Compare and contrast

Two British soldiers were killed in Iraq today and a third was injured after their patrol was attacked. The attack was in Amara, a city in the Maysan province of southern Iraq just north of Basra, where the main British base is located. There were unconfirmed reports that the soldiers died after being hit by a roadside bomb - an attack tactic used regularly by insurgents against coalition troops. A local witness said a car bomb had targeted the patrol.

Now have a look at this.

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You know something is a bad idea when ...

…. It is supported by SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo), the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour and two leading human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International), as well as former President Jimmy Carter (the all purpose rent-a-quote supporter of all tranzis, dictators and terrorists) and other Nobel Prize winners.

Unsurprisingly, John Bolton, US Ambassador to the UN, is not impressed by the new and watered down proposal to reform the Human Rights Commission. That’s the body, as the Washington Post helpfully reminds us, which was responsible for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but “has recently been tainted by the frequent election of members with dismal human rights records, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe”. And Cuba, and Libya, which chaired it, and many others.

I should imagine John Bolton has grasped the basic impossibility of working within an organization that sets up a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then expands to take in scores of member states who do not understand the basic concept.

One of the main points of the proposed reform of the UN was a thorough overhaul of the Human Rights Commission to exclude countries with a poor internal record. Naturally, the idea has stalled.

“Senior U.S. and U.N. officials had sought to prevent countries with poor rights records from joining the new organization by raising the membership standards and requiring a two-thirds vote of the 191-member General Assembly for any nation's admittance. But the proposal met stiff resistance, and the current draft resolution would require members to be elected by an absolute majority -- at least 96 countries.”

So now Annan and the others are pleading with the United States to accept this somewhat inadequate proposal, pointing out that it will do some of the work needed:

“They noted that provisions to subject all council members to scrutiny of their human rights record would discourage countries with poor records from joining. They also said that council members suspected of abusive behavior can be suspended by a vote of two-thirds of the U.N. membership present.”

The notion that the sort of scrutiny the UN gives to its own organizations, let alone member states could discourage “countries with poor records from joining” is purest moonshine. These countries do not think they have poor records as they do not know what the heck everybody is talking about. The average UN inspection would not find a single bottle of hooch in a bootlegger’s hide-out.

And, of course, it would be so easy to get a country suspended by two-thirds of the vote. They may all vote to suspend Israel, if needs be, and America, at a pinch. But Sudan? DR Congo? Cuba? Forget it.

Besides the 47 members of the new commission would be selected by secret ballot on the basis of “geographical distribution”. Mighty few candidates with good human rights record from some parts of that geographical distribution.

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JSF in Parliament

Unreported by the MSM – apart from a brief mention on BBC's Yesterday in Parliament – the Joint Strike fighter made an appearance in the House of Commons yesterday, during defence questions.

One supposes that, with the recent revelations in mind about talks with the French on the possible purchase of Rafale aircraft for the Royal Navy (illustrated), Mark Francois, Conservative member for Rayleigh asked the defence minister to make a statement on the JSF, a standard opening which then allows for the real substance in the supplementary.

The response came from Adam Ingram, who predictably told us nothing we did not know already, leaving Francois to home in with a guarded supplementary, asking: "what is the Government's plan B if, for any reason, the joint combat aircraft programme does not proceed?"

Ingram, in the style of "Yes Minister", dead-batted the question, remarking that "the Ministry of Defence has plans A to Z to deal with every eventuality…", and refused to be drawn on what they were, stating laconically that he would not "inform the hon. Gentleman what all the other options", his reason being that he was "sure that others would put that information to good use".

Ah, such is Parliamentary democracy.

A more interesting exchange had come earlier, when Tobias Ellwood, Conservative MP for Bournemouth, East asked the minister what recent discussions his Department has had with the United States about the transfer of military technology. In his supplementary, Ellwood then declared:

We have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans not only on the battlefield but in the corridors of diplomacy and on the factory floor. Joint efforts to build a replacement for the Sea Harrier are being challenged by a corner of Capitol Hill. Will the Minister and the Secretary of State do what they can to ensure that the necessary technology is shared? Otherwise, we will have two new aircraft carriers, but no aircraft to put on them.

Ingram did "not accept the hon. Gentleman's conclusion" but did inform us that Reid had raised the matter directly with the US secretary of state for defence in the past two weeks.

Labour MP for Chorley, Lindsay Hoyle, then took up the bowling, noting an article in The Times stating that Lord Drayson – defence procurement minister -had declared technology transfer a priority for the building of the joint strike fighter. Again he got a dead bat for his reward, opening the way for Gerald Howarth, the Conservative procurement shadow (pictured). Said Howarth:

It is true that we agree across the Dispatch Box that a failure by the United States to permit the transfer of technology to enable us to service our own aircraft would amount to an unacceptable loss of British sovereignty. However, do not US suspicions about its technology leaching out to France and elsewhere inevitably increase when Javier Solana states that he wants the European Defence Agency to be responsible for at least 20 percent. of all European military research spending? Ministers cannot have it both ways -protesting in Washington and then sneaking off to Brussels to sign up to technology sharing with our European partners is hardly likely to win friends in Congress.

Ingram's answer was a studied example of "he doth protest too much":

The hon. Gentleman sets a hare running that has no substance whatsoever. His allegation has no foundation. The fact that some senior representative in Europe expresses his point of view does not necessarily mean that it is our point of view.

Just to remind Ingram of the issues about which Congress is concerned, in addition to the UK's enthusiastic participation in the European Defence Agency, there are also the little matters of:

Proven leakage of defence technology to China of secret, high-technology US military systems;

A joint declaration of a "strategic partnership" between the EU – of which the UK is a member - and China;

EU support for lifting the China arms embargo.

Partnership between the EU and China on the Galileo satellite navigation system;

Close ties between French and Chinese aviation companies;

Co-operation deals between French and Russian aviation companies on high-tech military equipment, including the development of UCAVs – with China as the biggest arms customer of Russia;

A treaty agreement between the UK and European countries on defence industrial co-operation, including France, with mutual recognition of security clearances;

Close French-owned industrial involvement with the MoD, and multiple cooperative defence agreements between France and the UK.

Just standing back from the fray, if you were American, would you be entirely happy to hand over to the British top-secret high-tech defence technology, worth billions of dollars, and be absolutely certain that there is no chance of any of the details finding their way to France, other European countries, or China? And if you had some doubts, what would you do in the American position, Mr Ingram?

Anyhow, it seems that CEO of BAE Systems, Mike Turner, has a way out for Ingram. He is suggesting that the British government should consider a plan to build a naval version of the Eurofighter as a "fallback" in case it can't get greater transfer of weapons technology on the Joint Strike Fighter

"We do not see any other fallback solution," Turner said. But then he would say that, wouldn't he.

COMMENT THREAD

Nice one Roger

Sir, it is extraordinary, writes Roger Helmer, MEP, to The Telegraph today, that the Power report seeks to understand public disaffection with politics, yet apparently does not once mention the EU. It calls for politicians to pass more powers to the electorate, he says, but seems unaware that they are in fact passing powers to Brussels. He continues:

Well over half our new laws in this country come directly from the EU's unaccountable institutions. Voters may feel they have little influence over events in Westminster, but they have almost none over decisions in Brussels. The Conservative Party's investigation into political engagement will be chaired by Ken Clarke. Let's hope he will not make the same elementary omission as the Power report.

Actually, Roger, if you had read the report before you had written the letter, you would have found there are numerous references to the EU, some of which are quoted in our own report.

Let's hope you will not make the same elementary omission…

COMMENT THREAD

It's war!

Have you noticed that the more detached the "colleagues" get from the real thing, the more bellicose becomes their language? Thus we have an excitable little Italian complaining shrilly about the latest underhand dealing from the French – now there's a surprise – declaring that, "This is 1914 all over again."

The Italian is economy minister, Giulio Tremonti (right), who is incensed by the action of French finance minister Thierry Breton and (unelected) premier Dominique de Villepin, in announcing the merger of energy utilities Suez with Gaz de France, in order to block a take-over by Italy's Enel.

Granted it has been called "a naked attempt to exclude Italy from the French energy sector", but Tremonti is still a tad over the top when he squeaks in protest: "Nobody wanted war, but war happened. Somebody launches an ultimatum, another responds, and the effect is a waterfall… We still have time to stop this race by the European states to build protective barriers."

Before he bursts a blood vessel, someone should perhaps take Tremonti to one side and explain was happened in 1914 and how dreadful the years following really were. That might at least help restore some sense of proportion into his febrile brain.

Anyhow, clearly enjoying this spat is sometime "war correspondent" – aka European business editor – Ambrose Evans-Pritichard who yesterday in the Telegraph gave chapter and verse.

He cites Berlusconi calling for "retaliatory action" to avenge an act of economic hostility, the man saying, "If they're going to protect their strategic sectors like that, we should do the same back to them."

In a separate piece, our "war correspondent" takes up his new role with gusto, under the headline: "National guard put on alert", reminding us that, last year French voters put a spectacular stop to Europe's drive for political union by tossing out the EU constitution.

Now, Ambrose writes, their leaders are finishing the job on the economic front, systematically rolling back the single market in open defiance of the EU institutions and treaty law, playing the rare card of strategic national interest against an EU ally

The ever-excitable Tremonti takes the view that Europe is drifting into crisis, adding to his torrent of condemnation by pleading for reflection or, he says, "we'll end up like Europe's royal families after the Great War: all pointing fingers at each other saying 'you started it'."

On the other hand, according to Ambrose, de Villepin is in effect pushing through a step-by-step withdrawal from the EU's economic system, with his finance minister Breton resorting to the "atomic weapon" of a poison pill law enabling French national champions to fight off foreign bids by issuing stock purchase warrants at a discount.

This action is proving contagious. Tremonti now says his country will have to follow suit and Spain's socialists are "cutting rough" over E.on's €29bn bid for the electricity group Endesa. Not to be left out, the Poles are blocking a takeover of Bank BPH by Italy's Unicredit, despite EU infringement proceedings.

As our "war correspondent" left the story yesterday, Brussels had been loath to provoke a showdown with Paris, saying it was "too early" to determine whether these French moves are illegal. This makes Brussels something of a helpless spectator as populist governments walked away from EU obligations, raising the question of whether the tide of economic integration has begun receding again as the ancient nation states of Europe revert to type, or whether it is just the season for political bluster.

Concludes Ambrose, "this month's takeover revolt is taking the union perilously close to snapping point," adding, "Perhaps that is exactly what the French political elite now intends."

Through the day, however, there were more developments, with Reuters reporting that the commission was skirting the issue of the GDF, Suez merger, sidestepping calls from Italy to challenge France. It was hiding behind the fiction that saying it needed formal notification to intervene.

Salvaging what pride it could, the commission said it could not step in until it had been notified by one of the companies involved that the deal had a European dimension and would thus trigger an EU probe. "If notification takes place, the commission then examines it most carefully and painstakingly to see whether the rules on competition and free movement of capital have been scrupulously observed," a spokesman said. He was "not aware of any formal letter of objection to the deal from Rome so far."

Rather unkindly, Reuters recalled that Brussels had been forced to remain a bystander to similar moves by Paris in 2004 when the French government managed drug firm Aventis's merger with Sanofi to fend off Swiss suitor Novartis which never made a formal bid, and here we had, apparently, history repeating itself.

However, that stance was not to survive as no sooner had the commission crafted one position then it was ready with another. Reuters again was on the spot, this time with the news that the commission had come to the conclusion that the French merger did not appear to violate EU rules on the free movement of capital. That was from Oliver Drewes, spokesman for EU internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy (pictured right).

McCreevy might have been happy but his commission colleague, Franco Frattini, certainly was not. Despite holding the justice and security portfolio, he is still a red-blooded Italian with national pride at stake. Adnkronos international had him "vowing" to challenge the French deal, declaring: "I am not fighting for Italy but for Europe, and in this case, what is at risk is the European interest." How noble is that?

Warming to his theme, the affronted Frattini warned: "Every form of protectionism damages Europe. If we start to accept national protectionism, the situation will only become more complicated … There is an important principle at stake here which European institutions must be vigilant about, and that is the single European market," he stressed.

Now it was time for Berlusconi to step in again – after all, he has an election to win. According to the AFX agency he has demanded an intervention from the commission. He has despatched the excitable Tremonti to Brussels where he will spend today and tomorrow closeted with EU officials and meet competition commissioner Neelie Kroes together with Charlie McCreevy.

Whatever is resolved – and who knows what might happen when Italian temperament meets Gallic insouciance – there will be one serious casualty. Last week, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands began talks to set up a single electricity market and prise open national electricity businesses in a first step towards a new common EU energy policy.

The commission is due to unveil a green paper on energy policy in March, but leaks of the draft document suggest Brussels will be held in check by "a lack of solidarity" among member states. That's one way of putting it. As far as the Italians are concerned, though, it's war!

COMMENT THREAD

Just as you thought it could not get any more ridiculous

Thanks again to the excellent Little Green Footballs for calling attention to yet another ridiculous posturing by the SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo). Instead of getting on with the task of reforming the UN (stop sniggering at the back), the egregious Kofi has been addressing – deep breath – the Open Session of the Second Meeting of the High Level Group For the Alliance of Civilizations. As Humpty-Dumpty said, there’s glory for you.

To make the whole affair even more ludicrous, it was taking place in Doha, Qatar. One assumes he went there just after accepting his $500,000 from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai.

Well, what did the SecGen say? The Alliance, he explained, had been set up to deal with “the sense of a widening gap and lack of mutual understanding between Islamic and Western societies”. Don’t know where the SecGen learnt his history, but I seem to recall periods (the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries spring to mind) when the gap and lack of mutual understanding was considerably wider. But, I suppose, “widening” is a relative term.

“At the heart of this crisis is a trend towards extremism in many societies. We should beware of overemphasizing it, because extremism in one group is almost always fed by the perception of extremism in another group. Few people think of themselves as extremists, but many can be pushed towards an extreme point of view, almost without noticing it, when they feel that the behaviour or language of others is extreme.”

Still, not all is lost. Most people are really pretty sensible and can always come to some arrangement though what the middle road between freedom and slavery might be, the SecGen did not explain.

“So let us always remember that those who shout loudest, or act in the most provocative ways, are not necessarily typical of the group on whose behalf they claim to speak. I think one can safely say that most non-Muslims in western societies have no desire to offend the Muslim community, and that most Muslims, even when offended, do not believe that violence or destruction is the right way to react.”

Well, that’s probably true though why, in that case, does the SecGen together with many other western political figures, such as our own Foreign Secretary, the execrable Jack Straw, should spend so much time appeasing the extremists in Islam, remains a mystery.

Annan has his own explanation of how the whole problem arose. It seems that the Danes have not yet adjusted to having a significant Muslim minority in their country and have been behaving as if the freedom that Europeans have fought for over centuries was still their birthright. Well, no, that is not quite the way the SecGen put it but that is the gist:

“In truth, the present conflicts and misunderstandings probably have more to do with proximity than with distance. The offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were first published in a European country which has recently acquired a significant Muslim population, and is not yet sure how to adjust to it. And some of the strongest reactions – perhaps especially the more violent ones – have been seen in Muslim countries where many people feel themselves the victims of excessive Western influence or interference.

Whether or not those who published the caricatures were deliberately seeking to provoke, there is no doubt that some of the violent reactions have encouraged extremist groups within European societies, whose agenda is to demonize Muslim immigrants, or even expel them.”

No doubt some of the violent reactions did encourage extremist groups. Most people have an objection to people parading through their cities, demanding beheadings, annihilation, a new Holocaust and other suchlike delightful concepts. They might start thinking that there is something wrong with those who come to live in Europe and abuse the hospitality to that extent.
They might also think that there is something wrong when members of the Muslim community are not allowed to express free views themselves and the female members are stoned, beaten, raped and murdered if they behave the way we all think it right in the West.

Sir Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, for instance, said on TV this week-end that people in Britain should live under British law. If they wish to live under Shariah law, well, there are plenty of countries where they can do so.

The same, presumably, would apply to Denmark, Norway, France, Germany and many other countries.

But I digress. The SecGen disdained such details. His was a lofty view, appropriate to the Alliance of Civilizations that he was discussing:

“So misperception feeds extremism, and extremism appears to validate misperception. That is the vicious circle we have to break. That, as I see it, is the purpose of the Alliance.

It is important that we all realize that the problem is not with the faith but with a small group of the faithful – the extremists who tend to abuse and misinterpret the faith to support their cause, whether they derive it from the Koran, the Torah or the Gospel. We must not allow these extreme views to overshadow those of the majority and the mainstream. We must appeal to the majority to speak up and denounce those who disrespect values and principles of solidarity that are present in all great religions.”

Those of us who have been following events would say that of the three great texts cited above, only one has been used to any extent to abuse and misinterpret the faith and bring about violence recently. Perhaps, the SecGen has information the rest of us do not possess.

But I am glad he has mentioned the need for all religions and civilizations to understand each other, live peacefully with each other and open their borders to each other. I look forward to the day – surely not far off – when SecGen Kofi Annan opens the first Christian church and Sunday school in Saudi Arabia (or, for that matter, Qatar).

COMMENT THREAD

A picture of England

Or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the EU…?

Via Islamophobic blog we learn from the BBC that "extremists" have been blamed after a cartoon featuring the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was put up in a housing office in Oldham.

It appeared at the offices of First Choice Homes - which runs the town's council housing - and, or so we are told, "managers acted quickly to remove it and have begun an inquiry." They also reported the matter to the police.

Oldham Council said the cartoon could be part of an attempt by right-wing extremists to increase tension ahead of council elections in May. I bet it was this.

Anyhow, you will be pleased to learn that Greater Manchester Police said they were treating the incident "extremely seriously" and were worried the incident could affect "community cohesion".

A spokesplod said: "Greater Manchester Police treat any incitement of racial hatred extremely seriously and robustly investigate any such incidents that are reported to us. "We will not tolerate any acts of racial discrimination and are committed to working with local communities to tackle any issues that may arise."

Meanwhile, you will be delighted to learn, the plods have been active elsewhere. A volunteer litter-picker, Keith Jones, 65, of Hawarden, Flintshire, had been leaving bags of collected rubbish by the roadside for the council. He was spotted doing this by a diligent "householder" who duly informed the North Wales plods, whereupon Jones was fined £50 for fly-tipping.

Not content with this unceasing effort in pursuit of law and order, Leicestershire plods have sent round emails to some of whom they presumed to be solid citizens, alerting the good people to the fact that BNP intends to distribute their Mohammed leaflet in the district. They are asking for information and proof that the leaflet is being delivered. No prizes for guessing what's in what passes for their minds.

And while we're in the guessing mood… how many of the scumbags who paraded placards through London on 3 February, inciting murder and mayhem, have been arrested or charged by the Metropolitan plods? I'll give you a clue: it's a round number… a very round number.

COMMENT THREAD

Stand by for more alienation

If all you had to rely on was The Telegraph account of the report of the Power Commission, released today, you might have come away with the impression that the main and substantive recommendation was that "16-year-olds should be allowed to stand for Parliament".

The Guardian is no better, offering its particular brand of spin, with, "Inquiry proposes radical overhaul of party funding", while The Times is absolutely dire and The Daily Mail turns its report into a rant against New Labour.

Strangely, The Independent does a halfway decent job, with the headline: "Bleak view of the gulf between people and government", although its report is very brief, starting with: "Democracy faces meltdown in Britain as the public rejects an outdated political system which has centralised more authority than ever in a tiny ruling elite…". This is also the line taken by the BBC website, which also offers a very short report.

Says the Power Commission website, though, introducing the final report of an inquiry funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust and chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC:

After eighteen months of investigation, the final report of Power is a devastating critique of the state of formal democracy in Britain. Many of us actively support campaigns such as Greenpeace or the Countryside Alliance. And millions more take part in charity or community work. But political parties and elections have been a growing turn-off for years. The cause is not apathy. The problem is that we don't feel we have real influence over the decisions made in our name. The need for a solution is urgent. And that solution is radical. Nothing less than a major programme of reform to give power back to the people of Britain...

The report itself runs to 175 pages and contains much that is common sense. It also offers by way of substantive recommendations, "three shifts in political practice":

a rebalancing of power away from the executive and unaccountable bodies towards Parliament and local government;

the introduction of greater responsiveness and choice into the electoral and party systems;

allowing citizens a much more direct and focused say over political decisions and policies…

taking the view that the current disengagement (with party politics) is not a "little local difficulty" but rather the result of a profound contempt for formal politics. There is a popular view that our political institutions and politicians are failing, untrustworthy and disconnected from the people they are supposed to represent.

Interestingly, the Commission spent £800,000 on finding that out. If they had asked us, we could have told them that for free.

And, while none of the media go even into that depth, none mention that on which the Inquiry does devote some space, our favourite topic, the European Union. On page 62, it says:

Supranational bodies and processes of international negotiation such as the European Union have gained extra powers and influence at the expense of nationally and locally elected representatives. The direction and sometimes the detail of wide areas of policy are now heavily influenced by, or determined by, decisions taken by appointed officials working in supranational organisations or by politicians and civil servants in negotiations with their overseas counterparts.

The result of these shifts has been to make political decision-making more opaque, hidden and complex. It means that the people who take key decisions are more likely to be geographically, socially and politically distant from the people who are affected by their de-cisions. It also means that decision-makers are less directly account-able to those who are affected by their decisions and rarely engaged in dialogue with them. The Power Commissioners saw at first-hand how a lack of real influence over decision-makers has become a primary cause of alienation from formal democracy, and recognise that those processes which have produced greater distance between governed and governors are a source of deep concern.

Inevitably, the conclusion is more than a little woolly though, the report authors stating:

One key step in reducing this distance is to expand the capacity of elected power to scrutinise unelected and indirectly elected authority and to initiate change where those authorities refuse to act. In doing this, a basis may be provided for citizens to enter into a new dialogue with the holders of power and hold them to account. The introduction of greater scrutiny of the political firmament will also help citizens to see that power in Britain operates in accordance with the citizens' wishes.

The authors cannot, it seems, bring themselves to observe make the obvious statement that there is no provision within the EU to "initiate change where those authorities refuse to act" and therefor draw the obvious conclusion that the only way there can be greater accountability is if we leave the EU. This omission is all the more egregious when it cites this evidence taken:

People will not vote if they feel their vote won't count. For many years turnout in local elections has been poor, because voters realise councillors have little power to affect local decisions. Now the same thing applies to national Parliament. MPs have given so much power to the corrupt Brussels octopus that they no longer can set the laws of the land. 60-70 per cent of laws now come from the Brussels oligarchy. Subconsciously, voters realise MPs have lost control, although Ministers NEVER admit this.

There is much more where that came from, but therein lies the nub of the issue. And as for the political parties, these – as we all know – are too wrapped up in their own affairs to bother with, or understand people's concerns. Obsesssed with their own concerns, they have become part of the problem rather than the solution.

Unfortunately, giving sixteen-year-olds the vote, or making them MPs will not remove the sense of alienation (although it might reduce the childishness of some of the debates), and nothing of substance that the Power Commission offers is going to implemented. Stand by for more alienation.

COMMENT THREAD

An exercise in futility?

After its stunning victory over the tumultuous question of VAT on hairdressers and restaurant meals, France has acquired a taste for blood.

Thus emboldened, or so the Financial Times tells us, the Gallic Hords are now "mooting the idea" of descending on Brussels to demand a restoration of national sovereignty on VAT.

Senior French officials have told European journalists that the hairdressers and restauranters raised questions about the EU's role in tax policy. "If we want to cut our value added tax we need unanimous agreement," said one.

For the moment, however, France is planning to take up the issue with Austria – there's daring for you – intending to argue at a conference at St Pölten in April that the principle of "subsidiarity" should apply to VAT.

Pity the French! Don’t they know that, under the doctrine of subsidiarity, it is the central authority, not the subordinate entity, that decides when it should apply. And, of course, to change the rules, that central authority – the EU commission – must decide first to table a proposal, which it cannot be made to do.

It rather looks as if France, therefore, will end up doing its usual flag-waving exercise.

COMMENT THREAD

Freedom of speech - 1

When the long and tortuous negotiations that resulted in the less than spectacular Centre for the Monitoring of Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism (all of which unaccountably have grown in leaps and bounds according to the Commission under its wise guidance) and the passing of various directives that would prevent any kind of discrimination, there was a strong suggestion that denial of Holocaust should be made a crime across the EU.

Fortunately, this lunatic idea did not take hold. At the time, I recall suggesting to one peer I have done research for that if there is a debate on the subject, he should suggest a parallel criminalization of denial of Communist crimes. That should fill our gaols up fairly quickly.

The subject has come up again in a slightly different form. We can all understand why denial of the Holocaust was made a crime in West Germany and Austria in the years after the war. The question is whether after 60 years of democracy that should still be the case.

David Irving, unfortunately, stretches one’s belief in free speech to the utmost. Anyone can leap to the defence of gallant little Denmark and her courageous journalists. Well, anyone can but far too many people did not. Do we leap to the defence of David Irving?

While leap may be too strong an expression, I am bound to say that the people who stood on the right side of the War of the Danish Cartoons, have also acknowledged that Mr Irving ought not to be imprisoned for his sayings and writings.

It really is a great shame about David Irving’s obsessions. He could, as Michael Burleigh made clear in last Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph, have been a good if somewhat eccentric military historian, where his almost unhinged obsession with archival evidence would have been quite useful.

Let me remind our readers that David Irving was the first historian to say that the Hitler diaries were a forgery. The then Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, Hugh Trevor Roper and the luminaries of the Sunday Times were happily taken in. (Some people, such as Hizonner, the Mayor of LondON, still believe them to be genuine.)

But what works sometimes does not at others. Internal evidence showed Irving that those diaries could not have been written by Hitler; this was supported in his mind by the absence of any archival reference to them. Fair enough. However, there are many occasions when archival material or lack of it is an insufficient guide to what might or might not have happened.

Irving did not precisely deny the Holocaust but insisted (though, he says he has changed his mind) that the numbers were not as high as 6 million, that there were no gas chambers and that Hitler knew nothing about the Final Solution.

The numbers one can argue about but adjustments there are not of any importance. The biggest argument is the same one can always use with people who try to deny to mass killing of peasants during collectivization in 1929-32. If they were not killed, what happened to them? What happened to the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe? If it comes to that, what happened to the Roma?

The evidence for the camps and the gas chambers are plentiful and the notion that this could have gone on without Hitler knowing anything about it argues a complete lack of imagination and logical thinking. So yes, one could call Irving a Holocaust denier in the widest sense.

He is also a man much given to complaining about Jewish conspiracies (mostly against him) and speaking to pathetic neo-Nazi groups on the Continent.

The Austrian prosecutor, Michael Klackl said:

“He's not a historian, he's a falsifier of history. This is about abuse of freedom of speech.”

Defining abuse of freedom of speech is difficult and likely to land you in messy situations. That this is one can be seen from the gleeful articles and cartoons published in Iranian and Middle Eastern newspapers. So, freedom of speech means insulting the Prophet but not casting doubts on the Holocaust? Very nice. Just the proof needed of the West’s evil intentions.

Herr Klackl is correct in most of his accusations – David Irving is a dishonest historian who has lied in order to deny some of the most horrible events of the twentieth century. The question is, should this sort of thing be decided in court?

Not just historians but a number of Jewish organizations have disagreed with the need to send Irivng to prison. It is sufficient, they say, to treat him and his views with disdain. After all, the man has no real credibility and was bankrupted after he had brought a libel case against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin books. Ms Lipstadt, incidentally, also disagrees with Irving’s imprisonment, maintaining that censorship is wrong and reasoned argument is the best way of defeating such people.

Others, on the other hand, rejoice. Lord Janner, always the first to make pronouncements on such matters, expressed himself pleased with the conviction:

“It sends a clear message to the world that we must not tolerate the denial of the mass murders of the Holocaust.”

Well, I hate to have to disagree with any noble peer, especially such a charming one, who entertains his colleagues with magical tricks, but Lord Janner is talking through his hat. The only message it sends to the world is that we are obsessed with the Holocaust and have lost all understanding of it and of totalitarianism.

No historical event, however vile, is beyond debate, discussion and, yes, the telling of lies. Lord Janner might like to consider why so many members of his own party have denied the truth of the second attempt at a Holocaust by Stalin in 1951-53.

Come to think of it, I have not heard the noble lord pronounce on the subject either. Does he not know what happened to Jewish writers, scientists, intellectuals, doctors and so on? Does he not realize that Stalin was making plans to deport the entire Jewish population (those whom he had not succeeded in murdering) of the Soviet Union to Central Asia? Does he not care about the victims?

Melanie Phillips in one of her more overwrought diary entries on the blog argued that Irving was not simply a man who told lies but a danger to us all, one who incited to violence by posing in a belted mac (á la the Führer, one assumes) with some ghastly little neo-Nazis in Germany.

In the first place, he was not imprisoned for incitement to violence. In the second place, western democracy is surely strong enough to withstand the stupid posturings of some inadequate individuals. What does Ms Phillips think of people who parade up and down the streets of London in Red Army winter hats with the red star on them? Incitement to violence? Some people might think so.

What of those many left-wing groups that still proclaim the need for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of the working class by violence if necessary? Should they all be arrested?

Well, of course not. But what of the historians who have been peddling lies about the Soviet Union, denying the horrors of Communism and generally abusing freedom of speech? What of Professor Eric Hobsbawm CH, given that honour by Tony Blair?

Throughout his long and distinguished career Professor Hobsbawm belonged to the CPGB (as long as there was a CPGB to belong to) and refused to acknowledge the Joseph Stalin was not the nicest possible man around, who occasionally got a little bit angry but what can you expect when you have the welfare of the world at heart.

Even in recent books Professor Hobsbawm implicitly denied the extent of Stalin’s and Mao’s mass murders, and was all coy about the victims of collectivization imposed by every single Communist tyrant from Uncle Joe to Colonel Mengistu. Far from being disdained, let alone arrested and imprisoned, the good professor is highly feted (Companion of Honour, no less) and his books are required reading by all university students of history.

All this, despite the fact that every single thing the Austrian judge or the British one in the Irving libel case of 2000 said about that wretched man can be said about Professor Hobsbawm (and numerous other, less eminent historians) with a few adjustments: instead of Nazism, Communism; instead of the Holocaust, the purges and collectivization; instead of mass murder, mass murder.

The egregious Theresa Villiers MP tried to deal with that issue on Question Time (I did not watch it as I never watch these things but I am told that she found herself out of her depth in no time at all). As Tory Diary on the Consevativehome blog reported:

“… the Tory MP said that the Holocaust was a uniquely depraved event in human history. She highlighted the fact that six million people had been exterminated in an industrial killing process because of their Judaism, their disability, their ethnicity or their homosexuality.”

Dear me. So an industrial killing process geared to the extermination of millions because of their class (peasantry, intelligentsia), nationality (Chechen, Tatar, Ingushi), religion (just about everybody) is not particularly depraved?

In this connection, let me bring up the argument that it is absolutely right for Germany and Austria to keep the legal ban on Holocaust denial because of their history. Especially, it is right for Austria, who took a very long time to take responsibility for its actions.

As I said above, it was right in 1946. Since then Austria and West Germany have been democracies and have stuck to that. Austria, in particular, has a spectacularly good record in helping refugees from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Balkans who fled the horrors of … ah yes, it was the wrong system they fled from and so Austrian generosity and helpfulness in 1956, 1968, 1980, 1990s cannot be taken into account.

As it happens, I agree that Austria had to acknowledge her participation in many of the horrors of the Second World War. On my last visit to Vienna I was extremely pleased to see that on Judenplatz there was a large memorial to the Jews who had been deported from that city.

The memorial, I believe, went up before the present Mayor of Paris insisted on putting up plaques on various houses that enumerated the number of Jews who had been rounded up in that building and deported.

The ructions in Poland about Polish involvement in the Final Solution still go on. But the answer to all this is not make denial of Holocaust illegal. All that does is writes the so-far accepted version into stone.

To be continued ...

COMMENT THREAD

A man we could do without

The Business has managed a singular achievement today in recruiting an American writer, James Forsyth who, in writing about Jack Straw and his wholly malevolent role in the Iran crisis, seems to display some understanding of British politics.

The piece, entitled The Straw that won’t break Tehran’s back, argues that, to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the West must convince the authorities in Tehran that it is prepared to use force.

But, writes Forsyth, one politician keeps getting in the way of this strategy and making it seem that force would never be even an option: Jack Straw, the UK Foreign Secretary, whose words keep reassuring the Iranians that they can do whatever they want.

The thesis, which suggests that Straw is playing to the anti-war elements in his own party, and his shrinking support in his own constituency, is well argued and convincing, and well worth a read.

In addition, it is also worth remembering that Straw is a man who, at best, can be described as having very poor judgement, viz his recent visit to Tehran. It was while there that he shook warmly by the hand Esfandiar Rahim Masha'ie (pictured), otherwise known as “the Butcher”, for the cruelty he exhibited in Tonekabon in the 1980s.

Forsyth suggests that Blair should reshuffle Straw at the earliest opportunity. Until he is removed from the foreign office, it will be impossible to persuade Iran president Ahmadinejad that the West is serious about him acquiring the bomb, thereby making armed intervention more likely.

That is too kind a fate for Straw, but at least it would be a start. He is truly a man we could do without.

COMMENT THREAD

I knew it… I just knew it!

In complete vindication of our piece posted on 25 January, when we reported that the UK was getting set to dump the US Joint Strike Fighter, the Financial Mail today leads its front page with "Anglo-US defence deals in jeopardy".

Britain, reports the Mail, "may consider buying up to 150 French fighter jets for two new-generation aircraft carriers scheduled to go into service with the Royal Navy in 2013".

Never mind that the in-service date is a tad optimistic, the substance of the Mail piece is that the "unexpected verbal offer" to buy Rafale marine jets "came on 24 January when defence secretary John Reid met his opposite number, Michele Alliot-Marie, for crucial talks in London".

This is precisely the event which we reported – an event ignored almost completely by the MSM – when the French unexpectedly caved in on the price for using the UK design of the proposed carriers, actually offering more than the asking price.

We also reported at the time that the deal was completely unexpected by the officials involved in the talks and concluded that "fairy-tale endings like this do not happen in real life." There was, we averred, "a very strong smell of a side-deal which has not been disclosed."

And now it has come to pass that there was a side-deal, or the makings of one – exactly as we suspected – with Reid agreeing to consider the offer made by Alliot-Marie. Says the Mail, "even agreeing to give the proposal serious consideration could be seen as a major snub to the Americans, whose relations with the French on defence are strained".

Of course, if the MSM had had its wits about it (stop giggling at the back), it would have put two and two together, not least the otherwise inexplicable manoeuvrings of Tony Blair on the second engine for the JSF, which looked to us like he was struggling to invent an excuse for refusing to buy the aircraft.

