Bruno Waterfield's Telegraph blog reveals that the EU plans to put a ballot box into space, as part of a £21 million PR jolly for the European Parliament.
I don't know if the technology exists but I would favour putting the entire European Parliament into orbit, perhaps on Nov 5th.
01 November, 2008
Italy: Friday's Child
A couple from Genova have been told they cannot call their son Venerdì (Friday) because it is not suitable. Despite it being pointed out that the footballer Francesco Totti and his TV presenter wife have called their daughter Chanel, and that Lapo Elkann, the heir to FIAT and his aristocratic wife Lavinia Borromeo have called their son Oceano, the Court of Cassation rejected the couple’s appeal.
Let’s see if we can guess what the difference is between our Genovese couple and Totti and Elkann? Yes indeed.
But the judges had gone to the effort of studying Robinson Crusoe and delivered in their obiter dicta the opinion that Friday was ''a figure characterised by subservience and inferiority, who would never reach the condition of a civilised man'' and ordered them to call their son Gregorio (he was born on St Gregory’s day).
So welcome, Gregorio, to the world of state interference into people’s private lives. I hope you grow up to fight against it.
Let’s see if we can guess what the difference is between our Genovese couple and Totti and Elkann? Yes indeed.
But the judges had gone to the effort of studying Robinson Crusoe and delivered in their obiter dicta the opinion that Friday was ''a figure characterised by subservience and inferiority, who would never reach the condition of a civilised man'' and ordered them to call their son Gregorio (he was born on St Gregory’s day).
So welcome, Gregorio, to the world of state interference into people’s private lives. I hope you grow up to fight against it.
31 October, 2008
Italy: Alitalia, the end?
It is quite incredible that after all this time with Alitalia on the brink (it seems to me it was bust in July, if not earlier), we are now told that today is the last day. If everything isn't agreed by tonight, Alitalia will cease to be.
I am reminded of some ham actor going through a death scene and milking it for 5 minutes on stage.
Wouldn't it be easier just to let the thing drop and have people who knew how to run airlines do the flying in and out of Italy?
I bet some agreement is reached, though, rendering the company's long term viability even less likely.
I am reminded of some ham actor going through a death scene and milking it for 5 minutes on stage.
Wouldn't it be easier just to let the thing drop and have people who knew how to run airlines do the flying in and out of Italy?
I bet some agreement is reached, though, rendering the company's long term viability even less likely.
EU: The waste of Strasbourg
It costs us 200 million euros a year to transfer the European Parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg and back to Brussels. There is a campaign to stop this but the Parliament will not permit a debate and is blocking publicity to MEPs on the grounds that it is 'controversial'.
You can now vote in a petition against this monstrous waste of public money at www.oneseat.eu
One and a quarter million people have already signed.
You can now vote in a petition against this monstrous waste of public money at www.oneseat.eu
One and a quarter million people have already signed.
UK: Team UK at last?
It is reported that Kate Hoey, the former Sports Minister, has declared that the term 'Team GB' excludes a substantial part of the UK and should be changed to Team UK.
I have posted a couple of times on this and am pleased to have some support. Given that Ms Hoey is from Belfast it is surprising she hasn't latched on to it earlier.
But we are here to help.
30 October, 2008
EU: now a bank?
With all this money slooshing round the world, and an IMF bailout of Hungary, it would be easy to miss the news that the EU has lent the country €6.5bn. This has been done under a little known clause in the governing treaty.
I am disturbed about this. Note that it was not the European Central Bank which made the loan. It, under its charter, is not allowed to do so. So the bank declined but the bureaucrats decided to go in: which department? What sort of analysis was done and by whom? They say they will issue bonds to cover this but who is on the hook for it (guess)? Did the various governments in the council of ministers approve it? What conditions, political and economic, apply?
We should find out what we can. This may be a disturbing new development (you can bet your boots that quite a few of the others will be after the moolah when they get to hear about it). It means the EC has got its fingers round another throat, at our expense.
