What the relevant EU commissar has to say about that idiotic insurance ruling

The relevant commissar being Viviane Reding, who has moved on from Media etc to 'Justice' and shows about as much sense as before:

"Today is an important moment for gender equality in the European Union.... the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that different insurance premiums for women and men constitute sex discrimination and are not compatible with the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights...The insurance industry will certainly be affected by the ruling. For products such as life assurance and annuities, all 27 EU countries currently allow insurers to use sex as a risk-rating factor. However, I also would like to underline that parts of the insurance industry have already started to move in the direction of gender equality. Insurers have already shown flexibility as Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Slovenia apply unisex premiums for car insurance. (So all the heavy hitters then...QG) In the light of today's judgement, I call on insurers across the EU to follow this good example regarding all insurance contracts".

While I would far rather do away with charters of rights - 'Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts' - if we must have them, perhaps a charter for corporations might include the right to go about the evaluation and pricing of risk based on proven actuarial facts.   

A 1911 Hansard trawl, featuring verbose MPs, postal orders and a practical joke.

It's those dreadnoughts again.  Austrian this time:

Mr. BURGOYNE asked whether the right hon. Gentleman could now give the dates upon which the two Austrian "Dreadnoughts" were laid down; and when he anticipates they will be launched and commissioned for service?

Mr. McKENNA The only official information we have respecting the Austro-Hungarian "Dreadnoughts" building is that one will be launched in the middle of this year and another at the end of the year.

A little light excavating reveals that the first Hapsburg Dreadnought was called 'SMS Viribus Unitis', which apparently means 'With United Forces'.  What a profoundly lame name, IMO, although the same source has it being the Emperor's personal motto.  Italian marines sank it in 1918.  Note must be made of the rather surreal disambiguation page for Viribus Unitis which offers the ship or an Italian football team.


'We joined the navy to see the world and what did we see, we saw [a lot of coal]', as this proves:

Mr. BURGOYNE   asked whether any difficulty was experienced in maintaining the requisite numbers in stoker ratings; and whether there is at the moment any deficit in this branch of the service?

Mr. McKENNA The answer to both parts of the hon. Member's question is in the negative.

HMS rather less than Invincible:

Lord CHARLES BERESFORD asked whether the electrical fittings for the gun-mounting of H.M.S. "Invincible" have again broken down; whether these fittings have continually broken down after the guns have been fired; whether H.M.S. "Invincible" has been placed in dock, or in a basin, preparatory to taking out the whole of the electrical gun-mounting fittings and replacing them by hydraulic machinery; whether such an alteration would take at least six months to carry out; and whether he would state to the House the original cost of the electrical gun-mounting fittings for the ship?
......
Mr. LEE When will this ship be able to take her place among the effective ships of the Fleet?

Mr. McKENNA I think the improvements which are now being effected by the contractors will run concurrently with the long refitting and together they will occupy a period of about three months.

She was sunk at Jutland, with almost total loss of life.


Anyway, to less grim matters:

Mr. CATHCART WASON asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the fact that a column of "The Times" can be spoken in less than fifteen minutes, and the desire of many hon. Members to take part in the Debate, he would give his consideration to the proposal that hon. Members, other than Members of the Government or Front Opposition Bench and leaders of the Irish and Labour parties, desiring to speak should, at the time of handing in their names, state for how many minutes they desire to speak, to which time they would be strictly limited?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith) This is, I think, a novel proposal, and I should like, before further considering it, to have evidence that it meets with something like general support.

I doubt that there are more than a handful of Commons speeches over ten minutes these days.


Meanwhile, Chechnya has long been a less than advisable spot for non-natives:

Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any official information regarding the murder of British subjects at Grosny, in the Caucasian Government of Terek; and whether steps are being taken to bring the murderers to justice?
 

Mr. McKINNON WOOD  The British Vice-Consul at Rostov-on-Don reported on 23rd February that two British subjects, Messrs. MacGarvey and Bernard, had been murdered by robbers at Grosny on the preceding night. His Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg has been in communication with the Russian Government with a view to the apprehension of the murderers, but I have not yet heard that they have been discovered and arrested.

