EU Referendum

The MoD website has named the RAF Regiment gunner, whose death we reported yesterday. He was Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge from C flight, 51 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment (pictured below right).

Defence Secretary Des Browne is quoted as saying:

Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge was held in very high regard by his comrades and officers. His death is a tragic loss which is being felt by all who knew him. My thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and comrades at this most difficult of times.

We have now lost at least 30 soldiers who have been killed while patrolling in Land Rovers, as well as many more who have been badly injured. I have no doubt they would be alive today if they had been travelling in properly protected vehicles.

The MoD website is currently sporting one of its routine PR "puffs" to highlight its glorious activities in defence of this country.

This time it is the turn of the 3,463 chaps and chapesses from Defence Science and Technology (Dstl), with a combined salary bill of £141.7 million (enough to buy 300 Mastiffs). And, as the site tells us, "There's rarely a dull day for defence scientists as the latest annual report shows." We are soooo happy for them.

In gushing prose, the site informs us that the annual report and accounts, "highlights the importance of its scientists work to the UK Armed Forces and to national security. It also details some astonishing areas of Dstl's research."

Be prepared to be astonished. In terms of "supporting front-line activities", we are told that this "remains at the heart of Dstl's work." Would you know that:

Dstl's deployed scientists play a vital role on the front line, solving urgent operational problems and providing commanders with access to key decision-support tools. Dstl scientists have been asked to provide collateral damage advice through their unique computer modelling techniques to give front line troops options on how to reduce debris from explosions.

The Greek demonstration in Athens has been picked up by several MSM outlets (often in surprisingly similar words). About 10,000 people, some dressed in black, some wearing masks, gathered in Athens to protest the government’s rather feeble handling of the catastrophic (for once, the word is apt) fires that swept across parts of the country.

Among the various complaints are the fact that there had not been enough investment in the fire-fighting services over the years though this, presumably, applies to successive governments; that the law allowing and, indeed, encouraging people to burn down parts of forest for property development still stands; that people in danger zones were more or less abandoned to their fate.

It should be noted that so far 74 people have lost their lives in the fires, mostly people unwilling to leave their homes and their animals till it was too late, though some were firefighters. The numbers of injured run into hundreds and those made homeless into thousands. The loss of wildlife and of natural resources is incalculable.

The fires, as the Times reports, are dying down though there is fear of another heat wave reigniting smouldering undergrowth.

In the Peloponnese, the inferno destroyed hundreds of homes in dozens of villages, fragile mountain ecosystems – which will require decades to revive – and an entire rural way of life in some of the peninsula’s worst afflicted areas.

The flames even damaged parts of the 2,800-year-old World Heritage site of Ancient Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games and the place where the Olympic Flame is lit for the summer and winter games.

The current catastrophe is just too big to be ignored. Certainly Brussels will show Europe's material solidarity. But maybe this disaster will be a chance to correct the distorted image of the country. Greece is a poor country on the borders with Asia, with its own traditions and countless problems. Beyond Athens, the Third World begins. It would help desolate Hellas, if we could finally understand that.

People in Greece like to wallow in self pity and victim mentality. Wherever you look there is the denial of responsibility.

This should be the beginning of a serious debate: Greece has to get itself in order ... The Greek know that after catastrophe, tragedy and apocalypse there is catharsis -- purification through misery, fear and shock.

Arguably one of the most corrupt MPs of a pretty corrupt bunch, hero of the hour is now Mr Keith Vaz, former Europe Minister, lauded in The Sun for calling on Brown to hold a referendum on the EU constitutional reform treaty.

Even the BBC has been forced to recognise the incongruity of such a development and The Daily Telegraph, once the strongest critic of the man, is giving him a run this morning, quoting him liberally. "As a former Minister for Europe," he is cited as saying, "I believe the time has come for the Government to hold a referendum and decide once and for all Britain's place is at the heart of Europe".

The Independent puts his statement in a wider focus, telling us that Brown is being urged to call a snap election this autumn, "in an attempt to defuse a row over Europe which threatens to divide Labour." Coming from the left wing press, this is the first real sign that unease in the Labour ranks is not simply a media storm cooked up by the right-wing press.

Says, The Independent, some of Brown's advisers are pressing the Prime Minister to seek his own mandate from the voters in October to head off demands by MPs in all parties for a referendum. One Labour source is cited as saying, "Europe is now a factor in the election decision."

We are told that supporters of an immediate poll argue that it would prevent the run-up to an election next May being overshadowed by a messy and divisive parliamentary battle to secure the passage of a Bill to implement the treaty. Apparently the putative rebellion is reviving memories of the bitter split among Tory MPs over Europe which destabilised John Major's government before the 1997 election.

Perhaps then it is more than a straw in the wind that The Telegraph is reporting that the arch Europhile foreign secretary David Miliband has refused to rule out a referendum.

This came in an interview with the ePolitix.com website, when Miliband reaffirmed the government's view that the revised treaty was not the same as the defunct EU constitution rejected by Dutch and French voters in 2005. Then challenged to say there would definitely not be a referendum, he replied: "I'm repeating exactly what the Prime Minister said, which is that the constitution has been abandoned, that we're in a new situation and that parliamentary scrutiny is the way forward."

But, asked to say that there was no possibility of an eventual referendum, Mr Miliband repeatedly ducked the question. Instead, he suggested Labour was planning a co-ordinated campaign to persuade MPs and the public that the treaty was good for Britain.

Cue now The Daily Mail which offers as its lead editorial a strong piece, entitled, "Heading for another European stitch-up". Clearly borrowing from Booker's piece yesterday (which Open Europe somehow forgot to mention in its press round-up), it launches a sharp attack on Brown, a man who, the paper admits, it has "always felt considerable admiration".

"Amid slithery Blairite cynicism, he was notable for his moral seriousness," says the paper, "So what on earth possesses him to risk that hard-earned reputation by breaking Labour's manifesto pledge and refusing a referendum on whether Britain should hand even more power to Brussels?"

We are all waiting for an answer.

COMMENT THREAD

To give him his due, David Cameron has been consistent in his calls for an EU referendum and, although his own profile on the issue could have been higher, the visibility of the Party has been quite high.

Arguably, therefore, if the referendum was a burning concern with the electorate, one might have thought that it would be reflected in the opinion polls, in increasing support for the Tories.

That, however, is proving not to be. According to a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph, Cameron is facing a landslide defeat with Labour winning a majority of around 100 seats in the House of Commons if Gordon Brown called a snap general election

The survey shows Labour maintaining an eight-point lead over the Tories as Brown enters his third month as Prime Minister, with the poll putting Labour on 41 per cent (unchanged since July) with the Tories on 33 per cent (up one point).

Pundit Anthony King thinks this is "bad news for the Tories", but it isn't brilliant news for the referendum prospects either. Not least, if Cameron cannot see a potential electoral advantage in supporting the referendum, he may abandon any thought of campaigning heavily on the issue.

And, as if to confirm the poor ranking of the EU in the list of concerns, the latest ConservativeHome survey of party opinion had more than three times as many members chose the NHS (10 percent) as the number one decisive issue for voters as chose "Europe" (3 percent). Some 97 percent of members thought the NHS would be an important vote-moving-issue compared to 65 percent who said the same of Europe.

That, of course, may change as the date for IGC looms but, for the moment, the indications are that the electoral pull of the referendum is slight. The upside of this – if there is one – is that a general election is not a fair test of public sentiment on the EU, as it gets drowned out by other issues – even, as one ToryDairy commenter pointed out, the EU affects most UK domestic policy.

Bringing that home to ordinary electors, it would seem, must be something of a priority, if people are to get worked up about the referendum.

COMMENT THREAD

I do not shed tears easily, but all of a sudden it gets too close.

The news today, from the MoD website is of a British Serviceman from 51 Squadron RAF Regiment killed, along with a civilian interpreter in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Two other Servicemen received minor injuries.

As always, the initial announcement is sparse in detail, this one stating that the dead solider was a gunner from 51 Squadron, RAF Regiment. Shortly after midnight local time, says the release, personnel from the Squadron were conducting a routine security patrol around Kandahar Airfield when one of their vehicles was caught in an explosion.

For reasons which will emerge from this piece, however, we happen to know that this was a mine strike. We also know that the crew were riding in a lightly armoured WIMIK Land Rover, just as was Lance Bombadier Ben Parkinson last year, when he sustained his terrible injuries, and Guardsman Neil "Tony" Downes who was killed in June.

What makes this tragedy so desperately poignant, however, is a series of recent events – the details of which are too convoluted to go into here – which culminated in my being sent an as yet unpublished feature story, recently written by free-lance journalist Nigel Green. And, by a ghastly coincidence, it was about the RAF Regiment's 51 Squadron, usually based at Lossiemouth, which has been in Kandahar since April.

Carrying detailed interviews of the men of the Squadron, the men spoke of the difficulties and dangers they encountered on patrol, but also spoke of the good they were doing and how morale was "pretty good". Concluding the piece, one soldier was quoted as saying:

Attacks on the base have tailed off because of the good work we've done. We have four weeks of the tour left and the last thing we want to do is to lose focus now. That's when it can go horribly wrong. The threat is real and we have to stay focussed right up to the end.

…commanders obviously thought the area was safe enough to use such an exposed vehicle on a resupply mission. It seems likely that Taliban fighters were watching the Canadians and saw an easy target - an open vehicle with no armour and soldiers who were more or less defenceless against a hidden roadside bomb.

It was yesterday in The Daily Telegraph that Irwin Stelzer ventured: "Brown can't be bullied into a referendum".

This is "one issue", on which Brown feels no need to walk a line, we are told. He is convinced that the British opt-outs mean that no transfer of sovereignty is involved, and that therefore Labour's referendum pledge is inoperative. Furthermore, Labour MPs who think they can shake him had better have a re-think. Besides, the PM can put this issue to rest by stating in the new manifesto that he intends to have Parliament decide.

And even those voters who know he is wrong will make their decisions based on other issues. So the Prime Minister believes. And since he is a man who keeps his "eyes wide open all the time", he might well be right.

One thing for sure, Brown is unlikely to be impressed by the news that some Liberal Democrats may join the Labour rebels, not least because Menzies Campbell, their leader, is all over the place, and their vote seems to be falling apart in the polls. The words "busted" and "flush" come to mind.

Nevertheless, we are beginning to see some strange bedfellows rallying to the flag (if you can rally to the flag while in bed), with David Blunkett joining the fray. Apparently he has "stoked Labour divisions over Europe" by challenging Gordon Brown to explain why he was denying the British people a referendum on the treaty.

Certainly, Brown needs to do that, as the "constitutional concept has been abandoned" mantra is getting more than a little tedious. Blunkett, therefore, strikes a chord when he says that Brown and his ministers had "a long way to go" before they had provided "a proper answer" to the growing number of Labour MPs, unions and members of the public demanding a referendum.

Whether Brown can cope with his opposition lounging in bed, while rallying to the flag, joining the fray and striking chords, is another matter. If the arguments don't get him, the lethal battery of mixed metaphors will.

Anyhow, if Stelzer is downbeat, in today's Daily Mail, Booker provides an antidote, with a long op-ed declaring, "The EU constitution is one of the biggest political gambles Mr Brown could make".

"Something very odd has been going on in Britain this August," writes Booker. "Ever more people - including, we are told, more than 100 of his own MPs - have been waking up to the realisation that our Prime Minister Gordon Brown is attempting to get away with one of the most shameless and fraudulent gambles in our political history."

His gamble is that, "so long as we remain in ignorance as to what is really at stake, we will not care enough to stop him getting his way." But the fact is that:

…he wants to give away powers which do not belong to him or to Parliament but to all of us. That he is prepared to do so without consulting us - and on the basis of lies and broken promises - should make us all so angry that he cannot get away with it.

No, not the US forces in Baghdad but the world price of wheat, which is also undergoing a surge. According to Reuters, the world markets, already at their highest for more than a decade after bad weather hit crops, show no sign of retreat and are feeding fear of food price inflation.

Since April, there has been price hike of some 75 percent on both sides of the Atlantic after a dry northern hemisphere spring turned into a wet early summer, reducing harvest expectations. To add to the general woes, southern hemisphere crops are suffering from a bout of dryness.

This is happening at a time when world stockpiles are at their lowest for 25 years and the International Grain Council has cut its estimate for 2007/08 world wheat output by seven million tons to 607 million, the EU crop estimate also falling to 114.1 million tons from 118.9 million a month ago. On the other hand, demand is at its highest, driven partly by the growing market for biofuels.

Yet, come the autumn, the Commission is still expecting produce its proposals for a 20 percent renewable energy quota, which is expected to include a commitment to a ten percent EU-wide biofuels quota.

All of a sudden, reality is neck-and-neck with fantasy, so it is going to be fascinating to see which crosses the finishing line first. On past form, the betting should be on fantasy, which means we could be in very serious trouble, faster than we think.

COMMENT THREAD

Anyone unfortunate enough to listen to the intolerably smug Eddie Mair on the PM programme yesterday, when he interviewed the forces minister Bob Ainsworth, may have recognised a common BBC technique.

Ostensibly, the interview was about the unfortunate Ben Parkinson. He had suffered terrible injuries when the WIMIK Land Rover in which he had been riding had been hit by a mine, and had since been awarded what was described as "paltry damages".

But, from the way Mair conducted his line of questioning of the minister, it was easy to discern that he wanted one thing – a personal admission from the minister that he thought the level of compensation awarded was "inadequate" – the game here to capture a damaging sound bite that could then be used on subsequent news bulletins, and perhaps be picked up by the print media.

So obsessed with his little game was Mair that he failed to pick up an outrageous assertion made by Ainsworth. The minister had it that the reason soldiers like Ben Parkinson were surviving was "better armoured vehicles", which allowed them to survive when, previously, they would have been killed.

Yet, as even the Daily Mail story made clear, Parkinson was riding in an "unprotected Land Rover". Ainsworth's point, which has some general validity, was wholly untrue in this incident. Had the soldier been riding in a properly protected vehicle, he would have been uninjured, and would still be serving in the Army.

That we can make such an assertion with such confidence stems from a remarkable report in The Northern Echo which features three soldiers (pictured above) who, "owe their lives to a new £500,000 vehicle". They were all in Mastiff armoured personnel carriers when they hit landmines or were attacked by Taliban fighters with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

One solider, Private Stephen Mac-Lauchlan, from York, survived four RPGs hitting his vehicle. One struck the windscreen and exploded, but failed to penetrate the toughened 6in glass. Another hit armour on the side of the vehicle and exploded harmlessly, while the other two hit the fuel tank, but only left it badly dented. Said Pte MacLauchlan, "If I had been in any other armoured personnel carrier, I would almost certainly be dead now."

Pte Lee Ashton, on the other hand, was on a mission to supply food and water to frontline troops, when his vehicle hit an anti-tank mine. He said: "It blew the front tyre off and the wheel arch, but it kept driving. It just felt like we had hit a huge pothole. I only realised we had hit a mine when I saw the tyre was off. A big cloud of dust came in through the vents into the cab. The man on top-cover then shouted that we had hit a mine. "It was a big anti-tank mine and if I had been in any other vehicle, I would probably be dead."

Then there was Pte Lee Jones, 24, from Penrith, Cumbria. He was also in a Mastiff when it hit an anti-tank mine. He said: "There was big explosion and a lot of dust. It lifted the vehicle between seven and 8ft. It was like a car crash. It blew the front wheels off, but this vehicle is brilliant. It saved my life. It has saved a lot of lives."

Even without these accounts, though, we already had good evidence of the life-saving role of these vehicles. Thus armed, I placed a post on the PM blog. It says everything about the BBC that, with now 47 comments posted on the blog, the comment that went against the narrative and pointed out that Mair had failed to task the minister with an obvious untruth, did not get published. Thou shalt not criticise the BBC.

Therein lies the true dereliction of the BBC. Mair had an opportunity to point out that life-saving technology was available and was not used, but squandered it in his attempt to score a cheap point against the minister. Then his dire organisation covers up for him and hides criticism from the public gaze.

Unfortunately, it is not only the Beeb which so singularly fails to hit the mark. A few days ago, the noble Rees Mogg held forth in The Times on the theme," Blood on a budget: our soldiers betrayed". Amongst his priceless observations was this:

Throughout the Iraq war, our Forces have been short of suitable armoured vehicles. For years, the Basra Palace run had to be performed in vulnerable Snatch vehicles; these have only recently been replaced by the Warrior, which is itself vulnerable to roadside bombs. Unlike American vehicles, the Warrior is not air-conditioned and can get unbearably hot in the sun.

Readers will notice that EU Referendum has been undergoing a makeover, upgrading our image to make it a little more professional.

Inevitably, some difficulties may be experienced in viewing the new layout so I am opening a thread on the forum so that readers can report any problems.

COMMENT THREAD

An interesting little item in the Jerusalem Post this morning (we look far and wide for the instruction and delectation of our readers): Palestinian Authority officials have told the newspaper that EU security officials have been conducting secret talks with Hamas.

There is no further detailed information although “sources close to Hamas” have confirmed this.

"We hope these talks will be the first step toward ending the boycott of Hamas, which came to power in a free and democratic election," the sources told the Post."There is growing awareness among the Europeans of the fact that Hamas can't be ignored as a major player in the Palestinian arena."

The PA officials did not reveal the identity of the visitors, except to say that they belonged to three EU intelligence services.

Peter Riddell in The Times this morning seems to agree with Tory Diary that the worst is over for Cameron. This is not least because of his Party's stance on the EU referendum, where Labour ministers, "have appeared to be reacting, rather than setting the agenda."

That the ground is slipping away is presumably what has brought arch-Europhile, MEP Richard Corbett out of the woodwork, with a piece in the Guardian's "comment is free" slot. But, if there was a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of lies and half truths that can be packed into a piece of text, Corbett would be the world record holder.

For instance, in June, says Corbett, "the 27 EU heads of government agreed a mandate to draw up a reform treaty that will replace the abandoned constitutional treaty." Er, no. In June, the European Council agreed a mandate, instructing the heads of government to draw up a treaty which is now called, misleadingly, a "reform" treaty.

The treaty does not exactly replace the "abandoned constitutional treaty". It effectively duplicates it or, to be more precise, amends the existing treaties to produce a document that is, to all intents and purposes, the constitutional treaty. Thus, the constitutional treaty has not been abandoned. It has simply been arrived at by a different route.

But, says Corbett, "the most controversial elements of the latter have been dropped." Well, the flag, the EU anthem and the motto have been dropped. Controversial? Maybe, but will the EU stop using its flag, anthem and motto? Er, no. As for whether these were the "most controversial aspects of the treaty", that is a matter of opinion – and a minority one at that. Many people think that the whole treaty is controversial. Certainly, even with the tiny parts of the original missing, it is still controversial.

And now for the big lie: "The proposed reform treaty will instead focus on modest adjustments to the existing EU system." But, since the constitutional treaty is almost entirely intact (with some additions, like turning the ECB into a Union institution), how can this justify claiming that the new treaty will now merely "focus on modest adjustments" to the existing EU system?

Yet, observes Corbett – i.e., despite the new treaty merely "focusing on modest adjustments" - "some are still advocating a referendum".

Oddly enough, in June 2005, Corbett complained about an attack by The Times on his beloved constitution: "No attempt at argument, no analysis or discussion … Trashing the EU constitution with a few empty soundbites …".

But, when it comes to trashing those whom he happily refers to as "Europhobes", it seems that it is perfectly acceptable to rely on "a few empty soundbites".

COMMENT THREAD

It is a little hard to understand some of the kerfuffle around the election of Abdullah Gül as Turkey’s new president. One can quite understand the Turks being a little wary and the army casually mentioning that they do have a role in the Turkish constitution as its guardian and promoter. In fact, military commanders were absent from the swearing in of the President.

In the first place I find it hard to understand why there were no candidates apart from Gül. In the circumstances everybody knew that he would not go through on the first two rounds because his party did not have the required majority but would do so on the third round.

According to Al-Jazeera, Gül’s wife, she of the elegant silk headscarf, also stayed away, leaving us all with the question of how exactly they are going to resolve the problem of women not being allowed to wear headscarves in public buildings in Turkey. Will the new President and his wife pretend that it is merely a fashion statement?

Gül is being described variously as “the first former Islamist to win the post in Turkey's modern history” and as a “a devout Muslim with a background in political Islam”. While it is not impossible to be both there do seem to be certain difficulties in the way.

Then again, President Gül’s first statement made it clear that he does not intend to undermine the Turkish constitution or its secular state. Zaman reports that in an essay just before the fully predicted election

Gül also gave two basic goals for Turkey's foreign policy vision: "The first target is to become an integral part of the European Union. Full membership to the EU does not set an alternative to Turkey's powerful transatlantic bonds and its strategic ties with the US. The second target is to create an environment of security, stability, welfare, friendship and cooperation in the areas surrounding the country, located as it is in the natural center of the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe, which all have an important place in Turkey's foreign policy."

In the speech, he also called on the European Union to adopt a more unified and bolder security strategy. He suggested that he might support Germany's bid to be secure a seat on the United Nations Security Council. He also chided Russia for using a "certain brutality" in its political use of energy supplies, and he urged the international community to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms.

According to the National Iraqi News Agency, seven Katyusha rockets have been launched into Basra airport, home to the largest number of British troops in Iraq. Eye witnesses described the Katyusha strike as "severe".

British forces, says the Agency, have so far refused to provide any comments regarding the event.

Of course not! You wouldn't want the terrorists to know that the base had been attacked, would you?

So writes one of our readers who has sent us a remarkable sequence of photographs (see also more here) of a USMC Cougar mine resistant and ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle after it had been hit by a very substantial IED in Iraq. The crew escaped with only minor injuries and no one was killed, even though the blast ripped the engine from its armoured bay and hurled it over 100 yards (see below).

Sadly, we do not need to imagine what would have happened if the soldiers had been riding in a Land Rover. Today, the Daily Mail records the horrific injuries sustained by Lance Bombadier Ben Parkinson. He was riding in a Land Rover - not a "Snatch", but an even more vulnerable "WIMIK" - in Afghanistan when it was blown up by a landmine in September last year near Musa Qaleh in Helmand Province, while serving with the 7th Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery.

In this incident, it appears that no one was killed, although it was only through heroic medical intervention that Lance Bombadier Parkinson's life was saved. Nevertheless, he lost both his legs and sustained grievous damage to his spine, skull, pelvis, hands, spleen and ribcage, leaving him in a coma for months. But, with no death, the incident was not reported by the MoD. All we know from MoD Sources is that, in that month, ten soldiers were seriously injured, of which seven came into the "very serious" category.

