By-election results - comment

The two by-elections, at Bromley and Blaenau Gwent have the political classes twittering, but with the turnouts respectively 40.5 (down 24.3 percent from the general) and 51.7 percent (-14.4 percent), it is clear that neither election set the political process alight.

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The "shock" result, if you can call it that, was the poor showing of the Bromley Conservative candidate, Bob Neill, who only just got in with 11,621 votes against a strong challenge from the Lib-Dims, slashing the general election majority of 13,342 to 633

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What is especially interesting is the Bromley result. UKIP came third, beating Labour into fourth place, taking 2347 (8.1per cent) votes, but collectively, the eight minority parties polled 4,518 votes.

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The cumulative effect of these minority parties is now getting quite significant and was definitely a factor in the last general election, where the UKIP vote exceeded the Labour majority over the Conservatives in 28 seats, undoubtedly costing the Tories a significant number of seats. It is always dangerous to extrapolate results from by-elections, but the "minnow" phenomenon is beginning to become well-established, where many of those who are prepared to turn out to vote are so disillusioned with the established parties that they are prepared to vote for minority parties.

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At the election at Blaenau Gwent, the independent candidate won.

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What we are almost certainly seeing, therefore, is not a rejection of politics but a turning away from the established party politics. Political issues have never been more closely and actively argued, but the established parties are simply not part of the debate.

Bleated, Insincere, Incomplete

In a letter to the Sunday Times in the 1920's T. E. Lawrence wrote:

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"The people of Britain have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster."

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The important "Snatch" Land Rover equipment issue is now well in the news with the deaths yesterday of two British soldiers in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.

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Latest >

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/06/wickedness-of-beeb.html

The Archbishop and The Commisioner

by Tim Hames

The Head of the Met and the Archbishop of Canterbury are towering intellects. No wonder they have failed

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Albert Camus once asserted that “an intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself”. There are few more ostentatiously intellectual individuals in their chosen fields than Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, a person more at home with the novels of Graham Greene than Dixon of Dock Green, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, a professor of theology turned Primate of All England.

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Their performance, alas, is likely to stoke the sentiment that intellectuals should never be put in charge of any important organisation in Britain.

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Of the two men, Sir Ian’s plight is the more obvious. He is on his own version of death row, condemned to await the official reports into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an event that will surely trigger his resignation.

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There is now an indelible impression left of a Commissioner too distant from the police officers on the front line, who has lost (if he ever had) their respect and whose only defence for his conduct on the day of Mr de Menezes’s death is that those who were nominally under his command did not inform him of what happened.

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The fate of Dr Williams is, ironically, more unappealing. He would surely love to be released from the burden of being Archbishop of Canterbury. But he is instead condemned to stay in place until the Lambeth conference of 2008, at least, caught between his liberal conscience and the conservative obligations that come with seeking to prevent the Church of England sliding into schism. His time on the Archbishop’s throne has become a personal torture.

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Sir Ian and Dr Williams have long struck me as almost interchangeable figures. Stick a beard, a pectoral cross and a dog-collar on the Commissioner and he would be an entirely plausible member of the Anglican hierarchy. Shave off Dr William’s facial fur (a lengthy enterprise admittedly) and he would fit in fine with the legions of humanities graduates who today constitute the top table of the old thin blue line.

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The Church of England and the Metropolitan Police were each once largely instruments of social control. Both of them have since become branches of social work. One no more needs to be an exceptional crimefighter to be appointed a chief constable than a compelling preacher to be recruited as an Anglican bishop. In either case such talents would probably be a career handicap.

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The two men personify this shift perfectly. They are decent, scholarly and well intentioned. One quickly established himself as The Guardian’s favourite policeman. The other is that same newspaper’s preferred clergyman. Yet the brutal and harsh truth is that both have failed in office. Why? It seems to me that they share two traits.

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The first is an inability to communicate in a fashion that others find comprehensible.

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This, for example, is Dr Williams discussing God in a recent address. “We need, not human words that will decisively capture what the Word of God has done and is doing, but words that will show us how much time we have to take in fathoming this reality, helping us turn and move and see, from what may be infinitesimally different perspectives, the patterns of light and shadow in a world where the Word’s light has been made manifest.” Er, yes, I sup

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Not that Sir Ian is much clearer. In his Dimbleby lecture in November, he cited the awarding of the Olympics to London in 2012, the bombings in the capital city just a day later and the loss of Mr de Menezes, to answer the question: “What kind of police service do we want?”

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Sir Ian mused that “We want a 6 July police service, not a 7 July police service. However, we can’t have that to which 6 July aspired without understanding 7 July. Moreover . . . I believe that we can’t now have either 7 July or 6 July without risks like that of 22 July.” At the conclusion of this confusing account, he stated: “I believe it should be you, not me, who decides what kind of police we want.” Thanks a lot, Sir Ian.

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The second trait is an inability to distinguish between having admirers and winning allies. There are plenty of politicians, journalists and other commentators who esteem Sir Ian greatly. They are not, nevertheless, a substitute for the support of police officers. It is fair to say that his predecessor, Sir John Stevens, was never the darling of the chattering classes. His personal standing was somewhat higher, though, where it counted — in the police canteen.

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Dr Williams is similarly fêted by those who have read his numerous books about the Almighty. This matters less than the unfortunate reality that he is viewed as weak and inconsistent by factions that threaten to tear the Church asunder.

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It was rarely said of George Carey when he served as the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he had the finest brain in Christendom. He did, however, hold 90 per cent of his flock together when they could have fallen apart over the vexed question of women priests. The institutional compromises which Dr Carey invented at that time — “flying bishops” etc — have little to commend them intellectually or theologically. They do have the redeeming merit of having endured in practice.

