Immigrants: the Inconvenient Truth

This is the title of a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 tomorrow, previewed in The Telegraph.

The government has maintained that immigration is economically beneficial for the country - though I don't know how they can calculate that if they don't know about the extra burden on police forces, or the extra numbers of people the council has to look after in Slough.

Still, the government seem confident enough in their own calculations ... especially as they produce the politically correct answer.

While overall economic output obviously does go up, others outside government have argued that average output per head falls. John Denham, before he became a minister again, argued that lower paid workers saw their incomes fall, because immigrants tended to compete for jobs at the lower end of the market.

Now the IPPR says that migrants from wealthy countries, such as the United States and Australia, provide a boost for the economy.

It found that fewer than half of Britain's 650,000 Somalis, Bangladeshis, Turks and Pakistanis, have jobs and the four communities have the highest levels of benefit dependency.

The paper reminds us that one in five crimes in London is now committed by foreign nationals, with Poles, Jamaicans, Irish and Somalis at the top of the list.

Gordon Brown said at Labour's conference this week that foreign criminals would be sent home. But migrants from the EU can rarely be deported. Returning immigrants to some other countries can be difficult because of the Human Rights Act.

New government statistics predict a two million rise in population over the next decade due to immigration, more than previous projections.

So Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, says the forecast "underlines the need for swift and sweeping changes to the immigration system".

Yet another area where the government has been straightforwardly incompetent.

More social security fraud

The Telegraph reports (but not on its website) that a woman has been charged with claiming up to £75,000 in child tax credits for 16 non-existent children.

She is alleged to have realised she did not have to send her "children's" birth certificates to tax officials.

Why not?

And how could it reach anywhere near £75,000 before anyone rumbled it?

The case of the wax crayon

The Telegraph reports that a girl of 10 was handed a £40 fine for writing on a neighbour's wall in crayon. The mother complains and gets sympathetic news coverage.

I don't see what the police did wrong here. The police responded to a complaint - so was it the first time? Her mother said the girl was "scared and upset", which may be a good thing.

Actually the fine was withdrawn "after the children helped clear up the mess". So let's see - more than one child, then - and the implication is that they hadn't helped to clear up the mess before the fine was imposed.

This is what zero tolerance policing is supposed to look like. The mother is wrong. Well done the police.

Possible EU referenda

Ireland may have to hold a referendum. Dutch politicians seem to have united against the idea - remarkably as Dutch voters rejected an almost identcal treaty last time round. (Maybe that's not so remarkable, then.)

Denmark maybe. With an election looming, maybe it's too soon to rule out Poland.

And what's this? Scotland, of all places? Helen Szamuely comments that

The ScotNats are in a bit of a pickle over the fisheries policy as Salmond produced that as his main argument for getting away from Whitehall rule. Scotland will look after its fish, he said, not explaining how he was going to do so with three votes when the UK could not do anything with ten. (That was the old QMV system.) Now, of course, everyone can see that the common fisheries policy cannot be changed or reformed and what is Salmond going to do about that?

The Telegraph suggests that northern Ireland might consider a referendum too.

Most likely these are bargaining chips and they want Brown to buy them off. We'll see.

Scattergun approach

The core argument of Jeff Randall's Friday Telegraph piece is that this is a bad, rotten government. Strikingly, though, they are ahead in he polls.

The wars are unpopular and Labour does not fund our forces adequately. (This means Brown.) Brown is not interested in hearing views which oppose his.

Consider the subject of Europe and the new treaty-cum-constitution. Debate? Forget it. More than 100,000 readers have signed The Daily Telegraph's petition for a referendum.

Voters believe that they were promised a say on the matter and expect to have it. Brown knows that they would reject the EU's stitch-up as a threat to this country's sovereignty. So he closes down debate, ignores opposition and ramrods through a shabby deal.

This, too, is a non-party matter. Many on the Left, including RMT firebrand Bob Crow and veteran MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, are infuriated by Brown's contempt for popular opinion. Yet Labour's poll ratings continue to rise.

Randall piles it on. Hospitals are being closed leaving nurses and doctors jobless. Gang crime is rising, food prices are going up, and Northern Rock was a shambles. Senior police officers claim that an unprecedented wave of immigration is overwhelming their ability to maintain law and order.

So why are the Opposition behind?

