Bollocks

A wonderful example of an unaccountable bureaucracy at work. DVLA willingly sell the following number plate to a customer, Mr Clarke (apparently "it slipped through the net"):

BO11 LUX

Then they decided that because in their view it causes offence they will persecute the chap who purchased it from their own website:

They said it was causing offence and I had to remove it, and they are threatening to criminalise me. But they are a government agency and they put the plate on their own website for anyone to buy so it's 100 per cent legal.

'I would love to know what offence I am committing as they haven't told me. I have got the receipt for the plate, the registration document and the vehicle is fully taxed and insured so I'm at a loss to see what the problem is.

Cue the usual official threatening letters:

But within six weeks, he received a stern letter from the DVLA telling him the plate was 'causing offence' and ordering him to remove it from his vehicle.

The DVLA says it is an offence for it to still be displayed.

Perhaps DVLA don't appreciate that there is a legal precedent for use of this word - Mr Clarke should take them on.

Carry On Regardless

Despite that Icelandic polls show consistent opposition to EU membership...

"The vast majority of Icelanders are still opposed to joining the European Union according to a new opinion poll published today, March 17, in the business newspaper Viðskiptablaðið. 55.7 percent oppose EU membership while 30 percent favour the step. 14.2 percent are uncertain.

A recent poll by Capacent published on March 10 put the opposition to EU membership at 50.5 percent, the support at 31.4 percent and the uncertain at 18 percent.

The last poll before that was published by Capacent in July 2010 putting the opposition at 60 percent, the support at 26 percent and those uncertain at 14 percent.

Every poll published in Iceland since August 2009, made by different polling companies, has shown a large majority of Icelanders against joining the EU and only about 1/3 in favour."

...the process of membership continues by Iceland's politicians:

Iceland’s accession negotiations with the European Union officially began today with the first four chapters of the entry charter up for discussion.

According to an EU statement two of the four first negotiations have already drawn to a temporary conclusion.

You cannot carry on defying your own people. When will they wake up?

"Boundless Stupidity"

A rather damning indictment of the German government's role in the Euro crisis in today's Der Spiegel by leading German economist Stefan Homburg. He argues that Greece should default but because of Germany's 'boundless stupidity', she will continue to pay up. He begins by making this point about the proposed voluntary participation of the banks, which would not only lead to a default by the ratings agencies, but are illegal:

Banks cannot participate voluntarily. An executive board is committed to its company's welfare, and not the public interest. If it waives outstanding debts at the expense of its own company, this is a breach of trust and punishable by law.

So according Homburg the proposals are merely a big show to reassure German taxpayers:

SPIEGEL: So the voluntary participation of private creditors, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have agreed on, will achieve little or nothing?

Homburg: It was all just a big show which was mainly intended to calm the German public. Merkel wanted mandatory participation, Sarkozy wanted none at all. In effect, Sarkozy has prevailed.

Interestingly an agreement by French banks to rollover their debt has been put forward by the French this morning:

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said on Monday that the government had a first draft deal of an agreement with French banks to roll over holdings of their Greek debt.

"We've got a first draft. It's a first outline," she told journalists ahead of a news conference with President Nicolas Sarkozy

However, Homburg is so confident that the German will pay that he has invested in Greek bonds himself:

In recent days, I myself have invested a considerable sum in Greek bonds. They will mature in one year's time and, if all goes well, produce a 25 percent return on investment. I sleep very soundly at night because I believe in the boundless stupidity of the German government. They will pay up.

Since I involuntarily help finance the rescue packages through my taxes, I have no problem with also receiving a portion of the profits. Why should it only be banks and hedge funds that benefit?

But Homburg is in no doubt that Greece will eventually default, it's simply incapable of sorting out its finances, but the Germans (and indeed the rest of the EU including us) will continue to throw good money after bad in hope the that someone else will be blamed for the Euro collapse:

Many politicians have also come to the realization that the path that we are on ultimately leads to national defaults and currency reforms. This process is already irreversible, but nobody wants to say it out loud and go down in history as the one who triggered the explosion. So we leave the bankruptcy to subsequent German governments and, in the meantime, throw good money after bad. Sooner or later, this much is certain, the system will be blown apart by political and economic factors. And, unfortunately, there is a great danger that, when this happens, it is not only the euro that will fall apart, but also the entire EU.

