The Open Society and Its Enemies

The in-your-face authoritarianism of the New Labour regime cranks up week by week as further powers taken in legislation steam-rollered through Parliament or, more shamefully, passed on the nod, is activated by the Executive. Leaving the United Kingdom will shortly require an exit permission to be obtained on line at least 24 hours before travel. To attach a £5000 penalty to failing to supply the personal data required before departure is a blind; you will not leave at all without compliance, not least because transport companies are liable as well as the individual traveller.

Secured within the confines of the country the population is required to conform not to just the laws but to the ideologies and attitudes embodied in the regulation of society. Regulation is enforced by regime officials employed throughout our lives in regime agencies; it is enforced by extensive surveillance of many aspects of social behaviour at work, in consumption, in education, in health, in communication, and in measurement of conformity to social norms.

Avoidance of interaction with regime agencies and provision triggers enquiry and investigation - higher levels of surveillance.

Overt protest leads to formal criminalisation and punishment.

People in England think that soon, not now but by this time next year at latest, they will be permitted to remove these permanent regime structures. What they will be permitted to do may include entering a polling booth and choosing another set of highly rewarded administrators, and this will pacify many and their sense of unease.

Others know that much more is needed and asked of most of us.

Apparatchik Looters Deny G20 Failure

Jose Manuel Barroso is a civil servant. He is not the President of the European Union and he is the leader of nothing whatsoever. Gordon Brown is the unelected leader of the British Labour Party (as they style themselves) and it is our democratic misfortune that he is thus ex officio the unelected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

This pair of poseurs have improperly used Downing Street as an unofficial backdrop to misrepresent and recast the failure of last week's G20 meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bankers that had been intended by New Labour to establish the G20 as global governance in embryo, and lay the ground for a triumphant declaration of global responses to a global crisis when in truth what is at stake is Brown's wasteland United Kingdom economy.

It is noteworthy that while the President of the European Union
The President of the European Union Professor Vaclav Klaus

warns in an Address to the European Parliament, that current EU practices smack of communist times when the Soviet Union controlled much of eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic and when dissent or even discussions were not tolerated,

“Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition,” said President Klaus. “We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom.”

the senior apparatchik of the EU and the senior apparatchik of the Labour party are denying the opposition by all and every member of the G20 to the imposition of reckless deficit financing and inadequate controls of financial regulation that enables the looting of the state by undemocratic rogue administrations.

Dr Crippen Will Never Get So Far Again With New Labour's E-Borders. But Do We Care?

Membership of the European Union is not popular in the United Kingdom. Its one saving-grace was the ease with which Europeans (including us) could move about their half continent; holiday, spend more of their time here and there, settle elsewhere, return home. Most of us are fond of our former Roman Empire fellow citizens. We have a lot in common. But because England Won the War and the rest, by definition, lost it, subjecting national decision-taking on foreign relations, political forms, cultural norms, (and a generalised bolshiness in the face of central authority), meant we only wanted to be on good terms not employee relations terms, with the European Union.

That saving grace has just been wiped away. Try to get off the British Isles and we are required to register 24 hours in advance our name, address, age, gender, civil status, destination, travelling companions, credit card details, length of absence, and Angels cannot begin to imagine what else.

This is not happening in Schengen - the core of the European Union. Florence airport is a bus stop, without oyster cards tracking where Angels fly. If we cannot travel freely and anonymously round Europe; if the Roman Empire runs, but not for us, what is the point of European Union membership at all?

What is the point of Bloomsbury if the Stasi sit in St Pancras?

Should Mr Wen Be the Only Finance Minister Asking About the Safety of Assets?

The United Kingdom government is a large holder of US public debt and there should be increasing signs of concern that the sharp increase in US government spending will lead eventually to inflation and a collapse in the dollar.

Perhaps we ought to be hearing something on these lines from the Chancellor of the Exchequer:

“We have lent a huge amount of money to the United States...

“Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am a little bit worried. I request the US to maintain its good credit, to honour its promises and to guarantee the safety of the United Kingdom's assets.”

Larry Summers, US President Barack Obama’s senior economic adviser, will respond by trying to quell fears over the burgeoning mountain of US debt, saying that boosting the economy would help reduce debt in the future.

“If you don’t prime the pump . . . it’s much more costly to do it later,” he said in response to a question about comments.

The US was committed to long-term fiscal stability, he said, but it was more responsible to US debt holders to ensure that the economy recovered rapidly from recession.

Babysitting Gordon

The sensation that the Prime Minister is under supervision by the Great Powers is very strong. This period of time is Germany's responsibility; the Germans have taken over from the United States, who had him handed on by the French.

Each Power is permitted to recoup some of the personal distaste and public insult involved in the effort by a gain for their national interest. France obtained nuclear power industry commitments and contracts that provide both disposal facilities for their nuclear waste and opportunities for their nuclear plant construction sector. The United States wrung further and public commitment to fiscal indebtedness, the continued unquestioning holding of US Treasury Bonds, plus massive taxpayer funding leaking to US banks. Germany has, at a guess, obtained funding for the car industry that can so help the current German government's election prospects. Nothing like a subsidy from Mandelson towards your next new motor, particularly German-built motor. A Schadenfreude aspect to policy cannot be dismissed either.

Brown's compliance, avid assistance in, the looting of the United Kingdom is unrivalled behaviour in an advanced capitalist country. The peculiar combination of personal stupidity and hubris, an authoritarian Party with old-style socialist redistributive and social control tendencies posturing as universal morality, the sophisticated apparatus of a modern state, and gross levels of corruption for personal gain in the political elites, is a first time occurrence. Losing any of these factors will turn the tap off in the looting of one of the richest countries on Earth.

Gordon has a lot of people willing to put up with him.

Frühstück

'The German Chancellor had been "subjected to" a traditional English breakfast, he joked.' (Telegraph).

Germans do not joke about breakfast, Brown. Egg, bacon and sausage, with fried tomato and fried bread is not funny.

Torture Commission Deletes En Masse and Unread EMails Requesting Craig Murray Be Heard

From Craig's blog:

Emails sent by members of the public to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights were deleted by the committee without even being read. Two people who happened to have enabled tracking sent me the following two automated replies they received:

Your message

To: Joint Committee On Human Rights
Subject: Craig Murray:
Sent: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 20:51:41 -0000

was deleted without being read on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:46:42 -0000

and

Your message

To: Joint Committee On Human Rights
Cc: craig murray
Subject: Torture evidence on 10 March
Sent: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 14:47:36 -0000

was deleted without being read on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:46:42 -0000

Note the identical time of deletion. Evidently people's emails were not even deleted individually but selected as a group and deleted en masse.

This is a shame because there was no template and people made some very telling individual points. Plainly people put time and thought into attempting to participate actively in a key part of a supposedly democratic process. It is a disgrace that these emails were deleted unread. Is the UK really a democracy now?

Poland Joins Germany, France in Rejecting Deficit-Fuelled Financing Policies of US and UK

The disaster of Brown's show boating as saviour of the world engulfed yet another carefully constructed political alliance as Poland was forced to refuse publicly to back United States debt-driven fiscal policies. The last thing Poland wants is to be seen opposing any US position.

Yet Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski intends that Poland rely on monetary policy, a neo-liberal, austere monetary policy, to deal with the recession, and 'plans to keep its fiscal deficit at below 3% of gross domestic product.' (WSJ)

Outing the profound disagreements in the economic sphere between countries that would prefer to emphasize their agreement and unity of purpose in other major policy areas is not a pernicious side effect of this London summit: it is its principal achievement.

Australia a Tier 2 Nation, As Are Canada, Russia and Mexico According to the Foreign Office

The United Kingdom Foreign Office has circulated a confidential paper relegating Australia, Canada, and Russia, [how much of the world's landmass is that, 50%? Natural resources, 60%? ed.] to second division status countries at the G20 summit.

Issued to some PR agencies, it says that the UK should focus lobbying efforts on 11 “high-priority states” such as the US, France, China, India and Saudia Arabia. (Evening Standard)

Some of the world's biggest economies are given a “Tier 2” status although a Foreign Office spokesman insisted the list was “absolutely not a firm hierarchy of the most important states for our political relations”. [which is fortunate as we now have no political relations with them at all, and we can add Mexico to the list, ed.]