When Cameron was a PR man at Carlton Communications, he wasn't very good. His then boss, Michael Green, couldn't buy a favourable headline – and was eventually ousted.

Cameron's efforts at PR-ing his way to No 10 have similarly come unstuck. If all he has to offer is a cuddlier version of Labour, Conservatives will continue to fire blanks in the polls.

Never mind Conservative policies, what about criticism of the government? One of the aims of an Opposition is to have the country think so badly of the government that they start to feel that anything else would be an improvement. "Things can only get better."

The Tories have never mastered this. They may criticise individual policies, but there is no thread running through their attacks, nothing to lodge in voters' minds.

There is an easy criticism. "They are wasting the voters' money." How many times a day (let alone a week) do we see examples? - kindly laid out for us by The Taxpayers Alliance in a website which has become sprawling, such is huge supply of tales of waste.

Cameron is a lightweight with no principles except self-promotion and no interest in public policy. Against such opposition Brown is undeservedly safe.

Nationalised Health Service fails again

The Taxpayers' Alliance picks up the Lancet's condemnation of Brown's proposals to deep-clean hospitals and make all hospital staff wear short sleeves. Their central contention is that he has neglected more important measures like making NHS staff wash their hands.

The main problem is that the government shouldn't be trying to micro-manage all the country's hospitals. Some will have good infection control and maybe could spend the money better. Others will have very poor records and may have such bad practices that any benefit of a deep clean will be quickly lost.

Blair thought he could say something and it would happen. McStalin seems to think this central diktat will work for him - perhaps because he says things in a more serious tone? And he seems to think the more detailed his directives, the better.

But it's not so. The Nationalised Health Service is too big to be run even by an exceptional manager - which Mcavity clearly is not.

The TPA also picks up the scandalous treatment of the elderly by the NHS. The government's solution is to say they will put in place a 'personalised' NHS.

What is health care if it is not personal? This is pure windbaggery to make an inconvenient problem go away.

Fix Factor

This is part of the title of a Daily Mail piece alleging behind the scenes fixes at Simon Cowell's X-Factor programme.

Of course this has to be seen in the context of widespread concerns about fakery in television, by people from Alan Yentob downwards. Grade, head of ITV, has said he will not tolerate it. For instance, he has dropped the annual Comedy Awards programme after the revelation that viewers were encouraged to ring in with votes after a trophy had already been awarded.

Will Grade move against X Factor? Quite possibly not - look at the viewing figures. ITV needs the revenue.

Will Polish politics damage Treaty progress?

This interesting question arises from a Financial Times piece, which points out that EU governments want to put the finishing touches to the constitutional treaty in Lisbon on October 18-19. However -

Some of the EU’s 27 countries are nervous that the conservative Polish government, now campaigning for a general election on October 21, will be in no mood to cut a deal.

That's pretty certain, I'd say, especially as they're asking for changes.

Our bloated welfare state

More from the front line. In Great Yarmouth a man claimed £3,531 more in council benefits than he should have done after inheriting £42,000 on the death of a relative. The council uncovered the money in a spot check. He has also been receiving incapacity benefit for depression.

In Northampton a man who claimed £34,363 incapacity benefit while pretending to be unable to work was jailed for 18 months. In theory he could take over 300 years to repay the money. According to the report, "his bogus claim for incapacity benefit had been brought to the attention of fraud investigators" - presumably by an informant.

A Runcorn woman has been fined £300 for failing to declare a change in circumstances which meant she received £2,824 overpayment of benefits. The council's housing benefit matching service discovered she had been receiving working tax credits but not declaring them. But it took them 9 months to bring this to light.

Electro-kevin on his blog tells us that he and his wife earn £47,000 a year between them.

I know that my remuneration will be modest compared to many readers but it is still in the region of 30% above the national average - I don't expect to live like a king and yet I am continually brassic!

But -

Here's the rub. My brother who is welfare dependant (incapacity benefit) along with his stepdaughter and her illegitimate two year-old lives no worse than I do. They also live in a three bed semi (provided at subsidy by the council) - but they have:
- Sky telly
- A modern flat screen surround sound entertainment system
- The latest PS3
- Each has a mobile phone
- They all smoke
- They have a take-away curry every week
- They are all obese
We have, and are, none of the above. Our expenses generally go on educating the kids, involving them in activities and my wife and I belong to karate and a council gym. Bruv spent his summer holiday in a chalet, we spent ours in a tent.

