The Climate of Peace

Al Gore has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize "for his wide-reaching efforts to draw the world's attention to the dangers of global warming'', a Norwegian Political leader anonced on Thursday.

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Of course, wittering on ignorantly about global warming is not quite what the Peace Prize is supposed to be about, the official citation being that it should go:

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''The person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.''

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Such as Yasser Arafat, for instance, or Kofi Annan, or Jimmy Carter or numerous other people and organizations that had achieved absolutely nothing though they did so while spouting happily the sort of nice sounding comments one expects from Nobel Peace Prize nominees. (Actually, to be fair, Arafat just whined and threatened Israel and Jews in general.)

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Beyond the scandals of commission there have been scandals of omission. Gandhi did not get the Peace Prize, though, though one can argue that his own assassination indicated a certain lack of success in what he preached, as did the communal massacres of 1947 as India and Pakistan became independent.

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Those who helped to bring down Communism, Pope John Paul II and President Reagan would not even be mentioned as potential candidates. There is the unfortunate episode of Rigoberta Menchú, who had received the Prize in 1992 and whose autobiography has turned out to be largely bogus. There were suggestions that her Prize should be revoked but nothing much came of it.

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So now, it may be Al Gore, whose achievements as a peace maker are non-existent (though there is the invention of the internet that he rather hilariously boasted about).

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During eight years as Bill Clinton's vice president, Gore pushed for climate measures, including for the Kyoto Treaty. Since leaving office in 2001 he has campaigned worldwide, including with his Oscar-nominated documentary on climate change called "An Inconvenient Truth." A conservative Norwegian member of Parliament, Boerge Brende, said that a prerequisite of winning the Nobel Peace Prize is "making a difference" and Al Gore has made a difference. Al Gore has indeed made a difference, especially by all those air miles his private plane has eaten up as he criss-crossed the globe to promote his gospel.

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Anyone would think that the Kyoto Treaty has been has been a success.

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Some recomended further reading: environment; Nobel Peace Prize

The End of Week Quote

The end of week quote is a piece refering to British politician the Rt. Hon. William Hague MP and his latest stupidity, excracted from the website Eursoc . It is an excellent piece below is a taster:

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The spineless Tories are, as usual, happy to live within the remit set out by the Guardian and the BBC and to indulge their own peculiar fantasy that somehow we are by right more "sophisticated" than the "yanks" in foreign policy and dealing with terrorism and war.

A Very British Soldier

Alex Green

Alex Green was, by all accounts, a fine 21-year-old from Orford. He tragically died on 13 January after he was shot escorting a convoy in Basra, Iraq where he was serving in the British Army.

More than a few politicians would benefit from reading this: the comments from the Father of Alex Green.

He's Back on Again

Oh - he's back again, the Editor of this blog is back on the radio (Wednesday 31 January at 8.30 am) giving his opinion on the days events and no doubt other matters.

Readers of a stout disposition in the Teesside area can tune in on 95 FM - though most of our readers being further a field will need to link onto http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees/local_radio/ to listen to this broadcast.

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Update

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The main topic of conversation was the one day strike by civil (and some very uncivil) servants. Peter commented on the inconvenience this would cause, a fact that the co-guest a very British (old fashioned) Trade Unionist seemed proud to be associated with.

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The old chestnut of over regulated small businesses was enthusiastically aired - Peter making the comment that the nations army of over three million small business people do not have the 'right' (or indeed desire) to strike though they can join the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which is not (and never will be) a Trade Union. The remarks resulted in one rebuttle from a FSB official who called the BBC in an agitated state expressing a concern that Peter had been invited to comment - perhaps he thought our beloved and opinionated editor should be confined to a communication free zone in Coventry.

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Link - collaborator-v-appeaser_20.html

The Sunday Quote

The Warden threw a party in the county jail,
The prison band was there an' they began to wail.
The brass band was jumping' an' the joint began to swing
You should have heard those knocked out jailbirds sing.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Jailhouse Rock 1957

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=146922007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3287271.stm

Best before date - this product is best read before Monday.

From the Editor's Keyboard

Reflecting on the past week - as one does on a Saturday morning - I am pleased to report three success during the week in the form of two emails and a posting.

I received considerable feedback from readers on the article posted last Saturday titled Collaborator -v- Appeaser (please scroll down). Apparently some members of the largest business organisation in the UK were unaware of the 'colours' of the two candidates standing for election as their National Chairman. More than a few I suspect were less than happy with the contents of the article and suprised at the effectiveness of blogs as a communication medium.

An email from the London School of Economics (LSE) requesting my services to assist with a Political research project, flattered my ego and will stretch my 'archive department' to its limits.

The email from the office of a MP in Palace of Westminster confirming that two questions that I had drafted the previous week on behalf of the City of Durham Credit Union will be 'tabled' in the House to The Chancellor of the Exchequer delighted my clients who are keen to raise the profile of Credit Unions, particularly in the wake of the collapse of Fairpack.

My only concern is whether I can take care of all the communications next week !

Civics - A British Subject

It is essential for all our children to learn history, to understand how this country came to be, to grasp the ideas that have shaped and continue to shape its descendants, the Anglospheric countries.

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Instead, our government is going to implement another version of the discredited “citizenship lessons”. These, if you please, will focus on “core British values”. As nobody knows what those core values are (Britishness is by definition indefinable) and anyone can pretend what they like on the subject, this is going to be an exercise in futility.

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Once upon a time most our children were taught in our schools how Parliament works, how the British Constitution works (oh yes, we do have one), how the United States Constitution works, how NATO and the United Nations are structured and so on.

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Of course, teachers today would, if they were to teach the same lessons would have to tell that Parliament legislates in only a small proportion of cases in this country; they would have to tell that the House of Lords is no longer the highest appeal court in this country; they would have to explain that our democracy is something of a joke and not because President Bush is such a nasty man.

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The teaching of history together with a serious and truthful course in civics in our schools, should open many eyes as to what being British should be about and to what it is actually about these days.

Ignoring not Complaining

So, according to Houghton and Washington East MP, Fraser Kemp, there has been a 60% decrease since 2006 in complaints to BT regarding silent and abandoned calls from companies trying to tell us something.

