Who do you think you are kidding, Mrs Merkel?

From the BBC:

Mr Zelensky [Ukraine's president] opposes the pipeline, which he says threatens Ukraine's security. It will run under the Baltic Sea and double Russian gas exports to Germany...

Mrs Merkel, who is standing down as Germany's chancellor this autumn after 16 years in office, said Berlin agreed with Washington that Nord Stream 2 should not be used against Ukraine. She said sanctions could be used against Moscow under an agreement between Germany and the US, if gas was "used as a weapon".

Mr Zelensky said he was concerned about what would happen in three years when the contract to deliver Russian gas through Ukrainian pipelines runs out. The loss of billions of dollars in transit fees would hit Ukraine's economy hard. Mrs Merkel, who held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, promised to provide more than a billion dollars to help expand Ukraine's renewable energy sector.

Russia already supplies about 40% of the EU's gas - just ahead of Norway, which is not in the EU but takes part in its single market. The new pipeline will increase the amount of gas going under the Baltic to 55 billion cubic metres per year.

Mrs Merkel has tried to assure Central and Eastern European states that the pipeline would not make Germany reliant on Russia for energy.

Where do you start? A few facts which must be patently obvious to everybody else:

1. Russia IS using its oil and gas as economic 'weapons', always has done, always will. Same as the Saudis.

2. Russia has every incentive to build its own pipeline under the Baltic. They won't have to pay Ukraine 'billons of dollars' and Ukraine won't be able to (threaten to} just turn off the taps.

3. Putin is quite happy for Ukraine to go bankrupt, that's a bonus as far as he's concerned.

4. The money which Germany is offering to pay Ukraine to help it 'expand its renewable energy sector' will have zero effect on anything.

5. Germany IS completely reliant on Russian gas for energy. They shut down their coal fired plants (having been bamboozled by the wrong explanation for the Greenhouse Effect) and started phasing out their nuclear plants after the Fukushima disaster (even though Germany isn't an earthquake zone).

6. IIRC, Germany has been reliant on Russian gas for decades. The Russians even gave former the previous Chancellor a (no doubt very well-paid) psuedo-job with Nord Stream, the organisation running the new pipeline.

7. Germany is not going to impose proper harsh sanctions on Russia, as Putin could simply cut off the gas supplies. He can hold out longer than Germany can. The impact of sanctions is slow, drip-drip. The impact of having your electricity sector shut down is immediate.

More vaccine fun.

From the BBC:

Hungary has already bought and distributed considerable quantities of Sputnik V. France and Germany, among many others, are at least prepared to consider it, if and when the European Medicines Agency gives its approval. Hungary has used its right as an independent member state* to grant emergency authorisation.

Veteran French diplomat Pierre Vimont, who's now a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, says it's perfectly rational for member states to think about buying Sputnik. "Even when you're facing an adversary," he told the BBC, "you have to think of your own interests."

Mr Vimont, as you'd expect of a man who's held some of his country's most important diplomatic postings, suggests that the European Union's attitude should be one of cautious pragmatism. That means acknowledging the excellence of Russian science but waiting for EMA authorisation as well.

He makes the point that countries using the jab on the basis of their own approval could face political difficulties with their own voters if things go wrong.

I always assumed this to be the case. If the pol's want to push through something unpopular (or risky), they get the EU to mandate it and then the pol's concerned can deny responsibility and point the finger at the EU. "We were only obeying orders".

* I'm not sure what "independent Member State" means in this context.

"I'm sorry, can I do that again?"

Watch the first forty seconds of this for a breathtaking display of insincerity. Apologies that the sound is so quiet, you'll have to turn it up to the max to hear it.

Short list

Actresses/former actresses who became Labour MPs

Fun Online Polls: Politicians, sugar & "hard" brexit.

The results to last week-and-a-half's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which of these politicians avoids sugar?

Jeremy Corbyn - 54%
Nigel Farage - 6%
Both - 16%
Neither - 24%

A bit of an anorak question, but 16% of participants got the right answer. Well done!

Top (and only) comment:

View From The Solent: Who cares?

Answer = not many. Only 50 people took part and only 16% of those chose the right answer (and one of them was me). It was multiple choice, so if people had chosen an answer at random, 25% would have chosen the correct one :-)
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The gamble which some Brexiteers made appears to have paid off in some quarters, pint-sized former French president M. Sarkozy has said that if re-elected he would offer the UK a new treaty for a new Europe.

Clearly he could't care less about British votes, so presumably what he means is a new deal which will  favour France generally, the UK tangentially and placate some potential Le Pen voters. Former Tory leader 'Lord' Howard stretched his head out of his earth-filled coffin and "described the terms “hard” and “soft” Brexit as unnecessary and unhelpful."

