An English Constitution
Perhaps Lord Oakshott should read this excellent 100 year old appraisal.
ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
The importance of the English Constitution in the political history of mankind is so great that the question of its origin is of unusual interest. The unanimous judgement of the world at the beginning of the twentieth century is that this is the best system of government yet devised. All monarchies which have adopted a constitution have derived their forms from it, and the same is true of most republics. Local necessities, or local prejudices, have made the adoption in individual cases more or less complete, or have led to variations from the typical forms, but these are hardly sufficient, even in the most extreme case, to conceal the indebtedness. The English Constitution has made the circuit of the globe and become the common possession of civilised man. After so many centuries of experiment, practical action, whatever be the opinion of the theorist, unites to declare this the best result of all experience. If this is true, the question from what and how it began to be should be considered one of the greatest and most absorbing of all historical studies.
Some definition is, however, necessary for the sake of clearness. By the term constitution, as used above, is not meant the whole system of government, all the organs of the state, the whole political machinery, national and local. What is meant is the machinery of a limited monarchy those devices by which an absolutism, once existing in fact, can be retained in form and theory while the real government of the state is transformed into a democratic republic.
From: The Origin of the English Constitution by George Burton Adams, Professor of History at Yale University, 1912.
Silly Signals
DECC have produced a statement from Nick Clegg and Ed Davey (Chris Huhne's successor) which is so far removed from reality it is hard to know where to start untangling it.
It's an argument in defence of higher emissions reduction targets and the carbon floor price, which is necessary according to Clegg & Davey, following the failure of the ETS mechanism, caused by the economic situation.
It's shouldn't be a surprise to learn that the planners of the ETS didn't anticipate economic downturns, which is to forget the advice that is attached to every advert for investment services.
Nick and Ed continue the daftness. If energy prices are up, in spite of demand being low, what is the need for a further incentive against energy use? The economic downturn and high prices are doing the job that the ETS was intended to do.
The most absurd claims made by the pair are that:
- 'the crashing price of carbon' is a ' a threat to our shared prosperity'
- 'The global low-carbon market ... supports over 900,000 jobs in Britain' and that 'those numbers can grow'.
- 'more ambitious [carbon reduction] targets will help grow our low-carbon industries, ensuring Europe's competitiveness in a fast-growing sector
- 'many business leaders recognise, the real risk is moving too slowly, not too fast.'
All of these statements are sheer bunk. The last of them is contradicted by an article in today's Guardian -- of all places.
The article reports that 'Andrew Shepherd-Barron, a specialist in the clean tech sector at brokers Peel Hunt, has just come up with a review of share price performances and describes the green scene as a "graveyard" for investors globally.'
Clegg and Davey are simply trying to rescue their fantasies from reality. Like Huhne, they believe they can simply pull policy levers to 'send signals to the market', and that it will obey. As the market has disobeyed, so they send louder signals. The problem for the rest of us is that we have to put up with the noise.
Unintended consequences and the great land bubble
Politicians cannot be trusted with money. To win and hold power, they must bribe the people with unfunded promises or their own money. Their policies thus evolve to spend more than can be raised in current taxes. The well-known result is ever-rising deficits. In an attempt to prevent budgets spiralling completely out of control, treasuries and central banks were created. As their curbs became an annoying encumbrance to staying in power, politicians appointed like-minded ‘professionals’ (often placemen and usually ‘economists’) to these high offices. The evidence of the obsequious willingness of these appointees never to confront their masters is that none commented on, and possibly never foresaw, the financial sector melt-down or subsequent sovereign default, even though their training showed these to be inevitable. Despite recent proof that unsustainable debt must cause the financial system to collapse, the universally agreed solution has been to maintain interest rates at zero - thus subsidising the cost of credit such as mortgages (another bribe) - and further to increase government debt. Current hand wringing about ‘austerity’ is a misnomer; basic policy is unchanged. Just as these policy makers did not anticipate the consequences of large deficits, so they will fail to foresee the certain but unintended consequences of money printing on a heroic scale.
