Ben Kelly

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Heathrow: We need to stop gazing at our navels and think of the future

Ben Kelly / Inter-Generational Fairness / 0 comments

26/06/2018

Finally, a third runway at Heathrow has been approved in parliament. Next comes the legal challenges and likely consequent delays. The longer the delays, the longer our economy suffers from our procrastination. A supposed outward looking ‘global Britain’ takes twenty years or more to build a single runway and expects to be taken seriously.

If Britain wants to compete in the global marketplace, the government needs to think of the future and take action. Look around the world, Amsterdam Schipol Airport has six runways, Madrid has four, Paris has four and in the US JFK in New York has four, Chicago has six and Boston has six. Our supposed ‘hub’ airport has two; compensate residents and build the damn runway!

We need to stop gazing at our navels and think of the future. The third runway at Heathrow will boost our economy, but its only sufficient for the medium term. Within a couple of decades of its construction there will likely be demand for an additional runway, then what? Another 20 years of talking?

The independent Airports Commission issued a report in 2015 which pointed out that London’s airport system would be using 90 percent of available capacity by 2030. Even under pessimistic forecasts, it said, by 2040 all London airports except Stansted would be full. We shouldn’t be pussyfooting around about building one runway, we should be looking to build more!

The debate about airport expansion saw Heathrow and Gatwick compete for investment, the answer to this is to expand both. They both cater primarily for different needs, with Gatwick catering for short haul and leisure and Heathrow for business and long haul. They both connect to different regions of the UK and have a different international network. For real, sustained economy growth; build a new runway at Heathrow and Gatwick. Not only would this be a major boost to the economy, it would likely lead to better services and lower costs for consumers as the two compete.

Environmentalists who wish us all to live in yurts and adopt a vegan diet will complain, but aviation technology will continue to advance and get cleaner. The advancement of cleaner and greener technology is the key to tackling climate change, not destroying our growth prospects without making a dent in global climate change targets.

The strongest argument is concerns about increasing the north/south divide, but this is a strong argument for allowing expansion and development of Northern airports when the necessity and demand is clear in the future.

In response to the Cabinet’s approval of Heathrow expansion, Andrew Cowan, CEO of Manchester Airport, said:

‘Manchester Airport is investing more than £1bn in transforming its facilities and unlocking the spare capacity on its exiting two full-length runways […] Government must now match its support for a third runway at Heathrow with specific and practical proposals to maximise the potential of airports like Manchester in the period to 2030 – the earliest the third runway is likely to be delivered – and beyond that.’

Hear, hear! Britain must be a country of action and dynamism if it wants to flourish after Brexit.

It is patently absurd that a substance that can help a sick child is banned

Ben Kelly / Prohibition / 0 comments

18/06/2018

Billy Caldwell went 300 days without epileptic seizures thanks to medicinal cannabis oil. Since his cannabis oil was seized at customs he has had five. This is madness.

Thanks to the quick actions of Sajid Javid the Home Office granted a 20-day licence for the use of the banned substance, stabilising Billy’s condition.

His mother, Charlotte, said: “The fact that Billy has been discharged is testimony to the effectiveness of the treatment and underlines how vital it is that every child and every single family affected in our country should have immediate access to the very same medication.”

It is patently absurd that a substance that can help a sick child is banned, it has nothing to do with misuse of drugs as we’re not talking here about a psychoactive substance here. In hospitals up and down the country patients are being given pain relief using powerful opiates, but the medical use of cannabis is banned. It’s illogical and cruel. This is a matter of health policy, not criminal justice.

Billy Caldwell’s cannabis oil treatment will run out by the end of June unless the government allows his mother to import more. There is no good reason not to legalise its use.

There must be an urgent and rapid review of policy to allow for a Licensing scheme for medicinal cannabis use, managed by the Department for Health, to allow sufferers of epilepsy to get the treatment they need.

The government has claimed that cannabis has no medicinal benefits, despite the evidence in front of their eyes. Despite this the UK the UK is the biggest exporter of medicinal Cannabis in the world. What a bizarre situation.

As ever, tone deaf Theresa May is slow to understand the seriousness of the issue, both as a basic matter of principle and morality, and a matter of politics. Sajid Javid repeatedly tried to raise the issue in Cabinet this morning, only to be told by the PM that it wasn’t on the agenda. Another reminder that the illiberal Maybot is a hindrance to the Conservative Party.

Luckily an increasingly confident Sajid Javid is growing in stature and beginning to flex his muscles in the Home Office, showing an intrinsic understanding of how important this issue is.

Leaving the European Arrest Warrant is a benefit of Brexit

Ben Kelly / Rights and Freedoms / 0 comments

25/05/2018

According to senior EU officials, the UK cannot be in the European Arrest Warrant after Brexit. Although this does create immediate issues in that we must now consider what extradition arrangements we want post-Brexit and work towards negotiating a new treaty, it is a positive thing that we are leaving the EAW.

Conservatives for Liberty campaigned hard against the European Arrest Warrant, and we were extremely disappointed when Theresa may announced her intention to negotiate staying in it. We highlighted the case of Alexander Adamescu as a chilling example of the injustices the UK becomes implicit in due to the EAW, but there are many such examples:

https://www.fairtrials.org/case-study/garry-mann … https://www.fairtrials.org/case-study/deborah-dark … https://www.fairtrials.org/case-study/natalia-gorczowska … https://www.fairtrials.org/case-study/edmond-arapi …

Not all legals systems across Europe are equal, and the UK’s is quite distinct from those of the continent. The European Arrest Warrant is a threat to liberty, the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial.

Good riddance!

Resisting the nanny state – An interview with Christopher Snowdon

Ben Kelly / Prohibition / 0 comments

09/05/2018

When I interviewed you previously in September 2015, you struck rather a pessimistic tone at the increasing power of the public health lobby and the nanny state, is it safe to say things have got worse since then?

