15 minutes ago
The parents of a newborn baby left with horrific injuries and fractures all over her body walked free from court today, despite admitting child cruelty charges.
This because the judge asserts the father and his partner "were let down by the social services, who have a duty to provide for you". Judge Ticehurst also ordered an investigation into the case, stating that there had been a "grave failure" by social services at North Somerset Council.
Now this raises intriguing point of principle. Cast as the regulatory authorities in this case, North Somerset social workers fail in their duty and thereby fail to prevent a crime, whereupon the criminals are spared the full penalty for their crimes. This is bizarre, not least because - one would have thought - the duty was to provide for the child first, not the parents.
But there are broader issues here. If one applies this same argument to the PIP breast implants, arguably, Jean-Claude Mas goes free because the regulators failed to detect that he was using substandard silicon.
This surely has to be wrong. Crimes must be punished. The point must be that, if the regulators' neglect enabled or exacerbated the crime, then the responsibility is shared. The issue has then to be that the regulators are also penalised - not that the criminals are let off.
Following this judge's logic, we see car thieves being let off because the police were not around to prevent their larceny, or because the car owners had not fitted stronger locks.
Nevertheless, the judge has made it easier to argue that regulatory authorities do have some responsibility for crimes committed on their watch, when there was the capability and the duty to prevent them. Can we now see that point of principle applied to PIP?
COMMENT THREAD
If anyone had any residual belief that there was anything salvageable from our current system of government, forget it! The children have taken over and all we are left with is the wreckage.
This illustrates my fears about the state of British government and our leaving the EU. On current evidence, we have - as pointed out previously - lost the ability to govern ourselves, in which case a fully independent UK in the hands of these clowns would be a disaster.
That is not to say that we should not leave the EU – far from it. But it does say that merely campaigning to leave is not enough. Additionally, we have to have plans to rebuild our government and put the grown-ups back in charge.
COMMENT THREAD
Reuters is reporting on a survey commissioned by the EU on shale gas, which concludes that no additional EU law is needed to regulate the exploration phase - although changes might be needed to protect the environment once the development phase is entered.
This is a highly significant development, as the Greenies have been hoping that the EU would step in and regulate shale gate out of existence, amounting to an effective ban. But energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger says that energy mix is the prerogative of member states and only they can decide on implementing a ban.
One suspects that the commission is unwilling to take on Poland, which is in the advance guard when it comes to shale gas exploration, and it will also be conscious of the political implications (and advantages) of reducing dependency on Russian gas.
I will take a look at this 104-page survey report, and write again in detail, if needed.
COMMENT THREAD
I had a long talk with Autonomous Mind the other day about the state of the political blogosphere in the UK.
Unfortunately, we were forced to conclude that the independent sector (as opposed to the clogosphere, comprising the efforts of the MSM, plus sundry politicians and interest groups) had not taken off in the manner of the US blogs and was still struggling to get its voice heard.
Now, confronted with this on the Daily Mail website, we see the size of the task before us, as even the best of us is no more than a rounding error, compared with that hit rate.
Nevertheless, I am not particularly depressed. For me, blogging is also a research tool which I apply to other fields of activity, while the forum has developed into a community of its own which has a value which transcends mere numbers.
Then, of course, much of the Mail traffic is drawn to its "sleb" coverage which, as presented, is very little more than soft porn. And it says something of the power of the internet (and the human condition) that porn is the most popular sector. Thus, feeding that obsession gets easy hits.
Then we have the sport coverage - and the tittle tattle, the usual diet of trash which provides the mainstay of MSM coverage. In terms of the ground covered by the independent blogosphere, the Mail figures will only be a fraction of its gross figures. We are not as far apart as the gross figures would indicate.
Nevertheless, AM and I did agree that there is something in the British character – a leaden, conformist tendency – which makes readers reluctant to turn to the blogs.
From my own personal perspective, I am a profession writer and researcher. The material that goes on this blog is of the same quality, but of much greater depth and breath, than my occasional pieces in the MSM. Yet, while my MSM pieces will benefit from the brand-name platforms and attract hundreds of thousands of hits, the same pieces on the blog will attract only thousands.
Similarly, a significant number of Booker column stories are based on posts published on this blog, yet even when Booker specifically draws attention to that, such as in the Concordia piece, we see no discernible increase in our hit rate. People will read it on the Sunday Telegraph site, but not on the blog.
Thus, I conclude that my relatively modest hit rate is neither my fault nor, in some respects, my problem. I can do no more than write as best I can, on a wide range of topics, with the best and most careful research I can manage. On top of that, the blog is professionally designed, is well presented and its graphics and picture selection are a cut above the rest. I really can do no more.
To that extent, as regards the wider audience, I am casting pearls before swine. People do not read blogs because they don't want to read blogs - that is nothing to do with what we are and what we produce. They want to stay in their comfort zones, with the information pre-packaged and served up to them in bite-sized chunks, free from any "disturb" factor. That is their fault, not mine and it is not within my power to change it.
Unfortunately, that consigns us, in volume terms, to be being no more than a rounding error, in comparison with the bigger MSM sites (the second biggest being the New York Times). Fortunately, though, when it comes to making changes, it is not the meek, but the "rounding errors" who shall inherit the earth.
Are we thus downhearted? Not in the least bit.
COMMENT THREAD
The Boy commits to making new regulations, if needed, to improve ship safety. But, oh woops! He hasn’t implemented the last lot yet, and his EU masters are getting rather cross.
And we also getting done in the ECJ. The EU commission is taking Britain (and Ireland) to the court because, it says, inadequate gas infrastructure is limiting competition. "The maximum interconnection capacity is not offered in the UK and Ireland as the pipeline connecting Northern Ireland and Ireland is not open to the market" the commission said.
This, strangely, is part of the Single Market, about which The Boy is so keen. If we had a halfway decent opposition, it could have rather a lot of fun at the Boy's expense.
COMMENT THREAD
You know, I really dislike self-publicists. There is something not quite British about them. But I'm so tickled by getting number two slot, that I couldn't resist the temptation, especially as the hero of my book - "J B Priestley" – (if he can be called that) turned down a peerage.
Strangely, Ministry of Defeat is also doing moderately well, so I'm a happy bunny – although I promise I won't let that last. At least I'll never have the problem of deciding whether to turn down an honour.
