New home for this blog.

I have decided to move this blog over to a new home due to various features available via the Wordpress platform.

Wolfgang Werle was convicted of murdering Walter Sedlmayer

Why am I publicising this fact? Because the convicted murderer in question (his name, remember, is Wolfgang Werle) is trying to sue Wikipedia to get references to his murder of Walter Sedlmeyer removed:

Wikipedia is under a censorship attack by a convicted murderer who is invoking Germany’s privacy laws in a bid to remove references to his killing of a Bavarian actor in 1990.

Lawyers for Wolfgang Werle, of Erding, Germany, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding removal of Werle’s name from the Wikipedia entry on actor Walter Sedlmayr. The lawyers cite German court rulings that “have held that our client’s name and likeness cannot be used anymore in publication regarding Mr. Sedlmayr’s death.”

German media have already ceased using Werle’s full name regarding the attack. Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says German publications must also alter their online archives in a bid to comport with laws designed to provide offenders an avenue to “reintegrate back into society.”

“It’s not just censorship going forward. It’s asking outlets to go back and change what is already being written,” Granick said in a telephone interview.

It seems to me the appropriate response to such insanity is to publicise the offending material as widely as possible.

Are you a "domestic extremist"?

See Magna Carta Plus News for details on how entirely peaceful, legal protest and merely attending political meetings could get your details recorded on databases of "domestic extremists"...

Cameron agrees to repealing the Identity Cards Act

YouTube - David Cameron - Repealing The Identity Cards Act

This is unequivocal!

The unspoken constitution

The unspoken constitution: a satirical attempt to describe how Britain's "unwritten" constitution works in practice.

Stoking up Islamophobia

[Hat tip: A commenter at Samizdata]

That's what these people are doing, far more effectively than Geert Wilders could ever manage.

On the BNP's euro election performance

2 interesting articles are linked to below, the first on the views of those who voted for the BNP in the European elections and the second looking at the BNP's performance in perspective.

Who voted BNP and why? - Channel 4 News:

``Yet the feeling is widespread that white Britons get a raw deal. Seventy seven per cent of BNP voters think white people suffer unfair discrimination these days. But that is also the views of 40 per cent of the public as a whole.

The average British voter is more likely to think that discrimination afflicts white people than Muslim or non-white people. And only seven per cent of the public think white people benefit from unfair advantages, while more than one in three think Muslim and non-white people receive unfair help.

Thus the BNP is tapping into some very widely held views, such as the desire to stop all immigration, and the belief that local councils "normally allow immigrant families to jump the queue in allocating council homes" (87 per cent of BNP voters think this, but so does 56 per cent of the public as a whole).

Yet, depending on how the term "racist" is precisely defined, our survey suggests that the label applies to only around a half of BNP voters. On their own, these votes would not have been enough to give the BNP either of the seats they won last night.

There are two telling pieces of evidence that suggest wider causes of disenchantment. Seven out of 10 BNP voters (and almost as many Green and Ukip voters) think that "there is no real difference these between Britain’s three main parties".

But perhaps the most startling finding came when we tested anecdotal reports that many BNP voters were old Labour sympathisers who felt that the party no longer speaks up for them. It turns out to be true. As many as 59 per cent of BNP voters think that Labour "used to care about the concerns of people like me but doesn’t nowadays".

What is more worrying for Labour is that this sentiment is shared by millions of voters, way beyond the ranks of BNP voters. Overall, 63 per cent of the British public think Labour used to care about their concerns – and only 19 per cent think it does today.''

(bold emphasis added)

The myth of the far right surge - Spiked Online

``The BNP’s share of the Euro-vote is certainly up - but not by much, from 4.9 per cent in 2004 to 6.2 per cent in 2009. In this election, everything was reportedly in the BNP’s favour: a recession, a political crisis, a voting system that favours smaller parties, an election that is routinely used to deliver protest votes because it is not taken seriously, and the kudos of being the one vote that was sure to get up the noses of the political establishment. Yet the BNP still barely registers in British political life except as a bogeyman to be employed by the big parties to scare us down to the polling booths. In fact, the number of votes the BNP received actually fell in the two regions where it won seats compared with the 2004 Euro elections: by almost 3,000 votes in the north-west and by around 6,000 in Yorkshire and Humber. It was the collapse of the Labour vote that allowed the BNP to win seats.

