Letters from Limbo

Intermission

2009-08-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

It does look like I've given up on this blog doesn't it? That's because I have a new job, new house and a new life in Bristol and everything is just too awesome to find time for a moan. Still, I do have a habit of fucking things up big time when I'm this happy so I will return. But let's hope I don't this time.

When celebrities and government collide...

2009-08-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

First it was Jamie Oliver and school meals. Now it's Kevin Mcloud and home insultation, working with the Energy Saving Trust which is, like the Carbon Trust, governmentspeak for DEFRA.

"If the Government is serious about tackling climate change, help must be given to homeowners on every street in Britain to green their homes.”

The Great British Refurb Campaign is supported by the Energy Saving Trust, Grand Designs magazine, UK Green Building Council, and WWF-UK. Thousands of homeowners have already added their name to a petition calling upon the Prime Minister to make it easier, more affordable, and more attractive to go green at home.

Affordable and attractive to whom? I'm sure non-homeowners are delighted to pay more tax.

This petition will be delivered to No 10 Downing Street later this week and is well timed to coincide with the Government’s latest announcement on reducing the UK’s energy demands.

Yes, that would be the Greener Living Fund and such...

Defra has launched a new fund to promote greener living. Over £6 million is being made available to support both projects and programmes by national delivery partners between November 2008 and March 2011. The fund will offer 2 year funding to a small number of national delivery partners. Starting with a bidding phase in 2008, its main delivery phase will run between April 2009 to March 2011 and it will complement other initiatives under the `Act on CO2' banner.

Eligibility criteria:

To secure funding, applicants will need to draw up and have the ability and reach to implement programmes that influence pro-environmental behaviours in the wider population. The assessment criteria will include evidence of a clear understanding of the target audience, the potential to change behaviour and the approaches which may be adopted to engage them and enable more sustainable living. In their proposals, applicants will need to demonstrate that they have the ability and reach to influence behavioural change at a grass roots level. Additionally, we hope that our funding will enable them to leverage support from elsewhere, to further greener living ideas.

Celebrities. Where would we be without them? And again, why is the government lobbying itself?

Too cynical?

2009-08-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

"Norfolk couple turning back the clock for war-time wedding"

The bride and groom arrived in the back of a 1942 troop carrier, with anti-aircraft guns behind them. They made their promises in front of a congregation dressed in 1940s clothing, in the chapel where 65 years ago many American airmen would have said their prayers and took communion before departing on their last missions.

Shortly after authorities were alerted, bomb disposal units were dispatched from nearby RAF Marham and the couple were arrested under the Dangerous Firearms Act 2007. Social services were also dispatched immediately with a court order to take all children present into care.

"We are shocked and appalled by this disgusting display of militarism" said Kaley Toynbee of Sustainable Child Protection Services. "We find it wholly inappropriate that children should be exposed to these horrors by these dangerous extremists and appropriate measures have been taken to ensure the parents are never allowed contact with children again. They will go on a permanent register of potential child abusers, their DNA has been recorded and have been fitted with RFID monitors." Their employers have been notified.

Roger Chapman, a council spokesman for Norwich, was grilled last night as to how such an event was given the go ahead. "We didn't see any harm in it. The psychometric profiling of the couple was approved, albeit narrowly, by the Central Civic Partnership Approvals & Licencing Authority, well within the 36 weeks notice period, and we thought it would be a fun and educational day out for the kids and an excellent way to remember those who gave our lives to defend our freedom." he said. Roger Chapman has been suspended without pay pending a full enquiry. Should his guilty verdict fail to be overturned at the initial trial he will be sent to a re-education facility at HMP Rampton where few are ever seen again.

The classic military vehicles in attendance have been confiscated and are due to be crushed pending a road tax evasion enquiry and their owners will be jailed. The couple in question will be released to a local psychiatric hospital where they will be treated with the latest experimental ECT therapy.

Well no. That didn't happen. But the satire of today is the headlines of tomorrow. We extend our congratulations to the happy couple.

The lights are on but nobody's home...

2009-08-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hmm. Giles Wilkes "thinks" that "property and consumption taxes need to rise to fix the fiscal mess."

Except that those who run businesses are not doing so well because individuals and businesses are not spending money. How does he think taking more off them will help?

