BrugesGroupBlog

The Last Post

2009-03-06T14:48:00.002Z

This really is the Last Post on the BrugesGroupBlog as far as I am concerned. As of now I shall cease to post here and concentrate on EUReferendum and whatever other blog I may decide to start. It is possible that this blog will be continued by somebody else at some later stage but I cannot tell who or when. Not all experiments work out.

They'll find out

2009-03-04T12:16:00.002Z

Everything seems to be coming up roses between the UN and the month-old Obama Presidency - as opposed to the people of the United States and the self-same Administration. SecGen Ban Ki-moon has moved fast, no doubt worried about future problems, to ask for more support and, above all, more money.

Ban said during a wide-ranging interview this week with The Associated Press that he was encouraged by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's response to his request for additional cash for peacekeepers and other badly stretched U.N. priorities.

They spoke on the sidelines of an international conference in Egypt on Monday that raised $5.2 billion in pledges for rebuilding Gaza, at the conclusion of the U.N. secretary-general's nine-day, six-nation African tour.

"She is quite supportive, and she told me that she will, her administration, the Obama administration is committed to working very closely politically and also (with) these financial contributions," Ban told the AP.

Words, as the SecGen knows, are cheap and there is still Congress to contend with on the subject of finances. Given the sorry record of those peace-keeping troops - useless at best and a bunch of rapists and exploiters at worst - more money is unlikely to solve the problems. In fact, nothing will solve the basic problem of the UN, its complete unaccountability that allows all sorts of bloodthirsty, kleptocratic dictators to call the tune.

The thawing relations between the United Nations and President Barack Obama's month-old administration represents a remarkable turnabout from just three years ago, when the Bush administration's U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, thrived on exposing U.N. corruption and failures but also furthered U.S.isolation.

Yes, indeed. Those UN corruptions and failures are still with us and the new Administration will do exactly what the other ones did - try to explain them away as long as they can and then turn against the organization. If it lasts that long. Three years ago was a year into Bush's second term. So far, Obama has had one month of his first term.

Another nightmare

2009-03-04T11:19:00.002Z

Senator Edward Kennedy, the man who never saw a wrong cause without supporting it, is to receive an honorary knighthood. This is for his "work" before, during and after the noxious Belfast Agreement (I refuse to refer to it as the Good Friday Agreement). That would be the work he did in support of IRA/Sinn Fein.

Another success for the Home Office

2009-03-03T20:57:00.003Z

This is being reported in various outlets but Hot Air is particularly succinct, though they get the information from the Daily Telegraph.

A Dutch poll taken February 7 showed his party in third place behind the Christian Democrats and Labour. Three days later, the Brits banned him from the UK. The latest Dutch poll, taken February 28: Wilders’s party 27, Christian Democrats 26, Labour 21.

The chances are Geert Wilders's party would have gained in popularity anyway but the Home Office deciding that an elected politician from a free and democratic country should not be allowed into Britain because the people he is accusing of violent attacks on all opposition might .... turn violent undoubtedly brought the man a good deal of support.

Gosh, what a surprise

2009-03-03T09:49:00.003Z

~~President~~ Prime Minister Putin's current party "United Russia" has won handsomely or, as the International Herald Tribune puts it, handily, in Russia's regional and district elections. Not altogether surprising, one might say, given the situation in that country.

What is a little odd is the phrasing of the article, the first I saw this morning on the subject. It starts off by saying without quotation marks:

The ruling party in Russia has won handily in regional elections, the Central Election Commission said Monday, the first electoral test for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin since the economy began to turn dire.

The party, United Russia, won the majority of seats in all nine regions where local parliamentary elections were held Sunday, and nearly swept smaller municipal elections.

Electoral test, eh? Just how difficult were those conditions? Harder or easier than those on University Challenge?

Further down we are told:

But many independent analysts said that elections have become little more than technical exercises since Putin came to power as president in 2000, and offer only a haphazard indication of voter preference.

Television and many other media outlets are largely tilted in favor of United Russia, and, out of four parties present in the federal Parliament, only one, the Communist Party, offers real, if pliable, opposition to Putin's party.

"This was just a small, uninteresting show," said Anton Orekh, a political commentator on Echo Moskvy radio. Public interest in elections, he said during an interview, had become "slightly less than low."

Unexplained murders of critics, lack of legal prosecution and other attempts to bully may have something to do with that lack of public interest.

The IHT holds firmly to the view that Putin remains the most popular politician in Russia, a view that has little to say for it, given the overwhelming publicity he gets and the complete lack of information about anyone else. Being more popular that supposed President Medvedev is hardly a great achievement. Mind you, there are rumours that the latter may be trying to form links with the dissatisfied military but we have to wait and see how true those are.

Given that there are already discontents across the country, particularly the Far East, and given that these discontents cannot be expressed through electoral means, we can but wonder what the spring, the traditional time for trouble in Russia will bring. And if there are serious disorders, will those journalists who think ~~President~~ Prime Minister Putin is so popular, be astonished?

This is really sad

2009-03-02T22:43:00.002Z

I used to love University Challenge back in the Bamber Gascoigne days (yes, I know, dates me a bit) and, as a school girl (take those dates off) would dream of participating. Didn't happen, of course, and I have not seen the programme for many years - the penalties of not having a TV set. But having a winning team with a participant who is no longer a student does make one sigh with despair. Which bit of "this is University Challenge" didn't these ultra-bright people understand?

We should be paying attention ...

2009-02-27T10:27:00.002Z

... to the tea-parties a.k.a. taxpayers' revolts across the Pond. So far they are mild-mannered though we shall see what the day brings. But remember what happened after the one in Boston.

Let us hope they listen

2009-02-24T15:25:00.002Z

Dan Mitchell of Cato Institute warns the United States not to follow the European path. He points out, inter alia, that Keynes himself would have been horrified by the proportion of GDP that is consumed by the state nowadays.

Here are the killer paragraphs (though I wonder why Dr Mitchell left Britain out of his excoriation):

The only good news, at least relatively speaking, is that other nations are in even worse shape. With the exception of Switzerland and a handful of other examples, nations in Europe are burdened by public sectors that consume up to 50 percent of economic output. In places such as Sweden and France, government spending actually consumes more than half of GDP (though Sweden somewhat compensates by having very market-oriented policies in other areas).

Europe’s sclerotic economies should serve as a warning for American policy makers. If government continues to grow, it will be just a matter of time before the United States also is plagued by low growth, higher unemployment, and stagnant living standards. Government spending is not the only policy that matters (see here for additional information), but making America more like France is a big step in the wrong direction.

Sadly, it looks like the Obama Administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress, which appears to be ever more insane, chaotic and dishonest with every day, seem to be determined to drive the last hope of economic recovery - the American economy down the same path. Here is Claudia Rossett's take. I am not sure I can say "enjoy" about such a grim subject.

It is almost inevitable that with a political class, in Britain, in America and on the Continent, that has become almost completely detached from the rest of the country and its wealth creation, should like economic legislation that gives more money, more power, more employment to them and their clients. What is good for Washington or, for that matter, Whitehall, is almost certainly bad for the rest of the country.

Next meeting

2009-02-19T11:12:00.003Z

The Bruges Group will hold a meeting on February 24 at the Foreign Press Association, 11 Carlton House Terrace (W. E. Gladstone's old house) at 7 pm. The speakers will be Peter Lilley MP and Martin Howe QC and they will be speaking on the destruction of parliamentary democracy, a subject Mr Lilley, at least, ought to know a great deal about.

You do not have to book ahead. Just turn up and pay at the door. I shall not be there for once, though Martin Howe is always worth hearing and I should like to know how he envisages Britain renegotiating a different relationship with the rest of the EU. The last time I asked him, his response was disappointingly silly. Drawing parallels between the British and the Swiss positions is pointless. There are no parallels.

As for me, I shall be at the National Theatre, watching the revival of Tom Stoppard's play about Soviet dissidents, "Every Good Boy Deserves A Favour".

You gotta accentuate the positive

2009-02-17T10:33:00.002Z

Another video from those guys Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation. This one goes for the positive. Having been through all the policies that do not work to increase a country's and its people's wealth (oddly enough all the ones usually proposed and implemented by politicians), they are now explaining what will work. Yes, you are right: small government and free markets. Enjoy.

"Are you guys ready? Let's roll."

2009-02-16T15:03:00.002Z

We must never forget those words spoken by Todd Beamer as he and his fellow-passengers tackled the terrorists on Flight 93 during that fateful day. The battle against all our enemies (who, rather satisfactorily, tend to unite periodically) goes on.

Claudia Rossett says it for the United States: no, we are not all socialists now. In fact, many of us believe that what socialism has "achieved" at the expense of liberty and well-being, to give power to the state and its minions, must be rolled back.

How much more true is that for us on this side of the Pond, both Britain and the Continent. Time to start rolling and if that leaves Tory Socialists behind, well, that's just too bad.

This is not campaigning, honest

2009-02-15T20:48:00.001Z

The part of West London I live in is on the move again, politically speaking. In the next General Election we shall be part of the new (or renewed) constituency of Hammersmith, though our Labour candidate will be the present MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherds Bush, Andy Slaughter.

As one can see from his biography he is a fairly typical Labour MP who is, at present, rather worried about losing his position as Hammersmith is something of a marginal. To be perfectly honest, I was not really aware of my MP’s identity because the long-standing one, Clive Soley, had been kicked upstairs given a peerage and the new one was too busy sucking up to the leadership.

Then, about a year ago, Andy Slaughter appeared on my radar screen. He it was, who was particularly riled by the IWantAReferendum campaign and became incoherent with venom in his debate with Derek Scott, who chaired it. Here is a more detailed account of this man’s imbecility and dishonesty (oh yes, one can display both).

Mr Slaughter subsequently started making all sorts of appearances around the area, clearly worried about the forthcoming election. For example, he wanted to stop the speedy reconstruction of Shepherds Bush Central Line station, arguing that it should not be closed completely for several months but that the building should be done around the passengers.

Inconvenient thought that closure was, the alternative, as proposed by Mr Slaughter, would have been a complete nightmare and would have prolonged the reconstruction (it was much more than a refurbishment) by many months, if not years.

He has been vocal in his opposition to the hugely successful Westfield Centre (much disliked by Guardian writers, I am glad to say), even calling a protest meeting well after it had opened. I almost went just to find out whether Mr Slaughter was suggesting the closure of the whole place with hundreds of people being made redundant and the whole area being turned into a derelict site. Since that meeting we have not heard a great deal about Westfield from our esteemed MP.

Now he is kind of in the news again, having resigned as PPS to the egregious Lord Malloch-Brown, former bag-carrier to UN SecGen Kofi Annan and George Soros, over the proposed third runway for Heathrow. To be honest, I did not even know Mr Slaughter had achieved such heights in his political career.

How did I find out? Well, a letter arrived on House of Commons paper, inside a House of Commons envelope with the House of Commons stamp on it. It informed me, as a voter, of Mr Slaugher’s amazingly honourable stance. Presumably, this went to all voters in the new Hammersmith constituency. Or did it go to his existing constituency, who are of little interest to Mr Slaugher now? In any case, I doubt if any of them knew that he had been in the government or cared much. We do not elect MPs in order that they should be in government.

The question one has to ask, in view of recent discussions, is this a justified way of spending House of Commons postage and stationery allowance? Is Mr Slaughter not using or abusing his office in order to electioneer ahead of the allowed time?

For the time being the last word

2009-02-15T19:20:00.002Z

Given the number of words both my colleague and I have expended on the Geert Wilders case, it would probably be seemly to call a halt on it. And so I shall, at least temporarily because the story is not about to go away, after this posting in which I should like to raise one or two issues.

My colleague on EUReferendum has already written about the Conservative Party’s ridiculous reaction but there have been some developments there as chronicled by ToryBoyBlog, a.k.a. Conservative Home.

At first the Conservatives, laughably known as Her Majesty’s Opposition, kept quiet on the matter of a Dutch parliamentarian being stopped from taking up an invitation by two members of the House of Lords to explain his political views because another member of the House of Lords, who is waiting to be sentenced for dangerous driving that resulted in a death, was threatening violence. The threats were unlikely to have turned into reality but that is a separate issue. They were made.

Then, just as the questions of where were the Tories started to reach a noisy crescendo, a very quiet and understated statement was made by Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary (I think).

We have consistently called on the Government to tackle extremists. If Geert Wilders has expressed views that represent a threat to public security, then we support the ban. But people like Ibrahim Moussawi, a spokesman for the terrorist organisation Hizbollah, have not been banned. The Government must apply the criteria governing entry into the UK consistently.

In other words, the whole issue was made into a discussion of equivalence. Before making the statement Mr Grayling or one of his gifted researchers ought to have found out what exactly it is that Mr Wilders has said and what views he has expressed. They might have found that, though some of the views are debatable, many of his policies are free-market ones (and that maybe what our political class dislikes en masse) while others make a good deal of sense.

For instance, the idea of a five-year moratorium on immigration in a small, heavily populated country, which is finding it hard to “digest” a large group of people who are not prepared to become part of its society is not actually stupid or particularly offensive. The fact that they are not prepared to become part of that society is evidenced by the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the constant protection under which Geert Wilders has to live.

As for his call to ban the Koran in the Netherlands, just as “Mein Kampf” is banned, clearly that is one of the debatable points. In my opinion, neither should be banned and, in any case, how difficult is it to buy a copy of Hitler’s intolerably boring magnum opus and taking it to Amsterdam?

The point that Mr Grayling seems to be missing is that political views that might be controversial (and God forbid that any Conservative politician should have those) are not quite the same as calls for violence and terrorism. Nobody has produced a single example of Mr Wilders doing that. The person who has threatened violence is Lord Ahmed.

A little while later the Tory leadership woke up to the fact that their stand on the issue, which consisted of fence-sitting of the first order, was not particularly popular. Even on ConHome most of the comments were angry.

So up popped little Georgie-Porgy Osborne, who clearly does not have enough to do as Shadow Chancellor in the midst of a financial crisis, and told the Manchester Evening News, which has not, so far as I know, been bought by a Russian oligarch:

My personal view is by banning him [Wilders] in such a public way, he has been
given far more publicity than would havebeen the case. I am not sure how thought-through this really was.

Still somewhat feeble and giving the further impression that the Conservative Front Bench is incapable of agreeing on anything of any importance. Furthermore, what Mr Osborne seems to object to is the backfiring of the stupid ban rather than its existence.

Some of the comments (most of which were still negative) suggested that the Conservatives are trying hard to win the Muslim vote or some of it and that is why they are not speaking out in favour of free speech. I can’t help thinking that this is a ridiculous calculation.

There is a greater tendency in the Muslim community than in others to vote en bloc, often at the instructions of the local imam or some other “community leader”. This tendency has been exacerbated by the loosening of rules on postal voting, about which the Electoral Commission refuses to do anything. This may or may not help the Labour Party but it is not going to give the Conservatives anything.

The only Muslim votes they are likely to get are from people who are trying to break away from the unhealthy stifling of political opinion that exists in those circumstances. Those Muslims are very unlikely to be impressed by this cravenness that supports a trampling of their rights as well as anybody else’s.

The second point I want to make is rather more serious than the well-being or otherwise of the Conservative Party. We are witnessing yet another example of a deliberate erosion of moral responsibility in public discourse.

“Violence”, according to this attitude, is a purely passive phenomenon. It is bad but it just happens. Nobody is responsible and everybody involved, the perpetrator and the threatener as well as the putative victim is equally guilty. Therefore, it does not matter who is punished, the one who threatens violence or the one who wants to have an open discussion. Since it is clearly easier to punish the latter, that is what we do.

We can see similar attitudes in various rather knotty international problems, whose solution remains unreachable because of this muddle in thinking and moral judgement, a muddle that has now completely overtaken our entire political class.

Gaza remains a humanitarian disaster

2009-02-11T00:04:00.003Z

As the Israeli election is drawing to a close with Tzipi Livni and the Kadima slightly ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud though the final coalition government remaining uncertain, we are getting a good deal of weeping from the brigade of sentimentalists who have managed to convince themselves that they are thinking about the unfortunate Palestinian people, who, one may add, do not have the rights and privileges that Arabs in Israel enjoy. Hint: they, too, have been taking part in a free election.

To some extent these people are right: Gaza remains a humanitarian disaster area and will be that while Hamas remains in charge. After the story of Hamas stealing at gunpoint the aid brought in by UNWRA, we now hear that even Amnesty has had enough.

Rick Moran on American Thinker links to Ynetnews. Reuters reports it, too, as do many others.

Amnesty International said on Tuesday Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip had carried out killings, torture and abductions of people accused of helping Israel, during and after the recent Israeli offensive. At least two dozen men have been shot dead by Hamas gunmen and scores of others have been shot in the legs, knee-capped or injured in other ways intended to cause permanent disability, the human rights group said.

Others have been severely beaten, tortured or ill-treated, it said in a report.

Most were abducted from their homes and later dumped, dead or injured, in isolated areas, or found in the morgue of one of Gaza's hospitals. Some were shot dead in hospitals where they were receiving treatment for injuries, Amnesty said.

Yes, well, a good deal of this was reported during the last Gaza conflict but, somehow or other, ignored by the weeping NGOs and much of the big media. But better late than never, I suppose.

Rick Moran is less charitable. Why is Amnesty not interested, he wonders, when Hamas attacks Israelis? Could there be a double standard here? Certainly. There could and there is but, at least, we are told about Hamas's murder and torture of other Palestinians. We rarely hear about that. It's a start.

Allow me to respond

2009-02-10T00:05:00.001Z

It seems easier to do another posting as a response to the comments on “What is to be done?”. As promised, I shall ignore the silly personal attacks as being of little interest. On the other hand, I am grateful to people who have taken the trouble to reply with various points, ideas and suggestions.

So, let me begin by sorting out the various blogs and how they fit together as there seems to be some confusion. EUReferendum is a joint blog, run by Richard North and me, though largely by Richard North. There are no restrictions on how much I can write on it, in response to one comment, but it has so happened that for various reasons I have not posted as much as Richard has. Indeed, for a while I was not posting on it at all. But I am back on it now. For the present.

There are several spin-offs. Defence of the Realm was set up by Richard because there was a threat that his defence posts would take over EURef. He usually cross-links to the main blog. EUReferendum2 exists solely for long posts that would take up too much space on the main site. There is always a cross-link. The Umbrella enterprise has not quite worked out as it was meant to, not least because of lack of resources. Umbrella3 is for long postings that are very loosely related to the main themes of EURef. Of course, those main themes have multiplies as well.

The forum was set up as a separate entity in order to make archiving easier and to create a feeling of a network community. On the whole it has probably succeeded but it is not a major interest of mine. People can post on it now without registering though I wish they would put some name at the top of their posting – nothing is so frustrating than dealing with somebody known as Guest.

The BrugesGroupBlog lies somewhere alongside that structure, not, at present, attached to anything. As I explained in my original posting, it was going to be part of something bigger but that has fallen through.

Let me just assure everyone that plans for a proper research structure are being worked out but they will be under EUReferendum rather than Bruges Group auspices. We shall certainly be looking for IT knowledge and experience but there is the enormous problem of finances. That kind of work needs to be paid for.

For the rest, there were as many people suggesting that I should abandon this blog and contribute more to EUReferendum as there those who saw some value in a separate outlet. On reflection, I think I shall stick with the second group of advice (which means that those who never look at the BrugesGroupBlog for whatever reason will not read my scribblings on that but we have to take some risks in life) and continue with the BrugesGroupBlog with cross-links. The aim is to change it into some kind of a more personal blog that will cover various subjects that I cannot really put up on EUReferendum. But that remains work in progress.

One has to worry ...

2009-02-09T10:45:00.002Z

... when the Russian Foreign Minister, the EU's Foreign Affairs Chief Panjandrum and the Chinese are praising the "new tone" of the new American Administration. Of course, a new tone might not mean anything much and the new Administration may well learn quickly that those who are on the other side need to be stared down. After all, the Secretary of State must recall how "useful" that new tone was in the time of her husband's presidency. It is a little worrying that nobody seems to remember or be capable of finding out the disaster in foreign and domestic policy that was Jimmah Carter's administration.

Meanwhile, there is this bit of fatuous reporting from EurActiv:

In a perfectly harmonious chorus, European leaders stressed Russia does not pose any military threat to Europe or NATO. But mutual trust between Moscow and Brussels is "urgently" needed, especially after the natural gas supply crisis earlier this year, said French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

On the whole, it is probably true that Russia does not pose a military threat to Europe simply because it is not in a position to do so. Even the invasion of little Georgia took more out of the Russian military than had been expected. But that mutual trust seems a long way away, especially if one takes into account the consistent bullying of former colonies and satellites.

Not everyone is happy as this article in the Wall Street Journal shows. The recent launch of the Iranian missile, whether it is quite as technically sophisticated as the Mad Mullahs would like us to believe or not, ought to remind some people what the missile defence shield is opposing. This is no time to start accepting Russian leaders' hysterics, aimed mostly at their own population whom they want to cower by endless references to the enemy inside and outside (has a familiar ring to it).

Suspending the program would have serious consequences. It would send a signal of American weakness to Iran, which the Obama Administration says it wishes to engage. If the mullahs watch the U.S. back down on confronting its missile threat, who could blame them for assuming it will also back down over its nuclear aspirations?

A suspension would also send a message of American irresolution to Russia, which opposes deploying the antimissile system in countries it considers part of its sphere of influence. This kind of Cold War thinking was on display again last week with the news that Moscow had bribed Kyrygyzstan to close a key U.S. air base for supplying Afghanistan. Backing down on missile defense would only encourage more such Russian behavior.

I don't know which is worse: ignorance of history or ignorance of economics. We have a surfeit of both among Western leaders.

Does all this surveillance work?

2009-02-06T15:23:00.002Z

At the back of my mind there sits the uncomfortable thought that, having promised to reply to the comments on what is to be done with the BrugesGroupBlog, I have not yet done so. All I can say is that I have been thinking them over and shall respond, maybe later today.

In the meantime, I am preparing for a short interview with the BBC Russian Service – the one part of that noisome organization that one can approve of and, needless to say, a part that is under constant threat of cut-backs and closures. They wish to discuss the latest House of Lords Constitution Committee Report on Surveillance: The Citizen and the State. So I am reading the conclusions with which I broadly agree – the balance in government thinking has long ago moved away from individual liberty and privacy to the notion that we exist for the state.

It is somewhat ironic that the BBC, which seems to have introduced its own methods of surveillance of private speech, otherwise known as snitching, should even begin to be interested in the subject. Then again, this is the Russian Service, where they know about such things.

