Right on cue

Right on cue

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

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

The stories speak for themselves, all pointing to one thing – that government is now so diffuse and complex that no one really understands it, or even knows where the centres of power lie.

The problems go far beyond "Europe" of course, which is just one part of the global "tranzie" nexus. The European Union, as much as anything, has become a portal for a proto world government in all but name.

But, because the system has become so utterly obscure and Byzantine in its complexity, it has the hacks and the chatterati diving for cover, seeking refuge in their individual comfort zones as they seek to avoid the reality of the mess modern government has become.

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Hidden in plain sight

Seeing as we are in "snarl mode" – our default position – let's have a go atGuido Fawkes, and the latest of his asinine comments, as he laps up theMandelson "drama". "It is a fascinating world inside the ruling elite isn't it?" twitters Guido:

Rupert Murdoch parks his yacht offshore from Nathaniel Rothschild's sunshine estate and drops in. Mandelson and Osborne take a ride in the same billionaire's boat when not dining together. All very cosy, enough to turn you into one of those crazy conspiracy theorists ...

What does make his comments particularly facile is that, when it comes to looking for (or hinting at – as Guido does) secret conspiracies to dominate the world, there aren't any. That doesn't mean conspiracies don't exist. The thing is, they are not secret.

They are there, they are real, they are visible and (relatively) easy to find, if you know where to look – and can be bothered. But, because they are so visible, no one takes a blind bit of notice of them, instead preferring to look for fantasy conspiracies of their own making.

The most obvious and visible "conspiracy", of course, is the European Union. It has its agenda, it makes no secret of it, it has been steadily pursuing that agenda for the best part of fifty years and, over that period, has had a modicum of success.

Yet, there is perhaps a bigger conspiracy here – the "conspiracy of silence" amongst our own ruling elite and chatterati, who will simply not talk about the European Union and its ambitions. Guido, of course, does not expose this – he is part of the conspiracy.

But this is boring. If you want a real conspiracy, go for that shadowy group of anonymous bankers, who meet in secret to hatch up plans to control the world's financial system. You want it? You got it! It is called the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS).

Take a moment to think about this. How much do you know about this committee? Who are its members? How often to they sit? Where do they meet? And what is its real agenda?

Whether you know anything about it or not, it is part of our government. More to the point, it is part of our global government. You didn't know we had a global government? Well, you do now, and this is part of it. Other parts include the Codex Alimentarius committee, the IASB, IMF, OECD, World Bank, OIE, ISO, WHO, WTO, ICES, INTERPOL, ITU, ITSO, UNECE, ICAO, IOSCO, IOML, IMO, WMO the IPPC and a whole host of other organisations in this alphabet soup, all linked together through formal and informal networks. Most of them, in their own way, make "laws" and decisions which reach down to affect our daily lives and our prosperity, some more than others.

We touched on some of these organisations in an earlier post, when we gazed in awe at that mysterious creature, "dual international quasi-legislation", which one of our readers promptly christened the "diqule". Through this – and other mechanisms - our lives are ruled.

Of all the organisations which spawn their "diqules" and rule our lives, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is particularly interesting. Not only is it extremely powerful, its rules were at the heart of the near-collapse of the global banking system. Yet, by what authority does it issue its rules?

We know something of its ways, not least that it is not a "classical multilateral organisation" – meaning it is not a treaty organisation. The UK is in no way bound by its rules through treaty or other obligations. Yet it does what it is told.

We are informed that the British were particularly keen advocates of its latest settlement, the Basel II accord. What is meant by "the British"? Are we talking about the government, are we talking about the Bank of England, or what?

Specifically, who authorised our "delegation" to negotiate on our behalf, against what mandate, with what authority to compromise? To whom were our negotiators responsible and to what level of scrutiny were they subject? And who authorised and accepted the final accord?

Actually, we know the answer to that last question – the European Union. It turned the accord into EU law which was then, via that medium, transposed into UK law.

With all these organisations dipping their nibs into the legislative pot, however, there is one notable and glaring exception - the British Parliament. As thousands – quite literally thousands – of rules burst upon our shores, the one institution which supposedly governs us, has - as we pointed out earlier in just one aspect - nothing whatever to do with the process. That is, until it is too late to do anything about it. No wonder our MPs are so useless.

Out there, we have this vast, shadowy government. We barely know a fraction of its institutions, we know little about who runs them, we do not know their rules of procedure, the extent of their powers, when they meet, how they reach their decisions or even, sometimes, when they reach those decisions. Sometimes, it is years before their malign force is felt.

What we do know is that they are not transparent, not democratic and not accountable – yet collectively they wield unimaginable power. Despite that, little Guido Fawkes and his idle, prattling claque of zombies dissipate their energies on Nathaniel Rothschild and his friends, while under their very noses, those who would rule us expand their empires and prosper at our expense.

When it comes to conspiracies, the Guido Fawkes's of this world don't evenbegin to know the half of it, their bigger conspiracy being one of idleness and stupidity.

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