Good news, bad news

Ex-president Jacques Chirac has been told to stand trial over allegations of bogus jobs handed out when he was Mayor of Paris. It probably won't happen, but still....

The bad news is that Gordon Brown is claiming a "breakthrough" in EU climate change talks which he says will pave the way for a deal at Copenhagen. Of course it involves us spending yet more money we don't have, pauperising ourselves in homage to an increasingly discredited theory of manmade global warming. All our main parties are in thrall to it, and there are no smaller parties one could support with a clear conscience.

"Europe is essential for a deal but Europe is today showing even more leadership than before ... Europe is making three conditional offers, money on the table, saying we will do everything we can."

Mr Brown said the talks today included "very specific figures" about the money that would be offered to developing nations, including 100bn Euros by 2020 to help meet climate change targets and cut emissions.

Chuck away our money why don't you. There is a yawning democratic deficit.

Baby P lodger wins appeal

The lodger at Baby Peter's home who was jailed over the toddler's death has won an appeal against his indeterminate sentence, reports the BBC.

Jason Owen will now serve six years in jail for causing or allowing the death of a child.

This is an unblievably short sentence for such a vile crime. Goodness knows what went through his head, but nothing nice. He has spent 289 days in custody on remand, which will count towards his sentence.

And we're reminded that

Due to publicity surrounding the case, it is thought all three individuals convicted are likely to be given new identities on their release to protect them from vigilante attacks.

If people do stuff like that, then they should have to take their chance. We shouldn't have to pay a penny for their well-being.

Anyway, with all the criminal records vetting that's being proposed he'll probably never get a job.

Stern rebukes

He's all over the MSM suggesting that we'll need to give up almost all meat eating to combat 'climate change' (aka global warming). The Times seems to have had the story first, headlining it "Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet".

Stern has called the headline unfortunate: he insisted he meant that what we eat was only one part of "across the board" changes which need to be made to avert climate change.

"Cut backs right across the board" were needed in energy consumption, and food was just "one of the elements."

Commenters on The Times piece are robustly unimpressed. Good.

David Mills loses appeal

Reuters is reporting that David Mills has lost his appeal against his sentence for accepting a bribe from Silvio. The sentence of four and a half years was confirmed.

There just isn't man made global warming

Lawrence Solomon writes that all scenarios of global warming catastrophe are based on nothing more than output from computer models that have been fed what-if scenarios.

These models can’t even model the past, let alone the future. The climate is simply too complex, with too many variables, to project into the future with any degree of confidence.

He lists climate change initiatives that have gone badly wrong, and concludes that attempts to mitigate global warming have caused enormous human suffering and ecological harm.

With the globe not having warmed in the last 11 years — once again, to the surprise of the computer modelers — the safest thing we can do on global warming until we know more may be to do nothing; the most dangerous thing would be to continue to act boldly and in ignorance.

And Bob Carter points out that:

Should you wish to test (as the IPCC should) the idea that “human carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming”, then there are several ways that that can be done.

The result, long ago, has been the falsification of the dangerous human-caused warming hypothesis. Failed tests include: that global cooling has occurred since 1998 despite an increase in carbon dioxide of 5%; the lack of detailed correlation between the carbon dioxide and temperature records over the last 100 years; consideration of cause and effect timing of past carbon dioxide and temperature levels in ice core records; the absence of the model-predicted temperature hotspot high in the tropical troposphere; the low sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide forcing as judged against empirical tests; and the demonstrable failure of computer GCMs to predict future climate.

The Climate Change Bill laid down that, by 2050, the must cut emissions of carbon dioxide by well over 80%. Short of some unimaginable technological revolution, such a target could not possibly be achieved without shutting down almost the whole of our industrialised economy, changing our way of life out of recognition, writes Booker. But apparently we still need a third Heathrow runway.

The democratic deficit is still there

So Nick Griffin has been exposed as nasty and incoherent. Big deal.

As Frank Field writes, in the next 20 years, the population of the UK will rise from 61 million to 70 million – and then go on rising, say government statisticians. The bulk of that growth will be due to immigration, which will have added seven million – seven cities the size of Birmingham – to our population by 2034. In the next 10 years alone the British population will rise by four million.