What shocked me more than the behaviour of the BBC and its unpleasant denizens, Jo Brand and Adrian Chiles (of whom I had never heard before), has been the number of people who have commented on various forums and in letters to newspapers that the BBC was actually completely right and this is a real blow for …. well what exactly? That, of course, is what people can never explain.

On the whole opinion has been against the BBC, who seems to find no problems in having the most offensive comments (Jonathan Ross), examples of anti-semitism (Tom Paulin and others) or anti-Americanism (just about everybody from Justin Webb onwards) broadcast but runs in horror from the g word in private.

I prefer not to use the word Orwellian in ordinary political discourse because like so many of those convenient expressions it is frequently abused. In this case, however, it is entirely apt. Those who recall “1984” will know that when Winston Smith is first arrested he finds, among others, his erstwhile colleague Parsons in gaol with him. Parsons tells him with great delight that he had been denounced by his own daughter because he had said something bad about Big Brother in his sleep. The BBC and its denizens would probably approve of that, too. During World War II Orwell worked in Broadcasting House for a while and it is well known that he based his description of the Ministry of Truth, where Winston Smith works until his arrest, on that institution. He knew whereof he spoke.

Back to the House of Lords Report and its Recommendations. They are very detailed and I would recommend all to read them in full.

On the whole, I agree with them in that the ever expanding but highly inefficiently used technology of surveillance needs a great deal of control than the government seems to think.

They do not mention the fact that all too often these surveillance technique may flush out the parents who send their children to a school that is not in their catchment area but shows itself to be completely useless in the prevention of mugging and high-street robbery or, even, the apprehension of the perpetrator.

Their lordships say:

453. Before introducing any new surveillance measure, the Government should endeavour to establish its likely effect on public trust and the consequences for public compliance. This task could be undertaken by an independent review body or non-governmental organisation, possibly in conjunction with the Information Commissioner's Office.

I’d say we need to add another point: the Government should produce some likely calculation based on past experience of how effective the particular measure is in accomplishing its stated aims.

Meanwhile, I have finished my short interview with the Russian Service. My main point was that there is a serious division of opinion here between those who consider that the state exists for the citizen and those, who consider the opposite. While none of us have too many objections to the police using DNA to pursue people they suspect of committing a crime, we do object to them storing the DNA of innocent people just in case they turn up again.

One does not like the idea of children’s DNA being routinely collected and stored, in order to provide them with “a better life” and to ensure that they exist where and how the state thinks appropriate.

Interestingly enough, The Anchoress, one of my favourite American bloggers has a posting that is relevant to the topic. Of all the quotations she cites, I like this one, by C. S. Lewis best:

Of all the tyrannies, the one exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their conscience.

The real problem comes when those robber barons become omnipotent moral busybodies without changing their original spots much.

This posting is probably longer than one wants on this blog. I shall try not to do that too often. The picture I simply could not resist.

What is to be done?

2009-02-03T17:26:00.002Z

It is curious, but having hated Chernyshevsky's seminal and unbelievably bad novel of that name and having struggled through Lenin's seminal and unbelievably badly written study that is at least shorter than the novel, also of that name, I find myself quoting that question over and over again.

In this case, the question is about the BrugesGroupBlog and its role in the eurosceptic and related political struggle.

I started it some months ago as a parallel outlet to EUReferendum, where I can post short (and not so short sometimes) pieces that would link to news stories to do with the EU, Britain's role in the world and the never-ending villainy of tranzis. The idea behind it was that the blog would, at some point, become part of a structured research programme for the Bruges Group. Alas, the latter is not going to happen as the powers that be at the Group have decided otherwise. Eventually, some decision will be taken but it will not be in favour of the research programme I proposed.

So, now I am faced with the problem of what is to be done with the BrugesGroupBlog. Solutions?

And another one

2009-01-26T13:34:00.002Z

Here is the latest video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation. Good title: Obama's so-called stimulus - Good for Government, Bad for the Economy. And which side would you rather be?

Keynesianism is not the answer

2009-01-19T14:21:00.002Z

Another video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation that follows the history of Keynesianism and explains in useful detail just how wrong-headed and misguided that ideology is and how much harm it has done.

Gee-whizz!

2009-01-09T01:04:00.003Z

The Czech Republic has taken over the EU presidency at a somewhat difficult time and has presented its priorities. EUBusiness sums it up as:

The key priorities are the three 'E's: Economy, Energy and Europe in the world. The motto is a 'Europe without barriers'.

Can't wait to see how that turns out.

The Dutch are reconsidering

2009-01-03T00:22:00.001Z

As the article in the International Herald Tribune says, what a difference two years make, especially if they are full of unpleasant events.

Two years ago, the Dutch could quietly congratulate themselves on having brought what seemed to be a fair measure of consensus and reason to the meanest intersection in their national political life: the one where integration of Muslim immigrants crossed Dutch identity.
In the run-up to choosing a new government in 2006, just 24 percent of the voters considered the issue important, and only 4 percent regarded it as the election's central theme.

What a turnabout, it seemed - and whatever the reason (spent passions, optimism, resignation?), it was a soothing respite for a country whose history of tolerance was the first in 21st-century Europe to clash with the on-street realities of its growing Muslim population.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the Netherlands had lived through something akin to a populist revolt against accommodating Islamic immigrants led by Pim Fortuyn, who was later murdered; the assassination of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, accused of blasphemy by a homegrown Muslim killer; and the bitter departure from the Netherlands of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who became a member of Parliament before being marked for death for her criticism of radical Islam.

Suddenly, there is criticism of the failed policy from the Left.

Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance."
….
The paper said: "The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance."

Government and politicians had too long failed to acknowledge the feelings of "loss and estrangement" felt by Dutch society facing parallel communities that disregard its language, laws and customs.

Newcomers, according to Ploumen, must avoid "self-designated victimization."

She asserted, "the grip of the homeland has to disappear" for these immigrants who, news reports indicate, also retain their original nationality at a rate of about 80 percent once becoming Dutch citizens.

Instead of reflexively offering tolerance with the expectation that things would work out in the long run, she said, the government strategy should be "bringing our values into confrontation with people who think otherwise."

And so it goes. The paper insists that immigrants must engage with Dutch life and Dutch values; their best way out of their ghetto is through working; and criminality or anti-social behaviour has to be prevented or punished.

What is so depressing is that we all, including John Vinocur, the author of the article, should find it surprising that self-defined members of the Left should actually speak up against those who try to undermine the liberal values that they are supposed to hold dear: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, equality before the law, protection for the law-abiding, equality between the sexes and so on.

Back to Belgium

2008-12-29T14:49:00.000Z

It was not my intention to make the first post-Christmas posting about Belgium but needs must be. There is a new development in that country’s permanent political and constitutional crisis.

The Wall Street Journal reports that King Albert has named a successor to Prime Minister Yves Leterme, who has resigned amid a financial scandal. (Are we surprised? Not unbearably.)

After more than a week of negotiation with the country's fragmented political parties, King Albert asked Herman Van Rompuy, president of the lower house of Belgium's parliament, to form a government. While the person chosen for this role doesn't always get the top job, "in this case, it's absolutely clear Mr. Van Rompuy will become prime minister in a few days," said Olivier Alsteens, a government spokesman.

Mr. Van Rompuy, 61 years old, is a member of the Christian Democrats, the same party that Mr. Leterme belongs to. He earned plaudits as a finance and budget minister in the 1990s when he gradually reduced Belgium's national debt so that the country would meet the criteria to adopt the euro in 1999.

All but one of the ministers will be those of the existing (since March) coalition government.

Happy Christmas

2008-12-24T22:21:00.002Z

The BrugesGroupBlog has been a little thin recently for a number of reasons, one very important being that its role is now being questioned as the aim was to make it part of an integrated Bruges Group research programme. This may yet happen in the new year. I certainly hope so, as there is a certain dearth of well constructed research programmes among the numerous eurosceptic groups.

For the time being the blog will carry on with a little more attention than it has enjoyed recently. In the meantime, let me wish all our readers a very happy Christmas.

How very true

2008-12-17T21:55:00.001Z

An excellent article by Matthew Kaminski on Forbes.com about the inevitable fading of the supposed love of America because Obama has been elected to be president.

There are various reasons why anti-Americanism exists. The most obvious one is that America is the strongest power and those are always disliked. As several people have told Mr Kaminski, that is something Americans will have to live with just as the British did for a while. Unlike previous empires, the American one is different as it is not based on direct rule, no matter what the anti-American crowd, both on the left and the right, scream. It is power projected through ideas and effects.

Yet America is different from those past empires, and I find our thin skin winning--to a point. The place attracts the hatred of assorted masses from London fine-dining table to the caves around Tora Bora because it is attractive at so many levels and isn't self-consciously a global Empire (which enrages some people even more). Our iPods, Harvards and Stanfords, Tiger Woodses and Michael Phelpses, Beyoncés and Philip Roths all constitute American power along with the dollar and the military.

America is different, an exceptional country, despite the efforts made by the politicians and the media to turn it into a class-ridden society like any other. The reason why Obama, with his unusual background, could be elected President, is that difference. Sooner or later those who are still dancing with joy will have to acknowledge this, as the fact that he was elected by the very same people who had elected Bush twice. How could they have become so smart in such a short space of time?

There will be the obvious reason for turning against Obama as soon as he starts behaving as an American President (as even he must on January 21 if the already raging scandals do not envelop him) and looking to his own country first. The idea that somehow under President Obama America will become the willing slave of other countries is fatuous. Just wait till he asks openly for more European troops to be sent to Afghanistan, the "just" war, sanctioned by the UN and still hated by the many America-bashers.

The most obvious reason for hating America is envy - not just for the material welfare but for the existence of a state in which the people (give or take a mendacious media and a certain number of corrupt politicians) can affect who is in government and what sort of legislation is passed. This is not true for most of the world. It is not true in Europe where elections have become a farce with the real power residing the untouchable and unaccountable eurocrats. No wonder we hate America.

Let's try again

2008-12-15T23:08:00.002Z

With the world's leaders apparently going completely mad and competing with each other as to how much money they are going to spend supposedly to "stimulate" the economy and how far further they will expand government - where the roots of the many of our problems lie, a cool discussion of Keynesianism from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation is very welcome. Let's see if I can embed the video this time.

Remember when ...

2008-12-11T11:52:00.002Z

... Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer used to lecture his colleagues in the European Union about sensible and prudent economic policies. A great many people (few of them in the meida) realized at the time that his own would not stand up to much scrutiny and a crisis would hit Britain badly.

Well, it has and Prime Minister Brown is now, rather humiliatingly, being lectured on his crass and irresponsible Keynesianism. German finance minister, Peer Steinbruck went for the jugular in an interview for Newsweek.

This bodes ill for the European Council (not Summit as the news story erroneously describes it) opening today. More on that, as it progresses and as I finish day jobbing.

Tax havens are a good idea

2008-12-10T13:17:00.002Z

An e-mail from Dan Mitchell, Senior Fellow at Cato Institute and a co-founder of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, tells me that there are now numerous videos on YouTube that deal with such subjects as the Laffer Curve and tax reform.

There are three recently completed and posted videos on tax havens and why they are quite a good idea though, presumably, one would not need them if other countries had more sensible tax regimes.

They are called respectively The Economic Case for Tax Havens, The Moral Case for Tax Havens and Tax Havens: Myths v. Facts.

I haven't quite worked out how to embed videos in blog postings as the one piece of advice I was given did not seem to work out in practice. So, in the meantime, there are links to YouTube. Enjoy.

We have a problem

2008-12-08T14:55:00.004Z

The Wall Street Journal carries an interesting article, translated from the German, about the activity of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin. The Center's introductory paragraph is entirely praiseworthy:

The Center for Research on Antisemitism, founded in 1982, is the only scholarly institution conducting interdisciplinary researches and teachings focussing on prejudices and their consequences like antisemitism, Antiziganism, xenophobia and racism.

The interdisciplinary research on antisemitism is supplemented by research on related areas such as German-Jewish history and the Holocaust.

As it happens, there have been numerous reports in various European countries that showed that Anti-Semitism was growing again, its sources are Islamic countries like Iran, the more extremist Islamist organizations around the world and certain left-wing groups who have decided to become Anti-Semitic in their sympathy with the "oppressed" Muslims of the world. They rarely talk about the Muslims that are oppressed by Muslim governments (such as Iran).

It seems that the Center has decided not to concentrate on these matters but to produce a report on growing Islamophobia in which, according to Matthias Küntzel, no difference is drawn between Muslims in general and political Islam or, as we refer to it, Islamism. It would appear that criticizing Islamists who want to destroy Israel, call for the murder of various opposing people and groups, frequently carry out those murders and generally want to destroy Western countries and their culture is the same as being Islamophobic, which is no different from being Anti-Semitic.

In taking up the fashionable vocabulary of Islamophobia and equating hostility to Muslims with hostility to Jews, the center also risks undermining the most important current task in dealing with anti-Semitism: studying and fighting hostility to Jews in the Islamic world, where anti-Semitism has reached an unprecedented level.

For example, one of the authors in the latest Yearbook, Jochen Müller, proposes a "revision of politics and history teaching" in German schools. Because the Holocaust has no "central meaning for migrants from the Arabic-Muslim world," one should consider whether "the colonial period and its consequences" would not be a better subject for "appropriate 'Holocaust education'" among Muslim students in Germany. This is a remarkable idea given the degree of Holocaust denial among many young Muslims.

Another article in the Yearbook, "Hostility to Islam on the World Wide Web," goes even further. Instead of criticizing anti-Semitism among Muslims, the author criticizes those who accuse Muslims of anti-Semitism. That's because such accusations provide "an apparently rationally based argument for rejecting an entire collective," writes Yasemin Shooman, a staff member at the center. Here, attempts to fight "hostility to Islam" threaten to turn into tolerance of anti-Semitic attitudes.

While the Berlin center concentrates on world-wide "anti-Islamic resentments," its Yearbook says not a word about the anti-Semitism of the Iranian mullahs. Thus, it hardly does justice to the demands for contemporary research on anti-Semitism. Never before has the elimination of the Jewish state been so loudly propagated. Never before has an influential power made Holocaust denial the center of its foreign policy, as Iran has today. Never before has a U.N. forum been misused for an anti-Semitic speech, as it was on Sept. 23 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized the speech as "blatantly anti-Semitic."

Presumably, one must not talk about Islamism in connection with the recent atrocities in Bombay, either. Or is that allowed?

It's Bombay and India is still an ally ... just

2008-12-03T23:36:00.000Z

Still on the subject of the atrocities in India, an ally and a country that is or ought to be part of the Anglosphere, here is a very good article by Christopher Hitchens on Slate. Among other things, Hitch reminds us all that Bombay, which is still called that by many Indians, was renamed by Hindu extremists after a Hindu goddess. By calling it Mumbai, we collude with their desire to keep India away from the rest of the world, to destroy Bombay, one of the country’s greatest cities. So let us not give in to that and continue calling the place Bombay.

This may seem like a detail, but it isn't, because what's at stake is the whole concept of a cosmopolitan city open to its own citizens and to the world—a city on the model of Sarajevo or London or Beirut or Manhattan. There is, of course, a reason they attract the ire and loathing of the religious fanatics. To the pure and godly, the very existence of such places is a profanity. In a smaller way, the same is true of the Islamabad Marriott hotel, where I also used to stay. It was a meeting point and crossroads for foreigners. It had a bar where the Pakistani prohibition rules did not apply. Its dining rooms and public spaces featured stylish Asian women who showed their faces. And so it had to be immolated, like any other Sodom or Gomorrah.

The main point of the article, though, is an assertion of the importance of India in our world and in our fight against terrorists and the importance of the West, whose leaders have been making rather mealy-mouthed statements, to make it clear that we believe this to be so, despite the many problems India faces.

While we are on the subject of the events in Bombay, here is Neo-neocon writing about some people’s outrageously stupid reactions. Personally, I think she is being too kind to the morons who can see no difference between victims and murderers but she also links to a posting by Yaacov Ben Moshe, who is less kind. [Warning: some of the descriptions of what the terrorists did may well make you queasy.] I just wish they would all call the city Bombay.

Imprisoning the messenger

2008-12-02T00:59:00.002Z

This news was passed on to me by one of the readers of both this and the EUReferendum blog. He sent me some links to a Russian-language newspaper in Latvia, Telegraf. The first article appeared on November 21, in which the newspaper reported that Dmitry Smirnov (or Dmitrijs Smirnovs in Latvian, though I suspect the man a Russian) a teacher of economics in the Ventspils University College was arrested by the Security Police and accused of undermining the Latvian financial system by taking part in a discussion about the ongoing crisis.

The story was confirmed three days later in which Mr Smirnov explained that he had been kept in solitary for two days but otherwise treated well. He had been arrested under Article 194 of the Criminal Code. Mr Smirnov added that it is clear from the conditions of his imprisonment that Latvia is now in the European Union though he does not actually want to return to the cell. I suspect Mr Smirnov does not know much about prisons in certain parts of France or Italy.

The Baltic Times, an English language newspaper had more on the story.

University College Rector Janis Vucans told the Baltic News Service that he did not know the exact reasons for the detention of lecturer Dmitrijs Smirnovs, but that he expected to receive a written explanation.

The rector said that the discussion that led to the lecturers detention was an ordinary talk in which each participant voiced his own opinion and vision.

Asked whether Smirnovs' detention should be taken as interference with a person's freedom of speech, Vucans said that Smirnovs is a lecturer at the Ventspils University College, delivering lectures on banks and monetary systems. "On what basis should we lecture? Not on examples of some Switzerland or the US, the situation in Latviais more important to us," he said.

"The question is whether we are teaching something abstract, what does not refer to us, or we are trying to educate our students on issues that are topical," said the rector. "As far as I understand, his statements are not populist, but based on analysis," said the rector.

It seems that Mr Smirnov argued that the lat may well be devalued very soon. It followed, according to the Baltic Times, a string of detentions connected with this rumour. One of those detained, according to the Telegraf, had been Valters Frïdenbergs, a singer with the group Putnu balle. And to think that the only thing our various singers and performers get arrested for is drunkenness, drug abuse and general bad behaviour. Something wrong here.

My informer wondered why the EU was not making any noises about Mr Smirnov’s rights to freedom of speech. I think I have the answer here:

Smirnovs said in the discussion: "The only thing I can advise: first, not to keep money in banks, second, not to accumulate savings in lats as it is very dangerous now. Convert them to the US dollars. The euro is an artificial currency, and what is achieved by the euro in a year, can be lost in a month. These are real threats to the value of the euro. Maybe some people do not understand it, but the main oppositionist and competitor to the US is the European Union (EU). The main goal of the US is to destroy the EU as it does not benefit from a strong and united Europe, strong currency -- the euro."

The man is not going to get support if he goes around saying that the euro is an artificial currency and is, therefore, very vulnerable. Then again, if he really believes that tosh about America’s main goal being the destruction of the EU then his opinions are hardly worth listening to, let alone paying him the compliment of arresting him.

Upon further enquiry I established this about Article 194:

According to the criminal code, it is against the law to disseminate “untrue data or information orally, written or in other ways regarding the condition of the finance system of the Republic of Latvia.” A person convicted under Section 194 could face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to 80 times the minimal monthly wage.

When it comes to disseminating information about the country’s currency true or untrue becomes hard to judge. According to Andris Straumanis in Latvians Online the arrest is likely to be in contravention of the Latvian constitution, which guarantees free speech.

The Wall Street Journal, still the best newspaper around for news as opposed to discussion of rock music, fashion and obscure health problems, has caught up with the story. Apart from explaining why the Latvian authorities are so worried about unfounded rumours (though, perhaps, they should not assume that all economic discussions are that) Andrew Higgins makes an interesting point about the whole saga:

Virtually no one here worries that Latvia is reverting to the ways of the Soviet Union, when the KGB hunted down dissidents and kept the population in cowed silence. Unlike Russia, where state-controlled media largely ignore bad news, Latvia has a vibrant free press. Mr. Smirnovs's detention was front-page news and created an uproar. This, says the economist, "shows that we are still living in a democracy."

Indeed, a quick check on the internet confirms that the story is being vigorously discussed in various languages, though, for some reason it does not seem to have been picked up by the British media.

Change we can all believe in

2008-12-02T00:11:00.002Z

President-Elect Obama has announced a "new dawn" in American foreign policy and appointed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as his Secretary of State, leaving Robert Gates in Defence. As I said in an interview for the BBC Russian Service this afternoon about future Anglo-American relations, I cannot see any reason to expect many changes.

Here is the list of the latest appointments.

Does the media endanger people's lives?

2008-12-01T14:19:00.004Z

From Gateway Pundit we get this story, which comes from Wales Online via Free Republic of a British couple describing their lives being endangered by CNN actually pinpointing their whereabouts for the terrorists that had taken over the Taj hotel to see. Power without responsibility, you see.

And more on the torture story. It would appear that the Jewish prisoners in the Chabad House were tortured before they were murdered.

Andrew Breitbart describes the opening of a new film in Mumbai and everybody's favourite cricketer (not!) and political hero Imran Khan, wearing a t-shirt that shows Bush as an international terrorist just about the time the real terrorist were rampaging through buildings a few streets from the event. Mr Khan is a Muslim and it would not hurt him to condemn those who justify their crimes by the religion they share with him. What will he and his colleagues do after January 20, 2009?

UPDATE: Mea culpa. I had not appreciated that American writers will care next to nothing about the Imran Khan we all know and are seriously bored with. The idiot in Andrew Breibart's story is a different Imran Khan, younger, not so good looking, not a cricketer but a Bollywood star. For the time being, anyway. Mind you, the rest of my comments apply.

The prodigal returns

2008-11-30T20:45:00.002Z

Not that I have been away all that long but blogging has been a little light (or lite as the blogosphere keeps calling it to my dismay) recently as other matters interfered. Time to pull up one’s socks, probably with a very quick disposal of the Damien Green affair, which seems to have excited journalists and commentators a great deal more than events in India did.

Innocent until proven guilty applies to an MP as much as anyone else but so does another important part of democratic existence (in so far as we have one but more of that later): nobody, not even an elected member of the House of Commons, is above the law. Parliamentary immunity applies to what they do and say in the House; it does not apply to their speech and actions outside it.

The story is, and I had better be careful until there is more information, that a junior civil servant in the Home Office has leaked certain confidential documents to Mr Green for various reasons, mostly, it appears, to do with the desire to promote the Conservative Party and Mr Green’s standing with the media. Such leaking of information has been against the law since the passing of the Official Secrets Act in 1911.

