The capacity to destroy II

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The capacity to destroy II

Having been professionally and emotionally involved (not a happy combination) in the fate of Britain's fishing industry, Booker's column today makes painful reading.

It is the final chapter in the destruction of our once-proud and profitable industry, torn apart by the combined depredations of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and the wilful zealotary of our own loathsome officials, permitted by the acquiescence of our politicians and the stupidity and malign myopia of the media.

This is a policy which, as Booker observes, has 82-year old Doreen Hicks weeping in the dock after being given a criminal record, fines and costs of £3,500, on threat of imprisonment, just because she was named as a part-owner of her family's fishing boat.

Yet such is malign effect it has on the professional claque of "environmentalists" that we have that extremely unpleasant fool Charles Clover prattling on that "fraudulent fishermen everywhere, even in the EU, lower the price of fish for legal fishermen and kill more fish than they should, depleting scarce stocks that belong to us all."

This landmark case, writes Clover, "is a milestone towards making that kind of behaviour socially unacceptable at last." Booker has his own riposte.

Booker also shed some light on the Anglesey Aluminium saga, bringing to light the EU dimension.

The immediate problem is that the Anglesey plant relies heavily on constant supplies of electricity and is supplied at a discount price by the nearby Wylfa nuclear power station. This is now state-owned through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). If the NDA was privately owned, it says it would be happy to carry on selling power to its largest customer at a discount. But under EU state-aid rules this is now "against the law". 

So it has been announced last week that Holyhead is to close next September, with the loss of 500 jobs. Thanks so much, the EU which has shown yet again its capacity to destroy.

As ever more of British industry disappears, writes Booker, with Lord Mandelson predicting that even the City of London will emerge from the slump much reduced, it seems we shall soon have to live on air. Then, when Brussels discovers that air contains carbon dioxide will even that be beyond our reach?

COMMENT THREAD

The capacity to destroy

When tasked with anything constructive, the EU is displaying a consistent and predictable propensity towards failure. Its positive contribution to the wellbeing of mankind is precisely nil. When it comes to destruction, however, its capacity is unlimited and unparalleled.

An example of this malign capability comes in The Sunday Telegraph today, which headlines a story, "New EU working laws will be disaster for NHS". This is the Working Time Directive and we have already pointed out the effect this will have on the retained fire service. This is much worse.

According to one of Britain's top surgeons, the changes required by the directive to hospital working hours - coming into force this summer – will be "disastrous" for patient care and result in "major service failure".

This is John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He makes no bones about it (to coin a phrase). The new rules are "an impending disaster" which will "devastate" medical training because no surgeon will be able to work a shift long enough to gain proper experience. 

The multiple handovers of staff needed to comply with the rules will mean that patients do not see the same doctor for more than a few hours. There could be "dangerous" lapses in patient care, especially at night. "With nobody able to work more than 48 hours a week from August, the effects on patient care in the NHS are potentially disastrous," Mr Black says.

He goes on, retailing a litany of woes which all point to the fact that going to hospital will be that much more dangerous than it is already. People are going to die, unnecessarily, sometimes horribly. And the EU will be to blame.

Black is meeting Alan Johnson, the health secretary, in February to propose a "speciality opt-out" and an upper limit on surgeons' hours of 65 to 70 hours a week. "I have no doubt we will be told that it is impossible to alter or bypass the European law. I do not believe this," he says. "All manner of EC law must have been bent or ignored in nationalising a bank in 24 hours. The government can do it if it has the political will."

But what is terrifying is the Orwellian response from Department of Health. Instead of acknowledging a very serious problem, it offers the anodyne statement that, "A few hospitals have implemented the maximum 48 hour week across all rotas. We are monitoring the situation as some smaller specialities and isolated hospitals may find meeting the deadline more challenging."

Never must it be admitted that the EU is tearing our nation apart, much less that it is going to kill people. No, the bureaucrats merely "monitor the situation" and, in due course will find nothing wrong at all – as the rapidly-filling cemeteries offer mute witness to their lies.