Cash for clunkers

Actually 'the car scrappage scheme' is what we are supposed to call it in England but cash for clunkers has that ring to it.

We are told that new car sales rose 11% in September, principally as a result of the scheme.

We like to own an old banger so we can leave it at the station without fear of it not being there when we get back, so we can fill it with plants or olives without worrying about dirtying the seats etc. Our last one, a 1992 FIAT Tipo, went the way of all clunkers last week and we are looking for another.

Unfortunately the Italian scrappage scheme, which offers €2,000 on top of the generous discounts ofered by cash strapped motor manufacturers, means that the minimum price for an old car is now €2,000, whereas it was €500 or less.

So as usual with government intervention, it is the poor who pay the price.

Lisbon - has Cameron the backbone?

So, as soon as the dust of the Lisbon Treaty has settled, it is swept under the carpet. Mr Cameron will not have a referendum on Lisbon. He says that if you read the next sentence of his cast iron guarantee it is clear that he didn’t mean it to refer to post ratification. In truth there was never any realistic prospect of a post ratification referendum anyway. He was silly to have said it and to have allowed himself to be boxed into a corner.

Now he says he will try to renegotiate some of Brussels’ powers back. No chance, of course, he’d have to be a lot tougher than he is and his party more united for that to be a possibility. He is hoping we won’t notice come the next election but one. The reason Brussels will not allow Britain to repatriate some powers is the same reason why it would be such a good idea: it would mean any country could do the same – pick the bits of Europe it wanted, rejecting the bits it didn’t (the Common Agricultural Policy springs to mind here). It would mean Europe à la carte. And the European political class can’t allow that.

It seems Cameron wants to renegotiate over a full parliamentary term of five years and that his bargaining chip is that he would veto the budget. Cameron needs two healthy doses of backbone and common sense. Backbone because there is every reason for blocking the budget – it is too large for a post recession Europe and there is so much corruption that the accounts haven’t been signed off by the auditors since Mr Cameron was at school. If that is what you believe - and it is what everyone outside Brussels believes - then just do it. Common sense because he must realise that he can only use the budget veto once. The way these people negotiate is to delay and delay and then say it is urgent for the functioning of the EU that we sign (remember Lisbon?). For this to work Cameron would have to have all his demands prepared on Day 1 and then they would say we were trying to renegotiate the whole of our membership terms.

I have previously been supportive of Cameron but I am coming closer to the view that he might be just a silly young fool – in his political positioning and attituding no different from the Mandelson-Blair lot. Someone who in fact has no strong beliefs but would like to be in power. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Some commentators – Janet Daly, for example – make the point that at least Cameron is doing something, and showing concern about Europe, so we should vote for him. I rather think that Cameron will be elected anyway and that a strong vote for UKIP will give him some much needed determination and direction. Cameron will realise that the only serious threat we can offer is to leave Europe, stop paying its bills either in cash or in excessive regulation. You see, the Brussels elite knows, deep down, that Britain would be better off both democratically and financially, if we left. It is the British who don't know this.

Cannabis and booze - which is worse?

Hot on the heels of Prof. Nutt's sacking for saying alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis, we have the unedifying story - with accompanying picture - of a young man urinating on a war memorial. He had been on a bender organised by a company called Carnage UK. The prof must have smiled wryly.

Gill Hornby in the Sunday Telegraph says that the reason the Government tolerates alcohol and not drugs - and always will - is that alcohol provides taxes. She may be right, I don't know, although I suspect they haven't really gone into it in such detail (they have never shown such concern for the public finances before). Government usually makes policy according to what they think the readers of a targeted newspaper (in this case the Daily Mail, they've lost the Sun) would like to hear. In any case, my scheme of legalising cannabis and taxing it would meet the Hornby requirements.

For me, I wonder if Nutt's criteria are correct. Why are we judging the acceptability of stimulants according to how much damage they do to the people taking them? After all it is their bodies, their decision to harm themselves and if they don't do cannabis they can always stab themselves with a kitchen knife, jump out of a window, throw themselves off a bridge. There are endless opportunities for self-harm which we do nothing to regulate and nor should we. I was once told you coud kill yourself by drinking a large quantity of Worcestershire Sauce.

I wonder if we shouldn't instead have an indexing system based on how much harm individual stimulants do to others or to society as a whole. Heroin for example is far more addictive than cocaine (other than crack cocaine) and it causes addicts to steal and commit other crimes.

Such an index would encourage drinking at home but you would go Class A as soon as you set foot outside.

EU President: the candidates

It seems Tony Blair is no longer in line to be President of Europe. To many it will seem a shame, and if I were a supporter of the project I should be in favour of his taking the job, despite his duplicity, his skimpy regard for the truth, his emphasis on appearance over substance. He is far and away the most authoritative candidate, and the European project lacks authority.

Who now, though? I propose two candidates, depending on your view of the EU.

The first, for those who support the European Ideal, is Mary Robinson. She is a senior figure, a former President of Ireland (and the Irish deserve a reward for abandoning their democracy and forcing through the vote as instructed by unelected mandarins) and did 5 years as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mrs Robinson (her name may be the only drawback) is a moderate, sensible figure. She is 65.

