National pride

With pomp, pageantry and ceremony rarely surpassed anywhere in the world, Prince William and Catherine Middleton have celebrated their marriage at Westminster Abbey.  This blog wishes the Royal newlyweds a happy life together blessed with love.

The eyes of hundreds of millions of people from around the world have fixed themselves on London to witness the kind of event that just doesn’t happen with anything like such majesty anywhere else.

If only the pride being felt by so many Britons in respect of this historic State occasion event could be felt for this country itself.

For the United Kingdom is in decline.  Our influence and place in the world has been reduced by people who see virtue in mediocrity and shame in success. Governance of the Realm has been surrendered to bureaucrats overseas in Brussels.  Our strength, economically, commercially and militarily has been purposely undermined. The politicians, rather than preside over improvement and enhancement in the life of all Britons, seek to level downwards and jettison the things that made this country great.  The can-do attitude and yearning to go further, do better and achieve more has been eroded by people who compensate for their lack of substance by mocking those who hold such sentiments.  Those who have secured a place in life, rather than encourage others to do the same, all too often seek to draw up the drawbridge to deny the opportunities they enjoyed being extended to others. These are just some of the problems from which the Royal Family have been largely insulated but have degraded this nation.

If only one day a change could take place in this country that would make us as proud of it as so many people were of the occasion observed by the world today. That would be a real cause for celebration, flag waving and a sense of national pride.

Nature magazine’s credibility takes yet another hit

Nature magazine blew it again, and unfortunately, these days that’s no news at all.  It’s just more shonky science from the AGW crowd … and people claim the reason the public doesn’t trust climate scientists is a “communications problem”? It’s not. It’s a garbage science problem, and all the communications theory in the world won’t fix garbage science.

Once again the science journal Nature has got its tits in the wringer.  Willis Eschenbach says he took a lot of flak last year for his post saying that the global 50% drop in phytoplankton claimed by Boyce et. al in Nature was an illusion. Eschenbach had no data to back up his claim, just personal observation and some common sense. His post today on Watts Up With That? has vindicated his faith in observation over peer-reviewed science.

Keeping his feet firmly on the ground Eschenbach goes on to say at the end of his piece:

The moral of this story? Well, the moral for me is that trusting my experience over the “science” of high-powered scientists living in an ivory tower far above the ocean worked out well … this time.

But the real moral is that scientists need to pay more attention to the “laugh test”. I know when I first heard the Boyce claim, I busted out laughing … and when our experience is that strong in saying that science is wrong, it’s likely worth checking out.

Exactly.

Joe Cotton, a typical 15yo GCSE student?

One of the stories of the day sections of the media are lapping up is that of a 15-year-old schoolboy who delivered a speech at the National Union of Teachers conference in Harrogate.  As usual the media fails its readers once again.

Joe Cotton from Calder High School in Yorkshire was given a standing ovation after his speech on the axing of the education maintenance allowance (EMA). The teenager urged the NUT to do all they could to keep education “affordable and accessible”, according to the BBC.

Good luck to the lad.  I don’t agree with his views about the EMA but I don’t take issue with him being motivated enough to stand up in front of 1000 delegates and speak his mind.  Someone I do take issue with however is the NUT general secretary, Christine Blower. After Cotton had finished speaking she took to the stage to congratulate him saying:

“Now that’s what comprehensive education can do.”

Really?

Let’s examine the facts shall we?  Fact one is that Joe Cotton is not an average 15 year old run of the mill GCSE student.  Joe was was invited by a member of the NUT executive to speak at the conference after he was heard speaking at a rally in Halifax.  He is clearly a self motivated high achiever who also has the good fortune to attend a school rated as ‘good’ by Ofsted and described thus in its last inspection report:

Many parents of children at comprehensive schools would love to see that kind of description for the school their youngsters attend. It is not par for the course.

