The Green Inquistion

The sight of Januz Lewandowski crumbling in the face of Green pressure is sad. Bruno picks up the tale,

In an interview with the Novy Przemysl magazine, Mr Lewandowski argued the EU's policy of increasing greenhouse gas reduction targets would be a "disaster" for Poland, which is still rebuilding its economy from the backwardness of the Soviet era.

"There is a view breaking through that the theory of coal-generated power as the main culprit of global warming is seriously in doubt," he said.

Brave man in the current climate, too brave it turned out,

Green campaign groups and an alliance of MEPs described the commissioner's comments as "terrifying" because, it was claimed he was seeking to "deny the overwhelming evidence of climate change".


"The commissioner should fully explain himself," Joris den Blanken a Greenpeace spokesman told the EurActiv website. "If not, the consequences for his role in the European Commission should be considered."

Following a week of increasingly shrill calls from the European Parliament and NGOs for him to recant his views or face disciplinary sanctions, Mr Lewandowski made a humiliating climb down.

"In order to clarify misunderstandings," he said in a statement. "I acknowledge the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientific studies confirm the phenomenon of global warming."

UKIP's very own Godfrey Bloom has piled into the fray,

The sight of Commissioner Lewandowski being forced to recant in the face of the strident Greens looks like nothing other than the Inquisition. With the High priests of Greenery acting as so many Torquemada's.
It is not that I often that I agree with the Commissioner, but he absolutely right, and right to speak out. To see him crawling in apology to these people is a sad day for the freedom of speech. For these people to link him to the holocaust and him a Pole is outrageous.

In 1616 a committee of advisors to the Holy Inquisition attacked Galileo and declared that holding the view that the Sun is the centre of the universe or the earth moves is absurd and formally heretical. Today holding that Anthropomorphic Climate Change is anything more that a desire on the part of heavily subsidised pressure groups and government to tax and control our lives is the same.

In 1992 the Catholic Church finally admitted that Galileo was right.

Crackers is as Crackers does

Under 16 year olds are banned from buying Christmas Crackers by EU regulations.

Sounds like a Euro myth doesn't it. The sort that flary nostrilled UKIP types would make up to scare granies as they sip their old mellow British cream sherry.

So lets look at the advice sent out by the Govt department,

The Regulations

The Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2010 are regulations which transpose into UK law European Directive 2007/23 on the placing on the market of pyrotechnic articles. In UK legislation the Regulations primarily replace the Fireworks (Safety) Regulations 1997 but have wider product coverage and cover the whole of the UK. There is a transition period until 3 July 2017 for products that comply with the existing legal requirements.

All terribly sensible no doubt, so what about those kiddies with Christmas Crackers?

The minimum age limit for supply of category 1 fireworks is 16 years (see regulation 15(2)). Christmas crackers fall within category 1, among other low hazard, low noise fireworks.

You will be relieved to note however,

The Regulations do not however apply to toy percussion caps for toy guns etc.

Which is fortunate because as well all know, these days after the age of about 12 children now buy real guns on the black market and blow each other away.

Anyhow I just note the response of Godfrey Bloom MEP to this,

"Year after year children are severely wounded by indiscriminate pulling of Christmas crackers" said Godfrey Bloom MEP today. "That is absurd of course, but seems to be the thinking behind the application of a European Directive."

The regulation, The Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2010 transpose into UK law European Directive 2007/23 on the placing on the market of pyrotechnic articles.

"What this means in practice is that retailers have to demand ID from customers wanting to buy crackers and nobody under the age of 16 will be able to buy crackers. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) describes the rules as 'particularly daft', said Bloom.

"They are too kind. The rules are ruddy stupid.

"They seem to assume that everybody is an idiot, that nobody is safe and that every 10-year-old is a budding Guy Fawkes hoarding Christmas crackers in an attempt to blow up the House of Commons in an apocalyptic cataclysm of bad jokes and paper hats.

"I wish it were true but, sadly, this is just another example of the moronic British application of nannying EU rules.

"They will not rest until each of us is a dribbling incompetent, incapable of deciding what is and what isn't in our own interest.

