These Men Should Be Dead

by Dr Richard North

Anyone unfortunate enough to listen to the intolerably smug Eddie Mair on the PM programme yesterday, when he interviewed the forces minister Bob Ainsworth, may have recognised a common BBC technique.

Ostensibly, the interview was about the unfortunate Ben Parkinson. He had suffered terrible injuries when the WIMIK Land Rover in which he had been riding had been hit by a mine, and had since been awarded what was described as "paltry damages".But, from the way Mair conducted his line of questioning of the minister, it was easy to discern that he wanted one thing – a personal admission from the minister that he thought the level of compensation awarded was "inadequate" – the game here to capture a damaging sound bite that could then be used on subsequent news bulletins, and perhaps be picked up by the print media.

So obsessed with his little game was Mair that he failed to pick up an outrageous assertion made by Ainsworth. The minister had it that the reason soldiers like Ben Parkinson were surviving was "better armoured vehicles", which allowed them to survive when, previously, they would have been killed.

Yet, as even the Daily Mail story made clear, Mr Parkinson was riding in an "unprotected Land Rover". Ainsworth's point, which has some general validity, was wholly untrue in this incident. Had the soldier been riding in a properly protected vehicle, he would have been uninjured, and would still be serving in the Army.

That we can make such an assertion with such confidence stems from a remarkable report in The Northern Echo which features three soldiers (pictured above) who, "owe their lives to a new £500,000 vehicle".

They were all in Mastiff armoured personnel carriers when they hit landmines or were attacked by Taliban fighters with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

One solider, Private Stephen Mac-Lauchlan, from York, survived four RPGs hitting his vehicle. One struck the windscreen and exploded, but failed to penetrate the toughened 6in glass. Another hit armour on the side of the vehicle and exploded harmlessly, while the other two hit the fuel tank, but only left it badly dented. Said Pte MacLauchlan, "If I had been in any other armoured personnel carrier, I would almost certainly be dead now.

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"Pte Lee Ashton, on the other hand, was on a mission to supply food and water to frontline troops, when his vehicle hit an anti-tank mine. He said: "It blew the front tyre off and the wheel arch, but it kept driving. It just felt like we had hit a huge pothole. I only realised we had hit a mine when I saw the tyre was off. A big cloud of dust came in through the vents into the cab. The man on top-cover then shouted that we had hit a mine. "It was a big anti-tank mine and if I had been in any other vehicle, I would probably be dead.

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"Then there was Pte Lee Jones, 24, from Penrith, Cumbria. He was also in a Mastiff when it hit an anti-tank mine. He said: "There was big explosion and a lot of dust. It lifted the vehicle between seven and 8ft. It was like a car crash. It blew the front wheels off, but this vehicle is brilliant. It saved my life. It has saved a lot of lives."Even without these accounts, though, we already had good evidence of the life-saving role of these vehicles.

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Thus armed, I placed a post on the PM blog. It says everything about the BBC that, with now 47 comments posted on the blog, the comment that went against the narrative and pointed out that Mair had failed to task the minister with an obvious untruth, did not get published. Thou shalt not criticise the BBC.

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Therein lies the true dereliction of the BBC. Mair had an opportunity to point out that life-saving technology was available and was not used, but squandered it in his attempt to score a cheap point against the minister. Then his dire organisation covers up for him and hides criticism from the public gaze.Unfortunately, it is not only the Beeb which so singularly fails to hit the mark. A few days ago, the Noble Rees Mogg held forth in The Times on the theme," Blood on a budget: our soldiers betrayed". Amongst his priceless observations was this:

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Throughout the Iraq war, our Forces have been short of suitable armoured vehicles. For years, the Basra Palace run had to be performed in vulnerable Snatch vehicles; these have only recently been replaced by the Warrior, which is itself vulnerable to roadside bombs. Unlike American vehicles, the Warrior is not air-conditioned and can get unbearably hot in the sun.The noble Lord is, or course, misinformed.

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The "Snatch" Land Rovers were not replaced by Warriors but by Mastiffs (which are, incidentally, air-conditioned). The trouble is that there are not enough of them, or their equivalents, so soldiers are still riding and dying in Snatches.