COMMENT: "NUMBER FOUR" THREAD
The man masquerading as our prime minister is in Davos, telling the "colleagues" that "Europe" must "stop throttling growth with excessive bureaucracy".
It this the same man who supports the Single Market, and its burgeoning regulations which support the CE marking? Is this the same man who, when questioned about the Costa Concordia, responded with a pledge to produce more regulations, if needed?
Indeed, is this the same man who is rolling out a massive amount of climate change legislation, and the same man who supports Basel III and the EU's programme of turning it into law?
And if it is the same man, what precisely is the "excessive bureaucracy" that he would like stopped? Does he not realise that, when it comes to "madness", this begins at home?
COMMENT THREAD
The Many, Not the Few is (briefly) number four on the Amazon best-selling list, for books about the Battle of Britain – not bad for a book that is not yet published! They've still got the cover wrong, though, and it's 435 pages, not 256 as advertised.
I am "reliably" informed by my publishers that the book will absolutely, definitely, without hesitation or deviation, be published on 17 February. I have actually received my first ration of author's copies, and – just from a production point of view – it looks an extremely handsome volume.
Advance orders are taken on Amazon and there is some talk of a major newspaper serialising the book. That would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.
COMMENT THREAD
At the time, in January last year, we did it here, here, here, here, here and here, pointing out that the Queensland floods were largely a man-made disaster. We were joined by Booker on 15 January, one of the very few MSM journalists who pursued this issue.
Needless to say, the Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh was talking of "exceptional events", and the BBC happily chirped about the "freak of nature" – an attempt to reinforce the subliminal message that nothing could have been done, while the rest if the British MSM sat on its hands and said nothing of the involvement of the dam management and the dire effect of the green agenda.
But now, there seems to be a concerted attempt to cover up the role of the management of the Wivenhoe Dam. The top-level Commission of Inquiry is charged with "overlooking" crucial documents about the management of dam in the days before the inundation of Brisbane.
These documents, leaked by The Australian last year, indicate that on the crucial weekend of 8-9 January last year the dam's managers were operating under a low-level release strategy rather than a more urgent strategy to prevent flooding, contradicting evidence given to the inquiry.
The cover-up looked even more sinister it was revealed that a top civil servant was seconded to a senior new job advising premier Anna Bligh on the floods inquiry after he had provided the documents to the inquiry that suggested flood engineers were using the wrong strategy to operate Wivenhoe Dam.
However, new evidence how now emerged - an exchange of e-mails between two of Queensland's most senior water officials seems to confirm that the wrong strategy was being used to manage Wivenhoe Dam, and that water officials have been lying to the inquiry.
Some commentators now believe that the inquiry will be a whitewash, and are pinning their faith on a class action, which seeks damages on the basis of corporate and government negligence, even though the inquiry has been recalled to hear the new evidence.
But, while the Australian media is running with this issue, the British media is, of course, silent. Despite the broader implications, which would be of some considerable interest to British readers, the media would rather us not know how badly the Greens screwed up.
COMMENT THREAD
Jean-Claude Mas, 72, founder of Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), has been arrested at the home of his partner in Six-Fours in the Var, south of France. He was taken into police custody just before 7am this morning. The house was being searched by investigators. A deputy chief executive was also arrested at his home.
So we have the likelihood of criminal charges being preferred against this (French) man, for the sale of substandard goods, purporting to conform with the highest of EU standards, under the aegis of the French government.
Since the products carried the CE marking, attesting that they had been produced in conformity with EU standards, underwritten by the French and British governments, in what way should the clinics which fitted them now be liable for replacing them?
Further, since the UK complied with EU law in this instance, and accepted the provenance of the CE marking – as it is obliged to do – in what way should the British taxpayer be liable for remedying for what, on the face of it, is a series of criminal acts, and a regulatory failure?
And herein lies an important point of principle. If the regulators, in whole or part, dictate the means by which a product should be considered marketable, and then underwrite a marking scheme that attests to quality and safety, with that comes responsibility when things go wrong.
They cannot have it both ways – dictating and monitoring standards, requiring a compulsory marking which attests to conformity, then walking away when their system fails. With power comes responsibility.
COMMENT THREAD
In my brief tenure as an advisor on transport to a shadow cabinet minister, I argued strongly that we should not only be looking at transport provision, but at demand reduction.
Specifically, I argued, many people could work from home, if not all the time, than for a few days a week or month. If we could get on average the office population of central London working one day a week without travelling to work, we would get a 20 percent reduction in transport demand for that cohort – a prize worth having.
Needless to say, no one listens - until now, when necessity becomes the mother of invention. During the Ghastly Games and the Paralympics, staff across Whitehall and the public sector will be ordered not to commute to work for up to seven weeks to prevent London's public transport network from becoming over-congested.
A series of unprecedented "planning exercises" have been scheduled to "check [whether] officials can work from home". From 6-9 February, thousands of civil servants have been told to work from home under "Operation Stepchange". They will be asked to check that teleconferencing facilities are operational and that remote computer networks work.
And of course they can do it … just as I have been doing for the last 30 years. But it takes something like a potential gridlock to make it happen on a larger scale. The good thing is that we might get a legacy from the Games that might be worth having.
COMMENT THREAD
What happened in the past really doesn't matter if people have short memories and you can re-write the narrative according to how you would wish things to have been, rather than as they actually were.
It is no surprise that Winston Smith, Orwell's hero in 1984, was charged with re-writing the London Times, to ensure the "facts" matched the prevailing narrative. Personally, I don't think it was an accident that he was named Winston, after the great wartime leader – a man who was also not ill-disposed to re-writing his own part in history. But that is another story.
However, one of the more egregious examples of a history re-write (apart from Churchill's Second World War) is the story of the origins of the European Union but, having thus distorted the early history, the "colleagues" clearly think that this is a process that should continue.
So we have The Guardian teaming up with five leading European newspapers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland "to explore the benefits and drawbacks of the European project".
Under the (highly original) brand of "Europa", in a series of articles over two days, journalists from the EU's six biggest countries "will delve into the biggest crisis in the European Union's history and seek answers to two critical questions: what is the EU for? And where does it go from here?"
Completely in tune with this searching objective, you might think, we then see a story in today's, written by Raul Limon of El Pais, extolling the outfit building the A-400M transport as "a very European success story" (above).
One is tempted to ask that, if the A-400M is a "success story", then what on earth is a failure? But the claim, to be precise, is of a "European success story" which, like the euro, is a very different kind of success. Clearly, the definition of a "European success" is not the same as the ordinary, common and garden variety.
