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Telegraph

Prof Alan Buckwell, chief adviser to the Country Land and Business Association is arguing that farmers should not have to disclose the money they receive from the CAP payments. This is expected to be the case under the Freedom of Information Act. Commercial confidentiality has previously been given as the reason for not disclosing production-related payments but this would no longer be possible in respect of the new single farm payment.

The Professor is hoping that information on sole traders and individuals is covered by the Data Protection Act and not the Freedom of Information Act. But as we the people have to pay the money in tax, there should be no reason why we should not know who gets payments. It would also be interesting to see who supports the EU, as many farmers do especially the wealthy ones, because they know that the cheque is in the post.

The pro-EU voice is often paid for, and it is time we knew which of these voices were in receipt of EU funding in any way, then when they claim the EU is good we know what they really mean the EU is good for them, because they are getting money out of it.

The Road to Euro Serfdom has posted on a comment in the FT from Germany’s permanent representative to the EU from 1993 to 1999 Dietrich von Kyaw. Who is suggesting that the people are to stupid to have a say in their own countries government and the Constitution is to complicated for us to understand.

These Europhiles really are arrogant enough to believe that they are the only people who are intelligent enough to decide these things, and the rest of us should just get on with our lives and leave the real business of government to them, all they need us for is to contribute toward their plans by paying our taxes on time, and occasionally voting in the prescribed manner, of course the less we get to vote the better it is, because then they have not got to bother themselves with wasting to much time on the people.

The Road to Euro Serfdom

The arrogance of those speaking in favour of the EU is often reason enough to hate the project all on its own. This contribution from FT by Dietrich von Kyaw, Germany’s permanent representative to the EU from 1993 to 1999.

On the crucial question of the European Union’s new constitutional treaty, certain leaders in EU member states have proved adept at ducking responsibility.

Direct democracy is an inadequate instrument for dealing with international issues such as the compromise hammered out between 25 sovereign nations on a constitutional treaty consisting of several hundred pages of complex legal and political content.

his last paragraph when translated means something like this:
• The people are ignorant and stupid.
• They cannot be expected to make the right decision.

Lake District must beware trap of trying too hard
Letters from the Telegraph

Sir – As a middle-aged, middle-class, black person, I would like to say “thanks but no thanks” to the bureaucrats who have decided to encourage people like me to walk in the National Parks (News, Jan 3). From the age of five, my Jamaican father and English mother felt quite able to take me on walking holidays in the Lake District. We even made it to the north of Scotland without feeling threatened or intimidated.

People from differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds really don’t need to be patronised in this way. We’re off to Spain this year - there’s less rain.

Rowena Forfar, Beeston, Notts

Sir – Last July, 36 walkers from Cheshire – I trust Stephen Benson, (Letters, Jan 4) was not one – hove to under Hollin Bank, by the Coniston road at a height of 150 metres, on a fine summer’s day. I asked one of the “co-leaders” where they were hea
ded and discovered that they were over a mile adrift. Fortunately the weather was not worse and the elevation not 600 metres higher. It is imperative that as many unwary visitors as possible are subjected to the authority’s guided walks.

Michael Jefferson, Felmersham Beds

Sir – Jim White (Opinion, Jan 3) says that, “for most suburban youth, the only sense of the passing of the seasons is when the adverts on the telly change”. My suburb has trees, birds and gardens; it is possible to observe seasons without going near the countryside. Since we have pavements, you don’t have to squelch through the mire.

Louise O’Connor, Richmond, Surrey

Sir – At the National Theatre on Tuesday, the audience for The History Boys was overwhelmingly white, middle-class and middle-aged. Like the Lake District National Park, this theatre is looking for further public money: should not its funding also depend on attracting fewer of the people who now enjoy visiting it?

Neil Collins, London SW6

I posted the story here

We were all asked if we wanted to change from the present system to a new system under the control of the local council, to my knowledge no one asked for the change but true to form with this new style of government, we get what they wanted anyway, any colour as long as its black as Mr Ford used to say.
The old system worked very well and it was no small thing having to appear before a magistrate to prove yourself responsible to hold a licence they take their jobs very seriously.

Now with the costs of the EU Asbestos directive the Disabled Act, I as a small restaurateur am being faced with possible bills totalling £5,000 and that is without the cost of removing any asbestos that may be found and the redecoration and the loss of business whilst this work is being carried out. I could also be faced with the cost of knocking down and rebuilding the toilet block because it is too small to allow wheelchair access, installing ramps and as I also let bedrooms, there is the possibility that I will have to install a lift. So before we get all steamed up about new so-called basic rights let us consider the costs involved we might also consider that I now must offer my part-time staff who decide when and if they are going to work on their schedule and not the customers, the same rights as full time staff who are available when the customer are prepared to spend money. The fact that on our day off we must spend half of it filling in forms and keeping Vat accounts for the government, that neither my wife or myself have had a been able to afford a holiday in 10 years consider these things before you decide to work for yourself, oh yes my normal working day is between 13-18 hours.