That the Land Rovers have proved dangerously fragile is evidenced by a piece we wrote in May of this year when we recorded that the Army has been losing an average of one per week of the lightly armoured WIMIK Land Rovers in Helmand and, in April, the Marines of 42 Commando lost four vehicles in a single day during an advance on Sangin. All were the victims of mine strikes. In that month of May, 38 soldiers were recorded as being wounded in action, of which 14 were "seriously injured".

Then, in June, we recorded the death of Guardsman Neil "Tony" Downes, in Afghanistan. He was riding in a WIMIK Land Rover when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. Four other soldiers were injured in the incident.

Only ten days ago, courtesy of The Yorkshire Post, we were recording how soldiers were fixing makeshift armour plates to the sides of their vehicles in a bid to gain extra protection.

Despite the deployment of a small number of Mastiff protected patrol vehicles (based on the Cougar), troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq are still being killed and horribly injured in military Land Rovers, and even in the poorly protected Pinzgauer Vector.

In Afghanistan, we have twice spotted the US deployment of Cougar vehicles (here and here), demonstrating their utility in theatre but, while other coalition forces continue to equip their forces with protected vehicles, only the British seem to believe that riding around in lightly armoured Land Rovers is a good idea.

It should be noted that the thrust of the Daily Mail story is about the paltry compensation Ben Parkinson has been offered for his ruined life, a mere £152,150, less than a third of the £484,000 doled out to an RAF typist who claimed she had suffered repetitive strain injury to her thumb. Rightly, the paper is bringing this to public attention and it is also right that there have been strong crusades about the treatment of our injured personnel.

I just wish, however, that a little more attention and effort was given to preventing our personnel from getting injured and killed.

Click each pic to enlarge.

COMMENT THREAD

[Health warning: this is not a Toy posting. There will be no mention of Toys in this piece. Some of our readers might, therefore, decide to skip this. But, let me repeat: there will be no Toys.]

Just recently we have noticed that there is excitement abroad (in every sense of the word) about the Euroblogosphere. It is being discussed and analyzed in a way it has not been before.

Euractiv has produced a list of blogs that might be considered to be relevant with, as you would expect it, heavy emphasis on the more official “clogs” (corporate blogs) – Commissars, members of the Toy Parliament and journalists – but there are some blogs, including this one, that are outside the Pale.

It may be that the opinion, frequently voiced by us, that it will be the issue of further European integration and the future of the European Union (short, we hope) that will make the blogosphere on this side of the Pond as important politically as it has been for some time in the United States is now shared by the Euro-establishment.

Scholars at the University of Hamburg are labouring on a more profound sociological and philosophical analysis of the blogosphere and its possible developments and outcomes. Their, possibly interim, conclusion is interesting in the way it tries to come to terms with a basically unknown and uncontrollable force:

In conclusion, it is not in the hands of the EU to organize the Euroblogosphere but it is in its hands to provide a basis for this partial public sphere to grow, fostering collective incentives, which are fundamental for the development of collective action and community. Doing this is one of the necessary steps that the EU has to take if it wants to act according to its motto of “closing the gap” between citizens and European institutions.

In a rapidly changing environment where high mobility is a key element of success and where the post war cooperation initiatives in Europe have generated dynamics of peace and mutual understanding, we anticipate a trully united European continent without borders and without barriers of any kind.

We pledge to work hard on raising awareness on the benefits of a borderless Europe and broadcasting the will of the people of Europe towards the higher levels of administration.

Quick off the mark, the Telegraph has on its website the contemptuous arrogance of David Miliband, our Europhile foreign secretary, under the headline, "Government defies rebels on EU referendum".

He is holding the line that there will be "no referendum", even despite "revelations in the Daily Telegraph that 120 Labour MPs now want a public vote."

The rebuff – entirely predictable, of course – came on this morning’s Today programme, with Miliband still lamely claiming that the new treaty was different in "absolute essence" from the defunct EU constitution. On that basis, the government was not obliged to follow through on its manifesto pledge to hold a referendum.

"We have not got a European constitution," said Miliband. "Twenty-seven European heads of government all signed a document in June, after nearly two years of negotiation, saying the constitutional concept has been abandoned."

He added: "I think that as Parliament gets to grips with the reform treaty that comes out, as they look line by line, they will see first that it is good for Britain, second that it is very different from the constitution in absolute essence, and third that the red lines, the key national interests in foreign policy and other areas of the UK have been protected."

In the print edition, the Telegraph follows through with a strong leader, noting that "Gordon Brown's fabled strengths as a political strategist are about to be tested to breaking point," following the revelation "that as many as 120 backbench Labour MPs (apparently with the tacit support of some ministers) support the call for a referendum on the EU reform treaty". It presents the prime minister, says the paper, "with a serious challenge to his authority. A rebellion on that scale would mean that he could not carry the House of Commons."

We do hope the paper is right but, even if it is flying a kite, if it keeps "banging on", the wish could become the reality.


And, "banging on" is precisely what David Cameron is doing in The Sun, with an authored piece headed: "Labour promised vote on EU". "What makes you think you can break your promises to the British people?" he asks, adding, "And what makes you think you can change the way our country is governed without asking the British people first?" The simple answer to both questions says Cameron is, "Arrogance".

Got it in one. It's the arrogance that says: "We, the powerful elites, know best... It's the arrogance that puts more and more decisions in the hands of bureaucrats that no one's ever heard of and no one can ever get rid of if they do a bad job. And it’s the arrogance that Gordon Brown displays when he says we don't need a referendum on the European constitution."

If the Boy keeps on in this vein, there is a serious danger that his Party might get elected to government. Brown cannot afford to ignore this style of attack.

The Daily Mail also pitches in, with a story following in the wake of The Telegraph, headed, "Brown under pressure as more than 100 Labour MPs back EU referendum", and also follows through with a leader bearing the simple message: Let Britain decide.

Compared with the fatuous intervention from The Financial Times and the silence of the left-wing media, on this day it is fair to say that the pro-referendum campaign has it.

COMMENT THREAD

In a way, the balance of coverage on this blog reflects the real world. By preference, we would rather spend our time and (limited) energies on the issues that really matter – such as the war on terror, to which this writer devoted most of his time yesterday, and the diverse subjects on which my co-editor so eloquently writes.

But, as in the real world, other matters intrude, not least the stultifying, looming presence of the European Union and the poxy European integrationalists who, like fractious, spoilt children, demand our attention when all we really want is for them to go away - permanently.

So it is that we are dragged back, reluctantly to the spoilt brats, this time in the form of a leader from The Financial Times which, showing its true Europhile colours, is telling us that, "EU referendum calls are misguided".

It starts in true typical style, with the sweeping declaration that, "Most generals avoid fighting the last war," then grandly declaring that, "The motley band calling for a referendum in Britain on the European Union's constitutional treaty has failed to learn this." Twisting the knife, it then pronounces that, "Its campaign is misguided," magnanimously conceding that, "it deserves better than the government's fumbling response to date."

How wonderfully lofty is that grand statement, "motley band", the writer in two words describing the bulk of the British print media, the Conservative Party, UKIP and its million-plus voters, and the dozens of other organisations and hundreds of thousands of non-aligned individuals, all of whom have but one thing in common, the desire to avoid still further European integration.

A less civilised individual than this writer might want to rip the throat out of the purveyor of such a lofty phrase, and then feed it back in small chunks, through his backside. But such thoughts will never find a home in this refined and considered blog. Instead, wearily, we trudge through the leaden arguments, instinctively feeling our own readership melt away as they dive for cover at the prospect of yet more dissection of leaden Euro-guff.

As they so often do, the FT writer starts off with a straw man, with which to beat down his "misguided" opponents. According to them, we are informed, "the new treaty marks another giant stride towards a European superstate." And, of course, "This is fantasy."

Actually, "superstate" is a misleading word and, although many Eurosceptics use it, it is not given much currency here. In fact, we wish Eurosceptics would avoid it, if for no other reason than its use gives pompous Europhiles the opportunity of denial.

Venturing into that territory, though, we are advised that, "There is no provision for grand projects such as the single market, monetary union or a common foreign and security policy as set out in the Single European Act or the Maastricht treaty – neither of which attracted a referendum."

It was all a terrible mistake "in the drafting process" to promote the new treaty as a constitution per se. "The result was disastrous, seemingly accelerating the integration process at a time when the public was begging for the brake. In a moment of weakness, Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, conceded a referendum, forcing others to follow suit."

However, all is now well:

After two resounding Nos in France and the Netherlands, EU leaders have removed the trappings of a constitution. There is no more EU anthem. Brussels has a high representative for foreign affairs and security policy – not a foreign minister. Instead of spelling out that EU law has primacy over national law, the treaty merely refers to "well settled case law". Britain has won a protocol insisting that it cannot be used to challenge UK laws: this adds to UK opt-outs, including on monetary union.

Something I've been watching since yesterday, in the hope of clarification, is the situation in the Provincial Joint Co-ordination Centre (PJCC) in Basra, which British Forces evacuated on Saturday evening.

Not exactly a base, this is a centre manned by Iraqi police, at which the Army has maintained a contingent of 50-60 troops. Neither has the presence been entirely without trauma. It was here in June that Major Paul Harding was killed as a result of an "indirect fire attack".

Anyhow, according to the MoD, the forces have been "moved" from the PJCC "in the framework of the plan for the handover of the Basra Palace to Iraqi control." And, according to The Independent the "retreat" descended into chaos when, as soon as the British left, Shia militia occupied the centre.

This paper's report, apparently based on AP copy – also retailed by IHT - has it that the remaining Iraqi police left when the Shia fighters arrived and began emptying the facility. "According to witnesses," we are told, "they made off with generators, computers, furniture and even cars, saying it was war booty - and were still in the centre yesterday evening."

With the centre previously having come under attack by the militias, the withdrawal is being seen as yet another victory for Moqtada al-Sadr, who has been claiming credit for driving British out of Basra. Certainly, The Independent is quick to claim that the militia occupation, "further undermines Britain's hopes of a smooth transfer and gives the impression of a rout."

However, while The Scotsman is also reporting a militia take-over, the MoD is denying this claim. And, in this, it seems to be supported by Reuters which is stating that Iraqi police thwarted the attempt at a take-over.

The agency cites Basra police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Abdul-Kareem al-Zaidi, who says that militiamen had tried to invade the centre, "possibly to ransack it" but that the situation was resolved peacefully after a delegation from the militia held talks with officials.

We also get a spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr saying that a group of Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to Sadr had gathered in front of the PJCC and chanted victory slogans before withdrawing peacefully.

Now, from a the BBC website we read of "confused reports" about who now controls the police headquarters. British spokesman Major Michael Shearer claims that officers from the Multi-National Force spoke to the local Iraqi Army commander who "assured us that the PJCC is under his control and being efficiently run by the Iraqi Army." He is also said to have stated that, "all the equipment remains within the PJCC".

An MoD spokesman also says there was a green Shia flag flying on the building, but not the black flag associated with the Mahdi Army.

So, as to what precisely is going on, we do not really know. But what comes over is that neither does the British Army, which is reliant on reports from third parties which may or may not be true. Whatever else, that does seem to indicate that there is yet another residual area of Basra over which it has lost control.

Meanwhile, with the retreat withdrawal from Basra Palace imminent, the Christian Science Monitor is claiming that British commanders have struck a deal with leaders of Moqtada al-Sadr's 17,000-strong Mahdi Army to ensure their safe departure. It appears that this included the release of more than two dozen Mahdi Army prisoners.

One of those released is Sajad Abu Aya, the head of the Mahdi Army in Basra province, who, when he was captured in July last year in a major raid, "was strongly suspected of involvement in planning and directing terrorist attacks on civilians in Basra, executions, and attacks on coalition forces." His arrest last year was hailed as a coup by British forces during their offensive against militias in the city as part of Operation Sinbad.

As Sajad revels in his freedom and the British prepare to depart to their last redoubt at Basra Air Station, it is increasingly difficult to accept this final stage of our occupation of Basra as anything other than a continuation of the retreat started in al Amarah last year.

COMMENT THREAD

When, like this blog, we are so often far out on a limb, discussing ideas that no one else seems to be looking at – with critics lining up to pick holes in the arguments or tell us we've simply got it wrong (as they did when we advocated better armoured vehicles for our troops in Iraq), the sheer weight of contrary opinion, combined with the isolation, does make you seriously question your own arguments (and even your own sanity).

Readers' comments on the forum and the steady flow of supportive e-mails, therefore, do give us an important boost and help us keep going. And, in this case, several have sent me a link from the excellent military site, Strategy Page, headed: "Blackwater Buys Brazilian Bombers". It is fairly short, so I reproduce it here in full:

Security company Blackwater USA. is buying several Super Tucano light combat aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. These five ton, single engine, single seat aircraft are built for pilot training, but also perform quite well for counter-insurgency work.

The Super Tucano is basically a prop driven trainer that is equipped for combat missions. The aircraft can carry up to 1.5 tons of weapons, including 12.7mm machine-guns, bombs and missiles. The aircraft cruises at about 300 knots and can stay in the air for about 6.5 hours per sortie. One of the options is a FLIR (infrared radar that produces a photo realistic video image in any weather) and a fire control system for bombing.

Colombia is using the Super Tucanos for counter-insurgency work (there are over 20,000 armed rebels and drug gang gunmen in the country). The aircraft is also used for border patrol. The U.S. Air Force is watching that quite closely. The Super Tucano costs $9 million each, and come in one or two seat versions. The bubble canopy provides excellent visibility. This, coupled with its slow speed (versus jets), makes it an excellent ground attack aircraft.

Blackwater already has a force of armed helicopters in Iraq, and apparently wants something a little faster, and more heavily armed, to fulfil its security contracts overseas.

One cannot help but feel that there is an agenda running in certain sections of the media, viz the "shock-horror-probe" front page story in The Telegraph today, under the headline, "British Armed Forces staff shortage crisis".

The report tells us that, "The Armed Forces are missing thousands of specialised soldiers, sailors and airmen crucial to continuing the fight against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan," a message which is reinforced in the leader , which broadens the attack, informing us that, "shortages of equipment and personnel are becoming endemic across the Services".

Is it then a co-incidence, one wonders, that Rees-Mogg in The Times devotes his column to exactly the same theme, his column headed, "Blood on a budget: our soldiers betrayed", asking, "Where is the surge in funding?"

Ostensibly, the papers are pushing a Tory agenda and, sure enough, Liam Fox is quoted in The Telegraph piece, accusing the government of increasingly using the Forces without expanding resources. "For all Gordon Brown's warm words on the military, the small print is clear: Labour's failure to cut waste and get resources to the front line is putting lives at risk," he is cited as saying.

However, there is something of a disconnect here in that David Cameron’s Conservatives have made no commitment to increase defence spending. Furthermore, there is nothing in what any of the Tory defence team have previously uttered that in any way indicates that they are focused on "waste" in the Armed Forces. Neither have they expressed with clarity, their ideas of what resources are needed in our operational theatres, other than ritual demands for better medical services and "more helicopters".

Nor, in fact, can it really be said that the picture conveyed in the newspapers - of Services starved of resources – is entirely accurate. Just a quick glance at the MoD web site reveals a torrent spending commitments and new equipment projects, in just the last 30 days.

For instance, we have the £30 million refit for HMS Ocean, the Royal Navy's assault carrier, the first deliveries of the £1.3 billion new truck programme for the Army, the sea trials of the new £1 billion Destroyer, HMS Daring, the delivery of the first multi-role Eurofighters, the arrival of the first of six Merlin battlefield helicopters, the purchase of a new Boeing C-17 Globemaster, the next phase in the FRES project and, of course, the announcement on the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers.

What strikes of this list, however, is how little of this torrent of expenditure is actually directed at current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and thus, if there is any serious criticism to be made, it must surely be that. But neither the newspapers nor the Conservative Party are making that point. In fact, all these schemes have been largely applauded and, if there is any criticism from the Tories, it is that there has not been enough spending on these schemes.

In fact, one high-profile cri de coeur of the Tories has been the limited number of the obscenely expensive and supremely inadequate Type 45 Destroyers ordered, of which HMS Daring is the first (pictured).

Another example of this "disconnect" came in the Tory response to last week's "friendly fire" incident, with shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth complaining of the lack of a £400 million "battlefield identification system". Notwithstanding that the lack of such a system was irrelevant to the incident (and would not have prevented it) he would have us spend that money.

But he neglected to point out an embarrassing little fact, to which the Telegraph drew attention:

In April 2003, after British Servicemen were killed in friendly fire episodes, Edward Leigh, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said billions of pounds which should have been spent on battlefield recognition technology had instead been diverted to developing weapons such as the Storm Shadow missile.

As reported by the Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency (there’s glory for you, as Humpty Dumpty said), the Commissar for Justice, Freedom and Security and also Vice President of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, has given an interview [link in German] to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he called for the banning of the neo-Nazi NPD.

Presumably, this particular bit of politicking has taken place as a result of the race attacks in Eastern Germany. The locality raises interesting problems – why is it that there have been far more problems with neo-Nazis and other unpleasantly violent and racist groups in the former GDR than in the former FRG?

Commissar Frattini declines to deal with the issue or with one or two other problems with organizations that call for violence and murder but points to the fact that while Germany has the biggest problems with right-wing groups, other west European countries suffer from them as well, notably Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark and Italy.

Another problem Commissar Frattini might like to ponder over is why this should be happening. Was the EEC/EC/EU not the organization that was going to do away with all political nastiness, particularly racism and xenophobia? Is there not an organization set up by a Regulation specifically to deal with the subject? Are there no directives about it? So why is the problem getting worse, if, indeed, it is getting worse?

Of course, another question one would like to know the answer to (that’s all we do, ask questions) is why the Islamic Republic of Iran be all that bothered by what the NPD says, as long as it continues the old Nazi line that Jews must be exterminated? After all, that is something the government of the Islamic Republic happily endorses. It is possible that the NPD has moved on from that point of view and the INRA might consider it to be a revisionist party.

Thanks to one of our readers we know of at least one reaction to the interview in the blogosphere. The Danish-Swedish blog Snaphanen, which looks quite interesting but I can understand very little of it, picked up on the story under the title “Hvem præcis har Franco Frattini i tankerne?”. (I think I can understand that.)

In it Steen wrote, as translated by our reader:

In Denmark the anti-EU, anti-immigration party Framskridspartiet has some 12 - 14% of the vote and is part of the parliamentary support of the government. However, there are only miniscule groups of BNP-like racist parties in Denmark. Just as in Flanders the Vlaams Belang cannot be considered a racist party, although their enemies still call them that.The question that we really need to ask ourselves is how long before anti-EU parties are outlawed?

To get another illustration of how wonderfully reliable the MSM really is, you can feast your eyes upon this.

Firstly, we have The People yesterday. It boasts an exclusive, with the headline, "Brown poised to call a snap election", with a prediction that Labour will beat the Tories by 160 seats and that the "landslide" would be the end for Cameron.

These, we are told, are "computer predictions" of the result if Brown goes to the polls on 25 October, prepared by forecasters Electoral Calculus run by Martin Baxter "who was only one seat out when Tony Blair won his massive 1997 victory".

Now cut to today's Guardian which has it that, "Gordon Brown would risk the possible loss of his parliamentary majority if he gambled and held an early general election this autumn."

This is an analysis based on a Guardian/ICM poll, which shows Labour's lead narrowing slightly to five points amid signs of rising Conservative support. Support for the Labour stands at 39 percent, up one point on last month's survey, but Conservative support has increased by two points to 34 percent.

Nevertheless, this blog stands by the view that talk of an early election is merely political fluff. Our money is on Brown going full term to 2010. Dropping hints of an October contest is a wonderful way of keeping the Tories on the back foot and the political hacks occupied.

It is unlikely, therefore – in our view – that we can rely on an election to force the EU referendum issue.

COMMENT THREAD

It seems that the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union has never heard of that expression or of the fascinating history of the Lone Star State. I cannot explain otherwise why it took into its head to start instructing Texans in how to run their affairs.

The bone of contention was the 400th execution since 1982 that was due to take place in Texas on the 23rd.

The Presidency sent the following message to the Governor of Texas:

The European Union strongly urges Governor Rick Perry to exercise all powers vested in his office to halt all upcoming executions and to consider the introduction of a moratorium in the state of Texas.

There is no evidence to suggest that the use of the death penalty serves as a deterrent against violent crime and the irreversibility of the punishment means that miscarriages of justice, which are inevitable in all legal systems, cannot be redressed.

Think of the supercilious “European” and, I am sorry to say, British reaction to the Terri Schiavo case, as convoluted a problem as anyone could imagine. I have no desire to go into the rights and wrongs of it and hereby warn our readers that I shall ignore all comments on the case itself.

However, I was rather shocked to see respectable commentators in the media sneer at those Americans who maintained that Ms Schiavo’s feeding tubes should not be removed and she should not be allowed to die of hunger and thirst.

Instead of arguing the various medical and philosophical pros and cons, newspapers such as the Financial Times, a great upholder of “European values”, proclaimed that only in the United States, land of the bug-eyed religious fanatics, could people maintain that human life is sacred whether its owner is severely disabled or not.

So, um, let me get this straight: European values mean opposition to capital punishment even if the person in question is a mass murderer or has tortured and murdered children but they also mean a clear understanding that severely disabled people can be put to death on the medical profession’s say-so?

230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.

Something which seems to have been doing the rounds in the Portuguese press – but so far has not hit the international arena – is a story of how EU commission president José Manuel Barroso is being pressured to respond publicly to allegations that Portugal’s social democratic party received illegal electoral payments in 2002 when he was head of the party.

According to Portuguese press reports, Lisbon's constitutional tribunal has examined documents that suggest that more than €233,000 was funnelled to the PSD through the construction company, Somague, in breach of the country's electoral rules.

This is the same Mr Barroso who has remarkably close connections with billionaire Spiros Latsis. And it is entirely a coincidence that both Somague and some of Mr Latsis's many companies are doing lucrative business in Bulgaria, funded from generous EU grants.

Anyhow, although the current little embarrassment is very much a Portuguese affair, Belgian MEP Bart Staes is trying to highlight the EU angle. He cites Article 213 of the Treaty of the European Communities – as one does - which obliges commissioners to act with "integrity" and to remain independent. "Would Barroso have been nominated as commission president if these allegations were known in 2004?" Staes asks. "Would the European parliament have accepted his candidature?"

Unsurprisingly, the EU commission is refusing to comment on the allegations, arguing that the issue is a Portuguese and not an EU matter. But Staes, who is nothing if not tenacious, wants Barroso to explain himself to the EU parliament. "If it's proven that money was given to the PSD and Barroso was aware of it then it's not purely a Portuguese question," says Staes.