One thing - amongst several – the Mail gets wrong is its claim that the UK will now consider cancelling the JSF contract. As it stands, of course, no production contracts have been signed. Completion on these is scheduled for November of thereabouts. Thus, the UK government is playing its options in a "window of opportunity" between now and then, when it must make a firm commitment to the JSF or withdraw from the project.

Cited by the Mail as one of the reasons why the UK might wish to pull out is the continuing problems with technology transfer, the Americans being reluctant to release technology to the British for fear that it might end up in the hands of the French and thence be passed to the Russians and the Chinese.

This is an issue we have rehearsed many times on this blog, most recently here, but if you need any more reasons why the US is entirely justified in its suspicions, The Business provides more evidence of the growing closeness between the Russian and French Aviation industries.

This must be read in conjunction with our story on 22 August last year when we remarked on the tie-up between EADS and the Russian MiG company, aimed at developing high-performance UCAVs. Knowledge of JSF stealth technology would, of course, be invaluable to the French in progressing this project.

All together, therefore, the report in today's Mail is of considerable importance and it says something that, although it is given some prominence, it is still confined to the business pages. This points up the utter inability of the MSM to understand the significance of what is going on, an inability which is reflected in political (and especially Conservative) circles and, unforgivably, much of the Eurosceptic community.

Blinded by current – what might be called "legacy" - commitments, where our armed forces are working in close harmony with the US in the Iraqi and Afghan theatres, they fail to realise that the gradual realignment in defence procurement, detailed in my CPS pamphlet Wrong side of the hill, sets the tone for the future. Blinded by the short-term, commentators are failing to see the longer-term trends.

That longer-term trend is a closer alignment with European Union member states, and especially with the French, involving the progressive severing of military ties with the United States. The fracture will be brought about by procurement decisions that have yet to take effect but which will have a vital influence on future military and political decisions. All this is happening in front of our noses and yet, as we have remarked so often on this blog, there seems an almost wilful refusal to join up the dots.

The myopia of the Conservatives is illustated by the comment in the Mail piece from their defence procurement spokesman, Gerald Howarth, who bleats: "This shows the danger of the American refusal to give us the technology. They could drive us into the arms of the French".

This is a line Howarth has taken consistently, marking his refusing to acknowledge that the US reluctance to share technology with us stems from their observations of our closer defence ties with the French and other European countries, the EU enthusiasm for lifting the Chinese arms embargo, and the risks of technology leakage to the Chinese.

The JSF, therefore, is very much the litmus test. If the UK does walk away from this aircraft and buy Rafales, then at least what we have been warning about will be out in the open - not that it will make a blind bit a difference to what The Business today calls: "the dim-witted Tories".

COMMENT THREAD

...while Rome burns

Not that we think that the intervention of the EU would actually do any good in any number of the burning issues of the day but, even if you take its ambitions of being a world power seriously, you can only stand back in amazement at the amount of fiddling this construct is doing.

The latest grave and weighty matter that is occupying this "world power", consuming countless hours of expensively-paid bureaucrats' time, is the definition of vodka.

This, according to Farming Life is the issue of the moment for the Agriculture Council, which has the Polish delegation, supported by the Danish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish, Swedish and German delegations, arguing over "the importance of restricting the current definition of vodka" in the commission's current proposal on the definition, description, presentation and labelling of spirit drinks.

Well, I suppose that if an agreement on the definition of vodka prevents Germany going to war with France – or vice versa – it will all have been worth it but, somehow, it is a little difficult to see the relevance of such a grave and weighty development.

COMMENT THREAD

The fifty-year old speech

It still stirs up controversy and excites strong feelings. People may no longer faint but they grind their teeth and pummell the floor in frustration. Or they grind their teeth silently and hope that they can just wish it all away. But it will never disappear and the world will never go back to February 24, 1956.

Fifty years ago, on February 25, 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, mounted the podium to give his report on the final, closed session of the party’s Twentieth Congress. It was, to put it mildly, an unusual report.

Instead of the expected boasts and admissions of failure (to be blamed on someone else) Khrushchev delivered a four-hour long speech in which he denounced what he first referred to as the cult of personality that had grown up around Stalin. In effect, he denounced Stalin and some of his crimes.

The speech concentrated on the purge of the party and the destruction of the Communist cadres through “glaring violations of revolutionary legality”. Little was said about the many millions of other victims but there were references to the destruction of the agriculture (and by inference, of the peasantry), to Stalin’s grave mistakes in the Second World War (the full horror of that is still largely unknown in Russia), the deportation of whole nationalities at the end of the war and the paranoia of the doctors’ plot.

Like a good Soviet apparatchik, Khrushchev made no references to the largely anti-Semitic nature of the second purge, which was gathering momentum as Stalin fortuitously (or, perhaps, not) died. But he did quote Stalin’s instructions on how to extract confessions from the various highly placed medical specialists and their assistants, all of whom had been arrested: “Beat, beat, beat and beat again”. Few survived.

It is said that the speech produced an unprecedented effect. People fainted in the hall. Supposedly secret, the speech was passed on to some Soviet and East European organizations. It was also smuggled out by one or two of the foreign Communist leaders who had been present. (One, the leader of the Polish party had a heart attack and died.)

The Poles passed the speech on to the Israelis, who passed it on to other western countries. Very swiftly, the so-called secret speech was known all over the world, though in the Soviet Union its existence was denied till the late eighties when it was finally published.

As an analysis of the Soviet system or, even, of Stalinism, the speech was inadequate. It concentrated on the crimes committed against the Party, leaving out the other victims. It created the illusion that the whole monstrous system had been created by Stalin and a few of his henchmen, some of them still around and, by a strange coincidence, Khrushchev’s rivals for power.

There was no reference, for obvious reasons, to Khrushchev’s own involvement in the ferocious Ukrainian purges or the use of slave labour to construct many new parts of Moscow and, above all, the Moscow metro.

Still, with all its inadequacies, the speech was stunning and its effect felt all over the world. It caused the Sino-Soviet split that followed in 1960. Closer home, it created disturbances in Eastern Europe that culminated in the Hungarian revolution that autumn. Though put down quite ferociously, the after-effects remained. Never bright confident morning again.

In the Soviet Union there was an attempt to losen the rules. The small measure of artistic freedom that we know about came, in fact, after the second, even mosre shattering, as it gave more details, anti-Stalin speech at the Twenty-Second Congress of 1961.

People had been gradually released from the gaols and the gulag since Stalin’s death. Now the process was speeded up though it was never a complete one. Other people were arrested. Some of those “illegally repressed” were rehabilitated and they or their families were given certificates to that end. Most, on the other hand, had to wait for several decades.

There was a half-hearted attempt to investigate the murder of Kirov (known to all to have been done on Stalin’s orders), which had triggered off the Great Terror of the thirties but it came to nothing. It was finally completed and Stalin’s role admitted under Gorbachev.

The greatest effect of the speech was in the West. There was uproar in all the Communist Parties with hundreds leaving, feeling that they had been cheated and humiliated.

Others, who had known some or all of the truth, felt cheated that it had now come out and their word would no longer be accepted, their honesty doubted. For years they had denied the horrors of the Soviet system and fought to destroy the good name of anyone who had tried to tell the truth. (These are the people nowadays described as innocent vicitms of McCarthyism.)

The good times were over – they would have to try that much harder and weasel their way through words that much faster to be believed. Fortunately for them, the Left, after the first shock continued to prefer the Communist explanation for everything.

An even bigger problem faced the fellow travellers, the people who had mindlessly accepted all assurances, who had used their authority to support what was now acknowledged to be the truth. Some never quite recovered. Others, again after a decent interval, found themselves another foul murdering regime to be a fellow traveller of.

It took another three decades for the Soviet system to collapse. Communism has not gone yet and the full truth about it has not been told in Russia and several other countries. Even in the West the reluctance to acknowledge the horror of the other totalitarian system is prominent as we cling ever more despairingly to the idea that nothing could have been as bad as Nazism and no crime as vile as the Holocaust.

Yet the work that was started in a somewhat incomprehensible fashion by Nikita Khrushchev fifty years ago has to be completed or we shall never rid ourselves of the incubus of the twentieth century.

We have understood and tried to overcome the horrors of Nazism, though there is a sad reluctance to see its human causes; but not until the horrors of Communism are fully understood; not until its widespread influence is acknowledged; not until our leaders and our media stops finding excuses for the heirs of Stalin (as Yevtushenko called them) or, more precisely, the heirs of Lenin; not until then shall we be able to move on.

COMMENT THREAD

You're too kind Neelie

This week, there has been much ado about the threat to close upwards of ten thousand rural post offices, causing much distress to their customers.

The story was broken by the Daily Mirror on Tuesday, after questions had been raised by "Post Office boss" Adam Crozier about the fate of the annual £150 million subsidy paid by government to keep the post offices open.

Now, courtesy of The Scotsman, we learn that the munificent European Union has stepped in, earning itself the headline: "EU's £150m lifeline will save rural post offices from closure".

Casual readers might think that the EU has actually coughed up with some money – not that it is theirs to give anyway – but scrutiny of the story reveals the sad truth. The "EU lifeline" is nothing more than approval given by the EU commission to our own government, so that it can spend our money on the post office subsidy.

Before British ministers could expend this money on a vital social service, they had to go grovelling to Brussels in order to convince the commission that the subsidy did not amount to "unfair state aid".

So much for the might of the United Kingdom that it thus depended on Dutch EU commissioner Neelie Kroes, who runs the competition portfolio, to give her gracious permission, which indeed she has, stating, "I am satisfied that the funding is proportionate to POL's public services obligation. I am happy to endorse a measure which will benefit British consumers in rural areas without distorting competition."

You're too kind Neelie.

COMMENT THREAD

This is news?

Hold the front page! "BNP to print Muslim cartoon leaflets", reports Reuters, oddly enough datelined Wednesday but only appearing on the Google news site today.

The story is picked up breathlessly by the BBC website, which repeats verbatim the Reuter's story, citing a "party spokesman" who said they had printed the cartoons to provoke debate. "We published the cartoon not to offend individual Muslims - that's most important - but to make a stand for freedom," he said.

There is a ritual condemnation from the loathsome Ian McCartney, Labour Party chairman, who condemns the leaflets as "straight out of the Nazi textbook". But then, he would know all about that.

Anyhow, so much for news. The leaflet appeared on the BNP website on 17 February, a good five days before Reuters picked up the story, and it was reproduced on this blog the same day.

Nice to see the MSM is on the ball.

COMMENT THREAD

Barking mad?

Not content with having seriously affected the mental stability of a significant proportion of the population – as is evident, at times, from our own and other EU-related forums – it appears the European Union, having in part been responsible for the problem, is now making a pitch to take an active role in countering "mental ill health" in the "European" population.

Not by any stretch of the imagination could anyone suggest that this is a core function of the EU – or would even come onto the horizon when we joined what many thought to be a trade club back in 1972 – and there is not one whit of a mandate to address this issue in any of the treaties.

But never mind, at the fag end of last year – and just publicised in the current edition of the EU sponsored Eurohealth magazine – the European Union, bold as brass, published a "Green Paper" entitled, "Improving the mental health of the population: Towards a strategy on mental health for the European Union".

Without even blushing, in this document it then calmly lays out "the need for an EU-strategy on mental health", arguing that its intervention would "add value" to member state activities, not least by "creating a framework for exchange and co-operation between member states", "helping to increase the coherence of actions in different policy sectors" and opening up "a platform for involving stakeholders including patient and civil society organisations into building solutions."

And if that leaden jargon does not send you mad, what will?

Neverthless, on the basis of this, the EU commission proposes an EU-strategy which, inter alia, will aim to "improve the quality of life of people with mental ill health or disability through social inclusion and the protection of their rights and dignity".

Given that the EU is struggling mightily to improve the quality of life of people without mental health problems, pace the Lisbon strategy, it is perhaps a tad ambitious of it to attempt to deal with people who might be even less responsive to its blandishments. Its ambition might, however, suggest that the first place the Commission should seek improvements in mental health is in its own ranks.

Perhaps it is relevant to recall in this instance one of my own – of many - visits to mental institutions (in a professional capacity, of course). In this instance, I was with a group of people carrying out a study, lingering at the tail end of the group as we processed through the hospital.

In one ward, a patient saw the group and walked smartly up to me, looked me squarely in the eye and pronounced, "You are a c**t!" I remarked later that, with that degree of perspicacity, he was probably the sanest man in the hospital.

He was certainly saner than these self-seeking EU bureaucrats, whose untrammelled ambition knows absolutely no bounds.

COMMENT THREAD

One day we shall reform it

We shall reform the UN one day. Honest we shall. Well, not tomorrow, of course, or the day after or even the year after. In fact, according to Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, the Jordanian Ambassador to the UN, it will take several years. I am not holding my breath even about that.

His Excellency was speaking about the UN peacekeeping operations. Just to remind our readers: “The 18 peace missions worldwide employ 85,000 staff from over 100 countries, with a budget of nearly $5bn.”

There has been a certain amount of trouble about many of these, particularly in DR Congo and the Balkans. They had abused their position and, indeed, had abused sexually many of the people they were supposed to protect. Rapes of children and the purchase of sex for food (hardly more than rape) had been reported, though apart from one French officer who admitted his misconduct nobody was punished or even investigated.

The argument, as I recall, was that most of those troops had gone home and if the UN started dragging them back and investigating them, next time there would be no troops. One begs leave to doubt this, as a large proportion of the peacekeeping troops do the “work” for money, being much better paid than their comrades who stay at home.

Still, a system of complaints was introduced and, miraculously, some people have taken advantage of this. According to the BBC World Service Website:

“Jean-Marie Guehenno [head of peacekeeping operations] said the UN had investigated 295 cases under a new reporting system introduced last year.”

It is not clear from that statement whether all the cases were investigated or not; nor can we tell what the outcome of the investigations was. My assumption is that nobody was punished even if the report proved to be accurate.

Mr Guehenno made some other interesting comments, none of them particularly hopeful for the unfortunate people in the countries where there are UN peacekeepers:

“Allegations being lodged against UN peacekeeping personnel remain high and unacceptably so.” [Presumably, only a small proportion of those who have been abused or exploited do actually lodge allegations.]

He also noted

“… how hard it is to change a culture of dismissiveness, long developed within ourselves, in our countries and in the mission areas”.

That is a damning indictment. Even more damning is the comfortable assurance that it will take years to change this culture. As the blog Captain’s Quarters comments:

“So what's supposed to happen while the UN continues its weak efforts at reform? Do refugees need to literally hide the women and children when blue-helmeted soldiers appear on the scene?”

Let me add two more comments of my own, both drearily repetitive.

Firstly, imagine if these statements had been made by the Pentagon or any American commander. Picture the outcry in the media and the salivating details produced by the “outraged” journalists. As it is the UN, well, not much will be written about it.

Secondly, let us not forget that the organization that has happily lived with this culture of “dismissiveness” and is still unable to bring any kind of control over its peacekeeping troops’ behaviour, claims moral authority as a potential world government and present source of legality.

COMMENT THREAD

Where did we go wrong?

With the Turkish Army on the process of re-equipping and developing into a formidable modern force, an intriguing report appeared recently in DefenseNews, which harped back to another story on which we reported back in September last.

The report itself simply confirms that which we reported earlier, that Turkey’s procurement authorities have now formally launched bidding for the local manufacture of new-generation main battle tanks. This is a reversal of the initial gush of Euro-enthusiasm after it had been agreed that Turkey could commence entry negotiations, when there were reports that the Turks would equip their army with surplus German Leopard II tanks.

The significance of this move is obvious, in that Turkey is hedging its bets on joining the EU, and is maintaining a degree of strategic independence, to the extent that it is permitting only companies based in Turkey and owned more than 50 percent by Turkish entities to bid for the tank programme.

But if this is significant in Turkish terms, it also points up the stark contrast with the British arms procurement policy and, on the broader front, they way we have treated our defence manufacturing industry.

While the Turks, who have a limited industrial base and no previous experience in building such highly complex weapons such as main battle tanks, are setting about gearing their industries for the task of indigenous supply, the UK – with a long traditional of industrial excellence and, as the inventor of the tank in the First World War – now feels it necessary to go to Sweden for its new generation of armoured vehicles, which are to form the background of the FRES programme.

Similarly, while successive governments have felt it necessary to embark on European collaborative schemes in order to equip our front-line fighter squadrons, France – supposedly the most Euro-enthusiastic of all nations – has maintained its own independent aviation industry and is equipping its squadrons with home-built Rafale fighters.

Amazingly, even Sweden, with a population size of less than greater London, is able to produce its own fighter aircraft – currently the Gripen (illustrated) – perversely in partnership with the British-owned BAE Systems, a company which has not been trusted to produce aircraft for our own forces.

On the ground, we have a country with an automotive industry that also stretches back to the invention of the horseless carriage. We have a population with good engineering skills and world-class designers, with plenty of spare capacity and good infrastructure, yet our government chose to equip our Army with Austrian-built vehicles rather than allow them to be home-produced, thereby turning its back for the foreseeable future on maintaining a domestic military vehicle industry.

How is it that the UK, again with a small-arms industry of long antiquity, cannot support even the one factory needed to supply its own armed forces with rifles? For sure, Germany maintains its own manufacturing capability, but how come such industrial giants like Austria and Belgium can maintain world-class industries of their own, despite not having armies worthy of the name?

Then, when it comes to ammunition and explosives, why do we need to go to France and Germany for our supplies? Why is it not possible for British industry to survive on the orders from the most active and heavily engaged armies in Europe?

And, as for ships, why is it that France, Italy and Germany have the capability to build their warships and support vessels in-house, and Spain is able not only to supply her own navy but maintain an active export industry – selling to Australia amongst others – yet our shipyards are so run-down that our government needs to consider awarding contracts for our replenishment vessels offshore.

These are the basics but a country which claims to be a high-tech, advanced nation, also has to go offshore for its missiles, for its mine countermeasures, for its anti-battery radars – despite having invented radar - and, latterly, its helicopters. Never in the history of the UK have we ever been so dependent on offshore suppliers for our weapons than we are at the moment.

In following the twists and turns of this and preceding UK government’s procurement policies, we have of course, focused on the European dimension, and in so doing have been accused of distortion, and worse. Not a few of our critics have suggested that turning away from European suppliers would simply make us even more dependent on the US, which could be just as bad.

But what the Turkish decision points up, therefore, is that other factor – the strange destruction of our own defence industries, which has left us dependent on foreign suppliers, which are increasingly of European origin.

To some extent, we know that the wind-down has been influenced by European policy, not least in shipbuilding, where the UK government has cut back subsidies while other member states have continued theirs, and we know that certain politicians have show more than usual enthusiasm for integrating our defence industries – Michael Heseltine comes to mind.

And it is on these issues that we intend to focus some of our energies, to develop this theme future posts.

COMMENT THREAD

It ain't all schools 'n' hospitals

Remarkably, in a Mori poll carried out for The Sun today, "defence/foreign affairs/terrorism” were regarded as the most important issues facing Britain today.

These issues were offered spontaneously by 34 percent of the respondents questioned and compare with the NHS/Hospitals at 33 percent, race relations/immigration at 30 and education/schools at 25 percent. Crime/law and order comes in at 28 percent. And, for all the leftie breast-beating about Kyoto and global warming, "pollution/environment" scored a mere eight percent.

Given that the political classes spend most of their time telling us what they think is important, with public services at the top of the agenda – which must have an effect on public sentiment – the prominence of "defence/foreign affairs/terrorism" speaks volumes. It suggests that the likes of Cameron, who puts "environment" at or near the top of his own personal agenda, may be more out of touch than even we believed.

This might explain why, according to this poll, the Conservatives have slipped back in the popularity stakes to 35 percent, down from 40 percent in January, with Labour remaining static at 38 percent.

This, however, contrasts with the The Telegraph YouGov poll, which puts the Tories slightly in the lead at 38 percent, compared with Labour's 36 percent.

Even that, though, is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Boy King and, as The Telegraph says, "Voters think Cameron has a credibility gap". Perhaps if he focused on some grown-up issues – as indeed the public seem to be doing – he might fare better.

COMMENT THREAD

Metric kills

The UK Metric Association was having a ball yesterday, urging the government convert all road signs to metric in time for the 2012 Olympics. Typically for the genre, it argues that failure to do so risks Britain being seen as a backward nation clinging to an awkward and outmoded measurement system.

Quite why this "failure" – or, more accurately, refusal – to adopt an arbitrary system of measurement devised during the French Revolution and imposed at the point of a gun by Napoleon should be so devastating is hard to see, especially as the richest economy in the world remains staunchly Imperial.

Anyhow, The Times suggested that any changeover could be an "Olympic task" as the Department for Transport claims it would cost £750 million to install new signs and £10 million to publicise the change.

This is disputed by the Metric Association, which believes that it would cost only £80 million, or 0.27 percent of the annual roads budget, if the investment and conversion were spread over five years.

But their jewel in the crown is the Republic of Ireland, which converted its road signs to metric a year ago, increased its 70mph motorway speed limit to 120km/h, or 75mph. The 60mph limit on single carriageway roads became 80km/h, or 50mph.

The Metric Association reminds us that, while British transport ministers have tended to argue that a metric changeover would be confusing for older drivers and could result in crashes, this was not the case – they claim – in Ireland.

To support their case, they called in aid Ann Cody, the "road safety" official who oversaw the change in the Irish Republic. She said that there had not been a single serious incident in the past 12 months, adding: "There were many scare stories before the switch, but the danger never materialised."

Er… what price then The Irish Times which on 21 December 2005 reported that in a reversal of the long-term trend, road fatalities had gone up dramatically for the second year running.

And, while Garda figures showed that 2005 was the worst year for fatal road accidents since 2001, when 411 died, what is especially significant is – according to the Irish Examiner - that, despite a reduction in the speed limit, following the conversion to a metric system, the incidence of speeding on regional roads increased dramatically.

Incredibly, the number of drivers who exceeded the speed limit on rural roads rose to 63 percent in 2005 compared to just 8 percent in 2003 when a new points system was introduced. Average speed in built-up areas was 65km/h, 15km/h over the speed limit.

Looks to me that the Irish took er… an Irish view of the new signs, taking the new signs at face value – the face of their existing speedometers, calibrated, of course in miles per hour. It seems also that, contrary to what its advocates claim, metric kills.

COMMENT THREAD

Frattini has a way with words

Only IrelandOn-Line and EUObserver reported the interesting news that the EU justice ministers have decided not to go ahead with the plans to harmonize rules to do with defamation in the media.

Teresa Küchler reports in EUObserver:

“The proposed law aims to define which national law applies in disputes where individuals or companies from different countries are involved, including non-EU member states. However, ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday (21 February) decided to postpone the law after it became clear that unanimous agreement would not be possible.”

There were many problems with the whole issue, as various journalist organizations pointed out:

“Media organisations, NGOs and politicians warned of damage to the principle of freedom of speech, arguing that a Swedish newspaper, for instance, could be sentenced according to Syrian or Pakistani law following a law suit on defamation from a citizen in either of these countries.

Critics also pointed out that an inconvenient practical consequence of the commission proposal would be that media in one country would be obliged to have knowledge of all other countries' media laws - which would be impossible to oversee.”

Commissar Frattini promised that they would harmonize whatever they can and, as for defamation: it would not be swept under the carpet, just more time was needed.

There is just one problem with that. According to Reuters India for January 31, the Commission had decided then to “scrap a bid to define common rules on which national legislation should apply in cross-border media defamation cases”. In which case, what were the ministers discussing and what was not going to be swept under the carpet?

COMMENT THREAD

Harris on Cameron

Over the years of its existence Prospect magazine has published very few pieces that have strayed away from the "consensus" in the media and the political world. One of them is in the March issue.

Robin Harris, the erstwhile Director of the Conservative Research Department and adviser to Margaret Thatcher, gives his opinion on David Cameron and the direction he is taking the party. It is not a jolly read but I am sure people who visit this blog can take it.

Apart from anything else, Harris informs us that he gave Cameron his first job in the CRD "after some judicious prodding from a royal equerry".

Harris thinks that Cameron has not only underestimated the results of his own continuous U-turns but is in danger of misunderstanding Gordon Brown.

"Cameron, though, is right about one thing. Brown is in many respects "very much a 1980s politician," in some ways temperamentally similar to Thatcher, who dominated that decade. It is significant that Brown has publicly praised her record while the Tories have sought to disavow it.

Like Thatcher, Brown is immensely able, a workaholic, driven by values inherited from a Protestant upbringing. He believes in duty, work, effort, merit. He is serious about politics and contemptuous of those more interested, like his next-door neighbour, in the trappings of power. He is passionate about improving the lives of those at the bottom of the pile. One should also add that Brown is 100 per cent wrong about how to achieve these noble goals."

As Harris says,

"Having abandoned the issues of immigration, crime, Europe and tax as distastefully populist, the Tory manifesto may look a little thin."

All they will be relying on is Gordon Brown's unpopularity. If they get that wrong, they are in trouble.

COMMENT THREAD

A spy in the camp

UKIP members have long been tearing their collective hair out – those members that had any – at the lacklustre performance of their UK press office, which seems never to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Headed by one Mark Croucher, former Labour activist, its staff was enhanced by the addition of another activist after the Party shot to fame and glory in the Euro elections, a certain Stephen Sobey, who also styles himself the Honourable Stephen Sorbey-Nevill.

The Hon. Stephen however, seems somewhat camera-shy and the only shot of him in existence on the UKIP site has since been withdrawn – not that it was any use anyway, as this recovered image shows. Sobey is the one with his back to the camera (although another photo has come to light - see right).

Now – in the best tradition of all good spy novels - it appears that there was good reason for Sobey's reticence. Having now left the "employ" of UKIP, he has rejoined his original employers, Conservative Central Office, leaving his days as a Tory mole behind him.

COMMENT THREAD

The ultimate indignity

Not a murmur could be heard when the British Army decided to buy Austrian-built MAN trucks for its supply fleet, or Italian-built Panther liaison vehicles. That the new army is to be supplied with Swedish-designed armoured vehicles, fitted with French-built guns firing ammunition manufactured in France is a mere detail.

Who cares that our anti-battery radar is made in Germany, that the air-to-air missiles to equip the four-nation Eurofighter are French designed, as indeed are the missiles fitted to our Type 45 destroyers? And what does it matter that our new "bunker-buster" missiles are German, as indeed is the Royal Navy's mine-counter-measure equipment?

Why should we be bothered that we no longer have a capacity to design and manufacture even the rifles with which our troops go to war, that the bullets they fire are contracted out to foreign firms and the shells are made in Germany, while the troops themselves will fight in Chinese-made uniforms?

But there are limits chaps and, according to The Scotsman, those limits have been reached. "Shock! Horror! Probe!", screams The Scotsman: "Scots super-regiment to be kitted out in foreign kilts".

And right behind the newspaper is Jeremy Purvis, Borders MSP, who says, "The kilts are clearly going to be sub-standard. Now there will be different cuts and shades on parades and it will be an embarrassment. The ceremonial Scottish wear of kilts and trews should absolutely be made in Scotland."

In detail, it appears that the British Army has lowered the standards required of ceremonial kilts for the new amalgamated Scots regiment so that they may be manufactured from cheap tartan made abroad. In "an effort to drive down costs", the Ministry of Defence has announced it is putting the contract to produce tartan for the amalgamated Royal Regiment of Scotland up for tender.

It is also, says The Scotsman, lowering the standards of the tartan's quality to allow other companies producing cheaper, lower-grade cloth to compete against the expertise of Borders textile companies. The MoD has launched a competitive tender allowing any manufacturers to compete for the contract of 5,000 kilts, estimated to be worth £300,000, for the new regiment.

And there you have it. It is perfectly all right to have our armed forces totally in hoc to foreign suppliers, to such an extent that we cannot so much as put a foot ashore on a foreign land without their governments' agreement. But even think about having Scottish regiments in foreign-made kilts and all hell breaks loose.

COMMENT THREAD

Festung Europa

Two good articles in The Telegraph today (don't get excited – they're in the business section), one headed 'Fortress Europe' under attack and the other, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard bearing the headline: Spain toys with protectionism.

The first story homes in on criticisms from "British MPs" who complain that European countries are behaving "foolishly and disgracefully" by using anticompetitive legislation to protect their biggest companies from foreign takeovers.

This criticism comes in the wake of a spate of foreign takeovers of large British businesses such as mobile phone company O2, ports operator P&O;, plasterboard maker BPB and logistics firm Exel, while Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is considering the use of a "golden share" - or other measures - to block a €29.1bn (£19.9bn) bid by German utility E.on for Spanish power company Endesa.

Additionally, France has brought in a new "poison pill" law to raise the cost of hostile bids and try to force companies to merge on a friendly basis. This is a move that has been condemned as an "atomic weapon" by French legal experts. Charlie McCreevy, the EU's single market commissioner, agrees, saying it was "contrary to the spirit of the movement of capital".

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard picks up the Spanish practices, giving more detail on the bid for Endesa, and adds that Poland is blocking a takeover of Bank BPH by Italy's Unicredit in defiance of Brussels. The moves, writes Ambrose, make a mockery of the EU's Lisbon agenda to close the economic gap with America by tearing down barriers.

He also cites Zapatero saying that his government would respect commercial practice in the E.On bid but only where this could be reconciled with "national interest". "Markets are very important but the citizens are even more important," the prime minister has declared. "Germany may be interested in having big national companies: so is Spain," he adds, insisting that Spanish energy holdings at home and abroad were a matter of legitimate "state interest".

We are left with Charlie McCreevy crying in his cups, saying that he was dismayed by the drift back towards rigged markets, and complaining that Europe risked degenerating into a protectionist backwater. He is backed up by Paul Hofheinz, head of the free-market Lisbon Council in Brussels, warning that the EU was facing a resurgence of "economic nationalism".

Whichever way you cut it, this does not bode well for the European dream. Faced with the reality of European economic integration, one by one the "colleagues" are diving for their national bunkers and manning the guns on the sea walls.

A united Europe? My a**.

COMMENT THREAD

Another day, another failure…

When it comes to long-term strategies, the EU is a by-word for failure, its much-vaunted Lisbon strategy having degenerated into a hollow joke, inviting cruel sniggers every time it is mentioned.

Less dramatic – and considerably less publicised - is the EU's European Road Safety Action Programme, launched with a somewhat subdued fanfare in September 2001 with the aim of halving the 50,000 road traffic fatalities in the EU 25 to an annual rate of 25,000 by 2010.

Now, halfway through the period, the EU commission has published its mid-term review, claiming that improvements had been achieved, in that the number of road fatalities had been reduced by by 17.5 percent during the past four years.

On the other hand, it has been forced to admit that it was not likely to achieve its 2010 goal. "At present rate," the commission concedes, "road deaths in the European Union in 2010 are likely to stand at 32,500".

Interestingly, far from enjoying reduced accident rates, in some member states, they have actually increased. The culprits area all new accession states, with Cyprus leading the way, but Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and the Czech Republic all show significant hikes in their death tolls.

And, despite the camera-driven reign of terror on British roads, with the obsessive focus on speed, the continued downwards trend in road deaths has slowed, the UK delivering a six percent decrease compared with an EU25 average of 14 percent, the latter figure taking in the member states where casualties have increased.

Having come late into the field, despite road safety having become an EU competence with the Maastricht Treaty in 1990, the EU has so far promulgated relatively few laws (see here) but, it warns, the Commission "will now give consideration to additional measures within the framework of the mid term review of the Transport White Paper". You have been warned.

The photograph, incidentally, shows what is left of a Ford Fiesta XR2. The driver survived the crash.

COMMENT THREAD

In perspective…

Given the synthetic fury engendered in the Muslim world by the Danish cartoons, it is highly significant that we should now read reports of "tens of thousands of people" staging protests across Iraq after a bomb attack heavily damaged one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, the al-Askari shrine in Samarra.

It is also significant that the blast occurred early this morning and, within hours, there were demonstrators outside the mosque waving Iraqi flags and calling for justice.

In addition to these demonstrations, in Basra, gunmen attacked Sunni mosques and exchange fire with guards at an office of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. Businesses shut down in Najaf and about 1,000 marched through the streets, waving flags and shouting slogans. Markets, shops and stalls closed in Diwaniya and a Mehdi Army militiaman was killed in clashes after gunmen from the faction attacked Sunni houses.

Inevitably, it seems on these occasions, where about 3,000 people gathered in the Shia city of Kut, demonstrators chanted anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans and burnt US and Israeli flags.

Nevertheless, the scale and true spontaneity of these responses is a far cry from the "slow burn" response to the publication of the Danish cartoons, which did not take off until four months after the event. That sort of puts the "Cartoon Wars" into perspective.

COMMENT THREAD

A MARS away…

In DefenseNews this week, we see a story headed: "No UK Shipyards Picked for MARS Program", a headline – or anything like it - I guarantee you will not appear in the MSM.

Very few people, in fact, will know anything of the MARS programme and many would be puzzled by the reference to shipyards, believing that it somehow related to an aspect of the space programme.

However, we are dealing with yet another of these awful acronyms which, in this case means "Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability", a £2.5 billion MoD project for replacing and upgrading the support fleet which keeps the Royal Navy supplied while at sea, examples of which are ilustrated.

What brings this project to the forefront is that, after a delay in the decision to award development contracts – which we reported last October - the MoD's Defence Procurement Agency (DPA) has now announced its selection of three companies to compete for the role of project integrator on the project.

Crucially, no British military shipbuilding company has been selected, the companies announced, reports DefenseNews, being the British project management company AMEC and two US giants: KBR, an offshoot of Halliburton; and Raytheon Systems. The UK shipbuilders BAE Systems and the VT Group were rejected. But then, so were the French-owned Thales UK, Maersk and Houlder Offshore.

The appointment of "project integrator", in itself, gives no clues as to where the ships will be built. The "integrator" is a fairly new development in defence procurement, involving a company which essentially acts as a surrogate purchaser for the MoD, pulling together all the disparate parts of a project and delivering the completed systems to their user – in this case the Royal Navy.

The "systems" we are looking at here is a complete fleet of logistic ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, although the numbers and types so far have not been defined. But it is expected that about eleven ships will be built, ranging from oil tankers to sophisticated forward aviation support vessels and joint sea-based logistic ships able to support expeditionary forces ashore.

And while it has not been which companies will build the ships, the strong suspicion is that they will be built offshore. Lord Drayson, stated on 15 February that British warship yards seeking the orders would have to achieve efficiency levels similar to commercial rivals overseas.

This, in effect, is a strong signal that these ships will be foreign-built, following the precedent set by the order of a fisheries protection vessel last year by the Scottish Executive, which went to a Polish shipyard in preference to a local Scottish firm.

