A diplomatic incident - or not

Peter Oborne's thesis about the emergence of an insulated "political class" is looking more and more bang on every day... now a lost bag is a "diplomatic incident."

As Richard North has pointed out, it tells you a lot about media priorities that T5 has been way higher up the bulletins than the new wave of fighting in Iraq.

--

MINISTER'S PLEA AFTER T5 'DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT'

David Miliband issued an appeal for Heathrow authorities to "get their act together" today after revealing that the Terminal 5 debacle had caused a diplomatic incident.

The Foreign Secretary said he had been approached by a furious counterpart during an informal gathering of EU ministers over the weekend.

The unnamed politician apparently lost his luggage while changing planes at Heathrow, and has been warned it may take "weeks" to locate.

Writing on his blog, Mr Miliband said he had been asked to express the man's anger to British Airways and operator BAA.

"One foreign minister I met at the informal meeting in Slovenia over the weekend has fallen victim to the Terminal 5 saga," he wrote.

"He arrived merely to transit, but his bags are nowhere to be seen and it was whispered that it might take weeks.

"He asked me to pass on a message to BA/BAA: 'For goodness' sake, get your act together'."

The Communique from the Franco-British love in is up.

Some of it is rather broad brush, but there are some interesting snippets.

Defence

They have signed off a whole bunch of joint funds and joint defence development projects. Apparently they will:

Cooperate to develop European military capabilities, available to both the EU and NATO, in particular in the fields of :

• Carrier Group operations: by facilitating the generation of a combined maritime strike capability when required for national, EU-led or NATO operations. This capability could be expanded to other European countries able and willing to make a contribution.

• A 400M: France and the UK will pursue a common approach to in service support for interoperability and through life cycle costs optimisation, including common configuration management with other A400M nations; our aim is to cover the requirements of both France and the UK in a single joint contract.

• Helicopters: by addressing critical shortfalls in capability which constrain the deployment of helicopters in operations. Support will be given to initiatives such as pilot operational and advanced training courses, upgrading aircraft and establishment of a trust fund that could improve the availability of helicopters to our European partners and NATO allies. Other nations are invited to contribute to this effort. We support both the EDA and NATO's role in addressing European helicopter capability shortfalls.

Climate Change

Despite the UK's opposition to "green" tariffs it has agreed to the principle of them in the absence of a Kyoto successor.

It calls on the Commission to "Urgently analyse and address the risk of carbon leakage in order for appropriate measures to be implemented in the event that other countries do not commit to taking adequate measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the context of an international agreement. An international agreement remains the best way of addressing this issue."

They also agreed to "Collaborate in the development of a comprehensive EU energy security strategy for the EU" later this year.

Business

The communique calls for "an EU Small Business Act that delivers a package of measures aimed at cutting EU regulation for small businesses, including making more use of exemptions from regulations." We'll believe that when we see it working, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Sarkozy: don't believe the hype

Listening to Sarkozy talking to Parliament. Lashings and lashings of Franco-British history.

But despite the warm words, as soon as you move from the general to the particular things are going to be rather more difficult. For example:

- Sarkozy talks about Britain and France leading on the environment. But is he going to let Britain out of the EU's biofuels target, which the UK now seems to have turned decisively against?

- Sarkozy says he is "open" to CAP reform he means moving from higher subsidies towards higher tariffs. Thats the opposite of what the UK wants.

- When he says "there can't be 27 different immigration" policies he causes a sharp intake of breath in Downing Street. Will Brown really agree to a single EU-wide definition of asylum?

- Sarkozy wants to have a 60,000 strong common intervention force. But that can only divert resources away from the war in Afghanistan - the last thing Brown wants.

There are plenty of other rather tricky issues too. Have a look at our briefing note for the gory details. Nonetheless it will doubtless get gushing coverage on the TV news ce soir. As usual, the devil is in the detail, which is never reported.

european parliament transparancy initiative

Below is an email which we have sent to all UK MEPs today.

It follows a whole series of disturbing reports over recent weeks - for example see:

Times
BBC
Sunday Times
Daily Mail

Most MEPs are away this week - so we probably won't be publishing our first summary of their responses until next week. If we get a good response from UK MEPs we will be broadening it out to all MEPs.

Let us know what you think and about where we should go with this next.

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

European Parliament Transparency Initiative

Following a series of damaging stories about the European Parliament in recent weeks we are writing to all UK MEPs asking for your help in restoring trust in the Parliament.

The irregularities discussed in the recent internal audit report paint a picture of widespread abuse of the current expenses system.

Our aim is to find a way to reassure voters that UK MEPs are not in any way implicated in these problems.

That is why we are today writing to all UK MEPs asking them if you will state:

1. Who is your paying agent/service provider?

2. What are his or her book-keeping or accountancy qualifications?

3. How much of the money claimed by your paying agent or service provider since your election has been paid out so far, and how much is still in his or her account?

4. Have you ever claimed less than the full entitlement, or repaid any excess?

5. Do you employ any family members?

6. Are you prepared to list the people currently in your employment (not their salary levels)?

We are not seeking to criticise Members of the Parliament for employing family members. We accept the argument that in many cases family members will work longer hours for less money than anyone else. However, it is essential to ensure that such arrangements are not abused, and we believe transparency is the best way to ensure this.

