A sad farewell to "The West Wing"

The best series I have ever seen on television. Witty, very sharp, wordly, good insights into people.

Occasionally too idealistic about the USA's place in the world and too heart on the sleeve, andDonnatalkedtooquicklyjustlikethis, but this hardly detracted.

Real adult entertainment.

Are there any other fans out there sad at its departure?

And now it's fridge wars

Mandelson embroiled in ‘fridge war’, reports the Financial Times.

He has decided not to impose tariffs on “three-door side-by-side” fridges from Korea. Officials were considering anti-dumping duties of 12.2%, but reportedly Mr Mandelson intervened so that the duty would cover 2-door fridges only.

“There is no European production of these three-door fridges, so the idea that European industry is damaged by cheap Korean fridges coming into the EU is a bit hard to argue,” said one EU official.

But manufacturers want the tariff because they say they plan to make the fridges in Europe in the future, and the alleged dumping would make that unviable.

They claim Mr Mandelson ignored procedures, but his aides say a comfortable majority of EU members support him.

But the decision was out of the UK's hands. If these fridges were being produced in (say) Italy, we would probably have to pay more for them soon. Presumably the 2-door fridges will now be dearer.

UKIP election on BBC website

The BBC has reported the UKIP leadership election here.

Nigel Farage is still described as the front-runner, and the BBC's summary of his pitch is here.

All four leadership candidates will be participating in the Westminster Hour on BBC Radio 4 this Sunday, 30th July, the UKIP website reports.

The show will be broadcast at 10.00pm and will include interviews with all of the candidates.

Nigel Farage's big claim in the leadership contest is the media coverage he can attract. Well, it seems to us the BBC has all the contenders on a level playing field. That suggests they would interview and quote the new leader, whoever he is.

If Nigel Farage's claim that he can generate extra media exposure is dubious - what are his other claims to the leadership? None that we can see.

Fortress EU puts more clamps on trade

Peter Mandelson has been criticised by retail groups for backing down on a pledge to apply widespread exemptions to anti-dumping duties on shoe exports from China and Vietnam. He is aiming to appease the "Shoe Five" - Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Poland. Northern trading nations such as the UK, Sweden and Denmark, oppose the tariffs.

The new scheme will result in retailers paying a duty of 16 per cent on shoes imported from China, compared with an average of 3 to 4 per cent under previous proposals. The new duties will also be applied to children’s footwear which until now has been exempt. The Commission announced the U-turn two weeks after its initial proposals and without consultation.

The Commission has already announced plans to place anti-dumping tariffs of 15.2% on plastic bags from China and 14.3% on bags from Thailand.

Separately, British exporters and importers face paying tens of millions of pounds to comply with a new European Union regulation, reports The Times. Companies that fail to comply with the new rule could face crippling delays to their exports and imports, burdening them with extra costs.

The EU Customs Security programme, which will start in January, is part of a drive to crack down on terrorism, fraud and conterfeit products. All exporters and importers will be required to have a special security certificate to move their goods quickly to and from the EU.

Companies in the United States, Canada and Australia have signed up to certificate programmes and other countries are planning similar schemes, says the paper. The first EU certificates will be granted in January and it is understood that the new regulation will be phased in during next year, granting companies with the certificate a quick passage and leaving unauthorised companies with added paperwork.

The process is onerous, it says. For some big businesses, it may take up to 18 months to apply and would require a team of full-time employees working on the application. Matthew Knowles, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “Adding another hurdle will make the process even more difficult for small firms.”

The Times concludes with advice from the tax director at Ernst & Young:

• Firms that think they may be affected by the new rules should obtain a copy of the criteria for becoming an “authorised economic operator” from the European Commission
  
  
• The short application form is included in the Commission documents, but the accompanying criteria document is about 60 pages long
  
  
• Businesses should carry out an impact assessment to check that they are ready, scrutinising all the areas that have to comply, such as their IT systems, their supply chains and human resources policies

Spain - an EU country to watch

Spain is often cited as a country with its economy permanently over-heated - the government can't raise interest rates to cool down demand because of that little beast the Euro. The country's changing in other ways too. We've probably all seen the huge amount of property development going on in parts of Spain. And today The Guardian highlights another change - immigration.

Spain was a country with net emigration until the late 1980s. Now, after 10 years of economic growth, it has 3.7 million immigrants of its own - or 8.7% of the population.

Some of them are British. "Some 47,000 Britons ... signed on as new residents at Spanish town halls last year. That brought the registered British population in Spain to 274,000....
But experts estimate that up to three times as many Britons, about 750,000 people, spend a significant part of the year living in Spain."

In 2005 the official population figure was 44.1m.

Spain has created more than half of all the new jobs in the European Union over the past five years, The Guardian reports.

At least 700,000 immigrants from Latin America, eastern Europe and north Africa live in Spain without proper residency or work permits, government officials have said. The figure is down by 650,000 since last year, when the Socialist government decreed an immigration amnesty.

It was the sixth immigration amnesty in Spain in 16 years, and was predicted to increase social security contributions by up to £1bn a year.

Opposition politicians said there may be a million more foreigners living illegally in the country.

The Guardian points out that sub-Saharan Africans barely show on the official statistics, but "west African immigrants are arriving by their hundreds on rickety boats bound for the Canary Islands". And "young immigrant families have finally turned around a birth rate that had become one of the world's lowest".

Well, we must hope for Spain's sake that things turn out well. But you do wonder if the Spanish government can do more than cling on to a runaway train for dear life. And if Spain hits the buffers, that will spell trouble for the EU.

Yes, it's carbon again

Political debate continually changes. David Miliband talked recently about carbon swipe cards, an issue we referred to in our piece about Any Questions.

Spiked ran a very readable piece yesterday about carbon swipe cards, too well written to summarise. Read and enjoy.

