Someone at the UN (actually I bet it's a large committee with undersecretaries, sub-managers and interns) is charged with naming days for whatever is the current preoccupation (non-smoking day is some time in May, I think, and there's bound to be a 'wearing cycle helmets' Day soon). But here is one which seems to be of some value if, as I suppose, the aim is to get us thinking about it. Today is International Literacy Day.
Some West African countres have literacy rates at only 15%. The average for South and West Asia is under 60%. And of course without literacy these people cannot make progress and will remain poor, barbaric and increasingly subsidy dependent. The figures for female illiteracy in some places are appalling.
A useful one, for once.
08 September, 2009
Cadbury
I think the only time I have been in agreement with one of those Papal Bulls which emerges from the Eurocracy with such regularity is when they tried to stop Cadbury calling their Dairy Milk product 'chocolate', on the grounds that it contained so little of the stuff as not to qualify.
I should be glad if the company were bought by Kraft, which owns Tobler Suchard, and could teach them how to make a bar of chocolate. Start with Lindt 70% and work up to their 85%, is my advice. There is also a 99% if you are barking mad, as I am.
I should be glad if the company were bought by Kraft, which owns Tobler Suchard, and could teach them how to make a bar of chocolate. Start with Lindt 70% and work up to their 85%, is my advice. There is also a 99% if you are barking mad, as I am.
Libya: the compensation struggle
The silence, excuses, volte-faces and dithering which passes for the Government’s policy on Libya seems to have taken a rather strange turn.
Victims of IRA bombings, noticing that our own terrorists bought their explosive from Libya, are asking for compensation from Colonel Ghaddafi. Notice that no one thinks that Ghaddafi was involved in the bombings, just that he sold them the kit. This is a new and disturbing development. Britain is one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world. Will we pay compensation every time someone is killed using British made arms? Can the bereaved families of Falklands victims claim compensation from the French who made the exocet missiles?
The victims’ families would do as well to contact the Kennedy family in America for its support for NORAID (the IRA had to get the money to pay Ghaddafi). And I note that Britain has just sold Ghaddafi some riot control gear. I hope we are ready with our compensation money when he turns this stuff on his own citizens.
Victims of IRA bombings, noticing that our own terrorists bought their explosive from Libya, are asking for compensation from Colonel Ghaddafi. Notice that no one thinks that Ghaddafi was involved in the bombings, just that he sold them the kit. This is a new and disturbing development. Britain is one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world. Will we pay compensation every time someone is killed using British made arms? Can the bereaved families of Falklands victims claim compensation from the French who made the exocet missiles?
The victims’ families would do as well to contact the Kennedy family in America for its support for NORAID (the IRA had to get the money to pay Ghaddafi). And I note that Britain has just sold Ghaddafi some riot control gear. I hope we are ready with our compensation money when he turns this stuff on his own citizens.
07 September, 2009
Alan Turing
There is a petition on the Downing St website for an apology for Alan Turing, the famous mathematician and computer genius (one of those few occasions where the use of the word is not an exaggeration).
Turing, from his work at Bletchley Park, helped win the war by decrypting enemy messages. After the war he began to work on computers. In 1952 he was convicted of gross indecency, involving a homosexual relationship with a young man. He took his own life a year later.
No one has more respect for Turing than I (inasmuch as I can understand his work) and I do not believe in persecuting homosexuals. But I have to say I am tired of this continual apology business. We have been urged to apologise for Britain’s actions in all manner of fields, recently soldiers shot for cowardice and the slave trade.
But why apologise? Why should Gordon Brown apologise for something that happened shortly after he was born? What effect would an apology have? To say we're not against homosexuality? Of course we're not: it's been legal for over 40 years now. The people who persecuted Turing are long since dead and were they still alive might or might not regret their actions, we'll never know.
Homosexuality was not legalised until 1967. Turing was breaking the law and knew he was breaking the law. If a law changes do we have to apologise to everyone convicted under the old law? Why?
This would be just an opportunity for Brown to wallow in his comfortable beliefs assuring the Guardian readers that he was on their side. An apology would do nothing to help poor Turing and would demean the Government. Not signing the petition doesn’t mean you hate gays and doesn’t mean you don’t respect one of the country’s greatest ever mathematicians. It means you’ve got common sense.
Turing, from his work at Bletchley Park, helped win the war by decrypting enemy messages. After the war he began to work on computers. In 1952 he was convicted of gross indecency, involving a homosexual relationship with a young man. He took his own life a year later.
No one has more respect for Turing than I (inasmuch as I can understand his work) and I do not believe in persecuting homosexuals. But I have to say I am tired of this continual apology business. We have been urged to apologise for Britain’s actions in all manner of fields, recently soldiers shot for cowardice and the slave trade.
But why apologise? Why should Gordon Brown apologise for something that happened shortly after he was born? What effect would an apology have? To say we're not against homosexuality? Of course we're not: it's been legal for over 40 years now. The people who persecuted Turing are long since dead and were they still alive might or might not regret their actions, we'll never know.
Homosexuality was not legalised until 1967. Turing was breaking the law and knew he was breaking the law. If a law changes do we have to apologise to everyone convicted under the old law? Why?
This would be just an opportunity for Brown to wallow in his comfortable beliefs assuring the Guardian readers that he was on their side. An apology would do nothing to help poor Turing and would demean the Government. Not signing the petition doesn’t mean you hate gays and doesn’t mean you don’t respect one of the country’s greatest ever mathematicians. It means you’ve got common sense.
04 September, 2009
Jonathan Ross
Interesting news of the foul mouthed celeb, who, you will recall, was found to have left vulgar messages on the answerphone of a 70 year old actor, while earning £6 million a year from the BBC (ie the taxpayer).
The Sun newspaper reports that the BBC are busy renegotiating his contract, and that they are terrified the independent ITV would like to have him.
Let us monitor this. I think the BBC would be well advised to lose this particular race and that the market price of the performer will turn out to be a fair bit less than £6 million. The BBC, and I think it has forgotten this, is supposed to be a public service provider, maintaining all that is good in broadcasting (much of it is) and not competing for ratings with the private sector which does not have state support.
The Sun newspaper reports that the BBC are busy renegotiating his contract, and that they are terrified the independent ITV would like to have him.
Let us monitor this. I think the BBC would be well advised to lose this particular race and that the market price of the performer will turn out to be a fair bit less than £6 million. The BBC, and I think it has forgotten this, is supposed to be a public service provider, maintaining all that is good in broadcasting (much of it is) and not competing for ratings with the private sector which does not have state support.
Berlu and the Bishops (2)
Boffo resigns. The extraordinary story of Silvio Berlusconi’s relations with the Roman Catholic Church – I was going to say ‘deteriorating relations’ but things seems to have passed that point – has taken a new twist.
Dino Boffo, the editor of l’Avvenire, the newspaper of the Bishops’ Conference, has resigned, citing the attack on him by Bruno Feltri, editor of Il Giornale which is owned by Berlusconi’s brother. In his statement Boffo said that whilst it was true he had been convicted of harassment and paid a fine, it was not he but a former drug addict to whom he had given shelter who had made the harassing calls on his mobile phone. This is really the most astonishingly stupid thing to say: that, accused of homosexuality (a sin in the world he inhabits), he denies any wrongdoing and says there was a bit of rough trade staying with him and using his mobile ‘phone.
Boffo has denied suggestions of a homosexual relationship in this case – although does not appear to deny being a homosexual. It seems the Catholic Church, given its attitude to homosexuality, has some questions to answer here. It is inconceivable that they did not know Boffo was gay, and actively so, and must have known that he had been convicted of harassment. How come he was allowed to stay in his job, particularly making moral accusations against a public figure? Pictures of a smiling Boffo shaking hands with the Pope are only gong to make things worse.
This will look as if it is Round 1 to Berlusconi. But this is the wrong enemy to take on. He must settle matters with the Church soon, it is too influential to fight.
Dino Boffo, the editor of l’Avvenire, the newspaper of the Bishops’ Conference, has resigned, citing the attack on him by Bruno Feltri, editor of Il Giornale which is owned by Berlusconi’s brother. In his statement Boffo said that whilst it was true he had been convicted of harassment and paid a fine, it was not he but a former drug addict to whom he had given shelter who had made the harassing calls on his mobile phone. This is really the most astonishingly stupid thing to say: that, accused of homosexuality (a sin in the world he inhabits), he denies any wrongdoing and says there was a bit of rough trade staying with him and using his mobile ‘phone.
Boffo has denied suggestions of a homosexual relationship in this case – although does not appear to deny being a homosexual. It seems the Catholic Church, given its attitude to homosexuality, has some questions to answer here. It is inconceivable that they did not know Boffo was gay, and actively so, and must have known that he had been convicted of harassment. How come he was allowed to stay in his job, particularly making moral accusations against a public figure? Pictures of a smiling Boffo shaking hands with the Pope are only gong to make things worse.
This will look as if it is Round 1 to Berlusconi. But this is the wrong enemy to take on. He must settle matters with the Church soon, it is too influential to fight.
02 September, 2009
Italy: hunting
The Italian hunting season has started, and from 6am our house sounds as if it were in a First World War battle zone. Italians take this very seriously and are beautifully kitted out: imagine male catwalk models where 'paramilitary' was the style of the day. Their guns are often sophisticated multi-round pump action repeaters and their sunglasses more Schwarzenegger than Lennon.
They don't hit much - to be fair there isn't much left to hit. Last year some people were fined for shooting thrushes but there is little policing. If it moves they shoot it, be it squirrel, hare, blue tit or whatever. They have the right to walk all over your land in pursuit of this slaughter and many is the domestic dog or cat fed poisoned titbits to prevent it from disturbing the game.
About 20 years ago there was a referendum on whether these hunting rights should be restricted and the voting was about 15:1 in favour of stopping it. But unfortunately the turnout at under 50% did not constitute a quorum and the attempt failed.
This is one of the very few areas of Italian life which is crude, selfish and unlovely. Apparently a new attempt is in the offing to stop it. We shall see.
They don't hit much - to be fair there isn't much left to hit. Last year some people were fined for shooting thrushes but there is little policing. If it moves they shoot it, be it squirrel, hare, blue tit or whatever. They have the right to walk all over your land in pursuit of this slaughter and many is the domestic dog or cat fed poisoned titbits to prevent it from disturbing the game.
About 20 years ago there was a referendum on whether these hunting rights should be restricted and the voting was about 15:1 in favour of stopping it. But unfortunately the turnout at under 50% did not constitute a quorum and the attempt failed.
This is one of the very few areas of Italian life which is crude, selfish and unlovely. Apparently a new attempt is in the offing to stop it. We shall see.
29 August, 2009
The Spectator
It seems Matthew d'Ancona is leaving as editor of the Speccie, after a very successful few years. New editor will be Fraser Nelson, who is quite a good egg.
Berlu and the Church
I can't help wondering if Silvio Berlusconi, normally politically sure-footed, hasn't picked the wrong enemy. He was due to attend the annual Celestine Pardon, as part of a rapprochement with the Holy See, but has pulled out, after Cardinal Bertone the Vatican Secretary of State, cancelled a dinner due to be held afterwards. The Vatican is concerned about the stories surrounding Berlusconi and an impending divorce, although to be fair to Silvio it is his wife trying to divorce him.
Berlusconi is suing La Repubblica, the Italian equivalent of the Guardian, for presenting innuendo as fact and suggesting he could be open to blackmail (it was La Repubblica who paid the prostitute to bring a tape recorder with her) but it isn't that which is the problem. The case will take so long to come to court that the matter will be forgotten.
What looks like an uncharacteristic strategic mistake from the normally cunning premier is that Vittorio Feltri, editor of Il Giornale which is owned by Berlusconi's brother, has made an attack on Dino Boffo, editor of Avvenire, the bisops' newspaper, saying he was unable to make moral judgments because he was a homosexual who was accused of harasssment and paid a fine in a plea bargain to avoid going to jail. The paper claims to be in possession of the court documents and, just to make it more complicated, it is the harassment if a woman in Terni he was accused of - he was having a relationahip with her husband. But whatever the rights and wrongs, Boffo has important friends.
Berlu has already dissociated himself from the piece but I think it was ill advised. The Church is widely respected here and the deal is that the people are allowed to criticise it privately but their leaders must show respect.
Let us see how Berlu gets out of this.
Berlusconi is suing La Repubblica, the Italian equivalent of the Guardian, for presenting innuendo as fact and suggesting he could be open to blackmail (it was La Repubblica who paid the prostitute to bring a tape recorder with her) but it isn't that which is the problem. The case will take so long to come to court that the matter will be forgotten.
