Danger Danger, a Halloween parable

What is the biggest threat to kiddies at this witching night?

Why passive smoking of course,

Oct 28, 2010 – This Halloween millions of parents - and perhaps many grandparents, friends, and neighbors - will warn children about the dangers of motor vehicle accidents, or of eating candy which hasn't been inspected. But most will fail to warn about the biggest risk, one which may kill more children this Halloween than all of the others combined: smoking in their presence by adults.

And what should people tell their children according to this humourless crowd of dictatorial morons?

Thus, suggests Prof. John Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), adults should warn their children this Halloween, and also on other days, against visiting, going to parties, or playing in homes where adults smoke, especially in their presence.

They should also stay away from a parent, grandparent or other adult while the person is smoking, and avoid being seated in the smoking sections of restaurants - and in cars when adults are smoking - where exposure is far higher.

Oh for pities sake, will this crowed of publicly funded morons never shut up? I note that they use the word "may", that of course is because they don't have any evidence of any children dying on Halloween or any other night of passive smoking.

Fanatic health freaks thwe lot of them.

HT @Forest_Smoking

What is Helmer doing?

It is worth wandering over to CoHome to read Roger Helmer's posting.

It shows the knots that the University of East Anglia is tying itself into in order to defend the indefensible activities of its Climate Change Unit revealed by the leak of the Climate Change emails. And a good read it is too. But what I find even more interesting is the company that Roger is keeping in a very public way.

The two in question are Lord Monckton, and Stuart Agnew. That is the UKIP deputy leader and the local UKIP MEP. Or as Roger rather coyly puts it,

Deputy Leader of the party that came in second place in the 2009 euro-elections

and

I decided to invite, on my own initiative, another MEP, Stuart Agnew of Eastern Region.

Roger accuses the UAE of being the new Climate deniers, in that he has a point, but is this proximity to Ukipery, also a love that dare not speak it's name?

More fall out from the Council

Now the comment flows like a torrent about today's capitulation in Brussels. The Telegraph's formal editorial has this to say,

Mr Cameron must be firmer. If money is power, then any increase in subsidy represents a transfer of authority to Brussels, of the kind that Mr Cameron has pledged either to block, or to submit to a public vote. If the putative budget settlement is against Britain’s interests, we urge him to use his veto, or to subject the settlement to a referendum. The Eurocrats must learn that they have no divine right to our money.

They say, forthrightly, but being the Telegraph they have already let him off the hook in their minds as they wonder what he got in return,

Much European negotiation, of course, consists of gritting one’s teeth and accepting the least worst option. Yet if Mr Cameron – who insists upon his Eurosceptic credentials – is serious about checking the inexorable expansion of the EU superstate (responsible, as we reported this week, for up to half of our legislation), he now has the chance to deal from a position of strength. First, there are the reforms needed to strengthen the eurozone. These will involve a modification of the Lisbon treaty, to which Mr Cameron is said to have privately consented. What is unknown is the pound of flesh that he has exacted in return: it would be foolish to pass up such an opportunity to recover sovereignty, given other leaders’ desperation to avoid a referendum.

You see the sad point is that what he got, his pound of flesh has already been eaten. His pound of flesh was the support of Germany and France to keep the increase down to only 2.91%. That is it, there are no more bonuses. The grins and smirks of Mrs Merkle whose satisfaction is a quite something to percieve, and as the Economist has pointed out, this Council was not about the budget, it was about the Treaty, and Cameron has OK'd a Treaty change in a way that he thinks will avoid a referendum.

“I AM on the whole quite satisfied with the decision.” With these modest words, Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, rounded off a remarkable victory at the end of a bruising European summit that concluded today.

Less than a fortnight ago, members of the European Union were universally opposed to Germany’s demand to reopen the EU’s treaties to strengthen the means of maintaining fiscal discipline among members of the euro zone. But within days of winning over Nicolas Sarkozy to her cause at the Deauville summit on October 18th, she got everyone to sign up to the idea of a “limited treaty change”. By the slow-moving standards of the EU, this happened in an eye-blink. It is a testament to the authority of Mrs Merkel, as well as the power of Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe.

Douglas Carswell is very unhappy about this,

The spin says that the proposals from France and Germany for fiscal governance extend to the Eurozone only and so will not affect the UK.

The truth is that the EU might not be able to impose sanctions at this time, but our budget will be subject to as much scrutiny like every member state, including in theory Greece.

Having established common EU scrutiny over our budget, this deal also means a common EU legal framework applicable to "all EU Member States" - irrespective of us being outside the Euro. The path is now clear for us to be out voted on future EU legislative initiatives involving our internal fiscal affairs.

We've not just given ground over how much of our money we give the EU. We've given the EU a say over how we spend our own money at home. Some victory, eh.

But when will this crowd of people, the Carswells the Hannans, the Cranmers finally realise that they will not get the freedom, the liberty, the self governance they so often talk about and so plainly believe in,through the party whose Rosettes they wear.

Literary Propapuffballs

Loking into the agenda for Europe over the next couple of weeks what do we see, well lots of stuff really, but one thing did catch my eye as it is anotther of those things that governments just shouldn't be doing. Like Film prizes, and journalism prizes and so forth.

Though prizes for endeavour are good things in themselves it is just innapropriate for them to be handed out by Govrernments. In free societies it should be private organisations that do that sort ofthing, like the Baftas, or the Oscars, or the Momas, or the Turner Prize, or the Man Booker or ... well you get my drift. Basically Government's should not be inthe business of running competitions ofthis sort. They should provide the legislative and civic space in which good films, well written books, fine free jhournalism should flourish. To do that the best way is to butt out of artists and strivers way and let them get on with it.

But this is where the EU differs you see,

The Culture Programme is supporting prizes


The Culture Programme supports the awarding of prizes in cultural heritage, architecture, literature and music.

The objective of these EU prizes is to highlight the excellent quality and success of European activities in these sectors.

The prizes put the spotlight on artists, music groups, architects, authors and those working in the field of cultural heritage and on their work.
In doing so they showcase Europe's rich cultural diversity and the importance of intercultural dialogue and cross border cultural activities in Europe and beyond.

It is as if artistic, architechtural, lierary, musical and so foth movements never happened in the past. It is as if the the renaissence didn't spread from Italy, as if modernism and brutalism didn't escape from France and Mittle Europa. As if nobody in Britain heard the young Mozart as he toured London, or Van Dyck never came here. They think that they invented art and culture, or if that is a little harsh that without the EU then culture would stay ridgedly behind national borders never travering the Tiber, never leaping the Danube, never swimming the Seine. What ineffable rubbish.

So I come to the latest of these quasi-propagandist prizes, this time for literature. Or more precisily,

The European Union Prize for Literature

Funded by the European Commission DG for Education and Culture it will be handing out a gonmg to some author or another.

Look I have nothing against the authors, good luck to them all, but it is just plain wrong that the EU should be attempting to define what culture is or isn't or what good writing is or isn't. But spending 400 million Euros onthis sort of thing, remember that is 400 million of our money, deciding waht is good art is arrogant and wrong.

