On Epithets, Labels, Beliefs, and Definitions ………

Clameur de Haro is prompted by recent comments on his posts to muse at length on the potential for confusion stemming from the epithets and labels applied to beliefs, and the benefits of more precise definitions.

Mr Frank Binney (a new commenter, and most welcome) raises the issue of how accurate, or otherwise, it is to apply the “left” or “right” label to the Greenists? Tony The Prof, in his courteous and erudite way as always, highlights the undesirability of debating climate issues with ad hominem arguments. Both comments, and the reasoned, courteous tone of them, merit a full response.

CdeH subscribes to the view of The Political Compass that the traditional “left” and “right” label is no longer sufficiently adequate to describe positions on the political playing field, because the continuum is one-dimensional, and predominantly an indicator of economic position – ranging from communism or overwhelmingly statist collectivism (on the left), to unfettered, unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism (on the right). And that a more sophisticated and illuminating definition of politico-economic philosophy can be made by complementing location on the economic dimension with a statement of position on the social, authoritarian-to-libertarian continuum, ranging from ultimate authoritarian (fascism, in fact) to ultimate libertarian (virtually anarchy).

It should come as no surprise to Clameur de Haro’s more careful and perceptive readers that CdeH finds himself in the area of the 4-o’clock position in the bottom right-hand quadrant of Libertarian Right – being unequivocally in favour of small government, free trade, free markets, low taxes, but light-touch regulation on the economic continuum, and with a moderate libertarian slant on the social scale, believing as he does that the state aggregates too much power to itself and then often proceeds to exercise it illiberally, and has no business, for example, interfering in willingly-undertaken social transactions between competent, consenting adults, provided that others are not harmed thereby.

Not a million miles from the Hayekian and Friedmanite positions, it would appear, which probably accounts for CdeH’s intuitive listing of Friedman’s “Free to Choose” and “Capitalism and Freedom” as among the most influential formatives of his political / economic thinking.

CdeH frequently has the label “right-wing” hurled at him as an insult. On The Political Compass’ economic continuum, of course, this is, as far as it goes, a more correct than incorrect identification of his economic and fiscal philosophy (although quite why the belief that government is not per se automatically efficient and that taxpayers should be entitled to keep more of their own money, should be a cause for insult, is mystifying).

But on the social policy scale, and when hurled at a commentator who -

(1) naturally inclines to concern at the accretion and abuse of power by the authoritarian state and its agents;

(2) has been appalled at the implications for our liberty as citizens of Labour’s 12-year attack on habeas corpus, the right to jury trial, the right to silence, and the presumption of innocence, all on spurious grounds; and

(3) would choose La Moye rather than be forced to carry a show-on-demand ID card or render up his DNA without just cause, believing that it is his property and not that of the state,

the epithet “right-wing” as an insult is hilarious in its inaccuracy (as Clameur de Haro’s friends who know his views on privacy and personal freedom issues tell him), and betrays rather more about the insulter that it does about the criticised.

Where does this take us on the subject of applying labels in that area where politics and Greenism meet?

CdeH has good friends, occupying varying locations on the left-right economic-fiscal spectrum, who are very environmentally-minded but who equally accept that scepticism on green issues is valid, healthy, and should in a free society be widely aired, and that this is all very much a matter of private, personal choice, not public coercion. In no way could they be described as fundamentalist Greenists. On this specific point of socio-political philosophy, we would have to place them in the libertarian half on the authoritarian–libertarian scale.

But others – indeed, many others - appear, regrettably, to be much less tolerant. Consider just the following examples –

The Godfather of the global warming scare industry, James Hansen, being on record as averring that anyone who even questions the postulate of catastrophic warming should be put on trial. Not positively counter-argues it – merely questions it;

The proposal of David Marxiband Milliband, when UK Energy Secretary in 2006, to force the entire population of the UK to carry a swipe card to be presented on every transaction, with every single person in the land being expected to render account for their carbon footprint and being allocated a personal annual carbon allowance – enthusiastically endorsed by the then environment correspondent of The Guardian (now there’s a surprise) in the following terms –

“The move marks the first serious step towards state-enforced limits on the carbon use of individuals……….extends the principle of carbon to consumers, with heavy carbon users forced to buy unused allowances from people with greener lifestyles” ;

The proliferating use of CTV surveillance cameras, originally justified and installed for counter-terrorism purposes, to spy on householders’ recycling habits;

The admission of Ealing Council in West London that “hundreds of Junior Streetwatchers, aged eight to 10, [have been] trained to identify and report enviro-crime issues” and that of Harlow Council in Essex which has said it has “25 ‘Street Scene Champions’, all aged between 11 and 14, who are encouraged to email or telephone the council if they suspect that an ‘enviro-crime’ has been committed” ;

The examples of prominent EU Greenists with hard-left, marxist, pasts: those of us of a certain age, (pace Tony The Prof) remember, for example, Joschka Fischer and Daniel Cohn-Bendit propagating in the 1970s, revolutionary socialist prescriptions eerily precursory of much of both the authoritarian restriction on private behaviour and freedom, and the “for-the-sake-of-the-environment-and-the-planet” taxation that the Greenists espouse today. Is it really just a coincidence that aggressive environmentalism really started to take off in the early 1990s when communism was finally consigned to the scrapheap?

The rallying call of Green Left - an offshoot of hard-left marxist Socialist Unity - for an electoral pact in Birmingham with the Green Party “……….to give a progressive and environmentally aware candidate the chance of taking the seat, and a victory for all those opposing the policies of privatisation, war, greed, racism and environmental destruction. We are firmly of the belief that this will benefit both the Green and progressive movements in this country……….” ;

The author of this, intriguingly enough, is one Derek Wall, former Male Spokesman (yes, I know – no laughing at the back of the class, please) of the Green Party, who in another incarnation also comes up with this explicit summary of the advantages from the growing collaboration between hard-left socialism and the Green movement -

“The creation of an Eco-socialist International network seems a good institutional basis for making European Green Parties more radical and I would like to see EU Greens working with the Nordic Green Left. I hope that it builds an eco-socialist network that links activists in every single state on this planet and, as we agreed in Paris, to work to make greens redder and reds greener.”

This, and plenty more of the same, can be viewed at http://www.climateandcapitalism.com/.

All of which suggests to Clameur de Haro that, far from the idea of Greenist Fundamentalism being an exaggeration, when taken overall, ample justification exists for that upper left Authoritarian Socialist quadrant of The Political Compass being the correct location for the activist, militant Greenism most often propounded by the save-the-planet-warriors. This is what he refers to when he speaks of Green Fundamentalists. As we can see, there’s a lot of it about.

