Bundesbank to refuse bailout recipients' sovereign bonds as collateral from May.

Ekathimerini carries the report linked here. This is not however merely an extremely serious matter for Greece, for it also starting from next May will restrict the activities of many banks previously using Portuguese and Irish sovereign bonds as collateral.

As the Greek newspaper points out in the following quotes the end game finally seems to have now arrived for Greece, as even its new issue bonds following the "voluntary" haircut will now seen to be as worthless as those they replace:

Up until this week Greek bonds had been used by banks to draw liquidity from eurozone central banks and the European Central Bank. However, the ECB announced on March 21 that it was giving eurozone member states’ national central banks the right to reject bonds of banks guaranteed by states that are in European Union and International Monetary Fund reform programs: Greece, Portugal and Ireland, for the time being.

In this context, the Bundesbank has become the first of the eurozone’s 17 central banks to refuse these countries’ bonds as collateral, according to a report in Friday’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This means that as of May, the German central bank will cease to lend to commercial banks that use Greek, Irish or Portuguese bonds as collateral.

The report came to my notice via The Slog, John Ward's views may be read from here.

An Ayn Rand quote for the weekend.

It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. Ayn Rand

Francis Anthony Aylmer Maude MP Why near power! Not, why not resign?

The wikipedia entry on this individual is linked here. No wonder our nation is on its knees!

Everything he has been near or touched carries the taint of those things that are destroying Great Britain - Cambridge, Inner Temple, Morgan Stanley,Westminster Councillor, Assistant Whip, PC, the list is seemingly endless regarding his establishment contacts yet not one single actual accomplishment!

How typical of this entire Cabinet, it appears, if only there were somebody beyond this normal mode standing in the London Mayoral elections, totally unconnected from the three main parties. Then the great metropolis of London, England's Capital City, could register a protest against the ruling political non-entities and yes-men, just as Bradford West did last night!

If only Maude would resign, but that of course would be quite out of character, being a possibly human response to the foolish accident of the housewife tonight suffering 40% burns after transferring petrol from a can to jam jars (for her daughter to hoard on this Minister's advice), by the open flame of her cooker in her suburban kitchen.

Probe the underpinnings before accepting EU Firewall headline number

Bloomberg TV is reporting from Copenhagen that the Euro fire wall will be €934 Billion, a suspiciously precise figure, especially given the Finnish Finance Minister's remarks earlier, that anything over €800 billion would be a struggle for his nation.

FXStreet is using that number as its own forecast, linked here. That figure is also used by the Irish Times quoting the Austrian Finance Minister, read here.

The crucial point which will probably only truly sink in as next week advances, is that all these statements come from individual who hold positions which have made a mockery of both truth and economic statistics since May 2010. Nothing they can erect will either work or restore their totally lost integrity!

English Democrats reveal Tory motivations behind England's Planning Betrayal

Read the latest from the Leader of the English Democrats Party, "New City in England! Why?"  linked here.  An earlier report from the same source on Cameron's Conservatives themselves is here.

Galloway's Bradford Spring. Euro Yields resume upwards surge .

The gadzillions of virtual costless three year LTRO funds poured into the Euro financial markets by the deranged Draghi at the ECB since the beginning of this year have finally been seen by the bond markets for the placebo that  would always prove.

The Wall Street Journal reports the return to reality in a Bond Market report linked here, from which comes this quote, offered for those still requiring proof of what this blog has been warning for almost a decade:

The two-year Italian government bond yield rose by 0.38 percentage point to 2.69% while the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond climbed 0.16 percentage point to 5.24%, according to Tradeweb. In Spain, the two-year yield rose by 0.16 percentage point to 2.54%, while the 10-year yield climbed by 0.16 percentage point to 5.45%.

In so far as those warnings concern the politics, constitution, democracy and Parliament of Britain, I suggest the report of George Calloway's huge victory in the Bradford West by election would form wiser reading for the scumbags presently controlling our country's politics this morning. The consequences of their own corruption and lies are littered across this blog's posts, such that MPs can never claim that they knew not what they wrought!

Italian bank loses €4.51 Billion but claims no ill effects

Founded in 1472, Italyy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest running bank, has survived a few ups and downs but toady must have been among the strangest. According to a report in the Washington Post, linked here:

(This limited quoted is assumed to comply with AP's copyright restrictions)

The Italian bank, which was founded during the Renaissance in 1472, said the losses were mainly due to charges taken to deal with the impact of Europe’s debt crisis and the economic slowdown. It wrote down the value of its assets by €4.51 billion, including €1.3 billion in bad loans.

Because the write-down is an accounting move, it will have no impact on cash-flow, liquidity, or future earnings potential, the bank claimed.

What a miraculous affect the appointmentment of the magical Mario Monti former EU Commissioner and perhaps even Merlin himself (in a former life,) has had on that formerly rather dodgy looking country. Now vast losses can be incurred by Italian banks (and perhaps with a little help from the similarly magical magician Mario Draghi,) tricky concepts with which the bank must have been struggling for 640 years, like credit and debit or profit and loss, totally disappear!

I wonder who in Italy will lose another few €billion tomorrow, without consequences whatsoever? It will not be any Euro Zone taxpayers!

Dutch referendum on EU continuance mooted!!

Oh Dear! Great illustration that came from an even scarier article on Market Oracle, read here.

One trembles in anticipation of what tomorrow may bring!

Some facts for Cameron from the UK's OAPs

Dear Prime Minister The RT. Hon. David Cameron, MP.
 
         I wish to ask you a Question:-  "Is This True?"
 
I refer to the Pension Reality Check.   
 
Are you aware of the following ?
 
The British Government provides the following financial assistance:-
 
 
BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
 (bearing in mind they worked hard and paid their Income Tax and
National Insurance contributions to the British Government all their
working life)  
 
Weekly allowance: £106.00?       
 
 IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
 (No Income Tax and National Insurance contribution whatsoever) 
 
Weekly allowance: £250.00
 
 
BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
 Weekly Spouse Allowance: £25.00?       
 
 
ILLEGAL  IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
 Weekly Spouse Allowance: £225.00 
 
 
 BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
 Additional Weekly Hardship Allowance: £0.00?     
 
   ILLEGAL  IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
 Additional Weekly Hardship Allowance: £100.00 
 
 
A  British old age pensioner is no less hard up than an illegal 
immigrant/refugee yet receives nothing
 
BRITISH OLD AGED PENSIONER
 TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT £6,000?       
 
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES LIVING IN BRITAIN
 TOTAL YEARLY BENEFIT: £29,900
 
Please read all and then forward to all your contacts so that we can
lobby for a decent state pension.
 
After all, the average pensioner has paid taxes and contributed to the
growth of this country for the last 40 to 60 years. 
 
Sad isn't it? Surely it's about time we put our own people first.
 
Please have the guts to forward this.
 
I JUST DID!

Another index starkly highlights German oppression of its Euro Group neighbours

The Euro Currency crisis has surely shown to all of Germany's supposed partners withion the common currency that "solidarity" and "partnership" have no meaning in a German concept. Unemployment figures within Germany, just announced, have fallen by 180% more than a cross section of economists anticipated, according to this report from Reuters!

All this against a backdrop of housing price collapse and mass youth exodus from Ireland, a General Strike in Spain, looming default in Greece and Portugal and puppet governments having been installed in Italy and Greece.

Those responsible, have sent their finance ministers to Brussels to again consider the next steps in the further destruction of European democracy over the course of today and tomorrow. Bismark would be proud!