"You'd expect my brother and his brood to be grateful and courteous about their good fortune", he says, "but they are not".

They are often rude and look like shit - his stepson has already taken to the dependency lifestyle and at the ripe old age of 17 lives in a flat with his girlfriend and their illegitimate daughter - furnished courtesy of the taxpayer.

The simple rule of thumb ... is that if you pay people to act like scum then that is exactly what they will do.

Jeff Randall reports the view of a small business owner.

He despairs at local youngsters' poor work ethic, but heaps praise on the four Poles he employs. "They work harder and are eager to do the job properly. Absenteeism has fallen since they arrived. What's more, they are really nice people."

This is a theme that I will hear time and again on my travels. "We are too soft on welfare claimants. Some locals come along for a job interview with no intention of working. They simply want their cards signed so that they can claim benefits."

The political classes don't consider it nice to advocate policies which would deal with this scrounging. So working taxpayers like Kevin continue to subsidise them - which doesn't seem to trouble politicians' consciences at all.

Welfare payments are too high

Frazer Nelson gives an example of what's wrong.

As I type, a frustrated cleaner has just come in my room in Bournemouth. To my amazement, she’s English. We get talking about Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” mantra, and it dawns on me that she’s a living example of why it won’t work. She says she’s one of only three Brits in the hotel’s huge housekeeping staff. She’s doing an NVQ in housekeeping, enjoys her work but is still considering going on to benefits as she’s struggling to make ends meet. She lives in a council estate, few of her neighbours work and think it’s strange that she does given she’s no better off than them. But she says she enjoys cleaning “strange as it may seem” and wants to be self-sufficient. She’s been taxed at the emergency rate for six months, and even at the normal tax rate she’s finding it increasingly hard to balance her budget and justify what she does. My thoughts: when welfare financially competes with work, no one should be surprised that 5.4 million British workers rationally choose welfare. It’s an outrage people like her should be taxed at all. Until the incentives change, things won’t improve.

This is what we are paying for. Too much welfare, and those who do work treated badly by the bureaucracts pampered by their inflation-proof final salary pensions. We pay for those too.

Getting it right on the referendum

Well Mr Brown may be in trouble. The Sun (source of this picture) has started a campaign for a referendum on the EU constitution, which Richard North has summarised here. Page 3 girls and others staged various stunts on the beach at Bournemouth. A student told the paper

We should definitely have a referendum. It’s a no-brainer.

So that should get the vote of many Sun readers.

Online they have a handy page with links to their "EU Referendum" features. The detail of the coverage wouldn't disgrace a heavy broadsheet. A long leader sets out how we got to here.

WAKE up Britain! Our proud nation faces the greatest threat as an independent sovereign state since the dark days of World War II.

And at last someone (in the form of The Sun) has set out some of the implications of the vetoes we would be giving up - it has taken these experienced populists to see how important this is.

THE new European Constitution threatens to transform virtually every aspect of British life for ever.

From immigration to defence, from the economy to vital public services, it will hand Europe unprecedented new powers.

The Treaty, they say, "strips Britain of control over vital issues — and tightens the grip of Brussels on our future".

Our ability to veto decisions will be swept away in a raft of key areas, from justice to energy.

It will become virtually impossible for us to deport illegal immigrants, yet officers from Europol will be given new powers to prosecute British citizens.

This is the sort of hard, concrete example the pro-referendum campaign has been lacking. After discussing the EU President, the paper moves to Services

THE Constitutional Treaty puts the EU in charge of public health and ends the right of veto in this area.

The EU would regulate medical standards and a new right to preventative health care would open the NHS up to costly ambulance-chasing legal cases.

And the Constitution ends the veto over trade agreements in public services like health and education. So our Parliament would no longer have a say over deals which determine how these services are managed.

It also does nothing to rein in the European Court of Justice. In recent years it has produced a string of rulings which make it difficult to prioritise NHS spending and allows those who are willing to threaten legal action to jump the queue.

Under the Treaty Britain gives up the veto in transport. Jacques Barrot, EU Transport Commissioner, recently backed Europe-wide road-pricing operations. The AA says this will lead to a loss of privacy.

The paper discusses Embassies, and then moves to The Economy -

BRUSSELS will co-ordinate economic, social and employment policy for all member states.

Those states who have adopted the European single currency will establish a formal organisation with its own president to oversee economic policy for the whole EU.