Lets have a look at some of the other projects,

Here is 2.213.754,00 € for Arts and Climate Change
An organisation which tells us portentiously,

Climate Change is one the biggest challenges for today’s society. For the eleven arts organisations making up the IMAGINE 2020 – Arts and Climate Change network, 2020 is a realistic date to work towards for making changes necessary to stabilise the climate and secure a sustainable future.

Or maybe you prefer this, 187.359,80 Euro on,

Migration, Intercultural Dialogue and Integration in Europe, Demonstrated in the play "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare, embedded in activities of theatrical pedagogics.

That's it. Of course old Bill was bang on message. Henry the Vth was an abberation. What he was really about was "Integration in Europe"

While we are increasing the Budget of the EU, we find the the accounts are still dodgy

As everybodies eyes are turned to the European Council and Mr Cameron's self proclaimed victory, I wondered if anything had been slipped out that I should notice, and lo and behold what have we here?

It is the European Court of Auditors latest report,

Audit of the clearance of accounts procedure

Signed of by the rather inapproriately named Michael Cretin. (see left)

So what do we find? Looking at it all is not well. The report covers the Agricultural budget, which makes up,

some 54 billion euro, representing close to 50% of the EU ’s payments

Quite a lot of cash then, indeed given the fact that they don't seem to know what is where. But it is not all bad news,

The Court found that between 1999 and the end of 2008 the Commission recovered 5.582 Million euro from the Member States through its conformity clearance procedure. However, significant shortcomings still affect the implementation of the conformity clearance procedure and adversely impact on the achievement of its objective to exclude irregular payments.

So that is about 1% of the budget has been clawed back, but those are strong words from an auditor. "Significant shortcomings" which "adversely impact" on its ability to stop fraud and error.

And they repeat this later,

The difficulty with this type of correction is that they do not provide an adequate basis to determine accurately the total amount of irregular payments that are due to weaknesses found in the systems. Thus, the conformity decisions are not related directly to irregular payments made to beneficiaries and do not therefore directly exclude this irregular expenditure from Community financing.

and in conclusion,

In the absence of such a legality and regularity decision, the expenditure for the year in question cannot be considered as being fully cleared at the time of the discharge.
In order to better comply with the overall objective of the procedure and more fully meet the needs and expectations of the various stakeholders, the Court recommends a comprehensive review and subsequent reform of the clearance of accounts procedur

Or in other words the system is riddled with fraud, corruption and error. The processes we use cannot work out one from another,. We have no idea what is happening to the money, so we better tear the system up and start afresh.

Much as Marta Andreasen was suggesting all those years ago before she was sacked by Kinnock for making those suggestions.

So what of the Commission's response to this rather anguished cry of professional pain from the ECA, who are after all the auditors?

The Commission considers the current system to function well and to achieve its overall objectives. It will, however, continue to improve its operations in practice and, where necessary, submit appropriate proposal for furher improvements to the European Parliaent and the Council for the post-2013 period.

Arrogant, complacent and lacksidaisical. The authentic voice of those too important and too blind to care what they do with your money, and too cut off from reality to realise that it really, really matters. So if you want to know what is happening with the money that Mr Caneron is so happily handing over to Brussels. And how it is looked after when it gets there?

Look no further.

The people are in desperate need of more EU

Well that seems to be the message of a prime piece of Alice in Wonderlandery produced not long ago by Mr Barroso,

“It is worth looking back at the negative referenda which derailed the ratification process of the European Constitution. This told us something. It told us that European citizens were worried, about their jobs, their pensions, their education, their quality of life and their environment. And they looked to the EU for answers,”

Of course they did, of course they did.

HT Bruno

A song for dave

How the Brussels deal is seen elsewhere

This illustration from Tim Montgomerie's column on Conservative Home just about sums up how the Toryy membershipo feel about Cameron's performance in Brussels.

"There will", as somebody else there says, "be consequences"

Just something that all should read: CN Parkinson

Genius

In any public administrative department not actually at war a staff increase may be expected to follow this formula:

x = 2km + p

           n

where k is the number of staff seeking promotion through the appointment of subordinates; p represents the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement; m is the number of man hours devoted to answering minutes within the department; and n is the number of effective units being administered. Then x will be the number of new staff required each year.

Mathematicians will, of course, realize that to find the percentage increase they must multiply x by 100 and divide by the total of the previous year, thus:

100(2km + p) %

         yn

               

Got to congratulate Boris

I had been wondering what would be the issue that would knock Europe and the whole meeting of the European Council off the front pages. What I didn't expect was that it would be Boris.

There is no doubt that the Tory press machine were angling for something to scare away headlines about his capitulation in Brussels. Wasn't expecting it to be Boris though, Dave owes him one.

I need a wall, a post, some twine, a cigarette and a blindfold

First I will find a wall with a post, any post will do, a lampost even, and any wall, but for tradition's sake why not a pock marked plaster one. I know there us a bit of the Berlin wall over on Place Luxembourg, that would be perfect.

Then I bind his hands around the post. Then after tying a blindfold over his eyes I will take ten steps back, and asummoning the largest crowd I can muster , after all this sort ofthing has to be done in public if at all, I will take aim and fire.

Afterwards I will smoke the cigarette myself as a reward. According to PA, Jerzy Buzek the Parliament's President told the European Council meeting,

"Policies must be translated into spending priorities. Today we are doing the opposite: we are creating policies without the financial resources to make them effective.

"We cannot continue to do more and more Europe for less and less euros."

"Instead of preparing the ground for Europe's economic recovery, member states seem to follow the logic of keeping their coffers closed due to fiscal constraints, but at the same time refusing (the right of) the EU to levy its own resources."

Talking about the European Parliament's moderation in budgetary matters,

"We want a moderate solution and can accept a moderate budget. We can and want to be your partners in finding European solutions."

But he told the summit: "By cutting the EU budget we are cutting faith in Europe."

We have no faith in Europe you blundering old autocrat, we have no desire to keep funding you or your senile old dreams. Once years agao you were one of the people I looked up to.

Today you are as bad as the rest. Go back to Poland, retire and try to remember who you once were. Today you are a waste of rations

Listen to us... please....somebody

Poor old Friends of the Earth, this time last year they were oh so important. On the agenda of every EU Council meeting Climate Change stood like a collosos. Copenhagen was a bright hope and the political elite hammered down their doors just to be seen clutching a frond of Friends of the Earthery.

So it is with some sadness I report Friends of the Earth's press release today, desperately trying to get some purchase whilst the big boys discuss important stuff like budgets and the financial disaster.

"The EU has a crucial opportunity to kick-start the UN climate talks in Cancun when they open next month.

"It is vital that the EU reiterates its unconditional support for strong legally- binding emissions cuts under a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol - anything less will leave the world in grave danger of catastrophic climate change and put the lives of billions of the world's poorest people in jeopardy.

"The EU must end its support for expanding carbon markets, which could create a global speculative bubble in carbon trading - a double whammy of financial and environmental disaster.

"The EU must put new money on the table to enable developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change and grown cleanly, and commit to cutting its emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020 without offsetting.

"The EU was a world leader in tackling climate change and must find the political will to become one again - even if that means leaving the US outside of any subsequent climate agreement."

Yopu can hear the pain in spokesperson Asad Rehman as he uses that past tense. "The EU was a world leader..." Get over it Asad, they don't care, never did, they only pretended to because they thougfht it could get them votes.