We believe disclosure of these details will help to restore trust that public money is being well spent. Our aim in this initiative is to restore confidence in the Parliament and MEPs of all parties. We will be publishing regular reports on the progress of the initiative.

We are very grateful for your help in this.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions about the initiative.

Many thanks

Black Wednesday 2008

Gordon Brown returns again and again to Black Wednesday. He is always keen to remind people of Cameron’s role in that credibility-shredding day.

As of yesterday, he might want to stop banging on about it.

As of yesterday the pound has fallen by more since the Prime Minister took office than it did on black Wednesday.

The day before Brown took over the pound bought you 1.49 euros. It is now worth 1.269 euros – a fall of about 14%.

Have a look at the graph. Norman Lamont's era is in tory blue, and Brown's is in fetching pink.

The day before black Wednesday (16 September 1992) the pound got you DM 2.78. After black Wednesday it was about 12% down, before falling to 14% down on 5 October - the low point of Black Wednesday which we have now surpassed.

Brown could argue that the real low point was long after black wednesday in March 1993. But looking at what happened after black wednesday makes the comparison worse. At the equivalent point nine months after black Wednesday the pound was back up to 2.49, or just over 10% down. It was the same after a year.

On the other hand, If the current trend continues the pound will be down about 18-20% by Brown’s first anniversary. Brown's Black Wednesday may be happening more slowly compared to Lamont's - but it could be bigger.

Is this a bad thing? Yes and no.

It certainly isn’t a huge vote of confidence in the UK economy. In fact the pound was the only currency to fall against the dollar yesterday.

But on the positive side, the fact that outside the euro the UK can have appropriate interest rates and can gain competitiveness from a falling pound is extremely good news as the world economy heads downwards.

Euro member states like Spain and Ireland are going to have, er… “interesting times” if they suffer from property crashes.

They can’t cut rates, and the ECB has set its face against taking action. Fair enough: inflation in the eurozone is above target and German exports are doing fine. So the struggling member states of the periphery are on their own.

In the Telegraph Ambrose Evans Pritchard points out that the Fed taking manic action to stave off recession while the Bundesbank ECB sits on its hands is reminiscent of the conditions just before the 1987 crash.

If things do get worse it will be the first real test of the euro system. How will it fare? In the good times member states have done little to prepare for problems and run deficits at the top of the cycle. France and Germany trashed their own fiscal rules at the first sign of trouble in 2002. They have failed to resolve structural questions like the eurozone’s lack of a lender of last resort.

So while the pound might be falling like a stone, this is not like 1992. Remember, Britain’s exit from the ERM was a good thing – it was being in it that was the problem. With interest rates subordinated to an artificial exchange rate target, the ERM became rightly known as the Eternal Recession Mechanism.

At least in 2008 the authorities have the ability to respond if things do get worse: with a free hand on fiscal policy; a flexible exchange rate; and ultimately even control over the monetary target . And if you don’t think they are doing a good job… at least you can get rid of them.

That detailed parliamentary scrutiny in action

"I went with the party leader Nick Clegg because he is an expert on Europe and I didn't want to read the 200 pages of the EU treaty myself."

- Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik, on the referendum debate in the Commons.

Nick Clegg's "tedious, uneventful" week

Over at the Times Red Box. Vaguely patronising, no?


The audience go wild for Clegg.

These are the good guys

There were slightly more MPs in favour of giving their constituents a say than people realise. A few MPs voted for one pro-referendum amendment and not the other last night. Counting the tellers too there were 252 MPs in favor of giving people a say on one or other of the options. There's a list below.

Surprising choices?

Nick Harvey has been pro referendum but sat on his hands last night. We contacted him for a quote.

"Given a free vote, I would personally have supported a referendum on the treaty. But the party line was that an In/Out referendum was a truer representation of our manifesto commitment to a referendum on the earlier Constitution. We were on a three line whip, and I correctly calculated that Liberal Democrat votes were not going to affect the outcome. It would not have served any purpose my resigning if it wouldn't change the result."

It was a shame too that Jon Cruddas didn't vote for a referendum. He has previously called for one, and is a famously principled guy. Maybe he used his "no" vote to wring some kind of concession out of the Government on rights at work, or low incomes, or some other labour issue - which, in fairness, is always his top priority. He is a canny guy and a nice man (maybe even a future Leader?) But it was a still a shame not to have him vote for a referendum, as a lot of others who look up to him would have followed him.

On the heroes side of the equation special mention has to go to the Labour MPs who took all manner of abuse from the whips: Kate Hoey, Gisela Stuart, Frank Field and Graham Stringer.

Ditto Ian Davidson who worked incedibly hard for a referendum. All the others put up with a hell of a lot of abuse for doing the right thing.

Among the Lib Dems Alistair Carmichael, David Heath and Tim Farron all gave up their their jobs to vote for their principles. You really don't get much of that these days. They are all total heroes.

So are the other 13 Liberal Democrats who did the liberal and democratic thing. The mechanics of the house were interesting. As the bulk of the Lib Dems sat there, absurdly, the honourable ones had to literally stand up and be counted. To go and vote they had to push past their colleagues like people arriving late at a cinema. It obviously required a lot of courage and good on them.

