A CROWDED HOUSE (COMMITTEE)

The Kiwi rock band, Crowded House, have a track talks about 4 seasons in one day, David ("Call me Prime Minister") Cameron is facing a possible Tory revolt as he faces the distinct prospect of 4 U Turns in one day, a result of having to appease / keep on board the somewhat junior Liberal Dem half of the Con Dem government (Clegg Minor, etc). The increasingly battered PM has ordered a time-out on pushing reform (privatisation) within the Health Service (in England) so the views of doctors and nurses could be heard(unpalatable) not to mention a strategic withdrawal (why not call it a retreat) on Tory plans to cap state welfare handouts at £26,000 a year; along with the collapse of the plan to bring back weekly bin collections (unaffordable); and a failure to reduce in the number of foreign students which will be half the figure previously indicated (unworkable). From a right wing home counties Tory perspective things can only get better (oh no that was the other lot) or perhaps worse... either way being a fly on the wall at the next Conservative (backbench MP's) 1922 Committee would be rather interesting I suspect.

CHEQUE BOOK COLONIALISM?

The acquisition of land by multi nationals for development or to acquire resources at the expense of local people is bound to be a touchy subject especially when little medium to long term sustainable benefit is delivered to the indigenous inhabitants. We in Wales, ironically, should know about this having been at the sharp end ourselves when it comes to the exploration our natural resources and have been largely peripheral to any benefits received.

What's happening now in Africa is subtly different, there is a race going on between multi national companies on one hand and the emerging economic giant of the Peoples Republic of China on the other hand to acquire land, not so much for the minerals (although that is a factor) but to acquire the ability to grow food. An interesting report (produced by the Oakland Institute) has noted that Hedge funds are now getting involved in acquiring land in Africa to produce food and biofuels, which will all boost their profits.

The report notes that foreign firms and hedge funds) have been quietly purchasing large chunks of land in Africa, often without any proper contracts and that this activity has led to the displacement of millions of small farmers, who are losing out as multi national firms try to secure their hold of the global food markets. Food production is often sacrificed to make space for cash crops for export, including flowers and biofuels, which fetch a tidy profit.

Since 2009 foreign firms the report notes that have acquired land equivalent to the size of France (nearly 60 million hectares) from questionable but lucrative deals with a combination of gullible traditional leaders or corrupt government officials in in Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali and Mozambique. No doubt the foreign firms make many promises of progress, development and jobs to local chiefs, but they don't necessarily come close to delivering on the promises.

Investors benefit with a wide range of incentives written into their contracts from unlimited water rights to tax waivers, but, are clearly not there to help feed starving Africans. Sounds familiar doesn't it - not that much of step from the old days of the WDA throwing wads of cash of foreign investors, who got all sorts of benefits (grants and incentives), promised much (I seem to recall the magic figure of 6,000 jobs kept cropping up in the 1980's, 1990s and early 2000's) yet in the end never quite delivered all that was promised.

As we stand on the brink of what has been aptly described as the Age of Scarcity - a combination of peak oil, climate change and financial instability not to mention food security and fuel security, we should all take note of this developments in Africa and look closer to home when it comes to the development of secure energy and food supplies and particularly take note of the issue of ownership.

OUCH!

The news earlier this week that Scottish Power are going to raise the costs of their UK gas bills by 19% and electricity bills by 10% from August 1st, should not come as any great surprise. This is merely an unsavoury aspect of the the energy cartels behaviour. They have been at it for years. Centrica (back in May 2011), which incidentally owns British Gas, warned customers that they would face higher energy bills. Centrica says that "end-user prices" do not reflect the price they are paying for gas on the wholesale market.

Back in December 2010, British Gas customers were told that they faced a 7% rise in gas and electricity bills which came into effect on 10th December. As a result of rising wholesale prices, said British Gas. oddly enough British Gas has become the second major UK energy supplier to announce price increases for the winter months - when there is a greater demand, and coincidentally a greater profit to be made.

Scottish and Southern Energy also intend to raise their domestic gas charges by 9.4% at the start of December, blaming wholesale prices for the increase in customer bills. This price increase announcement, was made just before just before they reported a 6.1% fall in pre-tax profits to £386m in the first half of the company's financial year.

