SNP Take My Advice On Plan B - Still Not As Good As Keeping Union

    Interesting article on ThinkScotland about the SNP's decision that keeping the UK £ circulating in Scotland post independence is now the official Plan B.

    I am glad to see they are taking my advice. On the other hand Paul Krugman, a well known leftist economist and thus the sort governments like is quoted.

"Indeed, he warns, a ‘currency tag-along’ Scotland “would be in even worse shape than the Euro countries, because the Bank of England would be under no obligation to act as lender of last resort to Scottish banks — that is, it would arguably take even less responsibility for local financial stability than the pre-Draghi ECB. And it would fall very far short of the post-Draghi ECB, which has in effect taken on the role of lender of last resort to Euro zone governments, too.“

What would happen, he goes on to ask, if something goes wrong, if there’s a slump in Scotland’s economy?  “As part of the United Kingdom, Scotland would receive large de facto aid, just like a U.S. state (or Wales); if it were on its own, it would be on its own, like Portugal."

“Now, Scotland would presumably have high labour mobility — assuming it manages somehow to join the EU … it would be under the Single European Act, and it sort of shares a common language with England.'

“But that’s not necessarily a good thing: what we’re seeing in places like Portugal is large-scale emigration of young workers, leaving a diminished population to bear the fiscal burden of caring for the elderly."

    So even following my proposed Plan B is not, in the opinion of the SNP's favourite economist, as good as maintaining the union.

Our Self-Satisfied Political Elite

        This article by Peggy Noonan, a well known American columnist and former Reagan speechwriter about the enthusiasm America's Congresscritters have shown for the remake of House of Cards. She considers it a sign of how America's ruling class are patting themselves on the back about the corruption inherent in their political system:

Our Decadent Elites

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“House of Cards” very famously does nothing to enhance Washington’s reputation. It reinforces the idea that the capital has no room for clean people. The earnest, the diligent, the idealistic, they have no place there. Why would powerful members of Congress align themselves with this message? Why do they become part of it? I guess they think they’re showing they’re in on the joke and hip to the culture. I guess they think they’re impressing people with their surprising groovelocity.

 

Or maybe they’re just stupid....

We’re at a funny point in our political culture. To have judgment is to be an elitist. To have dignity is to be yesterday. To have standards is to be a hypocrite—you won’t always meet standards even when they’re your own, so why have them?

      But House of Cards was originally about a wholly corrupt British PM, played by Iain Richardson, and was eagerly embraced by the British political class long before the Americans had even heard of it.

ThinkScotland Publish My Nuclear Costings

     I am very pleased to see that Brian Monteith has published my article calculating the potential costs of nuclear power on his ThinkScotland online magazine.

                       http://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkpolitics/articles.html?read_full=12538&article=www.thinkscotland.org


2.08% of current costs.
97.92% parasitism.
(with current bill
Way below current standing charges = "electricity too cheap to meter". Though this does not include transportation costs. However if the amount of power we use goes up anything like proportionately, handling costs will go down, not quite proportionately.

I'm not standing by that exact figure though I would hold to each part as being either firm or a reasonable estimate. Nor does it matter much. If we can say at least 90% of electricity costs are state parasitism and can, over a number of years, be removed it doesn't immediately matter if another 80% reduction is ultimately possible. But if some supporter of windmillery feels the figures can be factually disputed I am sure they will do so.

If nobody in Scotland's political class feels able to point to any error, after it has been aired here on ThinkScotland, it would be difficult to conclude these figures are in error. I am sure the editor would be willing to publish a serious critical article (unlike, for example, the BBC, which virtually never allows a balancing of opinions on such subjects).
--------------------------------------
    Since it has been on the respected ThinkScotland there is no way anti-nuclearists can claim not to have noticed it.

    If they do reply, either in the comments section  or by taking up the challenge to write a serious critical article, I will report it and carry on a serious debate.

     If they don't and frankly experience suggests they won't, we can certainly label this estimate as undisputed and treat it as correct.

Average Electricity Bill £1,400 - Intended To Be £3,000 By 2020 - What Could It Be

   This is a reprint from an something I wrote some time ago.

   I come to the remarkable conclusion that nuclear electricity could cost just over 2% to produce that it does now.

   That means the average household electricity bill of £1,500 could be about £40. A matter of some importance when we are in recession; the correlation between energy use and economic strength is as close as anything in economics; last year excess winter deaths rose to 34,000.

   A few caveats:

   Firstly this is not an official UKIP opinion - Roger Helmer has seen it but not commented either way.

   Even if it is correct we would not get there for some years - nuclear reactors take time to build and the economic growth such a price reduction would bring would certainly greatly increase demand, slowing the fall in prices. "It would take time" however, is not a reason for not starting now.

   It may well be that some international regulations (not just the EU this time) require a certain amount of unnecessary regulation.

On the other hand:

    These figures have been available for some time and I have used them online a number of times against anti-nuclearists. Not once have I had a serious arithmetical objection to them.

    Arithmetic always works.

    Each individual bit works.

    When something is being done, by definition it is possible to do it - for example it is simple fact that the new Hinkley Point reactor is nearly 4 times more expensive than the closely comparable one, also being built by European contractors, in China.

   On the third hand:

   It doesn't really matter right now whether we can cut electricity bills to 2%v of what they are. A 90% cut would be almost as nice. Or 80%. Or even half price. Even a 25% cut would be valuable. In fact all parties but UKIP, despite Miliband's cynical and murderous promise to enforce a short term price freeze, are committed to raising fuel bills. All are aiming to raise average bills to £3,000 a year by 2020. The SNP policy is that even after independence, England will subsidise Scots windmills, otherwise our greater number of windmills would push prices well above £3,000.

   Even if these figures prove to be significantly wrong, and no evidence has been produced that they are, it is certain that electricity costs can be massively reduced from what our ruling parties want & that this will save lives and produce economic success.

    ---------------------------------------------------------
The True Cost of Electricity & How The "Debate" Is Being Dishonestly Restricted

From the estimable Register

   Shows how the electricity price rises from 2007 is largely "policy and regulation costs" ie direct state parasitism. The other is "transport costs" ie the grid, which is basically to pay for extending the grid so that windmill electricity produced in the outer isles can be transported to London. This is a hidden "green" subsidy and an extensive one.

   By comparison actually producing the stuff is barely up and by 2020 will be back down to 2007 costs. I presume this is the benefit of shale more than offsetting windmill parasitism. VAT appears not to be included.

   The alleged corporate greed of the "big 6" monopolists means supplier costs will go from 19% DOWN to 16%.

    So clearly, even within the terms of the official "debate" the fault lies with political price raising.

    But the official debate ignores the political effect of preventing the cheapest power sources (nuclear, coal & shale) being used.
   

    This is how the ruling class normally frame any "debate". The only thing discussed is a few percentage points made up of either profit or government levies according to villain. The graph above shows that the levies are rising fast and the profits, as a % of cost, falling.

    Unmentioned is that Hinkley Point is costing 4 times a much (and taking 7 years longer which pushes up interest payments) than comparable Chinese ones, and nuclear is considerably cheaper than average power.

