April 18 – Reuters: “KLM says test flight reveals no damage from ash“
NATS (Sunday morning): “the restrictions currently in place across UK controlled airspace will remain in place until at least 0100 (local time) tomorrow, Monday 19 April.”
NATS (Sunday April 18, 1500-UK): “the restrictions currently in place across UK controlled airspace will remain in place until at least 0700 (local time) tomorrow, Monday 19 April.” Next decision at around 2100 (local time), today. Though they do now concede that they “are working closely with Government, airports and airlines, and airframe and aero engine manufacturers to get a better understanding of the effects of the ash cloud and to seek solutions“.
Reuters: “German airlines complain over airspace closures“ (Lufthansa raises issue of claiming damages).
“The closure of the air space happened purely because of the data of a computer simulation at the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London,” said Air Berlin Chief Executive Joachim Hunold, speaking to Bild am Sonntag. Perhaps UK forecasters got it wrong again and it was simply “the wrong kind” of ash
3:40pm – British transport minister Andrew Adonis: “European Union transport ministers will consider on Monday whether flights could resume even if volcanic ash from Iceland remains in the atmosphere“.
4:51pm – BBC: “Europe’s airlines and airports question flight bans“.
NATS (Sunday April 18, 2100-UK): “the current restrictions across UK controlled airspace due to the volcanic ash cloud will remain in place until at least 1900 (local time) on Monday 19 April.” . . . . The next update will be issued at approximately 0300 (local time).

NATS say they are “currently awaiting CAA guidance” and the CAA say they are “working with NATS and UK airlines to ensure safety compliance during the current restrictions on airspace.” This does not seem to imply – to me at least – that the CAA was involved the decision. It is simply making sure aircraft don’t fly where NATS tells them they can’t. I would expect some severe buck-passing over the next few days as well as a reverse-ferret from the media.

Monday April 19, 0830: NATS extended it to at least 0100 (local) on Tuesday 20th April.

The CAA has said : “The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the UK’s independent specialist regulator with oversight of aviation safety, today issues new guidance on the use of airspace. This is issued in conjunction with the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) and covers the Anglo Irish Functional Airspace Block (FAB).

The new guidance allows a phased reintroduction from 2200 tonight of much of the airspace which is currently closed due to the volcanic ash plume over the UK. There will continue to be some ‘no fly zones’ where concentrations of ash are at levels unsafe for flights to take place, but very much smaller than the present restrictions. Furthermore, the Met Office advise that the ‘no fly zones’ do not currently cover the UK.

Making sure that air travellers can fly safely is the CAA’s overriding priority.

The CAA has drawn together many of the world’s top aviation engineers and experts to find a way to tackle this immense challenge, unknown in the UK and Europe in living memory. Current international procedures recommend avoiding volcano ash at all times. In this case owing to the magnitude of the ash cloud, its position over Europe and the static weather conditions most of the EU airspace had to close and aircraft could not be physically routed around the problem area as there was no space to do so. We had to ensure, in a situation without precedent, that decisions made were based on a thorough gathering of data and analysis by experts. This evidence based approach helped to validate a new standard that is now being adopted across Europe.

The major barrier to resuming flight has been understanding tolerance levels of aircraft to ash. Manufacturers have now agreed increased tolerance levels in low ash density areas.

Our way forward is based on international data and evidence from previous volcanic ash incidents, new data collected from test flights and additional analysis from manufacturers over the past few days. It is a conservative model allowing a significant buffer on top of the level the experts feel may pose a risk.

In addition, the CAA’s Revised Airspace Guidance requires airlines to:
· conduct their own risk assessment and develop operational procedures to address any remaining risks;
· put in place an intensive maintenance ash damage inspection before and after each flight; and
· report any ash related incidents to a reporting scheme run by the CAA.

The CAA will also continue to monitor the situation with tests both in the air and on the ground.”