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Meanwhile, men are also dying or being horribly injured in less protected WIMIK Land Rovers in Afghanistan, and in the equally useless Pinzgauer Vector.

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Furthermore, while the noble Lord complains that, "Treasury parsimony can cost lives," somewhere in England there are now stored 401 entirely useless Italian-built Panther Command and Liaison Vehicles. Ordered in November 2003, in preference to the RG-31, this batch was priced at £166 million - equating to £413,000 for each vehicle – a sum that would have bought anther 300 Mastiffs or a greater number of RG-31s.

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It is by no means only Treasury parsimony that is the problem. Nevertheless, this does not inhibit Rees Mogg from intoning that, "Soldiers do not object to being sent to war as such. They do object to having to fight without the best equipment and support…". He is partly right, but soldiers also need the support of the media – an informed media.

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To be fair, The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph did play their part in bringing the current batch of Mastiffs to theatre. Because of that, three young men who, by their own estimation, should be dead, are now alive. But, if the smug little Eddie Mair's of this world - and the pompous Rees Moggs – did their jobs properly and also supported our troops, there would be more men alive today and even more uninjured.

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Troop photograph copyright: Nigel Green Media. Supplied FOC to this blog, with many thanks.

Portaloo Gets IT Wrong - Again

Trawling through the Sunday newspapers, as one does, Dr North was particularly struck by the title of Portaloo's piece in ...... click the link to read on

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/search?q=An+other+day+an+other+rant

Encouraging Words Only

The Letter above written by the Editor of this Blog was published in The Journal last week. Click to enlarge.

We Must Have A Say on How We Are Governed

The Sunday Times leader this morning is calling for a referendum the so called 'Reform Treaty'. "So much for Gordon Brown’s promise to devolve power to the citizen," it thunders:

''When it comes to European Union stitch-ups, it seems, Mr Brown remains the control freak of old. His assertion that a parliamentary vote on the proposed new EU constitution – and it is a constitution, Mr Brown – is all that is necessary, and that a referendum is unnecessary, is classic elite politics. We won't ask the people because they'll tell us what we don't want to hear.''

"Mr Brown's already high poll ratings would almost certainly climb even higher if he were to prove himself the champion of democracy and do the right thing: offer us a vote on our own constitution," the paper then adds. "He would show himself to be consistent, tough, forward thinking and, above all, in tune with his own people. What more could a prime minister on the verge of a general election want?""So come on," it concludes: "Mr Brown: give us the referendum your party promised."

Add that influential comment those of two senior Labour MPs who represent a hard core of 40 Labour MP's who are preparing to put an embrassing 15 point plan to the Prime Minister calling for a referendum or amendments to the treaty.

Gisela Stuart the outspoken MP for Birmingham Edgbaston and significantly a former UK parliamentary representative on the Convention on the Future of Europe recently commented: " I would have thought that the call for a referendum was a classic New Labour Agenda. We are the party that has asked the people far more often than any other party has done before.I can see, having skimmed through this new document, that all the big items are still there.'' Convincing arguments indeed.

Gwyneth Dunwoody the true conviction Labour MP representing Crew and Nantwich and (despite the past wishes of Tony Blair) has been the Chairman of the Commons transport committee, commented: I believe there should be a referendum and I hope my party will honour its commitment in our 2005 manifesto. This is more or less the same package of proposals that were contained in the previous EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch Voters. A national vote is needed if only on the proposed defence mechanisms.''

Mrs Dunwoody, who entered Parliament more that 40 years ago, added "I have strong reservations about the moves on the part of the Europe to consolidate legislation and have great concerns about the proposed changes. So in the rare case of the EU treaty, I believe we have to have a referendum.''

Thus is how the pressure is building up with the curious mixture of Tories, Trade Unionists back bench Labour MP's joining forces to demand a vote on the very fundamental changes on how we are to be governed.

The Sunday Quote

''Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.''

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, 1804 -1881

The Continuing Risk

If Brown gets his way, we'll have no power to deport dangerous aliens.

