Sunday, March 26

The 150 th Sunday Qoute

Our 150 th offereing today is:


''Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.''

George Orwell (Eric Blair) 1903 - 1950
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Note - The Sunday Quote has been published since 2003 on various websites and discussion forums. Recently The Sunday Quote received the ultimat accolade from a political commentator, that of being quoted.

Changing times


Well it is cold, windy wet and downright miserable in our green and (mostly) pleasant land. At 1 am (01.00 hrs GMT) British Summer Time (BST} began and the clocks in the Realm were advance one hour.

In a bid to boost the nations moral (and perhaps improve the weather) a three year trial of double summertime (last introduced during the Second World War) was introduced by Lord Tanlaw, a 'crossbencher'. Under Lord Tanlaw's Bill the clocks would not go back an hour in October but stay an hour ahead until next March. An other hour would then be added until the following October.The change would make the most of daylight hours by providing an extra hour of evening daylight throughout the year.

Lord Tanlaw said that the most compelling case for change was that the potential to save 100 lives on the UK's roads each year. He added that other pros included ''a deterrent to early evening crime and gaining £1bn a year in tourist revenue.''

The Bill received enthusiastic cross-party backing, but Lord Sainsbury a government minister and substantial donor to the Labour Party would not support the plans. The Bill did gain an unopposed second reading but without Government backing it has no chances of becoming law. A consideration of course is that if the UK were to be an extra hour a head of our European ''partners'' that would put the clocks back on the process of further integration into the European Union.

Friday, March 24

Thanks be to our soldiers


When British, American and other coalition soldiers risk their lives to save one British and three Canadian peace campaigners (pictured above) from terrorists who had kidnapped them. Then it becomes “release”. Or so it seems from the various comments on the BBC Website.
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The Kember family, for instance, released the following statement:
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“We are very pleased that Norman and his friends are safe.
We are grateful for all the support we have had from so many people since Norman was taken hostage.
We also thank everyone who has worked so hard for him to be set free.”
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Well, how nice. Who worked so hard? And who actually set him free?
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Common decency requires gratitude to the soldiers who had gone in there not knowing whether they would come out alive and unharmed. But common decency seems to be in short supply among Christian peace campaigners.
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In the long list of people quoted by the BBC, only the Prime Minister’s spokesman used the word “rescue”. Even that statement was mealy-mouthed but better than the Foreign Secretary’s who appeared to think that all these people had somehow been freed in some unexplained fashion.
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Michelle Malkin (who else?) prints some letters of outraged Christians to the Christian Peacemakers Teams, who are rejoicing on their website at the “release” of their friends and comrades.
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One letter deservs special reference:
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“Congratulations on the safe return of your activists. I'm sorry they did not all make it home safely. I read your press release relating the "release" of the activists; please note that they were not released, they were rescued. The term release implies that their captors let them go. You know that is not true, they were rescued by a team of American and British soldiers who risked their lives to free people whom apparently have no gratitude for their actions. It is one thing to be against war and the actions of our military
(I'm not justifying that position, just acknowledging your right to it), but another to deny when they SAVED YOUR ASS!”
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Couldn’t have put it better myself. (Well, I could, actually, by using the correct nominative case instead of the accusative in the third sentence.)
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One could be excused, perhaps, to be overcome by a no doubt very unworthy wish that the soldiers had left this bunch of ungrateful individuals where they were.

Thursday, March 23

Troy's (short) briefs



Brown delivers 10th Budget
Budget 2006: Key points
Budget 2006: Statement in full
Cameron takes on 'roadblock' Brown
Budget 2006: Business issues
Budget 2006: The economy Budget 2006: Public services
Budget 2006: Brown boosts families
Budget 2006: Tax and duties
Budget 2006: Athletes get £600m boost

The end of the week quote is from Chris Lloyd, Political Editor of The Northern Echo.

''........ Just as Mr Brown's Budget had very little to do with finances, so Mr Cameron's one-liners had nothing to do with policies or principles.'' The Northern Echo 23 March 2006

Well said sir, contiue with astute comments of that quality and I for one shall contiue to purcase the newspaper long after it has become a daily tabloid. Which will be a break in both a personal policy as well as a long held principle.