Then there is young Joe Cotton himself.  Regardless of his views this lad is a stand out kid.  Many youngsters spend their free time attached to a keyboard in their bedroom or wandering around the streets looking for some kind of stimulation, but not Joe.  Unlike many kids he likes to get involved in available activities and strives to succeed – quite possibly due to positive parental influence, encouragement and support. Evidence?  Read on…

There is this local news story from 2009 where Joe was a star turn in a mock trial contest.  In fact he was named the best prosecution lawyer, denoting an ability to articulate his thoughts and express himself clearly and effectively. But then this should not be so surprising when you understand that Joe is heavily involved in amateur dramatics and theatre with entities such as the Calderdale Theatre School.

Indeed an acting career could even be on the cards as this story about the drama ‘Dreaming of Foxes’ in which Joe starred suggests.  Another story about the same drama on the Calder High website (scroll down to Dreaming of Foxes) backs this up and is the immediately followed by a reference to Calder High School’s reputation for excellence in the performing arts as Year 12 drama students performed their exam piece, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in front of an external judge.

Not content with mock trials and acting, Joe also finds time to be involved with a youth run organisation which covers a range of issues from current affairs to opinions to music, called The Painter’s Chronicle.  One wonders how he finds time for all his homework and coursework with his GCSEs coming up.  But then, Joe might not need to worry about passing his exams as he has also demonstrated his entrepreneurial talent by winning Calderdale’s own version of The Apprentice –  the photo above shows him during the competition.

Now, back to Christine Blower’s little piece of propaganda. Given all the evidence above, just how likely is it that a comprehensive education is the reason for the talented and intelligent Joe’s achievements? Perhaps Mrs Blower could put her claim to the test and demonstrate what a comprehensive education can do by going to the nearby Park Lane school in Calderdale, where the comprehensive experience is more in keeping with that suffered by many youngsters around the country.

Perhaps Mrs Blower could invite one of Park Lane’s pupils to address the next conference and see if the outcome is anywhere near as good as having the exceptional Joe Cotton at the podium. Somehow I think that particular comprehensive’s performance would make such an invitation unlikely.

Of course if you were relying on the media to provide anything like this level of background detail about this young man and put his appearance at the NUT conference into context, you would be waiting a long time.

A week of sheer agony

Not wanting to rain on anyone’s parade, but this week is going to be insufferable as we reach saturation coverage of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

I am happy for any young couple who are in love and choose to enter into the union of marriage.  I wish them every happiness.  However the Royal Wedding does not interest me in the slightest.  It’s not that I have anything against the happy couple, it’s just that I don’t know them and they’re not friends of mine.

It sets my teeth on edge happening across the overblown hype about the wedding, or rather being bombarded by it.  We’ve had so much of it, from the Daily Mail splashing a piece saying Britain Loves Kate on the basis of a survey of 1029 people to this morning’s BBC1 programme ‘When Royals Wed‘ with those seasoned Royal watchers Lesley Garrett and Larry Lamb. I can’t even escape it at work as there will be bunting, flags and even cut outs of the couple on display in the canteen. It goes on with literally thousands of derivative articles online and more programmes planned for screening this week.  The problem is, I just don’t care but I have to suffer it.  I’m afraid the Royals simply don’t mean anything to me. It’s obviously nothing personal because I’ve never even met them.

Thankfully the neighbours laughed at the idea of a street party, preferring instead to use the extra Bank Holiday to do something with their own families rather than fawn over one with which they have no connection.  So at least this little corner of the world can remain a wedding-free zone.

If there is no decline to hide…

Then why are scientists truncating data that stretches back much further than their graphs show?  Surely it isn’t because of some inconvenient truth. Is it?

Is there some climate scientist finishing school where the students are taught that if they encounter data that does not support their pre-determined theory they should just erase it from the record?

An absence of perspective

The Press Association reports that Foreign Secretary William Hague has ruled out fresh concessions to the Liberal Democrats if they fail to secure victory in next month’s referendum on voting reform for Westminster elections.  So what?