The MPs who voted against should be ashamed of themselves, but they won't be. Despite the Governments pompous and hypocritical arguments about how "detailed line by line scrutiny" is far better than giving the plebs a say, most of those trooping through the no lobby have never read the text, don't care about the issue, and are little better than Pavlogs dogs, answering to the beep of a pager. As Iain Martin has pointed out, most of them would just have been thinking about what to have for tea.

There's the list of the good guys in the post below.

The full list part one

Afriyie, Adam
Ainsworth, Mr. Peter
Amess, Mr. David
Ancram, rh Mr. Michael
Arbuthnot, rh Mr. James
Atkinson, Mr. Peter
Bacon, Mr. Richard
Baldry, Tony
Barker, Gregory
Baron, Mr. John
Bellingham, Mr. Henry
Mr. Richard Benyon
Bercow, John
Beresford, Sir Paul
Binley, Mr. Brian
Mr. Crispin Blunt
Bone, Mr. Peter
Boswell, Mr. Tim
Bottomley, Peter
Brady, Mr. Graham
Brazier, Mr. Julian
Brokenshire, James
Brooke, Annette
Browning, Angela
Burgon, Colin
Burns, Mr. Simon
Burrowes, Mr. David
Burt, Alistair
Butterfill, Sir John
Cameron, rh Mr. David
Campbell, Mr. Gregory
Campbell, Mr. Ronnie
Carmichael, Mr. Alistair
Carswell, Mr. Douglas
Cash, Mr. William
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Clappison, Mr. James
Clark, Greg
Clifton-Brown, Mr. Geoffrey
Conway, Derek
Cook, Frank
Corbyn, Jeremy
Cormack, Sir Patrick
Cox, Mr. Geoffrey
Crabb, Mr. Stephen
Cummings, John
Davidson, Mr. Ian
Davies, David T.C. (Monmouth)
Davies, Mr. Dai
Davies, Philip
Davis, rh David (Haltemprice and Howden)
Djanogly, Mr. Jonathan
Dodds, Mr. Nigel
Dorrell, rh Mr. Stephen
Dorries, Mrs. Nadine
Drew, Mr. David
Duddridge, James
Duncan Smith, rh Mr. Iain
Duncan, Alan
Dunne, Mr. Philip
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Ellwood, Mr. Tobias
Evans, Mr. Nigel
Evennett, Mr. David
Fabricant, Michael
Fallon, Mr. Michael
Farron, Tim
Field, Mr. Mark
Field, rh Mr. Frank
Fisher, Mark
Fox, Dr. Liam
Francois, Mr. Mark
Fraser, Christopher
Gale, Mr. Roger
Galloway, Mr. George
Garnier, Mr. Edward
Gauke, Mr. David
George, Andrew
Gibb, Mr. Nick
Gidley, Sandra
Gillan, Mrs. Cheryl
Godsiff, Mr. Roger
Goodman, Mr. Paul
Goodwill, Mr. Robert
Gove, Michael
Gray, Mr. James
Grayling, Chris
Green, Damian
Greening, Justine
Greenway, Mr. John
Grieve, Mr. Dominic
Hague, rh Mr. William
Hammond, Mr. Philip
Hammond, Stephen
Hancock, Mr. Mike
Hands, Mr. Greg
Harper, Mr. Mark
Hayes, Mr. John
Heald, Mr. Oliver
Heath, Mr. David
Heathcoat-Amory, rh Mr. David
Hemming, John
Hendry, Charles
Herbert, Nick
Hermon, Lady
Hoban, Mr. Mark
Hoey, Kate
Hogg, rh Mr. Douglas
Hollobone, Mr. Philip
Holloway, Mr. Adam
Holmes, Paul
Hopkins, Kelvin
Horam, Mr. John
Horwood, Martin
Hosie, Stewart
Howard, rh Mr. Michael
Howarth, Mr. Gerald
Hoyle, Mr. Lindsay
Hunt, Mr. Jeremy
Hurd, Mr. Nick
Jack, rh Mr. Michael
Jackson, Mr. Stewart
Jenkin, Mr. Bernard
Johnson, Mr. Boris
Jones, Mr. David
Jones, Lynne
Kawczynski, Daniel
Key, Robert
Kirkbride, Miss Julie
Knight, rh Mr. Greg
Laing, Mrs. Eleanor
Lait, Mrs. Jacqui
Lancaster, Mr. Mark
Lansley, Mr. Andrew