You and your creed has been rumbled.

Go on then tell them what you think

In one of its periodic bursts of consultation, here is the EU trying to gauge public opinion.

If you have a fww minutes it might be worth you while popping along here to let them know how you feel. Given the multiple choice questions it is a good thing that there are plenty of boxes to write pithy and apposite responses. I stumbled when, having said I write as a private citizen, or in the parlance, "I am an interested citizen" it then demanded to know who I represented. Myself wasn't an option, so the organisation that is me hasd to admit to having less than 100 members. It is obvious that they do not really expect thatthe great unwashed take part, givnen that they have six buttons for everything from >100 to >than a million.

Here are some of the questions to give you a flavour,

In your view which of the following objectives are of most and least relevance/importance for the new programme?

• Developing a sense of European identity 

• Fostering a sense of belonging to the European Union

Or maybe you prefer,

How would the programme seek to achieve this through new and/or proven methods?

• Capacity building of structures (e.g. of civil society organisations, local administrations etc.) 
• Encouraging new models of cooperation/networking between different types of organisation (e.g. public policy actors with civil society organisations, economic actors, cultural organisations etc.) 
• Developing new EU-wide mobility schemes aimed at civil society organisations, project organisers, local administrations, etc.
• Further developing the structured dialogue between EU institutions and civil society organisations 

And finally they key question,

In your opinion, is the current budget of 215 million € (for the period 2007-2013) sufficient and appropriate?

It has a supplementary,

In case of an increase of the total budget of the programme, for which action(s) additional funding should be provided?

Go on, take part, you know you want to.

More propaganda spending

And yet the targets are still all wrong. It is very strange, and I will never to cease to wonder how and why they do it, but the EU is utterly incapabable of producing effective information. They spend millions of pounds a year, invest in technology new and old. Employ brilliant people, and still they produce turkey's. Indeed production lines of turkeys, so much so I am surprised that the Commission Comunication department hasn't been freed during an overnight raid by the ALF.

Here is the latest one. Hidden in plain sight in the latest propaganda review,

"Citizenship Report 2010

Doesn't it make your skin crawl when the word citizen's is used like that, they are trying to include me into their project without asking my permission. A littlel ike Blair and his "People's Princess" line about Diana. Not mine she wasn't, and in a similar way, this Europe that they talk about isn't for this particular citizen.

Anyhow the report is subtitled,

Dismantling the obstacles to EU citizens’ rights

In it are a range of guestures to defend rights so liberally granted to us by the benificent Union, rights such as a fair trial (which I understand I had beforet he ECHR became British law) but that is not what I want to focus on. In defending these rights the EU has hit upon a brilliant wheeze.

"further strengthen information on European affairs, characterised by independent, professional and high-quality reporting; in this context, the Commission will also explore options for a more sustainable financing of Euronews. The building up of a Brussels studio for Euronews will be encouraged."

For pities sake you idiots. Nobody who is not forced by dint of sitting in a airport lounge ever watches that channel. Please stop pouring our money down that stagant hole. It isn't working.

It is boring, disembodied and pointless. If you haven't worked that out then you obviously don't live on the same planet of any of those you claim to govern.

Look, no government, of any stripe should be buggering around with the media as you do. No governmental organisation should be hosting and paying for Film Prizes, or journalism prizes, or creating news agencies or TV stations. That is not your job. If you do your jobs properly, then the people will come to you, and the journalists will report your activities.

If you fail to do things that the people want they will ignore you, no matter how much of their money you spend. You do fail to do those things, which is why people want out.

This arguement that you proffer should appall any democrat,

"Independent media reporting about EU affairs is an important cornerstone of well-informed EU citizens and European public discourse," argues the Commission in the report.

"However, there is still a long way to go until there is a true European media landscape which stimulates informed debates about EU policies," adds the Commission.

Go on, try Euronews now. Even Channel 5 is better than Euronews.

(Other parts of the document hace some interesting interferences in Criminal Justice and electoral law, but that is for another post).

Citizalia, the truth drips out

Futher to the ongoing story of the Citizalia European Parliamentary game, so expertly skewered by Mr Worth comes this missive (Click on picture to read) from the Secretary General of the European Parliament, in answer to questions from Godfrey Bloom and for the project's managers it is a bit of a curate's egg.

The total cost of the project is Euro 275,279, to which the Parliament contributes Euro 206,450. To date, Euro 82,580 has been paid in pre-financing in accordance with the terms of the grant agreement.

Which is all well and good for the Citizalia, and chimes with what they told Jon after he highlighted their work.

But, and here is the rub, another of their claims was as follows,

Current Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and European officials will be on hand to guide you through the procedures and provide background information.

Seems to be a little less certain, according to Mr Welle,

DG Communication has contacted the European Services Network to ask for an explanation of the reference to on the web-site to "European Parliament Officials being on hand to guide the citizens through the virtual Parliament" and I will come back to you once this has been clarified.

Now, given that the author of this letter is Mr Welle, and he is the boss at the European parliament, he should, one might have thought, be aware if his staff were to be moonlighting as Simocrats. And even more interestingly is the way that the Citizalia team have, at some point recently taken down this claim from their website. Maybe they did so after the Welle minions asked them about it, who knows?

Whatever, it seems pretty clear that they over-egged their pudding, overstated their importance to drum up credibility for their project. Normal behaviour in PR puffs I guess, but surely for any prospective punter the presence of these people, the Parliamentary staff, MEPs and so on is the point. Otherwise the only people wandering round the virtual parliament will be other lost (and seriously bored) souls trying to get a handle on the what it is the Parliament does, and engaging in similarly pointless conversations with each other.

First insomianc
"Did you find anything out?"
Second insomiac
"Nah",
In unison,
"There's nobody here".

In virtual Europarliamentary space nobody can here you scream (or discuss the technical workings of the commitology procedure preceeding a trilogies into the workings of the Working Time Directive)

(To be fair to them, they do provide a link to the old claims - so it isn't a pure case of stealth editing).

Meanwhile, back on planet earth

Struggling to breach the wall to wall coverage of Cameron's climb downs over the EU budget, other news touches the surface. Another area where the only party that chimes with public opinion is UKIP. That is the great global warming disaster.

I was reporting only yesterday about how the bird slicer manufacturers were having a tough time of it. Of course there must be somebody to blame, and sure as eggs is eggs it appears that it is the people who are at fault. Ungrateful lowlives that they are,

More than 230 campaign groups across the country are putting plans to generate more than a quarter of Britain’s electricity in jeopardy, it was claimed.
New figures show one in three wind farm applications were approved by councils amid heightened opposition from angry residents.

What, these ghastly subsidy farms are bnot being built because people don't want them. Cor blimy Guv, how can that be. I thought the science was settled, that as Belloc would put it,

The stocks were sold; the Press was squared:
The Middle Class was quite prepared.

But no, citizens are getting in the way. How dare they. Abolish democracy now.
Furthermore the chimera that was biofuels sinks deeper in the immorality mire

Nobody is interested in Europe. Really?

Well that is what we are always told by so called 'bien pensant' opinion, when trying to rubbish the basic UKIP/Eurorealist arguements. Look at the index of matters concerning the British public, nobody cares.

