Berlusconi sleeps

Thanks to Austinjohn for the suggestion. Here is the video of the great man dozing off while Medvedev told how he had saved the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp3rVk8Pzmo#watch-main-area

Don't blame him. Hearing the same self-righteous tosh time after time after time would make anyone's eyelids grow heavy, Berlin showed the world blah, freedom cannot be kept behind a wall blah. But where was Berlusca's speech?

What about 'Sono una ciambella' ('ich bin ein berliner' means I am a doughnut).

Superstition - Friday 13th

Thought to be unlucky but nobody seems to know why. It is probably a mixture of Fridays being thought unlucky (probably stemming from Christianity) and the number 13 being unlucky (although this is not true even all over Europe) perhaps from there having been 13 at the last supper.

The Gregorian calendar we use means that there can never be a year without a Friday 13th and that there can never be one with more than 3 (there were three this year, but there will be only one in each of the next two).

A couple of days ago, hearing a squawking noise I opened the door and thirteen magpies rose into the air. Fortunately I am not superstitious (there must have been a fourteenth which I didn't see). The late Queen Mary (Princess Mae of Teck) used to bow three times when she saw a magpie. I'd have been up and down like a Japanese on pay rise day.

A good day for walking under ladders

Rembrance Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McCrae d.1918

New environment horror for non-drinkers

WRAP, the Waste & Resource Action Programme quango, warns us against pouring wine down the sink (British households pour away £470 million of wine every year). I don't know how much these guys are paid but have a slight fancy that at a time of cutting public expenditure we might just be able to make a bit of a saving here.

I suspect that the concept of 'leftover wine' may be a new one to some of my readers but apparently it is very damaging to the environment, involving tons of carbon dioxide, if you don't drink the wine and pour it away.

So now you know.

The Berlin wall, 20 years on

I watched on TV the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. My first thought was that it seemed to mark the death of oratory. Hillary Clinton spoke, followed by a video of Barack Obama saying much the same thing (do they dislike each other so much that they can’t even co-ordinate their speeches?). Still, they got away with it: this is one of the few places on earth where America is loved. Gordon Brown tried the string of opposites route – freedom not slavery, light not darkness, bratwurst not sauerkraut yawn. Tony Blair made just this speech with different abstract nouns on several occasions and even he found it difficult to pull off without the audience getting restless.

Lech Walesa spoke, but there was no translation. A pity, since without his Solidarity movement in the former German town of Gdansk (Danzig), the East German people might not have been so emboldened. Angela Merkel interestingly reminded us that it was also the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht, the pogrom which marked the beginning of the holocaust, and that we had to be constantly vigilant. Rather good, I thought.

All the speakers reminded us that there was injustice still in the world, in Burma, Zimbabwe etc (no one mentioned the Uigurs in China nor Tibet, natch) and that the fall of the wall was a beacon for the oppressed. These light metaphors were used so often because in 1980s Berlin everyone could see what was going on – the west could see and speak about the Communist oppression, the east could see Trabants and state newspapers on their side, Volkswagens and a free press on the other. No one seemed to want to say it but until some light is shone into these other oppressed places there will be no people’s revolution. It is the internet which will do that.

Cash for clunkers

Actually 'the car scrappage scheme' is what we are supposed to call it in England but cash for clunkers has that ring to it.

We are told that new car sales rose 11% in September, principally as a result of the scheme.

We like to own an old banger so we can leave it at the station without fear of it not being there when we get back, so we can fill it with plants or olives without worrying about dirtying the seats etc. Our last one, a 1992 FIAT Tipo, went the way of all clunkers last week and we are looking for another.

Unfortunately the Italian scrappage scheme, which offers €2,000 on top of the generous discounts ofered by cash strapped motor manufacturers, means that the minimum price for an old car is now €2,000, whereas it was €500 or less.

So as usual with government intervention, it is the poor who pay the price.