Industry analysts say that, while BAE and VT have greatly improved efficiency, they cannot offset the substantial advantages commercial builders find in low-wage economies like Poland and Romania. In 2002, BAE delivered two 30,000-ton fleet tankers to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary for £110 million apiece. This time, the DPA has set aside only about £80 million for each of the 25,000-ton oilers.

This very much underlines the thinking set out in the recent Defence Industrial Strategy, which opened the door to less complex vessels like auxiliary and support vessels going overseas to reduce costs.

If, as expected, the construction does go offshore, to one or more European yards, it will mark yet another step in the gradual Europeanisation of our military supply programme.

The problem for us, on this blog, it that rational arguments can be expounded for this, and many other defence procurement projects being resourced offshore.

In this case, particularly, there is no question that Polish or other European yards would be able to build these ships far more cheaply than our domestic yards. Further, our remaining military shipbuilders are undoubtedly stretched by the current Type 45 programme and the coming carrier project, so it could be said that there is little spare capacity for this project.

Nevertheless, whatever the individual justifications for specific projects – each one of which may be valid taken in isolation – there is definitely an observable and undeniable trend.

Basically, the evidence that we have offered on this blog is that government is committed to Europeanising the equipment of our armed forces, in pursuit of which - whenever possible – it will purchase European-built (or designed) equipment, even where a domestic supplier is available or a non-European product is considerably cheaper or better-performing.

There are, however, exceptions to this rule, and these seems to be: i.) where there is no suitable equipment available from a European supplier; ii.) where the equipment is part of an overall "heritage" system, when changing over to a European supplier would cause massive disruption, technical difficulties or vastly increased expense; and iii.) where a European venture has failed to deliver and the equipment is urgently needed.

If the MARS ships do go to European yards, therefore, it does seem as if we will be looking at more of the same, the continuation of a real, but much denied policy of Europeanisation.

COMMENT THREAD

An erosion of consent

It was on 5 February, two days after the Muslim demonstration in London when the nation was scandalised by the hate-filled placards paraded through the streets, that we wrote a piece contrasting the lack of action by the police in this instance, compared with their rigorous and sometime ludicrous application of the law elsewhere.

We cited the infamous case of the student prosecuted for calling a police horse "gay", the motorists who had been fined for making gestures at speed cameras, and even the case of John Banda, the 74-year old Zambian accountant, devout Christian and formerly treasurer of the United Church of Zambia, who had been cautioned by police for reciting quotations from the New Testament in public.

It is now nearly three weeks after the demonstration in London. No arrests have been made and there is no indication that the police intend to take any action at all. Yet, today, reported by the BBC and others is the case of a teenager who has been fined £80 for swearing in public.

This is Kurt Walker, 18, from Deal, Kent, who was issued a fixed-penalty notice after he used the F-word to a group of friends he met in the park. He was on his way to a youth centre where he works as a volunteer when he stopped to talk to friends. "One of my mates said, 'What have you been up to', and I swore when I replied," he said. He was then approached by a female police officer who "slapped on the fine and walked off".

The fine was apparently for breach of the Public Order Act, the fixed penalty notice being issued under the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003.

One can have a little sympathy with the police officer in dealing with a self-confessed foul-mouthed youth but, clearly she gave very little thought to the inevitable comparisons that would be made between her action and the treatment of the Muslim demonstrators.

That comparison underlines one of the key issues in the ongoing debate about Muslim militancy in the UK. What is coming over very clear is that the militant rabble is very much a minority and does not enjoy the support of even the broader Muslim community, much less the rest of the population.

What offends, therefore, is not only the activities of this rabble but the seeming inability of the authorities – the politicians and the police – to deal with them, contrasted with the imposition of an increasingly intrusive and draconian regime on the rest of the population.

This is but one symptom of a growing divide between what we have come to call the "ruling élite" and the rest of the population, the enthusiasm of that same élite for our membership of the European Union being another.

At that level, we can compare the tolerance by our own authorities of placards inciting murder and the EU's latest initiative to ban mercury-in-glass thermometers. In the fullness of time, it will become a criminal offence to manufacture or sell these useful instruments, yet incitement to murder on the streets of London is condoned by our own police - as long as you are a Muslim.

More and more, we find we cannot pigeonhole these apparently distinct issues. The contrasts we have illustrated are all part of a continuum which highlight the increasing gulf between the ruling classes and those whom they seek to govern. Gradually, the doctrine of rule by consent is being eroded, and the treatment of Kurt Walker is but another example of that phenomenon.

COMMENT THREAD

For our next trick…

From the organisation that is going to bring childproof lighters to a town near you, the latest, world-shattering initiative is?

Well, according to Reuters, having thought long and hard about the next vital measure to prevent Germany going to war with France – or vice versa – the EU commission has come up with another absolutely stunning wheeze.

Wait for it, children… it is planning to ban mercury-in-glass thermometers. Now, repeat after me children… mercury is toxic and it poses a risk to humans, ecosystems and wildlife, so we are going to ban it, ban, ban, ban… oh, and barometers and blood pressure gauges as well.

Zeez are a "serious threat to health" schturms Günter Verheugen, EU Kommizar vor Enterprize and Industry. Ziss meazure vill reduce zee amount of toxik merkury entering zee vaste schtreem. Ziss ischt gut vor our volk's health unt zee environment." Unt if you get near zee merkury from zee broken zermometers you vill kause damage to zee lungs, kidneys unt zee brain. You vill die! You vill all die, die I tell you, die!

Dear, dear God. Do these people have nothing better else to do with their time?

COMMENT THREAD

The EU weighs in

Having been largely sidelined in the War of the Danish Cartoons, the EU is limping on to the battlefield. As the poorly attended riots continue in various countries (the Nigerian ones have excited Christian counter-riots and are threatening to develop into a civil war with the connection to the cartoons being visible only to MSM journalists), there have been developments in the EU.

As Gareth Harding of UPI reports, Franco Frattini, EU Commissar for Freedom, Justice and Security spoke at a conference organized by the International Federation of Journalists and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange.

Let us bear in mind that the EU maintains in every document that at the roots of its existence lie the European ideas of freedom and tolerance. Of course, there is the problem of whether the EU exists because it is an expression of those ideas or because it is needed to overcome the many centuries of European history when they were… ahem … ignored. In particular, of course, we have a difficulty with the twentieth century. Was it the pinnacle of European belief in freedom or the nadir of European intolerance and monstrous oppression? Perhaps, if the EU could sort that one out, it would have some sensible views on the War of the Cartoons.

Frattini is as muddled as any of them. On the one hand, of course, he does not really like all this violence and threatened violence.

“No dialogue is possible with those who would threaten fundamental human rights, nor with those who would resort to terror.”

Well, that seems clear enough. He then added:

“Freedom of expression must be defended, possibly most of all when ideas shock or disturb.”

Ah but,

“I would not have published those cartoons. It should have been clear given the broad assessment of context and circumstances.”

Given that the cartoons were published in September and neither the context not the circumstances became difficult till the end of January, it is hard to understand what the Commissar really had in mind. Anything about the Imam Abu Laden’s shenanigans, for instance? Or the fact that very many Muslims do not support the extremists?

“Frattini’s position, which also appears to have the backing of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, is that journalists must impose a form of self-censorship in order not to offend the sensibilities of Muslims, and other religious groups. ‘Any publication and republication must take into account the international political context, in particular the Muslim world,’ said Frattini, pointing out that it was ‘unwise’ for European papers to republish the cartoons just three days after the victory of the militant Islamist group Hamas in Palestinian elections and following recent remarks about Israel and the Holocaust by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

So much for freedom of the press. If it looks like there might be trouble anywhere in the world, exercise self-censorship. If people are making nasty and unacceptable comments … hide.

It would have been fun to have Frattini and his cohorts around in the 1930s or, come to think of it, the 1970s. Mr Hitler is annoyed. Please do not make matters worse by publishing cartoons. Don’t upset those Soviet leaders, please, please. Exercise some self-censorship while you bear in mind the international situation.

Unsurprisingly the IFJ and the American Cartoonists’ Rights Network waded in against Frattini. Robert Russell, president of the latter even asked whether Picasso should not have painted “Guernica” or Goya not drawn his cartoons or Theo van Gogh not made his film.

Not sure what Signor Frattini’s answer would have been to the first two of those questions but I would guess that he believes Theo van Gogh to have brought it all upon himself by not taking the context and circumstances into account.

COMMENT THREAD

UKIP gets good publicity

Even UKIP seems attractive to the MSM, as it begins to wake up to the probability of the BNP benefiting from the politicians’ inglorious behaviour in the War of the Danish Cartoons as well as the concerted and Gadarene-like rush to the middle ground.

Possibly, UKIP has only just woken up to the fact that they missed out on the events of the last few weeks, engrossed as they have been by the NEC elections and an inability to make up their minds on the crucial problems thrown up by those events.

Still, better late than never, and I suspect that we have the new chairman, David Campbell Bannerman, an offspring of a political dynasty and a former activist in the Conservative Party, to thank for this rush of relative sanity.

UKIP is following advice given to it some time ago and has effectively renamed itself as Independence Party, without changing the official moniker. The point that makes is not the rather silly one of not being just negative in the future but that there is a link between national and individual independence.

It also makes sense for UKIP to try to pick up the disaffected Tory vote, both middle class and working class. There are ever more people out there who do not feel that the party of the Boy-King and his courtiers speaks for them or to them.

After all, if one wants a statist, high-spending, over-regulating, Europhile party that pays no attention to foreign policy or defence and thinks Kyoto is the bee’s roller skates, well, there are plenty to choose from (three, to be precise). No reason to suppose, the Tory toff will win over the Labour toff or whoever will take over the Lib-Dims.

So it makes sense to go for that vote. David Campbell Bannerman and Nigel Farage must be patting themselves on the back as the positive reporting unrolls. They must be hugging themselves with delight when they read this sort of comment from Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley:

“I've every sympathy with their view on Europe, I'm just not sure what it is they're trying to achieve.

They'd be much better off remaining a pressure group.

Shouting from the sidelines with five per cent of the vote doesn't seem like a particularly constructive way of advocating their cause.”

Well, I don’t know how to begin explaining matters to Mr Davies but it seems to me that what UKIP is trying to achieve is quite simple: getting more votes that, in normal circumstances, would go to the Conservatives. They might reach 5 per cent but the aim must be to climb higher. Whether they succeed is another matter but Mr Davies is right to be worried.

Given Mr Davies’s own principled stand on the EU (he wants Britain to come out) and various other matters, it would obviously be unfair on him if his votes started trickling to UKIP.

Presumably, as he has stated his views on Britain’s independence publicly, UKIP will be sensible enough not to put up a candidate against him.

On the other hand, perhaps Mr Davies and one or two of the more intelligent Tory MPs will go to the caucus around the Boy-King (I understand he himself is not available to ordinary MPs even when he is not on paternity leave) and point out that, as Simon Heffer indignantly asserted in today’s Daily Telegraph, the core Conservative vote cannot be bought by being sound on hunting and Europe.

In any case, as the Boy-King has made no comments about Europe or, even, the European Union, except for that almost-forgotten promise about taking the Tory MEPs out of the EPP, this cannot be used as a means of holding on to the core voters.

So what are those UKIP policies in full?

They are moving into five areas: education, international trade, immigration, tax and the structure of government. Whether these are the particular issues people will be voting on is impossible to guess but they are probably the ones on which some kind of consensus was reached within the UKIP hierarchy.

In education the policies appear to be an idealized version of the 1944 Education Act, with considerably more choice for parents and schools than that piece of legislation gave. There is no mention as to who would actually be running schools and whether vouchers are a good idea – that would be a step too far, one suspects.

Apprenticeships are to be restored and, one presumes, technical schools come under the heading of parental and school choice.

Tertiary education proposals are something of a mess – abolition of fees and restoration of grants might be a little too expensive and would retain state control of universities. No mention of technical colleges or polytechnics and while they are promising to restore academic excellence there is no real explanation as to what should be done about the various recently introduced or upgraded so-called university courses. Or, for that matter, with the various recently upgraded so-called universities.

On international trade, UKIP will seek to restore the UK’s ability to negotiate trade agreements. As the primary goal remains exit from the European Union, restoration of international trading ability must follow automatically.

The other two points, alas, mean well but remain somewhat muddled:

“UKIP will work to achieve preferential trade agreements for Commonwealth and least developed countries

UKIP will seek ‘Trade alongside Aid’ with the Third World”

What on earth makes people think that the Commonwealth is in any way a going concern? Countries like Canada or Australia are unlikely to be interested in preferential trade agreements with Britain, having long ago developed their own, quite separate trade policies. And what are preferential trade agreements with least developed countries? Allow them to remain protectionist? Even the UKIP luminaries should realize that is a recipe for disaster.

The last point about trade alongside aid is meaningless. In fact, it is no better than the waffle the Boy-King has produced.

On immigration they come up with several ideas for controlling and directing immigration, that are, at least, worthy of discussion. Whether numerical equilibrium or zero net immigration is achievable or desirable remains moot.

The idea of a “Britishness” test is a joke. We have it now. It is stupid and meaningless. But then, UKIP is not tackling the biggest problem of all – the people who are already here and bear not affinity with this country or its culture. In fact, as we have written before several times, the problem goes even deeper: what is that culture, what is that Britishness that people must become part of. So far, there have been no acceptable definitions or, even, descriptions. (Please don’t tell me it’s about kindness and tolerance. One quick glance at the forum on this blog, never mind the UKIP forum, would disabuse anyone of that idea.)

On tax, UKIP talks the sort of sense one would like to hear from the Tories but is not going to. They espouse flat tax, which may not be everybody’s idea of the right answer. On the other hand, some of its aspects, simplification, higher threshold, no double taxing, should appeal to most people (except employees of the Treasury and tax accountants).

Finally, there are the ideas for changing the system of governance with emphasis of restoring England’s rights in the post-devolution country. This is clearly an idea that is being buried by the main parties but will have to reappear at some point. Why not now?

The other points – more local democracy, a part-elected, part-appointed House of Lords/Senate, strengthened House of Commons, country-wide Secretaries of State, all sound like a rag-bag of ideas put together by people who cannot really agree what it is they want to see but think there may have been a golden age in British politics.

We need to see details of all those proposals as well as of the one about “real” local democracy and, speaking for myself, I would like to see a little more courage and imagination. It is possible to move forward without looking backwards all the time.

All the same, however much one may carp, UKIP or the Independence Party has now set out its stall to attract the core Conservative voters (to be fair, most of them are not likely to be very bold or imaginative in their political ideas but might respond to those suggested to them).

How will the Tories respond? Will they simply ignore this, relying on their mantra: Tory core voters have nowhere to go? If so, they may be in for another rude shock.

Then again, will the UKIP leadership carry its membership? Judging from the comments on the UKIP forum, which I scan very cursorily, they live in a completely different world from the rest of us and even half-way sensible policies will be unpalatable. Possibly, the UKIP leadership does not care all that much about the denizens of that forum.

COMMENT THREAD

We don't do action

In a clear snub to the European Union, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki has today announced at a press conference in Tehran that Iran will no longer conduct negotiations over its nuclear programme with the EU-3. "The phase of negotiations with the EU trio is over," he says.

This is according to Ankronos International, which cites Mottaki declaring that: "From now on, we will talk to the whole of Europe, but on a bilateral basis. We will resume discussions with individual countries on the basis of shared interests and in mutual respect, without preconditions."

As for the agenda, the foreign minister is quoted as stating that, "The next round of talks with a European partner should start with ways for Iran to enrich the uranium it needs run its nuclear power plants."

This follows on from Mottaki's "whirlwind visit" yesterday to Brussels, when he talked to Javier Solana, spoke in four press conferences and addressed the foreign relations committee of the EU parliament.

Such reports of that visit that we got from the MSM – for instance here - mainly featured a call by Mottaki for an end to the violent protest over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which is a bit rich as the Iranian protests have been entirely orchestrated by the state.

Clearly, though, this was grandstanding for public consumption, and whatever discussions that went on behind the scenes were clearly not successful, with Mottaki now – in demanding bilateral talks - effectively refusing to recognise the EU as a representative body

The Brussels talks themselves were a risk for the EU, with Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post expressing "disappointment" that the EU was holding them at all, officials saying that this was the time to disengage from the Iranians, not enter into a dialogue with them. The talks, said the officials, represented "negative movement" because they created the impression among the Iranians that they still had some "wiggle room."

To add to the EU’s discomfort, the European Jewish Press reports that the European Jewish Congress is to file a complaint urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to bring Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to trial for incitement to genocide.

The EJC initiative was adopted by an extraordinary meeting of the EJC's general assembly meeting Sunday in Vienna, Austria, which is doubly embarrassing for Austria, current holder of the EU presidency, contrasting as it does with the jailing for three years of 67-year-old David Irving for holocaust denial.

And, showing up the EU still further, EJC president, Pierre Besnainou, who represents 40 leaders of national Jewish communities in Europe, is promoting a resolution in the EU parliament calling for the Iranian President to be made persona non grata ad personam, within the 25 EU member states. "None of the member states should invite the Iranian president," Besnainou says. "We are asking the EU rather for action than declarations."

That really puts the EU on the back foot. In its bid to be all things to all men, it is now getting flak from opposite sides of the divide, where its declarations no longer impress. As for action… well, that's another matter entirely. As Barroso might have said, "we don't do action".

COMMENT THREAD

Les saboteurs

There is definitely a stench of death about an organisation that is at one so pusillanimous about confronting the torrid flow of hatred emanating from the Mad Mullahs and, on the other hand, is ready to dash into battle to extend its protectionist mantle over the decaying shoe industries of France and Italy.

Anyhow, after the "bra wars" of last summer, the IHT and many others tell us that the European Union is gearing up for a new trade war, the only type it will ever have to guts to fight.

This time, instead of bras and knickers, it is shoes – la guerre des sabots – with Peter Mandelson once again in the "firing line" as he steels himself to set out tariffs on produce from China and Vietnam which are accused of dumping cheap shoes on European markets.

At least this time, our Peter will be dealing with items of apparel with which he has some familiarity, although not the kind illustrated. For the media, though, which was clearly titillated by the prospect of being able to plaster "bra wars" over its headlines, this new contest will not have the same appeal.

Neither, it appears, is it appealing to Mandelson who, according to Emma Ormand, an international trade consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, “hates this situation" "He got caned in the bra wars and he absolutely does not want a 'Bra Wars 2,'" she says.

Without compromise, anti-dumping duties could be phased in from 7 April, two days before a general election in Italy, where competition between domestic clothing makers and their Asian rivals is a political issue.

Pity though, that European politicians could not be so robust when it comes to protecting the cultural values of our society, like freedom of speech, but then that would require a degree of conviction and courage which is entirely lacking in a political élite which has lost any sense of direction or purpose. Truly, when it comes to such things, they have become les saboteurs.

Interestingly, in the Arab "culture", there is no greater insult than slapping an object or person with a shoe. Perhaps the "colleagues" should try it, although its meaning may be lost on the Chinese. Or perhaps they should adopt the strange little ritual illustrated above, as practiced by the Shi'ite branch of that wonderfully liberal Muslim religion. I am sure the Vietnamese would approve.

COMMENT THREAD

Will the EU listen?

Through the estimable USS Neverdock I have found a blog run by a Saudi man, who is living in the UK and is, as he puts it himself, not troubled by the Religious Police for the moment. He is, nevertheless, a courageous man or, maybe, just a man who feels that he has to do the right thing, no matter what the consequences might be.

The story he posted on Saturday is quite entertaining.

Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference was calling for an emergency conference. The matter must be of the utmost importance and as the Saudi blogger, the Religious Policeman asks:

“So are they finally going to resolve the Darfur conflict, the Brown-Muslim-on-Black-Muslim genocide that has already claimed an estimated 300,000 lives?”

Will they, perhaps, discuss how to improve the lives of millions of Palestinians by ensuring that they have good(ish) governance, better health care, clean running water and the rubbish cleared away?

OK, none of that. Maybe the conference is to ensure that in future only reasonably well educated and knowledgeable people can become imams, so they do not teach matters that are clearly wrong and have no historical justification in Islam.

No, it is none of that.

“Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, is contacting member states for an emergency meeting of their foreign ministers shortly to discuss major issues including the repercussions of the sacrilegious Danish cartoons.”

Rather unfairly, given the craven behaviour of the European politicians and complete non-existence of a policy on the subject, the OIC is directing its ire at the EU.

As Professor Ihsanoglu said:

“The OIC member states expect from the EU to identify Islamophobia as a dangerous phenomenon and to observe and combat it like in the cases of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, by creating suitable observance mechanisms and revising its legislation, in order to prevent the recurrence of the recent unfortunate incidents.”

I wonder if we could have a little logic here. Islamophobia does not mean hatred of Islam but fear of it. The OIC, it seems, wants to combat European fear of Islam. But what is it all those placards carried in the various demonstrations said? What was it the mobs that were burning flags, embassies, McDonalds, whatever came their way yelled?

That Islam will triumph; that annihilation was coming to all who opposed it; that Europe must tremble for the real Holocaust was on its way; that there will be many more bombs and planes. All, surely, meant to induce fear (let’s face it, as far as the British media is concerned, it worked very well). So what is wrong with fearing Islam?

Judging by previous witterings by Barroso, Solana and Frattini, the EU will roll over, tell the various extremists who, as we have seen, do not precisely represent anybody, that yes, they will do as they are told and start various initiatives to combat Islamophobia. They will close down newspapers and banish writers who dare to criticize anything to do with Islam and Muslims. How they can possibly put it into practice remains a mystery.

And, of course, since they are all such buddy-buddies, the EU will ask for various things in return. We shall expect Saudi Arabia to open Chrisitan churches and Sunday schools for those who wish to attend them. After all, the history of the Ottoman Empire and the concept of dhimmitude prove that it is not impossible to have non-Muslim religious groups living more or less in peace in Muslim countries.

We shall expect the Palestinians and the Sudanese and the Iranians to stop persecuting Christians (and killing other Muslims they happen not to like).

We shall demand that anti-Semitic cartoons that depict Israel as the reincarnation of Auschwitz be no longer published in Middle Eastern newspapers.

No? Well, perhaps not. Sounded like a good idea.

COMMENT THREAD

Which way is forward?

To the many who are disillusioned with the major political parties and are looking for a way forward, the affairs of the minor political parties are perhaps of greater interest to us than they are to the bulk of the population.

To that small band, that the BBC's Westminster Hour yesterday wheeled on Nigel Farage was of some significance. Described as "one of UKIP's key strategists and an MEP", Farage proceeded to tell us that the UK Independence Party was in the process of reinventing itself as a right of centre party.

Farage's "cunning plan", it seems, is to Hoover up the votes of the five million disaffected Tories who are left high and dry by the Boy King's lurch to the left, by taking on a range of domestic policies that would appeal to the disfranchised Thatcherite tendency.

The underlying thinking is quite sound, as UKIP has long laboured under the handicap of being a single-issue party, which has limited appeal to the vast tranche of voters who are more concerned with domestic matters when it comes to elections. Broadening the policy base ostensibly gives UKIP a chance to speak on a wider canvas.

Farage's move may be timely as the EU issue is likely to have even less impact in the coming campaigns than it has in previous elections. Not only is the single currency no longer and issue, neither is there the immediate spectre of the EU constitution being adopted. Furthermore, as keen EU-watchers will have noticed – activity on the Brussels front is at an all-time low, with the Union showing every sign of having lost its way.

Perversely, while UKIP is dedicated to removing Britain from EU membership, its electoral success depends on there being a high level of public concern over "Europe". In effect, UKIP needs an active, vibrant European Union and with EU issues sliding down the political agenda, the current level of anti-EU sentiment is not enough to sustain a growing political movement.

In adopting a broader canvas, however, nothing Farage said on the BBC programme indicated that he had perceived, much less understood that the political tectonic plates are moving, not least – in the context of the "Cartoon Wars" - the public concern over the growth of political Islam in this country and abroad.

In fact, having spent much of its recent history expending its energies on convincing the public and the media that it is a "non-racist party", UKIP now appears to find itself incapable of offering a coherent line on the Islamic question, and has opted for a spectator role, leaving the field to the British National Party.

However, there are even greater forces at work which may serve to bury UKIP's ambitions. Looming over us is the unresolved Iranian nuclear question and there remains a prospect that, some time shortly after the Israeli general election on 28 March, a military strike will be launched against Iranian nuclear research and production facilities.

Should that happen there is equally the prospect that the Gulf will be closed down, with a huge and damaging interruption to oil production, on the scale of that experience in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.

Interestingly, one of the most seriously affected casualties of any such interruption would be Japan, which is Iran's biggest oil customer. And, with Japan being the biggest creditor of the United States, the catastrophic effect of an oil blockade could have a major impact on the dollar, precipitating a global currency crisis.

While the dollar economy is so huge that it would most likely weather the storm - albeit sustaining considerable damage – the knock-on effect would be to trigger the first currency shock to the ailing euro, the impact of which could be so great as to demolish the single currency completely.

If the European Union runs to form, it will display its usual inability to handle a major international crisis and we could see a massive acceleration of the slow fragmentation that is already occurring, triggering a cascade effect which could precipitate the collapse of the Union.

Faced with such momentous events, one can imagine that UKIP will be swept aside as people, looking for reassurance and action, turn to their traditional parties for salvation. But, if the economic effects of any crisis are as severe as some pundits are suggesting, this could turn populations against their own governments and, in a re-run of the 30s depression, support for extreme minority parties could grow. Again an obvious beneficiary could be the BNP.

Short of this doomsday scenario, the majority of economic pundits seem to be suggesting an economic downturn and you do not have to be an economist to know that Gordon Brown's spending spree is running into the sand. Britain, along with the rest of the world, is facing lean times and, on top of that, the Islam question is not going to go away.

All of that seem to make UKIP even more of an irrelevance than it is already, which does not seem to offer much hope for the future, when other parties remain so unattractive. That is the conundrum facing contemporary political activists. We all looking for direction, but which way is forward?

COMMENT THREAD

The depths of ignorance

I see the moronic tendency is in full flood in The Daily Telegraph today, with a leader telling us that a "Local sales tax would help local democracy".

The topical hook for the piece is the news that Council Tax is to increase above inflation for the tenth year running. Yet again the bloated ranks of bureaucrats are dipping their hands into our wallets, and again we are expected to pay up, on pain on imprisonment if we do not oblige them.

Not that one disagrees with the general thrust of the Telegraph leader but where the morons doth speak is in their suggestion that councils should raise their own budgets by replacing VAT with a local sales tax (LST), in order to confer local accountability.

This is a lovely idea and one that we would endorse but no one could or should suggest it without also noting that VAT is an EU imposed tax and that member states are obliged to levy it under, currently, the VAT Sixth Directive. To replace VAT, as the Telegraph suggests, would immediately put us in breach of EU law.

There is a possibility, of course, that the Telegraph is merely being mischievous – and no doubt one or more of our forum members will argue thus. Be that as it may, to suggest abolishing VAT without also pointing out the implications and consequences is bizarre.

This leaves the distinct possibility that the leader-writer (and the editors who checked the copy) did not appreciate that we are dealing with an EU tax. And if that is representative of the depths of ignorance in the media, after more than 30 years of membership of the Community, then it is hardly surprising that politics in this country is in such a parlous state.

COMMENT THREAD

Well, now that you mention it, he has no shame

The irrepressible Claudia Rossett has come up with another gem about SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo). Not satisfied with the enormous salary and extensive perks and expenses that he gets for his job, the SecGen has accepted an environmental prize of $500,000.

“Annan received his award at a glittering February 6 ceremony in Dubai, as outlined in a press release from Annan's office that noted the honor, but neglected to mention the half million bucks that came with it. Surrounded by presidents, businessmen, and nearly 130 environmental ministers, Annan collected this purse as winner of the biennial Zayed International Prize for the Environment, given out by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.”

Are we to expect the SecGen to receive and accept prizes of commensurate size from various other member states of the UN? How does this square with his “guidelines requiring staff to report any gifts of more than $250, down from previous guidelines that smiled on the acceptance of doo-dads worth up to $10,000”? Presumably, that is for the lower orders, not for the SecGen himself (or his family).

Ms Rossett notes another interesting aspect to the prize – the jury.

“So entwined were Annan's own U.N. colleagues in the process that selected him for this award that it's tempting to relabel the entire affair as one of the U.N.'s biggest back-scratching contests. Chairing the jury panel, which voted unanimously for Annan, was the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, Klaus Toepfer, and among the jurors was the U.N. undersecretary-general for Economic and Social Affairs, José Antonio Ocampo. Both men owe their current jobs to Annan.

Serving as an "observer" of the jury panel was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akram, who just finished a term as president of the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, which works closely with Annan. On the website for the Zayed prize, the public relations contacts include a U.N. staffer, Nick Nuttall, listed complete with his U.N. email account and phone number at the Nairobi headquarters of the U.N. Environment Program.”

Well, at least Kojo Annan was not involved and there appears to be no mention of a Mercedes.

It seems that the SecGen may have realized (or somebody told him) that this whole charade is not such a brilliant idea, particularly as Dubai was one of the hubs for the oil-for-food scam. So he decided to do something about that or, at least, make an announcement.

“Not unaware of appearances, Annan announced at the Dubai award ceremony that he would be using his prize as seed money for a foundation he plans to set up in Africa, devoted to agriculture and girls' education. To date, he has provided no information about what this promised foundation might be or who will run it, or what perquisites might go to its founder, or to anyone else associated with it. Asked recently for details, Annan's spokesman replied, "When we have more information, we'll pass it on to you."”

Will this be a case of charity beginning at home, one wonders. That’s charity, spelled m-e-r-c-e-d-e-s.

COMMENT THREAD

Speaking of contempt...

You either love him or hate him, or so they say… unless you do neither and just treat the specimen with the contempt it deserves.

We are here speaking of that particularly contemptible brand of politician, the "metropolitan clever-dick", none other than Boris Johnson. He has been roundly caught out by Christopher Booker in his Sunday column, after the "blond bombshell" has penned his usual self-serving dose of drivel in the Daily Telegraph.

Writes Booker:

Boris Johnson MP plaintively described in The Daily Telegraph how, when his office needed a new computer printer, the Commons staff told him that, according to health and safety rules, it was too heavy for them to deliver it. The poor chap had to collect it himself. "Why," he now asks, "is there a law against picking up a computer without proper training?"

The answer lies in guidance to the Manual Handling Operations Regulations issued in 1992 to implement EC directive 90/269 "on the minimum health and safety requirements for the manual handling of loads where there is a risk of back injury to workers".

But of course, as a highly-paid legislator who was also The Daily Telegraph's Brussels correspondent when the directive was issued, Mr Johnson cannot possibly be expected to be familiar with such boring and trivial details.

Johnson is, of course, entitled to play the buffoon but one cannot help but observe that if he spent a little less time on his extra-mural activities and a little more on the job he was paid to do, he might just have some idea of what is going on.

COMMENT THREAD

Totally out of touch

It would not be the first time that we have remarked that our politicians, closeted in the "Westminster bubble" are totally out of touch with public sentiment, not least on the views of the general public on our relationship with the European Union.

Rarely, however, does such a good opportunity present itself to demonstrate quite how divorced from reality these people are, than from a selected cull of news items from three newspapers.

The benchmark for comparison comes in today's Sunday Telegraph, with a piece by Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite, retailing the results of an ICM opinion poll that indicates forty percent of British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country.

Sharia law is, of course, Islamic law, which applies in large parts of the Middle East, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, where it is enforced by religious police. It imposes the dress code on women that we see most notably in the burqua, and the law is enforced by special courts which can hand down harsh punishments which can include stoning and amputation.

Nothing could be further from the traditions of British society and more contrary to the basic precepts of English law, to which effect any suggestion that this vile, alien construct should apply anywhere in Britain is totally unacceptable.

So, given that a significant proportion of a largely immigrant population reject the basic fundamentals of British society, how do the politicians react?

Well, Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, says: "We must redouble our efforts to bring Muslims on board with the mainstream community. For all the efforts made since last July, things do not have appear to have got better." David Davis, shadow home secretary, says: "It shows we have a long way to go to win the battle of ideas within some parts of the Muslim community and why it is absolutely vital that we reinforce the voice of moderate Islam wherever possible."

As for the government, a spokesman for home secretary Charles Clarke adds to this melange by declaring: "It is critically important to ensure that Muslims, and all faiths, feel part of modern British society. Today's survey indicates we still have a long way to go… [but] we are committed to working with all faiths to ensure we achieve that end."

The most visible aspect of self-imposed Muslim separation from British society, however, is the dress code and, if we step outside the foetid confines of the political bubble, we get a somewhat different view. From Taj Hargey, Chairman, Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, Oxford, in yesterday’s Telegraph letters, we get:

Too often, Islam is portrayed as a culture when it is a religion. British Muslims, particularly women, must distinguish between what is culture and what is creed and not confuse the two. The first step in this liberating process is to place less emphasis on customary and cultural clothing in order to be fully integrated, law-abiding British citizens.

Then, in today's Sunday Times business section, in a piece headed: "Immigrant Britain", which applauds the business success of recent immigrants, we get this about one individual, Kuldip Wouhra:

After weeks of failing to find work, he discarded his turban, shaved off his beard, changed his name to Tony Deep and got a job as a bricklayer's mate. "I realised that I would not get a job if I wore my turban," he said. "Your religion is in your heart and mind and that is where you must protect it."

After working as a door-to-door egg salesman, Deep saved enough money to buy his first shop and start a wholesale food business. Within 10 years of start-up in the mid-1960s, it had sales of £5m. Now East End Foods is a flourishing Indian foods manufacturer with a turnover of more than £98m.

But, for the most telling comment of all, turn to the News Review section of The Sunday Times, where you will see profiled, Saira Khan (pictured), a young Muslim women and "loudmouth star" of the television series, The Apprentice.

Over the past weeks, we are told, she has watched the Muslim demonstrations following the publication of the Muhammad cartoons with mounting horror. Her message to Abu Hamza is, "Why are you living in the West? Why don't you go and live in Saudi Arabia?" and to her militant "brothers", she has the following advice:

Being a Muslim in Britain is different from being a Muslim in other countries. I am all for peaceful demonstration. If you live in this country there are democratic ways to behave. If you don’t like it, then go and live in a Muslim country.

Khan then goes on to say that she can say these things, "…because of who I am. Coming from me it can’t be seen as racist".

In fact, though, coming from anyone, it would not be racist, but a simple statement of principle. But such is the emasculation of British politics and the craven politicians who purport to represent us that it takes a 35-year-old Asian woman to articulate that which should have been said out loud for years. Instead, on this and so many issues, we get meaningless platitudes and then they wonder why we hold politicians in such profound contempt.