"Here's an idea. Trust people to make decisions based on facts as they are presented, rather than employ armies of busybodies to check on the activities of innocent children and storekeepers," said Bloom.

Quite so, Godders, quite so.

Bloom: the whole story

Now he spoke rudely, of that there is no doubt, but the approach of Mr Schultz is indeed that of one that believes in,

"One country, one people, and three presidents"

However having refused to apologise he was ordered out of the cahmber, at 9.35 in the morning. At that point the rules state that he will be dealt with by the Preseidenta nd/or the bureau.

This diod not happen and McMillan-Scott at the time of the vote hours later demanded again a new apology, and used his refusal as a pretext to have him blocked from voting in a dubious 'soviet style' procedure where he was ordered to leave after a 'Supreme Soviet' style vote..

This was beyond the powers of the chair and wrong. MacMillan-Scott should apologise.

Bloom

Can anybody tell me if there is an elected politician anywhere in the world who would be happy to have on his own twiter feed the above biography?

I just wonder.

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).

"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."

FSA : Frankfurt's Sodding Accessory

And so it comes to pass. Today the FSA announced both the launch, and the conclusion of a consultation into Bankers bonuses.

According to Rueters,

The FSA said Thursday it would launch a formal consultation process over the planned changes but added that its existing code on remuneration would be strengthened.

How do they know the result of their consultation, because they have been told it by, you will never guess.... yes Brussels.

On July 7, the European Parliament approved what are seen as the world's toughest curbs on bank bonuses, and EU member states, which have joint say, are set to endorse the new law.

The proposed EU rules would stipulate that the maximum amount of upfront cash in a bonus should be 30 percent, while for large bonuses it will be capped at a fifth.

EU states want to allow 40 percent of a bonus to be paid upfront, and a deal on a definitive figure is expected later this year.

Godfrey Bloom, UKIP's financial spokesman had this to say,

"So presumably the conversation went something like this Monsieur Barnier Supremo European Financial Services and monarch of all he surveys.

“May I suggest this new bonus scheme for London City Bankers?”

Hector Sants, for it is he, “Wonderful idea Sir I will install it immediately”.

The relationship is that of Monty Burns to Smithers.

Here is the FSA on the subject,

"We will see what the final text says and apply it appropriately," an FSA spokeswoman said.

Why on earth are they wasting our money on a consultation?

In the FT it is even more absurd.

While the EU legislation had been under discussion for months, it caught most bankers by surprise when it was finalised earlier this month.

No it didn't. It caught financial journalists by surprise. Not the industry and certainly not UKIP, both of whom have been banging on about the dangers for months, nay years.

The planned changes, while not unexpected, are likely to spark anger and confusion across the City, which believes that London’s competitiveness as an international financial centre is under threat...
Industry groups have argued that EU member states are now at a disadvantage to countries such as the US and Switzerland, which have adopted less onerous restrictions on pay in the wake of the financial crisis.

Oh brother. Now Mr Osborne, and yes you Mr Cameron. Has our sovereignty been compromised by this by any chance? Has the power to set regulations over our most successful industry been thrown away?

Yes?

Well can we have that promised referendum then please?

The Carbon Cracks

Hugely important news comes pout of France, reported on PA,

France has backed down from a plan to tax carbon dioxide emissions that had been central to its push for a more prominent role in the fight against climate change.
The plan, launched by president Nichola Sarkozy with much fanfare last September, has been stalled since being ruled unconstitutional in December.
Mr Sarkozy's government had insisted a reworked tax would go into force by July.
Leading conservative Jean-Francois Cope said after meeting the prime minister that they agreed that any carbon tax "would be Europe-wide or not (exist) at all," instead of being a French-only tax.

This is huge news, particularly in the light of the reasons given,

Many within Mr Sarkozy's own conservative party said the opposite and it would disadvantage French companies compared to European rivals.
Among the French, surveys show around two-thirds of people opposed the measure.

Of course it shows the short sightedness of the EU's political leadership. France wants to be competitive inside the EU. Britain must be competitive outside the EU. Or as Godfrey Bloom MEP said,

"Of course that is economic madness". said Bloom. France wants to make itself competitive in the EU, Britain must be competitive in the world".

