The Sunday Quote

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To make up for the absence of The Sunday Quote last week today is a 'pack' of three Churchillian Quotes:-

''It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminolgical inexactitude.

Winston Churchill in a speech in the House of Commons, 22 February 1906, referring to the government's denials of the exploitation of Chinese coolies in South Africa. ''

''I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.''

Winston Churchill in a BBC Radio broadcast, 1 October 1939.

''Sometimes truth is so precious, it must be attended by a body of lies.''

Churchill, when war-time Prime Minister speaking at the Tehran Conference in 1943. He was referring Specifically to Operation Overlord the code name for the Allied planed landings in Normandy which eventually took place in June 1944. The detailed plans were in no small part made successful by a series of imaginative and astonishingly effective deception operations.

Clearly all of the above quotes can apply to British politics in the early 21 Century!

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In my view

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Piece published in The Journal, Wednesday 16 July' 08

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Click to enlarge

The Cost of Big Brother

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Timed to coincide with the run-up to last week's freedom-themed Haltemprice by-election, the Tax Payers Alliance published a paper on The Cost of Big Brother Government.
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As commented in the Daily Telegraph: 'Big Brother' government costs us £20billion It compared the massively expensive (nearly £20 billion) but ineffective measures pursued by the Government - such as ID cards, CCTV and microchips in bins - with the notable failure to employ simple, affordable but useful measures such as proper border controls, deporting known hate preachers and properly enforcing existing laws. The paper also featured a "Hate Preacher Rich List" showing how much taxpayers have paid for the council housing, legal representation, benefits and incarceration of hate preachers who should instead have been deported. To read the full report click here.
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Following on from the theme in the Daily Telegrap's piece Is Labour's surveillance society costing us too much? David Davis, former Shadow Home Secretary, said:

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“This is yet further damning evidence of Big Brother’s expensive tastes. ID cards, CCTV, the DNA database and other measures are a huge waste of taxpayers’ money on policies that undermine freedom and are utterly ineffective in fighting crime or terrorism. At the same time, the Government has failed to deal robustly with extremists and terrorists, like Abu Hamza. Yet again, this government penalises the innocent, and is a soft touch for the guilty.”

Mr Davis has more than a point, the terrorists are winning and this Labour Government is acting in true Orwellian style.

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Global Cooling

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We have had no warming for eleven years, the current global temperature is the lowest it has been since 1999 and snow is lingering on the North American continent for longer than in living memory. We have serious papers suggesting a very real possibility of global cooling and sunspots have all but disappeared.

This Blog just thought that the Greenies ought to be told, pass it on !
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The North/Booker Team

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Christopher Booker Booker picks up on 'Afghanistan' in his column today in The Sunday Telegraph. Mr Booker sets out an admirable summary of what has taken Dr Richard North – so far – over 20,000 words to articulate. This is the genius of the Booker/North team – the former writes "long" in order to do the working out, while the latter then encapsulates the core findings in one short piece that then gets the wider coverage.

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Today The Sunday Telegraph has put an active link to the work of Dr North on his site Defence of the Realm, giving those readers who want to look at the detailed arguments a chance to do so.

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The Sunday Quote

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''Every sale has five basic obsticals: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.''
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Zig Ziglar
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Two New Aircraft Carriers

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To absolutely no one's surprise, the government has gone ahead with the order for two aircraft carriers, formally announced this week at a cost that seems to vary according to source between £3 and £4 billion. The ships, to be named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will be the biggest and most powerful ever constructed for the Royal Navy. Dr Richard North looks at the matter on Defence of the Realm.

To the Land of the Free

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To our many readers across the pond we say have a nice Independence Day. As our US cousins are fond of repeating:

... to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Quite right to.
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Small Businesses Big Issues

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The passing (in reality 'rubber stamping') of the European Commission's Small Business Act (SBA) in the European Parliament last Wednesday has been met with comments of disappointment by groups representing entrepreneurs across Europe.

Well the Act has been a long time coming and has been subject to the EU's so called consultation process - so why disappointment should be expressed at the inevitable this blog editor for one fails to understand.

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The EU commission in the well tried and tested style of its established propaganda methods stated that the new law ''Underpinned by the principle 'Think Small First' ''. The Commission's spin machine trumpeted Wednesday's introduction of the legislation as a "crucial milestone" which will slash red tape, make public authorities more responsive, drive up access to finance and boost training and innovation. It will of course in reality do the complete opposite; it can only fail to get better.

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In a Goebbles like statements the Commission's 'sales agents' stated that : ''alongside initiatives aimed at making it easier to set up a company in different member states and measures to tackle late payment, commissioners promised to cut administrative burdens by 25% over the next four years.'' The needs of small firms, they said, will be taken into account during the planning of new regulations. Oh really, so it takes new regulation to reduce mass regulation! Now is that Orwellian, Kafkaesque, or Huxlian - perhaps all three ?

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The total nonsense of this new EU law was confirmed by the reaction of small business lobby groups who had thought (but not deeply enough) that by taking part in the EU's consultation process they were making a difference. How very silly of them, they must have been very well wined dined and sponsored in the long process by the agents of the EU such as the Regional Development Agencies and other EU quango organisations beforehand. When they sobered up from the reality that is the EU regulatory system has hit them hard.

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"The desire to think small first is a welcome development but this publication is unlikely to produce the shift in policy we were led to expect," said David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce. "This is a mish-wash of watered down proposals and initiatives with a questionable amount of political will attached to it from the member states."

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UEAPME, which represents small firms across Europe, meanwhile questioned whether sufficient financial support is available to back the Act's "ambitious aims" and credit management service provider Intrum Justitia criticised the commission's approach to tackling late payment, a problem which cost European SMEs €250bn in 2007.

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"The SBA only points out that an amendment to the [Late Payment] Directive is prepared," the company said in a statement. "The work to prepare an amendment has actually been underway for more than a year. Therefore the SBA has failed to include new and substantial solutions to the ineffective directive."

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In its response, the Forum of Private Business (FPB) called on the UK government to "go one step further" than the Act and prioritise the concerns of the UK's smallest firms.

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Though of course what the UK government can if fact do without falling foul of EU regulations is very limited and going one step further would find the UK government summoned before the European Court of Justice and undoubtably fined!

