Syria

The drums of war are beating over Syria again. For my taste the British and French are a little too keen, seemingly looking for an excuse to intervene, whereas the Americans seem to be looking for an excuse not to.

But there is evidence that chemical weapons have been used, although this is only evidence and of course there is no proof as to who fired them. The rebels might easily have discovered a weapons stash on their advance northwards.

If the evidence does come in, however, Obama is in some difficulty. The war would not be popular in America, and yet he has said that the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer. American Presidents must not use words lightly and must not back down from a threat.

There are however some good reasons why this should not escalate.

1. This is the patch of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two richest and most powerful states in the Middle-east. They have been giving the rebels support, military as well as logistical, and it is their war. They have plenty of money and plenty of sophisticated American made weaponry.

2. Assad's regime is being backed militarily by Russia and diplomatically by China. Saudi and Qatari involvement would be an internal Middle-eastern war. European and American involvement might mean it spreading.

3. A no-fly zone has been suggested and this sounds cozy - American planes simply policing the skies (all 27 countries in Europe together wouldn't be able to put together a no-fly zone). But it would involve at the outset a massive attack to take out anti-aircraft installations and planes: that is to say American British and French aircraft bombing people and things on the ground. Killing Syrians and any Russian advisers.

4. The Russians have a naval base at Tartus, opposite Cyprus there. It is rumoured that Bashar-al- Assad is living on one of their ships. Are we to hope the Russian Mediterranean Fleet doesn't have ship-to-air missiles?

5. Lastly, we don't really know who the rebels are and what we do know isn't good. The group which has fought the fiercest and made the most ground, Jabhat al-Nusrah, is associated with al-Qaeda. A no fly zone would benefit them just as much, if not more, as the secular fighters in the Free Syrian Army.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, this is a good one to keep out of. Let's give as much support to Saudi and Qatar as we can, and tell them to get on with it.

Welcome break

Fans, such as myself, of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons have been feeling deprived, like addicts of Coronation Street being told it will only be showing a few times a year.

MPs are off again today for some more hols, returning when Parliament starts the new session on 8th May with the Queen's Speech. Then two weeks later on 22nd May they shut up shop again for a little Whitsun holiday, returning on 3rd June. But 19th July sees the start of their six week summer holidays. Then they come back for two weeks in September and before you know it there is a three week autumn break.

This year parliament will have sat for around 150 days.

Now, oddly enough, I don't mind this. Parliament is being prorogued early because there are not enough bills to debate, which is the most extraordinary good news. If MPs are to work longer I should rather Parliament were simply a talking shop, without them passing more legislation, of which we already have more than enough, to inconvenience the average citizen.

If they are not going to talk more I would recommend that the number of days they serve in Parliament be reduced even further, to reduce the damage to our civil liberties.

Richie

Richie Havens has died at the young age of 72. Havens famously opened the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and because the other acts were late, played for hours. He had a strange technique of suddenly strumming in double time - difficult to copy and it made him unique.

St George

St George's Day today, which as usual in England will be celebrated quietly: the important thing is never to let the other members of the United Kingdom think there is any kind of English individuality or patrimony.

It is a mystery as to why St George is patron of so many places: Georgia, England, Egypt, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Ukraine and countless cities. Perhaps it is the string of legends associated with his name, although they are unlikely to be true. It is thought that he was a Greek soldier executed by the Emperor Diocletian for professing his faith in the early 4th Century.

Cry God for Harry, England and St George!

On and on....

The BBC's traditional inability to let a story drop has been amplified in the last week. Yesterday they appeared to think it 'news' that a man responsible for setting off a bomb in a public place, robbing a store and hijacking a car has been charged with a criminal offence ('our top story').

Incidentally Dzokhar Tsamaev has been charged with having a weapon of mass destruction, a term I thought referred to muclear bombs and chemical weapons. If we went to war in Iraq because Saddam Hussein had a couple of pressure cookers filled with ball bearings I think we should be told.

In with the old, out with the new

An unhealthy stitch-up between opposing forces of left and right has led to 87 year old President Napolitano agreeing to a second term, the first Italian President to do so. If he serves out his full term he will be 94.

Napolitano will be sworn in today and will present his plans for the future as soon as he has had his cocoa. Having beaten 80 year old Marini, 82 year old Rodotà and Romano Prodi who would be 80 at the end of his mandate the rumour is that he will appoint an interim, unelected government led by sprightly, youthful Giuliano Amato, who will celebrate his 75th birthday next month.

Really, this isn't looking good for Italy: an unelected gerontocracy.

Italy's President

I am covering the Italian Presidential race in my articles and occasional blogs for the Commentator,

which is recommended reading.

In short, there can be no new elections unless there is a new President, since Napolitano cannot diossolve Parliament within 6 months of the end of his own mandate, which ends in four weeks. Voting began on Thursday 18th and Bersani, who has a majority in the lower house, proposed a trade unionist and moderate left winger Franco Marini, 80 (that's not a misprint, he's 80 years old). This was apparently in a stitch up with Berlusconi and people were wondering what Silvio was getting in return for this (immunity from prosecution, anybody?). Smelling a huge ratto a large part of the Partito Democratico, which had proposed Marini, didn't vote for him. So he didn't win.

Now Bersani has proposed Romano Prodi, known as The Mortadella because he comes from

Bologna, who has been Prime Minister twice, and been President of the European Commission. Prodi is the arch enemy of Berlusconi and having been a big smell in the EU isn't popular with Beppe Grillo either.

It doesn't seem possible for Prodi to win, but there again it didn't seem possible for Marini to lose. This is Italy.

The photo shows the tremendous Alessandra Mussolini, who herself got as many votes as Prodi in the last round of voting, making a protest in the chamber. The back of her T-shirt says 'The Devil wears Prodi'. Outside the Parliament building there were demonstrators chopping up bits of mortadella.

Splendid stuff.

Troppo bello

Three men from the UAE have been removed from a cultural festival in Saudi Arabia and deported on the grounds that they were so good looking the local girls wouldn't be able to resist them (don't try, girls!).

As it happens, many people are wondering why I have not been deported from Italy. Perhaps the Italians are just more tolerant.

The Funeral

Lady Thatcher's funeral is today. I shan't watch it; I can remember Churchill's funeral in 1965 and that of the Queen Mother: the hushed voice of the BBC announcer, the pauses and the repetition not just repetition but again and again and again with the same clichés...first woman Prime Minister.. served longer than anyone in memory..divisive figure. Yuk. I missed out on Lady Diana's because I simply found myself unable to share the grief or even to understand it.

In truth I find all funerals, particularly big ones, a little pagan, as if the death were more important than the life. This may have been true of Lady Diana but most certainly is not true of Lady Thatcher.

And her 'life' was some time ago, between 1975 when she became leader of the Tory Party and 1990 when she lost the job. Between 38 years ago and 23 years ago, fifteen hectic years which changed Britain and the world, in my view greatly for the better, but I am happy to hear the opposite argument.

This today, by contrast, is just an old lady having died, as they do.

There has been a certain amount of idiot discussion as to whether we need Lady Thatcher now. I am a great fan of hers, but of course we don't. We have a set of problems which are quite different to the ones she faced and which have to be solved, not just with diffferent soluitions, but in a different style. Her legacy, the lesson she has taught all politicians, is surely this: never assume the status quo to be a good thing. Examine it dispassionately and if it needs to be changed, change it.

He doesn't like us

President Obama has not only refused to attend the funeral of Lady Thatcher, he has refused even to send an envoy*. He will have been told that this is an important occasion for Britain, America's ally, and that the Queen is attending, but he clearly wants to send an open snub.

Obama doesn't like us. I hope we bear this in mind in our future dealings with the USA.

*that is to say someone senior from his administration; George Schulz and Dick Cheney are going.