Is that so? I just don't think so.

Look at today's front pages.

The Telegraph leads with

David Cameron softens on EU budget
David Cameron is preparing to retreat on pledges to cut the European Union budget and accept a deal that would increase British taxpayers’ contribution by at least £435 million.

It follows with

Firms seek veto on EU maternity laws
British business leaders will tell David Cameron today that he must block “burdensome” new European Union rules on maternity leave which, they say, could increase unemployment.

And the rest of the front page is talking about immigration, long a problem largely due to mass migration from within the EU.

The Times leads with

New budget storm erupts over Brussels profligacy

Behind the firewall are stories in a two page spread behind the paywall,

Austerity is a dirt word for Eurocrats who are intent on cleaning up as usual

The Mail has this

Cameron can't halt rise in Euro budget: PM admits jump of at least £430m is out of his hands (And he's not even going to try to stop a new EU treaty or give us a referendum on it)

Its editorial is split two ways, one directly on Europe,

Outrageous increase
Last week, the Prime Minister told the Mail that the EU’s plan to increase its budget by six per cent this year — at a cost to Britain of nearly £900 million — was ‘outrageous’...
But in advance of today’s European summit, it appears that the Coalition might be prepared to agree to an increase of three per cent or even more. This is still, to use Mr Cameron’s word, ‘outrageous’.

The other doesn't reference Europe itself, but can be answered simply by the phrase "Leave the EU",

Why can’t the Tories help small businessmen?
Maternity leave, paternity leave, health and safety, PAYE, sex discrimination, ageism, flexible working, parental leave, tougher employment tribunals, a new Equalities Act.
It’s amazing that Britain has any entrepreneurs left at all, given the mountain of red tape that businessmen must cope with — and that’s before they can get on with creating jobs.

And it goes on. So please, don't tell me nobody cares about our membership of the EU. They do.

Bl 'EU' plaques

The European Parliament's Culture Committee have nooded through their latest attempt to forge the philospher's stone that is a single European memory. The latest vessels for this is what is called the European Heritage Label.

This is what they say,

a European Heritage Label, whose general objectives are to strengthen European citizens' sense of belonging to the European Union, based on shared elements of history and heritage, as well as an appreciation of diversity, and to strengthen intercultural dialogue. To this end the Label seeks to enhance the value and the profile of sites which have played a key role in the history and the building of the European Union, and to increase European citizens' understanding of the building of Europe, and of their common yet diverse cultural heritage, especially related to the democratic values and human rights that underpin the process of European integration. In this way the European Heritage Label would also help to bring citizens closer to Europe.

So what sort of places are they going to attach this thing to?

‘that a European heritage label should be established with a view to emphasising the European dimension of cultural goods, monuments, memorial sites, and places of remembrance, which all bear witness to Europe’s history and heritage’.

Places of Rememberance!! What! They are planning to stick a glossy label onto something like the Menin Gate and claim that the hundreds and thousands of British and Commonwealth troops died for that apogee of mankind's social developement, the European Union. Or will they instead attach the self same token to the walls of Auschwitz, claiming that the millions who dies in the holocaust died so that Herman van rompuy could skittle across the world stage?

Or maybe Ted Heath's house, so that generations of Englishmen can learn to hate him as the traitor that he was?

Update
The Telegraph picks up the story

Paul Nuttall, a Ukip MEP, accused the EU of wanting to impose its view of history on war sites such as the Menin Gate, which marks the 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the First World War fighting of the Ypres Salient but who have no known graves.

"As we come up to Remembrance Sunday it is outrageous to think that the EU might try and hijack the Menin Gate when in fact it commemorates the British and Commonwealth soldiers who died to protect our independence from Europe," he said.

"They are terrified that they do not own people's memory or history and are prepared to spend millions of pounds of our money to generate a new one."

Officials have also suggested that Sir Edward Heath, the former Conservative Prime Minister who took Britain into the European Community in 1971, could be commemorated along with Robert Schuman, the Frenchman who was one of the EU's "founding fathers".

"Imagine what a (European Heritage Label would do for a site like Hadrian's Wall or for Ted Heath's house – and the many small businesses, from youth hostels to hotels, that would benefit from increased tourism in the areas," said an official.

Of course, one must ask the pertinent question here. Which side of Hadrian's Wall are they thinking off? Do they have a problem with the Scots?

And as has already been mentioned in the comments, it is a little late for Ted Heath's stolen property, which due to intense lack of interest has had to be sold. The fact that it should be given back to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral from whom it was essentially stolen is neither here nor there.

There is austerity, and then there is austerity

Austerity begins at home, as well we know. But obviously not of you are one the the EU's new diplomats.

Here is the tender offer for furniture for our new diplomatic corps, the EEAS. Not you will be interested to note for the Embassies themselves. Oh no, not that, but more for the residences of our pampered plenipotentiaries,

Purchase of top-of-the-range furniture for the residences of ambassadors-heads of delegation of the European Union

The bill is estimated at 8,000,000 Euros.

Now there are 130 current EU delegations/embassies around trhe world, which would mean that this largesse could be split at just over 61,000 Euros per country. But, but. Many of these countries, indeed all of them are already in offices, and already have furniture - indeed a frienmd went out to one a year or so ago.
And surely they weill be spending more on the prestige places such as Washington with Barosso's chum the reprehensible Joao Vale De Almedia, rather than the more, shall we say hardship posts like Cape Verde, where Josep Coll I Carbo holds the fort. Still, a lot of cash per residence I would say.

Also interesting is that this website is an official Belarusian Government website, encouraging Belarusian's to compete for the contract.

The EU's version is here

Wind farming problems

Not a good day for the purveyors of finest continental bird slicers. According to the BBC,

The Welsh Assembly Government announced in 2005 that four terawatt hours of power would come from renewable energy by 2010, but it has produced three.

They whinge on abpout how they wanted to build more wind farms but were unabvle to do so... Awww diddums, however The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales director one Peter Ogden hits the windmill on its sails,

the assembly government had grabbed the "cheapest and most convenient ways of satisfying their own pangs of renewable energy guilt, without having any regard to the bitter after taste these massive intrusions leave on the Welsh uplands".

He added: "Their track record clearly indicates that their push to develop onshore wind was badly organised, misdirected and has ended up in such a tangle that it proves just how wrong the TAN 8 approach has been.

"We have constantly argued against the industrial-scale mutilation of the uplands of Wales and are calling on all the political parties to scrap TAN 8."

He added that officials claimed to be on target for 2020, but there were no transmissions lines in parts of Wales to get the power to the National Grid, and this seemed to have been "conveniently overlooked".

Which is somewhat foolish one might have thought. Meanwhile as Richard North highlights there have been some problems in North Britain with the slicers,

Kintyre wind farm firm goes bust

Amusingly, the Beeb illustrates both stories with the same, rather sombre turbine image.

The hatred of the left

P.J. O'Rourke in fine form. Yes it is about America and their mid-terms but it applies equally well to Labour and to a frightening degree to the members of the current Government. Read it all.

They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.

Via a Miniter

Alarmism isn't always a vote winner

It just might be wise for some of our extremists to realise this.

