Britain and Europe

Ten years ago during the Christmas holiday period I joined a debate on the discussion forums run by the Financial Times newspaper on Britishness as opposed to Europeanism, in which I made much of Winston Churchill's rejection of Britain joining the nascent Common Market.  The  quote upon which I placed particular emphasis came from the Cabinet Papers of 29th November 1951 in which he stated that Britain should not become an "integral part of European integration" as it would "forfeit our insular or commonwealth wide character".

Here is a follow up posting from boxing day 2002, which develops some of the ideas I linked to and discussed from my posting to this blog of yesterday morning.

Curtain Raiser to the 2013 Constitutional & Currency Crisis

"Who should rule?" asked Plato, as discussed in my post to Samizdata almost ten years ago on the subject of the convention on a constitution for Europe, linked here.

Yesterday's rejection by a French Constitutional Court of the 75% upper tax rate passed by the elected socialist government, (Time report here,) is one sign of the constitutional crisis breaking out across the globe as the dreadful wasted year of 2012 comes to its last gasp.

The stand-off in the USA known as the "fiscal cliff", but nothing of the kind, is another such dispute over where in today's democracies final authority lies. The Executive Order on salaries issued by President Obama, see here, is further evidence of the cracks appearing in systems of governance worldwide!

Both France and the USA are sovereign nations, operating under written constitutions, so we can leave their legal experts to resolve these issues.

In Britain, with its Common Law complicated by its Treaty obligations to the EU, the crisis becomes less clear. PM Cameron in a New Year message has avoided the questions on Europe that Russian sources yesterday revealed he will cover in a speech on 16th January, yet one suspects passage into the New Year will reveal he has left matters too late.

The initiative on the EU in the UK has now passed to Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, who having been silenced in the European Parliament by a flip of his microphone switch, will all the more readily be listened to by his countrymen when Cameron's latest unacceptable fudge has been publicly verbalized.

 As I tweeted yesterday, Parliament can repeal the European Communities ACT 1972 making EU law no longer applicable within the UK and thereafter renounce and annul the TEU and TFEU, (the now governing EU Treaties) under the Vienna Conventions on International Treaties, background discussion on which topic is here for those interested in the legalities/difficulties.

The fate of Britain's place within the EU, and given our massive contributions to that damaged and flawed institution, the fate of the EU itself, will critically rest upon the policies and ideas put forward by the UKIP leader Mr Farage in his respsonse to what the Prime Minister, David Cameron actually says, once he finally condescends to address his fellow countrymen on the burning issue for this country and the world, apparently on 16th January, if the above linked Russian sources are to be believed.

UKIP will hopefully spend the next two weeks preparing their response to the speech, probably accurately forecast in the Russian comment. They should do so in the knowledge that they may well be called to give effect to these actions and policies much sooner than any of us could now possibly expect, the damn has long been breached and leaking, once it bursts events may move with frightening speed.

The terrifying incompetence in the EU which must be overthrown is well illustrated in the Russian quote from EU Commission Vice President Viviane Reding:

One of the weirdest arguments against Britain's stepping out of the EU came from vice-president of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding, who, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, attacked the British government's stance.

"Do you want criminals and pedophiles running around freely on the streets? Is that really in the United Kingdom’s interest? It is crazy," said Ms. Reding. Most probably, she sincerely believes that national police are less capable of handling crime than the pan-European bureaucracy, and has neglected the fact that it is the EU's constant policy of licking the boots of all kinds of perverts that actually encourages pedophiles and the like.

Such is the calibre of people and ideas that have run our country into the ground for forty years this Tuesday, it must now end!

EU Elite Face Exposure over Swiss Accounts

Bernard Connolly wrote in his 1995 book titled "The Rotten Heart of Europe" regarding monetary union of " ...duplicity, skulduggery, conflict; of economic harm done to every country in the caste interests of the elite; of the distortion of economic logic and the dilution of political accountability."

In France there is an ongoing scandal where the Minister in the Socialist Government, charged with cracking down on tax evasion, has been publicly challenged regarding his own past, yet backed by the Government itself busily hounding producers, such as Gerard Depardieu, who have so far remained within the country while paying tax at a level of 85%, read background on Minister Cahuzac here and here.

In Greece last evening problems surrounding the Lagarde list of Greeks with Swiss accounts reached new levels, read here.

Connolly ended the brief passage quoted above at the opening of Chapter 14 of his book ".. The contrast between ERM reality and ERM myth should of itself be warning enough against accepting the even more dangerous myths of EMU and 'European union'." Yet for forty years Britain's leaders have accepted the stink of corruption from what is now the EU, presumably for the same reasons as have left the French Government retaining Monsieur Jerome Cahuzac in his post as the scandal grows?

It is unconscionable that Members of Parliament allow this situation to continue as it clearly daily worsens while the financial burdens on the country grow and already exceed an amount its citizens can afford to pay - all "in the caste interests of the elite".

Will Dexia Bank become Europe's Lehman Brothers?

We were all spared the "Mayan misery" pessimists had prepared us for at this year's winter solstice - so what can the EU now manage to deliver upon us as a substitute? How about a European version of the Lehman Brothers' bank collapse? That should start the New Year amid suitable gloom and chaos!

