EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Gordon Brown. Show all posts

Brown+parl[i-Brown+parl]PMQs today were described as "very sombre", with the prime minister opening the proceedings by making tributes to the 37 soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the House last sat. That, inevitably, set the tone for the rest of the session.

Ann Winterton got to ask her question about the constitutional Lisbon treaty and we'll look at that later, when we have the Hansard transcript.

The Guardian covered the session, and missed the point – as you would expect it to – and gave more attention to Tony Wright, (Cannock Chase) who had a "good, pithy question".

What is more dangerous, he asked, politicians becoming generals, or generals becoming politicians? There's a laugh, recorded the newspaper, then telling us: "Brown says he thinks he knows who Wright is talking about and he says he wants to thank Sir Richard Dannatt (who has just joined the Tories) for his service."

You expect stupid questions from politicians, so we weren't disappointed, but to realise quite how stupid, you have to read this.

Interestingly, The Times publishes a poll on Afghanistan today, which records that calls for British troops to leave have risen sharply, standing at 36 percent – up from 29 percent in mid-September.

The poll also asked about attitudes to Dannatt joining the Tory ranks. Nearly half the public (48 percent) believes he was wrong to have become involved in party politics within six weeks of retiring as head of the Army, with 42 percent saying he was right.

However, Tory voters (62 per cent) back him, the only group to do so, which is very illuminating. This is the group you would expect, instinctively, to deplore the blurring of the line between the military and party politics. It demonstrates, more than anything, the power of tribalism and the way it distorts judgement. And we think, compared with the Afghanis, that we're civilised?

Following PMQs, there was a statement by the prime minister on Afghanistan, during which, as expected, the troop level was raised to 9,500. We will also report on this in detail once the Hansard transcript is up on the net.

COMMENT THREAD

"I want to take head on the arguments that suggest our strategy in Afghanistan is wrong and to answer those who question whether we should be in Afghanistan at all."

So said Gordon Brown yesterday, in a widely trailed speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, under the general heading of "Afghanistan - National Security and Regional Stability."

More on Defence of the Realm.

Brown_Barroso[i-Brown_Barroso]Now that the Hollywood scriptwriters’ strike over there is likely to be a glut of them on the market. Could one or more be persuaded to come over and produce something new by way or prime ministerial utterances about the European Union?

It is completely unbelievable that even someone as bovine as our present Prime Minister could have said after meeting Commission President Barroso something like this:

The EU is essential to the success of Britain and a Britain fully engaged in Europe is essential to the success of the EU.

Or this:

It is by standing together we can be a force for stability and justice throughout the world. We should not put at risk the trade, businesses and jobs that flow from our position at the heart of Europe.

Yes, dear readers, he really did say it. He really talked about Britain being “at the heart of Europe”. I didn’t think I should ever hear that venerable phrase again. How it takes me back to those halcyon days of John Major when only the Conservatives seemed to talk rubbish about the EU. The Lib-Dims just naturally talk rubbish about everything, especially about rubbish.

According to the man we must think of as our Prime Minister (not that it amounts to much these days) the institutional debate is over for the next decade. Boy, is he in for a surprise when the colleagues will start discussing the next treaty.

With the institutional debate over for the next decade we must focus on the issues that really matter to our citizens - prosperity and jobs, security and climate change.

He clearly has no idea what matters to people, climate change not being a big issue, especially as that warming seems to have turned to cooling; he has no understanding of the relationship between the EU institutions and its economic structures; he has not even read the Constitutional Reform Lisbon Treaty that lays down all sort of rules as to how the economies of the member states are to be run in the near future.

Above all, he is an utter, crushing, bull-headed bore. He has learnt nothing and has not been able to forget anything as he knows so very little.

conservatives_1_2005[i-conservatives_1_2005]During a closely fought general election, The Sunday Telegraph tells us, "those of a Conservative disposition will need to stick together if Gordon Brown is not to win by default."

This is in a leader headed, The fatal fringe, which is backed up by the Boy King-groupie-in-chief, Matthew d’Ancona, who complains bitterly that "there are Tories who would rather lose than change". And thus is the newspaper recording the Tories waking up to the threat of the minnows and the Boy King’s latest attempt to plug the leaks in the dyke.

Significantly, the line exactly matches that of Gerald Howarth whose views we published on this blog yesterday and who warns us that a victory for Gordon Brown "will be assured unless people get behind the Tory party and rally to our flag".

How interesting it is that these sophisticates - who understand the political process so well - simply do not get it: we, the electorate, as my colleague is so fond of saying, owe you politicians nothing. If you want our vote, you are going to have to earn it. The message "vote for us or Gordon Brown will get in" is not enough - not anything like enough.

It didn't work last time (pictured) - and it isn't going to work this time. To think otherwise is a fatal arrogance that is going to lose you the election.

COMMENT THREAD

Tim+Congdon[i-Tim+Congdon]More buzzing in eurosceptic circles: Tim Congdon, the eminent economist, has announced that he will be supporting UKIP if David Cameron remains leader of the Conservative Party.

Whether Professor Congdon actually joins UKIP as George Jones and Brendan Carlin say in today's Daily Telegraph or not, if he continues to write well-argued articles of the kind on today's op-ed page, he will be something of a threat to the Conservatives.

The points that he makes are sensible and well-argued and are not confined exclusively to the issue of the European Union, though Congdon's views on that are well-known.

In the first place, the article raises the standard of individual freedom and responsibility as against paternalistic semi-socialism, as preached by the so-called One Nation Tories, though as it has been pointed out elsewhere, the refusal to contemplate the idea of vouchers in education indicates that the Conservative leadership rather likes the idea of a few children (including their own) getting good education while everyone else is stuck with few prospects of improvement.

These paternalists see their job as being the application of their superior knowledge to state action of some kind. Their political impulses are to tax and spend, to meddle and regulate, and to interfere and control; they welcome state involvement in "socially desirable" activities.

We all know where that sort of paternalism has brought this country: an appalling education system, a health care system that is not nearly good enough for a country as rich as this one, and an economy that favours the parasitic public sector at the expense of the wealth making private one.

Above all, it has destroyed the core ideas of individual freedom and small government that many of us, previous Conservative voters believe in.

Congdon goes on. Like this blog he accepts that what David Cameron says is what he means.

But I think this is unfair and dishonest. Mr Cameron should be taken at his word. When he says he is in favour of "national school-leaver programmes", "social action zones" and suchlike, and when he says that the Tories should become "the champions of social action", he really does mean what he says. Whether his words have any genuine meaning is another topic, but of his sincerity in uttering them there should be no doubt.

On the main issues of the day, all the big parties are now close together. Unless the Tories drop Mr Cameron with all his misguided baggage (a badly rationalised environmentalism, Third World do-goodism, holier-than-thou "social inclusiveness" and the rest), I cannot vote for it. I believe today — as I did in the 1980s — in a small state, low taxes and free trade.

David Cameron and the party under him has a set of woolly-minded ideas that can carry disastrous consequences (just think what that Third World do-goodism has done in the last four decades in Africa).

On top of that, it is unreliable, to put it mildly, on the very important question of the UK's relationship with other European countries and the world. For all of these reasons, he will now support UKIP, who have come up with better policies. What was the reaction of the various Tories and, indeed, readers of the Daily Telegraph?

Many of those responding to Tim Congdon's article seemed unable to understand what actually happened in the eighties and why the Thatcherite shock tactics had had to be adopted. But a number have, rather gloomily, admitted that there was a good deal to be said for Professor Congdon's analysis.

