All your bailouts are belong to us

Alice Cook asks some pertinent questions:

The head of the European bailout fund - the EFSF - is on his way to China. He is looking for cash from the Communists.What does this say about the eurozone? At a minimum, it looks desperate.

Do you think eurozone leaders will be raising any human rights issues when they next visit Beijing?

What is the price for silence?

Whatever the price, it will be huge. Never raising the subject of Tibet or Taiwan ever again, perhaps.

The Greek Problem

I am grateful to Alice Cook and her blog UK Bubble, UK Economy for this post, which is the clearest and most succinct summary so far, of why the Euro is in such a mess.

Greece is only days away from national humiliation. The Greek government will admit what we all already know-that it can no longer service its debt. It will ask its creditors to restructure and write down government liabilities to more manageable levels.

Understandably, the Greek people have become deeply pessimistic about the future. This is reflected in the latest consumer sentiment surveys. Sentiment has fallen off a cliff, and Greeks are on the edge of a collective nervous breakdown.

Nevertheless, it is wrong to think that Greece is an outlier. It is not a special case. It is not unique. The Greek government made the same mistakes that other European countries made.

Read on ...

IAM and ABS 2

In my previous post, I mentioned that I had written to the IAM over their stance of support for the European Parliament proposals for compulsory ABS on bikes over 125cc. I reproduce their reply to my first message, and the content of my reply to that.

Dear Mr Nowhere

Thank you for your email of 22 September.

It is true that we have publicly supported this measure on road safety grounds, but it would be a shame if this single story were to bring your nine years’ support of the IAM to an end.

This European move is in any event unlikely to mean a retro-fitting of ABS to existing bikes.

Anything that makes motorcyclists safer in education terms we would support, and so by extension, if engineering can help reduce motorcycle casualties, we support that too.

Regards
Vince Yearley
IAM

My response:

Hi Vince

Thank you for your prompt reply. Just on a point of detail, I joined the IAM in 1992, so I make that 19 years of membership.

I think you may have missed the main issue that I have with the IAM's position. It is not the benefits of ABS that I was questioning, but the forcing of manufacturers to fit it to all new bikes. There is a big difference between advice, guidance and education on one hand, and compulsion on the other. I would support the first, but feel uncomfortable with the second.

Whether ABS will be mandated to be retro-fitted or not is irrelevant. It is the compulsory fitting to any bike, and the IAM support of it, that I object to. I suppose I could just keep riding older and older bikes if I chose to. That's a kind of freedom, isn't it?

I cannot accept the logical leap in your final sentence, from supporting education in motorcycle safety to supporting mandatory engineering solutions. Education enables people to make informed choices, whereas compulsion removes choice altogether. One does not naturally flow from the other.

Do I take it that the IAM will be supporting all the other proposals currently under discussion in the European Parliament, such as compulsory high-visibility clothing and anti-tampering measures?

The header line to your website speaks of "increasing skills" and "raising driving and riding standards". I cannot see how you get from that position to one where you are supporting the removal of people's freedom to choose. As you can see, this is a philosophical concern, not a technical one. But if the IAM is going to come down on the side of Big Brother, then I fear we may have to part company.

Best wishes

Richard

I know I have a lot of non-biking readers of this blog (and you are all very welcome, be assured of that), who might be asking: What is he on about? If it makes his hobby safer, what's the problem? Surely no-one in his right mind could object to the imposition of rules and regulations designed to save lives?

Well, yes I could. The state in general has no right to force people to do things for their own good. The EU in particular has no mandate to pass any laws or regulations governing British people, because their consent to such rule has never been sought. People with no experience of motorcycling have no right to tell motorcyclists what is or is not good for them. And, of course, there is the 'slippery slope' argument. It's ABS on bikes today. What tomorrow?

• All people walking in remote areas must take a satellite phone (for their own safety)
• All people wishing to take a boat from off its moorings must be aged 18 or over and have passed a rigorous test of competence (for their own safety)
• Anyone proposing to commit an 'act of a horticultural nature' must have a medical certificate to prove they have had a tetanus jab and be wearing the appropriate protective clothing (for their own safety).

All perfectly reasonable regulations if you believe that the state has a duty to stop people harming themselves. But where does it stop?

