Britain: Closed for Business?

For years now we’ve been vilifying that banks.  It’s easy to get an audience howling with rage if you say what dreadful people bankers are — and howling with approval if you propose punitive measures against them.

It is true that before and after the crisis, some banks did some very silly things.  And they failed to anticipate how bad things would get, and how lending that seemed safe might go bad.  But hands up anyone who did see how bad things would get.  Not too many, I suspect.  The misjudgement of the bankers was shared by most of us.  It’s just that they were making bigger decisions than most of us, so the consequences were greater.

As I have often written, the seeds of the crisis go back to mistakes by politicians (Bill Clinton and even Jimmy Carter, who wanted home ownership for Americans who couldn’t afford mortgage repayments) and Central Bankers like Alan Greenspan, who kept interest rates too low for too long, and said that asset bubbles would resolve themselves.  So they did, and we’re living with the consequences.

Meantime we’re asking banks to do totally incompatible things, like increasing lending to small businesses while at the same time building their balance sheets and lending more responsibly.  Oh, and paying back government/taxpayer loans into the bargain.

We need to ask whether our righteous indignation is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.  Financial services remain a major strand of UK PLC, and we need to remember that if we make life miserable for bankers, and treat them like public enemies, they can go elsewhere, and we shall all be the poorer.

Now attention is turning to the tax paid by international corporations.  John Sentamu, no less, the Archbishop of York, has said that those who (legally) minimise their tax liability are “morally bankrupt”, and has suggested that they are little better than criminals. I wonder whether the good Bishop has any ISAs, or perhaps a pension fund?  Both ISAs and pension funds are tax avoidance devices, and a great number of people use them.  Are all these people “morally bankrupt”?  Is the Archbishop morally bankrupt?

Now the debate turns to the taxes paid by international corporations.  Vodafone is the latest in the frame.  I was watching Sky News this morning (June 8th) and they had the most wonderfully ignorant conversation about Vodafone.  We heard that Vodafone had paid no tax on £5 billion of “earnings” (they meant revenue).  Shock horror.

But Vodafone has invested massively in UK infrastructure (which is a great benefit to the UK economy), and of course they can offset some of that investment against tax.  At the same time, Vodafone has contributed £523 million to the Exchequer in indirect taxes like National Insurance, and invested £700 million + in infrastructure and 3G licences.  It spent £8 billion on UK staff (who presumably pay tax).

So.  Here is a company which builds vital infrastructure, employs a great number of people, invests in UK licences, pays large NI bills to the Exchequer, and is fully compliant with UK tax law.  They deserve a big Thank You from all of us.

We are damaging our economy with our perverse attacks on major industries.  We’re hanging up a sign that reads “Britain: Closed for Business”.  We’d better watch out.  International corporations may just take us at our word.

Iran: Time for a re-think?

“A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is wrong about Nuclear Iran”, by Peter Oborne & David Morrison. Elliott & Thompson. £8.99.

I have to confess that I haven’t spent a great deal of time studying the Iran question, or looking at the long and tortuous attempts at negotiation over their nuclear programme.  I just know what everybody else knows, from occasional newspaper articles, and speeches by well-informed politicians, like our Foreign Secretary William Hague.

So I know that Iran is governed by recalcitrant ayatollahs who are utterly irreconcilable with the West; who hate and reject our values; who are determined to wipe the State of Israel off the map; and who are hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons — to the extent that a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities by the USA and/or Israel is, to say the least, a serious possibility.  Aren’t they building centrifuges? And enriching uranium?  And buying nuclear equipment and expertise on the global black market?

But a couple of days ago I received a very cordial note from columnist Peter Oborne, together with a new book “A Dangerous Delusion: why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran”, which he has co-authored with David Morrison.

Peter Oborne seems to be rather well-informed on Middle Eastern issues.  I was particularly struck by his recent Telegraph column on Syria. He said that Cameron and Hague appear to have a rather simplistic view of Syria: brave insurgents committed to freedom and democracy, pitched against an evil dictator.  There is little doubt that Assad is an evil dictator, but the insurgents are by no means the good guys.  Oborne argues that what we are seeing is not so much a national insurgency in Syria, more a wider-ranging civil and sectarian war between Shia and Sunni Muslims across the region.  Assad is supported by Iran and Hezbollah.  The insurgents are supported by Saudi Arabia, and Qatar — and Al Qaeda.