Carbon swipe cards seem to be the sort of idea that politicians play with when they sit around talking to each other and their sycophants, rather than getting out into the real world. What they never seem to suggest is that government should do less rather than more.

UKIP (I just knew they'd get into this piece somehow) could be the only party to oppose these cards. I doubt if Mr Green the Tory will dare rubbish them, and the idea feels so Lib Dem.

If you have worked through your political principles, you don't need months of policy gestation to produce a view. UKIP favours small government and lower taxes, so it's not hard to see that carbon swipe cards would not be a UKIP policy. This is not because of died in the wool bowler hatted political obscurantism, it's because the idea is bonkers.

Not all bad ideas start in Brussels. If you pretend they do, or only talk about the ones that start from there, you will be seen as a staring-eyed monomaniac who can only talk about one thing. Some people may come out and vote for you in Euro-elections with a shake of the head because those elections don't really matter, but that will be about it.

We can be more ambitious than that. So do we want to be a ghetto party, or join wider debates?

Gunter Verheugen blames everyone else

As we reported earlier this month, out of 54 regulatory simplification projects that the EU Commission had planned for 2006, only 5 have been finalised so far. Now Gunter Verheugen has blamed senior EU officials - and called for "a red tape reduction quota to be fixed to member states".

Thus he is proposing to tie up countries' red tape reviews in ... more red tape. He says the commission has withdrawn 67 "unnecessary proposed laws" from the EU's legislative machine, but the reduction of existing regulation has met heavy resistance from the commission's own staff as well as the European Parliament and member states.

He suggested that "an administrative reduction of around 25% would release €75 billion into the European economy," though quite why he thinks a figure of 25% would be remotely achievable across the EU we are not sure.

EUobserver reports

He added that member states are not always happy to support the commission when it proposes to chop regulation.

His own plan to scrap 80 EU laws regulating the size of the packaging of food products was resisted by the UK and Germany – normally de-regulation champions - as well as by MEPs who reacted to the plan by issuing a list of products where packaging sizes still need regulation.

We continue to argue that this is tinkering at the edges - and ineffective tinkering at that. He let the RoHS Directive go through, even though it is based on flawed science. It will cost the UK alone at least £1.3bn annually - and that's the DTI's estimate.

Are tax allowances a good thing?

Attempts to stimulate the enterprise culture through targeted tax relief schemes and incentives are being undermined by widespread ignorance of the government support available, reports the Financial Times.

Interviews by PwC with about 350 privately owned companies found the average awareness over nine incentive schemes was only 41 per cent. As the paper comments, "the idea that the government's carefully crafted incentives are falling on stony ground is likely to send a depressing message to the Treasury". A former Treasury adviser, said: "It will be very disappointing to the government. One of its mantras is that tax is a tool for changing social and economic behaviour."

Perhaps the schemes could be better designed at the margin. For instance, there are arguments that the design of the US R&D tax credit is better than its UK version.

But allowances and incentives cost money to administer. And if they are being little used, could the government stimulate business more effectively by lowering its tax rate?

As the paper points out,

The survey findings could also strengthen the hand of advocates of flatter taxes, who argue that incentives and reliefs should be swept away in favour of a lower tax rate. Average usage of the schemes, which included R&D tax credits, venture capital trusts and business asset taper relief, was 11 per cent.

Another argument for tax simplification.

Sleepwalking to extinction?

At least one UKIP member has been upset by our criticisms of Nigel Farage - so much so that he reported us to Mr Farage himself, presumably for Contempt of Something.

Yesterday this blog made it to its first UKIP leadership hustings, the (seemingly inevitable) traffic jam occurring on the way back, unlike Saturday.

The overall impression was of a gentlemanly party not realizing how close it is to irrelevance.

Nigel Farage was absent again and escaped the criticism he deserves, having been the power behind the thrones for many years. One of his more febrile supporters - who manages to support David Campbell Bannerman also, despite DCB's heavy criticisms of Nigel Farage's strategy on his website - objected to our describing Nigel Farage as the puppetmaster. We think that fits the bill.

Let's be blunt. Nigel Farage's strategy failed at Bromley, comprehensively and in broad daylight. The only new strategy on Nigel Farage's site is to prepare harder for elections.

As always though my absolute priority will be on planning and fighting elections.

So the troops will be exhorted to pound more pavements and climb more stairs while a nation yawns.

Meanwhile, there is no proposal - not one - to broaden UKIP's focus into themes that actually matter to the typical voter, or to comment on them in a sustained way. UKIP's so called campaigns consist of isolated demonstrations soon forgotten outside the party, while inside the party we are called upon to applaud them repeatedly, rather like a crowd of extras at Mao's rallies. If the demonstrations leave any lasting impression, it's the feeling that UKIP are the perennial outsiders in the nation's political dialogue.

With enemies like UKIP, who needs friends?

This brain-lite approach is reflected in the puppet master's website, and under his (likely) leadership it will doubtless continue to be the hallmark of the party.

No one is stressing that Nigel Farage has already failed as leader. Since 2004 he has been leader of a sizeable block of MEPs. They are astonishingly unproductive, and probably the most dysfunctional element of the party if you consider the impact they should be having. If this is not a failure of leadership, what is?

Sadly none of the other leadership candidates is rubbing the members' noses in this, and warning them that the party is sleepwalking to extinction.

This blog is passionate about this, not because we aim to knock UKIP - there is no secret agenda here - but because Britain needs a party of small government to rebalance political debate, as we argued on Saturday and Fraser Nelson reminds us in The Business

The blunt truth in British politics is that we face three high-tax parties which take broadly the same approach to the main divisive issues of the day, both foreign and domestic. It remains possible that David Cameron’s Conservatives will break this consensus with bold, new, small-state policies but the indications are that this is unlikely.

This reduces British elections to a simple question: who will manage the centre-left agenda? Will it be Blair and his team or Cameron and the even less-known Conservative Shadow Cabinet?

