Wednesday, June 10, 2009
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
So farewell then ...
The Independent reports that Declan Ganley, the would-be saviour of Europe, has quit politics. Mr Ganley had asked for a recount in the horribly complicated Irish voting system because he thought that some of his votes had been allotted to another candidate. It turned out to be the other way round and the votes, allotted properly put Mr Ganley 13,000 behind the front three runners in the North West euro constituency. (That is, clearly, not the same as the North West euro constituency in England.)
Mr Ganley has rather grandly announced that Libertas was not about him and his return to the private sector will not affect the campaign in the second Irish referendum one bit.
On the whole, this can be described as utter tosh. Mr Ganley made quite sure that much of the campaign was about him. Even if that were not true, his behaviour has done great damage to the cause, damage that it may not recover from.
As readers of this blog know, we were sceptical of Mr Ganley and Libertas.eu both for personal and political reasons. Mr Ganley and the Former British Soldier, Robin Matthews, who led the UK campaign, did little to endear themselves to people who were interested in their activity. (As I said before, I do not take kindly to people who patronize me, unless it happens to be the boss.)
Their political ideas were muddled, (and here) to put it mildly. The idea that there could be some sort of a reform of the European Union through the Toy Parliament, no matter who is elected is laughable in its ignorance of the structure of the political entity they were haughtily explaining to others. (Haughtily but rather vaguely.)
Added to that was the incoherent campaigning that consisted of appeals to eurosceptic groups interspersed with assertions that Libertas.eu was definitely Europhile, as, indeed, it was.
I lost track of the number of press releases I was sent, all of which attacked UKIP. When I asked for a reason, I was told that they were anxious to make sure that UKIP did not benefit from the expenses scandals and, therefore, they had to keep reminding people of such dubious characters as Tom Wise.
This would be logical if people voted solely on the basis of what they thought about the expenses scandal. But that was not so. The fact that UKIP came second, the vote for the various eurosceptic parties added up to a sizeable chunk and the BNP got two seats in the Toy Parliament would indicate that there was a great deal more on people's minds. That is why neither Libertas.eu nor Jury Team did particularly well. It was not simply an anti-politician vote, though there was an element of that.
Finally, there was Libertas's unfortunate tendency to be less than completely transparent in its descriptions of its activity.
For those or other reasons Libertas.eu did as badly as we expected in Britain and 25 other member states. Perhaps a little worse than we expected in Poland. What was rather shocking is how badly the party did in Ireland where the only other one to oppose the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty was Sinn Fein. Did the Irish really vote on domestic issues only or did they feel they had had enough of Mr Ganley and his merry men (and women)?
The answer can come only from someone who is better acquainted with the situation in that country. However, it seems to us obvious that Mr Ganley made a monumental mistake when he allowed his vanity to lead him into trying to form a pan-European party.
Flushed with the triumph of the No vote in the first Irish referendum he ought to have sat back and said that he was interested only in stopping the treaty. This could not be done in the Toy Parliament (a point that escaped Mr Ganley, I suspect) and, therefore, Libertas was not going to get involved in those elections but wait for the second referendum and campaign there.
At most, he should have campaigned only in Ireland, making that into a back-up referendum. He and his colleagues might have done quite well.
Instead, Mr Ganley decided to promote himself and his followers into a band of brothers dedicated to the salvation and reform of the European project. They failed miserably and deservedly. In the process, though, they destroyed Libertas's political credibility in Ireland and damaged, very severely, the chances of a No vote in October when the second referendum is likely to take place. (Smart money is on October 10 but no decision can be taken until the Referendum Bill is passed by the Dail in July.)
The battle in Ireland will be a tough one, made much tougher by Declan Ganley's recent antics and failure. We, in this country, must do all we can to help. This blog is standing by.
COMMENT THREADThe BBC mindset
As he was touring the radio studios on Monday morning, Nick Griffin popped in on BBC Radio 5 Live's Breakfast programme for a chat with Nicky Campbell. After a few minutes of jousting, exclusively in the issue of racism, Griffin interrupted Campbell as he tried to read out another text from a listener. "I would think it would be sensible to move on," he said.