By Christopher Booker

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From the shambles engulfing our waste disposal to the fiasco of Home Information Packs, a regular theme of this blog has been the difficulty that so many politicians and journalists seem to have in grasping how much of the way we are ruled is dictated by our new system of government centred in Brussels.

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Yet another example was the confusion that so many commentators got into last week over Britain's inability to deport Learco Chindamo, who murdered Philip Lawrence, a headmaster, outside his school gates in 1995.

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Most of the media (and the Tory party) rushed to blame this on the Human Rights Act, when careful study of the judge's ruling would have shown that the realcause of our Government's impotence was an EU directive, 2004/58, on the "free movement of peoples".

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The EU law presents us with a wonderful Catch-22. We are allowed to deport a criminal such as Chindamo if he poses a continuing risk to the public, but he can only be deported once he has been let out of prison. And, in law, the very act of letting him out of prison means that he is no longer deemed to be a risk. Ergo, there is no way in which such a man can be deported.

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In fact our powerlessness to decide who is or is not allowed to live in thiscountry will become even more acute if Gordon Brown gets his way in railroadingthrough the EU treaty he is so keen on.One of the many provisions of the treaty that have not yet attracted the noticethey deserve is Article 69 (copied, like almost everything else in it, from therejected constitution which Mr Brown insists was something totally different).

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Article 69 obliges the EU to abolish "any controls on persons, whatever their nationality, when crossing internal borders". In other words, once someone hasentered any of the 27 countries making up the EU, it will become illegal to prevent them from entering any other EU country, regardless of their nationality.

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So if millions of Turks or Russians or Somalis somehow manage to enter any part of the EU, the British Government will no longer have any right to stop them entering Britain and staying here.

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Mr Brown may think this is a sensible way for us to be governed. But it is hardly surprising that he does not want the wishes of the rest of us to beconsulted in a referendum, since he must know that few of us would be likely to agree with him.

Three cheers for the Kiwis

Our congratulations to New Zealand farmers -who said that the Commonwelth sprit is dead. Considering how much we stuffed New Zealand farmers when we joined the Common Market way back in 1972, yesterday's gesture was pretty generous.

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The news is that New Zealand lamb producers have taken the extraordinary step of suspending their UK marketing activities out of sympathy for foot and mouth restricted British farmers.

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The Kiwis – traditionally fierce rivals – will not undertake any promotional activity in the UK until next February to allow the UK lamb sector to recover from the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

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One wonders whether, had the French (our EU cousins) been in a similar position, they would have been so generous to British farmers.

The Death of Good Reason

It is difficult to know what to make of a report in The Journal that according to planning officer Fiona Clarke "local opposition isn't a good enough reason to refuse planning permission". That staggering comment of course begs the question what is good reason .

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Apparantly local objectors said that a proposed Funeral Director's new premises would depress elderly people living nearby. Raymond Ives, of the Pea Farm Residents' Association added that: "A business like this would be more suited to an industrial unit. This is a residential area, the business would be out of keeping with this, and there are many other empty commercial premises in Stanley which could be used."

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Funeral parlours in the main streets of many north east towns are very much apart of the local sceen and for many decades it was customary for some multi-skilled men to start a joinery and undertakers business. Previously local residents seemed remarkably happy to face the makers of wooden overcoats in our main retail areas but not these days what's changed one wonders?

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Planning permission in this particular case was granted despite the objections of the local people.

The End of Week Quote

The words of Czech President Vaclav Klaus in responce to the EU reform treaty:

"I see this as a big mistake but the bigger mistake is that they did not tell this to Europeans clearly and distinctly. They should have said loudly that they have practically approved the rejected European constitution,"

The Power of Popular Newspapers

It was The Sun which, as always, distilled the message down to its bare essentials – that "thousands of Labour voters will desert Gordon Brown at the next general election if he refuses to hold a referendum on the EU constitution".

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Thus we learn that almost a quarter of the party's life-long supporters - 24 percent - say "they will kick the PM in the ballot box unless they get a vote".This is based on an ICM poll conducted for The Daily Mail today which gives a clear 82 percent of respondents in favour of a referendum on the EU reform treaty. Furthermore, there are only marginal differences between voters for the main parties, 80 percent of Labour and 88 percent of Tories going for the proposition.