What looks like an uncharacteristic strategic mistake from the normally cunning premier is that Vittorio Feltri, editor of Il Giornale which is owned by Berlusconi's brother, has made an attack on Dino Boffo, editor of Avvenire, the bisops' newspaper, saying he was unable to make moral judgments because he was a homosexual who was accused of harasssment and paid a fine in a plea bargain to avoid going to jail. The paper claims to be in possession of the court documents and, just to make it more complicated, it is the harassment if a woman in Terni he was accused of - he was having a relationahip with her husband. But whatever the rights and wrongs, Boffo has important friends.
Berlu has already dissociated himself from the piece but I think it was ill advised. The Church is widely respected here and the deal is that the people are allowed to criticise it privately but their leaders must show respect.
Let us see how Berlu gets out of this.
28 August, 2009
Adair Turner - turn him off
Adair (Lord) Turner, the head of the Financial Services Association (FSA) has made perhaps the most stupid speech I have heard this year, against some pretty stiff competition. He has said that bankers are socially useless and that the financial sector is too big and needs to be cut back.
I have been trying to imagine how it must feel to be a hard working person and be told you are socially useless, and told that by a bureaucrat ennobled and handsomely rewarded by the taxpayer. Suppose Lord Turner decided that gardeners were socially useless, or bricklayers or politicians? One wonders who has authorised him to make this judgment.
More serious is the idea that the financial sector should be cut back. It’s not just the facts of the case – every year I can remember Britain has run a trade deficit with the world, wholly or partially recouped by a surplus on invisibles – largely banking. The financial industry has been bailing us out of the mire for ages.
But I could agree that banking is so strong an industry for Britain that there is perhaps an imbalance. What should we do? What should a country do if it had one very strong industry – say agriculture or oil or electronics? The liberal adviser would say encourage other industries to grow. The illiberal bureaucrat says hack the successful industry back down to size.
Turner is new to the FSA but he must be aware that it was charged with regulating the financial industry and yet failed to notice the banks were leveraged to 30%, failed to understand what was going wrong at Northern Rock. Let’s remember this when we talk about people being ‘socially useless’.
I have been trying to imagine how it must feel to be a hard working person and be told you are socially useless, and told that by a bureaucrat ennobled and handsomely rewarded by the taxpayer. Suppose Lord Turner decided that gardeners were socially useless, or bricklayers or politicians? One wonders who has authorised him to make this judgment.
More serious is the idea that the financial sector should be cut back. It’s not just the facts of the case – every year I can remember Britain has run a trade deficit with the world, wholly or partially recouped by a surplus on invisibles – largely banking. The financial industry has been bailing us out of the mire for ages.
But I could agree that banking is so strong an industry for Britain that there is perhaps an imbalance. What should we do? What should a country do if it had one very strong industry – say agriculture or oil or electronics? The liberal adviser would say encourage other industries to grow. The illiberal bureaucrat says hack the successful industry back down to size.
Turner is new to the FSA but he must be aware that it was charged with regulating the financial industry and yet failed to notice the banks were leveraged to 30%, failed to understand what was going wrong at Northern Rock. Let’s remember this when we talk about people being ‘socially useless’.
26 August, 2009
Ted Kennedy (2)
I railed against Kennedy's knighthood earlier this year. Now the old charlatan is dead. This is a man who has occupied public office since the 1960s and seems to have done nothing except let down his family and his country.
Fitting, I thought, that one of his last pronouncements should have been to complain against the release of Megrahi while having been an active supporter of the IRA for years. Some terrorists, you see, are beyond redemption whereas other terrorists are a useful political bandwagon.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum, I should have mentioned, does not apply to this blog. Let the blighter be judged by a higher court.
24 August, 2009
The lottery
I should have mentioned that it might be seen as obvious that the Malaspina (bad back) should have chosen Bagnone (big bath) as their home but, as I said, they were swine.
Incidentally, the Malaspina were in some large part responsible for the Salic Law on inheritance being maintained, that is that an estate should be divided amongst the (male) children, which led in France and Italy to smaller farms than in England and these were less efficient when mechanisation arrived and this meant that they got a greater subsidy than British Farms when the EU came into being.
I don't think we can blame it all on the Malaspina (Salic Law was much earlier adopted by Charlemagne). But the lottery ticket can be seen as their final curse.
Incidentally, the Malaspina were in some large part responsible for the Salic Law on inheritance being maintained, that is that an estate should be divided amongst the (male) children, which led in France and Italy to smaller farms than in England and these were less efficient when mechanisation arrived and this meant that they got a greater subsidy than British Farms when the EU came into being.
I don't think we can blame it all on the Malaspina (Salic Law was much earlier adopted by Charlemagne). But the lottery ticket can be seen as their final curse.
The lottery: and the winner is...
Bagnone is a Tuscan hilltop town above La Spezia and has suffered two misfortunes in its long history. The first was to be the chosen home of the unpleasant and warlike XIV century Guelph family the Malaspina, and the second is to be the home of the lottery jackpot ticket. The newsagent who sold the winning ticket (himself in for around €7 million) said three people bought tickets. One man, a tractor driver, was seen to be behaving strangely while watching a football match shortly before the result was announced (the Superenalotto, needlessly complicated as only the Italians can make it, depends on football matches, selected towns, and numbers).
I felt genuinely sorry for the man. To win €1 million, or, given the price of houses and low yield on pension investments, €5 million, would be a great good fortune. But €148m? It looks to me as if it can only bring bad luck.
The sensible thing, and what I like to think I would do myself, is to give away €140 million. But if I actually had the cheque in my hands......
I felt genuinely sorry for the man. To win €1 million, or, given the price of houses and low yield on pension investments, €5 million, would be a great good fortune. But €148m? It looks to me as if it can only bring bad luck.
The sensible thing, and what I like to think I would do myself, is to give away €140 million. But if I actually had the cheque in my hands......
The Ashes Series
I posted in July that the First Test had been a compulsive listening experience and so it has been throughout. That draw to begin with, our last two batsmen holding out almost impossibly, the incredible win at Lords for the first time in three quarters of a century, the rain-affected draw at Edgbaston, the appalling surrender to Australian supremacy at Headingly, from which many thought a disheartened England could never climb back, and the dramatic finale at the Oval, Australia’s top batsmen blown away in their first innings by a young man thought likely to lose his place in the team.
Even with an unprecedentedly high score to chase it looked, on a couple of occasions, as if Australia might just do it. But it was over abruptly, around the time of the aperitivo. I felt empty and purposeless for a while, wondering what it was I did before the Ashes started. Ah yes, something about a book.....
Even with an unprecedentedly high score to chase it looked, on a couple of occasions, as if Australia might just do it. But it was over abruptly, around the time of the aperitivo. I felt empty and purposeless for a while, wondering what it was I did before the Ashes started. Ah yes, something about a book.....
23 August, 2009
EU: the increasing rip-off
The Sunday Telegraph points out that in the UK Treasury’s European Union finances document, cunningly slid out after Parliament had risen for the summer, the net contributions to the EU of £4.1 billion are due to rise by more than half to £6.4 billion next year.
Just what we want in a recession. In large part it is because Tony Blair and Gordon Brown gave up Mrs Thatcher’s rebate. This rebate was because the Common Agricultural Policy favours inefficient (French) farmers. Blair and Brown came back from the summit saying it was a great deal for Britain because they had secured a reduction in agricultural payments overall. What they had in fact secured was the promise to look at agricultural payments, which the French have now decided are about right.
But unfortunately it is only half the story. Next year we are forecast to pay over £15 billion into the European Union. What we get back (ie the £9 billion which makes the net £6 billion) is dependent on their whim. If they want it to be spent on infrastructure projects it has to be. What the UK government would like is to use this £9 billion to reduce debt, but that is not permitted. And much of this money is dependent on 50/50 financing so we would have to spend £9 billion to get £9 billion back.
The figures can be seen at
Just what we want in a recession. In large part it is because Tony Blair and Gordon Brown gave up Mrs Thatcher’s rebate. This rebate was because the Common Agricultural Policy favours inefficient (French) farmers. Blair and Brown came back from the summit saying it was a great deal for Britain because they had secured a reduction in agricultural payments overall. What they had in fact secured was the promise to look at agricultural payments, which the French have now decided are about right.
But unfortunately it is only half the story. Next year we are forecast to pay over £15 billion into the European Union. What we get back (ie the £9 billion which makes the net £6 billion) is dependent on their whim. If they want it to be spent on infrastructure projects it has to be. What the UK government would like is to use this £9 billion to reduce debt, but that is not permitted. And much of this money is dependent on 50/50 financing so we would have to spend £9 billion to get £9 billion back.
The figures can be seen at
on page 29.
No. Our payment to the EU is £15 billion. That is the amount we could save by leaving.
Megrahi: best forgotten
I rather admired Kenny MacAskill’s statement on the freeing of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. It was to the effect that whilst Megrahi had shown no leniency to his victims, we, a higher form of life, would show mercy and that mercy would be irrespective of the heinousness of the crime.
But I didn’t believe a word of it.
Megrahi suddenly appeared before the courts eight years ago, handed over by Colonel Ghadaffi. It is inconceivable that he could have done the job without help, but his was the only name put forward by a man notorious for his instability who had suddenly decided, in the wake of Islamist uprisings threatening his dictatorship, to seek a rapprochement with the west. I found the trial a farce and I find Megrahi’s freeing a farce. If it depended just on medical certificates, why did MacAskill visit him in prison?
Whilst it has been put about that dropping his appeal was a condition of his freedom, I find it equally likely that his freedom was a condition of dropping his appeal. It is a regrettable comment on such an important person in public life, but I find that evidence of Lord Mandelson's involvement is further reason to suspect trickery.
This has been a shoddy business, best forgotten.
But I didn’t believe a word of it.
Megrahi suddenly appeared before the courts eight years ago, handed over by Colonel Ghadaffi. It is inconceivable that he could have done the job without help, but his was the only name put forward by a man notorious for his instability who had suddenly decided, in the wake of Islamist uprisings threatening his dictatorship, to seek a rapprochement with the west. I found the trial a farce and I find Megrahi’s freeing a farce. If it depended just on medical certificates, why did MacAskill visit him in prison?
Whilst it has been put about that dropping his appeal was a condition of his freedom, I find it equally likely that his freedom was a condition of dropping his appeal. It is a regrettable comment on such an important person in public life, but I find that evidence of Lord Mandelson's involvement is further reason to suspect trickery.
This has been a shoddy business, best forgotten.
17 August, 2009
Italian news August
August is a difficult month for you news vultures so here is the Italian news, condensed for your convenience.
Security guards have occupied the Colosseum, in protest about having to work in the private sector. There are rumours the mayor will let the lions out.
The Superenalotto jackpot is now 135 million euros. The lucky winner would be able to hire Silvio Berlusconi at a party.
A seven year old girl has swum the 3.5km Strait of Messina, proving that no bridge is necessary.
70 endangered loggerhead turtles have hatched at Capo Bruzzano, Calabria
The Coldiretti farmers union have withdrawn an instruction that tomato pickers must drink water during the day or will be sacked, after Muslims claimed it was not permitted in Ramadan.
A man who found a way of retrieving cancelled text messages from his wife’s mobile ‘phone could face a year in jail.
After Silvio Berlusconi said he would offer sanctuary in his homes to the people of l’Aquila, Antonio Bernardini, a resident made homeless by the earthquake, has formally applied for a place, saying he doesn’t mind whether it is in his palazzo in Rome or his converted convent in Sardinia. I’ve heard the parties are better in Sardinia.
Investigators are looking at the estate of the late Gianni Agnelli, president of FIAT, suggesting that as much as 1 billion euros may have gone missing from the tax authorities.
The church in Caltagirone, Sicily, has forbidden the performance of Mascagni’s opera Cavalliera Rusticana during the festival of the town’s patron saint on the grounds that the story line is immoral.
Some 750 nuns of the order of St Clare will be praying for an improvement in Italian television. The nuns do not themselves have television sets.
Security guards have occupied the Colosseum, in protest about having to work in the private sector. There are rumours the mayor will let the lions out.
The Superenalotto jackpot is now 135 million euros. The lucky winner would be able to hire Silvio Berlusconi at a party.
A seven year old girl has swum the 3.5km Strait of Messina, proving that no bridge is necessary.
