The wages of Lisbon - by Richard... Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The wages of Lisbon - by Richard... Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Tory Boy blog picks up the report that approval for the Boy is declining, the start of the fall coinciding with his sell-out on the EU referendum.

Cranmer gets the point, but it is clear that too many of supposi-Tories don't. The Boy thought he had parked "Europe" with his faux policy – he hasn't. It is coming back to haunt him, and will continue to do so until he addresses it.

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More work needed - by Richard...

In the run-up to the Copenhagen conference the Science Museum, under the logo "PROVE IT!", invited visitors and web users to respond to the following statement with 'count me in' or 'count me out': "I've seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they're serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen."

In the PROVE IT! gallery, 3408 people chose to count in and 626 chose to count out. On the website, 2650 users counted in and 7612 counted out. That makes 6,058 who went for the crap, as against 8,238 who didn't.

That had Prof Chris Rapley, director of the museum - and Professor of Climate Science at UCL – weeping in his cups, telling the media:

More work needs to be done to convince people of the reality of human-induced climate change and of the urgency with which we must agree an international solution. Public organisations, like the Science Museum, have a responsibility to lay out the evidence and open up public discussion.

These warmists have a great deal in common with the supposi-Tories and the EU. If you don't buy their message, never once does it occur to them that they might be wrong. The response to an outright rejection is simply calls to intensify the same message. "They don't understand – we must shout louder", seems to be their thinking.

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"Muddled and confused" - by Richard...

"The evidence is overwhelming. People have the right to speak up but if they are muddled and confused then they do not have the right to be described as anything other than muddled and confused on the basis of the arguments they set out and what is wrong with them," says the great Lord Stern.

I guess American Thinker would not be too impressed with that argument.

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Supposi-Tory waffle - by Richard...

David Cameron has asked Lord Young, the Tory peer, to review "over-the-top health and safety laws" and scrap any legislation which does not fulfil a useful purpose.

The man claims that the European Union and Labour were "partly to blame" because of the volume of legislation they had created. But, he said, the biggest problem related to the way laws were interpreted. He complained about the "perception we have allowed to develop that in Britain today behind every accident there is someone who is personally culpable, someone who must pay."

Thus does he avoid the "elephant in the room". Health and safety at work is, of course, an exclusive EU competence. Thus, the EU is responsible for European directives concerning the protection of workers, of which this is a list: 

1.1 Framework directive 
1.2 Individual directives (within the meaning of Article 16 of Directive 89/391/EEC) 
1.2.01 Workplaces 
1.2.02 Use of work equipment 
1.2.03 Use of personal protective equipment 
1.2.04 Work with display screen equipment 
1.2.05 Manual handling 
1.2.06 Carcinogens 
1.2.07 Biological agents 
1.2.08 Safety signs 
1.2.09 Pregnant workers 
1.2.10 Mineral-extracting industries (drilling) 
1.2.11 Mineral-extracting industries 
1.2.12 Fishing vessels 
1.2.13 Chemical agents 
1.2.16 Temporary or mobile construction sites 
1.2.14 Physical agents - vibration 
1.2.15 Physical agents - noise 
1.3 Temporary workers 
1.4 Medical treatment on board vessels 
1.5 Young people 
1.7 Transport activities 
1.8 Explosive atmospheres 
1.9 Electrical equipment for use in potentially explosive atmospheres in mines susceptible to firedamp
1.10 Commission Communication on the practical implementation of the Framework Directive and first 5 daughter Directives, 05.02.2004 
2. Protection of workers from risks related to exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents
2.1 Chemical agents 
2.2 Individual directives 
2.2.1 Metallic Lead 
2.2.2 Asbestos 
2.2.3 Noise 
2.2.4 Banning 
2.2.5 Indicative limit values 
2.3 Vinyl chloride monomer 
3. Working time 
3.1 Working time 
4. Equal treatment for men and women (employment, training and working conditions) 
B. Internal market: approximation of laws
1. Machines, products and apparatus 
1.1 CE marking 93/68 
1.2 Machines 
1.3 Lifts 
1.4 Personal protective equipment 
1.5 Equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres (ATEX)
1.6 Pressure vessels 
1.7 Gas cylinders 
1.8 Aerosol dispensers 
1.9 Simple pressure vessels 
1.10 Pressure equipment 
1.11 Construction plant and equipment 
1.11.1 General provisions 
1.11.2 Noise emission of construction plant and equipment 
1.11.2.1 Sound power level of welding generators 
1.11.2.2 Sound power level of compressors 
1.11.2.3 Sound power level of power generators 
1.11.2.4 Sound power level of powered hand-held concrete-breakers and picks 
1.11.2.5 Sound power level of tower cranes 
1.11.2.6 Sound power level of lawnmowers 
1.12 Limitation of noise emitted by hydraulic excavators, rope-operated excavators, dozers, loaders and excavator-loaders
1.13 Construction products 
1.14 Product safety 
1.15 Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) 
1.16 Electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits 
1.17 Appliances burning gaseous fuels 
2. Dangerous substances and preparations 
2.1 Framework directive 
C. European directives concerning the protection of workers, consumers and population
1 Classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances
1.1 Framework directive 
2 Classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations
3 Safety data sheet 
4 Risk assessment of substances 
4.1 Risk assessment of existing substances 
4.2 Risk assessment of new substances 
5 Liability for defective products 
6 General Product Safety 
7 Major hazards of certain industrial activities 
8 Transport of dangerous goods by road 
8.1 Transport of dangerous goods by road 
8.2 Checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road 
8.3 Safety adviser for the transport of dangerous goods 
9 Transport of dangerous goods by rail 
10 Biotechnology 
10.1 Genetically modified micro-organisms 
11 Pesticides 
11.1 Pesticides – Agriculture 
D. Euratom 
1 Ionising radiation 

