The nub of his letter is contained in the sentence “Following government guidance and information that we receive we believe that climate change is an issue to the district.”

I have copied both my original letter and my latest response to the chairman of the council, to my local councillor, and to the councillor responsible for the council’s communications team, who wrote and published the original stream of nonsense.

My latest missive also clarifies an omission in the original, namely that “the largest ‘greenhouse’ gas in the earth’s atmosphere by far is water vapour”. I also apologised for over-stating the CO2 content in the atmosphere by a factor of ten. Instead of saying that CO2 made up one-third of one percent of the earth’s atmosphere, the correct figure should have been 0.0385 percent. I am obliged to Professor Derek Smith for pointing out my misplacement of the decimal point which, he also pointed out, improved my case by the same tenfold!

In response to the CEO’s noncommittal letter I added :

You appear to argue that you and your council are entitled to accept anything the government says with uncritical eyes. Yet that is precisely not what I – and doubtless thousands of other tax-payers in East Hants – expect from you. Do you normally ignore facts – or just when it suits you?

Why else were our councillors elected, and you appointed, if it were not to apply critical analysis to everything that directly affects this district? Answer me that. The implications are seriously worrying.

Parking the issue of alleged climate change and then raising the entirely laudable aim of protecting our environment (which I mentioned in the first place) merely fudges the issue at hand. There can be no proper connection because the former is a sham.

Later you tell me exactly what I complained of! Your website on this subject won’t publish my letter because a lad in the office has decided it is too long. For the want of a nail….! As you must be aware, you can perfectly well publish my letter in your next Partners Magazine.

Meanwhile, I commend this simple piece of science to you…

Put a glass of water on a sunny window-sill. After a while bubbles will form on the inside of the glass. This is dissolved gas being released.

Why is the gas being released? There can be only one logical explanation – the increased warmth of the water has released the gas. Any O level physics student from the 1950’s knows this.

It is absurd to argue the reverse – that the formation of the gas bubbles has heated the water. Yet carbon footprint theory is based on this simple fallacy.

You cannot reverse demonstrable cause and effect and still call it science.

Ashley Mote
(Member of the European Parliament 2004-09)

Not that we needed any reminding, but these two recent news items demonstrate – yet again – the arrogant impertinence of the mafia in Brussels. Their grandiose notions of self-worth know no bounds. They have no shame.

Neither do they care much for the legal facts of life. They obviously think they are above the niceties of international law – but we have also known that for a long time. They share with all dictators a dangerous contempt for the rule of law.

We had a clear warning signal when Edward Heath signed the Treaty of Rome and then lied about no loss of sovereignty during the referendum which followed. It was not the first time a clear warning signal had been ignored. Sadly, all too often they have been shrugged away until it’s too late – Germany in the 1930s and Russia 20 years earlier are nasty reminders.

So lets look briefly at the facts behind these two latest exercises of EU power.

First, the so-called EU ‘flag’ – which it is not. A true flag is a symbol of a nation. The EU is not a nation. Some of its ruling elite might have such aspirations, but that is – currently – all they are. In fact, the EU banner (the correct term for this piece of coloured cloth) is nothing more than an advertisement.

To his great embarrassment, John (now Lord) Prescott was obliged to accept that legal point during his days as Blair’s deputy, when EU ‘flags’ were removed from public buildings after they were ruled to be mere advertisements.

Even the claim that the UK is obliged to fly the EU advertisement over projects part-funded by Brussels is wrong. Indeed, it is demonstrable nonsense. With minor exceptions, the EU does not have any money of its own. It does not generate wealth. It is leech on the wealth generated by member states.

Any of the few projects part-funded by Brussels in the UK are using money provided by British taxpayers in the first place. What’s more, it comes back to us with strings attached. The EU presumes to tell us what we can do with our own money, and will hand over the funds only after the project is completed to the satisfaction of some anonymous bureaucrat in Brussels.

And as an afterthought on this ‘flag’ nonsense…why don’t we do what the French always do in these circumstances? Ignore the fine. Simply don’t pay it. The Commission had terrible problems trying to avoid admitting that unpalatable fact when I asked about the non-payment of EU fines by the French. Never, ever, would they give me the answer to the simple question : how much do they still owe?

But, moving on, lets look at the EU’s claim for a full seat in the UN General Assembly. No doubt the next step is a permanent seat on the Security Council – and idea which was first mooted some time ago.

However, during the last round of negotiations in New York, Italy did not renew its earlier proposal for an EU seat. Maybe the Italian delegation had finally acquainted itself with the law.

To be a member of the Security Council of the United Nations an applicant must first be a member of
the UN. But, according to Article 4 of the UN’s own Charter, membership is open only to Nation States.

The fact that the EU has now formalised its own ‘legal personality’ in the Lisbon Treaty does not turn it into a Nation State. Many other international organisations have ‘legal personality’, but that does not entitle them to a seat at the UN. EFTA and the Arab League spring immediately to mind.

According to a number of constitutional lawyers, at best the EU is a federation in fieri (in the making).
Plainly that is not enough to comply with the statehood criterion required by Article 4 of the Charter.

Perhaps there is a need to remind Brussels that both France and the UK have permanent seats on the Security Council. And neither is likely to give them up easily.