the full list part two

Leech, Mr. John
Leigh, Mr. Edward
Letwin, rh Mr. Oliver
Lewis, Dr. Julian
Liddell-Grainger, Mr. Ian
Lidington, Mr. David
Lilley, rh Mr. Peter
Llwyd, Mr. Elfyn
Loughton, Tim
Luff, Peter
Mackay, rh Mr. Andrew
Maclean, rh David
MacNeil, Mr. Angus
Main, Anne
Malins, Mr. Humfrey
Marshall, Mr. David
Mates, rh Mr. Michael
Maude, rh Mr. Francis
May, rh Mrs. Theresa
McCrea, Dr. William
McDonnell, John
McIntosh, Miss Anne
McLoughlin, rh Mr. Patrick
Mercer, Patrick
Miller, Mrs. Maria
Milton, Anne
Mitchell, Mr. Andrew
Mitchell, Mr. Austin
Moffat, Anne
Moss, Mr. Malcolm
Mudie, Mr. George
Mulholland, Greg
Mundell, David
Murphy, Mr. Denis
Murrison, Dr. Andrew
Neill, Robert
Newmark, Mr. Brooks
O'Brien, Mr. Stephen
Osborne, Mr. George
Ottaway, Richard
Paice, Mr. James
Paterson, Mr. Owen
Penning, Mike
Penrose, John
Pickles, Mr. Eric
Price, Adam
Prisk, Mr. Mark
Pritchard, Mark
Pugh, Dr. John
Randall, Mr. John
Redwood, rh Mr. John
Rifkind, rh Sir Malcolm
Robathan, Mr. Andrew
Robertson, Angus
Robertson, Hugh
Robertson, Mr. Laurence
Robinson, rh Mr. Peter
Rosindell, Andrew
Ruffley, Mr. David
Salmond, rh Mr. Alex
Scott, Mr. Lee
Selous, Andrew
Shapps, Grant
Shepherd, Mr. Richard
Simmonds, Mark
Simpson, Alan
Simpson, David
Simpson, Mr. Keith
Skinner, Mr. Dennis
Soames, Mr. Nicholas
Spelman, Mrs. Caroline
Spicer, Sir Michael
Spink, Bob
Spring, Mr. Richard
Stanley, rh Sir John
Steen, Mr. Anthony
Streeter, Mr. Gary
Stringer, Graham
Stuart, Mr. Graham
Stuart, Ms Gisela
Swayne, Mr. Desmond
Swire, Mr. Hugo
Syms, Mr. Robert
Tapsell, Sir Peter
Taylor, David
Taylor, Dr. Richard
Tredinnick, David
Truswell, Mr. Paul
Turner, Mr. Andrew
Tyrie, Mr. Andrew
Vaizey, Mr. Edward
Vara, Mr. Shailesh
Viggers, Peter
Villiers, Mrs. Theresa
Walker, Mr. Charles
Wallace, Mr. Ben
Walter, Mr. Robert
Wareing, Mr. Robert N.
Waterson, Mr. Nigel
Watkinson, Angela
Weir, Mr. Mike
Whittingdale, Mr. John
Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann
Wiggin, Bill
Willetts, Mr. David
Williams, Hywel
Williams, Mark
Wilshire, Mr. David
Wilson, Mr. Rob
Wilson, Sammy
Winterton, Ann
Winterton, Sir Nicholas
Wishart, Pete
Wood, Mike
Wright, Jeremy
Yeo, Mr. Tim
Young, rh Sir George
Younger-Ross, Richard

Look over there!

Isn't it a wee bit obvious, announcing an increase in the National Minimum Wage at PMQs on the day of the Commons referendum vote?

As a piece of news management, it's slightly cack-handed...

Why we should get rid of Euronews

The creepy EU-funded TV station "Euronews" is a menace. Admittedly, not much of a menace because almost no-one watches its hours of dreary euro-coverage. But nonetheless, it is not an organisation with particularly high news values.

It was the only news organisation to say that "I want a referendum" was behind the recent crane stunt (wrong). Having been woken up several times between 3 and 4 AM yesterday by journos who actually wanted to check who was responsible before writing, it was then a bit dissapointing of "Euronews" to nonetheless say that IWR was responsible for what they are calling "operation squirrel". (See report below.)

EuroNews - English Version

March 3, 2008

'Squirrel' action for EU treaty referendum

SECTION: Europa

LENGTH: 151 words

Two members of the 'I Want a Referendum campaign' group (or IWR), in Britain, have staged a protest up a crane near the houses of parliament in Westminster.

They called it 'Operation Squirrel'.

'All we want is a referendum on the new EU treaty, like the govenment promised,' they said.

IWR is a cross-party campaign.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown argues the Lisbon treaty is much less far-reaching than the EU constitution which was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, and so it does not need to be put to a referendum vote.

The crane-climbing comes just a couple of days before the Conservative opposition is due to make a formal proposal for a referendum.

Meanwhile, the IWR are very excited about an unofficial poll they conducted in ten Labour and Liberal Democrat constituencies in February.

The group hailed the response as substantial, and said some 88 percent of the respondents wanted a referendum.

Brown in Brussels: in the footsteps of John Major

Gordon Brown was in Brussels yesterday. Echoing John Major, Brown said that “Britain must be at the centre of Europe”.

The Guardian notes that Brown set out "four major goals" for the EU: building global prosperity, creating an environmentally sustainable world, leading on stability and reconstruction around the world, and leading the fight against poverty. These issues will apparently be discussed at annual spring EU economic summit.

"The March summit is a natural playground for Brown," one EU official said.

Brown has also proposed setting up an independent EU carbon bank whcih would hand out pollution permits under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. If Brown's proposition were accepted, it would take away the power to hand out the permits to pollute from member states and the European Commission, which wants the power for itself after 2013, when the third phase of the ETS will begin.

This story is depressing in a number of ways.

(1) The proposal for a “carbon bank” is yet another headline British proposal which will quietly sink without trace - like the second chamber of the European Parliament… or the “subsidiarity watchdog”… or Brown’s 2003 proposal to “take back control” over regional spending. Not only does this idea have no political backing elsewhere, but more importantly it is poorly thought through. For example, is Brown trying to tell us that carbon taxes – which is what the ETS would become if all permits were auctioned - and therefore our electricity bills, should be set by an independent and unelected body? This is not serious. It shows how feeble Britain’s EU policymaking apparatus is - and that the focus of the FCO and cabinet office is entirely on grabbing headlines and “showing willing” in Europe – rather than really changing anything.