Staes has also tabled a written question to the commission asking whether any EU contracts have been awarded to Somague, and has called for the EU's anti-fraud office (OLAF) to become involved. He might as well not bother with OLAF, even if the ritual reference must be made.

If I were Staes, I would stay with the Bulgarian connection, and look for more links between Barroso and Sacyr Vallehermoso, the Spanish owner of the Somague Group. And, if he lifts enough stones, I am sure he will find the Latsis ERG Eurobank leering back at him.

COMMENT THREAD

Trawling through the Sunday newspapers, as one does, I was particularly struck by the title of Portaloo's (as he is known in Private Eye) piece in The Sunday Times

Headed, "Guns, Europe... the more vital the topic the sillier Brown gets" it seemed at least worth a look, to see what the great sage had to say on the subject which is ostensibly our raison d’être.

Whatever interest one might have had in his words, however, came screeching to a halt on confronting this paragraph:

Our European leaders have connived to produce a document so long and opaque that voters cannot understand it. An English translation has been delayed until the autumn, presumably hoping that, too, will frustrate debate in Britain. The leaders' behaviour is cynical and even tyrannical.

Fires have devastated Greece this summer. Actually, forest fires seem to happen in that country most summers but this one has been particularly bad.

We know that the southern part of Europe has had very high temperatures that spread briefly to Central Europe as well, while we in the northern part have suffered from a cold and wet summer. (Though in London the Bank Holiday week-end seems to be set to be warm.)

There have been complaints of inefficiency in the fire service and government decisions not to use helicopters for the fire-fighting as they were afraid that water from above might cause yet more power cuts. Greece seems to have had quite a few of these in the last few months.

One rather wonders what all the money the EU is supposed to be spending on that country's infrastructure goes on. It can't all be paid out to tobacco farmers, surely.

Now we have news that people are being arrested for causing the fires deliberately. Rather a random group has been picked up so far and it will be interesting to see whether all of it or, even, any of it was deliberate arson or simply thoughtlessness.

Meanwhile, Greece has declared a state of national emergency. And, as we have reported before, there is an election due in that country. Will that be postponed, one wonders.

COMMENT THREAD

The Sunday Times leader is calling for a referendum. "So much for Gordon Brown’s promise to devolve power to the citizen," it writes:

When it comes to European Union stitch-ups, it seems, Mr Brown remains the control freak of old. His assertion that a parliamentary vote on the proposed new EU constitution – and it is a constitution, Mr Brown – is all that is necessary, and that a referendum is unnecessary, is classic elite politics. We won't ask the people because they'll tell us what we don't want to hear.

An American colleague of mine wrote to me today to remind me of the incident in December 2001 where a newly arrived air force controller in Afghanistan mistakenly signalled a high-flying B-52 bomber to drop a two-thousand-pound bomb on his own GPS coordinates. Three US special forces soldiers were killed, plus at least twenty-five Afghan fighters, with another 50 wounded.

One report which mentions this incident wryly observes: "No amount of sophisticated computer gear could prevent a stupid mistake on the part of its operators." In another report, weapons expert John Pike noted that, "if you put the wrong street address into your GPS car system, it will go straight to the wrong house," He added: "Likewise, if troops program a bomb incorrectly, you can very precisely hit the wrong target."

It is, of course, GPS-guided bombs which are used for close air support in Afghanistan, their laser-guided counterparts being less useful in the dust and smoke of an infantry battle, where it can often be impossible to get a laser lock.

Thus, the 2001 incident does raise the devastating possibility that the soldiers who were tragically killed in the recent "friendly fire" incident – or their forward air controller who relayed the GPS co-ordinates to the attacking aircraft – were authors of their own fate.

This possibility also puts a different perspective on the front page coverage of The Daily Telegraph today, as it chooses to use the deaths of the British soldiers as an opportunity to attack the MoD. The criticism starts early, under the headline, "Outcry as 'friendly fire' kills three UK soldiers," with the paper telling us that:

The Ministry of Defence has faced heavy criticism for failing to provide troops with technology that could help prevent "friendly fire" incidents after three soldiers died when an American jet dropped a bomb on them.

Approaching the target, probably at low level, means the pilot has a high workload, not only in terms of aircraft management but also in relating to the ground situation. Under severe physical pressure the pilot must ensure he survives to the target area, acquires the target with his weapon control system and then engages it accurately.

As my colleague immerses himself into the main story of the day (in Britain, anyhow) of the British troops killed by friendly fire, I thought some of our readers might like to have a look at the fact that wind power is becoming something of a problem in different parts of the world.

First a story from the United States about the Long Island Power Authority cancelling plans "to construct a 140 megawatt wind project 3 miles off the south shore of Long Island. The project's estimated costs had ballooned to more than $800 million including transmission lines."

Here are the figures and discussion of them. As Christopher Alleva says

This is a real blow to the Energy Bill passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The bill requires 15% of energy generation from "renewables." Renewables under the bill exclude nuclear and hydro. The bill is slated for conference committee in the fall. President Bush has said he will veto the bill because it is completely unserious about resolving the current energy situation.

After the industry's recent boom years, wind power providers and experts are now concerned. The facilities may not be as reliable and durable as producers claim. Indeed, with thousands of mishaps, breakdowns and accidents having been reported in recent years, the difficulties seem to be mounting. Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up. In some cases, fractures form along the rotors, or even in the foundation, after only limited operation. Short circuits or overheated propellers have been known to cause fires. All this despite manufacturers' promises that the turbines would last at least 20 years.

It was a ghastly little BBC hackette speaking from Washington who smugly intoned last night that the dreadful "friendly fire" incident, which we reported yesterday, was "a public relations disaster for the US".

That is, of course, how the BBC would like the incident to be viewed, but much of today's crop of newspapers seems to think otherwise.

Perhaps the most encouraging response is a passage in The Daily Mail, retailing the views of "one Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm officer who has been closely involved in similar missions in Afghanistan". He says:

This certainly doesn't sound like a case of blundering pilots attacking for no good reason. Close Air Support in Afghanistan has been immensely difficult at times. It's dreadful that this has happened but don't forget a lot of Coalition lives have been saved through similar missions. The Taliban have learned that if they can get close enough to our troops it makes it very hard for pilots overhead to target them.

I've known of cases where our forward air controllers on the ground have told pilots to drop almost on top of their own position, and then had to hunker down and pray that the blast kills the enemy and not them.

Military insiders believe that record is almost miraculous, considering how many times British and U.S. jets have dropped bombs dangerously near to friendly ground troops who are in danger of being over-run by the enemy.

Considering how much we stuffed New Zealand farmers when we joined the Common Market way back in 1972, yesterday's gesture was pretty generous.

The news is that New Zealand lamb producers have taken the extraordinary step of suspending UK marketing activities out of sympathy for British farmers. The Kiwis – traditionally fierce rivals – will not undertake any promotional activity until next February to allow the UK lamb sector to recover from the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

One wonders whether, had the French been in a similar position, they would have been so generous to British farmers.

Stand by for an orgy of recriminations and barely-disguised anti-Americanism as the news sinks in that, yet again, British troops have been killed by US air power in a friendly fire incident.

At this point, details are sketchy, but we do know that three soldiers from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment were killed, and two seriously injured – one very seriously – after being hit by a bomb delivered by a US Air Force F-15 (pictured above) acting in close support.

All of the soldiers, we are told by the MoD, were taking part in a fighting patrol to disrupt Taliban activity and reassure the local population north west of Kajaki, Helmand Province, when the incident occurred at approximately 6.30pm local time.

Their patrol was attacked by Taliban insurgents and during the intense engagement that ensued, close air support was called in from two US F15 aircraft to repel the enemy. One bomb was dropped and it is believed the explosion killed the three soldiers.

To the predictable claim that, once again, British soldiers are being slaughtered by "gung-ho" or "trigger happy" Americans, the response is straightforward.

Firstly, although there is an RAF presence in Afghanistan, by far the overwhelming preponderance of firepower is provided by the USAF and US Navy. Therefore, on the basis that they supply most of the support, statistically, it is more likely that their aircraft will be most frequently involved in "friendly fire" incidents.

Secondly, whichever way you look at it, close air support, as it is called, (often abbreviated to CAS) is inherently dangerous.

As in this case, you are asking aircraft to intervene at short notice in a free-flowing firefight, where troop positions are not always clearly defined and where the ground situation can be highly fluid. Under such circumstances, tragic mistakes are inevitable and the rationale is that, on balance, air power saves far more friendly lives than it destroys.

That said, there are underlying issues here, which you can be assured the media will not address. One of those, gleaned from the many battle reports to come out of the theatre and from discussions with people who have actually been out there, is that we are overly reliant on air power.

In part, perversely, this reflects a strategy to avoid casualties. Often, in set-piece attacks, there is a choice between a classic infantry assault or standing back and calling in air power to neutralise a target before the troops move in. Since coalition forces – rightly – are casualty averse, the air power is usually the preferred option, when it is available.

But another reason why air power is so often used is that UK forces lack suitable armour to carry out their duties. And we are not referring here to protected vehicles, but to basic military tools such as Warrior MICVs and main battle tanks.

While the Canadians have both their LAVs (albeit that these have certain vulnerabilities) and Leopard tanks, British forces are reliant mainly on light Viking APCs, Mastiffs and a few Scorpion light tanks. These are not up to the job, which means that air power is called in to make up for the deficiencies in ground force equipment.

However, not only is air power being over-used – the wrong sort of aircraft are being employed. Cue now all sorts of interjections, on how sophisticated targeting equipment has become, and how precise ordnance delivery is. I am unimpressed.

I have actually flown jets at low level, albeit trainers. Everything moves too fast, the workload is too high and everything happens too quickly for mistakes to be eliminated. You have your work cut out just flying the aircraft and keeping yourself alive. It takes almost superhuman skill to fight the machine as well.

Here, we have the fast jet syndrome. The F-15 was originally designed as an air superiority fighter and is in its second career as a ground support aircraft. For CAS, it is too damn fast to do the job safely. The reason it is used, of course, is the same reason we are using Harriers and will, probably, use Eurofighters – because we have them. In this, the US and British militaries are as bad as each other.

We have, of course, rehearsed this issue before, arguing for the introduction in theatre of low speed turboprop aircraft such as the Super Tucano, which can deliver smaller munitions, more precisely, avoiding the collateral damage and civilian casualties that have become a distressing feature of this campaign. Even this should not be discounted.

Neither is it just a matter of speed. The Tucano-type aircraft have modern targeting equipment but they also have two crew, who can share the workload that can defeat a fast jet pilot. As importantly, the aircaft have a long endurance – up to six hours on station – so that they can orbit above an area of operation, allowing the pilots to become fully integrated into the battle plot, acquiring situational awareness far superior to that of a "visiting fireman" in a fast jet.

That the aircraft are constantly overhead will almost certainly act as a deterrent to attack – especially as the pilots can provide extra, highly capable eyes, and warn of potential ambushes. But there is another factor. Because the aircraft can remain on station for long periods, often – despite their slower speed – they can intervene faster, whereas it can take twenty minutes or longer to wait for fast jets to arrive. Delivered earlier, the lighter ordnance of the turbo-jet can prevail before the tactical situation deteriorates.

There are, of course, alternatives. One such is organic helicopter support – light gunships such as the Kiowa or even the MD500 series, attached to every patrol. However, the British Army has never been able to get its brain round this idea, despite the obvious and proven tactical advantages.

Another alternative is the AC-130 gunship. Based on the Hercules transport aircraft, it too can remain on station for extended periods and can deliver a variety of ordnance with incredible precision and devastating effect, using its highly sophisticated targeting equipment.

These aircraft, however, are expensive - almost as costly as a Eurofighter – but between the flashy fast-jets and a lumbering AC-130, I know which I would prefer to have on station.

Unfortunately, that is not the way air forces think. CAS is always (and always has been) a poor relation, with the fly-boys obsessed with their shiny toys in which they can do their "steely eyed killer" routines as they roar around the skies.

Once again, therefore, we are in familiar territory – the never-ending friction between obtaining the "toys" which keep the chaps happy and acquiring the equipment that we need to fight the wars in which we are actually engaged.

Unfortunately, all too often, the "boys and their toys" mentality prevails. For all their skill and outward gravitas, show your average military man a shiny new toy and his brains will dribble out of his backside as he goos and gurgles in delight at the prospect of playing with it.

Meanwhile, men die.

COMMENT THREAD

It is the United Nations I am talking about here, though I admit it would be a lot funnier if it weren’t so dangerous and expensive.

Ynetnews reports that Iran, whose President has repeatedly and forcefully called for the annihilation of Israel, proclaimed that the Holocaust was probably a joke invented by the international Zionist conspiracy and hosted an anti-holocaust cartoon festival (mind you, the Israelis produced quite funny ones of their own), has been selected to take part in the committee that will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism.

Remembering the 2001 Conference in Durban, with its screams of anti-Israeli, often anti-Semitic, hatred and the attacks on then Secretary of State Colin Powell by well-fed, well-off white middle class campaigners who had flown in from all over the world, I cannot quite see why Iran should be out of place in the organization of the next jamboree. Why 2009, incidentally? Do they have them every 8 years?

The committee is headed by Libya, another well-known bastion of freedom and tolerance.

Anne Bayefsky of the Eye on the UN, an extremely useful website though it does make one wonder about the infinite patience and hopefulness of some people, makes things quite clear:

“Iran is now poised to wrap itself in a UN flag as a lead agent of the nextglobal conference against racism, Durban II,” she added, referring to the 2001 UN conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, which saw unprecedented levels of anti-Zionist rhetoric and calls for Israel's destruction.

Speaking to Ynetnews, Bayefsky said that "the leading exponents of anti-Semitism, whether directed at Jews individually or the Jewish people and its state generally, continue to be provided a global platform at the UN. This is but one example of a broader phenomenon."

"Eye on the UN has found that in 2006 the UN system as a whole directed the most condemnations for human rights abuses against specific states - first towards Israel and fourth towards the United States. Iran was lower down on the list of UN human rights concerns," Bayefsky said, adding: "And yet the US taxpayer continues to pay a quarter of the bill for activities which demonize Americans and Israelis on a global scale."

The states were selected by the UN Human Rights Council and the Council is controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The majority of seats on the Council are held by the African and Asian regional groups and the OIC has a majority of seats on each of these groups. Western states do not have the votes to block this outrage and it is another example of the hijacking that has occurred of the UN's lead human rights agency.

According to Filip van Laenen on Brussels Journal, this one is an existential crisis and may well end up with Belgium falling apart. The King, he proclaims angrily, ought to be at his post and not having a holiday in the South of France, reluctantly coming back to accept the Prime Minister designate’s resignation.

Well, I am not a Belgian and the nuances of that country’s politics proabably escape me. But for the life of me I cannot see what difference it would make if King Albert II stayed “in the capital making sure he's available every single hour of the day in case the negotiator needs assistance”. Are there no telephones, mobiles or computers in the South of France?

The problem seems to be, as ever, that the two parts of Belgium, the French and the Flemish, cannot agree on division of power. To be quite precise, Flanders wants more regional power and that, indeed, can lead to the break-up of this rather curious country.

Mr Leterme, a Flemish politician, had been trying to form a government since mid July after the Christian Democrats and Liberals gained the most votes in the 10 June elections.

However, Flemish demands for more regional powers in areas such as justice and ransport fuelled fears among French-speaking politicians that Mr Leterme was interested in breaking up the country.

Past comments by Mr Leterme that Belgium is an "accident of history" and that the only things Belgians have in common are "the King, the football team, some beers" lent to this fear.For their part, Dutch speakers are keen to preserve their sense of identity and have been wary of francophone Belgians moving to the Flemish surroundings of Brussels, asking for local community rights.

French-speaking politicians fear Flemish demands for greater regional control in areas such as employment, transport and justice could undermine Belgium as a federal state. They have made counter-demands for more rights for the Francophone minority living in Flemish areas. …

Central to the dispute in the government talks are the rights granted to the substantial French-speaking minority living in districts around Brussels which are officially in Dutch-speaking territory.

Flemish politicians want to break up a bilingual voting district to stop French-speaking parties running for elections in Flemish suburbs around the capital.

The Francophones say they will agree only if they get a strengthening of their language rights in more Flemish suburbs — such as being able to use French in dealings with their town halls. That is rejected by the Flemish.

"Global warming makes North Atlantic less salty", announced LiveScience on 29 June 2005.

In breathless style, we were then told that, "Since the late 1960s, much of the North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty, in part due to increases in fresh water runoff induced by global warming ... Now for the first time researchers have quantified this fresh water influx, allowing them to predict the long-term effects on a 'conveyor belt' of ocean currents."

The report went on: "Climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere have melted glaciers and brought more rain, dumping more fresh water into the oceans, according to the analysis." And, of course, we were told, "One of the expected high-profile consequences is a rising sea that will swamp coastal communities…".

Now fast forward to the New Scientist of 23 August 2007. Reverently, it announces: "Global warming makes North Atlantic more salty"!

This time, we are told: a "new study of records spanning over 50 years" shows that "the surface waters of the North Atlantic are getting saltier." Not content with that, this report tells us: "...this might actually be good news for the effects of climate change on global ocean currents in the short-term."

Reading on, we learn, "this is because saltier waters in the upper levels of the North Atlantic ocean may mean that the global ocean conveyor belt – the vital piece of planetary plumbing which some scientists fear may slow down because of global warming – will remain stable."

Says Tim Boyer of the US National Oceanographic Data Center, "The seawater is probably becoming saltier due to global warming … We know that upper ocean is warming in the North Atlantic, so it stands to reason that there should be more evaporation, making waters more salty," he says.

You just have to laugh.

COMMENT THREAD

The voice of the authentic Europhile graces the letter page of The Daily Telegraph today, a certain Mr David Sawtell, of Tydd St Giles, Cambridgeshire.

He is delighted to hear that the prime minister is not going to be "stampeded" by the "anti-Europeans" into a referendum on the treaty. "I am opposed to referendums in general," he writes, "as they always sink to the lowest possible denominator and make a nonsense of "representative democracy".

In Sawtell's view, "it is important that the new enlarged EU be updated to make it effective." Of course, he adds, "anti-Europeans want to sabotage the EU and therefore wish to force it to be ineffective by preventing modernisation of its institutions. The anti-Europeans want to go back to a world that no longer exists, but if we want a future for our children and grandchildren that future is Europe." He concludes, "Well done, Mr Brown".

Interestingly, Mr Sawtell is no stranger to the letters pages of diverse publications.

As early as January 2001, he was writing to The Daily Mirror declaiming Metric Martyr Steve Thoburn's stand as a "publicity stunt", telling us that a casual glance at his supporters "reveals all".

In August 2003, he was writing to The Independent on the Hutton enquiry, telling readers that he was, "heartily sick of the media frenzy over this affair." Dr Kelly, he wrote, was the author of his own downfall, he broke the golden rule for civil servants, he made an unauthorised statement to the media.

Dr Kelly could then not complain when he was called to account for his actions. One cannot expect protection from the department one has betrayed. All civil servants should heed the warning and renew their vows of silence.

Come April 2004, he was pronouncing on the EU constitution. It was, he wrote, "a vital piece of legislation that will enable an EU of 25 to function." A referendum in Britain, he continued, "means that the decision will be taken by the media moguls who own the tabloid press."

In my view, wrote Sawtell, "we are approaching a situation where Britain will have to leave the EU. A catastrophe for Britain, but one state cannot be permitted to harm the other 24. I wanted my homeland to play a full role within Europe, but we must face facts: the bulk of the media control the minds of the British population and the media are anti-European."

September of that year again saw Mr Sawtell writing to The Independent, lauding the splendid achievement of "our European golfers". This demonstrated what Europeans can do when they work in unison. "No single European state," he wrote, "could have even come near the USA. Let us hope that the people of Britain will learn the lesson and not allow themselves to be deluded by the anti-Europeans into going into isolation. Britain is part of Europe and the EU is our future."

In December 2004, he was back in The Independent, this time springing to the defence of Blunkett. "Here we go again," he wrote. "An able and effective minister of the Crown is being systematically destroyed by the media because of his private life. He is not the first nor will he be the last to suffer in this way. Only Parliament has the power to deal with the media by way of a draconian privacy law. If we continue as at present only eunuchs will dare to stand for public office."

On 3 May 2006, he was writing to the Independent, railing against the "gutter press" for poking their noses into John Prescott's private life. He called for parliament to enact draconian privacy laws that would make it essential for the media to obtain the written consent of both parties before publication. Unless and until this is done, wrote Mr Sawtell, "there will be a continuous stream of ruined careers and wrecked lives while the media moguls get fat on the proceeds."

In February 2007, he was again writing to his favourite newspaper, on the "cash for honours" issue, declaring that: "The present media hysteria about our Prime Minister is even more disgraceful than usual, if that is possible. To date the police have found nothing. No one has been charged, still less found guilty of anything; and yet our disgusting media are in a frenzy of hatred. Given the totally undesirable influence the media have on public opinion it is scarcely surprising that opinion polls are also in a state of flux."

Thankfully, added Sawtell, the prime minister is keeping his nerve and is following the injunction of Rudyard Kipling: "Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you." "This nation does not know how good a Prime Minister they have," he declared.

So there you are: a portrait of the perfect Europhile, an example to them all. What was that about: you shall be known by the company you keep?

COMMENT THREAD

It was entirely predictable that Gordon Brown would reject the Unions' call for an EU referendum. And indeed he did, predicting with a casual insouciance that a trade union rebellion on the issue would not succeed.

This he did after a cosy love-in with chancellor Angela Merkel at No 10, followed by a happy little interlude as the pair rushed off to Wembley Stadium to watch the England v Germany football friendly.

But, if Brown is confident in his ability to railroad the treaty ratification through Parliament, a few storm clouds are gathering on the horizon that may just threaten to rain on his parade.

One of those clouds is a possible revolt by Labour MPs, flagged up – and not for the first time – by The Daily Telegraph. In today's edition, it is claiming that a "hard core" of at least 40 Labour MPs is poised to issue Gordon with an ultimatum to re-open talks on the treaty or concede a referendum.

We are told that they are preparing a 15-point plan to put to the prime minister, calling for the constitutional reform treaty to be radically amended, specifically to avoid the need for calling a British referendum.

Of those, the most interesting is Gwyneth Dunwoody, a long-serving senior backbencher who holds considerable sway in the Labour Party. She has broken cover and called directly for a referendum.