"Don’t believe the small state conservatives who claim that Britain is over-taxed – in fact, public sector receipts will soon be as low as they’ve been since the 1970s." says he. But public sector receipts are shrinking because productivity is shrinking, not least because of taxes. We still pay well North of 40% of our ill gotton gains to HM government. But what do we know?

"Giles Wilkes is Chief Economist of CentreForum, the liberal think tank."

Liberal think tank eh? Is that like "Military Intelligence"?

Grown up debates...

2009-08-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hardened cynic though I may be, when Dr. Paul Golby speaks, I listen. He is one of the very few in the energy sector to engage the public with honesty. Too often we are expected to swallow corporate greenwash about "climate change" as to why we should blow vasts sums of our money on unproven technology they assure us is the bees knees. Today we get a more honest appraisal in the Independent. Dr Golby of E.ON calls for "a grown up conversation on energy". We could not agree more.

I am particularly taken with his honesty on Carbon Capture Storage:

Notwithstanding repeated protests over Kingsnorth, concerns about security of supply have put coal firmly back on the agenda. But all new plants will need carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, and so far CCS is largely theoretical and hugely expensive. Unless Kingsnorth wins the government-run competition to fund trials of CCS, the new power station will have to wait.
"The biggest demonstration of CCS so far would probably fit in this room, but to equip Kingsnorth it would have to be on the scale of Wembley stadium," Dr Golby says, indicating his fairly modest office. "We can't fit CCS unless we get some money from government.

Refreshing honesty, unlike Scottish and Southern Energy who continue to maintain that Wind is not subsidised. But then we get to the slightly dishonest part...

So if we don't win the competition, there will be a gap between the current power station closing and our being able to build new one." He does not make an explicit link with the looming energy gap, but he doesn't need to.

Give us your money or else. But that is a consequence of regulatory intervention. If government makes impossible and unreasonable demands on the industry, what else are they to do?

But the deepest pockets in the world are nothing without clarity from government. "At the moment the Government puts sticking plasters over individual problems as they arise, rather than standing back and putting together a master plan," Dr says. It is a matter of deciding on what is needed to deliver the 2050 targets and working backwards.

"We aren't looking for a detailed, Moscow-style plan," Dr Golby says. "The Government has always intervened in energy markets to try to force outcomes, in this case for much lower carbon. Let's have grown-up conversation and work out how."

On the other hand, why doesn't government butt out and let the energy industry get on with producing energy? Just a thought. Though if we are to have government driven policy he is right to point out that there is not a coherent one. But then this is no longer something our provincial government is trusted with. We await instruction from our masters.

Eco-Clowns

2009-08-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

Do these people know nothing? Or as is said correctly in Yorkshire, "Dote yer know owt?". Were they asleep in what is now key stage three geography? Hell, I was, and even I know this is a dumb idea.

In fact, if "epic fail" was a GCSE grade then that is what I would have been awarded for geography but, as any fule kno, if you're going to have a town there must be sufficient economic activity with which to employ the residents, otherwise they're going to drive to places where there is "economic activity", which rather defeats the point of an eco-town.

The chances of that economic activity just appearing, simply because the government wills it, are, well... how can put this without saying what I want to say? Not very much, to be polite about it. Unless of course there's that magical cure all known as "taxpayers money" of which there is simply an inexhaustible supply.

But away with such cynicism. With the excellent green transport links in mind, I'm sure the future people of the St Austell Eco-Town can easily get to such rip-roaring economic powerhouses like er... Plymouth and errr... Torbay perhaps? Assuming electric cars will even have that range, or if indeed, we will still have electricity when this lot have finished vandalising the landscape with windmills.

And it seems lucky old Norfolk is getting an eco-town too. Not wishing to downplay the economic significance of Norwich and Great Yarmouth, one has to ask.... What are they smoking? The point being that IF St. Austell and where was it now? Rackheath, wherever that is, were of such economic dynamism, they would already be naturally expanding without government intervention. We have seen this before with the Scottish "government" voting to build power plants where there is zero demand for energy, but behold as they invent new energy demand in the region, just like that.

All this serves is a decaying governments' unconvincing attempts at greenwash, to build houses in places people don't want to live and if they're government designed houses, nobody will want them either. So all this for a couple of years worth of job creation which wouldn't be necessary otherwise, largely at the expense of other, more worthwhile, economic opportunities.