“High priority” nations had been targeted for lobbying on the basis of the health of their media, civil society, non-governmental organisations and sovereign wealth funds. [well, yes, both Saudi Arabia and China have, how shall we put this?, distinctive media and civil societies, though the word 'health' is not the first to arise in any free association, ed.]

William Hague stated : “The downgrading of some participants before they have even set foot in London sends completely the wrong message.” [under-egging the pudding there Bill, ed.]

Update

The Herald reports that Turkey is on the B-list as well. [Does the Foreign Office have maps? ed.]

Iraq and Lying About Lying

The newly released e mails on the confection of the dossier justifying the Iraq war presented to Parliament by the Leader of the Labour party and prime minister, Blair, serve more than one purpose. Certainly they demonstrate that the dossier offered as justification for war is a tissue of lies.

As a commenter, spagan, notes in today's Herald, however:

'The spies had doubts.
The SNP had doubts.
The Liberals had doubts.
Obama had doubts.
The Pope had doubts.
Nelson Mandela had doubts.
The UK population had doubts.
The Forces had doubts.
Our European allies had doubts.
The UN had doubts.
Virtually every thinking human on the planet had doubts.'

So why did such widespread doubts not occur to members of Parliament who make up that long roll of shame of those who voted with the Labour government? The evidence that the Labour government lied to the House is being put forward as an excuse for those votes. The argument 'we were lied to' and the evidence for this will be put forward ever more strongly to try to justify that failure to doubt.

No-one believes that they did not know the Labour government was lying.

United States, Russia, China and the Eurozone are Seriously Off-Message for Brown's Big Day

Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin will attend the G20 ministerial meeting that begins near London today.

“We have to coordinate the anti-crisis policy and design anti-crisis measures to prevent similar crises in future,” an official in the Russian delegation said.

According to Tass 'Russia believes certain provisions in the communique of the meeting need to be specified. In particular, the proposal to earmark not less than two percent of GDP for anti-crisis measures does not correspond to the existing situation in various countries of the group. Therefore, specific bailout volumes should not be fixed.

“Differentiation is necessary by groups of countries... taking into account the opinion of BRIC countries” (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the official said.

Russia also believes the British proposal to decrease the refinancing rate does not reflect the specifics of developing and oil producing countries. “The economic situation differs and there is no single recipe for all,” he said.

The finance ministers will discuss the reform of the International Monetary Fund, specifically the amount of additional reserves, quotas and decision-making mechanisms, but:

“Institutions such as the IMF should not just provide urgent aid to certain countries, but also must take into account the consequences which the world economy would face in six-twelve months from anti-crisis measures,” the official said.

Ministers will also consider the capitalization of development banks. While the World Bank can provide to all of its members not more than 100 billion dollars in three years, which is clearly insufficient in current conditions, developed nations are in no hurry to up its capitalization.

“There should be no group egoism and the task of the G20 is to consider how the world economy will react, and to balance the instruments and measures that are taken to confront the challenges faced by different groups of countries. Hypothetically the growing crisis phenomena could make certain states bankrupt and it is necessary to prevent such areas of social and political instability,” the official said.

Oh dear. Now Russia is off message. First the United States tells it like it is. They regulate themselves (and everyone else if they feel like it, watch your tone Brown). Then China notes its debt holdings are 'worrying' and certainly they aren't going to take on any more. Then France and Germany (read the eurozone) say case by case and no more debt.

Brown's April 'summit' is going to cause a public demonstration of currently submerged major opposition of interests. A surfacing of every last divergence of policy, ideology, constraint, and not least national duty. For what? So he can be snapped with his trouser-leg tucked into his sock shaking important hands.

The 2 April 'summit' should be cancelled and meetings at this level held only when national priorities have been aligned, if not resolved. An added advantage would be if by then the United Kingdom were to be represented by a democratically elected government with a mandate to act in this crisis from its electorate.

Ireland Decides Who Represents Its People. Shahid Malik Should Hold His Tongue About Ireland

Justice Minister and Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik said: "these extremists in Luton no more represent ordinary Muslims than the Real IRA represent ordinary Irish people. "

The behaviour of muslims in Luton is nothing to do with Ireland and it is disturbing that the person who tries to pretend a connection is a so-called 'justice' minister. What kind of justice and what kind of minister tries to slur Irish people with muslim extremism?

Prime Minister of Ruritania Tries to Look Statesmanlike in East London Supermarket

The shambles that is the organisation of the 2 April London 'Summit' (formerly known as G20) has at least three well springs:

New Labour's acclaimed inability to organise a booze-up in a brewery;

The very divergent statuses of the invitees ;

Implacable opposition to debt and spend statism by leading member states of the European Union confronting implacable opposition to the regulation of financial markets by the United States and, despite false propaganda to the contrary, the UK prime minister's giunta, (and, from the US, any other infringement of United States sovereignty).

The venue being what appears to be a large supermarket in the east end of London, just about as far from proper London as you can get without sinking into the Essex marshes and surrounded by the tarted-up dereliction of Docklands is a choice matched by directing the President of the United States to fly into Stansted. Will he be coming by Ryanair? No wonder Downing Street organisers of this disaster cannot get through to arrange further inconveniences for the President and his entourage.

Some of the invitees are heads of state and leaders of their country's Executive. Some are leaders of their Executive but not heads of state. At the moment the only head of state who is not leader of an Executive who appears to have been entangled in this mess is our own. The Queen must be peering anxiously at the biggest protocol cock-up of all time and wondering if it's being done on purpose to be rude back to President Obama. She can't have him in for a state banquet, or even for dinner, without asking all the other heads of state; but what about the Chancellor of Germany, or Mr Putin? Perhaps she'd better have them all over, for a buffet lunch or tea, but then that rather lumps Mr Obama in with everyone else and anyway the Sarkozy's have just been and the rota is very strict (that's going to be thrown out too with people coming in unexpectedly). That's what comes of Brown inviting people round to someone else's house without asking first, putting on public display (again) his conviction that he is head of state really.

France, Germany, and Italy are the three biggest voices from the eurozone flatly rejecting debt, public spending and, doubtless, a visit to the wilder shores of inflation later. But they are not speaking for themselves alone; case by carefully considered case is their choice - so judgmental of them, so not New Labour - and so far Italy, at least, hasn't spent a lira adding to its public debt (well it wouldn't be very wise, would it? It's being paid down as fast as Mr Tremonti can go while Prime Minister Berlusconi ended the Italian part of the recession by uttering the magic word 'Condono'). What they want is international financial regulation observed, and member-state co-operation in ensuring transparency in observance. Brown wouldn't like that and the US won't put up with it.

If New Labour hadn't got their hands on some of the levers of power in our country this Ruritanian shindig would be funny to watch. But they have and it isn't.

Coming to London to Visit the Queen

G20 finance ministers and central bankers are meeting this weekend in Sussex, hosted in the UK (it being our turn). Turn and turn about is the standard arrangement as the G20 has no permanent secretariat.

Whatever is going on at the ExCeL centre in Docklands on 2 April - 'where Mr Brown will receive heads of government from the EU and 19 other leading economies, including Mr Obama on his first visit to Europe as President', what the Times refers to as 'the main summit', is not a G20 -format meeting. That is being held in Sussex (see above).

The Times reports also:

'Even though Mr Obama is visiting Britain for the G20, he is expected to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace.'

Reports from Gateshead (Gateshead?) reveal that UK Treasury officials are having difficulty getting their calls returned from the US Treasury:

“There is nobody there,” Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary told a civil service conference in the North East Labour heartlands. “You cannot believe how difficult it is.”

This seems to indicate too that the statement in the Independent that the President and the Prime Minister would be in daily contact about the 2 April 'main summit' is not being fulfilled.

Could it be that the President of the United States is actually coming to London to see the Queen?

The Micropolitcs of Representative Democracy

We're very short of by-elections again. There was Glenrothes but that doesn't count. Not after the goings-on. It's as if Fearty-from-Fife disease has infected every decision-taking process controlled by New Labour. By-election avoidance has absolute priority.

That is why no behaviour, no matter how publicly reviled, is unacceptable from any member of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

'Back me or I'll apply for the Manor of Northstead'.
'No! Any sinecure you want, but not that or the Chiltern Hundreds'.

