I was interviewed today (4th May) on the East Midlands part of The Politics Show.

You can access the video of the show here. My bit is 53 minutes 50 seconds in.

However you can access a podcast of what I had to say by clicking this link

The High Court has just decided that a petitioner, Stuart Wheeler, can pursue a judicial review of the government’s decision not to hold a referendum on the Renamed European Constitution, or Lisbon Treaty.
 
Stuart Wheeler, former owner of the spread betting business IG index and a major donor to the Conservative Party, took a case to the High Court on April 22nd, arguing that the government’s breach of its Manifesto Commitment to a referendum had denied him and other electors their “reasonable expectation”, and should therefore be subject to Judicial Review.  Mr. Justice Owen reserved judgement in the case, but at 10:00 a.m. on May 2nd he delivered his judgement.  He agreed with the plaintiff and authorised a Judicial Review.  The government will now have to justify breaking its word, in open court.
 
This is a triumph for common sense and good governance.  It was outrageous that the government should renege on a manifesto promise, and I am delighted they are to be called to account.
 
The expectation is that at least the judicial review process will delay the UK’s ratification of the Treaty.  It is possible that the outcome of the Review could be a requirement that the government make good its commitment to a referendum.  Repeated opinion polls, and other tests of opinion including village polls and a large-scale postal ballot in the East Midlands (in Gedling, Notts), suggest that 80%+ of electors favour a referendum, and that the great majority oppose the EU Treaty.  The decision regarding a Judicial Review in the UK could also influence the Irish referendum on the Treaty, expected in June.

Roger addresses the Youth Wing of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Brussels in April.  This is an Austrian libertarian think-tank that promotes liberty and free markets.  The meeting took place in the congenial premises of the European Beer Association.  He apologises for the flag, which was placed by the organisers.

A Cool Look at Global Warming

Nigel (Lord) Lawson, a former very distinguished Chancellor of the Exchequer (and also former MP for my own constituency of Blaby/South Leics), has written a splendid new book on climate.  He held a launch and book-signing event in Leicester in April.  He is also, by the way, a top-class economist.
 
The book is engagingly — compellingly — readable, whilst remaining reassuringly rigorous.  A short book that you can read in an afternoon, its footnotes and references will be an invaluable resource for everyone involved in the debate.
 
In his first chapter he forensically dissects the science.  The patterns of warming, both spatially and over time, wholly fail to match the computer models on which the alarmist hypothesis is based.  Sea levels are rising no faster than they have for millennia.  Global ice mass is more or less constant.  Far from facing extinction, polar bears are doing rather well.  Current average temperatures are well within the historical range of variation.  The incidence of “extreme weather events” has not increased.  The infamous “hockey-stick curve”, once at the heart of the IPCC/alarmist case, has been comprehensively debunked.
 
But in the rest of the book, he says (in effect): OK, even if you accept the alarmist scenario, what is the best thing to do about it?  He concludes that current efforts at mitigation (that is, at reducing carbon emissions in order to prevent further warming) are doomed to failure, and will be cripplingly expensive.  And in any case, even if you take the very worst IPCC/Stern projections, the estimated costs of doing nothing would mean that our descendants in 100 years would be “only” 2.6 times as well off as we are today, rather than 2.7 times (if we could stop the projected warming).  He rightly questions whether it is worth vast expenditure on an uncertain and hypothetical project to make so small a difference.
 
He effectively dismantles the case for the emissions trading schemes beloved by politicians, the “cap’n'trade” approach, which is not a genuine market, and, like carbon off-setting, is wide open to scams and abuse.
 
He argues that humans can adapt to many different climates, and that if temperatures do rise, we would do better to respond by practical efforts to adapt to change, rather than by doomed and hubristic attempts to change the weather.
 
This is a must-read book.  ISBN 978-0-7156-3786-9.  Duckworth Overlook.  £9.99.

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EU plans call for the UK to increase its use of renewables in the energy mix from the current 5% to 15% by 2020.  An independent British government commissioned report for BERR, the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, shows that these plans will cost between €5 and 6 billion annually.  On a per household basis, this could increase the average energy bill for every household in Britain by £160 a year — and that’s on top of increases driven by mainstream energy prices.
 
And in any case, many of the renewables initiatives are set to do more harm than good.
 
There is increasing evidence that biofuels save little CO2, but they are driving up world food prices, and putting huge new pressure on rainforests and natural habitats, threatening species with extinction.  Wind farms provide limited benefit, especially when placed in peaty heath-land environments.  Many of Britain’s new wind-farm development proposals, especially in Scotland, are on soils of this type, where the disturbance of ancient peat deposits for foundations, roads and other infrastructure can release more CO2 than the turbines would save in their lifetimes.
 
There is no point in agonising over fuel poverty, then agreeing plans which will hugely add to energy costs — especially when those plans will fail to deliver the CO2 reductions envisaged.  This is a typical example of EU integration allowing bureaucrats to make mistakes on an heroic scale.
 
Note:
 
POYRY REPORT:  Poyry is a well-reputed energy research and consultancy company, commissioned by the British government (BERR) to do the cost analysis, which despite their insistence on confidentiality has somehow emerged on the BERR website at http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45238.pdf

The following piece was written by my good friend and colleague Dan Hannan MEP, and I was so impressed with it that (with his permission) I decided to post it here.

Key Quote: “Where the US constitution is chiefly about the rights of the individual, the European one is chiefly about the power of the state”.

