The Power and the Properganda

.

Christopher Booker is in an optimistic mood today in his column, declaring that, "2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved".

.

To support his thesis, he points out that all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. He thus tells us that last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

..

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

.

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

.

Making the point is a piece in The Times - business section headed, “Blackout fear as UK power plants face axe.”The story is interesting because it tells us that the effects of the EU's Large Combustion Plant Directive is going to be more damaging than predicted. The nub is that, when power plant operators made their decisions to opt out of the directive and thus close down a number of coal plants by 2015 rather than pay the exorbitant sums needed to conform with the directive, it was assumed that these plants would only be used for peak generation, working on limited hours.

.

Because of the recent price distortions in the energy market, however, these plants have been working more or less full time, providing base load electricity and thus becoming worn out faster than anticipated. With major refits being economically unviable, given the limited lives of the plant, many will now have to close down early.

.

The first of them, Scottish Power's 1.2GW plant at Cockenzie, which generates enough power for 1m homes, will close as early as September 2010 based on current rates of electricity production. The "energy crunch" is thus predicted to hit us by 2013 rather than 2015, as we lose some 7.6GW of electricity – ten percent of the UK's total capacity.The seriousness of this issue is such that it is this, rather than their fatuous obsession with "climate change", on which our policy-makers should be concentrating, to say nothing of the anticipated shortfalls in crop yields that will come as a result of the extended bad weather.

.

Unfortunately, therefore, while Booker is undoubtedly right – the miasma of "global warming" having now lost whatever credibility it ever hand, the dark shadow of obsession still afflicts our ruling classes and they are not even beginning to budge.

.

One suspects it will take catastrophic failures in our own electricity supply system, and famine on a global scale before reality percolates the dismal thinking of our politicians.

.

The Sunday Quote

.
''By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.''

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

A Subject of Cost

.

A visit to The Daily Telegraph website reveals that each member of the House of Lords now costs us nearly half a million pounds a year, the total costs of running the "most exclusive club in London" now reaching £305 million in the last financial year. In 2002-2003, the total cost was £110 million.

.

From the current inflated sum, direct expenses paid to peers top £18 million, with some 17 peers claiming £60,000 each in "tax-free perks". They include Britain's most expensive lordship, Labour's Baron Brett of Lydd in Kent, a former trade union leader, whose expenses totalled £66,197. He registered an address in Cumbria as his main home. Lord Kinnock, the former Labour Party leader and EU commissioner, submitted claims totalling nearly £22,000 after being made a peer in November 2007.

.

The Daily Mail runs a similar story, but focuses more on the individual gravy-train riders, attracting over 200 comments on its website – all of them hostile to the peers as far as I can see. Needless to say, by far the greater number of their Lordships with their snouts firmly in the trough are Labour peers.Where their Lordships – and the Commons – seem to have been highly productive, however, is in creating new offences, The Telegraph running a story which tells us that the government has been creating an imprisonable offence once every four days over the past ten years.

.

Strictly speaking, it is not the government as Parliament – the House of Commons and Lords combined - must approve any measure that introduces an imprisonable offence. Of course, it is a long time since that Parliament took any interest in such matters and, the record shows us why.

.

With the members of both Houses now more interested in lining their pockets than doing their jobs – debates on MPs' expenses being among the best attended – it is easy to see that they have little time to attend to the liberties of the Queen's subjects.

.

What this really does reinforce, though, is how far our ruling classes have become detached from any sense of reality. If they had they slightest grip, they would not be milking the system but, given that there seems to be little connection between them and the real world, they are quite happy to justify their increased takings.

.

It cannot last. It never does. The tumbrels will eventually roll. But, for the time being, we have to suffer "their noble parasites" – as they preside over the wreckage of what was once a proud and useful institution.

.

..

Boxing Day Quote

.
''We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. ''

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
.

A Christmas Ramble

I have always quite liked Scrooge before he went all wet and sissy and started buying turkeys that were too big to roast in time. (I mean when did the Cratchits actually get round to eating that bird?)