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Could this decrease be because as BT can not do anything about these kind of calls from overseas, customers are in consequence using caller display more and ignoring calls that come up unavailable (usually from ''Jason in Mumbai'') or withheld numbers?

The End of Week Quote

There has been cross-breeding between UKIP and the Tories for years. In 2004, I addressed a dinner in a loyal Conservative association, with a superb sitting MP. I spoke about Europe and the importance of sovereignty in the face of the threatened EU constitution. Scores of the 150 or so present, all of them paid-up party members, came up to me afterwards to assure me they would be voting UKIP in the European elections, due a month later (having a modicum of manners, I had asked them to do no such thing).

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Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday 24 January

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Mr Simon Heffer's full article is linked here Daily Telegraph.

Who watches Big Brother ?

By Dr Helen Szamuely

Last Friday I experienced a serious urge to do something I had never done before. No, no, settle down, it was not that exciting. I decided that I would quite like to vote for Jade Goody on Celebrity Big Brother. Unfortunately, neither I nor the people I discussed it with (who agreed with me) knew how to go about it. So, we did not vote.

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For the benefit of our non-British readers and those who are too superior to admit interest (though they admit to a great deal of disgust) in the Big Brother developments, let me explain what has been happening. (Those who are disgusted at the thought of such lowly subjects and people being discussed on this elevated forum can stop reading now.)

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There is no need, I believe, to explain what Big Brother or Celebrity Big Brother are, there being similar programmes in most countries of the developed world. The participants in the latter tend to be rather moth-eaten celebs, either wannabes or ones way past their sell-by date. (There was one occasion when the winning celebrity was not one at all. She had merely pretended and nobody noticed the difference.)

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So, there we were, a couple of weeks ago, with a number of moth-eaten celebrities gathering in the house, among them one Jade Goody, who is famous for being the only Big Brother participant who had made it as a celeb, her mother and boyfriend and assorted others, including a Bollywood wannabe, who had made a number of unsuccessful films and was clearly looking to this programme to do something about her career.

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So what happened then, I hear you ask? Well, here is the entire rant.

The Tail of a Jersey Cow

Harriet the Jersey cow had 22 Officers out to kill her.
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by Christoper Booker

I have reported many strange confrontations between officialdom and the British public over the years, but none more bizarre than the drama which unfolded 10 days ago in a field near Newent in the Forest of Dean. At 10.30 on the morning of 10 January no fewer than 22 officials – two state veterinary officials and eight trading standards officials, supported by 12 policemen – turned up, without warning, to slaughter Harriet, a perfectly healthy, nine-year-old pet Jersey cow.

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Last week, more details emerged of this latest twist to a barely credible story which has been unfolding for many months and was raised in Parliament last November by the local MP, Mark Harper. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is determined to kill Harriet (known to Defra as "bovine animal UK OX0564 00177") because another calf, born five months later, belonging to a different herd on another part of the same Oxfordshire farm, eventually developed BSE. Under the EU rules which were drawn up as part of ending the British beef ban, Harriet would have to be destroyed as a "cohort" of the infected animal, because she had been born within a year on the same farm.

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In vain did Harriet's owner, David Price, point out that the two animals had never met and could never have shared the same food, and that the EU directive only applied to animals intended for the food chain. When this was raised in the Commons by Mr Harper on November 7, the agriculture minister, Ben Bradshaw, ritually intoned that there was "no exemption under EU or domestic law for live cattle, whether or not they are considered to be pets". If Defra allowed Harriet to live, Brussels would sue.

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A fortnight later, however, a message came from an official in the European Parliament to say that, from the end of this month, a new EU regulation will mean that an animal need not be destroyed until it reaches the end of its "productive life" (which, for Harriet, would mean when she dies of natural causes). The message ended: "I hope this helps. All the best for you and Harriet."

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Perhaps this was why Defra sent in its hit-squad. On 10 January at 9.20 am, Mr Price had a tip-off that they would be there within the hour. At 10.30 he and a small group of supporters were astonished to see a body of police blocking the road, while officials took a bolt-cutter to the chained gate of Harriet's field. (This, they said, was quite within their powers under the new Animal Health Act.) They planned to invade the field, corner Harriet, and haul her off to be killed and incinerated.

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A stand-off ensued, lasting four hours, with much mobile telephoning on both sides. The local vicar, the Rev Patricia Pinkerton, having asked someone else to take a service, arrived to say that Mr Price's lawyers were applying for an emergency injunction, forbidding Defra to take any further action until the case was judicially reviewed.

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Eventually Mr Price's solicitor herself marched sternly up the muddy lane in her smart suit and high-heeled shoes, clutching papers to confirm that the injunction process had begun. The yellow-jacketed officials departed in their fleet of vehicles, leaving Pat Innocent, the observer on whose evidence this account is based, to muse on the famous 1960s experiments by Stanley Milgram showing how easily people can be persuaded by authority to obey foolish orders which result in inflicting unnecessary pain on others.

The Sunday Quote

'' The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done generally interupted by someone doing it ''

Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) A former Soap Salesman turned Writer and Philosopher. As probabley the first American 'Guru' of Sales Techniques Hubbard coined the (now over used) key note phrase: ''I believe that when I make a sale I make a friend''.

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Elbert Green Hubbart is perhaps most famous for his essay A Message to Garcia which he published after he founded Roycroft, an Arts and Crafts movement community in East Aurora, New York in 1895. Hubbard edited and published two magazines, The Philistine and The Fra. The Philistine was bound in brown butcher paper and full of satire and whimsy. (Hubbard himself quipped that the cover was butcher paper because "There is meat inside.")

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Incudeed in Hubbard's legacy to the Western World are many memorable and thought provoking comments which are regretably frequently misquoted by over enthusiastic sales coaches on both sides of 'the pond'.

Collaborator -v- Appeaser

A somewhat boring (but important) election is about to commence between two Johns for the National Chairmanship of the UK's largest Business Organization. The competition is between an overt collaborator and a covert appeaser.

The losers will be the Federation of Small Business's (FSB) Members who will be too engaged in their over regulated toil to notice, or care, as to who their next Chairman will be. The salient fact is that all 200,000 plus of them should care but if past performance is any thing to go by less that 5 per cent will actually complete and return the postal ballot papers.