Lisbon - has Cameron the backbone?

So, as soon as the dust of the Lisbon Treaty has settled, it is swept under the carpet. Mr Cameron will not have a referendum on Lisbon. He says that if you read the next sentence of his cast iron guarantee it is clear that he didn’t mean it to refer to post ratification. In truth there was never any realistic prospect of a post ratification referendum anyway. He was silly to have said it and to have allowed himself to be boxed into a corner.

Now he says he will try to renegotiate some of Brussels’ powers back. No chance, of course, he’d have to be a lot tougher than he is and his party more united for that to be a possibility. He is hoping we won’t notice come the next election but one. The reason Brussels will not allow Britain to repatriate some powers is the same reason why it would be such a good idea: it would mean any country could do the same – pick the bits of Europe it wanted, rejecting the bits it didn’t (the Common Agricultural Policy springs to mind here). It would mean Europe à la carte. And the European political class can’t allow that.

It seems Cameron wants to renegotiate over a full parliamentary term of five years and that his bargaining chip is that he would veto the budget. Cameron needs two healthy doses of backbone and common sense. Backbone because there is every reason for blocking the budget – it is too large for a post recession Europe and there is so much corruption that the accounts haven’t been signed off by the auditors since Mr Cameron was at school. If that is what you believe - and it is what everyone outside Brussels believes - then just do it. Common sense because he must realise that he can only use the budget veto once. The way these people negotiate is to delay and delay and then say it is urgent for the functioning of the EU that we sign (remember Lisbon?). For this to work Cameron would have to have all his demands prepared on Day 1 and then they would say we were trying to renegotiate the whole of our membership terms.

I have previously been supportive of Cameron but I am coming closer to the view that he might be just a silly young fool – in his political positioning and attituding no different from the Mandelson-Blair lot. Someone who in fact has no strong beliefs but would like to be in power. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Some commentators – Janet Daly, for example – make the point that at least Cameron is doing something, and showing concern about Europe, so we should vote for him. I rather think that Cameron will be elected anyway and that a strong vote for UKIP will give him some much needed determination and direction. Cameron will realise that the only serious threat we can offer is to leave Europe, stop paying its bills either in cash or in excessive regulation. You see, the Brussels elite knows, deep down, that Britain would be better off both democratically and financially, if we left. It is the British who don't know this.

Cannabis and booze - which is worse?

Hot on the heels of Prof. Nutt's sacking for saying alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis, we have the unedifying story - with accompanying picture - of a young man urinating on a war memorial. He had been on a bender organised by a company called Carnage UK. The prof must have smiled wryly.

Gill Hornby in the Sunday Telegraph says that the reason the Government tolerates alcohol and not drugs - and always will - is that alcohol provides taxes. She may be right, I don't know, although I suspect they haven't really gone into it in such detail (they have never shown such concern for the public finances before). Government usually makes policy according to what they think the readers of a targeted newspaper (in this case the Daily Mail, they've lost the Sun) would like to hear. In any case, my scheme of legalising cannabis and taxing it would meet the Hornby requirements.

For me, I wonder if Nutt's criteria are correct. Why are we judging the acceptability of stimulants according to how much damage they do to the people taking them? After all it is their bodies, their decision to harm themselves and if they don't do cannabis they can always stab themselves with a kitchen knife, jump out of a window, throw themselves off a bridge. There are endless opportunities for self-harm which we do nothing to regulate and nor should we. I was once told you coud kill yourself by drinking a large quantity of Worcestershire Sauce.

I wonder if we shouldn't instead have an indexing system based on how much harm individual stimulants do to others or to society as a whole. Heroin for example is far more addictive than cocaine (other than crack cocaine) and it causes addicts to steal and commit other crimes.

Such an index would encourage drinking at home but you would go Class A as soon as you set foot outside.

