The US Ambassador's political Ferrero Rocher to the EU

If France really is America's best friend in the world then it seems that the US Ambassador's words to the European Parliament should be taken as a symptom of their chumminess.

"I want to stress that the UK needs to remain in the EU.

"The US does not want to see Britain's role in the EU diminished in any way.

"The message I want to convey today is that we want to see a stronger EU, but also a stronger British participation within the EU.

Susman, who took up his current post a year ago, added, "This is crucial if, together, we are going to meet all the global challenges facing us, including climate change and security.

"But let's be clear: all key issues must run through Europe."

Perhaps this style of shooting from the lip should be taken as a post Wikileaks diplomatic approach. Get those things that might be leaked out in the open.

I would say however that this former Democratic fundraiser must be doing his master's bidding and this is the official view of the State Department. So be it. But it shows yet again how the Obama Whitehouse is losing its way on foreign policy. It ill behoves the US to tell us from a public platform what is, and what isn't good for us.

A diplomat's job is of course to make friends, and by saying this sort of stuff in Brussels rather makes the point. He wants to curry favour with the assembled throng in the European Parliament, and there is nothing that the EU likes to hear, (and federasts in the UK like to hear) more than hearing the siren voices of global compacts and nascent one world government.

But His Excellency forgets that little thing, that small fly in the ointment, democracy and the will of the people. He also forgets another basic thing. If the EU is such a good partner (remember the way that the bid countries of Europe running to the US's side during the war, and the anti-American rhetoric that takes up so much domestic political discourse in Germany and France) then it will remain a good partner with or without the UK.

The UK will reck its own rede and rightly so. If we believe that the US is doing what is right we should support it, if not then we should not.

Likewise your Excellency, and cordially, we understand that sycophancy to your hosts is part of diplomatic discourse, but cordially you really ought to mind your own business.

Lizard joins Lazards

Guido is confirming that Baron Mandelson of Foy, the great lizard of New Labour is joining Lazards.

“London, 21 January 2011 – Lazard Ltd (NYSE: LAZ) announced today that Lord Mandelson, former Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulation, effective immediately. As a Senior Adviser, he will provide independent strategic counsel to the firm and its clients.”

What is interesting is the timing. He has just this month stopped recieving the payments from Brussels that are designed to tide him over while he looks for a new job, what is called the 'transitional allowance'. An allowance that has been netting him about £8,000 a month.

As Nigel Farage said back in September,

Nigel Farage, the European leader of Ukip, said: "Lord Mandelson sits on his sleek backside and continues to sponge up over £100,000 in euro dole. Why doesn't he do something useful for once and get a real job?"

Now there are arguements that suggest that if you reduce people's benefits they are more likely to find themselves gainful employment.

Point proven I would say. It seems that Lord Mandelson is Britain's biggest benefits scrounger.

Here's an idea, cut spending...reduce debt

Dan Mitchell has spotted the extraodinary idea that even the European Central Bank gets it,

I’m not a big fan of central banks, and I definitely don’t like multilateral bureaucracies, so I almost feel guilty about publicizing two recent studies published by the European Central Bank. But when such an institution puts out research that unambiguously makes the case for smaller government, it’s time to sit up and take notice.

He highlights the key points, specifically this one,

…this paper estimates several specifications of a logistic probability model to assess which factors determine the probability of a major debt reduction in the EU-15 during the period 1985-2009. Our results are three-fold. First, major debt reductions are mainly driven by decisive and lasting (rather than timid and short-lived) fiscal consolidation efforts focused on reducing government expenditure, in particular, cuts in social benefits and public wages. Revenue-based consolidations seem to have a tendency to be less successful. Second, robust real GDP growth also increases the likelihood of a major debt reduction because it helps countries to “grow their way out” of indebtedness. Here, the literature also points to a positive feedback effect with decisive expenditure-based fiscal consolidation because this type of consolidation appears to foster growth, in particular in times of severe fiscal imbalances.

Cutting spending results in reducred debt, raising taxes is nowhere near as effective.

Got that Dave and your 50% tax rates? Stop buggering peopole around, let them keep their own money, stop splashing their money about the place and the deficit will slowly sort itself out.

Why is the EU "both attractive, and irrelevant in international politics"?

Interesting post by Nicu Popescu, on whether the EU's soft power is merely freeloading, on the European Council on Foriegn Relations website.

The EU is proud that it is a ‘soft power’ (when you make others what you want through attraction, rather than coercion). It also thinks this is the most sophisticated and benefic way to exercise power (‘post-modern’ in other words). It might be true, but seen from the outside the logic of soft power might not be that appealing for others. In fact if you sit in Dushanbe, Caracas or Karachi why would you care for someone’s soft power?

The answer is, you don't really. No matter how nice you are and attractive you are the dreams of  The European Elite are still meaningless. Of course the author thinks that the answer is for the EU to furnish itself otherwise,

In other words, a state or a union of states, can have some soft power, but not be a soft power. Consequently soft power can and will only work on the margins and in support of other types of power – hard, military or economic. It is an enabling factor for the effective use of other types of foreign policy tools, but not a replacement for them

But really the point is made, Europe is freeloading and has been for one hell of a long time. What is interesting is that in the seven or so years since Robert Kagan wrote "Of Paradise and Power" there seems to be very little change. Europe is still from Venus.

Oh Herman.. Will you sign this for me

I mentioned yesterday about Herman van Rompuy calling Nigel Farage ridiculous.

I have now learned a little bit more about what was going on.

Herman has a number of journalists around to write a puff piece about the release of his new book.

"What I did on my holidays in 2010"

"Dear Members of the Btruusels Press corpse.." he starts, and how right he is. I am told that there was a scrum of journalists around him trying to get signed copies of the tome.

They are dead, from the gut up.

Is it time for Michael Mann to step down

I just wonder, because as Andy Coulson says,

"When a press officer needs a press officer then it is time to leave".

Thank God nobody in Labour listens to Cruddas

John Cruddas has co-authored a piece in the Telegraph today with Prof Jonathan Rutherford  derived from an article in Progress Magazine.

Together with Billy Bragg, and oddly at times Polly Toynbee he articulates an aspect of Labour that could, even should have resonance across the country. He is talking about England, but the lessons are as valuable in the other nations that make up our land.

In Dover the port is up for sale and the people are campaigning to buy it and create a community asset. They don't want a foreign-owned port, they want a people's port that is ‘forever England'. Football supporters are building community-based organisations by share purchase - in Liverpool, for example - to save our clubs from foreign corporate power. In the Forest of Dean, thousands are rallying in protest at the plans by the government to sell England's forests which are England's ‘green beating heart'. In London, porters at Billingsgate fish market campaigned to stop the City of London abolishing their ancient English role and making them redundant. Where is Labour in the fight for an England which belongs to the English just as they belong to the land?

Labour is no longer sure who it represents. It champions humanity in general but no-one in particular. It favours multiculturalism but suspects the symbols and iconography of Englishness.

Of course he is quite right, andthe territory that Labour has vacated in the last 50 years has been taken up in part by the Tory party. But they too fail to trust the people. They have their Big Society, but it is instructive that it is ill defined. Because though they play lip service to the idea, they canot let go of central power.

