Energy hypocrisy - not to be missed

The UK utility companies have all now, save for e on, issued announcements of significant and way above inflation increases in fuel prices. 

The latest was French giant EDF which announced increase which average out at 10.8%.  Naturally the media rigorously investigated the cause or need for such a large increase - oh wait!  They didn't.

EDF stated that the reason that this increase was necessary was because wholesale gas prices had risen by 4%, oh, and the rest was caused by power users needing to subsidize renewable energy costs and the vulnerable.

I do not have a problem with EDF making a profit, reported to be £ 1.6 billion, last year.  This, on a turnover of more than £52 billion doesn't seem excessive.  Anyway, isn't Ofgem there to see that the utility companies are not gouging us?

I do though have a problem with having to subsidize the ugly and inefficient renewables power sector.  And to be subsidizing them in such a great way but also in such a concealed way.  Why are political parties not shouting, loudly and often, that the greater portion of our energy costs are being used to sustain an otherwise totally unsustainable industry?  Where is the media outrage at this wholesale daylight and nighttime robbery?

I am afraid you won't see it because to do so would be to attack two of the greatest of modern day myths - The EU and the 'man-made Global warming' lie.

The EU is pushing for and legislating for carbon emission reductions - the UK is in the forefront of closing down coal fired power stations.  So much in the front that Ofgem predict we will experience wide-spread power outages within a couple of years.  Not because we can't afford the fuel or because it isn't available but simply because we are choosing to follow idiotic and half-baked (and certainly un-joined-up) Green policies.

The James Delingpole book, Watermelons, does a far better job than I could ever do at exposing the sham and shaming so called 'science' about 'man-made Global warming'.  I strongly recommend this as a must-read.  Delingpole painstakingly and convincingly confronts the myths being perpetrated  and exposes them for the lies that they are.

 Then there is the other purported reason for the higher than wholesale price increase - namely that the energy providers are now taking on the social responsibility of subsidizing the 'vulnerable in society'.  Yes that's right!  Energy prices now act as a re-distributive tax to take from some and give to others.

What's next?  Mothercare or Tesco charging higher prices for disposable nappies and then subsidizing those poor teenage mums who made the wrong 'career choice'?

Surely if these 'vulnerable members of society' needed help in paying their bills then the state's welfare programmes should be used?  Not some hidden 'poor tax' in our energy prices.

Oh, and think again about those wholesale gas price increases.  Where in the world have they decreased rather than increased?  The good old US of A.  Why?  Because the USA has embraced shale gas and is full-on exploiting it.  In  the UK and EU though, this is something that the 'greens' simply can't allow.  A hair shirt is only effective if it hurts make it from angora and it just doesn't achieve the redistributive goal!

Don't let anyone tell you that these price increases couldn't be avoided!  And, when you and your family are sitting around a candle, wrapped up in sweaters and overcoats, remember it is the 'greens' that pushed us to this and consider that, if they have their way, those man-made fibres that are barely keeping you warm, will have to go as well!         

David Cameron must know about this con game, he must.  Apparently his father-in-law is a major beneficiary of the wind-power subsidy.  Why the pretend that he wants to do something about energy prices?  Did someone mention hypocrisy?

BBC rotten at its core

I have written here before about the liberal and left-wing bias of the BBC.  This applies to its news coverage particularly but also is reflected in it's drama and comedy and light entertainment progamming as well as that which might be described as 'documentary'.

However, that bias was frankly clear to any keen observer and I was in danger of stating 'the bloody obvious', especially to anyone with 'right' leaning political tendencies.

I don't think that any of us could have really been prepared for what is now unfolding at the BBC, relative to the Jimmy Saville cover-up.

For the uninitiated, Saville was a  (then) much admired entertainer and charity funds raiser who transitioned from being a radio DJ into an 'all around good guy' on the BBC.  All the time though, it seems, he was allegedly  sexually abusing under-age girls.  Oftentimes on BBC premises.  Sometimes in the company of other abusers. 

The revelations show that many at the BBC were aware of his sick (and let's not forget illegal) activities but chose to do or say nothing about them.