(2) Brown’s remarks are basically defensive. He seeks to persuade us that that there will be no further transfer of power to the EU for a bit after the Constitution. But Sarkozy’s “wise men” will soon start discussing the next round of integration. And the incremental centralisation which the Laeken Declaration condemned will accelerate. Brown seeks to defend the status quo with scaremongering – and argues that jobs are at risk if the status quo in Europe is questioned. This goes unchallenged. His “positive agenda” - the “four points” - lacks any specific content (like Miliband’s inane “civilian surge” and “global hub” slogans).

(3) For example: Brown wants “economic dynamism” – but as soon as ratification is “out of the way” the EU will pass the Agency Workers Directive and hugely damage our economy. He wants “global stability” – but as soon as ratification is out of the way Sarkozy will press for an EU intervention force which can do nothing but divert resources away from the wars we are really fighting, to what is essentially an EU vanity project. He wants the EU to help developing countries – but has done nothing to bring to an end EU policies which do the exact opposite. He wants the EU to lead the fight against climate change – but has acquiesced in policies like the biofuels target which may well increase emissions.

This is utterly vacuous.

Hold the front page

Honestly.

According to the Press Association the latest Brussels storm in a tea cup has *intensified* tonight as Caroline Jackson (an MEP apparently) has launched "all out war" on her colleague Dan Hannan by calling for him to be deselected.

Tonight, in a statement acknowledging that she had "declared open war on one of her own party", she explained: "I think the Conservative Party should withdraw the whip from Mr Hannan.

Blimey.

We fear editors won't be holding the front page though. To be honest Hannan is one of the few MEPs that anyone has ever heard of.

As far as we can see, the current row seems to have less to do with any comments Hannan has made and a lot more to do with the inability of MEPs to stand any kind of criticism coming from within the European Parliament.

For many years the Tory MEPs have muddled through by basically splitting the difference between (a) the party's domestic stance and (b) the federalist European People's Party which they are members of in the Parliament.

However, over recent years a few younger MEPs have managed to sneak in, and the chill wind of political reality has blown in the door after them. Long serving MEPs seem to have found it hard to swallow the news that not everyone back home is favour of every closer union - and indeed not absolutely everyone is 100% impressed with the performance of the EU institutions.

Worse still, some of the younger members seem to have eschewed the enormously heavy traditional Brussels lunch for the slightly heavier workload. Quelle shock!

Mild as it may seem, this intolerable combination seems to lead to eye popping apoplexy among the old guard.

On this particular occasion the real trigger for this MEP “outburst” seems to have been Hannan complaining that the European Parliament was ignoring its own procedures, and refusing to allow MEPs to vote on the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty. How unreasonable can you get? Clearly he should be sacked on the spot.

globaloney

Us no understand:

Barroso tells EU leaders to avoid protectionism
By George Parker in London, Tony Barber in Brussels and,Bertrand Benoit in Berlin

European leaders meeting in London were warned yesterday not to succumb to the temptations of protectionism or the irresponsible pump-priming of their economies in response to global financial market turbulence.

José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, made the appeal ahead of a "credit crunch summit" last night in Downing Street of the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

Mr Barroso warned against knee-jerk reactions to the global downturn, urging action that was "both targeted and proportionate".

"We must not be tempted into protectionism."

Eh?

Is this the same José Manuel Barroso who last week published a proposal for enormous green tariffs against China? Prompting a massive trade war? Ring any bells?

It seems that political leaders increasingly don't give a monkeys about what they are saying. Its just a load of blah blah blah tailored to whatever audience they are speaking to.

coward brown

Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Romano Prodi and Jose Barosso are in town for talks with Brown.

Also around westminster today...


... at Downing Street...


...and Cowley Street too

The stitch up (continued)

Jim Murphy has been explaining the noddy series of "debates" that the Government plans to allow MPs over the Lisbon Treaty.

He told MPs: "The motion enables members to debate the benefits of the Lisbon treaty for the UK and the international community through a series of themed debates."

That particular formulation about debating "the benefits" tells you everything about the Government's approach - what little time it will allow is going to be filled up with vapid debates about motherhood and apple pie.

With the first four hours of the eight days taken up with discussion of the Government motion, there will be one and half hours for real amendments.

That's twelve hours of free debate in total. Remember that the consolidated version of the Treaty is 63,000 worlds long. Even just reading out the Lisbon Treaty - without making any comment on it - would take around five and a half hours.


Moreover, with priority for ex-ministers and select committee chairs, there may well be no chance for Labour rebels to get their amendments even discussed.

Even europhiles are unimpressed:

John Gummer said it was "very difficult for us to argue that this is proper Parliamentary scrutiny".

Kenneth Clarke complained about "general topics chosen by the Government taking up the lion's share of the time" and said the arrangement was a "radical change" from the normal way legislation is scrutinised.

Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes insisted the Government had got off to a "bad" start and was "alienating" even supporters of the legislation with its timetable.

So there you have it: despite all the magisterial blether about how "detailed line by line Parliamentary scrutiny" is far superior to discussion by the hoi polloi in a referendum, the Government really doesn't want any discussion. As we have said before - they are cowards.

A spot of footer

Because its a "vital cog in the process of social and cultural integration for Europe."