UK House Price Conspiracy

The huge underlying confidence trick the Coalition Government and its immediate predececessor have been running against the taxpaying voters who put them into power, is about to unravel and be fully exposed. The consequences will be most likely gruesome and certainly practically impossible to predict.

The depths of self-deception that Britain's property purchasers have allowed to take root deep within their minds has beggared belief for decades, but become almost obscene in its ridiculousness since the economic collapse of 2008 which has steadily been mounting since then.

The recent largest monthly property price falls, supposedly a surprise to property professionals and State Conmen combined, is reported in Reuters this morning, linked here.

It is for this result the banks have been saved the penalties of their excesses, our savings stripped by negative interests rates and our currency trashed by the printing of £ billions, through virtual quantatitive easing chicanery.

In the process, real wealth creation potential within the wider country is in desperates straits, while our utilities and almost all else of value have been sold off to our continental competitors, while the proceeds have been spent by the politicians in power and their side-kicks in a final obscene, self-indulgent splurge of excess to make themselves feel momentarily fantastically wealthy in comparison to their formerly held ideas of what constituted worldly wealth.

Rio Tinto planning to sell its diamond operations.

The worlld's third largest mining corporation, Rio Tinto, has lately been reported as mulling the sale of its diamonds business, one such report is here.

It strikes this blogger as odd in the extreme that at a moment when solid assets of any kind must be worth far more than the paper money trash produced by Western Governments and their serially lying leaders, any business managers running a minerals business could possibly consider such a move, unless perhaps it were to gain a secure niche in a business involving a more recently fashionable short resourced natural asset!

Ireland sets EU Fiscal Compact Referendum date as 31st May

On this occasion the the EU has coped in advance with the prospect of a referendum rejection by requiring agreement only of those intended to be the victims of the provisions, reduced to a maximum of 12 euro group members from the present total of 17.

Nevertheless the debatte and eventual vote of this most recent Irish referendum, is certain to be of some interest and some of the deal's secret background, details and shenanigans seem certain to be revealed throughout the campaign, so this blog will be following events as they move along, as it has done in all the other many referendums carried out across the EU all so far, without exception completely ignored, when choosing a course other than that supported by the putative tyranny!

A report from the Irish Times this morning is here.

Another of Europe's banks is swallowed

Read what little we are allowed to know from the link to the EU report from today, here.

Nothing of substance will be revealed, all money matters are now conducted in the EU behind a curtain of lies and a screen of secrecy; note this quote from the EU statement:

The non-confidential version of today's decision will be made available under case number SA.26909 in the State Aid Register on the DG Competition website website once any confidentiality issues have been resolved. New publications of state aid decisions on the Internet and in the Official Journal are listed in the 'State aid Weekly e-News'

More on Portuguese Local debts as opposed to busted banks is here.

Firewall fraud set to shortly seal the Euro's fate

Reuters is reporting that Finnish EU Finance Commissioner Olli Rehn, is claiming the detail of the Euro Groups' Euro rescue fund, more recently referred to as a firewall (lattice-worked marshmallow and caramel no doubt) will be decided as to "design and combined size" in Copenhagen this coming Friday.

This report, comes it should be noted, on the back of Rehn's own nation's tricky constitutional situation on raised firewalls for the Euro, perhaps providing an insight into the use of the term "combined size"?

In theory the "firewall" will be a combination of the existing EFSF and the planned ESM. In reality it is the back-up financial guarantee to be provided by Germany in payment for its taking over the governance and control of the other Euro Group countries, and suspending their democracies and pretence of economic self-rule far into the long distant and indefinite future. Was ever an almost entire Continent, of so many differing independent nations, bought by such blatant treachery, over so little time and with such obvious intention throughout?

The Euro project makes the Trojan Horse scheme appear  the work of a masterful genius!

The present EU stance vis a vis the OECD is discused in a WSJ report here,

Early Spring Break - Back soon for the Euro's denouement!

This blogger is now taking what he considers will be a well earned rest with some recreation!

I should be back and blogging for the long-awaited final phases of the Euro Currencies Crisis opening I am guessing from early next week.

UKIP gains its first two new councillors from 'Orrible Osborne's 'orror budget

The report on the young couple (she a former Mayor of Windsor) crossing over to UKIP from the Conservative Party may be read from here.

Osborne Baronetcy, of Ballentaylor yields its heir zero taxable income apparently

The Telegraph here confirms what I thought I heard on the radio this morning, upon which I commented in the posting immediately beneath this, that the Chancellor of the Echequer, George Osborne stated he does not pay the top rate of UK income tax, read here, of which this is a quote:

"Speaking on the BBC's Today programme this morning, Mr Osborne claimed his budget demonstrated "maximum ambition" and a "sensible tax reform for a modern age". He also revealed that he was not a 50p rate tax payer."

When the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government took power it was announced, as also reported in the Telegraph, linked here, that Cabinet Minister's salaries would be £134,565 per year.

The top rate of tax kicks in above £150,000 per annum, after allowances of course, but it nevertheless seems just a little peculiar, if not to suggest well-contrived that the heir apparent to the Osborne Baronetcy, of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon, dating back to 1629, following in his forebears footsteps has not been sufficiently favoured by his ancestors to benefit from the small amount of extra income necessary to pitch him into the upper tax bracket!

Perhaps some careful tax planning has been underway within the Baronetcy, perish the thought it could involve any morally repugnant aggressive tax avoidance!

'As 'orrible Osborne admitted he is a "morally repugnant" aggressive tax evader?

On the Radio 4 Today Programme this morning, George (née Gideon) Osborne denied he was a 50p in the pound tax payer!

Most commentators, myself included, believed and stated during their budget coverage yesterday that because of their high salaries, paid by the long suffering tax payers, all Cabinet Ministers, let alone the more senior ones, must fall into that category.

Yet Osborne, also believed to have access to large independent means, almost at the beginning of his post budget day radio broadcast, denied that he had been within that category, which by the end of that same interview, saw those who had taken steps to avoid paying the 50p rate when previously their income was sufficient so to do, being described as "morally repugnant aggressive tax avoiders", rarely I would guess, has a British Chancellor of the Exchequer been so open as to his own motivations!

Even the slow-witted morons of Britain's MSM Tory press grasp Osborne's outrage

The lamentable electronic Daily Telegraph, rarely ever worth a visit these days, leads with the following headline "Budget 2012: 'Granny tax' hits five million pensioners" while the ever more irrelevant Daily Mail has it as follows "Osborne is picking the pockets of four million pensioners: Elderly will foot the bill for Chancellor's tax giveaway"

As is nowadays typical, this blog was among the first to spot the disaster that this budget will prove to be. This will be perticularly true among the traditional supporters of the evermore disastrous Conservative Party, read my initial post of yesterday afternoon from here.

Attention must now shift to the Conservative backbenchers who allow this governmental abomination to continue to draw breath. John Redwood MP in his morning posting today, contents himself with a bland description of the measures and a dry description as to how far Osborne has departed from earlier intentions. As I replied by twitter -  "So the always obvious question now looms ever larger – Why do you remain on the backbenches serving this wayward Coalition?"

That question must this morning be troubling many on the Conservative backbenchers who are now seeing their main active party supporters being slowly crucified by Cameron, Clegg and Osborne in support of their friends the crooked bankers and our natinional exploiters within the EU.

John Ward of The Slog also has spotted this glaring contrast, read here.

Open Europe spots £2.9 Billion increase in our 2010 - 2012 EU Costs in past 4 months

The full report from Open Europe is linked here, while the mind blowing chart provided from the budget back-up material is shown here:

British taxpayers lose over £1 billion in secret post deal after EU approval

I doubt that anything could better rub in our utter subjugation to the EU than the fact that a secret UK government deal with our postmen has to now be first signed off by Brussels. Read here.

