The race to be second

The Italian elections are warming up, with just over three weeks to go. The electoral law says that from two weeks before it is illegal to publish an opinion poll.

If three weeks ago it looked clear cut, now, whilst the Left's Bersani remains the favourite, an outright victory looks far from certain. There are jokers in the pack, and it is hard to predict the outcome. In many ways it is a race to be second.

The first joker is of course Silvio Berlusconi. Eyebrows were raised when he agreed to be interviewed on La7, an independent channel connected neither with him nor with the State; the interview would be conducted by a man Silvio had fired, and who clearly bore a grudge against him. It was a barnstorming performance by Berlusconi, culminating in him hitting the interviewer over the head with a piece of cardboard. It was said to be worth 2% to the PdL. Today the Corriere della Sera reports that Berlusconi's hiring of Mario Balotelli for his AC Milan side could be worth another two points; this is, after all, Italy.

The second joker is Monti, who seems now to see himself as a politician. He is unhesitatingly rude to the other contestants and plots little alliances, making public advances to one party or another. He is stuck on around 15% and can hope at best to be finance minister in a weakened Bersani coalition. Bersani's supporters, who are against the austerity programme, will not want this.

The next joker is Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the left-controlled bank which appears to have mixed an extraordinary level of incompetence with illegal subterfuge. This is heavily damaging for Bersani, whose support has come off a couple of percent since the scandal broke.

Beppe Grillo, who is having a field day on the MPS scandal, remains around 15-18%.

The most likely outcome is that Bersani's PD get a majority in the House of Deputies but fail to do so in the Senate. Unlike in Britain, the two houses are equally important. Either Monti or Berlusconi could hold the balance of power.

Time to go

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who is 74, is abdicating in favour of her son, Willem-Alexander, who is 45.

She said 'I am not abdicating because this office is too much of a burden, but out of a conviction that the responsibility for our nation should now rest in the hands of a new generation'.

More Mali

First it was a couple of transport aircraft to help the French intervene in a former colony. Then it was a surveillance plane. Then talk of training. There were to be no 'boots on the ground'. Now it is said that Britain already has special forces operating in Mali and that there will be a small contingent of regular troops.

Are we sleepwalking into another Afghanistan?

In the meantime French forces report minimal resistance as they reach Timbuktu. This is not necessarily a good thing: it is likely to mean the resistance fighters have simply melted into the crowds and that they will pursue their ends in terrorist fashion.

You can see it all coming. Franco-British forces will say they can't pull out until the country is 'stabilised' or some such word. Their very presence will cause dissent, terrorism, instability.

Someone in the British Parliament needs to ask whether we have learned the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to know who we are helping: what sort of people are they? What are their beliefs? Are we risking British soldiers' lives to install one set of brutal dictators over another? Did our intervention in Libya cause the threat from Mali? Did our recent intervention in Mali cause the In Amenas kidnapping where 38 people died?

And finally: is instability in Mali so very, very threatening to Britain? I heard some fool on the radio say that North Africa was too close to permit terrorist regimes. Mali's capital Bamako is about 4,500 km away, the same as Tehran.

Have we really any idea what we are up to?

I yield to no one

In our long running series on opinions which don't matter, the Independent today makes an early bid for the 2013 Bono Prize with a piece by actor and former drunk Bill Nighy on....world poverty. It is all caused by horrid capitalist companies who don't pay enough tax, you'll be fascinated to hear.

I yield to no one in my opinion of Mr Nighy's thespian skills, but marginal effective tax rates? Shut it, Bill, please.

Services to hypocrisy

I discussed the case of Tessa Jowell here, and looking back on it, find it ridiculous the woman hasn't got more airtime.

To recap, Jowell is the former social worker who was put in charge of the £2.5 billion Olympics budget. By the time she finished with it we had spent £11 billion.

Jowell's husband, David Mills, was an adviser to Silvio Berlusconi and was convicted in the first court and the appeal court of accepting a bribe from Berlusconi to bear false witness. He was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison. In the third, final court, the matter had passed the statute of limitations and he was let off.

Mills laundered his payment in one of the oldest and simplest forms of the art: he took out a mortgage on a property, receiving clean money, and repaid it with the dirty money. Since the property was owned jointly with his wife, Tessa Jowell, he had to get her approval to mortgage it and she had to sign the release form. They did this twice. Despite being a cabinet minister and something of a feminist, Jowell's stance was that girlies didn't trouble their silly little heads about this sort of thing and if her husband said it was the right thing to do that was good enough for her.

When he was convicted Jowell pretended outrage and declared she was separating from her husband. The couple continued to see each other regularly - they had two homes, in part funded by the taxpayer - and now they are back together again. Outrage only lasts so long, you see.

We read today that a grateful nation has made her Dame Tessa Jowell.

What a strange nation we are. Perhaps he'll get a peerage for services to Silvio.

Nice work....

Alexander 'Boris' Johnson, Mayor of London, has appointed a friend of his as 'cycling tsar' on £38,000 for a two day week.

Just as well there isn't a recession.

Burns' Night

As a public service announcement, this blog gives its advice for Burns' Night:

At all costs avoid effeminate or brightly coloured clothing, the food and the maudlin poetry, all of which can be damaging to your health. The whisky's all right.

Good luck.

The speech

Mr Cameron has made his much trailed speech. Actually it wasn't bad: it was polite but reasonably firm. He framed it such that the European Union had to change in its members' interest, and made it clear that the changes he wanted should be for all countries in the EU.

I have two issues with the content of the speech; the first concerns its scope. There are several changes he alluded to, such as the working time directive, which would be a sine qua non for his party to opt out of. I really don't think the French trade unions are going to allow their government to approve this, and the last thing the French need is a neighbouring country, also in the EU, where you are allowed to work harder than you are in France.  Indeed there is the possibility that several countries will just call Cameron's bluff, particularly since he has already conceded that he doesn't want to leave.

The second issue concerns what was not in the speech. He said he wanted to base Britain's membership around the Single Market. I think it ought to be based around a free market. Under the present arrangements what can be produced or sold in the European Union countries is heavily restricted and regulated. These restrictions apply to whether we are selling to Germany or to Zambia. The raft of regulations, tens of thousands of pages, are restricting British companies and costing British jobs. It is all well for the Chairman of Honda to say he thinks Britain should remain in the EU: developing a new model costs billions and they can afford a few extra millions in costs caused by European regulation. Small to medium sized firms cannot, they just suffer.

And Britain cannot negotiate its own trade treaties with other countries. Many possible treaties, such as with Canada, are being held up because the Belgians or the Romanians or someone want something specific; often they have their own industry to protect, so Britain is party to a host of treaties which do not really suit it, and not party to possible trade relations which would suit us but not, say, the French.

We need to change the Single Market into a Free Market, and what with everything else that needs changing the best thing to do would be to leave.

Monte dei Paschi

The suntan, the aged Latin Lover looks, the expensive haircut, these are all enough to show the experienced Italian watcher that Giuseppe Mussari is something we don't need. While in charge of Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the oldest bank in the world, he was, what can I say?,  implicated in some 'secret derivatives contracts' which left a hole in the bank's balance sheet which could not be filled even by the strange socialist foundation which runs the bank. Politics are everywhere here.

New management was imposed on MPS, and when the new man, Alessandro Profumo, came in he found dozens of posts being held by political nominees.

This being Italy, Mussari smoothed himself into the post of head of the Italian Bankers Association, which goes to show someone has a sense of humour. As a member of the ruling caste, he is entitled to a job at the taxpayer's or the consumer's expense. And from this he has suddenly resigned, fuelling rumours we are about to learn something more.

The shares of MPS have been suspended on the stock exchange.

Someone needs to get right to the bottom of this and talk about it openly. The public has little trust in the political élite and things will be worse if they have no trust in the banks.

This time it is a socialist story and not good news for Bersani in the middle of an election campaign.

50 years of something

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty between France and Germany, signed all those years ago by de Gaulle and Adenauer. There is a joint meeting of the French and German parliaments and quite a few dewy eyed romantics have sobbed about the wonders of the thing. It is of course part of the EU-myth that you have to have treaties and regulations in order not to have war.

