Vertically Challenged Politicians

Funny isn't it that so many politicians are vertically challenged. This is particularly noticeable in both Sarkozy and Hollande. Is this something to do with Frenchmen or is it because the French like the Napoleonic stature of their statesmen? Putin is another case in point but then the Russians have traditionally had an odd relationship with the French now made more complex by their fear of the USA. All these short leaders wanting to impose their will on the rest of us in reaction to their lack of stature. No doubt a psychiatrist can explain what this is all about but it is somewhat worrying. I wonder how tall Hitler was? I also wonder how tall Draghi, the ECB CEO, is? Does he have a Napoleon complex too? It certainly seems that way if you listen to the incredible remarks he's made about doing all that needs to be done to save the euro. What he has said is just unbelievably deceitful as there is no way the ECB can raise the wherewithal from Germany and the other euro surplus countries to support bailouts for Spain, Italy and France. The ECB doesn't even have enough money to bail out Spain. It will only have €500 billion by mid 2014 whereas if Spain goes down the tubes it will need up to €650 billion to survive. This is where the deceit comes in. Where is the ECB going to find that kind of money? From the Germans? Most unlikely even if the Germans are the only ones to have benefited from the euro by reducing the cost to the consumer of their cars. Yet despite the obvious spin the markets rallied on hearing Draghi's remarks.They must be mad or overcome by wishful thinking. There is no way the euro can survive and only poor deluded, extremist europhiles can say otherwise. Even a majority of Germans now want out of the euro and no doubt this majority will grow in size the longer the crisis goes on and despite the bullshit propagated at the latest Fathom Consulting quarterly Monetary Policy Forum that things will be worse for all if the euro does not survive. The boil caused by the euro crisis can only get better once it has been lanced.    

Olympics Opening Ceremony

The ‘show’ was quirky to say the least of it. True it celebrated not only an idyllic kind of country in the starting bucolic scenes but also the power of the nation through the industrial revolution but it also celebrated some odd things like CND, the suffragettes and the NHS. I think I get the point about the suffragettes i.e. that we are a country that sometimes needs to be brought kicking and screaming into the modern day but the NHS? Was the point to celebrate our caring nature or a statement that big Government works? Either way it was inappropriate. As to CND  it was never more than a side show and mostly thought of as loony. The pop music section was far too long and the glorification of multiculturalism was not only embarrassingly bad but overdone. The overall theme of the ceremony took some working out and will have been confusing for many of our visitors but there was no doubting its vibrancy and panache through the use of clever lighting and other stage sets. The most fun bits were HM The Queen doing her Bond bit and Mr Bean. I don’t go along completely with what Tory MP Aidan Burley has said but he has a point about the show's leftie bent. The ceremony definitely had a socialist message about it as acknowledged by Alistair Campbell of WMD fame (for example CND and the representation of Mrs Thatcher as a witch) which is a pity since the show should have been inclusive and not used to poke a stick in the eyes of many of us. It is an even greater pity that it was so inward looking, so parochial and that events of truly global significance like the Magna Carta were missed out. For a view of this country's influence on the world, apart from our influence on sport so well captured by Mr Rogge in his speech, one only had to watch the competing nations as they came into the Arena and count the number of them who either had been or are still British colonies. As at the close of day 3 the whole shebang seems to be going rather well but the dictatorial manner exercised in these Games from the use of the Olympic logo to lanes on the roads for the exclusive use of the Olympic family and the press leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. The lanes are hardly necessary as traffic in London today is down to weekend congestion levels, that is congestion free in the areas I've been driving. London is always quieter over the school summer holidays but this year a lot more seem to have left the capital for the two weeks of the Games rather than later in August. A wise decision. 