As for the second candidate, for those who think as I do that the EU is a corrupt, anti-democratic, economically illiterate, self serving bully which lines the pockets of its adherents, one figure emerges head and shoulders above the rest, despite being only 5ft tall.

Cannabis: time for a change

Professor David Nutt, recently sacked from his post as Chairman of the Advisory Council on the misuse of drugs for criticising the listing of certain drugs, particularly cannabis, has supplied The Guardian with his Danger List. Cannabis is the 11th most dangerous on the list, Tobacco ninth and Alcohol fifth.

Part of the brouhaha surrounding Nutt’s sacking is that some people are saying that the Government should listen to its advisers. Others say that Government doesn’t have to follow whatever the advisers say. The truth of the matter is that these advisory councils are there to confirm whatever the political decision is at the time. If Prof. Nutt wanted to be an independent expert he should have had nothing to do with it.

What the figures bring out for me is that we should urge Western Governments to join us in the legalisation of cannabis. Nineteen people died from the drug last year, which given the number of people who smoke it is remarkably low. It is not particularly addictive and wastes hundreds of thousands of hours of police time. There were 186,000 seizures last year, not counting Scotland. In my view it is perfectly daft that cannabis users are dealt with by the overburdened justice system, whilst people suffering from an excess of alcohol or tobacco are dealt with by the Health Service. And cannabis should be taxed, which would pay for our having to deal with an influx of useless potheads.

The Government needs to get rid of the mentality that anything which is bad for you, unless it is sold in a working men’s club, should be banned. Time for David Cameron, apparently a notorious toker in his youth, to step up to the plate.

Rome: where have all the scooters gone?

For a moment as I strolled down the little cobbled alleyway towards our flat I thought I had taken a wrong turning; something was different.

Then I realised: normally this little vicolo is crammed with cars and scooters, parked both sides, making it difficult sometimes even to walk down. All were parked illegally but no one seemed to care.

Now the new mayor, Gianni Alemanno, has done us residents of the historic centre a little bit of good. Everyone was warned and told that after a certain date they would be fined if they parked there. Slowly the streets are becoming pedestrianised - casual traffic including scooters are being sent round another way - and walking in Rome has become a delight. A shame that it took a former fascist to achieve this but well done him.

PS. In return, Gianni, let me give you a little tip. If you are trying to play down your fascist roots, don't be photographed looking stern and authoritarian outside the Colosseum. Handing out toys to children is the image for you.

The Internet: now we are 40

At 1030pm on 29th October, 1969 the first message transfer beween two computers took place, on what was then known as the Arpanet. The first message was 'lo'; it was meant to be 'login' but the system crashed after the first two letters.

I believe the designer went on to produce Microsoft Vista.

I have had the internet since 1990 and can confidently say it is the most life changing thing ever. It enables you to read this blog, for example.

David Shepherd, Cricketing man

The cricket world mourns the loss, at 68, of David Shepherd. Shep made over 10,000 first class runs for Gloucestershire and became a Test umpire in 1985, officiating in 92 tests.

His superstitious habit of standing on one leg when the score was 'Nelsons', (111, or a multiple thereof), became a bore which he carried on for the crowd.

Shep was a Devon man, decent, honest, convivial, loved and trusted by everyone in the game. He had a good eye, but after one match late in his career, where he was shown to have made a few errors, he was heartbroken, and retired soon after.

For me, Shep was pretty well what the whole damn thing is about.

George Osborne

The shadow chancellor has just made one of the most stupid speeches of the year, against some pretty stiff competititon. He says that high street banks should limit their cash bonuses to £2,000 per employee. The suggestion is daft for a number of reasons.

1. It seems rarely understood by the Left (although one might have thought a Tory would grasp it) that shareholders are themselves capitalists and stick to as much of their own money as they can, as capitalists do. They pay what is needed to keep staff; they don't accept lower dividends so everyone can have champagne.

2. Now the Government is a shareholder, it too must pay staff what is needed to keep them (it will be a bit less this year because there aren't so many jobs for them to go to). If you don't pay them you risk losing them.

3. This sort of state interference in a nationalised industry is what Tories should be condemning, not promoting.

4. If the banks lose their best staff they will be worth less when the Government finally sells them off, meanng a loss for the taxpayer.

5. Osborne's wizard wheeze is that the staff will be paid bonuses in the banks' shares. No objection to this, except for the fact that they cannot cash them in for several years so they are seen as tying the employee to the bank. The best ones can get jobs without this restriction. The worst ones will stay.

6. Osborne says this will free up £10bn of bank lending. It won't (increased capital ratio proposals, which Osborne ahs not objected to, will swallow up most of it), and even if it did, that would be such a trivial amount as to be unnoticeable.

Perhaps Osborne is hoping to look like the People's Chancellor and that we'll forget the detail of his speech. My view is that this is an issue on which he would have done better to keep silent.

Italy: new leader of the left

Pierluigi Bersani has had an easy victory in the run off to select a leader for the Democratic Party.

