Recent Articles

The EU is still in trouble and needs to face its inner-demons

by Guest     August 26, 2013 at 1:02 pm

by John Stephenson

Those with an eye for economic optimism will have had their eyes on the Eurozone in the last two weeks, as the European Union announced a return to growth following almost 18 months of economic decline.

Then again, it will be economists with a nose for political rabble-rousing that may sense a sort of bureaucratic-bluff from the likes of Mario Draghi, Oli Rehn and co.

Instead this recovery has been for the most part intergovernmental, increasing the level of tension between heads of states and allowing a Franco-German alliance to play Napoleon over smaller members.

“No one should believe that another half century of peace in Europe is a given – it’s not” was the ominous tone set by Merkel just two years ago. This was on the back of Germany bailing out its fellow Eurozone members, a move agreed upon in the German parliament, leading to riots within the streets of Athens.

Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, came to the fore following economic turmoil within the Europe, pledging that he and his colleagues would see that Brussels does “whatever it takes” in order to return to prosperity.

One measure announced was the proposed purchasing of the bonds and debts of weak member states in order to buttress a recovery. This never happened.

In fact evidence suggests that such moves are futile in attempting to resolve an economic downturn, due to the affinity that countries, safe in the knowledge that they have a fall-back option if things go awry, have for taking risks.

In January 2011 the EU saw through new legislation designed to combat the recession. This consisted of minimum requirements for national fiscal frameworks and sanctions against countries running up huge deficits. What is bemusing however is the emphasis put on such measures when evidence strongly suggests that the effect such behaviour has is almost wholly reliant on prior circumstances which are not being addressed by the Union.

The Eurozone is liable to fall into the same difficulties it has done previously if any of the member states experience renewed instability in the coming years.

Furthermore, the policy provisions in place to protect against further insolvency appear fundamentally flawed. How are we to have a financial union if the EU remains the “lender of last resort” to member states following a financial crisis? The answer given from Brussels is budgetary consolidation, to ensure that such problems never occur again, thus rendering any bail-outs unnecessary. Yet the IMF’s own figures show that for countries such as Greece and Ireland to attain debt ratios of 60% of GDP by 2030, they would have to maintain budgetary adjustments over 10%.

If the likes of Draghi and Barroso are to really deserve a pat on the back, then they need to enforce measures such as further fiscal union and a more powerful ECB. The argument over “more or less Europe” is becoming tiresome and to see technocrats in preparation for celebration is nauseating.

The EU needs to make decisions now and it needs to make them fast. To lumber around while sitting on the fence will no longer cut it. In fact, it never did and I imagine the founding fathers of the EC will be turning in their graves seeing EU officials commend the union as being on track while unemployment in Spain remains at 25%.

—

John Stephenson tweets from here: @JohnStephenso14

Ed West interview: debating the ‘illusions’ of a diverse society

by Sunny Hundal     August 25, 2013 at 7:06 pm

The centre-right commentator Ed West, previously at the Telegraph, has written a book on diversity and immigration. I thought it would be useful to do an email interview and ask him about some of his assertions.

Sunny: Briefly, what is the main point you make in your new book?

Ed West:
That is the social costs of large-scale immigration tend to outweigh the benefits after a certain fairly early point, and that greater ethnic, religious and cultural diversity places a strain on society by reducing trust. This has a negative impact on all sorts of things, most of which are tend to be the historical property of the Left; in particular our willingness to share public goods with fellow citizens.

I think a lot of people on the Left agree with this to a certain extent, but because anti-racism is the most important tenet of their moral being they would rather an analysis that explained it away as something that can be countered, whether by government efforts of attempts to change hearts and minds. This is where I would disagree with them.

—

Sunny: Arguably, many other changes across British society in the last 30 years – de-industrialisation, mass unemployment, increased individualism and liberalism, higher geographical mobility, globalisation etc have reduced trust too. Where’s the evidence that immigration is behind it all?

Yes, all of those things cause lower trust (the decline of religion too is a massive factor). Anything that brings freedom will bring atomisation, they’re two sides of the same coin. In regards to diversity reducing trust, there have been a number of studies; the most widely quoted is Robert Putnam’s, but there are various others, by academics at MIT, Harvard and the Home Office. There are (a smaller) number of studies showing that it doesn’t make an impact, but social sciences will always bring these contradictory studies, and I think the weight of evidence is in favour of the former group. (But that may be just my own personal biases.)