Better Romney Than Obama In November

I agree 100% with what Hannan has said in his blog post today about Mitt Romney. You can read it here. Mitt Romney is not the bogeyman the British media are making him out to be. The media reflects not only the embarrassment we feel about those who are members of odd religious sects but also the idea that we must support someone like Obama in order to prove the view we have of ourselves as colour blind. This embarrassment and view of ourselves affects those from right and left of the political spectrum and leads us into patronising the likes of Obama by forgiving errors that we would never have forgiven in say Bush. Obama, deep down, is not a friend of this country and the removal of the bust of Churchill from his office, although a slight thing, is a manifestation of that feeling he has about us. Frankly Obama is a big head made bigger by the ridiculous Noble prize given to him at the beginning of his Presidency and by all the flattery heaped on him simply because he is a black man and the first man of that skin to be elected President of the most powerful country in the world. The praise for his election should be heaped on those that voted for him, not on the man himself. He cannot be praised for many of his policies however, not on the economy, nor on the way he has handled the Russians and, by murdering bin Laden, neither on the issue of the rule of law - an anglo-saxon concept if ever there was one. His healthcare bill leaves a lot to be desired too. Indeed he will leave office with the security of the world in a worse position than when he became President. Putin's Russia is a loose cannon as he takes his country back to confrontational politics with the West. Obama has failed to give Israel the support it deserves as the only Western type democracy in the Middle East and instead given succour to the ambitions of Iran. Romney will be far better equipped to look after world security and to bring back economic growth to the USA and eventually to the world. It is in our interest that Romney becomes the next President and shame on us if, because he has an oddball religion or for some other quirky reason, we fail to support him in November's election.              

Should Cameron Go?

Osborne has had an unsurprising bashing in the press today. He is said to be a brilliant political strategist but that claim is now clearly seen as just hype or spin. If he had been such a clever strategist he would have understood better the dangers of the policies he has pursued, forget the U-Turns which are merely tactical errors and which he can easily surmount, and prepared us for the possible bad news that might well come our way and which indeed have arrived. Neither Osborne nor Cameron come across as passionate. That is possibly not a failure in a Chancellor but becomes one when the Prime Minister is lacking in that regard too. That is why Boris Johnson is popular because one senses that he has real feelings about certain issues rather than ones manufactured by focus groups. What do Cameron and Osborne truly believe in? Why don't they have the confidence to stand up and be counted? Why are they always looking over their shoulders at the Lib Dems and floating voters and poking their natural supporters in the eye? On the one occasion Cameron was seen, possibly in error, as standing up for Britain's interests at the December EU summit his stock went up hugely. Is it too late for him to make a come back? Is it too late for Osborne to come back too? Neither can do himself any harm by at least openly fighting for his job. They should forget about focus groups and instead take the advice offered to them today by Allister Heath in his own paper here and in the Telegraph here as well as by Alistair Thompson here. Cameron and Osborne must spend the summer planning on how to take back the initiative and to hell with the Lib Dems. If they fail then they will have to go and I for one shall support those MPs prepared to wield the knife against Cameron. Labour have an uncharismatic, awkward, lightweight leader. To be beaten by him would be unpardonable but that is what is likely to happen if Cameron fails to get his act together by the autumn and the Tories then fail to replace him.     

Decline And Fall?

The shocking 0.7% decline in our GDP will hopefully have the effect of a wake up call on our government and impel them to do the right things as a matter of urgency. Listening to Osborne though I'm not sure it will. He talked about neither increasing our debt or deficit but insisted we undertake more infrastructure projects. He did not say how they were to be financed though. If such infrastructure projects are to be financed by the private sector then I am wholeheartedly in favour but how is that going to happen since banks still seem reluctant to provide loans. In order to encourage such projects Osborne would have to cut government spending harder and faster and reduce taxes. He should use the new figures as a springboard to do just that but he won't as the Treasury, having gambled and lost whilst Brown was in control, has lost all confidence in itself. This rather suggests that those in the Treasury when Brown was there should be sacked and replaced by economists of the Austrian school. There are some commentators though who seem to think the figures for the second quarter will be revised to show a less steep decline. Andrew Sentance on Jeff Randall Live this evening is clearly one of them as he felt that realistically there will be some growth in the current quarter helped perhaps by the Olympics and the fact that inflation is coming under control although he warned that we would be affected by difficult world growth. Certainly tied as we are to the eurozone the problems it is facing can only have a bad effect on us. Spain is undoubtedly going to need to be bailed out and then the spotlight will shift to Italy with France filling Italy's spot. Mr Hollande is making matters worse for France by reducing the retirement age from 62 to 60 and increasing taxation on the wealth producers. It is perhaps not surprising though that Ed Miliband has applauded Mr Hollande's economics. We have to pray that we do not have a socialist government again at least until our finances have been sorted out. This will take long enough for the present lot to do, probably at least another seven years. Miliband's lot with their socialist economics will however leave us in a mess for decades.      

The Well Educated Journalist - An Oxymoron?