Wee Willie, our principle-free Prime Minister, and his doppelganger Calamity Clegg are as usual trying to focus attention on triviality rather than substance by ramping up the hype about the Alternative Vote referendum.  Meanwhile the inconvenient fact that this referendum is utterly meaningless seems lost on the myopic media which with a total absence of perspective is slavishly assisting in the distraction from the real issues by devoting thousands of column inches to the subject.

What is the point of us saying how MPs should be elected when we are denied a say in who actually governs us?

Secretive State serving its own interests

The Observer has a sickening story today about the actions of social workers and police in Kent who placed a 14-year-old girl into ‘foster care’ with a convicted paedophile, David Mason.

Having failed to complete the private fostering assessment and carry out statutory checks on the man’s background required by law – or even checking proof of his identity – the girl’s request to be allowed to stay with him was granted.  Mason, who had changed his name to David Matthews, went on to sexually abuse two boys and four girls aged five to 13, including the girl’s three younger siblings.

Then after leaving Mason’s home, Kent County Council’s social services department let her be fostered, aged 15, by her 21-year-old boyfriend, who claimed to have autistic spectrum disorder and who they knew was having sex with her.  The story, includes the admission that when the family had been moved into the area where the abuse took place, their case was not assessed due to staff shortages and high number of child protection referrals

But beyond this horrifying catalogue of failure, where presumably dozens of other high profile cases from which ‘lessons will be learned’ have not resulted in anything being learne at all, the story presents an even more shocking dimension to the case:

The “tragic story” of the council’s “deplorable breach of duty” has emerged from a high court judgment delivered behind closed doors last month, which has just been made public. The extraordinary case would have stayed secret had not the judge, Mr Justice Baker, decided in view of the “alarming matters” that emerged during the hearing to allow the “unusually extensive and troubling” wider issues it raises to be publicised.

Here we see the media with its prominent pulpit failing to go to the next level.  The anger, indignation and proposed solutions are left for non establishment figures such as humble bloggers to express.

In 21st century Britain, supposedly bristling with rules to ensure transparency and accountability, the Courts were content to cover up this litany of incompetence to hide the disgraceful failings of our so called public servants.  If it was not for this one Judge, an exception to a miserable rule choosing in determining that these failures should be publicised, the public would have no idea just how badly a group of vulnerable people have been treated.

What has been uncovered is not merely a story of sexual abuse, but another example of the lengths to which the authorities will go to hide their gross misconduct and just how far the system will go to shield them from scrutiny of their actions.  This is the system protecting itself rather than the people who pay for it to serve us.  That is more outrageous than anything else in this story.

To heap insult upon insult, we are once again served up the standard rhetoric from the public body (in this instance, Kent County Council) that has displayed negligence worthy of criminal prosecution, designed as usual to fob us off while business continues as usual:

What happened in this case is deeply regrettable and the council offers its sincerest apologies to the family. In recent months we have been absolutely focused on recognising our shortcomings and weaknesses and a plan to make sure substantial improvements are made to the services we provide to children in Kent is already being actioned.

These supposedly sincere apologies and empty promises to make improvements to reach the very minimum level of performance we should be able to expect are an insult.  They change nothing.

Things will only change when the refuge of secrecy in such cases is removed and those responsible for the welfare of vulnerable children who fail to do their job are properly held to account.  If it takes the threat of criminal prosecution to focus the attention of public servants on the proper discharge of their duties to vulernable people in their care, then our largely useless MPs should put it on the Statute Book.  Cases like this are all too frequent and MPs have the ability to put a stop to them.

We don’t need self serving apologies being trotted out that are designed to make those who have failed feel better and feel they have been excused, we need action taken to stop more failures.  We can but guess at how many similar cases have been covered up over the years and remain hidden from public view. It has to stop.

Light needs to be shone into the dark corners where the establishment lets its colleagues skulk and conceal instances of their rank incompetence.  We need to make the establishment serve our interests rather than its own. We need to end the establishment’s self serving secrecy.

Happy St. George’s Day

The very best of English to you all!