Several things have always struck me as interesting about that book, apart from the stunning writing. One is that it is a very fine example of Dickens's usual inability to understand that wealth is created by people who work. He really hated the idea of people being employed. They are always miserable and the bosses are either complete slave-drivers or they do not require their subordinates to do anything at all. Clearly in those days HR management was less well developed but our Victoria forefathers (and mothers) created an economic wealth that was the bedrock of the 20th century advances that we have all enjoyed.

Secondly, it seems that in the far more religious Victorian age Christmas day was not silent with everything that could be, closed. You could buy a turkey and you could get it roasted at the local bakery, though there is some talk in the novel of the kill-joys wanting to close down the latter. Well, they have succeeded.

Thirdly, one cannot help wondering why Bob Cratchit doesn't get a better job or stop having children or both. The truth is that he is no more responsible than Mr Micawber and considerably less entertaining. A bit of self empowerment would perhaps help!

Anyway much can be forgiven a writer who can start a novel with the words "Marley was dead. Dead as a doornail."Well, there we are. I have done my share of bah-humbugging, well almost!
.
Next year will be difficult for many a point that was highlighted by nany newspapers yesterday, on the front page of The Daily Telegraph, they reminded us ''Recession will be worse than forecast''.
.
That the economic resession will be deep and long is very certain though I had to control my temper when further I read: ''Experts at the Royal Bank of Scotland said more than 400,000 jobs could be lost the first three months of 2009''. That indeed would be the worst rise in unemployment over a quarter since 1980. Those same experts who now only retain their highly (over) paid jobs at the expense of the British taxpayer were unable or unwilling to announce in advance that the actions of their greedy incompetent bosses would contribute in a large part to the economic recession that will continue to cause misery on many of their customers.

Those corporate clowns (so called experts and executive bankers) at the RBS/Nat West Group who are typical of so many corporate employees that are apart of the economic ills of the western world. Nothing short of a spell of working in the reality end of business (small business) as soon as possible in the new year will introduce them to the reality of the business world.
.
It goes without saying that Christmas is supposed to be the time of peace and goodwill to all people (though corpoarte clowns must be an exception) even if the divorce rate soars after the holiday.

Christmas is also supposed to be a time of reflection, and a break from the more worldly things - even if more people are expected to log on today for on-line shopping than attend a religious ceremony.

It is also a day off for many, although for too many it is just one day in a period of enforced idleness, with many companies extending their breaks for a month in order to cut costs and stock inventories, necessitated by the recession.

Christmas is not what it once was. From a celebration of new beginnings – perhaps – it has become nothing more than a temporary cessation of hostilities, since in many ways that is how the business world has become, hostile.

Christmas is a time when 'the enemy' has taken some days off. However, there is a good precedent for that, as pictured above, with the 1914 unofficial truce in the trenches. Basically, what that amounted to was a day off from trying to kill each other. For that reason alone, it would be nice to have 365 Christmas days in each year – or even for just one year – when humanity collectively decided to take a break from killing or even excessivly aggressive attitudes.

To those who risk their lives on our behalf ever day , the Men and Women of Her Majesty's Armed Forces Forces as well as the Civilian Servives they deserve at least one thought from us today. Today is the anniversary of that day when, 94 years ago, their predecessors spontaneously decided they should take a break from conflict in the bleak trenches of northern France.
.
A very Merry Christmas to all our readers, may your God and if it is possible also your loved ones be with you.
.
Peter Troy
Sedegefield
County Durham

Peter Troy is Chairman of Peter Troy The Publicist Ltd. www.the-publicist.co.uk

.

A Christmas Game

.

For those who would like to engage in a good Christmas game there is a posting on the Conservative History Journal blog that takes up an idea first proposed on the New Culture Forum: a list of fifty historical dates that everyone must learn because of their importance. Some suggestions are up already and Very British Subject readers might like to contribute to the discussion, in between eating turkey and playing with new presents.

.

The Sunday Quote

.

''If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time with a tremendous whack.''