And what deals, other than troughing permissions, are being struck now? It is often overlooked that when a Leader enjoys such monumental levels of personal rejection and political bankruptcy as does our Prime Minister, small but often pernicious and long term in their effect powers pass into the hands of others. This is not to say that large powers and concessions are not being made also to maintain himself in power. But we can see those.

What dung heap of smaller debs is he accumulating to avoid facing a vote?

'With faith in the future, let us together build yesterday today.'

Our family, our extended family, has been out and about consuming, as we must. In the last month there have been three serious purchases: a car, a new kitchen, and a big tumbler drier. As with all large purchases there has been lots of comparing and consulting and choosing. All these things have to match current and future requirements for some years and meet current budgets. And look good, be reliable, embody up-to-date technology, have reliable suppliers for any servicing, and have reasonable delivery dates.

The car is a Mercedes, the tumbler drier is Bosch, the new kitchen oven, hob, fridge, etc are German too. (The skilled men refurbishing the kitchen - plastering, flooring, tiling, electrics, carpentry including redoing of the sash windows, and installing the units are from east of Germany but work like, well, Germans, with all the assurance and capability that comes from proper tradesmen's training. Quotes were taken, and insurances and elf'n'safety statuses checked).

There is a lot of teasing about me thinking I am a one-person focus group: the 'if I'm doing it most other people are as well' thoughts I was unwise enough to expose to family view. Professional-level criticism has been unleashed unkindly within the family circle on this belief. Nevertheless, I persist in thinking (though this time just to myself) that it is significant that Germany has needed none of the almost unthinkable trillion-plus pounds - the equal of the UK's GDP - splurged on supporting its financial system, its economy, its society. While they ended the German Democratic Republic and healed the wounds of market socialism, over the same years New Labour built state capitalism in our country.

And the answer to the question, 'What is the difference between market socialism and state capitalism?' None at all.

Getting Gordon to Apologise Is Not Enough

What we want from Gordon is not apology. No matter how modern our use of the word it always contains some trace of defensiveness , of explanation.

What we want is contrition. And we want it perfect -
interior, supernatural, universal, and sovereign.

We want him to mean it, not just express it.
We want it because he knows he has offended the Good, not because he fears loss of honour or power, or fortune.
We want him contrite for all of it, everything he has done.
We want him resolved never to do it again.

New Labour New Thought Police? They don't even know where to start.

We Need A United Kingdom Constitutional Summit Not the G20

The empty rhetoric of Global Brown illustrates cruelly the sad state of our Constitution. As he rants on about global regulation and control he fails to recognise that it is not just self interest that produces the nation state 'protectionism' that so sharply delimits his vainglorious proposals.

Other states have Constitutions that define them, set out their powers, and enshrine the aspirations of their people. They have Constitutional courts to defend those principles, to resolve conflicts between government and the state, and to interpret and refine Constitutional principles over time, ensuring that Constitutions are dynamic and constantly and appropriately in force.

The United States enjoys the supremacy of its laws; it doesn't do global (except requiring the rest of us to acknowledge that supremacy too). The European Union doesn't do European either, never mind global; that's what the Lisbon Treaty is about, and it is held up currently before the German Constitutional Court while its compatibility with the nature of the German state and its self determination is examined and ruled upon; the Constitution of Ireland is incompatible with Lisbon too , apart from the Irish people having had their constitutionally guaranteed say.

Lecturing and hectoring other countries on how to run an economy has made our Prime Minster both unpopular and now a laughing stock when England as an example of how he runs an economy is considered. In other countries much of the damage he has done would have been challenged in their courts - financial and economic legislation with retrospective effect and consequent impoverishment of classes of individuals usually gets short shrift in properly constituted states. And eliding economic protectionism (which probably isn't very helpful at the moment) with the political protection offered to citizens of other countries by their states from arbitrary alteration of the social contract is a very Brownian piece of misspeaking.

It is our misfortune to have a state where the absolute power of monarchy was devolved into the hands of an Executive with fluid, often unlegislated givens and practices governing the use of that power. Just as the state of the economy shows the world the inadequacy of Brown's stewardship as Chancellor, now he displays the inadequacy of his understanding of our (and their) democracy; and even demands that other governments' political leaders should agree his proposals as saviour of the world and emulate his performance as a tinpot dictator.

Rather than his worthless 'summit' on global economic and financial governance a national constitutional council to discuss ways of remedying our own country's disastrous democratic deficit should be called by Parliament.

What Needs To Be Done Now

The New Labour regime has allocated £1.3 trillion (the UK GDP) to alleviate the collapse of banks in the United Kingdom. Here is Angels' list of a much less costly government intervention that will leave cash in consumers' hands to 'kick start' the economy.

Abolish council tax

Abolish the BBC licence fee

Abolish VAT on all house building and repair work

Provide free journey-to-work services

Provide free school uniforms

Provide free tuition in music, arts and sports for school-age children

Remove all charges for dental and eye care

End prescription charges

Reduce tax at the pumps by 50%

Abolish road tax

Promote social housing allocation by waiting list

Limit public sector and publicly-funded pensions to no more than the average pension across the entire population

Abolish transaction costs on private house purchases and sales

Come to think of it, abolish income tax

If it can be done for the banks it can be done for the rest of us.

The Collapse of Household Budgets

Household budgets are a complicated area to look at. What is counted, how it's counted, like with like comparisons, the sheer heterogeneity that comes with the turf. What I wondered about is this:

How much time do households across the United Kingdom have before they run out of means to buy what they need, based on consumption over, say the last twelve months, each month? Do they get to the end of the month always, sometimes, rarely, never? If any of the last three, where are they putting the debt? We know it used to be put on credit cards and consolidated onto the mortgage. But where is it going now?

Purely anecdotally, looking when in the UK, people didn't seem to have a notably high standard of living. Food prices, clothes prices, fuel prices, transport prices, and housing prices were very high, but consumption behaviour was on a par with, or at a lower level than, casually observed consuming in Italy. The fuss about plasma screen tellies and foreign holidays and the use of processed and prepared foods was over the top. No-one visited had houses that were notably luxurious, nor cars particularly large and new, nor drank or ate better than elsewhere.

We know that living standards are falling from these pretty mundane levels into real disadvantage quite quickly. If people weren't managing to live on what they got to keep of their incomes even at the best of times with very little ostentatious consumption, what is happening to them now? So-called 'bail outs' for tens, hundreds of billions of pounds to collapsed banks are not reaching individual households or providing the household credit we know is needed for the maintenance of even a modest standard of living.

Extant data no doubt can be collated but is there a source that sets things out in 'how many households are facing meltdown within weeks, months, a year' terms available?

Custard and the G20

At the desperate urging and self-serving insistence of Brown, the G20 London meeting of central bank governors and finance ministers has been recast as a 'summit' with heads of state and heads of government. This has been achieved on the back of the 60th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (1949-2009) being celebrated in France and Germany in the same period. World leaders are in northern Europe anyway, so can spend a day in London.

Pouring custard over the most important member of the United Kingdom government in the heart of London's government quarter raises serious questions about the competence of Brown's regime to offer acceptable levels of personal security to people vulnerable for myriad reasons to attacks not just on their dignity but their lives.

Despite destroying the basis of the civil liberties of each and every one of us New Labour cannot be relied upon to prevent an assault that was as up close and personal as Gavrilo Princip's exploit.

A Big Boy Took It And Ran Away in Kirkcaldy After the Glenrothes By Election

'Yesterday's report [into the disappearance of the marked register of the Glenrothes by-election} said it appeared to be the first time such documents had gone missing from a court. (Herald).

The report said: "The investigation has not found the missing records and is not able to determine precisely when and how the documents came to be lost.

"It concludes that a combination of human error and weaknesses or failures in management systems and work processes at the sheriff clerk's office in Kirkcaldy caused the loss."

The report said these included a failure to properly log the documents when they were received.

As the documents were stored in a basement to which outside contractors had access, it highlighted a failure to store the register in a more secure location.'

It is Wrong to Pour Green Custard Over Peter Mandelson

But I did laugh at this comment on Political Betting:


I’ll go for Alistair Darling, attacked with porridge, outside the Bank of England.

by Paul D March 6th, 2009 at 2:34 pm

Holborn and St Pancras

Will Frank Dobson stand again for election in this inner London safe Labour seat? Sixty eight is usually time to think about retirement. There are some high profile potential candidates for London seats not least, ironically, Ken Livingstone, who beat Frank into third place for Mayor of London after standing as an independent when Frank beat him to the nomination using the Party machine.

