Author: johnredwood

 

         On Wednesday I debated fairness and the law at a seminar arranged by Middlesex University.

         One of the most interesting exchanges was about the supremacy of the European Convention of Human Rights over UK Statute law  passed by Parliament. The general view was that the UK like all other signatories to the Convention had to obey the international  law, and that law would be settled by international judges. Their decisions might be at variance with the wishes of the UK voters as expressed by their elected representatives. I was told that the inconvenience of losing a few court cases was offset by the advantage that the Convention would do more good in some countries with lower legal and democratic standards than our own.

          In the discussion we were reminded that the European Convention was the product of 1940s thinking. Its defenders accepted that in some areas opinions and general morality changes. They accepted that some opponents of gay marriage had appealed to  the Convention which implies the right to marriage is a right for a marriage of a man to a woman.  They just thought they can read the Convention in a different way to modernise it without needing to amend it. Some also accepted that some issues  aroused too many passions in particular countries for it to be wise to seek a conclusion through court action. Rights for migrants to change country could be such an issue in some cases.

          I reminded the audience that one of  the greatest statements of democratic rights and freedom, the American Declaration of Independence, has been much amended by changes to the US Constitution subsequently. One of its main architects was a slave owner. The authors of modern demcoracy saw nothing wrong with rights only applying to freeborn males, with little regard for the rights of women and no regard for the shared humanity of the slaves. These bad features of the original American settlement needed amending at a later date. These amendments occurred thanks to democratic actions and to protests.

       All those who rely on Treaty law from the EU and from the ECHR need to grasp that these methods of imposing morals and standards on us run the risk of being inflexible and becoming dated. Statute law designed by a free and sovereign Parliament has two great advantages over these Treaties. The first is Parliament can regularly improve and update the moral standards and viewpoints behind the laws as opinion evolves. Secondly the public can remove members of a Parliament that make a mess of it and insist on urgent change after a new election.

          The IMF sees a lot of worse cases than the UK economy. The summary of their report starts positively, recording “some improvement in economic and financial conditions.”  They praise the strong private sector employment growth and forecast some increase in activity this year.

         The IMF is on an ideological journey. Under its latest Euro friendly management it wishes to detach itself from the old IMF formula of cutting public spending, raising taxes, loosening money supply and devaluing for countries with large public sector and balance of payments deficits. After all, Euro member states cannot undertake the monetary expansion nor the devaluation for themselves, the two most pro growth parts of a traditional IMF package.

          They want the UK to “rebalance”, to export more and invest more. The shortfall in private sector investment has several causes. Weak banks with insufficient loans available do not help. Large pension deficits created by artificially low interest rates force companies to keep more cash on their balance sheets to meet future pension costs. Falling demand in Euroland undermines one of our export markets and leads companies to wonder if more capacity is a good idea.

           They praise the loose money policy being followed and ask that it continue. Indeed they want the Bank to buy more of its own bonds and promise to keep interest rates very low for longer. They want the banks to raise more capital, and want the government to sell RBS and Lloyds back to the private sector. The Chancellor in his public statements seems happy to oblige.

          The IMF also favours cutting corporation tax more and paying for revenue loss by further property taxes and VAT on a wider range of items. Did they not follow pastygate?  Their tax recommendations are toxic. I cannot see why people take their advice so seriously, when they seem to be all at sea in this crisis, and did not foresee any of it.

In view of the continuing interest in the topic of immigration I am reproducing in full below the latest report from the Minister on progress in controlling migration :

“The latest migration statistics were published today(23.5.13) by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). They demonstrate that we continue to make good progress on bringing immigration back under control – net migration is down by more than a third since June 2010 and is now at its lowest level for a decade.

Our reforms are creating an immigration system that is more selective and which works in our national interest. We are cutting out abuse while encouraging the brightest and best migrants to come to the UK.

Key facts:

• Net migration was 153,000 for the year ending September 2012 – down from 242,000 in September 2011, and a fall of 89,000. Once again, this shows that we are on the right track to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands by the end of this Parliament.

• The ONS highlighted that while changes in net migration over the period 2008–10 were mainly driven by changes in people leaving the country, ‘since 2011, declining immigration has been the main cause of changes in net migration.’

• Of total immigration, 55 per cent was from nationals outside the European Economic Area (EEA), 30 per cent was from EEA nationals and 15 per cent was returning British citizens.

While continuing to bring net migration down, we are also supporting economic growth by welcoming the brightest and best to the UK:

• There was a 5 per cent increase in work visas issued for skilled individuals under Tier 2 in the year to March.

• There was a 5 per cent increase in sponsored student visa applications for the university sector – demonstrating that our reforms have deliberately favoured universities and that we continue to have a great offer for international students. There is no limit on student numbers; universities can apply their own language tests; and graduates can stay and work if they get a graduate job.

• There was an overall increase of 6 per cent in the total number of visas issued to Chinese nationals in the year to March 2013, including a 10 per cent increase in study visas issued to Chinese nationals.

Once again, these are encouraging figures – but we recognise that there is still more to do. It is still too easy for illegal immigrants to access public services to which they are not entitled and too hard for immigration officials to remove them from the UK. This is why we have announced there will be an Immigration Bill in this parliamentary session. This Bill will stop migrants abusing public services to which they are not entitled, reduce the pull factors which draw illegal immigrants to the UK, and make it easier to remove people who should not be here.

Mark Harper MP”

I have nothing original or important to say about the murder in Woolwich. I do not wish to add to the torrents of publicity and commentary in the mainstream media. I will continue to provide commentary and analysis on other topics. I would be grateful if you did not send me generalisations arising from the Woolwich crime.