This is perhaps just as well for, as The Guardian well knows, the A-400M is years late, massively over-budget and has failed to meet its design specifications. The construction of the A-400M also raises very serious questions as to whether the use of advanced composites, of which it is built, is at all suitable for military transport aircraft and the rugged conditions they must endure.
By any normal measure, therefore, the aircraft – and its production company, which should have crashed and burned but is only being kept alive for political reasons - is an abysmal failure.
But, as long as you can then re-write history in the manner of Winston – Smith or Churchill - and reclassify failure as a "success", that is all that matters. Better still, it is a "very European success", and everything is now right with the world. Nobody will ever remember otherwise, or be given a chance to argue the toss ... not in The Guardian at least.
COMMENT THREAD
Angela Merkel, according to Reuters, has rejected as "unfounded" stereotypes about a domineering, dogmatic Germany whose economic strength hinders growth in the rest of Europe, saying such clichés did not help the cause of European integration.
So what is she really worried about – the "unfounded" stereotypes, or that they did not help the cause of European integration?
COMMENT THREAD
Today's agenda, the politico-media establishment has decided, is the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, hence The Boy toddling off to that French city to make an inconsequential and carefully guarded speech on the subject, about which we are supposed to throb with excitement.
Somewhere, the idea of "sovereignty" will get mentioned – if not by The Boy, then certainly by some hacks, but even as they expostulate, that very thing drains away from the entity loosely described as the British nation.
No one, however, can ever complain that is passage was not recorded, but in the most obscure and secret form, in such a manner that it almost certainly never sees the light of day – the "Written Ministerial Statement".
Two such of interest were promulgated yesterday, the first one from the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne): and The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning).
This was "to update the House on the Government's response to the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, which hit rocks off the Italian island of Giglio overnight on Friday 13 January" – not that it will do so as so few MPs will read it – but the key passage is below, which the point of greatest interest emphasised:
At this time, the cause of the accident remains unknown. We must wait for the results of the investigation by the Italian authorities before deciding whether any action is required to ensure the safety of other vessels. Should the conclusions of the investigation suggest a need for revisions on any aspect of cruise ship design or operation, then the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) will be the forum for agreeing improvements. The development of passenger ship regulations is an iterative process based on practical experience. By applying the lessons from previous incidents the cruise industry generally enjoys an excellent safety record.Compare and contrast this with what The Boy was saying, now exactly a week ago during PMQs, viz: "if changes need to be made … of course we will make them".
What he actually meant to say, as we now see, is that the British parochial council will go toddling along to the Albert Embankment in London, where the IMO houses its secretariat, to get its instructions.
In due course, i.e., after interminable meetings, the 170 member states (and the EU, which will also be represented) will come to a conclusion (sort of). This then will be adopted by the EU, either in the form of a regulation or (more likely) a directive, which our parochial council will turn into British law.
So much for making changes, which neatly brings us to the second statement of interest, this one on: "PIP Breast Implants and Regulation of Cosmetic Interventions". Here, we are reminded by the secretary of state for health (Mr Andrew Lansley) of his oral statement to the House of 11 January 2012.
Then, he described the immediate action which the Government were taking to address the concerns of women who have received breast implants made by the company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP), saying that:
… in the light of these events, we needed both to review the lessons that could be learnt, and to consider the wider issues of ensuring the safety of people who are considering cosmetic surgery and similar treatments. I therefore announced two reviews, one to be led by my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Earl Howe) which will look at what happened in the United Kingdom in relation to PIP implants; and the second, to be led by the NHS Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, to look at the wider issues of clinical safety and regulation.
One will notice immediately, the complete absence of nay mention of the "elephant in the room" but now, in the written statement that so few will see, it comes out to graze. The review to be carried out by Earl Howe, we are now told, will report by the end of March 2012 and the terms of reference are set out thus:
In the context of current EC directives on the regulation of medical devices and the information generally available at the time on the risks associated with breast implants to review …Then we find that the review will advise the secretary of state "on what lessons can be learned for application should similar circumstances arise in the future, and on implications for UK input to the ongoing review of the European Medical Devices Directives".
As regards the review to be carried out by Sir Bruce Keogh, this will take into account "the Government's Better Regulation framework and the concurrent review by the EU of current arrangements for the regulation of medical devices".
The purpose, as one might expect, is to "make recommendations to Ministers, including interim recommendations if appropriate, and to inform the UK contribution to the EU review".
That, as "revealed" by written ministerial statements, is how modern government works. On the one hand, a foreign shipping disaster is to be referred to an international committee and, eventually, the EU will reach down and make more laws, which we will adopt without question.
On the other hand, with a domestic medical "disaster", the great and the good are summoned to carry out reviews, the effect of which is "to inform the UK contribution to the EU review". When it has finished its own review, the EU will then reach down and make more laws, which we will adopt without question.
Interestingly, had we by now left the EU, we would still be talking to the IMO, but would be adopting its recommendations directly, instead of via the EU. As regards the breast implants, were we to have joined EFTA and via that the EEA, we would still be waiting for an EU review and adopting any regulations that came from it. Nothing much would have changed.
The key thing, though, seems to be that, as long as the politico-media establishment doesn't actually know (or care) how modern government works, it can go on pretending that The Boy and his ministers are still in charge and, until we give away the Falklands, that the sun never sets on the British Empire.
COMMENT THREAD
Yesterday, it was one of those relatively rare evenings when I watched the BBC television news, finding that the Petroplus story was lead item, with the hand-wavers hyperventilating about shortages of petrol and diesel. We got it right, I think, but if you want a greater authority, one can refer to the Wall Street Journal.
It cites a number of analysts saying that weak demand and over capacity in Europe's refining sector will likely cushion the impact in oil markets of the closure of one of Europe's largest refiners Petroplus Holdings AG.
Thus we have James Zhang, strategist at Standard Bank, saying The price of product futures barely registered the event", and: "The market reaction was quite muted". "European refinery utilisation rate is around 82 percent, so there's plenty of slack in the system to replace the lost capacity form Petroplus and distillate demand was around 250,000 barrels a day less in Europe in December because of the warm weather," he added.
The BBC story – in retailing its dire warnings of major shortages – was, therefore, totally off the wall, completely wrong in all its major aspects. Not once was there any mention of stock surpluses, weakness of demand, and over-capacity, all of which suggests that there will be no structural shortage of petroleum products.