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) said this weekend that his biggest stumbling block with conservatives was his insistence that climate change is real. 

Inglis, the GOP lawmaker who was ousted by a conservative primary challenger earlier this year, said that his support for the Wall Street bailout paled in comparison to his insistence that Congress do something to address global warming.

"[T]he most enduring problem I had, the one that really was difficult, was just saying that climate change was real and let's do something about it,"

Well Bob, that might be just because, it isn't in the sense that it is man made, nor in that we can do anything serious to effect it.

The dog that didn't bark?

Fascinating stuff from the Danish Blog Euro Zoo. (Google translation)
It suggests that despite the Government's official opposition it failed to actually oppose a serious piece of financial regulation,

EU Commission told EU ZOO that three parliaments protested against the proposed new rules for a so-called deposit guarantee - the Swedish, Danish and two German chambers. Three in total.

All very curious,

Britain's abortive protest naturally makes some entirely different issues. National parliaments have a period of eight weeks to say whether an EU proposal violates subsidiarity. However, national parliaments geared to handle the proposals so soon?

In the case of deposit insurance directive, made in July, had countries apparently received an additional period, perhaps in the light of summer. But many countries have sent no comments. There may be several reasons:

1) They could not get to respond.
2) They believe that the procedure is irrelevant (maybe they are counting not think the EU Commission will respond to any protest).
3) They seemed in fact to the specific proposal is perfectly fine and did not want to bother the Commission with an extra letter.
4) Parliaments' national representatives in Brussels had already sensed the Monday meeting that there was not enough parliaments behind a process and therefore gave up the exit of.

So what we have is the right to protest, as envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty, but a failure to do so.

Why not?

EU ferret regulations

No really there are EU rules governing the amount of ferrets you can take across the border. This has come to light die to the fact that the Scottish sled driving team will be unable to compete at the World Sled driving championships in Norway due to the same rules covering the transport of mass huskies.

Sled-dog racers have warned that European Union rules are stifling their sport. A regulation came into effect earlier this year restricting the number of some animals, including dogs, cats or ferrets, which can be moved from one EU country to another.

Do they check down farmers' trousers?

And so it comes to pass

Only yesterday Dellers was warning of the new scarier panic to be dealt upon us ignorant proles. The fear of failing Biodiversity,

And so it begins. With all the shamelessness of a Goldman Sachser trading in his middle-aged wife for a hot, pouting twentysomething called Ivanka, the green movement is ditching “Climate Change”. The newer, younger, sexier model’s name? Biodiversity. (Mega hat tips to: Hilary Ostrov and Ozboy at Libertygibbet)

When I say shameless, I’m talking so amoral it makes the Whore of Babylon look like Mother Theresa; so flagrant it makes Al Gore’s, ahem, alleged drunken “Love poodle” assault on the Portland Masseuse look like an especially delicate passage from Andreas Capellanus’s The Art of Courtly Love.

What have we here? From PA today

A "deadly duo" of invasive species and climate change could cost countries 10% of GDP through damage to activities ranging from agriculture to recreation, it was claimed today.

There is a cure of course but only iof we first realise the seriousness of the situation,

Sarah Simons, executive director of the Global Invasive Species Programme, said: "The dangers posed by this 'deadly duo' cannot be overestimated.

Whats that? It cannot be overestimeted. Well I think you are a tad wrong there my love. Everything can be overestimated. I reckon 15 people will read my blog post. Bingo, an overstimation. Indeed the entire industy of panic and fear is built on the inexact science of overestimation. Lets have a look in your case,

The report said the estimated damage caused by invasive species, which have a negative impact on native wildlife, landscapes and even - as in the case of Japanese knotweed in the UK - buildings and infrastructure, was around 1.4 trillion US dollars (GBP890 billion) a year, or around 5% of global GDP.

Now how on earth can you makle a finacial estimate of this sort. The finacial cost to native wildlife? How much money has it cost the red squirrel. How many jobs were lost when Squirrel Nutkin was evicted by his ugly American cousin? Think how much the taxpayer had to shell out to find Nutkin a new home? Oh come off it.

But as Dellers pointed out we have conflation of Climate Change and Biodiversity to make us quake in our beds,

Each driver poses an enormous threat to biodiversity and human livelihoods but now, evidence is rapidly emerging which shows that climate change is compounding the already devastating effects of invasive species, resulting in a downward spiral with increasingly dire consequences."

Poland takes an sharp intake of breath

Polish politicians are having to explain to their people why the bills for its Presidency of the EU next year are set to top Euro 110 million .

Not that they should worry too much, after all they are net recipients from the EU's largesse of about 5.5 billion a year.

But they better sort out the hotel rooms, after all eurocrats expect a proper standard.

Dziennik Gazeta Prawna also reports that EU diplomats who come to Poland during the country’s presidency may have a problem finding accommodation.

With only eight months to go, the Foreign Ministry has yet to chose a company which will accommodate foreign diplomats in hotels.

As many as 8,736 rooms in 23 five-star hotels, 20 four-star hotels and 2 three-star hotels in the western cities of Poznan and Wroclaw, coastal city of Sopot and the capital city of Warsaw will be needed.

B & B's it is then.

Apple and the dangers of photo libraries

Oh deary m,e, it seems that the boffins at Apple didn't have a proper look around when they picked the image to go with their Mac Lion system. The lion in question has already, for a very small sum been hired out to ethe Flemish nationalist party the Vlaams Belang.

Via Gizmodo

Electric cars sales fall off a cliff

You can see them now the annoying threesome salivating over this piece of news treported in the Guardian. It appears that sales of electric cars have dropped by, ahem, 90%. Oh frabjous day.

Just 55 of the green cars – whose fans include Boris Johnson, Jonathan Ross and Jade Jagger – were registered in 2009, in contrast to 397 in 2007, says the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

55... Bwahahahaha...

In the end you see it is the economy stupid. But, according to the enviro nutters at Guardian towers, there is a way round economic reality. And I bet you can guess what it is...

Rudi Schogger, managing director of Goingreen, which distributes the G-Wiz in the UK, said: "Some people might be waiting for the government grants to arrive before purchasing an EV." He added that, even with a grant, most of the new vehicles on the market will be more expensive than a G-Wiz.


Although sales of all new cars fell sharply in 2009 due to the recession, the drop in new registrations for electric cars was around eight times higher. Overall, 2m new cars were registered in 2009, the lowest level since 1995.

Yes that is 55 out of 2,000,000!

But of course this is where our governemnt steps in. Something completely unwanted and unloved is given new life by this so called Conservative lead coalition.

In January, the coalition will begin offering up to £5,000 towards the price of a series of newly launched electric cars, as part of a subsidy announced by the former Labour government. The Department for Transport (DfT) anticipates around 8,600 of the cars will be sold in the first year of the scheme. The government has so far committed £43m for the scheme to run until March 2012, with a review taking place in January 2012, but in yesterday's spending review it talked of "supporting consumer incentives for electric and other low-emission cars throughout the life of this parliament," suggesting the subsidy would continue after March 2012 though possibly at a lower rate.

It is important to note that while the Government is going to continue with this subsidy launch. It is cutting the budget for the armed forces, police and the prisons. Way to go Dave'n Nick.

