Ireland's No Vote is Pointless

It is doesn't seem to me that the Irish getting a referendum on the fiscal treaty is a great victory for democracy. The treaty will still come into operation so long as 12 euro countries sign up to it unconditionally. Thus the treaty can only fail to pass into law if more than five countries reject it. As this is not going to happen Ireland's no vote in a referendum will not need to be reversed and the EU can pretend that the demos has been satisfied. Daniel Hannan has a great blog on this here. It should be of great concern to the Irish that despite voting no they will become subjected to ever tighter control from Brussels, which basically means ever tighter control from Germany as Simon Miler explains well in his Commentator blog here. I attended a Chatham House event yesterday evening on what, if any, role gold should have in the international monetary system at which the inevitable question of the euro arose. It was pretty clear that one panellist in particular thought that the euro was like gold by being pro-cyclical and as deflationary as was being pegged to the gold standard in its heyday. This panellist thought that Greece should leave the euro and that the euro should be split into two so that Germany and acolytes would end up in the hard euro with the remainder in the soft euro. We must thank our lucky stars each day that Gordon Brown never succumbed to the siren call of the euro and thus have some destiny over our economic future. We would of course have much more control over our destiny if we left the EU altogether. The EU is an inward looking, undemocratic organisation that takes more from us than we get back and is adversely changing our culture to an alien one that it is hard for us to recognise and one that does not respect the rule of law, competition or free trade or a free press. No wonder those of us who were around at the time rue the day we joined what was sold to us as a common market. It was and is nothing of the sort.        

The Need to Dock Wagging Tails

The LibDem tail certainly seems to be wagging the Tory dog. It may well be necessary for this to happen to a certain extent if the Tories want to keep the coalition alive but at the moment and as a result of this tail wagging the Tories are looking a bit weak. Surely they should be saying something along the lines of "We have an agreement and are  surprised that the LibDems think this gives them the right to seek changes unilaterally to items that have been signed up to, of which of course the change to the NHS Bill is a glaring example. Furthermore to issue tit for tat threats such as No Lords Reform, No Boundary Changes is unhelpful to both parties to the coalition. On the issue of boundary changes the public has for a long time recognised that the present boundaries are unfair to the Tories and that since devolution Scotland and Wales are both overrepresented in the Commons. The public does not have the same feeling of urgency for reform of the Lords nor, as the AV vote made clear, for those Lords who are to be elected to be elected by proportional representation." On the demands of the LibDems for items in the budget Osborne has already made it clear that as we have no money there can be no tax giveaways. If Osborne is not going to increase the tax threshold then he must do something to reduce the cost of doing business in a bold and significant way such as abolition of the minimum wage, the withdrawal of statutory employment protection, maternity leave and the like, changes to the planning laws, the abandonment of the climate change policy nonsense and cutting the over bloated civil service more deeply and more quickly than hitherto.      

Happiness

The LibDems agreed to the NHS Bill when they signed the coalition agreement. It has already been watered down and now we learn they want to water it down further. It should never have been watered down in the first place but to expect it to be watered down again only goes to prove what has always been said about the LibDems - that the only principles they have are the ones that put them in the driving seat. The behaviour of the LibDems reminds one of the French attitude to a contract. The French will only comply with the terms they've signed up to for as long as it suits them - thereafter they do everything they can to change the rules to their advantage including punching, biting and pulling hair. No wonder the LibDems feel so comfortable with the EU. In these cases there is only one way in which to proceed and that is to ignore the blighters completely. Fulfil the terms of the coalition agreement to the letter and let the LibDems go hang. Labour will try to exploit the split but let them. Their policy on the NHS is a return to the status quo ante Blair and thus inconsistent in large measure with the reforms the Labour government had previously proposed to implement. Cameron should be making this point at every available moment and thereby knock the stuffing out of Miliband. Miliband was silly to say that the NHS reforms would be seen to be Cameron's poll tax moment. It is clear to everyone, other than possibly Mr Joyce, that it is nothing of the sort. Such remarks always backfire and will do so here. The LibDems are in for a torrid time on the Budget, the NHS, the EU and House of Lords reform which will make some of us really rather happy.  