Telegraph | News | A licence for chaos?: ”

A licence for chaos?
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor
(Filed: 06/01/2005)

New laws coming into force next month will cut significant amounts of red tape at a stroke, according to the Government.

Oh no, they won’t, says a solicitor specialising in this area. ‘The whole system which has worked so well for so many years is about to disintegrate into chaos - and something must be done before it is too late,’ he warns.

Women drinking in a bar
Small businesses may suffer when the new licensing laws come in

We are talking about the Licensing Act 2003: the legislation that may allow pubs to stay open all night in England and Wales. Under the Act, responsibility for granting licences is transferred from magistrates’ courts to local councils. And one of the prime reasons for this legislation is that it is also supposed to make things simpler.

Rather curiously, licensing is now the responsibility of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. So it fell to Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, to tell local authorities last July that bringing six licensing regimes into one ’should significantly reduce the amount of bureaucracy concerned’.

Even more curiously, it was the Minister for Sport, Richard Caborn, who warned kebab shops, burger bars and hot-dog vans last week that they could be shut down from November if they attract alcohol-fuelled violence and rowdy behaviour after the pubs have shut - not that the pubs will have to shut any more if they can obtain 24-hour licences.

Under the new Act, businesses will be able to apply for a single ‘premises licence’, covering all the licensable activities they wish to carry on. Hearings will be needed only if there are objections, and premises licences will not need regular renewal, as the current liquor licences or public entertainment licences do.

All late–night cafes and take-away shops will need a licence to serve hot food or drink to the public on or from the premises between 11pm and 5am, though there are exemptions for hotels, clubs and vending machines.

Naturally enough, there are transitional provisions allowing businesses with existing licences to apply for them to be converted to new premises licences. That must be done by Aug 7 this year - otherwise, they will have to apply for a completely new licence, risking considerable cost and delay.

But the transitional arrangements are far from simple. Under the existing law, all that a restaurateur has to do is to stand up in court and satisfy the justices that he is fit to hold a liquor licence and that his premises are suitable and safe.

After the Act comes into force, however, he will have to complete a 20-page form, telling the local authority how he proposes to “promote the four licensing objectives”. These are: the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm.

All very worthy, no doubt, but how many operators of small restaurants in Britain have a sufficient command of written English to understand the difference between “disorder” and “nuisance”, let alone to complete the form in any meaningful way?

All existing licence-holders - from “palaces of entertainment” to street-corner convenience stores selling alcohol - will have to submit newly-drawn architectural plans. Under the old system, these were relatively simple and concise, according to Neil Shestopal, a London-based solicitor specialising in licensing law.

Now, plans must show “the location of the extent of the boundary of the building, if relevant, and any external and internal walls which comprise the premises, or in which the premises is comprised”, as well as exits, escape routes, fire extinguishers, the kitchen, and “fixed structures (including furniture) or similar objects temporarily in a fixed location (but not furniture) which may impact on the ability of individuals on the premises to use exits or escape routes without impediment”.

Mr Shestopal fears that the cost of preparing such plans will rarely be below four figures. “I am convinced that this has not been taken into account by the Government in drafting the legislation,” he says. Hence his concern that the system will disintegrate into chaos.

And what of the local authorities that will have to read all these plans and applications? Mr Shestopal says that the council officers he has spoken to are “dreading” the prospect.

Little wonder: the solicitor has also spotted a serious anomaly buried deep within the legislation. Under paragraph 6(5) of Schedule 8, a premises licence cannot be obtained under the transitional provisions unless the premises are to be used for the “existing licensable activities”. But you don’t need a licence at present to serve food after 11pm, provided you already have a licence to serve alcohol.

That means that if you want to carry on serving food from 11pm onwards, you will need a new licence from November - for which you must comply with regulations covering objections, advertisements, service of notices and so on.

So, whose job is it to spot apparent anomalies? Primary responsibility clearly rests with the Secretary of State and her officials, who draft “instructions” and set out the policy objectives that they hope to achieve through legislation. Those instructions are sent to Parliamentary Counsel, a team of highly specialised lawyers based in Whitehall. But it is not the drafter’s job to decide what a Bill should do, according to Sir Geoffrey Bowman, the First Parliamentary Counsel.

“We do not make up policy; we clarify it,” he told me in an interview for Radio 4’s Today programme last week.

Sir Geoffrey accepts that there is an inherent tension in the process of producing Parliamentary Bills.

The pressures are worse than when he first became a Parliamentary draftsman 30 years ago, he added.

But he saw encouraging signs: for example, more use of pre-legislative scrutiny, explanatory notes on legislation and simpler drafting techniques.

That, however, will provide little comfort for restaurant owners now facing an impossible choice: should they spend a fortune in legal fees - or persuade after-theatre customers wanting a pudding to drink a pudding wine instead?”

