My Lord Rees Mogg

An excellent piece about the way in which the questions asked can change the results of an opinion poll.

Here.

Ambrose speaks out!

You really do want to read this. As elegant a description of our cause as you might see. The final lines:

Sadly, I think we must start planning to extract ourselves as gracefully as we can from this Project before it has the chance to abolish referendums for ever.

Quite.

Woo Hoo!

Labour is heading for a drubbing in next week’s European elections and appears to have been worse hit than the other parties by the expenses scandal, an exclusive poll for The Times finds.

Gordon Brown’s party is trailing the Conservatives - and astonishingly - UKIP, according to Populus figures. The Liberal Democrats, also suffering as a result of the expenses row, appear to be in fourth place.

Holding a referendum

Alan Johnson suggests that we should hold a referendum on the same day as the next general election.

Instead Mr Johnson’s allies insist that the suggestion — to hold the referendum on the same day as the poll — could help Mr Brown to catch the public appetite for radical change and outflank David Cameron. The referendum could help to drive a wedge between the Conservatives, who oppose proportional representation, and Liberal Democrats, they claim.

Sadly, no, he’s not talking about the European Union. Rather, about whether to move to a system of proportional representation rather than the first past the post system currently used for Wesminster elections.

However, this is rather one in the eye for those who insist that we are a parliamentary democracy, rather than a plebiscitary one. For, in changing the rules about how Parliament is elected, everyone agrees that there must be a referendum.

That is, that we distinguish between the laws that are made: that is what Parliament, however elected, does, and the way that the laws are made, which is something that the people must be consulted directly upon.

The Lisbon Treaty changes the way that the laws are made: thus the people must be consulted directly.

Those phantom MEPs

As we know, there are going to be 18 phantom MEPs in the next European Parliament. They’ll get all of the money and do none of the work. As Nigel has said:

“Welcome to virtual politics,” he said. “This has to be the political expenses scandal to end all expenses scandals.”

“The perfect politician for today’s elite is one that takes wages and does no work at all,” Farage added.

But wait, who is it that has brokered this deal? Who is it that thought that paying out million of our money for nothing was a good idea? Step forward Richard Corbett:

The Nice Treaty provides for 736 MEPs, while the Lisbon Treaty foresees 754 MEPs until 2014 and 751 thereafter. A report by Socialist MEP Richard Corbett (UK, Labour) adopted in plenary, provides for granting the outstanding 18 MEPs observer status until the Lisbon Treaty becomes effective.

And what does he say about it?

“This is straightforward and there is no need to make a fuss,” he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “They can do all the work of an MEP except taking part in votes. This is a way of making a smooth transition and has been done before.”

No need to make a fuss? This has all been done before, it’s all entirely normal?

Well, perhaps by the standards of the EU….spending those millions of our money on a few more professional politicians to do absolutely damn all.

That’s the European Union wrapped up in a nutshell for you really, isn’t it?

They thought it was all over

But it isn’t yet.

As the Telegraph continues to sift through the expenses files we find this:

Alistair Darling, along with others including Hazel Blears, Geoff Hoon and Jacqui Smith, have all claimed for the costs of accountancy advice using expenses intended to fund their parliamentary and constituency offices.

A tax expert described the claims as “scandalous”, especially as the expenses are tax-free.

Under HM Revenue and Customs rules, most people are not allowed to claim the cost of employing an accountant to fill in a self-assessment tax form as a legitimate business expense.

Not only do we pay for them to dodge the tax laws they themselves have written into the books, they don’t pay tax on that benefit, unlike everyone else in the country would have to.

It’s one thing that they get te expenses, but I think it’s much more dangerous that they don’t have to obey the same laws as the rest of us.

David Cameron wibbles

So, no, he’s not going to have a referendum, is he?

ANDREW MARR:

When I was talking to Nigel Farage of UKIP, I said to him, “But the Conservatives are offering a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty even…” And he said, “No, no, no, no, they’re not because if the Irish allow the Treaty to be ratified, that’s it, over, and you won’t get a referendum from the Conservatives”.

DAVID CAMERON:

Well what we’ve said is that we support a referendum, we want a referendum. We want that referendum to happen now. It can happen now because the Treaty is still being discussed and debated elsewhere in Europe. It hasn’t been signed and ratified by everybody. And the more people who vote Conservative on June 4th, the greater the pressure there will be on Gordon Brown to hold that referendum that he promised. And if we get the early election…

ANDREW MARR:

(over) It sounds like UKIP are right.

DAVID CAMERON:

Well no, if we get the early election that I’m asking for - either in July or in September, the Treaty’s still there - we could have a referendum before Christmas. So that is what we should have.