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The resignation of Sir Ian and the eclipse of Dr Williams will doubtless be indignantly cited as further evidence of the persistent “anti-intellectualism” of British culture. This is not a fair charge. Intellect, like anything else, has to be applied to be of true value. As matters stand, Sir Ian and Dr Williams will soon have more time to spend with their fine minds.

We are all free men (and women)

by Dr Richard North

As one who has been led down to the cells in handcuffs for non-payment of Council Tax – mine for refusing to pay the police precept after our house had been burgled four times and my wife’s car broken into, I can totally empathise with Josephine Rooney, the 69-year-old pensioner who was yesterday imprisoned for three months by South Derbyshire Magistrates for refusing to pay hers.

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Her story is told in detail in The Daily Mail and elsewhere, noting that, unlike ordinary criminals, who get an automatic fifty percent remission of their sentence, there is no rebate for Council Tax debt and Josephine.

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Thus, says The Mail,
...at a time when the Government seems to be taking every opportunity to stop sending genuine criminals to jail - and once inside, releasing them as early as possible - she will spend the next three months mixing with drug addicts and murderers after being sent to New Hall prison near Wakefield in West Yorkshire.

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Of course, Derby City Council deputy leader, Dave Roberts, like any true state apparatchik, disowns the decision. "The council has no wish to send anyone to jail," he says. "Miss Rooney had ample opportunity to pay her council tax, but she has steadfastly refused. Her sentence is the court's decision, not ours."

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But actually, there was no decision. The Magistrates have no discretion in this matter, so the penalty is automatic. To save taxpayers' money on the courts, they would be better of having "go to jail" machines on the lines of "speak your weight machines" in the foyers of police stations, leaving more time for the Magistrates to release the day's crop of burglars and muggers.

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But the central point which I addressed when I was last arrested is that this makes a mockery of any idea that we are free men and women.

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Essentially, you retain your liberty only if you pay your annual license fee to the Town Hall.

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For me personally, the situation is even worse. With shared ownership of our house, my wife's name also appears on the Council Tax bill. But, the apparatchiks who send out the bills, knowing that I am prepared to make a stand over "services" we pay for but don't receive, have now reversed the order of the names, so that hers appears first. It his her, thus, who receives the summons and if I don’t pay the bill, she goes to jail.

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Jail I can stand but the thought of dealing with my wifec after she has been released…? I want to live, so I pay up.

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And all this is arranged by the kindly "Customer Services" department of the Council. And that is what really pisses me off, this total perversion of our language, the dishonesty of it all.

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If I was really a "customer", could my wife be jailed because I did not pay a bill for services I was not receiving? I think not.

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Dr North is co-editor of www.eureferendun.com

The Sunday Quote

'' The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion. ''

Voltaire (real name Francois Marie Arouet) 1694 -1778.

Parking 'U' Turn

Last week there was recognition in the British media that local authorities are treating parking enforcement as a huge money-making excerise.

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A Parlimentry Transport Select Committee is to recomend a single national system (as indeed there was upuntil recent years) governing trafic wardens and parking attendents - the latter being a wonderfully Orwellian title for private enterprise partnership fixpenalty fine issuers.
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The committee has heard evidence that up to a fifth of tickets are cancelled after complaints from motorists. Paul Watters, head of transport policy for the AA Motoring Trust correctly commented to BBC radio 4: '' local authorities were often driven by profit, where parking was concerned, adding, ''parking control appeared to have lost its way under the deregulated regime. ''

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BBC Transport Correspondent Tom Symonds added to the comments and said: parking had become "a seriously controversial local issue in many parts of the country" since the gradual transfer of powers to issue tickets from the police to councils.

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MPs are expected to ask for a national system of standards for privatised parking enforcement, with more councils being able to use their discretion when issuing tickets rather than rigidly sticking to the rules.

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An example of the obsessive attitude of local authorities to parking was the case of pensioner Mrs Shirley Hatcher from Southampton who quite correctly parked her car last week in North Road Southampton in a spot where there were no parking restrictions in place.

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However by the time Mrs Hatcher returned from the hairdressers contractors, on behalf of Southampton City council, had painted yellow lines on the road around the car and with lightning speed a parking attendent stuck a fixed penalty notice to the car's windscreen.

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Quite rightly Mrs Hatcher is raising cane with the council who have since said how sorry they are. Perhaps they are sorry not to have also afixed a wheel clamp to the dear lady's car !

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For further reading:

http://verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com/2006/03/most-people-would-just-moan-and-pay-up.html

and also

http://neilherron.blogspot.com/2006/06/massive-coverage-of-parking-campaign.html

Direct hit

Desmond Browne MP

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British troops in Basra were distinctly underwhelmed by Defence Secretary The Rt Hon Desmond Browne MP on his inaugural visit last month to troops in Basra, Iraq. "Smug, sleek and fat - and every inch a New Labour apparatchick" one of them informed the magazine Private Eye.

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The hero of the secetary of state's visit, however, was a young squaddie who, while Browne was meeting and greeting, asked what he knew of the military. "Not much," the minister admitted, "but what do you know about politics?" "Well sir," said the soldier, "I can lie well".

The end of week quote

''As I see it, one of the most crucial issues of the day – and the means by which further political integration into the European Union can be avoided – is to pursue an campaign for a more active, effective and longer-term engagement in Iraq, staying there until we have a fully-functioning, liberal democracy.

