Got your fingers in your ears, Huhne?

US gas prices are already well below Europe's. Some predict a further drop in 2012. Indeed

Adam Sieminski, Chief Energy Economist, Global Markets, at Deutsche Bank, questioned whether advances in shale and tight oil drilling, which are building on technology developed for natural gas shales, might open up so many new oil resources that they would upend everyone's expectations in a couple of years, as the technology did for gas.

Nick Grealy suggests that "the key word here is advances".

Shale is effectively a once in a generation game changer in energy, built not only on luck but also on technology. The increase in computing power of this century is what really made the technology possible. But those whose idea is of a future as model based, i.e. the future is simply a continutation of the past, are not able to handle inflection points.

We've been here before: Conventional energy wisdom is as relevant as Blockbuster Video, any Post Office in any country, bookstores, the music industry and any number of indestructible models that were too big to fail - but did thanks to technology.

Our industrial revolution depended on plentiful, cheap energy. China is pressing ahead with shale. So are large emerging economies. Opponents of shale have to ignore this international picture and pretend the shale issue concerns only the US and the EU. It doesn't.

Opponents of shale want to make us poorer while the rest of the world gets richer.

Government plans to spend taxpayers' money on insulating homes assume that gas will keep getting dearer (government of course plan on making things worse with their insane levies). It won't.

Government has this huge good news to offer us, but are trapped in the insular failed theory that carbon dioxide is triggering uncontrollable warming. (It isn't, and if it is the UK can do nothing about it at all.)

This is incompetence in politics and leadership of the highest order. Grealy predicts that "technology and geology will combine to make 2012 one amazing year for the US economy".

Suddenly Europeans are going to have to ask themselves what is happening to the US, and more to the point, why isn't it happening in Europe.

The EU gets more newsprint space

A rallying cry yesterday from Ambrose to the EU's left: the austerity prescription cramps your freedom to tax and spend, and will cost jobs. Under the proposed compact "they cannot pursue their economic agenda ever again." He scouts political developments in several eurozone countries and concludes that

The question for today’s Left is whether it is in their interests to keep apologising for an EU monetary regime that has pushed the jobless rate for youth to 49pc in Spain, 45pc in Greece, 30pc in Portugal and Ireland, 29pc in Italy and 24pc in France – yet 8.9pc in undervalued Germany – and that offers no credible way out of the slump for the Southern half.

Today Ambrose has turned pessimistic about Spain. Several months ago he had been uncharacteristically lured into optimism for the country, after touring a few high tech companies there. No longer. Spain is destined for more cuts and austerity with unemployment already 22.8%. And the issue of Spanish provinces' debt has surfaced again. Valencia is relying on money from Madrid to keep it afloat, after a bond issue failed and one agency downgraded the region to BBB-. For sure Spain has worse to come.

Roger Bootle reviews the reasons why the UK joined the European Union Common Market, and accuses the pro-EU faction of "top table syndrome, sizism, and proximity fetishism" - out of date in an internet enabled world with new economic powers rising.

The pro-EU faction puts its case in a letter to The Telegraph which the paper bills on its front page, where the signatories are described as "a group of leading businessmen".

Hm, let's see. A former EU commissioner? Someone from Good Governance Group? Lord Jay? A former advisor to a Prime Minister on Europe?

And you may think that someone from a translation company and the CEO of Eurostar may conceivably have an axe to grind. The letter is a lot less important than the paper wants to pretend. Was this the best that Roland Rudd could cobble together?

The letter's power of analysis is shown by its contention that

it is in Britain’s interest that the euro survives and we therefore should do everything we can to ensure the necessary steps are taken to guarantee its viability.

"Everything we can"? Sorry, so called business leaders, but that statement is vacuous.

Maybe they should be more concerned by Philip Johnston's argument that "the Lords are right to consider a cost-benefit analysis of Britain’s EU membership". It's not the high level numbers he brings together that are striking - it's that the topic is edging into the mainstream.

Mind you, Chris Huhne's staff at DECC would probably submit a paper arguing that EU membership was essential to protect us against catastrophic global warming.