Economics aside, admittedly not Gordons' strongest suit, there is also that little consulted doctrine of "democracy". Yes, we need to blow the cobwebs of that one don't we Gordon? It's right there, in those damp old boxes in the garage, right next to "Justice" and "Economic Prudence". Y'see Gordon, we don't want them, not least the people who actually live there. We don't want your stupid eco-towns or your sodding windmills. Which part of "No", do you not understand?

The Economy Part 3: Bailouts

2009-08-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

While I have argued that limited banking bailouts were necessary, that is only in response to a regulatory intervention that should never have happened in the first place and would not have occurred under a libertarian administration.

It is true that when government seeks to resolve a problem it created, it tends to make things immeasurably worse. This is no different. However, the choices here are to let the full consequences hit and hit hard with a shorter recovery or whether to gradually deflate the economy in order to mitigate the very worst effects over a longer time. Essentially it's the difference between allowing an aeroplane to nose dive into a fireball or to let it glide into a controlled crash. Which is better will be one for economists, historians and other mystic rune readers. In this instance the UK has opted for the controlled crash method, the effectiveness of which is, frankly, anyones' guess.

There are those who argue that the bailouts are throwing good money after bad. It is not a weak argument. Unless the accounting rules are changed it is entirely likely that the effects will be zero and that the money will be swallowed whole for little return only to end up back here again. As it is unknown which CDO bundles are bad and which are good we have no way of knowing how much is required to restore capital adequacy and properly restart inter-bank lending. We may have given too much, we may have given too little.

As it happens the signs are that it appears to be working and that inter-bank lending is beginning to heat up again. This is probably down to the fact that the sub prime crisis was not as large as feared and market confidence among the banks has returned to some degree. But the greater fear among all this talk of "green shoots of recovery" is that we will enter a double dip recession.

The very panic that caused the collapse of interbank lending could ironically be the very thing that prompts a real sub-prime crisis. And not even "sub-prime" at that. The resultant job losses of the credit crunch and the contraction of the job market could lead to bigger credit defaults, not least on credit card debt which is now said to outstrip GDP. For all we know this could nullify the sum total of the bailouts and the bank would still collapse taking everything down with it.

But then by this point the sum we actually gave to the banks compared with other losses would be somewhat of a moot point. This is all dependent on how deep the unemployment rabbit hole really goes. Who can say? I would love to make grand pronouncements but I have seen people far better qualified than I (actually that's just about everyone) admit that they haven't a "scooby do", so it would be arrogant of me to indulge in direct certainties. My gut feeling is that this is one of those very few instances where government doing something is better that it doing nothing.

That being said our present administration has taken it upon itself to bailout everything that so much as squeaks. Rather than restricting bailout activity to safeguarding the continuation of UK PLC, it seeks to bring everything under its direct control. There are strong arguments for ensuring the biggies do not collapse but we have been too eager to to bailout minor building societies you've never heard of, in trouble not because they have been directly affected by the crisis but simply because they have made seriously questionable investments. The purpose of these bailouts is not therefore for our economic survival but to maintain favour with the electorate.

The second tier of the bailout strategy is Keynesian spending. The idea that spending public money on civic infrastructure will keep money moving and that the resultant improvements will have a net return for the economy. There is some wisdom in that. But this is our government we are talking about. Our governments definition of investment much differs from mine or yours.

When we imagine investment on civic infrastructure we think of roads, schools, bridges and railway links. Our government on the other hand thinks of windmills and carbon capture storage system of zero value to the economy. Furthermore, as we have discussed at length on this blog, not only will this policy result in an energy supply shortage, it will also quadruple our energy bills thus negating any beneficial action (whatever that might be) the government has taken on our behalf.

And for some reason it does not end with the banks and the national grid. Mandleson has plans afoot to "invest" in the auto industry. A case for libertarian non-intervention if ever there was one. But while there are votes to be had, jobs must be protected! And so we have a government out of control, spending like a bankers wife on bonus day.