Joe Bastardi examines NASA’s temperature record

It’s good to see Joe Bastardi continuing to share his thoughts via his Weatherbell.com blog.  Today Big Joe presents a very simple case as to why anyone with an open mind would not swallow the idea that man is causing out of control doomsday warming.

When comparing NASA’s temperature graph with that of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) there is a noticeable difference in the warming curve over the last 40 years.  What Bastardi sees is a levelling off in temperature rise over the last 15 years, during which time he reminds us that atmospheric CO2 has increased by around 8%.

But then he begs a question to which the warmists still have no rational answer:

If there is feedback, where is it, and cant the warming be attributed to the oceans, the flattening to the fact there is only so much you can warm the earth before it fights back.  Which goes right to the heart of my perfectly logical, though most certainly debatable theory, that with the oceans cooling, we will cool back to where we were in the 70s by the time we get to 2030.

Yes, as Joe says it is only a theory.  But then, so is everything we are told about anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  There is simply no evidence to support the hypothesis.  Guesswork, reason and correlation are evident, but there is insufficient evidence to state with absolute factual certainty that mankind and not nature has caused the planet to warm.

There is certainly not sufficient evidence to justify the hyperbole and doom laden prophecies, let alone the billions of pounds of our tax revenues being wasted on scandalous faux projects and gimmicks to ‘fight climate change’.

EU hypocrisy plumbs miserable new depth

It never ends does it?

This week the Brussels spin doctors were tasked with selling we benighted serfs a tall story of supposed ethical probity, designed to give the impression that the unelected unaccountables who govern us are whiter than white:

The European Commission today (20 April) announced tougher ethical rules for commissioners while they are in office and after they leave the Commission […]

The Commission said the changes to the code of conduct were discussed with the European Parliament and the new rules reflect comments made by MEPs.

People must not be taken in by this hypocritical attempt by the EU to kid us its leaders are ethical.

For at the same time the European Commission preaches at us about ethics, the EU is laying siege to Switzerland in an effort to bully and threaten it to increase tax rates that are far lower than its own and we see the tawdry tale of tax evading German MEP, Elmar Brok, shielding behind the utterly outrageous immunity from prosecution afforded to members of the European Parliament.

This country has been assimilated by the political class into an unholy federal and undemocratic union.  A union that on the one hand claims to stand opposed to corrupt regimes, but on the other places its own self selecting leadership out of reach of the laws that bind the rest of us.  But all is well of course because we are supposed to be reassured by this meaningless code of ethical conduct.

The media is past its Use By date

One of the biggest (of many) problems with the UK news media is the laziness and lack of curiosity of most journalists.  Today provides us with a case in point with a story that was splashed last night by Patrick Hennessy in the Barclay Brother Beano.

The sub editors worked their supposed magic by putting the following title on Hennessy’s piece: ‘Best before labels reach their sell-by date in food waste crackdown‘.  The subs then add some apparent context for readers with the by-line that: ‘The “best before” dates on food packaging are set to be scrapped in a drive by ministers to stop millions of tonnes of perfectly edible produce being thrown away each year.‘

These excitable headlines have spawned from what Hennessy writes in his piece:

New guidelines are expected to be unveiled which will provide better information for shoppers and make them far more reluctant to chuck out food before it is even opened, potentially saving households hundreds of pounds a year.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the coalition wants an end to the confusing proliferation of instructions on food labelling which have greatly expanded over the past decade.

Instead of marking food “best before” a certain date, retailers will in future have to produce labels which give details of the health risks associated with individual foods that remain on shelves or in the fridge for a lengthy period before being consumed.

So something is now ‘expected’ on the basis of someone in the coalition saying they ‘want’ to change food labelling.  And this has then been turned into the current labelling being ‘set to be scrapped’.  You see how the piece gets increasingly sexed up?  But not only is it a load of rubbish, it provides clear evidence of the laziness of hacks who wait to been spoonfed tit bits like this (presumably prior to their own ‘best before’ date, or elections as they are more commonly known).

