Miliband Doth Protest Too Much

Labour clearly think they are on to a good thing by raising an urgent question about Hunt and thus obtaining an emergency debate this afternoon in the House of Commons. What a complete and utter waste of time and if Ed Miliband and Ed Balls think the electorate will be impressed by what happened this afternoon they should think again. No doubt they thought the debate would be seen as a demonstration by Labour of mach politics but this kind of witch hunt is not something the electorate likes as it smacks of schoolboy tactics and hypocrisy - of Labour protesting too much. The history of the crony and frankly creepy and indeed undesirable relationship between Murdoch and Labour is too well documented to give Labour the moral high ground (which is an oxymoron in any case where Ed Balls is involved). Everyone knows Labour would have done anything to keep Murdoch's support and that was why Brown was so upset when he learnt that he had lost that support when Murdoch for good commercial reasons changed sides. Murdoch wanted approval for his BSkyB purchase and when he guessed that Labour were going to lose the election and would not be there to make the appropriate ruling he naturally made himself agreeable to the party that would be dealing with his application. Miliband thinks we have all forgotten this but he's wrong and it is something the Tories should remind us about at every opportunity. Ed Miliband knows he is not a favourite of Murdoch as he would much have preferred the brother to have won the Labour leadership election and perhaps calculates that he has nothing to lose but he's wrong. We will remember this afternoon's performance and although it will have no effect on the outcome of the local elections it will have an effect on the bigger picture when it comes to the general election.  

Murdoch and Hunt

Does the Murdoch media control the UK political scene? It is fair to say that it does to a degree as it was without doubt the cheerleader for Thatcher, for Blair and to a lesser extent for Cameron but I agree with those who maintain that rather than lead its readers it reflects the views of the majority of them and thus of the voters. The majority knew that the only way to get this country on its feet again was by voting for Thatcher so that Parliament could take power back from the unions. The Murdoch press supported this idea. God knows why the majority voted for Blair but the feeling that after 17 years of Tory rule it was time for a change was also reflected in the Murdoch papers but how wrong Murdoch was to vilify Major who ran both a more decent and a better government than Blair and was no more wrong over Europe than the Labour government proved to be. Murdoch regards Blair as his friend and what a sorry state such cronyism has got us into with Brown and Cameron trying to become Murdoch's best friend too. Brown was seen by everyone as having one penny short of a shilling and the Murdoch press followed along as well which inevitably led to their support of Cameron in the 2010 election. Murdoch therefore takes the line that will sell most newspapers and from a business or commercial point of view he's right. There is no doubting his business ability. When it comes to television he recognised that in the States all the main channels take left of centre views and that there was a huge space in the market for a right of centre channel which could be exploited. He has filled that space admirably and very successfully with Fox News. The BBC (a monopoly organisation with 60% of the broadcast market in the UK) and its left of centre soul mate the Guardian are both scared witless by the thought of Murdoch entering the UK broadcast market with a UK version of Fox News. They don't like the competition not only from a commercial point of view but from the political point of view. They both take the view that democracy is good but only if the left wins all the time. That is why they will do literally anything together with their friends in the Labour party and in the Lib Dems to stop Murdoch buying the 60% of BSkyB that News Corp does not already own. They believe that if Murdoch were to own BSkyB it would be turned from a somewhat vapid left of centre channel into a right of centre one with the same success as Fox. There is after all a gaping hole in this country for a right of centre TV station that is ready to be exploited. At some point if Murdoch doesn't fill it someone else will. No wonder the left is screaming for Hunt's scalp.

FIGs and Zombies

Even the Germans are beginning to think that it may be all over for the eurozone if just one country seriously tries to re-negotiate the terms of the well named FU treaty. Thus the Irish could scupper the whole thing by recording a 'no' result in their referendum. I would vote 'no' if I were Irish as they are being asked to support those EU banks which are effectively bankrupt as a result of the 2007/2008 financial crisis caused by too much debt and the concomitant property bubbles. Ireland is paying for its own debt mountain and burst property bubble but why does it have to support German banks and the like simply because the German banks would go bust without that support and thereby cause huge damage to the sovereign debt of Germany and other countries in a similar position to Germany. Dan Hannan has a blog on this subject which you can access here and I particularly recommend you view its first YouTube video in which the arrogant German from the EBC fails to answer the question put to him by an Irish journalist on the very issue about why the Irish should support non Irish EU banks. The EU was conceived by conmen and has remained a scam ever since - alright if your German or French but a boil on the back of the serfs i.e. the rest of us. What is it about our politicians that they can't see this? What is it about our politicians that they don't understand what's being done to us and why are they so pusillanimous about standing up for our country? Are they on some special drug or are they being paid or have they been promised other delights? They must be since it is incomprehensible that anyone other than a zombie (like a Lib Dem) wouldn't see the danger of remaining in the EU and do everything to get out.    

