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9/11 'Truth' Bites Back

A while ago I posted on the subject of 9/11 'Truth'. That is the true believers whose faith is that the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September were in fact a labyrinthine government conspiracy. I have had a number of comments on the post, the latest of which was:

U should just remember one thing planes including titanium engines do not vapourise as we are told the ones did that hit the pentagon and the one which crashed near shanksville. And where sis the molten steel come from found under all the towers including building 7 which was not hit by a plane - do u enven know about building 7? Evidence or thurmite has also been found?

The poster was anonymous, but the style was pretty representative of those that buy into the ‘Truth’ industry, and believe me there is an industry with books and DVDs all at very reasonable prices. Leaving aside the poor spelling and grammar, the argument is a series of factoids gleaned from internet sources that have all been proven nonsense at one point or another. No-one has ever claimed that the aircraft involved in 9/11 vaporised, and plenty of debris has been found. There was no molten steel and the pictures that purport to show it have been shown to be artefacts. A few seconds thought is all that is required here as well as persistent molten steel would mean a persistent very high energy source in the ruins of the World Trade Centre, which of course wasn’t there. Building 7 wasn’t hit by an aircraft, but it was hit by wreckage from the collapsing towers and heavily damaged, as were a number of other buildings. The supposed ‘evidence’ for thermite was the presence of compounds with other more mundane explanations, and thermite is not used for demolishing buildings anyway. I could go on but why bother? These people do not apply logic or evidence; they start from a paranoid worldview and a hatred of the US government in general and George Bush in particular and work back from there. I am an engineer by training and an IT Architect by profession, but if I was a sociologist that subspecialised in the taxonomy of cults then I know which body of people would make up my next research project.

Heffer back to the future on Tax, also likes Gordon Brown

Simon Heffer has never been elected to anything as far a I know. Now that is not a complete disqualification to comment on the political process, but you can't help thinking if he had actually spent any time talking to actual voters than he wouldn't spout such bilge. His latest piece in the Telegraph is interesting in two regards; firstly he's impressed Gordon Brown, calling him a 'formidable force' among other things. This is couched in more in sorrow than in anger terms, but basically it reflects that Simon's desire to bash David Cameron far outweighs any attempt to present a, you know, Conservative, analysis of Gordon Brown. Simon's battle is for the soul of the Right, not for the country. What matters Britain when the true faith is in danger? Later on, we get some real insight into what is going on:

It is hard to meet a Tory MP who will not say privately that the Government is wasting epic amounts of public money, and that there is scope for huge spending and tax cuts without harming public services. Mr Cameron cannot bring himself to say that either. Yet these are central issues that should enable him to connect to millions.

For the uninitiated I will translate: a Conservative MP or two has sounded off at Simon, who has obligingly rehearsed their mutterings for the newspaper-reading public. No names of course; that would be bad form in Simon's world. The point itself is, of course, nonsense. The 'central issues' are the ones that the Conservative Party is talking about, the loss of control of our borders, the failing welfare system, family breakdown, the resurrected EU constitution and so on. Of course taxes are too high and of course there is government waste, but how do you run with that argument? You cannot promise to cut taxes come what may, because the economy might not let you when you finally come to power some time in the future. You can point out how money can be saved, and the Party is doing just that, but connecting that directly to people's wallets can only be done in the actual run-up to an election because then is when you have some idea of the real numbers. If the Conservatives did what Simon wanted then they would just sound vacuous, and of course the Labour Party would like nothing better than to portray the Opposition as savage cutters of public services.

It is actually quite difficult to work out where Simon is coming from politically. Right now he seems content enough that Labour are up in the polls, and I think there is a clue there. Mrs. Thatcher described them a 'false squires', Tories who supposedly harked back to bygone days, but who had really intellectually surrendered to socialism and considered their duty to manage an orderly surrender to the ideology of the Left. I reckon she had Simon's number.

Basildon Exemplar at Building Zero Carbon Homes

The government has decreed that all new homes build after 2016 must be zero carbon. This is easy to say, but quite difficult to put into practice for a number of reasons. Some are quite practical, for example getting the new building codes and the new building methods and technologies right. Some are to do with the building industry itself, which will have to change the way it operates in a world where designs have the over-riding constraint of energy-efficiency, but the most important consideration will probably be price. Put simply, how much more would you pay for a zero carbon home? Would you, for example take a new zero carbon three bedroom home over an older, less efficient four or five bedroom property? That would imply that the incremental cost of zero carbon was several tens of thousands of pounds, a price that most people would probably not pay. Of course, the number may be less than that, or technology may make for a better payback from energy efficiency or micropower. At the moment there is no real economic case for the routine installations of things like solar panels or CHP, or other measures that require thousands of pounds upfront and take a very long time to pay back on the investment. That doesn't mean that there are no cases where they make sense, but not for every house on every street. If the technology improves then that might change radically; there are some very interesting things going on in thin film solar for example, and the government must be hoping for such advances in time for 2016.

Here in Basildon we are, as ever, leading the way, with a small development of zero-carbon public housing. We hope that it will be an exemplar to show what can be done today and to explore the economics of zero-carbon with the most up-to-date technology and methods. However, the critical number will be the cost-per-unit of this approach. If it comes out at too high then that will be a warning sign. Houses are unaffordable enough as it is without putting a further premium on new properties, especially as any increase in price will apply after an arbitrarily fixed date. This is probably why the current government put it comfortably far in the future.