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John Walker is the appeaser. He is a long standing businessman, a former self employed recruiter for the FSB who is currently developing a business as a freelance marketing and research expert (what ever that means) and has been the Chairman of the Federation's National Policy Committee for six years, not that many have noticed.

In the key role as UK Policy Chairman and in defiance of the sentiments of the membership, which has twice voted for withdrawal from the EU, once in 1995 and again in 2001, when the majority was 2:1 Mr Walker has placated the pro-EU fraction within the Federation. Last year he proudly announced the opening of a new FSB office at 'the heart of Europe' in Brussels, celebrated by the publication of a a report, which amazingly made no concessions at all to the well known views of most of its members.

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Mr Walker (a polite, quietly spoken and charming man) has a detailed grasp of the complex structures of the workings of our true government in Brussels, which makes his appeasement stance quite inexplicable, though one is forced to conclude this is in keeping with the risk adverse nature of the FSB.

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Under Mr Walker's control a large group of men and women meet regularly and discuss policy issues produce reports and discuss the how the government can make better (not less) regulations. The Policy people are obsessed with working with, not against, government and the constantly increasing number of regional quangos. On key issues that are debated at the FSB's Annual four day extravaganza for activists Mr Walker's policy representatives appear during debates, all to frequently, to announce ''that on this issue the policy committee has no policy''. Risk adverse indeed.

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The collaborator is John Wright from the North East (pictured right on the right). Mr Wright's profile on the FSB web site curiously describes his background as both 'rooted in small business' and 'a Lawyer specializing in employment law, contract, patent and company law.'
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Well now, the reality is that Mr Wright's background is rooted for many years as a Legal Clerk (later titled Executive) with the now disbanded Cleveland County Council and a Trade Union Activist to boot. Mr Wright's membership of the National Executive Committee of the anti-entrepreneurial Trade Union NALGO (now merged with UNISON) is perhaps not surprisingly not mentioned in his election address to members. The reason perhaps being that NALGO fought every single change that vastly opened up market opportunities to small businesses in the '80s and early ‘90s, and it lost on nearly every occasion.

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For some eleven years Mr Wright, now 64, has been in business in Middlesbrough. In a feature last November in his local newspaper, The Gazette (published in Teesside) Mr Wright revealed the best and worst pieces of advice he had received in his short business career. The best being, ''never underestimate your own capabilities'' and the worst being ''don't listen to your staff''. One of Wright's self claimed capabilities are employment law. In December 2004 as a national vice-chairman (he prefers 'chair') Mr Wright seriously failed to listen to an FSB regional office employee when he was involved (following a secret Officers meeting) with closing down the north east's regional office (a curious decision itself) which served the local membership of over 3,000 business people.

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The disgruntled (and newly jobless) member of staff commenced legal proceedings against the FSB following a seriously botched affair by the north east regional officers; Mr Wright was conclusively found to be the principal blamed by the FSB's General Secretary for mishandling the issue, the former employee was awarded a substantial out of court settlement to save the FSB from further considerable embarrassment. As an Industrial Tribunal hearing Chairman in the north east Mr Wright was also clearly very keen that the badly managed affair did not go to an actual hearing since the details would have resulted in many reassessing his capabilities in his supposed area of expertise.

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Mr Wright's old style Trade Union habits have surfaced from time to time as an FSB activist. His macho control style of chairing committee meetings and his intolerance to criticism is that of the classic British union bully and often commented on by fellow activists. Last summer the editor of this blog, Peter Troy, (a long time member of the FSB) was 'sent to Coventry' in a motion proposed by Mr Wright's wife, Pam and seconded by Mr Wright himself for the 'offence' asking too many questions about (Wright's) brazen pro Labour Party, pro Regionalisation, pro EU, pro Quango bias on Federation policy issues and indeed lack of proper Political Lobbying. At the Blackpool Head Office an increasingly annoyed General Secretary subsequently ruled the sending to Coventry of Peter Troy as illegal. Mr Troy's subsequent formal complaint to the FSB's Disciplinary Committee is still ongoing; four months after the complaint was made since Mr Wright is refusing to co-operate with the Federation's complaint process.
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Amazingly Mr Wright, who is not renowned for his attention to detail, is advocating the abolition (in effect) of the highly successful professional recruitment teams of the Federation which have produced huge numbers (currently over 35,000 per year) of new members constantly for 14 years. Mr Wright apparently believes that it would be more cost effective if the FSB's all too numerous committee members had a go at recruiting. Well the last time that was tried the FSB was losing more members each year than it was recruiting; hardly a logical policy.

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One wonders though, whether the FSB rank-and-file membership, who are notoriously apolitical, will actually notice who is the new Chairman of their organization. They have after all joined because one day a highly motivated recruiter had persuasively (and correctly) pointed out that with the ever increasing regulations imposed upon them by our political masters they can not afford not to join.

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So there we have it, John Walker (left of picture, at a Darlington Branch meeting in December 2002) the entrepreneurial appeaser from Surrey or John Wright from the troubled North East, the collaborator and former Trade Unionist turned employment law expert.
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Well as is very clear this blog is of the view that Mr Wright is wrong (for the FSB) and should leave Mr Walker as the better (but far from ideal) candidate to run the UK's largest member based business organization.

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More Road Tax

The government's lates tax proposal is to introduce road pricing will meanhaving to purchase a tracking device for our cars and paying a monthly bill -tax - based upon millage.

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The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent trial and study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. The cost higher milage drivers will be huge. In the BBC trial a non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.

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On top of this massive increase in tax, we will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast we have have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you can expect and additional fine with your monthly bill.

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Linked here is an excellent article on road charging by Dr Richard North For those that care about our freedoms and want to protest at the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/sign

The End of Week Quote

"For me, the word 'responsibility' is very significant … My concept of responsibility is what led me to remain in my position until this point, and to place this letter on your desk today."

The chief of Israel's armed forces, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.

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The General resigned this week over the criticisms of the military's conduct of operations in last summer's war in Lebanon. His departure follows the completion of dozens of military inquiries into the largest Israeli action since 1982.