Crunch day for the next episode, in the sorry saga that the Belgian/Franco Dexia Bank has recently become, has moved a step closer today with this release from the EU Commission's Press Office. EU Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, has approved the rescues undertaken to date. In what could well be a coup de grâce for many small savers and communal municipalities, conditionality has been attached, not least, I would imagine, as to where all the necessary money will be found. Dexia depositors, who ignored the old maxim "higher yields = greater risks", may still eventually realize that the reported backers for the remaining presumed assets will not rapidly appear from Germany. How much more of this can the ECB front given the dreadful news from Spain's similarly troubled Bankia only yesterday? 

To get some perspective go to this link to the Europolitics web site and read the stark facts in nice round numbers. €85 billion is to be spent to allow the "orderly resolution" of the problems at Dexia Bank; thus avoiding, we are informed, the potential "disorderly consequences" of resolving the problems at this bank and "allows for the controlled winding down of the largest bad bank in the EU with over €300 billion in assets".

I have been blogging on the farce and fiasco that is the Dexia Bank crisis for much more than a year now, and if the EU Commission determines this week that all has been in accordance with EU competition rules and policy, hollow laughter will be heard across Europe.

Consider if you will for a brief moment the 2008 Annual Report of this bank, linked here in pdf format. No need to peruse column after column of figures, nor table after table of the detail, or indeed paragraph after paragraph of the text. Just scroll to page 196 (page 198 of my pdf reader) and at the foot of the page on the bottom right read note E, which states:

§§§

E. Carrying amount of financial assets 

with renegotiated terms that otherwise 

should be past-due or impaired

No major operation is concerned by this point as Dexia is 

mainly active in the public sector.

§§§

How about that for a gem of a disclaimer, which for this reader at least seems to make complete garbage of every other fact and figure put across in all the remainder of the 250 odd pages of the document, signed in Antwerp in April 2009.

Warnings of the utmost suspicion of all coming out of Dexia were clearly picked up by the ECB, as any quick read of the Bloomberg Business News Report, linked here, dated 14th October, 2011, will show.

One other item of interest for those who have not been following this matter is the role of the Chairman of the Board of Directors, whose statement on the results is on page 8 and 9, namely one, Jean-Luc Dehaene. Mr Dehaene's name is mentioned in one of my earliest "Ironies Too" postings on Dexia, linked here, as once having received the European "Vision for Europe" award!

19/2/11 "Can it be any surprise to learn that Trichet is the latest recipient of the ‘Vision for Europe’ award? Previous laureates have included Jacques Santer, Jean-Claude Juncker, Jean-Luc Dehaene and Helmut Kohl, a depressing and dreary collection of functionaries in the ‘leadership’ of Europe. This award is granted ‘in recognition of outstanding achievements in taking Europe into the future’; self-evidently an exercise in fatuity.The first recipient of this self-congratulatory award was Jacques Santer, former EU President, forced from his extravagant sinecure by Paul Van Buitenen’s devastating accusations of corruption and fraud.

Mr Dehaene might be better remembered by English speakers as having been the nominee for President of the EU Commission, who was blackballed by then British PM John Major, only to be replaced by fellow Benelux candidate, Jacques Santer - now notorious for being the victim of the sole democratic act ever undertaken by the European Parliament, namely, the sacking of his entire Commission!

Thatcher and the Falklands - Heseltine's disgraceful slur

As 2013 dawns most ordinary British people are becoming aware how thoroughly disgusting their politicians are. One exception, in my view, although naturally not free of faults was Margaret Thatcher. Cabinet papers previously secret under the 30 year rule are being released today and hence the morning papers are full of previously unknown information regarding the 1982 Falklands invasion, see here, here and here.

One fact that will be absent is anything lending the remotest credence to the nonsense spouted by the treacherous Michael Heseltine, (who once also allegedly colluded with Continentals to remove Thatcher from power,) as put forth on the BBC Question Time programme on 17th February 2011 as may be seen here: 



In order for the lowest and most venal of politicians to gain power, any with decency or the slightest trace of moral values had first to be removed, this explains the constant denigration of Maggie Thatcher that has followed her since her 1990 resignation and the coming into power of the likes of Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Clegg as a presumed result of the takeover of the three main political parties by those with neither principles nor conscience! 

Antikythera mechanism probably predated the Greeks

There was that rare moment in Britain during the two bank holidays of this week, a fairly sensible and interesting programme on television.

Those who had their curiosity raised by the report on the Antikythera mechanism can find more information from Wikipedia here and Archimedes here.

It is amusing how self-styled scientists in a wide variety of disciplines, rigidly stick to the assertion that the birthplace of civilization was the fertile crescent and that the Greeks, who happened to be the first to record much of mankind's earliest knowledge, in a language that we can still understand today, were somehow the original discoverers of these basics of fact, rather than the mere scribes, new discoveries almost daily indicate that they were.

DNA research has now, in my view, irrefutably proven that civilization spread from the West to the East in the Mediterranean, in my view a possible world exception, due to the landlocked nature of that body of water. Elsewhere trade winds generally ensured that mankind and learning traveled the world's great oceans from East to West.