However, runs the argument, those documents were needed for Mr Green to do his job as a legislator who holds the executive to account. So they would, if Mr Green had used them in the House, the proper place to hold the executive to account. Apparently, he preferred to leak them on to various newspapers and these are fighting for their recently acquired position as the co-legislators in this country. Let me add that no newspaper appears to want to fight for its right to reveal names of people who are on the Interpol list of known terrorists because they might be sued for libel. That far they do not go in their love of freedom of speech.

Allow me to remind people what has really undermined democracy in this country and destroyed people’s faith in politicians and the political system. (Incidentally, my colleague on EUReferendum has written extensively on the subject so I need to add very little. His recent and best summary is here.)

First, we have the undoubted fact that something like eighty per cent of our legislation comes from the EU. Most of it does not even touch Parliament for various reasons, such as they are Regulations that are directly applicable. Even when Parliament is generously consulted there is nothing those self-important elected Members of the House of Commons can do about it because European legislation cannot be rejected. I must admit I have not heard Damien Green MP complaining about that or demanding that he should be paid 20 per cent of his present salary as he does only 20 per cent of the job that he was supposedly elected to do.

Secondly, we have the growing power of quangos, a subject that deserves several postings by itself. It was one of the issues raised by Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan in their recent booklet “The Plan”. Sadly, the Conservatives have already explained that part of their solution to the financial crisis is to set up another quango that would oversee the Treasury and, presumably, the elected Chancellor of the Exchequer. When I asked somebody from CCHQ about the need for it I was told quite pompously that sometimes quangos were good and necessary. I am glad to say that there was much laughter in the room about that form the non-ToryBoys.

Thirdly, we have a bunch of MPs who have no idea what they should be doing. I shall spell it out: they are supposed to be legislating but they can’t do that (see first point above) and they are supposed to be holding the executive to account. The place to do that is in the House of Commons, where they seem to do little but live-blog debates or pass messages on their pagers and blackberries; the executive is not held to account by feeding tit-bits of information gleaned from civil servants who were breaking the law for their own purposes, to the media. That is not what democracy is about.

Fourthly, we have a problem with the civil service, who has acquired far too much power with so much of the legislation not being enacted by Parliament and because its members have decided that they want to play party politics. How are Ministers to trust their civil servants if some of them have decided to pass on information of various kinds to members of the opposition? Are the Conservatives, who hope to be in government after the next election, going to be happy for junior bods in the Home Office to pass on correspondence between Ministers to a member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet in order for him or her to further his friendship with some hacks in the media? I think not.

The ever more hysterical coverage of the Damien Green story, especially on the blogosphere and the internet in general, has convinced me that the political and media establishment (but I repeat myself) of this country is quite terminally frivolous. We are told at length that the fact that the Home Secretary did not intervene in what was operational procedure makes Britain a police state. Actually, quite the opposite.

We are told that this undermines Parliamentary privilege. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Parliamentary privilege stops outside Parliament. It protects members of the two Houses inside the building and its land. Constituency offices do not come under any kind of privilege and neither do negotiations with journalists.

We are told that this country has become like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. That is so fatuous and so insulting to the people of Zimbabwe that I do not need to respond to it. An inability to put things into perspective is the result of an inability to be serious on any matter. How can the arrest, done according to all the rules, of two people (one of whom is, as the phrase goes, singing like a canary) for definite law breaking compare in importance with what has, in the meantime, been going on in India?

Outside the fetid little world of self-important Westminster denizens and watchers, there has been a great deal of coverage of what was a horrific and still, naturally enough, unclear event. The storming of two hotels and Jewish centre in Mumbai, holding of hostages and killing numerous people was, on the one hand, a terrorist act but, also, like a miniature uprising.

It is still unclear how many people have been killed. The BBC says 172, another article in the Telegraph suggests that the total might be as high as 300. One story talks of bodies showing signs of torture but the doctor’s evidence is not worth a great deal as quoted in the article. The Daily Mail reports that one captured terrorist/insurgent told police that he had been instructed to go on killing until his last breath and that the plan was to kill 5,000. It is not entirely clear how the Daily Mail knows all the details of what the detainee told the police. There is much more to come out.

I am not going to waste any time expostulating about the evil of those who perpetrated this. I think that goes without saying. They were, as far as anyone can tell, Islamists though whether they were connected with Al-Qaeda is unclear. Nor is it clear what the immediate as opposed to the long-term aim was. The destabilization of India is clearly what these people want but were they also specifically intending to put off Western businessmen from investing in the country? Why were those particular targets chosen? Again, one can but hope that we shall find out more as time goes on.

There are a few points that need to be made. There is a persistent story that several of the gunmen were British. If that is so, we are back with the agonizing problem we have faced before: why does Britain continue to breed more terrorists than any other Western country? Surely, this is a more important question than the arrrest of Damien Green.

The Indian government’s immediate reaction was to blame Pakistan and to announce that it was raising security on the borders to “war level”. That is probably a good precaution but let us recall that this is not the first terrorist attack inside India this year. The people of that country have every right to ask what the security services are doing. Why are they finding it impossible to prevent attacks, even when they are large-scale, well co-ordinated ones like this latest one in Mumbai.?

The Home Minister, Shivraj Patil has resigned but the resignation of the National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan has not been accepted. Still, there are signs that the government is going to move towards an enquiry and, perhaps, some reforms. Possibly, it will now accept responsibility, not for the attacks as only those who carried them out are responsible, but for being unable to prevent them.

Scott Johnson on Powerline quotes a friend who knows India. The posting discusses these and other problems that the country and its government must deal with in a far more knowledgeable fashion than I can. (For anyone who wants to attack me, nothing I say about India exonerates the terrorists or makes light of the far worse situation in Pakistan. Nevertheless, some things need to be said and I am glad that Indians are saying it.)

There is the very curious story of the police officers who refused to shoot at the terrorists, again on Powerline but this time there is a link to the article in the Belfast Telegraph and an interview with the photographer, Sebastian D’Souza, who was there, took some superb pictures and saw the police in its inaction. This, too, will have to be explained. Neo-neocon tries to analyze. In fact, the American blogosphere is writing about Mumbai and all its aspects. I just wish ours did as well. But, hey, we have more important matters to discuss. I suppose I ought to be grateful for Damien Green taking “I am a celebrity…” off the front pages of all the newspapers.

After this longish rant normal service will resume.

Czech court clears treaty

2008-11-26T14:02:00.003Z

Despite President Klaus's impassioned speech to the Czech Constitutional Court, its decision today is that the ~~Constitutional~~ ~~Reform~~ Lisbon Treaty does not, in any way, undermine the Czech Constitution.

The Czech court ruling on Wednesday is especially significant because the Czech Republic will take over the six-month rotating EU presidency in January.

"The Lisbon Treaty... does not run counter to the constitutional order," said court chairman Pavel Rychetsky.

But the treaty's passage through the Czech parliament may not be smooth, as some Eurosceptic members of Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek's party oppose it. Mr Topolanek has said ratification is unlikely to be completed before next year.

The court did not consider the treaty as a whole, but only the articles disputed by critics in Mr Topolanek's party.

We shall see whether those Eurosceptic members will amount to a large enough cohort. It is, however, unlikely that the ratification will happen before January when the Czech Republic takes over the EU Presidency (and we shall see a little less of President Sarkozy in the media).

In the meantime, Poland has not officially ratified the treaty as President Kaczynski has refused to sign it until the Irish deadlock is resolved.

The Swedish Parliament approved the treaty last week by 243 votes to 39 with 67 members absent or abstaining. What is particularly infuriating about all this absenteeism is the fact that another nine votes would have delayed the ratification.

In actual fact, Sweden is the 23rd EU Member State to ratify the ~~Constitutional~~ ~~Reform~~ Lisbon Treaty, as the Constitutional Court has not yet decided in Germany whether the ratification should go ahead and President Koehler will not sign it until there is a ruling.

Vaclav Klaus's statement

2008-11-25T23:42:00.003Z

As asked by the Czech Senate, the Constitutional Court of that country is looking at the ~~Constitutional~~ ~~Reform~~ Lisbon Treaty in order to assess whether its acceptance is in accordance with the Czech Constitution.

President Vaclav Klaus made a statement to the Court. While concentrating on legal argument, he, nevertheless outlined in an introductory paragraph the general situation:

However, it is evident, that we must not lose sight of the wider context. If this treaty comes into force, the international position as well as internal conditions within our state will change. Also the influence of our country on the decisions of the European Union will be weakened. All this would change the terms of our membership, which were approved by our citizens in the referendum on the EU Accession Treaty. The democratically established authorities of our state will be deprived of the right to decide on many areas of public life and this administration will be turned over to the EU authorities, which are not subjected to sufficient democratic control. In addition, the European Union authorities will be allowed to expand their own competencies over life in our country and its citizens at their will, even without our consent.

Read the whole speech - it is well worth it.

This is not exactly news but ...

2008-11-25T20:09:00.003Z

... it is always useful to be reminded that the famous European acceptance of something grandly called an international order is patchy. When it suits European governments and EU institutions they accept it; when it does not they disregard everything from UN sanctions down. I am not complaining, you understand, but hypocrisy riles others, not just Americans.

Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner, experts on international law, give examples.

Heads ought to roll

2008-11-24T14:15:00.002Z

I don't know who briefed Lord Tunnicliffe for Thursday's Starred Questions but that person or those persons should be fired forthwith. As nobody actually gets fired in DfID they should be demoted to making tea or collecting and sorting rubbish into various recycling bins. Presumably they would be able to manage that.

It is embarrassing to have a Minister replying to questions in the House of Lords and not knowing the answer to a single one of them. Lord Judd asked a question, which might or might not have been intended to be intelligent.

What support and encouragement they [HMG] are giving farmers in poor countries in view of the pressures on world food demand.

As one would expect from politicians and DfID the support seems to consist largely of government to government aid, that having proved itself to be a worse than useless solution. Lord Judd followed this up with:

My Lords, I take the opportunity to congratulate the Government once again on their commitment to overseas aid. Does my noble friend agree that in our response to the global economic and financial crisis we must keep the plight of the world’s poorest people constantly in focus? With 75 per cent of the world’s poor still living in rural areas, and with most of them utterly dependent for their livelihood on agriculture, do the Government agree that for appropriate agricultural technology to be sustainable the farmers themselves have to be genuinely involved and that this means ensuring that extension programmes reach the poorest and the most excluded, including pastoral people, women and those living on subsistence farming? Can my noble friend reassure us on that point?

Why exactly should continuing commitment to a policy that has done little good and a great deal of harm by keeping corrupt, oppressive, bloodthirsty kleptocrats in power, be a matter for congratulations is a mystery. The rest of the question as the reply to it is what one might call incomprehensible.

Other questions were of greater interest. Sadly, Lord Tunnicliffe did not know any of the answers. He had not read the article in the Financial Times, referred to by Baroness Northover but did acknowledge, in general terms, that trade was a good thing for developing countries. Whether it applied to the specific example the article called attention to remained hidden.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked:

My Lords, remembering the 25,000 deaths every day in the developing world caused by malnutrition and associated causes, have the Government made any progress with the analysis that we discussed during our Lisbon debates of the contribution made to those deaths by the common agricultural and fisheries policies and by US grain policies?

He was even supported by Lord Tomlinson but the answers were rather vague. Yes, of course, we want the Doha Round to succeed but no, as it happens we have not really agreed on any position on the CAP and when it comes to the Common Fisheries Policy that destroys whole communities and prevents the countries in question from developing their industry, it is not even worthy of being mentioned. At least, Lord Tunnicliffe did not bother to mention it.

On and on it went. The Countess Mar wanted to know if the government supported a particular small-scale scheme in Kenya, which appeared to be successful in that it increased productivity (though without proper trade productivity is of little value). Lord Tunnicliffe did not know but if it is part of the government programme, which we give money to, then we do support it.

A more detailed question from Baroness Rawlings on wheat stem rust (she clearly does get briefed) brought forth bafflement. A particularly stupid and ignorant question from Baroness Tonge who, in true left-wing fashion has no clear understanding that non-Western countries might have different problems from Western ones, was swiped aside.

So what do we gather about the help we are giving to the poorest parts of the underdeveloped world? Clearly we are continuing with the insane policy of government to government aid without bothering to check out what the money is spent on.

In a general way we are in favour of the Doha Round being completed successfully but we do not want to look too closely into the problems of trade restricitons or CAP and CFP undermining the economy of developing countries. We do not care much about the fact that DfID and attendant NGOs also undermine the local economy of countries they invade and have not the slightest intention of helping them to be more successful economically.

Oh and we also know that DfID officials are incapable of briefing a minister well. Sack the lot of them, say I.

There is another solution

2008-11-21T17:24:00.002Z

The German political media is tying itself into knots again about the far-right NPD, which is gaining ground in the political sphere.

The far-right party is no longer confined to the margins of German politics. It has increased its membership to 7,000 and has a presence in the regional parliaments in two eastern states, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

There is a great reluctance to acknowledge that the NPD is gaining ground in the east, that is in the länder that were formally in the GDR. While a good deal is made of the extreme left descendants of the Communist Party doing well there, not much ink is expended on the fact that it is the east where there are race riots and a fairly racist and often anti-semitic party does well in elections.

There are various reasons for this. The integration of the two German states proceeded relatively smoothly but the economic problems in the backward former GDR (that had been considered to be the most advanced of the Communist camp) created enough dissatisfaction to link with the political shock to give support to extremist groups on both sides of the spectrum. Actually, as ever, those two spectrums are not that far apart, both extreme-left and extreme-right being basically socialist corporatist in their attitude.

An even bigger problem lies in the history of the German Democratic Republic. It was not made to denounce the Nazi past in the way the Federal Republic was. After the first trials and the creation of the two states there was a general assumption on the east that, somehow, by becoming Communist willy-nilly, East Germany had absolved itself and the Nazi past belonged exclusively to the capitalist West.

The Stasi cheerfully took over the lists, staff and offices of the Gestapo and all went well until the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification when the ossies found themselves in a state that had confessed its sins of Nazism many times over and where to be a neo-Nazi was the most grievous sin in the calendar. Those ossies who are dissatisfied with their lives and who had never had to repeat the German "mea culpa" find nothing wrong with turning to some very dark ideas of the past, whether Nazi or Communist.

What has brought the debate about was a suggestion by Uwe Schünemann, the interior minister in the western state of Lower Saxony that the NPD should have its state financing cut off.

He proposed altering part of the constitution to prevent any party that opposes the democratic system from receiving state funding. The NPD receives 40 percent of its funding from the German state, which amounted to €1.45 million ($1.8 million) last year.

This proposal was not greeted with unalloyed joy or joy of any kind. Commentators on all sides quickly worked out that it is not possible to single out one party and treat it differently from all others. After all, how do you define "opposes the democratic system"? There are plenty of parties and groupuscules on the left that oppose the democratic system. Will they have their funds cut off? Certainly there will be an attempt to do so if the precedent is set. How shocking will that be?

Of course, there is another solution to this conundrum and that is no state funding for parties. Then the problem of taxpayers' money going to political parties the establishment disapproves of (or even possibly the majority disapproves of) will not arise. The NPD will raise as much money as it can and garner as many votes as it can. Of course the question as to why people want to vote for them will not go away.

Bruges Group Conference

2008-11-21T13:03:00.002Z

It's that time of the year again. The Bruges Group Conference will take place tomorrow at King's College, London, in the Strand. You can hear many of your favourites: Christopher Booker, Gerard Batten, Marta Andreasen, Roger Helmer and a few new ones: Tim Akers of the Taxpayers' Alliance, Guy Herbert of No2ID and Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Details to be found here.

Can someone explain what this means?

2008-11-21T12:12:00.002Z

A newly published report by the House of Lords European Union Committee, entitled "Currrent Developments in European Foreign Policy" tells us less than we would like to know. It consists of an interview with and a subsequent written elucidation (if that is the word) by the then Minister for Europe, Jim Murphy. Either there were no developments in the period under discussion or nobody, not even the Minister knew what they were.

The first question, traditionally asked by the Chairman, in this case Lord Roper, dealt with that miasma of vague promises the Millennium Development Goals. Understandably, he and the rest of the committee seemed a little nonplussed as to what, if anything has been achieved and what the European Council managed to agree on.

Mr Murphy's reply was priceless in its total lack of sense:

On the Millennium Development Goals there was a recommitment to the Agenda for Action. The important point is that it is a recommitment without backsliding. The reason why I mention that is that, in a context of the fiscal pressures that respective governments are under in Europe, there is a continuing commitment to that. Without being too specific, there was a sense that some Member States wished to revisit or repackage how this was measured, and the achievement there is that we did not slide back at all on Millennium Development Goals. The frank assessment, which your Lordships already know about but it is a continuing frank assessment, is that we are not on track with the Millennium Development Goals and, while the European Council discussed and reconfirmed its commitment, the plan of action at the moment does not get us to where we wish to be in the Millennium Development Goals, even with this renewed commitment and so the Prime Minister has made it very clear that we need to see further action.

Should any of our readers understand what that says, it would be good to hear from them. I am not offering any prizes at this stage but that might be quite a good idea for the future.

About that immigration policy

2008-11-20T01:06:00.002Z

It would be too much to ask our commentariat or our politicians, specifically the Conservative ones to read documents that come out of the European Union. Generally speaking, they are long and boring though, if one can stay awake, highly informative.

If the cannot cope with that, could one possibly ask them to read some of the far more readable and equally informative Houser of Lords European Union Committee reports? Not even that, eh? Well, maybe this blog, which has referred to an interesting recent report “The Commission’s Annual Policy Strategy for 2009” here and here. This document is an amazingly simple lesson in where power really lies.

One of the witnesses was Jim Murphy, then Minister for Europe and he was asked about priorities for the Commission and HMG.

When asked which of the Commission's priorities the Government considered most important, the Minister told us that one of the top three would be "a watching brief on justice and home affairs" (Q 3). When asked whether the "area of freedom, security and justice" was a priority for the Commission, the Minister replied that the contents of the Annual Policy Strategy were "a reflection of a degree of vigilance by Her Majesty's Government which is continually arguing the case for mutual recognition rather than harmonisation". He agreed that "[o]n the issue of fundamental freedoms and justice and home affairs … the Annual Policy Strategy is relatively light", and he said that this was "largely because much of the work is contained in the five-year Hague Programme of work, so most of the justice and home affairs issues are on-going as part of the four previous annual policy strategies" (Q 25). Civil and criminal justice do not receive much attention in the Annual Policy Strategy. The Commission seems to envisage implementing what it can of the existing Hague Programme in 2009. The discussion of the successor of the Hague Programme is likely to provide a focus for a greater engagement with priority-setting in this area.

The Hague Programme is described in the same document as “a multiannual framework programme in the area of justice and home affairs for 2005-09.”

As is abundantly clear from that paragraph, this programme is unrolled regardless of treaties, referendums, parliaments or elections. Would it be too much to expect the Conservatives who frequently throw their weight around on the subject of immigration and how they are going to be tough about it, to mention, just every now and then, the Hague Programme? (That’s Hague as in the city not the person.)

Are we surprised?

2008-11-19T14:01:00.004Z

Well, not overwhelmingly. On CentreRight Charles Tannock, one of the MEPs I have been known to listen to, though not for very long, is starting the climb-down about Conservatives leaving the EPP after the next elections to the Toy Parliament.

His somewhat spurious arguments are torn to shreds in the comments section but this will not stop people from explaining at great length that voting for the Party Formerly Known As Conservative is the way to change things in the EU.

Here is a posting I wrote for EUReferendum back in 2004 on the way the Conservative Party betrayed its supposed allies among East European politicians.

More information from Ireland

2008-11-19T11:46:00.002Z

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Anthony Coughlin of The National Platform, that has been fighting European integration for many a long year.

It consisted of various matters, particularly a response to what he rightly calls the misleading nature of the question asked in the Irish Times opinion poll.

Any Lisbon referendum re-run must be on exactly the same Lisbon Treaty as the Irish people voted No to last June.

This crucial fact is concealed or glossed over in today's Irish Times poll and in Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin's comments on it.

Not a jot or tittle - not a comma - of the text of Lisbon can be changed, for otherwise it would be legally a new Treaty which would have to go around all 27 EU States for ratification again.
The Declarations referred to in the Opinon Poll question are different from Protocols in that they are not legally part of a Treaty. Declarations are political statements made by one State or several. They are not international agreements between States which are legally binding on them.

Protocols are legally part of a Treaty. There will be no Protocols for Ireland over Lisbon, for that would be to reopen the Lisbon Treaty and would require all 27 EU States to ratify the new Protocol, which would in effect be a new Treaty.

A Declaration or political commitment that every Member State would keep a national Commissioner under Lisbon does not require any change in the Lisbon Treaty, for the existing Lisbon text(Art.17.5 amended TEU) allows the 27 Member States to agree to such a step unanimously in 2014, if they decide at that time not to reduce the Commission by one-third, which Lisbon otherwise envisages.

Contrary to what the Irish Times poll misleadingly asked its interview sample, Lisbon does not need to be "modified" or changed in the slightest for these Declarations to be made or for a political commitment to be given that each EU State will keep one of its nationals on the EU Commission
indefinitely.

What a less misleading Irish Times poll question would have been:

Today's Irish Times opinion poll question was this: "If the Lisbon Treaty is modified to allow Ireland to retain an EU Commissioner and other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation are clarified in special declarations, would you vote Yes or No in another referendum?"

A Treaty modification is a Treaty change. Contrary to what the Irish Times question implies, Lisbon cannot be "modified" in any way, for any modification of the Treaty text would make it legally a new Treaty and different from the Lisbon Treaty which most EU States have already ratified, so that the whole ratification process would have to start again from scratch.

A more accurate and less misleading way of putting the opinion poll question would have been: "If the Lisbon Treaty is left legally unchanged but is accompanied by a promise that Ireland could retain an EU Commissioner and other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation are clarified in non-legally binding Declarations, would you vote Yes or No?"

That question very likely would have given a rather different result.

The Irish Times opinion poll asked a leading question therefore, which was designed to give respondents the impression that Lisbon would be changed to take Ireland's concerns into account, when that would not and cannot be done, short of abandoning the Treaty altogether and working out a
better one.

Not modifying the Lisbon Treaty,but modifying its presentation for a Lisbon Two:

Talk of "modifying" the Lisbon Treaty in the context of this opinion poll question is therefore to use a weasel-word. What Messrs Cowen and Martin envisage for Lisbon Two is not that the Lisbon Treaty would be modified, but that the presentation of it would be!