I am disturbed about this. Note that it was not the European Central Bank which made the loan. It, under its charter, is not allowed to do so. So the bank declined but the bureaucrats decided to go in: which department? What sort of analysis was done and by whom? They say they will issue bonds to cover this but who is on the hook for it (guess)? Did the various governments in the council of ministers approve it? What conditions, political and economic, apply?
We should find out what we can. This may be a disturbing new development (you can bet your boots that quite a few of the others will be after the moolah when they get to hear about it). It means the EC has got its fingers round another throat, at our expense.
Italy: The Ape
The Ape (pron. ah-pay, and meaning 'bee') is 60 years old.
If the Vespa got Italians moving after the war, the Ape got agriculture moving. Essentially the front part of a vespa (which means wasp, incidentally) with the engine over a single front wheel and handlebar steering, it could carry a heavy load of wood or produce for the market.
They are still going today, as everyone who has done a car tour of Italy will testify, whining like an angry bee (hence the name) they are incapable of more than 30 mph and can hold up traffic for miles behind.
The Ape does not require a car licence so those who have lost their licence, eg through failing the eyesight test, drive an Ape. Bless'em.
29 October, 2008
Brand and Ross
Some people, including the normally intelligent Ian Dale, are saying that since the programme was recorded the blame should go to the editor or senior official who approved it for release.
Certainly. But that does not excuse Brand and Ross. Irrespective of whether the programme was released for broadcast, they had left offensive and obscene messages on the answerphone of an innocent 78 year old, using BBC time and BBC equipment. No, they have to go, both of them.
Incidentally, it is said that Jonathan Ross' contract is for £18m, which seems fairly, um, chunky, at a time when the media are braying at bankers who earn considerably less. Does anyone know how this figure was arrived at? Was another station offering him seventeen and a half and the BBC thought 'oooh! we've got to have him'?
Out, both of them. The editor too. Otherwise we'll get the impression that the people running the BBC condone this sort of thing, and I'm afraid that would be the end of the licence fee and the BBC with it, which would be a tragedy.
Certainly. But that does not excuse Brand and Ross. Irrespective of whether the programme was released for broadcast, they had left offensive and obscene messages on the answerphone of an innocent 78 year old, using BBC time and BBC equipment. No, they have to go, both of them.
Incidentally, it is said that Jonathan Ross' contract is for £18m, which seems fairly, um, chunky, at a time when the media are braying at bankers who earn considerably less. Does anyone know how this figure was arrived at? Was another station offering him seventeen and a half and the BBC thought 'oooh! we've got to have him'?
Out, both of them. The editor too. Otherwise we'll get the impression that the people running the BBC condone this sort of thing, and I'm afraid that would be the end of the licence fee and the BBC with it, which would be a tragedy.
28 October, 2008
BBC: complaints please
If, like me, you are disgusted that two highly paid BBC presenters make offensive 'phone calls on air to a septuagenarian, complain. Their website www.bbc.co.uk contains at the bottom a 'make a complaint' button. Ignore the fact that they try to excuse themselves in advance, and write out your views. I believe Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross should be sacked. If it were commercial radio it would be a different matter (although making offensive 'phone calls is of course an offence) but this is the BBC, using your licence fee. If we don't complain it will get worse.
Crisis: The Blame Game
We’re in for a bad time next year, although in my view we shall be seeing the bottom at the end of 2009. Unsurprisingly the world echoes with demands for the head of whoever caused it all. Here is your cut out and keep guide to the blame game.
First some private individuals.
Hyman Minsky. For not making himself understood. Minsky, who died in 1996, researched the behaviour of markets in a boom; he identified a ‘speculative euphoria’ in the late part of the cycle, where people borrow to invest, not believing it can go wrong. The weight of debt and low asset quality eventually cause a downturn. This is called a Minsky Moment.
Alan Greenspan. One of the media’s favourites for the stocks. He was head of the Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years and was responsible for the low interest rates America enjoyed in the Bush-Clinton-Bush years. He thought that globalisation and the internet had pushed up America’s growth and there was no need to raise interest rates to hold the economy back (although he did warn of ‘irrational exuberance’). There was little inflation in the sense of stuff you have to buy going up in price, the question remaining being ‘is a house stuff you have to buy?’
