Quote of the day

If we cannot trust ourselves, and cannot be trusted by the British people to sort out our own pay and allowances, how on earth can we be trusted with the nuclear deterrent, the state of the economy and the other much more important things with which we are meant to be trusted?

Bernard Jenkin

(How indeed?)

Comments

[John Leighton]

Brown has zero credibility. He will have made this announcement for petty advantage given that he knows the Tories will be in power, and such a committee will give Labour more influence than to continue with self-regulation.

The idea is absurd though. First of all, he's proposing to set up another quango, to be paid for by taxpayers - don't we have enough already. Secondly, he's effectively saying that the legislature cannot be trusted to spend taxpayers cash in wisely and in a transparent enough manner, so we need to get some body of unelected people in.

But what about parliamentary sovereignty ? How can any such body be independent when it is created by statute of parliament ? It's a nonsense.

He inference is that the people have to see and believe in the way things are done - but then why not take the step of having parliament continue to self-regulate ( because that will always happen - no 'independent commission' is above parliament, no matter how much he insists ) but to have the transparency that has been lacking.

Once again, the man uses a smokescreen of untested and unplanned institutional reform to cover up for previous manipulations of information that he has himself approved.

If he really thought that the current bunch of MPs are not able to honestly self-regulate in the publics eyes ( he seems to mean this in an 'in theory' way, but will at the same time in a have-your-cake-and-eat-it way he won't accept any Labour complicity in todays sorry state ) then the best way is to get some new MPs in that the public have trust in - i.e. a general election.

So, after all his huffing and puffing, this shallow man is again playing tactically for his own advantage.

Should we blame him for this ? Not especially, but he does continually expose more and more his own character the more he covers up his tracks with convoluted nonsense such as has been spouted today.

His own behavoir - both todays guff, and his debt crisis - fulfils his implication that MPs are not able to be trusted with the public money - and he has therefore in a roundabout way confirmed what we have always known: this man is not even of the character to be a run-of-the-mill MP, never mind Prime Minister to boot.

[Sam Duncan]

Well, obviously there should be independent bodies to oversee the nuclear deterrent, the economy, etc.

Which, by the way, is exactly what the originators of the European Union thought. And we know how well that turned out.

[AlanB]

No one seems to have noticed (or are they too keen on hammering ALL MPs to care?) that another MP has joined the handful of those who are open with their expenses:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/articles/2009/05/16/richard_taylor_accounts_feature.shtml

An older man (retired) with experience and integrity. We need a few more.

(I am a constiuent and have no other link with Dr Taylor)

[mikiwud]

Everyone has missed the organised lies in Parliament over so called Manmade Global Warming.
There has been no rise in tempereture since 1998 and cooling in the past five or so years. Top scientists agree that the Sun in going into a low that could last for decades and the cooling WILL devastate crop output. This is covered up and not discussed even though, especially at this ecconomic time, the Green Taxes will futher devastate the ecconomy push more people onto poverty. The MPs fiddling is nothing compared to the AGW con on the British population.

[Perry]

Mikiwid, good points.

The MPs could not see what was morally wrong with the allowances debacle and so it is not surprising that only one or two can see what would be the result of legislating on AGW.

From America:
"The long term goal with cap and trade is „80 by 50‟– an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. Let‟s do the easy math on what „80 by 50‟ means to you, using Utah as an example. Utah‟s carbon footprint today is about 66 MM tons of CO2 per year. Utah‟s population today is 2.6 MM. You divide those two numbers, and the average Utahan today has a carbon footprint of about 25 tons of CO2 per year. An 80% reduction in Utah‟s carbon footprint by 2050 implies a reduction from 66 MM tons today to about 13 MM tons per year by 2050. But Utah‟s population is growing at over 2% per year, so by 2050 there will be about 6 MM people living in this state. 13 MM tons divided by 6 MM people = 2.2 tons per person per year. Under „80 by 50‟ by the time you folks reach my age you‟ll have to live your lives with an annual carbon allowance of no more than 2.2 tons of CO2 per year.

Question: when was the last time Utah‟s carbon footprint was as low as 2.2 tons per person per year? Answer: probably not since Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley (1847).

You reach a similar conclusion when you do the math on „80 by 50‟ for the entire U.S. „80 by 50‟ would require a reduction in America‟s CO2 emissions from about 20 tons per person per year today, to about 2 tons per person per year in 2050. When was the last time America‟s carbon footprint was as low as 2 tons per person per year? Probably not since the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620.

In short, ‘80 by 50’ means that by the time you folks reach my age, you won’t be allowed to use anything made with – or made possible by – fossil fuels."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/14/now-thats-a-commencement-speech/#more-7841

Regards,

Perry