And yet CdeH is mocked by a commenter for displaying a “Green is the New Red” logo on his sidebar?

Which brings us inevitably on to Mr Nick Palmer, Clameur de Haro’s most frequent commenter, and serial ritual abuser. Mr Palmer is fond of labelling CdeH as a recidivist perpetrator of what seems in his lexicon to be that most heinous of all crimes, far, far worse than mass-murderer, or child-abductor, or financial swindler, or…………………well, worse than anything at all really, namely being a “global warming denier”.

It sheds, firstly, an interesting perspective on the more strident advocates of radical environmentalism that mere scepticism, inherently just a manifestation of thought or opinion, rather than any illegal actions or criminal deed, should be judged so deserving of such calumny. But given on the one hand the inclination so prevalent in Gramscian cultural marxism (to give the colloquial, more familiar, label of political correctness its ideological origin) to establish, define, and prosecute crimes of thought and opinion, and on the other hand the correlation between Gramscian thought and militant Greenism, CdeH is relatively unsurprised by this.

The attaching to sceptics of the term “denier” in this context is quite deliberate, and no mere accidental or careless use of language. Its users are employing one of the classic tactics of cultural marxism – closing down the argument and thereby circumventing debate. It’s exactly the same technique which accuses someone of racism if they attempt to discuss whether current levels of immigration are sustainable, or of elitism if they suggest that a few more grammar schools with scholarships might actually benefit bright children from modest backgrounds, or of xenophobia if they suggest that handing over sovereignty to an unelected and unaccountable supranational authority might not be a terribly good thing for democracy. By seeking to equate enquiring scepticism about anthropogenic climate change with something as repellent as (primarily) Holocaust denial, they try to convey the idea that their target is so irretrievably and unspeakably vile that anything they say should not even be given a hearing, never mind taken seriously.

For the record, Clameur de Haro does accept that there has been an upward movement in average global temperatures over significant periods of the past century-and-a-half or so, but equally is persuaded that this has not been the case since 1998. As indeed, even the warmists – from the IPCC, who acknowledged that its first apocalyptic predictions omitted the Medieval Warming entirely, through Mann, who eventually conceded the fundamental flaws in the algorithms which generated his infamous hockey-stick, to the Biased BBC, which has just reported that for the last 11 years no increase in global temperatures has been observed and that there could be 30 years of cooling due to falling ocean temperatures - have had to admit.

Noticeable, isn’t it, how in the last few years, it’s all become “catastrophic climate change” rather than “catastrophic global warming”?

He has yet to be convinced, also, by the entire man-made / CO2 argument, having seen too many graphs of data sets showing non-correlation between temperature and CO2 output, temperature cooling during periods of rising CO2 output irrespective of whichever time lag is attempted, and studies suggesting that CO2 levels may be the consequence, not the cause, of temperature movements.

And he feels unable to ignore the peer-reviewed evidence that the Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history (and that a mere 30 years ago, some of today’s warmists were ardently warning of catastrophic global cooling and the strong danger of a new ice age). Climate change isn’t unlikely – it’s guaranteed, as it has been for the last x million years, mankind or no mankind, and CdeH is presently unconvinced that human influence on it, while possible, is nevertheless other than peripheral. The notion of “combating climate change” CdeH suspects, is about as feasible as combating tomorrow morning’s sunrise or combating the advent of next Christmas.

So, the correct term for Clameur de Haro is actually “anthropogenic climate change sceptic”. But then that’s so much less emotive as a term of derision than “global warming denier”, isn’t it? Perhaps those who inadvertently - or more likely deliberately - conflate the two need to put “dictionary” at the top of their Christmas List.

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An Apology to Commenters

Clameur de Haro apologises profoundly to all commenters for the recent non-approval and non-publication of comments: an obscure technical glitch has allowed him to post, and to comment on posts put up on other blogs, but strangely not allowed him to approve and publish comments on CdeH itself.

CdeH does not even pretend to be an expert on such matters, but happily the techies consulted have at long last identified and rectified the glitch, so normal response to comments is about to be resumed.

Except, possibly, to one or two who appear unable to resist crossing the dividing line from robust, but still civil, argument to mere argument-free personal abuse………………………

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And The Greenists Still Deny That Theirs Is A Religion??

Anyone still harbouring any lingering doubts that activist Greenism is more fundamentalist religion than measured, reasoned, environmental concern should have had the scales irrevocably lifted from their eyes this morning by this revelation from the Oxford Mail brought to Clameur de Haro’s attention.

H/Ts - The All-Seeing Eye and An Englishman’s Castle

Tim Nicholson, the former Head of Sustainability (pass CdeH the sick bag, please, and quickly) at Grainger plc, claims that he was unfairly dismissed because of his philosophical views on climate change. At a preliminary hearing in March, he was granted leave to take his claim to an Employment Tribunal, but this ruling is currently being challenged by his former employers on the grounds that greenist views should not be accorded equivalent status to religious or philosophical beliefs in law, so cannot therefore serve as either protection from unfair dismissal, or reason to claim unfair dismissal.

Mr John Bowers QC, representing Grainger, said: "A philosophical belief must be one based on a philosophy of life: not a scientific belief, not a political belief or opinion, not a lifestyle choice, not an environmental belief and not an assertion of disputed facts". The firm claims that whereas philosophy seeks to answer the fundamental questions of human experience, environmental concerns are rooted in scientific data (however selectively they are misinterpreted, thinks CdeH).

Mr Nicholson, characteristically, is protesting this, arguing that his greenist views should be acknowledged as possessing equivalence in law to profoundly-held religious belief. He refuses to travel by air (at all), claims that his views on climate change affect his whole lifestyle, and says “I have a strongly held philosophical belief about climate change and the environment. I believe we must urgently avoid catastrophic climate change. This affects how I live my life ... I fear for the future of the human race." He admitted that his constant proselytising of his strong green religiosity caused clashes with senior colleagues.

Like other commentators, Clameur de Haro suspects that Mr Nicholson was (rightly) given the elbow because he was actually a first-class internal rectal affliction of regal proportions, who felt it his sacred mission to spend his time attempting to convert all the heretics rather than do the job he was paid to do.

But isn’t this case instructive as a means of highlighting the multiplicity of similarities between Greenism and fundamentalist religion?

The investing of the planet with all the faculties and emotions of a deity, the sins committed against whom must be expunged by sacrificial atonement.

The unshakeable, dogmatic belief, despite all the questionable evidence, and whatever the arguments to the contrary.

The assumption of a divine mission to indoctrinate the pagan masses.

The warnings of imminent apocalypse unless all the tenets of the religion are forcibly imposed.

