cuba’s economy, reduced its people to absolute poverty, destroyed any political and cultural (except for the state-subsidized dance companies) life.

Oh yes, in case you are wondering, that famous health service so beloved by Michael Moore and numerous easily befuddled lefties in the West, who would not dream of using it, is so good that Castro himself in his recent illness, had doctors flown in from Spain.

Conditions in his country are so wonderful that anyone who can, escapes. Recently we had Cuban boxers defecting during the Pan-American Games (they must be among the most privileged sections of the population). Then there is the rarely published story of those doctors sent to Venezuela who are leaving for Colombia or the USA in droves.

For a year or so, all the Cubans have seen of their leader has been pictures, which frankly do not show him in the pink and his rambling articles in the Communist Party newspaper.

Yesterday, for the first time it was his brother Raúl who led the great celebration of the Cuban revolutionary take-over. Raúl was handed temporary power soon after last-year’s celebrations, when Fidel collapsed. It seems that he was suffering from various complications arising from diverticulitis. There were several operations only some of which were successful – possibly the ones conducted by the Spanish rather than Cuban doctors.

The temporary hand-over has become more permanent and Raúl has been talking openly of reforming the centralized Soviet-style agriculture, which has ensured that a potentially rich country has been unable to produce nearly enough food for itself or to produce anything at all to pay for the importation of food and that famous oil from Venezuela.

What keeps a number of people going is remittances sent back by their relatives in the United States, which Castro would like to crack down on but, perhaps, does not dare.

However, while Fidel is alive Raúl does not seem to be able to carry out any reforms. It is, of course possible that he is using Fidel’s possible existence as an excuse for his own lack of action. That would be a rather macabre development of the Soviet habit of talking of the long-dead Lenin as one who was still with them. Or, as Mayakovsky wrote: “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will go on living”. Same with Castro.

It seems that Raúl has lightened burdens a little, though only the International Herald Tribune could take this sort of thing seriously:

Since becoming acting president, Raúl Castro has twice offered to open negotiations with the United States to end a half-century of enmity and sanctions. He repeated that stand Thursday, noting that President George W. Bush would soon be leaving office "along with his erratic and dangerous administration."

"The new administration will have to decide whether it will maintain the absurd, illegal and failed policy against Cuba or if will accept the olive branch that we offered," he said.

There has been less harassment of dissidents and opponents of the government, it appears. While not actually promoting any new reforms

the younger Castro has allowed the importation of televisions and video players. He has told the police to let pirate taxis operate without interference. He has pledged to spend millions to refurbish hotels, marinas and golf courses. He even ordered one of the state newspapers to investigate the poor quality of service that state-controlled bakeries and other stores provide to people.

None of this is earth-shaking or is likely to lead to anything much except temporary cessation of grumbling.

But perhaps the most important step he has taken was to pay the debts the state owes to private farmers and to raise the prices the state pays for milk and meat. Ordinary Cubans still live on rations and cope with chronic shortages of staples like beef. Salaries average about $12 a month, and most people spend the three-quarters of their pay on food, according to a study by Armando Nova González, an economist at the Center for the study of the Cuban Economy.

"What a person makes is not enough to live on," said Jorge, a museum guard who asked his last name not be used because he feared persecution. "You have to resort to the black market to get along. No, not just to get along, to survive." He said he and his wife together make about $30 a month, just enough to support their family of four.

Then again, perhaps Raúl Castro can recall when Mikhail Gorbachev started fiddling a little bit with the Soviet system and how quickly that fell apart, sweeping away the CPSU and its First Secretary.

COMMENT THREAD

Time for opposition

With Brown's Labour Party soaring in the polls – enjoying a nine point lead over David Cameron's Conservative Party – even the staunchest of the Cameroons can no longer deny that "project Dave" is veering off the rails.

This is no mere "Brown bounce", but a decisive rejection of Cameron, who attracts a mere 27 percent approval rating as Conservative leader, compared with 43 percent in February.

But what stands out in the poll is the broad support for a referendum on the EU constitution, with 58 percent in favour with only 17 against (25 percent don't knows). Given that this issue is one of the very few where there is clear blue water between the opposing parties, the inference is obvious. Rather than avoiding "banging on about Europe", Cameron has everything to gain by pushing hard to achieve the referendum that the majority want.

That much is articulated in The Telegraph by Frank Field, minister for welfare reform in the Labour government from 1997-98. He writes that the EU leaders' attempt to foist a new constitution on their respective electorates offers both Gordon Brown and David Cameron their first real chance to impose their image on the politics of the post-Blair era.

Cameron, he adds, has found some of the right words to denounce the treaty, but has not seriously engaged the prime minister on this issue. He should snatch up the gauntlet of Brown teasing him with the prospect of an early election by declaring that, if an election was held during this year or next, he would commit a Cameron government to holding a referendum on the treaty.

For sure, as is already evident, Brown (and his acolytes) will mock Cameron, seeking to denigrate his new-found Euroscepticism

But the fact is that an EU referendum is one of the few issues on which Cameron can score and where Brown can be easily wrong-footed. And, at the moment, as the polls demonstrate, he has nothing to lose.

COMMENT THREAD

Why?

Following yesterday’s news of a British soldier being killed and two injured after their Pinzgauer Vector have been targeted by a roadside bomb, we learn of a different fate experienced by Canadian troops.

Near Kandahar yesterday, in a convoy comprising two RG-31s and an LAV, one of the RG-31s was targeted by a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives. According to some reports, the car rammed the RG-31 and, in what was described as "a huge explosion", caused it to roll over into a ditch (pictured). However, the four occupants emerged unscathed - no one was injured.

So, in the space of just over a week in Afghanistan, we have a Dutch operated Bushmaster attacked by an IED – no casualties. We have a Canadian RG-31 targeted by a suicide bomber – no casualties. And we have a British Pinzgauer Vector attacked by an IED – one dead and two injured.

The MoD really have some explaining to do.

COMMENT THREAD

A good and faithful servant

In 204 pages, Dame Pauline Neville-Jones has produced her commission’s report on defence and security for the Conservative Party. Headed "An Unquiet World", much of it is dedicated to national security with a mere 32 pages dealing with defence.

In what will have to be a series of posts, we look at this report and the implications for Tory policy and the wider debate. In this first post, we look specifically at the Neville-Jones "take" on "the role of the USA in British Defence Policy", the implications of which, her commission argues, will greatly affect our policy.

In the first few lines of this short section, however, we see immediately where Neville-Jones is coming from as she immediately raises what to her is the “crucial choice” - whether the UK should continue to align itself so closely with US forces and doctrine.

That we should even be considering whether to make such a choice is, in fact a major political statement, as both UK and Conservative Party policy traditionally has been to foster a continued and close military alliance with the US – both multilaterally through Nato and bilaterally.

The reasons for this alliance are many and varied, but not least self interest. The US is the most powerful military force on this planet and it is this, through Nato, has kept the peace in Western Europe since the last World War. Furthermore, even to this day, it contributes considerably to the defence of this country, stationing considerable assets in the UK, which are available to the British government.

Yet, such factors Neville Jones does not even consider. Instead, she boils down the rationale for the alliance into a single aim: to gain influence over American policy. It is only for this reason, and this reason alone, that Neville-Jones will allow that we have sought to shape our own defence policy "with a view to what would be taken seriously by the United States, militarily and politically." This, she says, "has had a determining effect on the structure of our forces", although she also allows that, in its own terms, "this policy has had considerable success."

The distortion thus introduced is stunning in its breadth, but it is essential, as we will see, to the Neville-Jones narrative. Not for one moment, it seems, can she permit a more obvious reason for the alignment of our defence policy with the US – that simply, as allies, we might expect to fight against a common enemy, to which effect, it is essential that there is an element of harmonisation in both equipment and doctrines.

Through the distorting lens of the Neville-Jones view, however, her thesis is developed to make a case that alignment with the US has involved a huge investment which, she argues – in the context of Iraq – "has not on the face of it resulted in the effective exercise of customary influence over American policy and most certainly has not led to an outcome in the British interest." Indeed, she avers, since the damage to British interests has been very considerable, "we need to ask what end is being served by the big investment."

The foundations thus laid, she poses three heavily loaded questions: do we have special access or is the special relationship all an illusion; is its very large military and intelligence component any longer affordable; and what kind of bang are we getting for our invested bucks?

Having thus framed, very tightly, the argument, Neville-Jones accepts a continued need for intelligence cooperation but is able to cast doubts on our ability to finance a continuing military relationship with the US.

To strengthen her case, she asserts that, through developments in military technology, the US will leave all other militaries behind and unable to operate in tandem with their forces. "It is unlikely", she says, that our armed forces will be able to plug into American systems unless they keep up continuously. And this, of course, has "substantial financial and doctrinal implications" for the UK military, the underlying theme being that we cannot afford the financial cost.

If we go with the Americans, we shall have to integrate more with them, she adds and, if we do not, "we shall rapidly be no more useful to them militarily than other allies already are."

Such an argument seems persuasive, but it is wrong. Military cooperation stems primarily from the political level. Given the political will to cooperate and, compatible command structures, differences in equipment and doctrines can be reconciled by allocating different areas of operation to different militaries within the same theatre.

That was the option in Italy in 1944-5, when British forces drove up the west while US forces fought in the east. It worked in Northern Europe, where the British-led forces took the north and the US Armies went south. This is what is happening in Iraq, where the British have occupied the south while US forces occupy the centre and north. It is also working in Afghanistan, with the Americans in the West, the British in the centre and other coalition forces in the east.

This, Neville-Jones partially acknowledges but she over-rides this option with the assertion that "the financial challenge of keeping up with the US is becoming formidable". The UK procurement budget is inadequate to cover the agreed programme. Thus, she introduces the possibility of British forces accepting the "trend towards force specialisation", playing to UK strengths such as our special forces but cutting out other capabilities.

That, in fact – although unstated – is the modus operandi of the European Rapid Reaction Force, but it is not one which the UK has yet espoused. Neville-Jones is suggesting we follow the European route. It should be possible, she says, for the UK to retain forces which are advanced and affordable, but they would need to be structured somewhat differently from today.

That the Americans could perceive this as a degradation of the capability of the UK junior partner is not something that seems to be of concern. What is of more concern, Neville-Jones writes, "would depend on factors important for the UK and going well beyond UK/US relations" such as inter alia the "degree of multilateralism to which the US were committed". There is, the unspoken condition - we work with the US only if it is prepared to embrace multilateralism.

From there - in a thoroughly rigged argument – the conclusion is pre-ordained. The UK continues its close alignment with the United States, but only for the time being, planting the real agenda – the possibility of "important variation in detail in the future". This is nothing more or less than a heavily coded plan for progressive detachment from the current bilateral relationship with the US.

Of course, Neville-Jones, the great Europhile, is not going to declare it openly, but the agenda is there. British armed forces should become a specialised component of a multilateral structure, through which they relate with the US. And, for "multilateral structure", read European Union.

A good and faithful servant to the "project", she has planted the seed.

COMMENT THREAD

Party funds

As the UKIP case makes its tortous way through the court (hearing completed, decision due in the first week of August) other parties' finances are looking a little moth-eaten, too. The Electoral Commission has published their accounts for 2006, as the Guardian reports.

Entitling the story "Donations to Cameron's Tories run at four times rate to Labour", which would imply that somewhere in the country there was another bunch of Tories, the article explains that the Conservatives are doing considerably better financially than all their opponents (especially those whom the Electoral Commission takes to court).

Mind you, all those donations will probably swallowed up in a big increase in staffing in GCHQ, whose value we have yet to see, not to mention the salaries some of the top staffers earn. In fact, the situation resembles somewhat the NHS and the money that Gordon Brown as Chancellor kept chucking at it, only to see it disappear into ever more and ever higher salaries.

The Conservatives report a £4.2m surplus after paying £2.2m to boost the pension scheme for party agents. At £19.9m, income from donations is £6.4m more than the party raised in the general election year under Michael Howard. This includes £4.9m in conversions of loans to donations. Revenue from membership was also up, from £843,000 to £899,000. Overall debt was halved from £18,082,000 to £9,011,000, while £2m was invested in a new computer system to help fight the next general election.

The Labour Party has done considerably worse, which prompted a Labour supporting acquaintance of mine to suggest that this was another reason for Brown not wanting to go to the country in a hurry. (That was before I explained to him the timetable for the "reform" treaty. He had already bought the coffees, I ma glad to say.)

Labour cut its deficit from £14.5m to less than £1m, but to achieve this had to reschedule loans from big donors, take up a bridging loan from the bank and sell its old headquarters. It made a profit of £26,000 on the £5.8m sale of its Old Queen Street headquarters. Expenditure has been cut by 15%, 133 staff have lost their jobs, and overall debt has been cut by £2m to £25m.

There are, needless to say, some complications with those involved in the no-longer-cash-for-honours-scandal.

The Lib-Dims are not doing too badly but are having problems because of a certain injudiciousness in their choice of donors:

The Liberal Democrats report a turnaround from a deficit of some £207,000 to a surplus of £1.17m. Most of the new money comes not from individual donations, but from the state and Joseph Rowntree. The party's auditors insisted the Liberal Democrats record a £2.4m donation from Michael Brown, owner of 5th Avenue Partners, given during the last election, as a contingent liability depending on the outcome of a City of London police inquiry.

The Electoral Commission seems in no hurry to deal with the issue any more than it wants to sort out the postal votes mess but that is another rather disgraceful story.

Never mind, the Commission has been busy and not just with UKIP:

The commission says the Co-operative party has been fined £500 for being six days late and the British National party, which has still to submit accounts, could face a much higher fine.

Funny how they always go for the littlies.

What happens if a political party goes bankrupt the self-same Labour supporting acquaintance asked me. We might yet be privileged to see such an event. Not, of course, if they manage to pass legislation to fund them even more extensively from taxpayers' money.

COMMENT THREAD

Intellectually dishonest

UK demands for a referendum on the EU are "absurd" and "intellectually dishonest" says Labour MEP Richard Corbett.

As his party's spokesman on constitutional affairs in the toy parliament, he declares: "The Labour government promised a referendum on the treaty precisely because it was constitutional… The reform treaty is not constitutional and amounts to a set of modest reforms to the existing EU structure."

"Britain has never had a referendum to ratify an international treaty and it is absurd to demand one on a treaty that does modest things like changing the length of the European council presidency from 6 months to 30 months," he adds.

So, 277 pages of text are "modest reforms to the existing EU structure", eh? And what about this?

Now who's being intellectually dishonest?

COMMENT THREAD

The £40 billion sting

In the wake of the House of Lords Report on VAT fraud, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee have just come up with theirs. The "executive summary" is admirably succinct, and I can do no better than reproduce it here:

VAT missing trader fraud is a large scale criminal attack on the EU VAT system. The most serious form—known as Carousel Fraud—involves a series of contrived transactions, within and beyond the EU to create large unpaid VAT liabilities and fraudulent claims.

The Department has been tackling missing trader fraud for over six years, yet has failed to stem the flow of tax losses: the fraud has continued to cost the exchequer at least £1 billion a year. In 2005–06, the level of fraud increased to its highest level yet, with the estimated cash loss to the exchequer of between £2 to £3 billion.

There are no reliable or comprehensive EU wide estimates of the cost of this fraud because most member states have not produced estimates. The EU Commissioner for Taxation has estimated the annual loss from VAT Fraud across the European Union at £40 billion (€60 billion).

The Department has introduced a range of legal and operational measures to tackle the fraud. The fraudsters are, however, resourceful and react quickly to such measures. In February 2006, the Government sought from the European Union authority to apply a special measure—the “reverse charge”—derogating from the Sixth VAT Directive for a wide-range of electronic goods, including those currently associated with the fraud, such as mobile phones and computer chips.

In principle, once in force, this measure would prevent fraudsters from receiving VAT on the sale of mobile telephones and computer chips and would eliminate the opportunity for the fraud. The Council of the European Union approved the derogation on 16 April 2007, but the Council’s decision only allows the Department to apply the “reverse charge” to commerce in mobile phones and computer chips, rather than the wider range of products that the United Kingdom had originally requested. The Government now expects that this narrower measure, combined with other operational interventions, will protect revenue of £50 million in 2007–08.

The reverse charge can only be a provisional measure pending a more comprehensive Euwide solution. The Commission is in favour of VAT being charged on all intra-community transactions in the country of purchase thereby eliminating VAT free operations and the opportunity for the present type of missing trader fraud. The United Kingdom and some other Member States are not in favour of this system. The Department considers that it would open the way for major new frauds.

Individual Member States cannot tackle VAT fraud on their own. The Department recognises that it has to work closely with the tax authorities of other member states and third countries, as well as with the accounting, tax and legal professionals to tackle the problem effectively. Ultimately the European Union will have to agree a new legislative framework for administering VAT, if missing trader fraud is to be eliminated in the long term.

Although the £40 billion a year loss is somewhat less than the Lords' estimate (which went to £170 billion), this is still a huge amount of money – more than our entire defence budget.

However, one notes that the Committee says the EU will have to "agree a new legislative framework for administering VAT" in order to eliminate fraud. Since the chances of that happening are precisely nil, VAT fraud is set to continue, another of those EU scandals which the MSM seems quite incapable of reporting with any degree of emphasis.

What is wrong with people that they cannot take on board the huge scale of this fraud and the eye-watering amounts that are being stolen? If ever there was an open-and-shut indictment of the way the EU works, this is it. But what do we get? A smattering of low-key reports! I really do not understand what is going on here.

COMMENT THREAD

Evasion, evasion, evasion

"Running scared", is how The Daily Express puts it – the refusal of Gordon Brown to answer Cameron’s question on the EU constitution.

The Sun, on the other hand, has "Cam hammers PM on EU pledge", which is a good sign, when the paper starts using a nickname. The Boy might start realising that "there's votes in that thar referendum."

The sour notes came from the left-leaning papers, such as The Daily Mirror which accused the Boy of trying to portray himself as a Eurosceptic by attacking Labour's refusal to hold a referendum on a European treaty.

It was, says the paper, "a desperate attempt in the last Prime Minister's Question Time before Parliament's summer break to please revolting right-wingers in his own party. But Gordon Brown said it showed the wheels were coming off the Tory bicycle." And, in a brutal Commons put-down, the PM told the Tory leader: "You are back to the old agenda. It didn't take long after the Ealing Southall by-election for you to retreat."

A similar note came from The Guardian political columnist, who apparently applauds Brown's evasion.

But, if the prime minister lived to fight another day, The Telegraph tells us that he might have trouble in his back yard with, potentially, 40 Labour MPs considering backing a backbench campaign for a referendum.

Possible rebels include Ian Davidson, an MP close to Mr Brown and Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. She intends to demand a referendum in a debate in the Commons today.

Another Labour MP, unnamed, says it was disgraceful that the government was claiming that the new treaty was less far reaching than its predecessor - the Constitutional Treaty - and therefore did not merit a referendum. "It is being spun by the Government as a different treaty in a way that is totally dishonest," the MP is cited as saying.

Today, however, is the last day of this Parliamentary session and the political establishment go off for their long break, not to return until October. It leaves the issue to fester, ready to be picked up at the same time Brown is jetting off to Lisbon to agree the revamped EU constitution.

By then, of course, we will have the full draft and Brown's next attempt at evasion might not be so successful. But, drawing on his predecessor's example on education, he will simply have to redouble his efforts. For the next session, therefore, he will have to offer evasion, evasion, evasion. Not a bad slogan for this prime minister, one thinks.

COMMENT THREAD

An avoidable death?

We are not going to say, "told you so", because we do not have enough details. But this report is disturbing.

It recounts that, yesterday a British soldier was killed and two others injured by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, while riding in a Pinzgauer Vector. The soldier, from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, died after an attack on a patrol in the outskirts of Sangin in Helmand province early in the morning.

This dangerously inadequate vehicle has been the subject of many posts on this blog, for instance, here and here. The question must be asked, therefore, as to whether a better vehicle, such as the Mastiff or RG-31 (or even a Bushmaster: this Dutch example, pictured below, was hit by an IED last week - none of the crew were harmed), could have prevented this death and injuries.

Of course, if we asked the question officially, the MoD would not give us any answers, hiding behind "operational security" as it always does on such occasions. But, if the answer is "yes" (and it is not necessarily so - see here), then I hope the people involved in manufacturing and procuring this vehicle have trouble sleeping. At least they will be alive and whole.

It seems too much to hope for however, that the MoD and the Army will begin to understand that the currency of counter-insurgency is soldiers' deaths. The more the casualty rate builds, the harder it is to sustain operations in the face of mounting public opposition. Inevitably, some deaths are unavoidable but the emphasis should be on preventing avoidable deaths. Given that this vehicle is so ill-protected, the presumption must be that this was an avoidable death.

This, we cannot afford.

COMMENT THREAD

Cameron on the constitution

Returning to PMQs and Cameron's question on the "EU constitution", the Hansard is now posted and we are able to read the details of his exchange with Brown.

Cameron kicked off by stating that the prime minister had said in an interview that morning "about the EU constitution" … At that point, he was interrupted by an uproar in the House, generated from the government benches, at which point he noted: "There is plenty more."

When he could resume, Cameron continued: "if I thought I was doing something that needed a referendum I would say so." He then went on to say:

The Irish Prime Minister says that 90 percent of the constitution remains in the treaty and the Spanish Foreign Minister says that 98 percent remains. What figure would the Prime Minister put on it?

Again, there was a huge uproar, with the speaker having to intervene. Cameron had to repeat his question.

What followed was a classic example of not answering a question – a combination of bluster and evasion:

I see, Mr. Speaker, that we are quickly back to the old agenda. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that, if he examines each aspect of the treaty and what we secured in our negotiations, he should support it, not oppose it. The first issue is the charter of rights—it is non-justiciable in British law, so we secured our negotiating objective. The second is justice and home affairs—we have an opt-in, so we secured our negotiating objective. The third issue is security, foreign affairs and defence policy, which remains intergovernmental, so we secured our objective. The fourth is social security—no expenditure affecting us will be made without an emergency brake that we can put on, so we secured our negotiating objective. National security will remain a matter for individual Governments, so we secured our negotiating objective. He might be better off, in the interests of unity within his own party, looking at what the chair of his democracy taskforce said only a few days ago. He said that, as a result of what we had negotiated, a European referendum would be "crackpot", "dotty" and "frankly absurd".

At this point, frankly, one switches off. That sort of answer may go down well with the troops (and there is every indication that it did) but we are the "outside" looking in. The question was simply put – and it was not answered.

For the record, though, we continue the exchange, with an example of the "Punch and Judy politics" that the Boy foreswore:

If the right hon. Gentleman wants to trade quotations from former Chancellors, I can tell him about a former Chancellor who promised a referendum and who put it in his manifesto. That former Chancellor is him. He talks about his red lines, but he had red lines with the constitution, and they are pretty much the same red lines. That is why the man who wrote the constitution says that the changes have been few and far between. That is why the President of the Commission is going round saying that it will usher in "the world's first non-imperial empire".

Mr. Giscard d'Estaing says that more than 90 per cent. remains and Jean-Luc Dehaene, the former Prime Minister of Belgium, says that the figure is 95 per cent., so which is it? The Prime Minister claims to be a numbers man, so is it 90 per cent., is it 95 per cent. or is it 98 per cent.? Come on.

And do we get an answer? Nope. We get the standard "line". Says Brown:

Let me just read from the mandate agreed at the Council:

"The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called 'Constitution', is abandoned."

That was the decision made at the intergovernmental conference in Brussels. The Conservative party should recognise that that was achieved and that all our negotiating objectives, including the opt-outs, so that the charter is non-justiciable in English and British law, were also achieved. The Conservative party has got to wake up to the fact that we succeed when we negotiate in Europe, and we do not need to have an empty chair.

Oh dear. It is just as well so few people watch PMQs. And they wonder why politicians are held in such low regard? Thus does Cameron continue:

Why does the Prime Minister not wake up and read this quotation from his trade Minister? He said, "This is a con to call this a treaty; it's not. It's exactly the same: it’s a constitution." That is the man whom the Prime Minister put in the House of Lords as his trade Minister. The right hon. Gentleman says that he wants to restore trust in a Government that he has been part of for 10 years; he says that he wants to involve people in the decisions affecting their lives; and he says that he wants the state to be the servant not the master. Yet on the key test of whether to honour the commitment that he personally gave to hold a referendum, he has failed. Why is he afraid to trust the people and hold that referendum?

And now we get the pure politicking:

The right hon. Gentleman is back to the old agenda. It did not take long after the Ealing, Southall by-election for him to retreat—the old agenda on Europe, the old agenda on grammar schools, the old agenda on spending and the old agenda on tax cuts. The wheels are falling off the Tory bicycle, and it is just as well that he has got a car following him when he goes out on his rounds. Let me just quote what his old friend Lord Kalms has said to him: "We're having a very bad period." He said that they needed to do some rethinking and that. "Some of the policies need substantial working on." He continued: "What we should do is pack up", go to our constituencies, "and come back in the autumn" and rethink.

That is what the Tories have got to do.

Nice knockabout stuff, but the underlying agenda is serious – "Europe" is no-go territory. Not only am I not going to answer your questions, but you shouldn't be asking them in the first place.

Cameron may indeed be returning to the "old agenda", for his own motives, but is Brown seriously suggesting that the leader of the opposition should not be questioning him about an issue that is of such great importance to the nation?

And somebody has got to deal with this "constitutional concept" scam.

COMMENT THREAD

Comprehensive Spending Review

Boring title, but this is what all the posturing has been about, and why Dannatt has been spitting out his dummy.

Announced by Brown in Parliament today, with a comment on the MoD website, Defence is to be awarded an additional £7.7bn by 2011, equating to 1.5 percent average annual real growth (after deduction of the "modernisation fund" allowance in the previous CSR).

This breaks down into an annual budget of £34bn in 2008/9, £35.3bn in 2009/10 and £36.9bn in 2010/11 and is separate from the additional cost of operations. These are funded directly by the Treasury. Since 2001, says the MoD, £6.6bn has been in supporting the front line.

In immediate terms, this paves the way for the purchase of two new aircraft carriers, although these have not yet been ordered, and over half a billion is going into improving service accommodation.

However, behind the scenes there is a major rethink going on. While the carriers have survived, there is a fundamental review in progress, examining the costs of major projects, together with a substantial drive to reduce overheads. The latter is aiming at a five percent year-on-year saving in MoD's administrative overhead over the next three years and a 25 percent reduction in costs to the MoD's head office. These are in addition to the £2.8bn in "efficiencies" delivered over the previous spending review period.

On the major projects, one is looking for an acknowledgement that the defence budget is not the plaything of defence contractors, who are grabbing a larger and larger share of the cash, but to fund operations.

It is there that the "creative tension" is bringing the likes of Dannatt to the fore, a man who so much wants to protect his big spending items and his fully-equipped conventional army that he is prepared to see a reduced operational tempo to pay for it.

Interestingly, the debate about where the split should occur between "core army" and counter-insurgency operations is one which is taking place behind closed doors, mainly because the media seems to have no idea what is going on (and perhaps cares less - the BBC has not even reported the announcement), while the Conservative opposition has simply failed to engage.

However, with the headline increases just announced, it will be more difficult to push their "underspend" mantra, when funds are increasing in real terms and Cameron has yet to sanction any increased spending on the forces. Until he does that, and the Tories come up with some sensible ideas of how they would spend it, the debate will go on without them.

It now appears, though, that that would be the least worst option. Leaks from Cameron's "national and international security" commission, chaired by Dame Pauline Neville Jones, is to recommend complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. That, at least, would absolve the Boy from finding more money and resolve the "creative tensions". Dannatt could have his new toys and he need not get them dirty, fighting those grubby little insurgents.

COMMENT THREAD

Quote of the day

Debating with Tories is futile. They win because I lose the will to live.

Anon

Nowhere but down

According to The Guardian today – which has published the results of an ICM poll giving Labour a six point lead - David Cameron is losing his appeal to voters. It suggests that many Conservative voters have come to dislike the Tory leader and that he is no longer attracting new support to the party.

This is accompanied by wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Tory blogs at the lack of press coverage of the Boy's latest adventure in Rwanda, the counterpoint to which is a robust op-ed in The Telegraph from Simon Heffer.

But if it is press coverage the Tories want, it is there aplenty in the reports of Hague's speech on the case for an EU referendum – not least on the front page of the Telegraph, the print edition carrying the headline, "Hague savages Brown over EU".

With this, The Mail and The Sun, there are signs that the media is beginning to wake up to the dangers of the EU treaty-to-be, and the enormity of the lie perpetrated by Brown, in pretending that is is not the EU constitution in disguise. But, for the turgid Boy, this is the wrong type of publicity. He would have the media gushing over his touchy-feely stunt in Rwanda instead of dealing with real issues.

Strangely though, it is not in the pages of the print media that the shape of that most pressing of all issues is coalescing. Rather, it is on the BBC website where Ruth Lea confronts Charles Grant on the treaty-to-be.

Breaking the near monopoly of Open Europe, which has assumed the role of unofficial spokesman for the Eurosceptic cause – despite its limited thinking and lack of strategic understanding – Ruth sets out in just one paragraph nearly the essence of our objections to what the "colleagues" are styling as the "reform" treaty. She says:

It cannot be emphasised too strongly that, however significant the previous EU treaties were, the Reform Treaty is unique. Once enforced, there will quite simply be no more significant powers left solely with the governments of the member states, and outside the orbit of the EU's formal institutions.

This is countered by Charles Grant who utters the standard line, declaring:

…if the treaty had been blocked, Europe's governments would have had to spend longer discussing treaties and institutions, instead of real issues in the real world. But with the treaty out of the way, Europe's leaders will be free to focus on big challenges like energy security, international terrorism, climate change, illegal immigration, Russian authoritarianism and the Middle East.

What, in effect, he is saying – but would never articulate clearly – is that the "colleagues" want to take over the reins of government in order to do wondrous things. But, instead of "government", he uses the code word "institutions" to disguise the agenda.

And that is where the Boy is so lamentably missing – not only from his own constituency, with even Rwandan journalists asking why he had not remained in crisis-hit Witney, which in places has been six feet deep in water, but from the debate on the latest and vital stages of the take-over by the EU of the governments of the member states.

Trapped not by rising flood water but by his determination not to "do" Europe, he is now set to be beached by the receding waters of voter interest, as the vacuity of his leadership is finally beginning to hit home. The tragedy is that, just as we needed an inspired and determined effort from the Conservatives, we have leader who is going nowhere but down.

UPDATE

Such is the Boy's predicament that he actually asked about the EU treaty-to-be at PMQs today, challenging Brown to state what percentage was drawn from the failed constitution. The prime minister resorted to the now familiar mantra, taken from the "mandate", that the constitutional concept had been abandoned.

We will do a full review of this exchange when the text is up on Hansard.

Photoshop by Anoneumouse.

COMMENT THREAD

The Hague speech

Speaking to Policy Exchange yesterday, shadow foreign secretary William Hague gave a speech entitled: "The new EU treaty: the case for a referendum". It is available here.

The most important thing about the speech is that Hague actually made it. At the tail end of the Parliamentary session, it locks in the demand for a referendum on the treaty-to-be firmly into Tory policy. Leaving it to gestate over the summer break means that it will have the maturity of established policy by the time the MPs return and the treaty is in place.

Furthermore, Hague's main theme is simple enough. He calls in aid the new trade minister Digby, Lord Jones, who says, "this is a con to call this a treaty - it's not. It's exactly the same - it's a constitution". Actually, it is both but the shadow secretary thinks Digby Jones is right about it being a constitution. And he is.

Open Europe - preening itself on having got out the first translation of the treaty (it didn't, but never mind, even if theirs is better) – estimates that ten out of 250 proposals in the new treaty are different from the proposals in the original EU constitution. In other words, 96 percent of the text is the same as the rejected constitution.

At the heart of Hague's argument, he says, is "a simple syllogism": one, that at the last election every major party promised a referendum on the EU constitution. Two, that this new treaty is the constitution in all but name so, three, that we should have that promised referendum. Failure to put it to a referendum would be a fundamental breach of trust between the government and voters.

If this was anything else but party politics, that would be enough. This is a constitution in all but name and Labour did promise a referendum on the constitution. So we should have one. But this is party politics and the Labour tribe has, so far, rejected the idea.

To win the game, therefore, Hague has to discredit his opponent's arguments, not just to the satisfaction of a friendly audience but in a manner that can withstand robust attack or outright denial.

As we know, the government is relying on the mantra that the "mandate" declares the "constitutional concept" to have been "abolished" and it is this to which Hague also refers. But, rather than take the argument head on and expose it for the dissembling that it is, Hague sidesteps it, dismissing this by saying that "this simple relabelling has little, if any effect on the substance." An open goal thus goes by default.

Nevertheless, the man is on stronger ground when he tells his audience that it is “important to understand that this Treaty's full impact lies not merely in the shifts of power that it would create immediately but in the processes it would set in train.” He adds, "It is not a final settlement, nor is it meant to be one. Instead it is a basis for evolution."

That indeed is the case and, rightly, Hague argues that the posts of president of the European Council and the EU foreign minister, with his diplomatic service, are intended to grow in power and weight. And he gets the UN situation right, saying that the foreign minister, "who would gain for the first time the right to speak for EU Member States at the UN Security Council," will in time not merely supplement member states' voices in foreign affairs, but replace them.