People already living in Britain have never been consulted about the rate of immigration. Their neighbourhoods change, some primary schools have substantial numbers of children who don't speak English, but the haughty political consensus grandly declines to acknowledge a problem.

There is a big democratic deficit here, just as there is on leaving the EU, just as there is on scepticism about man-made global warming. If you hold these views, you have nowhere to go that is politically effective.

Griffin is a shifty, incoherent racist and Farage is a bully whose ambition is to protect his position and income rather than let his party broaden the political debate, probably because he wouldn't be able to keep power and money in his own hands.

Many hold these perfectly reasonable political views. But if you do, you have nowhere effective to go. The smug political consensus is undented.

Libel's Mr Injustice Eady again

Just to flag up that George Monbiot appears to have been reading Private Eye, so we now have a very brief summary on the web that can be linked to.

Interestingly Monbiot puts Jack Straw in the frame for not tackling the issue. Straw hasn't of course had this particular portfolio throughout the rise and fall of New Labour, but Monbiot paints with an enthusiastically broad brush:

Perhaps the real target of this column should have been Straw, whose determination to preserve this bookburners' law means that all of us are forced to share his terror of upsetting the rich and powerful. Through 12 years in power, a government of frightened little men has done nothing to reform the democratic world's most illiberal laws, which permit an old-fashioned judge to punish us for holding power to account.

Fatuous fattitude

As light relief from Brown claiming carbon dioxide is the big pusher of climate change, and Balls subverting democracy (see below), feast your eyes on a BBC report of a campaign advocating that attacking someone for being fat should be a hate crime. Evidently "they want so-called "fat-ism" to be made illegal on the same grounds as race, age and religious discrimination".

In San Francisco, a ridiculous law is said to stop doctors pressing patients to slim down - even though we know obesity (however defined) is bad for your health. According to a SF lawyer, "the San Francisco ordinance says you may want to mention weight to the patient but if the patient says they do not want to talk about that then you are asked to respect those wishes".

The campaigners say surveys show 93% of employers would rather employ a thin person than a fat one even if they are equally qualified. You bet. The thinner one's likely to be healthier. (Fat people do get jobs, of course ... look at the FSA spokesperson on The Daily Politics today.)

Kathryn Szrodecki, who campaigns on behalf of overweight people, said that in the UK fat people were stared at, pointed at, talked about and attacked.

She said: "I have been discriminated against - I am a YMCA qualified fitness instructor, but I have gone for jobs and been laughed off the premises."

Another campaigner, Marsha Coupe, said: "I have been punched, I have had beer thrown in my face, I have had people attack me on the train.

"They say 'Move out of the way fatty! Well person coming down the aisle!'"

Ms Szrodecki said: "This is a very common event - someone being beaten up should be a crime.

Good news! - it is.

Dr Ian Campbell of the charity Weight Concern joins the trip to absurdity:

People in inner cities are much more likely to be overweight because of poorer education, poorer housing and poorer job opportunities.

Not everyone has a free choice about controlling their weight.

Everyone has a choice within their body's parameters. They have little choice about being short or dim ... but doctors' advice recognises that most of their patients probably could lose some weight.

The line about the inner cities is confusing - is Campbell claiming that inner city dwellers have less choice about regulating their weight than those in the suburbs or in villages? News about the benefits of exercise and five a day has probably penetrated even unto the inner city. Sounds like another piece of special pleading.

The information is out there, it's easily assimilable in bite size chunks if you have the appetite to listen.

People have to take responsibility for themselves. Time for a deaf ear.

Andrew Neil whacks Benn

PoliticsHome quotes Hilary Benn's support for Gordon Brown's stance that there are fifty days to save the world from climate change, but fails to report how easily Neil whacked him about.

1. Neil asked Benn what evidence of warming people could see around them, pointing out that temperatures haven't exceeded 1998 levels. Benn said spring starts earlier than it used to!
   
   
2. Neil pointed out the Antarctic ice is thickening. Benn tried to say it was getting thinner but Neil said that was only in one place, which was peninsular.
   