Cruddas has articulated in part something that UKIP would do well to encapsulate.

Labour's future in England is conservative. England's radical traditions are rooted in the political struggle for the liberty that Edmund Burke describes as ‘social freedom'. There is a powerful strain of rebellious individualism in English socialism which helped to create a politics of liberty, virtue and democracy and a vast popular movement of voluntary collectivism, cooperativism and mutual self-improvement. English socialism shares antecedents with Toryism but it differs from it in one significant way. It was a militant defence of a common life, and of individual labour and creativity against the unaccountable power of capital and against the usurpation of the state. Its desire to conserve the integrity of the individual placed it in conflict with the class structure of property rights and power. Capitalism unbound was the enemy of the people and of individual self-realisation. The struggle for liberty was a struggle for democracy, not for paternalism and an organic society where each knew his place

He is wrong to think that local communities, the self-help of the Friendly Societies and Working Man's Institutes are antipathetic to ideas of economic freedom, they should be part of it, two sides of the same coin.

Ferdinand Mount got somewhere near it in 'Mind the Gap' and it is territory that UKIP should nmake its own.

Labour is no longer able to follow this thinking,

It must, in a literal sense, go out to the people and once again find its place as an organising force in the life of our country, from the cities to the market towns and the villages. England is being sold by the pound and in places like Dover, the Forest of Dean, Liverpool and Billingsgate Market people from all walks of life are organising together to reclaim it for the common good.

But UKIP can.

Sometimes the Flemmings are touched with genius

Via Simon Blackley

Richard Barnbrook joins English Democrats

Odd news via Toque

Following an invitation by Derek Hilling the National Party Secretary of the English Democrats, Richard Barnbrook - London Assembly Member, attended the English Democrats National Council meeting on Saturday 15 January 2011 in Coventry to explain why, he would like to join the English Democrats party.

Following discussion, and debate, the English Democrats National Council voted to allow Richard Barnbrook to join the English Democrats party in the Capacity as London Assembly Member, subject to further discussions/agreement with the English Democrats London Area Council.

BOTH

Robin Tilbrook (National Party Chairman)
&
Steven Uncles (National Communications Director)

announced their intention to abstain from the vote, for reasons given at the time to the National Council Meeting, before the vote took place.

Not sure if that is a good thing the ED are doing there.

Denver Police are surely going to get their man

Priceless headline via James Taranto

Police search for Moron

Oh the irony

This in Pravda,

Hungarian prime minister criticized for new media laws

Van Rompuy has a go at Farage

He also again rubbished the verbal attack on him by UK Independence Party MEP Nigel Farage who famously likened him to a "damp rag" when Van Rompuy gave his maiden speech in parliament at the start of his term in office.

Van Rompuy said he believed his record to date had proved the UKIP leader wrong, adding, "You know, in every society there are ridiculous people."

So according to Herman Van R, Farage is ridiculous. All depends on your perspective I suppose.

After all hiding your misuse of official vehicles is a tad ridiculous, particularly when you know that, in the end the truth will come out.

UKIP's polling improves, but should be better

The PM's long term strategy team should be having a few concerns. According to Anthony Wells, and pinged around the 'tinterweb via Tim Montgomery he is commenting that UKIP are now beggining to see a significant and lasting benefits from the shambles that is outr government. Interestingly the latest YouGov figures on Lib Dem to UKIP switchers seems to mirror what Smithson highlighted yesterday to some incredulity. According to YouGove the switchers Tory  - UKIP and Lib Dem - UKIP are about the same which tallies with Ashcroft's Old and Sad post election poll.

Now tie this in with the energetic debate going on on Con Home relating to the new(ish) research about the sort of people who vote UKIP, and the predictions being made by the reports authors, Dr Robert Ford of the University of Manchester and and Dr Matthew Goodwin of the University of Nottingham, viz.

UKIP has now emerged as a potent competitor on two very different fronts. On the one hand, UKIP is tapping into widespread Conservative scepticism about Europe to win over large numbers of Tory voters at European Parliament elections. But in Westminster elections, UKIP is also attracting a very different following. The party is becoming an outlet for the frustrations of voters who are angry about rising immigration, anxious over the presence of ‘threatening’ Muslim communities, and cynical about mainstream politics, but repelled by the BNP’s reputation for racism and fascism.

Now, if all this is the case, and we are as far away from an election as we suspect, then the likelihood of UKIP topping 8% across the country in the next Westminster poll is high. We have after all never been anywhere near this level at this stage of the electoral cycle. What this means for the European elections is even more moot. It appears that Nigel Farage's stated belief mentioned to Alex Singletion isn't as some would wish, hot air.

I was having a beer with Nigel Farage recently when he came out with a most remarkable statement. “UKIP,” he declared, “will win the next European election.”

If UKIP are looking at these polling numbers, what does that do in a FPTP election when the parties are squabbling over reduced majorities? What indeed. And what, while he remains committed to the coalition can Cameron do about it?

Is Warsi using Islam as a protective cloak

Today's speech by Tory Chairman Baroness Warsi about how ghastly it is that people conflate Islam with terrorism seems to put herself out on an even greater limb than she was before.

But I wonder if this speech today in Leicester is a calculated move to make it very difficult for Dave to sack her.

He postion was pretty precarious after she launched into the Tory right and claimed, with an apparent straight face that the Conservatives had fought hard in Oldham.

As James Forsyth pointed out after her excerable performance last week on the Today program,

What to do about Warsi is quite a problem for the Tory high command. She does visibly show how the party has changed but she’s also not very competent. Cameron has already split her role, giving Cameron’s university friend Andrew Feldman a whole bunch of the financial and administrative responsibilities. But as one Tory press adviser said to me just now, ‘you can’t put her on the radio. She’s just a disaster waiting to happen.’

So what does she do to glue herself to her job. Accuse the majority of the British that they are Islamaphobic for even thinking  that there are degrees of extremism, and 'good' or 'bad' Muslims.

She even suggests in some bizzare way that terrorism comitted abroad is broadly acceptable, just terrorism committed here should be dealt with,

“Those who commit criminal acts of terrorism in our country need to be dealt with not just by the full force of the law,” she will say.

She is, in this speech redefining Islamaphobia. After this, if I suggest that there is a material difference between Mr Assad down the road and some chap waving a poster saying 'Death to Democracy, We will cut off your heads" then I am now guilty of the thought crime she abhors.

Tebbitt offers some no doubt unwanted, but sage advice,

Had Baroness Warsi sought my advice, I would have counselled her not to make the speech which has been trailed in The Daily Telegraph today.

I would have told her that the Muslim faith was not discussed over the dinner tables of England, nor in the saloon bars, before large numbers of Muslims came here to our country. Then I would have told her to go to our Christian churches and listen to what was said about her religion and those who practise it, then to the Mosques to hear what is said in some of them about the Christian faith and those who practise it (or about Buddhists, Jews, or even those who have no faith at all).

After that, I would say, she might consider who is in need of her homilies on prejudice.