Very safe. Things generally do get worse. All you can do is hope to slow down the speed at which liberty is eroded.

The sugar tax has finally come into effect and Scotland has introduced minimum pricing. Wales will probably follow Scotland next year. Plain packaging for tobacco came in last year. Public Health England has gone completely berserk and is in the process of systematically degrading the entire food supply. A number of popular soft drinks, including Ribena, Irn-Bru and Lucozade, have been taken off the shelves and replaced with products which are, in effect, artificially sweetened forgeries.

It’s a dismal state of affairs and it’s only the start. The moment the Supreme Court allowed minimum pricing to become law, the temperance lobby started campaigning for warning labels on alcohol and a total advertising ban. A ban on so-called ‘junk food’ advertising is the number one priority of the anti-obesity brigade. The goal is, quite obviously, to copy anti-smoking legislation and apply it to what we eat and drink. It is endless.

In a recent Newsnight piece, you said ‘for the first time in a century the temperance movement is winning the political battle’. What is it about this point in our history that’s driving the latest rise in influence for this prohibitionist movement? What are the roots of this cultural phenomenon?

The temperance lobby had a bad reputation after Prohibition collapsed and it took them decades to recover. When public health went through its metamorphosis and became a movement for coercive paternalism in the 1970s, temperance campaigners wormed their way in and portrayed themselves as ‘public health’ experts. Few people realise how prominent gospel temperance groups are in the ‘public health’ movement, both here and in Europe. The EU gives them money, needless to say.

They’ve gone about it in quite a clever way by inventing what they call the ‘whole population approach’. The theory is bullshit, but it is convenient bullshit because it states that the amount of dangerously excessive drinking rises and falls in line with the amount of alcohol drunk by the whole society. Therefore, if you want to tackle hazardous drinking, you don’t have to get your hands dirty by dealing with alcoholics, you just make moderate drinkers consume less and the alcoholics will magically follow. This allows them to follow the anti-tobacco playbook; with tobacco, overall consumption of cigarettes is a pretty good proxy for tobacco-related harm. And so, you end up with taxes, graphic warnings, advertising bans and all the other things which are supposed to reduce per capita consumption of alcohol but which actually do nothing to help people who are dependent drinkers.

Why are they and their ‘public health’ colleagues getting so much traction now? I think it reflects the mediocrity of political thought and the lack of a well-developed vision of the future. Introducing these policies makes politicians feel brave and important. On the Conservative side, I think there is a failure to understand that ‘public health’ is a fundamentally political movement that hates the market. It is a way of controlling industries without the hassle of nationalising them.

If there was to be a major change of policy, one would expect it to come from a centre right government. However, a Conservative chancellor (George Osborne) introduced the sugar tax, and this week hailed it as a success and called it ‘progressive policy in action’. With no political Party in the UK opposed to the nanny state, is resistance futile?

David Cameron was the absolute worst for this stuff. If you look at his record, he makes Gordon Brown look like Ayn Rand. After opposing the tobacco display ban in opposition, his party introduced it almost as soon as it took office. He introduced plain packaging at a time when no other government apart from Australia was showing much interest in it. He introduced the sugar tax. He set up Public Health England, which was only ever going to be a giant nanny state lobby group. He wanted to introduce minimum pricing and was only stopped because of Cabinet opposition.

It’s a shameful record. Whether it’s because he is a patrician Tory or because he thought that detoxifying the Tory brand meant caving in to the trendy authoritarianism of the ‘public health’ racket, I don’t know. I am slightly – but only slightly – encouraged that the current wave of lifestyle regulation is the legacy of the Cameron era and Theresa May has not added anything else to the pile. I don’t think May has any interest in nanny state politics but I fear she is too weak to stand up against a well-organised campaign.

Why is the government so quick to implement public health policies that fly in the face of the evidence? Is it just virtue signalling or part of the “band wagon effect”?

It’s kind of hard for politicians to resist it. There is an absolute army of state-funded campaigners and activist-academics working night and day to control people’s lifestyles. Take plain packaging, for example. I don’t think Cameron cared what colours were on cigarette packs and I’d be amazed if he thought plain packaging would make any difference to the smoking rate, but he made the mistake of holding a public consultation on it. This was a sign of weakness and that is what the nanny state vermin feed off. They scour the globe for weak and egotistical politicians. Once they see a glimmer of hope, they pour all their resources into it. So, they flooded Cameron’s consultation and spent the next few years accusing the government of doing a U-turn by not introducing it. They ran the usual line about caving in to the tobacco industry and made up all this kind of stuff about Lynton Crosby, and so, in the end, it was easier for Dave to pass the legislation than not.

If you have no principles – which Cameron doesn’t – it comes down to the simple question of whether the political costs of doing it outweigh the political costs of not doing it. Same with the sugar tax. The costs are widely dispersed. How many Tory voters are going to switch to Corbyn because their can of Coke costs an extra 10p? Approximately none, so if you’ve failed to meet your economic targets yet again – as George Osborne had in 2015 – what’s the harm in pulling a sugar tax out of your hat and getting the media to focus on Jamie Oliver’s gormless face instead of the size of the national debt?

Then you have the problem that Tony Blair created the pointless position of Minister for Public Health which gives junior politicians an opportunity to make a name for themselves by trampling all over personal freedom. These people have essentially nothing to do all day except be lobbied by single issue pressure groups and so they go native almost overnight. The position is currently occupied by Steve Brine whose Twitter photo shows him with Deborah Arnott (head of Action on Smoking Health) stood behind him with a big grin on her face. You couldn’t ask for a better visual metaphor of how that department operates. He’s currently trying to persuade his followers that the new Ribena “delivers the same taste”. It’s really quite pathetic to see a politician spouting corporate slogans which are patently untrue in an attempt to get people to buy products that have been ruined by their own policies.