There is thus a huge political gap which UKIP should be filling. But UKIP's present regime aren't interested in bestirring themselves, and the other leadership candidates are being far too nice to them.

We're UKIP, we don't read the papers

In directing withering scorn at political blogs, Richard North does us a service by pointing us to ConservativeHome.com, not our usual sort of reading.

This tells us that

According to reports in The Times and Guardian the Tory-aligned Bow Group is proposing a 1% annual levy on the value of all homes to replace four existing taxes - council tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax on house sales and the BBC's licence fee.

The Bow Group's Mark Wadsworth's 'progressive' proposal would see the first £70,000 of a house's value go untaxed. Thereafter the 1% annual levy would kick in. The average homeowner in the north would pay £509. This is based on the £129,000 price tag for the average northern home. With average house prices in London at £307,000, however, the average London homeowner would pay nearly five times as much - £2,370pa.

And what of the prices of houses in London's outer suburbs?

It's hard off hand to think of a better way to antagonise the core Tory vote. Council tax is already a problem for the asset-rich income-poor, such as many pensioners. This bizarre proposal would merely worsen this conundrum.

It's hard to believe that this suggestion will be around for long, so UKIP needs to pounce and oppose it. But UKIP's centre is not nimble.

While this blog was digesting its visit to a UKIP leadership hustings, Richard North was picking up a story in The Independent on Sunday about the scale of VAT fraud.

This type of story is supposedly UKIP's special subject, but it seems no one in UKIP troubles themselves to read the weekend press or stirs themselves to write anything up.

It would be some small comfort to think that UKIP failed this weekend because the puppetmaster was bobbing gently in his boat off the Cornish coast rather than troubling himself with the leadership hustings. But it's par for the course.

What is UKIP actually doing?

While UKIP's website features a small selection of stories which no one much cares about, The Taxpayers Alliance blog picks up the astonishing news that

Patients are being forced to undergo painful, unnecessary and ineffective treatments in the NHS that are wasting billions of pounds a year, according to the Government’s chief medical officer.... If tonsillectomies were administered to the entire country at the same rate as they are given to well-off children, around 8,000 fewer operations would be performed every year and £6 million saved...also..."If the average rate of hysterectomy in England could be reduced to that achieved in the 20 per cent of the country with the lowest current rates, then 5,900 operations, costing £15 million could be avoided per annum.

So much for simplistic policies of leaving the running of the NHS to the medical profession, which we disparaged a few weeks ago.

UKIP if it is to prosper will have to shake itself and accept that people will care more about this story than they will about the Spanish government line on energy takeovers (though the best the site can do is to reproduce a piece from The Times, its staggeringly unproductive MEPs apparently being too busy to make any comment of their own).

As expected, Lord Forsyth has called for The Treasury to create a Dynamic Analysis Division to look at how reducing the tax burden can see revenues hold up or rise. The TPA quotes him:

Were we to reduce the top rate of tax... revenues would go up. How do I know that? Because it happens in every other country of the world where they do this, including ourselves in the 1980s. The lowest 50 per cent account for 11 per cent of receipts. The experience is clear: why is it that we have a Treasury which is so insistent on maintaining a fixed-model view of the economy? We need a dynamic model of the economy so that the Treasury can forecast the real impact of tax changes. If the Treasury is not prepared to do it, someone should follow the excellent advice from the TaxPayers’ Alliance and set up a unit so that we can have an analysis of the effects of tax in a dynamic way. People do not understand that reducing tax will increase revenues for the reasons I have indicated.

UKIP has been teetering for months on the edge of thinking it might favour a flat tax and has got itself bogged down in as usual saying nothing.

A smaller party should be nimble. To anyone on the outside it must be astonishing just how slow and lumbering UKIP is.

Unbalanced BBC panel trivialises carbon issue

So this is what the BBC considers balance? This week's Any Questions featured a Green politician, a retired trade unionist, a left-wing commentator ... and someone from David Cameron's A-list.

There was general approval for David Miliband's floating of individual carbon allowances.

Of course, said Bill Morris, they should not be tradable, everyone should have the same allowance. Doubtless they would end up being traded on e-bay, sneered someone. Oh and for good measure the government should abolish poverty, Morris added. And why were the government targeting individuals when it was businesses which produced most emissions?

That would be the businesses which employ people and generate wealth.

Maybe the time has come for carbon allowances to be fashionable - it's hard to see how Mr Cameron could oppose them. But as usual the Any Questions discussion skated over the surface of the issue. How much would it all cost? What levels would these carbon allowances have to be set at to make a noticeable difference when Britain produces a massive 2% of carbon emissions? How much would everyone's pollution have to be reduced by? Would people really vote for curbs on their freedom and cuts in their standard of living?

I couldn't help a brief smile as I sat listening in a Saturday afternoon traffic jam which snaked into the distance and out of sight. A rare moment of relaxation, as the snarl-up stopped me reaching my destination.

If this BBC panel truly reflects the balance of political debate in the country, how much more important it is that we should have a rational and informed voice towards the right, giving contrasting views.

That is why this blog thinks UKIP is so important. But the outcome of the leadership election is crucial to UKIP's survival.

The old guard's "strategy" - if you can call it that - hit the buffers at Bromley. Maybe that is what the puppetmaster Nigel Farage is contemplating as he holidays in the sun off the Cornish coast rather than troubling himself with meeting his electorate at the leadership hustings.

For the last two years UKIP has focused on the EU issue, and done that pretty lazily.

The debate should be driven by the numbers around the cost of EU membership. But UKIP has produced none and adopted none, let alone kept on and on about them until it has banged them into the head of everyone sentient in the UK (let's omit oafs of the drunken and Prescott varieties).

It has pretended to show interest in UK issues.

It issued a muddled press release about the West Lothian question - and when the issue flared up a few months later said precisely nothing, despite pleas from me and doubtless other members, as this blog does not consider itself uniquely gifted at reading newspapers.