And another hospital

Albert Buck, 84, lost eight stone in just two months at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent after being admitted with a fractured hip. His son said:

Dad was among the troops who liberated Belsen but died looking like one of the inmates, thanks to Darent Valley Hospital.

The Daily Mail adds that Darent Valley has one of the worst rates for patient deaths in the ­country and its A&E department is in the bottom 10, with low levels of weekend staffing.

Not that the local taxpayers will have any say about that.

A Facebook group exists called 'Darent Valley Hospital is the worst hospital ever'.

More failings in hospitals

"Gross failures" by Milton Keynes Hospital contributed to the death of a five-year-old boy, a coroner has ruled. His family had waited since 2009 for the inquest to resume.

The medical director says they "have learned from this" (as they do), and have put in place measures which sound pretty basic common sense. Harry's mother says:

I did take the apology on oath as sincere, but I think it came from the wrong person, and very late.

The inquest process has been drawn out over more than two years, and as usual we hear of no one disciplined or sacked.

==========

Lawyers are planning a "class action" on behalf of 23 families who contacted them with "shocking" claims of indignities and the most basic failings in care. They believe the families who have contacted them so far about care at Alexandra Hospital, in Redditch, West Midlands, may represent "the tip of the iceberg". The Telegraph lists some of the complaints.

The legal action facing the trust comes after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published the findings of spot check visits to 100 hospitals to inspect care of the elderly in October. Half were found to be failing basic standards.

France gets friendly

French Prime Minister François Fillon has questioned why credit ratings firms haven't taken a closer look at their scores for the U.K., which he said is in a worse position than some of its neighbours, reports the Wall Street Journal:

Our British friends [my italics] have a higher deficit and more debt, and I would say that the ratings agencies have not yet noted that.

And Christian Noyer, a member of the European Central Bank's governing council as well as head of the Bank of France, has questioned the usefulness of rating firms, which "have now frankly become incomprehensible and irrational".

In other words, we don't like what they're saying.

A downgrade doesn't seem justified to me when you look at the economic fundamentals.

Or else a downgrade should come first for the U.K., which has a greater deficit, as much debt, more inflation, and less growth than us, and collapsing credit.

How we love our British friends. Are these French comments a sign of the much vaunted "European solidarity"?

L'exception francaise

France is preparing for the possible loss of its prized triple A credit rating, Angelique Chrisafis tells us in The Guardian, "which the markets fear is possible despite last week's Brussels summit aimed at shoring up confidence in the eurozone".

Despite? It was another summit that solved nothing.

France, the second-biggest economy in the eurozone, was the only AAA country singled out for a possible two-notch credit downgrade because of growth predictions seen as too optimistic, the threat of recession, budget cuts judged to be inadequate and the exposure of its banks to the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain.

Just little local difficulties, then. A poll found that just over half of French people feared that a credit rating downgrade would have a big impact on their daily lives, we're told. Are we then to imagine that in the village bars and the rundown suburban estates the French shift uneasily and speak of little else?

Never mind, their budget minister, Valerie Pecresse, stepped up and "attempted to calm the mood". So it's serious then. She said a downgrade "would make things more difficult" and "wouldn't be positive". We're with you there, Valerie. However, it would not change the government's economic policy on how to lift the deeply indebted French government out of the red after more than 30 years without balancing a budget.

Hm, possibly that point about the 30 years was written by The Guardian rather than spelled out by Valerie. She went on:

We work for the French people, not for the ratings agencies.

Yes, yes.

No one doubts France's ability to pay back its debt.

So they won't downgrade you then?

Now, it's French policy that Southern Europe needs years of austerity to balance its budgets. But that's not for France. 'She said an austerity plan that was "too violent" would risk harming growth'. Well yes austerity does that. Which is exactly your policy for your southern neighbours.

She also denied the government would need to bail out its biggest banks. We'll see.

Meanwhile M de Villepin says he intends to stand for president, defending "a certain vision of France," that includes less dependence on market speculation.

