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Welcome to Very British Subjects

Left Peter Troy, Editor.

The Eleventh hour

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The hour cometh (11o'c on the 11 th Day of the 11 th month) and some of us were silent for the two minutes. Others, of course, will be silent for eternity, and it was those we remembered, those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and those who did their duty to their country and have passed away with the passage of time. We salute them all.

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But fine words and moving ceremonies are more for us than they are for the dead. Those who serve our country and those who in the near future and beyond are put in harms way, like some of their comrades before them, some will not survive the experience. That is the way of war. It is unutterably sad, but that has been the way of things since the dawn of time. But some of those, in the past, should not have died.

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Their fall arose, albeit though the direction action of our enemies, but compounded by the stupidity, ignorance, laziness or even the corruption of men and women whose duty it was to care for them and minimise the risks. They should be remembered especially.The purpose of so doing is to remind ourselves that, even in war, terrible though it is, death is not always inevitable. Even the arena of battle life should be treasured and respected.

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Remembering those who have fallen, and who should have walked away alive, we remind ourselves that it is our duty – collectively as is the case in a democracy – to do our best to ensure that those who do serve now and in the future are not put needlessly at risk.We owe that to those whom we and who then serve, and die.

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For those who say that today is not a day for politics, the answer is yes it is, ever more so. Politics is important; it is politics that sends young men and women to their deaths. It is politics which protects them and brings them back safe. That is the real stuff of politics – not the prattling in the chamber of theatres that has become the House of Commons which is now over reported in our mainline media.

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The reality of life and death is not some abstract issue for us to watch on the television from the comfort of our living rooms, but something which – even in our small ways – we have the power to affect.

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So, while we remember the dead, we must also remember the living and those about to die. We owe them that.

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The Sunday Quote

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Above: PC Jennifer Troy (centre) Marching to the War Memorial in the City of Leicester for the City's Annual Service of Remembrance today.

''As far as the Armistice itself was concerned, it was a kind of anticlimax. We were too far gone, too exahausted really to enjoy it. All we wanted to do was go back to our billets, there was no cheering, no singing. That day we had no alcohol at all. We simply celebrated the Armistice in silence and thankfulness that it was all over. I believe that happened quite a lot in France. It was such a sense of anticlimax. We were drained of all emotion. That's what it amounted to.''

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Corporal Clifford Lane

1st Battalion, Herfordshire Regiment.

The Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, recorded in 1972.

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A Very British Issue

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One of the mysteries of our time, Booker writes, is the perennial reluctance of so many politicians and journalists to explain how much of the mess we are making of the business of government in this country derives from the avalanche of new laws, policies and decisions pouring out of our hidden government in Brussels.

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Everywhere we look, businesses (particularly small businesses) and other organisations are struggling in the miasma of confusion this creates, where it is no longer clear who is responsible for the laws they must obey, or what those laws are or are meant to say.

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The stories, in the press, speak for themselves, all pointing to one thing – that government is now so diffuse and complex that no one really understands it, or even knows where the centres of power lie.The problems go far beyond "Europe". The European Union, as much as anything, has become a portal for a proto world government in all but name.
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Since the system of EU Government has become so utterly obscure and Byzantine in its complexity, it has the hacks and the chatterati diving for cover, seeking refuge in their individual comfort zones as they seek to avoid the reality of the mess modern government has become. Clearly the top and bottom of this is situation is accountability.

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Government of a modern nation is a very complex affair – we have to work with other nations, agreements have to be made and deals struck. Much of the internal administration of the nation has to be delegated, left to the ranks on anonymous officials who exercise power in a myriad of ways.

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What matters is that, when things go wrong, someone must be accountable and be brought to account. The mechanisms must then exist to remedy matters and, as far is possible, to undo any wrongs. This is traditionally the role of Parliament, and the threat of it exercising is power is both the safety valve and the ultimate deterrent.

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The fact is though, it no longer works. There is no single place where the buck stops. The buck stops nowhere. Because everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible, leaving Parliament an idle, empty talking shop, full of vain, posturing idiots who fill their time with prattle and useless gestures.

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On a day when a great newspaper offers a diet of fantasy politics, he points to the miasma that fogs our society. We are lost in that fog, leaving us leaderless and confused. And that is the way it will stay, unless or until we demand that Parliament re-asserts its authority in our name, the name of the British people.

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The Sunday Quote

''Where there is great power there is great responsibility .... where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.''

The Rt. Hon Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG OM TD CH FRS - 28 Feb 1906

From The Square

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.... Or perhaps more accurately from The Editor's Telegraph.

The Booker column today has a heart-warming tale; It describes how a couple, Graham and Sara Blackmore who ran a small skip hire company in Cardiff, had been turned over by officials from the Environment Agency and finally, having had their "day in court", had come away found innocent of all charges.

The story speaks for itself and is well worth reading on the link provided. But, what does not come over from this tale on its own – but will be apparent to regular Booker column readers – is one essential feature that makes it news. That "news" is the very fact that, despite being "framed" by the Environment Agency with a series of malicious, trumped-up charges, the couple were actually found "not guilty" in a court of law. This is not always the case and in a distressing number of instances, innocents are found guilty of "administrative" offences by courts which too often support "their officers" – the officials – right or wrong. I recall many such situations in my 10 years as an activist with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

A particular case is that of Janet Devers, featured heavily in The Sunday Telegraph today the week before the last the hapless lady was found guilty by Hackney magistrates for offences under the Trades Description Act.Apart from the issues involved – the sale of goods measured using the Imperial system – a review of the evidence demonstrates that the trading standards officer did not prove his case. There were major technical flaws in his evidence, in key areas he was shown to be lying and evidence was given from a number of witnesses that events the TSO claimed to have happened – which were essential to secure a conviction – simply did not take place.

On those grounds alone - without considering the general merits of the issue - the case should have been dismissed. But the Magistrates chose to believe the version of events offered by the officer – even though, under cross-examination, he had admitted they were not true – and convicted Janet. She is now to appeal; as one who has won more than one appeal against the injustice of lower courts as well in other cases of over over inflated small minded egos have needed to be brought bang to right, I wish Janet every success.

