Sectarianism and Multiculturalism

Brendan O'Neill has some interesting home truths about the current problems in Northern Ireland. They're different from the problems of 30 years ago, but no-one seems to have noticed. As Catholic civil rights grew and the guarantees took effect, nevertheless sectarianism and isolationism increased, with the two communities retreating from each other. As Brendan points out, this was in the name of "cultural diversity". It is important to recognize that the curse of multiculturalism has intraracial effects as well as interracial.

To take a trivial example, I grew up in South Shields, a town on South Bank of the River Tyne, on the North Bank of which stands the major city of Newcastle. Nevertheless, South Shields is geographically closer to the other main city of the region, Sunderland. As a result, Shields folk have always been divided in their loyalties to the football teams of each city. When I grew up there was plenty of friendly rivalry between the supporters of each club, with a lot of people supporting both (the way the fixture calendar used to work, you could go to see one team one weekend and the other the next). That is unthinkable now. The rivalry between the two teams, and indeed between the two cities, has grown in less than 20 years to fully-fledged hate. Rival groups have to be kept away from each other. Sunderland residents were once happy to be called "Geordies," the generic term for people from the North East of England. Now they resent any suggestion that they are Geordies, and have adopted the Newcastle slang word for a Sunderland resident, Mackem, as a label and symbol of regional pride.

I cannot think of any reason for this other than a balkanization caused by the inculcation of a belief that you have no reason to mix with people who are in any way different from you (coupled with the belief that you yourself need never apologize for anything). If that difference come sdown to a slight difference in accent (Mackem derives from the Sunderland pronunciation of "make" -- 'mak' -- which is different from the Newcastle 'mayek'), then that is where the fault line goes. Rival football teams aid in this division, but they are not the spur. I cannot see any other source for this belief than multiculturalism -- Newcastle and Sunderland have existed side by side for hundreds of years with slight differences and rivailries but friendly relations. The intensification of the rivalry seems to coincide almost perfectly with the rise of multiculturalism and the self-esteem movement. The two together have turned one of the friendliest places in the world into a hotbed of arrogant bigots. It is going to take a lot of work to erase those effects.

Desparation

One of the central problems with London's Metropolitan Police is its inability to attract recruits from ethnic minorities. I'm therefore not surprised at the news that the Met is to recruit police from abroad. This can only be a short-term sticking-plaster solution, however. If the Met wants to "look like London," then it needs to make Londoners feel as if it is part of the community. Londoners currently have no real control (except at several degrees of separation) over their police force, and large numbers of police officers come from outside the area. The breakdown of old-style beat polcing, which allowed officers to get to know their community and be accepted as part of it, is another problem.

On the other hand, the culture of large areas of London has altered such that informing the police of something ("grassing") is veiwed as a worse crime than murder (see Dalrymple, passim). That's a social malaise that the police themselves can't solve. If Londoners want to free themselves of crime, then they have to recognize the beam in their own eye first.

A question arises, however. What to do if Londoners don't want to be free from crime?

Fishy business in Brussels

Roger Helmer MEP is another politician who is happy to send out e-mail newsletters about what's going on inside the European Beltway (you can sign up for Straight Talking here). Here's an excerpt from his latest newsletter, concentrating on the follies and corruption surrounding the latest moves on fisheries policy:

The Wisdom of Nye Bevan….

In 1945, Nye Bevan said "This island is mainly made of coal, and surrounded by fish. Only an organising genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time".

Organising genius? Step forward the EU. As a result of gaping holes in European state aid rules, that allow Germany to pay massive subsidies to its miners, Britain's remaining mines are uncompetitive, and we are now a major coal importer. And of course the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has allowed Spanish fishermen to hoover up all the fish in the North Sea, creating an ecological disaster area in what were once the world's richest fisheries -- and a prime British national asset.


….and the folly of Commissioner Palacio

One of the lunacies of the CFP is that on the one hand it pays for capacity reduction and the decommissioning of fishing fleets, while on the other, it subsidises new-build capacity, primarily in Spain. There are current proposals for a modest reform which would at least abolish the new-build subsidies. (Our own Struan Stevenson MEP is Chairman of the Fisheries Committee).

But a few weeks ago Spanish Commissioner Palacio wrote to Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler opposing the reform, and calling for Spanish boats to be allowed to fish right up to British beaches. Palacio's letter was clearly in breach of her Commissioner's oath to promote the interests of the EU as a whole and not of her own member-state.

Then Prime Minister Aznar of Spain (Blair's buddy, and currently President-in-Office of the Council) phoned Commission President Romano Prodi to express his concern. Within 24 hours, an apparatchik called Steffan Smidt, the most senior official on the CFP reform process, had been fired.

But it gets worse. Commissioner Neil Kinnock's department insisted that Smidt's move was "part of a long-planned programme of staff re-assignments". But this story immediately fell apart. All the other staff on the "long-planned programme" had been advised of their moves weeks before, and given new assignments. Smidt was sacked unceremoniously on 24 hours notice.

Remember that Neil Kinnock was a member of Jaques Santer's discredited Commission (one of four who popped up again in Prodi's Commission) -- and that he's responsible for institutional reform! Watch this space. This story has legs. It will run and run.


Late news

On May 23rd, Kinnock appeared before the Budget committee in the parliament, and both Chris and I had a chance to question him on this fisheries issue. He asked us to believe that the firing of Smidt was completely unrelated to the CFP reform, or the Prodi/Aznar phone call, and that the failure to advise Smidt of his impending "re-assignment" until twenty-four hours in advance was down to an administrative error. The fact that Smidt remains without an assignment is merely coincidental. I told him in plain terms that his story was not credible and he should not imagine that we were children and that he could pull the wool over our eyes. He had a tough half hour.

Only in Brussels...

Modern, Post-modern and Pre-Modern

Here's an interesting contribution to the debate. In You can forget Magna Carta - we need to roll out the Referendum, a British business professor argues that the current world order is not so much post-modern as pre-modern. I wonder what Jefferson, Madison and, ooh, Joseph Chamberlain would think of this analysis?

The Pensions Bomb

One of the great achievements of the Tories under Mrs T and even John Major was the defusing of the pensions bomb. By encouraging private provision, it seemed that the looming demographic changes would not mean a massive burden on the working taxpayer to pay for the retired. Yes, there was a major scandal with people being misled about what their pensions would deliver (I think I was one of those people for a brief period). But overall, people were providing for themselves in a way that shows that welfare dependency can be overcome in the UK.

Now, however, according to the former Labour welfare minister, Frank Field, NuLabour has undone all that good work:

One fact should send a shivering chill down Mr Smith’s spine [Andrew Smith is the new Work & Pensions Secretary]. Lombard Street Research has recently reported that new inflows to pension funds have fallen to a quarter of the level they were shortly after Labour came to power in 1997. Far from the Government’s strategy filling what the Association of British Insurers estimates to be a £27 billion-a-year pensions deficit, this gap is fast becoming a chasm into which more voters will fall as the population ages.

No one should be surprised at this either. For the best possible reasons, Gordon Brown wished to help today’s poorest pensioners and did so by introducing the minimum income guarantee (Mig). This means-tested benefit penalises huge numbers of pensioners who have saved. The rules prevent them from claiming Mig, while at the same time its recipients are given a passport to housing benefit and nil council tax. This is the killer. Most working-class pensioners who have saved find themselves thereby with a lower standard of living than people on income guarantee — some of whom could not have saved, but some of whom decided to spend their money and rely on taxpayers’ largesse.

Labour's solution to this was to introduce a credit, whereby the government would contribute 60p for every pound privately invested. The trouble is that demography will mean that this will translate to an extra 8% increase of income tax to pay for it.

The timer on the Pensions Bomb is ticking away merrily again.

P.P. (Post Postum): A link to Frank Field's Pensions Reform Group's proposal, mentioned in the article, can be found here.

Editors with Ideas

This may be worth keeping an eye on. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has written a drama script for the BBC (with IRA fan Ronan Bennett, of all people) about a disaster caused by GM foods. Mick Hume talks about the issue here in The Times but finishes off with a very interesting comment:

One other area of interest is the genetic modification of The Guardian into a new kind of newspaper. Before the general election, it published its own manifesto for government. Last month it hosted its own version of Middle East peace talks. Now its Editor is writing drama scripts for public education — the heroes of which, coincidentally, are crusading journalists. Some might just detect signs of a worrying new strain — self-importance.

Pomposity, stalking horse or Trojan horse? I'll be keeping tabs on this.

The case for immigration

Andrew Gimson, who I've thought of in the past as a sometimes obtuse writer, gets it spot on in this Spectator article on immigration. He points out exactly how dependent British life is on immigrants doing the donkey work (as it used to be called) and, moreover, how the immigrant is usually intelligent and motivated:

It goes almost without saying that middle-class life as we know it in London and in many other places would no longer be possible without the help of foreigners, many of whom come here as students but also work on the side, which they can do quite legally for up to 20 hours a week. They are usually at least as middle class as we are, and, in many cases they are the kind of trustworthy, intelligent, hard-working and sympathetic people whom you can trust implicitly with the care of your own children. There is a persistent tendency, in reporting on foreigners who come to Britain in search of work, to concentrate on those who do so illegally. It is fashionable, just now, to go underground with a hidden camera and film people doing things they should not be doing. This approach has at least three drawbacks. It is underhand, it seldom tells us anything we did not already know and, by focusing on criminality it makes it hard to imagine the existence of open, unashamed honesty.

Exactly the same problems exist with regards to immigration into America. Reading Tony Bourdain's comments on how intelligent, hard-working and sympathetic his immigrant Hispanic kitchen staff are just underlines this. Problems arise when immigrants form ghettoes, by regulation or by other official encouragement. Multiculturalism is the enemy of immigrants, just as much as it is of the host country.

God and Mammon (IT Department)

Jay Manifold's discussion of the intersection of religion and science among what he terms technologists contains the following observation:

I saw a car a few days ago with both DARWIN and ICHTHUS fish symbols. And thought, "finally!"

Funny. I've been thinking of doing that for quite some time...

Harvesting Safety

My colleague Howard looks at the relative safety of organic and inorganic produce in our latest TCS column - Pesky Pesticide Tests. He zeroes in on the real problem -- enviros regularly ignore natural pesticides when they talk about dangers. Moreover, although Howard doesn't mention this, there seems to be a significantly increased risk of food-borne illness from such natural pathogens as e. coli associated with organic foods. Pregnant women in France, where most food is grown organically, are advised not to eat uncooked vegetables. That should tell you something.

The State He's In

Jim Bennett's latest, Changing Will Hutton, delivers a thorough Fisking to Will Hutton, a man who's been as wrong as Paul Ehrlich in the past but who, like him, has managed to retain credibility despite his errors. Hutton now claims that Britain is a thoroughly European state and that "Americanization" will bring it to its knees. As Bennett says,

What Hutton is actually observing, of course, is not the Americanization of Britain, but what I have called Anglosphere convergence. Hutton ignores work such as Alan Macfarlane's, which indicates that individualistic lifestyles, measured by such indicators as predominance of nuclear families, market relationships to land ownership, and geographic mobility, have characterized English social life from as far back as records exist, far predating the Industrial Revolution that supposedly spawned such individualism. He ignores work such as that of David Hackett Fischer, who indicates the cultural characteristics of the United States, including its individualism, were inherited from the British Isles and have been remarkably persistent over the centuries.

It is rather the divergences between Britain and America that have been relatively recent by historical standards, and that have been steadily diminishing under the influence of improved communications, freer trade, and increased personal movement across the Atlantic. This convergence has been two-way, not just a case of American influence in Britain, but it is the case that much of America's openness and dynamism has contributed to the eradication of the sharp gap between the classes in Britain, and the emergence of an American-style middle class there.

Very true, and this is also why some Old High Tories despise America. The emergence of a larger, more vibrant, more educated (in some ways, if not all), distinctly non-bourgeois middle class has swept away the old social order of the knights of the shires. You see it in the current composition, and direction, of the Conservative Party more than in any other location. Margaret Thatcher was its vanguard, while Willie Whitelaw, leader of the last significant block of the squirearchy, saw its value. In essence, the Radicals who had joined Salisbury's Conservative Party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party had finally triumphed.

The radical wing always despised the top-down paternalist view of the class system and as such was defintely "American" in its attitudes despite being entirely home-grown. Jim is therefore right to talk about convergence between the Anglophone countries. There may be divergence at some point, but given the nature of modern communications, which make geography irrelevant and language even more important, I think this unlikely.

UPDATE: I also note that Mr. Hutton is a former admirer of the American way. In his endorsement of Jonathan Freedland's Bring Home the Revolution, he stated "This is one of those rare books that compels you to rethink your world view from first foundations … (It is) the most persuasive case for British republicanism I have ever read." Short memory...

Dailypundit moves

As the Blogosphere shifts slightly, William Quick has become the latest to move. "DailyPundit can now be linked directly at http://64.247.33.2/~icebergw/, but after DNS settles down, http://dailypundit.com should take you right there. (That URL is
already working for some folks)," says Bill. The link on the left should work again in a few days.

Europhobia?

I was going to say something about Paul Gottfried's Spectator article but Tom Burroughes of Libertarian Samizdata has got there first. I don't disagree with a word.

And the crowd goes wild

Magnificent news in the opening game of the World Cup: France 0-1 Senegal. I'm not celebrating simply because of ancient rivalries, but also because, assuming England come second in their group behind the Argies, they will have to face the winners of France's group. Denmark have a tidy little side, with the best goalkeeper in Europe (hem hem), so I think they'll think they've got a good chance of topping the group now. Good news for England.

Now watch us go on and beat Argentina and top the group, and have to play France anyway...

New column out

My latest UPI column is out. You can read Recent research suggests ... here.

More on drugs in South London

Here's a link to the official police evaluation of the experiment (PDF version). It's remarkably complacent, for the following reasons:

1. The release of officers' time could have been acheived by a reduction in bureaucracy or by delegating most of these tasks to civilian personnel.

2. Drug trafficking increased when it fell in adjoining boroughs (did all the pusher move to Lambeth?)

3. Police officers' failure to return questionnaires is dismissed as proof that they have no serious concerns. More likely it is a clear sign of a demoralized police force that feels it has no power over what goes on.

This all tends to point towards this being a policy railroaded through against the wishes of local policemen and local residents. Dreadful.

Jeffersonian Tolkein?

The chaps at Libertarian Samizdata have found a magnificent quote from LOTR:

[Sauron] is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind.

Doing away with tyrants entirely rather than replacing one with the possibility of another -- how Jeffersonian can you get? Yet Tolkein was speaking with the voice of old England, not revolutionary America. Those who claim that America invented these ideas, or is a land full of the descendents of the only people who cared about them, should take another look at that sentence. It is quintessentially English. I hope Peter Jackson gives it its rightful place in his upcoming version of The Two Towers.

Back in Lambeth

Back in my old stamping ground of Lambeth, relaxed drugs laws aren't helping. They're currently trying to spin the idea that the relaxation has contributed to a decrease in crime, despite the fact that this decrease seems tied perfectly to an increase in policing since crime spiralled out of control in the first few months of 2002 (when that happened, different observations were made and Rudy Giuliani had to state the obvious, because no-one in London dared to).

Anyway, the Telegraph story, which I missed when it first came out, gets the point exactly right:

In the community centre of the Stockwell Park Estate [I used to live three minutes walk away from this notorious project - ed.], Julie Fawcett has seen at first hand the effects of leniency. "I have kids coming in here high on skunk [a particularly potent form of genetically engineered marijuana] and it makes them psychotic. They smoke it in their lunch hours and you can't tell them to stop it because they say 'the police don't mind'. What do you say to that?"