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Additionally all of the comments are missing the salient point. The cause of the problem is the EU regulation machine which has to produce more regulation, that is its purpose; it serves the Napoleonic Code of law making that underpins the EU. To expect that the EU will produce a regulation to produce less regulation is a paradox - or if one prefers just plane stark raving bonkers.

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The reality of the number of regulations from the EU which effects all of us especially the small business community (witch counts for over half of the UK economy) is not often discussed in detail. Back in 2002 the Commission produced 44 directives, 602 regulations and 610 decisions while the Council produced 149 directives (inc.36 with European Parliament - EP), 164 regulations (inc.24 with EP) and 57 decisions (inc.6 with EP). That makes a total of 193 directives, 766 regulations and 667 decisions, that is a grand total of 1,626 pieces of legislation in just one year.
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The numbers in 2003 and 2004 went down, then started climbing again in 2005. In 2006, though they shot up again. The Commission produced 76 directives, 1,795 regulations and 781 decisions; the Council obliged with 101 directives (inc.38 with EP), 238 regulations (inc.43 with EP) and 264 decisions (inc.21 with EP). That gives us a total of 177 directives, 2,033 regulations and 1,045 decisions or, in other words, 3,255 pieces of legislation, most of which have not been implemented into British law yet and will not be for some time to come., though they will without doubt eventually impact on the
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Meanwhile a poll of 9,000 small businesses reveal 96 per cent are disappointed by Gordon Brown as Prime Minister; well no surprise there. As the PM reflects on his first year in power, a poll by the Federation of Small Business (FSB) showed the extent of small businesses disillusionment in Mr Brown's performance.

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At the head of the discontent is the handling of changes to capital gains tax, the axing of the ten per cent taper rate, followed by recent huge petrol/diesel price increases at the pumps - 32.5 per cent since December '07.“With the end of a period of relative stability, small business confidence in the government has plummeted in the last couple of years," said John Wright, FSB national chairman.“Employment, tax and fuel policies have left many small firms feeling that their concerns are not being taken seriously enough." added Mr Wright.

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Well fair enough, but Mr Wright forgets who actually governs Britain. As far as fuel tax policies are concerned there is in reality nothing the the UK Government can do other than increase taxation!

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EUfin, the EU finance ministers organisation which is a part of the EU governing structure (and thus an organisation that that governs us in the UK) ruled back in 2000 that no member state is permitted to reduce taxation (Excise Duty or VAT) on vehicle fuel - taxation can only be increased. This decision followed a French Government decision to lower fuel taxation in response to revolting French farmers an haulers in August of that year.

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Whilst the only option available to the UK is possibly to alter VAT to be levied only on the manufactures price of fuel at the pumps and not to include (as it does currently) the retail price at the pumps plus duty. This change would reduce petrol by about 6.5 pence per litre.

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Whilst it is good that John Wright as National Chairman of the 220,000 member (and expanding) FSB raises in the media the vital issue of fuel taxation, it would clearly be better if he were demanding of the UK Government something that they are able to implement (though what becomes increaingly limited). We in the UK remain governed principally by the EU in Brussels not our elected politicians in Westminster; a vital point that business leaders clearly still do not understand the full implications of.

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The Sunday Quote

"When life appears to be working against you, when your luck is down, when the supposedly wrong people show up, or when you slip up and return to old, self-defeating habits, recognize the signs that you're out of harmony with intention.''

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

Afghanistan, Winning the War.

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The latest part of Dr North's ongoing series "Winning the war" is now posted on Defence of the Realm. Entitled "Hearts and mines", North looks at the mistaken – and damaging belief that our military can prevail by pursuing a policy known as "WHAM" – winning hearts and minds. As the good Doctor concludes, in a hostile environment, our military struggles for the "hearts" of the Afghan population and, in return, they get "mines". The strangest thing is that anyone ever thought it would be different.

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By coincidence, there is a letter from Dr Rahim Sherzoy, Ambassador to Afghanistan, in today's Sunday Telegraph, responding to a news review feature which asked whether the British forces' tactics in Afghanistan were right or wrong.Sherzoy suggests that the feature was "mostly one-sided", stating that "it is important to underline that the Taleban is not an Afghan phenomenon, but was imposed from Pakistan with the support of some elements from other states." He then goes on to write:

From the start, Nato was prevented from achieving its security objectives because it did not have a coherent strategy to go after the hard-core Taleban or a unifying programme to create jobs and address poverty. There was a lack of commitment to create an alternative livelihood for farmers and land owners to discourage poppy growth.

His Excellency is toataly correct and it is exactly the conclusion that Dr North writes about in his most coomendable piece. Read all about it on Defence of the Realm.

The Madness of Wind Turbines

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Gordon Brown launched last week "the greatest revolution in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power" He refers to a policy centred on building thousands some 20,000 of new wind turbinesacross the UK.at an estimate cost of a massive £100 billion.

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Nothing conveys the futility of wind power more vividly than the fact that electricity generated by the 2,000 wind turbines already built in Britain is still less than that produced by a single medium-sized conventional power station.

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Not least of the madness of this policy is that the intermittency of the wind means that we will need considerably more wind turbine capacity to reach the government's mythical figures than has been allowed for. According to independent calculations, to contribute 10GW which the system would have to produce would need 30GW of capacity. This would require up to twice as many turbines as ministers are talking about..

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Christopher Booker returns to the fray in The Sunday Telegraph with a vengeance in today's column, firing a 24-gun broadside against this wind farm madness, which is a huge waste of tax payers money that can do no more than provide a huge and expensive sop to the Green lobby!

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Mugabe's Thugs

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On a day when the news includes Mugabe's terror thugs breaking a baby's legs, it's almost obscene to write about anything else. But what new is there to say about that bloodstained despot and his regime? It seems only the ditherer Mbeki can bring him down. A quick gallop, then, through the storm which is quite rightly brewing about MPs' expenses is posted on the very excellent, The Purple Scorpion

No Sex Please We Are Very British

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The EU has recently resorted to desperate measures to sell itself to the people of Europe. Their version of a 'Fat Minuite' can be seen on youtube (click here), shows 18 couples rocking the bed. Quite why this blog has no idea.

The film climaxes with quivering bedheads and loud orgasms and closes with the line: “Let’s come together.” The video is part of a campaign by Margot Wallstrom, the EU Communications Commissioner, to boost interest in the workings of the EU.