Yesterday we must note with concern that The Daily Telegraph was headlining – front page in the print copy – the "victory" by the metric martyrs. It is not a victory; far from it (Anyway the Metric Martyrs title is a misnomer, they should be the Imperial Martyrs but that is an other issue).

The EU regulations have not been changed and until they are nothing has changed. All that is being proposed – and then only in the next few months – is that UK local authority "guidelines" on prosecution are to be changed.What can so easily be changed administratively can, in a few years time – when everybody has forgotten the "victory" and moved on – can be changed back again; even then, this is just a "guideline" which, can be ignored anyway. It has no legal effect what so ever.

The key to all this though is the Rt Hon John Denham, the Innovation Secretary, he apparently issued guidelines that prevent local authorities in the UK taking traders to court. He is cited as saying: "It is hard to see how it is in the public interest, or in the interests of consumers, to prosecute small traders who have committed what are essentially minor offences."But who is Mr Denham's boss? None other than the Prince of Darkness himself, Peter Mandelson now Lord Foy - the master of spin.

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I have had more than one conversation over recent years with his (now) Lordship. There is no doubt whatsoever about his intentions on full European integration which includes metrication (presumably he has now or for the time being at least , dropped the 'Stalinist' regionalization plans so favored by his fellow New Labour lovies!)

Small businesses in our once great nation have much to concern themselves about at this time, not least the ripple effects of incompetent senior bankers across the globe (with the notable exception the ''the worlds local bank'' the HSBC) officials and bueaucrats driven into action by EU regulations that quite simply do not have public support (or indeed logic). The FSB as the UK's biggest business organisation, is also, according to its web site '' the leading voice of small businesses at the heart of the European Union'' (EU).

Through their dedicated (small) office in Brussels, and their EU team, they no doubt try to ensure the voice of very British entrepreneurs is heard but it is clearly impossible (when one understands what is actually happening with the implementation of so much EU regulation) to make any difference what so ever.

Thus this is how we are now governed in the UK and many of us are getting fed up with it. One wonders what the Federation of Small Businesses can actually do other than support members to the hilt when ''the Inspectors call''. No wonder as I am fond of repeating FSB representative members have twice voted (1995 and 2001) to demand a withdrawal from the EU.

So there we have it, I feel a letter to Colin Stratton (FSB NE Regional Chairman) coming on or perhaps (or indeed both) a visit to the North East Regional AGM on the evening of the 6 November to (the now very referbished ) Grand Hotel in Hartlepool, I know they will be pleased to see me I am after all a member; I was once very active in the FSB, the largest business organisation in the Realm.

Peter Troy
8&9 The Square
Sedgefield.

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The Sunday Quote

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''We must be clear about this it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state … it means the end of a thousand years of history. You may say, "let it end". But my goodness, it is a decision that needs a little care and thought.''


Rt Hon Hugh Gatiskell (1906-1963) leader of the Labour Party from 1955 until his death in office in 1963.

In October 1962 Hugh Gaitskell electrified the Labour Party conference with his 105 minute speech, wholly dedicated to the Common Market, he delivered the singular and now oft-quoted passage that has proved to be horribly prescient.

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Time for Tea

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(Flash back, Tea time with Troy on board HMS Trincomalee, 20th September 2005.Graphics courtesy of Radio Hartlepool).

What is happening in this country and indeed the world with regard to the banking crises is so enormous that it is almost too scary to think about. That is, of course, why so many people do not think about it.

That phenomenon is a variation of this, a very natural human reaction to something which is just beyond the capability of most people to deal with.In fact, it is more akin to the reaction of the archetypal housewife on being told that World War II had broken out, busying herself making a pot of tea. At times like this, we all retreat into our comfort zones, close our minds to the impending disaster and hope for the best. But disaster there will be – we are already in the opening phases, and "making a pot of tea" is not going to solve it. But this is not a "sky falling in" type of disaster. That is the wrong analogy.

This is more like the "Temple of Doom" movie. We are trapped in a room, with the ceiling – complete with wicked spikes - getting lower and lower, threatening to crush us all. But every now and again, the ceiling judders to a halt in its downwards path. We breathe a sigh of relief, and hope it is all over. Then it lurches into action and the nightmare continues. One of those "lurches" happened this week, with the stock exchanges plummeting worldwide and the FTSE falling three percent on Thursday, driven by "fears of a recession".

Not only are we reaching into the depths of banking theory which, frankly, very few people (particularly senior bankers) understand we have the overlay of highly complex regulatory systems, framed at national, regional and global levels, together with national and international politics and, of course, the drama of the events themselves.

One yearns for some wise soul to reach out and explain it all, in very simple terms, telling us what to look for, what matters, what is fluff, and to where all this is leading. That, of course, is the stuff of dreams – of child-like fantasies. In truth, there is not one problem but many, all interwoven, and the complexities of modern politics, played out on an international tableau, are such that they defeat even the most experienced commentator.

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How about tea with Troy ? It won't solve anything, but at least it'll make us all feel better.

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Peter Troy. Editor of this blog

Photographed during a recent visit to Jersey CI.

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Reaction

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The implications for the future of the banking industry of the domino effect of the great banking crises hardly bare thinking about.

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There is a mass of comment available across the UK media today and blogosphere; it is impossible not to feel a frisson of panic at the idea that not only bank machines might run out of money but also that the engine room of the British economy - that's the small business community - will soon run short of vital support from banks who could shortly be powerless to support vital lending facilities.

It has to be said that in the face of the global banking crisis the reaction of our government and that of the US could not have been more different in terms of openness.

In the US a plan was formulated in broad daylight, subjected to intensive public scrutiny and debate, put before both the US Congress and the US Senate for approval and again subject to massive debate before being approved by the democratically elected representatives of the country and put into action.

In contrast here in the UK what do we see ?

