The European Commission is a Tyrant

I simply fail to understand how we could have got ourselves into an organisation where our sovereign government is constrained from acting as such by an unelected body called the European Commission peopled by unknown politicians and european civil servants. As the appointed politicians are all europhiles and of little stature it is inevitable that they are ruled by their civil servants to a greater extent than even happens in the UK. As far as I am aware none of the British eurocrats fight to promote the British view even if they know or appreciate what such a view might be - all they do is to promote a soi-disant european view even if it is against the British interest. Also from what I hear the UK civil service  also in the main helps promote the european view. I hope I hear incorrectly but you have to wonder since anyone with half an eye to what will send the eurosceptics into the stratosphere must have known the stupidity of both insisting we pay benefits to anyone who rolls up in the UK from any other part of the EU without ever having paid taxes or national insurance here and that we adopt the rule agency workers should have the same rights as any direct employee. We opted out of the Social Chapter but became subject to certain aspects of it through a european commission scam which frankly we should have fought through the courts. Not that we would have won of course because we would have wound up in the European Court of Justice. The European Court of Justice is peopled by political eurofanatics and the last court you could rely on to enforce any rule of law. But in the EU what is the rule of law when you have both Germany and France flouting the rules of the eurozone as well as the PIIGS and other countries for all we know. We have to get out or at the very least change our status to something similar to Switzerland.

Will the EU lead to Bloodshed?

It was so good to see the Newsnight excerpt this morning of the demolition rendered by Oborne on Richard Lambert and some eurocrat on a live feed from Brussels. People like Lambert and the supercilious little idiot (as Oborne called him) from Brussels being given back what they have doled out to euro sceptics in the past was more than satisfying especially as they didn't like it up 'em with the one asking Paxman to intervene and the other leaving in a huff. The prat from Brussels was either ignorant or a spin merchant pretending that the euro/EU was the most important factor in keeping peace in Europe which is simply not true. There are many reasons for there having been peace in Europe since the war including the split of Germany into two parts, Soviet hostility on our doorstep, Nato and the Marshall Plan initially and latterly Nato, huge advances in technology and globalisation. Sad to say that we were not foresighted enough as a nation to see that joining the Common Market was a retrograde step as within about 10 years of doing so the world started going global. The EU is an introverted, protectionist institution always looking at its navel. It can't help it as it is led by those with social democratic ideas and still developing a sense of itself. Navel gazing isn't something we're good at though. We have always looked outside and would have been much better off staying on our own and developing our ties with Australia and Canada and the rest of the world and pushing our ideas of free trade. We are though where we are and it is frightening to think that Germany is likely act in a most undemocratic way by agreeing to a scheme which will increase the bail out fund to €2 trillion without the German people or their elected representatives having a vote on the same. Indeed if this happens this could well lead to bloodshed and it will have been the EU which is the cause of it.      

No, no, no

The markets rallied in the last two days on the back of rumours that the euro bail out fund is to increase to €2trillion. This though is denied by the German finance minister and his denial is consistent with what Mrs Merkel and the German government have been saying all along i.e. that they will not agree to the issue of eurozone bonds. The markets have fallen back today as a result of this uncertainty made worse by that well known barista Mr Barroso stating that the EU will spend more, intervene more and ensure more integration in order to solve the eurozone crisis. It is not as though we haven't had too much borrowing and enough of all those other things which got the eurozone into this mess in the first place. Furthermore Mr Barroso wants us to pay a large slug of the levy he is proposing through the financial transaction tax France and others seem so keen on even though we are not part of the euro. Our help will not save the euro apart from the fact we cannot afford to pay even one groat more and would be mad if we agreed to the financial transaction tax. Now is the moment when we must say no, no, no. Otherwise we shall bankrupt ourselves and kill our biggest money earner, the City. The others must know we cannot accept the financial transaction tax so why propose it? Oborne needs to write Guilty Men Part 2 to set out who are the British mandarins and politicians who have betrayed this country's interests in the EU. He should go on to write a Guilty Men Part 3 in which he should name and shame those members of the European Commission who are endlessly churning out regulation after regulation for no benefit to man or beast.

Miliband the Predator or Producer?