COMMENT THREAD

Brotherly love

I could not resist the photograph, one of the latest from a batch showing the rioting in Pakistan over the cartoons. It makes quite an interesting contrast with the pussyfooting of our own plods, who are more concerned with how they look on Al Jazeera (except when it's pro-hunting, or anti-globalisation protests - see below) than actually doing the job for which they are paid.

However, after the carnage in Libya, where eleven died riots over the cartoons, the focus of the religion of peace now shifts to Nigeria where, according to CNN, sixteen people have been killed and, in a unique display of religious tolerance, no less than eleven Christian churches have been torched. At least it makes a change from KFC restaurants, I suppose.

The deaths apparently occurred after the emissaries of peace took to the streets to spread their messages of love and tolerance in the Muslim-dominated northern Nigerian cities of Maiduguri and Katsina.

Maiduguri bore the brunt of the violence, and it was there that fifteen people were killed and the eleven churches were torched, with 115 people being arrested. There also were reports of attacks on businesses owned by Christians, as Muslims swarmed through the city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group even threw a tyre around a man, poured petrol on him and set him ablaze.

What would civilisation do without such a peace-loving religion?

COMMENT THREAD

Not quite the tsunami ....

The Philippine mudslide, despite the horrifically high casualty rate, is already sliding down the scale of newsworthy stories. Nor has there been any comment, to my knowledge, about the fact that the slide might have been predictable after two weeks of rain and were there any plans to evacuate the villages in the way. How different from the nasty, gloating and completely misleading reports about Katrina.

Apparently, now 11 other villages are being evacuated. And what of the international help, so badly needed?

Well, the United States has sent two warships, 17 helicopters and 1,000 marines as well as $100,000 worth of disaster equipment immediately to the Philippine Red Cross. Australia has offered an immediate 1 million Australian dollars to be made available also through the Philippine Red Cross “to assist with the most immediate tasks of evacuating survivors, setting up shelters and trauma counseling, as well as meeting the more basic needs of food, clothing and related emergency items”.

Taiwan has donated $100,000, though it is not clear how the money is to be used and distributed. Japan is preparing to provide emergency relief as soon as the Philippine government makes it clear what is needed.

The UN? Well the UN is sending a disaster assessment team. Why change the habits of a lifetime? The International Red Cross has launched an appeal for funds – shades of the post-tsunami efforts. To be fair, it is also sending emergency trauma kits, body bags, flashlights and other useful equipment.

As the Philippine army is involved in the operation we can but hope that there will be no repetition of the scandalous behaviour of at least one NGO in post-tsunami Indonesia, when they refused to let the army any bodybags, face masks or gloves, badly needed for the digging out of bodies. They did not approve of the army, you see.

And the EU? The organization, whose existence is supposed to be entirely in order to spread goodness and benevolence round the world? Errm, we haven’t heard anything from them or any of the member states. Oh no, wait a minute. Spain has expressed sincere condolences.

COMMENT THREAD

Decline and fall

As bird flu climbs its way back up the news agenda, displacing even the continuing "Cartoon Wars" protests, perhaps the most significant recent news is a recent declaration by Italy that far transcends the issue of this encroaching avian disease.

According to The Financial Times, the thrust of the declaration is that the Italian government is prepared to defy EU limits on state aid for farming in order to come to the rescue of its beleaguered poultry farmers.

With Italian consumers shunning poultry meat, as the "deadly" H5N1 virus takes root in Europe, prices have fallen by up to 70 percent and Silvio Berlusconi's government, which is seeking re-election in April, has been under pressure to help farmers.

As a first port of call, Gianni Alemanno, the Italian agriculture minister, has turned to Brussels, asking for permission to double to €40m subsidies earmarked for farmers left with unsold poultry. But such are the electoral imperatives that he has said that, even if the government does not get authorisation, "we will ask the government to go ahead even if it means risking EU sanctions."

The significance of this, of course, is the cavalier way the Italian government seems to be treating its Brussels superiors. It could hardly contemplate doing so if it felt that it was dealing with a virile political entity at the peak of its powers.

In a sense, therefore, we could be looking at yet another step in the decline and fall of the empire, as the margins begin to break away from the centre. This we saw in the collapse of the great Roman Empire. How interesting it is that, this time round, Rome seems to be leading the fragmentation.

COMMENT THREAD

Why do we appease these people?

Odd word, appeasement. Its best-known use is about the British political establishment of the thirties. Appeasement as practised, supposedly, by Chamberlain’s government, led to a misunderstanding of Hitler’s intentions and a refusal to stand up to the bully.

There are various problems with that rather simplistic view. One is that, originally, appeasement grew out of a strong feeling that the terms of the Versailles Treaty were unnecessarily harsh and there was no need to punish Germany to the extent they did. This feeling became stronger as France ratcheted up various demands, marched into the Ruhr in order to ensure the flow of reparations and proceeded to behave extremely badly.

The notion that anything is better than war, which should be only the last resort, is not precisely wrong or despicable. After all, we have heard it constantly in the last few decades. In fact, comments were further. War should not be used even as a last resort according to many a self-appointed commentator, who, no doubt, spits abuse at the very name of Chamberlain.

Most people in Britain preferred not to go to war in the thirties. They recalled the previous war. The politicians who supported negotiations, later called with some justice, appeasement, had been in the trenches, had lost sons, brothers, fathers. The rest of the country shared the mood well into the Second World War.

And what of the Labour Party? Of course, they knew all along, did they not, that Hitler was a menace who had to be defeated at all costs. Errrm no. The Labour Party continued to vote against rearmament under Baldwin and under Chamberlain. Their record on appeasement is considerably worse than that of the Conservatives.

Since then, political record has been patchy. There were Labour and Conservative politicians who were ready to stand up to Soviet bullying and many more who wanted to give in all along the way.

The same is true now and nowhere is it seen more clearly than in the War of the Danish Cartoons.

The rolling protests continue with 11 people killed in Libya by Libyan police. Somehow the whole thing was blamed on an Italian politician, who wore a t-shirt with one of the cartoons on it. Roberto Calderoli, a member of the Northern League, has now resigned in response to pressure form his colleagues.

On the other hand, there has been regrettably little publicity given to statements by Colonel Gaddafi “that one day the Islam will disseminate its power over the European countries”. For the time being, Muslim leaders find it impossible to disseminate their power over their own countries without the use of extreme force, but let that pass.

Meanwhile in another poorly attended demonstration in Pakistan (you can tell that from the angle of the photograph) an interesting placard was being carried by women wrapped in yashmaks.

The emphasis here is on poorly attended. As my colleague has pointed out, all the anti-cartoon demonstrators were sparse, though they made up in violence, both verbal and physical what they lacked in numbers.

As I write, news comes through that super-big Muslim demonstration today, that was going to consist of upwards of 100,000, managed to produce 10,000 at best. The so-called leaders cannot bring out their own people. In the West they are beginning to lose control over their own communities (though there is still a long way to go), as we have seen in Denmark. No wonder they have to scream abuse and demand impossible things, such as that the copyright of the cartoons be handed over to the Muslim community (define Muslim community, I’d say).

How fortunate from the point of view of the various self-appointed spokesmen, extremist politicians and imams that there is a large chunk of western media and political elite that will always whimper with fear and sacrifice anything and anyone in their desire to appease the bully.

In Wednesday’s Guardian, Kiku Day, a student of Japanese music of Danish origin and all-purpose sniffer-out of racism, lambasts Denmark that has, according to her, abandoned its liberal ideas in order to oppress minorities. It does not occur to Ms Day or to the editors of that wretched newspaper, that freedom of speech is part of the West’s liberal ideas.

But then, as Daily Ablution points out, the Guardian continues to publish old Communist sympathizers writing articles about the good side of Communism. Astonishingly enough, these articles are quite long.

Scott Burgess, the blogger, points out quite correctly, that these people do not even believe in the equivalence of cultures – they hate the West and all it stands for, even though it is only in the West they can function with impunity. He also lists some of what the Eurocentric “arrogant provincialism”, according to Martin Jacques, former editor of Marxism Today, consists of:

Abolition of slavery, perhaps for the first time in human history;

Pioneering the ideal of equality for women;

Freedom of expression;

Freedom of religion;

Sexual freedom;

Representative democracy.

As opposed to that, these are the equivalent values in the culture that is so entirely admirable, according to Mr Jacques and, possibly, Ms Day:

Maintaining legal slavery until 1962 (Saudi Arabia and Yemen);

Cultural acceptance of forced marriage, honour killing and female circumcision. Wives may be legally beaten (under Sharia):

Threats to kill for exercising free speech;

Apostasy punishable by death;

Adultery, homosexuality punishable by death;

Fundamentalist theocracy.

So, precisely, why do we appease these people?

COMMENT THREAD

Forum

For over a week now, some forum members have had difficulty in accessing the forum and some have been excluded completely.

We have established that the fault lies not with the forum itself but with an upstream routing server, which is excluding certain ISPs from some providers. We are attempting to sort this out but, in the meantime, one of our readers has offered a solution, which has worked for him as an NTL user. This is as follows:

On the internet home page (Internet Explorer), go to "tools", then click on "internet options", then "Connections". At the bottom is a LAN settings piece, click on the small box where it says "use proxy server........". In the address box put "62.252.160.5" and then in the port box "8080". Click on OK until back to home page.

One other previously excluded member has managed to access the forum by using the website www.anonymizer.com, and using the address bar provided by that system.

Either way, if you are finding difficulty getting on, we hope that one or other of these "fixes" will work. We will keep you informed as to developments.

COMMENT THREAD

Pork barrelling

Continuing the saga of the second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, supposedly due to be cancelled, DefenseNews reports the entirely predictable news that the plan is "flying into flak in Congress".

On 16 February, a Republican and a Democrat on the House Appropriations defence subcommittee questioned whether short-term savings gained by cancelling the contract awarded to General Electric (GE) and Rolls-Royce would lead to a repeat of problems the military has had before with high-cost, poor-performing engines from a single supplier.

"In the long run, it will cost money," Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, warned defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Reverting to a single engine producer for the JSF would mean that GE "will go out of the fighter engine business," Hobson said. And that would mean that the Pentagon would be left to buy thousands of JSF engines solely from Pratt & Whitney. "Congress will have a lot of heartburn over this," Hobson predicted.

Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., reminded Rumsfeld that during the 1980s, the Navy and Air Force struggled with problematic Pratt & Whitney engines until they finally turned to GE as a second source. When faced with competition, Pratt's quality went up and its prices went down, according to defence analysts.

Also joining in are the two Ohio senators, on whose patch 800 GE workers are employed. In a letter dated 8 February, they warned that: "Eliminating the second-source engine for the JSF ultimately could lead to a reduction in overall engine quality and noncompetitive pricing." These were Senators Mike DeWine and George Voinovich, writing to Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "History proves that dual-source competition produces a better, safer, more reliable and less expensive product," they wrote.

They also warned that cancelling the second-source engine contract would mean "General Electric will be forced to exit the fighter engine arena," leaving the Defense Department with only one source "for all its future fighter engine needs. This is not sound business."

And this is only the start of the political in-fighting. By the time it is finished, gift-wrapped new engines will be pouring out of Ohio, a pork barrel with every one.

COMMENT THREAD

A tale of two parties

This weekend, while upwards of 100,000 Muslim protestors are expected in London to demonstrate against the Danish cartoons – or so the organisers claim – hundreds of BNP activists will be quietly going about their business, delivering a newly-published leaflet (illustrated).

The leaflets will be delivered to thousands of homes throughout England, targeted mainly on the areas in which the BNP expect to win seats in the forthcoming local government elections.

Prominent on the leaflet is the BNP website address, where browsers will find a plausible-sounding address from Nick Griffin. And, as the campaign heats up, he will no doubt be quick to point out that, whereas he is due to be retried on 15 May – 11 days after the election - for "seeking to incite racial hatred", so far not one of the Muslim placard-bearing demonstrators has yet even to be interviewed by police, much less charged.

The disparity of treatment allows the BNP to report that it is "riding a wave of sympathy", with funds from well-wishers flowing in at a record rate.

The campaign will no doubt be assisted by another leaflet, in which the tactics of the BNP seem to be to turn the local elections into a "referendum" on the growth of Islam in Britain. Given the outrage caused by the 3 February Muslim demonstrations, there is every indication that this tactic is going to have some success.

However, the BNP will not be the only minority party fighting the local government elections and one such, the UK Independence Party, will be making its bid for more seats. But, whatever its message might be, its visual image is dominated by the likes of this demonstrator, photographed outside the Houses of Parliament earlier this week, illustrating (below) the face of Euroscepticism that many believe is all too typical of the genre.

On the other hand, when it came to reacting to the Muslim demonstrations, UKIP failed to respond, invoking questions on its unofficial forum, asking whether the party would issue a press release. It took three days for the party then to issue a statement, through its leader Roger Knapman, but of such blandness that it rightly failed to make any impact.

To be fair, UKIP was not the only party to duck the issue, the Conservative response initially being less than robust and, to this day, the Boy King has yet to make a statement.

But it is the political vacuum created by the inactivity of the major parties that the smaller parties hope to exploit and, on this questions, it is the BNP that has made the running. UKIP is trailing behind. To an extent, the two parties compete for the same segment of the electorate and it is certainly the feeling that some of the BNP vote contributed to UKIP's electoral success at the Euro-elections.

Now, it seems, the positions could be reversed. And, if BNP does enjoy significant electoral success on 4 May, it will have that much stronger a platform from which to campaign for the following elections, possibly giving UKIP a run for its money. That party may thus find that while, in general, silence is golden, when it comes to politics, it is not such a good idea.

COMMENT THREAD

Another transnational initiative runs into trouble

The Globalisation Institute reports approvingly that St Bob Geldof has joined Transparency International to head a study group that will look at aid delivery and how to tackle corruption. As readers of this blog know, we take the view that the first thing to do if you want to tackle corruption is cut back aid to non-existence. Unfortunately, even Transparency International is unlikely to acknowledge that.

As I recall, one of the policies St Bob advocated vociferously and tearfully, one that was adopted at the ill-fated G8 meeting in Gleneagles, was the cancellation of debts of various poor countries, most of which were in Africa.

At the time there were many warnings about this idea, not least from African and South-East Asian writers. This was seen as an inducement to international fecklessness; a discouragement to countries that had tried very hard to pay their debts by reforming parts of their economy; and an unlikely help to the people of those poor countries.

In fact, several of the countries that were lining up to have their debts cancelled, such as Uganda had already had a “one-off” debt cancellation. Now they were going to have another one. And, presumably, another one in a few years’ time.

According to Richard Rahn in yesterday’s Washington Times, a scandal is brewing in connection with the agreement being put into practice. Well, so what, you might say. Another dog bites man story. This one is quite interesting.

One of the countries on the list of those that wants its debts written off is the Republic of Congo (capital Brazzaville), which just happens to be one of the most corrupt states even in Africa.

The Sunday Times reported last week that its president, Denis Sassou Nguesso, ran up a £169,000 bill in a New York hotel during the last UN summit, £100,000 of which he paid in cash. His country, in the meantime, is rated among the poorest in the world. Clearly, what the West needs to do is to give the man more money to spend in nightclubs and other, more questionable, establishments in the United States.

Whereas, as Richard Rahn points out:

“Most serious analysts of the failures of development aid, including a number of government commissions, not only identified corruption in recipient governments as a reason the aid programs failed but, in fact, found the projects actually fueled additional corruption and increased the plight of the people. The only responsible course the donor nations could take was to make future aid and debt writeoff conditional on first cleaning up corruption.

Hence, the IMF, World Bank and the donor nations were charged with certifying that the debtor nations had cleaned up their acts before relief was provided.”

The Republic of Congo has done nothing of the kind. There is no proper budget, no transparency, no way of finding out where the money goes until it turns up in a hote in New York.

“The independent auditors, KPMG, cannot certify Congo's accounts because the country will not provide access to books and records; and it appears about a third of the oil revenue has not been properly accounted for. Congo's prime minister admitted after the London court judgments use of "unorthodox" accounting procedures (i.e., theft).”

There is a good deal of noise from organizations such as Global Witness not to write off Congo’s debt until there is some evidence of improved behaviour.

On the other hand, there is also a great deal of pressure from certain countries to go ahead and certify the Republic of Congo of being worthy of a debt cancellation and, if needs be, increased aid.

Here is the crunch. Guess who is leading this campaign?

“To no great surprise, the French are behind the effort to certify Congo, because it is a French client state, the French oil company "Total" lifts most of the oil, and France has other strong commercial and banking interests there.”

So we sit back and wait to see whether the United States government, the European countries and organizations such as the IMF will live up to all the fine words about the need for honesty and anti-corruption drives.

Or will they, once again, succumb to the “we must do something” mentality and hand over large amounts of taxpayers’ money to be used as seen fit by the fun-loving president of the Republic of Congo and help French commercial and political interests.

COMMENT THREAD

Rot in peace

If, over the last couple of days, you have been watching media coverage of Euro-land, you have a right to be confused, writes David Rennie for the Telegraph.

He is, of course, referring to the recent passage through the EU parliament of the Services Directive and the climbdown by MEPs, which has led to conflicting claims as to the importance of a measure that has largely been eviscerated.

Actually, though, we are not so much confused as bored witless. Even to suggest that the serpentine proceedings of the EU invoke about as much interest as paint drying is grossly to exaggerate their dynamism. Reporting on them is about as attractive as chronicling the stages of the rotting of a corpse. We all know it happens by few people want to watch it.

That we are looking at a corpse – the decaying remains of the Monnet vision of European unity – is more or less confirmed by the Telegraph leader. This reminds us that freedom of movement for services is among the principles of the Treaty of Rome, the founding document of what is now the European Union.

Signed in 1957 and still at the heart of the current treaties, this embodies the principle of outlawing discrimination on national ground. To that effect any one member state imposing restrictions on the provision of services by other members has been contrary to the treaties – and therefore unlawful - for nearly fifty years, of for whatever period individual member states have belonged to the Union.

That the EU commission ever saw the need to produce a specific directive to force the issue, therefore, says legions about the commitment of member states to the process of integration. Effectively, they are all for it until it affects the interests of their populations to the extent that there is real, popular resistance – whence national politicians dive for cover and opt for the quiet life.

It was this phenomenon that we noted in our commentary on the ports directive, where we expressed the view that the great European experiment was reaching the limits of integration.

How interesting it is that the resistance stiffens once the effects of integration become visible, thus underlining the essentially anti-democratic nature of the "project" although it is doubly interesting to see scandalised European politicians refer to the rejection of their ideas as "populism".

Anyhow, the process of rotting is a cumulative process and, in the early stages, the corpse is still recognisable for what it once was – so we will continue to see elements of the integration process struggle up for air, like maggots emerging from the flesh, but the experiment is all but over. The world has moved on and no one can anymore see the link between allowing Polish plumbers free access to the market and keeping Germans from slaughtering Frenchmen, or vice versa.

Should I still be alive to see the final collapse, and be able to record the turning points, one of those will be seen to be the emasculation of the Services Directive. May it rot in peace.

COMMENT THREAD

Building bridges

Former US president Bill Clinton has said the publication in the West of cartoons satirising prophet Muhammad was a mistake. So we are lovingly informed by the BBC website which goes on to tell us that Bill - "I never had sex with that woman, period" – Clinton also said an opportunity to build bridges between the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds had been lost in the way the dispute had developed.

Clinton made his comments in Pakistan as he was launching an HIV/Aids project, taking the time out to tell hacks that: "I strongly disagree with the creation and publication of cartoons that are considered blasphemous by the Muslims around the world." He had "no objections to Muslims who were demonstrating in a peaceful way their convictions" but thought the cartoons issue was "also a great opportunity which I fear has been squandered to build bridges."

Not sure he's right about the bridges. The US Army still has available quite a lot of the beasts illustrated. Methinks it's not the bridges that are a problem, but what comes trundling over them afterwards.

COMMENT THREAD

Well said!

At least The Times is not going straight down the line of this mindless American-bashing which the Lefties so love to do. This is from today’s leader:

If Europeans want the US to take more account of their concerns, they should take more trouble to appreciate America’s instinct and intent. Neither is always right, but there is far more thought in US policy than the moaners would credit.

There is a grave danger in this visceral hostility. The number of Americans who believe the US should mind its own business and let other countries get along on their own has leapt in only three years from 30 to 42 percent. Mr Bush has set himself against this new isolationism and against trade protectionism, for which there is an increasingly powerful lobby in the US. The worst that could happen is that critics of American engagement might just get their wish.

I don't even want to look at the Guardian, much less the Independent. We will, therefore, just endorse the view of this leader: "...it is, therefore, a critical time to stand up to those who would caricature the country. And in doing so to cut through the emotive, hyperbolic and infantile manner in which the US is portrayed, not just in the Middle East, but also throughout Europe."

COMMENT THREAD

A world gone mad?

Compare and contrast, 608 articles on Google covering the UN's report on Guantanamo Bay, 1,420 covering the three-year-old photographs of Abu Ghraib prison and fifteen – all Australian – covering this story

The report is about John Dauth, back in Canberra after four-and-a-half years as Australian ambassador to the UN in New York. He has said that the gridlock in the General Assembly means the UN is close to becoming an empty shell like the League of Nations. "The General Assembly is defunct," Dauth says. "No debate there carries with it any practical action or decision or agreement or compromise. "And if the heart of the body, if the core of the apple, is rotten, eventually the rest of the apple will be rotten too."

This is one tiny pinprick but entirely in keeping with a whole rash of reports which confirm that the UN is an irredeemably corrupt and useless organisation. Furthermore there cannot be anyone who is media and politically savvy who does not know this.

Of course, to admit as much would not fit in with the media legend, which needs to paint the UN as a sacred institution, wholly above criticism, in order to pursue its agenda against the United States.

Knowing this, you do not have to be a wholehearted supporter of the US to recognise that the UN report stinks. The United States itself has dismissed most of the allegations as "largely without merit" and White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said that it is "a discredit to the UN". It is hard to disagree.

The worst of it is that, tomorrow, the print media is going to give wall-to-wall coverage of the report, acres more than it will have ever given to the Oil for Food scandal and other UN disgraces.

No one is going to hold that the United States administration is perfection incarnate, or that it has necessarily handled the Guantanamo Bay issue particularly well, or that the Abu Ghraib affair is anything but a disgrace, but this does not excuse the totally disproportionate feeding frenzy upon which the media is currently embarked.

It would not be the first time, therefore, that we conclude that this world is going (has gone) seriously mad. The real question though, is does anyone really care? On this blog, we sometimes feel we are like the little boy with his finger plugging the hole in the dyke, only this time there are leaks springing up all over the place and no one is rushing to help.

On this, I intend to ponder, not least on whether braving the continued immersion is worthwhile, when it might be better to be tucked up warm in bed for that short time until the dyke collapses.

COMMENT THREAD

New Abu Ghraib shock

A decision by an Australian television network to release more images of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has set off a debate over the willingness of many media organizations to carry the gruesome pictures when they chose not to publish controversial cartoons depicting Mohammed.

In the meantime, this dramatic new photograph has emerged, certified as absolutely genuine by Danish imam Abu Laban, showing a prisoner being forced to carry a humiliating banner which clearly contradicted his innermost religious beliefs.

In London, UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour told the BBC that she was scandalised by the picture, which conveyed a slogan that no genuine Muslim could ever consider carrying unless forced, under threat of torture, by these filthy American, capitalist pig dogs, which only went to prove that these despicable lackeys…

The BBC later apologised for an unscheduled break in transmission.

COMMENT THREAD

Low-life scum

It is through a vigorous but peaceful dialogue of opinions under the protection of the freedom of expression that mutual understanding can be deepened and mutual respect can be built. I am fostering and will continue to foster dialogue between cultures and with religions.

José Manuel Barroso

As Iraqi politicians debated the formation of a government on Wednesday, the Pak Tribune reports, a wave of gun and bomb attacks killed at least 16 people in the capital, including five children.

Three children were killed and two wounded when a bomb exploded outside the Karama primary school in the Saydiyah neighbourhood of southeastern Baghdad. A second roadside bomb killed two children and wounded four more in the Fadhl neighborhood.

Six police officers and a civilian were killed in separate attacks in Baghdad, and in what has become an almost daily event, police found the bodies of four Iraqis who had been handcuffed and shot in the head.

You do not, of course, get this sort of information from the BBC, which is still wetting itself with excitement about the "new" Abu Ghraib prison photographs, taken three years ago, having led its news bulletins this morning with the cod UN report about "torture" in the Guantanamo detention camp and devoted most of the lunch-time bulletins to discussions about the report.

Are we so inured to the carnage that what appears to be the deliberate targeting of children by terrorists is not thought worthy of even a passing mention on the news broadcasts? What of our values when the contrived fury of Islamists over the publication of some relatively inoffensive cartoons captures the world's headlines?

More to the point, how can we even have a sensible debate when the BBC and its fellow-travellers cannot even bring itself to label as terrorists the low-life scum who murder children and other innocents, and insists on calling them "militants", while the EU and the rest of the tranzies rush to appease the scum who, in the name of their dysfunctional religion, claim the moral high ground?

COMMENT THREAD

Too little, too late

As the high-octane furore of the "Cartoons War" winds down, only now does EU commission president stick his head above the parapet, finally to make a statement.

So far down the line is he that few media sources have bothered to report it, one being the International Herald Tribune, which tells us that Barroso has declared that Europe now had to fight for its core European values, including freedom of speech. "We have to stick very much to these values," he says. "If not, we are accepting fear in this society."

Had the man issued his statement last week, it might have had an impact but, with media interest decaying faster than the half-life rubidium-82, it has thudded out with all the dynamism of a lead balloon.

At least, however, El Presidente has made a statement, which is more than can be said of the Boy King who is now grabbing the headlines with his new sprog. But the public memory is long, and his inability – or unwillingness – to take a stand will not be forgotten.

Interestingly, both the Conservative Party and the Commission have one thing, at least, in common – their members commonly complain about the poor press they receive yet, in this "Cartoon Wars" they have both made the mistake of failing to stand up and be counted when it mattered.

And, while the Commission is darting off to create another communications strategy, so too are the Conservatives having, according to The Times despatched one of their number to the United States to study "how to adapt the aggressive internet campaign tactics used by US Republicans" in the last presidential election.

They could have saved their money. Any successful blogger will tell you that to get the hits, you need to get in first, you need to be controversial and you must have passion. The problem for the Conservatives and the commission, however, is that they fail on all three counts. Looking to exploit new media or create new strategies is not going to improve things.

Instead, they are doomed to replicate the Barroso experience, coming in with too little, too late.

COMMENT THREAD

Chose your demonstration

Over four months ago, a newspaper hitherto largely unknown outside Denmark published some cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. So, over four months later, we get three days of "spontaneous" rioting in Pakistan in protest, during which the demonstrators trash a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and burn an American flag. Yea, right. I'm impressed.

Even the BBC website is getting a little chary, although it like others have noted that five people have been killed in the riots in two major cities. With public as well as private property worth millions having been torched.

Buildings have been burned in Lahore and Peshawar, including cinemas, a theatre, banks, mobile phone outlets, fast food restaurants, the Punjab assembly building, petrol stations, music and video shops. Most of the vehicles set alight were motorbikes, which are owned mostly by lower middle class people. And, of course, there has been the ritual flag burning but, it seems, without the skills of the Gaza Ladies Sewing Circle, they had to make do with Old Glory.

Meanwhile, some 20-25,000 protesters, mainly French and German, took to the streets in Strasbourg yesterday, over the Services Directive. They complained loudly and volubly outside the EU parliament about “social dumping” – Eurospeak for letting Polish plumbers and other unspeakables do jobs cheaper than their featherbedded counterparts in Old Europe. Democracy-loving Daniel Bohr of French union CGT, wearing a bright red T-shirt with a picture of Argentine revolutionary hero Che Guevara, spoke for them all, declaring that the directive "would destroy the rights of workers."

According to contacts in the parliament building, no one actually noticed the demo and, although there was a vote, no one can remember what it was about. Still, in that hothouse, it is very difficult to keep track of things but there is general consensus that most MEPs voted to support the general agreement, whatever that was – except of course those that didn't.

And, while the democrats were at play in France, between half a million and 800,00 Lebanese packed into Beirut's Martyrs' Square in the city centre. This was an anti-Syrian protest to mark the anniversary of the murder last year of the former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and the biggest gathering since a street uprising in the wake of Hariri's assassination brought down the government and forced Syria to withdraw its troops after a 29-year occupation.

Many of those packed into yesterday demanded the resignation of President Emile Lahoud, a Syrian ally who has held on to his position despite months of criticism. Many complain that Syria still exercises considerable influence in Lebanon.

They waved their own flags, Christians and Muslims together, chanted their chants and listened to the son the former prime minister. They then went home peacefully with not a single embassy burnt or car torched.

And so, another day, another demo. What do you do for an encore, one wonders.

COMMENT THREAD

Two wheels on my wagon

As we reported yesterday, EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini called terrorism "the main threat in a democratic society" and vowed that European governments would leave no stone unturned in fighting it.

Fine words indeed but, as with all politicians, you watch their hands, not their lips – in other words, it is not what they say but what they do that matters.

And when it comes to action, today’s Washington Times sets it all out, with the headline: "Nato allies cut military since 9/11".

According to the piece, based on a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies , America's major NATO allies have cut military manpower and defense funds as a share of their economies since the September 11 attacks, in sharp contrast with the United States, which embarked on deficit spending to boost arms outlays to fight global terrorists.

A comparison of force structures in 2001 and 2005 showed countries such as Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Poland, Spain and Germany cut their active-duty forces while, at the same time, the United States increased its ranks from 1.37 million to 1.42 million.

More telling is the share of each countries' GDP that is devoted to defence spending. The US share has gone from 3 to 3.7 percent since 9/11 while other NATO nations collectively have dipped from 2.02 percent to 1.8 percent. Twelve years ago, Nato, excluding the United States, devoted 2.5 percent of GDP to defence.

At last week's Nato defence ministers' conference in Munich, we are told that Donald Rumsfeld "gently prodded his colleagues to rethink defence spending", telling them, "This commitment cannot be done on the cheap." But he is talking to the deaf. Rhetoric is so much cheaper, and the only thing in which the Europeans excel.

Thus the pictures of the Eurofighter, taken last month and supplied by one of our ever-vigilant readers, providing a perfect metaphor for the European defence effort - £60-million-worth of junk sliding down a runway in a shower of sparks, going nowhere.

COMMENT THREAD

Repent at leisure

From today’s Telegraph comes a salutary story about the Finnish Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea.

When Finland joined the EU in 1995, inhabitants of Aland were assured their hunting was safe. Some 70 per cent voted yes to entry in their own referendum. Yet the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has declared most spring hunting illegal.

Mr Alf-Erik Carlsson, a hunting shop manager, voted "yes" but has been stunned at the EU's reach into everyday life. "I thought it would be only an economic matter. I never thought they would control hunting on Aland," he said.

And ain't that the truth. What is it they say, "act in haste, repent at leisure"?

COMMENT THREAD

Freedom go to hell!

We live in an increasingly bizarre country. It is acceptable, and certainly legal for homosexuals to kiss each other in a bar but, in a few months time, they will be committing a criminal offence if they light up afterwards.

If they go outside to smoke, no doubt the litter police will be there to issue them penalty tickets if they are incautious enough to discard their butts on the pavement between embraces.

This is a country where the police penalise people for gesturing at speed cameras and prosecute them for calling a horse "gay", yet will tolerate Muslim extremists parading down the streets of London carrying banners which incite hatred and murder.

Believe it or not, this is a country where it is actually a criminal offence to call your loved one on a mobile phone, to tell them you are going to be late, when you a sitting at the wheel of a car, stalled in a traffic jam on a motorway, with your car's engine switched off.

This is a country which bans Olympic pistol marksmen (and women) from practising their sport, which makes it a crime for people to own a television without first paying a tax to a broadcasting élite which has long since ceased to make programmes they may want to watch.

This is a country that bans the age-old tradition of hunting foxes with hounds, and prohibits farmers from shooting diseased badgers on their own land yet, when those animals pass the disease to their cattle, destroys only the cattle - at enormous cost to the taxpayer.

Since yesterday, we are closer to living in a country where it will become compulsory for people to pay the State an exorbitant fee to enter their private details on a computer database and take possession of identity cards.

From tomorrow, when MPs vote again, we will be a step further down the line to a country which bans schools from dictating their own admission policies and thereby selecting pupils on the basis of academic achievement, even to the extent that they will not be allowed to interview prospective pupils.

These, and many more infringements on our liberties, are turning this country into a place where I feel a stranger and where I no longer want to live.

And we are worried about the encroachment on our freedoms by the EU? But then, somebody has to articulate that concern, I suppose. Come the revolution, though, it will not just be the Eurocrats swinging from the lamp posts.

COMMENT THREAD

The Muslims we betray through appeasement

There is a report by Hjörtur Gudmundsson in the Brussels Journal based on an article in Jyllands Posten (in Danish) about a new network of Muslims being set up in Denmark, Demokratiske Muslimer (Democratic Muslims).

“About 700 Muslims have already become DM members and 2,500 Danes have expressed their will to support the network. The initiative has caused anger among the Danish imams and their leader, Ahmad Abu Laban, who have referred to the moderates as “rats.” The imams feel that they are beginning to lose their control over part of the Muslim population.”

Take the case of someone like the Iranian refugee Kamran Tahmasebi. He is a social consultant, happy with his life in a western democracy and ready to speak up to warn the Danes against the extremist (and, let’s face it, very ignorant) imams.

“It is an irony that I am today living in a European democratic state and have to fight the same religious fanatics that I fled from in Iran many years ago.”

The leader of Democratic Muslim network is the member of the Danish parliament, Naser Khader, who has been living under police protection for some time.

As Kamran Tahmasebi says:

“Naser Khader has carried this responsibility for too long. I share his beliefs and now I want to stand up and say so. Apart from that, as a parent I feel a responsibility to fight, so that my children will not have to live under Islamist dogmas. They shall be able to live free in this country.”

These are extraordinarily courageous people, who are willing to fight, to risk their lives for what they believe in. What, one wonders, is their attitude to the likes of Jack Straw, Dominic Grieve, Hizonner Ken or the various other scared little bunnies of our political life, who betray us and our democracy as well as the individuals who are willing to stand up to the tyrants in whatever form?

The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who has suspended all dialogue on the subject of integration with the various radical imams, is meeting representatives of the Democratic Muslim network today.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists has issued an alarmed report. Three journalists in Yemen and two in Algeria have been arrested for publishing those cartoons, though in a somewhat fuzzy version deliberately, and their newspapers closed down.