As the Brown-led New Labour regime follows its New Labour-constructed banking and financial sector into the abyss, dragging the real economy behind it, there must be some use to which such an electoral winner and vote-getter can be put. Labour threw away their greatest asset, Blair but can they afford to discard instant voter recognition Ken as well?

A General Election Must Be Held Now

It's over. The Bank of England is printing money. The bank rate is as close to zero as it can get. The pound is sliding - again - . The country has been humiliated by its Leader's cold reception in the United States. And mortified by his pretence that he speaks for Europe.

The government is split from not just reality but one minister from another. The prime minister refuses to accept that he is responsible for the appalling effects of his stewardship of the economy for the whole period of Blair's government and for the dregs of his regime on Blair's majority. Demands that he should at least recognise what he has done and apologise are met with incomprehension, never mind refusal.

United Kingdom troops are dying in Afghanistan and loitering, discarded by our allies, in Iraq. A third of the entire generation of children educated under New Labour are functionally illiterate. Basic services, such as the country's energy supply, are hanging on by a thread with half the generating capacity from nuclear power stations out and no replacement capacity within years of coming on.

Unfunded and unquantified pensions liabilities threaten further hundreds of billions of pounds surfacing into the public accounts. The banks have collapsed. Much of the population has debts beyond their means to pay off in their working lifetimes. Life expectancy in some parts of the United Kingdom is less than 60 years, and this after three quarters of a century almost of a universal public health service.

And all that Downing Street can talk about is re-establishing the prime minister's 'image' at an afternoon meeting to be held on 2 April.

Keep Calm and Carry On? For Ever?

Help Craig Murray Have His Evidence Heard on the Use by the UK of Information Gained from Torture

On Tuesday 10 March the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights will discuss whether or not to hear my evidence on the UK government's policy of using intelligence from torture. They discussed whether to hear my evidence on 3 March but failed to reach a conclusion.

The government is lobbying hard for my exclusion. I need everybody to send an email to jchr@parliament.uk to urge that I should be heard. Just a one-liner would be fine. If you are able to add some comment on the import of my evidence, or indicate that you have heard me speak or read my work, that may help. Please copy your email to craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk.


The evidence I am trying to give the parliamentary committee is this:

I wish to offer myself as a witness before the Joint Commission on Human Rights on the subject of the UK government's policy on intelligence cooperation with torture abroad.

I appeared as a witness in person before both the European Parliament and European Council's enquiries into extraordinary rendition. My evidence was described by the European Council's Rapporteur, Senator Dick Marty, as "Compelling and valuable".

The key points I wish to make are these:

- I was British Ambassador in Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004.
- I learned and confirmed that I was regularly seeing intelligence from detainees in the Uzbek torture chambers, sent me by the CIA via MI6.
- British Ministers and officials were seeing the same torture material.
- In October/November 2002 and January/Februray 2003 I sent two Top Secret telegrams to London specifically on the subject of our receipt of intelligence gained under torture. I argued this was illegal, immoral and impractical. The telegrams were speciifically marked for the Secretary of State.
- I was formally summoned back to the FCO for a meeting held on 7 or 8 March 2003 specifically and solely on the subject of intelligence gained under torture. Present were Linda Duffield, Director Wider Europe, FCO, Sir Michael Wood, Chief Legal Adviser, FCO, and Matthew Kydd, Head of Permanent Under-Secretary's Department, FCO.
- This meeting was minuted. I have seen the record, which is classified Top Secret and was sent to Jack Straw. On the top copy are extensive hand-written marginalia giving Jack Straw's views.
- I was told at this meeting that it is not illegal for us to obtain intelligence gained by torture, provided that we did not do the torture ourselves. I was told that it had been decided that as a matter of War on Terror policy we should now obtain intelligence from torture, following discussion between Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove. I was told that we could not exclude receipt of specific material from the CIA without driving a coach and horses through the universality principle of the UK/US intelligence sharing agreement, which would be detrimental to UK interests.
- Sir Michael Wood's legal advice that it was not illegal to receive intelligence got by torture was sent on to me in Tashkent (copy attached).
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Wood.pdf- On 22 July 2004

I sent one further telegram on intelligence got by torture, with a lower classification, following FCO communications on the subject. Copy attached.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Telegram.pdf
It was my final communication before being dismissed as Ambassador.

In conclusion, I can testify that beyond any doubt the British government has for at least six years a considered but secret policy of cooperation with torture abroad. This policy legally cleared by government legal advisers and approved by Jack Straw as Secretary of State.

Craig Murray
2 March 2009

Don't Mention the War, Brown

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in his talk to the United States Congress is 'expected to compare the battle against the global recession to the fight against fascism in the 1940s.' (Telegraph).

There are not so much pitfalls as yawning chasms lying in front of him if he does. Fascism is not just a socio-economic and political movement. It is an ideology that transorms itself appropriately to any culture it roots in. Its essence is authoritarian statism, the imposition of an ethical stance and comcomitant structures onto all citizens by using the powers of the state, and of propaganda, kept in the hands of a permanent, closed ruling group. Different cultures produce different ethical stances, depending on their history and constrained by the needs and circumstances of the present. Italian fascism is very different in its objectives for the Italian state, from German fascism, although both display the classic and fundamental privatisation of reward and socialisation of effort and failure.

Realised fascism invariably displays populist social characteristics and the clientilisation of large sectors of the population by the extant fascist regime. It is often imperialist, engaging in aggressive wars on other states to secure resources and trade routes. It uses repressive and intrusive regulation backed by paramilitary force and civil social sanction (denial of work, access to office or social statuses, welfare provision in housing, health, education...) towards an internal, defined 'other' to reinforce idealised fascist unity.

Fascism was not confined to the 1940s, nor was the second War concerned specifically with its defeat. Which is why it is still with us in its present-day guise. The cataclysms and the tragedies that engulfed Europe in the first half of the last century have as many meanings and reasons as there are people.

We cannot hope that Brown will avoid Basil Fawlty-levels of mannerisms, but he might at least try to avoid giving offence by abiding by Basil's most famous piece of advice.

Prime Minister's Address to Congress

The Prime Minister's address to a joint meeting of Congress, with the President's Cabinet in attendance, is regarded as a rare honour. The Prime Minister stressed that it is:

"absolutely necessary, indeed fundamental to sustain and reinvigorate the Atlantic Alliance, the alliance that for more than half a century has guaranteed peace in liberty."

Warning against a "fortress Europe" mentality, and protectionist policies he added: "disagreement, or worse, opposition between the United States and Europe would be entirely unjustified and would jeopardize the security and prosperity of the entire world."

Some members of Congress, however, are reported to have 'chafed at the event' and 'were slow to arrive or sent aides in their place.' (Reuters) This was attributed by a House of Representatives aide partly to irritation at being called to an event they viewed as a campaign booster for the Prime Minister.

Closing his address by underlining the special relationship existing with the United States, Mr Berlusconi received an ovation from U.S. lawmakers, particularly for his 'closing reminiscence of a boyhood trip with his father to a cemetery of American soldiers killed in World War Two.'

It's Buggin's turn tomorrow.

Jettatore Jets In

Washington under a foot of snow, the Dow collapses to 1997 levels. Perhaps someone could grant Brown a licence? He's going to need to earn a living soon.

Applied Cambridge Capital Theory or Causing Public Debt to Surface and Making Everything Even Worse

Angels thought you might all like to refresh your thoughts with a recent email:

There are two main alternative approaches to the provision of pensions.

The first is unfunded, in that pensions are paid, at a level of pre-defined benefits, out of the current pension contributions made by current employees. It is also called a re-distributive, or PAYG-Pay As You Go system.

It is a kind of pyramid banking scheme: in a pyramid bank (or Ponzi scheme) interest is paid out of new deposits, just like pensions are paid out of current contributions. Except that the banking pyramid goes bust when deposits unavoidably stop growing at least as fast as interest payments; and before it happens Mr Ponzi runs away with the loot. Whereas the pension pyramid can be perfectly sustainable, since there are always new depositors (current employees making pension contributions) and there are gradual and orderly withdrawals (pensions paid only after reaching pensionable age, and gradually, month after month). The unfunded system is sustainable as long as the number of pensioners multiplied by their individual average pension is no greater than the number of current employees multiplied by their individual average pension contribution.