Britain repeatedly opposed this move because it would give Euro states power to vote on laws affecting the UK, while we would be unable to vote on measures affecting them. We abandoned this fight.

The City loses the freedom which has turned it into a multi-trillion dollar hub of world finance.

The European Central Bank gains new power to dictate to British banks and punish them for stepping out of line.

It will even have control over some Bank of England decisions, including how much cash it holds in reserves. And watch out for the unwanted Euro single currency coming in the back door.

Under vetoes it says -

BRITAIN will cease to have a final say in 60 important areas involving national sovereignty.

They include UK independence over police, justice and energy, transport, employment policy and financial regulation — vital areas of our daily lives. We could find Brussels dictating energy prices.

That includes who gets what if President Putin of Russia pulls the plug on gas supplies, with Britain at the end of the pipeline.

The EU also has an envious eye on our North Sea oil fields.

In sport, the EU will have power to regulate wage and transfer caps for soccer clubs, with the Commission taking over as ruler of the game across Europe.

The Courts -

THE Treaty means more rights for criminals — making it harder to fight crime.

Britain fought to stop the European Court of Justice winning power over our courts and police. We lost.

As a result, courtroom verdicts, sentencing policy and appeal rulings over detention of terrorists are likely to be overruled by unsympathetic foreign judges in Strasbourg.

The Government’s inability to send back to Italy Learco Chindamo, the thug who murdered headmaster Stephen Lawrence, shows how much power has already been lost. Under the Constitution EU judges would be able to go much further.

Our anti-terror laws would come under fire from Brussels. The Government admitted this would raise issues relating to national sovereignty. But later they caved in. Foreign aid could provoke serious disagreement.

Britain has ended funding to terrorists who run the Palestinian Authority. This could be overruled.

The Charter -

TONY Blair promised the Charter of Fundamental Rights would never become legally binding. Now it will have the full force of law.

To cover its embarrassment, the Government has been forced to negotiate “red lines” to protect British laws.

These opt-outs are unlikely to survive any challenge in the European Court. Swedish PM Frederick Reinfeldt says: “It should be stressed the UK was given a clarification, not an opt-out.”

EU judges could stop Justice Secretary Jack Straw recommending longer sentences for horrific crimes, making it impossible to recommend that serial killers should not be released from jail.

The Charter could also overturn recent laws allowing criminals to be tried a second time for the same offence.

On migrants -

THE new Charter of Fundamental Rights reads like a wish list for immigration lawyers.

It guarantees a “right to family life” and the “right to marry and found a family”, making it almost impossible to deport troublemakers or stop them bringing families to the UK. Deporting people like Abu Hamza would be almost impossible.

The Government has admitted that the proposals in the Constitutional Treaty will mean even more costly asylum and immigration appeals.

The European Court of Justice would be able to rule not just on whether applicants should gain asylum, but also on applicants’ rights to welfare payments.

If British politicians disagreed with these judges, it would be impossible to get the rulings over-turned.

On "Euro Cops" the paper says that -

FOREIGN police will be able to enter your home even if you have not broken British law.

The new Treaty gives the European prosecutors’ network “Eurojust” sweeping new powers, including the ability to launch criminal prosecutions in Britain even if no offence has been committed under British law.

Europol, the unaccountable EU police force, will be able to join UK police in raiding British homes.

Tony Blair opposed this extension of power but was defeated.

The paper discusses an EU army and EU foreign minister, and points to what it calls "Lost Power" -

UNLIKE previous treaties the Constitutional Treaty would be self-amending.

In future the powers of the EU could be increased further without the need for any new treaty. Further vetoes could be given up by EU leaders without the permission of our Parliament.

EU leaders stealthily and gradually give the EU more and more powers.

Its adoption would be the last ever opportunity to call for a referendum.

This is by a mile the best popular treatment of the issues. Now it's time for repetition, repetition, repetition.

Sack this man

This is the man who defended the PCSO's who stood by the side of a 6 foot deep pond while Jordon Lyon drowned. He is David Thompson, an Assistant Chief Constable of Manchester Police.

Mr Thompson said they would not encourage any police officer to jump into the water because of the dangers and he paid tribute to the PCSOs for "acting correctly".

This is the culture that you cannot do anything unless you have been trained to do it. Melanie Phillips delivers a useful broadside, with other examples.