Until then a period of silence from the Baroness might not come amiss.

The thing is My Lord, that this is her using attack as a means of defence.

Now what does Dave do? She has painted him into a corner. If he sacks her, she can now come out saying that it is an Islamaphobic act, and Dave doesn't want to be seen to be nasty. If he doesn't sack her, more and more people will feel that he endorses her attack on the vast majority of normal reasonable people in this country.

Update
Doesn't look like Dave likes the position she has put him in. The gap between thines in this short statement is cavernous. (from PA - no link)

Asked whether the Prime Minister agreed with Lady Warsi that prejudice against Muslims was becoming more widespread, David Cameron's official spokesman said: "She is expressing her view. He agrees that this is an important debate."

Is UKIP starting to benefit from the coalition?

Is the interesting statement from Mike Smithson,

The Tory peer and benefactor, Michael Ashcroft, funded a call-back poll in Oldham E and Saddleworth and the key voter churn figures are featured in the table.

This showed the proportion of Lib Dem general elections voters switching to Labour at 29% of the total - a figure that is almost exactly in line with recent national polls. The 7% of yellows going to UKIP seems quite high.

The Tory vote did fall sharply but not all because of blue-yellow switching. UKIP picked up nearly one on ten of Tory general election voters. A third of all Tory voters from last May moved to the Lib Dem.

This would tie in with what we are finding up and down the country.

Defend the City

Just to let you know about an event next week in London,

It is taking place on

Thursday, January 27th, 6.30pm

London Capital Club

15 Abchurch Lane, London EC4N 7BW

 

Come along for what promises to be a fascinating evening

They could always vote UKIP Mr Gove

Acccording to Nick Robinson,

Defending his plans to cut Educational Maintenance Allowances in the Commons this afternoon Gove praised councils that helped students with travel costs:


"In Hull, Liberal Democrat-controlled Hull, any student in receipt of EMA also gets a travel grant to cope with the full cost..."

Then, in response to interruptions, he continued:

"Well, they won't if a Labour council takes power, I suspect. But if they're wise enough to vote Liberal Democrat at the next local elections in Hull..."

Cue lots of ooh-ing and ahh-ing and a knowing smile from the minister:

"... or for the Conservatives in any seat where we are well-placed to defeat Labour, then they will have a council that is fulfilling its statutory duty".

At present, the Liberal Democrats run Hull city council, Labour are the opposition and the Tories have just 2 out of 59 seats (those 2 are not up for election this May). Tory voters in Hull have just been invited to vote tactically.

Why is anybody in the Tory Party still supporting their leadership when they think like this?

This cannot be true...Can it?

The Mail are reporting that a child has been turned away from a baby group  in St Neots, Cambridgeshire for being British.

Shop worker Emma, who lives in St Neots, booked a place at the playgroup six weeks ago after it was recommended by a mixed-race friend.

'I said I knew it was trying to integrate people into the community but didn't realise that meant British people and their children were banned.'

She said: 'The first thing I was asked about was my nationality and when I said I was British I was told we had to leave.

'She said are you not aware this is for foreign people only?

If this is about integration as suggested, then er... who are they integrating with given that the host, native, vernacular call it what you will population is excluded.

And this statement from the organisers of the playgroup is just bizzare,

According to Making Links' website the group 'seeks to operate in the spirit of the Commission for Racial Equality'.

Its targets include: 'bringing communities together and facilitating interaction between them'.

The website claims about 50 women attend the weekly sessions every Thursday.

It adds: 'Making Links frees them from feelings of isolation, helps them build multicultural friendships and empowers them with knowledge about the local community.

'Thus Making Links presents a friendly St Neots face to people who might otherwise be outsiders.'

Roger Owen, administrator for Making Links, said that the group is not a 'typical' playgroup and is funded entirely for women from other nationalities.

He said: 'We believe there are plenty of other alternatives for British mothers in the town.

'We have had an issue with men turning up before and back then we told them the group is strictly for mothers so it's nothing to do with racial discrimination.'

Multicultural friendhips eh? Like with the locals perhaps, or are immigrants only supposed to know immigrants. And surely if peiple want to integrate and if St Neots have plenty of other groups, why is this being funded, given the integration could take place, dare I say, in the pre-existing groups?

Oh dear the lefties are confused

Came across this on a forum called Urban 75 which appeares to be a rag tag pof lefties and so forth. They don't seem to know what to do about UKIP.

On a thread called 'No Platform for UKIP?' comes this plaintive concern...

No Platform for UKIP?


Research from Goodwin and Ford argues that UKIP is Britain's fourth largest party ahead of the BNP and is attracting BNP voters.

http://www.physorg.com/wire-news/568...ght-party.html

How does 'anti fascism' take on UKIP if it isn't fascist?

Awkward one that don't you think?

What is Herman hiding?

Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader has just recived an answer to a question he posed to Council President Herman van Rompuy. If brevity is the soul of wit, we have just discovered that Herman is one of the funniest men in the world.

Either that or we have him bang to rights. You decide.

First cast you mind back to a story broken by Bruno Waterfield in the Telegraph about the posssible misuse of public assets by Van Rompuy and his family.

Aides for Mr Van Rompuy admitted to The Daily Telegraph that he used official cars and chauffeurs to take him, his wife, four children, two of their spouses and two grandchildren more than 162 miles to France to catch a holiday flight in August.

The story went on,

Officials have told The Daily Telegraph that use of chauffeurs and cars for the benefit of Mr Van Rompuy's family would "seriously bend the rules" in the other Brussels based EU institutions, such as the European Commission or Parliament.
"There are strict rules for Commissioners taking drivers on a mission outside Belgium and on private use of cars. Using chauffeurs and cars for family trips is not permitted," said a Commission official.
A European Parliament spokesman said that the use of official cars for "shopping, or taking family on holidays and that kind of stuff" is not allowed.
Nigel Farage, Ukip's European leader, said: "Preposterous. Mr Van Rompuy is delusional about his importance, but ever so keen to take up the trappings of power. Why are we forking out for chauffeurs for a Eurocrat's grandchildren so they can go on holiday?"

If what Bruno alleges is true and this happened in national politics there should be hell to pay. If Cameron was to do something similar the media and opposition would be frothing, rightly in my view about this cavalier approach to official cars, and this arrogant appropriation for private use of the trappings of office.

So Farage asked a question on the 20th October, at which point it took 8 days to get to the Council,

Is the following, as reported in the Daily Telegraph(1), accurate and, if it is inaccurate, what is actually the case?

‘Aides for Mr Van Rompuy admitted to the Daily Telegraph that he used official cars and chauffeurs to take him, his wife, four children, two of their spouses and two grandchildren more than 162 miles to France to catch a holiday flight in August.

His official motorcade was then waiting for the family group to bring them back to Brussels from Paris when they returned from their private vacation, thought to be in the Caribbean.

The cost of an equivalent trip, hiring three S-class Mercedes cars and drivers from the Brussels based “Belgian Limo” company, would be over GBP 4 000.’

If this is not the case, what are asserted to be the correct facts?