Lisbon Two would be presented differently from Lisbon One by means of these non-binding political Declarations and an accompanying political promise from the EU Prime Ministers and Presidents that every EU State can keep a Commissioner under Lisbon when in practical terms the same can happen under the Nice Treaty which currently rules in the EU.

This Irish Times opinion poll, like the profoundly flawed "research" on why people voted as they did in last June's referendum which the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs commissioned over a month after the result, will contribute to the elaborate scheme of deception of the Irish people that is currently being planned by Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Foreign Minister Micheal Martin and Iveagh House.

For they have not "respected" the Lisbon referendum result by acting upon the people's democratic vote, despite their endlessly reiterated claims that they do respect it. If they respected the people's decision they would have told the other EU States last June that Ireland could not and would not be ratifying the Treaty, in which case it could not come into force
for anyone and the other States would have ceased their ratifications after a while, for there would have been no point in their continuing.

Instead Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on RTE while the votes were still being counted on 13 June last that "of course" the ratifications by other States would continue. Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the same thing to Commission President Barroso on the phone even before the
referendum result was officially announced. Iveagh House has been planning a referendum re-run from the moment the tallies showed how the vote was going on the very morning of the count.

The Declarations envisaged as accompanying Lisbon Two will naturally be "solemn" and the political promise about everyone keeping a member on the European Commission will be clear - even though that can effectively be done under the present Nice Treaty also.

The hope is however that decorating the Lisbon Treaty with political cap and bells in this way will be sufficient to deceive the Irish public and media into thinking that the Lisbon Treaty of
next October - the most likely date for a re-run - will be different from the Lisbon Treaty of last June, when not a comma of the Treaty will be changed.

It will be exactly the same bad Treaty, which is not in Ireland's interest or Europe's interest and which the peoples of Europe do not want. The Lisbon Treaty and the Constitution of a profoundly undemocratic supranational European Federation which it embodies has now effectively been rejected in three national referendums - in France, the Netherlands and Ireland.

And so a year of mendacity and deception, of waste of time and energy by key elements of Ireland's political class, and abuse and misrepresentation of No-side campaigners, is being prepared by Messrs Cowen and Martin and Iveagh House and those who agree with the course of folly they seem bent on.

The statement goes on to note that Ireland has already made a declaration of neutrality in 2002 and to the general ignorance of the media. RTE, for instance, seems unable to tell the difference between a codicil, a declaration or a protocol.

Well, if there is one thing we have learnt over the years is that the media is not going to bother to find out the truth if it can get away with glib statements that have the sort of appeal they like.

Constitutional matters

2008-11-17T13:57:00.004Z

According to RTE News there may well a decision about a second referendum in Ireland before the European Council meeting in December, presumably as the Irish government does not want to be the whipping boy yet again for the colleagues in the Council.

According to a new poll there is some hope for the government if you read the figures the way they might want to.

The TNS/mrbi poll in tomorrow's Irish Times asked voters if they would they vote Yes or No in another referendum if the Treaty was modified to allow Ireland retain its EU Commissioner and if concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation were clarified in special declarations.

The result was 43% said Yes; 39% said No and 19% said they did not know.

When the 'Don't Knows' are eliminated the result gives a slightly bigger margin to supporters of the Treaty.

The Yes vote without the 'Don't Knows' is 52.5% with 47.5% for the No vote.

In the referendum last June, 53.4% voted to reject the treaty, while 46.6% voted in favour.

This is known as clutching at straws. In the first place, eliminating the Don't knows is always a bit tricky as one has not idea why somebody may have given that answer and how that attitude might change by the time the referendum rolls around again.

In the second place, by now it has become quite clear that special declarations do not have the same force as articles in the treaty, therefore their appearance on some very crucial subjects, like neutrality and taxation, does not guarantee anything and, I am sure, the no campaign will make much of that.

Thirdly, those declarations are not guaranteed. The one on abortion, for instance, is bound to stir up trouble in Poland, where the Catholic Church and related organizations have been campaigning against further integration into the EU (as if they could stop it) on that issue and a few other social ones.

Fourthly, there may well be other reasons for an Irish no. It seems odd to me that the Irish people might not get a little angry that, for the second time, they have been told to vote again on an EU treaty, as if their first vote was not quite good enough. (It isn't, of course, because it went the wrong way but that is going to be hard to explain.)

So, there is all to play for. It is unlikely that a second referendum will be called before next autumn when the European elections are out of the way.

While we are on the subject of constitutions, let me make a quick comment about a website, whose supporters infest various forums from time to time telling us all to vote for a Free Europe. As I said on the forum, I consider this sort of thing to be trolling. I have answered once, explaining that the Bruges Group does not believe in any constitution for Europe, no matter who supports it (one of the arguments used is that Vaclav Klaus has expressed his approval). This has clearly not worked.

I checked out the website and, for the first and last time, shall write about it. If its acolytes want to get involved in a discussion from time to time, that is fine with me. If they intend to interrupt other discussions by advertising their site, their comments shall be deleted.

Free Europe was a private initiative by Carl-Johan Westholm, "PhD in political science, businessman, former CEO of the Swedish Federation of Private Enterprises (Företagarna) and of the Swedish Federation of Trade (Svensk Handel)" who has been sufficiently disgusted by the shenanigans around the ~~Constitutional~~ ~~Reform~~ Lisbon Treaty to decide to do something about it.

What he decided to do was to set up this site and on it outline his ideas of what a free European constitution might be, inviting people to vote for it and to link to the site. Thus, he explained not unreasonably, everyone can take part in a discussion about the future of Europe, which he carefully describes as a geographical concept. On the whole this is more of a real dialogue or discussion than the fragrant Margot's efforts.

OK, I have now linked to it and I have read the material. I have read through his proposed Constitution for a Free Europe:

Constitution for Free Europe

1. Europe is a geographical concept, and European is as such not necessarily good or bad.
2. Free Europe means human development in its richest diversity and is therefore good.

Free Europe means for Europeans:
3. Freedom for individuals and clear limits for politicians and bureaucrats.
4. Civil rights for all citizens in Europe.
5. Freedom of contract, to create, to work, trade and invest in all Europe for all Europeans.

Free Europe means for European states:
6. Every government and national parliament has the right to self-determination of taxes, subsidies and laws.
7. No taxation power for the EU.
8. Decisions in the EU should be made by agreements between governments. Delegation of mational legislative power to EU institutions is possible; withdrawal of such powers, both in specific cases and generally is equally possible.
9. Sending tax-payer’s money from one part of Europe to another is a matter solely for the states or regions involved.
10. Free Europe promotes human development in its richest diversity worldwide.

There is nothing terribly wrong with any of those ideas, though I do find the notion of promoting human development in its richest diversity worldwide slightly odd, not to say incomprehensible. But there is nothing particularly right there. I would not advise anyone to support or to oppose this initiative. There seems no particular point to it. Of course, it is hard to work out what one can do to prevent the creation of the European state, given that it is already far advanced. But is there any evidence whatsoever that a collection of well-meaning, "motherhood and apple-pie" ideas for a European constitution, which is, in itself, the wrong way of going about things, will achieve anything?

As I said at the beginning: I shall welcome reasonable discussion but any silly and automatic links will be deleted.

HMG questioned on pesticides

2008-11-13T18:04:00.003Z

The new and more stringent rules on the use of pesticides, which have cleared the second reading in the Environmental Committee in the Toy Parliament in Brussels/Strasbourg are causing a certain amount of worry among farmers in this country and people concerned with the use of what is called effectively pesticides in the prevention of diseases in the developing world, particularly Africa (and yes, it is time I wrote a proper summary of the subject).

On November 11 Lord Willoughby de Broke asked HMG:

whether they support the European Commission’s proposals for further regulation of the use of pesticides in the European Union, which are currently being considered by the European Parliament.

As it happens, HMG is not greatly in favour of the new rules but there is precious little it can do about the matter, as the new regulations come under qualified majority voting. With the post-Amsterdam rules on that, it has become virtually impossible to create a blocking minority.

To be fair, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, responding for the government, came as close as he could to grinding his teeth with impotent fury:

My Lords, the Government generally welcome the European Commission’s proposed thematic strategy for the sustainable use of pesticides but are concerned that any strengthening of the already strict authorisations regime for pesticides should be justified, science-based and proportionate. We are particularly concerned about the possible impact of the proposed marketing regulation in the absence of a detailed impact assessment from the European Commission.

Lord Willoughby then suggested a most moderate measure though it is not clear whether HMG can achieve even this:

Will the Government use their best endeavours to ask the Council of Ministers and the Commission to set up an expert working group to examine, as he says, the scientific risk-based proposals and to carry out an impact assessment in respect of agriculture, horticulture and consumers in the EU?

Subsequent questions and replies made it clear that there is no scientific evidence underpinning the new regulations, which seem to respond to a purely emotional attitude. Nor is it precisely clear whether supermarkets will be able to import goods from countries that do not have the same regulations in force (anyone outside the EU). Of course, this may well become another way for the EU to control developing countries if they want to do such outrageous things as use domestic spraying for the prevention of malaria.

There was a characteristically silly question from the Lib-Dim benches:

Can he tell us whether the vote of the committee of the European Union in favour of banning certain chemicals will have an impact on human health, or will reduce the productivity of arable crops? In other words, are we going to have a second Irish potato famine without copper sulphate sprays and so on, or are there going to be increased cases of cancer among certain people in the community?

Since we are talking about pesticides already in use, it is safe to say as Sir Colin Berry, Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary College, University of London said in a press release from the International Policy Network (IPN):

The costs of implementing this legislation will be high – crop yields will fall, food prices will rise, more land will have to be farmed and fewer habitats conserved. But it is hard to imagine what the benefits will be.

The idea of chemical-free farming is absurd and dangerous.

This legislation will not improve human health – the European Parliament’s document in support of the legislation is simply an apologia for a position, not a scientific review.

Lord Hunt replied a little more courteously:

My Lords, I hope that it does not come down to that choice because we do not believe that the introduction of the directive as currently proposed will have any direct impact on consumers’ health. As far as the potential impact on production is concerned, my understanding is that the withdrawal of one triazole that is crucial for protection against fungal disease of wheat could result in a loss of yield of up to 30 per cent in cereals. There are other potential losses in the horticultural area, particularly where there is nothing in the pipeline at the moment that could replace those pesticides. That is why we are continuing to press our concerns within Europe on this matter.

Then there is the problem of potential prices rise if there is a decline in production and the possibility of importing becomes questionable at a time when the Commission appears to be waking up to the fact that regulation of fruit and vegetables may not be a good idea for the consumer.

Lord Sewel wanted to know why the Commission has been refusing to produce an impact assessment (as if that were something unusual – after all successive British governments have refused to produce impact assessments on our membership of the EU), to which Lord King replied in a fairly measured way:

I suspect it is a genuflection to greenness without scientific evidence.

So there we are. Another far-reaching piece of legislation coming from the European Union. As it is a Directive it will go to Parliament though, possibly, only as a Statutory Instrument and, in any case, our own representatives have no right to throw it out. It will badly hurt food production in this country, it will put up prices for consumers, it will, possibly, sanction the importation of food that is grown under less stringent rules and it will, as a side-effect, prevent the production of badly needed chemical tools against devastating diseases in Africa. Success all round, I’d say.

As problems go ...

2008-11-13T16:34:00.003Z

… this is not, it would seem, the most important one. But it is useful to remind everyone that the shape of fruit and vegetables sold in most outlets in this country is determined by the European Union, not to mention the fact that we shall no longer hear from europhiliacs or apologists for the EU that there are no cucumber directives, ha-ha. It is just another eurosceptic scare story.

Apparently, it is not a eurosceptic scare story and it seems that the EU is in charge of the cucumber and banana curvature, which it is going to deal with before next July in order to provide more variety and cheaper food. The idea that the market might take care of the problem with people buying what they want at whatever price they can or want to afford is alien to these people’s thinking. The Single Market is not a market as we know it.

Interestingly, the news story has a questionnaire, which deals with whether people would or would not buy mis-shapen fruit and vegetables as the debate has been largely about that: is it customers or is it supermarkets who decide that apples should be perfectly round and a certain size in diameter while cucumbers should be straight or, at least, not have a greater angle of curvature than prescribed. The answer has always been neither. It is the EU that decides and questions of whether people think it gross are irrelevant.

In July, 2005 I wrote about the Fragrant Commissar, Margot Wallström, going on her ~~hols~~ fact-finding missions and also explaining the need for yet another rapid-rebuttal unit. The Commission simply had to deal with all these nasty rumours the evil eurosceptics were spreading:

Among the measures are plain-language summaries of the benefits of European policies and a rapid rebuttal unit to counter false claims.

This team would be able to fend off outlandish stories about the effects of Brussels regulations, which have famously included claims that smoky bacon crisps faced a ban, or cucumbers had to be straight.

At the time I pointed out that before they started rebutting the team might like to have a look at Commission Regulation (EEC) 1677/1988, which lays down quality standards for cucumbers, mentioning among other multitudinous matters:

Cucumbers are classed into the four classes defined below:
(i) 'Extra' class
Cucumbers in this class must be of superior quality. They must have all the characteristics of the variety.
They must:
- be well developed
- be well shaped and practically straight (maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber)
- have a typical colouring for the variety
- be free of defects, including all deformations and particularly those caused by seed formation.

Not a straight cucumber Directive then but a Regulation, which is directly applicable to member states without the least necessity to go through the legislative. Let me add that these rules do not simply apply to cucumbers sold to other countries, as we are sometimes told. Certainly, if you sell to a different market, you find out what the rules are and adjust your production to it. Even better, you find out what people who shop in that market like. Otherwise, you will not be able to trade.

These rules, under “Council Regulation (EEC) No 1035/72 of 18 May 1972 on the common organization of the market in fruit and vegetables (1), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1117/88 (2), and in particular Article 2 (3) thereof” actually apply to all cucumbers sold in shops, ordinary markets and supermarkets in this country, whether we like it or not. Farmers’ markets have been allowed to get round the problem and some of the smaller corner shops have simply done so, either not knowing about the Single Market or hoping that nobody will notice them.

Technically, however, those people in the corner shops who sell cucumbers whose maximum height of the arc is more than 10mm per 10cm of length of cucumber, are breaking the law.

While we are on the subject, I may as well mention that there are Regulations for the straightness of bananas as well, for instance, Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/1994. It is of interest that each of these Regulations and many others about fruit and vegetables are amendments of previous ones. In other words, this regulating development has been going on for some time and is likely to continue, not least by the proposed new ones that are supposedly going to ease up those rules that, according to the Commission’s spokespersons and their minions in our political and media life do not actually exist. Well, if they don’t exist, what is going to be amended?

There is a certain pattern here: the existence of regulations from the EU are routinely denied or not admitted to until the Commission announced that for the good of the people they are going to be amended. Then they become fodder for news to show that matters are being improved.

Yesterday’s press release from the Commission entitled rather breathlessly “The return of the curvy cucumber: Commission to allow sale of “wonky” fruit and vegetables” excited various media outlets who saw this as a spectacular victory for the consumer. Setting aside the fact that the consumer, by and large, knew nothing about all those regulations, thanks not least because of the media’s reluctance to write about it we still need to ask ourselves why it is a good thing that the Commission decides whether cucumbers should be straight or slightly curved.

I can accept the argument that supermarkets might prefer straight, easy to pack cucumbers for obvious practical reasons. That is the supermarkets’ choice and the shoppers’ choice might be to go elsewhere. This is, however, not a practical choice but a series of regulations, which, as I said above, are still continuing, to create a single market and harmonize the production of fruit and vegetables. Indeed, those rules will remain as they were for tomatoes, strawberries and various other items.

During last year's negotiations on the reform of the Common Market Organisation for fruit and vegetables, the Commission committed itself to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy by getting rid of a number of marketing standards for fruit and vegetables. Today's vote means that these standards will be repealed for 26 products: apricots, artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, avocadoes, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflowers, cherries, courgettes, cucumbers, cultivated mushrooms, garlic, hazelnuts in shell, headed cabbage, leeks, melons, onions, peas, plums, ribbed celery, spinach, walnuts in shell, water melons, and witloof/chicory.

The proposals would maintain specific marketing standards for 10 products which account for 75 percent of the value of EU trade: apples, citrus fruit, kiwi fruit, lettuces, peaches and nectarines, pears, strawberries, sweet peppers, table grapes and tomatoes. However, Member States could also exempt these from the standards if they were sold in the shops with an appropriate label. In practical terms, this means that an apple which does not meet the standard could still be sold in the shop, as long as it were labelled "product intended for processing" or equivalent wording.

The way the Commission will go about “reforming” its rules will be by introducing more Regulations. Some of the demands are already indicated – yes, those “wonky” fruits and vegetables can be sold but they will have to be labelled in a different way and, no doubt, stored and processed differently. I can’t wait to read the actual Regulations and what they will demand. Free market in fruit and vegetables this is not.

How to up that game

2008-11-12T14:30:00.001Z

There is a long posting on EUReferendum 2 that starts with some discussion of the debates that are beginning in the United States among conservatives and leads on to the debates we should be having. I know it's quite long but there are the beginnings of a plan there.

No, we can't

2008-11-12T11:11:00.003Z

As one of the editorials in this morning's Wall Street Journal points out, not a great deal has changed with Barack Obama's election as regards relationship with European countries. Despite the breathless talk of a "new deal", it is business as usual in Germany as far as providing troops in Afghanistan is concerned.

During his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama expressed confidence that his penchant for diplomacy would change German minds. Apparently not. Sending more soldiers, or troops who actually fight, remains anathema in Germany. "There is a limit," Peter Struck, the parliamentary head of the ruling Social Democrats and former Defense Minister, said this week when asked whether Germany could do more to help defeat the Taliban. Maybe Mr. Obama's speech before adoring crowds in Berlin last summer was not so effective after all.

Even at the time, I was told by one who was there and who is a vociferous Obama supporter, there was delirious applause and cheering whenever the then Senator spoke about solving problems like Darfur or global warming and ominous silence when he mentioned the need for a greater effort to fight terrorism. It will take a little time for everyone to get used to the idea that Barack Obama has been elected to the American presidency, a political post that requires political thinking and planning. He does not have a magic wand that will solve all the world's problems as perceived by clueless cheering crowds.

Another aspect of the forthcoming years and their problems will be that the excuse of Bush-bashing will no longer be available. Why will the European leaders and their acolytes in the media hate America under the wonderful new President?

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

2008-11-11T00:47:00.003Z

It is ninety years since that fateful hour when the guns fell silent and the hopes of peace, never realized, were born. The last British veteran of the Great War died just a few days ago and, it would seem, that we have lost all direct link with that conflict.

The 1914 - 1918 war changed the world in a way we have not yet fully managed to deal with. The years before 1939, the Second World War, the subsequent battle with Communism, were all the outcome of that earlier conflict. Even the creation of the European Union is an indirect result of the Great War.

The wars in the Middle East and the Gulf are also the outcomes of it and of the collapse of the empires that had divided the world. We shall live with that for a long time before we can go to another era, no longer the post 1918 one.

For today we must remember the soldiers who died in that conflict and in the many conflicts since and think of those who are fighting in other wars.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

It has been pointed out to me that I was wrong to assume that there are no survivors left from the Great War. There are, indeed, still four alive and three of them were present at the Cenotaph: Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, represented the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively.

Missile shield or not missile shield?

2008-11-09T19:06:00.004Z

Much is expected from the President-Elect of the United States. However, setting aside hope and change, there are some very important problems awaiting him on the first day and even before in the field of foreign affairs, which is the President's domain, according to the Constitution.

It would seem, Barack Obama is trying to do what he did during his electoral campaign: be all things to all men (and, maybe, women but we are not too sure about that). Via Environmental Republican we get the curious story of the President-Elect's discussions with the President of Poland (we are talking about a real president here, not the unelected one of the European Commission).

As we know Poland hemmed and ha-ed a bit but signed the missile shield agreement with the United States very swiftly after the invasion of Georgia. Russia, in the shape of ~~Prime Minister Putin~~ President Medvedev, has announced this week that in response to the missile defence shield that is supposed to protect Europe against a possible attack from Iran, short-range missiles will be postioned in the Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) enclave. Now we wonder what the new American President will do.

The answer is that it depends on who you listen to.

President-elect Obama has spoken to the president of Poland about relations between the two countries but didn't make a commitment on the multibillion-dollar missile defense program undertaken by the Bush administration, an Obama aide said Saturday.

That contrasts with a statement by Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who said Obama told him the missile defense project would continue.

Great, just great. We now have an American President who thinks he can still go on voting "present" as he did most of the time as Senator or say one thing to his adoring supporters and the media (but I repeat myself) and another to a leader to a friendly country, just as he did with the infamous NAFTA statements.

As Environmental Republican puts it:

Putin is paying attention and he's gauging the make up of the man who will replace Bush. I'm sure he's smiling with Obama's response to this issue. He's rebuilding his military (a sorry military at present) in hopes of becoming the power broker in Eastern Europe, Southwestern Asia, the Northern Pacific and the Arctic. The Bush administrations aim with placing the missile shield in Poland was to assure our ally that we are paying attention plus to force Russia's hand. Obama has
essentially laid all that work to waste by his dithering.

This was not an easy plan for Lech Kaczynski to get his country to accept and he probably spent massive political capital to do so and Obama leaves the man hanging on an issue of great import.

This is no longer a campaign, that's already been won. This is not speaking in front of adoring fans who mindlessly scream "Yes we can" after every sentence. No, this is the real deal where decisions (or none decisions as the case may be) have immediate and far-reaching effect. If Europe finally likes us again as liberals are so happy to point out, it sure seems strange to leave a major European country (and one that suffered first under the Nazis then under the Soviets in recent history) twisting in the wind.

The comments are interesting. Some are clearly ignorant and motivated solely by a growing isolationism; others make pertinent points about Western Europe's role in the world at the moment.

Conservatives win ...

2008-11-09T00:22:00.002Z

... in New Zealand. Another member of the Anglosphere goes down that road. John Key is the new Prime Minister and he seems to be intending a tax cut as the best way of dealing with the financial crisis. On the other hand, trade and foreign policies are unlikely to change and nuclear-powered ships will still be banned from entering New Zealand's ports.

Opinions vary

2008-11-07T16:35:00.005Z

Setting aside Prime Minister Berlusconi's unfortunate comment to and about President Obama's appearance, there has been a certain amount of uncertainty about European reactions. Naturally, the newly elected President of the United States has to be welcomed by all, though I do not recall complete punctiliousness in this respect either in 2000 and 2004.