Renewable Energy and Other Laughing Matters

Global warming has morphed into climate change apparently without any of the warmists blinking an eye. The evidence shows there has been no warming over the last ten years but the weather pattern has changed back to more like I remember it to be in my youth say 50 years ago. In those far off days we knew the weather pattern was a cyclical event and just got on with it. Those born later seem to think the gods have sought them out for special treatment which is a bit arrogant of them I think. What is so special about them that they are being subjected to climate change rather than a cyclical change in the weather pattern? Is it because they know so much more, are better educated or are infinitely more intelligent? Whatever it is it was somewhat depressing to listen to Cameron's speech to the Clean Energy forum today. Somewhat because he did not deny that we need power from clean coal (what is the clean coal he was referring to), oil and gas, shale gas and nuclear energy sources but he did lay particular emphasis on renewable sources of energy such as wind farms, solar panels and bio mass. Listening to Cameron as he banged on about green energy one wondered if the penny will ever drop that the renewable energy he is talking about cannot be relied upon under any circumstances save at the very periphery. It is not only grossly inefficient but very expensive and he is doing great damage by making us pay for some worthless dream. Our money needs to be steered into growth projects not in paying subsidies for so called renewables which never get past the drawing board stage as a serious competitor to the more traditional sources of energy. If other countries want to delude themselves about renewable energy programmes and spend billions on experimenting with this one and that then let them but leave the British taxpayer out of it - if it is possible to do so under EU rules. Mention of the EU brings to mind the EU budget. A far more important topic than the media/political class navel gazing about bloody Murdoch at all. What does the EU think it's doing increasing its budget by 7% when at the same time it is telling each country to reduce its budget. the EU says the increase is in part to pay for the increase in the EU Foreign Office. The EU is not a country and does not need a Foreign Office so it should wind up whatever it calls its joke version and save us money.

In Recession

We are back in recession again. What is more worrying is that we have not bounced back from the noughties financial crisis in the way we did in the 1930s and 1980s. Did Labour really stuff the country that badly? All the evidence suggests that they did and in such a way that it is going to take us a long, long time to recover from their malicious negligence. If there was any doubt about the mental make up of the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, it was dispelled today by Rupert Murdoch who in evidence he gave to the Leveson Inquiry said that Mr Brown was not in a balanced state of mind on learning of the Sun's decision not to support the Labour party at the 2010 General Election. I doubt that  Gordon Brown's mind has ever been in balance and Blair, the Charlatan and friend of Murdoch, knew it and failed his country by funking sacking Brown. Iceland have just put their Prime Minister on trial for his part in the Icelandic fiscal fiasco. Why haven't we put Blair and Brown on trial as well? If not a trial then at least an inquiry into what went wrong and from which our politicians may learn something useful for the future. Such an inquiry would be infinitely more relevant than the Leveson circus. All in all though the figures that came out today are not surprising. We have been told that the recovery will be rocky. We have also been told that the figures may be wrong and may be revised upwards. What is encouraging are the unemployment figures as well as the number of those in work. Do these two sets of figures presage the beginning of the long haul back to better times?    