She is reported by The Independent as saying that, "I think Gordon will understand there are very grave doubts whether we have the machinery right to defend our interests," adding: "It's no use saying that we have exemptions if other people are saying they are going to set up institutions under which there will be a qualified vote."

By The Daily Mail she was cited as saying, that she wanted Brown to hold a referendum "because of the magnitude of the changes" to Britain that are in the treaty. Articulating a sentiment with which few (of our readers) would disagree, she went on to say, "I'm afraid that instinct tells me as a politician that every time you allow people to chip away at your basic legislation, you give something that you're probably going to regret."

The leader of the putative Labour revolt, however, is Ian Davidson, MP for Glasgow South West. Apparently, he might demand the removal of the proposal to create a new EU "foreign minister" – although we hope he expresses this with more clarity. In the current treaties, that post already exists. That is objectionable enough but the issue on the table is the increase in his powers

It is also thought, according to The Telegraph that Davidson might also call on Brown to use a revised treaty to amend the 2004 EU directive on freedom of movement, the directive which the paper archly states, "is now being blamed for preventing the UK from deporting Learco Chindamo … back to his native Italy."

That again is an odd one, as a treaty is not the usual mechanism for dealing with amending legislation – although it is possible that a robust threat to veto the treaty could extract some concessions.

Needless to say, Brown's sockpuppet, Jim Murphy, aka Europe Minister, is having none of this. He has accused the rebellious MPs of EU "navel-gazing" and is denying that the treaty threatens "sweeping new powers" over Britain.

What is perhaps most significant about all this though is that, contrary to my expectations, the issue is still live and attracting media attention, well into the "silly season". That would seem to suggest that, as the political season gathers momentum in the autumn, the EU could become a mainstream political controversy.

Mr Brown may well find his work cut out holding the thin blue line.

COMMENT THREAD

There are times when I become convinced that knowledge of the British Constitution (oh yes, we do have one) even among people who ought to be aware of all the nuances of what there ought to be and what there is, tends to be limited to an early viewing of that priceless Savoy Opera, "Iolanthe".

Among other joyous episodes, it has the Peers’ March during which berobed members of the Upper House sing:

We are peers of highest station,
Paragons of legislation,
Pillars of the British nation,

When Britain really ruled the waves—
(In good Queen Bess's time)
The House of Peers made no pretence
To intellectual eminence,
Or scholarship sublime;
Yet Britain won her proudest bays
In good Queen Bess's glorious days!

When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
As every child can tell,
The House of Peers, throughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well:
Yet Britain set the world ablaze
In good King George's glorious days!

And while the House of Peers withholds
Its legislative hand,
And noble statesmen do not itch
To interfere with matters which
They do not understand,
As bright will shine Great Britain's rays
As in King George's glorious days!

At present, the only real power for the Opposition and backbenchers lies in the delaying of the progress of Bills. This tactic forces the Government to choose what legislation it will make time for, and what it will abandon.

In order to ensure that these tactics are not abused, there is a mechanism known as the Allocation of Time motion, or "guillotine".

These motions cut short or limit the time available for a debate - to ensure that certain stages of a Bill are completed according to the desired timetable. In 1997, Programme Orders were introduced to supplement the guillotine and further ease the passing of Bills.

In the 50 years between 1947 and 1997, Allocation of Time motions were used 138 times. Between 1997 and 2006 - only nine years - Allocation of Time motions were used more than 320 times. That's quite an increase.

On the basis of a front-page story retailing how retired Gen Jack Keane (pictured) is complaining that the withdrawal of British troops is creating a security crisis in the south of Iraq, The Daily Telegraph is holding forth in its leader.

Headed, "The Battle of Basra," the paper does at least acknowledge General Keane's remarks that Britain has never had enough manpower to protect the civilian population in its sector adequately but points out that Britain's military overstretch is now so severe that the sending (British) reinforcements to southern Iraq - as Keane would like - is preposterous.

Beyond that, the paper sees Keane's criticism as purely political, suggesting that:

…as America's involvement in Iraq limps towards its inevitable, ignominious conclusion, how very convenient it will be for Washington to be able to put some of the blame on the Brits for not pulling their weight in Basra.

I do wish people, particularly well-meaning American commentators, such as Pamela Geller on Atlas Shrugs, would stop confusing Belgium with Europe. Belgium is but one country, not a particularly old one, created largely by the then British Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, in 1830.

There is some truth to Paul Belien's thesis that Belgium is the modely for the European Union but only some. There are other parallels, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (Discuss.) In any case, as Belien himself says on Brussels Journal, Belgium is well on the road to collapse, while the EU, sadly is not.

My point is that when bad things happen in Belgium, particularly in Brussels under the rule of its socialist Mayor, Freddy Thielemans (and, let's face it, we in London know what it is like to have a socialist Mayor), it is a Belgian problem, though obviously we write about it on this blog. It is not a problem for the whole of Europe. We are not playing "If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium".

We have written about the banning of the anti-Sharia demonstration, planned for 9/11 in Brussels, about the appeal against the ban, and about a "truther" demo that is being allowed.

Now Brussels Journal tells us about another interesting development. It seems that the counter-demonstration agains the banned anti-Sharia demonstration is going ahead.

The Arab-European League (AEL), a pro-Hezbollah organization of Arab immigrants in Belgium and the Netherlands, is rallying its members to march in Brussels on 11 September “against Islamophobia and racism in Europe.” The AEL demonstration is a response to the request by the Danish-British-German organization Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) for permission to demonstrate on 9/11 in front of the European Union’s buildings in Brussels against the introduction of Sharia laws in Europe.

It is rather instructive to read the first three letters in The Daily Telegraph today on the lead subject of Philip Lawrence’s murderer.

Under the general heading, "European law prevents the deportation of Philip Lawrence's murderer," the first two, respectively Harry Randall and Stuart Noyes – blog readers both – inform us that the Human Rights Act is irrelevant in the case of Learco Chindamo, as EU law takes precedence.

Randall tells us that Chindamo has further protection from Article 33 of EU Directive 2004/38, while Noyes writes that, "You simply have to read the 33-page judgment of Chindamo's case to realise his right to stay here is afforded him primarily by European treaties."

The third letter, however, is least informed and it comes as no surprise that the writer is Conservative MP Douglas Carswell. Supposedly a "good guy", he completely misses the point, and prates on about "serving on Parliament's human rights committee," from which experience he has "become convinced that we must not only axe the Human Rights Act, but quit the European Convention on Human Rights."

Thank you Mr Carswell. Next!

The newspaper itself is only belatedly catching up (after intense behind-the-scenes lobbying) and, in its leader, only grudgingly acknowledges the role of EU legislation. Even then, in relegating EU law to a secondary position behind the HRA, it is unable to admit how spectacularly wrong it got its story yesterday, leaving it trailing two days behind this blog.

Similarly, the two Tory "big hitter" blogs, Tory Diary and Iain Dale, went galloping down the Human Rights Act cul-de-sac, in the wake of their pathetically ill-informed leader, provoking a torrent of similarly ill-informed commentary on the same subject, from their own readers. Significantly, both blogs have scurried away from the subject, leaving their readers as ignorant as when they started.

The interesting thing about all this is that the whole affair is another example of the subtle shift in the hierarchy of information gathering and dissemination. In pre-internet days, the founts of all wisdom were the media and the political classes – who were closer to the seat of power and thus better informed.

But, as information has gone on-line, there is now a small but growing band of "ordinary" people – remote from the traditional "gatekeepers" – who are better informed than those who would seek to inform them.

Unaware of quite how the balance has shifted, and very often remote from the new information network, the likes of MPs and journalists often labour under the impression that they are still the custodians of truth and wisdom. But, as they peddle their substandard wares, all they are doing is displaying the fact that slowly, insidiously, they are losing their grip.

These last three days have been a good example of this dynamic, and there will be many more to come. The chattering classes may continue to chatter but, if information is power, their power is draining away.

COMMENT THREAD

I know what used to be the point of Amnesty International – it helped to free political prisoners around the world. It did so by drawing attention to their existence and their plight and by campaigning in various ways for their release. The people in question had to be prisoners for political reasons even if there were some trumped up criminal charges.

Amnesty International was unique in it concentration on this issue. It was also (and probably still is) unique in its dual structure of a central research and political structure and individual campaigning groups in various countries, whose task it was to campaign for prisoners in other countries.

I recall there being problems with some of the country groups even back in the Cold War days, in that a number of them refused to campaign for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union or other Communist states. Other campaigning organizations had to be formed in those countries.

Nevertheless, Amnesty International at the centre continued with the good work and many people around the world owed their life and liberty to it.

Things have changed somewhat. These days it is routinely described as being a political organization, which means it has lost its neutrality and is no longer seen as useful for one particular purpose. For myself, I have always thought that the change came when Amnesty International started to campaign against capital punishment anywhere and under any circumstance.

This has nothing to do with my own opinions on capital punishment, which I am not about to disclose as they are irrelevant to this blog. Nor will there be a discussion about it on the forum. This is a thread about a powerful NGO not about difficult moral issues.

The point is that capital punishment, if it is given out after a free and fair trial for a crime that is known to carry that sentence, is not a form of political oppression or injustice. By deciding to add that issue to their other ones Amnesty International proclaimed in effect that it was no longer campaigning for political prisoners but taking on political issues.

I am delighted to discover, somewhat belatedly, that O’Sullivan’s First Law, known to me for a long time, that any organization not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing, was formulated specifically with Amnesty International in mind and in response to the decision to start campaigning against all capital punishment.

Since then Amnesty International has gone from bad to worse, becoming an organization that is supposedly campaigning for human rights, whatever they may be and has lined up on the anti-American, anti-Western, pro-tranzi, pro-NGO side. We have documented their behaviour on various occasions and here is one example.

The organization has been expanding its remit again. For some time there has been talk of them becoming involved in “development issues”, which will mean, one presumes, demands for more aid from the poor of the Western countries to the rich of the developing ones. There has been talk about them campaigning against domestic violence though I do not know whether that has come to anything.

With domestic violence I can be quite open – I am against it, no matter who is inflicting it on whom. But there are many organizations dealing with it (though not all that many who talk of domestic violence in societies where it is more or less accepted and even praised by certain religious teachers and I do not mean Britain or the United States). It is not Amenesty’s job to get involved in it, unless they really do feel that in certain countries it is used for political purposes.

The latest announcement is that Amnesty International has decided to campaign for abortion rights for women who have been raped. It is not entirely clear to me even from the organization’s statement, made in response to the Vatican’s criticism how far they intend to go with this eventually.

There are, of course, many stories of women (and children) being raped in various wars, not least, as we have discussed before, by UN troops in Africa. Whether abortion is quite the right solution to those women’s problems and whether this is feasible in those circumstances are both moot points.

The Catholic Church, until now a strong supporter of Amnesty International, is speaking out against this particular policy and the organization is clearly scrambling to do some damage limitation.

As with capital punishment, so with abortion: my own views are irrelevant and will not be explained or discussed. In fact, neither will be discussed on the forum, which does not deal with those matters. (There are plenty out there that do.) The point I am making is about Amnesty International, an organization that uses its credibility to intervene in political processes and discussions. That credibility has long ago been squandered.

COMMENT THREAD

Something I've been meaning to do ever since Sunday, when Booker devoted his main story to the theme, is record how the case for anthropogenic global warming is unravelling.

More to the point, even the case for maintaining that global warming is a continuing phenomenon is becoming seriously unstuck, viz a letter in The Telegraph yesterday from Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography in the University of London.

Stott noted that week rain fell last week not only on the rag-bag of climate-change activists camped outside Heathrow (who seem to have enjoyed extraordinary media coverage). It also, he wrote, poured on the whole global-warming parade.

First, he continued, new research indicates that our climate may be only one third as sensitive to C02 as has been assumed. Secondly, corrected temperature figures for America from Nasa indicate that the hottest year in the 20th century was 1934, not in the 1990s. Thirdly, recent satellite figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration demonstrate no mean global warming since 1998. Indeed, the curve has flattened to below 1998 levels.

Finally, Stott concludes, our British weather continues to contradict all predictions. When, he asks, will our politicians, especially David Cameron, recognise that carbon claptrap, not global warming, is the danger for our economic future?

This is one of the stranger aspects of the global warming debate for, as the politicians profess even greater certainty that this is the dominant issue of our general, the scientists, it seems, are far from certain. For all we know, we could be slipping back into a new ice age.

In a recent article in The Boston Globe, reproduced in the IHT this state of uncertainty is reviewed, painting a graphic picture which totally contradicts Gore's assertion that, "There's no more debate ... There is no more scientific debate among serious people who've looked at the evidence."

In terms of one of the latest discoveries to shake the certainty – the fact that the NASA/Goddard Institute temperature figures have been exaggerating the temperature rise and that the hottest year in the 20th century was 1934, not in the 1990s, this has been due to the remarkable work of statistician Steve McIntyre, who has used his blog Climate Audit relentless to promote independent discussion on climate science.

Less spectacular, but probably just as important is the way McIntyre has recruited his readers, progressively to evaluate the validity of readings from individual weather stations, coming up with some significant findings.

One of the most dramatic is illustrated a remarkable photograph of Tucson University of Arizona Weather Station (illustrated) shown positioned in a bay on the concrete car park – thus failing to conform with the siting criteria for these sites. It also highlights the so-called "heat island" effect, where as sites have become more urban, rises in temperature experienced reflect the urban heating rather than real climate change.

For a long time, it has puzzled me how, from the hundreds of disparate weather stations inputing data into the system, how climate scientists have been able to produce a single figure for each year, representing a unified global temperature.

Here, in a measured interview on the Today programme, McIntyre pointed out that numerous adjustments must be made to arrive at the finished figures and that, crucially, the size of the adjustments in many cases exceeded the temperature increases being recorded.

In other words, the single global temperature is not real, but a calculated artefact, prone to multiple errors. The temperature rises thus recorded are an extremely fragile basis on which to commit not billions but trillions of dollars of expenditure.

As Booker reported last Sunday, Prof William Nordhaus, of Yale, has just published calculations showing that cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on the scale proposed by Gore might possibly save $12 trillion (£12,000bn) - but that their cost would be nearly three times as much, $34 trillion, more than half the world's GDP.

So fast is the evidence accumulating that the fatuity of basing major public policy initiatives on what many already believe to be a scam is becoming more evident by the day. The debate, far from being over, really has only just begun.

It is now hard to think of a situation where there has been such a great divide between the politicians – who remain fixed in their beliefs about global warming, impervious to the increasingly vibrant debate – and the wider world, where scepticism is growing in intensity.

But then, we are seeing the same thing across the board, where more and more the politicians (and the media) seem detached from reality. The political implications of this have yet to become clear but, while green politics may be a wonderful plaything for the likes of Cameron, in the fullness of time, there will be a price which he and his fellow travellers will be unable to pay.

COMMENT THREAD

Considered important enough by the BBC to front on its World at One midday news bulletin, the news from The Daily Telegraph today is that the Unions are preparing to demand an EU referendum.

Says The Telegraph, the GMB general union has submitted a formal motion demanding that the British people be given a say on the grounds that the new reform treaty is the same in all but name as the original, defeated constitutional treaty. The National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has gone even further with a separate motion urging the TUC to campaign for a "No" vote.

TUC sources say there would be a debate and vote on European issues at the congress in Brighton and, "It may well be that we adopt a position in favour of a referendum and against the constitution."

The driver of the unions' position, however, is anger at the opt-out for British workers from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. This, they claim, will give their counterparts in the other 26 member states increased rights to take industrial action – in particular, the right to strike.

The GMB motion says its members are "bitterly disappointed" that the charter will not apply to British workers. It states that the government needs to show that it is committed to "Europe's social dimension as this is necessary for British trade unions' support for the future development of Europe."

The GMB's European officer, Kathleen Walker-Shaw, told the BBC's World at One: "The source of our motion to TUC is to raise our frustration about our government's position, which we are seeing as a clear indication that it is not committing itself to a social Europe... What we want is a debate. We want people to stand up and start saying what is good about Europe." She added, "Let's stop being shy about the fact that, in recent years, the achievements in terms of developing a social Europe seem to have dried up and that doesn't satisfy our members."

Needless to say, this position is somewhat at odds with other pro-referendum campaigners who oppose the treaty in principle. The unions, it seems, will be campaigning on a platform of "more Europe", rejecting the treaty because it does not increase the EU's powers sufficiently.

Whether that confuses the issue remains to be seen but it should be recalled that, in the 1975 referendum, the Trades Union Council officially supported the "no" vote, then on the grounds that continued membership of the (then) EEC would reduce trade unions rights.

At a time when union power was a dominant political issue, union support thus became a factor which convinced many voters to join the "yes" camp, if only on the basic premise that anything the unions objected to had to be a good thing.

This time round, union strength and influence has waned – although the movement is still the biggest paymaster of the cash-strapped Labour Party. Thus, the intervention of two of the wealthiest unions could be a significant factor in forcing Gordon Brown to concede a referendum.

Whether the unions would then be of any help in securing a "no" victory is a moot point. On the face of it, their participation is more likely to be a mixed blessing.

COMMENT THREAD

A clear divide is emerging on the reporting of the Chindamo affair.

The Guardian tells us: "Papers reveal truth behind decision not to deport killer", its story opening with the lines:

The detailed written judgement in the case of what should happen to the Italian-born Learco Chindamo, now aged 26, when he finishes his minimum 12-year life sentence next April makes clear that the decision was taken on the basis of "compelling" European Union law that applies to any EU citizen resident in another EU country for at least 10 years.

So-called Justice Secretary Jack Straw then tries to dodge blame by claiming Chindamo’s victory owes nothing to the Human Rights Act. It is all down to an EU directive, he says. A directive HE signed as Foreign Secretary in 2004.

Al-Jazeera reports that the EU has agreed to pay for the fuel supplies to the Gaza power plant and these have now been resumed, ending the big power cuts of this week-end. The EU's decision was apparently influenced by assurances given by the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, that his organization will not skim any money off the electricity revenues for its own purposes.

The EU intends to carry out an audit (that should be entertaining) in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority rather than Hamas, which may cause ructions between the fraternal Palestinian organizations.

So now we know - nobody is too corrupt for the EU.

However, the story, as we have mentioned before, has revealed a certain amount about everyday life in Gaza, a territory that has no real income to speak of, apart from endless aid:

At least half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents were left without lights, fans and air conditioning for five days as temperatures soared to 34 degrees.

Israeli and Egyptian companies that power the rest of the strip provided some added electricity.

But for the most part, the affected areas were blacked out for 20 hours a day, forcing shops to run on generators and families to go to shops every few hours because they could not refrigerate food.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, of those tanks rolling into Prague to put down the so-called Prague Spring (though the ideas were generated in the Slovak part of the country). This showed that the Soviet leadership was more astute than the well-meaning leaders of Czechoslovakia or their supporters in the West.

"Communism with a human face" is an oxymoron. Therefore, it was obvious to anyone who thought about it all clearly (and, I am sure, the Soviet leadership did) that it would eventually develop into non-Communism if not nipped in the bud.

While we are on the subject, let me, as an aside, explain a certain difference between what the Soviets did in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. For certain reasons the Soviet troops had moved out of Czechoslovakia in the years after the Second World War. So the 1968 invasion was exactly that. They had never moved out of Hungary. In October 1956 they left Budapest while fighting went on in other parts of the country. In November, heavily reinforced they moved back into the capital. But that is all by the by.

What is of interest is a Reuters report of how the Russians have chosen to mark the anniversary - by threats and bluster yet again.

Russia's military chief told the Czech Republic it would be making a "big mistake" to host a U.S. missile defense shield on its soil and urged Prague on Tuesday to delay a decision until a new U.S. president is elected. ...

"We say it will be a big mistake by the Czech government to put this radar site on Czech territory," said Yuri Baluyevsky, the Russian military chief of staff, after meeting the Czech deputy defense minister, Martin Bartak.

He said the Czech Republic should hold off making a decision until after the U.S. presidential election, scheduled to take place in late 2008.

Without doubt, the domestic story of the day is David Cameron's initiative on hospital closures or, to be more specific, how he got it wrong.

To the dismay of Tory Diary, instead of taking the initiative, Cameron was on the back foot all yesterday, defending – according to Reuters - his claim that 29 hospitals face closure or cutbacks after the government accused him of "scaremongering" and getting his facts wrong.

Even the Tory-supporting Telegraph has made this its story, reporting that Cameron, "has been pitched into a bitter row with Labour over his claim that ministers plan to downgrade dozens of local NHS hospitals across England," also noting that Labour were revelling in the claim that the Tories "had not done their homework".

As you might expect, The Guardian was thoroughly enjoying itself, leading its story with the legend that, "David Cameron's leadership came under renewed pressure today as his campaign against hospital closures descended into farce," retailing with some delight that, "A day of spectacular own goals began when a Tory MP was forced to apologise for one blunder."

All this we note, however, not to score points against the Boy – plenty of others are doing that – but to sound a cautionary note about our own concern, the EU referendum campaign.

What we are seeing with the Boy is the classic political ploy, one which is of special value when your own case it weak. Instead of dealing with the substantive points, you trawl your opposition's statements for errors, focus on those and try to make that the story. In this case, the ploy has had some considerable success, and it was used widely against us in the Qanagate affair.

So it is and will be with our campaign. Already we have seen something of this, with the FCO trawling Eurosceptic literature and statements to produce its 10 Myths on the EU constitution treaty.

In general, Europhiles are past masters at this technique and we have seen it employed many times. You will see it put to use with the Booker column where, the week following a contentious (and damaging) story, you will often see one or more letters of a genre we have come to call, "Booker is wrong". Invariably, the correspondents will never address the issues, but pick on some error – real or imagined. The pitch is that, if this is wrong, the rest of the material cannot be trusted.

The antidote, of course, is to strive for that elusive property – meticulous accuracy. With one politician with whom I work, we have a standing joke when preparing reports: the "final" draft is only the first stage of a round of checking, with the document metamorphosing into the "final, final", the "final, final, final" and even the "final, final, final, final…". Such attention to detail can be hugely frustrating but the process has saved us from some potentially embarrassing situations.

When errors are made, as they always will be, the trick is to be your own worst critic – to look for them, to admit to them, and then to correct them, pre-empting your enemies and disarming them with your candour. By contrast, to ignore them, to repeat them, to stick to them in the face of evidence of error or (worst of all) to attempt to cover them up, is political suicide. For sure, the hardest words in politics – as in life – are "I was wrong", but they are also a key part of a successful campaigner's armoury.

That is, in fact, why we are so critical of our own side and why we have started our own mythbuster series, which we will continue, exposing the weaknesses in our own arguments as well as those of our enemies.