Over and above that, there is less euphoria than one would have expected, largely because now that it is too late, people are beginning to look at Obama's actual statements (the ones he did not flip on more than about twice) rather than be overwhelmed by the hope and change mantra. One can see the same process taking place on the other side of the Pond as a number of supporters are waking up with a hang-over and Obama fills his transition team with lawyers. My guess is that it is going to get a lot worse but, perhaps, The One will surpise us.

AFP via EUBusiness is, naturally enough breathless: "EU applauds Obama victory - hopes for new deal". What kind of a "new deal" one asks oneself. After all, many European countries remained on very good terms with the United States throughout the Bush administration, no matter what the various pundits said in the media.

Do they mean that President Obama will, in their opinion, promote European integration more than President Bush did? Perhaps. And perhaps not. After all, he has more important problems on his plate than worry what Europeans with unpronouncable names will say. Or do they mean that the new President will submit to the Franco-German demands and drag his country against her interests and contrary to the constitutional arrangement into organizations like Kyoto and International Criminal Court? Maybe they should actually read the American Constitution (I know the Vice-President-Elect has not read it, but that is not an excuse). These things are not so easy in that country.

For all of that, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Unelected Commission President Barroso, fresh from their attempts to grovel to Russia, have expressed great joy and great hopes that the "present crisis" would now end and there would be a new beginning in the relationship between America and Europe. Since there is no crisis, one wonders what the new relationship will be. In any case, come end of December France will stop being the rotating president and it will be the Czech Republic, who might have very different views on the subject. I wonder if the President-Elect understands this.

On the other hand, the same Unelected Commission President in a peculiarly stupid interview (how can you ask whether a man who has just been elected and has done nothing so far is a better president than the others?) admitted that a number of people, particularly among the developing countries are worried by the protectionist noises The One has been making.

This affects developed countries as well, as Glenn Reynolds pointed out almost immediately after the election. Asian exporters who, for obvious reasons, been looking a little more closely at what Barack Obama actually said than did European politicians, are uneasy about the possibility of protectionism being introduced.

Shutting down international trade would be a sure way of prolonging the present crisis and turning it into a world-wide depression. Then again, having thought it through, not all analysts seem to believe in the change, which, in this case is quite a relief:

Other analysts said that despite Obama's pre-election comments, he was likely to follow the example of previous U.S. presidents and take a moderate line in office to preserve important trade relations with Asia.

"He may have talked tough, but based on past experience, that's just a tool to win over voters," said Qiang Yongchang, a professor at the Economy Institute at Shanghai's Fudan University.

How old-fashioned mercantilism and protectionism can be seen as "hope and change" is something of a mystery.

Meanwhile, Powerline blog points out that, while a number of world leaders, including President Ahmadinejad, expressed great satisfaction at Obama's election, not all of America's allies are pleased.

The leaders of key allies seem less taken with the president-elect. Thus, as John also observes, Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the less hard-line of the two main contenders for the job of Prime Minister, has warned against the kind of dialogue with Iran's leaders that Obama promised during the campaign. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy has attacked Obama's approach to Iran as "arrogant."

Actually, Sarkozy's comment was made several days before the election but there does seem to be some disagreement between the French President and his Foreign Minister. Or, maybe, neither of them means a word of what they are saying.

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline, a highly regarded American right-of-centre newsblog, has doubts as to whether that famous dialogue will take place:

I'm actually not convinced that Obama is committed to the dialogue he promised. My guess is that Obama took this position in the Democratic primary solely for the purpose of getting to Hillary Clinton's left. When the general election rolled around, Obama sensed, or determined through polling, that voters would not be too put off by the notion of talking to Iran (what's the harm in talking), and thus that he didn't need to flip-flop. Now that he's president, he can talk or not talk, without or without preconditions.

True but much depends on Obama's hubris. It now having been proved to him that he really is The One (though the results are a little more ambiguous than some commentators make out) he may well decide that he can tackle an old hand like Ahmadinejad. That is a worrying thought. Remember what happened when a similarly cocky, glamorous new President decided to tackle that old hand, First Secretary Nikita Khrushschev. A disaster, all round.

Change you can believe in

2008-11-07T13:43:00.003Z

Heh! Then again someone has to tell all those who have raised President-Elect Obama to his present height that there will be no pay-back. Rahm Emanuel is just the man to do it. From the point of view of the rest of the world (since we do not actually know how the new President will react to Russia or Iran) what we need to know whether the new Chief of Staff will tell the unions where they can go with their demands for protectionism.

The whole saga has Shakespearian overtones. We watch and wait.

Normal life resumes

2008-11-06T18:21:00.002Z

President Medvedev may have ignored the challenge of hope and change but the European Commission is busy ignoring what Putin's teddy bear is saying.

The EU's executive body, the European Commission, called on European states to unfreeze talks with Russia -- three months after the war in Georgia, and just as Moscow threatened to install new missiles on the Baltic Sea. Eastern member states want a harder line.

I bet they do. Those missiles will be pointing at Poland and the Baltic states.

Incidentally, could someone, please explain Der Spiegel that the Commission is not simply the EU's executive body, being the sole initiator and final arbiter of legislation as well. Anyone would think that the EU exercised division of powers á la Montesquieu.

The commission was anxious to portray resumed talks as a strategic advantage for Europe, not a gift to Russia. "This does not mean business as usual," said External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said, "because we cannot accept the status quo in Georgia."

And the dog ate the homework. What a good thing the common foreign policy will be if it is ever allowed to be formulated by the somewhat pluckier East Europeans.

MSM dishonesty everywhere matters to us

2008-11-06T11:05:00.002Z

Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit has two "now they tell us" links. By "now" he means when the MSM's candidate has got the presidency after an intense campaign that undermined the eight-year long Bush administration at a time when the country was at war.

The first is to an article in the Wall Street Journal about the disgraceful treatment that the elected president of this country received from the left, from big media, from academia and from far too many self-appointed spokespersons and experts. Nasty, vicious and distasteful or, as the Americans put it, classless. You don't have to agree with the man or his politics but the sort of hate campaign we have watched in the last eight years (and, let's face it, with our own media participating in it) is a disgrace to politics. Mind you, the sort of hate campaign that was produced against anyone who challenged The One, President-Elect Obama, was also a disgrace and bodes no good for the next four years.

The second link is to "Just One Minute", which quotes the Iraqi Foreign Minister in Reuters. Apparently, the man is convinced that President Obama will not withdraw troops from Iraq until the country is good and ready. As it happens, I am fairly convinced about that, too. One more thing that will not change. But, it is interesting that the Iraqi Foreign Minister should say that. One of the nastier episodes of the late campaign was the dirt that was poured on Amir Taheri when he dared to write about then Senator Obama having underhand meetings with said Foreign Minister and trying to persuade him to undermine the agreement negotiated with the rightful government of the time.

Here is another link to the coverage at the time and here is the full story in November's issue of Standpoint by Amir Taheri himself.

Why is it important to us apart from the fact that who is elected to the American presidency matters and if this happened after a dubious campaign it is of great importance? Just think of the way our own media reports matters unchallenged and you will see the connection.

Unfortunately they won in America in 2008 not least because the Republican presidential candidate was not exactly top notch. But I predict that this will be their last hurrah. Even people who decided to vote for Obama could see the manoeuvrings and the MSM will pay for their behaviour. Can we say the same in Britain? And if not, why not?

President Medvedev does not seem to believe in hope and change

2008-11-06T10:40:00.002Z

As I mentioned yesterday and as the Times reports this morning, President Medvedev seems to be immune to the delirium of hope and change. Hours after the world went into hysterics over the new President of very little achievement, he gave his first public address to the people of Russia.

In it he announced that in response to the missile defence system that is being built up in some of the East European countries, Russia will move short-range missiles into the Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) enclave inside Germany.

The missile defence system was just that - defence and not really against Russia. Now, of course, there will be missiles against which Europe will have to defend itself. Rather like a parent saying to a child: "Stop that crying or I shall give you something to cry about". What is the EU's foreign policy going to say about that?

Well, what now?

2008-11-05T21:42:00.002Z

We all need to take stock and start regrouping, focusing and fighting the good fight. I have fired what I see as the first salvo, over on EUReferendum 2. I am not unhopeful, as I have said before. There is a deal of spoiling in a country like the US and it will survive and triumph, possibly sooner than we fear.

Our own position is parlous. We have allowed leadership on the right slip away to the Conservative Party who have been demonstrating beyond any doubt that they are not to be trusted with political ideas. The way forward will have to be without them. If they change their minds at some later stage and turn themselves into a real Conservative Party, they will be welcome to join. In the meantime, as I said in my posting, if this ship is to get anywhere or even to leave the harbour the Tory Socialists will have to walk the plank.

Those results

2008-11-05T21:16:00.002Z

Closer than people might think in terms of popular vote and Congressional division. In the Senate the Democrats did not get the 60 they needed to carry all regardless. However, they got enough to have to do something and start sorting what they consider to be the Republican mess. Given the American system they have less than two years. So it would be unwise to spend too much time hyperventilating, gloating and screaming for a war crimes tribunal.

The people have spoken

2008-11-05T09:48:00.002Z

I am cross-posting this from EUReferendum with some changes:

I cannot pretend to be pleased at the result of the presidential election but the people of America have spoken. The fact that they have allowed themselves to be bamboozled by the big media is not an argument against democracy. Look at what we have elected from time to time. At least, it matters in the United States and President Obama is answerable to the people.

For the moment I don't know the exact results across the country and can only hope for the best: not a complete and unstoppable Democrat sweep because it is never a good thing to have one party completely in power.

Nor can one predict what will happen. As it has been pointed out we, quite literally, know nothing about the new president, who is almost pathological in his secretiveness. What we do know, his political allies and some of his pronouncements, for instance, do not fill one with any great joy. The fact that so many of our Conservatives are rejoicing in very big government win in the United States just indicates where their sympathies lie.

But there is no need to despair. Even President Obama and his minions will not be able to destroy America. The Right in that country, unlike here, will regroup and fight back. He may well over-reach in the first two years and then the Republicans will sweep back into Congress in 2010. I still predict President Palin in 2012. Despite the misogyny of the Left and of much of big media, that barrier will fall as well.

Oh, and by the way, anti-Americanism will revive just as soon as President Obama has to make a decision. As somebody said to me yesterday: just wait till he asks the Europeans to provide more troops in Afghanistan.

There will be some fun to be had out of European and, particularly, British disappointment. The Tories, in particular, will realize that this will not be the Obama they thought they knew.

Ha! One can win these arguments sometimes

2008-11-04T22:40:00.003Z

Just back from the launch of the second, paperback, edition of Edward Lucas's "The New Cold War". Mr Lucas is always worth listening to and he gave a very spirited analysis of what is happening in Russia and, especially, the many mistakes the West, particularly Western Europe has made.

In the past, Mr Lucas has expressed the opinion that the only way to deal with Russia is for the EU to stand together and stand up to the Bear. As our readers know, I have always doubted the usefulness of that course of action.

This evening I asked Mr Lucas whether, in view of developments in the last few weeks and, particularly, President Sarkozy's behaviour, he still thought that the EU was going to be the one to fight Russia. Or even to challenge it. Mr Lucas admitted that he was very disappointed in the European Union and said that, perhaps, he had been a little too optimistic.

NATO, on the other hand, or, to be quite precise, the Americans have been making it quite clear that Russia is not going to start invading various former Soviet republics. Indeed, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said recently, that in response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, "the United States and NATO are updating plans for defending allies neighboring Russia and will consider increasing the number of military exercises with the Baltic states".

My own view is that Russia has not exactly gained much from its Georgian adventure. A couple more South Caucasian republics is hardly a clear benefit.

However, it is good to hear that Edward Lucas feels "disappointed" with the EU. He might see the light quite soon.

Whatever happens in the United States later today ...

2008-11-04T00:23:00.005Z

... and, naturally, I hope that the American people will not submit to the MSM and Beltway establishment, the fight to overcome the insane anti-Americanism that has taken hold of this country as well as others on the Continent must continue.

When we have a situation in which something like 30 per cent say they believe America to be a greater danger to world peace than Iran, Iraq, China or North Korea, we have a serious problem. Incidentally, I wonder where those 30 per cent would prefer to spend time in, the United States or one of the other countries?

So we salute the new undertaking by Tim Montgomerie, America in the World, and intend to follow its development, as well as use its researches (and we hope they will use ours). We and America are part of the Anglosphere, a valid and strong antidote to the European Union with its outdated corporatist outlook.

English judges stick to the law - for the time being

2008-11-02T10:34:00.003Z

For the moment the case of Frederick Toben, arrested at Heathrow Airport by our boys and girsl in blue on German demand because the man is accused of being a Holocaust denier (and for all I know, he is but it is not a crime in this country), has been suspended.

A London judge ruled yesterday that the European arrest warrant used to detain him for extradition earlier this month was invalid because it didn't provide enough detail.

But lawyers representing German prosecutors, who want to try Dr Toben for his alleged anti-Semitic views, are preparing to appeal to Britain's High Court.

It's the hard cases that prove the law. Dr Toben is clearly not a man one would normally have much time for. But the law is the law and freedom is freedom. However appalling the man is (and, as I have said before ad nauseam, he is no worse than people who still deny or diminish the crimes of Communism) the idea of him being arrested on British soil by British police officers for something that is not a crime here and handed over to a country where it is, remains abhorrent.

Well, it remains abhorrent to those of us who believe in the rule of law and in liberties under it. That does not include the average europhiliac.

EU set to ignore its own agreement

2008-11-01T10:12:00.004Z

Not for the first time, the EU is set to ignore the agreement its members had made in order to pursue what it sees the common foreign policy, though in this case it is really French policy. As the Eurasia Daily Monitor reported, Bernard Kouchner, France's somewhat disappointing Foreign Minister and Javier Solana, the EU's Lord High Executive on Foreign Policy, have gone to St Petersburg and announced that fat-track discussions between Russia and the EU will start almost immediately. They have already held talks with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.

The suggestion is that these talks will start at the EU-Russia Summit on November 13 - 14, though it is not clear how some other members, particularly the worried East Europeans and Balts will react to this idea.

The EU’s 27 member countries had, however, decided at their September 1 summit to postpone those talks because of Russia’s invasion of Georgia and occupation of that country’s territories. Under the decisions at that summit, the EU was to have reviewed Russia’s compliance with the French-brokered armistice in Georgia before deciding on that basis whether the resumption of partnership talks with Russia at the Nice summit was warranted or not.

No such review or determination is known to have been carried out by the EU, however; and no decision seems to have been made in the consensus-based EU that would have authorized the French presidency to jump-start those partnership talks without discussion and agreement among the member countries.

The French presidency’s move, therefore, would seem to be an attempt to hijack EU policy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy apparently acted in a national, rather than EU, capacity by authorizing Kouchner to make this move. To be sure, a number of EU governments and influential figures favor a quick start to partnership talks with Russia as a goal in itself, scarcely affected by Russia’s behavior. The French presidency’s move, however, short-circuited those EU member countries that hold a different view of this issue.

So much for that common foreign policy that, Edward Lucas and others have suggested, would hold the line against Russia. The only hope is that the Poles and their allies together with the Scandinavians will object.

Britain will not be among those who object. As some Central Europeans are pointing out, David Miliband, our youthful looking Foreign Secretary, is already talking about the need to resume "business as usual" because, as we or, at least those of us who listen to Kremlin propaganda, know it was Georgia who was the aggressor, having invaded Russia, devastated her villages, expelled her population .... oh wait, that is not how it happened.

Mr Miliband was last heard of on his way to DR Congo, presumably because it is felt that his presence might sort out the long-standing problems of that unfortunate country. But he does seem to have had time to talk with the ever popular Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to discuss bilateral relations and the next meeting of the Middle East Quartet of mediators in about a week.

The Quartet has not been precisely successful so far, unless bullying Israel is counted as success, and, in any case, Britain is not a member - the European Union is.

Oh by the way, how is the Opposition's foreign policy doing?

Sarkozy propounds

2008-11-01T00:29:00.002Z

The Wall Street Journal had a lovely piece about President Sarkozy and his ideas on how to solve the financial crisis. Unfortunately, only the first two paragraphs can be read by those who are not subscribers. Still you get the gist of it:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a series of employment-boosting measures, including 100,000 additional subsidized job contracts, as new data showed a decline in European consumer confidence.

Mr Sarkozy said his government will increase to 330,000 the number of subsidized job contracts it will finance in 2009. The figure is 100,000 more than originally proposed.

He also warned employers not to use the crisis as a cover for shedding workers: “I won’t tolerate any cynical or opportunistic strategies,” he said in a speech, pointing to “those who might use the current crisis to justify reducing production and jobs.”

Let’s see: businesses will not be allowed to make various adjustments in line with what they see necessary for long-terms survival during the financial crisis and will, undoubtedly, be expected to pay more taxes (as will all those putative consumers who will have far less money to spend) in order to subsidize those extra jobs that are not actually needed. Hmmm. Economics is not the man’s strong point, clearly. But then, what is?

Mr Sarkozy’s job plan is intended to boost confidence by reassuring people that even if they lose their jobs, they will have another one to move on to. He is under popular pressure to help regular workers after helping out banks: Just over a week ago, France announced it would inject €10.5 billion (£8.32 billion) in capital into six of the country’s largest banks in order to promote lending.

Ahem, just who were those banks lending to? Would that be regular workers, who, moreover, would find themselves without funds if the banks crashed?

Sarkozy’s problems are complicated. On the one hand, he is under pressure from the unions who are demanding assurances that “employees”, particularly in their unions, do not suffer in the crisis. On the other hand, he has little money to play with and, in any case, he was elected to free up the economy from the deadening regulations. Instead of which he is lambasting employers who might consider rationalizing their outfits.

Of course, President Sarkozy or, as we like to call him, Le Chauve-Souris) does not really envisage the French taxpayer funding all his plans – he would like other European taxpayers to chip in as well.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has called for an EU crisis fund for member states to be extended from €12 billion currently to "at least" €20 billion.

Mr Sarkozy - whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency - will make the proposal to his EU counterparts when they meet in Brussels next Friday (7 November).

Currently, an EU "community mechanism" allows member states to receive medium-term loans from a common pot of €12 billion.

"I will propose on 7 November …that the EU itself, which has at its disposal €12 billion to support a certain number of member states, passes to at least €20 billion in order to increase our ability to respond to the [financial] crisis," the French president said on Tuesday (28 October) shortly before a meeting with UK prime minister Gordon Brown in Versailles, France.

Not to be outdone in the generosity stakes the Commission has, according to a report in EUObserver, unveiled a draft plan that surpasses Le Chauve-Souris’ munificence.

The European Commission has unveiled a draft version of its plan for the economic recovery of the European Union, a plan that includes an even more generous boost to the emergency fund for EU economies battered by the global financial crisis than had previously been proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"Europe must confront the economic downturn with the same robust and coordinated approach we have taken on the financial crisis," commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Wednesday (29 October), after an extraordinary college meeting devoted to the ongoing market mayhem.

As part of the commission's plan - to be published at full length on 26 November - Brussels is proposing to more than double the existing financial facility used to provide loans to EU countries facing difficulties.

The fund's ceiling currently stands at €12 billion. The commission is now suggesting it should be topped up to €25 billion. On Tuesday night, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency until the end of December, had proposed a limit of €20 billion.

Anything the Americans can do, we can do better. Or not.

Not Russia yet

2008-10-30T16:26:00.003Z

Turkey is still a more democratic society with a media that has more freedom than Russia but the signs are not good.

The Supreme Board of Radio and Television, or RTÜK, President Zahid Akman decided to shut down 11 channels belonging to the Doğan Media Corporation's D-Smart, along with several other channels, because they had not acquired the necessary broadcasting licenses.

Şaban Sevinç, an RTÜK member who voted against the closures, said RTÜK ignored license requests from these channels for two years and that their decision was linked to the Lighthouse e.V. affair.

“Akman deliberately left the applications pending so that he could have leverage over the channel owners,” Sevinç told the Turkish Daily News yesterday. “In 2007, after a brawl between Akman and D-Smart, he sent a warning to the company to stop their unlicensed broadcasts.”

This method is not unknown: you make it impossible for companies to acquire the documentation they need and then you close them down for not having said documentation.

For the moment it is possible to challenge and criticize.

Hürriyet editor-in-chief Ertuğrul Özkök noted the suspicious nature of the RTÜK decision and pointed out a recent frequency change by Türksart Company. Türksart is responsible for satellite broadcasting and recently set about rearranging the order of television channels, burying Doğan Media Corporation's flagship Channel D at 41st in line.

"Do you think these two developments are coincidental?" asked Özkök in his article published yesterday.

Well, um, now that you ask, no.

Attempts to remove Zahid Akman from the post are continuing and his involvement in dubious commercial ventures are widely publicized (presumably why he is trying to shut down certain TV stations). The ruling AK Party is doing all it can to keep him in place.

How do you "win" democratic legitimacy?

2008-10-29T23:08:00.001Z

Whatever responses our readers may have had to that question they may as well forget them. The fluffy-brained Fragrant Margot, a.k.a. Commission Vice-President in charge of institutional relations and communication (there’s glory for you) will disagree with you.

As part of her evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union, printed in “The Commission’s Annual Policy Strategy for 2009”, which I have already mentioned, the Commissioner said (Q. 61):

What citizens will remember is what we do on energy and climate change—that we have addressed that, that we are doing something on biofuels—or where we are visible with things that are very, very concrete. This is what citizens will see, and very few, as you rightly say, will remember that as part of a five-point agenda or whatever. We win democratic legitimacy by doing the right things that really change the lives of European citizens. That is how we win legitimacy.

Give the lady a prize. She really understands politics and political theory.

Dear Fluffy-Brained Commissar, one either has democratic legitimacy or one does not. You and your colleagues do not. There is nothing democratic in the way you are chosen, in the way you impose your views, ideas and legislation on the people of Europe or in the way you are not accountable to the people in any way.

The idea that the Commission or, indeed, the European project as a whole, will acquire “democratic legitimacy” because of “the right things” they do for our welfare whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, is laughable. It is, of course, the argument that is produced by numerous Europhiles as they hope to lull us all into thinking that managerial governance is better and more desirable than the political and democratically accountable version.