Following Saville's death, a female reporter, Liz MacKean, put together a TV programme that would expose the  activities of Saville and include first-hand accounts from his victims. 

The BBC chose not to air the segment.  Charitably you might say, because it was going to conflict with two celebrity puff pieces that the BBC was running on Saville and the BBC couldn't really laud him in these and expose him, in the other.  That is the most charitable one could be.  That the BBC didn't want to appear hypocritical!  Heaven forfend!

The less charitable view is that this reflects the view of the liberal intelligentsia and those at the top of the BBC, that the normal rules of society don't apply to them.  This 'elite' (mostly male-dominated) think that balance, fairness and above all else common decency and adherence to the law, shouldn't apply at their 'lofty' levels.  They see themselves as the shapers of opinion - leaders not followers - and well, if the 'public' haven't yet caught-up, 'don't worry, they will, if we, long enough and exclusively, feed them this line'.

So who do I mean, when I say 'liberal intelligentsia'?   The journalists, the editors, the presenters, the governors on the BBC trust - all of these at the BBC.  Look then at media outlets like The Guardian and The Observer which push every 'right-on' cause, simply because, yes simply because, it is 'right-on'.  The same can be said of our 'arts establishment' - those that push cows in formaldehyde or piles of bricks and say it's 'art' and, what's more, the tax payer should fund it!

Politicians and union leaders are not exempt either.  They too look down on 'Joe Public' as just someone to be abused and 'fiscally raped' at every opportunity.

So, what to do?

How about starting with the sacking of the board of governors of the BBC Trust?  Don't let a token resign in a fit of suddenly being overcome with rightful shame - sack the lot - all of them.  Don't replace them with those that are media or politically qualified - that's just fishing in the same polluted pool. 

Move on for a cull of anyone event remotely tainted with the Saville affair.  Yes, that might not be fair but since when has fairness ever meant anything to the BBC?

Then end the BBC TV tax - AKA the TV License Fee - Maybe, just maybe, when the organization is subject to the colder winds of commercialism then the BBC just might be less concerned about constantly sniping at and ridiculing those that pursue the profit motive and favouring those parasites whose only goal in life is to look down on 'Joe Public' and the great unwashed.

Don't for one minute, expect resignations - Peter Rippon, the Newsnight editor responsible for 'spiking' the story, hasn't resigned, he has just stepped back, while the 'investigations' plod on - no, resigning requires a sense of moral duty, of knowing what's right and wrong.  The BBC, as with so many public institutions, don't hire people with that!

If I think back over resignations from senior public roles, the only one that comes to mind, where true integrity was displayed, was that of Lord Carrington.  He was Minister of Defence at the time of the Falklands invasion.  He resigned, not because it was his fault but because he felt his department was at fault and so the honourable thing to do was to quit.

Oh, and don't worry about or believe all of the rubbish about a 'great British institution' - that is just part of the myth - the BBC is just a media company - it has no higher role nor is it independent, save in that it is independent of the people that fund it! 

To those who chunter on about great British institutions, such as the BBC and the 'blessed' NHS and the 'mother of all parliaments' take a look at this sorry and shaming tale.  Still proud of the BBC?  Think back to the MP expenses saga, think of Stafford Hospital and Bristol - Still think these are wonderful?

I am ranting because I am angry!  The 'powers that be' will do nothing, as usual.  A few tokens will be sacrificed and then the gravy train will rumble on but my spleen is a little easier now!

Obama's shame and poor character

Speaking on Jon Stewart's TV comedy show, President Obama has been reported as categorizing the death of four Americans, at their Benghazi consulate as ' not optimal'.

You think!

The deaths of four servants of the American people isn't 'optimal' .  In seeking to garner the votes of the sneering elite that really don't like America, Obama has shamed his office and his country.

This would always be wrong but given the story of a cover-up that is fast emerging, is especially worrying.

Obama and the White House are struggling to explain why they reduced security at the Benghazi consulate, even after attacks on it, which now seem clearly to have been trial runs, and after a request for ramped-up safety measures.  Also after attacks on a senior British official and the Red Cross.