   Undebated is that 90% of electricity prices (perhaps more) are government regulatory parasitism - you will never know it from BBC "news".
   Even the "big six" would much rather be damned for the largely false charge of price gouging than be shown to be running expensive obsolete equipment that could not compete with engineering cost nuclear, thus they do not call the MPs the liars they certainly are. This is common among dominant companies with fixed assets.

 

    Lets go for a best possible cost:

 

Nuclear is currently 40% of the average cost of our power basket.

China is building at 0.27 our costs.

Because China is building in 3 years and us in 10 we have 7 years foregone income while paying interest - assuming the normal 10% return that is 1.10^7 = 1.95

Assume China is not entirely without state parasitism - say 10% 

VAT 20%

How much could cost be reduced if it was allowed to mass produce reactors - 3 fold seems a conservative estimate.

 

60% X 0.27 X 1/1.95 X 90% X 1/1.20% X 1/3 = 0.0208 or 2.08% of current costs.

 97.92% parasitism.

 

   Way below current standing charges = "electricity to cheap to meter". Though this does not include transportation costs. However if the amount of power we use goes up anything like proportionately, handling costs will go down, not quite proportionately.

 

   I'm not standing by that exact figure though I would hold to each part as being either firm or a reasonable estimate. Nor does it matter much. If we can say at least 90% if electricity costs are state parasitism and can, over a number of years, be removed it doesn't immediately matter if another 80% reduction is ultimately possible.

 

   But if some supporter of windmillery feels the figures can be factually disputed I am sure they will do so ;-)

   If not 2.08% of £1,400 a year is £29.12

 

Brian's Big Politically Approved Multi-Person Lecture

   Was on Radio Scotland today 12-1.00pm.

It's actually called "Brian's Big Debate" but a debate is something where both sides of an argument get to speak, indeed get equal time to speak & the BBC don't do debates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vd2yh   link

5 guests from Labour, SNP, Tory & from Unite (the government employees union that, at least officially, is the main funder of the totalitarian PR group HnH) & a comedian (all comedians are actively left wing political correctitudes according to the BBC - Jim Davidson, for example, isn't a popular comedian).

While UKIP are almost entirely censored from the state owned BBC we have had an effect - the Greens, who were virtually a permanent fixture are not so blatanly supported and since Cowdenbeath made us the 4th party, the LibDems seem to be missing too. How long till we beat the Tories and approved political discussion is limited to 2 parties?

There were 4 questions, on 3 of which I got to speak. Having been in this audience several times before I guess I am getting how to get to speak. Put up your hand, HIGH AND KEEP IT UP EVEN, OR PARTICULALRY WHEN YOU ARE IGNORED AND WHEN SPEAKING KEEP SPEAKING.

Audience must have been a couple of hundred - the show was sponsored by the Glasgow Business Council and there were more business suits than normal (& no classes of schoolkids) but most of the questions came from a fairly small number of people, as normal.

-----------------------------------------

1 - About the Ukraine fighting - all panelists said the expected cliches. I was first to speak & said

"The western role in the Ukraining conflict isn't widely reported. The US assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, was caught giving the Ukrainian rebel leaders their literal marching orders - you can find the tape online but it doesn't get much coverage in the approved media.

The reason she can do this is because "non-"governmental organisations, which are all funded by western governments, are supplying the rebels with $20 million a week and a significant amount of arms.

If somebody was to pay Rangers or Celtic supporters groups a $1 million democracy awareness raising grant to occupy George Square, George Square would be occupied.(laugh)

( At this point Brian said lets move on but I kept speaking and what I said went out)

The only reason anybody in Ukraine wants to join the EU is because they could migrate. If the British people are not comfortable with 30 million Romanians and Bulgarians being able to come it unlikely they will be happier with 50 million Ukrainians."

------------------------------------------

2 - Was about celebrity endorsements of the referendum campaign (Bowie having just done so). Which gave the panel the opportunity to work Bowie song titles into their answers. I put up my hand intending to say "Showbiz people say politics is showbiz for ugly people so I suppose that means showbiz is politics for shallow people so their endorsements aren't very important" which would have raised a laugh & makes the point that politics is important, but is hardly profound. I didn't keep my hand up and wasn't chosen to speak.

------------------------------------------

3 - Should the SNP come up with a plan B for our currency. Brian pointed to me and said "that man at the back with his hand up", several rows behind me.

Shortly after he chose the person directly in front of me.

Then 2 places to my left.

Then the one sitting on my right hand. Then me.

"You can't become a member of a club that doesn't want you. Doesn't matter if you think you qualify. I happen to think Osbornes 4 conditions for it wise for England to share liability with us are reasonable (these 4 conditions have barely got a media mention), but either way we can't if they won't let us. The SNP are just embarrassing themselves by not saying what their alternatives are.

Incidentally I disagree with the lady who said giving a Plan B (audience member 2 minutes before) would weaken the case for plan A. If you want to negotiate you need an alternative otherwise you have nothing to negotiate with."

--------------------------------------------

4 - Asking if the panel would like to live on benefits. (near the end one of the panel said to the lady asking it "I've had dinner at your hoose, it was great" which suggests she was not simply a member of the public but an activist, and probably not living on benefits - the question is very of the unanswerable "have you stopped beating your wife" sort and indeed the lady near the end pointed out that it hadn't been answered)

Indeed I didn't answer it. I said

"A major cost to those in poverty is electricity. We have over 1 million Scots households in fuel poverty with average bills of nearly £1,500 but it is intended to raise this to £3,000 by 2020.

If ANY of the approved parties actually cared about poverty they would be working to reduce prices...... (Brian said thank you we've got to move on and this time the microphone was removed. To be fair it was near the end of the programme. This meant I didn't get the chance to say on air)....... but only UKIP want to reduce prices. Even ed Miliband, with his cynical and destructive promise of a short term freeze, is on record as saying he wants higher electricity prices. In fact we know that at least 90% of electricity prices are various sorts of government parasitism and all of these parties are actively trying to increase them."

--------------------------------

All in all as good as one can expect on a broadcaster that censors dissent as heavily as the BBC.

BBC "Debate" Without Opposition Voice

      I will be in the audience tomorrow for BBC Radio Scotland's Brian's Big Debate.

WHERE:  GTG Building, 1330 SOUTH STREET, GLASGOW G14 0BJ

WHEN:           Friday 21^st February

TIMES:  Doors open at the venue at 11:00am the show is on air from 12pm - 1pm

 

We are invited to submit audience questions on current issues & I have submitted these 3. I think the chances of any of them being chosen are comparable with the chances of any member of Scotland's 4th party being invited on the panel.

 

Questions

 

1 - With Mr Barroso pointing out the difficulty of an independent Scotland getting into the EU is it time for the SNP to decide that their policy of joining on any terms, without even allowing the people a referendum, is unwise.

 

2 - The SNP's white paper promises that after separation there would remain a common electricity regime and England would still put subsidies into renewables in Scotland. With Scotland to be 100% renewable by 2020, is it safe to promise this.

 

3 - With the Cowdenbeath by election UKIP is the 4th party in Scotland; the Wythenshawe by election makes it the 2nd in the north, it is widely expected that in the EU elections, the only UK election carried out under an uncorrupt electoral system, UKIP will come first. With the BBC's legal duty of "balance" when would it be proper to be allowed on here? 

Who Funds Smear Campaign?