Iain Dale, in his diary, expressed disquiet at the thought of a man of Congdon's calibre leaving the party and, again, several of the responses took that theme up. But, astonishingly enough, there were numerous responses along the lines of "he is past his sell-by date", "he is completely mad", "if he leaves the Conservative Party for UKIP then it is good riddance to bad rubbish", and the old-old theme: "anyone who really wants to achieve withdrawal from the EU or reassertion of free market ideas should vote Conservative as that is the only part who will do this". How they figure that last argument I have never been able to understand.

In other words, many, though not Iain Dale, in and around the Conservative Party are learning nothing. As far as they are concerned it is the solemn duty of everybody who dislikes this government and its policies to vote Tory because that is the only alternative. Sadly, they are not an alternative in any real meaning of the word.

Equally sadly, from their point of view, the electorate is growing more aware of its role in the democratic process. Let me repeat this once again for the benefit of any stray Tory who happens to read this blog: we, the electorate, owe you nothing. You owe us a reason or, preferably, several reasons why we should vote for you. Until you produce those reasons, we shall not do so.

For the benefit of those who tell me that I cannot expect the Conservative Party to have the policies I want, let me reiterate. They cannot expect me to vote for them if they abandon any policy that can be described as being even remotely conservative, such as lower taxation, smaller government, greater encouragement for people to take their own path.

Oddly enough, the ToryBoy blog has decided to ignore the story of Tim Congdon, which is probably just as well, as the comments on it tend to go on and on about the lunacy of UKIPPers, as if that had any relevance.

Instead, there is a piece about satisfaction with David Cameron going up among party members from 68 to 71 percent, not in itself an indicator of anything very important but it sounds reassuring. Curiously, only 19 per cent of those members who bothered to answer the question (for some reason no figures are given, only percentages) think it very likely that Cameron will be Prime Minister after the next election. That is not a particularly high figure from your own supporters, even with the addition of 53 per cent who think it quite likely.

The other posting is the story written by Fraser Nelson in this week's Spectator and quoted in the Daily Telegraph as well. Its purport is that David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, have been fantastically good at raising money.

Instead of the usual £15 million in a non-election year, they have managed to raise £21 million through remarkable fund raising efforts that involved Samantha turning up even when her nanny was ill. (Was there a substitute nanny or did she have to ring round her friends desperately, hoping that someone was free that evening?)

Everyone involved in Tory fundraising offers the same explanation for the new bonanza. "It's entirely down to David. No modern Tory leader has been so deft with the donors," said one fundraiser. "He remembers their names, their wives' names, their business problems, everything." Added to this is the indefinable but unmistakable aura of a winner. When asked what difference this makes, my source tilts his head back and rolls his eyes. "Night and day," he says.

Um, maybe. In the end, the rich man in his castle has only one vote as does the poor man at the gate, whose children get bad education and whose grandmother cannot get her hip replaced in time, not to mention the fact that his small hovel has been broken into three times in the last year with the police doing what is generally known as "sweet f.a.", while his taxes are going up and set to go up even more under a putative Tory government.

Furthermore, it is not all that surprising that the Camerons know how to deal with rich people. Are they not rather well off themselves? Does the fragrant Samantha not work at Smythson's, stationery purveyor to the rich? Has not the less fragrant Boy-King's only non-political job been a corporate affairs directorship with the now defunct Carlton TV, that is schmoozing with the rich and the grand?

The question is what is that £21 million going on. At the end of last year the Conservative Party was supposed to be £35 million in debt. According to Fraser Nelson, all that will be wiped off when they sell that white elephant they still own in Smith Square.

Quite so. But they have not sold the white elephant so, presumably, the £21 million will go towards settling some of the debt and not the putative war chest that should make the Conservative Party the only one able to fight an election in the next six months.

Undoubtedly, the Labour Party and Gordon Brown have problems with raising funds as Fraser Nelson points out. The question is does that matter. There is no particular reason why Brown, even if he does become Prime Minister this year should call an election any earlier than it is absolutely necessary. John Major didn't, James Callaghan didn't, Sir Alec Douglas Home didn't, Harold Macmillan didn't.

The argument that he needs a mandate of his own is fallacious. The British system does not give mandates to individuals, unlike the American presidential one. It is a party that is elected and, like it or not, the Labour party was elected for its third term. Gordon Brown can sit it out to the very end of that term with full constitutional and political propriety. And the Conservative Party members can go on rejoicing in Sam and Dave being able to raise money while more and more people with influence abandon it, not understanding the new caring-sharing, compassionate Conservative Party.

This spring we shall see whether the electorate has any time for that entity. There are local elections coming up in many parts of the country the Conservatives did not do particularly well last time round.

Saddam-Execution[i-Saddam-Execution]Now that Gordon Brown has also made his displeasure at the execution of one of the nastiest recent tyrants known we can all relax. Romano Prodi, Hosni Mubarak, John Prescott, Gordon Brown, old uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. One has to admit that the people of Iraq do not seem that upset about the going of the old mass-murderer but what do they know?

I know I am not the only person around who feels nauseous by the so-called popular horror, particularly among the West European elite, at the execution of Saddam Hussein and his taunting by some Shi’ite guards. 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 close to him?

Actually, we know the answer to that in a round-about sort of way. Take Romano Prodi, for example. (Well, all right, I’ll take Romano Prodi.) The man is going to various places, such as Russia, a country known for the wonders of law and order, calling for a world-wide moratorium on capital punishment. Terrible, terrible, he says. Not fit behaviour for civilized countries and humane societies.

Could someone remind Signor Prodi that within living memory a certain Benito Mussolini 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, let alone defence lawyers. Their still bloody bodies were then hung upside down in a public square in Milan from meat hooks. Not the behaviour of a civilized country – and Italy is proud of her long, highly civilized and extremely bloody history.

What about the Nuremberg trials, also within living memory? I have lost count of the times I have been told that the only way the former Soviet empire can sort itself out is by having something like a Nuremberg tribunal. Few of the people who make that comment have any suggestions as to who should be part of that tribunal, the former Soviet empire not having been pulverized the way Germany was in 1945 but that does not stop them from pontificating.

To be completely honest, the Nuremberg trials were a travesty of legality, with people tried on hastily invented charges by the conquerors of their country and a very questionable tribunal. The Soviet judge, Iona Nikitchenko had presided over several of the Stalinist show trials in the thirties. One of the Soviet prosecutors had been involved in the mass murder of Polish officers in Katyn, one of the indictments he then presented at Nuremberg.

Usual rules of evidence were deliberately ignored and it was made clear that the terrible crimes the Nazi defendants were accused of could happen only in the framework of an aggressive war.

Some of the defendants were acquitted, some were given gaol sentences, most were sentenced to death and those that had not committed suicide, were executed with the executions filmed to be widely shown. According to Albert Speer, he and others who had been sentenced to imprisonment were sent in to clear up the mess after their comrades’ execution. Tsk,, tsk, not the behaviour of a civilized society.

Ah, but those were different days. A terrible regime had been vanquished in war. Ahem, what exactly was Saddam’s regime like? Considerably worse than Mussolini’s though not worse than Hitler’s.

What of some other events in recent European history? The execution of Imre Nagy together with three members of his government after the suppression of the Hungarian revolution? All four of them were tricked into imprisonment and executed after a secret trial. In fact, the executions were not announced till after they had been carried out.