The refusal to consider alternative explanations for the phenomena which form the basis of the creed.

The fanatical and vituperative disparagement of unbelievers or sceptics as evil deniers, malevolent heretics, and moral reprobates.

The suggestion that sceptics should either be put on trial or locked up as insane.

So many structural similarities to the fundamental theistic religions, and of course also to marxism, that other secular religion. Coincidence? Not a chance.

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A Greenist’s Dilemma!!

What a truly exquisite dilemma is posed for the doom-mongering proselytizers of the Green Religion by the revelation that, if Arctic ice sheets really were in the cataclysmic permanent decline which they claim, one of the consequences would be to open up access to substantial reserves of currently untapped oil and gas – as much as 13% of the world’s previously undiscovered oil and no less than 30% of its previously undiscovered natural gas.

Not that it’s going to happen any time soon, of course.

The latest data and models from the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre show that, even though the rate of seasonal summer ice-melt is up (although it’s lower this year than in 2007 and 2008), the rate of over-winter recovery is such that total ice coverage has only decreased at the rate of 2.6% per decade (yes, that’s right – about a quarter of one per cent per year) over the last 30 years – hardly the cataclysmic decline that the alarmists postulate.

What’s more, polar explorers have been observing fluctuations in Arctic ice coverage and temperatures for 200 years. The data readings entered in the 1818 ship’s log of the HMS Isabella, recently released from the records of the National Archives as part of the UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks Project, suggest that there has been minimal or even no significant change in sea temperatures in large parts of the Arctic. The ship’s log of the HMS Dorothea from its 1818 expedition to the Norwegian Arctic show that the summer weather of 1818 in the high northern latitudes was not significantly cooler than that of the last 30 years.

However, Clameur de Haro must acknowledge that there is a contrary view, for he is aware of the alternative report submitted to the Admiralty which contained the following –

“A considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place, by which the severity of the cold that has, for centuries past, enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years, greatly abated. This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened.”

The date of this? November 1817. That’s right, 1817. It seemed to be getting warmer and ice coverage seemed to be decreasing. Must have been the carbon footprint of all those Laplanders and Inuit importing their polenta from Tuscany and their winter strawberries from Kenya, and driving their 4x4s to Starbucks on their way to their EasyJet holiday flights.

And even the Hadley Centre, in its latest report bout of scaremongering, can do no more than confine itself to warning that the Greenland ice sheet could recover to only (yes, only) 80% of its current size were it decrease through ice-melt by 15% over the next 300 years – and it could even disappear entirely over several thousand years.

Clameur de Haro couldn’t hope to top the erudition of the scorn rightly poured on this by Tim Worstall here, so a grateful H/T to Tim for this one.

But - oh dear, oh dear, whatever will the Peak Oil doomsters do now? If the “Greenland Ice Melt Through Catastrophic Man-Made Climate Change” part of their faith comes to pass, that blows an even bigger hole than the one that exists already in their Peak Oil belief, because substantial additional reserves become economically extractable. But if they want to continue to adhere to their Peak Oil credo, those additional reserves have to remain discounted from their calculation of remaining finite resources - which requires them to admit, ahem, that the Arctic ice sheets won’t actually be melting to the degree predicted.

Not that Clameur de Haro thinks that any of this will deter the Greenists of course - after all, mustn’t let the Inconvenient Truths of science and reason get in the way of the true religion…..

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Great – But Not The Line In The Sand That Some Will Want To Believe

Clameur de Haro was delighted to join with 7000 of his fellow islanders at St Ouen’s Bay yesterday in protesting the despoilation of our beautiful coastline by some truly hideous over-developments, for he seldom views the architectural excrescences at La Coupe, Portelet, Le Hocq and above St Aubin without shaking his head in disbelief at how they could have secured planning approval. So - many congratulations to Mike Stentiford and all his colleagues.

CdeH was particularly heartened also by the Planning Applications Panel’s decision unanimously to reject the proposed development of 73 chalets at Plemont. He found it disturbing however that the department’s civil servants apparently recommended its approval on planning grounds, for how anyone could envisage 73 chalets to constitute a substantial environmental gain defies belief. This is surely an area for an independent enquiry into the internal departmental processes.

But – a small word of warning. CeH noted the presence on St Ouen’s Bay of one or two politicians from the left-green end of the political spectrum, for whom the protection of the natural heritage is just part of a wider and more radical agenda for anti-business, heavily-taxing, aggressively redistributive economic and fiscal policies, and the imposition of either curbs or costs on individual freedom, advocated in the cause of environmental rectitude but equally in line with the collectivist ideologies to which they subscribe to greater or lesser extent.

The overwhelming majority of those to whom Clameur de Haro spoke were not in this category – they were there to protest against unsympathetic coastline encroachments (and rightly so), but that was all. So the left-green activists should beware – there is, justifiably, a huge mandate for resisting some of the planning approvals coming from the pen of Greenwash Freddie The Environment Minister, but that does not mean a 7000-person mandate for socialism.

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Climate Change Nonsense No 117 – No More Olympics!!

Clameur de Haro shared in the ill-concealed schadenfreude of many observers and commentators at the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ignore the sermons of the Obamessiah and award the 2016 Olympics to Rio rather than Chicago, while rejecting also the bids from Tokyo and Madrid.

What caught CdeH’s eye however, was this oh-so-typically green apocalyptic prediction of doom from Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who warned that global warming was such an immediate threat to all mankind that the 2016 Games could be the last ever staged.

“Global warming is getting worse. We have to come up with measures, without which the Olympic Games could not last long. Scientists have said we have passed the point of no return,” intoned Mr Ishihara solemnly.

Well, yes. Setting aside for a moment the Inconvenient Truth that an increasing number of reputable and respected climate scientists vigorously disassociate themselves from the shrill orthodoxies of the Green Religion, one can see just how the warmist-alarmist predictions - that unless we implement authoritarian economy-wrecking and liberty-destroying policies immediately, we may have a small rise in temperatures in 2050 rather than 2060 - might indeed spell the end of the Olympics.

Or, considering that they have been successfully held in climate environments as diverse as Helsinki and Mexico City, possibly not.

No doubt Tokyo will not be bidding to host future Olympiads on the grounds that they will never happen. Presumably Japan will not be encouraging its future athletes either. H/T – Mr Eugenides

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With Friends Like These..............

Isn't it revealing to see the extent to which the views of the apocalypse-predicting green eco-authoritarians of Jersey's own J-CAN are echoed in the wider national political scene?