And let me dispose of the 'if it saves just one life' argument. If every biker in Europe was forced to wear fluoro yellow suits, have ABS, kept their bikes totally unmodified, and rode everywhere at 45 mph, and it saved one life, would it be worth it?

My answer is no, it wouldn't.

IAM and ABS

I read a story in Visordown that the IAM, of which I am a member for both car and motorcycle, is supporting calls to make anti-lock brakes compulsory on all large motorcycles from 2015. Apparently, the European Parliament is shortly to be discussing proposals to force manufacturers to fit ABS to all bikes over 125cc by 2017, and the IAM has lined itself up with these proposals, and in fact is lobbying to have them brought in two years early.

This post is not about ABS. I have ABS on my car, and I love it, although I would appreciate an 'off' switch, because there are a limited number of circumstances where it makes things far worse - ice, for one. I have had bikes with ABS and bikes without, and I haven't ever had to brake hard enough in an emergency for it to kick in. I am much less convinced of the benefits of ABS on a bike because hard braking on a bike calls for much greater care and skill than in a car, and keeping the wheels turning is only part of the equation. ABS adds weight, expense and complexity to a machine where lightness and simplicity are virtues. I'd prefer a bike without it, although it wouldn't be a deal-breaker if the machine I wanted was so equipped. But I would like the choice. The European Parliament would appear to think that I should be denied that choice. And the IAM appear to be supporting them.

This post is about compulsion, not technology. One of my favourite quotations of all time, and one I try to live by, is currently heading the blog:

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
- P. J. O'Rourke

We do not have the right to tell others how to live their lives. We have the right to insist they do not harm us; but we do not have the right to insist they do not harm themselves. That is why, although I always wear a helmet and safety gear while riding and a seat belt while driving, I do not support laws making these things mandatory. The same goes for ABS.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who wish to see the world made a better place, usually in accordance with their own prejudices, and by force if necessary, and those who just wish to live their lives according to their own consciences, without interference. I am firmly in the latter camp, while governments of both left and right are in the former. By supporting the calls for mandatory ABS, the IAM is aligning itself with those who wish to interfere, to nanny, to scold, and to control. The IAM has done, and continues to do, a great job in educating, training, assessing and advising. But when it crosses the line into supporting compulsion, it ceases to be an organisation I want to be part of. Yesterday, I wrote the following to IAM Motoring Policy and Research:

I have read on a motorcycling website that the IAM is publicly supporting compulsory ABS for new motorcycles. Please could you confirm if this is true or not? If true, this could be a resigning issue for me. If the IAM sees itself as assisting government in applying yet more rules and regulations to our already overburdened lives, then I would not want to be part of it. The IAM would no longer speak for me.

Advise members by all means, advise government by all means, but when you cross the line into advocacy of compulsion that will affect your members you have gone too far.

Today, I received the following reply:

Dear Mr Nowhere

Thank you for your email of 22 September.

It is true that we have publicly supported this measure on road safety grounds, but it would be a shame if this single story were to bring your nine years’ support of the IAM to an end.

This European move is in any event unlikely to mean a retro-fitting of ABS to existing bikes.

Anything that makes motorcyclists safer in education terms we would support, and so by extension, if engineering can help reduce motorcycle casualties, we support that too.

Regards

Vince Yearley
IAM

This reads like a whole degree course in missing the point, and I will be replying in due course. And it's 19 years, not nine, by the way.

More anon.

We know best

Via Sue, news that there is to be a public rally on 2 April on 'Leaving the European Union'.

2 April 2011
14:30 to 17:00
Friends Meeting House
173 Euston Road
London NW1 2BJ

Every poll ever taken in the UK shows a clear majority in favour or leaving the EU. We have been promised a referendum on our continued membership, first by Gordon Brown, then by Nick Clegg, and finally by 'Cast Iron' Dave Cameron. None of these have come to pass. Until now, denial of a voice to the British people has been a matter of dither and obfuscation rather than outright refusal. There has always been a good reason for 'not yet'.

Today, that has changed. From today's Daily Express:

But Downing Street insisted that the issue of EU membership was not on the
table. A spokesman said: “The Government believes that membership of the EU is
in the national interest, and for this reason there will not be a referendum on
whether we remain a member state.

So that's quite clear, then. In black and white.

We know best.
We know what you are going to say.
So we won't ask you.

Counterproductive to treat children like this. Illegal to treat employees like this. Government policy to treat a nation of 60m like this.