Sir Winston Churchill, FRS, OM. PC

(30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965)
.

British Withdrawal from Iraq

..

General Sir Mike Jackson has written today in The Sunday Telegraph about the impending departure of British forces from Iraq, telling us that the withdrawal "represents a most significant achievement after what will have been a very difficult and challenging six years."He thus tells us that Britain’s Armed Forces "will leave Iraq with heads held high" and that they "should be proud of their efforts".

.

That is fair enough, applied on an individual and unit level, where the courage, tenacity, skill, dedication – and suffering – of our troops (and airmen and sailors) is to be applauded, unreservedly. They did what they could, and many did more than we had any right to expect of them.

.

However, we – and they – should not run away with the idea that the campaign was a success. At best, we could describe it as an "heroic failure". Our armed forces were under-resourced, undermanned and ill-equipped from the very start, given a job that they could not hope to achieve; thus, predictably – but with no reflection on those at the cutting edge – they failed.In the end, after abandoning the outer provinces, with their ignominious retreat from al Ahamrah, forced on them by the pitifully inadequate resources allocated to the Maysan Battle Groups – they were driven out of all but one of their bases in Basra, until they were hunkered down in the former Basra airport, out of the game.

.

It took Iraqi troops, with the support of the US – including its massive air power – to recover Basra from the Mahdi Army and it was not until June that they did likewise with al Amarah.

.

The new Iraqi government, "expectations of immediate economic improvement were understandably but unrealistically high" according to the General. Their frustration at not seeing this realised quickly turned to anger with the Coalition forces thus this volatile situation was "much exacerbated by the security vacuum created by Washington's appalling decisions to disband the Iraqi security forces and to de-Baathify the public administration to a very low level; the latter marginalised the very people who were best placed to help."These decisions, asserts General Jackson, "may well have doubled the time it has taken to get to where we are now."

.

Then there was the Iranian backing for Shi'a "militants", which was a further difficult complication. And there was also "the lack of a coherent reconstruction plan and the failure in Coalition capitals to understand fully the complexity of the situation."

.

All this may be true, and no one will disagree that the Americans made some appalling mistakes. But so did the British. Immediately after the invasion, they failed to recognise that a Shi'a insurgency was building up round them, initially attributing attacks to Saddam loyalists and the remnants of his forces.

.

Instead of taking on the militias, they gave ground to them, made deals with them, and then eventually handed southern Iraq to them on a plate.Much of that was entirely the responsibility of the politicians, and Tony Blair in particular, who lacked the courage, in the face of the growing unpopularity of the war, to commit the resources and the men to do the job properly. Instead, his "spin" machine went into high gear, painting a wholly false picture of a "success" that was belied by the fact that the security situation was getting worse, and worse and worse.

.

Writes Jackson, "the campaign became a long haul – we had to have the strategic endurance to see it through." But we didn’t. We did not have the "strategic endurance" nor the political endurance, nor the political will. So it was fudged.

.

Thus, while the Americans may have made all the mistakes in the book, they learned from their experiences, adapted and then prevailed. Despite the courage and dedication at the cutting face, the high command failed to adapt, failed to meld the Army into an effective counter-insurgency force, and failed ultimately to provide the leadership that the Army needed.Genaral Jackson writes of "the announcement that Britain is largely to close down its military role in Iraq by May 31, 2009," not acknowledging that the date is not one of our choice. It has been set not by Mr Brown, but the Iraqis. The reality is they have kicked us out.

.

Even then, that date might not be the final word. When Gordon Brown so confidently announced it last week, he forgot to tell the world that this was a provisional agreement, subject to ratification by the Iraqi parliament. Without its agreement, our mandate ceases at midnight on 31 December, after which we are required to leave.

.

But the Iraqi parliament has not agreed. Yesterday, it threw out the draft law which would have permitted the extension of our stay to 31 May – by a massive 80 votes to 68.Another vote is due next week but there is a strong caucus in the parliament which want to see the back of the British. Not least is Nasser al-Issawi, an MP loyal to Muqtada Sadr. He has hailed the rejection of the draft as a "great national achievement", and said he hoped the foreign troops would be forced to leave when the UN mandate ends.