While there is little to suggest that the BNP can make a major impact on political life more generally, the fact that such a pariah party can have any success at all is indicative of the increasing isolation of the mainstream parties. As the Conservative shadow defence spokesman Liam Fox put it, ‘all politicians should be asking themselves “How did we allow this to happen?”’. The answer is that all the mainstream parties can offer is a managerial approach to solving society’s problems. There is so little difference of principle between them that they spend an inordinate amount of time jockeying for position in the febrile atmosphere of the ‘Westminster Village’ in an effort to differentiate themselves. It is no surprise that voters have chosen to give the political elite a kicking at the ballot box, if they could summon up enough enthusiasm to vote at all.

It is this loss of legitimacy - not the highly unlikely prospect of neo-fascist electoral success - which is central to the handwringing. The only way that Nick Griffin and friends will gain more support is if bankrupt mainstream politicians continue to have nothing more to offer than ‘at least we’re not the BNP’.''

(bold emphasis added)

On the UK's Euro election results

The BBC summarises the results here. The main headline results are of course that UKIP pushed Labour into 3rd place, the BNP won 2 seats and Labour was pushed into 2nd place in Wales by the Tories. The last time Labour failed to be the most popular party in Wales, David Lloyd George was the Prime Minister.

Certainly this is a truly dire result for Labour, an encouraging result for UKIP and a worrying boost for the BNP, but it seems to me there is more going on than that.

Consider the votes for the "established" parties. The Tories, Lib Dems, Labour and, (in Scotland and Wales) the SNP and Plaid Cymru, collectively got 60% of the vote.

40% has gone to UKIP, the Greens, the BNP and a myriad of small parties and independents. In 2004 (summary here), the "established" parties collectively got 66.6% of the vote. If you take just Labour + Tories + Lib Dems the percentage of the vote in 2009 was 57.1% vs 64.2% in 2004. Clearly people have become a lot less inclined to vote for the established parties in these elections.

Also, if we sum the votes for the parties that advocate withdrawal from the EU, that is UKIP + the BNP + NO2EU + the English Democrats + the Socialist Labour Party + United Kingdom First, the total is 27.1%, almost as much as the Tories achieved. Add the Tories' votes, and you have a clear majority (54.8%) voting for parties that are either EU sceptic or outright anti-EU.

Now, consider the Tory vote itself. The Tories will of course be glad to have "won" this election and to have pushed Labour into 2nd place in Wales. However, they polled fewer votes than they did in 2004. The Labour vote has collapsed, with many voters just staying at home and the rest migrating to fringe parties. This election is thus more a rejection of Labour than it is an endorsement of the Tories. The Tories clearly have some way to go to gaining the electorate's trust, though at least they can say their vote has held up well compared to Labour and the Lib Dems as the electorate sidle off to non-mainstream parties.

However, a word of caution must be raised, since the turnout, at 34.2% is very low, lower than the 38% achieved in 2004 and lower than the turnouts for general elections. Indeed this is the prime reason for the BNP's success - in both the regions where it won seats, it polled slightly fewer votes than in 2004, but the lower turnout enabled them to obtain seats as their percentage share was boosted. A high turnout might well have prevented the BNP from gaining any seats. A general election in Britain would clearly see a different picture, more like the picture in the local elections, where Labour were hammered and the Tories obtained 38% of the vote and the Lib Dems held steady.

Just when you thought Gordon Brown's grinning couldn't get worse...

...he does it whilst posing in front of a swastika.

NewsBiscuit: Campaigners call for national register of MPs

This spoof made me laugh:

Recent research has estimated the number of MPs in the UK as at least 646, causing many to worry that political activity could be happening on their doorsteps.

Campaign leader Michael Carlisle explained ‘These people are by nature devious and evasive. They will never give a straight answer to a question; they mislead the public, claim inflated expenses, send malicious emails and very rarely show any sense of remorse. We need protecting from these people, if you can call them that. The public has a right to know if one is living in the middle of their community.’

And:

Another possibility being considered is thought to be a watered down version of the scheme whereby individuals can check the register to see if prospective partners are MPs before moving in with them. One man, who wanted to remain anonymous, agreed ‘I’d never have moved in with my partner if I’d known she was a politician, or at least I’d have made sure I didn’t claim for porn on her expense account.’

The minister for double standards (again)

Lord Myners hid his money in tax haven - Times Online:

LORD MYNERS, the minister in charge of the government’s assault on tax havens, has used a blind trust to conceal £250,000 of his own money in an offshore shelter.

Details of the secret holding have been obtained by The Sunday Times as G20 leaders gather in London pledging to stamp out tax abuses.