No matter the programme was a pleasure to watch and tantalizingly hinted at one of the main possibilities of the book on which I am still working, namely that we presently move further from knowledge and truth with each generation that arrives!

My post to IB Times on Angela Merkel

The first European to appear in a list of the world's top global thinkers managed to come in only at number twelve, and incredibly tirned out to be Angela Merkel who since May 2010, aided by her Finance Minister W. Schäuble, N. Sarkozy  and his place woman at the IMF, Mme C.Christine Lagarde, have all seemed intent on European eyes, money and attention remaining proverbially  firmly fixed upon its own  navel. (Nonexisting, of course, the EU not being a creature of humanity).

Angela Merkel Buying Euroland without Maxing Out her Credit [BLOG]

Germany flexes muscles and France strangely compliant: the world looks at the EU's coming implosion with relief, argues Martin Cole

By MARTIN COLE: Subscribe to Martin's RSS feed

December 24, 2012 1:50 PM GMT

Angela Merkel (Reuters)

The Link for the text of my posting is here

The text as submitted was as follows:

There was a much used expression in my boyhood during the post-war austerity period of buying things on tick. The connotation was you wanted something for nothing - hence, the correlation with on the never, never. Such is what Frau Merkel hopes to achieve in Euroland before next September's German General Election. Remarkably she appears on course to realize it.

It almost beggars belief that French workers, trade unionists and their elected government itself, appear to be pleading for a return to Vichy-style governance. Only then it seems will their society accept the common sense disciplines of the market place over wages, working hours and retirement ages. Elsewhere the need for an outside force, perhaps to replace the discipline which the Red Army backed while other Member States were under communist control, seems the only sane explanation for the driving desire to abdicate responsibility for independence, self-governance and the right to national sovereignty.

What rational and sensible planning can France's few remaining entrepreneurs undertake when the French representative on the ECB Board, Peter Praet, is quoted in an interview with the business reporters of Le Figaro newspaper as saying this past week, regarding the Euro and Euroland:  "The risks of catastrophe and the exit of certain countries which haunted the markets have disappeared."

In contrast, while President Hollande's man at the ECB  seems happy to promote the fantasies increasingly overtaking the government of his home country, Joerg Asmussen, Chancellor Merkel's chosen purveyor of German dreams at the Central Bank for the Euro area, is busy peddling the latest methods preferred for the real Bismarckation of Europe. Such plans were best reported, I found, in Western Australia, as may be read from this link. The quote from Asmussen that will add substantially to my ironic Christmas cheer this weekend is: "The more the financial sector can be bailed in, the less it has to be bailed out." This visualized in a normal world of properly financed and functioning economies means, potentially bankrupted institutions had best rescue themselves before they get into deeper debt. A deposit insurance scheme is feasible at the start of a boom, but impossible towards the end of a bust!

EurActiv, that ever reliable internet source for regular conveyance of all that is the most absurd in the EU (delivered in several of Europe's most used languages), also gravely informed us (read here), that Europeans were entirely absent from a US magazine's list of the world's top ten global thinkers.  This would be hardly surprising given the complete detachment from reality of all in Europe over the past two years of the common currency's crisis, were it not for the fact that coming in at number twelve, was none other than Angela Merkel, herself, the main culprit for the complete chaos that must shortly now overtake Europe not too far into the new year.

The key word that excludes Europeans from inclusion at the head of the list of top thinkers is "global". The insularity of the EU has always been among its greatest failings. Britain once thought globally before falling victim to its self-serving schemes; so too, did France, Portugal and Spain. That is not the case today. There lies the cause of Europe's decline, and given that today, such has become unarguable fact. Hence, the world can view the coming EU break-up only with relief. Mankind will be considerably better off all across the globe without the Euro and the insular greed it has come to represent.

§§§§§§§

The brief biography included at the end of the posting was as follows:

West Country born and bred, Martin Cole was a navigating officer in the merchant navy before embarking on a successful oil industry career. No stranger to politics, be they in the boardroom or otherwise, his horror at the non-democratic course taken by the EU inspired him to write his first novel, Millennium Blitzkrieg. Martin also runs some politically themed blogs, mainly Ironies Too, and tweets and comments almost unceasingly about the erosions of our liberties. 

Bored on Boxing Day? Plebgate provides a perfect remedy!

Who is fooling whom over plebgate! Which institutions in charge or influence over most aspects of our daily lives are trying to persuade us one way or another over the Mitchell affair, the Cabinet Office and its officials, the Prime Minister, the whips office of the main party of our Government in Parliament, the police on the gates or the Met itself or Channel 4 News (a state funded broadcaster it must be remembered!)?

Fascinating questions for a December Bank Holiday, when the shops and streets should be avoided like the plague and the weather in parts seems set far from fair. Here is a chance to get closer to the truth for yourself, with video and detailed instructions all set out on this linked blog, SKWALKER 1964: "HOW THE PLEBGATE FOOTAGE DOESN’T SHOW WHAT MITCHELL & C4 CLAIM"

Of course, if your lucky enough to be out hunting today, well enjoy the fresh air and exercise and have tremendous fun! Plebgate and other such sordid matters of daily life, then well deserve to be put to one side!