Perusing certain UK political party websites today in the furtherance of wider research, Clameur de Haro came across this little gem which should bring a warm glow to the likes of Messrs Palmer, Wimberley, Forskitt et al -

"Peak oil spells the end of cheap oil and gas. It will be seen as the heralding of a new age when we learn to live with the resources of the planet."

But with, of course, the most drastic restrictions on individual liberty, economic freedom, and human advancement, all in the name of allegedly saving the planet (although, strangely, it doesn't mention that).

And this one -

"Develop renewable energy sources such as off-shore wind farms, wave, tidal and solar energy"

Even though wind power has been proved not to provide anything like the power-generating capacity that is claimed for it, or a fraction of the power-generating capacity it is supposed to replace (although equally strangely, that isn't mentioned either).

And where, precisely, apart from in the prescriptions of J-CAN and its fellow-travellers, does one find such enlightened opinions articulated? Why, in none other than the policies of the intolerant, racist and bigoted British National Party. It's all spelt out on the odious BNP's website.

Judge ye a man by the company he keeps, counselled Clameur de Haro's spiritual advisers, all those years ago. Sound advice, maybe.

An unduly harsh judgement? Perhaps. But perhaps not when levelled at those whose habitual mode of debate is to disparage honest sceptics as "deniers" rather than engage with their arguments.

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And The Public Sector Gravy Train Just Keeps On A-Rollin'………

Yet another example reaches Clameur de Haro's in-box of questionable workforce expansion done with a cavalier disregard for its impact on the public finances.

This time it's in Harbours, and involves the recent recruitment, apparently, of an assistant to the so-called Development Director, Myra Shacklady.

Clameur de Haro has not met the lady in question, but his friends in diverse parts of the maritime community assure him that throughout their particular world the prevailing view of Ms Shacklady's demonstrated expertise and competence is one of near-total derision: "complete waste of space" being the phrase most often employed (and also, it has to be said, the politest).

In the current straitened condition of the public finances, one might have thought that with precious little States-funded development likely to be undertaken in the Harbours in the next few years, the need for a full-time so-called development director was debatable, and that the responsible course of action would have been to reduce the role to a 3-day week, with a 40% salary cut. That, after all, is the kind of measure that many businesses in the hard-pressed private sector, both here and in the UK, are being forced to take as they struggle to survive.

But, of course, this is the public sector, and Jersey. Where not only has it been decreed that this kind of cost-saving in the public interest is unthinkable, but that moreover Ms Shacklady actually requires an assistant director, no less. And where Harbours' business case for the additional post was allegedly signed off by a Treasury Minister otherwise exhorting (not too forcefully, it has to be said) curbs on spending.

It gets worse. Clameur de Haro's source reveals that the preferred candidate found the maximum salary for the post's advertised grade to be insufficient and unacceptable, whereupon the salary offer was raised by about 10% to secure the candidate's services.

No doubt all those people affected by the redundancies announced so far this year in the private sector will be comforted by the knowledge that the direction of Harbours development is at no risk of being under-resourced.

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It's Another World Out There On Planet Public Sector

Clameur de Haro notes with exasperation that, while Jersey's wealth and tax revenue generating, but currently hard-pressed, private sector continues to shed staff as it struggles with reduced profitability and business volumes, the public sector in contrast appears to remain blissfully recession-proof - certainly as far as ongoing recruitment to the public payroll is concerned.

A quick look at the jobs vacancies section of the http://www.gov.je/ website reveals that "States of Jersey" is the second highest category for current vacancies, including this one -

Apart from the obvious irony inherent in upping headcount by recruiting a "workforce planner", CdeH wonders why, in a time of financial stringency, this isn't a function automatically required of Departmental Chief Executives and/or their existing senior staff as part of their core management role, and why it's necessary to hire an additional resource to undertake it, particularly when, assuming the part-time nature amounts to, say, a 25-hour week, the total employment costs are likely to approach at least an additional £35k on to the public payroll.

Why is no politician questioning this seemingly relentless expansion of public sector employment?

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Rebels Against The Future

Clameur de Haro was torn between whether to laugh or cry yesterday on reading in the Jersey Evening [sic] Post about the sputtering outrage of local retailers, echoed by David Warr of the Chamber of Commerce, at Jersey Post’s initiative to inflict on deliver to every home in Jersey a copy of the Argos catalogue.

[Although one does so hope that it will be only one copy – according to the report’s author, Carly Lockhart, “thousands of Argos catalogues are being delivered to every Island household” – er, that’s rather a lot of catalogues]. CdeH’s, whether just the one or the threatened promised thousands, will be going straight into the bin, but that’s beside the point.

The grounds for protest attributed to Mr Warr and Barry Jenkins of Fotosound really are risible.

At the basic level, anyone can access Argos’ product ranges on-line, and can obtain a catalogue anyway by merely phoning and asking for it, so even though Jersey Post’s initiative does look a little superfluous for those and other reasons (CdeH has no trouble finding online retailers who deliver to the C.I. at only modest additional cost - and deduct the VAT in full as well) the criticism of it by Mr Warr and Mr Jenkins completely (but predictably) misses the point.

Although, and as CdeH blogged only a couple of days ago, if Jersey Post was to be fully privatised and have its connections with the public sector severed completely, the line of attack that a States’ organisation is threatening local retailers would become untenable.

Mr Jenkins and Mr Warr also betray a telling reluctance to appreciate, or acknowledge, that previous retailing and distribution business models have irreversibly changed, and that they are on the wrong side of the argument. Jersey has suffered for far too many years from the unhealthy predominance of producer interests – whether public sector unions, or retailers comfortably insulated from competition and free trade – and transition to a situation where consumer interests are paramount is to be welcomed.

Just a modicum of research reveals how uncompetitive local retailers can be. A quick Clameur de Haro glance into the window of Mr Jenkins’ Charing Cross emporium reveals some rather vague pricing labels generally, but specifically a Samsung VPMX20 Camcorder at £149.99 and a Sanyo CE32LD90 television at £329.99. The Camcorder is available online at anything from £135 (and approximately £125 ex-VAT at Amazon), while the TV is retailed online from £292.95 ex-VAT. Can Mr Jenkins or Mr Warr provide any kind of convincing reason as to why prospective purchasers should not take advantage of these savings?

Clameur de Haro doubts it. Their grievance is, fundamentally, a Luddite argument: presumably in former times they would have been found protesting that their horse-drawn carters’ businesses should be protected from the competition posed by motor-lorries, or perhaps whinging that this new-fangled electricity thing was killing off their candlestick shops. Messrs Jenkins, Warr et al may bleat as long as they like that the high rents, rates and overheads they are forced to pay choose to endure inhibit them from matching internet retailers on price. But that, although arguably a problem for them, is not one for their prospective customers.