Bill Clinton. The Community Reinvestment Act., passed in 1977 to encourage lenders to lend to poorer people, was revamped by Clinton’s liberals allotting targets for different institutions, compelling them to lend to people who couldn’t afford to pay back. The targets set were over 40% of new loans to be to sub-prime borrowers. That is to say something like a half of new loans had to be to people who probably shouldn't have had them. If this is what regulators can do, perhaps it’s a crisis of over-regulation?
Gordon Brown. One of the first things Brown did on becoming Chancellor (apart from making the Bank of England ‘independent’ of which more later) was to reorganise the banking regulation system. This had been carried out by the Bank of England (the famous raising of the Governor’s eyebrow being enough to put banks back on the straight and narrow). Brown set up a tripartite system with the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority, which meant that when the Northern Rock debacle happened nobody knew who was in charge.
In his frantic efforts to transform the UK into a welfare society Brown borrowed heavily in the good times and now, when room to borrow is desperately needed, he risks a run on the currency, with interest rates higher than they need be, deepening the recession.
The Monetary Policy Committee of course only have control over monetary policy - interest rates. Brown has control over fiscal policy (government spending) and the more it goes up the higher interest rates need to be. An ‘independent’ Bank of England would have told him to stop spending so much.
Milton Friedman. The arch-monetarist is being blamed and people are freely mentioning the term Keynesianism as our future. Had he lived he would have given as good as he got. He exposed Keynes for the fraud the old boy was and would have criticised Greenspan and the over regulation of the markets.
Other blame candidates:
Bankers’ pay. The first thing to remember is that it is entirely the business of the shareholders (ie owners) of the banks how their employees are remunerated. Some have said that the banks were paying more and more to employees to shovel more rubbish into their portfolio, but these guys (very well paid indeed, some of them) were doing what the management ordered. They were told to shovel more rubbish into the portfolio. Certainly some more long-term approach to remunerating senior management might have been wiser, but in the banks’ defence it is a bonus- based system and when times are bad, as they are now, employees can lose two thirds of their expected earnings. It looks bad in retrospect but these people are not the cause of the recession.
Regulators. People are saying that the regulators were unable to understand some of the instruments they were dealing with. Some say they had too light a touch. But I find myself unsatisfied with this approach. For many years – certainly back to the 70s, banks had leveraged themselves twenty times. That is to say they had bought assets worth 20 times their capital, or to put it more realistically, 95% of their assets were funded by debt so only 5% could go wrong without the bank becoming insolvent. Some banks in the last few years leveraged up to 30 times but that is not completely unreal. And if the regulators had asked they would have pointed to the quality of the assets, which was thought to be high.
Ratings Agencies. The main ones are Standard & Poors, Moody’s and Fitch. Until the latter part of the last century most analysis by banks was done in-house. The ratings agencies were mainly for the private investor: typically AAA was the best rating, to solvent governments and first class banks, whilst BB+ was the lowest that could be regarded a investment grade. Naturally the lower the rating the more interest was charged. As turnover in financial instruments increased and more borrowers gained access to the capital markets increasingly the banks outsourced their own analysis to the ratings agencies. It is important to remember that until the liquidity crisis became front-page news, most of these special investment vehicles, companies set up with a mix of assets in order to achieve a specific rating, were AAA.
The ratings agencies now admit to mistakes in their modelling, and most crucially it must be remembered that they were paid not by the investor but by the banks who had created the investment vehicle. Lest all the business went to the other two, a ratings agency was more or less obliged to lower its standards.
So, take your pick. For me I blame Greenspan for overly lax monetary policy, Brown for screwing up the regulatory system and for making things worse for Britain than they might have been through rash overborrowing. I rather absolve the regulators, except for the ridiculous Community Reinvestment Act. I don’t believe we could have expected the regulators to make an accurate critique of the ratings agencies’ analysis models.
But I do blame the ratings agencies, who have made a huge mess. The question is: will anyone trust them again? And the answer is: yes. We will get out of this crisis and some day we will find ourselves in another, just as bad. I am with Minsky: these crises are simply part of the system.
