Historic resonances

Does a bit of atmospheric English history make you tingle? Try this.

Swiss ban minarets

In a referendum. Well that's rather up to them, isn't it. We couldn't, even if the powers that be deigned to allow us referenda. We'd be infringing someone's human rights, an unaccountable judge somewhere would say.

Amnesty weighed in and told the Swiss it would be morally unacceptable to vote against minarets. Unaccountably, the Swiss seem to have ignored them. So Amnesty has slammed Swiss citizens' decision to ban minarets, branding it a "grotesquely discriminatory" violation of religious freedom.

Why they think it's any of their business, or why they think anyone will take the slightest notice of their self-importance, is anyone's guess.

Still small voices on Copenhagen and climategate

On climategate, Philip Stott writes as lucidly and moderately as ever. And would you like to tell the Science Museum what you think about Copenhagen?

I've seen the evidence. And I want the government to prove they're serious about climate change by negotiating a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.

You can vote COUNT ME IN or COUNT ME OUT.

As I type, 6921 have been counted in so far, while 8748 have counted themselves out.

Monckton on climategate

Climategate hits the headlines

Climategate just keeps hitting the headlines. There's a reasonable update here (though the author uses the term 'hardliner' for those who don't believe in AGW, a small fault in an otherwise balanced piece), and on the situation in the US here.

Meanwhile, as Richard North points out, David Cameron's message on the importance of Copenhagen is attracting a swarm of hostile comments. But will this rising indignation be allowed into the MSM?

The next step for UKIP

The new leader, Lord Pearson, has been given an historic opportunity. He can establish UKIP as a broader party in one stroke, just by saying that global warming itself is - ahem - unproven, and AGW even more so.

Therefore government should not be lavishing taxpayers' money on it, especially when we all know state spending is going to have to be cut back.

In one swoop he could grab headlines in a way that the limited Farage never managed, and tap into the frustration of a lot of voters that their scepticism about 'global warming' has no voice in political debate.

Brown throws away more of our money

Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy have proposed a multi-billion-dollar fund to help developing nations deal with climate change, report the BBC.

Mr Brown said the $10bn (£6bn) fund should also be used to help developing nations cut greenhouse gas emissions.

... Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels.

"He is offering $800m from the UK over three years, money that has already been budgeted for", says the biased BBC, as if that meant it would be worth spending even if we could afford it. Anyone recall that we are led to expect cuts in public spending and rises in taxes?

Is there fast global warming? Very doubtful. If so, do we understand enough about it to be sure it is caused by man? No. Are many island states threatened by rising sea levels? That depends what rises in sea levels your dodgy computer models project.

Brown is contemptibly throwing our tax money at a problem which probably doesn't exist, expecting to get some kudos now and make things harder for the next UK government - and incidentally the country.

Global warming - made (up) by man?

James Dellingpole pithily highlights the political ructions in Australia:

For the rapidly increasing number of us who believe that AGW is little more than a scheme by bullying eco-fascists to deprive us of our liberty, by big government to spread its controlling tentacles into every aspect our lives, and scheming industrialists such as Al Gore to enrich themselves through carbon trading, this principled act by Australia’s Carbon Five is fantastic news.

In the wake of Climategate this French study has been picked up:

Millions of measurements, global coverage, consistently rising temperatures, case closed: The Earth is warming. Except for one problem. CRU’s average temperature data doesn’t jive with that of Vincent Courtillot, a French geo-magneticist, director of the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, and a former scientific advisor to the French Cabinet. Last year he and three colleagues plotted an average temperature chart for Europe that shows a surprisingly different trend. Aside from a very cold spell in 1940, temperatures were flat for most of the 20th century, showing no warming while fossil fuel use grew. Then in 1987 they shot up by about 1 C and have not shown any warming since. This pattern cannot be explained by rising carbon dioxide concentrations, unless some critical threshold was reached in 1987; nor can it be explained by climate models....

More evidence that the science is not "settled".

And back to James Delingpole, who tells us an LBC interviewer "has been simply inundated with callers, all of them utterly unconvinced that human influence has made any significant on so-called “Global Warming”. She was desperate to get a few balancing calls from people who do believe in AGW but just couldn’t find any."