Domestic energy consumers (and any other kind of consumers for that matter) are facing the sharp end of sharp practice from the energy cartel. New Labour did nothing to curb rampant excessive profiteering from the energy companies during the 13 years in was in Government. Consumers can expect little from this Tory dominated Government which continues to sacrifice the people's interests before those of a fat profit for their dubious friends in the City?

Any pre Westminster election promises to investigate the 'energy market' have been already quietly dropped in August 2010 (the height of the silly season and slap bang in the middle of parliamentary recess) no doubt with the hope that hard pressed consumers and voters would not notice...

UPDATE:  the actual narrowness of the 'energy free market' and the real limit of competition can be quite surprising - Radio 4 (during the business news section) announcing that the Con Dems are planning to 'open up' the energy market to competition (from newer smaller companies), quietly understated that the Big 6 control some 99% of the 'energy market'. Wow that's a pretty good if extreme example of monopoly capitalism / cartel-like behaviour at its worse...

ANCIENT GOLD RETURNS TO WALES

In 1899, James Marston wedged a metal bar into a crevice on Gwastedyn Hill as he tried to disturb a fox for his dog to chase. He discovered a Roman ring, bracelet and necklet from the 1st or 2nd Century. The second gold discovery was made a generation later by 17-year-old labourer John Smith as he helped to plough a field in 1954. The Bronze Age bracelets (from the National Museum in Cardiff) and Roman jewellery (from the British Museum in London) are on loan to the CARAD Rhayader Museum and Gallery. The exhibition has received a grant from Cyfoeth Cymru Gyfan (also known as the Sharing Treasures Scheme), a Welsh Government scheme to display treasures from national collections in regional museums. This is good news, but, one has to wonder how much archaeological plunder found in or from Wales can be found tucked away in the dusty draws of various museums (in Cardiff) and in London. Isn't it about time that much of this archaeological and historical plunder was returned to Wales, as we do actually have museums of our own where our own country's archaeological and historical treasures can and should be displayed?

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND...

Oddly enough I am not a constitutional anorak who gets exited by the minutiae of governance or even someone who goes out of their way to watch any of the political programmes (i.e. Question Time, Dragons Eye, The Sharp End, etc) - not because I am not interested in politics but largely because I am usually asleep by the time they come on or doing something significantly less boring.

Anyway, I digress, one of the things the Con Dems are pushing on with is the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which will introduce in England and Wales directly elected Police Chiefs who "would ensure that local policing activities meet the needs of the local community, help build confidence in the system and bring communities and the police together".

Now in truth this seems to be an odd thing to get worked up about (but plenty of people have built up a head of steam over it both here and over the bridge) especially as our police forces the effects of a 35% cut to the capital budgets of the Welsh Police Authorities (between 2010/2011 and 2011/2012. Anyway, that grim statistic aside, one of the last meaningful (if barely noticed) things accomplished in the last Assembly was for this idea to be thrown out.

It turns out (and at this point the constitutional anoraks get excited) that there is a convention (similar to the Sewel Convention which exists in relation to the Scottish Parliament) which means that the UK Westminster Government, via the Welsh Government, has to seek the agreement of the Assembly (via an Legislative Compliance Motion (or LCM), if a bill which is being put forward in the Westminster Parliament seeks to make a law that could have been made by the Assembly, in plain english if it seeks to make a law in an area that has been devolved to the Assembly.

This bill seeks to replace police authorities with Police Commissioners throughout England and Wales, and also has proposals to set up joint committees of local authorities in each police area (known as Police and Crime Panels) so that said elected Police Commissioners are subject to effective scrutiny. As the National Assembly (now Welsh Government) has the power to make law to provide for local authority joint committees to be established for particular purposes, hence the reason why an LCM is needed.

As the Assembly rejected an LCM in relation to this Bill, it's now down to the UK Westminster Government to decide how to respond. Westminster Government guidance to Whitehall Departments states, in the event that an LCM is not passed by the National Assembly, ‘the UK Government would, subject to collective agreement being secured, need to table an appropriate amendment removing the relevant provisions before the Bill reaches its final stage in the House of introduction (Westminster).’

Interestingly enough this is wholly unknown or new constitutional ground as the National Assembly, the Scottish Parliament or Northern Ireland Assembly has never previously refused to approve an LCM or its equivalent. Legally their is no reason why the Home Office cannot push on with the proposed legislation on Police and Crime Panels.