But even if such measures worked, this is all a sticking plaster at best. Present policy is predicated on the idea that a debt based, consumer spending economy is sustainable and desirable. It isn't on either score. We need to be producing and exporting, be that innovations, technology or whatever. While we live in a country which punishes profit, stifles innovation and entrepreneurialism, drowns our enterprises in red tape and continues to shift the regulatory goal posts, we cannot hope to nurture or retain the businesses we need to maintain even present levels of employment and our bloated state. Not least while we are sill members of the EU.

The Economy Part 2: Bubbles, Regulations and Safety Nets

2009-08-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

No government can ever control an economy, it can only manage its' response to events in it. We have already argued that we are better able to manage our response to those events if we retain sole authority over our regulatory systems. We do not, and never will, need outside bodies to ruin our economy. We are more than capable of doing that for ourselves. Following on from our earlier piece, we continue to explore how government intervention lead to our present economic predicament.

In the preceding piece I argued that the Mark to Market rules played a significant role in our downfall. But not only did Mark to Market cause rapid asset value deflation, it also created a bubble on the way up. As house prices continued to climb, so then did the value of CDO's. While the crash held them below their real worth, the rising market had them massively over valued.

Thanks to Capital Adequacy requirements, ie banks being able to lend up to their market worth, we saw an expansion in lending ability and subsequently a rush to capitalise on this phony wealth. The rush for lending has in fact got very little to do with the folklore that interest rates were held too low by the Bank of England. Commercial rates were set by individual banks concerned, using LIBOR as a guide only.

Almost secondary to this, while there was no regulatory compulsion to hand out bad loans, (unlike the US), there was certainly a relaxation of rules. While not entirely a bad thing, for many of us did make good returns on investments not accessable otherwise, the financial industry had a perfectly workable regulatory regime replaced with an inferior one (the FSA), not to liberalise our domestic system, but to go some way toward bringing the rest of Europe up to scratch.

This opened up a floodgate of previously unacceptable practices in the UK which various regulators failed to identify and act on. Not least the mis-selling of payment protection insurance and self-certification of earnings on mortgage applications, which allowed people to basically lie about their earnings with the full co-operation of commission paid brokers.

The governments response to this has, as usual, been to close the stable door after the horse has bolted and to use the sledgehammer to miss the nut. The fact that brokers are paid commission is not the heart of the problem. It was the fact they were lending against assets which did not exist. This was a wholly a failure of regulation and intervention by governments against the better advice of the industry. But it's much easier to blame greed and capitalism than to accept that governments have made catastrophic errors.

The libertarian view is that there should be as little regulation as possible but in this modern age with modern and complex systems, we recognise there is a necessity for better regulation. While we may trust in the ultimate self-regulating ability of free markets we most definitely do not trust in the goodness of the human spirit. Generally, if we can find new and innovative ways of being bastards to each other or find shortcuts with damaging consequences, then we will.

However the whole problem with our present approach to regulation is not that there is too much or too little, but the spirit in which it is written and applied. This phenomenon is what Eureferendum refers to as Bureaucratic Spongiform Encephalopathy. Translated, literally, this means "officials with holes in their brains".

Basically, every and any culture – civilisation, if you wish – needs regulation. That's what makes it a civilisation, pulling order out of anarchy. And basically, there are two different and entirely opposing philosophies of regulation. That is the crucial point here: we are not talking about the detail, but the philosophy.

For the purpose of definition, we can call these two philosophies, rule-based and result based. Each have very distinctive characteristics, illustrated by way of contrast.

First, rule-based regulation is based on the premise that all activity can be defined and regulated by means of detailed, tightly-drawn written rules, in order to achieve the desired result. Result-based regulation, on the other hand, recognises that human activity is so diverse and variable that it is impossible to define tight rules. This philosophy, therefore, relies on loosely drafted objectives and guidelines.

Second, rule-based regulation requires absolute conformity with the written rules – even when they are demonstrably wrong or inappropriate. "Success" is defined as conformity. Result-based regulation uses the written rules as guidelines, to be applied intelligently and flexibly, to be discarded or adapted as circumstances demand. Official rules are but one tool in a large and varied toolkit.

Third, rule-based regulation gives very little discretion to enforcement officers, and to those subject to the rules. It operates on the basis of apparatchiks applying the rulebook, who measure compliance with the rules and demand conformity with them, often backed by threats and draconian penalties.