Now the rules governing Parliamentary Questions are quite rigid viz

Other questions (non-priority questions) shall be answered within six weeks of being forwarded to the addressees.

So an answer came back on the, lets see the 1st of December, no lets be nice an allow the first 8 days, the answer came back on the 9th December. Nope not then, the answer came back on the 14th January. To be fair the answer has to be translated into allthe languages of the EU, all 22 of them so these things take time. So given it has taken them ten weeks to come up with an answer you would have thought that it would be a good one wouldn't you. You would be right. Here it is (and brilliantly it is only available on the Parliament's website in Danish)

This document is not available in your language. Please choose another language version from the language bar.

Parlamentariske forespørgsler og spørgsmål

4. januar 2011 P-8951/2010
Svar
Det tilkommer ikke Rådet at kommentere artikler i pressen.

We do have a paper version of the answer though,

P-8951/10
Reply
(4 January 2011)

It is not for the Council to comment on articles appearing in the press.

Eh? Run that one past me again, they don't comment on what is in the press! Then what on earth are this lot for, the Council Press team (they even have two on media monitoring - what do they do? Scan the international press to find out what they are not going to comment upon?)

Nicolas KERLEROUX
Head of the Press Office
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 82 39 GSM +32 (0)475 36 96 76
Fax +32 (0)2 281 80 26
nicolas.kerleroux@consilium.europa.eu

SECRETARIAT

Cécile MONIN

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press.office@consilium.europa.eu

Dominique COCHARD
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Patricia SIDAROUS
(CSDP: Common Security and Defence Policy)
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presse.psdc@consilium.europa.eu

SUPPORT TO THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT

Jesús CARMONA

Deputy Spokesperson of President Herman Van Rompuy
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Carla VALTORTA
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press.president@consilium.europa.eu

Pilar GONZÁLEZ MURILLO
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press.president@consilium.europa.eu

PRESS OFFICERS

François HEAD
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Mary BRAZIER
General Affairs and Foreign Affairs
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mary.brazier@consilium.europa.eu

Stavros PETROPOULOS
Common Security and Defence Policy
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Céline RUIZ
Common Security and Defence Policy
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celine.ruiz@consilium.europa.eu

Jochen MÜLLER
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Azadeh SHARAFSHAHI
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Xavier PAVARD
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xavier.pavard@consilium.europa.eu

Víctor FLAVIÁN
Competitiveness (Internal market, Industry, Research and Space)
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victor.flavian@consilium.europa.eu

Miriam VANČOVÁ
TTE (Telecommunications and Energy)
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miriam.vancova@consilium.europa.eu

Reinhard SCHMIDT
TTE (Transport)
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Susanne KIEFER
Environment; Education, Youth, Culture and Sport; Development Cooperation
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Jérôme UNTERHUBER
Budget; Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs,
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jerome.unterhuber@consilium.europa.eu

Dana MANESCU
Crisis management mechanisms; Coordination of the Council public sessions, Videostreaming
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dana.manescu@consilium.europa.eu

Zoltan SZELES
Management; Projects
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zoltan.szeles@consilium.europa.eu

RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION

Helena GOMES
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helena.gomes@consilium.europa.eu

Reinhard SCHMIDT
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Evi LIASKOU
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CENTRAL SECRETARIAT

Bienvenido PICAZO RUIZ
Tina GROSVENOR
Rita PIOVANO
Anna MADEJ
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PRESS CENTRE

Margarete GILOT-KÖHLER
COUNCILS, COREPER II/EUROPEAN COUNCIL

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Valerie GOLDSMITH
COUNCILS, COREPER I/PHOTO DEPARTMENT/EUROPEAN COUNCIL

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Ana Paula PONTE

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Yvonne VESTBERG
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Technical assistants

Giuseppe FULVO
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 64 16
press.office@consilium.europa.eu

Giuseppe ANCONETANI
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 83 08
press.office@consilium.europa.eu

Stavros SPYRIDONOS
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 88 18
press.office@consilium.europa.eu

AUDIOVISUAL

Counsellor, Head of sector

Isabelle BRUSSELMANS
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 57 13 GSM +32 (0)475 75 34 06
Fax +32 (0)2 281 80 26
isabelle.brusselmans@consilium.europa.eu

Audiovisual production and publication/Multimedia library/Coordination/
Editing

Andrea DESORMEAUX
Maria BRIANCHON
Alexandre MARX
Pavel KAUCKY
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 67 16 GSM +32 (0)477 97 35 52
Fax +32 (0)2 281 80 26
andrea.desormeaux@consilium.europa.eu
presse.audiovisuel@consilium.europa.eu

Tel. +32 (0)2 281 78 20 Fax +32 (0)2 281 80 26
presse.audiovisuel@consilium.europa.eu

Tel. +32 (0)2 281 63 21
alexandre.marx@consilium.europa.eu

Tel. +32 (0)2 281 77 36
pavel.kaucky@consilium.europa.eu

Technicians

Wim MINTEN
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 71 65
wilhelmus.minten@consilium.europa.eu

Jussi VIRTANEN
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 58 61
jussi.virtanen@consilium.europa.eu

Luis Enrique BARQUILLA
GONZÁLEZ
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 54 65
luis-enrique.barquilla-gonzalez@consilium.europa.eu

Toufiq ZIOUI
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 71 16
toufiq.zioui@consilium.europa.eu

Photo

Christos DOGAS
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 71 15 Fax +32 (0)2 281 50 65
service.photo@consilium.europa.eu

Tashana BATISTA
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 63 49 Fax +32 (0)2 281 50 65
service.photo@consilium.europa.eu

Enzo ZUCCHI
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 73 47 Fax +32 (0)2 281 50 65
service.photo@consilium.europa.eu

Mario SALERNO
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 71 88 Fax +32 (0)2 281 50 65
service.photo@consilium.europa.eu

BUDGET / PROJECTS / INTERNET

Etienne SNYDERS
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 64 30
etienne.snyders@consilium.europa.eu

Fernando FRAGUEIRO
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 81 23
fernando.fragueiro@consilium.europa.eu

Laura di ROSA
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 73 67
laura.dirosa@consilium.europa.eu

Antonio FERNÁNDEZ GÓMEZ
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 64 52
antonio.fernandezgomez@consilium.europa.eu

MEDIA MONITORING

Johan SLOTBOOM
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 55 05 Fax +32 (0)2 281 53 35
hans.slotboom@consilium.europa.eu

Joaquín NOGUEROLES GARCIA
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 20 74 Fax +32 (0)2 281 53 35
joaquin.nogueroles-garcia@consilium.europa.eu

Carlo CUMBO
David HEALY
Roberto SALVI
Veronika CAVAGLIERI
Christina PÖSSINGER
Jamal BANI
Katrien LUYTEN
Tel. +32 (0)2 281 63 19
Fax +32 (0)2 281 53 35
media@consilium.europa.eu

Oh, by the way, we are asking some follow up questions,

What are the rules governing the use of offficial cars by officials working for the European Council and their family members?


Is The President of the Council covered by these rules?

What are the rules governing the use of official cars by the President of the European Council.