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This is not only in the interests of democracy, but in the interests of the United Kingdom itself. Therefore, Iraq, in my view, is not only the crucible of a new democracy, it could also be the salvation of the UK as an independent, democratic nation. On the other hand, a retreat from Iraq is a de facto retreat into "Europe".

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Dr Richard North, Democracy or Stability 23 June 2006

To read the full article:

click >http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/06/democracy-or-stability.html

The safety and security of our troops

According to the official MoD website, as at 28 May 2006, a total of 113 British Forces personnel have died, or are missing presumed dead, while serving on Operation TELIC since the start of the campaign in March 2003. Of these, 84 are classed as killed in action, including as a result of hostile action. View full article here

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The wheels on the truck go round and round… Following Dr North's post on Sunday on the story – if at all possible – gets murkier and murkier. View full article here

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According to the Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP, minister of state for defence, “we take all measures possible to ensure the safety and security of our troops deployed in Iraq”. This is in response to an MP who had passed on a constituent’s letter expressing concern about “the safety of so-called armoured Land Rovers”. View full article here

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We have found some remarkable MoD photographs of the despatch from Belfast of the “Snatch” Land Rovers and their arrival in Umm Qasar on October 2003. View full article here

A football free region

Stephan Barbarino is a theatre director from Munich. Last week this German gentleman launch an initiative called "Football-Free Zone" with publisher Karl-Heinz Schwaiger.

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Their website comes to the rescue of accidental World Cup tourists who just happen to be in Germany during the Football World Cup event. The excellent site points to the joys of German cuisine and art as well as Bavaria's many castles and lakes under a logo of a no-parking sign posted over a black and white ball.

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"It is an alternative to the overwhelming hype that the World Cup has become," Heir Barbarino said."There are enough people out there who do not want to spend 24 hours a day sitting in front of a giant screen watching football."

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The tourism authorities in Brandenburg state in the former communist East region surrounding Berlin, is trying to turn the economic misfortune of not hosting a single World Cup match - though Ukraine's national side will be based here - into a marketing strategy aimed at people who want to get away from it all.

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"Are you ready for a football-free region?" a brochure at their offices enquires.

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In the meantime the editor of this blog whose intrest (and understanding) of footbal is minimal is trying to understand the meaning of England's team manager - who is a Sweed - reported remarks (by Reuters ) at the end of Tuesday evenings game against Sweeden:

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''We did well in the first half but then Sweden did better in the second half and they scored from two set pieces. Of course, we have to do better because we cannot concede goals like that."

Is a translation (and explination) available ? Answers in the comments box please.

In the meantime, anyone for a spot of Cricket ?

Flying the Flag

Above, Her Majesty's corgies disembark at Heathrow Airport

The government is shortly to order two new aroplanes for use by the Prime Minister and the Queen.

Downing Street sources were quoted as saying that one plane is likely be a Boeing 737, which can seat between 85 and 215 passengers, which will be used for long-haul flights. A second, smaller plane that can seat around 15 to 20 people is also likely to form part of the new arrangements and will be used for shorter flights.

Both will be leased on a permanent basis rather than purchased outright. The deal is expected to cost £1.5m to £2.5m more than the current arrangements, which amount to around £9.5m to £12.3m a year.

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The cost will be spread across several government departments including the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence. Under current arrangements Number 10 charters planes or uses the Queen's Flight of the RAF.

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The reaction from opposition parties yesterday was depressingly predictable. Shadow transport secretary Chris Grayling MP said the move "sends totally the wrong message for ministers to be spending millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on two new, official planes at a time when jobs are being cut in the NHS". He added:
"This reinforces the impression of a government which is out of touch with the real world, and is too concerned with the trappings of office rather than getting on with the job."

The Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies (Ming) Campbell said the "real question is whether these aircraft represent good value for the British taxpayer". Adding later a rather silly comment about environmental concerns and proposing that greater use is made of scheduled flights.

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A real point if our Members of Parliament are going to make comment on matters aeronautical sould be to express deep concerns the vast billions of pounds that has been wasted on the EuroFighter and the European Airbus projects. Money which could have reduced British Subjects future tax demands by considerable amounts had it not been wasted on polticaly motivated 'European' schemes. If only our politicians would address real issues !

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A very bad photograph of the EuroFighter taken from the club houes of Cleveland Flying School at Durham Tees Valley Airport by the edtior.

Yes and No

Understanding EU Directives

Lord Willoughby de Brook writes about his recently launched website Directives Digest.

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“I started Directives Digest because I found the web portal to European legislation to be almost impenetrable except to dedicated Euro-anoraks. I think it important that individuals should have easier access to EU legislation that affects their lives and businesses; while this alone will not “empower” them it may encourage them to ask their MPs or prospective MPs some difficult questions.''

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I would also like to establish Directives Digest as an essential tool for the media - the reliable and accurate short-cut to EU legislation and its often unintended consequences.

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My research team and I took the decision early on to point out the shortcomings of much of this legislation and, where appropriate, to supplement our comments with quotes from industry, and sometimes from the legislators themselves, but our site is intended to be factual and informative rather than polemical.

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My team of researchers is small but dedicated. We would welcome feedback and suggestions for directives we have not posted yet. Do take some time to browse through the site, and do please email my editor with your contributions.”

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The website Directives Digest, is important reading to those that want to understand how Britain is now governed.

A Question of Questions

Asking questions is important for democracy. Understandably those in 'power' are not particularly keen on the asking of questions since some times questions are asked in the public domain that are unwelcome.

Baroness Ashton a minister at the Department of Constitutional Affairs, told a select committee in parliament recently that the government is considering raising fees for freedom of information act requests because civil servants were having to deal with too many tame-wasters.