Wednesday, March 22

More Great Deception

The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer The Right Honerable Gordon Brown MP will this afternoon unveil his tenth -and possibly his last Budget to the backdrop of the cash for peerages sleaze row that his shown the present Labour governement to be clearly institutionaly corrupt.
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Mr Brown will no doubt portray Britain's economy as constasntly performing well. The essental truth is as we have featured in the past on this blog that British subjects are taxted on average (direct and indirect taxation) at a rate of over 36 per cent of their (average incomes).
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When Mr Brown has ''sat down'' we will post a special edition of ''Troy's briefs'' which will bulge with details of the changes anounced by Gorden ''Prudence '' Brown; and the effects upon Her Majesty's over taxed, over governed, over spun, over regulated and over conned subjects.
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After all that extra 6 billion per year needed to give (not loan) to the EU as the UK's additional 'membership fee' in a few years time will need to be raised somehow - after all the 'European money' needed to bribe the nations 3 million small business people will have to come from somewhere. Sadly most smaller business people have yet to rumble the greatest financial deception of modern government. The majorty of the nations true wealth creators are too busy (filling in government forms) to work out that they are only getting their own money back - less unacountable costs. in the form of various regional grants from 'Europe' which are dressed up and promoted by government agiencies (RDAs and Business Links) as generious development grants.
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One businesses ('European') grant is an other businesses increased tax demand.

The mid week quote

'' If each of the millionairs ''lending'' money to the Labour Party were to finance an ailing hospital, he might earn his peerage.''

Letter to The Daily Telegraph, 21 March 2006

Tuesday, March 21

Official rat catcher dies



The homeless orphan who clawed his way from destitution to the very heart of the British Government serving under three prime ministers died at his retirement home in south London last week.

Humphery the former Downing Street Cat who wandered into the official residence of British prime ministers during the last days of Margaret Thatcher's permiership died in humble obscurity.

For years the black and white tom stalked the corridors of power ridding them of unwanted rodents at a rate that any corporate pest control operative could only marvel at. With his favourite Whiskas paid for by a Whitehall allowance of £100 per year Humphery became a well known and much respected official cat.

Humphrey, named after the civil servant in the television comedy Yes Minister became the only cat to be the subject of an official parliamentary question concerning the 'great robin massacre' which thanks to his political tenacity and frantic denials by his Cabinet Office minders, he managed to weather.

Shortly after Labour came to power in May 1997 rumers started to circulate that Mrs Prime Minister considered Humphrety to be unhygienic. The Labour spin doctors whirled into action arranging a photo call with Humphrey and Cherry in the garden of Number 10. The intrepid cat clung onto his job but was, as is the way in Whitehall, he was retired later in 1997. The Number ten press office put out a statement that a kidney problem rendered him unable to continue his work.

In an interesting twist The Daily Telegraph third leader today highlights a much talked about conspiracy theory that has been aired in the Westminster village. The rumour being that when Humphery had been destroyed on the orders of Cherie Blair.

The official line that Humphery had been retired on health grounds due to kidney failure has a serious flaw. How is it that the trusted retainer lived on an other 7 years to the ripe old age of 18 (over 90 in human years). Was the cat that died last week really Humphrey - had the original been ruthlessly put down by the new occupants in the autumn of '89 and the facts covered up ?

Suspicions will remain and add yet an other blot onto the history of Tony Blair's administration. This blog supports the call for a Royal Commission to establish the facts.


Additional research by Hector

Monday, March 20

Most people would just moan and pay up

Peter Troy - Photograph with thanks to The Northern Echo
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Case Dismissed
By Peter Troy
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Regular readers will recall that my new years revolution (resolution) was to set an example and to be (even) more revolting. The week before last Durham County Council gave me an opportunity to advance my objective.

As reported by Gavin Engelbrecvht in The Northern Echo on Saturday I successfully overturned a fixed penalty fine (£30) attached to my vehicle in a Durham side-street last April.

The problem started when Sophie overheated - the long drag up the MI from leafy Surrey had proved a tad to much for my recently orphaned new acquisition.

Sophie - a two litre diesel Rover 75 was a symbol of the state of the once great British motor Industry. The demise of Sopie's (so very British to name ones car I feel) makers in Longbridge Birmingham had just been announced and the stress resulted in the old girl breaking down in Durham. Well to be precise she overheated in a zone two parking area in the ancient City of Durham.

The Northern Echo reported:

'' Magistrates in Durham accepted that Peter Troy's claim that he had parked in a restricted area to allow his engine {actually Sophie's} to cool.

Mr Troy of Sedgefield said '' I was articulate and able to argue my case. Most people would just throw up their arms and pay the fine''.

Mr Troy, a former chairman of the Darlington branch of the Federation of Small Businesses said his problems started last April when his Rover 75 overheated in Leases Court....''

Breaking down when in a hurry is very annoying which was made worse by that very British entity - the petty official backed by an army of automations.

Gavin Englebrecht continues the story:

'' He returned after giving the car time to cool down to find that he had a £ 30 fixed penalty fine.Mr Troy sent the ticket back {that very day} with a note explaining what had happened. But he got a reply some months later saying if he did not pay he would be prosecuted. The system had gone into automatic mode.''

