Boris is right, we need a Parliament of rebels, MPs who actually consider legislation, tell their whips to get stuffed, and vote with their conscience.
MPs who are in Parliament out of a sense of duty and public service, perhaps?
But if public service is what being an MP is about, then where is the personal sacrifice?
Where is the career forgone, the business neglected, the leisured life abandoned?
Politics today offers what is for most people a lucrative career in its own right. So much so that MPs have lost credibility as public servants: all too many are now revealed as troughers, in politics first and foremost for their personal benefit. It is a politics corrupted.
Unfortunately it is not just a matter of individual personal corruption, but wholesale corruption; a corruption run rife, yet somehow mostly "within the rules".
What has happened is that MPs collectively have built a corrupt and privileged system, which, exploited by the party leaderships, has led to the weak and servile behaviour Boris bemoans.
The trouble is that MPs’ pay and perks are now so great, and MPs' dependence on their party leaderships for their positions is so complete, that MPs will never find it in themselves to be independent. If an MP is disowned by his party it means forgoing not only his seat in Parliament, but his entire career and income.
If we want men of conscience to be our MPs, then we need to cut, or even eliminate altogether, the financial rewards, the allowances and expenses, the plush offices, and the staffs. Let careerists make their careers elsewhere.
We will not eliminate party, but we can reduce its power of patronage.
October 07, 2008
Why the Real Economy Needs Gold To Beat the Financial Crisis
Many people, including, I suspect, many policy-makers, talk about the spill-over from the current financial crisis into the “real economy”, or how to avoid it.
The truth is there is no division. The market in its widest sense is about using scarce resources in the ways they are most valued - to serve individuals’ ends most effectively.
The price mechanism determines what is required to achieve different ends, and the utility of using the different means available, and the relationship between present and future wants largely determines interest rates.
The current financial crisis is a symptom of the need to realign resources, of the impossibility of the current organisation and allocation of resources meeting people’s most valued and urgent wants.
The progress of the financial crisis is the process of a reallocation of capital and of priorities between present and future wants.
The change is so sudden and violent because for many years governments have sought to manipulate the capital markets to achieve “growth” and prosperity. They have done this by artificially lowering interest rates, giving the impression that capital is cheaper (more plentiful) than it really is. Capital is not money as such, even if it is normally represented by money. Because the price (money) and interest rate mechanisms have been distorted, there has been a false accounting: people have lived beyond their means, consuming capital - the future seed-corn.
The sudden change in the financial markets is the result of the dropping of a collective penny, of chickens coming home to roost. The existing allocation of capital is found to be unsustainable. We have to cut our cloth to suit our means, cutting our expenditure and dedicating more resources to future (capital) purposes.
No amount of government money creation can avoid that truth. All it can do is obscure people’s real wants and what really needs to be done to best meet them, continuing to divert capital to sub-optimal ends.
It is true that deflation (like inflation) has untoward effects, itself affecting people’s behaviour, diverting them from the best paths. But the time to take steps to avoid deflation was in the past. The crisis is on us now and the quickest way through it is to let it happen. The best way to avoid a recurrence is to revert to a sound money policy - meaning a non-manipulatory policy by the government, probably best achieved by reversion to the gold standard, simply because there is little scope for the government to create or destroy a gold currency.
The truth is there is no division. The market in its widest sense is about using scarce resources in the ways they are most valued - to serve individuals’ ends most effectively.
The price mechanism determines what is required to achieve different ends, and the utility of using the different means available, and the relationship between present and future wants largely determines interest rates.
The current financial crisis is a symptom of the need to realign resources, of the impossibility of the current organisation and allocation of resources meeting people’s most valued and urgent wants.
The progress of the financial crisis is the process of a reallocation of capital and of priorities between present and future wants.
The change is so sudden and violent because for many years governments have sought to manipulate the capital markets to achieve “growth” and prosperity. They have done this by artificially lowering interest rates, giving the impression that capital is cheaper (more plentiful) than it really is. Capital is not money as such, even if it is normally represented by money. Because the price (money) and interest rate mechanisms have been distorted, there has been a false accounting: people have lived beyond their means, consuming capital - the future seed-corn.
