Look behind you!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Look behind you!

Whenever the media is concentrating its resources on a few topics, to the exclusion of all else, it is always a good idea to scout round and have a look at what else is happening. Jo Moore lives!

Taking our own advice, we findReuters reporting that our provincial government is to hold its second auction of EU carbon emissions permits (EUAs) on 24 March.

The number of permits to be sold has not been announced, but the government has already committed to selling 25 million EUAs this year. Last year, it sold four million at €16.15 a ton, raising €64.6 million. With the recession galloping away, the carbon price has dropped to an all-time low of €10.81 – a story in itself – but that still means the government stands to make more than €250 million, which will be recovered through our electricity bills.

Last time the government top-sliced our electricity bills this way, there wascomplete silence from the opposition, clearly unwilling to out an EU-facilitated "stealth tax". Thus, Gordon can suck this money out of our accounts, without even whimper of protest from the champions of free speech. The lesson is obvious – you can get away with daylight robbery, as long as you do it in the name of "climate change".

All the same, I wonder if Mr Clarke might now complain about this new "stealth tax".

COMMENT THREAD

Hmmm!

It was always a mystery to me why the owners of the London Evening Standard, the sole remaining evening paper in the capital, the Daily Mail and General Trust, should have thought it was a good idea to launch two freebie newspapers to compete with its own title. Let's just say that the presence of the Metro and LondonLite did not help the Standard's sales.

Then again, those freebies (there is at least one more) do not really help anybody except me, because I no longer have to buy newspapers in order to line the cat litter trays. But I digress.

The Standard's fortunes looked up a bit a few years ago when its business section poached several of the Telegraph's financial writers. In the end, the low quality of the rest of the newspaper (just how many stories can one read about celeb one has never heard of?) with even Londoner's Diary becoming less and less sparky has completed the downfall.

Recently, you could get free umbrellas and coffee jugs with copies of the newspaper - always a bad sign. Then there were rumours and stories that it was going to be sold by the ex-KGB agent, now media tycoon, Alexander Lebedev.

Those rumours have now been confirmed.

DMGT said its national newspaper division, Associated Newspapers, had sold 75.1 percent in its loss-making 50p evening newspaper for a "nominal sum" – widely thought to be £1 – to Evening Press Ltd, a company formed by Lebedev and his son Evgeny. Greig is a shareholder in Evening Press Ltd along with Justin Byam Shaw, a telecoms entrepreneur and adviser to Lebedev Holdings.

Evening Press will own 75.1 percent of a new company, Evening Standard Ltd. Associated will be a minority shareholder with 24.9 percent, but will not have a seat on its board or direct involvement in editorial policy. The Russian tycoon has said he wants to have an editorial board comprised of luminaries such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Lebedev's personal friend, and Tony Blair.

Alexander Lebedev, who has interests in Russia's National Reserve Bank and Aeroflot, will be the chairman of Evening Standard Ltd. Shaw will be deputy chairman and Evgeny Lebedev will be senior executive director.

To be fair, to Alexander Lebedev (the son seems to be little more than a playboy who squires female celebs), he is also the co-owner of Novaya Gazeta, the only more or less independent large newspaper in Russia. Its journalists have a very high mortality rate. The last one to be shot was Anastasiya Baburova on Monday together with the prominent human rights lawyer, Stanislav Markelov.

COMMENT THREAD

I have high hopes ...

... that President Obama will turn out to be as dishonest as he showed himself in his campaign and as unprincipled as his political background (hint: Chicago machine) would indicate. That would be much better than a Marxist ideologue, which is what some people were afraid of when they looked at his early friends and mentors. If Obama used the likes of Bill Ayers to rise in politics, my tears will remain unshed.

My high hopes are vindicated by the numerous references to "humility" made by the most arrogant, self-obsessed politician ever to be elected to the Presidency, in front of a crowd that, unnervingly, was chanting his name, instead of being awed by the office and the event. I think dishonesty covers that quite well.

Meanwhile, it looks like the actual inauguration ceremony was something of a mess. The booing of the outgoing President was disgraceful, whether you agree with the man or not. But, as I keep telling my American friends, it reminds me of 1997 here. These things do not last and the Obamabots will soon shrivel into discontent. Many conservatives are happier than they had expected to be. They obviously share my high hopes.

The inaugural poem seems to have been utterly terrible. Aretha Franklin, I am sure, was a joy to listen to. She always is.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery's Benediction degenerated into a racist rant, the exact opposite of what this election actually proved about America. Would Obama have really won if all white Americans were racists? Here is the video on Hot Air.

What of the birthday boy himself? The one I have such high hopes for? Well, he started by flubbing his oath, which is unfortunate in the circumstances. He then proceeded by making a completely uninteresting and cliche-ridden speech, seriously marred by gratuitous attacks on the outgoing Administration and suggestions that history and American leadership begins with him. The Anchoress has a good round-up. She is quite generous about the speech herself.

As a number of commentators have noted, Obama spoke as if he were still running a campaign and his supporters in the audience behaved like that, too. (Incidentally, the numbers were nearer to 1 million than the originally predicted 5 million.) I am not sure about the word "still". As I said before, he may well be planning on being inaugurated until the next presidential election. In fact, he may well have started the 2012 campaign in his inaugural speech. That would be a first in American history.

Back to real life, methinks. Michelle reminds us of what is being called the Generation Theft Act; more details here.

As for me, I shall go on having high hopes. I need to. If we are actually to believe Obama's various comments on foreign policy, the world is in dire trouble.