Ms Fawcett, whose office still bears the blackened mark of an arson attack, believes that legalisation is a middle-class project got up by people who do not understand the effects it has on the ordinary people who live on her estate. "This is a middle-class agenda from people who may smoke their dope responsibly. They don't buy from the dealers on the street who run everything here. The police have basically given up."

Precisely. This is a middle-class agenda driven by the fact that investment bankers don't want precious little Tarquin, with his First in Eng Lit, to get a police record because he started puffing away at Eton or Cambridge. As with assaults on the family, education and the legal system generally, it's the working class that suffers, far more than they suffered from the status quo ante.

Comrades, come running

My grandfather's favorite newspaper is back and on-line. The Morning Star is the Marxist daily that was once financed by Moscow, but now seems to have started up again independently. I'm glad. I'm also told that the paper has an excellent editorial today about how bad the EU's Common Fisheries Policy is. Sadly, they haven't updated the editorial links recently. Still, it's nice to have the descendent of The Daily Worker around.

Postmodern Problems

Jim Bennett's latest column looks at the future of NATO following the President's speech in Berlin:

While accepting a modest vision of what a continued NATO might achieve, America would do well to begin constructing alternative structures for defense collaboration with nations that wish to cooperate, like Canada, on a modernist and sovereignist basis. For a roster of who else might fit into such a structure, we could do worse than look at who is fighting on the ground with us in Afghanistan, particularly Britain and Australia. Australia is another nation with a postmodernist intellectual class and a modernist population; its recent actions in dealing decisively on the asylum issue were as fully supported by the general population as they were furiously protested by the intellectual elites.

Bush was not wrong to give one more performance of the old show in Berlin; that is a theater for old shows. Soon, however, other stages will call for new plays, with bringing together veterans of other shows in other places, with a few old faces as well.

As I've said before, I think the current NATO arrangements are a step along the way to dropping the vitually useless (in both senses -- they provide nothing of use, and think they have no real use for the alliance any more) continental European members, and creating an Anglo-Russo-American alliance (thanks to all those who visited from SF god Jerry Pournelle's site when I compared this to his far-sighted CoDominion idea some days back).

Founding Brothers, Confounding Ways

I watched the History Channel's documentary Founding Brothers in once long sweep last night, having recorded it on Monday so as not to miss the wrestling (one of my guilty pleasures about America). In some ways it was not so much the story of a group of men as "The Triumph of Thomas Jefferson," seeming to tell the stories of Washington, Adams, Hamilton and Madison (the last particularly so) only in so far as they intersected with Jefferson's career. Jefferson's character did not come out of the series well, although in the end its focus was the triumph of the Republicans and the defeat of Federalism, a triumph which seemed to meet with grudging approval as having made America what it is today.

Jefferson is a complex character, and the show concentrated on his dirty dealings, hypocrisies (they gave complete credence to the doubtful claims about his involvement with Sally Hemings, saying he enslaved his own children) and other flaws as much as on his ideals. They made much of his falling out with Adams, but gave very little time to the equally significant quarrels between Adams and Hamilton. Hamilton's vast character flaws were given far less time than Jefferson's. Adams' own partisanship was glossed over; the appointment of the "midnight judges," including John Marshall, was not even mentioned, despite its significant impact on American history. Overall, I was not impressed by the balance of the series, although I enjoyed it immensely.

But it has made me think more about TJ, a personal hero of mine. I am more impressed than ever by the way he put his single-minded pursuit of principle above all other considerations. If friends posed a danger to the nation, he dropped them. If the political colossus that awed every other politician of the day opposed his views, he did not shirk from trying to undermine that colossus. That principle -- that the new nation was something different, and must not be allowed to be steered towards the old, failed, flawed model -- was more important than anything. From what I know of the Federalists, I think it quite possible that they could have trod the path so many Republicans (since ancient times) had trod before, putting personalities and effectiveness before constitutionality. It may not have been Washington or Adams (although it may well have been Hamilton), but their successors if the party had survived could have gone that way. Jefferson's opposition, helped by Madison, may well have thwarted this possibility. America should be grateful that he considered principle so important that he did what he did.

Further, it struck me how Roman Jefferson was. I must look into his writings to see whether he realized quite how much his political ways owed to the politics of the Roman Republic. The combination of high principle with political shenanigans such as even the British Liberal Democrats would never stoop to is very Roman. You see it in all the letters of Cicero (another hero of mine, with whom Jefferson shares the problem that we know more about him from his voluminous correspondence than we do any of his contemporaries, warts and all) and in all that we know about the Trimuvirate and their opponents. Jefferson must have seen from the example of the Roman Republic, as well as that of the English Commonwealth, how republics can be corrupted into the rule of one man -- monarchy -- and must have learnt that Roman-style ruthlessness was the only way to prevent that happening. If that meant some decent chaps got knifed, then so be it. Furthermore, if the historians had bothered to read some ancient history, they would know that the simple yet comfortable style Jefferson adopted was very Roman. Rough clothes and fine wine were not seen as incompatible by the ancients.

Jefferson got what he wanted, and America needed. Churchill acted similarly for Britain. I'm glad both of them acted the way they did, and they remain heroes of mine.

Finally, didn't serial liar Joseph Ellis look very uncomfortable in that tie?

Whey, man

Who would have thought I'd see Washington Post doyen E.J. Dionne writing about my home town, South Shields? Well, actually, he's writing about its MP, David Miliband, and his ideas for Reinventing The Third Way. This is a particularly interesting quote:

"Third Way triangulation," he said in an interview last week, "is much better suited to insurgency than incumbency. 'Not-this, not-that' is a very good way of throwing out a right-wing government. But it's not a long-term prospectus for changing your country."

Miliband has just been promoted to Schools Minister -- an almost unprecedented leap straight to Minister of State level for one so young. I wonder what non-Third Way, positive ideas he'll bring to the job, and whether any of them will be US-inspired?

Gove's Think Tank

Michael Gove is the Director of Policy Exchange, a new "think tank" dedicated to new ideas for the Centre-Right in the UK. This deserves watching...

Loose cannons and gay pubs

For those of you who are interested, here's the BBC's Cabinet reshuffle at-a-glance. Here's some personal insights into the sub-cabinet appointments.

My contacts in the local government parts of what was DTLR tell me that Lord Falconer was the biggest loose cannon they have ever seen. He also presided over the dome fiasco. He's now going to be in charge of criminal justice, alongside David "Civil liberties -- what are they?" Blunkett. *Shudder*

Meanwhile, Stephen Twigg has been promoted to be an Education Minister. I knew Stephen quite well when I was an election superviser for a student election he was standing in. He's a very nice chap. I last saw him when I bumped into him in a gay pub in Hampsted (don't ask -- it was a Dreadful Pub Crawl) and he was as warm and friendly as ever. I wish him well in his Ministerial career.

Insert Jim Bennett quote here

Thanks to the redoubtable Junius for this one. As long-time readers know, I think that the New Statesman occasionally has flashes of genius among all its dross. This isn't quite a flash of genius, but John Lloyd's article on the death of multiculturalism is still damned good. It points out how America has been, far from the hotbed of racism Europeans seem to think it is, the most successful democracy at integrating large numbers of minorities:

The war against terrorism is a further aid to this, as it widens the distance between, on the one hand, Americans of all backgrounds and, on the other, the movements and groups with which radical African-Americans had once claimed the kinship of mutual oppression. Radical black groups were the cutting edge of the American multicultural moment, insisting on the right, even the duty, of black Americans to promote their separate culture (however that might be defined). Now, black Americans - after many decades of prejudice, and despite the poverty in which many of them still live - are able to conduct the same intricate negotiation with the rest of US society and its power structures as other groups that have successfully retained an ethnic identity. Middle-class blacks are both using and losing their separateness in order to climb up society's ladders, to enrich themselves and to pass on their wealth and position to their children - as did the Irish, Italian, Jewish and other elites. Shorn of its most active support outside the academy (where it has become a subject), extreme multiculturalism is withering on the vine.

Lloyd could go further, by pointing out the role that resistance to cultural integration played in creating the black underclass (or, rather, the use of said class as an experiment by bourgeois liberals in foisting their anti-cultural beliefs on them), but I think he's made his point. Britain is also in pretty good shape:

The British governing classes have been willing to accommodate cultural exceptionalism in many ways - exempting Sikhs from wearing motorcycle helmets; allowing Jews and Muslims to kill conscious animals; acknowledging (now) that Muslims, like people of other faiths, should have their own state schools. But that is as far as it will go for a while. "Liberalism" - rather more hard-edged and unillusioned than in the 1960s - is back. David Blunkett, who articulates the view of the council estates best, as he came from one, has made it clear that citizenship, learning the English language and adherence to the law and cultural norms will now be more explicitly expected of communities that still define themselves as culturally or religiously apart from the indigenous one (white, brown or black). This month, the police got new guidelines on forced marriages which stress that these are not simply a faster version of arranged marriages, and that the possible consequences - assault, rape, kidnap - are no less crimes because committed within a family. A recent ICM poll for BBC News Online showed that, even though most people think that race relations have improved in the past ten years, they also think that immigration has had a negative effect - further ammunition for those who believe that multiculturalism, which pinpoints the indigenous community as the problem, can damage race relations.

With the rise of multiculturalism to a position of dominance in our value system, we were teetering on the verge of a vast abyss. The progressives wanted us to take a giant step forward. Thankfully, the silver lining of 9/11 is that sensible people of all political persuasions are taking a step back instead.

PS For those who don't know, the Jim Bennett quote is "Democracy, immigration, multiculturalism -- pick any two".

Darling Darling

Tony Blair has reshuffled his government following Stephen Byers' resignation (which, as Iain Dale has pointed out, buried the news that they had to give away the Millennium Dome). Alistair Darling is the new Transport Secretary and Paul Boateng is Britain's first Black Cabinet Minister. I've never been a fan of Boateng's politics, but I've met him and very much liked him as a person. Well done, Paul.

The most interesting thing about all this is that labour has finally admitted that Transport is an important issue that deserves its own Secretary of State. When they came to power, they amalgamated Transport into one Department with Environment and Regional Government. Then they split off Environment. Now they've split off the local issues, which are going to the Deputy Prime Minister's Office, leaving Transport on its own again. Good. As long as central government is going to take on responsibility for getting people to work, it deserves a place among the great public service offices of state. Whether it should have that responsibility is another matter, but taking that as a given the issue is too important to have its Minister sidetracked by other, unrelated issues.

Remembrance

Like Charles Murtaugh, I couldn't finish reading the New York Times' article on the last words of those who died in the World Trade Center. Josh Chafetz has a summary, with heartfelt commentary, at OxBlog.

Dispatch from the Trenches

Dan Hannan MEP is happy to send out an occasional briefing on his experiences in the European Parliament to anyone who is interested. Here's an excerpt from his lates, entitled "an ordinary week in Brussels":

Here is a selection of some of the things being pushed through the European Parliament this week. None is especially momentous. None is big enough, on its own, to make much of a stir. But, taken collectively, they give a pretty good indication of the direction in which the EU is going.

Report on the Future Development of Europol

Europol is described by the European Parliament as "the embryonic federal European police force". It is intended to evolve into a kind of European FBI, dealing with major crimes while leaving the lesser offences to the national constabularies. To this end, the report proposes to make it directly accountable to the European Parliament, and to incorporate its funding into the EU budget, thus removing it completely from the control of the nation-states.

Report on Corporate Social Responsibility

Here is yet another attempt to regulate businesses, so that their mission is "broader than only making profits". In particular, firms are ordered to "maintain a gender balance, not only in Europe, but in third world countries where they have branches", and to allow a whole clutch of busybody pressure groups to regulate whether they are trading ethically, maintaining a proper work-life balance and so on.

Recommendation on a Single Electoral Method

In a separate report, the European Parliament reiterates its demand for a uniform voting system for European elections. It wants all countries to operate on the basis of party list proportional representation, and to hold their elections on the same day (which would mean moving the UK election from Thursday to Sunday). It also demands equal numbers of men and women on the party lists, and calls for 10 per cent of MEPs to be elected from a single pan-European list. This would obviously disqualify parties, such as the British Conservatives, who do not contest elections on a trans-national manifesto.

Division of Powers

The Parliament is setting out its stall for the proposed European Constitution. It wants to endow the EU with legal personality, opening the way to EU representation at the United Nations and on other international bodies. It also calls for the "communitarisation" of justice and home affairs and of foreign policy – that is, an end to the current intergovernmental approach in those areas.

This is, if anything, a light legislative week. Yet, day after day, the European Parliament is adopting a series of harmonising measures which barely make the news in the member countries. So much for Tony Blair’s fond notion that "Europe is coming our way".

My spine shivered when I read that. This is all about the agglomeration of power by a certain class. Let no-one pretend otherwise.

Silent strategy

Michael Gove gets it right again in this analysis of the Tories' current strategy:

Since the last general election the Tories have learnt to listen, and adopted a strategy appropriate to reality. They recognise that the biggest challenge facing the nation is the need to improve health, education, transport and crime-fighting. They identify the biggest impediment to reform as the impulse to centralise, regulate and second-guess which is intrinsic to Labour. And they emphasise that while all of us lose out as a consequence of public sector failure, with the middle classes forced to pay twice for many services, the biggest losers are the most vulnerable.

By concentrating on this strategy the Tories align themselves with the majority, where elections are won. By declining to be drawn into other arguments, such as the euro, they display that focus on the real national interest which an aspirant government requires. Should a euro referendum be called, then the Tories are in a better position to argue, as is right, that it is a monumental distraction from the real issues Britain faces. And they come to the argument with greater credibility as a party which sees this issue in the round.

The Euro is an issue that goes beyond partisan politics, and it is vital that it is presented that way. Tory activists will not need the imprimatur of their party to campaign effectively when the referendum comes, and by the party keeping quiet the cause can more readily attract others. Barring a massive revival at the polls, this is the best way forward for the party and the country.

Extinct argument

My Tech Central Station column is up. It looks at the media's repeating of a claim by the UN that a quarter of the earth's mammal species face extinction in the next 30 years. Hogwash.

About bloody time, too

He's finally fallen on his sword. I'm placing a large wager on my belief that Peter Mandelson will be installed as his successor. The only way to keep that man down is to drive a stake through his heart.

HTEBCGSSM?

I find myself asking the same question as I did on Friday. Thanks to Natalie and Peter for pointing to this one. The widow of a school principal killed by a machete-wielding pupil has been asked by the Probation Service to apologise to his killer. She upset the poor little lamb by pointing out his lack of remorse, thereby jeopardizing his chances of conning the probation board into letting him out early.

Meanwhile British judges have decided that the term "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure" has no meaning any more. I always thought the ability of Ministers to keep the most evil monsters in jail longer than their sentences was a useful one and a sign of flexibility in the system (given the fuss over its use in the cases of such vile beings as Myra Hindley, the chances of the power being abused are minimal, to my mind). The civil liberties of the victim are being sacrificed at the altar of the civil liberties of the wrong-doer. How often do we have to see this happen before we say enough is enough?

Happy Memorial Day

Going away for the holiday weekend, so I don't expect to post until Monday evening at the earliest. Have a great holiday.

Speechless

Peter Briffa also has some things to say about the EU's attitude towards the free press, but what really made me splutter in disbelief was his link to this story:

A MAN who spent 11 years in jail for a murder he did not commit has been charged £37,000 for his stay.

The Home Office deducted the money from Michael O’Brien’s £650,000 compensation.

Officials claimed he was not entitled to the full amount because he did not pay living expenses while behind bars.