We expect the answer...  by mid summer....  in Maltese

Science, nil; alarmism, one.

Ben Pile isn't impressed with the new Climate Change exhibition, 'Atmosphere' at the Science Museum. I haven't visited it yet, but am a regular visitor for pedagogical reasons. However Ben, who advises Godfrey Bloom on Environmental matters has been.

The contrast between the space race and today’s low aspirations epitomised by Atmosphere invites a further comparison of the prevailing ideologies of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and their propaganda. For all the world’s deep and dangerous problems that belied the optimism surrounding the Apollo programme, and of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin’s missions, they remain uplifting reminders of what is possible. The contemporary preoccupation with climate change, on the other hand, yields only joyless propaganda: an antithesis to the progress promised in the past.

It is worth reading the whole thing.

Barroso is disengenuous about European Court of Auditors

Sorry about thism, but having added the film of Marta Andreasen's exchange with Barroso to my previous post, I think it deserves a closer look in a new one.



And here I am thinking about Barroso's comments about describing the European Court of Auditors as an 'External Auditor'.

The Court itself says this,

Provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon concerning the European Court of Auditors and its activity
Article 13 of the TEU states explicitly that the Court is one of the Union’s institutions.

And yes, lets look at the Lisbon Treaty to check,

Article 13

1. The Union shall have an institutional framework which shall aim to promote its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States, and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions.

The Union's institutions shall be:

- the European Parliament,

- the European Council,

- the Council,

- the European Commission (hereinafter referred to as "the Commission"),

- the Court of Justice of the European Union,

- the European Central Bank,

- the Court of Auditors.

So OK, it is indeed it is an EU institution, not an external auditor.

Then down in article 286 we see this,

7. The Council shall determine the conditions of employment of the President and the Members of the Court of Auditors and in particular their salaries, allowances and pensions. It shall also determine any payment to be made instead of remuneration.

Which suggests that an Auditor like Maarten Engwirda may well find himself deprived of his pension as it seems that his pension may well come under the same rules of future behaviour that Commissioner's themselves come under.
 
Also Barroso's comments that he wouldn't want to influence the Court, then admits Marta's follow up that the Commission does send requests and instructions seems to be off kilter. His suggestion that her question is of the same order of merit as a Commission statement is outrageous.

Make your mind up man, and stick to the facts.

Marta calls for action on European Court of Auditors

Marta Andreasen is tonight asking the Commission what it plans to do about the revelations given that the UK government refuses to act.

"The allegations, which come as no surprise to me, pointed essentially to the lack of independence of EU auditors which affects the level of transparency in their reporting of irregularities.

"Furthermore they put into question the basis on which this parliament has been granting discharge for the last fifteen years."

She added, "It is now time for this parliament to demand that the EU budget and accounts are audited by a truly independent body, external to the EU institutions.

"Without this independent audit member states and parliament are in no position to continue discharging the European commission of its financial responsibility."

Andreasen said she will ask Barroso if he will allow an external auditor to review the accounts during a Q&A session in parliament.

Ind Home points out that this might be 'squirming' but sadly that will be should rather than will as the EU is never going to do anything that seriously opens up its procedures.

It is also worth noting that Siim Kallas who was accused by the Dutch auditor of applying unseemly pressure on the ECA is considering legal action for defamation.

Now to me this sounds like bluster,

Siim Kallas says the accusations are completely defamatory. We are seriously considering going to court,“ Kallas's secretary Hanna Hinrikus told uudised.err.ee.

After all, I would guess he has the EU's legal services run their eyes over the allegations. If he had legs to stand on they would have done more than 'seriously consider'.

Maybe another PQ.

Update
Marta poses her question


I note that Barroso describes the European Court of Auditors as the European Union's 'external auditor'. Which is odd given what the ECA says here,

Provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon concerning the European Court of Auditors and its activity
Article 13 of the TEU states explicitly that the Court is one of the Union’s institutions.

Ecofin has confidence in the survival of the Euro... Well that's nice

Peter Spiegel over at the FT has this rather delightful snippet from the Ecofin conference on the Euro,

The euro will survive…for at least another year.


So proclaimed Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and head of the euro group of countries, who announced Monday night that doubters of the currency’s future would be proven wrong in a year’s time.

The reason for his optimism? Finance ministers from all 17 members of the single currency late Monday decided to mint a new €2 coin next year to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the euro’s circulation, which rolled off mints and presses in 2002.

“It shows that we very much believe the euro will still exist and those who speculated the euro would no longer exist are wrong,” Mr Juncker declared at a post-meeting press conference. “The coins at least will be very physical evidence of that in 2012.”

And the feet of Ozymandius still stand in the desert.

Greeks propose a way forward for smokers

In the frst four months of teh Greek blanket smoking ban pover 450 penalty notices have been handed out to bars in the Athens area alone. It is obviously not running as smoothly as it has done in the UK with widespread disobiedience.

So the Greek government, which is cash strapped remember, has had a  collective head-scratching about this and has come up with a nice idea. After all they are pretty well hated amongst the population, and this EU driven legislation is just pissing off the populace. So they are proposing this,

The Greek government is planning to introduce smoking licences for wet-led venues so that customers can smoke.


The cost will be decided based on the size of the establishments and any venue that allows smoking without the licence will be closed.

There is of course the fiscal incentive...

The government believes it could bring in “at least” €50m (around £42m) from issuing the smoking licences.

So Mr Cameron. You can be liberal, big society, and raise cash for the exchequer? What do you think?

When economists disagree

There is an ongoing disagreement between Prof Tim Congdon and Liam Halligan. It started with Congdon having a go at Halligan in Standpoint Magazine.

In his influential Interest Rate Observer, the American pundit James Grant lamented that QE2 was "the start of a new adventure in money printing". Like many monetary conservatives of the backwoods persuasion, he praised gold for its ability to retain its real value despite the printing presses and other iniquities of the modern world. In Britain, Liam Halligan of Prosperity Capital Management has expressed similar views in the Sunday Telegraph, although his wrath goes back to the Bank of England's embrace of QE in March 2009. In his words, quantitative easing is "a polite, yet intellectually dishonest name for ‘money printing'". 

Halligan didn't take to kindly to that, and after larding Congdon with compliments says this,

So I like and admire Tim Congdon. But I think he is wrong about QE – dead wrong. Reading his latest article, I also sense that, with public concerns mounting, and given the outrage sparked by the latest attempts of Ben Bernanke to launch QE2, a $600bn (£387bn) expansion of the Federal Reserve's original programme, he knows he is losing the argument.

Normally this sort of debate continues in its slightly arcane fashion back and forth, but Congdon has, quite literally upped the stakes,

I will pay Halligan any figure he cares to mention up to £100,000 if the increase in RPIY in the two years from March 2011 is 6.1% or more higher than the increase in RPIY in the two years from March 2009. Halligan will pay me the same figure (i.e., the figure up to £100,000), if the increase in RPIY in the two year from March 2011 is 6.0% or less than the increase in RPIY in the two years from March 2009.’


Will Halligan take up the wager and for a decent sum of money? Well, let’s see.

All rather fun,

How responsible is the BBC?