Where does the lavishly remunerated Hennessy show any curiosity?  Where is his research into the origin of the food labelling standard and the laws or regulations that govern it?  We know he hasn’t been curious or looked into the origin of the rules because if he had he would have learned that the standard is imposed upon us by the EU – and the UK government (if you can call it that) has no control over the rules and therefore cannot simply dispense with them.

For that background information, which demonstrates the story to be a pile of horseshit, you need to turn to so called citizen journalists toiling away on their blogs – in this case Dr Richard North at the always excellent EU Referendum.  As Richard points out:

“The ‘best before’ dates on food packaging are set to be scrapped in a drive by ministers to stop millions of tons of perfectly edible produce being thrown away each year”. So says the Sunday Failygraph today, in a pathetically inadequate report which misses out two absolutely crucial words: “European Union”.

The point is, of course, that the “best before” dates are not going to be scrapped. This is because food labelling is an exclusive EU competence and the provisions are set out in Directive 2000/13/EC of 20 March 2000 on “the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs” (pictured on his blog).

The Directive is transposed into British law by the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 as amended (several times), and there are absolutely no plans to amend the Directive, or change the Regulations.

So what is the point of paying to buy the Telegraph or Sunday Telegraph, or trying to inform yourself of what is happening on its website, when the news it publishes is unresearched propagandist nonsense?  But this story then goes on to highlight another miserable failing in the UK news media, the problem of derivative reporting of inaccurate cant.  For Hennessy’s piece has been picked up and published by the Mail on Sunday and by the Sunday Mirror. In their desperation to appear in the know and up to speed with events, they are happy to report the same fallacious rubbish that Hennessy was allowed to print by his incompetent editors.

The reality is comments left on those stories are far more informed than the journalist hacks who wrote them, partly because they have the good sense to check this kind of stuff on EU Referendum.  We must also mention politics.co.uk which also tilts at the story, and almost gets it right when it reports that:

Ministers have shied away from changing the law when it comes to a review of food waste.

The government is set to change guidelines affecting the ‘best before’ date on food and could require retailers to outline the health impacts of eating food which have not been consumed quickly, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said there would not be any change in existing legislation, however.

A spokesperson said: “By law pre-packed food must show a best-before date, even though many foods are still safe to eat after that date.

However even though that site broadly gets it right, it also failes to explain where that law is made or examine why Parliament doesn’t simply change it.  Although readers are given slightly more accurate information, they are left without any substantive explanation or any meaningful context.

If you want the full story forget the mainstream media. Its owners have their own an agenda and its hacks prize maintaining their shoulder rubbing access to talking heads in the political class above their remit to report the full, factual story to their readers. The UK’s news media is past its ‘Use By’ date.

Another fishy climate change story lovingly told by BBC/Guardian

We hear lots of politicians speak of ‘opportunism’ by their opponents, but opportunism is not limited to the political class. Environmentalists also never fail to take full advantage of any opportunity to further an agenda – particularly when the agenda concerns climate change.

Listening to BBC Five Live Drive this evening I was left laughing out loud as my climate change bullshit meter was sent off the scale by the story of a rare fish – the vendace – being transported in containers carried by llama to a new location in an attempt to stop them dying out. As I listened I was thinking ‘Is this going to turn out to be tonight’s dose of climate change propaganda?’ and moments later it proved to be so as the story reflected a piece on the BBC Cumbria website which explained:

But the Environment Agency said the species needed to be protected from the warming effects of climate change and its impact on rivers and lakes.

You really could not make this crap up, but clearly the Environment Agency can.  There must be another bid for government funding in preparation.  Now, some of you might be thinking that ridiculing this nonsense is a tad unfair.  But you see the BBC has shot itself in the foot and cut the legs from under the Environment Agency by linking to an almost identical story from just five years ago.  However that previous story gave very different reasons for the move of the vendace fry:

The move was prompted by fears that poor water quality and pollution could wipe them out.