The live feed of Miliband's big speech to the television companies broke down towards the end of it but from what I gather from the reports I have read the missing bit would not have changed the opinions of those watching on television. According to the reports the speech was meant to be heartfelt, was bereft of policy detail but full of repetitive and banal phrases. The unions thought they had seen a boy become a man and Guido's cloud form implied the speech was about British people's right values. The Evening Standard is probably right in saying that Labour 'still has it's work cut out' but the Guardian exhorts us to rejoice in this left wing speech. Miliband tried to persuade us that he is an outsider and being the son of an immigrant communist lecturer at the LSE it might seem like that to the majority but of course would his father and by extension his son have felt like that being part of an intellectual world of the left and living in Primrose Hill? I doubt it. Presumably he wanted to portray himself like an insider - why else have the Union Jack as his backdrop? The trouble with Miliband I have concluded is that he is basically a boring person, a wonk that you would never want to invite to a dinner party. That means he is not a leader and and Britain will never vote for him. Sad for the Labour party but not for the rest of us. What will be sad for the rest of us will be another bout of QE and a payment on our part of more into the IMF. The eurozone is a poison and must not be supported by us financially anymore. We must seek our independence from the EU, a construct set up by smoke and mirrors to which we were gulled into joining. An institution set up to ensure its members are run by the French and their fellow travellers - read Peter Jay's excellent foreword to the Guilty Men by Oborne and Weaver.

Musings on Revolution

There is Anglosphere democracy then there is Russian democracy. In Anglosphere democracy the voters get to choose between candidates that have for the most part been selected in some form or other by a political party whereas in Russian democracy the United Russia party controls who may stand against it, the media and virtually all the levers of power. Being Russian the powers that be are ruthless in the suppression of any political opposition that might have a real chance including putting the leader on trial on trumped up charges where inevitably the accused is found guilty. The State also involves itself in executing journalists and others who come too close to the truth about what crimes are being carried out in the name of the Russian people. State policy will even be carried out overseas with the murder of Litvinenko a prime example. It leaves one somewhat cynical about the result of uprisings against autocratic regimes since those that eventually take over power seem to be exactly the same or sometimes worse than the lot who were in power before. Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 must be two of the most prescient books in the English language. It seems almost that it is something in the genes of the natives of the country concerned. It does though appear to be the consequence of revolutions - that once the revolutionary genie is out of the bottle it can never be put back in. It did happen here in 1660 but can it be said to have happened elsewhere? One looks at France and wonders if the eurozone crisis brings it to its knees will its citizens turn to revolution again? It almost happened in 1968.  

Palestine and the UN

I listened this evening to Netanyahu's speech to the UN and was struck by how statesmanlike it was. I heard extracts from Abbas's speech but found it difficult to get the flavour as the translation was somehow unsatisfactory. Nonetheless I found Netanyahu's speech far more enlightening and do not understand why the Palestinians cannot agree to sit down with the Israeli's and negotiate. Netanyahu offered to sit down there and then with Abbas but Sky thought Abbas had likely already left the building to fly back to Jordan. Jordan is of course the country where most Palestinians live. Until they are prepared to negotiate seriously, which it seems they have never wanted to do, the UK simply must vote against Palestine's application to be recognised as a separate state at the UN. It is quite extraordinary to me how Abbas received a standing ovation and Netanyahu only received a polite clap. From what I could see it was only Muslim states and those who are Muslim state clients who gave the standing ovation. Of course the BBC and other Palestinian fellow travellers will have joined in psychologically rather than physically, restrained as they are from showing partiality. Not that one would notice, of course. The BBC is trying to find excuses for Obama who they think would like to support Palestine's application but cannot because they say he would upset the Jewish lobby he so desperately needs for his re-election. Why doesn't Obama give US citizenship to more Arabs on condition they vote for him in 2012? That would fix his problem.    

How Much More Labour Waste?