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Good bad, or indifferent as a general – and there are many different views – one cannot fault his style or his sense of honour. Not a few British politicians might take note.

Historical Sign ?

Talking as we were (well ok writing) about the Union between Scotland and England in the context of the overriding (and all controlling) European Union in looks like an Official in the border town of Berwick Council is having a dig at the Scots.

A sign just outside the town centre points to Edinburgh and Derby, the latter being as far as Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobites got on 4th December 1745, leaving on 6th (having fallen out with each other) to return to Edinburgh.The problem for the Council is that the sign gives the distance in metric, (something that the Young Pretender would have probably have approved since he was pro 'Europe') which does not conform to British legislation: The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions Act 2002. The legal requirement is that distances be given in miles, not kilometres. Curiously the distances when converted into miles are wrong (probably deliberately to confuse invading Scots).

For the avoidance of any possible doubt (as they say in legal circles) the editor of this blog will be sending to Berwick Council an NIP (a Notice of Intended Publicity).

Criminals Without Borders

"The problem was that there was no proper system and hadn't ever been a proper system for the exchange of information between European countries." Rt Hon Tony Blair, during weekly 'Prime Minister's Questions' in the House of Commons today.

The problem stems from the "freedom of establishment" which permits the citizen of any European Union member state freely to set up residence in another state is the "Europe without borders".

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The UK is compelled to permit entry to the citizens of 26 other member states. The number that has taken advantage of this must be well into the millions by now. Perforce, it includes a goodly number of criminals who have upped sticks to pastures new, and fresh victims. In the absence of a system to ensure otherwise, and without compulsion and sanctions, there is no way the police can identify these people, or get access to their criminal records.

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Thus it is that a Judge, in desperation calls for an EU criminal records system.

Judge Stephen Robbins, who made the call after "serious difficulties" had been experienced in getting accurate information on the previous crimes of foreign offenders, saying that it was a "matter of pubic concern" that the courts in England were having these problems.

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Trying to check on the previous convictions of two Lithuanians convicted of gun-running had shown how "very difficult it was to glean details, let alone precise details" from their home country, Judge Robbins said.

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Despite all the efforts that had been made, it had not been possible to find out details of the criminal careers of the Lithuanians. Nor had the police had not been able to determine whether a 10-year sentence that one of the men had received had been imposed for rape. Apart from confirming that he and his co-defendant had been in trouble before, a prosecution office in Lithuania had been able to provide nothing more than a useless list of penal codes, some of which were outdated.

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What we are seeing, and what the Prime Minister was commenting on, is a system of EU integration which is incomplete and throws up all sorts of anomalies and inconsistencies – which can only be resolved by much more integration. The alternative that we in the UK would be better off out of the EU is clearly not regarded as an option. Yet it is the solition to the serious problem Mr Blair alluded to this afternoon.

Naval Support

There has been much publicity recently on how the Royal Navy has been cut to the bone – to the extent that it is now scarcely if at all a credible force. Yet, despite that, Britain – under the tutelage of Prime Minister Tony Blair – is still determined to play its part in prosecuting the war on terror, alongside its mighty ally the United States.

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Today the The Times tells us the allies are beefing up their naval forces in the Gulf to "go after" Iran. Britain's contribution is the two 600-ton minehunters HMS Blyth (perhaps named after the infamous Captain of the Bounty) and HMS Ramsey (both pictured above), which will remain in the Gulf for an unusually-long two-year mission "to keep shipping routes open in the event that Iran attempts to block oil exports". Which actually is quite likely.

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Clearly British ''Gunboat deplomacy'' is not (yet) a policy of the past.

Recomended Link

A new 'group' in the EU parliament !

1707 And All That

..... Or a brief history of the Union.

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Today's the day, three hundred years ago, that the Scottish parliament voted to abolish itself. The Act of Union which led, on 1 May 1707, to the formal establishment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

The background to this momentous event is, like most British History, complex, interesting and not all that it first appears upon detailed examination.

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The background, in summary, form the time of the Union of the Crowns in 1603, England and Scotland had one monarch but two Parliaments. While this worked most of the time there were occasions when the two institutions parted company. One such example being when the English Parliament executed King Charles I (much to the distress of many in Scotland and some in England) and became a republic for 11 years. Scotland's governing body decided (in defiance to Oliver Cromwell) to appoint King Charles II as their monarch.

Fifty four years later following the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary the Parliaments in Scotland and England were freed from Royal management (and interference) and could take an independent line against the Crown. The Scottish Parliament did this big style in 1703 when it passed The Act of Security which in short meant that following the death of the then Queen of England and Scotland, Anne, Scotland would Crown, once again, its own separate Monarch.

Well, from the perspective of the leaders in London these situations were becoming, to use an English understatement, annoying and seen as hindering Economic growth. In order to concentrate the Scots on favouring ever closer union the English Parliament voted to close their markets to Scottish cattle, coal and linen and for good measure declared that all Scots would be treated as aliens. In addition Scots was excluded from England's colonial territories.

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So there we have it (the first Union Flag left) on 16 January 1707, after three months of clause-by-clause debate the Scottish Parliament voted decisively for its own extinction. The Scottish people themselves were for the most part less than impressed - a mob held the City of Glasgow for a month and the Parliament in Edinburgh was attacked by rioters. As time passed and the economic transformation of the 18 th century would show the Scots probably, in fact, got a better deal than the English from the new Union.

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As History moved on the legal entity of Great Britain established in 1707 actually ceased to be in 1801 when it was superseded by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, brought about by the Act of Union of 1800 which had been enacted after the suppression of the Irish Rebellion in 1798. That then changed again, just as we were getting the hang of all this Union business, in 1922 with the grant of independence for the Republic of Ireland, after the partition of six of the nine counties of Ulster. These remained in the UK, formalised by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921, although the current title of the UK – the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – was not officially adopted until 1927.

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Well now we come to modern times and the limited devolution settelement (a bribe by new Labour) introduced by the Scotland Act of 1998, which reintroduced a separate Scottish parliament and which have created no end of inconsistencies in England, not least the so-called "West Lothian Question" - have led to calls for a similar parliament in England.