70 endangered loggerhead turtles have hatched at Capo Bruzzano, Calabria
The Coldiretti farmers union have withdrawn an instruction that tomato pickers must drink water during the day or will be sacked, after Muslims claimed it was not permitted in Ramadan.
A man who found a way of retrieving cancelled text messages from his wife’s mobile ‘phone could face a year in jail.
After Silvio Berlusconi said he would offer sanctuary in his homes to the people of l’Aquila, Antonio Bernardini, a resident made homeless by the earthquake, has formally applied for a place, saying he doesn’t mind whether it is in his palazzo in Rome or his converted convent in Sardinia. I’ve heard the parties are better in Sardinia.
Investigators are looking at the estate of the late Gianni Agnelli, president of FIAT, suggesting that as much as 1 billion euros may have gone missing from the tax authorities.
The church in Caltagirone, Sicily, has forbidden the performance of Mascagni’s opera Cavalliera Rusticana during the festival of the town’s patron saint on the grounds that the story line is immoral.
Some 750 nuns of the order of St Clare will be praying for an improvement in Italian television. The nuns do not themselves have television sets.
The healthcare fog
Mr Obama is to be applauded for trying to improve the healthcare system in America but the inevitable strongly opinionated debate about his proposals seems to have thrown up more heat than light and has now regrettably moved to Britain. Our own ignorance of the US system – I was surprised to learn that 50% of healthcare in the USA is provided by the state and that since 1986, federal law has required all hospitals which receive federal money (just about all of them) to provide emergency care to any patient who turns up – and their complete ignorance of our system has meant unwarranted criticism flying across the Atlantic and a peculiar nationalism, even describing itself as patriotism, growing in defence of our own, 60 year old healthcare system.
All this seems unfortunately to have obscured any useful debate. Despite the fact that I don’t want the American system in Britain – Obama doesn’t want it in America, either – I don’t think the NHS is without room for improvement. I had always been brought up to believe the NHS was the best system in the world and that foreigners were unfortunate not to have it. The first time I went abroad, it was to Switzerland, I was understandably nervous. But far from there being children with rickets and tubercular beggars wheezing in the streets, the Swiss looked healthy and prosperous, without the aid of a state owned healthcare system.
We should look at what other countries do. I think the government could farm out much of its own risk. For example, we pay monthly (through our wage packets) to cover an indeterminate healthcare need. That is insurance by any other name and insurance is best handled by insurance companies. I don’t see why the state needs to own almost all of the hospitals – they should be run by private hospital companies. I think it absurd that a millionaire gets the same free treatment as a pauper: anyone who can afford to pay should be pursued for the money.
The government should confine itself to the principle that everyone gets treated, irrespective of income. It should leave healthcare to healthcare professionals. And if we can improve our system by borrowing from other countries, let's do it.
All this seems unfortunately to have obscured any useful debate. Despite the fact that I don’t want the American system in Britain – Obama doesn’t want it in America, either – I don’t think the NHS is without room for improvement. I had always been brought up to believe the NHS was the best system in the world and that foreigners were unfortunate not to have it. The first time I went abroad, it was to Switzerland, I was understandably nervous. But far from there being children with rickets and tubercular beggars wheezing in the streets, the Swiss looked healthy and prosperous, without the aid of a state owned healthcare system.
We should look at what other countries do. I think the government could farm out much of its own risk. For example, we pay monthly (through our wage packets) to cover an indeterminate healthcare need. That is insurance by any other name and insurance is best handled by insurance companies. I don’t see why the state needs to own almost all of the hospitals – they should be run by private hospital companies. I think it absurd that a millionaire gets the same free treatment as a pauper: anyone who can afford to pay should be pursued for the money.
The government should confine itself to the principle that everyone gets treated, irrespective of income. It should leave healthcare to healthcare professionals. And if we can improve our system by borrowing from other countries, let's do it.
14 August, 2009
The minimum wage
There are whisperings in a couple of right wing think tanks that we ought in these difficult times to be having another look at the minimum wage, currently £5.73 per hour.
It has been said that a minimum wage is either useless or dangerous and there is some truth in this. Imagine it were 57.3p per hour (about £23 per week): it would have no effect whatsoever. No one works for that kind of money any more. But imagine it were £57.30 per hour, that is to say it would be illegal to employ anyone for less than £2,300 per week: huge swathes of British industry would be wiped out, millions on the dole.
What proponents of a minimum wage say is that a happy medium can be found which doesn't reduce employment but does help people. Whether this is true or not (and I think it is not true), that figure would be different in bad times to what it was in good times. There is a good argument for saying it is now too high and that we shall emerge from recession more slowly if companies cannot employ people for what they can afford to pay them.
Perhaps we can chip away at the minimum wage by creating more exemptions, for young people, for certain industries etc, and committing ourselves not to increase it. Some politician needs to show the courage to raise the subject. Mr Cameron? I think not.
It has been said that a minimum wage is either useless or dangerous and there is some truth in this. Imagine it were 57.3p per hour (about £23 per week): it would have no effect whatsoever. No one works for that kind of money any more. But imagine it were £57.30 per hour, that is to say it would be illegal to employ anyone for less than £2,300 per week: huge swathes of British industry would be wiped out, millions on the dole.
What proponents of a minimum wage say is that a happy medium can be found which doesn't reduce employment but does help people. Whether this is true or not (and I think it is not true), that figure would be different in bad times to what it was in good times. There is a good argument for saying it is now too high and that we shall emerge from recession more slowly if companies cannot employ people for what they can afford to pay them.
Perhaps we can chip away at the minimum wage by creating more exemptions, for young people, for certain industries etc, and committing ourselves not to increase it. Some politician needs to show the courage to raise the subject. Mr Cameron? I think not.
The 'phones
We have been constantly reminded that it is the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, but it is worth thinking about that it is also the 40th anniversary of President Nixon talking to the astronauts on the telephone. He clearly wasn't using Telecom Italia equipment. The 'phones here have been out for the second time in 2 months. As I said to a new expat recently, the best thing is to assume that the 'phones aren't going to work when it's raining, and occasionally you may be pleasantly surprised.
Back up and running now, however.
Back up and running now, however.
09 August, 2009
The BBC: from worse to better
The BBC seems to be making the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently. There was the villa in the south of France where they entertained, George Alagiah having to step down as patron of Fairtrade because of conflict of interest (more about Fairtrade in a later post), senior managers profiting from contracts their family companies have with the Corporation, Jonathan Ross’ viewing numbers plummeting, the list goes on. Russell Brand does not of course work for the BBC any more but the other day some enlightened licence fee payer pushed him into a fountain.
In the midst of all this we have Test Match Special, a safe haven of decency, humour and peace. Which ever executive came up with the idea of having Phil Tuffnel as a commentator deserves a lucrative family contract.
In the midst of all this we have Test Match Special, a safe haven of decency, humour and peace. Which ever executive came up with the idea of having Phil Tuffnel as a commentator deserves a lucrative family contract.
05 August, 2009
Jackpot
The top prize in Italy's SuperEnalotto, for which you have to guess six numbers correctly, has not been won since January. The pot is now €115 million, the second highest ever in Europe.
In the Sicilian town of Ficarra, the mayor and his cabinet colleagues stumped up €115 to buy tickets on behalf of the town, saying the winnings would be spent on public works. They didn't win, despite having chosen numbers connected with the town's patron saint, the Virgin Mary of the Assumption.
The odds of winning the jackpot are thought to be 622million to one, but Ficarra's mayor, Basilio Ridolfo, said that was better than the odds of receiving funds pledged by the state.
04 August, 2009
The new Italy?
Der Spiegel asks us in which European country
- a soft porn starlet is being considered for a cabinet post,
- labour representatives jet off to company-paid visits to brothels,
- a media mogul crazy about music controls 80% of the tabloid press
- according to a World Bank Report, the red tape required to start a company is more inscrutable than Rwanda or Kazakhstan, business executives run their companies into the ground and then expect bailouts from across the Alps, and the population, despite catastrophic economic data, wants none of the economic crisis and instead insists on living la dolce vita as if nothing had happened.
The answer is Germany (the starlet is Dagmar Woehrl, currently a secretary of state in the economics ministry, the media mogul is Mathias Doepfner and the World Bank quote is from their report ‘Doing Business’, 2009).
- a soft porn starlet is being considered for a cabinet post,
- labour representatives jet off to company-paid visits to brothels,
- a media mogul crazy about music controls 80% of the tabloid press
- according to a World Bank Report, the red tape required to start a company is more inscrutable than Rwanda or Kazakhstan, business executives run their companies into the ground and then expect bailouts from across the Alps, and the population, despite catastrophic economic data, wants none of the economic crisis and instead insists on living la dolce vita as if nothing had happened.
The answer is Germany (the starlet is Dagmar Woehrl, currently a secretary of state in the economics ministry, the media mogul is Mathias Doepfner and the World Bank quote is from their report ‘Doing Business’, 2009).
28 July, 2009
The BBC: the future?
The excellent Frank Field MP (I am so glad he didn't become Speaker of the Commons, we would have lost the benefit of his extra parliamentary work) has come up with a paper on the future of public service broadcasting. It goes under the title 'Auntie's Dying: long live public sector broadcasting'. You can link to it here.
Field's thesis is that 'Because public service broadcasting is paid for by a poll tax licence fee the BBC feels compelled to spend most of this money in delivering entertainment which by no stretch of the imagination could be thought of as public service broadcasting.'
'Public service broadcasting is too important to be left largely in monopoly hands. Now is the time to free the glory of this idea from BBC shackles.'
His idea is the BBC should be reduced to BBC 2 and 4 and Radio 3 and 4 and the World Service, and that there should be created a new body, The Public Service Broadcasting Corporation which would allow companies - anyone - to bid for finance to make their own programmes, which would go out on any of a variety of formats. The rump of the BBC would exist largely off PSB money (although the World Service gets some from the Foreign Office) but others could be involved in the scheme. An example he gives is that he is a trustee of the 2011 Trust which celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible and he would be able to bid for licence fee money to make TV or radio programmes.
I think this an excellent idea, although with so many people now not listening to public service braodcasting I would prefer to turn the licence fee into a trust so people don't have to shell out every month for something they don't want.
But this should be the start of a national debate.
Field's thesis is that 'Because public service broadcasting is paid for by a poll tax licence fee the BBC feels compelled to spend most of this money in delivering entertainment which by no stretch of the imagination could be thought of as public service broadcasting.'
'Public service broadcasting is too important to be left largely in monopoly hands. Now is the time to free the glory of this idea from BBC shackles.'
His idea is the BBC should be reduced to BBC 2 and 4 and Radio 3 and 4 and the World Service, and that there should be created a new body, The Public Service Broadcasting Corporation which would allow companies - anyone - to bid for finance to make their own programmes, which would go out on any of a variety of formats. The rump of the BBC would exist largely off PSB money (although the World Service gets some from the Foreign Office) but others could be involved in the scheme. An example he gives is that he is a trustee of the 2011 Trust which celebrates the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible and he would be able to bid for licence fee money to make TV or radio programmes.
I think this an excellent idea, although with so many people now not listening to public service braodcasting I would prefer to turn the licence fee into a trust so people don't have to shell out every month for something they don't want.
But this should be the start of a national debate.
27 July, 2009
Italy: it's the economy, stupido
The thing to remember about Silvio Berlusconi is that no one ever says he lacks intelligence or that he is out of touch with the people of his country. He is probably the best politician Europe has seen for 50 years (although certainly not the best leader). You have to think about this when looking at what has made the news in Italy this year: his social life, his divorce, his parties; his success with the Naples rubbish, with Alitalia, with l'Aquila. Now talk has started again of the Messina bridge. And all this has diverted attention from the real problems facing the Italian people.
The graph shows the long term moving average growth of the economy, that is to say the average of the previous 10 years. So in 1980 the average for the previous 10 years (ie the 1970s) was nearly 4%. In the 1950s and 1960s it had been over 5%. By the end of next year however it will have been zero, meaning that the economy will not have gone forward since the turn of the century. Retail sales have been falling steadily for over 2 years. In the first three months of this year the economy contracted at an annualised rate of nearly 10%.
Many of the problems will be familiar to anyone following the UK economy, only worse: the state is too large and the debt burden enormous. The regional disparity between the wealthy north and the impoverished, corrupt south far greater than the difference between, say, Glasgow and London. The native population is falling, and whilst this is offset somewhat by immigration, immigrants can go elsewhere when there is no work. The country cannot afford its pension system as too few productive people support a long lived population, with an unaffordable requirement for healthcare. The scale of organised crime is so great that it is best not to think about it.