Ozymandius Pöttering: Something good in the EU Budget!

After decades in the European Parliament, former President, Hans-Gert Pöttering left that distinguished office having created his own little legacy. The idea was to create a House of European History, and with his name carved in gold around it get the taxpayer to fund this ego museum. At the time we mocked, and complained.

But now it seems Hans-Gert's powers are past him as he sidles of into semi-retirement, back bench MEP and Chairman of the Konrad Adenaeur Foundation. What of his project, his legacy? What of the House ofhistory now its instigator is history himself?

Well in an astonishing act, the Budget Committee of the Parlaiment cut 2.5 million Euros in funding from the project. I kid you not. Look at amendment 866 here,

Add following text:

EUR 2,5 Mio relating to studies for the House of European History are put in reserve until a clear overview of the costs envisaged for the project as a whole has been presented and a state of play has been given as regards other outstanding questions.

Justification:
The information requested since last year is still not available. It is not justified to continue further spending on this project without this information and analysis thereof. Appropriations relating to further studies in 2011 are thus put in reserve.

Look upon your works and despair, mein herr.

If I was a barbary ape I would be worried

Sometime´s you read something, and the language is of such opacity that you can see the words, but the meaning of them is just out of sight. Try this little bit from the FCO,

The participants in the Forum of Dialogue on Gibraltar (Gibraltar, the United Kingdom and Spain)  have reaffirmed our commitment to the maintenance of a constructive atmosphere of mutual trust and co-operation for the objectives of the Forum, and we have restated our support for the idea that such co-operation and mutual trust should become the norm in all possible areas. In this respect we reiterate our commitment to the Forum as well as the need to continue with the envisaged calendar to conclude the widest agreements that are possible in the six main areas of co-operation for the next Ministerial Meeting.

Now from my reading of that I wold guess that, there is currently no

A) "Contructive atmosphere" or
B) "mutual trust"

Indeed the claim that these wild hopes should be maintained is rather kyboshed by the idea that these shibboleths should "become the norm".

What we have here is another attempt by HMG to deal with that niggling problem, that is the recalcitrant way in which the inhabitants of the Rock just don't want to be labelled 'history' and handed over to the sombero-wearing Dons. Those Gib types are so deeply embarrasing.

But hey, who cares as there won't be a Navy to protect them it is only a matter of time.

A Date for your diary: Denier day

The somewhat narked old gentlman has had a wizard idea

A chance for the rest of us to display our total disregard for that 'science is settled' nonsense and turn things on their head. A day where, instead of saving 10%, we can go about our normal everyday business using an extra 100% or more .....

Now why didn't Chris Huhne think of that?

The MEP, his dentures and eavesdropping

Liberation yesterday ran a little story about accidental eavesdropping on interpreters, (my translation)

I didn't hear him”, “he has problems with his false teeth”: French interpreters of the European Parliament made fun Tuesday of an old British MEP, without knowing that their microphones were still on and that everyone could hear them. Whilst a French MEP Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, was talking about the fight against poverty, the French interpreters left their mikes on, so those still listening to the debate in French debate heard the translators private instead of the MEP. The transcript is over in a few seconds, it is a conversation between two male interpreters about the earlier speech by 77 year old Derek Clark.. “It was well.. Clark, there, this English…”, said one of the interpreters while laughing, before criticizing Mr. Clark's attendance. The interpreter says he has often translated at Group meetings of the very Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Demcracy Group, and Clark rarely attends.

“I'm often doing the EFD Group, and I never see him at meetings“. I couldn't hear him",

He was mumbling".

“He has a verbal tick",

“He has a problem with his dentures", continued the two jokers.

Derek has responded in kind,

Dear Sir,

The interpreters of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, no doubt bored senseless with the bureacratic drivel that they hear every day in the EP, recently entertained themselves with musing (caught on microphone) that I am an old man, a poor attender and have false teeth.(Liberation 20th Oct 2010- source AFP)

Well, two out of three ain't bad they say - I am one of the best attenders of all British MEPs according to recent Open Europe publication,(6th out of 77) I have all my own teeth, indeed eat apples all day to keep my young complexion. I admit that I am 77years of age, but my wife is still with me and think I've picked up a few good tricks in my time.

I hardly ever miss a Parliamentary meeting. I even have a special rate with my hotel since I do not need a vessel to keep my teeth in overnight; they do not come out! A good job too, or I would have had difficulty with the main course of lapin last evening.

I am only too ready to demonstrate to your reporters my effortless consumption of some French cuisine, which I always enjoy, but please don't keep me up too late.

Derek Clark MEP

European Parliament
Strasbourg
France

Here he is

Can you understand him?

One hope that they will publish his response

Update

Indeed they have

Give and take

Richard North has highlighted something that seems to have been missed in the whole Spending Review, that is what is being cut is not spending, but the unreal expectations created by the profligate promises of the previous Government. As he points out,

There are no cuts. I say again, there are no cuts. What the Cleggerons are talking about is a reduction in the rate of increase in public expenditure as compared with the June budget. This is helpfully summarised here and the source is here.

You will see that the current financial year expenditure is £696.8 billion. By 2014-15, the projected expenditure was to rise to £757.5 billion. Little George is now proposing that this increase is limited £739.8 billion. This now becomes a 17.7 percent "cut", albeit that expenditure is still increasing.

Thus, the language of public expenditure has been redefined. A reduction in the rate of increase is deemed to be a "cut". In fact, by 2014-15, annual expenditure will have increased by £43 billion, up 6.2 percent (not nine, as originally stated). By such sophistry, "cuts" are not actual reductions. They are lower than projected rates of increase.

What he has missed is that the round tatal figure being bandied about by the Treasury over 5 years is £81 billion. A big figure for reducing expectations, but one that has an interesting mirror.

Nigel Farage has just pointed this out,

"Currently Britain is paying £45 million to Brussels as subscriptions to the EU club", he said, "multiply that by 365, then again by 5 and the figure is £82 billion".


"If we were to leave and if we were to continue to reduce spending expectations then we as a nation could clear our deficit in double quick time. This would of course create significant private sector confidence and cause a massive boost to investments and jobs".

Instead of that this Government continues to beggar us by membership of the sclerotic spendthrift European Union, rather than giving this country the freedom to grow."

Of course I have not included the 5.9% increase in EU funding so immorally voted for yesterday in Strasbourg, nor indeed the loss of our rebate, so in reality the figures may become even more stark",

These figures are rough and ball park, true, but they do point to a very serious blind spot at the heart of Treasury thnking. What we sime to have is the Treasury taking money from the taxpayer, whislt giving it it straight to Brussels.

(NB. Some money of course does come back, but only where and how other people want to spend it)

Norwich Council Terror Threat

The egregious numbnuts who populate Norwich City Council have launched a anti-terror investigation into an unnamed pub.

Using the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act - designed to prevent us from chaps with bomb-belts they have been spying on the pub.

Why, because we are told the publican allowed people to smoke there. It used the,

Surveillance to find out if a city pub was allowing customers to flout the no-smoking ban – in return for them putting money into a fund to pay any fine which resulted if they did get caught.

Quick! Get 50 armed coppers surrounding the Old Bull and Bush, cigarettes might be lit!!! Deadly threat to drinkers.

