The cult of personality

Difficult few days recently, starting a new chapter of the book – number six - and having difficulty getting it flowing. With the Snatch issue flaring up again, writing a post on that took a huge chunk out of yesterday. Hence, this morning I decided on a "heads down" to crack the writing block, and am back flowing again.

That explains a late posting today, with the project forcing me to ration the posts to about two a day, which makes for an interesting problem each day as to what to select from the daily torrent of news as the most appropriate subjects on which to expend the time.

The slight (alright, almost complete) detachment from the day-to-day political theatre though lends an interesting perspective and one tends to see things if not more objectively, certainly from the point of view of the more normal mortal, who does not wake up thinking about politics and then spend the whole day ruminating (or even fulminating) about them.

From that perspective, what caught the eye this morning (apart from an article that said Brown’s bank bailout wasn't working) was a column from Irwin Stelzer arguing that – if I have understood him correctly – "we" (presumably the political classes) should be cautious about heaping personal abuse on Gordon Brown, and instead look at "the bigger picture".

The prime minister is an "easy target" – too easy – so we should instead admit that he has got some things right or that, where there were alternative courses of action, those alternatives would not necessarily have worked better that those which were applied.

However, Stelzer is now suggesting that "as David Cameron and George Osborne muster the wit and courage to forge a coherent alternative economic policy", rather than attack the persona of Gordon Brown, we should devote our energies to comparing the alternatives on offer. Then, one assumes – although this is not said – we should come to a judgement based on that comparison, rather than simply on the basis of an antipathy towards Brown.

If I have got this right, it is an intriguing thesis, and one that has a certain attraction. And it may be more politically astute than some of the commentators on Stelzer's column aver – some describing him as an "apologist" for Brown.

Effectively, Stelzer may be tapping into the mainstream – not the highly vocal "pub bore" tendency or the dominant "forum queens" on some of the political blogs, laying down the law about how terrible Brown is and how we should all hate him.

Most ordinary people (who form the bulk of the electorate) don't think that way. There is not the black, tribal hatred prevalent in the Tory camp, which assumes that because they hate Brown so much, everybody else must. This route to salvation is to "spread the hate", the consequence being that the Tories fall naturally into office at the next election, a doctrine which finds less favour out in the real world.

With the poll gap narrowing between Labour and Tories – Cameron seemingly having lost his "unassailable" lead - Stelzer's thesis might at least allow some pause for thought. With Cameron at the helm, political discourse has of late very much relied on the "cult of personality", so much so that even Tory Diary is expressing concern about Cameron "giving too many speeches".

In a nutshell, politics is traditionally about the battle of ideas rather than personalities, and I take it that Stelzer is saying that we should return to that concept. I would like to think he is right, and suspect that many people would agree. What an intriguing prospect that would be – politicians arguing about ideas instead of personalities. Is that even possible any more?

COMMENT THREAD

Brothers under the skin

You would not have thought that Nicolas Sarkozy had much in common with Dany Cohn-Bendit but it seems the French president has sided with Dany the Red after he demanded that Václav Klaus should fly an EU flag over Hradcany Castle (pictured).

Recorded nearly two weeks ago on this blog, and then by Booker, Bruno Waterfield now records that Sarkozy has sparked a diplomatic row by attacking the "wounding and outrageous" refusal of the Czech president to fly the accursed ring of stars.

"It was a wound, it was an outrage to see that flags had been taken down from public buildings," says Sarkozy, stating that "Mr Pöttering" – who was part of the plot to bounce Klaus – "can count on the full support of the French president."

Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, however, has hit back, declaring: "There is no law binding the Czech Republic to hang the EU flag over Prague Castle. Prague Castle is a symbol of the Czech state and not the EU."

Schwarzenberg adds: "It is not up to the head of another state to criticise the Czech president over flags," pointing out that even if a major part of the population and EU representatives wanted the flag to be hoisted at Prague Castle, it was only up to the president to decide on whether to do it.

Then, a statement from the office of Mr Klaus put the whole thing to bed, saying: "The Castle is a symbol of Czech statehood. There is no reason to change this historic tradition."

In siding with Cohn-Bendit, however, Sarkozy may have been misled as to what transpired by an article in Le Monde, which gave a highly skewed account of the meeting, describing Klaus as "l'ultralibéral, colérique et europhobe président".

This may explain Sarkozy's further comments where, with reference to what he imagines was said at the meeting, he states: "This is not the way one negotiates with the members of the EU parliament, regardless of what is one's political involvement. This is not the way the symbols of the EU should be treated."

However, we will all be pleased to know that, "Le petit drapeau européen est resté sur la table du président tchèque. Sans trop d'audace spéculative, on peut supposer qu'il ne s'y trouve plus." By now, on suppose that le drapeau is stuffed somewhere where the sun does not shine.

COMMENT THREAD

Should this be denied?

Der Spiegel has an interesting story and a conudrum for German parliamentarians. Should they acknowledge the good work German agents have done in Iraq or not? So far the government has denied any German involvement and the parliamentary committee, investigating the German foreign intelligence service is being cautious as the newspaper dryly points out:

He would make the perfect witness. The tall, slim retired US general has nothing but good things to say about the Germans. He says they are "reliable" and extremely trustworthy. Most of all, though, he knows things that German parliamentarians would like to know.

But General James Marks is not a witness, nor is he ever likely to be one. The German parliamentary committee charged with investigating the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), prefers to question Germans in its effort to find out what role the agency played during the Iraq war. Those asked to testify tend to be government employees and, therefore, dependent on the government. Americans have not thus far been summoned. Indeed, no effort to do so has been made.

Yet, General Marks's praises of those German agents he had to work with would make the most crustily neutralist politician preen himself on behalf of his country and its heroes.

Read the whole piece. Nice pix, too.

The Army has spoken

Picked up early by The Daily Telegraph today was a statement to be delivered by defence secretary John Hutton on the continued use of the Snatch Land Rover in Afghanistan. Correctly forecast – and now retailed by the BBC - Hutton was to say in a written statement to MPs that "The clear advice to me from military operational commanders, unanimously endorsed by the Chiefs of Staff, is that Snatch remains essential to the success for our operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan."

Read more on Defence of the Realm

Euro Mail

Spread widely through the media today is the latest development in that long-running saga, the "privatisation" of the Royal Mail.

It is covered in The Times which warns that there might be "50,000 jobs at risk" in break-up of Royal Mail, and by The Daily Telegraph which tells us that a "£3billion Royal Mail sell-off could be agreed today." From this we learn that the "state-owned firm that runs Britain's postal network will be sold to a private company." The favourite to secure the stake is TNT, the express delivery service that is part of the Dutch postal company, TPG.

Lord Mandelson, the Prince of Darkness, is heavily involved, and has been "thrashing out the deal in recent days and its culmination will be seen as a part-privatisation on the nation's universal postal service."

Then we also get from The Guardian the intelligence that DHL, part of Deutsche Post, is also "thought to be keen on acquiring the stake."

Thus, we are not only seeing "privatisation" but the sale of a strategic business, uniquely identified with the Crown – hence its title the Royal Mail – to European enterprises, to become part of an amorphous trans-national service. But what is entirely missing from any of the media coverage is any explanation as to why the government – with the enthusiastic engagement of Lord Mandelson – is so keen to push through the highly contentious and unpopular measure.