On that basis, he claims, this new treaty would mean the same fundamental restructuring of the EU and shift of power from the member states to the EU as the constitution. Thus does he dismiss the government's "red lines" as a ploy to distract attention from what had been agreed elsewhere: not red lines but red herrings, he says.

Further in though, Hague – eyes wide shut – walks into the huge elephant trap that Cameron has been fabricating for him. The tragedy of this situation, declares Hague, is that it is completely unnecessary:

Had there been a British Government prepared to show a modicum of leadership and let our partners understand that the constitution's rejection was not a problem we would not now be wasting our time navel-gazing about yet another push for more powers for EU institutions but would be able to concentrate on the issues where the EU can really add value: global competitiveness, global warming and global poverty.

This should have been the time for a confident British government to give a lead to those who question the need for a new treaty at all, he adds.

This is the trouble with the Hague speech – good in parts, like the proverbial curate's egg. On the one hand, it was pedestrian, predictable and offered nothing that the government has not seen coming and cannot dismiss with the greatest of ease. On the other, he holds himself and his Party hostage to fortune with his comments on global warning. The "colleagues" have seen him coming and must be mightily delighted with the speech.

Nothing was there that could be construed as opening a new line of attack – not for Hague any exploration of the role of the European Council, nor of how the Council of Ministers will be bound by the new aims and objectives to serve the interests of the Union rather than their respective nations, nor even of how the treaty is attempting to turn Parliament into a subordinate institution of the Union.

These were matters which, in a long speech, he could have rehearsed. They are ones which strike at the heart of the fundamental change in the relationship between the member states and the Union, which the treaty brings.

But neither did Hague attempt to address the Conservative's own "elephant in the room" – the Maastricht treaty. Time and time again, whenever the Tories call for a referendum, the government argues that they did not offer a referendum back in 1992-3 when the treaty came before the House – and that gave away more powers.

Invoking the new aims and objectives of the institutions, embodied in the treaty-to-be, would be enough to lay that ghost to rest, but Hague chose to ignore it. And if he cannot deal with it in front of a friendly audience, how will he fare in a hostile environment?

Thus, while some may say it was a good speech, even now the BBC website is chipping away at the edges while even the more supportive Telegraph is having to concede points to Miliband. Hague has not yet landed the killer blow.

But, maybe, it doesn't really matter. The Daily Mail has been running an online poll and, so far, 91 percent of respondents are calling for a referendum.

It could, therefore, be enough that Hague simply accuses Brown of being guilty of a "flagrant breach" of Labour's 2005 election manifesto for failing to grant a referendum. That is a hard charge to beat and one that could, just, drive the man to distraction. The Mail certainly seems to think so and with The Sun also on the case, things might not be a bleak as they look, despite Hague's less than adequate performance.

COMMENT THREAD

Hoist with his own petard

The Beeb and its fellow-travellers (not least the moronic Times) have been quick to harness the recent flooding to the global warming bandwagon. Latest in the line of pundits, on the midday news, is Sir David King, the government's chief scientist.

As a qualified surface chemist, latterly slayer of animals (foot and mouth) and now climate expert, he told the BBC that there was an "underlying trend" of increased rainfall, attributable – according to the climate models, to global warming. That, he said, brought with it the risk of "extreme events". In King's view, therefore, there was no doubt that climate change was a "factor" in the recent floods.

King, though – as always – is not telling the whole truth (has he ever?). there are indeed many predictions of increased precipitation linked to global warming but, on one thing most of the modellers seem to agree; that we will be seeing a trend towards larger rainfall totals during winter and reductions in summer, especially in southern UK, and an increase in the intensity of precipitation especially during winter.

Now, unless I am very much mistaken, it is currently summer (and easy mistake to make if you missed it) and the recent flooding occurred in the er… southern UK.

Nevertheless, through the passage of time, the long wet and cool summer will be fixed as a phenomenon linked with global warming, just as sure as would have been if we had enjoyed and long, hot and dry summer. Whether it is hot or cold, wet or dry, there is now only one cause – climate change.

But there is a strong political element to this. Inserted into the treaty-to-be, after being included in the Berlin Declaration, is an amendment to Article 174 on the Union's environment policy which, for the first time, explicitly sets out dealing with climate change as a Union objective.

This is going to be the centrepiece of the counter-attack against the Tories' calls for a referendum, using Cameron's enthusiasm for the global warming agenda. Seeing as the treaty-to-be will now include specific mandate to deal with climate change (as if it needed it), the Boy will be accused of hampering the fight against this modern-day evil, by risking the treaty rejection in a referendum - thereby further isolating the "loons and bores".

Not least, the "colleagues" will be able to rely on the Boy's statement during the June European Council meeting then he accused the "EU leaders" of discussing the wrong issues for the wrong reasons, when they should have been debating. inter alia Europe's contribution to climate change.

Alongside that - now that the flood damage has exceeded the magic £2 billion qualifying threshold, there will be a high profile gesture from the EU commission, as it pays a very small amount to the UK from the EU "solidarity fund" to cover some of the costs incurred by public authorities in dealing with the flood clean-up.

This will be paraded as an example of the benefits of EU membership (we get to see a fraction of our money returned to us), on top of which Cameron will be told that, in order to prevent future "extreme events", he should support the very treaty he is putting at risk. Essentially, the pitch will be, "support the treaty to save the planet". Cameron, having put his weight behind the EU on this issue, will find it very difficult to counter the attack.

The phrase, "hoist with his own petard" comes to mind.

COMMENT THREAD

Tony Blair, call your office

Or if you can't do that Mr Blair, call the office of the Wall Street Journal. Actually, you might like to talk to a few bloggers but I expect you would not really like to do that.

The point is that today's WSJ confirms what several blogs have been mentioning for some time. Syria has once again invaded Lebanon (if she had ever really left), which causes a certain amount of tension in the region, would you not agree Mr Blair, and ought to be dealt with.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, the authors have requested anonymity and have circulated the report only among select government officials and journalists. But its findings cannot be ignored.

What do you think Mr Blair? Should it be ignored or should there be a certain amount of investigation and discussion, perhaps with the Syrian and Lebanese governments?

Coming on top of evidence of Syria and Iran supplying Fatah al-Islam and other insurrectionist groups in Lebanon (yes, Mr Blair, they exist in Lebanon, too) does this not constitute a reasonable subject for your mission? Oh, I am sorry. You are not there to see whether the Middle East can have peace but to ensure that Hamas gets what it wants. Which, as we know, is not usually peace.

Move on … nothing to see here!

The government's White Paper on the IGC is up on the FCO website.

With the really catchy title, "The Reform Treaty - The British Approach to the European Union Intergovernmental Conference, July 2007", it is part propaganda… and part propaganda, with the usual red herrings about protecting Britain's "red lines".

At 42 pages, the document is boring, and intended to be so – that is the core of the emerging strategy, summed up in one short paragraph:

This amending Treaty will allow the EU to move on from debates about institutions to creating the outward-facing, flexible Europe that we need to meet the fundamental challenges of globalisation.

It is that theme which is highlighted in the introductory passage, which tells us that: "The EU must focus on finding practical solutions to pressing issues such as climate change, energy security and competitiveness in the global economy."

In other words, boys and girls, don’t bother your pretty little heads about the details of this treaty – only the "loons and bores" are making a fuss about it. This treaty is simply about how best to equip the EU to meet future challenges.

It is in that context that we can see the Europe minister, as reported by the Telegraph, dismissing calls for a referendum as "absurd". We want to get on with things - we're "facing the future" - and these silly Eurosceptics mustn't be allowed to hold us back, is the underlying message.

Of course, the broader media – to say nothing of the bulk of the political blogs – are falling in with that agenda. The lack of coverage screams out indifference: move on … nothing to see here. It is boring doncha know. And so, in the shadows, do the colleagues thrive.

COMMENT THREAD

A charmed life

First it was the highly theatrical Blair departure, then it was the Brown "honeymoon", then we get the by-elections and now we get the floods – all driving out news about the treaty-to-be.

England Expects complains that the only news he could find on Miliband (pictured) and the IGC was a story about a mouse while a reader complains that the number one story on the web in Wales is this.

Deutsche Welle covers it, but the BBC website tell us that the text is for lawyers, not for voters. It also tells us that, at 277 pages in all, it's been slimmed down from the 480-page doorstopper which was the draft EU constitution.

We also get the commission "line". It is telling us that it wants to get the treaty out of the way. "For a long time, we have been discussing institutions, procedures, reforms and treaties," says Barroso. "OK, it is enough. Now we need to concentrate on delivering results."

Interestingly though, the fragrant one, on her blog, tells us that she "no longer give a … about people trying to tell me how to live my life", although she is intent on telling everyone else how to run theirs.

Altogether, it seems that the treaty-to-be is enjoying a charmed life. Despite being the EU constitution in drag, being rushed through at an unseemly pace, hardly anyone seems to care. For sure, it's early days yet – and we haven't seen all the morning press – but it is not exactly setting the world on fire.

We have, as another of our readers remarks, a mountain to climb.

COMMENT THREAD

EU taxes on the way

A new provision in the treaty-to-be, lifted almost intact from the failed constitution, allows the EU to define its own taxes in order to fund its ever-expanding budget and powers.

This is through a new "own resources" system - the name given for the sources of income from which the EU derives its budget. These are currently confined to custom duties and levies, a proportion of VAT receipts and the so-called GNI (Gross National Income) contribution from member states.

Under the existing treaty (Article 269), the obligation is for the budget to be financed "wholly from own resources", the wording effectively telling the EU to keep within the budget allocated by member states.

However, the proposed amendment (261) changes this, telling the Union that is "shall obtain the means necessary to achieve its goals and to conclude its policies", a provision taken directly from Article I-54 of the failed constitution. This now requires the Union to find the money to meet its objectives, rather than tailor its objectives to meet its income.

As to new taxes, for the first time, the treaty will include a specific reference to the system, allowing the Union to "establish new categories of own resources or to repeal an existing category." Changes must be approved unanimously by the European Council but since this is to become a Union institution, its responsibility to the Union is to "promote its values; advance its objectives; and serve its interests".

This clears the way for the EU to propose new revenue streams, such as environmental taxes or aviation fuel levies and, effectively, obliges the member states to agree to them. Presumably, this is what the government means by making the EU "more efficient".

Photoshop by Anoneumouse.

COMMENT THREAD

A statement in the House

This is an amending treaty "which will be good for the UK", says Jim Murphy, Europe Minister (not Miliband, as earlier suggested), delivering a statement on the IGC to a House of Commons that had rapidly emptied after two long statements, one the flooding in England and another on housing.

It was the usual extruded verbal material, of course and, strangely, the statement was not repeated in the House of Lords, depriving their Lordships of an opportunity to make their views known. That, it seems, it largely down to the Conservatives, who could have had a statement, but never asked for it.

Needless to say, Murphy did not actually report that the Treaty was now available – albeit in French - hence he could not tell the House that his "reform" treaty was 277 pages long, packed with detail. But he did also tell us that the government had, today, issued a White Paper on the government's approach to the IGC. (This is not yet up on the FCO site but we'll look at it when it is.)

Given the rush to get the treaty agreed, however, the House – which breaks up at the end of the week – will have no opportunity to debate the issue before Brown goes to Brussels to agree the final treaty. So much for Parliamentary scrutiny. We are being railroaded.

COMMENT THREAD

The new treaty: a whopping 277 pages

Rough translations here, here and here (Word format).

The new "reform" treaty is now up on the Council site. Including the main text (145 pages), the protocols (69 pages) – which are legally binding – and the declarations (63 pages), the whole production comes to a whopping 277 pages, with 296 amendments to the existing treaties.

And now for the downside: it is available only in French, not that this makes much difference. It would be unreadable in any language which, of course, is the intention.

Accompanying the treaty draft are the presidency speaking notes, to be delivered to the conference by the Portuguese foreign minister Luis Amado.

In an attempt to hold the line, Amado is reminding the delegates that the IGC must conclude its work as quickly as possible, on the basis of a draft Treaty. Furthermore, he says, the Presidency will guide the IGC in strict compliance with the mandate we received. This mandate, he declares:

… is the unique basis and exclusive framework for the work of the IGC. We shall not deviate one millimetre from that mandate. The mandate set out the explicit will of all the Heads of State and Government which approved it. The general responsibility for the conduct of this IGC falls on them.

It is also vital that we remain fully alert to the aim of this exercise: to amend the Treaties currently in force with a view to strengthening the efficiency and the democratic legitimacy of the enlarged Union, and the coherence of its external action. The mandate we hold is the sole instrument which will allow us to pursue those aims.

He adds:

… it is vital that the Union should not allow itself to be paralysed once again on account of internal, institutional problems, so that is may respond to the real challenges that it must face. Thus, we must conclude this debate on the Treaties, which has already gone on long enough.

He then declares:

At political level, there is a consensual wish that we organise our work in such a way that we can conclude it as swiftly as possible. It is essential to respect the undertakings we have all given. Good faith and the principle of honest cooperation must constantly guide the action of every participant in this Conference.

Amado tells us he has organised the working of this IGC with the aim of concluding negotiations on 18 and 19 October, in Lisbon. That is the target, and the "colleagues" do not intend to let anything get in their way.

UPDATE 1

Barroso, in a parallel move from Brussels, is also talking up the prospects of "success", saying he is "confident" that political agreement will be reached by October. "We now have the draft treaty text," he says. The political consensus that was reached at the last European council is now translated into legal language.'

To him, the IGC is merely a forum for "some details to be addressed 'technically'", adding that there is a 'clear' political consensus to fully respect the mandate that was reached.

UPDATE 2

MEPs, we are told, will resist any attempt to water down the "reform" treaty. Elmar Brok, speaking at a press conference, said, "The IGC should not attempt to unpick or renegotiate the treaty. This is not possible... Parliament will be watchful that the treaty mandate received from the European Council will not be watered down and will remain in place."

He adds: "It is important that the rights guaranteed in the mandate are preserved. This is our challenge for the next few months. Parliament will then scrutinise the text which is finally agreed."

COMMENT THREAD

Turkey has the same government

As expected, the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party has won a very comfortable majority in the Turkish elections, having "won at least 341 seats in the 550-member parliament, with over 46 per cent of the vote". This will presumably mean that they will be able to form a government without resorting to a coalition. Erdogan had said he would resign if that happened.

Two other, secularist parties also crossed the 10 per cent threshold to enter parliament.

The Republican People's Party (CHP) won about 20.7 per cent and the National Movement Party (MHP) took about 14.4 per cent.

No other party passed the threshold, though over 20 independent Kurdish candidates also won seats.

Erdogan has vowed to continue the reforms needed to join the European Union and the negotiations, though it is now well known that most of Turkey is cooling to EU membership.

More importantly for Turkey's future, he said:

We will support and protect what our nation has entrusted us with. We will work to undertake the duty you have given us.

We will never compromise the basic principles of our republic. These principles are needed for a strong and wealthy Turkey.

Adding that AK continued to believe in plurality of political voices (something that Kemalists do not often accept) and free market reforms.

We shall have to see how things develop. Turkey is facing a few problems, not least the renewal of fighting in the Kurdish parts. Erdogan will not be able to deal with that without the army, who views him with some suspicion.

COMMENT THREAD

A small entertainment

If you are one of the Economist's loons or bores (or both), this is for you. Dr Richard North interviewed by John Loeffler - on "Stealing Government by Stealthy Steps". About 34 minutes – listen here, courtesy of Britannia Radio.

COMMENT THREAD

They do not appear to be happy

In yesterday’s International Herald Tribune Dan Bilefsky, who rarely says anything particularly critical of the European project, looked at the curious case of Portugal. It is a frequent assumption in this country that the EU is immensely popular with the Mediterranean countries, particularly those that came in latish after several decades of a rather unpleasant authoritarian regime.

This is not uniformly true. In Portugal, for instance, the EU’s popularity just tops the 50 per cent mark, which makes it quite clear that there is not going to be a referendum there on the treaty that is to come out of the IGC.

According to a recent Eurobarometer poll, support for the EU dropped to 49 percent last year compared with 58 percent the year before but edged up to 55 percent in the first quarter of this year. In 2006, half of the respondents believed the process of European integration undermined the country's economy and contributed to its 8 percent unemployment rate.

Bilefsky looks for the obvious reason that is the remaining nostalgia for the Portuguese Empire. We have heard all that before. Possibly there are Portuguese who feel cheated because the empire that was the first of the modern world and lasted longer than any other has now definitively disappeared. But I would suggest that it is not so much the empire that matters but a certain outlook.

Portugal has traditionally looked outwards and still tries to preserve links with its former colonies, the largest of which is Brazil. The EU is essentially an inward looking, continental empire with few ideas on how to deal with people elsewhere.

In the end, however, it is the economy, stupid (though, one must admit that it would have been a reasonably good idea for President Clinton to pay some attention to what was going on in the big bad world).

While the Spanish economy grew at about 3.9 percent last year, Portugal had the lowest economic growth in Western Europe, about 1.3 percent. Its budget deficit of 3.9 percent of gross domestic product also breaches EU rules requiring countries in the euro zone to maintain deficits under 3 percent.

Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, Portugal's finance minister, argues that its economy is lagging because the country failed to enact essential structural reforms in the late 1990s - including a much-needed overhaul of the public sector - before rushing to join the euro, the EU's single currency, in 1998. He said that in the countdown to joining the euro, as Portuguese interest rates converged with France's and Germany's, Portugal experienced a "wealth effect" as credit poured into the country and created a false sense of security.

To a great extent the Spanish economic growth is relying on the housing boom and that is not necessarily useful in the future. Nevertheless, the resentment of Spanish goods that the Portuguese cannot keep out festers among the producers.

Joining the euro legitimately or otherwise was probably not a good idea. Above all, Portugal is suffering from the problem the East European countries are just beginning to experience: the EU does not provide you with solutions but very swiftly becomes part of the problem.

Which raises the question of what the Prime Minister José Socratès is to do at a time when all his attention will be directed at keeping the presidency going and running an IGC. Even Angela Merkel, who had garnered rapturous and entirely undeserved plaudits for her diplomatic efforts during the German presidency, was chivied by a large section of the German media for not paying more attention to the problems at home.

Back in 2005 when José Socratès was elected to his premiership we mentioned once or twice and, indeed, a third time that Portugal and its government were facing serious problems. These problems do not seem to have gone away and the people of Portugal have noticed.

COMMENT THREAD

Playing the "Europe" card

Drowned out by the domestic agenda (to use rather an unfortunate phrase, considering the weather) the EU treaty-to-be gets short shrift in the papers today. This is despite the fact that the IGC starts tomorrow and our Europhile foreign secretary, David Miliband will be jetting off to Brussels to defend Britain's interests.

This, at least, is the "take" offered in a very short piece in The Sunday Times which has Nicola Smith writing under the headline, "Miliband ready for EU fight".

Miliband, we are told, "will be on the defensive when he makes his Brussels debut tomorrow", given the "legal doubts about the strength of the British opt-out from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights".

He is, writes the fair Nicola, "also expected to face a battle to maintain UK independence in foreign policy." On foreign policy, she adds, "concerns have already been raised that Europe could take the UK's seat on the United Nations security council when presenting a common position."

This is really cut-and-paste journalism, but it conveys a degree of naivety which gainsays any idea of hacks being hard-bitten and cynical. Does anyone really think that Miliband is going to defence British interests, or do anything other than applaud the "colleagues'" attempts at sliding the EU constitution past the peoples of Europe?

Meanwhile, The Economist has its own "take" on the Ealing by-election, suggesting that, although it was bad news for Cameron, it was, perhaps, worse for the EU.

The defeat of "project Cameron", says The Economist, hurts the modernising tendency within the Conservatives, and strengthens those who want a shift away from the centre. Hence, it reasons, Cameron will face calls to re-embrace "such familiar Tory shibboleths as anti-Europeanism and stricter limits on immigration".

Brown, on the other hand, is having a painful time fighting off demands for a referendum on the EU treaty-to-be, mainly – we are told - because he cannot speak aloud the real reason not to have a referendum (he would lose it, plunging Britain's EU relations into a deep crisis). At least then, we get the truth – or The Economist's version of it. He has to pretend that the new treaty is so different from, and so much more modest than the old constitution, that a national popular vote is not needed.

Nevertheless, the magazine thinks Brown will eventually get away without a national vote, simply because Cameron can only hammer away at the topic for so long but will then have to drop it, otherwise he will irritate voters. But all this changes with Ealing. Cameron chances of fighting off the "loons and bores" are now weakened, even though "a betting man would still put money against a referendum in Britain".

But if the unthinkable happens, muses the magazine, and Brown feels obliged to call one, and a "no" vote prevents Britain from ratifying the new EU treaty (destroying it in its current form), recall that the road to disappointment in Lisbon (where the new treaty is due to be signed), took a wrong turn in Ealing Southall.

That, as one might say, is an interesting perspective, and one at odds with this blog. In our view, a weakened Tory Party is less likely to prevail.

Anyhow, tomorrow Miliband is due to give a statement to the House on the IGC and will be answered by Hague. We might then get some idea of which way the post-Ealing Tories intend to play the "Europe" card.

Photoshop by Anoneumouse.

COMMENT THREAD

Competence

A piece in the Sunday Times perhaps indicates quite how badly "team Cameron" misread the situation in the Ealing by-election.

Written by Nirpal Dhaliwal, a controversial writer if ever there was one (the Left hate him), it nevertheless seems to have the ring of truth.

Discuss.

COMMENT THREAD

Global warning

Booker, in his column today picks up on our biofuels and Friends of the Earth stories. He also has a delicious story about the BBC and windfarms.

COMMENT THREAD

An example of failure

"We have run out of troops, says head of Army", screams the front page of The Daily Telegraph today, a headline mirrored by other newspapers, not least the The Daily Mail and the BBC website.

However, the story is based on a memorandum from General Sir Richard Dannatt, leaked to The Telegraph, which says something very different, the operative phrasing being found in the last paragraph, which states:

In sum, with regard to support for current operations, I judge the situation remains manageable, but I am very concerned about the longer term implications of the impact of this level of operations on our people, equipment and future operational capability.

This is in start contrast to the rest of the memorandum and indicates that, yet again, Dannatt is playing politics, a process he started last October, when he went public about the state of the Army. In so doing, he is playing a very dangerous game. In pushing his agenda so publicly, he is riding for a fall.

More to the point though, Dannatt is reflecting the tension in the Armed Forces between supporting the current counter-insurgency commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan and the need to maintain a fully trained and equipped Army for conventional warfare. What comes over clearly from Dannatt’s memorandum – once you realise this – is his concern that operations are preventing the Army from training for its "proper" role.

Stepping aside from Dannat's imediate concerns, of more interest is the paper's leader which, for once, hits the nail on the head. Although the headline reads: "Armed Forces stretched to breaking", it offers the following observations:

The easy thing is to demand more money; and it is true that our defence spending has fallen since the end of the Cold War at a time when, perhaps unexpectedly, our troops are doing more than ever before.

But a higher budget is only part of the answer. Britain is, after all, spending £32 billion a year on defence - second, in absolute terms, only to America. The trouble is that this money is misallocated, spent in the interests of our defence contractors rather than our soldiers.

To take just one example: our forces in Afghanistan are suffering avoidable casualties for want of adequate helicopter lift, yet we refused to buy cheap, battle-ready American helicopters so as to prop up domestic manufacturers.

We throw away monstrous sums on weapons for which we have no practical use - the Eurofighter being the supreme example - but fail to invest in modern war-fighting systems: drones, unmanned naval and aerial vehicles, communications satellites, guided missiles.

This is a theme we have rehearsed again and again on this blog and it is heartening to see that, at last, the message is getting through to some quarters.

However, such is the validity and importance of these arguments, they should not be coming just from a newspaper. Rather, they should be part of the mainstream attack of the opposition, for it is here that the defence debate should be centred – an issue which strikes to the heart of determining the role of our forces, and one which the government has manifestly failed to address.

Yet, as we have observed many times, this is also an issue from which the Tories have retreated. Again and again we have pointed out how the Conservative Party has failed to take defence seriously, instead relying on the simplistic mantras of overstretch and under-resourcing instead of getting down to the nitty-gritty of what our forces really need.

Instead, they have concentrated on the peripheral "cuddly issues" leaving, as I put it, the Tories panting in the rear.

And, although we can concede that some of the issues should have raised, they have been to the exclusion of the more hard-edged issues, the absence of which from "team" Cameron's thinking has contributed to making him and his Party a laughing stock.

It is probably too late for Dave Cameron's Conservative Party to effect change and, in any event, its is highly doubtful as to whether they are capable of change. They are not even capable of realising that they have done anything wrong. But, it you ever want to know why the Cameron project failed, their attitude to defence is a perfect example.

COMMENT THREAD

People tend to laugh

Judging from the many attempts by some of the commentariat on Tory Home and elsewhere to spin the results of the Sedgefield and Ealing by-elections, it is clear that a goodly proportion of "Dave Cameron's Conservative Party" have no idea of the extent of the disaster that has hit them.

Even the Tory-leaning Daily Telegraph is unable to put much gloss on the debacle with the House pundit, Anthony King, serving up a gloomy prognosis under the headline, "By-elections show Tories lack public confidence".

Columnist Simon Heffer – predictably – takes a more robust line, his analysis sporting the headline, "Ealing tragedy threatens Project Dave".

Neither does the editorial leader offer any cheer, telling its readers, "The Conservatives need to stop digging", observing, rather mildly, that David Cameron has not succeeded in engineering any "mood-swing" in the Tories' favour so far.

But, it is Peter Hitchens, of the Daily Mail, who puts the boot in. Above all, he writes:

…I think the Grammar School fiasco put an end to David Cameron's strangely charmed political life. It did so because it told several important truths about the Tory Party. That it remains irreconcilably split between traditionalists and liberal 'progressives', and that the split will not heal.

It reminded them that Mr Cameron himself is definitely on the liberal side of that split, that he is inexperienced and intolerant, and that he is a son of privilege who has little clue how most people live. He had sort-of survived 'Hug a Hoodie' and 'Let sunshine win the day', but this argument took us back to the dreary dank wastelands of normal bread-and-butter politics. The bread was stale, the butter rancid.

And that did it. For some time, Mr Cameron had been like one of those cyclists one sees in London who cannot bear to admit that they have stopped. They are much preferable to the ones who ride through red traffic lights, because at least they observe them.

But instead of putting one foot on the ground and waiting for green, they writhe and twist as if infested by savage biting insects, doing anything to keep both feet on the pedals and to maintain their balance. Sometimes, they manage to stay like this until the light changes. Sometimes they have to give up. For all I know, Mr Cameron actually does this. I have yet to see him at a traffic light. But the moment when they abandon their attempt to stay up is a pretty hard one. People tend to laugh.

It is that last, short sentence, that will do for the Boy: "People tend to laugh". Outside the Westminster bubble and the chatterati of the media – out on the streets – Cameron is being summed up in one word: "prat", offered spontaneously when you ask what they think of the man. The man is seen as lacking gravitas, conviction - anything and everything that ordinary people might expect of a leader of the opposition and potential prime minister.

And once you have acquired that reputation, no amount of policies, no amount of spinning, no amount of point scoring at PMQs is going to make any difference. Prat he is, and prat he will always be. When assessing him as a future prime minister, as Hitchens writes: "People tend to laugh".

The tragedy is that now is the time that we need a robust, effective opposition, especially as now there is insistent murmuring about an early general election. We, on this blog, have tended to dismiss these rumours but, if Brown reads the state of the Tory party in the same way that we do, he might indeed be tempted to go to the country in October.

That would be more than a tragedy. It would be a disaster. Such is the disarray of the Tories – and their general incompetence – that even with a new EU treaty hanging, support for a referendum would not be enough to turn the electoral tide in favour of "Cameron's Conservative Party". With a new electoral mandate, an emboldened Brown could then ignore calls for a referendum, sliding the new treaty through Parliamentary ratification with minimal opposition from a shattered Tory Party, reeling from the impact of their fourth successive defeat.

In a time when it is fashionable for politicians to talk about their "legacy", that could be Cameron's. Any failure to lead the Tories effectively will allow through one of the most dangerous EU treaties yet. And that could all be because of one simple but lethal reaction: people tend to laugh.

COMMENT THREAD

All too familiar

The reform of the EU's "wine regime" is one of those subjects that seems to be forever on the agenda, a regime that is now costing taxpayers some €1.3 billion in annual subsidies. We did a post in February last year and in the following June.

Now, it is back in the news as the details of the latest reform programme have emerged, attracting the opposition of both French and German growers – to say nothing of those in Luxembourg.

However, on the basis that the policy must be sound if everyone objects, the EU commission must be feeling vindicated as "new Europe" growers have joined the fray and are also complaining about the plans.

They say that setting a target of rooting up nearly half a million acres of vines, to solve the over-production which is driving down prices, will disproportionately affect the new member states. The grants of offer will be more attractive to "new Europe" growers than the established producers in countries like France.

Laszlo Kiss, president of Hungary's National Council of Wine Communities, is predicting that, if the reforms are approved, the size of the vineyards under cultivation in Hungary will be halved – a huge irony as there is no over-production in that country.

But such has been the scale of over-production elsewhere (did I mention France?) that it has driven down the price of wines throughout Europe, which means that "less efficient" small growers cannot make a living. Add to imports from the New World, which have risen by 10 percent annually over the past 10 years, and the industry is under real pressure.

If the Hungarians take the money and run though, it may well shrink the industry to below the critical mass needed to finance ongoing restructuring and modernisation. It will also heavily erode the capability to support then promotion campaigns needed to market high quality but relatively unknown wines.

Altogether, therefore, joining the EU could prove a disaster for eastern and central European wine growers, while the industrial scale producers of "old Europe" (did I mention France?) will benefit at their expense.

Why does this seem all too familiar?

COMMENT THREAD

We shall soon be losing this

Her Majesty's Government is once again showing itself determined to deal with the really important constitutional issue: the destruction of the House of Lords as an independent and constitutionally functional body.

It behoves us all to support this excellent institution as long as it is possible and to pay some attention to what their noble lordships manage to achieve without getting paid for it, unlike their colleagues in the Lower House.

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to call attention to several Written Questions put to HMG by several peers, some hereditary, others not so.

First off, there is a Question by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who is a life peer, so HMG will have to introduce some other piece of legislation to get rid of him. He asked HMG

Whether there is any conflict between the aims announced in their Green Paper, The Governance of Britain (Cm 7170), and the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union, bearing in mind the quantity of British law which now originates in Brussels.

Well, what could be the response to that, one wonders. A good deal of waffle, as it happens and a curious non-sequitur:

The Government's Green Paper, The Governance of Britain, is the first step in a national debate on further constitutional reform. It sets out the ways in which we can reinvigorate our democracy and make both the executive and Parliament more accountable to the people.

These proposals do not present any conflict with the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.

Oh well, that's all right then. After all, one would not like to think that any discussion about making the executive and Parliament (which, actually, includes the executive) more accountable to the people, raised any questions as to how legislation was carried out in this country.

Then there is a Question from Lord Blackwell, who is also a life peer and who usually behaves himself but you can never tell with these peers. He asked HMG

What are the significant provisions of the draft constitution for Europe that they do not now expect to be included in the proposed European Union reform treaty based on the mandate of the current inter-governmental conference.

Replying for the government, Lord Malloch-Brown, so far as we know, still Vice-President of the Soros Hedge Fund, wrote the following:

The treaty establishing a constitution for Europe, on which the Government proposed a referendum, is now defunct. The mandate for a reform treaty agreed by the European Council states clearly:

“The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called ‘Constitution’, is abandoned”.

As my right honourable friend the then Prime Minister (Tony Blair) set out in his Statement in another place on 25 June, the reform treaty will differ fundamentally from the constitutional treaty in both form and substance. Among other things, we have ensured that there is nothing in the mandate for the reform treaty which will require us to change our existing labour and social legislation. Our common law system and our police and judicial processes will be protected. Our independent foreign and defence policy will be maintained. Our tax and social security system will be protected.

Gosh, how they love to go on about that concept that was abandoned in favour of a new concept. It was not the concept that Lord Blackwell was enquiring about but significant provisions. Which ones will not be included?

Far it be from me to accuse a Minister of the Crown of telling porky-pies but, sadly, that is precisely what Lord Malloch-Brown was doing. I don't suppose he even noticed the difference, having run interference for ex-SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo).

The only reason matters to do with labour and social legislation are not in the text of the new treaty is because they are in the text of the existing Consolidated Treaties, both of those having become EU competences some time ago.

A good deal of the legal and judicial system has been signed away under the European Convention of Human Rights and we do not know what the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights (a. k. a. the Beano) will be. Then there are those pesky agreements known as Tampere I and Tampere II, which enabled the Commission to dismiss Michael Howard's election promises that he would tighten up asylum laws and border control.

Foreign and security policy? Well, actually, there is quite a lot of it in the new mandate and, in any case, it is there in the Consolidated Treaties, not to mention such minor details as the St Malo Agreement.

Taxation system safeguarded? Well, give or take VAT and the probable encroachment on corporation tax.