Despite many attempts to discuss the matter with the 'authority' which is a combination of Durham County Council and National Car Parks it was impossible to speak with anyone who had the authority to make allowances for any 'mitigating circumstances'.

So it came to pass that on the morning of Friday 10 March I found my self waiting out side court number 3 at Durham Magistrates' Court opposite Her Majesties Prison Durham charged with:

''......failing to pay the charge prescribed by Durham County Council (Durham City Zone 2) ...... contrary to Section 47 (1) of the Road Traffic Act 1984 as amended.''

Well now, the prosecution solicitor had a thick file and a witnesses and I as they say in legal circles, was representing myself.

The first opportunity to upset the smooth running of my trial presented it self when I was asked how I pleaded. The clerk demanded my answer: ''Well sir'' I said ''I really don't know what to say.'' I am here because I did not pay, but I did not pay because I did not , I will argue, commit an offence. As the crime, that I am accused of is that I did not pay the fine - then I must plead guilty since I have not paid - but as I had not parked my car but had involuntarily stopped I am making a case to their Worships that I need not pay thus I am not guilty, but I admit not paying as stated by the Clerk on the summons to this court.

After some discussion which just about everyone in the court contributed to the case continued. I conducted my own defence in a manner of utmost respect to their Worships. However the Clerk was clearly less than impressed with my stout advocacy. After some 45 minites of detail accounts and questioning as to poor old Sophie's upset that day the Magistraits retired. Returning some half an hour later their Worships anounced in wonderful detail that ''the case had been dismissed.''

As I left the court I similed, but not smerked, as the usher opened the door for me - returning my smile I thought I heard him say ''bloody well done Sir'', but I could have been mistaken.

Who Governs the EU

"So, you thought the European constitution was dead, did you?” That is the heading of the op-ed in today's Daily Telegraph by Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP and darling of the Eurosceptic movement.
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"Two years from now," he writes, "the European constitution will be in force - certainly de facto and probably de jure, too. Never mind that 15 million Frenchmen and five million swag-bellied Hollanders voted against it. The Eurocrats have worked out a deft way of getting around them."
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Mr Hannon writes that the EU was "born out of a reaction against the Second World War, and the plebiscitary democracy that had preceded it", thus claiming that “the EU is based on the notion that "populism" (or "democracy", as you and I call it) is a dangerous thing.
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"In so doing, he ignores the fact that the concept was born in the aftermath not of the Second, but the First World War and was a reaction to the failures of the League of Nations and its rule by unanimity, which prevented any robust action on contentious issues.
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In the 1920s, therefore, Monnet and Salter (founders of what is now the EU) both sought a construction that would by-pass the unanimity rule, introducing the concept of "qualified majority voting". This would not only enable decisions to be made, but would safeguard the rights of the smaller nations as the weighting in the "qualified" structure would prevent the big nations ganging up on the "dwarfs" and imposing their demands on them.
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Thus was born the core philosophy of the "Monnet method", which sought to replace the evil – as Monnet thought – of intergovernmentalism with the more benign doctrine of supranationalism.
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Where Hannan gets his analysis wrong is that he fails to recognise that, although the "European Union" as an entity is powering ahead with issues which were introduced in the EU constitution, they are being implemented on an entirely different basis.
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The aim of the EU constitution was to add to the commission's powers, collapsing the so-called "pillar" structure and bringing much of the intergovernmental nature of pillars two and three (Foreign and Security Policy & Justice and Home Affairs) into the maw of the supranational acquis.
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But, with the rejection of the constitution by the Dutch and the French, the "pillars" stand intact. While policies named in the constitution are being added to the Union’s brief, the power is not going to the commission, but the European Council, with the council of ministers increasingly acting as subordinate structures to the Council.
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In other words, there has been a fundamental shift in the nature of the EU, with member state governments re-asserting their authority, giving the Council more power.
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On the other hand, the political power and the authority of the commission is ebbing away. What we are seeing, therefore, is the antithesis of Monnet's supranational integration and a reversion to intergovernmentalism.
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This has profound implications. Not least, although the supranational model has massive structural imperfections, in its way it has a systematic element to it. Its proposals are published and their is a structure to their approval, not least through public discussions in the European Parliament. Thus, while we can rarely prevent new measures coming through, at least we know of them and know they are coming.Not so with the Council route. The Council, of all the EU institutions, is least transparent. There are no structures for its decision-making and there are neither EU nor national mechanisms for scrutiny of its actions. Much of what goes on in Council is neither recorded, witnessed nor understood, letting member states stitch up deals between them, with minimal interference or democratic input.
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The upside is that, in it is own way, this structure bears within it the seeds of its own destruction.
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As Monnet observed, the rule of unanimity does not work on the serious decisions, when national priorities reassert themselves. Already, we have seen this with the Lisbon process - and much else besides - so that little constructive can be expected from the new intergovernmentalism. More likely, the friction engendered by high expectations combined with the inability to deliver, will hasten the demise of the European Union.