Syria, Democracy and the Civil War

The continuing conflict in Syria must surely lead to a re-evaluation by the West of whether and what assistance it should give. This has not suddenly become acute as a result of the death of a journalist but Marie Colvin's death has certainly re-focused the public's attention on the dictator Assad's regime and the brutal way in which it deals with dissent. The greatest advantage of democracy is the ability of a people to change its government at regular intervals. Assad is not of course going to call an election or not one that anyone would be satisfied was free and fair. It seems therefore that a change of regime can only happen at the point of a gun. Should the West get involved? Only if it's a reasonable certainty that the winner of the civil war will hold free and fair elections at regular intervals. How should the West help? By giving the rebels it backs the arms and supplies necessary to finish the job. Whether the West should commit its own forces though is another question since to do so may well result in running into the Russians and the Iranians (in the latter case possibly in the form of Hezbollah). For the moment it is perhaps best for the West not to commit forces although to be ready to do so if there is evidence of the Russians or Iranians doing so. As part of its pro democracy policy our government should condemn the nazi anti Israel campaign championed by the left and called the Israeli Apartheid Week and indeed anyone connected with it should be named and shamed. There is an interesting blog on the Israeli Apartheid Week here and why it should be condemned. Another nazi organisation, the Greens, are having a little trouble from their Conservative and Labour opponents on Brighton and Hove Council who have joined together to try and defeat the Green administration's proposed Council Tax hike. There is a blog on this issue here.   

A Dose of Reality

Will shareholders rebel and ensure that there are no more bonuses for failure? It seems that some companies are taking this message on board if the reductions in last year's bonuses at Lloyds TSB are anything to go by. There seems to be a correlation between the idea that you can be paid a bonus for failure to the socialist educational idea that no child should be made to compete with another as it is wrong to instil in the young the notion that there are winners and losers and that only winners get prizes. Hence the abolition of competitive sports in many schools and in others that all who compete must win prizes. Everyone, including the children, know who the winners and losers are and it is a nonsense to pretend all are equal. It is also a disservice to pretend that someone has done better in an exam than is the case. That is why Gove's statement yesterday that we will see falls in the levels of those with A grades etc is not only so important but also about time too. Grade inflation cheats children and employers. Gove also let it be known that certain teachers who have been peddling the wrong kind of education are going to lose their jobs. Nothing warm and fuzzy about that statement and nothing warm and fuzzy about Cameron's comment at PMQs today that he is in favour of competition in the NHS. A pity that the government is not going to privatise it altogether leaving the money to follow the patient. A dose of reality a day helps keep the country on the straight and narrow.  

Will the Greek Bailout Work?

Will the Greek bailout come to pass or will it hit the rocks in a month or so's time? According to a Swiss friend and supporter of the euro the Fiscal Treaty has set out the necessary elements to ensure that countries with such disparate economies as Germany and Greece will now be able to live together in perfect harmony and that the Greek bailout terms must mean that Greece will soon be on the road to recovery. My friend believes that the euro concept was brilliantly devised by Kohl although he does accept that it was a little unfortunate that countries like Greece were not ready to join when they did and that it would have been better if they had re-balanced their economies to be German like beforehand. He does not agree with me that the Greeks would be better off defaulting and devaluing as he's convinced, and quoted an article in a German paper he read yesterday that coincides with his view, that if Greece were to leave the euro it would lead to the departure of other countries and thus to armageddon and that the example of Iceland is a false analogy; false because Iceland is a small country and wasn't in the euro. There is a view put forward on Jeff Randall Live yesterday evening that the so called bail out is only a short term stop gap to buy a few months time and intended at the end of such period to force Greece to take the decision to withdraw from the euro. This is a pretty cynical way of dealing with the crisis and begs the question for the umpteenth time as to why in the world we are still in an organisation which can behave this way, which costs us a fortune to be a member, where the advantages of being a member are dubious to say the least, where Germany and France are allowed to protect their major industries, where they want to make ours less competitive, where there is no growth, precious little tolerance of democracy and a moribund social structure that encourages the second rate where all must be seen as equal rather than being given an equal opportunity.      