Telegraph | News | Prescott’s regional plans in ruins: ”

Prescott’s regional plans in ruins
By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent
(Filed: 06/01/2005)

MPs delivered a damning verdict yesterday on John Prescott’s failed attempt to create regional assemblies across England.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s dream of creating directly elected assemblies in the English regions ended in ruins when North-East voters rejected the idea by more than three to one last November.

The failure in the North-East. together with abandoned plans for referendums in Yorkshire and the North-West, is estimated to have cost more than £10 million.

Yesterday, the Labour-dominated Commons regions committee blamed the North-East result on the proposed assemblies’ lack of real powers, ‘talking-shop’ reputation and uncertainty over how much they would cost to set up.

In a report, the MPs accused Mr Prescott’s Cabinet colleagues of failing to get behind the devolution drive, which left the assembly blueprint without enough real powers to interest voters. Mr Prescott, who drew up a Draft Bill setting out the assemblies’ powers, is known to have been frustrated at a lack of co-operation from other ministers.

MPs complained yesterday that the overall cost, including potential savings from cutting the number of local councils where assemblies were created, was too vague.

‘We find it odd that the Government had done so little detailed planning of the costs and benefits of setting up [an assembly],’ said the report.”

Not acording to this report

This Sceptic Isle

Ukip Uncoverd has the full transcript of ‘This Sceptic Isle’ the programme was broadcast on BBC Radio Four 4th January at 8:00 pm. Introduced by Ruth Lea it at least allows coverage of the sceptic argument on the EU. Among the interviewees is Trevor Kavanagh editor of the Sun the news paper the Euphiles love to hate, who says..

“The Sun is not a knee-jerk xenophobic newspaper which tries to just campaign on emotional issues like the question of whether the Queen’s head should be on the pound note or the euro coin. What we want to do is to raise the genuine and legitimate argument about the way Europe is governed by an unaccountable, undemocratic and remote bureaucracy, and the fact that there is a democratic deficit that even Brussels acknowledges but will do nothing about.”

Tell that to Britain in Europe or even the EU Commision, who are so worried that newspapers like the Sun are fouling the ground for the EU`s own propaganda that they have set up their own rebuttal departments to counter the stories these papers publish.

There was some balance in the program with inclusion of EU supporters Lucy Parl BIE and Charles Grant Centre for European Reform, but the main voice was that of varying shades of Euscepticsism with Roger Knapaman, Teddy Taylor, Lord Pearson, Daniel Hannan, Marc Glendenning all adding slightly different angles to the debate.

One area explored was the fact that people like Roger Knapman UKIP were happy to go along with the government’s and now the EU`s claim, that the referendum is in fact a question of our involvement in the EU, and that a no vote will somehow result in Britian leaving the union. I feel this is a very bad tactical error because a no vote will not result in the government accepting that as the final word from the British people. Tony Blair has already said as much, inferring that it would instead result in a further referendum; the only thing that could possibly stop that, would be if the No was massive. The government are playing a game of frightening the children by suggesting that, as the likely outcome, in the hope that it will make people vote yes even if reluctantly. The fact is there will be one question on the ballot paper, and it will not be about Britain staying in the or coming out of the EU, it will be about further integration, it is therefore tactically stupid to assist the government and the EU by campaigning for a question we are not being asked. Marc Glendenning from the Democracy Movement said of the Ukip Position “Their leadership has been confirming or helping to bolster the government’s strategy, which is utterly insane in relation to the actual objective of getting Britain out of the European Union.”

A fear was also expressed by Trevor Kavanagh and Lord Pearson that a French No would be worse for Eusceptics than a French Yes, rather interestingly Pearson’s said “I think if France votes No, it really does throw the whole thing back into the melting pot. And what I fear if France votes No, is that we would be back into another intergovernmental conference, which would produce yet another Treaty, amending the existing treaties, producing but far more cunningly, the same effects of the present Constitution. And if all the eurocrats and the political elite of Europe would claim that the people had won a great victory and look this was all entirely different and this is alright, isn’t it, and then that would be ratified, in the same process by the governments signing up to it, the executive signing up to it and Parliament becoming a rubber-stamp, and the people being entirely excluded which is what’s been happening for the last 40 years. These people are in no hurry to achieve their European dream, they’ve taken 40 years to get where they are, they are quite happy to spend another 5, if necessary.”

The last point is extremely important to understand, because Lord Pearson is right, that those who are working towards a united Europe are very happy to wait for the right time to advance their toward their goal, even if it means waiting years for certain blocking politicians in member states, to reach the end of their time in power, they have done this before and will do it again. On a personal level it would be preferable to get this sorted out now, one way or the other because Britain’s involvement in the EU is draining the will of the British people to stand up for themselves as a nation, and is making liars of our own politicians who keep insisting they are in charge.