Two members of the old guard got in a small armoured personnel carrier. This symbolised UKIP parking its tanks on the Tories' lawn and was followed up by - nothing.

There were rumours that UKIP might adopt a flat tax policy. The Business newspaper continued to argue for this last Sunday (though their comparison between growth in the EU and the US is called into question by the US's ballooning deficit), while The Sunday Telegraph discussed the possibility that Lord Forsyth's Tory group might cover the case for flat tax in its report due soon. From UKIP the usual sound of silence.

What's certain is that there is no party advocating lower taxes for the benefits they can bring to economic growth, and doing it in a sensible and sustained way. David Cameron has specifically ruled this out.

UKIP is the UK's fourth largest party. But the old guard of the present regime cannot even take opportunities that drop into their laps, let alone turn the party into a vehicle of rational, numbers-based policy promotion. They're just not up to it.

If the Any Questions panel is any guide, political debate in this country needs to be rebalanced. If the UK's fourth largest party cannot contribute to the rebalancing, it will take that much longer.

But UKIP must first reform itself by slinging out the present dim leadership.

David Campbell Bannerman fails on policies

On his website David Campbell Bannerman has put his finger on many of UKIP's failings, and had the courage to articulate them as a leadership candidate against the puppet master of the present UKIP regime.

However, these clear insights have not been reflected in effective implementation of his initiatives, which have dribbled away. There has been a lack of follow-through.

He seems to intend to write a five year plan for UKIP with minimal input from anyone else. In a political genius this might just be acceptable.

However, a number of his illustrative policies are not thought through, and show a lack of connection with the modern world. They may only be illustrations, but they are illustrations which he chose and he deserves to be judged upon them.

His choice of chairman also seems to us highly questionable, a choice made for reasons of internal UKIP politics rather than with a view to a smoothly running, dynamic party machine. Maybe he has chosen well, but we remain to be convinced.

Finally, we miss any suggestion of firm action to clear the air of allegations of corruption - unjustified, we hope - which continue to float around. A new leader must dispose of these allegations once and for all early in his term.

So - not leadership material. But he has identified many of the party's shortcomings well, and he evidently has connections in the media world.

Over-regulation is not just an EU issue

Let's start from basics. One of the biggest financial burdens of our EU membership is the cost of over-regulation. Of course it's diffused, rather than concentrated in one charge, so it doesn't stand up and hit you.

So an anti-EU party should have a lot to say about over-regulation. UKIP doesn't bother itself. But any campaign against over-regulation must take in UK practice too. Sometimes in the UK we find gold-plating. In other instances we find what looks like stubborn incompetence.

Thus Christopher Booker has continued to highlight the expensive incompetence of the UK's Environment Agency on the subject of asbestos. His piece yesterday repeats that there is a distinction between blue and brown asbestos (dangerous), and white asbestos (usually harmless), but the Agency does not recognise the distinction.

On average, a litre bottle of mineral water contains 2m fibres of white asbestos, he says, and a human lung may contain 200 million fibres.

The Agency requires the removal of minute quantities of harmless white asbestos from sites at huge expense. By the Agency's criteria, he says, human bodies should be disposed of in special landfill sites as hazardous waste.

More generally, the problem with the UK regulatory model is that there seems to be no way to call regulators to account. Government have carefully detached themselves from Regulators' rulings, and the repeated reviews stress that they can't look at everything.

Thus there is a particular (though large enough) issue over asbestos regulation, valiantly championed by Booker, and a wider issue over who calls regulators to account - are they judge and jury of themselves? And much of this hugely costly over-regulation originates from the EU - though much of that doubtless with a nod from the UK government.

There is a serious cause to be fought here. But it requires attention to a few numbers, and doesn't lend itself to the occasional gaudy demonstration.

UKIP so far has shown no sign of grasping it.

An opportunity squandered

Back in February, Helen Szamuely discussed UKIP's five new policy areas. Surely you haven't forgotten what they were? Education, international trade, immigration, tax and the structure of government.

Whether these are the particular issues people will be voting on is impossible to guess but they are probably the ones on which some kind of consensus was reached within the UKIP hierarchy.

She raises questions on the various policy areas. I have not seen UKIP answer any of them.

Detailed fleshing out of the policies seems to have been beyond the UKIP leadership. Not only that, but since then UKIP has hardly promoted them at all. Maybe that's not surprising, since puppet master Nigel Farage on his leadership website shows only the most cursory interest in any policies at all. (He seems to favour fewer restrictions on smoking.)

Nigel Farage and David Bannerman did climb on an armoured personnel carrier. But no one can quite remember why.

What's wrong with Nigel Farage's website?

This is the second post explaining why Nigel Farage should not be the next leader of UKIP.

Nigel Farage's leadership website reveals his limitations.

David Campbell Bannerman's site is perhaps over-rich in policy suggestions. David Noakes concentrates on what he terms the EU police state. Richard Suchorzewski describes his values and how he would like UKIP to change, to become a community focused on both EU and UK political issues.

By contrast, Nigel Farage concentrates on his achievements so far. We shall argue here that he effectively led UKIP with aplomb until 2004, but since then it has stagnated and is now in decline.

Membership is falling, and we have shown that UKIP is not achieving its aims.

So what added value would UKIP gain from having Nigel Farage as leader of the party, as well as leader of the MEPs? Is Nigel the man to reverse the decline?

Not according to his website.

He proposes several changes -

1. More NEC sub-committees

2. Stop addressing small public meetings

3. Give a political lead and liaise with the media

4. Set up a national campaign committee for the 2007 elections now

5. Have a London headquarters for UKIP.

He concludes this list of changes by saying that

This is just a brief overview of how I see the future Party structure. There will be much more to sort out if you elect me as leader, including the collection of your email addresses so we can issue regular bulletins to members. As always though my absolute priority will be on planning and fighting elections.