UKIP MEP, Godfrey Bloom, has been quoted: '' I suppose this short film is appropriate. The EU has been screwing Britain for the past 30 years.''

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Forvik Off

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Stuart Hill in front of his temp admin block on the Island of Forvik

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Three cheers to the first of the British Isles to leave the European Union. Forvik (where?) declared its independence on Saturday. It is apparantly off out of the UK and the EU..

Stuart Hill, the owner of the tiny 2.5 acre island of Forvik, one of the most westerly of the Shetland Islands, announced the restoration of: ''its original legal status and reminded the people of all the Shetland Isles that the same status of independence was theirs by right.''

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."Forvik neither recognises the British government nor the European Union'' the press statement continued. The Island aspires to the same relationship with the UK as the crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands", he said.

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The press communication issued on Saturday morning continued: ''Shetland's relationship with the UK is based on the false assumption that it is part of Scotland, based on long-standing deception and subterfuge at the highest level. The Shetlands have never been part of Scotland, and nobody can even name the day when it is alleged to have joined. By declaring Forvik a crown dependency I am simply re-establishing the correct legal relationship between this part of Shetland and the crown. Shetland as a whole can get the same benefits and more - simply by asserting rights that already exist," he said.

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Forvik Island owner has stated that locals will not be subject to any taxes levied by the UK government. It will set down a claim to the sea and seabed up to a limit of 200 miles, or to the median line between it and other states, giving it control of fishing and oil reserves.It will become a tax haven with no income tax, VAT, council tax or corporation tax. The only tax would be a contribution by every citizen towards the cost of running the state, initially set at a level of one Forvik gulde per year - around £55 in today's money.

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In due course and some what toung in cheek the announcement confirms that Forvik will have its own currency, the 'gulde' backed by gold(though what gold is not clear) and issue its own postage stamps.

Later Mr Forvik will offer to register companies in a tax-free environment, which may eventually lead to the provision of offshore banking and financial services, which will clearly require substancial infrestructureon the remote and very rural Island.

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Stuart Hill's 'Declaration of Independence' includes an indictment against successive British governments, which can be viewed on the Island's website http://www.forvik.com/ .

Jolly good luck we say!

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The Sunday Quote

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'' There have been many definitions of hell, but for the British the best definition is that it is the place where the Germans are the police, the Swedish are the comedians, the Italians are the defence force, the Frenchmen dig the roads, the Belgians are the pop singers, the Spanish run the railways, the Turks cook the food, the Irish are the waiters, the Greeks run the Government and the common language is Dutch.''

David Frost and Anthony Jay.

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Bleating about Democracy

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It is rather ironic that the "ratification instrument" – the document which the British government will formally deposit with the Italian government to complete the ratification of the (EU constitutional) Lisbon treaty – will be drafted on goatskin parchment.

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Such are the recriminations flying about in the aftermath of the Irish referendum, though, that – as one amateur commontator put it yesterday - the skin surely came from a scapegoat.

First off the mark, last Thursday, was Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who complained that the unwelcome (to the EU) result was down to the member states, and the "Politicians give the impression that Europe is being built against their will."He was followed by Sarkozy during the latter stages of the European Council meeting on Friday, who took a tilt at EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson for upsetting the Irish over the WTO negotiations

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Then it was Silvio Berlusconi's turn. He accused EU commission officials of "talking too much" to the public in the member states. "The forecasts and recommendations that the commissioners give, and which appear in the newspapers every other day," he said, "provoke negative reactions among the citizens of the EU, who see (the commission) as a body that imposes constraints and creates problems."Warming to his theme, he added, "Moreover, they create difficulties for governments because they offer ammunition to opposition parties, whether of the right or of the left, to criticize the government."To add to the discord, Italian president Giorgio Napolitano ) has joined in, siding with the Juncker brigade by accusing member state governments of using the European Union as a scapegoat to hide their own faults."Too many governments, have in fact, hidden the positions they have taken in (Brussels), using Europe - and in particular the European Commission, 'the bureaucracy of Brussels', as a scapegoat to cover their responsibilities and inadequacies," he said in a speech to a European conference in France.

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It's so refreshing, this admission that democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be. Frankly, some of us think democracy is worth more than the hurt feelings of a bunch of inept politicians.

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As Christoper Booker explains in The Sunday Telegraph today the one thing the leaders of the EU have in common with Robert Mugabe is that when a vote goes against them their instinct is not to accept it butt to cast round for how to get around the decision regardless of the popular will. The EU is far from using Mr Mugabe's methods though it has much the same contempt for democracy.

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The great value of course of the degrading episode by the EU last week and its huge growing band of payroll supporters has been to show that the EU is not just undemocratic but actively anti-democratic as well as (as we often repeat with detailed examples on the blog) very harmful to the process of non-corporate business. Which is why (again as we much repeat) the representitives of the members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) have twice demanded that the UK leaves the EU (1995 and 2001). Clearly FSB members knew it could only get worse!

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Meanwhile, The Irish Times is blaming the "disastrous 'yes' campaign" for the failure to deliver the (scape) goatskin, bringing us to today when one waits agog for the next instalment of the blame game. Nobody yet has blamed global warming for the Irish voters decision – which has to be a first – although there is still time yet.

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Letter to the Editor

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The letter below was published today in The Northern Echo.

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Sir,

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It just goes to show how right our elitist political masters were when they decided not to ask the people whether they want to live with the all embracing Lisbon Treaty which will have particularly serious consequences on the 'engine room' of the British Economy. Recently 90 per cent of the 210,000 strong members of the Federation of Small Businesses who responded to a survey demanded a public vote on whether the Treaty should be ratified in the UK.; many Trade Unions also think the same.

Look what happens when there is a referendum as there was in Ireland last week: the people say no in defiance of the wishes of their government. Now according to our government that would never do here in the UK, people deciding what is best.

It is time that the voice of the people of Britain decided how we are governed not a group of self serving politicians and their huge army of over paid advisors.


Peter Troy
Sedgefield

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A Question of Police Service

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This is the title of a new pamphlet from Civitas by Harriet Sergeant, which concludes that the Home Office needs to get out of policing. "Local taxpayers lack any power to question ever higher policing costs.They are unable to insist on even the basics of a good service." Read the details on the excellent blog, The Purple Scorpion

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Petition to Number 10

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A new Petition to Downing Street states:

''We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Respect the result of the Irish referendum and abandon the attempt to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.''