Interestingly the system that the unnamed pub has introduced is one that worked very well in Holland where thousands of small bars and clubs did the same. Now of course with the mass civil disobedience the Dutch authorities have seen sense and changed the law.

But (Ref previous article) Britain is a law abiding society and we haven't seen similar mass silent protest here, so those few people who do flout the draconian anti-smoking legislation are low hanging fruit for the anti-terror police to target.

Of coursde the Council is unrepentant in this gross misuse of RIPA,

“We only use these powers when absolutely necessary," a council spokesman said.

Yeah right. Why not just walk in? No, pf course not, they silly numpkins just want to play Spooks and go all covert and smoke and dagger.

I bet some Council official sidled in there, bought a pint (on expense of course) and dropped his coin in the kitty, lit up a cigarette. Noting that the publican turned a blind eye to this outrageous insult to public decency, he twisted off the hot end and, in the style of tabloid writers everywhere, made his excuses and left.

Pathetic.

Is this the original 'Heavy Plant Crossing'?

UK crops to face water supply crunch, may relocate

Defence of whose Realm?

Footling around today I see that Douglas Carswell picked up an aspect of the Strategic Defence Review that hasn't received much exposure as opposed to the headline aircraft carrier business. That is those parts of the Defence Strategy that refer to our European entanglements. Now as it is Trafalgar day in a couple of short days it seems relevant to take a look at this. Sure enough Section 5.12 or the SDR has the European Section,5.12

Britain will "make an effective contribution to the European border agency, Frontex".

"Ensure the new EU budget ... targets funding at key security challenges facing the EU".

"Work to ensure that EU civil protection arrangements focus on shared risk assessment and prevention ... and maximise awareness of critical infrastructure dependencies".

"Support EU missions - whether military or civilian ..."

What Douglas hasn't done is to look at the European Budget Statement that came out today.

Responding to crisis situations

It is particularly important to improve the Union's ability to respond to large-scale conflicts or disasters. The EU's essential contribution to the broader security dimension of external relations points to a need to build on current tools like the Instrument for Stability, CFSP actions and Election Observation Missions. Speed of deployment, flexibility and the ability to modulate action in line with changing political circumstances are all essential components

My italics.
Seems that the new EU budget is doing just that.

Geography not her strong point

The Lib/Dem vacuum that is Baroness Sarah Ludford has recieved a splendid slap down from the vetran Luxemburger Astrid Lulling this afternoon. Ludford was fretting about getting home from Strasbourg given the strikes and so on in France,

Dear Mr Welle,

Could you tell us if there is any problem with fuel for cars/buses to take us to eg Frankfurt and Basle airports.....?

Sarah Ludford

Madame Lulling's response is priceless, (and I like that Mrs Ludford bit particularly)

Dear Mrs Ludford,

I hope you are aware that the German border is quite close to Strasbourg so there won't be any problem with the availability of fuel. A situation like the one we are going through could be problematic in Brussels but not here in Strasbourg.

Best regards,
Astrid Lulling

Update
The story is picked up by EU Observer, which reports that the petty jibes continued.

Evidence of Smoky lederhosen at the European Parliament.

They attempt to cover up parlous viewing figures on their €40 million website

Back in September President Barosso made his infamous "State of the (EU) nation" speech to the European Parliament. You remember the one where MEPs were threatened with fines if they didn't appear. Well having poked fun at the pomposity of it and particularly in the light of the US President's State of the Nation address, getting live viewing figures of 48 million Nigel Farage made a request of the Secretary General of the European Parliament,

Dear Sir

Some correspondents in the UK tell me that, despite the millions being spent on the EP-website, they were unable to obtain simultaneous translation of the speeches, this morning.

I should also like to know the "hit-rate" for the live Barroso-speech, if you have any indication available.

Yours faithfully

Nigel Farage

All very cordial like. The response from Klaus Welle, the German (CDU) Secretary General of the Parliament, was written on the 14th Oct and received on the 18th - On the cusp of the strict 6 weeks limit, (as an aside, no other group leader would receive such tardy service - it itself a calculated insult from a massively paid civil servant to a democratically elected member, if Daul, Schulz or perish the thought even Cohen-Bendit had written the answer would be by return - but I shall let that pass).

The response was interesting. It accepted that there are technical issues with the website (which given the spend should have been ironed out by now) but when it came to hits Welle said,

"Regarding the number of hits, we do not have exact figures because of the variety of access to live streaming of the plenary... but the technicians have told us that the intensity of the traffic was overall more than double the average traffic during ordinary plenary sessions".

A statement that might be described as economical with the actualitie, given what we read here,

This is an interview with George Kasimatis, who runs Europarl TV and is responsible for the website that hosts the live stream, it was published today in New Europe.

Would it be possible to get a specific number for just the website?

We have the analysis of the website, but we do not make them publically available for the time being.That seems to me to be pretty conclusive. They have the figures, they just don't want to give them out. The reason why is simple, fear of being laughed at.

What´s the reason we can´t get these figures?
What would happen is that journalists could take that figure and say “no, that´s the viewers of EuroparlTV”. The website represents the minority of viewership for EuroparlTV.The purpose of EuroparlTV is not to have its own website but to have its content viewed by the citizens. What we count is where we are present, and where we are viewed. The goal - our philosophy if you want, is the distribution. The impact is not the views of the website, is the total views of the content produced by EuroparlTV

But you see we are talking about people watching the speech live, not those watching the thing on news bulletins. We know that 48 million watch the US president's State of the Union live, we have no idea how many watch clips on news bulletins, so the fact that the footage is then reused is of not relevance to the question.

Another interesting aspect of the interview is the sheer cost of the website,

There was the budget of €40 million for four years. You are just on the
beginning of the third year. Has the budget been adapted to the crisis?
The new version of EuroparlTV website we have just launched cost €250 000. In 2009 the budget was €9 million. We didn’t spend the whole budget. This 9 million is split between the two companies. One company, TwoFour, has the technical support
which is about €1.5 million, there is €500,000 for promotion, and €7 million goes to production through Mostra. What is interesting that €2 million of this €7 million, goes to translation of the content into 22 languages. For the next year we are going to spend much less than €9 million because we can do a lot of things internally; we have developed our studios, we have developed our equipment. We are expecting to economize because we are using our equipment, our infrastructure so the total budget will go down. We expect to spend €5 million on content instead of €7 million. We may not translate all the content into 22 languages.We are also going into more and more co-production. We have already organized three debates with Euronews – one in June with the President of the Parliament and leaders of the political groups, one was in September on the Roma issue and we have just done one on October 12.

And for these huge sums it must be inconceivable, as Mr Welle suggests, that they don't have the figures. So it appears that Mr Welle's pants are on fire and he has told an untruth to a Member of the Parliament. Now, what does the rulebook have to say about that?

Maybe Article 12 about bringing the institution into disrepute (Oh I remember that) but he might be able to claim justification via, Article 17

An official shall refrain from any unauthorised disclosure of information received in the line of duty, unless that information has already been made public or is accessible to the public.

Which seems to give him permission to refuse to answer. But surely this doesn't allow him to give an untruth?

Would that we had an FOI act in the European Institutions.

What was that about a Non-Country?