Btitain's taxpayers who get to stump up the more than one billion pounds it will cost are not even allowed to know what is involved!

Osborne hits the soon to retire who have saved!

Being born about 60 to 64 years ago in Britain really was a bad idea. Things started well enough, you missed the bulge and class sizes in state school were thus falling from the high forties to lower levels, you could later rightly argue you were not a real baby boomer, as that ghastly phrase caught on to brilliantly reflect that age group's tastes and habits, but lately things have been not so good.

The completely barmy Brown took a cleaver to your pension funds and what is now left on anything you may have saved through a lifetime's work will, after the credit crunched stockmarket crash, actually payout remarkablly little in cash, especially when compared to all those wild high estimates you received once a year while you struggled to maintain the insurance payments.

Worse comes when you see the ludicrously small annuity yields that your depleted pension fund cheque will actually now buy.

George Osborne, just out of short trousers knows nothing of this, for this afternoon he has added yet more misery on this penalised group, whom he has repeatedly hit in his earlier budgets, with stepped rises in the age they must reach to ever gain a state old age pension.

Now for those who saved and thought they were at least to get the extra age related income tax allowance of £2,450 at 65 and £2,615 at 75 years (this years figures) comes an extra blow. Any born after April 1948 will from today get nothing!

This change the Treasury smugly estimates should yield an extra billion pounds in taxation according to the BBC, or put in other words an extra billion pounds will be removed from elderly taxpayers pockets and destined straight for the pockets of Cabinet Ministers and MPs, all of whom will benefit from their own increased allowances and the former group certainly even more from the lowering of the top income tax rate.

Hitting the elderly, that's the ticket George, kill em off before the next election eh?

UPDATE 22nd March midday - The Taxpayers Alliance has now done a review of the budget and it confirms my comments above. Their full report is linked here while the point I made is confirmed as follows:

Those turning 65 in 2013-14 or later
Those born on 6 April 1948 or later won’t get an age-related personal allowance. In 2013-14, they will get the same personal allowance as everybody else – £9,205 – instead of £10,500 if they had been born earlier. That implies they will get £1,295 less in personal allowance than they would under the current rules, which means they are about £259 worse off at the basic rate of tax.

There is a very useful BBC News Q&A report on this change which is linked here.

Bankrupt Britain's Budget

The air will be full of talk of removing Britain's least well off citizens from income tax today, whether that amount is set at 9, 10 or even 12 thousand pounds that talk will be a complete nonsense. The poorest in Britain are the most vulnerable to the obscene levels of almost two'thirds the costs of duty on fuel and the horrendously high indirect taxation sequestered by the 20% VAT required to feed the ever more voracious EU pigs, troughing in Brussels, Strasbourg and elsewhere all across Europe at Britons' expense!

Hidden charges are everywhere across British society all designed to keep a corrupt and worthless governing structure, that achieves nothing, in the luxury to which it has become accustomed. As I tried to illustrate last evening, in the video clip in the post below, the corrupt crooks in government will now sell anything to gain a few more years of power and indolence, which will soon leave the nation entirely penniless, without even owning our own infrastructure and utilities which otherwise might allow us to work our way free from the crippling debts and almost complete enslavement to foreigners.

To break free we must bring the politicians and civil servants responsible to trial and conviction so that the full details of their treachery can be grasped. We must abandon our addiction to public provision of essential supposed services such as in ill-health and the provision of what has become non-education . We must wake-up and realise nobody else can do these things for us, we must look to ourselves.

Osborne's budget today will be one long string of lies and self-delusions, listen in to the longwinded total garbage if you have the stomach for it, this budget like all the others since John Major's premiership, will merely defer the real day of reckoning. It will not end the Bank of England's continued billions being squandered to support an essentially bust and surely crooked banking system that keeps our rotten sustem just about ticking over. The West's depression looms nevertheless, the Euro Crisis is the clear warning sign. Britain given historically literate and adroit leadership could avoid the worst, instead we are in the vanguard!

(Update O740 GMT Read Quiet Man's post this morning on the unrestricted use of credit cards by our civil servants as a further example of the contempt our rulers have for the suckers who must pay! I quote the penultimate paragraph "What we can be sure of is that the senior mandarins will fight like trapped rats to prevent any reform of the system. It’s one of the reasons they have to go, or be strung from the lampposts as and when we get around to them after hanging the MP’s and lawyers etc.")

Graphic thanks to Anglo Saxon Times Chronicle.

Cameron seems now set to sell Britain's roads to China?

Read how China is eyeing up their prey from here. Remind you of anyone?



Witterings from Witney today blames the electors, who could of dreamt that after Major and Blair could come Brown followed by Cameron backed by Clegg and with an upstart like Gideon about to announce a budget to the clearly bankrupt country.

We are like the troops under the lunatic played by Alec Guiness in the film clip above, penniless, straving and in rags, with little hope of survival but still pitifully reliant upon those who have led us into this mess.

When China owns our roads, like the French control our water and jointly with the Germans our electricity and gas supply utilities, will we still be free people, and how will the Chinese and the EU then divide our governance?

Opinion Poll warning for the French Presidential Elections

There are nine candidates in the first round, even were Sarkozy to win there would be a run-off with the second placed candidate unless a miracle occurred and the incumbent President gained more than 50% of the vote.

The following report in the New York Times this morning, linked here, is hugely confusing if you read this quote:

The Ifop/Fiducial poll of 1,638 eligible voters conducted March 11-12 found Mr. Sarkozy would garner 28.5 percent support if the first round, set for April 22, were held today, compared with 27 percent for Mr. Hollande. Mr. Sarkozy trailed Mr. Hollande in a projected second-round runoff in the same poll by 9 percentage points, 54.5 percent to 45.5 percent.

With a margin of sampling error of roughly 2 percentage points, the result put the two candidates virtually neck and neck. Previous polls put Mr. Hollande about 5 percentage points ahead in the first round.

Only the second round numbers have any real significance. Hollande at present looks like walking it!

EU wasting more €millions on a border crossing in Gaza.

The report comes within the regular Europa Express Midday briefing today and follows the dreadful remarks of Baroness Ashton last evening which further indicates she is totally obsessed with Gaza about which the EU is incapable of doing anything because it is now, quite rightly, even than ever before, distrusted by the Israelis!

Upgrading of Karem Abu Salem/Kerem Shalom crossing point in the Gaza Strip - 13M€
This project is part of the commitment made by the European Union Foreign Ministers in the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla in 2010 to extend the EU’s support to the improvement of the crossings infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. It is an EU crisis response measure under the Instrument for Stability (IfS). It will allow the expansion of the only currently open goods crossing point in the Gaza Strip and consists of the construction and expansion of hard infrastructure (loading and inspection areas, warehouses etc.) and the supply of equipment (IT, weigh-bridge, x-ray equipment). It will be carried out by the Palestinian Authority in full coordination with the Israeli authorities.

The apparent anti-semitism of Baroness Ashton

The blogosphere has already reacted in horror to the apparent anti-semitism of Baroness Ashton in bringing children's deaths in Gaza into discussion of the deliberate murder of Jewish schoolchildren in Toulouse. I have long pushed for the removal of this horrible woman from power, today I merely wonder if perhaps she does not perfectly represent what the EU has become and is therefore a very fitting High Representative. I just wish I did not happen to share her nationality!

Other comments on the internet so far are here, here and even from Australia here.

The fatal flaw of the NHS will destroy our country.