Via EU Referendum,

UK Govt to do nothing about CoA alegations

Just watching the House of Commons and was pleaseantly surprised to hear Dominic Raab bringing up the question of the workings of the European Court of Auditors. Remember that the Dutch member of the Court resigned at the New Year to make his allegations about corruption in the Court, whitewashed reports and pressure from Siim Kallas and the Commission to water down audit criticism.

I will have to wait for Hansard but the exchange went something like this,

Dominic Raab: What is the Government doing to ensure the accuracy of the auditors reports of the CoA in the light of the Dutch allegations.
Sir George Young Bt: We suppor the excellent work of the Court of Auditors in rooting out fraud in the EU

The point being is that the question was about fraud in the Court. And this Government dodged it. After all they could ask the British member of the Court to report, on oath, about the allegations, but have chosen not to.

Friendly advice

The Hefferlump is interviewed in the current edition of Total Politics by Ian Dale. In the interview he has this to say about UKIP,

ID: What advice would you give to Nigel Farage now he's become leader of UKIP again? What does he need to do to make progess?


SH: All Nigel has to do is wait, actually. He's got to play a waiting game and let the Conservative Party get into such a mess about Europe that he becomes the natural alternative. He has also got to broaden what UKIP does. To be fair, at the last election he was talking about grammar schools, talking about tax cuts... There are also a lot of people in the press who are determined to make no distinction between the BNP and UKIP, which is insane. UKIP is not a racist party like the BNP. It doesn't have any views on that at all, other than being very firm on immigration.

If I were Farage, I would be talking to people on the right of the Conservative Party, both at MEP and MP level and in the House of Lords, about whether they can find common purpose in some way. This coalition may be the beginning rather than the end of a realignment in British politics. I know Cameron seems to feel incredibly happy in bed with Nick Clegg, much happier than he is with some of his own party. The logic is that the Conservative Party, which is of course a coalition anyway, can't last in its present form. It may take 20 or 30 years. It may be Nigel Farage's successor that does that. I admire Farage. He's incredibly committed. He's incredibly articulate and he's got great convictions. He's right about a lot of things. To make UKIP a more serious party he needs to start convincing Conservative voters that they will never get what they want from Dave Cameron, but they will get it from him.

So the advice amounts to sit tight, sort out your own house in policy terms and keep talking to people. To me this all sounds pretty sensible. But I would be interested in your thoughts.

The EU Presidency, brought to you by Audi, VW...

Skoda, Samsung, Uncle Tom Cobbliegh and all.

Ralf Grahn has pointed out that the program of the Hungarian Presidency is,

(This is the first presidency programme I remember seeing with corporate sponsors.)

And this is what he means, (p58 of the Pdf)

What are these companies paying for when they sponsor the program, what are they getting from the Hungarians, and what from the EU?

I think we should be told.

The Swiftian EU, Where Big Press Officers have little press officers

My discovery today of one Marilyn Carruthers, described on her twitter page as,

Press officer to the Spokesman brings to mind Jonathan Swift's poem,

 The vermin only teaze and pinch

Their foes superior by an inch.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum

Which of course is reduced in the nursery ryhme,

Big fleas have little fleas,

Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum

.Now of course I understand that EU Commissioners need to have press officers - or if they are feeling particularly grand Spokespersons, but do the press officers need press officers, and as a matter of interest, does Ms Carruthers have a press officer?

How many Swedes does it take to kill a wolf?

337 of them apparantly. I get the idea that Red Riding Hood would be in big trouble in Sweden according to this report on Euractive.

The European Commission is preparing an infringement procedure against Sweden, after it allowed a cull of 20 wolves by 6,747 hunters on Saturday

What we have hear of cousre is another example of Brussels interfering with something that should be a local issue. That is hunting wolves in outback Sweden

Wolves had been all but extinct in Sweden until the 1990s, when a very small number were re-introduced to the country's north. Their offspring are now thought to number around 250. As a result of their limited genetic pool, they are very in-bred.

It appears that the hunters are not in any way trying to exterminate the wolf in Sweden, and with that hit rate they would be hard pushed, but they are trying to control (not decimate please note) the numbers of an animal, artificially reintroduced.

So we now have a large number of animal lovers (living mostly in the urban south), telling the people who live and work in the wild North what they should and shouldn't be doing. That would be bad enough if the row was kept in Sweden, but would work within their democracy. Now however we have the whiole apparatus of the EU coming down on them.

Sledgehammer meet nut.

Biffo blunders on

Much speculation about Brian Cowan standing down today when he announced that in fact everything was just spiffing and it was in the best interests of himself if he stays as Ireland's leader.

Poor Erin.

What does the bloated buffoon need to knock into his heed that Ireland deserves better than him. The man has obviously sat on araldite.

"I think Galileo is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests,"

The above quote sounds like the sort of thing that might be said by Gerard Batten the UKIP MEP who has been attacking the egregious waste that is the EU's satellite system for years. But in this case it is not he. It is not even the shade of Gwyneth Dunwoody who while Chairman of the Commons Transport Committee famously described the system as,

"not one pig flying in orbit, this is a herd of pigs with gold trotters, platinum tails and diamond eyes",

Nope this is the comment from the head of German satellite firm OHB Technology, Berry Smutny. According to Wikileaks he told an American diplomat,

the project was "a waste of EU taxpayers' money championed by French interests," according to the cable.


"He claimed the EU desire to develop a redundant but alternative to GPS was spearheaded by the French after an incident during the Kosovo conflict when the US military 'manipulated' GPS to support military operations," the cable said.

"Since this time, he said France has aggressively corralled EU support to invest in Galileo development -- something Smutny said France wants to ensure their missile guidance systems are free of any GPS reliance. Smutny added, the irony for German investment in Galileo is that some of France's nuclear missiles are aimed at Berlin," it said.

He should know, his firm was jointly awarded a 566 million euro ($742 million) contract to develop 14 satellites for the system.

Commision's reverse ferret on Christmas

Responding to the awful press that has come about from the slight error in missing out Christmas whilst keeping in Eid in their children's Europa diary, the EU has issued a panic reply.

Immediate remedial action taken to correct omission of Christian holidays in Europa Diary 2010/2011

Immediate remedial action is being taken to rectify the omission of certain Christian religious holidays from the Europa Diary 2010/2011. This was a regrettable error which will be addressed by a Corrigendum sent to all teachers who ordered this edition of the Diary in all EU Member States concerned. There was never an intention to discriminate against the Christian religion in this publication.

Of course it was only the fact that the Mail and the Sun picked up the Story that seems to have had an impact. After all it was fiirst reported by Bruno in December. The Bishops got upset at COMECE, even the Italians got a bit narked.

We are asking the Commission the simple cost of the mistake,

After all if they are sending a corrigendum to cover all the teachers its not going to be that cheap.

Guardian Stable hits buffers

Bad figures across the board for newspaper sales in December but worst hit are the Guardian papers, with the daily dropping near on 12% to 264,819 and the Observer taking an even greater panning with a drop of nearly 15% to 301,457.