Isn't that why everybody goes to watch the football?

We're sure people at Anfield or St James' Park etc think of little else.

And people say these guys are out of touch...

Green thoughts

There is so much going on already - and now the Commission decides to drop its energy plans on the world.

No time for anything other than some quick thoughts:

1) "Green inspired" -protectionism. The Commission's proposal for green tariffs marks the true start of the battle over (supposedly) green-inspired protectionism. The phoney war is over.

The UK is clearly going to fight the proposal, but it is not clear how the other member states stand. So much for Mandelson's claim to have seen off the idea... Actually, perhaps we should stop attacking him as he is (at least on this one issue) at least on the right side on this one, albeit in a minority in the Commission.

There is a certain inevitability about a resort to protectionism if you have a trading system. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme means a highly visible cost, focused specifically on large, mobile international businesses.

Barosso said today "We want industry to remain in Europe. We don’t want to export our jobs to other parts of the world." But starting a trade war against the rest of the world might do exactly that.

The problem is that far too little thought in Brussels has gone into how to design emissions-reducing policies at the least cost to competitiveness - in fact the economics is still pretty poorly understood. Broadly speaking, our recent report concluded that carbon taxes seem to be cheaper ways to cut emissions than subsidies.

The EU has done too little of this kind of thinking in general - and has not explored tax at all – as the EU doesn’t have direct tax powers and so such policies would have to be run nationally. That means taxes are not therefore interesting to those who mainly see environmental issues as a way to promote greater EU integration.

With so little thought about competitiveness, it is probably only a matter of time before we have factory closures blamed on the ETS. Indeed, if you look deep in the bowels of their website, that's what the Commission’s own research suggests.

Some of the more federally minded people in Brussels would be likely to see this as something of a beneficial crisis – plant closures would be an excuse to impose EU green tariffs, which in turn boost the idea of a European identity and bolster the importance of the EU. That might sound a bit twitchy – but there really are (important) people in Brussels who think like that. As Delors said: "If this job was about making a single market I wouldn’t have come here in 1985. We’re not here just to make a single market – that doesn’t interest me – but to make a political union." Or as Milliband put it, "the needs of the environment are coming together with the needs of the Union."

Or, as Barosso (more subtly) said today: "If some people in Europe have doubts about the need for the European Union, I think this is exactly the kind of policy that shows why we need a strong European Union more than ever." Point scoring rather than effective environmental action seems to be the motive for too many people in Brussels.

One fundamental issue is that all emissions reducing policies involve some kind of economic cost - though some have a much bigger cost than others. In public the EU generally accepts that there should be different levels of effort from different countries, so isn't it inevitable that any emissions reducing policies will have an impact on relative competitiveness?

The two possible answers to this conundrum are either to reduce the cost of your own emissions reducing policies, or to insist on green tariffs on all developing countries. We think the Commission is on the wrong side of history on this one.

2) Biofuels survive for now, but for how long? It's amazing how the scientific / economic evidence has piled up against biofuels recently – particularly Andy Bounds’ FT report last week on a leaked document showing that the EU’s own scientists don’t believe in biofuels.

Our own recent report makes it clear that European biofuels are the least cost effective way to reduce emissions out there. Talk about a "second generation" is basically just taking a punt on something that may never work. And of course, if it does magically work, we can always do it later. When we were writing our recent reports it became pretty clear that the advocates of every single different technology all claim that they will make huge leaps forward in cost-effectiveness in the coming years. Biofuel fans are not the only ones who make such claims.

There are about a million problems with biofuels, but the one the Commission seems to feel most keenly is that they will lead to deforestation. Hence the Commission has responded with proposals for criteria for "sustainable" biofuels. Some problems with this include, but are not limited to:

(1) "Sustainable" biofuels here means that you didn't burn down rainforest after 31/12/07 to plant them. A lot of the land clearance for predicted demand has already happened.

(2) How enforceable is this? The EU can't control agricultural fraud in Europe, never mind monitor what is going on in the depths of Latin America. Biofuels are perfect for fraud too - untraceable, commodified, mixable. At least the EU can try to count subsidised goats in the mediterranean EU member states. Good luck trying to prove that your biofuels are sustainably sourced.

(3) Even if we could solve problems one and two, the whole idea rests on an illusion. Even if you could make the biofuels "sustainable", the huge target the EU is setting (roughly equal to US plans) will drive up food and land prices. So Brazilian landowners can grown the biofuels on existing farmland, and burn down the rainforest to plant now more valuable food. It’s like squeezing a balloon - the pressure just comes out elsewhere.

3) Are today's targets just a fantasy, or is there a cunning plan? Are we really going to build two giant windmills every day between now and 2020? It seems unlikely somehow. Or is the Council going to redefine nuclear as a “renewable?” That sounds more like the likely euro-compromise.

4) Running the ETS from the centre = taxation without representation. Speaking of beneficial crises, the EU has decided to respond to the failure of phase one of the ETS (and likely failure of phase two) by demanding that it is allowed to determine member states ETS targets from the centre.

This may just be politically completely unrealistic - we don't know. Certainly many member states only take part in ETS, and other green policies, safe in the belief that they won't actually have to do anything, and will probably be able to make some money out of it. Few will be keen to be definitively told how much effort to make.