From Public Health England down to local councils, you have this swarm of nanny state ideologues whose raison d’etre is taxing and banning. They then lobby politicians who have all the wrong incentives. It’s a recipe for disaster.

The British public can be quote conformist and seem content to grumble under their breath about the constant infringements on their freedom of choice rather than express the sort of displeasure that makes politicians think twice. Might there eventually be a straw that breaks the camel’s back?

2018 is the year when the nanny state gets real for a lot of people. We’re already seeing a backlash against the reformulation scheme with the few soft drinks that have been ruined. At the moment, not enough people realise that it is the government that is behind this. Public Health England are being deliberately secretive – they call it ‘health by stealth’. But eventually people are going to work out what’s going on.

I also expect to see a backlash against the sugar tax and, in particular, minimum pricing. It’s going to be a big shock to Scottish drinkers when they see how much prices go up. They’ve been sold the lie that it’s only the super-strength products that will be affected. That will change when they go to buy a slab of beer on May 1st.

I’m realistic. I know we’re never going to see people marching on the streets against this kind of stuff, but growing discontent should at least make politicians think twice about future policy gimmicks. In Westminster, support for nanny state policies is wide but shallow. Most politicians really don’t care either way and will go along with them for a small gain. Equally, though, they will go against them if there is a small cost.

Without a public backlash, do we risk sleepwalking into a nanny state dystopia of the kind advocated by Sarah Conly or Nick Cohen’s barmy vision in a recent Guardian article?

The Nick Cohen article is what you get when people start seeing the government as the solution to everything. Not just the solution, but the first port of call when anything irritates or upsets you. So, Nick’s given up drinking and started running. Good for him. There are no policy implications from a journalist going on a health kick, but it’s very important to him and so, being a statist, he thinks the government should act on his new preferences.

It’s amazing how often seemingly reasonable newspaper columnists embrace totalitarian health measures. David Aaronovitch struggles with dieting and so he wants sugary products banned from supermarkets. Janet Street-Porter recently demanded rationing be reintroduced to tackle the fictitious childhood obesity ‘epidemic’. A few years ago she wanted rationing for alcohol. These people don’t mind the idea of having a massive, intrusive government because they imagine themselves being in charge of it.

All Cohen was doing was taking the arguments about smokers and obese people being a drain on the NHS to their logical conclusion. If it is our duty as citizens to keep demand on the NHS to a minimum, there is no limit on what the government can do to us. People become servants of the NHS rather than the other way round. This is a terrifying outlook and the people who make this argument are not, I think, arguing in good faith. For a start, the economics of it are all wrong. It is the ageing population, not the prematurely dying population, that is really placing a ‘burden’ on public services. People like Cohen may not know this because the ‘public health’ racket routinely lies about it, but if you explained it to him I bet he’d still support coercive lifestyle regulation. It’s not about economics for these people. It’s not about the NHS. It’s about control. It’s about that weird, creepy characteristic that some people have of wanting to impose their own way of doing things on everybody else.

If the entire public health lobby were to be defunded, how would recommend spending the money saved?

On healthcare. On social care. On something that people actually want and need.

People in the ‘public health’ racket claim that their policies pay for themselves in spades a few years down the line because they prevent diseases. In fact, most preventive medicine costs more in the long run because people live longer and run up more bills, but that’s almost irrelevant because nanny state policies generally don’t work in the first place. Sugar taxes have not worked. Plain packaging has not worked. We can say that categorically. The jury is in. The only place where they work is on a spreadsheet on an activist’s computer. Bone-headed attempts to make people fundamentally change their lifestyles by obstructing the market simply do not work. They do not address demand. They do not address the reasons that people making unhealthy lifestyle choices. They just punish people for making them.

It’s a disgrace that we are spending more than £4 billion a year on so-called ‘public health’ in this country. Not all of that money is squandered but a hell of a lot of it is. The government has essentially created a slush fund for a bunch of fanatics to play at being scientists and for a bunch of lobbyists to play at being doctors. Spend it on the health service.

How do you think issues of childhood obesity and other public health issues caused by poor diet, inactivity etc should be addressed in government policy, or should the state just leave us alone?

Obesity is not a public health issue. It’s not contagious and it does not require collective action. I am not obese and it makes no difference to me whether the obesity rate is twenty per cent or two per cent. By contrast, the government’s anti-obesity policies have a very real effect on me and on the rest of the three-quarters of the population who are not obese. Why should we put up with having our favourite drinks taken off the shelves and our favourite foods shrunk or degraded in a doomed attempt to make a bunch of couch potatoes lose weight? Why should obese people put up with it, for that matter? Who voted for this? How many people really want it?

As usual, it’s all being done under the pretext of think-of-the-children, but Public Health England have pretty abandoned that cover story now and admit that children and adults generally eat the same things so the entire food supply has to be ‘reformulated’.

I would accept that the state has more of a role to play in tackling childhood obesity because most children go to state schools, but the problem is vastly overstated anyway. The claims about how many kids are obese are simply fraudulent. If you look at the way they measure child obesity, it’s just laughable. It’s a classic Emperor’s New Clothes scenario. Anybody who picks their kids up from school or spends any time around children can see that very few of them are overweight, let alone obese, but we are told endlessly that a third of them are dangerously overweight and so we assume that there are corners of the country where entire schools are made up of little Billy Bunters. There are not.

There’s so much doublethink required to believe the narrative of ‘public health’. We can be told one minute that kids are going to die before their parents because of the crippling effects of the obesity ‘epidemic’ and the next minute we are told that one in six people are going to live to 100 and that social care can’t cope with the rising number of geriatrics. The majority of the claims made by nanny statists are at least partially inaccurate and a lot of them a demonstrably false. We’re being lied to. That’s what it comes down.