Jersey retailers also typically appear to hold low stock inventories, leading to either restricted choice of product or unacceptably long delivery times, and obtaining spares is often well-nigh impossible, with more than a few shop staff showing little interest in providing a service capable of fulfilling customers’ requirements. Mr Warr moreover is on record in the past as saying that consumers’ expressed preferences for lower prices are not really that at all.

Consumers are proving him wrong with every mouse-click. Competition, choice, and free trade – long may they flourish.

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The JDA's Scintillating Standards of Numeracy

In this blogpost today, the JDA's "Pandora", perhaps a little lacking in awareness of matters mathematical, refers us to Mahatma Gandhi's own list of 7 deadly sins - and then purports to enunciate them as requiring display at the entrance to the States' Chamber for all to read.

However, complete fulfilment of that exhortation may unfortunately prove slightly problematical, as the list contains only 6.

If this is indicative of the JDA's grasp of numbers, Heaven help us all should one of them ever succeed in getting into a position to influence economic or taxation policy.

However, there is, as they say, some previous form here - Clameur de Haro recalls that, last December, Geoff Southern appeared to think that obtaining the least number of votes in States' elections to ministerial positions somehow meant that he was actually the preferred choice of members.

CdeH wonders if the missing 7th deadly sin was perhaps "Electioneering without Fraud". That might explain its omission, on the grounds of potential embarrassment.

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Another Example of the All-Intrusive State

The suffocating embrace of Jersey's increasingly all-intrusive state continues, it seems, to grow apace.

Clameur de Haro has received the missive below from the rather grandiosely-titled Assistant Director, Environmental Protection, reminding him that oil spillage can (only can?) cause long-term damage to the environment (well Good Heavens - whoever would have guessed?) and enjoining him to affix to his oil tank a sticker urging preventive measures apparently derived, not so much from accumulated environmental expertise, as from the Handbook of the Bleedin' Obvious.

Check, CdeH is beseeched, the oil level in your tank before ordering more oil: gosh, never would have thought to do that.

Now Clameur de Haro would never, other than indulging in a little urinary extraction at the expense of the jobsworths, decry the need to protect our natural environment from avoidable pollution of this type (the need to expose and attack constantly the fallacies of the Great Anthropogenic Climate Change Scam being an entirely different matter). But there are a couple of aspects here which are troubling - apart from the obvious one of yet more public expense.

Firstly, to what extent was the public made aware that the 2007 Building Bye-Laws contained a provision requiring the display of an oil care sticker on domestic oil tanks? This in itself is a comparatively innocuous requirement, but what if it had been something altogether more drastic and far-reaching? Building Bye-Laws are either made by the Minister or go through the States Assembly on the nod with precious little scrutiny, so where was the information to the public?

Secondly, and even more disturbing, just how is the Planning and Environment Department aware that Clameur de Haro even has an oil tank? The majority of his neighbours use gas, and his tank installation was not one that required planning permission at the time it was undertaken, so from where, precisely, is P&E's information derived? The obvious inference has to be that it came from the oil suppliers, who presumably made their customer databases (and what else? - amount of oil usage?) available to P&E for the purposes of the latter's mailshot.

If so, then the oil suppliers have quite possibly breached local data protection legislation, and the States of Jersey in turn have either been complicit, or even procured the breach. CdeH provides personal information to his oil suppliers for the purposes of his business relationship with them, not in the expectation that it will be passed on to the agents of the state, and he will be taking this up with them.

Perhaps Jersey's Data Protection Commissioner, one of the few senior public officials for whom CdeH has much time, could adjudicate.

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Climate Change Nonsense No 106 – Birmingham To Boil This Century

Clameur de Haro notes that, according to the latest press release put out by the departmental acolytes of the eco-mental UK Minister for Energy and Climate Change [sic], the distinctly shifty and snivelling Ed Miliband, busily applying as much as possible of the cultural marxism learned at the knee of his marxist-historian father, the unfortunate inhabitants of the West Midlands are going to have rather a torrid time of it in the coming decades.

For Milipede’s minions predict that by 2080, the temperature for the hottest day of the year could increase by 100°C. And no, you didn’t misread that - 100°C – it says so here. It sure is going to be hot over there in Birmingham, England.

Yes, of course it's a typo. But considering the ridicule justifiably heaped on the UK Met Office for its predictions of a “barbecue summer” (according to the National Environment Research Council, July was (1) “distinctly autumnal”, (2) the third wet July in succession, and (3) the wettest since 1888), and the opprobrium rightly poured on the Hadley Centre for attempting to keep its climate record data (inconveniently verifying general cooling since 1998) secret, CdeH would have thought that the useless DECC might have hesitated just a little before predicting a rise of even 10°C.

It’s enough to make your blood boil – which, apparently, it will……

Still, the eco-fascists can’t let science get in the way of propagating the Green religion, can they? That would never do.

Hat Tip - Dizzy

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The Curious Inconsistency of Pink and Green?

Clameur de Haro was, like very many people, horrified this week to read the details of the appalling murders committed by a schizophrenic psychopath, the last after having been released – as a result of a long litany of failings by psychiatric and social services – to live in the community as an outpatient, despite previous convictions for murder.

It’s noticeable from this and other cases - nearly 30 in the 10 years to 2007 - of convicted killers released from jail who have then gone on to kill again, that a significant factor in the eagerness to release was the intolerable violation of the human rights of one person judged to be perpetrated by keeping him incarcerated, just to protect the public from the mere off-chance that he might kill again. A classic world-view, in fact, of the Gramscian cultural left.

Yet many of that self-same Gramscian cultural left are among the most ardent proselytizers of the fundamentally illiberal, authoritarian socialism-by-another-name, policy prescriptions of the Green religion, who harbour no qualms at all about imposing, on billions of people, the most drastic restrictions and penalties on individual freedom, economic liberty, and human advancement, ever seen, just to protect the planet from the mere off-chance that their increasingly discredited and desperate predictions of impending climate apocalypse might turn out to be one-percent true.

A curious inconsistency indeed……or, given that both policies necessitate the subjection of the majority to the views of the unrepresentative minority, possibly not………

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Privatise Jersey Post – Now!

Over at Jersey 24/7, Clameur de Haro’s fellow-blogger made the point a couple of days ago that it’s time Jersey Post was sold off. His reasoning was based specifically on the potential damage likely to be inflicted on the local retail sector by Jersey Post’s new Ship2Me service, but he is undoubtedly right in the wider context as well. The case for the full privatisation of this business and its disposal out of public sector ownership and control entirely is overwhelming.

