Tapestry Talks

BBC Says Vulcan Will Replace IHT with CGT

Newsnight. Paxo to Crick. 10 minutes ago.

Paxo. Will Osborne abolish IHT?

Crick. Yes. He'll get rid of IHT altogether, replace it with CGT, with exemption for assets owned for ten years or more or the main home.

Pax0. What else did he say?

Crick. Toll roads on roads to our ports. Bicycles on pathements - might not be good electorally. And rubber wheels on trains to increase frequency of trains in rush hour.

Paxo. Will the leadership agree?

Crick. Yes. But Gummer of the Quality of Life review reports in a month, when he will propose new green taxes. Redwood has advised being careful not to tax aviation.

HORSE's MOUTH.

Re the rubber wheels on trains, will the rubber be vulcanized?

SO?

The key question is 'will the leadership agree?'

The answer is that no one knows what the shadow cabinet will finally decide.

The Beeb started off attacking Redwood for his regulation cuts ideas earlier in the week, and caught a ton of ridicule and criticism for their overreaction to Redwood back out in the open.  His suggestions then were also only provisional - to be discussed further. 

This time the Beeb pulled right back from outright hostility - after attacking so blatantly last time.  They are trying to sound reasoned and intelligent about Tory tax proposals - all of which seemed to give Crick and Paxman serious indigestion.  They were all confused.  are these legitimate Tory targets or not? 

Paxman looked like a bloodhound called off his prey, when he knew he'd had the smell of Tory blood in his nostrils, but got no kill.  The Newsnight Tory killing machine is merely biding its time.

EU Quality Marks Kill

I took a leading role in the Save The British hallmark Campaign in 2003.  The EU under the Italian Presidency had a big push to abandon national hallmarks on gold jewellery and replace them with an EU marking system.  The only way this could have been done was to permit manufacturers to mark their own gold jewellery, and trust them not to cheat.

This last aspect was a bit of  a worry, as all over the world where there is not a well run state administered hallmarking system, where the gold content is verified by testing and marking by an authorosed third party, cheating is commonplace.  In the US people buy mllions of gold items of jewellery every year which are 'under-carat' without having any idea they are being cheated. 

The US trade have formed The Jewellery Vigilance Committee which can do nothing more than try to limit the damage and prevent the truth of this worldwide massive crime against consumers from spoiling their business.

In Europe most countries fortunately have a well established and functioning hallmarking system apart from Germany and Italy, where the same crime is also commonplace.  Austria abandoned hallmarking in 2002 trying to curry EU favour and within a year 20% of all the gold items on sale did not have the right gold content.

The EU was keen to push ahead with its own system, despite the knowledge that the crooks would have a field day and honest traders would be marginalised, and it was only through a determined campaign started in Britain by a few dedicated people from the industry that it was stopped - and then only just and at the last minute when all had seemed lost.

The CE Marks

Seeing now that the toys from China which have high levels of lead in their paints, and which have small pieces which can block baby's windpipes and cause instant death, carrying European Safety marks, the famous CE marks, it made me wonder if the same drop in standards has happened across many industries, in the same way that we saw with the attempt by the EU to hand over the gold busines to the crooks, as long as they promoted EU marks

see http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/08/elephant-lives.html

I spoke to a Trading Standards Officer a couple of years ago at the time of our campaign to save Hallmarking, and he told me that European Standards were invariably of lower quality than the British ones they replaced.  I've heard of stories of European road standards like lorry wheel nuts for example failing , and the number of tyres that take off from trucks each year is nubered in the thousands.  The British equivalents which worked well had to be got rid of in favour of EU Standards.

The question is how many people lose their lives every year of all ages, not just children, so that the famous CE mark and others can act as the propaganda for the EUSR?  The stories of death and maiming are always kept out of the news, and no statistics are revealed.