Interestingly, the has now changed its focus to major on job losses (see illustration), although the broadcaster was by no means the only media outlet to get it so wrong.
One really does wonder though, what there agenda is here. The hacks and their editors cannot all be so stupid and ignorant that they cannot ascertain what is in fact a well-established situation in what is a long-running saga. It was reasons of over-capacity and weakness of demand that led BP to sell the Coryton plant in the first place.
As for the bigger picture, oil prices actually slipped yesterday "on revived concerns about the eurozone's debt problems and their potential to slow the global economy". But you would not have got any of that from the BBC – it would have spoiled the narrative.
The wonder is, then, that so many people still watch BBC news – and the MSM in general. Getting it wrong these days is what they do, so wrong so often that it is getting embarrassing.
COMMENT THREAD
On Sunday, Booker was telling us how Salmond is going to fiddle his hubristic pledge that 100 percent of Scotland's "gross electricity consumption" will come from renewable sources by 2020,
To become notionally self-sufficient in power supply, he will have to have built windmills roughly three times more plated capacity than is required for the notional maximum consumption, which means that at times Scotland will be producing more power than it needs.
The scam is, it would appear, that Salmond aims to sell this power to England, at up to three times the price of electricity produced with fossil fuel, while making up the shortfall when the wind doesn't blow enough – or at all – by buying in power from England, at fossil fuel prices. By this means, he hopes to make profits of billions of pounds.
But, in order to make this happen, a fortune must be spent on connecting the windmills to the grid, and then providing the interconnectors so that power can be pumped over the border, in both directions.
And lo and behold, Ofgem is to allow the two major Scottish utilities to add £7.7 billion to their charges for "modernisation" of the grid to enable this to happen. In terms of the Scottish population, that is over £1,500 for every man, woman and child.
Of course, Salmond thinks the Scots can get their money back from England. With the British government under-performing on its EU renewables quote, he thinks that it will have no option but to go for its one for the price three "blackmail" and cough up.
Whether he can pull it off is anyone's guess, but according to a commenter here, another £17.6 billion will be required for the National Grid and, with transmission losses of 10-15 percent just between Scotland and England, much of the money will be spent on heating up the atmosphere.
This happens to be George Wood, retired head of Technical and Economics, Balancing Services, National Grid. He simply does not understand this madness. It is "as though there has been a brain disconnect by our politicians", he says.
And who could possibly disagree?
COMMENT THREAD
As government debt breaks the £1-trillion barrier, we have Dellers arguing that "we need to see where our tax money goes", an idea that was floated yesterday by Philip Johnston, and picked up by Whitterings from Witney. But it does not improve with re-telling.
Just giving us a "receipt" is not enough. What does it profit a man if (as indeed he will) he gets his Barclaycard statement, listing the excesses of his spendthrift wife? What we need is for government to be very clear on what it would wish to spend money, while we have the right to cut up the credit cards – exercising a veto on government spending plans.
We have to be able to stop the expenditure before the money is wasted. And until that happens, there is no democracy.
COMMENT THREAD
Much excitement and doom-mongering attends the closure of the Coryton refinery in Essex, as its Zurich-based owner Petroplus files for insolvency, after lenders put the company on notice to pay off its debts triggering a default on $1.75 billion of senior notes and convertible bonds.
In an interesting piece, Man in a Shed takes a pessimistic view, arguing that "the UK must not lose another refinery". However, in complete contrast, Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of Total says that he believes the current financial woes of Petroplus confirm the view that there is considerable overcapacity in Europe's refining sector. Far from being a disaster, Petroplus' demise could ease supply conditions and help boost margins.
Equally, competitors will be keen to jump into any gaps. "Essar's (ESSR.L) Stanlow refinery is operating as normal and if there are opportunities to fill gaps in the market caused by the absence of Coryton we would obviously look to do so," said a spokesman for the Indian energy group.
And indeed it is the case that there is refinery overcapacity - on a global scale. According to this source, this can be attributed to opposing trends: demand continues to fall while refining capacity is steadily increasing, despite generally unfavourable conditions. In 2008, surplus capacity stood at 2 MMbpd, while today it has risen to 7 MMbpd.
But what is fascinating is that the distribution of capacity (and changes in provisions) are by no means uniform. In the Asia-Pacific region, refining capacity has been largely unaffected by the slowing world economy. After a period when capacity rose only moderately, new capacity was created at a rapid pace in 2009 (+6.4%). At the same time, growth in demand for oil slowed to 1.3%, resulting in mild overcapacity (0.8 MMbpd).
In Europe and the developed world, however, we have seen the adoption of increasingly stringent emissions standards and product specifications, burdensome regulatory requirements for refineries (for combating local pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions), and stiffer competition from new fuels.
All of these structural factors are weakening the sector, making it more attractive to import the finished product from Asian refineries, where costs are lower and regulatory demands are less severe (and can be mitigated still further by well-placed bribes).
Thus, while we may see temporary and very localised shortages, mainly London and the Southeast, no great perturbations are expected from the demise of Petroplus – other than the loss of over 1,000 jobs at the Essex refinery.
Linda McCulloch, national officer at the Unite union, wants "joint action by the owners and government", to help secure the business, but one suspects this is not going to happen. The shutdown at the former BP-owned refinery - with a total capacity of 175,000 barrels of crude oil per day – looks as if it might be permanent.
And although it will never be said – especially by the likes of the BBC - the fingerprints of the EU are all over this. But the murder weapon has many different hands upon it, so the case will never go to court.
COMMENT THREAD
England Expects points out that the Croatian referendum was heavily rigged, giving some of the detail of how it was done. Witterings from Witney then makes the obvious but necessary point that, should we ever be given a referendum on the EU, it too would be rigged.
That is the way the "colleagues" play the game in EU politics. We have to play smarter.
COMMENT THREAD
One minute we are the lambasting the media for not acknowledging the "elephant in the room", but the very next thing we see is the media fingering the EU for something that is not primarily its responsibility.
Up front are the Failygraph and the Daily Mail. They are complaining about "a draft directive of reforms to make banking safer and rules more uniform", the effect of which is to bring forward mortgage foreclosure proceedings from 180 days in the UK to 90 days.