Any attempt to upset that particular apple-cart would merely reinforce the concerns expressed so eloquently in a recent issue of Time magazine. An editorial observed that Europe had vanished from the world scene and our governments with it. Individual countries were no longer in control because they had ceded management to the EU. But in the EU no one was in control either. Twenty-seven otherwise sovereign nations had suffered a collective insanity.

The EU’s power-hungry bureaucrats should go back and play with their own toys. And stay there.

Meanwhile, the repatriation of sovereignty to the UK was never more urgent.

Footnote added 12 August 2010

The Daily Telegraph reports that Eric Pickles, the Minister responsible for local communities, has said he will refuse to pay the fines and that it would be wrong for the British Government to give way to “bullying” from bureaucrats.

He had been complaining of not feeling well for some months, had recently skipped a trip to the USA and had lost a good deal of weight since Christmas. It is entirely possible his death was from natural causes.

The world is a much poorer place for his passing. I mourn his loss as I would mourn the loss of a brother. He was the staunchest champion of all that was honest and upright in life, a courageous investigative journalist, an indefatigable writer, an audacious publisher, and a powerful intellect.

I have lost a true friend whose company and integrity I valued beyond words. His loss is truly devastating.

Over the last decade or so, ever since I became actively involved in European politics, I have met and had dealings with an extraordinary number of extraordinary people. To be frank, some I loathed.

But the company of many others was hugely stimulating, greatly valued, and much enjoyed. Christopher Story was right at the top of that list.

I first met Christopher at a Bruges Group meeting in the days when they were held on the top floor of a cramped London pub. We immediately sensed a mutual liking for each other and met regular from that time on. We had been due to meet for lunch a few days hence.

Far more important than our meetings, however, was the rapid development of our continuous exchange of information by emails, telephone and snail mail – which we quickly found to be by far the safest means of communication. Both of us knew our lines were tapped. Sometimes we deliberately traded information just to let whoever was listening know what we knew! Or to mislead…!

Christopher Story had the energy of a man half his age. He regularly wrote more words in a day than I might write in a week or more. His range of knowledge and experience of the global financial markets and – much more importantly – the power broking that went on behind it, was utterly breathtaking at times. His regular newsletters – International Currency Review, Economic Intelligence Review, Global Analyst, Soviet Analyst, Arab-Asian Affairs, Eastern Europe Analyst, World Reports, and several other occasional titles – to say nothing of his many books based of these newsletters, might have been the work of ten men.

But Christopher researched, wrote, designed, printed and distributed every one of them himself, with the aid of a handful of others whom he knew could be trusted. He was a one-man, self-appointed, self-financing, international investigation agency which specialised in researching the deployment and accountability of public money, the manipulation of currencies, and power laundering by the world’s ruling elites.

This work took him into some of the most dangerous places on earth – not just geographically, but intellectually as well. As a result he made many powerful enemies. They all knew that when he found a racketeering spade, whoever it was, he would call him a bloody shovel, and publish that news to the whole world – or at least to those willing to listen. For most of the world’s media, his conclusions and commentaries were far too hot for them to handle – hence the self-publication.

Much of Christopher’s best investigative work was done in the USA, where he had highly valued internal sources of information within the Federal Reserve Bank, the CIA, and within the financial and political communities as a whole. At times, he became personally and dangerously embroiled in some of the financial trails he was following, on occasion at his consideration personal risk. He was a truly brave man.

The common thread running through all Christopher Story did could be encapsulated in a single phrase – the misuse of power! Indeed it was he who sparked one of my own more memorable epithets – ‘those attracted to power are the least suitable to wield it’.

One of my earliest meetings with Christopher was in Oxford, near his home, when he took the greatest pleasure in showing me around his old college. He was immensely proud of having graduated at Oxford University, and rightly so. It had instilled or reinforced that innate and shining honesty that distinguished all he did.

In later years we more usually met in Brussels, when he came to visit the European Parliament for a day or two. Often these trips were carefully timed to coincide with meetings of the Budget Control Committee, on which I had a seat, and when I planned to raise issues briefed by him beforehand. Sometimes he admitted later to having the greatest difficulty sitting at the back, in the public gallery, trying hard to suppress his urge to intervene.

Perhaps the best and by far the most famous question I ever raised in the European Parliament was based entirely on a briefing by Christopher Story. It concerned the Global Security Fund. Like all speeches in a plenary session it was recorded on videotape and can now be found on literally scores of websites around the world. Even today, almost five years later, new postings of that one-minute speech are regularly uncovered by the Google search-engine.

This was what I said :

“Mr President, I wish to draw your attention to the Global Security Fund, set up in the early 1990s under the auspices of Jacob Rothschild. This is a Brussels-based fund and it is no ordinary fund: it does not trade, it is not listed and it has a totally different purpose. It is being used for geopolitical engineering purposes, apparently under the guidance of the intelligence services. I have previously asked about the alleged involvement of the European Union’s own intelligence resources in the management of slush funds in offshore accounts, and I still await a reply. To that question I now add another: what are the European Union’s connections to the Global Security Fund and what relationship does it have with European Union institutions?”