Misguided BBC Thinks Business Means Right Wing

Focus on business is only a lurch to the right if you happen to be the BBC or Polly Toynbee. Business is part of society - the part where jobs are created, wages are paid, pensions are funded, goods and services are provided and prices are kept competitive, in short where the quality of life agenda starts.

It is all corners of our society that benfits by £14 billion under Redwood's proposals, not simply those who attend the annual gathering of veterans from the Waffen SS.

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/08/bbc-responds-to-redwood-bias.html#links

BBC Grinds Brown's Organ

If you stop thinking that the BBC is biased towards Labour, and instead realise that the Labour Party is the slavish device meeting the democratic requirements of the BBC, you get a lot nearer the mark.

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/08/bbc-responds-to-redwood-bias.html#links

Is there anything you can think of which Brown is in favour of, or against, which is not fully BBC-backed policy?

Blair managed to keep the Beeb backing him, at the same time as the Americans and Murdoch, by policy hopping now and again.

Brown is a policy fixture, and has gone so far over to being a BBC lapdog that he's lost the Americans, according to Stelzer, and Murdoch too is backing a pro-referendum policy against him.

The more hopelessly one tracked and uniform Labour and the BBC become under Brown (or is it Brown under the BBC?), the more glaringly obvious the cowardly alliance becomes.

NuLab under Blair kept all sides interested in doing business.  With Brown it's BBC,BBC,BBC,BBC and that's about it.

The only thing left to decide is which part is the organ grinder, and which part is the monkey.

BBC React Like Scalded Cats To Redwood

Cameron's strategy with Redwood is interesting.  Redwood carefully avoided mentioning anything to do with the EUSR (subservient regions).  He merely pointed out the waste of resources involved in various programmes, and suggested a review.

The BBC went off like scalded cats giving voice to Labour's shock that Cameron was opening up this new front on Brown as an incompetent manager of the economy.

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/08/bbc-responds-to-redwood-bias.html#links

How did Cameron, supposedly suppressed in fear by the Brown supposed Bounce and all the previous month's intense Cameron-bullying, dare to challenge the assumed authority of the BBC and its satellite the Labour Party?

Redwood seemed quite reasoned and reasonable.  The BBC did not.

The BBC tried hard to provoke Redwood into a eurosceptic statement, (Kwark was saying 'these are eurosceptic proposals aren't they) but he declined the opportunity, saying that he merely wanted these matters to be reviewed, and looked at by the Shadow cabinet.

If the Beeb were to enquire further into Cameron's policy on the EUSR, they will soon enough be introduced to Hague and Kirtkhope's rather hopeless attempt to renegotiate the terms of the EUSR with an alternative treaty. (Subservient Regions)

Cameron's got his bases covered.  The BBC don't like it.

What's Cameron's Next Move?

HOW REAL IS THE BROWN BOUNCE?

Gordon Brown's much trumpeted poll lead of 10% is hype.  Many analysts see it as nearer 3%, and within that, Brown is facing a number of threats not least a potential rebellion from within his own party over the EUSR Constitution.  His Scottish power base too without which Labour has no majority at Westminster is looking vulnerable with SNP support at an all time high.  That's before you look at the potential effect of the BNP which is opening up in 500 Constituencies this year, and who took around 10% from labour at Sedgefield.

The Americans see Brown as full-on pro-European, and are happy for Murdoch to be running a big push in his media empire in the UK for a referendum on the EUSR Constition.  There is no way that Brown will be hunting an early general election.  Until he has resolved many of these issues, let alone Iraq, he is decidedly vulnerable.

The talk of elections, and the pumping out of frothy polling is partly the media running the Brown Bounce narrative, but Brown too finds it concenient to exaggerate the strength of his postion as it keeps dissent down within his own party, works up the media and keeps Conservatives on the back foot to some extent.  But Cameron has weathered the worst of these early Brown weeks, and the options for him are suddenly starting to expand, and this week Cameron took a calculated risk by pushing Redwood out into the media.