Another day another Labour vanity project bites the dust. This time it was a computer system for the NHS which was supposed to cost us £6.2 billion but has now cost us £12.7 billion, is still not finished and would cost us a further £8 billion or so to complete. Sticking with the NHS we also learn that PFIs used to finance hospital building have been so badly negotiated that something like 60 hospitals will have to close if the terms on which they were built are not varied. Needless to say the PFIs involved were all negotiated under Labour. It is staggering the incompetence of the Cool Britannia brigade. So incompetent that the Millennium Stadium had very little in it (that was worthwhile and certainly nothing in it which would tell anyone anything about us) although that might have been the point - minimalist is cool after all. By contrast the new posters to be handed out to world business leaders with a Great Britain theme are truly cool (although one could do without the 'Green Is GREAT Britain' one). Just the kind of thing to put up on one's wall which at a mere £510,000 to produce is hopefully well worthwhile but I'll leave it to you to be the judge of that. I imagine the posters are to be handed out for the first time today by Cameron in New York where he has made his big foreign policy speech to the UN. Cameron has been busy elsewhere today as he and others have sent a letter to Sarkozy as President of the G20 meeting in Cannes this November saying they will support his plea to help find the path to growth and stating that decisive action is needed to support growth, confidence and credibility. One of the actions they demand be made is the resolution of the eurozone crisis. It is a fortunate coincidence that the day on which this letter is published Peter Oborne has trailed a pamphlet that he and Frances Weaver have written and which will be for sale tomorrow setting out the disgraceful part played by certain politicians, businessmen, the CBI and the BBC in trying to force us into the euro. Here is a flavour of what the pamphlet, called the Guilty Men, says.

Light at the End of the Tunnel...20 years off, at least..

Good point made by Clegg in his speech this afternoon. We should 'never, ever trust Labour with the economy again.' His point about the two Eds being the back room boys plotting and scheming and never taking responsibility was also on song. Apart from not trusting Labour to run the economy ever again will we be able to trust them on anything else? With their lies about weapons of mass destruction we certainly can't trust them on foreign policy issues and by signing up to the Human Rights bandwagon, the Euro Arrest Warrant and the one sided Extradition Treaty with the USA we certainly can't trust them on preserving  our independence and by introducing Prescott's vanity projects, including the FiReControl fiasco which has lost us £469 million, we certainly can't trust them to handle infrastructure projects. We cannot support another Labour government any time soon. See Neil O'Brien here who sets out an interesting scenario basically stating that public spending will have to be squeezed for decades if we are to get our national debt down to 40% of GDP again which is roughly where we were in 2002. Such debt percentage is due to rise to about 90% under Osborne's plan before it drops back again. Letting the percentage rise to that level is already taking a huge risk since as we know the Bank of International Settlements has opined that 85% is the point where the Greek effect kicks in, that is to say that debt at 85% of GDP is the point where markets take fright, interest rates increase and economies plunge. The two Eds would increase our debt percentage to what? Having started with a golden legacy and kept to Tory spending plans until 2002 it took Labour a mere 4 years to make us a leading indebted nation. We cannot afford another Labour government, ever.      

What Kind of Idiot is Huhne?

Try as I may to find one LibDem who I think is worth his place in government it is difficult to do so. Apart possibly from Clegg, Alexander and Laws all the rest of them are a bunch of wankers. Chief amongst the wankers is the supercilious Huhne who has absolutely no idea about what is needed as an energy policy and who will ruin us all with his green taxes. If you don't believe me listen to his speech today to the LibDem conference. If I sound angry it's because I am. Huhne's snide joke about Tea Partiers is the last straw. Doesn't he realise that we are fed up with socialist taxes dressed up as charges for services which was one of the reasons Labour lost the last election? Doesn't he suspect that we are fed up to the point of rebellion against an unelected elite that rules us from Brussels? Doesn't he realise that we are so fed up with the EU and given a referendum we will vote to leave it? We are suffocated by the EU and freeing ourselves from it will give us back our freedom to live our own lives again, to make our own mistakes, sure, but also to make our own successes without being held back by too many rules. The English have always ridden their horses with a loose rein - the Germans and the French the opposite. What cannot we not do without the continental yoke weighing us down like slaves. There was a time when I thought those in charge of the eurozone would be able to sort out the euro problem but it is quite clear this is not going to happen. It is now inevitable that the foreseen euro stresses and strains will make the EU implode. It must be obvious that we have a better chance of survival out of the EU than in it. We can then follow a Hayekian path back to prosperity as the Keynesian version has been tested to destruction and found badly wanting. Extraordinary isn't it that the IMF are now saying we should follow a Keynesian line if activity were to undershoot current expectations and delay cuts and increase borrowing. Can we count on Osborne to stand up to this nonsense?  