Of climate change there was not even a hint of a mention.  But of course it’s a very different story today. For a start, we have an opportunist political non entity in the form of Lord Chris Smith sitting as Chairman of the Environment Agency and he knows how to set and pursue an agenda.

When the latest chapter of this vendace story first emerged a couple of months ago in the Guardian a reference was made to the vendace in Bassenthwaite dying out back in 1991 due to ‘agricultural pollution, increased sediment and the illegal introduction of new fish species’.  The story went on to say that:

Hopes that the small herring-like fish could be reintroduced once Bassenthwaite had been restored to health have now been abandoned because of predictions of rises in future water temperatures.

Presumably the pollution has gone, the sediment has disappeared and the new fish species that had been introduced have all been caught and deported.  But interestingly there is no mention if that is the case so we don’t know.  Instead the opportunity to force feed readers and listeners with another tale of environmental meltdown due to climate change (which they still insist is caused by humans despite an absence of proof) is seized with both hands and played for all it’s worth.

Anything and everything has some kind of climate change connotation attached to it in order to condition us into accepting the hype and swallowing every self serving and costly measure that will be foisted upon us by those with financial and ideological interests in providing us with ‘solutions’ that combat this faux threat.  This is just the latest piece of spin in that long litany of propaganda.

Fukushima and the overblown media storm

At times like these, with a nuclear power station incident like the one at Fukushima, what people should see in the media is objective reporting, explanation, comparison and context.

Instead we get the kind of headless chicken sensationalism of the type which the British media excels at.

However an antidote to effects of the nuclear panic-mongering can be found nestling in the pages of The Register.  If you have a few minutes to spare take a look at this piece by Lewis Page, then ask yourself why the wonder that is the British media is incapable or unwilling to report the details in a similar fashion.

Cost of My2050 tool becomes clear

Regular readers may remember this post back in March about Chris ‘Luhne’ Huhne’s launch of  the 2050 Pathways Debate.  To recap, this is what Huhne announced to Parliament about the latest strand of climate change propaganda directed at indoctrinating youngsters:

The 2050 Pathways Debate: having an energy-literate conversation about the UK’s options to 2050.’ Leading climate and energy experts will use the 2050 pathways calculator to present their personal view of how the UK can reduce its emissions by at least 80% by 2050, ahead of the online debate being opened to the wider public.

This blog submitted a couple of FOI requests to try and scratch the surface of the labyrinth of public money channels to understand how much has been spent on the My2050 website and where that money has come from.  Having had a quick look through some of the information on available websites it became clear two government departments and other organisations that provide ‘co-funding’ had a hand in the production of the My2050 site, so the following two requests were made:

Dear Department of Energy and Climate Change,

Please will you supply me with full details of:

1. The total cost of building, producing, maintaining and hosting
the My2050 website and tool

2. The sum total paid by DECC to Sciencewise-ERC and Delib in
relation to the production of the My2050 website and tool

3. The sum total of funding given to DECC from Sciencewise-ERC
through the co-funding arrangement

and…

Dear Department for Business, Innovation and Skills,

Please will you supply me with full details of:

1. The sum total of funding provided by BIS to Sciencewise-ERC in
2009 and 2010

2. Details of all BIS staff seconded to Sciencewise-ERC (non
steering group) for any duration during 2009 and 2010 and the
nature of the work they did

3. The sum total of funding given to other Government departments
from Sciencewise-ERC through the co-funding arrangement

4. The sum total charged to the Department for Energy and Climate
Change for work on the My2050 website and tool

While AM has been in hibernation, the responses have arrived.  We will look at the response from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) first.

So, in short the cost of the My2050 propaganda site to the taxpayer is £53,000 (excl VAT).  However, as question 3 shows, the cost of producing the ‘engagement’ activity surrounding My2050 is much higher, with £144,961 more (incl VAT) being pumped into DECC from Sciencewise-ERC.