The sudden change in the financial markets is the result of the dropping of a collective penny, of chickens coming home to roost. The existing allocation of capital is found to be unsustainable. We have to cut our cloth to suit our means, cutting our expenditure and dedicating more resources to future (capital) purposes.
No amount of government money creation can avoid that truth. All it can do is obscure people’s real wants and what really needs to be done to best meet them, continuing to divert capital to sub-optimal ends.
It is true that deflation (like inflation) has untoward effects, itself affecting people’s behaviour, diverting them from the best paths. But the time to take steps to avoid deflation was in the past. The crisis is on us now and the quickest way through it is to let it happen. The best way to avoid a recurrence is to revert to a sound money policy - meaning a non-manipulatory policy by the government, probably best achieved by reversion to the gold standard, simply because there is little scope for the government to create or destroy a gold currency.
July 27, 2008
What Would You Do If You Ruled The World?
What three things would you do if you ruled the world?
This is what I would do:
First, I would restrict government spending to a maximum of 10% of GDP.
Second, I would forbid secondary legislation (i.e. The passing of enabling acts which allow the creation of further law and regulation at the discretion of ministers and officials).
Third, I would insist on maintaining parliamentary sovereignty.
Why these things?
Taxation must be limited because in taxing us the state co-opts us in the pursuit of its collective ends, which is necessarily at the expense of our ability to pursue our individual ends in life.
Secondary legislation must be eliminated because it gives law making powers to the executive, enabling them to avoid the rule of law: law becomes whatever they say it is.
It also makes feasible the creation of far more law, and law which is detailed and prescriptive instead of being general principles of conduct. Insisting on primary legislation helps limit the scope of government, and curtail the ambitions of politicians and bureaucrats.
And Parliament must retain its sovereignty, because it is through the mechanism of parliamentary government that those who govern are kept accountable to the people, and that there is a mutually understood relationship between the two.
Maintaining parliamentary sovereignty is of course another reason secondary legislation should be eliminated: it prevents the legislature from passing law making powers to bodies which have no accountability or relationship to the people - the road to eventual tyranny.
This is what I would do:
First, I would restrict government spending to a maximum of 10% of GDP.
Second, I would forbid secondary legislation (i.e. The passing of enabling acts which allow the creation of further law and regulation at the discretion of ministers and officials).
Third, I would insist on maintaining parliamentary sovereignty.
Why these things?
Taxation must be limited because in taxing us the state co-opts us in the pursuit of its collective ends, which is necessarily at the expense of our ability to pursue our individual ends in life.
Secondary legislation must be eliminated because it gives law making powers to the executive, enabling them to avoid the rule of law: law becomes whatever they say it is.
It also makes feasible the creation of far more law, and law which is detailed and prescriptive instead of being general principles of conduct. Insisting on primary legislation helps limit the scope of government, and curtail the ambitions of politicians and bureaucrats.
And Parliament must retain its sovereignty, because it is through the mechanism of parliamentary government that those who govern are kept accountable to the people, and that there is a mutually understood relationship between the two.
Maintaining parliamentary sovereignty is of course another reason secondary legislation should be eliminated: it prevents the legislature from passing law making powers to bodies which have no accountability or relationship to the people - the road to eventual tyranny.
June 20, 2008
Lisbon Treaty Exposes EU Anti-Democracy
Isn’t it nice to have a government that ignores its people? Isn’t it nice that Gordon Brown, heading quite possibly the most unpopular government Britain has known in modern times, goes off and ratifies the Lisbon Treaty when it is as obvious as can be the treaty would be overwhelmingly rejected by the British people, were they given the opportunity?
Should it take effect, the treaty enables the transfer of yet more powers from Parliament to the EU. In practice the powers would be transferred to the 27 heads of government of the EU’s constituent states who, acting collectively as the European Council, would be able to draw down and exercise those powers without further reference to the member state Parliaments (i.e. with one bound they are free of their peoples, and the checks and balances of their national constitutions). Especially where majority voting applies - and the Lisbon Treaty considerably extends majority voting - there is thereafter no possibility that individual Parliaments can have any meaningful influence over what transpires.