Sunday, March 19

The Sunday Quote

''Labour, n One of the processes whereby A acquires property for B.''

Ambrosia Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Wednesday, March 15

Tax Burden


Letter published today in The Northern Echo


Sir,

A report just published by a leading firm of Chartered Accountants points out the that the tax burden for British businesses, both small and large, is now the highest in modern times.
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Gordon Brown has raised taxes massively in recent years but there has not been enough effective public opposition either from the political parties or amazingly from the main business organisations. So, for Brown, the increase in revenue has been relatively politically cost-free.

Unless Britain's businesses speak up clearly they will continue to be ignored in actuality by the present anti-business but pro public sector government.

The run-up to the budget - where Gordon Brown is likely to outrageously claim that he wants to make Britain more competitive - would be a good place for business organisations raise serious objections. Their message should be clear: Higher taxes undermine business competitiveness and make Britain less able to compete in the 21st Century global economy.

Peter Troy

Tuesday, March 14

Appaling arrogance

Plod Blair (Sir Ian Blair) Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has yet again proved his reputation as being "Institutionally Incompetent".

Senior Plod's latest faux pas is to have recorded a conversation (without agreement) with the Attorney General. amazingly regarding the possibilty using bugged telephone calls as evidence in trials of suspected terrorists.

In recent years the British Police have been obsessed with the enforcement of rules and procedures to a degree that is disproportionate to the public interest. Now Britain's most senior Policeman has been 'nicked' for arrogantly ignoring well defined rules. Regretably he was not issued with a fixed penalty fine !

The result of the Independent Police Complaints Commission Investigation into the killing of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, which is currently before the Crown Prosecution Service is expected to result in criminal charges being brought against a number of the Police Officers involved in the sad killing. A separate investigation into Plod Blair's handling of events following the killing is expected to reveal charges of an attempted cover up by the Commissioner.

As is the way with these matters, the Prime Minister has announced that his name sake has his ''full support''. Clearly by the end of April the only support Plod Blair will receive is that of his senior colleagues escorting Sir Ian, an appaling arrogant public servant, out of the front door of New Scotland Yard.