Looking at it logically, it would be astonishing if greater ethnic, religious and other types of diversity didn’t reduce trust, considering that by its very nature religions developed to bind a group of people together. Ethnicity like religion is also formed by membership of a particular culture.

Sometimes this is not neccessarily a bad thing; the converse to the modern liberal society are clannish ones, where people are very closely bonded towards their own kin but very distrusting of outsiders. Ethnic groups developed as extended clans and in ancient slave-owning societies slaves from the same ethnic groups were kept apart because, even when the language barrier was overcome and a lingua franca was understood, they were believed to be too dangerously cohesive for the owners. Tests of prisoner’s dilemma today between members of the same and different ethnic groups consistently show this still to be true – people around the world are more likely to turn over some from a different group.

I’m not saying this will be the case with everyone. A great deal of our feelings of trust and neighbourliness are affected by things like wealth and also general fear levels (and liberals tend to have lower fear levels than conservatives, which is why they’re often nicer people). Wealthy and/or liberal people are less affected by the downsides of diversity, but because wealthy and liberal people tend to be more vocal and prominent in this debate as in many others it’s easy to forget that they are not the norm.

—

Sunny: Let’s assume there are lower levels of trust among Britons. Regardless of whether you believe if this was caused by immigrants, what do you suggest we do about it?

I think there is a wider question about social capital, the term popularised by Robert Putnam but a lot older, which was sort of ignored for a while but is now taken up a lot of people, like David Goodhart, David Willetts, Jonathan Haidt and (most recently) Jesse Norman with his book on Edmund Burke (and also the Blue Labour/Red Tory people). Goodhart describes himself as a post-liberal, which is a pretty good phrase, because it says that he’s accepted the social reforms of the 60s in terms of women’s and gay rights, and anti-racism, but there are different challenges now.

They come from different angles but the general idea is that liberal individualism has been taken too far and fails to take account that humans are social animals and don’t generally act or think like indviduals. Both the Left and Right have embraced this, in the latter case with a sort of market fundamentalism. We’re not rational, isolated individuals who calculate only our own best interests, we have families, friends, wider communities, fellow religous believers, compatriots whose interests we wish to look after (and should look after).

The Left has sort of fallen out love with many of these institutions – the family, church, country – because it seems them as oppressive or homophobic or racist, which they can be, but they’re also often not and provide means of support for the most vulnerable. Modern libertarians tend to dislike these institution because they hold back the individual but a society run along the lines of some of Ayn Rand’s disciples would be a living hell for the poor or those not blessed without specific talents. Unfortunately I think our chancellor is probably a disciple.

Haidt (a liberal) says the biggest failing of the modern Left is that it fails to see that many of its reforms reduce social capital, and that the victims tend to be poorer. I think people on the Left are in denial about the impact that the decline in traditional two-parent families has on the very poor, and will perform cartwheels to deny it (although the evidence is hard to fix on, because it’s hard to look at which way the causal arrow is going).

On the other hand conservatives are in denial about the money-orientated signals that the free-market gives out, and how it does (whatever the Blessed Margaret’s intention) make people more selfish; they’re also deluded if they think that the problem is people on benefits rather than low wages and the working poor, and the social catastrophe that is housing inflation. Tackling all those issues would probably help. And did I mention immigration?

—

Sunny: It seems to me that the other factors you mention have reduced social capital much more than immigration. So why focus on that? And other than restricting immigration, how would you increase social capital?

Personally I think that’s unlikely – the evidence seems to suggest that immigration and diversity are big factors in trust and societal well-being (which was strangely skirted over by the Spirit Level, although I dont doubt that trust and equality have a fair amount of interaction). But even if its not the biggest factor, even so – rather than asking why focus on that, I would ask why not? In what other area would you say we shouldnt even look at the downsides? If a pretty radical social change has downsides and on an intellectual level they’re ignored (which they were for a long time – on a non-intellectual level anti-immigration rhetoric has always been around but I would argue the tabloids have less influence than Radio 4), then you have to ask yourself why.