When the banks started to crash in America and Britain the government announced that Italy was largely exempt from these problems. The Italian banking system, barely emerged from the 1950s, had not got around to considering these new CDOs and SIVs. Italian banks are among the best capitalised in Europe, but this is at least in part due to them not using their capital efficiently. Firms find it difficult to borrow from these sleepy monoliths who in any case charge vast fees for the simplest of transactions. The system has been allowed to continue only by a policy of refusing entry to foreign banks.
The industrial system, a post war marvel, consists in large part of small family businesses, often with loose associations and geographical specialisation. It is little suited to the modern world. As The Far East and India expanded on the back of lower labour rates, western nations have had to climb the quaity chain, creating new technologies their emergent competitors could not rival. The very structure of Italian industry precludes this: the family companies shoud have merged years ago, economies of scale financing research and development. But they didn't. There is no stockmarket to speak of, only a few of the largest firms being floated, and there is no venture capital / start up market. The procedure for setting up a company is one of the most time consuming in the western world, and the appalling over regulation keeps entrepreneurs away and consumer prices high.
All this will have been going through Berlusconi's mind, which is why he isn't too troubled by the news being obsessed with a couple of starlets and a hooker or two. He knows, too, that the political will does not exist in the country to effect the required change and that the people have, by and large, accepted the fact that theirs is a nation in decline. He probably also knows that whilst they can accept the slow debasement of their reputation, when it filters through to living standards it will be a different matter. That will probably be a problem for his successor.
26 July, 2009
Berlusconi: I've seen the light
The Times reports that Berlusconi is going to sell his Sardinian home Villa Certosa, and at the end of the summer make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Padre Pio.
This story gets better and better, and conveniently means no one is talking about the Italian economy, on which I shall post later.
24 July, 2009
Defending our borders
I think most of us feel there are too many laws being passed with too little thought going into them and here is a prime example. The Government seems to have given up on its plan to impose immigration controls on travel between the mainland and Northern Ireland and the Chamnnel Islands.
I am grateful to the following summary from the excellent Samizdata blog:
'You can basically sum up the UK Government's dilemma as either they are going to have to tell Gerry Adams he has to have a British ID card to live in Northern Ireland or tell Ian Paisley he's going to need a passport to travel from Belfast to London.'
Or, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
I am grateful to the following summary from the excellent Samizdata blog:
'You can basically sum up the UK Government's dilemma as either they are going to have to tell Gerry Adams he has to have a British ID card to live in Northern Ireland or tell Ian Paisley he's going to need a passport to travel from Belfast to London.'
Or, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Lord Kingsland 1942 - 2009
G.K.Chesterton remarked that journalism was saying 'Lord Jones is dead' to people who didn't know he was alive, and I suppose many people would have passed over the news of the death of Lord Kingsland without curiosity.
A man of many talents, he will be remembered, unfortunately, for one thing: before he was ennobled he was Christopher Prout, the leader of the Conservative MEPs.
He was known as Brussels Prout.
A man of many talents, he will be remembered, unfortunately, for one thing: before he was ennobled he was Christopher Prout, the leader of the Conservative MEPs.
He was known as Brussels Prout.
The Berlu tapes: new shocker
I have not heard the tapes published by l'Espresso (do hookers usually carry recording equipment or did she just happen to have it about her person?) and I have no real enthusiasm for doing so, but an important and unexpected fact seems to have emerged.
Whatever you thought might happen next - the hooker paid by a newspaper (check - not hard to guess), Berlu boasting of his manhood (check - he's Italian), the bed donated by a Russian politician (check - is this where the recording equipment was hidden?) - you did not expect this:
Berlusconi seems to have revealed, as a chat up line few of us could equal, that some thirty Phoenician tombs from the 3rd century BC were discovered on his Sardinian lovenest. The Opposition, outraged, are demanding to know why he didn't inform the Ministry of Culture, as is required by law.
Life, as an American oilman once observed, is one damn thing after another.
Whatever you thought might happen next - the hooker paid by a newspaper (check - not hard to guess), Berlu boasting of his manhood (check - he's Italian), the bed donated by a Russian politician (check - is this where the recording equipment was hidden?) - you did not expect this:
Berlusconi seems to have revealed, as a chat up line few of us could equal, that some thirty Phoenician tombs from the 3rd century BC were discovered on his Sardinian lovenest. The Opposition, outraged, are demanding to know why he didn't inform the Ministry of Culture, as is required by law.
Life, as an American oilman once observed, is one damn thing after another.
22 July, 2009
The NHS: our moral guardians
‘A face that should haunt a generation’ wrote Liz Hunt in the Daily Telegraph, referring to the unhappy tale of Gary Reinbach, a 22 year old man who has died of cirrhosis of the liver. His doctors recommended a liver transplant but the rules did not permit it; to qualify for a liver transplant you have to show you can lead an alcohol-free life and Mr. Reinbach was too ill to leave hospital and show it. So he died.
There seems to me to be a number of ways in which this is picture should ‘haunt a generation’. One is Mr. Reinbach’s mother Madeline (sic) Hanshaw who did nothing to stop her son drinking heavily at age 13, before he had reached the age of legal responsibility, much less that when you can drink legally. Her conduct as a parent, whilst not unique, would seem to be sufficiently reprehensible as to excite comment, but the papers report her blaming her divorce, and now starting a campaign to make sure, yes, you guessed it, that Gary didn't die in vain.
Another thing which makes this story unforgettable is the attitude of the NHS. Mr Reinbach was sick, and if the NHS is to mean anything at all he should be entitled to rely on it to treat him without making moral judgment on his behaviour at age 13. Let us return to the Telegraph’s Ms Hunt: ‘A liver wasted – and I use that word deliberately – on a chronic alcoholic, whatever his or her age, is a chance of life denied to a more deserving recipient.‘ She compares the story with that of a young girl who asked not to be treated (for a heart transplant) and then changed her mind ‘Her illness, unlike Gary's, was not self-inflicted.’
It must be nice to feel so sure of yourself that you can sit in judgment of others as Ms Hunt does, and as do the bureaucrats who draw up the regulations. You have to be worthy of treatment, and even though money is deducted from your pay packet to pay for that treatment, they reserve the right to deny it to you on moral grounds.
I have two questions:
1. How did George Best get a liver transplant? Surely nobody thought he would, or could, go on the wagon for the rest of his life?
2. Will we now be refusing AIDS treatment to promiscuous homosexuals on the grounds that their illness was self-inflicted?
The answer to the first question is that Mr. Best was famous, whereas Mr. Reinbach was a statistic. The answer to the second question of course is no, and nor should we.
There seems to me to be a number of ways in which this is picture should ‘haunt a generation’. One is Mr. Reinbach’s mother Madeline (sic) Hanshaw who did nothing to stop her son drinking heavily at age 13, before he had reached the age of legal responsibility, much less that when you can drink legally. Her conduct as a parent, whilst not unique, would seem to be sufficiently reprehensible as to excite comment, but the papers report her blaming her divorce, and now starting a campaign to make sure, yes, you guessed it, that Gary didn't die in vain.
Another thing which makes this story unforgettable is the attitude of the NHS. Mr Reinbach was sick, and if the NHS is to mean anything at all he should be entitled to rely on it to treat him without making moral judgment on his behaviour at age 13. Let us return to the Telegraph’s Ms Hunt: ‘A liver wasted – and I use that word deliberately – on a chronic alcoholic, whatever his or her age, is a chance of life denied to a more deserving recipient.‘ She compares the story with that of a young girl who asked not to be treated (for a heart transplant) and then changed her mind ‘Her illness, unlike Gary's, was not self-inflicted.’
It must be nice to feel so sure of yourself that you can sit in judgment of others as Ms Hunt does, and as do the bureaucrats who draw up the regulations. You have to be worthy of treatment, and even though money is deducted from your pay packet to pay for that treatment, they reserve the right to deny it to you on moral grounds.
I have two questions:
1. How did George Best get a liver transplant? Surely nobody thought he would, or could, go on the wagon for the rest of his life?
2. Will we now be refusing AIDS treatment to promiscuous homosexuals on the grounds that their illness was self-inflicted?
The answer to the first question is that Mr. Best was famous, whereas Mr. Reinbach was a statistic. The answer to the second question of course is no, and nor should we.
20 July, 2009
Cricket: The Ashes Second Test
I have listened to almost every minute of the commentary for four days and I confess I still can't work out how England got into the position of declaring at 521 runs ahead with two days to go, or how Australia clawed back 313 of those for the loss of five wickets.
So England need to take five wickets today for less than 209 to beat Australia at Lords for the first time in three quarters of a century, and Australia need to hold on to stage easily the biggest rescue in Test history.
Either side could win; it could be a draw; it could be a tie. I don't bite my nails but if I did, I would.
So England need to take five wickets today for less than 209 to beat Australia at Lords for the first time in three quarters of a century, and Australia need to hold on to stage easily the biggest rescue in Test history.
Either side could win; it could be a draw; it could be a tie. I don't bite my nails but if I did, I would.
19 July, 2009
UK: Of Statues and Statutes
We British seem reluctant to honour our great men and women, as the absurd farce surrounding the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square tells us. Presumably with the approval of the mayor, Alexander ‘Boris’ Johnson, it was thought appropriate to give a succession of people a brief time alone on the plinth to celebrate some crass pseudo concept like people-awareness, something which could be gained in concentrated form travelling on an underground train in the rush hour. There are many appropriate candidates for the empty plinth, my own favoured one being Edward Jenner, who invented vaccination and of whom there is a statue in London which, oddly, was once in Trafalgar Square. This is a man who has saved literally millions of lives and deserves our adulation. He won’t get it.
Here in Italy almost every street is named after someone, and not just Italian heroes Garibaldi, Mazzini, King Umberto and Queen Margherita (famous for her pizzas). Near me there is a via Marx, via Lenin and via Gagarin (it has been of old a communist area) but a also via Molière, via M.L.King and via M.Buonaroti.
In Italy, in America and in France they name laws after the parliamentarian who first promulgated them. In France a man called Toubon put forward a law making it illegal to use English words. It is known as ‘la loi Allgood’.
So it should be in England. The new law making it possible to resign a peerage (and therefore for a pensioned off minister to return to front line politics and even party leadership) should be called the Mandelson Law.
Here in Italy almost every street is named after someone, and not just Italian heroes Garibaldi, Mazzini, King Umberto and Queen Margherita (famous for her pizzas). Near me there is a via Marx, via Lenin and via Gagarin (it has been of old a communist area) but a also via Molière, via M.L.King and via M.Buonaroti.
In Italy, in America and in France they name laws after the parliamentarian who first promulgated them. In France a man called Toubon put forward a law making it illegal to use English words. It is known as ‘la loi Allgood’.
So it should be in England. The new law making it possible to resign a peerage (and therefore for a pensioned off minister to return to front line politics and even party leadership) should be called the Mandelson Law.
18 July, 2009
Europe: last gasp of the nation state?
The Bundesverfassungsgericht, Germany’s constitutional court, has ruled that before Germany can ratify the Lisbon Treaty new legislation must be enacted, strengthening the national parliament's involvement in any major decision-making. It would be nice if some MP asked if the British Parliament is going to insist on the same rights.
But there is more to this than a bit of Lisbon-bashing (on which I am as keen as anyone else). The major European treaties are gradually ushering in what some political scientists are referring to as the post democratic age, and this utterance of the BVG may just be the last gasp of the nation state. Plans are being made to promulgate a new politics for the supranational state.
Federalists in Germany, led by the loathsome Joska Fischer, have thrown their arms up in horror at the idea that the directly elected representatives of the people should seek to control what is taking place on their behalf in Brussels. The new philosophy in Europe is called ‘Output Democracy’ which means that the executive doesn’t need to be told of the wishes of the people, but that its legitimacy depends on its output. As Der Spiegel puts it ‘In other words, the Brussels bureaucracy no longer needs to ask itself: What is the interest of citizens? Instead, it can ask itself: What is in the interest of citizens?’
The problem with this system, which looms large for anyone with a taste for ‘old fashioned’ democracy, is how to you get rid of them when their output is no good? What exactly is the procedure for the people of Europe sacking a European Commissioner? (Don’t bother looking, there isn’t one).
When you factor into this the fact that the executive controls the propaganda – Brussels multi-million euro ‘information’ departments - you have a self-perpetuating political elite, a dictatorship of people who know what’s best for you.