The Conference Yawn Season

Why are we subjected to all these conferences year in and year out? Apart from being incredibly boring these conferences only serve to make trades union bosses and politicians feel more important than they are or than they should ever be allowed to think they are. Of course the media love the party conferences as it allows them to preen their egos as well. The TUC conference was an emission of bile and futility and thus far the LibDem conference has been pretty much the same. One would think that being in government the LibDems would be more supportive of current policies and the general direction of travel but no you have the stupidity over issues like the 50p tax, the mansion tax and salary transparency for bosses. Talking about salary transparency what about transparency applying to those that work in the public sector with not only the publication of the name and a photograph of each person so employed but his job description, a copy of his employment contract and current salary and bonus. The taxpayer provides the wherewithal for all public sector emoluments and should be entitled to examine the terms on which all public sector employees are employed but the same logic does not apply to private sector employees so the only reason Cable wants employment details of the kind he is proposing is because of jealousy.    

The EU Talks About a New Tax Whilst The Euro Burns

The bickering was bound to come out in the open and so it has. The EU finance ministers are arguing over the introduction of a financial transaction tax to which the UK is adamantly opposed as indeed is the United States. To me it seems like a great idea for the eurozone as no doubt those who would otherwise trade in Frankfurt or Paris or wherever will cary out more of their trades in London making London like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Indeed as I type this there is a rainbow over London from the City to Battersea! The Germans and the French think the tax should be a global one but this is never going to happen. Will Germany and France support a eurozone wide version instead? It seems there are a number of eurozone countries such as Spain and Belgium which support the idea. The EU countries do not agree amongst themselves with how the money should be spent with some wanting the tax raised going to individual countries and others wanting it to go into a EU fund. The type of transactions the tax would apply to remains to be agreed. Would it just apply to stocks, foreign exchange and derivatives as some are suggesting or would it cover more or less types of transactions. In the meantime the euro crisis continues and will continue to do so until someone has the guts to knock a few heads together. The EU finance ministers should be discussing and agreeing a plan to deal with the crisis rather than talking about a new tax which is most unlikely to get off the ground and certainly not whilst the euro crisis remains unresolved.

Sinclair's 'Let Them Eat Carbon'

Matthew Sinclair has written a book on climate change called 'Let Them Eat Carbon'. If I understand what he says about his book, see here, which I hasten to add I have not yet read, he does not so much challenge the science but takes to task those who are making us follow a policy which costs more than the  damage that is supposedly done to the climate by our carbon emissions. In other words the Government's actions and plans are disproportionate to the alleged man made damage caused to the climate by global warming. I said 'the alleged' because I remain to be convinced that man is the cause of global warming although it is impossible to know since those who support the warming theory have entrenched views and simply do not seem able to approach the evidence or lack of it in a rational way and shout down those who take a different line. Sinclair goes on to say that rather than spend huge sums of money on so called antidotes to climate warming which can only lead to significantly increased energy poverty, the government should be investing in research and development to ensure we have cheaper energy. It is surely madness to pay out huge subsidies to ensure we have green credentials when in these hard financial times we need to bring down the cost of living for all and also when we do not know, whatever anyone says, whether the so called science is right or wrong.    

The UK's Vote on Palestine at the UN

Cameron and Sarkozy have received their moment of glory in Libya today for having used force against the Gaddafi regime to such helpful effect on behalf of the rebels. How will this though affect Britain's stance on the vote coming up at the UN on question of a Palestinian state? There really should be no question about how the UK is going to vote especially since the wannabe Palestinian state has declared it will be a jew free zone despite the fact that there are apparently 300,000 jews who together with their forebears have lived for thousands of years in what could become Palestine. Archbishop Cranmer has a particularly potent blog on this here. It will be an absolute disgrace if the UK fails to vote against the Palestinian motion or votes in favour of it. To do so will not have the kind of effect the FCO will intend it to have as it will not endear the Arab states to us. It will instead be seen as a cynical and hypocritical move on our part. If we want to support Arab democracy as I believe we do then we must be consistent and support all democracies. Israel is one of the few democratic states and we must therefore support it. There is even less democracy in so called Palestine than there is in Egypt and Tunisia at the moment where the army in each case seems to exercise considerable control in the same way it did prior to the Arab Spring. In so called Palestine there is the malevolent presence of Iran in the background and there is nothing democratic about that country's regime as we know. If the rumours about Iran's support of Al Qaeda are true then apart from any other reason for voting against the UN Palestine motion we will need Israel on our side in any fight that is likely to occur with Iran or its surrogates.