The Speaker of the House of Commons has today granted an emergency  debate under Standing Order 24 on the NHS Bill.

Fact Number One on the NHS

Medical science is advancing so fast with treatments so costly that the goal of free universal health care is now a total impossibility beyond utopia!

In pursuit of this impossible dream Britain's dwindling wealth is being squandered in a hopeless attempt to hide from this reality. Those benefiting from this "get out from austerity" so far provided by this coalition government, seem prepared to elude reality and sponsor a miriad other untruths to maintain their privileged positions in society by means of this sordid avoidance of the true facts. Many examples of such devious schemes have been evident during the passage of this disputed NHS Bill.

The debate today, coming as it does just before the budget statement, should address the above basic fact. The NHS Bill should be abandoned and the budget revised to impose swingeing cuts right across the NHS. Huge sacrifices in health care provision should always have been the obvious starting point for righting the nation's economy.

My comment to the EurActiv report on the Fisheries Council meeting today.

My comment to the EurActiv report on the shameful fisheries meeting held today is pasted herewith:

"The disgraceful manner in which the EU behaves towards the third world is particularly evident in the fisheries agreements by which it forces small, economically vulnerable, independent island sovereign states to hand over the treasures of their surrounding seas to be plundered by the voacious appetites of the giant factory fishing trawlers, deployed across the world as a consequence of the EU’s own once rich seas of Britain, Holland and Denmark having been greedily denuded of fish."

The above is from a posting titled "Europe’s appalling African colonial administrative attitudes now at play within the EU." posted on 'Orphans of Liberty' and 'Ironies Too' on Saturday 17th March 2012, please visit either blog for the full seriuosness and shame of what is now in progress to be fully appreciated.

By :

Martin Cole

- Posted on :

19/03/2012

The link to the posting on Ironies Too is here, while that on Orphans of Liberty is here.

EU's plunder of the seas to continue

A report on a meeting today of the EU Fisheries Council confirms, what all who have followed the dealings of the discraceful organisation which has deliberately plundered the seas for decades, namely the EU, will blindly and ruthlessly continue so to do, in total disregard of both prudency and even common sense. EurActiv is linked here. for those who which to read the contradictory claptrap between actual plans and the usual pious mumblings any EU press release reports.

I posted on Saturday last, on both Orphans of Liberty and this blog, the real intent and outcome of the EU fisheries policy and the fascist attitudes it demonstrates its leaders hold in a blog post titled "Europe’s appalling African colonial administrative attitudes now at play within the EU."

Note the following from the above linked EurActiv report:

But the conclusions stop short of measures that would reduce Europe’s fleet capacity, a politically contested safeguard against further depletion of the world’s rapidly dwindling fish stocks.

“This is the root of the problem,” Saskia Richartz, a Greenpeace spokeswoman told EurActiv. “There are just too many boats, and not enough fish - and that encourages illegal fishing and overfishing, including by large EU trawlers in the developing world.”

Greenpeace claims that in just 10 hours on 14 March, their ship the Arctic Sunrise took action to stop seven “EU mega-trawlers” - which can each catch up to 250 tonnes of fish a day - from hoovering up marine life off the West African coast.

Spain and Italy, the awful nightmare disguised by Draghi's LTRO's

No added comment is needed here from this blogger, just a quote of two consecutive paragraphs from the Acting Man blog of today linked here:

We would point out here: although the market is currently cutting Spain some slack in the wake of the ECB's LTRO's, Spain's debt situation is not any better from what it was in November of last year when the market panic was at its height. On the contrary, the situation is clearly worse now, as the government had to admit that last year's deficit was higher than advertised and that this year's will again be higher than originally planned. In short, if the market was in panic in November, it would actually have even more reason to be in panic today. This underscores that the main determinant of short term financial market action are perceptions and sentiment. Facts like those cited above work to alter these perceptions over time. Just wait for the LTRO effect to dissipate, and we will likely be back at square one.

Italian Shenanigans

Last week it was revealed that Italy had to pay Morgan Stanley some $3.4 billion in January that it owed on account of a derivatives trade that has blown up (more precisely, an interest rate swap that went exactly the wrong way – for Italy, that is). It seems that this is only the tip of the iceberg however: Italy is in the hole by $31 billion on its various outstanding derivatives bets.

Anti-EU electioneering in France reflects the reality of public opinion.

Where I live in France the EU seems not merely unloved, but often actively detested. That feeling is evidently fairly widespread across the country as the two main Presidential contenders seek to outdo one another in knocking the corrupt, authoritarian and tyrannical EU construct that their two parties have largely ennabled. Reuters records that reality in this report this morning.

What does that say about the state of Democracy in one of Europe's most important nations? As in the UK voters here now also have no candidate or party truly opposing the EU tyranny, with any realistic chance of winning, for which to vote.

I have been deprived of a vote by having been absent from the UK for what the anti-democratic authorities consider is too long, although my ties to the country are sufficiently strong that I receive a state pension, albeit insufficient to maintain life. I get no vote in France of course, so am relieved of any dilemma of making any choice in the area I was taught was that most precious thing for any Englishman, the right to help choose who would govern!

Next year in Germany, national electors will be presented with the exact same dilemma, how long can such a state of affairs be tolerated. In Germany's case, their elected leaders will at least pick the rulers of the entire Continent, so their dilemma is not strictly comparable to that of France. Cannot the national leaders of the member states see the dangers ahead?

Flight from the EU tyranny - some Irish statistics.

Chatting to family members in Australia over the past weekend we touched upon the large numbers of Irish people now arriving across the other side of the world to live. Seperately we had similar reports from Liverpool, where lack of useful qualifications are presumably less of a barrier to economic flight.

The Irish Times this morning provides details of a survey undertaken regarding the mass movement of people brought on in Ireland by the treachery of their own politicians, the betrayal of the EU and the economic misgovernance by the EU/ECB/IMF Troika, some quotes from that report are below:

One-third of those interviewed, some 33 per cent, are now living in the United Kingdom, 38 per cent are in Australia or New Zealand, 12 per cent in North America, 8 per cent in mainland Europe and 9 per cent throughout the rest of the world.
Asked if they were happier or less happy than when they lived in Ireland, 56 per cent said happier, 22 per cent were less happy and 22 per cent about the same.
When asked if their quality of life was better than in Ireland an even bigger majority, 70 per cent, said it was, with 11 per cent saying it was not as good and 20 per cent saying about the same.

Note the destinations chosen, the remainder of the Euro Zone wherein the common currency, which has destroyed Ireland's economy represents, contrary to its founders plans represents the smallest recipient of immigrants, while even the rest of the world manages more!

Britain, which probably provides the easiest choice is 5 per cent below Australia and New Zealand and as most Irish must be aware has no prospect of ever voluntarily joining the Euro.

Of course the common currency has failed, the facts bear that out even amongst the most unlikely sets of statistics!

Were Britain's minesweepers cause of Cameron's warm Washington welcome?

The announcement of the dispatch of the US minesweepers from San Diego to Bahrain is peppered with some caution in this linked report.

It thus appears far less awesome than the peacetime Presidential Executive Order covering resources and even loans which is now gaining extra attention in the US.

