Intermission

I shall be away on holiday for the next three weeks and am not going to have access to the internet during that time.

To everyone who has dropped by to share their thoughts, thank you. And thank you to the bloggers I have encountered in the few months since I started this site: it has made me much more optimistic about the future of this country to know that there are many more intelligent and informed people who see the world in a similar way to me than I had feared from listening to the BBC and reading the press.

Although I will not be reading or publishing comments for a little while, please don't let that stop you - I will update the blog (and add to it again) on my return. For now, goodbye!

Gaza Madness

It little profits the pessimist to go in search of that which he most fears. Nonetheless, in the case of the violent battle raging in that torrid patch of territory known as the "Gaza strip", I could not help but look for signs that the British media was once again intent on presenting to the world a face set hard against the influence of the Jewish state and her American sponsor.

I did not have to look far.

Today's Guardian leader, "Bitter Fruits Of Boycott", had the matter down pat:

Alvaro de Soto [former UN apparatchik] is not the first experienced diplomat to have entered the Middle East a moderate and to have left it two years later angry at the role of Israel and the US in subverting the search for peace.

How did this evil axis accomplish its devilish ends?

The US had got ... the EU, Russia and the UN to impose sanctions on the government formed after painful negotiations between Fatah and Hamas. The sanctions did not encourage the unity government to function properly. They killed it off.

The US imperium famously prevails over the prerogative of the EU and Russia of course. What about the internal causes of this internal strife?

Setting aside the internal reasons for Palestinian blood-letting

All right - sorry for asking!

The Palestinians can be blamed for ... allowing missile attacks that have no strategic value, other than to harden the view in Israel that if they allowed the same thing to happen in the West Bank, missiles would rain down on the runway of Ben Gurion airport. But the impoverishment and fragmentation of Gaza is a result not just of tribal Palestinian politics, but of the cumulative despair generated by living in an open-air prison. As Israel is the jailer it bears responsibility too for the conditions inside.

So - what? Missile attacks that, in the opinion of the Guardian, have "strategic value" are OK? Ultimately, it is the hatred of the Israeli "jailer" that makes this rubbish acceptable to the fevered imagination of our political left.

The rag inevitably makes the suggestion that Israel should negotiate a solution with Hamas, a band of fanatics committed to her annihilation. This is not mere hatred; it is lunacy. Should I, if an armed murderer with form, who had professed undying enmity, demanded to take over my home and slaughter my children, let him in to my house to talk terms? Would my neighbours expect me to do so? Would their newspaper?

Not all our press takes the side of the murderers, as this Times leader demonstrates, or this leader in the Telegraph. The burden of living among lunatics is thus lightened by the knowledge that, however perfervid, they remain a minority.

There is, as ever, a reason to pause before succumbing to relief. While there may be a rationally balanced diversity of views in our print media, the anti-Israeli slant of our national broadcaster goes unopposed. The BBC's headline coverage of the violence raging in the Gaza strip is factual and fair. Dig a little deeper, however, and a succession of essays on the supposed "root causes" of the chaotic barbarism on display in Gaza make its sympathies plain. Grouped under the heading, "Features and Analysis", the first of these polemics is entitled, "Obstacles to Peace: Borders and Settlements".

Israel came into being on 78% of the former Palestine, rather than the 55% allocated under the UN partition plan ... [Jewish] settlements are illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this and has pressed ahead with its activity despite signing agreements to limit settlement growth ... In the long term, therefore, Israel ... plays into the hands of militant Islamist groups such as Hamas.

The second, "Obstacles to Peace: Refugees" strikes a similar tone.

More than half the Arabs of pre-1948 Palestine are thought to have been displaced ... Many still suffer the legacy of their dispossession: destitution, penury, insecurity ... Israel steadfastly argues that all refugees - and it disputes the numbers - should relinquish any aspirations to return to what is now its territory ... But for most Palestinians, their fate remains an open wound, unless there is a Middle East peace deal that acknowledges what happened to the refugees.

An eerily familiar note is struck by the next piece, entitled, "Obstacles to Peace: Water".

In the 1967 war Israel gained exclusive control of the waters of the West Bank and the Sea of Galilee ... the Palestinians say they are prevented from using their own water resources by a belligerent military power, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to buy water from their occupiers at inflated prices. Moreover, Israel allocates its citizens, including those living in settlements in the West Bank deemed illegal under international law, with between three and five times more water than the Palestinians.

And finally, the piece de resistance, "Obstacles to Peace: Jerusalem", has the following:

Ancient Jerusalem has changed hands many times, its religious significance exerting a powerful pull on Jewish, Christian and Muslim conquerors ... Forty years ago, Israel's army captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the June 1967 War. The area fell in the heat of a deadly battle, but Israel did not massacre its Palestinian inhabitants or destroy its holy shrines like the medieval Christian knights. [Quite right - why not get in a pop at the Christians while we're at it?] ... Within days Israel had annexed east Jerusalem, drawn new, greatly expanded municipal boundaries (that cut out some heavily populated Palestinian areas) and demolished an entire Arab quarter of the city ... Israel has allowed the Palestinians of East Jerusalem to remain, but it has hemmed them in, squeezed them, left them in no doubt the city is not theirs ... Many observers ... argue that resolution with the Palestinians, and the wider Arab and Muslim world, will not be possible without compromise on the holy city.

So although our state broadcaster deals with the current facts in Gaza as they happen, lasting peace will only be found if Israel renounces her borders, makes citizens of her avowed enemies, parches her settlers and gives up Jerusalem.

I applaud the Guardian for its ability to express its ludicrous point of view, and I applaud and agree with the Times and Telegraph. But I cannot applaud the fatuous tat peddled by the BBC, because it is supposed somehow to represent the wisdom of the country, and in any case has nothing to oppose it.

I have no axe to grind for Israel, but for her sake, I am glad that the nation of the BBC and the Guardian has at best a marginal role in determining her affairs. I, for one, am ashamed.

Carbon Crazy

As I was alerted this morning to the building of "carbon free" houses, I was reminded of an advert currently running on the Tube for a product offered by Giraffe (a Bank of Ireland subsidiary): the carbon offset mortgage.

The deal is that for the fixed period of the mortgage (3 years), the lender will offset 5.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - about average, so it reckons, for a British home. According to that essential daily read, What Mortgage magazine, "the environmentally friendly side of the mortgage works by retiring carbon credits from the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme".

This would be the trading scheme begun in 2005 that lately collapsed in farce, with massive oversupply of carbon credits causing the price per tonne to fall from highs of nearly €30 to €0.24 per tonne today. In other words, at present it would cost Giraffe all of €1.32 - less than a pound - to offset those 5.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide for 2007. (This compares, incidentally, to the more than £60 offset companies will charge you for a similar service.)

I suppose Giraffe should be congratulated on what amounts to a cost-free marketing exercise, but I can't bring myself to toast the success of their product. The carbon offset plunderbund has gulled its share of dupes already.

Elephant In The Room - Again

The BBC have published the results of a survey of Britain's police forces which reveals that 8,000 sex offenders have escaped with a caution over the last five years.

Offences involving children accounted for more than 1,600 of the cautions, while more than 230 were for rape ... Crimes dealt with by a caution included offences as varied as rape, downloading child porn, bigamy, exploitation of prostitution, indecent exposure, sexual offences against animals, sexual grooming and familial sex offences (incest). Of the offences against children dealt with by a caution, more than 350 were cases involving a victim aged under 13.

Predictably, the government was keen to dampen down the hysteria, ask us all to keep a sense of perspective and so on:

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said: "The government is committed to securing more convictions in rape cases and has commissioned the child sex offender review to ensure that children are better protected from paedophiles. There are very few circumstances indeed where a caution for rape or offences against children is the most appropriate sanction. Use of cautions is a matter for the police but in exceptional circumstances ... "

In actual fact the use of cautions is not that "exceptional". Figures from the CPS on case outcomes by principal offence show that convictions for sexual offences are running at a rate of about 600-700 per month. Splitting the difference gives 7,800 convictions per year. If this figure has not changed dramatically over the last five years then what the BBC's survey tells us is that about 1 in 6 sex offenders has walked away with a caution - hardly an exceptional outcome.

Again, if there are so few circumstances where a caution is appropriate in cases of rape, why were there more than 230 such cautions during the period? An old BBC report on the falling rate of rape conviction tells us that "of the 11,766 allegations of rape made in 2002 there were just 655 convictions, 258 of which had come from a guilty plea." So, again unless the figures have changed dramatically, about 1 in 6 of all those pleading guilty to rape have escaped with a caution. (Cautions can of course only result from an admission of guilt.)

The BBC should have put it to the "Whitehall spokesperson" that their definitions of "very few" and "exceptional" were themselves rather exceptional and would be shared by very few people.

Though the figures were not given, I would bet that the proportion of sex offenders let off with a caution has risen over the last few years, and that we find ourselves once again confronted by the monstrous problem of Britain's lack of prison space. As I have noted before, our prisons are full - more than 99% full according to figures for 8 June with 80,762 prisoners as against an operational (absolute maximum) capacity of 81,458 places. The criminal justice system has had to accommodate itself to this reality and so it would seem on the basis of this report have the police.

Neither David Davis for the Conservatives, nor Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats, nor any of the police interviewed mentioned prison capacity at all.

Pride In An Extraordinary Victory

Today's Times carried an interview with Sara Jones, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Jones, VC, who was killed during the first land battle of the Falklands war on 28 May 1982. She had the following to say about the forthcoming observance of the 25th anniversary of Britain's victory in the conflict:

We need to move on from personal grief. Instead, we should look at what was achieved. I have a great feeling of pride at what was achieved, not only in my husband's case, but in the extraordinary victory in which all our loved ones participated.

I sincerely hope that Mrs Jones' advice will be followed, but I have my doubts. Her resolution, the sacrifice of her husband, even the words she uses seem almost out of place today. I fully expect most of the British media to question the point of the war, wallow in its gruesomeness and disinterestedly aver that there were faults and merits on both sides.

The Times also highlights the plight of the hundreds of British veterans who have descended into mental illness as a result of their harrowing experiences of death and injury. Following the closure of the country's military hospitals - mostly under the lamentable Major government as it scrabbled to rescue itself from bankruptcy in the mid-90s - many of them find civilian psychiatry inadequate and end up taking their own lives. A pacifist would find much to confirm their belief in this shocking account of the situation.

Mrs Jones' position, however, remains the correct one. Let us celebrate victory. Let us do what we can to support our servicemen and appreciate the sacrifices they make and the suffering they endure. (You can give money to support the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society, "Combat Stress", here.) Let us, above all, continue to be a nation capable of fighting for what we think is right when we think it is necessary, while acknowledging in the words of the hero of Waterloo that "nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

An Interesting Notion Of Equality

That nice Hilary Benn, in conversation with the Evening Standard, has become the latest contender for the Labour deputy leadership to put the boot into business. "I would say to those who are well off," said Mr Benn, "You have been really fortunate. What are you putting back? We have to change the culture and social expectation so - why not start with business in London?" He suggested forcing more disclosure of charitable contributions and community involvement by business, and in a phrase which will resonate deeply with singers of the Red Flag asserted that "we all have an interest in a more equal society".

So far, so drearily predictable - more ventilation to impress what remains of his party faithful. Benn did, however, offer an intriguing aside: apparently, "he ruled out ... tax raids on non-domiciled wealthy residents."

Not much is known about this shadowy grouping, despite their making up one of the capital's fastest-growing demographics. There is no better definition of non-domiciled residents than this one offered by a government website designed to entice foreign investors into the UK. They are "foreign nationals living in the UK [who] don't pay income tax or capital gains tax on earnings abroad". In other words, if I'm a Russian oligarch in search of a smart pad I can buy a street in Chelsea, live off income from assets held offshore and not pay a penny in UK tax. This enviable situation can be procured even for those who hold British passports. Over to those ferrets at the Guardian:

Those who wish to take non-domicile status in the UK find the route is simple and easily negotiated. During their first tax year as residents in the UK, they can fill in a short Inland Revenue form, known as a Dom One, in which they provide their family background, list any "business, personal, social or other connections" with their country of birth, and state their intention not to stay permanently in the UK. Tax advisers say they have never heard of an application being rejected and that, on occasion, the Inland Revenue has granted non-domicile status to wealthy people born in the UK simply because their parents could claim a different domicile.

So the tax break extends to those lucky foreigners who were born in Britain! Surely, in a globalised world, other countries must offer similar breaks?

Apart from the Irish Republic, which inherited the rule, we can find no other country in the world which allows any of its residents to claim that their real home is elsewhere. The United States says it does not matter where you were born, if you qualify as a resident of the US, you must pay US tax on all your income and capital gains all over the world. The Australians, the French and the Danes do the same if you spend more than six months of a year there. The Canadians and the Spanish do it if you spend 183 days of a year there. The Germans and Belgians and Greeks do it if your "customary place of abode" is there. The Japanese have a version of the UK domicile rule but only if you stay there for fewer than five years.