As the Banking crisis developed , our government dithered – it reacted to events rather than taking the initiative with a pro-active strategy. The main action was a series of meetings with the institutions of the European Union behind closed doors and completely misunderstood by business lobby groups and the national media.

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It is only after a closed meeting of EU finance Ministers (Ecofin) last week, we see action taken. Parliament is not consulted, there is no public debate. Both Parliament and the people are simply told what is going to happen, there is no vote, no approval just a done deal.

Therein lies the difference – on the one hand in the United States we see, with all its imperfections, a functioning democracy in action. Here in the UK by contrast, in Britain the mother country of modern democracy, we see a cabal of rulers working behind closed doors, coming out into the daylight only to inform us what they have done and how much it is going to cost us.

Thus is how we are now governed in Britain secretly, badly and from Europe.
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The Sunday Quote

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''Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies''

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) 3rd President of the US.
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Faulty Regulation

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Dr Richard North has discovered cast iron evidence that the EU commission has known for at least a year that there have been disastrous "shortcomings" in its system of financial regulation. This system include the measures for the application of the "mark to market" rules which lie at the heart of the current banking crisis. His post on EU Referendum is recomended.

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Banking Crises Update

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Gordon Brown has promised that the Government will "do what it takes" to help families deal with the effects of the global economic crisis such as rising food and energy costs.e effects of the global economic crisis such as rising food and energy. Sounds fine but the UK government is not in charge! costs.

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The Daily Telegraph running out of hyperbole proclaims that the sky is falling in the banking industry and the situation is getting even worse. Christopher Booker in The Daily Mail reckons that this crisis could not only sink the euro, but the whole of the EU as well.
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The British media haven't begun to understand what is going on Ruth Lea for example who is writing about the British government having been "dithering" - ignoring the fact that it is ''Europe '' (EU) that is in charge. With increasing clarity, it is emerging that Messers Brown and Darling were waiting for the go-ahead before acting. That is why they took no action on Monday – they could not until they had had their marching orders from their political masters in the EU. Thus, overnight on Tuesday and into the early hours of this morning was the first time they could have acted, having been given the green light at Luxembourg to break the EU rules.
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Thus is how we are now governed.

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Dithering Darling

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Today, after days of "dithering" Chancellor Alistair Darling suddenly launches "a drastic rescue of Britain's high street banks in move designed to head off a cataclysmic failure of confidence."This just happens to be a day after an emergency meeting of the finance ministers of the 27 EU member states. Is this a coincidence?

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At the (EU) Ecofin meeting yesterday, two things happened. Firstly, the ministers effectively gave the green light to member states to break the EU's own state aid rules.Secondly, they turned their faces away from initiating structural reforms to the regulatory system, which might have freed the logjam in inter-bank lending – preferring instead to make one minor and largely cosmetic change.

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Now, today, we see Mr Darling introduce a scheme designed specifically to free up inter-bank lending, including the provision of at least £200 billion to banks under the Special Liquidity Scheme and the injection of £50 billion capital into a select group of British banks - to the general approval of the Europhile Tory hierarchy. Thus we see an alternative and far more expensive plan aimed at achieving that which the EU members states collectively failed to address.

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Furthermore, it is one which, in its totality, almost certainly breaches EU state aid rules, as well as being "discriminatory" – two of the EU's mortal sins.

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Whilst this is clearly not the end of the current banking crises; it could just possibly be the begining of the end of the EU as we know it!

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The Sunday Quote

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'' Human behaviour flows from three main sources, desire, emotion and knowledge''

Plato

Peter Troy

Blogger,Publicist

but not a Golfer

The Peter Troy -The Publicist Ltd Golf team (Captain Chris Williamson second from the left) at the Hartlepool and District Hospice Tornament recently. http://www.the-publicist.co.uk/

Photo. Mike Gibb

Oh Dear Me!

The US bank bailout has been rejected. Wall Street has nose dived.

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'No' vote crushes DowDow falls as much as 730 points as the House rejects the $700 billion bank bailout plan. more . Now what?

Bailout plan rejected - supporters scramble House leaders trade partisan words after historic financial rescue goes down in defeat.

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In the meantime according to Deutsche Welle, the German government has been injecting "billions of euros" into troubled commercial property lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE). This, we are told, is the first German blue-chip company to seek a bailout in the global financial crisis.

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The German Finance Ministry in Berlin is reported to have said it had provided HRE guarantees for an emergency credit line totalling €35 billion (about £25 billion), although there are no plans to nationalise the bank. A spokesman for the finance ministry said the commitment was needed so that [other] banks could bail out HRE.In different times, this might have made front-page news but such is the torrent of financial news that it is hardly surprising that it has been given less than star treatment by the bulk of the UK media.

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To be fair, The Times has picked it up, together with the news of Glitnir, "the struggling Icelandic bank". This was partially nationalised today as the Icelandic Government bought a 75 percent stake in it for €600 million (£478 million) "to ensure broader market stability".The Icelandic bank move was not unexpected but problems with HRE were not widely signalled.

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The Times has Bundesbank, and financial regulator, BaFin, confirming that they were involved in the efforts to bail out HRE, and has their spokesman saying: "The Bundesbank and BaFin now assume that Hypo Real Estate Group is secure."On the other hand, Kiri Vijayarajah, an analyst at Citigroup, counters: "Hypo Real Estate also has other problems. It has exceptionally high leverage, which may no longer be viable. Also, we believe it is likely to experience losses on real estate loans, causing more damage to earnings and capital."When blue-chip German banks start feeling the strain, it is time to wonder where it is all going to end.

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The BBC website today helpfully publishes the full text of the government statement on the nationalisation of the Bradford & Bingley bank and the sale of parts of the business to Spanish banking giant Santander.

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The current status of the deal is confirmed by Reuters which reports the EU commission saying it had been in touch with British authorities over a rescue plan, "and expected them to notify the EU executive of state aid in the course of Monday".The agency cites Jonathan Todd, spokesman for EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, who states: "We've been in very close touch with the UK authorities throughout the weekend ... Our understanding is that the UK authorities will notify rescue aid to us today."

