Kill the Wind

It is essential that the government reduces the cost of energy to something that we can all afford. It is therefore welcome to learn that the Energy Bill to be introduced shortly will include provisions for the reduction of wind farm subsidies by 25%. Benedict Brogan has an article about this in the Telegraph today that you can read here. Osborne is behind this admirable move although it would be better if the subsidy were withdrawn altogether straightaway instead of, if the rumours are correct, being phased out by 2020. After all the flak thrown at Osborne since the budget it has been good to see him in confident form both at the Leveson Inquiry and at the G20 Conference. At long last one has the feeling that he is growing into his job but it no doubt helps that both inflation and unemployment are going down. Will Osborne become bold enough though to challenge the fundamentals of the global warming alarmists' arguments? It is about time someone did although with the increasingly shrill cries from the alarmists about the situation being infinitely worse than at first thought they are damaging their campaign. They doth protest too much. Bishop Hill has an interesting take on the withdrawal of subsidies for fossil fuel here. Another politician who is definitely comfortable in his skin is Hague who gave a good account of himself at PMQs today standing in for Cameron and Clegg who are both away. Hague could give Cameron a lesson in the art of 'cool'. Perhaps though it is easier being the stand in as nothing spectacular is expected of you but Hague is none the less always worth watching not only for his way of dealing with questions but also for his knowledge and wit.  

Barroso the Clown

Barroso has proved what some of us have long thought about the EU. That it is the refuge for the self-loving, self-satisfied simple minded autocrat since no one but an ignorant idiot would have made the kind of remark he made yesterday about the cause of the euro crisis. One wonders whether he made the remark off his own bat or whether he had discussed it with his staff and others in the Commission first. If the latter then the organisation we are a part of is as evil as the most sceptical amongst us have been warning us for years. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a great piece in the Telegraph today about Barroso's woeful ignorance which you can read here. Carswell also has a good piece on the same subject in the Commentator blog which you can read here. Cameron should expose Barrosos's ignorance in the same way he has lashed into Hollande's tax policy. The exodus of French high rate tax payers to these shores is reminiscent of that of the Huguenots. Huguenot refugees were of considerable benefit to this country as no doubt will be the tax exiles. The other part of Barroso's remark that was risible was that he needs no lessons in democracy nor in economics. On the contrary he needs every lesson he can get on on both as Ambrose E-P makes abundantly clear in his piece. We all know to our cost that the euro fails every economic test and we all know to our cost that there is a huge democratic deficit in the EU. What anyway would a third rate politician ex-Maoist like Barroso know about democracy? We must be mad to be involved with these people like those who think the Leveson Inquiry has been anything other than a grandstanding event for Leveson, his chief interrogator the supercilious Jay, certain celebrities and politicians. The Leveson Inquiry is worse than a complete waste of public money as we have learnt this week that Leveson demanded that Gove be gagged for his views on the circus. Gove came out for the freedom of the press and let's hope Cameron does the same by kicking Leveson's final report/recommendation into the long grass where it deserves to rot away into a fine illegible powder. Otherwise we shall become subject to state control over what we can write and say a la 1984. We are of course part way there with Labour's equality and anti discrimination laws and also with the European Arrest Warrant. It is about time these dangerous illiberal laws were repealed.      

EU - Who Needs It?

Boris Johnson wrote a very good article in the Telegraph today, which you can read here, in which he warns that despite our naive assumption that life can only get better there is no guarantee it will do so and indeed there is every chance we will slip back into some kind of hell consisting of darkness, squalor and violence and that those of us in the EU will slip back into some democratic dark age. Boris is absolutely right and it has been there for all to see throughout its history and even more so today that the EU abhors democracy. It pays lip service to our democratic rights but when it comes to it, it denies democracy. Witness the way the Italians and the Greeks had to accept technocratic governments to carry out the demands of Brussels. Apparently Sarkozy was the one who was responsible for Papandreou's government replacement with Merkel tamely supporting him. The EU will lie and cheat to achieve its socialist ends and we go along with it. The logic of what Boris is saying is for the euro to be broken up and for the EU to change into a free trade area only but he does not reach that conclusion. He makes no mention of reforming the EU nor the break up of the euro, only of the need to split the euro into two parts with Germany and its cohorts in one and the periphery in the other. A solution to the euro crisis that would have worked well if it had been adopted months ago but is now probably too late.   The democratic deficit is huge with the EU in effect passing Acts of Parliament running into at least 100 every year and many hundreds of regulations that rarely come into the public domain. Apart from still persisting with the financial transaction tax the EU now wants to control our North Sea oil. No doubt the Lib Dems and Labour think this is a thoroughly good idea just as no doubt they think the Common Fisheries Policy is a good idea.  They are very bad ideas but will our government do anything about them? Probably not.

