Contrary to the exclusive predictions of some "well-informed" sources, Greece has not dropped out of the euro this weekend.
In dealing with this issue, however, one must always understand that so much of the financial system depends on confidence, so that – as we have seen before – lying and dissimulation is part of the game. When billions can turn on the word of one high official, it is inevitable that straight-talking becomes a rarity.
Where one then adds the foetid atmosphere of a major international crisis, with real danger and genuine fears, it is so very easy to stand on a soap box pontificating. And, in the manner of Charles II, there will always be enough people who find the nonsense appealing, and respond to it.
Nevertheless, despite all those dire predictions, we find that Alistair Osborne in The Sunday Telegraph is writing of a "dramatic lull" in proceedings.
One is tempted to ask, how can you have a dramatic lull, but we know exactly what he means. And no one with even a modicum of intelligence will begin to argue that the Greek crisis is over. This is just a lull. The storm will break again in good time.
Working out what is going on though, is a different matter. The truth most certainly lies in the fact that, while crises such as we have seen are unravelling, no one at all actually knows what is going on. No person has perfect knowledge and those at the centre of the storm often see least. They are reacting to events, not masters of them.
But, for the time being, we should take advantage of the "dramatic lull". When the next storm does hit, we will be gasping for oxygen, so we should stock up while we have a chance.
COMMENT THREAD
For two consecutive weeks, the Booker column (above – click to enlarge) has raised issues about so-called "experts" in the employ of social services, used in the "stolen children" racket.
As with last week, Booker has also been able to refer to work by The Daily Mail, adding strength, if not depth to his long-running campaign to redress the failings of the family courts system.
The Mail, in typical fashion, churns out high volume stream of consciousness material, with very little focus, not really focusing on the causes of the evil it records, leaving Booker to widen out the story and bring more to the table. He thus is able to reinforce the point that expert witnessing has become a highly lucrative cottage industry, making the "experts" a powerful constituency in support of the status quo.
What has yet to come over, although it will be addressed by Booker in future columns is that, whatever the venality of the "experts" that give evidence, their failings are entirely the responsibility of the court.
It is a little known fact about experts that, formally, they are officers of the court, and serve the court as a whole, not any particular party. This requirement is honoured more in the breach than the practice, but it still is the case that witnesses can only enjoy the privileges of experts with the assent of the courts.
As such, a judge can chose, on the basis of a challenge or on his own volition, to reject the credentials of putative experts, and refuse to allow them to testify.
Thus, where we see – as we did last week – many of the so-called experts being either unqualified, or not practising, it is up to the individual judges to take action. And for that they allow, they should take responsibility – not that any ever do.
Presiding over the dung heap, though, is the justice ministry, which has the power to propose legislation to regulate the expert witness industry, if the judges fail – which they are doing rather consistently.
And here, it would appear that there is such a need, when we learn that Jonathan Djanogly, a junior Justice minister, stated in answer to John Hemming MP that some 90 percent of these family care proceedings rely on the evidence of expert witnesses, the average case being based on four such reports.
At 900 cases a month, that is over 3,000 reports a month, at up to £100,000 a hit. Funded entirely by public money, this is hundreds of millions a year, the tip of the ice-berg of the billion-pound child-snatching industry.
Even without the case for better justice for parents and children, therefore, there is a powerful need to see better value for money, and far more accountability over its spending.
This is where The Guardian goes off the rails. Having pitched in last Wednesday to defend its client readership, the social workers, it completely misses the point, complaining about the amount of hostile publicity the social workers are attracting.
But, in this devastating saga of incompetence, all that is left now is the searchlight of publicity and a robust media. Yet The Guardian, in complaining about this, does not in any way address the issues which give rise to so many hostile comments, many arising from individuals who have been bruised by the system.
This paper needs to realise that the criticism is not an attack on the social workers, per se, as much as on a dysfunctional system. Without checks and effective external oversight and regulation, any bureaucratic system will degrade over time. And where officials are awarded great power, it is inevitable that some well misuse it.