The whole process by which the Lisbon Treaty has come into existence and is being ratified, deliberately avoiding obtaining popular consent - and now following the Irish No vote nevertheless trying to force the treaty through, is itself evidence of the extent to which the EU’s various Presidents and Prime Ministers have assumed a loyalty to EU institutions above and beyond anything shown to their native countries.
When you consider that Brown (and his predecessor Blair) has proceeded without regard to public opinion, indeed by studiously avoiding ever engaging with the British public on the matter, and that at the last election the Labour party were afraid to seek a mandate to carry through a new EU treaty, and instead preferred to defer the issue by promising a referendum on the outcome, Brown is clearly behaving undemocratically.
Brown has contrived to act despite the wants, interests, desires, and aspirations of the British people. He has made no effort to persuade the British people of the rightness of what he is doing, and he has wholly failed to solicit their agreement.
When you further consider that the changes the treaty brings about are not just to do with the country’s internal constitutional arrangements (which would leave open the possibility of their future reversal by Parliament), but are changes that make Britain subservient to a superior judicial, legislative, political, and constitutional regime located elsewhere (thereby making any unilateral reversal impossible), it is quite unforgivable. I guess Brown has too much hubris and sense of personal historical destiny to feel any shame, but he should. He may have the political power, but what makes him think he has any moral entitlement to do such a thing? The guy is a thug.
It is true Brown has run his ratification through Parliament, but no election was ever fought on the issues raised by the treaty, and the promise of a referendum buried the then impending treaty as an issue when the election was fought. Now Brown has avoided a referendum by claiming that the document he has ratified was not the document the government had in mind when it promised a referendum.
In the light of the Irish referendum no vote, there are many treaty proponents claiming that referenda are not the way to decide such important matters. The treaty is obviously far too complicated to be pronounced upon by ordinary, and for the most part ignorant, people in a referendum. In any case, the range of issues rolled up into the treaty is far too wide for a crude yes or no answer. Or so they say.
Too complicated? The treaty’s proponents are being disingenuous. There are very few MPs who have read the treaty, let alone properly understood it - to do so means considerable study and analytical work. This is because the treaty was deliberately cast in the form of a lot of amendments to the pre-existing treaties, both to hide the fact that its content is pretty much the content of the failed Constitutional treaty; and to add credence to the argument that ordinary people would not understand the treaty and so should not be given the power of decision over it.
So if the political establishment - including the Irish Prime Minister, it seems - have not read the treaty, and take their understanding of it second-hand, there can be little force in the argument that the treaty is too complicated for the public to decide upon.
Referendums are too crude? Well Parliament itself cannot amend the treaty, but only say yes or no to it, so the idea that the treaty comprises too many pieces to be susceptible to a simple yes or no by the people is also revealed to be empty: yes or no is all anyone, however grand, can say to the treaty.
Why should we assume ordinary people are not fit to be consulted on the treaty? It is after all the general public in whose name and for whose benefit the treaty is being incorporated into law, and who will have to live with the consequences, good or bad, so they certainly have an interest in the matter.
The questions raised will be about ends, values, and mechanisms (and their efficacy): whether we support ever closer union; or the loss of our country’s independence; or a cross-border power of arrest by foreign police; or the loss of veto powers by our government; or free movement across borders; or whatever? What is so difficult? What makes these questions so much less tractable for the public than for politicians? Is it that the politicians are whipped?
People vote as they do knowing the treaty stands or falls in its entirety. Just as yes voters may swallow hard and sacrifice things they hold dear, so no voters find themselves unable to compromise, possibly losing some elements they favour. But in this there is no difference between them and their elected (and sometimes unelected) politicians. The main difference I can see is that ratification opens up new career games for the politicians.