Oh, going to start running a surplus, are we? Okay, maybe a balanced budget? Well, perhaps not:

I worry, that I see France is being humiliated by the law of the markets, this law that imposes austerity.

So it will be a policy which lessens dependence on the markets, but without austerity. Got that?

Mrs Thatcher famously used to say that you can't buck the market. France, it seems, is above that. No austerity for France, France is too grand ... that seems to command general agreement. In France.

Government should take less, not more

It's easy to poke fun at Eric Pickles when he says he will he will make mandatory a requirement to hold a referendum, where any local council seeks to impose a Council Tax increase of more than 3.5%.

After all, he preaches localism. But, as he's explained, this means power for local voters, not power for local councils.

Richard North gets this exactly right when he calls it a good start. It plays into his referism meme, which at a local level I support.

Richard reminds us that council tax is a small and diminishing source of councils' overall income. So voters should really have the opportunity to pass verdicts on more than just their council tax demands.

Pickles is behind the times, though, when he implies that a 3.5% rise is acceptable. Why? Because disposable household incomes are projected to fall over the next few years - maybe quite a bit if the euro alarmists turn out to be right.

This raises the tricky question, Are we here for the councils' good, or should the councils be here for our good?

All right, it's a simple question with an obvious answer, but those questions can be the most powerful. And you can see why the local establishment doesn't want to face it, because the clearly right answer is uncomfortable for them.

For it leads to the question, If my disposable household income is going down, surely you, my council, should take less, not more? Not an increase limited to 3.5%, but no increase at all. In fact a reduction. It shouldn't be hard to set the referism question taking the projection for average household incomes as the baseline.

So Pickles' proposal may be a good start. But he's wrong to assume that government should always have more of its subjects' citizens' money.

To that extent it's fundamentally flawed.

Black reveals some of the bad news

Having told us a few hours ago that the climate talks in Durban were heading to a deal - a claim undermined by his own report - BBC environmental cheerleader Richard Black is now reporting that "UN climate talks may be running out of time to make an agreement".

Many hours into an unscheduled extra day, some ministers have already left, and the South African hosts have yet to show a strategy for closing the deal.

The conference is ending with a whimper: not all delegates can change their flight bookings, the convention centre won't be available indefinitely, and there is even talk that the meeting could become inquorate. Furthermore

There are repeated mutterings about a lack of urgency and strategy from the hosts.

Hm. Could this perhaps be the hosts' strategy?

Strange how an enthusiastic cheerleader impartial reporter failed only a few hours ago to see which way the conference might be headed.

Very strange.

Still no word from Black of what terms of agreement were being touted. Could Black have had no idea? Oddly, Monckton claims he does know. How come Black didn't say?

Which is worse, to be a sincere but incompetent reporter, or arrantly biased? Either way, a proper news organisation would have only one course of action open to it.

Sack Black.

Classic BBC and Richard Black bias

The UN climate talks are heading to a deal, Richard Black tells us - which to those of us outside the bubble is pretty surprising.

But "the new version does not specify a date from which the new agreement should come into force", so maybe it's not that big a deal. However, let us press on.

It gets vaguer. It turns out that this new draft which Richard Black is hymning hasn't got general agreement yet.

How the new version will be greeted by the BASIC group and the US is not yet clear.

Which is surely the big issue. Black then nails his colours to the mast, writing (my italics):

India has been accused of being one of the main countries blocking a progressive deal here, along with China and the US.

This is editorialising in a news report. Not only did Black feel relaxed about doing this, no alarm bells appear to have rung at the BBC about posting it on their "news" website - and that just after Booker's long analysis of BBC bias on greenery had cause to keep on naming Black as an offender.

"A number of observers", we are told, "suggested that of the BASIC bloc, Brazil and South Africa were minded to move towards the EU/LDCs/Aosis position - and if China did likewise, India and the US would then come under intense pressure to give ground". And pigs might fly. Just who are these observers? If "a number of observers" suggested this, were "a number" of other observers less bullish? Was there perhaps some other point of view? Black declines to tell us, positioning himself as a cheerleader rather than a reporter.