NATS follwed up at 2040(UK) with “NATS has received new direction from the UK’s safety regulator, the CAA, on applying restrictions to UK airspace following the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

As soon as revised accurate information is available from the Met Office on the location of the dense ash cloud, NATS will review airspace availability and provide an update to airline operators on any airspace that has been restricted for safety reasons. We will issue a further statement by 2200.”

Reuters: “Britain reopens all its airspace“. Curiously, this report says “The first British Airways flight from Vancouver landed at London Heathrow, normally the world’s biggest international airport, shortly before 2100 GMT” (ie 2200 current UK time).

Tuesday April 20, 2300 (UK): NATS welcomes new CAA guidance and reopens airspace
“We are delighted to report that most restrictions on UK airspace began to be lifted at 2134 (local time) this evening, following new guidance from the UK’s safety regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority on restrictions to UK airspace as a result of the volcanic eruption.”

See: http://karl-winn-taunton.blogspot.com/

Nick Griffin acted swiftly to amend the BNP constitution, saying: “Section 4, which deals with the requirements for membership and includes the demand that members support all the principles of the party, is not protected. I have, therefore, with immediate effect changed the section 4 requirements, as I am entitled to do, to comply with the court order.  What this means is that people can apply to join the BNP without having to endorse and support the principles of the party.”

Regardless of whether or not you support the BNP’s aims,  it does seem a little bizarre.  After all,  isn’t politics about creating new laws or amending existing ones?

UPDATE Mon 25th:

In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, the darling Chancellor dismissed the move by Obama as acting for domestic political reasons only so there would seem to be no immediate rush to emulate the USA on this within the UK. “I don’t think America has any detail to show us” he said.

The Tories are however not quite so dismissive (see politics.co.uk). . . . .’Mr Osborne said. “I have said consistently that we should look at separating retail banking from activities like large scale propriety trading – and that this was best done internationally.” ‘

But notice that this contains a get-out clause, ie: it probably won’t happen unless every other country does it as well.

The publication Lobbying: Access and influence in Whitehall by the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (First Report of Session 2008–09) has some good insights on how things work at the moment. It’s a bit heavy and 2.2MB download but if you can just read enough to get the gist of I think you should.

Economist Thomas Sowell defends corporate lobbying as “simply an example of a group having better knowledge of its interests than the people at large do of theirs.” (from Wikipedia)  So, people at large, are you happy with that?

One question that arose in early LobbyGroup discussions was “Would it be legally (or ethically) ok for ANY public servant to be a member of this lobby group?”  According to Rahere “The Civil Service Code is explicit in encouraging a degree of political involvement, as long as it does not compromise the Civil Service’s neutrality in any way – watch the Damian/Galley case with care, as although there is every indication there may be insufficient evidence to prosecute Damian Green.”

Decisions that you may want to effect may be anything from whether or not your track (that has been washed away by the rain) gets repaired to getting troops out of Afghanistan.  It is not the purpose of LobbyGroup.org to say which decision is important to you.  Though discussions are welcome.

LobbyGroup.org has been in existence for almost a year now and has varied in its aims and objectives as members have come and gone.  From now on,  its purpose will be to act as source of information for people – to give ideas about how they can affect what they want to affect.  The next post will hopefully be more detailed on this. In the meantime you can always check out DemocraticBritain..

Candidates will be selected by lottery – tickets go on sale tomorrow at £1 each.  This is seen as a win-win situation for no-one because of the minimal cost of administering the selection process plus generating money for doing very little.  No-one thinks this is a good way of selecting people for what are effectively safe-seats because “let’s face it: it can’t produces a bigger bunch of bozos than the current system.  In any case,  no-one will make sure they do a good job.”

The manifesto is simple: “no-one will be in charge!”.  And so – as soon as the election is over – no-one will knock off and go home until the next election.  A special hot-line will be set up, should anything vital arise,  to be known as “no-one cares“.  Of course no-one will answer the phone – no matter how trivial the matter is.

