Cameron

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, is reported to have said in a speech that Britain's membership of the EU is in our national interest.

Now, he is entitled to his view, although I, like the majority of the British people, don't share it, but where he is a complete bloody idiot is that he is supposed to be negotiating a new set of arrangements with Europe. They know from this and other pronouncements that he is in favour of the costly undemocratic shambles and are therefore unlikely to concede any points to him: unless he can say 'We will leave if we don't achieve the following' they will just roll him over.

Imagine his speech as we move towards the referendum in 2017, with his reasonable tones: 'Through difficult negotiation, standing up firmly for Britain's interests, I have managed to obtain an opt-out for Britain from the Length of Courgettes Directive, 1982, and I do think this is a good basis on which to go to the British people and say "Let us go forward together with our European partners...." '

What worries me is that some people might fall for it.

The Chookie Enbra

The Duke of Edinburgh, this blog's favourite royal, is in hospital today for his 92nd birthday.

We wish him well.

Europe again

Latest news:

Bad debts at Italy's banks are 22% worse than last year.

President Hollande says the euro crisis is over.

Well, that's all right then.

Bad taste crime

The first I heard about the ghastly murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, a couple of weeks ago, was that a man wearing a 'Help for Heroes' T-shirt had been beheaded in an attack in Woolwich.

At that moment Deyka Ayan Hassan, a 21 year old student, tweeted that 'to be honest, if you wear a Help for Heroes T-shirt you deserve to be beheaded'.

Now, the best that can be said of Ms Hassan's remark is that it was in dramatically poor taste. She received, understandably, a barrage of complaints, some, less understandably, threats of violence. She complained to the police and was herself arrested. In passing I would mention that also in today's papers is the story of a father turning in his son's drug dealer to police and being arrested for kidnapping the aggrieved pusher. The best thing with the British police is to have nothing to do with them whatsoever.

Anyway, Deyka Hassan has now been convicted and sentenced. Note that the magistrates did not dispute the timing - that she did not know that it was a soldier - and she was not accused of or charged with inciting violence.

Ms Hassan was convicted of 'sending a malicious electronic message'. Can you be malicious to someone who is dead? Did you know that this was a crime? Is bad taste a crime? Or rank bloody stupidity (how many could we catch with that one)? Can I call the British Foreign Secretary a dangerous fool to his face but not send him an email to that effect?

I think we need to have a look at this.

Ninety plus

In hospital in their respective countries are Prince Philip, 91 and Nelson Mandela, 94.

Seems you just can't trust these nonagenarian public figures to look after themselves.

Silly

The Tory MP Nadine Dorries is being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner for
appearing on a TV programme called 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here'. She was earlier banned temporarily by her party.

Here is my analysis of the rights and wrongs of the matter:

Silly woman, silly programme, silly treatment by her party, silly investigation.

The Standards commissioner could suspend her from parliament, which would mean the people of mid-Bedfordshire were without representation, hardly a plus.

Let's just call her Silly.

Syria

The news from Syria continues to be grim. Government troops aided, some say led, by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have retaken Qusair. France says that there is unassailable evidence that the Syrian Government has used nerve gas, but the UN delegation say that both sides have used chemical weapons. Both sides.

The protagonists are now: the Assad regime, Lebanon, Iran and Russia on one side; assorted rebels, al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other. It is said that the Gaza terrorist group, Hamas, is supporting the rebels, largely on sectarian (Sunni) grounds, even though they get their armaments from (Shia) Iran.

It's a hell of a mess.

At Prime Minister's Questions David Cameron was at pains to point out that there has as yet been no decision taken to arm the rebel groups. Let's hope this is a bit of back-tracking from his trigger happy Foreign Secretary, who seems determined to get us involved in a war which really is none of our business.

Even handed

Congratulations to Francesco de Salazar, who in last week's local elections in Rome stood in the Second Municipality for the Centre Right and in the Twelfth Municipality for the Centre Left.

He won both seats.

You might think that a political system which is capable of producing such an outcome (it is not illegal) had a means of resolving it, but no. De Salazar could have carried on, collecting two salaries, but admitting what he called 'an error committed in good faith', he has resigned both.

De Salazar's statement suggests that he candidated himself accidentally for one of the parties. Alas, we shall never know which.

The last days of the Empire

Recent news from Europe:

Britain is to be taken to court for not giving arriving migrants the same benefits as people who live in Britain and have paid taxes for them. Countries which do not offer any benefits will not suffer in this way.

Next year vacuum cleaners are to be less powerful, for energy saving reasons. Of course if you are slovenly and only use a vacuum cleaner once a year you will not be given any credit.