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A similar process is in hand with the rescue of the Fortis Bank. The Forbes agency, relying on a Reuters feed, is reporting that EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes have been consulted on the Fortis rescue and had been "close touch with the Belgian government all weekend.

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As Tony Blair once said: ''it can only get better''.

The Sunday Quote

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''We should claim, in the name of tolerance the right not to tolerate the intolerant''

Karl Popper (1902-94) Austrian born British philosopher, The Open Society and its Enemies (1945).
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EU Denial

.....................................................The British political classes including commentators and lobbyists are in denial, determined to ignore a reality and carry on as if it was "business as usual". They all still behave as if London is still the centre of government of the UK ; is not.

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It is point that the edtor of this dear Blog has made many times particularly when he was a very active person (which he may well be again) in that large small business organisation the Federation of Small Businesees.

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The dynamic of this EU denial is actually quite subtle - absolute refusal to come to grips with the reality, acknowledgement of which would then require an acceptance that the UK government had in many policy areas become a marginal backwater of very little importance.

Intrestingly what is happening at what used to be central government level happened many years ago in local government in the UK shortly after the 1973 local government reorganisation. Unappreciated by many, this reorganisation was accompanied by a major "reform" of local government management, heralded by the 1972 Baines Report, a yellowing copy of which still resides on my bookshelf.

The key element of this was the creation of super-departments with chief executives who acquired a huge tranche of delegated powers, making a vast number of decisions that were hitherto reserved for councillors, to be discussed and debated in committees and full council. At a stroke, the bulk of local government shifted from political control to managerial governance. Councillors became, on many issues, largely redundant and council meetings were stripped of their true meaning.
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The response of the councillors was interesting. Instead of dealing with the deadly dull but vitally important issues of council management, they devoted more and more time to party political bickering, with heated debates about political issues which often had no relevance at all to council business. Council meetings became theatre – hugely entertaining at first, if for no other reason than for their novelty value. Soon enough though, the novelty palled as we realised that so much of this was empty posturing.

The politicians were left to bicker amongst themselves, largely ignored by the electorate who knew instinctively that their mouthings were devoid of meaning.

The equivalent of their Baines Report for national government was the Treaty of Rome and the subsequent treaties, which gradually stripped them of many of their powers and turned political government of the UK into managerial governance, centred on Brussels.The transition is not yet complete, as there are some policy areas which do remain as "competences" – in the modern jargon – of the London government, but most of the power has gone elsewhere.

A graphic illustration of this comes with yesterday's Environment Council in Brussels, which has produced a 26-page communiqué, stuffed with detail, agreeing initiatives of enormous importance to our daily lives, many with multi-billion price tags and timetables for implementation stretching into decades. It is well worth having a look at the document, just to appreciate the vast range of issues it covers.

Some of this was elaborated upon by environment commissioner, Stravros Dimas, in a speech yesterday to a conference in Brussels. Yet, despite the importance of the issues covered, such was the dullness and the lack of any personality recognisable to the British public, that the only media coverage I can find was in the official Chinese press agency Xinhuanet, and that was only a partial account.

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On the eve of the Conservative Party conference, the British political Journalists are far too busy to care. They are preparing themselves for the theatre, analysing and dissecting the personalities and readying themselves to write yards of extruded verbal material on their speeches.

If one were to ask any one of them to identify the person in the photograph above, many of them would not have a clue. Yet, Stavros Dimas, as environment commissioner, is probably one of the most powerful politicians in Europe (and thus Britain) using powers delegated to him by the Single European Act in 1984 when, with the approval of Margaret Thatcher, "evironment" became an exclusive European Community competence. Few though, have ever heard of him. Fewer still would recognise him.

That fact though is so hideously uncomfortable and unpalatable that there will be no mention of it at all at the Conservative Party conference next week; such is the nature of British Political Subjects these days.

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The Last Straw

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The Daily Mail today chooses to devote its front page to a warning by the National Grid that electricity supplies will be tight this winter, with the real possibility of power cuts.The story, in typical Mail style, is luridly written, but there is a germ of truth in what it says.
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What is especially remarkable of the Mail story (online edition), is the number of comments – 243 at the time of writing. That is unusually large and can be taken as indicative of widespread public interest.After the economy, there can be no doubt that this is the most important issue in the book and, if the current economic crisis is resolved – at least temporarily – there is every reason to suppose that energy will leap to number one, especially if we do start seeing power cuts. In any event, even if the economy does go belly up, the lights going out could be the last straw.

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Raised Voices Needed!

This week those of us that follow politics will watch as Government ministers and their followers at the Labour Party Conference try as hard as they can to convince us that ''it can (yet again) only get better''.

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The British Labour party like the world banking system has gone belly up and can survive only if it is rescued by outsiders with new methods and ideas. While key Labour party figures are publicly declaring loyalty to Gordon Brown they are behind his back still managing to undermine him.

Against this background Labour party politicians and delegates will be implored to 'Keep Trade Local' by the Federation of Small Businesses, (FSB) the UK's largest member based business organisation. Whilst the FSB's campaign against the growing threat of corporatism is aired to the good bad and ugly of British politics the far bigger threat to small businesses is the recent ripple effect of the so called credit crunch on the economic engine room of the British economy, small and medium sized businesses.

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John Wright the former Trade Unionist (NALGO) and now National Chairman of the FSB would be best advised to use his Labour Party membership to great effect in the next few days - when he enjoys the new Labour's beer and sandwiches - since his members are about to never have it so bad.

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If being more taxed an any time in modern history or more regulated than ever before has not been bad enough then the consequences of grossly incompetent bankers which will mean a serious lack of cheep business credit (or any credit at all in many cases) is about to provided the biggest threat to non-corporate business Britain (and the 'western' world) in living memory.

The message from the representitives of small businesses should not be so much ''keep trade local'' as for the government to truly understand the basic needs of trade which is less official interference, less support agencies and less taxation. But of course our true government is the European Union not the Labour Party. Perhaps small businesses need to raise their voice (not least so it can be heared in Brussels) since they will mostly soon be fighting for their very survival.