Nigel Farage did get into trouble about being rude about Belgium. He infammously described it as a non-country.

Heis resaons where that its different tribes were unable to get on, and that they hadn't been able to sort out a Government. He was fined and it was demanded that he apologise to the poor Belgian's for this slur on their national honour.

So what is hapening in that flat damp land?

"Fabula acta est (the play is over)," N-VA leader Bart De Wever said in Latin in a reaction to the francophone side's rejection of his draft proposal.

On Sunday, De Wever's party presented a compromise proposal to form a seven-party coalition. The three French speaking parties, however, declared the document unacceptable.

Under the N-VA plans, regions would have been able to determine their own labor market police as well as have more say over the judicial system and taxation.

I am intrigued by Mr De Wever's use of Borisian Latin. Of course if he had spoken in Flemish, then the Wallons would have cried foul, if he had spoken in French his own people would have gone ballistic, iof he had spoken German the other official language nobody would have understood him and if he had spoken in English he would essentially have admitted that Farage was right.

Tough job being a Belgacist in the current climate.

"It is the state and not employers who takes on the costs"

So says Myria Vassiliadou of the European Women's Lobby (EWL) of the latest tranche of legislation on maternity leave.

It is almost a perfect expression of the economically-illiterate, rent-seeking attitude of those who already receive their wages from the greater European Taxpayer. But there again looking at her proffessional background one shouldn't be too surprised about her lack of knowledge of basic stuff like this,

Myria Vassiliadou holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Sociology and Social Research and a doctorate in Sociology from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. For over a decade, Myria worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus and taught undergraduate and graduate classes in Sociology, predominantly in the area of gender.
She has worked extensively in the area of gender as this relates to questions of identity politics, migration, ethno-political conflict, and the media, published in several books and journals, conducted workshops and seminars, and has been actively involved in various non-governmental organisations.

She obviously is unaware that 'States' don't have any money that they don't take from individuals and businesses. In her slightly warped world, the massive increased cost to businesses, (estimated at £7000 for small businesses by the FSB) will not affect them. The money to cover these costs will just magik into the air and fall upon their grateful heads.

Of course in reality the money will be taken from them and recycled through the apparatus of the state and be given back to them (having first had amounts rubbed off for better and wiser purposes along the way).

As the FSB makes clear,

the additional cost to the UK - estimated to be £2.5 billion - will be passed onto small businesses and could act as a deterrent for small firms to take on new members of staff.

This naturally isn't a worry for Ms Vassiliadou. Why? Because she gets her money from the EU,

For the year of 2010, the EWL’s core budget is €1.024.231,29. The EWL receives 81.65% of this amount as a grant fromt the European Commission under the PROGRESS programme. The remaining 18.35% is made up of membership fees and other independent sources of funding.

Or in other words from the taxpayer. As UKIP's Godfrey Bloom puts it,

"If this legislation had been specifically designed to discourage the employment of young women, the EU could not have done a better job.

"The costs to business will simply serve as a further reason to not employ young women of child-bearing age."

Absurd legislation such as this closes the door on opportunities for young women and consigns them to a role as second class citizens, trapped at home by the stupidity of legislators. "

It will single-handedly turn back the clock to the 1920s by forcing employers to avoid exposure to the penalties by not hiring young women."We know that these plans will cost billions but what is unquantifiable is the damage they will do to women's job prospects."

Addicts say: "We want more drugs"

The BBC has a rather extraordinary piece up on its website,

Farmers defend controversial EU subsidies

Well, errr of course they do.

It is about as controversial as say, 'Navy wants more ships', or maybe 'Dogs reported to be quite keen on bones'.

That is neither here nor there. What we have here is a couple of carefuly selected farnmers from France and the UK who have shown great entrepreneurial spirit, and asked them if they like to receive CAP money. They are paragon's in their fileds. So one canot criticise them individually, that would be mean after all. But they are entirely unrepresentative of the general situation within the farming industry.

Having subsidies set at betwen 40-60% of their annual income means that they are not ndependent dfarnmers, merely part of the last great nationalised industry, with all the problems that being directed from above entails.

The French farmer points to the problem,

He is paid according to the size of his farm - which is monitored by satellite - and the way in which he farms.

Under EU rules, he cannot turn to the cheap fertilisers or pesticides they might use in Latin America. His fields are surrounded by streams, grass borders and woodlands which he is paid to protect.

He cannot act in a way that woyuld maximise income because of various rules and regulations that impede his actions. He is paid as a custodian, not as a farmer. Fine if you want it that way, but is that what the vast sum of money handedc over by the taxpayers is for? The CAP and the rukles that surround it are bad for farming. But it would take a very brave farmer who revbels against it. They know that ist hampers their actions, they know that it has turned them into subsidy junkies and they know that in the ened it is bad for them and for the continuation of food production in the European countryside, but they would be mad to turn down such a massive slice of their income.

How worrying this all is is made clearly apparent by the caveat on the comment section,

Are you in the EU? What do you think of the EU's system of farm subsidies? What do you think of the points made by the farmers in this story? You can send us your views using the form below.
At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

"The British are an endangered species"

Or so says a Commission official when talking about the simple fact that 5% of Eurocrats are UK nationals, whilst we make up 12% of the population of the EU and of course are one of the few countries that pay into the pot, rather than take out.

It is of course all a little reminiscent of Milton Friedman's old saw about money and responsibility.

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income

Nick Clegg, who of course worked as a EU Spad in the Cabinet of Leon Britain and William Hague are keen to up the number of Brits working for the EU institutions. Going so far as to set up and support a new version of the old EU fast stream amongst our brightest and best civil servants. This they believe will result in more of the EU's policy making being done from an UK perspective, created with a comprehension of the vagaries of the Common Law and so on. And you know what, in the margins, they may have a point. Some of the unspoken assumptions that arrive from being part of a culture will indeed rub of on policy making.

But, and this is of course the nub, at best they will only make up 12% of officials. And their loyalty will switch from the UK, to the EU. So we will see our civil service top sliced, with many of our brightest and best becoming people who, by dint of their contract (and of course the self interest created by the pay and conditions (Eurocrats are only human after all),

A starting salary of £45,000 plus a relocation bonus of £7,200. A pension worth up to 70% of your final salary and 24 days of leave plus "travel" days. Oh, and a job for life.

All this, and more, is up for grabs if you manage to pass the entrance exams to work for the European Union.

will be working against UK interests. They will of course convince themselves that by furthering the interests of the EU they will be furthering the interests of the UK, as if the two things are synonymous, but that is just not the case in the vast majority of areas of public debate.
They will be working for somebody else, and at best be a tiny majority.

So do pray tell how can this be in our interest? One of the saddest aspects of the major enlargements into Central and eastern Europe was the wholesale destruction of national civil services as senior and talented officials of the new countries fought over jobs in the EU institutions. Salaries were on offer at 19 times the available wages in their home countries.

Of course the differentials for the UK civil servants are nothing like as extreme, but losing talent to the other side generally doesn't work.

If a leading cricket club flogs its best players to opposing clubs, then it can hardly be surprised if the other clubs prosper. Oh they may take on a couple of the characteristics of the original side, but when your best batsmen are playing for the other side, don't be surprised if the other side win.