Monday, March 13

Regulatory mindset

A recurring theme on this blog is that our membership of the European Union is not the cause of the increasing regulatory malaise in our society, but a symptom of it.
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Our own government, as events have more than adequately demonstrated, is quite capable of generating its own mass of laws and restrictions without any assistance from the EU. To that extent, even if we left the EU tomorrow, it is doubtful whether we would notice any difference.
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The problem is the "regulatory mindset", a belief that infects not only our legislators but society at large that the answer to all our problems is yet another law, government action or government control.
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That malaise is summed up in the oft-heard phrase: "they (meaning the government, the council, or whatever) should do something about it".On that basis, simply addressing the quantity of legislation and seeking to reduce the number of regulations which apply to us, is not the answer. We have to deal with the mindset which gives forth the regulations in the first place.Nevertheless, that has not stopped the Telegraph today falling into the trap of calling for less regulation, its leader today declaring: "Labour should axe laws, not pass more of them".
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To do it justice, it does point out that the law-making process itself has become a travesty with, as it writes, decisions being taken "by a handful of appointed advisers in Tony Blair's Downing Street 'den', then passed to Cabinet ministers for information only, before being promulgated publicly not through Parliament but through the media." It goes on to say that:
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''The House of Commons increasingly resembles the worst sort of county council, where bemused councillors sit in thrall to the unelected officers who have assumed their powers. The House of Lords has become an expensive public house, open to anyone who can afford it. … ''
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Cabinet, the Commons, the Lords - the three Parliamentary checks on the Prime Minister's executive power - have been eviscerated since 1997.Therein lies the Eurosceptic dilemma. We rail at the legislative process in Brussels, the lack of control, the lack of transparency and the inherent anti-democratic nature of it all yet, on our very doorstep, we have a regulatory machine which is just as mad, lacking control and transparency, to the extent that it too is anti-democratic.
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Having identified this as a serious issue, the Telegraph leader tells us that it looks forward to some future British government cutting back on regulations but, in the meantime, it says, all laws should have an automatic "sunset clause", whereby they lapse after a number of years unless they are specifically renewed. New Labour should stop passing laws, and start repealing some.
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In parallel with the leader, Philip Johnston writes the "Home Front" op-ed, headed "A Doomsday Machine for Parliament", in which he takes a tilt at the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill completed its committee stages in the Commons last Thursday.
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"You have to admire the brass neck of this government," writes Johnston, describing the Bill. "After introducing more laws and regulations than you could shake a stick at, it is now trying to undo all the damage it has caused by foisting the legal equivalent of the Doomsday Machine upon Parliament and the country." It is, he decalres, "one of the most pernicious measures to have come before a British parliament."
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He then tells us:
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''The Bill would empower any minister by order to make provisions amending, repealing or replacing any legislation, primary or secondary, for any purpose, and to reform the common law to implement Law Commission recommendations.
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This does not mean by a stroke of the pen; there would still need to be a debate or a vote in the Commons or the Lords, although only if MPs or peers object within a specified time frame.But if a government has a big enough majority, such procedural niceties are largely irrelevant. Furthermore, there would be no requirement for full scrutiny on the floor of either House, but only for a somewhat perfunctory debate in a committee.
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The then adds:
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''Indeed, the continued promulgation of Bills such as these will irrevocably change the sort of country we are because we have been defined over the centuries by the possession of parliaments that would never have countenanced such a grotesque proposal.
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On this basis, he argues for the "sunset clause" under which the Bill would lapse after five years and need to be renewed. This would, he said, give Parliament a rare opportunity to consider whether the measure had fulfilled its purpose or not, the sort of post-legislative scrutiny that is almost non-existent at Westminster.
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Only then, towards the end of his piece, does Johnston get to the nub of the issue, arguing that, instead of bringing forward the Bill, ministers could simply abandon their fetish for making laws on everything under the sun. The government should commit itself unequivocally to less legislation, he adds.Here, of course, we have to interject our common complain about the "elephant in the room", in that Johnston fails to point out that the bulk of the regulation affecting businesses comes not from London but from our superior government in Brussels.
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Further, while he rails at the lack of scrutiny by Parliament of laws generated by Whitehall, is he not aware that Regulations (as opposed to Directives) promulgated by Brussels have direct effect – that is they come into law the moment they are "done" in Brussels, without even being considered by Westminster?
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The fact is, though, that successive British governments actually like Brussels making laws for them. It saves them the trouble and time in framing their own laws, and the inconvenience of taking them through Parliament. It also gives them an alibi and a convenient lightning conductor, allowing them to wash their hands of unpopular legislation by letting Brussels take the blame.
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On the other hand, a government that was inherently opposed to over-regulation could not countenance membership of the EU and would doubtless seek our withdrawal, simply because it would be unable to tolerate the blizzard of regulation coming from that source.
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Thus, "sunset clauses" are not the answer. Returning to the central issue, over-regulation stems primarily from that all-important "regulatory mindset", which affects not only legislators but society as well. That is where the battle should lie, and needs to lie. Until we address that crucial issue, everything else is trimming round the edges.

Sunday, March 12

The Sunday Quote 149

''It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the authorities are wrong''

Voltaire 1694 -1778

Compliments of Peter Troy

Saturday, March 11

The great depression

The statue of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a straitjacket which was unveiled in Norwich to draw attention to the stigma surrounding mental health has brought complaints from old soldiers and members of the late politician's family.
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Norwich North MP Dr Ian Gibson and Cliff Prior, chief executive of mental health charity Rethink, revealed the statue inthe City as part of a campaign which is striving to stamp out stigma and ignorance surrounding issues such as manic depression
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Sir Winston Churchill was chosen because despite dealing with the symptoms of manic depression throughout his life, he was able to become Prime Minister, lead the country during World War Two and be voted “The Greatest Briton” in the recentnational poll.
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But political leaders and members of Sir Winston's family have condemned the “distasteful” and “inappropriate” statue.Nicholas Soames, Tory MP for Mid Sussex and Sir Winston's grandson, commented in the Eastern Daily Press “What seems to me a very worthwhile charity seems to have completely lost their way and done something which is offensive and stupid and turned a sensible campaign into a joke.”
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Ray Holland, chairman of the Norwich branch of the Royal British Legion, said: “It does seem to me an inappropriate thing to do. I would have thought there are much less offensive ways of raising their image and getting their message acrossthan using a statue of Churchill. I am sure it will cause offence to a number of war pensioners and war widows.”

Perhaps, one must consider that had Sir Winston's inspired leadership, particularly in 1940, not saved our great nation from the evils of Nazi occupation mental health patients in Britain would have, as happened in Germany and Axis occupied teritoritories, been brutally mass murdered.