First some private individuals.
Hyman Minsky. For not making himself understood. Minsky, who died in 1996, researched the behaviour of markets in a boom; he identified a ‘speculative euphoria’ in the late part of the cycle, where people borrow to invest, not believing it can go wrong. The weight of debt and low asset quality eventually cause a downturn. This is called a Minsky Moment.
Alan Greenspan. One of the media’s favourites for the stocks. He was head of the Federal Reserve for nearly 20 years and was responsible for the low interest rates America enjoyed in the Bush-Clinton-Bush years. He thought that globalisation and the internet had pushed up America’s growth and there was no need to raise interest rates to hold the economy back (although he did warn of ‘irrational exuberance’). There was little inflation in the sense of stuff you have to buy going up in price, the question remaining being ‘is a house stuff you have to buy?’
Bill Clinton. The Community Reinvestment Act., passed in 1977 to encourage lenders to lend to poorer people, was revamped by Clinton’s liberals allotting targets for different institutions, compelling them to lend to people who couldn’t afford to pay back. The targets set were over 40% of new loans to be to sub-prime borrowers. That is to say something like a half of new loans had to be to people who probably shouldn't have had them. If this is what regulators can do, perhaps it’s a crisis of over-regulation?
Gordon Brown. One of the first things Brown did on becoming Chancellor (apart from making the Bank of England ‘independent’ of which more later) was to reorganise the banking regulation system. This had been carried out by the Bank of England (the famous raising of the Governor’s eyebrow being enough to put banks back on the straight and narrow). Brown set up a tripartite system with the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority, which meant that when the Northern Rock debacle happened nobody knew who was in charge.
In his frantic efforts to transform the UK into a welfare society Brown borrowed heavily in the good times and now, when room to borrow is desperately needed, he risks a run on the currency, with interest rates higher than they need be, deepening the recession.
The Monetary Policy Committee of course only have control over monetary policy - interest rates. Brown has control over fiscal policy (government spending) and the more it goes up the higher interest rates need to be. An ‘independent’ Bank of England would have told him to stop spending so much.
Milton Friedman. The arch-monetarist is being blamed and people are freely mentioning the term Keynesianism as our future. Had he lived he would have given as good as he got. He exposed Keynes for the fraud the old boy was and would have criticised Greenspan and the over regulation of the markets.
Other blame candidates:
Bankers’ pay. The first thing to remember is that it is entirely the business of the shareholders (ie owners) of the banks how their employees are remunerated. Some have said that the banks were paying more and more to employees to shovel more rubbish into their portfolio, but these guys (very well paid indeed, some of them) were doing what the management ordered. They were told to shovel more rubbish into the portfolio. Certainly some more long-term approach to remunerating senior management might have been wiser, but in the banks’ defence it is a bonus- based system and when times are bad, as they are now, employees can lose two thirds of their expected earnings. It looks bad in retrospect but these people are not the cause of the recession.
Regulators. People are saying that the regulators were unable to understand some of the instruments they were dealing with. Some say they had too light a touch. But I find myself unsatisfied with this approach. For many years – certainly back to the 70s, banks had leveraged themselves twenty times. That is to say they had bought assets worth 20 times their capital, or to put it more realistically, 95% of their assets were funded by debt so only 5% could go wrong without the bank becoming insolvent. Some banks in the last few years leveraged up to 30 times but that is not completely unreal. And if the regulators had asked they would have pointed to the quality of the assets, which was thought to be high.
Ratings Agencies. The main ones are Standard & Poors, Moody’s and Fitch. Until the latter part of the last century most analysis by banks was done in-house. The ratings agencies were mainly for the private investor: typically AAA was the best rating, to solvent governments and first class banks, whilst BB+ was the lowest that could be regarded a investment grade. Naturally the lower the rating the more interest was charged. As turnover in financial instruments increased and more borrowers gained access to the capital markets increasingly the banks outsourced their own analysis to the ratings agencies. It is important to remember that until the liquidity crisis became front-page news, most of these special investment vehicles, companies set up with a mix of assets in order to achieve a specific rating, were AAA.