At the time, with the House almost empty as usual, I got no reply. Later I asked a near-identical written question, the answer to which understandably told us precisely nothing. After all, how could Brussels’ elite bureaucrats admit that they had a hand in a gigantic illegal trust fund? It was estimated by undercover overseas financial investigators at 65 trillion dollars, we knew it had been set-up for ‘Illuminati rainy days’ and when needed in a crunch situation for bribery, state-inspired black operations and activities to divert attention from the world’s banking and political mafia.

Christopher’s original briefing also told me that, “while the fund is cloaked in secrecy” it was made possible by the US Federal Reserve banking system. However I decided, in the context of the EU, not to follow up that potential second line of attack.

No wonder there is still so much interest in that original question. It was possibly the first occasion anyone had mentioned the existence of the Global Security Fund in any public arena, anywhere.

It would be an entirely appropriate and well-deserved tribute to Christopher Story’s life’s work if, one day, the truth finally emerges about the Global Security Fund and those responsible for the monumental misuse of public funds are finally exposed and brought to book.

Meanwhile, I shall continue to mourn the loss of a true friend, and there is no greater tribute I can pay Christopher Story than describing him thus.

(PS: Two requests and a question:

If anyone knows how to communicate this tribute to any of Christopher Story’s family, I would be most grateful. I have been unable to make contact since the news of his passing broke.

Also, I would also be glad to know about any memorial service planned in his honour.

Question : What, if anything, is to be done Christopher’s massive and priceless collection of private papers? Whilst this is understandably not the right time to focus on the question, I feel I must at least raise it in the wider public interest.)

(ends)

He apparently thinks that giving the right to live and work in the UK to another 80 million Muslims is sensible. Well I do not. Nor, I suspect, do millions of others in the UK, let alone all over continental Europe.

My former MEP colleague in the European Parliament’s non-attached group, Daniel Hannan, writes this morning in The Daily Telegraph that Cameron is right because “Turkey guarded Europe’s flank against the Bolshevists for three generations, and may one day be called on to do the same against the jahadis”.

I am reluctant to disagree with a man whose intelligence and principled politics I greatly respect. But on this occasion I believe he is profoundly wrong. And so is Cameron.

The argument Hannan advanced does not stand up. Turkey is far from being a solid western-style liberal democracy. The present Turkish government is hanging on by its fingernails. Fundamentalist Islamists are trying – right now – to overthrow it and return Turkey to its medieval past and sharia law. They are doing worrying well. History suggests they may well win in the end.

How do I know?

I spent three years on the European Parliament’s committee trying to reconcile the conflict between Cyprus and Turkey over the status of northern Cyprus. I met and talked to all the key players on both sides on many occasions.

The Turks invaded Northern Cyprus in 1975 when they thought the then Cyprus government was
about to unite with Greece. As a result, millions of acres of Northern Cyprus, including the port of Kyrenia, were seized from their legitimate owners who have never received any compensation, even after 35 years.

Cyprus has a land registry based on British principles, so all the evidence is recorded as to whom owns which parcel of land. Much of it has since been built on by developers and sold to British and other holiday-makers wanting a cheap second home in the sun. Many buyers now know their property was
built on land the developer did not own. They also now know that the legitimate owner will seek restitution the moment any settlement is agreed between the lawful government in Nicosia and the Turkish government in Ankara. One international court case has already been settled in their favour.

But Turkey cannot begin to contemplate paying the market value for the land it seized in 1975, let alone today’s value and the value of any improvements. Such a settlement is unthinkable to the Turks.

On the other hand, the Cyprus government will never agree to anything less than full restitution of the land seized, or full compensation. This impasse has shown no signs of being overcome in decades.

Furthermore, and crucially, the Greek-dominated Cyprus government demands as part of any final settlement the restoration of a freely elected all-island government. Again, the Turks will never agree to the permanent second-class citizenship status that would entail.

Meanwhile, the EU stands ineffectually by, waving its hands in the air and sending people like me to have a close and regular look on the ground. There is also much gnashing of teeth in a frustrated Brussels as the bureaucrats see no end to the embarrassing fact that part of the EU is unlawfully occupied by foreign troops, and they can do absolutely nothing about it.
To them, Cameron’s self-inspired intervention must have seemed like manna from heaven.
Mr Cameron needs to understand that the Turks will only ever join the EU on their own terms and that will include recognition of Northern Cyprus as Turkish. And the Greek-dominated Cyprus government in the south of the island will never agree.

In any case, new membership of the EU is subject to a unanimous vote in support by the existing 27 member states. Cyprus therefore has a veto and will use it.

France gave itself more than a veto on the issue of Turkish membership. President Chirac added to the French constitution a requirement that every new membership application to the EU shall be decided in France by a national referendum. Chirac knew the French would never vote for Turkish membership. They remember Algeria too well.

Cameron is either out of his mind, or the briefing before his visit was woeful. There is no other logical explanation.

I can only imagine the impact his words will have in Cyprus. The Cypriots will hate him for it. And they may well try to take revenge by pressuring the British garrison still stationed in Cyprus, ostensibly to keep the peace between the Turkish north and the Greek south.

Talk about fools rushing in…

I wrote to the editor and he has refused to publish my response. So today I sent the Chief Executive of the Council the following letter.