Statues are erected to portray a message and 'Rethinks' statue of the great man is no exception. The the final word, we believe, should go to the French Philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778): ''I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it''

Friday, March 10

Big regulation and small businesses

By Dr Helen Szamuely
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Mr Nick Herbert, formerly Director of Reform, an extremely useful think-tank that has not yet managed to get the Conservative Party pay any attention to its free-market ideas, now Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, presented a Private Member’s Bill on Tuesday under the Ten Minute Rule.
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Now, let us be reasonable. This Bill is going nowhere. Mr Herbert will be lucky to secure a Second Reading on some poorly attended Friday session. It is merely a way of putting down a marker – a slightly more effective one than an Early Day Motion. At least, there will be a Bill published.
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The theme is that old chestnut, the exemption of small (in this case micro) businesses from regulation.
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Mr Herbert’s argument is perfectly sound.
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Small business makes an immense contribution to the economy. Small enterprises—those with fewer than 50 employees—make up over 99 per cent. of all businesses and over half of private sector employment.
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As the economy moves toward higher, value-added activity, the share of it taken by small firms will only grow, so the weight of regulation now pressing on small businesses and hindering their wealth creation is an issue for us all. The Better Regulation Commission has estimated that the total cost of regulation facing the economy is now some £150 billion.
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The Hampton review found that national regulators alone send out 2.6 million forms a year. Inevitably, this burden falls disproportionately on small businesses. Large companies are able to employ people to deal with regulation; small businesses simply do not have that option.
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Academics from the London School of Economics have found that regulatory costs per employee are five times higher for small firms than for larger ones, that small employers spend five times as many hours per employee dealing with regulation, and that they spend almost 5 per cent. of their annual turnover on compliance. Equally, the Federation of Small Businesses has shown that the administration of pay-as-you-earn costs a business with fewer than five employees £288 per employee per year, yet for a firm with 5,000 employees, the cost is just £5 per employee.”
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The figures are scary.
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The trouble is how to deal with the problem. As Mr Herbert acknowledges, all past efforts, to create less regulation, better regulation, even better regulation have failed. The red tape is binding businesses ever more tightly.
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''My Bill would confront the problem of regulation in three ways. First, it would give Ministers a duty to consider alternatives to, and exemptions from, existing regulations affecting small and medium-sized firms, and a power to create those exemptions.
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Secondly, because the impact of regulation on microbusinesses—those with nine employees or fewer and an average annual turnover of just £130,000—is particularly disproportionate, the Bill would create a presumption that microbusinesses are exempted from any future regulation. That would protect over 4 million businesses from future regulation.
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Thirdly, in respect of all future regulations the Bill would impose a statutory requirement to carry out a regulatory impact assessment—surprisingly, that is not a current requirement—and to consider alternatives to regulation in doing so.''
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There are a few problems with those solutions. The biggest of them, as ever, and a little surprisingly in this case, as Mr Herbert has also been Director of Business for Sterling, there is the obvious lack of reference to the elephant in the room.
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Just precisely, how does Mr Herbert think many of those regulations that are, incidentally, killing the small businesses on the Continent as well, going to be by-passed if they originate from the European Union? We are legally bound to implement those.
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There are other problems. Although later in his speech Mr Herbert makes clear that his Bill allows parliamentary scrutiny of the minister’s decision, one suspects that the “proper parliamentary procedure” would be the odd negative SI that would lie before both Houses for 40 working days and that would be the end of the matter.
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Mr Herbert is doing exactly what the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill is doing – proposing to give ministers more power in the name of easing the burden of red tape. Not a happy idea.
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Finally, the idea of exempting certain businesses from regulations instead of reforming the whole structure (something, to be fair, Mr Herbert says he would like to see) will merely impose more burdens and act as a disincentive to growth.
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And we shall still be left with the elephant in the room.

Tuesday, March 7

Baa Baa Rainbow sheep

From the editor's breakfast table.