Bad as Assad may be, Al Qaeda are not a lot better, and it is preposterous that our British government should be supporting an insurgent coalition which is backed by — and increasingly influenced by — a major anti-Western terrorist group.  We in Britain should concern ourselves with dialogue, and external pressure, and perhaps humanitarian aid, but we should absolutely not be sending arms to either side (it only motivates Assad’s sponsors, including Russia, to raise the stakes on the other side).  And above all we must not commit British troops to the Syria conflict.

But that is a digression.  In his book, Oborne meticulously looks at published reports and statements from American security organisations, from the IAEA, even from Israel, and concludes that there is little evidence that Iran has had any nuclear weapons programme for the last ten years at least.  He looks at the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and points out that Iran has broadly observed its commitments, while the demands being made on Iran are explicitly contrary to the Treaty — and while other non-nuclear states are clearly in breach of the Treaty, yet are not criticised or sanctioned.

Oborne also documents various negotiating offers made to the West by Iran, which could have formed the basis of a deal, but were rejected, apparently because Iran was regarded as the bad guy and no evidence to the contrary was to be contemplated.

I’m not in a position to support or deny Oborne’s proposition — it would be good to hear him debate it against someone who takes the conventional view.  But I know this: if I were in William Hague’s seat, I should certainly ask my staff for an urgent review of our posture towards Iran, having read this book.

There is a broader point here, which relates to Oborne’s article about Syria.  If we could reach some kind of rapprochement with Iran, bringing them into the international orbit, we might well have taken a first step to defusing the sectarian war between Shia and Sunni in the Middle East, which in turn might bear upon the Syrian story.

Let’s talk about Lobbying

Following the Patrick Mercer scandal (and the House of Lords events) we’ve heard a lot about lobbying, and in some sections of the media, it’s being presented in wholly negative terms.  Wicked and unprincipled industrial interests subvert democracy to undermine the interests of the people.

This is a huge misconception.  The whole essence of representative democracy is that people, or groups of people, can make representations to their elected representatives.  That’s what we’re here for.  And if we’re making regulations that impact on industry, surely we have an obligation to talk to the industries involved, to ensure we understand what the impact of our decisions is likely to be.

I serve on the industry committee in Brussels, so of course I expect to hear from industries affected by our decisions.  That doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with them – I use my own judgement.  And we hear from those who take an alternative view.  It’s not just industry.  We hear from NGOs like Greenpeace, WWF and RSPCA.  (Too many people think that these organisations are concerned with fluffy animals – but the RSPCA is mainly interested in persecuting people who pursue country sports, while WWF has become a head-banging campaigner for Climate Alarmism).

I well remember the chemicals directive REACH, where we had industrial lobbyists coming in through one door and animal welfare charities coming in through the other, but agreeing with each other that they didn’t want the extra animal testing proposed in the directive.

I have learned a huge amount about a great range of issues (especially energy, on which I am the UKIP Spokesman) from lobbyists, and I have had opportunities to visit energy-related installations from coal mines to nuclear power stations.  I have tabled Written Questions to the Commission on behalf of industrial interests in the region.  A recent example would be Welvent, an agricultural storage company in Lincoln

The problem is not lobbying (and the proposal for a lobbyists register would do little more than protect MPs and Peers from “stings” like the recent Panorama investigation).  The problem is paid advocacy – that is, parliamentarians accepting money in exchange for promoting a particular industry agenda.  That is clearly corrupt, and subverts the democratic process.  I have asked many parliamentary questions, but I have never been offered, nor accepted, a brass farthing for doing so.

Or maybe I was offered, at least.  Some years ago I received a call purporting to be from the office of a Russian businessman.  Could I give him some advice about the European parliament?  As I simple courtesy, I suggested that I could give him fifteen minutes if he chose to stop by my office.  Several phone calls later, it seemed he wanted a longer-term and more formal relationship.  Money wasn’t mentioned, but I think it was implied, and at that point I terminated the conversation.

Later, I found that several colleagues had received similar calls, and we guessed it was probably a media scam.  Of course if an MEP had accepted such a deal, it would have been all over the papers.  Sadly, however, they don’t publish a list of the good guys who turned them down, because good news is no news at all.

“Is your boss an idiot?”

They’re waiting!

Paul Oakden, who runs my UK Office in Market Harborough, recently received a call (I don’t think he got the name of the caller) whose opening gambit was “Is your boss an idiot?”.  I understand that Paul’s immediate response was that he hadn’t quite worked that out yet.

The reason for the call, and the question, it turned out, was a Tweet I’d caused to be posted earlier in the day, which read “The RAC says that speed cameras save a few lives. (And they make the lives of millions of motorists miserable)”.