Apparently, not.

Figures are difficult to find, but the untaxed wealth involved extends well into 12 figures. The Sunday Times commissioned a firm of accountants to assess the estates of the 54 non-domiciled billionaires on their "Rich List". According to their analysis, "the UK billionaires paid income tax totalling just £14.7m on their £126 billion combined fortunes, and only a handful paid any capital gains tax."

Nor is this issue confined to a few dozen billionaires. The Financial Times published a report on 4 May which cited a Treasury estimate putting the number of non-domiciled British residents at 105,000. (They also noted a UK accountant's view that Britain is "perhaps the only tax haven which has the high degree of respectability sought by the international business community". Well done us!) Only two days later, however, the Guardian had the following:

Ed Balls, economic secretary to the Treasury, confirmed in a written answer to a parliamentary question that 112,000 individuals indicated non-domiciled tax status through their self-assessment returns in the year to April 2005. This is a 74 per cent increase on 2002. The Treasury's review of residence and domicile rules, launched in 2003, is continuing, although it has conspicuously failed to generate any reform proposals so far.

Hmm. Could this possibly be because several of these untaxed pseudo-foreigners are Labour party donors, such as Lakshmi Mittal, Sir Gulam Noon, Christopher Ondaatje and others?

I wouldn't be so uncharitable as to imply that Mr Benn's own views on the subject were coloured by this largesse. I would, however, observe that it is hypocrisy of the most chilling order to urge an even greater contribution from Britain's businesses while allowing an ethereally elevated elite of hyper-rich playboys, stars and tycoons to reside in Britain without making any contribution beyond their enrichment of a select band of estate agents, charter companies and West End boutiques. To talk of businesses which employ people in this country, pay taxes in this country and provide returns to savers in this country as "well off" might be fair. But to go after those businesses while indulging tax avoiders who are a galaxy beyond merely "well off" is contemptible.

Mr Benn might like to ask himself what sort of a country he wants us to become. To "soak the rich" while sponsoring the untaxed proliferation of the hyper-rich is a strange notion of an "equal society" to say the least.

Government Climbs To New Heights

Forget the distractions of the G8 summit, relations with Russia and a London Olympic logo which has baffled all those whom it has not driven into fits. If you want to understand how modern government thinks, read this press release from our Health and Safety Executive announcing what must surely be the United Kingdom's first ever "ladder exchange".

"Over the next 12 weeks, small businesses will get the chance to get their ladders checked and where necessary, trade them in for new ones at a discounted price."

Small businesses must be beside themselves with joy.

"HSE is working in close association with Local Authorities, ladder manufacturers and retailers to address the safety issues around access equipment with employers and ladder users. Dr Elizabeth Gibby, HSE's Head of Injuries Reduction Programme said: "We want anyone working at height to use the right ladder for the job and to use it safely. Ladder Exchange is the opportunity for small trade businesses to assess the risks involved in ladder use and adopt sensible health and safety measures."

Lest we imagine that the state supervision of ladder use might somehow be a ludicrous or redundant notion, we are told that

In 2005/06 a total of 46 workers died and a further 3351 employees suffered major injuries as a result of a fall from height in the workplace.

Obviously this is very sad, but how many million ladder ascents must there be which happily end in no injury at all?

For those who are worried by the statistics, however, the HSE has some useful advice. They recommend any potential ladder users to ask themselves three key questions:

• Do you need a ladder or should you use something different?
• Is it the right ladder?
• Are you using the ladder safely?

I shall certainly bear these in mind when next changing the battery in the smoke alarm.

Last year, the HSE cost over £240m to run.

In Defence Of Drink

Now that the smoker has been vanquished, our guardians are free to turn their fire on that other scourge of society, the drinker. Quoted everywhere today, including here in the Times, a "Whitehall source" ominously intends to "target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening."

Whoever this "source" is, it does not sound to me as if he or she would be welcome in my house.

Even worse, according to the same article: "Ministers want drunkenness in public to be as socially unacceptable in ten years' time as smoking or drink-driving is today." In public doesn't just mean the street, of course. It would include pubs and clubs. In fact, it would include all those places where these ministers have just managed to outlaw smoking too.

One such minister, Vernon Coaker of the Home Office, put this view to the BBC in the context of a piece which trots out the usual argument that we are to be banned from drinking for our own good. Unfortunately for Coaker and all the other shrieking harpies who would dash the liquor from our lips, the public health argument for banning the drink is tosh.

Government health statistics for 2005-06 show beyond question that kidney and liver illness are not major causes of hospital admissions in the UK. Out of over 12.7m hospital admissions over the period, only 140,000 related to renal failure or diseases of the kidney or liver - about 1% of the total. In fact, renal failure, which makes up the lion's share of this figure, does not rank within even the 50 most common reasons for admitting somebody into hospital in Britain. The contrast with the public health impact of smoking related illnesses could not be starker.

Vernon Coaker. Good name for a puritan - and given that the health argument is nonsense, puritanism is all that regulation of this private pleasure boils down to. Coaker and his ilk may not know much about public health, but they know an opportunity to meddle in people's affairs when they see it.

Why "Climate Change" Really Matters

Let's start with the obvious point. Politicians care about the environment because voters care about it, and politicians care about votes. Polling data shows that the environment ranks alongside housing as a concern among the British electorate - not as important as crime, immigration or the NHS, but more so than the economy, pensions or taxation.

So any issue which dominates the environmental agenda is bound to receive political attention nowadays. But the changing complexion of party politics has grossly exaggerated the effect.

There was a time when Labour was consistently rated the best party on the environment among those who thought the issue important. Over the last ten or so years, however, the Liberal Democrats have established a strong lead (data here). What they have also become is increasingly electorally important. In 1992 they won only 20 seats. By the 1997 election this had risen to 46. They secured 52 seats in 2001, and a record 62 in the last election.

Now let's look at the marginal seats in the House of Commons. Of the Conservatives' 50 most vulnerable seats, the Lib Dems are runners up in 18. So the Tories can't afford to ignore environmental issues in case losses to the Lib Dems offset gains they make at the expense of the Labour party. (No doubt it was partly Cameron's green colouring which prevented this from occurring when the Tories swept the board in the recent council elections.) Indeed, get it right and those 7 of the Lib Dems' own 10 most marginal seats where the Tories are runners-up could fall their way.

In other words, Britain's electoral arithmetic compels the one party which might have had the sense to stand up to the global boiling hysterics to take the issue seriously.

One final point. So far as environmental issues go, climate change is a politician's dream. Traditional environmental policy was tangible and involved antagonising people: locking up land, imposing cleanup costs on business, taxing fuel and so on. So it was only ever possible to win green votes by losing votes elsewhere. (The recent row over municipal waste disposal is an excellent example of how policies which win green votes can lose you many more.) Global boiling is the archetypal woolly issue and so delivers our politicians a means of being seen to be concerned about environmental protection without having to do anything concrete.

The carving out of an electoral niche; the arithmetic of marginal constituencies; the convenience of a relatively painless policy: three tails of a lash sufficiently powerful to have driven all British politicians onto the climate change bandwagon. It is the only issue headlined on the "Environment" website of the Liberal Democrats. It tops the bill among the policy areas of the Conservatives' "Quality of Life" agenda, beating energy, farming, transport and others. And "climate change and energy" is the only environmental policy area even listed on the "Policies" section of Labour's website. As a consequence - shameful though it is - Britain is one of the leading international champions of global boiling doom.

Of course, this analysis of the ascendancy of "climate change" could be sheer optimism. While I prefer to think that our politicians are clever interpreters of electoral arithmetic, I suppose it might be possible that enough of them are sufficiently gullible actually to believe it.

Child Sex Offenders To Get Out Of Jail Free

Or rather, not to go to prison in the first place according to Jim Gamble, director of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). Said Jim:

"[If] someone is at the beginning of the spiral of abuse, where there is evidence to indicate during the investigation that this person may well benefit from a police caution and be managed, then of course that needs to be done."

Michele Elliott, director of a children's charity, replied:

"I agree with him that these people need treatment, however to treat them in the community sends a message that what they have done is not very serious ... I believe that if you download child pornography, you are just as guilty as the people who are taking the photographs. As far as I am concerned, that means prison."

And I'm sure that's the preference so far as most of us are concerned. The key part of her response, however, is the part about sending a message that the crime is not serious.

This is predictable on one count and bizarre on another.

The predictable part is that Britain has completely run out of prison space. I wrote about this recently in the context of violent crime (here) - street hoodlums are already being sent the message that they can beat vulnerable people up in this country and receive, at worst, a suspended sentence. It is no surprise that child sex offenders should be next.

What is bizarre is that Jim's organisation, CEOP, a new body which promotes itself as some kind of independent law enforcement quango, is anything but. Their business plan for last year makes it absolutely clear they're an arm of SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, an "Executive Non-Departmental Public Body sponsored by, but operationally independent from, the Home Office." If the crimes with which they are concerned are not, in their view, all that serious, what on earth are they doing in SOCA?

Moreover, it stretches credulity past breaking point to believe that Jim does not know about our prisons crisis, and further that this knowledge played no part in CEOP's desire to downgrade child pornography offences.

As we have no prison space, it is already open season for thugs in the town centres of Great Britain. Must we really allow those perverts who would make sexual objects of our children a free rein for the same reason?

"Tough on crime" is looking like an even more hideous joke than "education, education, education".

Alastair Campbell Self-Eviscerates

What on earth is going to be left of Alastair Campbell's much-trailed memoirs of his time at No. 10?

Yesterday's Guardian carried a good summary of the current state of play. Apparently, there have been "extensive cuts to protect the confidences of world leaders such as Bill Clinton, George Bush and the Queen." Furthermore:

Many other intelligence and security sensitive remarks have been deleted, as well as some by the Blair children. Only this week it emerged that some of Mr Blair's four-letter private expletives have also been cut to protect his reputation.

No vignettes of the mighty. No pensees from the high tables of power. Nothing juicy involving spying or the military. No Nixonian tirades. Not even any adorable asides from the Blairs' snub-nosed, freckled brood. In other words, readers of gossip, thrillers and chick lit (i.e. most of us) will find little to distract us between these carefully censored pages.

The litany of excision continues:

As he heavily cut 2.5m words of nightly recollections ... the former Daily Mirror journalist admits asking himself, "Can I imagine David Cameron using that to damage a Labour prime minister?" when deciding what to cut. As a result he applied "the same rule to Gordon as to Tony" and toned down their disputes. One consequence is that Peter Mandelson, often Mr Blair's champion in manoeuvres with the chancellor, is shown in a restricted light ...

Hang on - no Mandelson? There goes the horror angle. And downplaying the hallowed enmity between Downing Street's feuding neighbours debases the most gripping soap opera British politics has ever seen.

So there will be nothing there of much interest to the general reader - which one has to say must be worrying Random House, Campbell's publisher, who are apparently forking out £1m for this rather barren stuff. What, then, of the political anorak, or (somewhat optimistically) the historian? Sadly for them, too, if Campbell is as keen to avoid handing ammo to the Tories as he makes out, there oughtn't to be very much policy detail on the table either.

That said, in the Times this morning the book was cited as being "disjointed and imbalanced" - so it might have something to teach us about New Labour behind the scenes after all.

Nanny Intrudes Again

In health news today it seems that Britain is to be lumbered with warning labels for alcohol by the end of next year.

"Alcoholic drinks will carry new health warning labels by the end of 2008 under a voluntary agreement between ministers and the drinks industry. The labels will detail alcoholic units and recommended safe drinking levels ... Public health minister Caroline Flint says exactly what the labels will say is not decided, but the warnings will not be as strong as for cigarettes ... It is not known how many drinks firms will sign up for the scheme, but ministers said if the industry did not comply, the government would introduce legislation."

How typical that modern government believes that something forced through by threatening legislation could be described as a "voluntary agreement"! That aside though, one of the warnings that has already been agreed is: "Avoid alcohol if pregnant or trying to conceive". How is that "not as strong" as warnings on cigarette packets that "smoking while pregnant harms your baby"? And isn't it the principle of this nasty, nannying, impertinent, illiberal suggestion which makes the blood boil - not the detail? I don't want some stupid little label that some stupid little minister has written on my next drink, no matter what it says.

I enjoy alcohol in many of its myriad forms. I look forward to a glass of tawny port in winter, Pimm's in the summer. A pint with work or a bottle of wine with dinner. I like to try the local brews when I travel. What spirits do they distil here? What's the beer like? Alcohol consumption is an ancient, universal social pleasure. I and billions of others have grown up with it. Who on earth would want to diminish this magisterial act of the human drama? Who would dare?

Step forward the alcohol lobby. According to these people, alcohol is the root of all evil. To be specific, according to a list on the Alcohol Concern website, it should be associated with accidents, anxiety, crime, physical and mental illness, immorality [!], homelessness and unemployment. And at risk are children, ethnic minorities, gays, men, women, older people and the young.