As the long hoped for culling of non-jobs in the public sector bearing down upon them, can these titles really survive in the current market?

The days are gone when a Tory wife will just accept their husband taking up with a mistress

James Kirkup reports on the attitude of a supposedly Tory Cabinet Minister towards the coalition and his own members,

“The Lib Dems are like a new girlfriend – when you get into bed, you’re on best behaviour, you fold your clothes properly and so on. The Right are a long-standing partner, so you’re not worried about leaving your towel on the floor or breaking wind under the duvet.”

Nothwithstanding the coarseness of the metaphor - no doubt the minister's own soiled sheets were purchased at Peter Jones on expenses - the attitude to his own side is deeply revealing. The party leadership holds its own membership in contempt. Yes the hard working, leaflet delivering, cheese-gobbling and wine-swilling membbership who get him and his sort into office. By his thinking they can be ignored, patronised and treated like old baggage. After all they will never leave will they?

But those days have long since passed. Expanding his metaphor, he is suggesting that his own people are like the long suffering wife, comfortable butyt not exciting. Whereas the Lib Dems are the sexy new mistress, the one that gets the braclet as long as she supplies the frisson of excitment. A dangerous game to assume that the wife will stay  and accept this public flaunting of the mistress today. They are more likely to leave, taking the house, the children and a great chunk of the money.

When will the grassroots realise they are held in such disdain by those who purport to represent them?

Never a truer word spoken

Had a look at the European Parliament website and was struck by the headline

What language do you use to campaign for Belgium?

English of course, if you use French is pisses off the Flemmings, if you use Dutch it annoys the Walloons, so instead campaigning for Belgium is conducted in English.

Sad really, and fatal I suspect.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

Or in this case the EBBAs. I have written about them before, as they are the EU's own music awards. (Drumroll). And tonight in Holland the award will be handed over by Jools Holland to a German outfit, the Baseballs.

There is something so right about the Baseballs getting this award. After all they are German, and have had success across the continent, chariting in Austria, Germany, Holland, Finland Sweden and Norway.

But even more apt given that the award is being handed over by the EU is that they don't seem to have their own tunes. Their oeuvre is, as far as I can tell all cover versions, what is more they are rockabilly cover versions, of Lady Gaga, Rhianna, and here below, Snow Patrol.



There biggest hit to date is Rhianna's Umbrella, which reached the dizzy heights of number 135  in the UK single charts.

Now given that they are a pop band, given that they have a Platinum disk, why of why oh why is the taxpayer paying anything to them? Will somebody please explain?

His Grace's cancine cadances

This is a splendid rendition on the Government's Soveriegnty Bill,

Frankly, he is dog-tired of this interminable EU-UK dog’s life. In all of his dog days in this dog-eat-dog world he has never understood why this dog-eared parliament, stuffed with dog-leg MPs with dog-end perspectives, surrendered its omnipotence to a dog-in-the-manger oligarchy such that the EU tail is now constantly wagging the UK dog and we’re all dogged with directives and dogma perpetuated by dogmatic dogsbodies who couldn’t give a damn about anything but their doggone careers. In case they haven’t noticed, they're all in the doghouse, and if something isn’t done soon to remedy this dog's breakfast the British people will let slip the dogs of war and a dogfight will ensue the likes of which we have not seen for three or four centuries.

And when it comes, as it surely must, it will be the canine’s testicles.

Not one to let a sleeping dog lie is His Grace.

Even the EU's auditors are dodgy

Leigh Phillips at EUobserver has picked up an important breaking story.

The Court of Auditors is often classed as one of the better EU institutions. I rexcall one press conference with them which they opened with a disclaimer that they were still an EU institution, despite how critical they were being (that ws about the CFP). They are also the institution which has famously refused to sign off the EU's accounts for the last 15 odd years.

So it is quite something when one of their members (ex-member to be fair) Maarten Engwirda lays the boot in one sits up and listens.

"There was a practice of watering down if not completely removing criticism," Mr Engwirda told the paper. "I wanted to write a book, I was so sick of it all."

In particular, Mr Engwirda, a former politician with and leader of the the social liberal D66 party, which is staunchly pro-EU and federalist, accuses his French and Italian colleagues, amongst others of this type of activity.

But he also speaks of "heavy pressure" from then anti-fraud commissioner Siim Kallas in 2005 for the court to relax its standards.

Engwirda who resigned from the Court on the 1st of January, I suspect so that he could go public on these allegations is no pushover.Despite that course he qualifies it, by saying that all this has changed now... but he would say that wouldn't he. He has a pension to worry about.

What is going to be interesting is to see the position of Siim Kallas after this. If Mr Engwirda has proof of Kallas's pressure then surely he should resign?

Update
Marta Andreasen former Commission chief accountant and UKIP MEP said,

"These comments are no surprise to me. They merely echo the treatment I recieved as Chief Accountant of the European Commission. I experienced constant pressure to conceal the truth about EU expenditure and swallow any criticism. I witnessed the arm twisting of the Auditors each time they attempted to reveal the failures in the EU accounting and control systems. I myself suffered the Auditors lack of support when I stood up in defence of European taxpayers. As I have been repeating for the last 9 years the European Court of Auditors is not an independent body and their opinion, on the basis of which the EU expenditure is approved, cannot therefore be relied upon. This arrangement has allowed massive irregularities and waste in EU funding and I have absolutely no hope that this situation will ever change".

No need for a bail out: Redux

Do you remember this in November?

the statement repeated that Ireland was ”fully funded until well into 2011” and it “has made no application for external support.”

Although Irish leaders have said the country needs no new cash until June, concerns about its finances have spread to other so-called “peripheral” EU economies, driving up yields on their government bonds.

But publicly Irish ministers reiterated that they were not in discussions with the EU and were determined to weather the storm. “We must show clearly that Ireland can stand alone and it’s determined to get out of the financial difficulties we are in,” Batt O’Keeffe, Irish enterprise minister, said on local radio.

Ireland was fine, little local difficulty etc and so on.

Now hear this from Portugal's Finance Minister,

Portugal has no plans to seek a bailout from the EU and IMF, and the government is doing everything possible to avoid doing so, Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said.

"We are seeking to avoid this possibility," Teixeira dos Santos told TSF radio when asked about a possible rescue.

Portugal is widely seen by economists as the country that is most likely to follow Greece and Ireland in seeking outside help with its finances to take it out of the firing line of the widening euro zone debt crisis.

Late on Tuesday, a Bank of Portugal board member was quoted as saying the country would leave behind its crisis more easily if it sought foreign financing.

But Teixeira dos Santos said the country was capable of continuing without a bailout, adding that the average interest rates it is still paying on its debt are relatively low, with only a small proportion being serviced at current higher borrowing costs.

"We are doing our work. clearly Europe is not doing its work to guarantee stability of the euro," he added.

Anybody spot the similarity?

No wriggle room say Govt

David Liddington the current Europe Minister was baffling away on the Today program this morning, trying to persuade us that the Europe Bill being debated today in the House is substantial,

"We are saying any future change to EU treaties, however minor, will be subject to a full Act of Parliament.