To stand back a moment, it looks increasingly questionable whether we have seen warming recently, let alone exceptional warming.

And if there has been exceptional warming, what's been causing it? The computer climate models are proving bad at prediction. More and more temporary effects (called "weather") are hurled into the breach to justify the discrepancies. But if you were starting again now, with the new knowledge that's emerging week by week (for instance about clouds, or the sun), would it occur to you to look to the rapidly rising but still trace gas CO2 for any warming effect at all?

Sign the petition, hear the song ...

You can sign a petition on the Downing Street website:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various allegations have been fully investigated by an independent body.

Lord Monckton is listed as a signatory. While signing, hear the track.

Most "politics" doesn't matter

There's a useful piece from Daniel Finkelstein this morning, highlighting that most people ignore most "politics" most of the time.

Political ignorance isn’t stupidity, it’s economical use of time.

More power for the parole board

So who are the parole board responsible to?

There's no man made global warming

This is what Lord Monckton says. Via wattsupwiththat, here is a video of a talk he gave a few weeks ago.

Scroll down to the second video, which gives you the full talk. It's long - 95 minutes - but absorbing.

Enjoy!

Criminal prison leniency

The BBC reports that a woman convicted of murder has gone on the run during an escorted visit to the shops in south London.

Patricia Gillette, 41, from Streatham, south London, was detained indefinitely in 2007 for killing Mark Murphy, 38, at his home in Streatham in August 2006.

Yet Gillette, who was being held at Bethlem Royal Hospital, was on a visit to shops when she escaped on Friday afternoon.

Police described her as "dangerous" and warned people not to approach her.

So what is going on here? She has only been in some two years and already this dangerous killer is being taken to the shops.

UPDATE She was re-arrested on Sunday morning in Streatham after officers saw her in Churchmore Road.

Police get it wrong again

Hot on the heels of recent stories about private security firms being paid to patrol our streets because the police don't feel inclined to deliver what the citizens want, the police establishment are now saying these companies are a worrying development:

The Police Federation of England and Wales said there is "huge concern" over their powers and accountability.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has also said there should be no role for the private sector in Britain's law enforcement.

Indeed there shouldn't. But people don't shell out between £2 and £4 a week for fun. Could it be that they have despaired of the local police providing the service they feel they need?

Sir Ian Blair typically misses the point:

I do not see community safety as a commodity to be bought and sold and therefore we shouldn't be having the private sector in policing.

"Unless we get this right, we will end up with private security coming in and they will work for the rich and the poor will go without.

The people on that estate aren't rich. They are paying because the complacent police aren't doing their job. All the police have to do is start delivering, and the demand will disappear.

Tories mustn't wimp out of benefits challenge

Iain Duncan Smith's think tank was applauded for highlighting the marginal tax rate people have to pay when they find work and their benefits are progressively withdrawn.

In some cases, reports the Telegraph, benefits claimants can face a marginal tax rate of as much as 96 per cent, meaning (the paper explains) that for every pound they earn they lose 96 pence in tax and lost benefit. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that 50,000 people face such a high marginal rate.

But the benefit trap is not just about the cuddly solution of cutting high marginal tax rates so that people keen to work don't lose money by doing so:

There were 1.2 million households whose total welfare benefits were worth £15,000 or more in 2007/08, the Department of Work and Pensions said. In 1997/98, the figure was 600,000.

And there were 300,000 households who received £20,000 from the state – more than the take-home pay of a worker on the average salary. That is three times the figure when Labour came to power in 1997.

Official figures this week showed that the average annual salary is now £25,800. After tax, that is a take-home salary of around £19,725.

This is too much. Labour will never grasp this nettle. But will the Conservatives?

Or will this be another issue where the political establishment unites against voters? - another to add to EU membership, anti-carbon policies, immigration controls....

The police need full scale reform

It seems only yesterday that we looked at the police's warped priorities, high costs, and lack of accountability.

Indeed it was.