Wind Up the BBC

Another day another blow to the Government. Hunt is accused of leaking information relating to the Murdoch bid for that part of Sky they did not already own. Hunt denies he was personally involved and we shall see what the result may be. In the meantime we have the depressing news that Miliband is more popular with the electorate than Cameron. I told you my fellow countrymen show symptoms of madness sometimes. It is though a strange old world as two Labour peers, first Lord Sugar and now Lord Winston, have come out against Livingstone as Mayor for London. Do they know something about Livingstone that is not yet in the public domain? With Hunt's relationship with the Murdochs now in the public domain it will be most interesting to read the reply from the BBC to Shapps's letter to them of today about the Newham letter on housing benefit. The BBC tried shortly before midnight to get a Minister on the Today programme this morning to refute Newham's charges but not surprisingly found everyone in bed. How arrogant of the BBC to think it is so important that it can at close to midnight expect someone to be waiting to take its request for a Minister to appear before it in the morning on what is after all hardly an urgent story. This whole episode yet again demonstrates that the BBC has ceased to be impartial, should no longer be funded by the taxpayer, should be broken up and its bits sold off or closed. Shapps himself has questioned the BBC's behaviour and asked them three highly pertinent questions. You can read his letter here. Because of the BBC's behaviour it is evident that the only way to have an impartial media is in fact to have various partial entities competing for customers as they do in the USA. Sky is hardly to the right of the BBC but no doubt if the BBC were abolished to allow space for others there would emerge a TV station that did represent the conservative element in this country.   

Who's Mad?

There are occasions when I think my fellow countrymen are mad. If, despite the hypocrisy of the man, his record whilst in office, his anti semitism, his closeness to people who are less than savoury and his lies that have been fully exposed in the media, Ken Livingstone wins the London Mayoral election then this will be one of those occasions. I look up round at other countries to see how they are faring and the only one that currently gives me any hope is the United States where it is still possible that a third rate President with socialist tendencies will be ousted and replaced by a man who understands business and economics and who, one suspects, has a greater understanding of foreign policy. Nearer home one only has to look at the French Presidential election to realise that the French are completely mad. Sarkozy and Hollande are both socialist in British terms but of the two it has to be said that Hollande is the scarier. No doubt if he wins office he will moderate his policies but he is definitely likely to reject most of the German economic medicine that Sarkozy has already half swallowed. Hollande's rejection of the German austerity pill will lead to seismic strains within both the French economy and the eurozone and inevitably lead to its early break up. It is the best outcome for this country in the long run although the acrimony and the collateral damage the break up will cause in the way it will happen will be painful in the extreme. The government are seeking further cuts of 5% as they must know a cold wind is about to blow through Europe. This is a good move in any event and something they should have done last year but better late than never. Will it be enough though? Quite likely not. This is an encouraging sign that the government still has its eye on the ball. Who else are mad? Why citizens of those eurozone countries that are still convinced the euro is a good thing.      

Gloom and Grip

Alistair Heath of CITYAM is gloomy for the reasons given here and he has every right to be. It is sadly true that the government is floundering and not even the re-election of Boris Johnson as Mayor will remove the feeling of despondency hanging over us. Surely Cameron must be aware of the unease hovering over his government, that has frankly been self inflicted these last few weeks, ending up in the last instance with the dispute over the time line for Abu Qatada's right to appeal the decision of the European Court of Human Rights that he could be deported to Jordan to face trial there on terrorist charges. Cameron desperately needs to change gear and for example take a robust line with not only the ECHR but also the socialist/statist run EU. He also needs somehow to make it clear that he is determined in the not too distant future to cut back on not only general taxes but all the stealth taxes introduced over the Labour stealing years. A silly example but why has the London Borough of Merton reduced the free parking in Wimbledon High Street from 20 minutes to 10? If we want to encourage growth Government and Councils should be making it easier to spend money rather than the reverse so why didn't Merton increase the free parking time to 30 minutes and drop the no parking rule at the beginning and end of the day? Why is Cameron spending his time fighting peripheral issues like the redefinition of marriage which millions of people don't want? Why is he fighting for proportional elections and 15 year terms for the House of Lords reform that millions of people don't want? Why is he so keen on spending billions on green issues on the basis of assumptions that are unproven and that are going to impoverish us all and that very few of us believe is necessary? It is as if he has picked these issues to fight on as he's sure to win them and by fighting on these issues we will be distracted from his failure to even address the issues that are crucial to this country. These crucial issues include dealing with a complete rewrite of our relationship with the EU and the ECHR, the need to cut our deficit and taxes savagely and to free us from the nanny state by repealing laws and brutally cutting red tape and the need to get the Thames Estuary Airport built by private funding. There is no denying that Cameron has done a number of good things but he needs to do much, much more and to drop the peripheral and easy targets. In other words he needs to get a grip.    