WHO FUNDS YOU??

*Sigh*

The sugar tax: Another win for the nanny state

Ben Kelly / Prohibition / nanny state, sugar tax / 0 comments

06/04/2018

The sugar tax is a bad policy being introduced for bad reasons and, worst of all, it’s another push down a slippery slope. Public health lobbyists have yet another win under their belt and they won’t stop there. You were warned.

It’s a regressive tax and, like all consumption taxes, will hit the poorest the hardest as a greater proportion of their income is spent on “sin taxes” and VAT. The poorest 10% of households already pay more than 20% of their gross incomes on duties and VAT – more than double the average household.

Our Online Director Ben Kelly writes on the sugar tax today for Reaction, read here.

The reshuffled Cabinet

Ben Kelly / News / 0 comments

11/06/2017

Philip Hammond: Chancellor of the Exchequer

Amber Rudd: Secretary of State for the Home Department

Boris Johnson: Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

David Davis: Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union

Michael Fallon: Secretary of State for Defence

Damian Green: First Secretary of State and Minister for the Cabinet Office

Greg Clark: Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

David Gauke: Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Liz Truss: Chief Secretary to the Treasury, attending Cabinet

Liam Fox: Secretary of State for International Trade

Justine Greening: Education Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities

Sajid Javid: Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

David Lidington: Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

Alun Cairns: Secretary of State for Wales

Jeremy Hunt: Secretary of State for Health

Gavin Williamson: Chief Whip

Chris Grayling: Secretary of State for Transport

Priti Patel: Secretary of State for International Development

James Brokenshire: Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

Karen Bradley: Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Andrea Leadsom: Lord President of the Council and Leader of the Commons

Michael Gove: Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Brandon Lewis: Minister of State in the Home Office, now attending Cabinet

Jeremy Wright: Attorney General

Baroness (Natalie) Evans: Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords

Patrick McLoughlin: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative Party Chair

Jeremy_Corbyn,_2016_Labour_Party_Conference_5

I’m uninspired; but I’m voting to oppose the Far Left extremists

Ben Kelly / Elections / 2 comments

08/06/2017

When I cast my vote in this general election I will, for the most part, be voting against something rather than for anything. I don’t endorse Theresa May’s illiberal instincts, her paternalistic philosophy or desire for economic interventionism; nor do I think her Brexit strategy is grounded in what’s best for the economy. During this campaign, she has proven to be poor performer who is uncomfortable with scrutiny and weak under pressure. It has all been very unimpressive.

In truth, no political party commands my unconditional loyalty; politics is not football. If there was an optimistic, leader prepared to defend Neoliberalism and globalisation, who believed in a market based relationship with the EU, leading a capable Party they would have my enthusiastic vote, but there isn’t. I feel so uninspired that in the past I may have just stayed at home.

There is however a VERY large but. As in: but what about the alternative? I feel compelled to cast a vote against the Far Left Labour leadership and their zealous acolytes. I detest their ideology and i’m repulsed by their numerous questionable affiliations and sympathies. The populist Labour manifesto is based on a utopianist economic policy which is economically ridiculous in its profligacy and cynical in its attempt to promise the world to every voter group. It may be chock full of sellable doorstep policies but it’s rife with terrible ideas, from the National Education Service to the National Investment Bank and nationalisation program.

Worst of all, I don’t believe for a moment that if given the chance to consolidate their power, the Corbynites won’t go much further than suggested in their manifesto and attempt to implement their long cherished socialistic economic beliefs and ride roughshod through Britain’s institutions. I dread to think of what state the country would end up in.

Every vote for Labour will be perceived by the leadership as an endorsement of Corbyn and the Party’s current direction and I want to see them ousted so that Labour can become a competent and reasonable opposition and a government in waiting. That’s better for this country and its political system, and this may be the last chance to prevent Labour becoming permanently captured by extremists.

I don’t buy into the image of Corbyn as a kindly old man with some eccentric beliefs; he is a dogmatic extremist with a warped moral compass. It seems tedious to go over it again, we’ve all read a hundred articles laying out the case against him but it bears repeating until there is no longer any threat of this man becoming our Prime Minister.

This is a man who supported the IRA and is now lying about supporting the peace process ; he talks as if he was an integral part of it but he was nothing of the sort. This is a man who expressed sympathies with Hamas and Hezbollah by inviting them to Parliament and called them his ‘friends’. Who took money to appear on the propaganda channel of the Iranian regime five times. The Iranian regime, it should be remembered, is a totalitarian theocracy that executes dissenters and gays and is vehemently anti-Semitic, not to mention oppressive of women. None of that matters though, he is happy to be a useful idiot for anyone who is against the West.

So many hardcore Corbynites are frothing at the mouth anti-Semites which is disconcerting and very telling. There is something very wrong when a large poster featuring Theresa May wearing Star of David earrings in unfurled as if this was completely normal and acceptable, and not something reserved for neo-Nazis. The problem is, Corbyn doesn’t just tolerate this; he is one of the root causes. He whitewashed the investigation into this clear issue within the Labour Party so he can hardly be that concerned.

Here we again have to look at the people and causes he associates himself with. He has supported Raed Salah, a Jew hating Islamist who spreads the Blood Libel myth and claims they were behind 9/11. This kindly old socialist has praised him repeatedly, saying ‘’Salah’s is a voice that must be heard’, really? Seriously? Not surprising from a Hamas sympathiser I suppose, the group with an explicitly genocidal charter that rules out a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestine issue and makes it clear that killing Jews is an express aim of their supporters. A man who invited them to Parliament and praised them as “serious and hard working” is our potential Prime Minister… crazy times.