In fact when the Elysée Treaty was signed France and Germany had already not been at war for 17 years without any of this new best friend guff. And I remember in a campsite in France some years after the Treaty, watching a French mother rush out and drag her children away because they were talking to German children.

When the Treaty was signed Adenauer and de Gaulle agreed to disagree on how Europe should develop and those disagreements persist to this day. They did agree not to have any hostilities, as did America and Japan, Peru and Sweden, Cape Verde and Canada and indeed as France and Germany did in 1918.

Not such a big deal, really. I should have thought it an ideal time for Mr Cameron to make his Europe speech, but that is for tomorrow.

Horse****

Strange etymology: a small cake of chopped meat, called steak haché in France, polpetta in Italy, is deemed to come from Hamburg and then some idiot assumes this means it has got ham in it and called it a beefburger.

These things tend to be mushy and tasteless and with little food value. If I were buying one I should be delighted to hear that it contained horsemeat, which is very good for you and has a decent flavour.

It's just that I should want it mentioned on the packet.

Why won't the British eat horse or rabbit, which are healthy and plentiful? they are popular everywhere else in Europe.

Whilst mildly concerned about the armies of health inspectors not having spotted this before (what are they all doing? How could we make a saving here?) I am more concerned about the hypocrisy. The complainers seem to be trying to pretend they were buying 'beefburgers' expecting decent nutritious food.

I was in Tesco's cafe today and the waitress asked me if I wanted anything on my burger. I thought I don't usually gamble but I'll have £20 each way

The USA and the rest

The inauguration of Barack Obama for his second term in office takes place today in the White House. It has been described as a 'private' ceremony to which the press have been invited. Perhaps they think the hacks won't report it.

We don't know what will be in Obama's speech but we do know roughly what is going on. As regards Britain the President intensely dislikes us and it was only the fact that his principal opponent was such a manifest fool that prevented this blog from coming out for Romney.

Other than tinkering with the deficit (Americans tend to believe that they only need a boom run to sort everything out and repay $16 trillion) I believe Obama's main policy over the next four years will be to redirect America's focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Indeed he has already started to sow the seeds of this: 'We are a Pacific nation', he said in a recent speech, and there is no doubt he meant that with a capital P.

The implications of this are enormous. America will abandon its roots and go to the part of the world where things are happening. Things are happening economically in the Far East, and America needs to sell both its exports and its debts to the emerging rich. And things are happening politically: as China grows it becomes an ever greater threat to the region and America's role as policeman will be switched from the Russian-European border to the swathe of countries between India and Hong Kong.

But the biggest effect of this shift will be in Europe. since 1916 the Europeans have expected America to fight their battles. Since the financial boom of the 1960s Europe has had the luxury of enjoying security without paying for it and America, rightly I think, believes this wealthy continent has been swinging the lead (normally America would have singled out Britain as the exception but, as I said above, Obama doesn't like us). This first became apparent, oddly enough, in Libya. The British and French thought that something should be done and Obama said simply 'that's your patch'. The American Mediterranean Fleet slung a few missiles, and then only when it became apparent that we were woefully under equipped, but left us alone. The Germans decided not to take part at all. Now, in Mali, Mrs Merkel has contributed a couple of transport planes, nothing more. Germany still doesn't like the idea of military commitment. Someone told me once that German soldiers are not allowed to fight at night, I don't know if that's still true.

Now there is a credible argument that the presence of well funded terrorists in North Africa is not something we need worry about. But Europe does need a defence plan and it can't just rely on Britain and France having decent standing armies. Money is short and defence is expensive. The reason Europe needs to do something quickly is Russia. As the American defence umbrella is withdrawn, Europe has allowed itself to be increasingly dependent on Russian gas. President Putin, who has been known to turn off the taps when someone disagrees with him, will search for and find Europe's weakness.

Without America, Germany, as the leading economic power in Europe, will have to become a significant military power. This will require a lot of soul searching and some constitutional changes but it is about time the Germans, and several others, pulled their weight. The war ended nearly 70 years ago and pacifism is luxury which, without America, Europe can no longer afford.

Mali

Dozens of people have been kidnapped at an Algerian gas installation and two Britons are feared dead. The attack is in retaliation for the French invasion of Mali, with which Britain has conspired.

At the same time a vote was passed in parliament to increase our involvement to training of the Malian army. MPs passed this without even a debate. Why? Because it is an EU project.

I warned before that lives would be put at risk because of our needless involvement in this adventure and now two people are dead.

BBC

Further to my previous post, the BBC have in fact mentioned the MET's revised forecast here. As you can see if you can face reading it, they use the period 1971-2000 for their trends. This is in my view a bit sneaky: the world was warming in the 80s and 90s so any period containing these years will show some warming compared to the average.

The problem for the Eco-loonies is that if, as the MET suggests, there is a 20 year period of no warming, while greenhouse gas levels were rising, it challenges not just the basic warming contention but also the idea that man is to blame. 

What we are going to be seeing, from the BBC and the rest of the Climate Change gang, is the message 'Just because the world isn't getting warmer doesn't mean there isn't global warming'.

I wonder how long the public are going to tolerate this.

Climate Change: the end?

At the time of writing my post Definition Change I was unaware of a major development in the long-running saga of what is happening to the climate. The British Meteorological Office put out a note of its new findings. The note was not explicit and carried in some other data on Christmas Eve, but was spotted by a climate change blogger Tallbloke.

It said that they were not expecting any warming up until 2017. If their new findings are confirmed, coupled with previous data it means that there will have been no warming trend for two decades, which surely must kill off the global warming story for good.

As far as I know this has not been reported by the BBC (apologies if I am wrong) who had of course swallowed the nonsense hook line and sinker. We are also waiting for a reaction from Prince Charles.

The trillion dollar coin

The reason I never thought that America would fall off the Fiscal Cliff was that the consequences would have been so awful that, surely, reasonable people would have been able to compromise in the national interest. They were, but only just. A rather shabby looking patch up has been struck which will postpone disaster.

The present risk of catastrophe is that America is about to reach its Congress-approved debt ceiling and unless it is extended money will dry up. Of course, they can't agree. To my great regret the wheeze of the trillion dollar coin has been rejected. This was that there is no ceiling on the US mint printing commemorative coins. They would have minted a trillion dollar coin and deposited it with the Federal Reserve who could have used it as security.

Perhaps someone noticed that actually the last thing America needs right now is another trillion dollars of debt.

Don't bank on it, though.

Qui Mali pense

Evil be to him who thinks about Mali.

François Hollande has stepped up security in France, having been advised that his adventures in Mali will bring a terrorist reaction. It seems sensible, just as it seems the height of stupidity for Britain to get involved.

The French have a very different attitude to their former Empire from the British perspective. Whilst we were early to grant these countries independence and then left them on their own, the French have maintained their ties, sometimes to their benefit, sometimes not. Mali is very much on the French patch, whereas it is nothing to do with Great Britain.

Whether it was the boy Cameron, or his sabre rattling Foreign Secretary William Hague, our lending the French transport planes will have been noticed. Once again British lives will have been at at risk - this time civilian lives - for our policy of 'if there's a fight we want to be in on it'.

By the way, I thought we had a drastic shortage of military hardware. Since when have we had enough to lend it to other countries to pursue their own wars? 

Just when....

....you thought it safe to g back in the water. This year's 'flu came in two stages for many: a bad cold and just as you thought you were getting better a hacking cough. Due to a fake vaccine scandal supplies of the preventative were low, and the professionals said it wasn't much good anyway. I have been sitting in front of the screen almost unable to see what I have written, comforting myself that at least I haven't had the vomiting virus (or perhaps that is stage three).

Anyway, my blogging footprint has been light and I hope the year will get off to a delayed start now.

They're getting worried

Further to the previous post about our relationship with the EU, there has been a torrent of comments from people who clearly want us to stay in.

First, the Irish, who hold the rotating presidency, as opposed to the other three, van Rompuy, Barroso and Schultz who are, shall we say, static Presidents. The Irish Foreign Ministry says that everyone must abide by the same rules so we can't just pick and choose which bits of the EU treaties we like. Of course Ireland is going to be in deep do-do if there is a large nation on their doorstep not bound by all the regulations and red tape that they are.