*cough* *splutter* What?!?

Then, to top it off, he links to this story, about a cop reprimanded by his bosses for chasing a thief.

HAS THE ENTIRE BLOODY COUNTRY GONE STARK STARING MAD?!?

INS horrors

Dr Frank is suffering from INS aftershock. I know what that's like. My sympathies to him and his spouse.

Europe: seething hotbed of anti-... er, Islamism

The pseudonymous Emmanuel Goldstein has an important post about an official EU report condemning the European press for causing anti-Muslim incidents. Are they doing a similar investigation into synagogue burnings? I need hardly ask.

4GW -- sounds like a wargames company to me...

The perceptive Joe Katzman has an interesting analysis on Winds of Change on the subject of America and Israel moving towards 4th Generation Warfare (4GW). I wonder if the reason Blair was so keen to get Brits into action in Afghanistan was partly in a desire to get experience of new planning strategies. Maybe, but I'd venture to suggest that there seems to be so much political interference in British military planning that we're going to get left behind whatever our experiences. I may ask some military types what they think of this.

MADras

I haven't been covering the Kashmir situation because a) everyone else has and b) I haven't been following the news from there closely enough recently, but this Telegraph editorial, The proximity deterrent looks pretty accurate to me, assuming that one side or the other isn't crazy (for which, see Suman Palit).

Bush Bucks-up the Bundestag

President Bush's speech this morning was pretty to the point, if you ask me. I've posted the full text here. Some highlights:

Together, we oppose an enemy that thrives on violence and the grief of the innocent. The terrorist are defined by their hatreds: they hate democracy and tolerance and free expression and women and Jews and Christians and all Muslims who disagree with them. Others killed in the name of racial purity, or the class struggle. These enemies kill in the name of a false religious purity, perverting the faith they claim to hold. In this war we defend not just America or Europe; we are defending civilization itself.

The evil that has formed against us has been termed the 'new totalitarian threat.' The authors of terror are seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Regimes that sponsor terror are developing these weapons and the missiles to deliver them. If these regimes and their terrorist allies were to perfect these capabilities, no inner voice of reason, no hint of conscience would prevent their use.

Wishful thinking might bring comfort, but not security. Call this a strategic challenge; call it, as I do, an axis of evil; call it by any name you choose -- but let us speak the truth. If we ignore this threat, we invite certain blackmail, and place million of our citizens in grave danger.

He made this point as well:

Those who despise human freedom will attack it on every continent. Those who seek missiles and terrible weapons are also familiar with the map of Europe. Like the threats of another era, this threat cannot be appeased or cannot be ignored. By being patient, relentless, and resolute, we will defeat the enemies of freedom.

He didn't quite say "Get the point, Fritz?" but in some ways I wish he had...

Better late than never...

My latest UPI column, Recent research suggests..., finally appears on the web...

Institutional Racism at the BBC?

Interesting article by the London correspondent of the Jerusalem Post in The Spectator. He alleges that the BBC is, to coin a phrase, institutionally anti-semitic:

In my judgment, the volume and intensity of this unchallenged diatribe has now transcended mere criticism of Israel. Hatred is in the air. Wittingly or not, I am convinced that the BBC has become the principal agent for reinfecting British society with the virus of anti-Semitism. And that is a game I am not willing to play, even if, as one BBC researcher recently assured me, my interview fee far exceeded that of my Arab opposite numbers (an outrageously racist point that I, a third-generation refugee and an exile from apartheid South Africa, found difficult to appreciate fully).

I am neither an apologist for the Israeli government nor a defender of its policies. I have been perfectly capable of taking a critical view of Israel when appearing on the BBC, whether it was the Israel of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak or Ariel Sharon. And I am not afraid of informed criticism from others. On the contrary, I believe that criticism is essential to the health of the democratic process (although I was always perplexed that Arab guests were treated with a kind of paternalism that never permitted hard questions).

I have a problem with the BBC’s propensity to select and spin the news in order to reduce a highly complex conflict to a monochromatic, single-dimensional comic cut-out, whose well-worn script features a relentlessly brutal, demonically evil Ariel Sharon and a plucky, bumbling, misunderstood Yasser Arafat, the benign Father of Palestine in need of a little TLC (plus $50 million a month) from the West.

But it was not just the lamentable standards of journalism. I parted company with the BBC over its hysterical advocacy of the most extreme Palestinian positions; an advocacy that has now transmogrified into a distorting hatred of a criminal Israel and, by extension, into a burgeoning hatred of Jews closer to home.

It is astonishing that little more than half a century after the Holocaust, the BBC, guardian of liberalism and political correctness, should provide the fertile seedbed for the return of ‘respectable’ anti-Semitism that finds expression not only in the smart salons of London but also, according to the experts who monitor such phenomena, across the entire political spectrum, uniting the far-Left with the Centre and far-Right.

I have a couple of problems with this analysis. One, I don't think the idea of institutional racism is useful. Not everyone at the Beeb is anti-Israeli. I've had friends who worked there, and could still be working there, who are in no way anti-Israeli. So it's silly to say there's something in the air there that foments anti-semitism. What's far more likely is that the BBC attracts a certain sort, who are likely to be anti-Israeli. Which is to say, a lot of idiots work at the BBC. There's lots of other evidence that this is the case (a private Beeb would have gone bust a long, long time ago).

Second, the author does pull the switcheroo from anti-Israeli to anti-Semite. Although a lot of people are both, there's still an important difference. Repugnance at Israeli politics does not make one a Jew-hater. It's a cheap and ugly trick to accuse someone who is upset by the restrictions the Israelis put on Palestinians drilling wells of anti-Semitism. The Beeb types do have a one-dimensional perspective of Israeli politics but I very much doubt that this translates to hating people because they are Jewish.

Nevertheless, the effect of what the Beeb is doing probably does contribute to anti-Semitism. Lord knows there are plenty of people in the UK who don't possess enough of the background to distinguish between Israel and Jews. That's where the BBC is doing Britain an apalling disservice. And once again, it's a function of the bourgeois imposing their views and values on the nation as a whole. It is not the role of the educated middle classes to filter news for the common man. Davis goes over the top in his analysis, but his conclusion is sound enough.

Redefining democracy

Meanwhile, the European Commission has made its formal proposals to the sham Constitutional Convention. Here's a particularly fun proposal:

While voluntary co-operation can achieve progress, the need for binding legislation on certain aspects should also be examined, such as the statute of immigrants within the European Union or a European regime for dealing with asylum seekers. All legislation on justice and home affairs should be proposed by the Commission, adopted by co-decision (Council and Parliament) and controlled by the Court of Justice.

In this context, Commissioner Vitorino recalled: "The constitutional architecture of the Union should be based upon the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This will guarantee the protection of democratic values and the individual rights of all residents in the Union".

So in order to protect democratic values, legislation is proposed by unelected bureaucrats, voted up or down by a combination of Ministers, who may or may not be elected, and by people elected by a party list system, then controlled by unelected judges.

Oh joy.

Europe: the Irish view

The National Platform for Democracy, Independence and Neutrality - Ireland is an odd organization. It's Ireland's premier organization for opposing European integration, and won a great victory when the people of Ireland rejected the Nice Treaty despite both major political parties supporting its approval. The Platform comprises a lot of decent people, but has links with Sinn Fein. Its slogan might as well be Jeff Davis' "We ask only that we be let alone".

Fair enough. One of its most important arguments is that neutrality is enshrined in the Irish Constitution, and that the Common Foreign & Defense Policy Signor Prodi is so keen on would contravene that requirement. Americans can appreciate that point of view.

Anyway, the Eurocrats are miffed that the Irish should be so nit-picky about their constitution and are demanding that Ireland exploit the central weakness of referenda and ask the question again, hoping for the right answer this time. One of their main points is that Nice is important for European enlargement. The National Platform have issued a statement that I think is worth quoting in full (its not on their website, which is being renovated). This is long, but I think it's useful to read as an example of what non-conservative, small state, neutral thinking is on the EU at the moment:

EU COMMISSION DAVID BYRNE GIVES INCOMING IRISH GOVERNMENT ITS ORDERS

"A conclave of technocrats without a country responsible to no one" - French President Charles de Gaulle on the EU Commission.

* * *

The incoming Irish Government should "get down at once" to re-running the Nice Treaty referendum, Irish EU Comissioner David Byrne said on RTE's "Morning Ireland" this morning.

This statement comes a day after Mr Byrne put his name to the Commission's proposals to the EU Convention that the Commission become a quasi-government for Europe,the sole source of EU legislative proposals on economic policy, EU-wide taxes, foreign policy, and an EU frontier police and public prosecutor in an EU area of harmonised civil and criminal law.

(N.B. If the latter should come about - and big steps in this direction have been already taken - it would mean an end to trial-by-jury and "habeas corpus," as these pillars of the justice systems of the English-speaking world do not exist in the continental EU systems, which permit preventive detention and inquisitorial judges.)

Key elements of Irish civil society such as the Trade Unions, IBEC and the Churches must play their part to get Nice 2 ratified, Commissioner Byrne laid down on "Morning Ireland."

In assessing Commissioner Byrne's remarks one should bear in mind that the EU Commission, and Mr Byrne as one of its members, has a significant selfish vested interest in the ratification of the Nice Treaty. Nice's abolition of the national veto in some 30 policy areas means that the Commission becomes the sole proposer of EU law in these areas, which obviously increases its power.

Other Nice Treaty provisions have the effect of moving the Commission towards becoming a quasi-EU Government,an aspiration which Commission President Romano Prodi's proposals to the EU Convention yesterday puts further flesh and bones on.

These include the provision of the Nice Treaty that removes from national governments and prime ministers the final say in deciding who will be their national Commissioner. Under Nice this is to be done by majority Council of Minsters' vote, rather than unanimously as heretofore. Under Nice, Governments also lose their veto on the appointment of the Commission President, who will henceforth be able to shuffle and reshuffle Commissioners after their appointment, much as a national prime minister can shuffle a cabinet.

This replacement of unanimity by qualified majority vote will have the effect, if Nice is ratified, of ensuring that both the President of the
Commission and individual national Commissioners must be congenial from the outset to the qualified majority on the EU Council - which means effectively the EU's Big-State Members.

Couple these provisions of Nice with the Treaty's proposals for a rotating EU Commission in an enlarged EU, and the fact that the ultimate size of the Commission is still undecided, and one can see why former top Irish EU officials Eamon Gallagher and John Temple Lang told the Forum on Europe in Dublin Castle that Article 4 of the Nice Treaty's Protocol on EU Enlargement providing for rotating Commissioners, is "a serious flaw" in the Nice Treaty, and is in no way necessary to facilitate EU enlargement.

As Eamon Gallagher said there: "If the principle of one member of the Commission per Member State is given up now, you will not get it back later."

These are some of the reasons why all good Europeans and exponents of the European ideal should be pleased that the Nice Treaty was rejected by the Irish people last summer, for it gives the opportunity of deleting these objectionable proposals in a revised EU Treaty, or one that does not require a constitutional referendum in Ireland, before it is too late. Or else leaving the contentious issues of Nice to the 2004 grand constitutional EU Treaty now being discussed in the EU Convention.

On "Morning Ireland" also Commissioner Byrne repeated the canard that the Treaty of Nice is necessary for EU enlargement, despite the statement of his superior, Commission President Romano Prodi, last summer that "Legally,ratification of the Nice Treaty is not necessary for enlargement. It is without any problem up to 20 members, and those beyond 20 members have only to put in the accession agreement some notes of change, some clause. But legally, it's not necessary... from this specific point of view, enlargement is possible without Nice."

The FACTS about the relation between the Nice Treaty and EU enlargement are given in a letter in today's "Irish Times" from National Platform secretary Anthony Coughlan. This was written in reply to an article by UCD Jean Monnet Professor Brigid Laffan, in which she gave the same tendentious twist as Commissioner Byrne does to what the Nice Treaty is about.

This follows for your information:
_________

THE NICE TREATY AND EU ENLARGEMENT -
Text of letter in today's "Irish Times" from National Platform secetary Anthony Coughlan:

Sir,
Professor Brigid Laffan writes (15 May) that the Nice Treaty was negotiated to permit EU enlargement. How does she reconcile that statement with the following facts?

Nice replaces unanimity by qualified majority voting on the EU Council of Ministers in some 30 policy areas. These include the appointment of EU Commissioners, the funding of EU-wide political parties, international trade in services, the implementation of agreed foreign policy joint actions and common positions, and the rules of the EU Structural Funds. What have these to do with EU enlargement?

Nice abolishes the right of each Member State to have one of its nationals on the EU Commission in an enlarged EU. Former Irish EU officials Eamonn Gallagher and John Temple Lang have characterised this provision as "a serious flaw" in the Treaty and as in no way necessary for EU enlargement. They see it as a dangerous erosion of the legitimacy of the Commission as the guardian of the common EU interest, and particularly disadvantageous for small States like Ireland.

Nice permits the division of the EU into first-class and second-class members by permitting eight or more EU Members to "do their own thing" and to use the EU institutions for that purpose, even though the other Members disagree. Examples would be harmonising taxes among themselves or making the EU Court of Justice the final determinant of their citizens' human rights.

Eight out of 15, or eight out of 20, or eight out of a possible 27 in an enlarged EU. This ends the EU as a partnership of legal equals, in which each State has a veto on fundamental change. At present the other EU States cannot go ahead and agree special arrangements among themselves without Ireland's permission. These "enhanced cooperation" provisions of the Nice Treaty would allow them to do that in future.

It is these provisions which make up the new constitutional matter that requires a referendum in Ireland if Nice is to be ratified. There is no need for us to change our Constitution to permit EU enlargement, anymore than we had to hold referendums on previous enlargements.

These provisions for what would effectively become a two-tier three-tier EU are not necessary for enlargement. They were brought into the Treaty negotiations by France and Germany at the Feira EU Summit after the Intergovernmental Conference(IGC) to consider the implications of enlargement had been set up. Their political purpose is to enable the Big States, Germany and France in particular, to establish an inner directorate in an enlarged EU, which can then confront the rest with continual political and economic faits accomplis. They provide the legal path towards what M. Jacques Delors called for in 2000: "A Union for the enlarged Europe
and a Federation for the avant-garde."

Nice militarizes the EU in a new way by making the EU directly responsible for the first time for the 60,000-soldier "Rapid Reaction Force" and the associated EU Military Committee and EU Military Staff, instead of using the Western European Union as the agent of the EU in military matters, as was previously the case. Again, what has this to do with EU enlargement?

The Treaty of Amsterdam says that if the EU enlarges by even one State, the Big States will lose one of the two Commissioners each now has, but will be compensated by increasing their relative voting weight on the Council of Ministers OR by taking their population size into account in such votes. That does not require a further EU Treaty. It is why Commission President Prodi told the Irish Times last June that "enlargement is possible without Nice," and that the EU can be enlarged by 10 or more Applicant countries on the basis of their individual Accession Treaties, as happened with previous enlargements.

Nice BOTH increases the relative voting weight of the Big States AND introduces a population criterion for Council votes from January 2005, irrespective of whether EU enlargement has occurred by then, and irrespective of the number of new Member States. The allocation of Council votes and Euro-Parliament Seats for the 12 Applicant countries is set out in a Declaration attached to the Nice Treaty as the common position of the 15 Members in their negotiations with the Applicants. This is not legally part of the Treaty proper. It was therefore not rejected by Ireland when we voted No to Nice last year. There is no reason why the Applicant countries
cannot join the EU on the basis of the proposals in this Declaration.