And we are paying them to come up with these rules which govern us.

I just ask: how long are we going to put up with this?

The Rule of Law

Eighty or ninety Afghan nationals are being held without trial, without even being charged, at the British base at Camp Bastion. They wouldn't even allow the detainees to be represented by a lawyer until a British lawyer threatened to take the British Government to court.

To have any effect whatsoever on the prospects of returning this benighted country to the rule of law we must first show that we understand it ourselves.

This puts us down on the level of the Americans (Guantanamo) and the terrorists themselves.

And our trigger happy Foreign Secretary wants to have a pop at the Syrians.

The meaning of loyalty

Tesco, the supermarket chain, has announced an anti-obesity campaign. I'm sure I don't have to remind you, but this is a supermarket. Not a government department.

The idea is that Tesco uses the information available to it on its loyalty card to look at what you are eating and....what? There have been hints that it might post healthy recipes to its 'loyal' customers who have been eating the 'wrong' things: 'Hi! You've been buying quite a few cupcakes recently. Would you like a recipe for grilled courgettes with lettuce?' Or will there be a little hiatus at the check-out as the cashier announces 'I'm afraid you're limited to two pizzas a week at the moment - getting a bit tubby aren't we?' Or the registered letter to your home 'YOU FAT COW! YOU'RE STUFFING YOURSELF WITH CALORIES AND YOU HAVE AN ARSE LIKE A HIPPO! DON'T COME BACK UNLESS YOU'RE GOING TO BUY SOME SALAD!'.

So you shop at Tesco and sufficiently regularly to have one of these loyalty cards, then they use some of the profit they have made out of you to tell you what to eat.

This looks to me very much like one of those occasions where it would have been better to remain silent.

News from France

Hundreds of thousands of people protested in Paris against homosexual marriage, some, presumably feeling strongly about the subject, fighting with the riot police. A popular slogan chanted by the crowds was 'Hollande, your mother isn't called Robert'.

The top prize at the Cannes Film Festival went to a three hour saga about two lesbian lovers which includes an explicit 15 minute sex scene.

I suppose it's all right as long as you don't want to get married. Let's think about that.

The way the money goes

It is reported that the BBC has lost £100 million on a computer project, trying to digitise its programme content. I expect this was run by one of those organisations which calls itself a management consultant but which is in fact just a group of programmers and slick salesmen. They use language like 'driving change' and 'optimising outcomes' and I expect the BBC trendies fell for it hook, line and sinker. Even so, it's hard to see how they got the sum up to £100 million without any checks to see if just some of it might conceivably be being wasted.

This is another disaster for the BBC, and just look at the sackings!...oh...in fact, none.

They have however managed to spend money hiring left-wing Lord Hall as Director General, left-wing Ian Katz, former deputy editor of the BBC's favourite newspaper, the Guardian, as editor of Newsnight, and left-wing James Purnell, former Labour cabinet minister as head of 'strategy and digital' on a salary reported to be around £300,000 a year. Mr Purnell doesn't seem to have resigned his post following this calamity on his watch.

Tedious

You may have heard about an extraordinary piece of nonsense, even by the standards of the European Union, concerning olive oil.

The practice of restaurants offering you little bowls or jugs of olive oil is to be banned, just in case it isn't very nice olive oil, even if the menu didn't say whether it was nice or nasty, Italian or Algerian. All olive oil will have to be in single disposable bottles which can't be tampered with so you know what you are getting. This is great news for the big producers but terrible for the small ones, where a restaurant might choose to put out its own or a small local artisanal product (I am just such a producer myself).

Here's what our Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'This is exactly the sort of area the European Union needs to get right out of, in my view'.

Fair enough, but it now transpires that many countries were going to oppose this and could have stopped it but that Britain, among others, abstained at the last minute, letting it through. Yes, Britain. Mr Hypocrite Cameron said 'Our argument was bound up with a whole set of  arguments we were having about rules of origin and the rest of it and I won't go into the tedious complexities.'

Thanks, Matey, but I should like you to go into the 'tedious complexities'. I should like to know why this happened that we approved something even though the Prime Minister was against it (it is being said that it was some junior civil servant who, I bet, hasn't been sacked). And I should like to know why the PM allowed himself to criticise it when he had nodded it through.

Is this how most of our laws are passed?

Good grief.

PS I now learn that the European Commission is withdrawing the measure on the grounds that it is unpopular. Suggestions that they are considering 1,429,532 other measures on similar grounds are probably wishful thinking.

Tory splits

The party Mr Johnson wants to lead, The Conservatives, seems hopelessly divided. Last night Mr Cameron had to rely on the Labour Party to get his legislation, on gay marriage, through.