   
3. If climate action was so urgent and important, why weren't Labour cancelling the third Heathrow runway and cutting motorway speed limits to 60mph or even 50? - Because they wanted to get re-elected, said Neil.

Benn tried silly stuff like claimimg the UK had decoupled economic growth from pollution, but Neil pointed out more of our manufacturing was being done abroad.

Benn also claimed that the IPCC represented eminent scientific opinion, and Neil pointed out that 80% of the people on the IPCC are policymakers, not scientists, "as you well know, Mr Benn".

And all this was without exploring the causes of any climate change there may be.

Is global warming man-made? Yes, man made it up.

UKIP ordered to forfeit £363,697 donation

Because Alan Bown wasn't on the electoral register at the time. Quite right.

Still, evidently 780,000 euros per annum is on the way - at taxpayers' expense, naturally.

Silence those who disagree radically

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has written a poor quality piece kindly explaining to us what the limits on free speech should be.

"Hitler won the votes of the majority", she writes. "Would the BBC have done him the honour, too? I say the BNP should be interrogated on news programmes but an appearance on Question Time is a privilege which the BBC now bestows on racists. It sickens those of us who expect better of the corporation. "

This would be poor quality stuff for an undergraduate mag. First, Hitler would have been invited onto the programme when he'd won a minority of votes, shrivelling his charisma, putting him on a level with other politicians. Second, the BBC belongs to taxpayers. ALL taxpayers. It is not there to be a creature of one columnist's superior attitudes.

And for her information Lord Pearson, who invited Geert Wilders, sits in the Lords ... so ... he is not an MP. And she writes that "Muslims responded with good sense". How convenient to ignore the Muslim demonstrators we all saw.

Freedom of speech is essential for unfashionable viewpoints, and to combat the bien pensant views of insidiously sloppy columnists.

Balls vs democracy

A committee of MPs was unconvinced by Ed Balls' choice for Children's Commissioner for England.

A committee of MPs told him to restart the selection process saying she had not shown enough effort to assert the independence of the role.

So Balls appointed her anyway.

Labour MP Barry Sheerman, who chairs the committee for children, schools and families, said members had not been convinced of Ms Atkinson's suitability for the role.

Mr Sheerman told the BBC's Today programme: "Maggie Atkinson is a very competent woman but we just didn't think she had the independence of mind to stand up to a secretary of state who likes to get his own way."

Describing Mr Balls as "a bit of a bully", Mr Sheerman said he thought the children's secretary's decision to ignore the committee's recommendation marked "a bad day for parliamentary democracy".

Indeed it is a bad day for democracy.

Emily Thornberry in a parallel universe

Nichola Pease, deputy chairman of JO Hambro capital management and a mother of three, says excessive maternity leave and eye-watering sex discrimination payouts could backfire on women.

She says most women make different life choices. And bosses may be reluctant to employ women for fear they could go on to have lots of children supported by Britain's over-generous maternity leave system. Many senior bosses did not have 'confidence' in employing women for fear they would go on to have families at the company's expense. She added: 'How easy is it if they have three children and take five years out?

But Labour MP Emily Thornberry is having none of this, saying:

I am absolutely horrified to hear such an old-fashioned view expressed by someone who should know better.

The rights that Labour have given to women are extremely important - especially to women who do not have a £10million cushion to sit on.

And the Fawcett Society consider maternity leave "a basic fundamental right".

Ms Thornberry doesn't begin to get it. She cares nothing for the difficulties faced by a small business - or its customers. She doesn't understand that Mrs Pease is describing the world as she sees it, rather than selectively describing how she would like it to be.

I know whose judgement I would rather trust.

War, Italian style

Allegedly the Italians paid the Taleban not to attack them.

Democracy and the judiciary

The other day Lord Justice Sedley was upping the sentences for environmental crimes, pontificating that they are highly important.

A couple of days ago we had super injunctions and a clear attempt to stifle reporting of a parliamentary question.

Now some good news. At long last the overweening Mr Injustice Eady's grip on international libel is being weakened significantly, with California having joined other states in passing a law to prevent so called libel tourism, a story which has made it into the Daily Mail.

