Euro-blindness - by Richard... Saturday, January 28, 2012

Euro-blindness - by Richard... Saturday, January 28, 2012

The invisible elephant in the room now strikes the Financial Times with a bizarre report (above) telling us that the UK is to appoint a food ambassador with a mandate to dismantle trade barriers and help British companies take their sausages, biscuits and cereals to Asia and beyond.

"Many SMEs have either been frightened off by the thought of exports, or have never thought of it at all", says agriculture minister Jim Paice, who is fronting a farming, food and drink exports "action plan" put together by Defra and UK Trade & Investment.

The latter bit is OK, but a mandate to dismantle trade barriers? As members of the European Union, we are part of a customs union. We have ceded the power to determine trade conditions (barriers, etc) to the commission in Brussels. Unilaterally, we cannot dismantle trade barriers, or reach agreements with other countries on trade issues.

Thus, when we actually get to the action plan, we find in the foreword, signed by Jim Paice, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint and Paul Grimwood, the following deathly prose:

Our ambition is to see greater access to overseas markets for British products; businesses viewing exporting as a key route to growth; more SMEs selling to overseas customers; and the sector as a whole focussing more energy on the high-growth emerging markets. We will achieve this by lobbying energetically for the removal of trade barriers; ensuring businesses, particularly SMEs, have access to the right information and support; simplifying food exporting paperwork; and showcasing the exceptional quality of British farming, food and drink.

Despite that, the authors of the "action plan" are a tad confused, goes on to state that the plan "will drive export growth in the farming, food and drink sector by … opening markets and removing trade barriers", even it they then go on to say that, "Government and industry will work together to achieve this by lobbying for the removal of trade barriers that restrict access to new markets".

In other words, the "ambassador" doesn't have a mandate to dismantle trade barriers. All we can expect is "energetic" lobbying. And who do we have to lobby? Why, the EU of course.

Sadly, though, the action plan does not make this clear until we leave the executive summary and go to page 12 (of 27), when we learn that, "the Government is committed to promoting trade liberalisation through comprehensive multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements, and addressing specific market obstacles – working closely with the European Commission for both".

But how strange it is that the europhile Financial Times can't cope with the idea that lobbying is all that is left to us, and thus develops a case of euro-blindness, giving our man from Defra powers we as a nation no longer have. Not once do we see a reference to the EU in its report.

And thus once again we find those we are most enthusiastic about the EU are also those who seem most keen to deny its effects.

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The latest "green" fiasco - by Richard...

The Daily Mail is reporting on problems with fitting "smart" meters in domestic and commercial premises. The nub, however, seems to be that electricity companies are jumping the gun and fitting their own versions of the technology, without waiting for a standardised design, the specification for which will not be announced until March.

It seems that lack of inter-operability between meter types means that rival companies can only use their own technology and not others, requiring in some cases the meters to be replaced when electricity suppliers are changed.

This false start, however, does not affect the government timetable, which is still determined to have 30million electricity meters and 23 million gas meters replaced by the 2019, at a cost of £11.7 billion to energy customers, recovered through their bills.

But, with there being an estimated four million "non-compliant" meters fitted by 2014, it seems that the energy companies themselves are needlessly racking up costs, and adding delay, and these will all have to be replaced.

Whether the project will ever get completed, though, is anyone's guess. Consumer groups are still warning that these devices will allow suppliers to cut off energy remotely so, by the time this current mess and the implications of having a smart meter percolate down, consumer resistance may stiffen.

In the US, we are already seeing organised opposition, with a UK branch also opening up and fronting claims that the radiation from smart meters is carcinogenic. All we need is for the green groups to come out against these meters, and the farce will be truly complete. But of they don't, the hackers may finish the job.

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Ditching his principles - by Richard...

When you have the head of the UK branch of the WWF complaining to The Guardian about The Boy's lack of leadership on environmental issues, things have come to a pretty pass.

It was the WWF which helped set up the Boy's photo-opportunity in Norway, where we was seen cuddling a husky as "part of his bid to rebrand the Conservative Party as eco-friendly". And now that same organisation must be feeling rather left out as, one after another, the green schemes are dropped.

What is particularly interesting here though is that, of all his voter-friendly initiatives, his husky stunt was probably the most genuine. Insofar as he believes in anything, The Boy actually believes in greenery, and he was not (at the time) taking WWF for a ride.

As times change, though, The Boy changes. He is in office and wants to stay there, enjoying its fruits. And if that means ditching the very few principles he has ever held, then that is evidently a small price to pay. If I was Cameron's grandmother, I'd be very afraid.

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He says, she says - by Richard...