It takes the Financial Times, however, to identify the legislation involved. It appears we are dealing with the capital requirements directive (CRD 4) "package", which aims "to improve bank safety by making it easier for investors to compare them and allow regulators to impose uniform capital requirements".
The specific proposal (one of several) was actually published in July last year, running to 154 pages, accompanied by a working paper, running to 226 pages, the proposed directive going under the fearsome title of:
Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms and amending Directive 2002/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the supplementary supervision of credit institutions, insurance undertakings and investment firms in a financial conglomerate.This is scheduled to go to the EU parliament committee in April and for its first reading in June, possibly to come into EU law by the end of the year.
But it is the documents which give the game away, telling us that the package implements the international Basel accord on banking supervision, the so-called Basel III agreement. The key objective of the proposal, we are told:
… is to address the shortcomings exposed during the financial crisis, to move towards a single rulebook regulating credit institutions in order to prevent recent problems from reoccurring in the future, and to ensure that risks linked to the issues of financial instability and pro-cyclicality are more effectively contained.Unsaid is that many of those "shortcomings" were in the Basel II agreement, but the point relevant to this current rush of publicity is that we are not dealing primarily with EU law.
What we have here is an example of global government, about which we have written previously, specifically the secretive Bank for International Settlements in Basel, which hosts the equally secretive Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
It is this body - in which our own Bank of England governor, Mervyn King, plays a central role – which actually makes the rules. The members of the key sub-committees are not disclosed, the meeting are in private, the rules of procedure are not declared and the voting record is secret. By comparison, the EU is a model of transparency – except of course, that the EU is a major player in this committee, where the real power is held.
This situation, therefore, casts the EU in the role of middle man. It takes the "recommendations" from the Basel committee and processes them into actionable legislation – some as commission regulations and some as directives, for the member states to adopt into their own legislative codes.
The one thing the EU cannot do, however, is make any substantive changes. The rules have been decided on a global scale and the EU is now just the regional authority implementing them – a relationship not dissimilar to that between the EU and the IMO.
In this context, to blame the EU for the result is, to say the very least, otiose. But that is what the media does when it suits it. Possibly, the real reason though is that, like our own MPs and so many others, they no longer have a very clear idea of how we are governed or who actually governs us.
Fortified by their own ignorance, the hacks thus go for the easy shot – and none of us are better informed. Small wonder though that the powers that be are thinking of selling off the Houses of Parliament. If they do, there is certainly no need to replace them.
COMMENT THREAD
Icebreaker, Healy, and tanker Renda are on their way back from Nome, having successfully delivered 1.3 million gallons to the ice-bound port. Coast Guard spokesman Adam De Rocher says the vessels were about 100 miles south of Nome on Sunday. He says they left the town on Alaska's western coast on Friday.
Once the Renda hits open water (if such an unfortunate phrase can be used), it will head for Russia. The Healy will go to Dutch Harbour, Alaska, to drop off supplies before heading home to Seattle.
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The "colleagues" seem to have reached an agreement on oil sanctions for Iran. Although we haven't seen the small print, this would seem to be bad news for Greece, which is still having trouble resolving the price of haircuts.
Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing. Does the right hand even know what the right hand is doing?
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Breast implants are back in the news today, with a call for the banning of cosmetic surgery advertisements. This was picked up by the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Noting that the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) was "calling for an outright ban on the advertising of all cosmetic surgery", it had Fazel Fatah, president of BAAPS, and Sally Taber, director of the Independent Healthcare Advisory Services (IHAS), which represents the cosmetic surgery industry, to "discuss the necessity of such a ban".
Needless to say, the "elephant" was not at all represented – even though the BBC is fully aware that such issues are the competence of the European Union, having in fact told us of EU involvement, the day before Booker went to press on the issue (below).
As regards the banning of cosmetic surgery advertisements, this cannot be done under EU law. There was a case on precisely this before the ECJ in January 2008, with a final ruling in July 2008 when it was ruled that prohibition of advertisements constituted "a restriction on freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services".
Nonetheless, the BBC reports on prof Sir Bruce Keogh, "who is leading a government review of the trade after the PIP breast implants scandal". The Great Man has said an insurance scheme for the sector, similar to that in the travel industry, could be introduced. The government is also considering the introduction of a breast implant registry to make a record of all cosmetic operations.
Ironically, it is these recommendation that are cosmetic, as these issues are also an EU competence. They are not within the power of the British government to implement. Furthermore, they have been under discussion by the EU since 2001.
It was then that the commission announced it was "to propose tighter controls on the safety of breast implants, and reinforced mechanisms to check that these rules are observed", telling us that it would also "ask for an upgrade of the European standards for breast implants".
Ironically, in July 2002, the commission decided that, for medical devices, the regulatory framework was sound, but could be better implemented. Enterprise commissioner Erkki Liikanen then said: "Providing access to the best medical technology and devices, that meet the highest standards of safety and improve the quality of life, is a key objective of the Commission policy towards European citizens".
Having failed to ensure that the devices meet the highest standards of safety, the commission is at last admitting that reform is needed – which only it can decide upon. But that does not stop the British government, with the help of the BBC and the media in general, going through its elaborate charade, pretending it is doing something in the hope of convincing people that it is still in charge.
So the culture of denial continues where, strangely, those who are the most avid supporters of the EU seem to be those who are also keenest to deny its involvement in so many aspects of our lives.
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Croatia voted yesterday in a referendum on joining the European Union, a move the government says offers the former Yugoslav republic its only chance of economic recovery despite the turmoil in the 27-state bloc.
Early results, with 51 percent of the vote counted, have 67 percent of those voted saying "yes". It is interesting how people are allowed to vote to join the EU … but not to get out of it … but the former seems to depend on them being willing to say yes.
With a population of 4.3 million, slightly less than that of Scotland, the result will no doubt be watched closely by Mr Salmond. There are, after all, some parallels, the state of Croatia having been formed after the break up of Yugoslavia, which Scotland – as a state – being forned (Mr Salmond hopes) with the break up of the United Kingdom.
Neither Croatia nor Scotland, however, are big enough to alter the destiny of the EU. One is about to – and the other hopes to – shackle itself to a corpse. The Guardian is triumphant. But it will have plenty of time to repent.
On the other hand, Your Freedom and Ours - coming in with an update - notes that it was not exactly an overwhelming vote.
About 31 percent were against, while the rest of the ballots were invalid. About 42 percent of eligible voters were estimated to have taken part in the referendum, illustrating voters' apathy toward the EU, she tells is.