I don't think it is impossible for the Tories to recover - they have emerged from such schisms before - but nor do I think, as some newspapers have suggested, that they are 'split down the middle'. It seems to me that the activists and supporters, the party in the country, know pretty well where they stand, on marriage, Europe, immigration and so on, and that their representatives in parliament are by and large in the same place (it should be noted that whilst there have been rebellions of around half the parliamentary party, the large numbers of cabinet and junior ministers, PPS's and bag carriers, known as the payroll vote, aren't allowed to rebel, even if they think the same as the rebels).

What is splitting the party is Mr. Cameron and a small coterie of advisers who are closet social democrats. Cameron was doubted by many in 2005 but made leader because they thought he was a winner. In the 2010 General Election he missed the greatest open goal in political history and seems to be celebrating this feat by going off on a frolic of his own, employing as party chairman an old university friend who thinks the party's supporters are 'swivel-eyed loons'.

There is, just, time to get rid of Mr. Cameron, although I suspect that his obvious replacement, Mr Johnson (see below) might be found out within a few months. Probably their best bet is to go into the election with their fingers crossed and afterwards have a good clear-out. Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, is my tip.

Alexander....the truth

No, not the Macedonian warrior king but the politician Alexander Johnson, who calls himself Boris.

For some time now newspapers have wanted to publish news of a child he fathered with an art dealer, but they were subject to a gagging order. The Court of Appeal has now ruled. The Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Dyson, said:

‘The core information in this story, namely that the father had an adulterous affair with the mother, deceiving both his wife and the mother’s partner, and that the child, born about nine months later, was likely to be the father’s child, was a public interest matter which the electorate was entitled to know when considering his fitness for high public office.’

'It is fanciful to expect the public to forget the fact that a man who is said to be the baby’s father, and who is a major public figure, has fathered a child after a brief adulterous affair (not for the first time).

‘The mother accepted in cross-examination that any woman who embarked on an affair with the father was “playing with fire” and that such an affair was bound to attract “very considerable media attention”.’

Now, I don't want to be too old fashioned. I know that people stray; relationships, which once seemed watertight, fall apart, but I do think that a person's conduct of his or her private life is relevant when the electorate consider 'fitness for public office' (and Johnson wants a much higher office than that he currently holds). I might think, in fact I do think, that a man who treats his marriage vows in such a cavalier way might treat in similar fashion the undertakings he makes to me as an elector. This is at least the second time he has done this, on another occasion, it is said, paying for the woman to have an abortion. We are not talking about him sitting down with his wife and deciding that they should go their separate ways (despite having children of their own); we are talking about him cheating. His horrified wife threw him out of the family home when she discovered. It is as if Mr Johnson, like Leona Helmsley who said 'taxes are for little people', thought these vows were something for others, perhaps his wife, to obey. It looks as if he thought it was beneath him.

That is why it is right that this has come out and that is why I would not vote for Mr Johnson, or a party led by him.

Euro-rubbish

I have often thought that 'Eurovision' suggests that there is a common TV channel which we all, Estonians, Bulgarians and Maltese, are listening to together. Of course there isn't and we're not. It is just a singing competition which usefully, for a Eurosceptic like me, highlights our differences.

Many countries do their best not to win this ..er.. prestigious event because the winner has to put the show on next year and it is expensive. British voters are unlikely to want public money spent on anything beginning with 'Euro'.

Our technique for not winning, which distinguishes us from other nations, is to field a has-been. Last year Engelbert Humperdinck, a septuagenarian who wasn't even good listening in the 1960s, came triumphantly last. This year I thought we were taking a bit of a risk putting up Bonny Tyler, who used to have a powerful, smoky voice, like a female Rod Stewart. But....she is in her sixties, not many people remember her and the voice has gone a bit. She came 19th, which was a bit too close for comfort. Denmark won it, with a pretty 20 year old singer and a bland song.

Who should have won? No doubt about it, Greece, with the attractively named Koza Mostra and the intriguing 'Alcohol is Free'.

 

But the Greeks can't afford to stage the competition, either.

I yield to no one

Angelina Jolie, the actress, has written a letter to the New York times outlining how and why she has had a mastectomy.

I don't want this.

It's not just that it's too much information (although it is), it's why she did it. Ms Jolie sees herself as a role model who can help other women in similar circumstances.

i don't see it that way. For me it is all of a piece with Bono, a singer, shouting at politicians about children in the Amazon rainforest, or George Clooney demanding to address the United Nations (in one of their only sensible decisions in decades, they refused to hear him).