I get the feeling that Mr Taylor should have declared an interest here, as the question seems a little pointed:

Mr. JOHN TAYLOR asked the Postmaster-General whether, in the case of crossed postal orders, he could issue an instruction that where the person to whom the order is made payable is personally known to the postmaster, the order may be cashed at the post office; and whether he could, in the interest of a number of people, remove the prohibition on the negotiation of postal orders?
 

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL   I should not be justified in any circumstances in instructing a postmaster to cash a crossed postal order over the counter, as this would be breaking faith with the remitter who is told that an order, if crossed, is payable only through a bank, nor would it be in the public interest to make postal orders negotiable which would be, in effect, to convert them into a paper currency.

 
Maybe Taylor, like Billy Bunter, was always counting on a postal order to save the day. 


Suffragette city....

Mr. SNOWDEN asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he had received a memorandum accompanying a request for a public inquiry into the conduct of the Metropolitan Police on 18th, 22nd, and 23rd November last...


Mr. CHURCHILL

I have received the memorandum referred to and considered it. It contains a large number of charges against the police of criminal misconduct, which, if there were any truth in them, should have been made at the time and not after a lapse of three months, and should, if they could be supported by evidence, have been preferred in a police court....
The statement that there were a large number of plain clothes officers in the crowd who were, it is suggested, guilty of indecencies, is equally false. Apart from some detectives, specially summoned when it was found that a large number of pickpockets and thieves were present, not more than a 368 dozen plain clothes officers were employed, and, with the exception of one who assisted in an arrest, none of them handled the women in any way; but the crowd, which had assembled in response to invitations scattered broadcast by the Women's Social and Political Union, contained a large number of undesirable and reckless persons quite capable of indulging in gross conduct. It is perfectly possible that some of these were guilty of the indecencies alleged, and for their presence in Parliament Square the women themselves are responsible.

Not one of Churchill's finer hours, I think.

Meanwhile, rolling English roads:

Mr. COURTHOPE asked the Secretary of State for War whether communications have been received by the War Office on the state and need of repair of the military road running from Rye to Winchelsea;

Come now Mr Courthorpe, roads in the region of Rye *need* to be a bit decrepit, as -

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.(Rest of the poem here)

A reader magnet of a Hansard heading: Practical Joke (Member Victimised).

Sounds good, doesn't it?  But is it?

Winston Churchill ......The hon. Member for the Ramsey Division [Oliver Locker-Lampson]
was made the victim of a senseless and cruel practical joke at the hands of an acquaintance who had before been concerned in similar acts. The hon. Member was placed in a position of extreme embarrassment by the reckless behaviour of his companion, and by the charge which Mr. Cole preferred against him of stealing his watch. The hon. Member endeavoured to restrain his companion as much as possible, and to minimise the occurrence, but Mr. Cole's behaviour attracted a considerable crowd, and, in the confusion, both he and the hon. Member were arrested by the police, who were 385 naturally placed in a great difficulty by such an unusual incident.

Clear as mud...  This is what happened, apparently: 'Horace de Vere Cole challenged Locker-Lampson to a footrace on a London street, and allowed him to pull ahead. Then he shouted "Stop thief! He's got my watch!" - having previously slipped his gold watch into Locker-Lampson's pocket'.

Elsewhere their Lorships spilled 1,254 words on the topic of 'duties on clay', but I have conluded that as 'Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man' I will leave them to it.

A mini DPRK nugget

As long time observers of North Korea will know, Japan is not one of the DPRK's favourite places, so I offer up this piece of spin:

"False marriage is rampant in Japan, touching off strong public criticism.  The police authorities of Japan announced on Feb. 24 that the number of forged marriages with foreigners, exposed across the country last year, reached to 153 cases, an increase of 14.2 percent over the previous year. 

