-David Cameron is saying it is time to pin back profligate EU Commission spending. Absolutely right even if predicatably unpopular in Brussels where the spenders live,play and eat very well. Ed Miliband warns against standing up to the EU as the UK might lose influence. The reality ,to which Miliband either is blind to/denies or just doesn't comprehend ,is that the UK has never had much real power in the core of the EU. There is little love for Britain in the largely socialistic and centralising corridors of Brussels, a city which itself would be pretty much dead if it were not for presence of the huge and free spending organisation. To seek to appease it by rolling over and accepting further profligacy is absurd as well as demeaning. Britain's greatest, if lonely, role is to be counter the self indulgent culture and get the organisation to be a realistic and useful addition to Europe's effectiveness rather than a huge financial and administrative drag on all it does. Does Asia lumber itself with such a cumbersome overarching, controlling and initiative,- stifling burocracy? No.
-The ongoing sad saga of Syria with the added complication of Gaza continues to goad western, and particularly British , consciences to "do something about it". But what? With whom? How? America is weary of the Middle East and (New)Obama has clearly said that its real foreign policy interests are clearly in Asia. They are certainly not going to put boots on the ground and nor should anyone else. Nor will America rein in Israel as they should have done decades ago. That tail will continue to wag the dog. In Syria the multiplicity of factions and the lack of a clearly desirable, nice, clean, human rights orientated potential victor means that although it is different to Afghanistan there is nothing any military intervention is going to get other than a good hiding. The policy therefore has to continue with the diplomacy, probably unsuccessfully , and meanwhile to work with the country's neighbours to do everything possible to ease the humanitarian crisis by building and supplying (temporary) refugee camps along the borders.
-The penny or cent is slowly beginning to drop in some places that many so called eco-friendly policies of using only renewable sources for fuel and power generation are far from being what they claim and come at a massive price. Converting power stations to wood burning has to be lunacy. They do not carefully consume handfuls of sticks gathered in from the nearest woodlands. They gulp down piles of wood,- every hour, night and day. Wood doesn't renew itself in a few days. It takes years. That means that to meet eco targets we would have to cut down practically every rainforest on the face of the globe,- and still not have enough wood. The results would include extensive desertification and world food shortages. Eco? Good for mankind? No. Hideously expensive and self defeating? Yes.
- Moves in the UK to speed up and simplify planning approvals, particularly for strategic infrastructure projects, are being noisy resisted by countless "Say No To...." groups. It isn't that hearings are being abolished. Nor are appeals on the way out. It's simply proposed that those be reduced to to from the current four. Similarly the ability to demand judicial reviews of almost anything the government proposes to do /has done is also under question. The reviews aren't being abolished, just reined in so that the government is more free to do what it was elected to do,- get on and do the things necessary to run the country now and in the future. That does not seem unreasonable in the face of UK's visible slide from sclerosis into paralysis.
-Talking of sclerosis, the Sunday Times reports that poor old diarist Samuel Pepys had to spend a whole Saturday in the 1760s producing a report on how to sort out the naval dockyards at Portsmouth. A whole Saturday for one man! That's not bad compared to the 3 years Sir Howard Davies , working with countless others, has been given to come up with (another) review of UK airports policy. The reality, -as many know,- is that the recommendations of this group could be produced at the end of a single day spent in some gloomy hotel basement by a gathering of real aviation experts. They might lack a few of the minutae, minutes of meetings with newt conservationists, badger protection groups and others but they would on a few flipcharts converted into a plain old fashioned Powerpoint presentation knocked up by a couple of young grads in the teabreak simply and clearly declare the obvious. As it is, the 3 year study, due for mid 2015 ,is in the best British tradition likely to simply form the basis for..... further discussion and consultation. Stretch , yawn and the popping of more corks in Amsterdam and Paris.
Footnote: The Roskill Commission thoroughly investigated the airports question and came up with the answer in 1973. According to 7 commissioners who did not live in Buckinghamshire ,the best alternative to Heathrow ( seen then as an addition to , not a replacement for it) is at Wing/Cublington in Buckinghamshire. The 8th member, who lived in Buckinghamshire, dissented and,- won. The answer still is correct. Apart from leaving it where it is at Heathrow, the right place for London's primary hub airport would be Wing/Cublington ,nicely situated between London and the large population areas around the south midlands and Birmingham. It could even be linked to the much objected-to new HS 2 high speed rail line. That would allow both "Say No To..." protest groups to be rolled into one. A big cost saving for the protest groups. Buckinghamshire County Council is already spending six figure sums of taxpayers' money on fighting HS2 or at least its preferred route through the "influential" mid Chiltern corridor. They would though probably consider more favourably an alternative, more southerly, route closer to where many more but much less "influential" people live. That's the reality of local "democracy". There aren't too many celebreties, retired actors, barristers and the like in High Wycombe.