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What is rarely mentioned is that other great act of union which, coincidentally, has its fiftieth anniversary this year - Treaty of Rome, creating a European Economic Community, a proto-European state. This the UK joined in 1973, (most Britons did not notice) with our own act of union, the European Communities Act 1972, which effectively signed away our independence.

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That, in the view of many, including this blog, renders nugatory any discussion about devolution and separate parliaments in England, Wales and Scotland – and Northern Ireland when and if they can get their act together.

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As long as the bulk of our law is made in Brussels (and Strasbourg) it matters little whether we have additional talking shops in the provinces of a greater European Union. Genuine devolution would be the return of powers to local authorities, the central government acting more properly as a supervisor and guarantor of fair play than as ruler and administrator.

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What is so remarkable though is the willingness, apparently, of some in Scotland to accept the yoke of Brussels while rejecting the rule of London. Scotland's economic and political well being will be much better (as was often repeated by the editor of this blog in Scotland in 2004) as a country within the United Kingdom not as a region of the European Union.

Early morning Englishness.

Englishness - well yes indeed. A 'phone call from a Producer at BBC Radio Cleveland this morning sent thought waves racing along the Editor's grey matter. ''Would he like to lead a discussion on Englishness on tomorrows morning breakfast programme, from 8.30 -9.30 am ?'' Well now, indeed he would.

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Englishness is, of course, by its very definition is undefinable.
The radio programme gives an opportunity to comment on the Regionalisation (and sub-regionalisation) of our green and pleasant land as well as:

The dumming down of the English culture.
The loss of identity of English people.
The ability of Englishness to absorb incoming cultures.
The ridiculing of our glorious English History.
The increasing rarity of the truly English traditional Pub.
The decline of English Cricket.
The devastation of English rural heritage.
The disgraceful behavior of many English tourists when abroad.
The diversity of the most flexible language on the planet.
The fascination of the weather.
The English sense of fairplay.
The Cultivation of understatement.

The great English afternoon ritual of tea-time.

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Oh - this will be fun. Readers of a stout disposition in the Teesside area can tune in on 95 FM - though most of our readers being further a field will need to link onto http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees/local_radio/ to listen to this broadcasting extravaganza.

The Sunday Quote

'' Public opinion is a compound of folly, weekness, predjudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy and newspaper paragraphs.''

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Sir Robert Peel, (1788 - 1850) Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from December 10, 1834 to April 8, 1835, and again from August 30, 1841 to June 29, 1846. He helped create the modern concept of the police force while Home Secretary, oversaw the formation of the Conservative Party out of the shattered Tory Party, and repealed the Corn Laws. A very British Politician indeed.

On Whos Side ?

The Old War Office, Whitehall London

The many comments in newspapers and on many British based blogsites on the failings to of the Ministry of Defence to properly equip British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq reminds the editor of the old story from the 1st World War.

A young Subaltern (Junior Army Officer) from a Scottish Highland regiment was summoned at the height of the conflict to a meeting to the War Office in Whitehall. Not having been to central London previously the young man soon became lost amongst the imposing buildings of Whitehall.

Spotting a senior officer the Subaltern approached the Colonel, saluted and asked: '' Excuse me Sir, which side is the War Office on.'' ''Well'' came the reply from the seasoned officer, '' Our-side I am told - but it is becoming difficult to be sure''

Some ninety years later the same comment could be made.

Christopher Booker takes up the point:

Sean Langan's chilling filmed reports from Afghanistan for Channel Four's Dispatches last week showed British troops hopelessly overstretched and ill-equipped to fight a guerrilla war with the fanatical Taliban. In particular they highlighted the inadequacy of the unarmoured Land Rovers in which our soldiers have to patrol, and in which not a few have died.

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One telling detail was the sight of a wounded British soldier having to be rescued by Estonian troops in a properly protected Mamba personnel carrier. This was one of the nine bought by Estonia last summer, when the Ministry of Defence sold off the 14 Mambas – bought for £4.5 million for use in Bosnia — for a mere £44,000. Four others, sold to a security firm, Blackwater, are now being successfully used to give US officers and officials safe passage on the dangerous road between Baghdad airport and the city.

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Last July the UK's defence procurement minister, Lord Drayson, was caught out more than once misleading the House of Lords over these Mambas, claiming "we judged the size and mobility of the vehicle not to be appropriate to the needs of our Armed Forces today". Yet months later, when one of our men is injured, he has to be moved to safety by one of these same Mambas flogged off by the MoD for peanuts, because the Land Rovers the MoD prefers are wholly inadequate to the task.

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Isn't it time all the ministers responsible for this horrible scandal resigned, led by the Prime Minister.

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The present day Ministry of Defence, Whitehall London

The War On Ignorance

Tony Blair Speaking aboard HMS Albion in Plymouth

At the early stages of his prime ministerial career, Mr Blair saw Britain's influence in the world in terms of membership of the European Union. To that effect – with enthusiastic support of his then defence minister Geoff Hoon – he was prepared to submerge the British military in the European defence identity.

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Now, however, Tony Blair who today spoke on the subject aboared Britain's new Aircraftcarrier, HMS Albion in Plymouth - one of Britain's premier naval bases (for the time being) opened precisely the debate need. That being if Britain wants a leading presence on the world stage, it means continuing to send troops into dangerous places far away - with (and largely without) the involvement of the EU. In a interview with a local television programme, the Prime Minister declared, "There is a global terrorism that we face … I think it's right for Britain, alongside our allies, to be in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is a big decision to decide to be in that game still."

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The crucial issue for the Eurosceptic community (for the benefit of our overseas readers - those that want to leave or part leave the EU) is that the allies with whom we are working are not the European Union. They are Nato, the United States, countries like Pakistan – with whom we share the vital task of defeating the Taliban – and Anglospheric countries like Canada and Australia.

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In short, the best way for the UK to maintain a semi-detached relationship with the core EU countries such as France and Germany – and ward off further encroaching political integration - is to remain immersed in fighting the "war on terror", from which the EU powers have largely opted out.

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There is not only a political divide between the European and the US-led approach, but a growing schism in military philosophies – a divide between conventional "warfighting" and counterinsurgency operations.