The answer, of course, is the EU's Postal Services Directive, detailed here, the aim of which is to "get national monopolies to open up to competition", ostensibly in order to make postal services cheaper, faster, more efficient and more innovative – similar to the process in the telecom and energy sectors.

As we pointed out in our May piece, the real objective – as always – is entirely political. The plan is to destroy national services, those with a unique national identity, replacing them with cross-border entities which owe nothing to any particular country. Then, in the fullness of time, when the "service" is partly or mainly "trans-national", the EU steps in with a proposal to regulate on a cross-border basis and creates an EU authority with full powers to dictate the rules.

Thus, we see economic integration followed by political integration in the classic EU mould, happening in front of our very eyes. And there is barely a mention of this process made by the media in its torrent of coverage. The best you will get is a reference in Bloomberg which tells us that "EU governments are phasing in competition for postal deliveries between 2011 and 2013, forcing Britain to drop the monopoly enjoyed by the Royal Mail," but that is about all.

As for any coherent opposition to this EU-inspired plan, Bloomberg also conveys the views of David Cameron, who tells us, "The Royal Mail faces a very much more competitive market." Thus, our David supports "solutions that look at joint public and private sector investment so that the Royal Mail can get investment and get some of the changes in working practices that are needed." Not from him a whisper about the elephant in the room.

So it is that the very fabric of our nation is stripped out, with not the slightest protest as the ring of stars spreads its malign shadow over everything and anything we once held to be central to our national identity. How long before our letter boxes are painted blue?

COMMENT THREAD

An Atlantic rift?

While the UK is cosying up to the EU, with its support for the EU navy, it seems to be getting less support from the Americans for its efforts in Afghanistan.

That is certainly the case, according to the Times this morning, which has it that the US is accusing Britain "over [its] military failings in Afghanistan."

The source of the accusations (plural) is identified as Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, a man who has some good knowledge of counter-insurgency operations and who has had some impressive things to say about his own military. Furthermore, he must have something going for him as he was appointed by Bush and has been asked to remain in his job under Barack Obama.

Anyhow, it is Gates who is "understood" to have expressed strong reservations about counterinsurgency operations in British-controlled Helmand province.

One of his concerns seems to be that, since a total of 132 British soldiers have now died in Afghanistan since 2001, the government is worried about public opinion turning against the campaign. It is thus, as it was in Iraq, overly risk averse, with strategy being dictated by the need to avoid casualties rather than by operational requirements.

This is coming to a head with US plans to mount a "surge", contrasted with the British reluctance to commit large numbers of extra troops. British officials are thus concerned that the US may take over control of Helmand – if the British fail to step up to the plate.

The willingness of the US to intervene in the British zone has been a recent feature of the Afghani campaign. Unlike Iraq, where the management of the southern zone was left entirely to the British – even when it was obvious that it was going belly up – US forces have already contributed considerable forces to operations in the British area, providing US airborne troops for the re-capture of Musa Qala last year and US Marines for operations in Garmsir earlier this year.

That the Americans have had to intervene may be behind what we are told are "grievances" over Britain's lack of equipment, including helicopters, the latter having left troops unable to perform the same tasks as US counterparts and led to more cautious tactics.

That was certainly the case in Musa Qala, where troops from the elite 82nd airborne spearheaded the assault, being flown in by helicopter to the northern outskirts of the town. In that one operation, the US deployed more helicopters than the entire contingent fielded by the UK in Afghanistan.

There is also grumbling, we are told, about the regularity with which US airstrikes are called to rescue British troops – the US providing about 90 percent of the air support across the entire theatre. Much valued though the British air contribution is, there are simply not enough aircraft to cover the entire range of UK ground operations.

But something which is almost certainly a legacy of Iraq is reported "tension and resentment" over the air of superiority adopted by British commanders such as Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster. He, according to The Times has suggested that his American counterparts needed to take lessons from Britain's experience in Northern Ireland and Malaya.

The paper also tells us that David Kilcullen, an adviser to the US State Department, told a recent seminar that there had been "lots of fairly snide criticism" from the British whose attitude had been: "Look at us, we're on the street in our soft caps and everyone loves us."

The repost, not without justice, is that such claims have been undercut by the performance since then. "It would be fair to say that in 2006 the British Army was defeated in the field in southern Iraq," says Kilcullen.

At the same semiar, Daniel Marston, an American consultant who until recently was a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and has been embedded with troops in Afghanistan, said that Britain was being forced to learn some humility after being "embarrassed by their performance".

This is then explained by Carter Malkesian, an expert at the Centre of Naval Analysis. He says: "Among those in the Department of Defence who are paying attention to these operations, Britain's reputation has probably fallen. But they still recognise that the British Army, among all the allies, are those that fight the most and fight the best."

Needless to say, a "senior British defence source" counters these points by saying: "We are punching above our weight in Afghanistan and are the second biggest contributor of all the Nato allies, so for anyone to single us out for criticism is plainly wrong and unfair."

However, whether the British find criticism hard to take, or not, there is no question that the reputation of the British Army has been considerably tarnished by its performance in Iraq. And, whatever might be the skillset of the British military in Afghanistan, they are no longer in a position to lecture the Americans about how to conduct counter-insurgency operations.

However, if the British are not disposed to listen to their allies, they might perhaps be more inclined to take note of one of their former adversaries, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. "The Americans," he said, "it is fair to say, profited far more than the British from their experience in Africa, thus confirming that education is easier than re-education."

Often the greatest barrier to learning is the conviction that the subject is already known, and that there is nothing new to learn – especially if the source of that learning is believed to be inferior. The Americans may have – and indeed have – got things wrong, but they have also shown that they are capable of learning from their mistakes. That same ability is not always evident in the British ranks.

In this, perhaps, the British would be better off with the EU. Being rude about the French and Italians comes much more naturally - and their insults are more readily ignored.

Once again, I am cross-posting this on Defence of the Realm.

COMMENT THREAD

A fair weather member

Any which way you cut it, the management of the euro has been largely dictated by Bundesbank monetary policy, predicated on keeping inflation within acceptable bounds. Other euro members' needs have always played second fiddle to this core priority.

To that extent, the euro experiment has always been driven by German self-interest and, therefore, it should come as no surprise that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is telling us today that that self-interest continues unabated.

In a piece headed, "Bullying Germany gets a free ride with its beggar-thy-neighbour policy," Ambrose confesses that, for the first time in his life, he is starting to feel twinges of anti-German sentiment, sharing what he describes as a loss of patience "with the antics of the finance ministry and Bundesbank, and with the dictatorial turn in Berlin's EU strategy."

His thesis is that Germany "is pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbour policy." It is not fulfilling its responsibilities as the world's top exporter and pivotal power of Europe's monetary union. It is leaching off global demand, even as it patronizes Anglo-Saxons, Latins, and Slavs.

For sure, Ambrose nods in the direction of "binge debtors in the Anglosphere" who he acknowledges "are much to blame for this crisis". But, he reminds is, "Germany rode the boom too." It made those Porsches and BMWs driven by the new rich. Its banks are among the most leveraged in the world.

His thesis is, as one might expect, highly contentious, with well over 100 comments on the online edition of his piece – and some unfavourable comment flying round the internet. But Ambrose has a point. The whole idea if the EU experiment is that national interest should be suppressed. We are all "partners" is this brave new enterprise, and being communautaire is the new black.