3 Musketeers

I am not quite sure what advice Bummer Obama can give to Merkel and Sarkozy that he shouldn't give to himself. What is he going to tell them? Put the eurozone house in order? Throw out Greece? Get the ECB to issue eurobonds? Recapitalise your banks? Don't throw out Greece but support it with more loans instead? That the euro was a disaster waiting to happen when conceived has always been evident to those who knew something about currency unions including people in the Treasury. I do not imagine that they sat on their thoughts and did not communicate them to their counterparts in other Treasuries around the EU. It would be surprising that those other Treasuries did not have some misgivings about how the project would work out and thus it is astonishing that no contingency plan has been worked out for the Greek tragedy now playing out before our eyes. When Greece defaults, as it will, will other countries also default? If other countries default what will the effect be on the EU itself? Some maintain that as the EU did not have a eurozone to begin with that it could revert to its pre euro state but others maintain that if the eurozone splits into a hard currency zone and a soft currency zone that it will bring about the total collapse of the EU. Andrew Lilico is one of those who believes in the latter and in an article in the Telegraph today paints this horrifying scenario. Will it happen and if it does will it be as bad as Lilico predicts or better or worse? I do not want to find out and so the eurozone must survive even without Greece and Portugal (but what about Spain and Italy?). If Bummer makes this point to Merkel and Sarkozy he will have done something useful for once.

Are Two Eds Worth More than One?

Ed Balls apologised yesterday for the part he and the Labour government played in the global regulatory failure. Today the other Ed gets booed at the Trades Unions congress which the New Statesman cynically said is exactly what he wanted to happen. The New Statesman is right. Miliband is seeking to prove that he is not run by the Unions and that Labour is moving away from its past. Labour will not be credible though until they admit to having recklessly overspent in the years 2003 to 2007 and ruined the golden inheritance left them in 1997 by the Tories. Only then will they have a chance to regain trust from the public to run the economy. In this so called age of openness Miliband's transparent use of the Union boos will not of itself persuade anybody of anything. To be taken seriously he will have to do much more than that to demonstrate that he is not in the pocket of the Trades Unions. He will have to accept that the so called cuts are necessary and that the balance between the private sector and the public sector on pensions, salaries and so on needs to be adjusted back towards the private sector. This means he will have to support the government should the Unions ballot their members on strike action. Leadership is a lonely and difficult position to be in as it often requires unpopular decisions to be made and no politician likes being unpopular. The current euro problem is being made worse by the lack of a leader who will say the structure needs to be reformed so that countries can be expelled or leave it and the quicker the better. It seems though that the market is pushing the eurozone to the point where Greece will have to default and leave with no thanks to the politicians.    

Cameron in Russia

Cameron, in a quiet, polite, open and impressive way, dealt effectively at his press conference in Moscow today with the Litvinenko issue that sums up everything about our relationship with Russia. When dealing with tricky people you must use a very long spoon. Medvedev made it clear on his side that Lugovoy could never be extradited as the Russian constitution prohibits extradition. Odd isn't it that a country which will not allow extradition wants to extradite home various Russian exiles living here. The question now to be asked of Russia is why it needs a prohibition on extradition in its constitution. Is it because it has a corrupt and lethal number of important people that would find themselves on the receiving end of extradition demands if extradition were allowed? If the answer is yes this leads one to think that the rumours that Litvinenko was killed on the orders of the Russian government or of someone high up in that organisation are true. Russia likes to think of itself as an European country but it does not act as one, nor should it be viewed as one. The protection from extradition in its constitution does substantiate the view that it supports the notion that its citizens can only be subject to Russian law and not to the law of any other country, even a democratic one which believes in the rule of law. This reminds one of the spat between Rome and Henry II. Russia should amend its constitution forthwith if it wants to be regarded as European.  

September 11 Remembered

I was in the Ebury Wine Bar having a late lunch at the bar and watching television when it suddenly switched to a view of the Twin Towers and replayed the first plane crashing into one Tower and then showed the second plane crashing into the second Tower live. Weeks later I met a young man who had been in one of the Towers in a sports shop on the second floor where at first they were locked in but shortly thereafter miraculously let out and told to escape outside. This young man then went back to his nearby hotel to pack his bag and flee whilst all the while looking out of the window at the disaster that was unfolding before his eyes. He noticed bits falling down from the top of the Tower he was looking at only to realise with horror that these were not bits of the building dropping like stones to the earth but people. He got out of his hotel and ran, dragging his suitcase behind him. He kept on running for what seemed like hours and when he eventually stopped he had no idea where he was or of the time. He had nightmares and although I have not seen him recently he was still having nightmares the last time I did see him about 4 years ago. Contrary to the bile pushed by the Guardian and BBC programmes like Question Time America did not bring this on itself. To say otherwise is to deny our own worth and all the benefits England has brought to the World for after all what is America but an English creation.    