One of these consequences has been the creation of the first global boom in the price of farm land. The usual advice to investors with such bubbles is to run for the hills. Yet for this agricultural land boom (although an area outside our immediate expertise), the wisest advice must be to pile in. This also has positive implications for the prices of many listed companies.
Faith in Syria
The Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab Republic and His Beatitude Ignatius IV Patriarch of Antioch and all the East recently met with Kofi Annan. Annan has spoken to the Security Council, and with high-ranking political individuals in the UN and elsewhere urging them to let Syria solve its own problems. It is unique as an Arab nation in having full religious freedom for all, so the financing of mercenaries by the West is not helpful. In spite of Annan’s wise words, the recent so-called Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul has just promoted the provision of weapons to insurgents. The UK Foreign Minister William Haugue has swallowed the Obama line hook line and sinker to the detriment of the survival of Syria as a multinational multi-faith society.
A few years ago the Grand Mufti visited York St John University, and there he and Fr. Æthelwine, the Orthodox Chaplain, surprised some of those present by greeting each other like long lost brothers. That was a reminder of normal life in Syria. They had not seen each other for about three years, keeping in touch through friends. Now, amid the Qatari, Saudi, Libyan, and US inspired confusion we need to hear the latest words of the Syrian religious leaders in their joint statement.
The Grand Mufti calls upon those who carry weapons to return to dialogue instead. He adds that those who have taken up weapons to sabotage their homeland in the service of foreign agendas are not Syrian because Syria has always been a country of co-existence, where there is no difference between a Christian and a Moslem.
The Patriarch points out that the lies and fabrications propagated about the situation of Christians in Syria are untrue, and mere illusions in the minds of some Europeans. “In Syria, we, Muslims and Christians, live as brothers and share everything.” He wished Kofi Annan success, and promised to support his peace mission in every possible way.
I do hope this Prime Minister will make more effort to resist the CIA than Tony Blair and perhaps avoid another Middle East catastrophe.The Falkland Islands Do Not Belong to Argentina and Never Have
For those interested I post a chapter from my late father’s book, ‘Once there was an Empire’. I am fed up with the usual nonsense about the Falklands. It is not Argentina's, nor was it ever!
THE FALKLAND ISLANDS AND SOUTH GEORGIA
These islands lie in the South Atlantic, three hundred miles east of the southern part of South America now called Argentina. The colony is administered by a Governor, with executive and legislative councils. There are two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, plus some small off shore islands.
Captain John Davis (Davys) who was an English navigator discovered the islands in 1593. Davis was born at Dartmouth in 1550 and four years before finding the Falkland Islands he had fought for England against the Spanish Armada. Later he was killed by Japanese pirates in the Straits of Malacca.
The Falkland Islands were of no value to any country and in 1764 the French took them but three years later ceded them to Spain. In 1771 Spain yielded them to Britain and they were made a crown colony in 1883. These dates are important because of subsequent events involved claims by Argentina, and invasion of the islands in 1982. It is useful to know the history such as it is of Argentina.
South America was inhabited by American natives until invasion and occupancy in 1516 by Spain. During the course of the following two hundred years, Buenos Aires was set up by the Spaniards as capital of a vast region which was divided into several states. By the nineteenth century Spanish colonists had exterminated most of the native Indians then rebelled against Spain, not unlike the North American English colonists who rebelled against Britain. In 1816 the 'United Provinces of the River Plate', consisting of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, under the leadership of General Jose de San Martin, threw out their Spanish masters and declared themselves independent. A long struggle with Spain followed, leading to independence of other South American states such as Chile and Peru. Late in the nineteenth century there was large scale immigration from European Roman Catholic countries, particularly Italy. The population of Argentina is now twenty five million mainly of Spanish and Italian descent, but only twenty thousand descendants of the original Amerindians still survive. A constitution for the country of Argentina was drawn up in 1853, twenty years after Britain had colonized the Falkland Islands, and nearly three hundred years after their discovery by English navigator John Davis.