I'm not a halfwit. Tipping point reached. It's UKIP from now on.

Better Off Out

Sue has a nice bit of music to accompany a headline in a major English newspaper that I thought I would never see:

GET BRITAIN OUT OF EUROPE

(Which should, of course, read "out of the EU" - Britain isn't leaving Europe unless there are some pretty powerful tugboats out beyond the Irish Sea.)

The Daily Express has come out in favour of a British withdrawal from the EU. Leading article in the link above. They are also running an online petition, linked in the article. I have signed.

Regular readers will know that I love Europe, meaning the European Nations. As a Brit, I feel part of Europe emotionally, and I believe that co-operation between European nations is a good thing. What I can't stand is the unaccountable, corrupt and profoundly undemocratic European Union. I voted 'yes' in 1975, when what was on offer was membership of a trading bloc. That is nothing like what the EU is today, after 35 years of name-changes and mission creep, and at no point have I, or any other Briton, been asked my opinion on whether I want to be part of it. This is not xenophobia: this is a belief in independence and self-government, democracy and accountability, and a hatred of corruption and self-serving elites.

Perhaps this is the first crack in the dam.

I Love Europe

I love Europe. I love the people, I love the countries, I love the landscapes, I love the roads, I love the food and drink. In all measurable ways, I am a Europhile. But I'm not all that keen on the EU.

I'm not a little-Englander, harking back to the 'good old days' of the Brishempah. I'm not a racist, believing that all them pesky forriners have come to steal our jobs. But I am a democrat - I believe in the right of people to govern themselves. You know, the kind of thing we fight wars for in other parts of the world. And 27 unelected people governing 500 million doesn't sound like anything close to a democracy to me. Especially when it's so corrupt that the accounts haven't been signed off for, what is it, eleven years now? Twelve?

I believe that Gordon Brown broke his word when he signed the Lisbon Treaty behind everyone's backs, despite having promised a referendum on the Constitution (and when even someone like Valery Giscard d'Estaing admits that they are one and the same, I believe him). I believe that David Cameron broke his word disgracefully when his 'cast-iron pledge' to hold a referendum on the Treaty wasn't followed through. I believe that we have been lied to and manipulated by the European Union and their obedient followers in Westminster.

I voted in the referendum in 1975. I voted in favour of staying in, mostly because of Edward Heath's statement that voting 'yes' would entail no loss of sovereignty for the UK. He lied, of course, and he admitted that he lied. I voted for what was then called the 'Common Market', and that's what it was - a trading agreement between a group of nations. Then it became the European Economic Community. 'Community' implies more than just trading, but we let them have it. Then the European Community (see how the 'economic' got quietly sidelined?). Then the European Union. I would never have voted for what we have today, and yet at no point in that process of mission creep and name-changing were the British people ever asked what they thought. That's not democracy in my book.

I think we should have a referendum on our continued membership, and I think we should have it now. Recent figures suggest that even in the most Europhile countries, support for the EU has reached a 9-year low:

The European Commission says fewer than half of voters across Europe are in favour of the union.

The “Eurobarometer” survey – conducted in May – found only 49 per cent of voters backed the EU, four per cent fewer than last year.

The UK figure is 20%, which should tell you something.

Via Dick Puddlecote, I hear of a new push to get a referendum on the matter. The Coalition has promised that any measure getting more than 100,000 signatures will get a hearing in the House of Commons. They are hoping for 10,000 from an online petition. You can sign up here.

I have. The result of any referendum will be a foregone conclusion, I would have thought, which is why it either won't be allowed to happen, or will be non-binding. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. (And by the way, I have yet to hear of any argument against a referendum which isn't some re-hash of the 'our masters know better then us' theme. If you know of one, please feel free to rehearse it in the comments. Note: not an argument against leaving the EU, on which there are many serious points to be made for and against, but an argument against asking the British people for their opinion.)

Daniel Hannan has some interesting figures here. Two million pounds an hour.

We're counting on you, President Klaus

Prsident Klaus of the Czech Republic is still standing firm against signing the Lisbon Treaty. Once he signs, it's law, and the chances of the British people ever getting a say in how they are governed ever again are slim indeed.

The Taxpayers' Alliance are hosting an online petition to urge President Klaus to stand firm.

Here it is.

If you don't like the sound of President Blair, you know what to do.