Two Matthews

In left wing mythology it was always going to be a right wing President who started a nuclear war. To those of us on the right it was always going to be the communists who would do so. It was also the view of the right that the Labour party had some looney members propagating crazy ideas and that those members who were not looney did not have sufficient numbers to keep the loonies in check at times. We did not expect either Blair or Brown to be loonies themselves but early on in his government we learnt how fragile Brown's mental state seemed to be. Despite his claim to have felt the hand of destiny on his shoulder Blair and his acolytes hid his self delusion from public view but it is now out in the open for all to see. So much so that Matthew Norman in the Telegraph and Matthew Parris in The Times have both written articles today about Blair which I would find acutely embarrassing if I were Blair. I guess Lincoln's dictum that you can fool all of the people some of the time and only some of the people all of the time does work out in the end but it took a long time coming in the case of Blair. Sadly he ran away from office before the country could say goodbye to him in the most appropriate way - voting him out in a general election. He left us in the hands of Brown, a man which all the Labour bigwigs, other than his own clique and J K Rowling, knew was totally unsuitable to be Prime Minister. How the media fawned over Blair and how the media failed us.  

America

Bummer Obama's speech had a couple of good points in it which, if he is not already doing so, Osborne should be looking at to bring in over here to help with growth. Osborne should certainly not though follow Bummer's decision to spend more by borrowing more and to give him his due Osborne denied that he would do this in his speech at Chatham House this morning. Osborne made it clear that he is sticking to his plan. The points Osborne should be looking at though is cutting National Insurance for the lower paid which when Sweden did it helped it recover in double quick time. The other point Osborne should be looking at is to allow those on the dole to continue receiving it for the first 8 weeks after they start a new job to get over the disincentive of paying up to two thirds in tax on their salaries in those first 8 weeks. The markets though were not impressed by Bummer's speech.

Question Time on the BBC last night was something else that was less than impressive although I can think of no occasion when I've watched it that it has been anything other than a display of left knee jerks. This is yet again another example of the BBC failing to produce an impartial programme and it is really a scandal that those of us with a different view to the BBC take on politics, climate change, Israel, Islam and the like seem doomed never to have a programme that supports our views. This government must look at the BBC, its monopoly status and its bias whether or not News International revives its bid for BSkyB.

Animal Farm and the Foreign Office

It was shocking to hear today that the Blairs used the consulate general's office in Toulouse to look for a villa that they could rent for their holiday. If it isn't it should surely be against the rules for politicians to use taxpayers money in that way. Horrifying also to learn that not only dud the last Labour government abolished the Foreign Office Language School and made everyone take management courses instead but also dispersed the Foreign Office Library with its diplomatic papers going back 500 years. Just goes to prove, if proof were needed, that the left always behaves like the autocrats they tell us they despise. Orwell's Animal Farm sums up perfectly how the left is always corrupted by power. Talking of Animal Farm reminds me how much Ed Balls is like one of the pigs in the book. Someone who denies responsibility for his actions when they lead to disaster and otherwise tries to persuade people that the course of action being taken by his opponents must inevitably be wrong. Balls wants the government to borrow more in order to spend more. He simply fails to understand that it was his government's borrowing that has put us into the awful predicament we find ourselves in and that to borrow more will make things even worse than they are. Getting out of the mess we find ourselves in, because of the size of the amount we owe as a country, is going to be painful even as a result of the relatively mild actions the present government has taken. We do not want the pain to get worse which would follow as night follows day if we were to follow the Balls prescription.    