And if you are horrified that this should be happening, well, I'm afraid we wished it on ourselves. As for me I congratulate the Germans on being able to look squarely at this while the rest of us have looked the other way, and hope we can learn from them.
But there is more to this than a bit of Lisbon-bashing (on which I am as keen as anyone else). The major European treaties are gradually ushering in what some political scientists are referring to as the post democratic age, and this utterance of the BVG may just be the last gasp of the nation state. Plans are being made to promulgate a new politics for the supranational state.
Federalists in Germany, led by the loathsome Joska Fischer, have thrown their arms up in horror at the idea that the directly elected representatives of the people should seek to control what is taking place on their behalf in Brussels. The new philosophy in Europe is called ‘Output Democracy’ which means that the executive doesn’t need to be told of the wishes of the people, but that its legitimacy depends on its output. As Der Spiegel puts it ‘In other words, the Brussels bureaucracy no longer needs to ask itself: What is the interest of citizens? Instead, it can ask itself: What is in the interest of citizens?’
The problem with this system, which looms large for anyone with a taste for ‘old fashioned’ democracy, is how to you get rid of them when their output is no good? What exactly is the procedure for the people of Europe sacking a European Commissioner? (Don’t bother looking, there isn’t one).
When you factor into this the fact that the executive controls the propaganda – Brussels multi-million euro ‘information’ departments - you have a self-perpetuating political elite, a dictatorship of people who know what’s best for you.
And if you are horrified that this should be happening, well, I'm afraid we wished it on ourselves. As for me I congratulate the Germans on being able to look squarely at this while the rest of us have looked the other way, and hope we can learn from them.
Cars and greenhouse gases
While we're on the subject of my not being too hot at science, here is what, to me, is a conundrum. The world's least green car, the 8.3 litre Dodge Viper, is said to do between 13 and 22 miles per gallon and according to the US Environmental Protection Agency produces 11.4 tons of greenhouse gases when driven over the American average of 15,000 miles in a year.
Now, even at the worse end of the consumption figures, the car will have used 1,154 gallons of petrol which weigh 8,424 lb or 3.76 tons. The law of conservation of mass tells us that if 3.76 tons go in, no more than 3.76 tons can go out.
Aha! you say, but it has mixed with air (nearly 8 tons of it). But air is harmless. This is like saying that if you dilute your wine with the same amount of water you have drunk twice as much alcohol.
So what is going on here? Anyone know?
17 July, 2009
A new element
I never showed much promise at what in my day were called 'Science' lessons but it now seems that I may have shown an unlikely streak of genius, aged around 14. I asked the Master how they knew there were only 111 elements - I mean, they could stumble on another one, surely?
Don't start causing trouble, Hedges, came the reply; it has been scientifically proved that there can't be any more.
So I was delighted to see that No.112 has been added to the list, and will be called Copernicus, after the 16th century Polish astronomer. So now there can be Copernicate acid and Copernicus dioxide and the cartoon characterish Copernicus Chloride. And who knows what else is out there? Makes it all far more exciting.
The Daily Telegraph
I have despaired sometimes at the editorial line taken recently by the Daily Telegraph. For years it was known as the Torygraph, but now, just as the Tories seem certain to win the next election it prints seemingly unchecked and unchallenged submissions from the Labour Party spin machine and is known popularly as the Labourgraph.
Despite this I have been copying this blog into the Telegraph blog service for a couple of years, for the benefit of those people who follow newspaper blogs. Now however they have deleted the post below on the BNP and refused to tell me why. Accordingly I have stopped posting there.
If anyone can see anything wrong in the thread, let me know.
Despite this I have been copying this blog into the Telegraph blog service for a couple of years, for the benefit of those people who follow newspaper blogs. Now however they have deleted the post below on the BNP and refused to tell me why. Accordingly I have stopped posting there.
If anyone can see anything wrong in the thread, let me know.
14 July, 2009
France: le jour de gloire est arrivé
Bastille Day, or the Fête Nationale, as it is properly called, and this blog’s best wishes to the French Nation.
When I reflect on France, as I sometimes do, I think that the thing which most impresses me is its PR. The country projects a level of self-belief which, although very occasionally shattered, gets it through with a coherent image shared by outsiders as well as natives. For example, the vast majority of economists think that French political-industrial policy is wrong (Sarkozy recently declared a yoghourt manufacturer as being one of the commanding heights of the economy and, in promising to stop foreigners buying it, made its shares less attractive). But I have yet to meet a French person who doesn’t think that this is more or less the right approach.
As well as producing some of the best wine in the world, France produces some of the worst, a fact that is conveniently forgotten, and despite the inhabitants clearly loathing foreigners France attracts more tourists than any other country.
I think it is in part having such a central constitutional figure as the President, perhaps the most powerful man in he developed world. Giving so much power to one person I also think wrong, but it gives France a guidance, a symbol, almost a brand. ‘L’état c’est moi’ said the great Louis XIV and Sarko probably whispers it into his pillow.
Somehow, it works. Grenouilles, les rosbifs vous saluent.
When I reflect on France, as I sometimes do, I think that the thing which most impresses me is its PR. The country projects a level of self-belief which, although very occasionally shattered, gets it through with a coherent image shared by outsiders as well as natives. For example, the vast majority of economists think that French political-industrial policy is wrong (Sarkozy recently declared a yoghourt manufacturer as being one of the commanding heights of the economy and, in promising to stop foreigners buying it, made its shares less attractive). But I have yet to meet a French person who doesn’t think that this is more or less the right approach.
As well as producing some of the best wine in the world, France produces some of the worst, a fact that is conveniently forgotten, and despite the inhabitants clearly loathing foreigners France attracts more tourists than any other country.
I think it is in part having such a central constitutional figure as the President, perhaps the most powerful man in he developed world. Giving so much power to one person I also think wrong, but it gives France a guidance, a symbol, almost a brand. ‘L’état c’est moi’ said the great Louis XIV and Sarko probably whispers it into his pillow.
Somehow, it works. Grenouilles, les rosbifs vous saluent.
13 July, 2009
BNP: it matters what he said
There still seems to be a lot of fuss about BNP leader Nick Griffin’s having said that the boats carrying illegal immigrants from North Africa to Europe should be sunk.
I’m not sure we should be analysing in intricate detail each utterance of Griffin, but I think it worthwhile here just to consider whether he is talking about sinking the boats with the immigrants still in them or removing them to safety first. According to the Guardian he said ‘I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea – I say boats should be sunk’
I should have thought there was a rather good case for sinking the boats of people traffickers, so they can’t do it again. This seems to be another case of the British press dressing up a political utterance to conform to its political stereotyping, and it is as unfortunate when done to Griffin as it would be to Brown or Cameron.
I’m not sure we should be analysing in intricate detail each utterance of Griffin, but I think it worthwhile here just to consider whether he is talking about sinking the boats with the immigrants still in them or removing them to safety first. According to the Guardian he said ‘I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea – I say boats should be sunk’
I should have thought there was a rather good case for sinking the boats of people traffickers, so they can’t do it again. This seems to be another case of the British press dressing up a political utterance to conform to its political stereotyping, and it is as unfortunate when done to Griffin as it would be to Brown or Cameron.
Cricket: the Ashes first test
At the end it was easy to forget that the pitch had been rubbish and the match uneven. It seemed we were chasing a great victory, not merely trying to get as many runs in two innings as the Australians had in one. But it was as compulsive a listening experience as I have ever had. Here in expat-land it can’t be got on a transistor radio and I suddenly found I was stranded with the gin, twenty-two yards from the tonic, and I had to scramble a Collingwood-like two to get back in time.
This was test cricket at its best, in terms of entertainment rather than cricket. It is a failing of cricket lovers to believe that all the great stuff was in the past, but truly there was no greatness on the pitch, except for Ponting, and occasionally Flintoff, who puts so much sinew-straining torque into each delivery you fear he cannot be far from the knackers’ yard. We desperately need a bowler with the easy rhythm of Courtney Walsh.
This, then, was a game not of exceptionals but of exceptions: well done Cardiff, except for the awful pitch; well done England, except it was only just a draw; well done Test Cricket, save for the sight of England sending on the 12th man and the physio unrequested in order to waste time: better to lose the match than to cheat.
Oh – and well done Test Match Special which will have gained another couple of years’ reprieve from the eager axers of the BBC.
This was test cricket at its best, in terms of entertainment rather than cricket. It is a failing of cricket lovers to believe that all the great stuff was in the past, but truly there was no greatness on the pitch, except for Ponting, and occasionally Flintoff, who puts so much sinew-straining torque into each delivery you fear he cannot be far from the knackers’ yard. We desperately need a bowler with the easy rhythm of Courtney Walsh.
This, then, was a game not of exceptionals but of exceptions: well done Cardiff, except for the awful pitch; well done England, except it was only just a draw; well done Test Cricket, save for the sight of England sending on the 12th man and the physio unrequested in order to waste time: better to lose the match than to cheat.
Oh – and well done Test Match Special which will have gained another couple of years’ reprieve from the eager axers of the BBC.
08 July, 2009
USA: Palin at the prospect
A minor illness and a complete failure of Telecom Italia to repair a line struck by lightning on 26th June have prevented me from blogging recently. Things seem to be working now.....
One thing I missed was the resignation of Sarah Palin. She is a figure I find interesting, if only because she is still making news. The left dismiss her as barking mad, a stupid housewife, and this in itself is enough for sensible people to look for some qualities to associate with her, often without success. But there may, just may, be more.
The Republican Party in America seems for some time to have lost the plot. I remember Reagan saying that the most terrifying words you can hear are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’, but the size of the state increased during that administration, as it did under George Dubya. There is no one really carrying the torch for smaller government and lower taxes in America, even though opinion polls show people increasingly in favour of reducing the size of the state. And it is without doubt this battleground the Republicans must adopt if they are to return to power.
And yet, in a confused ramble, rich in basketball analogy (and therefore unintelligible to most people) we hear this: ‘I keep my eye on the on the ball that represents sound priorities.....energy independence and smaller government and national security and freedom”.
You could wish it were said better, and you could wish it were someone else saying it, but until that happens I believe Sarah Palin will be seen as the Republican front runner. It just might be better if later on in the game, to use her analogy, she passed the ball to someone more likely to get it in the basket.
One thing I missed was the resignation of Sarah Palin. She is a figure I find interesting, if only because she is still making news. The left dismiss her as barking mad, a stupid housewife, and this in itself is enough for sensible people to look for some qualities to associate with her, often without success. But there may, just may, be more.
The Republican Party in America seems for some time to have lost the plot. I remember Reagan saying that the most terrifying words you can hear are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’, but the size of the state increased during that administration, as it did under George Dubya. There is no one really carrying the torch for smaller government and lower taxes in America, even though opinion polls show people increasingly in favour of reducing the size of the state. And it is without doubt this battleground the Republicans must adopt if they are to return to power.
And yet, in a confused ramble, rich in basketball analogy (and therefore unintelligible to most people) we hear this: ‘I keep my eye on the on the ball that represents sound priorities.....energy independence and smaller government and national security and freedom”.
You could wish it were said better, and you could wish it were someone else saying it, but until that happens I believe Sarah Palin will be seen as the Republican front runner. It just might be better if later on in the game, to use her analogy, she passed the ball to someone more likely to get it in the basket.
26 June, 2009
Berlusconi: riding the ripple
One of the few commentators who understand that Berlusconi is not being judged by an Anglo-Saxon Protestant electorate, but by an Italian one, is the author Tim Parks, who wrote a sensible piece in the Guardian this week. In it he says 'I have yet to meet an Italian who thinks Berlusconi should resign over this.' Nor have I encountered one either.
More bad news for the lefties: Berlusconi's approval rating is 61%. Compare that to Brown (!), Merkel, Sarkozy and the rest. And he is also about to welcome the great and good for the G8, in the earthquake torn city of l'Aquila, a political masterstroke.
Michael Jackson
I keep a list, which I look at from time to time, of famous people who died at an age I have already passed: Christ, Mozart, Shelley, John F Kennedy etc. It serves both to bolster confidence that things could be worse and to remind one of one’s own ineffectuality.
My first thought about Michael Jackson was that I wasn’t in the least surprised to be writing his name on it. Whereas the deaths of other much older people in the music business – Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, would cause you to stop and think, with Jackson it seems, with hindsight, just obvious.