The ratings agencies now admit to mistakes in their modelling, and most crucially it must be remembered that they were paid not by the investor but by the banks who had created the investment vehicle. Lest all the business went to the other two, a ratings agency was more or less obliged to lower its standards.
So, take your pick. For me I blame Greenspan for overly lax monetary policy, Brown for screwing up the regulatory system and for making things worse for Britain than they might have been through rash overborrowing. I rather absolve the regulators, except for the ridiculous Community Reinvestment Act. I don’t believe we could have expected the regulators to make an accurate critique of the ratings agencies’ analysis models.
But I do blame the ratings agencies, who have made a huge mess. The question is: will anyone trust them again? And the answer is: yes. We will get out of this crisis and some day we will find ourselves in another, just as bad. I am with Minsky: these crises are simply part of the system.
26 October, 2008
Daylight Saving Lies
Once again millions of people are put to the inconvenience of having to change their clocks.
It must be one of the most egregious examples of the nanny state that not only do they want to tell you how to think and how to behave, they also want to tell you what bloody time it is.
It is not beyond the meanest intelligence to work out that if you don't want your children walking home in the dark (as if any did walk home any more) you should organise with the school that they start earlier and finish earlier. Instead we are given lies about how many lives are saved by the State knowing best.
Despite it being called the Daylight Saving Measure there is exactly the same amount of daylight as there would have been without it.
The Libertarian Society promise to abolish this nonsense which is a good reason to vote for them.
It must be one of the most egregious examples of the nanny state that not only do they want to tell you how to think and how to behave, they also want to tell you what bloody time it is.
It is not beyond the meanest intelligence to work out that if you don't want your children walking home in the dark (as if any did walk home any more) you should organise with the school that they start earlier and finish earlier. Instead we are given lies about how many lives are saved by the State knowing best.
Despite it being called the Daylight Saving Measure there is exactly the same amount of daylight as there would have been without it.
The Libertarian Society promise to abolish this nonsense which is a good reason to vote for them.
EU: more Mandelson
In case you haven't seen it, the News of the World has a story to the effect that Mandy is being investigated for overly close links to a lobbying firm, BusinessEurope, the accusation being that they 'helped' him write laws.
As said before, he's nothing but trouble.
As said before, he's nothing but trouble.
Italy: the PD
I don't often attend demonstrations but by chance found myself at the Partito Democratico rally in Rome yesterday. The organisers said 2.5 million people were there, which is wide of the mark and must have included those watching on television at home. The police said 200,000. It was about the size of the countryside march in London several years ago, perhaps a bit smaller.
It was, as Italian demonstrations usually are, colourful, noisy and good humoured. There were certainly all types of people. The youngest walking (there were several children carried) can't have been more than 8, the oldest can't have been less than 80. There were punks, students, the odd priest, academics, everything. And this in a sense is the PD's problem.
Formed of the old communists, democrats of the left and a rag bag of tiny parties, it was supposed to be a broad platform for the left-inclined voter. Instead it had been riven with discord, and recently suffered the departure of the Italy of Values Party led by the former anti-mafia judge Antonio do Pietro.
In the meantime Berlusconi, whom many thought to be an open goal, is way ahead in the opinion polls, having kept to his two seemingly unkeepable promises to clean up Naples within a matter of weeks, and provide an Italian solution to Alitalia. Both are open to criticism, as is much else, but it doesn't seem that way to the people.
The left needs to re-form, under a more charismatic leader than Veltroni, and it needs to learn discipline. At the moment the Italians want fewer dreamers and more people who can get things done.
EU: The Mandelson problem
The EU have a US Senate-style system of controlling who becomes a commissioner. I remember the parliament refusing some nice old Italian cove who admitted that he went to Church and supported the Church's teachings (not sufficiently pro-abortion, you see). They had ample chance to refuse Mr Mandelson, and anyone from Britain could have told them that they would be saving themselves a whole heap of trouble.
Why didn't they? Because Mandelson, like them, is a senior member of the political class. You don't refuse one of your own, no no. But they should have done.