It is good to know that journalists are well educated. At a lunchtime event at Chatham House today titled Opening Up the Arctic: Prospects, Paradoxes and Geopolitical Implications one of the audience who identified herself as a Reuters employee asked of the Shell representative who was on the panel whether there were any economic circumstances that would make Shell decide against exploiting oil and gas lying beneath the Arctic. Instead of responding by saying what an idiotic question and why should anyone imagine any business would do something unless there was an anticipation of profit to be made, Mr Blaauw politely answered that Shell was in it for the return they believed they would make on the enormous sums they are going to spend exploring in this most inhospitable region. There was a representative from Greenpeace there who did not so much ask a question but go on and on making some propaganda point which left one with the impression that they abhor any exploitation of the planet's natural resources and thus want us all to go back to a subsistence existence. The Ambassador from Sweden was also on the panel as well as a Chatham House research fellow on energy, environment and resources and the panel was chaired by Roger Harrabin, an environmental analyst from the BBC (who I think is not liked by many sceptics). The Ambassador spoke about climate change and none of the other panellists objected when  the Ambassador referred to the huge adverse effect CO2 emissions have had on the Arctic. Mr Blaauw did though dare to say that there were areas of the Arctic (the Barents Sea) where the summer ice was greater than 12 years ago even if there was less in other areas. Climate change could also open up sea lanes and perhaps even the North West Passage. The North East Passage has had 36 boats using it this summer instead of just the 10 last year so global warming (if it is happening - Piers Corbyn of Weather Action thinks we are approaching a mini ice age) which could make it easier to explore for oil and gas. Mention was made as well by one of the panellists of the Arctic ice cap disappearing altogether in the next thirty years but this is refuted in many quarters and no doubt by Piers Corbyn. The fact is the world is getting more populous and we need more energy. Wind farms are useless and this fact will be eventually accepted and wind farms will be pulled down. No doubt there will be other forms of renewable energy which will be found to be both affordable and plentiful but in the meantime oil and gas are needed and the oil companies will look at places they have not previously properly explored but where the economics make sense. The risk is that they do not find fields big enough to justify the huge cost of exploration in a tough environment like the Arctic. In the meantime we will have to rely on things like shale gas of which there is thankfully plenty here in the UK.

BLOGGING WILL BE NON EXISTENT FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS - I'M AWAY

Osborne On The Ropes And Miliband Duffied

It is now open season on Osborne. Iain Martin was always against him even as shadow Chancellor. Others have more recently come out against him too but perhaps none with as big a clout as Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun. However perhaps surprisingly, surprisingly to me since I had thought with his complaint about Osborne doing too many jobs Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome would be happy for him to drop one - even the Chancellorship, Montgomerie believes Osborne should be left in place and I must say I agree with him for the reasons given here. This does not mean that Osborne should not reduce his other roles in particular so that he may concentrate as a matter of urgency over the recess on producing a growth plan along the lines referred to in my previous blog post. Once he's done that and if if he wants to, he should be allowed to go after Balls and the rest of the Labour leadership. Ed Miliband has opened up a goal wide enough for millions of points to be scored against him as a result of his attendance at the Durham Miners Gala this last weekend at which he ignored the questions of a 14 year old boy, all caught on video. If you haven't seen the video it's captured in this piece from the Commentator blog here. The 14 year old's surname is Duffy as was the surname of the lady into whom Brown ran before the last election with unfortunate results. One wonders whether in future all Labour leaders will need to make sure they never get near anyone called Duffy, at least if a camera or or microphone is present also. Brown as you will remember was caught calling Mrs Duffy a bigot having forgotten to switch off his mic when he got into his car following her question to him about immigration. The joy of it all and which Cameron is bound to make much of at PMQs.    

Give Us Sunshine

All right the weather no doubt has something to do with the general depressed air that seems to hang over us this summer. It is truly depressing to see our summer ruined by rain but all would change if the temperature went up and the sun stayed out for even a couple of weeks. Perhaps the disappointing weather also colours our view of the economy and makes us worry that there is no way out or that at best it will take several years before we can feel confident that we are over the worst. As I was told by a family member's psychiatrist about that relation's deep depression that the patient would come out of it although it could take up to seven years as no depression ever lasted longer. The signs of the financial disaster were evident in 2007 although did not become full blown until 2008. Using the depression analogy we could therefore be in a slump until 2014/15. Part of the despair we feel is that the Government haven't really got a grip of it. They started with good intentions but were too optimistic so ended up doing too little. They did not cut spending nearly quickly nor deeply enough. Osborne really has to use the summer recess to come up with a bold and imaginative plan that is specifically tailored to our economy even if it means ignoring EU directives and other holy cows. It is an abdication of good governance to defer to others' sensibilities since we can only help others if we surmount our own troubles. Charles Moore has an excellent piece on this subject in the Telegraph today which you can read here. If the weather won't give us a smile we sure as hell need Osborne to do so and soon.