Merry Christmas to ALL

A Country Walk

Not everybody is near unspoilt countryside in which to walk, so today as a change from politics I have decided to share a video and some snaps from the walk we took to enjoy the sunshine that South West France offered us around the year's shortest day.

Plebgate - Let's confront the true treachery

In the broad sweep of political conspiracies and historical power changing plots and intrigue, "plebgate" (as the swearing at the gates of Downing Street by the former Tory Chief Whip has come to be called), is but a minor ripple in a very small teacup. Consequently, one presumes as a distraction from the real EU crisis, it has grabbed the attention of Britain's lightweight mainstream media this morning read here and here.

The main concern is the imminent collapse or fragmentation of the EU. The removal of Margaret Thatcher by the scheming of Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke, which allowed the treachery of fellow Conservative, PM Edward Heath, to continue to reach its now approaching climax. This is pushed to the forefront of my mind by Maggie Thatcher's welcome recovery from surgery, read here.

Earlier this week on UKIP Uncovered, I posted an extract of a posting on this blog's forerunner, Ironies, from August 2003, which called for a then ill and failing Edward Heath to be offered a pardon in exchange for the names of his co-conspirators in delivering our nation into the hands of its historical continental enemies for its certain economic destruction and subsequent political domination. This is more briefly again quoted here:

With Heath having recently been flown back from Australia due to ill health, would it not be timely, sensible and a matter of the utmost urgency to now grant him immunity from the possibility of prosecution for his known treasonable actions. In exchange we should demand a detailed explanation of his motives and full details regarding his Continental co-conspirators and their possible next targets in the attempted destruction of our economy, so that we are able, while still just barely surviving as a nation state, to belatedly take some preventative measures to ensure that their schemes, rapidly reaching fruition with the pending Constitution, can at last be thwarted.

posted by Martin at 8/28/2003 06:49:00 AM

That chance to get closer to the truth was then apparently ignored. This week a similar opportunity arises with the news of ex-PM Margaret Thatcher's welcome recovery from her operation. In the archives of her Foundation, given the tremendous foresight we know this formidable lady possesses, there may already be set out full details, as she knew them, of the part played in her downfall by  Heseltine, (in Germany on the evening of the eve of her ousting) Clarke and others.

What may not be known is how Margaret Thatcher, herself, feels as to how those complicit in this probable treason should be dealt with by the nation once EU exit is achieved. Her views on how John Major, whose treachery at Maastricht and benefit from the Heseltine putsch, also makes her opinion on his proper eventual fate of more than a little interest to her countrymen and women!

Those presently in control of the once honourable Conservative Party are the heirs to these dubious dealings. Whether Cameron, Osborne or Mitchell, they are thus beneath our contempt; not least for their own inaction once becoming beneficiaries of the power (for which they plotted, salivated and lusted) was attained. 

Wishing Maggie Thatcher a speedy recovery

It is fashionable to mock ex-PM Margaret Thatcher, some tweeters apparently obscenely wish her dead. As for Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, it is sometimes best to look at the individual's record in office and at the possible motivations of those who condemn them in such an irrational manner.

I returned from tax exile in the USA when Thatcher was first elected in the UK and stayed almost until the very end when it became clear her enemies were too well entrenched.

My guess is that history will determine she was almost alone among post-war 20th century Premiers of Britain who acted almost entirely in the nation's interests. 

Britain's relations with the EU following Brixit

The EUCO yesterday issued a report on its relations with what remains of EFTA, the once British led group of free trading sovereign nations that unsuccessfully fought to fight back the corporatism, restrictive trading and coercive arm-twisting practices of the entity that has today become the EU, as so fittingly illustrated by this picture available on Twitter last evening.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office under William Hague should be preparing the strategy for our once-again independent and sovereign nation after we are free of the restraints of the EU. Rejoining EFTA, should be one option presuming we would be invited and welcomed.

In this blog's view bruised feelings on the Continent would be likely to last for some considerable time, and that diplomatic efforts on EU relations during that early period would be largely wasted, not least as other national exits would almost certainly follow.

Britain's most prosperous periods of history were those when our foreign policy acted as though Europe barely existed, but was an unhappily placed lump of land, with often fractious inhabitants, making a long circumnavigation to our markets a necessity. Thus we broke free of the ties, burdens and wars resulting from our flirtations with the Hanseatic League, freed by the bravery and exploits of the first Elizabethan Merchant Adventurers. 

Such is the spirit we need today, EFTA can wait!

Getting Insurance when your House is Half Burnt Down

European Central Bank policymaker Joerg Asmussen, picture and report from The West in Australia linked here has suggested that now would be a good time to contemplate insuring all the horrible debts run up by Europe's banks during the past several years. 

As the headline to this post makes clear, that is clearly a great idea but where is the wealthy institution insane enough to take on such a risk.

The equivalent institution Asmussen has in mind is the FDIC in the USA, read here, formed after the Wall Street Crash and responsible for saving some 400 US financial institutions in the present worldwide economic collapse. Great stuff, no doubt helped by the fact that then viable banks have been paying in to the fund since 1933.

In Euroland's situation the banks have been lending like crazy to other countries who could never possibly have repaid the money loaned, while making no provisions to protect the national taxpayers who are now about to be hit.