Yeah, whatever. Go away! I don't believe your ludicrous limits anyway. Time was when the recommended limit in this country was a bottle of wine a day - 56 units a week in modern parlance. Even that was introduced by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who presumably resented the competition. (See letter to the BMJ here.) The fact is that most of us drink, most of us know that drinking to excess is bad for us and those that don't won't change their behaviour because some lobby group loony crew sticks its oar in.

Alcohol puritans have always been with us, like thieves or rapists, but ministers have usually had the good sense to turn deaf ears to these anti-social pests.

Until now.

More Writing On The Wall For The NHS

From the Times today:

"Dentists on the National Health Service are turning away people with bad teeth ... Dentists' leaders say the NHS dental contract, introduced in April last year, has had a perverse effect because dentists earn the same for giving a patient one filling or 10. The Oakwood Dental Centre in Derby ... said it had no time to treat those who "need a tremendous amount of work".

It would appear that the charging system has been structured so as to disincentivise British dentists from treating those most in need. Brilliant! So we either live with a two-tier system in which the most unhealthy are denied access to care, or allow them to pay more than patients who have gone for regular check ups and looked after their teeth. If we are humane we will choose the latter path, and finally open the door to something looking just like a free market in healthcare.

It is not all bad news. Since charging was introduced for dental work at the point of treatment it has become possible to find a dentist who will accept new NHS patients. (Try it here: a couple of years ago the chances were that none of the dentists listed near you would have been accepting NHS patients at all.)

What a strange outcome, though, for a system which was supposed at one time to be "free at the point of delivery" and whose budget has tripled in the last 10 years. Could it possibly be that the free market is a better allocator of healthcare resources than the state after all? How ironic that this lesson should have been successfully acted on by a Labour government!

Introducing a charging structure was necessary to improve access to dental treatment. It will need to be taken further for that access to be fair. The system will still be highly regulated, of course, but dentists and their patients will have much greater control. And the charges will discourage timewasters.

GP appointments should be next.

Big Brother's Bit Of Bother

At last! The verdict we have all been waiting for is here. OFCOM, the broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, has published its adjudication on Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother programme. As you will recall, January's airing made even more headlines than usual as several contestants were accused of the racist bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty. OFCOM received over 44,500 complaints; the affair provoked a question to the Prime Minister in the House of Commons; and the furore over the series in India completely overshadowed Gordon Brown's visit there (see here).

The adjudication document - which runs to 70 pages - casts some interesting light on modern British society. (It is also, on occasion, extremely amusing.)

This part of Channel 4's submission to OFCOM seeks to demonstrate that the Big Brother house is a broad church:

"Over the years it has become increasingly clear that Big Brother viewers are largely uninfluenced by issues such as gender, disability, class, ethnicity, religion or sexuality. What is key to them is personality – cutting through any prejudice or bigotry they may have previously held in relation to these minority groups. From Brian Dowling, the openly gay air steward (Big Brother 2) and Cameron Stout, the Christian (Big Brother 4), to Nadia Almada, the Portuguese transsexual (Big Brother 5), and Peter Bennett, sufferer of Tourette’s Syndrome (Big Brother 6), the roll call of past Big Brother winners is strong evidence that viewers positively embrace diversity."

It is interesting that one of our national broadcasters should consider Christians a "minority group": what an insight into the metropolitan media class! But it is surely a lapse that they rank queers alongside sufferers from an illness.

Inevitably, there is bleak comment on the education of some modern Britons. Take this excerpt about Jackiey Budden, mother of Big Brother celebrity Jade Goody, after she had argued about her failure to pronounce Shilpa Shetty's name correctly:

"After this we see Jackiey head to the Diary Room. It is clear that she is very upset by the argument with Shilpa… In the Diary Room Jackiey gives a very clear explanation of her behaviour towards Shilpa and how upset she is with herself and Shilpa for the way the argument escalated. There is nothing in this altercation to suggest that Jackiey’s inability to pronounce Shilpa’s name is anything but genuine and that her frustration is also genuine…Indeed it is clear from observing Jackiey from her time in the programme that she does have genuine issues with pronunciation of some words – for instance in the Diary Room sequence discussing this argument she has real problems with the word ‘apologise’…"

In that, of course, she is not alone.

And from a transcripted exchange between two other contestants:

Jo: The thing that aggravates me with Shilpa is she fingers your food off your plate. You could see when she was picking the onions, just with her fingers, she’s just done it to Ian as well, she went ‘oh this chicken is fine’ [mimics Shilpa’s accent] and on his plate, started eating his chicken off-of his plate. That grates me.

Danielle: Do they do that in India, eat with their hands or is that in China?

Finally, as will already be clear, Big Brother is a goldmine for language enthusiasts. This last excerpt neatly captures the evolution of our taboo words over the last generation. It describes an incident in which Jade Goody's boyfriend remarked to her in bed that he hated Shilpa, and then called her something which was bleeped out of the transmission:

"In terms of the public reaction to the series and the resultant press furore we believe this clip is a pivotal moment because of the mistaken interpretation of it by the national and international press and the way this was used to initially establish that there had been ‘racist’ comments made in the House…the word that is actually used by Jack in this clip is ‘cunt’, not ‘paki’ as widely reported in the press. We learned some days later that the clip had been shown on the YouTube website with the word deliberately erroneously subtitled as ‘paki’ (with the additional and equally inflammatory subtitle ‘makes monkey noises’). This then became widely reported on the web, which we believe contributed significantly to the subsequent press reports that the words ‘fucking paki’ had been used of Shilpa, inevitably fuelling public outrage in India and in the UK in particular. Clearly both the words ‘cunt’ (especially when used in a derogatory way about a woman) and ‘paki’ are highly offensive however in the
context of the current complaint the use of the second unambiguously racist word would have been viewed as considerably more offensive and inflammatory and certainly would have resulted in Jack being reprimanded by Big Brother."

And quite right too.

There are those who think that Big Brother is trivial, demeaning pap. They might be right. But it is also a trove of cultural insights, and for that reason: floreat!

Crime, But No Punishment

Norfolk police are to appeal the sentences of seven men who launched an unprovoked attack on two others last November: they are not to go to prison.

We do not have all the details of the case, but it appears that the two victims were not seriously hurt. This could be why the criminals were convicted of a public order offence, not an offence against the person. Even so, the judge's opinion that the victims were vulnerable introduces an aggravating factor, another of which would have been the criminals' operation as a group. There might have been a racial motive too as the victims were Polish. If the perpetrators were arrested last November, the time they will already have spent in custody will have been taken into account, but at 6 months this does look lenient nevertheless. (There is disturbing CCTV footage of the attack available via the first link in this post. You can see for yourself just how vicious and appalling it was.)

Perhaps the judge was following guidance from our egregious Lord Chief Justice, who has already called for shorter sentences for violent offenders, or our Lord Chancellor - sorry, "Justice Secretary" - who has called for shorter sentences for everybody. Or our Home Secretary, who has done the same thing.

What is beyond doubt is the chronic shortage of prison space, which has already influenced other sentencing decisions and which surely underlies these senior figures' advice. Latest prison population figures (for 18 May) demonstrate that the British prison system is running at over 99% of its operational capacity: 80,658 prisoners out of 81,132 places. And operational capacity itself is pitched far higher than the "certified normal accommodation", or uncrowded capacity of our prisons. On the latter basis there are a little over 71,000 places, so we really are cramming offenders into every available secure room in the country. This leaves us with no sanction against lawbreakers. It is, therefore, an indisputable fact that we are grinding towards a condition of anarchy.

This situation should frighten us and make us angry. Our laws are approaching the point where they can no longer be enforced because Gordon Brown has steadfastly refused to spend money on this fundamental duty of government. This shameful dereliction has not, as yet, been included in the recent litany of the Chancellor's failings along with his demolition of funded pensions, his ill-timed gold sales, his maladministration of his own asinine tax credit system and the like.

It most certainly should be.

Conservative Education Policy - A Third Way?

Grammar schools: two words set to fire the nation like few others. David Cameron wrote an interesting piece for the Conservatives yesterday in which he took his critics to task for wanting to bring them back. As he says, this has never been the policy of his party, and never will be in the future.

The most interesting part of his article comes towards the end, however, as he reveals the policy aims which would be pursued by a Conservative government in education.

"First, we will introduce a policy of zero tolerance of bad behaviour and bad language in every school in the country ... We will make sure that in every school, the headteacher ... will be able to maintain discipline and exclude poorly behaving pupils without being second-guessed or penalised for doing it."

Fine sentiments. A return to discipline in the classroom, as any teacher knows, would require changes to British child protection laws: not an easy fight. Cameron is perhaps more realistic to limit himself to this commitment to make excluding pupils easier, but this hardly solves the problem for the children concerned and only helps schools in extreme cases. It sounds as if more thought is required.

"Second ... we will reform the curriculum, exams and testing, and that's why we want to see aggressive setting by ability - in effect, a 'grammar stream' in every subject, in every school."

The education system in Britain has been choking on a diet of constant reform for years. (Any professional reading the first part of that would groan deeply.) More effective than continued permanent revolution would be the second suggestion: that setting by ability be introduced across the country. But I'm afraid Mr Cameron will find just as much entrenched opposition to this idea from the educational establishment as he would if he argued for building a new grammar school in every town; lots of them just don't like selection, whether it involves being schooled in a different building or not. He is, however, right to make this case: streaming by ability within comprehensive schools would improve outcomes for children of all abilities, and give them the benefit of social interaction with people of all backgrounds at the same time. This is the modern "third way" as practised by most developed countries. It would be another hard fight, but one worth winning.

"Third [i.e. fourth], we need ... a massive liberalisation of the supply-side of education, with open enrolment and money following the pupil."

Hmm. A nice idea, and already in train as it happens. The number of children attending private schools has risen for 17 of the last 21 years and stands at a record level. This damning verdict on the state education policies of various governments simultaneously demonstrates the popularity of the Cameron approach. I think we can assume that this is not what he means, however. School vouchers will be nearer the mark. While they might sound nifty, what does the Conservative leader think will happen were he to roll them out? The best schools would soon be overrun by applications representing a multiple of their available places. They would have to select which applicants to accept in one way or another, or else expand their resources to meet the demand of parents. The first course would expedite the reintroduction of grammar schools by the back door; the second is simply not feasible for most schools (those lacking the spacious grounds of an Eton whereon to build). And that's before we even look at the human resource constraints which have seen physics teaching all but die out and a chronic shortage of headteachers in many parts of the country.

"We need more 'independent state schools.' ... They should not have to undergo the restrictive inspection and regulatory regime which stifles the creativity of heads and teachers."

Over-inspection is certainly burdensome to many schools, but some will always be required to ensure that the curriculum is being covered properly and that teaching standards are up to scratch. In fact, introduce streaming across the board and the inspectorate would really have their work cut out. Finally, the article ends:

"And we will make it easier for anyone to set up a school. Any individual, company, charity, church, community group, teacher or parent co-operative who wants to set up and run a school - providing they meet certain minimal standards - will be able to, without requiring permission from an LEA. That's the way countries like Sweden and Holland have transformed their education systems, and that's what we will do here."

This is not remotely workable. Surely Mr Cameron recalls the recent controversy over faith schools - does he want to invite more of the same? And why would companies want to set schools up, unless they were for-profit education businesses? How might that go down with the electorate - and the media? And so far as international comparisons are concerned, what about introducing year passes in Britain? Is that a battle Mr Cameron has the stomach for?

So the only sensible meat here consists in two proposals: better discipline and streaming by ability within a comprehensive intake. Disregarding the rest of Mr Cameron's specious ideas, these alone would merit a muted "hallelujah". Would he have the courage and determination to put them into practice? Or would he end up presiding over the same old system, extolling its virtues while sending his own children private (like many politicians before him)?

(Don't) Carry On Health System

Another day, another fiasco at the Department of Health.

First we hear that the Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints about the DoH's latest nannying and unpleasant anti-smoking campaign. (It was, no doubt, expensive too.) Then we hear that nursing staff are considering industrial action as Gordon Brown's belated squeeze on public sector pay impacts this year's settlement. And only yesterday, the Health Secretary confirmed that yet another expensive NHS IT project had proved a counter-productive waste of time and money and was being scrapped.

Meanwhile, some unidentified cancer specialists had an idea for improving access to drugs for their patients. This involved allowing those who could afford it to pay for medicines ruled too expensive by NICE. Making the pound sterling legal tender in British hospitals is controversial, of course, and opponents of the idea invoked the usual mantra that this would usher in a "two tier system".

Two tier system? We already have one! You don't get MRSA in private hospitals. There are more nurses per patient: 50-100% more according to this study by the Royal College of Nursing (figures on p.18). Private patients have their own rooms, with their own bathroom and own television. Patient care, in other words, occupies two different universes in this country, never mind "tiers". (The one serious complaint about private hospital care is that there is no A&E; provision, but then that's a circular argument: merge private and NHS hospitals and the problem goes away.)