The Ding Dong ding dong

In the end 'Ding Dong! The Witch is dead!' only reached the No.2 spot, failing to dislodge last week's leader Need U (100%) by Duke Dumont and A*M*E.

So, that was exciting, wasn't it?

Childish amusement

Tomorrow, Sunday 14th, the BBC will as usual play the nation's top selling tunes and one of these, perhaps the No.1 will be 'Ding Dong, the Witch is dead!' from the musical The Wizard of Oz.

This has been re-released under the auspices of some left-wingers to celebrate the death of Mrs Thatcher. Many of the people behind it were not born or not politically conscious during Mrs Thatcher's period in power, which ended more than 22 years ago.

The BBC have in the past banned records, including fairly recently one by the Sex Pistols, but they should not ban this, in my view. The whole world knows how this single got to the top and, really, the reputation of one of Britain's great Prime Ministers can stand it. Quite easily.

Pomposity

Seriously, though, the Football Association has been pompously considering whether Lady Thatcher deserved a minute's silence before the matches.

I'm not sure the Lady's views on football have been recorded but one likes to think that her legacy will survive without the enforced mock respect of racist chavs watching a game played by Nancy-boys.

I yield to no one

Following the death of Lady Thatcher the detector modules for my occasional series 'I yield to no one' have been working overtime.

Current front runner is Geri Halliwell, a former Spice Girl, who wrote 'Thinking of our first lady of girl power, Margaret Thatcher, a grocer's daughter who taught me anything is possible.'

Geri, I yield to no one in my admiration for you as a....er....whatever it is you are now, but your views on reforming Prime Ministers really aren't necessary, nor is it appropriate to link them to your own publicity.

Worse, after a wave of Twitter abuse to the effect that being even vacuously supportive of Lady Thatcher is not cool in these circles, she deleted the message, apologising.

To paraphrase President Chirac, Ms Halliwell has missed a golden opportunity to remain silent.

Children and animals

Nothing much seems to go right for François Hollande, the French President. And as any actor will tell you, if they start off laughing it just gets worse.

On a visit to Mali to receive the thanks of a grateful populace for bravely seeing off the Taliban, Hollande was awarded a camel (again, listen to the actors: never work with children or animals). During the award speech the Malian politician was drowned out by the screeching of the camel, and it showed no more respect for François, although he was heard to say 'I will use it as a means of transport as often as possible'. His idea apparently was to transfer the creature to a French zoo, but the EU regulations proved to be too heavy (and the idea of the rather pompous looking Hollande riding round on a camel in a zoo, well, it's not quite what his image makers might have wanted).

So he decided to park the camel with a local family, but not before there were complaints that the beast had been stolen after the French bombed the owner's village. François promptly boarded the presidential plane and fled the country.

But now the awful news has emerged: Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French Defence Minister has confirmed that the camel, presumably inducted into the French military, has been killed and eaten in a stew.

Perhaps they could send him a bit of the stew.

Margaret Thatcher

There will be a number of obituaries, far more knowledgeable than I could write, of Margaret
Thatcher, who has died aged 87. I wanted to make a couple of observations on how she affected my life and that of so many others.

I had been a young Conservative and rejoiced when Ted Heath came to power in 1970. I was studying economics at school and what he seemed to espouse was the new economics, the new politics. By 1972 he had abandoned it. When he petulantly went to the country in 1974 on the principle 'Who governs Britain?' my feeling like that of many others was 'Not you, mate, obviously'. 1974 was the first time I voted and, knowing that I could not support Labour, voted Liberal, the only time I have done so. 

Margaret Thatcher had been, I think, education minister in the dying years of the Heath Government and my abiding memory was of a friend at Oxford who collected idiot headlines: 'Margaret Thatcher in Food Tins Scandal Probe' he showed us: she had admitted stocking up with tins of stuff in case there was a general strike, and this somehow, the obvious intuition of any housewife, was deemed to be a sin. People believed that if she had some of the food tins, others would have less, not that more tins would be brought on to the supermarket shelves. That was how we lived in the 1970s.

When Mrs Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 1975 many people, myself included, thought the Tories had either had a fit of madness or that they had elected an interim leader before a proper one emerged,. In fact it was the opposite. In the late 70s I was something fairly minor in the Young Conservatives and working for a Swiss Bank. The Swiss, who like most people internationally had thought that Britain was a basket case, were terribly impressed by Margaret Thatcher. She even took her (short) holidays in Switzerland. Word came down from on high that I was to be given as much time of as I needed to campaign for her. And I did.

For an impressionable observer of politics the Wilson-Callaghan administration was Britain's low point. Wilson resigned amidst a cloud of speculation that he had been having an affair with his secretary, that he had made his friends life peers (including the secretary), that he had been in the pay of Moscow (he had been a director of a company, Montagu L Meyer, which banked with my employers, which regularly sent him to Russia), and that the country was in such a state that a coup d'état was being planned, led by the Duke of Edinburgh. Callaghan, who assumed the reins of power without an election, was if anything even worse. He was so weak that it seemed that every time someone criticised him he appointed a Royal Commission to sweep the matter under the carpet. Britain went begging for money to the IMF.

Mrs Thatcher forced a vote of no confidence in the Callaghan administration and won. And once she had sailed into Downing Street the world was staggered at the stuff she was coming up with. For the first time since Churchill we had a Prime Minister who seemed to believe in things and put them into practice. Sir Keith Joseph, her main economics spokesman, was saying all the things I believed in about monetarism, responsible fiscal policy ad so on which we take for granted today (at least we take the verbiage for granted). Geoffrey Howe, the chancellor, was like Geoffrey Boycott, England's solid opening batsman, quietly seeing off the new ball.

When the Falklands came along everybody, simply everybody assumed that this was another nail in Britain's coffin. Mrs Thatcher found the right man, a retired admiral, who thought we could do it, and assembled the task force. I would stop off at a pub on the way home from work and found the place packed, the customers urging on, not their football team but their country. Houses bore the Union Jack, people talked about nothing else. The country was united in a way it hadn't been since the war, before I was born. And Britain was a winner for the first time in my lifetime. It had the confidence to become a world leader, which it did with Mrs Thatcher's alliance with Ronald Reagan to resolve the Cold War. Thatcher and Reagan seemed to stand strong together and I felt a part of the bringing down of the Berlin Wall. The long decline which perhaps began in 1914, was over.

Years later I was on a shoot, in Padua of all places, and was introduced to an old farmer. 'Giuseppe here was a big fan of Signora Thatcher'. I replied that for us she had been the only one in British political life with coglioni (balls). ''Si', he replied, 'ma lei ne aveva quattro' (but she had four).

We're here to help

The banner was at L'Aquila last night for a torchlight parade. It reads 'It's sad to read in the eyes of  Mummy and Daddy the certainty that "Tonight as well I shan't be going home"'. Today, 6th April, is the fourth anniversary of the earthquake in L'Aquila which virtually destroyed the town.

L'Aquila has yet to be rebuilt. Why? Yes there are fiddles, yes there is mafia activity, but the real reason, says Chief Engineer Gianfranco Ruggeri is:

5 Special Laws
21 Directives of the Comisario
25 Acts on the Structure of Emergency Management
51 Technical Structure Acts
62 Regulations of the Civil Protection service
73 ordinances from the Prime Minister's office
152 decrees of the Commissariat Delegate
720 ordinances from the Comune.

There may be more that he has forgotten, he said.  1,109 laws which are preventing reconstruction of people's homes.

'If it rained money the way it rains regulations, L'Aquila would be filthy rich and the streets would be full of bulldozers, lorries and cement trucks'

Italy today

See my report in the Commentator on the Italian elections here

Just deserts

A footballer - they're certainly in the news - called Carlos Tevez, who plays for Manchester City, has been convicted of driving a car while banned and without insurance. Mr Tevez is Argentinian and apparently here under an assumed name: he was born Carlos Martinez. For my part I'd have deported him, which would at least have pleased half of Manchester, but he was given 250 hours community service and a fine of...wait for it...£1,000. Martinez apparently earns £200,000 a week.