.

If the parliament finally rejects the law, it will be up to Nouri Maliki to save our blushes by exercising his executive powers and signing individual agreements directly with each of the foreign states with troops remaining, giving them – and us - a legal basis to remain. This would be a messy solution, but rather appropriate for a messy war; lest we forget the facts.

.

A Bizarre Confrontation

.

Imagine that a Franco-German MEP, invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, plonked down in front of her an EU "ring of stars" flag, insisting that she hoist it over the palace alongside the Royal Standard, and then proceeded to address her in a deliberately insulting way. The British people, if news of the incident leaked out, might not be too pleased.

...

On Sunday in his column, Christopher Booker picks up on a bizarre confrontation in Hradcany Castle which confirms the inablilty of the Euro-elite to accept anyone else's opinions.

.

Inquest: Jean Charles de Menezes

.

The Front Page of yesterday's Daily Mail thunders: ''Stockwell Jury dams police cover-up'' under a picture of Jean Charles de Menezes, the young Brazilian Electrian who was killed by ''Police'' (possibly SAS) armed officers over three years ago.

All the UK national newspapers and other news services comment in detail on the verdict of the killing which took place on 22 July 2005.

The Jurors returned an open verdict which was the most strongly critical option available to them after the judge instructed them that there was insufficient evidence to rule that Mr De Menezes was unlawfully killed.

In effect the ''Police'' who killed Jean Charles DeMenezes in front of a train carriage of passengers that day were effectively called liars by the Inquest Jury. Furthermore, in response to specific questions put to the Jury by Sir Michael Wright a High Court Judge acting as Coroner in this case, the jurors responded by rejecting almost out of hand the official version of events provided by the Metropolitan Police. This is clearly a huge embracement particularly (and crucially) that the excuses by the Police that they were under extreme pressure on the day of the shooting was not accepted as valid.

The label below this post leads to other postings that were posted on this blog at various stages in this sad story and cover most of the details, there is little point in chewing over all the depressing aspects of this case again. The string of intelligence and communication blunders which led to Mr de Menezes being wrongly idnentified as the terrorist suspect Hussain Osman - on the bases of a grainey photograph on a gym membership card were rightly condemned at the Inquest.

.

The obvious sobering key facts are now well established, the Police operational plans 'Cratos' failed, key officers on the day failed and the cover-up after the event by various Police officers (thankfully) also failed.

.

It is difficult not to conclude that much of the shambles on that fateful day was not down to Cressida Dick, the officer in charge of the ill-fated operation, who has since curiously been promoted. Miss Dick and her senior colleagues left the officers who unloaded the fatel shots in an impossible position, equiping them only with garbled messages and seriously bungled intelligemce.

.

While the plight of the firearms officers on the day deserves considerable sympathy, it is a matter of grave concern and indeed a damning indictment of the police's fallen standing in our society- that the jury did not belive their account of events.
.
If the option of returning an unlawful killing verdict had been open to the Jury, there is a good chance that it would have done so, someting that the de Menezes family will be challenging in the Courts. The conclusions drawn by the jury in the £8 million, three month long trial have quite rightly huge implications for the future operational mangement of Policing in the UK.

It has also to be said specifically that the poor performance of many senior officers of the 'Met' during and since the killing is a matter of considerable public concern. Those senior officers are paid vast amounts of tax payers money to be wise before the event and not after it; quite simply it is their duty to perform to acceptable standards. It is not acceptable that they give poorly preprepared crassly insulting statements about ''lessons learnt.'' to journalists in the wake of official reports and court cases.

When business people grossly fail in their work they suffer the consequences of humiliation, loss of income almost certainly their job and frequently bankruptcy. It is a reflection of the institutionaly corrupt public sector that when senior public servants seriously fail that they are increasingly getting away with making statements saying sorry we will get it right next time. We the public must demand far greater accountability. The inevitable consequence of not demanding that accountability of our very well remunerated and expensively trained public servants is quite simple, the terrorists will win and the public will continue to suffer.