There have been many attempts by the Argentines to claim what they call Islas Malvinas, but the islanders wish to remain British. In particular they loathe the idea of belonging to Argentina, with its record not only of slaughtering thousands of Amerindians, but with a present government which has mysteriously 'lost' fifteen thousand Argentine political opponents. In 1982 Argentina had the temerity to invade and occupy this British owned territory. For the first time for half a century, the 'British Lion' not only showed its teeth but used them. Under a brave and determined Prime Minister, from slender resources, a combined British force was mustered and in a brilliant example of logistical skill, travelled thousands of miles across the world, and although heavily outnumbered, defeated and threw out the invaders by courage and professional skill. The world watched astounded, and perhaps remembered some history. Britains at last could hold up their heads with pride.
Argentina is now almost bankrupt and on the verge of revolution, but in order to preserve the safety of the two thousand British colonists on the Falklands, Britain is obliged to maintain a large military garrison on the Islands. At the moment the only industry keeping the islanders is the raising of sheep so this crown colony is an expensive embarrassment to Britain.
Smoke Out the Public Health Zealots
Imagine how much good could be done in a hospital for half a million quid. Instead, this same amount of money is going up in smoke. Rather than spending the money on making people bettter, Primary Care Trusts have been wasting money on propaganda campaigns, as Simon Clark of Forest has discovered:
Freedom of information requests have revealed that Smokefree South West (SFSW) has budgeted over £450,000 for its Plain Packs Protect campaign. This includes £100,398 for billboard advertisements (above), £127,685 for digital advertising, almost £100,000 for “community events”, and £141,000 for other social marketing initiatives. Smokefree South West is funded by all 14 local Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) which are funded by central government via the NHS. At least eight of the 20 organisations supporting Plain Packs Protect receive (or have received) public money. They include ASH, ASH Scotland, ASH Wales, Fresh (Smokefree North East), Smokefree Lincs, Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre and Tobacco Free Futures (Smokefree North West).
This is, says Dick Puddlecote, 'Government Lobbying Government'
Plain packaging will not stop anyone smoking. It's not the wrapper that makes children like sweets and chocolate. It's not the label that makes us enjoy beer, wine, or whisky. This campaign has been invented by people who do not enjoy life, and do not understand people who do enjoy life.
The Chinese Curse of EU Green Energy
The well known ancient Chinese curse sounds mild to the unsuspecting: "May you live in interesting times". It was a subtle hint of all the forms of war, plague, famine, vengeance, death and bad luck that may lie in wait for anyone, any time. Life is hard enough without bringing more upon yourself.
We too live in interesting times, and they are about to become even more interesting in the six years from 2014-2020, as this is the next EU budgetary period. They intend to make villainous manmade CO2 the centre piece of the policy, 'carbon mainstreaming' will be integrated into all conceivable areas, as if it is not already.
But the manmade CO2 global warming story - and even climate change story - is stale, and the high-up EU panjandrums and muckety-mucks know it. We had the Climategate biased-scientist-for-hire scandal a few years ago, with leaked emails admitting that the data is dodgy and that they really need the EU funding to stay in a job. Mutters of "populist scepticism" about CO2 scare stories have even been heard in the late-night prognostications of the Environment committee which met some months ago in the week of the
But now the really interesting news is that the one trillion euro EU budget for 2014-2020 is worse than anything we have seen in the recent granny-bashing
The EU and
The EU budget is not yet set in stone, there is some horse-trading to come yet, as the climate action increase represents 15% rise over the last climate change funding. But whatever the funding, we want to know what will they spend this vast sum on.
- 'Building renovations' for one. But obviously, if it is in anyone's cost-benefit interest to insulate or add solar panels, they should stump up themselves, not the taxpayer.
