Fiddling while the economy collapses...the EU propaganda continues

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So the whole thing begins to resemble a rather sarcastic pantomime, a celebration of mutual incomprehension mixed with self-interest but the EU panjandrums continue with their spending of our money on promoting their myth of Europe:

The European Commission is proposing to set aside €229 million for projects that help citizens to understand the functioning of the European Union, its values and its history. On 14 December, the Commission proposed renewing the current ‘Europe for citizens’ programme, which ends on 31 December 2013, and to increase the budget by €14 million for the 2014-2020 period.

That's a lot of money on promoting the "idea of Europe" especially at a time when frankly there isn't a great deal of money around (or so we're told0 to spend on such frivolity. Yet this propaganda is vital:

“The financial crisis has made Europe more important than ever before for the daily lives of citizens and for public debate. It is therefore more important than ever to support projects that allow citizens and civil society at large to become involved in EU affairs,” said Viviane Reding, the commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship.

These people really do inhabit a different world from the rest of us. They really are so wrapped up in their ghastly mythopoeisis that they believe this nonsense. Sadly, the target audience for this funding will cheer as they rush gleefully towards the honey pot that is other people's money.

If you fancy a shot at this cash, the proposals can be found here , you'll have to remember:

The programme is one of the instruments to link the democratic principles of Articles 10 and 11 TEU with a broad range of sectoral Union policies without replacing the specific dialogues with citizens, stakeholders and interest groups that the European Commission maintains. The next generation of the “Europe for Citizens” programme empowers citizens to exchange views on all areas of Union action and at all stages of the formal decision making process.

Clear?

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Why agricultural protectionism is stupid....

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All of it - tariffs, quotas, bungs to farmers not to farm, subsidies for growing, protection of "local" specialities, fines for overproduction and the whole rigmarole of corrupt rent-seeking. And by way of example - the Norwegian butter famine:

As a result of the perfect storm of: a) a craze for a popular "fat-rich, low-carb" weight-loss diet, b) a shortage of animal feed that caused a drop in milk production, c) a butter monopoly that controls 90 per cent of the butter supply and d) is protected from foreign competition by trade barriers that prohibit imports from European countries, there is now a butter shortage in Norway as the festive baking season approaches.

In a world crammed full with butter there's a shortage in Norway because the government wants to keep out nasty foreign butter. There's even butter smuggling!

As Tim Worstall puts it:

In order to get people to farm, thus providing local food (you know, local is good, right?), in a place which is snow and ice for half the year it is necessary to put up huge trade barriers to food coming in from places with more grass and more cows.

 

These trade barriers raise the internal price of milk and butter, which is the whole point of having them so as to encourage people to farm in such a frozen wasteland. However, now that you’ve got these incredibly high prices for milk and butter you find that every roadside verge supports a cow or two as the locals cash in on the incredibly high prices. Thus you now need to fine people for producing too much milk.

 

The fines reduce the amount of milk produced, there is now a shortage of milk and butter and you need to lift the import restrictions so that the citizenry can have a butter biscuit at Christmas time.

 

Barking mad. But that's government for you!

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Bradford Council's lunatic justification for killing town centres...

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On a day when town centres will be in the news, Bradford Council announces its latest wheeze to promote town centre success. On-street car parking charges. Yes folks, the Labour Party in Bradford - wedded as they are to utter lunacy and supported by anti-car, anti-business, anti-sanity Green Party councillors - tell us that these car parking charges will:

...improve access to town centres and stimulate trade by creating a higher turnover of customers.

The current arrangements - for example on North Parade in the City Centre or on Bingley Main Street - are for short stay free parking. Now we'll have short stay with charges. How exactly will that promote a higher turnover of customers?

Let me predict what will happen. Fewer people will go to town centres to shop, choosing instead to to to places where they don't have to pay to park.

In the middle of a massive retail downturn, this perhaps takes the prize for the stupidest of stupid proposals. And it's just about raising cash anyway.