.

Global Cooling

.

One can be excused for wondering if all this information (or misinformation) about global warming is reality. This year as most of us are aware has been the coldest start to December since 1976.

Since 1 December, the meteorological start to the season, the average UK temperature has been only 35.1F (1.7C), well below the long-term 1971-2000 average of 40.5F (4.7C) for the first 10 days of the month.

It is the coldest start to December since 1976, when the average was 33.4F (0.8C). With Arctic and continental winds have dominated the weather since mid November, bringing colder conditions than normal.

On 3 December the temperature dropped to 9.1F (-12.7C) at Tulloch Bridge near Fort William in the Scottish Highlands and Tyndrum in Central Tayside, while Copley in County Durham received more than eight inches (21cm) of snow the next day.

While forecasters consider the first day of December as the start of winter, many people consider the season to start on the winter solstice, which this year falls on 21 December, next Sunday.

Nick Grahame, the Met Office's chief forecaster, said that did not signal a change in the pattern of weather, with colder air set to return early next week. He said: "The start of the weekend will bring a spell of wet and windy weather as milder Atlantic air attempts to push across the country. However, colder air looks set to win the battle again which means that frost and ice will become hazards with the risk of snow in many places".

.

Well, not good outlook for the supporters of global warming!

.

The Sunday Quote

.
''Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.''

Ronald Reagan - 40th US President (1911-2004).
.

The Voice of the People

.

The Daily Telegraph tells us to today that our MPs are about to take the longest Christmas break for more than 10 years. It will start next Thursday when the MPs pack their bags and return to their constituencies, not coming back until 12 January.

.

Quite rightly, Tory Diary expresses some dismay but since parliament has become so marginalised that it has little to do. The MPs might just as well go home, for all the good they can do in Westminster.

.

Some MPs themselves are unhappy with the situation, and we are told that the long break has "renewed accusations that politicians are out of touch with the working lives of ordinary Britons". But this is not merely a question being "out of touch". Parliament is these days regreatably impotent. What it says and does now is of very little importance and the fact that MPs can be summarily packed off home tells you all you need to know.

.

The trouble is that our Parliament does have a purpose. It is (or should be) in effect, the voice of the people, its debates articulating their concerns. Thus, if parliament is silenced, the people are deprived of a voice.

.

As can be seen in currently in Greece, when that happens, people go elsewhere to express their views. While MPs enjoy their break, therefore, they may care to reflect that it is more fundamental – it is a quite serious break between themselves and the people.

.

Misinformation in the Newspapers

.

One significant difference between this recession and the last (and the ones preceding it) is the way newspapers are being hit – mostly through a devastating fall in the amount of advertising, although there are many other factors.

.

Quietly, the big titles are downsizing, reducing the number of journalists they employ. Then, with the burgeoning number of pages and supplements they have to offer, plus podcasts, TV clips and the rest, journalists are actually being asked to do more and more, giving them less time to devote to research and real in-depth reporting.

...

An important side-effect of this is that, increasingly, the news is not generated by newspapers but by the various agencies. Much of the copy is now simply a "cut and paste" job, with a few tweaks, the less honest of the papers then simply adding their journos' names to the final result.Where this gets important is that a very few news agencies (and then a very few journalists within those agencies) are essentially controlling the print (and indeed much of the rest of the electronic) media. Through this means, one sees insidious distortions and simplifications which completely change the context of the political debate. Thus, like water flowing through the cracks in the dam, they percolate everywhere, finding their way into thousands of print and online journals, influencing the way people think about the world.

.

By way of example, today we have today a comment by Declan Ganley and Jens-Peter Bonde on the scandalous behaviour of the Irish government, in forcing through another referendum on the constitutional Lisbon treaty. As to what is put to the Irish people, "Not one word or legal obligation will be changed," they say. "The same content will simply be put in a new envelope, just as Valery Giscard d'Estaing said about the change from the Constitution to the Lisbon."