The logic of these facts would seem to be that the non-contentious parts of Nice should be put into another Treaty which does not require a constitutional referendum in Ireland. The contentious parts, such as the "enhanced cooperation" provisions, should be left to the Year 2004 Treaty now being discussed in the EU Convention, when the Applicant countries can have a say on them as full EU Members. May I suggest that this is the course the Government should insist on vis-à-vis its EU partners, if it is to do its constitutional duty in the light of last year's Nice referendum result.

A new definition of 'influence' we haven't heard before

Is the G7 about to beome the G4? It's often said that Britain has to be part of the EU to increase its global influence. How does that happen if you lose a pre-existing seat at a major international body, as the EC President is suggesting?

Signor Prodi will also raise the possibility of the Commission replacing individual governments as the European Union’s representative at major events such as the International Monetary Fund and the G7 meetings of leading industrialised nations.

As I've said before, the elephant in the living room here is the UN Security Council seats of Britain and France. I'm quite happy for France to give up its seat to the EU, but Britain must be firm on retaining our own influential positions at the UN, IMF and G7. Giving up our seat on the WTO was itself a step too far...

Don't expect much today

Had a busy morning and am swamped this afternoon. Hope to be back to normal tomorrow, though. In the meantime, be advised that Howard's Kesher Talk is moving to http://www.hfienberg.com/kesher -- I'll adjust my links when everything's sorted out there.

Empire of the Setting Sun

Michael Gove, meanwhile, does a great job comparing Europe to the declining Manchu Empire. He also focuses in on something Jim Bennett often says, that Europe is diverging from the rest (predominantly anglo) of western civilization:

it would be a misreading of Europe’s political elites to see these complaints as isolated gripes which can be overcome, one by one, through patient dialogue. Europe is not begging to differ in particulars, but beginning to diverge in fundamentals.

The current trajectory of European political development is driven by elites who, unlike America’s political leadership, find the moral burden of operating in a world of nation states too onerous. The direct accountability of parliaments is being supplanted by the closed power-broking of European bodies insulated from effective scrutiny.

Instead of upgrading national armies to meet new threats to national security, waning energies and limited resources are devoted to constructing administrative white elephants such as the European Rapid Reaction Force, which adds not a tank, soldier or bullet to the EU’s defence capability.

Instead of being able to project power against threats to our interests and values, Europe’s leaders seek to manage conflict through the international therapy of peace processes, the buying off of aggression with the danegeld of aid or the erection of a paper palisade of global law which the unscrupulous always punch through.

Europeans may convince themselves that these developments are the innovations of a continent in the van of progress, but they are really the withered autumn fruits of a civilisation in decline. Elites that shy away from electoral competition, demur at shouldering military responsibilities and temporise in the face of danger are destined for eclipse.

Why am I reminded of the final scenes of the Syndicate in The X Files, doomed and surrounded by the faceless aliens?

Blair on the Atlantic divide

Illuminating evidence in a Times interview with Tony Blair. He's desperately trying to keep both feet in both camps. I find it very interesting that he alleges that the personal links between national leaders are important. This is despite all the evidence of disconnects between the governing classes and the peoples of Europe, which also tend to show that it is the governing classes that are more anti-American than the peoples.I'll be interested to see how long Blair is able to play this game before it all gets too much for him.

Hep cats

I've got a piece up about the Newsweek silliness on Hepatitis C over at The American Enterprise Magazine Online today.

Rock on

Britain backs down over Gibraltar deal, but this is not a bad thing. It's actually a concession to the people of Gibraltar, who don't want to be Spanish, thank you very much. It looks like the despicable Foreign Office is going to have to let the people of Gibraltar have a veto over any plans to transfer sovereignty, and quite right too.

Of course, the right thing to do is to extend full British citizenship to the Gibraltarians. But that will never happen while the Foreign Office has a say in things.

This constant defense/foreign office divide has got me thinking. Didn't the two elements used to be the responsibility of one man, the Minister/Secretary for War? Perhaps the two could be helpfully combined again...

Left behind

Brendan O'Neill has an interesting post partially explaining why he doesn't call himself left wing any more. People who hold civil liberties dear are being forced out of the left. Curiously, the battle is much harder fought on the right, where the authos have lost quite a few skirmishes. A party that's proud to stand up always for the national interest and civil liberties should have a natural constituency throughout the anglosphere. It's odd that so few examples exist.

RIP Stephen Jay Gould

Famed Harvard Biologist Gould Dies. A shame he went so young. Like most popularizers of science -- from Magnus Pike in the UK to Carl Sagan here -- he often annoyed "real" scientists for oversimplifying. If you are to get people thinking about science, that's important. You don't get people interested in Latin by mentioning the subjunctive or ablative absolutes all the time. I liked Gould, and I'll miss him.

Blog Revolution

Hmmm. Instapundit has left blogspot. My archives have disappeared and it won't let me republish them at all(@!#$%^^&!!!). I've been thinking of leaving blogger for a while now, but have always thought "better the devil you know". Time to approach a pro hosting service instead of blogspot, at the very least, which I've also wanted to do for some time but have never been able to spare the cash required. A donation or two would be handy to speed this purpose along, hint hint...

Private Frazier?

Jeff Gedmin, former head of the New Atlantic Intitiative at the American Enterprise Institute and now head of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, says of NATO, The Alliance Is Doomed. This is an important article, whose conclusions will come as a shock to many still mired in the Cold War:

It's true the U.S.-EU relationship is one of convergence -- in commerce and trade. Economic interdependence is on the rise. But in the military-strategic realm, the divergence that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall continues at breakneck speed. NATO is now becoming an OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) with side-arms. Perhaps that's even okay. It can still play an important political role in Europe.

But the old alliance holds little promise of figuring prominently in U.S. global strategic thinking. That's why the administration's tactical doctrine, namely for the mission to define the coalition, makes sense. Sure, we still need allies for the long haul. The Eastern Europeans like us. The Turks and Israelis grasp the threat and spend for defense. The Brits do too -- and can help enormously if they guard their independence from Brussels in years to come. If the old alliance is gone, it's time to start building something new.

Quite right. Indeed, I wonder if the Britanno-American sponsoring of Russia into NATO's structure, if not membership, was implicit recognition of the new reality. NATO's second division members might get left behind as the Pournelle-esque Codominion of the US, UK and Russia takes over. If so, then British thinking is increasingly schizophrenic, unless Blair thinks he can keep one foot in each of the economic and defense camps. The recent flurry regarding the timing of the Euro referendum becomes clearer, but also more indicative of how deeply confused Blair is.

Per mare, per terram, per spinum

This Telegraph leader has it exactly right on the PR disaster that accompanied the Royal Marines' actions in Afghanistan. Churchill would never have got into such a mess, which just shows that spinning in wartime is different from spinning in peace.

Hannanglosphere

Dan Hannan sees the point on the Anglosphere:

Mr Patten thinks he has the answer. "You can already feel the stirrings [of pro-European patriotism], perhaps, in the shared indignation at US steel protection," he writes. "You can feel it at the Ryder Cup, too." It is significant that the only two examples he can come up with are based on anti-Americanism. From his point of view, this may make tactical sense. Nations do indeed cohere when they perceive an external enemy. And there is a certain market for anti-Americanism even in this country. But I wonder whether long exile is beginning to distort Mr Patten's view of the British.

When truly important matters are at stake, we tend to sympathise most with the community of free English-speaking nations, the countries which have stuck by us in most conflicts from the First World War onwards.

No number of Ryder Cups can compete with the reality of cultural affinity, based on common legal and political traditions and, above all, on a shared language. Mr Patten shrewdly understands that a common EU identity will be facilitated by a sense of "them" and "us". But I suspect he will be disappointed by how the British define "us".

And for those in the Blogosphere who despise Chris Petain, err, Patten, here is some good news:

I see Mr Patten in Brussels from time to time, mooching around disconsolately. He seems somehow greyer and paunchier than when he arrived, and the bags under his eyes have spread. Not long ago, it was reported that he was "counting the hours" until the end of his term. I put it down to disillusionment. To a man like Mr Patten, a principled and idealistic European, the reality of the Brussels system must be hard to bear. Instead of finding himself among pioneers, working to transcend war and bring a new political order to the continent, he has found himself among some of the most stubborn and self-serving officials in Europe. Even his thoroughly uncontentious plans to make the EU's overseas aid programme less corrupt ran up against vested interests in the bureaucracy.

And yet he will still blame himself and the British, and the Americans, rather than face up to reality. He's not so much carrying a torch for Europe as an entire Nuremburg Rally.

Race for the cure

BBC Online has a major survey on Race in Britain. Some interesting results. A majority of whites think Britain is a racist society, but they also think immigration in the past 50 years has damaged Britain. I think the reverse is true in both cases. My suggestion is that the lack of any decent debate on multiculturalism and its effects has simply made white Brits believe that there is something wrong with them, and they are resentful of immigrants because of that. There's a psychological term for that, but I wish I could remember it. Whatever it is, it ain't healthy.

Left behind?

Tim Hames takes a cold hard look at two ideas of Peter Mandelson's -- that Labour must work closely with the Liberals because otherwise the Left is divided, and that the Euro is vitally necessary for Labour's success. Both ideas are hogwash, says Timbo, and in doing so he points out that the combination of the two is historically a road to ruin:

In every case [where a Leftish British government has split], it has been a foreign policy dispute (often ones with serious economic implications) that has torpedoed the Left in power. While the euro might bind parts of Labour and the Liberal Democrats closer, it would do so at the price of Labour’s own unity. The real lesson of political history is that it is not the division between the parties of the Left but division within the major party of the Left that is fundamental.

As I've mentioned many times before, I can see Labour splitting, and it will almost certainly be over a foreign policy issue (Iraq or the Euro). Those of us who think Labour's massive majority is one of the most dangerous things for Britain might therefore welcome Mr Mandelson's ideas...

Bennett on local government

Jim Bennett takes up the theme of English local government:

A more reasonable approach to decentralizing England would be to restore the traditional county boundaries and return more power to them. Although Britain never had a federal nature, much of the aggrandizement of central power and diminution of city and country authority happened only in the 20th century, and fairly late in that.

Americans tend to think of counties as small units, but in fact England's traditional counties would be considered large enough for self-government anywhere else in the Anglosphere. All but four of England's counties and independent cities are larger in population than the state of Wyoming; the Australian state of Tasmania is smaller than England's third-smallest county, Cumbria, and Canada's Prince Edward Island, a well-run province, is smaller than any English county.

Why don't England's conservatives just counter with a proposal that any traditional county could, by petition, hold a referendum to establish a local assembly with the same powers as Scotland's recently established legislature? If people felt the need for stronger local government, they could establish it without becoming part of a synthetic region such as "South-East England." Simple, well-understood and effective.

Quite right. Jim's comments fit right alongside Mark Steyn's in the latest Spectator. Mark makes a point that Tories should leap on as a new idea that has the virtue of being traditional:

At some conference a couple of years back, I suggested to an affable Tory quango baroness that the Conservatives should become the party of decentralisation. She thought this was ridiculous, but then she seemed to have a difficult time getting a handle on US federalism in general — she kept talking about ‘the American police’ and ‘the American education system’, neither of which exists in any meaningful sense. In America, power is vested in ‘We, the People’ and leased upwards, through town, county, state and federal government, in ever more limited doses. By the time you get to the organs of embryo world government like the International Criminal Court, Americans are inclined to feel that’s leasing it a little too far.

The trouble is that the Tories had to turn their back on decentralization and local power in order to fix the disfunctional British state in the 80s (provoked by people who "nationalized" local democracy, using local powers to fight national battles). As I've said before here, I think that was essential, but it should have been fixed. Local democracy should have been restored once the entryist foe was defeated. It wasn't, and that was the single biggest mistake of the Major years. If the Tories can recognize this, then they can help save England.

Well, they could take a print of two of my fingers...

An Italian-based correspondent e-mails this...

The Corriere della Sera today (15/5/02, pages 1 and 14) interviewed Berlusconi's Minister of the Interior (rough equivalent of Home Secretary) Signor Claudio Scajola, at the G8 summit in Canada. He said, "We must get to the point in Europe of bringing in a single passport, and we are nearly there. Also finger-prints on ID documents. The new identity card which we are planning together with Germany will have a space for finger prints." Question: "So, will everybody's finger-prints soon be taken?" Scajola: "In Berlin, with the German Interior Minister Otto Schily, we have created a working group which is planning a new identity card. A document which
amongst other characteristics will also a space for fingerprints, which must be taken from everyone, including the Italians [and presumably all EU inhabitants, - the British too?!]. But in the new ID card which we have already presented in Italy [presumably as a bill in the Italian Parliament] there is a chip embedded to store bio-metric data." [He goes on to say that this is to stop terrorists and illegal immigrants etc.]

Note: Can you imagine everybody queuing up at the police stations to have their finger-tips inked and pressed onto their cards... think of all the little old ladies smarting with indignation at being thus treated like criminals... what a vote-winner!!! :-o

Doubtless British EU-philes will say, "This will never happen, it is just the Italians and Germans talking, nothing has been officially presented, etc etc so go back to sleep." However, I would note that this is a case of two major EU governments, one of them centre-left, and the other centre-right, or more properly, far-right, which both see eye to eye on this issue. Somebody in Parliament ought to ask the British government if they agree with this, or if not, will they veto it if it is ever presented to the Council of Ministers? [Tories! Wakey waaakey!! there is a LOT of work to do. Just TELL the British people about these things.]

He goes on...

Question: At this G8 you talked a lot about controls on Internet: will the levels of control on the Net be raised? Scajola: "We must tackle the problem with the managers [service providers] of the Net because copies [of communciations] must remain within the system. either we insert the possibility of a certain control, with all due safeguards, or we will not be able to defeat major criminals and international terrorism. [And then there is a bit about setting up an international databank on child pornography.]

NOTE The Italian constitution does have a clause safeguarding the secrecy of correspondence (which jurisprudence has extended to telephone calls, which may not be tapped except on judicial order). This was not discussed in the paper however.

MUSSOLINI PROMOTED ON ITALIAN TV

The same issue of the Corriere della Sera, today, reports (p.11) that the Director of RAI, the Italian state TV company, apologised for allowing a right-wing magazine to advertise itself on the network with a commercial exalting Benito Mussolini as a "great statesman". What is really sinister to my mind is that evidently the magazine editor thinks that by spending money on broadcasting these messages he will increase his sales. In fact the news-stands are full of magazines and video-cassettes all about the life and times of Mussolini. He is evidently back in fashion. This comes a couple of months after Italy's vice-premier, Gianfranco Fini, on being
appointed as official government representative for the EU convention which will write the "European Constitution" which they will then all want us to live under, said "Yes I know that when I was last in the government in 1994 I said that Mussolini was the world's greatest statesman, but I couldn't *say* that now..."

JEWISH LEADER IN ROME FACES CRIMINAL TRIAL FOR "DEFAMING" AN EXTREME FAR-RIGHT GROUP

This appeared in Corriere della Sera last Thursday. Signor Paserman, chairman of the Rome Jewish community, some of whose relatives had been deported to extermination camps during the war, published an article in a major Italian paper saying that "Forza Nuova",(a group that is to the right of La Fiamma, a group that split away (to the right) from Fini's Alleanza Nazionale), was "pro-Nazi" and "advocated violence", as it undoubtedly does. One of its sympathisers was convicted for setting off a bomb in a left-wing newspaper office a couple of years ago.

ANGLO-AMERICANS TO BE PROSECUTED FOR "WAR CRIMES" IN ITALY

The Mayor of Foggia, a town in the Italian South, who is a member of the government party Alleanza Nazionale, has asked the Prosecutor's Office to open criminal proceedings for war crimes against those responsible for the bombing of Foggia in 1943.