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What is remarkable overall though, is how consistent the pro-referendum sentiment remains. On 11 August, The Sun poll had 81 percent in favour.

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What The Mail considers "most alarming" for Gordon Brown is that which The Sun picked up – that 24 percent of Labour supporters would be less likely to vote for him at the next general election if they are denied a referendum. Some 13 percent of Labour voters would even consider switching to the Tories if Cameron promised a referendum. All this depends on the prospect of an early general election but the finding could mean that the prime minister will be less inclined to go early – if indeed it was ever his intention to do so.

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Not a few wiser heads are saying privately that dropping hints of a snap election is an excellent way for Brown to keep the Tories off balance – and keeping the political hacks occupied so that they are not looking elsewhere for their stories.

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Nevertheless, the overall message to Cameron should be that the "old agenda" Labour slur has not rooted and support for an EU referendum is a potential vote-winner.

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What may give aid and comfort to the Europhiles, however, is an additional finding that indicates that only 21 percent of the sample are in favour of outright withdrawal from the EU.

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Should there ever be a referendum, this must give a pointer to the general tactics – one can see the Europhiles arguing strongly that a "no" vote would mean British withdrawal.

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On the other hand, only six percent are in favour of more integration, which would tend to suggest that a sharp focus on how this new treaty strengthens the integration agenda has to be the way forward for any "no" campaign.

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Where the situation gets muddy, however, is in the finding that 47 percent would prefer to have some powers taken away from the EU (57 percent amongst Tory voters). One wonders how sentiment would be affected if it was put that exercising such an option might lead to British withdrawal, and certainly precipitate a crisis within the European Union.

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The real question, though, is whether Gordon Brown will listen to the opinion polls, or simply tough it out. If, contrary to the expectations of some, he "goes long" and does not call a general election until 2010, he may be banking on the hope that the treaty will have been long ratified and will thus have become a dead issue.

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If this indeed is the strategy, much will depend on whether the Conservatives keep up the pressure in both Houses of Parliament, although there might be an even more powerful weapon waiting in the wings.

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According to Andrew Neil, writing in the Guardian, Brown's relationship with both The Sun and The Daily Mail will "hit a rocky patch" if he does refuse to call a referendum.

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Brown might feel he can ignore the Tories but even he might have to take note of the two most popular newspapers.

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The Journal

As of Sunday evening this blog is now linked to The Journal.

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This represents a momentous leap forward for our glorious Blog; we have become, literally linked to one of the North of England's premier newspapers, well their website, www.journallive.co.uk.

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A short scroll down The Journal's front webpage there is a button that takes the viewer/reader through to a landing page, where there is a link to a small number of definitive blogs, of which Very British Subjects is proud to have been chosen. The link is labelled - Peter Troy talks politics. Well actually for most of my adult life I have talk of little else so that at least is apt.

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Regular readers need not fear, this Blog will not change its, indpendent and distinctive editorial style; after all it is for its charicteristics we were chosen by the editorial team at The Journal to be included to enhance the range of their website. The Journal is a newspaper which earned the my respect for its detailed and later campaigning coverage of the Foot and Mouth crises of 2002.

Peter Troy

The bottom of Patientline

Full (bottom) marks to Patientline PLC who last week released an Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 April 2007 to 17 August 2007 ahead of the company's Annual General Meeting on 27 September. Patienline's shares remain at between 1-2p, hardly an impressive bottom line for its long suffering investors.

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The company's incompetent senior management are, they say, still looking for ways to sort out the company's debts of over 85 million pounds and declining sales.

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Since simply to reduce its products prices to affordable levels, understand the needs of sick people and sack half of its aloof senior management has not registered in its corporate conscience, Patientline's bosses have confirmed the obvious that a sale of its assets to NHS Trusts or the Department of Health is "unlikely to result in material reductions to the company's bank debts.'' That is hardly surprising since most of Patientline's equipment is as effective a leech would be to a diabetic heart attack victim. ''Other ideas for the reconstruction of Patientline's debt are being explored" says a company spokesperson in an attempt to convince the City they are not about to cease trading.