The Trades Unions and Funding Labour

Ed Miliband has proposed a cap of £5,000 on donations to political parties but does not want to change the way the Trades Unions fund the Labour party. The manner in which the Trades Unions help themselves to their members' money is quite shocking. First of all you have to opt out of the political levy if you do not want to support the Labour party and even if you opt out there is no reduction in your subscription. This sounds very fishy and no other organisation would be allowed to get away with it. It becomes clear why they won't reduce the subscription which is because under their rules they have the right to put the amount equivalent to the political levy into a fund over which they have complete discretion as to how it will be disbursed. You've guessed of course what they will use it for - yes to support the Labour party. It really is time that not only should Trades Unions be forced to pay for those they employ instead of the organisations in which their representatives are embedded but that the opt out should be changed into an opt in. Furthermore they should be forbidden to place any part of their members' subscriptions into any fund that can be used to support the Labour party or any of its causes save for a part of the subscriptions their members have opted to make available to the political levy. It is simply an outrage that Union members can be treated in this way and that the rest of us be bushwhacked as a result of the manipulation by the Unions of funds they have collected in this opaque manner. MP Priti Patel has a good article on this issue here. The behaviour of the Unions is like that of a tax evader. The Unions are no better than the ECHR which told Home Office lawyers that the final day for appeal was Monday but all of a sudden changed it to yesterday, Tuesday, thus allowing Abu Qatada to make a last minute appeal against the finding of the ECHR ruling on his deportation. These people are slippery. Who wants to have anything to do with them?  

The French Presidential Election

Went to a talk yesterday at Chatham House at which a French journalist Dominique Moisi gave his view on who would win the Presidential Election now under way. He thought Hollande was bound to win not because Sarkozy had done a bad job but in small part because any incumbent is going to do badly in light of the current economic situation and because Sarkozy's party has been in office for 17 years but mainly because Sarkozy himself has demonstrated that he does not have the necessary Presidential superiority. Certainly Sarkozy has a sufficiently inflated idea of himself but apparently not of the kind that the French love. Sarkozy is more like a Bonaparte than a Louis XIV. If I interpret Moisi correctly it's as if Sarkozy makes his fellow countrymen cringe when acting Presidential like one did when a friend came home for dinner and in front of the parentals held his knife incorrectly. It only remains for the French to confound everyone and re-elect Sarkozy but I expect Moisi is right and we shall be mildly upset that the fragrant Carla is no longer on the scene. The talk was interesting as Moisi claimed that whereas France had primacy on other EU issues they were no longer equals with Germany on economic matters which made Germany the most important country in the EU. He averred that because of the euro crisis this had made Germany rather arrogant. Germany it is true is determined to do everything to ensure it has a surplus and will not accept that this inevitably means that many of its weaker trading partners are going to have a deficit and that to balance things up they are going to have to agree to some form of equalisation policy. We must not rely on the Germans doing the right thing but instead should take our own action to ensure we do not have a deficit. One way is to stop buying German goods. We must also leave the EU and get rid of all the red tape and expensive socialist claptrap that comes with being an EU member. From comments he made Moisi believes that we are already estranged from it anyway. The Germans won't sink as they will continue selling their cars to the Chinese and others around the world.

Argentina and Stolen Goods

Spain is outraged, quite rightly, that Mrs Kirchner, President of Argentina, has nationalised Repsol's shareholding in the Argentine oil company YPF. YPF is now owned 51% by the Argentine state. This is not only a disaster for Repsol but for YPF. As we all know expropriation frightens off possible lenders who might otherwise have financed new exploration and exploitation projects of which YPF is greatly in need. The action taken by Argentina confirms, if there was any doubt, that the only reason why Mrs Kirchner has increased the temperature over the Falklands issue was because she is desperate to nationalise Falkland oil to prop up her failing economy and thereby her popularity. It is difficult to understand how the majority of Argentinians can vote for someone like Mrs Kirchner after all the problems they suffered under the Perons, her husband and other socialist regimes. It must be galling to those Argentinians who understand what is going on and who have been appalled by the way Mrs Kirchner has confiscated billions of dollars of private pension funds misrepresents its statistics to the extent that the Economist refuses to publish their inflation results. It must also be galling to them that Ken Livingstone's friend Chavez has congratulated Mrs Kirchner for her action. What is it about South America that brings out nasty little fascists like Chavez and Kirchner that rape their countries for themselves and their buddies in the name of the people? It seems there is an inherent lack of trust in the people, the democratic process and in the benefits of trade. Investing in BRIC countries is chancy because of the political risk that Argentina has once again brought to the fore. The Adam Smith Institute has a good blog on Argentina's steal here. Why can't the Argentinians be more like the Swedes on which the Spectator has an interesting blog here? Come to that why can't we be more like the Swedes. Osborne is as boring as Anders Borg but more's the pity that is where the similarities end.  