Eady is a pustule on the face of British justice. But there's wider issue. As the Mail says:

Mr Justice Eady has handled a majority of high-profile libel trials in Britain in recent years.

It's legitimate to ask: why? The judiciary connives at Eady reshaping privacy law in a restrictive way and applying it internationally.

And politicians do nothing.

More politicians' waste

Parliament this time. Dizzy has two examples, here and here.

Guardian gets another libel threat

Allegedly

Teacher smug against Leahy criticism

Terry Leahy's attack on education standards has been all over the press today, for instance here. He said standards are low and there are too many educational agencies.

Five Live Drive interviewed a teacher (deputy head of a sixth form, I believe) who trotted out dead clichés: "he's condemning a whole generation" (not he's not, he's criticising you lot) and "standards are rising" (oh please). I wouldn't want her teaching my children.

The government doesn't get it either. A spokesman said:

Standards have never been higher in our secondary schools. The vast majority of people working in education are on the front line, teaching in our schools.

We are working to lift the burden of administration tasks from teachers, freeing them up so they can concentrate on what they do best – teaching and preparing lessons. There are several non-departmental bodies, but it's clearly right and proper that issues such as exam standards are regulated by an independent body.

Despite some politicians' wish to liberate teachers, the profession is not in safe hands while idiots like Mick Brookes head one of their unions, the National Association of Head Teachers no less. He says:

It is very important children have an idea of the chronology of historical events, but we expect them to know the precise dates they happened. Why? Even historians can't decide among themselves which dates children should learn. If children want the date of the Battle of Hastings, they will google it.

Anti-intellectuals like Brookes ignore this: that you cannot think without facts. It is because we know this fact about Mick Brookes' views that we know he is unfit to be in education. He doesn't understand anything about academic achievement.

More global warming doubts

A certain frisson in the blogosphere that the Daily Mail has now published a piece questioning global warming. Let's note that they've lifted chunks from the BBC website piece referenced here yesterday, and prefaced it with reports of early snow to draw readers in.

Particularly striking, though, is the quote from the Met Office:

So is the sun really going down on global warming?

The Met Office is not convinced.

They incorporate solar and oceanic cycles into their models, and they say that - even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.

Where is the testable hypothesis here? How could this position be falsified in less than a few decades? And is this any basis for drastic action?

Jacqui Smith makes a fool of herself again

Former over-promoted Home Secretary Jacqui Smith merely has to apologise to the Commons for designating one room in her sister's London house as her main home, while claiming expenses for the second home, the family house in her constituency of Redditch. Thieving Jacqui rejected the conclusion, saying:

I am disappointed that this process has not led to a fairer set of conclusions, based on objective and consistent application of the rules as they were at the time.

And she has ludicrously described herself as the "poster girl for the expenses scandal".

It seems immoral whining poster girl Jacqui can't tell right from wrong even when it's held up in front of her.

Pompous Sir Stuart Bell gets it wrong again

Is there any end to this man's pomposity and self-regard? Considering himself a one man authority on what is right and what is wrong in the expenses saga, he has now pronounced the decision to require Gordon Brown to repay expenses as "clearly wrong in my view".

Sir Stuart Bell, your smugness happily belongs to a previous era. Your opinion is worthless. Go away.

BBC does balanced piece on climate change shock

Much glee - even astonishment - in the blogosphere that the BBC has finally produced a balanced piece about climate change. There have been a few corners in the beeb where the coverage has been unbiased, but the thrust has been that climate change is manmade. In their main bulletins and programmes this is what you get.

It's too soon to know whether this is the start of balanced reporting, or indeed whether the "climate correspondent" will be sat on. We'll see.

And atmospheric methane is evidently not increasing as forecast.

Pesky facts.

Green sceptic? You're far from alone

You don't have to put up with green garbage and claims that the science is settled etc. You can click here for journalistic sanity in reassuringly straightforward language. Well worth a read.

Also intriguing is the item on wattsupwiththat picking up a report from an Iranian news outlet about the latest research into the effect of variations in the sun's activity on cosmic rays and clouds, and hence the climate. A concentrated read, but nothing abstruse and worth the effort. I don't recall seeing this splashed in our media ....