The team working under Corbyn are a sorry lot that shouldn’t be anywhere near government. We have the utterly vile extremist Marxist John McDonnell, a ‘bad, bad, bastard’ in the thoroughly apt words of Reaction editor Iain Martin, looking to take control of the UK’s economy. The decision to choose Diane Abbott, yet another IRA supporter as well as a Mao apologist, has proven to be disastrous. As his Communications Director he appointed a Stalinist, Seamus Milne, an enthusiastic apologist for the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic. He then judged it reasonable to hire Andrew Murray, a Communist who has defended Stalin and North Korea, as a campaign advisor.

Beyond that the dregs of the Labour Party make up his Cabinet because most of his MP’s can’t stand him and don’t believe he should be their leader, never mind Prime Minister.

Aside from the people, it’s the policies I cannot endorse. The Conservative’s baffling failure to run a campaign based on the economy left an open goal for Corbynite Labour to promise the world to the electorate. These longstanding admirers of the socialist alternative as exemplified by basket cases like Venezeula and Cuba, have an opportunity to transform Britain in ways they have dreamed about for decades. It’s the road to ruin. In their quest to remould Britain into a socialist country they plan to borrow billions; it will be an expensive failure. The size of the deficit and the national debt after achieving so many bad outcomes from their good intentions does not bear thinking about.

The putrid Far Left cannot be allowed to govern Britain. This catastrophe must be averted. They need to lose and lose badly to prove how unpopular they are, to expose their failures and increase the chances of loosening their grip on the Labour Party. That is why I am casting my vote against them.

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

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The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Conservatives for Liberty

Palace_of_Westminster,_London_-_Feb_2007

It is right that parliament should vote on triggering Article 50; but the decision to leave was definitively made on June 23rd

Ben Kelly / Blog / 2 comments

24/01/2017

It was inevitable that the Government would lose the Supreme Court appeal and now that Theresa May has been ruled against by a majority of 8 to 3; the appeal looks like an unforced error by the prime minister. Triggering Article 50 not only requires changes to legislation; it will fundamentally change the future course of this country and it is absolutely right that parliament should debate and vote. The process should have been started long ago and this debacle could have been avoided.

Many Brexiteers, no doubt led by Farage and his merry men, will be tediously ranting and raving about this for the rest of the day; I would urge them to re-think. Please, let’s now be hypocrites, you wanted parliamentary sovereignty, you wanted empowered MPs, you wanted a grown up democracy debating serious future altering decisions; well now you’ve got it. This is what taking back control really looks like.

I don’t want an unaccountable supranational government ruling over us but neither do I want an over mighty Executive forcing its will on parliament. So rejoice, parliament is reasserting itself!

One thing is overwhelmingly clear; the result of the referendum has given the Government a mandate to leave the EU and Theresa May has the support of the British people to get Article 50 through parliament. Thus, any attempt to stop Brexit would be a violation of our democracy and risks turning British politics severely toxic. If people feel that they are being ignored their resentment will build up and eventually boil over and come back on those who chose to ignore them.

It is when the people feel that their elected representatives are unaccountable that apathy sets in, which will then be exploited by demagogues promising easy answers from a hardline approach. The danger is that the backlash will manifest itself in people turning to the extremes to express their frustration. Ignoring the referendum and trying to block Brexit would be playing with fire. MPs must remember who they work for and peers must not discredit the House of Lords.

As long as that is fully accepted, as I expect it will be, Brexiteers should have no complaints about MPs having their say on Brexit. This is not a violation of the “will of the British people” but rather the joyous sight of an awakening democracy. This is what it’s all about. We can expect to see many more great debates in the future as MPs consider international treaties and trade agreements after parliament has taken back control from Brussels. This is step one on the path to a renewed parliamentary sovereignty. Isn’t this what we voted for?

The ranting and raving of those who object to the Supreme Court ruling will only make Brexiteers appear hypocritical and unreasonable. The referendum gave a mandate to leave, but now on how to leave. We are not handing our notice to end a golf club membership; seceding from the EU is going to be mind bogglingly complex and difficult and the discussion over our approach is necessarily nuanced. This isn’t something that should be forced through rashly by the unconstrained Executive without a reasonable explanation of Government policy.

Now parliament will debate the intricacies and possibilities as we come to a solution that has the support of the house. This, incidentally, makes support for the final exit deal more likely. Far from being a setback, the Supreme Court ruling will be beneficial and makes a successful Brexit more likely.

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

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The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Conservatives for Liberty

WARNING: Eating roast potatoes may seriously harm your health (says nannying quango)

Ben Kelly / Blog / 0 comments

23/01/2017

My name is Ben Kelly and I’m a roast potato addict. It started with just the occasional spud, you know, a few boiled or mashed at social gatherings. All the cool kids were eating them. Then I moved to roasted and eventually I could barely imagine a roast dinner without them. Before long I began “fluffing” them to enhance the high.

Now, i’m a 20 a day man. I fluff every time, roast them in goose fat until they’re nice and brown, and crunch into them in a delicious frenzy of culinary ecstasy. It’s a hard life, the life of a roastie addict. I’ve tried the patches, but they did no good. I even tried an E-potato but I got scared by reports of them blowing up in people’s faces. In any case public health activists say they’re nearly as bad as the real thing anyway and their advice is completely impartial and not tainted by ideological zeal at all.

There is a point behind this facetiousness of course. Britain collectively furrowed its brow and rolled its eyes today at more piffling, nannying advice from a Government agency we all fund telling us to introduce more needless worry and misery into our lives by wringing our hands over acrymalide in foods which, of course, will give you all cancer.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched a new campaign against the scourge of our age; crispy roast potatoes, toast that has been toasted too much and crisps. “Go gold” is the laughable slogan some marketing exec, collecting a salary from the taxpayer no doubt, has come up with to warn against what they deem to be overcooked food.