- So how about 'clean energy R&D'? More windmills anyone? Well, if industry can see a profit margin in it, they can do it. After all, investment is a major component of GDP. More GDP is good. But so is government spending a large component of GDP, and they never ever calculate profit and loss. They don't care, they are spending a budget, not earning a crust.
- So how about 'cross-border interconnectors' - making the ever more stressed electricity grid cope with on-off windmill and solar PV electricity? Worried yet? Well you should be.
- My final fine gem is 'greener transport'. That means biofuel whether it makes economic sense or not. It means forcing cars off the road with more expensive petrol. Presumably the busses will still run. And it means electric cars that can go short distances, are expensive, unpopular, and easy to turn into 'bricks on wheels' if the batteries are not quite lovingly tended - not a cost-benefit analysis that works for me.
Last, but not least, I will introduce the newly appointed EU chief scientist, Anne Glover. The EU needs more trappings of state. She is a molecular biologist, reporting direct to EU Commission President Mr Barroso, and she warns that, "if we had unabated man-made climate change, we could go through an absolutely horrible period of conflict and migration, until the world's population started diminishing very rapidly." (www.euractiv.com, 20mar2012). I want her pay, I am sure it is more than I get now. I can state the blindingly obvious that well, if not better. I know that she is only reading a script, but she is a molecular biologist, not an atmospheric physicist or climatologist. And she is bound to know what I learned in 'O' level biology: that CO2 is vital for plant life, and that more is better as they grow faster in response, thus soaking it up in the growing season, which accounts for the annual atmospheric CO2 concentration cycle of rise and fall. Better tomatoes and all that. But I would not really want to be a bought-and-paid for scientist. I see myself as just a parasite, swimming around in the belly of the beast that is
Fooling Around With 'Fuel Poverty'
As anybody who has seen the satire, Yes, Minister will know, when politicians want to hide the fact that their government is not performing well, they simply change the method by which its performance is measured. And they get an 'independent' expert to justify changing it. In just this way, the Department for Energy and Climate Change commissioned a report, which, surprise surprise, has now concluded that the measure of 'fuel poverty' should be changed.
You can read the Hills Report on Fuel Poverty here.This has come about because the government is embarrassed by the fact that the number of households living in fuel poverty has risen from 1.2 million to 4 million between 2004 and 2009. It is now likely much higher. They have been warned by many authorities on the subject that excessive climate and energy policies will have the effect of forcing businesses to close, unemployment to rise, and people to suffer, and in some cases die, as they cannot afford their energy bills. But they ignored the advice.
There is no point fiddling the statistics. Rising energy costs have been caused by policy. We know this because in countries where there isn't such an emphasis on climate change and renewable energy legislation, such as the USA, there has been no rise in domestic prices. The debate about what the 'real' measure of 'fuel poverty' ought to be could go on forever. But common sense alone tells us that when energy costs rise, more people suffer. This attempts to make the problem looks smaller, and shift responsibility away from the government is grotesque. If the government abandoned its climate targets, stopped offering huge subsidies to renewable energy generators, and allowed suppliers to compete freely, prices would fall, and 'fuel poverty' would not be an issue.
A BBC article gives the government's agenda away: lots of calls for yet more intervention, and claims that the problem can be solved by subsidised insulation programmes.
This can only make the problem worse. Expect higher bills. Expect more fuel poverty.The government's own Fuel Poverty Advisory Group (FPAG) has called on it to use projected revenues from a minimum price on carbon and carbon trading to tackle fuel poverty.
The government said it is already tackling the problem through a range of other measures, including the Warm Homes Discount, which offers help with bills to low-income households.
"The number of fuel-poor households helped by government-backed schemes is likely to more than halve over the next three years, despite fuel poverty levels having almost tripled in five years," said Derek Lickorish, chairman of the FPAG.