One reason why I am not laughing quite as loudly as I should is the House of Lords Committee’s reaction to this completely fatuous comment (Par. 11):

We welcome the priority on "Putting the Citizen First", but regret the lack of coherence among the disparate sub-priorities gathered underneath this heading. The Commission should do more to stress the weight it places on putting the citizen first throughout its work, thereby giving more coherence to this list of sub-priorities. Particular attention should be paid to issues impacting on communities and local projects.

There appears to be no clear understanding here of the crucial problem with the Commission “putting the citizen first throughout its work” rather than governments being accountable to said citizens.

Bruges Group dinner this evening

2008-10-27T10:37:00.002Z

The Bruges Group will be commemorating the Bruges speech with a special dinner this evening in the presence of Lady Thatcher herself. Main speaker will be Lord Tebbit and there is a video of Vaclav Klaus, everybody's favourite European politician addressing the event.

This is rather late in the day but one or two of our readers might be interested in finding out whether there are any tickets left. If you are, don't bother me. I have nothing to do with that. Get in touch with Robert Oulds on 020 7287 4414 or info_at_brugesgroup.com.

Anyway, I shall write about it tomorrow so you will know what you have missed.

That elephant nobody wants to mention

2008-10-26T01:21:00.003+01:00

VAT is one of those things everybody goes on about. There are periodic campaigns to lower or abolish VAT for whatever happens to take people's fancy at the time. On a previous occasion I mentioned the fatuousness of the Cut the VAT campaign. I have been told by organizations and individuals involved that it was a good campaign even if it could lead to nothing. I beg to differ. A campaign that is pointless is not a good one. It makes people feel that they have been cheated.

In that posting I mentioned that the Commission, the one organization that can actually do something about VAT has been planning to introduce a little flexibility in the structure. Not, you understand, that any country will now be able to decide on various matters to do with VAT, let alone be allowed to opt out of it and decide to have, let us say, a local sales tax. Far from it. Just a little flexibility.

Lord Willoughby de Broke asked HMG in writing what they proposed to do about the Commission proposals.

Whether they will support at the November Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting the European Commission's proposal to amend VAT directive 2006/112/EC to allow member states flexibility on VAT rates for labour-intensive services.

Let's face it our government can do nothing about the tax itself or any flexibility. It can support or not support the European Commission's proposals.

It would appear that even that is beyond them. Here is Lord Myners's reply:

The Government are generally supportive of the legislative proposal adopted by the Commission, consistent with its position of supporting the flexibility of member states to apply their own choice of VAT rates to further their domestic priorities and social objectives, provided that this does not materially affect the functioning of the internal market.

Member states are currently discussing the Commission proposal, and whether any amendments should be made before it is considered by Ministers, at official level in Council working groups. The Government will take a view on the final text when it is submitted to Ministers by the presidency.

Reassuring.

They never learn

2008-10-25T13:41:00.003+01:00

With a straight face the BBC reports:

The European Commission is stepping up efforts to get its message across to Irish voters and other EU citizens ahead of European elections next June.

The commission, stung by the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, plans to form a partnership with the Republic of Ireland to raise public awareness.

The "management partnership" involves explaining EU goals and policies in plain language to ordinary citizens.

Are these people listening to themselves? I mean really listening?

The EU makes it clear that they wish to ignore the results that a freely and fairly run referendum (give or take EU money) produced and then it says that they want to "raise public awareness" ahead of the European elections. Surely, what really bothers them is too much public awareness. Then again, that phrase has become code for "they wish to ensure that more people vote the way they are told to or stay at home and not bother us".

Meanwhile the House of Lords European Union Committee has produced one of its excellent reports on "The Commission's Annual Policy Strategy for 2009". I shall blog on it in more detail as soon as I have read it right through. Let me, however, quote Paragraph 1 of the Introduction:

What is the Commission's Annual Policy Strategy?

1. The Annual Policy Strategy is one of the two key strategic planning documents published by the European Commission each year. The Annual Policy Strategy (or APS) published in the spring sets out the Commission's priorities for the following year, and forms the basis for discussion within the EU institutions and beyond. This discussion is intended to influence the Commission's Annual Legislative and Work Programme, published in the autumn, which fleshes out those priorities and sets out detailed plans for the year ahead.

Let us not forget that the Commission is the sole initiator of EU legislation, which then takes a long journey through the various institutions such as the Council and the Parliament with possible negotiations between representatives of member states being done behind the scenes. Once it gets to a national parliament it cannot be thrown out. At no time during that journey are the people consulted though the odd organization that is part of the EU controlled and often financed "civil society" may well have an input according to its own agenda.

I am only guessing, of course, but could that be the real reason for voter apathy?

How's that British foreign policy doing?

2008-10-23T15:58:00.002+01:00

One of the oddest aspects of modern British politics is that neither the government nor the opposition have anything remotely resembling a foreign policy or plan to have one, so far as anyone can make it out. Yet, questions and debates on the subject come up with regularity, at least in the House of Lords, where there is still a pretence that we are an independent country with political leaders who have adjoining brain cells.

Yesterday there was a Starred Question about the situation in Zimbabwe and what anybody was going to do about it. To be fair, a number of their lordships have understood that nobody apart from Zimbabwe's neighbours can help the people of that unfortunate country and they, particularly South Africa, still under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, seem very reluctant to do so.

Lord Blaker's question was low-key. He asked Her Majesty's Government:

What is their assessment of the allocation by Robert Mugabe of portfolios in the proposed Government of Zimbabwe.

HMG replied in the shape of Lord Malloch-Brown, former bag-carrier for the last SecGen of the United Nations, Kofi Annan:

My Lords, along with other EU states, we have condemned Robert Mugabe's unilateral allocation of ministerial portfolios. The allocation of portfolios needs to be agreed by all parties and reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people as expressed in the 29 March elections, which gave Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC a clear majority.

It is, of course, impossible for Britain to do anything in the international field on her own or simply with other Western states. Everything has to be agreed with the EU and decided on at that level.

Mind you, condemning Robert Mugabe, who knows full well that the EU is not going to do anything to hurt him. It will not even ban him from attending various meetings and summits for fear of losing the attendance of other African leaders, despite the fact that there have been numerous agreements not to let the Zimbabwean dictator step on European soil.

In fact, there is nothing anybody can do unless South Africa decides to deal with the situation. Re-running the election, as suggested by the President of Botswana, is hardly a solution, even if it is done under international supervision, whose presence is impossible to ensure without some show of force. Suppose the international supervision is in place by some miracle; suppose the election is re-run; suppose the MDC wins again. Then what? Neither Lord M-B nor, I suspect, the President of Botswana knows the answer to that.

Meanwhile, it would appear that we are still sending aid to the country with no checks on how it is distributed. In answer to the Duke of Montrose's question on the subject, Lord M-B, the former Annan and Soros henchman (at least, one hopes it is former) answered:

My Lords, it is an astonishing story. Zimbabwe was a country of 12 million people: 3 million have gone into exile; of the remaining 9 million, some 5 million will be dependent on food aid by the end of the year. We have just made an allocation to the World Food Programme of £9 million. Ours and other contributions will make sure that appropriate food is available in this man-made tragedy.

Available it may be but to whom? And who is doing the distribution? Do villages where the MDC has done particularly well get any of the aid?

That is not the full extent of our involvement as Lord Howell's question made it clear:

My Lords, as Mugabe and his gang are obviously determined not to surrender power quietly or wisely, can we be assured that the hard currency money the UK is providing to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and through our UN and EU agencies is going towards the purposes for which it is intended and is not being siphoned off and manipulated for the benefit of the ZANU-PF gangsters?

Well, well, we do not hear much about that hard currency this country provides the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. I wonder what happens to it. Somehow, I do not find Lord M-B's assurances entirely credible:

My Lords, the noble Lord draws attention to an appropriate issue. The central bank is making every effort to find any source of foreign currency to keep its patronage operations for the top leadership ticking over. The noble Lord should be assured that we are making absolutely certain that our moneys in no way fall into the hands of Government and go directly to UN and non-governmental partners, mainly for purchases made outside the country.

As the noble lords ought to know money going to the UN and NGOs are not necessarily well spent. There was this little thing called the oil-for-food scam, for instance. But, of course, neither the UN nor the NGOs need to be accountable to anybody for what they do.

Just a couple of reminders

2008-10-22T23:53:00.003+01:00

Today is the anniversary of President Kennedy's announcement about the presence of Soviet missiles on Cuba and the beginning of what was probably the worst and most terrifying crisis of the entire Cold War when the two superpowers stood face to face with no intermediaries.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the start of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - another crisis, of power for the Soviet Union and of conscience for the West.

Normal service will now resume.

Interesting suggestions

2008-10-22T17:28:00.006+01:00

Well, now we know the answer to the question Jeff Randall posed just a few days ago. George Osborne was invisible because he was trying to beat Peter Mandelson (now the noble Lord Mandelson) at his own game. Of course, if you are going to do that, you ought to be better at it than Georgy-Porgy is turning out to be. (But then how good is he at being Shadow Chancellor?)

The net result of all this is that Osborne's career is in danger. As I write, Cameron has not yet announced that the Shadow Chancellor's position is unassailable, so there may be hope for Georgy-Porgy.

Both on ToryBoyBlog and on Iain Dale's blog commenters have been free with suggestions of replacements. One name that comes up immediately is that of Ken Clarke, the man of the day before yesterday, a throw-back in most people's minds to John Major's government, not the Tories' most glorious hour.

The rest of this posting has been deleted.

Anyone knows what they are playing at?

2008-10-22T15:45:00.002+01:00

There has been a certain amount of discussion about the number of Conservatives in Britain (the American bunch is a separate issue) who are supporting Obama in the American presidential election, apparently not bothering to find out much about his record (such as it is) or the statements he has made like the infamous one to Joe the Plumber that showed him to be a socialist who believes not just in big government but a redistributive tax system.

As David Pryce-Jones points out the list now includes such luminaries as Charles Moore and Lord Rees-Mogg. Interestingly enough, both of them are devout Catholics yet seem uninterested in Obama's record on abortion and his repeated votes against giving medical help to babies that survive a botched operation. (No, I am not discussing abortion per se, merely the Catholic view of it.)

Their argument: the election of a black (well, mixed race) President will solve the race issue in the United States and, for all I know, everywhere in the world. It does not seem to occur to these sages that voting for a man because he is black (well, mixed race) is perpetuating the race problem. What if, as David Pryce-Jones asks and as most of us consider almost certain, Obama makes some really disastrous decisions as soon as he gets into the White House? After all, his running mate, Joe Biden, thinks there is a strong possibility of that. How is that going to help race relations in the United States?

I presume none of these race-obsessed Conservatives to whom nothing else matters have noticed that the present and previous Secretaries of State were black. Did that make any difference to race relations anywhere?

Then we have Boris Johnson, Hizonner the Mayor of London, pontificating on that subject, even having the gall to refer to Martin Luther King's famous speech, in which he had hoped that one day people will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by what was inside them. Incidentally, King was a Republican, considering that the Democrat Party was historically the party of slavery and Jim Crow laws.

The thing is, our Boris is not just a commentator, who is entitled to his views, however foolish they are. He is a Conservative politician, the Mayor of London, elected by the people of London to undo the damage inflicted on the great city by his predecessor. What business does he have interfering in the American presidential election? Is he now going to follow in Livingstone's footsteps and establish a foreign policy for London?

On the other hand

2008-10-22T12:36:00.002+01:00

Germany is opposing the creation of European "sovereign funds" in order to buy into various key economic enterprises and prevent foreign investment in them. Who leads the charge for this idea? Why, that well-known free-marketeer, President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Germany, which fought longest and hardest against the idea of Europe-wide bank bailouts, immediately criticized Sarkozy's latest idea. But Italy is already mulling legislation to limit investments from foreign state funds, and Spain is actively courting such investments from oil-rich Arab countries.

Sarkozy, who has never made a secret of his penchant for an activist industrial policy, said that joint action by European state investment funds would protect well-known champions of European industry from falling into the possession of foreign investors.

"I don't want European citizens to wake up in several months' time and find that European companies belong to non-European capital, which bought at the share price's lowest point," Sarkozy told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

"This might be an opportunity to create our own sovereign wealth funds," he said. "And maybe these national sovereign wealth funds could eventually coordinate to form a business response to the crisis."

While this sort of political and economic thinking (if one can call it that) may not sit well with such past French luminaries as Claude Frédéric Bastiat or Marquis de Condorcet, it is well in line with most traditional, right and left, French thinking.

The question from our point of view is not dissimilar from the one posed in the previous posting. If the French government wishes to create sovereign funds to prevent its economy from acquiring international investment, that is up to the French taxpayer to mull over. But a European fund involves other taxpayers, namely us. We are already paying through the nose for Supergordon's plans. Do we really want to do the same for Le Chauve-Souris' ideas?

Oh and how does that Spanish idea of courting investments from oil-rich Arab countries fit into this scheme?

A single European voice will speak truth unto Russian power

2008-10-22T12:08:00.002+01:00

Yeah right, if I may be pardoned such a vulgarism. Charles Crawford gets it right:

The key argument in favour of an 'EU Foreign Policy' we hear in the UK is that it acts as a multiplier for British positions.

What tends not to be mentioned is that it acts as a multiplier for other EU Member States' positions too, not least when they disagree with us.

There is also the problem that quite often British positions are not all that clear with Supergordon Brown waiting for the consensus before he can make up his mind.

This is where I part company with the highly esteemed Edward Lucas, author of "The New Cold War". His view is that the EU must work out a common foreign policy, that being the only way it can stop the Kremlin's machinations.

All very well but what if the common foreign policy becomes Germany's policy, which seems to be one of complete appeasement, despite the occasional eruptions by Chancellor Merkel? The only reason this has not happened is the East Europeans, with some support from the Scandinavians and an occasion hum-ha from Britain, challenging the Franco-German line on the subject.

This morning's International Herald Tribune has an article that once again confirms that point of view.

Nowhere was this marriage of interests better expressed recently than in a top-level gathering last month at a castle overlooking the River Elbe. Attendees oozed confidence that, despite the August war in Georgia and the gathering storm in world finance, Russia and Germany would only deepen their centuries-old bonds, perhaps even realizing the dream long held by some of binding Russia closer to the West.

Among the hundreds of guests, all sniffing deals, were German managers in from Moscow mingling with Russian officials, even as East German veterans of Soviet enterprises chatted up younger Russian entrepreneurs.

"The long-term goal is about integrating the Russian economy with Europe," said Peter Danylow, director of the East and Central European Association, an independent business body that promotes contacts between Germans and Eastern countries. "We are a long way from that. But Germany is not prepared to give up. There is too much at stake."

Last year, more than 3 percent of Germany's total exports went to Russia, with trade volume between the countries reaching €57 billion, or $74.6 billion at current exchange rates. German exports to Russia increased by 20 percent in 2007. During the first quarter of this year, they jumped a further 25 percent, according to Klaus Mangold, chairman of the Ost-Ausschuss, the influential group that promotes Germany's economic interests throughout Russia and the former Soviet bloc.

There is no particular reason why Germany should not look to its financial and economic interests, though recent experience indicates that doing business with Russia is a hazardous exercise because of the Kremlin's obsession with power. Furthermore, given ~~President~~ Prime Minister Putin's policies and those of his teddy bear (mishka), President Medvedev, putting quite so many eggs into that basket is likely to turn out to be a bad move.

From our point of view, though, the problem is that Germany, ever more closely tied to Russia and ever more dependent on that country economically, is dictating foreign policy to the rest of the European Union.

Busy, busy, busy

2008-10-21T23:06:00.002+01:00

Everybody wants to save the world. First it was Supergordon Brown. Now it's Nicolas (the Batman or le Chauve-Souris) Sarkozy. He has announced to the Toy Parliament that before next month's world summit that will save the world he wants an EU summit. And just to make sure that everything happens he will personally go (together with Commission President Barroso, in his role of Robin) to Beijing "to convince China and India to participate in the world summit". Presumably, the trip to Beijing will not be sufficient. They will have to cross the border and go to New Delhi as well. Ahem, who is paying for all this?

Meanwhile Le Chauve Souris Sarkozy and his very special Robin, alias El Presidente Barroso, have gone to Camp David to have a chat with outgoing President Bush. Of course, Sarkozy is also outgoing as President of the EU because France's time will be up at the end of December but the media does not seem to realize that.

Three world leaders - George W. Bush, Jose Manuel Barroso, and Nicolas Sarkozy - declared in Camp David Saturday they would make every effort to maintain the 'foundations of democratic capitalism', while not allowing the 'malevolent practices of recent years' to reoccur. The most eloquent of the three, the French president, said emphatically that it would be a disaster to undermine the foundations of the free market economy, while 'continuation would mean the same problems causing the same disasters'.

Do these words mean anything? Of course nothing. Politicians are simply trying to cover the confusion they have been thrown into by a financial crisis whose dimensions they did not expect and whose effects they underestimated. By crying 'Things must change!' they are trying to divert the public attention away from their own helplessness.

Tsk, tsk, these Poles are so cynical. Mind you, I wouldn't myself call the President of the European Commission or the temporary President of the European Union, who, just like a previous temporary President, Chancellor Merkel, prefers to spend his time rushing round the world instead of looking to some of the problems his own country is facing, world leaders.

The Christian Science Monitor seems to think that President Sarkozy is emerging as a new leading force in the world.

This week Mr. Sarkozy worked with President Bush to set up a series of meetings to reform the global economy, and he's now off to Asia to broach the idea of bringing India and China together with G-8 nations in a "Bretton Woods II" framework of economic rules. This comes just weeks after he moved with alacrity to broker a cease-fire deal to end the Georgia-Russia war.

Critics still point to Sarkozy's proclivity to turn politics into a show and to unashamedly take credit whenever possible. Yet in the space of a summer he has consolidated his power and blended substance with showmanship, and is now winning praise as a crisis leader in a more multipolar world.

"I think today that everyone, even those who had misgivings, acknowledge that [Sarkozy] not only has great political energy, but also exceptional leadership qualities," commented José Manuel Barroso, the EU chief who accompanied Sarkozy to Camp David this weekend.

Well, if all you need to be a world leader is to rush around setting up lots of meetings regardless of whether they achieve anything or not (the war in Georgia, for everybody's information, ended after a fashion, precisely when the Russians were ready to move and not a moment before, Sarkozy or no Sarkozy) and to have the Commission President endorsing you, then Sarkozy has it made. What will happen in January when he will have to go back to being a French President, no longer un Chauve-Souris?

Oh my, another one

2008-10-21T15:35:00.002+01:00

Remember the World Bank-Wolfowitz scandal when the man who tried to clear out the corruption of that organization (the Augean Stables had nothing on that problem) was forced to resign because of misdemeanours of which he was subsequently cleared by all enquiries?

Well, can we expect the same at the IMF where Dominique Strauss-Kahn "is under investigation for what he delicately calls an 'incident which occurred in my private life'. The 'incident' involves former senior IMF economist Piroska Nagy, with whom Mr. Strauss-Kahn had a brief sexual liaison earlier this year until Ms. Nagy's husband found out about it".

As Mr Strauss-Kahn is merely a French politician and not a supporter of the war in Iraq and is unlikely to want to look too closely into some of the curious deals transnational organizations do, the chances of him suffering Paul Wolfowitz's fate are slim.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn has apologized to the IMF staff while insisting that "at no time did I abuse my position" in his dealings with Ms. Nagy, and that might be true. Then again, the managing director seems to have kept his relationship a secret from most of his own board of directors, even after a formal investigation was begun at the behest of one board member in August. The final
judgment will rest with the full board once a report is delivered at the end of this month.

The judgment will tell us something about whether the IMF board -- particularly its nine European members -- will exhibit the same outrage toward Mr. Strauss-Kahn as their World Bank counterparts did last year during the staff coup that ousted former president Paul Wolfowitz. We won't hold our breath, even though Mr. Wolfowitz's purported offenses pale next to what we already know about l'affaire Strauss-Kahn.

Unlike Mr. Strauss-Kahn, Mr. Wolfowitz disclosed his personal relationship with a staff member prior to becoming Bank president and sought to recuse himself from making any decision regarding her next job assignment. A misnamed Ethics Committee nevertheless foisted that decision upon him but later disavowed its own ruling when it became politically convenient to do so. The Bank's European board members then sought to run Mr. Wolfowitz out of the bank
in kangaroo-court proceedings while piously claiming to be safeguarding the institution's reputation.

Mr. Wolfowitz's real sins had everything to do with his tough-on-corruption policies, as well as his previous role in the Bush Administration as deputy secretary of defense. In its report Sunday on Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the New York Times noted that "Mr. Wolfowitz's ouster was fueled . . . also by a visceral dislike many at the agency felt for a major backer of the Iraq war." Now they tell us.

By contrast, Mr. Strauss-Kahn is a paladin of the European establishment, a former finance minister of France and a leader of its Socialist Party. Not surprisingly, he is also popular with the IMF staff. So we also won't hold our breath for a stream of invidious staff leaks about the managing director of the kind that were aimed at Mr. Wolfowitz, much less one-sided "news" from the European court stenographers at the Financial Times. We may hear, however, that the IMF can't afford to be "distracted" by some purely personal issue at this moment of global crisis.

This should be interesting, especially in the light of Supergordy Brown's proposal to give more powers to the IMF over the international financial and banking system. Incidentally, Irwin Stelzer says that anyone who believes the United States will agree to that harebrained scheme (my expression not his) should get in touch with him as he has a bridge to sell.

A few thoughts after yesterday's Bruges Group meeting

2008-10-21T15:31:00.000+01:00

And a very good meeting it was, too, with two proponents of the Anglo-American understanding and special relationship, Andrew Roberts and Irwin Stelzer, on parade. Andrew Roberts talked mostly about his latest book, “Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West 1941 – 45”, which sounds fascinating and I shall read it just as soon as I have finished Mr Roberts’s last tome “A History of the English-Speaking People since 1900”. And no, I am not envious of his amazing capacity for work, not at all. Grrr.

For the purposes of this blog I shall concentrate on what Irwin Stelzer said about American politics and economic possibilities as well as Andrew Roberts’s comments on that subject rather than the latter’s amusing description of the clash between those four titans.

So, first things first. Dr Stelzer does not think the presidential election is in the bag, however much the Europeans and by that he means the British, as well, may wish it. My own feeling is that the Europeans, including the British know precious little about what is going on in the presidential election as they rely on the European/British media, which is almost completely pro-Obama (as it was almost completely pro-Kerry) and publishes stories that are several days out of date. Thus, there are still articles wittering about Sarah Palin being made fun of by some ridiculous comedienne and how that hurts the McCain/Palin ticket while the story is that Palin is attracting many thousands to her meetings and is doing far more news interviews than any other candidate.