Result-based regulation gives considerable discretion to enforcers, requiring of them a high degree of skill and judgement, asking them to assess activity in terms of whether the overall objectives set are or will be achieved. It allows a relaxed attitude to conformity with the letter of law, but requires adherence to the spirit, and thus permits considerable variation as to the means by which objectives are achieved. Penalties and punishment are regarded as a last resort, and rarely used.

In terms of this financial crisis, the old-style Bank of England was driven by a results-based philosophy. That was the foundation of its success and that is why, under its regime, no British bank collapsed for over 200 years.

Progressively though, with increasing speed, that philosophy has been replaced by the rule-based philosophy, which has spread upwards into the international system as well as downwards. It infects the United States as much as it does the UK as a member of the European Union.

It is that philosophy which spawned the Financial Services Authority, an organisation dedicated to securing conformity with an increasingly complex rule book but one which has no interest in the health of the economy or the financial system. But it is not the cause of the problem. It is a consequence of the shift in regulatory philosophy.

This is easily demonstrable. As Prof. Congdon observed, by and large, the financial services industry complied with the rules. And it went bust. It is the victim of a regulatory system that does not and could not deal with the result – the objective – of regulation, which was to maintain a sound, healthy financial system.

In adopting the rule-based system, that is where we have gone so catastrophically wrong. We need to ditch this system in its entirety and return to a results-based philosophy.

All good stuff. But we are still barking up the wrong tree, for some of us share responsibility in our downfall. There is something more fundamental which drives us to indebt ourselves beyond our ability to pay. In the united States the banks were given the free reign. In the UK, we were. We have all but eliminated risk from our lives.

On matters of health, pensions, employment protection, education and housing we are now absolved from making any individual preparations. In matters of debt we may spend until the cows come home. What is the very worst that can happen? You can spend other peoples money until the cows come home knowing that should anything go wrong you might be asked to fill in a form and your debts will go away, just so long as you don't borrow any more. Consequences? What consequences?

We are children in the eyes of the government, incapable of making grown up choices and so vulnerable that we need protecting not just from the big bad world but also from ourselves. And in seeking to do this it has made us clients of the state and slaves to it. We have built this society over sixty years to the point where the assumption of most people is that the first and only port of call to get something done is the government, and government has gladly assumed this role. It has not taken power but been granted more and more power by us. Governments never take power. They are given it.

But now we are now faced with a government that has outgrown its role as benevolent protector into an all consuming, corporate monolith. It pays for our health and so it dictates what we can eat and drink. Very soon it will partly own our motor industry (again) and so it will dictate what we drive. And what better excuse than an economic crisis to grab more power?

As Jefferson said: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take everything you have" or words to that effect. But it isn't just the physical things it has taken. It has taken our most precious of assets: Our Independence, self reliance and our sense of personal responsibility. In all possible areas we are wrapped in cotton wool, cossetted and protected to the point where free will barely comes into it. We are bailed out at every turn at the corporate level and the individual level. And that brings us on the the subject of part three. Bailouts.

The Economy Part 1: It was the EU, in the library, with the candle stick.

2009-08-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

The following is a repost of an LPUK essay I wrote during the Norwich North by-election...

Right now we are all feeling the pinch of the recession, not least the good people of Norwich North for whom negative equity is a reality. In this series of posts we will attempt to shed some light on how we got here and what we would do differently.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you lend out more money that you actually have, you're going to get into trouble. Generally, we're fine with people doing this. Actions have consequences. If bad businesses fail, good ones emerge in their place.

However the banking system is the lead domino in a chain and last year there was a justifiable fear that the collapse of one could have resulted in a cascade failure taking out the whole system on which our families and businesses depend. Generally speaking Libertarians do not approve of bailouts but in this instance the consequences of a wholesale overnight collapse were far too grave to consider or comprehend. Had the banking system collapsed it would have been a spectacular failure of government with unfathomable consequences. We were therefore in the uncomfortable position of using public money to prop up a failed system.

Some libertarians, particularly American, would flat out argue that the banks should have been allowed to fail. To me this is an absurd proposition. We were always in for a major crash and when so much depends on banking, any response would have had to be geared toward deflating the bubble at a manageable pace. A revaluation and downscaling of economic activity was inevitable but had we allowed it to happen overnight it would likely have been beyond our ability to manage. Shock therapy would have ruined many whose only crime was to be in debt.