  With thanks to the Casuals United site who clearly don't like this attempt to manufacture dirt either.

  Nice to see that, despite the government caused recession there is still plenty of money about.

   This is a leaked letter from "Hope not Hate", whose funding is not entirely apparent though some of it seems to come from civil service unions, saying they will pay for dirt on UKIP. The government has denied directly funding them, which may be true, though the Lab/Nat/Con/Dems do openly support this smear campaign.



    I have clashed with HnH twice before

- once when Lord Monckton and I attended one of their meetings and by a mixture of smooth niceness and argumentativeness (I was argumentativeness) got them to concede, in front of the audience, that UKIP was not extremist and even that "it goes without saying" that HnH are much more seriously opposed to real fascism such as the attack on Nigel Farage. (Both HnH & the Farage attackers include members of the SWP).

- 2nd time when they, and a tame journalist on the London Evening Standard of all places, denounced me for not being enthusiastic about bombing Syria. Obviously neither the HnH site nor the Standard was prepared to allow my reply, that I do indeed not like bombing people and giving details about the Syrian war. That's journalistic integrity for you.

  The name is clearly political spin - all Hate, no Hope.
   

Unionist Tactical Voting

      This suggestion that unionists of all parties vote UKIP in the EU election to spike the SNP possibility of taking the LibDem seat, in Brian Monteith's Scotsman column recently:

Meanwhile a Scotsman ICM poll for the European elections put SNP on 43 per cent, Labour 24 per cent, Tories 14 per cent, Ukip 7 per cent and Lib Dems 5 per cent.

The impact of such a demise for Lib Dems will first be tested in the elections for the European parliament at the end of this May. If the polling is sustained and Ukip remains ahead then there is every likelihood that the SNP and Labour will both win two seats and the Conservatives one. The remaining European seat, currently held by Liberal Democrat George Lyon, will be up for grabs – with specific European polling suggesting the SNP most likely to seize it.

Ukip needs to break the threshold of 11-12 per cent to have a chance of taking the Liberal Democrat’s place, but with some recent in-fighting and, as yet, no significant inroads into the Scottish political psyche, the party looks set to fall short. Competing parties might well welcome any failure by Ukip to establish a bridgehead in Scotland but there is of course another way to look at such an outcome – through the prism of the current nationalist versus unionist debate as we approach the independence referendum.

If the SNP gains the Liberal Democrat European seat we can expect the bragging knob to be turned up to full volume; we will be told it is the SNP gathering momentum before the referendum and that the unionist parties have been dealt a mortal blow by the Scottish people. The fact that unionist parties will still have polled, jointly, a likely 50-plus per cent will be brushed aside.

It will also be said that the repudiation of Ukip by the Scottish electorate – in contrast to what is expected to be a triumph for the party in England – is confirmation that Scotland is different from the rest of the United Kingdom and further evidence that the country would be far better severing its 307-year-old political partnership.

In other words, any demise of the Liberal Democrats that does not result in a corresponding gain by Ukip will greatly assist the nationalist campaign with only three and a half months to go before the 18 September ballot.

It would not be unreasonable to expect that as the European elections approach that voters begin to think what they would like to do and – in that context only – the support for Ukip in Scotland increases, possibly by enough to win one of the six seats. The Scottish electorate has a habit of thinking about the destination of the politicians it elects by either voting for different parties for different institutions – or staying at home and not bothering to vote at all.

Thus we find that in 2010 the Scottish voters not only voted to keep Labour in power but did so in greater numbers than they had in 2005 – but by the following summer had not only voted for the SNP to stay in government but to give it an unprecedented overall majority.

Likewise the Scottish Conservatives’ supporters have traditionally turned out disproportionately well
for the European elections. So this year’s could be a close-run thing. On current polling the SNP and Labour should be certain of two seats each, the Conservatives should manage to hold their single seat and then we have a three-way fight for the remaining place – with the Liberal Democrats in free-fall, Ukip on the up and the next best party in proportional share, because of traditionally poor Labour turn out, likely to be the SNP.

I therefore wish to posit this thought and maybe start a few hares running: if it was right to vote tactically in the 1997 general election to help wipe out the Tories, would it not be right for unionists to vote tactically this May to ensure the SNP does not gain a third MEP and thus land a blow against its independence campaign? If Labour voters need an excuse to go to the polls, could voting Ukip give them one?

In other words, should uncommitted unionists, Labour and Conservative supporters and yes, even Liberal Democrats, loan their vote to Ukip so that they win one seat to go with those won by Labour and the Conservatives?

Cunning and cynical? Certainly, but no more so than the tactical voting that deprived the 493,059 Conservative supporters in Scotland of any parliamentary representation in 1997
----------------------------------------
PS No response from any "LibDem" to my acceptance of Clegg's (& previously Kennedy's) challenge to a serious debate on EU membership. I assume they have decided they would lose in any debate where both sides were allowed to speak, and will stick with the BBC, where no such risk exists.

Bluff, Bluster and Bullying

   So Alex Salmond has described the decision that it would not be economically sensible of a separated UK to saddle itself as a guarantor of an SNP £.

    And he should know since bluff and bluster are his stock in trade and his enthusiasm for violence to suppress political debate by UKIP is well known, shows bullying is too.

    However the hysteria does seem to be getting near the surface as he keeps pounding the obviously ludicrous line that we can be in a £ club, and if Mr Baroso knows anything about it, the EU club too, which doesn't want us in.

    The sensible thing would be to change their line and say they now really do believe in separation from both £ & EU. The Scottish case for being out of the EU is even better than for the UK as a whole because Ted Heath deliberately sold our fishing industry down the river to get in and leaving would allow us to rebuild it.

     Sturgeon today, while sticking to the party line, did say that nobody could prevent us continuing to use the £ as some use the $. Clearly she has been reading this blog from a few days ago.

      But in bluffing and blustering Salmond today said that England will indeed want to share liability for the £ with us because otherwise it will cost English business £500 million a year in transaction costs.

      That is an admission that, if so, the same must be true for us (£100 per person per year). Probably considerably more because ours will be the less internationally traded currency. And presumably there are many other instances where moving out of the global network will cost us more which he has not yet blurted out on this fit of annoyance.

£3,000 Electric Bills by 2020, Unless We Go For Separation In Which case Far Higher

    Another letter to assorted editors today:

Sir,

      We have seen the SNP's financial case coming apart when Westminster says a separate England would act in its interests not ours.

 

     This brings up another, even more serious, little reported issue where SNP policy depends entirely on promising England would wish to subsidise Scotland after separation.

 

      The SNP's white paper also asserts the rest of the UK would unquestionably wish to retain our joint national grid and specifically that England would decide to keep subsidising windmills in Scotland. If this did not happen, or if English voters subsequently voted in a government which wished to end the subsidy, we would be in serious trouble. Already the traditional parties are agreed on pushing to increase the average household's electricity bill, across the UK, from £1,400 to £3,000. Without continuing subsidy, our large number of windmills would make our bills far higher than that.

 

    So far the SNP have declined to say how they can guarantee the English would not vote for a government committed to their interests.

 

Neil Craig

UIKP prospective candidate Glasgow North

 

The £3,000 average electricity bill, courtesy of all the global warming obsessed LabNatconDemGreen cartel is proven here

http://www.express.co.uk/news/property/378878/Energy-bills-to-more-than-double-to-3-000-by-2020

 

    It cannot be denied so they agree to not mention it and hope the punters won't notice.