Building on Flood Plains is not a very good idea

There is a picture in the Times that sums it up: a flooded field with a sign at then entrance announcing that it is shortly to be the site of an exclusive development of 4 and 5 bedroom executive homes. I'm not in the property business, but I reckon that they will rather more difficult to shift than the builder was expecting. Of course, this does not help the poor people who bought newly-built properties on flood plains from developers who relied on the fact that floods don't happen that often, honest.

The government has a policy of building a great deal of housing, and the events of the last few days will have reduced the amount of potential building land, as the danger and likelihood of flooding is reappraised, even where no floods have not yet occurred. For some this will be the salvation of the character of their communities, as the only bulldozers that they will now see will likely be those shoring up flood defences. Others, protected by chance lie of the land may see much more building. In all cases, there will be much more pressure on available brownfield sites. In the short term, the government is taking a pasting for a lacklustre response to the crisis. The longer-term effects on policy are likely to be more significant.

Cash for Honours, what the...

So, sixteen months of headlines, the PM and his closest circle arrested, politics in Britain dragged through the mud and what? A file goes to the CPS and...no further action. What on earth is going on? The only possible reason to drag this process out, spending over a million pounds and interviewing 136 people was if the investigation was going somewhere. No-one with the slightest sense of the public interest would inflict so much damage on our institutions unless they were utterly confident that someone would end up in the dock charged with something serious. This leads to exactly two scenarios: either Assistant Commissioner John Yates had made very serious error of judgement in continuing an investigation when there was little prospect of a resulting prosecution or the CPS have refused to prosecute despite the police making a good case.

Now Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has been ordered to produce a report into the way the honours investigation was carried out. Too right.

Start of Wickford Town Centre Procurement Process

Basildon Council Cabinet this evening, and we started the process to find a development partner for the project to redevelop Wickford Town Centre. The Cabinet supported the proposal, except for the Labour members, whose stance was articulated by their Deputy Leader. It was along the lines that because there were some local concerns at the Wickford Master Plan, upon which basis the redevelopment will occur, that we should not proceed. Of course, it is always vital to consult with local people and to take their wishes into account when regenerating the place where they live, but anyone who has ever been part of a large scale development project will know that there are always concerns. It is pretty difficult to keep everyone happy when building an extension to a house, never mind when hundreds of homes, shops and public facilitates are involved. If any opposition was the benchmark then nothing would ever get done, and it should be pointed out that the Council's surveys, and election results where independents have stood on an anti-development ticket, have showed a healthy majority in favour of a new medical centre, a new swimming pool and community centre as well as a better High Street and new homes in Wickford.

Anyway, Labour voted against and so the battle lines are pretty much drawn in Wickford. With Labour, developers would carry on cherry-picking the prime development sites on a piecemeal basis. With the Conservatives we get coherency in development, and public infrastructure gets constructed too. It is a bit odd though, Tories wanting central planning and the socialists of Basildon Labour in favour of a market free-for-all. I wonder what the people of Wickford will think of that.

Targets are out of fashion

There is to be a 'bonfire of red tape', at least according to the new Brown government. Of course we have heard this before, when Ruth Kelly was running the Communities and Local Government department. Now this has been re-announced by Andy Burnham, Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Well, I will believe it when I see it.

In Basildon we have always balanced central government targets with actually doing the things that local people want, like keeping the Council Tax down and collecdting the bins weekly. The targets can't entirely be ignored, however, because the government can make trouble for local Councils that really don't co-operate. So, we have adopted a balanced policy towards them as opposed to treating them as the Word of God like the government intended, but there is still a cost in terms of the Council's focus being on Whitehall instead of on local people.

Now if Brown could just give Basildon more than the absolute minimum Revenue Support Grant...

John Baron presses the Point on Iraq

From John Baron, MP for Billericay:

The current situation in Iraq is a depressing reminder of the mistake we made by invading on the basis of false intelligence. Our troops are doing a good job in a dangerous situation, but progress is painfully slow. The political stalemate between rival ethnic and religious groups is proving difficult to break, and is continually being reinforced by a combination of sectarian violence and terrorism.

Having opposed the war, I believe it is important to learn the lessons of this disaster and ensure that any future military action is wholly justified by robust and authoritative intelligence which is independent of political influence. This was certainly not true of the key 2002 Iraq dossier, which wrongly claimed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

What has come to light since the Hutton Inquiry is the extent to which Government spin doctors were involved in the drafting process, making suggestions and even writing parts of the dossier.

Indeed, we now know that it was the Foreign Office press officer John Williams who produced the first full draft of the dossier on the 9^th September 2002 – one day before John Scarlett, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, produced his first draft. The Freedom of Information Commissioner has ruled that Ministers ought to publish this document, but so far the Government has refused despite the fact the Williams draft was originally intended for publication. So what has the Government got to hide?

I have challenged Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the previous Foreign Secretary on the issue in the House of Commons. A Parliamentary motion I sponsored recently attracted good cross-party support from over 50 MPs. I also secured a Parliamentary debate to put the spotlight on this draft dossier - but still the Government remains obstinate.

Tony Blair’s legacy as Prime Minister was the Iraq debacle. If Gordon Brown is serious about beginning a new era of open Government without spin, then he should make a start by publishing the Williams draft.

Boris Johnson to run for Mayor of London

Boris for Mayor! It does have a ring to it, and with all due respect to the other candidates in the selection process, Boris Johnson will almost be certainly the Conservative challenge against Ken Livingstone. In politics you need all sorts of people, and the dull but worthy certainly have a place, however Boris does not fit into that category. He is brash and noticeable, and he hides what must be a formidable intellect behind a slightly bumbling, but engaging exterior. He would be an ideal candidate for Mayor of London, where public profile is a first requirement. It worked for Ken, after all.