Suppose the two sides balance. All future pensions are currently unfunded, and formally there is a pension debt today equal to today's pensioners' pensions for the rest of their lives. But the day of reckoning never comes, that debt is buried and as long as the balance is kept it never surfaces or needs ever to surface. It is a kind of seigniorage (the income that the state receives from the monopoly of issuing money), as long as the unfunded system is universal. If the two sides are not in equilibrium and pensions amount to more than current contributions, it is that shortfall cumulated and discounted over the residual lifetime of today's pensioners that represents today's "true" component of public debt on account of pensions.

If current contributions are higher than current pensions you can set aside a reserve for a possible aging of the population, or pension rises. If the population ages and such reserve is not there or is exhausted, then pensions must be reduced, or contributions raised, or pensionable age distanced, or some combination of all three, until balance is restored. Or the imbalance can be and is financed by the state budget. Otherwise you get the kind of PAYG system in Russia in the 1990s: First You Pay and Then You Go, as they used to say.

The second kind of pension system is funded with defined contributions but with benefits depending on the yield earned on the accumulation of individual contributions over time. In this case there is no problem with aging, or with retiring age, since what you get depends on what you put in, and the success of the investment to which your contributions were put, by you or by a pension fund of your choice. Choice is reputed to be one of the advantages of the system. It is also good for the development of financial markets, which is regarded as a good thing in itself.

And a zero pension debt? Yes, until a time like 2008-9 when insurance companies and banks go bust and stock exchange values fall by over a half. Then funded schemes end up with vanishing yields and capital values, i.e. pensions literally vanish. Ultimately the government will have to look after the pensioners no longer covered by their "funded" schemes. The pension burden will fall on the public budget - inexorably and regardless of whether pensions are funded or unfunded.

And, should you want to switch from a PAYG to a funded system:

1 - you still have the problem of the vanishing pensions in a recession, and moreover:

2 - when you switch you make the buried, hidden pension debt behind the PAYG, (today's pensioners' pensions for the rest of their lives, which is otherwise buried and as long as the balance is kept, never surfaces or needs to) surface as a real claim on current government resources. Whereas, if the unfunded system were balanced, and it was wished to privatise it, there should be no shortage of takers without paying the purchasers the value of the otherwise buried pension debt.

So:

keep PAYG but adjust pensions/contributions/retiring age so as to make the system - if not balanced - at least keeping the imbalance at levels that can be a reasonable burden on the state budget, or;

if you want to change from PAYG to a fully funded system, consider the unnecessary cost-surfacing into the public budget, and don't necessarily expect the eternal boom needed to validate its alleged superiority.

The Basket Case

Misunderstanding is widespread on what is faced by the eurozone member-states financially and economically. Unlike the United States all the countries of the European Union have developed welfare services, particularly in education and in health, accessible to all. They have no need to budget for the embodiment of voters aspiration in these areas, as well as cope with the financial and economic recession. They are already factored in. Nor have they immensely high levels of private debt. Europeans save. Except for England.

England has very expensive welfare services, certainly, but they are profit centres for providers and regime control conduits throughout the economy and the geographical country. The return of children of economic migrants to their country of origin for schooling, for example, is marked. French, Germans, Greeks, Italians, Poles and no doubt everyone else, do not leave their children at the mercy of state schooling in England. Though they will often return to use the better universities, which are still resisting the mauling of New Labour.

As well as having high levels of personal savings and low levels of debt, continental Europeans have homogeneous societies that are balanced enough to provide for feeding, housing, clothing, transporting, connecting and entertaining a healthy, educated nation. Of course they are not debt-free, particularly of public debt, or untainted by the financial 'obscenities' (to use 'Lord' Mandelson's term), perpetrated over the last dozen years and centred on London. But on the whole, European banks have had much better regulated practice, and much more conservative attitudes.

Some countries will have lower living standards than others resulting from 60 years under socialism. And the cost of the rehabilitation of their societies will spread to the rest of Europe, just as it did from the rehabilitation of eastern Germany. But this will be taken on, and taken care of, on a case by case basis, as the German Chancellor and the Polish Finance Minister have said. And if Germany and Poland do not know about the ups and downs of recovery from 60 years of socialist failure then who does? Not the socialist Scottish creep who has seized power in our country - or his ill taught advisers. If they knew how silly they sound they would be quiet.

The United States will manage. Ostensibly, autarky is not something it is keen to practice, but it certainly can if it wishes to, or needs to. For the last dozen years financial shenanigans that are punishable in the United States have been undertaken in London. Now we face the off-loading onto London and the entire UK economy of the debt surfacing in America and across the world. It is noteworthy that the only other economies in our hemisphere in truly serious trouble are Ukraine and Georgia, both United States-under-Cheney-produced thorns in the flesh for Russia, who will, in the end, have to sort them out (in more ways than one).

Yes, Lithuania, and Hungary are in difficulty, but their support costs in the tens of billions and will be, if not readily, undertaken in the interests of European Union solidarity and self-preservation. Ireland was an overspill sump for the financial casinos of unregulated activity in the UK; as ever, Ireland is a special case but enjoys the strength of membership of the EU (and both leverage, after the Lisbon treaty vote, and some popularity there) and of the euro. It won't be allowed to fail any more than eastern Europe, even when taken case by case, will be abandoned.

Who will save England? An American unregulated financial playground, with a residual reserve currency and a destroyed manufacturing base; of little further strategic value; with a deeply damaged society, represented by a hectoring, lecturing, delusional, unelected bully. A regime drawn from a once national party whose geographic base has collapsed and whose political base, and moral raison d'etre is in meltdown. An unelected regime that refuses to face the electorate. An unhelpful, non-communitaire, popularly unwilling member of the EU. A wrecker, protagonist and prosecutor of illegal wars, a torture state.

Only a general election now can set us on any kind of footing to start negotiating and organising our way out of this New Labour disaster.

Many More Pension Rights Threatened by New Labour Promise of Legislation to Retrospectively Alter Pension Contracts

The Royal Bank of Scotland pension rules that have so benefited Sir Fred Goodwin do indeed cover many more employees than the former chief executive. RBS pension fund rules applying to those already employed before the reforms of 2006 permit any employee over the age of fifty made redundant to enjoy a full pension that can start to be drawn at once.

'The bank’s Annual Report and Accounts states: ‘The RBS Fund rules allow all members who retire early at the request of their employer to receive a pension based on accrued services with no discount applied for early retirement.’ (quoted in Mail on Sunday).

Some 20,000 of the 170,000 employees of RBS are expected to be made unemployed. The pension rules apply to all levels of staff.

Brown-led attacks upon Goodwin for drawing his pension, and threats to pass legislation to retrospectively alter his pension contract are threats, too, against all qualifying members of the RBS pension fund. If New Labour plans to alter pension contracts and rights retrospectively for this group of eligible workers it bodes ill for the entire class of those with guaranteed pension rights, a very large percentage of whom work in the public sector. Information obtained by the Liberal Democrats last week showed that the New Labour regime has been taking advice on altering the terms of public sector pensions, but we know this too from the behaviour of 'Lord' Mandelson and his threats on pension rights among post office workers, who are not strictly state employees.

This whole scenario is not just about 'unjustified reward' but about huge, unfunded claims for pensions, in the state and quasi-state sector, and unquantified and possibly unmanageable public debt.

No Platform

The reasons America is giving countenance to an unelected, spectacularly corrupt, monumental failure of a Prime Minister and moral shambles of a man can only be one of these:

Payment for past favours

Payment in advance for future favours

The Obama presidency is a seamless continuation of the previous presidency

The Obama presidency is as corrupt and unrepresentative of the American people as the previous presidency though with different objectives

The Obama presidency is too weak to control strands within American governance that continue former presidency policies and values

Americans so like and admire Gordon Brown they wish to honour him

Americans do not know or care what Brown has done to our country

Not good, any of it. Particularly when we think of how Brown denied the proper arming of our troops thus letting down not just them but our allies. When we think how the unregulated financial casino he encouraged in London has contributed greatly to the economic and financial damage suffered by many ordinary Americans as well as English people. When we think of New Labour's, and Brown's personal, opposition to the ending of tax 'havens' and secret banking and the immense burden these policies put upon those least able to support it. When we think of the anti-democratic example he offers in refusing to face election in our country. When we think of the propaganda uses to which the New Labour regime will put Brown's reception in America.