What strikes me in writing this piece is that I find myself having to explain and justify the benefits of popular consent and democratic accountability. There is something profoundly disturbing in the fact I have to do this, and that intelligent people seriously doubt the need for popular consent: something harking back to the communist and fascist regimes of the twentieth century. I can only hope it does not portend another Dark Age.
Should it take effect, the treaty enables the transfer of yet more powers from Parliament to the EU. In practice the powers would be transferred to the 27 heads of government of the EU’s constituent states who, acting collectively as the European Council, would be able to draw down and exercise those powers without further reference to the member state Parliaments (i.e. with one bound they are free of their peoples, and the checks and balances of their national constitutions). Especially where majority voting applies - and the Lisbon Treaty considerably extends majority voting - there is thereafter no possibility that individual Parliaments can have any meaningful influence over what transpires.
The whole process by which the Lisbon Treaty has come into existence and is being ratified, deliberately avoiding obtaining popular consent - and now following the Irish No vote nevertheless trying to force the treaty through, is itself evidence of the extent to which the EU’s various Presidents and Prime Ministers have assumed a loyalty to EU institutions above and beyond anything shown to their native countries.
When you consider that Brown (and his predecessor Blair) has proceeded without regard to public opinion, indeed by studiously avoiding ever engaging with the British public on the matter, and that at the last election the Labour party were afraid to seek a mandate to carry through a new EU treaty, and instead preferred to defer the issue by promising a referendum on the outcome, Brown is clearly behaving undemocratically.
Brown has contrived to act despite the wants, interests, desires, and aspirations of the British people. He has made no effort to persuade the British people of the rightness of what he is doing, and he has wholly failed to solicit their agreement.
When you further consider that the changes the treaty brings about are not just to do with the country’s internal constitutional arrangements (which would leave open the possibility of their future reversal by Parliament), but are changes that make Britain subservient to a superior judicial, legislative, political, and constitutional regime located elsewhere (thereby making any unilateral reversal impossible), it is quite unforgivable. I guess Brown has too much hubris and sense of personal historical destiny to feel any shame, but he should. He may have the political power, but what makes him think he has any moral entitlement to do such a thing? The guy is a thug.
It is true Brown has run his ratification through Parliament, but no election was ever fought on the issues raised by the treaty, and the promise of a referendum buried the then impending treaty as an issue when the election was fought. Now Brown has avoided a referendum by claiming that the document he has ratified was not the document the government had in mind when it promised a referendum.
In the light of the Irish referendum no vote, there are many treaty proponents claiming that referenda are not the way to decide such important matters. The treaty is obviously far too complicated to be pronounced upon by ordinary, and for the most part ignorant, people in a referendum. In any case, the range of issues rolled up into the treaty is far too wide for a crude yes or no answer. Or so they say.
Too complicated? The treaty’s proponents are being disingenuous. There are very few MPs who have read the treaty, let alone properly understood it - to do so means considerable study and analytical work. This is because the treaty was deliberately cast in the form of a lot of amendments to the pre-existing treaties, both to hide the fact that its content is pretty much the content of the failed Constitutional treaty; and to add credence to the argument that ordinary people would not understand the treaty and so should not be given the power of decision over it.
So if the political establishment - including the Irish Prime Minister, it seems - have not read the treaty, and take their understanding of it second-hand, there can be little force in the argument that the treaty is too complicated for the public to decide upon.
Referendums are too crude? Well Parliament itself cannot amend the treaty, but only say yes or no to it, so the idea that the treaty comprises too many pieces to be susceptible to a simple yes or no by the people is also revealed to be empty: yes or no is all anyone, however grand, can say to the treaty.
Why should we assume ordinary people are not fit to be consulted on the treaty? It is after all the general public in whose name and for whose benefit the treaty is being incorporated into law, and who will have to live with the consequences, good or bad, so they certainly have an interest in the matter.
The questions raised will be about ends, values, and mechanisms (and their efficacy): whether we support ever closer union; or the loss of our country’s independence; or a cross-border power of arrest by foreign police; or the loss of veto powers by our government; or free movement across borders; or whatever? What is so difficult? What makes these questions so much less tractable for the public than for politicians? Is it that the politicians are whipped?