If anyone feels like writing as well, please be my guest.

This is what I told him:

Sandy Hopkins Esq
Chief Executive Officer
East Hants District Council
Penns Place
Petersfield
Hampshire
GU31 4EX 27 July 10

In the latest issue of the East Hants District Council magazine your editor Steve Bradley published a great many seriously inaccurate allegations about so-called ‘climate change’ and subsequently refused to publish my response on the spurious grounds that it was too long.

I must insist that you set the record straight. What follows is the full text, every word of which can be supported either by strictly relevant scientific evidence, or by information already on the public record.

CO2 is not a pollutant. It is an essential plant food. It underpins all life on earth. Plants produce the oxygen which all animal life (including us) needs to survive. Why else do growers pump pure CO2 into their greenhouses if it is not to increase production?

Climate change enthusiasts should consider the facts:

The largest greenhouse gas in the earth’s atmosphere by far is water vapour. CO2 is a minor component of the earth’s atmosphere, at barely 0.0385 of one percent.

Levels of CO2 today are amongst the lowest they have been in the known history of this planet. CO2 is absorbed naturally by water, the oceans, soil and all plant life. It is odourless, tasteless and non-toxic.

The largest and most significant source of CO2 is underwater volcanic eruptions. Just one of the larger submarine volcanoes can, when active, emit more CO2 in a few days than all human activity might generate in a year. There are numerous eruptions on the seabed every year, almost none of which are ever noticed or reported outside the scientific community.

Any impact of a higher level of CO2, such as it might be, is logarithmic, not arithmetic. In other words, the higher the figure the less the effect. Double today’s CO2 level, and no-one would notice any difference.

The warmest year since modern records began was 1934. Temperatures rose from 1860 to 1875, cooled until 1890, rose to 1903, cooled to 1918, rose to 1941, cooled to 1976, rose to 1998 and have cooled since then. So 1998 was not the warmest ever, just the most recent peak. The fastest change in average temperature was between 1918 and 1941, and it was significantly faster than the increase which peaked in 1998.

Ice-core research has demonstrated that any increase in average temperature levels lag any increase in CO2 levels by some 500 to 600 years. So, even if there were a slow, long-term connection, there is no practical purpose in attempting to change CO2 levels with a view to controlling average global temperatures. The proposition is scientifically absurd.

Much of the above comes from a recent book by Professor Ian Plimer, Heaven and Earth. Professor Plimer is a geologist, and the head of the environmental sciences department at the University of Adelaide. He is also visiting professor of earth sciences at Melbourne University. His book includes over 2000 individually annotated sources of data and conclusions drawn from academic papers published all over the world by scientists directly involved in the study of earth sciences.

Plimer also points out that the Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warmings were all warmer than our current levels of average temperature. CO2 levels were also higher. However, during at least one Ice Age CO2 levels were 15 times higher than today, which undermines the proposition that global warming and levels of CO2 are directly linked.

In the Cambrian period some 500 million years ago, CO2 levels were up to 20 times higher than today, and temperatures were some seven degrees centigrade higher as well. There was no greenhouse gas catastrophe. On the contrary, plant life evolved rapidly.

During the period when dinosaurs roamed the earth CO2 levels were three times those of today. Plant life was abundant, which is thought to be one of the reasons why dinosaurs thrived for so long.

Even the UK’s own Met Office (despite its name, much given to unscientific climate scare stories) has recently admitted that global average temperatures have fallen since 1998. And this has happened when there has been a significant increase in the burning of coal, oil and gas across the globe. Some estimates put the increase over the last ten years at 25% or thereabouts.

There is a huge difference between looking after our environment and minimising pollution, and setting out on a crusade to “justify” more government control and taxation. And that, I believe, is what our ruling elite are up to. CO2 is merely their latest bogeyman.

Worse, they are now hoisted by their own petard as a result of the development of an international market in carbon trading. Many public and private pension funds, including the BBC pension fund, have open positions in this market, which makes the recognition of scientific reality a potential financial disaster for fund managers, institutions and governments.

Hence the desperate need to convince themselves of a threat from man-made CO2. Those of us relying merely on the facts can see that the King has no clothes on!

Ashley Mote
Binsted

(One of the many local tax-payers paying your salary, and that of Mr Bradley.)

Following my recent blog on the benefits of a full cost:benefit analysis of all existing and future EU so-called ‘laws’, copies of my proposals have gone to all known sympathisers in the Houses of Commons and Lords.

No national newspaper has printed a word on the idea, despite being briefed. No surprises there.

So the following letter has been sent to my local newspaper group. We shall see…

Sir

Your correspondent John Holt (25 June) rightly complained about the burden of 2756 new pieces of EU legislation forced on the UK in the last year. What he did not mention was the cost of compliance, both by the British taxpayer and by private enterprise, all of which is on top of our annual ‘club subscription’ to Brussels of some £2.3 million every hour of every day and night.

If the new Coalition government was serious about making deep cuts in public spending, where
better to start than by looking closely at our cost of membership of the EU?

Even if they were unable to reach the conclusion millions of us reached long ago that European countries should be our friends and neighbours, but cannot be our masters, the Coalition should at least re-examine the costs of compliance.