Most interestingly the Americans have got in on the act, saying that they want Britain to be a 'leader' in a European bloc. There are two reasons they have come out with this. The first is that the State Department likes to see things in blocs: North America, South America, Asia and so on. Just as they are getting an answer to Henry Kissinger's question 'When I want to speak to Europe who do I call?' (the answer is any one of the four Presidents, rotating or otherwise) the only country which thinks remotely the way they do seems to be leaving. And this is the second reason: America is terrified of an inward-looking, regulation-bound socialist Europe with high taxes and no military and felt Britain was the main antidote to that.

There was nothing from the State Department as to whether America would like to be governed by an unelected bureaucracy based in a foreign country. I think we can guess the answer.

The more you hear them all insisting we stay, the more we can be certain it's time to go.

Speech of the Decade

Not an exaggeration, I think. In a couple of weeks' time David Cameron will set out his ideas for the UK's relationship with the EU. The speech will possibly be made in Holland, rather as Mrs Thatcher's major European policy speech was made in Bruges, Belgium.

The speech is important because in Parliament the euroseptics are scenting victory and will no longer be fobbed off with a poor effort at negotiation, as when Tony Blair gave away part of the Thatcher Rebate in return for a promise from the French (!) that they would reform agriculture.

And forty years after joining the EU, the British people are clear that they are ready for a change. Now we shall see what sort of change Mr Cameron is offering.

He starts off badly in that he says he wants to stay in the EU. This is bad for two reasons. Many, perhaps most, Conservative MPs want to leave the EU and secondly, as Cabinet Minister Michael Gove has pointed out, we're not going to have much success with the negotiations if we're not prepared to threaten to leave. Cameron wants to stay in the Single Market, although what good he thinks it is doing us he doesn't say.

Cameron's plan, it is said, is to start negotiations after he is re-elected in 2015. This means we have to trust him without knowing what he might achieve, or might be willing to achieve. Anyone who has experienced his somewhat shady integrity in the forming of the coalition will be unimpressed. He believes he can tempt voters away from UKIP with this vague promise of starting negotiations in a few years' time. I fear there will not be enough meat on this bone to make any difference to the sceptical voters either inside or outside the Conservative Party.

It is said Mr Cameron will offer a referendum, perhaps in 2017, on whether to accept the terms he has negotiated or leave the EU. This is so late that the EU will have done its reorganisation before he gets to the negotiating table and he will have no bargaining chips to use.

The time to demand clarity on Cameron's proposals is now. Let's hope he can explain them.

Definition change

One area where 2013 will be little different to 2012 or indeed 2011 is that we'll be hearing a lot about Climate Change.

But wait: we used to call it Global Warming, didn't we? Why the definition change? We were all certain, were we not? (apart from a few nutters like this blog), that Global temperatures were going in only one direction: up. By this time most of Europe would be an arid desert. The new nomenclature would seem to cover everything whether it is getting hotter or colder, presumably unless it stubbornly stays the same (it never does).

To explain this we have to go back to the leaks of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, in November 2009. One of them said 'It is a travesty (I think he meant tragedy, but let it pass) that we cannot explain the recent cooling'. We can learn three things from this: that they are trying to put a particular vision across to the public and it is unfortunate when the facts fail to meet their predictions; second, that there had indeed been cooling; and third that they couldn't explain it. Or as Michael O'Leary, the head of Ryan Air said 'It's horse****. It's people who can't tell you what the weather will be like next ******* Tuesday, telling you what it will be like in a hundred years'.

In truth to go in for this stuff you need to believe three things: that there is indeed warming, that it is man made, and that we can do something about it. I am sceptical on all three. As regards the third, though, I note that the Kyoto Protocol came to an end on 31st December. It had agreed that by last week there would have been a 5% cut in carbon emissions compared to 1990 levels.

In fact there has been a 58% increase. And it's bloody cold here in Umbria.

Here we go

We went down to the heel of Italy - Puglia - for the first week of the year. Small cities with beautiful cathedrals, savage countryside, great fish; it's certainly worth a visit. It's bit run down, and I must admit we arrived in a car park to find so many helpful youths standing round that we reckoned if we left the car it wouldn't be there when we got back. But by and large it is peaceful and charming. The Puglians produce excellent wine and are superb bakers so it's not great for the waistline.

So 2013 for me starts today. I am in detox and a little grumpy.

We had a lousy 2012 and my only prediction is that the world will have a lousy 2013. America seems to have saved itself (just), Europe is plunging into recession, Japan looks as if it will never get out of recession.

The war in Syria will continue, with 60,000 deaths so far. There is and will be unrest in Egypt and the Arab Spring seems to have taken power from one set of tyrants and given it to another. More soldiers will die needlessly in Afghanistan. Argentina is in such economic difficulty that it may have to mount a doomed invasion of the Falklands to preserve public confidence in the failed presidency of Christina Kirchner-Fernandez. In Venezuela Hugo Chavez will die but the nonsense will continue.

I shall be monitoring the Italian elections, in which almost any result is currently possible, and the possible departure from France of Brigitte Bardot, if the government doesn't cure elephants from TB; and I shall be trying to decide which of the two stories is the more absurd.

My advice to readers is the same as last year: keep low and keep moving.

Death of a scientist

If I had to give the perfect example of a scientist, I would choose Rita Levi-Montalcini, who has died aged 103. She was discriminated against as a Jew and as a woman. During the fascist era, when Jews were not allowed to hold senior university posts, she studied in secret in an attic, working on nerve growth in chicken cells. In 1986, in her mid 70s, she was awarded the Nobel Prize.

She was still doing a couple of hours of research a day, until her death.

Happy New Year

My best wishes to everyone for the year to come.

If you are regretting that final drink - it was just that one, wasn't it? - ponder this. Today is the 40th anniversary of Britain joining what was then the European Economic Community, one of the worst decisions in British political history leading to the worst hangover as bad decisions often do.

Shed a small tear for Britain, and if you have the strength for anger, write to your MP.

We'd like to hear less of..

As we come to the end of the old year we begin to think about what we are looking for in the next. And what we are not looking for. Here are five people I'd like to hear less of in 2013

Hugh Grant. A B-movie heartthrob, his mobile 'phone was hacked by the News of the World because he was either too stupid or too lazy to change the access code for the message service. From this self-inflicted trouble he has worked tirelessly to have newspapers regulated: to destroy the free press which is so important to our democracy.

Pippa Middleton. It was never going to be a good idea for the little sister to try to achieve fame or fortune on the back of her sibling marrying well. And for such a reason. The Japanese word bakkushan means a woman who looks better from the back than from the front. She should have stuck at that.

Anyone called Kardashian. What are they famous for?

Brian May. Unable to rest with simply being a multi-millionaire rockstar, May has reinvented himself as an expert on animals, world fauna's answer to Bono. Let's hope it stops.

Alexander 'Boris' Johnston. Wordy self-publicist who wants to be leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister. In my view he will never achieve either job. He is poor at detail and too lazy to see anything through. He is openly, even boastfully, a philanderer, and has paid a famous journalist to have an abortion. The public will begin to see that you can't trust the promises of a man who thinks himself too important to obey his marriage vows and who is prepared to humiliate his wife for his public image.

RIP Fontella

Fontella Bass from 1965. She has died aged 72

Happy Christmas

A very happy Christmas to everyone.

In hospital over Christmas are three towering figures of the '80s and 90s, Margaret Thatcher (87), Nelson Mandela (94) and George H Bush (88). I wish them all well, but it makes me feel old.

Fox hunting

'Jail Fox Hunters for five years!', screams the chief executive of the RSPCA, Gavin Grant.

I remember once being at one of those upper middle class dinner parties in a village with a double-barrelled name, like a West Indian fast bowler: Tarrant Gunville or Kingston Deverill or some such. Attending was a crusty old soldier, a Major General, I think, who had been appointed head of the RSPCA. On my asking, he explained to a hushed table that he thought they shouldn't hunt foxes.

The other guests were astounded. We had all contributed to, or helped, the RSPCA over the years, regarding it as a sort of country thing. It seemed a betrayal. For myself I have no taste for hunting but, like most people who live in the country, regard foxes as pests and don't much care what happens to them.