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Ryder Cup - Hijacked

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The Ryder The Ryder Cup tournament, the 37th event in Louisville, Kentucky, is supposed to be the ultimate expression of the "European" ideal, having been hijacked (like so nany other events and indeed organistaions) by the European Union which is taking every opportunity to display its hated emblem the ring of barbed wire, whoops sorry stars!

.As Dr North explained the background to this last year, the EU – and the huge publicity budget devoted to promoting their "European identity" – the idea hasn't really taken off. Certainly, the very British fans pictured above do not seem to have got the message, thank goodness.

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The Cost of The Credit (and Green-con) Crunch

Taxpayers in Britain face up to 5p in the pound in extra taxes because of the credit crunch created by the banks, leading economists have warned," says The Sunday Times, bemoaning in its leader that, "It's the ordinary folk who carry the can."

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Indeed they do - particularly small businesses - and it was ever thus but, while the paper is rightly getting excited about this latest raid on our wallets, another one is around the corner which will cost us, potentially, even more.

That being the EU's emission trading scheme (ETS) which, with other levies and taxes, is set to add anything up to £15 billion a year to all our bills (no one knows precisely how much – so this is a conservative estimate) – also, by some strange coincidence, equivalent to 5p in the pound in extra taxes, and that is likely to be only a start.

.Worst still, this "tax" is regressive, which means those on lower incomes are hit proportionately harder than the wealthy.Amazingly, the political classes in Britain seem to be totally unaware of what awaits us. This is perhaps indicated by a post in Conservative Home today which "reveals" the exclusive news that a senior frontbencher has told the site that, "as part of an ongoing review of economic policy, higher green taxation is very unlikely to feature in the next Conservative manifesto."

.So "can politicians be that ignorant?" Can they be so ignorant that they are apparently so heedless of what it to come that they can make statements as utterly facile and meaningless as appears on the Conservative Home site.

Well yes es they can! – which makes Booker's column today a timely corrective.In his piece, he picks up the connection between Lehman Brothers and the climate change industry, and between the company and those two great climate change evangelists, al Gore and James Hanson. What drives this development is the growing realisation by European governments – and the EU commission – that the emissions reductions targets they have set themselves for 2020 and beyond are unachievable without massive damage to the economies of developed nations and, in particular, the need to force electricity generators to shut down their plants, leaving their customers cold and in the dark.

That Bankers Lehman Brothers – and before them Enron – were so keen on this scheme tells you all you need to know. It comes from the same stable as the securitisation packages of sub-prime mortgages, a financial empire built on foundations of sand.Many people warned of the dangers of the "credit crunch", but some of those who are popping up now are exposed to accusations of being wise after the event.

Yet, in the "green-con boom", the wiz-kids are preparing the ground for another financial bubble – a "climate change crunch" if you like - the consequences of which will be just as damaging as the present crisis. As The Sunday Times so rightly observes, "It's the ordinary folk who carry the can." Christopher Booker, (Booker's column today) as he is so often, is being wise before the event.

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The Sunday Quote

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''Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement ''

Dan Quale 44th US Vice President (1989-93).
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A Very British Brigadier

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The life, military career and example of an eminent Jersey soldier has been commemorated by the presentation of a trophy, to be awarded annually to the ‘best senior cadet’ at Jersey’s public school (founded 1852), Victoria College.

Brigadier Terence (‘Terry’) Troy CBE, who died on 1 December 2007 at the age of 85, had not only a very distinguished army career, but also the capacity if inspiring great loyalty among those whom he met or who served under him both as an army officer and during his active retirement in Jersey.

The trophy was presented by his nephew, Peter Anthony Troy, to Calum Forrest, sixth-former at Victoria College and Chief Warrant Officer in the RAF section of the Combined Cadet Force. After leaving Victoria College he is going to Bath University to read biology, and hopes later to join the RAF.

The CCF is the successor of the Officers Training Corps, in which the young Terence Troy served as a schoolboy in the late 1930s, before escaping from Jersey in 1940, just before the Occupation, to enlist in the British Army.

Brigadier Troy was commissioned shortly afterwards in the 15th Punjab Regiment, Indian Army; he fought in the Arakan Campaign, the Battle of Kohima, and later took part in the advance through Burma to Rangoon, including the battles of the crossing of the Irrawaddy and Pegu Yoma.

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Above right, Terry Troy at 15 (front row on the left) in 1938 in the OTC.

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He was selected by the Commander of the XIV Army, the then General William Slim, to be an aide-de-camp, and in 1946 at the age of 24 became the youngest Brigade Major in either the British or Indian Armies.
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In 1947 he transferred to the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and became the Commanding Officer of the First Battalion. Staff appointments followed, and he was promoted to Brigadier in 1973. Upon retirement in 1977, he returned to Jersey, where he became President of the Jersey branch of the Royal British Legion.

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During the Battle of Kohima he experienced the atrocious conditions imposed by heavy casualties, monsoon rain, mud and entanglements of barbed wire. On one occasion as he bivouacked overnight in a small crevice, and was awoken by the discomfort of an obstruction underneath him. He shone a torch, and realised it was the body of a dead British soldier on top of which he had been sleeping.

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In his retirement years, he regularly recited the Kohima Epitaph at Remembrance Services at Jersey’s Cenotaph: ‘When you go home, tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow, we gave our today’.

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Left, The Brigadier in October 1999. (Photo PT)

Peter Troy presented the trophy at the Victoria College annual prize giving ceremony on Monday 8 September, in the school’s historic Great Hall, in the presence of the Island’s Bailiff, Sir Philip Bailhache, the Earl of Jersey, school governors, head master, senior boys and parents.

He said later: ‘The family of my late uncle were very keen for there to be a living memorial to him – and his own character meant that a park bench would have been a very inappropriate choice!