What is wrong here, then, is the regulatory system – in the first instance the courts and then, as the long-stop, ministers and parliament. All have their roles in ensuring that the system works efficiently and fairly in the best interests of all concerned – and that the broader societal interest in maintained. All are failing.
Those failures are the real scandal - the inadequacies of the courts and the politicians. That is where the searchlights should be shining brightest. And that is what Booker is trying to do.
COMMENT THREAD
Either it isn't or it is against EU law. Take your pick. On the face of it, any attempt to impose minimum pricing, unless authorised by EU law, is a restriction on the free movement of goods and could be regarded breaching EU law – especially if it had a discriminatory effect on other EU member states.
However, while those issues have to be tested on the facts of the case, there is a "get out of jail free card", in that the UK can invoke "public health" as justification. It might have to prove the case, but it is for the commission in the first instance to decide. And this is far from a done deal.
The Daily Mail headline illustrated by The Boiling Frog, therefore, may be a little optimistic – or misleading, even. But it all helps to sow dissent, and that much is welcome. Let's see the paper do a job on VAT as well, and we might get somewhere.
COMMENT THREAD
In the Failygraph today, we see a piece that might by some be considered "sour grapes" over theIndian fighter contract.
A claim has been made by Mysura Reddy, a "leading Indian MP", that government officials manipulated the award of the $20 billion contract, in order to help the Rafale win in the competition against the Eurofighter. Reddy is also concerned by reports Rafales were outperformed by Eurofighters in operations over Libya.
As a result, we are told, in a story that is safely buried in the financial pages so that the paper can get on with real news, Indian defence minister A K Anthony has ordered a review of the evaluation process.
In this short report, however, there does indeed seem an element of sour grapes. Whatever else might be said about the two aircraft, the fact is that the Rafale has a genuine multi-role capability, while the Eurofighter's ground support capability largely exists on paper only.
More interesting than the actual report, though – as so often the case - is one of the reader comments. Its writer asserts that India does not need the aircraft and cannot afford them. Notionally, the aircraft are being bought to counter the threats from Pakistan and China. But, says the writer, day by day Pakistan is becoming less of a threat and "any notion of China being a real risk is just being whipped up to scare people so that more money can be spent".
That has some resonance with our own defence situation, where the military are notorious for talking up threats in order to acquire the latest fashion in toys. It would not be at all surprising if this dynamic was driving the Indian procurement process.
But then, in the "killer" lines, the commenter goes on to posit: "when you are in the Indian Def Ministry, how else do you get the large bribes other than to actually award contracts?" Skimming off the pay and rations of soldiers etc., he writes, "is chicken feed compared to the 5-10% that gets handed out for such deals". In like vein, he continues:
You only need to get one contract done and you're set for life. However much you need to give to the ruling party, you'll always get to keep a chunk for yourself. The French do well because they have less inhibitions about paying than the Brits. Significantly less.The situation is such that we are told it is "almost a guarantee that people will be paid off in such deals". And, while we have absolutely no evidence that corruption was involved in the Rafale deal, experience tells us to expect it in a society where corruption is the norm.
So, follow the money trail. See which banks are involved and if you were ever to find someone close to the deal, then you'd be able to work out whether the money arrives via new accounts set-up in offshore havens or through a complicated structure where someone in India gets involved for no real reason.
And still the British aid to India continues, with another £600 million committed until 2015, including the balance of £10 million to Pachauri's pet institute, TERI, a man who now tells us he is unused to luxury. And if that naked hypocrisy is representative of the standard of public discourse amongst the Indian ruling class, then we should expect a level of corruption in the Rafale contract, and much more.
COMMENT THREAD
Charles II, hearing of a high character of a preacher in the country, attended one of his sermons. Expressing his dissatisfaction, one of the courtiers replied, that the preacher was applauded to the skies by his congregation: "Aye", observed the king, "I suppose his nonsense suits their nonsense".