Certainly in 1987 Britain maintained four minesweepers based on Bahrain, see here and the US Navy Times indicates that may still be the case, see the following quote from this link:

Four minesweepers already are based with the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain under a “forward-deployed” arrangement. The ships remain in the region year-round, while their crews rotate in and out at six-month intervals from the mine force’s home base in San Diego.
The four ships to be deployed from San Diego, Navy sources said, are the Sentry, Devastator, Pioneer and Warrior.
In the Persian Gulf, they’ll join with the Scout, Gladiator, Ardent and Dextrous.
Left in San Diego will be only two ships, the Champion and Chief.
Four other Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships are forward-deployed to Sasebo, Japan — the Avenger, Defender, Guardian and Patriot.
The 1,379-ton minesweepers, crewed by 84 sailors, employ the SLQ-48 mine neutralization system to identify and destroy a variety of enemy mines. Support for the system, however, has waned in recent years as Navy planners looked ahead to new systems that would be operated by the Littoral Combat Ship. But the new systems remain in development, and mine force sailors have struggled to keep their SLQ-48s operationally capable.
The decline in mission effectiveness led to an urgent needs requirement last year from Central Command (CENTCOM), the combatant commander authority that oversees the Persian Gulf region, demanding a more effective mine countermeasures system. The choice was SeaFox, from Atlas Elektronik and Ultra Electronics, used by all British Royal Navy minehunters.
Britain also maintains several minehunters in the gulf region, where they regularly operate with the U.S. ships.
The U.S. Navy is buying three Seafox sets for its ships, along with upgrading six Seafox aircraft units for use with MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters. Those new systems are not scheduled to be operational until early next year.
The Navy could not immediately provide details on the additional helicopters that will be sent to Bahrain. Both helicopter mine countermeasures squadrons, HM-14 and HM-15, are based in Norfolk, Va.
Navy planners have been considering how to provide continuing support to a mine countermeasures force operating around the Strait, nearly 400 miles from Bahrain. The Ponce, an older amphibious ship that was to have been decommissioned this winter, is being refurbished in Norfolk for use as an afloat-forward staging base specifically to support mine forces, and the Navy is hoping to build two new ships for the role.

Hormuz closure preparations following SWIFT ban on Iran

A discussion paper on the apparent agreement on risk levels between Israel and the US, discussed here (which also reports Cameron's comments), have been followed this afternoon by Reuters reporting increased truck deliveries from Northern Iraq to Turkey and in the long run an eventual extra pipeline, read here.

This makes sense of the US executive order, tweeted earlier today from this blog, signed on Friday by President Obama which is sweeping in its peace-time powers, read here.

AGI from Italy reports four extra minesweepers are being sent to Bahrain as the sabre rattling continues, and Oman has issued warnings this afternoon, read here.

The US Navy in San Diego confirmed the movement of the minesweepers as reported by the LA Times, linked here.

A report dating back to 2007 from the USA is worth reading for more background. Link!

Background: During the Iran/Iraq war Iran tried to halt the flow of oil through Hormuz but was largely unsuccessful  due to the introduction of a convoy system.

My comment to John Redwood's post this morning - England's independence.

Martin Cole

Posted March 18, 2012 at 9:29 am | Permalink

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hear, hear!

A pre-budget horror video

H/T Tom Paine! On sick government waste, read this!

US prepares for chaos - Obama's Emergency Executive Order on Resources 16/3/12 & JPM

The order signed on Friday by President Obama may be read here from this link to the White House.

Signs of growing economic stress were also available last night with this whistle blower's letter regarding JP Morgan, linked here. A quote:

It is rather surprising that what should be well known liabilities on our balance sheet have not erupted into wider scale scrutinization. I call all honest and courageous JPMorgan employees to step up and fight the cronyism and wide-scale manipulation by reporting the truth. We are only helping reality come to light therefore allowing a real valuation of our banking industry which will give investors a chance to properly adjust without being totally wiped out.

Europe's appalling African colonial administrative attitudes now at play within the EU.

Two items from worldwide internet press reports stay in my mind from yesterday. The first was a statement that in an East African country the population now viewed their former British colonial rulers more favourably than their present rulers. The second was the incredible affront to democracy (and to those who died for freedom in Europe down the centuries) that was delivered by a spokesperson for EU Commission President Barroso, on which I blogged on Ironies Too, linked here. I repeat that short incredible statement here:

"Those who compare the EU to the USSR show a complete lack of understanding of what democracy is and show a lack of respect for those who have fought for freedom and democracy."

The disgraceful manner in which the EU behaves towards the third world is particularly evident in the fisheries agreements by which it forces small, economically vulnerable, independent island sovereign states to hand over the treasures of their surrounding seas to be plundered by the voacious appetites of the giant factory fishing trawlers, deployed across the world as a consequence of the EU's own once rich seas of Britain, Holland and Denmark having been greedily denuded of fish.

Britain as part of the EU, now shares in the shame of being associated with these odious practices. It was not always like that, as the report from the East African nation mentioned above clearly shows. One book contrasting the differences in colonial administration between Britain and the countries of mainland europe is The River by Edward Hooper. Another which I have yet to read, my copy being still in the post, is the biography of my great-aunt, Margery Perham, entitled Into Africa by C. Brad Faught, which I trust will leave neither Britain nor my family with much of which to be ashamed. Such cannot be said of the first mentioned book which theorises that the spread of HIV from the simian species could well have been a legacy of colonial practises during Belgium's African rule.

My own experiences of the difference between colonial governance as practised by mainland europeans and those of the British Empire were formed whilst spending almost the entirety of 1962 in delivering petroleum products to the seaports of the colonies all around Africa from the Congo to the Red Sea. While mostly calling at the English-speaking colonies I frequently saw at first hand the circumstances of ordinary Africans in the Portuguese East African territory at Beira and Lourenco Marques, but also West Africa in Lobito and Luanda, where the fighting was already underway. Once I penetrated far up the Congo to Ango Ango, almost reaching Leopoldville, that enduring monument to Belgium's shame.

Why now do Britain's present political leaders choose to set aside past good practice and submerge ourselves with the worst that Europe has to offer - Belgian and Portuguese administration in the form of Van Rompuy and Barroso, under the guiding control of France and Germany which has already resulted in the positioning of puppet governments both in Greece and Italy!

John Redwood MP queries on his blog this morning why some amongst us, constantly push for Britain's withdrawal from the EU. Staying within is shameful, it is not a matter of trade and economics, but rather democracy and once again upholding the beliefs for which Britain was once proud to both stand and fight. Little and smallminded tinpot putative dictators like Barroso will never be able to understand that concept. Small countries tend to have small histories and thus their leaders little comprehend the importance of being able to stand tall in the world!

(This post first appeared on the web site Orphans of Liberty)

My reply to John Redwood this morning - Quitting the EU

Martin Cole

Posted March 17, 2012 at 9:28 am | Permalink

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Questions 1 and 2 do not require my guesswork.
Question 3 on an elected President I would guess such will probably be introduced as a token response to the democratic deficit as once conside by VdGd’E in his convention. A useless sop IMO!
Question 4 the interesting bit. The present UK, its system of governance, its national structures, its faith in the monarchy, civil service and present political parties are all in the process of being destroyed by the reality of what the EU has become.
Elected Mayors and English independence following devolution possibly involving ancient concepts such as lawful rebellion might play their part!
On the other hand our MPs could begin to perform the functions for which we pay them, ie by first restoring parliamentary governance.

George Clooney and the Horn of Africa.

Has George Clooney taken the following advice, one must wonder this morning when reading this linked news report, which quote is drawn from this fascinating pdf file

It has been the author's experience in Africa and elsewhere that knowledge of a country's history and culture is essential to opening doors and establishing and maintaining friendships and contacts.(Walter S Clarke, Background Information For Operation Restore Hope, 1992-93)

Should this no doubt very busy celbrity not have time to read the entire document, Section 5 has much of the history which as the author points out in this passage could be extremely significant:

A Somali elder once complained to the author that his son, a senior military officer in Djibouti, was bringing "ignorant strangers" to his home. An "ignorant stranger" was defined as someone who could not recite his family genealogy to the 17th generation.