With Germany and France long considered the "motor" of European integration – and Germany the dominant economic power – this sets up Germany as the key player, imposing on it a strong responsibility to approach economic issues from a "European" perspective rather than putting national interest first.

What, therefore, Ambrose is pointing out is the difference between "European" rhetoric that has been spewing out from Germany in the last 50 years and more, and the harsh reality. When the chips are down, Germany has reverted to type and is looking after its own national interests and putting “European” needs very much in second place.

That Germany should do so is hardly surprising, but its own actions should be measured against its euro-rhetoric. Either Germany is a core member of the EU or it is an independent nation state, entitled to promote its own interests irrespective of the effects on its "partners".

In theory, it can't be both but, in practice, it is turning out to be a "fair weather" member, fully communautaire when it suits it – and when it benefits from other members so being – but just as nationalistic as it ever was when there is any conflict. But, while Germany is by many judged right to pursue its own interests, measured by its own rhetoric, it is wrong to pursue the line it is taking.

What Ambrose does not point out (in this particular piece), however, is that behind the scenes this nationalistic action is placing enormous strains on the EU construct. We know that the economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy – to say nothing of France and Ireland – are groaning under the additional burden of euro membership. But for the common currency, we would be seeing a number of European currencies going into a nosedive alongside the pound.

What the euro is doing though, is hiding the cracks – but that does not mean they are not there. They are indeed there and serious stresses are building up in the system which are bound to give vent in the not too distant future. When that happens, the national interest that Germany is so obviously following, will become evident amongst all the players, with the EU left on the margins, a fractured and impotent entity.

By comparison, Brown's mismanagement of the British economy will seem of minor importance, as the fracture lines grow to earthquake proportions. What is happening in Germany is only the start.

COMMENT THREAD

Some interesting speculation

Moving away from the problems of the European Union and Britain's membership of that benighted organization, here is an interesting posting on Powerline about the way sentimental left-wing twaddle has managed to instill itself into so many people's minds.

It seems that the musical "Billy Elliott" opened not so long ago on Broadway, where you have to pay considerably more than an arm and a leg to see a musical, and is as big a success there as it is in London. Wild horses would not drag me to a show with music by Elton John but, I understand, the film is not bad if you disregard the sentimental and inaccurate politics of it.

I have had to listen to far too many tearful statements about the destruction of the wonderful mining community and the evil government (Thatcher's) that turned this country towards economic success (since squandered by other governments) to be surprised by the piece on Powerline.

I also recall people's attitudes to those strikes that brought the country to a standstill every year and made life extremely uncomfortable for everyone. Yet sentimentality and left-wing mythology prevails in this country where people ought to know better and over the Pond where they probably know nothing about British miners or their strikes.

The Journal also dispatched Roger Kimball, a fan of the film, to check out the Broadway musical. Kimball derides the clichéd left-wing politics that infuse the musical. He observes: "It's an odd phenomenon. In theaters and museums across the Western world you find audiences applauding sentiments that, were they translated into the real world, would spell their demise."

Nail, meet hammer.

The final humiliation

Carried in The Independent yesterday and reinforced in The Times today is the final template for the final withdrawal of British forces from Iraq.

The Independent puts is bluntly, telling us that the departure is enforced, with Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, taking his revenge for what he regards as the British surrender of Basra to hardline Shia Muslim militias. By this means, British forces in Iraq are facing a humiliating end to their six-year mission in the country.

What brings this about is the expiry of the current UN mandate on 31 December, leaving Britain without a legal framework for its continued presence after that date. The Independent had it that "frantic diplomatic efforts" were under way to secure an extension.

The situation was described as "extremely serious" and it is this which is behind the government's announcement last week that Britain's 4,100 troops in Iraq would begin withdrawing in March, and leave completely by the end of June - apart from 400 troops in training and mentoring roles.

At the time this story was published, the situation had not been clarified with a senior figure saying that it was "quite possible" that no agreement past the end of December would be ratified, in which case British troops would have to start pulling out immediately as they would have no legal basis for remaining.

In The Times, however, there is added detail. Still heralding Britain facing a "humiliating Iraq withdrawal", the story is there that British forces are now to be required to leave by the end of next July.

The worst of it is that Britain has been lumped in with five smaller contingents, including those of Romania, El Salvador and Estonia, and included in a "mini-agreement for the six entities", separate from the main agreement which has US forces leaving within three years. The other "entities" have been given until May to cease duties and then a period of two months’ grace to get out by July 31.

Britain had hoped for a separate deal, along the lines negotiated with the US but Fawzi Hariri, the Iraqi Industry Minister, says: "There was no way we could have done a security agreement to the same level of detail that we had with the Americans in such a short period." Thus we have been lumped in with Estonia and the rest.

The Times also rehearses the background, telling us that the Iraqi Prime Minister's discontent boiled over last spring. Having done a deal with armed groups to leave Basra Palace, their last sizeable outpost within Iraq's second city, in the summer of 2007, British forces remained largely confined to the airport.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, argued that Britain's troops were the main target of attacks, and that their withdrawal had led to a reduction in violence, but in the Iraqi Prime Minister's view, Basra was simply abandoned to warring militias. He launched a successful Iraqi military operation, supported by US forces and dubbed "Charge of the Knights", to seize the city in March, with British troops taking only a small and belated part.

The senior source said a bilateral agreement on the future status of British forces had "supposedly ... been about to happen for months and months", adding: "We should not forget how angry – and mistrustful of the British – Maliki is for allowing the Shia militias to take over in Basra. He regards the British as having entirely sold the pass. It is true that it suits him, for domestic political reasons, to be seen to be giving the British a hard time, but it happens to be something he feels very cross about."

In truth, Maliki has every right to be "cross". The British retreat actually started right at the beginning in May 2003 when the government decided to opt out of running a southern Iraq devoid of government, and progressively handed over the running of the region to the militias.

The turning point came in August 2006 when the Army quit al Amarah, leaving it to the Mahdi Army, under which control it has remained until last June, becoming the weapons "depot" which supplied the rest of the Shi'a insurgency in Iraq. It was only in June that 20,000 Iraqi troops, backed by 2,500 elite US troops, finally moved back in to impose, for the first time since the invasion, the writ of the Baghdad government.

The full story has yet to be told (although it is in the process of being written) but this final humiliating chapter sets the seal on what has in reality been a comprehensive defeat for the British Army. The blame, however, lies mainly with the government, from Blair through to Brown. Nevertheless, the Army brass does not exactly come out of this with any glory.

So far, though, the government has sought to "spin" this defeat as a victory – and its has partially got away with it, relying on the Army to support it, in the knowledge that it too will not want to walk away from Iraq admitting its own failures.

Too many people though know exactly what went on and this is too big even for New Labour to "spin". The truth will out, and it is not pretty. But it typifies the utter incompetence of a government more concerned with "spin" than soldier's lives or the welfare of the people whose land it had invaded.

As our troops finally march away, to their ships and aircraft, this will indeed be the final humiliation. This government must not be allowed to get away with pretending otherwise. But the Army also needs to come to terms with its own failures for, without learning the lessons that come with that, it is setting itself up for another, more serious failure in Afghanistan.

As Thomas Harding writes in a superb piece published a few days ago, "if we are to win out in the far more challenging arena of Afghanistan, then the Army had better change, and change soon."