As Dr Stelzer said, if you watch the BBC you will think that Obama is already president. Last time, he added, he did follow the election on the BBC and he did not realize till about spring that Kerry had lost. That was a semi-joke.

The polls, endlessly referred to, are somewhat volatile in this election as Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit keeps saying. They are also a lot closer than the headlines would lead us to believe.

On the other hand, it is more than probable that Congress will go Democrat, so what will happen if Obama wins and there is a clean sweep of the legislative and executive, shortly to be followed by the judiciary, as Supreme Court judges die or retire and new ones are appointed?

Let’s get the most worrying Obama promise out of the way first, though it is an internal American matter and that is the abolition of secret ballot in the unions. If this is passed and, given the Democrats’ reliance on the unions it probably will be, this will be a seriously regressive step in business development.

So what might an Obama presidency mean for Britain and Europe and will all those who wish for it be happy with it? Obviously, all prediction is guessing on the basis of past performance and there is precious little of it in Obama’s case. There are all those buddies of his, starting with Bill Ayers, and his unfortunate admission to Joe the Plumber that he is looking to raising taxes on small to medium-sized businesses in order to redistribute. In connection with that there is the extraordinary notion of “tax credits” to people who do not pay tax as those who earn $50,000 and under do not in America. That “tax credit” will be a hand-out and someone has to pay for it and for the officialdom that will be redistributing the money. So, the economic situation looks a little bleak, though Dr Stelzer pointed out quite correctly that the American economy is a good deal more flexible even now than European or British. Furthermore, the American bail-out (larger than fist defined, naturally enough) will be the equivalent of something like 5 per cent of GDP. The German bail-out will be the equivalent of 16 per cent of GDP and Supergordon Brown’s British bail-out, with which Dr Stelzer does not totally disagree, will be the equivalent of 30 per cent of GDP. Not good.

However, it is the foreign policy that really matters in the case of the President and Obama is likely to be highly protectionist, which will not be good for America but will be even worse for others. The union bosses will do well, though.

His idea of soft diplomacy and working through multilateral, i.e. transnational organizations bodes no good as it recalls the disastrous presidency of Jimmah Carter. In fact, many things about Obama brings that to mind.

The problem, as far as those pro-Obama Brits and Europeans might well find, is that he will most probably will be as isolationist as they would like him to be. That means the Europeans will now be expected to contribute more to the campaign in Afghanistan as Iraq will, most probably, be relatively sorted in the near future. The Obama-bots are not going to like that. Nor will an isolationist America be particularly popular with those countries and people who behave like teenagers – demand all kinds of rights and privileges in the certain knowledge that when things start getting difficult the parents will turn up to deal with problems. What if those parents, i.e. the Americans refuse to turn up?

America is likely to recover from the recession faster than either Britain or Europe and will remain the world’s superpower for the foreseeable future, no matter what some overwrought journalists and analysts might say. I was particularly delighted with Dr Stelzer’s prediction that the GOP’s 2012 candidate is likely to be Governor Sarah Palin. The other side may well field Hillary Clinton. How much fun is that going to be?

In the meantime, instead of gloating over America’s problems or wishing a disastrous left-wing presidency on it, we should start thinking seriously what our future is likely to be.

He does have one friend

2008-10-18T23:42:00.002+01:00

Apparently one country has recognized the rather curious independent status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia that consists of them being part of Russia and controlled by Russian troops: Nicaragua, once again controlled by the egregious Daniel Ortega.

Consider the rogue's gallery that refused to go along: Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, the Castros' Cuba, Bolivia, Iran and Syria. The club of seven authoritarian former Soviet republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization also demurred. Even Moscow's puppet autocrat in Belarus, Aleksander Lukashenko, deferred to his toothless parliament; in other words, nyet, for now. Russia was rebuffed by China and India at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
...

In addition to Mr. Ortega, Russia did manage recognition by Hamas, Hezbollah and the Moldovan regions of Gaugazia and Trans-Dniester. But that is little solace for a Kremlin whose bigger goal in the war was to declare a Monroe-ski Doctrine for its "near abroad" and lead a new anti-American block.

Then again, it has always seemed pretty clear to me that, despite all the bullying swagger ~~President~~ Prime Minister Putin and his teddy bear, President Medvedev, tend to lose heavily when it comes to dealing with other countries.

The ECB extends its reach

2008-10-18T22:57:00.002+01:00

The financial crisis keeps developing in its own way, unpredicted by the politicians and the regulators who are hoping to use it to extend their power and are, unfortunately, finding that their actions do not seem to have the results they predict. That, of course, will not stop them from taking action, any action; nor will it stop them from trying to accumulate more power. One does not need to be a soothsayer to predict this.

The ECB is now in a position of beginning to interfere in the finances of countries that are not in the eurozone and, as things go, may not be there for some time. No, I don't mean Britain, though it is not to be excluded that there will be strong murmurs that the answer to whatever question the financial crisis has posed (and nobody who is working in that world knows the question, let alone the answer) is for this country to join EMU and adopt the euro. After all, it has been such a success in the countries that did just that.

The country the ECB is extending its sway over, admittedly, as requested by its central bank, is Hungary. The best summary of what happened was, as ever, in the Wall Street Journal Europe but sadly, one has to subscribe to be able to read the articles on the net. (You can get the editorials, columns and the summary of what is on the net for free, though.)

The ECB said it will lend the National Bank of Hungary up €5 billion ($6.75 billion, £3.89 billion), enabling Hungarian authorities to funnel euros to their cash-strapped commercial banks. the move marks the first time the ECB, which makes monetary policy for the 15 nations that share the euro currency, has stepped in publicly to lend to a country outside the euro-currency zone.

The ECB's extraordinary action highlights growing conern among economists and investors that the euro zone would also suffer, should Hungary's economy founder. Some 80% of the assets in Hungary's banking sector are foreign-owned, according to research firm Capital Economics. Austria - a euro-zone nation - is a major presence across Central Europe.

Hungary has been hit hard by market turmoil in recent days, as its heavy reliance on foreign borrowing made it a prime target for investors pulling out of risky bets. Its currency, the forint, fell to a two-year low against the euro this past Friday, and the government has struggled in recent days to find buyers for its bonds and shorter-term Treasury bills. Earlier this week, government officials put in a request for potential help from the International Monetary Fund, though they maintain an IMF loan is a last resort.

The ECB's emergency loan, in combination with a package of government promises that included trimming the budget deficit to 2.9% of gross domestic product next year, cheered investors. The forint strengthened against the euro in reaction to the announcement.

The Financial Times has the story as well. The loan did not solve the general economic problems as this article reports.

Hungary cut its economic growth forecast for 2009 to 1.2% on Friday from an earlier 3% forecast, against a background of tightening credit at home and a downturn in its main export market, the euro currency area. The worsening outlook and pressure from international financial markets has forced Hungary to draw up a new, tighter budget for 2009, which the government was due to present to parliament on Saturday.

AFP reports a somewhat panicky "national summit" in Hungary where everybody made obvious comments without producing any specific ideas, at least not in public. Perhaps, we shall have to wait for a secret recording to be made public. It has happened before, when we found out that the Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány told a political meeting of close colleagues that he and his supporters had "lied morning, noon and night" to the electorate during the previous election campaign.

Conservatives win ...

2008-10-15T13:22:00.002+01:00

... in Canada. While Stephen Harper may not get the majority he wanted, his party has increased its number of seats, which would indicate, despite the National Post sour comments that more Canadians want to press forward with conservative reforms than otherwise.

Could it be that our own Conservative Party, not to mention John McCain and other Republican Representatives and Senators are playing it wrong? Surely not.

Interesting information

2008-10-15T13:16:00.001+01:00

There is always some interest attached to Westerners, particularly if they have been involved in somewhat questionable political activity, who then decide to live in countries that are not, shall we say, entirely of Western persuasion.

For instance, two of the high-ranking American officials, investigated for their Communist links and espionage activity, which they vehemently denied and which have been definitively proved since, gave up their US citizenship to live somewhere else.

Take the case of Lauchlin B. Currie, who was Roosevelt’s special representative to China and is one of the people credited with making sure that help meant for the Nationalists never reached them, thus ensuring Mao’s victory.

He did other things. When the FBI started investigating one of the most successful Soviet spies, Gregory Silvermaster, Currie warned the MVD (the KGB was called that at the time). Silvermaster managed to get away and continued his work.

This is the real killer, so to speak. Mr Currie took part in preparations for the Bretton Woods Conference that set up both the IMF and the World Bank. Mostly the conference was organized by Harry Dexter White, a known Soviet agent himself.

Then in 1954, Lauchlin B. Currie resigned from his position, went to Colombia and gave up his American citizenship.

Or let us take the case of Frank Coe, a close colleague of the self-same Harry Dexter White at US Treasury and the IMF. Also a Soviet agent, an allegation indignantly denied, he resigned in 1950 and went to live in China in 1958. There he remained until his death.

So, apart from the fact that these unresolved issues from the thirties, forties and fifties are still poisoning politics in Britain and America why did I suddenly recall these individuals?

I opened my e-mail from the Wall Street Journal and found an interview conducted by Claudia Rossett, whose work I admire enormously with the man who proudly claims to be the “godfather” of the Kyoto Treaty, Maurice Strong. He, too, it seems has moved to China, the country that is least amenable to the sort of transnational control that Mr Strong has advocated all his life and has, one way or another, managed to inject into American politics. Oh and it is the country that is possibly the most polluted in the world.

It is well worth reading the article in its entirety. Mr Strong is, as it behoves a man who has had a long and successful career with the UN though it ended in unresolved problems to do with the Oil-for-Food scam and a very large cheque paid into his account, is very proud of the fact that, despite not being accountable to anybody he has managed to manipulate matters to such an extent that his favoured policies have been accepted by American politicians and imposed on the American people without their say-so.

In his most recent stint at the U.N., from 1997-2005, Mr. Strong served as an Under-Secretary-General and special adviser to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He was point man on matters ranging from U.N. reform to environmentalism to North Korea. By some accounts, including his own, he has been a benevolent toiler in the multilateral trenches, a friend of Mikhail Gorbachev and Al Gore, networking to save the planet.

By other accounts, he's a self-dealing and self-declared socialist who has parlayed his talents into a push for collectivist global government. These days he is living in China, where he says his ties go back "40 years."

Ms Rossett gives interesting details of Mr Stong’s political and financial dealings prior to his move to China. On this side of the Pond we are well used to this destruction of democracy but Americans who read this interview might find it all a little surprising and unnerving.

The end of what exactly?

2008-10-14T23:21:00.002+01:00

As the financial crisis unfolds and as governments everywhere use this opportunity to nationalize banks (if they can afford to pump in the money) there is a great deal of hand-wringing about the end of capitalism as well as gleeful predictions of the collapse of America's pre-eminence.

On the whole, we do not hold with any of that. Yes, there will be hard times ahead but capitalism is not dead and is not going to die any time soon. Yes, governments will acquire power that they will not know how to use well because they never do know but the financial institutions will, eventually, break free or circumvent the most appalling regulations like the ones that have actually caused the crisis.

But what about America's pre-eminence? Will that disappear? Yes, burble all sorts of people in Europe as well as the New York Times (which will disappear a lot sooner if the present trend of catastrophic fall in readership and share prices will continue). If we are to accept this we have to ask ourselves who is to take her place as the strongest economy, bearing in mind that, no matter what the financial situation is the American economy is doing quite well and actually growing.

Well who? China? Russia? India? Japan? Any European country? The moment you ask that question you can see the basic problem: everybody is in the same mess and many countries are struggling a great deal more because of other problems peculiar to them.

Bret Stephens put it even more strongly in this morning's Wall Street Journal:

Almost in unison, Germany's finance minister, Russia's prime minister and Iran's president predict the end of U.S. "hegemony," financial and/or otherwise. The New York Times weighs in with meditations on "A Power That May Not Stay So Super." Der Spiegel gives us "The End of Hubris." Guardian columnist John Gray sees "A Shattering Moment in America's Fall From Power."

Much of this is said, or written, with ill-disguised glee. But when the tide laps at Gulliver's waistline, it usually means the Lilliputians are already 10 feet under. Before yesterday's surge, the Dow had dropped 25% in three months. But that only means it had outperformed nearly every single major foreign stock exchange, including Germany's XETRADAX (down 28%) China's Shanghai exchange (down 30%), Japan's NIKK225 (down 37%), Brazil's BOVESPA (down 41%) and Russia RTSI (down 61%). These contrasts are a useful demonstration that America's financial woes are nobody else's gain.

On the other hand, global economic distress doesn't invariably work at cross-purposes with American interests. Hugo Chávez's nosedive toward bankruptcy begins when oil dips below $80 a barrel, the price where it hovers now. An identical logic, if perhaps at a different price, applies to the petrodictatorships in Moscow and Tehran, which already are heavily saddled with inflationary and investor-confidence concerns. Russia will also likely burn through its $550 billion in foreign-currency reserves faster than anticipated -- a pleasing if roundabout comeuppance for last summer's Georgian adventure.

Nor does the U.S. seem all that badly off, comparatively speaking, when it comes to its ability to finance a bailout. Last month's $700 billion bailout package seems staggeringly large, but it amounts to a little more than 5% of U.S. gross domestic product. Compare that to Germany's $400 billion to $536 billion rescue package (between 12% and 16% of its GDP), or Britain's $835
billion plan (30%).

Of course it may require considerably more than $700 billion to clean out our Augean Stables. But here it helps that the ratio of government debt to GDP in the U.S. runs to about 62%. For the eurozone, it's 75%; for Japan, 180%.

It also helps that the U.S. continues to have the world's largest inflows of foreign direct investment; that it ranks third in the world (after Singapore and New Zealand) for ease of doing business, according to the World Bank; and that its demographic trends aren't headed toward a tall and steep cliff -- as they are in the EU, Russia, Japan and China.

Above all, the U.S. remains biased toward financial transparency. I am agnostic as to whether mark-to-market accounting is a good idea; last month's temporary ban on short-selling financials seemed a bad one.

But a system that demands timely and accurate financial disclosure and doesn't interfere with price discovery will invariably prove more resilient over time than a system that does not make such demands. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were financial time bombs of one kind, then surely China's state-owned enterprises are time bombs of another. Can anyone determine with even approximate confidence the extent of their liabilities?

Well, it makes sense to me but I would be interested to hear opinions from readers, particularly those more knowledgeable than I am on matters economic.

Can they really predict the future?

2008-10-10T13:48:00.000+01:00

As we watch politicians and regulators making one futile and potentially dangerous and highly expensive gesture after another to “save the situation”, “restore confidence” or simply rescue their own careers over the financial crisis, it is worth turning our attention to other situations they have messed up with their certainty that they have knowledge that is denied to ordinary mortals.

Today’s post brought the latest pamphlet from the Institute of Economic Affairs: “Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists”, and very interesting it looks, too.

From the Foreword, written by Bruno Prior, Director of Summerleaze Ltd, renewable energy entrepreneurs:

Certainly, the public pronouncements of politicians and the detailed central planning and regulations that they propose seem predicated upon the belief that politicians, their advisers and their regulators have limitless knowledge about the science and economics of climate change, energy use and the environment.

Or perhaps the political class does not have such knowledge, but nevertheless the precautionary principle demands that something must be done. That is the asymmetric precautionary principle, which demands precaution against the risk that today’s freedoms may harm future generations more than they benefit present generations, but opposes precautions against the risk that today’s constraints may harm present generations more than they benefit future generations.

From a politician’s or a regulator’s point of view that is a wonderful situation since we do not really know what will harm or benefit future generations, though we can make some assumptions on the basis of historical knowledge. Therefore, as far as that politician or regulator is concerned, as well as, sadly, too many people in the outside world, any horrifying prediction can be made with no fear of contradiction.

Well, some fear of contradiction and that fear is growing. More and more people are defying what was not so long ago known as a complete consensus (a frightening idea as, for instance, Louis Pasteur could have told us). One of the earliest to do so was Björn Lomborg and there was another well-argued piece in the Times a week or so ago. The comments at the bottom are quite interesting, too, and far more varied than one might have expected though there is still quite a lot of sheep-like bleating as well as the odd piece of silliness, which the author clearly considers to be very witty. You get them everywhere.

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that, as Mr Prior says, government targets rather than market solutions destroy flexibility in development and response to unforeseen contingencies:

State rationing needs firm numbers. The uncertainty may be vast and the permutations of all the unknown variables impossibly complex, but we can provide the necessary figures by applying statistical techniques to sets of tenuous assumptions. The probability of future developments conforming with these assumptions may be negligible, but (having rejected a genuine market approach) there is no option to do without assumptions, and any other set of assumptions will be equally improbable. In a few steps, we convert uncertainty into certainty and dictate that our critics must do the same.

Thanks to this certainty, there is no need or space for entrepreneurs in the traditional sense – that is, those who discover new information in the economic process. Governments have worked out the reasonable costs and expected volumes of each technology (or good), and how much each sector of industry and society will contribute (or require), so there is no need for innovation nor opportunity for the unconventional. The job of business is to deliver as cheaply as possible
what governments have specified. Without rewards for innovation – for betting against the crowd and winning – the economy coalesces around large businesses with low financial costs, high volumes and low margins delivering what governments have ensure will be the most financially viable (though not necessarily the most economic) solutions.

Socialist planning by any other name is likely to bring about the same sorry results.

We shall see

2008-10-08T23:23:00.001+01:00

Dr Liam Fox has assured a number of people in my hearing that he was a unionist, Atlanticist, pro-American eurosceptic but had not the slightest intention of calling for a withdrawal from the European Union.

He does not like the Lisbon Treaty but seems unaware that certain matters to do with the common foreign and security policy have been developing ever since the Conservatives foisted the Maastricht Treaty on us. No, there was no referendum then, either, though muggins here was one of those who worked hard to secure one.

However, he is absolutely certain of one thing: the Conservatives, when and if in government will pull out of the European Defence Agency. They have already told their colleagues that they will follow the right path for Britain in this as with the EPP. Yes, he did say that. I expect it will be just the same but miracles might be possible. We shall see.

While we are on the subject of what we shall see or not, Dr Fox also assured us all, that he and his party were absolutely certain that NATO must decide for itself who shall be its members and not allow Russia to intervene in the process.

That is all very well, but as I recall the Conservative Party made no statements at the time of the Sofia Summit when Germany and France with support from Spain, Italy and the Benelux countries opposed all plans to start the process of taking Georgia and Ukraine into NATO because Russia did not want it.

As it happens, the final statement was very different from what our French and German “partners” wanted and promised that the two countries’ Membership Action Plan (MAP) applications would be sorted out by the Foreign Ministers of NATO at their forthcoming meeting in December.

As we know, ~~President~~ Prime Minister Putin and his teddy bear President Medvedev assessed the situation accurately and went ahead with their plans to invade Georgia, where the Russian troops have remained despite many promises to withdraw.

Chancellor Merkel has just visited Russia and, while doing a certain amount of grandstanding about how unhappy she was with the Kremlin’s behaviour, in actual fact, assured her hosts that NATO foreign ministers will do nothing about either Georgia or Ukraine at the December meeting. So much for that.

As it happens, Dr Fox did not explain whether the Conservative Party would be making any statements on the subject when those foreign ministers meet; nor did he mention the possibility of a debate about NATO’s relationship with Russia in the Commons. Still, he made some very firm statements about it all. We shall see what they might lead to.

Who will ...

2008-10-07T15:18:00.000+01:00

... sponsor on-line debates of such seriousness in this country? Can't be expensive. Not on-line. Come to think of it, will anyone sponsor a website on which such debates can be conducted? Because, you see, the present tumult and shouting will die (I am still voting present on what to do about the economic mess beyond saying tentatively, get rid of all politicians) but the need to understand politics at its widest will remain. The Right in Britain should be thinking about this but is not.

Yes, I know, it has been cross-posted from EUReferendum but the subject needs to be discussed on as many forums as possible.

Dear, oh dear

2008-10-06T13:15:00.001+01:00

Errm, have you seen the news official CCHQ blog, called, in a burst of originality, The Blue Blog? This is the Conservative Party deciding to come into the twenty-first century and admitting that there is a blogosphere out there.

They haven't quite got it. Not just because the blog is truly bad - badly laid out, ridiculous in content (Who on earth is Shazia Awan and why is she allowed to write that sort of celeb-magazine style rubbish?) and infrequent in appearance. They have also not understood the point of the blogosphere. Its purpose is not to produce official party propaganda though, obviously, some will or to gush about the leader or to preen oneself about how savvy and yoof-oriented one is. The blogosphere, as it exists in the United States and as it will, I sincerely hope, one day exist here, is there to provide a different and balancing point of view from the political establishment.

But then, what can one expect from a party that is apparently supporting the Chancellor's plan to part-nationalize the big banks?

Hmm, about that foreign policy

2008-10-06T11:20:00.002+01:00

Apologies if some of the postings on this blog veer towards American politics at the moment. In the last few weeks of the presidential and other electoral campaigns, developments over the Pond have become very important.

The Vice-Presidential debate has aroused a great deal of interest and excitement with the MSM or Big Media or drive-by media playing an ever more desperate and unpleasant role. As this is of vital importance in modern politics, I shall do a separate posting about that.

Now I just want to call attention to an interesting fact. It has been assumed by many of our political commentators and our own media, which tends to be ignorant at best about America and partial to the left most of the time (I don't mean just the BBC, either) that Sarah Palin is a ditzhead who says the cutest things about foreign policy.

This ignores Governor Palin's solid achievement in the Alaskan and Canadian pipeline negotiations and deliberately obfuscates on the subject of Senator Biden's knowledge as displayed by his statements. Experience he has none, having been a Senator for most of his life. But, as Rudy Giuliani said, when Biden says the cutest, people, especially in the media, just shrug their shoulders. That's just Joe, they say with a tolerant smile.

The Wall Street Journal, I am glad to say, does not have such double standards, probably because they want McCain-Palin to win. Here the editorial article analyzes the gaffes and/or lies that Senator Biden produced during that debate and which passed "unnoticed" by AP, CNN and others of that ilk.

The worst was his assertion that at some point America and France (huh?) managed to throw Hezbollah out of Lebanon. That would be news to the Lebanese, to Hezbollah and to the Israelis. There are other equally "cute" statements.

As the WSJ says:

We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.

On the other hand, is there any evidence that Senator Biden knows anything about the world at all? And is there any evidence that our own ditzy journalists have even asked themselves that question?

