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.