Three Questions from Lord Inglewood, who is a hereditary peer, deal with the question of veto and extent of legislation that is coming out of Brussels. Lord Malloch-Brown, for it is he again, made it clear that the veto is never exercised since if there is a feeling that one Minister might do so, the matter is withdrawn. This is known as consensus.

There was one really interesting Question:

How many directives or regulations since the general election of 1997 determined by (a) qualified majority voting, and (b) unanimity have gone onto the European statute book.

To which Lord Malloch-Brown replied with the time-honoured formula:

The information as requested by the noble Lord is not held centrally by the Government. To collate this would incur disproportionate cost.

Oh really? Does the Noble Minister mean that UKREP, the United Kingdom Permanent Representation to the European Union, does not keep track of the legislation that is put on the European statute book? Why not, precisely? That's one of its jobs.

Has the Commission ceased to keep a list of European legislation that has been put on the statute book?

Do the telephones in Whitehall no longer operate? There is, I ought to point out to Lord Malloch-Brown, an excellent internal phone system, that includes the Commission and the European Parliament, as well as the UKREP offices. Easy enough to pick up the receiver and ask for the information.

COMMENT THREAD

Getting it wrong

Should one be outraged by the revelation in today's Telegraph that the government has conceded the right of the new EU "foreign minister" to speak from Britain's seat on the United Nations Security Council?

Certainly, William Hague has attacked this "shocking" development, declaring that it is "a big step towards a United States of Europe". The trouble is that it is not true - the EU will not speak from Britain's seat.

The Telegraph report is based on the statement of an EU official who tells us that which we already know in respect of the proposed High Representative for foreign affairs, "We retain, except for the name of the minister, the Constitutional Treaty text of 2004 including the provisions on the UN."

According to this same official, "There is a provision which provides for the representative of the EU to state the position of the EU at the UN Security Council," on which basis do we see Hague protesting.

The basis for this is Article III-296. 2 of the failed constitution which states:

2. The Minister for Foreign Affairs shall represent the Union for matters relating to the common foreign and security policy. He or she shall conduct political dialogue with third parties on the Union's behalf and shall express the Union's position in international organisations and at international conferences.

Now, from this, it is clear that the "High Representative" must represent the Union to the United Nations, and then we move to the last paragraph of Article III-305. 2 which states:

When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs be asked to present the Union's position.

It is that which is the source of objection and, in pursuit of which, The Telegraph reminds us that the government has insisted that negotiations on the treaty had ensured that the British presence on the Security Council would never be replaced by an EU representative.

Says Hague: Brown has allowed, "one of the most damaging and important provisions in the rejected EU Constitution to be resurrected." "It would seriously compromise the independence of our foreign policy," he adds, then telling us: "It is shocking that the Government have yet again let this through and it totally destroys their claim that their so-called red line on foreign policy is effective."

However, this is where Hague goes off the rails. If one refers to the Security Council rules, there is provision to accredit additional members to the Council who are accorded "the same rights as other representatives".

The story, therefore, is not that the UK will be required to give up its seat, but that the EU will be given its own seat. Britain will be still have its own seat and be represented but, where an EU "common position" has to be conveyed, the British representative will be silent and EU "High Representative" will speak.

Even then, there is a certain amount of hyperbole here. Ever since the Maastricht Treaty, the UK has been obliged to toe the line on "common positions" agreed with the EU. That includes representing those positions in the security council, which are currently presented either by Britain or France.

That the position will be put directly by the High Representative is, therefore, largely symbolic. In an organisation where symbolism is everything, however, this is an important change, but not the one which Hague is declaiming.

In the propaganda game of attacking the treaty-to-be, Hague's declamation may sound good and provide a startling sound-bite. But, since it is not true, it can so easily be batted away by the government which can state, in all honesty, that there is indeed no question of the UK giving up its seat to the EU.

The fact is that the EU, if the treaty-to-be goes ahead, will get a seat on the Security Council in its own right. There is no need for the UK (or France for that matter) to move aside. And, from its own seat, the EU will have the sole right to speak for the UK and other member states on certain issues. That, the government could not deny, but that point is not being made.

Once again, it appears, Conservative tactics and intelligence are proving to be less than sound. Hague, and the others, really do need to up their game.

COMMENT THREAD

The gamble that failed

Following the account of the by-election disasters for the Tories at Sedgefield and Ealing on the Tory Diary blog is almost like intruding on private grief. Rarely have we seen such a downbeat note from this site.

But then it would be wrong to attribute failure to the Conservative Party. With the hubris that has become a hallmark of the Boy, voters were asked to mark their ballot papers alongside "David Cameron's Conservatives". And it was David Cameron's Conservatives which the voters rejected so decisively, with his party being squeezed to third place in Sedgefield, only just ahead of the BNP which was fighting for the first time in Sedgefield.

With the Boy now about to fritter his time away in Rwanda, in another of his ghastly, ill-considered PR stunts, he will have plenty of time to think hard and long about how he spins victory from utter, humiliating defeat. He then has the rest of the summer to dream up "the line" for the party faithful at the conference in September, telling them how David Cameron's Conservatives are on their way to government.

But, those of us who have been watching this slow-motion train wreck, this is bad, bad news. As the Tories are the only main Party which is supporting the push for an EU referendum, this further blow to their fading credibility weakens the campaign and makes it less likely that the people will ever be able to vote against this naked attempt to re-introduce the failed EU constitution.

Gordon Brown can afford a wry smile as he prepares to go off on his hols. A weak, discredited opposition leader is more than he could have hoped for, but it will make for a happy summer for him. For the rest of us, the nightmare continues.

COMMENT THREAD

These foreign ministers are quarrelsome

There appears to be some disagreement between Massimo d’Alema, once again the Foreign Minister of Italy and Bernard Kouchner his outspoken French counterpart. We have already had occasion to welcome M Kouchner’s appointment.

The argument was about terrorist groups in the Middle East, a subject that seems to cut across the old notions of right and left, rather like attitudes to the European Union do in Britain and to the war on terror in general across the world.

Signor d’Alemo pronounced that isolation of Hamas, as practised by Israel and the West was a very bad idea as it drove that organization towards Al-Qaeda. Not so, responded M Kouchner, completely ignoring the fact that foreign ministers of EU Member States should agree with each other in order to create a common foreign policy and give Europe a stronger voice on the international scene.

I think Hamas did not wait for this extreme situation -- the current terrible situation in Gaza -- to have contacts with al Qaeda. And it would perhaps be too simple to think that we, the international community, are responsible.

Of course, he added, one should not isolate the people of Gaza but did not specify what one should do. As it happens, the world has not precisely ignored the people of Gaza or their rulers. They have just acquired their very own ex-Prime Minister to sort their problems out. And which group in the world has its own, its very own UN organization to pour money into the area (not forgetting to skim off handsome salaries for themselves) and to promote the notion that they are victims for ever more? Yes, indeed, the Palestinians.

As usual, one wonders about the reporting produced by Reuters, specifically by Reuters AlertNet, a website aimed at NGOs and supposedly dealing with crisis situations and potential crisis situations. According to the report

An Israeli blockade has tightened around Gaza's population of 1.5 million since Hamas seized the territory.

Oh really? Whatever happened to Egypt and the Rafah crossing that Egypt closed? What of those Palestinians from Gaza who are stuck on the Egyptian side with nobody caring about them very much? Not our problem, mate.

The Galileo of the internet

The US has one, so we must have one! That seems to be the driving motivation behind the EU’s vanity project, the Galileo satellite navigation system. And so it is with the internet. Those damn Yankies have Google so we must have our own search engine, just to prove we're as good as them.

But nothing symbolises the divide between old Europe and the New World. Whereas Google is a testament to the power of free enterprise, set up by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, then PhD students at Stanford University, the European version is a multi-million project, heavily subsidised by the German and French governments, and developed by some of the largest corporate giants in Europe.

The subsidy junkies are Empolis, a unit of Bertelsmann, the biggest European media company; a German affiliate based near Paris of Thomson, the world's largest maker of television set-top boxes; SAP, the world's largest maker of business management software; and Siemens of Munich, the biggest European engineering company.

Initially launched by Chirac last August to counter “the threat of Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism”, the then French president declared that: "We're engaged in a global competition for technological supremacy. In France, in Europe, it's our power that's at stake."

Being the EU, though, nothing could go ahead without permission for the commission (so much for French power) and yesterday the German government got the go ahead to pump €120 million into developing the system.

Interestingly, the commission thought that the benefit to the public of creating new technologies and putting more cultural material onto the Web outweighed the risk of giving selected companies an unfair advantage via subsidies.

Even then, symbol of European unity it ain't. Unable to agree about the fundamental role of this magic engine, which is supposed to have "advanced multimedia search engine, creating a set of tools for translating, identifying and indexing images, sound and text," the Germans are calling their bit Theseus, while the French are calling their's Quaero (will it end up called Quaerseus?).

Despite government largess, however, the funds allocated are a fraction of what Google is currently able to devote to product development. Already, the Anglo-French project has been dubbed by search experts Autonomy in the Financial Times "a blatant case of misguided and unnecessary nationalism" which, by the time it is actually produced, will be a generation behind the products coming on stream.

Altogether, it seems to have the makings of a classic European project.

COMMENT THREAD

That's it?

It seems that Russia is not going to invade us after all. Phew, what a relief. Though I must admit, living as I do in West London, I do wonder whether that invasion has not happened already without anybody noticing.

The awaited response to the British action earlier this week has been announced. It is a mirror action: four diplomats to be expelled, visas for officials suspended (and no visas to be requested for Russian officials, which is all to the good) and no co-operation over the war in terror. There is no explanation as to what the last of those might mean in practical terms.

Well, this could escalate. But then again, maybe not. We are after all approaching that time of the year when all those who live in Moscow try to get out of the city to their dachas for at least a few days every week and preferably for the whole month.

Where is Giscard in this line-up?

James Taranto's daily "Best of the Web" column on the Wall Street Journal website is usually full of goodies. Todays effort ended with a delightful item entitled "No Country for Old Men".

It led one back to an article in the Washington Post, that informed the world that:

Former South African president Nelson Mandela plans to announce on Wednesday the creation of "the Elders," a group composed mostly of retired global leaders that will seek to tackle urgent world problems unfettered by the politics of any one nation, officials with the group said.

It will have about a dozen members, including former president Jimmy Carter, former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Among the organizers of the effort have been rock star Peter Gabriel and British airline mogul Richard Branson, who has used meetings at his Caribbean getaway, Necker Island, as an incubator for creation of the group.

It only needed the involvement of Richard Branson to turn what was clearly a comedy into an out and out farce.

James Taranto, I fear, is a little unkind, saying hurtfully:

Just imagine how much more impressive this group would be if Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Kurt Waldheim were still alive!

About Castro - does he know something the rest of us do not?

I do have one question about this line-up of extinct volcanoes? Where, oh where is former President Giscard d'Estaing?

Target Brown

There is something of the John Major in our new prime minister, Gordon Brown. Both took over a failing government, both found themselves having to shepherd through an EU unpopular treaty, and both exhibit the classic stubbornness of little men out of their depth.

Major's nemesis came in 1993 with the rigged vote of confidence on the Maastricht Treaty, an outcome which fractured the Conservative Party, causing a schism from which it has never really recovered.

Now, plans are afoot, according to The Telegraph, to put our Gordon under pressure, with a cross-party campaign to be launched in September that will personally target Brown for refusing to agree a referendum on the treaty-to-be.

We are told that, as the party conference season gets under way, an "I Want A Referendum" campaign will be launched with an "eye-catching stunt" and advertising in newspapers and cinemas. At the same time, up to 40 Labour MPs, who might be sympathetic to the cause, are being canvassed for support.

Also, The Telegraph says, secret negotiations between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs to create a House of Commons "advisory committee" are in their early stages.

Good stuff this is and we hope it has some success, but we can't help but feel that the "generals" of this putative campaign are (like their military brethren) fighting the last war. What nearly succeeded in 1992/3 is not necessarily going to win in 2007/8 when the campaigning environment is very different.

The biggest difference, of course, is the growth of the internet – barely in its infancy in the UK in 1992, when even the fax machine was still a novelty for some. Now, something like 25 million people have access to the web so there is an easily accessible constituency, a large part of which can be mobilised.

Certainly, most commentators agree that the internet played an influential, if not decisive, role in the French and Dutch EU referendums, in both cases the "no" campaigns winning the cyberspace war.

Now, we have a battle to get a referendum, but techniques learned and honed during the earlier referendum battles should be just as appropriate for this task. For instance, a mass e-mail blitzing of MP's during the treaty debates in the House of Commons, could send a powerful message – so powerful that enough messages could crash the site.

Equally, the blogs and other sites can be used to build public support for a referendum (and promote on-line petitions), triggering media coverage and building widespread support. And then, the role of the internet in spreading information and campaign tactics is unrivalled; it is a resource that will come into its own as pressure for a referendum builds.

In the UK, however, there seem to be some differences in the use of the web, compared with other countries, in that the really high-traffic popular sites are often forums rather than blogs or formal websites.

There, much of the contemporary political discourse is taking place, outside the traditional channels. Many of these forums are not obviously political, and may cover anything from pop music, to fashion and sport, but most have a political section where one can see spirited debate.

Building a popular movement in support of a referendum, therefore, is going to take a lot more than the same old, same old. The technology is there to be used and "Target Brown" has a nice feel to it. The internet should be harnessed to that challenge.

COMMENT THREAD

The corruption of the Beeb

With the corrupt activities of the BBC firmly in the news, it is a joy to see the responses to the Telegraph's rather naïve question, "Do you still trust the BBC?"

What is heartening is the preponderance of responses framed in terms of, "whaddya mean still, paleface?", indicating (albeit from a self-selecting sample), a deep well of suspicion of the output of the Beeb.

Enter Tory MP, Bob Spink, recently elected Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain, replacing the much admired Lord Stoddart who had stepped down after 23 years in the post.

Spink has seized the moment to table an early day motion (EDM) in the House of Commons, broadening out the debate to remind members that there are bigger issues at stake than the petty corruption of rigging phone-in contests and the like, thus bringing the reporting of EU issues into the frame. His motion reads:

That this House is concerned that the BBC's new Charter, which took full effect from 1st January 2007, has so far failed to change both the perception of the Corporation's bias and its editorial and policy directions; and calls on the BBC's governing body to address these issues frankly and openly, particularly in respect of partiality on issues such as the European Union, and to publish a statement on how it intends to improve public trust in the BBC as a strictly impartial and much valued public service broadcaster.

Spink is asking for examples of BBC bias and can contacted here. We have sent him this and, no doubt, readers will have their own examples.

However, as we have pointed out, the most egregious examples of BBC bias are in what they do not air, rather than what they do – the phenomenon of selection bias, which is harder to prove.

That makes Spink's initiative very much complementary to the tireless work of Lord Pearson and the ongoing review of BBC coverage, following his allegation that the Radio 4 Today programme is so biased in favour of the European Union that only one in five interviewees is a Eurosceptic.

Even this, though, does not deal with the "elephant in the room" syndrome, where the EU connections between government policies and EU initiatives (and laws) are rarely acknowledged, so much so that few people (who rely on BBC output) even begin to understand the extent to which Brussels intervention rules our lives.

Nevertheless, keeping the pressure on the BBC has to be an important priority of the Eurosceptic movement. We need, as this example demonstrates, to fight them on every front.

COMMENT THREAD

Taking over our health services

The news of Scarborough heath trust in financial difficulty may be a strictly local affair – with the announcements of 600 job cuts to recover £10 million of the overspend – but, if the EU has its way, the days of the National Health Service being able to determine its own spending priorities are numbered.

Only yesterday, the EU commission took another step towards creating an EU-wide market in health care, announcing that it was starting infringement proceedings against the UK (and Spain) following the refusal of health authorities fully to refund the costs of urgent hospital treatment received in another member state.

This arises from the situation where many health systems in Europe do not cover the full costs of treatment and the users have to top up payments, usually from health insurance.

But an anomaly arises for UK citizens who have their treatment provided free at the point of use, as long as they are treated in the UK. When they travel abroad and get treatment, there is the facility to reclaim medical expenses but the UK currently reimburses only the amounts that would be repaid by the state in the country where treatment is sought.

In France, therefore, where for some treatments the state will only cover 20-30 percent of costs, a British traveller will only get the same by way of reimbursement, having to find the difference themselves.

It is to this practice which the commission objects, arguing on the basis of the earlier Vanbraeckel judgement (Case C-368/98), that the patients specifically seeking treatment in other member state have to be reimbursed at the same rate that they would receive in their home countries. In other words, British travellers in France – for instance – would be entitled to recover the full cost of treatment from their own government.

Now, the commission argues that this principle should apply when a tourist or anyone else temporarily resident in another member state is in need of urgent hospital care. It is this issue that is the subject of the infringement proceedings.

Although, in itself, a relatively arcane issue, this follows on the back of other ECJ cases (here and here) which are gradually eroding the ability of health services to control their own spending. If, like Scarborough, a health trust is forced to slow down treatments rates for economy purposes, residents can simply opt to have their treatment in another member state, and the health trust must pay for it. Furthermore, if the commission's infringement proceedings are successful, it will have to cover holiday-makers and expatriates' costs - which would hitherto have been covered by insurance.

There is, of course, an argument that this will be beneficial to individual patients, but there is a downside. One can see a situation where local health trusts will find it necessary to cut back local services simply to pay the costs of people who travel abroad for treatment. If (or when) when that happens, for good or bad, we will no longer have a National Health Service. The EU will be in control.

COMMENT THREAD

Go away! Just go away!

On the back of the wettest June on record, and a July where, so far, it has rained every day, the EU commission has come up with a strategy for addressing water shortages and droughts in Europe.

It aim is to move the EU "towards a water-efficient and water-saving economy", to which effect it is opening a debate "on the ways the EU can address water scarcity and droughts in an environment dominated by climate change."

At the heart of the policy options it is considering is "the need to put the right price on water," in pursuit of which it is telling us that compulsory metering programmes are "essential". It also tells us that water savings and water efficiency need to be promoted, with the installation of water-saving devices on taps, shower heads, and toilets.

Not content with that, the commission also proclaims that "proper allocation of water use between economic sectors needs to be considered", with "policy making" based on a clear "water hierarchy", meaning that water saving must become the priority. Accordingly it says, "the integration of water sustainability and sustainable land use must become an integral part of policy making in areas such as agriculture and tourism. All activities should be adapted to the amount of water available locally."

There, writ large, is another licence for massive intervention – as if the EU has not already done enough damage to our water supply system, forcing the diversion of spending to ever tighter purity standards to the detriment of renewal of the supply infrastructure.

Most of all, though, if there ever was an argument for a European strategy, this is not it. We are an island, separated from the continent with an entirely separate and distinct hydrological system, a different climate and our own unique consumption pattern. We simply do not need another costly "European solution" to a problem which, if it exists, can and should be dealt with by our own national government.

Photoshop by Anoneumouse.

COMMENT THREAD

Cartoons: four jailed

Three men have each been sentenced to six years in jail for soliciting murder during a demonstration against the Danish cartoons.

Mizanur Rahman, 24, Umran Javed, 27, and Abdul Muhid, 25, were convicted during separate Old Bailey trials. Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, said their words had been designed to encourage murder and terrorism.

Rahman, Javed and Muhid were jailed for six years for soliciting murder and three years concurrently for stirring up race hate. Abdul Saleem, 32, was cleared of soliciting murder at his trial but convicted of inciting race hate. He was jailed for four years.

They were arrested after 300 protesters marched to the Danish Embassy in central London in February last year.

Right! What about those who carried banners, and when are the organisers going to be picked up on conspiracy charges? And what are we going to do about the BBC? I just do not believe the their headline!

COMMENT THREAD

That famous enigma

Having spent a good deal of the last 48 hours talking to various parts of the media about Russia and her relationship with Britain and the European Union, I feel it is time to take stock of what the situation is, preferably without the hysteria that accompanies all discussions of Russia in the MSM.

Starting with the latest development, that is the expulsion of four Russian diplomats from London, one has to note that the situation is far from what it used to be in the cold war. What used to happen is that specific diplomats or trade attaches would be singled out for what they were deemed to have done and were expelled. Within 24 hours the country in question would return the compliment and the game would go on for a few days when the real negotiations started or the whole story died.

We do not know for certain which Russian diplomats were picked to be expelled and whether they had been on somebody's list before the Litvinenko case, Russia's non-compliance with British requests for Andrei Lugovoy's expulsion, being used merely as an excuse.

Nor it it clear why the decision to expel was taken now. After all, it has been clear for some time that Russia will not hand over Lugovoy to be interrogated and possibly charged in Britain unless, possibly, Boris Berezovsky and Akhmad Zakayev were offered in return, both, as it happens, an impossibility.

Berezovsky is now a British citizen and the Russian demands have not been backed by any serious evidence of wrongdoing. In the case of Zakayev, a court decided some time ago that he could not be handed over because of the likelihood of extremely bad treatment and the unlikelihood of anything resembling a fair trial.


Today's Sun (picked up by the BBC) carries the slightly odd story of a foiled attempt to murder Berezovsky at the Hilton. The Russian ambassador is denying any knowledge of it but then he would, wouldn't he. Could be. Who knows? My own guess, for what it is worth, is that the Russians would prefer to put Berezovsky on trial in Russia and revive the good old Russian tradition of show trials and confessions. Failing that, I suppose, they might decide to try to kill him though, unlike Litvinenko, he is not an ex-KGB man.


What of the Russian non-response, which has been flummoxing people here? Why did they not expel a few Brits of various description immediately? Announcing, as the Deputy Foreign Minister did, that the response will be firm, targeted and adequate but no innocent people will be hurt, sounded a little like King Lear's famous rant: "I will do such things/What they are I know not yet/But they shall be the terror of the earth".

Time has gone by and the Russian response will have to be somewhat big. Expelling diplomats several days after the original insult is a little lame. So, what might be the big thing?

Easing BP and, perhaps, Shell out of Russia? That is happening already and will go on until the entire energy industry is in the hands of the Russian state, despite the fact that oil production is already going down. It is possible that BP will be forced to surrender its last holdings on the pretext of it being war with Britain over the expelled diplomats.

Other British firms might be expelled but that would not be a very sensible move. Expelling diplomats hurts nobody. Expelling wealth creating enterprises that employ many people hurts the host economy and President Putin cannot afford to do so.

Invading Britain? Seems a little unlikely given that the Russian forces are in a bad state and incapable of dealing with Chechnya.

Suspending collaboration in the fight against terrorism, as it was put to me in the discussion I took part in on the BBC Russian Service? Exactly, how much collaboration is there and how much would Russia, so close to several of the hotspots, gain by suspending activity? After all, as I pointed out, Russian military and technological dealings with Iran do not precisely help the global fight against terrorism.

There is the other possibility and that is Russia being afraid of retaliating because Britain has another ace somewhere up its sleeve. This would tie in with the reported comment made by Oleg Gordiyevsky (now CMG), based on who knows what sort of information, that there is Polonium 210 in the Russian embassy in London (just down the road from Notting Hill Gate and very close to the coveted Notting Hill houses). Then again, British authorities cannot enter the embassy and, in any case, would the Foreign Office manage to secrete another ace up anybody's sleeve.

There is a pattern in Putin's behaviour in international affairs and it is this rather than some world-wide anti-Russian conspiracy that has deprived that country of almost all its friends. First he allows relations to deteriorate, then he has a hissing fit and tries to bully all and sundry, then if the country in question stands up to him and his siloviki he retreats pretending that nothing much has happened and Russia has once again displayed its renewed economic and political strength.

In the meantime, back in Russia, the place which matters as far as Putin is concerned, the notion that Russia is surrounded by enemies whom it successfully challenges grows, creating an ever stronger feeling of hysteria. How long before the people (narod) or the workers and peasants (rabochiye i krestyanyi) will plead with the President not to abandon them to their fate, to change the Constitution and become President for at least another term or, possibly, life?

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Boris Kusnetsov, a lawyer who has defended several people against the police and other authorities, who has acted on behalf of Politkovskaya's family and the families of the Kursk sailors, has had to flee the country after a legal case was started against him on charges of revealing state secrets (all to do with wire tapping and other activity of that kind on the part of the security services).

COMMENT THREAD

Will he live up to it?

Gordon Brown seems intent on breaking with his colleagues in the European Union over one particular issue and no, it is not the Council mandate aka Constitution Mark II. It is, however an important issue if the European claim to the moral high ground is to be taken at all seriously.

It seems that our new Prime Minister has made it clear that he will not attend the EU - Africa Summit in December if President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is there. As we mentioned (0nce or twice) before, the Portuguese Presidency, intent on strengthening those EU - Africa relations though not on thinking a lot more clearly as to whether the EU's aid and trade policies are at all useful to that benighted continent, has agreed to invite President Mugabe to the Summit because a number of other African statesmen (if that is the right word), led by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, refused to attend unless the invitation goes out. It seems that agreed EU rules about ban on visas are less important than threats of non-attendance by African leaders.

Mr Brown has now announced that he is staying on the moral high ground and will definitely stay away from the Summit should President Mugabe be there. Of course, the obvious answer to the threat by President Mbeki and others ought to have been: "oh fine, well then sadly we shall have to do without the Summit and you will have to do without your goodies".

According to the same report, pressure is being put on the Harare government to send some senior official in December. With Mugabe's absence everybody's face will be saved.

Strictly speaking that ought not to make any difference, as senior officials are almost as guilty as politicians of the horror that Zimbabwe has become. It is also questionable whether Mugabe himself will go along with this notion or announce that it is all an imperialist plot and insist on showing up at the Summit.

Will Gordon Brown walk out? And what will Lord Malloch Brown say about such behaviour? He already has a good deal on his hands what with questions being asked (all too quietly, I am afraid) of his links with the Soros empire and that whippersnapper David Milliband repudiating the wise eminence's rather self-satisfied words.

COMMENT THREAD

The help is appreciated

England Expects does it, and it is picked up this morning by The Telegraph - Valéry Giscard d'Estaing admitting that differences between the (proposed) new treaty and the EU constitution, "are few and far between and more cosmetic than real".

This ageing French politician also suggests that this will give Gordon Brown "problems" denying voters a referendum, saying: "As the substance, in institutional terms, is similar or even the same, countries that feel this change has to be approved by a referendum have a problem that they have to settle."

Nevertheless, Giscard – like the rest of the "colleagues" - has advised Brown against an "uncertain" referendum, predicting that British voters would do the same to the new treaty as the French and Dutch did to the old constitution. Instead, with all the hauteur of his clan, he insists that the new treaty mandate is too complicated for ordinary European citizens to understand.

This is echoed by Jean-Luc Dehaene, the deposed prime minister of Belgium who also agrees that 95 percent of the constitution was back. He said it was no surprise that voters were confused: "We drafted a treaty with a constitutional content and form. Now we have a treaty with a constitutional content without the form. But both are a treaty and neither is a constitution. The ambiguous use of words has led to misunderstandings."

Nevertheless, Dehaene also insists the issue is not one for the voters, whether they are British, French or Dutch. "Europe will never go forward by referendum," he says: "Leading is showing the way, not following."

The more of this drifts out, the better, as all that comes over is the overweening arrogance of the "colleagues", intent on foisting their agenda on the peoples of Europe, whether they want it or not.

Fortunately, in addition to the Telegraph, The Daily Mail also carries the story, having Giscard declaring that the term "constitution" had been dropped simply to "make a few people happy".

However, it is only these two "right-wing" newspapers that are "banging on", although the Tories are also keeping up a low-level harassment on their website. It will, nevertheless, be a struggle keeping this issue in the media over the long summer, so the help we are getting from the "colleagues" is much appreciated.

COMMENT THREAD

EU pays to be lobbied on global warming

Friends of the Earth Europe, the group pre-eminent in lobbying the EU for tighter controls to combat global warming, received €635,000 in funding from the EU commission last year.

That, with additional funds from German, Austrian and Dutch ministries of environment, plus contributions from the United Nations Environment Programme, accounted for over fifty percent of the group's income, making it primarily a taxpayer-funded organisation.

The extent of EU and member state funding was revealed yesterday by administrative affairs commissioner Siim Kallas to the EU parliament in Brussels, in a speech on the "European Transparency Initiative", an initiative which is set to require groups to disclose the sources and amount of funds spent on lobbying EU institutions.

During the speech, Kallas also revealed that Oxfam had received € 48 million from the commission over two years to carry out development and humanitarian projects throughout the world and that the European Consumer Office, better known as "BEUC", received € 2.4 million.

The fact that Friends of the Earth Europe receives such a large proportion of its total income from the taxpayer, however, is especially significant. The group forms part of the "civil society" caucus to which the commission pays special attention, as part of its programme to encourage "participative democracy" – its response to the low turn-out for EU parliament elections and the fact that commission members are unelected.

Clearly, the fact that its European group is, in effect, a quasi-governmental organisation – although its member groups solicit donations from the public – gives Friends of the Earth a privileged position in promoting its global warming agenda, and its funding from the United Nations further strengthens its position.

This is in stark contrast to the climate sceptic groups and individuals which are largely unfunded – and often have funding withdrawn when they express views hostile to the global warming "consensus", thus giving the "warmists" a clear advantage in promoting their cause.

For the commission, this is also advantageous. Having bought into global warming as a major element of its environmental policy, it can be seen to be responding to apparently independent, voluntary groups while, in fact, it is actually paying to have itself lobbied to take actions which, in the main, it would wish to take anyway.

By the spring of 2008, all groups lobbying EU institutions will be required to register with the commission, a measure Kallas believes will increase trust in the EU. However, when the full extent of EU-funded lobbying is revealed, he might take a slightly different view of "transparency" and decide that it is not such a good idea at all.

COMMENT THREAD

Who does he work for?

As Brown rushed off to commune with chancellor Merkel yesterday (via Belfast, where he refered to the treaty-to-be as the "constitution"), Deutsche Welle noted that he had departed from "his image as a staunch euroskeptic".

The price for this seal of approval was Brown assuring Merkel of his cooperation on "European" policies, including speedy approval in Parliament of the agreements on "EU guidelines for a new treaty".

This has been marked down by The Independent as: "Brown backs a European Treaty without referendum," reporting that Brown had begun his first first trip abroad since becoming prime minister with a pledge to introduce the treaty without calling a referendum in Britain.

With up to 80 percent of his own electorate in favour of a referendum, this is interesting behaviour by a British prime minister who, in theory at least, is responsible to his own voters. Here he is, at the first available opportunity, making pledges to the leader of a foreign power to refuse a referendum, in defiance of his own voters' wishes.

On this, we are told, Brown was quite explicit, advising Merkel that it would be possible to make rapid progress on setting a date for the treaty. "We will not require a referendum on this. It is something that can be worked on closely by Parliament. I think we can make progress quickly on this," he is cited as saying. One really does wonder about the "we" he is talking about. It does not seem to include his own people.

Much, in fact, has been made of this trip to Berlin, scheduled before even a trip to Washington, with German newspapers interpreting it as a sure sign of a shift away from Tony Blair's focus on the US. Since Mr Brown seems to be rather keen to rush into the arms of the "colleagues", they could well be right.

COMMENT THREAD

A contradiction of policies

Interestingly, The Times has picked up on the theme we first raised on Sunday, about the forthcoming global grain shortage.

Headed, "Grain crisis spells end for empty fields", it tells us that the EU, rather belatedly, is to propose scrapping set-aside, which currently keeps one tenth of arable land out of production as a measure to curb over-production.

It seems that Brussels has its finger on the pulse as always. Soaring wheat prices and predictions of a weak EU cereal harvest are causing alarm bells to ring in Brussels, especially as the EU's buffer stocks have shrunk from 14 million tons in 2006-07 to just 2.5 million tons.

But, while the commission reckons that removing compulsory set-aside would liberate up to 10 million acres and add between 10 million and 17 million tons of grain next year, and so ease pressure on the cereals market, this will not even begin to compensate for the amount of agricultural land that will have to be devoted to energy production to meet the EU's renewables obligation.

This is especially the case as, far from being "empty fields", much of the "set-aside" is devoted to producing "industrial" crops – mostly for energy generation and bio-diesel. This is permissible under the EU rules. Thus, as Defra has already warned set-aside land turned over to food production will mean a loss of energy production, which will have to be made up elsewhere. This will have to come from existing arable land used for food production, as the EU's Single Farm payments rules do not allow new land to be brought into production.

The scale of the general problem is acknowledged by The Times which states that biofuels are creating havoc in an agricultural market where the impact of industry has in the past been minimal. It cites the International Grains Council predicting that industrial use of grains will rise by 23 percent to 229 million tons in 2007-08, with 107 million tons absorbed by ethanol producers.

However, not yet has the paper noted the potential inflationary effects on the UK economy of the push towards greater biofuel. Nor does it note that the EU is poised to run contradictory policies, one promoting food production, one "conservation" and the other energy. But that is what we have come to – different parts of the system working against each other.

COMMENT THREAD

That petition

Despite there being a perfectly adequate petition for a referendum up and running on the No. 10 website (now standing at 13,870 14,021 signatures), Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden has followed Nigel Farage into the fray and started his own.