LibDems Want To Go "Head to Head" With UKIP But Refuse To Debate, Relying On BBC To Censor For Them

There are  just 100 days to stop the UK Independence Party becoming a permanent major force in British politics, Nick Clegg warns today.

Writing in The Independent, the Liberal Democrat leader reveals a high-risk strategy in which his party will go head-to-head with Ukip at the European Parliament elections in May. He will contrast the Liberal Democrats’ unashamedly pro-European stance as “the party of ‘in’” with Ukip’s  policy of leaving the EU.

His aim is to deny Ukip its “breakthrough moment” by mobilising pro-European voters. Nigel Farage’s party has been widely tipped to come top in the Euro polls, which are fought under proportional representation,

     Strangely enough, at the last LibDem Conference, held in Glasgow, Charles Kennedy spoke from the platform (naturally broadcast by the BBC) saying very much the same thing and promising to be willing to debate at any time in support of the EU. Charles is one of the very few LDs I have some respect for so I emailed him, saying that I would be happy to arrange a public debate between UKIP speakers and his. And that it would be desirable to offer it to be broadcast, in the unlikely event that the BBC & co were not to oppose open debate.

    I have yet to receive a reply.

    So lets repeat it again.

   Are the LibDems prepared to "go head to head" in a public debate on EU membership or does their "strategy" depend on assuming our state broadcaster will continue giving them massive coverage while censoring the sceptical case, even during an election campaign in which it is likely the large majority of British people will vote for scepticism?

   And will our state broadcaster be willing to broadcast open formal debate, rather than only censoring and spinning as they do now?

   Anybody want a side bet on whether they will put up?

Wythenshawe By Election - UKIP 2nd, Tories 3rd, LDs 4th

Mike Kane (Labour): 13,261  58%

John Bickley (UKIP): 4,301  18.5%

Reverend Daniel Critchlow (Conservatives): 3,479  15%

Mary Di Mauro (Lib Dem): 1,176  5%

Nigel Woodcock (Green Party): 748  3%

Eddy O'Sullivan (BNP): 708  3%

Captain Chaplington-Smythe (Monster Raving Loony): 288 1.2%

Turnout: 28%

   Obviously that is a remarkably good result for UKIP. It strongly suggests that across the North of England (and points north) UKIP are the opposition and the Tories the "splitters". Their entire propaganda against UKIP has been, not that there is anything they can criticise in our policies, but that we are slotting the anti-Labour vote. Presumably, not being a complete hypocrite, Mr Cameron will now advise those north of the Wash, not to split the vote and thus to vote UKIP apparently not.

   This is how Electoral Calculus had previously said this seat should go at a general election

10,412

17,988

9,106

3,245

40,752

Tory      Labour  LD    Others Total

     Actually that would not have made it a marginal for the Tories but at 7,500 difference, it is not a no-hoper either. At the beginning of the campaign Tories were ahead of UKIP
 
    The by election turnout was poor but then it normally is at by elections, particularly when the result is expected not to be close.

    It also looks like a good result for Labour (they got 58% when the equivalent in 2010 was 44%)  but there are 2 major reasons, one ethically dubious and the other worse, why this is not so.

   The ethically dubious one is that, as with almost all other  by elections recently, they went  for the shortest possible campaign (presumably also an influence for a low turnout). That means the voters don't get a true political debate, which is particularly damaging for UKIP since we are censored from the "legally balanced" BBC

   The worse one is that 40%, yes 40% of votes cast were by postal ballots (9,200). Even when they are carried out honestly postal ballots favour established political machines, who have the likes of our Fascist friend O'Hare from yesterday's post to set them up. At the best it also means that these votes were cast 3 days into the campaign.

   But most seriously, the words of the judge in the Birmingham Vote Fraud trial cannot be ignored particularly in present circumstances. He said that the evidence was "overwhelming", that " There are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been. Until there are, fraud will continue unabated", that "Frauds of this magnitude require a considerable degree of organisation and manpower, not to mention supervision and co-ordination. It would be unthinkable for them to be the work of a few hothead activists", & of Prescott's reforms which made fraud possible on this scale that this was "positive assistance to fraud "...... "Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands".

Richard Mawrey QC, sitting as an electoral commissioner in Birmingham, found evidence of fraud in last year's city council elections that would "disgrace a banana republic". The elections, where several Labour candidates bucked the trend to win, were dogged by claims of intimidation, bribery, "vote-buying', impersonation and even the creation of a "vote-forging factory".

      The Labour cabinet was subsequently widely described as having considered making the system more secure but decided against it because they would lose votes. The Tories and LibDems (as shown in Eastleigh) also have long established political machines and aren't all that much more interested in stopping fraud than Labour. Originally postal votes were only available to those who were provably incapacitated and there was no corruption problem.

     Postal votes will not be nearly as important during general elections because the political machines are spread much thinner and also because there will be a longer and genuine campaign. We cannot know exactly how many of these votes went to which parties. If all of them had been Labour their ballot box vote would have been 4,000, putting them just behind UKIP but, attractive though that is, I don't think it can be so.

     In a previous case where Labour got 49% of the votes they got over 70% of postal votes. With 58% in this case that implies they got about 80% of postal votes which would take their polling booth vote down to 5,800 (though UKIP may have had a few postal votes too).

 Labour still won. But they cannot take much heart because had it been a general election, as it will soon, it would have been much closer. And had it been conducted as honestly as elections used to be, closer still.

====================
* For those Beeboids who prefer picking up politically incorrect phrases by UKIP members to broadcasting any actual discussion of real political issues I would point out that the description of our electoral system as "would disgrace a banana republic" was not mine but the judge's. 

Osborne's 4 Conditions Are Economic Reality - England Will Not Elect A Government That Subsidies A Separated Scotland

Dealing with the First Minister's claims that Scotland can share sterling with the UK despite separation, Mr Osborne said that "people need to know that is not going to happen".

He outlined the four criteria that would be needed to make a currency union work, based on analysis published today by the Treasury, and said neither the Scottish or British public would accept the reality of such an arrangement.
 

The four necessary criteria were (1)banking union, (2)great fiscal risk sharing, (3)the same monetary policy and a (4)union that could prove its permanence.

   While this is being reported here as a vindictive threat that fact is that economically he is quite right. A common currency would mean England was liable if Scotland couldn't pay (technically Scotland too in the opposite circumstances but it would we couldn't pay.

    Those 4 conditions are perfectly reasonable, considering their liability, and it is unlikely that even if they offered such a union future English governments would get elected if they promised to maintain it.

   There is always the option that the SNP could publicly accept that these conditions are inevitable and seek to prove they could meet them.

   (1) would mean the Bank of England running Scots fiscal regulation - this is not a bad idea and Scotland's banks might well prefer this to being subject to SNP fashions. It would certainly help keep Scotland's reputation as a financial centre and for this industry reputation is everything.

  (2) How does Scotland prove we are taking on as much risk AND in a position to pay it. The only way I can think of would be by mortgaging North Sea Oil as a common property. Anybody think the SNP will do that.