EU President: the candidates

It seems Tony Blair is no longer in line to be President of Europe. To many it will seem a shame, and if I were a supporter of the project I should be in favour of his taking the job, despite his duplicity, his skimpy regard for the truth, his emphasis on appearance over substance. He is far and away the most authoritative candidate, and the European project lacks authority.

Who now, though? I propose two candidates, depending on your view of the EU.

The first, for those who support the European Ideal, is Mary Robinson. She is a senior figure, a former President of Ireland (and the Irish deserve a reward for abandoning their democracy and forcing through the vote as instructed by unelected mandarins) and did 5 years as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mrs Robinson (her name may be the only drawback) is a moderate, sensible figure. She is 65.

As for the second candidate, for those who think as I do that the EU is a corrupt, anti-democratic, economically illiterate, self serving bully which lines the pockets of its adherents, one figure emerges head and shoulders above the rest, despite being only 5ft tall.

Cannabis: time for a change

Professor David Nutt, recently sacked from his post as Chairman of the Advisory Council on the misuse of drugs for criticising the listing of certain drugs, particularly cannabis, has supplied The Guardian with his Danger List. Cannabis is the 11th most dangerous on the list, Tobacco ninth and Alcohol fifth.

Part of the brouhaha surrounding Nutt’s sacking is that some people are saying that the Government should listen to its advisers. Others say that Government doesn’t have to follow whatever the advisers say. The truth of the matter is that these advisory councils are there to confirm whatever the political decision is at the time. If Prof. Nutt wanted to be an independent expert he should have had nothing to do with it.

What the figures bring out for me is that we should urge Western Governments to join us in the legalisation of cannabis. Nineteen people died from the drug last year, which given the number of people who smoke it is remarkably low. It is not particularly addictive and wastes hundreds of thousands of hours of police time. There were 186,000 seizures last year, not counting Scotland. In my view it is perfectly daft that cannabis users are dealt with by the overburdened justice system, whilst people suffering from an excess of alcohol or tobacco are dealt with by the Health Service. And cannabis should be taxed, which would pay for our having to deal with an influx of useless potheads.

The Government needs to get rid of the mentality that anything which is bad for you, unless it is sold in a working men’s club, should be banned. Time for David Cameron, apparently a notorious toker in his youth, to step up to the plate.

Rome: where have all the scooters gone?

For a moment as I strolled down the little cobbled alleyway towards our flat I thought I had taken a wrong turning; something was different.

Then I realised: normally this little vicolo is crammed with cars and scooters, parked both sides, making it difficult sometimes even to walk down. All were parked illegally but no one seemed to care.

Now the new mayor, Gianni Alemanno, has done us residents of the historic centre a little bit of good. Everyone was warned and told that after a certain date they would be fined if they parked there. Slowly the streets are becoming pedestrianised - casual traffic including scooters are being sent round another way - and walking in Rome has become a delight. A shame that it took a former fascist to achieve this but well done him.

PS. In return, Gianni, let me give you a little tip. If you are trying to play down your fascist roots, don't be photographed looking stern and authoritarian outside the Colosseum. Handing out toys to children is the image for you.

The Internet: now we are 40

At 1030pm on 29th October, 1969 the first message transfer beween two computers took place, on what was then known as the Arpanet. The first message was 'lo'; it was meant to be 'login' but the system crashed after the first two letters.

I believe the designer went on to produce Microsoft Vista.

I have had the internet since 1990 and can confidently say it is the most life changing thing ever. It enables you to read this blog, for example.

David Shepherd, Cricketing man

The cricket world mourns the loss, at 68, of David Shepherd. Shep made over 10,000 first class runs for Gloucestershire and became a Test umpire in 1985, officiating in 92 tests.

His superstitious habit of standing on one leg when the score was 'Nelsons', (111, or a multiple thereof), became a bore which he carried on for the crowd.

Shep was a Devon man, decent, honest, convivial, loved and trusted by everyone in the game. He had a good eye, but after one match late in his career, where he was shown to have made a few errors, he was heartbroken, and retired soon after.