Can Germans really be kept in ignorance of this horrible reality all the way to the moment they enter the polling booths next September? That is Mr Asmussen's task to insure, read some of the arguments he plans to employ to achieve that goal:

This should be complemented by a banking resolution mechanism to deal with problem banks, said Asmussen. The ESM bailout fund would be well suited to house a European Resolution Fund, said added, stressing that this was his personal view.

"Any costs incurred from resolution should first and foremost be covered by the private sector, through establishing a European Resolution Fund raised by levies on the banking sector," he said.

European public funds should only be used to help banks that pose a threat to European financial stability, said Asmussen, outlining a process with multiple steps:

- beneficiary banks must undergo an independent economic evaluation of their assets to ascertain their real capital needs and reveal any legacy problems;

- those banks must be assessed to have a viable business model and so be deserving of additional capital, otherwise they should be wound down;

- if the banks are to be kept going, private sector sources should be exhausted first, and if needed, use made of the bank-funded resolution financing;

- if there are still capital shortfalls, the financial resources of the beneficiary member states should be drawn on;

- only in the last step, would public funds be used.

Asmussen added: "The more the financial sector can be bailed in, the less it has to be bailed out."

  "The more the financial sector can be bailed in, the less it has to be bailed out."

Do you not just love the gimmicky phraseology they come up with, Latvia's government liked it so much they lined up to join the Euro currency even yesterday. The French believe the German taxpayers will pay for the rescue of their banks and social systems and keep paying for the French workers  to retire years earlier  and still earn massively more than the equivalent hard-working Germans. 

Eurolalaland has to be lived in to be believed these days!

The Defenestration of Gerard Depardieu

The following post of mine was first published by the International Business  Times web site on 17th December under a different title which is linked here.  

The Defenestration of Gerard Depardieu

The attitudes of ordinary French people to the dispute presently underway between their government and the fat, famed film star, Gerard Depardieu, throw fascinating light upon the state of the EU, the woeful ignorance of the majority of French people as to where their leaders have been taking them in recent decades, and the present state of play between collectivism and individualism, which has been fought out down the centuries in the regions of Europe now known as France.

Monsieur Depardieu, (perhaps best known to English speaking audiences for his role in the movie, "Green Card") in renouncing his French citizenship over new, even higher taxes, claimed in an accompanying letter sent with his passport to the government, to have paid a tax bill of 85% of his revenues last year! Furthermore, that after having worked since the age of 14, he has in the past 45 years paid €145 million ($190 million) in taxes. Such claims one hopes would be sympathetically heard in the English speaking countries on either side of the Atlantic. That is certainly not largely the case in France, where I now live.

High among the factors causing stunned outrage from the government's point of view is what can best be described as lack of "solidarity". Depardieu's point that he seems to be exercising a new "Europeanism" is set out in his letter as follows. "We no longer have the same country. I'm a true European, a citizen of the world."  It has so far been left unanswered by those now leading France, who themselves have just returned from the 27 nation European Council in Brussels where intents of eternal solidarity were as ever much to be seen in the meeting's minutes. What hypocrisy!

On the street are to be found assertions that the French cinema, being heavily subsidized by the State and thereby French taxpayers, is yet another cause for Depardieu's wealth; while his oft mentioned numerous high-class restaurants, (now reportedly up for sale) must necessarily have been paid for by the very same taxpayers Monsieur Depardieu is now accused of in some way defrauding.

Bellicosity towards Belgium, where Monsieur Depardieu has found a new home, and which maintains a top rate of tax at 75%, has become ever more intense. A worrying fact indeed, as that country itself is in deep crisis with its own French speaking population who are at odds with their Flemish speaking neighbours and had previously looked towards France for support.

Here we see vividly illustrated the disastrous consequences of Europe's leaders having downplayed the reality of their actions in transferring their sovereignty to Brussels. A "partial abnegation of sovereignty" was the stated intent, but the builders of the EU were always fully aware that sovereignty is not divisible. The crisis between France and Belgium over the residence status and tax dues of one portly film star, previously fondly regarded by French speaking cinema-goers, is bringing this fact into open and sharp relief. More serious disputes are en route as the curtain comes down on this new European horror story!

§§§§§

The title for the IB Times posting was different and its introduction for the record was as follows:

Gerard Depardieu Tax Protest Switch to Belgium Highlight's Europe's Shaky Solidarity [BLOG]

French actor's nationality switch has put true meaning of the European project at top of the menu, argues Martin Cole.

By MARTIN COLE: Subscribe to Martin's RSS feed

December 17, 2012 4:56 PM GMT

Gerard Depardieu

An apology to Andrew Mitchell MP

Among a series of highly critical posts, linked here, on the character of Andrew Mitchell MP, this blog included a quote from the police log describing the circumstances at the time of the then Chief Whip's ill-tempered outburst regarding his access on a bike to Downing Street, as quoted here:

The Daily Telegraph publishes the police log of the circumstances of Mr Mitchell being recorded in his use of the word "plebs" commonly used by Public Schoolboys to refer to the 99.9% of humanity they consider beneath them, and thereby unworthy of any consideration:

There were several members of public present as is the norm opposite the pedestrian gate and as we neared it, Mr MITCHELL said: "Best you learn your f------ place...you don’t run this f------ government...You’re f------ plebs." The members of public looked visibly shocked and I was somewhat taken aback by the language used and the view expressed by a senior government official. I can not say if this statement was aimed at me individually, or the officers present or the police service as a whole.