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As regular readers will know the cause of the recent crisis is Patienline's failure to solve its previous crisis brought about by crass incompetence and greed of its vastly over paid and very arogant directors.

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The company raised its charges in April 2007, but adverse publicity (for which this Blog is proud to have played a leading part) forced it to reduce prices in August. Outgoing bedside telephone call charges went up to 26 pence a minute, this was cut back to 10 pence a minute two weeks ago, or so the company announced.

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As with all things to do with Patientline the actuality is quite different; telephone calls to non BT land lines - i.e. NTL - remain at 26 p per minute with a minimum call rate of 40p. That means that most of Patientline's (sick) customers in, for example, Middlesbrough and Stockton will still be charged the increased rate; since in Teesside NTL (not BT) is the dominant telecom provider. All incoming phone calls are still charged at an eye-watering 49 pence a minute.

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Patientline's income to 27 July, the first four months of Patientline's financial year, fell a huge 21 per cent, which the company bosses correctly blamed mostly on adverse publicity from its price rises; of course the deluded souls only have themselves to blame.

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So why full (bottom) marks to Patientline? Well their statement to the financial press last week ended:

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"The board is continuing to work to reduce the cost base of the business. The board remains confident that these cost savings and the sales initiatives will result in positive cash flow for the year."

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Those words have to be the biggest corporate lie since Enron's auditors confirmed an other satisfactory year only a weeks before it collapsed. Well done Patientline PLC for issuing such fine quality corporate bull shit to investors, the Deparment of Health, their own staff and sick people; the late Robert Maxwell would have been envious before going overboard.

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The reality is that Patientline's board will all be out of work - and sadly so too will their 1,100 stressed and mosly hard working front line and call centre staff - within a matter of weeks or perhaps a few months at the very most. That collapse will cause yet more stress in NHS wards which will be an act of near criminal corporate incompetence by its lacklustre senior management.

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So there (yet again) we have it: when Patientline corporately bends over and Patientline's Directors do a group demonstration of the legendary Ouslem Bird on its last flight (for the benifit of the uninformed the unfortunate creature flew in ever decreasing circles until eventually it disappeared up its own rectum) the panty lines will be on full display around its embracing and very publicly viewed rear end.

A petition to 10 Downing Street can be signed on: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SickCharges/

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The EU Safety Mark.

The Chinese toy recall is given full the treatment in The Sunday Times today, with sorry tales of fraudulent safety certificates, checks not done and standards not met.

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The issue is a classic example of the failure of a core EU system which has direct relevance to British peoples' lives.

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No one is telling the wider public what the full story of what has gone wrong and why - except, of course, Christopher Booker ('Safty Mark is a danger') in his regular column in The SundayTelegraph.

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The Sunday Quote

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exausted all other alternatives.''

Abba Eban, speech 1970.

Watching the Regulators

Last week the British media were full of the report produced by John Redwood's competitiveness commission.

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Many Others have had their say on this but, of particular interest, was the BBC Radio 4 Today programme interview of shadow chancellor George Osborne.

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During a long discussion, he was challenged by Sarah Montague on Redwood's deregulation proposals – cutting "red tape" as she put it - who specifically referred to the claim by UKIP that little could be done because most regulation came from Brussels.

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Said Montague, "The trouble is that, of course, half, as the UKIP – the United Kingdom Independence Party’s pointed out, that over half the regulations applying to British businesses are from the EU. That the Conservative Party would have huge legal problems if you started trying to untangle that.''

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Without so much as a blush, Osborne immediately responded:

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''Well, you've got to remember that what actually happens is that the European Union proposes a directive, proposes a way of regulating something, and then leaves it to the national governments to decide how that is actually implemented in the member state. So that means the British civil service decides how the European directive is implemented. And I think, on far too many occasions they have over-interpreted European regulations, they have made them overly burdensome and, you know, the first place you could start with European regulation is by making sure that European regulation is not imposed in this country more harshly than it is in other European member states.''

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Sarah Montague did not respond to the failure to address her question, and moved on to other matters. Thus did Osborne completely evade the issue of what to do with the massive burden of regulation that is not "over-interpreted" and is simply "onerous".