In which he would be correct. So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

"Which kind of Brexit would you like?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Short Lists

Major political parties in Great Britain* with a male leader

Labour Party
Liberal Democrat Party

Much longer list:
Major political parties in Great Britain with a female leader

Green Party**
Plaid Cymru
SNP
Conservatives***
UKIP

* GB excludes Northern Ireland. That bastion of male chauvinism only has one major party with a female leader.

** Yes I know that technically they have two joint leaders and one is a bloke, but Caroline Lucas is the only one anybody's heard of.

*** Which gives me another idea for a short list: "European countries with a female prime minister/chancellor etc who never had children"

Fun Online Polls: UKIP MEPs & future Prime Ministers

The results to last week's poll were as follows:

Now that their mission is accomplished, will UKIP MEPs resign en masse and renounce their Euro-pensions?

Yes of course, they are all honourable people - 11%
Er…well… - 89%

I'm with the majority on this one, there were some quite angry comments at the poll though.
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Politicians are taking themselves far too seriously again; they imagine that the Brexit vote means were are in some sort of "crisis" and therefore they have to rearrange some deck chairs and we'll all love them again.

Fact is, most people don't care either way and in practice, there won't be much difference between Bremaining and Brexiting. Is Switzerland really that different to Austria? A bit? Yes. A lot? No. is Switzerland 'better' or 'worse' than Austria - that depends on what you like.

Nontheless, both the major UK parties have decided to play musical chairs at the top and we are going to have to put up with whoever they choose.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

"Please indicate the ones you would definitely NOT like to see as Prime Minister."

Deselect the ones you really can't stand here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Politicians, credit and dead pigs.

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

How many politicians call for more bank lending while simultaneously wailing about the increase in debts?

Refreshingly few - 0%
Depressingly many 98%
Other, please specify - 2%

Correct.

By the way, people don't seem to have got the hang of this "Other, please specify" option; if you choose that, you have to leave a comment as well.
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This week, the one question on everybody's lips, or at least every dead pig's:

"Have you ever f***ed a dead pig?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Central heating, bank lending and debts

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were fairly evenly balanced:

Have you turned on your central heating yet?
Yes - 24%
No, but I probably will do soon - 8%
No, and I'm going to put it off as long as possible - 40%
No. What sort of wimp needs central heating? Put on a pullover! - 28%

Thanks to all 112 of you who took part. As a fully paid up wimps, we turned ours on last week.
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This week's question was submitted by Ralph Musgrave.

How many politicians call for more bank lending while simultaneously decrying the increase in debts?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Poll: The most annoying phrases of the election campaign

Inspired by an article in The Metro which I can't find online, based on a survey carried out by pollifiller.com

Make your suggestions and selections here.

NHS - Fun with numbers

Conservatives pledge another £8 billion a year on the NHS.

Labour say that they would only spend another £2.5 billion a year on the NHS.

Lib Dems match the Tories' pledge of £8 billion a year more on the NHS.

Greens promise to employ an extra 400,000 people in the NHS, cost unspecified, £20 billion a year, maybe?

UKIP plans an extra £2.4 billion a year for the NHS (over five years = £12 billion headline figure).

What nobody can explain is that one-third of the NHS budget (over £100 billion a year) goes on doctors' and nurses' salaries and actual medicines, but nobody knows where the other two-third goes.

I am sure that there is plenty of other worthwhile stuff in there, like ambulances and ambulance drivers, cleaners and so on; and there is plenty of crap like translating anti-smoking leaflets into 128 different languages and all the PFI fraud and waste, but is there a breakdown of it?

The Taxpayers' Alliance have scratched the surface occasionally, well done them.
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The comments thread here has descended into a flame war about completely different topics.

Fact 1: the NHS is just as good as most other healthcare systems in terms of value for money. We spend a bit less and get a bit less.

Fact 2: there is a huge amount of waste and fraud in the NHS.

Conclusion: there is a huge amount of waste and fraud in most healthcare systems. That's what we should be addressing.

Natalie Bennett on top form

The LBC have put up a transcript of her car crash interview.

As to building more social housing, they both missed the point.

It doesn't really matter what they cost to build in £millions or £billions, the important consideration is whether the overall annualised cost (minus rental income) is less than paying Housing Benefit to private landlords.

Gov.uk says there are 1.7 million HB claimants renting from private landlords at a total cost of £9.32 billion a year = £105 a week average.

Councils can wangle land virtually for free, and the build cost for a small terraced house or a decent flat can't be more than the £60,000 figure she gave*. Let's say councils borrow at 3% over 25 years, that's loan repayments of £3,500 per unit per year plus £1,500 annual maintenance and running costs = £100 a week.