I know the idea is that the law should be equal to everyone, but it would be fairer if punishment were equal in its effect: this represents, assuming he does a 40 hour week, 12 minutes' work, the equivalent of  a fine of around £1.20 to someone on the minimum wage. More to the point, if someone on the minimum wage were fined £1,000 it would be the equivalent for Mr Martinez-Tevez of £830,000.

They do this in Switzerland - last year someone was fined £230,000 for speeding - and I think we should do it here.

Leftie illiberals

What is a fascist? There seems to be no proper definition of the term. The Oxford English Dictionary declares it squarely to be a member of Mussolini's party formed in 1919, which ruled Italy between 1922 and 1943. It was set up to fight communism.

The matter has come to a head, rather, because of a football manager called Paolo di Canio who has

Paolo di Canio

been appointed manager of Sunderland. The absurd David Miliband resigned in disgust as a director of the club saying the he - di Canio - is a fascist. Of course Miliband's resignation might have been expected by the club since he is going off to live in America.

One of the accusations against di Canio is that he made a Roman Salute to the Lazio fans (Lazio is the district around Rome); another is that he has a fascist tattoo although, as someone on the BBC said, he doesn't wear it on his sleeve.

I have been too busy these last 13 years to read di Canio's autobiography published in 2000. Apparently it reveals him as a sensitive and intelligent man. He likes some aspects of Mussolini but dislikes his 'vile traits' (this is in fact how I think of David Miliband). So, presumably the export of Jews to concentration camps could be described as vile; is it something to do with the trains running on time? Punctual trains and the elimination of communism seem to be admirable political goals depending, of course, on how you go about them.

Dr Lawrence Britt, a leftie political scientist, has identified 14 characteristics of fascism although most of them, such as nationalism, disdain for human rights and symbolically powerful military could apply to any communist state, particularly China and North Korea.

So would there be all this fuss if Mr di Canio had declared himself a communist? Communism has killed many, many times the number of innocent people that fascism has and is certainly a worse system to live under. But there wouldn't have been any trouble, would there?

This is a piece of nonsense got up by the left to disguise their own illiberalism.

Urbi et Orbi

Today in my message to the world I urge the unfaithful to spend the day in contemplation of the leaders we have promoted to high office. We have awoken on the Feast of All Fools to find that the Fools hold the levers of power.

In America Obama has taken temporary leave of his senses job to consider how many millions of people he could kill in Korea. A family member has assumed the pink rabbit ears of office. Health provision will now be known as Bocare and will be open to all species.

Angela Merkel has gone swimming in a thermal bath in Ischia, however she is arrested by an EU
official who removed 60% of the water from the pool in a bail-out.

UK: In a now desperate attempt to ensure he loses the next general election Mr Cameron subjects the
 nation to Sharia Law and embarks on the formal ceremony to hand the Falkland Islands over to Cyprus










Italy, already having a comedian as head of a political party, decides the next president must be
someone really serious.

To save on manpower, the EU sends its Foreign Representative, Baroness Ashton, to invade Syria on
her own

To the Faithful

Easter Sunday, and Pope Francis will hold his first Easter Mass, followed by the traditional Urbi et Orbi message to the faithful.

This blog's Urbi et Orbi message to  the less faithful, including politicians, wastrels and drunks takes place on the Feast of All Fools, tomorrow.

The solution

For much of the time, current affairs watchers like myself sort through the political tealeaves trying to spot some connection between events, some pattern. Then comes a moment when everything seems clear, albeit for just a second. This epiphany happened for me this week and I am here to share it with you.

The only way to understand British politics at the moment is to assume that David Cameron is determined to lose the next election.

He analyses the Conservative voter and finds that he is middle class and middle aged. He is a saver, so in order not to appear too popular Cameron organises economic policy such that interest rates on his supporters' savings are artificially low and the principal amount is being eroded by the consequent
inflation.

The Church of England used to be known as the Tory party at prayer, so to ensure the odium of the Conservative voting congregations and their bishops he introduces Gay Marriage, something not promised in his manifesto and not particularly sought even by the gay lobby.

Europe is important so he promised a referendum, then went back on his word then said there might be a referendum but on his terms, just to make sure no one trusts a word he says.

He knows the Human Rights Act is unpopular with the electorate so he sticks to it like glue, ensuring that terrorists are allowed to stay in the country at the taxpayers' expense.

What do you make of it? Whilst it is possible that Cameron has a sizeable bet on the election I don't think that is the reason for his extraordinary behaviour. I think he wants to see a social democratic consensus in the country and hopes Mr Miliband, the next Prime Minister, will give him some modest reward for delivering it.

Nelson Mandela

Mr Mandela is in hospital with a recurring lung infection and is said to be frail, although responding to treatment. He is 94.

This blog wishes the old boy well, not least because it dreads the tsunami of sanctimonious hypocrisy which is going to strike us when he dies. You just need to look at a British politician to imagine the sententious cant he will come up with on that dread occasion. It makes you queasy.

My abiding memory is of a friend who bought a flat in a left-wing London borough. He was posted abroad and returned to find the road had been renamed Nelson Mandela Avenue and his property was worth £20,000 less.

This blog's advice is that if Mandela's condition deteriorates block your ears, black out the windows and on no account listen to or watch the BBC.

More....

What I hope is a few final thoughts on Cyprus.

A bank is not 'open' if you can't go in and draw your money out.

A euro deposit in Cyprus, which can't be moved out, must be worth less than the equivalent euro deposit in Germany or Greece. Cyprus is therefore not in the single currency, it just has a managed and grossly overvalued exchange rate.

The deposits in Cypriot banks dropped dramatically in the weeks leading to the bailout. Who leaked it, to whom, and in return for what?

Cyprus: not the end

One area in which membership of the EU is extremely useful to a country like Cyprus is in obfuscating the norms of democracy. For the technocrats who got their own men into normally democratic Greece and Italy a little problem like the Cypriot parliament not liking the business of taking money from bank depositors was pretty straightforward. It was agreed that the parliament would pass in advance a series of easy boiler plate laws and leave the tricky haircut stuff until later. Then it turned out that one of the simple laws provided for the reconstruction of Laiki Bank and Bank of Cyprus, so they were put into liquidation without further reference to parliament but, unlike every other liquidation in the world, not all creditors within a creditor class were treated the same. Unsecured creditors under €100K were let off but those over €100K, identical in their rights, will have to take a serious bath. Depositors in other banks will be let off. Messy but, hey, the important thing is they didn't want this going through the democratic process.

The more you think about it, this democracy caper is all about ordinary people and who the hell cares about them in a modern elite-run society like Europe?

My big question is when the Greek Cypriot begging bowl makes a reappearance. There are other (bust) banks in Cyprus, there is the problem of what happens to the economy when the banking system isn't working and everyone wants to take their money out, and there is the problem of the Cyprus government debt which is going to rise but which they will have no income to repay. My guess is they are sorted until just after the German Elections this year.

and again....

A further thought: it is said that Greek Cyprus' talks with Russia have come to nothing.

The Russians must know that sooner or later they are going to lose their naval base at Tartus in Syria, about 150 miles east of Cyprus. If I were Russian, a naval base is what I would demand and if I were Greek that is what I would offer.

And this against a backdrop of the Americans pulling out of the Mediterranean because they expect Europe to conduct its own defences.

Cyprus again

As I write there is still no approval from the Cypriot Parliament for the terms of the EU bailout.

They should put it into perspective: in Britain the Government's monetary policy has caused inflation to exceed the approved level of 2% for several years,. As this ate away at our savings we were given the double hit of artificially low interest rates. Savers in Britain have been losing out at least 2% a year, sometimes 3%, which over the three year life of this government amounts to what the Greek Cypriot depositors are being asked for in a one-off. The difference is that we can look forward to the same thing happening for another three years.