Another one to be executed after that secret trial was General Pál Maléter, the commander of the Hungarian insurrectionary forces who had been kidnapped when he went to negotiate with the Soviet forces.

Ah but this was all a long time ago, though one would be hard put to describe Nagy or his colleagues as being terrible oppressors or, indeed, oppressor of any kind.

The point is that over the last few decades Europe, first Western, then Eastern developed to a point where the likelihood of a monstrous regime seems low. In the United States that likelihood had never even existed. As a consequence we feel that we can pontificate on what is and what is not moral behaviour in connection with bloodthirsty mass murderers.

James Taranto had an interesting item in one of the round-ups of the Wall Street Journal Europe Best of the Web last week. He refers back to an article by Debra J. Saunders in the San Francisco Chronicle that takes to task all wailers about Saddam’s untimely demise.

Ms Saunders quotes a curious statement from Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program:

The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders. History will judge these actions harshly.

Excuse me? You mean history will judge Saddam’s executioners more harshly than him and his fellow mass murderers? Ms Saunders has no doubts about that:

What nonsense. The measure of a government's commitment should be in how it treats its citizens. Hussein had countless Iraqis killed without a trial. He ordered the death of an 11-year-old boy because he thought it was "the right of the head of state." History will focus on his misdeeds, not on the timely execution of a guilty despot.

James Taranto goes further:

Saunders is obviously right: It is perverse to consider the execution of a mass murderer as worse than the murder of children.

But she doesn't quite capture the full perversity of Dicker's statement, "The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders." By this reasoning, hanging a thief or a jaywalker would be less bad than hanging a mass murderer.

And suppose we apply the Dicker principle to the previous regime in Baghdad. How did it treat Iraq's worst offenders, namely Saddam Hussein his sons and assorted hangers-on? It provided them with nearly limitless wealth and power. By Dicker's logic, this is close to ideal: The more brutal a dictatorship and the more lavishly its rulers live, the stronger its commitment to human rights. What a monstrous moral inversion.

The following day there was a defence of Richard Dicker’s statement not by him, as it happens but by someone who clearly still believes in the Easter Bunny. This is what a reader came up with:

I don't think history will long remember how Saddam was executed. But Dicker's not making an inverse statement--the worse the criminal, the better the treatment he should receive. That's nonsense. He's talking about having a "floor" of acceptable behavior for everyone, regardless of how vile he is. For example, while one could be happy to see Timothy McVeigh walk to the gas chamber, it would be unseemly to have a jeering crowd throwing rotten fruit at him as he went.

That's not out of respect for McVeigh, but out of respect for the solemnity and seriousness of putting someone to death. Such solemnity and seriousness is also a protection for the executioners' souls. These events should not be fun, even if you believe in their necessity.

In Dicker's case, I suppose he wouldn't want anyone put to death. That amounts to the lowest common denominator that he would apply to anyone. Why do you suggest that he wants to elevate Saddam? Were you speaking tongue-in-cheek? I suppose his choice of pabulum was clumsy; replace the words "worst offender" with "most vulnerable" and it's more correct. Why not just attack his poor choice of verbiage than make an absurd claim of a "monstrous moral inversion"?

The point about the need for solemnity around the execution is a fair one and it does not get into the argument about the horrors of capital punishment or the supposed lack of fairness in Saddam’s trial.

But to suggest that “worst offender” can equal to “most vulnerable” raises serious questions about certain people’s thinking. Most vulnerable usually refers to the sick, the old, children, disabled and, in certain societies, women. All people, who were acceptable to Saddam as victims. How does it begin to describe a bloodthirsty tyrant who is getting an open trial, defended by lawyers of his choice and being allowed to get away with behaviour in court that would not have been allowed either in America or in Britain?

So what of this notion that the manner of Saddam’s execution had made a martyr out of him and wiped his crimes off the Arab people’s memories? Given that with the best will in the world, no pro-Saddam demonstration managed to have more than a few hundred, possibly a thousand or two of participants, this is probably not true.

If those who say it believe it, they are exhibiting the most devastating contempt for Arabs. Was the manner of Mussolini’s death seen as part of his martyrdom except by those who had seen him as a hero? Has the Nuremberg trial negated Nazi crimes? Why exactly do we assume that Arabs, specifically Iraqis, will somehow react in such a ridiculous fashion? (As for Hosni Mubarak’s statements on the subject, one should take them with a large dose of salt until we have a clearer idea of the state of play on imprisonments, executions and treatment of such hardy criminals as student bloggers in Egypt.)

Of course, the entire uproar about the horrors of capital punishment is a form of cultural imperialism without the responsibility of the nineteenth century variety.

When slave trade and then slavery was abolished in the British Empire and the Royal Navy fought a long battle against slavers in various parts of the world, they assumed responsibility for their moral stance. And, unlike the more doubtful opposition to capital punishment, no matter what the circumstances, opposition to slavery is a moral stance.

When thuggee and suttee were abolished in India the British authorities shouldered the responsibility for eliminating those horrors and for administering the lands in question.

I am no writing a defence of imperialism, not even of British imperialism. That is a subject that is being argued by historians. I am merely pointing out the difference of imperialism with responsibility and the modern cultural imperialism without responsibility.

After all, what burden will Romano Prodi be shouldering during his campaign to abolish capital punishment around the world? Come to think of it, will he be taking this campaign to China or various Arab countries (not Iraq)? What administrative support are all those West Europeans and Americans with their high moral tone offering for countries that are trying to free themselves from particularly oppressive tyrannies?

One final question: if things go wrong again in Europe, will there be the same breathless distaste shown for capital punishment even for the worst offenders? Could the likes of Gordon Brown, Romano Prodi and Richard Dicker answer the question I heard from a young German historian some years ago. Agreed that there were many problems with the Nuremberg trials but would you rather they had not taken place?

COMMENT THREAD

David_Cameron[i-David_Cameron]Wouldn't it be nice if one could keep to that putative resolution of not attacking David Cameron and the Conservative Party? Actually, wouldn't it be nice if we had a Conservative Party?

Well, what happens? I ignore the Sunday newspapers and lo, and behold, the Boy-King comes out with yet another political gem, which he will repeat in a speech today. It seems that the people out there (far away from his own rather expensive home and lifestyle) are paying too much. In fact, he has just been told (perhaps, by one of the nannies) that the cost of living has been going up.

So, like a good little boy scout he wants to help everyone. The Conservative Party – deeply in debt, as all of us know – is setting up a website to help people to cut down on their cost of living or their bills (whichever seems more accurate). This, apparently, is part of their campaign against Gordon Brown who is being accused "of adding to the burden on families who are feeling the pinch by hiking taxes and allowing housing costs to escalate".

So, does this mean that the Conservatives will cut some of those taxes, specifically the Stamp Duty on home buying? Not so that you'd notice.

Cutting taxes, as Georgy-Porgy Osborne has told us, is courting cheap popularity and that is something the new, caring, sharing (especially of our money) Conservatives would never do. Actually, they would never court any kind of popularity, cheap or expensive but let that pass.

So, instead of telling us what leading “a Government that helps people to live for less”, David Cameron and his Tory Boys will give us lots of advice how to cut those pesky utility bills and make sure that "some vital goods and services - such as plumbing and rail fares" did not become unbearably expensive or, any more expensive than they are, or, well, you know.