This morning, whilst munching my high fibre breakfast cereal I mused over a BBC today programme early morning report that the politically correct 'police' had struck, yet again.
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Two children's nurseries in Oxfordshire are teaching their pre-school children a new PC version of Baa Baa Black Sheep - they are now chanting ''Baa Baa Rainbow sheep...''
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The charity running the nurseries, Parents and Children Together (Pact), said the move was ''educational, not motivated by racial concerns.'' Pact said (unconvincingly) children were encouraged to use a wide range of words in songs, perhaps they should have said spectrum !
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Anyway, if the Oxfordshire toddler teachers get their way we will be eating not blackberries but rainbowberries, for fear of moral rainbowmail (blackmail), whilst baking four and twenty rainbowbirds (blackbirds) baked in a (low fat) pie. In the Palace or Westminster Rainbow Rod (the renamed ancient position of Black Rod) will most definitely require a coat of many colours. Snooker loving folk will be potting rainbow then contemplating in our nations pubs the rebranding of Yorkshire's finest real ale, Rainbow Sheep.
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As for what Hector's nephew Jesse (my black - sorry Rainbow - cat ) will think about it all when he returns from his routine (fluffy) rodent control tour I really don't know.
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In the PC correct nursery in Oxfordshire they will no longer chant the very British traditional rhyme:
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''Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, Three bags full; one for the master, and one for the dame, and one for the little boy Who lives down the lane ''
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but will without any feeling ( yet with full PC compliance) the young ones will perhaps chant:
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'' Baa, baa rainbow sheep, have you any wool ? Yes person yes person, three (environmentally friendly trading standards approved) bags full; one each for the gender equality ( and non age discriminated) community leader as well as one for the young person who lives in a child friendly nanny state down the lane.''
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PT

Telegraph fireing

There is much rejoicing in the ranks at the news that Sunday Telegraph editor Sarah Sands has been dismissed.
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Famous for her aspirations to make the paper "intelligent and elegant", she achieved neither. The first edition under her control, in November, was graced with a picture of Kate Moss, coke-snorting supermodel, in exotic lingerie.
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The paper went downhill from there, suffering a dramatic collapse of readership in December, of over 50,000. It is rumoured that figures due out shortly show the collapse has continued which, it is believed, triggered Mz Sands' rapid exit. She is replaced by Patience Wheatcroft, currently City and Business Editor at The Times, a post she had held since 1997.
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Also, Eurosceptic and scourge of big government, Scotland on Sunday Editor Iain Martin, is leaving that paper to join the Daily Telegraph. With a bit of luck, we may be seeing a return to grown-up journalism in both newspapers.

The mid-week quote no 15


“As for accusations that he, (HRH Prince Charles, left) is interfering in party politics. He isn’t. He is interfering in something a damn sight more important – issue politics, which is a whole different ballgame.”
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Carol Malone, right, Sunday Mirror columnist.
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Clearly HRH is being well advised. Ed.

International Woman's Day

The capacity of the EU commission to capitalise on meaningless events, and then to devote its energies to fatuous, irrelevant schemes, never ceases to amaze.
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Its latest wheeze, in conjunction with International Women's Day on Wednesday 8 March 2006, is to get its statistical body, Eurostat, to publish tables providing information on women in the EU, showing differences and similarities with men. "EU Women Work More, Live Longer, Are Better Educated, but Earn Less"
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We are also told that women work more hours a day - including paid employment, study and household work - in every country surveyed except Sweden. The average life expectancy of women in the EU is 81.2 years, compared with 75.1 for men. Women, who account for more than half of university-level students in almost all EU member states, earn 15 percent less than men once in the workforce.
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Women were more likely to be unemployed than men in the EU, only 32 percent of managers in the EU are female, and about a third of working women are in part-time jobs compared with 7 percent of men. The biggest gaps between men's and women's pay were in Cyprus, Estonia and Slovakia with about a 25 percent difference. The narrowest gaps were in Malta, Portugal and Belgium, at around 5 percent.
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Nothing is for nothing, and the release of these statistics is all part of the commission’s strategy to raise awareness of women's issues, not that its members are actually interested in women per se – especially Britains EU commisioner Mr Mandelson.
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No, the real agenda is to kick-start its stalled plans for yet another EU institution, its European Gender Institute, which was launched last year – on International Women's Day 2005 – a location for which has yet to be agreed, even though it is supposed to be up and running in January 2007..The problem, as always, is the EU's very own version of pork-barrel politics.
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As EUpolitix points out, the institution comes with a €52.5m annual budget so there is much competition between member states as to which country will be awarded the dubious honour of hosting the offices.

Sunday, March 5

The Sunday Quote no 148

'' We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart.''

Saki -1870-1916 The Unbearable Bassington (1912)