Myners transferred 500,000 of his own shares in the Ermitage hedge fund, based in Jersey, into a blind trust when he became a minister in October.

MPs described the holding as “blatant hypocrisy” and said it would undermine the credibility of Gordon Brown’s offensive on tax avoidance.

Myners will come under further pressure this week over his role in signing off a £16.9m pension pot for Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland. Sir Tom McKillop, the former RBS chairman, will hand in a statement to MPs challenging Myners’s version of events.

Company documents obtained by The Sunday Times show Myners held his Ermitage shares as recently as January this year. He concealed the holding from public scrutiny by placing it in a ministerial blind trust. Ministers are not required to disclose publicly the investments transferred to such trusts. He owned the shares while overseeing price-sensitive policy decisions. During this time he met Jersey officials who now say they have “nothing to fear” from any tax haven crackdown.

Last Thursday Myners pledged tough penalties against tax havens. Downing Street officials say a key plank of the G20 summit in London this week will be to impose higher taxes on companies which do business with firms offshore.

The minister for double standards

The Times reports:

THE government minister in charge of stamping out corporate tax avoidance has himself set up a business in the tax haven of Bermuda. Lord Myners, already under fire for approving Sir Fred Goodwin’s massive pension from Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), was part-time chairman of an offshore company which avoided more than £100m a year in taxes.

Details of Myners’s involvement in Aspen Insurance Holdings (AIH) have emerged as Gordon Brown seeks to win the backing of heads of government to prise open tax havens at a meeting of the G20 in London on April 2.

Myners, who earned nearly £200,000 from AIH in one year, is also facing questions over share options he accrued during five years as chairman of the Bermuda-based company. Accounts for AIH show that at the end of 2007 Myners held 318,338 share options. On Friday the shares, which are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, closed at $21.64, which would value that stake at £4.8m.

Lights out, Britons told - we're running out of power

I wrote earlier about a possible gas shortage, but the evidence of a general energy shortage is mounting too. The Register reports:

Exclusive Carbon quango The Energy Saving Trust has come up with a new reason for Britons to save energy in the home. Our power stations will soon close, and you'll need to do your bit.

That's what one Reg reader discovered, after enquiring about the Trust's calculations on the effectiveness of new low-energy bulbs.

"A reduction in electricity consumption will be essential over the coming decade as a large number of power stations are being withdrawn from service, and as a result there is a gap looming between supply and demand," Graham Crocker was told. "More efficient lighting (which accounts for nearly 20 per cent of domestic electricity consumption) will go some way to alleviating these demand pressures." The answer came from Alex Stuart, assistant manager of services of development at the quango.

"This is the first time anybody has acknowledged that new power capacity will not be delivered on time to replace existing capacity," Peter Lilley MP told us.

There's no doubt that Britain faces a looming energy crisis. CapGemini estimates that a quarter of the UK's energy plant capacity will close by 2015. The nation will also see declining oil and gas output from the North Sea. But new, replacement power generation will not arrive in time.

Fame at last

See the first comment on Philip Johnston's excellent piece about the publication of the secret ID card reviews. On the subject of those reviews, see my Magna Carta Plus article.

Lord Mandelson must remain loyal to EU to guarantee pension - Telegraph

Lord Mandelson must remain loyal to EU to guarantee pension - Telegraph:

Lord Mandelson is entitled to the cash because he was the EU's trade commissioner from November 2004 to the middle of last year.

Under the terms of the deal, he will receive an index-linked pension of £31,000 a year when he turns 65. The cost of buying such a deal on the private market would be £550,000.

This is in addition to more than £234,000 of "top-up" salary payments and a £15,000 resettlement fee which he will receive over the next three years.

However, European Union rules show that if he speaks out against Europe as a former Commissioner he could be stripped of his pension altogether.

Documents seen by campaigners show that Lord Mandelson and other Commissioners have to abide by certain obligations "both during and after their term of office".

One of these obligations as a staff member of the Commission is to maintain a "duty of loyalty to the Communities".

The rules also note that "an official has the right to freedom of expression, with due respect to the principles of loyalty and impartiality".

If they fail to demonstrate loyalty to the EU, Lord Mandelson can be "deprived of his right to a pension or other benefits", the rules say.

The TaxPayers' Alliance, the campaign group that has uncovered the threat to his pension, said Lord Mandelson had to resolve this "conflict of interest".

It thus appears that anyone who has worked for the EU Commission risks their pension if they dare criticise it.

The Convention on Modern Liberty

The first part of my write-up on yesterday's events has been published on Magna Carta Plus.

