Potential legal obstacles - by Richard... Thursday, March 01, 2012

Potential legal obstacles - by Richard... Thursday, March 01, 2012

It seems that The Independent has invented a new type of headline - one that completely contradicts its own story.

Thus, while being told in the headline today (above) that wild animals are to be banned from circuses, the story goes on to say that: "Ministers will today dash hopes of an immediate ban on the use of wild animals in circuses". DEFRA has said it cannot outlaw the use of animals because of "potential legal obstacles".

Still, you can see why the paper is reluctant to declare the truth, given last year's headline (below) which paraded a famous victory.

The real confusion, however, arises from what is self-evidently government spin, with the Press Association stating:

Ministers are to unveil plans in the Commons that will outlaw the practice at the earliest opportunity. But a tough new licensing regime will be brought in to improve conditions for performing animals while changes in the law are developed.

Bizarrely, we then have a DEFRA spokeswoman saying:

We always said we were minded to ban wild animals performing in travelling circuses, the only issue being that we have to be sure that a ban cannot be overturned legally. Therefore in the meantime we are proposing a tough new licensing regime which can be introduced quickly, to ensure high welfare standards.

So, despite last year's unanimous vote by MPs for the practice of using wild animals in circuses to be outlawed, and 30,000 people signing a petition, the government is only prepared to "set out plans to create a licensing regime to ensure animals are well treated", against the vague promise that it is "minded" to ban wild animals performing in travelling circuses.

Jan Creamer, chief executive of Animal Defenders International, says: "It is appalling that public and parliamentary wishes are cast aside in such a cavalier manner."

And indeed it is "appalling", but that is the sort of thing that happens when you outsource your legislative powers to Brussels. As we have pointed out, on one or two occasions, animal welfare in circuses is covered by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1739/2005 of 21 October 2005, laying down animal health requirements for the movement of circus animals between Member States.

Thus, the British government is not permitted to legislate in what is an "occupied field", and can only lamely cite "potential legal obstacles" as an excuse for not acting, somehow omitting that these are EU obstacles.

Ironically, the EU law is part of the Single Market acquis, of which Mr Cameron is so proud – although not proud enough to direct his officials to claim credit for it when the shoe pinches. But then, he can always rely on confusion and obfuscation from the media to keep it from the voters.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

Mediocracy - by Richard...

John Toland's "Hitler" has the Führer 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.

Now, prof David Dunning, reported in The Mail, would seem to agree about the inadequacies of the "little human worm", only he positions the problem as lying with us and the electoral system. The majority of us lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgements about the quality of candidates.

Dr Mato Nagel, a sociologist in Germany, recently used this as the basis for simulating a democratic election. In his experiments, candidates whose leadership skills were only slightly better than average always won, leading Nagel to conclude that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders.

Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders".

Assessing the politicians currently leading the western democracies, and especially our own Boy, it is hard to disagree with this thesis. We enjoy not democracy but a mediocracy.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

Tax collection - by Richard... Wednesday, February 29, 2012

More than 160 German tax collectors have volunteered for possible assignments in Greece to help the struggling Mediterranean country gather tax more efficiently, says Reuters.

Meanwhile, English tax collectors have already mounted an expedition to Sunderland … with predictable results.

We bring you the first pictures.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

Twisting and turning - by Richard...

Banks today grabbed €530 billion at the ECB's second offering of cheap three-year funds, fuelling expectations that credit will flow to businesses and borrowing costs will ease for governments hit by the euro zone crisis. This is what Reuters tells us, adding that, in the space of two months, the ECB has now injected more than a trillion euros into the financial system, banishing the threat of a credit crunch.

Ambrose has a different take. He thinks the ECB is "twisting itself in knots" by bailing out Club Med sovereigns very inefficiently through the back-door via the banks.

He offers the alternative of "engaging in transparent, plain-vanilla open-market … that is to say by purchasing bonds directly from the non-banks and injecting a blast of stimulus into the real economy", but he does acknowledge that it is a "game changer for the South", heading off the near-certain disaster that was unfolding before Mario Draghi took over the European Central Bank.

Nevertheless, Ambrose complains of "utter confusion, massive distortions of the European credit market, and a naked breach of the no-bailout clause of the Lisbon Treaty". What they [the ECB] are doing is basically illegal as well as clumsy. And all this to pretend to the Germans – and to themselves – that they are not doing QE.

It is better than doing nothing, though, Ambrose concedes, which perhaps illustrates the depth of the crisis engulfing us. ZeroHedge and spells it out, and it isn't pretty.

Crucially, though, the exercise is buying time. This is admitted by Michael Kemmer, managing director of Germany's BdB banking association. "With the ECB's supporting measures time is being won" he says. "But", he adds, "these measures can neither replace a functioning interbanking market nor solve the debt crisis".

Reuters more or less agrees, stating: "The strategy has sucked much of the heat out of the eurozone crisis and given governments time to work out sustainable budget and growth policies for affected countries on the periphery of the bloc". That latter sentiment is BS, but it may just see the "colleagues" through the summer.

So far, so good …

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

Green jobs - by Richard...

… but mostly for foreigners, as The Guardian notes. However, it would not be much different if we were building conventional power sources. Nuclear and gas plants both are largely built by foreign companies, and often using immigrant labour. Whether our energy is green or not, we seem to have abandoned this vital strategic interest to foreign firms - while our people fill supermarket shelves and don't even get paid.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

Dialogue of the deaf - by Richard...

It doesn't matter how many times the error is pointed out - Mail journalists, it seems, are determined to parade their ignorance, confusing the Council of Europe with the EU.

Not only is the confusion sown in the headline, but we also see the caption to the picture of the ECHR in Strasbourg stating: "A leaked document says Britain should be given enhanced 'margin of appreciation' in interpreting EU rulings".

It might not be so bad if the paper could actually copy out stories properly, as this one is filched from The Guardian, which perfectly correctly refers to the Council of Europe, even in its headline. There is no mention of the EU anywhere in the report.

Apart from illustrating its unreliability though, the Mail is demonstrating that it simply doesn't listen to anything but itself. This is the archetypal top-down MSM, engaging in a one-way "conversation" with its readers. No wonder people turn to social media, which – despite the obvious deficiencies – is a two-way process.

COMMENT THREAD

Share

Print ready

You can't fool all of the people - by Richard...

In retrospect, we can now say it was never going to last, and indeed it has not. While initially The Boy was riding high on the back of his pretend veto, Reuters is telling us that the halo has slipped.

From a heady peak of a forty percent lead in December (against 34 percent for Labour), the Tories have slipped back to 35 percent, with Labour in the lead at 41 percent, with the Lib-Dims on 12 percent. Effectively, the positions have been reversed.

Compared with January, there is a three point drop, and only forty percent are now satisfied with Cameron's performance. This puts his "net satisfaction rating" at minus 11, down ten points from January, and contrasting with his 48 percent in December, then giving him a net score of plus five.

Unsurprisingly though, give the calibre of the opposition, The Boy remains the most popular of the main three party leaders.

However, what emerges clearly from the result is confirmation of the old saw: you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Capturing briefly the anti-EU sentiment of the country, very much under false pretences, Cameron and his party gained hugely in approval ratings with his pretend veto.

Now that the gilt has worn off, and The Boy has been revealed for what he really is – just another sad little europhile - both he and his party have lost ground. Nevertheless, we are still on the two-party see-saw, which means that some people still see merit in an alternative.

That would seem to confirm the other part of the saying, that you can fool some of the people all of the time.