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Even then, although 'gold plating' – as it is often called – was a problem in the 90s, it is less so now. Some of that is because of a spirited campaign in those same 90s, led by Christopher Booker – whose work merited not a few mentions in the House of Parliament. But, perhaps, as important a reason has been the changing nature of EU regulations.

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Back when we joined the (then) EEC, the primary legislative instrument was the Directive. These were often very loosely phrased and, indeed, they left national governments a great deal of flexibility as to how they implemented them.

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As business people know only too well know, all too often our government (under the supervision of ministers), did over-egg (or 'gold plate') the resultant British legislation.

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Currently though, by far the bulk of EU law comes in the form of EU (European Commission) Regulations which have what is known as direct effect. They become law the moment they are "done at Brussels" and do not require transposition into British law. Furthermore, they are usually very precise, leaving little room for interpretation.

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As to EU Directives, by far the majority of these coming through the system are what is known as "framework directives", rather like British enabling Acts, giving power for the Council or the Commission to make EU regulations.

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Mr Osborne must have known this, as indeed do business lobbying groups. For some months now, the shadow Cabinet has been under instructions to trawl for examples of "gold plating" and junior shadow ministers have been put to work. But, despite extensive trawling, the pickings have been very thin indeed. This was also the case when two years ago when blog editor asked the Federation of Small Businesses to suply examples of 'gold Plating'; hard examples were indeed also very thin on the ground.

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What Mr Osborne was doing on the Today programme, therefore, was indulging in diversionary tactics. He was engaging in a deliberate and calculated deceit, all because, like his colleague John Redwood, he has no intention whatsoever of engaging seriously with the European Union to cut down the burden of regulation.

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Well we have news for Mr Osborne and others who seek to avoid the real cause of the problem over over regulation of British business some may be taken in by the deception, however the blogs are watching.

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PS From 11th to 18th July the EU has passed FORTY FOUR laws that will impact on the UK.

The EU has now announced more plans:EU proposals want trade unions to have greater input into the legislative process and to be able to have an influence across national boundaries. The European Union is proposing to add more costs onto road transport businesses. Under EU plans aviation safety is to be weakened and Common Law to become regulated by the EU. EU proposals want the UK Government to rehabilitate foreign criminals in Britain.

No Tax Collection Here

The photograph above is of a ''not in use'' Gatso Tax Collector in South Devon. So much for the deterrent effect!

John Biffen

Lord Biffen of Tanat, the former Conservative Cabinet minister, died today in hospital. He was 76. As John Biffen, the former MP for Shropshire North was leader of the House of Commons for five years during Margaret Thatcher's premiership.His successor in Parliament, Owen Paterson, offers the following tribute:

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John Biffen was an exceptional man. He was MP for North Shropshire for thirty five years and people of all parties and all interests owe him a great debt. He was greatly admired as a constituency MP for his conscientious hard work, his judgement and his kindness to all, regardless of their political affiliation.On the national stage, he was first and foremost a great Parliamentarian, still remembered as one of the finest Leaders of the House of the last fifty years. Liked and respected by both friends and opponents, he handled the House with fairness and a deft sense of humour. He was a staunch believer in the sovereignty of the House of Commons.He played a key role in the revival of the Conservative Party’s fortunes in the 1970s as a member of Margaret Thatcher's inner circle, rethinking and developing the policies that led to eighteen years of Conservative Government and the transformation of Great Britain.However, to the end he was brave and independent-minded, never afraid to part company with the party line if he believed it to be wrong.My thoughts go out to his wife Sarah and his stepchildren Lucy and Nicholas. She has always been a tower of strength and in particular, has looked after him with unfailing care in recent years as his health declined.

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Labelled by political commentator Brian Walden as the "most honest" politician he had ever interviewed, Biffen famously said of Thatcher, "she was a tigress surrounded by hamsters."

The Sunday Quote

"Opinion is ultimately determined by feelings and not by the intellect."

Herbet Spencer 1820 - 1903

Social Statistics 1850

Holiday Time

The editor is of on a short holiday so postings on this blog will be a tad infrequent for the next 10 days or so.

We will endeavour to post some interesting links.