The Libor Inquiry and Ageing

It would be interesting to know why Andrea Leadsom has not been chosen to sit on the Parliamentary Inquiry panel into the Libor scandal and banking standards. It seems a pity to have excluded her after the successful way she questioned Bob Diamond at his appearance before the Treasury Select Committee the other day. It is obvious why John Mann, another Treasury Select Committee member, has not been chosen. His questioning of Diamond was both boorish and publicity seeking and thus his style is most unlikely to elicit any worthwhile answer of the big beasts who will be asked to appear before the Inquiry panel. It is good though that like inquiries carried out by US Congress committees the Tyrie led Inquiry is to be able to appoint Counsel to interrogate the witnesses under oath. Some of the evidence should be illuminating and I wonder what the Governor of the Bank of England will have to say now that it seems he was made aware of the Libor scandal in 2008 but did nothing about it. If true did he do this off his own bat or were Brown and/or Balls involved in the decision? Turning to another issue or rather to another semi independent government body, the Office for Budget Responsibility has reported that because of our ageing population current policies will result in non interest public spending increase by something like 15% by 2061. As such an increase is unsustainable it is clear that our present spending policies will have to change dramatically. Allister Heath has a good article about this in City AM today which you can read here. You would have thought that with this kind of tsunami coming at us that the Government would be looking seriously at further significant cuts in spending as well as at ways to increase growth. That is why it is so crazy for the Government on the basis of uncertain and largely debunked science to embark upon a costly green policy and why it is negligent in not pushing the private sector to exploit shale gas.              

Would You Buy A Secondhand Car From A Banker?

We all know that politicians dissemble if not downright lie, like Blair and his spin doctor Alistair Campbell about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. We do not think though that institutions like banks will  behave in other than an exemplary fashion since banks in particular have always exuded this rather pompous, superior, stodgy and forbidding aura. This feeling about them has been engendered by their attitude that you are lucky to have been accepted as a customer and perhaps confirmed by their giving the impression that they are meticulous about how you, their customer, behaves towards them. For example if you go over your overdraft limit by a penny they will immediately come down on you like a ton of bricks and insist you transfer the penny straightaway from a deposit account or anyway made good or else. With the way the banks have behaved there has been a complete sea change in our view of them. They can now be seen as a bunch of shysters who have no more claim to be a pillar of anything and indeed are as bad as any politician. They take our money, misuse it, lose it and charge us for doing so, for the great service they pretend they give us. No bank should be allowed to be too big to fail and our banking system should perhaps be changed to the same system they have in Canada and Australia. Their system seems to have saved them from the banking crisis everyone else in the world is experiencing. Matt Ridley has a great post on his blog about banks here. His suggestions or rather those of Douglas Carswell MP need to be seriously evaluated by the Chancellor whilst he also considers the merits of the Canadian and Australian banking systems.        

Back To The Middle Ages

Went to a Chatham House event this evening to hear Ed Davey our Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change give a talk on the UK's Vision of Climate Change. He is a passionate believer quite clearly in anthropogenic global warming and that the heat wave in the States and flooding in Russia is proof positive of climate change. All very depressing since he is hell bent on cutting emissions and meeting all renewable targets and is unconvinced that the cost of doing so cannot be afforded, it being of the greatest urgency to press on and achieve a low carbon economy. He also clearly thought that by the use of contracts for differences the cost of renewable energy will be reduced to levels similar to those of fossil fuels. according to Mr Davey renewables cost huge sums to instal but nothing to run whereas fossil fuels cost nothing to instal but huge sums to run so a contract for differences would even out the capital and running costs of the two. I think he's barking mad. This was about the only reference to fossil fuels he made and it seems from what he was saying that his Energy Bill will have nothing in it about fossil fuels so fixated on renewables is he. I fear for shale gas and despite in answer to a question about nuclear power him saying that nuclear energy has a role to play I doubt his heart is in it. Well, it's back to the Middle Ages and what is worse the despoliation of our beautiful countryside. If it were only the Lib Dems pushing the green agenda from which we are apparently making billions and employing masses of people it would be OK but it is all the other parties too. When will these fanatics come down to earth? Not before they've spent all our money, I fear.    