“Mohammed Al-Asadi, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, has been detained by the office of the print and media prosecutor in Sana'a, according to the Yemen Observer Web site. Yemen's chief prosecutor charged al-Asadi with printing materials offensive to the Prophet and told his lawyer that the journalist was being held for his own protection.Abdulkarim Sabra, managing editor and publisher of Al-Hurriya, and Yehiya al-Abed, a journalist for the paper, were detained over the weekend for publishing the cartoons, according to news reports and CPJ sources. An arrest warrant has been issued for Kamal al-Aalafi, editor-in-chief of the Arabic-language Al-Rai Al-Aam.

The Ministry of Information has revoked the publishing license of all three papers. CPJ sources said the journalists were held under Article 185 of the penal code that allows for detention for seven days, which a court can extend for a further 45 days. Under Yemen's press law, if the journalists are convicted of offenses against Islam they could be jailed for up to one year. The journalists could face additional charges under the penal code.

In Algeria, authorities closed two weeklies and arrested their editors for printing the drawings on February 2. Kamel Bousaad, editor of pro-Islamist weekly Errissala, and Berkane Bouderbala, managing editor of the weekly Essafir, were detained last week, according to news reports.

The editors face charges under Article 144 of the penal code, which provides for imprisonment of up to five years and heavy fines. The BBC reported that the magazines have been critical of the Danish drawings and printed them to explain why they had sparked outrage in the Muslim world. The drawings were deliberately fogged. According to BBC, the two Arabic language magazines have moderate pro-Islamist views and print only a few thousand copies a week.”

Oh well, that’s all right then. Only a few thousand copies. Who is going to notice their absence? I am surprised the BBC, whose website managed to refer to one of the fake pictures as being an original Danish cartoon, even bothered to mention it.

But this is serious for anyone who believes in freedom and free expression. So far as we know these journalists are no worse or better Muslims than anyone else. They do, however, seem to believe that newspapers should be allowed to report on stories and, also, that Islam will not be destroyed or undermined by a dozen or more cartoons any more than it was destroyed or undermined by Persian miniatures or medallions worn by the Janissaries.

COMMENT THREAD

A community of victims

In a curiously unreported speech yesterday – left to such world organs as The Hindu - EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini called terrorism "the main threat in a democratic society" and vowed that European governments would leave no stone unturned in fighting it.

Frattini was speaking on the first of the two-day Congress on Victims of Terrorism in Valencia, which brought together hundreds of people caught up in the most horrific attacks of recent years - from September 11 and the Beslan school seizure in Russia to last summer's London bombings as well as attacks in Colombia, Israel, Spain and elsewhere.

Quite what is the value of such an occasion is very much open to debate, but it certainly accords with the "soft" values of European politicians, the "Venusians" who seem more comfortable in dwelling on "victimhood" than confronting the aggressors who create the victims.

In one of those "eureka!" moments, however, it suddenly occurs (you have to admit that I'm quick) that the justice commissioner’s focus on "victims" and his condemnation of anonymous "terrorism" are part of the same well of intellectual sloth that is rendering European politics impotent.

Looking at Frattini's "terrorism" in a little detail, we have to distinguish between the regional (and largely geographically confined) episodes, such as the outrages perpetrated by the IRA and the Basque separatists, and the more worrying "global terrorism", which is the true threat to democracy.

And there, quelle surprise, there is a common factor. From the Munich Olympics in 1972, to the 1979 take-over of the US Embassy in Tehran, to the shootings and kidnappings of Americans in Lebanon in the !980s and the bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983, to the hijack of the cruise ship Achille Lauro and TWA flight 847 in 1985, the bombing of Pan Am 103, the bombing of the World Trade Centre, the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and the bombing outrages in Madrid and in London on 7/7, that common factor is Muslim fundamentalism.

Looking back to December 2003, we see Don Murray of CBC news pondering over the terrorism issue, reminding us of Mao Tse-tung, who once said that guerrilla fighters "must swim like fish in the sea". In other words, says Murray, they must become invisible in the society where they're preparing their attacks.

Needless to say, Murray misses the point. The current rash of terrorists are not Mao's guerrilla, seeking camouflage by pretending to be ordinary fish. They are indistinguishable members of a huge shoal of fish that share the same philosophy and objectives. In other words – to coin a phrase – they are simply members of a group who have adopted one specific set of weapons, but they are only one such sub-group, interchangeable with others who are seeking to attain their objectives with different weapons.

Taken this way, there is actually nothing – in terms of their objectives – to differentiate the bombers from the militant imams who would seek to cow the media and undermine the central tenet of democracy, freedom of speech; those who align themselves with the "liberal left" to undermine resolution though the malign creed of "multiculturalism", reinforced by "political correctness"; and those who colonise whole swathes of our towns and cities and who rigorously and violently exclude indigenous "outsiders". They are all, in their own ways, at war with Western society and all deploying weapons to that end.

Thus it is that Frattini's vagueness – along with so many others – is so dangerous. It is not terrorism that is "the main threat in a democratic society", but Islamic fundamentalism, in all its manifestations. of which actual terrorism is but one part.

Therein, however, the Frattinis of this world are stalled by their own contradictions. While, on the one hand, they are comfortable with condemning the deliberately anonymous "terrorists", on the other hand, they have embraced into their "community of victims" many of the Islamic fundamentalists who are demonstrably a threat to democratic society. Not least of those are the Palestinians and all those who have suddenly become "victims" of the Danish cartoons. And, being victims, they can bear no responsibility for their own misfortunes.

Thus, while many commentators have quite rightly been drawing attention to the "clash of cultures" between Islam and the West, there is another less obvious clash, which lies at the heart of Western society – or, at least, in the minds of the political élites. That is the "clash of definitions" between the victim and the aggressor. And, since the "cult of the victim" figures so highly in the mindset of the élites, once a preferred victim group has been so defined, it cannot be then reclassified as an aggressor without tremendous intellectual upheaval and massive heart-searching.

So it is that the élites are caught in a trap of their own making. As long as Islamic fundamentalists remain ensconced in (or associated with) the EU's favoured "community of victims", Frattini and his fellow-travellers can never denounce them. That, of course, also means that they can never get to grips with the problem.

COMMENT THREAD

…and another one

It was only at the end of January that we reported - in our continued but lonely crusade on the steady Europeanisation of UK defence equipment – the MoD’s decision to buy the Seafox anti-mine system built by the Bremen-based Atlas Elektronik GmbH, in preference to the Archerfish, built in Portsmouth by BAE systems.

Now, sneaked out while the world – and this blog - was concentrating on other things, another MoD contract has been announced. This one is for an "Anti-Structures Munition," a typically po-faced bureaucratic name for a "bunker-buster bazooka", as Defense Industry Daily succinctly puts it.

In case you hadn't already guessed, the contract – worth £40 million – has been awarded to a European defence contractor, this time the German firm, Dynamit Nobel Defence (DND), based in Burbach, near Frankfurt.

This was chosen in preference to a weapon produced by the Swedish firm Saab Bofors Dynamics, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Saab AB which is, in turn, 20 percent owned by our own BAE Systems (UK). Furthermore, the BAE Land Systems division has worked closely with Saab on a range of man-portable missiles. Once again, therefore, the MoD has turned its face against the British interest and BAE Systems – in favour of a German firm.

No pictures or details of the new "Anti-Structures Munition" have been provided by either Dynamit Nobel Defence or the MoD, but it is believed that the weapon will be based on the Panzerfaust 3 munition already produced by the company, adapted specifically to enable infantry to demolish structures without recourse to artillery or airstrikes (with devastating results – see picture, right).

Now, however, the plot thickens. Separately from the MoD, the US Marine Corps – with the US Army to follow – is running a competition between two companies for an advanced version of a "bunker-buster bazooka".

One of the contractors is General Dynamics, which has teamed with the MoD winner, Dynamit Nobel and the Israeli Rafael Armament Development Authority. Previously, the Israeli and German firms developed a joint "bunker-buster" known as Matador AS.

The other contractor is Lockhead Martin, which is also working with an Israeli company, this one Israel Military Industries. They are basing their system on the IMI's existing Shipon design (pictured above left).

From this, it is quite clear that Israel, not Germany, is the technology leader. Furthermore, as the current winner of the MoD contract is working with a US and an Israeli firm to produce a more advanced weapon, it would seem premature for the British government to buy an existing weapon.

Apart from the alternative of supporting the company with the greatest British interest, a more logical option might have been to wait until the US competition was concluded and fall behind the winning design – except that this will almost certainly be US-manufactured.

Given UK involvement at an early stage, however, there could have been a possibility of negotiating a manufacturing license deal - as we have with other US-originated weapons projects – possibly also with some stake in the development. Whatever else, it is difficult to see the military logic in the MoD buying the German weapon at this stage.

COMMENT THREAD

They’ve given them back…

Apparently, after the hilarious episode when the Authorities in Equatorial Guinea seized a goodly portion of the Belgian Army's equipment in the mistaken belief that a coup d'etat was being mounted against them, an AFP report dated 13 February (today) on the Tehran Times website states that the equipment was returned to the ship, MV Eurocarrier, last Friday.

According to the same source, an official in the foreign ministry in Belgium, has said that the Eurocarrier was scheduled to leave Malabo for the Tanzanian commercial capital Dar es Salaam (last) Saturday evening.

Shucks!

COMMENT THREAD

France and human rights

According to some, France prides itself on being the country that “invented human rights” two hundred years ago. If these misguided people mean the French Revolution, then they clearly have not read its history properly. What France tried to put into effect was the concept of the Popular Will – a tyranny from which there is no appeal.

If the French do, indeed, feel proud of their human rights record (which they can do only if they have not read much about their colonial behaviour, the history of the Algerian war and certain episodes not unconnected with peaceful Algerian demonstrators being beaten up and thrown into the Seine), they are to be shaken ever so slightly.

On Wednesday the Council of Europe is due to publish a report by it Human Rights Commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, about his fact-finding tour of the French prisons in September. We wrote about this at the time.

The report was leaked to Le Parisien, who published details at the week-end.

“Commenting on a detention center for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in the basement of the palatial central court building in Paris, a stone's throw from Notre Dame Cathedral, Gil-Robles called it a "flagrant violation of human rights."

"With the possible exception of Moldova, I have never seen a worse facility," he said, urging the government to separate convicts from those still awaiting trial and to limit the length of time spent in solitary confinement.”

Nice touch, that comparison with Moldova.

The Minister of Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the presidents-in-waiting, promised to investigate and to overhaul the prison system, pointing out quite reasonably on the radio:

“When you are sentenced to a prison term, you are not sentenced to being raped in prison, you're not sentenced to rot in undignified conditions. A huge investment is needed to overhaul daily life inside our prisons.”

M Sarkozy is promising another investigation after the publication of a book by three journalists that include accounts by several police officers, Place Beauveau. The latter give graphic accounts of the alleged treatment given to a number of terror suspects in 1995 after a wave of bombings by radical Islamists in the Paris metro. Eight people were killed and many more injured.

The accounts of the torture do not seem to be that different from previous accounts of French police treatment of suspects. Nevertheless, M Sarkozy has promised to investigate whether the allegations are accurate and, if needs be, punish those involved.

COMMENT THREAD

MPs bottle out

There was a slight hope that there would be enough Labour rebels in the Commons today to vote out the government's ID card scheme, which was seeking back-door compulsion by arranging for issue of ID cards when people renewed or applied for new passports.

But, according to a report on the Scotsman website, the government has survived the crunch Commons vote by a margin of 310 to 279, a majority of 31. It is thought that around 20 Labour rebels voted with the opposition.

In the vote, ministers overturned an amendment to the Bill by the House of Lords which would have given people a choice as to whether to acquire an ID card when they got a new passport. Peers will now have to decide whether they want to try to reinstate the amendment when the Bill returns to the Lords, threatening a constitutional stand-off between the two Houses.

So, we get closer to our EU bretheren, most of whom demand of their citizens that they carry ID cards to prove who they are. And, while there is no direct link between our government's plans and any EU requirement, there is definitely a common hymn sheet when it comes to the adoption of an EU-wide biometric standard.

But, as Anoneumouse suggests in his cartoon, they would have had difficulty with the Prophet.

COMMENT THREAD

Whom does London House represent in Brussels?

As Hizonner the Mayor of LondON plans to open London Houses in Moscow, Beijing and Shanghai, it is it is interesting to note the record of London House in Brussels, already in existence and costing the London taxpayer three quarters of a million pounds a year.

According to its website

“London's European Office carries out three major functions:

Develops relations with EU institutions and relevant organisations

Monitors up-coming policies, directives and regulations

Ensures EU policy-makers are aware of London's interests and best practice”

Unfortunately, in response to any detailed questions, London House has consistently informed the One London Group that it actually represents and lobbies on behalf of its “office partners”. These are the Mayor, Transport for London (TfL), the London Development Agency (LDA), the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) and the London NHS. No sign here of “London’s interest”.

In fact, last year One London did try to find out if London House had lobbied against the revision of the Working Time Directive, which was opposed by London businesses and business organizations, and were told that this could not be done.

“On an issue such as this, where the Mayor has taken a view, we would certainly not lobby against that view, as we are staff of the Mayor’s Office.”

A cosy sort of an idea: the taxpayer pays and the Mayor uses the office as his own personal representatives. One wonders how this will play out in Moscow, Beijing and Shanghai.

Read the whole story of Hizonner's legations.

COMMENT THREAD

Launch another strategy

A telling analysis of the Fragrant Margot's new EU communications strategy is delivered today in the German periodical Politik und Kommunikation by authors Christophe Leclercq and Kristina Weich Hondrila from EurActiv.com.

Entitled "Wallström's Hopes", it notes – to the surprise of no one – the "poor state of EU communication policy", but then remarks that "the new measures taken by commissioner Wallström hardly deliver anything new and had no effect in the past."

The key problem remains, the authors opine: "the request for more communication has to be addressed to those people in the member states who are in any case responsible for communicating EU policies to its citizens. These are parliaments, parties, politicians, media, educational institutions, NGOs etc."

There, the problem is that no one – particularly any national government - is really that keen on highlighting just how much the EU has taken over the reins of power. Thus, the EU is not going to get much help from the sources it identifies.

Nevertheless, on her blog, the Fragrant One waxes lyrical on her new strategy, but her blog itself has proved the classic example of why the commission itself cannot succeed.

Not least, on the subject which has dominated the headlines over the last week or so, Wallström is silent while her bog comments have now been taken over by an intervention from Hans-Martin Tillack, demonstrating that, even when she controls the medium, she cannot dominate the agenda.

Thus it is that a pattern is emerging, one which we see so commonly in EU affairs. At the end of 2006 the commission intends to present a White Paper on the information and communication policy of the EU, whose impact will be felt before 2008 – just before the European elections in 2009.

In the absence of action, the commission simply produces another strategy.

COMMENT THREAD

I thought I was joking

When, last week, I suggested that the EU commission, rather than seeking childproof lighters, instead sought to make them Muslim-proof, I thought I was joking.

However, to judge from this photograph from Newport City blog, it seems that this could be a fruitful area for commission intervention.

On the general perils of flag-burning, England Expects has a few words of caution. Clearly, we need a directive here as well… or perhaps a CEN standard for burnable (is there such a word?) flags.

COMMENT THREAD

French to the rescue

According to the Independent, and others, the UN is today holding a donor’s conference in Brussels, in an attempt to raise $681 million to deal with the "forgotten crisis" in the Congo.

The UN also wants the European Union to provide troops to reinforce the "embattled" UN peacekeeping force of 16,000 men based in eastern Congo.

This story was faithfully repeated on the BBC Today programme this morning, with Hillary Benn gushing forth good intentions and £60 million of other people's money.

But what no one thought to mention is that the first $20 million of the funds donated will have to go the Belgian government to reimburse it for all its lost kit.

However, help is at hand. We learn that the French are to despatch their newest carrier to the region, to aid the "embattled" peacekeeping force. Note the very latest in UAV technology lined up on the decks, and the eco-friendly propulsion system.

COMMENT THREAD

Wine, women and summits…

The EU commission, we are told by yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph is convening an emergency wine summit to tackle the European Union's surplus of four billion bottles, which swallows up €1.2 billion to €1.6 billion (£810 million to £1 billion) of taxpayers' money each year.

Brussels officials have summoned 150 senior figures from Europe's wine industry for talks this week on how to reduce the surplus. They will be asked to present options to the unpopular practice of distilling millions of litres of cheap table wine into industrial alcohol, to keep it off the drinks market and to shore up prices.

Of course, if they follow normal commission practice and indulge in a number of long, liquid lunches, that should make a serious dent in the problem. And, by the way, how do you have wine "summits"? I thought EU wine came in lakes. Perhaps they should have their meetings in rowing boats.

COMMENT THREAD

Some of our Army is missing

Pointing a dagger at the heart of the somewhat tattered Belgium military is a story, courtesy of Defense Industry Daily, that you just could not make up.

It seems, according to DID, that a full quarter of Belgium's inventory of Pandur armoured personnel carriers – the pride of its army – have er… gone missing, together with radio equipment, MAN trucks and, quelle horreur, some field kitchens. They were part of a consignment of over 100 UN vehicles, all painted white, worth some $20 million.

The equipment was being despatched by the Belgian government to join the UN force in the Congo for use by the Beninese battalion stationed in the country.

It left Zeebrugge on 3 December on board a ship, appropriately named the MV Eurocarrier, chartered for the UN and headed for the Congo. Unfortunately for Belgian pride, the ship, under the flag of Saint Kitts & Nevis, never actually arrived. It now transpires that, four weeks ago, it was seized in a port in Equatorial Guinea.

According to a local report, the captain of the Ukrainian-managed ship made an unauthorised stop in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to deliver some construction equipment which he had picked up in the port of Anvers "to make profitable his trip".

The Guinean authorities, seeing the military equipment on board immediately suspected that that a coup d'etat was being planned. Despite the fact that all the vehicles were painted white and had UN markings, they were not convinced by the manifesto documents and promptly arrested the four Beninese soldiers guarding the cargo, also putting the 23-man ship's crew under "house arrest".

Following up the trail of the missing vehicles and equipment, UN SecGen Kofi Annan has contacted the president of Equatorial Guinea but, it appears, he is having no more luck that he had with his Mercedes. Reports note that "these talks did not yield much result," and it is now feared that the Pandurs and the rest of the equipment have been stolen. In fact, according to local reports, it could already have been "distributed between the military tribe".

Strategy Page says this sort of thing is not unusual for Equatorial Guinea.

Last year, Mark Thatcher was forced to pay a $500,000 fine to get out of the country. He had earlier been arrested and charged with attempting to overthrow the government. There's certainly a need for that, adds SP.

Equatorial Guinea has been ruled, since 1979, by dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (who inherited the job from his uncle, via a coup.) Obiang has grown increasingly paranoid and unstable of late. That is because oil was discovered in the 1990s, and that produced more money than has ever been seen before in the tiny country of only 600,000 people. Obiang has stolen most of the $700 million in annual oil income, handing out enough of it to cronies to keep himself in power.

You will be pleased to know that the UN is now negotiating with Mbasogo and is looking for a "diplomatic solution". God help us though if the UN is ever put in charge of arrangements for the European Rapid Reaction Force.

COMMENT THREAD

Phew, the crisis is over!

Reuter’s India reports from Riyadh (it is just the way desks are set up, I guess) that the crisis caused by the War of the Danish Cartoons is as good as over. That is not the way they put it, but the gist of the story is there.

It seems the High Panjandrum of EU foreign policy, Javier Solana, is going to travel round the Middle East, to calm passions. Since passions seem to have calmed somewhat already, this sounds like an excellent idea – if publicizing Señor Solana is the aim.

“Javier Solana kicks off the trip, which includes Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel, with talks on Monday with the head of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which groups 57 Muslim countries. He later meets King Abdullah in Riyadh.”

The riots were in Damascus, Beirut and Teheran, as well as Gaza City, so it seems a little odd that Solana is visiting only one of those places. And what, precisely, has Israel to do with any of this?

“Asked on Al Arabiya television what message he wanted to deliver during the visit to ease the tensions, Solana said: "The message I carry is simple and it emphasises clearly that our relations are based on unrestricted mutual respect.

"Our respect does not stop at countries' borders and it includes all religions and specifically what concerns us here, our respect for the Islamic religion," Solana said in the remarks aired on Sunday, which were dubbed into Arabic by the station.”

This is seriously reassuring, particularly the bit about “unrestricted mutual respect” and not stopping at countries’ borders to include all religions. One can deduce from this that Solana will negotiate various rights for Christians in countries like Saudi Arabia, insist on Hamas not persecuting to the point of arson and murder the Palestinian Christians, and demand that the vicious anti-semitism propagated in various member states of the OIC cease forthwith.

What do you mean, is this a joke?

COMMENT THREAD

What's yours is mine…

In October last year, the MoD proudly announced the award of a contract to the French-owned Thales company to build the Watchkeeper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for the British Army.

To fulfil the contract, worth £317 million for 99 of the Israeli-designed Elbit Systems WK-450s, Thales set up a joint venture company in Leicester called UAv Tactical Systems Ltd. (U-Tacs), with the MoD preening itself on how many jobs would be created in Britain.

Now, however, it seems that it is not only the British workman who will be a beneficiary. According to The Business, the French taxpayers – to say nothing of Thales – might be set to make a significant windfall.

Fortified by the MoD contract, Thales is now angling to supply the Watchkeeper system to the French armed forces, claiming that it could meet 70 percent of French needs, at 30 percent of the cost of the rival EuroMALE UAV offered by EADS.

But what is more significant about this cosy little arrangement, if it comes off, is the porous relationship between the UK and French defence contractors. Although Thales (UK) is regarded by the MoD as a British company, it is very clear that anything handled by this wholly French-owned subsidiary quickly becomes available to the French government.

Small wonder, therefore, that the United States is increasingly reluctant to share technology with the British –including UAV technology – when it seems the French operate on the principle of “what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine”.

However, it does not stop there. One of the partners to this project is the newly privatised Qinetiq defence research company, which will be developing some of the key systems for Watchkeeper.

By coincidence, the fate of this company is raised by Booker in his column on the incredible shrinking Sunday Telegraph today. As thousands of would-be shareholders rushed to invest in Qinetiq, he questions whether they were altogether wise, in light of the MoD's new policy to buy defence equipment, whenever possible, designed and built in other countries of the EU, rather than in Britain or America.

Certainly, from the Watchkeeper experience, it seems that they may – at least in part - be investing in supplying updated technology to the French.

COMMENT THREAD

Capitalism be praised

You have to give it to these capitalist pigs… whenever there is a crisis, they’re right there, where there’s a buck to be made.

This offering is from T-shirt Hell and is available in a wide range of sizes and colours. There are no plans, however, to sell overprinted jilbabs.

And the PIslamists think they’re going to win?

COMMENT THREAD

PIslam…

When the IRA splintered and the "hard men" set up their own murderous organisation, they dubbed it the Provisional IRA, or PIRA for short. And, while no one would seek to associate the true religion of Islam with the IRA, there are plenty of parallels between PIRA and what the eminent Iranian writer, Amir Taheri, in the Sunday Times today dubs "Political Islam"… or PIslam for short.

This is perhaps to return the compliment, as it was the recently jailed low-life Abu Hamza who described Britain as a "toilet", while of course relying on the beneficent Council Tax payers of Hammersmith to pay his housing benefit and much more besides – and if that is not taking the p**s, I would like to see a better definition.

Taheri's piece, headed "We don't do God, we do Palestine and Iraq", starts with the assertion: "It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck. And yet it insists that it is not a duck." Today the visible Islam, the loudest Islam, he continues: "is a political movement masquerading as a religion."

He then goes on to offer three reasons for the excessive politicisation of Islam in the West, making a powerful and rational case, stating that there are 400 Islamic associations and societies in Britain operating through some 2,000 mosques. "Scratch any one of them," he writes, "and you will find that it is, in fact, a cover for a political movement."

However, the most powerful of the reasons adduced as to why politicisation of Islam has taken off in Britain is, Taheri writes, "its rapprochement with the extreme left over the past decade":

Today political Islam and the British extreme left are in coalition in a number of organisations, including the anti-war alliance. Muslims provide the street muscle and the "poor masses" that the traditionally atheistic extreme left lacks. In exchange the extreme left puts its experience in militant politics at the service of political Islam. Hatred of "bourgeois democracy", anti-Americanism and opposition to Israel provide the unifying factors of this unnatural alliance.

Thus, says Taheri, "Islam cannot have it both ways: pretend to be a religion and demand special respect while operating as a political ideology which, by definition, must be open to criticism and even denigration". He then tells us that: "Politicised Islam’s attempt at destroying individual freedoms is as much a threat to Islam as the inquisition was to Christianity… it is also a threat to world peace," concluding:

Politicised Islam is a form of totalitarianism. Its primary victims are Muslims. In many Muslim countries it has been exposed and can no longer deceive the masses. In the West, however, it has duped media, government and academia into treating it not as a political movement, but as a religion.

Necessarily, for a British paper, Taheri confines his comments to Pislam in Britain, but his analysis applies equally to the tranzi community and especially the European Union.

The European political élites and their fellow travellers in the media and elsewhere have also been duped into treating Pislam "not as a political movement, but as a religion". This, above all else, explains their inertia and their failure to support Denmark which has been at the forefront of confronting the enemy in our midst.

An illustration of how far the élites have lost the plot comes in a YouGov poll in The Sunday Times, which reports that 56 percent of respondents, compared with 29 percent, believed the Danish cartoons should have been published "in the interests of free speech" – a factor of nearly 2:1.

Crucially, 86 percent of respondents thought that the Muslim protests against the cartoons were a "gross over-reaction" and 67 percent thought that senior policemen like Plod Blair were too politically correct to deal effectively with Islamic extremists.

This is reflected in a similar poll carried out by MORI for The Sun yesterday, which found 93 percent of respondents agreeing that the demonstrators carrying placards calling for beheading and other acts of violence were unjustified, while 87 percent thought they should be prosecuted.

Thus does Andrew Sullivan write, also in The Sunday Times that "Islamo-bullies get a free ride from the West", commenting on the failure of the MSM to rise to the occasion and arguing that "the fundamental job of journalists is to give you as much information as possible to make sense of the world around you." He adds:

And in this story, where the entire controversy revolves around drawings, the press is suddenly coy. You can see Saddam Hussein in his underwear and members of the royal family in compromising positions. You can see Andres Serrano's famously blasphemous photograph of a crucifix in urine, called Piss Christ. But a political cartoon that deals with Islam? Not our job, guv. Move right along. Nothing to see here.

We have two media now in the world, Sullivan writes:

We have the mainstream media whose job is increasingly not actually to disseminate information but to act as a moral steward for what is fit to print, to become an arbiter of sensitivity, good taste and political correctness. And we have web pages like Wikipedia or the blogosphere to disseminate actual facts, data, images and opinions that readers can judge with the benefit of all the facts, not just some of them.

If you want to see why newspapers are struggling, he adds, surely this is part of the reason. They have forgotten their fundamental task: to provide information. He concludes: "In this new war of freedom versus fundamentalism I always anticipated appeasement. I just didn't expect the press to be among the first to wave the white flag."

But, if the press is waving the white flag, British politicians are not far behind, while the brave Europeans are cowering in their trenches, afraid even to put their heads above to parapets to see if it is safe to surrender.

COMMENT THREAD

Time to move on?

After a week when the "Cartoon Wars" have dominated this blog in a way that few other subjects have – apart from perhaps the Asian Tsunami – some readers are suggesting that it time to move on and resume our more normal close scrutiny of EU affairs.

To those who have made comments to that effect on our forum, we have responded that we hold to our view that this issue could be a defining moment in the history of the European Union, shown by its inability to respond coherently to a crisis which – from a quick scan of this morning's papers – shows absolutely no signs of abating.

The difficulty for this blog is that the European Union dimension in this crisis is largely a non-event, in that there has been little in the way of a coherent "European" response and such reaction as we have recorded has been weak. In the context of our main interest, we are, therefore covering a non-story and there are only so many times and so many ways that we can tell our readers about the lack of EU involvement.

But, in many ways, that is the story – and the most important yet almost completely unreported aspect of this issue. As we have remarked before, a European Union that was in any way the vibrant, dynamic political entity that it claims to be would be a key player in this issue, especially as, in many other crises of considerably less important than this, the EU has sought to exploit the situations and thrust its way to the limelight.

The interesting thing is that, behind the scenes, the EU players do recognise the seminal importance of this issue – even if, perhaps, some are underestimating the malevolence of some of the "actors" – so the lack of activity speaks volumes for the health of the Union. This is very much the case of "the dog that didn't bark".

Given also that the recent performance of the European Union in other areas has been, to say the very least, lacklustre, there is a case for arguing that this current issue may well turn out to be the one which finally destroys any pretence that it is developing into a mature, effective international player. This is not an issue that is going to go away. Neither is it one that can be fudged and not will it respond to the usual Community solutions – throwing money at it or creating yet another institution to deal with it. Thus, its response - or lack of it - to the continuing crisis will yield vital clues as to where the "project" is going.

However, in this, we have a tiny bit of sympathy for the EU institutions as, from our own experience of covering this issue intensively for just one week, it has been an exhausting, roller-coaster ride that has left us both mentally drained. We will pick up the threads again later to day, and meanwhile will be pondering on how to follow this vital issue, without sacrificing our wider coverage of events.

Your views on how we should handle this would be appreciated and for those who have been having difficulty signing on to the forum, we apologise. As far as we can ascertain, it is not a fault with the forum itself, but – possibly – a problem on the net. In that case, it may clear spontaneously, but we will keep you informed of any developments.

COMMENT THREAD

Lighten up

It was said of our small, Eurosceptic group in the warren of the EU parliament in Brussels that it was always easy to find us. You just had to listen for the laughter.

We tested this thesis by walking along the corridors of some of the other groups and, sure enough, you were greeted by a sepulchrous silence, the sort that you might experience in a church or other holy place.

I was reminded of this yesterday evening, when I addressed a meeting of the Kings College Europe group, on the last session of their "Europe week", alongside Reijo Kempinnen, Head of the European Commission Representation in the UK and Dr Lachezar Matev, the Bulgarian Ambassador.

The subject was "The future of Europe" and I just had to tell the Saddam Hussein "Star Trek" joke, which was greeted with a wan laugh. The Muslim lighter joke, however, was one too far and my comments about on commission's childproof lighter initiative coinciding with the Muslim fundamentalists buring flags and torching the Danish and Norwegian embassies brought a stern rebuke from the commission representative. How dare I make light (no pun intended this time) of something so serious as saving childrens' lives.

It was only afterwards, in discussion, that I got some agreement that Muslim fundamentalism was one of the greatest threats facing Western civilisation. But the thought occurred to me that one of the reasons why the European Union – and the tranzies – are so unable to understand the threat, or deal with it, is because the emanate from the well-spring. The Europhile zealots share, in the same way as their Muslim counterparts, that same humourless fundamentalism. That, it seems to me, is where the "clash of cultures" really starts.

It is a measure of how far they have misread the situation, however, that instead of being cowed, ordinary people have reacted to the violent denunciations by triggering an explosion of humour on the internet – but, of course, not in the po-faced MSM. The mock-up Lego box (above) demonstrates all too well that the fundamentalists are not getting their message through. I guess some people are not taking them seriously at all.

What these fundamentalists completely fail to understand is that humour is virtually written into our genetic code and even when one confronts something as shocking and as outrageous as this carefully worked piece, it is hard not to see the humour in it.

Clearly, the artist (photoshopper?) has gone to some considerable trouble and is certainly being offensive. But, if there is a choice between being mortally offended and laughing, the only sane response is to laugh and move on.

The same must be said of the Belgian Muslim who sought to his own brand of revenge against the Danish cartoons by producing his own, invoking the most sacred of secular issues – the Holocaust. Thus, in an attempt to shock, he produced this (right). However, I am sorry to say that, despite the declared intention to scandalise, I thought it rather funny, and witty – actually a refreshing change from the maudlin, po-faced rectitude of the likes of the Fragrant Margot and her over-reverential treatment of the subject.

How could possibly look at this outrageous photograph (doctored of course) without cracking a smile, even if it takes the micky out of the holiest of rituals of the Muslims. Are we now going to have a boycott of Coca Cola throughout the Muslim world?

Like it or not, you have to admire that sick quality of the joke that runs: "Jesus walks into an inn, walks up to the bar, throws three nails on the counter and says to the girl, 'Hey do you think you can put me up for the night?'". Sick, it might be, but is anyone really going to be offended? And, speaking of prophets, one has to enjoy the simplicity of this visual gag (below), which invokes the baby Moses. Believe it or not, if the Koranic injunction applied to the depiction of Mohammed, then it applies equally to Moses for he too was a prophet.

Interestingly, there is some hope for us. An Islamic site reminds its readers that the Prophet had a sense of humour and often laughed, enjoining them: "Go ahead. Read these Hadiths (sayings of Mohammed) and, for Allah's sake, please LIGHTEN UP (a) little bit…".

As Muslims gather throughout the world and go about their temper-tantrums, this is good advice, but one that is not being heeded. As much they might throw their weight about though, the internet is giving them their answer – that explosion of humour that is growing more voluminous by the day. It is a lesson that they are going to have to learn on one which, methinks, we will also have to apply to the Europhiles. Once we start taking the p**s out of them as well, we are onto a winner.

And if you want to see why the dog is laughing, go to this site.

COMMENT THREAD

Did we ever think we'd see this in Britain?

The Lib-Dims are celebrating a famous victory up in Scotland and we must let them have their triumph. (Is the Boy-King wondering about his strategy yet? Or has he comforted himself with the thought that Conservatives “never” do well in Scotland? Because, I have news for him. They used to win seats up there.)

On another front they are not so chippy. The magazine the Liberal, has put up one of the Danish cartoons on its website and then took it off again, having been told by that fine body of men, “senior officers at Scotland Yard” that the safety of its staff cannot be guaranteed. Well, presumably, too many officers are out there protecting demonstrators who are calling for beheading and annihilation. Can’t spare the men or women.

So, despite all its fine words before about not colluding in self-censorship, the magazine took down the cartoon, putting up a white square instead with the word “Censored” across it. But censored by whom?

Meanwhile, the Spectator tells us pompously in its printed leader:

“We are not publishing the cartoons which caused such offence after they appeared in Denmark, and we believe other British newspapers are right not to have published them. There is a history of irreverence at The Spectator, but there is a difference between irreverence and causing gratuitous offence. Why humiliate members of another faith by ridiculing what they hold most sacred?”

The somewhat more courageous website, Spectator Live, did put up one of the cartoons and was ordered to remove it by Andrew Neil, the publisher of the Spectator. In other words, they are not publishing the cartoons because they are afraid. Fair enough, but why not say so?