Should Mitchell's position amongst the elite of the country, in the midst of this useless Cabinet of Coalition Clots, be allowed to alone refute the evidence of a Police Log to avoid the consequences of his own ill temper and anger induced actions?

It appears the question raised in my final paragraph was a resounding "NO" with both the police and now Channel 4 News having been engaged in uncovering the true facts. Should this blog now therefore apologize for its criticisms; in addition to feeling thoroughly chastened for having given such naive belief to the statements contained in a police log!? 

I believe my criticism of Mitchell as an individual was coloured by his reported use of the word "pleb", now apparently untrue! I therefore unreservedly apologize for my description of him in the paragraph preceding that quoted above, namely as " increasingly grotesque, privilege warped, silver spooned and quite clearly thoroughly obnoxious Andrew Mitchell MP, presently clinging to the office of Chief Whip, a fitting final tenure for a boy nicknamed "Thrasher" during his final days at Rugby School."

My criticisms of his actions in his previous position when squandering billions of pounds at this time of austerity, of course, still stand. 

Individualism vs Collectivism & La Rochelle

The following post was prepared for publication by IB Times a week ago as a follow up to my first article for that internet publication on Starbucks and tax. It was perhaps too historical for their readership, so somewhat late I have now published it here, for following the developments across French society thrown up by the Gerard Depardieu passport and tax dispute it seems increasingly important and topical.

La Rochelle - The Birthplace of International Business 

I spent a long weekend in La Rochelle this month. The cause was the 7th International Book Fair for the city, to which my wife had been invited to make a presentation of a book co-written with Thomas Brosset, "In the Footsteps of theHanseatic League".

Presentation of, "In the Footsteps of the Hanseatic League, Les Huguenots et L'Atlantique & La Rochelle, Aunis et la Saintonge face à l'esclavage" by Maggie Cole, Thomas Brosset,  Mikaël Augeron and Olivier Caudron at the 7th Book Salon in La Rochelle 9th December 2012

On this latest of my many visits to the magnificent city of La Rochelle that I have undertaken down the years, I was, for this first time free of other demands and commitments and therefore able to get under the skin of this historic and picturesque triple-towered port that lies at the heart of the "Atlantic embracing Bay of Biscay". Here for centuries have come the sailors who fed Europe's Atlantic mercantile trade that once gave the city its wealth and importance. Many such seamen have left their marks on the walls of the Lantern Tower, which frequently served as maritime prison when trade differences turned to disputes, as all too often occurred. From the top of this early French lighthouse there can now be seen the large red buoy marking the spot where Cardinal Richelieu built the sea wall, thus cutting the city from its supply sources in England - eventually resulting in defeat and the death of three quarters of its citizens in 1627.

La Rochelle before that time had been a prosperous, virtually independent state, minting its own money, running its own navy, and believing itself virtually impregnable from land or sea. In the tower of St Nicholas guarding the harbour entrance, a human figure holding fighting animals apart, is one of seven remaining of eight original sculptures believed by locals to represent the power of the city to keep apart quarrelsome France and England. The city had already begun the trade to the West, credit for which has been claimed by the victors of the French religious wars.

Trade to the north, first based upon exports of salt and wine, was flourishing before the town became a bastion of Protestantism from the middle of the 16th century.  Those interested may read in considerable detail from this link

My own curiosity is strengthened by a possible family connection to one such merchant, Samuel Georges, who, jointly with his brother-in-law, financed some of the early fur trading ventures to Nouvelle France. Trading rights had first been obtained by the people of La Rochelle, from Louis XI (1461-83); they had had no particular religious nor national identity, but over the years, the city had established a community known as, "le canton des Flamands", on the rue Chef-de-Ville near the town centre. Charles IX had established a commercial court, la juridiction consulaire - an important step in gaining the later essentials for independence and freedom to trade! The roots of early Admiralty Law may be traced to the nearby Ile d'Oleron, which were encouraged by Eleanor of Aquitaine; the powerful role of women in this region being another distinguishing feature.

The trade to the Baltic and links with the Hanseatic League are all carefully chronicled in the bi-lingual French/English book by Thomas Brosset and my wife, Maggie Cole, which may be ordered online from the publishers Le Croit Vif 

My interest, however, presently now lies in re-encouraging the seeds for international commerce based upon individual entrepreneurship, which were perhaps earlier sewn by the peoples of various nationalities who lived and based their operations in La Rochelle before the bloody siege and the city's defeat. Trade, which lives on elsewhere across the globe to this day, but little of which enterprise can be detected in the blinkered  Brussels or self-absorbed Strasbourg of the EU, where the authoritarian and collectivist forces of Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu in their present guise of the EU, even now ever so clearly still set out to seek to destroy.

EU Lies - Was Samuel Champlain a fake or A.N. Other?

