All very depressing

The news yesterday was particularly depressing; worse than that was the discussion around some of the items.

The picture on the front page of the Evening Standard of the Queen shaking the bloody hand of Martin McGuinness filled me with despair. The man should have been put on trial for multiple murder and for involvement in many more. Instead his hand is shaken by Her Majesty who, no doubt, had to go and spend some time washing her own fingers afterwards. It is appalling that she was made to do this. I cannot even begin to imagine how survivors of murderous attacks and families of those who had not survived must have felt.

Compared to that, the information that Tony Blair was guest-editing the paper elicited nothing but a snort of derision from me. The Standard is so bad that even Blair could not make it appreciably worse though I did leaf through it even faster than usual, speeding past his cronies Bill (Clinton), Bob (Geldof) and others.

If I thought Sarah Sands, the editor, capable of such a joke, I would have assumed that she deliberately handed the editing over to Blair today so she would not be responsible for the first publication of that dreadful picture (no I am NOT linking to it) but I really do not think she has enough sense for that.

The other depressing news is that the wrecking of the House of Lords misnamed reform is going ahead though I am looking forward to it tying up Parliamentary time to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. This may be Cameron's Hunting Bill, which took seven years, interminable hours of debate and was finally passed in a seriously botched version.

It seems that Cameron, who spoke in support of this measure at PMQ has threatened to sack any Minister who opposes this utterly un-Conservative piece of legislation. There are threatened rebellions but, as usual, I do not hold out much hope. The best one can assume is amendments that develop into long debates though, as usual, there is talk of guillotining these in the Commons, which would be outrageous on a matter of constitutional change.

The egregious Deputy Prime Minister, leader of the Lib-Dims who managed not to improve on their electoral achievement two years ago and whose support has been sinking steadily since then, has told us in his own inimitable fashion:

We should just get on with it. I hope people won’t tie themselves in knots in Westminster. It’s something people want.

I have not come across many people outside the rather ridiculous Westminster hothouse who do want this or even care about it.

When it comes to MPs, that is members of the elected House, the public is quite adamant:

The head of the Commons anti-sleaze watchdog today warned MPs they should be “very worried” over reforms to their pay and pensions.

Ken Olisa, senior board member of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, has received scores of damning assessments of politicians’ value during his review of parliamentary salaries.

Responses from the public branded MPs “despicable, incompetent, corrupt and treacherous” and said they “should get paid the same amount as British Army privates”.

Maybe it is time the government had a look at the Commons. Oh wait, they have had a look. So far they have managed to legislate on a set parliamentary term, have controlled the possibility of introducing a vote of no confidence, made two attempts to control the 1922 Committee and are now intent on destroying the independence of the House of Lords. Not, I think, a government that cares about democracy, constitutionalism or liberty. Yet their vandalism of the British Constitution is applauded by the very people who should find it abhorrent.

An elected House of Lords, I hear in jubilation from members of the party formerly known as Conservative and others of UKIP. We are progressing towards democracy.

Well, that depends on your definition of democracy. If it consists of nothing else but voting and the right for anyone who gets more votes than other candidates to do whatever they like, then these people should be supporters of the European Parliament (UKIP might be since that is the only place in which they can get any seats) and of an elected EU President. Surely, once that President is directly elected by the people, or however small proportion of them bothers to vote, it will all be democratic.

If, on the other hand, one thinks of the need to control elected dictatorships, the need for some balance in the political structure and the need for independence in at least some of our legislators, then possibly an elected House of Lords is not the answer to the problems we are facing.

Of course, this is all displacement activity. As I asked one Conservative MP who was pontificating on the need to reform the House of Lords in such a way as not to lose the primacy enjoyed by the Commons, what does any of it matter while most of our legislation comes from the EU? She refused to discuss the matter, dismissing the European issue as of no importance. That tells you a great deal about Conservative MPs and their understanding of the legislative process.

You couldn't make it up

But then you wouldn't need to. After all, we have known for some time that there were many ... ahem ... sources of information that the Communist states used when trying to winkle secrets out of Britain. Some of them were on the left and some on the right; some did it for money and some out of loyalty to one of the most evil systems in history (though, to be fair to the Soviets, they always preferred go "give presents" even to the most devoted servants, considering that to be safer). Many passed on information to agents of the East European People's Democracies, presumably understanding where it all ended up eventually. Or maybe they did not know or care.

The news that a little known Conservative MP of the 1960s, Raymond Mawby, was so anxious to get money that he sold information to some Czechoslovak agent made me laugh out loud. The whole tale is so preposterous. Don't get me wrong. I am aware of the damage Communist agents did to this country and the West in general throughout those and previous decades; I am also aware of the fact that there is still much to come out about people who were considerably higher up or in better position to pass on information than Mr Mawbey and that is not to mention agents of influence.

However, a glance at what Mr Mawby had to trade is enough to make one laugh:

In time Mawby would be paid directly for political information - normally £100 per time. One file in the archives has a receipt signed by Mawby himself for that sum.

Mawby later handed over lists of parliamentary committees, details of fellow Tories and a supposedly confidential parliamentary investigation into a Conservative peer. "Mawby has also promised to carry out tasks such as asking questions in Parliament according to our needs," the Czech handler wrote in a plan on how to use him in 1962.