The decision to intervene, therefore, was not a happy one, but it was the least worst option available. Though we may prefer to hold true to our principles, pragmatism dictates that we play the hand we are dealt. That being said, it is the breaking with free market principles that has brought us to this place to begin with.

Libertarians recognise the necessity for debt. It is an essential function of business. We also appreciate the necessity to take risks. However what we have seen in recent years is a gradual manipulation of the banking system to achieve political ends. This is not only a UK problem. It is global. What we have seen is not a failure of capitalism but a failure of regulation and the culmination of a series of politically motivated, populist interventions with socialist intent.

In the United States this began with the Community Reinvestment Act which essentially placed a government guarantee on all sub-prime mortgages so as to ensure minorities were given an the opportunity of home ownership. In other words, the natural equilibrium had been removed by government whereby risk was mitigated and the banks were given a licence to print money.

The second major component in our downfall was the CDO problem. This link explains it far better than I ever could. This then created a global contagion whereby banks and investment brokers had no idea what they were buying and subsequently banks asset portfolios became significantly overvalued. This is where much of the blame has been placed for our current predicament because it allows governments to blame the banks, but to my mind this demonstrates the ability of the private sector to innovate in designing rapid systems to dispose of "assets" they would not have had were it not for government intervention. But governments can't let that get in the way of a handy scapegoat.

In the classic tradition of government creating a problem and then attempting to resolve it with yet more intervention, rules were placed upon the banking system dictating the amounts they were allowed to lend. Rules at the time, implemented by the EU based on the Basel2 banking conventions (used also by the US), dictated that banks could only lend up to their actual asset value. But the rules stipulated their asset valuation could only be calculated based on their market value at the time. The infamous Mark to Market rules. Subsequently the banks found in the wake of the CDO induced panic that their assets were all of a sudden worthless and were unable to lend to each other, creating what we now know as the credit crunch. Subsequently house prices had to adjust to meet the amounts of money house buyers were able to obtain.

The the problem with Mark to Market is that it assumes that because the markets value asset bundles as worthless that they are without intrinsic worth. This is wrong. If an asset bundle is worth £50,000 on the market and there's 50,000 mortgages in it, it does not stand to reason that the valuation is accurate. There is no way anyone would value a house at £1. A simple rule change to Mark to Model whereby a more accurate system of valuation is used would have meant the asset value was more realistic and the bailouts would have been a fraction of what they were.

So why not just change to rules? Well, why not just abolish the Common Agricultural Policy? Because we have to get the agreement of 27 other countries. Successive attempts to reform it have failed for this reason. Banking is the same, for the FSA is not wholly a British institution. As ever it bears all the hallmarks of EU "subsidiarity" whereby we can create all the legislative bodies we like so long as they enact EU directives.

So why is the UK biting the turd sandwich harder than the United States? Well if you recall the first bailout bill was defeated by congress and passed the second time only on the proviso that the rules were reformed. Our parliament had no such luxury. In fact our own parliament was not even consulted. Mr Brown went off to Europe to get his marching orders.

But that is not to say this is all the EU's fault. Like the US, we implemented our own policies to encourage bad lending, not least to give the illusion of economic growth when in fact we were creating a debt bubble. We will examine this more in part two.

There are also wider agendas at work. Today we learn from The Daily Telegraph that "The Government has unveiled plans to give new powers to regulators to curb bankers' pay and clamp down on risky lending in the wake of the worst financial crisis in decades." And in so doing they show their true colours. It has used a crisis it created to award itself more control and more power to set wages and prices. Last month we had the announcement from the FSA that it was banning commission on the sale of retail financial products. This in itself will wipe out a whole industry to serve a populist agenda.

To conclude part one, it is our view that government creates more problems than it solves and the bigger the government, the less capable it is of responding to problems. So we would withdraw from the EU and ensure any regulatory body would be a single authority answerable to our own government and our government alone. We would resist the urge to meddle in affairs of markets and allow the natural elements of risk and loss to be the main regulator.

It is also our view that we are fatally weakened by a debt based society. We would therefore remove the various safety nets in our society which allow people to think that saving, fiscal prudence and personal responsibility are secondary to their own instant gratification. We will examine these issues in part two.

Stuff and things

2009-08-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

I am busy making websites pretty...