I think it clear that the RSPCA's hysteria about this is quasi political and that it is in breach of its charter and its obligations under the Charities Act.

Having said that, rightly or wrongly, fox hunting is illegal. Fox hunting is not a basic right like democracy or freedom to worship, for which a Robin Hood style campaign of disobedience is permissible, it is simply a pastime which our elected representatives have decided is wrong. Those who indulge in it are breaking the law, and whilst five years seems on the harsh side, they must accept the consequences of doing so.

Monti speaks; so do I

Mario Monti, the now-resigned unelected Prime Minister of Italy, has said that he does not care to involve himself in the forthcoming elections, but he would, however, be prepared to act as Prime Minister.

Pretty decent of him. Oddly enough, I am the same. This business of putting yourself in front of the proletariat, with them sometimes, incredibly, disagreeing, really holds no attraction. Far better to let the weasels get on with all the sordid baby kissing, speeches (to the proletariat! As if they could understand!) and votes and so on, while just doing the senior management thing.

I would be prepared to sacrifice myself in this way for my own nation, or, as an expert, sort out America, Syria or Italy, indeed; anywhere where the kudos, salary and wine cellar met my expectations.

Monti could expect to come third or fourth in the Italian elections whereas I would have come first, which is why there is no need to go through all this grubby popular vote business.

Vote Appoint Tim Now!

Your health service

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson once said that the National Health Service was the nearest thing the British had to a religion. I sometimes think the British have condemned themselves to living in the past: either reliving the glories of the Second World War or the nationalisation programme of the 1945 government.

Some people liked the production but I was horrified at the Olympic opening ceremony doing a celebration of the NHS, in front of bemused foreigners many of whom had far better systems.

We read today that the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch has apologised to 38 families for mistreatment of their relatives. One person died of starvation while being treated in the hospital. Redditch is not in remote Scotland or the poor North East but in relatively wealthy Worcestershire.

If you find this astonishing in 21st century Britain, look at the figures from the Office of National Statistics:

In 2011, 43 people starved to death and 287 were recorded as being malnourished when they died in hospital. 558 people died in a state of severe hydration in state-run hospitals. 78 hospital patients were killed by bedsores and 21,696 patients were suffering from septicaemia when they died; this usually occurs from infected wounds. In a hospital.

It really is about time we recognised that the system we have doesn't work. But in the face of all the evidence the British believe it is the best in the world. We used to believe this about the police and are only now being disabused of this. With both institutions we have taken our eye off the ball. We could use a few politicians with enough honesty to tell us the truth.

Not all good

Well, the French village of Bugarach has survived, but then again so has Brussels.

Nothing in this world, apocalypse or no apocalypse, is perfect.

Italy update

Mario Monti will decide - or rather announce - this weekend what he is going to do about the forthcoming elections.

It seems quite clear that he is not going to do anything so grubby as put himself up for election by the people: European Man (EM) isn't too big on this democracy fad. Even if he did, the party list system which operates in Italy means you can't vote to exclude a particular candidate - if you vote for a party, they decide who to allocate your vote to. To involve yourself in politics without even being prepared to go through this corrupt little system, to my mind rather defines a man.

Monti will lend his name to a centrist grouping led by Pier Ferdinando Casini and Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.

So what will happen? At the moment the polls show the Left, or at least centre-left, led by Pier Luigi Bersani, to be on nearly 30% of the vote, which by Italian terms would mean a clear majority (you get a bonus of seats free, just for winning). Beppe Grillo, the populist comedian (how I long to use these words about a British politician!) is on 15%, but wait! Look at Silvio! In a couple of weeks Berlusconi has put on 3%, and seems to be heading to 20% and more.

The last election gave

Centre right coalition     47%
Centre left coalition       38%
Centre                               6%

but it seems clear that with Monti and Montezemolo, Chairman of Ferrari, together with Casini, the son-in-law of the rich and powerful Francesco Caltagirone, owner of Il Messaggero newspaper, the centre will do well next time.
 
But who would a Monti-led centre take its votes from? Is Bersani at the leftish end of his party and thus the extreme left would be for him no matter what? If he makes soothing noises to the centre will the Left stick to their guns and offer a coalition, rather than supporting him directly? Will the Silvio bandwagon regain its former momentum? Will Beppe Grillo collapse?

There are now 8 weeks between now and the election. It looks to be interesting

End of the beginning?

Well, it's tomorrow. The end of the world, I mean.

Of course it is easy to laugh at this, particularly since if you are wrong, there will be nobody to say 'I told you so'. Except those people in that French mountain village whom the ancient Mayans unerringly picked out for saving.

In case you are worried, the Independent newspaper publishes a critique of the doomsayers' understanding of the calendar. You may think you want to read it, but I'll just give you a taste: '21st December, 2012 is a 'round date', at least in the Long Count. We refer to it as 13.0.0.0.0. ie it is the 13 Bak'tun period ending (an amount of 13 times 144,000 days comes to pass) since the 'era day', the creation of the current world in classic Maya mythology.

The conclusion is that whilst it is the end of something, it is not the end of the world.

It's probably best just to pour yourself a stiff drink.

The happy couple

It is said that Metternich, hearing of Talleyrand's death, said 'I wonder what he meant by that', and political observers will be saying the same of Silvio Berlusconi, who has found time during his election campaigning to announce his engagement to Francesca Pascale, nearly 50 years his junior.

Francesca was a showgirl appearing on local TV stations. She was a regular on TeleCapri's programme Telecafone (trans. 'Oaf or Lout-TV') where she sang, amongst other things, 'Se abbassi la mutanda si alza l'auditel' ('if you drop your knickers the ratings go up': it's probably by Puccini).

Silvio, however, is still married, not having finalised the divorce with Veronica Lario.

This should put a couple more euros on the bill.

Gun control

The whole world has seen the news from Connecticut,  where schoolchildren and their teachers have been gunned down.

The perpetrator's mother was a teacher. He apparently used her guns to commit the massacre. A teacher's guns.

There will be the usual calls for gun control and they will have the usual result. Opponents of control will say that is not guns which kill people, but people who kill people.

They ignore the problem. I could easily have a gun. In fact the landlord of a London pub once offered to sell me one of his. But I don't, so every time I feel homicidal, and I probably shall with the BBC's forthcoming programme on Europe, I can't just reach for a firearm. There is no culture in Britain or most other countries (outside Switzerland) of ordinary people owning guns (violent criminals, yes: police and soldiers, yes: the rest of us, no).

To stop these outrages, even to limit them, the culture in America would have to change: guns would have to become a rarity, an oddity. That change would take a generation. I am not saying it is impossible, but it is very, very unlikely.

Act of succession

Charles Moore asks this question in the Telegraph:

'Will the heir to the throne be allowed to have a gay marriage? If he is male, will his husband be King, too? If, by surrogacy, their union is blessed with a child, will that child, though of the blood royal, be excluded from the succession? If so, how, in the name of equality, can that be right?'

This blog believes that if  a homosexual couple wants to call its union 'marriage', there is no harm done in allowing it. Although most of the running in this has not been made by homosexual lobby groups but by politicians wanting to seem worthy.

It seems they have a bit more thinking to do.

Press Regulation

Anyone who agreed with Lord Leveson that the press should be regulated by an organisation led by a government appointee must surely change their mind following two reports in the Daily Telegraph.

The first is about the investigation into Sergeant Danny Nightingale covered here. At first the Ministry of Defence threatened to issue a D Notice, even though it was obvious that there was no issue of national security at stake. The MoD were holding Nightingale incommunicado, and told the Telegraph that he didn't want his name released. This proved to be an outright lie. Nightingale was desperate to defend himself against the conviction and wanted to get it into the public domain. The MoD knew that this was an unsafe conviction and tried to muzzle the preses so as not to look bad.

Secondly, the Telegraph made inquiries as to the honesty of the expenses claimed by the culture secretary Maria Miller. Ms Miller's aide told the reporter that Miller had regular meetings on the Leveson report 'I'm just going to flag that up' and suggested the reporter get approval from high up in his own paper. The Telegraph has also been threatened by the Prime Minister's Director of Communications Craig Oliver, also saying that Ms Miller was involved in the press regulation discussions - hint.

