EU referendum: an absolutely decisive consideration
Thursday 2 May 2013
 Mr Cameron, it appears, has indicated that he is preparing to hint that he is ready to give serious consideration to thinking about conceding, maybe, that there might be a possibility, sometime, of his schedule permitting him to explore the feasibility of drafting a proposal that might have a chance of going forward, the effect of which will raise hopes that there will be an elevated likelihood of a genuine debate on whether to table a motion suggesting that EU referendum legislation could be placed on the statute book before the next election, or even the one after that. This dangerous "drift to the right" has been picked up by the loss-making Guardian as clear evidence of something, while the Telegraph reverts to its traditional, tribal role and bigs up this very poor thing. Cue the duty sycophant, Peter Oborne, to tell us that voting UKIP will wreck the chances of having this referendum on "Europe". "Stealing votes from the Tories", he whimpers, "guarantees the election of a pro-European Labour Party in thrall to the unions, which would waste no time in destroying Mr Cameron's remarkable public service reforms". This bizarre assertion that votes somehow "belong" to the Tories is heavily embedded in the Tory psyche, and is one of the reasons why voters are so keen to smack them in the teeth (figuratively speaking). This "entitlement culture" must be firmly dealt-with before it gets out of hand. Nevertheless, if Oborne got to vote today (he doesn't) he would make his mark for the Conservatives with enthusiasm. If possible, he would do so twice. As someone once remarked – her name escapes him – there is no alternative. There, and only there, he is right. There is no alternative to electoral fraud if the Tories are going to salvage something from this mess – unless they change their ways and begin to communicate with the electorate. Sadly for them, though, they seem to have lost the knack. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 02/05/2013 |
UK politics: why we vote UKIP
Thursday 2 May 2013
 McNulty is already paid an over-generous salary of around £210,000, and his "retention package" also includes an additional £31,000 per year over the next five years - the equivalent of the employers' contribution for the CEO as a member of the Local Government Pension Scheme. Thus, this pampered public official will have an equally pampered and prosperous retirement – all at the Council Tax payers' expense. There can be nothing is more calculated to infuriate than the overpayment of local council management, and we are told that critics have been left "gobsmacked" that the county council agreed the bumper bonus at a time when services are being cut and taxes increased. Yet Cllr Hodge is entirely unrepentant. "Surrey's chief executive manages a budget of £1.8 billion and 26,000 staff", he says. "Due to the scale of this task there are few people who are able to successfully handle this while also guiding the organisation as it uncovered savings of £280 million … blah, blah, blah, blah". Outside the bubble, there cannot be a single taxpayer who buys Cllr Hodge's message, yet this is the member of a party which has as its leader David Cameron. And it is the very same Mr Cameronwho vowed to eradicate council "waste and propaganda" during the launch of his party's local authority election campaign. This is precisely the "disconnect" which drives voters into the arms of UKIP – not for any intrinsic merits of Farage's creaking one-man band, but simply as a reflection of the loathing the average mortal has for the cant and hypocrisy of the political classes. As long as public service is now seen by its practitioners as a license to fill their boots at the public's expense, voting for UKIP will always seem attractive. It is currently seen as the only way – short of violent revolution - to bring the political classes to heel. And, whatever Mr Hague may think, that is never a waste of a vote. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 02/05/2013 |
Afghanistan: betrayed by the Afghan police?