As to the Boy's current difficulties, for once it looks as though he has done us a favour. In getting it so spectacularly wrong, he has shown us all how important it is to get it right.

COMMENT THREAD

Almost without exception, the UK media got it wrong this morning in its coverage of the notorious Learco Chindamo, the man who as a youth murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence as he intervened outside his school to break up a fight.

The consensus of media opinion (the one above is from The Sun) is that this is another of those mad examples of the Human Rights Act, the reports focusing on how application of this Act has meant that Italian-born Chindamo cannot be deported on completion of his sentence for murder.

So complete is that belief that The Independent was able to extract a quote from David Davis, the shadow home secretary, saying: "It is a stark demonstration of the clumsy incompetence of this Government's human rights legislation that we are unable to send a proven killer back to his own country, especially when that country is in the EU."

The reports have also had Conservative leader David Cameron calling for the abolition of the Human Rights Act and its replacement with a British Bill of Rights. Interviewed by BBC radio in the West Midlands he accused Labour of being "blind" to the HRA's failings, declaring that: "The fact that the Human Rights Act means he cannot be deported flies in the face of common sense. It is a shining example of what is going wrong in our country. He is someone who has been found guilty of murder and should be deported back to his country... what about the rights of Mrs Lawrence or the victim?"

It has thus taken Frances Gibb, Legal Editor of The Times to set the record straight, in an online analysis which states that the Human Rights Act played only a minor secondary role in the judgement. The decision to allow Chindamo to remain in the UK was based primarily on EU law. As an Italian national who has been in Britain for about 20 years, he has – the Immigration Tribunal ruled - the higher protection afforded to all EU citizens against expulsion.

Helpfully, The Times has published the full text of the judgement - all 33 pages of it - and, from that, it is clear we are talking about our old friend Directive 2004/58/EC "on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States".

This we wrote about twice in May last year here and here, and again in May of this year, this piece specifically dealing with the deportation of EU nationals.

Mind you, if most of the media and the politicians have got it wrong, so too has Open Europe. Although quick to recognise the application of Directive 2004/58/EC, it then argues that the case, "highlights fundamental problems with the EU's attempt to harmonise justice and home affairs law." Says director Neil O'Brien, "This ruling is the thin end of a very long wedge. Harmonisation of justice and home affairs laws will throw up more and more cases in which politicians are powerless to act in cases where most of the public expect them to."

The case does, of course, have nothing to do with the harmonisation of justice and home affairs laws. The directive relies for its legal base Articles 12, 18, 40, 44 and 52 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community and relates to one of the most fundamental parts of the original Treaty of Rome, the "free movement of persons", which now "constitutes one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market."

The interesting issue, therefore, is not the spurious point raised by Open Europe but the question of whether the Boy King, having found the judgement objectionable when he believed the Human Rights Act responsible, will show the same enthusiasm for repealing EU law, now that this is shown to be primarily responsible for the judgement.

Don't hold your breath.

COMMENT THREAD

What does it take for the European Union to stop wasting taxpayers’ money? Well, it seems the possibility of Hamas illegitimately taxing electricity supplies to support itself and, no doubt, its militias, while the EU paid for the fuel needed to keep the main power plant in Gaza going might just have done the trick.

Under the three-state solution – Israel, Gaza under Hamas and the West Bank under Fatah, the last two known irreverently as Hamastan and Fatahland – Hamas was banned by Mahmoud Abbas from collecting taxes. It is not clear how that ban was to be enforced except by various so-called humanitarian aid being withheld if taxes were to be collected.

Hamas has, naturally enough denied that it was planning anything so wicked as to tax the electricity supply:

A senior official in the Hamas administration in Gaza said the concerns were unfounded. "There is no new tax and we have no plans to introduce any new tax on electricity bills," the official said.

Kanaan Abaid, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority, said none of the revenues generated at the plant reached Hamas or its administration in Gaza.

Palestinian Information Minister Riyad al-Malki said electricity from the power plant was already a source of revenue for Hamas, but he did not explain how.

Hamas has been going door to door in Gaza in recent weeks, ordering residents to pay long-overdue electricity bills. While Hamas denies it controls the electricity company, Abbas' Fatah insists it does, citing the arrest last month of the Gaza electric company's executive director.

Gazans initially were unfazed by the outages, because power reserves are always so thin that consumers are used to living without electricity for about five hours a day. But as the shortages dragged on for a third straight day, nerves began to wear thin. The din of private generators outside every shop on Gaza City's main commercial street filled the air as Naim Hamdan, a civil engineer, recounted how he sent home his 25 employees to conserve fuel. Grocery store owner Fawaz Khalil said NIS 3,000 worth of cheese and milk spoiled because his generator wasn't powerful enough to keep his refrigerator cold.

"People have started coming to ask for candles and flashlights," Khalil said. I hope that selling candles and batteries and flashlights will help me make up for the loss of the cheese and milk."

Moqtada al-Sadr is claiming credit for the imminent British pullout from Basra Palace, declaring it a victory for his militia "resistance".

That is the story from AFP and no one who has been attempting to follow the progress of the British occupation of southern Iraq is in the least surprised. That much was predictable and, indeed, predicted.

Nor is there any surprise that British commanders are insisting they are not being forced out, claiming that this is all part of the orderly transition of power to the Iraqi government, with the hand over of the base to the Iraqi security forces.

Therefore, that our military is claiming that the radical Shia cleric and his followers are trying to "create the false impression that they were driving us out" is only to be expected.

For a detached observer to try and make sense of these competing claims requires further information and it is here that the emergence of US views – the latest of which were retailed in this weekend's Sunday Telegraph - are of some significance. These add to the growing view that the British have lost control of Basra and that Moqtada al-Sadr is right.

That impression is further reinforced by the news yesterday that our soon-to-be last remaining redoubt, Basra Air Station, is coming under sustained attack from militia forces. According to the Telegraph's defence correspondent, rocket attacks on the base have "ramped up considerably" with more than 450 raining down in the last three months.

We are also told that the 4,000 service personnel and thousands of civilian employees are becoming increasingly anxious at the upsurge in attacks, with one officer cited as saying that, "in tented accommodation all people can do is put on their body armour and helmets and pray they are not hit."

It is these two issues, the US criticism and the barrage of attacks on Basra Air Station, that Con Coughlin addresses in the op-ed in today's Telegraph and, of the two, Coughlin sees the criticism as more damaging.

"It's not the constant barrage of rockets raining down on their heavily fortified compound in Basra that is sapping the morale of British troops," he writes. "It is the seemingly endless salvos of invective that are being directed at them on an almost daily basis from across the Atlantic by America's top brass."

Immediately, however – without going any further - from the contrast with Harding's piece, one gets the certain view that Coughlin is living in a fantasy world of his own making. As Harding points out, most of the 4,000 personnel at the base are living in tented accommodation. Far from being a "heavily fortified compound", Basra Air Base is horribly vulnerable to indirect fire and the people there are sitting ducks.

And it is that, as much as anything, which has provoked the US criticism. From the very first riots in November 2003, instead of dealing aggressively with militia attacks, the British policy has been one of "softly-softly" in the misguided belief that the tactics developed and honed in Northern Ireland could be transposed to Southern Iraq.

Linked with the failure to provide suitable equipment, the result has been that the British had steadily conceded ground to the militias, starting with Camp Naji in al Amarah, last August, culminating in the evacuation of the Old State Building, the Shatt al Arab base and Shaiba logistics base. And, as each base has been evacuated, Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers have claimed a victory, and intensified attacks on the remaining bases, with Basra Palace (pictured) currently being compared with an old-style US fort surrounded by Indians.

Thus, while Coughlin maintains that "the ugly spat" between the British and US forces "does not bode well for the wider campaign against Islamic terrorism," his response is to call for unity, asserting that:

If the two most important allies in the war on terror cannot agree among themselves over tactics, the long-term chances of the military campaign achieving its ultimate objectives get slimmer by the day.

The puzzle is: where is the clamour? Where is the media – the likes of Thomas Harding? Where are the Parliamentarians – the likes of Boris Johnson? And where, for that matter, is the blogosphere? On this substantive issue, all we hear is silence.

Nothing less than our prestige as a nation rests on the willingness of our government to provide the tools needed to do the job. Can it rise to the challenge? And have we got to the point where we have ceased even to care whether it does, and are content to see our troops run away?

On the current evidence, it looks like our troops are going to be running.

Virtually every day, British bases come under attack and, once our troops retreat to the one base at Basra Air Station, no one is under any illusions about what that will do to the intensity of attacks – they will increase. Of the current situation, one soldier said, "Going to bed was a lottery – you never knew if you would wake up". This is a lottery you do not want to win, but the odds are "improving" all the time.

…who ritually applaud the bravery of our troops, skulk behind their barriers and armed guards while – with a few honourable exceptions – they permit without comment our soldiers to be exposed to quite unnecessary risks. And the secretary of state hides behind honeyed generalities and vague assurances, while the media sleeps.

This is moral cowardice. It simply is not good enough.

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson was in the news yesterday, denying China's claims that Europe's safety concerns about Chinese goods were a politically motivated effort to protect its market

Mandelson was responding to a Chinese officials' claims, made on China Central Television's economic channel on Sunday, that concerns over the safety of Chinese products were protectionist. "This is not a question of trade, but of health," the commissioner said, adding that he would "give firm backing to European companies having to reject goods that are dangerous to consumers."

What seems to be missing from Mandelson's comments, however, was any reference to the EU's CE marking scheme that guarantees the safety of products imported from China. As long as they bear the official mark which certifies that products conform with EU safety rules, there should be no problem about accepting them.

On the other hand, companies should only be rejecting goods which not bear the correct marking and where the paperwork is not in order. And since that is entirely an administrative issue, rejections should not need the backing of Mandelson.

What we are dealing with, however, is the wholesale rejection of goods with do bear the CE marking. This, effectively, is against the rules of the trade agreements negotiated between China and the EU – about which China can rightly complain. That Mandelson considers it necessary to pledge his support to "European companies" in rejecting goods, therefore, seem to be a tacit admission that the CE marking system does not work.

Of course, one would not expect the commissioner to state that openly, but isn't it time the media woke up to what is going on?

COMMENT THREAD

There is a good deal of excitement around because Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister is visiting Iraq. The blogs are certainly covering the story, for instance here, here and here. The Daily Telegraph even quoted an unnamed Iraqi official, who

said that Mr Kouchner was the "most important VIP" to arrive in the Iraqi capital this year, outranking earlier trips by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, as well as Dick Cheney, the US vice-president.

Libération reminds us that Kouchner was a personal friend of UN official Sergio Viera de Mello, killed in the August 2003 attack against the UN compound, along with Nadia Younes, Fiona Watson, and Jean-Sélim Kanan, who had worked with him in Kosovo. Kouchner, former Socialist Health Minister and one of the founders of Doctors without Borders, defends the “droit d’ingérence,” defined as the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation in order to protect its inhabitants. He disagreed with France’s head-on opposition to the U.S. in 2003, and believes that if France had remained by the side of its American ally, war could have been avoided.

Le Figaro quotes Kouchner on the French solution for Iraq, which he shares with president Sarkozy. They believe that there is no military solution. The solution is in the hands of the Iraqis. The French will be glad to help, but it’s up to the Iraqis to solve their problem. We must be patient. We are just at the beginning of the end of the crisis. Kouchner laid a wreath at the monument to the UN victims, dedicated “To the soldiers of peace, [from] a grateful France.”

authorises the UN mission to "advise, support and assist the government and people of Iraq on advancing their inclusive, political dialogue and national reconciliation".

It also authorises the UN to facilitate "regional dialogue, including on issues of border security, energy and refugees", and asks the UN to help develop ways "to resolve disputed internal boundaries" that are acceptable to the government.

It was The Sun which, as always, distilled the message down to its bare essentials – that "thousands of Labour voters will desert Gordon Brown at the next general election if he refuses to hold a referendum on the EU constitution". Thus we learn that almost a quarter of the party's life-long supporters - 24 percent - say "they will kick the PM in the ballot box unless they get a vote".

This is based on an ICM poll conducted for The Daily Mail today which gives a clear 82 percent of respondents in favour of a referendum on the EU constitutional reform treaty. Furthermore, there are only marginal differences between voters for the main parties, 80 percent of Labour and 88 percent of Tories going for the proposition.

What is remarkable overall though, is how consistent the pro-referendum sentiment remains. On 11 August, The Sun poll had 81 percent in favour.

But what The Mail considers "most alarming" for Gordon Brown is that which The Sun picked up – that 24 percent of Labour supporters would be less likely to vote for him at the next general election if they are denied a referendum. Some 13 percent of Labour voters would even consider switching to the Tories if Cameron promised a referendum.

All this depends on the prospect of an early general election but the finding could mean that the prime minister will be less inclined to go early – if indeed it was ever his intention to do so. Not a few wiser heads are saying privately that dropping hints of a snap election is an excellent way for Brown to keep the Tories off balance – and keeping the political hacks occupied so that they are not looking elsewhere for their stories.

Nevertheless, the overall message to Cameron should be that the "old agenda" Labour slur has not rooted and support for an EU referendum is a potential vote-winner.

What may give aid and comfort to the Europhiles, however, is an additional finding that indicates that only 21 percent of the sample are in favour of outright withdrawal from the EU. Should there ever be a referendum, this must give a pointer to the general tactics – one can see the Europhiles arguing strongly that a "no" vote would mean British withdrawal.

On the other hand, only six percent are in favour of more integration, which would tend to suggest that a sharp focus on how this new treaty strengthens the integration agenda has to be the way forward for any "no" campaign.

Where the situation gets muddy, however, is in the finding that 47 percent would prefer to have some powers taken away from the EU (57 percent amongst Tory voters). One wonders how sentiment would be affected if it was put that exercising such an option might lead to British withdrawal, and certainly precipitate a crisis within the European Union.

The real question, though, is whether Brown will listen to the opinion polls, or simply tough it out. If, contrary to the expectations of some, he "goes long" and does not call a general election until 2010, he may be banking on the hope that the treaty will have been long ratified and will thus have become a dead issue.

It this is the strategy, much will depend on whether the Conservatives keep up the pressure in both Houses of Parliament, although there might be an even more powerful weapon waiting in the wings. According to Andrew Neil, writing in the Guardian, Brown's relationship with both The Sun and The Daily Mail will "hit a rocky patch" if he does refuse to call a referendum.

Brown might feel he can ignore the Tories but even he might have to take note of the two most popular newspapers.

COMMENT THREAD

After the hyperventilation of the weekend, it comes to something when you have to rely on The Guardian to put things straight. It's quite worrying really.

COMMENT THREAD

This is the sort of posting I do not usually link to the forum. It is a shortie that links to another blog, in this case Thomas Lifson's piece on American Thinker. However, for once, I shall break that rule for two reasons.

One is that it is not easy to comment on American Thinker, which may be quite sensible as they can avoid all those inadequate trolls. The second is that this is a subject we might be able to have a reasonable discussion.

Lifson takes the word Islamophobia that is always being thrown around with gay abandon and means, as it happens, not hatred of Islam but irrational fear of it and points out that if anyone has irrational fears it is the Islamic community or, at least, those who speak for it in mosques, madrassas, colleges and, even children's TV.

He refers back to another blog, Dr Sanity, where there is a piece on "Westophobia" that discusses, firstly, the crimes that are committed by Islamists against their own people and others and, secondly, the completely irrational fear and hatred that is promulgated by many of the spokesmen.

This could be called Westophobia, which is a clums word, or, as someone suggests, Ameriphobia as it is really an irrational fear and hatred of the United States and everything it represents.

As I read the piece I realized that I was not actually thinking about Islamists but the many other people, not least in Britain, who suffer from what might be called Ameriphobia, which prevents them from seeing who our true allies are and from fully accepting the ideas of the Anglosphere. Anyone who doubts this should read the comments on the two Sunday Times pieces my colleague has linked to.

The trouble is, I don't like the word. Can anything better be created? So, I am putting this on the forum with strict caveats: this is not a thread about Islam or Muslims. It is to be a discussion of Ameriphobia and other possible names to it.

We do the story last Thursday, after we had been alerted by one of our readers. Open Europe picks it up later that day. Then, today - five days later - the story is published up by The Times, which credits it to Open Europe.

Best of British luck to them - they obviously need the publicity. But let no one say that the press does all the "donkey work" and we trail in its wake.

COMMENT THREAD

This is not a particularly new story but it is still worth blogging if for no other reason than to show that we are capable of being nice about Poles.

To start with, here is the report on UNWatch about a forthcoming event in Brussels (no, we are not talking about that demonstration) at the end of August:

Under the auspices of the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a "Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace" will take place on August 30-31 in Belgium. These meetings are part of a round-robin of anti-Israel gatherings organized year-round by the UN's 16-member Division for Palestinian Rights. It all dates back to 1975, when these mechanisms were installed within the UN on the same day that the General Assembly adopted its infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution. What is new, however, is the venue: the European Parliament in Brussels.

What the conference will pronounce is pre-determined. Carefully pre-determined: the UN's Palestinian Division runs a tightly-controlled operation that accredits only anti-Israel NGOs and speakers. And recently they've become quite clever. Without altering the virulently anti-Israel nature of their meetings, the organizers instead seek to mask their activities — under such innocent-sounding titles as "support for Israeli-Palestinian peace." Moreover, to add credence to their cover, they invite specially approved "Israelis" — a select group of radicals who openly espouse hatred of Israel, claiming the license to do so because of their citizenship. Both tactics give conference organizers the cover they need for their allies and enablers to then use the material.

It is worth noting that the Sunday Times, it seems, went into hyperventilation mode yesterday, with a front-page article headed, "Britain faces Iraq rout says US."

It then picked up the theme in a focus piece, this one headed "Army chiefs fear Iraq exit will be Britain's Saigon moment," telling us that: "British troops will start to pull back from Basra next month, and the withdrawal is predicted to be 'ugly and embarrassing'".

However, not only are both pieces co-authored by Mick Smith, the man who thought RG-31s were "too big for Basra", with Washington input from Sarah Baxter, the pair rely for the substance of their reports on an American called Stephen Biddle. He, it appears, is the "US".

Yet, although he is described as a "military adviser to president George W Bush", he is no such thing. The best he can claim – like many of his ilk – is to have presented "briefings" to the president and senior political and military leaders – as well as "White House staff". This Washington-speak for being one of the numerous denizens of the beltway who is called upon by the White House and the Pentagon to air his views. By no measure can he be considered an "advisor" in the sense that his views are either influential or trusted - or in any way representative of the official US view.

More prosaically, Biddle is a senior fellow in defence policy at the left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). According to a 2006 paper, he was a strong critic of Bush's prosecution of the war in Iraq but, in a presentation to the House of Representatives in July, he was edging to qualified support of the surge.

Nothing of the main thesis that the two Sunday Times journalists have to offer, therefore, has any more status than informed (but sometimes partisan) speculation from a minor-league American academic.

Nevertheless, through Biddle, the Smith/Baxter pair speculate on the British withdrawal of troops from Basra Palace, which they call the "Saigon moment". They cite Biddle stating that Iran would use its influence with the Shi'ite Mahdi Army to exploit the situation. they then have Biddle say that, "It will be a hard withdrawal. They want the image of a British defeat ... It will be ugly and embarrassing."

That indeed might be the case but it also has to be recalled that the last three withdrawals have been relatively trouble free – with the bases being handed over to the Iraqi 10th Division. Given that both the Old State Building and the Shatt al Arab bases were also taking heavy fire from the Militias prior to the British departure, it cannot be said, necessarily, that leaving Basra Palace will be traumatic.

However, the Smith/Baxter pair not only want to turn this event into a bloodbath, they then speculate on the full withdrawal from Basra Air Station. With comic-book graphics illustrating this scenario (above left), they pile on the agony with a lurid account of what might happen.

But, in one tiny paragraph we learn that Brown has not made any decision to withdraw. Furthermore, he has pledged to Bush that he will not consider any such decision until October, when the preliminary results of the "surge" are in. Therefore, there is no confirmation at all that British troops are finally leaving Iraq. The speculation, as we have seen before, is speculation upon speculation.

Not for the first time, one really does wonder what this newspaper thinks it is trying to achieve with such reports.

COMMENT THREAD

Bear with me. Despite the pics, this post is not about "toys". It is about journalism and idle, useless MPs. And we have a couple of suggestions for direct action at the end of the piece.

One of the cheapest journalistic tricks in the book, these days, is to pick up on a perceived problem, cite a couple of quick examples that happen to have passed your desk, shoehorning them into your story even if they don't completely fit, and paste in a few snippets from the archives. Then phone up a few handy "rent-a-quote" sources and keep going until you find one that is prepared to say the words you want to print.

In you really want to go to town, get your "rent-a-quote" to write an opinion piece for you (for a small – and sometimes very large – fee) and then quote them in your article. And once you've cobbled it all together, you can put a big "exclusive" flag on it and get the leader-writing department to tap out a pompous editorial, calling for the resignation of the minister.

That is modern journalism for you – not that it has ever been any different – but if you want a particularly egregious example of the genre, you can do not better than look at yesterday's edition of The Yorkshire Post.

The front page exclusive is a story by staff reporter Lizzie Murphy, with the bold headline across the page is, "Soldiers patch up own vehicles to fight war", complete with a picture purporting to show one of the said patched-up vehicles, a Land Rover WIMIK.

Then there is the strap, reading, "MP slams inadequate equipment for troops", referring to the "rent-a-quote" source, in this case the darling of the Tory right, MP Patrick Mercer, former shadow homeland security spokesman and former Lt. Colonel commanding the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters.

As to the substance of the story (what little there is), the assertion is that "British soldiers in Afghanistan are being forced to patch up old Land Rovers with extra protection in the absence of adequate new vehicles," – and this is "according to a former senior Army officer" – i.e., Patrick Mercer.

It may be, of course, that Mercer actually approached the Yorkshire Post with this detail, or it is possible that Lizzie Murphy contacted him to give authority to her story. Either way, she is able to quote him rather than use her own words, saying that "the vehicles are too old and inadequate to cope with the hostile terrain they are expected to cover".

Now we get to the "cut-and-paste" bit, as our Lizzie writes: "The news comes amid warnings that British forces are stretched to the limit and complaints by senior military figures about poor equipment." Then we are given the one piece of real information, from the mouth of Mercer, who says:

When we arrived they were in the middle of self-help in terms of rivetting large sheets of armour plate to the vehicles, the idea being that this would give a much better form of protection. Engineers are working night and day to protect them. This is not just confined to one regiment – it's happening all over."

Soldiers will always improve what they are given but the fact is that we have got to have proper customised armoured vehicles, not WMIKs … The point is our troops need proper vehicles to do the job now, we have been asking for them for too long."