If by the time this gets taken up, the EU arrest warrant is in place, war-time RAF officers, who are still alive, had better look out! And those who were in the USAF had better avoid holidaying in the EU.

This comes after a public statement by Italian cabinet minister Mirko Tremaglia a couple of months ago, visiting El Alamein battle-site in North Africa, who said "It would have been much better if we [Germans and Italians] had won the battle, and the war!" Presumably this is the policy of Signor Berlusconi's government, since no couner-statement was forthcoming from his office on this matter.

Now where are all the Guardian editorials about the return of the Far Right when they're really needed?

Sniff...

This made me cry...

Assimilation problems

Another thoughtful Telegraph leader on what the success of the LPF in Holland means. It doesn't explicitly say it, but the undercurrent is that immigration is good if assimilation takes place. So far so good.

But assimilation into what? I've been reading Theodore Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom lately, a collection of his essays from the City Journal (if you read his Second Opinion column in the Speccie, you'll know what to expect). Dalrymple repeatedly makes the point that English culture today is so debased that it is no wonder that minorities refuse to assimilate. The gyrations David Blunkett went through when he realized that assimilation was important, but didn't know what he should advance as an example of British values, is an important illustration here (he eventually came up with 'tolerance").

Which brings me back to a recurring theme of this blog: education, education, education. The British need to teach their children about their island's history, and the values that drove the main acheivements of that history. Religion will be an important element in this history, but generations of Catholics were taught about Protestantism's role in acheiving Parliamentary democracy without any proselytization involved. Hindus and Muslims need have no worry on that score.

Second, we need to sweep away the bourgeois values that have been foisted on the working class since the 60s and strengthen local communities by bolstering families and reinvigorating local democracy. Immigrants who worry about their daughters being exploited by feckless males (or about their sons turning into said feckless males) will have less to worry about if the British realize the anthropological value of moral rules about sexual behavior. I am confident that we can accomodate homosexuality without needing to throw out all rules that strengthen family (there's some interesting polling data on current attitudes here in Roger Mortimore's latest MORI Commentary column).

Third, we need to involve all sections of the community more in that improved democracy. The Tories desperately need to find more minority candidates, for instance, but it's no use people like Lord Taylor moaning about it all the time. that's a failure of leadership. Minorities themselves have to form the British equivalents of the Center for New Black Leadership, for instance.

Assimilation is one of the worthiest goals I can think of, but it's not a simple question of one side being in the wrong. Ending multiculturalism also means ending aculturalism, if that's a word, and that will be the hardest job of all.

Citizens' Charter

Brendan O'Neill has unwittingly offended another blogger, whose reaction, I should stress, was rude and unwarrented in my opinion. I therefore think I should outline my Charter (to use a Major-era buzzword) for communications from readers of this blog.

1. I welcome all polite e-mail, although I cannot guarantee to respond to it. Disagreements are as welcome as agreements.
2. I shall not delete any comments from the comments boxes unless they are obviously beyond the pale (again, courtesy is the key here). Nor shall I ban people from commenting unless they are, in usenet parlance, flamers or trolls.
3. I shall consider any e-mail, unless otherwise marked, to contained the author's implied consent for publication.
4. I am happy to consider extending posting privileges to any regular correspondent who asks for them. There are two others who currently have posting privileges, although neither have used them yet.

More power to Brendan, by the way, who is rapidly replacing Steven Den Beste as king of the long form, in my eyes.

20/20 Hindsight

I'm a bit mystified by all the fuss over what was and wasn't known about possible hijackings before 9/11, and I'm glad Glenn Reynolds has admitted that nothing really could have been done without advance identification of the individuals concerned. There is, as so often, and Anglosphere angle in this. According to the NY Times story, Foreboding Increased, but No Single Agency Had All the Clues,

the report provided to the president on Aug. 6, which warned him that Mr. bin Laden's followers might hijack airplanes, was based on 1998 intelligence data drawn from a single British source, government officials said today.

That source said Al Qaeda had an interest in hijacking airplanes in order to obtain hostages who could be used as bargaining chips so the terrorist organization could demand the freedom of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a Muslim cleric who was convicted in 1995 for his role in the failed plot to blow up landmarks in the New York area.

This kinda blows the case that officials knew what was being planned out of the water.

The most interesting thing to me about this revelation, however, is the sharing of intelligence between the UK and the US. This is a vital element in American intelligence gathering which will be lost forever if Britain is integrated into a European military and intelligence structure as currently envisaged (see here for a rundown of the issues. Unfortunately, the links to Charles Grant's important papers no longer work; the long version is now here in PDF form). It's yet another reason why America has a vital strategic interest in Britain retaining her sovereignty.

Of course, there may come a time when Britain and America fall out and stop sharing data, but there's no point in forcing that issue artificially.

Postmodernism revisited

Interestingly, Chuck Colson thinks Europe is postmodern but the US modern also.

Lessons from America

Thanks to the Dodgester for bringing this one to my attention. Regular readers will know I'm a fan of the Daily Telegraph's Free Country campaign. The spokesmen of the Libertarian Alliance in the UK aren't, and wrote to a large number of Telegraph journalists (including the football correspondents...) to point this out. Alex at The Liberty Log has a very sensible reaction to this, one that mirrors my thoughts exactly.

I think there are several lessons the British liberal-conservative movement can learn from their much more successful cousins in the US. The first is Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment": thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. Second, and this is the crime the LA is committing here, you should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Euroskeptics and British libertarians (with some notable exceptions) are frequently guilty of this. And by their constant quibbling, they provide room for statist and superstatist forces to advance. Result: a fractured movement and more statism and loss of sovereignty. To paraphrase Burke, for the triumph of evil it is only necessary for good men to quarrel. Grow up, chaps.

Prayers needed

Mona Charen is one of my favorite columnists and my organization has worked with her from time to time when she has needed good data. I was therefore distressed to learn that her eldest son is currently in intensive care following a traffic accident. This is truly a nightmare for any parent. My prayers are with her.

Pims all round

According to the ever-reliable Ananova, List Pim Fortuyn has come joint second in the Dutch elections. The Christian Democrats came first with 41 out of the 150 seats up for grabs. LPF got 24, the same as Prime Minister Wim Kok's Socialists and his coalition partners the Liberals. I imagine it's likely that LPF will be asked to join a coalition with the Christian Democrats. We'll see.

Who has Jenkins' Ear?

Once again, Simon Jenkins gets it right on the constitution. Writing on Lords reform, he starts off by rightly rubbishing the argument for Proportional Representation in the new chamber:

Let us begin with one nonsense. There is no justification for what all Westminster now wants, a party-based elected chamber. We have one already, and a pathetic morsel it is. Why have another? If it were to have real power, it would confuse and thwart the democratic will of the Commons. If it has no power, I repeat, what is the point? All proposals for a wholly or partly elected second chamber assume the election would be on a multi-member and/or party list system, if only to be distinct from the Commons. Only thus can the second chamber “reflect the will of the people”. Put another way, only thus can it remain under a degree of party control. Such list systems — as for devolved assembly elections — give all power to party managers. Whether or not the lists are based on wide or narrow geographical constituencies, they are lists.

These lists would be no different from the “lavender lists” that created the present House. I am sure Mr Blair has realised this. He has no intention, any more than do the spokesmen for the existing chambers, Robin Cook and Lord Irvine of Lairg, of letting voters actually choose the membership of the new House. They may choose its party composition, but the selection or deselection of names on the lists will be by party managers. These will not be high-profile, blood-andthunder American senators. They will not be local personalities standing for election under their own banners. They will be “people we know”. Everyone understands that.

A hit! A very palpable hit!

Jenkins goes on to suggest an intriguing scheme for electing and appointing the chamber's members:

I would go for a version of the American senatorial system. Each county and each city would elect its own local figure, who would require a five-year residential qualification and no party allegiance entered on the ballot. The field would be open to any local public figure yet extremely hard for the whips to pollute. Elected members would bring to Westminster a truly local mandate, recreating a feature of the old House of Lords. This was a body with its roots in the territory of provincial Britain, something lost with the advent of life peers.

For appointed members I would adopt the best of the Wakeham Commission proposals. This was for a non-party independent appointments commission, an idea rejected by Downing Street as absurdly hard to control. But I would tie the commission’s hand. It would have to select half the second chamber as representative of groups and occupations far beyond the present judges and bishops. If lawyers and clergymen sit in a second chamber ex officio, why not academics, doctors, engineers, farmers and trade unionists? The more specialised the job of politician becomes, the more valid a second chamber filled with other professions.

A combination of provincial personalities and occupational leaders would add real diversity to the politics of Westminster. It would dynamise Parliament. It would not damage the democratic sovereignty of the Commons, since its power to check the executive would remain limited. Appointed members would serve only one term and the changing kaleidoscope would form a true forum of the nation, not as present of London and Scotland.

I have to say I agree with him on the local representation bit. On the appointed members, I disagree reluctantly, because where does one draw the line? Piano tuners? Wire drawers and kindred workers? I think the appointed benches should remain the Bench of Bishops, as long as the Church of England is Established, and the Law Lords, because a legally-experienced voice is useful in the framing of legislation and the House of Lords' role as "Supreme Court" is an important one.

Actually, one thing I have toyed with is the idea that the House of Commons should be the locally-based chamber and the House of Lords the nationally-based one, charged with looking at wider interests, but that would necessitate the total destruction of the party machines before implementation.

Funny how much more difficult adapting an historic system that has gone off the rails is than designing a whole new one. The Founding Fathers's difficulties in Philadelphia were nothing compared to this...

Immigration and Citizenship

Janet Daley, as an immigrant and daughter of immigrants, has the line on immigration and the duties of both the immigrant and his host country exactly right. As she says, it is not the immigrant that is the problem. It is his children. Immigrants must raise their children to believe that coming to the new country was the right thing to do, while never forgetting the good things that they left behind, and the host country must raise them as their own:

If we were educating our young, of all ethnic origins, to be unabashedly proud of their British identity - instead of denigrating our own history and our own culture in a self-indulgent frenzy of post-colonial guilt - we could be offering the children of immigrants something worth abandoning the alienated racial ghetto for. Then they could go home and explain it to their parents - and hand it on, in turn, to their own children.

This is the only way to proceed.

No relation

I once worked with a senior civil servant called Andrew Murray. He was a nice chap, and seemed sensible. So unless he's taken a knock on the head it can't be this fool writing in The Grauniad. I've recently been trying to sharpen up my op/ed writing skills and to remember always that any assertion should have a fact-checked source behind it. This Murray obviously doesn't know that. For instance, he doesn't think the USA is engaged in a war on terrorism:

It is instead an open-ended war to make the world congenial for the most chauvinistic elements in US public life. Every government in the world they dislike is to be removed, every grudge they have been nursing from the cold war (there can be no other reason for targeting Fidel Castro) is to be exorcised. Military force may be used in some cases; while in others the well-tried methods of destabilisation, sanctions and coup will be deployed.

Where evidence and argument fail, the administration relies on effrontery. The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, demanded that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez "respect the constitution" on the day he was restored to office, following the failure of the US-backed military coup against the constitution. Bolton, Rice et al seem to regard themselves as masters of the universe, and show every sign of planning to implement their maximum global programme before the US people gets the chance to elect anyone slightly more sensible.

Well, if "the most chauvinistic" Americans were trying to unseat goverments they disliked, they'd probably start with France, then China. Castro is not a relic of the Cold War -- he's a living, breathing Dictator who continues to oppress his people. I happen to think the embargo is a mistake, just as I thought sanctions on South Africa were a mistake (I believe free trade spreads free ideas), but check out this recent Jeff Jacoby column to see how awful the cuddly old teddy bear really is.

Meanwhile, where is there any evidence that the coup against Chavez was American-backed. Even the loony Chavez himself hasn't come up with any evidence other than he saw an American-registered plane on the island he was taken to during his period of confinement. Even the most ardent anti-American would have to admit that it's not too unusual to see American-registered planes in northern South America.

As for the American people desperately wanting to elect someone "more sensible" than the President: current job approval rating c.73% (CBS/New York Times, 4/28-5/01). I'd imagine that at least some of the disapproval comes from people who don't think he's doing enough...

And if this twit knew anything about US politics, he'd know that the instincts of this administration are towards isolationism. Self-defense has prompted the need for military adventures overseas, not some form of capitalist imperialism.

Andrew, you're a disgrace to the clan and the man you're named after. Change your name to Fisk and get thee hence!

No balance, lots of checks

Trenchant editorial in the Telegraph, How Blair tamed his poodle, on the state of Parliamentary democracy:

Since Labour was elected, the Government has abused its enormous Commons majority to mount a sustained assault on Parliament's authority in a way that has grave implications for British liberty. The attack has been on three fronts: managerial, procedural and constitutional.

On the managerial front, Labour has deliberately recruited bland parliamentary candidates, likely to do as they are told. It has then whipped its MPs mercilessly to keep them "on message". It has packed the watchdog committees of the House with its own appointees, keeping likely trouble-makers out.

Procedurally, one of Mr Blair's first acts was to declare that he would answer Prime Minister's Questions only once a week, instead of twice. "Family-friendly" parliamentary hours are being introduced, to send MPs safely home to bed, where they can cause no trouble to the Government. The parliamentary guillotine has been used constantly to silence debate - even on constitutional Bills, which by convention had always been debated in full. Meanwhile, important policies have frequently been announced outside the House. All this, while a weak Speaker watches on.

Constitutionally, Parliament's powers have been sapped by devolution, Europe and a judiciary newly politicised by the Human Rights Act.

The Commons - between elections, the only guardian of the people against the executive - is being emasculated. The Opposition parties must commit themselves to beefing up the watchdog committees of the House and codifying the old conventions that once held the executive in check. They must make firm pledges now - before they, too, are corrupted by power.

Damn right, if you'll pardon my French. Parliament needs to be saved from these party machines. To achieve that, there are two possible solutions. One is the drastic one of separating the Executive from the Legislature by directly electing the office of Prime Minister. I've suggested that before, and think it's the best solution in general. Another means might be to disallow the use of any party label on the ballot paper, or, for that matter, in election communications, broadcasts and posters. Then people couldn't just walk into a polling station and vote for a party candidate. they'd have to know who the candidate was before voting for them, which would presumably strengthen individual candidates against the party machine. Just a suggestion. Any thoughts as to its practicality?

Police 5, well 3 now

Michael Gove says that Enid Blyton could do a better job than most of Britain's polic chiefs, and fingers their unaccountability and bureaucracy as the main problems. He's right.

Likud it or not...

I'm not keen on Emmanuel Goldstein's attempts to dictate the editorial directions of other blogs, so I had not intended to mention the Likud vote on Palestinian statehood at all. As it happens, Kesher Talk says it best.

A Charter for Our Times

Jim Bennett draws attention to a silly mistake in the Clark piece. Clark says

The assumption that has remained central to their world view since the signing of the Atlantic Charter in 1941 - that there exists an unbreakable community of interests and values linking the democracies of Europe to the United States - is being challenged as never before.

Jim replies: "Uh, the central assumption of the Atlantic Charter was that there exists an unbreakable community of interests and values linking the democracies of Britain and the Commonwealth to the United States. At the moment the Charter was signed, the only other democracies in Europe were Sweden, Switzerland, and Ireland, all of which were conspicuously unlinked to the United States."

This inspired me to take a look at The Atlantic Charter. What a splendid document. It should be required reading for all school children, never mind every supposedly democratic politician in Europe. The final clause is particularly relevant to current events:

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

What better witnesses than Roosevelt and Churchill to have on your side when presenting the case against Saddam?