This incident strengthens the case for local democratic control of the police. This is surely not what local taxpayers want. They fund the local police force, and they are entitled to get what they pay for.

What election fever?

What's this "election fever" I keep reading about? It's probably confined to a few hundred people.

The media keep running breathless articles saying that Mr Suit has hinted there might be an early election, and on another day Mr Tie refuses to rule out an early poll entirely.

In truth it's entirely predictable shadow-boxing with Brown keeping his options open. I wonder how many people read those articles?

Protests continue in Burma

We can only applaud and support the brave protesters in Burma. The protests lead the websites of the BBC and Sky News, which includes a video report.

In the papers, the report in the Telegraph is tellingly anonymous. It details action the regime is said to be taking behind the scenes in preparation for a crackdown. Their website too includes a link to a short video report.

This shows how censorship is breaking down. Indeed, the Financial Times headlines its report "Burma junta wary in YouTube era". The piece has detailed discussion of the south Asian political attitudes to the protests (well worth reading in full, with concern for human rights notable by its absence), and focuses on the increased vulnerability of the regime with the breakdown of censorship.

As they confront the biggest challenge to their rule in two decades, the military must also be considering the international ramifications of a violent crackdown at a time when Burma’s communication links to the outside world are stronger than ever before, thanks to internet and mobile phones.

Indeed, any bloodshed could have a serious impact on Burma’s relationships with Asian friends, who in recent years have defended the junta in international forums – including the United Nations Security Council – from western pressure for political change.

“Shooting peaceful demonstrators in the full-glare of YouTube is no longer something that even Burma’s allies will be able to ignore,” said one long-time Burma watcher.

Other countries' governments - less secure in their authority than governments in established democracies - will not want their people to start thinking that people power can make a difference. African governments - also insecure - do not care at all how badly Mugabe treats the citizens of Zimbabwe. Let us hope Asian governments will be less tolerant.

We can only wish poor Burma well.

Politics and the Nationalised Health Service

Grant Shapps, our local Conservative MP and a tireless campaigner (and now the Tories' housing spokesman, so watch out, incompetent Yvette Cooper), has been spearheading a campaign to save a local hospital. What's of wider interest is the political context he places this in on our excellent local community board.

He recalls that Welwyn Hatfield was promised a super-hospital when it was a marginal Labour seat, but that once junior health minister Melanie Johnson lost the seat "they took the Hatfield super-hospital away".

Furthermore in a County the size of Hertfordshire with over a million people it's interesting to note that there are 11 constituencies. 9 are Conservative held, 2 Labour. But guess which will be the ONLY two constituencies with an acute hospital once this review is over? You guessed it Watford and Stevenage -- and guess what both these constituencies have in common? You guessed it!

But, he goes on, all that could be co-incidence if it weren't for the discovery of a leaked memo last autumn from a meeting between the Secretary of State for Health and the Labour Party Chairman, which talked about political heat maps for hospital healthcare. "So it's absolutely clear that our healthcare is being gerrymandered."

However, "it is equally clear to me that the best way to fight the closure is to work together in a cross-party manner". Hence

we've agreed to put these disagreements about the cause of the problem to one side and are united in our belief that Welwyn Hatfield deserves better, particularly at a time when we know we're expected to expand our population by tens of thousands of people.

Belgium's plight resurrects EU tosh

As Belgium passes 100 days without a national government, the mainstream media are starting to look at it. The Financial Times reports that "with a new budget needed and parliament due to return from recess next month, pressure is mounting for a coalition-building deal". But relations between the politicians leading the two main communities are worse than they used to be.

Robin Shepherd concedes that if Belgium splits, "it will amount to the biggest embarrassment for believers in a deeply integrated European Union since the Treaty of Rome first called for an "ever closer union" half a century ago". He claims that

If Belgium does go down it will provide only the latest and starkest reminder of the endurance of ethnic nationalism in modern Europe and the corresponding failure of elitist supra-nationalists to forge larger identities holding any real meaning for ordinary people.

Leaving Yugoslavia aside as a special case, this overstates the importance of ethnic nationalism. The Czechs and the Slovaks might not have split apart if their rulers had agreed on economic policies. Similarly, if the Flemish weren't subsidising the Walloons, Belgium probably wouldn't be under strain.