My personal interest was stoked by what I saw as intellectual cowardice, lots of people were unhappy about what was happening, many of the arguments in favour of immigration and diversity seem pretty tenuous, but no one wants to see themselves as morally tinged with racism, and once you get beyond the straightforward economic arguments then some sort of self-examination on that issue is unavoidable.

I think anyone on the Right who raises this as an issue is going to be accused of stirring things up for personal and political gain, but I think if you find it difficult to imagine that other people have sincerely held views different to yours, the only possible explanation can be malice. (Of course there are politicians and media people who will always try to inspire hatred for personal benefit, there’s no question of that, but lots of people have sincere beliefs and try to articulate them responsibly).

There’s also a sort of utopian side to the anti-racist movement that says any problems with a multi-racial society are caused by a lack of anti-racism measures, and people delibaretly stirring things up. I would just argue that by its very structure very diverse socities are more fragile and prone to discord and that’s why everyone since the Persians has had a system of multiculturalism in place to keep that in check.

—
You can buy Ed West’s book on Amazon: The Diversity Illusion – What We Got Wrong About Immigration & How to Set It Right – from Amazon.co.uk or other sites.

In France, austerity being used to undermine the state pensions system

by Guest     August 23, 2013 at 4:15 pm

by Tom Gill

A showdown between the French Government and unions is looming over reforms to the country’s ‘generous’ pension system.

Strikes and protests are scheduled for September 10 in response to plans by the Socialist administration of President Francois Hollande to extend the 41.5-year contribution payment period required for a full pension and other possible changes.

Hollande has indicated he has no intention of touching the retirement age that former President Nicolas Sarkozy raised to 62 from 60, having fulfilled a campaign pledge to roll it back for those who started work early. Nor is he minded to trim annual pension increases to below inflation, another option under consideration.

Employers berate the President for timidity, and say more cuts to the system are needed to plug an expected 20 billion euro funding gap in the system by 2020.

‘We cannot wait any longer and be content with half-measures because our pension system is in a disastrous state,’ the new head of France’s Medef employers organisation Pierre Gattaz wrote in an op-ed in Le Monde newspaper this week

Medef will be making this point at a meeting with the government and unions on Monday and Tuesday, when Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault is expected to formally outline the reform plans.

Gattaz said it was ‘urgent’ to review pension arrangements allowing the military, police and others to retire much younger, although Hollande is expected to leave them unchanged too.

The head of the Medef employers’ group also called for France’s state-dominated pension system to be curtailed and a bigger role given to privately funded pensions.

Public spending on pensions is 14.4 percent of output in France versus 12.9 percent in the EU.

Businesses in the eurozone’s second-largest economy, which has just exited recession, fret about a prospective rise in payroll taxes as part of the pension system reform. Gattaz claims that increasing their contributions would hurt employment further at a time when more people are out of a job in France than ever before.

And it is not just employers breathing down Hollande’s neck – the European Commission is reportedly looking for indications that the government is serious about ‘reform’ in exchange for agreeing some loosening of the country’s timetable in reigning in its deficit.

Hollande is right to fear a popular backlash against changes to the country’s pensions system. All past attempts – including under Sarkozy – have encountered weeks of demonstrations and costly industrial strikes.

But is ‘reform’ – in the modern turn-the-clock-back meaning of the word – inevitable?

First, it is important to clear up the nonsense that pensions are generous in France – the average pension is only 60 percent of working-age post-tax income, versus the 69 percent average for industrialised countries. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/uk-france-pensions-analysis-idUKBRE96K02W20130721

Second, companies will be able to claw back much of the rise in employer contributions (+ 0.1%, or 3 billion euros) expected in the changes, through tax breaks, and they will still be paying less than they did 20 odd years ago, point out Catherine Mills, from the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, and Frederick Rauch, editor of the journal Économie et Politique.

Third, the problem is not the cost of the system per se, but the lack of funds to underpin it. In an article in L’Humanite newspaper http://www.humanite.fr/social-eco/des-propositions-alternatives-pour-le-financement-547054 Mills and Rauch point out that this is due to rising unemployment and downward pressure on wages, the result of austerity policies pursued in France and Europe, and the fact that firms are more than ever putting shareholders before employees.