People vote as they do knowing the treaty stands or falls in its entirety. Just as yes voters may swallow hard and sacrifice things they hold dear, so no voters find themselves unable to compromise, possibly losing some elements they favour. But in this there is no difference between them and their elected (and sometimes unelected) politicians. The main difference I can see is that ratification opens up new career games for the politicians.
What strikes me in writing this piece is that I find myself having to explain and justify the benefits of popular consent and democratic accountability. There is something profoundly disturbing in the fact I have to do this, and that intelligent people seriously doubt the need for popular consent: something harking back to the communist and fascist regimes of the twentieth century. I can only hope it does not portend another Dark Age.
May 02, 2008
Council Elections - Labour All Out!
Labour have suffered large losses of seats in the local elections in England and Wales.
What? A sudden enthusiasm for Conservative policies?
I don't see it. Labour plumb the depths, and for the Conservatives it's a case of Buggins' Turn.
What? A sudden enthusiasm for Conservative policies?
I don't see it. Labour plumb the depths, and for the Conservatives it's a case of Buggins' Turn.
February 15, 2008
Police & CPS Should Be Prosecuted Over Lotfi Raissi Extradition
The Court of Appeal has found that Lotfi Raissi was falsely imprisoned, and his life destroyed, on the basis of false evidence presented by the CPS and Metropolitan police.
The police and lawyers should be investigated to decide whether they should be prosecuted, for example for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and perjury. At the very least some of their number, including those at the top of those organisations, should be sacked.
Only then will the police and CPS be minded to uphold right and the rule of law and stop being bullying cynical jobsworths.
The judges said: “We consider that the way in which extradition proceedings were conducted in this country, with opposition to bail based on allegations which appear unfounded in evidence, amounted to an abuse of process.At the very least those responsible were incompetent or careless, but quite possibly the 'evidence' was fabricated.
The police and lawyers should be investigated to decide whether they should be prosecuted, for example for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and perjury. At the very least some of their number, including those at the top of those organisations, should be sacked.
Only then will the police and CPS be minded to uphold right and the rule of law and stop being bullying cynical jobsworths.
August 02, 2007
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.
July 11, 2007
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.
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.
April 21, 2007
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!
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!
April 15, 2007
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.
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.
April 13, 2007
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.
April 12, 2007
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.That pretty well sums it up.
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.
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.
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.
December 14, 2006
EU Kills Bowland Dairy As UK Parliament Stands By
Booker tells how Bowland Dairy Products Limited was forced out of business when the Curd Cheese (Restriction on Placing on the Market) Regulations 2006 made it illegal for the company to trade.
The regulations specifically applied to Bowland Dairies and to no other company, and were intended to force them out of business. Section 3 says, "No person shall place on the market any curd cheese manufactured by Bowland Dairy Products Limited ...".
The regulations were made because there was no legal way of forcing Bowland to stop trading: Bowland had broken no law and were causing no harm, so there was no reason to take them to court, and no prospect of success if they had been.
Parliament did not vote on the regulations, and no one in Parliament was inclined to force a vote on the regulations. There was a short debate in the House of Lords nearly two months later, in which some Lords expressed their concern at what had happened, but that was it.
The UK Government made the regulations because the EU told it to. The EU had decided in its wisdom that Bowland's curd cheese production was unsafe and Bowland should be banned from trading: but this was in the face of findings to the contrary by the UK's Food Standards Agency after its own investigations, and despite Bowland's clear vindication in the matter by the European Court of Justice.
It shows there is nothing the UK Government is not willing to do in its abasement to the EU.
It is a case of rule by administrative fiat and the unaccountability of EU institutions.
Bowland's treatment contravenes the principle of the rule of law - where legislation is framed in terms of general principles applicable to everyone equally.
And above all, it is a clear example of Parliament's failure to uphold the liberties of the British people, and of Parliament's willingness to allow those liberties to be trampled all over. The House of Lords may briefly have mentioned Bowland, but the Curd Cheese regulations banning Bowland were raised in the Lords only on the understanding that they would not be voted on.