Still, their punishment is coming:

“Meanwhile, Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly that yesterday published a cartoon row special edition featuring new caricatures of the prophet Muhammad and other religious figures, expects to more than double its sales.

Charlie Hebdo usually has a print run of 140,000 copies, but has printed extra copies this week and estimates that sales will top 400,000.”

The threat by the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) to take them to court is likely to push the sales figures up.

With all those specious excuses and with endless air time given to self-appointed spokesmen who inform us that Britain belongs to Allah, the British Media does not appear to be on the right side of the barricades.

COMMENT THREAD

We interrupt this broadcast ....

Due to circumstances completely beyond our control, the editors of this blog will not be doing their double interview with Charlie Wolf tonight. In fact, there will be no further interviews or, at least, not in the previous format. There is a possibility that one or both of us will be asked to comment on particular topics to do with the EU. Should that happen, we shall let our readers know.

Without comment

I republish this from the Independent, without comment. However, our picture, from Anoneumous, might be taken as expressing a view (pun intended).

The latest public figure to stand accused of defiling the Prophet Mohamed is not some Danish cartoonist, or French newspaper editor, but a hapless British Page 3 girl called Emma B. Yesterday, the erotic retailer Ann Summers unveiled Miss B as the "face" of its new range of products.

Not 24 hours later, she finds herself on the front line of Islamic protest after Muslim leaders discovered that the range includes a new blow-up doll, called "Mustafa Shag". Unfortunately, Mustafa was one of the names given to the Prophet Mohamed. Bestowing it upon, in the words of its catalogue, "an inflatable escort for your hen-night adventures" is considered highly offensive.

The Manchester Central Mosque has already written to the firm, calling on it to withdraw the product, right. "You have no idea how much hurt, anguish, and disgust this obnoxious phrase ["Mustafa Shag"] has caused to Muslim men, women and children," reads their letter. "We are asking you to please relent on compassionate grounds, and have our Most Reverend Prophet's Name "Mustafa" (Peace Be Upon Him) and the afflicted word 'shag' removed as soon as possible."

Ann Summers was last night examining options, though its chief executive Jacqueline Gold was reluctant to withdraw the item from sale. "We don't want to offend, but this feels like political correctness gone mad," she said. "If anyone has a better name for a blow-up doll, please let us know."

Offers please, on a postcard to…

COMMENT THREAD

Gutless!

It is the Independent today which reports on the the craven climbdown of the Toy Parliament (as my colleague calls it) on the Services Directive.

It reports that the so-called "Polish plumbers law" is to be watered down, after an agreement between the two biggest groups in the EU parliament to take the most controversial element - the so-called "country of origin principle" - out of the proposed legislation.

This tawdry "deal" comes as unions threatened to bring 25,000 demonstrators onto the streets of Strasbourg next week ahead of the key parliamentary vote, and flies in the face of appeals from six countries including the UK, the Netherlands, Poland and Hungary. Last last night, we are informed, they wrote to the EU commission, stressing the need for an effective Services Directive.

Alongside the craven attitude of European figures to the "Cartoon Wars" – an account of which is given by my colleague below – this climb-down is entirely in character for an organisation which talks big but, when the chips are down, is nowhere to be seen.

As for the Polish plumbers – looks like they will have to take up modelling.

COMMENT THREAD

The curse of the tranzis

There was a brief report on the BBC about a call for a common position issued by a French member of the Assemblée on the Danish cartoons and subsequent events. There is, of course, a problem with a common position: you need to define it before you can pronounce it. The truth is that, as usual at times of crisis, the European Union and its member states are in complete disarray.

The Danish government has, famously, refused to sanction the newspaper in question. Their politicians are now carrying the banner of freedom. Some European politicians have supported them. Others, like our own Foreign Secretary, has shown himself to be on the side of censorship and tyranny (another dog bites man story).

Now l’escroc Chirac has waded in to condemn “all manifest provocation that might dangerously fan passions”.

Furthermore,

“Anything that can hurt the convictions of another, particularly religious convictions, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility.”

That should make for interesting reading. But then, for much of the time the French media exercises just the kind of self-censorship l’escroc seems to prefer (except for when it comes to anti-Americanism and a fair dash of anti-Semitism). However, on the question of the Danish cartoons, the French newspapers - unlike certain French supermarkets (see right) - have displayed remarkable courage and honesty, unlike our own pathetic outlets, who refuse to publish the cartoons but tell people where the latter can be found.

The French legal system has also shown itself in a good light.

“The latest magazine to publish the cartoons, Charlie Hebdo, won the backing of a French court on Tuesday, after several Islamic organisations had complained that publication would amount to an insult to their religion.

The magazine features all 12 cartoons of Muhammad that originally appeared in a Danish paper last year - including one that shows Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban.

Religions other than Islam are caricatured as well.

The magazine says copies have been selling so fast it is considering another print run.”

In the meantime, as Michelle Malkin reports here and here, the Danish media has gone into the attack, especially on the Danish imams who had fabricated the fake images for their Middle Eastern tour last December. (She also reports on the number of countries where national or local authorities have seen fit to suppress freedom of speech.)

(A question arises here: the original 12 cartoons are largely innocuous with one or two somewhat critical. The fake pictures are truly unpleasant and can be regarded as sacrilegous. What of those who fabricated them? Should they not be punished in all those charming ways suggested by the posters during the London demo as blasphemers and enemies of Islam?)

In the circumstances it will be interesting to see what the suggested voluntary code of self-censorship will be and, further, which religions will it encompass.

However, given the rather lost air that the EU is presenting at the moment and the rattled words of appeasement uttered by Jack Straw and l’escroc, it is not surprising that Danish politicians have been complaining at the lack of support from the EU and from other European politicians.

On the other hand, President Bush telephoned Prime Minister Rasmussen to express his feelings of solidarity and support. Together with Secretary of State Rice’s statement about Iran and Syria fomenting the riots for their own purpose, a reasonably clear American position has evolved. What of the EU?

Well, the European Parliament is going to debate the Danish cartoons and the aftermath. Not, one presumes, the blatant provocation engineered by the extremist “Danish” imam Abu Laden or the clear incitement by Iran, the supposedly secular Baby Assad and various other political (i.e. not religious) organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade.

In the meantime the egregious President of theToy Parliament, the Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, has issued a statement, in which he proclaimed:

“The European Union upholds the values on which it was founded. Freedom of expression is one of those values, but this must be within the boundaries of respect for the religious beliefs and cultural sensitivities of others.

Freedom of expression must avoid any insult, especially by those who are specifically responsible for upholding its values. I understand that, for many Muslims, the cartoons that have been published are an insult to their beliefs. I wholeheartedly condemn the use of violence and incitement to violence against the property and citizens of the EU. I also consider it unacceptable that the publication of the material concerned has been exploited so as to stir up violent responses.”

Well, it could have been worse. He did say that freedom of expression is an important value but appear to think that publishing something and demanding the beheading of the author are equally to be deplored.

The statement was made at a meeting of the bureay of EMPA, the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. As the Toy Parliament’s press service helpfully explains:

“The EMPA brings together MEPs and their counterparts from ten countries around the Mediterranean (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey) as part of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.”

A fascinating mish-mash of countries with democratic systems (well, two, Israel and Turkey, more or less), countries with elections but little freedom of expression and outright tyrannies. All of them, apparently, have counterparts to MEPs.

Meanwhile, the High Panjandrum of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, decided to throw his lot in with the other tranzis. A joint statement from the SecGen of the United Nations, the SecGen of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union was issued. It did what Señor Solana does best: a wringing of collective hands.

“We are deeply alarmed at the repercussions of the publication in Denmark several months ago of insulting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed and their subsequent republication by some other European newspapers and at the violent acts that have occurred in reaction to them.

The anguish in the Muslim World at the publication of these offensive caricatures is shared by all individuals and communities who recognize the sensitivity of deeply held religious belief. In all societies there is a need to show sensitivity and responsibility in treating issues of special significance for the adherents of any particular faith, even by those who do not share the belief in question.

We fully uphold the right of free speech. But we understand the deep hurt and widespread indignation felt in the Muslim World. We believe freedom of the press entails responsibility and discretion, and should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions.”

There is the compulsory call for peace and calm and dialogue that does not quite explain how you have a dialogue with people who are burning flags and embassies and demanding the beheading and annihilation of all whom they happen to disapprove of.

The interesting aspect of the tranzi statement is that commitment to free speech comes below what they describe as “anguish” in the Moslem world. Even then it is a carefully circumscribed devotion to free speech.

The one thing one cannot say about the tranzi statement is that it shows any deep understanding. For one thing, they clearly have not looked at the actual cartoons, none but three of which can be described as being offensive.

Neither is there any suggestion that the three not-so-wise monkeys understand the provocation engineered by the “Danish” imams or the political background to the riots. Secretary of State Rice seems to have a considerably clearer understanding of matters.

Then there is the slight problem of Islamic culture. One of the aspects of this whole imbroglio that has shocked me is the sheer ignorance of the various imams who have been pronouncing on the subject, and whose pronouncements are being accepted without any questioning by, among others, the two SecGens and the High Panjandrum. But then, I suppose, self-appointed elites listen to other self-appointed spokesmen.

A number of people who do know about Islamic history and culture have written about the undeniable fact that there have been many representations of Mohammed and other prophets in Islamic art throughout history. These can be seen in the museums of the world (though, perhaps, one should not say that too loudly as there might be riots in the exhibition rooms).

In Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal Europe [subscription only] Amir Taheri wrote:

“There is no Quranic injunction against images, whether of Muhammad or anyone else. When it spread into the Levant, Islam came into contact with a version of Chistianity that was militantly iconoclastic. As a result some Muslim theologians, at a time when Islam still had an organic theology, issued “fatwas” against any depiction of the Godhead. [my emphasis]

That position was further buttressed by the fact that Islam acknowledges the Jewish Ten Commandments – which include a ban on depicting God – as part of its heritage.

The issue has never been decided one way or another, and the claim that a ban on images is “an absolute principle of Islam” is purely political. Islam has one one absolute principle: the Oneness of God.

Trying to invent other absolutes is, from the point of view of Islamic theology, nothing but sherk, i.e. the bestowal on the Many of the attributes of the One.”

Of course, in order to try to understand all the various developments and undercurrents one needs to have a real interest and real respect for history, theology and culture. The tranzis do not have this. What they respect, if one can use that expression, is an artificial, largely emotional concept of what they see as culture and history. One look at the EU’s official view of European history demonstrates that.

Mr Taheri then lists some of the better known Islamic pictures of Mohammed and goes on to make another interesting point:

“In addition to miniatures, drawing and paintings of Muhammad, the Janissaries – the elite of the Ottoman army – carried a medallion stamped with the prophet’s head (sabs gaba).

Their Persian Qizil-bash rivals had their own icon,depicting the head of Ali, the prophet’s son-in-law and the first Imam of Shi-ism.

As for images of other prophets, they run into millions. Perhaps the most popular is Joseph, who is presented by the Quran as the most beautiful human being created by God.”

Nor does Islam forbid laughter (any more, I suppose, than Judaism or Christianity forbids laughter, although you always find practitioners who consider that a mortal sin). Having read the delightful tales of Nasreddin Hadja in my childhood, I had always assumed that a strong streak of folk-satire ran through much Islamic literature but, perhaps, that was true only about Turkey.

Mr Taheri points out that the organizations that purport to speak for Islam are all political ones from Assad’s government to Hamas, Al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood.

“They are not the sole representatives of Islam just as the Nazi party was not the sole representative of German culture.”

Mr Taheri then lists a few examples from the “two great literatures of Islam” Arabic and Persian, that not only laugh a great deal but laugh at religion. The one that appeals to me most, and I do hope there is an English translation somewhere, is the tale in Rumi, “where a shepherd conspires with God to pull a stunt on Moses; all three end up having a good laugh”.

If reading such articles and trying to think through cultural complexities is beyond the tranzis, at the very least they might havd had a look at the fact that the Islamic world is not united in its “pain and grief”.

They might, if they had any principles, have seen that a number of Middle Eastern journalists and bloggers have rather courageously either reproduced the cartoons or called on their co-religionists “to grow up” and stop pretending that a dozen cartoons can destroy a religion. These people need our help and support. Instead our “leaders” side with their oppressors.

Should it not have been noted that the Lebanese government distanced itself from the riots, laying the blame on the Syrian government, who would be very happy to see another civil war on its neighbour’s territory?

What of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, a somewhat more important personage than the self-appointed spokesmen dragged out by the BBC? According to the WSJE, he

“condemned the cartoons’ publication as a “horrific action”. But he aimed most of his fire at those “misguided and oppressive” Muslims – i.e., terrorists and their fellow travellers – who “have exploited this … to spread their poison and revive their old hatreds with new methods”.

It was they, he said, and not the cartoonists, who were chiefly to blame for “[projecting] a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood”.”

We can argue for ever whether those last words do describe Islam or, at least, part of it. What we cannot argue about is that the Grand Ayatollah has not sided with the rioters and thosed demanding beheading and annihilation.

Despite all this, our supposed leaders remain in denial about what is going on and display the worst cases of cowardly appeasement we have seen since the seventies when many of the same people or their predecessors sobbed about having to understand the very true peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union.

In the meantime, the tranzis concentrate on their own particular ideology and ignore developments in the real world in the vain hope that somebody somewhere accepts them as the spokespersons for somebody or other.

COMMENT THREAD

New cartoons inflame community

Community leaders gathered today to protest at the "insulting" cartoons published by a European organisation, showing caricatures of citizens clothed in highly offensive symbols.

Said Nigel al Faragi of the Biggin Hill branch of the Eurosceptic faith, "I have been hurt, grieved and I am angry." He added: "These cartoons could easily be taken as representing our own community members, wearing symbols that depict a concept totally contrary to our deepest-held beliefs. The Eurosceptic community is mortified at being portrayed in such an insulting way."

He was joined by Rogi el Knappmaneri who called the cartoons "an insult" and an "abuse of freedom of speech", pointing out that one of the cartoons even depicted his members as "cripples". He said his members felt "humiliated" and demanded that the offensive material was withdrawn immediately. He would be calling for an immediate apology from the perpetrators of this "hate crime", and the beheading of the cartoonist.

Senhor José Manuel Borroso, whose organisation had commissioned the cartoons, was not available for comment.

COMMENT THREAD

Soft power turns to jelly

Illustrating the commission's total failure to grasp the nature of the Islamist response to the Mohammend cartoons, Franco Frattini, commissioner for justice, freedom and security, yesterday made an ill-judged attempt at appeasement.

In an attempt to placate the hardliners, he suggested a European press charter committing the media to "prudence" when reporting on Islam and other religions. Millions of European Muslims felt "humiliated", he said, calling on journalists and media chiefs to accept that "the exercising of a right is always the assumption of a responsibility".

This was according to The Daily Telegraph and others, but the only tangible "reward" was a promise from the Taliban of a 100 kilograms of gold to anyone who killed the person responsible for "blasphemous" cartoons in Denmark.

According to one report, Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's chief military commander, also said the group would give five kilograms of gold to anyone who killed any military personnel from Denmark, Norway or Germany in Afghanistan. He added that the list of Taliban suicide attackers in Afghanistan had increased significantly after publication of the cartoons.

And, in response to an initiative from president Bush in Jordan yesterday, in an attempt to calm the situation, another emolient diplomat, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, told him to to "shut his mouth". He is reported to have said, “We'll defend our prophet not just with our voices but with our blood. Muslims must continue to demonstrate until an apology is made”.

Nasrallah told Muslims around the world to continue to protest against the cartoons on Islam's prophet Muhammad until an apology for their publication is made, and until Europe passes laws forbidding any insults of Muhammad.

"The defense of the prophet must continue around the world. Condoleezza Rice and Bush and all of the other despots should shut their mouths. We the Islamic ummah (Muslim nation) cannot tolerate in silence or show flexibility when they insult the prophet and our holy values. We will keep (the faith) as emissaries of Allah, not just with our voice but also with our blood," said Nasrallah.

Back in Europe, one of the 12 Danish cartoonists who drew the caricatures has told a German newspaper he now faces at least two death threats, saying all 12 cartoonists were under police protection.

Meanwhile, a mass demonstration of 100,000 Muslims is scheduled to take place in London next weekend. The Muslim Action Committee, an umbrella group that claims to represent more than a million Muslims, said it needed to "channel" growing anger felt across Britain that Muslims were being persecuted and made to feel like "second-class citizens".

Judging from the reactions of militant Muslim groups, it should be clear by now that appeasement is not going to work – as if we needed any confirmation of that. Certainly, the low life are not going to accept the commission's whish-washy idea of press self-regulation and, as Franco Frattini has made clear in a statement published on the fragrant Margot’s blog, "There have never been, nor will there be any plans by the European Commission to have some sort of EU regulation, nor is there any legal basis for doing so."

The Danish government, however, is taking a more robust line, announcing that it would exclude local imams from talks on ethnic minority integration. "I think we have a clear picture today that it's not the imams we should be placing our trust in if we want integration in Denmark to work," Immigration Minister Rikke Hvilshoj told the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

For Frattini and his fellow travellers, though, the nightmare will continue as Europe's "soft power" turns to jelly.

COMMENT THREAD

Egypt did it first

The strongest possible evidence to support the growing conviction that the "Cartoon Wars" are a politically motivated crisis has been supplied by two Egyptian blogs: Egyptian Sandmonkey and Freedom for Egyptians.

They both report that the Mohammed cartoons, first published by Jyllands-Posten on 30 September last year were republished by the Egyptian Newspaper Al Fagr back on 17 October 2005, during Ramadan, for all the Egyptian muslim population to see. The headline reads: "Continued Boldness. Mocking the Prophet and his Wife by Caricature."

The Egyptian paper critcized the bad taste of the cartoons but it did not incite hatred protests. The Egyptian blogs observe: "not a single squeak of outrage was present", adding that Al Fagr isn't a small newspaper either. It has respectable circulation in Egypt.

The publication was long before the republication of the cartoons in Norway, which is supposed to have been one of the factors that triggered the current wave of violence. Thus, Freedom for Egytians definitely sees this as "a sign that this violent response to the cartoons is politically-motivated by Muslim extremists in Europe and the so-called secular governments of the Middle East". The blog adds that, despite the fact that all editors who tried to reprint the cartoons in the Middle East nowadays were arrested, the Egyptian editors went unharmed.

One hopes that the US authorities will factor this into their investigations and we have to observe that it is the blogs, once again, that have broken the story, leaving the MSM floundering in their wake with their pathetic snivelling about publishing the cartoons.

And what happened, one might ask, to all these overpaid Middle East foreign correspondents, who are supposed to be keeping their fingers on the pulse?

COMMENT THREAD

Consigned to the margins

A remarkable piece in the Washington Post today points up a remarkable phenomenon with staggeringly profound implications.

Nevertheless, the piece itself is a routine bit of journalism. It reports how a Muslim demonstration on Saturday, in Copenhagen's City Hall Square, was triggered by a rumour that that Danish people were planning to burn the Koran. But the fascinating thing was that the "news" was spread not by any of the conventional conduits of information but by a combination of e-mails, sms texting and blogs.

With the messages being received as far away as the Gaza Strip and later recounted on al-Jazeera satellite television. This, observes the Washington Post, illustrates how modern digital technology helped turn an incident in tiny Denmark into a uniting cause for protesters around the world in days or even hours. A new generation of technology has taken hold, doing for the speed and scope of global communication what airplanes did for travel.

Crucially, with alternative media being used, the authorities and the MSM were completely unaware of what was going down, with the information being transmitted so quickly that, as Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen later admitted, it was "picked up and acted upon before we have a chance to correct it."

Nor is this by any means the first time that these alternative conduits have been used. E-mails, blogs and text messages were central to the campaign to boycott of Danish goods in Arab countries and a "Buy Danish" campaign in the United States. Text messages were used to organize anti-Danish protests in Brussels, while Canada's largest Muslim umbrella group sent e-mails to 300,000 members urging them to avoid such demonstrations. Text messages and blogs were also used to organize protests during violent unrest in Paris last autumn.

"These messages are now part of the conflict," says Manu Sareen, a member of the Copenhagen City Council."

The use of this communications technology has also been observed by US intelligence in Iraq. Insurgents, it seems, are no longer emplying the "traditional" cell structure, as adopted by the Frech resistance – with each cell having one person linking to the next - but are relying on web sits to convey instructions and information to their members.

The central point, though – and the one which has the most profound implications - is that the MSM is out of the loop, which has startling ramifactions for society as a whole.

Firstly, for people whose job it is to take the temperature of the nation, such as Members of Parliament, the fragmentation of communication systems means that it is no longer possible – if it ever was – to guage the "issues of the day" by reading the newspapers, and monitoring the broadcast bulletins. And, in as much as it was possible to for the newspapers and the Today programme to set the agenda, that is no longer the case.

To that extent, we are now seeing the effects of the "information revolution" that is in some ways comparable with the invention of the printing presses, from which evolved political leafleting and popular newspapers. This presents a challenge to governments, policy makers, and all those in the communications industry, who can no longer rely on established channels to distribute their message.

Not least, it makes a mockery of the heart-searching of the MSM over whether to publish the Mohammed cartoons. For months now, they have been freely available on the internet. Freedom of speech is alive and well, but the chattering classes simply haven't noticed.

Thus far, it seems, the "chattering classes" are not responding to the challenge. In fact, all too many of the players fail even to appreciate the extent of the "revolution". They are having difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that they have ceased to occupy the centre and are being consigned to the margins as mere spectators.

COMMENT THREAD

The Harrison Ford solution

There are times when events are happening faster than the brain can absorb them, and where the arguments fly so thick and fast that they merge into a blur. That has been very much the case with the "Cartoon Wars" where, so complex and difficult do the issues appear, one yearns for the "Harrison Ford solution".

This recalls the famous scene in the 80s film Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is trapped in a back-alley in an Egyptian souk. Seeking a way out, he find his way blocked by a huge Arab garbed in black, who produces a mighty scimitar and indulges in some formidable sword play. As the crowd draws in to watch the slaughter, Ford gives a weary shrug, draws his trusty revolver and shoots the Arab dead. Game over.

Fortunately, perhaps, I am not in position to impose any solution on this crisis, in which an increasing number of people are either killing or being killed, for reasons which are not sufficient.

Thus it is that yesterday, according to the IHT and others, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran and Syria of deliberately seizing on the cartoons dispute to incite violence. She was speaking in Tel Aviv at a joint news conference with Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, adding that the two countries had "gone out of their way to inflame sentiment and to use this to their own purposes." She added, "The world ought to call them on it."

Separately, in Afghanistan, US military spokesman Colonel James Yonts said there was no evidence linking Al Qaeda or the Taliban to the protests that have spread across Afghanistan, but he said Washington was investigating whether there was a common thread linking the demonstrations across the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere. "The United States and other countries," he said, "are providing assistance in any manner they can to see if this is something larger than just a small demonstration: if there is a tie to it, if there is an infrastructure, a connection."

This is a highly encouraging development as it is the first official acknowledgement that this, as the bloggers have been pointing out for days now, is a politically motivated crisis. I suppose one should be amazed that the Europeans, at the centre of events, have not made the same point but then, given their collapse of faith in the project this is unsurprising.

One still lives in hope that the dead tree media might actually pick this up and run with it, but, from the pathetic response of Anton La Guardia in what the Telegraph still rather quaintly calls his "weblog", this looks unlikely.

Until the US delivers the goods, therefore, it remains for the blogosphere to make the running, leaving the hacks trailing behind. It is thus entertaining to see David Rennie take a roasting on his own "weblog" from The Celtic Semite, who labels him a "lazy disingenuous columnist". Time for Harrison Ford, methinks.

COMMENT THREAD

Calling all bloggers

The dissident frogman, a voice of sanity from France, has designed a whole series of flags that can be displayed on blogs and websites. Their theme is the same: defend freedom. Here they are.

Impartial service to the law

Go onto the BNP site and it will offer you two video clips. The first is of a Countryside Alliance demonstration in the Mall. It shows a genial crowd, standing around chatting, with a few policemen wandering around on the road.

Suddenly, there is a surge of movement and the camera catches a phalanx of police dressed in riot gear, moving purposefully into the picture. They line up and then groups form snatch squads, darting into the crowd to seize individuals, whom they drag into the road, with one at least being administered a vicious beating.

The other video shows last Friday's Muslim demonstration, the demonstrators displaying their murderous placards, the police positioned not to challenge the crowd but to protect it, and not a riot squad in sight.

The police, it seems, are becoming the most effective recruiters for the BNP . The Party is taking on new recruits so fast its administration is having difficulty coping and funds are pouring in. Reliable sources suggest that it has received over £100,000 donations in the last week, and the cheques and cash continue to arive.

The public profile of the Party has also been considerably enhanced by the prosecution of Nick Griffin and, today, inevitable comparisons are being made between the speed with which the authorities decided to drag Griffin into court, and the delays in bringing Abu Hamza ("The Hook") to justice.

Thus we find Dean Godson in The Times remarking that his imprisonment has come far too late. “The most amazing revelation from the Hook’s trial,” Godson writes,

…is that MI5 and the Metropolitan Police Special Branch effectively acquiesced in his years of largely untrammelled hate-mongering at the Finsbury Park mosque. His defending counsel, Edward Fitzgerald, QC, recalled the following exchange: "My sermon, is it a problem?" asked the one-eyed cleric. Came the reply from the Met: "You have freedom of speech. You don't have anything to worry about so long as we don't see blood on the streets."

Godson believes that this quite authentically reflect the spirit of the authorities' approach, "a policy of geopolitical Nimbyism", underlined on Newsnight by Anjem Choudary, spokesman for the extremist group al-Ghurabba, who defended the London demonstrators holding placards that called for the beheading anyone who insults Islam in wake of the cartoon controversy.

The article, which is well worth reading in full, then goes on to sketch out the various factor which have brought us to this situation, a laissez-faire attitude, which rightly earned the capital the sobriquet of "Londonistan".

But the theme is also taken up by Matthew d'Ancona in The Telegraph, under the heading, "Free speech? Labour cares more about the Muslim vote".

D’Ancona also makes use of the Newsnight transcript, this time citing Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative vice-chairman, and a British-born Muslim of Pakistani background. Writes d’Ancona:

Unfazed by Mr Choudary's offensive claim that she was not entitled to speak because she was not wearing a veil, Ms Warsi spoke up for the very British determination not to fall for the frothing of the reactionary Right (we are all doomed) or to yield to the threats of Muslim extremists (you are all doomed). "I am confident," she said, "that in Britain the middle ground, the people who are prepared to engage in dialogue and live alongside each other with shared values and a sense of shared identity, that they will prevail." Firebrands like Mr Choudary, she said, had no place in multi-cultural Britain.

It takes a lot of courage for a Muslim woman to say such a thing, adds d’Ancona. Ms Warsi's intervention made the anodyne remarks of white male ministers seem all the more cowardly.

Warsi's intervention mirrors the statements made by other moderate Muslim leaders but this is not enough. Ministers have spent far too much time prancing about on a European stage, pontificating about global terrorism, and looking for "European solutions", neglecting their own back yard – where the murderous creed of Abu Hamza has been given free license. Now, unless they grasp these issues, the main beneficiary will be the BNP – to the detriment of the Muslim communities and the political process.

The first thing that must be done is to sort out a police force which seems to have lost its way. In this context, politicians might do well to remember Peel's nine principles of policing, framed in 1829, and in particular his injunction that, "Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law."

COMMENT THREAD

Make love not war!

Having opted out of the "Cartoon Wars", the EU Commission has decided instead to make babies.

That, at least, reports EU Politix is the plan of EU social affairs commissioner Vladimir Spidla, who wants to bolster Europe’s low birth rate by introducing measures to make it easier for women to have more children.

And with romance in mind, Spidla, a father of two, aims in March deliver a "concrete working programme" to increase the birth rate. But, if a "concrete working programme" is Spidla’s idea of romance, one wonders how he has managed to father any children at all.

Perhaps he should employ Nigel Farage as a consultant. Forum members might even feel inclined to help by submitting some slogans to help the Commission on its way… although the first person to offer the most obvious one.. along the lines of "Let's dig for Europe"... gets banned.

COMMENT THREAD

Losing it...

Looking at the EU stories up on Google, the first one we see is "WTO condemns EU over GMO moratorium". This is about the WTO ruling that the European Union and six member states had broken trade rules by barring entry to genetically modified crops and foods.

Then we get to the riveting subject of "EU looking at Net song royalties". European Union antitrust regulators, we are told, are investigating the European agencies that collect royalties for musicians from Internet sites, in parallel with other EU moves to open up the market for online music.

Only then do we get to the subject of the moment – the Cartoon Wars – but then all we are offered is: "EU joins UN, OIC in appealing for calm over cartoons". The European Union has joined the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference(OIC) on Tuesday appealing for restraint and calm over the Prophet Mohammad cartoons.

But then… wait for it… "'.eu' internet domain names open for business". Hundreds of thousands of businesses raced on Tuesday to snap up ".eu" internet domain names, with "sex.eu" taking the prize for the most sought-after address on the first day companies could apply.

And if that hasn't got your juices flowing, how about this: "Concerns over cigarette testing"? Scientists are calling for a review of cigarette tests, and say the tobacco industry uses a machine which gives misleadingly low results.

This is the great European Union which is going to dominate the 21st Century? Will anyone stay awake long enough?

COMMENT THREAD

Not Thinking but Drowning

As EU Referendum has been reacting to the "Cartoon Wars", pushing what one of our own forum members called "civilised Western values", North Jnr has been participating in a wide range of virtual discussions on popular forum sites, inhabited mainly by the "yoof" so sought-after by contemporary politicians.

This is his report from the front:


If there’s one thing that makes me quite nauseous it is the sycophantic droning of the middle aged (present company accepted) telling us all how we should look to our youth because the children are the future. If these people actually followed their own advice they’d realise exactly how deep in the cesspit we really are.

The phrase "Bread and Circuses" has been kicked around a lot of late. A tired cliché when it comes to social commentary I'll admit, and even more tiresome to modernise it to something like "Raves and Televisions". Sadly though, that is precisely where we’re at.

This week I've had armies of my peers and so-called friends queuing up to tell me I've been brainwashed by the right-wing newspapers (If only to God I could find any. Answers on a postcard please). For reasons of personal curiosity I've been busy extending the wider debate of EU Referendum to the music forums on the internet to discover that Britain is truly lost in the moral maze.

At one the time underground music scene was a hotbed of anti establishment political activity. Now I can find no other social group more in tune with establishment thinking. The yoof of today seem so fixated with the ill-doings of our colonial forefathers that they are prepared to give up the whole country to Islamo-fascism.

The recurrent sad irony is that every other post on these sites is in some way linking to human rights issues and freedom from oppression and yet when you highlight the biggest threat of all to our moral code and freedoms you become a racist, little Englander, "zenophobe" (sic). They can't even spell it!

It is so deeply engrained through decades of political correctness that analysis of reality is a cardinal sin and any attempt to even open a debate will be treated with contempt and censorship. All they can do is cherry pick the bits they are pre-programmed to wince at and gasp in horror as they dig out the first convenient politically correct label that leaps to mind, purely in the hopes that if they can marginalise the arguments with dogma they won't have to think about them. In effect, Nanny's done the thinking for them.

No matter how cold and stark the evidence, the gravity of recent issues does not sink in.

Here we have a religion with a virulent doctrine of oppression which deplores free speech, loathes democracy and declares holy war on our system. It also seeks to impose tolerance of its own practices from the back hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan upon us. Everything our sense of decency and fairness is fundamentally opposed to.

Coupled with this automatic denial of fact is the even more detestable social snobbery among these deadbeats. "Why don't you stop regurgitating the Daily Mail/The Sun/Daily Express", they cry. God forbid ones mind should be open enough to actually be influenced by media! Although it seems they have some rather lofty guesses as to what actually appears in the aforementioned newspapers. It would be cause for celebration if any of these papers reflected the true state of British politics apart from the day to day banalities and vacuosity.

"You're just spouting the drivel of the working classes", I'm told. Well, being a member of the working class and getting out of bed before lunchtime I can safely say that the working class is considerably better informed than either the hippies or the government. After all we are the ones who get out often enough to see the unfairness of our society on a daily basis. But we mustn't let the working mans opinion to rule us must we? That would be too much like er… democracy. So it's important to be fair and tolerant, so long as it's not to the working British public. It's got New Labour written all over it.

What concerns me also is the alarming tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater. No matter how concrete the evidence, the fact it is published in The Daily Telegraph or other such vessels is an instant excuse to dismiss it without actually reading it. While we may have cause to lament the lack of news in the Telegraph I'm hard pressed to deny that the little it does have is of a passable quality as to the purposes of the broader debate.

During all of this I'm told repeatedly that my ideals are harking back to a bygone age and that…

The problem with all wilfully ignorant right-wingers is that the idea of democracy and free press frightens them because it provides a method for breaking the whipped-up fear that is the only way they can gain or regain control over the populace.

This leads me to believe that our yoof have absolutely no idea what the word democracy even means or even where the right wing are coming from. They haven’t even thought about it because the term "right wing" is a pre-programmed dirty word. Not one of them will break ranks to understand it in fear of vilification. And here is how we are gripped by the tyranny of the right-on minority.

What I have learned from this exercise is that standing up for your convictions is social suicide. Breaking ranks to declare war on political Islam is in effect the signature on your own social death warrant. Who in their right mind would do that? Only a North methinks. This is how decent people are cowed into silence. Who wants to be known as a racist and a zealot?

Having been subjected to this for all of this year so far I am inclined to believe it's not a big loss generally, but you can't go raving on a Saturday night with the Bradford South UKIP Association, although it may actually do them some good.

Of course I may be a little young to be lamenting the youth of the day at the age of 27 but my generation is one that refuses to grow up, refuses to take sides and refuses to fight for what is theirs in fear of offending. Their inheritance will be squandered and they will become slaves to Sharia law. Post-colonial guilt fettered by good old fashioned British defeatism is our undoing.

I had hoped that reality would soon take a bite but at some time in the last decade that little minority became the majority through bone idleness and cowardice. This happened when our keyword of youth indoctrination changed from justice to tolerance.

Before we can bring the debate back in line with rationality we have to reverse this. We need youth to engage rather than mouth the platitudes of political correctness.

The problem is that in order to adequately explain one issue you have to tackle every issue and demonstrate its place in a wide philosophy. This means that at some point you will have to open up the debate to other areas where you meet the same ignorance and dogma. You then get tied up debating the fringe issues and diverted from the issue in hand. This is why we will lose every time.