Redwood is doing well.  His release onto the airwaves has startled Labour's media strategists, who imagined that after the drubbing handed out to all previous policies that smacked of euroscepticism, Cameron would have kept Redwood's intelligent policy proposals hidden away from view.  Redwood will expose many of Gordon Brown's week areas such as Pensions, Regulation and lack of infrastructural investment...in fact Brown's significant lack of funds after increasing government spending from £375 billion in 2001 to £555 billion a year now.

INSIDE THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY

If Cameron's doing reasonably well or as well as could be expected at this stage, and Brown's position is far weaker than it first appears, it is Cameron's position within his own Party which is still somewhat mysterious.

Ken Clarke holds no surpises and is totally disloyal to Cameron on all European issues.  He is an embarrassment and occasionally a real drag, but overall people know what he is all about, find it a bit curious, but don't see him as a major threat to Cameron.

The person who seems to be Cameron's right hand man, fighting the main battle against the EUSR Constitution is Hague.  Hague is a puzzle as he always sounds full-on eurosceptic, but a bit like with Brown's bounce in the polls, those who examine the detail of what he is saying find him less than convincing. 

Is Hague Too Vague?

He either doesn't know what is contained in the Constitution, or he is deliberately acting out a role of non-comprehension. See www.eureferendum.blogspot.co.uk - extract -

'This might even be William Hague's problem. His presentation on the treaty in "plain English" is now up on the Conservative website in which he refers to the proposed permanent president chairing the "Council of Ministers", rather than the European Council. One wonders if, like so many, he does not understand the difference.'

In addition, as explained by Richard North on the EU Referendum site, Hague is pairing up with the europhile Timothy Kirkhope MEP, leader of the Conservative delegation to the EU parliament to resurrect an alternative Treaty, which stands no chance in practice at all of getting through and past the other EU countries.       quote from eu referendum -

'Hague's view is that a treaty that handed powers back to member states and made the EU more accountable and democratic would offer "a tremendous opportunity to tackle some of the real problems the EU currently faces".
The trouble is that, although presented as something new, this is simply a rehash of something which Kirkhope produced in 2005 and is about as relevant now as it was then. .'

If Cameron's euroscepticism is genuine and it seems that it is much stronger than it was expected to be, is Cameron well or badly served by William Hague?  Hague messed or compromised on the EPP withdrawal.  He has a long history of sounding eurosceptic with his rhetoric, while the details of his proposals and his actions are usually far more sympthetic to the obliteration of the nation-states.  Hague is probably the same Bildeberger as he was in 2001 when he promised to 'keep the £ for one Parliament' i.e. get rid of it.

Cameron like Thatcher is surrounded at the top of the Party, it seems by a bunch of europhiles who could cause him great difficulty if he tries to put up a real fight against the EUSR Constitution.  This is one reason why Cameron's leadership has not been clear cut as to what it is really about.  If Hague was not such a 'wet', or if Cameron were to broaden his support base within the Party, it might help Cameron take up a stronger stance.

A Few John Biffen Gems

I remember asking him in the 1980s about the shadowing of the D-Mark when Lawson was all for it, and Thatcher was against it.  He said he definitely thought Thatcher was right. 

Sadly as we know the Europhiles wrecked the golden inheritance.

If she had been able to control Lawson, we would not have got so far into the ERM, and Black Wednesday would never have happened.  The whole of British politics might have taken another turn.

John was too intelligent for the bulk of the others, but was not a forceful character.  He accepted that in politics the wrong side often wins, and you have to make the best of it.  He just smiled his wry smile...He told me last year that he thought Liam Fox would have made a good leader.

The next door farmer stopped me in the road for a chat in years gone by, and we talked about John.  He said that he found the trouble with John Biffen was that 'he always agreed with you'!

Farewell To John Biffen

John was our MP at Oswestry in the '60s.  In his bachelor days, my Mum invited him to lunch at our farm many Sundays.  He taught me to play cricket on the lawn when I was 6 - a game he loved although he had little skill!