As I have said before on child booster seats, Parliament cannot challenge the EU on even the smallest point without challenging the very principle of EU power. But what happened to Bowland Dairies is not a small point. What on earth is it going to take to wake up the mother of Parliaments?
The regulations specifically applied to Bowland Dairies and to no other company, and were intended to force them out of business. Section 3 says, "No person shall place on the market any curd cheese manufactured by Bowland Dairy Products Limited ...".
The regulations were made because there was no legal way of forcing Bowland to stop trading: Bowland had broken no law and were causing no harm, so there was no reason to take them to court, and no prospect of success if they had been.
Parliament did not vote on the regulations, and no one in Parliament was inclined to force a vote on the regulations. There was a short debate in the House of Lords nearly two months later, in which some Lords expressed their concern at what had happened, but that was it.
The UK Government made the regulations because the EU told it to. The EU had decided in its wisdom that Bowland's curd cheese production was unsafe and Bowland should be banned from trading: but this was in the face of findings to the contrary by the UK's Food Standards Agency after its own investigations, and despite Bowland's clear vindication in the matter by the European Court of Justice.
It shows there is nothing the UK Government is not willing to do in its abasement to the EU.
It is a case of rule by administrative fiat and the unaccountability of EU institutions.
Bowland's treatment contravenes the principle of the rule of law - where legislation is framed in terms of general principles applicable to everyone equally.
And above all, it is a clear example of Parliament's failure to uphold the liberties of the British people, and of Parliament's willingness to allow those liberties to be trampled all over. The House of Lords may briefly have mentioned Bowland, but the Curd Cheese regulations banning Bowland were raised in the Lords only on the understanding that they would not be voted on.
As I have said before on child booster seats, Parliament cannot challenge the EU on even the smallest point without challenging the very principle of EU power. But what happened to Bowland Dairies is not a small point. What on earth is it going to take to wake up the mother of Parliaments?
December 05, 2006
A UK Roads Market Please, Not Rationing
Rod Eddington's scheme for road pricing sounds more like road rationing.
Circumscribed by a desire to reduce not just congestion, but emissions, what is missing is a mechanism for increasing supply in accordance with demand - i.e. a roads market.
Circumscribed by a desire to reduce not just congestion, but emissions, what is missing is a mechanism for increasing supply in accordance with demand - i.e. a roads market.
What Britain Must Do To Stop Immigration
The UK government has said that long term immigrants to Britain will have to pass tests in English language and the British way of life.
So you might think the government has concluded that immigrants need to integrate and not live in their own closed communities? With the implication, perhaps, that large-scale immigration poses risks to Britain?
And yet the most substantial immigration is currently from the EU's Eastern European member states, especially Poland. A recent estimate is that maybe 10,000 East European immigrants arrive each week at London's Victoria coach station alone: half a million each year for the last three years, with no sign of a let up, and with Romania and Bulgaria about to add to numbers when they join the EU on 1st January.
No citizens from EU member states can be compelled to learn English or take a test on the British way of life (for what that is worth).
The government has no intention of stemming the tide of immigrants deluging Britain, whatever harm immigration may cause: to do that Britain would have to withdraw from the EU.
So you might think the government has concluded that immigrants need to integrate and not live in their own closed communities? With the implication, perhaps, that large-scale immigration poses risks to Britain?
And yet the most substantial immigration is currently from the EU's Eastern European member states, especially Poland. A recent estimate is that maybe 10,000 East European immigrants arrive each week at London's Victoria coach station alone: half a million each year for the last three years, with no sign of a let up, and with Romania and Bulgaria about to add to numbers when they join the EU on 1st January.
No citizens from EU member states can be compelled to learn English or take a test on the British way of life (for what that is worth).
The government has no intention of stemming the tide of immigrants deluging Britain, whatever harm immigration may cause: to do that Britain would have to withdraw from the EU.
November 17, 2006
Time to Leave the EU?
If you are one of the many people who think it's time to leave the EU, today you have a chance to help bring that about!
