Environment Minister seeks to increase UK Cod Quotas

Jonathan Shaw, UK Environment Minister is planning to lobby the EU for an increase in cod quotas for the UK next month when they meet to decide 2008s quotas.

Predictably researchers, including the EU's advisers, say stocks are still too low.


Helen MacLachlan of the pressure group WWF UK complained: “I would say that 'business as usual' in the North Sea is not an acceptable position for a minister to be taking,"
"To be looking for an increase in cod quotas without changing fishing practices is unsustainable and untenable."

Callum Roberts of York university critiscised him saying; “If he's suggesting increases in cod quotas then he doesn't seem to be fully in control of his brief yet”

Their comments go with the ‘accepted wisdom’ of those who never actually do any fishing and rely entirely on theory.

Shaw may well have a point though.

Although it is seldom spoken of the UK has done rather badly out of the EU over fishing.

In order to be allowed the dubious ’benefits’ of joining the EU, the Government gave away fishing rights over the UK’s territorial waters it had formerly enjoyed - to allow them to be effectively plundered by European fishermen, to the detriment of our own. This over use helped damaged the stocks and devastated the UK fishing industry.

North Sea cod numbers appear to have experienced a small recovery in the last few years.

Also the fact is that the current EU quota system results in the needless killing and dumping of tons of cod. Thanks to the law of unintended consequences. When fishermen go hunting for prawn they often catch cod as well. If they are over their cod ‘quota’ these dead cod have to be dumped back into the sea.

So in fact many more cod are caught and killed than those setting the quotas realise and the quotas actually result in the appalling waste of tons of cod.

Quote of the day

“ He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”

Thomas Paine

UK Premier’s tough talking ‘War on Carbon Emissions’

Will climate change be Brown’s bid for world fame (or at least infamy)? His ‘War on Carbon Emissions’ to Blair’s ‘War on Terror’.

He is talking tough on carbon emissions. Legislation already in the planning stage sets the difficult target of cutting the UK's emissions by 60% by 2050.

Typical New Labour response to anything - more legislation than you can shake a stick at.

Not something Gordon will ever have to actually worry about the political chickens coming home to roost over though, as he is unlikely to still be in office then.

But that’s not tough enough for tough old Brown. He is apparently thinking of going even further, possibly even doubling of the targets to produce renewable energy by 2020. Again hopefully he will not be in office by then.

Renewable energy is OK, as far as it goes.

If Brown is actually serious about reducing carbon emissions he will stop playing around, get serious - and commit to a comprehensive nuclear generation program.

Quote of the day

“ Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; it costs nothing.”

Edmund Burke

Income Tax, Oversight and Government Accountability

Taxation is a bit like a multi-channel TV package crossed with a protection racket.

You get a load of rubbish that you wouldn't want for free - let alone actually have to pay for - forced upon you, along with a few things that you might actually want, some of the time – and if you don’t cough up the boys will be round...

Of course with the TV you are not actually forced to subscribe (except for the BBC TV Tax of course)

Most people don't know where their taxes are going, what they are being spent on, or why. If they did they probably wouldn’t approve of some of it - and until people can engage more with where their contribution goes they will be reluctant to endorse, or even support the expenditure. Voting just does not do it.

If it were actually the Government's money that would be no problem. But its' only the Government’s money in the sense that the proceeds of any robbery become the thief’s. Taxation is not voluntary.

So here’s an idea. What if only a 3rd of tax gathered actually went to the Government to do with as it would - But the rest the individual contributing it could, if they wanted to, decide where it went and on what, depending on their priorities.

It would still have go on something, but they could decide what. That would surely be much more democratic, help to engage the public in politics and make them feel more empowered.

It would harness the so-called wisdom of crowds and reduce available Government spending where it was not generally wanted and increase it where it was felt to be more needed. That way it is unlikely anything worthwhile would suffer, as people’s views would probably tend to balance out generally. Maybe the poor old armed forces might do better out of it for instance

Pensions, as an example. One would want to make sure it was kept up, for the benefit of elderly relatives and friends. Also you never know you might need it yourself, what with the former Chancellor making raids destroying the value of pension funds, best be on the safe side there.

Ditto for most of the important stuff. Those who actually make the effort to do it are likely to operate on the principles of enlightened self-interest to some extent.

You would have to watch that the Government didn’t try to loose details of some of the worst unpopular wastes of money in some innocuous budget. So you would need to drill down into the categories in some detail.

This could be done by post (forms from the library or post office, completed ones to a freepost address) or via the internet.

As they say Tax doesn’t have to be taxing…

Quote of the day

“ Taxation is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo. And I'm afraid to say, that these days, all I'm getting is moo.”

Terry Pratchett

Saudi rape victim gets 200 lashes and six months

While the great and the good were busy sucking up to the Saudi King Abdullah on his recent State Visit, no doubt salivating at the prospect of more arms sales to the regime, one wonders if they gave much if any thought to this:

A 19 year old Shia girl went to meet her former boyfriend to get any pictures he had of her, as she was due to marry someone else. (Note at this point that the Shia are a minority in Saudi Arabia.)

They were discussing the matter in a car when seven Sunni men kidnapped them both and gang raped them both - Her 14 times!

Naturally enough they complained to the authorities – big, big, mistake.

They were both tried under Sharia law for being unchaperoned and sentenced to 90 lashes.

She made the even bigger mistake of appealing - so the court upped her sentence to 200 lashes and sixty days behind bars.

Their lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, is facing disciplinary action. His comment:

“My client is the victim of this abhorrent crime. I believe her sentence contravenes the Islamic Sharia law and violates the pertinent international conventions,"

"The judicial bodies should have dealt with this girl as the victim rather than the culprit.

"The court blamed the girl for being alone with unrelated men, but it should have taken the humane view that it cannot be considered her fault."

There is something deeply repulsive about a system that will do this and feel it justified.

Maybe a word in the right ear during that visit could have made this appalling miscarriage of justice go away - like the suggestion of anything untoward concerning certain commercial arrangements with the regime did - when they felt it might be ‘appropriate’.

Quote of the day

“ Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect”

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Today Europe – Tomorrow the World!

During a speech at the College of Europe, in Brugge, Belgium, Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has suggested the European Union should work towards including Russia, Middle Eastern and North African countries,

I have often suspected that the EU secretly wanted to regain all the ground the Roman Empire once held.

He then told (with acknowledgement to Burger King) a double whopper: "The truth is that the EU has enlarged, remodelled and opened up.”

And here it comes…

“It is not and is not going to become a superstate. But neither is it destined to become a superpower."

He went on more frankly, that a successful EU must be prepared to "deploy soft and hard power to promote democracy and tackle conflict beyond its borders" and its goal "must be a multilateral free-trade zone around our periphery".

So one could be forgiven for interpreting what he is suggesting as; if you are a neighbour of the EU, then one way or another, you will be persuaded to fit in with what the EU wants and in the longer term will probably be swallowed up and if the ‘softly softly’ approach doesn’t work then there is always the hard way.