I am cross-posting this on Defence of the Realm.

COMMENT THREAD

How could we have forgotten this?

Yes, yes, we are all feeling sorry for ourselves what with the weather being quite seasonal and politicians being inadequate (I am shocked, shocked I tell you) but still there is something to smile about when we recall what happened five years ago yesterday. Happy anniversary to all Iraqis.

A vacuum at the heart of politics

Today in his column, quite rightly, Booker picks up on the confrontation between Václav Klaus and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (amongst others), the transcript of which we published last week.

Booker, of course, takes it further, pointing out that the confrontation in Hradcany Castle confirms "the inability of the Euro-elite to accept anyone else's opinions," and also puts it in context. He writes:

Imagine that a Franco-German MEP, invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, plonked down in front of her an EU "ring of stars" flag, insisting that she hoist it over the palace alongside the Royal Standard, and then proceeded to address her in a deliberately insulting way. The British people, if news of the incident leaked out, might not be too pleased.

This bizarre confrontation, Booker tells us, has been recounted and discussed with shock across formerly Communist eastern Europe. But not here in the MSM to any great degree until it gets in the column. But, as he says, it does confirm the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds different views from their own, on Lisbon, global warming or anything else.

As we see from the way our own political parties are run, when it comes to "Europe", the system has no place for opposition. Everything must be decided by "consensus", directed from the top. There is only one approved "party line". Apart from a few little powerless dissidents round the edges, the EU is thus in essence a one-party state.

It was a sense of this that powerfully influenced the French, Dutch and Irish people, when they were given the chance, to vote against the constitution which will cement that one-party state into place more firmly than ever.

And, concludes Booker, it explains why, last week, the European Council told the Irish that they must hold their referendum again, on the understanding that this time they will get it right. That is the way one-party states behave – as President Klaus, who lived under one for the first 50 years of his life, knows only too well.

We then get Daniel Hannan essentially rehearsing the same theme, who in his own piece writes:

This is becoming like the closing scenes of Terminator. However many times you kill the European Constitution, it keeps lurching to its feet again. Blam! Fifty-five per cent of French voters say "Non". Zap! Sixty-two per cent of Dutch voters say "Nee".

But the automaton keeps advancing, its flesh burned away, its charred metal skeleton stamped with the words "Lisbon Treaty". Then – pow! – 53 percent of Irish voters vote "No". The machine is briefly swallowed by orange flames. Then, after a short lull, the red lights …

In The Sunday Times we get Minette Marrin writing in her own way about the same theme, under the heading: "Betrayal all around from the guardians of democracy." It's an odd coincidence, she notes …

… that while democracy and meritocracy have truly spread in the past 50 years, while all sorts of institutions and activities have been opened up to people who used never to get a look-in, political democracy seems to be coming under increasing threat.

On the intimately linked issue of "climate change" there is Nigel Lawson commenting that, "Climate change summits like Poznan and Brussels will cost us the earth", picking up on the mad "climate change circus" beloved of the "colleagues" which is the very antithesis of our system of parliamentary democracy.

A false note comes from that preening idiot Chris Heaton-Harris MEP, in the letters page of The Sunday Telegraph, writing blithely about the British who "still deserve a vote after Lisbon Treaty's ratification".

Thus he observes that there is "a long-standing convention that no Westminster Parliament may bind a subsequent Parliament," entirely oblivious to the fact that, as we noted, the very essence of our membership of the EU is that that doctrine (not a "convention") goes out the window. In front of the very eyes of Heaton-Harris, we have the "climate change agreement" which binds successive parliaments to 2020 and beyond, one of many things emanating from the EU which does likewise.

But the ultimate false note comes from Matthew d'Ancona, who fixes on the current Conservative policy – this on the recession – which as he tells us amounts to the view that "David Cameron can't do anything about recession but must say the right things."

The problem here is that David Cameron's broader view of the more intractable and long-standing problem of the erosion of our democracy is that "saying the right things" actually amounts to saying nothing at all.

In the welter of comment about the way the EU is running rough-shod over our ancient rights, about how it is tearing the economy apart with its obsession on climate change, and how it is making a mockery of the Irish "no" decision by demanding another referendum, there is no political – or any – input from the Conservative party. The Conservatives are simply not part of the debate.

Whether they like it or not, the role of an opposition party is to drive the debate on politics, to explore issues and concerns that the government does not want to talk about. Central to that debate is the way we are governed, and the increasing encroachment of that "one party state" that is the EU.

If the Conservatives refuse – as they are doing – to take part in that debate, then it leaves a vacuum at the heart of politics. And, as we all know, nature abhors a vacuum. The Tory absence is being filled and will be filled by others, leaving the party even more marginalised and irrelevant than it is already.

Their silence is more damaging than they can even begin to imagine.

COMMENT THREAD

So madness descends

While our MPs were safely tucked up in their constituencies yesterday, the "colleagues" were still hard at work. It may have been a Saturday, but there's a planet out there to save, and no time to lose.

In terms of planet-saving, however, the scheme so happily paraded by the European Council on Friday looks to be about as substantial as an EU promise not to repeat a referendum that has delivered a "no" result. In fact, the package is descending into low farce.

That much comes from the details agreed today, where the "colleagues", caught between a rock and a hard place have decided they will allow energy and manufacturing companies in the member states to buy additional "carbon credits" from third countries.

This is the so-called "clean development mechanism", which some of the rabid greenies in the EU parliament wanted to block, concerned that it would reduce the pressure to achieve deep emission cuts.

What the colleagues have agreed, however, is that these filthy, dirty, capitalist polluting swine major employers can, between 2008-2020, top up their EU allowances through the CDM. Furthermore, the allowance has climbed to 1.554 billion metric tons-worth of carbon credits from developing countries such as China. The figure represents an 11 percent increase on the 1.394 billion originally proposed by the EU commission and a great deal more than the greenies wanted, their idea of a quota being "zero".

This comes to us via Bloomberg, which tells us that these permits, administered by the UN, are cheaper than EU allowances. The effect of putting them on the market, therefore, will be to drive down the overall cost of "carbon", thereby reducing the financial incentive to reduce emissions.

Here, the greenies have got it right, in that it prejudices the whole scheme and makes it extremely unlikely that the EU emissions target will be reached. But, faced with avoiding the bankruptcy of the best part of the heavy industrial base within the EU member states or saving the planet, the commission blinked.

What is particularly delicious about all this – and much more – is that much of the pressure has come from Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been threatening to veto the whole climate change package unless it was toned down.

Here, he has been extraordinarily robust – unlike our lot which would have bought the whole thing unchanged. Berlusconi told journalists that he thought it was "absurd" to be talking about carbon emissions in the face of the more pressing financial crisis. "It's like someone with pneumonia thinking about having a hairdo," he said.

It's actually a lot madder that that – more like going for a long walk in a blizzard in your underpants. With full auctioning required for electricity producers from 2012, we are still stuffed. The only real difference is that we've been allowed to keep our socks on as well.

And so the madness descends. But I don't know what really worries me most. The package that the "colleagues" have produced is one thing. But working on Saturdays? That really is scary.

COMMENT THREAD

Take a break!

I suppose the fact that the Greek police are running out of tear gas must tell you something about the situation in that benighted country.