ANDREW MARR:

But you know it’s likely that Gordon Brown will hang on and won’t call an early election. And if the Irish then vote for the Treaty and it’s ratified, we will be in the position that UKIP talk about, which is that if you get a Conservative government afterwards, it will have been ratified. What I’m asking is in those conditions, will you hold a referendum?

DAVID CAMERON:

Well there are awful lot of ifs.

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

DAVID CAMERON:

That’s if we don’t have an early election; if the Irish vote yes when last time they voted no; if the…

ANDREW MARR:

(over) They’re quite likely ifs.

DAVID CAMERON:

… if the Czechs and others all actually put the Constitution through. If all of these things happen, then what happens?

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

DAVID CAMERON:

What I’ve said there is we will not let matters rest.

Nope, he’s not promising a referendum at all.

No, Mr. Burnham, just no!

Can you believe this one? Even I, accustomed to the Westminster ways, cannot:

ANDY BURNHAM, the culture secretary, has apparently avoided thousands of pounds in capital gains tax by channelling a £16,600 property windfall through the parliamentary expenses system.

Burnham was given the money by a property developer to persuade him to move out of a flat he rented in Dolphin Square, a desirable apartment block near the Palace of Westminster. Tax experts say he would normally have been liable for a tax bill of up to £6,665 on the windfall.

The Commons authorities instead agreed to bend their own rules, and added the windfall to his second home allowance, which is exempt from tax. The special deal meant he was able to claim more than £32,000 on his second home allowance for a single year - far beyond the maximum £21,643 then permitted under the Commons rules. It is believed to be the highest amount ever claimed.

No, no and thrice no. He’s got to go as have the rest of them.

Will Hutton on the European elections

Europe remains the Tory modernisers’ blind spot. David Cameron and William Hague must know the risk they are running. They know, or should know, that a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty once every member state has signed it, as is likely this autumn if the Irish vote yes in a second referendum, is a European suicide note; 26 other countries are not going to spend another three years ratifying another treaty amended to meet David Cameron’s and his party’s prejudices. They are condemned to tell Britain that while some cosmetic concessions may be made, essentially the body of the treaty must stand.

If the British hold a referendum and there is a no vote, then the consequence will be that Britain must withdraw from the EU. So either this is a one-off stunt which the party leadership knows it must retreat from once the treaty is signed off or a ploy it knows will lead to a yes or no vote on de-facto European Union membership within two years of winning next year’s election. Either way, it hardly inspires much confidence.

So these European parliamentary elections really matter. Ukip will do well. The Conservatives will do better than 2004, but not as well as they need to win a general election. Along with the BNP, the opinion polls suggest that more than 50% of the vote will go to anti-EU parties. I’m not sure the British know the consequence of their vote, but a dynamic is in train that will lead to our exit from the EU.

Will seems to think there is something wrong with that. I of course don’t think there is anything wrong with that.

They go do their thing, we go do ours.

As a pro-European, I don’t want this to happen, but I’ve begun to wonder whether it wouldn’t be better for Europe. Only living outside the EU as the sceptics want - creating a politically diminished Britain fit for hedge funds, tax-avoiders and asset-strippers - is likely to convince the British majority that the option is a disaster.

Meanwhile, the Europeans can deepen the EU, along the way empowering the European Parliament. When a Tory government leads an impoverished, embittered Britain back into the EU in 25 years’ time, reality will have imposed political maturity.

That’s not what I think will happen of course. Rather, that freed of the stifling weight of EU regulation (which even a Commissioner has stated causes a loss four times greater than the benefits of the Single Market), freed from the zollverein (which Patrick Minford has calculated would provide a 3% boost to our GDP), able to make our own laws to suit ourselves, we would thrive.

Over 25 years there would indeed be a significant difference between the EU bloc and the UK. The power of compounding would see to that. Consider simply trend growth rate. If our growth rate were 2.8% higher than the bloc’s, then in 25 years time we would be twice as rich as they are.

2.8% is pretty high as a differential though, but 1.4% isn’t. I could easily believe (in fact I already do) that membership of the EU, with those regulations, costs us 1,4% of potential growth each and every year. And if that burden were lifted from our economy then over that 25 year period our economy would grow by 50% more than that of the bloc. We would be 1 and a 1/2 times richer than they.

Of course, we don’t know the counter factual. But it sounds to me like an experiment worth having, worth doing. Let’s leave. Let’s see what happens. If we, as Iam sure we would, thrive, then great. If we don’t? Well there’s always the Hutton option.

Not quite the UKIP billboards

The Daily Sport runs some of the creative ideas for billboards that have been floating around.

The Hungarian one amuses me the most. The Hungarian Prime Minister did in fact say something along the lines of, unless the country (or maybe it was all the Eastern countries) got a lot more financial support then the western countries would end up with a lot of eastern unemployed.