Will this make the Polish government more popular?

2008-10-03T11:07:00.002+01:00

The trial of General Jaruzelski has started in Poland. He and his co-accused are pleading not guilty. In the long run, as I have written before on EUReferendum, his defence will be that he saved Poland from the far more brutal oppression by strengthened Soviet forces. It is still unclear how the Poles will react to the trial so many years after the events and after the collapse of the Soviet system.

The state the Right is in

2008-10-01T22:45:00.001+01:00

The list of top 100 people on the right is up on Iain Dale’s blog. You can see the names here and here and read the explanation of how the choice was made. My very limited and unrepresentative sample of people on the right whose opinion of the list I asked came up with a 30 – 40 per cent recognition rate. Who are most of these people was the question. I would be interested to know other people’s reactions.

The reason for the non-recognition is quite simple. This is not a list of important people on the right so much as people who are well known in the Conservative Party. (Even by that standard some of the decisions are odd. Chris Patten as a new entrant at number 45? Chris Patten?) What we have here is largely a list of politicians, ex-politicians and wannabe politicians.

There are two bloggers, Tim Montgomerie and Guido Fawkes; only one writer, Charles Moore; no historians and a few think-tank people, most of whom are down from last year’s position. Journalists are not allowed into the list, even if they are authors of important books. Thus we have to do without such names as Christopher Booker, Simon Heffer, Peter Oborne and Daniel Johnson. Where is Andrew Roberts, for example, or Jeremy Black? Where are the economists like Tim Congdon? Where are the political philosophers? Perhaps there are none.

A similar list in the United States would consist largely of writers, political analysts, essayists, historians and bloggers with politicians as an also ran.

Two conclusions can be drawn, both rather disturbing. One is that the Conservative Party has no interest in anything except day to day politicking and has no desire to understand anything that might be called the larger picture or to take on board any ideas.

The other is that the Right in this country has allowed it to happen and is, therefore, withering on the vine. Whatever the election result will be in November in the United States, the Right in that country will continue to flourish and to run with ideas. In Britain it will also make little difference what the electoral results will be. The Right will remain nothing very much, allowing the Conservative Party to usurp that position.

Politicians are not the proper people to carry a political ideology. They rarely know or understand what is going on and, quite possibly, have no time or ability to do so. If we are to have something called the Right once again flourishing in this country, we need to look beyond MPs, MEPs, former ministers, shadow ministers, councillors or candidates. None of them are going to be creators or disseminators of ideas. Most of the time they do not even understand or want to understand what politics is about.

Their combined inability to grasp the role of the EU in this country’s legal, political and constitutional structure is beyond lamentable, as we have chronicled on this blog. Their combined reluctance to decide what it is they really believe in shows up their ignorance beyond low-level politicking.

And that is the Right in Britain, officially. The question is what is to be done about it.

Sooner or later they will have to talk about it

2008-09-29T15:54:00.003+01:00

The Conservatives are very hopeful about winning the next election when they will be in government but not in power. They do not want to talk about that. George Osborne has made his vitally important speech in which he said nothing of any importance, despite the apparent joy with which commenters on ToryBoy forum have greeted it.

There will be no tax cuts because the economy is in a bad state. The last time we were told there would be no tax cuts it was because the economy was supposedly in good shape and the "profits" would be shared out.

Unreformed, wasteful and seriously harmful instiutions like the education system, the NHS and the Department for International Development will carry on squandering vast sums of money and causing untold harm with it. Great. Really makes it worth one's while to vote Conservative.

There is the rather curious proposal to freeze local taxes for two years if the local councils agree but that is likely to go nowhere.

Then there are the proposals to give the Bank of England more powers to step in with regulations for banks earlier. Unfortunately, this reminds one of the partial nationalization of Bradford & Bingley as well as those endless calls to lower VAT on this, that and the other. None of it can be done without the Commission's say-so. We may get that say-so or we may not. But one would have greater faith in Georgie-Porgie as future Chancellor of the Exchequer if he made it clear that he recognized this fact and had some ideas of how to deal with it.

Of course, the Conservative Party is not actually going to discuss the elephant in the room at this Conference. There are fringe meetings on the EU but not one main debate. This means that there will be no discussion (again) about the extent of the EU's competence in such matters as financial rules and immigration. And that means, in turn, that Tories can go on bleating like blessed little baa-lambs that Europe is not an important subject with the electorate.

Before the conference we had Anthony Browne, former Director of Policy Exchange, now Head of Policy to the new Hizonner the Mayor, writing in the Independent (as quoted by Conservative Home) that he would like to see an amnesty for illegal immigrants who are already in London.

Setting aside such questions as to the usefulness of rewarding legal wrong-doing and the obvious problem that London cannot have an amnesty by itself, there is the problem, unrecognized by Mr Browne or various other commentators that Britain has no right to make decisions on these subjects.

Mr Browne tries to circumvent the argument that an amnesty now would bring in ever more illegal immigrants by promising that there would be toughter border controls. Oh yes? Border controls and matters to do with immigration have been passed over to the European Union.

Recently the ECJ ruled in the so-called Metlock case that individual countries could not prevent non-EU nationals from staying on in an EU member state if they married, however hurriedly, one of those nationals. After which no other member state could keep those hurriedly married newly acquired citizens from entering its own territory. What are the Conservatives going to do about that?

Subsequently, as my colleague on EUReferendum wrote, our own Law Lords decided, going beyond theECJ decision but using it as a basis, that no legal or judicial authority had the right to question whether the marriage was actually a valid one or was merely contracted to keep a certain illegal immigrant in an EU member state, possibly with the intention of moving on to another one.

Questioning such matters as marriages contracted deliberately for visa or right-to-stay purposes, presumably even if that involved a forced marriage imposed on some unfortunate girl in this country, would be against the hopeful illegal immigrant's human rights.

How does Mr Browne or, for that matter, the Conservative Party, propose to get round this problem?

European Voice reports that during the recent meeting the EU's interior ministers (to which Britain sent the junior Minister for Immigration, Liam Byrne) there was a rebellion, led by the Danes.

Denmark's interior minister, Birthe Rønn Hornbech, said during a meeting the EU's justice and home affairs council on 25 September, that she wanted the EU to find a way to undo the effects of the Metock ruling. The Danish governing coalition includes the fiercely anti-immigrant Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People's Party), which has expressed its strong opposition to the ruling.

According to sources, Ireland, Austria, Germany and the UK all also expressed strong reservations about the judgment, arguing that it could encourage marriages of convenience.

The Commission has promised to evaluate the judgement that went further than Directive 2004/38/EC on which it was supposed to rely. This is not an unusual event for the ECJ or for our own Law Lords. Judges are notorious for their constant efforts to supplant politically accountable bodies. Then again, how accountable are the institutions that bring us those wonderful directives.

The Council of Interior Ministers is promising to return to the subject after the evaluation as this is clearly an issue that might cause them all pain at home. But the decisions will be taken at EU level.

Sooner or later even the Conservatives will have to acknowledge this fact.

For anyone in and around Birmingham

2008-09-29T11:03:00.002+01:00

The Bruges Group fringe meeting will take place today at 2.30 in the Birmingham and Midland Institute. As it happens there will be fewer speakers as two of them have withdrawn. Daniel Hannan MEP and Roger Helmer MEP will not now be appearing on the same platform as Nigel Farage MEP and Simon Heffer. I couldn't possibly comment.

Media pluralism?

2008-09-26T13:37:00.003+01:00

Time for a mea culpa. I have done nothing about the proposed control of blogs and bloggers by the EU and the European Parliament's rather pathetic statement on the subject. I shall read it and write a proper analysis.

In the meantime, here are a few links. My colleague on EUReferendum wrote about it on Tuesday, though he concentrated a little on the fate of the ex-blog England Expects. We have covered the subject before here.

The EUObserver gives a curiously up-beat report - all is well with the European Parliament and the blogosphere as nobody was ever going to try to control it and, in any case, the suggestion has been defeated.

The best report, so far, is by Charles Crawford. He actually fisks the Toy Parliament's statements and finds many horrifying aspects to it. Way to go. I completely agree with his ridicule of the concept of media pluralism. What on earth does that mean? Clearly it is not the same as freedom of the media as that would imply that the Toy Parliament and the other EU institutions had nothing to do with it. Media pluralism, on the other hand, suggests a structure that is actually defined by the powers that be. Rather like a charter of rights that is graciously awarded to people by the state.

More on the substance of the story as I have time to fisk the relevant documents myself.

The silence is not entirely unproductive

2008-09-25T18:57:00.002+01:00

I apologize for the long silence. Many things have caught up with me. One of them was a conference on "Free Speech, Jihad and the Future of Western Civilization" on Monday. Over on EUReferendum2 there is a long posting full of preliminary musings. Enjoy.

Ukraine in trouble, Russia worse off

2008-09-21T23:37:00.000+01:00

The Ukrainian government collapsed a few days ago and the acrimonious exchanges between the Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and the President Viktor Yushchenko have exceeded the usual nastiness of those frank and open political discussions.

Yushchenko has accused Tymoshenko of betraying Ukraine’s national interests by leading her party to form a new coalition:

According to Yushchenko, the decisions that the parliamentary factions of
the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the Party of Regions, and the Communist Party are jointly adopting are aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country with the aim of changing the political system.

"One subject is at work - how to bring the country to instability, create a balance of interests through destabilization, hold early presidential, parliamentary, and local elections... In other words, to establish a political regime in which neither you nor I would want to live," Yuschenko said.

In return Tymoshenko accused the President of madness and telling lies about her own and his political behaviour. This could go on for a long time and probably will.

In the meantime the notion of Ukraine participating in any progress towards membership of NATO will have to be abandoned and the most immediate beneficiary of yet another Ukrainian crisis will be the Kremlin who are happy to stir up trouble in that country.

Moscow Times reports that leaders of Georgia and Ukraine will be heading to the UN this week to ask for support for their membership of NATO. Curiously enough, they do not seem to be all that interested in membership of the EU.

President Saakashvili may have thanked the United States and European countries (not the European Union) for their support but he knows full well that the biggest and, apparently, the weakest of the EU’s member states will not even consider standing up to Russia and are reluctant to consider changing their energy policy in order not to have to rely on Russian oil, gas and coal.

Not that this has helped Russia at all. Their financial crisis started before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and has, so far, been considerably more severe than anything the West has had to put up with.

Still, President Medvedev knows how to deal with internal and external problems. His solution consists of screaming abuse at everyone else and announcing that Russia will delineate its southern Arctic boundary in order to strengthen to country’s position in the world. After all, a country that cannot properly develop its existing resources in Siberia must have more outlets that it cannot develop and from which it has to exclude necessary Western technology, knowledge and capital. Such a good idea.

The United States has announced that Russia’s decision will have no validity in international law.

The State Department statement said the United States has no information about any proposed Russian Arctic legislation. Medvedev's public statements indicated, however, that the effort is to define the Arctic's boundary within the Russian land mass.

"Arctic nations use different criteria for defining the portions of their territory considered to be part of their Arctic regions," the statement said. "The definitions are generally for the purpose of internal administration and have no standing in international law."

It said the Russians are gathering scientific evidence to support their earlier contention that the country's continental shelf reaches the North Pole. A technical commission under the Law of the Sea Convention will recommend based on scientific criteria the disposition of the submission, the statement said.

Well, it works with some people. While Russia has not managed to garner support even in the Central Asian countries, the EU is rushing to the rescue after extremely friendly talks between French Prime Minister François Fillon and former Russian President, now Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The EU will resume talks on the projected partnership if Russia withdraws its troops from Georgia completely, something she is quite reluctant to do. Of course, the two so-called break-away republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, will remain part of Russia.

Whom should we fear more?

2008-09-13T10:47:00.008+01:00

In a recent address to the Bruges Group John O'Sullivan, the Executive Editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and author of "The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister" gave an interesting analysis of the dangers freedom and democracy face in the twenty-first century.

Mentioning Robert Kagan's "The Retunr of History and the End of Dreams", an interesting but somewhat inadequate slim tome about which I have written before, O'Sullivan expanded the theme. Kagan's book is about the return of old-fashioned power politics and the negation of the supposed utopia - the new international and transnational political geometry. As I have mentioned before, there seems no evidence that power politics ever went away, but it is possible to argue that it was in abeyance for a few (very few) years.

The first enemy we face is radical Islamism. John O'Sullivan's view and it is hard to argue with it, is that they are not as dangerous as all that. They can cause a great deal of damage but radical Islamists are failing in their main purpose - the establishment of a world-wide caliphate - and are not succeeding in their secondary purposes either. They have not been able to get rid of a single pro-Western government in the Muslim world since 9/11; they are losing in Iraq and not doing terribly well in other countries. Even in Afghanistan the main problems have to do with tribal structures and economic dysfunctionality, the latter of which the West could, should it have the political will, deal with.

The second enemy is, indeed, the strengthening autocracies who are detemined not to emulate the democracies but to go their own way. That would not matter, except for the fact tha their way involves a great deal of enmity towards the democracies and attempts to undermine them.

There are two reasons why I am optimistic about that battle. One is that the rising autocracies, particularly China and Russia are not as strong as many people seem to think. China's internal problems became manifest in the run-up to and during the Olympics and matters have not got much better even though the information is patchy.

Russia may act like a bully but her dependence on Western buyers and investors has been shown up recently and threatening, manipulating and invading other countries is not necessarily the best way of making your own stronger.

The second reason why Russia is less frightening than it used to be and why radical Islamists are an enemy we can deal with is because they cannot produce effective propaganda.

In this connection I should like to quote a passage from a fascinating book by the Hungarian historian Mária Schmidt, "Battle of Wits", about the East European show-trials and the American spy cases, in particular the Hiss case. Trying to analyze why Westerners became Soviet agents, Dr Schmidt writes:

First of all we have to establish that for those who embraced Communism, the Soviet Union stood for the "Fatherland", i.e. the country of their allegiance whose interests they represented. It is worthwhile to keep this fact in mind when we read harshly judgmental sentences about Cold War propaganda.

On the development of this strange attitude le me quote George Orwell, who started out as a left-winger, and whose inner conflicts were partly caused by the fact that he considered the interests of his own country to be above those of the Soviet Union. [Actually, Orwell went on being a left-winger but an anti-Communist one and he had no real inner conflicts about his feelings for his country but let that pass.]

Orwell writes again and again about the peculiar disjunction that characterized the English fellow travellers and Communists. In his essay, Inside the Whale, he explains that as they divest themselves of their former loyalties and superstitions, the Communists fill the gap by making up
their "losses".

And the result of this compensation is "Father, king, leader, hero, saviour - all in one word, Stalin. God - Stalin. The devil - Hitler. Heaven - Moscow. Hell - Berlin. All the gaps were filled up. So, after all, the 'Communism' of the English intellectual is something explicable enough. It is the patriotism of the deracinated."

That same sentiment is voiced by the French Communists' well-known adage: "France is the country where we live; the Soviet Union is our fatherland for which we work."

The reason I am less worried about both radical Islamism and the newly strengthened autocracies is that they cannot produce the propaganda.

Let me qualify that. Radical Islamism does produce propaganda and it is frequently very reminiscent of the Soviet one. However, by definition, it can appeal to a small, though possibly deadly minority. The Soviet vision was for everyone and it severely underplayed the violence involved in achieving it.

When countries are accused of surrendering to Islamic extremists, when officials come up with daft statements about not having piggy banks, when rules are broken in order to accomodate the supposed needs of believing Muslims, it is not ideology or a glorious vision that is at work; it is sheer cowardice or, not infrequently, dislike of one's own culture. These people are deracinated as well but nobody has managed to make up their "losses". [One may also add that most of the time the demands do not come from the Muslim community, very few of whom have succumbed to the extremist virus, whatever other problems there might be with assimilation.]

The authoritarian states may have an ideology for their own people - former President, now Prime Minister Putin has certainly tried to build up one of sovereign democracy a sort of an amalgam of the old Russian autocracy, orthodoxy and nationalism and the more virulent anti-Westernism of the Soviet period. However, almost by definition these are not ideologies that can appeal to many people outside the country concerned.

Some people find the idea of muscular defence of the national interest attractive. But not only it is doubtful that the Chinese, say, or the Russian governments have the real interests of their countries at heart, it is also difficult to applaud the aggressive display of national interest of one's opponents.

It is the third of our enemies, the massed ranks of the transnational organization, led by the UN but with the EU as its most powerful force as its aspiration is actually to statehood, that is dangerous. They can produce an ideology and a vision, tarnished though it may be (though, at least, not insanely murderous), which can make up those "losses".

Belief in European integration as the great panacea may not appeal to as many people as it used to but belief in the rightness of national politics being superseded by a morally superior one of transnational one remains attractive to very many people, who will fight for a completely false vision as the Communists and fellow travellers did for all those decades.

More on those silent NGOs

2008-09-13T09:23:00.002+01:00

This blog has commented before on the odd behaviour of feminist organizations and charities for the disabled in connection with the highly personal attacks on Sarah Palin and her family. Now we have another example of odd behaviour.

The latest Obama ad aimed to discredint Senator McCain centres on the fact that he "does not know how to use e-mal". There are, of course, many responses to that. Why should the senator use e-mail when he has staff?

Then again, ever since the 2000 election it has been clear that of all the Republican campaigners it is McCain or his staff who have harnessed the power of the internet more effectively than anyone else. So, who cares whether he can actually post his own e-mails?

There is the unfortunate aspect of the ad that this mocks old people who, supposedly, are not computer literate, a mockery that will turn many people away from Obama. Not only there are very many older people in the United States, many of whom are computer literate but many, perhaps, feel no need for it, but they turn out to vote in larger numbers than do the "yoof".

So where are the charities that represent the elderly? I suppose there might not be any in the US because the Age Concern with its assumption that anyone over 50 is a complete crock and needs permanent help would be unthinkable there. Then again big charities tend to exist whatever the situation is. I mean when was the last time people in their fifties were seriously considered to be old and incapacitated?

The Obama attack turns out to be worse than expected. It seems that the reason McCain finds it hard to use the keyboard is the injuries he received when he was tortured in North Vietnamese captivity. Naturally, those injuries, like war injuries, have become worse as he has grown older and he now finds it hard to type (great achievement that is), comb his hair or tie his shoes.

Instapundit gives a round-up of comments. There are some missing. Why are the charities that "speak" for the disabled not protesting? Come to think of it, why is the EU not tut-tutting?

Political consensus is often wrong

2008-09-12T10:44:00.004+01:00

The experts, i.e. the media and political analysts as well as self-appointed know-alls (don't snigger at the back) have maintained the following: Russia is untouchable in her growing economic and political strength; the Russian government is motivated by national interests (this is said sorrowfully by proponents of the new political geometry and gleefully by advocates of national interest); and the United States is the most hated country in the world.

Recent news about Russia's economic situation disproves all of those. As a result of recent economic shenanigans, such as the BP-TNK dispute, now temporarily and unsatisfactorily settled, public attacks on a major steelmaker and, above all, the invasion of Georgia, economic indicators in Russia have been plunging.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal Europe published an article [subscription only, unfortunately], entitled "Investors punish Russia".

Over the past few weeks, Russian share prices have fallen more than 40% from their May highs, battered by fears about Kremlin pressure on comapnies as well as the surge in tensions between Moscow and the West after the war in Georgia.

Russian officials initially brushed off the declines as transitory, driven mainly by weak global markets. But as stock prices and the ruble's exchange rate against the dollar have continued to slide, official concern appears to be growing.

President Medvedev has wavered between blaming the United States because of their mortgage crisis (connection unexplained) and proclaiming the end of the problems and the inevitable climb back by the Russian stock market.

Various analysts remain unconvinced, despite the hasty settlement of the BP-TNK issue, influenced clearly by the economic woes that are hitting Russia.

Many investors and analysts share Mr Medvedev's view that Russian shares are cheap, but they are more cautious about a rebound. "It's probably true, but it might not be until 2011," said Ron Smith, strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow.

Russia's dollar-denominated RTS index fell 4.4% Wednesday [September 10] to 1334.33 as foreign funds continued to unload Russian shares in what Mr Smith described as "capitulation on the country". [I wonder whether Mr Smith thinks capitulation to the country would be better.]

Mr Medvedev blamed Russia's troubles on the U.S. "Let Americans solve the problems with their mortgage system," he said. "To put it simply, they let almost everyone else down."

But investors and analysts say that while the Russian market's swoon is partly due to the global credit crunch and weak foreign markets, Moscow's behaviour has been a big contributor.

On top of which the inevitable fall in the price of oil, metals and other commodities has shown up Russia's reliance on those exports and the short-sightedness of the leadership that has spent the last few years imposing state control on the companies and using its power as energy supplier to interfere in other countries' affairs instead of diversifying the economy through encouragement of investment.

Associated Press agrees that Russian markets and banks are under pressure. Other news stories say the same.

This posting is not a gloat about Russia doing badly economically though a smug "told you so" is allowed, I believe. As it happens, I do not believe that an economically weak and politically contentious Russia is of any help to her people or the rest of the world. But it should have been clear that former President, now Prime Minister Putin's policies would not strengthen Russia any more than stomping around in the school yard strengthens a bully's personality.

What of those three consensus points? Well, the first one is obvious. It is simply not true that the West can do nothing about Russia outside military intervention, which is clearly a nonsensical idea. A commodity exporter needs its market more than a more diversified economy does. Russia is desperately worried that the West, particularly European countries and even more particularly Germany might start diversifying its energy sources. After all, it cannot drink the gas and oil or eat the coal.

Western investment is equally desperately needed and, unfortunately, being nice to the Kremlin does not help matters, as BP has found. On the other hand, the sight of those investments disappearing has concentrated the collective mind somewhat even if President Medvedev continues to play the strong guy.

Secondly, the notion that the Kremlin and, specifically Prime Minister Putin and his teddy bear, President Medvedev have the country's national interest at heart is nonsense. However popular the Georgian invasion may have been (and it is hard to tell as Russian attention tends to be on other matters in August) the sole winner is the Kremlin and its siloviki who see the benefits for their own power in whipping up fears about non-existent foreign threats.

Thirdly, there is the question of everybody hating the United States and, therefore, vaguely supporting Russia as one who stands up to Uncle Sam. In the first place, public outcry against the invasion of Georgia was louder than the had Russians expected even if some official response was muted. In the second place, nobody hates America enough to stop doing business there, invest there or try to go and work there. We and the Russians can see now what happens when a country really falls out of international favour even if only temporarily.

Lest we forget

2008-09-11T11:53:00.001+01:00