The 10 Downing Street website has an online petition you can 'sign' calling for a referendum on the UK's continued EU membership.
If that's what you want, go and do it now!
The 10 Downing Street website has an online petition you can 'sign' calling for a referendum on the UK's continued EU membership.
If that's what you want, go and do it now!
October 03, 2006
Parliament Refuses to Discriminate Over EU
This week new age discrimination legislation came into effect. So, hard on the heels of the child booster seat law, the government introduced another EU law without Parliamentary scrutiny.
True, it has been a long time brewing, but the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 were laid before Parliament on 9th March, and nodded through the Commons on 28th March, and then the Lords on the 30th March.
On the 27th March, the Commons' First Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation discussed the regulations for 46 minutes, and on 30th March the Lords discussed them for 32 minutes. That was it.
Not bad for legislation which the Minister responsible, Gerry Suttcliffe, said had "huge" significance, was "broad in scope", and would have "far reaching consequences." As he said, the UK regulations to implement Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27th November 2000 were developed "through a process of continuous engagement with our stakeholders" - not by Parliament.
Yet again Parliament allows itself to be sidelined, fails to debate complex and far-reaching legislation, declines to challenge any aspect of a new UK law, and fails to hold anyone to account for it.
Britain's interests are represented, insofar as they are represented at all in the EU, by the UK government. The UK government does not have the power to determine EU law or policy, except in those ever-shrinking areas still reserved to national government: it can only lobby and play politics with other EU governments.
The hard truth is that unless and until Britain's Parliament is prepared to challenge the principle of EU power it has no say whatsoever over large areas of law and policy, because it has legally subordinated itself to the EU via the European Communities Act 1972.
Parliament is thus entirely unable - as is the UK government - to hold EU institutions to account, and because it is not prepared to discuss the EU critically, and assert itself at all in relation to the EU, Parliament also fails to hold the British government to account either for its own EU policy, or for the effects on the UK of EU actions.
With respect to the EU, Parliament is unwilling to discriminate between that which is in Britain's interests and that which is not. It would rather hide its head in the sand.
True, it has been a long time brewing, but the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 were laid before Parliament on 9th March, and nodded through the Commons on 28th March, and then the Lords on the 30th March.
On the 27th March, the Commons' First Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation discussed the regulations for 46 minutes, and on 30th March the Lords discussed them for 32 minutes. That was it.
Not bad for legislation which the Minister responsible, Gerry Suttcliffe, said had "huge" significance, was "broad in scope", and would have "far reaching consequences." As he said, the UK regulations to implement Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27th November 2000 were developed "through a process of continuous engagement with our stakeholders" - not by Parliament.
Yet again Parliament allows itself to be sidelined, fails to debate complex and far-reaching legislation, declines to challenge any aspect of a new UK law, and fails to hold anyone to account for it.
Britain's interests are represented, insofar as they are represented at all in the EU, by the UK government. The UK government does not have the power to determine EU law or policy, except in those ever-shrinking areas still reserved to national government: it can only lobby and play politics with other EU governments.
The hard truth is that unless and until Britain's Parliament is prepared to challenge the principle of EU power it has no say whatsoever over large areas of law and policy, because it has legally subordinated itself to the EU via the European Communities Act 1972.
Parliament is thus entirely unable - as is the UK government - to hold EU institutions to account, and because it is not prepared to discuss the EU critically, and assert itself at all in relation to the EU, Parliament also fails to hold the British government to account either for its own EU policy, or for the effects on the UK of EU actions.
With respect to the EU, Parliament is unwilling to discriminate between that which is in Britain's interests and that which is not. It would rather hide its head in the sand.
September 21, 2006
Child Booster Seats And The EU
Boris Johnson waxes indignant at the new law on child booster seats, imposed as a result of an EU directive four years ago.
After picking holes in it, he says the measure was not discussed by the Commons' European Standing Committees, and even had it been it would have made no difference (which is a way of rationalising the failure to discuss the measure).