Firms now pay out twice as much to their owners and for their financing needs than on payroll taxes. Indeed, the proportion of companies’ financial resources handed out as dividends has risen from 30% to 80% since the end of the 1980s, according to a report in Alternatives Economiques. http://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/pourquoi-les-entreprises francaises_fr_art_1217_63975.html And a tidy 100 billion euros were pocketed by fat cat shareholders of France’s largest companies in the three years to 2011 alone.

The two economists calculate that a drop in the wages paid by employers of 1% costs the pension system 800 million euros in revenue. When the country has 100,000 more unemployed, the pension system loses 1 billion euros in funding. Thanks to economic rigor in France and across the Continent, the country now has over 10% out of work. ‘Thus boosting employment and wages is the key to making the pension system sustainable,’ say Mills and Rauch.

All of which implies an end to the mad, self-defeating austerity policies prevailing across Europe, and a radical ‘reform’ (in the traditional sense of the word) of the capitalist system.

—-
Tom Gill blogs at www.revolting-europe.com

BBC Newsbeat asks: is homophobia just “banter”?

by Newswire     August 23, 2013 at 1:48 pm

BBC Newsbeat team posted this question today on Twitter

Football fans could be banned from pro matches if they shout or tweet homophobic chants. Good idea/overreaction? Abuse/banter?

— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) August 23, 2013

.

They later justified this with another tweet

Some fans have told us they feel anything goes on terraces with regards sexuality/race/gender. They feel it's "banter."

— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) August 23, 2013

Some people may indeed think homophobic / racist / misogynist chants are just “banter” – but should the BBC draw that equivalence?

Would the return of widespread football-fans chanting of “You fucking Paki bastard” simply be seen as banter?

Seems like an absurd question to ask…
(via @FelicityMorse)

Update: They have tweeted at us to clarify

@sunny_hundal the word "banter" should have been in quotes as we were referring to what some fans had said not expressing a view (1/2)

— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) August 23, 2013

.

@sunny_hundal @sunny_hundal That should have been clear in our initial tweet. The perils of trying to say too much in one tweet. (2/2)

— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) August 23, 2013

Study: Tory voices on BBC four times as much as Labour

by Sunny Hundal     August 23, 2013 at 12:10 pm

A study by researchers at Cardiff University has found that in 2012 David Cameron outnumbered Ed Miliband by a factor of nearly four to one (53 vs 15) in reports on on immigration, the EU and religion across the BBC.

It also found that for reporting of all topics, Conservative politicians were featured more than 50% more often than Labour ones (24 vs 15) across the two time periods on the BBC News at Six.

It is usually the case that incumbents get more coverage than opposition politicians.

But the difference is remarkable. Labour leaders and ministers outnumbered Conservative shadow ministers by approximately two to one in 2007. By 2012 this has become four-to-one in favour of the Tories.

The evidence is even more stark for the BBC’s coverage of businesses versus trade unions:

In both 2007 and 2012, across all programming, business representatives received substantially more airtime on BBC network news (7.5% and 11.1% of source appearances) than they did on either ITV (5.9% and 3.8%) or Channel 4 News (2.4% and 2.2%). When we compare the representation of business with that of organised labour, the findings are even more striking.

On BBC News at Six, business representatives outnumbered trade union spokespersons by more than five to one (11 vs 2) in 2007 and by 19 to one in 2012. On the issues of immigration and the EU in 2012, out of 806 source appearances, not one was allocated to a representative of organised labour. Considering the impact of the issues on the UK workforce, and the fact that trade unions represent the largest mass democratic organisations in civil society, such invisibility raises troubling questions for a public service broadcaster committed to impartial and balanced coverage.

Today programme banking crisis interviewees 15/9/2008 to 20/10/2008.

.

The range of debate was even narrower if we examine who the programme featured as interviewees in the two week period around the UK bank bailouts

More on the study at The Conversation

The Labour vote is actually the strongest of all parties

by Guest     August 23, 2013 at 9:00 am

by Neil Foster

How strong is Labour’s support right now? YouGov have just published the full data tables from a poll they recently conducted for Prospect last month.