The Baroness said: ''The genuine question that has to be answered is the issue of vexatious and irresponsible requests.''

Well that comment sparked freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke to ask (under the rules of the Freedom of Information Act) ''Just how many 'irresponsible' questions are there really ?''

Ms Brook had noted that every time the issue of 'vexatious questions was commented on by a minister they would trot out the same examples of time-wasting questions that were asked. How much do government departments spend annually on toilet paper; how much do they spend on make-up;how many windows are there at the Department for Education and does your minister exist.
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Ms Brook is concerned that such a powerful democratic tool will soon be priced out of the reach of many people. Over 40,000 questions are put to the government under the Freedom of Information Act. People have a right to freely ask questions and get answers from their public servants.

Ms Brook did receive a reply to her question about questions. '' The information you requested is not held as the department does not formally record , list or categorise requests as 'irresponsible' ''

On the evidence above one could ask the question of how the question of raising fees for asking questions was considered to be an issue. At least Ms Brook was not told that she would be ignored for asking questions - which is important, what ?

How Blair is killing our soldiers

The posting linked below is quite literally a matter of life and death.

Dr Richard North details a chilling example of the extraordinary shables the Ministry of Defence is making of Britain's defences, thanks not least to the way Tony Blair is trying to pursue two totally contradictory policies at the same time.

To read the details of this issue, please click:

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-blair-is-killing-our-soldiers.html

The Sunday Quote

'' There are two things to aim for in life: first to get what you want ; and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.

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Logan Pearsall Smith (1886-1946)
Afterthoughts (Published 1931) chapter 1. Life and Human Nature

Diana RIP

Regular reader Louloubelle writes:

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Once again the Daily Mail (Saturday 17 June) give a two page spread to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Diane, Princess of Wales. For goodness sake when will the press let the women Rest in Peace?

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All credibility for this diatribe went out of the window with the statement that a plane had been on standby for the Prime Minister all weekend – of course there was a plane on standby, there always is a plane on when the PM is away from London; even the thickest of trainee reporters should know that.

This constant dragging up of conspiracy theories will not bring back a mother to her sons. All it does is make a profit for newspapers and feed the ghoulish sentimentality of a section of the tabloid readership.

Let her Rest in Peace.

Human Rights Madness

Bankers, like taxpersons do not naturaly attract much sympathy, particularly from the business community. However the strory of the so-called 'NatWest Three' could perhaps maybe possibly be concidered as a case for some sympathy.

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The three bankers are accused of a minor role in the Enron scandal, who are on course to be extradited to Texas, where they face two years in jail awaiting trial.

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If found guilty, the three could be incarcerated for up to 25 years. In the US, convicts who get more than six years are automatically sent to maximum security prisons, such as Sing Sing - a sinister twist on facing the music.

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The trio, David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Derby, are alleged to have diddled NatWest out of £4.5m via some underhand trading of the bank's stake in an Enron subsidiary. They strongly deny any wrongdoing and are fighting an extradition order made by a district judge, which was upheld by Charles Clarke, when he was Home Secretary.

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Given that Clarke's department allowed (albeit unwittingly) more than 1,000 convicted foreign criminals, including murderers and rapists, to be released into British society, instead of being deported, you can see why the 'NatWest Three' are feeling a tad peeved.

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But wait, it gets worse; much worse. For while the release of foreign criminals was a Home Office error, there is no mistaking the protection that Britain's legal system is giving to some truly ghastly people who shouldn't be here.For instance, we've failed to instantly get rid of Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric with suspected links to al-Qa'eda. His deportation to Jordan, where he has been convicted of terrorism offences, was opposed by lawyers on the grounds that this delicate flower may have his petals ruffled in Amman.

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British taxpayers were not only protecting Qatada's "human rights" but also funding them.Then there's the barely believable case of the nine Afghan hijackers, who were recently told by a High Court judge that they could continue to live in Britain (on benefits, naturally) because sending them back to Afghanistan would be "unsafe".

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Sickest of all is the story of Mustaf Jama, a Somalian refugee, who is wanted in connection with the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford. He escaped deportation just months before the policewoman was shot, despite being a persistent offender who had served several terms in prison.

The Home Office said Jama avoided repatriation because Somalia was "dangerous". Really? So does that mean anyone from an African hell-hole who arrives in Britain, irrespective of circumstances, can never be returned? I guess it does.

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No such protection, however, for three British citizens, born and bred in the United Kingdom, accused of small-time swindling, even though neither their former employer, NatWest, nor

the Serious Fraud Office in London is pursuing legal action against them.

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Ones suspicion that Sing Sing Jail is that it's filled with inmates who make Mike Tyson seem like Pansy Potter. Pretty "dangerous", one could say. So why do the 'NatWest Three' face the possibility of being banged up there, or some place like it?

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Let's be clear, the human rights industry in this country is no longer protecting us, it's a threat to our safety, like a guard-dog that's savaging its master.

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The acid of political correctness has burnt a hole in our administration's collective brain; it's unable to think straight. As a result, the British Parliament has lost control of the most important rules and regulations by which the vast majority of its citizens wish to be governed.

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A combination of warped do-gooders, barmy domestic judges and insidious European institutions are destroying the fabric of our society. Even the prime minister - whose lawyer wife is a member of the human rights mafia - called the court's decision to block the deportation of the Afghans "an abuse of common sense".

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Yet it was on Tony Blair's watch that Britain was panicked into signing a new extradition treaty with the US, after the 9/11 atrocities, in order to clamp down on terrorists. It was an agreement that was meant to be used against bombers, not bankers.

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Instead, it has cleared the way for US prosecutors to remove British citizens, including those accused of white-collar offences, even though the UK has no reciprocal rights over Americans.