For me, Shep was pretty well what the whole damn thing is about.

George Osborne

The shadow chancellor has just made one of the most stupid speeches of the year, against some pretty stiff competititon. He says that high street banks should limit their cash bonuses to £2,000 per employee. The suggestion is daft for a number of reasons.

1. It seems rarely understood by the Left (although one might have thought a Tory would grasp it) that shareholders are themselves capitalists and stick to as much of their own money as they can, as capitalists do. They pay what is needed to keep staff; they don't accept lower dividends so everyone can have champagne.

2. Now the Government is a shareholder, it too must pay staff what is needed to keep them (it will be a bit less this year because there aren't so many jobs for them to go to). If you don't pay them you risk losing them.

3. This sort of state interference in a nationalised industry is what Tories should be condemning, not promoting.

4. If the banks lose their best staff they will be worth less when the Government finally sells them off, meanng a loss for the taxpayer.

5. Osborne's wizard wheeze is that the staff will be paid bonuses in the banks' shares. No objection to this, except for the fact that they cannot cash them in for several years so they are seen as tying the employee to the bank. The best ones can get jobs without this restriction. The worst ones will stay.

6. Osborne says this will free up £10bn of bank lending. It won't (increased capital ratio proposals, which Osborne ahs not objected to, will swallow up most of it), and even if it did, that would be such a trivial amount as to be unnoticeable.

Perhaps Osborne is hoping to look like the People's Chancellor and that we'll forget the detail of his speech. My view is that this is an issue on which he would have done better to keep silent.

Italy: new leader of the left

Pierluigi Bersani has had an easy victory in the run off to select a leader for the Democratic Party.

Bersani is best known for the 'Bersani Law', passed when he was Minister for Economic Development in the Prodi Administration, which made a stab at deregulating various businesses, including lawyers' fees and making it legal to have your hair cut on a Monday (although it is still next to impossible)

This is good news for the Left, having a clear winner and a credible, experienced candidate. It now needs some policies.

BNP again

It has been said following his appearance on the programme 'Question Time' where all the questions were about his party, that Nick Griffin will benefit from the sympathy vote.

After public criticism from his Mother-in-law, who called him a 'work shy pretender', this can only increase.

Italy: economy bigger than Britain

Il Sorpasso was what it was called when in 1987 Italy's economy outstripped Britain's and there was a good deal of publicity, a good deal of celebrating. Italians like to feel proud of their country and this was as good as winning the world cup.

The positions were reversed a few years later and by the turn of the century Britain's economy was a third bigger than the Italian one.

Now there is a second Sorpasso and if Berlusconi has any sense he will milk it for all it is worth. It has been caused by the strength of the euro and the weakness of the pound and is unlikely to last for long. Because it is not in the euro Britain has the right exchange rate and its export industries will benefit. Italy has the wrong exchange rate and will find emergence from recession extremely difficult.

The pound is weak because international investors are worried about the appalling level of debt which Gordon Brown built up even in the good times.

I think that it is too much to expect that Gordon Brown should fall on his sword, although there are whispers that he might do so at Christmas. But it would need more than that to restore confidence in the currency. Britain desperately needs a change of government.

UK: The BNP on the telly

I suppose it was a milestone of a sort but the appearance of the British National Party leader Nick Griffin on Question Time has failed to live up to its billing.

I really don’t know if the BNP is a fascist party, which requires an adherence to a corporatist, one party state (just like communism). What I do know is that the British media have engaged for years with communists, equally anti-democratic statists, who have been apologists for the Russian gulags and Chinese labour camps, which have killed tens of millions of people, far worse crimes than the holocaust. So another ghastly anti-democrat here or there on the TV isn’t such a big deal.

The biggest incidence of fascism I saw was leftist thugs bussed in from all parts of the country who claim that freedom of speech in Britain should be restricted to things they agree with. One of those arrested even seemed to be wearing a black shirt.