For those Croatians who did not bother to turn out to vote against joining the EU if they did not feel that they were in favour, they will, no doubt complain vociferously when things go wrong.
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Thus writes Peter Hitchens, who goes on to say:
Akulic, who, like you and me (though I'd much rather not be), is a citizen of the European Union, drifted unhindered into the Euro-region formerly known as Great Britain in 2010. Nobody cared that he had spent much of his adult life in prison for violence, or that he had once raped a seven-year-old girl.This is rather like the ship surveyor who doesn't realise that the EU is now in charge of ship safety – as appears to be the case from the comments on the Booker column.
As Lady Justice Hallett (of course) reduced his prison sentence on appeal last week, she asked in some astonishment: "Do we let in just anyone?" The answer, of course, is: "Yes, Judge".
Her spluttering amazement came after Akulic's lawyer explained that the Lithuanian rapist was an EU citizen, and so has as much right to be here as you and I – a simple point I have been trying to get across for years.
We have here a whole generation of middle to upper class people living in denial, be they journalists, politicians, ship surveyors or judges – people who wilfully close their eyes to the steady encroachment of the EU on our lives.
Quite why this is the case is difficult to work out, but it is a very real and serious phenomenon. It is as if these people cannot cope with the idea that we are no longer an independent nation and are ruled by aliens – some of them British.
Hitchens is right, therefore, to call for the judge to wake up. But we need the whole nation to wake up. Pretending the EU takeover isn't happening won't make it go away.
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It is a good question to ask, but the Guardian is obviously incapable of sensible analysis. Larry Ellott also asks: whether the prime minister be another moderniser who arrives in power bouncing with optimism but for whom it all goes wrong? He goes on to say:
There are differences as well as similarities: Heath presided over a largely pro-European party and considered his greatest achievement to be Britain's entry into what was then the European Economic Community. Cameron leads an overwhelmingly Eurosceptic party and would like a less binding relationship with the European Union. Heath would have signed up to the euro without question; there is no earthly chance of Cameron taking Britain into the single currency.These "left-wingers" just don't do subtlety. Theirs is a monochrome world of black and white. It is no wonder they are so ill-tempered – they must be bored witless.
Thus, to the average Guardian reader, Cameron is a right-wing eurosceptic leading an "overwhelmingly Eurosceptic party". Dialogue is impossible. There is no meeting point, or frame of reference from which we can start.
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Cameron is trying to pull as fast one over the ECHR in an attempt to defuse the anger over the recent decision over extremist Islamic cleric Abu Qatada. But he is mercilessly dissected by Autonomous Mind, who shows his posturing up for what it is – posturing.
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Official figures, we are told, show that 45 percent of students from EU countries who were liable to start repaying loans had disappeared or were in arrears as of last April. Thus, the total outstanding debt liable to be repaid by EU borrowers at the end of 2009/10 was £47.4 million, according to the Department for Business (BIS), which published the figures.
But that means, according to Failygraph education correspondent Julie Henry, "If the thousands of students missing or in arrears never pay, more than £20 million would be lost to the Treasury". I am not sure I follow that line of reasoning. At the moment, the debt is already at £47.4 million and, if no more payments are made, more than £20 million will be lost? Technically, that may be correct, but it is an odd way of putting it.
However, flash back to February 2009 – nearly three years ago, and you will get a much better idea of what is going on from The Daily Mail. It correctly predicted this insult, then telling us that tens of thousands more from the EU were currently at university, having borrowed £124million to cover tuition fees, which then stood at £3,145-a-year.
With 45 percent of EU students who were liable to start repaying loans having now disappeared or in arrears as of last April, therefore, we are exposed to a sum well in excess of £60 million and, as the fees go up to £9,000 a year and more EU students are processed through the system, that sum can only increase.
Back in 2009, though, the Student Loans Company insisted that measures to identify and trace EU students would be in place by April 2010, when large numbers of EU students began to graduate.
Compare and contrast this with the statement today from Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, who says that non-repayment by overseas students is "inherent in the system." "Many EU students will never pay back their loans. We were never going to be able to recover loan debts from EU students to the same level as domestic students.
Back in 2009, we were remarking: "The real question, though, is why we are giving foreign students loans in the first place. And the answer is … EU rules. Under the non-discrimination provisions of the Treaties, whatever applies to UK nationals must also be given to any Jacques, Fritz or Toni who happens on these shores".
The writing was on the wall ever since the ECJ made a judgement on the issue in 2004, and now we are well and truly stuck.
Then, a spokesman for the Department for Universities, Innovation and Skills said trace agents are being used to hunt down students who failed to repay their loans. So, in the darkest regions of Naples, we suggested that, amid the mounds of rubbish, "we can be assured that British interests are being looked after".
Yeah, right! And so the pigs flew over in squadrons.
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The column takes a look at the Concordia capsize, picking up the EU element that we raised on this blog. His piece took account of this narrative on the ship's last-known movements, and explores some of the issues I raise in this piece.
Without having to speculate on the causes of this incident, it is possible to make the perfectly valid point that the sequence of events which led directly to the capsize is distinct from the sequence that led to the collision – and that the capsize was not necessarily an inevitable consequence of the hull rupture.
Here, it is necessary to make the distinction between "intact stability" and "damage stability", and it is also possible to assert with confidence that current legislation (EU and IMO) does not fully take into account (or at all) of the phenomena of multiple free surface effect and "transient flooding" in large cruise liners, which can play a significant part in causing ships to capsize.
It is thus valid to question whether the regulatory regime was (and is) adequate to deal with potential risks, and to ask whether the perceived inadequacies were in any way responsible for the capsize of the Concordia.
In most of such incidents, cause is quite often multi-factoral, in which context responsibility (and blame) must often rest on many shoulders. It would be a shame if the emphasis on the apparent failures of the ship's captain obscured any failings of the regulators, and allowed them to escape any blame that should otherwise accrue to them.
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The Daily Mail has today in its print edition a plaintive rejoinder from EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier, who is insisting that Britain is free to ban foreign doctors if they cannot speak English or there are concerns about their professional ability (above).
He is responding (in the Failygraph) to claims from professor Norman Williams, president of the Royal College of Surgeons and Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians, who said recently (12 January) that "urgent action" was needed to combat "huge variations" in the quality and training of foreign doctors.