‘This award is in keeping with his own eminent military career. As a youth he was a member of the Victoria College Officer Cadet Corps, the forerunner of the present Combined Cadet Force, and I am sure he would have approved of this trophy. As a family, we hope that competing for it will provide inspiration for young people to train to serve Queen and Country in the Armed Services.’

Mr Troy, who lives in the North-East of England, commissioned the shield, which is of silver mounted on Brazilian wood. It was designed by Diane Ellis, who knew the Brigadier for 20 years and bears the crests of Jersey, Victoria College, and the Combined Cadet Force.

His company (Peter Troy The Publicist Ltd) is also arranging the publication of the late Brigadier Troy’s autobiography, which has a preface written by Jersey’s Lieutenant-Governor, Lieutenant-General Andrew Ridgeway CB, CBE

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The Brigadier TM Troy CBE Trophy - Commisioned by Peter Troy, Designed by Diane Ellis, manufactured by Clockworks (Hartlepool) under instructions from Advocate Brian Troy (Royal Court of Jersey) the Executor of the Brigadier's Estate. (Photo Mike Gibb)

Above, Peter Troy addresses the Victoria College Combined Cadet Unit - 5 September 2008 on the life and times of Brigadier Troy aided by extensive notes from the Brigadier's Brother (Peter's Father Kevin Troy - also late of Victoria College)

A tribute to the Brigadier - Advocate Brian Troy (Executor to the Brigadier's Estate) with Peter Troy place a wreath of Jersey Lilies on the Grave of Terry and Patrica (died 1979) Troy, saluted by Calum Forrest, Chief Warrent Officer CCU Victoria College Jersey.

We did it bloody properly

On the morning of Terry Troy's death Brian Troy and I opened a file we found amongst my Uncle's personal papers marked '' Funeral Arrangements and other instructions''. The extensive document concluded: ''I do not expect that all my wishes will be complied with but please do it bloody properly''. I truly believe we complied with all of my Late Uncle's wishes and indeed we did it properly.

Peter Troy, Sedgefield,County Durham.

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All photos (unless otherwise stated) photo reportage, Jersey. 01534 858751.

Big Business Hijack Greenie Agenda

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It was the great economist and philosopher Adam Smith who wrote:

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People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

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Now, they do not even bother to hide their intentions – they just cite "climate change" and lobby the government so that they can "compete for the lucrative business" made possible by its measures.

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Such is clearly the motivation of the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change which, under the aegis of the Prince of Wales's "Business and the Environment Programme", have written a letter to the prime minister and the leaders of the opposition parties calling for "the cross-party effort that is essential to deliver a low climate risk economy."

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What, in effect, they are asking for is a suspension of the political (i.e., democratic) process, their stated aim being to encourage "a new cross-party political consensus" on the scale and speed of change required, and a constructive political debate on how their "lucrative business" can be delivered.

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The companies signing the letter are Anglian Water Group, B&Q, BAA, Centrica, E.on, F&C Management, Faber Maunsell, John Lewis, Johnson Matthey, Lloyds TSB, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank, Sun Micro-systems, Tesco, Thames Water, Unilever and Vodaphone.

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Most of these, in one way or another, stand to gain financially from implementation of climate change measures, some more directly than others. The energy companies Shell, Centrica and E.on in particular stand to make money from the ETS and the allied emission mitigation measures.Companies like Faber Maunsell, a "multi-disciplinary, award-winning consultancy specialising in the planning, design and engineering of buildings, transport systems and environmental services" also stands to make a packet out of climate change mitigation contracts. Johnson Matthey, which just happens to produce components for fuel cells, is also nicely placed to grab some of the "lucrative business".

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The multi-billion international investment company, F&C Management is also a very interesting example of self-interest in action. It has actively lobbied the US congress for "cap and trade" and is keen to follow in the footsteps of al Gore and make a tidy fortune out of carbon trading.The same "lucrative business" opportunity awaits Lloyds TSB and the Standard Chartered Bank, the latter gleefully talking up the prospects for the carbon trading market.The Anglian Water Group is heavily involved in renewable energy, as indeed is Thames Water, which is already the largest generator of renewable energy within the M25 and is very keen on developing electricity generation from sewage sludge.

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B&Q stands to gain considerably from increased retail sales of insulating materials and energy saving devices, as do – to a certain extent – Tesco and John Lewis.For these two latter companies, their involvement also – in their own eyes – confers a PR bonus. Being seen to be "environmentally conscious" is good for business. That probably explains the presence of BAA - anxious to demonstrate its corporate responsibility - the involvement of Vodafone (although the latter also sees product development opportunities as well) and of the Reckitt Benckiser Group.PR is certainly one of the motivations of Sun Micro-systems. However, Vinod Khosla, co-founder of the company is pumping millions into developing biofuels using "synthetic biology".

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Unilever is also heavily into biofuels and is actively promoting second generation biofuel.Thus, although this initiative is presented as business expressing "concern" about climate change, the letter to the prime minister is nothing more or less than a naked expression of pork-barrel politics.

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Ironically, Greenpeace is accusing some of those involved of "hypocrisy of a previously unknown magnitude". In so doing, however, it misses the point, the greenie agenda has been hijacked by big business, who see in the raft of climate change controls huge money-making potential.

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The letter to prime minister is just another example of that dynamic, where the players have recognised the scam for what it is, an opportunity to plunder the private purse.

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Adam Smith must be turning in his grave.

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Sunday Quote

Oh! what a snug little Island, A right little, tight little Island!
(The Snug Little Island)
Thomas Dibdin
English songwriter, 1771-1841

Cutting Their Own Throats

It is not encouraging to read in last weeks newspapers that the ratchet of big State involvement in every imaginable nook and cranny of people's lives is quietly working on those things that national Governments have yet to invade.

