A rural revolution? - by Richard... Wednesday, January 04, 2012

A rural revolution? - by Richard... Wednesday, January 04, 2012

This time of year, traditionally the quietest for arable farming, is one of the most active for farming politics, with the annual Oxford Farming Conference pulling together the major players in the sector, under the aegis of the National Farmers Union (NFU).

To celebrate this highly political event, the Conference is funding a research project which is previewed in The Guardian, telling us "US and European dominance in farming [is] under threat", calling for a "significant increase in UK food production to counter threat of losing influence at global level".

This is something of a new one (on me, at any rate), where more usually the farmers talk about self-sufficiency to rack up the money train. But, while the issue is rehearsed is detail in the newspaper, it seems that this is still work in progress, rather than a completed report.

Such as we do know of the project is articulated by Tom Hind, Director of the OFC and Corporate Affairs Director at the NFU. Extruding verbal material of a type typical of the breed, we have him saying, "the forces of globalisation and the market economy have already had a significant impact on agriculture and food, with countries such as Brazil, Pakistan and New Zealand taking increasingly important positions in regional and global markets".

Hind adds that climate change, demographics and the relevance on global corporations are likely to lead to further shifts. Britain, he says, "may be a relatively minor player on the world market but we're becoming more and more exposed to consolidation of input suppliers and competition in key markets, especially our own".

But what is really puzzling is that in an industry dominated by the Common Agricultural Policy, with the EU the paymaster, there is absolutely no reference to the elephant in the room – until, that is, the evening of the penultimate day when a debate tackles the motion: "This House believes British agriculture could thrive outside the European Union".

Proposing is Stuart Agnew, of UKIP, and opposing is Lib-Dim Andrew George, making the only scheduled discussion on the EU. Gone are the heady days of debate about CAP reform, subsidy increases and the mysteries of community politics.

For once, is seems, the NFU, one of the EU's most steadfast and enthusiastic supporters, is looking beyond the narrow, claustrophobic confines of "Europe", and asking if there is life out there. Are we seeing the beginnings of a rural revolution?

Do we actually care? - by Richard...

Mitt Romney beat Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucus by just eight votes. This is the Republican offering for the president in the land of the eternal presidential election.

Dellers has a view, but the interesting question is how so-called democracies manage to throw up such unattractive candidates for their leaders, and what little choice the voters are offered.

One has to ask whether the American system, which has president Obama in place, is capable of picking an effective president. Agreed, the voters had little more choice than us – as between Miliband and Cameron – but did they really have to go for Obama?

Democracy has no champions - by Richard...

Bruce Anderson writes in the Failygraph that "the Eurofanatics should join the Marxists in the dustbin of history". But what actually happens is that eurofanatics get awards. But then, so do the Marxists, with the evident approval of the Failygraph.

Sadly, Anderson is detached from real life in other respects as well. His version of the creation of the evil empire has it that, after 1945, a European political elite concluded that the continent had to move beyond the nation states, whose wars had almost destroyed it.

But, he says, there was the democratic deficit. If you decided to build a new Europe, it would help if the peoples of the old Europe were with you.

If the European public had been prepared to embrace the inevitable disruption and sacrifice while they transferred their allegiance to the Twelve Stars, it could have worked. They were never asked. Those who thought that they knew best just carried on with their federalising plots.

Needless to say, his history is out by about twenty years – and more. If we take the attack on nationalism as an issue, the thinking goes back to international Marxism. Hitler's brand of nationalism was very much a response to the Communist ethos, and could not have made such gains without its counterpoint.

But what Anderson does not seem to realise is that the Monnet dogma, as modified by Spinelli – father of the federal Europe (pictured) - which drives European political integration is fundamentally anti-democratic.

It was the democracy of the veto – the thing Cameron didn't exercise – that Monnet in particular sought to abolish, giving his Platonic guardians in the commission – originally called the High Authority – their power.

This is what people like Anderson really have problems understanding. It was not by accident that the European Union is anti-democratic. It is such by design. It attacks not only nationalism, but democracy. The "democratic deficit" is intentional.