The Petition has attracted well over 10,000 signitures only eight hours after launch.

Click the link above to view and sign.
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The Sunday Quotes

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''A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but together decide that nothing can be done. ''
Fred Allen

''A Committee is a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.''
Richard Harkins
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The EU in the Media Spotlight

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The Sunday newspapers are full of the consequences of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty today, and barely anything else is reported on the EU front Booker devotes the larger part of his column to an excellent analysis in the Sunday Telegraph.

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In coming days, he writes, we shall see the degrading spectacle of the EU's political class wheeling out their long-prepared formula for ignoring the Irish verdict, and imposing their constitution-by-any-other-name regardless.

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The European project will be revealed for what it has been all along: a mighty system of state power, run by the political class with lofty contempt for the people it rules. However, there is going to be a great deal of "noise", which will blur the picture, obfuscate and confuse rather than enlighten. A good example of this is the single newspaper, The Sunday Times, which manages two mutually contradictory headlines: "Britain presses on with Lisbon ratification" and "No 10 admits treaty is finished".
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When that second story also reports that, "In the short term, Brown will press ahead with Britain's own ratification process," thus inherently contradicting its own claim, it is evident that the paper is all over the place and has nothing useful to offer.Despite that, the leader is staunchly written, with the title: "Contempt for democracy".

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That is helpful because it cements in precisely the message that should apply to this corrupt construct, the European Union. As for the content of the leader, don't bother reading it. It is as incoherent as the news pieces.
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Nevertheless, whether the EU supporters are successful or not in ramming their treaty though, things will never be the same. In that sense, the Irish referendum has been valuable. It shows the "colleagues" as the power-grabbing fanatics that they really are. Merely the number of comments on the online stories, and their tone, demonstrates that the EU has been seriously damaged.That much is also evident from the sheer volume of coverage, which has now grown to a torrent, Google News at one time registering over 7,000 stories on the issue. The EU is suddenly pinned in the spotlight and, as the heads of states and governments gather for their European Council on Thursday, every move they make will be being watched.

As this blog has commented many times in the past the accumulative negative effects of the business community (particularly small businesses) of the EU has not been effectively responded to by any of the UK's business pressure groups despite the wishes of most small and medium businesses. (The delegates of the rank and file Members of the Federation of Small Businesses have twice (1995 and 2001) voted to call for a withdrawal from the EU at the organisation's national confrences.)

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Howsoever now, with the media in full flight with the glare of the all the media spotlight so intense, some EU politicians may crack under the pressure and break ranks. There is just a chance that the best laid plans of mice and commissioners might fall apart and the wealth creators of Western Europe (small and medium business) will great a break from the nightmare of the EU.

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The Duty of an MP

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Yesterday the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, resigned as an MP over the 42-day detention of terrorism issue - forcing a by-election. There is a strong rumour of a split between him and David Cameron over whether the legislation would be repealed - and also on ID cards. Dominic Grieve MP is his replacement.

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Davis is to re-stand on the issue of civil liberties - the "ever intrusive power of the state in our lives". Davis' move has been hailed as "courageous", with a 5,000 majority in his seat at the last election, polling 22,792 votes against his nearest rival's 17,676 (Lib-Dim Jon Neal). Davis is almost certain to be re-elected, his Labour rival last time only polling 5,116 votes.

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It would appear that Davis close colleague Iain Dale, was taken somewhat by surprise by the MP's reseignation.Mr Dale describes the resigning MP's attitude thus:

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''During my six months working for DD in 2005 Tony Blair's 90 day detention proposals I saw first hand how passionately he feels about this issue. It's not a matter of political conviction, it's almost as if it is in his DNA. He genuinely thinks that extending pre charge detention to 42 days will make the country less safe. It will give the terrorists a propaganda victory.Up until the weekend he believed the 42 day proposal would be defeated. He hadn't reckoned on the duplicity of the DUP or the fact that so many Labour MPs would be bought off by offers of goodies for their constituency or the chairmanship of this or that committee.''

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Of course, one must ask that if Mr Davis felt that strongly about 90 days and, indeed, 42 days, then why did he not feel strongly about 28 days. Perhaps, he did and thought, with little justification, that the government would stop there. If there is one thing one knows about any government is that they never stop unless they are forced to. They will not stop at 42 days either as they find that the police can do no more in 42 days than it could in 28, unless it is a question of investigating a TV programme for "Islamophobic content", in other words, evidence that some mosques peddle incendiary material.

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The reaction has been confusing, to put it mildly, because it is so long since any politician has resigned on any matter except being caught with hand in the till.The Times and the Daily Telegraph is today spinning away, doing the Labour government's work. Apparently, this will be terrible for the Conservative Party, because the PM is on the ropes and this will give him breathing space with the Tories tearing each other apart. Interesting. It seems that neither newspaper nor its journalists can envisage a different scenario and that is the electorate being rather impressed by a politician who, at least, appears to be making a principled stand.

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According to Conservative Home (whose own stance is diametrically opposite to Davis's), a swiftly conducted grass roots poll shows that 65 percent of Conservative members are inspired by Davis's stand. Unlike most newspapers, the editor of the blog, one Tim Montgomerie, has also published the questions and the figures for individual responses.That is completely different from the newspapers flagging up the YouGov poll that 69 percent of those asked (we do not quite know what) support the 42 day pre-charge detention.

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It is unlikely that such matters as Habeas Corpus were mentioned in the poll. Nor would there have been any reference to the West Midlands police or to alternative ways of dealing with the problem. Cat and Mouse Act, anyone? Perhaps not.

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Undoubtedly, it is a little early to decide what the effect of David Davis's resignation might be but one or two preliminary points might be made. One is that he is absolutely right in his view that conservatism consists of defending ancient liberties and our judicial system. Would that he were as strong on defending them from the various European Treaties. There seems to be something of a blind spot there or will Mr Davis now emerge as the spokesman for the true British constitution?

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Secondly, he is also right in that stupid reactions to terrorist threats are own goals. One of the professed aims of the Russian terrorists of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was to provoke savage reprisals from the government, thus turning much of the educated society into opponents of the state. Largely they succeeded with lamentable results for the country as a whole. This is not to say that we must not fight this war with all sensible methods at our disposal.