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We have no idea if the NatWest Three are guilty. Perhaps they are. But not even their enemies (mostly small business people) would describe them as a threat to British security.

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By contrast, many foreign nationals, who have taken refuge here amidst the thick fog of constitutional confusion, most definitely are. We've given up our human rights for theirs. Traditional very British fairness has been replaced by utter madness.

Trooping the Colour

Today is the official 80 th Birthday of Her Majesty the Queen.

The Queen and other members of the Royal Family will this morning attend the Trooping the Colour ceremony on Horse Guards Parade in London. The Queen attends the ceremony to take the salute from thousands of guardsmen who parade the Queen's Colour (flag).

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Trooping the Colour, which has honoured the sovereign's official birthday for nearly two centuries, dates back to the earliest times of armed conflict, when each leader needed his own flag or colours to stand out clearly amid the smoke and dust of battle. The flag or colours was trooped in front of the soldiers every day to make sure that every man could recognise those of his own regiment.

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A very Brithish tradition indeed.

We deserve better

"The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return" Gore Vidal was talking, of course, about post-war America, but his observation is increasingly true in contemporary Britain.
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Millions of UK taxpayers are the victims of a racket perpetrated by a wastefull government. As Gordon Brown presses his boot ever harder on the windpipe of industrious people, squeezing more and more from individuals, small businesses and corporatechampions, the Chancellor's Cabinet colleagues squander fortunes.
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It's a woeful situation, which prompts the question: can Brown's tax-raisingingenuity continue to match strides with the incompetence of his administration?
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The answer, I'm afraid, is Yes. Research reveals that Brown has introduced no fewer than 80 new taxes since 1997.
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In a less decent, more indisciplined society than Britain one could imagine widespread dissatisfaction turning quickly to civil outrage: a mass movementagainst abuse of trust. But not here.
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In Britain, the burden of government by nincompoops and scoundrels is borne withremarkable stoicism. We simply get on with it, enabling ministers to get awaywith it.
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The latest example of money down the drain is so perverse that one begins to suspect a conspiracy. A BBC investigation revealed that thousands of immigrants had received tax credits to which they were not entitled, in some cases payments worth £10,000.
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The cost to the taxpayer runs to several millions. Here is a list of the blunders:
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Blunder No 1.
Thousands of illegal immigrants were wrongly given National Insurance numbers.That ought not to have mattered, because Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)guidelines state that National Insurance numbers alone should never be used toprovide access to benefits.
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Blunder No 2.
Dim-wit officials decided that many immigrants who were not entitled to tax credits did not have to prove eligibility. All they needed to make a claim was an NI number (even one incorrectly issued).
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Blunder No 3
Revenue staff were told not to investigate cases of immigrants who had failed acrucial UK residency test.
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For those whose sense of humour is still intact, the DWP insists that all fraudulent claims will be pursued.
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If the department's retrieval rate is similar to the Home Office's record oftracking down foreign prisoners, there should be just enough recovered for a bag of chips.
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The route of failure, delineated by political correctness, ran from the Treasury via the DWP to the Home Office and back again. Junior ministers and civilservants were so anxious not to derail the Chancellor's flagship tax-creditscheme that nobody blew the whistle.
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PJ O'Rourke got it right: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
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Brown's dysfunctional system of handouts is yet another New Labour car-crash inwhich the hapless taxpayer has ended up badly injured.
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Far worse, however, is the scale of waste on the National Health Service's new IT system, which is already 30 months behind schedule and forecast to cost £20bnover the next 10 years, £14bn more than the Government's initial budget.
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With IT consultants charging government on average £1,400 per day, the bills aremind-boggling. The Department for Education and Skills alone is reported to bespending £20m to £30m annually on advisers.
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No wonder even Labour MPs are calling for an investigation. With such gaping holes in the vessel of state funds, Brown's tax troopers arebecoming increasingly aggressive towards business. The recently formed HMRevenue & Customs knows that it's much easier to tighten the vice on those who already pay than try to identify new sources of income. As a result, Britain risks losing its hard-won competitive advantage over international rivals.
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In the final year of John Major's government, business coughed up £80bn in corporation tax, National Insurance and other taxes.
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In 2006, thetotal is expected to be nearer £140bn.
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For although Britain still enjoys an edge when it comes to language, locationand labour flexibility, the price of these benefits is becoming prohibitive.
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It's not that most business leaders object to a redistribution of wealth. Their complaints, by and large, aren't about the less well off receiving a paybackfrom an affluent society. What drives them potty is the way that precious resources are sacrificed on the altar of ministerial vanity.
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The present Labour Government is spending like a shopaholic on speed but everything it touchesfalls apart. Value for money exists only as an abstract concept.
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More means less. For instance, additional billions have been tipped intohealthcare but hospitals are closing and nurses are being sacked.
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Educational standards in Britain are now scandalous (one in six British adults lacks the literacy skills expected of an 11-year-old), despite a 40pc increase inexpenditure since 1997.The immigration budget is £2bn (1997: £200m), yet the de facto abandonment ofborder controls has created a democratic deficit for millions of Britons whowould almost certainly have voted against it, but were never asked.
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All of the above should be an open goal for Her Majesty's Opposition. The response from David Cameron's Conservatives, however, has been depressingly lame. Faced with a Government spending £520bn a year, shadow chancellor George Osborne cannot identify a single tax cut, because his first priority is"economic stability". Since when were they mutually exclusive?
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Come on Britain - it is time to protest, we have the worst government and worst opposition and the most compliant pressure groups in modern times; we deserve better.