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/

http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/

That creature

2009-07-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Chloe Smith is oozing drivel on Conservative Home.

Great. Another worthless tory clone who's accomplished nothing in the real world. Another malleable brainless apparatchik who owes her position in entirety to the party machine, who fails to inspire even 20% of the vote. No passion, no brains, no experience, no clue as to what is wrong, no idea how to fix it. Just another careerist on the make. An empty vessel.

I watched Chloe's hustings meeting and she is just another flapping mouth. Exactly the kind of trash that leads to another two terms of terminal decay. Chloe is utterly vile. I couldn't be more revolted if someone sent me my dogs severed head in a box.

No really. The woman makes me want to vomit. She is totemic of everything that is wrong with modern politics. Disgusted doesn't even begin to cover it. The last thing we need is another stupid, vapid, empty vessel like this. Cameron is insulting our intelligence and there WILL be a price for this sheer arrogance and betrayal.

I am so bloody angry at this total corruption of Westminster by stacking it high with more party automatons whose careers come before their constituents. It is this kind of groomed-for-politics creature that turns people away from participation and it's killing democracy. They don't stand up to the government or hold it to account, and will always vote with it so they get their next ministerial post. I predict big things for Chloe not because she's any good but because her face fits. She is the epitome of presentation politics.

Politics is on a countdown to extinction because of this kind of manipulation and it will end in violence. Chloe has been used by a machine she does not understand but she is dumb enough and willing because it's everything she's ever wanted. Meanwhile the country spirals further into decay and she hasn't got the first fucking clue why. Too much? I am not even started.

India not buying Global Warming story

2009-07-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

India calls Bullshit!

Via GatewayPundit

That didn't take long...

2009-07-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

Natural England have hit back with a press release...

We are making no call for wind farms to be built in National Parks and it is hard to envisage the circumstances in which large scale wind developments could be accepted in protected areas owing to the landscape and environmental impacts that they would be likely to have.

Says who? Ed Miliband gets to choose now. And that's funny, because the Telegraph quoted this...

Natural England said society needs to move beyond the "knee jerk nimbyism" that rejects wind farms in any areas of the countryside and even consider areas such as Areas of Outstanding Beauty, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and National Parks.

Is the Telegraph lying? Still no hint of regret for invoking the slanderous nimbyism epithet. They haven't heard the last of this.

MOD Review...

2009-07-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

Colonel Blimp, you're still fighting the wrong war.

by Philip Jacobson

The Daily Mail, 24 July 2009

Although Richard North sets out to make the "case for the prosecution" of the British military and the political establishment for comprehensively bungling their conduct during the Iraq War, it is events in Afghanistan that make the book so timely and thought provoking.

The parallels between the two conflicts are inescapable, from the failure to learn from tactical mistakes to the desperate need for more helicopters.

Where North accuses the Ministry of Defence of an Orwellian attempt to spin an ultimately disastrous campaign in Iraq into a resounding triumph, an unspoken question hangs it the air: is history repeating itself in the wilds of Helmand Province?

The launch pad for North's withering assault on the MoD is the emblematic story of the Snatch Land Rovers, lightly armoured vehicles originally developed for riot control in Northern Ireland and pressed into service in the British zone of operations in Southern Iraq with the approval of General Sir Mike Jackson, then head of the army.

Under fierce attack by the well-armed militias, the snatches rapidly acquired the grim reputation as "four-wheeled coffins". North was one of the first military analysts to highlight their extreme vulnerability to the enemy's roadside bombs, known as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

In North's view, shared by other knowledgeable observers, the initial success of the allied invasion was squandered by the MoD's inability – some would say pig-headed refusal – to grasp the true nature of the Shi'a insurgency that followed and adapt tactics accordingly.

Equally damaging, he argues, was the failure of the procurement system – the unglamorous but crucial business of ensuring that British soldiers had the best weapons and equipment for the kind of war they were being asked to fight.

While the Snatch vehicles were going up in flames and commanders pleaded for more troop-carrying helicopters, billions of pounds were being lavished on high-profile projects designed, in North's words, to fight imaginary wars of the future". The admirals were determined to have their giant new aircraft carriers, the air marshals their Eurofighters; meanwhile the army "was getting palmed off with wholly unsuitable, second-hand equipment".