Mr Cameron was right to say that the press should not be regulated by any arm of government. Now he knows he can't even trust himself. Congratulations to the Telegraph on not allowing itself to be bullied out of two stories, both in the public interest.

Leadership

This from the FT's Guy Dinmore in Rome:

'The German government has warned Silvio Berlusconi not to target Berlin in the run up to elections..'

'Guido Westerwelle, foreign minister, said the government would not interfere in Italy's elections'

Notice here the word 'warned' and the gracious tone with which Germany says it will not interfere with the functioning of another democratic nation. Pretty decent of it, don't you think?

To continue, Angela Merkel said 'I support what the government of Mario Monti has done in introducing reforms....so the Italian people will no doubt make their choice to ensure Italy continues on the right track'.

The current administration in Germany doesn't do leadership very well. They made a mess of their relations with Greece and have made themselves unpopular in several other countries. It is entirely their own fault if they become the butt of the electoral campaign in Italy and it is quite understandable if the Italian electorate were to resent her replacement of an elected leader with her own man. Monti has become increasingly unpopular here.

The sort of statement quoted above just makes things worse. Now, if Monti stands in the election, many will see him as the puppet of Angela Merkel.

Sometimes in politics, the best thing to do is remain silent.

A great day

The date is 12/12/12 or, if you are an American, who puts the day and month the other way round, 12/12/12. This amazing Coincidental Date Thing (CDT) happens....er....every so often.

The Guardian reports one Don Goodman, president of the Dozenal Society of America, saying the world would be better off with a duodecimal, or dozenal if you are American and can't spell that, system. Unfortunately the twit didn't realise that the British were there long before him with 12 shillings to the pound and twelve inches to the foot.

In the Mayan Calendar there are nine days to go until the end of the world, so convinced Mayans like myself will not be wasting money on Christmas presents.

And today, on 12/12/12, at 12 noon, the Pope will be sending his first tweet. Unfortunately, his native language being German, the entire 140 characters are taken up with a single word, meaning 'Peace in zer vurld, dummkopfs, or zair vill be trouble'.

Signs of the times

From the UK census:

In the decade to 2011 the immigrant population in Britain rose by 2.9m, roughly 5% of the population just in those ten years.

Only 59% declared themselves as Christians. 25% say they have no religion. 5% say they are Muslims.  More than 176,000 said they were Jedi Knights.

Less than half of Londoners describe themselves as 'white British'.

In 4% of households no one speaks English as their main language.

I am not saying (at the moment) that there is anything wrong with this. But I do think we are nervous about discussing it and it clearly needs to be discussed.

Let's start with the BBC.

The fourth man

Missing....eradicated?

Where was he? Had he been slipped a tablet and left in bed, like the embarrassing uncle at a wedding? Was it more permanent: had a pillow been put over his head while he slept, like a pope whose frailties were too obvious? Or had his invitation been....er....lost in the post?

At the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony held in Norway they were all there: Merkel and Hollande, of course, beaming puffily. And the presidents: Barroso, president of the European Commission; van Rompuy, President of the European Council and Schultz, President of the European Parliament but wait! Where was Christofias, communist president of plucky little bankrupt Southern Cyprus, who is President of the Council of the European Union (as opposed to the European Council, do try to keep up)?

Searching the websites of the various bodies it seems he has been written out of history until someone more suitable comes along. Unfortunately the next ones are Ireland, Lithuania and Greece, so it's a body we shan't be hearing much from.

Drugs

A House of Commons Committee has spent a year looking at our drugs policy and recommended a Royal Commission to look at whether drugs, or some drugs, should be decriminalised. A Government minister has replied quickly, but to the effect that nothing is going to be done about it. They are nervous of the newspapers shouting 'drugs free-for-all', 'narcotics nightmare' and so on.

I made my views clear here: I am fed up with the State telling me what to do for my own good. It is many years since I had a proscribed drug but when I did it was my own decision; my body belongs to me, not the State. I see no reason why I should be allowed alcohol and cigarettes but not marijuana.

I am pleased to see the MPs are going to Portugal to see how things are going there. I favour the system of treatment rather than punishment, despite having some doubts about forcing people into treatment.

I hope this debate is kept alive.

The next episode

The soap opera which is the run-up to the Italian election continues with another action packed episode.

Silvio Berlusconi claims to have been besieged with people begging him to save Italy and, like the patriot he is, he will answer the call. He will stand at the election which, as his supposed successor Angelino Alfano says, rather renders the proposed primary for party leader irrelevant.

Interestingly, Silvio has announced his return to the political scene by ordering his members in the senate not to support Monti's government in the most recent vote of no confidence. Monti has survived but says he will resign after the budget is voted through.

Berlusconi has been making noises against the austerity measures, saying that a nation cannot live by the confidence of the markets alone.

Where Berlusconi's actions are interesting is as regards what happens to the budget. You might expect anti-austerity Berlusconi to try to vote it down, but the law on elections is that there must be one within, if I remember correctly, 70 days of the government resigning. If Silvio disposes of Monti quickly it would mean he could be voted in before the 'Ruby' trial where he is accused of sleeping with an underage prostitute.

What will the outcome be? The centre is pressing Monti to stand at the elections but, as discussed before in these pages, the well nurtured European Man doesn't really like kow-towing to the peasantry. And the signs at the moment are that he wouldn't win (something he would treat with incredulity). The Left's Bersani, fresh from his triumph in the primary, seems likely to get 30%. Berlusconi on present figures, even with the help of the Northern League, would not reach this figure. Monti would be third, able to form a coalition with either major party, but it isn't really his style.

My guess is that Monti won't stand and the centre will try to find a new leader (I have previously suggested Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Chairman of Ferrari, but he has ruled out standing as well).

What would Bersani be like? We don't know. There seem to be two Bersanis: the man of the Left, former communist, and the Bersani we saw in Prodi's government, who brought in liberalising measures to the workplace (although you still can't get a haircut on a Monday).

But there is plenty of running to go.

Bed blocking

A new royal heir: jumping the gun a bit, I know, but it hasn't stopped the Daily Mail slyly suggesting that Prince Charles might like to step aside. The Daily Mail doesn't like Prince Charles, but the chaps who drew up the Act of Settlement were careful to exclude any newspaper from deciding who the next monarch should be, so Charles it is.

There is a problem, though. Her Majesty is 86, and if, deo volente, she should live to 95, Charles would ascend the throne in 2021 at the age of  73, when his son, William, would be 39. Were Charles to live to 95, William would come to the throne in 2043 aged 61, at which time his heir, born next year, would be 30. Should William live to 95, his heir would come to the throne aged 64.

The Queen would have reigned for 69 years, Charles for 22, William for 34 and the heir 31. This is what is known is bed blocking, and with the greatest respect I think the Queen should have hung up her orb after 50 years. She certainly should when the child is born, and we should have a general cut-off limit of 85, so the monarch isn't several generations out of touch. 75 would be better.

Dave Brubeck RIP

The one that isn't Take 5

The Fall of the West

George Osborne, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, will today give his autumn statement. He will tinker, there will be a slight change from current expenditure (welfare) to capital expenditure (roads and railways) but that will be all. His message will be the same as from pretty well all finance ministers in the West: growth will be less than forecast; we just can't seem to get the economy moving.

What some people are beginning to say is that we are looking at it in the wrong way.

This is, roughly, how the economy goes: we have our ups (booms) and our downs (busts) and we can all of us over a certain age remember several of them. A bust always, with varying speed, becomes a boom, and vice versa. The important points to pay attention to are where we are on the cycle - is it about to turn up or down? - and how steep or flat the cycle is - are the booms and busts short-lived.

Now, I am simplifying here, but there have been two theories of economic management since the 1920s. The earlier, Classical or Monetarist idea was that when we got to the top of the cycle there would be lots of money around chasing less decent investment opportunities, sometimes bad ones, known as malinvestment, the effectiveness of the economy would decline and we would head down the road to bust. (We can see this, with hindsight, from 2007/8 until the present). As we got to the bottom, labour would become cheaper, assets would become cheaper, and the investment opportunities better with less money chasing them so we would claw our way back to the top. This is, roughly, what I believe, but it has its imperfections, mainly that we are dealing with humans here.