Greece will be voting on its austerity budget tomorrow, which most analysts believe will pass the Parliamentary vote, albeit narrowly, meaning the Euro debacle will continue to limp along pathetically for some time yet - in the meantime billions of pounds of taxpayer's money will be wasted to shore up a few politician's egos. I think I could use a few stronger words than 'boundless stupidity' to sum up the current crisis.

Stupid

Nigel Farage and Shami Chakrabarti were on BBC's Andrew Marr this morning reviewing the papers. Naturally the subject of the EU was broached, over Milly Dowler and capital punishment, the Greek crisis and the Olympic ticket farce. This prompted Chakrabarti to comment (from memory, the transcript's not yet up):

"It's amazing how you manged to get the EU into every subject".

Now I wonder why that would be? You would hope that eventually Miss Chakrabarti might work out the answer for herself, but probably not.

Your Football Team Is 19-0 Down...

...there's only 2 minutes to go, you've had 4 men sent off (if 1 more is sent off then the game is officially abandoned due a minimum player rule breach), the referee has been bribed and Ali Dia is your best player, yet there's always hope that you may sneak a win:



hattip: Nosemonkey

Douglas Carswell U-Turns On EU Exit?

Witterings from Witney alerts me to this latest post from Douglas Carswell:

It's encouraging to see so many of the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs recognising the hopelessness of "throwing good money after bad" in the Eurozone bailouts with a letter to the Financial Times today. Many of them also voted to stop the bailouts in the division lobby.

They are surely right. Bravo.

Not only is Carswell agreeing with proposals that are anything but a radical reform of the EU despite his previous well known assertions, astonishingly Carswell then links to a ConHome page that contradicts his claim that 'many of them voted to stop the bailouts' - as I blogged here, only one of the fourteen signatories did. (or am I missing something?) *

Carswell then finishes his blog with this :

That makes it all the better to see Members of Parliament demanding a radical overhaul of our approach to Europe – and, let it be whispered softly, perhaps even some kind of meaningful democratic oversight over Britain’s EU deal making.

Ahh, the classic - democratic oversight rather than out. In other words 'in Europe not ruled by it'. A Judas goat indeed.

*Exactly 50% of those Tories who voted against the bailout were new intakes - 15 Tory MPs out of 30. Plus the number of new intake Tory MPs in 2010 was 148. So where has Mr Carswell got his 'many' from?

Timing

When Cameron recently decided to regurgitate the same Labour nonsense on being robust against burglars and siding with householders - i.e. sound tough but not actually do anything, I don't think he expected his 'promise' to be tested quite so quickly:

A suspected burglar has been stabbed to death while apparently trying to break into a house in Greater Manchester.

And guess who's been arrested:

The man, 26, is believed to have been carried away by other members of a balaclava-clad gang as they fled, before being dumped in the street.

The householder, his son and son's girlfriend have been arrested.

Greater Manchester Police said it was treating the death as murder.

No charges as yet, but I won't be surprised if...

Clueless

In an unintentionally hilarious piece on Conservative Home, Tim Montgomerie comes over all excited by a letter signed by 14 Tory MPs to the Financial Times outlining what he calls 'mainstream Eurosceptisim. It's so bad I'm almost inclined to think the whole thing is a spoof, sadly not:

The fourteen, led by the former MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, are determined to set out what I'd describe as a 'Mainstream Euroscepticism'. They want to push the Coalition to be more ambitious for EU reform but they also reject what they see as the 'impossibilism' (again my phrase) of some of the backbench Eurosceptics

More useless Tory "in Europe not ruled by Europe" nonsense - a policy that has worked so well since 1973. But no, Tim is convinced:

In their letter (sent deliberately to the FT in order to underline its seriousness)

Apparently sending a so-called letter outlining 'eurosceptic' ideas to a well-known euroslime newspaper outlines its seriousness - Tim is easily pleased. So what are these revolutionary ideas:

1. We must take the taxpayers’ side in resisting further bail-outs;
2. Liberalisation of trade;
3. The principle of subsidiarity;
4. Wholesale reduction of the waste for which the European Commission is responsible;
5. Above all we must start getting some value in return for the significant sums that UK taxpayers contribute to the EU’s budget.