COMMENT: "A WALK IN THE PARK" THREAD
COMMENT: "A WALK IN THE PARK" THREAD
The Daily Mail and other media sources, including the BBC have been running stories on the budget proposal to impose VAT on hot take-out food.
Hitherto, things like bacon rolls and hot suasage rolls escaped VAT under our permanent derogation to the VAT Sixth Directive, which allows the to zero-rate most foodstuffs. Now, though, it seems that the preposterous Osborne is planning to bring them into the net, a deed which cannot be undone. The derogation once abandoned can never be restored.
Osborne says he wants to address "some of the loopholes and anomalies" in the tax system, follwing a report from the Office of Tax Simplification last year which called for an end to some existing tax breaks. But this particular proposal is set to cause a lot of grief, so this reason given doesn't really cut it.
As always, though, when you are confronting VAT, you are dealing with the EU and, although our gifted media always ignores the elephant in the room, you can bet your sweet life that, somewhere in here is lurking an EU dimension. And indeed there seems to be just that.
To find it, we have to go back to March last year, when the ECJ ruled on a raft of German cases (C- 497/09, C-499/09, C501/09 and C-502/09, Manfred Bog and others), telling the German authorities that they had to charge the lower rate of VAT on all hot take-out food, instead of the higher rate.
At the time, HMRC said the ruling had no implications for the UK, whence it continued to charge VAT on things like fish & chips and burgers, sold over the counter, but kept as zero-rated foods "which are warm simply because they happen to be freshly baked, are in the process of cooling down and are not intended to be eaten while hot".
However, more than a few VAT consultances and lawyer groups specialising in tax law disagreed with HMRC, such as here and here. They argued that take-out food in the UK should also be charged at the lower rate, which in this country is zero.
By last November, we ended up with the fish and chip shop owners getting together to fight the government on this. They were looking forward to securing a very healthy refund. They also expected to be able to knock around £1 off fish and chips, boosting the trade and stimulating the sale of fish.
The actual amount of revenue at stake has not been specified, but it is likely to run to several billions, if the HMRC lose their case. And what seem to be happening here is that, by harmonising the rate, making it cover all foods without the "freshly baked, etc.," exemption, the tax authoritities believe they can protect their revenue stream.
As long as some hot foods are charged at the lower (i.e., zero) rate, then all hot foods must be charged at that rate. By abolishing the zero rate for ANY hot foods, Osborne can charge the standard rate for them all. This gets HMRC gets off the hook on which the ECJ has impaled them.
Retailers are, of course, hoping that the proposals do not go ahead. Already, the impact of the proposal it such that it has already taken £30 million off the share price of the bakery chain Greggs. But that is small beer compared with what the chancellor stands to lose.
The one thing, though, that you can be sure of is that the media isn't going to tell you what's going on. People might start voting for UKIP for something equally stupid, and that would never do.
COMMENT THREAD
This does indeed have all the hallmarks of a distraction. But then, the politicians have long mastered the art of misdirection and are past masters at distracting their audiences. Throw the public a bone, or a red herring, or whatever analogy you care to use, and they will leap upon it, losing sight of the original excitement.
Usually applied to the "art" of magic, the discussion on "misdirection" looks eerily familiar:
Misdirection takes advantage of the limits of the human mind in order to give the wrong picture and memory. The mind of a typical audience member can only concentrate on one thing at a time. The magician uses this to manipulate the audience's ideas, or, perceptions of sensory input, leading them to draw false conclusions.The sadness is that we fall for it, accepting the politicians' agendas, and taking them seriously. I have already seen half a dozen e-mails today, advertising earnest debates on alchohol pricing. Not one has seen May's "initiative" for what it is.
However, in this case, the accuser is Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary. And who will lister to her, or give her the time of day? Most will simply buy into the agenda, as they always do. Gullible to the last, that is why we are so easy to govern.
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