John Maynard Keynes was one of the first to understand that there were imperfections, such as trade unions refusing to reduce real wages during the bust but he and his followers believed that this could be corrected by the guiding hand of government. Action to press down on the economy at the peak, action to boost government expenditure at the bottom.

So at the moment I am saying that being at the bottom of the cycle we should keep the minimum wage low so that people can work for less if they want to, and that we should remove regulations which stop business expanding (especially Europe); whereas a Keynesian is saying the government must spend more to keep things moving. I repeat, this is a simplification.

What some people are saying is we are now not just at a particular point in the cycle, but that we are on a different graph, that we have formed such a peculiar economic model in the West that things are working differently and that in particular we can never generate enough growth to drag us up the ski-slope to another boom. They are saying that Western-driven investment into emerging economies has formed high growth models before those countries have got into the heavy welfare habits we have adopted.

When George Osborne first promulgated his plan for economic recovery I was critical, saying that government should not just trim but get out of whole areas of economic activity. The new economics, if that is what it is, is this in spades. We should be looking at an economy where government expenditure is not 40-50% of GDP (France's is 56%) but 20-30%. It is why I have always been fairly bullish of America, despite the disastrous economic management there. At least, perhaps until Obama, they hadn't got on to this debilitating treadmill of welfare.

I know, it is a part of what we call civilisation. But it may have to change.

Told you!

You read it here

The oldies are back

Primaries are a new thing for Italy, where political leaders, as in last century's British Conservative party, have tended to emerge rather than go through some electoral process. Now in Italy they are all the rage, and kicking off the proceedings for next spring's general election is the Left. I say the Left rather than the Partito Democratico because it is traditional in this land of small parties and proportional representation that anyone who feels himself important enough sets up his own political grouping or party, which might well ally itself with the mainstream. You haven't a clue as to the name of their party until election day.

The race got down to a run-off between veteran Pier Luigi Bersani, 61 and the newcomer Mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi, 37. Bersani won easily, 61% - 39%. Personally I think the last thing Italy needs is these members of the old guard: the population is crying out for something new, hence the popularity of comedian Beppe Grillo.

And the worst thing is that, according to the Corriere della Sera, Bersani's win will encourage Silvio Berlusconi, 76, to stand again. His party, the PdL, has not yet had its primary because he has been dithering on whether to put his name forward. Otherwise, its leader would be Angelino Alfano, 42. The upshot is that there will be more pressure on Monti, no spring chicken himself who will be 70 at the time of the next election, to stand.

Really, the Italian voter deserves better than this, to drop the contest between a 37 year old and a 42 year old in favour of a couple of ancients, a 63 year old comedian holding the balance of power and people yearning for a septuagenarian who doesn't much like the democratic process.

Booze and the rich boy

You'd have thought David Cameron would have gone out of his way to shrug off the 'Little Rich Boy' tag, yet he seems to relish it, if reports about minimum alcohol pricing are to be believed.

The papers say that there will be a minimum price of 45p per unit, which would push the price of a bottle of vodka to £12. It would sell for around £6-7 in the civilised world.

This will do nothing to prevent 'binge drinking'. It is more likely to encourage it, as well as other crimes. Alcohol is already far too expensive in Britain; people are drinking less than they did ten years ago. Britain's alcohol consumption is lower than that of France, Germany or Spain. In the EU the UK already has the second highest duty on wine, the third highest on beer and the fourth highest on spirits. Yet the government slavishly follows the anti-alcohol lobby.

Alcohol duty is a regressive tax, affecting everybody regardless of earnings. This will be seen as the Little Rich Boy's attack on the poor.

If he's got any sense Cameron will drop it like a hot coal.

You read it here....

I should tell you that several Italian papers believe that the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant and will announce it at the beginning of December.

Of course they believe a lot of other stuff about the Royal Family, much of which is nonsense, but there it is.

The EM and you

The strange figure of Mario Monti, Prime Minister of Italy, has entered the debate on Britain's place in Europe. I say strange because much of Europe (not all) has been democratised for quite some time now and it is indeed odd, while the EU professes democracy to would-be members and to the rest of the world, to see an unelected figure in charge of a major country. He has been in power for more than a year now, without any popular mandate.

Indeed, Monti has held posts of considerable power (in the European Commission) for some time now without ever having been elected to anything. While Leonardo and Goethe have been referred to as 'renaissance man', Monti is that more modern creation 'Europe Man' (EM).

And he walks, he speaks.

Monti is confident in his EM status. He doesn't tiptoe round the continent saying 'Look, I know I've never been elected, but....'. He regards himself in the same light as Cameron or Merkel or poor Hollande. And his intervention tells us a lot, not just about the man himself, but about the debate.

Here's what he said, in an interview with Italian TV (translated):

  I am convinced that a compromise with the British has to be sought and, above all, it is necessary that, one day – and I spoke about this with David Cameron last week – the British ask their electorate not, ‘Do you agree with this further change that other [EU] countries want to make’, but ask the fundamental question, ‘Do you want [your country] to remain in the EU?’ I’m sure that, at that point, faced with such an important set of choices - banking interests, financial interests, industrial interests - they [British voters] would immediately say, ‘Yes, please’."

Where it's interesting is, in part, the tone. Monti, the unelected EM, does not hold open the prospect of membership coexistent with disagreement on the European ideal. He doesn't think the move towards ever loser union can or should change (despite what is going on around him). It can, of course, if the people (remember them, Mario?) want it to but he, like the rest of the crazed Europhiles, can't see that.

David Cameron, by contrast, is aiming for something quite different. He wants what we might call an 'à la carte' Europe, where Britain, for example, chooses to opt in to the single market but out of the Working Time Directive or the European Arrest Warrant. But the European Caste, the EMs, will see that if Britain can do this, others would demand to do it as well. Belgium might leave the proposed European Army; Sweden might decide it no longer wants to belong to the Agricultural Policy. The whole edifice, which is based on the elite EMs deciding what is good for you and everyone going along with it, would crumble.

Cameron hopes that a set of core countries, perhaps the original six, might opt for everything whilst an outer core might opt for half of it and a fringe (Turkey?) might just adopt one or two things.

A brief chat with a EM (Monti was in London last week) should have told Cameron that it isn't going to be possible. It's going to be 'In' or 'Out'.

This blog favours 'Out'.

Mark Carney

The new Governor of the Bank of England is a surprise, if only because he had firmly ruled himself out of the running.

There are a few things against him: he is ex-Goldman Sachs, he is only 47, his wife is a barking mad eco-warrior (the papers seem to hold this against him but I don't think it's fair: anyone could find themselves married to a loopy British woman who is likely to occupy St Paul's Cathedral). Oh, and he is Canadian. I can't think of one other major economy with a non-indigenous central bank governor.

Everything else about Carney is good, however. He understands banks (he will be in charge of regulating them) and he understands sovereign risk. This is a major coup for Chancellor George Osborne who must be very persuasive.

We must hope Carney doesn't share Mervyn King's penchant for printing money.

Jimi

Jimi Hendrix was born on this day in 1942. He would have been 70 today but instead died aged 27.

Keep a'hold of nurse

Last week, Alexander 'Boris' Johnson, the Mayor of London, was arguing for a referendum on Britain's remaining in the EU. Today, he is all over the papers saying he didn't think leaving was necessarily such a good idea. The amazing thing is why anyone is interested in his opinion at all.

This blog's view, which has been consistent, is that Britain would be better off democratically and economically if it left the EU. I do not think, however that a referendum is the right method of achieving this. The most important person in  referendum is the one who frames the question and that would be the present government, led by Europhile David Cameron and Euro-loonie Nick Clegg.

And the Europhiles and Euro-loonies would campaign that we needed just a few changes, which they could achieve, and the safest thing to do would be to remain in their newly crafted EU. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

'Always keep a'hold of nurse, for fear of finding something worse.'

One of the things they will say, and this is Johnson's point, is that we need the trade with Europe and that could be damaged if we left the 'single market'. On the contrary: Britain desperately needs to rebalamce its economy away from dependence on Europe. Europe is the old world, plunging into recession and unlikely to return to growth for years, if ever. The new world, in South America, Africa and the Far East, will be the engine of growth in the future.