Initially, the economic philosophy argument. Generally, being naturally less efficient than private enterprise, government should restrict itself to providing only those services which the private sector is unable or unwilling to provide. Throughout Europe, mail and postal services are increasingly shown to be capable of being willingly delivered by the private sector at reasonable cost and to an acceptable return. Where is the compelling evidence that Jersey is an exception?

Subsequently, the practical points. A Jersey Post continuing in even partial public sector ownership is undesirable on at least three counts: firstly, it’s a monopoly, which is bad enough; secondly, it’s a public sector monopoly, which is even worse; and thirdly, it’s a unionised public sector monopoly, which virtually guarantees sub-optimal operation and unresponsive customer service.

Any reader who doubts the latter should try visiting Broad Street on a busy lunchtime and noting what proportion of total counter positions are actually open. Rarely does the ratio exceed 50% (even during the long queues of the annual pre-Christmas rush): presumably this is mainly because of union resistance to instituting shift patterns which would deploy the greatest numbers of customer-facing staff precisely at the times of peak customer demand, exacerbated by an inherent management disincentive, stemming from the business’ position as a semi-state-owned monopoly with guaranteed protection from competition, to even tackle this issue.

Does anyone really imagine that this degree of insensitivity to customer demand could be sustained if Jersey Post was a 100% private sector enterprise accountable to multiple shareholders, and forced moreover to compete with other mail service providers on price and service levels? As many of CdeH’s acquaintances have remarked, it was only the arrival of Sure and the ending of Jersey Telecoms’ monopoly which forced JT to provide a retail facility in the main shopping precinct.

And then, to add insult to injury, in recent years the wealth-creating private sector has had to endure the sight of Jersey Post executives both publishing excessively self-congratulatory annual statements and paying themselves handsome bonuses commensurate with private sector out-performance in the face of stiff competition; totally unjustified in the case of a protected, esentially public sector monopoly.

It’s a fairly openly-expressed opinion in the Island’s financial and business community that when the full disposal of Jersey Post was looked at a few years ago, potential buyers were scared off by the size and extent of the potential future liabilities represented by the (typically for the public sector) exceptionally generous but under-funded employees’ pension scheme. And that only by promising that the taxpayer, rather than the purchasers, would retain these liabilities could the States even get potential buyers to pursue their initial interest.

Neither that particular issue, nor the strength of the conceptual argument for full privatisation, nor the opportunity cost to the Island of the States’ non-realisation of this asset at a time of financial stringency, are going to go away at any time in the foreseeable future. And transferring Jersey Post to private ownership in its entirety would also blunt the criticisms from retailers about its (totally legitimate) expansion of fulfilment business on the grounds of its public sector component.

It’s vital therefore that the States develop the resolve to resist and defeat the inevitable specious arguments – which will be superficially predicated on fears of reduced customer service, but will actually be founded on ideological committment to state ownership and hostility to private enterprise – and move to end both Jersey Post’s increasingly indefensible monopoly and its protected, even quasi-public sector, status.

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Bravo!! for 42 Members of the Australian Senate

Clameur de Haro salutes the 42 members of the Australian Senate who yesterday brought some much-needed legislative sanity to the Great Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Scam by voting to reject the leftist Rudd Government's potentially ambitious tax-hiking (in the midst of a recession), economy-damaging, and over-regulating Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

And Chapeau! especially to Sen. Steve Fielding, who rather than just succumbing to the Green alarmists’ propaganda and all the usual hysterical “denier” / “you are killing our children” / “you must be in the pay of big mineral” insults from the shrills, actually talked to as many scientists as possible, came to the realisation that the science is very far from settled and there is very much not total consensus, and then presented impeccable, scientific, peer-reviewed evidence to the effect that man-made CO2 emissions are small compared with natural ones, and The Inconvenient Truth that despite rising CO2 levels, global temperatures have not in fact risen for more than a decade.

And what a delightful irony that 5 Green Party senators, furious that the Scheme didn’t go far enough for their tastes in the direction of hobbling business and the economy in the name of saving the planet, voted against it and thereby helped to bring it down. The words “hoist” and “petard” come unaccountably to mind.

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Two More Nails in the Coffin of Legitimate Financial Freedom

Clameur de Haro regrets to see that two more blows were struck this week against the freedom of the law-abiding to deploy their legally-acquired assets in entirely lawful ways.

On Tuesday, as part of a Tax Information Exchange Agreement with Lichtenstein, HM Revenue & Customs cut a deal with the Principality’s authorities under which HMRC will “offer” limited penalties on unpaid UK tax liabilities originating from Lichtenstein bank deposits, but the Lichtenstein authorities will arbitrarily close the accounts of depositors who decline to volunteer details to HMRC.

It’s disturbing to note that the intensification of pressure on the Principality arose largely from the German Government being prepared to trade in stolen property, i.e. buying customer data stolen from a Lichtenstein bank by a former employee.

Then on Wednesday, the HMRC Special Commissioners delivered a ruling which means that some 308 national and international banks with operations in the UK will be forced to hand over details of customers with bank accounts offshore, in defiance of banking confidentiality.

If both of these initiatives are targeted solely at illegal tax evasion, then Clameur de Haro has no objection whatsoever. As he posted some time last Autumn –

Neither the slightest degree of opprobrium, nor the slightest taint of immorality, should attach to any private citizen, whether an individual or a corporation, who so arranges his financial affairs, by lawful means, as to minimise or avoid the appropriation of his wealth by the state. [Note the words “by lawful means” and “avoid” – and the latter’s important distinction from “evade” – for CdeH does not defend or attempt to justify in any way, and roundly condemns, the illegal evasion of obligations in contravention of the law of the land].

So CdeH welcome theses initiatives if they only counter illegal evasion and incidentally detect illegal money-laundering - the transgressors deserve what they get, because for freedom to function, it must mean freedom under the law.

But HMRC has recently started to adopt a much more aggressive, authoritarian approach to its remit, one not always in accordance with the settled law of the land. Two things in particular should be of concern: it has been deliberately trying to blur the distinction between legal avoidance and illegal evasion in the direction of treating any and all legitimate avoidance as being, by definition, evasion: and it has been increasingly adopting the position that actual tax law is not what is laid out in statute, as interpreted by the judicial process, but what HMRC consider the intentions of the framers of legislation to have been, irrespective of the actual wording.

In this context, even the law-abiding with legally-held accounts, with no connotations of evading UK tax liabilities, have reason to fear. When government purports to arrogate to itself the power to decide what the law is, we all have reason to fear.

In such ways do viscerally high-taxing states seek to eliminate, by threats and intimidation, the alternatives available to their citizens, rather than lowering their profligate spending, decreasing the tax burdens they impose to fund it, and so reducing the incentives for taxpayers to shelter themselves from it.