Marxist Abuse and the House of Lords

The woman who barracked Andrew Lansley after the Government meeting with health professionals at No. 10 this morning was none other than, to call a spade a spade, a nasty old bitch who in her time was a trade union representative and a member of an extreme left organisation, the Workers Revolutionary Party. Having watched the video the only thing one can say about this episode is that Lansley behaved with both patience and politeness and must at least have earned some brownie points that could well help him with his battle over the NHS Bill. Apart from nasty old ladies the Government now has to contend with Tory peers rebelling against the proposed House of Lords reforms. The peers are prepared to act as a log jam to stop any further legislation until they get their way, which is a little anti-democratic of them since the legislation will have been instigated by a democratically elected government. The whole reform of the House of Lords idea is admittedly a sensitive one and another mess left behind by Blair. It seems to me that  reform in this case should proceed by stages with say the maximum number of members reduced to 460 and with only 20 per cent of the members to be elected with that number increasing to 45 per cent in 2025. The balance of the peers would be made up of those others appointed by the government and the Bishops. As the appointed element would be more than half there could be no doubt that as now the House of Lords would not be able to stop any legislation that the government wished to push through nor stop any money raising bill. In that way there would be no need to have specific wording to provide for this. By proceeding in this way the rebellious Lords would have had their concerns taken into account in some way whilst leaving it up to later generations to change the composition of the House of Lords in a manner that suits them. The main idea is to inject some element of elected peers to the second chamber and on a first past the post basis. The last thing we need is any form of proportional representation.        

Putting the BMA's Nose Out of Joint

Cameron is being criticised by the BBC for holding a 'hastily convened' meeting on the NHS and not inviting representatives of the medical world who have made it very clear that the NHS Bill should be dropped and given their reasons why. First of all it is doubtful that the meeting has been convened any more hastily than most meetings on the issues of the day and secondly why would Cameron want to have the BMA, etc, etc telling him yet again what they have been saying for some time now. He knows their position and nothing they say is going to make him any the wiser whereas by talking to a different set of professionals who hopefully do not have the same political axe to grind as the BMA and so on he may well learn something to the advantage of the users of the NHS as opposed to those who work in it, want it to continue to be run in their interest and think they are the only ones that know what's best for the consumers. Cameron should be applauded for not inviting the BMA and others. He must have intended that they should feel miffed, that they should feel they have lost their position as the centre of attention on this issue and that others are valued by the Prime Minister as having equally valid points of view. In other words their noses have been put out of joint and I rejoice that they have been taken down a peg or two. That's exactly what they deserve and there are others who the Prime Minister could treat in the same way for the benefit of us all. This is good politics since those like the medical profession, like the BBC and so on who claim a higher than thou position in the scale of life always need to be reminded of where they stand in the true order of things. They are there for the consumer and not the other way around. That is what these NHS reforms, however watered down they are, are all about. Cameron must tackle the BBC, the EU, Alex Salmond and the Unions for a start in the same way.      

Retail Sales Are Up

Retail sales in January went up by 0.9% on those of December 2011 according to figures released today by the Office of National Statistics. We were told by someone on BBC Radio 4 at around noon today that we should not read too much into these figures as they would be subject to review and would most likely be downsized. Possibly the BBC will be proved right as original figures released by the Office of National Statistics on a multitude of things are often adjusted at a later stage - up as well as down. The BBC did not of course mention that the retail sales figures might be found after review to have been understated as that would not fit in with their pro Labour bias. Maybe though, just maybe, the economy is slowly but surely beginning to turn up. It is not evidence of such hoped for improvement but it is nonetheless interesting that a relative of mine who owns a jewellery shop in Tunbridge Wells has told me that sales last year were marginally up on 2010, sales in January were up on January 2011 and so far this month sales are also up on the same period last February. My relative sells stock bought in from third parties as well as jewellery that he manufactures to order or for stock. The reason given by my relative for this welcome upturn in trade is that a few of his customers have said that they had recently inherited some money and wanted to buy jewellery or a watch or some other item as a result. Tunbridge Wells is one of those places where you retire to it's true and it's nice to know that there is a healthy death rate amongst the elderly well to do but not every beneficiary can be relied on to buy from my relative, more's the pity. Tunbridge Wells is though also home to commuters engaged successfully in the financial services sector and I know a number of them are customers of this jewellery shop. The reason for the retail sales figures having gone up in January is being put down to the discounts on offer. No discounts are on offer though in my relative's shop.  