In stark contrast, when IEDs began killing large numbers of US soldiers in Iraq, the Americans rushed into service hundreds of lumbering armoured troop-carriers specifically designed to withstand roadside bombs.

The result was a swift and substantial reduction in the body count. A US Marine officer who survived a massive blast told me reverently: "We just love those big ugly mother f*****s."

The MoD's tactical fallibility was rooted in the fateful assumption that the undoubted expertise acquired by the Army in Northern Ireland could be applied more or less wholesale to the radically different circumstances of Iraq. North cites the toe-curling meeting at which the senior British officer in Basra was dispensing lofty advice to US commanders on how to defeat the militias at the very moment they were forcing his troops into a humiliating withdrawal from the city.

"It's insufferable, for Christ's sake," raged one of the Americans present. "He comes in and lectures everyone in the room about how to do counter-insurgency. The guys were just rolling their eyebrows [as] the notorious Northern Ireland came up again."

Littered with military acronyms with obscure technical data, North's prose rarely rises above the utilitarian, while the crop of footnotes on practically every page reflects his heavy reliance on published sources (it appears he did not interview any of the senior military and political players, British or American).

He might also have examined more closely whether the strategic, tactical and organisational failures he identifies in Iraq are being perpetrated in Afghanistan.

It is hardly reassuring when an acute shortage of helicopters obliges the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, to borrow and American Black Hawk for a visit to his increasingly hard-pressed "grunts" on the ground.

For years, the default response of the MoD to criticism from civilians, however well-informed, has been to rubbish them as "armchair generals" pontificating from the comfort of the living room.

North will probably get the same treatment but, as he mischievously points out, only a couple of years ago some £2.3 billion was spent on upgrading the MoD headquarters in Whitehall – money that could have paid for two dozen of the troop-carrying Chinook helicopters so desperately needed in Afghanistan today.

And what that show up on the final bill but the purchase at £1,000 each, of more than 3,000 Herman Miller Aeron chairs, advertised as "the most comfortable in the world".

COMMENT THREAD

You know when you've been Qango'd

2009-07-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

"Wind turbines may need to be built in national parks, according to Natural England, the Government agency in charge of protecting the country's most beautiful landscapes."

That is accoding to the Daily Telegraph.

Natural England said society needs to move beyond the "knee jerk nimbyism" that rejects wind farms in any areas of the countryside and even consider areas such as Areas of Outstanding Beauty, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and National Parks.

I sent a less than amused email to them. Their autobot responded...

Mr North,

Thanks for your e-Mail.

We are putting out a correction to the story which I am sure the Daily Telegraph will publish in due course.

Dick Seamons
Enquiry Service
Natural England
Northminster House
Peterborough
0845 600 3078

This should be good.

Tell us something we don't know.

2009-07-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

Windfarm Britain means (very) expensive electricity says Lewis Page. Let's see how long that stays on Google news.

That's gonna work!

2009-07-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

All parents will be forced to sign "contracts" to ensure their children behave at school, the Government has announced. Pupils and their families will be required to agree to the deal - setting out minimum standards of behaviour and attendance - before the start of term. Contracts, known as Home School Agreements, will also establish parents' responsibilities for the first time.

They face court action and possible fines of up to £1,000 for repeatedly breaking rules.

Good luck with that.

Now let's cut the other £85bn

2009-07-23T03:50:00.000-07:00

Isn't this like trimming Bernard Mannings toenails?

Just a thought.

2009-07-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

"Hillary Clinton has warned Iran's leaders that Washington will extend a "defence umbrella" across the Gulf if it develops nuclear weapons."

Here's a thought... How about not letting it develop nuclear weapons? Too simplistic?

Lame

2009-07-22T05:54:00.000-07:00

John Sauven is,to be frank, a f*ckwit.

Against the backdrop of the worldwide economic downturn, it is ironic that the area often said to have the least business certainty, the renewables sector, is one of the few success stories. Globally this industry is bucking the trends, creating millions of new green jobs, increasing countries' energy independence and reducing climate-changing emissions.

Name one other form of energy with a subsidy ticket of over £40 per MW produced. And as we know, investment diversion from workable sources of power will lead to an increase in imported gas in order to plug the supply gap when the wind does not blow. How lazy do you have to be to get a job at Teh Grauniad?