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The war, as we have pointed out on this blog on occasions is one of propaganda as well as of bullets. What exactly has been done about creating or reviving a British narrative that gave many Muslims an honoured place? Anyone who would like to disagree with that sentiment should visit a British War Cemetery and have a look at the many gravestones that are marked with a sickle. These are the gravestones of His Majesty's Muslim subjects voluntarily coming to the aid of the mother country.

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Now we come to the really interesting question about David Davis’s behaviour and that has to do with the duty of an MP. Inevitably, the government is getting all worked up about Davis’s contempt for the British people and the British parliament. That “contempt” always appears when something is suggested (such as a referendum on the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty) that the powers that be do not like.Then there is the question of that opinion poll. Davis should not, according to this, express his views because the majority according to an opinion poll is in favour of this ludicrous idea. The same majority will turn round at the first sign of somebody being kept in for all the wrong reasons. Presumably, at that point all those who support the 42 day detention must whip round into the other camp because some opinion poll says that the majority is against it.

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In other words, we are back to the problem discussed by the great Edmund Burke, among others: is it an MP's job to reflect what his constituents say, regardless of what he believes is right and regardless of the fact that the constituents may change their views from day to day or is it the MP's task to speak and vote according to his conscience, at least on major issues.

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The Sunday Quote

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

Ambrose Redmoon Born James Neil Hollingworth 1933 - 1996

The Lisbon Treaty

We recomend that our readers Read this; an interesting piece on the constitutional Lisbon treaty from the Irish Sunday Business Post.

Sunday Quote

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
Winston Churchill 1874 - 1965

Feral Scum

The vicious mugging of Labour MP Anne Moffat will, perhaps, bring home to MPs of all parties how increasingly dangerous many of our urban streets are becoming in Britain. Her her watch and jewellery were stolen and she was left with broken ribs, cuts and bruises by the gang of feral thugs who attacked her. She is right to describe her attackers as scum, but it is a failure of our politicians in recent years to properly address - or understand - the issue that is the problem. A full comment is posted on The Waendel Journal.

A question of Tax

How much as a per centage of the total price of Vehicle Fuel at the pumps is paid in tax by the British (already over taxed) motorist in fuel duty and VAT combined ?

Answers in the comments box below!

Election Time Warp

A comment from of the result of the bye-election at Crew and Nantwich last Thursday is that it is almost like living in a time warp – we are back to two party politics with a vengeance, the smaller parties being squeezed as the big players dominate the scene.

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The Conservatives achieved a majority of 7,860. Wiseheads in the Conservative Party are fully aware, however, that this was not a vote for them, but a vote against the government and, in particular, a personal vote against Gordon Brown. The most oft-repeated phrase in the campaign was: "Give Gordon a kicking". It was ever thus. The old saw, "oppositions don't win elections – governments lose them," may be a hackneyed phrase, but it is still largely true. But then, so is the other old saw – "a win is a win".

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To that extent, it does not matter why people voted. It is the result that counted

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In a higher than expected turnout of 58 percent, the Tories took 49 percent of the vote, Labour 30, and the Liberal Democrats 14, giving the Tory candidate Edward Timpson a 7,860 majority on a swing of 17.6 percent.But, that actually means that, of the total electorate, 42 percent did not vote. Thus, as a percentage of the total electorate, the Tories took 29 percent of the vote, Labour 19 and the Lib-Dims 10. Should that spread be repeated at a general election, it would mean – as currently – that we will have a government with no mandate from the majority of voters.

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Nevertheless, that is the way the system works. The "silent majority" cannot expect to be represented – or heard – if it does not cast its vote. But it does mean that there is a huge constituency out there which does not participate in the political process.The problem is, even if there was a hundred percent turnout, we would still have a government with no mandate from the majority of voters. That government does not hold elections and, in its fortress in Brussels, does not need our vote. It will continue on, elections or no elections in the provinces.

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Thus, while last weeks vote was great theatre, nothing actually has changed. We saw the return to "biff-bam" politics, shorn of substance, with as much relevance as the result in a TV reality show.

Not for two years though will we have the great "electorally mandated reshuffle", (General Election) when we get to chose our new member of the European Council (our true Government) but there is plenty to keep the political classes entertained in the meantime.

The Sunday Quote

''The higher a monkey climbs, the more you can see of his behind.''

General 'Vingar Joe' Stillwell. (1883-1946)

Fuel Price Report

Our dear government is receiving hundreds of millions of pounds in extra taxation as a result of rising fuel prices, two business groups have stated. The extra income is enough that it should scrap the 2p-per-litre rise in fuel duty scheduled for October.

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Whilst Business organisations whiter on about the detail (mostly accurately) the cost of motoring, a key factor in our (or any developed nation's) economy continues to increase.

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The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) claims that higher than predicted North Sea oil prices have boosted the government's tax proceeds by £390 million since 1 April. It adds that soaring prices at the pump have netted VAT income of £115 million more than predicted, constituting a total windfall of £505 million.

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According to accountants Grant Thornton, which provided figures to both the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), deferring October's fuel duty increase until April 2009 would cost the government £550 million. "High fuel prices are crippling small business owners in every sector and in every area of the country," said FSB National Chairman John Wright. "Apart from the immediate extra costs to motorists of filling up at the pumps, spiraling petrol prices also have a knock-on effect on everybody in terms of more expensive food and consumer goods." Calling for the introduction of an 'automatic adjuster' for fuel duty, Wright added: "A mechanism which automatically uses extra oil tax revenue to reduce fuel taxes would be an efficient, effective and fair way of delivering some relief to motorists of all kinds."

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Well it is nice to see Mr Wright getting some meaningful publicity; but to what effect? During the high profile peoples fuel campaign of 2000 when vehicle fuel taxation was on the firmly on the political agenda Mr Wright, then Chairman of the Teesside Branch did not want to put his head above the parapet for fear of upsetting his Labour Party friends (details on request from the editor). But that was then; now the FSB has joined in the fuel price winge, but far to late to have any meaningful effect.

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BCC director-general David Frost who has for some time been a pain the the side of the Labour Government accurately said: "With the Treasury estimates on [its fuel tax income] woefully out of line with reality, this £505 million windfall in less than two months must surely rule out the 2p rise scheduled for October."