  (3) That means virtually all financial policy would be subject to a Westminster veto. That all Scottish borrowing be subject to London agreement. This largely makes us more dependent than we are now since now we at least have the Scotland Act to say what we control.

     Indeed there is an extra problem. 18% of our gdp is oil - but its price goes up and down like a yo-yo and, because Scottish oil is relatively expensive to get out, the profit on it is even more variable. That means if the Scottish government is to spend consistently sometimes it will be borrowing extensively and sometimes it will be in large surplus (at least in theory because I'm not sure I trust any of them not to find something to blow the surplus on.

   (4) This is a tough one, at least for an SNP government. A few years ago they were going to sign Scotland up to the Euro - but that went down the tubes for reasons which make it obvious why currency unions take more than hope. Worse, and I am surprised nobody has made an issue of it, the SNP have already made noises about repudiating Scotland's share of the national debt. Worse, our future Chancellor, John Swinney, has said it. It is a general rule that Chancellors do not threaten defaults - it gives potential lenders a bad impression. Any Scottish government led by the SNP has already given away a lot of financial credibility simply by making that threat. And has give away much of the credibility of being committed to a long term currency union.

============================================

Plans B

Nothing prevents the current UK money continuing to circulate in Scotland. As a number of countries use the US $. No London government could, or would want to prevent that. Holyrood could also print its own currency - making sure it is only a fairly small share of the currency in circulation. That would work - it would mean that our trade was still largely in UK £s so no extra transaction costs.

    So long as Holyrood was financially sensible they would be able to have a Scottish £ in circulation that matched the UK one.

   But then almost any financially sensible policy will work. It is only if Holyrood borrow more per head than the UK, print more and spend more and/or grow the economy more slowly that there will be any financial problem. But spending more while cutting taxes is exactly what they want independence to do. Well no, a financially destructive policy destroys - and will do so wherever the seat of government is.

   Independence does not make an SNP government independent of reality. In fact it makes us much more closely connected to reality, without a big neighbour to provide a cushion. With independence comes responsibility for our own future. The SNP's entire history has been of  blaming the English for everything and threatening to throw our toys out of the pram if they don't get more money from Westminster.

    That probably stops, one way or the other, with this referendum.


 

Fascist Nationalist Socialist Thug Who Attacked Farage Is Also Paid By Labour

   Yesterday's letter, not published so far, contained a mention of the thousands of "political activists" in Scotland who are actually paid by qangos and "charities" which turn out to be state funded fronts.

    The extent of state funding of apparent opposition groups and jobs for the boys qangos is one of the most important of the many things you aren't going to see reported on the state funded BBC and most of the press.

     It also means we get to pay an enormous amount. UKIP previously calculated that useless qangos we could get rid of without damage cost the UK £60 bn. On a population basis, after adding 25% because everything government does costs 25% more here, that means Scots are paying an extra £6,400 million a year.

       But worse is the way it corrupts political life.

      And by happy accident the Scottish Daily Mail have come up with this scoop (or story the more approved papers simply won't publish) about a Fascist street thug who turns out to be a government paid Fascist street thug.
==============================

The extremist hired by four councils to promote youth vote

Taxpayers foot bill for nationalist rabble-rouser

By Alan Roden

Scottish Political Editor

Scottish Daily Mail

Tuesday, 11 February 2014, p. 7.

 

A RADICAL pro-independence campaigner who believes Britain is a 'degenerate' country with a 'bloodstained' flag has been given taxpayers' cash to encourage teenagers to vote in the referendum.

 

Left-wing firebrand Liam O'Hare, who was involved in an unsavoury demonstration against UKIP leader Nigel Farage, has been hired to visit schools, colleges and universities in Glasgow and the surrounding areas.

 

The decision by Labour-led Glasgow City Council and the Renfrewshire Valuation Joint Board to employ the activist to help sign up youngsters to the electoral roll sparked fury last night.

 

After being alerted to Mr O'Hare's strong anti-Unionist views by the Scottish Daily Mail, a council source said he might now be sacked.

 

Mr O'Hare is also the Scotland-wide organiser for a 'politically neutral' organisation that encourages people to register to vote. A spokesman for Bite the Ballot last night said Mr O'Hare 'certainly doesn't represent' the body's views, and the Mail understands his position might now be reviewed.

 

The former Edinburgh University student, who attended Hillhead High School in Glasgow's West End, was last week unveiled as a ' youth engagement worker' by the city council and the board that looks after the electoral register in Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.

 

He receives an undisclosed payment for working one day a week for the organisations on a temporary contract.

 

Mr O'Hare, who has also branded the Tories 'scum', revealed his appointment to friends on Facebook late last year and wrote: 'Ideal time to be getting young people registered here.'

 

Earlier this month, he was also described as a neutral commentator when he was interviewed for TV shows about the drive to encourage Scots to register for the September 18 referendum.

 

He later joked on Facebook: 'I made a fleeting appearance on the [BBC] Sunday Politics show today as a "neutral commentator" on a piece about young people and independence… nae laughing!'

 

The official Yes Scotland campaign has published comments from Mr O'Hare in his capacity as a Bite the Ballot organiser, making no reference to his support for separation. But on Facebook he has hit out at the 'British establishment' and said the pro-Union campaign Better Together has 'lost the plot'.

 

In an earlier post, he wrote: 'Just arrived off the ferry in Larne [in Northern Ireland] to the sight of over a hundred Union Jacks. Can't wait till 2014 so we can say goodbye to the British state and that bloodstained, imperialist flag.'

 

In November, he wrote on Twitter: 'What is the positive case for the Union? We need to move into the 21st century and leave the degenerate British state behind.'

 

He has launched several attacks on Unionist politicians – urging people to tell David Cameron to 'get tae f***', and branding Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie a 'total goon'.

 

Mr O'Hare also once wrote 'f*** the cops' on Facebook and has repeatedly praised the notorious Celtic 'ultras' group Green Brigade, which has been accused of damaging the name of the club.

 

Last year, he helped to organise a conference by the group Radical Independence, whose members were involved with a distasteful Margaret Thatcher 'death party'.

 

He was a key figure in a protest in Edinburgh against Nigel Farage, in which the MEP had to be rescued from a pub, where he was meeting journalists, by a police riot van.

 

Last night, David Coburn, Ukip's lead MEP candidate in Scotland for this year's European Elections, said: 'It is outrageous that Glasgow City Council is paying this man – who has proven by his actions to not understand that democracy is about different opinions being freely presented – with taxpayers' money to promote democracy.

 

'Trying to persuade people to register to vote, especially the young, is a very good thing, but to pay somebody who is a key figure in the Yes campaign is utterly wrong.'

 

Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: 'The authorities would have been hard-pressed to find someone more radically biased if they'd tried. This is clearly not someone who can be trusted to engage with youngsters in an objective, positive way.'

 

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: 'Liam is not a council employee and is only paid by us one day a week in his role as youth engagement officer.

 

'His role is to encourage electoral registration, it's not politically restricted; however it would be clearly inappropriate in his position to try to influence voters.'

 

A source added: 'This will be looked at to see if his services will still be required.'

 

Mr O'Hare declined to comment when visited at his home, and did not respond to further attempts to contact him.

