Red Herrings

photo from Britsattheirbest.com


This just in via email:

Lisbon crowns a history of deceit

By Christopher Booker, Daily Telegraph, 21/10/2007

It was apt that Gordon Brown's agreement to the EU treaty should have coincided with the announcement that MPs are to get an additional two weeks' holiday a year because there is so little for them to do.

The Lisbon Treaty, after all, is another giant step towards a new form of government, empowered to decide most of the laws that govern our lives, making our Westminster MPs even more redundant than they are now.

It was equally appropriate that Mr Brown and his puppet foreign minister, David Miliband, should have agreed this treaty on the basis of the most shameless political lie one can recall: that the new treaty is completely different from the rejected EU constitution – with which it is 96 per cent identical.

Three years ago, when Richard North and I were writing a history of the European Union, trawling hundreds of books and thousands of documents, nothing struck us more than how consistently this grandiose project has been built on deceit as to its true nature (hence our title, The Great Deception).

It is more than 60 years since one of its progenitors, Altiero Spinelli, wrote that its aim should be stealthily to assemble the components of a supranational government and only to declare its true purpose at the end of the process by unveiling a 'constitution'.

It is more than 50 years since another founder, Paul-Henri Spaak, advised Jean Monnet, who was above all 'the Father of Europe', that the only way to achieve their goal – a politically integrated Europe – was to pretend that it was only a 'Common Market'.

It is more than 40 years since Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath went along with this, deciding to withhold from the British people that the real aim was a European state – a deceit perpetrated by Heath in spades when he took us into the Common Market in the 1970s.

Of all our prime ministers since, the only one who did not go along with this concealment was Mrs Thatcher. In the last years of her premiership, she woke up to the dangers of this stealthy, relentless drive towards full political integration – and her determination to fight it played a crucial part in the way she was brought down.

In this respect, the decision of Europe's political leaders in 2001 that the building of the European state should culminate in drafting a 'Constitution for Europe' was entirely in keeping with the strategies proposed by Monnet and Spinelli decades before, marking the moment when the 'project' could at last come out in its true colours.

When, to their horror, it was rejected, their solution was simply to bulldoze it through regardless of popular wishes, as recent months have shown.

Mr Brown's deceit over this treaty is in some ways no worse than that practised by Macmillan and Heath before him. But he has pulled off a brilliant tactical victory by focusing discussion on those 'red lines' (so aptly described by Gisela Stuart MP as 'red herrings'), thus diverting attention from the treaty's real significance as a further huge step towards creating a European state.

Of all the immense changes this will make in how we are governed, none is arguably more important, or has received less attention, than the formal creation of the European Council as the cabinet of our new government. The prime ministers who make it up are placed under a wholly new obligation to put their loyalty to 'the Union ' above that to their own countries.

With this treaty we shall finally be ruled by a government that cannot be dismissed, making Britain , in effect, a small part of a giant one-party state. This may make Mr Brown feel important, as part of 'the Big Show', but it is hardly surprising that he does not dare consult the wishes of his countrymen on what he has done.

Office of Kathy Sinnott, MEP for Ireland South

Tel. Brussels +32 (0) 228 45692

Email: kathy.sinnott@europarl.europa.eu

Yes, I know

that Gordon Brown, despite a report from the Peers, has insisted that there must be no cap (read: "control") on immigration from non-EU countries.

Door's open folks, come on in.

I refuse to blog about it. It's too depressing.

Go read it yourself if you're so keen.

I'm happier thinking up cat names, thanks.

"Everyone has to do what I say

except the ones who don't."

Sort of a whipped vote, but not really...

Melanie Philips said a few weeks ago that reports from inside the Party are that Mr. Brown is losing his grip on both his power and his mind. I've been hoping that since the absurd fiasco of the Lisbon treaty vote, his loss of prestige as party leader would carry through to the Embryo bill. As a piece of Queen's Speech legislation, there's a chance that it will result in the defeat of the government.

His behaviour is erratic and bizarre; he phones colleagues at all hours with imperious demands while dithering over every decision he has to take. Ever since things started to go wrong for him and public fury and cynicism boiled over, he has clearly been radically destabilised. He seems to be wholly unable to cope with criticism, and more to the point unable therefore to look clearly at what is so patently going wrong and put it right. He tries to big-foot every minister and meddle in every department for all the world as if he has an uncontrollable tic; he is the Touretter of public administration. Yet the more he meddles, the more everything falls to pieces underneath him.

One clings to these small hopes. They keep the dark from closing in.

Things fall apart

Melanie Philips:
"...Brown has simply lost it, period."

His behaviour is erratic and bizarre; he phones colleagues at all hours with imperious demands while dithering over every decision he has to take. Ever since things started to go wrong for him and public fury and cynicism boiled over, he has clearly been radically destabilised. He seems to be wholly unable to cope with criticism, and more to the point unable therefore to look clearly at what is so patently going wrong and put it right. He tries to big-foot every minister and meddle in every department for all the world as if he has an uncontrollable tic; he is the Touretter of public administration. Yet the more he meddles, the more everything falls to pieces underneath him.

Northern Wreck may be headline news, but almost every day brings further evidence of what can only be described as the systematic collapse of public administration in Britain. In a country which once ran an entire empire and thus constructed a legend of administrative genius, the word ‘couldn’t’, ‘run’ and ‘whelk-stall’ are now on everybody’s lips.