Government attempts to update the UK's fleet of armoured vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan have also been criticised for delays and changing requirements. In June the Ministry of Defence announced new upgraded weapons-mounted patrol vehicles will be bought under an Urgent Operational Requirement for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Described by one serving officer as "a Land Rover on steroids", the new vehicles, 130 in total, are expected to be available in 2008.

But in the meantime, soldiers, such as the 2nd battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment which is due to go out to Afghanistan in the autumn, will have to cope with the vehicles they have.

Peter Brierley, of Batley, whose son Shaun was killed in a crash in Kuwait in 2003, said soldiers putting their lives on the line should be properly equipped. He added: "If they are out there fighting they should have the best equipment. "These Land Rovers are not adequate. These lads that are fighting and risking their lives every day need better protection."

How many more UK soldiers must die in Iraq and Afghanistan because of equipment failings before complacent Ministers provide them with the necessary protection?

We have got to face the fact that the Ministry of Defence has been slow to provide the right sort of vehicles and the right numbers. When I was in Afghanistan last month, Yorkshire soldiers from the Grenadier Guards and the Light Dragoons were patrolling in vehicles that were simply exhausted by the terrain and workload.

Indeed, the Foresters whom I saw were having to strap additional armour plate to their Land Rovers to give them a reasonable measure of protection. Our troops need proper vehicles to do the job now.

Claudia Rossett has an update on the ongoing oil-for-food cases. In the US, a minor player in the whole scam (except for being the major fund provider for all of the UN) the law is acting:

Oil-for-Food investigations by the Southern District have by now led to:

8 guilty pleas + 2 guilty verdicts + 2 agreements and forfeiture judgments + 9 pending cases

Some of these cases involve private individuals and businesses, some involve UN officials. All of them emanated from a UN relief program that UN officials assured us at the time was one of its most efficient ever, and had been “audited to death.”

The Chinese toy recall is given the treatment in The Sunday Times today, with tales of fraudulent safety certificates, checks not done and standards not met.

Yet, while reference is made in the Sunday Times story to "European Union regulations", you will find no mention of "CE marking", nor any examination whatever of the role of the EU in monitoring the enforcement of the standards. Neither will you find any critique of just how fragile the system really is.

Yet, as we pointed out in our earlier piece (and this one), the whole system is one devised by the EU and the Commission has played a significant part in the dismantling of national systems, and scaling down monitoring.

We also pointed our in our pieces that it is well known in the trade that the CE marking system is a charade. Not least, there has been widespread fraudulent use of the CE mark (the format of which is supposed to be standarised), with so many forgeries in circulation that even the Italian authorities were moved recently to issue to the trade examples of the most common forgeries (illustrated above).

Yet the reader who brought this to our attention also told us that he did not have to go very far to find one of the forgeries. There was one in his own workshop. He photographed the equipment (a power tool) bearing the mark and sent it to us (right).

It is an interesting observation on the ways of the media that, given one of the "sillies" like the bent cucumber regulations, they all pile in but, when the EU fouls up big time, they are silent. No wonder – or so we are told - so many people are indifferent to the Eurosceptic cause: they cannot see the relevance of EU regulation to their everyday lives.

Yet here is a classic example of the failure of a core EU system which has direct relevance to peoples' lives. And no one is telling the wider public what has gone wrong - except, of course, Christopher Booker.

COMMENT THREAD

None of your wimpy little Euro-choppers here, mate. This is the real thing, a Bell UH1H "Huey", straight out of "Apocalypse Now". They even played "Ride of the Valkyries" over the Tannoy as it flew against a darkening Yorkshire sky, at Elvington Air Show today.

North Jnr suggests that, as it was flying in Yorkshire rather than VietNam, it should have been "Apocalypse now then".

Click the pic to enlarge.

COMMENT THREAD

Being conservative anything in Britain at the moment is somewhat depressing, not just because of the state of that party but because there seems to be a general lowering of morale. What there is of right-wing or conservative writing in the media seems to concentrate on complaining bitterly about the present (a well-known theme of all conservative writing all over the world) without ever explaining what exactly was so wonderful about which bit of the past and how can that be reconditioned for the future.

In so far as they look beyond their own collective navel, conservative writers, again in the media, seem to feel the need to be as anti-American as the left-wing colleagues. All very depressing.

As for being a conservative woman or - sssh, whisper who dares - a conservative feminist, well you may as well give up on life or, at least, on political activity. On both sides of the spectrum you are told (as no doubt I shall be by posters on the forum) that being a feminist means being rabidly left-wing, PC (whatever that might mean), socialist, and many other suchlike epithets. Oh yes, and they emasculate men, the poor dears.

Now this is total nonsense. I have put up two iconic images of women. One, Rosie the Riveter, a poster created by J. Howard Miller in the United States in 1942; the other is Vera Mukhina's gigantic sculpture of the factory worker and kolkhoz girl, first displayed at the International Paris Exhibition of 1937. Which system, which ideology has allowed women to achieve more - capitalism with its emphasis on individual achievement or socialism with its praise on the collective?

Anyone who knows about the lives of women under Communism knows the answer to that. If some of our readers do not, I shall be happy to wax eloquent on the subject.

Moving back to present-day conservatism, one cannot help being struck by the mimsiness of some of the women supposedly on the right in Britain. It's as if they have forgotten that the first woman MP in Westminster was a Conservative, the first woman MP form Scotland was a Conservative, the first woman Prime Minister was a Conservative.

There may be a shortage of serious women journalists in the drive-by media but let's face it, there is a shortage of serious men journalists as well. The internet, on the other hand, is made for women who want to make their voices heard - any old-fashioned prejudice (and there is plenty of it still around, as I recall whenever I read our forum) can be overcome through blogging and writing on the web.

In the United States, of course, things are somewhat better and some of the most powerful and influential bloggers on both sides of the political spectrum, but particularly on the right, are women.

It is a comment by one of them, who is also editor of National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez, that started this train of thought. Responding to the left-wing journalist, Ellen Goodman, she wrote:

My reaction to Goodman-like complaining is: It's 2007, you live in the United States. You have a pen, phone and Internet connection. Stop whining. It's unattractive. If you want to have an impact, just work. That's how the guys do it. That's how we gals do it.

All one can do is link to Paul Belien's posting on Brussels Journal. It seems that Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans has surpassed himself. Having banned the anti-Sharia demonstration planned for September 11, he has allowed a "9/11 truther" demo, organized by something called "United for Truth" (no, I will not link to it by Paul Belien rather generously does) on 9/9. The significance of that date escapes me but, perhaps, they think that it was on September 9 that Karl Rove organized his various dastardly deeds.

Readers of this blog have probably recognized that both its authors are supporters of the war against terror and the war in Iraq though we do think it would be a good idea if the British prosecuted it a little more sensibly and efficiently. (And yes, since you ask, the surge is working as anyone can find out if they read the reports published even in such anti-war media outlets as the New York Times and Der Spiegel.

For all of that, we do not think that demonstrations against he war should be banned even if they do tend to be organized in Britain by the Socialist Worker group. Even a "truther" demo should be allowed as long as the participants behave themselves. After all if lunatics want to parade their lunacy, why not let them do so.

One cannot help wondering about Mayor Thielemans's devotion to free speech and freedom of assembly in this particular case.

One tries to be careful and measured when writing for this blog, not least because it reflects on our reputations and the authority of what is said. Every now and again, though, there is a powerful temptation to throw it all up in the air and say, "bugger it" and simply lash out.

Hence, two pictures by way of contrast, which ignore all the subtle nuances and all the reasoned, structured arguments and related issues. The first is a picture of the first of a batch of Leopard 2 Main Battle Tanks being delivered to the Canadian Army in Afghanistan. These are replacing (or supplementing) the clapped out Leopard 1 tanks, which have been providing back-up to coalition forces in the theatre (including, incidentally British forces).

The other picture is from the MoD website, puffing the delivery of the first of its Austrian-built MAN trucks for the British Army.

We have had much to say about these trucks, not least questioning why we had to buy from a foreign manufacturer when vehicles with a better specification could have been built at home.

This would have given a boost to our own industry and, probably, in the fullness of time, created export opportunities. I simply do not see why UK taxpayers' money should be spent on giving jobs to Austrians, when our own workers are idle. Such are the joys of the Single Market.

However, the more immediate point is to observe that it would be rather nice to see pictures on the MoD website of British tanks being delivered to Afghanistan, instead of PR pictures justifying a crap decision – to add to the many other crap decisions – made by the MoD.

There – I told you this was a thoroughly irresponsible post. I'm off to an airshow today, so blogging will be light. We have pouring rain, with low cloud and lousy visibility. I must be mad. But then, you knew that.

COMMENT THREAD

Administrative affairs commissioner Siim Kallas mentioned it in a speech to the EU parliament on 16 July.

This blog picked it up and published it on 18 July. Then Booker used it for his column on 22 July in The Sunday Telegraph, crediting it to this blog. There was then a response in the letters column the following week, on 29 July.

This is the story of how the lobby group, Friends of the Earth Europe is being paid money from the EU commission, er… to lobby the EU commission.

Now, trailing in our wake, a month after the original story broke, comes Martin Banks in The Daily Telegraph with the stunning headline, "EU Commission pays group to lobby Brussels".

This is the story of how the lobby group, Friends of the Earth Europe is being paid money from the EU commission, er… to lobby the EU commission.

But, in the true style of leaden hackery, Banks leads with a rent-a-quote Tory MEP – this time Roger Helmer – who obligingly makes disapproving noises, accusing the commission of a "grotesque" waste of taxpayers' money.

Banks, then gravely adds, in the interests of "balance" that "the commission argues that giving the organisation nearly half of its annual budget does not stop it from criticising the institution."

If he was less of a hack, he might have added (but does not) that, with additional funds from German, Austrian and Dutch ministries of environment, plus contributions from the United Nations Environment Programme, public money accounted for over fifty percent of the group's income, making it primarily a taxpayer-funded organisation.

Instead, Banks is more interested in giving us another rent-a-quote from Mr Helmer, from whom we learn the stunning information that this is "not a one-off." The commission, he says, "has invited numerous pro-EU lobby groups and NGOs to a debate in October on the EU constitution." Wow!

And what about Oxfam receiving €48 million from the commission over two years to carry out development and humanitarian projects throughout the world and the European Consumer Office, better known as "BEUC", receiving €2.4 million, er... to lobby the commission? Well, you would have to read our blog to find that out – and we wrote it a month ago.

You can see why we are just, occasionally, a little bit jaundiced about the dead tree media.

COMMENT THREAD

The media have been full of the report produced by John Redwood's competitiveness commission. Others have had their say on this but, of particular interest, was the BBC Radio 4 Today programme interview of shadow chancellor George Osborne.

During a long discussion, he was challenged by Sarah Montague on Redwood's deregulation proposals – cutting "red tape" as she put it - who specifically referred to the claim by UKP that little could be done because most regulation came from Brussels.

Said Montague, "The trouble is that, of course, half, as the UKIP – the United Kingdom Independence Party’s pointed out, that over half the regulations applying to British businesses are from the EU. That the Conservative Party would have huge legal problems if you started trying to untangle that."

Without so much as a blush, Osborne immediately responded,

Well, you've got to remember that what actually happens is that the European Union proposes a directive, proposes a way of regulating something, and then leaves it to the national governments to decide how that is actually implemented in the member state. So that means the British civil service decides how the European directive is implemented. And I think, on far too many occasions they have over-interpreted European regulations, they have made them overly burdensome and, you know, the first place you could start with European regulation is by making sure that European regulation is not imposed in this country more harshly than it is in other European member states.

Brussels Journal gives an update on the anti-Islamisation demonstration scheduled for 9/11 in Brussels and banned by the Socialist Mayor of that fair city.

It seems that

Hugo Coveliers, a member of the Belgian Senate, will initiate an appeal procedure on Ulfkotte’s behalf against the mayor’s decision before the Council of State, Belgium’s highest administrative court. The CoS will have to issue its verdict before 11 September. According to Senator Coveliers it is “80% certain” that the CoS will overrule the mayor’s ban and allow the demonstration to go ahead.

Of the more objectionable traits of the media is their self-important habit of prefacing many of their stories with the like of, "the BBC can reveal …" or "The Daily Telegraph has learned…".

Well, if you cannot beat them, join them so, today, this blog is revealing how we, with our allies (and not a little help from the blogosphere) have saved the lives of British troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan – and will continue to do so. This is the story of how it came about, so settle down – it is a long one. But it is a story about how blogs can make a difference.

Continued on page 2.

COMMENT THREAD

One of the problems with the European Council instructing the IGC about what to put into the Constitutional Reform Treaty was that there was no guarantee that the same governments will be represented at the Conference as were at the Council.

The European Union is, as we know, indifferent to such niceties as elections and different parties coming to power. As the full process of EU legislation takes anything from five to ten years, governments can come and governments can go but the directives go marching on. And that is not to take into account the ten-year plan for such things as food labelling or financial regulation.

Nevertheless, there are likely to be problems with governments retiring, elections being called and, possibly, new people attending the IGC summit in October.

First off, as we know, was Poland, where elections are due to take place on October 21 though Prime Minister Kaczynski (Jaroslaw) has been sacking ministers, reckoning, one must assume that this is his last chance to do so. It will be Mr Kaczynski and Ms Fotyga, the Foreign Minister, but one wonders what validity their presence would be as the likelihood is that those would be the last days of the government.

I am not suggesting that if the Liberals win in the forthcoming election, there would be a change in attitude to the EU, not least because the chances are it will be another rather tense coalition, but an outgoing government does not have much of an authority in negotiations.

Now we have news that Greece is to have an election in September, six months before the government's term is to end. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis will see the President this afternoon and request a dissolution.

If opinion polls are anything to go by, the conservatives lead by one or two per cent, hardly enough to form a working government. Though the EU has praised Mr Karamanlis for setting Greece's budget on target (not yet achieved) of low deficits and serious reforms, the government is not particularly popular.

This is partly because, in order to achieve those low deficits and reforms, a certain amount of belt-tightening has been called for, though there has been no significant reduction in EU subsidy and partly because of the scandals associated with the government (just as the socialists lost in 2004 because of the scandals associated with them).

Not least, there have been devastating forest fires across Greece. As far as anyone can tell, most of the country's forests have been destroyed with untold damage to wildlife and human habitation. One problem seems to have been (we have been informed by one of our readers) is that the government has been wary of sending fire-fighting helicopters out, lest the water from them damaged even further the antiquated electric system and causeed more power cuts.

According to the BBC Theodore Rousoupoulos, the spokesman for the government explained:

The government, fully responsibly, asks the Greek people to decide on the future of the country, renewing their trust and giving a second strong mandate for another four years.

Returning from Afghanistan this week, defence secretary Des Browne declared he has "no doubt" that Iran is arming the Taliban in a bid to make it more effective against UK, Afghan and NATO forces.

"I have no doubt," he told The Guardian, "because we have uncovered evidence of weapons coming in through narco-trafficking routes, supplying weapons to the Taliban. I have reason to believe the Taliban go to Tehran for training."

His comments are one of the latest developments in an increasingly bizarre situation that has had the Bush administration considering designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, while the European Council – with the active support of our own foreign office – is defying the ECJ in continuing to brand the Iranian PMOI opposition as a terrorist organisation.

The action of our own foreign office was first highlighted by Christopher Booker in his column in June, shadowed by this blog, again by this blog and then again by Booker in July, pointing out that the British action was largely at the behest of the Tehran regime.

Almost entirely ignored by the rest of the media, this situation is now coming to a head where the US, in parallel with its intent to blacklist the Revolutionary Guard, is also mooting active support of the PMOI with a view to exploiting the growing divisions and unrest inside Iran, in the hope of triggering regime change.

Effectively, this puts the EU and the United States on a collision course, with the two blocs at polar opposites. And, despite its "special relationship" with the US, the UK remains at the centre of the EU moves to emasculate the Iranian opposition - in direct conflict with Washington. Yet it is that opposition which could prove the only realistic counter to a regime that is financing and supporting insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Somewhere here there is, to say the very least, a glaring inconsistency in British policy, but it is one which needs urgent resolution. It cannot be right that, on the one hand, we are giving aid and comfort to the Iranian regime while, on the other, we are sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to be murdered by that regime's proxies.

COMMENT THREAD

No irony here at all. Open Europe have produced a superb comparative analysis between the EU treaties, as amended by the "reform" treaty and the EU constitution.

I guess the end result of the "reform" treaty process and the EU constitution are pretty similar then.

COMMENT THREAD

The Autonomist - and many others today, including Michelle Malkin and What the crap?, who takes the p*ss, quite deliciously – highlights the remarkable photograph produced by AFP (left), with an Iraqi woman holding up two unused rounds of rifle ammunition which, the caption says, she claims are bullets which hit her house.

What appals more than anything it the sheer technical illiteracy of the journalist (snapper) who filed the picture – unable to distinguish between unfired rounds and spent bullets that have impacted a solid object. And then there are all the "fact-checkers" in the system who are supposed to pick up bloomers like this, making sure they never see the light of day.

Still, this is no difference in quantum from the report in The Daily Telegraph last week, on the plans to deploy the Eurofighter on ground attack duties in Afghanistan. The story, as published, had it that:

For the next year RAF pilots will be training hard to fly the supersonic jets at speeds of up to Mach 2 at 100ft through narrow valleys as they prepare the aircraft for the war in Helmand province.

A rather precious Iain Dale "guesses" that the government intention to set up a "blog monitoring unit" (as reported by The Financial Times) is "another excuse to employ a few more people on the public sector payroll."

This is a project by the COI's Media Monitoring Unit (MMU), which is considering how to add blogs to its regular summaries of government coverage of the mainstream press and television. We are told that the initiative reflects the growing media profile of the format and the fact some individual bloggers are moving from niche self-publishers to establishment opinion-formers.

Clarence Mitchell, director of the MMU, said that, although there was debate about the objectivity of some bloggers, several were taken increasingly seriously within government.

In fact, this development simply formalises the status quo. After all, not only does the MoD routinely monitor this blog (as does the US Department of Defense) but, through its Defence Headquarters, has also joined our forum and posted several comments from the Defence Procurement Minister (Lord Drayson), responding to issues raised by this blog (and ignored by the MSM).

At the time, we regarded this as a sign that the blogosphere was coming of age. If we are seriously to challenge the monopoly of the MSM as opinion formers, then we should want the government to "monitor" our output – in the same way that it "monitors" the output of the MSM - and engage in dialogue with us.

Therefore, that the government is so doing, and is taking some bloggers "seriously", is only to be welcomed.

COMMENT THREAD

The Action Committee for European Democracy has produced an explanatory memorandum on the new treaty and supplementary protocols. Reproduced on the European University Institute website (the EU's university), under the aegis of the Robert Schuman Institute for Advanced Studies, it declares:

The proposed new treaty and supplementary protocols take over almost all the innovations contained in the constitutional treaty. They only leave aside the symbolic changes which were introduced by the constitutional treaty – such as the title of the treaty or the symbols of the union – which are peculiarly linked to the constitutional character of the treaty signed in Rome on 29 October 2004.

Of course, there are people and institutions that you could never trust - politicians, for instance, or journalists or the United Nations or the memoirs of anyone important. But we all assume that we can trust encyclopaedias and dictionaries. What would happen if we couldn't? The earth will fall off its axis.

This trust has been, by and large, extended to Wikipaedia, even though it is considerably less trustworthy even than the Britannica. Anyone can post and anyone can edit or counter-edit. In fact, anyone does.

On the whole Wikipaedia is a useful tool and a good deal of it is reasonably accurate. But large amounts of salt are required and when it comes to anything even remotely controversial, it is wise to double check and triple check.

A number of rather entertaining stories have been developing in connection with Wikipaedia and the various organizations that have had a hand in editing entries.

Charles Johnson on Little Green Footballs has been having a wonderful time writing about them all. The point is that people do not seem to realize that if they use computers at their workplace, even if they do so anonymously or from their own address, such as Hotmail, their IP number can be traced, not to their desks necessarily but to their organizations. Even a complete non-techie such as the author of this posting can understand that. What is the matter with all these people?

So, we have an example of someone from the New York Times editing the entry on Condoleezza Rice to add the odd deeply unpleasant and insulting word. Moving on from there we have our own BBC whose employees have been putting their own inimitable touches on various entries.

This story, needless to say, has been covered extensively by Biased BBC, an excellent blog that allows me to know everything about that noxious organization without owning a TV set or, consequently, a licence. (Heh! It's not my money that pays for those bozos.)

It is worth reading the entry and following the links. And don't forget to go through the comments. There are some fascinating ones, especially from the usual mob of Beeboids, as they are known on that blog.

This is a wonderful example from an employee of that august institution:

Oh dear. Well the George W bush incident isn't very clever. Perhaps it was a work experience kid with access to a computer? Perhaps a dramatic example someone was making of the problems of Wikpedia? And perhaps someone was being an idiot.But otherwise a quick glance shows most of these edits are pretty much for the greater good and in the spirit of Wikipedia. I know Nick who posts here contributes.And of course it's not just the BBC who's been at it...

In an extraordinary interview on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme, Eddie Mair questioned Brian Thornton, chairman of Exeter-based Sino-British Consultants about the Chinese toy recall.

Thonton was voluble in his complaints about how western importers played off Chinese factories against each other, driving down their already wafer-thin margins – the result of which, he said, meant that "corners were cut". It was up to the importers, therefore, to check on the safety of the products that they brought into the country, he asserted.

But at no time in the interview did Mair bring up the fact that the bulk of these products bear the EU's CE marking, supposedly certifying their safety - a system which puts the responsibility firmly on the product manufacturers. So much for the vaunted "Europe of results", when the BBC isn't even aware that the beneficent EU has been toiling away on behalf of the "citizens of Europe".

Or was it perhaps that the EU's system is so utterly worthless that Mr Mair did not want to mention it, for fear of tarnishing the reputation of the Beeb's beloved project? Either way, the "elephant in the room" is alive and kicking - so what price the EU's mission statement that "Consumer policy is a core component of the Commission strategy objective of improving the quality of life of all EU citizens"?

COMMENT THREAD

Just days after Prime Minister Kaczynski (that’s Jaroslaw) announced an autumn election, the Foreign Minister, Anna Fotyga, not the most popular lady around despite her impeccable credentials as a Solidarnosc activist, gave an interview in which she expressed the opinion that Poland was still not being treated as equal in any of the western organizations it has joined.