And it's only a couple of days since Cambridgeshire police arrested a grandfather at 5.35am for using one swear word to an official several days previously (the "earliest possible opportunity"), held him for several hours, and then released him when it transpired there was no evidence of assault. How did they justify this bullying (for that it what it was)?

A Cambridgeshire police spokeswoman said they had been following ''national policy'' in their response.... "National policy states anyone arrested will have a sample of their DNA taken."

No "we were wrong". They have to say they were right. Cambridgeshire police bullied him.

Is this what their community wants? I doubt it.

Today The Sun has the story of ACPO's 93-page draft guide to cycle training. The Home Office has thrown them to the wolves:

A Home Office source added: "Most of the red tape the police complain about is actually created by the cops themselves. This is a particularly bad example."

ACPO seem keen to say that the manual hasn't been approved yet ... so this expensive process isn't even complete.

This is a colossal waste of money. ACPO have not said how much. Then there's all the time that would be spent on the training itself. If people we are paying have nothing better to do, they should be sacked. Whoever signed this project off clearly doesn't begin to get it when it comes to costs.

Clearly the police are out of control. Only local democratic control can make them observe the citizens' will.

Climate catastrophe cancelled

Here is the Finnish TV broadcast, with English sub-titles added.

Climate catastrophe cancelled

Via Wattsupwiththat, we can read the English transcript of a forthcoming broadcast on Finnish TV.

Gripping.

The thin of it

Strange how so many writers can produce such meagre scripts.

Police force mergers back on the agenda

Back in 2006 Peter Troy and I ran a blog about local campaigns against government plans to merge police forces. We subtitled it "For greater democratic control of the police".

The proposal's risen from its sleep, this time at the behest of ACPO.

The leader of chief constables in England and Wales has called for the amalgamation of forces to save money.

Sir Hugh Orde says amalgamation would reduce costs at a time when police are expecting serious budget cuts.

Sir Hugh has form for opposing local democratic control of the police. He sensibly calls for fair government funding, and the continuation of the trend for some forces to amalgamate tasks across their geographical boundaries to become more efficient.

But he also says the number of forces needs to shrink.

Jolly good, Sir Hugh. This will make them less accountable to the people who pay for them and rely on their services.

Maybe instead they should slash their internal bureaucracy and start policing in accordance with local communities' priorities - at which they lamentably fail on practically every measure.

If a state service is failing, what better than to move it further away from those pesky citizens who pay for it? It makes life comfy for the failing local satraps.

The infantilisation of the citizens

The Telegraph is among those reporting on the latest advice from WRAP:

Tea drinkers should stop before throwing away the unappetising, cold dregs at the bottom of their cup, if they care about the environment, according to a leading Government watchdog. Instead, they should reheat their brew in the microwave.

This makes a straight case for this government body to be disbanded.

More sinister than the waste of money, though, is the galloping infantilising of the population. We have to be told what to do, patted on the head by the nanny state, send our children to the school allotted by the state .... The GDR would approve.

Only yesterday an unaccountable NHS satrap in north east announced that she would be contributing NHS money to a local council's road gritting programme because it would be cost effective for the NHS locally. Never mind that local citizens might prefer shorter waiting lists - they don't get to speak.

Apparently she has a budget for reducing health inequalities. Budgets like that should be stripped right out of NHS spending. The whole NHS has a huge governance issue.

Press jottings

The Guardian reports that the world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The Daily Mail continues to highlight libel tourism, picking up a report by two anti-censorship pressure groups which unsurprisingly is against it.

And The Sun reports that a migrant worker who sexually assaulted a 13-year-old was fined just £20 - the day before the girl's dad got a £50 parking ticket.

Democratic deficit

When you're a mainstream political party you can ignore voters' views as long as the other main parties do the same.

On immigration and on the EU a swathe of voters are ignored because there is nowhere for them to go. The BNP is deeply racist, while UKIP is led by an unprincipled self-interested mountebank keen above all to chop down anyone with a glimmer of ability who might therefore detract from his pre-eminence.

How the main parties must be grateful for Nick Griffin and Nigel Farage. We can bracket them as dead ends to a truly representstive democracy.