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School dinners....

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Something of a funk going on in Bradford about school dinners:

A probe is underway to find out how many children in the district are attending school without food or money to pay for school dinners after several headteachers raised concerns that pupils are going hungry.

OK so some parents are sending their children to school without the wherewithal to purchase those nutritious school dinners. And, of course, the culprit here is ‘poverty’ – but we should note that school dinners are pretty cheap. Here are Bradford’s figures:

In primary schools the current pupil price for a two course school meal, including a main course item with sides and a dessert is £1.50.

In secondary schools, students can pay for items individually, or take advantage of the set meals & meal deals. The standard price for these meal packages is £2.15, and for this you will typically get a main course item with sides and a dessert or drink

So for two children at primary a full lunch every day costs just £13, hardly a vast expense even for those on low incomes. Even at secondary school the cost in no more than £30 per week for those two children. That is for the main meal of the day.

I can only assume that these children are turning up to school without their dinner money because their parents have other spending priorities, forgot entirely or else really don’t give a fig.

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On Dave's veto...

Initial reaction:

"He didn't, did he? Where's the catch?"

Followed by:

"I don't believe it! Seriously, I never thought he'd do it. Wow!"

And then:

"YES!!!! Absolutely YES!!!"

Today the fall out (I've been listening to the BBC which unlike almost every other media outlet of note seems to take the view that being "isolated" is a bad thing, so bad we should just screw over the economy so as some jumped up little Frenchman still shakes our hands).

Mr Clegg is "very disappointed". Mr Cable might resign. And the BBC reports on unnamed "leading business people" who aren't happy.

I remain of the opinion that the proper response remains:

"YES!!! Absolutely YES!!!"

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The money you need Sally - it's already in your commuter village

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Sally Thomas works for something called the Social Regeneration Consultants (SRC) and has been given space by leftie-rightie-wishy-washy think tank, Res Publica to air her views on rural housing - or rather rural "social" housing. And she relates this terrible tale:

Despite early backing from County Council planners, a positive partnership with a regional housing association keen on community investment and really good prospects for securing ring-fenced funding from the Government’s Homes and Communities Agency for precisely this type of community-led development, the plans have stalled.

The reason is quite simple – private land values. The site owner is not interested in selling to anyone who wants to build affordable homes because they simply can’t provide him with enough money for his land.

You see the problem don't you? Well Sally doesn't - the truth is that land in her nice commuter village is at a premium because:

For a village community with pressing housing needs and surrounded by green belt that few wish to see developed, this is not good news.

If you want a 'green belt', you have to pay for it and that payment is captured in those land values.  The sad truth however is that people such as Sally - who claim to be "social entrepreneurs" - are simply grant farmers chasing whatever taxpayers' cash there is to be got for their favoured scheme. Perhaps this community needs to think about those elderly residents who need the housing. I'm guessing that these people are already in houses and have captured in those houses the price of having that 'green belt'.

But not Sally nor the parish council nor the "regional housing association keen on community investment" seem willing to recognise this fact. So no grant means no homes despite that fact that the people who might live in those homes have the cash to build them.

I won't be rushing out for creative advice from Sally's Social Regeneration Consultants that's for sure.

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From the mouths of New Puritans...

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...sometimes fall pearls of unintended truth:

"Inhaling smoke from any products, organic or not, may it be lettuce, spinach or tobacco, is inherently dangerous for your health," says Vaughan Rees, a Harvard University researcher who studies smoking.

Let's unpick this then. Inhaling smoke - any smoke - is the problem. Yet we haven't banned open fires in pubs, we permit bonfires and we (well some folk any how) revel in joss sticks, candles and the burning of "essential oils".

The smoking ban, or should I say smoke ban, is incomplete until all sources of smoke we might inhale are eliminated. Otherwise it's simply a wholly unjustified attack on a pleasure the New Puritans disapprove of.

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