Rampant, eh?  Assuming that Japanese folk are still marrying at the same rate as they were in 2005 (the most recent figures a quick search has thrown out), that would give a figure of 0.02% for 'green card' marriages.  If it continued to grow at the same rate, it would be 2022 before one in a thousand were fraudulent rather than the current one in 4700.

Survey and commemoration o' the day

It is that time of the year again, apparently, it being the Fourth World Rare Diseases Day.  And in a impressive show of foresight, the EU commissioned a survey on rare diseases, which today sees the light of day.

So to the findings.  A rather alarming 37% of those polled do not know what a rare disease is, with a special salute to the 3% that replied 'These are diseases that nobody cares about'.  In France that figure is 6% and Italy 5%, but a mere 2% in these parts.   Makes you proud, doesn't it?  Among those who 'know or who have heard of a case of a rare disease', the 'nobody cares' response still rates a 2% response rate, which is pretty harsh.

Anyway, on to the rare diseases that Eurobarometer addresses - Cystic fibrosis, haemophilia, osteogenesis imperfecta, progeria, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s disease.  CF is the best known at 65%, followed by haemophillia at 60%, DMD at 39%, Huntingdon's at 31%, OI at 19% and Progeria at 16%.  I had not heard of the last two, so have that in common with the majority of those polled.   The Bulgarians and the Austrians proved to be the least well informed, while our neighbours to the West and the South did rather well.  

Some 84% of Danes claim to know or to have heard of someone suffering from a rare disease, which makes me wonder whether they are enthusiastic hospital visitors or can't tear them selves away from medical stories in the media.  We come bottom of the heap at 40%.  Sieving it out a bit, 42% of Danes claim to know someone with a rare disease, compared to 6% of Greeks.  One does wonder whether our Danish chums just wanted to show off.  Elsewhere, there is a strong correlation between both higher social status and tertiary education and knowing someone with a rare disease.  Or lying about it.     

Asked whether 'the cost of ...drugs to treat people suffering from rare diseases should be fully reimbursed by the national health care system even if they are expensive' some 56% of us 'totally agree', which is one of the lower figures.

As cynics realists will have guessed, there is rarely a Eurobarometer poll which does not include a push question for an EU landgrab, and here it is:  'should there be more European co-operation in order to help the limited numbers of people suffering from rare diseases more efficiently'.  We have one of the lower 'total agreement' figures at 58% to the EU average of 66% and the Cypriot peak of 91%. 

Another 21/4 earthquake in prospect?

The 21st April does not have any great significance in these parts, but it certainly does on the other side of the Channel, as on that day in 2002 (Yes, I had to look it up) the French Socialist Party's candidate Lionel Jospin failed to make it past the first round and into the run-off, resulting in a Chirac / Le Pen decider.  Which Chirac won by a landslide, traumatising much of the French left as they turned out en masse to vote for him rather than see a Front National president.  Still, they should not have voted for various Trots and other no-hopers thinking it was cost free, should they?

Anyway, it is by no means certain that Sarkozy will run again and current polling suggests that it is only Sarkozy who could out poll Marine Le Pen in round one and thus face Dominique Strauss Kahn (likely PS candidate in 2012) in the knock out.  François Fillon would tie with MLP and both Jean-François Copé and Jean-Louis Borloo would be out of the hunt after the first stage.

Marine Le Pen is rather more subtle in her public statements than papa, but she is some way off being what I would deem a respectable voting option.

Delusional, or just an attention seeker?

This, from the Evening Standard:

"Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has positioned herself as "the real opposition" to the coalition Government".

This is the woman who is quite happy to make common cause with Fourth International Trots.

Finding the mot juste - then ignoring it.

A rather poor choice of words by Hermann Van Rompuy (That's El Presidente of the EU Council to you, matey) in referring to events in Libya and North Africa:

"The European Union should not be patronising, but should also not shy away from using its political and moral responsibility".

The effect of which is rather spoilt by the continual references to 'the EU's Southern neighbourhood' rather than a term that said southern neighbours might use themselves.