End of Week Quote

Actually it is four quotes today:

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''Above all, the European Economic Community takes away Britain's freedom to follow the sort of economic politics we need.'' Tony Blair 1982

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''We'll negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC which has drained our natural resorces and destroyed jobs.'' Tony Blair 1983

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''On the day we remember the legend that St George slayed a dragon to protect England, some would argue there is another dragon to be slayed: Europe. '' Tony Blair 1997 (before he won the general election in May)

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''I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been '' Tony Blair 2005

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For the benefit of those that still think the the EU is not an issue to concern British Subjects 2,900 regulations and directives were imposed on the UK by the EU during 2005.

Thongs can only get better

Blog editor Peter Troy, on the right and Georgre Cormack UKIP Scotland Secretary pictured campaigning in Perth during the European Union Parliamentary elections, June 2004.

The Anglosphere

Dr Helen Szamuely writes: ''Yesterday I spent the afternoon talking to the guru of the Anglosphere, James Bennett...''

Click below to read an excellent piece:

http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/#115022606929679239

Better Regulation - an Oxymoron

An excellent article by Ruth Lea, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) on the subject of “better regulation”, which she calls an oxymoron is recomened reading for all business people, particularly members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)

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Ms Lea announced about seven or eight months ago that she no longer believed there was any possibility of reforming the European Union and the only possible solution was for the UK to pull out and create new links with other European and, indeed, non-European countries. A view that is not supported, amazingly, by the policy makers of the FSB but is as we have detailed previously much supported by the Federation's rank and file members.

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Recently Lord Blackwell, the Chairman of CPS, has also effectively made it clear that he, too, is in favour of Britain pulling out of the EU.

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Thus we have an interesting situation of the premier Conservative think-tank moving on in the European debate, while the Conservative Party itself moving backwards to a John Major-type position and the FSB now working in ''co-operation and partnership'' with the EU.

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Ms Lea whips through the various ramifications of the nonsence trying to create “better regulation” since 1997, listing various bits of legislation; various differing and ever-multiplying task-forces, units and executives; and the inevitable action plans, initiatives and other ideas the emanate from the Chancellor’s fertile brain.

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Ms Lea makes it very clear that there is nothing we can do about EU regulations. Usefully, her list of events to do with “better regulation” makes it clear that the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which caused a great deal of excitement in the media and on some blogs, was only the most recent and, possibly, the worst (so far) piece of legislation that gave power to ministers in the name of “simplifying” regulation or making it “easier” to do so.

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The truth is that many people who lobby for British businesses do not really understand what, in actuality, the real barriers to business growth are.

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Many people who represent the business community genuinely believe that the way the world, its politics and economy, its social and legal structures, can function is by regulation. There can, they belive be no other way. The trick is, they argue, is to find “better” regulation.

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This is why these poor misguided souls prefer managerial governance to political governance. It is also why they are so greatly in favour of transnational organizations made up of bureaucrats and lawyers to the alternative messiness of genuinely democratic politics and the free market which is the most efficient economic structure. It is the one however that frightens those who like to have everything in nice neat boxes.

Indeed !

The week behind

Last week was indeed a topsy-turvey world in British politics.

The Tory Party leader once a scourge of bureaucracy praised the public sector to the skies and abandoned his party's belief in the small state. David Cameron repositioned his party firmly at the heart of Europe, in company with the Federation of Small Businesses. who declared that they are now working in 'co-operation and partnership' (opposite to their members wishes) with the European Union.

Sir Ming Campbell leader of the only party that has always actually boasted of wanting higher taxes suddenly announced Lib Dem plans for a £20 billion cut in income tax.

Amazingly Messers Blair and Brown who have bloated the numbers and wages of state workers talked of 'difficult reforms' and pay freezes in the public sector following nine years of massive expansion public spending.

Perhaps they may well all do a U turn this week ? In the Alice in Wonderland world of British politics anything is possible.

Supersized Police Service

What at first appears to be an innocent and logical move to improve in quality of Policing in England and Wales is upon detailed examination a very politically inspired plan to reorganise the Police into supersized regional services which, in effect, will be centrally controlled from Westminster.

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Read all about ist on our half sister Blog > http://nopolicemergers.blogspot.com

The Sunday Quote

''The workings of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness, and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.''

George Santayana (1863 - 1952) US (Spanish-born) philosopher

The Great Deception

It is not every day a book launched by a Head of State but two weeks ago Christopher Booker was over in Prague, receiving accolades from none other than the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, at a seminar to launch the Czech language edition of The Great Deception: Can The European Union Survive?

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As Mr Booker records in his Sunday Telegraph column , this is a 600-page history of "the European project" which was published last year, jointly written by Dr Richard North and Christopher Booker, has now been translated into Czech.

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Amazingly there are some English speaking persons who despite an expressed interest in political issues have not yet read this difinative work. They are indeed recomended to do so and soon.

Happy Birthday, Sir

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Today is the 85 Birthday of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.

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His Royal Highness will mark is birthday privatly at Windsor Castle today. On Thursday the Duke will join the Queen at St Paul's Cathedral for a thanks giving service for Her Majesty's official 80th bithtday, before the Massed Bands of the Royal Maries beat the retreat on Horse Guards Parade in his honour.

The Flag of St George

It is indeed a pleasurable site to see vast numbers of English (not UK flags) flying from the bleakest housing estate to the top of Downing Street. Even the dirtiest white van and indeed David Cameron's Bike as well as Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport has attached two England flags to her ministerial Rover.

The flag of St George has been unfurled (mostly all made in China) across the country. Supermarket giant Tesco expects to sell over 500,000 flags - all imported from Honk Kong. Well every little helps.