One smiles though to see that the Greek authorities are appealing for help to replenish their stocks … to Germany and Israel. What happened to all this EU solidarity? Surely there are stocks of "euro-gas" floating around in Brussels for just this sort of contingency? Or are the "colleagues" reserving it for when things get a bit closer to home?

We are told, incidentally, that Greece is in its ninth day of riots, with as many as nine banks having been targeted last night – an interesting reflection of where the mob sees its enemy. But the longevity of the "disturbances" has also spawned some ruminatory pieces in the media, not least The Guardian.

Here, an analysis by Maria Margaronis in Athens notes that the teenagers and twenty-somethings who have come close to toppling the Greek government "are not the marginalised".

This, she writes, "is no replay of the riots that convulsed Paris in 2005." Many of the rioters are sons and daughters of the middle classes, shocked at the killing of one of their own. They are "disgusted with the government's incompetence and corruption, enraged by the broken promises of the education system, scared at the prospect of having to work still harder than their exhausted parents."

The analysis may be off the wall, but there may well be more than a grain of truth in it and, if that is the case, there are issues here which have a strong resonance in the UK. There are distinct commonalities which should have people over here thinking hard as to whether the same unrest is about to hit here – with urgent assessments of tear gas inventories.

In a saner world, one might expect a long debate in the House of Commons, where the various issues could be chewed over, the parallels considered and some ideas offered as to what relevance these disturbances have to the UK and lessons could be learned, before rather than after the event.

The idea of such a debate, however, is wishful thinking. With the news agenda crammed, serious events happening all over the world - not least the tragic news from Afghanistan, where four soldiers have been killed – our parliament is taking a break.

This, as The Daily Telegraph tells us, is the longest Christmas break for more than 10 years. It will start next Thursday when the MPs pack their bags and return to their constituencies, not coming back until 12 January.

Quite rightly, Tory Diary expresses some dismay but, as we pointed out in our previous post, parliament has become so marginalised that it has little to do. The MPs might just as well go home, for all the good they can do in Westminster.

Some MPs themselves are unhappy with the situation, and we are told that the long break has "renewed accusations that politicians are out of touch with the working lives of ordinary Britons". But this is not merely a question being "out of touch". Parliament is impotent. What it says and does now is of very little importance and the fact that MPs can be summarily packed off home tells you all you need to know.

The trouble is that parliament does have a purpose. It is, in effect, the voice of the people, its debates articulating their concerns. Thus, if parliament is silenced, the people are deprived of a voice. But, as we see in Greece, when that happens, they go elsewhere to express their views. While MPs enjoy their break, therefore, they may care to reflect that it is more fundamental – a break between themselves and the people.

If that continues, it could become permanent and it will take more than stocks of tear gas to fix it.

COMMENT THREAD

What is the point?

The EU "climate deal" – stitched-up at the European Council – is being variously hailed as an "historic agreement" on cutting pollution (they mean Carbon dioxide) and, by the Greens a "failure".

Generally speaking, anything that pisses off the Greens is something we favour but, in this case, even their "failure" is highly destructive for democracy.

Without going into the finer points of the deal – mainly because they are so utterly tedious – what should strike everyone are some of the broader details, helpfully provided by The Independent.

This paper tells us that the "colleagues" have agreed a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, compared with 1990 levels … nothing new there. Then there is a 20 percent increase in use of renewable energy by 2020. Nothing new there either, except it ain't going to happen (nor is the emission cut, but never mind).

Something newish is a 20 percent cut in energy consumption via improved efficiency by 2020. That hasn't a hope in hell of happening through efficiency but, when the electricity system shuts down, that surely will help cut consumption.

Now we get to the interesting bits. The allocations of "carbon permits" under EU emissions trading scheme is to be cut by a fifth from 2005 levels, power companies will have to buy their permits at auction from 2013 and auctioning for other industrial sectors and aviation will be phased in by 2020.

The point … always the point. These are to be mandatory provisions, locked in by EU law, agreed by all the member states including our own. That makes 2013 an interesting year – it will be three years after our general election. The year 2020 is at least three if not four general elections away. Yet these matters are being decided and cast in stone by this parliament.

Whatever happened to the doctrine of "no parliament can bind its successor"? And, if this no longer applies, what really is the point of having general elections?

COMMENT THREAD

The erosion of government

It was in July of this year that the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee - prop. Tim Yeo - told the government that it must set a deadline for coal-fired power stations to install technology massively to cut their emissions, or they must be shut down.

In so doing, the committee sought to add to the burden on an industry which is already, for diverse reasons, failing to get to grips with the looming electricity shortage – offering a strategy which would make it near certain that the lights went out in 2012 or sooner.

Now, from the same House of Commons which brought you this lunacy, we have the Business and Enterprise Committee, headed by another Conservative MP – this time Peter Luff. His committee is warning that Britain is threatened by an "energy crunch" with disastrous social and economic consequences.

The warning, we are told, is to be found in a report published by the committee this morning but – at the time of writing – this is not yet on the internet, so we must rely on media reports for the content. That is never a wise thing to do.

However, according to the Financial Times, the reason the Committee feels that we are in this dire situation is because of the impact of the financial crisis on the industry's investment plans.

Thus do the MPs write that: "Generating capacity equivalent to nearly a third of current electricity demand will be made redundant by 2020. It will need to be replaced. We believe that in the current economic climate there is a high risk that the energy companies will not be able to raise the finance necessary to build this."

To ram home the point, Peter Luff then tells the FT (doubtless via a press release) that there was a concern about investment in new nuclear power stations, because of the increased cost of raising funds, and the government's failure to set a clear policy lead.

"Particularly for nuclear, the important thing for investment is the cost of capital, and that plus the fact that there is not a statement of need for nuclear from the government means there is a real risk of not getting the nuclear investment we need," he says.

Luff and his committee have a point but, of course, there is much more too it – as we all well know. The problem for these MPs is that energy has recently been transferred to the new "climate change" department. Thus they only have a residual responsibility for energy, confined mainly to financial and investment issues. This rather limits the scope of what they can discuss and report upon, without treading on the toes of another committee.

The greatest value of this report, therefore, is the negative messages it sends – that there are conflicting issues and that there is no one with overall responsibility for dealing with them.

Those, unfortunately, are too subtle to be readily appreciated or understood but are the reasons why the lights are going to go out. No one is in overall charge – there is no one to get a grip and sort the problems out. Everything is compartmentalised and detached, everyone doing their own little bit, without reference to their impact on other areas.

That, in a very real sense, is the general paradigm. With power and responsibilities split, and spread between national and international bodies, no one person or entity – like the British government – has any longer the wherewithal to resolve even pressing issues like maintaining our electricity supplies.

With electricity, however, the outcome cannot be fudged. Soon enough the lights will go out, and it is then that the questions will start to be asked in earnest and the majority of people will begin to learn how badly their systems of government have been eroded. It is a great pity though, that it will have to come to that.

COMMENT THREAD

Self-destruct mode

There was a sense of unreality in the report last night, headlined: "World hoping for EU global warming deal," another of those lurid misstatements churned out by AP.

However, from the copy, you do get a sense of how self-important our "European Union leaders" are, when the delicious AP tells us that, with "the world watching" our revered "colleagues" were under pressure "to seal an ambitious deal slashing greenhouse gas emissions". At least the agency has then adds: "… while their economies slide into a slowdown."

Strangely, outside this bubble of "climate groupies" one does not see in the rest of the media any indication that this is the world-shattering event that the participants make it out to be.