Nonetheless, assume it were eventually to happen. ETS is basically a (disguised) tax. Central control over the level of scarcity determines the value of this tax. In other words a centrally controlled ETS would be the first true EU direct tax. Is that what we want?

(5) The path not taken. Another way to do run a European emissions policy - or any other international emissions policy - is to have states set themselves demanding targets with legally binding fines. (Funnily enough, the EU members have turned own the option of making the Kyoto fines legally binding). You could then leave member states to hit their target their own way, instead of trying to micro-manage how the member states should hit their targets.

Given that the Commission's micro-management involves pushing members towards policies that are either sub-optimal (renewable subsidies) or actively damaging (biofuels), the need for a different approach seems more urgent than ever.

***Update***

Well, at least some of the papers have picked up on our use of BERRs own numbers to suggest that the Commission's estimate for how much its grand proposal is going to cost is rather an underestimate. BERRs methodology suggests up to 730 pounds for a family of four every year.

There are some bits in the Mail , Sun, Telegraph Express , and Evening Standard .

There is a good leader in the FT too: "Most damagingly, the privileged status of renewables takes the focus away from energy efficiency, by far the lowest-cost means of reducing emissions…"

Also, as if to confirm the point we were making about the danger of a highly visible price focussed on highly mobile firms, there is a piece in the IHT about how workers at a Belgian steel plant have gone on strike to protest against the EU Emissiosn Trading Scheme. A union leader says "You could call this the first carbon dioxide industrial action". Doubtless it won't be the last - as long as the EU's green policies are designed in a way that practically encourages companies to relocate.

join the dots

Lib Dems may be offered PR as part of power-sharing deal
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 21 January 2008
Independent

Gordon Brown will extend an olive branch to the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg this week by setting out options for replacing the first-past-the-post voting with a fairer system for Westminster elections.

The publication of a government paper on proportional representation by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, is seen by senior cabinet ministers as a move to prepare Labour for power-sharing with the Liberal Democrats if there is a hung parliament after the next election.

Mr Straw will not set out any hard proposals, but it is known he favours the additional vote system, which he introduced for elections to the European Parliament when he was Home Secretary. "Jack would support AV, if there is a hung Parliament," said a senior minister. "It could be discussed after the next election."

The Jenkins Commission proposed a new AV "top-up" system in January 1999, but it was never acted upon by Tony Blair. Under the plan by the late Lord Jenkins, the former leader of the SDP, 80 to 85 per cent of MPs would have remained directly elected on a constituency basis but the Commons would have been "topped up" with 100 to 120 MPs chosen from regional party lists, proportionately reflecting the votes cast in the general election.

------------> And now...

Lib Dems back Labour on EU treaty
Roxanne Escobales
Tuesday January 22, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, today accused the Tories of "playing games" over the EU treaty, as he defended his decision not to call for a referendum on the issue.

Clegg spoke out after Labour saw off the first of many expected Eurosceptic challenges last night, when the government won a preliminary vote on the treaty with a majority of 138.

In a blow to Conservative hopes of scuppering the bill, Clegg said: "We would support the government by not voting for a referendum.

The stitch up begins

From Gallery News comes info that the Speaker has decided not to allow the Labour rebels reasoned amendment for a referendum to be discussed.

EUROPE: Speaker denies vote on amendment

The Speaker has decided not to select the amendment calling for a referendum in tonight's 2nd Reading debate on the European Treaty Bill

A vote on the whole Bill is due at about 10pm. The Conservatives will vote against and the Liberal Democrats in favour.

MPs are not allowed to criticise such decisions - or even talk to the amendment which has not been selected.

However, we aren't bound by any such rules - if Speaker Martin is going to manage this debate in a biased way (he personally is not keen on a referendum) then he will face increasing criticism. We are watching you.

News management (part 3234)

Compare and contrast.

One minute the Government is banging on about how it believes in "detailed line by line scrutiny in parliament" (to avoid a referendum).

Then when it comes to a debate what happens? Brown makes sure he is out of the country and the Government makes sure the debate happens late in the day so the evening bulletins can't cover it. We can't help thinking that the Northern Rock announcement is an example of using bad news to bury bad news...


Would you buy a used Treaty from this man?

PS - Also on the Northern Rock front - apparently the beleaguered bank has come out in support of the Lisbon Treaty (well - they need the EU to let them off state aid rules).

We're not sure they are really in a position to start telling us how to run the country - but hell, with enemies like these...

just what are the lib dems up to?

The speccie blog reported last week that the Lib Dems have hit a snag with their plan to push for an "in or out" referendum to cover their tracks as they back out of their manifesto commitment to a referendum. The Clerks say such a referendum has nothing to do with the Lisbon Treaty (ha!) and so it can't go down.



So what are they going to do? Lib Dem intelligence "chatter" suggests that they might abstain in the key vote in the committee stage. It sounds like this evening they are encouraging people simply not to turn up...

One interesting number to watch as the committee stage goes on is whether the Government majority goes below 63 at any point - as that will make it clear that it is the Lib Dems blocking a referendum.

That might be the point at which people start peeling off. A lot of the MPs are not happy with the current position because (a) they know the Lisbon treaty is not "completely different" to the Constitution (b) they don't particularly want to lose their seats and (c) as Lib Dems they didn't go into politics just to spout a disingenuous party line.

But will they stand up and be counted? Watch this space.

even philip stephens admits it...