That plan involved asking him to supply more confidential material from Parliament "gradually deepening the compromising of his position".

He also drew a floor plan of the Prime Minister's office. As the Czechs were not going to bomb the place, the only reason they might have wanted a plan would be to decide where to put bugs. Did they do so, one wonders. Did they use the information he passed on about some of his colleagues or officials in the party for blackmail?

Mr Mawby did not lose his seat till 1983 but it is unclear whether he went on passing information about his colleagues and officials in the Conservative Party to the end or not.

Meanwhile, let us not forget that brilliant episode of Yes, Prime Minister in which it transpires (among the world-shaking events concerning Benjy the dog) that a previous Director General of MI5, who had been cleared by an investigation conducted by Sir Humphrey Appleby, was, in fact, a Soviet spy.

From memory, a conversation went something like this:

Hacker: But if two of us are ... two of them then ... errm ... all of us are ....

Appleby: All of them?

Told you so, part 3,765

With all the fuss about the hapless Chloe Smith being destroyed by Jeremy Paxman I thought I would remind readers of my posting about her at the time of her election as the youngest MP and a compassionate Conservative to boot. I stand by every word I said.

Radio 4 this evening

This might be of interest to readers of this blog. Analysis, about the only reasonable and radically different programme on the BBC will be discussing Eurogeddon this evening at 8.30. The blurb says:

Chris Bowlby examines whether the eurozone will disintegrate or become a closer political and economic union. He considers the effects of both scenarios, and the implications for borders and cash movements.

If you miss it, fret not: the programme will be available on iPod and on line indefinitely.

No, you can't renounce EU citizenship

Well,  you can, but you then have to renounce your UK citizenship as well though, perhaps, one can then revert to being a British subject of HM Queen. After all, most of us would prefer that, anyway.

How do I know this? Because HMG has so replied to Lord Stoddart's Written Question:

what is the process by which British subjects may renounce their European Union citizenship.

The reply should be of some interest to those who think that reforming the EU or changing our "relationship" with it (a non-existent concept) are possibilities.

Under the Maastricht Treaty, every citizen who is a national of a member state is also a citizen of the Union. The UK has defined its "nationals" for European Economic Area (EEA) purposes as:

British citizens;

British overseas territories citizens who derive their citizenship from a Gibraltar connection and;British subjects under Part IV of the British Nationality Act 1981 having the right of abode under s.2 of the Immigration Act 1971.

A UK national as defined above who renounced that status and did not have the nationality of another member state would cease to be a European citizen. It is not possible, however, to renounce European citizenship while remaining a UK national.

And who signed that infamous treaty? Which party was in government then, for they cannot be said to be in power any more?

We all avoid taxes (or should do)

I am happy to say that I have never seen Jimmy Carr do his comedian act but, I understand, it is the usual "let's bash the bankers and rich people and anyone who is not part of the trendy left" variety. Indeed, a number of people I know have expressed some surprise that he is described as a comedian at all. But I digress.

The problem with Carr is two-fold: he has avoided taxes (a completely legal and, indeed, legitimate) action and he has done so after making all sorts of nasty sneering attacks on bankers and their like who avoid taxes. In this, Mr Carr is no different from Comrade Livingstone who was caught out during the Mayoral election campaign. That sort of hypocrisy, not exactly unknown among the Left, makes one laugh helplessly.

On the other hand, the idea of a Conservative Prime Minister calling the actual tax avoidance not the hypocrisy immoral is only funny to those of us who never believed in the Boy-King's credentials as a true conservative. He is a big-statist and a man who believes in high taxes because he believes that people should have their lives run by the state and not have the choice to do what they want with their money. His Chancellor, a disaster if ever there was one, is endlessly thinking of schemes that might get rid of  legitimate tax avoidance or allows people to decide to give their money to charity, as it were, or to spend it on their children's education. Then Georgy-Porgy has to retract or do a U-turn.

The truth is that we all avoid taxes if we can. Every time we buy ISAs or look for a savings account that pays less tax we are doing just that and, indeed, we should be. There is nothing immoral in it. It is highly moral not to give more money than is absolutely necessary to the state to squander on huge pharaonic projects as well as regulatory disasters (just to name two things the state does). Let us not even consider how many of us pay cash for work rendered because that is the only way to avoid huge amounts of bureaucracy as well as evade VAT.

Here is a highly entertaining article by Mark Littlewood, Director of the IEA, on how he avoids tax, though he does admit sheepishly that he is not as good at it as Jimmy Carr. Though, I suspect Mr Littlewood is not about to cave in publicly on the subject. I also suspect that when the hue and cry dies down, Mr Carr will go back to using whatever scheme saves him more money.

And the solution: well how about a less complicated system of lower taxes? Could that be achieved? The Taxpayers' Alliance has produced a report, which suggests that it is possible to do so. Of course, we do need a government that believes in low taxation and small state. Not sure how we are going to achieve that.

More on Egypt

The election commission has delayed its announcement of the result, which would indicate that the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, has probably won. Announcement is now expected over the week-end and Secretary of State Clinton has described herself and her government as being troubled by this further delay and continuing uncertainty. Not half as troubled as she might be in a week or so if the Islamists do take power.