And so what do I blame for this? Social narcotics. In effect drug culture has permeated the mainstream. The fluffiness of the ecstasy fuelled dance club on a Saturday night has become weekday policy for these people and it has spread throughout the culture like an untreatable cancer. Saturday night fever all week long. Drugs don't make you stupid but they do exacerbate the existing stupidity, and that we have plenty of.

Today I was rather startled to read their excuse…

After consuming a quantity of "blue halo" hallucinogenic mushrooms the other evening , I realised something.... The concept of "laziness" as a negative personality trait is an embodiment of capitalist ideology. Being lazy or "lazing" is to enter a state where one is neither producing or consuming. Sleeping all day is seen as "lazy" because when you are asleep, you are beyond the reach of evil multinationals and their sinister advertising campaigns.

So the notion of laziness was clearly dreamt up by nasty cigar-smoking men in pinstripe suits as a way of stigmatising people who don't succumb to their efforts to enslave the global population through a hierarchical system of debt and credit.

Therefore: the most effective form of political protest is to stay in bed.

Need I deconstruct this?

So while the mainstream parties and the wider electorate scratch their heads as to why people no longer engage in democracy perhaps they should start by explaining firstly what it even is and secondly re-assessing their apparent tolerance to social narcotics because the debate among the deadbeat left is bogged down in sentimentality and fluffiness.

COMMENT THREAD

A fundamental loss of faith

It is instructive to note that the main initiative to come from the EU commission over the last few days has been plans for the compulsory introduction of child-proof lighters - highlighted by EU Observer as "Brussels to fight for…"

The commission forecasts that its stricter rules would "save at least 20
lives" although one cannot help but feel, in view of their incendiary proclivities, making Muslim-proof lighters might save even more. Perhaps they (the lighters) should bear an image of Mohammed, in the knowledge that no devout Muslim could possibly use them. Even a label on the bottom, rather than the top, instructing users to "press here", might confuse enough of them to make the difference.

Away from such profound speculation, the importance of this "high level" initiative contrasts starkly with the complaints from Danish politicians, also retailed by EU Observer, over the lack of EU support in the country's current crisis over the Mohammed cartoons. There is a growing disappointment, says EU Observer, with the EU for its lack of support for the country at the centre of the conflict.

"This is a wider European problem and not just a Danish problem. I think it is strange the EU has been so absent in this discussion," says Holger K. Nielsen from the Socialist People's Party (SF). "They all sit on their hands and hope it will just go away. But it would be useful if the EU clearly and in a united way entered the fray," said Lars Erslev Andersen, one of the country's top Middle East experts.

In a round-up of events from Reuters today, it is clear that “it” will not go away, the agency reporting that the "wave of Muslim fury" is spreading across the Middle East and Asia.

That assertion may be taken with a pinch of salt, as the main player today has been Iran, where demonstrations are about as spontaneous as one of Tony Blair's smiles. There, an attack was mounted on the Danish embassy in Tehran, with petrol bombs and stones thrown for a second day.

There has been sporadic violence in Afghanistan, where police opened fire on a crowd which tried to storm a NATO peacekeeping base housing Norwegian troops, while across the border in Pakistan, 10,000 people rallied. At least six people have now been killed in protests in Somalia, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Volatile rallies have swept across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Iraqi agitators have called for the seizure and killing of Danes and the boycott of Danish goods, while further protests were orchestrated in Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti, Gaza and Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Croatia became the latest country where a newspaper printed the cartoons.

The inertia on the part of the EU, however, now begins to look more than a sudden loss of nerve and begins to suggest the re-emergence of in-built fault lines.

One is again reminded of the response of the then EEC to the Yom Kippur crisis in 1973, when the likes of Monnet called for a united European response and each of the member states slunk off to do their own deals with the Sheikhs. This time too, the member states are keeping their heads down, avoiding anything that might sound like a corporate statement.

The parallels, however, can only go so far to explain the extraordinarily low visibility of the EU. Another factor must be the lack of leadership, not only from the Austrian presidency but also from the commission. Although, strictly speaking, foreign affairs lies within the domain of the European Council and the General Affairs Committee of the Council of Ministers, one cannot imagine that Jacques Delores would have been silent in the issue. But so silent is Barroso that he is invisible.

In other respects though, this is chickens come home to roost. The European Union prides itself in its commitment to freedom of speech, while also espousing the Arab/Islamist cause. Now, it finds itself torn between both, struggling with the conflict that arises from the demands of its political protégés.

But, if there is a philosophical conflict, there also seems to be an institutional failure. Following the Madrid bombings and its "Hague Programme" agenda, the EU has made combating terrorism a high-profile issue, an example of the unility of the "European dimension".

As the Danes are well aware, and even we have worked out, these "Cartoon Wars" are but one face of the Islamo-fascist assault on the West, fully orchestrated by terrorists sympathisers. Yet, if Europol is aware of this, one wonders whether it has conveyed that information to member states and the EU commission and, if it has, one cannot but help be puzzled as to why it has not informed the response.

Perhaps that is the real reason for the EU's inertia. Aware of how high the stakes really are, the Community institution feel it safer to cower in relative obscurity behind the member states, rather than confront the issues and expose itself to the full wrath of the Islamists.

If this is the case, what we have is a complete reversal of the Yom Kippur scenario. Then, the putative "superstate" demonstrated its immaturity by failing to craft a European response. Now, the heirs to those institutions have also displayed that immaturity, but this time by avoiding a European solution. In many ways – for the survival of the EU - this is an altogether more serious failing. Faced with Islamic fundamentalism, the EU is undergoing a fundamental loss of faith in its own "project". Can its collapse be far behind?

COMMENT THREAD

The truth is stranger than fiction… sometimes

When we published this picture(swiped from Drinking from Home) - the explanation for which is detailed here - little did we know that it was going to be reproduced on Coppers Blog, only to invite the following comment:

The picture is actually quite funny because I was there at the demo on Saturday in full riot gear, waiting for it to go pear shaped. We actually had to blue light it to Parliament Square because 3000 New Zealanders had descended to celebrate the Haka which was being performed in the square. So there was I and the rest of my serial, in full riot gear, directing traffic so Kiwis wouldn't get run over, whilst 2000 angry protestors were around the corner shouting at the Dutch (Danish actually) Embassy's front door.

From further comments, something tells me that our boys in blue are not treating insults to horses with the gravity that the Oxford police obviously think they deserve, hence one commenter asking: "Did anyone check whether the horse was gay?? The horse may have been and therefore not offended!!"

The stern reply was: "It doesn't matter if the horse was offended or not, as long as any person perceives there to have been a hate crime towards it: 'Homophobic Incident' - Any incident which is perceived to be homophobic by the victim or any other person. The horse will be provided with a duty Vet, and victim support, but if it was gay, it might decline."

So now you know.

COMMENT THREAD

The sheep may safely graze

"Bush scraps Rolls-Royce deal despite Blair pleas" headlines The Times today, flagging up a story which has been doing the rounds since early January, and which has been covered fully in this blog.

This is the "hare" that the second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter is to be axed, as story that is also run in The Telegraph, as "US snubs Blair over Rolls-Royce engine deal" and in The Independent, under a similar heading: "Bush snubs Rolls over fighter engine".

The story was also run by The Business over the weekend, this time under the headline: "Blair failed to save £1bn Rolls-Royce US contract".

Such repetition tends to confer a degree of authenticity to the reports. After all, the can't all be wrong, can they? But, indeed, they can and they are. This is a classic example of the sheep-like mentality of the media, when all the witless hacks huddle together for comfort and run with the same story, in the knowledge that, if it is wrong, then no-one is out on their own.

It also demonstrates a woeful ignorance on the part of the British media as to how the US political system works – rehearsed in detail in this posting and its pathetic parochialism. This is not primarily a Roll-Royce contract – the major contractor is in fact the US defence giant, General Electric.

But, to get beyond the fluff, you have to read the "small print" in the Reuters’ report, on which the dead-tree sellers based their own story. The report cites GE spokeswoman Deb Case, who says her company was continuing to work on the programme and had an engine test scheduled soon. "It's not a final decision," she says, of the president's budget proposal, noting that Congress controlled the budget.

Richard Aboulafia of the Virginia-based Teal Group is also cited, saying the Pentagon may have targeted JSF in the hope that Congress would reverse the cut. He predicted funding would be reinstated.

And ain't that the truth. As we have pointed out before, this is the Pentagon playing games, putting up a sacrificial "saving" which they do not want and they know Congress will not approve, a ploy to keep their larger budget intact. Anyone who has worked in government has played that game - it is one of the oldest in the book.

The worrying thing is that, here it is so transparently obvious that the MSM really have lost the plot. How can you possibly trust it with other issues, even when the background is not so transparent?

COMMENT THREAD

About bloody time!

The Sun’s headline says it all. THREE days after Omar Khayam strutted his stuff outside the Danish embassy wearing a suicide bomber's vest, the Bedfordshire police have finally caught up with him and carted him off to nick where he clearly belongs.

Far from the injured innocent, this little shit is a convicted drug-dealer, out on license after serving part of a six-year sentence for dealing in crack cocaine. A man who spent time in jail with him told The Sun that Khayam was known by his street nickname "Skinner", and that he was well known to dealers and users in Bedford.

Of course, as The Sun rightly observes, Khayam’s crack-dealing past makes his claim to be defending Islam a sham. His Muslim faith strictly forbids taking or selling drugs — warning that offenders will be punished by God. Holy book the Koran says drugs are "the work of Satan". And selling drugs carries the death penalty in some Muslim countries.

What then does one make of the carefully-staged apology given by this low-life scum yesterday, flanked by the chairman of his local mosque and gullible but vote-hungry Patrick Hall, MP for Bedford

"I found the pictures deeply offensive as a Muslim and I felt the Danish newspaper had been provocative and controversial, deeply offensive and insensitive,” he told the assembled media. "Just because we have the right of free speech and a free media, it does not mean we may say and do as we please and not take into account the effect it will have on others,” he added, continuing:

But by me dressing the way I did, I did just that, exactly the same as the Danish newspaper, if not worse. My method of protest has offended many people, especially the families of the victims of the July bombings. This was not my intention.

What happened in July was a tragedy and un-Islamic. I do not condone these murderous acts, do not support terrorism or extremism and would like to apologise unreservedly and wholeheartedly to the families of the victims. I understand it was wrong, unjustified and insensitive of me to protest in this way.

Apparently, Plod Blair's finest were in the vicinity as Khayam spouted this self-justifying garbage, but did not interview this insult to the Muslim faith. They say that decision to arrest him was made with local police, "in recognition of their policing needs".

Meanwhile, that most incredible prat, Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has denounced the Danish cartoons as a "quite deliberate racist attack" on the Muslim community. Yea… right on Bish!

COMMENT THREAD

Lebanon breaks ranks

The Washington Times reports that while the American government (or the State Department, which is not necessarily the same thing) has been calling on its Middle Eastern “allies”, including Saudi Arabia, to calm the furore supposedly caused by those cartoons, Lebanon has taken matters into its own hands.

“Lebanon's dominant coalition accused Syria yesterday of deliberately fomenting violent protests over cartoons about the Islamic prophet Muhammad…”

“In Beirut, the anti-Syrian coalition that dominates the Lebanese government apologized to Denmark for the burning of its consulate on Sunday, while charging that Syrian intelligence agents had sparked the trouble to destabilize their country.

"The acts of sabotage that happened in [Sunday's] protest are the start of a coup d'etat by the Syrian regime that aims to transform Lebanon into another Iraq," said the coalition. It specifically blamed Syrian officers led by military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat, brother-in-law of President Bashar Assad.”

Not particularly surprising in view of what we have been trying to piece together on this blog (and we are not alone in this) but heartening.

For one thing it reminds us that there are many problems in the Middle East, not just the Israeli-Palestinian one that is used for any and every act of violence and oppression.

Secondly, it shows that the Lebanese government is prepared to put up some kind of a fight against Baby Assad and his ambitions. He, on the other hand, has been meeting with Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been organizing protests over the cartoons in Iraq.

Meanwhile State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Assistant Secretary of State David Welch called in the Syrian ambassador over the week-end to protest against the burning of the Danish embassy, adding:

“Syria is a country where protests don't just occur spontaneously, certainly not of this sort, not without the knowledge and support of the government.”

Not all the news from the front is good. According to an English-language Swedish news service, a text book that had shown mediaeval Islamic pictures of Mohammed have been withdrawn.

First a school sent them back, claiming that they were too old (the books not the illustrations) and they had better material now, then the publisher, Liber, decided to stop their sale.

“Abd al Haqq Kielan, a spokesman for Sweden's Muslims, said he found it "painful" that pictures of the prophet were still used in education. He added that he was dissatisfied that the people responsible for Swedish teaching books had not shown consideration.

However, he said that it was a consolation that the pictures in the book were not prejudiced or defamatory.”

Well, how nice. And, presumably, he did not notice that they were Islamic pictures. The Swedish publishers, having made the announcement, have declined to comment.

COMMENT THREAD

A politically motivated crisis

Simon Heffer, in today's Telegraph, warns that the police must take note of the internationally co-ordinated and highly opportunistic nature of the "Cartoon Wars", which clearly "took some months to arrange".

How far, he asks, do our security services have the measure of those who were waving their placards of death last week, and how much do they know of what else they do to advance militant Islam?

One would hope, in this instance, that they were in close tough with their Danish colleagues, as details are beginning to emerge of the sinister role played Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, better known as Abu Laban, who is given detailed treatment in National Review.

The long article in NR points out that the anti-Danish emotional wave coming from the Muslim world is indeed far from a spontaneous reaction. It has been cunningly orchestrated by Abu Laban who has been building an Islamist base in Denmark for the last 15 years.

What is specially significant about this 60-year-old Palestinian imam is that, until 1990 when he fled Egypt, he was translator and assistant to a key figure in the terrorist group Gamaa Islamiya. Directly and indirectly, through this organisation, Laban has had direct contact with senior figures in what is now al Qaeda, including Ayman al-Zawahari, Bin Laden's right-hand man.

Of the more notorious activities he has conducted from his new base in Copenhagen – where he has resided since 1993 - he has worked as translator and distributor of the magazine Al Murabitoun. This glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Palestine. Laban has also worked closely with Said Mansour, a Moroccan man currently charged in Denmark with running a publishing house that distributed jihadi material.

Laban is the man who, in December 2004, as leader of the Islamic Community in Denmark, called on Muslims to oppose the government's immigration policies and told his followers that they should do their utmost to oust the government in the general election.

A highly political man, therefore, with a declared hostility to the current government, it was also he who sought to internationalise the cartoons issue, leading a delegation to a number of Muslim countries, where he met with senior officials and prominent scholars. These included Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam's most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi.

To them he showed not only the cartoons from Jyllands-Posten but others that had never been published by any Danish publication. The new cartoons were far more offensive, showing the Prophet Mohammed with a pig face and having sexual intercourse with a dog. That, with other provocative material, inspired Qaradawi, the real brains behind the Muslim Brotherhood's international network and a key opinion maker in the Middle East, to attack Denmark directly. This led to the Saudi boycott which was one of the main triggers of the current crisis.

Then, according to one of our Swedish forum members - relying on untranslated Scandinavian material - around 10 January there was yet again an appalling tragedy among the pilgrims to Mecca - some 250-300 persons crushed to death in a stampede. It is around this time the e-mails and sms started to flow, urging Saudi Arabia to boycott Denmark - and Norway, which a week earlier had republished the cartoons.

On 26 January the Saudi ambassador was recalled from Copenhagen and, it is not beyond one's imagination to think that the Saudis used the Cartoon War to divert public attention from their tragedy.

Although, perhaps, by the end of January, the Saudis thought they had gone far enough, by then the Palastine Authority elections showed Hamas as the winner, outflanking the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of the defeated Fatah movement. The day after Hamas's win they demanded a boycott of the unbelievers who had blasphemed the Prophet, and occupied the EU office in Gaza.

In Syria President Assad probably saw in the same issue a way out of his self-inflicted problems, hence the demonstrations and torching of a few embassies on Saturday, plus the bus service for those pleasant bar-b-q-ers to Beirut for an encore on Sunday. Obviously, nothing would suit Assad better than a new conflict along religious lines in Lebanon. Iran, equally, has its own agenda, as do remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan, for which the cartoons have been used as a stick to beat the Americans.

The point that emerges from all this is that the "Cartoon Wars" have less to do with Islamic sensibilities than they do political manoeuvring by a wide-ranging amalgam of Islamist groups, each for their own particular advantages – including London group where, as we are informed, Gamaa Islamiya is known to operate.

Anyone who thinks this is about freedom of speech, therefore, or about "multiculturalism" or community relations, is sadly deluded. We are being embroiled in a vicious, unprincipled, politically-motivated campaign aimed at securing advantage for the militant Islamic fringe.

No wonder Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, and Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the MCB's general secretary, are so quick and keen to speak out against the appalling behaviour of the extremists during the London demonstrations. Now is the time to listen to them, rather than the siren voices who urge concessions and a "softly-softly" approach.

The broader Muslim community in Britain, as much as anyone else, is the victim of this sinister manipulation and the best thing for all of us, would be for the authorities to crack down hard on those whose objectives are to sow discontent and hatred.

COMMENT THREAD

Arab political "humour" knows no bounds

The Jerusalem Post, reports The Guardian website today became the first Israeli newspaper to publish the controversial Danish cartoons

However, the "cartoons" turn out to be a facsimile of the original page from the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten (illustrated), in which all twelve cartoons were published, on 30 September. The image is one column wide and about two-and-a-half inches high, on page six of today's paper, in an article about the weekend protests against the cartoons across the Islamic world

In an editorial accompanying the column, entitled "The Prophet's Honor", the paper contrasts the outcry that the Danish cartoons are causing in the Muslim world, while "Arab cartoonists routinely demonise Jews as global conspirators, corrupters of society and blood-suckers".

"Arab political 'humour' knows no bounds," it says. "A cartoon in Qatar's Al-Watan depicted prime minister Ariel Sharon drinking from a goblet of Palestinian children's blood. Another, in the Egyptian Al-Ahram al-Arabi, showed him jackbooted, bloody-handed and crushing peace."

The editorial adds: "There are those who would argue that the controversy does not reflect a clash of civilisations. Yet it is precisely this persistent refusal to acknowledge the obvious that weakens the cause of tolerance and liberty. Must 'understanding' invariably result in the abdication of western values?"

"If anyone wants to appreciate why the west views with such suspicion the weapons programmes of Muslim states such as Iran, they need look no further than the intolerance Muslim regimes exhibit to these cartoons, and what this portends."

"No one wants to add fuel to the fire. Mobs are more easily placated than reasoned with. But once this controversy passes it will be valuable to determine just who exploited the flap to foment anti-Western outrage, and to inquire what 'moderate' Muslim voices said."

"Globalism demands that points of contact between Islam and the west be multi-cultural havens, not flashpoints. For that to happen, tolerance must be a two-way street."

Israel, incidentally, now joins Ukraine, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, the United States, Japan, Norway, Malaysia and Australia. Two Romanian newspapers today published pictures of the pages of foreign newspapers showing the cartoons. Noticeably absent from this list, of course, is the United Kingdom.

COMMENT THREAD

The EU whimps out

UPDATED

Although several European leaders have reacted individually to the events in the Middle East, noticeably absent is any sense of crisis in the European Union hierarchy itself, with the Austrian presidency having declined to call a meeting of member states to discuss developments.

Strangely from an organisation which devoted untold hours to tense negotiations on VAT rates for hairdressers, this issue it seems is not one that it is prepared to tackle head-on.

According to EU Observer, an Austrian presidency spokesman simply confined himself to the anodyne statement: "For the moment we have no plans to call for a crisis meeting. If we call upon the ministers of the 25 member states, we would like to see something coming out of it."

A half-hearted statement has come from the EU commission, which stunned to world with the statement that is was "aware that the cartoons ... have aggrieved Muslims across the world." This is from spokesman Johannes Laitenberg, who adds that, "no grievance, perceived or real, justifies acts of violence such as perpetrated on the weekend," saying that the EU condemned the weekend violence "in the strongest possible terms."

The same lack of resolution is mirrored in the one and only statement from Javier Solana - made via his spokeswoman - who, unbelievably, condemned against Europeans on the grounds that it could "only harm the image of peaceful Islam."

In an attempt to maintain that "image of peaceful Islam", meanwhile, protesters in Afghanistan today went on the rampage, leaving at least four dead after security forces opened fire.

The worst of the violence was outside Bagram, the main US base in Afghanistan, with Afghan police firing on some 2,000 protesters as they tried to break into the heavily guarded facility.

In Kabul, about 200 protesters tried to break down the gate of the Danish government's diplomatic mission office but failed. The protesters then threw stones at the mission and beat some officers guarding it, as well some guards at a nearby house used by Belgian diplomats. Police later used batons and rifle butts to disperse demonstrators walking toward the presidential palace.

Ironically, the protestors were not content with their usual chants of, "Long live Islam! We are Muslims! We don't let anyone insult our prophet!", adding to the litany with "Down with America!" and slogans against the Afghan and US presidents.

In Tehran, about 200 people pelted the embassy of Austria, current holders of the EU president, with petrol bombs and stones. The mission did not catch fire and police prevented people from storming it. Clearly officially sanctioned, the target of the EU presidency would have been unkown to all but a very few. Following that, hand grenades and cocktail Molotovs were hurled at the Danish embassy in Tehran as several hundred radical Islamists attacked the compound this evening. The protestors, members of the Bassij – an offshoot of the Revolutionary Guards – demanded that the Danish ambassador be expelled from Iran.

Elsewhere, in Somalia, a 14-year-old boy was killed and several others were injured after protesters attacked the police. Several thousand students massed peacefully in Cairo on the campus of al-Azhar University, the oldest and most important seat of Sunni Muslim learning in the world, and, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir came to a standstill as shops, businesses and schools shut down for a day to protest.

In the Indian capital of New Delhi, riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of students from Jamia University, who chanted slogans and burned a Danish flag while, 500 Indonesian protestors rallied in front of the Danish embassy in Jakarta.

Palestinian police in Gaza City used batons to beat back stone-throwing protesters who gathered outside the European Commission building. About 200 protesters waved green flags symbolizing the Islamic Hamas movement and the yellow flags of the secular Fatah Party.

Of course, none of this is so important as to tear the EU away from its own internal preoccupations. Thus, in the wake of the hairdressing crisis, does even the Financial Times report: "EU looks to be grinding to a halt".

COMMENT THREAD

Who else is involved?

To stiffen the sinews and add purpose to my existence I have been re-reading John Buchan’s novels. (Actually, they often make one feel tired and inadequate, but let that pass.)

Aficionados will recall that most of the novels (and my own favourites are the Hannay and Leithen series) have somewhere near the beginning a discussion of a random set of events that somehow fit together into a sinister pattern. Almost always behind those events there is a person or a group of people manipulating those who think they are acting on their own.

The reason these plots do not become stupid and tiresome conspiracy theories is because Buchan, a man who knew politics from personal experience, always understood that there were many other unforeseeable events happening as well and even the smartest conspirators could not count on everything to develop as planned.

I am not for one moment suggesting that there is a world-wide conspiracy behind the War of the Danish Cartoons (though I have no doubt some of our readers will think of one or two or a hundred). But clearly there are different forces at work.

Demonstrations of this kind, whether it is a march with prepared placards from the Regent’s Park mosque to the Danish Embassy (a long way, incidentally, in London) or crowds bused from all parts of Beirut and outside it to burn the embassies, have to be planned, financed and organized. Spontaneous demonstrations always fizzle out.

So, let’s go through some of the groups and people who might be doing some organizing. No question but Iran is dabbling in it somewhere, though interestingly, the mullahs opted not to have demonstrations in the country itself. This could be a waiting game – we can do it but choose not to – or it could be the result of some unease about getting crowds together and firing them up. Who knows against whom they might turn next?

Baby Assad got his lot together, first in Damascus then in Beirut (yes, I know the Syrians have formally left Lebanon but their agents go marching on). Could it be yet another effort on his part to delay his coming demise (political or otherwise)? Another civil war in Lebanon as one of our readers has posited on the forum would be enormously useful to him.

Riots in Gaza – we have talked about those before. Apart from that, demonstrations in some countries like Pakistan and Indonesia but not very big ones. Saudi Arabia might be promoting the boycott but there are no riots in the country itself. Nor in various other Arab countries, despite the growing need to turn attention away from such enormous events as the annual stampede during the Hajj to Mecca, which always seems to result in several hundred dead and the more recent ferry disaster in the Red Sea. Over 1,000 people seem to have died while the captain and officers managed to escape.

Outside the Middle East, as we have pointed out, in one place only: London, which is interesting as Britain has not been in the vanguard of defiance or support for free speech. Are we now seen as a soft touch by all those groups of Islamicists? Is the name Londonistan better deserved than we realized? I ask merely because I want to know.

There is, however, another aspect to the London demonstrations that has not, so far as I know, been noted by anyone. The placards, presumably handed out at the Mosque on Friday and carried down to Sloane Street, all seem to have been written by one hand.

That would not be a problem by itself. But I suggest close attention to what is said on them. These are not placards written by people whose second language is English, who are not educated or unable to put sentences together and can only rage impotently.

The words, the slogans, the sentences are all carefully written by someone who is English or has lived here all his life (I doubt it was a woman) and someone well educated. Words like “annihilate”, “behead”, “holocaust”, “massacre” are not easy to spell.

Slogans like “Europe is the cancer, Islam is the answer” do not come from the Koran or the teachings of the average imam. Or what of this: “Europe you will pay, Fantastic 4 are on their way”?

One of the interesting aspects of the big demo organized by the Coalition Against the War was the complete uniformity of the placards and notices carried and stuck on lamp-posts. Furthermore, they were exactly like the placards and notices of the Socialist Workers’ Party. It took some journalists a little time to find the various connections but eventually they did. However, one look at those posters would have given them the clue.

I am not suggesting that there is a Black Stone or a Powerhouse behind all this, much less a brilliant German agent of the kind who gives Hannay a bad time in two out of the five novels.

But I would strongly suggest that some English organization (or just an individual, though that is unlikely) has become involved in the London protests, seeing in them a possibility for mayhem.

There is, of course, another explanation and that would fit in with Buchan’s plots. There may be a maverick somewhere in the various intelligence and security services, who, tired of official inaction in the face of great danger, has decided to provoke public opinion, leaving the politicians and guardians of the law (stop laughing at the back) with no choice but to act. (We wish.)

That may be a daydream but it is a very pleasant one. Sadly, I think the first explanation may be nearer the truth. But I am guessing.

COMMENT THREAD

A defining moment

"Has Police Hate Crime Unit gone deaf?": a good question from one source this morning and one which, in various ways, virtually all the newspapers are asking as they catch up with public sentiment and put precisely the question we asked on Saturday morning. This source continues:

A demonstration where Muslim extremists carried banners inciting murder – whilst Metropolitan Police stood by and did nothing. In fact, despite the clear and blatant law breaking the hundreds of Metropolitan Police officers present were clearly under orders not to arrest anyone – despite feelings to the contrary by many a good copper on duty!

Another comment puts precisely the feeling of undoubtedly millions of ordinary British people – Muslims and Christians alike:

…public order and confidence require stronger recognition that limits of acceptable protest and public discourse have been crossed. White racists are rightly arrested and charged for their hate campaigns. Muslim fanatics have to face similar severity for their no less repulsive actions. Ours is a tolerant way of life; we must be robust in defending it against its enemies.

Indicative of just how far the Metropolitan Police hierarchy have departed from the common norms of decency and tolerance, the two pieces quoted – indistinguishable in tone – are respectively from the British National Party and the Guardian leader.

Such is the growing outrage that even The Daily Mail manages to sound moderate and mainstream, its story leading with: "British Muslims ask: Why no arrests?"

The paper points out that moderate Muslims are leading demands for police to explain why no arrests were made from a hate-filled mob threatening murder and glorifying the July 7 attacks. Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, demanded action from the police. He said the demonstrators were "trying to incite others and to make criminal acts legitimate. The time has come to say enough is enough".

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "It seems to us some of their slogans were designed to incite violence and even to incite murder. The Muslim community will have no sympathy whatsoever for these individuals."

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the MCB's general secretary, said he was "disgusted utterly" by some of the placards on show, and Labour MP Shahid Malik, who is on the Home Affairs Select Committee, revealed that he wrote to Sir Ian Blair, head of the Metropolitan Police, on Friday calling for prosecutions. He said: "No matter how much offence cartoons may or may not cause, it can never justify violence."

The Guardian's lead story has No 10 criticising "unacceptable" cartoon protesters, with a statement that added: "The police should have our full support in any actions they may wish to take." You wish… What actions?

Even the Independent, which can’t quite bring itself to run an editorial, covers the controversy with a headline quote, stating "Police must bear down on extremist protesters", retailing that the some-time darling of the Left, Peter Hain has said that police should come down "heavily" on anti-cartoon protesters who broke the law. Hain has said the actions of some Muslims in London at the weekend had been "completely unacceptable and intolerable".

The Times presents an unwarranted note of optimism, claiming that "militants face arrest over July 7 placards", stating that "leaders of Muslim protests who threatened more terror attacks on Britain are to face questioning by police after a weekend of complaints over chants and placards praising the July 7 suicide bombers," not perhaps realising that many of the bearers of the more inflammatory placards had their faces concealed.

We do learn, however, that the man who made one of the most provocative protests - a demonstrator dressed as a suicide bomber, wearing a fake explosive belt - was "spoken to" by police on the day, but - can you believe this? -they did not take his name and address.

It is The Sun that identifies the man as Omar Khayam, 22, who has vowed "I would be prepared to wear that jacket again." The Sun calls him a "twisted" suicide bomber. But "amazingly" Khayam avers: "I've done nothing wrong," adding: "I wasn't trying to appear like a terrorist at all."

That is not how The Mail sees it. Its leader, headed, "police, protest and political correctness" notes that "the image was profoundly shocking. A young Muslim rigged out as a suicide bomber parades in London, a city which six months ago saw 52 innocent people murdered by real suicide bombers."

"Inflammatory?" it continues: "It could hardly be more so. An incitement to violence? Given the accompanying placards urging murder and mayhem, potentially… Yet the Metropolitan Police refused to intervene in this hate-filled protest."

Finally, in the print edition of The Telegraph (but not online), the headline reads: "Arrest pedlars of hate, police urged", with an editorial , echoing our own piece, noting:

We live in a country where you can be arrested for reciting the names of dead soldiers at the Cenotaph, heckling at a Labour Party conference or making slighting remarks about Osama bin Laden. We live in a country where a pensioner can be charged with "racially aggravated criminal damage" for scrawling "free speech for England" on a condemned wall.

It then makes the obvious point about the failure of the Plods to act, asking: "Might there be a connection between this cowardice and the contempt some Muslims feel for us?"

An answer is not needed. This is the defining point for us as a nation. Either we are a bunch of timorous whimps, who carry tolerance to the point of craven appeasement, or we are a country which has certain standards and values, which is determined to stand up for them.

So far, our establishment, and especially the police, has not risen to the challenge. But how the "great and the good" act in the next 48 hours will very much define whether we, the people, take matters into our own hands. The message is simple – lead or be trampled underfoot.

COMMENT THREAD

An interesting development

We have all heard about the fake cartoons that were distributed in the Middle East. These were considerably more offensive than the original ones and my guess is that many of the rioters only ever saw those fakes (if, indeed, they saw anything at all).

The story has developed. The fake cartoons were taken by the Danish imams, who, led by Imam Ahmad Abu Laban, a man who has expressed sympathy with terrorists, toured the Middle Eastern countries in December.

As Jonathon Hunt of Fox News puts it:

“The Imam and others toured the Middle East showing the cartoons but adding three more new ones that were far more offensive than anything the paper published. He (Imam Ahmad Abu Laban) told us they were from threatening letters but promising to give us copies of those letters, he never did.”

And the purpose of this interesting idea of diplomatic negotiations? To force Western Europe to create a new set of rules for itself. Could those rules be Sharia Law? Not to be excluded, surely.

The American Thinker agrees:

“In other words, this was indeed a campaign, planned by important members of the Islamic world’s power structure, intended to force Denmark to comply with Sharia requirements. A new norm, that a western nation would conform to Sharia regardless of its free exression tradition, would be on the way to being established.”

And, of course, this would explain what was puzzling many, including us on this blog: the timing of the outburst. Those cartoons were published in September. Why has the violent protest erupted now?

What Arab sympathisers are reluctant to point out, however, is the torrent of anti-Semitic and anti-American filth that is flowing off the pens Middle East cartoonists. On the other hand, this one, illustrated above, offers its own commentary on this selective myopia.

COMMENT THREAD

And now for something completely different

Notwithstanding the overwhelming importance of the War of the Danish Cartoons, other aspects of life and activity must go on. One of my forthcoming activities is a talk I shall be giving to the Society for Individual Freedom on Tuesday, February 7 at 6.30 pm in the upstairs room of the Westminster Arms in Storey’s Gate, London SW1 (for those misguided souls who might want to attend).

My subject will be “Out of the EU into the Anglosphere?”. As it was pointed out by a person close to me, spheres are the theme of my talks this year. In Washington I talked to the Hudson Institute on “America, Europe and the blogosphere” (yes, yes, I know I have not written the meeting up) and now this.

At various times the theme of the Anglosphere cropped up on this blog and it is one that needs to be covered in greater detail, though, I am glad to say there is a group-blog, Albion’s Seedling, that is dedicated to the theme.

Very briefly, this relatively new political idea is based on the notion that certain countries share similar political, constitutional, legal and economic ideas and these countries make up a loose network, called the Anglosphere.

The ideas come from England and it was the historian Alan Macfarlane, who first showed in The Origins of English Individualism that mediaeval England could not be described as a classic peasant society, as property appeared to be owned individually rather than by family to a far greater extent than it had been understood before that.

Other aspects of Anglospheric thinking are (and much of this is theory and aspiration rather than practice) small government, individual freedom, a legal basis of common law and a very strong sense of property and legality.

Anglospherism is neither the rather racist Anglo-Saxonism of the early twentieth century nor the moribund Commonwealth revived. It is based on ideas about the past and the future and a network or coalitions of the willing made possible by modern technology.

There are other aspects of peculiarly English ideas, which are responsible for the stupendous leap forward humanity took in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some of these I am still mulling over.

For instance, it may be the basic distrust of the state that makes it so peculiarly inefficient, as shown by its behaviour in the twentieth century. It is fair to say that no country’s economy can survive control by the state but nothing run by the state in the Anglospheric countries seems to function: not welfare, not education, not even transport. Whether this is good or bad is irrelevant. It appears to be the pattern.

Another aspect of the Anglospheric peculiarity or exceptionalism occurred to me a while ago (before the actual theory came my way) when Tate Britain had an exhibition of pre-Reformation art. It was a very limited and badly curated exhibition, whose main aim seem to prove that the Reformation, having destroyed much of Catholic art (true) then proceeded to destroy English culture by separating it from the Continent (manifestly rubbish).