Later on in the mid-70s I lived for a while in his apartment in Vauxhall, from where he biked to the HoC every day (no Lexus behind).  He always came back late and left early so I rarely saw him. 

Pre-Sarah he led a quiet home life and worked extraordinarily long hours.  He then became a very well known figure on the national scene.

He assisted one or two campaigns I ran (mostly frustration with early EU regulations in the 1990's) by forwarding letters to relevant Ministers.  As he was in the Cabinet, this carried considerable weight, and we had some successes such as making it much easier for developers of new buildings to get regulators to work together rather than in competition with each other.

If only it was possible to get a John Biffen letter to achieve as much nowadays.  It's always impossible now as the reply comes back - 'sorry.  the proposal is impossible because of our treaty obligations etc. 

John often had a wry smile on his face, and would throw his head back when he laughed. He always asked in detail after everyone. 

Despite his illness he still attended the Lords until fairly recently, and was always interested to talk about the latest developments in the Party.

It is a sad day that he is gone as everyone who met him liked him.  He always had time for everone else.  Shropshire will not be the same without him around, where he and Sara would attend Point to Point Races and the like. 

Sarah should get his autobiography published when she is ready, as people would love to know all about John as a person as well as a politican.

Cameron Rotates The Troops

Where's David Cameron?  asked Newsnight ;last night.  Nowhere to be seen.

It's 100% John Redwood at the moment.  And yet John hadn't been seen on TV for aeons before that.

Is this the new strategy?  Rotation.

Cameron was getting a pasting for all sorts of nonsense and the media was building up  ahead of steam on him.  SO what does he do?  disappear.

Now they'll target Redwood and pull out as much spin against him as they can, and after about two weeks in the front line, John will need pulling out of the front line for some R&R.

Cameron should carry on this tactic - the same as they use in Afghanistan.  Put your troops out to battle and then rotate them after two weeks.  Maybe that's where he got the idea.  Whose turn is it next to draw media fire - Osborne?

Redwood On Newsnight

Newsnight spin as follows -

PRE INTERVIEW SPINTRO

'John Redwood 'says it's as good as a tax cut''

Regulation is being called the same as Cuts in Tax and Cuts in Spending by Newsnight.

Labour see it as a lurch to the right. It's the usual Tory Europe and tax cuts stuff.

David Cameron is nowhere to be seen.

INTERVIEW

Kwark to Redwood - what government ever achieved such big cuts in red tape?

Redwood. the target is much bigger than it used to be.

Kwark. Cutting care homes regulation. (said cutting care homes first)

Redwood. More places possible with less regulation - not less.

Kwark. making it easier to make workers redunadant.

Redwood. employers are unwilling to employ. 5.4 million don't have a job.

Kwark. you will scrap most of H & S regulations.

Redwood. No. about 10%. It's expensive and not effective - review required.

Kwark. You're prepared for a fight with Europe as over Working Time Directove. That signals euroscepticism.

Redwood. Your used to seeing politicians triangulating. I've spent 18 months studying how to make us more successful. There is a lot here that needs looking at.

Kwark. Will this be policy. cameron?

Redwood. Osborne likes it. But the whole shadow cabinet will have to deicde.

Kwark. Tomorrow you address pensions final salary schemes?

Redwood. 2/3 of all final salary schemes are closed to new members.

Kwark . the companies don't want to reopen final salary schemes.
in current climate.

Redwood. we're hoping to improve things at the margin, by improving and moving things in a better direction.

Kwark. Tomorrrow's Guardian - Brown spends £39 billion. Flood defences etc. isn't this what you are saying?

Redwood. (Surprised to see this a little but answered well) We want to improve the infrastructure of the country using private money so the government doesn't have to spend.

CUT

What planet is Kwark from?

She says that regulation cuts are spending cuts.  I think she lives on the dark side - never met the other side of the argument before...and believes she is facing an alien influence.

Redwood wants rubber wheels on trains.  Will that be vulcanized rubber?  boom boom.