He goes on to say:
In the areas in which they pass power to the EU, our politicians - and hence the British people - have no say in what the EU does. And because there is no mechanism for our politicians to change EU law, they cannot then challenge the EU on even the smallest point, the most trivial item, without challenging the very principle of EU power.
None of our political parties, and only a very few of our elected politicians, are prepared to challenge the principle of EU power, and so they will not challenge even the silliest things the EU does.
Our politicians prefer not to consider EU laws at all, lest they are forced to face just how unpopular and at odds with British interests the things the EU is doing may be, and their own cowardice and betrayal as they continue to sit on their hands and refuse to act. It is harder to avoid responsibility if there has been a carefully considered debate in which all the shortcomings of a piece of EU legislation have been revealed, so they don't debate them.
Which is why the EU continues in its unaccountable way, and as the EU grows British politics and politicians both matter less to the British people, and are at the same time held in greater contempt.
It still remains within the power of the British people to reclaim their birthright - independent self-government over themselves through their own Parliament - but only if we and our politicians wake up, and soon.
After picking holes in it, he says the measure was not discussed by the Commons' European Standing Committees, and even had it been it would have made no difference (which is a way of rationalising the failure to discuss the measure).
He goes on to say:
We need proper standing committees with the power to mandate ministers, and to refuse to accept directives ... Otherwise we will find that the law of this country ... is not made in this country; and that is a perfect and justifiable reason for massive civil disobedience.Boris Johnson is not facing reality - the law of this country is not being made in this country now. The reason being that our politicians have abdicated responsibility for it.
In the areas in which they pass power to the EU, our politicians - and hence the British people - have no say in what the EU does. And because there is no mechanism for our politicians to change EU law, they cannot then challenge the EU on even the smallest point, the most trivial item, without challenging the very principle of EU power.
None of our political parties, and only a very few of our elected politicians, are prepared to challenge the principle of EU power, and so they will not challenge even the silliest things the EU does.
Our politicians prefer not to consider EU laws at all, lest they are forced to face just how unpopular and at odds with British interests the things the EU is doing may be, and their own cowardice and betrayal as they continue to sit on their hands and refuse to act. It is harder to avoid responsibility if there has been a carefully considered debate in which all the shortcomings of a piece of EU legislation have been revealed, so they don't debate them.
Which is why the EU continues in its unaccountable way, and as the EU grows British politics and politicians both matter less to the British people, and are at the same time held in greater contempt.
It still remains within the power of the British people to reclaim their birthright - independent self-government over themselves through their own Parliament - but only if we and our politicians wake up, and soon.
August 05, 2006
Media's Qana Photo Shame
Do you believe what you read in the press?
Does an emotive photograph overwhelm dry facts, or the need to look for them?
If you want an insight into media manipulation, take a look at this stunning analysis of the Qana photographs that were published after many people were killed, apparently by an Israeli airstrike on July 30th.
Not all was as it seemed. The Western media appear to have connived in a stage managed Hezbollah event calculated to squeeze the maximum shock and emotional punch from tragedy. By going along with the charade, a big question mark must be raised over what really happened at Qana in the first place, and Hezbollah's part in it.
EU Referendum blog's initial take on the Qana photos resulted in a denial by the press agencies, but that denial failed to detail an alternative interpretation, or provide any further evidence. Now Richard North has fully exposed the agencies' shameful secret.
What credibility - or integrity - the mainstream media now?
Does an emotive photograph overwhelm dry facts, or the need to look for them?
If you want an insight into media manipulation, take a look at this stunning analysis of the Qana photographs that were published after many people were killed, apparently by an Israeli airstrike on July 30th.
Not all was as it seemed. The Western media appear to have connived in a stage managed Hezbollah event calculated to squeeze the maximum shock and emotional punch from tragedy. By going along with the charade, a big question mark must be raised over what really happened at Qana in the first place, and Hezbollah's part in it.
EU Referendum blog's initial take on the Qana photos resulted in a denial by the press agencies, but that denial failed to detail an alternative interpretation, or provide any further evidence. Now Richard North has fully exposed the agencies' shameful secret.
What credibility - or integrity - the mainstream media now?
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