Some people may think that is not so bad, after all that extra money has come from elsewhere rather than the public money allocated to DECC.  That is until you understand that Sciencewise-ERC is funded entirely by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). So what we have is a way of increasing the amount of money spent on climate change propaganda without it having been handed directly to DECC in the normal departmental funding arrangement.  A lot more money is spent on climate change than gets paid directly to the department responsible for pretending it can do a damn thing about it.

So that is why this blog submitted a separate FOI request to BIS.  The response from BIS is interesting for more than the sum it reveals is forked over to Sciencewise-ERC…

Question 4’s response is the most curious.  If you look above at the DECC response you see Sciencewise-ERC apparently devoted £13,000 of taxpayers’ money into the My2050 website and tool.  However BIS, while confirming the total grant funding of £144,961 that DECC mentions, seem to be at odds over the amount devoted to the website and tool.  The £13,000 DECC says it received specifically for the website and tool does not match the £17,625 BIS says was handed over for it.  But then, when it’s someone else’s money little things like accounting for its use don’t matter.

Is it any wonder the public pays so much to maintain the wheels of government when so much effort goes into adminstering this interdepartmental financial merry-go-round?  The waste, not only in terms of propaganda, but in terms of financing it through a complicated network of transactions that resemble something like money laundering, is staggering. And we foot the bill for politicians and their friends serving their own interests.

A man without conviction, belief or substance

(A thank you to those kind people who have been emailing to ask how things are going.  The job is going well and I’m getting into a routine, so hopefully I can start to get some more posts up.)

When looking at Conservative Home one can’t help but be struck by the volume of anti Cameron pieces in the media that are being trailed in the Newslinks. Just take today’s offerings as an example…

Ken Clarke reportedly accuses Cameron of treating Andrew Lansley badly…

…as the Telegraph reflects on a “week of compromises”…

…and others identify Cameron’s style of government as a problem

…and the Treasury select committee condemns the leaking of the Budget

For a moment I had to check I wasn’t on Labour List.  But what is notable about these pieces is that the attacks are not ideological.  They are not about policy.  These have been spawned by the abject failure of leadership. And there is a lack of leadership because the leader, David Cameron, has no principle or clear political direction.

It is dawning on people who supported the Conservatives in the hope Cameron would reveal an inner conservative after assuming residence in Downing Street, that Cameron is not a conservative. What is more worrying is that it’s becoming apparent that Cameron is nothing. He is not a conservative, he is not a liberal, he is not a social democrat and he is not a socialist.  In fact he stands for nothing – apart from the desire to attain office – and he has successfully deceived people  by pretending to hold their political convictions when he holds none.

Government is like any business or organisation.  At the top there has to be a clear dirction and a sense of purpose or else it flounders.  In the case of a business it loses customers, money and ultimately fails or gets broken up by another that does have a sense of purpose. In the case of an organisation people lose interest and drift away leaving an ineffective rump that can achieve little if anything, then finally closes down.

In the case of a government it loses authority – it fails to honour promises central to its election campaign thus treating its supporters with contempt; it twists and turns in an effort to appease the immediate audience even when that appeasement contradicts pledges and commitments that have been made; it abandons those who believed the direction was set even if that was unpopular with some people; it operates in exactly the same manner as previous governments it criticised; and ultimately it leaks support because no one of any stripe can trust anything that comes from the mouth of the leadership, as the leadership believes in nothing that it is saying.

Expedient government quickly turns into lame duck government and the country suffers as a result.  The only person responsible for this is the autocratic meglomaniac, David Cameron.  Devoid of conviction, belief or substance , he is not only continuing the decline of this country overseen by Labour, he is accelerating it under this insipid coalition of the self interested.

While the used-to-be-Conservative party will suffer for this and enable a resurgence of the undeserving and incompetent Fabians, the ultimate casualty will be the country, followed by democracy itself.  We find ourselves in troubling and difficult times and the political class has no answer.  We need to find another way or there will be nothing left worth preserving.

Update: Dr Richard North of EU Referendum references this piece on his blog and corrects an assertion I have made. It’s a valid point he makes and his piece is a must-read posting.