Even the most hardcore europhiles can't bring themselves to spout the Government line:

"The government did promise a referendum on the now defunct constitutional treaty; and, rhetoric and legal form aside, the Lisbon document is substantially the same as that rejected by the electorates of France and the Netherlands. British voters want the same opportunity."

Thanks for that.

you are feeling very sleepy...

Jim Murphy is obviously keen on recycling. On his tedious blog he bangs on about how "Over 3 million British jobs – tens of thousands of jobs in every region of the UK – are directly linked to our membership of the EU".

Ugghhh.

Quite apart from the fact that this is a huge load of balls; and apart from the fact that it is merely intended to steer discussion away from exactly how much the Government want to sign away through the revived EU Constitution; and apart from the fact that we have heard it about a million times before... the striking thing is that the Government can't even be faffed to find any new evidence. Murphy simply blows the dust off a vintage 1997 economic study to back up his "argument".


Likewise today Gordon Brown is also reaching out to the public... by speaking to a Foreign Office organised event stuffed with cronies from "Business for New Europe". He too drones on about 3.5 million jobs etc etc.

"What is clear is that at this time of global economic uncertainty, we should not be throwing into question our future membership of the EU - risking trade, business and jobs..."

And so on blah blah blah. There is no attempt to make an argument for the Constitution. No Milliband-style nonsense about why we need it or should want it.

The truth is that neither of them care. They are perfectly happy to trot out all this tired old rubbish because it is part of their overall strategy. The government calculates that by using the most powerful forces in politics - apathy and boredom - it can get away with its ludicrous, outrageous decision to back out of a referendum. Only time will tell if they are right.

As we predicted...

The media finally get interested:

Nicolas Sarkozy endorses Tony Blair in EU job

Tony Blair, president of Europe?

Blair kicks off campaign to become EU President

Tony Blair fuels European presidency speculation

Sarko said: 'He is intelligent, he is brave and he is a friend. We need him in Europe. How can we govern a continent of 450 million people if the President changes every six months and has to run his own country at the same time? I want a President chosen from the top - not a compromise candidate - who will serve for two-and-a-half years,' added Sarkozy.

According to the Guardian Jean-Pierre Rafarin is backing him too. And "At the end of this month, Blair will continue his campaign to win the leadership of Europe when he addresses a conference at the Sorbonne of Les Progressistes, a breakaway socialist party group which has joined Sarkozy's government."

Meanwhile Ahern's campaign for the job is being undermined by ongoing scandals...

somebody wants to be president of europe

How odd... Britain's former centre left leader is going to be speaking to the party conference of France's centre right party.

The French press initially reported it a while back, but then said it was off. But now the UMP site confirms that Blair is going to be at the UMP conference at the end of next week.

He is also going to be doing another gig with Sarko in February to coincide with the ratification of the Lisbon treaty by the French Parliament.

Presumably Blair already has the whole middle east peace thing sorted out... (we knew it was only a matter of time once Tony got on the case) ...but nonetheless it does seem slightly odd. So what's the explanation?

One possible explanation is provided by a leader in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung which suggests that the two names in the frame for the new job of President of Europe under the Lisbon treaty are Luxembourg mayor Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker... and a certain Mr T. Blair.

Thought you had seen the end of him? Think again.

buzzword bingo

On the Slovenian presidency website:

There is one common thread running through the whole agenda - synergy. It represents what the European Union has been founded on from the very beginning. It denotes the work we undertake in common, work which achieves results that are greater than the sum of each individual contribution. Let us be fully aware of this added value. Let us make better use of it. It is not just the synergy between Member States and institutions. It is also the synergy of all areas of activity, all goals and all strategies. The synergy between citizens, generations and cultures. Between the European Union and other world players, regions and continents.

As if that were not excitement enough... we also learn that "2008 is the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue" and that we should gear up for the "Meeting of the High-Level Group on Gender Mainstreaming" on the 10th of January. Woo-hoo!

Question: do we think that Chinese, Indian or US political elites are wasting their time on this sort of thing? (hint: no)

For all the endless rhetoric about an outward-looking, "Global Europe" - the EU, with its endless meetings and obscure processes, remains fundamentally an inward-looking, non-future-focussed kind of community.

The political culture that produces high level meetings on gender mainstreaming (though it may well be laudable, whatever it is) is certainly *not* going to run the 21st century.

Happy Christmas?

...Depends whether you are living in a developing country faced with higher EU tariffs on the 1st of January.

Have a look at our new briefing note for more on the state of the negotiations on "Economic Partnership Agreements" - which are supposed to be complete by the end of the year.

The messy pile up we predicted on this blog a little over a year ago seems to be coming to pass. The real question now seems to be how willing the EU is to try and sort out the mess next year.

A landmark of sorts

According to the Commisssion's EUR-LEX database, some time this month the EU passed its 100,000th law. The search reveals that 100,206 pieces of secondary legislation have been passed since 1957. Thanks for that.

To put that into perspective, if you read a law every working day (it would probably take you a bit longer to do any meaningful research of course) then you could read up on them all within about 426 years.

But wait - there is good news. If you only look at those still in force there are "only" 24,657 laws to bone up on, which would take "just" 104 years to get up to speed with.

That said, the stock of EU laws in force has grown by and average of 1,793 over the last five years. So the pile would be growing all the time.

Hmmm.