Europe is as democratic as it can be for now.

Translation: shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.

Europe can never again have a political system imposed on it from above.

Which is why we are imposing one upon you so shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.

The time for faceless bureaucracy and high-table deal-making is over.

Which is why we’ll continue to run the system as a faceless bureaucracy leavened with high-table deal-making so shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.

In fact, just go back to sleep and don’t worry your pretty heads over politics, democracy, the way the continent is ruled: as long, of course, as you shut the fuck up and do what we tell you.

After lying dormant for 4,000 years, one of Europe’s most powerful volcanoes, Campi Flegrei near Naples, is showing signs of life.

Instinct would tell you to stay away, but an international team of scientists are doing exactly the opposite. They are preparing to drill a 4km hole into the heart of the volcano to investigate beneath the surface.

Their aim is to pinpoint the source of mounting pressure that has caused the ground at the port of nearby Pozzuoli to rise dramatically over the past 40 years. Identifying the cause would help scientists to predict how close the volcano is to blowing.

It’s a great photo of the next bay over from the Bay of Naples. Right in the middle there is Pozuoli (although I would spell it Pozzuoli) which is where Sophia Loren comes from (and her sister, the bird who married Mussolini’s jazz musician son and is thus the mother of Allesandra Mussolini). Over to the left a bit is Arco Felice and then there’s what looks like a green pimple. This is Monte Nuovo (which popped up sometime in the 16th/17th century I think. Yes, it’s a volcano, every hill around here is) and then to the left and up a bit is a lake, Lago Averno: Virgil recorded that this was one of the 7 entrances to hell (where the River Avernus came out).

Lago Averno was at one point open to the sea (it again is the flooded remain of a volcano) and was used at one time by the Romans as a port/mooring. There’s still a nice Temple of Jupiter on the shoreline (beside which I recall a childhood friend cutting their foot badly as they leapt into the waters, straight onto an abandoned car).

Look up a little bit and you can see a motorway snaking its way through, (running E/W) just north of Monte Nuovo and then going north to avoid the lake. This is what is colloquially known as the Tangentziale (spelling?).

And just where that flick of the loop is, just as it skirts the green of Monte Nuovo, is where we used to live. Looking at Google maps I can see from the satellite photo that the house is still there (it was newly built in the 70s when we moved in). I can even see the swimming pool we used to splosh in, the go cart track (no, not part of the house, the place next door was/is Complesso Turistico Averno) etc.

No, nothing important, just a nice memory of childhood. In fact all sorts of memories: playing with abandoned equipment on the Tangentziale before it was finished and managing to nearly break my ankle: leaping over a fence in flip flops onto an upturned nail…..my brother and I leaping into a hot water pool in February as disapproving matrons wrapped themselves further in their fur coats. Proper pizza even…..

The chief of the Opec oil cartel said that oil-producing countries should be compensated for lost revenues if UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month reach a deal that cuts the use of oil.

And the copper miners need compensation for the use of fibre optics, the buggy whip manufacturers for cars and the nappy makers for the invention of condoms.

In short, no, bugger off.

“The EU is losing influence rapidly and these appointments make that worse,” said Simon Hix, professor of European politics at the London School of Economics. “The rest of the world was expecting big figures. But Europe has shown it would rather be a super-sized Switzerland.”

This is the gentleman who composed figures for voting support at the euro elections: predicting that UKIP would lose most of its support and get only 2 or 3 seats. As opposed to hte actual results of coming second and getting 13 seats.

So as a predictive psephologist he ain’t all that great.

Actually, as an analyst of European Union politics he’s also rather a bust. The one great identifying factor of Swiss politics is the continual use of the referendum: you may have noticed that this isn’t an identifying feature of EU politics.

Tesco has moved a step closer to becoming a full-service bank by signing up software developer Fiserv to provide the technology for its fledgling financial services business.

Everybody is saying we need more compeition in retail banking and here it comes.

But why do I have this nagging suspicion that those insisting that we need more compeition in retail banking won’t welcome this news?

They have all come under fire for helping promote “throw-away fashion”. Because of their very low prices, many consumers are happy to throw away their garments after just one season. MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee found the proportion of textile waste at council tips has risen from 7 per cent to 30 per cent over the last five years.