The British Government certainly qualifies (as we are fond of saying and small business people are aware) as big, invasive, over-regulating, cumbersome, and combined with the EU's obsession with the contents of our waste bins casting its dark shadow over British Government Policy additional taxation is now inevitable. There are we are told plans afoot to tax disposable items such as nappies and razor blades as luxury goods in order to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites. This is one of the options set out in a 200-page report commissioned by DEFRA aimed at halving the amount of waste produced on average by each person from 800 to 400lbs a year. Another possible option is the much rehearsed idea of a new rubbish bin tax, based on the amount of waste produced.

All this in the same week as The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimate of the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions indicates that British taxpayers pay £19.6 billion a year more than is necessary, even the British Government's own estimate shows that we the hapless taxpayer are paying £7.9 billion too much in so called ''green taxes''.

The "disposables tax", which seems to be the government's main new tactic to cajole and increasingly unwilling population into conformity with yet more EU rules. The idea is to impose punitive taxes similar to those imposed on alcohol and tobacco on basic domestic items that cannot be re-used or recycled. Products targeted include what a recent DEFRA report calls "the usual suspects", such as disposable nappies and plastic carrier bags. However, it also suggests taxes could be applied to other disposable goods, such as paper plates, plastic cutlery, disposable barbecues and even disposable razors, increasing their costs five-fold at a time of already alarming prices on the high street.

Instead of addressing the complex but technically solvable problem of how to lower the ever increasing price of groceries in our shops and encouraging us to be responsible our government appears to be totally bogged down by the task of taxing us all even more.

Whilst the idea of a nation weaned on modern hygienic disposable razors, reverting to the old fashioned and dangerous cut-throat razors is an amusing one, the idea of another tax on already over taxed nation most certainly is not.

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Already, there is considerable resentment at the government's enthusiasm for so-called "green" taxes (in reality an excuse to extract more money) and additional taxes and duties on a wide range of essential purchases are not going to be popular either with the men of this country or I might add the HSE (Health & Safety Executive). The thought of standing in front of the bathroom mirror using my newly sharpened razor, a knock at the bathroom door, man in suit with clipboard – Sir, have you completed your Risk Assessment Form for this procedure? Is indeed one to savour.

Our 'brave new Labour' (Brown version) government might have something in common with the men they seek to force into using non-disposable blades for shaving – they will all be cutting their own throats.

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The Sunday Quote

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''The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.''

Eugene McCarthy (1916 - 2005), Time magazine, Feb. 12, 1979
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Your Cake .... But Don't Eat It!

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Since optimism is one of the few things which the government has not yet got round to taxing, regulating or banning it is perhaps safe to assume that things can only get better.

Though it is not encouraging to read in The Irish Times (as one does) that the ratchet of big State involvement in every imaginable nook and cranny of people's lives is working again. Those things that national Governments have yet to invade of their own accord, it seems, are increasingly being trampled by the EU instead.

Whilst British Government certainly qualifies as big, invasive, over-regulating, cumbersome, costly and inefficient in its behaviour, this is a stark reminder that it still has a way to go to catch up with the EU. With their tens of thousands of bureaucrats in Brussels slaving over hot keyboards, in their wisdom and zeal they've regulated the highly dangerous extreme sport of...baking competitions at fairs and fetes. That's right, they've banned anyone from consuming the cakes except for the mouthful the judges have to consume in order to assess the baked goods.

After the initial assessment sample has been consumed the cakes must be destroyed, not eaten. What exactly is the point of this regulation? Why must innofensive events be regulated at all? Worse, why did countless bureaucrats and Commission legislators even bother to draw this law up in the first place - and make us pay them for their trouble?

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Some Thing Wrong with our World

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Today sees another penetrating article on the climate change lobby by the excellent Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph. Booker examines the 'evidence' that has been presented to the political class and taken at face value, resulting in a race by politicians to 'out-green' opponents by pledging to dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions.

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Booker goes on to explain why the information being used by politicians to underpin 'green' policy can - putting it politely - be reasonably considered to be wrong. He covers topics that he has visited in the past, but in doing so continues to build a convincing case for not blindly accepting the various claims and scares. Booker goes to town today on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), charting the intellectual and political corruption behind what must the biggest (and most expensive) scam in the history of the planet.

Perhaps though the greatest evil perpetrated by the IPCC is the way it has distorted public policy, elevating "climate change" to the top of the political agenda and thus skewing expenditure priorities and the focus of public administration.

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No more so is this apparent than in the energy field where, instead of addressing the complex but technically solvable problems of providing cheap electricity for the masses, policy is totally bogged down by the fantasy of providing for a "carbon-free" future.

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Worse still, if we are entering a period of global cooling – which even the "warmists" admit is on the cards, the policy responses required are entirely different from those needed to deal with the warming scenario postulated by the IPCC.In that sense, the IPCC is directly responsible for a huge diversion of resources, on a global scale, sanctioning policies which have no foundation in reality while diverting attention from the nuts and bolts of good public administration that are needed to keep society functional.

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That this group of self-serving politicians and politico-scientists have been able to get away with it, though, is one of those latter-day marvels which defies explanation. As Booker demonstrates, so transparent is their fraud that it is almost inexplicable that the perpetrators have not been run out of town.Instead, they preen and posture as they collect their Nobel prizes, while the media laud them and perpetuate their propaganda. There is something very wrong with this world, and it ain't global warming.

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The Sunday Quote

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'' The more you read about this Politics thing, you have got to admit that each party is worse than the other.''

Will Rogers (1879-1935) The Illiterate Digest (1924)
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War Games

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Behind the razzmatazz of the Peking Olympics, there is a darker picture, redolent of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where the country was starved of food, fuel and power simply to keep the Games going. This was covered by Christopher Booker in his seminal book called the Games War, to which he referred in one of his recent columns. The issue is further discussed on EU Referendum

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Parking Charges

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The Blog site The Purple Scorpion highlights Local Government minister John Healey, who says that local councils should charge more for basic services such as off-street parking: "Only one in five councils are using charging to the full potential. Not just to cover costs but to shape their area." Never mind that local voters elect local authorities and this may not be what they voted for, click The Purple Scorpion.