They are also struggling to explain why they conflated this brutal attack with the anti-Islamic video and initially insisted that this was the outcome of some kind of spontaneous public protest demonstration when it seems clear that this was a planned and well executed attack by terrorists.

Now the story (from the White House) is that this was always known to be a terrorist attack and they claim they said so (the evidence is extremely flimsy and based on making the stretchiest use of the English language and the use of a couple of words out of hundreds spoken the day after the horrific events).

Consider though that this is the only evidence, nothing more was said about 'terror;' for two weeks.  Indeed, this attack on Americans was so riveting that President Obama didn't see the need to cancel a fundraiser on the other side of the country and remain in the White House to deal with this.  No he went to Nevada and cashed in!

Now we see people from the administration being sacrificed to save Obama.  However, Hillary Clinton has already stepped in front of the bus and so now there is no one else, except for Obama himself. 

Don't hold your breath though!  Europeans know that leftists never take responsibility or blame and as Obama has dragged the USA towards a European 'social' model, that is one trait that he and his followers have swiftly adopted.

As polling day looms, the key issue around the election is now moving to one of character and integrity - that is the honesty of Obama - rather than the economy and America's debt and deficit 'habit'.

As a 'Brit' I cannot vote in the US elections but if I could, I know, absolutely, that Obama's character could not allow me to vote for him, leave alone all his other dangerous policies.

Nobel Economics Prize Suggestions

The Nobel Committee has awarded this year's Peace Prize to the EU.

This is the same committee that awarded the same prize to:

• Henry Kissinger, then US Secretary of State - while the US was secretly bombing Laos.
• Yasser Arafat -  If not the father of modern terrorism, at least the uncle.
• Barack Obama - When he was newly elected and less than a year into his presidency and who has since sat on the international sidelines!  (How has that 'open for dialogue with Iran worked out?)

More on the Peace Prize, below.

So the Prize Committee have a track record of what might be termed odd or eccentric awards.

The 2012 Nobel Prize for Economics has yet to be awarded - given recent events who are the likely candidates?  Greece's head of National statistics?, Jean Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi for their work defending the Euro project as the heads of the European Central Bank (flogging a dead horse might not seem a peaceful spectacle but it needs to be done) - but maybe that would make the award too Euro-centric - or, Ben Bernanke and Mervyn King for their work with Quantitative Easing - a policy designed to put money in the hands of banks that caused an economic crisis through their profligate policies , at the expense of future inflation, or maybe Gordon Brown - he touted himself as the 'saviou'r of the World economy back in 2008/9 (okay, so he squandered a golden fiscal inheritance and impoverished the UK along the way but still, you don't make a 'no more boom and bust omelet' without breaking some eggs. 

Since institutions are the vogue how about Banking Regulators worldwide?  Competence and foresight doesn't seem to be a requirement for the role so no blame for the economic state we are in, can be (or indeed is being) laid at their doors.

Or maybe, global leaders?  Those that continue to deny and still add to deficits.  I must confess an interest here because then our very own David Cameron and George Osborne could get a share of the prize.

I am not an English scholar and so don't know the word to describe when we move beyond parody but I think we just have!

Back to the Peace Prize.  What to do with the 8,000,000 Swedish Krona (£750, 000, US$1,195,000) prize?  This wouldn't fund Greece or Spain for many minutes (nor is there much hope that the money would actually reach the suffering people of those countries!).  My suggestion, donate it to the families of the victims of Srebrenica.  These people suffered directly as a consequence of the peace efforts of the EU.  The toothless peacekeepers, from the EU, operating under the auspices of the UN (also a past  Peace Prize winner) who stood by and let more than 8,000 mostly men and boys be taken away and massacred.  This occurred in July 1995, just two months after 'Europe' and the EU was patting itself on the back and celebrating 50 years of 'peace' since the end of the Second World War.

Yes, give the money to Srebrenica, that is the true memorial to the EU!