Why, Americans, are you offering your hand to Brown? He will take it and you must have heard what his hands are covered with.

Philip Pullman on the Condition of Our United Kingdom

Are such things done on Albion’s shore? asks Pullman. Raedwald posted this, which has disappeared from the Times. And Angels posts it here too.

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

Dressing Angels: Milan Fashion Week

Angels wears nothing but Jil Sander. This is why.

Update: Horrified of Tuscany quotes Times report:

In the finale bow, 'Simons, whose catwalk appearances are normally fleeting, lingered with his arms wrapped around Christel von Kiedrowski, the head of Sander's Hamburg ateliers for more than 20 years. The latest owners of Jil Sander, Onward Holdings and GIBO Co SpA, are rumoured to be closing those ateliers: a cost-cutting exercise, no doubt. And no doubt, either, what Simons thinks of the plan. The magnum opus of this collection, a succession of black, sculpted dresses and pearly white leather jackets that curved around the body, twisting and unfolding at the neck, back or hips to reveal a neon flash of orange or yellow and tiny glimpses of skin, took tailoring to a new level: it was a breathtaking demonstration of what state-of-the-art manufacturing and fabric technology can achieve. Without those ateliers, it is doubtful that the heart of this collection will ever see the light of day.'

Gulp. Sob.

Dressing Angels: Paris Fashion Week

That's better. Not a nasty nylon knee sock in sight. You could easily wear this with wings.

Brown's Cup of Corruption Overflows

Personally brokered by Gordon Brown, with the overthrow of competition laws as part of it, the HBOS Lloyds deal is now vomiting out losses in tens of billions of pounds, and state insurances of toxic loans in hundreds of billions of pounds. Toxic loans, to people who had no realistic expectation of meeting the terms, and often obtained by lies and with holding of information on loan documentation and contracts, of hundreds of billions that need tax-payer funded insurance? The personal severance settlements (called by whatever label you choose to use - leaving agreement, pension, payoff) - are all payable, and have been paid, immediately, regardless of age, never mind merit, for various staff.

And it is emerging now that these payments are not just to the highest, or even just higher level, staff. There are, currently, four named beneficiaries of the failure by Brown and his regime to declare these banks bankrupt: Goodwin, Hornby, Cummings, Cameron. Even the lowest payoff is offensively high. How many other employees of these two banks are receiving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, has yet to be told.

Explain Yourself to Us Brown, Not to the Americans

At a time when the regime he leads has exposed the tax-payer to over a trillion pounds of debt, has watched the pound lose a third of its value, presides over the widespread loss of pensions and savings, is condemned by the Governor of the Bank of England, the head of the Financial Services Authority; as hundreds of thousands are dismissed from their jobs and millions more face unemployment this year as they did last; is discovered to have delivered up people for torture, has destroyed both individual civil rights and grossly undermined the Union of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, Leader of the Labour party is at last about to address the elected representatives of the people - both Houses.

The elected representatives of the people of the United States, you understand.

Brown was not elected by them, nor is he answerable to them.

But then he wasn't elected by us either. Is he answerable to us?

The Nature of the Good

All children are home-schooled. It's called bringing them up. Some children are instructed academically at home as well. Most children attend a state-provided tax-payer-funded institution for a set number of hours in the best part of the day. During that time they are supposed to be instructed but, increasingly, that objective has been displaced by the provision of a substitute, authority-approved, acculturation process often severely at odds with children's learning at home. Unsurprisingly many parents choose their homes over the state's schools, and take on instruction as well as education. Some do this part-time employing, after hours, tutors and teachers of specialist subjects to fill the emptiness and, regrettably and more usually, the wilful incompetence of the state's provision.

Eventually the lion's share of the day's best hours monopolised by the state curriculum is taken back by more and more parents, and the state schools and their teaching embodying 'progressive' values is abandoned.

The state doesn't like this one bit. Parents who never use, or walk away from state schooling institutions, are villified by accusations that their children are open to abuse if unmonitored by state social workers. Parents who provide instruction in maths, English, music, sports, and encourage their children to enjoy non-state provided clubs, associations and activities are rebuked that their child is 'over-committed' is 'interacting' with state-school children and provision poorly. Parents who pay their taxes are made to pay again for schools that reflect their interests and family values and concerns for their children's development.

What gives power to state schools is the child care required by working parents. Young people need supervision. In most countries that supervision is combined with widely acceptable instruction in academic subjects. Any attempts at indoctrination of a state-determined view or attitude would be instantly resisted - people have been there and lived through that kind of thing before. In England highly-politicised trade unions and teachers' training institutions use state schooling to deliver a state agenda.

Now even those who walk away are being pursued. Retreating into personal and family life is a recognised first response to increasing authoritarianism and state-control. The 'rientro nel privato' (notably the term is Italian, they know and suffered under state authoritarianism for nearly quarter of a century, and it took mass invasion and a civil war to end it) is only a temporary respite. The structure is all in place. Now each and every one of us is to be forced into its conformity. Under the guise of anti-terrorism personal freedoms have been abolished. Under the guise of health and safety regulation social activities and associations have been curtailed. Under the guise of child welfare family life is to be monitored and state norms imposed.

It's for your own good.

Proudhon Revisited

Beyond price is never quite the case. Everything can be obtained at a price. What matters is the manner in which the price is paid. In our society it had been agreed that property is not only settled, but property rights are defended by the state and its civil, institutional arrrangements. Property is not supposed to be obtained or defended by fraud or at gunpoint. And if it is, then social and judicial retribution follows.

Along with democratic control over who uses the powers of the state, conceded by the social contract (which has gone by the board in the last twelve years), have gone property rights. Millions of our fellow citizens have abandoned the terms of the social contract, encouraged by the current regime, and lied, cheated, falsely declared , used all forms of legal and social dishonesty, you name it, to force their way to houses, cars, household goods, holidays and pensions - to entire lifestyles - by stealing from their fellows and from future generations.

It wouldn't be so distasteful if it had been done for things like this:



But what the cheapskates actually obtained are things like this:



and the vile buildings they are scrawled on.

What really hurts is the destruction of so much to provide so little for so many.

Negative Equity and Distorting Mirrors

People who have bought expensive houses on a mortgage, at rising interest rates, will be relieved to experience falling interest rates at last. But at the same time house prices are falling faster than the fall in interest rates, eroding their equity stake - if they had positive equity in the first place. At some point their equity becomes zero turning them purely into tenants of their own property. Further house price falls make their equity negative, turning them into tenants paying an exorbitant rent. Thus, instead of rejoicing at falling nominal interest charges, economics 101 would suggest they should rush to sell before their equity becomes negative. Sackerson commenting on an earlier post sets this out beautifully, but it is worth a post of its own to say it again .

Economics is full of distorting mirrors. Magnitudes that seem perfectly unambiguous actually move in different directions depending on the units in which they are measured - e.g. monetary units (in pounds or euros or dollars, each going its own way) or real units (in terms of one or another basket of goods, also moving differently). And what counts is the relative speed at which they move, and therefore how the ratio between different magnitudes move. And it's easy to miss the whole picture, and to forget to compare only like with like.

One moment you rejoice because your nominal interest payments are falling and are easier to cope with. This is what the New Labour regime turns your head to look at, and uses to pretend that green shoots are appearing. The next moment, or month, you realise you are bankrupt, but by then it is too late to do anything about it.

And Northern Rock is being reset to drag more, and poorer people into the trap. Such wickedness.

Giants' Shoulders Not Funerary Urns

'What can you find in an old picture except the painful contortions of the artist trying to break uncrossable barriers which obstruct the full expression of his dream?

To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?

Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for artists what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambition.'

Trampling on our culture, denying our democracy and its roots in English history and our past is New Labour, drunk with its misconceptions of its own intelligence, youth, talent and ambition.

Dressing Angels

Just looking at the clothes on offer at London Fashion Week is distressing. Clumsy outlines, floral prints, stripes, cruel colours, tight denim, chopped up body images, cheap effects from cheap materials and displays of poor couture and dress-making skills.

