The gathering madness

Monday, June 29, 2009

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

The gathering madness

It is not only the politicians who are on another planet. Today, according toThe Guardian, the Royal Society publishes a report telling us that we will have to pay more for energy if the UK is to have any chance of developing the technologies needed to tackle climate change.

This comes only a week after The Daily Express and others were reporting that energy bills were already set to soar to more than £5,000 a year within the next decade – and now these buffoons want them to go even higher.

But such is their detachment from the real world that John Shepherd, a climate scientist at Southampton University and co-author of the Royal Society report, is able to say: "We have adapted to an energy price which is unrealistically low if we're going to try and preserve the environment." 

He adds: "We have to allow the economy to adapt to higher energy prices through carbon prices and that will then make things like renewables and nuclear more economic, as carbon-based alternatives become more expensive."

The man has enough grip of reality though to realise that higher energy costs would be a "hard sell" to the public, but he reckons it is "not unthinkable". But then he delves into the realms of fantasy, suggesting that part of the revenue needed for research could be generated by a carbon tax that took the place of VAT. And the EU is going to roll over and abandon VAT when?

Mind you, still to come is Ed Miliband's white paper setting out how Britain will source its energy for the coming decades. This is due out next month and one suspects that the Royal Society will look positively sane by comparison. 

And, when you realise quite how fragile are the data underpinning the growing madness, one can only marvel at the tolerance and forbearance of British society – that these people are still alive.

COMMENT THREAD

Unsustainable

In the News of the World yesterday, Fraser Nelson writes a piece under the heading "Condemned by silence". 

He notes that, three weeks since BNP's election triumph, no party has started to discuss immigration. Westminster parties have kept their baffled silence and are giving the BNP a monopoly over the most explosive issue in politics. 

You'd think, writes Nelson. Gordon Brown and David Cameron would have been shocked into action after seeing Griffin win a seat in Brussels, his party taking almost a million votes.

Immigration was always a "big subject" and it is bigger now because layoffs in the recessions are hitting British-born people hardest. Directly from the Office for National Statistics – but not openly published – Nelson has found that there are fewer UK-born workers in the private sector than 12 years ago.

In the last year there are 119,000 more migrant workers in UK jobs, but 615,000 fewer UK-born workers. In recent months, both are falling. But UK-born workers are being laid off at five times the rate. Workers, he says, can see it with their own eyes, and ask: why? And because no mainstream party has an answer, the BNP prospers.

Other statistics gleaned include the nugget that 1,000 Britons are emigrating every day, although they are not working in Europe. Although Alan Johnson, now Home Secretary, claimed a figure of 1.5 million British working in Europe, that is actually seven times the real number. Of immigrants in the British workforce, the official figure is two percent but the real total is fourteen percent. 

But, while Thatcher killed off the National Front in the late 70s by taking the issue immigration head-on, Cameron is silent. The subject scares away voters in the marginal seats he needs to take power. Westminster only cares about swing voters in swing seats - so millions are forgotten. Thus writes Nelson, the silence from Westminster suggests that the BNP's "shocking success story" is far from over. 

Taking a broader perspective, it is not just immigration on which the political classes are silent. We have all been impressed with the US treatment of the climate change bill over there. It may have been rammed through the House of Representatives but at least it is as political issue. Here, the silence of the politicos is deafening.

Similarly, defence in the United States is an issue – discussed widely in the media and on the Hill. Here, although a debate has started, it has been led by the military and the media. Over the pond, it was kick-started by defence secretary Gates. 

One by one, you can tick off the "big issues" – the European Union also comes to mind – and our politicians are silent. They have their own agendas, but these increasingly are not ours. The gulf between the politicians and the people may have been greater, but in recent times it is hard to imagine when. Thus, to use a word beloved by politicians, whether new or not, the current gap is "unsustainable".