On my posting last Saturday I likened events in France today to those around the time of the siege of La Rochelle 1627/28.

Earlier this year there had been some internet debate in France as to whether Samuel Champlain, great explorer of Nouvelle France, might in fact have been born in La Rochelle rather than Brouage, as originally understood and widely believed. Furthermore, some suggestions have been made that his real name was Chapileau meaning perhaps "little hat". Some discussion in French is here

Certainly there was much manipulation of history around that period; as I have been discovering during many years of research into the ancestry of Samuel Georges, a La Rochelle protestant ship owner of that era. Detailed background of the history in English is here.

We must question all history and learn to separate fact from legend, not least even over events of our own lifetime, as they unfold and move towards their inevitable conclusion.

The deliberate lies of all the present leaders of Europe are driving us to economic destitution for no possible nor conceivable reward.

Only when we the people of Europe face the horrible facts behind what the EU has become will we be able to assemble a framework to free us from its grotesque distortions.

Thankfully in the UK with the intervention of Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, that process now seems to be getting under way! 

Lincolnshire County Council votes 72 - 7 for EU Referendum

Lib Dems and Independents joined the Tory majority in Lincolnshire in a 72-7 vote for Britons to have a say on their destiny within the union.

Complaining of increased EU powers their motion stated: “Our residents are upset and angry that they have no powers to stem the tide, or change laws imposed on our country, which in part explains the distrust voters generally feel for all mainstream parties. "It is now the time for this country to be given the opportunity through a national referendum for their views to be known.”

The entire article in the Sunday Express may be read from here.

Elsewhere a poll reports that UKIP is cementing its place as third party in Britain's politics, currently polling at around 14% in three polls published this morning as headline on Sky News, more on that topic on my blog  Ukip Uncovered

France's Tax Threats Against Belgium Signal Extreme Danger

The quite extraordinarily aggressive attitude of the President of France and his delegation against his neighbouring country of Belgium was the only truly significant factor of substance to emerge from this week's European Council meeting.

Belgium has been on the verge of falling apart for two years and survives mostly because it hosts the evil EU. The French speaking portion of the country Wallonia is therefore already looking towards France with considerably more interest than that of mere close neighbour.

One report on the substance and nature of the threats is best gleaned from this report that appeared yesterday in Zero Hedge, linked here.

The present attitude of the French Government is reminiscent of that of Cardinal Richelieu towards La Rochelle during the siege of 1627. La Rochelle was rich from trade with the new world, Richelieu fortified Brouage down the coast to contain the wealth he later expected to accrue, but when the siege was done with some 75% of its inhabitants slaughtered, the wealth and trade had disappeared with it. Arguably France struggled to ever recover from that folly of jealous greed disguised as a religious theological difference.

The village in Belgium, complete with socialist mayor (apparently an almost equal affront in President Hollande's eye) is home to other wealthy families from France, including the owners of the Auchan Hypermarket chain whose aisles across France seem brim full this Christmas season compared to those of some of their struggling competitors when noted by this infrquent shopper.

This blog has constantly warned that fragmentation of the old nation states could be the most dangerous means of the EU's inevitable demise. In this age of austerity I had never imagined that tax equalization could prove the spark in the tinder box for such disputes.

Belgium is in a poor situation to offer resistance against this French assault, were I a rich film star or owner of a prospering supermarket chain, I believe I would now be seeking another, home beyond the EU itself.

Sacrificing Israel will not Satisfy Militant Islam

Over many years there has been an obvious anti-Israel bias embedded in the essence of what has become the European Union. This was particularly evident during the period of Commissioner Patten's term of office, during which he otherwise seemed to dissipate his way through the lifestyle rewards of his treachery to the former police force and protestants of Northern Ireland.

I have recently been aware that this anti-Israel tendency has been increasing within the structures of "Europe"; perhaps extending to the specific policy of the EEAS, itself under Baroness Ashton's wasteful rule. It is apparently not unusual to actually consider a policy involving the movement of the Jewish people who are settled within Israel itself, which influences seems to be the aim of Peter Oborne's article that appeared in The Daily Telegraph yesterday, which may be read from here.

Wishing a problem away is ever the chosen way ahead for men of little or no principle. In every area of policy Britain has been weakened by close association with the present day Europe, first through the Common Market, now the EU. Our democracy is destroyed, honest public service is a thing of the past, politics as a tool for self-enrichment and little else has become the norm. Now it appears, if Oborne's article is to be taken to its obvious end conclusion; we are to forget the horrors inflicted upon the Jewish People and consider them as oppressors.

No energy independence or oil supply security gains will come from such ploys. 
The two state solution for the Middle-East seems to me as sane as ever; just because it has throughout almost my entire lifetime proven so difficult to achieve, does not justify any wavering from its principle.

Gigantic Depression Forming to Cover Entire N. Atlantic.

This is the surface pressure forecast chart for midnight this Saturday.

I went to sea over fifty years ago and later became closely involved in maritime trade, subsequently crossing the Atlantic in my own sailing yacht; therefore have always been especially interested in North Atlantic weather patterns!

I have never seen a depression before now of such incredible size. Winds run counter or anti-clockwise around the centre of a low. 

So hang on to your hats this weekend.