So, don’t “fluff” your potatoes to make them extra delicious; it will increase the risk of cancer. Don’t brown your toast to give it a lovely crunch; it will increase the risk of cancer. Probably best to avoid crisps altogether (unless you want cancer). All due to a chemical reaction in high carb foods that takes place when you choose to fry, roast, bake, grill or toast them and forms the basis of the campaign which will, i’m sure, transform lives in a very meaningful way.

Personally my recommendation would be to put pictures of cancerous tumours on plain packaged potatoes, emblazoned with bold letters reading: “WARNING: ROAST POTATOES WILL INCREASE THE RISK OF CANCER”, the bags should then be stored behind closed doors in all shops to try and reduce their consumption. This should be swiftly followed up by a potato tax and restrictions on advertising.

There really is no other way to responds the FSA campaign other than ridicule. We are now bombarded with so much advice from nannying quangos and “public health” campaigners that it all becomes white noise. The hysteria over what we eat, how we cook it, and what will increase the risk of cancer is undermining the more serious health advice we really should be heeding. Advice that can be taken from genuinely important scientific research will fall on deaf ears because of bizarre scaremongering overreactions such as this “go for gold” nonsense.

How many times must we do this? This tedious scenario plays out over and over and over. Britain is becoming a timid country beset by irrational public health scares; please, let’s get a grip.

First, some quango or public health body publishes some research with their latest advice on what we shouldn’t eat and how we are increasing the risk of cancer. Then the media sensationalises it to fill an empty news day and whips up a health scare frenzy with every single newspaper reporting on it, every newsreader announcing it it, morning radio talk shows discussing it and journalists with apparently nothing better to do writing about it (oh, wait…). Finally, a few people note the advice, most ignore and forget about it and we all move on… until the next time.

Look, everything in moderation, okay? That advice is mind numbingly clichéd but we should all live by it because it’s common sense. No taxpayer money was diverted into my bank account for reminding you of that advice. People of Britain I urge you to have roast potatoes with your dinner this weekend; and fluff them up before cooking to make them extra crispy. Don’t worry, be happy.

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

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A free press is essential to a free society. Stand up for it.

Ben Kelly / Blog / 0 comments

10/01/2017

It is only three years ago since there was an attempt made to introduce a form of state regulation of the press. It failed, and should have been discarded into the pile of hastily proposed terrible government ideas. Instead, we have to fight the battle all over again.

The consultation on a plan to impose financial penalties on newspapers who refuse to sign up to a government approved regulator will end tomorrow, if you wish to give your opinion you will have to act quickly. A 300 year old tradition of press freedom should not be abolished because a movement led by embittered celebrities and politicians wasn’t adequately opposed.

How much easier would life be for our politicians if the ever troublesome British press was enfeebled by a regulator chock full of people with a clear agenda to tame them?

The implication of section 40 is that if libel action is brought against a newspaper it could be forced to pay the legal costs of the other side even when it won the case. Anyone who cannot see how the threat of lawsuits could potentially be used to intimidate journalists and silence newspapers is being incredibly short sighted and close minded. There is a clear and present danger.

It is common practice in corrupt and unfree countries to haul journalists and newspaper owners before the courts to intimidate them into silence, is that what we want for our own country? Politicians and the rich and powerful who had something to hide will use any power they have – as they do now with injunctions – to protect themselves. It is clearly conceivable that they could use this to threaten newspapers into silence. The threat of crippling legal costs will loom large; the press will be cowed.

There is only one way to escape this; to sign up to a government approved regulator funded by Max Mosley who has is pursuing a personal vendetta against the press because of the News of the World orgy exposé. How can Impress be a credible regulator when officials within the organisation have expressed publicly their disdain for certain newspapers?

No self respecting publication would sign up to Impress, but they face serious risk because section 40 has the power to bankrupt them. Yes, say goodbye to tittle tattle celebrity gossip, but don’t expect a tamed press to pursue investigations into the wrongdoing of politicians and corporations. Instead, expect a cowed national press and local newspapers to be shut down by rich and powerful chancers.

The government mustn’t give in to Hacked Off, Impress, and the parade of useful idiot celebrities embittered by their past scandals. If the press is compelled to submit, it will be a scandal and will shame this country, which should be beacon of liberty, in the eyes of the world.

When a tyrant rises to power, the first thing they do is take control of the press. Why? Because a free press is a central pillar of a free society. Destroy it and watch the fragile structure of liberty crumble.

You can do something about it. You have until 17:00 today to make your voice heard. We implore you to do so; say NO to section 40 and Leveson Part 2. Keep the press free.

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

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European Arrest Warrant on trial: The case of Alexander Adamescu

Ben Kelly / Blog / 0 comments

04/01/2017

Conservatives for Liberty have long held deep reservations about the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) on a matter of principle; injustices are inevitable because the EAW is based upon the false premise that all criminal justice systems in the EU are equal, free of corruption, and uphold similar levels of equity between the citizen and the state. Moreover, a dangerous assumption is made that the European Convention on Human Rights is earnestly and correctly adhered to by all requesting nations. This is clearly not the case, as has been demonstrated numerous times – and none as blatantly as in the case of Alexander Adamescu.

It is personal stories that lay bare the horror of the EAW, and that is why our campaign against it will be underpinned by a campaign for justice for Alexander; a victim of political persecution at the hands of Romanian state authorities.

Alexander is a German citizen who moved to London in 2012. He is accused of alleged offenses of corruption in Romania for which his father received a sentence of four years and four months imprisonment.

An understanding of the persecution of his father, Dan Adamaescu, is essential to understanding the clear political motivations behind the EAW issued against Alex, as well as the violations of human rights that have been committed and will be committed in the future should he be extradited.