Just to show how unfair it all is, the Boy-King has promised that he would ask the Office of Fair Trading to investigate soaring gas bills. Ahem, any chance of investigating those soaring tax bills?

I suppose, I shall have to ask it again. Is this really what one wants Her Majesty’s Opposition to do: give advice on how to pay bills and cut down on the cost of living? Would it not be a goodish way for all those intellects in Conservative Central Office to spend their time to produce some ideas about how they are going to reverse the horrors of the Blair-Brown government? Perhaps, even they have given up on the notion of Cameron ever becoming prime minister.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]Gordon Brown, we are told, went on the BBC television device yesterday – not that one watches these things.

We are also told he "signalled" that, in the event of his assuming the office of prime minister, he would forge (good word under the circumstances) a foreign policy independent of the US and initiate "frank" relations with President George Bush.

In so doing, we understand that the chancellor uttered in the direction of the camera words to the effect that he would be "very frank", then saying in a robust prime ministerial style, "The British national interest is what I and my colleagues are about."

He promised: "a new kind of politics in this country... a new style of government in the future". This would be a "Government of all the talents", one which would listen more to the views of Labour MPs.

POL+-+Bush+098[i-POL+-+Bush+098]Bush, meanwhile, could care less. Poised to put in an additional 20,000 troops into Iraq, three times the total number the British have in place, he is ready for a make-and-break "surge" that he hopes will bring peace to Iraq.

When not even his own Congress can stop him, what a virtually unknown British politician says is of remarkably little importance – as, no doubt, Gordo will soon be finding.

COMMENT THREAD

Sean+Rayment[i-Sean+Rayment]One tiny bit of the all-pervading veil covering that most secretive (and dishonest) of organisations, the Ministry of Defence, was lifted for us this weekend by defence correspondent Sean Rayment (pictured), of the Sunday Telegraph.

But what he thinks he might have seen, he may or may not actually have seen. And it is a moot point – given his lacklustre track record – whether he has actually understood what he did see.

Even with that, you cannot be sure he has painted an accurate picture. This depends on whether he was allowed to see enough of the game to form a clear view – which is extremely unlikely. He will have been shown only what some of the players wanted him to see – or were able to show him, notwithstanding that none of the players themselves have a complete picture.

If you are beginning to suspect this is a laborious way of my admitting that I have not the faintest what is going on in the MoD, then you are partially right. But it is also a reminder that no one else does. What we are getting, therefore, is a confused picture. In the final analysis, it may be completely misleading - with the possibility that that is the real intention.

Not for Sean Rayment and his MSM newspaper, however, are there any doubts or caveats – and nor would you expect them. Rayment, under the headline, "Armed forces face Brown's fury" is telling us that Defence Chiefs believe that the Armed Forces are now viewed by "senior Labour figures" as a "Tory organisation", leaving them at risk of incurring the wrath of Gordon Brown, the Chancellor.

Senior officers, we are then told, fear that relations with Labour are so bad that the Chief of the Defence Staff will have to issue official orders at senior level, banning the leaking of stories damaging to the government. The months of unofficial briefing by senior commanders have sparked increasing fears that the Ministry of Defence will be left the "poor relations" of government spending, with defence budgets slashed during this year's Comprehensive Spending Review.

That, of course, is what it is all about – the comprehensive spending review. This is the current "bun fight", the outcome of which will determine whether the different Services will get all the toys they want or whether some of the treasured projects will have to be cut back to pay for ongoing operations.

For all the complexity, once you have sussed that, you have the essence of the game. What you must not do is run away with the idea that the Defence Chiefs are actually interested in the performance of their respective services or even care about the current commitments in Afghanistan and - especially - Iraq. These are simply irritating side issues which are distracting them from the task of building "proper" armed forces.

The current concern about these operations thus stems not from any heart-searching about best to fight them but from a greater concern that the spending on them might eat into the finance available for longer term projects, like the Navy's carrier programme and the Army's £14 billion Future Rapid Effects System (FRES). The "war against terror" is regarded as a temporary and unwelcome aberration which must not be allowed to distract from the longer-term development of the armed forces.

Reading between the lines, this is why there is now real alarm within the MoD. The recent publicity about the under-resourcing of troops in the field has been too successful and has gone badly wrong. The message has gone to the Treasury that it is there that the bulk of spending must be concentrated, rather than on the grandiose headline projects to which the Defence Chiefs are so wedded.

What has caught them out is that they largely believed that stoking up public concern over current commitments would bring them extra (i.e., new) money. Instead, Gordon and his hard-hearted (and largely bankrupt) Treasury chums are simply planning to re-allocate existing funds, diverting them to service the immediate operational requirements.

Hence do we get another piece from Rayment (with the help of political editor Patrick Hennessy) in the inside pages, picking up what he has seen but not understood, under the headline "The big guns are ordered to hold fire".

What this amounts to is Defence Chiefs and the MoD establishment, having suddenly realised that their publicly-expressed concern for the troops in the field might actually cause money to be diverted to them rather than the favoured projects, are desperately clamping down on the publicity to ensure that their ambitions are protected. The rest is fluff.

What is rather amusing, in a pathetic sort of a way, is how little Sean has been recruited as the willing but unknowing agent to promote the Defence Chiefs' agenda. Not for him nor the MoD, and especially not the Conservative opposition, will you get any ideas that the Army – in particular – should be properly equipped for the tasks it is currently undertaking.

That defence money should actually be spent on defence is most irregular - and most definitely not on the agenda if the Defence Chiefs - with the help of the Sunday Telegraph - can keep it that way.

COMMENT THREAD

gatesb06[i-gatesb06]As Robert Gates (pictured) delivers his verdict on the Iraqi war and the Iraqi Study Group reports to president Bush, the amount of material stacked up in my virtual "in-tray" related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is getting excessive.

In order to pull it together, I am attempting to write a cover-all post here, in order to explain why we are losing (if we are) - the fashionable topic of the moment even amongst cuddly Tories.

But do not run away with the idea that this is an exercise of offloading surplus material all in one posting. Friends of this blog will know the keen interest we take in defence, and the material has been saved for a purpose. Now is the time to use it.

Even amongst those who will trouble to read it though - and many will not because it appears to be about "toys" - not all will fully understand the fascination with the subject.

Here, it is not as my co-editor would assert (but only in jest) that it simply reflects an obsession with "toys". What is really fascinating about them, for a political analyst, is that military equipment is the ultimate in functional tools. Their procurement is nine parts a political process and, therefore, in their design and construction (as well as their deployment) "toys" are a window into the soul of those - usually the politicians - who control them.

By contrast, with a great deal of social legislation, it can be many years before one can see the effects of actions taken by politicians, and the effects are often diffuse and difficult to interpret. With defence, though, there is a clean, direct cause-and-effect relationship between a decision to buy (or deploy) specific equipment (ot not to buy, as the case may be), and the end result. Thus, as a "tool" to measure the effectiveness of a government (and opposition), military equipment has few parallels. Amongst other things, we can see how much the kit was intended to cost, how much it did cost and, crucially, whether it is performing as intended.

Most often, we are also talking about huge amounts of money. The adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have already cost us, the British taxpayer, £7.4 billion and today, in his pre-budget report, Gordon Brown has allocated another £600 million to a special reserve to pay for these conflicts. A very significant amount of that money goes on equipment, and it is increasingly clear that the money is being very badly spent.

In the main post, we continue our exploration of this issue, but what begins to emerge is a question not previously addressed. If so many of the pundits are so sure we are losing (or not winning) that question is not so much why we are losing, as why we seem to want to lose?