They should pay up and be grateful they aren't in Britain.

Osborne

All politicians have an image, of course, sometimes one well cultivated by the spin doctors, whereas sometimes the spin is tempered by popular perception. For me, when I think of Gideon 'George' Osborne I think political strategist, I think senior member of Team Cameron, but I don't think Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have suggested before that we abolish this term and call it the rather blander sounding 'Finance Minister' and I think this would rather suit Osborne.

He became finance minister nearly three years ago aged 38 and not having studied economics or indeed politics). Of course the economy was then in tatters, and still is. In a sense he has been unlucky with the forecasters, who kept giving him estimates that a return to growth was on its way, only for hopes to be dashed each time. It might have been better if they had announced a disaster - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here - on Day 1.

Le me say now I think history will be kinder to Osborne than seems likely at present. He has made mistakes but I believe some of them are mistakes that most of us would have made.

The first mistake was to underestimate the depth of the recession, one made by almost everyone, self included. It was clear by the time the coalition came to power that the last Blair government had overspent massively - even their socialist successors knew that, but no one thought that returning to growth would be such an elusive goal. Assuming that growth would return Osborne the political strategist decided to make things as easy as possible: he announced spending restraint but put the difficult cuts - those to current expenditure - back to 2014-15 when, he felt, things were bound to be better and he might even be able to cancel them. At the start the cuts would be to capital projects. In the meantime he would have gained a reputation with the markets as a fiscal conservative and Britain would keep its Triple-A rating and money would be cheap.

The backdating of current expenditure cuts was a culpable error. The time that it is easiest for a government to take unpopular decisions - and Osborne is supposed to be some wizzo political strategist - is on Day 1. Yes, the new administration can say, this is tough, people are going to suffer, but it was the fault of the last lot. Now this is perceived as being a long recession, people are calling for capital projects to be reinstated, airports, railway lines, defence expenditure and so on, which means further cuts to current expenditure. As things stand, Osborne has raised current expenditure by £600 billion in three years, but somehow got himself a reputation as a savage cutter. Not really a piece of political genius.

Again, like many commentators, self included, Osborne underestimated the heroic stupidity of Angela Merkel and the European Union. Instead of booting Greece and Portugal out of the euro they resolved for political reasons to keep them in at whatever the cost. That cost has been a lengthy recession in Europe, to which we are tied so closely. Half our exports are supposed to be to countries which can no longer afford them. So while the exporters desperately try to rebalance their sales - David Cameron has been on more export marketing junkets than any Prime Minister in history - the economy grinds along the bottom.

Osborne's solution is to flood it with money, the Bank of England shovelling out cash by buying its own debt with money it has printed. This means that savers are doubly hit: there is inflation whittling away their savings and artificially low interest rates meaning they don't earn anything on them. And who is most likely to vote Conservative? Yes, people with a bit of money.

On balance Osborne seems to be a not too bad, if unlucky, Chancellor and the most appalling political strategist.

The future? Every recession, if not adulterated by governments, holds the seeds of the next boom: asset prices fall, bad companies go out of business, wage rates fall and the economy turns upwards. This may happen before the next election in 2015. History will judge how Osborne has affected it.

The Press

The House of Commons meets tonight to debate regulation of the Press. At least, when I say 'debate', they will talk about the deal which has already been stitched up by the three main parties.

I am against the Press being regulated by the Government either directly or indirectly, such as by a Royal Commission set up by the Government. The reason I am against it is simple: I don't trust them. Sooner or later some hack, newspaper or blog will be warned off writing about the Government. It is thought that many of the great pieces of investigative journalism - the cash for questions articles, the entertaining series in the Telegraph about MPs' expenses, the Thalidomide scandal of the 1960s, would not be possible under the proposed system.

Much has been said by the politicians to the effect that they are supporting the victims of journalist malfeasance. Apart from the fact that I don't believe in altering the law to please 'victims', who may be emotional or unobjective, the attacks on the Dowlers and the McCanns (whose child disappeared) were already illegal. All we need is to tighten up the system of their access to the law.

If this goes ahead it will be a bad day, not just for the British Press, but for British freedom.

Cyprus going south

I find it hard to have sympathy for the citizens of Greek, or Southern Cyprus, but things are not looking good for them. In financial difficulty, they asked the European Union for a bailout. The amount required, after scrutiny of the books, was €17 billion, 70% of its GDP.

It is hard to see how any country could get into this state, but then Greek Cyprus isn't an ordinary country; it is a satellite of Greece which, as we know, is also insolvent. And it is hard not to have some sympathy with the Germans, who are on the hook for all this nonsense, not wanting to pay for it. In the end the EU said it could cough up €10 billion, and the Cypriots would have to find €7 billion.

What they did was to impose a one-off tax on bank deposits, 10% for amounts over €100,000 and 6.75% for smaller amounts. So if a poor man has his life savings of €10,000 in Laika Bank he has to fork out €675 because the government he may not have voted for was corrupt and encouraged Russian money laundering. Bondholders, that is to say professionals who have invested in the bank, lose nothing.

But there are other issues aside from the moral inequity. After the crisis the EU made all countries have a deposit protection scheme, covering up to €100,000 deposits. The Greek Cypriot crooks have got around this by saying the banks aren't bust, so the deposit protection scheme isn't triggered, it's just a tax.

Second, it is clear that it is intended that this be the the precedent for future bailouts. So if you have your cash in a Spanish bank and it looks as if there's going to be a run on Spain, what would you do? Draw it out, of course. So now just the hint of a problem is going to cause a bank run.

Today is a bank holiday in the country, Clean Monday, when, laughably, the Greeks traditionally practise flying kites. The parliament in Nicosia is meeting in urgent session, and is new president Anastasiades has been on the 'phone to everyone who matters (Angela Merkel) but the damage is done. Italian and Spanish bonds were trading higher this morning, stock markets have fallen.

Either the Eurozone supports its members or it doesn't. Which is it?

Habemus Papam!

Herewith my blog post for The Commentator

The white smoke came at around 7pm Italian Time and we waited....and waited. It must have been almost an hour but the crowds, filling St Peter’s Square, down the via della Conciliazione to the Piazza Pia and Castel Sant’Angelo, seemed happy enough despite the intermittent rain.

And then something seemed to stir, lights came on and the proto-deacon emerged to tell us of the new pope. And it was....not the bloke we all thought.

Vatican watchers trying to get the news a few seconds early try to decipher the name from the Latin and when he said Giorgium we wondered if the slightly doddery Cardinal Touran of Bordeaux had got it wrong. Our ears were tuned for Angelum – for Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan.

But, as I have quoted before, the old saying is that he who goes into the Conclave as pope comes out a cardinal. It was said that Angel Scola went into the Conclave with 50 votes – you need 77 for election – and that if it were a short conclave it would be the favourite who won: who else could garner so many votes in so short a time?. It was further said that Scola could only be beaten by Marc Ouillet (Marcum), Odilo Scherer (Odilum?), or Sean O’Malley (Seanum, I suppose). We racked our brains for someone called George.

It was Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires and he will take the name Francis. Initial reactions were that the Cardinals had played a blinder. They had looked to where the mass of worshippers was – South America. They knew that the main task of the papacy would be to sort out the Vatican, and they chose someone who knew the Curia without being a Curial insider. They had chosen someone who lives in a flat, not a palace, cooks his own food and goes to work by bus (although all that will have to stop now; the boneshaker Roman buses are enough to kill the old boy off).

The enthroning of Francis is so fraught with symbolism that people will still be reading the tealeaves years hence. He is the first Jesuit to become Pope since the Society’s founding in the mid-16^th century. He is the first pope in 1,000 years to take a new name (John Paul doesn’t count since it was merely the names of his two predecessors): a new broom? Does Francis refer to the popular St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of Italy, by the way, or to St Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuits? Francis is the first South American pope and the first in a millennium not to be European.