You thus have to smile when you are told that "an EU deal could galvanize United Nations global climate talks that failed to make progress in Poznan," and then hear Swedish prime minister Frederik Reinfeldt earnestly declaring: "I came from Poznan so I know that they are actually sitting and waiting for a European response."

Another self-important man also pitched in yesterday, with his own concerns – not unrelated to those of the "colleagues", albeit in a different field. This was Declan Ganley, chairman of Libertas, who managed to pack a press conference in Brussels, then announcing that his organisation, which successfully contested the Irish referendum, is now to contest the European elections in 2009 "on a Pan-European basis".

The Libertas website offers the gist of what Ganley had to say, his main pitch being that, "If people want a strong and healthy Europe that is democratic and answerable to them, they should vote for a Libertas candidate."

On the other hand, he says, "If they do not want Europe to succeed or if they are happy with the current undemocratic practises, then they should vote for an incumbent party. For those who weren't given a vote on the Lisbon Treaty, this will be their referendum".

Wrapped in the EU flag, he does of course mean the "European Union". And, in arguing for an EU that is "democratic" and "answerable" he is, unfortunately suffering from an advanced case of barking cat syndrome. If the EU was either "democratic" or "answerable" or both, it would no longer be the European Union but something else.

A surpranational government, which is what the EU is, could not, by its very nature, exist with those characteristics. But then, the tautology implicit in the use of the two words – the second certainly being dependent on the first – suggests that Mr Ganley is more concerned with sloganising than precision.

If anything, though, he shares the same sense of unreality that afflicts the climate groupies, in thinking that what he represents is actually important. The reality is though that EU member states economies are not so much sliding into a "slowdown" as an abyss. Like it not, the economy is going increasingly to dominate peoples' thoughts.

Closer to the reality, therefore, is the news that the Greek riots are spreading across Europe, with disturbances being reports as far afield as Moscow and Madrid. Even in Copenhagen, 32 people were arrested when their protest in support of the Greek protests turned violent.

Needless to say, despite the turmoil in Greece, prime minister Costas Karamanlis has still jetted off to Brussels to attend the European Council, leaving behind him a government with a parliamentary majority of just one seat. That shows where his priorities really lie, but one wonders whether his majority will still be there when he gets back.

What I particularly liked though was a comment in a newspaper, which stated "This is a country with a state that is in a shambles, a police force in disarray, mediocre universities that serve as hotbeds of rage instead of knowledge and a shattered health care system. It is also on the brink of financial ruin." I had to do a double-take to realise that this was the Greek paper Kathimerini, writing about Greece, which it says is in "self-destruct mode".

Greece is not the only country and, with the "colleagues" prattling on about global warming, Ganley about being "democratic and answerable" and our own local politicians about who knows what (or cares), it seems the whole political class is set to follow.

COMMENT THREAD

Protected minority?

The House of Lords (though, of course, not the highly paid House of Commons) will be sitting tomorrow to debate several matters, including a report published by the European Union Committee in July, entitled “Initiation of EU Legislation”. Even if one disagrees with their choice of witnesses (though, to some extent, this is self-selecting) and some of the conclusions, it is a fascinating document to read as it lays out many of the issues of EU legislation very clearly and cogently, though often admiringly.

The word "accountability" is not mentioned, curiously enough.

At present, I am working on notes for the debate on which I shall report as soon as Hansard publishes the words spoken. In the meantime, let me bring up one interesting point made in connection with legislation to do with justice and the problems common law countries face. Incidentally, this is about the only part of the EU legislation in which Member States can initiate legislation. In all other sectors, it is the Commission.

Paragraph 51 of the Report says:

The Bar Council pointed out that the exclusion of national stakeholders from the Justice Forum carried the risk, in particular, that the voice of the common law systems would not be heard. They drew our attention to a lack of knowledge of common law systems among Commission officials, and problems which occurred where draft legislation, particularly in the fields of police cooperation and civil and criminal justice, was drafted without proper consideration of the implications for common law countries. They gave the example of the Commission's green paper on wills and succession.

Great. Let's simply discard centuries of carefully built up and highly admired tradition because the bozos in the Commission Commission officials know nothing about it. Incidentally, this involves four countries: the UK, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

Then again, this is what Professor Steve Peers (Professor of Law, University of Essex) opined:

Professor Peers agreed that the Directorate General concerned with Justice and Home Affairs had relatively few officials from a common law background, and said it was relatively under-staffed. Many proposals have presented huge problems from a common law perspective even where, as in the case of proposals on criminal procedural law and on a European evidence warrant, they had been drafted by English and Scottish nationals, respectively.

English and Scottish nationals? What on earth does this professor of law teach his students? Just don’t send your children to study law at the University of Essex.

The answer to the problem seems obvious to most of us: it is not really possible to create a common system of law for countries that have such different traditions. But that is not the answer that the various witnesses gave to the Committee. This is what Paragraph 55 says:

Professor Peers thought the best solution would be to increase the representation of the common law within the Commission. He suggested that the Commission might consider how it is organised and the way in which it obtains information in the early stages of a proposal, to ensure that different legal traditions are represented. (Q 52) Vijay Rangarajan (Counsellor, UKRep) referred to the Government's work to raise awareness of the common law systems among Commission officials from civil law countries by promoting both training and the secondment of officials from the UK. (QQ 303, 305)

Raise awareness? Isn't that the jargon the Home Office uses when they send police officers for diversity and sensitivity training? It seems that the Member States with common law traditions have joined the ranks of protected minorities. What none of this explains is that whatever awareness may or may not be raised, the policies developed for purposes of integration are unlikely to take common law into account.

The poisonous drip of misinformation

One significant difference between this recession and the last (and the ones preceding it) is the way newspapers are being hit – mostly through a devastating fall in the amount of advertising, although there are many other factors.

Quietly, the big titles are downsizing, reducing the number of journalists they employ. Then, with the burgeoning number of pages and supplements they have to offer, plus podcasts, TV clips and the rest, journalists are actually being asked to do more and more, giving them less time to devote to research and real in-depth reporting.

An important side-effect of this is that, increasingly, the news is not generated by newspapers but by the various agencies. Much of the copy is now simply a "cut and paste" job, with a few tweaks, the less honest of the papers then simply adding their journos' names to the final result.

Where this gets important is that a very few news agencies (and then a very few journalists within those agencies) are essentially controlling the print (and indeed much of the rest of the electronic) media.

Through this means, one sees insidious distortions and simplifications which completely change the context of the political debate. And, like water flowing through the cracks in the dam, they percolate everywhere, finding their way into thousands of print and online journals, influencing the way people think about the world.

By way of example, today we have today a comment by Declan Ganley and Jens-Peter Bonde on the scandalous behaviour of the Irish government, in forcing through another referendum on the constitutional Lisbon treaty. As to what is put to the Irish people, "Not one word or legal obligation will be changed," they say. "The same content will simply be put in a new envelope, just as Valery Giscard d'Estaing said about the change from the Constitution to the Lisbon."

The we have AP briefly reporting on the same issue, under the heading, "EU: Ireland will vote again on treaty next year". This will be repeated a thousand-fold across the world, to be read by millions.