This frightening melange of lack of imagination and rejection of the beautiful for the humdrum was only too wearable and, regrettably, worn. Knee socks in stretch-patterned nylon, blanket coats suitable for Sarah Brown, occasion wear for social workers. No pictures, nul points.

Making the Worst of It in the Interests of State Control

Responsibility for a share of maintaining a listed building means that if bits start falling off the outside there is a keen official and popular interest in what you are going to do about it. Which is why the Sovrintendenza delle Belle Arti, architects famous for renovating 16th century dwelling houses, and esoterically skilled building firms have come up with some big numbers.

The bank at the bottom of the hill hasn't blinked an eye. Loan? Certainly. But a mortgage might work out cheaper, and there are subventions for buildings like that, and tax relief. It 's a funny feeling after all the berating of the last six months, the denouncing of debt and easily obtained mortgages, to find that debt makes sense at current interest rates and motgages are offered 'at sight' so to speak.

Either it's much, much worse in England, or the country is being stampeded into political and economic policies that otherwise would be out of even New Labour's reach.

Time for a Pause for Both Sides in England's Membership of the European Union

England is not, at the moment, a democratic state. Its democratic provisions are being ignored or deliberately set aside by its regime, which remains in power by refusal to consult the people and by the threat of force to be used savagely against any civil unrest that attempts to disturb the regime's grip upon the state. The large numbers of economically inactive, maintained on the miserly clients' handout, is being augmented daily by newly-unemployed with little hope of finding work. Homes are being lost, bankruptcies rise, alternatives to inappropriate state provision in education and health move out of reach.

Credit and mortgages are unavailable and the Brown regime denies any hope of good banks concerned with traditional retail banking being separated from high risk-taking games in other organisations that share the word bank but none of the functions most people want from their local financial and savings institution. Banks are zombies, fronted by managements permitted to keep their jobs and statuses, animated by being underwritten by the state.

The New Labour regime responses to the collapse of UK financial structures and of the UK economy break every European Union membership rule in the book, even in these easier, 'understanding' times. The numbers of denunciations of the UK's behaviour to the Competition Commissioner and the number of member-states making them rises steadily.

It might be best for the United Kingdom to stand aside from the European Union until it either chooses to re-enter, by referendum, whether or not the Lisbon Treaty has managed to be activated, or decides to remain permanently in friendly but distanced relations.

Brown and New Labour's desperate defence of the City's status as an unregulated global casino and tax 'haven' is warping, though not thwarting, other member-states' responses to the recession. The United Kingdom is like a local, infected outbreak, leaking poison into the system and slowing responses to the problems of the Union as a whole. European Union member-states speak for themselves and for the wider interests of their Union; that is what they are elected to do. Unelected and untied to England, Brown tries to disrupt this basic democratic response as a matter of policy, of ideological commitment, as well as out of necessity (for the European Union cannot clean up the financial and economic collapse Brown and his stewardship have brought on us). He speaks of continents and world-wide action. Europeans act for their countries and their Union, and their peoples.

Germany acts to strengthen its economy and maintain its manufacturing skills and knowledge base, protect its financial system from further contamination, and to help member-states and neighbours to the East. Germans do not spout global non-democratic propaganda pretending to be offering necessary economic and regulatory solutions. Everything they say should be understood in the context of their democratic state and constitution and their careful evaluation of their relations with even the EU. Regulation is to be enacted by regional and national parliaments and then extended within the European Union by agreement. As Mr Berlusconi pointed out in Rome earlier in the week.

And as Mr Draghi has pointed out, Italy has so far expended half of one percent of Italian GDP on dealing with the recession. France is at three quarters of a percent, and Germany two percent (but they have the East under their wing). And their figures are probably close to the truth, which is hard to believe of New Labour figures, at least until very recently.

It was a great party in London, thank you for the invitation, we all enjoyed it, but Europa is going home now and so is the United States. England might like to free itself , at least for now, from European rules and elect itself a government that can clean up after the last 12 years.

Mannerless, Bordering on Assault

For the last time Mr Brown:

You do not hold still the person you are greeting by gripping her by the shoulders of her dress.

You do not kiss her so stop it NOW with the lip rearrangement.

You do not close your eyes.

What you do is allow your cheek to align with hers, but not touch, once, both sides of the face - or more with the French - and shake her hand. Remember? Like you shook Mrs Brown's hand after your speech at the last Labour Conference?

Most important of all, try to avoid causing the Chancellor of Germany to laugh in your face.

Occupation of the BBC Denied Coverage By BBC Management

The BBC's main building in Scotland was occupied by demonstrators but BBC Scotland reporters were asked to stay inside the newsroom while the protest was under way.

'BBC Scotland journalists were initially asked not to film the demonstrators. When one member of staff did shoot footage on a hand-held camera, they were asked not to upload the film onto the BBC's computers, where it could be accessed by other parts of the corporation.' (Sunday Herald).

Peter Murray, deputy leader of the National Union of Journalists' BBC Scotland branch, said:

"BBC management claimed the decision not to film was made in an attempt to stop others from copying the protesters and to prevent other groups from trying to occupy the BBC Scotland building in the future."

Or the occupation of other BBC buildings throughout the United Kingdom when official censorship and the misrepresentation of reality reaches demonstration-tipping levels, presumably.

(The demonstration, last month, was over the refusal by the BBC to broadcast an appeal for humanitarian assistance to Gaza).

The Real Threat to our Way of Life

Constant talk of global this, and grand agreement that, and now of continental solutions, flies in the face of our political settlement - the contract between a government and its electorate. Our democracy is, of its nature, protectionist and local. We accept that some of our actions will be limited, or required, in return for choosing government by free and fair election that reflects our wishes for the way the social aspects of our lives run.

Our state is defended by our government, our public affairs are run in the interests of its maintenance, and our beliefs about the proper relations we should have with one another are expressed through it. Refusal to accept this both flies in the face of reality and makes any refusenik regime illegitimate.

Which is precisely where we are with Brown's regime. The rejection of reality and its substitution with fantastical assertions on saving the world, and remaining in power by force, both the force of political inertia and propaganda, and the force of the clenched fist. The contract renewed at the 2005 general election has long since been broken both by circumstantial change in the United Kingdom and by Labour Party acts of wilful, degenerate manipulation.

Socialism and its organisations always try for internationalism because it breaks any link between a people and their governance. But it is precisely within the notion of a people and a country that any contract to be governed can be forged. When that sense of national self is dissipated by rogue rule pretending to answer to a higher necessary and even moral order of planetary interdependence and governance, people reject governance at all, or assert their existence as a people through defining the other that most closely threatens them, and making war.

Should We Be Betting All This On a Pair of Queens?

Competent poker players, rather than Angels, will be able to assess the odds. But surely more than 100% of GDP requires a better hand?

Vaclav Klaus: A Brave Man Lends his Voice to Lisbon Treaty Dissent

Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, addressing the European Parliament, said it suffers from a democratic deficit and 'likened its workings to those of eastern Europe during the communist era.' (Financial Times)

'In his first address to the parliament, Mr Klaus characterised the institution as one that alienated voters and offered no credible opposition. He argued that decision-making powers should be pushed out of Brussels and back to individual member states.'

Mr Klaus said: “Here, only one single alternative is being promoted and those who dare to think about a different option are labelled as enemies of European integration. Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives.”

Ireland has rejected the Lisbon Treaty. Germany has it under consideration by the Constitutional court. And President Klaus has yet to sign it.

Ecological Commitment? We Have Given.

A friend of many years has had enough of saving the planet. What can be done reasonably should be done, but that is all. She speaks for Angels in the tongue of angels.

...Nous avons été affectés par la disparition d’excellents ami(e)s, à une fréquence qui nous a paru accélérée, attristés par la maladie d’autres.

Nous avons vécu la première année de la présidence Sarkozy avec étonnement, souvent réticence, quelquefois indignation. Nous avons aussi suivi l’élection présidentielle américaine, tenus en haleine par tous ses rebondissements, et jusqu’au bout effrayés d’une possible victoire du camp républicain. Quel soulagement que le succès démocrate ! Mais à présent tout commence dans ce pays, et rien n’est garanti.