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However as we have stated before on this blog the motorist and particularly the business motorist will continue to pay ever increasing amounts for vehicle fuel; the greenies will continue to whinge about CO2 immersions adding to global warming when in fact the planet is cooling not warming and business organisations will continue to 'lobby' to little effect whilst the economy continues to both slow down and inflate. So all in all nothing new to report other than the cost of vehicle fuel has risen by more that 25 per cent in the past 6 months and almost without murmer we are paying up.

The House of Europe

What had once been the proud headquarters of the Conservative Party, from 1958 to 2003, is now to suffer the indignity of new owners and a new name: Europe House.

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The new owners, announced by Property Week, are jointly the European Parliament and the European Commission. They have bought the building for £20m from the debt-ridden Irish developer Harcourt Developments.The company, owned by Donegal businessman Pat Doherty, is a generous contributor to the ruling Irish political parties. Yet it has sustained a loss of £10 million on the deal, having bought the building for £30m from the Conservative Party last year.

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Needless to say, EU Politicians are delighted. "This deal will provide a suitable and convenient Europe House in the UK," says Gerard Onesta MEP, one of the vice presidents of the EU Parliament. "Our ambition now is to refurbish the building to the highest standards of environmental excellence, fit for the 21st century, to serve the citizens of the UK."Not only do we not want to be "served" by these cretins, it seems we must also suffer the indignity of seeing the detested ring of stars flown from this building - which is due to be occupied by early 2010 – instead of the Union flag which it once so prominently flew.

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But then, for the Party which took us into the (then) EEC, agreed the Single European Act and then forced ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, it is perhaps appropriate that the new owners should be moving into their old headquarters.

Conveniently located for the Westminster Parliament,'Europe House' will provide an ideal launch pad when they come to buy up that building as well, once the current occupiers realise that it has ceased to have any useful function.

Second Class Mail

The damage done to the British postal service by EU rules gets worse. The Government report warning that our "universal postal service" is at risk because, under EU postal services directives, Royal Mail has lost the most lucrative part of its business to 19 private companies, turning its hefty profits into a £279 million loss.

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Now we learn that 3,000 more post offices may have to close, if the £1 billion-a-year contract to handle pensions and benefits payments goes to a rival company under EU procurement directives that require such public contracts to be put out to tender.

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Under the same rules, the Post Office has already lost contracts worth £168 million a year for handling television and driving licences, which is why it now needs £150 million a year from the taxpayer to survive. Even this much state support had to be pleaded for in Brussels by the Government, as we can see from a European Commission letter of last November, graciously permitting it to pay this subsidy under EU "state aid" rules

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First the EU orders us to sell off all the bits of our postal service that make a profit. Then we have to go to Brussels on bended knee for permission to subsidise the resulting losses. It is hardly surprising that our postal regulator, Postcomm, was last week proposing that Royal Mail should be partly privatised, as the only way to get round these "state aid" rules. But who would want to buy shares in a business that the EU is doing its utmost to ensure can only be run at a loss?

Tougher for Small Businesses

A recent lead editorial in The Daily Telegraph, complains that, "Business needs less, not more, red tape". The proximate cause of its complaints is the government's new legislative programme which, it says, "will make life tougher for small firms on two fronts". The devil in the detail can be read in Dr North's excellent piece in EU Referendum

The Sunday Quote

''Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. ''

Blaise Pascal

New Britain under New Labour

Us Britons find ourselves now obliged to live under a system of surveillance more rigorous than at any time or place since the fall of the Stasi, with more CCTV cameras per head of the population than anywhere else in the world. The local elections are largely an irrelevance, as elected representatives have little say (or even knowledge) of what is going on. EU officials in Brussels talk to Whitehall officials who talk to local officials regardless of the wishes of local politicians.

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Meanwhile, more and more inoffensive British citizens find themselves listed as registered criminals, while the real criminals go about their nefarious business with comparative impunity. It is no joke finding yourself with a criminal record, as the headmaster who forgot to renew his fishing licence or the bus driver who over filled his wheelie bin discovered recently.

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A feature of recent ubiquitous advertising has been the '' we know where you live'' threats about the BBC tax. The authorities boast of a database with 28 million addresses. In the old days the BBC gave relatively cheap access to eminently trustworthy news, quality drama uninterrupted by advertisements, first class comedy and much edifying content. Now it is a continuum of banal prole circuses (unrelieved even by the occasional football match) punctuated by bouts of lefty-greeny propaganda posing as news, i.e. it is the central pillar of the new establishment. It is naked extortion, like Mafia insurance, pay up or you’re on the list – we know where you live. They cannot even bully with subtlety, but in an authoritarian society why bother? Three billion pounds of income per annum, greater than the GDP of, say, Nicaragua, yet they claim they cannot manage. Why? Officials! Like its host country, of which it is a microcosm, the BBC is sinking under the weight of overweening administration.

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If the wealth creating part of any enterprise shrinks continuously, while the wealth dissipating part grows relentlessly, there can be only one eventual outcome. It is not, as the ghastly cliché says, rocket science.

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Meanwhile, the powers that be in the UK withdraw into a fantasy world of imagined crimes attracting draconian fines to fund their excesses, while the rank undergrowth of society flourishes. The habitually law abiding portion of the population finds itself increasingly criminalised, while the habitual criminals go about their business untrammelled.

The Sunday Quote

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right? ~ Robert Orben

A New Mayor for London

In our capital city we now have a new mayor, though many Londoners prefer not to have one at all. Nor are they all that desperate to have a London Assembly or the rest of those quangos that together make up the GLA or, more widely, “London’s government”.

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London does not need a government as it has managed spectacularly well without one for centuries. This supposed government is little more than a money-hungry incubus on the whole city.

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On the other hand, if Londoners do have to have to have a mayor, even temporarily, it is better not to have a power-hungry, self-centered, not-much-reformed socialist who brought in huge white elephants, thought of new ways to fleece the public and saw himself and his entourage as another foreign office.

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The truth of how much those many trips abroad to places like Venezuela or to conferences about so called global warming has not yet come out.

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The truth of how much the many media officers have cost Londoners will be known but shall we ever find out the money spent on endless groups and organizations that were supposed to “help” various “disadvantaged” groups in London, such as young people? Did you know that there is a whole “yoof” section in the GLA where youngsters, who should be looking for proper jobs and having a life are employed to create a great deal of useless and expensive (to the taxpayer) employment for themselves and others like them in endless groups, committees, discussions, forums etc etc?