This in part explains the unlikely title, the reason for which comes clear in the main post. In order to win, I wrote in an earlier post, we must first stop losing. And the first thing in this context we must do is ensure that our own casualties are minimised. But what we seem to be doing is going out prosecuting these wars in a way which will ensure unnecessary deaths and, in the end, guarantee failure. Can this really be incompetence?

For the moment, though, this is work in progress. I have nevertheless published the incomplete work with a comment thread - and invite comments, references to further material and anything else relevant. This, for me, is always a healthy process as I am able to feed comment back into the work as it develops.

Anyone else, who might be offended or disturbed that this blog should be used to write about such nasty things, can always move on to the far more important subject of David Cameron's triumphs as Conservative leader.

The post, as it is emerging, can be read HERE.

COMMENT THREAD

CBB%20composite[i-CBB%20composite]Late last night, Booker and I were discussing the extraordinary situation where the three leading politicians of this nation seemed to have abandoned the "soundbite" in favour of the photo-opportunity as a means of conveying their messages to the voting public.

But not only have they been expending their energies (and our money) on acquiring an ever wider range of pictures for the album, there is – as we noted - a distinct difference in the message the politicians are trying to convey. Of late, the Blair-Brown "team" have concentrated on the bellicose while the Boy Cameron has been after the fluffy, "caring" shots.

However, as the polls seem to be indicating that the "man from Mars" pics were giving Gordon Brown the lead on the hard-edged issues, Booker and I agreed, somewhat cynically we thought, that we would shortly see the Boy setting up some soldier shots for himself.

Prescient or what? This morning we see the news that the Boy has ditched a long-standing appointment to speak to the CBI at their annual conference (seriously upsetting them in the process), instead dashing over to Iraq for a photo-opportunity with some soldiers.

link[i-link]Officially, the Boy is in Iraq on a "fact-finding" tour with William Hague, his shadow foreign secretary. He says he wanted to show his support to the troops and hear their experiences.

But the amount of "fact finding" he can do in the space of a day trip – which includes getting there and back – has to be very limited. In fact, a comment on the Iain Dale blog sets out the likely scenario for such a visit (albeit in a different context - but you get the drift):

...do you think his handlers will allow him to be put anywhere near some real frontline troopies? There'd be some carefully staged photo op of him in shirtsleeves talking at a group of carefully selected, neatly washed and ironed squaddies. Then a couple of shots of him enjoying a "typical meal" with the same squaddies all of whom would be under orders not to speak unless spoken to and to smile politely.

There'd be the obligatory macho shot of him sitting on a tank or field gun. And maybe, if he really felt his martial credibility needed bolstering, one of him in a hilltop op watching a distant explosion through a pair of high powered binoculars. At no time will he meet frontline soldiers nor go within fifty miles of the enemy. And nobody he might meet would be allowed to display their bad manners by raising matters like equipment and supply deficiencies.

thatcher%20tank[i-thatcher%20tank]In truth, the fact-finding is a charade. The Boy is there for some happy snaps in front of some hunky squaddies, to square up his portfolio which is becoming dangerously unbalanced. He has overdone it on the "touchy-feely" shots.

There is, of course, plenty of precedent for politicans, from Churchill and before, lining up to have themselves snapped with the troops. Famously, the "Iron Lady" – Margaret Thatcher – got herself photographed actually in a tank. But, while she may have got away with it, I suspect the Boy is just going to look faintly ridiculous - whatever he does.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]This picture of a British solider pointing his rifle at an Arab woman caused outrage amongst the Guardianistas earlier this year when it was published. But it is easy point-scoring for the armchair liberals who do not have to face the prospect of being attacked by a suicide bomber.

What we cannot see from the picture, however, is the sight fitted to the rifle but, if it had been a thermal imager, the "Vipir", as described by Marine Sergeant Stephen Brown, then the soldier could have picked up the tell-tale "cold-spot" caused by the explosives belt and, with the imager attached to the rifle, could have shot the bomber (if need be) before he or she got close enough to do any damage.

Suicide%20belt[i-Suicide%20belt]Having lost one of his men to a suicide bomber, Sergeant Brown was particularly keen to have more of such sights, his platoon being issued with three instead of the 25 it needs. "These units will save people's lives," says Brown. "They allow you to look at the potential threat and see him coming, but having to pass them around by hand and pick up your weapon – by that time he's on top of you."

Thus it was that Sergeant Brown went public in the Daily Mail initially, spilling the beans to Matthew Hickley, defence correspondent.

The issue, as we know from the piece posted on this blog was picked up by other media outlets and, in particular, by Shaun Ley of BBC Radio's World at One news programme.

vision%202[i-vision%202]Ley had the opportunity to interview the procurement minister, Lord Drayson, about this specific issue but, as we recorded, he completely blew it. In his ignorance, he allowed Drayson to confuse thermal imaging sights with the standard-issue night vision goggles (illustrated below), which work on a completely different basis.

As can be seen from the illustrations, the green picture is from the night vision goggles, which act as light intensifiers, while the grey-coloured frame is the thermal imager, showing how it picks up infra-red radiation. The latter is entirely independent of the visible light spectrum and can be adjusted for daylight use, unlike the light intensifiers.

link[i-link]The confusion, however, has "killed" the story, evidenced by a short piece at the end of another story in The Times yesterday, reading:

Lord Drayson, the Defence Procurement Minister, said that he was unaware of ammunition shortages or equipment problems in Afghanistan after claims by a Royal Marines sergeant that troops in Helmand province did not have enough grenades, night-vision equipment or armoured vehicles.

Unless the Mail or another media source returns to the story, the issue is now effectively dead. Of course, us bloggers could try to make an issue of it but I doubt we have the power, on our own to make the issue stick. Then, I doubt even that many will try.

Interestingly, last week we did see the famous (in his own lunch-time) Tory blogger, Iain Dale wonder which of our brave servicemen will have the "courage" to ask Gordon Brown these two questions:

How many British soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan because your government won't provide the equipment the armed services have said they need? How much of this is down to you and the Treasury refusing to authorise the MoD to buy the equipment?

But, while Dale has been known to get the occasional quickie "tee-hee" story out of defence issues, now that Sergeant Brown has put himself out on a limb, I suspect we will hear nothing further from him.

link[i-link]
Nor indeed is it likely that we will hear anything from the Tory defence team, which seems incapable of handling such issues. And the Boy Cameron, of course, is far too grand to concern himself with such trivial matters. Once again, therefore, we are confronting a failure of the political process, where even our troops on the front line cannot rely on MPs for support.

As a result, Marine Sergeant Stephen Brown's men are still at risk through inadequate equipment - and are likely to remain so - while he, the good Sergeant, has been hung out to dry.

COMMENT THREAD

Balls[i-Balls]Pity the left-wing Guardian which also happens to be strongly Europhile. Hence it tries to construct a fantasy in which all right wingers are rabid Eurosceptics while all the left-wingers support the project.

Nevertheless, you can see the paper struggling with today's story about Gordon Brown's "right hand man", the treasury minister Ed Balls.

He is to announce that the government is to publish a yearly statement on all European Union spending in the UK as "a first step towards cracking down on waste and fraud." We are also told that he will describe the state of the EU budget as "a disappointment and an embarrassment", following its rejection by auditors for the 12th year running.