Pointless tinkering around the edges with no appreciation of how or why none of this can ever be achieved. I think it's safe to say that Cameron could have written this list, which says it all and why Mr Montgomerie seems so pleased.

The Tory MPs who signed this vacuous nonsense are:

Chris Heaton-Harris
Stephen Phillips QC
Andrea Leadsom
Harriett Baldwin
Priti Patel
Dan Byles
Steve Baker
George Eustice
Charlie Elphicke
Stephen Barclay
James Wharton
Nadhim Zahawi
Dominic Raab
Jackie Doyle-Price.

They write that they are concerned:

"... that the solutions to the crisis proposed by eurozone countries amount to no more than “throwing good money after bad” and will further expose the British taxpayer to any future economic meltdown."

So guess how many of them voted against giving more money to the Eurozone when they had the chance in May? Just one - Steve Baker. Apparently the letter could have been signed by a hundred:

'The Fourteen' are listed below but one of the letter's signatories has just told me that (1) with more time and (2) without many of the new intake being limited by their PPS status the letter could easily have been signed by one hundred members of the new intake.

Presumably that hundred would come from same Tories who voted to squander more of our money on bailouts, or the same Tories who voted to agree with Lisbon Treaty.

Update: Witterings From Witney has his take here.

Allied Irish Bank Defaulted On Monday

While all eyes have been on Greece it appears that AIB has quietly defaulted this week:

A new ruling by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the trade body that oversees the credit default swaps market, ruled that a failure to pay credit event – a financial markets term for a default on a payment or breach of a bond covenant – had occurred at AIB.

The ruling means that bondholders will be able to recover some of their losses as a result of insuring against a default by the bank.

The Irish Independent reports that this was done with full knowledge of the European Central Bank who did nothing:

As a consequence yesterday, faced with a default by AIB, the ECB did nothing. Following Mr Noonan's threat to burn the senior bondholders, did the ECB cut off the Irish banks from the repo market? No it didn't. Did the market sell off Irish government bonds in the wake of Mr Noonan's musings? No it didn't. Why?

Because the market already knows that the Irish banks are bust. The market knows that they have become re-cycling vehicles for the Irish Government, which is simply upholding the ECB's will that an Irish bank doesn't declare itself bust, because that would look bad for the euro. So the ECB is now allowing the Irish banks to go bust by stealth rather than by diktat.

Which means there's more trouble ahead:

The Irish banks will now begin to default bit by bit and Irish depositors will wake up to this and react by doing what the ECB doesn't have the courage to do -- they might just continue to take their money out. Now that would be a real crisis.

hattip: Richard at EUReferendum

Census Data Hacked?

Significant claims are being made at the moment that this year's census data has been accessed and will be leaked soon online. The claims have not yet been verified, and the UK's Office and National Statistics and Lockheed Martin are urgently checking whether the hacker group LulzSec has indeed got its hands on this year's data.

Not that it would be the first time that Lockheed Martin, lead contractor for the census, has suffered from a security failure.

Update: Metro has its doubts about the authenticity of the claims

Update 2: The hacker in questions appears to have denied the census story and that the 'mastermind' has been arrested. Not that it has stopped the Telegraph nor the Mail leading with both though.

Update 3: The hacking of the census has still yet to be verified - though there's been no official denial yet. But if the claims are not true it does demonstrate a couple of points - the incompetence of Governments regarding data security has led to a situation where such data loss is no longer regarded as an anomaly. For several hours yesterday, the claim was seen as part of a process that was an inevitability.

The second, that information posted anonymously on the internet - which could not be verified - was enough for UK newspapers to report it as headline news.

What sad times we live in.