“As a proportion”, well yes. And the amount of rubbish in total is falling, because we’re recycling more. So it could be true that we’re throwing away more clothing, but it necessarily so: it could be that as we’re throwing away less glass, paper and so on the portion of clothing in what we do throw away is rising.

From the figures we’re given we cannot prove it either way.

India has urged the West to give up eating beef to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

A couple of minor points: firstly, where will all the organic fertiliser come from if there’s no livestock and secondly, the figures used are for intensive feedlot operations: not for the pasture grazing which 60% of Britain’s west is suited to.

But the real mote, beam point is that India has 400 million cows (or so we are told) and they fart methane just as much as the cows we eat. But the Indians don’t eat them (meaning that there are then further emissions from what they do eat): so will they get rid of those 400 million as we scale down our beef eating?

The Shadow Defence Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that ending Britain’s 25,000 strong military presence on the Rhine would be part of a fundamental reorganisation of Nato forces designed to free troops for military operations outside Europe.

I thought we’d already left.

Sounds sensible that we should leave though.

Christian Aid today launches its latest Alternative Tax Award – Tax Superhero of the Year – and invites nominations of suitably qualified firms and individuals.

The award has been introduced to highlight the  tremendous potential accountants have to change the world for the better by helping developing countries collect more of the billions of dollars’ tax that they are owed.

My nomination is this lot.

By offering an escape route from overbearing taxation they reduce the amount of such overbearing taxation, thus increasing growth levels and reducing poverty over time.

Can’t think of anyone better to be frank.

Be afraid, be very afraid: Catherine Ashton, who will be the EU’s new foreign minister, has a full-size Dalek — a gift from her husband — in her sitting room.

The surprise combination emerged after Gordon Brown ended Tony Blair’s hopes of becoming president, abandoning his support for his successor and proposing Baroness Ashton for the foreign job instead.

The Prime Minister’s switch surprised European leaders, not least because of Baroness Ashton’s lack of diplomatic experience.

A former health authority chairwoman made a peer in 1999, she held a string of low-key ministerial posts until last year when she was sent to Brussels as an interim replacement for Lord Mandelson on his return to the Cabinet.

David Curry, the MP who heads the committee responsible for policing Commons expenses, has claimed almost £30,000 for a second home that his wife has banned him from staying in, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

And he only stands down when The Telegraph lets him know that they know?

Mr Curry now rarely stays in his constituency and when he does so he has stayed at the £40-a-night Travelodge hotel in Skipton rather than at the taxpayer-funded cottage. He was pictured leaving the hotel after staying there on a Thursday night earlier this month.

Neighbours said last week that they had never seen the MP at the picturesque cottage near Masham in north Yorkshire.

“I have lived in the village for five years,” said one neighbour. “But I have never seen him. I have never even seen a car in the driveway.”

The Daily Telegraph has obtained copies of Mr Curry’s expense claims for the past few years which disclose he has spent thousands of pounds on renovations for the Yorkshire property. During the 2008-09 financial year he claimed thousands of pounds in connection with a defective damp course. He even hired a local “consultant” to oversee the work.

In February 2008, he claimed £1,617 for roof repairs and damage caused by the rising damp and three months later, he submitted a further bill for £1,540 for similar maintenance work. Two rooms were also redecorated.

Baroness Uddin has had her collar felt for roughly this, hasn’t she?

The requirement is clear: that we dedicate our work as Christians to Christ – not the making of money. Thsi puts all Christian teaching at odds with neo-liberalism, per se

And those who have skills must use them in pursuit of the creation of Chsritian ideals – including relief of poverty

WTF?

Let’s agree, for the moment, with Ritchie’s oft stated contention that the last 30 years have seen the rise of this “neo-liberalism” stuff.

OK, so what else has been happening in the past 30 years? The largest reduction in poverty that our species has ever seen. Hundreds of millions, if not billions, rising up out of the destitution of peasant agriculture into a middle class lifestyle.

To thus claim that neo-liberalism is incompatible with the Christian injunction to reduce poverty is thus, umm, well, odd….or should we perhaps go a little stronger and say barking lunacy?

Is electro smog causing your headache?

No.

Next question?