Bersani is best known for the 'Bersani Law', passed when he was Minister for Economic Development in the Prodi Administration, which made a stab at deregulating various businesses, including lawyers' fees and making it legal to have your hair cut on a Monday (although it is still next to impossible)

This is good news for the Left, having a clear winner and a credible, experienced candidate. It now needs some policies.

BNP again

It has been said following his appearance on the programme 'Question Time' where all the questions were about his party, that Nick Griffin will benefit from the sympathy vote.

After public criticism from his Mother-in-law, who called him a 'work shy pretender', this can only increase.

Italy: economy bigger than Britain

Il Sorpasso was what it was called when in 1987 Italy's economy outstripped Britain's and there was a good deal of publicity, a good deal of celebrating. Italians like to feel proud of their country and this was as good as winning the world cup.

The positions were reversed a few years later and by the turn of the century Britain's economy was a third bigger than the Italian one.

Now there is a second Sorpasso and if Berlusconi has any sense he will milk it for all it is worth. It has been caused by the strength of the euro and the weakness of the pound and is unlikely to last for long. Because it is not in the euro Britain has the right exchange rate and its export industries will benefit. Italy has the wrong exchange rate and will find emergence from recession extremely difficult.

The pound is weak because international investors are worried about the appalling level of debt which Gordon Brown built up even in the good times.

I think that it is too much to expect that Gordon Brown should fall on his sword, although there are whispers that he might do so at Christmas. But it would need more than that to restore confidence in the currency. Britain desperately needs a change of government.

UK: The BNP on the telly

I suppose it was a milestone of a sort but the appearance of the British National Party leader Nick Griffin on Question Time has failed to live up to its billing.

I really don’t know if the BNP is a fascist party, which requires an adherence to a corporatist, one party state (just like communism). What I do know is that the British media have engaged for years with communists, equally anti-democratic statists, who have been apologists for the Russian gulags and Chinese labour camps, which have killed tens of millions of people, far worse crimes than the holocaust. So another ghastly anti-democrat here or there on the TV isn’t such a big deal.

The biggest incidence of fascism I saw was leftist thugs bussed in from all parts of the country who claim that freedom of speech in Britain should be restricted to things they agree with. One of those arrested even seemed to be wearing a black shirt.

It was always going to be the case that Mr Griffin would have been better off representing a daring, anti-establishment vote, particularly in a time of widespread criticism of our politicians and that once subjected to the glare of publicity he would look a shambling fool. That is indeed what happened but the BBC came close to ruining it by limiting questions to the subject of the BNP itself.

Griffin needs to be asked about foreign policy towards Russia, about the relevance of quantitative easing, about drinking amongst youngsters, the education system, what we spend on the national health, a host of things for which he is poorly prepared and confronted with which will not look like a political leader.

Still, I suppose it was a start.

Bank Regulation: nanny knows best

The announcement by Gordon Brown of restrictions on bank lending, with the stated intent of restricting mortgages to those able to repay them, the statement put out in advance of the Financial Services Association draft rules, is significant for one thing: it is symptomatic of New Labour, of the way the UK has been governed these twelve years.

1. It is superficially attractive. The lay public see the banks offering 125% mortgages and see them go bust, and so think that the one caused the other. But they did not go bust lending to the public. It was their commercial, wholesale lending (a far greater sum) which did for them.

2. It treats the public as idiots, who can’t be expected to work out what they can afford so the government has to regulate it.

3. It displays a complete lack of understanding of business. (a) it is not just the mistaken assumption that personal lending was the cause of the bank’ collapse; they don’t realise that this analysis goes on already. Some people’s circumstances change, losing your job for example, and that cannot be forecast (b) these risks are within the framework both of the banks’ business model and the customer’s self assessment. They are both happy with the risks they are taking and don’t need the government to intervene.

4. Gordon makes the announcement, his placeman in the supposedly independent quango draws up the rules. This shows that the Tories would be right to impose their own people, even though they acknowledge that government patronage is too high, and that it would be an idiocy if Adair Lord Turner were, as has been mooted, appointed a deputy governor of the Bank of England.

These awful people just can’t help interfering. It will be a huge weight off the people’s backs when they are finally voted out.

Italy and Afghanistan: strange news

I return from a short stay in France to all manner of strange stories. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is let off with having to make a brief, grudging apology to Parliament, after defrauding the taxpayer of over £100,000, telling blatant lies to civil servants. A Tory MP is accused of paying £3,000 a month of expenses money to a company owned by him and his partner and he says the system was approved by the authorities. A further 27 MPs are being investigated by the taxman.

But the most interesting story, as is so often the case, involved Silvio Berlusconi. It is reported in the Times that the Italians bribed the Taliban to keep quiet in Sarobi, the region of Afghanistan they were given to look after. They failed to tell the French, who took over from them, what they had been up to, so the French underestimated the risk and ten of their soldiers were killed. Berlusconi has denied the veracity of the report. The Taliban say it is true.

The evidence for believing Berlusconi was that there is a long running dispute between him and Rupert Murdoch over Italian pay-TV, and the Murdoch papers are known to be looking for stories to discredit him. I put it to a number of Italians at a lunch party, some of them pro-Silvio some anti, and they all thought it was true (ie they believed the Taliban, not their Prime Minister) but not really wrong. This sort of tricksy manoeuvring, furbizia as it is known, is rather admired in Italy. Most people thought they should have told the French, though admit it would have been embarrassing to do so.