But of course it's not about treating the greatest number of people as effectively as possible. The NHS represents the last hurrah for equality of outcomes as a social good. And until we abandon, or at least dilute this system, those who are treated by it as patients and work within it as staff will continue to pay a heavy price. It is for this reason that Patricia Hewitt can survive wave after wave of bad news: there is no appetite for fixing the system; and she can hardly be blamed for that.

This Does Not Bode Well

The Evening Standard reports today on a shocking fudge by the Office of National Statistics which will artificially depress the immigration figures and reduce the capitation allowance for London councils:

"The ONS has reduced its estimate of London's population from 7,517,700 to 7,457,400. But councils say the actual population is nearer to 7,600,000. Today the councils in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham and Slough have lodged a formal protest at the drop in figures. Councils receive around £600 for every person in the borough from central Government. They claim the miscalculation could lead to council tax rises of £27 a head for Londoners and will mean that more than £72 million could be lost across the city. ...

Councillor Mark Loveday, cabinet member for strategy at Hammersmith and Fulham, said: "I didn't think it was possible, but this new method for counting migration is actually worse than the old one - which was also a disaster. The Government's new figures suggest that we have fewer migrants than three years ago. This methodology will still not account for those spending less than a year in the country and The Labour Force Survey will also not pick up those staying in hostels or living in houses of multiple occupancy." ...
Previously the figures had been calculated by asking migrants travelling into London where they intended to work. The new system uses a Labour Force Survey covering just 0.2 per cent of the population, together with a passenger survey asking migrants where they are actually working."

This might well be connected to another ONS story in which it is reported today that confidence in ONS management is at an all time low and the quango is in revolt over plans to move its 600 remaining London staff to Newport in Wales. So serious is the situation that no less an authority than the Bank of England has warned that "the relocation poses a serious risk to the quality of key economic data." The First Division Association, a union body for senior civil servants and other senior public employees, was more effusive in its expression of concern:

"The cumulative impact of the need to deliver efficiency savings, the requirement to relocate many key areas of work away from London and poor management of people and processes is putting the future delivery of ONS's outputs at risk. Staff morale at all levels ... is at an all time low."

It seems clear that the more nebulous picture to be produced of migration in London, which will further distort immigration data and cut local authorities' resources for dealing with it, stems from a small-scale cost-cutting exercise. (It is less resource intensive to interview Londoners by telephone from Newport than it is to interview them in person.)

In other words, a relocation exercise being conducted to pare a few pounds from the titanic edifice of British public spending has already impaired the work of the body whose numbers form the basis of every major policy decision. Migration policy needs sharper tools at its disposal, not blunter instruments. And what of the future? For the Bank of England itself to be sounding the alarm is shocking. If it lost confidence in the provision of Britain's economic data, the rest of the City would be alarmed too. To put the monetary policy and financial soundness of the nation at risk for the chance to save money from 600 pay slips is irresponsible lunacy on a Caligulan scale.

So who is responsible for the ONS? According to the ONS website, performance is reported to the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Nicholas Macpherson, though responsibility for the "policy and financial framework" has been delegated to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, John Healey, MP. Delegated, of course, by the Chancellor, who needs no introduction.

Here's Hoping For The Best

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Now that it is universally expected that Gordon Brown will soon ascend to the throne of the Labour party, it would be churlish not to hope that he might do the right thing by the country.

He has already announced some policy proposals. The "eco-town" idea is a neat and harmless piece of politics, and while the noises Brown has made about a written constitution are worrying, there's no indication as yet that he seriously means it.

More broadly, my hopes are as follows.

I hope that the dour and unlovely figure presented to us to date is as dishonest a caricature as his supporters suggest. I hope that the tinkering control-freak chancellor was merely maximising the scope for activity afforded him by a remit frustratingly lesser than that to which he aspired, and that a bigger canvas will lend his brushwork a lighter touch. I hope that the much mentioned conflict between the Treasury's first and second lords really was responsible for a lot of the stagnant inefficacy of British government over the last ten years, and that the conclusion of the one will mean the end of the other. I hope that the next Prime Minister of this country really will be more honest than his predecessor. I hope that Britain will benefit from Brown's time in power, however long it may be. I hope for prosperous, happy years ahead.

Of course, the last time I and millions of others gave in to such optimism was in 1997. Since then, all the hopes we had that Tony Blair would seize an almost unprecedented opportunity to effect much needed changes to this country's bloated and broken public services have come to nothing.

There is no reason to expect that Labour will deliver anything better under Brown. But as I want the best for the country in which I live, that is what I hope. It will become clear over the coming weeks and months whether or not these hopes, too, will be dashed.

Oh God, Gordon - No!

Oh dear. Today's official launch of New Brown should have confined itself to predictable, vapid platitudes: "moral compass", "learn the lessons", "clean break", "hearts and minds", etc. Unfortunately for the poor beleaguered nation over which the unlovely Scot is soon to hold even more sway, he also raised the terrible prospect of lumbering us with a written constitution.

We do not need a written constitution, but then governments rarely do things simply because the country needs them. This is an execrable suggestion for two other reasons.

Firstly, this government has allowed a mixture of petulance and historical illiteracy to underpin the biggest exercise in constitutional vandalism since the Reformation. The Lords, the Union, the liberties of the individual under the law - it has all been swept away in a few years of callow blundering. Letting them loose on a written constitution is unconscionable.

Secondly, recent exercises in writing constitutions have been notable bunk. The proposed Australian presidency collapsed under the weight of Australian politicians' self-regard. The proposed European constitution drawn up under Giscard-d'Estaing was 260-odd pages of convoluted, barmy, PC garbage. Gone are the days when a group of disinterested luminaries would condense their thinking on the rights of man into a couple of dozen provisions for structuring government. Whatever proposals emerged from New Brown's camp would be self-serving, turgid and unwieldy.

Brown himself was quoted as saying:

"We need a better constitution, we need a constitution that does show that people are fully accountable. I also think we need a constitution that is clear about the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen in Britain today. I think that would immeasurably help our country unite around shared purposes."

We used to have a sublime and time-worn constitution, Gordon. Your boys casually tore it apart.

The Blair Legacy Revisited

Today seems an appropriate occasion for revisiting some earlier reflections on Tony Blair's legacy after ten years in power. Here's what I had to say at the beginning of the year (original post here):

For some time, Mr Blair has let it be known that he frets about his legacy. What mark has his tenure left on the country? What accomplishments will posterity credit to him? What, in short, is his place in history?

Let us start with the negatives. No matter what some of the more hysterical elements might believe, the Blair years will not be remembered for Iraq. Whatever happens in the Middle East, for better or worse, will ultimately have come about as the result of American leadership. Britain's ongoing military contribution will be relatively insignificant for reasons of resource constraint and lack of popular support. And again, while some believe otherwise, the consequences of this specific episode for British society have been trivial. Of course, the war has done a lot of damage, not least to the current government, but for future historians it will be of interest only in the broader context of our foreign policy and international role. Even then it will be seen as a minor episode when compared to (for example) Mrs Thatcher's more controversial and consequential support for Reagan in defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

While an interesting episode deserving of serious study, the Balkan adventure was a minor affair - a thread in a number of much larger weaves. In the important matter of the Ulster settlement - in which context a still-adored Blair felt the hand of history on his shoulder - the important groundwork had been laid in the Major years (and arguably represents the latter's most significant positive accomplishment). So history will give him only the smaller portion of the credit there. Likewise, though Britain's membership of the EEC / EC / EU will be regarded as very significant, and increasingly so in the last decade, this was ultimately the work of Ted Heath. And the occasional talk we have heard about Africa has remained exactly that - talk.

So Blair will not be remembered for his foreign policy. Domestically too there are broad areas of inconsequence: health, education, welfare. A lot more tax money has been spent in these areas and minor policy changes have been implemented but the guiding principles and structures within which they operate have not changed. Similarly, the Treasury under Brown has made a lot of noise but accomplished little in the way of change. (Economic history is of relatively minor interest at the best of times, and even in this context, the significant changes - PFI, inflation targeting at the central bank - were earlier innovations.)

This is not an impressive record. In one sense, and this is a necessarily arguable point, it had not to be - radical governments of the British left have not tended to win second, let alone third elections, and persistence in power as well as its achievement was a clear objective of New Labour in its early years. Perhaps Blair feels disappointed by this. Ten years of such small beer would leave many a leader still feeling thirsty. As he approaches the end of his career in British politics, however, it is too late for him to accomplish anything further now. He has not exactly been a failure, but rather a footnote; one of our Prime Ministers whose name will not be widely known to future generations - an Addington, a Melbourne, a Campbell-Bannerman.

At least, he would be a footnote were it not for the one area in which he has made an impact on Britain of major historical interest: the constitution. Indeed, he might have played a key part in changing the way in which historians of our era use the word "Britain" in their writing. I will examine this subject in my next post.

("Next post" on the constitution here.)

Nothing in the last four months has changed any of that, predictably enough. Note that this is not to denigrate Blair's political achievement in winning three elections; but so far as history is concerned, it's what you do with power that counts, not how long a lease on it you get.

Net Immigration. Why It Has Increased; Why It Matters; And What To Do

This weekend saw a rally in London for the well-intentioned but disastrous plan to grant an "amnesty" to illegal immigrants in Britain. The idea has rightly been criticised for encouraging future illegal immigration, as has happened in other countries where it has been tried.

Even without this new headache, immigration policy in this country has been a disaster for years.

The numbers show that net migration to Britain rose from 47,000 in 1997 to 185,000 in 2005, an increase of almost 300%. This is not primarily due to any conscious change in policy by Labour - the only change they made to entry requirements was to abolish the "primary purpose rule", as flagged in their 1997 manifesto. (This rule stipulated that spouses would not be allowed entry to the UK if officials believed that they had married primarily for that purpose. Abolition seems only to have increased immigration by about 10,000.)

As so often, unremarked changes at the European level could be responsible. The Schengen agreement, under which most internal EU border controls were abolished, came into force in 1995. (Migrants from Africa arriving at the Spanish or Italian coasts now have fewer borders to negotiate before reaching the Channel.) What will certainly have been a factor is Britain's resilient economy over the period: at the height of the ERM-led recession in the early 1990s more people were leaving the country than were entering it, net migration picking up with the economy as the decade progressed.

The increase might very well not have mattered so much were it not for two glaring policy failures which emerged alongside it. Firstly, John Prescott's DETR "super-department" left the planning system in a complete mess. Conflicts between different tiers of government delayed planning decisions. Rules imposed on private developers over "key worker" housing stymied private residential development, thus exacerbating the problem they were trying to solve. The resulting constriction in housing supply has made living here ever more crowded and expensive. Secondly, the only major infrastructure project undertaken in London has been the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. An utter waste of time and money, it serves no purpose other than to replace a perfectly good link from Waterloo with one that points towards Labour's political heartlands (sparing northern passengers the 20 minute bus ride down from Euston or King's Cross). Nothing has been done to assist the normal commuter traffic into the capital which keeps so much of the show on the road.

In these circumstances, spiralling net migration does matter. So what should we do?

We could close the student visa loophole through which so many economic migrants enter Britain. We could get around to deporting some of our hundreds of thousands of unreturned failed asylum seekers. We could also reform the visa system to keep track of who enters the country and whether or not they leave, enabling us to plan and manage our migration policy transparently, which is simply not possible today.

These policies are not inhumane; they do not infringe migrants' rights; they would improve the efficacy of government in the UK. Unhappily, there is no chance we will see them emerge from a Home Office whose proposed unnecessary split will doubtless see it in chaos for years to come.

Population Size: Some Facts

Following on from yesterday's post I have given some thought to the substance of our doughty population doom-mongers' complaint.

It is widely known that the current human population numbers about 6.5bn, and widely reported that this might be too many. It is reasonably widely known that the population continues to increase: latest UN estimates put the number at 9.2bn by 2050, by which time population growth is expected to have levelled off (as it has done already throughout the developed world). Again, this is an inconceivably large number, and so people might be inclined to think it somehow problematic.

Putting it into perspective, however, our planet is also an inconceivably large place. Imagine that you, and everyone else currently alive in the world, had agreed to meet for a friendly spot of lunch in the open air. Every man, woman and child is given a picnic blanket one square meter in size to sit on during the meal. How much space would the picnic take up?

The answer is counter-intuitive. If we all had a square meter of space there would be one million of us per square kilometre. The assorted picnic blankets required would therefore cover an area of 6,500 square kilometres. In other words, the whole human race would fit into the county of Devon with room to spare.

So there really aren't that many of us after all - though one square metre wouldn't be enough to live in. So how much living space could reasonably accommodate the whole world?

The population density of central London, according to 2001 census data, was about 11,500 per square kilometre. (People are able to live quite comfortably in Camden, Kensington or Westminster, so this seems a perfectly reasonable basis for answering the question.) Dividing this density into the total human population of about 6,500m gives a required living space of 565,000 square kilometres - comfortably smaller than the combined area of France and Belgium.