It's a mad world

The Guardian pantingly reports that one person high up in the Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA) doesn't pay UK tax. And the point is? The TPA does a great job bringing facts to voters' notice. The paper doesn't seem to approve of big spending state sector waste being exposed to the light of day.

They're also excited about an Ofsted source telling them that the initial report into Haringey children's services gave it high ratings. The source has done Ofsted a huge disfavour because of the revelations about their inspection process, which seems to consist of meetings to discuss departments' own self-assessments. Talk about slow, ineffective, clunky and cosy! And - of course - we pay for it. This is the same Ofsted which is busy clamping down on friends' childcare arrangements. An out of control leviathan. If ministers cannot control it, what hope for voters? The head of Ofsted should go for a start. Put in someone who will slash its scope and make it more effective.

And did you know carbon dioxide is a poison gas? There was me thinking it's vital to life. And, as Richard North points out, snow's coming early. But hey, let's throw away more taxpayers' money.

Obama gets nobel peace prize

The world laughs - is this satire?

ANPR: good, but what was the success rate?

In principle ANPR is a great tool which in these crime-ridden times should be used more widely. But what was the success rate in this operation?

As part of Operation Utah a significant operation occurred in Bath on Wednesday 7th October. It involved police officers from Avon and Somerset Constabulary and representatives from key enforcement agencies.

258 vehicles using the London Road in Bath were stopped having been scanned and alerts raised by special Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) units by the end of the operation. ANPR alerted officers to any crime the vehicle or its occupants were wanted for, from drug dealing and banned drivers to benefit cheats and rogue traders.

PC Alan Hicks, in charge of the operation, said "One offence involved a Chinese national who had not applied or a UK driving licence and had been driving without proper documentation for 13 years. Officers from operations also identified a vehicle of interest which quickly became a foot chase resulting with one arrest for possession of Class A cocaine and another arrest involving a quantity of Cannabis. Four vehicles were seized for no insurance including a Land Rover TD5 worth £30,000. Criminals should be aware that if they are involved in crime, whether it's Class A drug dealing or burglary, benefit fraud or driving an untaxed car, we are out looking for them. With ANPR, there is literally nowhere to hide we use mobile as well as fixed units, meaning criminals can never second guess when we are watching."

ANPR systems instantly check up to 3,000 vehicles an hour against various databases of intelligence. This includes information provided by police officers, Crimestoppers, the DVLA and other forces about vehicles used by disqualified drivers, people wanted on warrant and those who are suspected of committing crime.

If a suspicious vehicle is identified by ANPR, police units intercept to carry out checks on the vehicle and occupants. The expertise of other agencies including the Border and Immigration Agency and HM Revenue and Customs can then be called on.

Govt reply to childcare petition says nothing

The government has now responded to the petition on reciprocal childcare, as follows -

The Childcare Act 2006 requires anyone providing ‘childcare for reward’ to register with Ofsted, with the aim of ensuring every child in a commercial childcare service is safe and well cared for. Parents would expect no less. However, our intention has always been that friends and families caring for children through informal arrangements should be exempt from having to register and we believed that was what always happened. In the light of this recent case we are talking to Ofsted about how we can make sure there’s a shared understanding with Ofsted, and with parents, of what the law means and how it should interpreted.

Since 1997 we have invested £25bn in childcare and early years services, doubling the number of childcare places available for children under 8 to support working families and providing more support than ever before with childcare costs, with over £3.8 million a day going directly into parents hands to help pay for childcare through tax credits.

So Ofsted is out of ministers' control, and after several weeks this is the best the government can do. Meanwhile they make a virtue of spending lots of our money. Note: it is not "we" the government who "invested" their own money - they have spent taxpayers' money.

The response feels so dated, indeed already ancien régime.

Cautious common sense

There's something wrong here: Jeremy Clarkson is showing caution.

On climate change, he says:

I read the reports that come in from various scientific bodies and as far as I can work out nobody actually knows whether man is contributing to global warming or not.

The BBC refers to this as "his provocative position on global warming".

Provocative? Only if you're a green nutter, BBC.