Now that the UK press' spotlight had finally turned towards the real possible scandal, and away from Mr Osborne, the mess is becoming clearer. Mandelson, who led the public to believe that he hadn't met Mr Deripaska until recently and then not often, now admits that he had dinner with him in Moscow in 2004, after the announcement of his appointment as Trade Commissioner but before he even took up his duties. It would have been one of the first things he did.
Unsurprisingly several journalists have applied to be given details of his meetings, the request being made under the Transparency Rule, 1049. Here is the Commission's response:
"The concept of document to which regulation 1049 applies must be distinguished from that of information. The public's right of access covers only documents and not information in the wider meaning. Only information contained in existing documents has to be treated under the regulation."
Straight out of George Orwell, that first sentence. And note 'The public's right of access...' as if the public were something separate and alien to the real world of Euro-bureaucracy. Which, I suppose, it is.
I don't hold out much hope for reform, but if this sorry episode serves to inform the public just what a mad, undemocratic world we have permitted our politicians to create, it would be something.
23 October, 2008
EU: Austrian secrecy
They used to say that the genius of Austria was in persuading the world that Mozart was Austrian* and Hitler wasn't.
Now I think it's a talent for keeping things covered up. If someone had told me the ghastly story of Mr Fritzl and asked me to guess which country it had taken place in, I should immediately have said Austria. It is a country whose former president, Kurt Waldheim, managed to conceal his wartime membership of the SS.
Now we learn that the extreme right politician Joerg Haider, who campaigned for family values, had a homosexual lover.
*Salzburg didn't become part of Austria until the early 19th century
Now I think it's a talent for keeping things covered up. If someone had told me the ghastly story of Mr Fritzl and asked me to guess which country it had taken place in, I should immediately have said Austria. It is a country whose former president, Kurt Waldheim, managed to conceal his wartime membership of the SS.
Now we learn that the extreme right politician Joerg Haider, who campaigned for family values, had a homosexual lover.
*Salzburg didn't become part of Austria until the early 19th century
EU: King Sarko?
Talking of Sarkozy, the Belgian paper De Standaard reports that a plot is brewing between him and the Commission President, the former Maoist Jose Barroso, to make Sarkozy the permanent president.
The reason is that on 31st December Sarko has to hand over the presidency to the Czechs, who are pleasingly eurosceptic. There will be a lot of talk about special measures for these difficult times, and bribery of the Czechs, all of which I hope will be rejected out of hand.
EU: Climate Change Row
There’s a bit of a row breaking out in Europe over the climate change proposals. The ’20-20-20’ Proposals require by 2020 a reduction in greenhouse gases by 20% below 1990 levels through a 20% increase in the use of renewable energy and a 20% boost in energy efficiency.
Nine or ten countries, led by Italy, say that given the recession they can’t afford it. Sarkozy, who wants his name over as many world saving initiatives as possible during his six month presidency, says he will push it through by majority voting.
As with anything else in Europe and to do with the environment, the cost is unclear. The EU says €9.5 billion whilst Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italy’s Environment Minister, says it could be as high as €20 billion, and the costs to individual countries should be spread more fairly. France for example generates most of its electricity by nuclear with no greenhouse gas emissions whilst other countries use coal or gas.
Expect some sort of compromise which won’t please anybody except the awful Sarkozy.
Nine or ten countries, led by Italy, say that given the recession they can’t afford it. Sarkozy, who wants his name over as many world saving initiatives as possible during his six month presidency, says he will push it through by majority voting.
As with anything else in Europe and to do with the environment, the cost is unclear. The EU says €9.5 billion whilst Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italy’s Environment Minister, says it could be as high as €20 billion, and the costs to individual countries should be spread more fairly. France for example generates most of its electricity by nuclear with no greenhouse gas emissions whilst other countries use coal or gas.
Expect some sort of compromise which won’t please anybody except the awful Sarkozy.
22 October, 2008
UK: The Russian Yacht
Several stories emerge from the party in Corfu aboard the yacht of Mr Deripaska. An interesting, if minor one, is why we immediately assume that Russian billionaires are crooked. If the protagonists had been meeting with a Norwegian (but not Icelandic) billionaire I suspect the perception would have been a good deal less spicy.