I feel sure that a film star and film producer of such renown would not wish to be ever considered as such as "an ignorant stranger," for all his no doubt noble and well meant intentions!

Barroso insults the memory of all those who fought tyranny.

The maoist Portuguese President of the EU Commission  has insulted all those who died fighting tyranny in Europe down the ages and the ideals of free individuals who ever sacrificed in Europe for their own beliefs.

Through a spokeswoman, this puffed up object Barroso released the following thoroughly shameful and disgraceful words, in support of the corrupt vermin who have now taken over and control almost the entirety of what we know as Europe, with a few brave exceptions such as in Switzerland and Norway:

"Those who compare the EU to the USSR show a complete lack of understanding of what democracy is and show a lack of respect for those who have fought for freedom and democracy."

This jumped up, power crazed upstart, now in his second period as President of the entirely appointed EU Commission, was born into a dictatorship and rose to power on the back of militant discontent in a country suffering the economic turmoil of an abrupt end to a vicious colonial regime.

The EU Commission, the EU Parliament, with no powers to institute legislation and indeed can even have their own legislative amendments withdrawn at the whim of the Commission or equally secretive EU Council,  plus all the other revolting offshoots and subsidiaries of the EU, shame the very word democracy and downgrade freedom to a format of rights thoroughly alien to any concept of dignity for the individual.

The report on this statement is here.

The sick political minds that would tap oil stocks during heightened Mid-East tensions

The Guardian reports, among other sources, that President Obama and PM Cameron "huddled" over a cost reduction use of strategic petroleum reserves yesterday. Translated this could only have been a US ploy to gain votes for the Democratic party nominee in the coming elections, Britain having no such reserves other than in the smallest conceivable quantities set aside strictly for defensive use.

The world runs on oil, to think that even one second's consideration could have been given to such a treacherous and outrageous notion at a time when the threat to safe navigation through the Straits of Hormuz has been under consideration for several weeks beggars belief. It comes close to signal an intent to abandon one's national defence for the gain of another term in office!

The self-serving and thoroughly disgusting opportunism of the two men presently in control of the supposed democracies of both Britain and America is a startling damnation of the principles and priorities of both their electorates.

EU Fiscal Treaty ratification doubts

While the MSM made much of Sarkozy improving his poll position vs. Hollande in the first round of votes, the latter is so far ahead in second round polling plans the outcome presently seems in little doubt. The planned changes to the fiskalcompakt could thus make a mockery of the charade presently being played out in the EU, that as constructed this new 25 member international treaty holds the key to the terminal sickness of the common currency.

A report this morning makes this clear, read Reuters from here, which spells out the changes Hollande may impose together with the fact his proposals are gaining support from the left in Spain and Germany. In the latter country's case Der Spiegel  reports other moves might be needed for Merkel to get the measures through even before Hollande's demands are met.

My reply to John Redwood this morning - Fisheries

Martin Cole

Posted March 16, 2012 at 7:09 am | Permalink

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The EU has quite deliberately as a matter of intentional policy been destroying the fish stocks around the British Isles. I have been reugularly blogging on this fact since 2003 without any affect.
This is a prime example of the hidden agenda of the EU to economically pillage the British Isles. Had they thought that the British people would not eventually reclaim their assets in their surrounding seas they would never have condoned such action in consideration of their known long term interests. It is good to finally see the Backbench Business Committee now consider such a proposal.
There is a typical example of one of such posts from 2oth October 2003 quoting the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) report on the destruction quoted in full on Ironies Too this morning, in view of its length.
I would wager the Continentals who planned this pillage are amazed that our politicians are so inept we have allowed this plundering to continue for so long!

 A search link to other Ironies blog links is here. The posting of 10th October 2003, referred to above, was as follows:

EU Confirmation of Fisheries Destruction


The midday Press Releases from Brussels today include this confirmation of how they have almost totally destroyed Britains fishery stocks and future. (Remember this has been accomplished with the connivance of several British Governments; mainly Conservative) :-

Quote

The first indications from the scientific advice released by the independent International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) confirm the need for the recovery measures proposed by the European Commission to ensure the rebuilding of a number of endangered fish stocks. ICES advice is rather stark for a number of stocks including cod in the North Sea, Skagerrak, Eastern Channel, Irish Sea and West of Scotland for which ICES advises zero catch. Its advice is the same for whiting in the Irish Sea. In the case of hake from Ireland down to Portugal, ICES recommends rebuilding plans and zero catch for the southern hake stock. Rebuilding plans are also advised for plaice in the North Sea, cod and plaice in the Celtic Sea and sole in the western Channel and Bay of Biscay. It is not all bad news, however. Some stocks such as North Sea haddock, mackerel and saithe are, according to ICES, in a more healthy condition. The issues that the Commission will discuss with the fisheries sector at the end of October will include ways of allowing continued fisheries on stocks that are in a more healthy state but that are caught along with endangered ones. One example is North Sea haddock whose catches include by-catches of cod which is currently an endangered stock. The advice can be found on the internet at http://www.ices.dk

Unquote

posted by Martin at 10/20/2003 03:35:00 PM

Another Knavish Knight - Sir Jeremy Heywood

I owe it to Douglas Carswell MP for tweeting this link to Quentin Letts article in The Spectator on the thoroughly odious sounding Sir Jeremy Heywood, read Talk Carswell from here and The Spectator article in full from here. Meantime recorded for posterity on this blog the following brief extract from the latter:

Astonishingly, this was Heywood’s first proper public grilling. To make it to Cabinet Secretary without submitting to this parliamentary wringer is like becoming head chef at the Savoy without ever having cooked quenelles. But Jeremy Heywood is not a front-line Freddie. He has been a Treasury high flier, head of policy at the Cabinet Office, a fixer for prime ministers since John Major. He has never run a big-spending department. Far too exposed. Please. That sort of thing is for the bungling Bob Kerslakes of this world.

Sir J. Heywood is a backstairs Bertie, a smudger, a whisper-in-the-PM’s-ear sort who shrivels from public view. The worry for Conservatives, and the rest of us, is that this shrewd murmurer, this eminence grease, has acquired unprecedented power over not only the Prime Minister but also Nick Clegg, Cabinet, the coalition and much of the rest of the state apparat. There is talk of Heywood obstructing secretaries of state, shafting Cameroons and organising Downing Street to his own convenience. We have gone beyond ‘Yes, Minister’ and now have ‘Yes, Sir Jeremy’. Worryingly, no one seems more in hock to him than our soigné, someone-take-care-of-that PM.

The Cameroons are dying like bees. Andy Coulson is long gone. The Wade-Brookses have also been swept away by Hackgate. Other parts of the Chipping Norton set are in retreat. Steve Hilton is fleeing to California.

Heywood remains.....

IMF changes rules to fit Greece and the Euro Zone.

The full report is in the Wall Street Journal linked here. The following is an even more eye-opening quote than this posting's headline, from the content of the article:

The fund has lent Greece proportionally more compared to Athens's IMF contributions than any other country in the fund's history. Also, most of the IMF's lending resources have been promised to euro-zone nations.

Years delay in Greek restructuring shifted $20 Billion from Banks to taxpayers!

The report on the ongoing rip off is linked here from ekathimerini. A quote:

Delaying Greece’s debt restructuring by more than a year reduced banks’ potential losses as firms trimmed their holdings and most of the risk shifted to European taxpayers.
When Greece was first rescued by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May 2010, lenders in other EU nations held $68 billion of its sovereign debt, according to the Bank for International Settlements. If Greece had defaulted, banks would have lost $51 billion at a 25 percent recovery rate.