I yield to no one in my respect for Ms Jolie as an actress; perhaps she is a good one (although I have a suspicion she isn't) and she must, of all people, realise that there is a difference between Mother Theresa and the actress hired to play her in a film (I'm sure Ms Jolie is too attractive to get the part, I am speaking figuratively).

I want Ms Jolie to be an actress, nothing more. If she uses some of her income to help women with breast cancer, that is excellent. We do not need as a standard bearer for a serious problem someone who for a living pretends to be something she is not.

Game on!

With regard to the Prime Minister's in and out running in respect of a referendum on Europe, a memorable quote from Michael, Lord Forsyth

'David Cameron's position is that he is trying to persuade the golf club to play tennis, but that if they refuse, he will continue to play golf'

I expect that's clear, isn't it?

Helpful friends

I have mentioned several times in this blog that President Obama does not like the United Kingdom or its people and that we should act accordingly.

Now he wants us to stay in the EU. We remember Henry Kissinger saying 'when I want to speak to Europe who do I call?' It is convenient for America to have all these allies and semi-allies (I am thinking of the French here) grouped under one umbrella.

What I often say to Americans who promote this is, OK, imagine America as part of a large grouping, say, including Canada, Central and South America. The grouping is run by unelected bureaucrats (because no one trusts local politicians; people like congressmen and senators, they're biased in favour of their own nationality) and the whole thing is managed from a neighbouring small country, let's say Guatemala. America has to show the Federal budget to Guatemala before it goes to Congress, and it may be returned with restrictions on what it can spend its own money on. Hot dogs have to be of a certain size (no bigger than in Mexico, no smaller than in Peru) and have a controlled amount of mustard. Oh, and America has to pay billions each year to be a member of such a club.

Don't like it, Barry? then remain silent.

Another one!

The cabinet minister Michael Gove has said in an interview that if there were a referendum on the subject tomorrow, he would vote to leave the EU.

I came to this conclusion in the autumn of 1991 and was branded a swivel-eyed xenophobe.

By people like Michael Gove.

Avoidance and the duck

At a sort of pre-meeting of G8 finance ministers prior to the G8 summit there has been an undertaking to do something about tax avoidance. The meeting was in Aylesbury and no one will be surprised that they look as if they are going to duck the issue (sorry).

I get confused and alarmed at all the nonsense spoken about tax avoidance, which is of course perfectly legal (when it is illegal it is called 'evasion'). So it's rather like being persecuted for driving at 69mph in a 70mph limit. 'And to cap it all the swine Hedges had a particularly accurate speedometer on his car. If that isn't cheating I don't know what is'.

We pay the amount of tax the Treasury tells us to pay or we are subject to the criminal law. Sometimes big companies do a deal with the Revenue before setting up. Recently the Chancellor did a deal with the makers of the new Star Wars film, so that it can be made in Britain. Are they tax avoiders? Is someone evil f he pays a little bit more into his pension scheme, thereby paying less tax?

One of the common schemes for avoiding tax is transfer pricing. This is one of the accusations against Starbucks coffee. The coffee is owned by a company in a low tax area and sells it into Britain for a high price, such that the profit accrues in the low tax area. Sneaky? Then why does the government allow it? Several countries, including Germany, I think, don't allow this. We do, because we want these multinationals trading in our country.

Now the multinational always has the threat to trade elsewhere, just as the Star Wars people threatened to film elsewhere. So for a co-ordinated action we are going to have to standardise the rules, between Germany, America, France, the Netherlands Antilles and so on.

Not really likely. An Aylesbury duck.

Joy in Heaven

Two dramatic changes of heart. The first from former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine, one of the architects of the euro, who now declares it ought to be broken up.

The second is from Nigel Lawson former British Chancellor, who believed Britain could never conquer inflation unless it joined the euro. He now states not only that we shouldn't be in the euro, but that we should leave the European Union.

'Joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth'

Syria warning

In my post on Syuria a few days ago I mentioned that there was evidence that chemical weapons had been used but no  proof as to who had fired them. Now, a UN human rights observer says there is some evidence that they were fired by the rebels, the people the British and French are determined to give more weaponry to, and who contain among their number groups affiliated to al-Qaeda.

Really, we must keep out of this, before it gets even worse.

Andreotti

There is something about elder statesmen that everyone seems to respect. When, say, Dennis Healy
dies, people will remember his good points, not the fact that we had to go begging to the IMF to bail us out.