So even if councils allow people to occupy them rent free, it's still no more expensive than paying Housing Benefit.

If you factor in rental income of £80 a week (the average charged for social housing), it is a considerably better deal for councils, tenants and the taxpayer. And it's a considerably better deal for working private tenants who are not claiming HB because private sector rents will fall markedly and/or lots of landlords will sell up**.

That woman is her own worst enemy. And I happen to know that she has been presented with itemised and robust calculations for paying for their suggested Citizen's Income; I accept that you can't her to remember the finer details but surely you can expect her to remember that it's all been worked out and costed?

If you join the dots, they can also claw back a lot of the Citizen's Income in rent, in other words you can choose between £72 a week cash or a roof over your head, however modest.

FFS.
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* Steven L points out in the comments that if the government spends money on having housing built, it claws back a fair bit of that (a third?) in CIS deductions, PAYE, corporation tax (housing is zero-rated for VAT).

So if it funds construction by borrowing, it is cash positive in the first few years. The 3% interest cost is further reduced by income tax thereon.

I cheerfully admit that £60,000 might be a bit on the low side and I did not factor in a cost for land. But all of these little adjustments net off to nil at worst, leaving the overall saving to the taxpayer intact.
-----------
** Bayard in the comments thinks that the latter effect will outweigh the former:

"If the Housing Benefit claimant market collapses, because either there are no claimants or the claimants are suddenly a lot "poorer", then the most likely outcome is that there will be a lot of houses on the market as the BTLers sell up."

Either way, it's all good, as most private tenants would rather be owner-occupiers.

Fun Online Poll: The television debates

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll are as follows:

Which UK political party leaders would you invite to the televised election debates?

Farage, N. 94 votes
Cameron, D. 73 votes
Miliband, E. 70 votes
Clegg, N. 52 votes
Bennett, N. 25 votes
Sturgeon, N. 23 votes
Robinson, P. 14 votes
Wood, L. 13 votes
Other, please specify. 17 votes

The turnout was 118 people, so I suppose we are going to have to say that any party leader who got the nod from more than half the electorate (59 votes) go through to the televised round. So Clegg, N. and downwards didn't make it.

Some good suggestions for other: Al Murray, Rory Bremner, Kate Upton and "a YPP person". But the most popular other suggestion was "none of the above".
----------------------------------------
No Fun Online Poll this week for the simple reason that nothings springs to mind.

"Why do you think so many politicians love VAT?"

... asked L Fairfax at an earlier post, Shiney seconding:

Lots of reasons. Basically, VAT is the diametric opposite of Land Value Tax. The more specific reasons which immediately spring to mind are...

1. Because the EU says so, so they have to do it whether they like it or not.

2. They can palm off VAT as a "tax on consumption", so, the flawed logic goes, it does not affects savings, assets or production.

3. They can palm off VAT as a "tax on luxuries" because a few fig leaf "esential" items (housing, finance, food and education) are largely VAT-exempt and domestic power is only taxed at 5%. A bit of a coincidence that it is land-based/monopoly items which are lightly taxed, eh?

4. VAT is only payable when cash changes hands, so it is somehow a "voluntary" tax and always relates to "ability to pay".

5. VAT is the stealthiest of stealth taxes. The actual economic incidence is on producers/suppliers, and they have to collect it and write the cheques, but they believe that magically "the consumer pays it" so don't complain much, but see also the Greggs pasty tax furore.

6. VAT puts some businesses out of business for good; they stop complaining about VAT because they are no longer there. Those who can't find work are blamed for their own misery. If they increase taxes on land, then the land is still there and somebody will be paying it and moaning about it. To use a crude analogy, a dictator would rather shut up his opponents by killing them than by locking them up.

7. If you look more closely at the numbers, a combination of higher VAT/lower corporation tax benefits large or mature businesses and thus acts as a barrier to entry to new competitors. Large corporations have more lobbying power, so this is self-enforcing. But the UK has a fig-leaf for that as well - we have a very high registration threshold, almost unheard of in other EU countries.

8. Exporters don't have to pay VAT (in their home country - they just pay it abroad) and VAT is supposed to be levied on imports (so satisfies the primitive mercantilist school of thought).

9. The only good thing to say about VAT is that companies with UK sales like Starbucks can fiddle their corporation tax as much as they want, but they can't fiddle their VAT-able turnover to the same degree, ditto energy companies. Google just circumvent this by routing sales to UK customers via other countries.

10. From the pol's point of view, the other big merit in VAT is that the tax base is very large and will not disappear overnight.

No doubt others can add to this depressing list.