Let's revisit that - "my absolute priority will be on planning and fighting elections".

That didn't work at the Bromley by-election. Huge sums were spent, many helpers canvassed for him. But after all that Nigel Farage - communicator extraordinaire - secured just 8% of the votes.

Bromley tested Nigel Farage's strategy. It tested it to destruction. And the strategy didn't work.

So it's time for UKIP to try something new. But Nigel Farage isn't offering that. Just more concentration on the elections themselves.

We failed - so let's try harder.

Has he learned nothing from the failure at Bromley?

This will not address UKIP's underlying problems.

UKIP calls for cash enquiry

Sadly, we were right - UKIP couldn't resist commenting on David Cameron's announcement today about the EPP. A typically witty little barb from Nigel Farage - but, Nigel, no one outside the Westminster village or the Brussels village cares, and many inside don't care either.

UKIP's present leadership don't do domestic policies, but they do do domestic politics - especially where Tories are involved.

In a wrongly dated press release, Roger Knapman has called for parliamentary subsidies to be halted until an independent inquiry establishes whether the parties are fit recipients of public funds.

We can agree with him that the system is rotten.

The Conservatives receive around £5m of public funds annually, while the Liberal Democrats receive around £2m, to fund their parliamentary activities.

“We are talking about £7m of public funds annually going to parties who are under criminal investigation relating to their fund-raising activities. Labour’s fund-raiser has been arrested, the Tories refuse to disclose the names of those who have lent them money, and the Liberal Democrat's major donor has just been extradited from Spain to face fraud charges."

But he also say that "it is highly questionable whether the traditional parties are fit to receive payments of public funds while accusations of dishonesty remained (sic) under investigation".

As UKIP believes in the traditional English legal system, one may ask what happened to the presumption of innocent until proved guilty. And it is far from clear that the Lib Dem party itself stands accused of any offence.

Even if we ignore that, how would such an "independent" enquiry be made up, how could non-politicians make the political judgement required, and why would their opinion be any more valid than anyone else's?

Fortunately this leadership is drawing to a close. It will not be mourned.

Careless with our money

Use of the Irish language in the European parliament will cost €677,000, a cost of over €100,000 a head for fluent Gaelic speaking MEPs, reports eupolitix.com.

This is another answer to the EU-Reformists who vainly claim reform is possible.

We are not dealing with the Commission here, these are our elected representatives. But squandering our taxes seems to be accepted as the norm by them. So where would the Reformists start?

Deregulation - what deregulation?

Financial Times Deutschland says that, out of 54 regulatory simplification projects that the EU Commission had planned for 2006, only 5 have been finalised so far.

OpenEurope reports this and comments: "Since 2000 the EU has passed 10,200 regulations, directives and other pieces of legislation. It has managed to “simplify” (not repeal) five pieces of legislation. No doubt this will not stop the FCO from spinning that “Europe is reforming and coming our way”.

This sort of news is tricky for OpenEurope, belonging as it does to the EU reform camp. The truth is that there is no chance of serious EU reform, but OpenEurope refuses to face that fact.

We have recently seen the unapologetic introduction of the RoHS Directive.

Do OpenEurope not understand what sort of creature the EU bureaucracy is?

Oh dear, empty words from Nigel Farage

One UKIP member who objected to my criticism of Nigel Farage commented that

Nigel Farage has done more good for UKIP during my ... years as the ... branch chairman, than any other member of the NEC, or any other MEP. His oratory on radio, television and live at public meetings has won us tremendous support from the public at large, here at our local Constituency.

Indeed, the critic was so upset by my comments that he reported me to Nigel Farage.

We promised a series of posts explaining why Nigel Farage should not lead UKIP. As part of that series we shall be analysing his leadership website.

Meanwhile, our objector may be interested in his comments there that

I have watched both Jeffrey Titford and Roger Knapman become bogged down with endless internal Party matters and problems. In their free time they have travelled the length and breadth of the UK to speak at meetings, often with less than 50 people in the hall. All of this is madness and must stop now.

So no more public meetings with Nigel Farage for you then.

However, Nigel Farage's comment makes no sense to us. Why has he himself been speaking in public meetings? Does he think that, as leader of UKIP, he will somehow be in greater demand with the media? We doubt it. What can he do with the media as leader of the party that he can't do as leader of its MEPs? What more will he have to say?

This is empty rhetoric from Nigel Peacock - oops, Nigel Farage.

Mr Poodle's poodle yaps

If Tony Blair has been George Bush's poodle abroad, Jack Straw has been Mr Blair's poodle at home.

As Home Secretary, Jack Straw's tactic was to wring his hands and do nothing. As Foreign Secretary his job was to scuttle round the world to prepare a red carpet for his master. His performances in the Commons became increasingly bumbling, and it was not surprising that he was demoted - to lead the Commons, an inconvenient institution which Mr Blair considers should do his bidding and therefore an ideal place to be "led" by a poodle.

Mr Straw has now pronounced on the subject of english votes on english issues. It would cause "chaos and confusion", he said, according to The Herald. And, as we predicted, he played the hybrid bill card.

"Imagine if each 'bit' of a Bill has been certified as English or UK. There's an English 'bit'. Then an English MP proposes extending this 'bit' to Scotland in some way. Divisions would be a farce.

"This chaos and confusion would be replicated within government. It is difficult to see how Britain could be effectively governed in such circumstances," he added.

Hm, chaos and confusion in government. Sound familiar? Is he seriously suggesting a government would be incapable of separating the hybrid matters into a separate bill?

The lawyer in him then came up with this.

The Leader of the House argued that any change in the constitutional arrangements at Westminster would be a breach of the Scotland Act.

Mr Straw said: "The only legal reason why the Scottish Parliament has this power is because the Westminster Parliament has delegated – devolved – its powers over these domestic areas to the Scottish Parliament. Power devolved is not power ceded – quite the reverse".