.

Then we have AP briefly reporting on the same issue, under the heading, "EU: Ireland will vote again on treaty next year". This will be repeated a thousand-fold across the world, to be read by millions.The distortions are well evident, but only to those who know. It tells us: "France, which holds the EU presidency, says Ireland would hold a second vote in return for changes in the treaty." Then, of course, we get the bog-standard formula for describing the treaty: "The document is meant to streamline EU decision-making and boost its role on the world stage…".As the Ganley – Bonde duo rightly point out – the best the Irish can get is a few meaningless "declarations" which have no legal effect. There will be no changes to the treaty … there cannot be. But this is not what AP is projecting. Its idle simplifications are a complete distortion. They project something which is quite simply not true.

.

As for the intent to "streamline EU decision-making …" etc., one could write an essay on how wrong that is. But the canards survive, because they are convenient, mindless formulae for the agencies to churn out in their bid to supply the endless pap to fill the pages of the world's media.

.

At the receiving end, you have production-line journalism, concerned only with filling in spaces – not one whit of sentient thought between copying out the agency text and pasting it onto the virgin page. Worse still, this process is not a deliberate attempt to deceive. But that makes it all the more dangerous.

.

Media bias, in this context, has never been more real and more dangerous, but the source is not in the offices of the media so much as the agencies which supply them; the drip of misinformation is endangering the political process.

.

Financial Crises

.

Europe's financial crisis has hardly begun. The loss of $500 billion by Europe's banks into the US Sub-prime fiasco is only the starter as far as the full picture is concerned. Europe's banks have also been shovelling out loans into the hands of dubious borrowers for a decade or more and impecunious third word regimes. Now the downturn has struck, the chickens are finally coming home to roost. The biggest share of third world loans, it should be noted, are held with European banks. Read more posted on The Tap Blog

.

Booker on the Blizzard

.

In his column today, Christopher Booker takes on the recently published Turner report, full frontal, under the apposite headline: "Blizzard of mad proposals descends on UK."

.

Published last week, the report is the first formal production of the government's Committee on Climate Change, chaired by Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, a committee that was appointed in February to give "expert advice on how the UK can best meet its climate change goals."Its full title is "Building a low-carbon economy – the UK's contribution to tackling climate change", and it is available online as a .PDF document running to 511 pages.

.

That Mr Booker is one of the few journalists to deal with it is critical terms is depressing enough but what is uniquely depressing is that he – or anyone else - should have to expend any energy at all in so doing.

.

As our friend points out so lucidly, in the limited space he has, the report is a catalogue of the most unremitting tosh, page after page of the most unrealistic, unscientific wishful thinking that does not have the remotest chance of coming to fruition.

.

In a sane world, this report would have been killed at birth, long before it got anywhere near the printing presses - and its stock of 75 percent recycled paper. Someone on the lower reaches of government would have taken one look at it and tossed it into the waste-paper bin, then composing a stiff memo to his minister, suggesting that Turner and his committee should be put out to grass. But we are not in a sane world.

.

Interestingly, in The Sunday Telegraph today, we have another piece which addresses the "wind power targets" and the claims by the Turner committee that wind power can supply a third of Britain's electricity. These, we are told, "have been condemned as wildly optimistic by leading experts."Actually, they are not "wildly optimistic". They are barking mad, so way beyond any possibility of achievement that their inclusion transcends mere myopia and stupidity and descends into the realms of lunacy. Yet – by government and so many others – they are being taken seriously, as if they were the production of sane, rational human beings.

.

The huge problem, though, is that despite the Turner report being a policy document created by blind technocrats, it will be adopted without input from the political classes. There will, for instance, be no debate in parliament on the report and, even if there was, it would be a low-grade, lacklustre affair as the main political parties have bought into the "climate change" miasma and argue only over detail rather than substance.

.

So it is that the debate lies outside the realm of formal politics, witnessed by Mr Booker's columns on the issue routinely occupying the top slot on the "most viewed" section of his newspaper.