He concludes his report with quotes from demonstrators and Greenpeace. As we know from Sir Anthony Jay's introduction to Booker's report, this is a classic trick of the propagandist, to leave the reader with the viewpoint you favour. Here is the conclusion of Black's piece:

Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo was among those escorted from the conference centre for leading the protest.

"The United States delegation is right now organising, line-by-line, the means by which United Nations member states will be eradicated from the map," he said.

"I ask the proud American people, in whose name this is being done, to take just a moment today to consider what they would do if they learned that a conference of powers was plotting to wipe their great nation off the map, because for low-lying islands that is the future they face."

Is there a case to be made against the views Black has chosen to quote? Not that you'd know, for Black has chosen not to refer to any counter-arguments at all, let alone quote anyone with opposing views.

This is not straight reporting - except, evidently, by the standards of the BBC.

Second class mind

Time was when the height of Cameron's ambition was to go to EU heads of government and return with ... concessions on the working time directive. How we derided his poverty of aspiration. How we agreed with Iain Martin that Cameron had shown himself a manager who would never make history.

Now even that paltry objective has been abandoned, and it is The City that Cameron wants to protect.

As Damian Reece points out, this is another example of Britain seeking to defend an isolated position.

Row after political row over Europe and our relationship with the Continent have been exercises in the purely negative, without ever articulating what we do want.

What is the UK government's vision of the EU? What is its strategy to move us there? Or are we just tugging on eurocrats' coat tails to slow down integration in a bloc which we feel we have to belong to for reasons of trade, but whose political direction we abhor?

For the time being we are world's sixth largest economy. If we see ourselves as a global trading nation, says Reece:

We should be aiming to be a global hub, and therefore Europe's hub, for new technologies such as nano-technology, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, high-end manufacturing, research and development, education, design, entertainment, not forgetting financial services, volume car making, tourism and specialist engineering to name a few.

Let's hope this doesn't mean a return to the government picking winners losers. But a global hub requires good facilities:

Hong Kong's airport has been voted the world's number one transport hub seven times in 10 years. It has the world's third-largest container port. This sort of infrastructure is no accident. We could be Europe's trade hub again but our commercial arteries are too small and choked with traffic. Heathrow is a liability, not an asset.

It is a second class mind that tries to muddle along from one crisis to the next, picking at bits of the status quo to try to protect.

A first class government would articulate a vision of Britain's place in the world, and persuade the country that it is the right vision. Policies then are formed to realise the vision - actually an easier process than wandering around in a mental fog picking areas here and there to try to defend.

But Cameron has a second class mind.

Temperature changes in context

Temperature change is looked at in context here. Read the points numbered 1 to 10.

Can we get on with something else now, please?

The Huhne and Clegg death toll

In opposition Nick Clegg campaigned against fuel poverty (yes, he really did, for instance see here and here and here).

The Mail (h/t GWPF) is highlighting that "More than five million households in England alone are living in fuel poverty as incomes stagnate and energy bills soar", explaining that "fuel poverty is where a family spends more than 10 per cent of its income on energy".

Ministers are under increasing pressure to abandon green energy targets amid warnings that fuel surcharges will put the lives of the most vulnerable at risk as they struggle to pay bills.

The Government faces calls to tear up or delay plans to force through a £200billion shift to wind turbines, wave power and new nuclear power stations.

Prices to consumers rose, and now energy prices have fallen back. Time for price cuts? Don't hold your breath. The government better pray for some serious global warming this winter.

Still, as Nick Grealy points out, the new National Infrastructure Plan mandates Chris Huhne's department to

Seek to clarify the potential contribution of shale gas and other unconventional resources to indigenous gas supplies. While a potentially significant discovery has recently been made in Lancashire, the scale of possible production is unknown at present. The Government will aim to produce updated estimates of the resource by March 2012.

That won't be soon enough for the people whose cause Clegg adopted in opposition. I wonder how many people he and Huhne will be responsible for killing this winter.

A Government-commissioned study earlier this year warned that more than 2,700 people are dying each year in England and Wales because they cannot afford to keep their homes warm.