She offers a handy timeline of a collapsing administration (gleaned from the Times):

January 2007 Revealed that since 1997 nearly 1,600 government computers containing sensitive information had been stolen

September A CD containing the names, national insurance numbers, dates of birth and pension data of 15,000 Standard Life customers lost

October Laptop with data about 2,000 people with ISAs stolen from a Revenue & Customs employee

November 20 News of two CDs with details of 25 million Britons lost in post from a Revenue & Customs office in Tyne & Wear

November 23 Emerges that six more CDs with confidential information had gone missing

December 6 Four CDs containing details from court cases go missing

December 17 Details of three million British learner drivers lost in the US

December 18 Revenue loses data of 6,500 private pension holders

December 23 Nine NHS trusts in England say they have lost patient records kept on discs

January 9, 2008 Laptop with details of 600,000 people taken from navy officer’s car in Birmingham

January 26 Details of 1,500 students lost in the post.

Grounds for Dismissal

I don't see why there can't be a law that says if a government refuses to fulfill its election promises this ought to be grounds for a non-confidence motion.

What's so hard to figure out?

If circumstances make some things impossible, maybe we could cut them some slack, but the outright reversal and refusal to consider actually doing the thing you were elected for having promised to do ought to be grounds for dismissal.

If I were hiring someone and he agreed to perform particular tasks for a wage and when he showed up to work on the first day and announced he would not be doing the things agreed upon, why shouldn't I sack him?

Well, as long as the government retains control,

So, Gordon, any news on when your train leaves?


I'm sure I will continue to feel "safe and secure."

And after all, it's only going to be used to control organized crime and terrorism. Naturally I wouldn't dream of implying that the government would be ignoring civil rights for no good reason. Or for some reason other than the stated ones.

Prime minister says phone-tap evidence will be allowed in British courts
February 6, 2008
LONDON: British prosecutors will be able to use phone-taps as evidence in courts for the first time under proposals to improve complex investigations into terrorism and organized crime, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday.

Brown said a seven-month review by former senior civil servant John Chilcot recommended lifting the ban on the use of secretly intercepted private communications for a limited number of cases — despite concerns from intelligence chiefs who fear their techniques could be compromised.

Prosecutors can currently use recordings or transcripts from bugs secretly installed in homes and cars — or covertly recorded face-to-face conversations between suspects and undercover officers.

...

"The use of intercept in evidence characterizes a central dilemma we face as a free society — that of preserving our liberties and the rule of law, while at the same time keeping our nation safe and secure," Brown told lawmakers.

Okay, Pal, Hand Over Your Liver

How weird does the world have to get?

Even Monty Python isn't satirical any more.

A "different kind of consent"? Ah, you must mean the kind under which the person does not give consent.

Truly, it has to be seen to be believed.

Trust us, we've got it all taken care of

no need for a referendum...put down your pitchforks and torches and return calmly to your homes.

The Government has been accused of misleading voters over the new version of the EU constitution.

Labour ministers say Britain has secured control over tax and benefits, foreign policy and social rights and that opt-outs mean there is no need for a referendum.

But a new guide to the treaty rejects these claims and highlights policy areas where "safeguards" that the government secured will not prevent Britain from being affected.

The guide, published by Open Europe, the think tank, attempts to disprove the arguments for not holding a referendum put forward by Gordon Brown's government.

Ministers claim the treaty is different from the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005 because the government has insisted on a series of "red lines".

Open Europe says ministers have stopped denying that it is the same document because of the unexpectedly large number of European leaders prepared to publicly state that the new treaty is essentially the same as the old.

Gordon Brown Loses Personal Data of Millions of Britons

I thought I'd share a little personal annecdote in reference to the headline above that has filled the Google News Alerts for the keywords "Gordon," "Brown's", "Incredible", "Shrinking", "Political", and "Career".

I was looking through the adverts in the Daily Mail (which paper has become indispensable, and not only for lighting fires) looking for a company that would give me a better deal than BT on broadband internet.

At each one I called, I was informed that the only "option" available was to pay by "direct debit" and could they please have my bank account number. (That the word "option" didn't mean that, seemed to go over the heads of most of the people I spoke to, no matter how hard I tried to explain it.)

When I said that I did not want anyone dipping their grubby little paws into my bank accounts, I was told that the company was "very sorry" but that "everyone does it that way."

"Well," said I to the twelfth company representative in the phone centre in Bangalore, "I've observed through my travels that most people are extremely stupid. I shall have to revise that assessment to include 'everyone' from now on."

As you have observed, I did manage at last to find a company who would take my money. But I thought that in the light of recent revelations in the news, the fact that it was close to impossible to get a basic service, necessary to my continued employment, without giving out banking details, was illustrative of the problem.

Not everyone can live in a little rural cottage in West Cheshire, snare their own food and collect firewood every day. Most people have to have ordinary services that are considered normal for people in this admittedly incredibly technologically bloated culture.

People need phones. They need the net. They need all sorts of things and the way things are set up, it has become nearly impossible to protect oneself or one's family from the state.

The fact that we are all, either consciously or unconsciously thinking in terms of "protecting" ourselves from the state, says everything that needs to be said I think.

Getting a little worried?

PM: My focus is on governing, not snap election

Gordon Brown once again refused to be drawn on the prospect of an early general election today, insisting he was focusing on "getting on with the job of governing". Without directly naming the Conservatives, he pointed the finger at David Cameron's party for fuelling speculation over an early poll in the autumn this year or spring 2008.

"I am a conviction politician, like her."

(Pssst...tell you a secret Mr. Brown. If you have to tell us, then you're not.)