The spirit of Lord Bauer lives on

Bad leaders, not lack of aid, cause African poverty might seem to come from the bleeding obvious school of headlines, but so few people seem to realise its truth. This is a great article that sums up the current problem:

Among the most articulate critics of never-ending aid as a solution to Third World poverty was Lord Bauer, the economics professor who died earlier this month. He held that it was the character of a country's institutions and the aptitude of its populace that determined its success. "Where people's abilities, motivations and political institutions are favourable," he wrote, "material progress will occur. Where these basic determinants are unfavourable, development will not occur, even with aid."

In Africa, political mismanagement, corruption and disregard by the authorities for the bulk of the people have prevailed, indeed flourished, in the half century that has followed the first withdrawal of colonial rulers. What African leaders such as Amin, Mobutu, Mengistu, Moi and most recently Mugabe have created in their countries are conditions that are distinctly unfavourable for the development of people's abilities, motivations and political institutions.

They have ruled their countries like medieval fiefdoms, looting their faltering economies and through shocking mismanagement creating hardships and famines for people who do not get the opportunity to vote them out.

And yet the West has continued to pour in the aid, which has almost unerringly found its way into Swiss bank accounts. Today, there is not a single example of an African country in recovery from post colonial chaos.

The author concludes:

As Lord Bauer said, aid goes no way towards righting past colonial wrongs. Only the overthrow of the despots will do that.

If it is incumbent on us to right colonial wrongs, and I'm not sure it is given how many good things were also done during the period, then we must work out how best to do that.

Oh, so that's what civil society is for...

Has the penny finally dropped? A Telegraph editorial points out that party political machines might not be as useful as local groups:

Which leads on to the delicate question of how the Conservative Party should slot into the anti-euro coalition. On the one hand, only Iain Duncan Smith can bring to the table a campaigning machine with a presence in all 658 constituencies. On the other, there is nothing Tony Blair would like more than to present the referendum as "another chance to kick the Tories".

In the Scottish and Welsh devolution referendums, the Conservatives contrived to get the worst of both worlds: they were just high-profile enough to attract plenty of flak, but did very little to mobilise their supporters on the ground. It does not need to be that way.

In Kent, the Conservatives have mounted a brilliant campaign in defence of selective education, but have done so by taking their place quietly within a non-partisan organisation, "Support Kent Schools". A similar way must be worked out to recruit the Tories to the "no" campaign as individuals or in groups.

In the US, local groups are incredibly strong and central groups, such as the political parties, are very weak by comparison with their European cousins. Abortion rights campaigns are not run by the Democratic Party, but by local pro-choice groups. Gun rights campaigns are not run by the Republican Party, but by local gun rights groups such as local NRA chapters. There will be some funding from NARAL or Planned Parenthood or the NRA, but strategy is decided locally. This is civil society in action, with local people deciding their own direction. Enforcing "singing from the same hymn sheet" around the nation would be suicide.

If the Tory party is beginning to realize the importance of this idea, so much the better. A drastic slimming-down of Conservative Central Office and the setting-up or expansion of regional offices might be a jolly good idea.

Postmodern Politics

Britain's bridge across the Atlantic is fated to collapse, says a former Foreign office adviser (thanks to Peter Briffa for the link). Why? Because America is a modern country, while Britain and Europe are postmodern, and if we're going to have any sort of progressive experience for the world, Britain has to throw in its lot with Europe. Ye gods. This is a tawdry explanation. It's anti-Americanism dressed up in the language of artistic expression.

Be honest, Clark. You have an outdated ideology that thinks it's progressive when all its effects on the working class have been regressive. Certainly it's done well for the bourgeois middle class, who now have fat incomes guaranteed by the State by purloining the funds of wealth-creaters and artisans alike (a redistribution of wealth, indeed), but so-called progressive policies have wrecked communities by destroying their social order, introducing them to crime, drugs and depravity on a scale undreamed of only 50 years ago.

Thinking this is a good thing is certainly postmodern, rejecting modern ideas like democracy, liberalism and personal responsibility. Only by consciously mixing your "new" ideas with pre-modern ideas like tyranny and the premise that the working class cannot think for itself can you get your philosophy to work. Your progressive Utopia will be a Dinotopia ("terrible place"). In the meantime, those of us who are trying to build a shining city on a hill will happily ignore you.

UPDATE: An influential correspondent writes to question Mr Clark's assertion that "many" are suggesting that the "forlorn" Colin Powell will leave the administration soon: "Regarding this assertion by David Clark - who claims to be a "former Foreign Office special adviser" (i.e. a spin-doctor, paid by the EU perhaps?) - can anyone tell me who are these mysterious "many" predicting our "forlorn" Secretary of State's "imminent departure"? This would be an amazing scoop if true, as no one in the US press seems to have twigged yet. This Clark fellow must be seriously connected in Washington to enjoy such insider knowledge."

Recommended

I hadn't realised he was British until I took a look today. Daddy Warblogs has a very 1940s feel to it, but the commentary on British and European approaches to the crisis is bang up-to-date and spot on, for that matter.

Mallick aforethought

Continuing on the "so-called socialist" theme, this is the most contemptible article I have ever seen. I never thought I'd say this, but she actually deserves hate mail...

And in the Church of the Nativity...

Some of my correspondents have claimed the Church was not desecrated. Well, it had to be reconsecrated today.

Meanwhile, the Catholic News Service confirms that the Palestinians acted against the agreements they had given the Christians, and that the Armenian shrine was looted. The Palestinians claim to have given the material back, but the Catholic priests cannot confirm that, hem hem.

And the Israelis were the villains here? Give me a break...

America's interest

The idiotic negotiations over Gibraltar are just another example of the Defense Department good, Foreign Affairs Department bad split all over the world. As this Telegraph editorial makes clear, the British MOD is very worried about the Foreign Office plans to share sovereignty with Spain. The American DOD should be worried too:

Moreover, [British Defence Secretary] Mr Hoon has brought a new factor into play by arguing that British strategic interests would be threatened by joint sovereignty. His letter reflects serious concern in both the British and the American armed forces about the relinquishing of sole British control over Gibraltar's naval base and military airfield.

The Spanish foreign ministry has now confirmed that it will insist on "joint use" of the facilities: "The base is part of Gibraltar." The Foreign Office plan would grant Madrid a veto over any future use of the base by American or British nuclear warships, or by forces engaged in operations of which the Spanish disapproved.

I hope Don Rumsfeld had a word with Mr Hoon. If not, someone tell him about this quickly.

News from the Holy Land

Just a few tidbits....

Palestinians Say Last Week's Suicide Bombing Conducted By Israeli Criminals. The New York Times (5/13, Chivers) reports, "The head of the Palestinian Authority's intelligence service said today that a suicide bombing last week in Israel did not appear to be the work of Palestinian terrorists, but rather seemed to have been conducted by Israeli criminals against an illegal gambling club." The bombing on Tuesday "killed 15 Israeli civilians and wounded scores more, and the remarks today, by Amin al-Hendi, who is among those in the Palestinian Authority responsible for arresting terrorists, drew a strong reaction from Israel, which said the remarks were irresponsible and without foundation." Israel "has said the bombing was conducted by Hamas, the radical Islamic group. It reasserted that position today."

Bethlehem Residents Say 13 Exiled Militants Formed Criminal Gang, Terrorized Christians. The Washington Times (5/13, Anwar) reports, "Residents of this biblical city," Bethlehem, "are expressing relief at the exile to Cyprus last week of 13 hard-core Palestinian militants, who they said had imposed a two-year reign of terror that included rape, extortion and executions. The 13 sent to Cyprus, as well as 26 others sent to the Gaza Strip, had taken shelter in the Church of the Nativity, triggering a 39-day siege that ended Friday." Palestinians who live near the church "described the group as a criminal gang that preyed especially on Palestinian Christians, demanding 'protection money' from the main businesses, which make and sell religious artifacts." The Times adds, "According to Bethlehem residents, one of the group's top leaders, Jihad Ja'ara, 29, traveled around town with an M-16 rifle, terrorizing the community."

And, for those who say that the Israelis are conducting an official campaign of terror...

Israel Says It Foiled Terror Plot By Jewish Settlers. The Los Angeles Times (5/13, Maharaj) reports, "Israeli security forces, already battling attacks by Palestinian militants on Jewish civilians, said over the weekend that they foiled an attempt by radical Jewish settlers to detonate a powerful bomb at a school for Arab girls in East Jerusalem. Investigators were said to be questioning four suspects to determine whether they were responsible for any recent attacks against Palestinians, including a bombing in March at another school in East Jerusalem." Authorities "fear that attacks on Palestinians by Jewish extremists could lead to reprisals -- and a never-ending cycle of violence. ... Police arrested the men two weeks ago, but details of their arrest and alleged plot were revealed to Israeli media only over the weekend." The bomb "was rigged to explode when the 1,500 students in the At Tur neighborhood gathered for morning assembly in the school's courtyard, authorities said. The device was composed of two barrels of gasoline and two gas balloons."

Econopolitics

A leaked memo from Blairite pollsters has revealed the sham of the stance that Britain's entry in the the Euro is a purely economic matter. This Telegraph editorial revals the scope of Labour's cynicism, while the news article shows just how manipulative the party wants to be of public opinion.

Scapegoat search

Rail bosses 'warned' about Potters Bar, reports the Beeb. So the essentially re-nationalized Railtrack was warned, and did nothing? How are they going to blame privatization for this one? Watch Patrick Crozier's blog for updates. I'm sure he'll tell us.

Ian -- good name, good chap

There's a terrific quote from Ian Hislop over at Libertarian Samizdata. If socialism is to mean anything, it must be centered on the working class. Funny how few "socialists" realize that.

Ruud boyz

Jim Bennett's latest column looks at the anglospheric nature of Ducth society. Britain and the Netherlands have a long history together. Much of Cromwell's East Anglia was populated by Dutch immigrants, and the Gloriuos Revolution could fairly be described as a Dutch conquest of England (although not a lasting one). When England get knocked out of football tournaments, I normally transfer my allegiance to the Dutch. I wonder how common that is?

TCS Column Up

After what seems like an age (thanks to Howard for filling in while I've been busy on other things, I have another TCS column up. Is Breast Best for Tests? looks at the claims made for breastfeeding increasing the baby's IQ. I'm all for breastfeeding, but this ain't why.

A rose by any other name...

Mark Steyn is on fire today. A few excerpts from his imaginary discussion in the BBC newsroom on the rise of the "right":

"But how many kinds of Right-wingers are there?"

"Well, we're adding new categories every week. But, for the purposes of headline updates, just stick with this easy precis." The floor manager slid the BBC's At-a-Glance Guide to Who's Right on to the desk: " 'Far Right' equals old-time Right-winger; 'extreme Right' equals bald Right-winger; 'hard Right' equals bald, gay Right-winger; and 'incendiary Right' equals divisive Right-wing corpse who unduly provoked vegan peace activists."

And...

President Chirac was absolutely right to insist that we cannot enter into dialogue with these people. To do so would only legitimise them and we need to send a clear signal that these hard-Right bigots have no place in our democracy."

"You mean by shooting them?"

"Er, well, no, not that. No matter what feelings political figures arouse, the ballot box is the place to express them."

"You mean by electing a bloke in a monkey suit like they did up north?"

"Er, well, no, obviously, that calls into question the whole business of direct elections. We may be better returning to a system whereby we simply."

"Appoint Chris Patten to the post?"

"Exactly," said Tony. "Chris can't get elected to anything, but it seems to have worked out pretty well for him. And the advantage of appointing a reasonable moderate European democrat like Chris is that."

Poor Chris. Wait, what am I saying? More...

"If Pim's successor, Joao Varela, becomes prime minister, [Queen Beatrix is] planning to refuse to take tea with him because his party are Right-wing racists."

"Good for Her Majesty!" I said. "It's great to see someone who won't have any truck with white bigots who hate immigrants."

"Well, actually, this Varela feller's a black guy from Cape Verde. But for Holland to elect the first black immigrant prime minister in Europe would send a frightening message that virulent racist nationalism is once again on the rise."

And finally, Cyril...

"Then we'll cross to Denmark to talk to the new hardline conservatives."

"Whoa, hold on," Ron interrupted. " 'Hardline conservatives' is a term we reserve for unreconstructed marxists on the North Korean politburo, plus Don Rumsfeld."

"Sorry," I said, "it's a lot to take in. 'Racist Right' equals black immigrant Right-wingers. 'Conservatives' equal communists. Hey, here's one for you. How about 'moderate conservatives'?"

Ron guffawed. " 'Moderate conservatives'? There's no such thing, not in this news department. Oh, wait a minute." He flipped through the BBC guide. "You're right. Page 47. 'Moderate conservative', a term strictly reserved for reformist ayatollahs."

Actually, I'm not sure that this was imaginary...

Alas

Andrew Sullivan has been, to all intents and purposes, sacked by the New York times. Churls.

States, counties and provinces

I've put up an Excel spreadsheet of the relative sizes of the main administrative subdivisions of the US, UK, Australia and Canada here. It's pretty illuminating. Not a single English county is smaller than Prince Edward Island, and an awful lot of them are bigger than Wyoming. The case for strong counties needs to be made in the political arena. Jim Bennett comments that "the Tory response to the regional assembly proposal should be the simple one of offering to let each county vote on becoming a "charter shire" -- one with the same automomy as Scotland. (maybe not the optimum example, but one which everybody can understand immediately)." I think I agree, although something needs to be done about the metropolitan county/ unitary authority fiasco Walker and Gummer foisted on us. Include, for example, West Midlands in Warwickshire and Greater Manchester in Lancashire and you should solve the problem, though.

Note: I haven't subdivided Scotland or Wales because their administartive subdivisions have been comprehensively mucked up by many previous administrations. I haven't touched Ireland or Northern Ireland either.

Simon says...

Simon Jenkins gets the line exactly right on regional government:

Democratic geography should always reflect a sense of political identity. American states, big and small, are axiomatic to American democracy. It is through them that Americans define themselves. Ever since the Thatcher Government, cities and counties have been stripped of power. But travelling round England, I meet nobody who feels allegiance switched to something called a region. Gloucestershire does not feel obliged to throw its lot in with Cornwall, let alone vice versa.

Above their town or district people recognise their county, and above that, London. The division of England outside the big cities into districts and counties has worked well for more than a century. It overlapped not just with history but with political, social and cultural networks. It was undermined not by some overriding necessity. County-sized units are autonomous and efficient in America, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe.

Devolution is nothing to do with size or economies of scale. Modern public administration can be as small-scale as anyone chooses, provided that fiscal power is linked to the ballot and provided central government trusts local people. If Luxembourg can tax itself, why not Essex? If Belgium why not Yorkshire? The answer lies in power-hungry London ministers and officials. That trend should be reversed, not appeased by the cosmetic of regional devolution.

Jenkins points out that it was Ted Heath's government that started the rot by re-organizing the counties in 1974. Mrs Thatcher's worst minister, John Gummer, helped the process along. Conservatives should be ashamed at their association with the destruction of ancient, and viable, administrative units.

It is interesting that the areas that want regional government are actually ancient entities that were subdivided. Yorkshire wants to reclaim its unity, while Northumbria and Durham, together with the metropolitan boroughs of Tyne & Wear, essentially want to reform the ancient kingdom of Bernicia, subdivided by the Normans after William the Bastard laid waste to it. Old memes die hard...

A plot to destroy England?

Richard Littlejohn looks at the silly scheme for regional parliaments and theorizes that it's an EU plot to destroy England. Wouldn't put it past them. The word England doesn't appear on many EU maps. The UK itself , however, has failed to give England a distinctive voice. The regional parliament that is most needed is an English Parliament. (Thanks to Peter Briffa for the link).