Hmm. So far from being overpopulated, if you could arrange comfortable living space for the whole of humanity in the north-west corner of Europe alone, the Earth begins to seem very empty indeed. Though of course, it takes a lot of land to support the population. But about how much?

Even on a generous, sustainable and self-supporting figure for population density, we have no cause for concern. Turning again to France, a country which has been a net food exporter for 40 years, population density is 111 per square kilometre based on the figures here. (In fact, that's about average for the EU. Britain's population density is well over twice that.) To support the total human population would thus require 58.5m square kilometres of land - a big number at last! But if you look here you will see that we would all fit into Russia, North America, China, Mongolia and Brazil. In other words, Europe, India, Australasia, Africa, Japan, the Pacific Rim and most of South America could be emptied and we would have easily enough space. In fact, well over half of the world's total land area excluding Greenland and the poles would still be up for grabs, plenty enough to accommodate the projected population increase which so worries the doomsayers.

Why, then, do people worry so much about population size? Perhaps it's some deep psychological fear of reproduction. But whatever it is, it's not logic, so don't believe it.

Population Doom-Mongers Ride Again

In 1973, at the height of fears that the imminent overpopulation of Earth would doom human civilisation, it was revealed to Charlton Heston at the end of Soylent Green that the inevitable answer was industrialised cannibalism. In the same year, according to a highly dubious British "charity" called the Optimum Population Trust, a UK government panel reported its own concerns on overpopulation and recommended that population policy be incorporated into all decision-making.

This would be mere historical curiosity were it not for the global boiling circus. The state-sponsored panic over climate change has given the oracles of the OPT an excuse to drag the obsolete hysteria of 1973 back into the limelight. Their message back then was that the "population explosion" would lead to scarcity in fossil fuels, fresh water and other resources, thus getting us into a serious pickle. (Everybody who has ever forecast such catastrophe has, of course, been subsequently made to look extremely stupid.) But the message is different now: rather than cut down on the kiddies to save food, we must do so mindful of the patter of tiny carbon footprints.

So the same condom-worshipping merchants of doom who were on at us a generation ago to thin the species out for the good of Gaia are back. From yesterday's Sunday Times:

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning [!] at University College London, said: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet."

Needless to say, Guillebaud is a prize hypocrite, having three children himself. Even more bizarrely, he claimed in an earlier interview - given because he was then advocating the temporary sterilisation of teenage girls - to be a committed Christian, which just goes to show how the modern environmental movement can get these people to change religion without even realising it.

That "anthropogenic climate change" has reopened the door to this antique anti-human tosh should help us realise just how laughable a notion it is. In the meantime, I would warmly invite the lunatics who believe that our numbers require culling in order for the species to survive to lead by example and do themselves in. As well as reducing their contribution to global boiling it would reduce the risk to the rest of us of being bored by any more of their impertinent and ludicrous haranguing.

What a broad church environmentalism is!

Take The High Road

47-46. It looks like a particularly close rugby result. The future of the Six Nations tournament, however, must come pretty low down the list of concerns now that the SNP have beaten the Labour party in Scotland by one seat. Perhaps Alex Salmond will get round to addressing it in time, if he manages to entice the Liberal Democrats into a coalition.

In the meantime, the question of Scotland's secession from the Union remains open. The Nationalists' arguments are tediously familiar. Like pub bores they have been lecturing everybody about North Sea oil and English oppression for years. The list of inventors, philosophers and other intellectual luminaries - on whose endeavours the prosperity of Britain and the civilisation of the world have apparently depended - has grown longer and longer. (There is a striking parallel here with the conscription of every great artist and composer into the service of homosexual emancipation a generation ago.) Maybe disillusionment with Labour had its part to play. Whatever the reason, that one seat makes it more likely than ever before that these arguments will one day be put to the test.

There was a time not so long ago when the prospect of an independent Scotland would have provoked more alarm south of the border than anything else. For shire-dwelling Telegraph readers, Tony Blair's devolution proposal looked like vandalism. (He probably thinks of it in the same way now.) What about the flag? The Scottish regiments? The monarchy? Or course, for a Labour government that cared little for any of these things, this was all the more reason to push the plans through. The SNP were fringe cranks, New Labour was universally ascendant and a devolved Scotland would yield it a tartan power base whence to rule for a thousand years.

These days the tables could not have been more completely turned. Not only England's shire-dwellers, but a sizeable majority across the country want Scotland to take the high road. Confronted with present day reality, rather than flag-waving nostalgia for Adam Smiths and John Logie Bairds, it is the English who have become the greatest supporters of the SNP. They have woken up to the West Lothian question and to the billions by which Scotland's consumption of the nation's wealth exceeds her capacity to contribute to it. It is, of all people, the Labour party who have gone all dewy-eyed about the Union and want us all to be British again.

The Scots might not be so bold as to decide to sail off into the Norwegian Sea, but they can no longer count on pro-Union sentiment south of the border to prevent it. Scotland may or may not turn into the Celtic tiger of the SNP's dreams, but the feeling is that the English lion will certainly be better off without it.

Bitter-Sweet Success

Almost all the results are in. Nearly 900 seats ... What a triumph for the Conservatives! Eyeballing the map is enough: with sweeping losses across the whole country (including the midlands and the north), Labour have been beaten comprehensively back to their urban fastnesses across the Dependency Belt. The Liberal Democrats' performance was surprisingly dismal too, though at least Sir Ming had the good grace to describe the outcome as a "mixed bag", in contrast to Blair's brazen and bizarre "springboard" analogy. Obviously, David Cameron is some way off being invited to form a government, but this week will have given him a deserved boost, not least in the eyes of sceptics in his own party. Jolly well done.

Of course, along with Labour and the Liberal Democrats, there have been other losers too. The Scots in particular had an awful night, with an estimated 100,000 voters disenfranchised by the absurd complexity of new voting systems. Alex Salmond, scraping around for support in the aftermath of the fiasco, is rightly furious, and one of his first acts as mini-premier should be to scrap PR and electronic voting.

Unfortunately, the shenanigans in Scotland are of a piece with the electoral "reforms" of the Blair interregnum. Just as he flailed around demolishing the Lords, Magna Carta and the Union - with absolutely no idea what to put in their place - he has presided carelessly over an explosion in postal voting which has seen electoral fraud mushroom to an extent previously unthinkable in our era.

I witnessed a small instance of this during the last batch of local elections in London last year. A woman just ahead of me in the queue at the polling station who wore Islamic dress and appeared to speak little English offered her polling card to one of the officials, only to be told that as she had registered to vote by post they would have to turn her away. Was she attempting fraud herself? It seemed unlikely. My own thought was that she (like thousands of others) had simply had her vote stolen, something which ought still to be unconscionable in this country. It is not pleasant to be denied your electoral privileges. I felt sorry for that woman. If I had been in her position, I would have been boiling mad.

Commiserations, then, to the losers, and especial commiserations to all those who have been denied their vote by the government's inept blundering reforms. Well done Dave - and if you do get the chance over the next few years, please repair the damage done to our electoral system which has soured your victory and tarnished the nation.

Environmentalism: Modern Britain's State Religion

The UK Daily Pundit pointed out that yesterday was the occasion of the long-awaited dispatch of Al Gore's global boiling film to thousands of schools across the country. This promulgation of Mr Gore's heartfelt personal theology of climate change provides a suitable opportunity to reflect on the religious character of the modern environmental movement.

Ritual observances. Recycling, for example, closely resembles ritual sacrifice. Glass and paper / wine and slaughtered animals are deposited in special wheelie bins / sacrificial vessels. Most of us who observe the practice do not understand exactly what happens to our offerings next, nor what goals our behaviour is trying to achieve. Self-denial is important too. Rather than fasting or wearing sackcloth, greens eschew modern forms of transport and let it mellow if it's yellow. Ultimately, reducing one's "footprint" as far as possible is seen as the highest personal virtue, which entails consuming as little as possible and effectively living like primitives. (This mirrors, for instance, the Christian invocation to abandon material possessions.) Such a stance feeds powerfully on the human senses of guilt and disgust: guilt over pollution / sin and disgust at ourselves as polluters / sinners.

The priestly class. There are the preachers, of course, among whom Al Gore is pre-eminent. He is also a provider of carbon offsets to ease the conscience of the polluter, just as the medieval papacy sold indulgences to ease the conscience of the sinner. These preachers are also proselytising missionaries, co-opting earlier belief systems to turn their adherents green. Just as the Jesuits convinced the Chinese that ancestor worship was accommodated by Christianity in the form of prayer for the dead, so the green evangelists have convinced Christians that support for their programme equates to responsible stewardship of Creation. Then there are the "climate scientists" / soothsayers, poring over their complex computer models / patterns in bird entrails to predict the future and advise us accordingly. (Our own Hadley Centre has a claim to being the Delphic Oracle of its day.)

Articles of faith. The spiritual core of environmentalism is, of course, the worship of Nature (sometimes personified as Gaia, the mythical Earth-mother). Anger Nature and she will make the crops fail - or at least she will in 100 years as a punishment for our over-large "footprints" unless we repent and mend our ways. Anything which involves interfering with natural processes (GM crops for example) is a perversion to be avoided unquestioningly. Indeed, scientific advance in general is suspect (e.g. nuclear power) as it is incompatible with the virtuous pursuit of primitivism.

A codified theology. Though environmentalism has much in common with ancient pagan superstition, its codification as a belief system is relatively new. The position of the IPCC for example is analogous to that of one of the early councils of the Christian church. How many persons has God? How many parts per million of carbon dioxide are acceptable to Nature? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? In Britain, of course, the Book of Stern expressed the dogma of climate change in economic terms, presenting it in a specific light to reach a specific audience (like the Christian gospels before it). Like the best theological systems, the green creed contains some contradictions reconcilable by faith alone. Landfill is bad, for example, because it produces methane, which IPCC scripture defines as a demon gas. Composting, however, which also produces methane, is good, because it is a form of recycling. Rotting garbage in your garden: good. Rotting garbage somewhere else: bad.

The observance of prescribed rituals; preachers, missionaries and soothsayers; unquestioning faith; suspicion of progress; codified beliefs. What further proof is required that environmentalism is a religion?

Indeed, in countries like Britain, which are adopting environmentalism as the state creed, observance of some of its prescribed rituals is beginning to be enforced through a system of fines. Heretics, or "deniers", are gravely deprecated for risking the wrath of Gaia, though at the time of writing they are not burnt. (If they were, we can be sure that their remains would subsequently be composted.)

So what might normally be of interest only as an exercise in comparative anthropology has come to have an impact on our everyday lives. As a "denier" myself, I can only hope that I have nothing worse to fear in future than ridicule and scorn.

Terrorists And Traitors

Omar Khyam, 25, Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 23, from Crawley; Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton; and Anthony Garcia, 24, from London, have been convicted of terrorist conspiracy and are behind bars.

They were, of course, traitors as well as terrorists. As the sentencing judge, Sir Michael Astill put it: "You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity." And of course, it was not just society in some abstract sense which these men betrayed: it was above all their own communities and those closest to them. As Tara Bignell, a former schoolfriend of Akbar, was reported as saying: "I feel betrayed. It could have been me, my friends ... People he grew up with, people that know him. Why would you want to hurt anyone?"

According to Sir Michael, part of the reason was the "preachers of hate who contaminate impressionable young minds". Indeed, exiled "cleric" Omar Bakri Mohammad used to preach in Crawley. In the words of another local resident, "after he left, although the community had isolated these people, they still exist ... they haven't completely been got rid of."

The "preaching of hate". Incitement to murder doesn't quite cover it. Incitement to commit treason, including terrorist acts, however - that is sedition, and where it could reasonably be expected to lead to a conspiracy such as this, or (heaven forfend) another atrocity, it should be prosecuted. Which would give us a way of shutting down these "clerics", even if only after the event. We could also look into spreading positive messages to countermand them, such as that of reformed British Islamist Ed Husain in his forthcoming book.

Of course, our treason laws remain too antique to be any use in cases like this at present. And the government are more concerned to spread global warming propaganda through the school system than they are to combat figures like Mr Mohammad.

This could reflect the feeling in some quarters that the preaching in particular is an issue for the "Muslim community", but this is wrong. It is dismissive and derelict to expect Britain's 2m strong Muslim population to address these issues alone. (Would we have washed our hands of the IRA on the grounds that they were an issue for the "Catholic community"?) Decent people of whatever religious background are appalled by treachery and worried about the sedition preached by these "radicals".

For the time being, attention is focused elsewhere. There is a good case being made for an inquiry into whether or not the London bombings could have been prevented so that we can learn from any mistakes which might have been made. It is also proper that we should applaud the capture and incarceration of these evil men. But in the longer term the government should have the imagination and the heart to support British Muslims together with the whole country in our battle of wills against the traitors in our midst and the hate-filled "clerics" who recruit them.