What I find interesting is that contrary to the suggestion from some areas of the press that Labour’s support is ‘soft’, it actually is the firmest of all the four leading parties.

The poll asked:
‘The next general election is due to be held in May 2015. Have you decided definitely how you will vote then, or will you wait until nearer the time before deciding how to vote?’

55% of respondents said they’ve ‘definitely decided how to vote’, 42% said they’d wait nearer to the time and remainder didn’t know. However it’s the party breakdown of those who’ve already decided vote that will give cheer to Labour.

Two years away from a general election 66% of current Labour supporters say will definitely vote for the party, compared to 58% of Conservatives supporters who say they will vote for their preferred party.

The Liberal Democrats however can only rely on 33% of their current supporters to definitely turn out and vote for them – which must be alarming given the much-reduced poll figure since the general election. 42% of UKIP supporters say they will definitely vote for their party which is a big enough figure to worry the Conservatives and make a mockery of those who hope that UKIP support will return closer to the 3.5% they picked up in 2010 by the time of the next election.

The poll then asked those who were currently intending to vote for the Conservatives, UKIP and the Liberal Democrats whether they would consider backing Labour at the next election. 18% of current Conservative supporters said they would, 30% of UKIP supporters said they’d consider voting for Ed Miliband’s party and a sizeable 46% of current Liberal Democrat supporters said they would consider voting Labour as well.

There is real cause for encouragement from this poll. Not only is Labour resting on the firmest electoral foundations of all four parties, but that it has the potential to win many more supporters, although by and large not from Conservatives.

There is a gulf between poll leads and election victories and turnout and enthusiasm really matters. Labour’s poll lead over the Conservatives may fluctuate but do not make the mistake of thinking this must mean support for Ed Miliband’s party is ‘soft’.

These YouGov findings for Prospect show that in the run up to 2015 Labour’s support is currently the firmest of them all.

Anti-Fracking protestors need to be much better at getting their message across

by Salman Shaheen     August 22, 2013 at 12:14 pm

On my way to work on Monday I was curious to see a small group of anti-fracking protesters superglued to the entrance of Bell Pottinger, the PR firm used by energy company Cuadrilla.

The irony is, better PR is exactly what anti-fracking activists need.

The protesters had brought with them signs bearing the slogan “fracking liars” and various other well-worn puns swapping the word “fuck” for “frack”. But I couldn’t see anything that clearly communicated why they were targeting Bell Pottinger in particular.

Indeed, while the protests gained widespread coverage, there was little in the media that conveyed the activists’ precise beef with Bell Pottinger. Given the natural bias of the mainstream media against direct action, it is vital campaigners do everything they can to get their message across.

According to my friend Helen Robertson, who was reporting from the protests for Petroleum Economist, the activists’ arguments against fracking were largely derived from the film Gasland. Irrespective of the fact the documentary’s assertions have been widely disputed, campaigners would be wise to arm themselves with robust facts and figures as well.

Helen’s main point was that with UK gas production falling, the country is increasingly turning to cheaper and more polluting coal, a problem fracking might address.
When she asked one protester if she knew how much coal Britain uses, the activist replied: “I’m hopeless on facts”.

This is a clear issue for the anti-fracking movement, and protesters in general.

In the age of social media and blogging, when any activist can have a smart phone shoved in their face at any moment and see their words splashed across the internet minutes later, it is even more important for campaigners to turn up to demonstrations equipped with cold hard evidence and the media savvy to communicate it effectively.

I support the anti-fracking movement, primarily because looking to shale gas and oil to plug the energy gap shirks the responsibility to dramatically expand clean renewable energy production. It is here that activists can find their strongest arguments – and no doubt many make them – backed by a wealth of scientific evidence behind the threat of anthropogenic climate change.

Ideology and zeal are vital to any movement, but a heart in the right place is no substitute for a head full of facts to back it up.

If you’re going to superglue yourself to a doorway where you can’t dodge journalists’ questions as easily as greedy corporate bosses hopping into a limousine, make sure you have the answers.