The British obsession with a safety first attitude or perhaps a risk adverse culture has surfaced this week with cautionary warnings to flag fliers. Amongst the more ridiculous examples was Tyne and Wear Fire Brigade who suggested that flags constituted a fire hazard, particularly in pubs if they are not properly fire-proofed!

Up the creek without a paddle

The Home Office senior civil servants are to coin a phrase 'up the creek without a paddle'.

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Lin Homer is the UK Immigration and Nationality Directorate chief. She told the Commons home affairs committee this week it would take "at least a couple of years" to get the service "into the shape I would like".

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She also told MPs that several hundred of the foreign criminals facing potential deportation have been allowed to stay in Britain. Additionaly she confirmed eight serious sex offenders released without being considered for deportation were still at large.
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Asked by MPs whether senior figures in the Home Office had supported ex-home secretary Mr Clarke, she told MPs: "I felt I let him down."

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Two weeks ago the new Home Secretary, Dr John Reid MP had to apologise to a parliamentary committee after he discovered that a foreign murder who he he had claimed was in jail had in fact been released on bail.

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Two senior officials were apparntly removed from their duties after it emerged the home secretary had not been told that bail hearings were taking place.

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Pressed about how many cases bail applications the Home Office had lost in court during the past fortnight, she said she was unable to give the committee the latest figures.

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The senior civil servant told the MPs that no more murderers had been released(as far as she knew) but suggested that another serious offender had applied successfully for bail. Persumably not the metropolitan police chief.

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Asked by Mr Denham about press reports that six civil servants had been sacked for selling visas, Ms Homer replied, amazingly, that she "did not recognise that number". But she did added: "At any time we are undertaking a number of investigations into potentially corrupt behaviour by members of staff. "In the last full year that I have figures for, that activity led to 15 members of staff being either dismissed and/or prosecuted. So I would have more confidence in that than the figure that has been quoted to you."

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A Home Office spokesman later confirmed those figures stating: "Since January 2005, 15 members of Immigration and Nationality staff have been dismissed following investigations by our security and anti-corruption unit over allegations of professional misconduct," he said.He refused to release figures for previous years and said he could not confirm whether the 2005 figure included the individuals accused of selling visas in last weekends press reports.

The expression of up the creek without a paddle comes to mind when concidering any issue associated with the Home Office.

Deep desperandum indeed !

The end of week quote

'' Why is there only one ball for 22 players ? If you gave a ball to each of them, they'd stop fighting for it ''

An annonymous quote publised in The Daily Telegraph, 28 December. Sporting Quotes of the year.

Police officers should pay compensation

The Independent Police Complaints Commison's (IPPC) report into the killing of the Brazilian electrician who was shot dead in mistake for a terrorist bomber last July will, when it is published in two weeks time, heavily criticise the the senior officer in charge if the incident (Commander Cressida Dick) as well as the 'Met' for the 'dysfunctional' way that it is run.

Crown Prosecution Service lawers who have had the IPPC report for five months have conculded, however that there is no realistic prospect of convicting those involved.

Sir Ian Blair (Plod Blair) the Met's boss is the subject of a second IPCC Inquiry into his handling and statements following the shooting. If this most arogant of Policemen is still in post by the end of the month we on this blog at least will be amazed.

An inquest into the death of Mr De Menezes will now take place. If the inquest rules that he was killed unlawfully it is propable that Police officers will be prosecuted.

Legal sources expect the 'Met' to offer the parents of Mr de Menezes £500,000 in compensation.

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The full amount of the comensation should be deduted from the salaries and pensions of all the police officers involved in the operation that resulted in the killing of this young man at Stockwell Underground Station on 22 July last year.

Hole in One ?

The game of Golf, founded originally in Scotland, I was once informed by a former International England Ladies Team Captain must be played seriously if one is to be sussesful. Well she should know she was (and I am sure still is) a top player.

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A Russian golfing enthusiast and cosmonaut is taking his sport very seriously indeed. Mikhail Tyurin is planning to drive a golf ball two billion miles into space useing a specially manufactured gold plated six iron from a tee attached to a platform on the International Space Station.

Apparantly according to scientists the golf ball will circle the earth for up to four years before entering the earth's atmospher. One wonders what the chances are of a hole in one or a hole in ones car roof ?

Yes indeed, a very English cricket ball landed (hit from the crease not from space) on Sophie's roof last summer while her owner was watching a very traditional game of cricket (from the local pub).

Evening All

Britain is a much changed country since Station Sargeant Dixon (Jack Warner) of Dixon of Dock Green graced our (black and white) television screens on a Saturday evening.

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Real life Sir Ian Blair (that's Plod Blair) the embattled Metropolitan Police Commissioner informed the media when giving the Dimbleby lecture this year that there needs to be a debate on the future of Policing in the UK. That is the only statement that Plod Bair has uttered that we on this blog agree with.

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The power of the internet and bolgs in particular as a tool in political campaigning should not these days be underestimated.

Bolgs are easy to set up and manage. The only cost being time. Interepid blogger John Page has teamed up with Peter Troy the editor of this glorious blog to establish: No to Police Mergers. Please click -- http://nopolicemergers.blogspot.com/

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The site will deliver up to date comment and news and more than a few ideas on policing in the UK with specific reference to the governments plans to regionalise the Police service in England and Wales.

When some of us wonder did the Police in Britain change from a Force change into a Service ?

Answers please on http://nopolicemergers.blogspot.com/

Hague the Vague

The good old The Sun goes for the the jugular today.