In between elections,  no-one will be looking into doing bigger and better things.  Sources close to no-one had indicated,  yesterday,  that they had plans to take over a complete country almost overnight as a trial-run.  Today,  this was confirmed by REUTERS: “Who’s running Haiti? No one, say the people“.   So the people have spoken and now it’s up to no-one to sort this out. Obviously no-one will be be to blame if it all goes tits-up.

Initial concerns were raised about the “Anyone” Party as a potential threat,  because of the likelihood that voters might be tempted to vote for “Anyone” if they had the choice on a ballot paper.  These fears were quickly dismissed by the party’s top-dog (known as no-one special )  “Ridiculous. ” he said, ” The voters are not gullible enough to believe that anyone is really interested in them“.

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to amend the general election ballot paper to include an ‘abstention’ option in addition to the named local candidates.”

Submitted by Simon Mortimer – Deadline to sign up by: 05 May 2010 – Signatures: 41 to date.

“Faith in politics and our system of democracy is badly shaken in this country following the expenses scandal, the Iraq war 45 minute claim, the failure to regulate the banks and the failure to protect our troops to name but four.

It is proposed to empower the electorate of this nation to positively register an objection to the current choice of leadership by including an option to express a lack of faith in all the candidates presented.

It is hoped that obtaining such information would spurn us to take a long, hard, honest look at ourselves and our existing systems of government and in so doing add to the democratic process.

Democracy only works if there is a viable choice available for the majority of the people to vote for.

Democracy does not work when the electorate feels forced to choose between the lesser of broadly unsatisfactory options.

As a democratic nation we should be actively exploring if this is the situation that has arisen so that we can consider doing something about it.

It will incur no significant additional cost to add an ‘abstention’ option onto the ballot paper.”

See also the The None of the above party ….

“Current political parties hold an effective monopoly on power. The victorious party swaggers into Downing Street having won a 35% share of the vote, of which a significant percentage voted for them as the ‘least worst’ option. If you then consider that there may have been a 50 – 60% turnout for the election, what type of mandate is that?

Millions of British voters refuse or simply don’t bother to vote, feeling that nobody represents them but that they have no alternative choice. These members of the electorate are often accused of apathy, but in reality are often driven by a considered rejection of policies or politicians on offer. These disenfranchised voters need a channel by which they can express an important view.

Democracy cannot allow poor quality political parties to take office – the country cannot afford it. No longer should some party be guaranteed access to power irrespective of policies or performance.

The bar is currently lying flat on the ground – it is time to raise it…”

The ideas may be a few years old but still fairly valid.

What we are trying to capture here is only the  really important society changing stuff.

Detailed debate can continue under the individual manifestos but this space is to capture the  fundamental policies that are badly needed.

I have had a first attempt below in capturing what I think the balance of debate has been leading towards, it is there to be debated and amended like anything else, we have to start somewhere.

Summary below straight off the bat just for starters:

The Constitution

Total Number of local and central government politicians to be reduced by approx 25%

The house of lords to be replaced by a ‘house of the learned’ or something similar, the majority of members will earn a place by being exceptional in your field of practise outside of politics. Spaces for lawyers, bankers and politicians will be strictly limited.  Methods of election of this new house and powers  to be confirmed.

All honours bestowed in the last 20 years to be reviewed and all honours will be continually reviewed. You can only stay a knight of the realm if you behave in a genuinly selfless public spirited or some other exceptional way and continue to do so and do nothing to put the honours status into disrepute. These people should be role models we all aspire to. The currency of ‘ honours’  has been cheapened to the status of cronyism.  This is more important than many realise to restore a positive aspiration in society to achive ‘honours’. It should be much easier for people to be stripped of honours, once gained it should be subject to review every 3 years (say).

Break up local councils into much smaller more local bodies (more like parish councils) for the people to feel a genuine connection with their community and have a direct influence over it. we must find a way to breach the ‘disconect’ between thep[eople and politicians.

Energy and the Environment

Phase out nuclear energy apart from for research purposes.

Phased re-nationalisation of energy provision services and reduced planning requirements for any renewable energy scheme.