There are 736 MEPs

How many turned up yesterday to hear a speech by the President of the ECB?

35

Well known truths that must be repeated over & over

First

The tired old Foreign Office and Lib Dem line is we have to go along with what the EU wants for the trade.... We constantly hear the refrain that we have to pay the subscription to be in the trade club, you have to take some rough with the smooth, we have 3.5 million jobs dependent on EU trade.

It means we have to repeat the counter sound bites time and again.

The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. They would not wish to risk that.

Whatever we do on renegotiation and membership, Germany will want to sell us her BMWs and France her wine.

If the rest of the EU did get protectionist with us, we could take them to the WTO and demand international action. Or we could propose a supertax on imported wine and imported cars here in the UK in retaliation....

The advocates of staying in on current terms have to answer this increasingly difficult question – isn’t the single market becoming a means of lumbering us with uncompetitive costs and rules which Chinese or US or other non EU companies do not face when selling into the EU market?

John Redwood

Second

Tom Wigley’s 1998 estimate [was] that even if Kyoto were to be 100% successful in meeting its targets, it would only have reduced temperatures by an estimated 0.05 degrees Celsius by 2050. Kyoto has been a crazy waste of money, Kyoto nations have spent billions and billions of dollars on the off-chance of cooling the earth by an amount too small to be measured....

The Kyoto Protocol, which was confidently forecast by its supporters to make an unmeasurably small difference in reducing temperature if it succeeded in reducing emissions, was also a failure at reducing emissions.... China by itself wiped out all the gains of the EU27, and all the gains of the US, and turned them all into a net increase. And that’s just China, doesn’t include Brazil and India and all the rest of the developing world....

The answer to “What didn’t Kyoto do?” is “It didn’t do anything but cost money”, but that will never stop its supporters.

Willis Eschenbach

The frenzied dance of the damned

There will still be a eurozone in six months, but a much reduced eurozone. All EU taxpayers will be poorer as a result of their politicians' hubris.

Meanwhile there's amusement value to be got from Open Europe's daily press summaries. A German Economy Ministry document sets out what could potentially form part of EU Treaty changes to achieve greater eurozone budgetary integration, which include a 2% deficit limit for all members, the possibility of withholding structural funds from those who break the rules, and the creation of an independent ‘stability board’ to oversee the integration process.

Woah there! In what has been seen as a sign of France’s reluctance to give the EU institutions more powers to enforce budgetary discipline on eurozone countries, French Budget Minister Valérie Pécresse says

What we want is greater budgetary discipline, but a budgetary discipline enforced by the states, with a real participation by national parliaments. This question of sovereignty does not arise for us.

Is that clear then? The Germans want centrally enforced discipline, the French want ... hm, what do the French actually want? To have their cake and eat it, one suspects. I'd thought they would string it out some more before this disagreement became explicit.

They know what they don't want, anyway. The Socialist candidate in next year’s presidential elections, François Hollande, criticised German plans to allow the ECJ to impose sanctions on eurozone countries breaching EU deficit and debt rules: “I will never accept the fact that, in the name of control over national budgets…the ECJ can be judge of the expenses and revenues of a sovereign state.” This sounds like a Nein to any German-inspired central control. Indeed, it seems he'd want no change to the present arrangements, left winger though he is.

Former Dutch EU Commissioner Frits Bolkestein says a break-up of the euro is “unavoidable”, adding, “We constructed something that does not work in the long term”, while German economist Gustav Horn says “I think the euro has only three to six months left” if current policies remain unchanged.

"Given the severity of the eurozone crisis", the eurojelly sitting in No 10 "is prepared to forgo the chance of repatriating powers from Brussels, including added protection for the City of London from EU directives". They can do whatever they want and we get ... nothing. Well done.

It's all in vain anyway. Lucas Papademos is facing his first general strike and he hasn't even done anything yet. Don't tell me he didn't know about the hundreds of millions of disappeared euros at Proton Bank, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Italy will shortly become ungovernable.

There will still be a eurozone in six months, but a much reduced eurozone. All EU taxpayers will be poorer as a result of their politicians' hubris.