Lords Reform And A Libor Cover Up

Cameron is being blamed for the fiasco over House of Lords reform as he should have known a vast number of Tory MPs were against the Clegg proposals for reasons of principle and would therefore vote against it and in particular against the Timetable Motion. I think though that Cameron took the only course open to him. Despite the fact that the Coalition Agreement only provided for a Committee to be set up to consider Lords reform Clegg insisted on bringing in a Reform Bill as after his defeat on AV he wanted something on the Statute Book that represented a Lib Dem legacy from the Coalition. For fear of the Coalition coming to a premature end Cameron was unable to deny Clegg his demand even though Cameron knew Tory MPs were against both 15 year terms and proportional representation. Cameron had made it known that he would not hold it against those MPs who voted against the Bill and thereby in effect announced that he was not wedded to the Bill and would be glad to see it kicked into the long grass but to keep Clegg happy he had had to insist on a three line whip. Cameron could not have been in favour of the Bill anyway as he knew that Clegg's main reason for wanting the Bill was because it would entrench more Lib Dems in Parliament, albeit in the Lords, as a result of proportional representation. Cameron gave Clegg what he wanted, no doubt warned Clegg what the consequences might be, and then let the action play out. Clegg is surely screaming at Cameron that he did not try hard enough to whip his party into line but even Clegg must know that it was clear for some time that there were going to be a significant Tory rebellion against the proposals. Even Clegg's advisers must have told him that. Since what was anticipated came to pass Cameron could sensibly only take one course of action and withdraw the Timetable Motion. The question now remains how long the Coalition will survive. There is also the question of what will happen to Osborne. There seems to any number who think George was ill advised to tear into Balls as he did last week in the Commons. But did George know more than he was saying? On Jeff Randall Live this evening we learned that it is thought Tim Geithner knew all about Libor fixing in 2007. If he knew it is puzzling that the scandal didn't come out then? It seems most unlikely that if the Bank of England weren't told about it by Geithner when he became head of the New York Fed that he didn't tell the FSA? If the FSA knew they would surely have told their political masters. As nothing leaked it begins to look like a cover up at the highest levels. This story has legs.    

Energy From Renewables Balls

It is I guess no surprise that the Government is talking out of both sides of its mouth about shale gas. Lately it seems to have been saying that it will allow exploitation of the cheap, environmentally friendly stuff (it emits less CO2) but it also seems to be doing nothing to encourage that exploitation. You would think the Government would be mad keen to reduce the cost of energy as low energy costs must be a help in kick starting the economy. But no, because we are snared in the EU 'energy from renewables' net we have to spend taxpayers' money on subsidising wind farms. Christopher Booker had an excellent piece about this in the Telegraph yesterday. It is the second item in the article which you can read here. Incidentally his first piece in that article is worth reading too. It is the first time I have read about Article 50 and I would like to hear whether others of a eurosceptic nature agree with the Booker's analysis. However even if Booker is correct I take the view that as Parliament is sovereign that if it passes an Act repealing the European Communities Act 1972 that automatically means we cease to be a member of the EU. This means that we do not need to be concerned with things like Article 50 but simply announce to the EU that we want to change the terms of our membership or we are out. More and more German commentators are talking about the splitting up of the EU. It also seems the Americans are now beginning to see that this might happen as you can see from Charles Crawford's blog of yesterday here. Either our departure from the EU or the change in the terms of our membership should mean our exit from the EU 'energy from renewables' nonsense.      

If Not Now, When?

Charles Crawford has a most interesting blog on Creative Dissonance and how the eurocrats use it to get their way little by little. They get you to agree to one small step that you do not really mind giving up on the basis that you want to be thought of as reasonable by doing so and hope you'll get something in return. This is repeated again and again, step by step and before you know it you find yourself having gone much further than you ever wanted to. You can read his blog here. Knowing this our negotiators should never take the first step and indeed should follow a reverse Creative Dissonance form of negotiation. In other words when asked to agree to a small step on a new issue to adamantly refuse to do so but to hint you might be persuaded to change your mind if the other side will agree to one small step reversing something on another issue which you've been suckered into agreeing by Creative Dissonance. Having got one the small step back on the other issue you then fail to agree to the one small step they want you to take on the first issue. Crawford and others are right about the referendum promised by Cameron. If it is not right to hold one now will the time ever be right? If not now, when - as the old prophet said? With the eurozone still in crisis and Creative Dissonance being practised against Mrs Merkel to make her give up on her resistance to the German taxpayer becoming liable for the profligacy of the periphery countries what kind of future do we have to look forward to having to pay? A pretty bleak one certainly but one where there could be hope if only either the euro is devalued or broken up.  