1. The European Constitution / Lisbon Treaty will strengthen the EU’s common foreign policy.
Is this in the interests of the United States? In recent years the EU has:
· Declared its intention to sell arms to Beijing
· Pursued a policy of “constructive engagement” towards the ayatollahs in Teheran
· Withdrawn its recognition from the anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba
· Continued to funnel money to Hamas-controlled territory through intermediaries and NGOs, so as to stay within the letter of its own law on financing terrorist organisations
There is a reason why the EU and the US take different positions on these and other issues. In all these cases, the US favours democracy, the EU stability.

2. The European Constitution was rejected at the ballot box
There is a reason that the EU tends to be more accommodating towards authoritarian regimes than the US. Its leaders are often lukewarm about democracy — or “populism” as they call it, when it produces results they don’t like. The European Constitution was voted down overwhelmingly in two referendums in 2005: by 55 per cent of French voters and 62 per cent of Dutch voters. Instead of accepting the result, EU leaders simply pushed ahead with ratifying the same document, making what Angela Merkel referred to in a leaked memo as “the necessary presentational changes” and altering its name to “Lisbon Treaty”. All EU leaders accept that the two documents are essentially the same. The only one who denies it is Gordon Brown, because he doesn’t want to hold the referendum he promised at the last election.

3. It would be rejected again
Eight EU governments promised their peoples referendums on the treaty. Seven have reneged. Only Ireland, whose national constitution requires plebiscites on questions of constitutional change, is giving its people a vote. The reason the other referendums have been cancelled is simple: people would vote “No” again.

4. It’s a bad constitution
The United States Constitution contains 4,550 words in the original draft, 7,600 with all 27 amendments. The European Constitution/Lisbon Treaty has 76,250 words. Where the US constitution is chiefly about the rights of the individual, the European one is chiefly about the power of the state. Where the American concerns itself with delineating the powers of the various institutions, the European busies itself with interfering in every aspect of the everyday lives of our citizens.

5. International judicial activism
The EU is as much a construct of its judges as of its legislators. European integration has advanced through a series of contentious rulings by the European Court of Justice. These are now forming a corpus of international law which judges in every country, including the US, are recognising in their own precedents.

Today (April 9th) the Bureau of the European parliament will hear my appeal against the penalty imposed by the President, Hans-Gert Poettering MEP, as a consequence of our demonstration for a Referendum in Strasbourg in December. My appeal is based on two grounds: the events themselves, and the nature of the disciplinary procedure. The following text is taken directly from my appeal submission to the Bureau.

1 The events of Dec 12th

I dispute that the events that took place were “Exceptionally Serious” (Rule 147 para 1), or that they were “recurrent or permanent” (Rule 147 para 2). The events complained of could be regarded as a robust exchange of views. It is true that MEPs have the option of making their case for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in the course of regular debates in the parliament, which I and many colleagues have done repeatedly. Yet we have had no proper response: the EU institutions continue in their determination to disregard the democratic will of the French and Dutch peoples, expressed in referenda in 2005, and to disregard the will of electorates in other nations, including the UK, which have been repeatedly demonstrated in opinion surveys and local polls. I consider that I have the right, and the duty, to press the strongly-held views of those I represent, until I get a response. We now have a response, in the form of this proposed penalty, which demonstrates that the parliament is unable to tolerate dissent, and disregards the democratic will of the people.

The disruption on Dec 12th was very largely the result of the over-reaction of the President of the parliament himself. I and the dozens of colleagues who demonstrated on the 12th had intended to mount a silent and dignified protest against the Lisbon Treaty, on the occasion of the formal signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It was the decision of the President to instruct the Ushers (to their obvious embarrassment) to confiscate the banners and placards which led to the disturbance. In fact it is commonplace for members to display banners or placards in the parliament without this sort of provocative over-reaction. In January many members displayed placards calling for the release of Ingrid Betancourt in Columbia. On March 27th, I and other colleagues displayed the flag of Tibet, as a protest against Chinese policy in that country. In neither case was there any call for the removal of flags and posters, still less any attempt to confiscate them. The President’s behaviour on Dec 12th was exceptional and provocative, and led directly to the shouting and disturbance.

2 The disciplinary Procedure

The parliament’s disciplinary procedure is a travesty of due process, and provides prima facie grounds for a further appeal to the ECJ if this current appeal fails.

One man — the President of the Parliament — is witness, prosecutor, judge and jury. He is also (presumably) Chairman of the Appeals Committee — the Bureau of the parliament. This is wholly unacceptable. The President is also a deeply unreliable witness. One of the MEPs originally indicted, Andreas Molzer, was in fact in Frankfurt at the time in question, not in Strasbourg at all. It is clear, therefore, that the President’s evidence is not to be relied on. It seems he was proceeding on the basis of his personal prejudice against those he regards as troublemakers, and not on the basis of accurate observation.

The process is partial and discriminatory. On a conservative estimate, some sixty to eighty MEPs participated in the demonstration. But only thirteen (after the exclusion of Mr. Molzer) were indicted. One prominent participant, Nigel Farage, rose afterwards on a point of order to demand to know why he had been overlooked, and concluded his question (in a reference to a well-known cinema epic) with the words “I am Spartacus!”. It appears that ten members have received penalties, which range from a reprimand to a five-day fine. There appears to be no evidential basis either for the selection of those who were indicted, nor for the discriminatory nature of the penalties imposed.