A story which will emerge is of the talent of Peter Mandelson, worth his weight in billionaires to his party for his genius, I think there is no better word, at spin.
The main story was (it isn't now) that Mandelson had a close connection with Mr Deripaska and that in his job as EU Commissioner for trade, negotiating aluminium tariffs (Mr Deripaska is one of the world's largest aluminium producers) for example, it showed 'lack of judgment'.
Mandelson, upset that a private conversation he had with Osborne (to the effect that Gordon Brown was a disaster) should have been repeated, and needing to turn the spotlight away from himself, got a joint friend, Nat Rothschild, to spill the beans on Osborne talking about Deripaska donating money to the Tory Party: the suggestion being that it showed, yes, 'lack of judgment'.
What interests me is the relative weight given by the media to these two stories. It is of course grubby to see senior British figures gathering with the super wealthy like flies round a honeypot, but I should have thought the Mandelson story, alleging as it does that he may have been tinkering with international trade tariffs as a result of a friendship, was far worse. But the media have pursued the George Osborne story to the full, Nick Robinson of the BBC admitting that they were not really covering the Mandelson part. Osborne 'fighting for his political life' says the Telegraph, of all papers.
I think this is partly to do with the BBC, traditionally, and the Telegraph, lately, being anti-Tory. But in part it reverts to the genius of Mandelson: they are scared of him.
What is perhaps most terrifying is that all this happened at all. Why were two political opponents, Osborne and Mandelson, having a cosy little chat in Corfu anyway? It seems almost as if they were conspiring. Like in the Rheinmann Exchange, Robert Ludlum's story of the Germans and Americans doing a deal to prolong WWII, it smacks of the political class cosseting itself rather than working for its supporters or its ideals. And for my taste it doesn't smell too good.
A story which will emerge is of the talent of Peter Mandelson, worth his weight in billionaires to his party for his genius, I think there is no better word, at spin.
The main story was (it isn't now) that Mandelson had a close connection with Mr Deripaska and that in his job as EU Commissioner for trade, negotiating aluminium tariffs (Mr Deripaska is one of the world's largest aluminium producers) for example, it showed 'lack of judgment'.
Mandelson, upset that a private conversation he had with Osborne (to the effect that Gordon Brown was a disaster) should have been repeated, and needing to turn the spotlight away from himself, got a joint friend, Nat Rothschild, to spill the beans on Osborne talking about Deripaska donating money to the Tory Party: the suggestion being that it showed, yes, 'lack of judgment'.
What interests me is the relative weight given by the media to these two stories. It is of course grubby to see senior British figures gathering with the super wealthy like flies round a honeypot, but I should have thought the Mandelson story, alleging as it does that he may have been tinkering with international trade tariffs as a result of a friendship, was far worse. But the media have pursued the George Osborne story to the full, Nick Robinson of the BBC admitting that they were not really covering the Mandelson part. Osborne 'fighting for his political life' says the Telegraph, of all papers.
I think this is partly to do with the BBC, traditionally, and the Telegraph, lately, being anti-Tory. But in part it reverts to the genius of Mandelson: they are scared of him.
What is perhaps most terrifying is that all this happened at all. Why were two political opponents, Osborne and Mandelson, having a cosy little chat in Corfu anyway? It seems almost as if they were conspiring. Like in the Rheinmann Exchange, Robert Ludlum's story of the Germans and Americans doing a deal to prolong WWII, it smacks of the political class cosseting itself rather than working for its supporters or its ideals. And for my taste it doesn't smell too good.
18 October, 2008
EU: getting the money back?
With all these billions flowing about for the bank rescue, saving the £14billion we give to the EU each year must be seeming more and more attractive, hmmm?
17 October, 2008
Cricket: the little master
Congratulations to Sachin Tendulkar, who has surpassed Brian Lara's record for the most runs scored in Test matches, at just under 12,000.
Only 5ft 5in tall. he is known as the Little Master.
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