A new pope starts with a huge well of optimism and confidence which will last a while but not for ever. Francis needs to reassure the faithful that the scandals of the past are over. His flock will want to see a few comfortable insiders transferred to difficult locations around the world and guilty senior men resigning, as Benedict told Keith O’Brien to do. His supporters will search for doctrinal purity and humble demeanour and should be satisfied. Beginning his speech with ‘Buona Sera’ – good evening, showed an informality which the crowd loved. The progressive Europeans are unlikely to be satisfied, and to those British who want to know if he is sound on the Falklands, the answer is he’s not.

To anyone who followed my own choice of Cardinal Sandri, I apologise. I did advise you not to bet. I got the country right, but that isn’t even an each-way result.

I believe Pope Francis represents a new beginning for the Vatican, and that he is just what the Church needs. I am not expecting a long papacy – he is 76 – but an exciting one. Despite the rain, it was a good night.

The Conclave

The Conclave to elect the new pope begins today. The first smoke from the Sistine Chapel will be at 7pm Italian time and it is likely to be black: no decision yet. It is expected that the Conclave will go on for a couple of days.

The rumours are that Cardinal Angelo Scola, Archbishop of Milan, has already got 50 of the 77 votes required. It is likely that the reason for this is that the Italians and other Europeans have put him forward as their champion, whereas the other main group, American-led and wanting a pope from anywhere except Europe, have yet to choose their champion.

The longer it goes on the more likely there is to be a compromise candidate, for which I favour Leonardo Sandri of Buenos Aires, who had Italian parents and knows the Vatican well.

But there are around a dozen papabili. They just need to get someone in place for Easter. Plenty of time.

The guilty and not so guilty

In the sometimes confused case of former Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne and his former wife Vicky Pryce the sentence has finally been handed down (by the way, BBC News Channel, a sentence is handed 'down', not 'out'): they each receive a prison sentence of eight months.

I suppose the crime of perverting the course of justice must be taken seriously. I also do not believe the argument that if someone is rich and in the public eye they can be said to have suffered enough merely in the press coverage. They must be punished the same as everyone else.

However, this really doesn't look right to me. She agreed to take his speeding points. Finish. A survey by Churchill Insurance reveals that nearly half a million people have done just this, to avoid one of them getting a ban. Strangely, the State sends you a note asking who was driving the car; that is to say you are asked to incriminate yourself, which is against natural justice. They can hardly be surprised when so many people decline to incriminate themselves in this way.

Normally in a court for someone to be found guilty there has to be some evidence against them, and I can't help feeling that it should be the same with speeding as with any other crime. But the state failed even to try to collect any evidence as to who was driving. It looks as if the whole system has been fiddled, just to cover up inadequacies in the prosecution.

Then we come to the crime of Huhne and Pryce. 'Perverting the course of justice' seems like a frightfully pompous way of describing her taking his speeding points. It is the term used for bribing a judge or nobbling a jury.

Really, the only people well served by all this are newspaper proprietors. The political editor of the Sunday Times, Isabel Oakshott, even shopped her source for the story, Ms Pryce, to the police, so as to get maximum coverage.

The couple should have been given a hefty fine and banned from driving for a year or two.

The Falklands

The Falklanders vote today on whether to remain British. Here is an interesting little side-issue

IWD

International Women's Day (IWD). I am against these 'days', often sponsored by the UN, because they seem to trivialise the often important message that goes with them.

IWD is one of the oldest, said to have been started in 1917 by Russian women demonstrating against the price and non-availability of bread. It is a case in point: they were still complaining about the same thing 75 years later.

This year the sub-theme of International Women's Day is violence against women. You won't get many politicians arguing in favour of it, yet it still goes on, and not just in third world societies. A woman who worked for the Samaritans revealed to me (they're not supposed to say anything about their work) that typically the man responsible for violence in the home was middle class, often a former officer in the forces. I don't know, perhaps the other women don't complain, which is even worse.

I suppose today might make us think a little about it. But we're not really doing anything. And there's not really anything we can do.

Total Eclipse

I mentioned last year how, unable to afford to stage the Eurovision Song Contest if we were to win it, we opted for the safe choice of Engelbert Humperdinck, a septuagenarian, who did not let us down by coming 25th out of 26.

Our tip for the bottom this year is Welsh croaker Bonnie Tyler, whose last hits, Total Eclipse of the Heart and Holding out for a Hero, were 30 years ago.

My forecast is that she won't achieve the dramatic low of Humperdinck but will do fairly..er..badly.

I yield to no one...

Jeremy Irons, the actor, has described himself as a 'flag waver' for a ban on plastic carrier bags in supermarkets. Didn't know he had a chemistry degree, did you?

Please Jerry, stick to the Stanislavski method, we don't need ignorant scientific tosh from you, just acting.

Frozen Venison

You'd think that after the global warming débacle we would cease to take our scientists seriously. But no, they are now claiming that there must be a deer cull because we have more deer than we had during the Ice Age.

Killing deer in order to have more of them. It sounds like one of the British Labour Party's economic policies.

I will venture to suggest that these 'scientists' in fact haven't got a clue how many deer we had during the Ice Age, 800 million years ago, and that it is in any case irrelevant. In fact if they understood anything about ancient temperature changes we wouldn't have had the global warming nonsense in the first place.

Chavez

It is odd for us seeing the broken, sobbing emotion in Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez. For us, the death of a politician marks either sober reflection or joy; no one would care much if we lost Cameron or Milliband, just as the idea of Hollande or Sarkozy falling under a bus would leave France little more than pensive.

Chavez was not, as some commentators like to suggest, either a communist or a dictator. He was a Peronist, a populist with the knack of persuading the poor they are doing better. The oil price rose during his presidency from not much more than $1 to over $100 and the money was blown on this or that programme; much of it stuck to his friends' or his ministers' fingers. Venezuela is no more an organised, viable state than it was in 1999: it is just as corrupt, just as inefficient and even more dependent on oil. A falling of the oil price would mean poverty, even hunger, for the lower classes.

Chavez will be remembered in Venezuela as a saint, in America as a bogeyman and in the rest of the world as just another south American generalissimo.

Jail shock

The newspapers in Italy and all over Europe are covering the news that Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to one year in prison for publishing the contents of an illegal wiretap.

Under the British system this sounds serious, but in Italy it is one of three steps before the sentence becomes definitive, with a limit of seven years from the date of the offence to the final appeal. I am willing to bet good money that Berlusconi will never see the inside of a prison.

So, don't worry, or sorry to dash your hopes, according to your view on the man: Italians can't seem to make up their minds.

Not for us, thanks

An interesting statement from Michalis Sarris, finance minister of Cyprus (which this blog recognises as southern, or Greek Cyprus), talking about a bailout of his bankrupt failed state; 'There are indications that London would participate in a package..'

This 'country' is bust because it attracted Russian oligarchs with tax breaks and the banks were allowed to take in massive deposits of largely illegal cash. The banks then invested the money in Greek Government debt, propping up the failed regime in their parent country. These Greek bonds turned out to be not such a good investment - who knew? - and when the third rescue package for Greece insisted on some people taking a haircut on their money, these banks were told to offer up their holdings for the haircut, meaning they had even less of the rubbish investments with which to repay their depositors.

Matters are now urgent because the Russians are moving their money out by the shedload and the banks can't repay them.

This has all been a conspiracy by Greece to prop up its corrupt regime using money from gangsters and now it has been found out.

Note to Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague: NO THANKS.

We'd have done better to recognise Northern (Turkish) Cyprus - at least it's run by a country with a future.