 

==============================================

 

       The attack on UKIP in Edinburgh was unquestionably an example of street fascist thuggery. A friend of mine was showered with a liquid an told "Next time it will be petrol".  Does anybody doubt that had it been done by the EDL/SDL there would have been dozens of arrests?

 

      Instead in Scotland our First Minister, whose government's most important job is to protect people from thugs, spoke in favour of the Fascists. "Radical Independence" remain an honoured, albeit violent, part of a Yes campaign which has thereby made itself at least pro-Fascist.

 

     In fairness I will clear RI of being racist. While they did chant racist anti-English slogans it turns out that a number of those at the "spontaneous demonstration" against NIgel and UKIP were SWP members bussed in from England. It was thus not racist but simply a cynical attempt to play up to what they believed was Scottish racism by faking racism. In fact that demonstration marks the beginning of a rise in support for UKIP here. On the other hand Salmond and the Yes campaign fell for it because it appeals to their totalitarian side.

 

    Yet Liam O'Hare, whom it would be entirely politically incorrect to assume may be of irish extraction, is not merely being encouraged by the SNP.

 

    He is being funded by a Labour owned council. Funded to visit schools. Funded to encourage people to vote - nominally for anybody but who doubts that if somebody said they intended to vote UKIP he would feel entitled to lose the paperwork?

 

    And, of course, the state funded broadcaster the BBC, who are legally required to be "balanced", have not only given this guy as much coverage as they have given all the UKIP membership in Scotland (ie 1 soundbite) they went out of their way to say this thug was a "neutral" person. I have, incidentally, emailed the BBC to see if they are going to maintain this lie or publicly retract it. I'll let you know.

 

    What this shows is not just that there is a certain amount of politically decided support of and payment to various people, from some of the most respectable in society, down to street thugs. Not  even that it is endemic in various parties and the state broadcaster but, much worse, that despite being publicly opponents, underneath that both sides are paying not only their own people but their "opponent's" to and thus that much of Holyrood politics is simply pantomime.

 

     I'd like to praise the Scottish Daily Mail and Alan Roden for publishing this. The traditional image of journalism was of people who went looking for news; explored dark corners; and turned over rocks to see what lived under them. The modern reality is often of people who sit in offices rewriting press releases from government quangos and government funded charities (Friends of the Earth, WWF, Scottish Renewables, ASH, Oxfam Bernardos etc - along list of usual suspects). A free society needs traditional journalism and we don't get much of it.

BBC Desperately Looking For Somebody In Scottish Politics How Speaks For Other Than The PC 2%

     Yesterday Clark Cross was on BBC Newsnight Scotland (& at 6.30). Clark writes letters regularly in our papers and did this rather good one about the SNP immigration policy.

Alex Salmond wants more immigration but in a poll 69 per cent of Scots said immigrant numbers should be cut and a meagre two per cent said immigration should be increased.

I wonder how the 200,000 unemployed Scots feel about Alex Salmond’s immigration plans?
I wonder how those Scots on long social housing waiting lists will feel?
Then there is the growing hatred of wind turbines which do nothing but increase our energy bills despite what the spin doctors, developers and landowners would have us believe.


     He got a phone call, mid afternoon while he was out playing golf, saying they wanted him to speak and indeed he did get about 2 minutes on & was described by the BBC as a Migrationwatch "supporter". Obviously, for the sake of  their legal duty of "balance" they had Malcolm Bruce (LudDim) & Hamza Yousaf (SNP) on for nearly 10 minutes supporting the official view.

I am sending this to the Scotsman

Sir,
       Congratulations to regular Scotsman/Evening News letter writer, Clark Cross for his defence of his criticism of SNP immigration policy, on Newsnight and Reporting Scotland, from his recent letter (10th Jan) here. Followed by 2 heavyweight politicians given far more time by the BBC to repudiate him.

       It is interesting that despite opposition to the SNP's policy running 69%:2%, so detached from ordinary people are all 5, nominally separate, Holyrood parties that it was clearly impossible to find a professional politician to put the popular view. Or anybody at all among the 10s of thousands of political activists working for qangos or political charities (invariably ultimately funded by the taxpayer).

       Well when I say it was impossible to find a single party politician who could have given the argument I mean it was impossible to do so without BBC Scotland breaking its policy of censoring any appearance from Britain's 3rd (& Scotland's 4th) party, UKIP who everybody knows oppose the SNP enthusiasm for mass immigration.

     There is a legal requirement for "balance" in BBC reporting, at least in party political issues. Is this one of these laws that those in power are allowed to ignore? What sort of referendum campaign is it when the state broadcaster is censoring dissent?

Neil Craig

       In theory this should be a no brainer. Competently written. Under 250 words. More importantly every paper lives for stories about local heroes. And when it is also showing the other media picking up something the Scotsman published first.

      So if it doesn't get published it is unequivocally because of deliberate censorship. I'll let you know if it does,

      I'll also send out an edited version to other papers.

      It is not widely known and certainly not widely reported but there is an SNP plan, if they get the power after independence, to import enormous numbers of farmers, presumably from the 3rd world, to resettle the Highlands.

Democracy Is A Fraud When Debate Is Censored

      This is an article published on ThinkScotland, the online political magazine of Brian Monteith (who would have been Tory leader in Scotland if the party weren't scared stiff of new ideas).

      An ongoing belief of mine in that FREE DEBATE IS A NECESSARY AND PERHAPS SUFFICIENT CONDITION FOR A FREE DEMOCRACY (ie where both sides get roughly equal chances to speak not what the BBC call "debate" where opposition voices are missing).

      Normally we define democracy by elections. However imagine a Nazi/Soviet style state where genuine discussion over the merits of genocide/Lysenkoism had taken place over a long period. If that had happened over a long period; if people had been able to make up their own minds and discuss it down the pub and the large majority come to the conclusion that these were bad things a Hitler/Stalin type dictator would, in the end, have had to bow to public opinion or be replaced by somebody less determined. Even if no formal elections took place something close to the democratic will would have been done.

     In the other hand imagine a parliamentary system, with multiple parties all of whom share pretty much the same opinions. Where state owned broadcasters and newspapers largely dependent on government advertising and state funded "charities" & qangos existed to promote the policies agreed by the ruling cartel. Where these state owned media continuously censored any dissent and anybody starting a new party committed to, for example to maximising economic progress, minimising nanny state controls of our lives, preventing unlimited immigration, not pretending we are experiencing catastrophic global warming & quitting the EU, was not only simple censored from the public media but smeared with false stories they were not allowed to answer. That would not be a democracy, even though the forms of democracy were maintained, because the people would have no say.

     I assume the BBC and our assorted MSPs also believe such a change would democratise the country. I can think of no other reason for their absolute refusal to answer this article or to try out the idea, but am open to anybody who can explain it.
****************************************************************

Could TV debates be the next X-Factor?

by Neil Craig

    

IT WOULD be astonishing what a high proportion of our national leaders first cut their political eye teeth in university debating chambers if it were not obvious what a vital role such organised arguments play.

Formal debating, normally two teams of two or three people each speaking in turn for around five minutes before an audience, is a formalisation of how non-dictatorial or monarchic governments are supposed to work and sometimes do. At least this has been the experience since the time of the ancient Greeks.