Needless to say, in an exhibition of Tory tribalism, ConservativeHome blog is promoting Van Orden’s petition, provoking a comment from Denis Cooper, who writes:

A perfectly good non-partisan e-petition calling for a referendum on the revived EU Constitution has been running for some time…

It was even publicised by Christopher Booker in his Notebook in this week's Sunday Telegraph, as well as being promoted by The Freedom Association, the Democracy Movement and the Campaign for an Independent Britain.

So there was absolutely no need for Geoffrey Van Orden MEP to start his own "me too" petition, just as there was no need for Nigel Farage MEP to start his own "me too" petition.

To do that, and inevitably cause confusion and fragmentation when we need cross-party, non-party unity if we are to have any hope of success, is stupid, selfish and unpatriotic, and frankly I'm disgusted with both of them.

It is very hard to disagree with Dennis. Heaven help us if we do have a referendum. To judge by what is happening here, trying to get the "no" campaign to run a consistent line will be like trying to herd cats.

COMMENT THREAD

How to avoid a referendum

Picked up today by The Daily Telegraph are comments made last week by former Italian prime minister, Giuliano Amato who claims claiming, according to the paper, that the revived EU constitution has deliberately been made "unreadable" to help fend off demands for a referendum.

Actually, the reality is even more interesting, in that Amato alludes to a strategy of prime ministers deliberately distancing themselves from the final text, telling his audience at the Europhile Centre for European Reform that "…in terms of consolidated text to be produced by the secretariat, nothing (is) directly produced by the prime ministers because they feel safer with the original thing. They can present it better to their electorates in order to avoid dangerous referenda."

The report, based on a recording of the meeting made by "Open Europe", has Amato saying of the treaty-to be, that "any prime minister - imagine the UK prime minister - can go to the Commons and say 'Look, you see, it's absolutely unreadable, it's the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum'." He adds: "Should you succeed in understanding it there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new.'"

Interestingly, German MEP Elmar Bock (pictured), in an interview with Dutch television, regretted that the clarity of the original constitution had been lost. He was "not happy" with the outcome of the European Council as "the transparency was not there". The original constitution was readable, but now, he complained, "we have a classical international treaty with a lot of footnotes that nobody can understand."

Nevertheless, he was content that the "real substance and content" had been saved. The structures and the institutions, he said, "will be exactly the same as was in the constitutional treaty." Therefore, he concluded, "this has no importance in the direct work here because that was safe and there was real progress."

Asked directly if the constitution was dead, he then replied: "I think we got the substance of the constitution," adding that "the European Union is ongoing creation … we keep that what is at this historical second possible and then we will see for further progress."

Once again, therefore, we see the traditional, familiar process in play, with the "colleagues" grabbing what they can and then coming back for more at a later date. This time, they got nearly what they wanted, for now. But it is never enough. If not stopped this time, they will be back. Even if they are, they'll still be back.

COMMENT THREAD

Credit where it is due

Painful though it may be, we are actually going to write something complimentary about the Tories and about a figure who would not normally cross our radar, Theresa May, the shadow leader of the House of Commons.

Amazingly, she has just announced her Party proposals for "proper Westminster scrutiny of EU legislation", having declared that our system of scrutinising EU laws is woefully inadequate.

She offers ten proposals which are no substitute for a complete withdrawal from the EU but, for as long as we remain in the evil empire, represent a significant improvement on the existing system. These are:

1. A statutory Scrutiny Reserve, so that ministers gain Parliamentary approval before negotiating in the Council of Ministers – accepting the need, where appropriate, for ministers to be given flexibility in negotiations.

2. A fixed timetable for the government to notify the European Scrutiny Committee of new proposals.

3. New powers for the Scrutiny Committee to force a debate and vote, in the House of Commons, if it doesn't agree with government motions.

4. New powers for MPs to challenge the Scrutiny Committee and force a debate on the Floor of the House.

5. Public meetings of the European Scrutiny Committee.

6. An end to the failed European standing committee system.

7. Time allocated to European issues to be debated on the Floor of the House, through Oral Parliamentary Questions to the Minister for Europe.

8. New sitting times for the European Scrutiny Committee, to match those of the European institutions.

9. European politicians and officials to be invited to give evidence to the Scrutiny Committee.

10. A new process for intergovernmental negotiations and new European treaties: a committee for new treaties, Prime Ministerial statements before as well as after IGCs, and referendums on treaties that transfer further powers from Britain to the EU.

The proposals to abandon the European standing committees are particularly good as, for – as we have remarked previously - too many vitally important pieces of legislation are debated in the innermost recesses of the House, ignored by all and sundry. Debating them on the floor of the House would, at least, get some more attention.

The commitment, albeit qualified, to referendums on treaties, is also to be applauded and the requirement for prime ministers to give statements before as well as after IGCs is also to be welcomed.

What would not change, however, will be the sheer weight of legislation pouring out of Brussels and it is that very volume which defeats attempts at proper scrutiny. There is just too much, of such very great complexity, that it is beyond the capability of any system to keep up with it.

That apart, what May seems to have done is make an honest attempt to make an unworkable system a little bit better. For that, we must give credit where it is due.

COMMENT THREAD

What are they trying to achieve?

Silly question I know, but one really does wonder at the piece in the Telegraph today, shrieking that: "Afghan casualty rate 'at level of last war'"

Er, no…

According to the piece, the casualty rate suffered by British troops in the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan is approaching ten percent and "senior officers fear it will ultimately pass the 11 percent experienced by British soldiers at the height of the conflict 60 years ago."

To get this figure, The Telegraph compares casualties not with the total number of troops deployed, which is about three percent, but applies it to the three infantry battalions on the front line. Their overall casualty rate, it proclaims, "rises to almost 10 per cent".

Yet, by its own account, the paper acknowledges that the 11 percent of the last war applied to total number of troops deployed over the entire war. But, what it does not acknowledge is the true comparison should be between active service units engaged in combat.

Here, in some phases of the war, such as in the Alamein battle, the casualty rate amongst the leading troops in just the first wave of the assault reach 50 percent. And in longer campaigns, such as Normandy, in some infantry formations the casualty rate reached a horrendous 150 percent amongst officers and 100 percent with other ranks. It was said of infantry troops who landed in Normandy in June 1944, it was very rare for any soldier to survive past the July without injury or being killed. That is the true benchmark, not the overall 11 percent figure.

We saw a similar game being played in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, where the paper reported that British casualty rates in Iraq were higher than those suffered by US forces. Britain, it said, has 5,500 troops serving in Iraq, and suffered 23 fatalities between February 5 and June 24. The US has 165,000, and lost 463 over the same period. On that basis, there were 8.8 deaths "per 1,000 personnel-years" for British troops, whereas the US death rate was 7.3.

Once again, though, like is not being compared with like. With a smaller force, much more of the British contingent is directly involved in operations than is the US which, notoriously, has a huge "tail", far larger proportionately than the British forces.

Yet, what we do not get is a comparison between forces exposed to enemy action in each contingent, which makes the actual comparison invalid.

What again we seem to be seeing is the right wing media obsessed with presenting what were "Blair's wars" in the worst possible light. This we remarked upon in an earlier piece. There then followed a period of silence allowing a transfer of opprobrium to Brown and now the propaganda is starting up again.

We on this blog have been critical enough of the casualty rate amongst our forces, and still believe not enough is being done to keep it down, but making the type of assertions we have seen in these newspapers is beyond the pale. It is not journalism, but shoddy sensationalism which should have no place in the so-called quality press.

COMMENT THREAD

Allons enfants de l'Europe!

Not only does President Sarkozy have a glamorous wife (when she is around) and an incredibly glamorous and tough-looking new Minister for Justice, he also likes to think of himself as a soldier and a statesman. He has never been the former and has not been in place long enough to be the latter.

He is also something of glamour boy himself, attending the Quatorze Juillet concert, conversing with rock stars, and opening the traditional garden party at the Palais Elysée to all and sundry. Well, not quite all but certainly sundry.

According to the French language Reuters report, among the usual suspects there were many “victims” and anonymous “heroes”, whom the President greeted in a brief speech. Actually, it sounds a little like the Queen’s garden parties but she does have several every summer. Still, it is nice to think that France is finally approaching British levels of democracy and openness.

The biggest event of the day was the parade, a very fine spectacle, indeed. I speak as someone who happened to be in Paris one year for Quatorze Juillet and enjoyed the whole event enormously.

There were certain differences this year. The first one was President Sarkozy not taking the salute as most of his predecessors did. Au contraire, he led the parade in the back of an armoured car. I bet he has been longing to do that ever since he was a little boy, watching the parade from daddy’s or grandpa’s shoulders. Jolly exciting, what?

Then there were the foreign troops marching for the first time. Well, not quite the first time. The Foreign Legion, les képis blancs, march every year and are usually greeted with a good deal of excitement by the public. Then, of course, there was the original march, in 1944. Though led by General de Gaulle, there was rather a large number of foreign troops marching down the Champs d’Elysée, with some rolling by in tanks.

This time it was not liberation but European solidarity that was celebrated. Or so President Sarkozy made out. There were 30 troops from each of the other 26 Member States, marching under their own flags but led by the tricolour and the ring of stars.

Actually, this is in keeping with much of what the French Revolution was supposed to stand for: liberty and international brotherhood. Sadly, it all degenerated into French occupation but this was often accompanied by liberation of serfs and introduction of certain political ideas that were then turned against the “liberators” who seemed incapable of doing without certain institutions like the secret police.

Well thirty troops, even multiplied by 27, do not an army make. However, President Sarkozy saw it all as a symbol of a new European development with France in the lead and himself, no doubt, in the back of an armoured car. As AP reports:

On the eve of the Bastille celebrations, Sarkozy reiterated his push for Europe-wide defense.

"The basis for a European defense exists. We must make it grow," he said in a speech to European defense ministers and French officers. "I want Europe to be capable of ensuring its security autonomously."

Problems are looming for the hyperactive President. According to Spiegel, Chancellor Angela Merkel is finding it ever harder to watch his (and her other colleagues’) macho antics. In the case of Sarkozy she is faced with open rivalry for the leadership of the European Union. How different from the original ideas of the “founding fathers” who had envisaged France in charge for ever and a day, though why they assumed that Germany would never recover its strength and position is a mystery.

Ah well, belatedly let us toast liberté, égalité, fraternité and watch the three concepts battle it out as they have done since 1789.

COMMENT THREAD

What about the bigger picture?

While the Tories are focusing almost totally on their "social agenda", not a few newspapers today are reporting on the degeneration of our refuse collection system, most notably the Daily Mail.

This paper, however, picks on one tiny aspect of the whole debacle, choosing to condemn the moves towards fortnightly rubbish collections, failing to recognise that this is but one symptom of a system that is on the verge of breakdown. And, needless to say, the cause of that breakdown gets not a single mention – the EU's inept attempts at dictating our waste strategy and, in particular, its obsession with banning landfill.

What this, and the rest of the papers who have reported on the issue today do not realise is that the situation is going to get immeasurably worse, as the short-cuts adopted by local authorities are progressively closed down, most notably through the EU's waste shipment regulations.

These regulations are set, gradually, to restrict the opportunities from dumping waste and "recycled materials" on third world countries. As we reported last week, they will force local authorities to confront the huge costs of setting up a proper infrastructure for dealing with waste under the EU-imposed regime, which cannot help but create pressure to drive up local taxes.

It was, of course, in an attempt to cut back the massively increased costs of dealing with waste that local authorities turned to fortnightly collections and, despite the squawking of the likes of the Daily Mail, that pressure remains and is likely to intensify, even to the extent that even reduced collection frequency will have little effect in stemming the cost escalation.

But, if this is one example of the failure to see the big picture, there are many more. Earlier today, we drew attention to the potentially massive inflationary effect of the EU's efforts to enforce a ten percent biofuel quota on the 27 member states, both in terms of increased food and petrol prices.

But, as one of our readers has pointed out, this is only part of the picture. Owing to weather conditions and other factors, world grain production is dipping, while consumption overall is increasing. In 2005, there was in fact a surplus of 49 million tons, with 1,649 million tons produced against 1,600 million consumed but in the two years since there has been a 74 million ton deficit while, for the current year, the forecast production is 1,656 million tons against expected consumption of 1675 million.

Already, this is having a significant effect on prices and the upwards trend is set to continue, with an inevitable effect on inflation. Now is not the time, it seems, to divert massive amounts of agricultural produce into biofuel, or indeed into biomass production for electricity generation (requiring potentially even greater land areas) to meet the overall renewables quota of 20 percent.

What the global situation does suggest is that we should be devoting more land to agriculture and focusing on food production but, here again, the big picture intrudes. Various estimates suggest that net immigration to this country has increased the population by over a million, which is creating huge pressure on land, with the current government planning major incursions on agricultural land to meet housing and amenity needs.

Add to that the land taken for windfarms – which must also increase dramatically to meet the 20 percent renewables obligation (adding substantially to our electricity bills) - and the continued "environmental" requirements of the EU (such as two metre "conservation" margins around fields, to say nothing of the continuing set-aside programme) and the actual land available for agriculture is set to decrease rather than expand, even as the number of mouths increase.

Not only, therefore, do we see the spectre of inflation, but the prospect of real food shortages.

The immediate effects – increased prices and increased taxation - will all feed into an already inflationary climate, adding pressure on the Bank of England to raise interest rates. The knock-on effect – on the housing market and elsewhere – can only magnify the deflationary pressures already in the system and drive the economy closer to recession.

Furthermore, all of this is going on in addition to the stresses building up in the eurozone, of which Ambrose Evans Pritchard writes in The Telegraph today, on top of the surge in the value of the euro, which is having a profound destabilising effect on the wider European economy.

All of this is highly suggestive of storm clouds gathering. The "good times" such as they were, look to be coming to an end, and not least because of the infatuation with "climate change", the response to which is beginning to have a real impact on the economic health of nations. Yet, even today, The Independent is prattling on about Pacific islands being swamped by rising seas.

One cannot help but feel that the media and the political parties (the Conservatives in particular) are in denial. With the Boy trotting off to Rwanda next week for his latest round of "cuddly" photo opportunities, nowhere do you see signs of adults beginning to engage with real world problems. The term "sleepwalking into disaster" comes to mind, except that cliché is becoming over-used. We need another to describe the same thing – for that it is we are doing.

COMMENT THREAD

If you are not winning - lie

An excellent piece by John Berlau on American Thinker on Al Gore, the failure of the Earth Day concerts, his attempts to bully other organizations and MSM's lazy assumption that whatever the Goracle and his crazed supporters say must be the truth. It seems that the eco-warriors who jet around the place in private conveyances and burn enough energy to keep an average Third World country in luxury do not like groups that deal with the reality of American history, conservation and simple living. Why not? Well, one reason is something we are familiar with on this side of the Pond as well. It seems that people who live on the land quite like the idea of the odd bit of machinery that makes their lives easier. They also approve of mining as it brings in money. Read the whole article.

A recipe for inflation

A different look at the effects of large-scale biofuel production comes from The Times this morning, in a piece entitled, "Ice-cream makers frozen out as corn price rises".

It asks, "What's the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?", offering the answer that the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.

This month, says the paper, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.

It then cites Christina Seid, whose family have been making ice-cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for 28 years. She says she expected to have to raise her prices, along with all competitors in the short term. Amy Green's Ivanna Cone ice-cream emporium in Lincoln, Nebraska, has already raised its prices for a small cone to $3.50 before tax, up from $2.95 a few months ago. She also estimates that she is paying $150 more a week for the butterfat that she uses in her ice-cream.

The squeeze on ice-cream makers, chocolate manufacturers and pizza companies – all of whom use dairy produce as a raw material – is set to tighten, we are told, as the price of a gallon of milk in the US – up 55 per cent in the past 12 months in some American states – is now the same as a gallon of petrol, with dairy prices accelerating faster than the cost of fuel.

The price rises are not, of course, entirely the result of biofuel production. Prices have also risen because of increasing demand from China and the Middle East along with the drought in Australia and reduced subsidies in the EU, all of which are driving costs upwards.

However, as we pointed out in our earlier piece, UK production of biofuel currently accounts for less than one half of one percent of the petrol production.

To meet the commission's target of ten percent, however, this will absorb the entire UK crop of wheat and turn us into a net importer to find an extra three million tons, on top of the 11 million tons we already produce. And then we will need another ten million for food production.

The scale of this demand – with the whole of the EU bound by the same target – can, on top of massively increasing US demand, only drive prices upwards. And, given that China and other countries are already putting a strain on the world system, it is hard to see where the extra product will come from.

And it is not only ice-cream prices that will spiral. Some sixty percent of poultrymeat, egg and pork production costs are absorbed by the feed bill, so one can expect a knock-on effect throughout the food market. When you add the increased price of fuel, this cannot help but drive up inflation, at a time when – one presumes – environmental (and other) taxes are burgeoning.

It does seem, therefore, that biofuel (or the commission insistence on entirely unreasonable targets) is the perfect recipe for inflation. One wonders whether they have really thought this one through.

Too good to be true

It always seemed to me to be too good to be true when I heard that the evil Mickey Mouse clone, Farfur, who was spouting death worshipping jihadism on an Al Aqsa children's programme, was killed. It seems I was right.

Charles Johnson on Little Green Footballs links to a MEMRI tape and translation of the new character on the programme: Farfur's cousin, Nahoul the Killer Bee. Enjoy if you can.

The perfect EU policy

A remarkable sceptic tone comes from the usually rampant Europhile Independent today, with a report by Chris Goodall on biofuel.

Goodall tells us that the largest single investment in UK biofuels was announced last week when a consortium of BP, the food producer ABF and chemicals company DuPont agreed to plough £200m into a new refinery in Hull that will use wheat to produce more than 400m litres of ethanol a year. This will be blended into petrol to run in cars, indicating that the EU's drive to get more biofuels into petrol stations is working.

However, writes Goodall – with a nice line in understatement – "the consequences are far from attractive." This huge plant is likely to increase grain prices and may have little effect on carbon emissions. And in a final unintended consequence, it will also boost petrol costs.

He sketches out that the refinery will need a million tons of wheat a year, about seven percent of this country's total output, wiping out our trade surplus. As wheat is a global commodity and the price is set internationally, the conversion of European grain lands to growing wheat for petrol is going to raise its cost. Also, since wheat is the source of about 20 percent of the calories needed to feed the world, the impact may be severe.

Furthermore, this new refinery will produce only about half of one percent of the UK's needs for motor fuel, while the EU requires petrol to have five percent bio-content. This will need ten refineries of the size of the Hull plant which, if fuelled by wheat, they will use 70 percent of the UK crop. Food prices will rise substantially as a result for, at best – it seems - a probable carbon saving of a mere 10 percent or so.*

The final impact of the refinery, Goodall adds, will be to increase petrol costs. Even at today's high oil prices, wheat ethanol is far more expensive to produce than petrol. Inevitably this will feed through into the price on the forecourts.

So, he concludes, the £200m refinery will increase food and petrol prices and may have little impact on greenhouse gases. "In the insane world of the EU biofuels directive, the plant is likely to be very profitable for BP and its partners. The rest of us will have to pay the price."

Sounds like a perfect example of EU policy.

* Current legislation (the Biofuels Directive) sets a two percent target but, in the pipeline, is a binding ten percent target for the share of biofuels in petrol and diesel in each member state in 2020.

COMMENT THREAD

Global warming strikes again

Get used to it. It's here to stay. Note the penultimate paragraph - doncha love 'em!

Can we learn from the Russians?

Actually, the question ought to read: should we learn from the Russians. As it happens, I do not mean learning how to write great novels because they seem to have forgotten that as much as the British have. No, I am talking about certain political transitions that consolidate a managerial system of governance as opposed to a political or constitutional one, all in the name of greater efficiency.

In the interview the new Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, gave to the Financial Times (and, on the whole, he came out better than the supposedly wise and experienced Sir Mark Malloch Brown did in the Daily Telegraph yesterday) he referred to the difficulties the European project is facing.

All I wanted to say about Europe is that I’ve been convinced for years that the greatest challenge facing the European Union is about delivery rather than about internal democracy; that the root to respect in European hearts is through delivery, that it’s the delivery deficit rather than the democratic deficit that should be the focus of our attention.

And I think now, with the forthcoming IGC, with the mandate that was produced at the European council, we have a unique opportunity for the European Union to get beyond the institutional questions and the institutional debates that flummox and infuriate and bore ordinary members, you know, real people, and get on to the things that could excite them whether it be energy security or climate security or jobs. And I think we’ve got a real responsibility as well as an opportunity to seize that opportunity.

There will be plenty of opportunity for him to say a good deal more about Europe and, even, the European Union, though, astonishingly for a politician, he appears to know the difference. (Knowledgeable, eh? The man will have to go.)

It is, of course, the cry of those who believe in managerial governance – accountability does not matter; democracy does not matter; ability to understand government does not matter; what matters is that it delivers. Delivers what? Ah well, with no accountability, transparency or democracy the aim is defined by the managers and the system delivers on those aims. Neat, eh?

Russia, which has, incidentally, pulled out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, as Putin has been threatening for some time, thereby achieving nothing, is ahead of us in the game of managerialism.

Moscow News reports that ever more cities are to discard elected mayors in favour of appointed managers. Elections for regional governors were abandoned some time ago, but now the system is spreading down to the lowest denominator.

It looks like Kaliningrad, the capital of Russia's European exclave on the Baltic Sea, [formerly known as Königsberg and now the possessor of a fine Mother Russia sculpture as shown above] will soon join the ranks of those Russian cities where the chief administrator is not the mayor, elected by the residents, but a city manager hired under contract.

The initiative to revise the statute of Russia's westernmost regional center came from Alexander Yaroshchuk, chairman of the city council and leader of the United Russia party. According to him, the present city administration system has outlived its usefulness. Should the new system be adopted, the chairman of the city council will become the mayor, but will only deal with ‘city development strategy.' Translated from bureaucratese, this means performance of political and representative functions.

As for running the city on a day-to-day basis - this will be the function of the chief administrator, or city manager.

Evidently, this new scheme safeguards the regional authorities against the unpredictability of the people's choice - i.e., the choice of mayor. After all, legislators are much easier to control. In April, a similar amendment was made in the statute of Kursk, according to which this city in central Russia will be administered by an appointed mayor. Last year, Saratov and Veliky Novgorod (both in central Russia) scrapped direct mayoral elections. This shows that the vertical chain of command, in which top officials are not elected but appointed, has moved from the RF constituent members (i.e., republics, territories and regions) to the local level.

In the meantime, just to ensure compliance, various elected mayors have been arrested and charged with political malfeasance. Mayors who have fallen out with their regional governors appear to be particularly at risk. Of course, David Milliband and the people he admires, who are going to ensure that the EU is efficient and all those niggling little arguments about structure and institutions are disposed of, will not have to resort to arrests or trials, rigged or otherwise. It does not look as if anybody is going to protest too much.

COMMENT THREAD

That petition

Booker has put his weight behind the No. 10 Downing Street petition in today's column, with the result that it has gained nearly 500 more signatures, the total now touching 12,500. That is a long way to go, and we really need to reach 100,000 plus for it to have any power, but at least the figure is respectable.

You would have thought that, with this one a runner, the Eurosceptic community would support it, giving it the maximum chance of reaching politically effective numbers, but that is to reckon without the stupidity of UKIP.

In the name of Nigel Farage MEP, they have started a rival petition which asks the prime minister "to let the people decide on the future relationship between Britain and the European Union and not pass through new treaties without consulting the voters." At the time of writing, it stood at 288 signatures.

Unlike the original petition, it does not even refer to a referendum, nor specifically to the treaty-to-be and, in a linked website, against a mug shot of Farage (pictured), we get the breathless message that, "the government has signed us up to a new EU treaty…". That, of course, is not true and if the message represents the level of political acuity in UKIP, then it is hardly surprising that the Party is floundering in the polls.

COMMENT THREAD

The debate is not over

No less than three stories in The Sunday Telegraph attest to the simple fact that, despite the warmists' insistence, the global warming debate is far from over.

The main story points up how much of an industry the scam has become, the paper retailing estimates produced by the Taxpayers' Alliance which suggest that local authorities are paying out £100 million annually "to fund an army of 3,500 workers to tackle climate change", graced with such grand sounding job titles such as "carbon reduction advisors" and "climate change managers".

As an aside, if you ever wanted an explanation as to why the Tories have completely lost it – having bought into the scam, hook line and sinker – you need go no further than the insipid response from Eric Pickles, the Tories' local government spokesman.

Instead of justified outrage at the total waste of money, he bleats that, "while many local authority eco-friendly policies were sensible, they should not be used as cover for raising extra money or getting more staff", and adds, "It is important council green initiatives retain the confidence of communities - that they are mainstream, sensible and built into existing projects."

Then we get the indomitable Booker, whose column takes on not only the warmists over the recent attempted rebuttal of the research on the sun's role in climate change, but also the BBC – the number one groupies of the disaster theorists.

Booker's payoff line is, "Far from being settled, this debate is just beginning to get really interesting" and, in this, he gets unexpected support from Dr David Whitehouse, an astronomer, former BBC science correspondent, and the author of The Sun: A Biography.

In a comment piece headlined: "The truth is, we can't ignore the sun", Whitehouse also takes a tilt at the BBC, calling it "enthusiastically one-sided, sloppy and confused", and condemns it for not including any criticism of the research on the sun's role in global warming.

Whitehouse too concludes that it is apparent that the last decade shows no warming trend and recent successive annual global temperatures are well within each year's measurement errors. Statistically the world's temperature, he writes, is flat. The world certainly warmed between 1975 and 1998, but in the past 10 years it has not been increasing at the rate it did. No scientist could honestly look at global temperatures over the past decade and see a rising curve.

So, he concludes, "look on the BBC and Al Gore with scepticism. A scientist's first allegiance should not be to computer models or political spin but to the data: that shows the science is not settled."

If I were a "carbon reduction advisor" or a "climate change manager", I would be looking for a new job.

COMMENT THREAD

Sins catching up?

As this is George Galloway we are talking about, one can argue that if his sins are catching up with him then it is not a moment too soon. Not that his punishment is going to be all that dire.

According to the Sunday Times, the man is to be suspended from the House of Commons (where he does not spend all that much time, anyway) because of his links with the oil-for-food scam.

In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. The appeal, which paid Galloway’s wife and funded international travel for the MP, received almost £450,000 from Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who was also a trustee of the appeal. It subsequently emerged that more than half of this money came from the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales. An investigation by the American Senate alleged that the Mariam Appeal was used by the Iraqi regime to finance Galloway.

Galloway continues to deny the accusations though he has not actually faced another senatorial hearing, insisting that he knew nothing about the source of the money and is being smeared. Judging by at least one comment on the article there are people out there who are ready to repeat this rubbish, adding for good measure that if British troops are withdrawn from Iraq in the next few months (not at all a given), Galloway will be proved right.

Well, no. Galloway thought Saddam was a wonderful leader and he has not been proved right on that or anything else.

Right now, he is facing a month's suspension from the House of Commons. The question is, will he still be able to claim expenses.

COMMENT THREAD

A mountain to climb

The Tories are not panicking, honest! It’s just one poll and just because it puts Gordon Brown's Labour Party on 40 percent, seven points ahead of the Conservatives, don't mean nuffink. The methodology is suspect, it's only a "Brown bounce" and you won't get any sense out of the polls until after the Party conferences in the autumn.

That said, it is one of a run of polls giving Brown the lead, and the Tory's troubles are far from confined to this. Both The Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday feature the Tory candidate for next Thursday's Ealing Southall by-election, who donated £4,800 to Labour only last month.

This is Tony Lit, a wealthy radio station boss parachuted in to fight the seat by Cameron, having only joined the Tory Party a week before he was selected as a candidate at the insistence of the Boy. It now appears that he paid for a table at a Labour fundraising dinner at which he was pictured next to a smiling Tony Blair days before his departure as prime minister.

There will be many explanations for the Tory demise but, interestingly, the two words that hardly appear anywhere are "European Union". On this issue at least, there is clear blue water between Cameron and Brown, the former demanding a referendum on the treaty-to-be and the latter refusing one.

If the EU was at all the issue that we would like it to be, this would surely have reflected in the polls and given the Boy a head start. As it is, this poll gives Labour its biggest lead over the Conservatives since the Boy became leader of the opposition.

Maybe the EU will become an electoral issue after the IGC summit and the signing ceremony but, for the moment, this poll demonstrates what a huge mountain we have to climb to put the issue high up on the political agenda. For the moment, though, Brown need not feel troubled by the Tories' demands for a referendum.

COMMENT THREAD

Arrogance and ignorance

Anthony Jay, former BBC producer and co-writer of "Yes minister", holds forth (at length) in The Daily Telegraph today, in a clinical dissection of "media liberalism" – as it applies to the BBC.

The hidden joke of the piece, of course, is that what applies to the BBC also applies, to a greater or lesser extent, to the whole of the MSM, including the newspaper in which Jay writes.

For those (very few) who really want to try to understand the media, and why it exercises such a malign influence on political discourse – and life in general – however, Jay does us a service. He isolates some of the underlying currents which determine the phenomenon - for once correctly – identified by the title of the piece: "Here is the news (as we want to report it)".

That phenomenon, Jay notes in one simple sentence when he observes that what he calls the "metropolitan liberal media consensus" from time to time finds an issue that strikes a chord with the broad mass of the nation, but – and here is the key part of his sentence – "in most respects" is "wildly unrepresentative of national opinion."

Although he does not use the exact phrasing, what he is taking about is the media's "selection bias", one which, in an earlier piece, we labelled, "the most powerful of distorting prisms through which current affairs may be viewed", for it is that which affects the media's choice about what we shall (and shall not) see.

And, as we are indeed talking about this very powerful bias, what Jay does is tell us, in some detail, about why it occurs and why it takes the form that it does. This he sums up as a simple question: "what is behind the opinions and attitudes of what are called the chattering classes?" – the subculture which has managed to install itself as the principal interpreter of Britain's institutions to the British public.

One of his factors, and to me, the crucial part of the long pieces, is that this media class sees itself as:

…the intellectual élite, full of ideas about how the country should be run, and yet with no involvement in the process or power to do anything about it. Being naïve in the way institutions actually work, yet having good arts degrees from reputable universities, we were convinced that Britain's problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge. We ignored the tedious practicalities of getting institutions to adopt and implement ideas.

He goes on to write:

This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world. We were not Marxists but accepted a lot of Marxist social analysis. Some people called us arrogant; looking back, I am afraid I cannot dispute the epithet.

Thus, in two short paragraphs, two crucial concepts occur: "ignorance" and "arrogance" – these from a man who used to be at the centre of the "liberal media elite" and one who should know.

In this, I am reminded of the comment by the philosopher Ortega y Gasset (not usually my most favourite person) who once commented of the new mass-man, that:

… he is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with all the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line … In politics, in art, in social usages, in the other sciences, he will adopt the attitude of primitive, ignorant man; but he will adopt them forcefully and with self-sufficiency, and will not admit of – this is the paradox – specialists in those matters …

For one who wrote this in 1930 (in the original Spanish), Ortega y Gasset was extraordinarily prescient, especially as he went on to write:

Anyone who wishes can observe the stupidity of thought, judgement and action shown today in politics, art, religion, and the general problems of life and the world by the "men of science" and behind them the doctors, engineers, financiers, teachers, and so on.

The arrogant, yet ignorant know-all, therefore, is hardly a new phenomenon, but those who display these distressing (and dangerous) characteristics now exercise their power through the mass media, which gives them free reign to promote their brand of "stupidity of thought".

Jay, however, leaves the problem hanging, in that he ventures the view that, had he remained in the maw of the BBC, he would probably have remained a devotee of the "metropolitan media liberal ideology", thus suggesting that it is an incurable condition for those whose exposure is continuous.

However, the man is not at all internet savvy and, like so many, has probably not realised the power of this alternative medium, which is doing much to break the monopoly of thought of those who are trapped in the metropolitan bubble. To the extent that we can offer our own unique brands of "stupidity of thought", there is at least now a countervailing force to counter those whose arrogance and ignorance we find so offensive.

COMMENT THREAD

Vanity first

Research in the EU is one of the key priorities, so all the politicians say, with a commitment to increase the annual spend on research and development to three percent of GDP being a core part of the Lisbon strategy.

But that commitment means nothing when the vanity of the Empire is at stake, witness an EU commission plan to lop €548m off the research budget to finance the deployment of its Galileo satellite navigation system.

Such is the arrogance of the commission that, according to The Financial Times, it is pushing this proposal even while the provincial leaders are still considering not only how the project should be funded, but whether it should be funded at all.

This was on the table at a meeting yesterday in Brussels, where the Empire's draft budget for next year was being put together. But such is the underhand way the commission works that Galileo was not formally on the agenda. Nevertheless, as one EU official said: "Everyone knows the cuts could help to finance Galileo but few people want to admit it publicly."

One unhappy bunny was a spokesman for Janez Potocnik, the EU research commissioner, who complained that: "Member states reiterate on a regular basis that R&D; is one of the areas where Europe can make a difference to its future. I really do not see the logic to proposing cuts to the R&D budget."

The man is quite right. There is no logic – we are dealing with vanity here, and that comes first.

COMMENT THREAD

A new cooling?

A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change, says the BBC.