In answer to a direct question, the European Commission told me at an open meeting of the European Parliament’s Budget Control Committee in June 2006 that any cost:benefit analysis of EU legislation was a matter for each member state.

During that meeting, the Estonian vice-president of the Commission, Siim Kallas, then holding the portfolio for administrative affairs, (no, I did not make it up) confirmed that the Commission could not calculate the costs of implementing legislation “because different member states do it in different ways”. The EU undertook ‘impact assessments’, but those were about creating a level commercial playing field. (The bureaucrats might talk about ‘diversity’ but they practised standardisation.)

Kallas said that any cost:benefit analysis would never be possible at EU level because there was no common ground between countries about how such costs and benefits could be evaluated. Therefore, any such analysis was a separate matter for each member state.

In the context of today’s desperate need to cut the public deficit, suddenly Kallas’ words become potentially of immense importance. How could the Commission now object to a proper analysis of the costs and benefits of each piece of EU legislation by each member state?

Furthermore, it would be entirely reasonable, and politically and financially responsible to alert Brussels to the British government’s intention to apply such analysis to all future EU legislation before implementing it, as well as applying cost:benefit analyses retrospectively to all existing legislation.

The EU might find it politically impossible to object when a member state (the UK for example) concluded that, because the costs far exceeded any potential benefits, they had decided no longer to enforce such legislation on the grounds that it did not produce a measurable benefit.

If such action created an earthquake in Brussels, it would be entirely proper to remind the Commission that nowhere in the Treaties is there a direct and specific reference to the financial benefits of membership of the EU. Therefore, that responsibility must rest with the each member state.

As my tutors’ used to say : “think on…”!

Ashley Mote
(formerly Independent MEP for South-East England, 2004-2009)

- And Authority to Make Them

If the Coalition government is serious about cutting unnecessary expenditure, the cost of compliance by the public sector to EU regulations and directives must be a prime target.

In answer to a direct question, the European Commission told me at a meeting of the European Parliament’s Budget Control Committee in June 2006 that any cost:benefit analysis of EU legislation was a matter for each member state.

During that meeting, the Estonian vice-president of the Commission, Siim Kallas, then holding the portfolio for administrative affairs and the fight against fraud, told me directly that the Commission could not calculate the costs of implementing legislation “because different member states do it in different ways”.

He went on to clarify his position. He said that any cost:benefit analysis would never be possible at EU level because there was no common ground between countries about how such costs and benefits could be evaluated. Therefore, any such analysis was a separate matter for each member state.

(The above note comes from the contemporaneous notes I kept of all the committee meetings I attended during my five years in the EP.)

In the context of today’s desperate need to cut the public deficit, suddenly Kallas’ words become potentially of immense importance.

Unfortunately, Kallas did not say that his reply was an invitation to each member state to start applying its own cost:benefit criteria. (My fault, I didn’t ask him.) But that was the clear implication, which now jumps into sharp relief.

So what I am arguing is this : in today’s fiscal climate even the Commission could not object to a proper analysis of the costs and benefits of each piece of EU legislation by each member state, if necessary justified by the Kallas admission quoted above. His comments cannot be denied. All meetings are recorded.

The EU might also find it politically impossible to object when a member state (the UK for example) concluded that, because the costs far exceeded any potential benefits, they had decided no longer to enforce such legislation on the grounds that it did not produce a measurable benefit to that country.

If such action created an earthquake in Brussels, it would be entirely proper to remind the Commission that nowhere in the Treaties is there a direct and specific reference to the financial benefits of membership of the EU. It must follow, therefore, that such responsibility continues to rest with the individual member states.

As my tutors’ used to say : “think on…”!

Ashley Mote
(formerly Independent MEP for South-East England, 2004-2009)

Footnotes:

1. It goes without saying that there would be equally substantial, if not greater, potential savings for the private sector if the British government applied cost:benefits analyses to all current EU legislation.

2. It would be entirely reasonable, and politically and financially responsible to alert Brussels to the British government’s intention to apply such analysis to all future EU legislation before implementing it, as well as applying cost:benefit analysis retrospectively to existing legislation.

3. During the year or so before my exchanges with Kallas in June 2006 I had put down a series of written questions to the Commission on much the same issue. There were five lengthy answers, three from Dalia Grybauskaite, the Lithuanian Commissioner responsible for the annual budget, one from Siim Kallas, and the last from the president of the Commission, Jose-Manuel Barroso. The best attempt at justification offered during these exchanges was that the EU’s own “impact assessments” were an adequate substitute.

4. However, these lengthy Commission answers merely emphasised that the advising bureaucrats actually had no idea what a real cost:benefit analysis was. Instead, it became apparent that their impact assessments were not about value for money. They were much more about creating a level commercial playing field across the EU. They might talk about “diversity” but they practised “standardisation”. Nothing new there, then.

5. I have kept all my 600+ written questions to the European Commission and all their often immensely long and obtuse answers. They are all on my computer, and I can make them available to the British government, or other interested parties, at any time.

Today the Daily Express reports that Iran has “two tons of uranium” which “would be enough for two nuclear warheads”. Yesterday the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a report headlined “Iran on the brink of a nuclear bomb.”