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Mitigation From The Editor of VBS

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One of the problems of running an expanding business is that there is very little time for the very consuming past-time of blogging - hence the serious lack of postings on this blog in recent months.

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I promise not to neglect VBS so badly in the future. After all this Blog has a reputation of disturbing to maintain. So a very big sorry to all our readers, especially those who have sent emails expressing a very British concern.

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In mitigation I offer my business website for viewing, http://www.the-publicist.co.uk/ - actually we are rather proud of it - and thus are very grateful (a huge British understatement) to webdesigners 01 Digital who's expertees on behalf of Peter Troy The Publicist Ltd will make the site an awardwinning one (when we find a competition to enter it in to). In short dear reader we will now 'KBO'.

Editor - Peter Troy

The Sunday Quote

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'' Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies.''

Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn, (1875- 1954) publisher, writer and political publicist.
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Of Flags and Forgiveness

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The Editor's Sunday Ramble around the newspapers.

Ignoring the lead story on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph (this blog is boycotting the Olympic Games - please scroll down) and thus not getting upset that Rebecca Aldington the double gold medal winner is holding the Union flag both upside down and inside out in her moment of undoubtedly deserved glory yesterday in Beijing the reader will note the posturing David Cameron getting a hammering for (once again) seriously missing the point. It is the same point that Peter Hitchins takes up in The Mail on Sunday: that Cameron in an amazing demonstration that he is not fit for office is supporting the ''Olympically corrupt'' Georgian President Mikheil Saakasvili. Additionally Mr Cameron wants Georgia to be allowed into Nato thus committing the UK to come to Georgia's defence (he also wants to do the same for Ukraine) quite crazy.

Moving on, the most important economic news of recent weeks, Irwin Stelzer tells us in today's edition of The Sunday Times is the recovery of the long-comatose dollar. But what is good news for the US economy seems to be bad news for the euro-zone. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported earlier this week that the European Central Bank (ECB) was taking a hammering for making a serious error by raising interest rates a quarter point to 4.25pc last month. It seems that the ECB has misjudged the seriousness of the downturn in the euro-zone economy, which has seen a contraction of 0.2 percent in the second quarter, compared with the first three months of this year, with the economies of Germany, France and Italy probably now in full recession.

Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times gets it absolutely right when he comments on the ''costly candy floss'' of regional development agencies which have contributed to collapsing the the enterprise culture on which renewal in the English 'regions' depends. As this blog has alluded to in many postings the expansion of the public sector and in particular regionalization and all the nonsense that goes with the current crassly stupid business support culture is infecting the engine room of the British economy, small and medium sized businesses.

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As many activists in the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) have heard this blog editor repeat many times (and mostly to their annoyance) the most effective lobbying that small businesses can do is to plead to be left alone by government. The representatives of the engine room of our economy will, as an unintended consequence in true Orwellian style, become absorbed in the government machine at their peril. Government (particularly the present one) is the enemy of enterprise, not its savior.

Finally, an additional Sunday quote aimed at our politicians and their fellow travelers: ''Father forgive them for they know not what they do.'' (St.Luke Ch.23 v34). One could add that increasingly the electorate is becoming less forgiving with all politicians and that is becoming quite dangerous for all of us.

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Russian Invasion

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Yet an other example of the confusion and hapless muddle from our politicians and the EU (as if yet an other example is needed) whenever there is a real crisis was evident last week at the non reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia.

While Russia proceeded to ignore her own six-point peace plan and continued fighting in Georgia, targeting the largely civilian population and ruthlessly advancing towards the capital of Tbilisi the British Foreign Secretary said nothing, perhaps because he was more focused on internal Labour Party fighting. It also took days for both the Prime Minister and the Leader of HM Loyal Opposition to make any statements that made the slightest bit of sense.Still, it is good to know that when they met recently the foreign ministers of the EU member states decided to paper over their differences and agree to send monitors to the Caucasus to oversee the “negotiated truce”.

As is obvious from the news coming out of Georgia, there is no need for monitors, the truce is non-existent. What will our political masters propose when they realise what is actually happening, a consultation meeting ?

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Global Freezing

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No matter how much hot air has been expelled by certain climate scientists and regardless of their short range predictions that the North Pole could be ice-free this summer (never mind those long range ones about catastrophic warming), the Arctic polar ice cap simply refused to melt away. In fact there is more ice than this time last summer. The Antarctic ice cap has grown even more than in recent years. Anyone would think the world was cooling down!

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The Sunday Quote

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''During Stalin's speeches to the Praesidium, the first delegate to stop clapping was routinely haulded off to be shot.''
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Clive James - Writer and Broadcaster

It Simply Not Fair

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Three British fishermen who overfished their quota repeatedly, stand to lose their livelihood, vessels and even their homes due to a disproportionate sentence.

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Quotas issued to Dutch fishermen were not being used up and the Marine and Fisheries Agency (MFA) should have redistributed the available quotas, but failed to do so. EU quotas that shared out UK fisheries to foreign vessels were denying British fishermen a proper living and being wasted as they were not being taken up.

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As Christopher Booker reports in the Telegraph: Judge Neil McKittrick not only imposed crippling fines totalling £42,500, with costs of £27,646, but also agreed to confiscations of their assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act, to a total of £213,461. Unless this is paid within months they face two years in prison.

The root of the problem for the three men was that their sole quota had been reduced so much that it no longer paid them to fish. They were aware that substantial quantities of UK quota, allocated mainly to Dutch-owned "flag boats", were not being fished for.The Proceeds of Crime Act was brought in to penalise major criminals such as money launderers and drug barons. But it is being applied in this case as a British institution guilty of incompetence, the MFA, turns every mechanism in its armoury against British subjects in order to zealously appease nonsensical European regulations.

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The MFA audited the fishermen's bank statements and demanded that the fishermen must prove that each of thousands of payments was legal. Any payments received that could not be proved to be legal would be deemed to be the "proceeds of crime" and confiscated - without the MFA having to prove the payment was illegal. The burden of proof has been reversed by the state in order to destroy the lives of men who simply wanted to earn a living.