Cameron in Scotland and Mongrels and Muddles

Cameron did a good job today in Scotland. I think his statement that he believes in the United Kingdom head, heart and soul will resonate positively with the Scots. After all his father was a Scot whereas his mother is English. Most of us in England are mongrels. I am a mixture of English, Welsh and Irish and have a smidgen of Scots blood too. Do the Scots want a break up because they have less mixed blood? I guess there is only a small minority of English who want the dismemberment of the Union although I do agree with those who think that only English MPs should be able to vote on English matters in the House of Commons now that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have their devolved parliaments. This is surely something that Clegg should be promoting but like his programme for the reform of the Lords he is in a hopeless muddle as he is on the MP recall issue. Zac Goldsmith is absolutely right that the recall process should be along the lines used in the US and not as a result of a  Parliamentary Committee decision. It is not only Clegg who is in a muddle. So is Andy Burnham over the special adviser he appointed who could have been more open about payments he received from the NHS and the manner in which he is paid by the Labour Party. Guido has the story here. Labour did at least do one correct thing today. They sacked a Sunderland City Councillor for having 'liked' a Facebook post for calling for an IRA to bomb the next Conservative Party Conference.   

Penguins, Penn and the Falklands

Should one be concerned by Sean Penn's declaration that the UK should cease its nasty colonialist ways and hand over the Falklands to the Argentinians? It is upsetting to be sure that an American should be saying such things but is it any worse than being told by the grandson of a Latvian immigrant that he no longer wants Scotland to be a part of the UK? It is worse since Alex Salmond is one of Her Majesty's subjects and can say what the hell he likes to his fellow subjects whereas Penn has somehow taken upon himself a diplomatic role on the part of Argentina and possibly of the United States. The US posture on the Falklands as expressed by Mrs Clinton is ambiguous to say the least if not downright pro Argentinian. Whereas the BBC is very keen to announce the political orientation of those of a conservative mind (witness the call to identify the Taxpayers Alliance as a conservative supporting organisation) it never does so in the case of those of a socialist bent. Penn is a supporter of Bummer, Chavez and also of Kirchner of Argentina, in other words of a left bent, and the BBC in its website report should have highlighted this. Do not let us forget that Mrs Kirchner in any proper democracy would have been under the spotlight for her and her husband's business dealings which if the stories about such dealings are correct leave a lot to be desired. As Penn doesn't like colonialism no doubt he will fight for the independence of Hawaii, a kingdom subsumed into the USA by the votes of local US citizens only. No doubt he will also agitate for the independence of Puerto Rico, a colony of the USA since 1898 as a result of the Treaty of Paris following the Spanish American War. Being a democrat however Penn would, I feel sure, want the Hawaiians and Puerto Ricans to express their desire for independence by way of a vote in a referendum. Why does he deny a referendum to the Falkland Islanders? Why doesn't the BBC point this out?