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The British Army sees the wizz-bang, shoot-em-up warfighting, with its tanks, artillery and other equipment as "proper" soldiering. It hates counter-insurgency and treats it as an aberration, hence its reluctance to gear up for it and to develop appropriate and effective tactics.

It wants to get it over and done with so that it can get back to its traditional role of of fighting "real" soldiers who have the decency to use green (or sand) painted equipment and wear uniforms.

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Perversely, it is the "soft power" European Union which offers the military the best prospect of equipping and maintaining a modern "warfighting" army, in its grandiose plans for the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF). Because the ERRF is a theoretical construct, unhampered by having to be structured and equipped to deal with a real enemy in a known theatre, military planners can indulge in their flights of fancy.The debate is not actually about whether we should fight the war on terror but whether we should continue so doing or pull out in order to pursue the more acceptable - to some - programme of European defence integration. But, because the dreaded "E-word" is never mentioned, we have a wholly distorted and unreal debate, with the real issues being avoided and the parties indulging in proxy arguments.

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With defence expenditure at current levels, the finance exists to equip our armed forces for conventional warfighting or for counter-insurgency, but not both. Clearly, the Europhiles would prefer the former - as that takes us in the direction of the EU. Also, the hierarchies of the armed forces desperately want to keep a warfighting capability and, forced to make a choice, would dispense with their counter-insurgeny roles. (As for the Tories, they do not seem even to be in the debate as they seem largely unaware of what is going on.)

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Whatever the merit of retaining a significant conventional warfighting role, it has to be said that the urgent need for the here and now is to improve Britain's miltary counter-insurgency capability. By happy coincidence, promoting the development of that capability is the best way of scuppering the ERRF.

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From the Eurosceptic stance, therefore, Mr Blair is suddenly the ally - as are those who support the continuatuion of the war in Iraq. The Lib-Dims, the Conservatives and the military – each for their different reasons – are the opposition. But, with the real issues ill-defined, the real opposition is ignorance.

There is a a real world out there. The EU is not part of it and, if we wish to be part of the real world, we cannot be part of the EU.

Conversion On The Road

A Labour and Lib-Dem MP recently joined forces during a debate in the House of Commons and called for all speed limits on British roads to be read as Kilometres/hour instead of miles/hour so that motorists will drive on motorways at 70 km/hr (43 mph) instead of 70mph.

This idea would cut the limits by a third without having to replace a single signpost claimed Nia Griffith Labour MP for Lanelli in Carmarthenshire who wants speed restriction signs to treated as kilometrs per hour instead of the familure miles per hour.

''Few people realise how much of an economy they can make as well as benefiting the inviroment by travelling more slowly, but at present they are unable to do do so without feeling they are holding up other road users." Says the Labour MP.

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Backing the suggestion, Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, North London, amazingly added: "This is a good idea, and it would be very cheap to implement; the ease with which ordinary people can do things and the cost of the proposals is important."

Perhaps what we ought to try first is to have MPs £75,000 pay paid as 75,000 Euros so they get only (once converted) £53,000 instead; clearly that would provide some (very small) benefit to tax payers, slow down some irresponsable use of public funds and probably be entirly appropriate since the EU is the true government of our country anyway.

The End of Week Quote

Prof. Tim Congdon

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''Well-intentioned politicians are of two kinds, those who want to help people directly and those who want to free people so that indirectly they can help themselves. The distinction may sound like a quibble, but it is not.''

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The quote is from Professor Tim Congdon, the eminent economist published in The Daily Telegraph this week. The well-argued article supporting UKIP and saying that he will not support David Cameron remains leader of the Conservative Party.

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Whether Professor Congdon actually joins UKIP as George Jones and Brendan Carlin say in The Daily Telegraph or not remains to be seen, however if he continues to write well-argued articles of the kind on the op-ed pages, he will be something of a threat to the current 'modern compassionate' Conservative Party.

Lights Out

The letter below was published in The Journal Newspaper today:

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Sir,

Two weeks ago I wrote in these columns that it was becoming increasingly important to purchase a back-up generator for when the national grid fails and we are without power for regular periods of time.

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The likelihood of anything intelligent being done about the problem has just receded further. According to a Eurobarometer poll released recently only 20 percent of those polled throughout the EU are in favour of nuclear energy, 80 percent back solar energy and 71 percent are in favour of wind energy. But with that level of hostility towards nuclear, and those sort of percentages in favour of renewables, the chances of any politicians making the "tough decision" and implementing the only truly feasible alternative, modern nuclear plants are becoming extremely slight.

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The poll itself has been published as a curtain-raiser to the publication of the EU's strategic energy review, which will not become a runaway best seller though the document does worryingly affirm that the EU has not made any key decisions on improving Europe's medium and long term electrical power problems.

So it would appear that the lights are going out (again) all over Europe.

Peter Troy

Editor of the blogsite Very British Subjects.
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Noble Lords Join UKIP

The big news in eurosceptic circles today is that two of the "defrocked" Peers, Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Willoughby de Broke, have joined UKIP. They have not precisely "defected" it was more a question of their party abandoning them.

Both Noble Peers are known for their outspoken views on many issues, particularly the European Union and its effects in this country. When the peers (together with two others, Baroness Cox and Lord Stevens of Ludgate) lost the whip in 2004, the stupidity of the Tory leadership in letting people like that go was a meaSure of the political low of the once great partyhad fallen.

Lord Pearson has worked long and hard for the Conservative Party, among other actions, raising a good deal of money and a party that is £35 million in the debt cannot afford to be sniffy about such matters. Before he was ennobled, Malcolm Pearson was well known in the ranks of those who fought Communism and he has continued to speak up in humanitarian matters, such as the fate of the Kalahari Bushmen.

During the EU parliamentary elections in 2004 Lord Pearson (Rannoch being in rural Scotland) was an invaluable asset to the editor of this blog who was the Lead Candidate in Scotland for UKIP. Lord Pearson's frequent 'phone calls during the hard fought campaign were welcome boosts to the moral of the small but professional electioneering team.

Lord Willoughby de Broke, one of the hardest working and most active peers in the House, though he has never held a paid ministerial job. He is not as well known in the media as Lord Pearson, but he is as important in politics. Furthermore, he is a scion of an old and active Tory family.

