Oh yes?

Tim Montgomerie and other supporters of the Tory part of the Cleggeron Coalition are getting very excited about a new Bill that will "give power back to the people". This is known as the Localism Bill, which will "let councils and communities run their own affairs". The first thing I should like to point out is that councils and communities are not the same thing and the difference between a bunch of politicians in County Hall and a bunch of politicians in Westminster is minuscule. In fact, the main difference is that, by and large, local politics is more corrupt.

The second question is the inevitable one: will this Bill empower local councils or, for that matter, communities to ignore or reject EU regulations if they are deemed to be inappropriate and the people agree?

What will it take?

There are many subjects I need to blog about but I think I shall turn my attention first to that new organization, Direct Democracy, whose appearance I welcomed with just one cheer. Now I think that I was too generous.

Direct Democracy, run by Dominique Lazanski but set up by those ubiquitous token eurosceptics of the Conservative Party, Daniel Hannan MEP and Douglas Carswell MP, has decided to take on the "European issue", presumably shifting that burden away from the Taxpayers' Alliance. Now neither I nor the Boss at EUReferendum have any problems with people becoming involved with the subject of the EU but we do prefer it if individuals and organizations that go down that route actually find out a few basic facts about the subject. We are always ready to supply those facts but, for some reason, we are never asked by such entities as the Taxpayers' Alliance or, now, Direct Democracy.

Furthermore, while we do not need to quoted all the time, we would like it acknowledged that we (and many others, as I pointed out when I wrote about the Taxpayers' Alliance and the common fisheries policy and also here and here) have been "banging on" about the subject for some time.

Let us have a look at what Direct Democracy has produced. Well, well, a posting entitled Who Will Protect UK Sovereignty? Protect? Protect? What is there to protect? How can you protect something that does not exist any more? After all, the overwhelming majority of all legislation in this country comes from the EU (let's not quibble about exact percentages) and Parliament has no right to set it aside even if it happens to be that small part that is actually debated. One tax (VAT) is not fully controlled by the British government. What other definition of sovereignty does Direct Democracy want apart from legislation and taxation?

It then gets worse. The first paragraph states:

The European Council is set to meet this coming Thursday and Friday. This meeting was meant to be an IGC but it has since been watered down due to a variety of reasons that we do not officially know yet. An IGC meeting would potentially trigger an EU referendum in the UK because by calling the meeting an IGC it would be forced to legally make amendment proposals to the current treaty. And that would cause great chaos at the moment. But this European Council meeting might just cause chaos on its own.

While there are helpful links in the text, there is a clear lack of knowledge or understanding. The European Council always meets around this time of the year as one presidency is coming to an end and another one will be starting on July 1.

There was never the slightest chance of an IGC at this point. There are various rules as to how an Inter-Governmental Conference is assembled and none of them had been activated. Furthermore, it takes many months for an IGC to take place; it is not simply called when a routine European Council is about to meet with a week or so to spare.

Then we get the obligatory references to Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell and finally the following interesting comment:

Someone recently commented that Direct Democracy was banging on an on about Europe and it was a bit tiresome. If we don't talk about this who will? At least Dan Hannan will, no doubt, continue to write about it. And Douglas Carswell too. But if we all want the UK to grow strong and climb out of the current financial crisis, then groups like Direct Democracy need to make sure that the Coalition Government doesn't u-turn on their promise to keep the UK sovereign. Remember, they promised, "No further transfer of sovereignty over next parliament..." to the European Union.

Goodness me! So if it were not for Direct Democracy, clearly a front organization for the Conservative Party or a couple of Conservative politicians nobody would ever talk about "Europe". Is that so? Well, well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. (I shall not quote what the Boss said when I read the paragraph out to him. This is a family-friendly blog.)

Just one final point: Direct Democracy seems unhappy with the fact that the Coalition government is not living up to the eurosceptic propaganda of the election campaign. Dear me. Remind me who was the politician-cum-journalist-cum-clogger who told us over and over again that if you really wanted results over the European issue you should vote Conservative because Cameron and Hague will deliver? Step forward Daniel Hannan MEP.

A good idea but ...

My two-day absence from the blogosphere was caused by the need to concentrate on a talk about the lady known as the Russian Mrs Beeton, Елена Молоховец (Yelena Molokhovets), author of a wide-ranging cookery book and domestic manual, published first in Kursk in 1861 and republished till it reached the 29th edition in 1914, which was reprinted in 1917. Thereafter, the story of the book and, indeed, of food in Russia or the Soviet Union, became a little more complicated.

The talk has been delivered to the GB-Russia Society and the article is in progress. I can turn my attention to other matters. In particular, it was good to find out that the promised organization Direct Democracy has now materialized, led by Dominique Lazanski. Inspired by the Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell's book that has been successfully ignored by the Conservative leadership, despite Mr Hannan's repeated assuraces that David Cameron had gone further towards accepting the ideas than any political leader had done since before Hector was a pup, the aim is to "shift power to the citizen".

Can't argue with that, although I tend not to be greatly in favour of more power to local authorities as the possibilities for corruption there are more extensive than at the centre. However, one or two problems remain.

The most recent entry, for instance is about Big Society (the Boy-King's frightening vision) and localism.

Earlier today the coalition government launched their 'Big Society' programme. Based on the idea of 'radical localism' discussed during the coalition talks earlier last week, the Big Society programme aims to to empower citizens and local communities by shifting power from central government to local authorities.

"The Big Society is about decentralising power and empowering communities," said the Prime Minister earlier today.

Direct Democracy thinks that that this is a great start to devolving power to local communities, but does the 'Big Society' programme go far enough? We look forward to seeing exactly how Nick Hurd, the responsible minister, executes the delivery of the programme.

Well, I happen to disagree with Direct Democracy. This sounds to me the usual kind of waffle that entails the creation of "civil society" or "local communities" according to a pattern created by the government. Above all, I dislike that word "empowering". I do not need some jumped-up politician, who gets his power from me (and others, of course) to empower me. What I would like to see is for all those jumped up politicians to butt out and leave already existing communities and organizations to carry on.

Is that what Nick Hurd, the responsible minister will be delivering? Or will he be calling endless conferences with carefully selectged "stakeholders"?