Mugabe Makes Mockery of UN

Despite suffering from gross economic and agricultural mismanagement, rampant inflation and acute food shortages, Zimbabwe has been approved to head the Commission on Sustainable Development, the United Nations body charged with promoting economic progress and environmental protection.

The chair traditionally rotates among regions of the world and it was Africa’s turn to chair the commission, but the continent's choice of Zimbabwe as its candidate has amazed and disappointed Western nations and human rights organisations.

Quite frankly, the decision is incredible, making a mockery of and seriously calling into question the credibility of the whole organisation. This blog has noted recent failings in the UN over decisions on Iran, Uzbekistan and Sudan, but this latest compact proves beyond doubt that the intergovernmental body is no longer fit for any purpose.

More Broken Promises

For the second year in a row, more than 1,800 development NGOs from 27 EU countries have compiled a report showing that European governments are artificially inflating the amount of foreign aid they claim to be donating to poor countries.

At least one third of all European aid is in fact "inflated aid" that does not deliver any fresh resources for poor countries and does not directly reduce poverty. This includes:

• Nearly €11 billion (£7.5bn) of debt cancellation — €8bn (£5.5bn) of which went exclusively to Iraq and Nigeria
• €1.6 billion (£1.1bn) spent educating foreign students in Europe, and
• €1 billion (£700m) spent housing refugees in Europe.

Counting just genuine aid, the European Union spent just 0.30% of its Gross National Income (GNI) on foreign aid in 2006, missing its target of 0.39% by about a quarter. So much for talk of an ethical foreign policy! Western governments, our own included, could begin with a little more honesty and integrity at home, and improve transparency in their aid reporting.

Three years ago, a Foreign Policy Centre report entitled Moral Brittania? Evaluating the Ethical Dimension in Labour's Foreign Policy examined how far reality had matched Robin Cook's famous 1997 promise to formulate "a foreign policy with an ethical dimension." It argued that such a policy need not involve the sacrifice of national interests, warned against "presidential" foreign policymaking, and suggested being a pivotal power may require the UK to distance itself from the US. Not a bad read while the media obsesses with Blair's legacy.

Teenage Binge Drinkers

On the back of figures suggesting that 11 to 13-year-olds are drinking increasing amounts of alcohol, the charity Alcohol Concern last week called for parents who give alcohol to children aged under 15 to be prosecuted.

Thanks to researchers at the Liverpool John Moores University's public health centre, who carried out a survey of more than 10,000 children in over 130 schools in the north-west of England, we now have the evidence ... confirming that this is precisely the wrong approach to adopt if we want to tackle the problem of alcohol-related health and social problems amongst teenagers.

The results indicate that the teenagers most likely to drink regularly, to excess, and in public are girls from the most socially deprived areas who receive the most weekly pocket money. In contrast, those who drink alcohol with their parents, are members of youth groups, and receive less than £10 pocket money a week are less likely to binge drink. Quite clearly we have something to learn from the continental lifestyle, where people are introduced to small amounts of alcohol at family mealtimes while they are still young.

Super Thursday 2

Prompted by the anonymous comment about the latest 13% increase in the projected cost of ID cards, due to become compulsory for everyone applying for a new passport from 2009, I am opening this thread for any other readers who spot items of "bad news" being buried today.

I'll add to the list with this morning's government admission that 28 NHS trusts are failing to ensure non-emergency hospital patients are kept in single-sex accommodation — incidentally also yet another of Blair's broken promises, as he committed himself to end mixed-sex accommodation in the NHS in his original 1997 general election manifesto.

"Look At Our Economy"

Our past-his-'use by date' prime minister today challenges us to "Look at our economy":

• The highest borrowing costs among the Group of Seven (G7) nations — Interest rates at their highest for six years (not a bad record since Labour continued Conservative economic policy for Blair's first years in power)
  
• Inflation rate at its highest since before 1997
  
• Quarterly house-price inflation above 10 percent
  
• Record numbers of repossessions and people filing for bankruptcy
  
• Unsecured consumer debt in excess of £1 trillion
  
• International competitiveness down from fourth to thirteenth
  
• A spiralling trade deficit, now at more than £55billion (compared with a trade surplus in 1997)
  
• Productivity in the public sector down 10% overall — down 15-20% in health and education
  
• 1.2 million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEET) — twice as many as are classified as unemployed
  
• 2.7 million recipients of incapacity benefit (not counted in the supposedly record low unemployment figures), 1.8 million of whom are thought to be physically capable of returning to work
  
• A third of households now dependent on the state for at least half their income
  
• UK pensions, once the envy of the world, now decimated after Brown rejected warnings about the consequences of his pensions plunder
  
• More than 110 tax rises in Tony's ten years, costing every family an extra £1,300 each year
  
• The poorest fifth of households £531 per year worse off and the next poorest fifth £427 worse off than they would have been under the 1997 tax and welfare system
• Number of households living on under £100 per week up from one million in 1997 to 1.5 million

Perhaps we shouldn't look too closely after all...

Blair Memories - In His Own Words

To mark the final episode in the "end of the beginning of the end" saga that is the prime minister's long-awaited departure, I thought I'd post some of my favourite quotes. Please do add some of your own in the comments!

"Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war."