Such mildly communautaire action by the treasury minister is then hailed by the paper as evidence of the chancellor and his supporters being "keen to outflank the Tories on Europe", suggesting they will weaken Britain's international influence by isolation, and destroy its ability to lead reform.

It then goes on to remind us that "David Cameron alienated potential allies in Europe by pledging to take Conservatives out of the main centre right grouping of MEPs, albeit in three years time." However, we are told, the EU-loving Mr Balls said this month that it was in Britain's national interest to collaborate more closely with the EU and that Brussels should have more powers to deal with issues such as climate change.

So there you have it. The world view prevails and the Guardian is at peace with itself. It can then allow, through the eyes of el presidente José Manuel Barroso, that Gordon Brown is "sceptical" - though not hostile - about the value of the EU and its work, while the dangerous right winger Cameron is "sceptical" and out to destroy the Union.

One could only wish that the paper had got it right and the Boy really was as painted. As it stands, though, he is probably vastly more in favour of the project than Gordon, which is giving rise to some rather muddled thinking.

COMMENT THREAD

SP%2019%20Nov[i-SP%2019%20Nov]
From the Scottish Sunday Post (no link) comes a perspective on Gordon Brown slightly different from what we are getting from the Westminster-obsessed media.

This is from back bench Labour MP John McDonnell, the only MP so far to declare as a rival candidate for the Party leadership, against his fellow Scot.

McDonnell, who is essentially functioning a stalking horse, says that the Iraq war could cost Brown the leadership, so unpopular is it amongst the party membership and the unions.

Polemics this might be but it reminds us that, as a new prime minister, Gordon Brown will have to chart a very careful course if he is to avoid a major rift in the party.

Nevertheless, Brown's visit to Basra yesterday puts him firmly in the "pro-war" camp, while the Scotsman is also telling us that, as prime minister, the chancellor will maintain his opposition to the euro.

One wonders whether the Boy will be taking his cue from this and, in his quest for "clear blue water", is lining the not-the-Conservative-Party up for an anti-war, pro-euro stance.

COMMENT THREAD

Brown%20Iraq[i-Brown%20Iraq]"Have we missed any important stories?" asks the increasingly introspective ConservativeHome.

For sure, it is a Conservative Party site, so that means its focus will be on things like the disreputable behaviour of James Gray MP, and Patricia Hewitt's verdict on David "Wimp" Cameron: "Quite pretty I grant you".

Bizarrely though, being in the Conservative Party these days means that you must not be interested in anything beyond the shores of England. You avoid foreign affairs - including minor things like the European Union - and you definitely, definitely do not concern yourself with the trivial fact that our government is losing (or has already lost) control of the situation in southern Iraq.

link[i-link]The fascinating thing is that, while the Boy Wimp devotes himself to hugging hoodies and sundry other "touchy-feely" activities, chancellor Gordon Brown has upped sticks and made a surprise visit to Iraq to look at the situation for himself. And let no one suggest that Arabs do not have a sense of humour, the Middle-East online website captioning its photograph of the event: "A boost for the morale or further disheartenment for the boys?"

According to one early report, Brown was the bearer of gifts, pledging another £100 million for the reconstruction effort – to add to the £544 million already committed. And, predictably, the move is seen as the latest initiative by Brown to widen his brief beyond his Treasury portfolio as he moves closer to succeeding Blair… Brown the prime minister. It says something of him that at least he recognises the gravity of the issue and is devoting the time to it.

When he does finally replace Blair (and it is increasingly looking like "when"), Gordon will have a difficult path to tread. On the one hand, he will be tempted to disown an unpopular war, and blame all and any problems on his predecessor but, on the other, he will know that a quick exit is not on the cards.

Basra%20street%20021[i-Basra%20street%20021]To that effect, Brown has already committed "his" government to supporting the Iraqis in "building a democratic nation", which effectively means that he is in for the long haul. That means that, by 2009-10 when we might expect a general election, Iraq will still be an issue.

Should we have the misfortune then to have the Boy Wimp as prime minister (although the continuation of the Brown regime is no better option), the Boy's greater misfortune will be that he will have to manage the situation, instead of burying his head in the sand and hoping it will go away. And it would be a brave pundit who would be prepared to predict that the insurgency will be over in 2-3 years time. So the Boy may find himself pitched into the middle of a life-and-death battle, where British soldiers are fighting and dying.

As the Democrats in the United States will shortly be finding, there is a huge difference between opposition and power – summed up by one word: responsibility. In power, the Boy will be expected to perform, and get it right. There is nothing which focuses the public’s mind more than the body bags resulting from unforced errors.

Depending on how things develop – which is always difficult to predict that far into the future – the Boy can always rely on the voter honeymoon, and he could use the Labour trick of blaming the previous administration for any problems.

camcom[i-camcom]Whether he gets away with this, however, will largely depend on how robustly he has opposed or criticised previous policies. And here the Boy is going to have problems. Decisions taken now and in the next few years – as well as the decisions not taken and the opportunities missed – will have a material effect in determining what options are available to the Boy when he picks up the poison chalice and opens his eyes.

So, while he can get away with silence on this key issue at the moment, in due course that silence may well come back to haunt him. If he said nothing at the time, later complaints about the government's past errors may carry little force. And, given that we have just been through an exceptionally violent week in Basra, with the promise of more – without a single word from the Conservatives, much less the Boy - my guess is that yes, they have missed some important stories.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]The fate of the Joint Strike Fighter – or F-35 Lightning II as we must learn to call it – has hugely entertained us on this site, with the will they won't they drama of whether the Brits will actually buy it and the parallel saga of the second engine.

Although things have gone somewhat silent and there are still serious funding issues, the UK still seems to be in the game, even though we have yet to hear precisely what has happened to the carrier project.

But there always was going to be a time when the players had to get serious. That time has arrived: the participants in the multi-national project have to commit to the production and support phase.

Leading the way is the Netherlands which on Tuesday became the first of the partner nations to make that commitment. The other F-35 partner nations - the United Kingdom, Italy, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway - are expected to sign up by the end of December.

Then the music is going to have to stop and the partners are going to have to put up or shut up. For Gordon Brown, that means a serious spending commitment – getting on for £15 billion, including the carriers. I suspect that there is more than a little heart-searching going on in the Treasury. Meanwhile, DID has a good backgrounder on the Dutch decision.

COMMENT THREAD

Death%20cigarettes[i-Death%20cigarettes]If the Sunday Telegraph and other media organisations – not least the BBC - have got it right, the chancellor might be about to suffer another multi-billion pound hole in his coffers.

This may arise if the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) rules next week that British shoppers have a right to buy alcohol and cigarettes from the Continent without leaving home – by mail order, telephone or internet - and pay duty at the rate levied in the country of purchase rather than in the country of residence.

As this is often only a fraction of that charged in Britain, a massive number of people are expected to take advantage of this ruling, if it transpires, putting at risk a very large part of the annual £15 billion Gordon Brown collects from tobacco and booze duties.

Yet, if this does happen, it will represent a stunning development on a 1998 decision by the self-same ECJ which effectvely ruled that such goods bought in EU countries could only be imported at the rate of duty paid in the country of origin if imported by the purchaser in person.

That case itself arose from the actions of two south London businessmen who in 1994 decided to call the bluff of the EU's Single Market. These were B J Cunningham and Stan Bertelsen, then directors of the Enlightened Tobacco Co, who were marketing a brand of cigarettes called "Death" – "a responsible way to market a legally available consumer product which kills people when used exactly as intended."