High Time For High Treason

Terrorism offences have been much in the news this week. On Tuesday, there were six arrests in London "on suspicion of inciting others to commit terrorist acts overseas and raising funds for terrorism." On Wednesday, four Londoners admitted conspiring to cause an explosion. And also on Wednesday, of course, details emerged over the advance publicity attaching to terror arrests in Birmingham earlier in the year.

As with any story concerning themselves, the media leapt all over Wednesday's news, but the previous day's events were interesting too. From the Guardian:

"Scotland Yard said a number of searches were continuing in connection with the investigation. Its specialist terrorist financing unit has found that most of the alleged terrorist money raised in the UK goes towards supporting and financing insurgents in Iraq."

Among the targets for these insurgents are British troops, several more of whom have been killed in Iraq only this month. So our counter-terrorism intelligence suggests that most money raised here to support terrorist activity is, in fact, channelled to enemies of Britain engaged in bloody campaigns against our armed forces.

This is more deplorable than the support of international terrorism alone. It also reflects the betrayal of an allegiance owed by residents of this country to their home, native or adopted. For instance, it was an appalling and callous crime for Irish Americans to have funded IRA terrorism in Britain, but in no way could it be argued that those Americans owed any allegiance to the target of their animadversion. British people - British Muslims - do owe such an allegiance. (In fact, a recent survey shows that our Muslim population is more loyal to the British state than the average citizen.) For some of them to betray that allegiance makes their crime worse than that of the "plastic Paddies" of Boston.

It is high time that the concept of allegiance to country was brought to bear once again in the context of conspiracy, incitement and terrorist activity. It is a concept which has never entirely disappeared from our legal landscape. It is enshrined in our ancient laws of treason.

Because they are so old - the first relevant statute being the Treason Act of 1351 - they contain provisions which look plain silly now. Interestingly, this led to the law being tested in the courts as recently as 2003 when the Guardian went to trial over the Treason Felony Act of 1848, which made it an offence to advocate the abolition of the monarchy in print. Confirming that this was a dead letter, one of the Law Lords ruling on the case said:

"It is most undesirable that obsolete statutes should remain unrepealed. Quaint language and interesting historical associations are no justification for preserving obsolete statutes in a mummified state. But ... it is still the role of the legislature, rather than that of the courts, to decide whether to repeal or retain legislation."

While it has not been repealed, therefore, the treason law is useless as it stands because it's effectively too antique. (This was tested more seriously in 2004 when it was decided not to prosecute British citizens who joined the ranks of the Taleban to fight against our armed forces in Afghanistan.)

Let's modernise and reinvigorate this law to punish attacks on our sovereignty by those who benefit from its privileges and protections. It would be simple to update the definition of sovereignty to the modern world: it would take in Parliament and the courts as well as the person of the monarch. It would also encompass British forces, who could do with some support from our legislature at the moment.

Indeed, the whole concept of Britain and British sovereignty could do with some support at a time when our government's actions at home and abroad have weakened both. A new Treason Act could and should be passed, or else the offences of treason and sedition - and with them that key concept of allegiance to the country - introduced into terrorism law.

Turnout For The Books

This chart shows the turnout recorded in French presidential and UK parliamentary elections as a proportion of registered voters since 1965. (The data is from the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), apart from yesterday's French result, which is based on an estimate reported by the BBC. IDEA data is available here for France and here for the UK; the British figure for 1974 is an unweighted average of the turnout numbers for the two general elections held that year.)

Yesterday's turnout in France might well be a record, but it is very much of a piece with historic French electoral behaviour. The French clearly feel there is much at stake when they go to the polls.

We British, on the other hand, have become disengaged from the electoral process on a huge scale. In 2005, six and a half million fewer people turned out to vote than did so in the record election year of 1992 (when 33.7m votes were cast). And turnout at the last two elections marks a clear departure from a longer term average of about 75%.

So while the French can celebrate an exciting and broad-based first stage result, our politicians should reflect where the supposedly wise course of chasing something called the "centre ground" has left British politics. Offer voters a choice, and they will rush to embrace it. Lead from the middle, and you end up going sideways.

The Good Islamist

Today's Times ran an interesting piece excerpted from a forthcoming book by Ed Husain, a British Muslim radicalized and recruited into Islamism when he was sixteen. His subsequent experiences of fanaticism, and also of life among the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, appalled him. Thus disillusioned, Husain writes: "I vowed, in my own limited way, to fight those who had hijacked my faith, defamed my prophet and killed thousands ... " The record of his experiences, presumably, is set to be the principal weapon in his struggle.

Husain has some advice for our leaders: "I was encouraged when Tony Blair announced on August 5, 2005, plans to proscribe an array of Islamist organisations that operated in Britain, foremost among them Hizb ut-Tahrir. At the time I was impressed by Blair’s resolve. The Hizb should have been outlawed a decade ago and so spared many of us so much misery. Sadly the legislation was shelved last year amid fears that a ban would only add to the group’s attraction ... " It was "the Hizb" which recruited the author, so he knows whereof he speaks. It is to be hoped that the advice received that a ban would be counterproductive was well-founded. Either way, supporting Muslim commentators like Husain could play a very useful part in reducing the likelihood of future attacks by disenchanted Muslim youths on their homeland.

Transfixed by news of the London bombings in 2005, Husain writes: "Watching fellow Londoners come out of Tube stations injured and mortified, but facing the world with a defiant sense of dignity, made me feel proud to be British." There is a lot of hope in that sentence. If this once-radicalised British Muslim can feel moved to embrace his national identity, perhaps others who have been seduced by Islamism will follow. Perhaps reading this book could catalyse the process. If so, wouldn't it be wonderful if our government, which is distributing copies of Al Gore's film to all Britain's secondary schools, included a copy of this book while they were about it?

Light Relief

Tony Blair has attacked David Cameron for being a lightweight.

This unintentionally hilarious bit of name calling shows Blair at his best: when he's attacking the Conservatives. He made mincemeat of them in the mid-90s and these political attacks still form the most convincing parts of his speeches.

Government, however, overwhelmed this brilliantly effective opposition leader. His disregard for procedure and ignorance of detail have left him struggling to pilot motley crews of inexperienced ministers through waters which have proved all too treacherous. No wonder he frets over his shallow legacy, whose only element of any substance may turn out to be Labour's accidental ejection of Scotland from the United Kingdom. If you had just one word with which to characterise the Blair years, "lightweight" would surely be as accurate as any.

This is not to suggest that David Cameron would necessarily be any better. But Blair's attack really is a textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Global Boiling To Cause World War Three

Or so Margaret Beckett said last night. With a straight face. In front of the UN Security Council. From the Washington Post's coverage: "She cited flooding, disease and famine leading to unprecedented migration; drought and crop failure intensifying competition for food, water and energy; and the potential for economic disruption on a scale not seen since World War II."

In contrast to her posture of hapless bewilderment during the Iranian hostage crisis, Beckett was on fighting form. She told the nations of the world that global boiling is "an issue that threatens the peace and security of the whole planet" (unlike, presumably, the spectre of a nuclear Iran, which Britain's recent weakness will have helped materialise).

The British position (how embarrassing!) is nonsense. Assume the hysterical projections of rising temperatures and melting ice come to pass, for whatever reason. The flooding of low-lying territories would occur gradually over the space of several generations - plenty of time for the species to enact "unprecedented migration" to avoid getting our feet wet. Famine? Only if you assume that we fail to cultivate currently frozen areas as they thaw over the decades - the sort of policy error that would only be committed by ... well, by Beckett in her days at DEFRA perhaps. As for economic disruption, between the trades unions, the oil crisis and the ERM, it was a noteworthy feature of much of Britain's post-war history (regardless of the level of the mercury).

Of course, mankind will have to adapt to survive whatever happens, just as we have always done. (Scientists used to play a significant role in that process, though these days they all seem to be running round telling us we're doomed, which while they might find it pleasantly animating is not terribly constructive.) But why would the British government in particular be trying to elevate the international hysteria?

Could this have been a cynical bid to improve Labour's enviro-credentials in the run up to May's elections? If so, the deafening silence with which the news has been received here suggests it has failed. (Though the dear old Guardian did run a sympathetic comment piece, which actually used the phrase "boiling the planet" in all seriousness.) Is it just more evidence (as this BBC piece suggests) that Beckett is a lightweight, in thrall to her officials? More frighteningly still - for what it says about our government's sanity - do they really believe it?

Meanwhile, Back In Iran ...

President Ahmadinejad has once again publicly and explicitly ruled out compliance with UN demands that Iran put a stop to its programme of uranium enrichment. (Indeed, Iran has just put contracts out to tender on two more nuclear power stations.)

At the same time, Russia's ambassador to the UK, Yuri Fedotov, ruled out the possibility of Russian support for military action to compel Tehran to do so: "We have serious doubts sanctions would work. [They] could pave the way to a military action. The military option is a nonsense. It's [an] adventure that could threaten international stability in this region and beyond." (Well, yes, but as more "stability" will lead to a nuclear Iran it will prove necessary to threaten the one if we want to prevent the other.)

His comments echo those of China earlier this year. Britain, of course, has recently done Tehran the double favour of demonstrating that we would not contemplate the use of force even under the extreme provocation of the hostage crisis, and underlining the EU's lack of appetite for facing up to the mullahs.

With two of the permanent members of the UN Security Council now disavowing force against Iran, Britain out for the count and France certain not to support military action, the US is looking even lonelier than she was earlier in the year. Of course, this has largely escaped comment in the fug of bickering and recrimination into which Britain has withdrawn, and which thus obscures our retreat from international significance.

Had our political leadership risen to Iran's challenge and demonstrated a willingness to take action, Britain could have played a part in stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power. As it is, we have helped the theocrats along the road.

Al Gore Is Taking Over The World

This is the inescapable message of the "Live Earth" event scheduled to take place on 7 July this year (7/7/07): a rock concert held "on all seven continents", according to the event website. (I look forward to Coldplay's Antarctic performance.) We are also told that the "global audience gathered for Live Earth [estimated at 2 billion], its ongoing actions, and the proceeds from the concerts, will form the foundation for a new, multi-year international initiative to combat the climate crisis led [by] The Alliance for Climate Protection and its Chair, Al Gore."

What?!

The event's sponsoring organisation is called "SOS". From the list of acts slated to appear so far, this does not yet indicate an ABBA reunion. Nor does it stand for the conventional distress signal, "save our souls", but rather for "save our selves", an altogether more appropriate imprecation for the "me generation". Again, the organisation's website says that "Live Earth alone will engage an audience of more than 2 billion people. That audience, and the proceeds from the concerts, will create the foundation for a new, multi-year global effort to combat the climate crisis led by Vice President Al Gore."

I'm glad they repeated it for me because I couldn't believe it the first time.

I know that whereas "Chair" would once have been a fitting epithet for a man famous for his wooden ways, these days he's hip enough to win an Oscar. But the very idea of Al Gore at a rock concert is itself enough to elicit a giggle. And now the uber-cool do-gooding rock stars are all looking to him to save the world!

Never mind the "inconvenient truth" that, far from being "carbon neutral" (as SOS urges "individuals, communities, states, and corporations across the world" to become), Gore is a one-man CO2 catastrophe. Never mind that the global boiling agenda is flawed, empty, unscientific, hectoring, controlling, nature-worshipping nonsense.

What happens when Gore emerges from "Live Earth" with 2 billion music fans' worth of global, rock-star-sponsored publicity? Will the man who "used to be the next President of the United States" get the job? And, if he does, will the prize hypocrite make us all live off the land until the planet cools down again?

Cast Adrift

It is no consolation for a pessimist to be proved right.

As expected, the media have let the government off the hook completely over its pusillanimous approach to the Iranian hostage crisis amid a whirlwind of blame and introversion. (You can find daily coverage of Britain's cowardly indulgence of Iran during the crisis here.) Most damagingly, the Royal Navy seems to be ahead in the scapegoat stakes by some distance.

Needless to say, most of the criticism being levelled at the Navy is stupid and unfair. Today's first leader in the Times is a case in point. The paper singles out the following list of shortcomings behind what it calls the sorry, sordid fiasco: "the ineptitude of allowing the capture of the sailors; the lack of planning so they had no air cover or backup; the amateurism, symbolised by one of them going on patrol with an iPod; the ease with which the sailors were intimidated and forced to lie about being in Iranian waters; and finally the venal way in which they tried to sell their stories for personal gain ... "

First: the hostages had the option either of coming quietly or being killed. It was not the Navy's choice to "allow" them to be captured. Second: they were on a routine patrol which they had every reason to expect would be uneventful. It would be lovely if operational tactics could be adopted with the benefit of hindsight, but alas, that is not possible. Third: the charge of amateurism from a group of thoroughly inexpert journalists is a complete impertinence. Fourth: I doubt whether said journalists would think it "easy" if they were put through the same two weeks as our servicemen suffered at the hands of the Iranians. Fifth: the sale-of-the-stories controversy is a trivial sideshow compared with our comprehensive funk throughout the crisis itself.