And to cap his comedy turn, he concluded

"It would in my view be both unwise and a breach of faith with the Scottish people for any significant changes in the Scotland Act to be made without the consent of the Scottish people in a further referendum."

So we need the consent of the Scots in a referendum before their MPs are stopped from voting on English issues!

The Scots Nats and Tory MPs for Scottish constituencies seem to manage not to vote quite well - maybe we have missed the reports of their constituents rising in arms in indignation at this dereliction of duty.

Mr Straw has a specially pompous voice when he uses the phrase "in my view" - as if his view was something to be taken special note of, as if he exercised independent thought, independent of the Labour party's naked party advantage.

The Herald also reports that David Cameron, fearing this argument "could get out hand", has ordered his troops to stop talking about it.

Let's be clear. This is more important than the trivial matter of which Tory MEPs sit where in the undemocratic european parliament. UKIP has an excellent policy on English votes on English issues, which goes beyond Lord Baker's ideas. But UKIP will doubtless focus on the obscure matter of the EPP today.

Just being anti-EU isn't enough

It's bigger, but how urgent does the EU issue look compared to the plight of the NatWest Three? The government dug itself into this hole, whether through laziness, carelessness or tiredness. Sir Digby Jones says

"It is going to take a long, long time for the business community to forgive the Government for this."

But how can a UKIP leader take the temperature on issues like this, issue statements, work with people in the UK, if he is based in Brussels?

The proposition looks increasingly absurd.

And can UKIP ignore this government's raid on people's private property? Local councils will have power to seize furniture and fixtures and fittings when they take over empty homes according to new rules published by the Government yesterday.

Town halls have been given the authority to take over and rent out homes which have been standing empty for more than six months.

Mrs Spelman said the detailed guidance showed the state had the right to possess furniture, fixtures and fittings when a home was seized, even in cases where a property was taken over because the owner was dead.

The Government admitted that the purpose of the new laws was to provide "a credible threat" and was intended to put pressure on the owner. Yet empty public sector properties were unaffected and exempt from the new powers. Under the Orders a private home could be seized for up to seven years, 28 days after an Order was granted - and with no right of appeal.

A home did not have to be blighted, boarded up or uninhabitable to be seized, merely empty for six months, including homes of the recently deceased.

Homes for sale could be seized if a council thought the asking price "unrealistic".

Councils would have forcible powers of entry once an Order was made and people could be taken to court and charged with a criminal offence if they obstructed officials.

Once seized, there was no obligation to obtain a market rent, and social tenants could be housed in the property. The owner could even be charged and billed for their property being seized, if service or standing charges were greater than the rent, after the council deducted its "expenses".

And the Conservative spokesman concluded

"These heavy-handed state powers allow bureaucrats to seize private homes in perfect condition, including the fixtures and fittings, just because the homes have been empty for a short while.

"John Prescott's parting gift of confiscating private property is a slap in the face of hard-working families and pensioners, given tens of thousands of public sector properties are lying empty."

But how could a UKIP leader run with this from Brussels?

56.7% of UK exporters say no to euro - poll

UK exporters are becoming more euro-sceptic according to new research released by Atradius, the global credit insurer, reports Business Money magazine. The survey showed that nearly 60% of UK exporters would vote “no” in a referendum on the euro.

These findings contrast strongly with findings from the survey conducted in 2002. In 2002, the balance was slightly in favour of joining the euro: 50.2% for and 49.8% against.

The reasons given by the anti-euro exporters for why they do not want to see the UK join a single European currency are political:

• 43.7% believe it would contribute to a European super state
• 37.6% are concerned about the constitutional implications
  
• 18.7% believe it would weaken relations with the US.

For those who favoured joining the Euro, commercial considerations prevailed. 44.6% cited exchange rate certainty as their main reason for wanting to join. A further 25.9% thought lower transactional costs would be the biggest benefit and 29.5% believed greater price transparency would result.

Of course the UK isn't going to join the Euro any time soon. Nonetheless it's encouraging to see that concern about the political consequences is so strong in a key part of the business community.

UKIP needs to build on this in its contacts with businesspeople.

"Police force mergers scrapped"

The Times reports that "Plans for a £1 billion merger of police forces across England and Wales have collapsed.... John Reid, the Home Secretary, is expected to announce the decision tomorrow."

What seems to have happened is that the voluntary merger collapsed through lack of money, so it looks pretty clear that the unwanted ones won't go ahead. Charles Clarke called the decision "weak".

More in our companion blog, which we called No Police Force Mergers.

Two protests about the Nigel Farage post

Before we get down to UKIP affairs, pointers to two high class pieces this morning.

Ruth Lea in The Telegraph says "Let's ditch the protectionism that harms British trade". I'll be returning to her excellent article in another post; meanwhile I just note that I've extracted a few key numbers to my ready reference blog on EU Costs - an early attempt to build a short, sharp bullet point list of publicly available facts and figures, something that UKIP should have done and never has.

Richard North has a piece on Galileo which manages to be both chilling and laugh-out-loud. Too good to summarise - read it, and laugh even as you shiver. To think that UKIP managed to lose Richard North as a member.

And now down from the skies to UKIP matters. My piece critical of Nigel Farage has drawn criticism from two senior party members.

One writes

Many of the statistics you quote do seem to indicate that the battle to keep out of Europe is not going too well, hardly surprising when all three old parties are determined to keep us in.

Would you mind now telling me what different policies would have allowed UKIP to do better than it has? I've no idea how long you have been in our party, so I wonder why you think denigrating our greatest asset is going to help our cause. I look forward to hearing your reasoning.

Of course I have been a member for a lot less time than the enquirer. Maybe I should have made it clearer that I am not attacking UKIP's best communicator for the sake of it, but only as a potential leader. I am making a case - for the benefit of the party, and only because there is a leadership election - that the weaknesses of the man who must be the frontrunner outweigh his strengths when you view him as a potential leader.