It is a curious philosophical question. Is it wrong to spend quite a small sum of money in order to avoid casualties? Wouldn't the British and Americans rather have spent, say, £10,000 per man and avoided all those fatalities?

But in that case why send the soldiers at all? Why not just identify a trouble spot somewhere on the globe and post a cheque? Is the Italian action wrong because we would be gaining credit for being all military and tough and moral when in fact the matter had been handled not by soldiers but by accountants? Or is it that such an expediency merely invites more violence, since the violent get paid?

Those are the questions with which the whole of Italy is entirely unconcerned this weekend.

BBC: climate change shocker

This from Paul Hudson, the BBC's climate change correspondent under the headline 'What happened to global warming?'

'This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. '

Of course these facts are not a surprise, many of us have been repeating them for years. What is a surprise is that the BBC should undergo this Pauline conversion, after only 11 years of cooling.

The new theory they favour is Pacific Decadal Oscillation (following the temperatures of the Pacific Ocean) which suggests we have another 30 years of cooling ahead of us.

Perhaps we could now have an apology?

Moon conspiracy theory

The Americans say they intentionally crashed a spacecraft into the moon.

I wonder: I'm sure I heard a cry of 'Allahu Akbar' as the thing went in.

Cuts

It is being said in the left wing press that it is too early to cut expenditure; economists are being wheeled out to say it would be a mistake and this is being used as the Labur led attack on Cameron/Osborne economics. I think there is some (intentional) confusion here: it is not easy to find an economist who thinks this level of government expenditure is sustainable for long or who believes a sudden surge in growth is going to come from somewhere to get us out of the problem.

It is of course true that if you start pressing down on the money supply while the economy has not yet emerged into safety you run risks of stalling the recovery. My opinion is ignore this: what little exsperience of expenditure cuts exists (and it is usually forgotten in Labour circles that under Mrs Thatcher it rose inexorably, year after year, no cuts at all) suggests that it takes longer than you think. Look at the options:

Pension age: nothing is going to happen with this until 2016.

ID cards: to the extent these expenditures are already in the figures, this would be an immediate cut.

Local government: we all think that local councils shouldn't have diversity advisers and minority culture co-ordinators, but without taking away local powers (and quite the reverse, localising more, appears to be the fashion) all government can do is cut the subsidies. Local councils are then quite capable of keeping the diversity advisers and closing schools. It would take years to educate them out of this.

Big projects: someone always asks what the alternative would be. Cut the Navy's new aircraft carriers and they'll ask how they can get their planes around. Cut Trident and we'll need some other force de frappe to maintain our seat at the top table. Cut the Eurofighter and there will be tales of woe from the RAF. Cut the east coast main line and we'll have to spend more on roads. And each one will want a public enquiry, taking years.

And so it goes on. Civil servants don't want to lose their departments and introduce delays of their own. My advice is to start trying to cut as from Day 1. Then over a five year term you might have started. Start by selling things; everything a government doesn't need to own but which can be run perfectly well or better by the private sector: hospitals, post offices etc. This brings in immediate cash, the other things are just tinkering.

Nobel Peace Prize

The award of the Nobel Prize for Baroque Obama is perfectly ridiculous. Apparently he was nominated two weeks after his election and even now has achieved nothing on the world stage except increase the number of troops in Afghanistan.

They would have done better with Silvio

Boy George

This from the excellent Matthew Parris who is covering the Conservative conference for the Times:

Anxious on Tuesday to establish the time of George Osborne’s speech expected towards the end of the morning, I approached a senior Conservative MP. “Osborne?” I said, “About 12?”

“Goodness me, no, dear boy. He’s at least 14.”

Italy: new problems for Silvio

Silvio Berlusconi said when he finally passed through parliament the bill guaranteeing him immunity from prosecution 'now I won't have to spend Saturdays talking to my lawyer'.

Now he has lost his immunity and if it is bad news for Silvio it may also be bad news for Italy. Despite asserting the primacy of the constitution and despite eliminating what was clearly a cynical manoeuvre to keep the Prime Minister out of the courts, the country will now have to suffer a new era of mistrust between the government and the judiciary, and few years of political posturing by those who see themselves as his successors, both inside and outside his party.

The business of government will have to take second place for a bit.

Australia: unmitigated tinnies disaster

Their case almost unheard in the cosy human rights salons of the West, Australian motor racing fans are suffering inhuman crackdowns to their civil liberties.

Spectators at the Bathurst 1000, a 3-day motor racing event, will be restricted to 24 cans of beer a day, or 4 litres of wine.

There is no word yet as to whether the British government intend to copy this rule.

EU: Greece: no change

When I used to visit Greece on business in the 1980s the President was called Karamanlis and the Prime Minister Papandreou. The latest election in Greece has been fought between George Papandreou (son and grandson of previous Prime Ministers) and Kostas Karamanlis (nephew). It seems to have been the turn of Papandreou, with his PASOK (Pan-Hellenist Socialist Movement) party, in defiance of a movement all over Europe towards the centre right..