Banks’ holdings of Greek bonds fell by more than half to about $31 billion over the next 15 months, according to BIS, cutting creditors’ losses at last week’s swap by at least 45 percent. Lenders are protected against further losses thanks to sweeteners from the EU to encourage the exchange. Meanwhile, Greece’s debt remains almost unchanged and the risk of future default is now mostly borne by the public. The same playbook is being used with Portugal and Ireland.

Europe's taxpayers should wake up, it is their savings, pensions, mortgages and job security in play here. Read the resignation letter of a senior Golman Sachs employee published in the New York Times yesterday (tweeted first thing yesterday morning by this blogger,) and remeber, it was under Goldman's advice that the earliest Greek skullduggery can be proven to have occurred. It is fomer Goldman employess now acting at the Head of the ECB and the EU puppet Prime Minister of Greece.

Have Civil Servants been lying to Parliament?

The interview with Margaret Hodge on the Today programme this morning was a bit of a damp squid, but this linked report more than compensates with the following quote:

"To argue that we were wrong to try and hold the civil servants accountable to parliament, especially when the evidence of the permanent secretary for tax was at best inconsistent and at worst may have been misleading is, I believe, wrong. And if we don't hold civil servants in non-ministerial departments to account, who does?"

More on this seems likely to follow after the appearance of the Chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee at the thinktank Policy Exchange today.

Is it too much to now entertain some slight hope that our MPs will begin to penetrate the stinking mess that UK public service has become?

HMRC, Civil Service Corruption, Goldman Sachs Resignation & Margaret Hodge!

In about half an hour from now, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme is planning to interview Margaret Hodge, present chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee which will presumably cover some, hopefully all, the matters mentioned in the title to this posting, it is planned at 0750 GMT.

The Independent has a report, linked here.

Greece is printing its own Euros!

The statement should come as no surprise for that is what the euro common EU currency is all about. However such production is supposedly under the control of the ECB for each member bank. Greek euros begin with the letter Y before the serial number, we must hope that any non-ECB authorised notes printed by the Greek Central Bank bear no other introductory letter, for if they did the euro currency would be immediately sunk.

The report on this apparent clandestine extra money production comes via The Slog, linked here, and the following is part of the translated source report from Belgium:

"Greece is printing its own Euros. The bank of Greece credits the accounts of Greek banks that would have been shutting their doors but for the emergency funds. All Greek banks are effectively bankrupt, it is that simple. These zombie banks can only survive through these ELA injections. Within the ECB system the only collateral for the euros created within the ELA mechanism - is the guarantee of the Greek state. I do not know what you think of this, but my humble opinion is that this guarantee is as good as worthless. You can change all sorts of declarations about the whys and wherefores of these operations, but believe me, the basic fact is simple: only by allowing the Greek central bank to print euros [create euros] can you avoid the implosion of the entire Greek financial system, with all the consequences that this would have for the eurosystem as a whole"

My response to John Redwood this morning on Afghanistan.

Martin Cole

Posted March 15, 2012 at 6:35 am | Permalink

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Well said and the shale oil point is well made, but I personally fear that the US move aginst China in the WTO regarding the rare earth minerals export ban probably has much more to do with our presence in Afghanistan than hydrocarbons. I see no quick resolution of that!

MEPS worried their troughs may run out!

A press release from the pampered pigs who inhabit the European Parliament has the following:

Parliament is "extremely worried" about the looming shortage of payments in 2012, which may overshadow the negotiations concerning next year's budget. In December 2011 no solution was found to claims for funding amounting to €10 billion, as some Member States questioned the financial data provided by the Commission. These payments had to be postponed to 2012 and will inevitably lead to a shortage of funds by the end of the year.

More on their plight here and here.

Olli Rehn slammed in the Irish Parliament for his "lecture".

Olli Rehn, a name destined to be best remembered, for a long succession of fine messes! Play his "Ironies Too" dedicated tune as he is criticised in this debate!

Sarkozy says he believes Euro crisis has passed?

Open Europe's daily news email today reports Sarkozy stating the following:

“Europe would not be financially, economically, socially and politically equipped to deal with another crisis of this importance”. He confessed that he believed at one point that the euro would implode, adding “I wasn’t the only one, this conviction was shared with Mme Merkel, we were close to a catastrophe”.

Strange comment, when one considers that everything Merkozy has so far achieved merely makes the crisis worse and the ensuing debts and risk from the inevitable break down of the ECB that much more costly and likely more rancorous, thus unlikely to be resolved without very real, probably bloody, conflict!

I had assumed the mood of optimism at the most recent EU meeting was a brave face put on to dupe french voters, surely these national leaders and EU apparatchiks do not really believe they have really tackled anything?

Stark staring bonkers Barroso

Cameron's good friend of thirty years.

"By their friends shall ye know them" I said in a post headline on this blog on 7th November 2010 in relation to Coulson/Cameron/Clegg as may be read here.

Later, on 22nd January 2011, I returned to the topic to register my amazement that nothing was being done in the Conservative Party to remove the piece of over-privileged corruption that was destroying our nation from office. It seems timely to repeat that message in full again, while drawing further attention to the particular Conservative MPs whom I then felt, because of their expressed policy positions and personal positions, owed the country some action - Messrs Liam Fox, Iain Duncan-Smith, Douglas Carswell and John Redwood. The first named has since resigned as a result of his own dubious actions in office, but what of the silence and inaction of the other three in the interim period now culminating in yesterday's further questioning and the Raisa riding implications? Here is that posting:

Saturday, January 22, 2011

The corruption that was Coulson will continue to stain Downing Street and the Coalition!

On 7th November last year I wrote the following on this blog:

With Coulson at the centre of Britain's Coalition Government the people of the country will sooner rather than later realise they are being governed by a small clique of PR savvy conmen.

Seventy-four days later, the former editor of the News of the World rag, that pretends to be a newspaper rather than the gutter scavenging scandalsheet it truly is, has finally resigned.

The damage perpetrated on the British political system, started under Blair with Alistair Campbell a former " journalist" on the NoW sister daily publication, the ghastly tabloid The Sun, will nevertheless continue as long as Prime Minister Cameron is permitted by his party to remain in office.

What have apparently decent, honourable and supposedly public spirited Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs been doing with their consciences during the intervening sevety-four days. Do they indeed actually have any consciences?

Why have the likes of Liam Fox, Iain Duncan-Smith, Douglas Carswell and John Redwood (who presumably entered politics to promote conservative ideas) been doing either serving alongside or voting with this shyster led bunch of con-artists?

David Cameron is a stain upon the Nation  and a disgrace to his office. Decent Conservatives, presumably led by David Davis should withdraw their support from the Coalition Government and bring a halt to this national shaming, so well epitomised by Blair's appearance before the Iraq enquiry yesterday, must we wait a decade before Cameron and Clegg are brought to similar account?

Labels: Andy Coulson

The foul News of the World has disappeared from the streets of Britain since the above was written, but now The Sun on Sunday spreads its tentacles in its place.

Meanwhile, for another 417 days on top of the 74 run up between the first two posts, due to the cowardice and lack of sense of any public duty amongst ordinary Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs the "small clique of PR savvy conmen" control everything and further deliver the nation's future financial well-being into the hands of similar shady figures behind the EU.

Target 2 Commitments from National Central Banks

The President of the Bundesbak said today, as reported by Reuters:

Weidmann repeated his concern about the TARGET2 imbalances, but said this did not pose a risk to its balance sheet.