Who Cares Who is French President?

Didn't Sarkozy in the run up to the Presidential election he won indicate that he wanted France to adopt a more Anglo-Saxon style economy? That was my impression and one I seem to recall some French friends had too. That was one of the reasons why they voted for him. Sarkozy's failure to make the French economy less dirigiste is one of the reasons why he has left my French friends disappointed. If he were keen on a less dirigiste economy last time around he certainly has a different view now. Furthermore his attitude to all things Anglo-Saxon has changed completely. So much so that he is now using anti British rhetoric to try and drum up support for his campaign in the current Presidential election. This is really quite flattering.  Sarkozy is supposed to be of the right but if that's true it is a funny kind of right since he believes in big government and that only the state can run the economy and social matters. Daniel Hannan has an interesting blog on this which you can read here. Virtually every day there is example after example of how differently we see the world from most if not all other EU countries even where those other countries have right of centre governments. Almost every day there is example after example of how the EU is run by a socialist eurocracy of which the smug Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, is a prime specimen. For an interesting piece on Sculz read this Open Europe blog here. Why should these people whose politics are abhorrent have any say over how this country is run? We must leave the EU and run ourselves.

Liberal Democrats Are Illiberal

The Lib Dems have demonstrated their failure to understand that this country must live by business, that there is a global market and that in order to carry on business successfully in a global market the cost of doing so must be competitive. It was  therefore a bad decisionof the Tories to put Lib Dems in charge of both the Business and Energy Ministries. Lib Dems are misnamed as they have absolutely nothing to do with true Liberals who were of course believers in free markets like the great David Ricardo. David Ricardo is the very antithesis of people like Cable and Huhne who are more socialist than Liberal. What this country needs urgently and desperately is growth and growth cannot come from high energy tariffs and overbearing regulation. The Tories talk about cutting red tape but so far it is just that. they have failed to carry out significant cuts and they will get little further with Cable in the Business Ministry. The fact that the EU imposes regulation after regulation is no excuse. If the EU won't do our bidding on regulation then the answer is simple. We leave the EU if it won't change its ways or give us carte blanche to choose which ones to reject. As to high energy tariffs there is a simple answer here too. We resile from all CO2 remission restrictions we have agreed to, build more coal and nuclear power stations and exploit the shale gas we have lying under us. At the same time we pull down all wind farms and bin all solar panels. CO2 emissions are not a problem as is becoming increasingly clear. Let us learn from our own history. Let us learn from the fight over the abolition of the Corn Laws and let us remember what Richard Cobden reported was said to him during that fight which words apply just as equally today in the fight over global warming: When provisions are high, the people have so much to pay for them that they have little or nothing left to buy clothes with; and when they have little to buy clothes with, there are few clothes sold; and when there are few clothes sold, there are too many to sell, they are very cheap; and when they are very cheap, there cannot be much paid for making them: and that, consequently, the manufacturing working man's wages are reduced, the mills are shut up, business is ruined, and general distress is spread through the country. But when, as now, the working man has the said 25s. left in his pocket, he buys more clothing with it (ay, and other articles of comfort too), and that increases the demand for them, and the greater the demand...makes them rise in price, and the rising price enables the working man to get higher wages and the masters better profits. This, therefore, is the way I prove that high provisions make lower wages, and cheap provisions make higher wages.

Is Spain Brave?