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Dr Richard North wrote of Lord Willoughby de Broke when he addressed a UKIP fringe meeting:

David Willoughby de Broke is no ordinary peer. He is the 21st Baron, heir to an unbroken line, which stretches back to 1491, son of a war hero and a Tory through and through. If you cut him in half and split his bones, he would have "Tory" etched through them like a stick of rock. He is the embodiment of the Tory establishment, and, despite that, a thoroughly nice and truly caring man. He even looks like a Tory.

And it was this man, this High Tory, who carried the conviction. What he had hoped to hear from Mr Howard was that he would have wished to repatriate many more powers than just fishing, the Social Chapter and aid, and, if negotiations failed, then he would "consider all our options… including withdrawal", warning that his party was "dead meat" if it did not listen to public concern over greater European integration.

Both Peers are strong-minded and conscientious, campaigning for the issues they believe in, be thatleaving the EU, hunting, matters to do with agriculture or the situation in China, Tibet and Hong Kong. Of course, they do not get paid for the work they do, merely given rather limited expenses, unlike the various MPs who do little but are convinced that they are underpaid.

The Conservative Party can ill afford to lose people of such high calibre and UKIP has done well to snap them up, despite the ill-natured and frankly ignorant sniggering that has gone up from some of the Conservative blogs. No wonder Nigel Farage UKIP's leader is strutting this is all very good news for UKIP and indeed the Country.

Letter to the Iraqi Ambassador

British Politician Gordon Brown has added his comments relating to the execution of one of the nastiest tyrants in the modern world. The people of Iraq do not seem that upset about the going of the old mass-murderer. No pro-Saddam demonstration managed to have more than a few hundred, possibly a thousand at most, participants.

The popular horror being expressed, particularly among the West European elite, at the execution of Saddam Hussein and his taunting by some Shi’ite guards does not concider the reality of the horror that existed during Saddam's rule. Would it be too much to ask all these self-appointed guardians of international public morality to ask themselves what their reaction would be if they or their nearest and dearest had gone through what the people of Iraq have gone through under the far-from-benign rule of Saddam Hussein, his psychopathic sons and other Ba’athists who were given power by him?

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Insenced by Romano Prodi, for example, traveling the World including such Nations as Russia, a country not known for the wonders of law and order, calling for a world-wide moratorium on capital punishment the Editor of the Blog has written to the Iriqi Ambassidor in London. The open email is as follows:

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For the attention of H.E. Dr. Salah Al-Shaikhly, Ambassador to the Court of St James.


Your Excellency

Romano Prodi, has joined others in condemning the manner of the execution of the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

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I read that the Italian President is going to various places, such as Russia, calling for a world-wide moratorium on capital punishment. Terrible, terrible, he is saying this is not fit behaviour for civilised countries and humane societies.

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Perhaps your excellency should remind Senor Prodi that within living memory a certain Benito Mussolini, the former Italian dictator, together with his unfortunate mistress, Clara Petacci, hardly a war criminal and other members of his entourage were shot by the Italian partisans without the benefit of a trial, let alone a public one, or defence lawyers. Their still bloody bodies were then filmed hung upside down in a public square in Milan from meat hooks. Not the behaviour of a civilised country.

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Perhaps the Italian President in the style of modern western politics should apologise for his nations own historic judicial misdeed before continuing his self righteous campaign against the execution of one of the modern world's worst despots.

The Best of British luck with the difficult task of restoring you nation to a sate of democracy and peace.

Peter Troy
Editor of blog site: Very British Subjects

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The reply, if there is one, could be interesting.

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Virgin Galactic - Day Return

World renowned British astrophysicist Prof. Dr. Stephen Hawking wants to go to a place he has only theorized about in his long career, space.

"This year I'm planning a zero-gravity flight and to go into space in 2009," he was quoted as saying recently in The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Dr. Hawking, 65, has said he hopes to travel on British businessman Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic service, which is scheduled to launch in 2009.

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The service (which one assumes will be cleaner than Virgin trains which rattle about badly on the Rail network) will charge space tourists about $200,000 US for a two-hour, suborbital trip some 100 miles above the Earth (presumably it will be a return ticket).

One of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation, Dr Hawking gained fame with the bestselling book: A Brief History of Time.

The scientist, who uses a wheelchair and communicates with the help of a computer because he suffers from the neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease, has done groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe, proposing that space and time have no beginning and no end {Gosh - adds the editor}

Dr Hawking has warned that the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth. On that note we move on.

Revolting Action

From the Editor's post:

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Well now, as a self employed businessman and high mileage motorist I am used to - all be it with grumbles - paying huge amounts of tax on vehicle fuel (73 per cent) and receiving nasty letters when photographed by those state sponsored roadside tax raising cameras.

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So when I recently received a 'Notice of Intended Prosecution' (NiP) from the Police, following an alleged speeding offence in the northeast town of Hartlepool very early one cold morning last November when on my way to a business meeting I wrote (last week) to the local Chief Constable. I complained, bitterly, that my fundamental right of silence was being denied because I was suspected (wrongly) of being a speeding motorist.

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As we are all aware the right to silence is granted to those suspected of far more serious crimes - including premeditated murder yet is ignored by the Camera Safety Partnership (Safety - round spherical objects - its all to do with tax raising) who clearly think that motorists are highly contemptible.

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The core issue here as I have written before, is that excess speed, i.e., the act of exceeding an arbitrary limit; and inappropriate speed for the prevailing conditions (whether within or above the posted limit) have become synonymous in the official mind. The former is the archetypal victimless crime: a purely technical offence which has no road safety consequences; while the latter is potentially lethal and represents a crucial road user training and education issue which is currently left undressed.

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The wilful misuse by the Police Service of the Notice of Intended Prosecution (NiP) means that most people are dissuaded from defending their cases by this document, which denies recipients the right of silence enshrined in the 1951 European Convention of Human Rights. So in the words of my political hero: ''Up with this I will not put''!

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Rather than peruse easy targets, the authorities need to pay proper attention to the real causes of road traffic accidents — inadequate training, bad and dangerous driving and their inadequate policing, bad road layout and maintenance and all the other factors which are being largely ignored in the current simplistic and counter-productive campaign against speed per se.

