Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling
mirth of sun-split clouds

Via PharmaTimes | EU to probe pharma over “false pandemic”, this deserves a longer post:

The WHO’s “false pandemic” flu campaign is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,” according to Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, chairman the PACE Health Committee, who introduced the parliamentary motion. “The definition of an alarming pandemic must not be under the influence of drug-sellers,” he adds.

Is this really the best way to secure public health?

A friend recently sent me this celebrated letter on the absurdity of bureaucracy. If you have not seen it, enjoy:

Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
Nobel House
17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR

16 July 2009

Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs.. I would now like to join the “not rearing pigs” business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.

I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is – until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?

I am also considering the “not milking cows” business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits. I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Johnson-Hill

Further reading

• Mises, Bureaucracy (PDF, buy at Amazon)

Via Climate targets can’t be achieved, say energy companies – Telegraph:

Energy companies have privately warned the Government that its climate change targets are “illusory” and “delusional” as global leaders prepare to sign up to stricter guidelines at the Copenhagen climate change conference in six weeks.

We are already facing electricity shortages: how long before someone suggests we live with rationed electricity?

If we are serious about energy security and global warming, what is required is a business environment which will be stable over the long term so that private companies and individuals can plan to supply what people need: reliable, plentiful electricity.

Police have confirmed that Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman is being investigated over her involvement in a car collision.

It follows claims that she allegedly left the scene of an accident without giving her insurance details – an offence carrying a possible six-month jail term.

The Mail on Sunday said the accident happened when the Leader of the House of Commons drove into a parked car while talking on her mobile phone.

But a spokeswoman for the MP for Camberwell and Peckham said Ms Harman strongly refuted the allegations.

via Harriet Harman Investigated By Police Over Car Crash In Dulwich | UK News | Sky News.

Fleeced!

Via the Taxpayers’ Alliance:

On Monday, Matthew Elliott and David Craig released their new book Fleeced! How we’ve been betrayed by the politicians, bureaucrats and bankers… and how much they’ve cost us, published by Constable. Fleeced! is the very first book to analyse the financial, fiscal and political crisis resulting from a decade spent under the stewardship of Gordon Brown and is a devastating indictment of Brown’s time as Chancellor and Prime Minister. The authors, who were the first to reveal the shocking truth about Brown’s overspending since 1997 in their previous books, show that in 12 years of New Labour around £1.5 trillion of taxpayers’ money has been squandered on an acceleration in profligate government spending fuelled by the economic boom; and around another £1.5 trillion has evaporated in the bust.

Fleeced! was given a big preview in the Daily Mail who summarised the key chapters, explaining how the authors arrived at the eye-watering total of £3 trillion for Gordon Brown’s mishandling of the economy. The release of Fleeced! and Brown’s £3 trillion con were also reported in:

The Sun, Labour blunders cost taxpayers £3 trillion

Daily Express, Brown the bungler has cost every person in Britain £50,000

Daily Mail, Brown’s mishandling of the economy has cost £50,000 for every person in Britain, according to new book

Daily Star, Bungler Brown has bled Britain dry

Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown ‘wasted three trillion’

The Guardian, Comment Is Free: I see no wisdom, Mandelson

This is Money, Brown ‘cost us £50,000 each’ in tax

Press Association, ‘Brown cost taxpayers £3 trillion’

Matthew Elliott was interviewed on Sky Sunrise on Monday morning and on John Gaunt’s Suntalk radio show on Tuesday.

Fleeced! RRP £8.99, is now available in all good bookshops and on Amazon here

This morning, I woke early and finished The Great European Rip-off: How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of Our Lives.  I then discovered this article in the Telegraph:

The global financial crisis has inflicted such damage to free market principles that it risks undermining the core function of Brussels and triggering the disintegration of the European Union, according to the EU’s most revered economic figure.

…

Former Italian premier Massimo D’Alema said the EU’s modernisation drive sketched at Lisbon in 2000 was fantasy. “We are prisoners of our rhetoric,” he said. “It is an illusion to think that once crisis is over we will return to where we were. The US and China will emerge stronger: we will be left ever further behind. Within 15 years not a single country in the EU will qualify for the G7, except perhaps Germany.”

via EU faces ‘existential’ danger from economic crisis – Telegraph.

In this context, it is vitally important to form a strictly pragmatic view of the EU and whether it will help or hinder our recovery.

Craig and Elliott wrestle courageously to deliver just that in The Great European Rip-off, though the title rather gives away their conclusions. It seems to me any objective review of the EU would conclude that it is an exorbitantly expensive threat to our prosperity and freedom.
Read more

Few could forget the images of the Green Goddesses rolling into service during the national fire strikes of 2002 and 2003, manned by the Armed Forces. This week the threat of fire strikes hang over us again as a result of local industrial disputes spanning London, South Yorkshire, Humberside, Merseyside and Essex.

The prospect of being without our firefighters is very worrying indeed, but all the more so because of the reckless way in which the Government has left us without and emergency fire cover for this critical period – despite knowing for some time the threat of industrial action was looming.

The Green Goddesses have been sold off and government policy now excludes the possibility of the military stepping in to cover during fire strikes.

via ConservativeHome’s Platform: Caroline Spelman MP: The Labour Government has shamefully neglected its duty to defend the realm by leaving the country dangerously exposed if firefighters go out on strike.

Did you hear the one about bobbing heads on Sunday agreeing that the cause of the Great Depression was the absence of government guidance? “The Great Depression would never have happened if there had been any economic regulations,” agreed the policy wonks.

Oh, really?

So you think a free society generated that monstrosity?

It is accurate to say that in 1900 a free society did exist. The government still approximated a minimal state, exerting minimal guidance, and commanding minimal economic regulation. But, after 1900, virtually all public policy proposals called for more extensive governmental guidance.

via Did You Hear the One About… by Floy Lilley.

The Economist asks some very reasonable questions:

Thanks to its posturing politicians, Britain will soon start to run out of electricity. What should it do?

IN THE frigid opening days of 2009, Britain’s electricity demand peaked at 59 gigawatts (GW). Just over 45% of that came from power plants fuelled by gas from the North Sea. A further 35% or so came from coal, less than 15% from nuclear power and the rest from a hotch-potch of other sources. By 2015, assuming that modest economic growth resumes, a reasonable guess is that Britain will need around 64GW to cope with similar conditions. Where will that come from?

Read more: Britain’s energy crisis: How long till the lights go out? | The Economist.

Via A pipedream of six turbines a day until 2020 – Telegraph:

Last Wednesday, two days before our Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, told us that motorists could help save the planet by changing more quickly to a lower gear, his underling Lord Hunt made one of the most absurd claims that can ever have been uttered by a British minister. Solemnly reported by the media, he said that by 2020 he hopes to see thousands more wind turbines round Britain’s coasts, capable of producing ‘25 gigawatts (GW)” of electricity, enough to meet “more than a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs”.

Booker goes on to explain three important points:

• The plan is not cost-effective: these turbines could only provide half what is claimed thanks to the variability of the wind and cost was not mentioned.
• There is no way the stated number of turbines can be built.
• Lord Hunt’s absurd claims were dutifully reported without asking any of these questions.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, if we really care about the environment and energy security, we need some clearer thinking.