Bien sûr nous avons suivi les conflits éclatant dans le monde, et je ne suis pas certaine que la mémoire des premiers en début d’année ne soit pas déjà effacée par ceux dont nous avons été les témoins en fin d’année. Nous sommes entrés dans La Crise , sans que cela nous affecte personnellement (encore ?), avec le sentiment coupable que notre relatif bien-être est un prélèvement indu sur le revenu futur de nos enfants et petits-enfants. Nous avons entendu toutes les prévisions catastrophistes sur le réchauffement climatique, l’effet de serre, le sombre avenir de la planète et l’obligation pour chacun de contribuer au sauvetage de celle-ci. Vous aussi, chers amis, vous avez entendu tout cela.

Eh bien, au risque de vous choquer, je vais vous dire : j’ai horreur de la tyrannie écologique.

Ma période écologique

Je n’ai nullement l’attention de contester les arguments des écologistes et autres sauveteurs de la planète, des ours polaires, des singes… (je ne me rappelle plus lesquels) et autres espèces menacées. De même que je n’ignore pas les très compétents argumentaires concernant le risque de famine à l’échelle mondiale, la raréfaction de la ressource en eau. Non, je me limite à une position très individualiste, très égoïste je l’admets. L’écologie, j’ai déjà donné. Et je ne veux pas recommencer. Vous me dites, « après moi le déluge ? ». Mais non, voyons. Ma petite personne ne va pas faire remonter d’un micro-millimètre les eaux de l’Atlantique à Biarritz.

Pour commencer, je précise que j’ai soixante-treize ans et demi tout juste. Pendant la guerre (la deuxième) je vivais dans un tout petit village. Nous étions très écologiques sans le savoir, ni même le vouloir. On dit aujourd’hui qu’il faut être « locavores », en gros s’approvisionner le plus près possible de chez soi. Eh bien, nous l’étions. Il n’y avait pas plus de 100 mètres de la maison à l’enclos des topinambours et des rutabagas. Le poulailler et les clapiers étaient à 200 mètres . Les oranges et les mandarines, on ne connaissait pas, on cueillait les pêches et les pommes du jardin. Le chat aussi était locavore, il ne se nourrissait pas de croquettes mais de souris, qu’il avait l’élégance de nous apporter mortes avant de les consommer pour être félicité. Le tri des déchets : on n’en avait pas beaucoup, à l’épicerie tout était vendu en vrac, ce qu’on s’efforce aujourd’hui de ressusciter. Les lentilles venaient avec des cailloux, les pâtes grisâtres avec de sournoises petites bêtes. Quant aux déchets « personnels », il y avait la petite cabane au fond du jardin, derrière les lauriers (« je vais derrière les lauriers » étant devenu la métaphore pour ce que vous savez. ) et un homme du village passait avec sa brouette une fois par semaine pour enlever lesdits déchets et les épandre dans les champs.

On ne jetait rien. Ma grand-mère défaisait et retricotait mes pulls avec des laines de récup à mesure de ma croissance. J’allais à l’école en sabots avec du foin dedans. Pour les grandes occasions j’avais des chaussures en simili-cuir dont on coupait le bout jusqu’à ce que le bout de mon pied touche par terre. Je rêvais, quand je serais grande, d’avoir les mêmes chaussures que ma mère, à semelles en bois compensées, et à lanières rouges. A Noël j’avais des jouets merveilleux – je me souviens d’une poupée confectionnée par ma grand’mère, en tissu, avec pour visage la tête de Blanche-Neige, le hit qui venait de sortir, découpée dans un magazine et cousue sur la poupée. On n’avait pas trop le temps de s’ennuyer, nous les enfants. En juin on aidait aux foins (à la main, au râteau). En juillet on ramassait les doryphores dans les champs de pommes de terre. En août on participait à la moisson. En septembre on faisait les vendanges. En octobre on ramassait les marrons « pour envoyer au Maréchal Pétain ». Qu’est-ce qu’il en faisait le Maréchal, je ne sais pas, on disait que c’était pour mettre dans le (faux) café. On allait en classe jusqu’au 31 juillet, réserve faite des doryphores, et on faisait la rentrée au 1er octobre, après les vendanges.

Avec tout ça je crois que j’ai amplement racheté mon droit à polluer, jusqu’à ma mort et au-delà.

Contre l’ecologic attitude

J’ai peu à peu découvert le progrès technique et la société de consommation. Pour tout dire, je m’y suis jetée à corps perdu.

En vrac : le jetable (les couches, après un début dans la « tradition ». Les premières couches jetables étaient de grands rouleaux de cellulose qu’on découpait aux ciseaux, pas les variations sophistiquées par sexe, âge et autres particularités qu’on a aujourd’hui. N’empêche, c’était glorieux ; aujourd’hui les kleenex, lingettes etc.) ; le plastique (les premiers sacs étaient épais, on les lavait, on les stockait, on s’en resservait) ; l’électroménager « qui libère la femme » comme disait M. Moulinex ; les produits chimiques sous toutes leurs formes, dont les sprays qui me dit-on percent la couche d’ozone. Vous pouvez compléter.

Aujourd’hui, ce que je me refuse à faire : renoncer à la clim dans ma voiture (si vous n’êtes pas d’accord, vous descendez) ; éteindre quand je sors d’une pièce, par système ; limiter la température chez moi à 19° (moi c’est 22° minimum) ; éteindre mes systèmes de veille sur mes appareils ; acheter le « paquet familial » de pâtes pour avoir à le manger sur plusieurs semaines (on est deux). Quand je fais « un petit geste pour la planète » (l’expression me fait horreur) c’est par hasard ou habitude : boire l’eau du robinet ; prendre des douches et pas de bains, marcher pieds nus chez moi, etc. Mais je mange des haricots verts du Kenya ou des raisins du Chili hors saison parce que cela me plaît.

Il ne vous reste plus qu’à me boycotter ou me tuer (ou attendre..) !

Brown Sinks Further into Delusion and Ill-Manners

"For the moment, no travel by Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom is scheduled or under consideration," Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.

"There isn't a date in the diary – we just made the invitation a few hours ago. But they are definitely looking at it," Downing Street (reported by the Telegraph).

Brown forces legislation through the United Kingdom legislature to encourage crossing human beings with other creatures, then killing the resultant chimera embryos, and thinks to invite the Pope on a trip to the scene of his infamy?

'Definitely looking at it' with distaste, at a guess. Or even a view to excommunicating the country, again, if that's possible.

State Capture, the National Health Service and New Labour

Four-letter man Mandelson may have attracted attention for being unable to control his foul mouth but what is interesting about his presence in America, together with the Health secretary, is the aim of obtaining further interference (or perhaps his orders) from multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Any state with a soviet-style health service of the size suffered by the United Kingdom is the target of state capture by multinational corporations with a turnover higher than the GDP of countries in the top 100 for national income.

State capture was the object of study principally in the work on the Transition from communism to capitalism of the emerging countries of eastern Europe and Russia (although it was studied in developing countries too).

It is a measure of the condition to which New Labour has reduced our constitution and our economy when state capture must be considered in understanding the behavior of a regime in a formerly advanced capitalist, mature, pluralist democracy.

Brown Misrepresents UK Regime Attitude to Tax Havens

The lie is given to Brown's pretence that he demands the closing down of tax havens, by the Tax Research UK blog ( see Angels links). Richard Murphy notes:

'In the pre-budget report last November Alistair Darling announced that he would commission a review of the UK’s tax havens. It was said it would report in time for the budget.

Yesterday was budget day in the Isle of Man and Alan Bell said in his speech:

Our proactive response to the events of last October will extend to the review into crown dependencies’ regulation being undertaken by the United Kingdom and referred to as the “Foot Review”. I understand Members frustration in relation to hearing how the review is to progress, but to date we have yet to meet Mr Foot or his team, to hear how he proposes to undertake this work. I look forward to such a meeting taking place at an early opportunity as I know that we can demonstrate that we the meet highest standards of regulation, and as such this will be another opportunity to demonstrate this to the international community.

I find that amazing: this review has not met the havens, has not said what it is proposing to do and has not established a work plan.

Great for Mr Foot’s consulting fees no doubt.

Bad for any prospect for real change.

But that suits the UK government well: they really would not have wanted anything embarrassing to have come out before the G20. And it killed the Treasury Select Committee review into these places. Oh, how convenient it’s all been.'

So the G20 photo opportunity has served another purpose after all.