The presiding officer of the Welsh assembly has said that devolution in England would help deliver a “United Kingdom in a united Europe.”

Lord Elis-Thomas said giving people in England a similar say in their domestic affairs would help achieve a more secure constitutional settlement.

“There should be a proper English parliament, and that could be arranged very easily if the Commons sat on a Tuesday or Wednesday as an English parliament.”

So we are to be allowed a proper English parliament which would sit for one day a week with dual MPs, that is English members of the British parliament also sitting as members of an English Parliament.

Lord Elis-Thomas is in line with the thinking of John Redwood who also favours a part time English parliament this from Mr Redwoods new Blog

“My view is that all of us elected to the Westminster Parliament for English constituencies should perform a dual role. We should work with colleagues from Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland on Union matters for part of the week, and for the rest of the week, the Westminster Parliament itself should be the English Parliament, where we, English representatives, settle all the matters that are devolved Scotland ourselves at Westminster, without the help or interference of our colleagues from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The English Parliament at Westminster would therefore create a much more fair and balanced United Kingdom.”

I do not see how it can be considered in any way balanced for Scotland and Wales to each have a separate parliament with separately elected members sitting full time, yet England would only be allowed one day a week where British MP could decide on English matters.

If they want to make it balanced then both the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly should be dissolved and then we could all have dual role MPs and separate days for Scottish Welsh English and British business it would also have the added benefit of saving vast sums of money.

Brussels flags common corporate tax

An article in the FT says the EU’s tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs said he would introduce legislation if necessary to improve tax co-ordination between the the EU’s 25 member states.

Mr Kovacs also set out papers on co-ordinating exit taxes for people who move to another member state. At present their assets are sometimes taxed twice.

Further papers on inheritance tax, withholding taxes and anti-avoidance rules are planned.

Mr Kovacs intended to publish legislation to create a common corporate tax base in 2008, and said the initiative had backing from a large number of member states.

Countries including Britain, Ireland and Slovakia are strongly opposed, but Mr Kovacs said he could go ahead anyway under the little-used “enhanced co-operation” rule, which allows groups of EU countries to pioneer projects.

The Social Platform

The Platform of European Social NGOs is the alliance of representative European federations and networks of non-governmental organisations active in the social sector.

In its Briefing no15 The Social dimension of the European Constitutional Treaty tells us exactly what a Constitution is…..

What is a Constitution?

A Constitution is a text which contains the fundamental rules of a State or a group of States. These rules answer several questions. How do the institutions work? How is the division of powers arranged? What means can be used to implement policies? What values are upheld? What are the citizens’ fundamental rights?

It also tells us what are the citizens fundamental duties, or is rather supposed to, but this one just leaves the question open to later interpretation.

This constitution also has its own amending clause which allows for changes to the constitution to be made within the EU`s own political elite system cutting out the governments and the citizens from any future decisions on their own constitution.

The briefing document continues with a disclaimer of the authors own invention…..

In actual fact, the European Constitution is not really a Constitution in the full sense of the term, as although it contains elements of a constitutional nature (for example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights), in legal terms it remains a Treaty subject to the rules of international law. Therefore, it will enter into force only when all Member States have ratified it, according to the provisions of their national Constitutions. For that reason it is perhaps more correct to refer to it as a “Constitutional Treaty”.

Although it is true that the Constitution will legally enter into force only when all Member States have ratified, that is a consequence of the present treaty agreements not the Constitution itself, nothing in the Constitution can have any legal affect until it is ratified, not even the means of its own inception.

Neither  does it follow that it remains a treaty after ratification in fact its title clearly say what it is and what it is not   “A Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe” cannot better describe the affects of ratifying this treaty, if we do we are establishing a Constitution.  

See "Yet another EU Professor"

Lord Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, has sent an open letter to Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Snowe (R-Maine) in response to their recent open letter telling the CEO of ExxonMobil to cease funding climate-skeptic scientists.

 Lord Monckton, former policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, writes: "You defy every tenet of democracy when you invite ExxonMobil to deny itself the right to ’senior elected and appointed government officials’ who disagree with your opinion."

 "Sceptics and those who have the courage to support them are actually helpful in getting the science right. They do not, as you improperly suggest, ‘obfuscate’ the issue: they assist in clarifying it by challenging weaknesses in the ‘consensus’ argument and they compel necessary corrections … "more…..Britannia Radio