The EU as Bully

What is being done to Greece by the ECB, the IMF and the eurozone is disgraceful. It is never going to be able to grow out of the austerity measures imposed on it if it stays in the euro. So why the vast majority of Greeks wish to stay in the euro is beyond me. It seems that they see leaving the euro as a jump off the edge into a dark ravine with no surety of a soft landing at the bottom. However if they were to return to the drachma they would have a chance to grow within the foreseeable future. They would still have to default on their debts and comply with the austerity measures it is true but at least they would have readjusted the value of their currency against the euro. It is incomprehensible that there is no serious politician in Greece who is proposing exiting the euro as a solution. The Greeks have become like lemmings. One wonders if it is the pressure being imposed on the Greek politicians by the eurocrats that makes them behave this way and from what one reads about the bullying, undemocratic behaviour of the eurocrats one can believe that that is so. Daniel Hannan refers to this in his blog today here. The arrogance of the EU is astounding. What makes them think they have the answer to all economic questions as they clearly do by now stating that they are going to investigate our economy. This is under a new power the EU has arrogated to itself. I do not recall and no one else will recall having voted for EU oversight of our economy. That's the problem with the EU it doesn't do democracy as demonstrated by people like Van Rompuy who think that for their own good Greece and Italy can have government imposed on them. What the IMF is doing getting embroiled in this is another question but one is led to think that it must be because the IMF head is a French woman, Christine Lagarde, who it has become very clear was a thoroughly bad choice to take over the helm from another bad French choice. As Charles Moore said in his review of Uncommon Enemy yesterday here, "Please God, we are spying on the French." Apart from the EU and countries like Germany and France we have the BBC to contend with in this country so it was good to hear George Osborne make a quip about that biased organisation this morning on the Today programme. James Delingpole's blog today on Osborne's witty remark is well worth a read. 

Vested Interests

One of the disadvantages of being a neatly ordered country where everything is more or less in its place is that those institutions which tidily fill a hole in the great scheme of things quickly become a vested interest and thus a block to progress. Maggie's greatest achievement was to overturn a number of vested interests but sadly not enough. We see it in education with the unions trying to stop the imaginative reforms now being pushed through by Gove. Other vested interests she did not deal with and which are still with us include those connected to the NHS, probably the most powerful vested interests now existing in this country. The NHS is unbelievably inefficient and expensive as we all know and the need to reform it is self evident but the vested interests concerned are using every dirty trick in the book to keep the status quo. Cameron is quite right to insist on reform even if the reforms hardly go far enough as they only deal with patient choice and putting local doctors in charge of arranging local services. There will hopefully be a further NHS bill after the next election to take reforms further. Another vested interest are the planning laws in this country including the excessive weight given to the environmental lobby which has allowed the fascist green, friends of the earth types to have far too big a say over energy. Aided and abetted as we know by the BBC - another vested interest. We are about to return to energy rationing unless we stop spending money on renewable energy and start building nuclear and coal fired power stations. Much more importantly we must start exploiting the shale gas that lies underneath us in vast quantities. The fascists do not seem to have much of a following however as the numbers protesting against fracking (the process involved in extracting the gas from the rock in which it lies) in a pedestrian lane off Kensington High Street almost opposite the Royal Garden Hotel were less than the number of constables policing the event. The Spectator has an interesting article on shale gas and its benefits here. We desperately need to reduce our energy costs in this country for both households and businesses and we should do everything to ensure that the nasty greens are put back in their box without further ado. If this means getting rid of the new LibDem Energy Secretary and replacing him with a Tory who'll do the business then so be it.  

Greek Expulsion

Jeremy Warner in his blog here is saying that the eurozone is now trying to push Greece out. I agree with Warner because if the eurozone still wanted Greece to remain a euro group member it would not be fussed about the €325 million that the Greeks say they will not been able to cut when the bailout fund now being talked about is €130 billion. The change of heart has occurred not only because of the €325 million shortfall in austerity cuts but because Greece is not trusted to perform its obligations under the rescue package. It seems the Greeks are not confident they can do so either since as Warner points out the wealthy ones are moving their money out of Greece. There is also the worry that at the general election in April the mainline parties will do so badly that the extreme left parties will take over. Would the army allow Greece to be ruled by a government coalition of the hard left parties? I guess it's possible and equally possible that the army will mount a coup d'etat. Either way Greece will leave the eurozone and if there is a coup d'etat the EU as well. Depending which pundit you follow Greece leaving the euro will put pressure on Portugal, Spain and Italy and result in at least Portugal following suit, or not. Expelling Greece will be its saving though as they will then be able to devalue and slowly but surely over time be able to get back to a better economy, assuming that they stick with those essential austerity cuts such as reforming their civil service numbers, salaries, pensions, tax collections and the like. The tragedy will be that after Greece's exit the eurozone will continue without itself having addressed its basic flaw being the mixture of German type economies from Latin ones. How much more damage to the world's economy needs to be done before common sense prevails and Germany and its apostles leave the eurozone and set up their own monetary union leaving France to head up the eurozone rump. France's economy is likely to suffer badly if Hollande is elected President. I suppose Miliband is unlikely to join Hollande's campaign as he is being urged to do to counter Merkel's support for Sarkozy for fear that the disaster that is Hollande will reflect badly on him. A pity. It would have been good to see Miliband solving the Rubik Cube puzzle in French.    