The Bonus Cap

We shall be hearing quite a lot about the European Union's proposed bonus cap, in particular because the banks are going to resort to law, probably under the now unpopular Human Rights Act, or the Equalities Act (see below) if that extends to dealers but not Dalits. Two things to note: firstly, don't blame David Cameron. The Government's power to do anything about this was removed with Qualified Majority Voting. He may be ineffective, but in this case it's not his fault. The second thing is don't believe it when you are told that even the Swiss are adopting such legislation. Typically, the Swiss one is very sensible, giving shareholders the right to vote on executive pay, a step forward rather than back for democracy and, I suppose, 'rights'.

They won't be doing this in New York or Singapore.

When considering the matter of bankers' remuneration I often turn to another highly paid profession, football. It is as if the Football League had said that all clubs north of the Watford Gap will have to limit footballers' wages and no more than a £25 voucher from Boots for scoring a goal. Clubs in the South would not be affected.

So in the North, come the opening of the Transfer Window, Manchester United, Manchester City and Bangor Athletic would be limited as to what talent they can pay for: Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't score goals for £25 and may anyway be using a different brand of cosmetics. Note that this wouldn't trouble Bangor Athletic, the footballing equivalent of Malta or Belgium, who don't have the money or the name to bid for the best players and so supported the move, dragging the big Manchester Clubs down to their level.

But Tottenham and Chelsea, the equivalents of New York and Singapore, would be cock-a-hoop, their teams full of superstars.

Such is the effect of governments sticking their oar into places where they shouldn't.

Discrimination

Vijay and Amardeep Begraj worked in a law firm in Coventry, he as practice manager, she as a solicitor. They claimed unfair dismissal against their employer, Heer Manak, on grounds of caste discrimination, in that Amardeep was from the Jat caste whereas her husband Begraj was a Dalit, or untouchable as they used to be known. They had married across the caste boundaries.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case (the judge, who goes by the splendid name of Merry Cocks, stood down, apparently after a visit from the police) it is deeply regrettable, although not unimaginable, that caste differences should have made their way to Britain.

Now Lord Harries, former Bishop of Oxford, has tabled an amendment to a Bill going through the House of Lords, which would make it illegal to discriminate on grounds of caste, as it is illegal on grounds of gender, ethnic background, religion, sexuality and so on.

The statement from the spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (how could we make a saving here?) was rather interesting. He said 'We do not believe that introducing specific caste based legislation is the best way to tackle the incidents of caste-based prejudice and discrimination that have been identified'. Apparently the government will rely on education.

Now, as it happens, I did not believe, when the Racial Discrimination Act was passed in the 1970s, that legislation was the right way to go about this. I'm not sure about 'education' but I believe a culture of tolerance has grown up in the UK in spite of the legislation. I felt the same when it was extended to homosexuals, people with big noses and that tribe which worships the Duke of Edinburgh. Battering people with bien pensant legislation, forcing them to behave as the State would want is, to me, a retrograde step, not a progressive one.

Now it seems the Government agrees. Will we see an end to the reams of ineffective laws, to the thought police who want to regulate our every whim?

Don't hold your breath.

Good luck to Mr and Mrs Begraj, who are apparently too short of money to have a retrial.

Eastleigh

The results of the by-election were

LibDems 32%

UKIP      28%

Cons       25%

Lab         10%

It is surprising how close the three top parties were - less than 3,000 votes between LibDem and Conservative. But most surprising was the rise of UKIP

Many tired old Tories (eg John Redwood, who writes an otherwise excellent blog) are saying that the Eurosceptic Right polled 53% but being divided lost the election to a euro-fanatic. The truth is that there is a party which wants to leave the European Union and a party which wants to stay in but whinge a bit.

The Tories know exactly how to eliminate the threat of UKIP. Cameron hasn't the balls to do it. After today they might just think of finding someone who does.

David's Day

St. David's Day. David was a 6th century monk, who spent his life fighting Pelagianism, which is the belief that there was no original sin, and that Adam's sin, whilst not setting a good example (I have a secret, risky thrill when eating an apple), has not cast us all into the void: we can decide what is right and wrong and act accordingly. Pelagianism is sometimes known as Limited Depravity, which at least makes it worth studying.

David was an ascetic, and his followers were supposed to eat nothing but bread and herbs, although perhaps he ate leeks.

Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
To have me fold up Parca’s fatal web?
Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.
Henry V

There is no longer a need to wear a leek on St David's day, even though you may feel it is attractive to the opposite sex.

We dun great

Today there is a by-election in Eastleigh, near Southampton. The result is due tomorrow.

All we can be certain of is that all the protagonists will say it was a good result for them.

Benedict

The name means 'blessed' and I have sometimes wondered why he took it. Previous Benedicts weren't up to much, although the last one, who reigned during World War I, was a fairly good egg. I rather think that after the papal equivalent of a rockstar he wanted to be seen as a quiet, holy man. At his inaugural address he described himself as 'a humble worker in God's vineyard' which, for someone who had been known as 'the Pope's rottweiler' was image spin at its best.

In retrospect the Vatican needed a manager and it got a scholar. Some of the reins had got a little loose during John Paul II's international whirlwind, including the child molestation issue and, as we are now beginning to learn, homosexuality in the priesthood and higher. The Vatican has always contained more than its fair share of intriguers, and left unchecked this can reach fever pitch, as it may have done over the 'Vatileaks' scandal. The Holy See needed someone who could discipline, organise and be a little ruthless, and then portray his works to an increasingly sceptical congregation; instead it got a kindly old theologian.

I am sure Benedict was a thoroughly decent man and that history will remember him as such, but now St. Peter's needs a Chief Executive and a diplomat.

Benedict will be known as Pope Emeritus, which is decent enough, and, appropriately, an oft used academical appellation. He should keep out of sight, as he has promised to do, even though scandals emerge which are, perhaps unfairly, blamed on him. He may be the Aunt Sally Pope.

Gaaaah!

This blog's award for the newspaper article you least want to read has got off to a great start with an entry from the Telegraph:

Esther Rantzen: do I dare give love one more chance?

It won't be easy to beat that.

Italy votes (3)

So, the initial polls were miles out. It is said that people don't want to admit to a pollster that they voted Berlusconi or Grillo. Berlusconi fought a brilliant, tireless campaign, coming from certain loser to parity in a matter of weeks. Grillo even eclipsed him, and without the aid of the media, which largely pretended he didn't exist. Bersani was lacklustre and boring, Monti was nowhere. In fact he was in Davos for part of the campaign.

Bersani just scraped ahead of Berlusconi in the lower house and gets a bonus of seats, giving him a working majority. Berlusconi came off best in the upper house. Italy is officially ungovernable. To have new elections would require a new president to be elected by this fractious new legislature.

So how has it come to this? Could it occur in any other country that the traditional two or three party system is interrupted by a comedian, whose movement is suddenly as big as the others?

What the papers are saying is 'Italy rejects austerity' on the grounds that both Grillo and Berlusconi disapprove of Monti's plan. But this is a respectable position: many economic commentators think that tax rises in the middle of a recession just make it worse. Austerity is unpopular but it's something else.

There are a couple of aspects to this. The first is that part of the reason Monti did so badly is that he never explained what was going on. It seems arrogance; it seemed that both he and the austerity programme had been parachuted in from Berlin, and that turned Italians against the need for the suffering it caused. Coupled with this is a burgeoning anti-euro and even anti-Europe feeling, with resentment that decisions are made for Europe, not for Italy. This supported Berlusconi, particularly in the northern industrial heartlands where the myriad small firms resent paying for everyone else.

The second feeling in Italy is that the political caste needs replacing: 'Mandiamoli a casa' shrieked Grillo: 'Let's send them all home'. A prime example was during the hustings, where a bank, controlled by a political party, was forced to fire its chief executive who immediately became Chairman of the Association of Italian Bankers! He is now being investigated for corruption. He was a member of the ruling caste, which extends though politics to industry, the trade unions and the education establishment, so he was always going to be looked after. This sort of thing - and there are countless examples - sent million into the arms of Beppe Grillo.