Now I admit that this Tweet (like so many of my Tweets) was flippant.  I apologise to anyone who has suffered or perhaps lost a loved one in a road accident, who may have found the tone regrettable.  But also like many of my Tweets, there was a serious point here.

The first point to make is that the RAC’s conclusion is strongly disputed.  The Alliance of British Drivers had a distinguished academic look at the same data that the RAC used, and came to the opposite conclusion. There is also a widely-publicised case that speed cameras increase accidents and fatalities. For any fair-minded person, the jury is still out

But there’s another point to bear in mind.  Any politician can get cheers of approval by saying that you can’t put a price on human life, and that any action, no matter how expensive or disruptive, is worth it if it saves a life.  But a moment’s consideration shows that this is not so.

Take health.  Within limited budgets, there is only so much one can do.  If we have only say £10,000 to spend, is it better to spend it on treatment that will extend a pensioner’s life for a few months?  Or on a life-saving operation on a teenager?  Speaking as a pensioner, I have no doubt that the right thing to do is to spend the money on the teenager.

Or road safety: If you have a sum of money which would pay for (say) an extra five miles of motorway, or an extra 200 miles of crash barriers, which do you go for?  Both will save lives.  I’d say it’s legitimate to choose whichever saves more lives for the money.

On speed limits, there is clearly a trade-off between safety on the on one hand, and speed and convenience on the other.  Indeed when the government was arguing for an 80 mph limit on motorways (they seem to have forgotten that plan), I believe it cited the economic benefits of faster travel.  Improved economic performance is associated inter alia with better diet, longer life expectancy and resilience to natural disasters, so more road safety (if speed limits impact negatively on economic performance) could mean other damaging consequences elsewhere.

If, as my caller seemed to imply, harsh imposition of speed limits (and presumably lower limits) were always worth it to save lives, then why not a universal 30 mph speed limit?  Or twenty?  Or bring back the Red Flag Act and have a man walking in front of every motorised vehicle, and a maximum speed of 4 mph.  There has to be a balance between safety and realistic mobility.  So it is legitimate to take the view that speed limits, for the most part and generally, are now too low, and that pressure from groups like BRAKE to lower them further will be damaging.

It is certainly the case that modern cars are hugely safer than those available when (say) the M1 was opened and the 70 limit introduced.  I have been roundly castigated for admitting that I occasionally stray over the speed limit on the motorway — yet I am constantly overtaken by a stream of vehicles going faster than me.

Meantime the penalties associated with speed violations and speed cameras are (I would argue) disproportionate.  Loss of a driving licence when points tot up is a massive penalty.  For those who live in rural areas, it is practically house arrest.  It is a severe curtailment of liberty.  And it may be imposed on someone who has done his best to comply, but has three times in three years been caught inadvertently a few mph over the limit.  Since so many people are over the limit so much of the time, enforcement is, in a sense, random.  Every day when you check the post, there could well be a ticket and three points in it, which is why I say that speed cameras make life a misery.

There are too many do-gooders keen to parade their compassionate concern for human life, and oblivious to the collateral damage.  We need to get a more reasonable balance for speed limits, for enforcement and penalties.

Turning our backs

I always have the greatest respect for the observations of our greatest living statesman (and National Treasure) Tony Blair, so I was struck by his comments on the prospect of an EU referendum.  He said (more or less and so far as I can remember) that an EU referendum would be “a distraction”.  It would be madness “to turn our backs on our major trading partners”.  Some other nameless europhile in the same paper used similar words.  We should not “cut ourselves off” from our continental markets.

Personally, I have never met anyone who thought we should “turn our backs” or “cut ourselves off” from overseas markets.  Have you?  No.  I thought not.  There is a caricature of eurosceptics who want to blow up the Channel Tunnel and build a wall around the UK to exclude foreigners, garlic and French onion sellers.  But I’ve never met one.  They don’t exist, except in the overheated imaginations of Guardian correspondents and signed-up euro-luvvies.

This is the latest version of the well-worn catch-phrase “isolated and marginalised” — and has as little basis in reality.  Unable to argue against a genuine eurosceptic position, they invent this straw man with the sole purpose of knocking it down.  Well thanks, guys, but I think we’ve seen through it.

The fact is that in recent years German exports outside the EU have grown faster than German exports inside the EU.  Imports to the EU from non-EU countries have grown faster than continental imports from the UK.  There is no trade data evidence that membership of the EU enhances trade — indeed exactly the reverse.

