 They've finally noticed (sort of)
Tuesday 1 May 2012
But, as the flood alerts accumulate, the mood is not lightened by news of the GMB union. Representing the nation's water workers, it is calling for an inquiry into the closure of more than 20 reservoirs in parts of the country most affected by the drought.
At last, it seems, there is the beginning of awareness that the current shortage of water has less to do with the "drought" and is much more of a capacity problem. This much we wrote on 13 March and it was raised in the Booker column the following week. But, in the nature of things, the media and the politicians go blithely on in their profound state of ignorance, missing the point entirely. Beyond a lame piece in The Express yesterday, it takes a trade union to say something before themedia picks it up. But at least we now have Gary Smith, GMB National Secretary for Water, saying, "It cannot be repeated often enough that there is no shortage of water in Britain. We divert only a small fraction of the throughput of our water cycle for human purposes". Even then, the GMB is itself missing the point. A Thames Water spokesman is saying that many of the closed sites about which the union is complaining, "were not storage reservoirs at all" and only stored "small amounts" of treated water. He is saying: "They did not store raw water and were shut when improvements to our water supply network made them redundant". The crucial point, of course, is that population over the period since privatisation has grown by eleven percent, yet storage capacity has been virtually static. And while the GMB is complaining that £5 billion has gone in shareholder dividends, more than £65 billion has gone in implementing EU directives, much of that towards securing completely unnecessary quality standards. Thus, we are a little further forward, but not much more so. Currently, we have a surfeit of rain, and the nation's reservoirs are now comfortably full. But there is no way of storing any more of the surplus against a (non) rainy day. That is our problem. Sadly, the neither the media, and especially the politicians, seem to be capable of understanding this. Bogged down with trivia over their sad little lives, they have lost the capacity to focus on important issues – and there are few things more important than whether we have a sufficiency of water. Instead, it is left to a trade union to make the running, an organisation which has its own agenda, and itself not capable of making the right points. No wonder we seem afflicted with an air of unreality. When the politicians cannot even focus on the essentials, it is long time past when we should be asking what they are for. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 01/05/2012 |
The past is a foreign country
Tuesday 1 May 2012
 Richard North 01/05/2012 |
Accountability
Tuesday 1 May 2012
Raedwald, quite rightly, has been getting worked up about the EU's €12 million contract for taxi flights in private jets.
The Commission, on the other hand, absolves itself by saying that the contract will run for up to four years and sets a total ceiling of €12m over the four years. "We don't pay anything when we do not use this service", says a commission spokesman. However, a mere €3 million a year, out of a budget of €129 billion (for this year) is chump change. And that is how there people justify such sums. As a proportion of the total spend, they are so infinitesimal that they are not worth bothering about. Against this insouciance, pity the plight of Dutch MEP Martin Ehrenhauser who has diligently beentrying to smoke out the details of these flights, supplied by Abelag Premiere Private Jet Services. Asking for the total cost of such flights in 2004-2010, how many flights made, passengers carried, destinations and distances travelled, the aircraft models and why private jets were taken instead of scheduled flights, he gets told this: Abelag Premiere Private Jet Services regularly performs services for the Commission, as for instance in 2009 for the Office for the administration and payment of individual entitlements under the heading of "Other management expenditure of Commission's policy coordination and legal advice" policy area (budget Item 25 01 02 11), involving the sum of EUR 249 460.30, or for the communication DG under the heading of "Other management expenditure of Communication Directorate-General: Headquarters" (budget Item 16 01 02 11), involving the sum of EUR 74 458.34.This, to put it quite bluntly, is taking the mick. Anyone who conceals luxury flights in private jets as "other management expenditure" is up to no good. And it makes a complete nonsense of any idea of accountability. With that sort of categorisation, and that degree of disclosures, any idea that the EU commission is under control is nonsense.
These people aren't even going through the motions.
Richard North 01/05/2012 |
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