There is going to be considerable short-term embarrassment: Italy is renewing some €8.75 billion of short-term debt this morning and the rates will rise. But in some ways I think this election was good. It was after the Mani Pulite scandal of the 1990s, which brought Berlusconi to power, that things were gong to change, But they didn't: after nearly twenty years, for much of which Berlusconi has been in power, things are the same as they were. Now, they might indeed change. Beppe Grillo is not Garibaldi but he may ultimately be the saviour of his nation. 'Honesty,' he said, 'will come back into fashion.'

Let's hope it does.

More Italy voting

A pornstar called Amandha Fox has offered a poster of her bottom to anyone who doesn't vote. She is, apparently, keen to be mayoress of Taranto.

I'm afraid I didn't qualify for the poster.

In other news, exit polls show Bersani to have a reasonably comfortable lead, ahead of Berlusconi and third Grillo.

Italy votes again

The second day of voting (incidentally I think this is a good idea). Yesterday the turnout, as expected, was low. Around 55% of those eligible to vote have done so, although turnout is higher in some regions.

Incredibly, in a protest against Silvio Berlusconi, three half naked women threw themselves at him. The old boy acted as if this were perfectly normal.

Italy votes

Italy goes to the polls today and tomorrow in the strangest election in its history. The protagonists are a veteran left winger who while a minister pushed through reforms the right didn't dare; a 75 year old billionaire; a university professor who will be 70 when the new government is sworn in and a comedian. Bersani, head of the Partito Democratico and former minister in the Prodi government, is the youngest at 61.

It is illegal to publish polls for the two weeks before the election, but not illegal to conduct a poll and have it leaked. In this way we hear rumours, and the most common one is that Beppe Grillo will come second to Bersani, with Berlusconi third and Monti way behind on around 12%. In some ways this is good for Italy: the markets would be pleased if Bersani had to do a deal and Mario Monti got his name on the notepaper.

On the other hand, only stable governments can enact reform and this doesn't look stable. If Berlusconi and Grillo have sufficient blocking votes they can cause no end of trouble. The most likely scenario is that Italy will be voting again before long.

It is snowing in many parts of the country and people don't seem enthusiastic.

We should know something on Tuesday morning.

Our own enemies

We can, I suppose, all feel relieved that Irfan Naseer, Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali are in prison. They were planning a large number of terrorist atrocities and behind bars is where we want these people to be.

Some newspapers mentioned it, almost in passing, but there is a very sinister aspect to this case. It is that these people were - are - British, born in Britain. Irfan Naseer had a chemistry degree, which we financed, and Ashik Ali had a council flat. Many among their social and family circles must have known what was going on - they went off to Pakistan for training - but said nothing. They were a community - an overused word but here with a sinister meaning: they clung together putting their 'community' before the interests of their country and the safety of its citizens.

There could be countless other small cells of fanatics all over the country (but particularly in areas of high immigration from the sub-continent).

Our solution? To keep an army in Afghanistan and elsewhere. As we speak there are secretive British special forces creeping round the edge of the Sahara desert in François Hollande's bid for popularity among his own people. They, and the regular soldiers in Afghanistan, would make an excellent border force and infiltration unit to protect the British people which, I might remind everyone, is the primary duty of the Government.

We don't need escapades elsewhere: we have our own enemies on our own shores.

Recommended reading

I blog occasionally for The Commentator, an online magazine specialising in high quality journalism. The blog section is called The Tea Room (after the Spectator's Coffee House). My latest post here.

Pistorius

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the media are going big on the Pistorius story: a famous athlete kills a beautiful woman- it's got to be a good story hasn't it?

However I think it is worth reminding ourselves that this is just the bail hearing: it concentrates on whether he is likely to skip the country, and it is sometimes unwise for a lawyer to reveal his hand at this early stage.

But we seem to have gone miles over the top. The Sun has been vilified for printing pictures of the woman in a bikini - ironic really since she was still trying to break into the modelling business and now she is getting all the publicity in the world. Other papers had pictures of the bathroom where she was shot. I wonder what people make of this: to me it seemed that there being a news item about this couple all the information that can be gleaned about them is suddenly thrust in our faces.

It doesn't make for very good journalism.

What they're paid

Central bank governors' salaries in US$ equivalent

 

USA                199,700

UK                  465,869

ECB                493,694

Italy                   990,000 reduced voluntarily to 653,400

I yield to no one

The Corriere della Sera has published the opinions on the forthcoming elections of...Gianluigi Buffon, the Italy and Juventus goalkeeper. He supports Monti.

Wonderful footballer, of course but....

In the words of Jacques Chirac, he missed a valuable opportunity to remain silent.

Left or Right?

David Cameron is left-handed, as is Barack Obama.

Conspiracy theorists embrace all kinds of nonsense so a fear that we are being dominated by a sinister clique shouldn't surprise us. Perhaps we are.

But they should pause, because  pictures from his recent visit to India show him playing cricket right-handed.

Does he, as it were, bat both ways? Does this left and right confusion have something to tell us about his policy on welfare, immigration? On Europe?

I think we should be told.

The Red Cross

At a time of upheaval all over Europe, the battle of Solferino stands out. It was fought in northern Italy, near Lake Garda, between an alliance of Piedmont-Sardinia and France, and the Austrians. It was the last battle where all participating forces were commanded by their monarchs: Victor Emmanuel II and Napoleon III on the one side and Franz Joseph on the other. Two years later Italy declared its independence.

Out of some 300,000 troops taking part, more than 5,000 were killed and 23,000 wounded. Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss from Geneva,  witnessed the aftermath of the battle. What struck him was that there was no one to take care of the wounded: they were left to lie on the battlefield. He organised local people to treat them, paying for some of the medicines himself. Two years later his ideas led to the Geneva Convention and to the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose 150th anniversary is today.

Dunant died in 1910, penniless and schizophrenic but his creation lives on. It is said his last words were 'Where has humanity gone?' 

Bribes-village

Election time in Italy is usually scandal time, and we are not spoiled on this occasion for stuff coming out of the woodwork. After the scandal at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, a bank controlled by the left, we have Finmeccanica. The CEO, Giuseppe Orsi, has been arrested on suspicion of paying bribes to land an Indian helicopter contract. Mr Orsi seems to have no particular political involvement but he smells vaguely of the centre-right.
  
A journalist asked Italy's President Giorgio Napoletano whether he thought Italy was returning to the Tangentopoli (bribesville) days of the '80s and 90s. 'All this worries me but I know nothing' said the wily old communist.

I think it likely that the journalist, il Presidente, and many other people in the press and the government may not have thought through about bribery.

To receive a bribe is one thing. It means that you have been given a position of trust and that you have breached that trust. Most cases refer to functionaries employed by governments who are able to agree business contracts. It is highly common: in a South-East Asian country I heard that only 65% of contract costs go to the contract itself. More than a third is paid out in bribes. In a South American country a procurement official would write the sum of money he wanted on the bottom of his shoe and then put his feet on the desk. Receiving a bribe means that you have stolen money from your compatriots: they have to pay more for their helicopters, roads or whatever in order to enrich you. It is, purely and simply, theft.

Paying bribes is another matter. The most that can be said is that you have charged a foreign country more than you might otherwise have done for your goods or services. That country has willingly paid it. As regards your own compatriots you have helped them: there will be domestic orders and jobs as a result of getting the contract. As Berlusconi said, 'they should not be so moralistic.....companies budget for bribes because that is how business is done in third world countries'.

In my view, inside Italy, Tangentopoli has not gone away: the political caste conspires to enrich itself in ever more imaginative ways. Look at how the sacked head of Monte dei Paschi became head of the Bankers Association.

But Mr Orsi was just doing his job. If the Indian government suddenly has a problem about bribery - and it would be utterly hypocritical if it did - it should look to itself. 