News from the Patientline Front

Petition on Patientline's prices

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Patientline in response to thousands of complaints, deminishing revenue and mounting pressure (not least from the esteemed editor of this blog) have reduced the charge rate for phone calls from their 75,000 hospital bedside units back to 10 pence per minute.

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The company had raised the cost of an out going call from 10 per minute to 26p in April. There will be no reduction in the exorbitant charge of 49p a minute for friends and relatives to call patients at their hospital beds.

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Patientline a PLC as we have commented before - but does no harm to stress - is run by directors who have more in common with the management style of first world war generals than the best practice of modern corporate management.

The Senior management of the debt ridden company are so far removed from the front line of their company's operation that they are quite oblivious to the stress they are causing their own staff, as well as patients, nursing and care staff. A point that the editor of the blog made on commercial radio in the North East yesterday.

Patientline's products are difficult to use, the pricing structure is complex and the equipment is very unreliable with spare parts and basic equipment in short supply.

Readers should consider that as they read this piece Patientline staff are being sent over the top, fired up with an incentive of hundreds of pounds of gift vouchers to sell an over priced and unreliable service to sick people.

If the NHS management is not willing to call a halt to Patientline's unacceptable practices then the current situation is one that Gordon Brown should put on his list of changes since Patientline was born of the government initiative 'patient power'.

A petition to 10 Downing Street can be signed on http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SickCharges/

A Very European Coup D' Etat

Click Christoper Booker below to read.

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Master wordsmith Christopher Booker has stitched together some of the key components of the EU's "reform" treaty, to make a coherent story, and identify the dangers of this attempted coup d'etat.

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With or without the "red lines" Brown inherited from Blair, and whether or not the new treaty contains 90, 94 or 96 percent of the original EU constitution, what is on the table is extremely dangerous and represents a real threat to the sovereignty and independence of this country.

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This is what Booker shows, displaying a depth of analysis that comes from the extensive study of the European Union that gave us The Great Deception, a perspective which leaves many of the amateur analysts floundering.

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With that, it is now time to move on from bleating about "red lines", the sterile, "yes it is – no it isn't" comparisons with previous draft treaties and the "veto counts". We need to deal with what the EU – with the willing assistance of Gordon Brown – is actually trying to foist upon us, under cover of what its rapidly degenerating into a rather tired little parlour game.

The Sunday Quote

" So long as there is anything to be gained by saying nothing, it is always better to say nothing than anything.''

Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, script for Yes, Prime Minister, 1986.

Foot and Mouth, back.

Cattle at a farm in Surrey have been found to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease.

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Some 60 animals on the farm near Guildford have tested positive for the disease which wreaked havoc in 2001. A protection zone has been put in place around the premises and a UK ban imposed on movement of all livestock. Gordon Brown has cancelled his holiday in Dorset and taken part in a meeting of the government's Cobra emergency committee by telephone about the issue.

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Meanwhile, our actual government - the EU commission - has been informed.

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Last time Britain was infected with Foot and Mouth it was one of the most disgraceful episodes of governmental mismanagement that has ever been seen in this country. We pray that this is an isolated outbreak.

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For the latest information, this is the site to watch.

The Devil in the Detail

By Dr Richard North

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Now that the official English version of the revamped constitution - the so-called "reform" treaty - has been published, we can get down to studying it in detail. As one correspondent noted, we should avoid getting bogged down in the detail. As he wrote, "getting lost in the nitty gritty of EU law can lead one to missing the bigger overall picture."

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The bigger overall picture is, in fact, hidden in plain sight, in the very first line of the preamble, which states: "Recalling the historic importance of the ending of the division of the European continent …". This is, in fact, the equivalent of "towards ever closer union …" introduced in this form in the Nice Treaty, and not there by accident. It highlights the fundamental aim of the "reform" treaty and all those that preceded it – political integration.