Far from Half Baked

Part of the reason I feel so tired all the time is that I regularly stay up late to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. It has some inspired moments, and Stewart has the ability to get to the heart of issues while making you laugh. Thanks to Andrew Hofer, I found this transcript on Jim Treacher's blog of an interview he did wherein he asks an American media commentator about European newspapers. Stewart is pretty hard on the Europeans, and the British in particular. Good for him.

With friends like these...

The Guardian is running an online poll on whether Stephen Byers should resign. When you look at the result, bear in mind that these are Guardian readers voting. Just why is Blair sticking with him?

A real liberal

Great piece on anti-semitism by Nat Hentoff in The Village Voice. His point is that free speech should allow people to say dreadful things, but that good judgment should prevent us from doing so in the first place. That's a real, classical liberal argument. I wonder how many Village Voice readers really agree with him.

The NHS is KILLING PEOPLE!!!

That's the slogan I'd use to get health reform in the UK. It's come to a pretty pass when the Deputy Editor of The Independent, of all things, can write this stinging indictment of the National Health Service. He also has good things to say about America, which is unheard of in the current "debate":

Besides, if our system is so wonderfully efficient, where is the clamour from abroad to copy it? Everyone agrees with the myth that we have nothing to learn from America, and it is true that their system is grossly expensive and lacks equality of provision. But the demands of patients, backed by lawyers, ensure more thorough investigations of conditions. In addition, their hospitals are cherished parts of local communities, which take immense pride in their performances and raise funds for them. And their nurses are not only better paid but also occupy a more senior role in hospitals, where they effectively act as champions of their patients.

If this view is "right-wing," then no wonder Pim got called that...

Wanted: One first amendment, needed urgently...

Meanwhile, Peter Hitchens tells an appalling tale of new restrictions on free speech in the UK. What's remarkable is that the story of the old man who was preaching in public when attacked by people who didn't like what he had to say contains an excellent anthropomorphic example of the tensions in British law between the old libeties and the new authoritarianism. Two police constables were called to the scene, one of whom wanted to protect the old man, the other who wanted to arrest him. They ended up testifying on opposite sides in his court case. As Hitchens says,

The quarrel between the two constables neatly sums up the difference between the old law, which was concerned about what people did, and the new one, which is far too interested in what people think and say.

He goes on,

In [the old man's case] case, the Human Rights Act proved as useless in the defence of traditional views as it is useful in advancing radical ones. It may well be the law of England that if your spoken or written beliefs might irritate a passing homosexual, it is illegal to express them.

Imagine the effect that such a law would have. If condemnation of an action is deemed to be insulting to anyone who does that action, then almost all absolute morality is outlawed. Those who write about such issues, as I do, often receive censorious letters claiming that our articles have insulted the writer. No matter that we have never heard of this individual and have made a general statement about unmarried mothers, employment quotas, homosexuality or whatever it is. These sensitive people have all taken it personally. This conveniently means that they do not have to argue their case. It also means that a legitimate opinion about a type of behaviour is magically transmuted into so-called hate-speech, so offensive to certain persons that it is likely to provoke them to fury. The implication is that it ought not to have been said or written. Such attitudes are already in power on most British university campuses, where the sexual-liberation lobby has almost completely silenced its opponents and where student-union officials have been known to unplug the microphones of speakers who transgress their speech codes.

Did you really think that freedom and democracy would be dismantled by people who openly declared that they wanted censorship and tyranny? The new totalitarianism comes robed in righteous outrage, but it still holds a gag in its hand.

As it happens, I disagree with a lot of what Peter Hitchens says about homosexuality, although I do recognize some of his concerns. But is this any way to advance an argument? I don't think Pim Fortuyn would have thought so.

Liberalism, libertarianism and libertinism

Ignore the headline on Melanie Philips' excellentSpectator article. It trivilizes her argument. She puts together a much more complex theory that western liberalism's laudable aims helped create a libertine climate in which liberalism would suffer. Pim Fortuyn, she alleges, was a champion of libertinism more than of liberalism, although she does recognize Fortuyn did have a point in many areas. I'm not quite sure where the libertarianism of many modern Conservatives fits into her argument, although I think she basically equates it with libertinism, which is unfair. Nevertheless, there is a lot of good stuff in there. Her initial conclusions are especially important:

We can defend ourselves only by reasserting true liberal values. This means welcoming immigrants, certainly, but in numbers which mean they can become integrated and enrich our culture rather than undermine and destroy it. It means welcoming Muslims, certainly; but, as with all minorities, it means expecting them to adopt a common civic identity which subscribes to overarching British values, under whose umbrella they can pursue their own culture and traditions — provided that the two do not conflict. Where they do, the host culture wins. Those have always been the rules for immigrants: to preserve both national identity and the rights of minorities.

Above all, we have to reassert liberalism as a moral project which does not pretend to be morally neutral. We have to acknowledge that liberal values are rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and sprang from British culture. We have to defend them by reaffirming the values, history and institutions of Britain using the language of morality, a word which the Left has degraded into an insult and at which much of the Tory party still runs screaming from the room.

I think this is right. Morality is desperately important to the survival of society. It's been said so often it has the air of a cliche, but we must ensure that liberties do not become license.

Sorkin, you have a lot to answer for

Boris Johnson blames The West Wing for the current state of British, and European, politics. He also points out, fairly I might add, the superiority of the lobby system to press conferences. So no surprise that Alistair Campbell is replacing the one with the other.

Nepalling

In case you'd missed it, there's a serious Maoist insurgency going on in Nepal. The government had a major success recently, but yesterday lost a fort and 140 soldiers. Nepal actually has a population of 25 million, so it's not the tiny mountain kingdom most people think it is. The Telegraph editorializes on the severity of the situation in Nepal's fight for life. It is most definitely in Britain's national interest to pay attention to this position (Britain's best line regiment, the Gurkhas, is recruited there), and the drugs connection makes it in America's interest. I wonder how long it will be before the media start paying the situation proper attention.

"There are no Israeli civilians"

Alan Judd explains to Telegraph readers what regular visitors to MEMRI already know. It will be interesting to see if this little slice of reality has any effect on the small-c conservative anti-Israel lobby.

Weakness is strength

John Prescott wants to strengthen local government in England by weakening it. He wants English regions to be governed by devolved Parliaments. So far so good, but as a trade-off, he wants to abolish local councils, including the county councils that have served as the basis of local government for so long. So many decisions will actually be taken by people further away. This is crazy. Simon Jenkins argued eloquently yesterday that Britain is afraid of direct democracy and that it provides a great opportunity to challenge the status quo:

Elected mayors are here to stay. Nothing shows the ineptitude of the Tories so much as their opposition to them. Had they campaigned for them from the start, they could now be ruling half the cities of England.

Local democracy needs to be just that -- local. Spiriting away the powers of your local council to something 50 miles away will just weaken democracy. Prescott, once again, has shown himself to be contemptuous of the common man.

UPDATE: If you want to consider the viability of "small" British local authorities, consider that according to the UK Government's population figures, Yorkshire and the Humber (ie the old pre-1974 county of Yorkshire, give or take a few bits and pieces) would be the 21st largest US state, bigger than Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana and Oregon, to take a few examples. That's worth bearing in mind.

Well I never...

I think any father, or high school boy for that matter, could have told them this.

Where's Cleon when you need him?

Zeus! He's over 2,400 years old and he's still going. Check out the thoughts of the original reactionary at the Old Oligarch's Painted Stoa.

Falling Standards

Emily the Hawkgirl (or Shayera Thal as I geekily refer to her) has uploaded a rendition of the New European Flag at Give War A Chance. I'm gobsmacked. Three cheers for the red, white and blue, and green, and orange, and green again, and red and yellow, and red white and blue again, and black and... (exit stage left, pursued by a bureaucrat).

Quis custodiet ipsum Custodem?

Peter Briffa has a great post tearing apart a supposedly philosophical Guardian leader. He hits the nail firmly on the head.

Countering their image as a Hic state?

The Center For Consumer Freedom is a front organization, in the best possible way, for a coalition of restraunt owners and the food and drink industry. It does an invaluable job in letting the public know about idiotic restrictions on the "food entertainment" industry. This one takes the biscuit (or cookie):

Rated R For Alcoholic Content?
Your 17-year-old daughter has just walked across the stage and received her high school diploma. You're proud of her, and to celebrate you decide to treat her and her best friends to a special dinner. You get to a local family restaurant, and, after the familiar "How many?" comes a new question: "Are you the legal guardian of these children?" You have to answer no, so there's no celebratory dinner.

It's Neo-Prohibitionism run wild, it's an excessive and bizarre invasion into your rights -- and it's the law in West Virginia. This is just the latest of many laws designed to decrease and in some cases prohibit even the responsible consumption of adult beverages.

"Residents taking their grandchildren, nieces, nephews or other distant underage relatives to a dinner in one of the city's finer establishments shouldn't bother if liquor is on the menu," The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reports. "Those residents won't be admitted unless they can prove they are the parent or legal guardian of the children."

Alcohol control commissioners have stepped up enforcement of a law requiring all minors under 18 to be accompanied by a parent or guardian while inside any establishment that sells "wines or spirituous or malt liquors" -- even a family restaurant, and even if none of the adults in the party plans to drink. The law even keeps people out of any "theater, museum, or similar place of amusement" that serves alcohol.

"It's just crazy," says one restaurant patron. "If my daughter has a friend over to stay the night, we can't go out to eat at a nice restaurant because it's against the law."

Utterly crazy, indeed.

More on Jenin

Further discussion with my correspondent (MC):

ISM: Priorities come and go, but until societies are willing again to sacrifice their boys for a greater good but remain moralistic in the modern imperialist sense, I think we're stuck with it. America is much more likely to become isolationist than imperialist, however, and so I do think it likely that Americans will prefer to stay at home unless attacked. It's the Blairite view of the world that worries me.

MC: It worries me too. I fear that there is a growing penchant for dispensing violence in the name of 'humanitarian' ends. It's all too easy, as our enormous power enables us to do great destruction in the knowledge that we won't be harmed - and if there is any danger of being harmed, we do all we can to minimise it, even to the cost of the humanitarian mission, which is absurd.

ISM: I'm not sure the penchant is growing. The British abolition of slavery worldwide was achieved mainly by force of arms. Ditto the various "humanitarian" actions in India such as the abolition of thuggee and suttee. So I think it's always been there. Nor do I think the gap in capabilities is particularly larger now than it was in the colonial era.

The difference as I see it is in the lack of willingness to sacrifice anything in the pursuit of interventionist aims. It's a sort of absolutist moralism that in many ways takes away from the achievement. When you lose loved ones in the pursuit of an aim, you value the result more. In a way, we've lowered the benefits as well as the costs. But we still have a desire for a certain level of benefits, so we therefore want to do more. That's not a good thing.

ISM: Probably, but I must ask how you would handle it, given the undoubted truth that there were considerable numbers of bomb-making factories in the camp, which the Arab press lauds as "The City of Bombers," and the also undoubted truth that the Palestinian Authority tacitly approved of this fact? The Palestinians were not going to issue a court order, which would have been ineffective anyway. Israeli police would have been killed. It seems likely that a less heavily-armed incursion to close down the factories might have encountered equally stiff, perhaps stiffer resistance. The Israelis are entitled to ask why they should put up with having more of their soldiers killed in order to close down bomb factories. If the death toll had been 50 on each side, would that have made it more acceptable? If so, then it's a pretty twisted philosophy (I'm not suggesting you think this, but it seems to be the thinking behind quite a few objections I've seen).

MC: I accept your points - if one was going to go into the town to hunt terrorists, a smaller show of force wouldn't have worked. But, the answer to that, it seems to me, is not to accept that force is not the answer. If you can't use minimum force, the solution is not to use maximum force, but not to use force at all. The Israelis have to face up to the inescapable fact that they are occupying somebody else's land by being in the West Bank and Gaza. Until they leave, this will go on and no amount of force will stop it.

ISM: A renunication of the use of force has to be bipartisan, or it will be a suicide note for the Israelis. There is no indication that the Palestinians and their allies would not declare their use of force a success and promptly take the campaign deeper into Israel proper. As long as the Palestinians consider Israel itself to be an occupying, colonialist power (see Ken Bell's posts) then the use of force against them will continue. The Israelis may get moral brownie points, but that's not much conciliation when you see your family blown to bits in a pizza parlour because somebody doesn't accept you have any right to live.

There's an interesting article in the latest Foreign Affairs that says that neither side can afford to give up, so an equitable peace has to be imposed. I think they may be right, but I can't see either side agreeing to the terms they present. Which will lead to a return of the Stern Gang as well as the continuation of Hamas activities.

I honestly don't know how force can be removed from the middle east, short of them all converting to ascetic Buddhism.

ISM: Fair enough. I think the key is if the Israelis themselves are refusing to investigate. Plenty of things like this happen all over the world -- including Northern Ireland -- but the UN does not investigate them, nor should it. The Israelis need to look into allegations this serious. It may be that they are complete fabrications -- in fact, that would be par for the course from the people who stage funerals in order to stir up sympathy from the credulous West -- but I think the Israelis should follow up all such allegations according to the due process that I believe is enshrined in their constitution.

MC: Quite right, but what evidence is there that they a)will, or b)ever have done in the past? Sharon has congratulated his men for what they did. He is not now going to backtrack and investigate them, and if evidence of wrongdoing is found, put the soldiers on trial. I just don't believe the Israeli government would do such a thing. This makes the Israeli government complicit in crime, and under the principle of command responsibility, guilty of the crimes committed by its troops. By contrast, the British police have arrested British soldiers and some of them have been put on trial for murder and other crimes committed in Northern Ireland.

ISM: I don't know enough about internal Israeli politics, but I have been told that there is plenty of judicial activity in this area. I'll ask around. We've agreed before that command responsibility is a dodgy concept, and I don't think the Israelis accept it, but given its existence, you're probably right. I should add, however, that the British government has faced considerable popular disapproval for its actions, often leading to the release of the soldiers it has prosecuted on what seem to me to be political grounds. Does command responsibility apply then?

Community or Commons?

Janet Daley is back on form. This week she points out the idiocy of tinkering with the welfare system as a solution to anti-social behavior. What's being suggested isn't welfare reform in the American sense. If only it was. Instead, it's an issue of Government acting for the "community" where once the commons would have acted itself:

That is what happens when the power of the community is replaced by the power of the state. Neighbours from hell, as the tabloids call them, used to be dealt with by ostracism or condemnation by their own peers (or occasionally threats, when all else failed). Back in the days when working-class communities really were communities, and not socially engineered dumping grounds, the effect of collective disapproval on standards of behaviour was a serious force.

But that was before we (or somebody on our behalf) decided that shaming and judging were less forgiveable sins than smashing your neighbours' windows and terrorising the elderly. It was also before a whole class of people had been created whom no amount of social pressure or disapproval could touch, because their basic economic needs are all provided for, as of right.

Welfare reform, if it is to have any meaning, needs to destroy this concept of entitlement. The key to that is, of course, expectations. If you expect the poor to drown if left to themselves, then you'll never do it. You're also a snob. But if you expect the poor to work for themselves, pull themselves up and join with other in the process, thereby creating a real community, then you'll embrace welfare reform as the only viable option.

Blame Espana

People looking for someone to blame for the President's decision to repudiate the treaty on the International Criminal Court -- an act widely applauded in the blogosphere -- should look beyond the White House. The Telegraph points the finger at Jack Straw, for his disgraceful decision to allow extradition procedings against General Pinochet.