The list of complaints is a mixed bag. For instance, Ms Fortyga is not happy that Russia complained and Germany expressed its shock because Poland agreed to deploy the US missile shield system. Why did nobody complain about Britain or Denmark, she asks indignantly, forgetting that, as a matter of fact, the Czech Republic is also part of the system and, yes, Russia complained about that, too. But then, historically, not much love has been lost between the Czechs and the Poles.

It was predictable (and, blowing my own trumpet, I predicted it several years before we started this blog) that there would be disagreements between the older and the newer members of the EU over foreign policy, attitudes to Russia and the United States being different in different parts of Europe. And so it happened, but it does involve other former Communist countries as well as Poland.

Besides, it is rather odd to complain about not being treated as an equal when you are clearly one of the US’s closest ally and acknowledged as such by the President.

Ms Fotyga’s complaints do not stop there. After all, the EU has not taken seriously Poland’s demands that it should have as many votes in the Council of Ministers as the larger countries like Germany. We have been through that row a few times and have come to the conclusion that it was of little significance to anybody except Tweedledum and Tweedledee in their doomed attempt to hang on to power.

Other complaints are a little more complicated. There is the growing problem of German works of art that found themselves in Polish hands after the war. They were not stolen from Germany, insists Ms Fotyga, but hidden by Germans who lived on the territory that Poland acquired after the war.

While we are on the subject, the question of that territory and the expulsion of Germans from it has been raising its ugly head and that, too, is part of Poland’s grievance.

Add to this attempts by a German conservative legislator, Erika Steinbach, to seek restitution or compensation from Warsaw after Germans fled or were expelled from Poland after 1945. "In Polish minds," Fotyga said, "this means the eradication of the obvious truth: responsibility for the Second World War."

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has distanced her government from Steinbach's claims. Nonetheless, the issue encapsulates the deeply sensitive relations between Warsaw and Berlin. "When you are bigger and more powerful, you have to be one hundred times more sensitive than your small neighbor, and never humiliate," Fotyga said.

Vladimir Socor catches up in the Eurasia Daily Monitor on developments after the August 6 Russian missile drop in Georgia (denied by Russia and described as a dramatic episode by First Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov).

In the meantime, perhaps understandably in view of their own history, the Baltic states have all expressed their support for Georgia and have appealed both to the EU and to NATO to take a strong line on what they see as deliberate destabilization of the country.

Lithuania has initiated a meeting of the New Friends of Georgia group of countries, to be held on September 13 in Vilnius. Created in 2004 by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the three Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine, the group has met on an annual basis since then and is open to new member countries. For example, Azerbaijan -- whether it decides to attend the Vilnius meeting or not -- has proven to be a crucial friend of Georgia in the region, sharing economic burdens and political risks with Georgia.

In the New Friends’ group, Romania has also expressed support for Georgia following the Russian air incursion. Minister of Foreign Affairs Adrian Cioroianu confirmed to Bezhuashvili by telephone that Bucharest would join in raising the issue within the EU and NATO. Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken a similar stand, and President Lech Kaczynski announced his support for Saakashvili’s position (DPA, Radio Polonia, August 9).

The three Baltic states and Poland are joining the United States and several West European countries in an international group of military experts to investigate the August 6 Russian missile drop on Georgia. Airspace control specialists from the Baltic states’ defense ministries have already arrived in Georgia as part of this group.

On August 9-10, the UN Security Council turned down Georgia’s request for a UNSC session to discuss the missile drop. The Security Council’s incumbent presidency, which happens to be Congo, opined on behalf of some other countries as well that a discussion would be premature and should, in any case, await the results of an investigation by the OSCE. Barely one month earlier, the UN had exculpated Russia over the March air raid on Georgia, because the UNOMIG-led investigative team operated on the rule of consensus with Russia. Thus, Georgia received conclusive confirmation twice in the space of several weeks that relying on the UN for national security is not only pointless, but a downright counterproductive substitute for real measures.

For its part, the OSCE’s incumbent Spanish chairmanship merely urged Russia and Georgia in a public statement to show restraint and cooperate with one another in clarifying what had happened. Such evasion of responsibility has become almost a norm in recent years from OSCE chairmanships facing Russian pressures for budgetary and organizational “reforms.” In a follow-up statement, the chairman -- Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos -- called for an investigation and announced the OSCE’s intention to cooperate with it. Thus, the OSCE, in effect, passed the ball to others -- the best possible move for the organization, given its own internal dilemmas.

Saxon Times (aka Anoneumouse) has an embarrassing question for Gordon Brown, while Tony Mahar over at Elephant Head has an electric look as Article 9.

The Tap takes a critical look a Cameron's tactics and, if you want a look at the dark side, so does Europhile Lib-Dem Jeremy Hargraves, who draws his own conclusions.

Staying on the dark side, Stephen Farrington at Don't trip up invokes Attlee in an attempt to argue against a referendum, while EUlawblog has a go at Open Europe's "big lie".

Speaking of which, the Tory research department has finally noticed that there are problems with the EU's proposal on biofuel targets, something we started running a month ago, followed by this piece, this one, this and this.

But then, Open Europe is relying on the FT blog, despite the fact that Booker did much the same story on 22 July. Perhaps they should widen their reading. If they start with their own blog comments list, they might notice a spam advert for preventing hair loss (penultimate entry - illustrated right) attached to a post dated 4 July. Give them enough time, they might notice Article 9 as well - unless it's in the "not invented here" folder. Maybe they are waiting for the Financial Times to run the story.

While we're on about part-timers, The Telegraph is running a story about the remarkably high number of Cameron's shadow cabinet colleagues who have outside interests – not least our William Hague who has two directorships, three advisory posts to a total value of more than £100,000 and a lucrative book contract.

Tim Montgomerie, from Tory Diary, suggests that it indicates that "the Conservative front bench is not as hungry for power as Labour was when it was in opposition." But Hague's devotion to his extramural interests (not forgetting his lucrative incursions into the lecture circuit) might explain his relative ignorance about the constitutional reform treaty. It could be that he isn't putting in the hours, and needs to spend more time on his day job.

Finally, for a spot of entertainment, go here to admire the efforts of Harry Panagopulos. He has started up a 10 Downing Street petition asking the prime minister "to guarantee that the British people will not be permitted a referendum on the new EU reform Treaty". It has attracted a magnificent six signatures.

COMMENT THREAD

With an estimated 18 million Mattel toys (two million in the UK alone) having to be withdrawn in what must be one of the largest ever global recalls of consumer products, one of the major players in the ongoing drama is keeping remarkably quiet.

This, of course, is our old friend the elephant in the room. Better known as the European Union, through what some of the media so quaintly like to call its "executive arm" – the EU commission – it is entirely responsible for setting up the regulatory system on toy safety. And, if nothing else, these current recalls are evidence of a spectacular failure of the system.

The silence of the commission is in marked contrast to its hubris in November 2005 when it celebrated "20 years of safe products for Europe", a result claimed for its "revolutionary" CE safety marking scheme.

What is little understood is that, in taking over the responsibility for product standards – of which "toy safety" was a flagship programme - the commission has enforced the dismantling of national safety monitoring programmes and prevented member states from carrying out their own local checks – such as routine sampling of products in the shops and laboratory tests to ensure compliance with standards.

Instead of this, in came a system of EU-wide harmonisation, "based on the simple condition that the producer guarantees that its products are safe." It requires manufacturers to carry out a battery of procedures, which must be verified by an independent agency, on completion of which they could affix the coveted CE mark which, effectively, guaranteed immunity from official inspection.

Thus, while people were complaining about the opening of our borders to the inrush of immigrants from other EU member states, another revolution was taking place. Our borders were forcibly opened to a torrent of cheap, often substandard imports. And, as long as they carried the "magic talisman" of the CE mark and had the correct paperwork, local port inspectors were effectively prohibited from examining the goods.

What were termed "technical inspections" were condemned as "barriers to trade", on the basis of which the commission rigorously pursued their agenda of dismantling port controls, with over 1000 references to the European Court of Justice.

Furthermore, once in the shops, the official presumption is that goods bearing the CE mark are "safe", so that officials such as trading standards officers are actively dissuaded from carrying out spot sampling. And no longer do local authorities make budget allocations for routine tests. This, of course, has liberated officials to harass errant traders who insist on selling their goods by the pound in defiance of the various EU metrication directives.

One of the consequences of the regulatory nightmare that accompanied the CE marking system has been the destruction of domestic toy-makers, driving the business offshore, particularly to China. This nation has become the "toymaker to the world" as other western economies either relied on the EU's regulatory scheme or emulated it (on the back of relentless EU propaganda, the CE mark has become recognised, world-wide as the "gold standard" of consumer safety).

Out of the reach of EU regulatory authorities, Chinese manufacturers have cynically exploited the system, to the extent that it has long been known in the trade that the CE-marking is a charade. But the regime suited the multi-nationals and big corporations which have dominated the retail sector. It provided a cheap reassurance to the consumer and, by placing the responsibility on the producer (rather than the retailer), enabled the big toy-sellers to evade their responsibility for ensuring that the products bearing their brand labels were safe.

The EU's system has, in fact, encouraged corporate irresponsiblity, instilling a culture of "plausible deniability", where retailers and their suppliers can plead that the "paperwork and procedures" were in order, thus dumping the blame for any failures on anonymous producers, largely keeping their own reputations intact.

Enter José Manuel Barroso, commission president in March of this year. In front of the EU parliament in Brussels, he made the case for his beloved treaty, arguing that he needed "better institutions for better results". "A Europe of results," he declared, "is a political vision based on constructive pragmatism: to address the concerns of our citizens, to provide European solutions for European problems."

Now, as hundreds of thousands of anxious parents scour their childrens' toy chests for potentially dangerous toys, they are gaining first-hand experience of this "Europe of results". But, as the elephant skulks quietly in the corner of the room, who is going to tell them that, yet again, they are enjoying another of the benefits of our membership of the European Union?

COMMENT THREAD

Continuing our series on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office "mythbuster" document on the new constitutional reform treaty, we look today at the second of the "myths". This concerns the "EU Foreign Minister", the "straw man" assertion being that he "will control Britain's foreign policy".
In rebuttal, the FCO maintains:

No. The proposed High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will report to the Member States on foreign policy – i.e., the 27 national Foreign Ministers in the Foreign Affairs Council and the 27 national leaders at the European Council.

The post will bring clarity to the EU’s existing external actions by combining the roles of the current EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (Javier Solana) and the Commissioner for External Relations (Benita Ferrero-Waldner). This is intended to avoid wasteful institutional wrangling and enable the EU to act effectively at the international level.

As is the case now, it will be the Member States, acting by unanimity, who set the EU's common foreign and security policy (CFSP) objectives. And it will be the Member States who task the High Representative to take forward activity under the CFSP. Where we don't agree we can still act independently.

"Until now, the main criticism of the Reform Treaty has been that it tries to bring back the old draft Constitution under a new name. It now appears that the subtle changes are at least as worrisome."

So says the Wall Street Journal, commenting in the inclusion of the European Central Bank in the constitutional reform treaty as an institution of the European Union. This, the paper believes, will weaken the Bank's independence, undermining its special status.

That change, incidentally, was not in the original version of the EU constitution and, therefore, was an addition to the reform treaty – possibly at the behest of Sarkozy. Maybe the Telegraph's treatment of the story wasn't so ludicrous after all. We may owe the paper an apology.

Anyhow, in rehearsing the Trichet concerns, the WSJ underlines our own concerns about the malign effect of Article 9 (and the substantial revisions to the Union's objectives in Article 3). Furthermore, it is entirely correct to characterise the inclusion of the Bank in Article 9 as a "subtle" change, which indeed it is.

The point also must stand that the inclusion of the European Council as an institution (although the paper does not discuss this) must also weaken the independence of that body although, in keeping with the subtlety of the change, the effects will also be subtle.

In fact, therein lies much of the problem – as we have already suggested – in that few enough people can even grasp the nature of the European Council, so that fact that its status is to change is one that simply does not register.

This might even be William Hague's problem. His presentation on the treaty in "plain English" is now up on the Conservative website in which he refers to the proposed permanent president chairing the "Council of Ministers", rather than the European Council. One wonders if, like so many, he does not understand the difference.

Anyhow, to return the subtlety of the effect, that the European Council will be bound by the same aims and objectives as the commission and the EU parliament will not necessarily change the way it behaves.

That much can be deduced from its extraordinary behaviour in deciding on a 20 percent renewables target at the Spring Council and its actions in June in agreeing the "mandate" to the IGC. To all intents and purposes, on both occasions, it was acting as if the proposed Article 9 was already in place.

Here, in fact, one can see the malign effect of gathering the heads of states and governments into one room under the aegis of the European Council. Separated from their own ministers and civil servants – and out of the reach of their own parliaments - they enter the febrile hothouse of the Justus Lipsius (pictured) where the rule of "consensus" applies and the pressure to conform is immense. Small wonder they already do "voluntarily" what Article 9 will require. The conditions are closer to that of a cult meeting than a gathering of members of government, where a kind of brainwashing applies.

Where the Article really comes into effect, therefore, is in providing another "stick" to use against the dissidents, big but mainly small, who might have the temerity to assert their independence. They can be sternly reminded by their conformist "colleagues" - and the new permanent president - that their "solemn obligation" is to "respect" the treaties, which require them to serve the interests of the Union.

And that, as we have so often remarked, is the way the European Union works. Article 9 turns what is in effect de facto practice into a de jure obligation. A subtle change it is indeed, but the WSJ is not wrong when it describes it as "worrisome".

COMMENT THREAD

Featured in The Telegraph today (but nowhere else) is the publication of a "simplified treaty" by Timothy Kirkhope, the Conservative leader in the EU parliament.

It is presented as an alternative to the current constitutional reform treaty, offering all kinds of goodies, including "calls for limits on the powers of the European Court of Justice", and also making it clear "that national parliaments should be the primary law-making bodies."

Kirkhope is cited by The Telegraph as saying that it was crucial for opponents of the constitution to offer an alternative to it, and believes that, "It's crucial that the EU re-engages the people of Europe and focuses on the big issues like global warming, poverty and globalisation."

These sentiments are backed by William Hague – who writes the foreword to the document – who writes that it is vital that EU leaders find an "alternative vision to the outdated goal of ever closer union".

Hague's view is that a treaty that handed powers back to member states and made the EU more accountable and democratic would offer "a tremendous opportunity to tackle some of the real problems the EU currently faces".

The trouble is that, although presented as something new, this is simply a rehash of something which Kirkhope produced in 2005 and is about as relevant now as it was then. The "colleagues" have their own draft treaty on the table and they really are not interested in anything that Mr Kirkhope – or Master William – have to say.

The document, therefore, simply represents a strand of wishful thinking that dominated the upper echelons of the Conservative Party. They are imbued with the idea that the "colleagues" are somehow "misguided" in their pursuit of political integration, and simply do not know any better.

From their fantasy island, the Conservatives thus delude themselves that all they need to do is offer an alternative "vision", whence the "colleagues" will fall back in wonderment, admit their errors and embrace the new vision to their collective bosoms.

As such, the document also represents the continued refusal of the Conservatives to face the reality of the integration process (of which they have been part) – their refusal to accept that each treaty it is part of a continuum, all directed to the end point of political unity.

Their problem is that they cannot acknowledge this, as it means recognising and admitting to their own role in the process. Therefore, it is much easier to trot out alternative "visions", even though they know that they have not the faintest chance of being adopted.

However, the merit of this approach – from the Conservative perspective – is that it gives the impression of activity and thus diverts attention from the fact that the Party is failing to engage with what is. As long as this pretence can be maintained, it staves off the day when they have to get to grips with the reform treaty and tell the nation precisely why it should be opposed.

COMMENT THREAD

Lord Biffen of Tanat, the former Conservative Cabinet minister, died today in hospital. He was 76. As John Biffen, the former MP for Shropshire North was leader of the House of Commons for five years during Margaret Thatcher's premiership.

His successor in Parliament, Owen Paterson, offers the following tribute:

John Biffen was an exceptional man. He was MP for North Shropshire for thirty five years and people of all parties and all interests owe him a great debt. He was greatly admired as a constituency MP for his conscientious hard work, his judgement and his kindness to all, regardless of their political affiliation.

On the national stage, he was first and foremost a great Parliamentarian, still remembered as one of the finest Leaders of the House of the last fifty years. Liked and respected by both friends and opponents, he handled the House with fairness and a deft sense of humour. He was a staunch believer in the sovereignty of the House of Commons.

He played a key role in the revival of the Conservative Party’s fortunes in the 1970s as a member of Margaret Thatcher's inner circle, rethinking and developing the policies that led to eighteen years of Conservative Government and the transformation of Great Britain.

However, to the end he was brave and independent-minded, never afraid to part company with the party line if he believed it to be wrong.

My thoughts go out to his wife Sarah and his stepchildren Lucy and Nicholas. She has always been a tower of strength and in particular, has looked after him with unfailing care in recent years as his health declined.

The BBC's Robin Lustig interviewed John Redwood on the Radio 4 World Tonight programme yesterday, specifically to ask him about the EU dimensions of his deregulation proposals.

Redwood readily conceded the EU involvement, telling Lustig that, "In some circumstances, we will need to discuss these matters with our European partners".

In some circumstances, though, Lustig rejoined, you will need to renegotiate the treaties, against which Redwood argued that it was in all the member states' interests to go for deregulation. "It would be wise for all member states to move together," he said.

If they don't want to do it, he continued, "we would then want our opt-out … I can't see how it would be difficult to renegotiate our opt-out". Then we got to the crunch: Mrs Thatcher had renegotiated the rebate so there was no reason why a new Conservative government would not be successful.

There we have it again – but there is a reason. As we pointed out in our earlier piece (link above), the Thatcher victory was in the circumstances where the "colleagues" desperately needed a new financial settlement and she held a veto. Unless they agreed to give her back some money, she could hold out forever.

In this case, however, the British would be the supplicants – with nothing to offer – and the "colleagues" would hold the veto, leaving Redwood high and dry if they said "no".

As we suspected, therefore, this is the same delusional thinking of old – that somehow all the new government has to do is go over to Brussels and talk sweet reason to the "colleagues" and they will fall into line. But, if they don't, you just have to "wave the handbag" and all problems will melt away.

They really haven't moved on, these people – they are still in their fantasy world with no understanding of what they are dealing with.

COMMENT THREAD

The AK Party, having won a decisive victory in the Turkish parliamentary election last month, has once again nominated Abdullah Gül as its candidate for the presidency.

Last time round this caused difficulties with the secularist parties and the army. The parliamentary parties refused to participate in the presidential vote, thus causing something of a crisis, which led to the parliamentary election. At present the secularist groups are merely muttering threats and Mr Gül is due to meet them to allay their fears, which revolve round his strongly Islamic outlook and his wife wearing a headscarf. (Actually, she seems to wear rather elegant Parisian headscarves so she may not want to give them up even to promote her husband's career.)

The first round of the presidential election is due on the 20th. In the first and second round a two-thirds majority is required. The AK Party does not have enough members of parliament to achieve that so the process may well go to the third round when a simple majority will be needed.

"Revealed: cover-up plan on energy target," blared the front page of the Guardian today. But it should not come as a surprise that this newspaper has got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

It had obtained a leaked document from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (formerly the DTI), on Britain's renewable energy targets. On the basis of that 19-page document, it was reporting that government officials had "secretly briefed" ministers that Britain has no hope of getting remotely near the new EU renewable energy target that Tony Blair signed up to in the spring

Accordingly, these same officials – in the words of the Guardian were suggesting that the government finds "ways of wriggling out of it" – thereby giving the lie to government's claims "to be leading the world on climate change".

But what the document actually does, in a clinical, analytical fashion, is expose the fantasy world in which Blair and his fellow "EU leaders" inhabited at the March European Council meeting. Divorced from any notion of reality in their little bubble, they had committed their respective countries to the wildly unrealistic target of producing by 2020, a mad 20 percent of the collective demand for energy in the European Union from renewable sources.

Now, this "internal briefing paper" tells ministers that the best the UK could hope for is nine percent, which includes the two percent currently provided, and even that would be "challenging". Furthermore, this will cost the UK economy an extra £4 billion a year in energy costs, albeit a fraction of the cost of the unattainable 20 percent target which is estimated to cost £22 billion per annum.

What the paper puts into sharp focus, however, is that our masters in Brussels are expected to demand at least 16 percent from the UK, and energy commissioner Andis Piebalgs is due to visit in the autumn to discuss the UK's plans to achieve this target. Officials, therefore, have produced this paper all in a rush, imploring our own ministers urgently to agree a "line to take" with the commissioner, in the vain hope of fending off this ruinously expensive demand. Thus do we see eloquent testimony of the extent to which the EU agenda dominates ministers' activities.

Another thing – ignored entirely by the Guardian - is a commentary on the EU's emission trading scheme (ETS). This is the EU's flagship policy, aimed at driving down greenhouse gas emissions by imposing decreasing quotas for carbon emissions on a wide range of energy-using enterprises, forcing them to buy "carbon credits" from the market if they exceed their quotas. The theory is, of course, that as the cost of carbon increases, those enterprises will be driven to adopting carbon-reducing technologies and procedures, this cutting overall emission.

In this paper, however, there is a bombshell. Pushing for a 20 percent renewable target, the officials write, would have precisely the opposite effect, driving down the cost of carbon, to the extent that a complete collapse of ETS would be precipitated. Not for the first time, we have two policies completely at odds with each other.

That conflict of policies was already evident with the ten percent biofuels target, which is also explored in this paper.

The officials note, with masterly understatement, "the main constraints on increasing renewable energy in fuel use are the constraint (sic) on the land available for biofuels, and on the sustainability of imported biofuels". Meeting the 10 percent target, they write, would involve a 25-fold increase on 2006 sales. "This could have significant cost implications on the economy as a whole," they add.

It is the final section, however, that sets the tone. There, the officials record "business and other stakeholder views": the ambitious nature of the target itself, they consider, "means it lacks credibility".

That, actually, is far too restrained. In the hothouse of the European Council - freed from the constraints of his own Parliamentary system - Blair and his EU "colleagues" totally lost touch with reality, vying to put the EU and the UK at the forefront of the "greener than thou" brigade.

A pained Guardian leader bemoans that "not only did Tony Blair sign up to the EU commitment in March, he claimed credit it for it." This is what he said at the time: "There is some pride in our country because this agenda very much grew out of what we tried to do in our G8 presidency and our presidency of the EU. It is tremendous to think that 18 months later we have what I think is a historic summit."

His words, the leader adds, "fit uncomfortably with a subsequent internal briefing paper prepared by officials." And indeed they do, as they always do when reality begins to intrude.