Sadly of course, he went on "in Britain the three establishment parties would prefer to sacrifice our economy on the altar of climate alarmism".

The Wall Street Journal at least notes the issue. And the FT has some more detail,

François Fillon, prime minister, told a meeting of centre-right parliamentarians
that France would not penalise its industry by introducing the tax unilaterally.
“All decisions taken on the issue of sustainable development must be analysed in the light of our competitiveness,” Mr Fillon told the deputies. “We want the decisions to be taken in common with other European countries otherwise we are going to see a growing shortfall in our competitiveness.”
The decision to ditch the tax divided the government. Chantal Jouanno, the junior minister for the environment, lashed out at the decision saying she “despaired of this retreat”.
Since an EU-wide carbon tax is unlikely to gain approval in months ahead, if at all – the Swedish government pushed the idea with little success during its EU presidency last year – the French levy has, in effect, been shelved.

Save the Planet... Save the planet

I note a press release from Godfrey Bloom MEP ridiculing this piece of absurdity from the Parliament,

From: ROMER Harald Sent: 10 February 2009 17:24To: MEP & ASSISTANTS

Subject: Participation of the European Parliament in the campaign "M'illumino di meno" on Friday 13 February 2009

COMMUNICATION TO MEMBERS

In the context of the fight against climate change, the European Parliament has committed itself to cutting down its carbon emissions by 30% by 2020. This is to be achieved through various activities, based on detailed studies, and under the political guidance of the Bureau.

The European Parliament is also participating in various activities which aim at drawing the attention of European citizens to this goal. In this framework Parliament takes part, under the high patronage of President Pöttering, in a campaign called "M'illuminio di meno" on Friday 13 February 2009.

"M'illuminio di meno", which aims at highlighting the necessity to save energy, is an initiative of the Italian radio Rai Radio2, supported by the Italian Ministry of Environment. By a simple act, using less light, the campaign aims at focusing the attention of the Institutions, media, and citizens of Europe on best energy-saving practices. The day in question, also called "Energy-Saving Day", falls this year during the European Week of Sustainable Energies.

Like the previous year, the European Parliament will play its part in this event by switching off all the outside lights and the maximum possible of inside lights in the buildings at Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, between 18.00 and 19.30. All of the Members and the staff in these three places of work and in the Information Offices in the Member States are invited to switch off, at the same time, the lights in their own offices.

For reasons of security, certain lights will stay on, even during this period of time.

The Italian initiative has in recent years extended to several famous European monuments and buildings such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Trafalgar Square in London and the Custom House in Dublin.

I would like to thank you for your support in this action, which demonstrates the engagement of our institution in energy-saving practices and in the development of sustainable energy.

Harald RØMER
Secretary-General

I will leave it to Godfrey to comment,

Godfrey Bloom MEP (UKIP Yorkshire and Humberside) today took the President of the European Parliament to task for his "pathetic" attempt to wrap himself in green credentials.

"The Parliament is going to turn off some of its lights between 6pm and 7.30 pm on a Friday evening after everybody has left work", said Bloom. "And this is how they aim to achieve a 30% cut in emissions? It would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic".

In a missive sent to all staff in the Parliament, Harald Romer, the Parliament's Secretary General on behalf of Hans Gert Pöttering the President, has asked that, "All of the Members and the staff in these three places of work and in the Information Offices in the Member States are invited to switch off, at the same time, the lights in their own offices."

"For the last 6 months all the lights in the new, unused building were blaring into the night, despite requests to turn them off and now this. It is a piece of shameless grandstanding and shows how little the institutions really care about energy conservation. But of course, why would they care, they are only wasting taxpayer's money after all", he went on.

"If they were to close down the pointless monthly trek to Strasbourg then we might see some real savings, but of course they wouldn't do that now would they", said Bloom.

Well I couldn't say it better myself

Hairy Moneyball and free speech

Meet Mary Honeyball, Labour MEP for London and blogger. (To be fair to her she allows comments and sometimes responds to them). She posted a constituent email about the TICAP - now Ind/Dem conference on prohibition.

Her own comments were rude and dismissive, even suggesting that her correspondent was paid.