His many fans must hope that he will be remembered for his music, but it is his life and lifestyle which has too often been the story: the strange pallor, the children, the bankruptcy. Unlike, say, Elvis Presley or David Bowie there was nothing about Jackson’s lifestyle that anyone would have wanted.
And now the stories will run, the unauthorised biographies will be written and the money will flow in and pay off the debts. Hey-ho.
My first thought about Michael Jackson was that I wasn’t in the least surprised to be writing his name on it. Whereas the deaths of other much older people in the music business – Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, would cause you to stop and think, with Jackson it seems, with hindsight, just obvious.
His many fans must hope that he will be remembered for his music, but it is his life and lifestyle which has too often been the story: the strange pallor, the children, the bankruptcy. Unlike, say, Elvis Presley or David Bowie there was nothing about Jackson’s lifestyle that anyone would have wanted.
And now the stories will run, the unauthorised biographies will be written and the money will flow in and pay off the debts. Hey-ho.
22 June, 2009
Europe: something new
Have a quick read of this
1. Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
2. Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
3. Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
4. The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
5. The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
6. The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalised NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
7. Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures
8. Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
9. An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
10. Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.
Doesn't sound too bad, does it? It is the declaration of the new Euro-parliamentary grouping formed around the Conservative Party, which has left the EPP, containing the ruling parties of France and Germany, where they couldn't have even whispered point No. 5.
Let's hope they all mean it.
Italy votes (2)
Thought so. The turnout appears to be well below the 50% required, although the polls are open today as well. In my area it was 9%.
It has been said in one paper that if you want a low turnout, have the vote when people have recently voted on something else, and time it for the start of the holiday season.
Er, Silvio......
It has been said in one paper that if you want a low turnout, have the vote when people have recently voted on something else, and time it for the start of the holiday season.
Er, Silvio......
21 June, 2009
Italy votes
Italy is at the polls again today, for the second time this month. This time it is a referendum on the voting system, which would get rid of the coalitions that have governed since the war, and award the largest party with a few more seats to enable it to govern. The referendum would also abolish the practice of party leaders standing in multiple seats and then choosing one of them, leaving the representative of that seat to be chosen by the party hierarchy.
Word has it that most of Berlusconi's party would vote yes, whilst the noes complain either that their party would be eliminated or that it doesn't address the real problem which is the list system anyway.
Chances are however that the turnout will fall below the 50% of eligible voters required and Umberto Bossi of the separatist Lega Nord, which will never be big enough to form a government but which has a big say in the coalition, will breathe a sigh of relief.
15 June, 2009
France: beyond reality TV
Anthony Brocheton, Marie Adamiak and Arno Laize, participants in the French reality TV show Ile de la Tentation (don't ask) have successfully sued the TV production company, claiming that their presence on the show amounted to employment. They are therefore subject to the 35 hour week, and entitled to paid holidays, and can claim unfair dismissal when voted off the show.
You really couldn't make this up.
You really couldn't make this up.
13 June, 2009
Gaddafi and timing
He’s just left, after four days. The old fraud appeared, accompanied by his bodyguard of buxom females in matching lipstick, in a Mussolini uniform, sunglasses and a Phil Spector wig; attached to his left breast was what looked like the I-Spy book of World Flags and to his right a monochrome picture postcard, wilting in the damp warm air (it turned out to be a picture of a Libyan anti-Italian freedom fighter). He stayed in a tent and signed business deals with whoever came in, looking as if he might swoop on Emma Marcegaglia (chairman of the Italian Business Confederation) and carry her off on his charger.
It was all great theatre, worthy of both the Italian and Libyan political stage. One thing I took issue with, though. Franco Frattini, who until now seems to have made a very good fist of being foreign minister, cancelled appointments when the great leader was two hours late. I insist he was just trying to be polite. The rule in Italy is that 20 minutes is acceptable in Milan and Turin, 40 minutes in Bologna and an hour in Rome. South of Rome it is anybody’s guess if your appointment will be kept on the same day or at all. These rules apply to business meetings, speeches, ceremonies, everything except where there is free food, in which case it pays to be early.
I love the Italians dearly, but when they clean up their own timing they will be in a position to criticise others.
It was all great theatre, worthy of both the Italian and Libyan political stage. One thing I took issue with, though. Franco Frattini, who until now seems to have made a very good fist of being foreign minister, cancelled appointments when the great leader was two hours late. I insist he was just trying to be polite. The rule in Italy is that 20 minutes is acceptable in Milan and Turin, 40 minutes in Bologna and an hour in Rome. South of Rome it is anybody’s guess if your appointment will be kept on the same day or at all. These rules apply to business meetings, speeches, ceremonies, everything except where there is free food, in which case it pays to be early.
I love the Italians dearly, but when they clean up their own timing they will be in a position to criticise others.
Pizza: the real thing
The Pizza Margherita, recognised by pizzaphiles as the true Neapolitan pizza, is 120 this month. It was created to commemorate the visit to Naples by Queen Margherita of Savoy, the wife of Italian king Umberto I.
To get the real thing the base must be made of durum wheat flour, fresh yeast, water and sea salt. The topping consists of olive oil, San Marzano tomatoes in slices less than 8mm thick, fresh basil and buffalo milk mozzarella, in the red, white and green of the Italian flag.
It is then cooked for a very short time at 350C which means you need a proper bread oven.
But it’s worth it.
To get the real thing the base must be made of durum wheat flour, fresh yeast, water and sea salt. The topping consists of olive oil, San Marzano tomatoes in slices less than 8mm thick, fresh basil and buffalo milk mozzarella, in the red, white and green of the Italian flag.
It is then cooked for a very short time at 350C which means you need a proper bread oven.
But it’s worth it.
10 June, 2009
The BBC (yet again)
No. No, no nonono.
Sir Alan Sugar cannot front a major television series at the same time as being, effectively, a minister.
I myself don't agree with celebrity politicians but if that's what Gordon Brown wants, he is entitled to elevate him to the peerage (why do we pretend that the Queen has anything to do with this?). Soon to be Lord Sugar (fitting as deputy to the honey-tongued Lord Mandelson) his new job required him to be in the Lords. That's because it is a political job, whether you call it minister or tsar or nabob.
The new series of The Apprentice will run over the likely date for the election, and every time his programme appears it will show a favourable light on a government minister, even at a time when appearances by politicians are regulated by law.
The BBC really must force him to choose between one and the other.
Sir Alan Sugar cannot front a major television series at the same time as being, effectively, a minister.
I myself don't agree with celebrity politicians but if that's what Gordon Brown wants, he is entitled to elevate him to the peerage (why do we pretend that the Queen has anything to do with this?). Soon to be Lord Sugar (fitting as deputy to the honey-tongued Lord Mandelson) his new job required him to be in the Lords. That's because it is a political job, whether you call it minister or tsar or nabob.
The new series of The Apprentice will run over the likely date for the election, and every time his programme appears it will show a favourable light on a government minister, even at a time when appearances by politicians are regulated by law.
The BBC really must force him to choose between one and the other.
08 June, 2009
Truth by any other name
What do you think about this?
'he said that the British public were angry about the "many ways the liberal elite have transformed this country."
"For the last 50 years, more and more of the people of Britain have watched with concern, growing dismay and sometimes anger as an out-of-touch political elite has transformed our country before our very eyes," he said.
Perfectly true and unexceptional?
WRONG! For the words were spoken by Nick Griffin, and therefore must be an insane fascist rant.
'he said that the British public were angry about the "many ways the liberal elite have transformed this country."
"For the last 50 years, more and more of the people of Britain have watched with concern, growing dismay and sometimes anger as an out-of-touch political elite has transformed our country before our very eyes," he said.
Perfectly true and unexceptional?
WRONG! For the words were spoken by Nick Griffin, and therefore must be an insane fascist rant.
07 June, 2009
Europe votes
I have often been critical about the EU (and rightly so) but one aspect needs to be flagged up as more or less good. It is the rule that residents of an EU country, who are nationals of another EU country, can vote in the country of their residence.
Thus it is that I have had the pleasure of voting in my town of residence (Rome). It was bloody hard work with all the paperwork (which Italians love), and I had to go down to the electoral office an hour away to get my voting card, but voting in a strange country under a strange system was a real pleasure. Something like 15 parties, each with a colourful logo and smiling face, fielded hundreds of candidates, and you could vote either for the candidate or the party, in which case they would allot your vote.
I don't agree with the proportional representation system, believing it entrenches the parties and the political class, I didn't agree with what almost all of them had to say, and I didn't agree that the election was conducted more or less on national lines (as it was in England). But I did get that frisson of being a part of a democratic system and participating in it.
Good fun.
Thus it is that I have had the pleasure of voting in my town of residence (Rome). It was bloody hard work with all the paperwork (which Italians love), and I had to go down to the electoral office an hour away to get my voting card, but voting in a strange country under a strange system was a real pleasure. Something like 15 parties, each with a colourful logo and smiling face, fielded hundreds of candidates, and you could vote either for the candidate or the party, in which case they would allot your vote.
I don't agree with the proportional representation system, believing it entrenches the parties and the political class, I didn't agree with what almost all of them had to say, and I didn't agree that the election was conducted more or less on national lines (as it was in England). But I did get that frisson of being a part of a democratic system and participating in it.
Good fun.
02 June, 2009
Airbus
Airbus have been having some bad luck of late, what with the one ditching in the Hudson River and the recent disaster just off Brazil. So I was sorry to receive this from a usually well informed source.A brand new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sits just outside its hangar in Toulouse , France without a single hour of airtime.
Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine run-ups prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi . The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having Read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is. The Takeoff Warning Horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all four engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to take off, but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc..) Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm. This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air. The computers automatically released all the Brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward.
The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on. Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $200 million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it. The extent of injuries to the crew is unknown due to the news blackout in the major media in France and elsewhere. Coverage of the story was deemed insulting to Muslim Arabs. Finally, the photos are starting to leak out. Airbus $200 million aircraft meets retaining wall and the wall wins.
30 May, 2009
The crime of Berlusconi
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the British newspapers and broadcast media are getting hysterical about Silvio Berlusconi and that this hysteria stems from having nothing concrete to say.
The first problem is that they assume Berlusconi’s constituency is White Anglo Saxon Protestant. It is not. It is Italians, who think in a rather different way.
For the second half of the twentieth century any reference to Italian politics was that it was a joke. No one could resist mentioning the corruption, or that Italy had had 48 governments since the fall of Mussolini. No one blamed the insane proportional representation system for causing that; it was simply Italian madness. When Berlusconi tried to change it, towards a British-style First Past the Post ballot, they all said he was fiddling the system, cheating.
Now we have had a period of some stability, with only one Prime Minister in six of the last eight years, and they complain he is a dictator.
There was a perfectly absurd claim that Berlusconi controlled the media, without anyone investigating exactly what influence a Prime Minister has on the state channels, which, if people could face watching them, are often openly critical of him. The British government appoints the Director General of the BBC but no one claims Gordon Brown is in control of the media (he wishes!). And it is hard to claim that Berlusconi controls the newspapers and then claim that he might be forced out of office by a campaign run by La Reppublica (the Guardian’s equivalent, but without that organ’s self-righteousness) and followed up by the Corriere della Sera (Independent but less of a rant), La Stampa, l’Osservatore romano and God knows what else.
Berlusconi will not be forced out of office by the Noemi Letizia story: whereas British newspapers would lead with ‘Berlusconi: my shame!’, most Italians think ‘Complimenti! Forza!’. Discussion in my local agricultural wholesalers was whether at 72 he had the energy to satisfy the girl properly, ‘whereas I......’. But ‘good luck to him’ they say.
They say his party contains former fascists, without saying that the opposition contains former communists who accepted money from Russia during the cold war. The President, Giorgio Napolitano, is one of them.
Nor are Berlusconi’s brushes with the law a huge point of interest. Italians have had years of this and believe, not inaccurately, that most individual politicians and most governments since 1948 have been for sale. ‘But how could you bribe Berlu....? He’s the richest man in Italy!’ And everyone knows the judicial system is politicised: prosecuting magistrates and defence attorneys are openly of the left or the right, so if you are attacked by a left wing magistrate you hire a right wing avvocato and vice versa.
I am not saying Berlusconi is innocent of the accusations against him, nor denying that his relationship with an 18 year old (the age of consent is 14 here) has been inappropriate. I am just saying how it plays in Italy. And how it plays is that he has a 75% popularity rating. Remember a British politician who achieved that?