German Constitutional Issues

The decision of the German Constitutional Court that the bailouts agreed by the German government are constitutional has had a great effect on the world's stock markets although I fail to see why since the eurozone is still in crisis and as likely to implode today as it was yesterday or at the very least is likely to end with the expulsion of Greece and possibly one or two of the other PIIGS countries if not them all. It is thus difficult to understand why Osborne is not advising the eurozone countries that it is better to organise an orderly re-arrangement of the zone's rules and members rather than suffer a disorderly implosion which must be to everyone's, including our, greater detriment rather than an orderly change. It is also difficult to understand why Cameron and Osborne are not seeking to amend our relationship with the EU to one which most people in this country can live with. There is a significant number whose preference is to leave the EU altogether but if this is unlikely to happen then that number plus those who want our relationship with the EU to become more like the Swiss or Norwegian relationship are thought to command a majority of voters. It is not only on the EU that Cameron and Osborne seem reluctant to act but also on the 50p tax rate. What is holding Cameron and Osborne back? Is it a lack of guts or is it because they are holding their fire until a moment they consider more propitious? For the time being they can have the benefit of the doubt but if there is no movement on any of these fronts in the next three or four months we will be forced to believe it is because they want a quiet life.

Lies and 38 Degrees

When awakening from the days of innocence a long time ago it came as a great surprise that the USSR would put out statements that were so self evidently completely untrue. It was an even greater surprise to hear people in this country believing quoting from or merely repeating such statements with approval. No doubt some of them believed what they had heard although there is no doubt that a number knew the true state of affairs but published the lies nonetheless in order to push their own particular political agenda. On the collapse of communism all civilised people hoped that the communist form of propaganda would be put back in its bottle but sadly and to our shame this did not happen and a form of it was used in this country to change the electorate's perception of a political opponent. Alistair Campbell with the encouragement of Blair was a past master of this particular dark art, of which thank goodness there is much less these days. Sad though that the left still thinks this kind of practice is justified. Unless of course they're thick and do not understand the legal advice they've been given why else would a left wing organisation called 38 Degrees (pretentious title) be misrepresenting the effect of the NHS reform bill now going through Parliament other than in the hope the lies they tell will persuade those who are prepared to listen that the reform bill would make certain changes which the bill simply does not address.

Germany and Greece

Jeff Randall Live is back after a 3 week absence. It went missing in action during one of the most torrid Augusts in recent memory. A pity since the intelligent comments Jeff and his team bring to business issues and the people they interview on financial matters give one a good understanding of what is going on in the economic world. Yesterday evening for example Jeff interviewed former deputy finance minister Dr Flassbeck who said that by undershooting its inflation target over the last few years Germany had enhanced its own prosperity to the detriment of its fellow eurozone members and should now help make amends. Flassbeck's view is probably not shared by many of his parliamentary colleagues one imagines but it is nice to know that there is at least one German who takes a view similar to other observers which is that German exports and thus its economy have benefited enormously from the lower exchange rate that being in a monetary union in which countries like Greece are also members has achieved. Jeff had not been totally idle during his 3 week absence from the screen however since he had undertaken several interviews in Greece during that time in one of which he was told that Greeks refused to pay tax since the government could not be trusted to use the tax collected for the benefit of the country. It is difficult not to have sympathy for such reasoning. How many times has one been tempted to refuse to pay tax where it is being spent on things with which one simply disagrees. Perhaps for Greece to get over this problem it should allow each taxpayer to nominate how what he or she pays is spent on. Clearly there would have to be complete transparency concerning the outcome with the government setting the tax rate and indicating how much it wants to collect for each category of expenditure with money over collected for a category then used to make up the shortfall in another category.        

Lagarde's Progress

Liam Halligan has a good piece in the Telegraph today in which he praises the new head of the IMF Christine Lagarde for having stated the other day that banks need urgent recapitalisation but castigates her for not going on to spell out what needs to be down to sort out the problem the Western banks are in. He doubts that she knows. Halligan believes that the only way to fix the banks' problems is for them to be forced to disclose all their losses and that they will then have to be recapitalised by the taxpayers as it is now too late for private investors to do so. Furthermore Halligan believes that the banks must be made to  restructure as a quid pro quo and that such restructuring involve writing off loans and forcing investors to take haircuts. The other big problem Halligan mentions is the euro straitjacket and he wonders whether Lagarde understands that the euro is economically incoherent and doubts that she has the economic understanding to lead the IMF. The failure of our leaders to sort out this mess of their making has just gone to show that all the spin, all the hype put about by or on behalf of politicians to make us believe they are supermen was a load of old cobblers. One has to say though that Cameron seems to have recognised this and although the government does still spin things it is is somehow at a much lower level and within acceptable bounds.    