Burn Bureaucrats

A Fire Instruction Notice has appeared in the hall to my block of flats where no such notice has ever been seen before. The building is owned by one of the big London landlords who have always been punctilious in doing everything by the book. I should know because I used to act for them. Not having kept up with new regulations relating to blocks of flats etc. I wonder whether this is a whim of the landlords or of the managing agents or as a result of yet another Government regulation or an EU Directive. Whatever it is it is a complete waste of money because I doubt whether any of us in this building will read it or if we do, will remember its contents. When one hears about the cost of regulation it is impossible to comprehend the quoted numbers. But then I tried to work out the cost of producing this Notice. There are the taxes to pay those to think of the regulation, to print it, to debate and pass it into law, to publish it, and the cost to the landlords to manage putting the regulation into effect, to employ lawyers to interpret it, to manage the distribution of the Notice and to put it up in a prominent place in the hall for all to see like the bloody No Smoking signs defacing our common parts. One can see that the cost of this single, useless Notice has now run into the tens of thousands. No wonder countries burdening themselves with the cost of regulation are pricing themselves out of the market. Our government is bad enough at producing pointless and counterproductive regulation but the EU is a thousand times worse. This Fire Instruction Notice will not save one life should a fire break out in our building but it will have put up our service charge so that some slob somewhere can feel good about himself. Save us from bureaucrats - better still, burn the lot of them for all the bloody use they are! Brilliant academically they may be but not one whit of common sense among any of them.    

Inquiries Ancient and Modern

Not everyone agrees that Bob Diamond did not do well at yesterday's Special Committee meeting. Peter Botting of The Commentator blog for one as you can see by reading his post here. Not everyone likes Osborne's Libor fixing attack on Labour either but despite wishing he'd spend the bulk of his time cutting spending at an urgent pace and cutting taxes too I think he's right to keep in the forefront of all our minds the disaster for this country that the Blair and Brown administrations proved to be. All politicians are to a degree conmen but Blair was not only up amongst the best of them he was also only there for one reason - his self aggrandisement. How could anyone who felt the hand of destiny on his shoulder be otherwise. It may be that the general public would prefer to have a judicial inquiry into the Libor scandal but on this the Government is right. We need a speedy inquiry and the proposal that a QC is employed to question witnesses at the hearings is a good one although from memory it would not be a new process. It is a process which has been used before to good effect. Such an inquiry would be as thorough and far reaching as a judicial one but have the merit of speed. It will certainly be able to identify the wrongdoers and lead to prosecutions where sufficient evidence becomes available either during the inquiry or afterwards as a result of further police investigations. It is absolutely disgraceful that only now are the police looking at prosecuting those who took part in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings. The length of time the Saville Inquiry took, 12 years, was scandalous and its result in my mind is as unsatisfactory as the original Widgery Tribunal.

UPDATE: The House of Commons has voted to set up a Parliamentary Inquiry with a barrister to lead the questioning of witnesses. It seems the Inquiry will have to work itself around likely criminal proceedings if it wants to avoid those proceedings being prejudiced. Hannan has a good idea about who should sit on the Inquiry which you can read here.