My sole aim, in what will be a series of posts, will be to urge the party to take a broader view of what a leader should bring to the party. If UKIP chooses a better leader, I believe this "will help our cause" and we will see the benefits within months. I will expand on this in future posts.

Another senior colleague expresses a similar concern.

I would comment that opinion polls are notoriously unreliable because 'he who pays the Piper' not only 'calls the tune', but also, the pollster makes sure that the client gets 'value' for their money. Add this to the corrupt credentials of the EU, and this particular poll ceases to bear any true significance.

Let's pause here for the moment. First of all, the survey has reported an unfavourable trend in the past. In 2001 - 2002 the difference between those who thought the EU was a good thing for the UK and those who thought it was a bad thing was 11 percentage points. Then in 2003 it fell to 5%, and then down to 1%. By the start of 2004 the figures were equal. The survey openly reported this unfavourable trend for the EU.

From that level point, the results since (over 2 years) have been +5, +9, +14 and +17. Is that a trend or is that a trend?

For those who want to examine how the poll was done, the full sets of results set out the sample sizes and make-up, the questions, and the methodology. So you can go and look.

The final point to be made is that the sampling and methodology are doubtless consistent from survey to survey. In my comments on the survey I thus looked at the trend, rather than the absolute levels. And, as quoted in the Financial Times, Nigel Farage did not attempt to question the numbers.

My correspondent continues

However what concerns me most is that John Page should criticise Nigel Farage, and further more state his intention to put up more posts alleging 'how Nigel Farage is failing'.

What our Party needs more than anything is grass-roots members out on the streets, as in Bromley recently, leafletting, climbing endless stairs up blocks of flats, contributing to the overall campaign to win support for UKIP from the electorate. Oh, by the way UKIP came a strong second out of six in the Suffolk County Council by-election a couple of weeks ago, lets build on that sort of success.

Nigel Farage has done more good for UKIP during my ... years as the ... branch chairman, than any other member of the NEC, or any other MEP. His oratory on radio, television and live at public meetings has won us tremendous support from the public at large, here at our local Constituency. I am deliberately keeping this short, and now finish off by saying that John Page's posting is totally out of order, and that he should try to positively build on all the good that there is in UKIP, and by 'the good' I mean all those activists in UKIP who have achieved so much in the last three years and more. John Page's action has let these activists down just as much as he has attempted to damage Nigel Farage.

And he tells me that he is "copying it to Nigel Farage, who has helped my branch considerably in the past".

I believe it is my duty to meet these criticisms head on, purely in the special circumstances of a leadership election. The writer has kindly confirmed to me that he agrees I have every right to express my views. In normal circumstances I would agree with his conclusion that

I believe that the best way to improve the Party is by a combination of criticism and positive suggestion from individuals such as us or together, but communicated directly to those in the 'Leadership', who we believe to be responsible.

As a last resort, if the above fails to produce results, then the threat of Public criticism might be appropriate

- a line of thinking I would usually agree with.

However, with this leadership election UKIP is approaching a fork in the road. Are we going to continue gently failing as I believe we are, or will we break out to become the stronger and more flourishing party I want us to be?

I want a party where the centre makes it much more worth while to climb those endless stairs.

I know my second correspondent personally and have great respect for what he has done. We hold different views about how this leadership election should be conducted. A vigorous debate should be good for the future of the party. And if larger parties can debate their issues in public, why can't we?

Lastly, an apology to anyone who has come thus far and is not a member of UKIP! But if you're a member of any other political party - and I'm not - my aim is to help refashion UKIP so that it becomes a seriously important opponent for you. Our centre needs to change a lot to achieve that. And then we will have you in our sights. Look out.

Why Nigel Farage should not lead UKIP - 1

Nigel Farage has been a key member of UKIP for ages, and at the centre of its strategy.

UKIP's strategy is failing. Nigel Farage bears a big responsibility for this.

I intend to put up several posts explaining how Nigel Farage is failing.

Let's start with the latest eurobarometer poll, reported today. This from the Financial Times - my emphasis:

British support for the European Union has reached its highest level for more than a decade, just as French politicians fear that the club has become too Anglo-Saxon.

A new Europewide opinion poll shows that 42 per cent of Britons regard their country's membership of the EU to be "a good thing", compared with only 25 per cent six years ago.

The poll has sent a frisson of excitement through Brussels, but Eurosceptics claim the results were "a flash in the pan" and simply reflected the fact that big issues such as the euro and EU constitution had dropped out of the headlines.

Britain has not exactly fallen in love with Europe: only the citizens of Finland, Latvia and Austria are less likely to think that their country's membership of the union is a good thing.

But the Eurobarometer poll shows a clear upward trend in British public approval of the EU, up 12 points in just two years - raising interesting questions for politicians in all parties in London.

Gordon Brown, the British chancellor of the exchequeur, has recently started softening his tone towards Europe in anticipation of his ex-pected elevation to prime minister next year.

Noted for his hostile approach to the EU in recent years, Mr Brown has recently presented himself as fully engaged in a business-friendly Europe, while portraying his rival, Conservative leader David Cameron, as "isolated".

The Eurobarometer poll funded by the European Commission, tracks opinion across the 25-member club. The latest survey questioned almost 30,000 people between March and April.

Reijo Kemppinen, head of the Commission's London office, said the poll findings were "significant" and re-jected British support for a more pragmatic EU aimed at delivering results.

"They have seen us battle rising prices of energy, the high cost of mobile phone calls, illegal immigration and climate change, instead of battling each other," he said.

But rising British support for EU membership has coincided with a period of crisis, with France rejecting the union's constitutional treaty in May 2005 amid claims that the text was "too British".

Nigel Farage, leader of the sceptical United Kingdom Independence party group, in the European parliament, said: "It's a flash in the pan. Euroscepticism is always at its highest when the euro or the constitution are in the foreground.

"My job is to make it clear that the constitution is coming in through the back door anyway."