(A cynic might suspect the government of having engineered this perfect media storm to deflect any potential criticism onto the hostages and the RN. They are certainly spiteful enough and sufficiently shameless in the matter of their own preservation. It is doubtful, however, whether they would have the wit or the guts for such a manoeuvre.)

The leader continues in similar vein. We are asked whether or not "the navy's ineptitude indicates a shift in Britain's willingness to fight". The Navy forms part of our fighting capability. It is up to the country, and most importantly our government, to exhibit the willingness to exploit that capability. I am quite sure that more than one admiral would have dearly loved the chance to deploy some firepower against the Iranian navy, or launch a missile attack on Iran, but our "leaders" made it perfectly clear from the start that Iran had nothing to fear (other than a mild dressing down from a handful of multilateral acronyms). Most shamefully, the paper asserts of the Navy's supposed weakness that "if such an attitude had prevailed in the past we would indeed be speaking French or German." Excuse me? Were we at war with Iran when our people were abducted? Does the Times really believe that the Royal Navy would face defeat by Iran due to a poor "attitude"?

This is the stuff of bitter fantasy. As analysis, it is contemptible. But by indulging this posturing and hysteria, we are undermining our national self-confidence and the confidence of our fighting forces. Perhaps this was the inevitable consequence of our humiliation by Iran in the eyes of the world. We had the option of playing a role in how the crisis developed, we blew it, and now we are turning in on ourselves in an orgy of destructive and unedifying recrimination.

As our delusional Prime Minister frets anew over his shopworn "legacy", he would do well to reflect on the damage his handling of this awful episode has done. Having betrayed the Royal Navy's captured personnel it looks as if he is now willing to cast the whole service adrift.

So. What's it going to be? Do we stop carping and shape up? Or do we face the inevitable and hand over the Falklands tomorrow?

Let's Privatize The BBC

Read this excellent Times article on the BBC's latest global warming report. (Fergal Keane was sent to report from the Arctic on Tuesday.) Writes the author: "His piece was so overwritten and bereft of analytical value that I believed I was watching satire ... Decades-old evidence of unemployment and suicide among Inuit people was mixed with predictions about climate change in a manner calculated to imply causal links."

Now I am one among many pained by the one-sided, pig-ignorant vacuity of the global boiling craze (see here). I have also noted that the BBC's coverage of the conflict in the Middle East is hopelessly biased (while remaining scrupulously impartial) - see here and here. Furthermore, I have to pay a licence fee to support the BBC's slanted coverage, whether I watch the programmes or not (never mind the precise degree to which I might deplore the content).

The licence fee itself doesn't come cheap either. TV Licensing, the body which collects the money for the Beeb, said in its last Annual Review that it spent £153m on 1,700 staff in 2005/06. Between them, these employees sent 61m letters and made 3m snooping visits to people's homes and businesses to see if they owned a telly or not. (I suppose you have to admire their efficiency.) And they don't just snoop and send invoices out, of course; they prosecute people as well.

In fact, there were over 120,000 licence fee prosecutions in 2004/05. (This data was made available under freedom of information rules and is tucked quietly away on the BBC website here.) In 2004, when over 99% of these prosecutions resulted in conviction, 28 people went to prison as a result.

Putting this into perspective, the Crown Prosecution Service put a total of 1.17m people in the dock in 2005/06 (Annual Report - figures on pp. 83 and 85 of the .pdf). So around 10% of all prosecutions in UK courts are taken up by the BBC. Indeed, most magistrates set aside an afternoon a week just to hear licence fee cases, and at least one Crown Court has a "licence fee day" each week when it's in session. 20% of the court's time. Just spent on licence fee cases. (Don't expect to hear about this scandal on Panorama.)

So. Let's cut the media down to size, bring the BBC to account for its self-satisfied propaganda, free up essential legal resource and raise money for the exchequer at the same time. Let's sell off the BBC!

Oxfam's Foreign Policy

Margaret Beckett may be a terrible foreign secretary, but at least she's not Oxfam director Barbara Stocking.

In this morning's Guardian, Stocking wrote a column lamenting British involvement in Iraq and laying down a handy five-point primer for a "new direction" in foreign policy:

"First, the UK should be active in trying to protect civilians around the world."

The UK can't even protect its own armed forces around the world, never mind civilians. Or perhaps Barbara Stocking missed the recent hostage crisis.

"Second, it should challenge everyone who commits war crimes and rights abuses."

Either that means we should register a protest each time a foreign state violates western standards of conduct, or it means we should force them to stop. The first course of action would accomplish nothing; the second is utterly beyond our reach.

"Third, the government must focus on coherent strategies for delivery as much as good ideas."

This meaningless sentence was presumably included to round Stocking's thoughts up to five.

"Fourth, foreign policy must adapt to a changing world."

That is axiomatic, and would not represent a "new direction" of any kind.

"Finally, the UK must be active with others, strengthening the UN and other multilateral organisations."

Oh dear. "Strengthening the UN"? Ceding more authority to New York's favourite white elephant means sacrificing authority to "be active" ourselves. And how do we think the UN would react if Britain went around "challenging everyone who commits ... rights abuses"? Half the membership falls into that category. They wouldn't even support a statement condemning Iran's abduction of our servicemen. You can "be active" or you can go the "multilateral" road, but you can't do both. (The US learned that to its cost before the invasion of Iraq.)

Digging even deeper, Stocking introduced a party political element to her thinking during a BBC interview explaining her thoughts: "The Iraq war was a terrible misadventure, but it must not cause future prime ministers to return to the caution of the previous Conservative government. That administration stood by while the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda unfolded."

For the sake of those relying on help from Barbara Stocking's charity, I hope she is better at dishing out food aid than she is public policy advice.

Lies, Damned Lies And British Crime Figures

Yesterday's drive-by shooting in London, the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old on Good Friday and a recent spate of other gun- and knife-related violence amongst the young have made sobering headlines this year. So how worried should we be about this? How widespread is violent crime in today's Britain? Has it been rising or falling recently? We know that this government isn't serious about tackling crime. But surely we can gauge the extent of the problem?

Producing reliable information to allow us to answer these questions is as important as ever. Unfortunately, we have two sources of crime figures in this country, and they have very different things to say about violent crime. The data on offences sent to the Home Office by the various police forces (recorded crime) represents by far the larger body of information, but is dependent on crime being reported to the police. The British Crime Survey, based on a polling sample of about 50,000 people, is accordingly preferred by some. The most recent full analysis of both sets of data is combined in the Home Office bulletin Crime in England and Wales 2005/06 which was published in July of last year.

The summary (on p. 15 of the .pdf file) has this to say: "Since peaking in 1995, BCS crime has fallen by 44 per cent, representing 8.4 million fewer crimes, with ... violent crime falling by 43 per cent during this period." Now that sounds like very good news. The media may be making more of the most lurid cases than a broader analysis would support.

Moving on to p. 40, however, which presents the recorded crime figures for violence against the person, and there are some statistics to contradict this. Since 1995, "more serious offences" have risen by 80%, and total violent offences have risen more than fourfold.

So which is right? Ministers, not surprisingly, say that the BCS paints the more accurate picture. The recorded crime data reflects changes in classification of offences, greater propensity to report crimes, greater police activity and more active police reporting. Accordingly, reporting on British crime is prone to schizophrenic engagement with both data sets, with analysis of the police figures (which contain much more detail) combined with an acknowledgement that the BCS suggests a broadly positive trend in law enforcement as a whole.

In the area of violent crime such reporting is lazy and inadequate. Think for a moment about what a telephone poll involves. There would be no value in asking the question, "were you murdered at any time in the last twelve months?", for example. Nor would so much as one person in that whole sample of 50,000 been likely to have had somebody try to kill them. In fact, as the Home Office bulletin concedes in a little note on p. 83 (eight pages into the "Violent Crime" subsection): "Due to the relatively small numbers of woundings experienced by the BCS respondents, separate BCS figures for serious woundings cannot be provided."

Serious woundings. In other words, because it is statistically insignificant, the kind of assault which is reported in the media - violent, lurid, usually involving a knife or a gun, often fatal - is totally outside the scope of the BCS.

Now think about the criticisms levelled at the recorded crime data. Does the definition of infanticide change from one year to the next? Is it possible for road deaths to go unrecorded? Are the police likely to have been making less of an effort to pursue manslaughter cases ten years ago than they are now? In the cases of mugging or domestic violence, for example, the answer to those questions might be yes (and such offences are natural candidates for being picked up by the BCS). But for serious, violent crime? Ridiculous.

So the truth is that "violent crime" has not "fallen by 43%" at all. It may well be true that people's aggregated experiences of "pushing and shoving" (p. 76) have declined since 1995. But the BCS has nothing at all to say about the kind of violence that makes headlines and that really worries people. Murders up from 679 in 1995 to 765 last year (a rise of 13%). Attempted murders up to 922 from 674 (a 37% increase). "More serious wounding or other act endangering life": 18,825 offences, up from 12,169 (a rise of 55%).

There is some good news: violent crime did fall from 2004/05 into 2005/06. The information is all there on p. 40. So the next time somebody cites the British Crime Survey as evidence that we shouldn't be worried about serious violent crime, remember that they're misinformed.

Appeasement Worked

As it emerges that the confinement of the Royal Navy hostages was not such a picnic after all, the British media are focusing on the post-crisis blame game. The Navy's own review will continue to draw attention here, and it looks likely that the weakness of our response to the capture of our servicemen will escape scrutiny.

This weakness persisted even as the last moments of the drama were played out. After news broke of the captives' release on Wednesday, Blair made a statement outside number ten which he ended with:

"To the Iranian people I would simply say this: we bear you no ill will. On the contrary, we respect Iran as an ancient civilization and a nation with a proud and civilized history. The disagreements we have with your government we wish to resolve peacefully, with dialogue. I hope, as I've always hoped, that in the future we are able to do so."

Emollient. Respectful. Laudatory. Diplomatic. Naive.

Contrast this with Ahmadinejad's comments during his press conference earlier in the day:

""We are really distraught that British youths join the army to earn a living and then, thousands of miles away, they get arrested. We don't want this to happen ... You will know that among the detainees there is one lady who is a mother of a child. Why is it that the most difficult work like patrolling at sea should be given to a woman? ... Why is there no respect for motherhood? Why does the West not value its women?"

Crowing. Contemptuous. Insulting. Unhinged. Dominant.

This has been the pattern of events throughout the crisis period. But so far, there has still been no domestic criticism of Britain's do-nothing approach towards handling Iran. After all, the hostages have gone free. Why ask questions?

There has, however, been some analysis. Sir Richard Dalton, our former man in Tehran, whom I have already criticised for his applause of our weakness, contributed a whole ovation's worth in yesterday's Telegraph. "Our Government's tactics were vindicated by the result," he wrote. Put another way: the end justifies the means - in this case, craven appeasement. He also permitted himself a modest gloat: "Those complaining from the political Right, both here and in America, about a weak response ... never set out a credible causal link between their preferred tactics and how to get Iran to release the captives."

That's the thing with appeasement. It's great when it works because you get what you want. What you give up, however - indeed, what you confer to your enemy - is power. And when you stop getting what you want, you find yourself incapable of addressing the enemy your policy has strengthened further down the line.

Our government has conferred power to Iran. Never mind picking over the Royal Navy review into the circumstances of Iran's ambush. What bodes terribly badly for our future is that the self-satisfied analysis of the appeasers seems destined to carry the day.

It was already looking likely that the west would not be able to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. It is now certain that Britain will do nothing more than bleat to prevent it.

It has been many years since our international credibility was this forlorn.

Endgame In Iran?

There is a sense of excitement in some quarters this afternoon. On the 12th day of their captivity, is British appeasement of Iran finally to secure the release of captive Royal Navy personnel?

In the Telegraph there is New Hope For Britons Seized By Iran. The Times reports that a breakthrough is imminent.

The hope that the Iranians might feel like letting our people go stems from an interview with Ali Larijani, an Iranian security panjandrum, on Channel 4 News last night. His remarks then indicated that a trial of the hostages would not be necessary. This hope was reinforced today when Larijani said on Iranian radio that he wanted to "solve the problem as soon as possible", remarks subsequently echoed by Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi. Tony Blair accordingly declared that the next 48 hours of negotiations will be "fairly critical" (though not, of course, in the sense of levelling any criticism at Iran).

It would be great news were our sailors and marines to be released. But there are reasons to be cautious.

- The Iranians are still insisting that Britain admits its error and pledges not to "violate Iranian waters" in future. Given that Britain has denied it ever did this, it would be a humiliating climbdown to deliver this commitment (and, as I have noted, we have not climbed at all far up).

- Iran has reneged on earlier undertakings given by its Foreign Ministry to release Faye Turney. In fact, in that instance it was Ali Larijani, Diplomatist of the Week, who took back the Foreign Minister's assurance.

- While the Times quotes a "Foreign Office spokeswoman" as saying that "talks have been going on throughout this situation", the Iranians don't quite see it that way. In the BBC's account, Larijani is quoted saying that "the British government has started some diplomatic talks ... They are only at the beginning."