The Westminster Parliament remains supreme in relation to areas of law-making which have been devolved. Yet, if the decision is made to push on regardless with legislation on a devolved field against the wishes of a devolved legislature this would raise important issues relating to devolution not only in relation to Wales but also in relation to both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Of course the Westminster Government could always go along with the decision of the Welsh Government, duly amend its bill to retain the principle that Police Commissioners in Wales must be subject to local scrutiny, but leaving the fine detail of how scrutiny is to be carried out to Cardiff. The ball is in London's court so to speak - will we witness yet another potentially spectacular train wreck for David ("Call me Prime Minister") Cameron's failing Big Society or another quiet U-turn?

A NO TO THE NUCLEAR OPTION

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has that the decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 will make Germany a trailblazer in renewable energy and that the country would reap economic benefits from the move. Germany is the biggest industrial power to renounce nuclear energy, in a major policy reversal for the governing centre-right coalition.

A panel was set up to review nuclear power following the crisis at Fukushima in Japan resulting from the earthquake and tsunami (back in March) which led to significant anti-nuclear protests across Germany. The anti-nuclear drive Green party, also took control of the Christian Democrat stronghold of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in late March. Political commentators suggest that Chancellor Merkel could even be examining the prospects of a possible coalition with the Greens.

The previous centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens coalition government decided to shut down Germany's nuclear power stations by 2021. Back in September (2010) Chancellor Merkel's coalition abandoned those plans and announced that it would extend the life of the country's nuclear reactors by an average of 12 years.This decision very unpopular in Germany well before the radioactive leaks at the Fukushima plant.

After Fukushima, Mrs Merkel promptly scrapped her extension plan, and rapidly announced a review of the German nuclear industry.Basically as a result of this review, seven of Germany's oldest reactors (which were taken off-line for a safety review immediately after the Japanese crisis) will never be used again. An eighth plant is already off-line and has been repeatedly plagued by technical problems will also be closed down. Six other plants will go off-line by 2021 at the latest and the three newest plants by 2022.

Germany has relied on nuclear power for 23% of its energy needs. The plan is to actually reduce electricity use by 10% over the next ten years with far more efficient machinery and buildings and also the plan is to generate home grown green energy jobs and technologies.  There will be an increase in the amount of wind generated energy and a re-orientation of Germany's electricity distribution system because much of the extra wind power would come from farms on the North Sea to replace atomic power stations in the south.

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

Oxfam got the publicity (with there report Growing a Better Future) which predicts that the prices of staple foods will more than double in 20 years unless world leaders take action to reform the global food system. By 2030, the average cost of key crops will increase by between 120% and 180%, the charity forecast with half of that increase being caused by climate change. Oxfam got the publicity but the World Bank flagged up the link between poverty and food prices back in April.

They noted that world food prices are 36% above levels of a year ago, made worse by problems in the Middle East and North Africa, and remain volatile, so said the World Bank. Rising food prices have pushed, it noted, 44 million people into poverty since last June (2010) and that a further 10% rise in food prices would push 10 million more people below the extreme poverty line of $1.25 (76p) a day. The World Bank says prices of basic commodities remain close to their 2008 peak, with the prices of wheat, maize and soya all rocketing. The only exception is rice, which has fallen slightly in price in the past year.

Food price changes (First Quarter 2010 to First Quarter 2011)

Maize 74%

Wheat 69%

Palm oil 55%

Soybeans 36%

Beef 30%

Rice -2%

Source: World Bank Development Prospects Group

The bank suggests a number of measures to help alleviate the impact of high food prices on the poor, including encouraging food-producing countries to ease export controls, and the diversion of production away from biofuels when food prices exceed certain limits.The World Bank has also suggested targeting social assistance and nutritional programmes to the poorest, better weather forecasting, more investments in agriculture, the adoption of new technologies (including rice fortification to make it more nutritious), and efforts to address climate change.

The fact that both the World Bank and Oxfam recognise that financial measures are needed to prevent poor countries being subject to food price volatility, is of significance, as it reveals the possibility of a perfect storm (a combination of peak oil and climate change). If that's not enough to worry about factor in increasing fuel prices (one of the consequences of Peak Oil) that will hit poor farmers first and hardest before it really hits the rest of us, just like climate change will.