Every constituency to issue an EDAP (Energy Descent Action Plan) explaining how it aims to ensure that food and shelter will still be available if/when cheap/available energy runs out.  Regular public update to be issued on how the plan is progressing.

Divert funds from ‘useless’ quangos, good for nothing university courses etc  into renewable energy research and industry, make it a national mission no matter what the energy companies say.

Employment, Education and Social Security

Set aside land / communities where the long term unemployed can choose to contribute in a ‘kibbutz’ type community rather than being placated on benefits on sink estates with sink schools. Give then something useful to do and aspire to that is sustainable and promotes a genuine sense of shared work and community, even if it simply sustains themselves they will feel they have apurpose and a descent social network.

Finance and Business

Automatic and mandatory 10% interest on all invoices outstanding over 60 Days to stop large corporations warping the credit market (Sainsbury / Tesco etc) for their gain off the back of great hardship for small suppliers and lots of hand rubbing for the banks.

55% of the board of directors of  the regulatory body for the financial industry are to be drawn from business outside the banking industry. It is too important to society as a whole to only allow people with a banking background to monitor the banks. Break the banking crony monopoly where top bankers seem to swap between working for banks and regulating them with impunity.

Mandatory financial responsibility clause  in all banking industry executive contracts and a binding code of conduct like other critical professional services to society (engineers, doctors etc).

A  cap on interest rates at around 10% to both protect the vulnerable in society and the banks and broader society from their own greed. Banks ‘we own’ can borrow at 1% and lend that money back to us at 25% or more on credit cards and the like.  Who does this arrangement help exactly?

The Law and Law Enforcement

Review of legislation which encourages the ‘compensation culture’..accidents don’t happen anymore, a crack in the pavement you trip over..claim against the council.  A postman sprains his ankle on your drive ..claim against the property owner. This is a tremendously corrosive force in society driven by greed. We used to just dust ourselves off, curse our bad luck and keep our eyes open. Now everything is viewed as an opportinity to sue your fellow man for a buck.  The erosion of trust and social engegement this produces is terrible surely? Most people hate the compensation culture but nothing ever seems to get done about it..I wonder why..arnt most politicians ex lawyers?

An immediate stop to the roll back of trial by jury, more and more laws and complexity are being used as excuses to take justice out of the hands of the people and into the hands of the legal professions. This erosion of the fundamental principle of justice must stop.

Removal / amendment of the laws brought in to fight terrorism but are now being used by local councils to spy on where parents live and what they put in their bins or screen e-mails of environmental action groups by the police. This stuff if actually happening !!

Removal of those silly wigs for goodness sake!

Metaphysical discussion

Science has thrown up a lot of aparently counter rational but proven theories in the last 100 years or so. Is the ’school of reason’ in denial about what reason is now telling us about the way the universe works which  is often paradoxical and …well…irrational ! If you dont believe me ..well  see the double slit experiment, quantum mechanics , Kurt Godels incompleteness theorem and the recent scietifically proven Hardy’s paradox.

By example to show how narrow minded we are now trained to be. Consider that it is a proven scientific fact that the phases of the  moon (La Lune / lunatic etc) influences human bevavior. There would therefore appear to potentially be some scientific basis to astrology? Astrology was based on the ancients looking at the stars, planets and moon and noticing links between human behaviour and their position. it was , in essence a scientific process, were they delusional? or simply applying  reason without our modern day pre-disposition to dismiss it as hocus pocus?

The Mayan calender has been shown to be an extremely accurate predictor of the movement of the stars and the planets not the work of randon crazies and witch doctors modern doctrine would have us believe. Are we really so much smarter than the ancients? Could it be that in some ways they were much smarter than us could it be our modern lives are less rich by cause of our preocupation with rationality, which is often nothing of the sort and constrained by a type of  ‘rationality predudice when the results of scientific experiment seem to contradict pure logic and reason. The recent proof of hardy’s paradox is a classic example of that. the scientists themselves described thier independantly verified results as ‘proposterous’. Why was that challenge to our underlying philosophy in the west not headline news??

Join the debate….please

LGO