Some of you think I am too tough in editing out allegations and pejorative adjectives about people in power and in the news. The latest court decision concerning Mrs Bercow’s comment on Lord Macalpine should be a warning. The case has found you can libel someone without even making an allegation, and by just asking a question. I do not edit out opinions and comments I disagree with, and do not seek the shield Conservative Ministers from robust attacks on their actions and words in public office.
I make sure I do not libel anyone with what I write. I try to help bloggers on this site by editing out anything I notice that could be libellous. I could miss something, and you will have to face the music if the person affected wishes to take action.
I would urge you all to make my life easier and give yourselves more reassurance by avoiding allegations or pejorative language. If you have evidence that someone in the news has committed a crime or behaved badly then report them to the authorities. If you have no such first hand evidence then please remember the Bercow judgement. Publishing material here can be treated as if you were publishing in a well known newspaper.

At the European Council last week worried Heads of State and government for the first time highlighted dear energy as a major impediemnt to growth and jobs in the EU. One cheer for that.

It is perhaps appropriate as we reach for warmer clothing in this wintry May that the EU’s leading politicians fall out of love with global warming theory.

It is difficult to know how they had missed the damage done by dear energy for so long. After all, they and their predecessors had merrily signed up for directive after directive, policy after policy, designed to make EU energy the dearest on the planet. What did they expect from their renewables requirements, their big plant directive, their carbon taxes and the rest? Surely they knew when they did this it would mean our energy came out a lot dearer than the US, Japan, China and the others? Some of us had been warning them for a long time that making our energy so dear did not save the planet, it just sent the industry from us to cheaper places.

Apparently someone circulated at the summit a chart showing that EU energy prices are now 37% higher than the US and 20% higher than Japan. That means we wont be making much steel, glass, ceramics and other items in furnaces and kilns in Europe. Nor is it easy for any automated factory, given the high energy costs modern equipment impose.

The problem is they are finding it difficult to turn the supertanker back from China to Europe. The rest of the summit conclusions gave more of the same energy policies based around carbon control, renewables and dearer energy prices to enforce energy saving.

All the politicians were able to do was to put into the summit conclusions the requirement that the Commissioners undertake a study of why the EU has dear energy and what can be done about it, to be completed by the end of 2013. Then the leaders will get a policy discussion in february 2014. No cheer for that. It just means more delay. Meanwhile granny feels cold and cannot afford the heating in May, and businesses decide to set up energy using factories well outside the EU.

 

Nick Clegg’s lecture to Conservative MPs yesterday was far from helpful. His instruction that we should stop playing games about the EU and concentrate on “boosting business, creating jobs,helping with the cost of living” is especially rich coming from a Lib Dem who has promoted policies of dear energy for years.

The Coalition rightly stated at its outset that the overriding objective was to get the deficit down. Conservatives proposed a major slimming of government itself, cutting the overhead and cost of administration. To lead this, we proposed removing 50 MP posts. Surely if we are going to tell the public sector to do more with less, we had to show that we could do that ourselves by raising MP productivity. Mr Clegg has now voted that down, showing that he and his party have no wish to provide leadership by showing how we can cut our costs.

Mr Clegg has also been the leading exponent of diverting the Coalition away from its vital tasks of curbing the deficit and promoting growth. He forced upon the Coalition the idea of an AV referendum. Conservative MPs gave him his way and voted for the referendum. The British people rightly rejected the whole idea of AV. It was a big diversion of political and government energy. It was another needless public spending cost.

Then Mr Clegg decided to divert us all by trying for his version of Lords reform. The Conservative Manifesto had said we would see if there was a consensus for some reform, recognising it could only be done with cross party agreement and with the agreement of the Lords. Mr Clegg failed to secure the Lords agreement or the agreement of Conservative backbenchers. He rejected wise advice from Lib Dem peers to reform tenure, retirement  and conditions of peers’ jobs. He instead  went for a reform which was never going to pass the Lords. It ended in tears after further diversion of political and government effort.

Conservatives who press the government on the EU do so over issues like migration and energy prices which are very relevant to the central economic task that concerns most voters. What is Mr Clegg’s excuse for his diversions from these matters?  And how does he explain his refusal to put through a major freedom bill at the start of the Parliament, when he had Conservatives egging him on to do so? Why couldn’t we have enjoyed a great package of more cvil liberties and more economic freeedoms, as part of the recovery of our nation?

 

This week’s statement on Syria to the Commons worried many MPs. There is little appetite for us to become more involved in the dreadful Syrian civil war. MPs are united in condemning the brutality of the current regime in Syria. Many of us are also doubtful that the UK could help were it to supply arms to people there or to make moves with the USA and others towards military intervention.

My favourite spending  cut has been to remove our troops from front line duties in Afghanistan and to get most of them home altogether. I think they have done enough. The  Afghans can now do their own patrolling. I have pleaded with Ministers to put our troops out of harm’s way where possible by discontinuing UK patrols, with fewer troops remaining for any additional training and back up the Afghans may still need.

I now find msyelf urging caution over Syria. Just who are the opposition forces we wish to help? How can we distinguish between those opposition forces who believe in liberty and democracy, and those who wish to replace one tyranny with another? How could we ensure any arms supply went just to the people we can be sure have the right intentions? How do you stop the regime taking the weapons on or after delivery? How do you distinguish between the different opponents of the regime? How do you ensure that an apparently well intentioned opponent does not come less well intentioned should he receive arms from us? How do you get the arms into the country against the wishes of the Syrian government?

Many of Syria’s neighbours are rich and well armed states. Why don’t we leave this set of problems to the Middle Eastern powers to tackle?