Vox Polis

What a surprise! John Reid’s given into populism and fear and announced that the UK is going to restrict access to Bulgarians and Romanians. He said in a speech to the Police Sperintendents Association that immigration from the two member states would have to be “carefully managed”.

Even though the Observer reports that Tony Blair was seemingly convinced by business supporters of Roland Rudd’s Business for New Europe (BNE) group to let them in.

Its good to see that Daily Mail-ism and xenophobia win once again!

Ruth Lea covers the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in today’s Telegraph. Like a few of her past articles, she steals covers some research from Open Europe (who she does not always reference). -Well it must be hard to produce a weekly column!

Although I agree with her (that’s a first for me) and Open Europe that the scheme in its present form is failing, it looks like Ruth and Open Europe have got some of the details wrong.

Ruth Lea begins by seemingly welcoming climate change- she implies that because climate change helped humans move from being farmers and herders to the present “civilised” people that the current climate change threat- that will see forests destroyed, animal species wiped out and many places turned into deserts- will present a number of opportunities for humanity. Really! The only opportunities i can think of is opening some new hotels on the soon to be Blackpool Rivieria.
On the ETS Ruth Lea argues that:

“some British firms, especially electricity generating companies, reduced their emissions and hence output because they were short of permits. Inevitably this led to higher electricity prices.”

This is incorrect. As the National Allocation Plan shows, most power plants increased their emissions, but because of the elasticities of demand and supply, they, unlike alot of companies, can pass the whole cost of the scheme onto the consumer, in this case us, and this caused the electrictiy prices to rise. (and I thought Lea was an economist).

She cites Open Europe’s briefing that tells how public institutions (such as the NHS and armed forces) have had to fork out millions to buy extra allocations, whereas oil companies have made millions by selling them - this is slightly misrepresented. This is the potential cost not the actual cost, because we do not know how much the companies bought and sold the allocations at, and therefore do not know how much they paid (the scheme works like the share market, where prices can go up as well as down). Also not everyone had to buy/ sell in the first year, and may decide to settle up at the end of the first phase which runs for 4 years. The Open Europe paper only looks at the first year, and does not take account of changes over the whole period- such as weather, new technology etc. We may find that in 2008, overall oil firms end up paying more and the NHS makes a profit. Although this is unlikely, we should not be mislead.

It’s no surprise that many are reluctant to allow EU member states’ to share security information when this can happen. De Standaard reports that a Belgian military intelligence officer was able to walk out of the Belgian anti-terrorist agency with a box load of photocopied top secret documents on his last day on the job. The agency only has one security camera and no alarm.

Probably thought no one would want to steal Belgium’s military secrets - who’d want them?!

It seems that the 35 hour week is too much for most of the French. According to this survey by TNS-Sofres for the magazine Vivre Plus most people want to work only 6 hours a day.

No wonder the French economy is doing so badly. The unemployment rate may be coming down but its still 8.9%.

So the Government has decided to agree with the Tories and introduce permits for Bulgarians and Romanians.  This is likely to fail to achieve any of its goals, because people will come to the UK anyway and work here illegally or move to a member state where there are no restrictions.  We’re also likely to lose out on the best workers.

And I thought there was going to be a proper debate about immigration.  Yet again the Government is making policy based on misguided tabloid pressure.

It seems that Romania is preparing to place its own restrictions on worker migration when it joins the EU next year in retaliation to those planned by Britain and other member states. Although you might think that no one in their right mind would want to work in Romania where the average wage is $7,700 - Romania does face a shortage in construction workers - so all those Polish builders could end up there (the average Polish wage is $6,948) unless Poland places restrictions too.

Have the Tories learnt nothing from their last two election defeats?? They’re back onto the immigration debate, calling for restrictions on immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania when they join the EU next year. This is a bad idea because:

• As I have pointed out here and here, we’re unlikely to swamped with new arrivals.

• Restrictions and quotas will not stop them coming to the UK. It will only stop them working here legally (the black market will be very welcoming). This is because of the Free Movement directive, which even allows them to claim health care and benefits.

• Think how they feel. Does no one else think it’s hypocritical to allow Western Europeans to visit, work, buy up all the nice land/houses in Eastern/Central Europe, but not allow them to do the same??

I always thought that 8 Hummer, cigar chomping Arnie would have little in common with environmentalism. How wrong could I be?

Not only did Arnie sign the “historic” agreement with Tony yesterday, which may lead to California joining the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, but he’s also pledged to reduce emissions in California by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 which in comparison leaves the UK lying in the dust.

A sceptical writer would say that at the end of the day, they’re only targets and mean very little- how many targets has New Labour missed during its time in Power?!

A cyncial mind would point to the critiscism Arnie’s received for his contradictory record on the environment. Or how Arnie is embracing the environment because it plays well with voters, who coincidentally will be voting in November. Such a writer might even suggest that by concentrating on environmentalism, he is turning his back on an unpopular President who cares very little for the environment.

Not this blogger. I think Arnie is clearly the man to save the world. According to this, Arnie got his hands on a green hummer…what more proof do you need?!
More seriously however:

It was no surprise that representatives of some of the companies who have / are likely to gain out of joining the EU ETS scheme, were present at the meeting yesterday. Lord Browne from BP was there - they’ve made profits in the first year of the scheme according to this. Richard Branson from Virgin flew over too- they would gain under the expansion of flights into the scheme. Of course they endorse this scheme.
The biggest question is, will Arnie really be willing to let the EU decide which Californian companies / public institutions can pollute and by how much (the EU Commission currently signs off each member state’s National Allocation Plan). I doubt it! If I was sceptic I would say that the Blair-Schwarzenegger agreement was nothing but electioneering!

Thanks to the Sunday Times we now know a bit more about the Government’s views on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania into the EU. Interestingly enough those views are: We’re stuffed! Let’s panic!

It seems that the Government’s worried that “undesirables” will enter the UK. So they’ve come up with a list of those who arent welcome- all 45,000 of them. I’m not sure what they’ll do with this list as they’ve already admitted they can’t do anything about them coming here (mostly because of a mixture of EU laws- the freedom of movement directive is a good starting place for more information). But at least if they have a list they might know which “undesirables” have entered the country. Although when it comes to tracing people, needles and haystacks aways come to mind.

I’ve already mentioned my support for enlargement of the EU and I standby that view. And i’m still not convinced by the argument that hundreds of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians will pack up their belongings and head to the UK on the 1st January. For one thing its cold here, and most of their cousins live in warmer climates.

Thanks to the leaked documents we know what the Government’s estimates are on immigration. IPPR said 56,000. Migrant watch said 300,000 (in the first 20 months). The Government?

Right bang in the middle with - 60,000-140,000.

Maybe we should have a bet to see who’s the closest. My moneys on 70k.

There’s a great post over on David Rennie’s blog today where he gives an insight into how euromyths are developed.  Rennie traces a story on bombay mix - apparently the EU Commission has plans to change the name to Mumbai mix- from a contact at the home office (probably overheard in the local pub) to a full blown story in the Sun. The journalist who wrote it (well got another reporter to write it for him) pretty much admits making it up.
EU Referendum destroyed a similar story with their usual finesse on minced meat products a few weeks ago.

It worries me that such stories are not challenge more often..and they certainly need to be. Half the people that read the story will approach it appropriately with cynicism, the other half will always believe everything they read.  This rarely helps in adding anything to the debate over the future of the EU.