Thursday 2 May 2013
 "I'm sure we want to look at that carefully and put in place everything we can to make sure our brave men and women have the best protective equipment," he said, words interpreted by the Telegraph as a promise to re-assess the safety of the vehicles. Whether intentional or not, though, by focusing in the performance of the Mastiff, Mr Cameron is diverting attention from the greater threat. As we pointed out in our earlier piece safety during road travel is not achieved by protected vehicles alone, but by a package of measures, foremost of which are persistent and systematic route clearance, combined with good intelligence and observation. Under the collective title of "route security", British forces have had some success, with no serious incidents since the loss of six soldier travelling in a Warrior MICV in March last year - which was not the first. Even then, it was widely recognised that, if a large enough bomb us used, no vehicle of any type will protect its crew – hence the need for the raft of measures, making the protected vehicle the last line of defence. Why then this incident happened now has been the subject of some speculation, including by The Week in a glorious example of media inaccuracy, taken apart by Autonomous Mind. We ourselves suggested that factors contributing to the incident could have been complacency, or simply that not enough resources were being devoted to force protection. But the media is not even on the same page, taking the same line as the prime minister, in focusing on the protection afforded by the vehicle. In fact, there is nothing substantially wrong with the vehicle. It is about as good a design as can be provided for the money, and its record is superb. But there is a lot wrong with a security situation where the Taliban can place a huge bomb on a major transport route, detonate it and escape detection. It is thus to the standard of route security that we must look, and to ask what might have changed to make journeys more perilous. And here, there may be an answer. Hitherto, route security has been the responsibility of British forces. But, on 28 February, 70 soldiers from the Scots Guards Battle Group returned home early from Afghanistan, having handed route security on Route 611 to the Afghan National Civil Order Police (pictured above). And it is on this road that the Mastiff was hit. Now, it may be a coincidence that, a mere two months after the Afghan police took over security, the Taliban managed to place a huge bomb, so large that it was able to flip a 27-ton armoured vehicle. There again, given the known inadequacies of the Afghan police, the fact that many of them are Taliban sympathisers, and the fact that so many are open to bribery, if one was seeking to discover how the Taliban were able to mount this attack, the Afghan police are the first place to look. It is by no means beyond the realms of possibility that our troops betrayed by them. Worryingly, as we go through the charade of handing over more and more responsibilities to the Afghans, preparatory to our troop withdrawals next year, our soldiers will become more and more dependent on them for their safety. If there was a betrayal, it may not be the last. COMMENT: COMBINED MASTIFF THREAD Richard North 02/05/2013 |
Afghanistan: the Taliban sends a message
Wednesday 1 May 2013
 Reports are patchy, but the fullest – if not necessarily the most accurate – account seems to be offered by the Mail, which describes the 27-ton vehicle as the "15-tonne Mastiff", two short of theDaily Express, which gives it 17 tons, ten short of the actual empty weight of the Mastiff II/III series. The vehicle was travelling in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand Province, escorting a convoy along Route 611. This is a newly constructed road which had been used to showcase the reconstruction and development which has been taking place in the province, and thus a prime target for Taliban attention. It is a known IED magnet. Some reports had it that the vehicle was specifically searching for IEDs, which is unlikely. That is the role of the Buffalo. And while some Mastiffs are deployed with bomb disposal, these would hardly be carrying solders from the Royal Highland Fusiliers 2nd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland – the unit of those who died. Many of the media reports attest that the vehicle was hit by a very large bomb – "one of the biggest roadside bombs ever used in Afghanistan", says the Express. The blast is said to have been so powerful that it hurled the vehicle "several metres" into the air, flipping it onto its roof as it crashed to the ground. There is agreement in reports that the road was tarmacked, which suggests that the IED could well have been a culvert bomb. This is a classic terrorist technique, commonly employed by the Taliban, and very large bombs have already been experienced - with the threat to mine-protected vehicles identified in 2008. This is not a new problem. As early as June 2009, three Danish soldiers were killed in a Mercedes "jeep", from a such device, estimated at 350Kg weight. But already in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, culvert bombs of 1,000lb were used, one of which took out a Saracen APC near Crossmaglen on 9 October 1975. Ostensibly, this incident vindicates the "bigger bomb" crowd – that vociferous group of critics who opposed the introduction of the Mastiff, on the grounds that the enemy would simply respond by using larger devices, which indeed they have. However, it has taken seven years – the period the vehicle has been in service – finally for the terrorists to overcome the formidable defences provided by the Mastiff, and even then this is not the end of the story. One of the points of using better protection is the very fact that you then force the enemy to use "bigger bombs". This means they are riskier to transport, they take longer to place, increasing the chances of detection, and the number of suitable placement sites is reduced – also assisting detection. With that, detection technology has considerably advanced since the IRA scourge of 1975 andmultiple techniques are now available. It is fair to say that, given the will and determination, incidents such as this current one are eminently preventable – not least through imaginative use of UAV technology, including change detection, employing video mapping. Already, there is speculation as to why this vehicle was caught out. But, as always, the wrong questions are being asked. The issue is not the vehicle, per se, so much as the entire defensive package, of which the vehicle is but one component.