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Maybe The Kids Are Not Quite So All Right……

Is there a cultural left bias in Jersey’s Health and Social Services towards subverting parental authority and undermining the role of the family by condoning under-age sex?

Tracking at random through a few recent back editions of the Jersey Evening [sic] Post, Clameur de Haro’s eye was caught by one of the facts given by Brook Jersey executive director Bronia Lever on the numbers of teenagers and young adults said to be seeking contraception advice and emergency contraception, “…some as young as 12….”.

For the record, and in case anyone should allege otherwise, CdeH thinks that Brook generally, and its Jersey clinic in particular, fulfils a vital function in the community, and that the advice and contraception sensitively dispensed by the Brook counsellors contribute significantly to reduced incidences of, particularly, early to mid-teen pregnancy – and also that it obviously discharges its functions in a very caring and empathetic way, the very numbers seeking Brook Jersey’s services being, apart from any other implications, a visible testament to its success.

But what we were not told by Ms Lever, however, is how many of those recipients or requestors of contraception advice or emergency contraception were under 16.

Now CdeH is no prude, and recalls with a contradictory mixture of wistful fondness and acute embarrassment his own adolescent fumblings, undertaken, on one or two occasions, while hoping to heaven that his co-fumbler’s assurances that she was 16, yes really, might just be truthful. But at the risk of appearing antediluvian, let’s not forget that 16 remains (until it’s changed by the legislature) the legal age of consent: so it follows, surely, that in the case of a sub-16 female client requesting post-coital emergency contraception, there is prima facie evidence before the clinic and its counsellors of the statutory offence of unlawful sex with a minor having been committed.

CdeH’s original intention, when the idea for this post was taking shape, was to pose the question – “Given that the law of the land has clearly been broken in such a case, to what extent is any judicial process invoked?” – because the idea of a public authority turning a blind eye to a serious breach of law isn’t an easy one to feel comfortable with. But recalling that Jersey seems to be considering the creation of a Sexual Offenders’ Register (of which subject more on another occasion), and then reading in this special briefing in the current issue of The Economist the often appalling consequences for people who can be placed on such a register for comparatively minor “technical” misdemeanours, it strikes CdeH that our local Brook counsellors are probably better using their discretion in mostly declining to get PC Plod involved.

But possibly even more importantly, when and to what extent, in the case of the very sub-16 clients, are the parents brought into the process?

CdeH of course acknowledges the confidentiality argument, and the reality that many of Brook’s clients would probably not consult it at all – with adverse consequences in some cases - if they thought their parents would be informed. But on the other hand, and writing as an erstwhile parent of daughters, it’s also not easy to feel entirely comfortable with the idea of a public authority concealing from loving, concerned, and would-be responsible parents its condoning, to the point of even facilitating, their offspring’s under-age sex.

What also disturbs Clameur de Haro here is the danger that all this isn’t just about sexual health advice and preventing unwanted teenage pregnancy – that it’s also, more insidiously, about furthering, even unwittingly, the cultural left’s agenda for the state to undermine parental authority and the position of the family as the principal societal unit, and to eventually supplant it as the prime nurturer of future generations.

Cultural marxism frequently seeks, whether via economic or social policy means, to weaken the position and authority of the unitary family as a discrete social unit, and to undermine parental rights and responsibilities to this end: it does this because the strong individual family unit, secure against the depredations of the state, is one of the bedrocks of a free society and therefore an inherent threat to the belief that only state activism can guarantee desired social outcomes.

Given the prevalence of cultural left attitudes in the UK social services, and the extent of recruitment and secondment from the UK that Jersey practises, it would be surprising if some of those attitudes had not found their way, either openly or covertly, into our social services locally. Indeed, there have been grounds in recent years for believing that this is so.

Should we therefore be worried that our justified focus on the numbers and youthfulness of some of Brook Jersey’s clients may in fact be masking the less apparent, the less immediate, but the no less significant danger that the role of parents is surreptitiously being diminished?

Clameur de Haro recalls Ms Lever’s, and Brook’s, endorsement a couple of years ago for the initiative launched by the Jersey Police to encourage parents to take greater responsibility for their children. Would it not be unfortunate, to say the least, if a misplaced sociological view of a vulnerable minor’s absolute right to confidentiality contributed to putting obstacles in the way of parents who want to do exactly that?

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Pikeys, Tessa and Toby

A fine example of uptight bien–pensant political correctness’ continuing assault on legitimate freedom of expression in this righteous indignation offering from Guardianista Jodie Matthews last week.

Ms Matthews, it seems, found the epithet “pikey” (in this case by Richard Hammond on Top Gear) deeply offensive and inappropriate (ah, that wonderful catch-all adjective of the thought police), and professed it to have been used (naturally) solely as a racist slur.

For the record, Clameur de Haro has no truck with racism, and neither commits it nor condones it: certain people, or certain ideas, or certain values, may be offensive, but whole races and religions are not offensive per se (although that does not mean they should be exempt from legitimate criticism).

Ms Matthews however seems to have deliberately ignored the overwhelmingly modern usage of the term “pikey” not as an epithet of racist abuse or presumed ethic origin, but as a convenient shorthand for a disparaging value judgment on the target’s lifestyle, ethics and behaviour. In this modern usage it’s equivalent to “chav” – the connotations it conveys are those of disapproval, not of race or even socio-economic group, but of coarseness and vulgarity, cavalier law-breaking, aggression and inconsiderateness toward others, and cynical manipulation of the welfare system.

But that, of course, is precisely the point of Ms Matthews’ article. Like any right-thinking social commentator on the Grauniad, she presumably recoils in horror at anyone making a value judgement about anyone or anything (unless of course it’s a value judgment she agrees with) as being an infringement of enlightened and progressive non-judgmental attitudes.

No doubt then, she will be suitably castigating the producers of the latest UK DCSF storybook for children for making a value judgment of their own that Tess and Toby the Pikeys Travellers are really just nice, misunderstood, and fun people.

Or possibly, bearing in mind they should tick quite a few of her boxes, she won’t be.........

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Global Warming Nonsense No 94 – Will Climate Change Lead to Stronger Regional Accents?

Just when Clameur de Haro thinks it can't possibly get any sillier - it does.

According to this farrago of sub-intellectual fill-space - well, it is August, after all - from one John-Paul (might he, CdeH wonders, be harbouring delusions of quasi-papal infallibility?) Flintoff of the more verdant parts of The Murdoch Empire, global warming and climate change are going to force us all to live more locally, with the consequence that regional accents will become stronger.