Why there’s more to Ed Miliband on the economy than many think

by Duncan Weldon     August 21, 2013 at 5:25 pm

Ahead of the 2010 election much of the ‘economic debate’ was in reality a debate about the deficit and what combination of cuts and tax rises would be required to close it over what time period.

This whole spectacularly missed the point. The deficit was a symptom of wider economic problems not their cause – the real question should have been, why did we end with such a large deficit in the first place and what can be down to address that?

As the IMF has very clear shown, the UK deficit originated not from excessive public spending but from a collapse in tax revenues. And the reason the drop in taxation was so acute, was that it had become reliant on frothy asset markets and too few sectors.

In reality the UK faces three key problems – a problem of jobs and their quality, a problem of wages and a lack of investment.

The recent pick-up in growth cannot be seen as a confirmation that the government were right all along. They aimed for a rebalanced, steady and smooth recovery. Instead we had the best part of three years of economic stagnation followed by a recovery which is just as unbalanced as the growth we experienced pre-crash.

The crash was not caused by reckless driving but by problems with the car itself.

Our economy has serious problems – it is too dependent on consumer spending that is often debt funded, investment is too low, growth is too concentrated in too small an area and in too few sectors, the rewards from growth have increasingly been captured by those at the top, decision making is too short term and for too long the state has been left to pick up the pieces and paper over the cracks.

Labour at least seem to understand that we face bigger problems than simply boosting growth or reducing the deficit.

Whether one calls it ‘responsible capitalism’, ‘predistribution’, ‘economic reform’ or ‘rebalancing’, they are outlining an agenda that is about fundamentally shifting our national business model towards a higher waged, higher skilled, higher productivity path.

This is an ambitious agenda but perhaps a much harder to explain one. The tools used are more about building institutions than direct intervention. You don’t reverse 30 year trends in one parliament nor can you fundamentally alter how an economy works in one Budget.

Some people seem not to grasp this.

In February this year, Ed Miliband made one of the most thoughtful speeches on the economy I have heard from any major politician. At its core was an argument about changing the way our economy works but what grabbed people’s attention was some fiscal tinkering around the 10p tax rate.

For what it’s worth I think the economic reform agenda represents the surest, most sustainable way to generate steady growth, to protect and increase living standards and ultimately to deal with the deficit.

The big idea here is the direction of travel and the ambition not the individual policies. Each alone (whether extending training levies across sectors that want them, setting up a proper well capitalised SME and infrastructure bank, extending the living wage, changing corporate governance as outlined in the Cox Review, establishing regional banks, etc, etc) might not sound like much, but this a case of the total being more than the sum of its parts.

Too many people seem to be focussing on the trees and completely missing the woods.

—
A longer version of this post is here.

Balcombe is a wake up call for local communities over Fracking

by Guest     August 21, 2013 at 9:30 am

by Philip Pearson

As Caroline Lucas MP was arrested at the Balcombe fracking site (19 August) she spoke of the “democratic deficit” being so enormous that “people are left with very little option but to take peaceful, non violent direct action.”

In 2012 the TUC’s annual Congress opposed gas fracking. Motion 43: “The principle of precaution should be applied when developing new energies and the health of people and the environment should be put before profit.”

And this summer, speaking up for gas fracking, the Prime Minister told the Express, “I want all parts of our nation to share in the benefits: North or South, Conservative or Labour … we can expect to see lower energy prices in this country.”

From Balcombe

But will gas fracking will mean lower energy prices? Not according to Alistair Buchanan , chief executive of Ofgem, the energy regulator: “It is true that the US has transformed its energy market thanks to shale, but in our time-frame, when Britain will rely on gas for its power stations, this is not going to happen on any significant scale, either here or elsewhere in Europe.

Even if the US allows exports (and assuming they come to Europe), it will still cost about the same as we are paying for our winter gas now. No one doubts that there is plenty of gas out there, but what is critical to Britain is how much will be available over the next five years and how much we will have to pay for it to ensure that it comes here.”