It was always going to be the case that Mr Griffin would have been better off representing a daring, anti-establishment vote, particularly in a time of widespread criticism of our politicians and that once subjected to the glare of publicity he would look a shambling fool. That is indeed what happened but the BBC came close to ruining it by limiting questions to the subject of the BNP itself.

Griffin needs to be asked about foreign policy towards Russia, about the relevance of quantitative easing, about drinking amongst youngsters, the education system, what we spend on the national health, a host of things for which he is poorly prepared and confronted with which will not look like a political leader.

Still, I suppose it was a start.

Bank Regulation: nanny knows best

The announcement by Gordon Brown of restrictions on bank lending, with the stated intent of restricting mortgages to those able to repay them, the statement put out in advance of the Financial Services Association draft rules, is significant for one thing: it is symptomatic of New Labour, of the way the UK has been governed these twelve years.

1. It is superficially attractive. The lay public see the banks offering 125% mortgages and see them go bust, and so think that the one caused the other. But they did not go bust lending to the public. It was their commercial, wholesale lending (a far greater sum) which did for them.

2. It treats the public as idiots, who can’t be expected to work out what they can afford so the government has to regulate it.

3. It displays a complete lack of understanding of business. (a) it is not just the mistaken assumption that personal lending was the cause of the bank’ collapse; they don’t realise that this analysis goes on already. Some people’s circumstances change, losing your job for example, and that cannot be forecast (b) these risks are within the framework both of the banks’ business model and the customer’s self assessment. They are both happy with the risks they are taking and don’t need the government to intervene.

4. Gordon makes the announcement, his placeman in the supposedly independent quango draws up the rules. This shows that the Tories would be right to impose their own people, even though they acknowledge that government patronage is too high, and that it would be an idiocy if Adair Lord Turner were, as has been mooted, appointed a deputy governor of the Bank of England.

These awful people just can’t help interfering. It will be a huge weight off the people’s backs when they are finally voted out.

Italy and Afghanistan: strange news

I return from a short stay in France to all manner of strange stories. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is let off with having to make a brief, grudging apology to Parliament, after defrauding the taxpayer of over £100,000, telling blatant lies to civil servants. A Tory MP is accused of paying £3,000 a month of expenses money to a company owned by him and his partner and he says the system was approved by the authorities. A further 27 MPs are being investigated by the taxman.

But the most interesting story, as is so often the case, involved Silvio Berlusconi. It is reported in the Times that the Italians bribed the Taliban to keep quiet in Sarobi, the region of Afghanistan they were given to look after. They failed to tell the French, who took over from them, what they had been up to, so the French underestimated the risk and ten of their soldiers were killed. Berlusconi has denied the veracity of the report. The Taliban say it is true.

The evidence for believing Berlusconi was that there is a long running dispute between him and Rupert Murdoch over Italian pay-TV, and the Murdoch papers are known to be looking for stories to discredit him. I put it to a number of Italians at a lunch party, some of them pro-Silvio some anti, and they all thought it was true (ie they believed the Taliban, not their Prime Minister) but not really wrong. This sort of tricksy manoeuvring, furbizia as it is known, is rather admired in Italy. Most people thought they should have told the French, though admit it would have been embarrassing to do so.

It is a curious philosophical question. Is it wrong to spend quite a small sum of money in order to avoid casualties? Wouldn't the British and Americans rather have spent, say, £10,000 per man and avoided all those fatalities?

But in that case why send the soldiers at all? Why not just identify a trouble spot somewhere on the globe and post a cheque? Is the Italian action wrong because we would be gaining credit for being all military and tough and moral when in fact the matter had been handled not by soldiers but by accountants? Or is it that such an expediency merely invites more violence, since the violent get paid?

Those are the questions with which the whole of Italy is entirely unconcerned this weekend.