Benedict

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

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

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

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

Gaaaah!

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

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

It won't be easy to beat that.

Italy votes (3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's hope it does.

More Italy voting

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

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

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

Italy votes again

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

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

Italy votes

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

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

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

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

We should know something on Tuesday morning.

Our own enemies

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

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

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

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

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

Recommended reading

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

Pistorius

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

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

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

It doesn't make for very good journalism.

What they're paid

Central bank governors' salaries in US$ equivalent

 

USA                199,700

UK                  465,869

ECB                493,694

Italy                   990,000 reduced voluntarily to 653,400

I yield to no one

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

Wonderful footballer, of course but....

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

Left or Right?

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

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

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

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

I think we should be told.

The Red Cross

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

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

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

Bribes-village

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The FT

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

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

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

The LoUC

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

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

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

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

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

Cometh the hour...

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

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

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

Everyone's a winner!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solidarité!

A success?

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

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

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

Wonderful

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

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

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

This is a disaster, nothing less.

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

So there you have it.

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

Until now.

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

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

Reg Presley

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


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

Coming this month

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

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

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

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

Non-voters

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

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

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

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

A summit!

It is nearly summit time in Europe which I know will please the hundreds of millions of Europeans whose future my be decided over lunch at next week's meeting of the European Council.

The event will hope to decide the long term European budget. Readers will remember that at the last such meeting in November, fully ten out of the 27 nations threatened a veto if things didn't go their way.

Now the Open Europe blog has spotted the first veto threat and it is from Mario Monti, unelected Prime Minister of Italy, who says he could veto the budget if it is not big enough. You may recall that last time he wanted Italy's contribution cut, so he wants more spending but wants to pay less for it.

This could be a difficult one and you can almost feel the tension....of tight waistbands being loosened a bit further.

The race to be second

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to go

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

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

More Mali

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

Are we sleepwalking into another Afghanistan?

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

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

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

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

Have we really any idea what we are up to?

I yield to no one

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

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

Services to hypocrisy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nice work....

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

Just as well there isn't a recession.

Burns' Night

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

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

Good luck.

The speech

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

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

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

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

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

Monte dei Paschi

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

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

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

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

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

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

50 years of something

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

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

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

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

Horse****

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

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

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

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

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

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

The USA and the rest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mali

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

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

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

BBC

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

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

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

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

Climate Change: the end?

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

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

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

The trillion dollar coin

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

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

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

Don't bank on it, though.

Qui Mali pense

Evil be to him who thinks about Mali.

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

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

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

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

Just when....

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

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

They're getting worried

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

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

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

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

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

Speech of the Decade

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definition change

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

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

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

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

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

Here we go

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death of a scientist

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

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

Happy New Year

My best wishes to everyone for the year to come.

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

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

We'd like to hear less of..

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

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

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

Anyone called Kardashian. What are they famous for?

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

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

RIP Fontella

Fontella Bass from 1965. She has died aged 72

Happy Christmas

A very happy Christmas to everyone.

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

Fox hunting

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

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

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

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

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

Monti speaks; so do I

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

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

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

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

Vote Appoint Tim Now!

Your health service

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not all good

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

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

Italy update

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

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

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

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

The last election gave

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

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

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

End of the beginning?

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

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

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

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

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

The happy couple

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

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

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

This should put a couple more euros on the bill.

Gun control

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

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

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

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

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

Act of succession

Charles Moore asks this question in the Telegraph:

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

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

It seems they have a bit more thinking to do.

Press Regulation

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

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

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

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

Leadership

This from the FT's Guy Dinmore in Rome:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A great day

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

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

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

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

Signs of the times

From the UK census:

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

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

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

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

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

Let's start with the BBC.

The fourth man

Missing....eradicated?

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

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

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

Drugs

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

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

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

I hope this debate is kept alive.

The next episode

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But there is plenty of running to go.

Bed blocking

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

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

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

Dave Brubeck RIP

The one that isn't Take 5

The Fall of the West

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Told you!

You read it here

The oldies are back

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

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

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

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

Booze and the rich boy

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

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

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

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

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

You read it here....

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

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