Finally, as I wrote six days ago (now half way through the current period for which 15 Royal Navy servicemen have been left at the mercy of a hostile power): "If Iran releases its prisoners now it will certainly have achieved its aim of making Britain look like a puny irrelevance in international affairs. It has humiliated our armed forces, thumbed its nose at our diplomats and given our government an opportunity to cover themselves in ignominy which they have most eagerly seized. And what if it should choose to keep them? We have demonstrated that we're not going to do anything serious about it."

That is as true amid all the excitement today as it was then. The return of our people would of course be welcome. But it would not undo the damage to our international standing, nor reduce the boost to Iranian prestige which our degrading display of weakness has brought about. Even if this does turn out to be the endgame in the hostage crisis, the result will still be triumphant checkmate for Iran.

More Obeisance To Iran

According to yesterday's Observer, our Foreign Secretary has cowered even lower and expressed her "regret" for the hostage crisis in Iran. Officials were quick to suggest that this did not amount to the apology which some in Iran, including President Ahmadinejad, have called for, but they must be hoping that he recognises the abasement of our country for what it is and rewards us accordingly.

From Roget's Thesaurus, here are some other words which Margaret Beckett might deploy instead of "sorry" should our political leaders decide that another "ratcheting up" of their rhetoric is called for:

Regretful, remorseful, full of remorse, ashamed, shameful, shamefaced, shamefast, rueful, repining, unhappy about; consciencestricken, consciencesmitten; selfreproachful, selfreproaching, selfaccusing, selfcondemning, selfconvicting, selfpunishing, selfflagellating, selfhumiliating, selfdebasing, selfhating; wistful

"Regret" has already been used, and we should be feeling very ashamed. Much media coverage has been self-reproachful, even self-condemning, and our craven inaction from the beginning of the crisis is certainly humiliating and debasing. Perhaps, from the perspective of her eagerly awaited retirement from public affairs, Beckett might one day feel "wistful" about abandoning British personnel to the mercy of Iran. But, in the meantime, what will our leadership do if we get to the bottom of the list and our servicemen are still held hostage?

In the same article (entitled "Iran Snubs UK Olive Branch"), Tony Blair was said to remain determined to press for the immediate release of the hostages, but also to recognise that "we may be in this for the long haul." By "we", of course, he means the 15 British servicemen who are being held prisoner by a hostile country. By "long haul", he means "for as long as the Iranians want", since Britain remains utterly indulgent of this outrage.

The Ministry of Appeasement (a.k.a. the Foreign Office) was quoted as saying: "This is a small step back, to give people a little space and to see whether we get anything substantive from the Iranians."

Well, we did. Not the "consular access" to our people that we have been "demanding", but unequivocal evidence that the Iranians can access our consuls in the form of a riot outside our embassy in Tehran. And if further proof were needed that our pliant submission is achieving nothing, they put our people on TV again.

There is an air of unreality about the coverage of this crisis - when it manages to secure the UK media's attention. Today, for example, the BBC reported that the Navy personnel have now all admitted trespassing in Iranian waters. Demonstrating scant regard for the meaning of words, BBC correspondent Emily Buchanan described Britain's prostration at the Iranians' feet as a "tough stance". "There's every sign now there's talks going on behind the scenes, perhaps some solution," she said. Maybe she's right, and some more effusive apologising "behind the scenes" will secure the captives' release. Maybe that end will be seen to have justified the crushingly humiliating means. But as our people suffer their 11th day of confinement, we have continued to offer "every support short of help". Why let them go?

Indeed, given their televised admissions of guilt and popular demands for a trial in Iran (not to mention the menacing of our embassy staff), will our supine reaction ultimately turn out to be dangerous, rather than merely pathetic?

Iran Crows As Britain Cowers

The Iranian crisis continues unimpeded by any British action.

Even our diplomacy is failing. After the failure to secure UN condemnation of Iran's actions, the Times reports that the EU has refused to impose sanctions on the country too.

Iran, meanwhile, has made further capital out of her hostages, releasing another letter from Faye Turney and (as reported here in the Telegraph) broadcasting more propaganda footage. The Telegraph piece sheds interesting light on the vacillation of our inept Foreign Secretary: in an interview with the paper, she said the Government had "been prepared all along to discuss how to make progress with the Iranians. But it had been impossible to do so because they had remained silent about what they wanted and were not linking their release to any clear demands ... From the beginning we have been prepared to enter discussion but we have not really been given anything to discuss."

How helpless. How naive! How pathetic.

Contrast this with the truculent chutzpah of the Iranians. As the BBC reports today, Iran's ambassador to Russia has said that our servicemen could face trial for violating international law. "It is possible that the British soldiers who entered into Iranian waters will go on trial for taking this illegal action," Gholamreza Ansari told Russian television channel Vesti-24.

Given the state of popular opinion in Iran, what do we think the outcome of such a show trial might be? As that Times piece says: "In Iran tens of thousands of football fans reportedly chanted “Death to England” while tourists burnt an effigy of Mr Blair dressed as a pirate."

In other words, our lack of will has emboldened our enemies beyond the point of considering the release of their hostages. They are now hinting at the possibility of executing them.

Will this force an apology out of our cowardly, irresolute political leadership? Unfortunately, it looks by this stage as if we're guaranteed not to take any action against Iran. Talk of rescue attempts, sanctions or blockades is just a faded dream now for a country betrayed by weak and empty men.

Accordingly, the last word belongs with the Iranian leadership. Here is Ahmad Khatami, one of Iran's theocrats.

“Today, Britain is a failed, isolated power who acts as a middleman for America. If they continue their bullying they will pay a high price. This Iran is a great Islamic and powerful Iran who is standing against America, who is the master of Britain.”

Ex-Python Terry Jones Mocks Captives, Supports Iran

The Guardian really is doing a good job of agitating for the enemy. See this witty effort from Terry Jones.

I wonder who was paid more by the newspaper for spitting on this country - the former Python this morning, or the former IRA terrorist yesterday?

British Press Shamed By L.A. Times

In contrast to the Guardian's nasty little column this morning, the citizens of Los Angeles are waking up to this excellent editorial.

Unambiguously titled "Get Tough On Iran", it deals with matters such as Iran's flagrant breach of the Geneva Convention which have (ahem) not drawn much media attention over here. Indeed, the piece also laments the deafening failure of the international community to show outrage.

How disgraceful that not only our government, but our media too have sacrificed the task of defending our troops to the Americans. What would Beaverbrook have made of that?

"Guardian" Spits On Britain

Nothing new there perhaps, but this article, by former IRA terrorist Ronan Bennett, marks a new low for Britain's leading enemy within.

I am shocked that even as anti-British a newspaper as the Guardian would choose this moment to commission such a figure to vituperate against our country.

Our inertia in the face of Iran's brilliantly engineered crisis is bad enough. How dare this newspaper add insult to grievous injury!

We Must Have Action. Now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6508039.stm

Iran In The Driving Seat - Britain In Denial

Today began with two of the stupidest editorials written in recent memory. Both were titled with quotations from the "stepped up" rhetoric of our "leaders".

From the Times ("Different Phase") came the following:

"There were indications yesterday that parts of the Iranian Government were beginning to feel awkward about their official posture. Their Foreign Minister was at pains to insist that Faye Turney, in particular, would be released as soon as possible." This was, at best, an absurdly hopeful interpretation of Iran's actions yesterday. Indeed, as is now headline news, Iran's "insistence" that Turney would be released became a flat denial, as the paper reported later.

"Iran’s awareness that its reputation is at stake was illustrated in the television pictures of the captives that it finally allowed to be aired yesterday. When eight British servicemen were taken in a not dissimilar situation in 2004 they were paraded, blindfold, marching through the desert in a knowingly provocative fashion before they were handed over soon after. The images offered this time were more conciliatory in their character." This is a complete misreading of an episode which humiliated Faye Turney - who was clearly in some distress - and forced her to lie about her abduction before the world. It is also based upon a simple misunderstanding - Iran does not care about its reputation, it does what it wants - and is shameful for presenting yesterday's broadcast in even a relatively positive light.

"It has taken a stronger British stance to secure progress so far. That approach must not slacken." This, the very end of the leader, is wilful folly. Britain's stance is only "stronger" in that our pliancy has become somewhat less supine. We have made no progress whatsoever in securing the release of our people. And the only way we could possibly "slacken" our approach is by telling Tehran openly that they can hang on to our them for as long as they want (rather than just sending them that message indirectly).

And the Guardian ("Unacceptable Behaviour") was almost as obtuse:

"The practical measures available to Mr Blair, who vowed yesterday to ratchet up Britain's response, can only be diplomatic ones." Says who? I know the defence budget's been cut (see earlier post) but we do still have some fighting capability don't we?

"There is nothing to suggest that the prime minister or foreign secretary or indeed the boat crews who surrendered without a shot being fired, have shown themselves to be weak or pusillanimous." Again: says who? My last few posts on this subject outline in detail exactly how our "leaders" have weakened our negotiating position. And there is a debate raging at the moment over how the British abductees might have been weakened by their rules of engagement.

"British diplomats have been active and as a result Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the EU are all piling on the diplomatic pressure on Tehran." Undoubtedly. But as Iran quite clearly couldn't care less about such "diplomatic pressure" this is another way of saying that all that activity might well not have taken place for all the good it might do.

Thus refusing to face facts, our media had some bad news to contend with today. Iran announced that Faye Turney would not be released after all, and that the situation as a whole would not be resolved until Britain rolled over and admitted its grievous incursion into Iranian territory. And stopped causing such a fuss. Iran has also yet to stand by its offer of allowing consular access to our servicemen. Meanwhile, members of the Royal Navy are being paraded as hostages by a hostile country. A week after their abduction now, we continue to do nothing.

Some of us - perhaps most of us - still seem to be in denial about this whole sorry affair. Our servicemen, not to mention our international standing, urgently require that we rediscover our backbone.

So Much For Iranian Goodwill?

Just read this:

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Iran will carry on detaining a
female U.K. sailor whom it had previously said it would release,
Agence France-Presse reported, citing the head of Iran's Supreme
National Security Council, Ali Larijani.
Iran changed its mind because of London's ``incorrect
attitude,'' AFP said, citing comments by Larijani on state
television.
The sailor, Faye Turney, 26, is the only woman among 15 U.K.
sailors and Marines seized by Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf
on March 23. Iran said yesterday that Turney would be released
within a day or two.


Anyone still think the Iranians are intimidated by our (non-existent) "ratcheting up" of rhetoric?

Anyone in the British government still awake?

Do we do something about this now?

UK Creaks Slowly Into Action; Bold Drama From Iran

At around mid-afternoon today, the news on the hostage crisis was as follows. Still no contact between British officials and hostages. Possible contact from Turkish officials. Coordinates of capture released. Mention of increased international pressure, UN, NATO. Severance of ties with Iran. Possible release of Faye Turney.

There were two hopeful signs here. Firstly, we did not explicitly rule out the possibility of taking punitive action against Iran (though we did so implicitly by mentioning only that we would renew our efforts to secure international condemnation of its actions. Rather than a "different phase", the Prime Minister billed it this time as "ratcheting up".) Secondly, we actually took action by severing relations with Iran. The statement from the Iranian foreign minister that Turney could be released in a day or two was a tremendous bonus.

Then Iran blew all this out of the water by parading our servicemen on television. The centrepiece of their broadcast was a statement delivered by Faye Turney, modestly dressed in a headscarf, in which she said that she and her fellow captives were being treated well, that they had obviously managed to end up in Iranian waters, etc etc. The male hostages were shown morosely grazing on regional delicacies, including what looked like pitta bread and apricot jam. (At least we have some intelligence on the Iranian Republican Guard now - they haven't changed their hostage menu since Britons were last captured in 2004.)

It is possible that Turney's mooted release is connected with her selection as Interviewee of the Day. It is also possible that having broadcast Britian's humiliation, and Iran's military supremacy, to the entire region (not to say the world), all the hostages will be thought to have served their purpose, and God willing, can come home. But this is all speculation.

What is not in doubt is the trademark languor of the British response. Our estimable Minister of Defence, "Des" Browne, said that it was "completely unacceptable to parade our people in this way."

In news that you might have missed, "Des", it was completely unacceptable that they were abducted in the first place, and in the meantime you and your fellow Cabinet members have done absolutely sod all about it.

If Iran releases its prisoners now it will certainly have achieved its aim of making Britain look like a puny irrelevance in international affairs. It has humiliated our armed forces, thumbed its nose at our diplomats and given our government an opportunity to cover themselves in ignominy which they have most eagerly seized. And what if it should choose to keep them? We have demonstrated that we're not going to do anything serious about it.

Meanwhile, for the British side, we have accomplished the relatively measly gesture of stopping travel between Britain and Iran, and for the first time since the crisis broke, we have not explicitly ruled out the possibility of taking action against the enemy.

Yet again, Iran stayed one giant leap ahead today. Are we really happy to take the consequences of allowing them to get through the journey unscathed?