Does public support count? The Prime Minister argued over the summer that “If neighbourhoods can see the benefits – and get reassurance about the environment – then I don’t see why fracking shouldn’t get real public support.” But what if it doesn’t? The NoFIBs petition (No Facking In Balcombe Society) was supported by 82% of local residents. It, too, is based on the precautionary principle:

The work of Cuadrilla poses an unacceptable level of risk to our water supply, air purity and overall environment. We, the undersigned, stand opposed to exploratory drilling or fracking for gas or oil because we believe that these activities put human health at risk, both of those living close to wells, but also of those whose water comes from an affected area.

The TUC motion originated from protests supported by trade unions and community organisations in the North West, where Cuadrilla first made the earth tremor. It adds: “The fracking method of gas extraction should be condemned unless proven harmless for people and the environment. This type of energy production is not sustainable as it relies on a limited resource. Until now, there is evidence that it causes earthquakes and water pollution and further investigation should be carried out before any expansion.”

In a field outside Balcombe village…

What of the environment? At Balcombe on a day visit, I had a long conversation with a local resident about the diverse environmental impacts of Cuadrilla’s drilling operation – see photo. The continuous noise, vibration and 24-hour lighting had driven birdlife, bats and badgers away. She feared the long term effects of injecting millions of gallons of chemical laden water to frack the gas on water pollution – the water table lies at 700 feet below ground level, the shale gas at 3000 feet down, so the drill pierces the water table. A few days later we also spoke about methane gas escapes and flaring.

She said, “We’ve been ignored. The petition, our planning objections, letters to MPs, our demonstrations haven’t stopped them. 10,000 people might.”

Who fills the gap politics has vacated? Speaking at the a recent Friends of the Earth meeting, John Ashton, for ten years the government’s roving climate change ambassador, argued that the struggle on climate change “is now entering a decisive phase.” The words Must, Now, Can should guide our thinking: “We must do whatever it takes. Otherwise the consequences of climate change will undermine security and prosperity. We must build a carbon neutral energy system, within a generation.”

But, he said, “The fact is, we can’t fix the climate problem, or any of the other problems on the agenda you have set, unless we can now fix politics itself. ” His prescription is to “Fill the gap that politics has vacated. Connect with the base of society. Mobilise coalitions to offer people solutions to problems that politics in its current form ignores. And do that on the basis of a more strategic assessment than I suspect you have of what is to be done and where you can change the game.”

And, as I was speaking with a local resident last week, a child ran by: “I love waking up in the morning here!” she said.

Govt to face legal action over charges at Hyde Park

by Newswire     August 21, 2013 at 1:15 am

Lawyers are threatening to take legal action on behalf of the London Charity Softball League against Royal Parks over the introduction of fees to use the Old Football Pitches in London’s Hyde Park.

In a letter before action sent today, law firm Leigh Day have threatened the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Maria Miller MP, with formal legal proceedings if the decision to charge a fee for using the parks facilities is not reconsidered.

Royal Parks, the agency responsible for looking after London’s eight Royal Parks, have handed over a part of Hyde Park to a private company named Will To Win.

As Liberal Conspiracy revealed in July this year, Royal Parks admitted there was no public consultation on the decision. Regular users of the pitches say they weren’t even informed of the changes until recently.

Law firm Leigh Day has argued that the decision to charge for the use of the park is unlawful.

While the Secretary of State has the power to ban particular sports in the Park under Regulation 3(13)(a) of the Royal Parks and Other Open Spaces Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/1639), he or she does not have the power to charge community groups like London Charity Softball League, to play sports in the park.

The letter further explains that the decision to appoint a private company to manage, collect and enforce the new fees was unlawful as the decision and appointment was taken without any consultation with those members of the public who were likely to be affected by the proposal and without due regard to Department’s duties under s149 Equality Act 2010.

Vanessa Furey from the London Charity Softball League said:

We’ve asked the authorities nicely to look again at the decision to charge people for playing sport in the park, and they’ve ignored us. We hope the threat of legal action might make them sit up and take note.

Twelve months ago London was centre of the sporting world for the Olympics and there were high hopes for a new era of grassroots sport, instead we face a bill of nearly £6,000 for a few games of softball. 25,000 people have spoken up for our right to use our parks, and it seems the law is on our side too.

The London Charity Softball League was set up with nine teams 10 years ago by charity fundraiser Leo Visconti. Since then its grown to become an annual event with 68 teams.