Compare Berlusconi’s open hiring of some big breasted starlet to advertise the ‘Clean Naples’ campaign with the weaselly spinning of Mandelson and Campbell, or Ed Balls’ declaration that the Tories would fire 45,000 teachers, without mentioning that their figures for cuts were taken from Alasdair Darling’s budget. The British people have been fed a diet of lies from cunning plotters behind the scenes, paid with the people's money. If the Italians have got a clown who wears his faults on his sleeve, who is the luckier?
But let me give the outraged lefties a steer. Berlusconi’s crime is to have let this stuff be the story, to act diligently when there was popularity at stake (and his handling of Naples and Alitalia has been little short of brilliant) but not to take the long term decisions necessary. Before long Europe will emerge from recession but to get going again it will need not inflationary stimulus but tax cuts financed by spending cuts. Berlusconi knows that he should cut the size of the State but knows it will be unpopular. He has failed to prepare the political ground for it, while Italy needs 70 billion euros each year to service its debts. A mature statesman (and he wants to be President) would now be seeking cross party agreement on which areas the State could leave, and on freeing up the labour market so that employment will grow without barriers.
Berlusconi’s crime does not stem from his actions. It is his inaction.
The first problem is that they assume Berlusconi’s constituency is White Anglo Saxon Protestant. It is not. It is Italians, who think in a rather different way.
For the second half of the twentieth century any reference to Italian politics was that it was a joke. No one could resist mentioning the corruption, or that Italy had had 48 governments since the fall of Mussolini. No one blamed the insane proportional representation system for causing that; it was simply Italian madness. When Berlusconi tried to change it, towards a British-style First Past the Post ballot, they all said he was fiddling the system, cheating.
Now we have had a period of some stability, with only one Prime Minister in six of the last eight years, and they complain he is a dictator.
There was a perfectly absurd claim that Berlusconi controlled the media, without anyone investigating exactly what influence a Prime Minister has on the state channels, which, if people could face watching them, are often openly critical of him. The British government appoints the Director General of the BBC but no one claims Gordon Brown is in control of the media (he wishes!). And it is hard to claim that Berlusconi controls the newspapers and then claim that he might be forced out of office by a campaign run by La Reppublica (the Guardian’s equivalent, but without that organ’s self-righteousness) and followed up by the Corriere della Sera (Independent but less of a rant), La Stampa, l’Osservatore romano and God knows what else.
Berlusconi will not be forced out of office by the Noemi Letizia story: whereas British newspapers would lead with ‘Berlusconi: my shame!’, most Italians think ‘Complimenti! Forza!’. Discussion in my local agricultural wholesalers was whether at 72 he had the energy to satisfy the girl properly, ‘whereas I......’. But ‘good luck to him’ they say.
They say his party contains former fascists, without saying that the opposition contains former communists who accepted money from Russia during the cold war. The President, Giorgio Napolitano, is one of them.
Nor are Berlusconi’s brushes with the law a huge point of interest. Italians have had years of this and believe, not inaccurately, that most individual politicians and most governments since 1948 have been for sale. ‘But how could you bribe Berlu....? He’s the richest man in Italy!’ And everyone knows the judicial system is politicised: prosecuting magistrates and defence attorneys are openly of the left or the right, so if you are attacked by a left wing magistrate you hire a right wing avvocato and vice versa.
I am not saying Berlusconi is innocent of the accusations against him, nor denying that his relationship with an 18 year old (the age of consent is 14 here) has been inappropriate. I am just saying how it plays in Italy. And how it plays is that he has a 75% popularity rating. Remember a British politician who achieved that?
Compare Berlusconi’s open hiring of some big breasted starlet to advertise the ‘Clean Naples’ campaign with the weaselly spinning of Mandelson and Campbell, or Ed Balls’ declaration that the Tories would fire 45,000 teachers, without mentioning that their figures for cuts were taken from Alasdair Darling’s budget. The British people have been fed a diet of lies from cunning plotters behind the scenes, paid with the people's money. If the Italians have got a clown who wears his faults on his sleeve, who is the luckier?
But let me give the outraged lefties a steer. Berlusconi’s crime is to have let this stuff be the story, to act diligently when there was popularity at stake (and his handling of Naples and Alitalia has been little short of brilliant) but not to take the long term decisions necessary. Before long Europe will emerge from recession but to get going again it will need not inflationary stimulus but tax cuts financed by spending cuts. Berlusconi knows that he should cut the size of the State but knows it will be unpopular. He has failed to prepare the political ground for it, while Italy needs 70 billion euros each year to service its debts. A mature statesman (and he wants to be President) would now be seeking cross party agreement on which areas the State could leave, and on freeing up the labour market so that employment will grow without barriers.
Berlusconi’s crime does not stem from his actions. It is his inaction.
26 May, 2009
MP gets it right
I know we hear too much about the parliamentary scandal thing but you should read an excellent article in the Times by Chris Mullin, who would make an excellent Speaker. He understands that this is not just about bathplugs.
25 May, 2009
PR raises its head again
Incredibly Alan Johnson, one of several undeclared candidates to be leader of the Labour Party, has declared Proportional Representation to be the solution to the nation’s ills.
I really had thought this nonsense had been laid to rest. It is only ever raised by people or parties staring defeat in the face. Now we are going to have to put up with months of fallacious drivel as the proponents talk about change (as usual) and ‘fair votes’ (Ha!).
Each time you argue with someone proposing PR they say ‘Ah, but that’s not the system I would have used. Let’s just agree the principle of ‘fair votes’ and we’ll work out the rest later.’
This time, however, Johnson has made a specific proposal: the system wanted by the Jenkins Commission in 1998. You will remember that Tony Blair, not confident of winning a majority, made overtures to the Liberal Democrats who named this as their price and Blair agreed to a commission headed by Lord (Woy) Jenkins, a clarety old windbag who, alone in the country, took himself seriously. Woy’s and now Johnson’s, suggestion was called AV Plus.
Under AV Plus 80% of MPs would be elected on the alternative vote system and 20% on a party list. Let us take the position of the parties at the moment and extrapolate to a general election in a single constituency: Cons 40%, Lab 30% LibDem 20% others 10%. No one would have an outright majority so we proceed to second preferences, Others (such as UKIP and Greens) being eliminated. The likelihood is that both Conservative and Labour voters would put LibDem as their second vote, whereas LibDem voters would put 50/50 Lab and Con. So the LibDem soars into a commanding lead. No wonder they liked it. But the result is that the party that only 20% thought the best to be elected wins.
Now let’s look at the other 20% of MPs. These would be party placemen. And to whom are they accountable? The Party. Not the people.
PR entrenches the party system, institutionalises the cosy corruption which we are trying to get rid of. Remember Helmut Kohl in Germany. He was caught with his hand in the till and his constituents, rightly, threw him out. But he turns up in parliament the following day as one of the Party List. His party had raised two fingers to the electorate and appointed him. Is that what we want? That some odious sleazebag gets to run the country even though his electorate rejected him?
No. PR is exactly what we don’t want.
I really had thought this nonsense had been laid to rest. It is only ever raised by people or parties staring defeat in the face. Now we are going to have to put up with months of fallacious drivel as the proponents talk about change (as usual) and ‘fair votes’ (Ha!).
Each time you argue with someone proposing PR they say ‘Ah, but that’s not the system I would have used. Let’s just agree the principle of ‘fair votes’ and we’ll work out the rest later.’
This time, however, Johnson has made a specific proposal: the system wanted by the Jenkins Commission in 1998. You will remember that Tony Blair, not confident of winning a majority, made overtures to the Liberal Democrats who named this as their price and Blair agreed to a commission headed by Lord (Woy) Jenkins, a clarety old windbag who, alone in the country, took himself seriously. Woy’s and now Johnson’s, suggestion was called AV Plus.
Under AV Plus 80% of MPs would be elected on the alternative vote system and 20% on a party list. Let us take the position of the parties at the moment and extrapolate to a general election in a single constituency: Cons 40%, Lab 30% LibDem 20% others 10%. No one would have an outright majority so we proceed to second preferences, Others (such as UKIP and Greens) being eliminated. The likelihood is that both Conservative and Labour voters would put LibDem as their second vote, whereas LibDem voters would put 50/50 Lab and Con. So the LibDem soars into a commanding lead. No wonder they liked it. But the result is that the party that only 20% thought the best to be elected wins.
Now let’s look at the other 20% of MPs. These would be party placemen. And to whom are they accountable? The Party. Not the people.
PR entrenches the party system, institutionalises the cosy corruption which we are trying to get rid of. Remember Helmut Kohl in Germany. He was caught with his hand in the till and his constituents, rightly, threw him out. But he turns up in parliament the following day as one of the Party List. His party had raised two fingers to the electorate and appointed him. Is that what we want? That some odious sleazebag gets to run the country even though his electorate rejected him?
No. PR is exactly what we don’t want.
21 May, 2009
Tattoos
I am not attracted to women who try to look like merchant seamen, and never having wanted to look like one myself I have been critical of the modern passion for tattoos. And they are very painful to remove.
I now read that starlet of the moment Hayden Panettiere (I don't know if that is her real name; the surname means 'baker' and she appears to have been named after an Australian cricketer) wanted a tattoo on her back of 'living without regrets' in Italian in large letters (vivere senza rimpianti). But they spelled it wrong. And now she is stuck with it. Daft cow.
I now read that starlet of the moment Hayden Panettiere (I don't know if that is her real name; the surname means 'baker' and she appears to have been named after an Australian cricketer) wanted a tattoo on her back of 'living without regrets' in Italian in large letters (vivere senza rimpianti). But they spelled it wrong. And now she is stuck with it. Daft cow.
19 May, 2009
The people speak
'the public are scenting blood', I wrote a week ago, 'and demanding it'. Douglas Hogg will stand down at the next election (I don't know if he has done a deal to become Lord Hogg of the Moat) and now the Speaker has said he will go on 21st June, the first to be slung out of office since 1695. As Voltaire observed of the execution of Admiral Byng, it is good to kill a Speaker from time to time, in order to encourage the others.
There's something about popular uprising. It starts off as an unalloyed good thing: 'A bas les aristos' is the popular talk, wrongs are righted and the balance of society gets fairer. But the problem is the public never nows when to stop. Suddenly the leaders of the revolt are perceived as not being tough enough and it's 'Ã la lanterne' everyone who is suspected of wavering.
I wonder how we will look back on this time: 'Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven' ? (sorry about the french leitmotiv) Certainly a wrong is being righted and certainly a few of the sinners will be for the chop, but is it going to get silly? 'They're all just in it for themselves, let's get rid of the lot of them', you can hear it in pubs and on radio 'phone-ins.
The first sign of silliness is that Esther Rantzen is thinking of standing. Perhaps we should mark this point as where the nonsense is beginning and leave the overpaid self-publicising old trout to advertising for ambulance chasing solicitors.
There's something about popular uprising. It starts off as an unalloyed good thing: 'A bas les aristos' is the popular talk, wrongs are righted and the balance of society gets fairer. But the problem is the public never nows when to stop. Suddenly the leaders of the revolt are perceived as not being tough enough and it's 'Ã la lanterne' everyone who is suspected of wavering.
I wonder how we will look back on this time: 'Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven' ? (sorry about the french leitmotiv) Certainly a wrong is being righted and certainly a few of the sinners will be for the chop, but is it going to get silly? 'They're all just in it for themselves, let's get rid of the lot of them', you can hear it in pubs and on radio 'phone-ins.
The first sign of silliness is that Esther Rantzen is thinking of standing. Perhaps we should mark this point as where the nonsense is beginning and leave the overpaid self-publicising old trout to advertising for ambulance chasing solicitors.
13 May, 2009
The BBC
So. 70% of British people profess themselves to be Christian, and a lot more were brought up as Christians and do not profess any other religion; unlike almost all other western nations we have an established, constitutionalised religion (Christianity) and the BBC have got a new head of religious broadcasting, Aaquil Ahmed, a muslim.
At a time when we are despairing that our politicians are out of touch with the zeitgeist, we really should spare a thought for the BBC, who do zeitgeist-free policy as a regular gig. This organisation is paid for by virtually the entire population, and yet is run by, and for the benefit of, the leftie chattering classes, the sort of people who think it is clever clever to have a muslim head of religious broadcasting in a Christian country, who think it is their job to give religion a bit of a shake-up; people who have no connection whatsoever with the ordinary Briton (and would hate to do so).
Someone needs to give Mark Damazer a sharp kick up the backside and remind him who he is working for. Indeed perhaps I should - his holiday home (these people are never knowingly underpaid) is down the road.