.

The Sunday Quote

.
It takes little talent to see clearly what lies under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in which direction to point that organ.

W H Audin (February 1907 – September 1973)
.

The right kit

.
Without the right kit, our armed forces cannot function effectively, no matter how brave and well-led they might be. Thus, the apparently arcane issue of defence procurement is of vital importance to the well-being and effectiveness of our military. A recent contribution to the debate on procurement is the book "Changing the Dinosaur's Spots" by Bill Kincaid, himself an "insider" who spent 18 years in the MoD, recomended reading.
.

Sobering Words

.

Charles Moore was rampant in The Daily Telegraph yesterday giving vent to "New Labour'' buried deep in his piece are some sobering words. Of the Speaker, and of Parliament as a whole, he writes:

...

Mr Martin does what so many MPs have done in the face of the draining of powers to Europe, Whitehall, the courts and the media. He has settled for bigger offices, more pay, larger expenses and a massive pension - preferring a mess of pottage for himself to the birthright that is ours.It has been saddening in this rumpus to see how little the general public seem to mind the mistreatment of Parliament - saddening, but understandable. We believe less and less that it belongs to us: we are right.
.
He is absolutely right when he notes "how little the general public seem to mind the mistreatment of Parliament." Far from universal outrage over the presumed breach of parliamentary privilege, what is clear at the time of the first reports was amusement, observing that most ordinary people rather enjoyed the prospect of an MP's pad being turned over by the Old Bill.

Interestingly, Moore refers not to the "privileges" of MPs and parliament, but to "rights" and it is undoubtedly because MPs as a collective are so heedless of our rights that we care so little for theirs.

.The most important of ours, of course, is the right to have a legislature which makes our laws and is accountable for them, rather than outsourcing them to Brussels and the legions of anonymous officials in Whitehall and elsewhere.Taking Moore's piece in the round though, we on this blog would not disagree with his condemnation of New Labour. But what is dislikeable about Tory tribalism is the easy fiction that history begins in 1997. It is this that allows all the ills of our society to be laid at Labour's door.The processes by which the authority of parliament has been eroded, however, started long before Labour took office, not least in 1972 when we joined the EEC - under a Conservative administration.

Another giant step in its decline was the ratification of the Maastricht treaty, where John Major rammed through the amendments to the ECA in the teeth of opposition from his own party, a trauma from which the Conservatives have still to recover.But another gigantic step was Baroness Thatcher's ill-conceived reforms of the civil service with introduction of "Next Step" agencies in 1988, and in particular the creation of regional government. These, above all else, broke the link between parliamentary accountability and huge tranches of public administration; that, combined with the increasing resort to Statutory Instruments – which saw its biggest leap forwards in the Major era as a handy mechanism for introducing EU law without the inconvenience and embarrassment of a parliamentary debate - and the scene was set for New Labour, which has continued rather than started the process of decline.

The other neglected issue is the nature of our parliamentary system which is, at its very heart adversarial. The system relies not only on good government but good opposition. The one goes with the other to make a whole.

It is here that we as a nation have been so badly let down. Not only have we had to suffer an uniquely bad government but we have been thus saddled at a time when the opposition has also been weak and ill-directed. The failures we see therefore, are not simply those of the government but of the system as a whole, the lack of robust and effective opposition being a significant contributory factor.Whether or not the situation is recoverable, others can argue but one suspects it has gone too far down the road to destruction.

Certainly, it is going to take a lot more than a debate in Parliament. What will make the difference will be when MPs start to realise that they are in Parliament not to defend their rights but ours.

Frankly it isdifiult to see this happening in the short term and until it does, there will be very little general public sympathy for MPs, even if the Old Bill turns over the whole damn lot of them. It is rather a variation on the theme of "mind over matter". We don't mind, because they don't matter.

Indeed they don't matter to us, because we don't matter to them. In the meantime the ripple effects of corporate banking incompetence ripple through the engine room of the British economy without any real apparent understanding from our elected officials.

.