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It cannot be emphasised enough that that is the primary purpose of all EU treaties. They may aim to accomplish other things (such as "streamlining" the text) but those are always secondary, no less than in this "reform" treaty.Now, for there to be a political union – and that is the ultimate objective of the European Union – it must have a government which has supreme authority over all the governments of the member states. Its development started with the Treaty of Rome, amplified by case law from the ECJ (which established the supremacy of community law), and it continues apace in this treaty, bringing the government close to the finished state.
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This is to be seen in a new Article 9 of the treaty where the "Union's institutions" are set out. And it is here that the genius of the original draftsmen must be acknowledged, in their use of an anodyne term "institutions". Although linguistically correct, the more precise term would be "government". The moment you use that word, everything falls into place.

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Turning to this new Article 9 then, we see the following:

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1. The Union shall have an institutional governmental framework which shall aim to promote its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States, and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions. The Union's institutions government shall be:

The European Parliament

The European Council

The Council

The European Commission

The Court of Justice of the European Union

The European Central Bank

The Court of Auditors

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2. Each institution (The government) shall act within the limits of the powers conferred on it in the Treaties, and in conformity with the procedures and conditions set out in them. The institutions government shall practise mutual sincere co-operation.

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By comparison with the previous treaty (Article 7 TEU), we see two additions, the European Council and the European Central Bank, both of which existed in previous treaties but now become fully-fledged institutions – i.e., part of the government – of the Union.
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The key change, though, is the addition of the European Council. The significance of this, we have rehearsed in detail but certain elements bear repetition.
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In short, the heads of states and governments of the member states, who comprise the European Council, cease to represent their own member state interests and become absorbed into a tier of the EU government, bound by its laws and obliged to further the aims and objectives of the Union.This is actually set out in the first part of the paragraph, which states that it (and the rest of the government) "shall aim to promote its (the Union's) values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States…".

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It is no coincidence that, in the pecking order, the Union comes first, the "citizens" second and the member states third and last. That states the priorities and the order of preference. By this means, our heads of states and governments become subservient to the European Union.The same, incidentally, applies to the council (of ministers). Currently, the commission website tells us that:

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…each minister in the Council is answerable to his or her national parliament and to the citizens that parliament represents. This ensures the democratic legitimacy of the Council's decisions.
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This is only theoretically the case but, under the new treaty, it can no longer be so, even in theory. As members of the EU's government, each minister is bound by treaty to "promote its (the Union's) values, advance its objectives, serve its interests…" before those of their citizens and own states. They no longer represent their states, but the European Union. They are not accountable to their own parliaments or peoples, but to the ECJ.

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As we observed earlier, anyone who is looking for a change in the fundamental relationship between the European Union and the member states should start here, with Article 9.

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By bringing the European Council into the maw of the EU, together with the full-time president (who is also a member of the European Council), and making both European Council and council of ministers subject to the Union's aims and objectives, the EU is that much closer to creating its supreme government of Europe, through which to rule us all.

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All the EU enthusiasts need now is an elected president of the European Council (which will surely come if this treaty is not stopped) and they will be there.

c c c c

John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN, comments again on the "special relationship" and the EU.Writing for The Financial Times, he notes that successive British governments have taken Britain deeper and deeper into the European Union, all the while proclaiming that nothing fundamental about Britain's status was changing. Now, he observes, the re-emergence of a European "constitution" – under whatever name – has brought Britain to a clear decision point.

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The long, slow slide into the European porridge has had few clear transition points. In the aggregate, however, the magnitude of changes in the status of the EU's formerly Westphalian nation-state members can no longer be blinked away.He is not wrong.
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His point is picked up by the Daily Mail, saying that Bolton has latched on to a truth that seems to have escaped our government: if we sign up to the revived EU constitution, Britain will cease to be an independent nation.

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The Dail Mail continues:
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As far as the outside world is concerned, Europe will be a single superstate - and our special relationship with the US, like every distinctively British foreign policy, will become a meaningless irrelevance.But can't we easily avoid that fate? At the last election, Labour solemnly promised to call a referendum on the EU constitution. As the entire world can see, the 'Reform Treaty' now being finalised in Brussels is identical to that document in every essential.Keep your promise, Mr Brown - and let the people save our independence.

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It will be interesting to see how much of this sort of thing Brown can withstand before he buckles – if at all. One thing is for sure though, the EU enthusiasts are not getting it all their own way.

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