Both PASOK and its opponents, New Democracy, are deeply corrupt and no change is anticipated to the direction of Greek life, which is downwards. The policy of both parties is to await the next cheque from the European Union, which one day will not arrive.

Scotland: not for a Cameron

It gives me a warm, generous feeling to recommend to you an article in the Guardian by Jackie Ashley. You see, not only is Ms Ashley the long suffering wife of New Labour apologist turned tricky questioner Andrew Marr, but it is a rare treat because usually she writes complete bilge.

The article makes the point that the referendum David Cameron ought to be worried about is not a possible one on Europe (don't hold your breath is my advice) but one in Scotland on independence. The argument runs that once the Scots have seen the extent of the budget cuts, and given that New Labour is likely to be weak north of the border and the Conservatives even weaker, they will flood to the polling booths and vote for secession.

'Bring it on' is my view, but the article's title 'Cameron could well be the last ever UK Prime Minister' does make you think.

UK: The Conservatives and Europe

I have often had my differences with the Conservative Party, but the one major problem for me has always been its supineness over Europe. I was once a Conservative, culminating in being on the shortlist for the candidacy in a safe seat, but left and helped start UKIP because of John Major's acceptance of Maastricht.

Mr Cameron, when it became clear that the Labour Party had no intention of honouring its pledge to hold a referendum on the European Constitution, or Lisbon Treaty, said that the Conservatives would hold a referendum. This then changed to holding a referendum if Lisbon hadn't been ratified by the time of the election, and if it had they 'would not let matters rest' whatever that means. You see: supine.

The result of the Irish vote is due this afternoon and if the opinion polls are to be believed they will vote yes. It now seems less than likely, as Mary Ellen Synon thinks, that Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic can hold out. The Conservative Conference is about to start and Cameron and Hague cannot get through it without some open debate on Europe. If they stick to their original pledge to hold a referendum whatever, then the first year or so of Conservative rule will be smothered by the European issue (although this might be a good thing: if you want to take some unpopular decisions do it while the press are wittering on about something else). If they roll over should the Treaty be ratified they will look weak and unpopular to the Eurosceptics; Ukip came second in the European elections and has 13 MEPs.

One answer being mooted is that they accept Lisbon but pledge to repatriate some spheres of influence from Brussels. This could include the Working Time Directive, which makes a criminal of anyone trying to do the best for his family and work overtime.

Such a statement, and it would have to be a clear statement, would be good enough for me. I don't want the rescue of the economy to be overshadowed by the European issue, but this would be a clear statement that we are going to insist on a two speed (or multi-speed) Europe. So in the future we and other countries would have the option according to this precedent of opting into or out of any more nonsense like an upgraded European army, or repatriating a few more, like foreign policy.

Let's see what happens over the next few days. This is Mr Cameron's chance to show a bit of steel. He'll get my vote if he does.

BAe and bribery

BAe Systems, which we used to know as British Aerospace, Britain’s largest manufacturing company, may face bribery charges. Ironically the Serious Fraud Office will approach Baroness Scotland, herself recently found guilty of a breach of the law in relation to her employing an illegal immigrant. This is a good example of why Baroness Scotland should have resigned some time ago: even if she is inclined to rule out a prosecution she will go ahead so she doesn’t seem corrupt (Ha!).

BAe is alleged to have paid bribes relating to contracts in Africa and Eastern Europe. An earlier charge of bribery with respect to a Saudi arms contract was not pursued on the grounds that it was not in the national interest to do so (it would have brought up the names of which members of the Saudi Royal Family were on the take, and it’s a fairly long list).

People often forget that the sin here is the taking of the bribe. It means that someone of influence has caused the Saudis to buy British planes or weaponry, irrespective of their suitability, because of the bribe: in other words someone paid by the Saudi Government (or Tanzania or whatever) is not acting in the interests of their employers and feathering his own nest at their expense.

Everybody would like to see this practice die out but to use as a means of killing it the banning of the paying of bribes is plain daft. In some countries it is impossible to make a sale without paying bribes and if you don’t you lose the business. Badly run countries are being allowed to pass on the burden of policing their corrupt systems to foreign contractors: these governments are quite happy with the bribes system and do nothing to stop it– senior people are involved, after all. It is only the bien pensant West (and not all of that) which is troubled by it.

In the meantime there are plenty of nations which are quite happy with the concept, for example France and China, and so British jobs are lost.

This is madness. I could almost forgive Barones Scotland her sins if she had the courage to stand up and say so.

National Day

1st October is national day in The People's Republic of China, Cyprus and Nigeria, each of which has a history of bloodshed, illicit government and cruelty.

Obviously not a good day to start a country.

Roman Polanski

Frédéric Mitterand (now there’s an interesting name), the French Culture minister, has said that Roman Polanski should not be detained under a valid extradition warrant and in this he is backed by a host of arty farties, pleading, on what grounds I do not know, that he be released. Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Filmmakers Association said ‘most people feel he has atoned for the sins of his young years’. Is this right? Do they? I rather think they don’t.