The computer industry airily dismisses any concerns, claiming that Wi-Fi uses only a few watts of energy – ‘less than a lightbulb’.

But this ignores the fact that light and microwaves are different kinds of electromagnetic radiation, so the analogy with the lightbulb is meaningless.

Erm, forgive me, for I might well be wrong here as physics isn’t my strong point: but aren’t light and microwaves exactly the same kind of electromagnetic radiation, just at different wavelengths?

BTW, this piece comes from:

Alasdair Philips is the director of Powerwatch, an independent organisation researching electromagnetic fields and health.

These blokes.

Oh look, they sell Woo.

Lots of Woo.

Incredible amounts of Woo.

Truly Woo.

Pill Woo.

Even petrol Woo.

So, who at the Daily Fail is on a commission here?

Bank assets have to shrink and the economy has to grow, and gradually the size of the banking sector in relation to the rest of the economy will become more manageable and less risky.

If the banking sector was solely focussed upon the domestic economy then he’s have a point. But we provide banking (OK, financial services) to half the world, in the same sense that Rolls Royce provides jet engines to a third of it and Germany machine tools to some segment.

So he’s actually arguing that Britain’s number 1 export sector (in terms of net exports this is true) should shrink: that the trade deficit should worsen.

What’s a great deal more amusing about this prognistication is that of course, Willy is the bloke who keeps telling us that banks have to finance industry: that is, compete for the financing which is currently done by markets (equity, bond and commercial paper) thus growing banking assets substantially.

Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways, a shrinking banking sector and an insistence that they extend their activities into an entirely new sector as well.

(ie pretending to command an exact science, when economics is merely a descriptive branch of anthropology)

An element of truth to it as well, even if it’s not strictly true.

As I don’t know much anthropology I can’t say but economics has moved along so that the sum of predictions can be used to predict sometimes, those predictions being testable and some of them even passing such tests.

But it is the basic ideas which are (trade creates wealth, that sort of thing): not what are interest rates going to be in 5 years time, or what will the inflation rate be.

Yesterday, the Queen announced that the next government will be forced, under a new Fiscal Responsibility Bill, to halve the budget deficit in four years.

We shall do such things, though we know not what they will be, that will be the terror of the world*

*No, you’re right, I don’t know the quote.

The basic allegation is that speculators are holding oil in tankers off the coast thus pushing up petrol prices. Holding drivers to ransom as it were.

This slightly misses a number of points. Future prices for oil have been higher than spot recently: higher enough that buying spot and storing (yes, even with the costs of storage) makes a profit.

But no one is doing this and then waiting for the price to rise: that’s not how this sort of arbitrage works. They buy it spot and sell it forward on the same sday, thus locking in their profits. they’re not waiting for anything pother than the due delivery date.

The other mistake is this:

The amount paid for petrol by British motorists is determined in large part by the supply of oil to onshore refineries in Britain.

No, it isn’t. It’s largely determined by the flow of refined products coming out of the refineries (plus of course the price of crude). And there’s a shortage of refinery space. There’s plenty of oil to go in (the spot price is low, remember? So it’s easy to buy stuff for immediate delivery) it’s that the capaity for refining is limited.

In the end, those tankers of crude off the coast have no effect at all on the price of petrol onshore.

Must do better if you’re going to write about futures markets, really.

Detectives will pass files imminently on the Labour MPs Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, and peers Baroness Uddin, Lord Hanningfield and Lord Clarke of Hampstead to the Crown Prosecution Service, Westminster sources have said.

Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, is expected to decide whether to prosecute the politicians as early as January, before a general election.

Mr Starmer will determine whether the politicians face court on counts of fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, or false accounting, for which the maximum penalty is seven years.

Police and criminal lawyers are confident that charges will be brought.

We’ve had a case just recently, have we not, and Tom Wise got 2 years pokey.

If that’s the going tariff it would seem very anti-inclusive to contain such gifts to only one political party.

And it also quite contrary to the message of Luke’s gospel. In Luke 4, starting at verse 18 Jesus says:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

This is the clearest statement of Christian duty there is. Support for progressive taxation fulfils that duty.

How easy it now is to be a Christian! As long as you support the taxation of the rich bastards you’re done!