With Giulio Andreotti, who has died aged 94, this may not be so easy. He was Prime Minister of Italy three times, for a total of around six years between 1972 and 1992. As a Christian Democrat, he was close to what we would now call the worst side of the Catholic Church, the side Pope Francis is determined to get rid of. He was also close to the Mafia. A number of inconvenient people disappeared or died on his watch, including former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, kidnapped by the Red Brigades in 1978, whom Andreotti was accused of doing little to help; also disgraced banker and member of the P2 masonic lodge Michele Sindona (Andreotti was also a member of the lodge) who died of a poisoned coffee in the Voghera prison in 1986. It was said later that Sindona simply knew too much and Andreotti supplied the sugar for his coffee.

Andreotti tells us much about Italy today: he is the low point of where it has been since the war and the rise of Beppe Grillo is due to Italy's failure to kill off the modern day Andreottis.

Margaret Thatcher said of him 'He seemed to have a positive aversion to principle, even a conviction that a man of principle was doomed to be a figure of fun.' One of my local farmers said simply 'He ate us.'

CCHQ

The Conservative Party is looking for new premises after students broke in and took control of it so easily that the insurance premiums have rocketed.

A wag from UKIP suggested they might be looking as far afield as Holland, the best place to find a disused windmill with a licence to perform gay weddings.

Let Them Go

It seems that an American citizen, Kenneth Bae, has been arrested in North Korea (where he worked as a tour guide) and condemned to 15 years' hard labour. We cannot even be sure what crimes he has committed.

So, will America be rallying the Free World in condemnation of the treatment of its citizen? I don't think so. Poor Mr Bae may well be forgotten because America is in no position to protest against the arrest and locking up of people without a proper trial.

During the course of his first election campaign Obama promised to dismantle Guantanamo Bay. He did nothing about it, and got re-elected without even mentioning it.

Now most of the inmates are on hunger strike. You can't blame them. They have been imprisoned for years without being properly charged or tried before a court. In Guantanamo Bay America has lost any claim it had to be the leader of the Free World or a force for good. Its behaviour is morally the same as that of al Qaeda; or North Korea.

And now, before one of the prisoners dies, Obama has promised to do something about it, but without being specific.

Here's what you can do, Barry: send them for trial or let them go.

Italy has a government

Two months after the general election, Italy's new government will be sworn in today. It will be headed by Enrico Letta, 46 (it seems that even President Napolitano decided his first choice, Giuliano Amato, 75, was too old).

The average age of the government will be 53, which is very low by Italian standards, and of the 21 ministries seven will be held by women, which is very high. The new Integration Minister is a female doctor born in the Congo, whilst the Minster for Equal Opportunities and Sport will be a German born Olympic Gold Medal canoeist.

In my piece for The Commentator on Thursday I shall be analysing the prospects for this administration, given that it contains no one from the Lega Nord, Nicki Vendola's Left, Ecology Freedom party and no one from Beppe Grillo' 5 Star Movement.

Syria

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome break

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

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

This year parliament will have sat for around 150 days.

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

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

Richie

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

St George

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

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

Cry God for Harry, England and St George!

On and on....

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

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

In with the old, out with the new

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

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

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

Italy's President

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

which is recommended reading.

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

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

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

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

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

Splendid stuff.

Troppo bello

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

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

The Funeral

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

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

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

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

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

He doesn't like us

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

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

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

The Ding Dong ding dong

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

So, that was exciting, wasn't it?

Childish amusement

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

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

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

Pomposity

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

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

I yield to no one

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

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

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

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

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

Children and animals

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

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

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

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

Perhaps they could send him a bit of the stew.

Margaret Thatcher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We're here to help

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

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

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

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

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

Italy today

See my report in the Commentator on the Italian elections here

Just deserts

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

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

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

Leftie illiberals

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

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

Paolo di Canio

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

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

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

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

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

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

Urbi et Orbi

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

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

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

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










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

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

To the Faithful

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

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

The solution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nelson Mandela

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

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

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

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

More....

What I hope is a few final thoughts on Cyprus.

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

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

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

Cyprus: not the end

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

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

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

and again....

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

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

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

Cyprus again

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

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

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

Osborne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Press

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

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

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

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

Cyprus going south

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Habemus Papam!

Herewith my blog post for The Commentator

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Conclave

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

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

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

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

The guilty and not so guilty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Falklands

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

IWD

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

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

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

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

Total Eclipse

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

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

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

I yield to no one...

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

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

Frozen Venison

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

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

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

Chavez

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

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

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

Jail shock

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

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

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

Not for us, thanks

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bonus Cap

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discrimination

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't hold your breath.

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

Eastleigh

The results of the by-election were

LibDems 32%

UKIP      28%

Cons       25%

Lab         10%

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

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

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

David's Day

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

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

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

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