-The ongoing sad saga of Syria with the added complication of Gaza continues to goad western, and particularly British , consciences to "do something about it". But what? With whom? How? America is weary of the Middle East and (New)Obama has clearly said that its real foreign policy interests are clearly in Asia. They are certainly not going to put boots on the ground and nor should anyone else. Nor will America rein in Israel as they should have done decades ago. That tail will continue to wag the dog. In Syria the multiplicity of factions and the lack of a clearly desirable, nice, clean, human rights orientated potential victor means that although it is different to Afghanistan there is nothing any military intervention is going to get other than a good hiding. The policy therefore has to continue with the diplomacy, probably unsuccessfully , and meanwhile to work with the country's neighbours to do everything possible to ease the humanitarian crisis by building and supplying (temporary) refugee camps along the borders.
-The penny or cent is slowly beginning to drop in some places that many so called eco-friendly policies of using only renewable sources for fuel and power generation are far from being what they claim and come at a massive price. Converting power stations to wood burning has to be lunacy. They do not carefully consume handfuls of sticks gathered in from the nearest woodlands. They gulp down piles of wood,- every hour, night and day. Wood doesn't renew itself in a few days. It takes years. That means that to meet eco targets we would have to cut down practically every rainforest on the face of the globe,- and still not have enough wood. The results would include extensive desertification and world food shortages. Eco? Good for mankind? No. Hideously expensive and self defeating? Yes.
- Moves in the UK to speed up and simplify planning approvals, particularly for strategic infrastructure projects, are being noisy resisted by countless "Say No To...." groups. It isn't that hearings are being abolished. Nor are appeals on the way out. It's simply proposed that those be reduced to to from the current four. Similarly the ability to demand judicial reviews of almost anything the government proposes to do /has done is also under question. The reviews aren't being abolished, just reined in so that the government is more free to do what it was elected to do,- get on and do the things necessary to run the country now and in the future. That does not seem unreasonable in the face of UK's visible slide from sclerosis into paralysis.
-Talking of sclerosis, the Sunday Times reports that poor old diarist Samuel Pepys had to spend a whole Saturday in the 1760s producing a report on how to sort out the naval dockyards at Portsmouth. A whole Saturday for one man! That's not bad compared to the 3 years Sir Howard Davies , working with countless others, has been given to come up with (another) review of UK airports policy. The reality, -as many know,- is that the recommendations of this group could be produced at the end of a single day spent in some gloomy hotel basement by a gathering of real aviation experts. They might lack a few of the minutae, minutes of meetings with newt conservationists, badger protection groups and others but they would on a few flipcharts converted into a plain old fashioned Powerpoint presentation knocked up by a couple of young grads in the teabreak simply and clearly declare the obvious. As it is, the 3 year study, due for mid 2015 ,is in the best British tradition likely to simply form the basis for..... further discussion and consultation. Stretch , yawn and the popping of more corks in Amsterdam and Paris.
Footnote: The Roskill Commission thoroughly investigated the airports question and came up with the answer in 1973. According to 7 commissioners who did not live in Buckinghamshire ,the best alternative to Heathrow ( seen then as an addition to , not a replacement for it) is at Wing/Cublington in Buckinghamshire. The 8th member, who lived in Buckinghamshire, dissented and,- won. The answer still is correct. Apart from leaving it where it is at Heathrow, the right place for London's primary hub airport would be Wing/Cublington ,nicely situated between London and the large population areas around the south midlands and Birmingham. It could even be linked to the much objected-to new HS 2 high speed rail line. That would allow both "Say No To..." protest groups to be rolled into one. A big cost saving for the protest groups. Buckinghamshire County Council is already spending six figure sums of taxpayers' money on fighting HS2 or at least its preferred route through the "influential" mid Chiltern corridor. They would though probably consider more favourably an alternative, more southerly, route closer to where many more but much less "influential" people live. That's the reality of local "democracy". There aren't too many celebreties, retired actors, barristers and the like in High Wycombe.