British Readers: Write to your MPs

Phil Booth of NO2ID, quoted by Guy Herbert on Samizdata:

At the Convention on Modern Liberty, I launched NO2ID's request that everyone at the convention – and around the UK – tells their MP right now that they refuse their consent to having their information shared under any "information sharing order", a power currently being slipped onto the statute books in clause 152 of the coroners and justice bill .

Please tell yours too. It's important, and urgent – and something that only YOU can do. If you never have before, now's the time to write to your MP – in a letter, or via www.WriteToThem.com.

Jack Straw has been making noises that could signal a 'compromise', but the only acceptable action is to remove clause 152 entirely from the bill. It is not linked to any other clause, despite being sandwiched between other powers and so-called safeguards offered to the information commissioner. It cannot be improved, and Straw can't be allowed to merely "dilute" it. Clause 152 just has to go.

It's imperative that in coming days every MP hears from his or her constituents. Please tell them you refuse consent to having your information, taken for one purpose, arbitrarily used for any other purpose. And ask them to vote clause 152 off the bill.

I've done it, I urge anyone concerned about this measure to do it.

Reminder: The Convention on Modern Liberty 28th Feb

Just a reminder that on the 28th February, the Convention on Modern Liberty gets underway in London with parallel sessions in Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester, Cardiff, Cambridge and Bristol.

Is Britain facing a gas shortage?

EU Referendum writes:

The source of this information is Centrica, owner of British Gas, which says that, on present trends, its main reserve will be totally depleted in a little over three weeks. And though extra gas can be imported from Norway and the Netherlands to make up any shortfall, serious breakdowns have hit pipelines from both countries in the past week.

Thus we are told that the crisis reveals an extraordinary failure to plan for the future as supplies of gas from the North Sea have run down, turning Britain into an importer of the fuel. Though now dependent on overseas supplies, it keeps only about a quarter as much gas in reserves as France, Germany and Italy, making it uniquely vulnerable to shortages and price hikes.

As we have observed, though, this is only half the story. The underlying problem is the excessive reliance on gas for electricity generation, a problem that is set to get considerably worse as generators build new gas-generation capacity to fill the gap caused by the lack of a coherent energy policy and the insane emphasis on renewables.

The scale of the current problem though is quite daunting. Three-quarters of the country's reserves are stored by Centrica in an old North Sea gas field, called Rough, some 9,000ft below the seabed off the East Yorkshire coast.

This year – thanks largely to global warming the cold weather – its gas has been pumped at record rates. It is now 24 percent lower than at this time last year, and 49 percent less than the year before. Everything depends on the weather and the Met Office expects the cold back by the beginning of March. On past form, that means we should be alright, but you never know. The Met Office could break the habit of a lifetime and get it right.

The credit bubble and the market

Matthew Parris makes an interesting point:

So amid all the doom-mongering and recanting, I have an assertion to make. The market has not failed. The present collapse is evidence that the market is working. Confidence bubbles are an inherent feature of a free market system. Panics — confidence vacuums — are an inherent feature too. The test of the theory of market capitalism is whether the system provides from within itself the means to prick both.

It does. The first — a confidence bubble — has been pricked. We are now sucking ourselves the other way: into a confidence vacuum. In time this too will be pricked. The market will steady.

The bubble that has just burst was based, worldwide, on financial services. Financial services are a product. It is true they are a product critical to the efficient functioning of the market (so is electricity, so is oil) but that just makes them an unusually important product. From time to time products fail in any market. They may fail through force majeure — droughts, floods, pestilence. They may fail due to inherent flaws — airships, Thalidomide, blue asbestos. Or they may fail through ignorance, trickery or the credulity of human beings — Madoff, the property bubble, the repackaging of sub-prime debt.

The present financial crash has been precipitated by product failure of the third kind. Trade in financial instruments too opaque for even those who traded in them to assess them properly, and bonus incentive schemes that acted against the interests of the companies offering them, fuelled a banking bubble that has now burst.

But ask: what pricked it? Did politicians rumble the trade? Did governments, or international forums or symposiums, provide the sharp instrument? Did academic research and expertise expose the dodgy product? Did statutory regulators apply the pin? No, the free market wised up and pricked this bubble. Politicians and finance ministers (if they had had the power) would have tried to keep it inflated. The market puffed itself up, and then, without intervention — despite intervention — the market let itself down. The speed with which this has happened has been awful, but however inconvenient for many or catastrophic for a few, correction is not a failure of the market, but a success.