The Leveson Inquiry

I really do not understand the point of the Leveson Inquiry. Phone hacking is illegal as is the long established habit, going way back before mobile phones were ever invented, of policemen selling gossip about miscreant celebrities to newspapers. These are matters properly dealt with in the criminal courts and where damage has been suffered in the civil courts as well. The amount being paid out to buffoons like Prescott is way over the top though. Even a penny damages would be too much. Who frankly cares about 99% of the information gleaned from hacking and published in this or that newspaper. All such information is of a here today gone tomorrow type about nonentities with an over inflated idea of theyr importance. The only hacking which could have caused real damage were those into Milly Dowler's voicemail but despite the claims of some we now learn that the hackers did not after all delete any of her messages. So no damage  was done here either however abhorrent the fact of the hacking in such circumstances were. What does matter though is the nasty taste left in the mouth by the testimony of some journalists denying knowledge of hacking despite other witnesses basically but not specifically contradicting such testimony. Even this contradiction is of no moment and irrelevant anyway. From all the evidence Leveson has heard and is due to hear the only thing he can say is what all of us have known about the press and celebrities, journalists love to make up stories and celebrities love to be in the limelight. It would be extremely dangerous though for Leveson to recommend regulation of the industry in any manner and even more dangerous if the government were to bring in press legislation. As this is extremely unlikely I repeat what I said at the beginning, I do not understand the point of the Leveson Inquiry. What is a disgrace is the BBC cover up of the alleged child abuse by Jimmy Savile. I first heard stories alleging Jimmy Savile was an abuser whilst he was still alive. Supposedly the police had decided not to prosecute him as he did so much for children's charities.    

Greek Travails

The rescue plan for Greece is nothing of the sort and can only lead to the impoverishment of the Greek people for years to come. The idea that austerity without the ability to devalue will save the day will be proved wrong beyond any doubt when Greece explodes. Why then are Greek politicians so frightened of leaving the eurozone? It is worse for them in than out and why is the IMF not advising them to get out now? It must be obvious that Greece simply cannot cope with the austerity measures imposed on it. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard makes this very clear in his blog today here. Greek politicians if they want to save their democracy should be helped by the IMF to drop the euro and return to the drachma. John Redwood has some advice on how this might be done legally in his blog today here. At least that way Greece will be able to recover in the medium as opposed to the very, very long term. Why are the eurocrats, the Germans and French so keen to pursue this line with Greece? It's as if they feel the end justifies the means with the end being a Franco/German hegemony bossing the rest of us mere mortals around. This can be seen already with increasingly closer co-operation between the two countries. Should this worry us? Certainly not once we've left the EU as it puts us where we've always been - an independent operator outside the continent with connections to a wider world and in exactly the right place to be, well, ourselves. In the meantime the Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, Viviane Reding, commends a plan to be brought in by 2020 to cover such issues as political union with a European Parliament with the right to initiate legislation and to elect the Commission members. The Treaty on political union would be subject to a referendum in each EU member country and will pass if two thirds of the member countries vote in favour. Those who don't will become close associates of the EU. Seems there won't be a chance to vote to leave. I wonder why not.    