"Any extension of EU competencies, (such as) a decision like joining the euro, would have by law to go with a referendum. There would be no wriggle-room for the Government.

Yeah right Mr Liddington. Why am I not convinced?

Please note that "any future change to EU treaties, however minor, will be subject to a full Act of Parliament."
So what. This is not any future changes will be subject to a referendum is it. And with your vast payroll vote, any future changes can be whipped through with the support of her Majesty's opposition who agree with you on maintaining the EU status quo.

Thus when the Treaty changed last year in the light of the Bail out, there was a heavily whipped vote. But the people did not get their say.

And you still keep for yourself the right to decide what is, and what isn't "extension of competencies".

I am sorry but I, and the majority in the country don't trust you or your government on this. And more, you know it.

The wriggle room you mention, is that the one with the Elephant in it?

Eurocrats are full of it

A noisome little snippet comes my way. Just before Christmas the European Commission formally opened Europa House, its new headquarters in Smith Square (fampously the old Tory Central Office) and my current office.

A big drinks do ensued with William Hague leading the applause, and Jerzey Buzek taking the thanks.

All well and good. The room was filled with Eurocrats great and small. Hundreds of em.

From what I am reliably informed the results were noxious. The loos we so filled that they blocked, flooding the basement with effluent and stinking the place out.

Now we know the truth, eurocrats really are full of it.

Update
Now it has been pointed out that there were probably less than 250 people in the room. That Mr Hague was not a Eurocrat, Mr Buzek is an MEP, therefore not a Eurocrat in the strictest sense (though I would suggest that since the MEP wage changes he is paid by Brussels not Poland and thus he is now a Eurocrat) and I am indeed one of those Eurocrats. Worse still many of those indeed the majority of those in the room were not Eurocrats at all, they were British supporters of the EU (Quislings then?) It has further been suggested that the engineers and design of the toilet system were probably British (maybe Polish?)  thus the blame for this should go to them rather than the vast quantity of shit flushed down the loo. Perhaps.

FFS Dick, this was a humerous aside, not something to be parsed into oblivion.

Cold, colder, coldest

AM has done (another) fine piece of work on the excreable Met Office (oh how they must wish he would go away). It appears that at the very least, unlike constant claims that despite December this was a very warm year, it wasn't.

But while the Met Office has been focusing the attention of the media on the record cold December statistic with its right hand, its left hand has quietly confirmed further down in the article that in the UK 2010 was the 12th coldest year since the ‘national series’ of weather recording started in 1910.

So which is the bigger story? The one that tells us we have just had our coldest winter month in 100 years? Or that against a backdrop of the ‘consensus’ telling us that runaway global warming is transforming the planet, the UK has just experienced its 12th coldest year in the same period?

I would say that 2010 comes into the colder catergory.

Forget the scooter Mark, there is a juggernaut in the room

Mark Wallace is getting a little hot under the collar that a Europhile think tank is suggesting that the US help bail out the Eurozone. Admittedly he is right that their plaintive cries may not recive a popular hearing in the states, but I suspect he should be looking elsewhere for his money.

China is where. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is wandering around the Continent spraying currency into various bottomless pits,

China has been increasing its holdings of EU government debt since the outbreak of the crisis. In a statement released Thursday, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng, who is accompanying Li, said, "China maintains confidence in European and Spanish financial markets and believes they will overcome the current crisis."

and there are some sensible economic reasons for this. But there are also deeper political reasons.

But there is a political price to pay. Recently, Wen Jiabao called on European leaders not "pressure China on the yuan's appreciation." China's help provides it with traction on that issue, and can help drive a wedge between the US and Europe.

Sunno about you Mark but this rather concerns me.

China as Eberhard Sandschneider, analyst at the research institute the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), points out, is interested mainly in

"stability across the world, in almost all areas - concerning its own domestic stability, but also concerning regional, international and financial stability",

And stability sounds great. But of course stability requires a reduction in freedom. Nothing so stable as a dictatorship with all the military power in its own hands. Nothing so stable as a situation where democracy ceases to have meaning, and people cannot remove their government. Stability is momentary in this world of ours, and like the earths crust, whilst it can be achieved, what comes after registers on the Richter scale.

No Judge Teare, he is not a "decent man"

Some scruffy ha'porth has just been handed down a two year conditional discharge for criminal damage,

Chris Kitchen, 32, was one of 18 protesters sentenced this week after being found guilty last month of planning to trespass at Eon’s coal-fired Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire and shut it down for a week.

So far so good, if he ofends again a decent sized hefty tome should be chucked at him from a great height, lets say the complete works of the IPCC.

But what really narks is this comment from the Judge,

Judge Jonathan Teare, sentencing, described those convicted as “decent men and women with a genuine concern for others”.

No your honour they aren't. They may have some sort of theoretical affection for mankind, in abstract. But when it come to real, individual, messy people they don't give a bent farthing. They have cost taxpayers, according to the prosecutor's estimates £300,000 in court costs. They have disrupted people going about their dauily, law abiding lives. They take the law into their own hands and they despise progress.

It is mealy mouthed comments like that that give them the moral purpose which they seek.It ios people like you who are the problem, why we see such ludicrous and craven respionses to deliberate lawlessness.

You would have done better to have kept your mouth shut.

Van Rompuy's chief visier pours scorn on Hungary

Richard Corbett, the former dire, bean-counting Labour MEP has slated the Hungarian Presidency in the current edition of European Voice (£),

I was curious to read your special report on the “Hungarian Presidency of the EU” (16 December 2010-5 January 2011). There is, of course, no such thing!
Hungary merely chairs one of the EU institutions, not the EU as a whole. You (and others) may wish to elevate the Council (and its president) above all the others, but I dare say that the presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament may have other views.
The rotating presidency of the Council was always an over-rated function. It is short-term, without executive powers, and inherits a pre-set agenda. Since the Lisbon treaty, its prime minister no longer chairs the European Council, its foreign minister no longer speaks for the EU on the world stage, nor even chairs the foreign-affairs configuration of the Council.
Special supplements about new member states are welcome, but do not imply that they are suddenly in charge!

Van Rompuy's website lists Corbett's responsibilities as,

Institutional Issues
Relations with the European Parliament and the National Parliaments
Relations with the Committee of Regions and the Economic and Social Committee

Which carries the suggestion that he should now a little bit about diplomacy. Obviously not. I initially wondered if he was a tad tired and emotional when he wrote the above.

I mean is this an official statement from Van Rompuy's office to the Hungarian Presidency? And if so I was the speaker of the Hungarian Országház I would be demanding his head on a plate.

However that being said, and despite the mean spirited way in which he says it I cannot believe he was really drunk, and I do believe that he is representing his master's voice. He can hardly suggest that he isn't acting in an official capacity after all. And what he says isn't in itself inaccurate, just nasty. And if anybody knows the dark corners of institutional wrangling it is Corbett.

Van Rompuy, as a Belgian, has a hatred of functional nation states. The Council of Ministers of which Hungary now holds the Presidency is a thorn in the side of the federalists who he represents and his contempt for national interest and the approach that encapsulates the actions of democratic nation states brings him out in hives.