The first Spitfire


This day, exactly seventy years ago, at 4.35pm on 5 March 1936, the first ever Spitfire lifted from the grass strip at Eastleigh Airport, home of Supermarine Aircraft, on its maiden flight.
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In the hands of Captain "Mutt" Summers, the flight lasted just eight minutes. Afterwards, he stepped from the aircraft and tersely conveyed to the assembled crew that he had found no problems - then he added "I don't want anything touched" - and so the first official Spitfire was born, the cost of development to that date amounting to the sum of £14,637. This was the aircraft, alongside the Hawker Hurricane, which was to play a pivotal part in winning the Battle of Britain in 1940.
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Back in 1936, so impressed was the Air Ministry with it that, even before the full test programme had been completed they issued a contract for 310 Spitfires on 3 June.
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The aircraft alone, however – superb though it was – would never have performed without the parallel development of the 12-cylinder Rolls Royce Merlin engine. But there were two other developments which gave it the edge over the Messerschmitt bf 109 – one British, the other American.
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The first was the three-bladed, variable-pitch propellor, manufactured by Rotol, and the other was leaded petrol. A consignment of the vital tetra-ethyl lead was rushed over to the UK, just before the Battle of Britain. With it, Roll Royce were able to increase the power of their Merlins, which gave the aircraft those extra few knots that made all the difference.
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Behind the fighters, of course, there was that other British invention, the chain of early-warning radars, linked in with a then unique system of fighter control, which enabled the embattled Royal Air Force to prevail against the greater might of the hitherto unbeaten Luftwaffe.
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Interestingly, seventy years later, the Spitfire has come in the top three in the Design Museum contest for greatest British design since 1900, the other two being Harry Beck's 1931 London Underground map and, perversely, the Anglo-French Concorde.
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In a hundred years time, if the Design Museum runs another contest, this one for the greatest British design since 2000, you can almost guarantee that there will not be a Spitfire-equivalent. In this era of European "co-operation", the days when we built our own war machines have long gone.
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Lest we forget.
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Friday, March 3

A very British meeting



The place to be on Friday March 24th, 2006, is The Stanley Livingstone Room, Radisson Edwardian Hotel (formerly the Free Trade Halls), Peter Street, Manchester.
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Our learned friend and prolific political writer, Dr Richard North will be addressing the meeting, on the salient subject of, "Will small British businesses go the way of the dodo?"
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The meeting begins at 4.30pm, and further details are available from verybritishproductions@yahoo.co.uk
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Britain's largest member based business organisation, The Federation of Small Businesses, will be holding their annual conference at the Palace Hotel only a short walk down the road.
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We are pleased to announce this as an Alternative Fringe Meeting to the somewhat more staid official fringe meeting on the FSB official agenda.
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Dr North, a former FSB member is always controversial, deeply knowledgable and profoundly entertaining (his skills continue to be rejected by the management of the FSB) will be signing copies of his latest literary work; a new paperback edition of "The Great Deception", (Continuum, £9.99) best-selling history of the EU, co authored with Christopher Booker. This work has been extensively revised and updated, to include the story behind the rise and semi-fall of the EU constitution. When the first edition appeared in 2003, it was praised by historians and commentators as by far the fullest and most revealing account of the "European project" to date, and sold more than 10,000 copies in the first few weeks.
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As any practising business person will confirm the EU has a profound effect on the process of business. Those who are asking whether the FSB's policy of appeasment towards Britians' true rulers is in the best interests of the independent business community will particularly benefit from the event at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.
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Wednesday, March 1

The cost of regulation

The front page of the Telegraph business section runs the headline Government regulations have cost British business £50bn since Labour came to power, billions more than the Treasury expects to collect in corporation tax this year.
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This is research carried out by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) based on official figures, and shows that the burden to business of complying with workplace, consumer protection and environmental regulations has reached £10bn a year. Even if no new regulations are passed over the next five years, says the BCC, the total red tape burden since Labour came to power will hit £100bn by 2011.
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It is not until you look at the list of regulation about which the BCC complains, available only online, that you realise that by far the bulk is EU-originated.
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Yet, what we get from Sally Low, the BCC's director of policy, is that the "sheer volume of new rules was overwhelming businesses and the government had to act."
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Precisely how is our government supposed to act ?

Please can we spend our own money ?

Last week there was much ado about the threat to close upwards of ten thousand rural post offices in Britain; causing much distress to their customers and the hard pressed small business community in our glorious countryside.

The fate of the post offices centred on the annual £150 million subsidy to keep the post offices open. The Scotsman boldly stated: "EU's £150m lifeline will save rural post offices from closure".
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Most newspaper readers will think that the EU has actually coughed up with some money but scrutiny of the story reveals the sad truth. The "EU lifeline" is nothing more than approval given by the EU commission to our own government, so that it can spend our money on the post office subsidy.
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Before British ministers could expend our own money on a vital social service, they had to go grovelling to Brussels in order to convince the commission that the subsidy did not amount to "unfair state aid".
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Amazingly the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in a News Release (PR/2006/24 on 24 Feburary) '' applauds the rural post offices decision'' and welcomed the decision by the European Commission to permit the Government’s £300 million (!) support package for rural post offices.''
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This is how we are now governed, without effective opposition and compliant support from those that should know (and understand) better.
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