Those are just the Directives. That does not include the seven-page list of regulations, and the thousands of EU standards. The betting is that the Boy plans to scrap none of these. This is the usual supposi-Tory waffle - sound-bites to sound good, but no substance.

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Lib-Dims go squidgy - by Richard...

The Lib Dems have ditched their pledge for an "in or out" referendum on UK membership of the EU. That is what the BBC tells us, citing ex leader Sir Menzies Campbell, so it must be true.

When he launched the policy in 2007, Sir Menzies said the public deserved an "honest debate" on Europe, arguing that a public vote was needed to reaffirm Britain's relationship with the EU. But now, on the day that the Lisbon treaty comes in to force, Campbell is saying that there is "no public appetite" for a vote.

Dead convenient, that ... now the deed is done, there is "no public appetite" for a referendum. Perhaps he is right. A revolution is more appropriate.

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It woz Google? - by Richard...

... wot dun it and not the evil warmists in The Scarygraph?

Shucks.

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Where is Devil's Kitchen? - by Richard...

The only way to treat this lunacy on rising sea levels is ... a good swear blog. (Congratulations, by the way.) And they're all at it .

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A dispatch from an occupied country - by Richard...

From today, as the Lisbon treaty comes into force, we are no longer masters in our own house. Our prime minister, as a member of the European Council, is obligated under this new treaty to promote the aims and objectives of the European Union, over and above those of the UK, and is bound by the rules of the Union.

Of course, this will make no immediate difference. It simply renders de jure what has been de facto for several decades, but the coming into force of the treaty marks an important symbolic turning point. We are no longer an independent country, de jure. Our prime minister and his government are now working for an alien government, based in Brussels.

In effect, that makes us an occupied country, but the alien creatures that rule us most directly are our own. We are "occupied" by our own political élites, who owe their allegiance not to the people who elected them and pay their wages, but to a more powerful, self-appointed élite in Brussels. They are sock-puppets, with less power than the Vichy government of the 1940s.

No longer will we have general elections to select our own government. All that is afforded to us now is the "privilege" of choosing an electoral college, comprised of people we still call Members of Parliament, who then go on to select the British member of the European Council, a man who is there not to represent us or serve our interests, but to participate in our supreme government.

It is perhaps rather fitting, therefore, that on this day, Mr Cameron's supposi-Tories should be confronting another drop in their poll ratings, attributable in part at least to the Boy's craven surrender to the forces of darkness. 

The party is down three points to 37 percent, with Labour unchanged on 27 percent and the Lib Dems up two on 20 percent. This is the second such poll in recent times which indicates that the supposi-tories are unlikely to make a breakthrough and win the prize of nominating their leader as the British member of the European Council.

On current results, there could be a hung parliament after the next general election, a process which we have called an electorally-mandated reshuffle – for the only substantive result is that we change the people we send to our supreme government in Brussels.

Such an outcome is considered by some as undesirable, but it is of little importance. For sure, our provincial government will be able to exercise some residual powers, but over term, they will reduce even more, whoever is elected. Therefore, the results of this coming "reshuffle" are a matter of supreme indifference.

Others, who still seem to care, are put in an impossible position. On one of the major supposi-tory blogs, a commenter remarked: "My prospective Conservative MP is a Europhile 'climate change expert'. You expect me to vote for that? You must be having a laugh." You can see the poor man's problem.

The worst of it is that, in the streets today, nothing will appear to have changed. Everything will look much the same as it did yesterday. In No 10, a man by the name of Gordon Brown will still be calling himself prime minister. In the Houses of Parliament, there will still be MPs and peers, and the Union Jack will adorn the building.

But everything is different. We are a satellite state of the Greater European Empire, ruled by a supreme government in Brussels. And things will stay different until we have regained our freedom. Until then, as I remarked before, we owe this government neither loyalty nor obedience. It is not our government. It is theirs. It is our enemy.