Case background: Dan Adamescu

Dan Adamescu, a German citizen and businessman, was the owner of Romania’s biggest insurer, Astra, and the leading conservative newspaper Romania Libera. Dan Adamescu (now 67), left Romania with his wife and infant son Alexander in 1979, established himself in Germany and built what was to become The Nova Group (TNG). In the 1990s he returned to Romania and acquired Astra Insurance (which became the largest insurer in the country) and the national daily newspaper Romania Libera.

Romania Libera has long held a pro-democratic editorial stance and was a major supporter of transitioning Romania into a market economy. It is a thorn in the side of the Romanian state; exposing government corruption and speaking out against the abuse of power.

It was highly critical of the Social Democratic Party, the successor organisation of the Romanian Communist Party, and the party’s last leader, Victor Ponta, who served as Prime Minister from 2012-2015. When Victor Ponta came to power in 2012 the government, the regulators and the courts launched an all-out assault on the insurance company, Astra, with the clear aim of disempowering Dan Adamescu and cutting off Romania Libera’s funding.

In late 2013 the Romanian financial regulator, ASF, embarked on a series of actions against Astra Insurance. The Adamescu family contend that the actions are politically motivated actions to punish them for the conservative and critical editorial policy of Romania Libera and to wrestle control of Astra Insurance away from them.

Dan Adamescu was accused of laundering his own money from Astra into Romania Libera and of paying bribes of €20,000 to judges. The National Anti-Corruption Department (DNA) prosecutor in the case is Danut Volintiru, a former colleague of the former prime minister Victor Ponta. The DNA relied in its indictment entirely on two very questionable prosecution witnesses. No other evidence against the Adamescus exist.

Alexander Adamescu had already left Romania for good at the time of the alleged bribery.

Presumption of guilt

From the very beginning the case has been clearly marked by political prejudice and presumption of guilt. A clear pattern of illogical decisions show that the financial regulators made a concerted effort to push Astra Insurance into bankruptcy. Public statements by judges and Victor Ponta himself accusing Adamescu directly made it obvious that a fair trial was never a possibility.

This is one of many statements made by prime minister Victor Ponta regarding Dan Adamescu, from 20^th may 2014:

“Those guilty at ASF [the financial regulator] should resign. The others should not be afraid to go ahead with the case Astra – Adamescu, because that really big bomb there is that hundreds of millions of euro have been embezzled at Astra through Mr Adamescu. Now perhaps some have interpreted what is happening to Mr. Ruşanu [director of ASF], what is important is that the law should be applied and if it is true what we heard about this huge fraud then the insurance sector has to be cleaned up radically.”

In May 2014 Mr Adamescu was summoned as a suspect in the bribery case by prosecutors. Only two days later, prime minister Victor Ponta made a public statement on television directly declaring his guilt.

On 24^th May 2014 Victor Ponta appeared on television and made the following statement:

“Traian Basescu is one of the main beneficiaries of Mr Adamescu’s media support. Mr Adamescu publishes a newspaper that strongly campaigns against corruption. I think that this man, who has himself led a network of corruption to such great effect over a period of many years, presents himself as a publisher who speaks about the fight against corruption (…). I am convinced that we will shortly be hearing even more things about this from the state prosecutor’s office.”

Within the fortnight masked and armed anti-terror police raided Mr Adamescu’s home and arrested him. He was then paraded like a trophy in front of TV cameras; it became a big media show. State backed media brandished him a corrupt criminal. The DNA leaked the indictment to the press

He had been arrested for witness tampering simply for helping his finance director (subsequently a prosecution witness) to obtain a lawyer. The judge explained his decision by saying: “Dan Adamescu must be exposed to public shame” and argued that he couldn’t let Mr Adamescu free in case it gave the impression that “anybody could buy himself out of justice”. The prosecutor aggressively described Mr Adamescu as a menace to society who had to be locked up at any cost.

Judges later upheld the arrest with the following justification:

“The defendants Roventa Elena, Viziru Ciprian-Sorin and Adamescu Grigore-Dan […] continue to deny committing the crimes of which they stand accused.”

Apparently, in Romania, insisting upon one’s innocence is itself a crime worthy of detention. Mr Adamaescu was continually reproached for illegal actions despite his trial having not yet begun. The DNA insisted that he was a public danger without reasonable explanation or justification.

Trial and sentencing

In January 2015 Dan Adamescu was convicted after a speedy show trial based on the testimony of one witness, a Mr Onute, who was shown to be contradicting himself. Defending lawyers showed that the Mr Onute’s statements were contradictory, that he was not a credible witness because he had channelled money out of the company without permission and was a recruited DNA informer. They also showed that there was no clear motive to bribe the judges and the alleged bribe scheme was illogical.

Throughout the trial Mr Adamescu was prevented from talking by the judge and was cut short when attempting to question the prosecution witness. Likewise, the judge regularly interrupted the defendant’s lawyers as they attempted to question the prosecution witness.

Fair Trials International made Mr Adamescu’s trial a case example for their position paper on the strengthening of the presumption of innocence (page 10) of how not to breach this fundamental right of a defendant, which has clearly been breached in this case.

Dan Adamescu was sentenced to four years and four months of prison and given a very unusual additional condition clearly designed to prevent him exercising any control over Astra Insurance:

“[interdiction of] the right of being director, manager of any trading company, or of co-ordinating any trading companies, both in Romania and abroad, for a term of 3 years after executing his main punishment.”

On 27th May 2016, Dan Adamescu’s appeal at the Supreme Court was rejected and he was jailed. He has since then languished in Romania’s medieval prison system. He has been wheelchair bound and suffering from a number of serious medical conditions, including, among others, type II diabetes, ventricular fibrillation, severe knee arthritis and an eye infection that has rendered him blind in one eye due to the denial of proper treatment. He was repeatedly denied treatment for his crippling knee arthrosis despite being declared unfit for imprisonment by his German doctor.