Shepherd therefore is right to suggest that

In a too deeply integrated EU, countries that have taken their reformist responsibilities seriously - especially looking a decade or two hence when demographic decline and reductions in the working age population begin to bite - may start to ask serious questions about the value of an EU in which they have to bail out the laggards.

The problem is that many of the southern bloc are in the EU for the money. Portugal's police and Greece's fires suggest how big the gap is between the south and the north. Germany has famously taken on economic reforms, while France notoriously has not. Spain's economy may be the next big sign of the north-south divergence.

Shepherd oddly concludes that "democratic pragmatists, who support European integration as a means to enhancing national interests rather than as an end in itself, can plausibly argue that their vision of the EU has never been more relevant". How can everyone's national interests be enhanced?

If the Flemish and Walloons do unhook from each other, he says, "they can quickly hook back into the EU as separate entities bound by common European values". Though it's not immediately obvious what these common values are when the two parts of the country have such a strained relationship. And what is the word "European" doing here? Why not just say "common values"?

Finally we get the implausible call of the EU fanatic -

The very existence of the EU allows us to contemplate a resurgence in national sentiment without fear of violence or confrontation. In the context of Europe's past, that is no small achievement.

This is rubbish. Trade, television, cars, football and the Eurovision Song Contest have made it harder for leaders to demonise other European nationalities. And better educated populations are hardly likely to allow themselves be whipped up into dying for their country.

The EU has facilitated European trade a bit. But an important force for peace in Europe?

Tosh.

Is that the best case to be made for the EU?

Richer taxpayers

The Taxpayers' Alliance picks up a claim by Frazer Nelson in Spectator Coffeehouse that "the richest 10% actually stump up the majority (53%) of tax collected in Britain. And the richest 1% stump up a staggering 22% of the tax collected".

The step change, he says, came in 1988, when Nigel Lawson cut the top rate of tax.

The top 1% then paid a far lower 14% of the tax collected. When their top rate was cut, they earned and declared more and the system became fairer: turns out that Lawson was the biggest redistributionist of them all.

Some debate follows about exactly what Nelson's numbers are telling us. Some contributors seem to want a controlled trial demonstrating the truth of Nelson's claim, but the real world's messy and you have to make judgements.

Nelson concludes that

For the LibDems, this points to a horrible, unpalatable truth: if you want to squeeze more tax from the rich, cut their tax rates. As JFK said it's "the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run".

No great expectations

The Taxpayers' Alliance picks up a report from the Financial Times that on public services generally, those who believe things will get worse outnumber those who believe they will get better by 22 percentage points. "That is chiefly due to expectations over the future performance of the National Health Service declining from a net score of minus 14 to minus 19".

However, the Financial Times adds that

A mere 20 per cent are confident that the government will manage immigration well, 23 per cent that they will do the right thing on pensions and 23 per cent that crime will reduce over the next few years.

The public are more optimistic about education and transport.

The Taxpayers' Alliance want politicians to "get themselves out of management".

The problem is that unaccountable management boards would create a democratic deficit. This just leaves the option of actually giving citizens choices of providers on the ground - for instance, giving parents vouchers and letting them choose a school (though this is even harder than it sounds).

But politicians are sure they know better than the electors. You only have to look at Brown and Cameron to realise how deep their conceited conviction of their superiority runs.

They'll be highly reluctant to let go. And so many schools will continue to fail our children, and political interference in the Nationalised Health Service will continue to kill people.

Hemming in the police forces

By common consent, police forces are over-regulated. Much of it comes from the Home Office, but much is the fault of the police bureaucrats, which is why we need locally elected police chiefs with proper local accountability.

Following on BBC Panorama last night and the decision of policemen like David Copperfield to work for police abroad, what a good time for the Independent Police Complaints Commission to suggest further rules.

The IPCC has said that "some police officers are taking unnecessary risks in high-speed chases", and has called for compulsory national guidelines. It has called for control rooms to take a more active role in whether officers should chase a suspect, even though it admits that many pursuits were short and involved split-second decisions.

In the first two quarters of 2006-7, 49 people were killed or seriously injured in police pursuits. But hang on. Four out of 10 of those killed were not wearing a seatbelt, we are told. Was that because they were pedestrians or motorcyclists? We are not told.

If the police chase you and you don't stop, I'm not awfully upset if you get hurt. We need to look at the number of other people affected. Even they don't all count. If a car drives the wrong way down a motorway, the police chase it, and there is an accident, are the police to blame? I think not.