The 'Single Market' - it's not called a free market because it isn't one - is dragging us down with its excessive regulation and protectionist policies. Several studies have shown that the regulation costs us more than the rather limited benefits.

And the likes of Johnson and Cameron like to imply - with no evidence - that we wouldn't be able to sell our goods to Europe if we left. But everyone else does: Switzerland, North Africa, everyone.

No, we don't need Europe, it is an incubus, and we don't need a referendum to get out. We need a government which with sober consideration works out that we would be better off trading with the whole world, being able to make our own free trade agreements without protectionist France and Italy stopping us, and for that government to support our exit and campaign, if referendum there must be, for a vote to leave.

There is no need to take Johnson seriously, but Cameron must be made to realise his euorphilia is condemning us to years of stagnation and unemployment.

Today in Rome

From La Nazione

The schools are on strike

9am the Flc-Cgil union will demonstrate in the Piazza Farnese

10am Cobas, the rank and file Trotskyite union movement marches from Piazza della Repubblica to piazza SS.Apostoli, complaining about politically influenced education cuts.

10am as well, the students, university and high school, march from Pyramide in the south, meeting with Cobas at the Colosseum to march on parliament. This is an unauthorised march along a route not agreed, and there is likely to be violence as the riot police try to defend parliament.

10-2pm a sit in by professors an temporary teaching staff outside the Ministry of Education

4pm-8pm Casapound Italia marches from piazza Mazzini to the Ponte Milvio protesting 'against the government of bankers and in defence of  the social state, to say no to privatisation, speculation, ending of care for workers, loss of national sovereignty'.

Many thousands of people will join the demonstrations, with many buses arriving from all over the country, even though there are other demonstrations in Florence and elsewhere.

There is a continuing investigation of claims that last week civil servants fired tear gas canisters at protesters from the upper floors of the Ministry of Justice.

So, Monti's doing OK, isn't he?

Greece is the word

Any idea what this badge is? I'll tell you: it's the badge of the Military of the European Union. Just to explain, each of the 27 countries has its own military, then the EU sets up this extra body which can't command or control or order into battle any of the individual forces which are, naturally, under the control of their respective governments.

 

I mention this in the spirit of helping to identify budget savings: the world and the EU would be exactly the same if it were disposed of.

 

And the military is what I want to discuss. Here is a list of countries with the largest military expenditure per capita in the EU

 

UK €698

France €605

Greece €421

Germany €410

Italy €358

Spain €242

 

Notice an odd man out there? Can someone please explain why bankrupt Greece has the third highest military expenditure per head in the EU? It has more combat aircraft, 303, than any other country (the UK has 284); it has 375,000 military personnel; it has twice as many submarines as Germany, and more frigates than France or Britain.

 

How can they afford it?

 

Oh.

Women Bishops (2)

Well, I was wrong, and the measure didn't pass, by a very narrow margin. Arrogance, I fear, is the cause: arrogance of those who scented victory and offered nothing to their opponents.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that 'there has to be some get out for the genuine doubters' and it seems this was inadequate. They just didn't try hard enough to accommodate within the Church those who disagreed with the majority.

Zoe Ham of the Church Society (a woman, nota bene: there are many women oppose to women bishops) said that inadequate provision had been made for the minority who could not accept a woman bishop. These number about 900 parishes out of 13,000 and they wanted a guarantee of episcopal oversight they could accept.

Unless there can be some changes at short notice, the matter cannot be discussed again for five years. This means five years of wrangling, disappointment and failure to discuss anything else.

Poor old Church of England.

The EU

The European Union is plodding, slowly but inexorably, towards a budget impasse: it now seems almost certain that nothing can be resolved in respect of expenditure for 2014-2020.

This has been portrayed in the media, including the British media, as recalcitrant, unclubbable Britain up to its old tricks and threatening a veto.

In fact the following countries have threatened to veto the result or hinted that they might use their veto:


Austria (wants a rebate and no cuts to agriculture)

Denmark (wants a rebate)

France (wants to maintain agricultural subsidies)

Italy (wants its net contribution cut)

Netherlands (no increases above inflation)

Poland (wants more subsidies)

Romania (no cuts to farm subsidies)

Spain (no loss of subsidies or cohesion funds)

Sweden (wants agricultural subsidies reduced)

.... and, of course, the UK.


Many of these are mutually exclusive (say, the positions of France and Sweden).

Not quite the happy band of brothers we are led to believe.

Women Bishops

The Church of England Synod debates today whether there should be women bishops. The new Archbishop has put his support behind the idea, despite the fact that he is an evangelical, a grouping which tends not to favour women bishops. It is the first test of his mettle, before he has even taken office.

Logic says that if a woman can be a priest (approved nearly 20 years ago) she can be a bishop. The problem is that there is a sizeable minority which believes a woman can't be a priest. This is less than it was, because some have gone over to Rome, but it is large and vocal. This minority says that since a bishop can appoint priests there would be male priests whom they didn't recognise, because they were appointed by a bishop they didn't recognise. If women bishops are allowed this could get murkier: each priest would have to carry his genealogy of appointment around with him. There has to be some get out for the genuine doubters, but it can't last forever.

The Synod is divided into three houses: the professional ones, the House of Bishops and the House of Clergy, are solidly in favour. The vote would need a two thirds majority, however, in the House of Laity, which is less so.

For myself I had doubts about whether a woman can become a priest, but believe the game was lost 20 years ago. The Church of England needs to approve this and move on to more important topics, like spreading Christianity and holding the Anglican Communion together.

I wish Archbishop elect Welby luck. I think they'll pass it, though.

France downgrade

All the talk among European financial folk at the moment is of France. The Economist last week had its cover picture of baguettes tied with the Tricolour made to look like a primitive bomb; Wolfgang Munchau of the Financial Times by contrast yesterday listed France as one of the things he is not worried about in Europe, suggesting that the mood of French-bashing was politically motivated. Now this morning we learn that Moody's, like Standard and Poors earlier in the year, has taken away France's AAA credit rating.

The stakes are high. France is the second biggest economy in the eurozone. Even at this early stage the effects of its downgrade will be felt: when the rescue funds are leveraged - that is to say when they start to borrow against the guarantees of the constituent members, it is now only Germany, along with tiny Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which have the top rating; some lenders will not accept the collateral of a downgraded guarantor. So there may be less money to rescue the likes of Spain and Italy, should they need it.

Moodys observes that the chance of a rescue doesn't really apply to France. If Italy and Spain have to be rescued there will be no money left to help France, and if course it is in any case too big. Against that, it is tacit acceptance that France would not go under before Spain and Italy and neither of them has (yet) applied for help.

On the other side of the argument, there is a growing rift between the IMF and the Eurozone. Christine Lagarde started making impatient noises a year ago, hinting that the IMF had been set up to help poor nations, not rich currency blocs. Now she is openly stating that the creditor nations should take a haircut on their Greek debt. Der Spiegel shows how susceptible the various nations are to this. With a 60% haircut on Greek debt, for example, France would lose €55 billion, whereas the UK would lose only €2 billion. If it were Portugal as well, France loses €82 billion (UK €13 billion) and if we chuck Spain into the pot France, losing over €200 billion, would be insolvent.

But in my opinion blanket bad-mouthing is wrong. Yes, France has tied its lot too closely to the fate of the Eurozone, but that is what they all did pre-crisis. Yes, France has a problem of competitiveness, but Hollande has belatedly introduced tax breaks for small businesses, and it may well be that he is seeing the light.

France needs to watch it, and Germany needs to watch France, but it is a long way from disaster.

Killers

According to the Independent, Britain has lost 44 million birds in the last four decades.

What it doesn't mention is that the cat population has doubled in this time.

Cats are a pest and need to be culled, like badgers.

Prisoners' votes

Parliament is still, I read, tying itself in knots over the subject of prisoners voting. Prisoners have never, so far as I know, been allowed to vote in Britain, but a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights has said that they must be allowed to.