For some time now I have been disappointed, to say the least, that no one of any standing or weight in a euro country suffering from long term recession as a result of the austerity measures imposed on it by Germany has even raised the need for devaluation to allow, like Iceland, their economy to rebalance. This at long last is now being discussed in Spain as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported in his blog yesterday and that you can read here. The measures to try and save the euro are not as we know dealing with the inherent weakness in its structure and the austerity measures being imposed on countries like Greece are never going to produce the outcome everyone wants to see - at least not in several years by when of course Greece will be a mere husk of its former self. It will take just one brave country to decide that the cost of staying in the euro on the disastrous German terms is too great a burden to impose on its citizens. Once the floodgates have been breached by that brave country others will follow suit and sadly for the Germans there will be fewer customers for their cars and white goods as a consequence. One thing they have fought so hard to prevent. They have though been using the wrong weapons. If they wanted to preserve their European market, albeit in a weakened state, they should have left the eurozone with their likeminded colleagues such as the Netherlands and Finland and set up their own currency union. The euro would then have devalued allowing the remaining members to rebalance their economies. Sadly Germany did not do so and is now left with a disorderly bust up of the eurozone instead. This will result in a glut of cars and white goods it cannot sell - that is unless the Chinese are going to come to Germany's rescue by buying Germany's production. There is evidence that the Chinese are replacing those buyers from southern Europe who can no longer afford German cars but will they continue to do so if Germany is part of a monetary union whose currency is harder than the euro?     

Let the People Vote

Each political party talks about transparency and indeed things are less opaque in some areas than they used to be. Such transparency relates mostly to money matters and influence pedlars but it is equally needed in the case of ideas. Who on earth was it who had the idea about wind farms and solar panels and who had the notion that if you want to build a conservatory you must also carry out so called 'green' improvements to your house. If I want to spend my money on making some green improvement to my house then that's my business but if I don't why should I be forced to make a green improvement? It is crazy to impose an obligation to spend money on those who simply want to improve their house by adding a conservatory. It is said that the idea to force you to carry out a green improvement if you want to add a conservatory to your property was Huhne's. It would not surprise me if this is found to be the case now he's no longer with us why hasn't the idea been dropped? Is it because his successor is a Lib Dem and a supporter of the idea? Most Lib Dems have very strange ideas so again I wouldn't be surprised to find it true. Some Tories are a bit odd as well, including the PM and the Chancellor. What the hell is wrong with tax breaks for those who use their wealth to make charitable donations even if to unpopular charities? Cameron is now saying that they will look sympathetically at what the charities are saying on this issue before legislating. Why wasn't the likely reaction of the charities foreseen? These examples beg the question whether politicians are fit to govern us at all and if not what system we should adopt instead. I am persuaded that we should change to one where politicians can only propose and administer legislation but where all decisions on policy are taken by referendum. A system somewhat similar to the Swiss one.

Who Needs the ECHR?

The European Court of Human Rights has decided that Abu Hamza and others can be extradited to the US to stand trial on terrorist charges without their human rights being compromised. However Abu Hamza and friends have three months in which to appeal and so the joke continues. The joke already having worn thin as a result of the time it has taken for the court to hear the cases and announce the result. There is an old aphorism that politicians should be aware of - "Justice delayed is Justice denied". In this instance we are talking about justice for the accused and for those of us who were on the receiving end of the alleged evil intentions of the suspects. The application and interpretation of human rights should be left to each sovereign country to decide. We are more than capable of looking after our own human rights issues in the UK and it is an insult to us and our forebears to say otherwise. That that may not be so in other countries is another question but should not be used as a reason for our being subject to the ECHR. I have never understood why we became members in the first place and have never heard a convincing argument in favour from anyone including Clegg and Co. No case should take 8 years to come to trial and it is a scandal in itself that this has happened in the proceedings against one of the suspects awaiting extradition. The European Court of Justice brings us nothing but problems and delays. This is without taking into account other serious defects of the court such as the credibility of its judges that sit on its bench some of whom have highly questionable backgrounds. Cameron needs to get a grip on this and also to stop MI5 looking at any communication sent to or from this country without a warrant from a judge.  