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On the whole the '' yoofs'' are a messy lot who seem to think nothing of dropping litter on the floor and never switch off their machinery when they leave the building. Last heard of they were a little worried that their cushy and mindless jobs might disappear under the new Mayor. Let us hope so.

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The new Mayor Boris Johnson has won very handsomely. Despite the ridiculous system of three ballot papers, two preferences for the mayor and two separate votes for the assembly, which has consistently created more spoilt ballots in London than anywhere else, the victory is clear and uncontestable.

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The turn-out was around 45 per cent, about ten per cent higher than last time and about 13 per cent higher than the time before. This is still not spectacularly high but by standards of local elections, not bad.The Tories could have achieved this victory last time if they had not been so stupid in their choice of candidate. Stitching up the highly presentable Nikki Page and putting forward the highly unpresentable Steve Norris, who had lost once already, was an act of madness. And there was serious talk of doing the same this time.Unfortunately, this story wrong-foots the “local-is-best” brigade. It was the London Conservative Party that messed up last time and it was the national leadership that insisted on Johnson as candidate this time. We don’t know how the man himself was talked into doing this but if whatever he was promised means only one term as Mayor, that is all to the good.

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David Cameron must have some ambivalent feelings. It does not take too many brain cells to work out that Boris Johnson will now have a power base that is completely independent of the leader and, unlike Livingstone, he has never made the mistake of antagonizing other members of his party.

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Johnson got 1,043,761 votes on first preference, that is 42.48 per cent and Livingstone 893,877, that is 36.38 per cent. Our citizen Ken got more second preference vote but as the Evening Standard said not enough to catch up. Final count was 1,168,738 for Mayor Johnson and 1,028,966 for ex-Mayor Livingstone.

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Contrary to what the media tells us, Livingstone has not been a success in his political life. Nothing but a career local politician, he actually helped Thatcher to destroy the GLC, which he had seen as his power base. Then he became an MP, only to find that as a back-bencher and a greatly disliked one at that, he had no role to play. Now he has lost his power-base again after a couple of rather disastrous stints. His “achievements” are not precisely great. Getting the 2012 Olympics for London is a poisoned chalice for the rest of us.

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The extension of the congestion charge zone westwards of the centre of London was a highly unpopular, badly argued piece of spite against people who refuse to vote for him. Getting more people on the buses is a ridiculous claim as the buses are no more frequent or efficient than they ever were. In other words, this has simply added to the discomfort of travelling in London.Some of those more people are children and teenagers under 16, who can travel anywhere for free and hop on and of at different stops, making life difficult for other passengers and adding to the obesity problem among children. And so on, and so on.

One can but hope that citizen Ken Livingstone will now disappear from public life and go back to spending more time with his newts.

Global Cooling

Christopher Booker in today’s column, re-enforces the case for a period of global cooling all of which looks pretty persuasive. As we have pointed out in numerous posts, the policy implications for this are huge, not least the effect on the global food supply and, in turn, the implications for global security. What is remarkable, therefore, is how little coverage there is on this issue in the media.

The Sunday Quote

'' No matter what side of an argument you are on, you always find people on your side that wish you were on the other.''

Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)

Who Makes the Laws?

The fortnightly publication, eurofacts, carries an article on the number of laws UK that originate in Brussels, which has been constant theme on ths blog. Unfortunately, there is no link to the article itself, but we can all read the House of Commons research notes from which the figures were taken. There is a piece on this key issue posted on EUReferendum .

Profit from floods

Much preening is going on in that esteemed and thoroughly worthy organisation, the Taxpayers Alliance, over its coup in The Daily Telegraph, now repeated on their website. The Alliance claims that the UK government made a profit of almost half a billion pounds from the floods that devastated parts of Britain last year, all extracted from taxpayers' wallets .

Comply or go out of business

In a specialist Manchester business magazine comes a whiff of the real world – the one that is being steadily destroyed by the regulatory avalanche from Brussels.

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The story concerns a small chemical manufacturer which produces a common and garden chemical called ADBAC (Benzalkonium Chloride, for short) – technically a quaternary ammonium compound (QAC) with biocidal properties.

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It is very widely used – and has been for nearly a century – as an active ingredient for baby wipes, skin disinfectants, such as Savlon, for sanitisers in the food industry and for veterinary use.

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The company involved, QuatChem Ltd, has fallen foul of the EU's Biocidal Product Directive, which comes into force in 2010. In order to continue marketing its product, it must produce lengthy and costly dossiers on their chemicals, including expensive testing to comply with new safety standards.A perverse feature of the directive – in common with much EU legislation – is that the cost of compliance is the same for all firms, irrespective of the size or turnover of the company. Although QuatChem's nearest competitor has a turnover 60,000 times greater than its own, it is still having to find a roughly equivalent sum on registration. So far, it has spent £100,000 and is facing a potential total bill of between £4.3m and £6.5m by the 2010 deadline.

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The Oldham-based company, however, only has a turnover of £2m, and is being forced to divert two of its own scientists to the task and is paying consultants for additional work. Plans to create ten jobs and move to bigger premises have been put on hold because of the costs. Bizarrely, although the base chemical is produced by many different companies – with identical properties – each producer has to go through the process of publishing the same dossiers and duplicating research in order to generate the data for it.

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Dr Rubinah Chowdhary, QuatCchem director and part owner, says: "It is a very severe problem. I do not know how a directive like this could have been designed. SMEs have not been factored into this. It is astounding. We have two PhD scientists working on it. They were originally employed to grow the business. The effect on us has been tremendous. This directive seems particularly wrong and unfair."

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Welcome to the real world Dr Chowdhary. You join the ranks of fishermen, small slaughterhouse owners, egg producers, dairymen, animal feed merchants, electronics designers and even financial advisors, all of whom have been caught up in the mad regulatory machine that is the EU. It cares not one whit as to whether its regulations or directives are "wrong and unfair".Your job is to comply or go out of business – preferably the latter.

The Sunday Quote

''The one great principle of the English law is to make business for it self.''