I criticise the BBC a lot, but as I said recently to a friend who works for it, it is because I feel it is partly mine. The people who run it, however, think it is exclusively theirs.
At a time when we are despairing that our politicians are out of touch with the zeitgeist, we really should spare a thought for the BBC, who do zeitgeist-free policy as a regular gig. This organisation is paid for by virtually the entire population, and yet is run by, and for the benefit of, the leftie chattering classes, the sort of people who think it is clever clever to have a muslim head of religious broadcasting in a Christian country, who think it is their job to give religion a bit of a shake-up; people who have no connection whatsoever with the ordinary Briton (and would hate to do so).
Someone needs to give Mark Damazer a sharp kick up the backside and remind him who he is working for. Indeed perhaps I should - his holiday home (these people are never knowingly underpaid) is down the road.
I criticise the BBC a lot, but as I said recently to a friend who works for it, it is because I feel it is partly mine. The people who run it, however, think it is exclusively theirs.
12 May, 2009
Corruption (2)
I must say I thought the MPs' expenses thing would eventually just go away, the public's opinion of their politicians much the same as it always was (low). But this has dragged on for such a long time (one commentator said he was a bit surprised when reminded that it was only Day 5 of the revelations - it felt like Day 27) that the public are scenting blood, and demanding it.
Douglas Hogg, whose father and grandfather were distinguished Tory Lord Chancellors, has claimed for cleaning the moat round his castle, and it just won't do. the public won't have it. Nor is it enough that he repay it: if a burglar gives the goods back he is still a criminal.
Anther has claimed for trimming the grass round his helipad (he claims it isn't really a helipad but that makes his arrogance even worse). These, and other appalling examples, should result in David Cameron withdrawing the whip. They knew that the allowances were for things directly needed for them to function as MPs, and they were taking the mickey. Now they have been caught with their hands in the till and there can only be one outcome.
I don't expect any such action from the Labour Party, but it would be welcome. Bagehot in the Economist reports 'Public paid the Chancellor's stamp duty' is his favourite headline.
Good grief.
Douglas Hogg, whose father and grandfather were distinguished Tory Lord Chancellors, has claimed for cleaning the moat round his castle, and it just won't do. the public won't have it. Nor is it enough that he repay it: if a burglar gives the goods back he is still a criminal.
Anther has claimed for trimming the grass round his helipad (he claims it isn't really a helipad but that makes his arrogance even worse). These, and other appalling examples, should result in David Cameron withdrawing the whip. They knew that the allowances were for things directly needed for them to function as MPs, and they were taking the mickey. Now they have been caught with their hands in the till and there can only be one outcome.
I don't expect any such action from the Labour Party, but it would be welcome. Bagehot in the Economist reports 'Public paid the Chancellor's stamp duty' is his favourite headline.
Good grief.
11 May, 2009
Corruption
While the nation shows its inexhaustible appetite for stories about the venality of our politicians we should cast a thought towards areas where it is even worse. This from the excellent Berlaymonster blog.
The EU Joint research centre (no, I've no clue what it does, researching marijuana for all I know) based in the Northern Italian town of Ispra, employs a little over 1,000 people. Of these around a fifth, 230, have claimed injury benefit, and between 1996 and 2002 some 5.7 million euros was handed out.
An audit discovered 46 members of staff collected 35 000 euros on average, 23 more than 50 000, eight claimed more than 80 000 and one or two cashed in almost 300 000 euros from the injury benefit system accorded to those on the European Commission's payroll.
76 of the 230 even had the misfortune to suffer a second accident, increasing their claims.But 42 of them - 42 members of staff out of little over 1000 - declared AT LEAST NINE ACCIDENTS EACH between January 1986 and July 2003.
Details were sent to the Italian police of 14 cases (why not the whole lot we shall never know) but the suspects claimed that they hadn't been informed and so their rights were breached.
The 14 have now been awarded 3,000 euros each in compensation.
Just think about this as you go in to vote.
09 May, 2009
The Royal Mail
It is reported that the Government's plans to sell a minority stake in the Royal Mail may collapse because of the political and union opposition to it.
I think we should have a good look at what is going on in this service. It loses a fortune and seems unable to compete with its European competitors.
Of course governments are largely to blame, keeping it out of modern communications and insisting on a single price for all deliveries, as if it were some inalienable right. People in remote Scottish islands pay more for their cornflakes, their electrical equipment and more for their clothing so why the hell shouldn't they pay more for their letters? But here's a solution.
Old Dear Without A Computer A wants to send a letter to ODWACB. She writes the addressee's name and postcode in big letters at the top of the paper and takes it to the Post Office where it is scanned in and address recognition software, such as is already used, sends the scan to the nearest office to the recipient where it is printed and automatically folded into an envelope. The delivery would now be only a couple of miles, no vans and planes travelling expensively over the country and causing pollution. Most of the unnecessary staff could be laid off and the thing might even turn a profit. Because it costs no more to send a scan from Surrey to Benbecula than to Hampshire they could keep the single price system.
I think we should have a good look at what is going on in this service. It loses a fortune and seems unable to compete with its European competitors.
Of course governments are largely to blame, keeping it out of modern communications and insisting on a single price for all deliveries, as if it were some inalienable right. People in remote Scottish islands pay more for their cornflakes, their electrical equipment and more for their clothing so why the hell shouldn't they pay more for their letters? But here's a solution.
Old Dear Without A Computer A wants to send a letter to ODWACB. She writes the addressee's name and postcode in big letters at the top of the paper and takes it to the Post Office where it is scanned in and address recognition software, such as is already used, sends the scan to the nearest office to the recipient where it is printed and automatically folded into an envelope. The delivery would now be only a couple of miles, no vans and planes travelling expensively over the country and causing pollution. Most of the unnecessary staff could be laid off and the thing might even turn a profit. Because it costs no more to send a scan from Surrey to Benbecula than to Hampshire they could keep the single price system.
Europe Day
Oooops, nearly forgot. I expect all my readers will be half way through their celebrations already, popping the champagne corks and brushing up their Belgian folk dancing. Today is Europe Day, when we celebrate the EU.
In fact 9th May is the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration in 1950, which gave rise to the European Coal and Steel Community and all the bossy, self-perpetuating elitist apparat that has gone on since.
In fact Schuman received the declaration drafted for him at the railway station as he went off to his country estate and signed it, as he was told to, on his return. It had been written by Jean Monnet, a bureaucrat who had all his life believed in supranational bodies. During the First World War Monnet proposed, in order to facilitate the movement of weaponry across borders, that a supranational body be set up which would tell individual nations what to do, when and how. Naturally the Americans told him to go boil his head, although they seem in favour of it now (that is a body to rule over others, not over them).
It has been clear for many years that we would be better off without all this baggage, better off democratically and financially. It is now clear that even the free trade provisions come hedged around with so much bureaucracy and regulation that we would be better off out of it completely. Furthermore it is clear that the British people think that, too. But our politicians are never going to get rid of a self appointed elite. As the shark said, when he ignored the investment banker who had fallen off his yacht, professional etiquette.
We are therefore stuck in a mire of having to belong to an anti-democratic, impoverishing system, knowing we would be better off out, but without the balls to leave it.
In the absence of Mr Cameron being able to specify from which areas of Europe he would repatriate powers to parliament, we must, regrettably, presume it was just talk. This blog therefore supports UKIP for the European Elections.
Happy Europe Day.
In fact 9th May is the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration in 1950, which gave rise to the European Coal and Steel Community and all the bossy, self-perpetuating elitist apparat that has gone on since.
In fact Schuman received the declaration drafted for him at the railway station as he went off to his country estate and signed it, as he was told to, on his return. It had been written by Jean Monnet, a bureaucrat who had all his life believed in supranational bodies. During the First World War Monnet proposed, in order to facilitate the movement of weaponry across borders, that a supranational body be set up which would tell individual nations what to do, when and how. Naturally the Americans told him to go boil his head, although they seem in favour of it now (that is a body to rule over others, not over them).
It has been clear for many years that we would be better off without all this baggage, better off democratically and financially. It is now clear that even the free trade provisions come hedged around with so much bureaucracy and regulation that we would be better off out of it completely. Furthermore it is clear that the British people think that, too. But our politicians are never going to get rid of a self appointed elite. As the shark said, when he ignored the investment banker who had fallen off his yacht, professional etiquette.
We are therefore stuck in a mire of having to belong to an anti-democratic, impoverishing system, knowing we would be better off out, but without the balls to leave it.
In the absence of Mr Cameron being able to specify from which areas of Europe he would repatriate powers to parliament, we must, regrettably, presume it was just talk. This blog therefore supports UKIP for the European Elections.
Happy Europe Day.
05 May, 2009
Hattie and Gord
I just wonder, with Harriet Harman's statement that she would not contend the leadership, whether there is one thing that has gone unmentioned. If Brown were to resign she, as deputy leader, might try to persuade the palace that she should be permitted to carry on (don't forget that she, unlike Brown, has been elected by her colleagues). She might then try to fight the election as the incumbent.
Does she know something we don't?
Does she know something we don't?
04 May, 2009
Mrs Thatcher
I didn't feel I could add much to the 30th anniversary tributes paid to Mrs Thatcher so I'll just say today, 4th May, is the 30th anniversary of the worst hangover I ever had.
03 May, 2009
Prescott
Patrick Henessy has an excellent appraisal of John Prescott's massacre of the English language for Radio 4 on http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/patrick__hennessy_/blog/2009/05/02/john_prescott_the_bruiser_is_back
including 'I undressed 450 students yesterday with Ed Miliband and Eddie Izzard' although my favourite is when he got off a plane from Tokyo and announced 'It's great to be back on terra cotta'. Now we don't have the embarrassment of him holding a senior office of state he has become a national treasure.
including 'I undressed 450 students yesterday with Ed Miliband and Eddie Izzard' although my favourite is when he got off a plane from Tokyo and announced 'It's great to be back on terra cotta'. Now we don't have the embarrassment of him holding a senior office of state he has become a national treasure.
The whisky and the revolver
Those who talk about Gordon Brown being edged out before the next election seem to me to be missing one important point. HM the Queen has to appoint Prime Ministers and I can't see she would have any choice but to say 'No, the Labour Party was alllowed the chance to appoint its own Prime Minister last time (without even an election in the party!) and I cannot allow a small cabal to force another person on the people without facing the electorate. It is not as if the Labour Party was the only choice to form a government - indeed they are miles behind in the polls.'
Even if Gordon were to resign through ill health this same issue has to be faced. HM Queen has a constitutional position and she would effectively be abrogating it if she allowed such an abuse of democracy to occur. If that were to happen there would sarcely be any constitutional relevance to the monarchy.
Even if Gordon were to resign through ill health this same issue has to be faced. HM Queen has a constitutional position and she would effectively be abrogating it if she allowed such an abuse of democracy to occur. If that were to happen there would sarcely be any constitutional relevance to the monarchy.
Poet Laureate
The new Poet Laureate is a Glaswegian lesbian with a daughter by a man she has never lived with. Tony Blair apparently found her too politically risky to get the job 10 years ago.
I have nothing against a colourful private life for a poet (I think we know more than enough about Ted Hughes) but Glaswegian?
Well, nobody reads the poems anyway.
I have nothing against a colourful private life for a poet (I think we know more than enough about Ted Hughes) but Glaswegian?
Well, nobody reads the poems anyway.
01 May, 2009
Iraq
The military, political and international relations disaster that has been Britain's combat mission in Iraq has come to an end. Our engagement lasted longer than the Second World War. At the closing ceremony they read out the list of the dead. It took 25 minutes.
Tony Blair realised the potential of the superb British Army to help him along internationally. He committed more troops into more places than anyone since Churchill. Blair is a hero in Sierra Leone. The dead corporals and sergeants are not. It is Blair who makes a fortune from speaking engagements in America, where his actions have often been described as 'brave'.
In future, when British troops are committed abroad a cabinet member and a junior minister should be present when the coffins come back. They should meet the soldiers' families, just to know what it is like when you send troops into battle.
Look at your watch. 25 minutes.
Tony Blair realised the potential of the superb British Army to help him along internationally. He committed more troops into more places than anyone since Churchill. Blair is a hero in Sierra Leone. The dead corporals and sergeants are not. It is Blair who makes a fortune from speaking engagements in America, where his actions have often been described as 'brave'.
In future, when British troops are committed abroad a cabinet member and a junior minister should be present when the coffins come back. They should meet the soldiers' families, just to know what it is like when you send troops into battle.
Look at your watch. 25 minutes.
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