"MPs will not need to confess criminal past to employers"

From The Evening Standard:

Thousands of former offenders in the capital, including MPs, council leaders, senior quango members and civil servants, will no longer have to declare their past activities in a move intended to boost their job prospects in the private sector, ministers said today.

Under reforms that come into force next month, MPs who lose their seat will have to include their criminal history on application forms for only two years, instead of seven as at present.

More serious offenders - junior minister or Private Secretary level and higher - will also see a dramatic cut in the length of time they are required to declare their criminal past.

It means hundreds of former MPs who would previously have had to reveal their background when seeking work will be able to apply with a clean record instead.

Critics are likely to argue it could prevent employers from gaining an accurate picture of prospective staff. But justice minister Simon Hughes said the change would be a vital support for people who want to turn their back on politics and rebuild their lives.

Fun Online Polls: Poppies & Pomposity

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

When is it appropriate to start wearing a poppy?

Late October - 10%
1st - 4th November - 26%
5th - 7th November - 22%
8th - 10th November - 15%
11th November only - 14%
Never - 14%
Other, please specify - 0%

So now we know.

Top comments:

View From The Solent: "The weekend before Rememrance Sunday, which has a variable date so doesn't fit into the above categories."

Which is a fair point. But Rememberance Sunday is the second Sunday in November (between 8th and 14th) so that narrows it down a bit.

Anon linked to this: How politicians use the poppy appeal to make today's wars more popular.

See also Newsthump: Parliamentary poppy wars showing dangerous signs of escalation.
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This week's Fun Online Poll was suggested by Ralph Musgrave: "Who’s the most pompous, boring and sanctimonious?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Life Copies Satire

James Frayne in this morning's City AM:

[Ed] Miliband has a very narrow mission this week. He must deal with concerns in Westminster about his character to end speculation about his leadership. Nothing more. And this requires a speech designed to appeal purely to Westminster elites.

These elites only care about style. Miliband will therefore almost certainly be working on a speech to be delivered with no visible notes, and with decent jokes, surprising personal stories, emotional moments, and a cameo by his impressive wife. A few announcements will bulk out the coverage.

From this afternoon's Daily Mail:

Justine Miliband... has vowed to break with convention and speak out publicly about why she thinks Mr Miliband should be Prime Minister. The child actress-turned-barrister has begun making a public appearances and speeches at the Labour party conference to 'humanise' her husband.

Mr Miliband repeatedly said he would not copy David Cameron's habit of eye-catching photo opportunities while opposition leader, and would instead focus on policies.

Gibraltar, Spain, sabre rattling* etc.

When Spanish politicians start yapping on about Gibraltar to their voters minds off the dire state of their economy, corruption scandals, poor safety record of their railways etc, it always reminds me of the mirror image dispute between Spain and Morocco.

They're all as bad as each other.

* How can you rattle a sabre? It's a single, solid object, it's not like a set of keys or a handful of change or something.

I should be banned from the dinner table, says Clegg as he lashes out at 'curse' of modern politicians

From The Daily Mail:

* Deputy PM backs checkout worker refusing to serve him

* He is not allowed at the Clegg dinner table despite sons' protests

* Complains about colleagues in government glued to each other in meetings

Politicians should be banned from the dinner table, Nick Clegg said today.

Despite many parents being forced to rely on modern politicians to run the country, the Deputy Prime Minister said meal times should be free of elected representatives. And he lashed out at the 'curse' of colleagues in government who sit glued to each other's mumblings during meetings.

The nation has been divided over etiquette after the 46-year-old was told he would not be served in a Sainsbury's branch in London until he resigned as an MP. Mr Clegg said he had a 'sneaking sympathy' for the checkout worker in Crayford, south east London.

He said it drove people 'round the bend' when people like him constantly had their 'noses glued' to smartphones and iPads unless posing for photographs. The Lib Dem leader said he 'strongly suspects' he once stood in a queue in a shop to burnish his 'man of the people' credentials.

"Harvey Nichols does count as a shop, doesn't it? I'll tell you what's worse though," he added, "Politicians swanning into a pub and pretending to sip a pint of beer in the hope they'll have their picture taken."

Calm down dears, it's only a T-shirt

While I don't approve of politicians interfering with the press and I don't find the pictures on Page 3 of The Sun in any way objectionable, it strikes me that the politician(s) who told Caroline Lucas to "comply with Westminster's dress code" after she pulled this harmless little stunt are complete pompous arseholes. Similarly, if a female politician had gone topless to make a point for or against Page 3 girls, that would have been perfectly reasonable under the circumstances as well.

I mean, it's not like she started a war in Iraq or gave the bankers hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money or anything, FFS.

And BBC, take note, this was not a Commons debate, it was some sort of committee, surely?