When they were blocked by the established cigarette manufacturers, they hit upon the idea of bringing in cigarettes from Luxembourg via a subsidiary known as the "Man in Black", acting as agents for the purchasers of the cigarettes.

This used the provision of the Single Market Directive 92/12 which allowed individuals to pay duty at the point of origin only but, because the directive restricted this privilege to people who made the purchases themselves and were not engaging in a commercial enterprise, Enlightened Tobacco also relied on a principle in British law that, for legal purposes, an agent and the person for whom he acts are one and the same person.

For a while, Enlightened Tobacco were able to sell cigarettes at Luxembourg rates of duty. Not surprisingly, the scheme was tremendously popular as the company only charged a small commission on top of the lower duty rate. But it could not last. In February 1995, HM Customs and Excise began detaining the imports at Dover until UK duty was paid.

The company took the decision to the High Court where it came before Mr Justice Popplewell, to find itself opposed not only by the government but also the giant Imperial Tobacco Company which saw a serious threat to its 35 percent share of the UK market.

To stay in business, Enlightened Tobacco relied on the agent principle but the court was not impressed, and neither was the ECJ was the case was eventually referred there. On 2 April 1998, it pronounced its verdict, ruling that none of the language versions of the directive "expressly contemplated the intervention of an agent" and that the scheme in any case fell under the provisions governing mail-order sales, under which excise duty is payable in the state of destination.

This could not, of course, stop the infamous booze cruises and, by 2001, more than one-fifth of all cigarettes sold in the UK had been black market, amounting to more than £3.5bn a year in lost taxes. The cut-price beer arriving from across the Channel each day was said to equal the weekly sales of 1,000 pubs. That the trade existed at all, however, was in no small measure due to that remarkable decision in 1998.

But now, it seems that the ECJ is to accept that individuals can buy from abroad and someone else can arrange the transport, provided they are not doing this as a business.

This is what emerges from the preliminary ruling was made on 1 December 2005 by Advocate General Jacobs in the case of Staatssecretaris van Financiën v B.F. Joustra (C-5/05). That in turn arises from a reference from the Dutch courts, the case brought initially by the Dutch excise against Mr J F Joustra.

Mr Joustra, it seems, and 70 other individuals, belong to a group called the Cercle des Amis du Vin (circle of the friends of wine). He, on both his own behalf and that of the members of the circle, orders wine in France and organises a Dutch transport company to collect and deliver it to him.

The wine comes from producers which members of the circle had visited on holiday. The delivery was supposed to save them carrying it home themselves with excise duty paid on the wine in France.

Mr Joustra made no profit on this activity, charging members only for the cost of the wine and a proportion of the travel costs. But, in 1997, as the operation expanded, he was granted the status of non-registered trader and the Dutch authorities demanded excise duty on the delivery, claiming that this activity did not fall within the "non commercial" requirements of 92/12.

Joustra appealed to the Dutch courts and the case was eventually referred to ECJ for clarification, with the preliminary ruling now due for confirmation (or not) next week by the full court.

If the Court does as expected, however, the issue is perhaps not quite as straightforward as the media makes out. From a look at the preliminary ruling, the advocate general seems to be making a fine distinction on Article 8 of the directive, which provides that excise duty on products "acquired by private individuals for their own use and transported by them" is to be charged in the member state of acquisition.

In the first instance though, the purchase must be made by the individual (or someone acting on his behlaf, but in a non-profit-making capacity) in the country of origin. Then the whole case seems to hang on the transport. If this is arranged on behalf of the purchaser, rather than the vendor, again on a non-profitmaking basis, then only the duty in the country of origin needs to be paid.

This does, however, allow the individual to purchase goods anywhere in the EU – by internet or other means but, it seems, they must either arrange their own transport or get someone else to do it for them on a non-profit basis.

Depending on how exactly this works, and how many people go for the option, it could cost Mr Gordon Brown between £5 and £10 billion in lost excise duty. For smokers and boozers, that would be good news, except that Mr Brown will not be cutting back his expenditure. Instead, he will be looking elsewhere for his money, reflecting that, when it comes to the sovereign right of a state to charge its own taxes, that sovereignty seems to have gone up in smoke.

COMMENT THREAD

Nick%20Griffin%2001[i-Nick%20Griffin%2001]It must seriously hack off the BBC – on whose evidence BNP leader Nick Griffin was brought to trial in the first place. But, for the second time, Griffin has walked free from a Leeds court, despite the best efforts of the Crown Prosecution Service to put him behind bars for "inciting race hatred".

Thus it is that the BBC report has as its strap, "A campaign group described the BNP's views as 'abhorrent'", even as Griffin and his co-accused Mark Collett, BNP head of publicity, walked free.

The campaign group, "United Against Fascism" described the acquittal as "a travesty of justice", but it was never going to be the case that a Yorkshire jury was going to find Griffin guilty - and nobody but the loons believes he is a fascist.

But, after yesterday's verdict on Mizanur Rahman we are not the only ones to see a parallel between the two trials. The Guardian has one of their favourite ethnics, Laura Smith (pictured above), to pronounce on the issue.

"The verdict clearing Nick Griffin on race hate charges," she writes, "stands in stark contrast to the case of a young Muslim man convicted the previous day on very similar charges… In both trials, the defendants were accused of using words or behaviour intended to stir up racial hatred."

Er… there is a slight difference Laura. Rahman was facing charges of incitement to murder as well. There is no evidence that Griffin has ever suggested that Muslims should be murdered.

However, if the chattering classes loathe and detest the BNP, the feeling is mutual. Griffin has accused the BBC of abusing its position while Collett described the corporation as "cockroaches".

Many people will be offering a silent cheer at the verdict, not least because of the reaction of the chattering classes. Little do those realise that the great attraction of the BNP is simply that they manage to invoke such paroxysms of rage at their very existence. And even though Gordon Brown may think the laws may need changing, fortunately there is no law against merely upsetting these people – yet.

COMMENT THREAD

FedEx[i-FedEx]Launch customer for the troubled Airbus A380 freighter, the US freight giant FedEx, has decided to bail out – possibly the first of many.

It has cancelled its order for ten of the Superjumbo aircraft, ordering instead 15 new Boeing 777 Freighters, with options to purchase another 15.

However, we should not be at all triumphal. Two weeks ago, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote that British taxpayers stood to lose up to £700m of launch investment unless Airbus succeeded in winning a new wave of orders for its flagship aircraft.

So far, the government has invested £530m of our money in the A380 and a further £250m in aid to Rolls-Royce for the Trent 600 and 900 engines. It said the funding would lead to 22,000 Airbus jobs in Britain, where the wings are built, and safeguard a further 62,000. In fact, Airbus now employs 13,000 people in the UK – and the number can only go down.

Airbus%20ILA[i-Airbus%20ILA]The way the system works is that a royalty is paid on every aircraft sold, but the taxpayer foots the bill if the jet proves to be a flop. With its 159 orders now reduced by ten, even the original, rather optimistic break-even of 270 aircraft looks unreachable, much less the current estimate of 420 – which means that we stand to lose our shirt on this European white elephant.

