Running to the wire - by Richard... Saturday, November 13, 2010

Running to the wire - by Richard... Saturday, November 13, 2010

Negotiations on the budget between the EU parliament and the Council in the conciliation committee are running to the wire - with both sides grandstanding.

The deadline is the end of business on Monday, this being the end of the 21-day period allowed under the amended Treaties for the committee to reach an agreement. However, that should not be taken as read – there is always the option of "stopping the clock", which is no problem for a collective that makes the rules up as it goes along.

Even then, if agreement is not reached, the EU reverts to last year's budget levels, with a month-by-month allocation, while the Commission submits a new budget proposal and the process starts all over again. But neither an agreement now nor later rules out votes for additional money through supplementary budgets.

As with anything to do with the EU, therefore, it ain't over until it's over, and even then you have to count the silver to make sure it's all there.

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Go figure - get angry - by Richard... Friday, November 12, 2010

With its genius for public relations, British Gas is to increase gas prices this winter. Yet, there is an international gas glut and pressure on prices is downwards. Despite that, the company has the nerve to blame "rising wholesale prices", as well as "environmental investment, and infrastructure costs." Experts warn that households face an "extremely bleak winter" as a result of the price increases.

Adam Scorer, a director at the Government-funded watchdog Consumer Focus, says: "Consumers will be dismayed by this news. Winter is going to seem that much colder and budgets are going to be that much tighter after this announcement."

Scorer adds: "British Gas and other suppliers respond to forward energy prices, and that will be their argument that price rises are needed. However, wholesale prices are around half of their peak in 2008 and yet in the same period customers prices were cut by less than 10 percent. Consumers will feel that suppliers didn't make cuts when conditions allowed it, but are covering their profit margins as wholesale prices nudge up."

This, of course, is not the half of it. There are all the additional costs and taxes that are being thrown in. That is the real reason why our bills are going up. Bulk energy costs are actually going down ... so go figure - and get angry.

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Hypocrites of the world unite - by Richard...

You have your leader.

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Backlash to the backlash - by Richard...

Inevitably, we've had the Daily Mail and the Tory Boys of all ages and sexes screaming for blood, demanding that the revolting stoods are put away forever. But now we see a sort ofbacklash to the backlash.

Thus we are told that more than 2,000 people have joined a Facebook group objecting to the "victimisation" of those arrested after demonstrating at Millbank on Wednesday. Lecturers from King's College, London Metropolitan University and Goldsmiths have publicly pledged their support.

Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall, author Naomi Klein and musician and activist Billy Bragg have also signed an online petition against the "witch-hunt".

John Wadsworth, a senior lecturer in education at Goldsmiths, said: "The situation that happened at Millbank grabbed the media's attention across the world." He adds: "We don't feel the event was necessarily as disruptive as they say it was. It detracted from the march but it did get the issue right up there in people's attention. I see more broken glass from bus stops on the pavement than I saw at Millbank."

Actually, a plague on all their houses – but we're not going to get excited about stoods trashing the offices of a political party that is trashing our constitution and when, cumulatively, we see more damage and criminality in our streets and homes than they have ever had to put up with – with absolutely nothing ever done about it.

As to stoods ... they've always been revolting. That's what they're for.

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Smoked mirrors - by Richard...

The euroslime Economist thinks it's wonderful, but poor little Douglas Carswell thinks that Euroslime Dave's EU Referendum Bill is all "smoke and mirrors".

And he expected anything different from Dave?

Still, it's better than being in Europe and run by Europe. That would never do - after all, as far as we are aware there is no increase in jurisdiction (see col. 362), and the dogs like it.

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From our forum - by Richard...

Q. How do you tell if it's a good joke?

A. You get arrested ... or

B. It gets elected? ... or even ...

C. It becomes a judge.

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Let them dig peat - by Richard...

"Energy company shelves wind farm scheme," says The Herald. With that, the Scottish & Southern Energy has "provoked outrage" after shelving a long-standing plans to link wind farms on the Western Isles to the mainland grid.

SSE chief executive Ian Marchant said: "The wind farm developers have said they cannot pay that so they have not signed their connection agreement that would give the financial guarantees. No wind farm developer will commit so there is no guarantee to build the link."

Councillors in the Western Isles see the decision on the power link as "clear discrimination" against Scottish islands and vowed to take the matter to Europe.

But get this. A Scottish Government spokesman said ministers also saw this as discrimination. "We believe that the UK Government and Ofgem now need to deliver the appropriate conditions that will secure a sub-sea cable connecting the Western Isles to the Scottish mainland."

He then goes on to say: "That cable, and those planned for Orkney and Shetland, are vital to delivering our renewable energy potential, sustaining and connecting communities and to creating new jobs."

What a terrible shame for the poor dears. But, since the money is no longer going to flow, one supposes that they can always go back to digging for peat.

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Kermit Airlines - by Richard...

In that otherwise redundant but expensively maintained pile of masonry that pretends to be a parliament, we see the following written question and answer:

Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Rafale aircraft the new aircraft carriers will be able to accommodate. [22247]

Peter Luff: The Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers have been designed with the capacity to deploy up to 36 Joint Strike Fighters. The number of Rafale aircraft that they could accommodate will depend on their support requirements under different planning assumptions which we are now evaluating.

How interesting it is to see a Tory minister behave just like his predecessors. The answer, roughly translated, means, "I wish you hadn't asked that, but since you have, I'm going to tell you as little as possible." But at least it confirms that plans are well advanced to accommodate the Kermit, and in due course the Fleet Air Arm, Rafales into the European Carrier Group.

Of course, 13th Century Fox knows all about the European Carrier Group. He asked about it in 2008and now he's working on developing it, alongside the European Carrier Group Interoperability Initiative (ECGII), incorporating Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

So, Kermit Airlines here we come, as the Queen's Navee sails off into the sunset flying a blue and yellow ensign and the white flag is run up the Whitehall jackstaff.