In a new book reviewed by the Great Sage Con Coughlin, we have Sandy Gall, the former ITN presenter, give an account of the views of the current CDS, Gen Sir David Richards, on the campaign in Afghanistan.

With the appearance of being disarmingly frank, Richards seemingly takes to task John Reid, defence secretary at the time, for his view that "we would be perfectly happy to leave in three years' time without firing one shot because our mission is to protect the reconstruction", despite "intelligence assessments conducted in southern Afghanistan concluded that they would receive a hostile reception".

We appreciate that we are looking at a review of the book and not the book itself, and Con Coughlin is far from reliable on this matter, but it looks as if there is an attempt here to pin the blame on the political establishment – which is fair enough – and exonerate the military, which is not.

The brass, as we know, was just as gung ho for Afghanistan as the politicos, especially Gen Dannatt, who saw it as potentially a more fluid conventional war, which his troops were capable of fighting and which – unlike Iraq – they were capable of winning (as long as he was able to buy the FRES utility vehicle).

However, Richards would be unwise to give the military a completely clean bill of health, so we get (via Coughlin and Sandy Gall), a sort of admission of failure, with the assertion that "Sir David says that the British military establishment was ill-prepared for the deployment of forces, despite its leading role in the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein three years previously".

It is this phrasing that made me fall off my stool, and then to attack the keyboard despite not (yet) having read the book itself (which was published on 19 January). Even if Richards then concedes that the military establishment was "ill-prepared" and with a "rather amateurish approach to high-level military operations verging on the complacent", that does not even begin to describe the level and degree of failure.

First of all, it is not really appropriate to make comparisons between the operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein (i.e., the invasion of Iraq) and the operation in Afghanistan. A better (although not entirely adequate) comparison would have been with the subsequent occupation of southern Iraq, both campaigns being counter-insurgency operations.

Given that that British occupation of Iraq had been an egregious failure – and one which the Army still has difficulty recognising – one has to take it almost as a done deal that the Army would fail in Afghanistan.

I will stop there, returning to the subject when I have read the book, other than to observe that, once again, we again seem to be in "he says – she says" territory, where the current idea of writing history is to gather a collection of interviews of leading players and stitch them together to make a narrative.

However, while entertaining on occasions, and giving some insight into the minds of those involved, oral history is one of the least reliable resources available to the historian, and especially when it comes from senior military officers and politicians, who will be seeking to cover their backs and put a spin on their involvement.

This is where Jack Fairweather's book went wrong. Everything the leading players say must be taken with a pinch of salt. To have any value, it must be cross-checked with the evidence – and the documentation, where available – and be consistent with the actual events.

Nevertheless, in an age where "human interest" dictates the approach to news gathering, and "feelings" count more than facts, evidence-based history is deeply unfashionable. These days, your book must be well-populated with people sharing the innermost thoughts or you are not a "proper" historian.

It is also much easier to produce "stream of consciousness" narratives – especially when this is the stock-in-trade of the average journalist (which is why also the material gets good reviews from follow journalists, all pissing in the same pot).

However, maybe when I get the book, I will be pleasantly surprised, and have to eat my words. But before this, we shall have to wait upon the pleasure of the great lord Amazon to deliver.

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A point of principle - by Richard... Friday, January 27, 2012

The parents of a newborn baby left with horrific injuries and fractures all over her body walked free from court yesterday, despite admitting child cruelty charges.

This because the judge asserts the father and his partner "were let down by the social services, who have a duty to provide for you". Judge Ticehurst also ordered an investigation into the case, stating that there had been a "grave failure" by social services at North Somerset Council.

Now this raises intriguing point of principle. Cast as the regulatory authorities in this case, North Somerset social workers fail in their duty and thereby fail to prevent a crime, whereupon the criminals are spared the full penalty for their crimes. This is bizarre, not least because - one would have thought - the duty was to provide for the child first, not the parents.

But there are broader issues here. If one applies this same argument to the PIP breast implants,Jean-Claude Mas goes free because the regulators failed to detect that he was using substandard silicon.

This surely has to be wrong. Crimes must be punished. The point must be that, if the regulators' neglect enabled or exacerbated the crime, then the responsibility is shared. The issue has then to be that the regulators are also penalised - not that the criminals are let off.

Following this judge's logic, we see car thieves being let off because the police were not around to prevent their larceny, or because the car owners had not fitted stronger locks.

Nevertheless, the judge has made it easier to argue that regulatory authorities do have some responsibility for crimes committed on their watch, when there was the capability and the duty to prevent them. Can we now see that point of principle applied to PIP?