COMMENT THREAD

The East German authorities have always denied that there was a shoot to kill order with regards to those of their own people who tried to flee to the West. Now a document has surfaced in the Stasi files that proves that to be the case. Amazing really - why put something like this into writing?

An estimated 1,100 people were killed between 1961 and 1989 when the Berlin Wall and the rest of the border came down. Many were left to bleed to death while the West German guards watched helplessly.

Cranmer makes the necessary point about the European Council.

COMMENT THREAD

On behalf of our masters in Brussels, our (local) government has responded to the Downing Street online petition calling for a referendum on the treaty.

There are times when we wish we were a swear blog. Meanwhile, the Civitas blog has a stronger stomach than us, and does a little analysis. Iain Dale contents himself with having a little sneer.

COMMENT THREAD

Eurocorps has been on the march, parading in Strasbourg and in Brussels, joining in the Belgian national day celebrations, "honouring the 50th anniversary of the European Community".

To enable it to complete these gruelling and dangerous tasks, Eurocorps has deployed a "multinational marching detachment", including the flags of its five framework nations.

Some 78 soldiers, NCOs and officers have been trained hard to march in perfect order and, because different nations means different kinds of drill, a specific "Eurocorps drill" is taught and co-ordinated by national Drill Control Teams.

And it all came together on 21st July when the Eurocorps detachment paraded in the centre of Brussels. They waited for the departure of the parade at the "Wetstraat – Rue de la Loi" – home of the EU commission. After the inspection of the troops by the King of the Belgians, HRH Albert II, they marched through the crowded streets and in front of the royal palace, proudly showing multinationality. (No sign of the Single European Tank, though!)

After an "emotional day", we are told, the honour detachment of HQ Eurocorps rejoined its home base in Strasbourg (France) the same evening.

Aren't we so very, very lucky that we have such a fine body of men to protect us. With a "single European drill" so perfectly executed (stop sniggering at the back), the Taliban and al Qaeda must be quacking quaking in their sandals.

COMMENT THREAD

The Huntsman has a look at Redwood's proposals, reminding us what happened when Cameron promised to take Tory MEPs out of the EPP. He also has an excellent commentary on Article 9, the ECB the European Council and the implications for the European Court of Justice.

Neil Herron has a look at Andrew Roberts looking at him, speculating on what life would be like if the "reform" treaty is brought in.

Then there is a wry comment from Christianity is not left wing. It's all YOUR fault. And Numberwatch has an interesting advertisement for the EU, while Anoneumouse tells us what a "straw man" is.

COMMENT THREAD

Ann Marlow, in the Wall Street Journal tells us not to believe the naysayers. Afghanistan, she writes, is doing as well as anyone has a right to expect. She is probably right.

However, as we keep pointing out, ad nauseam, the battles for these far flung places are not won (and, especially, lost) on the ground. The real battleground is the hearts and minds of voters in the countries who provide the forces (and the money) which are fighting to bring stability.

And again, as we never fail to point out, the currency of this war is the dead soldiers. Western populations are remarkably sensitive to even a small number of casualties and as the death toll mounts – with yet another British soldier reported killed in Afghanistan, resolve weakens.

That much is evident from the YouGov poll in the Sunday Times, which has only six percent of respondents believing that our Army is winning the war in Afghanistan.

Wrong though the perception might be, not a little of this arises from the spectacular ability of the MoD to score own goals, with its supply of dangerous and inadequate equipment.

Compare and contrast with the news yet again of an ambush in Afghanistan, when a Canadian RG-31 was hit by a roadside bomb and the convoy in which it was travelling subject to a "baptism of fire", attacked by rocket-propelled grenades. And, once again, the crew of five escaped, this time with light injuries, allowing Brig. Gen. Guy Laroche to remark, of the wounded soldiers, "They're fine, their morale is good".

A similar story comes from the crew of a Polish Rosmak (Wolverine) armoured personnel carrier (pictured), which hit a land mine in eastern Afghanistan, 25 miles from the military base in Sharan in the Paktika province. No soldiers were injured although the blast severely damaged the vehicle.

Yet, while Polish and Canadian forces can parade their good fortune, the MoD response is to close down the debate, prohibiting us from discussing the weakness of their equipment, while also imposing the most draconian of gags on serving personnel.

Thus, while the State gags the very people who could help bring sanity, and restore effectiveness to our own forces, redressing the inherent incompetence in the bureaucratic structures in the MoD, the gainsayers run rampant with the only information that the MoD freely offers – the deaths of British soldiers. Small wonder we are losing the propaganda war.

COMMENT THREAD

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has produced a "mythbuster" document on the new constitutional reform treaty.

Headed, "EU Reform Treaty: 10 Myths", the format offers statements purporting to represent criticisms of the treaty, with a rebuttal under each. As might be expected, it is a mixture of truth, half-truths, downright lies and propaganda. We'll look at each in turn, in separate posts.

The first deals with the claimed loss of Britain's seat on the UN Security Council. The text is as follows:

1. The UK will lose or have to vacate its seat on the UN Security Council.

No. There is no question of this. The UN Charter is clear that international organisations like the EU cannot be members of the UN (including holding seats on the Security Council).

The EU Presidency (currently Portugal) and the current High Representative (Javier Solana) can already address the UN Security Council where invited to do so on an issue where the EU has an agreed policy. This is in addition to national statements made by each member.

The German Presidency, during the first six months of 2007, addressed the Security Council on behalf of the EU on eight occasions.

The Reform Treaty package will include a clear Declaration stating that the new Treaty will not affect the responsibilities of the Member States for the conduct of their foreign and defence policy – including at the UN.

It is strongly in the UK's interest that, where we have agreed a position with our EU partners, the EU makes its voice heard. The recent EU statement supporting the UK on the Litvinenko case is a good example.

Labour, rather predictably, has condemned John Redwood’s plans for deregulation - leaked in today’s Sunday Telegraph.

Equally predictably, they are claiming that his plan, aimed at saving British businesses £14 billion a year, shows that the Right "have taken control", with minister John Hutton charging that the Tories were becoming "more right wing" than they were even under Hague and Howard.

However, there is nothing particularly right-wing about deregulation, pace Gordon Brown’s announcement of a major initiative to cut regulations in his 2004 pre-budget report.

What makes Redwood’s proposals different though – and wearily familiar – is his suggestion that a whole raft of EU legislation should be scrapped, including the working time directive, health and safety law, home information packs and horse passports. Redwood also proposes that EU law on herbal medicines would be lightened and that Britain should opt out of the EU directive on food supplements.

These, in fact, are nothing new. They are part of a fantasy the Redwood has nurtured for the best part of 15 years. And fantasy they are because he has never, ever set out a credible strategy on how such programme could be achieved.

We have heard that the Conservatives would employ the Thatcher "handbag" technique, used to gain the British rebate. But this was in the circumstances where the "colleagues" desperately needed a new financial settlement, so Thatcher held the veto. Unless they agreed to give her hack some money, she could hold out forever. In this case, however, the British would be the supplicants – with nothing to offer – and the "colleagues" would hold the veto.

Another suggestion is that a new Conservative government could simply veto all new EU projects – where we still have a veto. But, not only have we very few vetoes left, this was the strategy adopted by John Major in the infamous "beef war" – when the EU went marching on without him. Major was eventually forced into a humiliating climbdown.

What it therefore comes down to, therefore, is Britain negotiating with the "colleagues", asking them politely if they will repeal some of their regulations. When it was directly put to Redwood that they might say "no", and he was asked – by Christopher Booker - what he would do then, Redwood replied that, "we would have an interesting discussion".

Should, as some others are suggesting, Britain go ahead and repeal the laws unilaterally – and then subsequently ignore the inevitable fines from the European Court of Justice – that would be an abrogation of the UK's treaty obligations and, effectively, an abrogation of the EU treaties. The inevitable consequence of that, of course, would be Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

Desirable though that outcome would be, it is not on the table. It is not Conservative Party policy and the Europhile Cameron would never accept it as such.

Thus, far from being a lurch to the Right, as Labour would aver, this is once again a demonstration of the incoherence in Conservative thinking, betraying the fact that they still have not come to terms with the EU issue. Instead of confronting it, the Tories live in a time warp, where the same old issues are brought up again and again, only for them to subside each time reality creeps in.

No wonder they are having difficulty convincing voters they are fit for government.

COMMENT THREAD

The Telegraph newspapers appear to be dedicated to spreading the word about Lord Malloch-Brown, our favourite Minister of State in what is beginning to look like another one-man-band government. There really is very little difference between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, except for one thing: we still do not know what Mr Brown really thinks about the big wide world out there.

The Telegraph newspapers and the Shadow Foreign Secretary seem to be quite certain that the real problem is Lord Malloch-Brown (formerly known as Mark Malloch Brown, interference runner for SecGen Kofi Annan and best friend of George Soros). While they all seem to oppose him they also have accepted his own evaluation of himself – the greatest, as Muhammad Ali used to say about himself.

First there was that interview with Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson in which Lord Malloch-Brown told the incredulous world that he was the man whom everybody admired and whose advice and management everybody wanted when tricky problems cropped up. Somehow, none of those plans of putting him in charge ever worked out but they all from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on asked for him.

After that interview both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary hastily explained that Lord Malloch-Brown was Minister of State in charge of Africa, Asia and the UN. That’s it.

Since then we had William Hague digging up the somewhat ancient story about Malloch Brown musing about the EU taking over Britain’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council. As we have repeated ad nauseam, whatever the man says, there is nothing in the Constitutional Reform Treaty that would mean that. But then we do suspect that Mr Hague has been too busy to read the actual text of the treaty.

Now we have William Langley wittily providing Lord Malloch-Brown with more publicity. Mr Langley does not seem to like the recently ennobled peer and considers his big mouth to be his worst enemy. Well, one might agree with that.

Mr Langley also gets one or two things wrong. He seems to have accepted without any thought that the neocons had “hijacked” American foreign policy despite the many articles and essays that have shown the opposite with a good deal of evidence.

He also seems to think that Lord Malloch-Brown’s remit is Africa, Asia and Afghanistan with no mention of the UN or as Wee William Hague says, UN reform.

While mentioning the curious story of Malloch Brown’s habitation in George Soros’s swanky property in Westchester, he omits other matters such as his Vice-Presidency of the Hedge Fund and involvement with Open Society. He does, however, refer to a particularly virulent article in the Wall Street Journal, which had followed the scandals in the UN. It is worth reading the piece in full.

So there we are. The Telegraph and the Conservative Party do not like Lord Malloch-Brown. So far, so good. How many more articles are we going to have to tell us that without giving any new information?

Actually I am wrong: there is one piece of information in Langley's article, which is new and startling, if true. Apparently, "unusually for a junior minister, he asked for and was granted a grace-and-favour residence by the Government". As the twig bends…

COMMENT THREAD

Hackers and spammers are a real problem on the internet and don't we all know that. However, this story makes me wonder.

Apparently some hackers, one of whom may have been Turkish, managed to get on to the official website of the United Nations and displayed somewhat incoherent and ungrammatical messages that attacked US and Israeli policies in the Middle East. Well, more or less attacked.

The question is, given the way the UN and its various organizations such as the Human Rights Council or the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) usually talk and given the sort resolutions they pass and pronouncements they make, how does anyone know these were hackers.

Booker, in his column today, continues to worry away at the issue of the European Council and the extent of the power grab that he revealed last week, amounting to an attempted coup d'etat by the EU.

What he picks up in today’s piece is the extraordinary attempts of the Europhiles to deny the significance of absorbing the European Council into the maw of the Union institutional structure, invoking from Booker a reminder of the aphorism from the explorer Alexander von Humboldt: "First people deny a thing, then they belittle it, then they say it was known all along." How often this illuminates the tortured advances of the European Union, writes Booker.

Highlighted in the piece is the attempt by Robert Jackson on the Today programme to dismiss this important change as words on paper and the continuing attempts by the Economist blog to play down its signficance, not least in invoking "the British Government's own lawyers", who have – we are told – stated that the new treaty "leaves the status of the European Council unchanged".

That they have reacted so sharply, certainly in Booker's view (shared by many others) means that we seemed to have touched a nerve, and we are by no means alone in appreciating the significance of Article 9 and its implications – witness the comments by Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, yesterday in the Financial Times.

In that paper's account, Trichet had raised concerns about the effect of Article 9 (although the Article was not named), arguing that the absorption of the ECB into the institutional structure would undermine the Bank's independence underwritten in the current treaties (Article 108).

Quite how seriously the ECB takes its independence can be seen in this speech in April by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a member of the executive board of the ECB.

Thus, in a letter to Manuel Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese secretary of state for European affairs, Trichet argued that being listed as one of the Union's institutions along with bodies such as the EU commission and parliament was unacceptable.

"Because of its specific institutional features, the ECB needs to be differentiated from the union's institutions," Trichet wrote. As a Union institution, the central bank would be bound by the same code that applies to the Commission and other bodies.

His fear is that this "subtle change" might encourage EU leaders to put greater pressure on the ECB to divert from its job of regulating the euro and pursue more populist polices aimed at driving growth and job creation.

Both the Saxon Times and the Huntsman blogs saw the point and, of course, what applies to the ECB applies also the European Council in spades.

Also hinted at by the Financial Times is the mechanism by which Article 9 would be applied. It is not one of direct threat or enforcement, in the manner so dismissively described by both Jackson and the Economist blog, but the more insidious application of pressure, moral blackmail and all the other techniques which the "colleagues" use to get their way.

But, if Trichet and a few blogs can see the point, not so the MSM, hence the ludicrous treatment of the story by The Daily Telegraph yesterday, in framing Trichet's concerns as a ploy by France to control the eurozone economy for its own benefit.

Nowhere in that story, nor elsewhere in the MSM, have we seen any explicit warnings about the dangers of Article 9, other than from Booker, writing both in the Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Mail, leaving him ploughing his lonely furrow, outside the mainstream narrative.

Thus, while Booker's piece is headed, "Europhiles in denial over the treaty," it appears that they are not the only ones.

COMMENT THREAD

Gordon Brown has pushed Labour into a 10-point lead, the biggest since he took over as prime minister. This is according to a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times today.

The lead represents Labour's biggest with YouGov since November 2002, before the start of the Iraq war, with Labour on 42 percent, up two points on a month ago, with the Conservatives down one at 32 percent. More details here

Meanwhile, The Guardian and others are running a PA story headlined, "Slumping Cameron joins EU vote call". The paper notes that the party leader has used an article for the News of the World to accuse Gordon Brown of breaking an election promise to secure public support.

This is the Boy's first intervention in the referendum debate since last month, at prime minister’s questions, and his emergence into the arena has been linked with his declining status in the polls. The presumption is that he is seeking to hitch his own star to the popularity of the referendum, in the hope of reviving his fortunes.

Certainly, we have seen Tory attempts (largely successful, so far) to take possession of the campaign for a referendum. In so doing, they are aided and abetted by some of the right-wing press which is promoting the Tory campaign – and that of its unofficial advisory team Open Europe - to the exclusion of others.

However, while being associated with the referendum might help improve Tory fortunes, if Cameron continues to do poorly in the polls, the reverse could happen. An increasingly unpopular leader of the opposition might drag down the campaign – the equivalent of a runner being shackled to a corpse - and reduce the likelihood of Brown conceding a referendum.

As an insurance against Cameron causing a meltdown in the campaign, Eurosceptic groups need to challenge his Party's attempts to take it over, making it clear that the issue is too important simply to become a Tory plaything.

COMMENT THREAD

This is becoming a bit of a dog-bites-man-supermodel-takes-drugs story. Clearly not everyone in Poland is prepared to support the government indefinitely to the point of going into battle for a formula based on the square root of something or other to do with votes in the Council. My guess is that not many people know or care about those votes when bigger issues are at stake.

Poland is going through another process of members of the coalitions falling out with each other. As we reported about a month ago, problems started when Premier Kaczynski (that’s Jaroslaw) fired his Deputy and Agriculture Minister, Andrzei Lepper, the leader of the rural Self-Defence Party.

Though at first it looked like the party might remain in the coalition, a few days ago, Lepper announced that it was withdrawing from the government. At the same time, it was announced that Janusz Kaczmarek was also fired “under suspicion of having leaked classified information, obstructing an investigation into alleged bribery at the ministry of agriculture”.

According to Roman Giertych, Leader of the League of Polish Families (he of the interesting educational ideas), there has been a falling out between his party and the Kaczynskis’ Law and Justice Party and LPF Ministers are due to be sacked on Monday.

Unsurprisingly in the circumstances, the calls for an early elections have become louder. It seems that President Kaczynski (that’s Lech) has agreed with the leader of the main opposition party, Donald Tusk, that early elections will be necessary and there is news that his brother the Prime Minister has come round to that point of view, explaining that it will be on October 21 or, perhaps a week earlier or a week later but, at any rate, no later than November.

The two opposition parties, the Social-Democrats and the Civic Platform are also in favour of early elections, the latter particularly so, as its standing in the polls is higher than anyone else’s.

The Polish Parliament reconvenes on August 22 when it may well decide to dissolve itself in preparation for an autumn election.

COMMENT THREAD

This story has not been covered, so far as I can tell, by the MSM but has cropped up on the blogosphere. In particular it had several airings on Gates of Vienna, a blog written (mostly) by two people, who call themselves Baron Bodissey and Dymphna. So far as I can tell, neither lives anywhere near Vienna. Not the one in Austria, that is, but there might be a Vienna with gates in Virginia.

The blog does have very interesting postings and I can thoroughly recommend it.

It reported on August 8 that a planned demonstration for September 11, the sixth anniversary of those aircraft flying into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, against the Islamisation of Europe, has been banned by the Mayor of Brussels, one Freddy Thielemans (pictured).

The statement was published after consultation with the police chief and sundry other individuals and the reason given is public safety. The Islamic population of Brussels might take such a demonstration amiss and there might be trouble. Of course, many a demonstration invites counter-demonstrations and normally the police lines up to separate the two groups. We have all seen this on various occasions. It seems that the Belgian police cannot cope with the potential problems and one can only assume that the next Rage Demo because somebody dares to say something that the Islamists do not like will also be banned.

The three organizations involved Pax Europe, SIAD and SIOE, have announced that they intend to go ahead and demonstrate anyway, pointing out that as they intend to go about their business peacefully, they cannot be banned. They might find that water canons are not very comfortable to live with even for a short period of time.

The latest news from these organizations that they will decide tomorrow what to do about the demonstration.

Of course, they might have a demonstration protesting the ban, which presumably would so anger the police and political chiefs of Brussels that trouble between the two groups might ensue. One can think of other scenarios.

In the meantime, they have put a petition on line, asking the Mayor of Brussels to reconsider his decision and pointing out that the mere fact that the authorities are too scared to allow it to take place proves the point of the organizers – freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are being denied in the name of not upsetting the more extreme Islamic groups.

There are more articles on the subject on Gates of Vienna, some more accurate than others. Caveat emptor.

In this second round-up of bloggers who have posted pieces on the new EU treaty and related matters, we noted a considerable increase in activity over the previous week. We found over 45 blogs (not including our own), more than doubling the number in our first round-up, so here goes, roughly in chronological order.

Some write very simple posts, like Canker, who has "a real down on the EU" and contented himself with a link to our previous round-up, with a few choice words of his own. But they make the point no less powerfully for that.

Open democracy, in one of several pieces, also linked to the round-up while Tangled Web linked to our piece on the Booker column, which so deftly laid out the story of the EU’s attempted coup d'etat. Also reproducing the graphic of the column, author Pete Moore asked, "Can anyone still fool themselves that the EU is about a club of nations, a free market of trading partners?"

The future is a foreign country is another blog that reproduces Booker while Klein Verzet, who admits to a "current pre-occupation … with matters EU", not only links to several of our pieces (a round-up of the round-up, so to speak), but offers an intriguing explanation of the reason why he calls the new treaty the "Turnip". That post is well worth a read. He also writes a piece on the UN issue.

Devil's Kitchen gives good value for money – as long as you can tolerate the swearing – with a useful comment to this piece (one piece of several) from "Chris", who declares, "Quite frankly if Bertie Ahern, Richard North and M. Valery Giscard d'Estaing (who drafted the bloody constitution in the first place) agree that it is the constitution by another name then that is good enough for me." Nice one!

Much of the activity was from Conservative bloggers, following up Hague's publicity initiative – as we will see shortly – but there was cross-party interest as well. Liberal England, for instance, declared that, "The most important issue at the past three general elections ought to have been Britain's relations with Europe…", publishing a pic of a smiling Ted Heath, rejoicing at the EEC referendum result (duly nicked).

Those who do not currently use pics on their blogs might reflect on how much more powerful they become when posts are well-illustrated.

Daily Referendum (interesting blog that) makes a pitch for the pro-referendum rally in London, and Curly's Corner Shop has a go at "public trust and consultation", telling us that "Matthew D'Ancona adds to calls for EU Referendum". I don't think he means our blog.

In the opposing camp, Global Power Europe attempts a rebuttal of this piece, while offering a link to a petition asking the prime minister "to provide his full support for the European Union's new 'Reform Treaty'". It has ten signatures.

You will not get any such nonsense from The Purple Scorpion (a much under-rated blog), who not only reviews the Booker column but adds a thoughtful piece on the state of play in the campaign, taking an upbeat view. He believes the debate is starting to move on.

Another thoughtful contribution comes from an unlikely source, the blog Planning Watch which, as its name implies, deals more usually with planning matters. Indicative of the widespread concern about the new treaty, its author asks, why are governments throughout Europe so keen to hand over their sovereign rights?

That leads us to the first of the rumbustuous posts from the Economist blog, which was followed by this one and then this, offering increasingly convoluted arguments as to why turning the European Council into a fully-fledged institution of the Union was nothing to worry about.

Interestingly, our original thesis and the fact that the Economist blog reacted so sharply to it, had one of our former forum members (illustrated) convinced that we had changed sides and are now working for the enemy. Several lucky readers have had numerous e-mails pointing that out, at some length.

Also out blogging was Right or wrong, whose blog bears the strap line, "Moral and other questions about life in the UK, EU, and the world at large," offering a piece entitled: "Attempts to avoid EU Referendum are pure humbug". This was not, we understand, a covert message to our former forum member.

David Lindsay was asking questions as well, this one, “Does David Cameron really want a referendum?”. A good question – the piece is well worth a read. You can also read Tory Heaven, who writes about Britain’s UN seat, citing Grendel who complains on the Tory Heaven blog that, "The only real surprise is that the bloggerati have been so quite (sic) on this…". That is not our impression.

Such is the evident gravity of the situation though, that even my near-namesake decided to weigh in, none other than Anthony North, who had a thought: