The Caesar option - by Richard... Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Caesar option - by Richard... Wednesday, November 30, 2011

"The science is solid and proves unequivocally that the world is warming," says R.D.J. Lengoasa, the WMO's deputy director, and human activity is a significant contributor. "Climate change is real, and we are already observing its manifestations in weather and climate patterns around the world," he adds.

But just one day into the Durban talks and, as expected, writes John Vidal, we are witnessing the assassination of the Kyoto protocol. Canada has let the cat out of the bag with its environment minister, Peter Kent, saying: "Kyoto is the past" and suggesting that formally pulling out of the treaty is an option.

The play reminds Vidal of the assassination of Caesar in Julius Caesar. Caesar's friends and colleagues hide their weapons before ritually stabbing him together, thus sharing the responsibility for his death. The US may be the country that has plotted the end of the treaty but Canada now has the dagger in its hand.

And such a tragic end (not) to an ignoble beast. But, also to borrow from Shakespeare, If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. Let's be done with it.

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A better way - by Richard... Tuesday, November 29, 2011

An initial offering by Wittering from Witney gives some intriguing ideas, although I have some reservations. It is not that I am totally against direct democracy – it has its place. But there are serious limitations, and the process can prove a double-edged weapon. It can do more harm than good.

Anyhow, WfW has responded, with much food for thought. He argues that, if power is to be exerted, then he would rather it "be by a majority view within the area that I live, than a majority view of a small minority of our society who have their own agenda and are totally disconnected from the people".

That raises an interesting question, as to where democracy lies, adding a requirement to consider the nature of the demos, which supposedly drives decision-making.

Certainly, the UK is characterised by being one of the most centralised, top-down systems of government in the world, with local government largely financed by central government, and acting as an agent for it, with no independent status or constitution.

Perhaps, before we go any further, we ought to consider this anew, and ask whether our democracy should be inverted, so that the power starts at local level, and is controlled from there, rather than centralised, with diktats handed down from the central authority.

One of the problems here is that, in large areas of this country, we do not have local government in any meaningful sense. My own area, Bradford, is a good example. With a population close of half a million people, it is larger than some countries in the European Union.

Any new settlement, therefore, must undo the Walker "reforms" of 1974, which created these giant, unresponsive and fundamentally undemocratic administrative units, with the focus on allowing communities to develop their own identities and top control their own destinies.

Then, as always, there is the question of money. Much is made of council tax, but that accounts for less than twenty percent of local government finance. More than sixty percent comes from central government, handed down according to arcane formulas and political prejudice.

For democracy to flourish, the flow must be reversed. In the main, tax collected locally should be more than sufficient to fund the local government functions in the area, without having to go cap-in-hand to central government.

There is talk, for instance, of a local income tax, but maybe we should be thinking outside the box, and turning income tax into a locally collected tax.

As it stands, we have a system where subsidiary agencies such as the police and local transport agencies are paid from a precept, taking from local authority taxes, but perhaps this is the way central government should be paid. We pay taxes to the local administrative unit – it takes what it needs for its own functions and pays any surplus, by way of a precept, to central government.

If this sounds revolutionary, so be it – but it is not impossible. Central government draws up its budget for the year, works out how much it will draw down from its own tax resources, and then calls off the balance of its needs from local administrations, which then decide how they are to spread the load amongst their own taxpayers.

But when that budget is subject to an annual referendum, and taxpayers are able to veto the budget, tax demands become a matter of negotiation. Governments, deprived of the power to issue peremptory demands, have to negotiate an annual settlement, staying within the bounds of consent, in order to get any money.

Thus, direct democracy needs to start at the bottom, controlling the flow of money – which should move upwards to the centre, by permission, not downwards by fiat. Government should always be made acutely aware that they spend our money, and should be required to ask for it, each year.

What is utterly intolerable is that an unrepresentative group of people, for whom I did not vote, whose values I do not share, and to whom I owe no loyalty or respect, should each year tell me how much I should pay them, and expect the money as of right.

The moment government officers, be they ministers or councillors, believe they are entitled to our money, as of right, they are not very far from owning us, body and soul. They cease to become our servants and become our masters. And, if it was Tip O'Neill who said that "all politics is local", then democracy must be locally based as well.

Whatever system we chose, it must be acknowledged that top-down government is not democracy at all, and nor is "local" rule by giant administrative units. These fundamentals must be addressed, before we even start thinking about how we tame the beast.

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Fantasy land - by Richard...

The projected deficit for this current financial year was £122 billion, but we had little doubt that he wouldn’t make it. And sure enough, the preposterous Osborne predicts coming in at £127 billion, meaning that the national debt will increase by that amount this year. So much for "cuts", as public spending overall increases.

And, over the next four years, he anticipates borrowing £111 billion more than anticipated. In 2014-15, he expects borrowing to hit £79 billion, more than double the £37 billion previously predicted, and more even than the £74 billion predicted by Alistair Darling when he was chancellor.

But given his track record – and obvious lack of capability - there is no reason to believe that Osborne is going to be any more successful in meeting future targets than he is in meeting the current one.

Even with a fair wind, this would be difficult but, according to the Office of Budget Responsibility, such forecasts as have been made are "highly optimistic" and are based on the assumption that the eurozone crisis is satisfactorily resolved.

Warning that there is a greater chance of the situation getting worse, rather than better, the OBR then suggests that "the probability of an outcome much worse than our central forecast is greater than the probability of an outcome much better than our central forecast".

And what that all amounts to is that Osborne is living in fanatasy land. Even though his forecasts are worse than he originally predicted, the likelihood is that the reality will be even worse than that, only the little chappie cannot bring himself to say it.

The most bizarre thing is that the only person he is deceiving – if at all – is himself. This is the man-child with all the economic credibility of a shopaholic given ten new store cards.

He has not the first idea of how to cut back public spending and bring the budget under control, and is thus left to blather unconvincingly about spurious targets, while playing around at the edges, in an attempt to pretend he is in control.

We did not deserve to have such a fool in charge at such a dangerous time, but then as a collective we have too long allowed our politicians the power to destroy our finances, in the belief that there would be no consequences.

Well. consequences there will be, and all the worse for having a child in charge who has neither the capability to take control nor the honesty to admit that the situation is effectively out of his control. With not a grown-up in sight, we can only fear the worst.

And the reckoning, it seems, is not far behind.

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Corruption rules - by Richard...

One must never forget that, behind the thin veneer of respectability, virtually every public and financial institution in Greece is tainted by corruption.

That much we have known for a long while, although it is rarely said often enough, especially as it is now apparent that public money (including British contributions) is being used to bail out Greek banks brought down by multi-million frauds.

The latest such was reported in theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on 11 November, but – unsurprisingly – has yet to be given any coverage in the British media, which is always slow to report on international corruption.

The story concerns the private Greek bank, Proton, from which has been embezzled upwards of €700 million, threatening the viability of the bank. But, despite the sums being unaccounted for, the Greek government has used the EU bailout fund recapitalise the bank to the tune of €900 million.

Covered in more detail in this site and latterly by Zero Hedge, this comes on the back of an international bribery scandal which has embroiled six directors of the Austrian National Bank, including the governor, Ewald Nowotny.

Nor is this a gentle affair between kindly bankers for, as the details of the latest fraud emerged, a bomb exploded in front of a building in Halandri, a suburb of Athens, demolishing four cars.

This, we are told, is not a coincidence: in the building lived a senior employee of the Bank of Greece, whose meticulous investigation of Proton Bank had exposed the massive criminal scheme. According to the police, the bomb was intended as a warning to those who attempt to shed light on these kinds of machinations.

The extent of fraud in the Greek banking system – underwritten by the threat of deadly violence, which inhibits local investigation and reporting – changes substantially the economic calculus in this benighted country. Already beset by political considerations which defy economic sense, the situation is muddied still further by the sheer scale of corruption, distorting the visible economy to an unknown but major extent.

We know of old, that this corruption spreads its tentacles into most countries in Europe, and involves senior commission officials, including commission president José Manuel Barroso. And when corruption, rather than sound economic principles, are the driving force, it is a fair bet that the money flowing into the Greek banking system is not being used as we would wish.

And, as always, the unwitting British taxpayer is being used subsidise this corruption, while the media silence allows the rip-off to continue unchecked. We pay and the thieves get rich.

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Even our folly has its limits - by Richard...

This is Fintan Otoole again. We met him on 22 November with a brilliant piece. Now he's doing the sums and deciding that they don't add up. This charade has gone on long enough, he says. It is killing Ireland, but it is also killing the EU.

Rhetoric then takes over: "Do its leaders really expect us all to vote to give them more powers when they’re only interested in using them to take back what they’ve given us? We may be the stupidest mercenaries of all time, but even our folly has its limits".

Doncha just love this man.

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Disaster in plain sight - by Richard...

You do wonder how it is that, with all the proceedings up front and visible, the government/military complex can make quite such a pig's ear of not providing us with a carrier capability.

Taken as a whole, this is a collective that you would not trust to find their own backsides with both hands and free mirrors, people who have managed to turn a £3.5bn starter cost into £6.2bn, which is likely to rise to up to £12bn – giving us a mere 200 days sea time a year.

If anyone wants to see how government accountability breaks down, it is here. No one will lose their jobs. Everyone gets their pensions, and we are expected to pay. Nay, it is regarded as ourduty to pay, and any thoughts of slaughtering officials are considered to be "extreme".

The question one has to pose, therefore, is what do we do with these people. They are taking the piss, and any idea of democracy – as in accountability to the people – has been consigned to the back seat. It exists in theory only.

We could start, perhaps, by asking why it is a revolutionary – and even subversive – concept, to expect government to deliver value for money, and for us to refuse to pay when it isn't delivered.

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Painful readjustments - by Richard...

Detlev Schlicchter of Paper Money Collapse blog is telling us that the bubble in government bonds is finally bursting. It is a myth, he says, that the government can always pay. That is a statement that has no basis in fact.

The fate of myths, we are then informed, is that they sooner or later clash with reality. Then they are exposed as myths, which requires a painful giving-up of beloved certainties, a readjustment of paradigms and an abrupt change in behaviour.

I think we knew all that, but it is equally evident that our masters don't. We hope, therefore, that their adjustment to reality is as painful as possible. That should start with the preposterous Osborne today, who is going to try (and fail) to convince us that he knows what he is talking about.

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Cry me a bucket - by Richard...

Those watching the [climate] talks begin said it was an inauspicious start. "It is headed towards a real impasse in Durban, frankly, there is no way to gloss over it", one veteran participant said. "There are very few options left open to wring much out of the meeting unless the position of these major countries softens considerably".

But even as the scare wanes, "defence chiefs" are seeing in it an opportunity to ratchet up threat levels by claiming that climate change is "an invisible driver of turbulence". It is nice to see that they are on the ball as always, fulfilling their traditional role of preparing to fight the last war.


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The reign of the expert - by Richard...

This is slightly old news but I have been saving it until I could do it justice. And for that, one needs a little background to be able to appreciate and savour the full enormity of the development.

As to the background, in our sister blog, we have written many times of the great white hope of the Army Brass, the £16 billion FRES programme which former CGS Sir Richard Dannatt regarded as essential to the future of his Army.

At the heart of this concept was the medium wheeled armoured personnel carrier, Dannatt's preferred type being the Piranha, the acquisition of which he regarded as so important that he was prepared to forego mine protected vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those with any memory at all will recall the near reverence with which the media treated Sir Richard, the great expert of such stature that, when he retired, the Daily Telegraph could not wait to sign him up as their expert on all things military (although we hear very little of him nowadays).

Possibly the greatest (and certainly the most consistent) source of opposition to the concept was the DOTR blog, one piece provoking an unprecedented intervention by the then procurement minister, Lord Drayson, on our blog, and a strong rejoinder that remained unanswered – largely because it was unanswerable.

Needless to say, this dramatic development was ignored by the MSM, which is wedded to prestige, and would give space to Dannatt, but not our blog. Who were we, after all, to challenge the Great General.

Well, with the programme on hold and with no sign of it being activated in the near future, we now see what surely must amount to its death knell – brought to you by the US Army.

This comes in the form of news of the US equivalent of FRES, the so-called FCS concept, based on an American version of the Piranha known as the Stryker. The US Army, in this respect, is much further advanced than the British and had an experimental Stryker Brigade deployed in Iraq in 2003.

Now we come to the news of the moment. A Stryker Brigade is now to be deployed to Afghanistan, as the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, but with one very notable omission. It is not deploying its Strykers, which are now in use by the Alaska-based 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, in a somewhat safer environment.

Replacing the Strykers in Afghanistan are a mix of vehicles such as the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles and its all-terrain variety, the M-ATV.

What is especially poignant here is that these are the very vehicle types that the great military expert Dannatt was prepared to forego in order to acquire the Piranha and equip his own equivalent of the Stryker Brigade which, even in 2006 he was claiming to be the Army's key equipment priority.

Had the great expert had his way, the UK would now be saddled with a programme which even the US has abandoned, in favour of the vehicles that our experts rejected, but have now in place in Afghanistan.

All of this goes to show that, regardless of their elevated rank, and the "prestige" afforded to the brass, this does not necessarily mean that our so-called military experts know what they are talking about. And, in this case, the evidence goes to show that, fortunately, we were spared from the fruits of their expertise.

The reign of the expert, it would appear, is something we cannot always afford.

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Not a problem here - by Richard... Monday, November 28, 2011

The lady might have had a difficult decision, but I had no problems at all. It was me or the piggy. Actually, I know the slaughterhouse owner who provided my new valve … he is a good friend and tells me the pig was eaten long ago.

Interestingly, they harvest about 200 pigs from the normal slaughter line, to get one valve. If the valves are not used, they go in the bin, so at least my little piggy did not die in vain.

And for those that have been asking, your continued interest and concern is much appreciated. I get better and stronger by the day – walking a full half-hour each day and getting almost back to normal sleeping. I'm still maxing out on pain killers, but that tends to be when they slice you up.

With three weeks since the operation, it could not have gone more smoothly, and - of course - Mrs EU Referendum has been brilliant! The Nuffield team that did the op and after-care could not have been more professional and the abiding memory is one of skill and humour combined. Scared I was … relieved I now am. Amazed I still am that they kicked me out after a week.

A few weeks more and I'll be as fit as the little lady in The Mail story, although not quite as good looking. And I still can't play the piano.

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Can we kill them now? - by Richard...

More than 450 council staff attended the Town Hall event in honour of Geoff Alltimes, who last month left his job as one of the highest paid local authority executives in the country with a pay-off of more than £200,000 and an annual pension thought to be in excess of £100,000.

If they do not understand why we should want to kill them, then they deserve to die. These people are putting themselves beyond the pale, beyond normal human or political discourse.

But it gets worse. In the same piece, we see this:

Meanwhile, the row over the value of Mr Alltimes' pension rumbled on last week when MP Greg Hands accused rival MP Andy Slaughter of hyposcrisy over his attacks on the controversial subject.

Documents seen by the Chronicle reveal Mr Slaughter was also generous with the public purse in his days with the council. When he was executive mayor of the then Labour-ruled authority in 1999, Mr Slaughter oversaw the appointment of Richard Harbord as CEO on a starting salary of about £110,000, the equivalent of £150,000 in todays' money. Records show that within a year Mr Harbord was given a rise to £140,000, and it is believed he was given a further hike when appointed to a second role of finance director in June 2001.

During his recent broadside, which coincided with Mr Alltimes' retirement, Mr Slaughter was also critical of his pension arrangements, which are thought to have included a 'goodbye' payment of £270,000 in addition to annual injections of £104,000 and his final basic salary of £226,000.

Let me remind you, if we refuse to pay these bastards, we go to jail. A warrant is sworn out against you, the police come and get you, breaking into your home and taking you away, by force if you resist. With that power should go responsibility. When that goes, we owe them nothing, not even their lives.

Until these people learn that this corporate looting is way beyond acceptable, they really do not deserve to live. And if they are too thick to understand that, why should we even trouble to educate them?

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Christmas comes early - by Richard...

What more can one say? They really are stuffed.

TBF has even more and, commenting on the failure of German to sell its quota of euro bonds, The Hill blog observes: "This is all so painful to watch, mostly because it is a true indictment of the final breakup of the eurozone, but when it breaks up what are the implications for Europe, world trade and the good ol' USA? All we know is that the short-term impact of a breakup will not be good".

Longer term, it will be worth the pain, if only to see the "colleagues" meet their nemesis. After decades of their arrogance and triumphalism, is will be so nice to watch them squirm.

And already we see it. The Euribor/OIS spread or "fear gauge" is flashing red warning signals, saysAmbrose. Dollar funding costs in Europe have spiked to Lehman-crisis levels, leaving lenders struggling frantically to cover their $2 trillion (£1.3 trillion) funding gap.

What we know for certain, he adds, is that Europe's current policy settings must lead ineluctably to ruin and perhaps to fascism. Nothing can be worse.

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What's going on here? - by Richard...

Scroll right down to near the bottom. This is the poll in the Daily Mail. How come the warmists got there first?

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Direct Democracy - by Richard...

I take the point, that in many respects direct democracy is far better than the charade that currently passes for representative democracy. And if I have understood him correctly, then that is the thrust of Wittering from Witney'sthesis.

Much of this rests on the example of Switzerland, which is one of Europe's – if not the global – leading proponent of direct democracy. This amounts to rule by the people through the medium of the referendum.

But while I agree with WfW that there is much wrong with our form of government, I remain to be convinced that Swiss provide a suitable model for the English. Despite its apparent attractions, Switzerland is not a happy country to live in unless you are very rich, it is illiberal by character and governance is dominated by a mass of petty rules and restrictions that simply would not be tolerated here.

The idea of direct democracy, therefore, is to an extent simply swapping one form of oppression for another. Instead of being oppressed by the ruling élite, who believe they know what is good for us, we are ruled by the infinitely malleable masses, who impose their mores, in many respects more restrictive that a liberal élite.

What WfW might be neglecting, therefore, is that the term democracy comes in two parts, the dêmos (people) kratos (power). Direct democracy simply shifts the mechanisms by which the majority – the people – exert their power over the rest of us. It does not necessarily ensure a better use of that power.

Here, one must exercise more than a little caution. One of the reasons contemporary Germans are so reluctant to permit the routine use of referendums is that when in 1932 and onwards, Hitler sought to abolish democracy and impose an absolute dictatorship, he chose the plebiscite as the means to do it.

That, as much as anything, makes the point. Direct democracy may, under certain circumstances, be better than our form of representative democracy, but it has its dangers and pitfalls. Unless you actually know what you are trying to achieve with your governance, you could very easily have your system hijacked and end up with something you neither wanted nor anticipated.

Kindly, WfW mentions my idea of Referism, which on the face of it is an aspect of direct democracy – insofar as it has in common the referendum. But there are important differences.

Specifically, in terms of the referendum, this is a fixed point, carried out annually at the same time, with the same question asked each time, namely, do you approve the budget … yes or no. The fixed nature of the event confers predictability and familiarity, allowing people to get used to the question and to learn how to answer it. And it also places it beyond political manipulation, now allowing tactical wording or changes in timing, which can be used to advantage by one side or another.

But my thinking is that this happens alongside our current system of representative democracy, which I rather like, even if it has currently lost its way.

What perhaps needs expressing in this context is something I have not emphasised enough – that government is not a force for good. In an ideal world, we would not have one and the only reason we should tolerate it is because not having one is marginally worse.

Thus, I am actually no more enthusiastic about government by the masses, than I am government by a ruling élite, liberal or otherwise. All forms are to be avoided as far as possible.

On that basis, the ideal system is not one that facilitates governance. Our fellow man is never so inventive as when it comes to imposing his will on others, or acquiring our money and spending it as his own. He needs no encouragement.

What we need is restraint, a system one which makes government physically difficult, keeping externally-imposed rules to the minimum, and forcing people to deal with and settle their own problems – as far as is possible – without external interference.

Dwelling on this further, what one must emphasise is that for the bulk of our daily activities, we do not need government – we do not need leadership, we do not need governors, rulers or leaders. It is one of the myths perpetrated by the ruling élites that we need them to take such an enormous part in our lives.

The first and most important requirement of any new or improved system of government, therefore, is the ability of us, the people, to reduce the amount of government. As an individual or part of a collective, I have no desire to rule my fellow man – insofar as I want power, it is the power to prevent other people telling me what to do, and then charging me for the privilege.

And that is where the money comes in. In his Short History of England, Simon Jenkins writes as follows:

Nothing curbed Norman autocracy as effectively as the king's need for taxes. From this arose the power of the City of London under Richard I, a codified rule of law under King John and a House of Commons in the parliaments of Henry III and Edward I. This bartering of power was absolute. Even the ruthless Edward I worried that people might take against him, and that "the aid and taxes which they had paid to us out of liberality and goodwill … may in future become a servile obligation". He was right.

Therein lies the root of our problem. Over time, the parliament was set up to control the king, through limiting his taxes. But parliament has now become the king. No one now controls the taxes – and they have become a "servile obligation", but the obligation is ours, to pay money to which our ruling élites believe they are entitled.

When parliament controlled the king, it did so on behalf of the people. Now, parliament as king is out of control, and we the people must re-assert control. Then, the mechanism of control was to restrict the flow of money. Today, the same mechanism is just as applicable. We must starve the beast.

That is where we need our direct democracy, and there I am at one with WfW, but only in a negative sense – one of restraint. We take control to protect ourselves from our rulers … not in an attempt to replace them.

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An example - by Richard...

… of why local and regional newspapers are going down the tubes. Who would actually pay moneyfor boilerplate crap that includes this sentence: "But Professor Le Quere believes they are winning the fight for the public's support in tackling climate change"?

It is actually the case that the media – and especially the local media, which is supposedly closer to its audiences – has completely lost touch. They are driving themselves into oblivion.

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Real politics - by Richard...

Politics is about ideas – not to be confused with retailing low-grade tittle-tattle about the rather unsavoury personalities that currently occupy political office. It would do us all a favour if the MSM realised this, and had the brains to tell the difference.

Thus, while I was away eyelid testing, Witterings from Witney has written a political piece - one for which the blogosphere is superbly adapted.

In the interests of developing the debate, I should give it a fairly robust critique, which I will do starting later today, taking as long as it takes to do it justice. So this is an early warning. Real politics is about to hit town.

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Gone forever - by Richard...

David Rose in the Mail on Sunday writes a very useful piece on the relationship between the BBC and the warmist community, spelling out how closely knit the two had become.

There is nothing ,much new to those who have been following the climaye change issue closely but, as one of our forum members puts it, the biggest-selling Sunday fingers BBC as being dishonestly, systematically, intentionally, knowingly, ruthlessly, implacably biased against global warming sceptics.

One really does wonder how much further the BBC can go, now that the tide is turning against it. To come shortly is Booker's pamphlet for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, on BBC bias, which will also get some MSM coverage, further reinforcing how untrustworthy the BBC has become.

This comes on top of Climategate II which, although not producing any fireworks, is triggering a steady flow of high quality comment, which is pointing up the warmists for what they are.

The revelations may have limited appeal, but if you compare the global warming hype of two years ago with what we are getting in the run-up to Durban, the contrast tells you everything.

We can but repeat that this is a scare that has run its course. The ersatz scientists will never again hold the global community in its thrall to the same extent, on this subject.

Nor indeed can the scientists expect rescue from the political community. That too is a devalued currency. Tellingly, a poll of sentiment on the chancellor and shadow chancellor demonstrates this amply.

Asked to describe them both using key words, 22 percent of respondents had Osborne as "smug", 22 percent put him down as "arrogant", 21 percent had him as "out of touch" and a similar proportion described him as "out of his depth".

When it came to the shadow chancellor, 20 percent chose "out of his depth", 19 percent opted for "arrogant", 17 percent as "smug" and 15 percent "out of touch".

It is unlikely that such sentiments are confined to just this pair. It is extremely unlikely, for instance, that Huhne would score any better, and many would share my personal views on Cameron. Politicians have destroyed their own authority and credibility.

In short, this is not a claque that rules with our consent or approval, nor one which has any moral authority. And the more they hitch their star to the jaded cause of global warming, the worse it will get for them.

Even now, there are some politicians out there whose limited brains permit them to understand that their surrender to the stupidity of the global warming scare has been instrumental in building the contempt with which they are near universally regarded.

Soon enough, in the interests of self-preservation, if nothing else, they too will be ditching their warmist friends. For the BBC though, there is no hope. But our contempt can reach even their lofty ivory towers. They may hold their line, but they will know that they have been called out and their authority has gone forever.