So for the record: UKIP does not propose to cut anyone off, nor to turn our backs (no other party is so up-front and forward-facing). We are the internationalists (not the Little Europeans). We see Britain as a great global trading nation. Of course we want trade with Europe, but we recognise that the EU is in long-term relative decline, and that the future of trade lies elsewhere. Commonwealth GDP recently overtook Eurozone GDP.  UKIP wants trade, and friendship, and cooperation with our Continental neighbours (and with all countries of good-will).  But we also believe in freedom, independence and democracy, and we don’t want to be governed by unaccountable, unelected and inaccessible foreign institutions in Brussels.

Outside the EU, we should certainly have a Free Trade Deal with Europe (and we should not be subject to “regulation by fax”, any more than Canada or China are).  It is overwhelmingly in the EU’s interests as well as ours.  Leaving the EU will not damage our trade with Europe, but if we play our cards right it will enhance our trade elsewhere.  It will save the UK economy many billions of pounds every year.  And it will leave the British people in charge of their own government, their own laws and their own destiny.

 

An Open letter to Tim Yeo MP

Dear Tim,

I was delighted, not to say surprised, by your change of heart on man-made climate change, after all your years of campaigning for green orthodoxy.  You have announced that climate change (what little there is of it) is not necessarily anthropogenic.  I have been saying that for years, and it is gratifying that the message seems to be getting through.

You say “Although I think the evidence that climate is changing is now overwhelming, the causes are not absolutely clear.  There could be natural causes, natural phases, that are taking place”.  I’m not sure that this is quite so clear and cogent as the line I have been using for years: “The small changes in mean global temperatures we have seen in the last 100 years are entirely consistent with well-understood, long-term, natural climate cycles”, but you have the right idea.

What we are seeing now is best interpreted as a slow, gentle recovery from the Little Ice Age in the 17^th & 18^th Centuries.  We had the Minoan Optimum, the Roman Optimum, and the Mediæval Warm Period, and we now seem to be moving into a new 21^st Century Optimum.  And it’s called an “Optimum” for a reason, Tim.  Human societies tend to prosper in warmer conditions.

But Tim, you can’t leave the story there, with your teasing hint of a change of heart.  Where do we go from here?  Can you carry your Climate Change Committee, and your Coalition government, with you?  What will Ed Davey say?  How do your rate the probabilities of man-made versus natural?  How far should the government be discounting its renewables subsidies and emissions targets, given your new-found doubts about the underlying reasons for climate change and climate mitigation?

Will you now resign from the lucrative positions which you reportedly hold in “green” businesses, if their raison d’être is in doubt?  Will you apologise to taxpayers and electricity users on behalf of yourself and your committee for the eye-watering amount of money which you will have wasted, if anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are not to blame?  Are you just flashing some ankle?  Or will you now call on the government to reverse its disastrous energy policies which are driving industries, jobs and investments off-shore, and forcing households and pensioners into fuel poverty?

I only ask because I want to know.  Best regards.   Roger Helmer MEP

When can I get my Rhino-Video-Laryngoscope?

 

Garcia doing one of the first proper throat examinations

I recently met Phil Johnson, an old friend and campaigner for smokers’ rights who was, with bitter irony, struck down by throat cancer.

One tends to infer cause and effect, though there are other reasons people get throat cancer: alcohol, the Human Papilloma Virus, and exposure to radiation being notable examples.  And some people are just plain unlucky.

Nothing daunted, Phil (who speaks with the aid of an electronic device pressed to his neck) is now campaigning for what he argues is a neglected condition.  And I’m hugely impressed that with his own health problems to cope with, he still has the energy and dedication to help others.

Neck and throat cancers get nothing like to air-time (nor the funding) accorded to the big killers — breast, lung and prostate cancer.  They are fortunately less common, but the NHS still estimates 16,000 new cases every year, and the numbers are growing as the population ages.

Phil hopes firstly to raise awareness of this disease, and secondly to raise money for “rhino-video-laryngoscopes”,  which can produce high resolution colour images of the most obscure parts of the body and throat.  By early diagnosis with this specialised kit, the options for treatment are much more promising, and the prognosis better.  It could also save the NHS a fortune in time and money, as there is a greater chance of avoiding major surgery.

Phil has set up a local charity, “2020 Voice” Cancer Appeal.  His first goal is to raise enough money to provide a Rhino-Video Laryngoscope for the ENT Department at Leicester Royal Infirmary.  And after that?  He’d like to see the same programme rolled out nationally.

This is a hugely worthy cause (and Phil’s courageous initiative deserves recognition).  You can support them, or one of their events, by making a donation in person, or via the secure payments page on their website. All the information, along with more about the disease itself can be found on the Charity’s website: www.2020cancerappeal.org