Crucially, even standard route clearance techniques should have been able to pick up a bomb this size - assuming that a culvert denial programme was not in place. And it must be emphasised that the primary defence against IEDs is not protected vehicles, but persistent and systematic route clearance, combined with good intelligence and observation.
The fact that this vehicle was hit, therefore, may suggest that British forces have dropped the ball. Questions might be asked as to whether complacency had set in, or whether simply not enough resources were being devoted to force protection. The main problem, though, may be that route security has recently been handed over to the Afghan National Civil Order Police.
At this late stage in the campaign, though, it is unlikely that there will be any great outcry as there was with Snatch Land Rovers, especially as the bulk of troops are due to be withdrawn next year. Despite that, this incident does have an importance that transcends even the immediate tragedy of young lives cut short. In targeting the Mastiff, and successfully taking one out, the Taliban is sending a message to the people of Afghanistan. Effectively, they are proving that they can overcome the best that the West has to offer, demonstrating their power and the impotence of the "infidels". And although news of this incident will disappear quickly from the British press, one suspects that the message will not be lost elsewhere: when the infidels leave, they will be leaving as a defeated force. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 01/05/2013 |
UK politics: the fruitcakes' revenge
Wednesday 1 May 2013
 Not to be outdone, Marta Andreasen, is also taking a sideswipe at the establishment's favourite whipping boy. She says that it was Mr Farage's jealousy of potential competitors inside the "one-man band" party that had prevented candidates from having their records checked. She says that Farage changed the party's constitution last year "giving him full power on everything, including the establishment of strategy, policies and selection processes for candidates for elections".
The lady has obviously seen through the "cheeky chappie" front, adding, "He has come out saying 'we cannot vet everybody' – well he cannot vet everybody because he wants the control himself. He should have been able to establish an administration with the means to vet, even if it’s 1,700 candidates".
Notably, Andreasen says, "He's the one who put candidates all over the place in as many seats as possible … He's very attractive to the media because he's a showman but he doesn't have the patience or the interest in dealing with data". Despite the ring of truth here, Marta is too late to dent her erstwhile sponsor. The latest poll, as reported by ITV, has Farage's "one-man band" surging to 22 percent of the vote. Amazingly, in this poll, the Tories get 31 percent, Labour drop to 24 percent and the Lib-Dems get 12 percent. Yet, with UKIP rampant, the Tories are still being set up for the slaughter. And so it is that the supposedly eurosceptic Express gives a spot to Ann Widdecombe, to tell us, "Why you must vote Tory not UKIP". A vote for anything other than Conservative is a vote for Labour and thus for high tax and high spend at county halls, she writes. The irony of it all is that she is probably right … but not enough people care. This is a revolt against the political class, and people are determined to give them a kicking. That's all that matters - call it the fruitcakes' revenge. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 01/05/2013 |
Climate change: the juggernaut rolls on
Tuesday 30 April 2013
 This is on the back of COM(2013) 216 final, the strategy document which was published on 16 April, and today's monster report from the the European Environmental Agency (EEA), plus no less than nine Commission staff working documents, such as this one, and this, where the detail is buried. No one outside the loop is going to read but a fraction of the hundreds of pages – life is too short. But the problem for us all is that climate change adaptation is now to take a central part in all EU policy-making, as we see here, in a report which outlines the principles and recommendations for integrating climate change adaptation considerations under the 2014-2020 rural development programmes. That adaptation is now a key policy driver is indicated in the foreword to the EEA report, written by professor Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of Agency. Adaptation, she writes, is not simply about doing more, "it is about new ways of thinking and dealing with risk and hazards, uncertainty and complexity". And in a clue to the mindset, we find McGlade telling us that climate adaptation requires