Each year there's a spring and autumn survey. The percentages considering membership of the EU a good thing were (Spring, Autumn)

1996 - 35, 36
1997 - 36, 36
1998 - 41, 37
1999 - 31, 29
2000 - 25, 28
2001 - 29, 33
2002 - 32, 31
2003 - 30, 28
2004 - 29, 38
2005 - 36, 34
2006 - 42

Is it "a flash in the pan"? Nigel Farage says so, so maybe it is. But if UKIP was succeeding, wouldn't the trend be downwards?

Clearly it isn't.

Nigel Farage also said

Euroscepticism is always at its highest when the euro or the constitution are in the foreground.

My job is to make it clear that the constitution is coming in through the back door anyway.

That's an extraordinarily limited vision.

UKIP's reason for existence is to persuade the British electorate to vote for leaving the EU. Not just to vote against the euro or the constitution (not that Brown would ever join the euro), but to vote to leave the EU.

The numbers show that UKIP is not succeeding - indeed, over the last few years it's probably lost ground.

Whatever the strategy has been, it seems to have been failing. Nigel Farage has been at the centre of that strategy - whatever the strategy has been.

Nigel Farage is failing as a strategist.

He is also failing in other ways. I will post on them separately.

Oh happy band of Tories

This blog isn't awfully interested in the Tory party - unlike some other UKIP members.

But it noticed Quentin Davis warning David Cameron yesterday against leaving the EPP, with a reminder that Iain Duncan Smith signed a promise in 2004 that Tory MEPs would be members of the EPP at least until 2009.

Meanwhile, The Sun reported

A senior Tory yesterday raised the prospect of Britain quitting the EU under a future Conservative government.

Shadow Europe minister Graham Brady said we could not remain a member if the EU continued to block free trade with other countries.

He told a Westminster seminar: “Can Britain afford to remain in an EU that is pulling up the drawbridge? No we can’t.”

EU becoming less unpopular

Open Europe summarises the latest Eurobarometer poll:

According to the European Commission's latest Eurobarometer poll, 42% of people in the UK think EU membership is a good thing compared to just 25% six years ago. 25% thought it was bad and 28% thought it was neither good or bad. 42% thought the UK had benefited from membership while 44% thought the UK had not benefited. The head of the European Commission's London office, Reijo Kemppinen, described the increased UK support as “significant”. He went on: “During the past year we have offered the British a different kind of an EU - one that delivers results instead of empty promises. They have seen us battle rising prices of energy, the high cost of mobile phone calls, illegal immigration and climate change, instead of battling each other. If we have the wisdom to continue like this, I am sure that even more people will understand why the EU is indispensable for our future.”

This is hardly a stunning endorsement of UKIP's efforts and comes on top of the party's poor performance in the Bromley by-election.

People were also asked, What do you think are the two most important issues facing their country at the moment.

For the UK the most important issues (highest first) were Crime, Immigration, Healthcare system, Pensions, Terrorism, and Unemployment.

In looking at Migrationwatch this morning, I see their judgement on UKIP's 2005 manifesto policy on migration was that "The general thrust of UKIP's proposals is clear but there is little on which their feasibility can be judged".

I wonder who in the party has done subsequent work on this? - analysed the party's migration policy compared to other parties? looked to plug the gaps?

Or is this blog misinterpreting the role of UKIP's spokesman on migration - whoever that is?

Yes to Scottish votes on English issues

Comfortingly this is the line of Philip Stephens in the Financial Times, so UKIP's opposition to this - which the Tories are edging towards - is probably on the right lines.

These proposals, Stephens says grandly, are for those of excessively neat minds who haven't thought the matter through properly. Mr Cameron is "unfurling the banner of English nationalism".

"As for the constitutional purists", he sneers, "English votes for English laws may seem like a neat answer to an anomaly. But, like many superficially attractive ideas, it rests on a flawed assumption. It ignores the richness and complexity of the union by assuming it is nothing but a simple legislative arrangement".

Stephens adds, "Scotland accepts that its economic, security and immigration policies, to name but three, are decided by the English". But the truth is that England and Scotland are not equal partners. As we pointed out before,

A decade ago, Scotland generated 8.7% of wealth in Britain but today this figure is 7.9% and falling.

This is not a union of equals. Either Scottish votes on English issues don't matter because they don't change anything, or they're the tail wagging the dog.

A Scottish commentator in The Herald also describes this as "a road that leads only to the break-up of Britain". He gives us some quite interesting political history, and describes the Tory outline proposal as "something straight out of UKIP". Well, our proposal is actually better, but thanks for the mention. Then he starts imagining a national government which can't get its legislation through because it hasn't got a majority in England.

Of course those who oppose the principle stress problems of implementation. But once you engage your imagination the problems fall away. So let's try.

UKIP - rightly - envisages devolution for England as well as for Scotland. There will be no separate MSP's. Scottish MPs will spend part of their time at Westminster on national business, and the rest of their time in Edinburgh, on Scottish business.

While the Scots are away, the English MPs will legislate for English business. As it happens, they will use the facilities of Westminster.

This solution is cheap - UKIP believes in smaller government - and elegant, because it avoids legalistic complaints about two different classes of MP.

So let's stop being silent about this good policy, insert ourselves back into the debate, and get ourselves noticed on something other than the EU.

The burden of regulation in Germany

The Bavarian Environment Minister Werner Schnappauf has criticised EU over-regulation (reports Open Europe). He said that “The EU regulation machine has been in full swing the past years,” noting that in the 90s German regions had to comply with roughly 90 regulations a year -– now the figure is closer to 500,– some of which run to more than a thousand pages.

Farage strategy hits the buffers

As we said, Bromley was a failure in terms of UKIP's track record.

But it was an even greater failure when you look at the opportunity available. Fraser Nelson puts last week's by-election performances by the major parties in the context of the Power Report (though he does not mention it