Meanwhile yesterday's Telegraph letter writers were on the button. We have become a borough of Brussels. But our province is a dysfunctional democracy.

P.S. Add to that list man-made global warming, aka climate change. All our main politicians want to throw buckets of our money at it, even though there is no theoretical basis for specualtion that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to whatever changes in world climate may or may not be happening.

Police news

Reminding people of the name of the yob who smashed your shop window might bring you trouble so please don't do it, advise the police.

On a council estate, residents pay for a private security firm because the police won't protect them.

But it's a gravy train at the top. Stephen Bett, chairman of Norfolk Police Authority, has contrived for local taxpayers to be well and truly shafted but seems unabashed. And the Norfolk chief constable's new job will bring him a free flat in London. How nice.

We pay. We should have local control of the police, so that we get the policing we want rather than what they condescend to think is good for us.

2 x £36,000

Two ne'er do wells. Tom Wise, ex MEP, considered stupid enough by UKIP to represent them but too clumsily corrupt for them, had changed his plea to guilty in his trial for fiddling expenses.

He finds himself in the company of Shannon Matthews' so called aunt. Amanda Hyett has been jailed for a year after admitting benefit fraud amounting to £35,885.

We'll see how Tom Wise's sentence compares next week.

How Royal Mail treat special delivery customers?

Are the Royal Mail giving customers proper service?

I paid £4.95 to send a letter by special delivery yesterday, 3 November.

Today the track & trace report reads:

We have tried to deliver your item from our DERBY Delivery Office before 04:55 on 04/11/09 and we have left a while you were out card.

Who is awake and at work at that time of morning? Do Royal Mail just drive round quickly when no one's about and push cards through letterboxes?

Tiresomely, Sir Ian Blair won't lie down

Good to see Iain Martin having a pop at the tiresomely self-righteous Ian Blair:

Sir Ian’s big argument of the moment is that he is opposed to elected police chiefs. The danger, he says, is that policing would become politicized. But it already is highly politicized in this country; it’s just that the electorate does not have a say on how it should be conducted. This means that police chiefs play the game as mapped out by the government and officials of the day, competing for the approval of the governing caste rather than worrying about pleasing the public. At the height of New Labour this meant that senior police officers often rose, or did not, according to how prepared they were to focus on the ruling elite’s obsession with political correctness and theories about societal change. In contrast, the public, regardless of their politics, mostly want criminals caught and are less interested in the social engineering aspects of the policing business. This is evidence of what Sir Ian’s type call, dismissively, “populism.”

He thinks of himself as one of those "experts" whose rule we should be content to accept.

But what if we disagree with their value judgements?

Do we not pay them?

Mr Darling does a banking u turn

When you know the EU is going to impose a policy on your branch government which differs from the one you're following at present, get in and change your policy first, so that it looks as if you're still in control.

You may emerge as a contradictory ditherer, but at least the contradictions spring from your own head and are not a result of having them imposed on you. And you can be sure that the other parties won't claim you've bowed to the EU - that's a can of worms none of them wants to open.

So it is that the UK branch of the EU government has decided to break up several banks.

Since Gordon Brown bribed Lloyds to take over HBOS with a promise to overrule competition policy, it'll be interesting to see how our branch government spins this new policy!

While they're at it, they could take on the board the view of practically all serious commentators and stop taxpayer guaranteed banks from indulging in casino so-called investment banking. The case for this is straightforward: taxpayers can't afford the huge sums which a failing casino bank needs to bail it out - and even if they could, it's not a good use of their money. Furthermore, casino bankers knowing taxpayers will bail them out will tend to raise the betting stakes - heads they win, tails they don't lose, it's only the taxpayers.

Several are already protesting that the branch government has a lousy record when it comes to timing financial deals (selling gold cheaply, etc). But it's no good. They don't have a choice.

Libel tourism

Our libel tourism is an international scandal. We protect the international rich from fair comment.

The Sunday Times picks up more examples of international injustices. In a small way, a judiciary out of control is bringing disrepute on Britain.

No one - not the judges, not Mr Donothing Strawman, does anything to halt the out of control Mr Injustice Eady.