Polanski was convicted, having pleaded guilty, to having had sex with a minor. In America as in Britain and other civilised countries this is regarded as rape because a child cannot be deemed able to consent. Again as in other countries it is not subject to a statute of limitations.

Of course Polanski must return to America to serve his sentence just as any other fugitive from justice would have to. What I want to know is how he came to live openly in France, having taken French citizenship. Is it the custom in France to offer sanctuary to convicted rapists and paedophiles on the run? What has been going on here? Mitterand says Sarkozy himself is urging that the warrant be dropped.

Why?

Hitler Shock

The Daily Mail reveals that tests have shown that the skull believed to be Hitler's, taken from the bunker, is in fact that of a woman.

This can mean one of two things: either it is not Hitler's skull or.....

Makes you think, doesn't it?

EU: The Lisbon Treaty - hope?

Mary Ellen Synon writes in the Mail that the Irish referendum on Lisbon isn't as important as everyone thought. The excellent Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, has said he will sign the thing only after the November elections there, but it now appears that the caretaker government will last well into next year, perhaps June, when there must be elections in the UK. Cameron, if he wins, will hold a referendum in which the British will certainly vote NO.

I can't say I quite share Mary Ellen's optimism - there are some fairly unscrupulous people involved here - but this might just be a ray of hope that the countries of the EU will retain some of their democracy for a little while longer.

Baroness Scotland (2)

There is a petition on the Downing St website to urge the immediate dismissal of Baroness Scotland. You can sign it, if you like, here

Silvio for the Nobel!

Just when you thought the great man was on his last legs, we learn that there is a movement to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Silvio Berlusconi. It is said to be receiving hundreds of signatures every day, although its website, http://silvioperilnobel.sitonline.it/ lists only around 30, most of whom, by an astonishing coincidence, appear to be members of his PdL party. The website is linked to Facebook and Twitter and invites you to contribute by credit card if your impatience is overwhelming you. No Italian has received the Peace Prize since 1907 and, as the website points out, it has been awarded in the past to Yasser Arafat and Al Gore. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

The next event in the programme of the Leader’s candidature is on 29th September at the Piazza Colonna, Rome, to celebrate his 73rd birthday. Nearest airports are Fiumicino and Ciampino in case you want to leave Rome in a hurry.

But the great news is that there is a campaign song for you to sing along with, ‘Peace can’ written by Loriana Lana, who has contributed to some of the Berlusconi / Apicella smash hit albums. It is available here. At the risk of spoiling it for you, I can reveal that it contains the line (my translation) ‘The Abruzzo awakes incredulous, the snow and the sun meet, and your hand is here.’ I found it a moving experience.

They are correct to refer to these previous winners. I think this is the direction the Nobel Prize committee has been seeking. Come on Silvio!

Baroness Scotland

Scarcely believable. This is the position as I write. Some time ago the Labour Party pushed through a change to the immigration procedures making it a criminal offence for anyone employing an illegal immigrant not to have done the necessary enquiry into the employee's status and not to have kept a copy of the documentation supplied. It was a typical Labour law designed to put further burden on small private sector companies. Little did they think it would one day snare one of their own.

The minister responsible for pushing this legislation through Parliament was Baroness Scotland who is now Attorney General, the chief legal adviser to the Government.

It turns out that Lady Scotland herself employed an illegal immigrant without keeping copies of the documents and has now been fined £5,000 by the UK Border Agency. Gordon Brown's office says it was not intentional and she can stay in her job.

The whole point of this legislation was that you can still be guilty without it being intentional: a further example of being guilty until proven innocent, a concept which has been creeping into our legal system over the last decade or so.

It is quite impossible for the Attorney General to stay in her job now, indeed she should have resigned days ago. Otherwise it is a case of making laws which everyone has to obey except the Party Apparatchiks.

She must go, and go immediately.

UK: the pound in your pocket

Surprise goings on in the curency markets where sterling has fallen to 1.11 against the euro. A surprise to me at least, and, it would appear, to a number of traders.

It seems the reason was some rather exuberant reporting of a statement by the Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, concerning reducing the rates paid on bank deposits at the Central Bank. The Bank has said this was merely a restatement of what it had said in the August Inflation Report.

There may be a slight readjustment but not much more for a bit. The markets are still worried about monetary conditions in the UK. However I still forecast a realignment against the euro as we begin to come out of recession, due to Britain's more flexible labour markets.

Berlusconi update

Incidentally there are rumours among the chattering classes of the right that a surprise contender for Berlusconi's replacement might be Mario Draghi, governor of the Central Bank and former big smell at Goldman Sachs. You heard it here first.

Berlusconi: the enemies circle

Perhaps we might say that Silvio Berlusconi is not scared who he chooses as his enemies. There seem to be a few, now.

The Church is not happy with him, in particular because he fought back; but he was right, if clumsy, to do so. Dino Boffo, the editor of l’Avvenire, the newspaper of the Bishops’ Conference, was not in a position to lecture people on their moral peccadilloes and has rightly resigned.