Comments on the web this morning are suggesting both stories are exaggerations at least, and fabrications at worst.

I profoundly disagree.

While I was in Brussels between 2004 and 2009 I and others established beyond doubt, with the assistance of retired diplomats from the former Belgian Congo, that weapons-grade uranium was being shipped from the former Belgian Congo direct to Iran, despite a world-wide ban on such traffic.

The Belgian EU Commissioner Louis Michel, supposedly responsible for the EU’s humanitarian aid to the third world from 2003 to 2009, was – at the time – directly related to one of the directors of the company in the Congo making the shipments.

He refused to answer any questions on his links, or to account for the EU funds being sent to the Congo.

Worse, despite the considerable evidence I and others presented to OLAF (the EU’s supposedly ‘independent’ fraud investigation organisation) they refused to look into the matter. The director-general, a former German judge called Bruner, told me in committee that “we do not snoop on our friends”.

Despite our best efforts we were never able to establish was a direct link between Michel and the exports, beyond his family relationship. So we could never go fully public.

Instead I and others briefed several investigative journalists in the UK. But their editors were terrified of letting them follow the story up and proving the missing link. The consequences for UK-EU relations were considered unacceptable, and their attitude was also based on the assumption that claims made by a mere European Parliament backbencher who wanted the UK out of the EU could not possibly be relied upon. (The fact that, in the past, I had been an investigative journalist myself apparently counted for nothing, or was regarded as an inconvenient truth.)

Personally I have not the slightest doubt Iran is determined to have its own atomic bomb and will stop at nothing to get it. What the former diplomats told and showed me let me in no doubt whatsoever. I saw, and still have copies of, bills of lading and other export documents. I am also of the firm opinion that the EU has (perhaps unwittingly, but I doubt it) helped finance Iran’s acquisition of weapons-grade uranium over several years.

If you ask me why key people inside the EU’s secretive supreme soviet might countenance such dangerously de-stabilising mischief, I need only point you towards the almost pathological hatred of the USA to be found amongst almost all its members.

There will be a much fuller account of the activities of Louis Michel and his family relations in the former Belgian Congo in my memoirs in due course.

They say they want to be ‘radical’, as if that is automatically ‘a good thing’. How cool of this new Coolalition. To hell with over 700 years of experience.

Of course the real problems they face are a loss of confidence in our parliamentary system, and how to make their coalition work for more than a few months.

They prefer to ignore equally real answers which are, perhaps, too uncomfortable to contemplate.

I venture to suggest the British people have not lost faith in our parliamentary system but in the many slimy individuals who have occupied both Houses of Parliament in recent years. Get rid of them and confidence will return. (Throw the EU out of Britain as well, and confidence will rocket – but that’s another issue for another day.)

As for making the coalition work, they have no business defying the decision of the British people. That’s the choice the politicians made after the election result, and now they have to live with it. And so do we.

How much better for us all if the Cameroon had simply defied the other two parties to vote him down when he attempted to govern with a minority government. All he had to do was remind them that they were both broke and needed to fight another election within months like they needed a lobotomy.

He might then have introduced at least the handful of real Tory policies buried here and there in their manifesto, and seen Tory support soar ahead of the inevitable next election. Tough, yet potentially triumphant. But it was beyond him.

Instead the coalition wants to change the way we vote and how our parliament works. It is a wholly unnecessary leap from two specific short-term problems to three hugely misguided long-term so-called ‘solutions’. All three are irrelevant and potentially damaging to the British body politic.

So let’s just look at these proposed fundamental changes to our system of accountable democracy, which none of us voted for.

1. A fixed term parliament

This not even a Camoroon idea. It was included in the Labour manifesto! Isn’t that reason enough to rebut it? But no, the coalition has adopted it. If implemented, a future government would fall between elections only after at least 55% of all MPs had supported a vote of confidence. That is numerical nonsense, of course. A majority is half, plus one, not just as a mathematical fact but also as a parliamentary majority. It has worked just fine for centuries.

But if this ludicrous idea were to be adopted, what exactly does the Cameroon propose should happen after a vote of no confidence without 55% of the vote? He does not say. But the answer is blisteringly obvious. Chaos. Instability. The very opposite of what was intended – so often the effect of new legislation. We would have no effective government, possibly for years before we were permitted to vote for a new one.

It would leave the British people vulnerable to whatever economic or other dangerous pressures arose meantime. A hapless government would remain in office making decisions as best it could, but knowing that it no longer had the support of the people who elected it in the first place. Timely, decisive action would be all but impossible, perhaps for years.

On second thoughts, no wonder Brown thought of this nonsense. That was exactly what had happened to him, only without losing a vote of confidence in the House. This is not just an absurd idea. It is a dangerous one.

The cynic, on the other hand, could be forgiven for suggesting that – after the 13 shambolic years of Nu-Labour – a few years of ineffective government might just be a good thing!

2. Proportional Representation

We must first remind ourselves of one crucial fact – our Mother of Parliaments is a legislature. The government of the day functions as an essential part of the parliamentary process, and is held to account in public on a daily basis. No parliament can bind its successors and every newly elected government has the power to amend or repeal any legislation it inherits. These are fundamental differences between the UK and many other systems of democracy around the world, especially as practised on the continent of Europe

Advocates of proportional representation display the weirdest misplaced thinking when they argue that it would benefit the UK. The exact opposite is true. It would perpetuate the very problem it we now have – a hung parliament. We would be obliged to endure coalition governments permanently.