So, thanks to the impending climate catastrophe (er……not), we can doubtless all look forward to the Weighbridge air on a Friday and Saturday night resounding to the dulcet tones of Philloche La Clotte (although at least it’ll be a change from guttural Glaswegian and faux Estuary English……..).

CdeH is indebted to his co-sceptics at the All-Seeing Eye for drawing his attention to this latest example of blatant eco-nonsense – but now finds himself fearful that his inclination to join his brother-in-blogging Jersey 24/7 in refusing to pay in future for online access to the Dirty Digger’s offerings may in fact restrict the chances of further amusement at Mr Flintoff’s drivel.

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Deconstructing the Financial Crises

On his way back from the Far East, Clameur de Haro passed a good deal of time reading arguably one of the best books yet to be published on the causes of the 2007-08 credit crunch and the subsequent banking crisis, Gillan Tett's book "Fool's Gold".

In an excellent read, Tett comprehensively charts the genesis and development of the ever more exotic, opaque, and risky off-balance-sheet financial instruments and structures that played such a pivotal part in creating the 2007 credit and liquidity crunches, and the ensuing banking meltdown.

Refreshingly however, she also shows that the anti-capitalist left who gleefully parrot the unthinking, intellectually lazy, but - for them - politically expedient mantra of "blame the bankers and blame free markets", disregard the myriad other relevant contributing factors, including those to be laid at the door of governments.

Prominent among these was the 1990’s Clinton administrations’ forcing mortgage providers, on the threat of prosecution and legal sanction under their own misconceived, mal-administered, political correctness-driven equality legislation, to lend to fundamentally uncreditworthy borrowers, with the consequent ratcheting up of the risk of defaults.

Equally significant were the inadequacy of government-conceived regulatory structures whose mandates explicitly excluded the credit derivatives markets and the parallel banking sector, and the lax monetary and interest-rate policies pursued for too long by central banks, at the behest of governments more concerned with creating a short-term feel-good factor for base political purposes, rather than pursuing policies ensuring medium-term financial stability.

Definitely a must-read for those who want to know, and for those who wrongly just assume that they do.

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A Clear Case of Black (Ian) and White (Wash)

It's not often that Clameur de Haro finds himself agreeing with Geoff Southern about anything, but CdeH stands four-square with Mr Southern in his condemnation of the glossing-over by a clearly embarrassed and defensive Establishment of the incompetence and dereliction of fiduciary duty to the taxpayer exhibited by States' Treasurer Ian Black (who, CdeH notes, reportedly attempted to deflect the blame on to the former TTS CEO) in failing to ensure that the incinerator contract was hedged against an adverse exchange rate movement.

This is such a basic requirement - in CdeH's private sector worlds, both past and present, even comparatively junior mid-level finance executives are aware of the need to hedge a substantial currency risk exposure - that its omission virtually defies belief.

Are we to assume that no-one at all, in either the Treasury or TTS, realised the need? Because if that really is the case, then the implications for the management of Jersey's public finances, politely describable as sub-optimal at the best of times, are truly frightening. And the proposal to place Treasury accountants in all departments suddenly looks like not a very good idea at all.

Catching up on the last couple of weeks' Jersey Evening [sic] Post's back numbers since returning to the fold, Clameur de Haro spied Christine Herbert's Business Focus of 28 July, revealing that the Treasury is to deploy more public funds into the markets: presumably this will involve Mr Black's professional oversight of the investment strategy and the investment advisers.

Time for Under The Mattress as a safer option, maybe?

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Back to Jersey – and Back to the Blogosphere

Clameur de Haro found it a stimulating and rewarding experience living and working again in the Far East for the past few months: but with his last-ever overseas assignment having come to an end, and now lately arrived back on the Blessed Rock for good, he feels it’s time to pick up once again the reins of rightwards-inclined posting, to balance a little the local blogosphere’s majority leftward slant.

So, catching up, to what extent have the numerous undesirable features of the Island’s politico-economic landscape which CdeH hitherto railed against improved in his absence? And despite keeping intermittently in touch with events from afar, what does CdeH find on his return the land of his birthright?

Many of the answers, sadly, are not encouraging.

A still-bloated public sector, where spending appears predominantly out of control, where budgetary discipline seems lax or non-existent, and where sufficient determination to tackle either to the large extent actually necessary (as opposed to some cosmetic tinkering at the margins) looks less likely than snowdrifts in August.

Terry the Taxer and Ozo the Bozo purporting to direct an economic strategy which announced an appallingly cynical curtailment of front-line patient services and public facilities, but retracted immediately when objections were made – if cuts were (wrongly) thought necessary in the first place, why were they not defended robustly, however unjustifiable they were? And their cohorts and satraps already musing about raising indirect tax rates.

A government which almost certainly will have neither the vision nor the courage to go through with implementing much-needed staffing cuts, an absolute pay freeze, and pensions reform in public sector employment, nor any inclination to contemplate shrinking the size of the state by withdrawing from activities better undertaken by private enterprise.

A policing function with an effectiveness reportedly all but paralysed by internal strife, but still retaining the ability to commit the unbelievably ham-fisted bungling of what ought to have been a low-key routine investigation, thereby giving that malignant pipsqueak Syvret a golden opportunity to revel in his much-loved but self-proclaimed martyr status.

How depressing too, to see that the vast majority of the local politics blogs remain firmly anchored at the left-green end of the spectrum: some still obsessing, ostrich-like, with conspiracy theories about cover-ups or justice-denial to the exclusion of all else (and goodness knows, there’s no shortage of other things to get worked up about in this mis-governed island), while others continue to proselytize pernicious eco-authoritarian greenery.

At least Ratleskutle, Tony’s Musings, and Jersey 24/7 are still out there, providing a bit of much-needed wider variety of subject-matter.

So Clameur de Haro looks forward to a resumption of both promoting the alternative free-market and liberal prescriptions of a smaller state, reduced public spending, lower taxes and enhanced individual freedoms, and rebutting the authoritarian collectivist fallacies peddled by the pink leftists and their green fascist allies of convenience. Just as a taster for the latter, CdeH spied, on his pre-departure sojourn in a certain Far East airport, this entertaining piece in the Jakarta Globe about a ceiling collapse in a virtually new school building in Cirebon, West Java. Do, please, note the last sentence –

“Dedi Windiagiri, the head of the Cirebon school board, denied that the contractor was to blame. Climate change, he said, was the true cause of the accident.”

Really, you couldn’t make it up, could you? Ridiculous? Of course. But as an example of the fundamental dishonesty of so many genuflectors before the altar of the green religion, and their desire desperation to attribute any misfortune at all, whatever its cause, to the great holy mantra of climate change, regrettably not untypical.

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