"For me, the Bundesbank's TARGET2 claims do not pose a standalone risk, because I think that a breakup of the currency union is simply absurd," Weidmann wrote.He added that he did not expect a euro zone member with TARGET2 liabilities to leave the currency union, and even in such an unthinkable event the losses would be shared by all central banks in the euro system according to the individual share of paid-in capital - known as the capital key.

The comfort the President of the Bundesbank gains in knowing that his is not a "stand alone" must also presumably come from knowing that his banks exposure is for only 27.1341% of the total exposures as calculated from the information on these Capital Keys provided by the ECB as linked from here.

Of course alongside the Bundesbank in compensating for a withdrawal from the Euro stand many other nations also likely to join in the rush for the exit when the true horror of what Trichet and Draghi have wrought finally begins to be known. (Note behind the Bundesbank come these supposedly substantial countries with their percentage shares France - 20.38%, Italy - 17.91%, Spain - 11.90%, Finland - 1.25%)

No wonder the Bundesbank is now reported to be seeking an exit mechanism! Parachute or ejector seat I wonder?

PM Cameron's close friend Charlie Brooks arrested and under questioning by the Met.

The arrest of PM Cameron's friend, his wife and four others received much coverage on the BBC 1 TV lunchtime news so I have no hesitation in confirming it with this link.

There are various other reasons, many covered or hinted at in various postings on this blog in recent days as to why British politics, but perhaps now more importantly, England's politics, cannot be allowed to continue on their present track for much longer.

Tory MPs in the Westminster Parliament, backed by as many independently minded peers as possible, must now assert themselves!

Nigel Farage MEP addresses Barroso and Van Rompuy today in EP

There is some old "Carry On" film footage at the end of this short speech.

IMF to cancel €10 Billion of first Greek Bail Out commitment

The €28 billion the IMF is supposedly going to contribute to the second Greek Bailout is really only €18 billion as they will withdraw  €10 billion offered as part of the first package.

The Slog this morning indicates that the EU contribution may be even funnier money, read here.

Can Britain recover the money it gave under the EFSM please?

How can "orderly defaulted" Greece pay 18+% on its debts?

Bloomberg TV is happily chirrupping away this morning about the new Greek bonds yielding more than 18 per cent per annum. That is correct, no really!

That means that the debt will have easily increased more than five times in the eleven years before the bond is due for repayment! Are these idiots in the EU serious?

Britain cannot continue within the EU on these poll results!

Contrasting attitudes among 11,000 British voters polled on the EU and those on the Continent are revealed this morning in City AM, linked here:

No fewer than 60 per cent of Brits want a referendum to decide on Britain’s relationship with the EU; 60 per cent want a looser relationship or to leave altogether; only 14 per cent want more integration with Europe and a further 13 per cent want to keep things as they are. Voters oppose European control in almost all policy-areas including immigration (79 per cent), agriculture (74 per cent), trade links with other countries (60 per cent), financial regulation (68 per cent), rights for workers (66 per cent), laws on trade unions/strikes (80 per cent) and crime and justice (85 per cent). The UK political establishment as a whole is entirely disconnected from what the public actually wants.

As the EU is effectively the Government of Britain, this situation cannot continue within England where already much of the peoples right to self-government has been further pre-empted by powers newly devolved to the periphary.

A timely reminder of this dreadful state of affairs may be found in a BBC interview I can only make available from this link.

Article 61 Magna Carta and Lawful Rebellion

Anyoldiron commentating on the Daily Telegraph report on leaks from the Bill of Rights Committee, linked here, raises the topic of Article 61 of the Magna Carta.

I then discovered this question of lawful rebellion is still receiving considerable attention on the internet, for example here, from which I obtained this pertinent summary:

Chapter 61 of Magna Carta makes it clear that if a citizen is wronged by the Crown and no remedy is forthcoming after all steps have been exhausted, that citizen may take whatever action is necessary to obtain satisfaction without fear of reprisal. As Sir Winston Churchill wrote (A History of the English Speaking Peoples (1956)) “The underlying idea of the sovereignty of the law, long existent in feudal custom, was raised by it into a doctrine for the national state. And when in subsequent ages the State, swollen with its own authority, has attempted to ride roughshod over the rights and liberties of the subject, it is to this doctrine (Magna Carta) that appeal has again and again been made, and never as yet, without success.”

More recently, indeed from less than a week ago, I found this posting, which concludes as follows:

Many thousands of people have since become aware of the Lawful Rebellion that is available to them under the Magna Carta and in supporting the petition of the Barons, are themselves upholding Common Law which remains the Law of the Land – these Freemen on The Land, in entering into Lawful Rebellion are themselves petitioning the Queen under clause 61 of the Magna Carta inviting Her Majesty to uphold the oath she gave at her Coronation and to protect the sovereign rights of the people.

My reply to John Redwood on Backbencher's powerlessness today.

Martin Cole

Posted March 13, 2012 at 6:46 am | Permalink

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

I posted your speech on my blog last evening as soon as it appeared in Hansard – Hear, hear!
As you suggested, the problem goes much deeper, backbenchers are now part of a structure of government and control that is in the process of installing fascism in Greece, as I also posted this time yesterday as well as on the blog Orphans of Liberty.
What are our back bench parliamentarians doing about that?

John Redwood MP in Parliament today

Backbench Business Committee debate from late this afternoon, all contributions are on Hansard linked here.

Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):

This debate is about power and those on the Front Benches are misguided in thinking that it will enhance ministerial power to seek to influence the way in which Back-Bench business is conducted against the interests of all the Back Benchers who have turned up and spoken in today’s debate. It is wrong of those on the two Front Benches to impose a Whip on Ministers and shadow Ministers—[Interruption.] I accept, then, that there is no such Whip on shadow Ministers, but we will see. We will study the Division results with great interest to see the view that shadow Ministers take. It is wrong for Front Benchers to seek to stop Back Benchers continuing with their arrangements in a timely way.

I share a common cause with my Front Benchers as I happen to think, as they seem to, that Ministers do not have enough power. I think that there is a danger that under any Government we could have Ministers in office but not in power, but the reason is not our powerful Backbench Business Committee and the fact that it makes them come to this House to discuss things that they do not wish to discuss. If Ministers do that well, it enhances their stature. The reason is that too many decisions are taken by the European Union, overridden by the European Court of Human Rights or taken by independent quangos. We have the Environment Agency, the Bank of England and United Kingdom Financial Investments; Ministers are very limited in what they can do. I would happily make common cause with those on my Front Bench in getting Ministers more power and think that many of my colleagues would take the same view. We would be cheering them if they came to this House and said that Ministers needed more power to settle our borders, sort out the problems with prisoners, deal with taxation or money supply and so on. We want it to be accountable power, however, which is why we want Ministers to have more power but think that they should come to the House of Commons to answer for how they exercise it.

Ministers should get real. They are in danger of being in office but not in power because they will not take the accountable power they need to improve our country and to make the necessary changes. Their problem is not the Backbench Business Committee; their problem lies elsewhere. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench to wake up and smell the coffee, as the phrase goes these days, and to understand that people want a strong, proud and independent Parliament and that people want their Ministers to come here to talk about the difficult issues on any day. They want Ministers to talk about the issue that they do not want to talk about today, because that is what matters and that is what is topical. A strong and confident Government can debate anything at any time about their conduct, their views and their policies and the more we make them debate it, the stronger their case should be. I want the Opposition to challenge them, I want the Backbench Business Committee to challenge them and, above all, I want the decisions that matter for our country to be made here by accountable Ministers.