There are several versions of PR, none of which is designed to produce a strong government with a clear mandate. Under the alternative vote system, it has been calculated that there would have been 281 Tories, 262 Labour, 79 Lib-Dims, and 28 others in the House. Under the transferable vote system, there would have been 246 Tories, 207 Labour, 162 Lib-Dims, and 35 others. Both recipes for compromise and indecisiveness.

PR is widely used on the continent and elsewhere around the world, more often than not to elect parliaments which are essentially talking shops rather more than they are legislatures. The EU is the obvious extreme. France is a classic example.

In such countries, any new government is forged in the image of the elected president or first minister, and members of his government need not be members of parliament. They are, effectively, nominated ministers with no mandate from the people. They might even be described as appointed bureaucrats and they often regard themselves in that way – Brussels again.

Such a system, which disconnects the people from the state, can result in a legislative process which makes the repeal or amendment of existing legislation extremely difficult, if not impossible. Again, France is a classic example. Eventually, people develop a built-in disrespect for the law – contempt even. They come to the conclusion that if the law cannot be changed or repealed, the best solution is to ignore it.

Do we really want that attitude here? We have, or used to have, real respect for the law, in my view based on the knowledge that any future government could – and often would – change it.

But back to revolutionary thinking about our parliamentary democracy. Here is a suggestion that might greatly improve the quality of thinking we currently see in the House of Commons. We have allowed politics to become a career. That has been a profound mistake. We need people in parliament with a wealth of experience in all walks of life, and who are old enough to contribute worldly wisdom based on personal experience over many years.

Youngsters of 20-something, with no experience outside school, university and a job as teacher, social worker, political researcher or the like, cannot bring what is needed – however bright and clever they might be. Frankly, they are still too young.

Years ago the back benches of the House of Commons were full of thoughtful, experienced men and women who had something to contribute after spending years in ‘the real world’. They also tended to say what they truly thought, and to offer opinions based on direct experience. Because they had no great ambitions for high office they would be free to deny the whips when they thought it necessary to speak out.

Many arrived in parliament wanting nothing more than the opportunity to contribute to public life – “to put something back into society”, as they put it. Those folk are gone. As a result, our democracy is much the poorer. Nowadays your chances of selection as a first-time candidate if you are over 40 – especially in the Labour party – are as close to nil as makes no difference.

So why not introduce an age limit? You cannot stand for a seat in parliament until you are 40. Now that’s truly radical.

3. Elected House of Lords

This has to be the most dangerous and stupid idea of them all. It is a direct assault on the primary purpose of a second chamber, which is an essential component of the checks and balances needed by any acceptable system of accountable law-making.

The original hereditary composition of the House of Lords ensured that those who largely controlled the country’s wealth also influenced its legislation. Any Bills which risked damaging the wealth-creation process would survive only after close scrutiny and amendment. Precisely because peers were not subjected to election they were able to criticise and make amendments objectively and – generally speaking – in the best interests of the country.

Take that independence away, and the crucial benefit of a second chamber is neutered. Political parties will nominate or elect their candidates to the upper house, and they – like MPs in the House of Commons – will be under exactly the same pressures to vote as their parties dictate. Their personal survival will demand it.

Since the introduction of Life Peers, the House of Lords has been overloaded with political appointees, many of whom have no more than party loyalty to justify their elevation. That should stop.

So here’s another revolutionary idea. There is an argument to be made in favour of a House of Lords to which no career politician can be elevated unless he or she separately qualifies under the following criteria.

Every new Life Peer should be a nominee approved directly by the Monarch on the sole grounds that he or she has already made a significant contribution to public life or society in their own field of knowledge or experience.

Now that really would be a radical change. It would also be a huge improvement in our own best interests.

Our new, naïve, deputy prime minister finds himself in the second most powerful job in the nation after losing seats at the general election. But he doesn’t know which laws to repeal.

If that paragraph was from Alice in Wonderland no-one would be surprised. But this is the United Kingdom in 2010. Heaven help us!

We all know neither he nor Cameron will take the slightest notice of any suggestions. This invitation is school-room politics, said for effect. Worse, if he were serious it would reflect an appalling lack of preparation by both political parties before the election.

The present wave of sloppy thinking is truly breath-taking. We now have, out of the blue, a commitment which was not included in either manifesto to elect a House of Lords and to enforce fixed-term parliaments. They must be out of their collective minds. (I shall have more to say on those ideas in a day or so.)

Meanwhile, the cast-iron Tory manifesto commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act, for instance, has simply been abandoned to appease the Lib-Dims. But then the Lisbon Treaty told us all we needed to know about the value of Tory cast-iron guarantees.

Most of the truly important changes the Tories had promised have been ditched in the interests of compromise. The coalition manifesto – if that is what it is – is full of relative trivia, much tweaking of mere operational details. There is no big vision.

Expediency rules – again.

