Attempts to Avoid EU Referendum Are Pure Humbug

The ‘constitutional concept’ has been ‘abandoned’? Well, so says the UK Government when pressed for a British referendum on the EU’s Reform Treaty, the successor to the ill-fated EU Constitution.

Both the Constitution and Reform Treaty have been designed to introduce the ‘innovations’ resulting from the 2004 IGC into the operation of the EU.

The Constitution did so by replacing the constitutive EU treaties with a new text.

The Reform Treaty does so by amending the constitutive EU treaties.

Both have had the same purpose, and each have been intended to provide the EU with the same powers, institutions, and status.

If the Reform Treaty is intended to produce much the same result for the EU as was the Constitution treaty, what is the justification for refusing the British people a referendum now?

To pretend that the precise means by which each treaty acts is different is pure humbug, because the substantive result, and so the import for the British people, is the same in each case.

End Planning Controls - Or Immigration

So Brown wails about the shortage of 'affordable' housing.

The reason housing is so expensive and short is because demand is growing and supply is restricted.

Brown wants more 'affordable' housing, and is hoping extra can be built on government 'brownfield' sites.

The main problem is the restriction on land supply caused by the requirement for planning permission. The problem will not be solved by public building programmes. The market will do a much better job, given the chance.

There is plenty of land, it is just people aren't allowed to build on it. So it is that England's gardens are built on and infilled, and unpopular flats, rather than houses, are constructed.

And no one - Labour, Conservative, or Liberal - dare mention immigration. Even the government's own 2006 estimates reckoned on an expected 130,000 net immigrants a year who would require 65,000 new houses between them.

Gordon Brown hopes for an extra 40,000 houses a year, but is worried about upsetting the green belt and NIMBY lobbies. A surer way to make his numbers add up would be to reduce immigration.

Personally, I would abolish the planning system, and let people build the sort of houses they want to live in, where they want, without restriction.

The planning system is a way for the property 'haves' to maintain their privileged position - high property values, and good views. Everyone else squeezes into smaller, more tightly built accommodation, on rubbishy 'brownfield' land. The old back to back slums will compare well with some of the stuff being thrown up now.

Those who are worried about building on greenfield sites should look to cut immigration: it is hypocritical to support both large scale immigration and green belt policies, at the same time complaining about the lack of affordable housing.

Those who are worried about their children or grandchildren ever being able to afford a house should recognise that the biggest cause of high property prices and unaffordable housing is the planning system's restriction of supply - and the solution is to end the planning system.

Love Poems More Popular In UK

After reading so much gloom about the state of British education, it's good to know that mobile phones are helping to keep alive the country's romantic imagination.

A lot of mobile communication is via text, and some of the most popular texts are romantic and flirty texts, sent especially by younger users. Perhaps this explains why there are so many web sites devoted to love poems?

I recommend Sara Teasdale's short To-night as a good one for text lovers - not too much finger pressing!

Royal Navy Brass Hats Need Sorting - Not Browne

It is all very well to press for Browne's scalp, but the real need is for one or more inquiries to understand why the Navy did not live up to its Nelsonian tradition, and possibly some courts martial.

In praising and publicising the weaknesses and humiliations of the hostages, the senior admirals appear to have revealed an unedifying Byngism at the heart of the Navy, for which they are personally responsible.

The case against Browne is that he should have prevented the admirals acting the way they did. It is a view that presupposes the Navy did not have the authority to make its own decisions, and requires a strained interpretation of events to justify that view: viz. that the freed fifteen were being given permission to express views on politically controversial issues (which goes beyond simply giving an account of what happened).

It is in the country's and Navy's interest that weak and bureaucratic officers and officials are weeded out and there is a reassertion of Nelson's own principles and values: of independence and boldness of action, of delegation of responsibility, and always doing one's utmost to succeed; but this must be done with due process, and it is only when the Navy is understood to be failing itself that Browne can legitimately act to override it.

The Telegraph should know better than to engage in these cheap party political tricks.

Grand National Tip

Last year I selected two of the favourites to win the Grand National and bet on them both "each way". They did well enough for me to come out ahead.

Byng and What is Wrong with the Royal Navy

William Lind writes an interesting article on Admiral Byng and the HMS Cornwall incident:

... Byng was executed not for what he did, but for what he did not do ... Without Byng, I doubt there would have been a Nelson.

Byng's execution points directly to what went wrong in the Royal Navy in the Shatt. It is not so much what people did as what they did not do. Neither the fleet commander nor the commander of HMS Cornwall prepared for such a situation. When it happened, Cornwall did not react. The captured sailors and Marines did not think about anything except their own skins. The Royal Navy, as represented by Admiral Band, seems decided to do nothing about its disgrace except pretend it did not happen.

That pretty well sums it up.

RN's HMS Cornwall Whitewash Shame

There needs to be an official and formal Board of Inquiry into the seizure of HMS Cornwall's boarding party by the Iranians on March 23rd. Courts Martial should probably follow.

It is a pity the returning captives were encouraged to go public with their stories, and worse that they were encouraged to sell them. Inevitably this is liable to prejudice the possibility or outcome of any Court Martial, and for that reason, if for no other, it is a scandal that it was allowed to happen.

It is likely that the handling of the freed captives was calculated to avoid a full and proper inquiry into all aspects of the incident and what it says about Royal Navy operations, training, and equipment, and defence policy generally. Perhaps too to avoid a probe into any deal done with the Iranians to secure the captives' release.

That the government thought it could get away with such a whitewash, and that there have as yet been no resignations over it, shows how poorly the government is held to account. The Opposition's opposition has - yet again - been lamentably weak: the real outcry and criticism has come from everywhere else.

This shameful incident is an illustration of a crisis in Britain's Parliamentary government.

If Cameron's wet Conservatives want to redeem themselves they should at least ensure there is a formal inquiry and not the feeble "lessons learned" exercise the government wants.

There is an excellent and heartfelt blog by Toby Harnden.