Expect the best

Apparently the Meteorological Office is forecasting years of wet summers for Britain.

Time to invest in the new shades and the Factor 50.

On we go

In Istanbul it is said that the Government has put chemical agents in the water cannon.

Perhaps Mr Cameron is going to arm the rebel Turks as well.

Txts Dn Gd 4 Rd sfty

Incredible, but usage of the text message in Italy has declined, by 4%, for the first time ever. Italians send nearly 100 billion texts a year, around four texts per person per day. Apparently they are using message apps on smartphones.

Or perhaps they are doing less driving.

Drop the military

Most countries have a national day, when they became independent or the new constitution was
signed or whatever. Britain of course doesn't; the nearest thing we have is the celebration of the Queen's official birthday which took place yesterday (her real birthday was in April).

With it goes the trooping of the colour, soldiers dressed in camp uniforms marching up and down, riding horses and setting off antique cannons.

And I just want to ask: why?

Why do we have to have soldiers at every bloody event - royal weddings, funerals God knows what? Is the military the only thing we have to celebrate? We lost the last two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is there nothing else from centuries of culture and industry that is good, that we can be proud of? Why are all the royal family in the military, and not doing useful things in industry or commerce? In the picture even Princess Anne is in uniform (the only one who thinks the same way as me is Andrew who looks like a Swiss hotel manager*).

Let the national celebrations centre on art, music, literature, industry. Let's show the rest of the world that we are not just a military force which conquered most of them but a civilised, modern nation. And let's stop living in the past.

*Nothing wrong with that, of course

A moderate

The election of Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran will be treated by many as good news; he is described as a moderate.

But what does 'moderate' mean, in a country run by raving nutcases? The only people allowed to stand in the election were those approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was quite happy with former President Ahmadinejad's statement that they intended to wipe Israel off the map, which would cause a nuclear holocaust.

And Khamenei is going to be there for a bit. He is a sprightly 74, younger than Berlusconi and a lot younger than our own Queen.

Rouhani may be what we would call a moderate, he may be what Khamenei would call a moderate (no nerve gas to be used in Israel, just a nuclear warhead or two) or he may be playing the long game. The West must treat him according to his deeds: if he says that whilst disagreeing with Israel he has no plans to destroy it and allows full inspection of the nuclear facilities, we should withdraw our sanctions. Until then the Iranian semi-democracy must be taught that aggression does not pay.

PS It is being said that he doctored his CV, and that rather than going to Glasgow University he went to the Polytechnic. Let's hope he is a little more accurate about his country's nuclear capability.

The BBC

The Greeks have closed down their public broadcaster ERT because it is too expensive. Oh.

They say it is 'a unique example of extravagant spending and lack of transparency'. OH.

The Greeks pay £43 per head for ERT. Oh?

The Government says that a new broadcaster will emerge, dramatically slimmed down. Ohhhh?

Number of resignations at the BBC after it blew £100m on a useless computer project: 0. Oh.

It all sounds like an attractive idea, doesn't it? A new slimmed down BBC would have its newsgathering operations intact, but have only 1 TV station and 2 radio stations, for which, apart from news, it would commission programmes.

What isn't right about Greece is that it is going off air completely, albeit, they say, for a while. ERT wasn't terribly independent or terribly good but losing the state broadcaster has democratic implications. The Troika, of the IMF, EU and European Commission should immediately move to deny that this was anything to do with them (assuming it was nothing to do with them). Otherwise they will get the blame in Greece.

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.