The Temperature Rises ... in the Eurozone

The euro crisis is heating up nicely with Mrs Merkel telling France a few home truths. The Germans are fearful that the policies being pursued by Hollande will lead to France losing its AAA rating and being unable to bear the inevitable increased cost of borrowing. Mrs Merkel has also warned that the Greek bail out terms are not negotiable. Turmoil continues elsewhere in the eurozone where a bail out for Cyprus and a further Irish bail out are being talked about. To adapt Wilde's Lady Bracknell 'to have one bail out may be regarded as a misfortune but to have two looks like carelessness'. Spain seems to be supportive of Mrs Merkel whereas Italy seems to siding with France. Oh to be a fly on the wall of the G20 meeting which may need set aside time for a meeting of the G7 if the Greek election results in a Syriza win. Over in Egypt another election is proceeding being the run off today between the two men who received the most votes in the first round. Will a Mubarak ex-Prime Minister win or will it be the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and how will the  court decision that the parliamentary elections were unconstitutional affect the result? We'll never know the answer to the latter question but we will find out soon enough whether or not the military are going to quit the political field. The betting is that they will not do so. Meanwhile in Britain the wind continues to blow and the temperature remains lower than one would expect in June. You might say that it is the coolest global warming on record unless of course you are that former Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King who continues even now misleading the public. His latest utterance is to the effect that the scientific community keeping beavering away showing the predictions for the next 20 years are even worse than predicted. No room for doubt there then. How do Governments pick such advisers?    

Onwards and Upwards

Charles Crawford has written a post on the Commentator blog that is both informative and sane. You can read it here. Until I read Crawford's post I had thought that the entitlement concept was something that we were grappling with only in the UK believing that it was something only affecting us Brits. How relieved I am to know that it is not only us that suffers from this disease and I even dare hope that it did not start here but that we became infected by it from abroad. When writing this I am asking myself why I should feel this way and am convinced that it's because of the anti British propaganda pumped out by the BBC and certain other media outlets as well as certain politicians. This anti British propaganda saps our self esteem and leaves us lacking confidence in ourselves. After all we have been told by programme after programme on the radio and TV how truly awful we are as a people, that no decent person would colonise peoples and countries, that no decent people would fight wars for land and wealth and how we are to blame for all the wrongs in the world. But now I come to think of it there is another side to the profit and loss account. We gave our colonies the rule of law and a governance system that if they followed it worked well. It is not our fault that some of our colonies spoilt the fruits we had left for them. Are we responsible for murderous scum like Idi Amin and Mugabe? No, of course not and it is time that we cease being apologetic as it implies we are guilty of all the woes we are accused of. Sure we made mistakes and did some unforgivable things but on the whole we achieved a magnificent profit that we should celebrate in programme after programme and in our schools. Let's know our successes as well as our warts and let's not be diverted by those who would diminish us for their own selfish purposes and let us stop the BBC working for our competitors.

Blair and Destiny

Charlatan Blair is clearly missing the limelight. He is now publicly demanding that Germany stand by the euro. The man who preferred headlines to action save when it meant killing people based on non-existent evidence; the man who was too scared to remove Brown and allowed the Country's economy to be ruined; the man who wanted the UK to be subsumed into an EU state; the man who wanted England to be deleted from history and replaced by regions; the man who has gained unexplained millions from the first moment he left office; the man who employed that monster Alistair Campbell; the man who felt destiny resting on his left shoulder; the man who now feels he has something to say of such importance that all will applaud his wisdom and without question do his bidding. Blair's utterance is an embarrassment. If he had any sense he would stay quietly hidden away since unlike John Major history is not going to treat him kindly. What does it mean that Germany should stand by the euro? Does it mean that Germany should ignore its constitution? Does it mean that Germany should impoverish itself to help the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Irish, the Spanish, the Italians, the Cypriots and ultimately the French? Even if it is true, as I believe, that Germany has taken advantage of the lower euro exchange rate to the detriment of the PIIGS it has made some recompense already for so doing by providing the largest share of the bail out funds. If the Telegraph is to be believed Germany is considering going further by changing its mind about a European Redemption Pact and endorsing it after all. The Redemption Pact would cover all euro members government debt above 60% of GDP. Will the Redemption Pact be adopted? If so will it be adopted in time before the euro explodes and if so will it have the desired effect? Spain's bond yields are today hovering around 7% and Italy's have risen from 3.9% a month ago to 5.3% today. Having made his momentous demand Blair was in Hong Kong today making a speech to do with his Faith Foundation. Apparently he was heckled but threatened the heckler into submission. He must have a powerful faith - after all he is a man who walks with destiny.    

Labour's Bid to Sink Hunt

Labour failed in their bid to do for Hunt in the Commons today. Chris Bryant MP, the one whose photo of himself in his underpants was bandied abroad a year or two ago, called Hunt a liar during the debate. Surely this is what we had all been brought up to believe was unparliamentary language necessitating rustication from the House? It was surely because it is unparliamentary language that Churchill attempted unsuccessfully to get around it by using the phrase 'terminological inexactitude'. Why is it therefore that the Speaker did not 'expel' Bryant for his use of the word 'liar' in Parliament today? I must say that Bercow's reasoning for not doing so was incomprehensible to me and I wonder what Bagehot would have made of it. I cannot say Bryant is a particularly sympathetic character (one can't look at him without thinking of that awful photograph) whereas I was surprised how well Hunt responded to Labour's assault on him. Altogether this has been a satisfactory day for the Tories (Cameron definitely bested Miliband at PMQs) and a bad day for Labour, the Lib Dems and Bercow. By not supporting Hunt the Lib Dems have surely shot themselves in the foot since the Tories, or at least the backbenchers, will not now feel it necessary to come to the rescue of any Coalition partner. Indeed the Tories are go to feel they are now free of any obligation towards the Lib Dems. As to John Bercow he has demonstrated by not insisting Bryant withdraw and apologise for the liar claim that he really loves dicing with death. He is already deeply unpopular with most Tories and will have extended that dislike. I do not see him re-elected as Speaker should the Tories win the next election. Quite likely that if I'm right he will switch to join his wife's party in a fit of pique. Good riddance I hear you say!