Break up the Bloody BBC

The BBC is becoming more and more of a problem. Its disgraceful bias against Israel will unquestionably have encouraged the thugs to disrupt the Israeli Symphony Orchestra. What I cannot understand is why none of the thugs were arrested since their antics were likely to lead to a breach of the peace. I wonder how many of them work for the BBC? The BBC whipped up sympathy for the Palestinians is manifestly misplaced. They sold their land fair and square and now want it back. They could of course buy back houses in Israel as they come up for sale but they don't. Is it because they want to steal it back? Looks like that to me. For those parts of Israel that it took over in the wars against it it would be mad to give back until a settlement is reached with the Palestinians and its other neighbours but clearly the Palestinians do not want a settlement. They want to keep crying 'poor little me'. The BBC is also biased against the Republicans. Only snide remarks are ever made about Republican Presidential candidates but no word is uttered about the Bummer without his praises being sung. Any impartial reporters would point out his obvious weaknesses and his failures in office. A third example of bias is the way the BBC is now reporting the riots. Cameron was remarkably refrained in his criticism on the Today programme but he was absolutely right in what he said. We are forced to pay for the outpourings of the BBC but what satisfaction do we get from it. Let those who like its left wing bias pay for it but let those of us who don't pay for own on TV and radio. It is contrary to all reason that we should have to pay for this monopoly whose tentacles in the last few years have spread ever wider. Why for example do we the licence payers have to pay the BBC to produce films for the cinema? Why doesn't the Competition Commission investigate the BBC?        

Yvonne the Cow

Those who want out of the EU know exactly how Yvonne feels in her desire to escape from the Common Agricultural Policy and to live free with her sister and calf and we wish her every happiness at her new abode in the sanctuary run by the Gut Aiderbichl. Freedom is a strong bovine emotion and seemingly as strong as any that runs in the human breast. One has to wonder whether Yvonne has also studied the Wealth of Nations and understands all about free markets since the kind of farm she escaped from was probably like many German farms which by our standards would be called a smallholding which with many French farms was just the kind of thing the CAP was set up to protect. Good for the producers but bad for consumers which of course was rightly strongly disapproved of by Adam Smith.  Yvonne clearly wanted a bigger horizon, somewhere where she could feel in control of her own destiny and to produce milk in exchange for wide pastures. As it is with Yvonne so it is with those of us who oppose the mercantilist view now being pursued by Germany in another field, no pun intended. Open Europe reports that according to Marco Zatterin, La Stampa's Brussels correspondent, Germany is trying to get the EU Energy Commissioner to propose that all new energy deals between EU members and third countries be examined by the EU before they are closed. This is because Germany is apparently worried that the UK, France and Italy have stolen a march on it by already doing oil deals with the new Libyan regime. Yvonne would clearly think that was tough luck as after all a free market is a fee market. Yvonne would be right and like her we must say no to any market rigging.

Wolf Cries

So Alain Juppe, the French Foreign Minister, says that the collapse of the eurozone will lead to the collapse of the EU and then possibly to war. The French pretend to be masters of logic as after all those who don't do maths for their baccalaureat have to do philosophy instead. Mr Juppe must have failed his exams as there is no logical reason why one event should lead to another. Indeed in my view it is more logical to assume that any fight is likely to be between the haves and have nots locked into the eurozone. If you wanted evidence of this possibility you only had to watch the riots that took place in Greece earlier this year. MEP Guy Verhofstadt, the Liberal gang leader in the European Parliament, has also written  something similar in a letter to the FT about the consequences of a break up of the eurozone, "the likelihood would be that monetary obstacles, foreign exchange rates and possibly even border controls would be reintroduced, as nationalism once again took hold across the continent. Within a fairly short time we would witness a dismantling of the internal market." Mr Verhofstadt would not pass a logic exam either since there is no reason why monetary obstacles, etc would be reintroduced as a result of the euro's collapse although it is true that  members of the EU are even now trying to reintroduce border controls to stem the unmanageable tide of immigration sweeping into the EU. If the break up of the eurozone did lead to the break up of the EU I for one would be very happy as we would undoubtedly be much better off out. Sadly I do not see that happening and thus as a second best it is to be hoped we can renegotiate our relationship with the EU to one similar to the Swiss model. As for Mr Juppe and Mr Verhostadt they are just trying to frighten the horses for their own political ends but by crying wolf will end up being ignored. Couldn't happen to a nicer pair.