Then we need to look at the number of police chases where no one gets hurt at all. What is the risk of someone getting hurt in a police chase?

Finally, if the police do fewer chases, presumably some criminals will escape. So what would be the cost to society of fewer chases? What would be the cost to society if criminals know that police are less likely to be allowed to chase them, especially if the miscreant is on a motorbike or the police are in a van or a four wheel drive vehicle?

Society can't be risk-free. If there is a case, let's see it argued and summarised properly.

Asking the referendum question

If there is a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty, what should it be?

Ming Campbell has been proposing that, “I think we should have a referendum on the big question – in or out. That’s a referendum that we can win.”

Exactly.

Peter Riddell reports that "this has annoyed some of his younger allies, who fear that it will play into the hands of opponents of the reform treaty".

Quite the opposite. If Gordon Brown is forced into a referendum, he can go for the grand gesture of "Once and for all, in or out". And doubtless win.

Olympic waste again

More about olympic waste today. The Daily Mail is among papers reporting that

With the cost of the 2012 London Games spiralling to £9.3 billion, the Olympic Delivery Authority lavished £7,707,000 on only 65 agency workers - the equivalent of around £118,500 each.

Senior figures on the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games are also earning generous fees and wages.

Princess Anne, a non-executive director and head of the British Olympic Association, received £4,000 in fees for attending four board meetings lasting around ten hours.

This can't be justified.

The Taxpayers' Alliance called the games "a tawdry money-making opportunity for a few fat cats at taxpayers' expense", and added, "No wonder people are so disillusioned".

The organising committee's chief executive Paul Deighton - who commissioned the widely-derided 2012 logo - received £536,000 last year, including a £100,000 performance related bonus. His personal fortune is estimated at £100 million.

No wonder 64% of those questioned in a poll consider the financial risk of the olympics is not worth taking and the money could be better used in other ways.

Some climate change truths

A press release from "The Carbon Sense Coalition" (not on their site) reminds us that

• 1934 was the hottest year of the twentieth century.
  
  
• There was no global warming from 1940 to 1980, a time when CO2 emissions grew strongly.
  
  
• There has been no global warming since 1998.
  
  
• Current temperatures are not extreme or unusual.
  
  
• Past records and scientific evidence show that changing surface temperature is more likely to be a cause (not a result) of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
  
  
• CO2 and water vapour have always been essential components of the atmosphere. Neither is toxic, both tend to retain some of the sun's warmth, and both are absolutely essential and beneficial to all life on earth.
  
  
• The most likely causes of variations in surface temperature are connected with solar cycles, variations in the heat output of the sun and eras of volcanic activity.
  
  
• More CO2, water vapour and warmth in the atmosphere would be a boon to most of humanity.
  
  
• There is empirical evidence to suggest that earth's temperature is more likely to fall than rise - ice ages are more normal than today's balmy climates.
  
  
• There is significant scientific opposition to the proposition that man's emissions of CO2 are causing global warming or any other harm.

More money down the drain

Let me put this as simply (is that too long a word?) as I can.

For some reason, the government commissioned a study into the writing styles of celebrity chefs. This was paid for, dear reader, by you and me.

The study, carried out by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, looked at 35 recipes published by five of the most popular celebrity chefs and assessed their readability and writing style.

The study found that Nigella Lawson's recipes are tricky to follow. Her recipe writing style was found too 'chatty' by some - the long sentences, complex measurements and complicated words mean aspiring chefs must be equipped with GCSE standard reading and numeracy skills in order to understand them.

What is wrong with that?

And why is the government spending my money on this?

Tories on their own planet

The first job of the Opposition is to oppose the government.

Their next job is to propose policies different from the government's which might get them elected.

So the Conservatives' quality of life review will propose that shoppers using out-of-town supermarkets should be forced to pay car parking charges to defend the traditional British high street.

This blog has argued before that green policies are a political dead-end. If they are followed through, they inevitably bring people more expense and less freedom.

This is unlikely to be popular, except apparently on Planet Cameron. This is where you cycle to work with a car driven behind you. Apparently on Planet Cameron people will embrace the chance to make their shopping dearer, and vote for the politicians who propose it.

The Conservatives' ineptitude continues to be staggering.

More money down the drain

The Ministry of Defence's 20 biggest weapons projects are £2.6 billion over budget and a total of 36 years behind schedule, reports The Telegraph.