NATO at Chatham House

The Secretary General of Nato, Rasmussen, was at Chatham House this afternoon where he made a speech about security in the 21st Century. Basically what he said was that the Russians did not appreciate that Nato is not a threat and that they should relax and start dismantling some more of their missiles. Rasmussen also said that in his view there was no legal difference between drones and aircraft targeting enemies but Nato is only involved in the use of drones in Afghanistan and not in Pakistan. He did not comment on the use by the Americans of drones in the latter country. Rasmussen was asked about the Nato response to cyber attacks and answered that there are something like 100 cyber attacks on the various Nato systems a day and that therefore they have robust counter measures in place. He reminded us of the cyber attacks on Nato member Estonia in 2007 which resulted in a centre of excellence to deal with such attacks being set up in Tallinn the benefits of which are available to all Nato members. In Rasmussen's view Nato is an unrivalled organisation in the world as it has introduced compatibility in equipment and training and has structures in place which enable all member forces to act together. This is essential in today's world where Nato is changing its approach to one of providing a flexible and speedy response to conflict. Despite the Syrian attack on Turkish fighters he ruled out a Nato response to Syria's war on its civilians in part because of the stance being taken by Russia and China but also because the Syrian conflict is different from the Libyan one. The Libyan rebels were united and wanted outside help but different Syrian rebels have different agendas and some do not want outside help. Furthermore there was a UN resolution to protect the Libyan population whereas there isn't in the case of Syria. He dismissed the notion that the US is changing its focus to concentrate on its Asia/Pacific area to the detriment of Nato's main area of interest. Any problems in the Asia/Pacific region are also likely to concern Nato member states and thus Nato with its experience and structures is in a unique position to help with these. On a personal level it was disappointing that the cars supplied by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for Rasmussen and his entourage were BMWs and Mercedes. This is Britain and so why doesn't our FCO use cars made here? It is a disgrace that it doesn't do so.    

Secret Trials

Christopher Booker has been writing for years now on the iniquities associated with Family Court proceedings taking place in secret. Holding trials in secret has led to the inevitable - huge miscarriages of justice. Whatever was wrong with the previous system where trials were held in public but to protect the children their names were substituted by letters? Being held in public the newspapers were still able to report them but yet the participants would not be able to be identified. It is absolutely essential that we go back to this system or something like it. It is also absolutely essential that Ken Clarke is not allowed to introduce any more secret trials. What was he thinking of trying to introduce secret trials earlier this year for issues involving national security? It has always been possible during a trial for certain parts of it to be held 'in camera' in order to hide certain matters from the public where the judge is persuaded that national security will be threatened otherwise. This attack on the ancient principle of justice being done and being seen to be done is one of many in recent years and is all the more surprising since we supposedly live in an age of transparency. Not perhaps so surprising since the cry 'transparency' has been adopted by politicians of all parties and we all know when that happens that the hypocrites have merely climbed onto the latest fashionable band wagon. Nonetheless I was shocked to read Archbishop Cranmer's blog this morning that one Roger Hayes had been arrested at 9.30am the other day, tried, convicted and sent to prison by 6.30pm the same day. You can see Cranmer's blog here. There are two updates on the blog which rather take the wind out of the good Archbishop's sails and thereby my own. Roger Hayes was arrested on a bench warrant issued by a judge for failing to appear at a criminal trial for non payment of his local council tax. The trial at which Hayes was convicted will have been held in open court contrary to what Cranmer feared. Judges have always had the power to issue warrants for the arrest of those accused of a crime but who fail to appear before them on the date set for trial. This is essential in any system. Think what those accused of crimes could get away with otherwise. Query whether the non payment of council tax should be able to lead to criminal charges but that is a different question.

What It Is To Be a Scientist

Scientists worth their salt must neither contradict themselves nor fail to substantiate any theory they propose or reject. From all I have read it would appear that there are any number of people masquerading as scientists who aren't, particularly those who refuse to reveal how the models on which they have built their theories have been constructed. I am not a scientist but I read a bit about climate  change theories and there seems a resistance amongst many convinced that man is behind global warming and on which huge sums of money must be spent to address this horror that the make up of their models are not open for scrutiny. A cynic might say, no doubt has already said, that there must be funding involved somewhere and that warmists who have managed to attract financial support by their alarm stories have one concern above all others and that is to ensure the funding keeps on flowing. Of course the funding would stop if it were found that warmists have no scientific proof to back up their claims and that their models were based on unsubstantiated conjecture. Manipulating the Libor rate is one thing and if fraud can be proved against any of those involved there will be convictions. Will there be convictions against warmists who have persuaded governments all over the world to put costly systems in place to replace carbon fuels if found unnecessary? I doubt it. Governments may be embarrassed by revelations that they have been duped but they will not want to prosecute for fear of having more than one egg all over their faces.  How will Sir Mark Walport, the new government chief scientific adviser, deal with the global warming argument? Will he take an independent line or at least insist that proponents of one side of the argument or the other reveal all data used in and the details/make up of a model used in arriving at a particular conclusion? If not then the new government chief scientific adviser will be as useless as the previous one and will not merit the title 'scientist', assuming he is so titled and not an administrator.