Ryan/Biden Debate - A view

I am currently in the Middle East and so had the opportunity to see the VP debate 'live'.  Some observations.

Generally this was a good debate - arguments were put forward and countered and so on.  I have seen that some commentators have referred to Joe Biden's interruptions as rude.  I am not so sure.  I would classify them as dis-respectful.  He doesn't come across as naturally rude (but I suppose he wouldn't).

There were four substantive issues - Health/Medicare, the Economy, Foreign Affairs and Abortion.

Health/Medicare - I won't pretend to understand the minutiae of this issue but I didn't hear Biden offering a strong defence of 'Obamacare' nor refuting Ryan's claim about the double counting of spending or showing savings on one programme and then shifting the same funds to another.  Maybe he spent time at the feet of the multi-times spender Gordon Brown?  GB managed to spend and spend but (fortunately) some of the promised spending was simply the same promised money, again and again.

The Economy - Got less attention than I expected, given the at best anemic 'recovery'.   Ryan is obviously strong on this and did land punches on the '43 months of greater than 8% unemployment'  but I guess his strongest point here was the emphasis on where employment growth will come from - the small business throughout the USA - and the need to reduce the tax burden on these.  Biden's response of trying to paint hedge fund companies as small companies looked a little desperate.

Foreign Affairs - Ryan defied expectations and was well informed on the topic (so no Sarah Palin moments) and projected a coherent strategy especially concerning the withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Biden seemed to rely on the fact that the other international participants want out by 2014 and so the US approach is right - kind of a strange defence to me and the fact that withdrawal is so fixed must surely undermine the talks that are taking place with the Afghan Taliban.

Abortion - Both are practicing Roman Catholics but though they each claim that their politics and integrity is shaped by their faith, Biden seems to have a very liberal view of that shaping, as it comes to abortion.  Ryan put forward a compelling argument for a review of US abortion legislation, when he spoke of such laws should be made by politicians following the will of the electorate rather than by unelected judges.  They didn't touch on 'gay' marriage but Biden's very liberal views are in direct contrast to the traditional and staunchly Catholic views of Ryan.

One thread that ran through the debate was the respect and admiration that the 'middle class' have in the US psyche.  In the UK, 'middle class' is almost a pejorative term whereas in the US this is aspirational. 

Polls seem to suggest that Ryan narrowly 'won' the debate but you can expect the Obama-loving media to paint this as a draw. 

Abortion limits - do the maths!

The new UK Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt has shared his view that the time limit on abortions should be reduced to 12 weeks. 

Given that more than 90% of the, in excess of , 190,000 abortions that occur in England and Wales happen within 13 weeks, Hunt is not talking about affecting a significant number of abortions.  Though, if you oppose abortion, 19,000 is still too many.

Of course that doesn't stop the usual suspects jumping up and screaming about 'right-wing politicians pushing an agenda' or 'this is about women's choice and has nothing to do with men and men should keep quiet on the whole issue!'

However, think for a minute about the timeline.   Surely within 4-8 weeks of conception, a woman knows she is pregnant?  Then she has tests?  Then ponders?  So how much time for pondering?  Consider that this 'pondering' is a solitary task - after all, the man concerned or any man for that matter, has no right to offer any input - simply because he is a man!

So isn't 4-8 weeks enough time for pondering?

OK, so as a man, I should keep quiet but.......    I think that most women will already have a view on abortion.  They will have given thought to 'what would I do' if I found myself inconveniently or accidentally  pregnant'.  So the ponder time doesn't sound like it should be any hurdle.

So 12 weeks sounds like ample time.

Oh and if it avoids those 19,000 abortions, that, for me, would be a step in the right direction!

Next step?  After getting the timeline reduced, re-examine the rationale and arguments that were put forward in 1967, when the abortion law was passed and see these in relation to the excuses given for abortions, today.  I recall we were told that this law was required to end back-street abortions and for rape victims and for those expectant mothers who had health issues.  No one, not even David (now Lord) Steele said we would end up with abortion on demand and become the abortion capital of Europe.

So from a time perspective, the maths suggest that 12 weeks is much more than enough time.!