* UPDATE: Dan Adamescu has died as a result of an infection caught in prison since this post was published – Read Ben Kelly’s Reaction article on it here.*

The political persecution of Alexander Adamescu

In the absence of his father, Alexander Adamescu had stepped in to help manage the crisis situation at Astra Insurance, making him a renewed target for prosecutors.

After Alexander sent a notice in December 2015 announcing arbitration for Romania’s breaches of international law, the DNA started criminal proceedings against Alexander for exactly the same bribery charges raised against his father.

At the beginning of March 2016 the DNA furthermore charged Dan and Alexander Adamescu with abuse of function, money laundering and complicity with abuse of function at Astra

On the same day (27^th May 2016) as his father was jailed, Alexander Adamescu’s arrest warrant was validated in the same court for the same charges. Despite living in London for four years, Alexander was officially called a fugitive from justice and an arrest warrant was issued within thirty minutes on his name.

Arrest

On 13th June 2016 Alexander Adamescu was arrested in London just two hours before he was due to appear at a public event campaigning against abuse of the European Arrest Warrant. The Romanian embassy had instructed the London Metropolitan Police to apprehend Alexander before the event to prevent his appearance. Shamefully, they did so.

Please help us raise awareness

The hearing for Alexander’s case will be held this year. A European Arrest Warrant can be rejected on the grounds that it is politically motivated and/or that the human rights of the accused have been or will be violated. Both are true in this case.

We are launching a campaign on our blog, and across our social media accounts to raise awareness in the hope that justice will prevail. Please share this overview, and our future blogs on the subject, share our Facebook posts, and retweet us. You could also write to your MP about this case.

Join Conservatives for Liberty and special guest speakers from inside and outside Parliament, including Steven Woolfe MEP and Jacob Reese-Mogg MP on 28th February as we ask the government to withdraw from the European Arrest Warrant

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

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The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Conservatives for Liberty

The Richmond by-election is not a mandate to reverse Brexit

Ben Kelly / Blog / 4 comments

02/12/2016

The Richmond by-election victory for the Lib Dems has got the remainers rather over excited. Sarah Olney said the outcome had sent a “shockwave” through Downing Street and paved the way for Parliament to “override” the EU withdrawal referendum result. This is a particularly baffling conclusion to make; a by-election mandate of 20,000 hardly compares to the 17.4 million who voted Leave.

At least it revealed the real motive behind the calls for a second referendum, and it isn’t a sincere desire for true democracy.

The calls for a second referendum from the likes of Tim Farron, Tony Blair and John Major are disingenuous to the extreme. Tim ‘nice but dim’ Farron is acting on the pretence of protecting democracy when he says the voice of the British people “must be heard”. They have been heard, loudly and clearly, yet he is insisting that the Lib Dems will vote against triggering Article 50 unless they are made to vote again.

The EU referendum took place after an intense campaign and a debate that has been taking place over four decades. The vote was the culmination of years of discussion, political fallout and national soul searching; there is now a mandate for the UK to leave the EU and for the Government to negotiate an exit settlement on our behalf.

A vote on the result of negotiation is a terrible idea, giving us a choice between the settlement negotiated, a hard Brexit or a last minute surrender where we beg the EU to let us stay and slink back in a weaker position than we have ever been. This would not settle the EU question, but it would degrade our democracy and kick the can down the road where a different kind of Euroscepticism would rebuild far more vociferously and bitterly.

As for John Major and Tony Blair, their sudden love for referendums says it all. It was the Maastricht Treaty that put rocket boosters under the Eurosceptic movement and set us on a path to leave, moving as it did towards a more explicitly political union. The Lisbon Treaty was another great advance for the project that deepened integration and exposed the anti-democratic tendencies of hardcore Europhiles.

Blair and Major didn’t give the public a vote on these constitutional transforming Treaties because they knew they would lose them. They did everything they could to avoid letting the public have a say and contributed greatly to the backlash that erupted on June 23^rd.

The old Europhile boys club are a deceitful and duplicitous lot making a last minute rescue effort to save their rejected legacy of EU integration. Their modern-day equivalents are still in disbelief that they won’t be able to finish the job they started.

They want the UK to join France, Ireland and the Netherlands in the list of quashed rebellions against the EU. They have hit the height of delusion and they don’t understand that even if they achieved their desire for a second referendum the anger against their sheer shamelessness and moral bankruptcy would see the exit settlement endorsed comfortably.

The message of remainers is now that leaving the EU is too difficult, too complex and too risky. Our EU integration is irreversible. This portrays the EU as a prison; sure, it has home comforts and the facilities are good, but it’s still a prison. Is this really a good image? Is this the message they wish to convey? Reversing the referendum and keeping us in the EU would not seem like a glorious victory for them for long.

The consequences for our political culture would be dire and they’d soon realise that the instinctive Euroscepticism engrained in our culture will last as long as we are in the EU and won’t go away until we leave. The notion that we voted leave because of a slogan here or there is deluded nonsense, a great lie and over simplification from people who still can’t get their head around what is happening.

The man in the street who voted to leave has no time for these machinations. They voted leave and they expect that expression of democratic will to be honoured. If it isn’t the message is that voting doesn’t matter. That sentiment would pass onto the next generation and come back to haunt the political class in a very severe way.

We leave in a managed transition now, or toxify our politics for years to come and leave in a flurry of public anger a few years down the line. That’s the real choice.

Ben is the Conservatives for Liberty Director of Online Communications. Follow him on Twitter: @TheScepticIsle

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Photo: Keith Edkins – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.