The distortions are well evident, but only to those who know. It tells us: "France, which holds the EU presidency, says Ireland would hold a second vote in return for changes in the treaty." Then, of course, we get the bog-standard formula for describing the treaty: "The document is meant to streamline EU decision-making and boost its role on the world stage…".

As the Ganley – Bonde duo rightly point out – the best the Irish can get is a few meaningless "declarations" which have no legal effect. There will be no changes to the treaty … there cannot be. But this is not what AP is projecting. Its idle simplifications are a complete distortion. They project something which is not true.

As for the intent to "streamline EU decision-making …" etc., we could write an essay on how wrong that is … in fact, we have, several times. But the canards survive, because they are convenient, mindless formulae for the agencies to churn out in their bid to supply the endless pap to fill the pages of the world's media.

At the receiving end, you have production-line journalism, concerned only with filling in spaces – not one whit of sentient thought between copying out the agency text and pasting it onto the virgin page. Worse still, this process is not a deliberate attempt to deceive. But that makes it all the more dangerous.

Media bias, in this context, has never been more real and more dangerous, but the source is not in the offices of the media so much as the agencies which supply them. And their poisonous drip of misinformation is endangering the political process.

COMMENT THREAD

Creaking at the seams

There has been a huge amount of media coverage recently about the talks on "climate change", with both the Poznan conference and the EU coming unstuck as the growing recession hits home.

Nevertheless, it seemed best to hold fire until we see the outcome of Poznan and of the European Council (which actually starts today and runs until tomorrow). Offering a blow-by-blow account is rather like reporting on the gibbering of madmen in a lunatic asylum – and about as interesting. The only problem is that these madmen are running the asylum, and many governments as well.

What particularly struck home, however, is just how many of them there are, with a reported 11,600 participants from around the world at the Poznan beano. One wonders – fleetingly – what they can all be doing but, rather like the content of sausages, it is perhaps best not to ask.

Some – witness the picture above - have clearly been entertaining themselves by displaying a banner from the roof of the town's railway station. One hopes they got rather cold in the process.

However, there is some small hope that the lunatics will be shoved back into their padded cells. Recently, we reported that the EU parliament and the Council had agreed a deal on the Renewable Energy Directive, clearing the way for the approval of mandatory biofuel and renewable electricity quotas.

At the eleventh hour, however, up has popped the Austrian government which has questioned the renewables targets and appears to be threatening the whole Directive. The delicious thing about this is that it had done so after the negotiations between the Council and the EP have been finalised.

The significance of this is that, under EU procedure, since there is now an agreed "common position", there is no mechanism for re-opening the negotiations. This could force the EP to end up voting on a position which is different from that which the Council agrees. Under the arcane rules of the game, that would mean the Directive would fall and the "colleagues" would have to start all over again.

As always, there will be frantic, last minute attempts to stitch up the stitch-up, but there is absolutely no room for manoeuvre if Austria really puts its foot down and blocks the deal. The only way out will be to buy off the Austrian government with concessions unrelated to this particular Directive, which may be the prize which is being played for.

Whatever the outcome of that little drama, it does point to the fact that the "consensus" is creaking at the seams. The "colleagues" may just pull it off this time, but it is becoming clearer by the day that they and their fantasies are living on borrowed time.

COMMENT THREAD

A new(ish) party

It is rare for me to find anything to write about in the European Journal, which is full of Tories and Tory wannabes. Having worked in the European Foundation myself years ago, I can work out relatively easily who actually is responsible for Bill Cash's grand pronouncements.

However, the issue that landed on my doorstep today did have one interesting article, entitled "The Sovereign State", by Manuel Monteiro. Señhor Monteiro is, apart from being one of the numerous "advisers" the European Foundation boasts of, the President of the Portuguese "New Democracy Party", of which, one assumes, Commission President Barroso is not a member.

First port of call, Wikipedia, tells one relatively little about the party but the link to Manuel Monteiro himself does show us a politician who quite likes founding parties and then leading them on until something goes wrong. Well, I suppose, it was only one before the New Democracy Party but it seems to have had a turbulent history.

The official site is in Portuguese, which is not one of my languages, so I need to rely on other people's translation. But I have sent a missive to a very political friend in Portugal, asking her to tell me what she knows about this lot. There may be updates on the story.

Anyway, it is described as a "liberal-conservative" political party and I was left with only one course of action: reading the article. It has a slightly Hegelian air about it and talks much of the usefulness of the state and the highest expression of it, the Nation state.

The utility of the state leads to its necessity. The state is necessary to humans and as such is essential to the autonomous maintenance, and also freedom of the Nation. If, for us, the human has more difficulty in his realisation without the feeling of belonging to a Nation, in the same way the Nation succumbs without the possibility of individual political expression, of its collective will. It is not by chance that, presently, the majority of Nations without a state look for it and want to have it. In the Nation we concentrate our strengths; through the state we attenuate our fragilities. With the Nation, we divulge what we are and desire to be, with the state we defend what we already possess and we create conditions to safeguard what we have to possess.

The state, reflecting the manifestation of people's independence, projects its particular decision in the choice of a political destiny. The necessity of the state does not offer any doubt for its preservation, as its political value must be latent in the political action.

Oh the joys of Continental education. You will not get any British politician arguing this way. Come to think of it, you will not get any British politician arguing any way if it involves an analysis of what the state or the nation might be.

Before anyone tells me that it is not the British way to argue about political abstractions, allow me to remind our readers that almost all non-Classical political philosophers from John of Salisbury onwards, have been English, Scottish or British. In fact, there was a time when politicians in this country could hold their own in political philosophy though they are unlikely to have been disciples of Hegel or users or Marxist phraseology such as "it is not by chance that …".

I have problems with any political argument that puts the state, any state as the finite good. Even the Nation state is not necessarily a good thing, since plenty of nation states have governments that are not in any way accountable to the people.

Definitions of nations are notoriously difficult and geographical divisions slippery.

Manuel Monteiro ends his article thus:

It cannot be said that the affirmation of any sovereignty opposes or makes difficult the construction of a world without barriers. On the other hand, thinking that the sovereignty of the economically strong Nations will some day disappear, or effectively would be self-limited, passes as a mirage. And the reason is simple: to erase the sovereignty of the Nations is to oppose the nature of things and to oppose to the normal course of history. Having removed any idea that leads to the isolation or to the refusal of sharing and frank opening to the world, we must support the nation state, with sovereignty, considering it of political value to the present century.

As man has developed, so has the state, as well as its sovereign function, adapting to new times. In fact, if it were not for that adaptation, no change would have been perceived. To distrust the state and fear the sovereignty is to have a negative and pessimistic vision of humankind. It is not our case. We believe in the free man and therefore we are not suspect of its political will.

It is from this reflection that we continue to support the profound difference between a Europe of free states and a Europe that walks towards a single state. Therefore, we continue in no giving our support to the Lisbon Treaty.

I can't wait to see what Señhor Monteiro's next political party is going to look like. The notion that a belief in the free man (I am making allowances for the fact that English is not his first language and I think it is clear what he is saying here) means not suspecting the state's, even in its Nation form, political will strikes me as a little odd even for someone who must have had very left-wing professors of political science (they all are).

And, of course, while not supporting the Lisbon Treaty, in which we concur, the author is handing a wonderful argument to the other side: the state's historic adaptability. After all, one can argue, if it is to adapt for the present century, why not let it do so by becoming a European state. After all "single" is not the opposite of "free".