Without even the technical troubles though, I could have told you that this thing was a non-starter. In fact, I did … which, after his comments when the A380 visited London recently, makes chancellor – soon to become prime minister - Gordon Brown look a bit of a prat.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]On the whole, the media and most commentators have been underwhelmed by the latest bit of global warming scaremongering, the Stern Report, which produced a good deal more heat than light. The only people who have announced themselves to be really really excited by it have been politicians who, not altogether surprisingly, decided that the only answer to all the problems is higher taxation. Whatever the question, that tends to be the politician's answer. (Or, alternatively, ID cards.)

When this subject was discussed on 18 Doughty Street last Monday (yes, I had better admit, somewhat belatedly, to appearing on its Vox Politix) I was rather surprised by the fact that my two co-disucssants, political bloggers both, appear to have swallowed the propaganda wholesale. One argument was that if all politicians agreed on this, there must be something to the argument, as those politicians must surely believe in what they are saying. Why else, etc, etc?

This was not the line taken by viewers and listeners who wrote in to the programme as we were discussing matters. The messages tended to be on the sceptical side, quoting past climate change, the need to get matters into persective and so on. Nobody made the obvious point - perhaps it was too obvious to make - that if politicians of all parties agree on something, it must be wrong.

There has been a good deal of scepticism on the subject in the media, both on the economic and scientific front. The Stern Report seems to have been playing fast and loose with data and figures.

An interesting response is being published in the Sunday Telegraph. The newspaper is clearly intending to run a series on the subject and various figures to back Christopher Monckton's argument are provided.

Monckton does a good job in showing the unreliability of many of the UN figures, explaining how it managed to "abolish" the Mediaeval Warm Period and produce the infamous ice hockey stick graph, since then disproved by just about every reliable scientist.

Even after the "hockey stick" graph was exposed, scientific papers apparently confirming its abolition of the medieval warm period appeared. The US Senate asked independent statisticians to investigate. They found that the graph was meretricious, and that known associates of the scientists who had compiled it had written many of the papers supporting its conclusion.

The UN, echoed by Stern, says the graph isn't important. It is. Scores of scientific papers show that the medieval warm period was real, global and up to 3C warmer than now. Then, there were no glaciers in the tropical Andes: today they're there. There were Viking farms in Greenland: now they're under permafrost. There was little ice at the North Pole: a Chinese naval squadron sailed right round the Arctic in 1421 and found none.

He also has a go at that famous melting ice cap theory:

The Antarctic, which holds 90 per cent of the world's ice and nearly all its 160,000 glaciers, has cooled and gained ice-mass in the past 30 years, reversing a 6,000-year melting trend. Data from 6,000 boreholes worldwide show global temperatures were higher in the Middle Ages than now. And the snows of Kilimanjaro are vanishing not because summit temperature is rising (it isn't) but because post-colonial deforestation has dried the air. Al Gore please note.

The whole article is well worth reading and the data he provides worth following up.

Of course, Christopher Monckton is a sceptic. Given that the history of science is full of sceptics disagreeing with the consensus and pushing scientific knowledge forward that way, in the teeth of that consensus, it is interesting to see that nothing much has changed in that respect. The consensus still screams blue murder when anyone dissents. They can no longer burn those dissenters at the stake but they can and do try to destroy their careers.

One person who experienced the viciousness of the scientific consensus and its political backers is Bjorn Lomborg, who does not, in fact deny, that there is a warming process going or that it is probably caused by human activity. (Not all scientists agree on the second part of that equation even if they agree about the first.)

Lomborg's sin was and is that he refuses to see global warming as the most important issue or the preferred solution, control of emission as top priority for all countries to adopt. He has pointed out in the past that even if the Kyoto Protocol is fully implemented (and there is precious little chance of that) all it will do is postpone the rise in temperature by six years. The money wasted by the implementation of the Protocol could be better used to ensure that there is clean water everywhere in Africa - this would solve some serious immediate problems.

He has returned to the fray by responding to the Stern Report in the Wall Street Journal. Astonishingly enough, he has to go through all the erroneous and deliberately misleading data that Sir Nicholas Stern (an economist, by the way) has based his blood-curdling report.

The review is also one-sided, focusing almost exclusively on carbon-emission cuts as the solution to the problem of climate change. Mr. Stern sees increasing hurricane damage in the US as a powerful argument for carbon controls. However, hurricane damage is increasing predominantly because there are more people with more goods to be damaged, settling in ever more risky habitats.

Even if global warming does significantly increase the power of hurricanes, it is estimated that 95-98 percent of the increased damage will be due to demographics. The review acknowledges that simple initiatives like bracing and securing roof trusses and walls can cheaply reduce damage by more than 80 percent; yet its policy recommendations on expensive carbon reductions promise to cut the damages by one to two percent at best. That is a bad deal.

Mr. Stern is also selective, often seeming to cherry-pick statistics to fit an argument. This is demonstrated most clearly in the review's examination of the social damage costs of CO2 - essentially the environmental cost of emitting each extra ton of CO2. The most well-recognized climate economist in the world is probably Yale University's William Nordhaus, whose "approach is perhaps closest in spirit to ours," according to the Stern review. Mr. Nordhaus finds that the social cost of CO2 is $2.50 per ton. Mr. Stern, however, uses a figure of $85 per ton. Picking a rate even higher than the official U.K. estimates--that have themselves been criticized for being over the top - speaks volumes.

Mr Lomborg then proceeds to demolish data and argument of the Stern Report.He ends, as usual, with a plea to pay attention to what is happening now, not what might or might not happen in the distant future:

Why does all this matter? It matters because, with clever marketing and sensationalist headlines, the Stern review is about to edge its way into our collective consciousness. The suggestion that flooding will overwhelm us has already been picked up by commentators, yet going back to the background reports properly shows declining costs from flooding and fewer people at risk. The media is now quoting Mr. Stern's suggestion that climate change will wreak financial devastation that will wipe 20 percent off GDP, explicitly evoking memories of past financial catastrophes such as the Great Depression or World War II; yet the review clearly tells us that costs will be zero percent now and just three percent in 2100.

It matters because Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Nicholas Stern all profess that one of the major reasons that they want to do something about climate change is because it will hit the world's poor the hardest. Using a worse-than-worst-case scenario, Mr. Stern warns that the wealth of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will be reduced by 10 to 13 percent in 2100 and suggests that effect would lead to 145 million more poor people.

Faced with such alarmist suggestions, spending just one percent of GDP or $450 billion each year to cut carbon emissions seems on the surface like a sound investment. In fact, it is one of the least attractive options. Spending just a fraction of this figure - $75 billion - the UN estimates that we could solve all the world's major basic problems. We could give everyone clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education right now. Is that not better?

We know from economic models that dealing just with malaria could provide economic boosts to the order of one percent extra GDP growth per capita per year. Even making a very conservative estimate that solving all the major basic issues would induce just two percent extra growth, 100 years from now each individual in the developing world would be more than 700% richer. That truly trivializes Mr. Stern's 10 to 13 percent estimates for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Last weekend in New York, I asked 24 UN ambassadors - from nations including China, India and the U.S.- to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges, in a project known as Copenhagen Consensus. They looked at what spending money to combat climate change and other major problems could achieve. They found that the world should prioritize the need for better health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education, long before we turn our attention to the costly mitigation of global warning.

We all want a better world. But we must not let ourselves be swept up in making a bad investment, simply because we have been scared by sensationalist headlines.

There is no question about this. The moment politicians, scientists in positions where politics matters and the more alarmist media agree on a subject, the whole subject has to be wrong. If, on top of that, the argument is based on dishonestly presented data, then it is time to recall what Galileo Galilei said: "And yet it moves".

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