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Like millions of others I woke up this morning to the Yorkshire tones of The Rt. Hon. William Hague MP on the Today Programme. Naughtie had him well skewered on the question of his ''EUreform" agenda, pointing out that it would require the scrapping of the Treaty of Rome.

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The shadow foreign secretary was vague about the details but did not disagree, enabling the BBC website to pronounce, "Mr Hague says he is not ruling out rewriting the Treaty of Rome".

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The chances of that happening, of course, are precisely nil. One need not go through the laborious process in detail, however for a treaty change, there would have to the prolonged process of an intergovernmental conference, with unanimous agreement of a new draft treaty by the leaders of all 25 member states (soon to be 27), followed by unanimous ratification.

The business of being ignored

Many European businesses believe their views are ignored by the European Union when it drafts laws a detailed survey published on Tuesday highlighted. The report was conducted on behalf of international law firm Clifford Chance.

The detailed survey covered 177 firms in France, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

Over half the respondents gave EU legislation high priority and a majority expected an increase in the time they devote to EU law, but only 25 percent devoted resources to researching EU policy or getting their views across, it found.

"We are seeing a clear trend of business feeling out of step with EU legislators as new regulations come out of Brussels," Clifford Chance senior partner Stuart Popham said.

"Smaller firms in particular cannot afford to keep tabs on new developments, and larger businesses appear to engage too little and too late."

Significantly in all countries, a larger number of business -- especially in Italy, France and Spain -- found it easier to get their views across to national governments than to the EU.

Most businesses questioned were unhappy about the way EU legislation was implemented at state level. Indeed so!

To Protect and Promote

by Peter Troy

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) should not say, ''What can Small Businesses do for Europe'' but, ''what can Europe do for Small Businesses?''.

The FSB (over 190,000 members) published last Thursday, both on its web site and in paper, a report, which makes no concessions at all to the views of most of its members. Promoted as "the FSB's blueprint for small firms in the EU", the report demonstrates clearly a policy shift from one of active opposition to one of willing 'partnership and co-operation' with the European Union (EU).

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The arguments outlining the EU's undemocratic, anti-business, corrupt and negative interference in the process of British business have been frequently outlined on this blog. The obvious way to stop the EU interfering with increasing amounts of regulation that stifle the growth and threaten the prosperity of the UK's entrepreneurial class, is to leave the political project of the EU. Granted that is not a simple issue, but clearly it is a desirable one. Most small business people echo these views - if not in those precise terms.

The fact that the FSB has produced such a perverse report, one which is the opposite to the interests and expressed majority wishes of its membership, is indeed evidence that the UK 's largest member owned 'pressure group' is now, regrettably, ignoring the democratically expressed views of its members.

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What, it must be asked, is the point in selecting motions for debate at conferences and voting for matters of great importance to business people if those that manage the Federation ignore the views of the rank and file membership ?

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Sticky fingers ? Peter Troy and FSB National Vice-Chairman, John Wright - sample the gravy !

Twice the members of the FSB via their branch delegates voted to leave the EU - not to work in partnership with it !

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In 1995 the delegates at the Federations Annual Conference in Torquay voted by a small majority following a heated vote to leave the EU.

In 2001 at the FSB's conference in Plymouth, held at the height of the Foot and Mouth crises, I proposed, from the podium, a motion (seconded by the now Chairman of the North East Region of the FSB) calling for the FSB to demand the repeal of the European Communities Act of 1973 (and all subsequent legislation) and thus withdraw from the EU.

Following a debate the branch delegates voted 68 per cent in favour of the motion.

I was heavily criticised by the Federation's 'don't disturb the horses' fraternity even before the vote was announced. I had to protest ''in the strongest possible terms' to the conference organisers who intended (once the vote had been counted) to delay the announcement till later in the day - when the press had left.

The management of the FSB did not adopt the policy of leaving the EU despite the overwhelming support for the motion on that sunny Saturday in March 2001.

In response to my continuing to question, (particularly over the past 12 months, detailed on this blog) the pro-New Labour stance of the FSB in the North East, the Regional Committee recently voted (I am verbally advised) to send me to 'Coventry'. Yes, they actually voted to formally ignore me despite the fact that I am a member.

The voice of the rank and file FSB members has clearly stated, and continues to do so, that the EU is bad for businesses and wants out.

The FSB's declared objectives are to protect and promote the interests of small businesses; not the EU.

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For furter comment see: Gone over to the enemy by Dr Richard North http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/06/gone-over-to-enemy.html

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Also, Beef and Gravy

http://verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com/2005/04/beef-and-gravy.html

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It is important to read 'Hand Arm Vibration Regulators':

http://verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com/2006/01/hand-arm-vibration-regulators.html

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The Sunday Quote

''The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority, the damned compact, liberal majority.''

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) An Enemy of the People (1882)

Mushroom Treatment

The Guardian, the very British left of centre national newspaper, being keen to remind readers of its green credentials gave away wallcharts to its readers two weeks ago. The charts illustrated the wonders of the birds and the bees.

The giveaways, not incidentally printed on recycled paper, identified all the sharks, garden birds, butterflies, fungi and sea fish that readers might run into on the way back from their independent (non corporate) newsagent.

The result was less than accurate. The paper got the name of one shark and the size of an other completely wrong; it identified several moths as butterflies; suggested readers look out for a number of extinct birds in British gardens and recommend eating the giant funnel-cap mushroom which is toxic to many people.

In what will go down in annals of journalistic history The Guardian, hit upon an intriguing way to apologise. Readers were offered the opportunity to try their luck by entering a draw for ''a packet of free wild mushrooms''.

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One could be excused for thinking that The Guardian readers would have been better off left in the dark !