Have German attitudes in Alabama also sped the EU's downfall?

In February last year I raised some questions about German attitudes towards the outside world and questioned whether they would lead us all to disaster, that post may be read from here.

The ThyssenKrupp US steel plant mentioned in my comment as well as another in Brazil is now reportedly in deep financial difficulties as commented upon by Der Spiegel yesterday, read here, from which comes this telling extract:

 But now Claassen's questionable trips with journalists are the least of ThyssenKrupp's problems. It faces charges that billions in losses and bad planning were covered up for years, and that supervisory board members deliberately gave out false information. In fact, the very survival of the steelmaker, which has been around for more than a century, may be at stake.

In my 2011 posting the EU was in the opening stages of the financial collapse that is now quite clearly engulfing the supposedly peacefully inclined  and well-intentioned trading organisation, but the danger signs in German attitudes to the problems of the peripheral countries already appeared extremely ominous.

I had commented on theses dangers years before, of course, on Ironies and again during 2005, linked here, where this warning had been repeated:

 As was later pointed out on Ironies this compromise did little to overcome the fact that as the EU's most populace member state the voter in Germany has far more power to determine the future course of the EU than any others - this remained particularly true given the power of the Franco/German axis operating under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.

In light of the rapid descent of France into rudderless chaos under the hapless and daily more clueless President Hollande, even that necessity to coordinate decisions with the French has now disappeared. With Italy under the control of an EU puppet interim or resigned PM and its politicians intent upon entering a two month election campaign, Europe appears left with only the vapid and clueless David Cameron to pull it back from the abyss towards which it seems intent upon careering.

In true tradition to all his earlier decisions, the British Prime Minister has decided that this is the moment to force churches up and down the land to perform gay marriage ceremonies with arbitrary exceptions designed apparently to foster further widespread dissent. No doubt the UK media will need no second prompting to concentrate entirely on that matter over the extended Xmas holiday period, disregarding the growing EU chaos on their doorstep, of which, unhappily, Britain is very much a part!

Can nobody with the authority to act see Europe's destination and gather the leaderless European Council together this week to NOW call a halt?

The Sickest Story, so far, for this Sorry Century

A sight to shame every living European! 

     The leaders and titular heads of the destroyers of our democracies and much normal human decency, parade the Nobel Peace Prize, incredibly awarded by non-EU Norway to the bureaucratic unfeeling giant bureaucracy that is the real EU, just at the moment when their greed driven drive to sew disharmony across our Continent appears to be reaching its apogee.

The EU - Where nation may take pecuniary advantage from nation

In London, at a recent meeting of the House of Commons, the Public Accounts Committee of British MPs feigned shock and horror when it was publicly revealed that the Giant US multinational corporation so-reputed “Fair Trade" coffee marketing conglomerate, Starbucks, had been paying a 6% royalty on all its UK sales to the Netherlands.

Worse still it appeared that it was all under the terms of an arrangement, the details of which were to be kept secret, this being done apparently at the specific request of the Dutch taxation authorities.

Matters deteriorated further when details of how the huge online marketer almost a "virtual mammoth department store", Amazon Co.UK, had been constructed to feed the large UK market, to all intents and purposes, supposedly largely taking place in the "Dodgy" of Luxembourg, at least as far as the apparently innumerate apparatchiks of the British Government’s tax collectors, HMRC, were concerned. Details of these arrangements with the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg began to only gradually and with great difficulty emerge before this same group of MPs.

Now it has long been the premise of my blog, Ironies Too, (and before that its predecessor, Ironies), that the aim of the EU was to first strip the UK bare of assets and revenues before then turning upon France, which country up to this point had been happy amongst the pack of hunters and strippers, or moochers and looters as the perceptive, Ayn Rand, would have so described them.

Yesterday it seemed that such event was indeed about to occur with the Hollande Government, (apparently even joined by support from the right of the French political divide) taking fright at other Luxembourg connections, as reported by Reuters. This may be read, I trust, with all due astonishment, as it appears to hint at the destruction of one of the foundation stones of all our liberties, ie: property rights, from here. 

A few quotes will give a flavour of the extraordinary implications of the causes of the dispute now underway, which to this observer reader imply that neither the French nor the authorities of the Grand Duchy seem to have been paying anything other than lip service to the grand intents of the European Treaties, which they have blithely signed over recent decades.

"This declaration is purely and simply scandalous," Parisot told RTL radio. "To undermine the principle of private property in this haphazard way is very serious and, what's more, very costly."

"I would have liked it if she used that word ('scandalous') when the owner of this site was transferring a chunk of profits from French sites over our borders, notably to Luxembourg," Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said.

Now the seventeen former nations of the Euro Group plan to merge themselves under a single banking supervisor as if mutual trust had succeeded in replacing centuries of suspicion that occasionally and too often gave way to shared loathing. We will await these negotiations with interest - but it seems if they cannot openly discuss their tax arrangements with common companies operating in both their territories after sixty odd years of close economic alliance, there is only a small chance of success.

(The above posting was prepared for and first published by International Business Times on 5th December, under the title "Starbucks, Tax Avoidance and the Eurozones's Dirty Little Secrets" as may be found on this link. The article text was unchanged.)