precautionary "science" and approaches, with an emphasis on "probability and multiple reactive thresholds", rather than a reliance on the statistics of the past. There is also scope, we are told, "for increased complementarity between adaptation and mitigation actions". If I were to be honest, I would have to admit that I don't actually know what "probability and multiple reactive thresholds" actually mean. The phrasing does seem to stem from decision field theory - or perhaps not. The jargon is impenetrable. McGlade might just as well be writing in a foreign language. In some ways, she is. Needless to say, the media does not even attempt to penetrate the jargon. Most newspapers ignore today's event, with only the loss-making Guardian running a report. And even then, it focuses on the tangible issues, rather than the true focus of the initiative, with is to re-shape Commission policy. However, with this event occurring a day after Russian scientists warned that we may be entering a prolonged period of global cooling, this is a classic example of the juggernaut rolling on, blind to the reality. A clue to just how distant the thinking is from the real world lies in the COM final, which blithely tells us that "snow tourism" is one of the economic sectors which is "already facing the impact of climate change", despite the industry just having enjoyed a record season. But now, with "adaptation" embedded in the very heart of Commission policy, there will be no rooting it out. This is the intellectual equivalent of the herpes virus - the only sure way of destroying it is to destroy the host. And, before we can rid ourselves of it, that is what we will have to do. Meanwhile, the juggernaut rolls on, and on, and on … COMMENT THREAD Richard North 30/04/2013 |
UK politics: no such thing as bad publicity
Tuesday 30 April 2013
 It is perhaps a measure of how rattled is the political class that we should see the front page of the Daily Mirror devoted to an attack on UKIP.That there are a few seriously unpleasant types attracted to UKIP is a given, as is the case with all political parties. Within the ranks of the Conservative Party, I could point to some deeply objectionable racists, one of misterial rank. And, as one commenter remarked, is the UKIP dross any worse that the "bitter socialists" who cheered the IRA bomb at Brighton, or the vile racist comments at Lady Thatcher? In tactical terms, therefore, the focus on the handful of "embarrassing candidates" – which had Jon Humphries spluttering over his microphone this morning – is a mistake. And, as the actress said to the bishop, there is no such thing as bad publicity - certainly in terms of politics. Throughout its life, UKIP has always struggled to gain attention, and the current media attention is worth millions as advertising. Small wonder then that a YouGuv poll for The Sun is forcasting a 14 percent share of the vote for UKIP, the effect of which is expected to increase Tory losses. Furthermore, the publicity is putting a spark into an otherwise lacklustre campaign, which can only serve to drive up the turnout. That can only assist in offsetting the postal votes already cast. The more people who actually turn out on the day, the better it is for UKIP. If the establishment parties had any sense, they could of course, take UKIP on over its tragically amateurish policies. Their problem is, though, that the policy offerings from the so-called "lib-lab-con" are nothing to write home about either, which leaves them nowhere to go. What they really don't understand is how much they are loathed. UKIP has assumed the mantle of the protest vote, giving the ordinary man an opportunity to kick the establishment in the teeth. And thus, the more the establishment squeals and squirms, the more attractive a vote for UKIP actually becomes. Add to that the brand recognition that the media is obligingly giving, gratis, to the upstart party, and we can expect a comfortable increase in support on Thursday. Interestingly, the rise of the protest vote is a phenomenon happening all over Europe, with numerous dissident parties emerging, all attracting similar levels of support. And in each of the countries where they have emerged, the establishment and media reaction has been similar and equally misguided. Basically, the establishment, and especially the political class, has lost touch with popular sentiment, and has no idea how to respond to it. The rise and rise of UKIP in the UK (largely England) is a testament to that, and it would now seem that the prattling media, unwittingly, have become Mr Farage's greatest allies. And the more they prattle, the better it becomes. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 30/04/2013 |
Thursday, 2 May 2013
Posts