A Pensioner's Suicide

A man, a pensioner, kills himself in the main Athens Square in protest at what had been done to his country by the euro, by the politicians in Greece who support the euro come what may and by the rest of the eurozone countries and in particular Germany for the imposition of an economic stratagem that means poverty for most Greeks for years to come. You would think that at least one main stream politician or statesman of a country whose economy was floundering from being in the eurozone would object strongly to the the structural glitch at the heart of the currency. But no, like lemmings all politicians of whatever colour are totally committed to staying in and supporting the euro. This is despite the fact that their countries are all going to fall off the cliff sooner or later when they will have to abandon the euro at the worst possible time and in the worst possible manner. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard had a very good piece on this yesterday which you can read here. He also has another piece today about the Greek pensioner's suicide here. The EU is becoming more and more of a monster and it beggars belief that we are not already negotiating our exit. The greatest fault of the EU has been the euro but it feels the need to meddle in all sorts of aspects of our daily lives. I had not appreciated until today that there is a directive on surveillance of emails and the like, nor had I realised that EU rules on state aid may well scupper small UK companies from accessing venture capital funding of more than £2m from Venture Capital Trusts and other forms of state aided, risk capital investment. The stupidity of the EU in general and the eurozone fanatics in particular have already claimed a life. How many more are they going to be willing to sacrifice? Without radical change the EU will lead to significant bloodshed and from where afterwards will eurocrats be able to claim their wages? Not from the disaffected, that's for sure.   

Secret Trials, Surveillance and an Apology

That a government of which the Conservatives are the largest element should propose both more secret trials and more surveillance is frightening. Thank goodness that Tory backbenchers have strongly rejected both proposals. The vast majority of Labour backbenchers voted for each turn of the screw against our traditional liberties proposed by Blair but it is hardly surprising that now they are in opposition they are opposed to the government's proposals on secret trials and surveillance of emails etc. What do you expect from a bunch of opportunists? It also has to be said that the LibDems are against the proposals too. There are too many secret trials in this country already. I am thinking here particularly of the trials conducted in secret concerning child care where any number of results have been achieved which would never have occurred if these secret trials had been heard in public but with the names of the children and parents redacted. To introduce further trials in secret can only lead to an even greater scandal than presently exists. As every law student knows justice not only has to be done but has to be seen to be done, i.e. trials have to be held in public. Where state security is involved then, as happens now, that part of the trial relating to state security can be held in camera. Furthermore on the surveillance front why can't emails and so on be treated in the same way as tapping telephones, that is to say by obtaining the necessary warrant from the Home Secretary? Although I query whether the Home Secretary is the right person to handle warrant applications rather than a judge or perhaps a panel of judges. We all know how mistakes can be made and how some people will go to any length to try and cover them up. We all know how governments hate admitting wrongdoing. That is why except in the most exceptional cases all trials must be held in public and why individuals rights must be protected against the state. Openness is one of the absolute requirements needed to ensure that a state does not become oppressive and why the lack of it is one of the reasons why the EU is detested. Lack of openness is also one of the reasons why fanatical environmentalists are so mistrusted too. By contrast it is pleasing to say the least when someone owns up to a mistake and apologises. Charles Moore wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday in which he attacked the private Tory party line that the stockpiling of petrol would be the government's 'Thatcher Moment'. He did not think his statement would be taken as having disclosed a secret document as all he was doing was to report the line MPs were using in their constituencies. He has apologised to the Tory leadership.          

Argentina's Dishonour

The Argentine government are trying to put the frighteners on the banks that might finance the oil companies drilling or about to drill for oil in the waters surrounding the Falklands. The frighteners consist of threatening legal action to any bank that lends to a company prepared to explore for oil in Falkland Island waters. The Argentinians had entered into an agreement with the British in 1993 or 1994 that any oil discovered would be shared. They were obviously happy with the terms at the time as they would not have have signed up to them otherwise. They have though since then resiled from such agreement and apparently other agreements they entered into with us post the Falklands war. Mrs Kirchner really must be in a deep political hole if she needs to stir up the feelings of her fellow citizens to take their minds off the financial hole she and her husband dug for them. There is of course the little question of greed now it seems oil is there for the taking. As we all know the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism and we should be careful that Mrs Kirchner doesn't paint herself into such a corner that the only way out of it for her is war. The last thing we need is a war but even though the Americans would want us to back down we must never give in to unreasonable adventuresses with whom there is no reasoning other than surrender. We must never surrender. We must stand our ground and fight. If they are not already there we need submarines to blow any invasion force out of the water. In the meantime we should exclude them from all rugby tournaments and more seriously encourage those who suffered when Argentina defaulted in spectacular fashion some ten or so years ago to take compensation. Unfortunately there is no honour in Argentina or more specifically there is no honour in Mrs Kirchner and her regime. If they had any honour they would act like Iceland.