"European laws are putting the lives of British patients at risk by allowing incompetent and poorly trained foreign doctors to work in the NHS, two senior doctors warned today", the Daily Mail then reported (below).
However, someone should perhaps have asked these two esteemed gentlemen why they had not read the newspapers, and in particular the Daily Mail for 4 October 2011. This informed us that foreign doctors would be barred from treating patients unless they have a good grasp of English "under tough rules to be announced by Andrew Lansley today".
The Health Secretary would "pledge to end the scandal which has seen 23,000 doctors from Europe registered to work in the NHS – despite never having been asked if they can speak the language properly" (below).
And even if the good doctors haven't noticed this, the nurses certainly have. The Nursing Times acerbically noted on 6 October, 2011 that "Language tests for nurses less pressing than for doctors, says DH".
It reported that a ban on (central) language testing for nurses is to remain in force, even though the government is overturning that on doctors on the grounds that they pose more of a risk to patients.
The report thus confirmed the Daily Mail report, stating that the Department of Health had announced it would allow the General Medical Council to test the language skills of doctors from within the European Economic Area (EEA) who want to work in the UK.
And, in fact, it has always been the case that language skills of medical professionals have been amenable to testing. EU law does not prohibit it. What EU law does do though is prohibit a uniform ban on employment, by virtue of an inability to speak good (or any) English. Each case must be treated on its merits.
In practice, this meant that regulatory bodies like the Royal College of Nursing and the General Medical Council could no longer make language competency an exclusion criterion under the Professional Qualifications Directive (Directive 2005/36/EC). Instead, the onus was placed on the employer, to ascertain that individuals had suitable language skills for the specific jobs in which they were to be placed.
And therein seems to lie the problem. As late as 14 January, the Daily Mail was reporting that 90 percent of hospitals fail to check on nurses' English before letting them work on wards. Language problems, it said, only come to light when patients' requests were not understood
Then it told us that many hospital chiefs (despite their high pay) were "totally unaware that due to strict anti-discrimination rules imposed by Brussels, it is illegal for the Nursing and Midwifery Council regulator to check the English language skills of nurses trained in EU countries".
The Department of Health and the Royal College of Nursing, said the Mail have told hospitals it is their responsibility to make adequate checks but the guidance was not always passed on to managers in charge of recruitment.
So, we can rightly blame the EU for disrupting established systems, and requiring a cumbersome and expensive regime for individual employers, who now have to ascertain whether potential employees can actually speak and understand English to an acceptable level. But then what responsible employer does not check whether their employees can do the jobs for which they are hired?
We cannot, therefore, blame the EU for the incompetence of those employers who have not realised their own responsibilities, and taken the necessary measures to ensure their staff are capable of doing their jobs. Those failures, it would seem, are home-grown.
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A picture may be worth a thousand words but, on occasions, a picture with words is worth a thousand pictures.
Meanwhile, "It's not a crisis of the euro. It's a case of euro-zone economies being in difficulty", says
financial markets commissioner Michel Barnier. Planet, which, on?
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The Wannsee Conference. I am surprised that the British media hasn't made something of it. Although Germany has risen to the occasion, with a report in Spiegel online.
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Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.
This site tells all. After the impact, he loses way, executes a turn hard to starboard and, as the speed washes off to less than one knot, he cuts in the bow thruster to bring the bow round. The current then brings him into shore, with the stern grounding first.
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Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi seems to be rather keen to put distance between himself and his errant captain, Francesco Schettino. He has, according to Reuters, suspended Schettino and the company has declared itself an injured party. They were not aware of unsafe practices involving ships coming close to shore to give tourists a better view, they say.
But it could be that Foschi doth protest too much. Even the fact that Schettino steered his ship too close to the rocks may not be entirely his responsibility if, as is being alleged, the company did actually know of the practice of sailing close to the Tuscan island of Giglio and did nothing to stop it.
However, while the captain may have to take the ultimate responsibility for driving the Costa Concordia onto the rocks, it needs to be remembered that there are many separate and distinct phases to this incident. The collision with the rocks is one – the ship capsizing is entirely separate.
And while the company may succeed in distancing itself from the collision, it may have more difficulty disclaiming responsibility for the subsequent capsize. As set out in my earlier piece, there may be design flaws which caused the ship to capsize, making the disaster far worse than it should have been.
The issue here is that ship like the Costa Concordia are not supposed to capsize. Although they look top-heavy, they are in fact immensely stable. Thus, the regulatory philosophy is that the ship should remain intact and upright in all but the most extreme of incidents, allowing it to become – as the saying goes – its own lifeboat.
But the possibility of there being problems is evidenced by the fact of the capsize, and that the hole in the hull is sticking out of the water. It should be under the sea, a fact noted by professor Philip Wilson of Southampton University. "That is where the water came rushing in," he says. "In other words, the ship seems to be lying on the wrong side".
This possibility is further reinforced, perhaps unwittingly, by a statement on the Costa Concordia today by the EU Commission, a full week after the original incident. It reminds us that, despite new ship safety legislation having been promulgated in 2009 – viz Directive 2009/45/EC - the commission a year later set up another review on passenger ship safety, to ensure the legislation "keeps pace with the latest evolution in design, operational procedures and technology".
The question is immediately raised as to why such a review would be needed if there was any great confidence in the adequacy of current legislation, and suspicions that it might not be adequate are raised with today's statement.
Crucially, we find that the commission is stating that the review must now explore whether current stability rules on passenger ships need further updating. In particular, it says, this must be in relation to ships, damaged and/or exposed to bad weather conditions.
It is this issue of so-called "damage stability" in respect of large passenger ships that especially needs review as the current standards go back to IMO regulations from 1993, before the current work on damage stability had been undertaken.
The EU itself had the opportunity to update damage stability requirements in 2009, having regard to the research which it had funded. But such rules would only have applied to vessels flagged by EU member states and to vessels plying the waters of EU member states – leaving the rest of the world covered by the older and less demanding IMO code.
And what emerges from the legislative review is that the EU is reluctant to go further than the IMO standards, for fear of driving ships operated by EU member states into nations running flags of convenience.
But even without that, competition for the lucrative cruise market is global and ships forced to comply with more onerous EU law, plying the Mediterranean, would be at a trading disadvantage with US registered ships cruising the Caribbean. Customers are motivated as much by price as location.