That, with similar sentiments expressed by hundreds of other media organs, is the view of the paper produced by professor Mike Lockwood and Claus Froehlich and published in the current edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

However, the glee with which the media have simultaneously piled in to "debunk" the solar radiation theory suggests something of a co-ordinated attempt to attack the climate sceptics, the particular target the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle , broadcast on TV's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the solar warming argument.

Lockwood's thesis is that, in the last 20 years, the Sun's output has declined yet temperatures on Earth have risen. Intriguingly, while he also concedes that cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, this is no longer having any impact on the present. "It might even have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate," he says, "but you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."

And, as always, there is but one agenda, to reinforce the "consensus" and close down discussion. Thus, declares Lockwood, "This should settle the debate".

However, while Lockwood uses surface temperatures as the basis for his comparisons, these data are, at best equivocal, as they are affected by factors unrelated to climate variations (not least the "heat island" effect). Even then, as the top graph shows, data from the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, charted from 1979 until October 2006 demonstrate that global temperatures have flattened out over the past five years.

The more accurate NASA satellite data, however, are even more striking. These, recording lower air temperatures, show that there has been no warming since the global peak in 1998. Far from having risen, global temperatures have in fact stabilised.

As science writer, John Ray, points out, since the effects of reduced solar radiation may be lagged, the influence concerned may take some time to show up. One reason for this, he argues, is the vast reservoir of heat, CO2 and much else that girdles the earth: the ocean. It takes some time for a surface temperature variation to show up in the amount of heat stored in the ocean.

His view is that, when the recent drop in solar output works its way through all the systems - such as the ocean - we might expect global cooling. It is cooling, he suggests, that the solar data suggest as imminent, not warming.

Far from "settling the debate", therefore, all Lockwood has done is poke a stick in a hornets' nest. And time is on the sceptics' side. If what we are seeing is the emergence of a cooling trend, the next ten years will be crucial. At the end of the next decade, the evidence will be unarguable.

What fun it will be to see the warmists wriggle and squirm.

COMMENT THREAD

So, what is his status?

This blog is not alone in being interested in Lord Malloch-Brown's (as he is to be)relationship with George Soros. One of the Londoner's Diary hacks seems to have been following the saga:

Barely ten weeks after becoming vice-chairman of George Soros's hedge fund company, Mark Malloch-Brown was given a job in Gordon Brown's cabinet. Although he is no doubt pleased with this appointment, especially since he has been made Lord Malloch-Brown for the post, it must have been a blog to his bank balance to quit his new and highly lucrative job.

The question is - has he quit it? When I ring the Foreign Office, where Malloch-Brown is the minister for Arica, Asia and the UN, I am told he has yet to make a declaration of his interests. "That process has yet to be undertaken," says a spokesman, "there was a delay actually because the cabinet office were reviewing the ministerial code of conduct and Lord Malloch-Brown is out of the country until Tuesday so that process has not yet happened. But very simply he will be making his declaration on his return."

So is he on holiday? "He is on private business not official business," adds the spokesman. Let's hope whatever business he is attending to adheres to the new code of conduct.

When Malloch-Brown took up his post on Soros's hedge fund in April, he also became vice-chairman to the billionaire's Open Society Institute, a private grant-making foundation. The New York office informs me that Malorch-Brown stepped down from that as soon as GB became PM.

But will he be as quick to give up the hedge fund? Given that it is full-time, it would seem likelyt that time constraints would force him to do so. Any shares that he holds in the fund himself may have to be sold or put into a blind trust.

One's first thought on reading this piece [not on the web] is to think that one should always beware official spokesmen who manage to use the word "process" twice in two consecutive sentences. Sir Humphrey would not have approved, I suspect.

One's second thought is to wonder why it takes ministers so long to sort out matters that are remarkably simple. I seem to recall problems with Lord Sainsbury when he became Minister for something or other and his shares not being put into a blind trust for weeks. At the time I was told by a journalist friend, who had had to go through the same process, writing as he did about economic matters, that it took half a day to sort it all out.

There were hints of Gordon Brown appointing Malloch-Brown for months, so the man must have known for some time that his position in the Soros empire was temporary. After all, it is not difficult to understand that being vice-chairman of that organization would cause a clash of interests for any member of the government, and not just because it is a full-time job.

It is surely incumbent on the man to make a clear and immediate announcement (from wherever he happens to be) about his position in the Soros empire, if any. Or is that going to become one of those "don't go down there" matters, like the large pensions collected by former Commissioners?

COMMENT THREAD

Speculation, speculation, speculation

Now that Blair has departed from the scene (with remarkable rapidity into almost complete obscurity), and we have a new provincial governor in Gordon Brown, the political hacks have been deprived of their favourite entertainment – the Blair-Brown soap opera – and are casting around for another diversion.

The flavour of the month is now reading the runes about whether Gordon is planning an early election, with suggestions that he might pull a stunt in the autumn (not a good idea after a long wet summer, when everyone is more than usually depressed).

But now The Times is putting two and two together, and positing that Brown might be clearing the decks for a May election, giving him sufficient time "to convince voters that he has introduced a new style of government."

Speculation that is indeed but it is not beyond the realms possibility that it might happen and, certainly, the Tories are taking it seriously enough, mobilising their troops for the eventuality.

But, should it happen, this will have interesting – if not profound – implications for the ratification of the treaty-to-be, which the Times hacks do not seem to have factored into their calculations.

As it stands, the "colleagues" plan to start the IGC process on 23 July, with the IGC summit held to coincide with the 18-19 October meeting of the European Council in Lisbon. Then, if the timetable holds, we will see the signing ceremony in December.

If Brown is then to go to the country in May (which must be early May to coincide with the local elections), this then leaves him with but a short time to ratify the treaty, as he will have to present a Bill to Parliament to amend the European Communities Act.

From January to the end of March – a mere three months including the Easter break – is not enough time to get a Bill through both Houses. And if the Lords, as is confidently expected, table amendments – including a requirement for a referendum – the timetable will go badly awry. And, with the dissolution of parliament, the Bill will fall.

Now, it is a given that no prime minister will want to go to the country with an EU treaty "on the table". If he chose to do so, Brown would face the prospect of having "Europe" high up on the electoral agenda. Since the Conservatives are promising a referendum, that would put him on the back foot, as they scooped up the Eurosceptic vote. Like Blair in 1997 on the euro and in 2004 on the constitution, he would have little option but to concede a referendum, simply to neutralise an issue that could otherwise cost him the election.

Looking at this from an Empire perspective, however, an early election is a high risk strategy, one that risks failure of the ratification process. It is one, therefore, that Brown's Europhile colleagues will surely be warning against. And that, for all the speculation, could be a deciding factor.

COMMENT THREAD

Those cartoons again

The Danish cartoons are back in the news. At least, they are back in the Danish news but we, on this blog, feel that this is a big enough issue to concern all of us.

Flemming Rose, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that published the original, very mild cartoons, writes on his blog that another court case is about to come to an end in Denmark but the decision may not be accepted by Muslim organizations.

Islamic Society of Copenhagen can’t accept the secular laws of Denmark, and therefore they plan to seek support in the Middle East for a fatwa against Jyllands-Posten, if the newspaper is acquitted in a pending civic case, which a number of Muslim organizations has initiated against the paper, and if the European Human Rights Court also makes a decision that goes against the legal demands of the Muslims.

Should the judges' decisions go against the Islamic Society, as they did in France in the Charlie Hebdo case, the Islamic Society is going to ask for a fatwa.

As I understand it, there not being a single hierarchy in Islam or even several single hierarchies, a fatwa can be issued by any number of imams. Somewhere, somebody will issue one against Jyllands-Posten, Flemming Rose, the cartoonists and, possibly, the Queen of Denmark. Let's throw Hamlet into the equation, as well. After all, he was Prince of Denmark.

The whole subject of the permanently recurring rage has been summed up very neatly by Cox & Forkum in the cartoon I have shamelessly nicked from their site because it is so good.

There is an excellent piece on the subject is by one of the best journalists around, Christopher Hitchens. In "Look Forward to Anger" he explains why it is impossible to control or channel the entirely predictable Muslim "rage", though it tends to encompass very few people.

Here, to entertain everyone, is the photogallery of Rage Boy, the main character in all these protests, as put together by Brian C. Ledbetter on Snapped Shot.

UPDATE

Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the Danish People's Party (DPP) has won the libel case that a Danish Muslim group brought against her.

A court ruled that Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the Danish People's Party (DPP), did not libel the Islamic Faith Community when she accused some of its members of treason for travelling to the Middle East to publicise a Danish newspaper's publication of the drawings, which caused a worldwide uproar in 2006.

The court said the term "treason" was not libellous because it was used extensively in public debate. It ordered the plaintiffs, a loose network of Danish Muslim organisations which says it represents 50,000 members, to pay Kjaersgaard 40,000 Danish crowns ($7,400) in costs.

The losing group is contemplating an appeal and then, possibly, a fatwa.

A mindset betrayed

In and amongst the hyperventilation over the treaty-to-be in the Empire's parliament this week, the Members of the Empire's Parliament (MEPs) found time to deal with a report on translation costs.

Produced by Finnish MEP Alexander Stubb, in the account retailed by Euractiv.com we are told that the collective institutions waste some €26 million through booked but unused translation services. This is because it costs about €1,500 per interpreter per day in the parliament (the commission pays around €1,000), regardless of whether the interpreters' services are being used.

The waste is part of the €511 million (2005 figure – it is much more now) paid for translation in the parliament, the commission and the council. Stubb calls for "more efficient means to evaluate productivity and costs, assess translation needs, manage translations, control their quality and increase inter-institutional co-operation." Furthermore, he questions the need to have every document translated into languages such as Finnish, Swedish or Maltese.

Everything does not need to be translated into all the official languages, he argues. For example, in the committees of the parliament, it is sufficient to have translations in languages used by the members of the committee in question. Other translations can be provided if requested.

Well might Stubb question the burgeoning cost of language services, considering that the United Nations (not normally a model of frugality) manages to survive with six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish; while the secretariat uses two working languages, English and French.

For all his concern for economy, however, Stubb believes "multilingualism" is one of Empire's main assets: "The EU's language services, including both translation and interpretation, amount to only less than one percent of the total costs of the EU. Not such a high price to pay for democracy and efficient co-operation," he declares.

And therein lies the mindset. It is very easy to prattle about democracy, and dismiss more than half a billion in expenditure as "not such a high price", when someone else (i.e., the taxpayer) is paying. One wonders how many translation services would survive if the "colleagues" had to pay for them out of their own pockets.

COMMENT THREAD

And now the fun begins

Whatever else, you have to give the Empire full marks for prescience. Yesterday, it proudly announced that new waste shipment regulations came into force, no less than the 98-page Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006 of 14 June 2006.

What makes this remarkable though is the claim by environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, that the new law is aimed at making sure "that tragic accidents such as last year's dumping of dangerous waste in the Ivory Coast never happen again" - a claim repeated uncritically by the BBC.

"This is why," he said, "we must have strong and efficient measures at EU level to prevent illegal shipments of waste and to ensure that when waste is shipped for treatment outside the EU, this treatment does not damage the environment."

The Ivory coast incident occurred when the Dutch-chartered ship Probo Koala (pictured above) dumped toxic chemical slops, leading to 16 deaths and tens of thousands of sick people who suffered vomiting, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties after inhaling fumes from the waste.

But the interesting thing is that the ship actually discharged its deadly cargo on 19 August 2006, a clear two months after Mr Dimas's legislation was signed off in Brussels. But such is the skill now of the gifted servants of empire that they can foresee such incidents and have new laws ready and waiting to deal with them, before they even happen.

Nevertheless, the legislation does indeed deal with the export of hazardous waste to developing countries, banning it completely – and a lot more besides, including stringent controls on the export of waste outside the EU, for recycling purposes. And this is where the "fun" is going to start.

As we reported at the time, the Probo Koala incident occurred because the Dutch authorities would not allow the toxic cargo to be offloaded in Amsterdam for treatment. Since the master of the vessel would have incurred a $250,000 penalty for the late arrival of his ship at the next port of call, had he diverted to "a special facility", he chose to sail with the cargo on board – with the tragic results of which we are now aware.

This points up the nub of a problem that is now going to intensify. While, with the help and "guidance" of Empire legislation, waste disposal facilities have been much reduced, while disposal costs have soared. The inevitable result has been a massively expanding export trade, dumping our waste on third world countries such as China, but also India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Under these new regulations, however, many of the practices currently undertaken will either be banned outright, or heavily restricted (e-waste will be a particular problem), with an overlay of bureaucratic controls and inspections. These will force (which is the intention) the EU provinces to come to terms with dealing with their own waste.

This is something local authorities, throughout Europe but especially in this country, have been trying to avoid, given the estimated costs in the UK of £10 billion to set up an adequate waste processing infrastructure and an annual £6-8 billion for running costs.

Slowly but surely, as the regulatory net tightens, local authorities will be driven to make the necessary investments but, limited by how much they can increase politically sensitive local taxes, and with no support from central government, something is going to have to give.

With local electors already groaning under the burden of sustained increases, and many of the view that they are not getting value for money, we can start seeing services reduced even further so that local authorities can make ends meet. Then, one hopes, people will really be able to see the effects of the Brussels obsession with banning landfill, which is at the heart of the waste policy. By then, of course, it will be too late.

COMMENT THREAD

A strong euro is a good thing - discuss

Der Spiegel reports that there is some disagreement on the subject of the strong euro within the eurozone economies. The euro has hit an all-time high at $1.38 this morning but slipped back somewhat later on.

The politicians think this is a good thing, the businessmen, particularly in Germany, are not so sure.

"That is an exchange rate that we can live with," said German Economy Minister Michael Glos on Thursday at a German-Arabic business conference. "The economy is doing great. There are no worries at present."

This was echoed by Portugal's Finance Minister, Fernando Teixeira dos Santo:

"I don't think ... that we have a problem in exchange rates at the moment," he told a European Parliament committee. "Let's not fall into temptation to resolve our economic problems by devaluing. If we want to gain competitiveness it's not by devaluing our currency."

Fair enough. It is economic reforms that will overcome stagnation not a single currency as some of us insisted on telling supporters of the euro in the early nineties.

Still, German industrialists are not happy:

Despite Glos' equanimity, German industry on Wednesday complained that the strong euro was not good for business. A spokesman for Germany's machinery manufacturing industry told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that a number of company's were having trouble competing against foreign companies this year due to the strong euro. The country's automobile industry likewise told the paper that it has felt the effects of the currency's strength.

"The currency's development is causing us to become more and more concerned," Matthias Wissmann, president of Germany's federation of automakers, told Süddeutsche Zeitung. The strength of the European currency makes products from euro-zone countries more expensive abroad -- or can decrease profits in the US if companies try to keep dollar prices constant. Indeed, the strong euro has Volkswagen thinking about opening up a factory in the United States.

Globalization, anyone?

A triumph of hope over experience

A mere two weeks after Romania is warned by the Empire that it has failed to do enough to tackle high-level corruption, what does the EU commission do?

Well, having decided not to impose sanctions, it does the obvious thing. It awards the province €19 billion in slush development funds.

The first funds are due to arrive within days and, in an egregious example of hope triumphing over experience, EU regional policy commissioner Danuta Hubner says that the Commission would cooperate with the government to prevent "irregularities" in spending EU funds.

And we still want to be part of this?

COMMENT THREAD

British justice

Sympathy for drivers who get caught by those roadside yellow cash machines is not exactly universal, not even on this blog.

But the contrast between the treatment drivers who try to evade penalty points here, and drivers in France is quite interesting.

The one gets a prison sentence while, in France the offender risks only a €1,500 fine – and a very small risk it is. There are very rarely any prosecutions.

Foreign drivers fare even better. They may get fined, but they do not suffer any deduction of points (or addition, depending on the system). You can see why the "colleagues" want a European solution to this.

At least our cameras are painted yellow, though - unlike the French cash machines (pictured).

COMMENT THREAD

More on that "empire"

Hot Air has picked up on the "EU empire" story. Some of the comments are rather interesting – if not slightly off. Some readers are convinced that the "fragrant one" is French.

The enemy within

Our provincial governor, Gordon Brown, yesterday drove a cart and horse through the 150-year-old tradition where the annual legislative programme is revealed only by the Monarch in a speech to parliament.

In so doing, he told MPs that his was a "listening government", outlining a detailed list of proposed legislation and promising to consult Parliament and the public before implementing "his" measures – many of which stem from Brussels diktats. Interestingly, he made provision "for region-by-region deliberation and responses", these being Euro-regions, of course.

That brought the Boy Cameron to his feet asking, inter alia, whether the Brown was really listening to people's priorities. Some 86 percent of people in this country, he declared, want a referendum on the European treaty: "So where is the Bill for a referendum? Does that not show that his promise to listen is a complete and utter sham?"

Putting the "straight question" – one of three – he asked whether Brown would "give the British people a referendum on the European constitution, which they all want?". But, as we have come to expect, we did not get a straight answer. Instead, Brown chose to invoke the enemy within, saying:

I think that he should listen to some other voices in his own party. The debate within his own party is raging at the moment, with Lord Heseltine saying that, as a result of our achieving our red lines in the negotiations, if we can secure the amending treaty, there is no case for a referendum. Perhaps, in the spirit of consultation, the right hon. Gentleman should consult his own party on these matters.

So this is now the role of the Tory "fifth column" – to run interference for the "colleagues", giving the provincial governor a wedge with which he can split the opposition. As long as the dinosaurs hang on in there, they can be used to portray a divided party and thus dilute the effect of demands for a referendum. So much for a "new" government - Brown is following along the same old tramlines set by his predecessor.

Strange it is that those people who are working so assiduously to destroy our own parliament are those who are most voluble about parliamentary ratification of the treaty-to-be.

COMMENT THREAD

Education, education, education

We can all remember Tony Blair’s announcement at the beginning of what turned out to be a ten-year stint as Prime Minister that his key words were “education, education, education”. Actually, Lenin made them his key words somewhat earlier but let us not worry about that too much.

Now the Blair premiership is sliding into history and the man himself is a Middle East peace envoy from the Quartet with rather limited responsibilities. Well, I have news for him. He can return to his original idea and take up education, education, education. In fact, he can start exporting some ideas of British education where they are sorely needed.

Via Snapped Shot we have a fascinating story of the Middle East – this time the West Bank, known to some as Fatahland. In an article that deals with the tightening control imposed by Mahmoud Abbas (the West’s and Ehmud Olmert’s bestest friend among the Palestinians) on the West Bank, the Jerusalem Post gives the following detail of how examination grades are achieved there:

Earlier this week, some 150 Fatah gunmen stormed a number of schools in Nablus and drove out hundreds of students who were taking high school matriculation exams.

The gunmen were protesting against Abbas's refusal to allocate secret halls for them so that they, too, could sit for the exams, without risking being arrested or killed by the IDF. The gunmen were later allowed to sit for the exams in special halls.

One of the teachers said most of the gunmen cheated.

"They opened books and copied the answers word by word," he said. "We were afraid to stop them because they were carrying M-16 rifles."

Well, indeed, it is a brave teacher who argues with an examination candidate who is cradling an M-16 rifle.

It is, of course, very touching how taken Fatah gunmen are with education or, at least, rather like many of our own students, with getting examination results.

Now here is where Tony Blair could be useful. Let’s face it, this is a very wasteful way of achieving results. Why not go for the British system of modules, when the tutors do all the work for the students, anyway? Like the man said, education, education, education.

Swedes to make the running?

The ANP news agency in Holland is reporting, Dutch News that the chance of a referendum there is small.

Even if MPs in the lower house are in favour of a referendum, the agency says, it is unlikely to get support from the Liberal (VVD) party in the upper house (senate) which is necessary for a majority. Political sources told ANP that two of the three coalition parties in the senate (Christian Democrats and ChristenUnie) also have their doubts about a referendum.

On the other hand, Swedish Radio is telling us that, despite (or perhaps because of) the fragrant Margot, two-thirds of Swedes want a referendum on the EU treaty-to-be. Some 67 percent of 1,000 Swedes questioned said they wanted to vote on the treaty in a referendum, while 29 percent said parliament should decide.

The majority have the support of opposition Green and Left parties which, last month, called for a referendum. Nevertheless, the provincial governor of Sweden, prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, is sticking to the line dictated by the "colleagues" that there should be no referendum and parliament should ratify the treaty.

However, it is early days yet as no treaty as such has been published, much less agreed. But the colleagues have a great deal to fear from a Swedish referendum, the 2003 referendum on the euro having gone against them (the "no" campaign having used the remarkably effective poster illustrated).

Even now, the Swedes have few regrets. In the same survey, 64 percent said the vote to keep the krona was "a good decision", while only twenty-nine percent said the result was a bad. Maybe, this time, the Swedes will make the running on the treaty.

COMMENT THREAD

The Empire speaks

Today in the EU parliament in Strasbourg, Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the EU commission spoke to the Leinen report on the intergovernmental conference. The naked arrogance of this extract from her speech tells its own story. Note the comment: "But I do not think we should allow that":

Mr President, honourable Members, there must be a position between Pangloss and his over-optimism and Eyeore the Donkey thinking that everything is hopeless. It is a very rare thing in politics to get a second life and I am not referring to internet role-playing. Remember that, less than a year ago, the Constitutional Treaty or the idea of having a new treaty was declared dead, on life support or in a coma. And now we are discussing a ratification procedure coming up very soon.

I think that engaging now in a blame game will not help us a bit, and, as a final comment on this debate, I have two things to say. First of all, on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the European Commission does not like opt-outs. We would have preferred not to have any opt-outs. But what was the real political choice here? It was a weakened charter without legal force or a charter that is legally binding for the EU institutions with an opt-out, or preserving the full text of the charter. Then, I prefer to have a charter which is legally binding, and an opt-out is also an opt-in so this is not cast in stone.

My second comment is that I would like to say that I assume that Members of Parliament do not consider parliamentary ratification less democratically legitimate than referenda.

(Applause)

Some Eurosceptics of course hope that the challenge of informing citizens and engaging citizens about and in such a complex issue as a treaty can be turned into a weapon that can kill further European integration. But I do not think we should allow that.

(Applause)

Also, regardless of what ratification method is chosen by Member States, we are all obliged to inform, to engage, to debate, to discuss with citizens all over Europe and this is what we now have to commit to, to do together, in full cooperation and in a planned manner. This is also how we will contribute from the Commission side. So, I will come back to you very soon with that kind of planning for a proper and democratic and open and transparent ratification procedure.

With that I also wish the Portuguese Presidency all the best with opening the IGC.

(Applause)

You can see from the tone that the "colleagues" scent victory - and they are prepared to brook no delay. No niceties from our Margot about sovereign nations negotiating the terms of a treaty - "now we are discussing a ratification procedure coming up very soon." To her and her "colleagues", the treaty is a done deal and, already, they are planning to interfere in the ratification process.

And this is before they have the treaty in the bag. Once they've got it, they will be unstoppable in their arrogance. For the first time in my career as a Eurosceptic, I am really worried. This thing has to be stopped, no matter what the cost.

COMMENT THREAD

Stagnating in space

To add to the woes of the Empire's favourite project, France and Germany are apparently having a dust-up over the funding of Galileo.

The Guardian tells us that the two countries cannot agree about how further taxpayers' money should be channelled into the bail-out, with Germany preferring voluntary contributions via the European Space Agency, while France wants cash sourced directly from the European Empire's budget.

Enter Olivier Houssin, head of the commercial and security operations of French electronics group Thales. Speaking with all the tact of an, er… Frenchman, he says Europe runs the risk of being left behind in key commercial and military applications by the US, China, Russia and India.

While the UK still clings to the notion that private finance is the way forward, Houssin dismisses the PPP/PFI as "a false good idea" because Galileo was a "strategic infrastructure" that Europe had to fund publicly. "If Galileo collapses it will be the collapse of the most important EU programme outside the common agricultural policy," he said in an interview. "Europe is stagnating in space".

However, making a comparison between the CAP and Galileo does seem, on the face of it, a tad unfortunate, especially as Galileo looks set to be about as successful as the CAP.

COMMENT THREAD

More on that value-based common foreign policy

Both the International Herald Tribune and the Pakistani Daily Times report that Javier Solana, the EU’s Lord High Executioner of Common Foreign Policy, made a statement about the fighting around and inside the Red Mosque in Pakistan.

It seems that Señor Solana is disturbed by what has been going on, as Pakistan is rather an important country and what happens there may well affect developments in Afghanistan. This is undoubtedly true but are we to understand that the EU through its designated spokesman is merely disturbed by the fighting, which just sort of happened?

It would seem so:

"The EU position is that we are gravely concerned because Pakistan is an important country," Solana said after talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"Also, because the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan is fundamental for peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, where many European countries have deployed troops," Solana said.

Right. We are not taking sides. That would be value-free.

The Australians are taking a somewhat more robust view:

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downs said his country is concerned with extremism in Pakistan but backs President Musharraf’s efforts to overcome the menace.

Well, I am glad we have moved beyond that old-fashioned, valueless foreign policy.

COMMENT THREAD

More groundhog days

One of the items in the Presidential Conclusions of this June’s European Council, under the heading of External Relations, talks of the EU – Africa relationship. This is the sort of item that is likely to be produced as part of the common foreign policy, which is not based on common interests, there not being any, but on supposedly common values. Whether these values are common to anyone in the rest of the world or even, for that matter, European countries and peoples, remains irrelevant.

So, instead of letting individual countries work out their relationship with individual African countries (except for France, which persists in behaving as a colonial power) the EU has put together a framework policy for dealings with the African Union (AU).

49. The second EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in December 2007 will provide an important opportunity to enhance the relationship between the EU and Africa and to build an ambitious and strategic new partnership.

50. Recalling its conclusions of June 2005, the European Council underlines the importance it attaches to the further close cooperation with the African Union to ensure that a Joint EU-Africa strategy can be adopted by December 2007. The European Council reaffirms the commitment to continue support for the African Union, with a view, inter alia, to strengthening the African Union's capacity in conflict management, resolution and prevention. The European Council welcomes the intention to establish an Africa-EU energy partnership at the EU-Africa Summit.

51. The European Council stresses the need for new arrangements allowing early release of EU funds to support AU rapid deployment, which should be addressed as a priority. The Council reaffirms the commitments undertaken in the EU Strategy "The EU and Africa: Towards a Strategic Partnership" and encourages Member States to make all efforts to reach the targets set therein.

We have already written about the forthcoming Summit to which President Mugabe of Zimbabwe will be invited because other African leaders refuse to attend if he is not.

Let us have a look at items 2 and 3, which mean mostly that the EU will hand over more of our money to the African Union in the vain hope that it will improve its hitherto non-existent “capacity in conflict management, resolution and prevention”. Well, as Alice was told at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, you can always have more than none.

Even so, if we are about to give more money, ought we not find out what happened to the previous amount? Apparently, there is an effort to do so and the results are lamentable.

Yesterday’s Washington Post reported:

European funds designated for the African Union mission in Darfur have not reached the undermanned and underequipped military force for months, leaving soldiers there without pay, officials said Tuesday.

The African Union acknowledged the problem, but said the European Union requires cumbersome accounting impossible in a remote and violent region the size of France.

This may well be true, though as the money comes from the European taxpayer, there ought to be some kind of an accounting procedure. Clearly that idea has not been discussed in all those EU - Africa meetings. Incidentally, have we had any accounts of the large amounts of money that has been handed over to Sudan in general and, in particular, for the purposes of helping the people of Darfur?

Even the amounts that have gone to the AU are not exactly chicken-feed:

The European Commission has earmarked $384 million for the African Union since November 2004, and further funds have been provided by the individual EU states, for a total of more than $544 million. The European Union is investigating why its money has not been paid to AU soldiers, officials said Tuesday.

One assumes that the money is not simply lying around. Where it has gone to might be a good subject for EU investigation but since the group is led by the egregious Spanish MEP Josep Borrell, that question is unlikely to be asked.

The AU is blaming the EU’s convoluted accounting system and the EU is implying that the AU has been, at best, lackadaisical. In the meantime, the soldiers, who have not been able to impose order in Darfur in any case, remain unpaid. History is full of interesting tales of what happens to the civilians around them when soldiers are not paid.

COMMENT THREAD

Sits vac

If anyone is interested, there is a vacancy in the Empire for a new "anti-terrorism chief". Eurosceptics need not apply.

Employment consultant José Socrates, part-time Satrap of Portugal while he currently occupies the demi-throne of the EU Empire, is casting round for suitable applicants, against a job specification of "ensuring smooth cooperation" between the Empire's 27 provinces.

The previous post holder, Gijs de Vries, stepped down in March at the end of his three-year term and the Empire has been slow in replacing him as some of the Satraps have dared question the need for such a prestigious post.

However, the current representative of the Empire is having none of this, stressing that a new coordinator must be appointed urgently and his "mandate" defined more clearly: "Only Empire European cooperation allows us to prevent and pursue terrorism," Socrates declared.

COMMENT THREAD

The empire's "egregious errors"

Mr Barroso's empire took a little bit of a bashing yesterday, while he was holding forth in Strasbourg, when French-owned Schneider Electric scored an important legal victory in the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

The case was about compensation to the French group for the commission's action in illegally blocking its merger with rival Legrand, another French electrical equipment maker, six years ago. Schneider had already acquired majority control of its rival and, as a result of the commission's incompetence, had been forced to sell its holding at a loss.

A year later, the EU court overruled the commission after it found that Barroso's officials had committed "egregious errors" in making their ruling. On the basis of the court's finding, Schneider then filed a second case, demanding an eye-watering €1.6 billion in compensation, rather putting into the shade the €225 million the EU lost directly through fraud last year.

This, we are told by The Financial Times is the first time the commission has been ordered to pay damages for getting a merger case wrong, but "legal experts" are stating that the ruling could set a far-reaching precedent for other groups. There is already one other compensation case pending before the EU court.

The court has not agreed the sum demanded by Schneider but instead has asked an independent expert to determine the precise figure. But it does affirm that Schneider had the right to compensation both for the expenses it incurred as a result of having to file a second merger notification to the commission and, more importantly, for "the reduction in the divestiture price which Schneider had to concede" when it sold on Legrand.

Whatever the final outcome, this is going to cost the commission – i.e., the taxpayers of the EU member states – dear, although it is doubtful whether le petit empereur will even have his dinner money docked as a result. Instead, he will continue to rule supreme, with the apparent approval of the UK's provincial governor, Gordon Brown.

COMMENT THREAD

Shock waves

Like a tsunami, Barroso's surprise claim that the EU was an "empire" is spreading out from its epicentre at Strasbourg, to crash against the shores of the British print media.

First in line is The Times which is running a lengthy piece today – and many more are to follow.

David Charter does the business for The Times, focusing on the British perspective, writing that, "Britain was told yesterday that it was part of a new European empire", styling Barroso as, "the Brussels bureaucrat who would be emperor".

We are told that "nervous aides" inquired after his press conference whether this description might feature in British media reports, while EUX.TV reports that Barroso's spokesman, Johannes Laitenberger, asked some of the journalists present not to pay too much attention to the comments. In a desperate attempt at damage limitation, he tried the reassuring line that, "No one needs to have imperial nightmares."

Too late though, the gaffe was out of the bag and, as Charter notes, Conservatives and Eurosceptics alike have been quick to exploit the commission president’s candour, to press Gordon Brown for a referendum.

Mark Francois, the Conservative's shadow Europe minister, happily declared that, "The British public will be surprised to hear that we are now part of an EU empire," adding, "anyone who thinks that we have been exaggerating in calling for a referendum on a revived constitution only has to look at what Mr Barroso has said to realise the scale of what is now being contemplated."

Francois, whether he knew it or not, put his finger on the spot, as the "empire" claim came in response to a question from a Dutch journalist asking, what will the European Union be when the treaty-to-be had been concluded? Not a superstate, but an empire was the short answer, the longer version now up on U-tube.

Funnily enough, this is not the first time Barroso has used the E-word. In his speech at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the EU in Berlin, he referred to celebrating "the success of the European 'empire of law'". Not only that, he boasted, "We have created a new and better European political order. Now we must use this experience to create a new and better global order."

Perhaps it was the lack of media reaction, even after the speech had been publicised by the commission, that lulled him into a false sense of security. But, if he didn't realise the significance of what he had said then, he surely will today when all the "cuts" come in. This will haunt him for the rest of his tenure as emperor president.

My guess is that, when we come to write the history of the referendum campaign – for a poll that must now surely happen – this will prove to have been the turning point.

Pic by Anoneumouse. He's back!

COMMENT THREAD

Repent … the end of the world is nigh

Thousands of Argentinians cheered, threw snowballs and walked wide-eyed through the streets of Buenos Aires last night as the city enjoyed its first proper snowfall since 1918.

Wet snow fell for hours in the Argentine capital, leaving behind a mushy, thin white mantle by evening after freezing air from Antarctica collided with a moisture-laden low pressure system.

Gotta be global warming.

It's an "Empire" – official

And here we have it from the horse's mouth (or backside)… el presidente Barroso in full flow in Strasbourg, speaking to journalists in a press conference today. And this is what he said:

Sometimes I like to compare it to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empires. We have the dimension of Empire but there is a great difference. Empires were usually made with force with a centre imposing diktat, a will on the others. Now what we have is the first non-Imperial empire. We have 27 countries that fully decided to work together and to pool their sovereignty. I believe it is a great construction and we should be proud of it. At least, we in the Commission are proud of it.