There has been some rough and tumble, if not exactly a rift, with Gianfranco Fini, the former leader of Alleanza Nazionale which has merged with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia into the PdL. It would appear Fini, effectively Berlusconi’s deputy, was anticipating the great man's demise and positioning himself, a little early, towards the centre. Il Giornale, the Berlusconi family paper, has advised him to get back to the right if he doesn’t want to appear any more ridiculous than he already does (their words not mine). Fini says he will sue Il Giornale.

Lastly, Berlusconi is being sued by Rupert Murdoch. Amidst great complaint from Rupe, Berlusconi increased the VAT rate on subscription TV, saying it was a requirement of the EU and that it would hit Berlù’s pay channels as well.

We now learn that Murdoch is behind much of the Berlusconi smearing that has been going on. His new York papers have been most outrageous, claiming for example that Silvio was the father of Noemi Letizia, the young model whose birthday party he attended. Murdoch has even got the classics academic Mary Beard, who writes for the Times, to pen a comparison between Berlusconi and the Emperor Tiberias.

Now there are rumours that the Mafia is turning against him. A little known member of the coalition is Movimento per l’Autonomia, regarded almost humorously in that, in a mirror image of the Lega Nord, it seeks more autonomy for Sicily and the South. But the MpA is suddenly making fantastic gains in the polls. Berlusconi has hitherto expected a clean sweep of the Sicily electorate; increasingly it is being said this is no longer on offer.

So is the great man toppling? We shall see. His goal is to become president, and Napolitano’s term expires in June 2011, at which time there must also be general elections. The president is elected not by the people but by Parliament. Some are apparently whispering in Berlù’s ear that if he were to call a snap election he would win it. He would promise Fini and the rest that he would step down to become President when Napolitano leaves. I think he would like this reasoning: it is dealing with stronger enemies seemingly from a position of power.

Whether he is the right person to become President is another matter. Still, Napolitano was a former comunist and we seem to have been happy to forget his earlier life. Why not?

UK Health: the risks

The latest horror shock from the medical fraternity is a survey of the fate of some 19,000 civil servants, aged 40-69, set up in the late 60s. The researchers concentrated on smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol, those being the high cardiovascular risk factors, and found that the main cardiovascular risks were, yes, smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol.

The subjects were followed up some 40 years later by which some 13,501 had died.

I should have thought that the remarkable thing about the survey was that 5,500 of these smoking, low exercising, cholesterol ingesting heroes were still alive aged between 80 and 109, comfortably past the average life expectancy.

UK: postal disaster

It seems the UK is heading for a postal strike, something contemplated by the majority of citizens with a degree of equanimity. Why? Because for most of us the product Royal Mail are offering is outdated and expensive. Now the company haemorrhaging cash. Our cash.

I remember the Tories having the chance to rid the taxpayer of this burden, but they (in particular Michael Heseltine) chickened out. We shall have paid a high price for his yellow streak by the time it is all over.

But having decided to keep it (there was some nonsense about it being a meeting point for old people) governments took their eye off the ball. In the 1990s, with a buoyant economy and the internet still something new, Royal Mail made a surplus of something like £2.5 billion. This figure, however, masks a number of problems which might have been seen even then, in particular a weak management and short sighted unions. Three things have happened more recently to turn a failed industry into a national disaster:

1 The EU has forced Royal Mail to open up to competition (ie foreign competition) for letters weighing more than 50g (about two ounces).
2 Gordon Brown’s raiding of the pension funds in 1997
3 the coming of the internet

Now not everyone can use the internet and it is not ideal for all forms of communication (enclosing a fiver in your letter to your grandson for example) but here is an indication of what should have happened.

Mrs Jones of Cornwall goes into her nearest sub post office with a letter she has written to her sister on the Isle of Skye. She feeds it into the scanner (the employee cannot read it), and gives her sister’s name and address. The letter is then faxed to Skye, arriving within one second, is printed and automatically enclosed in an envelope. Her sister can collect it or for a small extra charge have it delivered (about 2 miles). Quicker, greener, better in every way. The reason we haven’t got this system is the government failed to hand Royal Mail over to the private sector when it could have. A condition would have been providing a universal service and this, utilising simple technology, would have been what the new owners would have come up with.

Now we are left with a lunatic workforce which doesn’t realise it is in an industry on its last legs, and a massive underfunding of the pension commitments (socialists never fix the roof when the sun is shining). This shortfall is said to be some £10 billion, a sum we haven’t got. And they want to go on strike.

European Parliament: Babel

Splendid scenes in the European Parliament as Enzo Rivellini, an MEP from Southern Italy, addressed the chamber in the Neapolitan dialect. This completely floored the translation team, who were unable to do their job and even Italian members were left scratching their heads.

Unfortunately we shall never know what he said.

UK: Cuts, cuts, cuts

Mr Brown has finally uttered the ‘c’ word, without actually saying he will take any toys away. He said he will cancel ‘unnecessary’ expenditure. I do hope Mr Cameron asks him to outline how much ‘unnecessary’ expenditure he has authorised over the last 12 years.

In the meantime, Irwin Stelzer in the Telegraph warns Mr Cameron that he will need a clear mandate to cut expenditure, and that means putting detail in the manifesto.

