Open for business?

According to the Asia Times, the euro-denominated Iranian Oil Bourse was due to start today (20th March 2006), which could mean the Canukistanish Globe & Mail was incorrect.

After Googling “Iran Bourse”, I came across this site.

Anyone speak Persian?

Iranian Oil Bourse delayed

According to the Canadian Globe & Mail, the start of the Iranian Oil Bourse has been delayed (as well as labelling those who link the start of the Bourse to the up-coming war as “conspiracy theorists”). On the plus side, it gives the US & UK more time to plan the invasion.

Freedom? Yeah, right!

From Liberty Central comes a list of the Acts which the government has refused to exclude from being possibly repealed due to the powers contained in the Abolition of Parliament Act (no, not the Abolition of the Parliament Act Act):

• Act of Settlement 1700
  
• Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
  
• Bail Act 1976 [i.e. bring back detention without trial]
  
• Bill of Rights 1688
  
• Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919
  
• Church of Scotland Act 1921
  
• Civil Contingencies Act 2004
  
• Claim of Right 1689 [Scottish version of the Bill of Rights 1688]
  
• Constitutional Reform Act 2005
  
• Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
  
• European Communities Act 1972 [out of the EU on the say-so of the govt]
  
• Freedom of Information Act 2000
  
• Government of Ireland Act 1920 [independence to Republic of Ireland]
  
• Government of Wales Act 2006 } Powers of the Welsh Assembly
  
• Government of Wales Act 1998 }
  
• Habeas Corpus Acts 1679 to 1862 [detention without trial]
  
• House of Lords Act 1999
  
• Human Rights Act 1998 [nice while it lasted…]
• Identity Cards Act 2006 [i.e. can make them compulsory!]
  
• Immigration Act 1971
  
• Local Government Act 1972
  
• Magna Carta 1215 [nothing to add!]
  
• Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975
  
• Ministers of the Crown Act 1975
  
• Northern Ireland Act 1947
  
• Northern Ireland Act 1998 [N. I. Assembly]
  
• Official Secrets Acts 1911 to 1989
  
• Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 [defining the powers of both Houses]
  
• Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986
  
• Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 [what can and can’t be used as criminal evidence as well as defining the Police’s powers]
  
• Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 [control orders, etc]
  
• Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Act 1706
  
• Public Order Acts 1936 to 1986
  
• Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
• Representation of the People Acts 1981 to 2002
  
• Scotland Act 1998 [devolved Scottish Parliament]
  
• Security Service Act 1989
  
• Statute of Westminster 1931 [granting legal independence to Oz, Canuckistan]
  
• Succession to the Crown Act 1707 [ensuring a Protestant Throne only]
  
• Terrorism Act 2000
  
• Terrorism Act 2006
  
• Union with England Act 1707 } [i.e. Britain could legally be split up
• Union with Scotland Act 1706 } on the order of a Minister!]
  
• Welsh Church Disestablishment Act 1914

(Only a)£2 billion defect on ID cards!

From those bleeding-heart civil libertarians at Computer Weekly:

The government's £5.8bn ID card project will be more than £1.81bn in deficit by 2008 unless the Home Office finds additional funding, a report by the London School of Economics (LSE) has claimed.

From the first page of the actual report:

Taking into consideration the

• £93 fee for passport and ID card,
  
• costs of potential verifications against the National Identity Register;
  
• estimated benefits arising from a national identity scheme for the Home Office,
  

we found that the Home Office accounts will have an estimated £1.81 billion cumulative deficit by 2018 for the combined passport-ID scheme. The Home Secretary has referred to such deficits as 'a small contribution from public funds, which is the only amount that could be spent on other things'.

These figures seem to indicate a number of problems still exist.

• There are still no reliable figures for enrolment rates.
  
• Significant benefits of the scheme will not begin to be realised for many years.
  
• The Home Office will probably have to raise the costs of the combined passport and ID card to break even.
  
• Alternatively, to maintain a sustainable scheme, the Home Office ID Card Team will have to greatly increase the number and/or cost of verifications beyond current projections and/or impose significant accreditation charges on private companies and other organisations wishing to use the Register.
  
• The deficit will likely hamper the development of other Home Office programmes [which may be a good thing!].
  

Finally we suggest that the process of combining the ID and passport for the purpose of accounting does not prove to be beneficial to either programme. Indeed if the Home Office insists on the biometric passport but drops the compulsory issuance of the ID Card, this could free up £1.8bn for other programmes over the next ten years.

While the conclusion states:

Based on the figures offered by the Home Office Identity Card Team, the Home Office is likely to be subject to an operating deficit due to the Identity Card Scheme. To make ends meet under the current scheme, the Home Office will need to either increase the fee for the passport and card, designate further documents for necessary registration on the NIR, or charge other Government departments and the private sector greater fees for verifications against the NIR.

[I]f the Home Office insists on the biometric passport it has planned but drops the compulsory issuance of the ID Card, this could free up £1.82bn for other programmes over the next ten years.

How long until the government launches a new smear campaign against the LSE & the authors of the report?

Council Elections

There’s an interesting discussion over at the Political Betting website, using local election results to predict the General Election outcome.

The author of the original article, Sean Fear, states:

How then, have the parties performed since the start of the year? There have been 39 contests so far. The Conservatives have won 22 seats (a gain of 6), Labour 8 (a loss of 2), the Lib Dems 5 (No change) and Others 4 (a loss of 4); 4 of the Conservatives’ net gains have come from Independents and Plaid Cymru. Of these 39 seats, only 14 have been contested on both occasions by the three main parties.

My back of the envelope estimate, based on those 14 seats, is that the Conservative vote share is at about 37%, Labour at about 28%, and the Lib Dems at about 27%.

Putting those figures into the Electoral Calculus site, we get the following:

• Tory 309 seats
  
• Labour 225
  
• Lib Dems 80
  

Making the Tories 15 seats short of a majority

Later on, a commenter called Andy states:

There have been 246 local council by-elections since the general election, over a third of which changed hands

Con Held 82 Gained 33 Lost 21 net +12
Lab Held 40 Gained 20 Lost 18 net -2
Lib Held 28 Gained 20 Lost 21 net -1
Ind/Oth Held 10 Gained 13 Lost 26 net –13

Vote shares (change on previous)

Con 33.97% +3.38%
Lab 25.14% - 2.18%
Lib 28.17% +3.12%
Ind/Oth 12.71% -4.32%

Using the Electoral Calculus site, this gives the following:

• Tory 304 seats
  
• Labour 206
  
• Lib Dems 106
  

We end up with a Tory minority government (20 short of a majority). Interestingly (from my point of view anyway), one of the seats Labour lose to the Lib Dems is Burnley… Bye bye, Ms. Usher?

It’ll be interesting to see how the main local elections in May turn out.