It is how Britain used to be run before three-line whips removed the power from Parliament and transferred it to the Cabinet, inner Cabinet and ultimately the Prime Minister and close friends.
In the Greek democracies debates were heard and judged by an assembly of the citizens (well the male, adult, free citizens). In Victorian Britain debates could only be heard in Parliament, a very small proportion of the population, thus Parliamentary sovereignty became the dominant ideal.
In the 20th Century the technology of radio and then TV made it possible for political discussion to be heard and judged in real time by the entire community, even more so than in ancient Greek times. But such open debate did not become the norm, except very occasionally in Presidential debates where, because not limited to one issue, they tended to turn into popularity contests rather than settling issues.

Also, because broadcasting was then a natural monopoly, they tended to come excessively under the control of central government. From Hitler, broadcasting his rallies, to Roosevelt's fireside chats to the BBC reporting "climate change" those expressing opposing ideas have been relegated to minor or zero coverage.

Which brings me to the subject of this article.

I propose that one or more of our broadcasters test runs weekly debates, normally one hour long in a slot similar to Question Time. The proposition should be drawn from those submitted online by the public. The choice need not be always the most popular, since some motions could not provide a balanced debate, but the popular vote should be made transparently public.

Assuming three speakers per side, the first speakers of each side have six minutes to present their constructive cases, or in the negative's case a rebuttal. The other four speakers each have five minutes to deliver a speech supporting their team's main arguments. There is also an allotted three minutes after each of the first four speeches for cross-examination, during which the opposing team has a chance to clarify what was stated in the preceding speech. There are many variations in format and so long as they have general acceptance, no one format should be set in stone.

The popular decision could then be determined, X-Factor style, by phone votes. These, like Crimewatch "results" could be broadcast later.

This is not and should not be in any way authoritative - it is simply TV.

I am sure there would be paradoxical results. For example one week the majority would vote for more government spending and the next for tax cuts. Though it should be pointed out that politicians show no particular consistency in such promises either. I would not be surprised to find viewers showing more responsibility than our current political class, so many of whom have never held a job not paid from taxes.

I have previously sent this suggestion to all our broadcasters, none of whom answered (though ITV and C4 promised to do so). No independent company responded either. Clearly either there is an overwhelming reason why this is less commercially viable than present political coverage, so obvious it is not even worth mentioning, or there is some other agenda at work.

It would, however, be an incredibly inexpensive programme to produce. The moderator need not be drawn from the channels' expensive stable of talent, indeed the ideal moderator is almost invisible. No Dimblebys; no dog and pony team trailing round the country; little more than a couple of cameras and a venue. A comparison is with the BBC's Northern Irish alternative to Question Time, broadcast every fourth week and made in-house. Northern Ireland has 3.3% of Britain's population so this must be one of the least expensive shows on TV.

Indeed with the X-Factor voting option I suspect the debating programme would be in profit even on a budget of zero.

Another requirement is that the teams be transparently chosen as the best available to debate the subject under consideration. I remember being in the audience of BBC Scotland's last relatively real debate. This was on "Scotland's Energy Future" in which one team called for far more subsidised windmills and the other for nothing but subsidised windmills. This was less than a full discussion.
Would it be popular? While that cannot certainly be told without trying it I have run an online poll (still going here) which shows a potential audience approximately matching Question Time's normal three million, which is about as popular as politics on TV gets.

The important reason for doing this is not finance, that is merely to prove there is no commercial reason for not doing it, but that it would, using modern technology, allow the citizenry real access to political decision making, in a way not technologically possible since the supercession of the Greek city states and Roman Republic.

It would be uncharitable to assume the big media ignore this because they think it would have work and I await some other explanation, from them or anybody else, that satisfies the facts.
In any case we live in a world where media is no longer a monopoly. If this is indeed a commercially viable project then it may turn into another case of online players cutting off the media dinosaurs at the knees.

"Debate" on TV currently consists, at its best, of four people and a moderator, with the "official" view, taking on one with a different one, with discussion limited to a couple of sentences before interruption. That is why elections are now about "soundbites" rather than real issues, which in turn explains why our governance is so abysmal.

We know there is an audience to watch Anne Widdicombe dance or George Galloway play a cat. I believe there would be one to watch them debate positions they understand and believe in. Our present "democracy" is conducted rather as if Athens had told Demosthenes he was not allowed to debate but it would find time to let him juggle. Surely we can do better than that?

EU Costs Scots £8,000 Per Family - £336 billion a year by 2035 - No news In Scottish Media

The average Dutch household could be better off by over £8,000 a year and national income will grow by over £1 trillion [by 2035] if the Netherlands leaves the euro and the EU, according to a new study.
 

The study by the respected British Capital Economics research consultancy into "Nexit" - as a potential exit by the Netherlands has been termed - finds significant benefits over the next two decades if the country swaps its EU membership for a status similar to Switzerland or Norway.

 

I commented:

 

neilcraig 

The £8,000 per household fits fairly well with Tim Congdon's assessment that EU membership costs us £170 bn (about £6K per household) but I am pleased they also include the effect on long term growth which is the main effect. The EU is the only world zone in recession - the rest is growing at an average of 6% a year. This is not something that our media mention - they keep blaming our problems on what they know to be a non-existent "world recession".

The important thing is not whether this report is more or less authoritative than Professor Congdon's but that there are a whole series of such, virtually all of which come to broadly similar conclusions.

Also that our own beloved government have always refused to authorise their own investigation.

   The Netherland's population is 16.8 million - 3 1/3rd Scotland's so that would be £336 billion more in the Scottish economy or £3.7 trillion for the UK by 2035. Do not expect to hear this getting BBC coverage or indeed mentioned by any of the cartel of parties in Holyrood who, whether they want "independence" from the UK or not are agreed in opposing independence from Brussels.

    Bear in mind that several polls have shown that most people would be persuadable on Salmond's pretend "independence" if it could be shown they would be either £500 a year better or worse off after separation. Yet we are being prevented, not least by the nominally independence supporting SNP, from having a referendum on the entity that creates 75% of our legislation.

     I have sent this as a letter to most of the Scottish press. We will, as normal, see if this is another of these things you may not say in Scottish politics.

Roger Helmer - UKIP Energy Spokesman

      For anybody who thinks the stuff we get told about a "scientific consensus" about "catastrophic global warming" led by the impartial and trustworthy IPCC, Roger Helmer. UKIP's energy spokesman, has the facts:

     First of all, a fair number of the panel members are actually not scientists at all.  They are environmental activists.  That’s why many of the claims in the IPCC’s TAR4 (described as peer-reviewed science) turned out to be little more than quotes from NGO propaganda.  There are also a lot of bureaucrats and civil servants involved in the project.

Not all relevant:  Not all of the IPCC’s “scientists” are involved in relevant disciplines.  Some are involved in related disciplines – for example economists (Is an economist a scientist – discuss!), epidemiologists and so on.  I think particularly of IPCC reviewer Hans Labohm, a distinguished economist with whom I have worked. He is one of the IPCC’s 2,500 panellists, but he is a passionate campaigner against the Al Gore Theory. These disciplines have something to contribute after we’ve agreed about AGW, but not necessarily specific expertise in the subject itself.  I think we should perhaps hear more from statisticians and astronomers, who have much to contribute, but don’t seem to figure largely in the IPCC’s conclusions.  (It was a mathematician, Steve McIntyre, who with Ross McKitrick debunked Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick – Mann may or may not know about climate, but his statistics were way off beam).  Some are from totally unrelated disciplines. IPCC Chairman Ravendra Pachauri, for example, is a railway engineer.