Charles Dixkens - Bleak House (1812-70)

Roadside Tax Collectors (again)

Yet more evidence today that when it comes to roads, issuing as many fines as possible for as little effort as possible is the focus. This and other like minded blogs have previously argued that we need more police on our roads because they do more to increase road safety than speed cameras ever can. But the emphasis is on raising money quickly and cheaply rather than road safty. Read the full piece posted on The Waendel Journal.

The Sunday Quote

"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only sustained by perpetual neglect of many things."

Robert Louis Stevenson

Troy's Irregular Column

Published today in The Journal - distributed through out the North East an Cumbria. Click the image to enlarge and read.

''The New Religion''

Former Chancellor Lord Lawson sees parallels with the apocalyptic visions held out by certain religious movements in the past. He is alarmed by the fanatical intolerance shown by many believers in global warming to any heretic who dares question their certainties.He ends by describing "the new religion of global warming" as "the Da Vinci Code of environmentalism. It is a great story and a best-seller. It contains a grain of truth and a mountain of nonsense."We have entered," he says, "a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet."Read the full interview, by Christopher Booker, here.

The Sunday Quote

Today's payslip has more deductions than a Sherlock Holmes story.

Raymond J Cvikota

As few of us need to be reminded we taxed more now than at any time in our long and glorious history

The Death of the High Street

The following article was published in The Northern Echo today.

Peter Troy first campaigned 24 years ago for better and free car parking in Redcar. Following yesterdays launch of a campaign against parking charges in four of the regions principle market towns, he predicts the long, slow death of our independent retailer and of our towns unique character.

The English Traditional High Street is in its death throes.

By Peter Troy

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Once, no two towns were the same. Their high streets boasted a range of colourfully charismatic independent shops offering unique goods and a unique take on life. Nowadays, all high streets look identical, boasting only bland links in national chains selling the same stuff that can be found in any town anywhere in the country.

Anywhere from Land's End to John O'Groats, the length and breadth of the land, and as with motorway service stations they all look alike. In fact, they always remind me of that song by Pete Seeger, Little Boxes only these are big boxes made out of ticky tack.There are many causes of this, from the rise of the motor car to Prescottian planning policies to the multi-nationals own aggressive attitudes of selling items below the cost of production, bullying small suppliers and paying them late.

United, they mean that many once vibrant and pleasant town centres are withering away due to the corporate concrete constructions in out of town sites that now form a principle part of our mundane shopping lives.

The independent retailer is being forced to the point of extinction by the ever growing retail park which always inevitably includes an even bigger supermarket.

But the death of the small shops that once dominated our market towns is in no small part aided by the draconian and expensive parking charges collected by our local councils.

As any retailer will confirm, plentiful easy car parking is the life blood of a successful business. This is one of the reasons why the out-of-town parks are so popular. The developers tarmaced over great swathes of green fields to provide plentiful parking which is free and so it is easy. You dont have to feed the parking meters and the council coffers for the privilege of stopping there instead, you trip happily inside and feed the profits of Tesco, Sainsbury, Morrison and so on.

The Commission for Integrated Transport recently confirmed that the lack of parking charges at shopping centres such as Meadowhall, Sheffield, and The Metro Centre, Newcastle, are contributing the decline of the High Street, as shoppers abandon town and city centres.

In 2007, an all party group of MPs estimated that by 2015 there will be no independent food retailers left on the high street.Now you would have thought towns which have bucked the trend, which still have high streets of individuality and character, which have had the foresight to keep free parking, would do their utmost to preserve the bargain which has proven so attractive to shoppers.

Not Hambleton District Council. It wants to raise 450,000 a year out of the pockets of its own shoppers by putting parking charges on the most successful market towns in the area. Itll charge 1.50-a-day in Northallerton and Thirsk, 1 in Stokesley and 50p in Bedale.Northallerton has two very successful markets on Saturday and Wednesday, Thirsk on Saturday and Monday, Stokesley on Friday, and Bedale on Tuesday. These towns attract people from a very large rural area to shop. There is also a large tourist influx to the towns during the summer, and during the winter a substantial exodus of people from nearby towns such as Durham and Darlington who want to escape the bland homogeny of their high streets.

Don't think that just a few cafes and a load of charity shops will bring them flocking in! The view from our high streets is indeed grim. In 2008 we have a credit squeeze, the increasing cost of fuel adding to the increasing costs of everyday items despite our dear government telling us otherwise and the Chancellor increasing duty on beer, wine and spirits on an already hard hit licensing trade.

Things could not be worse for the independent retailer unless they are in North Yorkshire where the council seems intent on riding roughshod over local retailers opinions.

Lewis and Cooper in Northallerton is perhaps the quintessential example of an independent retailer. It has been providing an individual range of high quality produce much of it locally sourced for well over a century. It has also been providing customers with a reason to come to Northallerton town centre.

But now Lewis and Cooper has withdrawn its sponsorship from Hambleton councils food awards. Angela Shuker, manager of the Northallerton store, said in a letter to the authority: "We now feel that the time has come to withdraw this support and are asking all other business in the town to do the same, as you are threatening all our livelihoods with the introduction of car parking charges to Northallerton, Thirsk, Bedale and Stokesley.

"We would have liked to have thought we could all work together as businesses and council for the good and benefit of the district, but it appears that our views are just being swept under the table."

What hope has the independent retailer when even its own council wants to put the final nail in its coffin?

Though one has to be careful of the term "stopping the march of the supermarket", we need a vibrant free market economy with as few controls as possible. Putting a tax on parking is like introducing a very expensive control on those retailers who can least afford it. It is beyond comprehension.

North Yorkshire high streets are broad and wide for the putting out of stalls and are dominated by their old town halls which were placed so that a few controls could be kept on the most unscrupulous of traders

But now the soul and the heart will go out of those traditional, vibrant high streets as the shoppers will go to the out of town superstores. The independent retailer will become a thing of the past and the mega-supermarkets will have won the day with the aid of the local authority.

Peter Troy was chairman of the Darlington Branch of the Federation of Small Businesses from 1999-2005.

The Will of the People

There is something not quite right when our current foreign secretary can stand up in parliament and glibly tell MPs that, "The international consensus is that the will of the Zimbabwean people must be revealed and properly respected," when that self-same man has done his level best to ensure that the wishes of the British people (from Trade Unionists to Small Businesss People) on the constitutional Lisbon treaty are neither "revealed" nor "respected". Read the full post on EU Referendum

The Sunday Quote

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world!

Joel Arthur Barker