EU Referendum

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

EU Referendum

None of the above

Quite rightly, Anthony Watts over at Watts up with that is raising the alarm at Obama's "energy plan".

Although Watts notes that talking about the election "tends to suck all the oxygen right out of the room," this issue needs to be aired, he says. There's more to Obama than bankrupting coal power plants. He also intends to make energy prices "skyrocket".

The Wall Street Journal, however, argues that Obama and McCain are "broadly like-minded in their approach to energy and the environment."

Though important policy differences exist – the paper says - both support "energy independence" and a large-scale reorganization of the US economy in the name of climate change. The candidates, in other words, come in different shades of green.

This we did point out last August, although one particular difference is the approach to the Supreme Court judgement in the case of Massachusetts v EPA which ruled by a single vote that the EPA (effectively) must treat any greenhouse gases as "pollution", to be regulated under America's Clean Air Act.

This, we picked up here and here but, as Booker noted yesterday Obama intends to support the judgement and let the EPA rip.

Both courses – from either candidate – however, spell economic suicide for the USA, not least because both support "cap and trade", the "green scam" based on the EU's utterly mad emissions trading scheme.

Choice of candidates, therefore, is a choice between whether you want your suicide quick or slow – whether you jump off a bridge and be done with it, or feed yourself small doses of a slow-acting, cumulative poison, suffering a long, lingering death.

Obama or McCain – that is the choice. If it was up to me – which it isn't – it would be none of the above.

I don't really want to know any more. The television and radio stay resolutely off for the next 24 hours. Most particularly, I do not want to hear anything the BBC has to say about the US election. I will pick up the result from the internet when it's all over ... and weep.

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Monday, November 03, 2008

Abandon ye hope …

"I have given up hoping that we will draw the right conclusions from this crisis …" writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard today in a long piece in The Daily Telegraph.

To draw the right conclusions, however, we need an inquiry, an objective shared – it seems – by the veteran Labour MP Harry Cohen . Recently, he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he would commission an independent inquiry into the causes of the recent turbulence in the banking system.

The answer, from treasury secretary Ian Pearson, was a classic:

The on-going turbulence has affected financial markets around the world and requires an international response. In April this year the Financial Stability Forum provided the G7 with a detailed report on the causes of the crisis and a comprehensive set of recommendations for strengthening the financial system for the future. Going forwards, the FSF should continue to play a central role in shaping the international response to the crisis.

We can take that as a "no" then?

It is too big, too complicated, and no one wants to know. We are doomed by our own indifference.

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The travails of UKIP

Not exactly an impartial source, but my spies tell me it is "about right".

Hardly worth recording, so irrelevant has UKIP become, but it is interesting to note that the circulation of a public letter to the press is being planned. This, we are told, will bear the signatures of over 50 prominent UKIP members and will be highly critical of Nigel Farage, demanding his resignation as leader. It will even suggest a public debate, where Farage will be invited to answer charges over his leadership.

So embarrassed is Tim Congdon, the leading economist – who is cited by UKIP as its "economics advisor" - that he declines to mention the party, before the media, in relation to its stance on the EU’s regulation of the City.

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Thirty years on

Someone, somewhere, should be shot. The trouble is, where do you start?

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