Grrrr!

OK, that's it. I am leaving. I am officially fed up to the point of total ... well, fed-upness. I mean how on earth is one supposed to compete with this lot? No, I don't want a mink coat of any description. Let's face it, the climate in Britain is not quite of the fur coat variety, despite the snow in Yorkshire this year. But hey, just look at what passes for conservative women over the Pond, guys.

So how are we going to compete, ladies (assuming we do have conservative female readers of this blog)?

It's the economy stoopid

As the Greek riots pass their fourth night with no let-up, the situation – as reported – seems to be getting more grave, with a general strike adding to the nation's woes.

What marks this out us the comment from Stathis Anestis, spokesman for a federation of private sector unions. He says: "Participation in the strike is total, the country has come to a standstill." Banks, schools and public transport are shut and hundreds of flights in and out of the country have been cancelled as air traffic controllers also went on strike.

The level of unrest here, and the huge support for direct action, is clearly more than a rump of disaffected youths running amok. The whole country is crying out, and there is clearly something seriously and fundamentally wrong.

It is perhaps typical though that one of the primary architects of the current crisis, prime minister Costas Karamanlis, is the one who is so strident about the "enemies of democracy," seeking to dismiss the riots as "acts of vandalism". Yet even the headline in the popular daily Ta Nea proclaims: "Government and police on the brink of collapse".

It is, as you might expect, Ambrose Evans Pritchard who takes a broader perspective, looking at the economic issues. He remarks that these riots illustrate "the slow-burn effects of Europe's monetary union" as they "begin to corrode the democratic legitimacy of governments."

Greece's euro membership, he writes, has led to a warped economy. The current account deficit is 15 percent of GDP, the eurozone's highest by far. The deficit ($53bn) is the sixth biggest in the world in absolute terms. The public debt is 93 percent of GDP, well above the Maastricht criteria, and international investors are treating Greek debt as if it were the plague.

Year after year of high inflation has eroded the competitive base of the economy and the underlying rot, disguised by the global credit bubble and the Greek property boom, is now being laid bare.

Nevertheless, Ambrose expresses a little surprise that the "riot phase" of this long politico-economic drama known as EMU has kicked off so soon, and that it has done so first in Greece where the post-bubble hangover has barely begun. The crisis, he says, is much further advanced in Spain, which is a year or two ahead of Greece in the cycle.

This notwithstanding, he predicts that the picture is going to get very ugly as Europe slides deeper into recession next year. The IMF expects Spain's unemployment to reach 15 percent. Immigrants are already being paid to leave the country and he argues that there will be riots in Spain too.

No doubt, he adds, events will be ugly in Britain as well. He could be right, although he adds that he is "certain" that the British people still feel that the authorities who set economic policy are ultimately answerable to Parliament and to the democratic system.

If that is the case, then all that stands between us is a false perception. Our authorities have long ceased to be answerable to parliament – just the theatre remains. When perhaps more people realise that, we will no longer have to watch rioting in distant lands on our televisions (those who still watch them). We will be able to look out of our own front doors.

COMMENT THREAD

Join the (EU) Navy

This ship looks like a ship of the Royal Navy. It bears the title HMS Cumberland. Until recently, it had been undertaking NATO led counter-piracy missions off Somalia, so it was most definitely a British ship.

Now another as yet unnamed frigate is to take over. Just like the Cumberland, it will look like a Royal Navy ship and it will be manned by British sailors. But it won't be a British ship. It will be an EU ship, under EU political control, part of the European Union's first naval task force in an operation, called Op ATALANTA.

That's what the MoD website quite openly tells us, proudly declaring that the Royal Navy's Rear Admiral Phil Jones took charge of "the EU led counter-piracy naval operation," which is to operate off the coast of Somalia. That is where the UK frigate comes in.

Euro Phil also tells us:

This initiative clearly demonstrates the EU's determination to combat these criminal acts. It is also something of a privilege for the UK to be asked to lead such a milestone operation and it is an important step in reassuring the international shipping community that something is being done to protect our maritime interests.

Note, he does not say that this demonstrates our determination to combat these criminal acts. Instead, we are informed that the UK, together with France, was at the forefront in launching what would become European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) at the Saint-Malo summit ten years ago. And now it is a reality, with an EU fleet – part-paid by us – sailing on the high seas.

Euro Phil thus warbles: "The EU mission to tackle piracy off the coast of Somalia is the latest example of the progress in European Defence in the last ten years and evidence of UK's commitment to ESDP." The man is a traitor – a disgrace to his uniform - and should be shot. Instead, he's a fully paid-up member of the EU naveee, and we're paying his wages … and his pension contributions.

There are no good operational reasons for this. The first "EU ships" – this is how the MoD describes them - are expected to arrive in the area soon, "after formal agreement by foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels". They will take over from four "NATO vessels".

Since the Royal Navy has already been involved in NATO led counter-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia, using HMS Cumberland, NATO is obviously good enough for this operation. There is no need for an EU presence. But the EU has its vainglorious ambitions to become a military power in its own right. So it is using another of our ships with our men – and a few women – and boasting that it has its own Navy. And our government is mad enough, stupid enough, treacherous enough to let this happen.

Interestingly, Conservative shadow spokesman on defence, Dr Liam Fox, was very voluble on Sunday about the Falkland Islands being left without the protection of a British warship for the first time since the war with Argentina. This is because the Royal Navy no longer has enough ships to meet all its commitments. We now know why … because they are joining the EU Navee.

And the Conservative response to this is?

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There is more to it …

The latest Guardian report is very illuminating:

… the sheer scale of the destruction has put the ruling New Democrats on the defensive. "It is as if the state [machinery], the government, has collapsed," said Ioannis Rougissis, a spokesman for the opposition Pasok party.

Papandreou lashed out at the New Democrats - who are in power with a wafer-thin majority - for being out of touch with reality. "The whole country, every citizen, is exasperated with a government that doesn't understand the real problems of the people," he said. "Everyone is saying enough is enough."

Then we get …

With many struggling to make ends meet, and one in five living below the poverty line, there is growing anger at the tough fiscal policies of a government determined to reach the prescriptive benchmarks set out by Brussels and rein in budget deficits. The disaffection has been exacerbated by allegations of corruption and a series of scandals implicating members of [prime minister] Karamanlis's inner circle.

Yet interior minister, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, is saying: "We will not tolerate these events …". He speaks like a eurocrat.

"Fear and despair are what these riots are about," the Guardian piece ends. This may not be simply riots we are seeing. This could be revolution – the revolt of the masses against the corrupt élites.

From our Greek correspondent, though, we get an interesting insight:

The Greek government have recently curbed the powers of student organisations to control how universities are run, and they have been sitting on a 'powder keg' ever since. One thing is clear: this has been building up for months, waiting for an opportunity - I had seen the initials "ACAB" appearing with increasing frequency in dialogues amongst Greek youth (ACAB = All Cops Are Bastards).

Immigration in Greece is larger than the 10 percent you indicate: probably nearer 13-15 percent, but immigrants in Greece don't riot - they keep their heads down. Their lives in Greece are far too precarious to risk being involved in such matters. Riots are the domain of the 'usual known suspects' as they are called in Greece: the anarchists, leftists (there are plenty of those), and students with nothing better to do.

One remembers that the 1968 riots in France started in the universities. History never repeats itself exactly, but ...

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