The IMO has, in fact, been working on updating its own regulations since the year 2000 but has yet to address damage stability issues in large passenger ships.
It too seems to be treating the Costa Concordia incident as a wake-up call. ""IMO must not take this accident lightly", it says. "We should seriously consider the lessons to be learnt and, if necessary, re-examine the regulations on the safety of large passenger ships in the light of the findings of the casualty investigation", it adds, in its formal statement.
It would appear, therefore, that safety regulations are very far from being adequate, but the big question is whether the owners of the Costa Concordia knew this – or should have known.
As part of the Carnival Corporation - the world's largest cruise ship operator – it seems inconceivable that someone did not know. And given that that may be the case, we may still be seeing Pier Luigi Foschi in the dock – unless conformity with regulations is taken to be sufficient for absolution, blurring once again the chain of responsibility.
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The idea was to increase visibility and accountability of obscure government bodies, which could hide their spending within the accounts of their controlling departments, while the heads could hide behind the skirts of ministerial responsibility.
These new bodies were to become more like private sector firms, with their own boards of directors and chief executives, separate accounts and their own objectives and targets.
Following the establishment of the "Efficiency Unit" led by Lord Rayner in 1982 and the Ibbs Report in 1988, directly employed civil servants fell from 732,000 in 1979 to 500,000 in 1997, and by 1998, 75 percent of all civil servants worked for agencies or departments run on "Next Step" lines.
As it turned out, though, the only way the private sector was seriously emulated was in the rampant inflation in salaries for CEOs and the "quango queens" who joined the boards, while "accountability" became a farce, as ministers found they had no real control and the bodies were largely autonomous.
So the worm turned and this current administration has decided to claw back the powers of these bodies, which the media insist on calling "quangos", having launched the Public Bodies Reform Programme, run by the Cabinet Office, under the egregious Mr Letwin.
But, according to the National Audit Office, they can't even get this right. In a report issued today, the NAO accused the Cabinet Office of grossly under-estimating the transitional costs of reorganisation, rejecting the estimate of £425 million and suggesting that costs will be at least £830 million.
Furthermore, says the NAO, there is an "insufficient grasp of the ongoing costs of functions transferred to other parts of government", meaning that the government departments have failed to understand that if they absorb quango functions into their own departments, rather than abolish them altogether, they are still going to cost.
Overall, this makes a nonsense of the administration's claims on cost-savings. Originally claimed to be £2.6 billion, the civil service is going to have to find £3.5 billion if they are to meet the net savings target, after the higher costs of transition have been taken into account.
And, says the NAO, despite greater accountability being the programme's primary intended benefit, only one of the six departments examined had proposals for a well-defined, though basic, measure of success for it. In other words, the savings will not actually be anything like those claimed, and any improvements in accountability are likely to illusory.
There is a profound lesson to learn here. Mere reorganisation of government functions is unlikely ever to bring much in the way of improvements, either in costs or accountability, unless accompanied by a fundamental reappraisal of functions (with a strong emphasis on abolition).
There is a similar lesson in relation to our withdrawal from the EU. Just leaving the evil empire is unlikely to achieve anything, per se – and especially not in terms of cost savings - until or unless we rethink the way government is supposed to work and what it is supposed to do.
As for the "bonfire of quangos", it looks as if the great spectacle is, after all, going to be a damp squib. But then, I don't suppose anybody really expected otherwise.
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An interesting tour de table from Theodore Dalrymple, getting back to basics.
Asked by a journalist whether nationalism was dangerous, he answers that the question, "implied that the choice before Europe was between the European Union and fascism: that all that stood between us and the ascension to power of new Mussolinis, Francos, and Hitlers were the free lunches of senior Eurocrats".
Nicely put.
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The past reaches out to bring back unwelcome memories, this time the fate of Acting Corporal Marcin Wojtak, who died on 1 October 2009 when his Pinzgauer Vector drove over a 40lb IED close to Camp Bastion, in Afghanistan.
An earlier report tells us that the Vector had been part of a three-vehicle convoy which had just left a wadi and moved onto higher ground, when it was blown up by the device, comprising "20-25 kilograms of home-made explosives buried about 40cm under the ground".
Now, over two years later, an inquest found yesterday, predictably, that Wojtak was "unlawfully killed", leading to a number of reports in the MSM.
Not untypical of the reports is the story in the Daily Mail which has Wojtak's mother accusing the Ministry of Defence of a "catastrophic failure". Vectors, says the paper (now – although not at the time) were notoriously vulnerable to roadside bombs because of a lack of armour on the underside, and the Government announced a "phased withdrawal" from front line service in May 2009.
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But the inquest heard they were still being used five months later when the 24-year-old - who had complained in an email home to his father that he felt "exposed and at risk" patrolling in one - was killed.
In a tragic twist, the inquest was told he would have survived if he had been in the heavily-armoured replacement vehicle he was due to pick up the following morning. The replacement was the Mastiff, which, "when it initially went into theatre, soldiers didn't want to get in it because the feeling was that it was just a truck." But, "after a couple of months the lads knew they were safe as houses", and it became the vehicle of choice.
However, its popularity was not just due to the armour. As Ann Winterton had to remind the Telegraph yesterday, it was "because of its V-shaped hull which is designed to deflect rather than absorb blasts", something which the Vector lacked.
But what made the Vector uniquely dangerous was that the driver position was also over the front wheel, in the centre of the "cone of destruction" ensuring that, if the vehicle drove over a device, any explosion would be unsurvivable. In one of the heaviest mined regions of the world, a more unsuitable vehicle could hardly have been chosen, so obvious were its defects.
Yet Wojtak's mother is probably being a little unfair in blaming the Ministry of Defence, per se, for its deployment. Intended as a replacement for the vulnerable Snatch Land Rover, its particular champion was a famous general by the name of Richard Dannatt, who insisted on its purchase for Afghanistan, as his price for accepting the unwanted Mastiff into theatre in Iraq.
The full, ugly story is in my book. Nowhere else will you see the whole story told of the wasted lives and the waste of £100 million from an overstretched defence budget to buy a vehicle that was so dangerous that it had to be replaced, temporarily, by the Snatch Land Rover, up-armoured and re-named the Vixen.
There can be few other instances where a replacement vehicle was deemed so unsatisfactory that it was eventually replaced by the vehicle it was intended to replace, but that is the legacy of Richard Dannatt. And even to this day, it leaves a bitter taste.
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