One realises, though, that this is what gives it its strength. The way we are going, democracy has all the characteristics of a failed experiment. In fact, it is hard to see where - in Europe or even the world – there is a really successful example of democracy. It certainly will not be found in the United Kingdom.

But then, as we discussed yesterday, it is hard to see how democracy can actually work, over a wide range of policy issues. The "efficiency" of the Platonic model has much to commend it, and who would disagree.

Certainly, Hitler put his finger on the problem, describing democracy as "an anthill with everyone scurrying in different directions". How ridiculous it would be, he said, to concern the average man with problems that give headaches to better heads.

Imagine, he said, burdening "such a little human worm" with the final decision, for example, of the Rhineland crisis. "What if the Four Year Plan had to be first presented to a democratic parliament?", he asked.

Like Hitler, the eurocrats got over such problems. Each year, as with this one, with its 129-point plan, they can present their work programme, untrammelled by democratic considerations. And the political classes of Europe love it. The EU by-passes the people and makes the dull business of government so much easier.

And therein lies our real problem. Democracy has no champions. As far as the political classes go, the EU model is the final cover. It is not an aberration. It is the preferred model of government, and it survives and prospers because our masters want it to.

To build (I won't even say re-build) democracy, the "little human worm" is going it have to fight for it. And so far, he – like Bruce Anderson – shows no real understanding of what it is he is fighting for. Meanwhile, the Eurofanatics and the Marxists continue to get prizes.

Feel the narrative - by Richard...

I cannot bring myself to report on this. The Boiling Frog has it.

The one to watch - by Richard...

Small congratulations are due to the Independent for at least reporting the bare bones of this news. It is telling us that "the fragile peace in India's disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir was broken yesterday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators protesting against electricity power shortages, killing a 25-year old man and injuring two others".

Senior opposition politicians and separatist groups are being more forthright. For instance chairman of the so-called Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Geelani has said that the "height of state terrorism" was that even the innocent people are being killed for seeking basic amenities like electricity and water supply.

Geelani claims that a complete ban has been imposed on political activities by "freedom fighters", adding that government has given all authorities to the police and valley has become a police state.

While all eyes are on Iran, and its nuclear potential, this in fact is more serious stuff. Strife over Kashmir has led to at least three wars between India and Pakistan. Relations are still not good, as armies comprising the best part of two million troops face each other over their joint border, and a proxy war is being fought out in Afghanistan.

Increased tension between two nuclear-armed regional powers is the last thing we need right now – or ever, yet the casus belli of Kashmir has been consistently ignored by western powers which have been pouring aid into the region.

Yet such is the neglect by India, as the occupying power – with a history of bad faith in Kashmir – that it cannot even ensure continuity of electrical power as the snows fall and the winter closes in.

Of course, if British "aid diplomacy" was all it was cracked up to be, UK representatives would be intervening with effect, helping to cool the situation. But this is another foreign policy area we have dumped in the lap of the EU, which has spent millions in aid in Kashmir, including over a million euros on "sustainable livelihood development" and "improving quality education and learning environment". But not ever has it sought to ensure that the basic infrastructure is sound.

Nevertheless, the Asian Development Bank has supposedly pumped $250 million into the Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, yet the country is running out of electricity.

What we have here, therefore, is a toxic mix of political indifference, distorted priorities, corruption, bad faith and the usual degree of incompetence. With luck, an explosive situation will be calmed, but in terms of the region, many commentators believe it is a matter of "when" rather than "if" before serious hostilities erupt.

Should they do so, we are none of us immune from the consequences. That much is recognised(see page 32) by the EU, but Britain, which has a special responsibility as the ex-colonial power, is not at all visible. We may pay a heavy price for this.

Sums it up - by Richard... Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Change this to add the name of every sleb you can think of ... and with a few tweaks, it just about sums up my general feelings: "not interested".

Carbon democracy - by Richard...