Useful Idiots and Extreme Muslims

Unless I'm looking in the wrong places there seems virtually nothing in the UK which reports or comments on what the Muslim extremists might be doing surreptitiously in this country to change our laws and culture. As with any underhand operation those guilty of this pernicious enterprise manipulate useful idiots to try and change the people's attitude to Islam. There is a far greater awareness in the USA about the insidious methods of extreme Muslims to try and change the American way of life. In particular people like Brigitte Gabriel, herself of Christian Lebanese origin, tours the States giving lectures on what is going on so that her fellow citizens are aware of the advantage that is being taken of the good nature of Americans and their willingness to listen and try to understand and be fair to alien religions and cultures. Brigitte Gabriel has pointed out that certain state schools are giving their children a three week course in Islam, with a visit to the local Mosque and during Ramadan asking the children to fast for a day so that the children can empathise with muslims. This is despite the law in the USA prohibiting prayers in state schools. As a result of what is going on in the United States a significant portion of their home grown terrorists are converts from the various strains of Christianity that are practised there. Apparently there as here there is pressure on the courts to introduce certain aspects of Sharia law. There is also pressure through violence and intimidation to ensure that somehow Islam is treated in a more respectful way than Christianity and Christians. We should stand rigorously against this. We have our laws, our traditions, our culture and these can only be changed through an Act of Parliament. Until then Muslims will either have to adapt or shut up. They will also definitely have to obey all our laws as we obey them without exception - no arranged marriages, no mutilation of women, no so called 'honour killings' (they are murder) and no other Sharia law. The government should make this clear beyond peradventure.  

Bonuses for NGO Officers Stink

The whole bonus thing has got quite out of hand. Why is anybody who works for a non-commercial organisation given a bonus? Against what benchmark can you properly measure a bonus entitlement? If someone works his butt off and does a great job this should be recognised in his salary which of course will flow through into his pension pot but a bonus? No, no, no. I can see why Hester and others working for a bank despite it being 82% owned by the taxpayers could have a bonus as part of their remuneration as they are working for a commercial operation. I can see absolutely no reason at all why the likes of the board of Network Rail which, contrary to what Labour maintained is anything but a commercial operation, should be paid a bonus. The executives are not adding value to anything, merely carrying out a function which they are obliged to do to a particular standard and for which they get paid a generous salary. Who was the buffoon who decided Network Rail executives were entitled to bonuses? Would it be Lord Prescott's head that fits the hat? It is good to know that Justine Greening has put a stop to the bonuses for the Network Rail executives amounting in the aggregate to some £20 million. Service contracts for all executives and directors of non-commercial organisations must be revised to exclude bonuses. If such people want bonuses they must go into the commercial world and take the risk of neither getting paid nor a pension. The whole bonus idea for those working in the public sector stinks. I hope the Taxpayers Alliance takes up the cudgels on this and Guido Fawkes too.

Russia Saves Assad

It is odd that both China and Russia should have vetoed the UN resolution on Syria particularly after the the deaths in Homs today caused by the Syrian army's shelling. The Russians say that it is their policy not to intervene in civil wars which is curious since they intervened in the 2008 Georgia civil war. The Russians had at one point indicated that if certain changes were made to the resolution they would support it including the removal of wording the Syrians had already agreed to with the Arab League. Russia has always supported the Assad regime in Syria which has close connections to Iran and to Hezbollah. It is much more likely that Russia wants to remain friendly with Assad as he guarantees the continued use of a naval base for the Russian Navy. As to China it was never going to support the resolution as it sees it as a step on the way to enforcing regime change in Syria by the West. China is far too insecure to entertain regime change as someone, sometime may wish to change the Chinese regime. Regime change is something which no doubt worries the Russians as well since they are hardly a western style democracy. Although it was good to see that in excess of 40,000 demonstrators braved the minus 20 celsius temperatures in Moscow today to campaign for regime change without being beaten up. That is progress of some sort but the Putin, Russia and the West series on BBC 2 show quite clearly what a nasty piece of work Putin is - one would not want to meet him on a dark night.    