Not all agree:  Paul Reiter, an epidemiologist and expert in tropical diseases from the French Pasteur Institute, actually had to threaten legal action to get his name removed from an IPCC report.  He had repeatedly advised them that malaria was not a disease of hot climates (the worst recorded outbreak having been in Siberia) but they refused to correct the text, and initially refused to withdraw his name.  He told me this story as we shared a cab a few years ago to Chicago’s O’Hare airport – we’d been attending a Heartland climate conference.  My good friend Fred Singer, one of the USA’s most distinguished climatologists, was an IPCC panellist and has the Nobel lapel pin to prove it.  His best line: “The IPCC accepts my corrections to its punctuation.  But not to its science”.

The IPCC has in fact been hi-jacked by a small group of a couple of dozen scientists, known as “The Hockey Team”, after the infamous graph (now dropped even by the IPCC).  These guys were exposed by the ClimateGate e-mails.  They work together.  They peer-review each other’s papers from a common perspective.  They know that the predictions of their climate theory are failing, and they cooperate to “hide the decline” (in their famous phrase).  continued

     Roger, a very successful businessman before he became Conservative leader in the European Parliament and then, in disgust, crossed to UKIP, is responsible for our energy policy which can be described in 2 words - "free market".

     Ending all the cross-subsidy, levies and most importantly, banning of cheap successful power sources because they compete with expensive subsidy needing ones, would end fuel poverty and get the economy growing. Obviously everybody but UKIP is against that.

     I recommend Roger's blog generally if you want to be informed on such subjects - you certainly aren't going to hear the truth frim the state owned BBC.

Dredge the Clyde

   I sent this letter to all the main Scots papers today and a number of national ones. I will confirm if any of them find it to be an issue which should be discussed.

Sir,

      Dredging of the Clyde was stopped in the 1980s. Since then there was serious flooding in Paisley exacerbated by the fact that drains backed up, being unable to flow out because of the silt build up. Scotstoun has been warned it faces flooding too.

 

      Over the last few days we have seen how the Environment Agency deliberately allowing the silting up of the Somerset Levels is destroying the land and may return it to the sea it used to be before Britain hired Dutch engineers, in the 17thC to reclaim it. One agency operative has been notoriously quoted as wanting to put "a limpet mine in each pumping station" to hasten the destruction.

 

     A few years ago there was serious flooding in Cockermouth which was immediately publicly blamed on "climate change" by believers. Strangely enough, whenever we get particularly cold weather the same people tell us "proves nothing, that is just weather" - such are the mysteries of modern science. However it has since been shown that the main cause was that environmentalists had ensured that the site, confluence of 2 major rivers, had silted up.

 

    I fear that if we do not learn form this lesson our own "environmentalists" who have tied us down with the most expensive and destructive Climate Change Act in the world, unanimously voted through by the 5 Holyrood parties, may ensure disaster on the Clyde.

 

    Dredging should be reinstated. If people in the 17thC could tame the waters and recover land I simply do not believe we cannot maintain the land now.

 

Neil Craig

Prospective UKIP candidate Glasgow North

 

Reference 

Christophe Booker on the Levels being destroyed http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2547732/CHRISTOPHER-BOOKER-Its-deluded-greens-whove-left-Somerset-neighbours-10ft-water.html

Cockermouth silting http://www.cockermouth.org.uk/floods2009.html

ending of Clyde dredging http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5319

 

Hello

  Hello. My name is Neil Craig and this site is to introduce me to Glaswegians and to persuade you  that I am sincere in wanting to make this a better country, that I know it can be done and why I want you to believe we can do it with UKIP and no other party.

WHO AM I
Name Neil Craig. Age 59. Run a science fiction bookshop in Glasgow (which partly explains my enthusiasm for human progress). Recently remarried to Hazel Craig. Living in Woodlands.

I  was brought up as a Liberal, my father being Eastwood candidate for the party in the 1960s (when nobody much voted Liberal but he still got much more support that the LDs there currently get). In 1950 he was the Liberal President of Glasgow Union, where he persuaded the University to allow a beer bar for a temporary trial period. Like me he was a liberal, by the meaning of the word as understood by the founders of the movement.

I was also a member of that party. I spoke at Conference in support of nuclear power, against illegal wars, for economic freedom and was the only person to speak directly against introducing the smoking ban. Consequently in 2006 I was expelled on a charge of being an economic liberal.

I later provided some useful documentation to SNP members wishing to persuade their party to endorse Irish levels of corporation tax to allow us to match Ireland's 7% annual growth rate. They did so and won the subsequent election but did nothing about it and have since watered down the commitment.

In 2007 I stood as the 9% Growth Party. We had, by a long way, the most innovative and progressive policies of anybody in Scotland - primarily embracing economic freedom and cheap (nuclear) electricity. I am still proud of that manifesto - it holds up well, in fact in some ways is more modern than at the time because electricity prices are rising, fuel poverty is worse and we have been through years of entirely unnecessary, politically imposed recession. Unfortunately the innovativeness was matched only by the smallness of the vote.

UKIP
I have since joined UKIP. This is the only party opposed to Scotland having the most expensive and destructive "Climate Change Act" in the world - the catastrophic warming scare is not only a fraud but has been responsible for the recession.

UKIP is the only party that wants us out of the EU - the only part of the world economy still in recession - the rest is growing at an average of nearly 6% a year.

UKIP is the only party opposed to effectively unlimited immigration. There are 6 billion people in the world earning less than the dole in Britain. If I were one of them I would want to come here too but we cannot take them all and the absolute duty of those in government is to serve  the interests of British citizens.

UKIP is committed to growing our economy by the only way it can be done
Economic Freedom + Cheap Energy

UKIP supports democracy - we offer referenda not just on separation from England but (unlike the others) on separation from the EU too & more importantly as a basic citizen right, as Switzerland and California do.

UKIP is technologically progressive - the only party not run by Luddites whose reaction to every bit of human progress (e.g. fracking) is to find ways to ban or regulate it and to stir up false "environmental scares". Over the last 60n years we have had literally hundreds of mass "environmental" scares (oil running out in about 2 years, repeated every year, global warming, global cooling, pollution killing us all by 42, species extinction, India to starve by 1980, acid rain, ozone, DDT, low level radiation, China syndrome etc etc) every one of which has cost billions and proven false.

UKIP contains people who want to make the country better. Nobody ever joined this party as the easy & comfortable route to power.

UKIP has never lied to you. No other party can say that.

WHAT WILL THIS SITE DO

I will update this regularly with comments on breaking issues.

Also letters sent to newspapers (back when I was a LibDem the vast majority of my letters got printed but our press rarely do so now - you can decide for yourselves whether that is because my writing ability has fallen below the standard required or I know less about how the world wags or whether it is because I now know more.

Also I will sometimes reprint some of the better stuff and the more relevant from my other blog A Place To Stand

Not everything will be, at the time of writing, UKIP policy but most of it will. Party loyalty is a duty of anybody who asks a party to support them & comes with membership. All of it will be heartfelt.

                 Neil Craig