The Liberal Democrats’ spokesman, John ‘Vince’ Cable, has to his credit set out some examples of possible cuts, amounting to £50 billion. Not enough, but a start, and interesting to see the sort of stuff which will have to go. They are on the excellent Reform site.

Sweet dreams

As I go to bed the BBC newsflash says 'A ship that may contain nuclear waste has been allegedly blown up by the mafia off Italy'.

That's OK then. Sleep tight.

Keith Floyd

So much has been said about Keith Floyd, who has died, that it needs little from me.

He made cookery OK for blokes. Not just males, but guys who drank, smoked and enjoyed themselves.

Thanks, Keith, from this bloke.

Lehman, the crisis and the politicians

I have been listening carefully to the TV, radio and blogging media about the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse. I don’t know about anyone else but I have found vagueness, confusion and wordiness as a substitute for knowledge to an extent almost unprecedented.

I should like to mention first, in passing, that if you had asked anyone in the financial markets before the crash which firm they would like to go bust ignominiously, they would have said Lehman. It had an arrogance, a class-based superiority which is less uncommon in East Coast America than most people think but which was out of place on Wall Street. At the time I and others were warning about the moral hazard of giving banks a bailout and Lehman was a perfect answer of ‘pour encourager les autres’.

The questions people seem to be asking a year on are ‘Can it happen again?’, and ‘Why didn’t we have regulation to make sure the banks had enough capital?’. The answer to the first question is yes, and it will, but not for maybe a generation. The second is more difficult, and more interesting.

Regulation is done, either at first hand or second, by politicians. Someone has wisely said that come the next collapse we will be rushing around imposing the regulation we should have had for the previous ones, as they say of generals always preparing for the previous war. Some of it is bad. The Clinton administration wanted everyone to have a house. So it told the two state bank/reinsurance companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to do most of their business with high risk poor people. It wasn’t all Lehman’s fault.

But there was some regulation on capital and in retrospect it is fairly easy to see why we were all wasting our time. Let us say a bank has £10 of capital, and, looking solid, it borrows £90 and lends a total of £100. That is a leverage of ten times: its loans are ten times its capital, so it only takes ten percent of them (£10) to go bad and they have wiped out their capital and can’t repay their borrowings. Many of the banks were leveraged 30 times, which means it only takes around 3% to go bad and they are in trouble. Given that in the States, thanks to Mr Clinton, they were lending to insolvent Mississippi farmhands to buy a property and you can see there will have been problems.

Some years ago, in the early 1980s if I recall, the chaps from the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, came up with a formula for regulation. Naturally not all loans were the same. Lending money to the farmhand unsecured was highly risky, whereas secured against a property meant you were likely to get something back. So they made a table of different types of exposure, secured, unsecured etc, requiring different amounts of capital. Then what to do about guarantees? If the bank guarantees A’s loan to B there was the chance that B would pay it back, or part of it, so it should need less capital put by. Then suppose Barclays Bank asked Natwest to lend money to a company called Barclays Bank (Dodgy Lending) Ltd. Natwest didn’t get a guarantee but look at the name! A guarantee in itself! Then suppose BB (DL) L floats on the stock exchange, sells shares and we start selling options on their share price? Wow! Or make a market in the future price of those options? Or give the options futures away to enhance the risk on even dodgier stuff, like toys in the packet of cornflakes? Wow Wow Wow!

So as soon as the regulations appeared, banks started to devise ways to get around them, to take more profit-generating risks without having to provide more capital.

And if you put more regulations in place there will be more people paid million dollar bonuses to get round them. The solution is what we had before Gordon Brown became Chancellor. The Bank of England had its nose in every banking pie and could understand what was going on and occasionally warn that it was too much. Brown’s socialist mentality couldn’t cope with this so he split this responsibility between the Bank, the Government and the Financial Services Authority. Three times the people doing the same work but no one was responsible and no one knew what was happening. Northern Rock, which should have gone under for imcompetence, was rescued for the simple reason its base was in Labour heartlands and it had been a donator to the Labour Party. If it had been Cheltenham and Gloucester (Tory), Labour would have laughed its head off and we would have been saved billions.

That’s the problem with regulation. It’s done by politicians.

Football

I have learned something interesting about football (something interesting! At last!), which I shall pass on to you. I expect you already knew it.

The length of a pitch must be between 100 yards (90m) and 130 yards (120m) and the width not less than 50 yards (45m) and not more than 100 yards (90m).

So the pitch could be a square, something I don’t recall ever seeing, or it could be a rectangle measuring anything between 90m x 45m and 120m x 90m, ie between 4,050 sq m and 10,800 sq m, over two and a half times the size!

They ought to introduce the same idea with tennis.

EU: claim more holidays!

In a new decision relating to the interpretation of the Working Time Directive (the diktat which makes you a criminal if you work longer hours than they want you to) the European Court of Justice has ruled that if a worker falls ill during his holiday he can reclaim the time from his employers. He just reclassifies that period as sick leave.

But don’t worry. Obviously nobody is going to try to fiddle this and claim by email from Lanzarote that they have a tummy upset. Are they?