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Following a number of court cases Solicitors have recommended to the Association of Chief Police Officers that the wording of NiP's be changed, todate this has been ignored, well there is far too much money to collect.

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Since I am of the view that it cannot be acceptable that drivers have fewer rights than those suspected of serious crimes such as murder, arson, rape, mugging or perjury I am going to join the growing army of disobedient motorists and protest.
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So to return to the beginning I returned the NiP to the Chief Constable commenting:

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Sir,

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I refer to the ridiculous communication sent out in your name hereto attached. I decline to complete the form since to do so is in my view in breach of Human Rights Legislation (case currently before the European Court of Human Rights) and also jeopardises my position under Common law.

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If you wish to proceed with a prosecution of the alleged breach of the Road Traffic Act as detailed in your communication, you are informed that I shall defend rigorously any prosecution.

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No doubt you are in full agreement with the robotic prosecution of otherwise law-abiding motorists in the belief that to do so makes a contribution to road safety, despite overwhelming evidence that such relentless prosecutions irreparably damage police public relations and do nothing to improve road safety.

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I also appended my congratulations to the Chief Plod in rebutting the Home Office's Regionalisation of the three northeast Police Services ( I remember when they were Forces -gosh that dates me).

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So there we have it; my new years revolution going so far, to plan.

The Sunday Quote

'' To be or not to be: that is the qustion:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms agains a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? ''

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Hamlet

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William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

It Can Only Get Better

Rading any of the very British national daily newspapers today makes depressing reading

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The Daily Telegraph today runs a front page story about cuts in the Royal Navy, reducing it, as some would aver, to the status of a coastal defence force.

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The Daily Mail, on its front page, launches a crusade against waste recyling, warning of a plague of rats as Councils cut back on collection frequencies in order to pay the extra costs of meeting recyling targets.

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The Times gives its front page news of a proposed ban on rabbit-human embryos but also devotes two whole pages (as does the Mail) to the "crisis" over the "squalid homes" provided for our armed forces.

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The Guardian choses to climate change as its lead issue, with "environment minister" Ian Pearson (who he?) complaining that airlines aren't taking it seriously enough.

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The Independent offers, "for the first time", a ''real blueprint for peace in Iraq'', by Ali Allawi, the former Iraqi Defence Minister. Well, yes indeed.

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The Sun, when you get past the "killer bus" front page story, is running an "exclusive" headed, "Infantry crisis as troops quit". Defence editor Tom Newton Dunn is claiming that the Army is facing a massive crisis "as troops in frontline fighting battalions quit in droves over poor pay and slum homes." All but one of "39 bayonet battalions" are undermanned, he claims, and overall they have only three-quarters of the men they need. Yet some of the worst-hit units are STILL being sent on dangerous operations to do the job expected of a full-strength battalion.

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Oh well as Tony Blair said ten years ago '' it can only get better''. Well without doubt, Tony was more wright now than he was then.

End of Week Quote

"The UK government has enjoyed two big economic policy successes since 1997: making the Bank of England independent and not joining the euro."

Comment in the (pro EU) Financial Times today.

Piddling while Rovers Burn

By Dr Richard North

Ironically, it seems, the girlie agenda espoused by the Tory front bench has been exposed by Tobias Ellwood, the Tory MP for Bournemouth East.

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While Gerald Howarth was pursuing his fatuous agenda on transport aircraft charters, Mr Ellwood – an ex Royal Green Jackets officer - was asking the secretary of state for defence how many Cougar and Vector Pinzgauer armoured vehicles were being sent to Iraq Afghanistan and when they were expected to arrive.

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Alongside the 5 December answer about which Thomas Harding got so excited, defence minister Adam Ingram responded thus:

On current plans half of the Mastiff (the UK variants of the Cougar) vehicles will deploy to Iraq, the remaining half will be split between Afghanistan and a training pool of vehicles retained in the United Kingdom. The first batch of Mastiff vehicles is on schedule to arrive in Iraq by the end of the year.

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A majority of the Vector vehicles will be deployed to Afghanistan with a small number retained in the United Kingdom for training. The first batch of Vector vehicles is on schedule to arrive in Afghanistan in January 2007.

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This, as we indicated, was on 5 December and still there is no sign of the Mastiffs arriving in Iraq.

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More to the point though, the minister is re-writing history. When the procurement of Mastiffs was first announced by Des Browne on 25 July, he stated that they were, "...expected to be delivered to Iraq and Afghanistan in batches over the next six month rotation, with an effective capability in place in Iraq by the end of the year."Yet, with no sign of a "effective capability" in place, their deployment is more than an academic issue. Troops may well die for lack of them in place.

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Today, AFP issued another photograph of burning Land Rovers, reminding us of what is at stake.

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One might say, in this context, that Liam Fox - in concentrating on leaky toilets rather than Army equipment - is piddling while Rovers burn.

2007

Happy New Year

From

A Very British Blog

The New Year Quote

''For Last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await an other voice''

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T S Eliot American born Playwright, Poet, Editor and Critic (1888-1965)

The End is Nigh

The end is nigh for the Euro.

From the British award winning blog - the amazing eureferendum - we have a post ' No Land, No Hope, No Glory':

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/search?q=No+land+no+hope

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PS Sir Edward Elgar would have been pleased !

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Who Owns Britain ?

Has anyone noticed but the Spanish are buying up the Best of British with amazing ease. The reason being that Spanish corporate raiders can do this because they enjoy a massive tax advantage which the European Commission has ruled as illegal – but they are allowd to carry on anyway for the time being.

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The present £12 billion Spanish bid for Scottish Power will, if successful, bring to £55bn the sum recently spent by Spanish firms on buying up very British concerns. These include BAA — once the British Airports Authority — which owns Heathrow, Gatwick and other airports (£11bn); Abbey, our fifth largest bank (£8.6bn); the mobile telephone giant O2 (£17.7bn); the operating company of three London Tube lines, the Waste Recycling Group, Bristol Water and many more.

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So untill the EU inforces its own competion rules –manana – it is accurate to say that we are ruled by Brussels (badly) and owned (increasingly) by Madrid.