And Italy has far more important things to worry about than this.

The FT

The Financial Times is 125 years old today, coming into being just after Victoria's Golden Jubilee and around the time of electric street lighting in London. The British economy was the largest in the world, although about to be overtaken by the USA, and Britain was the most industrialised economy in the world. Happy days.

The FT was printed on pink paper from 1893, in order to distinguish itself from its competitor Financial News, with which it later merged.

The FT is now and always has been a first class newspaper. I wish it well for the next 125 years.

The LoUC

It's a delicious example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Romania, trying to seem modern, has banned horses and donkeys from the country's roads. The animals, unusable for transport, are worthless except for their meat value.

A dealer in Greek Cyprus, acting for a Dutch Company, bought the meat from Romanian abattoirs, selling it to a French company. Through a distributor in Luxembourg it ended up in British hamburgers.

Odd, but in fact this meat might be safer than horsemeat from Ireland, which is largely from abandoned racehorses stuffed with drugs. Romanian farmers didn't have access to the drugs so the meat might actually be a good thing. But consumers should have the right to know what they are eating.

Some fool on the BBC News Channel Comment programme suggested that the answer to this was more EU regulation. Of course quite the opposite is true. We accept the EU regulation and in return permit such places as Romania to sell us their meat. The system of regulation has broken down.

Britain, with high standards of animal care, should be allowed to refuse imports until various places cleaned up their act. As usual, the solution is less Europe, though the EU-apologists try to persuade you we need more bureaucracy.

Cometh the hour...

The surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI will fuel rumours that he has decided to devote the rest of his life to Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands who also mysteriously resigned recently.

As to his successor, the last two popes having been foreign it is surely time for another Italian one, and the cardinals need look no further than Silvio Berlusconi who according to evidence at his trial, is in youthful and vigorous health and looks good in white. His election to the throne of St. Peter would be supported by all other politicians in the country.

PS the latest odds show favourites Francis Arinze (Nigeria) and Peter Turkson (Ghana)

Everyone's a winner!

It is a strange truth of British elections that everyone who participated says something like 'this has been an excellent result for us'. I even made such a speech myself in 1992 having gleaned 42 votes out of around 100,000.

And it is of course true of the European Budget negotiations. The quotes are in:

France (Hollande): The best deal on offer, France has given in less than Britain, France will save €140m  year from financing rebates, aid to French farmers will remain the same as 2007-13.

Italy (Monti): particularly significant improvement in Italy's net position, an extra €3.5bn compared to the November proposals and Italy saves €600m a year from financing rebates.

Spain (Rajoy): Spain will remain a net recipient of funds, and will get almost 30% of the fund for youth unemployment.

Sweden (Reinfeldt): Sweden's contribution to the EU budget will drop slightly

Poland (Tusk): a huge success, Poland's receipts will increase by €4bn.

Denmark (Thorning-Schmidt): Denmark went in with 3 priorities and has satisfied all of them.

I don't know who lost: probably Malta and Bulgaria. Tough luck, chaps. Everyone else is a winner.

Solidarité!

A success?

There are stories this morning that there will be a reduction in the European medium term budget (2014-2020). No details as yet and it could of course be vetoed by the European Parliament, but if this true it is a breakthrough.

The very idea that the European budget might go down as well as up was inconceivable until recently. It is a tribute to David Cameron if he, starting out as the only European  Leader demanding a budget cut, has succeeded.

I don't like or support Cameron but praise where praise is due. His fractious MPs should recognise this for what it is: a fundamental change in attitudes.

Wonderful

At the end of last year I commented on the Health Service in Britain. There have been developments and they are not good, although should come as no surprise to anyone who thinks critically.

According to a public inquiry some 1,200 people have died unnecessarily at Mid Staffordshire Hospital. Patients were left in soiled beds for days, and some were so dehydrated because the nurses would not bring water that they drank from flower vases.

Anyone in the NHS or the Department of Health who thinks this is an isolated incident is certain to be disabused. Five other hospitals are under investigation, and a further fifteen have unusually high death rates.

This is a disaster, nothing less.

Who is to blame? Not the director of nursing at the time, one Dr. Helen Moss, who has been cleared by her professional body of misconduct. Not the Chief Executive, Martin Yeates, who despite a recommendation that his conduct be investigated, was not questioned and left his job with a £400,000 payoff. And not the head of the West Midlands Health Authority, Sir David  Nicholson who got promoted to Chief Executive of the NHS and has confirmed he has nothing to apologise for.

So there you have it.

Actually there are other guilty parties: us. For years we have extolled the wonders of our Health Service (and to be fair, in the late '40s / early 50's it was internationally renowned) and then took our eyes off the ball while other nations created better, more manageable systems. For years the NHS was the largest employer in the world after the Red Army, and has only recently been overtaken by the Indian State Railways. David Cameron began his apology yesterday with 'I love the NHS'; the Olympics opening ceremony treated it as if it were a wonder; until now the British have been fulsome in their praise.

Until now.

One of the unnecessarily bereaved has started a campaign called 'Cure the NHS'. It has its work cut out. There is a culture of laziness, of bitterness among the staff. The hospitals are dirty and disease is rampant. Consultants are overpaid and idle.

The NHS needs root and branch reform, from its funding to its management. I am betting they will just tinker.

Reg Presley

RIP Reg Presley, singer for '60s band The Troggs, songwriter, actor and all round good egg.


Music from a gentler age, delivered in a wonderful Hampshire accent. When he made a fortune from another band recording his song Love is all around he said he'd spend the money analysing crop circles.

Coming this month

The euro seems safe for the moment, and, although a critic, I am not going to say otherwise. Mario Draghi's 'whatever it takes' statement, coupled with the long-term refinancing programme, seems to have taken away the immediate financial downside. The euro is riding high on the FX markets and sovereign borrowing costs are dramatically lower.

I just want to point to a couple of risks. In Spain Mario Rajoy's government is facing a grave corruption scandal. It has been suggested by the respectable El Pais newspaper that several senior members of the government have been receiving illegal payments - sobresueldos - from the Partido Popular, and that these include Rajoy. Spain is going through a particularly bad patch, with unemployment over 25% and youth unemployment over 50% and people are disgusted that the ruling class is in receipt of bungs. Campaigners outside parliament have been waving envelopes. The payments appear to have been made by construction magnates and people know it is the construction boom which has caused much of Spain's hardship. It is Rajoy's government which has towed the German line and introduced the unpopular austerity measures.

The second worry is Italy. Within a week or so opinion polls will become illegal over the election period. The country goes into this phase with Berlusconi doing well, within 5% of Bersani. Berlusconi unveiled today a raft of proposed tax cuts, including reductions in the unpopular IMU property tax introduced by Monti, the bulk of which has gone to bail out a bank run by the socialists.

If Europe wakes up at the end of February to the news that Rajoy has had to resign or that Berlusconi is in power in Italy - or both - things could look rather different.  

Non-voters

An interesting Italian opnion poll from Swg shows that following the MPS scandal the left, which owns and runs the bank, is suffering in the polls. Berlusconi is now within 5% of Bersani (27.8% to 32.8%) whilst comedian Beppe Grillo's 5-star movement is beating Mario Monti for third place (18% to 14%).

Interestingly the poll analyses non-voting intentions: some 30% of Italians have announced they probably won't vote and of these the proportion is slightly higher among practising catholics than non-practising, but on average catholics are far more likely not to vote (33%) than non-catholics (18%).

Interestingly older people (45-54) are less likely to vote (39%) than the 18-24 group (21%). People in low income groups are less likely to vote.

One interesting point the poll doesn't mention is the weather: this is the first time in living memory that the Italians have been asked to vote in winter. If it is a bad day, perhaps those wondering whether to vote or not won't bother, whereas those with a point to make (those favouring Grillo?) will force themselves out.