"Now is not the time for sound-bites. I can feel the hand of history on my shoulder."

"Profound problems require profound remedies."

"I am absolutely confident that the mechanisms for judging my fallibility are infallible."

Cameron Conservatism (In Translation)

Writing in today's Times, Oliver Letwin asks:

Is Cameron Conservatism just a set of attitudes, or is it a political theory? This is the unspoken question behind quite a lot of the more intellectual commentary over the past 18 months of Conservative revival.

The question therefore deserves an answer.

Unfortunately, he pitches his response at a level that has prompted more than a handful of people to despair, "Am I the only one who cannot understand a word of what Letwin is going on about ...?!"

Here then is a brief translation of his answer:

Cameron Conservatism has two goals:

1. To shift the focus of political debate from economics (on which there is now a broad consensus across all parties) to society, and
   
2. To change the role of the state from provider of public services (NuLab's approach) to funder of public services.

Where Gordon Brown sees a centralised and controlling state as the only possible guarantor of well-being, David Cameron sees government only as the guarantor of the stability and security upon which the economy and well-being depend.

Instead of Labour's constant raft of targets, directives, reorganisations, schemes, and initiatives, a Cameron government would seek to provide support and incentives for services to be run by the voluntary or private sector, though still paid for by the state.

Simply put, that is the vision of "Social Responsibility" — a vision in which human enterprise, initiative, vocation, and morale are nurtured and encouraged — a vision that frees us all to meet the challenges we face in twenty-first century Britain.

Hidden Generation of Young Carers

"I cry myself to sleep until I sleep. But no matter how much you cry it doesn't go away, it's still there when you get up in the morning."

And we complain about child labour and child slavery abroad ... The Princess Royal Trust, who are calling for an inquiry, estimates that there are 175,000 young people caring for sick or disabled parents or siblings in the UK — something like 91% of them without any help.

The most depressing thing about this statistic is not the vast number of people who are missing out on a proper childhood, but that this figure is not new. For years now the Trust and other charities, such as Barnardo's, have been trying to highlight the plight of those who struggle alone to care for their older relatives, often not asking for the help that they so desperately need owing to fear that social services might separate them from their families.

This morning's item on the Today programme was a sad insight into the lives of this hidden army of child carers. The response of Children's Minister Beverly Hughes was wholly inadequate:

"The Government has put the needs of young carers very firmly in the frame for local authorities, for health services, for schools. These are children in need. In law they have a right to information, they have a right to an assessment, and to services to support them. The whole reform of children's services with Every Child Matters, the integration of social care, education, and health is designed to meet better the needs of all vulnerable children."

Not exactly what I would call a consolation to friends and relatives of 13-year-old Deanne Asamoah, who recently died from an overdose of her terminally ill mother's morphine, no longer able to cope after four years as her mother's carer.

The Government needs to acknowledge that this is a real problem in "modern" twenty-first century Britain and urgently provide the necessary support and practical assistance required by carers — both adults and children alike.

Imperial Rules!

Congratulations to the Metric Martyrs campaigners and the Conservative MEP Giles Chichester who, having first saved the crown on the British pint, has now rescued pounds and ounces, yards, feet and inches, and miles per hour from the European bureaucrats!

Claiming credit for the decision, Mr Chichester said, "I am happy that the Conservatives have persuaded the Commission that it is good not only for international business but for the British people that traditional measurements are kept. I just hope there won’t be any more need for Metric Martys and that the Government will avoid forcing metrication down the public’s throat."

Just goes to show that common-sense can occasionally win the day.  Cheers!

Battle for the Heavens

Europe's ambitious satellite-navigation system project Galileo may be grounded owing to deadlock in the consortium of private builders commissioned to construct the 30 satellites. In a sense this is both good and bad news.

The Good News

This may prove a godsend to those of us who have concerns about European anti-Americanism and who have reservations about the expansion of the European superstate. For, the Galileo project was supposed to "underpin the common European defence policy," would boost Europe's military capability independent of both NATO and the US, and risked creating the conditions whereby conflict with America would be almost inevitable. Moreover, Britain's involvement in the project as a member of the EU could jeopardise our relationship with the States and our access to technological information and advances that America might want to keep from its military competitors.

The Bad News

Next week, the EU Transport Commissioner is due to announce whether the EC is to abandon the project or, perhaps more likely, partially finance or take complete control of it. This last option would cost the European tax-payer (yes, that's you and me) an extra €2 billion (£1.35 billion) — that's in addition to the €1.5 billion (>£1 billion) that the European Commission has already allocated in its current budget period — and with each delay the project incurs additional costs, such as the unplanned signal testing satellite that the European Space Agency was forced to order earlier this year in order to maintain the rights to Galileo's frequency allocations.

Originally projected to be fully operational by next year, Galileo now risks being under construction until at least 2014. In the meantime, it is feared that China, who originally invested in Galileo, may be developing its own satnav network, as is Russia, who is expected to have 18 spacecraft in orbit by the end of this year. So, Europe may find itself paying for yet another great white elephant that nobody else wants to invest in.

Even if the EC does decide to finance the project, at least we will all have a few more years yet to think through Galileo's implications. In the pursuit of regional peace and stability, I suppose that is a price worth paying.