Yes, he really did say that – the EU is an "empire" - then adding: "Any fears that countries will lose their sovereignty to an EU 'super state' are unfounded – but does anyone really think that anyway?"

Well, not to a "super state" but to an empire, Mr Barroso. This man is getting a garrulous as Prodi, and as indiscreet (England Expects is slightly less polite.) But at least he is acknowledging what we have always argued – that the EU is an empire without an emperor, unless you count Barroso.

Certainly, there is something Napoleonic about him, as he took the opportunity of the press conference to pronounce that national governments should not try to renegotiate the content of the "reform" treaty and renege on agreements already made.

He conceded that governments had the legal right to reopen any negotiating chapter during the IGC, but added that he expected them all to act in "good faith" and stick to the agreement already agreed unanimously. He considered it "inconceivable" that any member state would use the upcoming IGC to reopen old wounds and try to win more "concessions".

And if that isn't a diktat, what is?

COMMENT THREAD

We pay for this

News from UN Watch on the long-expected reform of the UN Human Rights Council. If I tell you that the first item was to reverse the blacklisting of Cuba and Belarus you are unlikely to be surprised. Watch the rest of the farce, which would be quite funny if it were not a global tragedy.

An election soon in Poland?

There is a possibility that the Kaczynskis are not actually going to be there at the IGC. Spiegel reports that Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has fired his deputy, the leader of the rural Self-Defence Party, Andrzej Lepper, who was also the Agriculture Minister.

Last time Lepper was fired was because he criticized the Prime Minister. This time the charge is a little more substantial: Lepper’s name has been linked to a corruption investigation that involves the Agriculture Ministry with two of his supporters arrested yesterday. Lepper is denying any connection.

The ousted Deputy Prime Minister immediately announced that he would not be returning to the government again and that his party was pulling out of the coalition. That would leave the Law and Justice Party running a minority government.

Opposition parties are filing motions for the dissolution of parliament but voting on them has been postponed, probably till September. At present Law and Justice is losing popularity and there is some doubt whether Self-Defence would achieve the 5 per cent of the vote that is necessary for parliamentary membership. This may well reinvigorate the coalition despite Lepper’s huffy comments.

COMMENT THREAD

Second take

Beyond the immediate fluff of the headlines on the European Council's "mandate", a small but growing band of MPs is beginning to realise the full constitutional implications of the treaty-to-be.

Picked up by The Telegraph's Bruno Waterfield, in today's piece - but not given the prominence it deserves – is a demand which "appeared to give the EU institutions supremacy over national parliaments."

Attributed to Mark Francois, the Tory spokesman on Europe, is the identification of an "unprecedented" obligation in the new treaty which states that: "National parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union".

Francois is cited as saying: "This appears to oblige Parliament to work for the benefit of the EU," with him adding: "If this clause is left as it is, there is a real threat to the independence of Parliament."

The reference here is the Annex I, Title II of the European Council "mandate" (page 27), laughably entitled. "Provisions on democratic principles", which proposes the insertion of a new article into the treaties "on the role of national parliaments in the Union". And indeed, the proposed Article does state that, "National parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union".

There are then stated six "obligations", including the final one, national parliaments are instructed to take part "in the interparliamentary cooperation between national parliaments and with the European Parliament, in accordance with the Protocol on the role of national parliaments in the European Union."

The issue here, of course, is that our Parliament is sovereign in its own House, responsible only to the people and accountable through elections. It, and it alone decides on its procedures and is subordinate to no one. Yet here is a treaty article which challenges that very principle, instructing the Parliament on what it must do.

This, by any measure, is a clear breach of national sovereignty and, if accepted, fundamentally changes the relationship between Parliament and the EU. It effectively acknowledges the Union as the supreme authority and relegates this and the other parliaments of the member states to a subordinate status.

If you add the changes proposed for the European Council, and realise that the new "aims and objectives" of the EU institutions apply also to the Council of Ministers, then it becomes transparently evident that we are talking about fundamental constitutional changes.

Yet, it is upon the fiction that the constitutional treaty did not change the fundamental relationship between the UK and the European Union that the government's case for refusing a referendum rested.

Fiction, it was then and, as MEP Joe Leinen acknowledges in his report to the EU parliament, it is fiction now. He, "welcomes the fact that the mandate safeguards the substance of the Constitutional Treaty," adding his voice to the torrent of European politicians who are all saying that this "reform treaty" is the constitution by any other name.

How ironic it is that Gordon Brown, in claiming to hand more power to Parliament, is working on being the prime minister who finally destroys its sovereignty.

We must have a referendum. Spread the word about the petition - now over 11,000 signatures.

COMMENT THREAD

As Europhile as they come

It is all very well newspapers complaining about government "spin" but the media itself is not entirely without sin in this respect (shock!).

After the Brown – Socrates meeting yesterday, the Telegraph offered an online report with the headline, "Gordon Brown rules out EU treaty referendum", a "take" with which The Evening Standard agreed, it too carrying a remarkably similar headline: "Brown rules out referendum on EU treaty".

Yet, this morning's print edition, the Telegraph headline over much the same story had become, "Brown hints at vote on EU treaty 'to frighten federalists'", while the current online report sports the headline, "Brown hints at vote on EU treaty".

Needless to say, the thrust of the stories is all the same – that Brown is insisting that his "red lines" are respected, given which he does not consider a referendum is necessary. However, Socrates is cited as saying that he did not think there would be any difficulties satisfying the (British) government, which is hardly surprising as Brown has already conceded the game.

It is the leader, therefore, that gets the measure of the man, under its headline, "Prime minister forgets to hang tough on Europe".

"Whatever happened to the Gordon Brown who, in a previous incarnation, attempted to persuade the British electorate that he was something of a Euro-sceptic?" it asks. "That version of his persona seemed to have vanished at yesterday's joint press conference with Prime Minister José Sócrates of Portugal."

That version, of course, never existed. But then, to its credit, not even The Telegraph really believed that it did. We are looking at a prime minister who is as Europhile as they come.

COMMENT THREAD

Dodgy deals

The Sun is telling us that more than 12,000 fraud cases totalling £777 million were reported in the EU last year. "Dodgy deals", it says, were up 11.5 percent.

Most suspect payouts went on farm subsidies and grants - and aid to Europe's poorest regions. But the EU commission said only 2,050 cases involved criminal fraud, costing £225million. The rest were bureaucratic errors, failure to meet grant conditions or poor paperwork, they said.

Meanwhile, we learn, the government has offered to pay out a minimum of £250,000 to the former agency chief at the centre of a fiasco that left tens of thousands of farmers without their subsidy payments.

This is Johnston McNeill who was sacked as chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency in the wake of the debacle, which led to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs being fined £300m for late payments, and is alleged to have driven some farmers to suicide when they ran out of cash.

I am sorry to say it, but there are times when you do feel like running amok with a machine gun.

COMMENT THREAD

Confederate Yankee v Associated Press

Just about every blog that has ever looked at misreporting by the MSM has run into trouble with Associated Press (AP). It is, of course, a kind of a co-operative of journalists and exists for the journalists who no longer feel the need apparently to try to substantiate their stories or report in a more or less balanced fashion.

Au contraire, the aim is to turn Iraq into another Vietnam as far as the journos are concerned - those glory, glory days when they brought down presidents and undermined western morale. Of course, they also condemned millions of people to a hell on earth but that is something the media has never bothered to come to terms with.

We have already mentioned Confederated Yankee's recent scoop as far as a certain unsubstantiated AP massacre report is concerned. The saga continues with an exchange of letters and a clear refusal on AP's part to report Michael Yon's well documented stories even when their own people happen to be nearby.

Could there be a reason for this pickiness? Just asking.

COMMENT THREAD

Is political intelligence another oxymoron?

Whenever people are asked to produce an example of an oxymoron, that is a word or a phrase that has an inbuilt contradiction, the term “military intelligence” is trotted out. It seems to me that political intelligence is another such term.

Take the example of our new Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. Undoubtedly, the man is highly intelligent, possibly more so than any of his colleagues. He is also very young with next to no experience even in politics, never mind the real world. On the other hand, he is one who imbibed politics with his mother’s milk. So, it should balance out. But does it?

His interview with the Financial Times indicates otherwise. After we get through the golly-gosh-isn’t-it-all-so-exciting we run into problems. To be fair to the man, he, unlike his present and past bosses, feels the historical significance of his job and his office. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? I expect he recited names of past political leaders as a wee child. (I know about families like that, believe me.)

So what is the future for Britain’s foreign policy? It will be a global hub, according to the Foreign Secretary. That means what, precisely?

I think we’ve got the opportunity to be a global hub, is the way I’d put it. We’ve got the opportunity to be a global hub economically, and you can see that demonstrated through the City of London, but you can also see it through even this week’s inward investment report.

We have the opportunity to be a global hub culturally. And of course the British Council is funded in part from here. And we can be a hub politically as well, and I think that’s important. But I think that it’s very, very important that we don’t…in the end, it’s about delivery, and so I think rather than putting grandiose titles on our impact on fate, it’s better to do big things rather than say you’re going to do big things, or be part of important things. So, that’s what I would say.

And, of course, we can be a global hub as far as motherhood and apple pie are concerned, particularly if we use organic milk for the custard.

Actually, to be fair to the man, he was waffling because the questions were not particularly searching, though the Financial Times in its article on the interview managed to ask the rather loaded question of how confident can Britain be after the Iraqi debacle. But who actually says it is a debacle apart from the various media outlets who have convinced themselves on not very good evidence and are trying to convince the rest of us?

If Miliband is to be believed, there will be no hasty withdrawal from Iraq and the war in Afghanistan will be fought to victory. These are reassuring words for those of us who dread the effect of a “cut and run” policy in either country.

As far as Israel and the two Palestinian states are concerned (though the interviewer did not seem all that interested in Fatahland) Miliband reiterated previous policies: the need for Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist has not been altered in any way by the release of Alan Johnston as, of course, anyone but the media would recognize.

The release of one man does not show that things are going smoothly in Gaza or that Hamas has eschewed violent and tyrannical behaviour. Ah but this is a British journalist and they are central to our calculations.

Of course, the biggest question in foreign policy will be how exactly does Gordon Brown intend to deal with Blair’s impossible legacy of trying to straddle ever greater European integration and American alliance.

On the evidence of this interview, Miliband has not exactly worked matters out but one can see which way he is heading. There is, of course, no mention of the rest of the Anglosphere except for a rather spurious reference to alliance with India. There is only the United States and the European Union.

Here, sadly, Miliband shows himself to be too intelligent for political life. He actually lets the cat out of the bag:

All I wanted to say about Europe is that I’ve been convinced for years that the greatest challenge facing the European Union is about delivery rather than about internal democracy; that the root to respect in European hearts is through delivery, that it’s the delivery deficit rather than the democratic deficit that should be the focus of our attention.

And I think now, with the forthcoming IGC, with the mandate that was produced at the European council, we have a unique opportunity for the European Union to get beyond the institutional questions and the institutional debates that flummox and infuriate and bore ordinary members, you know, real people, and get on to the things that could excite them whether it be energy security or climate security or jobs. And I think we’ve got a real responsibility as well as an opportunity to seize that opportunity.

And that will be the focus and the drive of our engagement with European partners and I think a real opportunity. My sense around Europe is that that’s what foreign ministers and environment ministers and prime ministers want to get on with.

As far as foreign policy goes, though, where is Britain situated? Well, according to our Foreign Secretary, our alliance with the United States is enormously important but our link with Europe is even more so. And, as he clearly explains, our relationship with the European Union is not bilateral. We are part of it.

This is precisely what we have been saying on this blog for a very long time. The question is what are we going to do about it.

COMMENT THREAD

What is Sarkozy up to?

Ever since the new president of France bounced June's European Council into accepting an amendment to the "mandate" on competition, the "colleagues" have been a little wary of a man they are calling the "dynamo".

Now, the IHT is reporting that he has clashed with the finance ministers of the so-called Eurogroup – those who represent the countries currently in the single currency.

It is rare enough for a head of state to attend such meetings, but Sarkozy was there to present in person plans to restructure the ailing finances of his own country, in so doing driving a cart and horse through the growth and stability pact.

This seems to be the issue that is troubling the colleagues, as the new president is signalling that he intends to put domestic priorities ahead of EU rules, arguing that he wants to introduce a raft of tax cuts worth €15 billion, which will mean that France is likely to breach a pledge made by all EU members in April to bring their deficits to zero by 2010.

Airily, Sarkozy says that he would try to eliminate France's budget deficit by 2010, but could not guarantee it before 2012.

According to IHT, EU officials (including Barroso) appeared increasingly uneasy with his efforts to put France back in the EU driver's seat, indicating that his fealty was to French economic interests rather than EU rules. He noted, we are told, that France needed to reduce the deficit, not because of European rules, but because it was weighing on the growth and confidence of France.

Politically, this is quite interesting because French presidents usually play the Europe card more subtly, arguing that what is good for France is good for the European Union – "le UE c'est moi" stance.

Something of that did actually come through as Sarkozy enlisted the support of Luxembourg prime minister who, traditionally, leads the Eurogroup talks. Says the IHT, he played down the notion that Sarkozy was disobeying the rules of the club, saying his economic agenda was "not just something that's good for France and the French people - it's good for Europe as a whole."

However, it was only Luxembourg and Belgium that went for this position with other ministers distinctly glacial, not least when Sarkozy pushed for a weakening of the European Central Bank and also spent time promoting former French finance minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, as the next head of the International Monetary Fund.

Since Frenchmen already preside over three of the world's most august international economic organisations: Pascal Lamy at the World Trade Organization; Trichet at the European Central Bank; and Jean Lemierre at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, claiming yet another prestige position for France is a bit of a nerve.

One wonders what Sarkozy is playing at, taking such an overtly confrontational position so early in his presidency. An easy explanation is that he is playing to a domestic audience, demonstrating that he is in charge. But, seeing as this is European politics, there also has to be a hidden agenda.

Suspicious minds might think that the president is softening up his own public for the forthcoming treaty, showing that he is the boss in "Europe" so as to head off calls for a referendum. If that is the case, then what we saw at the Eurogroup meeting was another bit of theatre, which the Continentals so love.

Either way, Sarkozy is playing an interesting game. It may be some time before his motives become clear – if ever.

COMMENT THREAD

Subtle bias, or just bias?

Yesterday was a big day for Boeing as it rolled out its 787 Dreamliner – propitiously on 7/08/07 (American date style). Such an event is real news, so it could not go unrecorded by the BBC, which posts a report on its website. It starts off:

US plane manufacturer Boeing has unveiled its 787 Dreamliner - the firm's first all-new jet since 1995. It is the only big commercial aircraft made mostly of carbon fibre rather than aluminium and is billed as the most environmentally friendly ever built. Boeing says the 787 is much more fuel efficient than its competitors and produces 20 percent less CO2. The firm says it already has more than 600 orders. The first test flight is expected in August or September.

That is a neutral enough report, but the BBC then adds a sour note, questioning the environmental credentials of the aircraft. To do so, it cites Phil Clapp, president of the US "non-partisan" National Environmental Trust. He tells the BBC that the 787 was a "major step forward" but not the sole solution to aviation emissions. Some environmentalists say the lower operating costs will make air travel cheaper and simply encourage more people to fly.

Now go back to January 2005 when the Airbus A380 was launched. Again the BBC was on the case, with this report:

The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has been unveiled in an elaborate ceremony in France. The twin-deck aircraft can carry about 555 people - more than the Boeing 747 jumbo built by Airbus' main competitor. The ceremony was attended by European leaders including Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder. French President Jacques Chirac praised the A380 as the "crowning achievement of a human and industrial adventure", describing it as a "European success".

We then get more of Blair, who praises the "dedication" of all those involved in the project, sayimg the A380 was a symbol of European cooperation at its best. "This is the most exciting new aircraft in the world, a symbol of economic strength and technical innovation," he adds. "Above all, it is a symbol of confidence that we can compete and win in the global market."

Is it my imagination, or is there a subtle difference in tone between the two pieces?

COMMENT THREAD

Galileo and Her Majesty's taxpayers

Nice piece on Galileo in Space Review. "As the old saying goes, 'Why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?'" writes Taylor Dinerman.

COMMENT THREAD

It's not a constitution, but …

Following our earlier report, the full transcript of the Brown-Socrates press conference is now on the Downing Street website.

Says Brown, "On the first point the constitutional project, as the document states from Brussels, was abandoned, in other words the idea of creating a new and completely new (sic) constitutional treaty was not accepted at Brussels."

But he also says, "…I am happy that the progress that the Portuguese Prime Minister proposes for the work of the constitutional discussions moves ahead…"

The immediate thought is that, if the treaty isn't a constitution, why is Socrates making proposals for "constitutional discussions"?

Looking more, however, we see Mr Weasel hard at work. Apart from the fact that Brown is playing word games (the "Brussels document" does not say the "constitutional project" was abandoned), we see the prime minister saying, "that idea of creating a new and completely new constitutional treaty was not accepted at Brussels.”

But this we know. They rejected the idea of a "new and completely new constitutional treaty" and instead are trying to sneak in the old one.

COMMENT THREAD

A tale to cheer

As you would expect, Netherlands has a public broadcasting company and there is no need to wonder which way it might lean politically. Here is a tale of comeuppance.

The conservative columnist Joshua Livestro was invited to contribute to the Sunday evening politics show, Buitenhof, presumably to provide that famous balance that public broadcasting corporations are supposed to have but rarely do. Almost immediately he ran into problems of, well, censorship.

So what did he do? Did he whine and get mad? Nope. He gathered support and got even. Read the whole piece. It's heartwarming.

No change at the top

Any slight hope that, with the advent of Gordon Brown to the premiership, we might have seen a more robust policy towards the EU must surely have dissipated.

Evidenced by statements emanating from today's meeting between Brown and the holder of the EU presidency, Portugal's José Socrates, all we are seeing is the same line touted by his predecessor, Tony Blair.

From outside No. 10 Downing Street, thus do we hear the new prime minister declaring that there is "no reason" why "the EU constitutional treaty" should be put to a referendum so long as Britain's "red lines" are enforced. No poll would be held, he says, if the agreement reached by government leaders in Brussels last month was replicated in the small print of the document.

Without making any concessions whatsoever to the growing tide of criticism, Brown simply repeats the tried and tested mantra. It was important, he said, that Britain's five "red lines" were clarified in the "detail" and, "If that were the case, then I see no reason to recommend to the British people that there should be a referendum," he added.

And still, Brown insists that the original "constitutional" treaty has been rejected, arguing that, "What we did accept was a number of changes and these are changes that make the EU with its membership of 27 work better."

So, there we go: it is all about "red lines". This is a mantra which, no doubt, Brown believes that, if he repeats often enough, he will get away with a massive surrender of powers to Brussels. A different face, maybe, but the same message. As far as EU policy goes, there has been no change at the top.

COMMENT THREAD

Sisters under the skin

What do Kitty Ussher and Dame Pauline Neville-Jones have in common?

The one is Gordon Brown's new Economic Secretary to the Treasury and the other is David Cameron’s new security advisor and a member of his Shadow Cabinet.

On the face of it, therefore, they are on opposite sides of the political divide – but appearances can be deceiving.

Beyond mere party politics, they have in common loyalty to the great EU project, this being manifest in their participation in the Europhile Centre for European Reform, the former as a Research Associate and the latter as a member of the Advisory Board – a post she still holds.

We forget, of course, that between 1977 and 1982, Neville-Jones was seconded to the EU commission where she worked as deputy and then chef de cabinet to commissioner Christopher Tugendhat, making her a fully paid-up member of the "project". That she still subscribes to its values is evident from her support of the CER.

Thus do the "colleagues" worm their supporters into the political establishment, a fifth column dedicated to undermining the very basis of the system for which they are paid to work. Sisters under the skin, these two, they may span the political divide but they are working to the same agenda.

COMMENT THREAD

Banging on?

"We should stop talking to ourselves about Europe and start talking to the electorate about the things that matter to them."

That was Ken Clarke speaking in June 2001, on the occasion of his announcing his bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

If he didn't gain the crown – then or later – he at least got his way on that, with the Boy sticking firmly to his prescription, telling the faithful to stop "banging on" about Europe.

But now that the Boy is "banging on" about Europe or, at least, a referendum about the treaty-to-be, the Master has stirred from his lair to tell him to desist.

He is joined by arch-Europhile, former foreign secretary Lord Hurd, both of whom are saying that the stance makes it harder for the Tories to show the public that they have changed.

Clarke believes that the demand for a referendum has "an inner absurdity", arguing: "One thing that will make a Conservative Party electable... will be if we continue to dilute this absurd, extreme eurosceptism that swept over the party in the last 10 years."

Hurd's view is that referendums should be reserved for only "the most extraordinary earthquakes which are proposed", declaring that, "I don't think there's anything in this treaty in so far as we can see it now which actually justifies that."

With Clarke having famously boasted that he had not read the Maastricht Treaty, one wonders whether either of them have actually read the "mandate".

COMMENT THREAD

Continuing madness

Whatever may have happened in the past, one is forced to assume that nobody with two connecting brain cells is active in any union, be that the NUJ, the academic teachers’ union, the white-collar UNISON or the grandest of them all, the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU).

What do they have in common, apart from the fact that they or their predecessors tended to be very nice about the phoney trade unions of the Communist bloc? They are all calling for the boycott of Israeli goods.

The TGWU is the latest British organization to join this madness, just as news comes from Israel that the Cabinet has agreed to the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners in order to show its good will towards Fatah and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. The gesture will probably backfire on Israel but that is another story.

It is only several weeks since we have seen Palestinians desperately fleeing Gaza and equally desperately trying to get into Israel to get away from Hamas. Who cares? It is Israel that is the evil country as any trade unionist can tell you.

As the Jerusalem Post reports:

The British Transport and General Workers Union, one of the UK's largest, voted on Saturday to boycott all products made in Israel.

Ahead of the actual vote, Eric McDonald, secretary of TGWU's Birmingham branch, which proposed the boycott motion, compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

What is it about Birmingham? OK, don’t answer that. But honestly, has Eric McDonald studied any history at all? If there is one thing that has been taught endlessly at our schools, at the expense of any other historical knowledge, is the Third Reich or, at least some aspects of it.

How can anybody in his right mind say that a democracy with a real parliament, a plurality of parties (including Arab ones), a free media (including Arab outlets), free academic institutions (where Arabs can study as well) is just like Nazi Germany?

Furthermore, does this mean that TGWU members will stop using their computers and refuse medical treatment if it happens to have been developed in Israel? I think we should be told. Anyone can buy Spanish oranges (thankfully, that is now allowed) or Peruvian avocados (help, who is in power there?). But what of all that electronic stuff?

When UNISON voted a little while ago to boycott Israeli goods, they allowed themselves a loophole.

UNISON pro-boycotter Caroline Bedale of Manchester declared that her interpretation of the boycott would allow continued links with 'progressives' in Israel, without saying who would decide, and how, which Israeli Jews are 'progressive' and would thus win exemption from the general rule that Israelis are to be shunned.

Hmmm. I wonder if Israeli doctors and medical researchers are all “progressive”. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Meanwhile, the Israelis are getting extremely fed up and who can blame them.

In response to the vote, the Histadrut Labor Federation announced that it would cut all existing ties with the union, which represents some 800,000 workers. Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini is expected to move on Monday that his organization cut all ties with groups that back boycotts of Israel or Israeli goods.

Well, never mind UNISON and TGWU can have ties with Arab trade unions and labour federations instead. Oh wait, there are no trade unions in either of the Palestinian state, not in Hamastan, not in Fatahland. Come to think of it, there are no trade unions in other Arab states either.

COMMENT THREAD

Still contributing to the gaiety of nations

Refusing to acknowledge the well-known truth that Germans have no sense of humour, Der Spiegel, has been indulging in Pole-baiting. Well, not seriously but for fun. They now have a section called Kaczynski Watch.

The latest article in the section was published two days ago and referred to an interview Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw K gave to Die Welt. In it he complained about the world’s unfairness. Everyone else talks about the war, why shouldn’t the Poles.

"I am very surprised by the view of those who say that one is not allowed to return to the questions of history," he told the newspaper. "The Germans return to this question. The expellee federations do, as does (head of the Federation of German Expellees), who is the daughter of a soldier of the occupation. The Jews also return to these questions, to the question of the Holocaust. Does that mean others are allowed to do it but not Poland?"

He also talked about "a revision of memory" in Germany. "Germany was not a victim of this war. Germany was the aggressor," he said. "If someone creates the impression that the suffering of Germany is comparable with that of Poland's, then that is very disturbing."

This is a highly entertaining mish-mash that gets us nowhere. More to the point, it gets Poland nowhere. It is undoubtedly true that Germany was the aggressor but that does not make the suffering of its population at the end of it any the less. One might say that they deserved it but that is a separate argument. They might even have deserved to be expelled from lands that were given to Poland but that is an issue of post-war behaviour.

Furthermore, as we have pointed out, Kaczynski’s attempt to make Poland sound larger than it is because of the numbers lost in the war remains a useless argument. Germany lost even more, as did a few other countries. Calculating on what might or might not have happened demographically if certain events had not taken place is not a very satisfactory basis for political demands.

As we have also pointed out at the time, calculating who was responsible for which deaths in Eastern Europe is tricky business, best not done in the circumstances of political negotiations.

There is another aspect to the Kaczynski show (apart from the sheer entertainment value) and one which Der Spiegel tries to work out. Exactly what was it that Lech K achieved in Brussels on that fateful week-end?

Kaczynski repeated Friday his claim that a verbal agreement had been reached, telling Die Welt that Merkel had assured him that decisions could be delayed by up to two years. "Verbal agreements are valid in civil law," he said. "There was a political agreement, a gentlemen's agreement, and as such it must be respected."

None of the other 26 EU members has backed Poland in its demands for a two-year blocking period, however. Other member states say they understood the deal to mean that Poland could only block decisions for several months. Kaczynski's new claim threatens to re-ignite the row over the treaty, which was agreed on after long and painful negotiations.

To be honest, even the right to block EU legislation for two years is not commensurate with the amount of effort that had been expended before the Council. If Kaczynski did not even make sure that there were witnesses to the verbal promise then all one can say that, perhaps, both brothers should stop worrying about what happened sixty-odd years ago and start paying attention to what is going on now.

Meanwhile, Roman Giertych, head of the ultra-Roman Catholic League of Polish Families and education minister, last heard of trying to ban large chunks of world literature from the curriculum, has announced that he and his party will oppose the “reformed treaty” for two reasons.

Firstly because there is no mention about God and Christianity, without which Europe “would be nothing”. The second reason indicates he knows as little about EU membership as do our own politicians:

Giertych also warned that the treaty would place EU law above Polish law, which he said would threaten Poles who live in western Polish lands that belonged to Germany before World War II.

It would actually affect Poles wherever they happened to live but, in any case, he is using the wrong tense. EU law is above Polish law and has been ever since Poland became member of this benighted institution.

It seems that Giertych like the Kaczynskis is still fighting those old battles instead of paying some attention to what is going on in Poland now. As we are talking about Poles who live in various places, what about those economically active Poles who are leaving the country to get jobs elsewhere? How do they affect the demography and economy of the country?

COMMENT THREAD

The great double deception

Unravelled before your very eyes in the Booker column is the EU treaty-to-be: the great double deception. It took a little while to work it out, but the game the "colleagues" are playing, with – it would seem – the active cooperation of Gordon, is now plain for all to see.

COMMENT THREAD

Have you noticed ...

… that news of British activities in Iraq and Afghanistan has all but dried up since Gordon Brown became prime minister? "Blair's wars", it seems, are no longer of interest, as they cannot be used with the same effect in attacking the current administration.

That is not to say, of course, that nothing is happening in either theatre, although today's report of a major operation in Basra, involving 1,000 troops, undoubtedly hit the media only because a British soldier died after his Warrior had been hit by an IED – the third such fatal attack in so many weeks.

Continue reading here.

COMMENT THREAD

A question of language

2007, in case our readers have not realized it, is the Year of the Russian Language, as officially announced some time ago by President Putin. Because nobody has noticed it, it had to be announced again and the campaign strengthened as Reuters reported several days ago

One assumes these latest pronouncements and reports had something to do with the meeting between President Putin and President Bush, the last one, most probably, as both are due to depart from office. Or so we think.

There are no doubts about President Bush. Next November there will be presidential elections in the United States and in January a new President will be sworn in. What all the sufferers from Bush Derangement Syndrome will do is a mystery. Of course, if the new President is a Republican, they will simply acquire a new derangement syndrome.

What is likely to happen in Russia, where there is no opposition to the two leading parties in the Duma, both supporters of Putin and whoever he might push forward as his successor, is unclear. Could the constitution be changed to give him another term? Putin maintains that it will not happen. But what if the number enemies inside and outside keep increasing and the Duma will plead with him to remain? This is a not unfamiliar scenario in Russian history.

The presidential meeting came to no very important conclusions. Russia, however, has decided to use the opportunity to promote the Russian language.

In Moscow this week, ministers announced a series of plans, such as expansion of an international cultural foundation comparable with Germany's Goethe Institute or the Alliance Francaise.

"Russian was the first language spoken in space," said Education Minister Andrei Fursenko referring to the first cosmonauts and their Cold War-era space race against English-speaking U.S. astronauts.

Anyone who knows anything about developments in Russia itself would argue that first and foremost the language should be promoted inside the country, where in ever more cases perfectly good Russian words and phrases have been substituted by foreign, mostly English ones. (While I do not think this sort of thing can be stopped through legislation, as the French have found, I tend to seethe with fury and the destruction of a supple and beautiful language.)

It is not really clear what is envisaged here. There is a website and a possible promotion of Russian culture abroad. There are demands that people who want jobs in Russia should be able to speak the language, which is not unreasonable, though decisions of that kind should be left to individual firms, particularly to international ones.

Nevertheless, it all sounds very exciting and in line with President Putin’s swaggering on the international scene to no great purpose. For some reason, it is assumed that this campaign has been set up

“to match the country's increasing economic and political confidence”.

With respect, a country that is genuinely confident does not need to campaign to promote its language – it promotes itself. The new Russian economic and political strength, so often repeated by commentators in the West is little more than bluff.

The economy, as we have mentioned numerous times before, relies heavily on the sale of oil and gas, with the production of the former going down. Without that, Russia’s economy will barely outstrip that of Vietnam.

There are no lasting political structures in the country. This is not entirely Putin’s fault as none had been set up under Yeltsin either. Elections for regional governors have been abolished and the media has been brought almost entirely under government control. Any attempt at disagreement or opposition has been met by show of force.

Above all, it is unclear how Russia is showing confidence on the international scene, as mostly it does nothing but bullies countries on its borders and sells arms to dubious regimes. The bullying has not, so far, produced any results beyond a sense of unease inside the country, which may well be the purpose, while the sale of arms to countries like Iran, suspended according to some reports, is unlikely to do Russia any good at all, given that it is fighting Islamist groups in various places around the borders of the old Soviet Union.

Present day Russia does not even attract people in the way the Soviet Union did for a while. It is not a beacon to misguided or dishonest so-called progressives or, come to think of it, to anyone else.

It remains a country with an enormous potential, which has, once again, been frittered away and the fate of her language reflects that sad reality.

COMMENT THREAD

A good idea turned bad

A group of EU experts, we are told by Associated Press (via IHT) and others, are urging the European Union to speed up efforts to create a unified airspace over Europe. Such a plan is needed, they say, to cut air travel costs, boost safety and improve the environmental efficiency of air traffic over the continent.

This is the "Single European Sky" concept, the name dreamed up by the Commission in pursuit of its grandiose ambitions of European political integration.

The experts in question, given the title "High Level Group", constitute an advisory body set up last year by the EU commission. Quite rightly, they point out that Europe is still broken up into small slices of airspace controlled by national governments, which has contributed to making air travel over Europe 70 percent less cost efficient than in the United States.

But then we get the propaganda. History, it seems, starts with the Single European Sky, which was introduced in 2004 by the commission "to ensure greater aviation efficiency and improved environmental performance by eliminating the need for airliners to zigzag through 27 different national air spaces."

Predictably, the "experts" then recommend, amongst other things, giving greater powers to Eurocontrol, Europe's air navigation agency and transforming the nascent European Aviation Safety Agency into a general regulatory body along the lines of the US Federal Aviation Administration – effectively another power grab by the European Union.

Therein lies part of the problem. Efforts to unify airspace under single control actually go way back. Eurocontrol was set up in 1960 as an intergovernmental organisation, with the UK as one of its original members. It has since grown to embrace not 27 but 37 members, covering not the political entity of the European Union but most of geographical Europe.

But, as is so often the case, the EU is moving in to take "ownership", trying to turn Eurocontrol into a fully-fledged institution of the EU, exercising its malign control over every aspect of its operations – then claiming it as a "success" of its own, all part of the never-ending flow of propaganda to justify its own existence.

Thus, what started off with sovereign nation states freely cooperating for the common good becomes a political project where, in order to achieve technical progress, the member nations are forced to buy into the dream of European political integration.