MPs also accuse ministers of massaging the figures after claiming they had cut the costs of the 20 projects by £781 million following a review of the department's spending plans.

The report by the Commons defence select committee says that £448m of these "cuts" did not actually result in any saving for the taxpayer, because the money was simply transferred to other parts of the defence budget.

Public falls out of love with the Olympics

The Taxpayers' Alliance reports that 64% of those questioned in a poll consider the financial risk of the olympics is not worth taking and the money could be better used in other ways.

89% think the government's latest increased budget of £9.35bn will be exceeded. 45% expect the final bill to be 60% more than the current budget, while 26% expect it to rise even higher – to £20 billion.

Belgium again

A useful analysis piece in The Independent suggests that politicians on both sides of the language barrier expect a deal to be reached eventually, with 70% of all Belgians and a crushing majority of French-speakers against a split.

How much do you know about global warming?

Take the short global warming test.

The birth (and death?) of Belgium

Paul Belien explains the origin of Belgium - and why its short history may be drawing to a close.

Quick referendum news

A new YouGov poll for the I Want a Referendum campaign finds that 73% of trade union members want a referendum on the new Constitutional Treaty.

Mark Mardell writes that in Luxembourg the government won a referendum on the old constitution, so Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn says: "That is a very British question. The most important thing is we have a treaty. Not the form but in the basis, the substance we are not far away from the constitutional treaty. All the important things for Britain and for the European Union are in this treaty."

In France they lost the referendum on the same document, so Mr Kouchner said: "No, one is shorter than the other, one is a constitution and the other is a treaty." So will they have another referendum? He laughs. "No, not now. We'll go through the parliament."

The Portuguese foreign minister said: "What a question!" But then, he’s chairing all these meetings and wants no trouble.

In Austria, the government was enthusiastic about the constitution, so Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik answered the same question in this way: "We have slimmed it down. It has undergone a diet. But for Austria it was important to keep the essence, to keep the institutional side of it intact, and also to keep the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This is the essence, and we were able to safeguard that.

In Poland, there were more concerns about the constitution, and the government won new concessions in the treaty, so Anna Fotyga said: "Absolutely not. We have gone much further and got a good outcome." I asked her about the worries I mentioned before, about the Poles derailing the timetable. After making the point that the election date was not certain, she said: "There is no reason to think so. We are pretty united about the mandate we are able to discuss, and the government still has a mandate to act."

The British foreign secretary said: "The prime minister and I have both made this very, very clear - that the constitutional treaty has been abandoned... This is a treaty to make the European Union's institutions work better, and in line with all precedent it should be considered by Parliament. That is the right way of doing it, rather than referendum. Politicians of all parties are saying they want Parliament to play a bigger role in British national life, and here's an opportunity for Parliament to play that role."

When I asked if it was basically the same as the old constitution, he said, "It's completely different. This is not a new constitution for Europe, it's some institutional reforms."

EUobserver reports that the Danish government has pushed forward a decision on whether or not to hold a referendum on the EU's new treaty, saying it will start examining the issue next month instead of in December as planned. "The law experts will tell us whether there is a hand over of sovereignty," said the Danish Foreign Affairs Minister, adding that there will be a referendum if that is the case. "If there is no hand-over of sovereignty, then there will be a political decision on whether there will be a referendum."

Apparently the Belgian caretaker government would not be authorised to agree the treaty.

Turkey in the EU? No thanks

Geoffrey Wheatcroft criticises David Miliband for claiming that Turkish EU membership would build a bridge between Europe and western Asia. Wheatcroft lays out some differences in Turkish political culture, and the economic issues that would arise from "adding a country with a per capita income not much more than one-tenth that of the UK's - and which will, moreover, soon be more populous than Germany". It would, he says, threaten the very being of the EU.

Now there are other threats to the "very being" of the EU. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, for instance, writes that

On the break-up of the euro -- as the Latin and Germanic blocs pull further apart -- I stand by my position. These fissures take a long time to do their damage. The Spanish property bubble has begun to deflate, and Italy’s growth was just 0.1pc in the second quarter, not far off recession. I imagine it will take another two to three years for this to unfold.

But regarding Turkey, Wheatcroft does not see the greatest difficulty as economic, religious, cultural or geographic. It is political. "That means not the politics of Turkey but of Europe."