This diatribe comes to you courtesy of a Ms Brenda Orsler, a delegate to the
conference against prohibition who apparently paid to attend out of her own
resources.

As far as I can make out, it is a pro-smoking event. What is even more
interesting is that has been sponsored by the appalling Godfrey Bloom, UKIP MEP.

And then her comments box caught fire, go take a look, it is quite fun.

Watch those windfarms generate energy

Or more to the point watch them fail to generate energy due to lack of wind in the high pressure zone that has brought the cold snap. Effective use of subsidy pounds isn't it?

Nobody died of passive smoking

Well that must be the way to read the response from the Commission to a question from Godfrey Bloom. The question was based on a link to an article by Dave Hitt I found on the Joe Jackson website.

The question went something like this,

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3520/08
by Godfrey Bloom (IND/DEM)
to the Commission

Subject: Environmental tobacco smoke

According to the Commission Green Paper 'Towards a Europe free from tobacco smoke: policy options at EU level' (pdf) (COM(2007)0027), more than '79 000 adults' die in the EU per annum from the effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS).

This claim is the driver behind the proposals by the Commission to bring in a binding directive later this year to enforce smoking bans in workplaces.

Given that the impact of such a directive will be considerable, both economically and
socially, could the Commission please name three or four people who have died from ETS within the European Union in the last two years?

Which is a bit cheeky but I think makes the point.

The answer finally arived on the Parliament's last working day before the summer recess,

E-3520/08EN
Answer given by Ms Vassiliou
on behalf of the Commission
(18.7.2008)

The Green Paper 'Towards a Europe free from tobacco smoke: policy options at EU level" , refers to the estimates of mortality attributable to passive smoking in the EU reported by Smoke-free Partnership in Lifting the Smoke-screen: 10 reasons for a smoke-free Europe . These estimates are based on the international evidence on the level of risk posed by exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and the estimated proportion of the population exposed rather than individual cases of deaths due to passive smoking. The nature of the epidemiological evidence on all risk factors, be they chemical or other, is such that it does not allow to identify the victims at individual level but only populations.

The Commission is now considering several possible policy options including a possible proposal for a Council recommendation as a follow-up of the Green Paper.

The Impact Assessment currently being carried out will provide a basis for the final policy choice. It will also provide further information on the impact of exposure to ETS on health.

That appears to be a No, I think, we cannot. Everything is based on nmodels and estimates. Not the real world. A pathetic answer that fails to deal with the fact that thousands of people will be amde jobless and a way of life, that is pub, bar and club culture will be destroyed. Why? Because they want to, not because they have any scientific evidence.

However the Commissioner's answer may in fact be something to do with a little known case at the Civil Service Tribunal. This, the junior partner of the European Court of Justice, gave a judgement on what is known as the Labate case.

The applicant, Mrs. Kay Labate, widow of former European Commission official Mario Labate, on her own behalf and on behalf of her husband's estate, contests the Commission's decisions refusing to recognise the lung cancer of her husband as an occupational disease.

Mr Labate was an official with the Commission for 29 years, during which time he was exposed, according to the Applicant, to a large amount of secondhand tobacco smoke. He was declared permanently invalid following the discovery of the lung cancer which subsequently led to his death. He submitted a request for recognition of the illness as an occupational disease.

Ah so they wouldn't want to admit to passive smoking being the cause of death or they would get by any number of claims. That would affect the Commission's own bottom line as the compensation paid could be punitive. Sure enough look at the Commission arguement,

While acknowledging Mr Labate's exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke and finding no other cause for his lung cancer, the Medical Committee in its decision nonetheless stated that it could not establish with certainty the connection with his professional activities. The Commission accordingly denied the request, following the finding by the Medical Committee that the connection between the disease and Mr Labate's professional activities was not sufficiently established.

The judgement states quite baldly

"The claims for compensation submitted in the letter of 25 October 2007 by Mrs Labate are dismissed as manifestly unfounded"

So either we are all going to die of passive smoking (Ref. the upcoming smoking at work directive) or we are not(see Labate judgement).

This seems to be a case of the Commission having its cake and eating it, or maybe filling its pipe and smoking it.