This is very much how the EU operates, hijacking schemes that have been around for decades (sometimes centuries) and applying its own "brand" to them, harnessing them to the greater glory of the "project". But, far from aiding cooperation between nations, the leaden hand of the European bureaucracy slows down efforts, magnifies the costs and increases the complications.

What started off as a good idea, therefore, becomes a bureaucratic nightmare. That is the true contribution of the European Union: taking good ideas and turning them into bad ones.

COMMENT THREAD

Trying it on… again

Even since VAT was first introduced in 1972, the (now) EU commission has been trying to coerce member states into cutting back the plethora of reduced rates and exemptions, all in the name of that great God harmonisation.

Year after year, however, the member states – who still retain a veto in this area – have resisted the moves but, in the nature of the beast, this has not stopped the commission trying yet again.

This time, however, it is trying a different tack. Gone is the word "harmonisation" – a red rag to many bulls – and in comes "simplification", justified in part by the need to reduce "compliance costs" imposed on businesses.

And rather than come straight out with its agenda, the commission cloaks it in a high-flown announcement that it is launching "a political debate on how to simplify current EU legislation".

Simultaneously, the commission has published a COM final but all we get from the press release (link above) and that document is that there is "a real need for a simplification and rationalisation of the current VAT rates structure, and in particular the reduced VAT rates."

To add reassurance, the commission stresses that "no concrete proposal" is made for new categories of products or services, "given the need for prior political consideration by Member States." Furthermore, it is careful to remind readers that, "The application of VAT reduced rates is a very sensitive issue in an area where the unanimity principle forces all stakeholders to be inclined to compromise."

This is so cuddly and fluffy that few would disagree with it, so it is not until you look at the "independent" economic study which the commission has also published (at a mere 103 pages), that you begin to see what the game really is. Very much on the cards is the prospect of abolishing the raft of zero rates – such as VAT on food and childrens' clothing, and the standardisation of VAT at a single rate.

For once, the few media sources that have picked up the story (including today's Telegraph) have seen through the fluff. The Evening Standard for instance, runs a headline, "Brussels wants to put VAT on food", Channel 4 News headlines, "Government vow to defend VAT rights" and the Guardian tells us that, "UK fights to keep lower VAT".

The Standard goes slightly OTT having Gordon Brown "prepared to use Britain's veto to block the move", with "the cost of children's clothes, books and food" set to "soar under plans drawn up in Brussels". It adds that the move is "certain to anger Gordon Brown as the refusal to tax necessities has always been a key principle of Labour policy".

Nevertheless, the cat is out of the bag, although it will be some years before anything substantive happens – firm legislative proposals are not expected until 2009. Between then and now, the commission is presumably hoping that everyone will go back to sleep as it works behind the scene on the "stakeholders", to finagle a "compromise".

With the fabulous Kitty Ussher in place in the Treasury – and the distinctly Europhile bent to Brown's Cabinet, who is to say that, this time, the commission might not succeed – especially when there is a chance of Brown extracting even more money from the taxpayer?

COMMENT THREAD

Still not talking Turkey

EUObserver reports on the basis of an interview in FT Deutschland that the Enlargement Commissar, Olli Rehn, has warned France that there could be no general debate about Turkey’s possible entry into the European Union.

President Sarkozy, well aware of French public opinion on the matter as well as of the new constitutional provision for a referendum, possibly hopes that if he remains intransigent on this issue, the people of France might ignore the fact that he is trying not to have a referendum on the treaty that is due to come out of the IGC.

To be fair, it is not entirely clear what Sarko envisages when he says that he wants a general debate in the EU about its final borders before December. A general debate between whom, exactly?

The idea is obviously not very popular with the powers that be, debates not being occasions they are particularly fond of. So Commissar Rehn waffled about the accession process being “an anchor for democracy and secularism”, whatever that might mean, and also about Turkey being the transit land for 15 per cent of the EU’s oil and gas.

The last point is yet another attempt to conflate economic agreements with membership of the EU. Turkey can stay outside the European project and still continue to supply any amount of oil and gas. The two do not depend on each other.

The real worry for the Commission is that Turkey may decide that it does not want to join an organization that is so anxious not to have her. (Actually, Groucho Marx’s comment would be more appropriate but that may not be how Turkish politicians see the matter.) That, again, would not be a real problem except for the fact that the European Union, for all its talk of a common foreign policy, has no real idea of how to deal with countries on its borders, except to view them as potential members.

What everyone is particularly afraid of is the possibility of Turkey turning away from the West and of its proud claim of being the only secularist Muslim country and becoming more Islamist. It is hard to tell whether this fear is real. Certainly, the army, the guardian of the Kemalist heritage is on the qui vive as far as the ruling, supposedly Islamist, AK Party is concerned.

On the other hand, apart from the vexed question of Abdul Gül’s wife’s headscarf, there has been little sign of Islamist changes, one reason for that being the outgoing President’s determined blocking of any attempts to introduce them.

Turkey is coming up to a parliamentary election in July 22 and its results are anxiously watched inside and outside the country. On top of that there is the question of the proposed constitutional reform, which would make the presidency electable directly rather than by the parliament, the existing system, which allowed the opposition to block Mr Gül’s attempt to become president.

The government reacted by announcing a decision to hold a referendum on the reform with the opposition appealing to the constitutional court to quash the reform. The court has decided that the idea to hold a referendum was constitutionally acceptable. If the AK Party wins the parliamentary election, a reasonable expectation, the referendum is likely to be in late autumn.

COMMENT THREAD

Chipping away

Like a spoilt child that keeps nagging its parents until they finally surrender to the little horror's wishes, so is the European Union which keeps chipping away at an issue until it finally gets its way.

One such issue is a European Coastguard Service, which has been on the agenda since 2003, or earlier, and keeps coming up at irregular intervals, most recently in May 2006 – until that is, now, when it has re-emerged once again.

This time, it is the EU parliament making waves (again) – to coin a phrase – on the back of the EU commission's Maritime Green Paper, where MEPs are due to vote next week on a report which will once again call for an EU Coastguard, consolidating all the member state services into what many believe would be an embryonic EU navy.

Leaping into the fray, however, is the UK Independence Party which has noted that Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson's Committee on Fisheries is supporting the idea, in contrast with Westminster Tory MP, Julian Brazier, who considered it "a betrayal of the maritime history of our country" and Philip Bradbourne, the Tory MEP, who previously said that the UK Conservatives were totally opposed to any attempts to establish a European Coastguard.

UKIP rightly points out that Stevenson, like so many Conservative MEPs, presents himself as a Eurosceptic at home, wrapping himself in the Union Jack, but when out of sight in Brussels he reverts to type.

Yet, in February 2005, when the issue made yet another of its periodic appearances, Bradbourne (link above) argued that the fact that Labour and Liberal Democrat MEPs supported the demise of the British coastal protection system demonstrated that they could not be trusted to support the British national interest in Europe.

The vote next week, however, is not the end of the matter - it is only "advisory". More importantly, the EU commission was asked to produce by the end of 2006 a feasibility study on the formation of a European coastguard service but, so far, this has not materialised. But when it does – as it most surely will – we may see legislative proposals and battle will be joined in earnest.

If it doesn't get what it wants that time, you can be assured the Commission will bring it back again and again, until it gets its way – no doubt with the support of the likes of Struan Stevenson. That is why we cannot continue with this mad, energy-sapping experiment. The "colleagues" simply do not know the meaning of the word "no".

* * *

England Expects takes a sideswipe as well.

COMMENT THREAD

Yes, but which one, Gordon?

The Union flag was flying across Whitehall yesterday in a display of national solidarity against terrorism.

Gordon Brown, we learn, has ordered that all government buildings should fly the flag as a patriotic gesture to help create a new sense of Britishness. No 10 Downing Street, the Treasury, Revenue and Customs, and the Departments of Culture and Health were among those that had hoisted the flag by yesterday.

An official "direction" has now gone out that all Government buildings that have flag poles should fly the flag 365 days a year. Symbols such as flags, we are told, could help to embody a national culture and citizenship: "The Union flag is one of the most recognisable symbols of the UK."

However, now that the European Union, under the treaty-to-be, is to abandon the appellation "Community" and adopt universally the term "Union", that detested "ring of stars" will also become the "union flag".

And, given the growing evidence of Europhilia in the Brown team, and Gordon's refusal to give an inch on the growing calls for a referendum, one really does wonder which flag our new prime minister really has in mind.

That apart, his token "patriotic gesture" fits ill with his apparent enthusiasm for giving away more powers to the European Union. If he was being at all honest (silly me!) he should be ordering the "ring of stars" to be flown from every government building.

COMMENT THREAD

"Jumping the shark"

One can learn a lot from The American Thinker, which is more of a webzine than a blog. To be quite candid their articles on Europe, Britain and the European Union rarely show genuine understanding but on other subjects there is a great deal of information and interest. I have shown my partiality for that site by the regularity with which I quote from it and link to it.

This morning I learnt something very useful: the exact meaning and origin of the expression "jumping the shark".

"Jump the shark" refers to the precise moment at which a TV program loses momentum or begins the process of losing the element that made the show popular.

The point John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute makes is that the global warming scare mob may well have jumped the shark with the mega-events being planned for this week-end all over the world:

This weekend, rock stars will jet around the world, cars and buses will clog traffic, and elaborate sound stages will be set up to burn massive amounts of fuel to send the message to fans at home that they had better conserve their energy or face the allegedly dire threat of global warming.

It seems that there are a good many rock stars even, who are sceptical of the ballyhoo, some for very good reasons, some not so good ones. I am not convinced that "Sir" Bob Geldof's scepticism is fuelled by anything but fear of being upstaged.

Just as the MSM in its narrative that disregards so much of the truth and seems to take the side of our enemies is trying to relive its glory days of Vietnam and Watergate (not precisely glorious for the rest of the world) so, as John Berlau points out,

The Live Earth concerts, which start this Saturday, July 7, are also one last chance for Baby Boomers to relive the "flower power" activism of the '60s.

Read the whole piece.

French logic

One of our readers has called attention to an interesting post on Little Green Footballs. Quoting an article in the Corriere della Serra the blog points out that one of the members of the new French government is, apparently, a "truther" or "troofer", that is someone who believes there were no aeroplanes on 9/11 and the Twin Towers were destroyed by explosions organized by Bush or Cheney or the CIA or Rumsfeld or the State Department, who craftily staged an attack on their own building in Washington DC.

The lady in question is Christine Boutin, leader of the Forum des Républicains Sociaux, a French Christian-Democrat Party and now Minister of Housing and the City. She, too, has a blog.

So what is her reason for suggesting that it is not impossible that President Bush was behind 9/11? Apparently, the "truther" websites get an enormous number of hits and that proves that there must be some truth in what they say. I bet porn websites get even more hits. What does that prove?

The House of Ussher

One of the most mysterious aspects of eurosceptic politics has been the assumption shared by an inexplicably large number of people that Gordon Brown, erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer and now Prime Minister was secretly, deep down a eurosceptic. It is true that he effectively kept us out of the euro but, by the same token, he effectively kept us away from a referendum on the euro and the reason for both of those was Brown’s implacable feud against Tony Blair.

Not at all, we were told. Just wait till Brown is Prime Minister. We shall see a turning in policies. And so we have. This is, if possible, an even more Europhile Cabinet than any of Blair’s was. Nor is Brown showing any signs of that deeply buried euroscepticism in his insistence that, no matter what comes out of the IGC, there will be no referendum, regardless of that election promise.

His appointments are not such as to inspire confidence in there being any straight talking on the part of the British ministers with the colleagues – not that there ever was in the past. This extends to the Junior Ministers as well.

The latest appointment is that of Kitty Ussher, class of 2005, to replace the highly influential Ed Balls as Treasury Secretary, commonly known as “City Minister”. To start with, as Londoner’s Diary pointed out in yesterday’s Evening Standard,

Business chiefs are … likely to be disappointed that their key link with the Government is a junior minister rather than the hugely influential Ed Balls.

A junior minister, furthermore, with next to no standing in the House. It is actually worse than that:

Ussher, who succeeds Ed Balls, only became an MP in 2005. Before that she was chief economist for Britain in Europe. There could be some concerns that she will not be as tough fighting Britain’s corner in Europe as Balls.

Whether Balls did fight Britain’s corner or whether the Times merely imagined that, Ms Ussher, she of an impressively political family and career background, is unlikely to do so. Not only has she worked for Britain in Europe and is a strong supporter of this country entering the eurozone, her other job was with the formerly perestroika europhile, now straightforwardly so, Centre for European Reform.

Alex Hawkes reports in Accountancy Age that Ms Ussher is a strong supporter of European tax harmonization and one can easily guess which way that would be up or down. She expressed these views in an article for CER where she also explained that the idea of tax harmonization was largely a eurosceptic myth, despite pronouncements by Oskar Lafontaine that might lead anyone believe it.

Mr Hawkes thinks that Ms Ussher will have to change her opinions as her boss, Gordon Brown is an opponent of tax harmonization. He may have been as Chancellor but he, as Prime Minister, he appointed Ms Ussher to a key position.

Incidentally, the Times article also quotes Richard Lambert, current Director of the CBI as being certain that Sir Digby Jones will not “let the bureaucrats roll him over” but also being “concerned about who would take responsibility for trade liberalisation”.

Ahem, Mr Lambert, that responsibility rests with the European Union. Is it not time you took note of that fact?

COMMENT THREAD

Murphy's law

Seems like our newly appointed "Europe minister" is well named.

COMMENT THREAD

Rejoice, rejoice but ask a few questions

Accusations have been flying around on the forum that all we ever do is ask questions. Our accusers have never quite explained what it is we ought to be doing instead and until they do so, we cannot take them seriously. Furthermore, asking questions is a legitimate and immensely important political activity. It is what the House of Commons should be doing to the government and it is what the House of Lords is doing.

The alternative to asking questions is accepting without any doubt everything that is doshed out by the political establishment, which includes politicians, civil servants, eurocrats and, above all, the main stream media. Do we really want to do that? Ooops, asking a question again.

What I want to question in the mildest possible terms is the Alan Johnston saga or, at least, some aspects of it. I don’t want to go into the very odd aspects of his kidnapping and of him being imprisoned for much longer than almost any other Western hostage (Israeli soldiers excepted) or the fact that the organization that held him, the Army of Islam, which is connected with the Dughmush clan made no serious demands or got anything in return for releasing the man.

Let us simply have a look at his release and ask a question or two. Johnston himself “praised” Hamas for the pressure they put on his captors, which resulted in his liberation. According to Al-Jazeera, which also quotes Agencies, this is what happened:

Hamas fighters surrounded the area of Gaza City that is the base of the Dughmush clan, one of whose leaders, officials say, is also a leading figure in the Army of Islam.

It also exchanged prisoners with the group in recent days during negotiations to free Johnston.

In other words, Hamas, in charge of Gaza City since the bloody battles with Fatah, has known for some time where Johnston was and was in a position to put that “pressure” on his captors. Having done so successfully (amazing what surrounding an area with fighters ready to kill anyone who comes their way will do), they are now reaping the rewards with the British media showing itself to be rather more friendly and benign towards them. They are also seen as the people who can do things (not very nice ones, but they can do them) whereas the image of Fatah remains as somewhat incompetent as well as unpleasant.

The immediate question one has to ask is why now? Why did Hamas decide to put that pressure on the Dughmush clan as well as, if the story is accurate, exchange a few prisoners in order to get Alan Johnston out? The campaigns in the West? Doubtful. These have been going on for some time with no noticeable results.

Could it be part of its struggle with Fatah and, in particular, competition for western funds? Several things have happened in the weeks since Hamas has taken full control in Gaza.

There was Tony Blair’s appointment to be the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, greeted with anger (or should that be rage?) by Hamas, Hezbollah and their sponsors Iran and Syria. In fact, his role will have little to do with the peace negotiations (that’s between Israel and whoever agrees to negotiate, not between Hamas and Fatah) but to “channel aid towards the construction of a Palestinian state”, as Javier Solana explained.

There was some talk of him introducing fiscal and political reforms and greater accountability in the Palestinian budget, should one appear any time soon, but the chances are that his role will be running around and sharing out aid money between various organizations. It will, therefore, do Hamas no harm to present itself in a very strong and positive light after Alan Johnston.

There have been other developments, all unfavourable to Hamas and favourable to Fatah or, at least, its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. In between being attacked by just about everybody in Israel for his ineptitude last summer and reshuffling his Cabinet, Ehud Olmert found time to try to save Abbas’s position.

He has decided to take a few calculated risks to strengthen Abbas, the newly promoted good guy against the Hamas leaders, who remain the bad guys, or did before the release of Alan Johnston. These risks included a promise to release Palestinian prisoners, as long as they are Fatah and the transfer of hundreds of millions in Palestinian tax money to the government in the West Bank.

Other countries have rushed in there as well. France is promising to provide direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (that’s Abbas’s lot) and discussing ways of getting direct humanitarian aid to residents of Gaza. Well, hey, Hamas cannot go around running hospitals and cleaning streets. It is too busy surrounding clan bases with its fighters to rescue BBC journalists.

In the wake of the Hamas victory in Gaza there has been a flurry of Western initiatives despite some misgivings, to provide Fatah in the West Bank with as much aid as could be mustered, as long as Abbas keeps to his policy of not having Hamas in his government.

Has the situation changed at all after Alan Johnston’s release? Are we not about to see a concerted media campaign, as one of their own has been rescued, for the West to relent on the subject of aid, that is vast amounts of taxpayers’ money, none of which is likely to be accounted for, to Hamas? While we are all rejoicing in Mr Johnston’s freedom, will anyone remember that Hamas still has not agreed to recognize Israel’s right to existence or to relinquish terrorist activity, against Israel and, come to think of it, against the Palestinians as well? Just asking.

UPDATE

In his Mideast Dispatches Tom Gross quotes Ha'aretz to provide a slightly different view of the generosity of Hamas, which does not exactly negate the reservations expressed in this posting.

There is, as one would expect a disagreement between Hamas and Fatah about the former's role in the Johnston saga. While Khaled Meshal, Hamas's Damascus-based leader swanked about his group's achievement and the proof this gave of order being brought to Gaza, Fatah took a different line.

But a senior aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas played down Hamas' role in the release, saying that it was "a movie" set up by Hamas, who then took credit for securing his freedom.

Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Hamas' release of the Briton, held in Gaza for nearly four months in the custody of militant group Army of Islam, had been staged, as the two groups were in league with each other.

He said Hamas staged the rescue in order to "appear as if [Hamas] respects international law.""We're watching a movie, where the thieves in Gaza fall out and one of them claims to be honest and brave, and the other is the bad guy. This Hamas game fools no one," Rabbo said.

That's where he is wrong. It fools the British media.

COMMENT THREAD

A solitary voice

Checking with our friend Mr Google confirms that, of all the MSM, it is only The Daily Telegraph that is consistently "banging on" about a referendum on the EU treaty-to-be.

Today is no different as, despite the competition from other stories, the paper is running another story on the issue, this one headed: "Unions urge EU treaty referendum".

It records, as the headline would suggest, the GMB general union, which has 590,000 members and is affiliated to Labour, has joined the fray, declaring that the treaty-to-be is "substantially the same as the European Constitutional Treaty" and is demanding that the government should "honour" its commitment made before the last general election to put the new treaty to the British people.

Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary, is cited, saying that the Labour Party's promise at the last election to hold a vote should not be abandoned. "The pledge was right at the time of the general election and it is right now."

On top of that, The Telegraph reports that Unison, the public service union, has declared that it will campaign for a "no" vote if a referendum is held. Opposition to the treaty from the heart of the Labour movement, says the paper, means Mr Brown now faces demands from both the Left and Right for a referendum.

Laying down an important marker for the IGC, we also learn that Jim Murphy, the new Europe minister, has "denied authoritative reports" that Brown is bound by the European Council agreements. Murphy says "he was unaware" that Blair had signed any document committing his successor as prime minister to the "precise details" of what was agreed.

Note the weasel words, "precise details". The narrative will be that the heads of agreement have to stand, but there can be argument about the detail. It is a small start, but nevertheless it is a start towards unravelling the stitch-up.

* * *

The No. 10 Downing Street petition has now topped 9,000 and, although the Telegraph is running its own petition, this is the one to get behind. The numbers are beginning to look respectable.

COMMENT THREAD

What's in a word?

With all the hype over the debut of Gordon Brown, answering his first prime minister's questions yesterday – to be revisited in today's newspapers - it is easy to forget that, the day before was David Miliband’s debut, taking questions as foreign minister. So easy, in fact, was it to forget that we did precisely that, until reminded by yet another of our alert readers.

Yet, while the "stars" preen and posture, it is during events such as these that the foot-slogging battle over the EU treaty-to-be is being fought, unrecorded by the media, leaving only its mark in the Official Record (otherwise known as Hansard) for future scholars to pour over – and for us "deviants" to get excited about. But it is here that the battle is beginning to take shape.

Of special importance was a question posed by William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, who challenged Miliband on the comments of Giscard d'Estaing.

He, as readers will recall, had declared, of the European Council's "mandate" that: "This text is, in fact, a rerun of a great part of the substance of the constitutional treaty", adding, "the public is being led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly."

In was in the answer, however, that one sees the government's strategy, in holding the line against such assertions, maintaining that the "mandate" is not a re-run of the constitution.

Miliband refused to be drawn on the Giscard statements, but instead referred directly to the first clause of the "mandate", which "clearly states":

The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing treaties and replacing them by a single text called "Constitution", is abandoned —

"Not reformed," said Miliband, "not amended, but abandoned. The constitutional treaty has been abandoned. That is not just my view, nor is it just the view of our Prime Minister - it is the view of the 27 Heads of Government who signed the document."

The exchange continued but it need not trouble us, as we have the bones of the argument. It is developed by sleight of hand and relies on the substitution of one word with another. To see how it works, we have to note how Miliband refers, in the first instance, to the "constitutional concept", calling in aid the "mandate" as his authority.

Now, this "concept" was an innovation in producing treaties. All previous affairs had taken the form of amendments to the original Treaty of Rome. It was these amendments, and only these, the formed the basis of each subsequent treaty, until the constitutional treaty. Then, it was decided to absorb all the treaties and the proposed amendments into one consolidated text, which was to form the new treaty. That was the "constitutional concept", as indeed the "mandate" indicates.

The trouble with that was people - many for the first time - were able to see the full text and take on board how many powers had been ceded to the EU. Not a few of the complaints over the text actually related to powers handed over in previous treaties.

Thus, the "colleagues" decided to abandon this "concept" and revert to producing another amending treaty, only this time they would call it a "reform treaty".

So, they have separated out virtually all the new material from the constitution and are offering it as amendments, which will form the basis of the new treaty. Crucially, the effect of the amendments will be, when re-integrated with the existing treaties, a document very similar to the failed constitution. The "reform treaty" will turn the existing treaties into the constitution, in all but name.

And there we have the slight of hand. Miliband takes the phrase, "constitutional concept" and changes one word, to produce "constitutional treaty". In one fell swoop, the "treaty" has been abandoned. Except that it hasn't.

Interestingly a similar tactic has been tried before – by Tony Blair, when he reported on the European Council. Then, he offered the first clause of the "mandate" without even embellishing it, relying on his showmanship and emphasis to slide the point past the House.

Plodding in his wake, Miliband is trying the same trick, with the embellishment. It is clever, but dishonest – exactly what we expect from our politicians.

COMMENT THREAD

OK I waited long enough

It occurred to me that someone will get there ahead of me on the forum. Clearly, our American readers are busy celebrating, preparing for those fireworks and barbecues.

This is the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, one of the great dates of the Anglosphere. Let us not forget how many of those ideas were first formulated in Britain, some in England, some in Scotland. It is at times like this that one thinks about our own Union and its fate.

Here are some of those stirring words. Compare them to the grey, controlled vision of the European project:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

And for some amusement, Rick Moran on Right Wing Nuthouse is "liveblogging" the Continental Congress. Enjoy.

Whom should we trust?

Arnold Kling, one of the best commentators on the political scene, has a piece on TechCentral Station about trust, possibly the most overused word in the English political language these days.

Apart from the fact that he quotes from The Anglosphere Challenge, a book whose importance cannot be overestimated, Kling also makes some very good points that need to be remembered whenever we discuss the supposed collapse of our society.

Should we trust the government?

In the case of government, there is good trust and there is bad trust. Good trust is trust in processes that promote public service. Bad trust is trust in the virtue of leaders or the wisdom of voters.

If you can trust the processes of government, then that is a good thing. Good trust in government is based on processes that provide for accountability, checks and balances, equal protection, and punishment of official corruption.

Trusting the virtues of government leaders is a bad thing. It leads one to cede rights and powers to government that are easily abused. The more that our ideology demands virtue from leaders, the more likely it is that our leaders will prove to be evil. Authoritarian Communism illustrates Lord Acton's maxim that "power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Trusting the "will of the people" is also a bad thing. Democratic majorities can support inferior policies, infringement on people's rights, and even genocied. Popular voting is useful as a check on elites, but not as a tool for over-riding the principle of individual liberty.

I recall a series of highly inadequate Reith Lectures given by Onora O'Neill, Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (the last time I listened to those talks), whose subject was "A Question of Trust" and whose theme was a prolonged moan that people in authority were no longer trusted and were constantly checked and tested.

I prefer Arnold Kling's comment:

My idea of a high-trust society differs from that of many elites. Elitist journalists think that a high-trust society is one where we trust the mainstream media. Elitist politicians and activists think that a high-trust society is one where we trust legislators, regulators, and experts to exercise broad authority. In contrast, I believe that a high-trust society is one in which processes ensure that elites are subject to checks and accountability. It is particularly important for legislators, regulators, and experts to have their authority limited and their accountability assured.

Read the whole piece.

Something Robert Zoellick could get his teeth into

From Spiegel an article based on a report in the Financial Times. It would seem that the Chinese government has been putting pressure on the World Bank to change its reports on such matters as the number of people who might die prematurely because of pollution.

According to a report in Tuesday's edition of the Financial Times, the Chinese government put pressure on the World Bank to take potentially damaging statistics out of a report on pollution in China.

Among the alleged cuts made were the report's finding that around 750,000 people in China are dying prematurely every year due to high levels of air pollution and poor water quality. Another deletion was a particularly damning map of China showing which parts of the country suffered from the most pollution-related deaths.

The FT editorial huffs and puffs if I may use that expression without punning.

Even in a China that is more capitalist than ever, the instinctive official response to bad news is to suppress it with all the force available to the nominally communist state. Beijing needs to accept that in 2007 this kind of reaction is as futile and dangerous as it was in 2003, when the authorities kept secret the spread of the deadly Sars virus. It is futile because the truth will out and dangerous because secrecy delays the necessary remedial action.

Futile and dangeours for whom? It seems that the World Bank happily (or, perhaps, not so happily) acquiesces in this sort of behaviour and accepts the Chinese government’s argument that this sort of information might cause social unrest in the country.

The alternative of publishing the truth in the expectation that fear of social unrest might encourage the authorities to tackle the problems clearly did not occur to any of those hightly paid officials.

Next time you see criticism of the United States as the Great Polluter, especially from the World Bank, remember the Chinese figures they agreed to blank out.

The Anglosphere at war

I was going to blog about this but Elaib on England Expects got there ahead of me. So, the best thing I can do is to link to his exhaustive post and encourage everyone to read it.

Gesture politics

Justice and security commissioner Franco Frattini is doing his best to emulate King Canute's advisors, proposing the internet equivalent of turning back the tides.

Internet sites showing how to make bombs or which make "public provocations aimed at inspiring criminal action" should be banned, he says – one of the measures he is to propose in a raft of EU counter terrorism measures this autumn.

Needless to say, the instant reaction from experts is that this simply cannot be done. Attempts to control child porn, for instance, have had limited effect and, if anything, traffic in this ghastly area has increased.

But, interviewed on BBC's Radio 4 World at One, we got a typical response from Frattini, to the effect that is better to do something than nothing at all – even if the action is known to be ineffective. "It is simply not possible to allow people to instruct other people on the internet on how to make a bomb," he says.

There is, however, a real battle to be fought on the internet, which terrorists are using widely, for command and control, for disseminating propaganda and for training their people.

But the counter-techniques are mixed. As well as shutting them down, they include allowing the sites to remain active, to watch who goes on to them, and setting up "spoof sites" to attract unwary browsers in order to feed them false information.

That said, those who want the information will always be able to find it. Terrorists can host sites anywhere in the world, or squat undetected on community sites. They can set them up and take them down faster than they can be tracked, with potential users advised of their locations through forums and chat rooms, as well as via GMS texts.

Therefore, Frattini's initiative is nothing more than gesture politics. But then, the EU is playing its own propaganda game and being seen to do something is all part of that game. In the final analysis, when it comes to promoting the EU, anything goes, even exploiting peoples' concerns about terrorism.

COMMENT THREAD

It can't be accidental

Returning to last Monday's House of Commons debate on the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system, we have now a superb example of the BBC at its Europhile best, "spinning" for all it is worth to put the best gloss possible on this disastrous project. As a case study of hidden propaganda and pro-EU bias, it takes some beating.

The report (on the website only) is headed, "UK presses private Galileo role", with the strap line stating: "The UK says it still believes the private sector should share the risk and the cost of developing Europe's satellite-navigation system, Galileo."

As always, this conditions the piece, setting the framing for the subsequent report, which declares:

The multi-billion-euro project has been beset with delays and a budget overrun. And in May, the European Commission abandoned negotiations with a private consortium to help it build the system. But new UK transport minister Rosie Winterton said the commercial sector should still have a role in developing the new sat-nav service.

However, it is not the case that the Commission has "abandoned negotiations with a private consortium". Rather, the consortium – which the EU itself set up - refused to accept the terms of the deal presented by the commission without definite financial guarantees, on the basis that the commercial case on which the commission was relying had collapsed. But all the BBC will allow, later in its own report, is that negotiations "floundered".

That the government declares that it still thinks the commercial sector should have a role (in the financing of the project) is, in any case, whistling in the dark. Not only is it not going to happen, the only proposals on the table are how public money should be used to bail out the scheme – whether through the EU budget or via the European Space Agency.

That much was made very clear in response to the minister’s speech, delivered by outgoing shadow transport minister Owen Paterson, who gave chapter and verse on the finances, and the state of play.

Here though, the BBC spin machine comes into its own. Not a single word from Paterson's speech is quoted. The opposition spokesman is an invisible man. Nothing he says is allowed to tarnish the BBC's "take" on the project.

Even on the detail, the BBC is subtly spinning, telling us that Galileo is a "four-billion-euro (£2.7bn) system", when the latest estimates suggest overall costings are nearer €9-12 billion. It also tells us that the system is "supposed to be functional by the end of 2012", when actually, it was supposed to be functional in 2008 – and the 2012 date is highly optimistic; if it ever takes off, 2014 is more realistic. And yet another "factoid" was the government's estimate of how much it had committed, the BBC reporting €148m, forgetting the correction made by the minister, Rosie Winterton, who added another €142, making €290 million, or slightly more than £200 million (neglecting also to say that that figure only covered the last three financial years).

So, what of the opposition responses? In what was actually a spirited debate, with detailed contributions from a number of MPs, including Bernard Jenkin and Bill Cash, the latter coming up with a robust condemnation of the system:

We are talking about a failed project; that is clear … The project has no useful purpose whatever. It cannot fly and cannot even be described as a duck. It cannot be described as a workable system. The proposal is completely absurd.

But the BBC wasn't allowing that to see the light of day. Instead, it selected an anodyne intervention from back-bencher Tobias Ellwood, who was allowed to say that he, "doubted a commercial case for the project could ever be justified, especially since the American Global Positioning System (GPS) already delivered an excellent service."

It then immediately countered that with a comment from Lib-Dim MP Lembit Opik said increasing dependence on sat-nav demanded there be an alternative to GPS, giving the full measure of his argument:

The aviation business increasingly depends on global positioning system technology, but there is no redundancy … We have no alternative method of positioning, using satellites, so if the system goes down - and it can - it will create a grave danger to aviation. ...the principle of ensuring redundancy in such an essential navigation system must surely be right?

The point, of course, is entirely spurious. There are multiple redundancies within the GPS system, including spare satellites which can be repositioned if any satellites fail. In any case, aircraft carry back-up systems, such as inertial navigation and, in extremis, can rely on dead reckoning and ground radar fixes. (Opik makes another spurious point about blind landing – which the BBC does not air.)

By way of comparison, the only other published report we see is from a specialist magazine, but that is headlined: “Support for Galileo PPP crumbles.” It tells us that, "British politicians are turning against Galileo, the EU's proposed satellite navigation system." It quotes Paterson claiming that the system is "in crisis", and notes his view that:

From a projected profit of €17.8 billion, the maximum is now €1 billion, with a possible loss of €4 billion … The project is now six years behind schedule … soaring costs and plummeting benefits had undermined the financial case for it.

Throughout the long, turgid history of the Galileo project, the corporation has been a leading cheerleader. And now that that EU's treasured project is on its uppers, we are not allowed to know this. The spin from the BBC cannot be accidental.

COMMENT THREAD

Heh!