As so often, I find myself completely at odds with Mr. Cameron here. He declares himself to be outraged at the prospect of prisoners voting, but never seems to explain exactly why. It isn't a part of their sentence: the judge doesn't say '5 years in prison and no voting for you' nor is there some sort of custodial sentence with a vote '5 years but in view of there being no previous convictions you can vote.'

People are being arrested right now for saying things on Twitter the State doesn't like, on the grounds that it is likely to incite hatred. If we take away their vote they can't fight their persecution: upset the government and we'll prevent you from voting another one in. This smacks of the banana republic.

And one other thing. Aren't we supposed to be rehabilitating these people? A frightening percentage of crimes are committed by people who have just got out of prison. I should have thought an excellent way for them to get involved with society, to feel a part of it and not an outsider, would be to vote.

What does outrage me is that the decision on whether prisoners vote or not  should be made by unelected foreigners. At least we have been told that we could go against the ruling but we would be fined £100 million.

Mr Cameron doesn't seem in the least bit worried about this part. He appointed an Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, knowing him to be a great supporter of the human rights lobby, and he has no plans to withdraw from this.

If we could leave the whole thing and make our own laws it would be worth £100 million. But they would only find us 'guilty' of some other opinion they don't like and fine us for that.

We have to leave this nonsense behind and allow parliament and the judicial system to make our laws. Only when Cameron gets rid of Mr Grieve will you know that he is interested in the rights of ordinary people. And just think, when some immigrant commits terrorist acts in Britain we'd be able to send him home.

Vote to stop lunacy

The polls are open today in the UK (not London) to elect Police and Crime Commissioners. This means that, for the first time ever, the public can choose their policing policy.

It is said that very few people will vote, and I think this a great shame. One of the reasons for voting, and an excellent reason for having these elected officials, is about to become apparent.

Every year about 350-400 people are killed on our roads in circumstances where one or more drivers were over the drink driving limit. Given the number of journeys made each year by more than 30 million cars on the road, it is an astonishingly low figure. It is low compared to similar countries. And yet drink driving is an obsession with the British Police. This is for two reasons. One is that the anti-drinking lobby are well connected and have the ear of police forces, and another is its 100% success rate: the police only know about a drink-drive offence if they have detected the alcohol in someone's bloodstream so by definition they have got their man, a 100% detection and conviction rate (barring those 350 who are dead).

At Christmas they go completely mad. The latest figures I have are for 2010-11, but each year is the same or worse. In the month from 1st December to 1st January they stopped and tested 169,838 people - more than 200 an hour - and achieved just  6,613 convictions, which number includes sober people who were outraged by police officiousness and refused to give a test. That is to say more than 163,000 perfectly sober, law abiding citizens were interrupted while going about their lawful private business by these crazed policemen. More than 96% of the people they stopped were perfectly innocent and should not have been stopped. It would have been a disgrace in pre-1990s East Germany and certainly is in supposedly free democratic Britain.

A police and crime commissioner could put a stop to this. Particularly in country areas where there is no public transport and the roads have little traffic on them, it is a crime which ranks fairly low down the list. Burglaries and muggings would have been lower if the police force hadn't been occupied in this useless, politically motivated pastime.

So vote.

The BBC

The Political Editor, Nick Robinson, has said this isn't the worst ever crisis for the BBC. It is hard to share his optimism.

Here is the story so far. Jimmy Savile, who died last year, is found to be a serial paedophile. He worked for the BBC for decades and committed some of his illegal acts on BBC premises with children invited on to BBC shows. Newsnight, BBC News' investigative arm, was going to produce, towards the end of last year, a programme detailing accusations against Savile but it was pulled and instead tribute programmes were broadcast. This revelation was succeeded by scores of celebrities saying that everyone knew Savile was a paedophile.

Subsequently, the BBC went into a frenzy of paedophile revelations, and all but accused, although not in name, Lord McAlpine, a former Treasurer of the Conservative Party from the Thatcher years. The internet did the rest, in particular with 'tweets' from the Guardian columnist and leftie environmentalist George Monbiot and the Speaker's wife, Sally Bercow. It seems that the 'investigative' journalists only showed the accuser a photo of McAlpine after the programme went out and he said no, that wasn't the man.

The Director General of the BBC said that the programme should not have gone out (a penetrating analysis, weakened only by the fact that he was Editor in Chief) and resigned on Saturday night. He was given a year's salary on top of his substantial pension as a thank you from the taxpayer.

This morning we learn that Helen Boaden, the Head of News and her deputy Steve Mitchell have 'stepped aside'. This is an interesting term for language students like myself. To 'step up' is commonly used for 'to take responsibility' (not much sign of that anywhere); to 'step down' is to dismiss oneself but to step aside? We shall see. It sounds like avoiding a bullet.

Finally the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, has said that the BBC needs root and branch reform.

Well, he's probably right, but in what way? Entwhistle, who was taken on by Patten, seemed extraordinarily unimpressive. His performance in front of a Commons Committee was terrible. He seemed to duck responsibility, passing the buck to juniors. Interestingly his predecessor, during a previous crisis, had said he was on holiday. In the real world above about £75,000 a year you don't get holidays as such, you are on call 24/7 and have to come back in a crisis. And you have to take responsibility for your patch. Again, in this second fiasco Entwhistle seemed to think it was an excuse that he didn't know anything about it. Patten said he knew about it but didn't tell Entwhistle because to do so would be 'absurd'. It was only in his resignation statement that Entwhistle seemed to grasp that if you are in charge you take responsibility. Patten still doesn't grasp that.

There is more about the BBC culture that needs to be thrashed out. I am quite certain that one of the defining causes of this disaster has been that McAlpine was a senior Conservative in the Thatcher years. The BBC's leftie culture demonises Mrs Thatcher, and, I believe, wouldn't feel it so necessary to investigate carefully: such a person would be obviously guilty and they would have reported this with glee. The BBC has other biases, in particular in favour of the European Union and, interestingly, Patten and McAlpine have hated each other for years over just this subject. The organisation doesn't think much of the monarchy and failed to produce decent reporting of the diamond jubilee because it just didn't think that sort of thing was too relevant. Unfortunately it is to the large majority of the population.

It must be clear to even the most blinkered BBC fan that there is a serious problem and that Patten isn't the man to sort it out. He is a comforting duvet of a man, warm and fitting round any shape that's in the bed. He has worked for the Tories, he has worked for Tony Blair, he has worked in Europe; he is at home in the guilt evading soft left arrogance of the Corporation and for this reason must step aside (preferably in a downward direction).

The BBC is too large, particularly for the management it has had so far, and seems to be accountable only to itself. We should sell off more than half of it and put someone decent in charge of what's left.

Remembering

Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day in the USA, Armistice Day in much of Europe) and it hardly ever seems to be on a Sunday (although it was, in fact, in 2007).

Today we remember the soldiers who have died in our wars, of which there have been too many.

And today we learn the plight of Sergeant Danny Nightingale.

Nightingale has spent 17 years in the Army, of which 11 have been in the Special Forces. He has partial loss of memory following a brain injury.

While serving in Afghanistan Sgt. Nightingale was given a pistol by Afghan Forces whom he had trained as a counter-terrorist unit. The pistol, still in its box, was found at his home. A Court Martial, which could have given him a suspended sentence, had him imprisoned for 18 months.

Nightingale's former Commanding Officer has said that the sentence needs to be overturned immediately.

He is right.

A star reborn

A welcome return to politics for the absolutely tremendous Ilona Staller, known as Cicciolina.

A well known porn star, she entered parliament in 1987 and at the onset of the Gulf War offered to sleep with Saddam Hussein in return for peace. She subsequently made the same offer to Osama bin Laden. She regularly spoke in parliament with one breast bared, declaring 'My breasts have never done anyone any harm, whereas bin Laden's war has caused thousands of victims.'

The beginning of a new era of cynicism about the Italian political class was marked by public realisation that she was due a pension of €39,000 p.a. for her short time in parliament. 'I earned it', she said.

Cicciolina's new party is called DNA (Democrazia, Natura, Amore). She will fight against 'Auto Blu', the governmental cars given to thousands of the political caste, a project dear to this blog, and other privileges to the ruling caste, and in favour of an overhaul of the justice system and social security for everyone.

Wonderful.