BBC Horror Story

It seems the BBC is even more opaque than I thought. A Tory MP Karl McCartney has found out that the BBC has been receiving a grant and a loan from the EU and the Telegraph has an article on this subject here. The BBC of course state that this has in no way affected their journalistic independence but can we believe that when the Global Britain think tank found that in the last 6 years only 0.04% of all EU content on the Today programme covered the benefits of withdrawal from the EU. I don't believe in their impartiality as we all know that the BBC breaches its impartiality obligation on a daily basis and not only on issues like the EU but on the NHS, global warming, Palestine, the Democrats, Bummer Obama and other causes beloved of the left. Everyone knows the BBC is left leaning and they do not even bother to deny it with any great effort. They have gone past caring about balance. Another area of conflict that the BBC is involved in has been pointed out to me this afternoon. This story broke first of all as far as I can see in the Daily Express of 1 February 2010 with a follow up article in the Sunday Express of 7 February 2010. The chairman of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change is Peter Dunscombe who is also head of the BBC pension investments worth something like £8bn. How can the BBC possibly allow this save on the basis there is one rule for them and one for the rest of us? Again I ask the question how can all taxpayers be forced to pay for the BBC when a good number of them disagree with the BBC's line? This story has thrown up another interesting point. Why can't the BBC live off its licence fee?  Any other funding should not be allowed and is another example of its anti competitive behaviour. Until I read the Telegraph article I did not know that BBC Worldwide is a commercial venture. If it wants to act in the commercial world the BBC should be split with each bit sold to the highest bidder. I think the licence fee should be dropped and the BBC pushed into the commercial world anyway. The impartiality obligation should then be dropped so that the owner of each bit can then choose the political line it wishes to take. Impartiality will  naturally be achieved through this kind of diversity as in the USA. One has not been able to trust the BBC for years and it is long past time something was done about it.    

Ken Deadstone is so Old Fashioned

Ken Livingstone and the Labour Party want to go back to the future. To do so they want to resurrect rent controls in London despite the overwhelming evidence from our own history and the experience of other places in the World that have tried this that rent controls diminish the stock of properties to let. As we should all know by now restrictions on free markets have a detrimental effect on supplies. It is well documented that rent controls put landlords off building new properties to rent and that artificially low rents increase the demand for rent controlled properties. The inability of landlords to charge a market rent leads to them to skip necessary maintenance work with the buildings they own falling into disrepair. If this sounds like a recipe for cheating it is. Who can forget Rachman and his exploitation of the flats he owned in Notting Hill. He forced out those tenants on low or fixed rents and replaced them with immigrants on much higher rents. In the meantime his buildings became a slum. Ken has a campaign slogan "Don't vote for a joke, Vote for London." If anyone's the joke it is Ken himself and hopefully he and Labour will be squashed unmercifully on this anti free market pledge. We had all been told that Labour now believe in the free market but seek to ensure that it operates compassionately. Labour has clearly been indulging in lies. Apparently in 1939 55% of households were in the private rented sector whereas at the time of the Housing Act 1988 this sector had shrunk to just 8% as this Commentator blog points out here. The rental market since 1988 when rent controls were abolished has boomed. Funny isn't it that we have to thank Lady Thatcher for this freedom from control.      

BBC Licence Fee

The BBC Licence Fee may have been a sensible way of financing a public broadcast company when it was set up in 1927 but it isn't a sensible method of financing the BBC in this day and age. The Licence Fee has given the BBC the idea that it can ignore the views of its paymasters as anyone who owns a television has to pay the fee whether they watch the BBC or approve of its output. No other business would be allowed to get away with this and quite rightly so too. In the beginning the BBC was much more careful about its impartiality but now makes no pretence as to where its preferences lie, be it with the  Labour Party, the Unions, the Palestinians, the Democrats, Global Warming, the EU or whatever. There is a blog called Biased BBC which records the daily transgressions by the BBC of its impartiality obligation. It is an outrage that those of us on the right should be forced to pay for the constant BBC left wing propaganda. Other broadcasters that raise their revenue either directly from viewers or from advertisers have to take account of the views of their audiences since if they fail to do so they know they will lose income. The government must change the law to ensure that there is a level playing field between all broadcasters including the BBC. To do this the BBC should at least have its structure changed to make it a company that can be floated on the Stock Exchange. If nothing else is done the market will do the rest overtime since the profits made by the BBC each year will reflect its popularity and that popularity will be affected by the level of attention it pays to what its viewers think. It is doubtful for example that if the BBC were a broadcast company like any other that it would allow the kind of mindless propaganda commented on by the Biased BBC blog today here. Everyone should write to their MP to ask him/her to ask the government to introduce the appropriate legislation.