Concerns are mounting that the smoking ban which came into effect across the whole of the UK this weekend could lead to an increase in carbon emissions as pubs, restaurants and workplaces invest in gas-fired patio heaters to keep warm smokers forced outside by the ban. Recent research from British Gas predicted that increased sales of gas-fired patio burners to pubs as a result of the smoking ban would see carbon emissions from the pub heaters alone rocket to 160,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, representing almost ten percent of the annual reduction the UK needs to meet its Kyoto commitments by 2012.

From: BusinessGreen, 3 July 2007.

COMMENT THREAD

Satire lives

Satire does live and, amazingly enough, in many different countries. Here is a superlative example about the recent terrorist attacks on Iowahawk, which is not only American but in the Mid-West. Don't these people know their place? Read the piece, it is wonderfully funny. Little Green Footballs has linked with an extra picture.

Smoked elephant?

"I now propose to surrender or limit these powers to make for a more open 21st-century British democracy which better serves the British people."

So said Gordon Brown yesterday in his first prime ministerial statement referring the exercise of powers under Crown prerogative, powers which he says have no place in a modern democracy.

The headlines, of course, will be grabbed by the power to declare war but, tucked in the list is the power of the Executive to ratify international treaties without decision by Parliament.

This sounds all very well and good, except of course that the main treaties about which we are concerned are those to do with the European Union. Those, in effect, are always ratified by Parliament, by virtue of it approving amendments to the European Communities Act, which brings the treaties into force.

As to the rest, Mr Brown is a little bit out of date. Treaties which require ratification are always ratified by a decision of Parliament and have been since 1924 when what is known as the Ponsonby Rule was introduced.

The procedure is that they are "laid" before Parliament for 21 sitting days before ratification (or its equivalent) is effected, which is done by means of a Command Paper, accompanied since 1997 by an explanatory memorandum.

Approval is taken to be given in the absence of any objections but, if the opposition forwards a formal demand for a debate, time is always given – an undertaking made in 1924 which has been honoured by all governments.

However, there is an even more substantive issue here. In huge areas of international relations, successive governments have given up the right (or power) to make treaties at all, through our membership of the European Union. We cannot, for instance, make trade deals with third countries, or agree terms in WTO negotiations.

Furthermore, this is set to get worse. If Gordon Brown approves a new treaty which conforms with the "mandate" issued by the European Council on 23 June, it will include a provision for granting the European Union "legal personality". With that, the EU will be able to agree treaties with third parties in its own name, binding on member states, and thereby completely by-passing Parliament.

Mr Brown's idea of 21st-Century British democracy, therefore, is one of robbing Parliament of most of its powers – powers which it already has.

This is an areas when an alert leader of the opposition could have excelled. But, instead of that, we had the Boy King. And what did he do? He told Brown he was "glad" the prime minister was introducing the provision on international treaties. "It has our full support," he declared.

Did he mention the European Union, the proposed treaty and legal personality? Need you ask?

Thus, it seems, we have an interesting combination of two things: smoke and mirrors and the elephant in the room. Smoked elephant, perhaps?

COMMENT THREAD

Wising up

As time passes, a fuller picture is emerging of the deception campaign surrounding the European Council "mandate" and the subsequent treaty negotiations.

Helping up on our way is today's Telegraph which has an "EU leader" admitting that the new EU treaty will mean "transfers of sovereignty" from Britain and Gordon Brown is right to hide the fact from the public.

The "leader" is Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's premier, who has told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir that he supports public debate on the treaty - except in Britain. "I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries," he is cited as saying.

Juncker then observes that: "Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?" – the answer being fairly obvious when he also describes the June 23 mandate as an "objective success" for friends of the EU constitution.

In Porto, meanwhile, to coincide with the first working day of Portuguese EU presidency, Barroso was holding forth, ruling out the possibility of reopening negotiations on the new EU treaty. "None of the issues which were agreed upon can be reopened again," he told journalists. Adding to this, he declared, "We cannot do anything that was agreed at the last European Council, that's absolutely fundamentally."

Portuguese premier José Socrates also contributed his ha'porth, pronouncing: "The Portuguese presidency has received a mandate to produce a new treaty, and in the mandate it doesn't say 'oh, by the way, you can revise the mandate." "I don't think it makes any sense nor do I see any country that wants to question" the mandate, he said.

One person, belatedly, who is beginning to wake up to the reality, however, is the BBC's Europe editor, Mark Mardell. Writing about the complexity of the mandate (although he does not use the M-word) he recalls being told that, "If all the major political points, and indeed the minor ones, were dealt with … the civil servants would just be left with pulling the thing together and sorting out a few legal niceties."

"I certainly believed them," he writes on his blog, adding, "You might think this naïve…". Naïve is one word – negligent might be another. But he then goes on to publish a letter from Professor Damian Chalmers, of the London School of Economics, on the complexity of the document, part of which says:

There is a simple reason why this is so. The heads of state are intelligent people aided by intelligent people. If they had wanted a clear, comprehensive document, they would have written one. It is neither clear nor comprehensive because they did not want it to be these things.

Of the European Council, he then argues that it "was significant and gave many important and detailed markers, but it has also allowed a lot of room for negotiation." But, he concludes, "In terms of giving the citizen a clear idea of what is going on, forget it!"

Now cue Guardian journalist, John Crace, writing in Comment is free, who declares, "How can we vote in an EU referendum when we can't understand what the proposals are? We'll just have to trust our MPs."

He describes the "mandate" (again avoiding the M-word) as 16 pages of incomprehensibility, telling us that it is too complicated to understand. "So let's stop talking about a referendum," he pleads. "An uninformed electorate exercising their rights is not democracy in action; it's guesswork." On that basis, the sage opines:

The whole point of electing politicians is to let them take the tricky decisions for you. Whether they understand the issues - and one suspects that few of them really do in regard to Europe - is beside the point. Their job is to carry the can. Ours is to hold them to account.

There you see the whole game being played out. The "colleagues" write an incomprehensible document and convince the media it is a treaty which cannot be altered. They repeat their lie at every opportunity, which the largely unthinking media report without comment, and then they rely on smart-arsed Guardian journalists to tell us we don't need a referendum.

How long before people wise up to the game do you think?

COMMENT THREAD

From yesterday's Evening Standard

Ed Husain is one of the people we are listening to at the moment. A young British Muslim he went through the Islamist experience and understood how wrong it was. He has written a book about it, "The Islamist", which I have not yet read but intend to do so as soon as possible. Knowledgeable people have praised Husain's account.

He has also endeared himself to me and to many others by making a complete fool of Hizonner the Mayor of LondON on the Today programme last Saturday.

Yesterday he had an article in the Evening Standard, which is not on the web. In it he once again expresses his exasperation with Hizonner who seems unable to grasp the difference between Islam and Islamism. Actually, I disagree with Mr Husain. It is not so much a case of not being able as not wanting to grasp the difference. This way, Hizonner can always accuse his opponents of racism and Islamophobia and pretend that the threat of the BNP is as strong as that from Islamist groups.

I want to quote the last few paragraphs from the article:

[W]hat I am concerned about is flushing them [suspected terrorists] out before they act. And for that, we need two things. Firstly, the British Vovernment needs to deliver an ultimatum to Islamist organisations that unless they cease promoting their extremist world view, they will be outlawed.

Second, we need to realise that Muslim communities recognise the extremists in their midst long before they show up on the radar of our intelligence services. We observe their condemnatory rhetoric, rejection of mainstream mosques, sudden change in dress code. Yet whenmoderate Muslims seek to complain, they are told that nothing can be done because of "freedom of speech". It's time we got real about ho libearl we're prepared to be. Preventing terrorism is a civic duty, just as preventing murder and rape is, but we need to facilitate that process.

We need more rehabilitation centres for extremists where we should offer them the opportunity to experience traditional Islam under the supervision of mainstream Muslim scholars. Most extremists have never met a genuine Muslim scholar. Serious rehabilitation programmes would perhaps allow extremists to see the errors of their way. It worked for me. I saw the madness of my own ways when I grew to understand traditional Islam.

We need Muslim scholars to speak out, too. Where are the mainstream leaders in London now denouncing extremism? So far there has been only silence from them.

But we must also accept that many extremists are beyond recall, and that no amount of rehabilitation and ultimatums will bring them back to normality. For these, detention and imprisonment is the best way to ensure liberty for the rest of us. The security of the majority cannot be sacrificed at the altar of minority rights.

I don't necessarily agree with all of it but everything there is worth thinking about.

You cannot fool all of the people all of the time

It seems that Lincoln's comment is accurate. "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Of course, if you overplay your hand as the man made global warming fetishists have done, you are even less likely to fool all of the people.

It seems that the latest Ipsos Mori poll shows that the public is sceptical about the global warming crisis.

Findings by Ipsos Mori show Britons believe that the issue is not as bad as the scientists and politicians claim.

There is also scepticism about "greenspin" and a feeling that the situation is being overstated in order to raise revenue rather than save the planet.

In fact climate change is not a priority for most people in the UK - terrorism, crime, graffiti and even dog mess are of more concern.

One may add that graffiti and dog mess are also environmental issues closely linked to criminal ones. Then again, it is soooooooooo much easier to natter on about global warming and the terrible new form of original sin that we are all guilty of than to deal with immediate environmental problems.

Of course, if the greenies really wanted to win the battle of ideas they would have chosen a better spokesman than Al the Goracle. One wonders what the Boy-King to whom outdated green issues are sacred will make of this poll.

COMMENT THREAD

Futuritis

That two of the terrorists apprehended in the wake of the current round of attacks are, respectively a man described as a "brilliant neurosurgeon" and a junior doctor, the one from Jordan and the other from Iraq, is somehow more incomprehensible than the earlier bombing by disaffected British Muslim youths.

Both were educated men and, together with their co-conspirators – also doctors - with good incomes and everything to live for. Yet they chose a path of nihilism executed, one has to say, with a fair degree of incompetence.

What this incident does though – arguably - is underline the nature of the mindset which fuels the jihadists and the futility of even attempting to negotiate or treat with them. Furthermore, this also defines more clearly the nature of the threat. It is not the poverty-stricken disaffected but a conspiracy of international terrorists who are determined only to wreak death and destruction on the innocent.

To that, there can only one sane response – to take the terrorists out of circulation. Where the security situation permits, that means locking them up but, where there are lawless environments, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the only option is to root them out and kill them, using military force.

Add to that a third element, which should be self-evident – that the threat is not only international but of a huge scale. To deal with it, therefore, in all its manifestations, would seem to suggest that we must focus on it and apply maximum resources and capabilities to defeating it. In effect, since we are war, we should be on a wartime footing, with everything that that implies.

It was this thinking that inspired – in part – my post on Sunday where, in apparent contradiction of my thesis here, I argued that we should withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

That, in essence, was a cri de coeur, a reaction to one phenomenon which, on the face of it, is preventing us from addressing the real and present threat, sapping our energies and hampering our response. For want of a better term, I shall call it "futuritis". Our readers may have a better name for it.

To develop this thesis, it is instructive to refer to a recent press release from the European Defence Agency, which records agreement on yet another "roadmap and a timetable" designed, in the words of the release:

...to produce a comprehensive Capability Development Plan (CDP), which will help EU governments identify the key capability areas that they must work together to develop to meet the security threats of the future, and to target possible areas for collaboration to deliver the necessary capabilities.

The key word here, of course, is "future". We see this enormous intellectual and physical effort directed to meet "the security threats of the future". Yet, this is the same group of nations that, by and large, have ducked out of the fight in Iraq. It is the same group of nations which have been extremely parsimonious in providing assets for the war in Afghanistan, to an extent that European nations were not even prepared to supply casevac helicopters to aid the nations who were delivering fighting troops.

This is exactly the same phenomenon which I identified in my unnamed RAF officer - against whom I railed in my earlier piece – who told me that the Services cannot afford to focus on the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as that would leave them unprepared to fight future wars.

That is not to say that the man – and all his fellow travellers – do not have a point. When, in the 1980s the whole of the Western defence establishments were focused on the Soviet threat, there were small voices warning of the future threat of Islamic fundamentalism, many of whom were entirely ignored. We would expect, therefore, our planners to keep an eye on future threats, while dealing with those immediately to hand – and applaud them for so doing.

But this is different. Beyond the global threat of Islamic fundamentalism, it is incredibly difficult to visualise a threat of the same magnitude or severity, and certainly not one which requires the ranks of gleaming, hi-tech toys which the generals are determined their nations should buy. They are building their armies for the future, but have no real idea of what they will be used for, against whom and where.

On the other hand, they seem to be in denial about the existing war. There may be many reasons for this, not least that counter-insurgency and like activities, are dirty, messy and, more importantly, do not conform with the average soldier's vision of a "real" war.

Thus there seems to be a collective determination to avoid thinking about what is, ignoring the real and present danger, in order to focus on the much more entertaining and rewarding task of writing "Capability Development Plans", to deal with hypothetical wars of the future, against mythical foes in far off lands which, as yet, do not exist.

So do we lose this war, but hey! We can always win the next one!

COMMENT THREAD

That travel ban

As we know the European Union needs a common foreign policy in order to have a stronger voice on the world stage. The trouble is, as we also know, that the Single European Voice does not have anything to say because there is no Single European Interest.

No, no, you are wrong, say the armchair euro-warriors, we do have something to say. It has little to do with old-fashioned national interests and everything to do with values and human rights. The last time these arguments were used was in early 1917 after the real Russian Revolution proclaimed the end of all outdated secret international treaties and wars fought for national interests. Come November and the Bolshevik coup the proclamations remained but the reality became a little more grim.

Anyway, back to the European values. Remember that one thing the European Union can do is to enforce a Europe-wide ban on travel by Zimbabwean President-for-life-and-probably-beyond Robert Mugabe and his entourage, though why that ban should not be imposed on several other kleptocratic bloodthirsty African rulers is an interesting point.

Are we keeping to this ban? Sadly, it would seem no. According to the Association of Zimbabwean Journalists:

Portugal is planning to invite Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to a European Union summit in December - but is hoping that he will not attend.

So we impose a ban, break it and hope that the banned people will stick to it. Is this what they call a value-based policy?

Why exactly do we need to invite Mugabe? Well, it seems that the other African leaders will not attend the planned EU-Africa Summit, which is one of the key policies of the Portuguese Presidency if poor old Mugabe is discriminated against. That says something about the other African leaders to whom we keep shelling out large amounts of aid money, thus keeping them in power and preventing any possible economic or political development in their countries.

Surely the answer to that ought to be: “Oh fine. In that case we cannot have an EU-Africa Summit. What a pity.” Then we can all get on with other issues. Now that would be a value-based policy and so simple, too.

Peter Tatchell is suggesting an alternative in his Guardian blog posting:

Better still, the Portuguese government could lure Mugabe into a trap. It could invite him to December's European-African summit and, when he arrives in Lisbon, arrest him on charges of torture. There is no point in Portugal having human rights laws if it is not prepared to enforce them.

An unlikely scenario but it is good to have someone suggesting it.

COMMENT THREAD

A world gone totally mad

From an agency report:

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan may be the world's largest producer of heroin, but the government has taken the first step towards to (sic) a ban on smoking in public places.

Local media said on Tuesday that the council of ministers had ordered a campaign through the media and mosques to inform the public that smoking in educational institutions, hospitals and government offices has been outlawed. The ban will be widened later to cover hotels and restaurants.

This, I believe, is known as displacement activity.

COMMENT THREAD

It is not going to fly … it is a dud system

That was one view expressed in a debate in the House of Commons last night on the Galileo system – an event in which Rosie Winterton (pictured) made her debut as transport minister.

She was dreadful. Asking the House to endorse the Government's approach to discussions on the system at the Council of Ministers, she was unable to tell the House how much the UK government had spent on it, how much it might be committed to spend, how much the system itself might cost and what benefits might be gained from it.

Owen Paterson (pictured below), in his last speech as shadow transport minister, responded for the opposition. His thesis was that we have a perfectly adequate, free system in the US Navstar GPS, with continuity of service guaranteed, and do not need to waste money on what is essentially a European "vanity" project.

The main protagonist was Labour MP Michael Connarty, whose argument was that, like Microsoft, Navstar was a monopoly and, at some time, the US government could exploit that position and start imposing charges. Never mind that the world economy is now so dependent on a free service that this would be inconceivable – and contrary to international agreements – to raise charges. Connarty had his narrative and wasn't going to let reality intrude.

The central issue, of course, was the financing of the Galileo system after the collapse of the public-private partnership (PPP), and with it the prospect of private sector financing. Nevertheless, the British government is clinging to the hope that a PPP can be resuscitated, failing which it wants the Commission to deliver a cost-benefit of what it calls the "procurement route" – i.e., funding the system from taxpayers' money – before it gives its assent.

Connarty thought the latter was perfectly acceptable. It is a "European ambition", he declared. "There’s nothing wrong with ambition". And indeed there is not – but there's everything wrong with taking other peoples' money to pay for it.

COMMENT THREAD

That other reshuffle

News is coming through of the Boy-King's reshuffle in his court and it is not, on the whole, very exciting. The main players, Osborne, Davies, Hague, Fox, are staying put. So much for new thinking.

Francis Maude is giving place to Caroline Spelman, which must be an improvement. David Willetts lost the schools brief, which is not altogether surprising given his enormous gaffe over the grammar schools. Michael Gove will probably be preferable.

Nick Herbert takes over Justice and Owen Paterson Northern Ireland, an odd job, given the existence of the Assembly in Belfast but, should that break down again, there will be plenty of fireworks.

Following the example set by Gordon Brown Cameron is bringing in a couple of outsiders who will be given working peerages in order to be allowed onto the Shadow Front Bench. One is Sayeeda Warsi, one of the party's vice-chairmen (or chairwomen) with responsibilities for cities, is to take on the rather odd position of Shadow Spokesman on Communities or Community Cohesion. It is not quite clear which it is going to be. If it is Communities then she will be shadowing Hazel Blears, who is in the Commons. If it is Community Cohesion then it is, frankly, a non-job.

Then there is Dame Pauline Neville-Jones. She is becoming advisor to the Boy-King on security matters. Whether this means she will be the Shadow Homeland Security Spokesperson, effectively a non-job, or be given some other monniker is unclear as I write this.

Still, I have a few words to say about Dame Pauline. She appears to be a remarkably appropriate person for the job: a career diplomat with a subsequent side-track into business; one of the great and the good; former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee and "head of Mr Cameron's security policy review group, looking at national security, including terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and social cohesion".

In a recent pronouncement she knew exactly whom to blame for any problems we might be facing in this country:

I said that reports of prisoner abuse by British and American troops - however isolated - and accounts, accurate or not, of the mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition flights leading to the torture of suspects, had led to the critical erosion of our moral authority, and that this had resulted in a loss of goodwill towards America which could be as
serious in the long-term as the sharpest of military defeats.

It is hard to tell what she thinks about the stories of Guantanamo and, as she mentioned somewhere else, Abu Ghraib, but this is not a particularly useful comment. Not altogether useless but not exactly useful.

Then again, her comments about the European Union are not exactly useful either:

In June, in London, I set out comprehensively our approach to the European Union, pointing out the opportunity, with the Constitution becalmed, for a British government to set out a positive agenda of a different kind, incorporating genuine completion of a single market and the creation of an outward looking Europe characterised by freedom and flexibility rather than ever-closer political integration characterised by bureaucracy and fossilisation.

The real problem is her analysis of what might or might not have caused the growth of Islamic extremism in Britain, which started some fifteen years ago.

All evidence, including that given by the author of a forthcoming study of Islamic groups in Britain, points to the colossal effect the Bosnian war had on Muslim perceptions. It was not so much the war but the fact that the European authorities lined up on the side of Slobodan Milosevic and other, lesser, thugs. Remember Douglas Hurd and his letter that pompously explained why Bosnians must not have any arms to defend themselves because we do not want to see "level killing fields"?

And who was the Foreign Office person in charge of policy making at the time? Step forward Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, known by some as Dame Pauline Neville Chamberlain. These little details get forgotten as does her subsequent involvement (together with Douglas Hurd) in the NatWest attempt to give Milosevic a loan on extremely favourable terms. (There is a discussion of it in this interview, the subject raised, I am sorry to say, by George Monbiot with the Dame being very defensive.)

So, do we think she is the right person to advise on matters to do with security? Would she be able to produce a narrative that could compete successfully with that fed to Muslim youngsters by their imams? In case anybody misunderstands me, I am not advocating the restoration of Patrick Mercer, whose one achievement is that he once wore a uniform. I am just asking.

COMMENT THREAD

You looking at us?

Tim Montgomerie, whom I rather admire for his tireless work to reinstate real conservative ideas in the Party Formerly Known as Conservative, summed up last week's media on his blog yesterday.

Good weeks were had by Gordon Brown, the Conservative by-election machine and Conservative Home. Bad weeks were had by the BBC for its extraordinary decision to interrupt Blair's historically important farewell speech to Parliament in order to go back to Wimbledon and to trail one of its later programmes, by democracy (isn't that every week these days) and blogs:

Something of a bad week for blogging. Some blogs were more guilty than others but there was lots of speculation about Bercow, Rifkind, Patten and others following Quentin Davies. It wasn't blogging's finest hour.

You looking at us, mister? At no time did this blog even mention any of those people or, indeed, thought about them. In fact, when I read that comment this morning I remembered that I had forgotten the predictions that another sinking ship jumping rat idealistic Conservative MP crossing over to Labour had been predicted.

Well, who cares? More to the point, why is the conservative blogosphere remains obsessed with little issues like that? And why does the editor of ToryDiary think that those are the only blogs that exist?

Coincidentally, I am going to be on Blogger TV on 18 Doughty Street this evening and was asked, as usual, to have a look at a whole slew of British blogs and find three stories of interest to talk about. And, as usual, I have to own up to reading American blogs far more because they have wider ranging and more interesting stories and discussions. I shall try to get that point across.

Blair's EU deal not binding

Bill Cash, who is a one man clearance squad, has nevertheless done us a service today in the Telegraph with a letter headed: "Britain not bound by Tony Blair's EU deal". He writes as follows:

Sir - You report (June 29) that the Europe Minister of Portugal, which holds the EU presidency, alleged that "the new British Prime Minister is bound by the mandate agreed by Mr Blair last week". This claim must be rebutted. The European Council mandate for the treaty is not legally binding on member states, nor does it have the legal authority to enforce the mandate on the Council of Ministers, the national parliaments or the electors of the member nations.

Article 48 of the Treaty of the European Union confers power only to call "a conference of representatives of the governments of the member states" to determine amendments to the treaties and cannot legally bind them in advance. Last week's summit was not such a conference, although one has now been called.

If the European Council had the authority the Portuguese Europe Minister alleges, it would override Ireland's constitutional requirements to hold national referendums on European treaties, it would override the veto, and it would override the treaty requirements for ratification according to the constitutional requirements of each member state and would effectively prevent any country from holding and endorsing the outcome of a national referendum.

Political leaders must unite to make this clear to the British and European people and repudiate any "secret" document signed by Tony Blair endorsing this unlawful mandate, before the deceit takes root in the public mind.

Useful stuff, if somewhat long-winded (although shorter than some of our pieces). The problem is that the "deceit" - and that it is - is firmly rooted in the media. It is going to take some shifting.

* * *

By the way, the petition on the referendum is beginning to edge towards respectability, with 6,324 signatures, at the time of writing. If you haven't yet signed it, now would be a good time.

COMMENT THREAD

Not so innocent?

You can take the source with a pinch of salt, but The People newspaper indicates that Gordon Brown might be considering scrapping the pound in favour of the euro.

It bases its report on a claim that his "top sidekick" Ed Balls has sent a memorandum to ministers warning them Brown wants to take another look at the "five key tests" to be satisfied before signing up to the euro. It was, we are told, one of Mr Balls's final acts while still a Treasury minister and before being made Schools Secretary in the new Cabinet on Thursday.

One senior (unnamed) minister is cited as saying: "We were told he was going to test the tests again. That doesn't mean we plan to join up. But it does mean we are to look again at whether we should."

The paper then adds that, in Brussels, Mr Brown's move will be welcomed as a political masterstroke. It thus cites an EU Commission source, who explained: "It draws the fire away from those campaigning for a referendum on the new constitutional treaty … Brown has already promised a referendum if he decides to ditch the pound."

This, of course, may be political fluff – no other paper had picked it up at the time of writing, but there again The People could just be on to something.

It is an article of faith, based on Brown's reputed stance against the euro, that he is less enamoured by the "project" than his predecessor Tony Blair. But, despite attempts to engineer a rift between Brown and Blair over the mandate negotiations in the European Council, now just over a week ago, Brown has both supported the mandate and resisted calls for a referendum.

Since then, he has appointed arch-Europhile David Miliband to the post of foreign secretary, putting him in poll position to negotiate the new treaty draft, backed by tranzie-lover Malloch-Brown.

With all that behind him, if there is any truth in the People's report, it could be that Mr Brown is a lot more of a Europhile than has been so far apparent, and we could be dealing with a man who, when it comes to the European Union, is not so innocent as some would have us believe.

COMMENT THREAD

A candidate for the Green Helmet Award?

This story comes via Confederate Yankee, a consistently interesting blog and, I have to add, comments that often take the story forward. The background to this is a Reuters report that the number of civilian casualties in Iraq fell sharply in June, causing U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver to say that he was cautiously optimistic.

Not everyone likes even cautious optimism and certain sections of the drive-by media prefer to produce stories of sectarian atrocities. Well, so what, you might say. The media lives by sensationalism and if that sensationalism involves a story of twenty people being decapitated in a village, so be it.

The trouble arises, as we know, when the story is unsubstantiated and the source is a highly unreliable one. This is how Confederate Yankee describes the beginning:

The Associated Press, Reuters, and a small Iraqi Independent news agency called Voice of Iraq released stories Thursday about the massacre of 20 men near Salman Pak, who were supposedly found decapitated on the banks of the Tigris River.

But something seemed inherently wrong with the accounts I read from the Associated Press. The only two sources for the Associated Press article were anonymous police, not located in Salman Pak, but from Baghdad (more than dozen miles away) and Kut (more than 75 miles away).

Because of this odd sourcing, I asked Multi-National Corps-Iraq and the PAO liaison to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior to investigate.

He discussed the story in an earlier posting adding rather acerbically:

I'm not Associated Press reporter Sinan Salheddin, nor am I Kim Gamel, AP's Baghdad news editor, but if I was investigating a story about a 20-corpse mass murder in—let's say, Manhattan—then I'd try to find a local police officer at the scene to interview about the case.

I wouldn't rely on a desk sergeant in Staten Island who merely heard reports of other officers being dispatched to check to see if there was such a crime, nor would I rely on a beat cop in Albany who is only reporting rumors of what he heard from friends of relatives in Queens.

But the Associated Press didn't rely on the local police. Instead, they blatantly presented hearsay as the truth, and as a result, ran a story about a brutal massacre that currently appears to have never taken place.

This is not the first time that Associated Press, for one, produced stories, whose source was dubious to put it mildly, that all pointed in one direction – horrific mass murders in Iraq.

For a while the investigations produced no results and I mean just that. The headless bodies could not be found and neither could any witnesses to the atrocity.

Yesterday the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) published a rebuttal, which included the following:

Anti-Iraqi Forces are known for purposely providing false information to the media to incite violence and revenge killings, and they may well have been the source of this misinformation.

“Extremists promote falsehoods of mass killings, collateral damage and other violence specifically to turn Iraqis against other Iraqis,” said Rear Admiral Mark Fox, spokesperson for MNF-I. “Unfortunately, lies are much easier to state, the truth often takes time to prove,” said Fox.

Not all media reports can be immediately substantiated by Government of Iraq or Coalition Forces. They must go through a process to verify such claims, to include checking with various Iraqi Ministry’s, local police and security forces. Meanwhile, extremists have achieved their goal of spreading false information aimed at intimidating civilians and destabilizing Iraqi security.

Fair enough but have we not been told endlessly that the MSM differs from those pesky bloggers and, of course, from the military authorities in that it tries to substantiate all its stories, checks and double checks and there is no supporting evidence, says so? So we have, so we have.

What has happened since? Well, AFP that for reasons unknown managed not to carry the story gloated. Both Reuters (who managed to report that there were more than one thousand peace demonstrators near Kennenbunkport ahead of the Bush – Putin meeting) and AP have now produced a different headline: “Iraq: US military says reports of beheaded bodies were false”.

On Thursday, many Iraqi and international media outlets aired news of the bodies, quoting unnamed Iraqi police. The decapitated bodies had allegedly turned up on the banks of the Tigris River near Salman Pak, 24 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

Iraqi police officers frequently talk to media only on condition of anonymity, because of security concerns.

At the time, the Interior Ministry tried to send troops to the area to confirm the discovery, but the visit was called off because the area was too dangerous.

Reuters added a rather plaintive paragraph, which oddly enough did not appear in the original story that had showed absolute certainty in the truth of the story with no suggestion that it had not been verified.

Verifying reports in Iraq is very hard for journalists, who have been systematically targeted by different militant groups and rely extensively on local sources for information.

So the story was given by somebody who was nowhere near the scene of action and refused to give his name or explain who he was. It could not be confirmed because the situation in the area is dangerous but it was published anyway. Terrific.

COMMENT THREAD

Let's be done with it

As numerous defence issues have stacked up while we have turned our attention to the European Council "mandate" agreement – which much of the media insists on calling a treaty agreement - I was minded to write one long "catch-up" post this weekend, to cover as many of the outstanding subjects as I could.

There is part of me, however, that says, "why bother?" It is increasingly hard to focus on some of the technical aspects of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan – in the hope of enhancing the performance of our troops (and their safety) and thus winning the wars – if the game is being given away at a higher level.

In a nutshell, one must ask whether there is any point in our devoting blood and treasure in the pursuit of establishing democracy and independent governance in either of the troubled regions in which we are engaged if, on the other hand, our own leaders are intent on giving away ours - to the European Union, while also permitting the steady march of unrestricted immigration, which is changing the fundamental nature of our society. What is the point of fighting for democracy in foreign fields, and the integrity of their societies, when we are at risk of losing both ourselves?

Perhaps this affliction of doubt comes from reading the crop of today's newspapers when, try as I might, I could not see any relationship in the storm of political comment and the real world – or the world as I perceive it. Never before has the world of politics seemed so unreal or so detached that, reading about it seems almost like intruding into the secret rites of the inhabitants of a distant planet.

Another troubling thought comes from a long conversation I had with a serving RAF officer yesterday who affirmed what I had heard so many times before, on the structure and equipment of the armed forces. I got from him what I have heard so often elsewhere, that the Services cannot afford to focus on the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as that would leave them unprepared to fight future wars. The effort in our current theatres must, therefore, be tempered by the need to maintain balanced forces, capable of dealing with future (unknown) commitments.

I have likened this to a military planning committee deciding in 1943 to withhold forces from the invasion of Normandy and the defeat of Hitler for fear of being unprepared to fight a war in the 1950s.

The point that emerges here is that the military – no less than the nation in general (each for their own different reasons) – is not committed to the current wars. As we listened to the RAF commentator coo and gasp at the performance of the Eurofighter, delivering a torrent of propaganda in favour of the new "toy" as it went though its paces (admittedly impressive), one's impression was somewhat reinforced that fighting wars in distant fields were regarded as an irrelevance at best, a distraction from the real business of constructing that mythical beast, the "balanced force".

Frankly, if neither the military nor the population – to say nothing of the media and the political establishment – are committed to winning our current wars then (no matter how vital it is that we do win them) we have no business sending our troops there, some of them to die and many more to suffer horrific injuries. We might just as well bring them home to play with their "balanced" force and forget all about the untidiness and inconveniences of real fighting.

The military can then parade and posture with their gleaming new "toys" at airshows and the like, fighting mock battles – as they do now (see top pic) – from the safety of British RAF airfields. Then they need not be troubled by the thought that there is a real enemy out there who not only shoots back, but doesn't obey the rules.

In other words, there is little point any longer, it seems to me, in our fighting a battle to ensure that our troops are properly equipped to fight real wars. Our hearts are not in it. Let's be done with it. Bring them home, to where the fight for our own sovereignty is the task we must now face.

COMMENT THREAD

Useful to know

The EUObserver has posted a list of the Portuguese Presidency's immediate aims and actions as well as forthcoming actions by one or two Commissars. Note, in particular, Portugal's intention to turn attention to the Mediterranean and away from Russia, which had been Germany's preoccupation.

This is a very fine explanation of why there can be no real common foreign policy in the European Union, merely an imposed artificial one that grows out of structures and institutions: different member states have different interests and different preoccupations.

In actual fact, Portugal will find it hard to ignore the problem of Russia altogether as several of the new and old members have their eyes firmly fixed on the Big Bear. The next presidency will be Slovenia's, a country that is, presumably, torn between the two subjects.

The forthcoming scorecard on the European Arrest Warrant will also be of interest.

A message worth repeating

Peter Preston in the The Observer sort of concedes that the "pressing issue" of the EU referendum will be one of the issues which cut short Gordon Brown's "honeymoon", predicting that whichever way he goes, he will be in trouble.

Meanwhile, The Sunday Telegraph picks up on the theme that the "new treaty" is just "the constitution in disguise" – citing comments by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

The piece doesn't tell you anything you hadn't read on this blog, but it is nevertheless worth a read. The message carried is one that cannot be repeated too often and, so far, this is the only Sunday making the point.

COMMENT THREAD