It is probably fair to say that the scientific case for climate change has been shredded – and as a popular cause, support has disappeared. It thus shows how totally detached our masters have become that they delivered in December, while no one was really looking, their 220-page "Carbon Plan", with the aim of "Delivering our low carbon future".

The foreword is signed by Cameron and Clegg, and then by Huhne, and we could happily live with the idea of a lower carbon ration in government, if it meant eliminating these three carbon-based life-forms.

The greater problem though is that very few will want to crawl through 220 pages of government-inspired bilge, and the press was never going to give the plan anything more than superficial coverage, which means most people will remain unaware of the insanity of their rulers.

While the majority of people might thus think that Cameron is doing his best to mitigate the effects of the growing recession, he is writing in his "plan" that, "even in these tough times, moving to a low carbon economy is the right thing to do, for our economy, our society and the planet".

These, of course, are not provable facts, but merely assertions, and ones that can easily be falsified. But in a democracy, the test is one of electoral consent – one given through the ballot box.

Not only have these assertions never thus been tested – which means the hugely expensive "remedies" lack the legitimacy of consent – it is very hard to see how they could be. It seems (and most likely is) inconceivable that a general election could be called on this specific issue. Thus any messages sent by the electorate are blurred.

That notwithstanding, nothing offered by the electorate can be in any way construed as consent. Furthermore, given that the coalition was an ad hoc response to a split vote, there was never any manifesto on which the basis of consent could be assumed.

Whatever Cameron and his partner in crime Clegg might think of their "plan" therefore, it does lack legitimacy. This, like the European Union, makes a mockery of democracy, as public consent has neither been asked for nor given.

Without even needing to entertain the scientific or economic issues, therefore, it is sufficient to say that the plan is anti-democratic. It should be opposed simply for that reason, and that reason alone. There is no way by which any one of us should feel obliged to endorse it, or co-operate with its progenitors.

Victims' wrongs - by Richard...

With so much attention on the forthcoming demise of the euro – and with it, one hopes, the collapse of the European Union – it is easy to forget that the evil empire marches on regardless, its Brussels-based eurocrats entirely unfazed by the destruction of the entire global economic order.

One sign of that activity came with the EU commission work programme for 2012, but another little delight waiting for us is the proposed directive "establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime".

Quite what that has got to do with cross-border trade or stopping Germany from invading France (or vice versa) is anybody's guess, but the proposal was snuck in last May as COM(2011) 275 final, under the Justice and Home Affairs portfolio.

Despite the UK automatically being excluded from such directives unless it chooses otherwise, the "eurosceptic" Boy has permitted an opt-in, which means that when the directive comes into force, it will apply to Britain, even though there was no need.

Some might think that there is little chance of this administration going for the repatriation of powers if it is voluntarily accepting directives when there is no need to do so, and they would probably be right. Forget the smoke and mirrors emanating from Tory Central Command. The march of EU integration is alive and kicking in Whitehall.

Now, however, the Failygraph - which is in favour of our continued membership of the European Union – is whingeing about the possible effects any directive might have on UK armed forces deployed abroad.

It would appear that, as currently drafted, the directive would confer "directly enforceable rights" in the British military justice system on anyone claiming they had been mistreated by British personnel anywhere in the world.

Needless to say, the administration is seeking to play down such concerns, arguing that the overall effect of a directive would be beneficial, as it will "help to ensure that Britons who become victims of crime when travelling in Europe are given the support they need".

One has to acknowledge that things certainly could be improved, but it is hard to see any directive having any effect on the Paris police, much less on the plods in the outer reaches of Rumania.

Nevertheless, by the time the directive hits the law books, one can be assured that the UK will implement it fully, to the letter, and if it does allow fuzzies beaten up by brown jobs to claim shed-loads of our cash, we can be sure that HMG will be right there with an open cheque book.

You can bet your sweet life, though, that soldiers who are killed or maimed while on duty abroad will not benefit in the slightest. Victims' rights, in this context, will suddenly evaporate.