The subsequent exchange, or part of it, caught the attention of The Guardian, which reproduced this fragment:Nick Griffin: The BBC is obsessed with race and immigration. It would be great to talk about something else for once.
But what The Guardian forebore to publish was the reaction of Campbell:
Nicky Campbell: What would you like to talk about? What's the thing you'd like to say given this platform to speak to the nation this morning?
Nick Griffin: OK, how about the fact that I believe, along with the Czech politician [Vaclav Klaus] everyone is berating, that global warming is essentially a hoax. It is being exploited by the liberal elite as a means of taxing and controlling us and the real crisis is peak oil. We're running out of proper, real energy. And it is something with an immediate and catastrophic effect in a few years' time potentially — not worrying about floating polar bears in a 150 years.Nicky Campbell: Hmm … The reason I talk about race as well as that …
He ignored completely Griffin's point about global warming. The BBC mindset simply cannot cope with it.
However, in due course, once they have absorbed what Griffin had to say, they will make the link with the rest of the "climate sceptics". We will forever be associated with Nick Griffin and the BNP, the Holocaust denier, reinforcing the BBC's image of those who dare to depart from the orthodoxy.
COMMENT THREADTuesday, June 09, 2009
A symbol of confidence
That example of European success and co-operation is back in the news again today – no less than Airbus Industries. And the news is not good. International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC), the largest aircraft leasing firm in the US is warning that it may have to consider cancelling its order for ten A-380 "jumbojets".
This is from company's Chief Executive Steven Udvar-Hazy who says he has struggled to place even one A380 with a client. On this basis, the clock to countdown to either a cancellation or switch to an alternative - the A350XWB - has probably passed the half-way mark already.
ILFC has already delayed its A380 orders until 2013 and has an option to pull out between January and June 2010 without paying penalties. No decision has yet been made but, says Udvar-Hazy, he is seeing a "general structural change" in the way that airlines think about the A380. It is unlikely, therefore, that the order will go ahead.
This further adds to the pain for Airbus which, last month, cut its 2009 delivery target for the A380 to 14 from 18, blaming the economic crisis and deferral requests from airline customers. These include the France-KLM Group and Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
Another of those deferrals might be the Dubai-based Emirates airline which has its president Tim Clark warning that he too may slow down deliveries of its orders from next year. The airline, which has a $55 billion order book for aircraft from Boeing and Airbus – with 53 A380s on order - was planning on taking delivery of ten aircraft a year. This may be reduced to five. Funds for new acquisitions are only secure until mid-2010.
One other airline thinking hard is Thai Airways. But it is talking about an outright cancellation of its six options, and would be the first passenger carrier to do so. FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. have already cancelled orders for a total of 20 A380 freighters, forcing Airbus to shelve plans for an all-cargo version.
The company has so far invested about $18 billion in the aircraft, against the original $12 billion planned and is now struggling to recoup its money, especially as it is cutting its production rates from the targetted 40+ a year by 2010. It will now struggle to deliver just 14 examples this year and its projection of delivering "more than 20" next year is regarded as "at best" a pipedream.
Furthermore, even in service, the aircraft is not delivering. Airbus' chief salesman John Leahy boasted before that A380 customers would "break even at 60-65 percent" load factors. But Singapore Airlines has seen both yields and load factors plummet on key routes such as Heathrow to Sydney while Emirates quickly dumped the A380 from the New York route less than a year after inaugurating that service.
No one is saying it yet, but the odds are that, without a huge injection of public money, it seems scarcely possible that Airbus can survive. And that is without taking into account the A-400M which is continuing to haemorrhage money. A decision on that aircraft's future is expected next month.
Prospects cannot be helped by doubts about the safety of the A-330 after the recent devastating crash in the South Atlantic, which adds up to a trying time for a company trying to market a product which Tony Blair once praised as "a symbol of European cooperation at its best."
It was, Blair added, "… the most exciting new aircraft in the world, a symbol of economic strength and technical innovation," then declaring: "Above all, it is a symbol of confidence that we can compete and win in the global market." With such praise, perhaps we should have known it was going to fail.
COMMENT THREAD
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
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