In fact, as the Telegraph points out, real "blame" should go to the politicized prosecuting magistrates of the Napoleonic countries, such as the infamous Baltasar Garzon. I had not heard this one:

As if to underscore the point, Judge Garzon recently popped up again. Last month, he asked the British authorities for permission to question Henry Kissinger, while he was visiting London, over American involvement with the Chilean junta in the 1970s. Permission was denied, as was a similar request from a French magistrate. But there are plenty of persistent lawyers out there with a political axe to grind who would relish the prospect of dragging the mighty United States through the courts. The Americans can hardly be blamed for seeking to deny them the opportunity.

Hear,hear. Well done, Baltasar. You've saved America...

Blairite Corruption

I'm unafraid to use those words. The current Labour government has corrupted Britain's Parliament. The last convention remaining related to honour amongst Her Majesty's Ministers has now gone. The central principle was that a Minister who misled* the House of Commons should be required to resign. Stephen Byers has admitted he did so. But he remains in office. As the Telegraph points out in So he is a liar, Byers' crime went further in that he acted to ruin a man's career unjustly, but that, while the action of a cad, is not necessarily a resignation matter. After all, now this taboo has fallen, there would seem to be no matter worthy of resignation.

I'm not able to check Erskine May, but I believe Britain's laws on impeachment were never abolished, they just fell into disuse. Is it time to impeach Stephen Byers?

*Euphemism for "lied to".

VitalStats

The April edition of the VitalSTATS newsletter is finally available at the STATS website.

This month, Howard and I debunk all sorts of bad studies and faulty numbers:

- The media cries Armageddon at a CDC study linking cancers to nuclear weapons fallout
- A new study linking TV watching to violence is not up to snuff
- Race is a controversial issue. But the Institute of Medicine did not help any by crying racism.
- Paint fumes may make you dizzy, but will they give you cancer?
- How hot is it really in Antarctica?
- How many beer cans can teenage alcoholics drop on the side of the road?

Jenin Genie

As far as the Europeans are concerned, it seems like the main issue still corked in the bottle in Jenin is that of alleged war crimes. I sent a copy of the Washington Post op/ed A Hard Look at Jenin to a friend of mine who lectures in international conflict and who has been a Captain in two armies. He is no bleeding heart leftie, but he is deeply worried about abuses of the rules of war that have been seen in Kosovo and, he thinks, Israel. Here is what he said on the piece, and my replies.

Street fighting is notoriously intense, destructive and bloody. It also isn't anything new. The majority of fighting in WW2 on the Eastern Front, for instance, actually took place in towns, despite the efforts of generals to avoid them. But of itself that doesn't
necessarily justify what happened in Jenin. Perhaps the key ethical issue is that Mr. Sinnreich poses late in his piece - 'how will we
balance dead American soldiers against dead enemy civilians?'. Is it really justified to obliterate a town with your artillery, like his
father, just to avoid risk for your soldiers? After all, what is the point of fighting if not to protect civilian life? It is a soldier's duty to put his own life before that of others. I dislike the whole 'force protection' thing - it suggests that protecting your own men is more important than protecting the innocent. But if that's the case, wouldn't it be easier just to stay at home?

ISM: Couldn't agree with you more on the force protection point. However, I can see why it is applied, even if I disgree with its application. A society always has several goals, some of which are contradictory. If one of its goals is foreign intervention to secure certain outcomes, but another is the minimization of home casualties, force protection is the logical outcome. Priorities come and go, but until societies are willing again to sacrifice their boys for a greater good while remaining moralistic in the modern imperialist sense, I think we're stuck with it. America is much more likely to become isolationist than imperialist, however, and so I do think it likely that Americans will prefer to stay at home unless attacked. It's the Blairite view of the world that worries me.

Israel is, of course, as always a more difficult issue.

More specific to the Israeli case, there is a clear distinction between war fighting, as in WWII, and counter-terrorist operations. The British Army has never said, 'West Belfast is a hot-bed of terrorism. We will go through it house by house, bulldozing the homes of suspected terrorist sympathisers, and abducting all males of fighting age when we find them'. It wouldn't be right if we did it, so I don't know why it is right for the Israelis. In fact, it is surely even less right for them, as Belfast is at least British territory, whereas Jenin isn't Israeli territory.

ISM: Good points, but as I've said before, Palestinian terrorism is a very different beast from Northern Irish terrorism. It kills far more people, and is partly motivated by a quite simply racist belief that the Jews do not even have a right to live. Their terrorists are more ruthless, and so I don't find it surprising that the Israelis have a more ruthless approach in return. The question is therefore not whether it's right for the Israelis to do something we haven't done, but what we would do in similar circumstances. I don't know the answer to that now, but historically the British have been utterly ruthless when faced with similar circumstances.

I remain confused by the various rights and responsibilities claimed by the various parties in the West Bank, or Samaria and Judea as the Israelis call it...

The idea that if there are terrorists in a town, you have to march in with all your tanks and APCs and treat the problem as if you were in the middle of WWII is surely fallacious.

ISM: Probably, but I must ask how you would handle it, given the undoubted truth that there were considerable numbers of bomb-making factories in the camp, which the Arab press lauds as "The City of Bombers," and the also undoubted truth that the Palestinian Authority tacitly approved of this fact? The Palestinians were not going to issue a court order, which would have been ineffective anyway. Israeli police would have been killed. It seems likely that a less heavily-armed incursion to close down the factories might have encountered equally stiff, perhaps stiffer resistance. The Israelis are entitled to ask why they should put up with having more of their soldiers killed in order to close down bomb factories. If the death toll had been 50 on each side, would that have made it more acceptable? If so, then it's a pretty twisted philosophy (I'm not suggesting you think this, but it seems to be the thinking behind quite a few objections I've seen).

Second, as far as I understand it, the accusations against the Israeli troops made by most sensible observers are not that they massacred Palestinians (hardly anybody suggests that any more), nor that they blasted the town with artillery, aircraft etc, which they obviously didn't. Rather the more serious accusations refer to specific breaches of the rules of law by Israeli troops. These include a) using Palestinian civilians as human shields when approaching/entering houses, b) shooting on unarmed civilians & c) shooting a number of captured personnel without good cause (e.g. one Palestinian had a bad back and some back strap to support him - on seeing he had something under his shirt, the Israelis just shot him even though he was unarmed, just in case he was a suicide bomber).

There appears to be sufficient evidence to justify a proper investigation into these accusations. If true, they are definitely crimes, and cannot be justified by anything Sinnreich says in his article. By refusing to investigate or to permit others to do so, the Israeli authorities are colluding in what may be criminal behaviour. For this reason, I think that the article is really beside the point as far as Jenin is concerned.

ISM: Fair enough. I think the key is if the Israelis themselves are refusing to investigate. Plenty of things like this happen all over the world -- including Northern Ireland -- but the UN does not investigate them, nor should it. The Israelis need to look into allegations this serious. It may be that they are complete fabrications -- in fact, that would be par for the course from the people who stage funerals in order to stir up sympathy from the credulous West -- but I think the Israelis should follow up all such allegations according to the due process that I believe is enshrined in their constitution.

Parallels

Lots of great stuff about Pim Fortuyn over at AndrewSullivan.com. Andrew is taking the matter personally, as can only be expected. The assassination of contrarians is a very worrying development. Is this the price we pay for honesty in politics?

The right label

BBC News Online asks "Fortuyn killing: A political watershed?" and it's interesting to see that virtually all the views expressed by Dutch correspondents express surprise that the rest of the world labeled him "right-wing". The Dutch elections next week will be very interesting. Meanwhile, the latest we've heard from the police on the killer is that environmental literature was removed from his dwelling. I'm not jumping to conclusions, as it could be The Skeptical Environmentalist for all we know, but rumors are flying that he was an enviromental activist.

Chelary

First lady is a semi-official position in US public life. Hilary Clinton therefore had some justification for her political adventures while First Lady. There is no equivalent in the British system, where the Prime Minister derives his powers from being primus inter pares in the House of Commons. It is therefore disturbing to see Cherie Blair carving out a powerful position for herself. Read Cherie's summits take her into the public domain and you'll see what I mean.

Fortuyn: a brave man, unfavored

The Telegraph has a considered piece on what Pim Fortuyn's murder means. Michael Gove covers the same ground with his usual excellence. His questions deserve answers from Europe's elite:

Why is it the most horrific acts of politically motivated violence committed against the West have come from Muslims, in the grip of a twisted fundamentalist version of their faith, who have enjoyed the freedoms, welfare benefits, educational opportunities and wealth Europe has to offer? And why do Western establishments temporise in the face of fundamentalist violence, from the EU’s funding of the infrastructure of terror in the Palestinian Authority to the lack of prosecutions against those who preach hate and recruit for jihads? A failure by European elites to tackle these questions allows both extremes, the far Right and Islamic terror, to flourish. Where do extremes now meet? In the house that Jacques built.

Jacques is Jacques Delors, by the way.

It is interesting, though, that the two most recent political assassinations in Europe -- of Fortuyn and of Solvio Berlusconi's employment adviser -- seem to have been orchestrated by Leftist forces. There could be no clearer indication that they are losing the battle of ideas. And if they have turned to assassination, then it does seem reasonable to assume that they may have had a hand in the other unpleasant feature of current European politics -- the stirring up of latent anti-Semitism. I have no evidence for this, beyond the specious claims, tendetentious theories and outright lies that appear in the pages of such publications as the Guardian and the New Statesman all the time. It may be that history will judge that, in these times, it was the Left that adopted the tactics of the 1930s.

Patten of Failure

This should be a link to Andrew Sullivan's excellent comments on Chris Patten's latest apologia. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work, so here's what Andrew said in full:

CHRIS PATTEN'S BLATHER: There are few more condescending, Eurocratic, arrogant fools among European elites than one Chris Patten. A former Tory, he now clings to the Conservative Party as a way to win further unelected office in the Brussels bureaucracy. His piece today in the Washington Post, designed to answer George Will's recent column bemoaning the rise of European anti-Semitism, is chock full of prejudices. There's the sad attempt to argue that America was soft on Nazism because Joe Kennedy once was. And there's the belittling of anti-Semitic violence in Europe by the canard that it is balanced by anti-Islamic agitation. He also has the gall to associate himself with a democratic Europe, while he represents the least democratic institution on the continent, the European Commission, and is in the vanguard of further stripping democracy from the elected governments of EU member states. He seems appalled by the idea that the same Europe that gave us the Holocaust should now be seen as anti-Zionist or in some way hostile to Israel. Who does he think he's kidding? Visceral loathing for Israel permeates the entire European establishment of which he is an integral part. He brings up the issue of private American financial support for the IRA. He's right that such support is vile. But the American government never sent millions of dollars direct to the IRA to foment terrorism against Britain. Yet the EU funnels vast sums to Yassir Arafat's terrorist organizations, with no checks, no standards, no accountability. That money is used to kill Jews. And Chris Patten helps dispense it. And that's largely all you need to know.

Yea, verily.

St. Brendan's Webvoyage

Brendan O'Neill of spiked now has a website using the blog format (he has some reasons for not calling it a weblog, which are better than NRO's IMHO). Brendan's got a gift for vocalizing the nagging doubt, so I recommend this as a regular destination.

Arafat and the IRA

Iain Dale surprised me a few days ago by declaring the Israelis guilty of state terrorism. Shortly afterwards, I got embrolied in a long e-mail debate with a selection of otherwise sound British conservatives who took the same view (or worse, in some cases), which is part of the reason why I haven't mentioned the subject much here. Andrew Dodge reacted with incandescent fury, but Iain repeated his charges. Now, thankfully, Joe Katzman over at Winds of Change has dissected Iain's statements and drawn a important parallel between the activities of the Palestinians and the IRA. An excellent read.

Tolerance and Intolerance

Dutch far-right leader 'shot dead' reports the BBC. "Far-right" is a bit of misnomer, given that the basis of his anti-immigration policy was the traditional Dutch liberty to be gay, which he thought was under threat from Muslim intolerance. I'll be very interested to see who claims repsonsibility for this.

RIP

Lord Bauer has died. The Emeritus Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, no less, was a great voice for common sense in the international arena. The Times obituary linked to above gives you the details of his life. The Telegraph, however, gives you his ideas:

"Where peoples' abilities, motivations and social and political institutions are favourable," he wrote in 1972, "material progress will occur. Where these basic determinants are unfavourable, development will not occur, even with aid."

Marshall Aid had been effective after the Second World War, Bauer suggested, because the peoples of Europe had the attitudes, motivations and institutions favourable to development; thus it had encouraged private initiative.

Similarly, many poor countries, such as Malaysia and countries in Latin America, had transformed themselves without the need for aid. But where these factors were absent - in many parts of Africa and Asia, for example - Western aid often had a counterproductive effect, leading to the "politicisation of economic life".

Of course, such a view did not go down well and despite his eminence, you rarely saw him interviewed on the telly. When he was, he treated the facile arguments of his interlocutors with disdain, which was why I lobbied hard for him to be invited to an Oxford Union debate on the subject of aid, a debate he dominated. He was one of the truly great academics of the modern ear and the world is the poorer for his passing.

Burma Road to Democracy

Aung Suu Kyi has been released ... again. This isn't the first time she's been freed, but from what the UN Envoy says in this report, it sounds like the "Myanmar" government might actually be willing to compromise this time. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

The last word on France

Jolly good summary of where France is following yesterday's election by Daniel Johnson in The Telegraph: France is still in denial over the threat posed by Le Pen. Read the whole thing.

There is no room for complacency. One in every five Frenchmen who voted voted for Le Pen. The majority decry his politics, but one in every five is a large number, however you look at it. The strategies the French establishment are adopting can only cause this number to grow. If Chirac doesn't realize this, then he will assuredly preside over the last years of the Fifth Republic.

UPDATE: Tim Hames has a great column here, which also assesses what's happening in Germany. I'm less optimistic than he is about the Free Democrats, but he has some interesting observations.

Join the Club

Emmanuel Goldstein realizes that the Tories have to appeal to the working class. See here for my take on the issue, written just after the Hagueite disaster a year ago.

I should add that Emmanuel's suggestion that the BNP winning three council seats should be treated seriously because "It's small breakthroughs like this that got the Lib Dems started" is breathtakingly untrue. The Liberals have been going since time immemorial...

Far right? How decidedly un-British!

Popping my head up from the weekend baricades to recommend Jim Bennett's latest column, Non-barking English dogs. He contrasts the relative performances of the Far Right in the French national and British local elections, and comes up with important answers as to why the British nazis always perform so badly.

Given what is happening on the European Continent, one would think that the makers of opinion in Britain would thank their lucky stars that they have avoided the birth of a significant neo-fascist movement. They should have realized that it is a testament to the temperament of the British people, and a triumph of its democratic institutions that an important element of the national political spectrum so closely expresses the opinions of a substantial part (probably a majority, in fact) of the people. But of course many would prefer to try to tar the Euroskeptic Tories with the Le Penist brush, whether of out self-righteous ignorance, political opportunism, or both.

One might even venture to say that Continentals upset about the increasing percentage of their compatriots voting for Le Pen and his even less attractive counterparts might consider trying to offer their voters an electoral alternative that addresses valid concerns about European centralization, crime, failures of assimilation and other grave problems in a non-hysterical, non-exploitive manner. But I won't hold my breath waiting for that.

Good stuff. I've always said that Tories should attack Nazis for being un-British and therefore un-patriotic. A good assault on these lines by IDS, following up his sacking of Ann Wintertom for making a racist joke at a private occasion, should lay the "Tory fascist" ghost for good.