An earlier posting of mine argued that no law passed since 1999 was lawful after the botched reform of the House of Lords. That could be Clegg’s starting point for a repeal programme, and a short-cut to remove the 500 new laws and over 3000 new criminal offences inflicted on this long-suffering country during the years of Nu-Labour.

But such dramatic action is unlikely. It would create too many daunting problems for our new and adolescent government. The elegant concept of enforcing the rule of law as an unarguable starting point is obviously too much for them.

So the invitation to make proposals becomes irresistible, especially knowing they will be ignored.

Here’s my contribution:

Inevitably we must start with repeal the European Communities Act 1972, which gets us out of the EU. Over 40,000 EU regulations will fall automatically as well. They depend for their legal status on Statutory Instruments passed under the same Act.

Even if Clegg and Cameron decline any such suggestion, at the very least they should impose a cost:benefit analysis of all EU legislation in future, and as quickly as possible over all past EU regulations. As I said in an earlier posting, they should warn Brussels that any regulations that fail such a test will not be enforced in the UK.

The Commission could not complain since they told me five years ago that the EU could not undertake such an exercise because “the criteria would be different in each country”. And that is precisely why it is in the UK’s best interests to do so. What’s more, the EU couldn’t argue with the consequences!

Back home, during its 13-year reign of terror, Nu-Labour passed six new Acts of Parliament on immigration, eight on terrorism, 12 on education, 11 on health and social care, and 25 on criminal justice. Many of them were enacted simply to comply with new EU directives. Not one of them, nor the quangos they created, has improved our quality of life. Quite the reverse. All of them should go.

So, repeal all UK primary law based on EU directives, including Human Rights, Health and Safety, Regional Assemblies, Data Protection, Race Relations, and many others imposed by Brussels.

Lobbies wishing to re-create abolished EU law must be obliged to make the case again in the context of the best interests of the British people. They must not be allowed to continue by default.

Contract law (since 1297) will protect existing contracts and the Indemnity Act 1766 can provide – say – two years moratorium allowing time for willing parties to renegotiate freely their existing contracts framed under EU ‘law’.

Repeal the Hunting Act 2004 and the Firearms Acts of 1996 and 1997, all of which have seriously damaged country life. The latter two have also led to an increase in violent crime in our towns and cities.

Abolish all legislation and agencies of government responsible for enforcement of nanny state attitudes or demands on ordinary people. Abolish the hundreds of expensive, interfering unaccountable and unelected quangos which meddle in people’s lives sometimes with the subtly of a sledgehammer. Any surviving quangos should be made liable under the Harassment Act 1997 to individuals faced with oppressive intrusion into their lives.

A huge bonus from the abolition of these busy-bodies would be the savings in public expenditure. It must run into billions.

In addition to those mentioned above, the following are a few of the more pernicious Acts of Parliament which need to be repealed in full or in part to restore British liberty. This is by no means an exhaustive list and, to be fair, at least one is on Clegg’s little list already:

Civil Contingencies Act 2005
Criminal Justice Act 2003
Extradition Acts 2003 and 2006
Health and Safety Act 1997
ID Cards Act 2006
Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006
Police and Justice Act 2006
Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
Terrorism Act 2005

Abolish the Local Government Standards Board which allows officials to complain when elected councillors criticise them.

Abolish all targets for hospitals, schools and the police, the effect of which has been to divert effort away from their real purpose towards avoiding trouble from the government.

Now let’s turn the coin over.

Here are a few things this new government should do, some of which featured in another earlier posting :

Employment: Restore the right of employers to employ the best candidate for any job.

Health: Restructure hospital managements so that doctors’ clinical judgments and patients needs come first. Doctors and nurses should decide. Managers should manage.

Restore matrons and their powers to manage wards.

Criminal Justice: Immediate restoration of Habeas Corpus and the protection of British law whenever a foreign country seeks extradition of a British national. The prima facie case against him or her must be heard and decided by a British court.

Public Services: Restore British ownership of essential public services and protect our vital national interests using Mrs Thatcher’s famous golden share principle. There can be no foreign majority ownership of essential British utilities.

Farming: Restore the right of British farmers to grow whatever they like.

Fishing: Ban all foreign fishing vessels in a 200 miles area around UK coasts

Defence: Restore spending on defence to at least five per cent of total public spending to ensure the armed forces have the capabilities and resources to defend this country and assist where needed in peace-keeping duties around the globe.

Migration: Re-establish clear difference between economic migration and genuine pleas for asylum. Britain should accept its share of genuine refugees but without necessarily offering British nationality. The Immigration Service should be focused on identifying and completing genuine cases within one month, using tough and fair criteria.

All visa applications to be made from abroad. No visa, no travel.

Limit work permits to essential workers only. No right to benefits. ‘Support yourself and your families or leave’.

Encourage the return of immigrants to their own countries. ‘Be a part of the British way of life or leave.’

Deport all illegal immigrants and convicted criminals not born in the UK. Encourage voluntary repatriation.

Ban visas to all Imams who are unable to speak English, and those known to preach violence. Deport Imams who preach incitement to violence.

Segregate revolutionary Islamists from the general prison population.

Prevent infiltration of extremist Islamic views into the government, police and armed services by positive vetting of applicants and routine monitoring afterwards.

Most of the above will not happen. We know that.

But it should. And the sooner the better.