What did occur to me as I was reading the rather pathetic excuse for art history was that there was clearly a continuity in English culture through the Reformation. (Readers are welcome to shoot down these tentative speculations.)

After all, do we ever hear of English artists before the sixteenth century? There were many on the Continent by this time, particularly in Italy. But we do hear of writers and poets, books published, even the first cookery book under Richard II. Could it be that English culture tended to the literary even before the Reformation.

Interestingly, the exhibition managed to disprove some of its own ideas. It seems that the great achievement of English art and sculpture before and after the Reformation was the family vault in the various churches. There is, one suspects, a continuing emphasis on individual and family here, that is not to be disregarded.

Enough of the past. What of the future? Many of the ideas that will probably be of importance in the twenty-first century are of the Anglosphere. Will Britain, the country where these ideas originated all those centuries ago, be part of it? The reason there is a question mark at the end of the title is simple: I have the most serious doubts about it. We have moved too far away from the ideas of freedom, individuality, small government and common law. It will be the most appalling tragedy if we miss this wonderful opportunity.

COMMENT THREAD

A loss of moral equilibrium

Plod Blair, aka, Sir Ian, Commissioner of the 31,000-strong Metropolitan Police Service, may not have thought it necessary to arrest the Muslim demonstrators last Friday. But it is good to know that other officers, including some of his own, have a much sterner view of the law, and are considerably more diligent in upholding it.

In June 2005, for instance, Oxford student Sam Brown was taken to court by the police for making "homophobic comments", whence he was fined £80.

His precise offence was “insulting a police horse”, calling it “gay” after he had left a night club in Oxford with a group of friends, where he had been celebrating his finals. The police had radioed for backup and then proceeded to pursue him at a trot. Two squad cars arrived at the scene and six policemen surrounded the student, who was handcuffed and taken to a police station, where he was kept in the cells overnight until charged.

But if horses are so sensitive, what price the motorist whom made V-signs at a speed camera. He was unwise enough to take both hands off the wheel to do so and was convicted of dangerous driving and banned for a year by a Scottish court - even though it was acknowledged that he was not speeding and did not lose control.

The man who used his middle finger to express his opinion of another one of these mobile cash machines fared better with only an £80 fine, despite also driving within the speed limit. He was stunned to find two plods at his doorstep half an hour after he had made his views known and even more so when they handed him a fixed-penalty ticket under the Public Order Act for making offensive gestures.

In October last year, John Banda, a 74-year old Zambian accountant, devout Christian and formerly treasurer of the United Church of Zambia, found another way or attracting the ire of the plods.

To demonstrate his faith, he sometimes carries a placard containing two quotations from the New Testament: "Jesus Christ is Lord. Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." On 26 October, he was stopped near London Bridge by three policemen, who said that the wording was in breach of the Public Order Act 1986.

The plods had decided it was a criminal offence to display written material which is "threatening, abusive or insulting" and intended to "stir up racial hatred". The policemen told him in no uncertain fashion that, if he continued to display his placard, he would be arrested.

This month, however, a campaigner against ID cards, who had been filmed outside the Labour Party conference in the autumn, and stopped under counter-terror laws while collecting signatures for a petition, was told by police that his details will be kept on file indefinitely.

Mark Wallace, campaign manager for the Freedom Association, was outside the Labour Party conference in Brighton last autumn when he was detained under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The measure gives officers wide powers to stop anyone in a designated area, whether or not they are acting suspiciously.

"One minute I was peacefully collecting signatures,” he says, “and the next I had five policemen around me, one with a video camera recording my every move and another taking my personal details, address and so on."

During the Labour conference, 426 people were stopped under section 44 of the Terrorism Act. None was charged or convicted. Official figures show that nationally 119,000 people were stopped under the powers between 2001 and early 2005, and only 1,515 of these were arrested.

Wallace shared the same fate as heckler Walter Wolfgang, an 82-year-old activist, who was summarily ejected from the conference hall after he had dared called foreign secretary Jack Straw a liar.

At first Sussex police denied that Mr Wolfgang had been detained or searched but a spokesman later admitted that he had been issued with a section 44 stop and search form under the Terrorism Act. Mr Wolfgang said: "We have reached a situation where freedom of expression has been threatened. I am not surprised, because the Labour Party has been taken over by a gang of adventurers who are on their way out."

Then there was the famous case of the vegan cook, Maya Anne Evans. Police might have been forgiven for arresting her on sight in view of her profession, but instead they arrested her for reading out names of soldiers killed in Iraq at central London's Cenotaph. She was found guilty of breaching Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, after a three-hour trial.

Ever watchful guardians of public morals that they are, the police also moved in to arrest a 20-year-old gamekeeper for wearing a "Bollocks to Blair" T-shirt at the Midlands Game Fair. Charlotte Denis, 20, a gamekeeper from Gloucestershire, was stopped by police as she left the Countryside Alliance stand because of the "offensive" slogan.

She was marched towards a police car. "They grabbed me as if I was a football hooligan," she says. When she asked the officers how they could arrest someone for wearing a T-shirt, she was told that “it was because it would offend a 70-80-year-old woman."

Finally, there was the case of Nicky Samengo-Turner, formerly an investment banker, now works in the Formula 1 motor-racing industry. His car was searched during a random "anti-terror" search, when the police found Victorinox Swiss multi-tool a small collapsible baton, locked in his briefcase.

He was arrested, fingerprinted, verbally abused and then detained in a cell, finally to be assaulted by the arresting officer before being charged and released on bail, only to find his car had been given a parking ticket.

These are the cases that have been highly publicised, but any number of people can tell you similar tales where the police have totally over-reacted, not least myself. They broke into my house at 11.30 on a Saturday night to arrest me for non-payment of Council Tax, withheld in protest after police inaction following a rash of burglaries, keeping me locked up until the Monday when my wife could finally draw the money from a bank.

When these actions are contrasted with the stunning inactivity of the plods to the Muslim protestors and their banners, you begin to realise that there is something seriously wrong with the state of this nation. One explanation given by a former senior policeman on Sky TV this afternoon was that the police were worried about how it might look on Al Jazeera if there was violence between the police and the protesters.

But, when there is no prospect of Al Jazeera filming, it seems anything goes. Nothing is too small or too slight to escape the attention of the long arm of the law. Small wonder, people are becoming increasingly resentful at the way they are being treated.

COMMENT THREAD

Two interesting links

While British newspapers have not found it possible to publish the cartoons, though they have all pontificated at length, Le Monde has added one of its own and very clever it is, too.

It is interesting that outside certain Middle Eastern cities - Beirut, Damascus and Gaza City - there were demonstrations (not very big ones) in Pakistan, Indonesia and Britain. London saw two and these were bigger than the ones in the non-Middle Eastern countries.

This is particularly odd as Britain is one of the few European countries where the cartoons have not been published and the politicians have been making abominably craven statements. Is there a connection there? And are we going to see a vastly increased BNP vote in the forthcoming local elections as the direct outcome of what has been going on?

Meanwhile, for those who still believe that the Prophet's face must not be pictured, here is a link to a whole series of paintings throughout history that .... errm ... did just that. Not very many hearts seem to have been broken in all that time.

A Sunday stroll and a Bar-B-Q

How nice it is of those lovely people in the Levant to honour that quaint Sunday ritual that is becoming something of a tradition in this, our own green and pleasant land.

Thus it is that the Telegraph website and others tell us that these people – whose rest day in on a Friday – have kindly given up a working day to provide us with such a splendid example of tolerance and goodwill.

No doubt attracted by the prospect of the distribution of some high quality pork products (or "white beef" as they call it in the restaurants) strollers gathered in the vicinity of the Danish embassy in Beirut, burning Danish flags as is their own tradition, and chanting: "There is no god but God and Mohammad is the messenger of God!"

Some brought their own reading material, in anticipation of the afternoon lull and many brought their own tablecloths, some in a brilliant, verdant green, although the newly fashionable black also seems to be making a comeback. Such was the enthusiam of the crowd that some even fastened them to sticks, creating a festive tableau of improvised flags.

Police, taking a cue from their Syrian colleagues, provided free doses of tear gas and a cooling spray from their water cannons. They also fired their weapons into the air as part of the celebrations. Unfortunately, it seems, enthusiasm got the better of the crowd and the Bar-B-Qs got slightly out of hand with the result that the embassy accidentally burnt to the ground.

Tragically at least 18 people were injured, including policemen and fire fighters, with witnesses reporting at least 10 people taken away by ambulance. This invoked a few minor protests, but one of the crowd quickly made amends by carrying out cosmetic alterations to a police car. Conveniently, he just happened to have brought his work tools with him to the festivities.

Some 2,000 army troops and riot police have now been deployed to help sightseers with directions and the Danish Foreign Ministry has urged its countrymen to rush back to Denmark to spread the good tidings on how well their efforts have been received in this peace-loving land, not least the sterling work of their renowned cartoonists, who are now acquiring a world-wide reputation for their penetrating wit.

COMMENT THREAD

Lest we forget

Flashback: 15 September 2004: A demonstration against the fox hunting Bill, outside Parliament:

Instantly, the police responded with a flail of truncheons. For a moment, they resembled beaters driving birds towards guns. They were scenes more associated with the clash of police and shaven-headed football hooligans or dreadlocked anti-capitalist demonstrators rather than men in flat caps and women in quilted waistcoats.

In a flurry of violence, people were hurt by the impact of truncheons and by the crush of people pushing forward to join the pre-planned sitdown. Archie Norman, the Conservative MP, who had come out to watch the mayhem, was almost hit by a bottle that smashed beside him. Mr Jukes condemned the behaviour of the police officers. "I can't believe it happened - there was no reason for it at all," he said.

"There was a bit of a surge and they only needed to say, 'Steady on lads', but instead they started hitting everyone. "I even saw old men with their heads split open. "There were all these young policemen having fun with their truncheons, waving them over their heads before flashing them down on ours." One of the older protesters injured in the melee was Simon Harrap, the Master of the Hampshire, who said: "It was incredibly heavy-handed."

"We're decent, respectable people and we don't deserve the riot squad treatment," David Jukes, 45, the Master of the Zetland Hunt in North Yorkshire, said as he mopped a bloodied brow.

Standing beneath the stern gaze of the statue of Oliver Cromwell, William Hudson, 27, from Hampshire, had blood from a head wound all over his green T-shirt.

"I saw them hitting the person behind me, they did not seem concerned whether people were trying to go forward or back, everyone was getting crushed, it was very frightening. There is no point hitting people on the head. Why could they not hit our bodies?"

Now fast forward to 3 February 2006:

An Association of Chief Police Officers spokesman said that the protests did not yet represent a serious threat to public order. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Arrests, if necessary, will be made at the most appropriate time. This should not be taken as a sign of lack of action."

Scotland Yard says a decision not to arrest protesters was taken because of public order fears. It confirmed that police had received more than 100 complaints from the public about the protesters' behaviour.

Yesterday, more than 1,000 demonstrators staged a second protest outside the embassy. The only arrests made were of two men found carrying cartoons of Mohammed. Police said they had been detained "to prevent a breach of the peace". A man dressed as a suicide bomber, however, was left unhindered, while the police sought to prevent photographers taking pictures.

COMMENT THREAD

Is the worm going to turn?

As so often, it is The Business which best articulates the issues, in this case those surrounding the Mohammed cartoons rumpus, running an article headed, "Cartoons draw a sinister silence" by Fraser Nelson.

Nelson draws the parallel between Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, claiming his trial in Leeds last week was the best advertisement for his Party, and the protest outside the Danish embassy in London – which in the event provided a much better evidence that Islam was a fundamentalist religion that threatens British culture.

Griffin, writes Nelson, has sought to convey two messages: that immigration is a threat to British society and that Westminster politicians are too timid to even admit to the problem, far less do anything about it.

Now, with the placards of the London protesters lodged in the public domain, the response of Blair, the prime minister, has been weak and the response of Blair the plod has been pathetic.

But so indeed has been David Cameron who, (according to The Business)has said he wants "to be kept out of this one", with only Dominic Grieve, Shadow Attorney General, calling the Danish cartoons "reckless", after having admitted that he had not seen them.

But with mainstream politicians saying little and doing nothing about what many in Britain see as outrageous behaviour by the London demonstrators, Nelson suggests that they will turn to the BNP. "This is exactly how a far-right fringe party like the BNP enters the mainstream," he writes. "There are no easy political responses to this bizarre cartoon jihad. But staying silent," he concludes, "could be the most dangerous option of all."

Perhaps aware of that very possibility, Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain yesterday called on Sir Ian Blair, the Met plod commissioner, to press charges against the protestors.

This is reported by The Sunday Times, with Bunglawala cited as saying that "The Metropolitan police should now consider all the evidence they have gathered from the protests to see if they can prosecute the extremists."

He then adds: "It is time the police acted, but in a way so as not to make them martyrs of the Prophet's cause, which is what they want, but as criminals. Ordinary Muslims are fed up with them," stating also that "Lots of innocent Muslims went to the demonstration not realising that it was organised by extremists. They were hijacked by them."

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the council's secretary-general, expands further on this, saying that, "We cannot have double standards, so therefore any breach of the law should be looked at by the police and investigated. The cartoons have offended every Muslim and the anger of Muslims has to be lawfully expressed. However, this outrage was used by some to induce Muslims into taking part in terrorist violence. We condemn their actions."

The whimpish response from the Association of Chief Police Officers, however, almost beggars belief, their spokesman saying that the protests did not yet represent a serious threat to public order. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Arrests, if necessary, will be made at the most appropriate time. This should not be taken as a sign of lack of action."

Obviously sensing a sea change in public sentiment, it now seems that the Conservatives are coming into line, or so at least says The Sunday Telegraph, which goes to press much later than The Business.

Now, it appears, David Davis, the shadow home secretary, is also calling on the police to arrest militant Muslims, saying that the police should take action against what were clearly offences of incitement to murder. "Whatever your views on these cartoons," he declares, "we have a tradition of freedom of speech in this country which has to be protected. Certainly there can be no tolerance of incitement to murder."

According to The Sunday Times, Scotland Yard says a decision not to arrest protesters was taken because of public order fears. It confirmed that police had received more than 100 complaints from the public about the protesters' behaviour.

And, to rub in the partisan approach of the police, yesterday, more than 1,000 demonstrators staged a second protest outside the embassy. The only arrests made were of two men found carrying cartoons of Mohammed. Police said they had been detained "to prevent a breach of the peace". A man dressed as a suicide bomber (pictured above), however, was left unhindered, while the police sought to prevent photographers taking pictures.

Now we wait to see whether the Tories do push the case or whether Davies is just going through the motions, without the support of the Boy King.

Certainly, as far as this Blog is concerned, the Friday demonstrations were the tipping point and many people feel the same. As The Business suggests, anything less than a robust response will provide the BNP with their best recruitment opportunity since the London bombings.

COMMENT THREAD

Let's be fair to the State Department

As our readers can imagine, it really hurts to write those words but fair is fair. After the disgraceful statement we quoted yesterday, a more sensible comment was made by Sean McCormack (also a spokesman) at the daily briefing.

“While we share the offense that Muslims have taken at these images, we at the same time vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of view.

Freedom of expression is at the core of our democracy, and it is something that we have shed blood and treasure around the world to defend, and we will continue to do so.”

Still a bit mealy-mouthed and “nuanced” but a good deal better than what our own Foreign Secretary came up with.

Besides, Mr McCormack has managed to land a punch. He called on all those who found the Mohammed cartoons offensive to protest vigorously against anti-Semitic and anti-Christian images.

As we have pointed out on this blog, those images are widespread and considerably more offensive than the Danish cartoons.

COMMENT THREAD

Could he be a secret free-trader?

In response to political pressure exerted not only by the United States, the European countries (mildly) and, even the UN (even more mildly), as well as Egypt and Jordan, Hamas has said yah-boo. In an interview with the Washington Times a leading Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said that the West could take its aid and “get lost”.

Hamas, he and his colleagues have been proclaiming, will not abandon its struggle against that “illegitimate entity”, Israel.

There would be low-level discussions on technical matters with Israel (presumably ways and means of getting the money that Israel has put into an escrow account) but nothing else.

Previous discussions had led to nowhere (mostly because they were broken off at a to him convenient moment by Chairman Yasser Arafat) and they “had only enmeshed the Palestinian Authority (PA) in "corrupt relationships" with the Jewish state”.

We are talking here of a territory, for the people there have hardly shown themselves to be ready to create a state, in which there is 70 per cent unemployment. Well over half the people live on less than $2 a day, which is the official international poverty line, and the others on not much more.

This, despite the fact that more aid has been pumped into the Palestinian territory per man, woman and child than to any other part of the world. Where the money is nobody knows for sure though informed guesses have been made.

Curiously enough, there has never been any shortage of funds for guns, ammunition, explosives and, most recently, foreign flags to burn.

So what is Hamas going to do after it had formed the government, which, according to Mr Zahar, might take several months?

“Mr. Zahar contends that the Palestinian economy could be sustained by trade and investment with other Arab nations. He said development projects since the 1993 Oslo peace deal had only benefited Israel, while accepting Western aid "with any strings attached" would only harm Palestinian interests.”

Well, goodness me, could the man be a secret free-trader? Of course, it is a little difficult to work out what Palestine will trade at this point but I am sure Mr Zahar has thought of an answer to that. He is simply not telling.

There is also the problem that the nearest two countries, Egypt and Jordan are among those putting pressure on the organization to abandon its terroristic practices, not least because they are a little worried that those practices might spread to their own countries. (Mind you, historical experience tells one that the Palestinians are better off annoying the Israelis than the Jordanians.)

Other Arab countries do not seem to be rushing in with offers but something might come from Syria, though, again, historical experience tells one that Syrian help always comes with strings attached very firmly to it.

Could Hamas have already received money from Iran? Or at least secure promise of funds? It is possible, but as we have written before, there is a limit to what Iran can afford. Apart from anything else, that nuclear programme will be expensive. Buying arms from the Russians and the Chinese is expensive. Keeping Hizbollah going is expensive. (Incidentally, I have seen no reports of demonstrations against the Danish cartoons in Teheran or any other Iranian city. I wonder why not.)

Another possibility was aired by yet another spokesman for Hamas, Abu Kuhri. (I would dearly love to know what position in the organization all these spokesmen occupy.)

“Emissaries from the group, which recently won control of the Palestinian parliament, plan to visit Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela, according to Abu Kuhri, a Hamas spokesman.

Mr. Kuhri was quoted Thursday in the Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, as saying the head of Hamas' parliamentary faction, Ismail Haniyeh, might head the delegation. He said the mission's purpose was to change the view that Hamas is a terrorist group "and to demonstrate that the problem is the Israeli occupation."”

While the first summit of Arab and South American leaders last May had issued a declaration, as all these summits do, which “called on Israel to withdraw from occupied territories and criticized U.S. sanctions on Syria, saying they violated international law”, it is not at all clear that anything will come from that.

For one thing, most of those countries are having economic problems of their own. Not even Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has yet made a statement in support of Hamas or offered them any free oil.

Brazil, having hosted the summit, has now sided with the United States and others in trying to put pressure on Hamas. Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said:

“Brazil is ready to cooperate with any Palestinian government which seeks, among other things, the formation and consolidation of an economically viable Palestinian state, which at the same time wants to contribute to peace and recognizes the existence of Israel.”

There are significant Arab communities in South America (10 million in Brazil alone) but these have not been making any demands on Hamas’s behalf so far (or demonstrated about those cartoons). There have been accusations of money laundering for terrorist groups and denials of same by the local communities.

So it may be back to the World Bank after all that brave talk. Its President, Paul Wolfowitz, said in an interview that his organization should go on distributing funds in the territory no matter what. Then again, those funds have to come from somewhere.

For the moment the Palestinian Authority appears to be effectively bankrupt, its employees have not been paid and the money is due on Monday and the customs dues collected by Israel have been placed into an escrow fund with decision to be taken next week on whether to hand the money over and to whom.

COMMENT THREAD

The truth revealed

We wondered why the burqua girls in the Mohammed cartoon had such big round eyes…

Now, the truth is revealed. The pictures were actually cropped from a bigger drawing and now, thanks to our own resident Anoneumouse, we can show you what was really going on. Seems it was more like a car-toon.

And, by the way, we've discovered the link between the EU and Islam. Note here from an Islamic clothing catalogue – proudly, it declares: "one size fits all".

COMMENT THREAD

The peace-lovers gather

In an unexpected gesture of solidarity, peace-loving Islamists have now gathered cordially in Damascus to express their sincere love of free speech to their colleagues in the Danish and Norwegian embassies.

According to a Telegraph report, at the Danish embassy, these gentle people took time out to remind the crowds of their commitment peaceful discourse by chanting "God is Great," as they burned the Danish flag and replaced it with another flag reading "No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Prophet". They then set fire to the building in order to demonstrate their solidarity with the Danes.

At the Norwegian embassy, police obligingly provided water from their water cannons for the crowd sweltering under the midday sun, and made available supplies of tear gas to assist them in showing the appropriate emotions. Thus refreshed and fortified, the crowd then politely demolished police barriers and, in the interests of equality, set fire to that building as well.

Meanwhile, according to Reuters the democratic republic of Iran, which has so unfairly been referred to the UN Security Council by a vote of the IAEA – when all it wants to do is deliver high levels of nuclear energy to its impoverished near-neighbour, Israel - has decided to assist the peace-loving bretheren of Islam.

It is formed a committee to review trade ties with countries that have published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad - peace be to him - in the hope of encouraging European nations to develop their censorship skills to the level practised by the Islamist world.

As the brothers in Nazareth also chanted their support for peaceful expression (left), they were joined by 500 students of Islamic seminaries or madrasas in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, who chanted "Down with Denmark". In a novel demonstration of support for the city art gallery, they then called for the authorities to, "Hang the culprits".

In response to this admirable support for the principles of free speech, the Polish financial daily Rzeczpospolita has now published the much-admired cartoons. The Gaza Ladies Sewing Circle has since reported a rush of orders for the Polish flag, noting that their new, improved "flammable version" was selling particularly well.

COMMENT THREAD

Free speech for all

Reuters today, and many others, here, for instance, report on the continuing unrest in Gaza, with Palestinian youths attempting to storm the European Union office in their continuing protest over the Mohammad cartoons, with some about 30 protestors throwing stones at the building.

Also under attack was the adjacent German consulate, where dozens of Palestinians, including teenagers and masked men, stoned the building in Gaza City's Remal neighbourhood. The protesters are also reported to have torn down the German flag, whence they stamped on it and burned it.

About 50 schoolchildren and teenagers gathered at one corner of the street to try to resume the attacks on the two buildings, but Palestinian riot police, armed with batons, pushed them back. The youths threw stones at the police, and then fled.

Meanwhile, we have gathered more examples of peace-loving Muslim communities exercising their right to free speech, here, here, here and here, from which this highly sensitive example of political comment has been culled, published in Al-Yawm (Saudi Arabia) on 30 November 2005 (above).


I rather like this contemporary view of Islam though… (above, left). It's unfair, perhaps inaccurate and a total slur on moderate Muslims. But hey! I'm exercising my right of free speech.

As for our own contribution to the debate - from our own cartoonist Anoneumouse - this is just grossly irresponsible. Everyone knows that Muslims don't drink lager. It is totally offensive, therefore, to suggest that they might actually make anything as useful as this refreshing drink. The bottom half of the cartoon is clearly wrong.

We apologise profusely for any offence we might have caused.

COMMENT THREAD

And why weren't they arrested?

The Times updates us on that Muslim demo yesterday, with the headline, "call for 'holy war' at London demo".

Parading banners that called for the killing of newspaper editors and broadcasters from the BBC who showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, says the newspaper, they marched across the capital from the mosque in Regent’s Park after Friday prayers.

There were sporadic clashes with passers-by over chants praising the four British-born suicide bombers who killed 52 passengers on three Underground trains and a London bus last July 7.

People who tried to snatch away what they regarded as offending placards were held back by police. Several members of the public tackled senior police officers guarding the protesters, demanding to know why they allowed banners that praised the "Magnificent 19" — the terrorists who hijacked the aircrafts used on September 11, 2001 — and others threatening further attacks on London.

The officers said that their role was to ensure public order and safety. Police had closed off main roads to allow the procession a clear route. Protesters screamed: "UK, you must pray — 7/7 is on its way."

And why, Mr Plod Blair, weren't they arrested? Oh, forgot… they were just exercising their right to free speech.

COMMENT THREAD

Danes bring home the bacon (again)

The story of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, first published in the right-wing (by Danish standards) Jyllands-Posten last September has now reached the stage that even the British media has had to pay attention.

Studiously avoiding the subject for months, while there were riots in Århus in the autumn, while ambassadors from Islamic countries demanded apologies, while representatives of Muslim groups in Denmark went whingeing to Muslim governments; it managed to demote the story even as more and more papers on the Continent published the cartoons and curious bits of rioting broke out in random parts of the Islamic world.

Even yesterday, as a Day of Anger was called for by, among others, Hizonner Ken Livingstone’s best friend Sheik Yussef al-Qaradawi (mentioned at last today by the Daily Telegraph), no British newspaper considered it necessary to put the story on its front page. (Well, how could it compare in importance with a golfer divorcing and Postman Pat calling on the Queen?)

Still, at least they started reporting the brouhaha and today some of them have put it on the front page. Needless to say, no British newspaper has dared to publish the cartoons.

The BBC with oh so much harrumphing announced that they would broadcast them while explaining why they should be causing such strong feelings. This seemed a little pointless as by yesterday evening there were not many people around who could not work out what the issues were exactly (or, at least, some of them).

In the event, 10 O’Clock News gave semi-darkened shots of the cartoons as they appeared in France Soir (whose editor had been sacked for publishing them) making it impossible for anyone to see what exactly the fuss was about.

Stephen Pollard notes on his blog that the BBC Website carried a despatch by Michael Buchanan about Denmark and reactions to the fuss there, which ended with the following outrageous paragraph:

Denmark's reputation as an easy-going, consensual nation has been severely tarnished in recent days. All the Danes can do now is hope the repeated apologies for the offence caused, by both the government and the newspaper, will end this unseemly row.

It would appear that even the BBC or, perhaps, readers of its website have found this support for censorship hard to stomach and, while the despatch remains sniffy about Danes and about the right to publish cartoons, the quoted paragraph has been removed.

Nor have Britain's politicians exactly shown themselves in an attractive light. As Trade Commissar Peter Mandelson announced in response to the Saudi-inspired boycott of Danish goods that hit one, hit all in the EU.

Having done the one good deed of his political career, he managed to negate it by criticizing the cartoons as "crude and juvenile" and saying that reprinting them was like "throwing petrol on the flame of the original issue". That rather depends, Commissioner, as to what the original issue was.

Meanwhile Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has also joined in the fray, announcing that he was extremely annoyed by the decision of an ever larger number of newspapers to reprint the cartoons.

“There is freedom of speech, we all respect that, but there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong.”

Well, he need not worry about the British media. They will do nothing disrespectful. Well, nothing disrespectful to those who are threatening them with all sorts of nasty punishments, even though the chances of those punishments being put into effect are minimal.

You cannot bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what he unbribed will do,
You have no occasion to.

Just remember, next time you hear comments from British journalists about the wonders of the British media and their own belief in freedom (within bounds, naturellement), you can always ask them this simple question: And what did you do in the War of the Danish Cartoons?

The Finnish Foreign Minister, Erkki Tuomioja took a somewhat different line:

It's evident that all EU countries must together condemn and act against all violence and threats of violence as well as threats of interfering with trade relationships connected with this affair.

Other EU politicians have been reluctantly drawn into the fray by the simple and utterly predictable fact that as violence spread in the Gaza, it turned against the EU, whose office was closed down and whose officials had to escape.

Vice-President Franco Frattini issued a statement, in which he explained that he did not think that those cartoons were a great idea and did nothing for world peace but, nevertheless, he did not think that newspapers or countries should be threatened in any way when exercising their right to freedom of speech.

It is my duty to enter this debate to remind us all that there are delicate issues, particularly in relation to religion and those ideals that are sacred to us. Consequently, I personally regard the publication of the cartoons as somewhat imprudent, even if the satire used was aimed at a distorted interpretation of religion, such as that used by terrorists to recruit young people to their cause and turning them into fanatics, sometimes to the point of sending them into action as suicide bombers.

Let's face it, this is preferable to what our own politicians have been spouting or what Justin Higgins, a spokesman for the State Department said:

These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims.

We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility.

Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.

Quite so. Of course, it is questionable who is inciting religious or ethnic hatred, people who publish cartoons or those who burn flags, storm offices and embassies and carry the sort of placards that Michelle Malkin, among others posts on her blog.

Michelle, incidentally, also points out that the State Department does not speak for America or Americans. Well, neither do the Foreign Office or the BBC speak for Britain or the British people.

Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit says this is a dreadful mistake on the part of the State Department but it might be payback time for lack of European support. Maybe.

In the meantime, the cartoons appeared all over the blogosphere and ever more newspapers, some briefly even in the Middle East have reprinted them. In America the New York Sun did and the Los Angeles Times, apparently, intends to.

The question is surely, why has the story turned to furore now. As my colleague has pointed out, the reprinting of the cartoons is more in the nature of refusing to be bullied than a stand for freedom of speech. I actually think it is a bit of both as editors of newspapers suddenly realized that special deals are not conducive to their own ability to publish what they see fit.

One blogger has pointed out that the cartoons did have an indirect effect on British politics by possibly swinging that famous vote over the Religious Hatred Bill (still a threat to free speech, as Pub Philosopher insists):

Home Office minister, Paul Goggins, was forced to admit that anyone publishing the cartoons in the UK would be liable to prosecution under the new law. So, insulting, abusive or reckless criticism of religion is OK but threatening language is not.

Think of that. This is the only country in Europe, possibly in the West that is heading towards a state of play when a newspaper can be prosecuted for publishing cartoons. The country of John Milton and John Locke among others. Have these people no shame?

Let us just recall the sequence of events in the last couple of weeks. The story had rumbled on for months with both the editor and the Danish Prime Minister steadily refusing to apologize, though making noises about not liking to upset people.

Then a couple of weeks ago a Norwegian newspaper reprinted the cartoons and there the government did apologize.

The next thing we knew was a Saudi inspired boycott of Danish goods, which in turn led to the "Support Danish goods" campaign that spread like wildfire around the internet. Of all the Danes involved in this saga, the least impressive was the Director of Arla Foods who called on the government to apologize as the cartoons clearly insulted millions of Muslims and that really hurt him. Why not just say he was worried about his company's profits? Honesty is always the best policy at times like this.

Arla also announced fantastic losses in the Middle East but neither that nor the possibility of profit warnings announced a few days before prevented them from buying the American company White Clover.

And suddenly there were riots. As one Egyptian blogger asked who was promoting them? In Gaza they not only stormed EU offices but burned Danish and Norwegian flags. (Now, I suppose, they have to burn French, German, Spanish and various other flags, though not the Union Flag.)

Can you walk into a store in Gaza and say "I'll have three pounds of rice, a large tub of hummus, five pounds of olives and a couple of Danish flags to burn"? Then again, many of the flags seem to be home-made, which must be a help to the women's sewing circle but where did the extra sheets, paint and patterns come from?

The Gaza riots seem to have been promoted by sub-groups of Fatah (our old friends the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade appear to have played an important part). There may be a certain amount of one-upmanship here as they may have been chagrined at being seen as moderate.

Then again, if I were a Hamas politician faced with the need to start clearing up rubbish and running various other projects while the budget goes into free-fall, I, too, might think that a bit of rioting and flag-burning is just the thing to take the people’s minds off their real problems.

Could the same kind of thinking apply to many of the organizers in other Muslim countries? Increase the number of external enemies and nobody will notice that most Muslims’ worst enemies are their own governments.

For it is not precisely true that the insult is unbearable. In the first place, though Islamic art supposedly forbids the depiction of human beings, nobody outside the Arab culture (and often not within it) has lived up to it. What of the exquisite Persian miniatures, Ottoman paintings or Mughal illustrations?

Nor has Mohammed never been depicted before (he was only a man, after all), though maybe not quite in the way the cartoons did. But then, as several Middle Eastern and other Islamic commentators have noted, by rioting, burning and screaming abuse, Muslims seem to have proved the essential truth of those cartoons.

Finally, before we get too excited about hurt feelings, we might look at some of the recent Arab cartoons, collected by Tom Gross. Many of them would have been published with great glee in Der Stürmer. Others are slightly more modern. What of this depiction of Auschwitz with Israeli flags replacing the Nazi ones? I can think of a couple of western publications that would cheerfully republish them without worrying too much about hurting anybody’s feelings.

Stephen Pollard reproduces a rather nasty and, let's face it, inaccurate cartoon on his blog. And so it goes.

On the plus side, there have been some calls from Islamic leaders to stop the attacks. Not too many and they are all tempered with explanations about Muslim sensitivity. And some journalists and bloggers (like The Big Pharaoh I mentioned above) have been pleading with Muslims to "grow up" and stop pretending that a set of cartoons can in some mysterious way undermine their religion.

But it seems that more and more western politicians and journalists are digging their heels in. What started as a minor row in a small country that has a remarkable record of standing up to totalitarian bullies, has developed into a real fight over basic cultural tenets.

COMMENT THREAD

Muslim outrage gathers pace

According to the Financial Times, and many more, angry protests over newspaper cartoons of the prophet Mohammad continued to spread globally on Friday as Muslim leaders and politicians in Europe expressed mounting concern that the outrage could destabilise the multicultural continent. Meanwhile Mr Jack Straw today launched a fierce attack on the decision by some media to republish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

Says Mr Straw, republication of the Mohammed cartoons has been "insensitive", "disrespectful" and "wrong."

And the cartoon illustrated? Oh, just a little number dashed off for the Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustur (October 19, 2003). It shows the classic Auschwitz view but, instead of Nazi emblems we have Israeli flags. The sign reads:"Gaza Strip or the Israeli Annihilation Camp" (Courtesy of Tom Gross).

Of course, that’s not insensitive, and how could it be disrespectful or wrong? It is just an expression of free speech.

COMMENT THREAD

March of the morons

Following on from my post on the Type 45, in which I remarked how the coverage affirmed the retreat of the media from reporting intelligently on defence issues, yesterday in the House of Commons there was a major debate on defence procurement.

The issue itself is of huge significance, not only because it involves massive public expenditure, much of it wasted – an issue that concerns all of us, even those of us who are adverse to "toys" – but also because it is on the adequacy or otherwise of procurement decisions that the whole capability of our armed forces rest.

The debate itself, the transcript of which runs to 82 A4 pages and over 43,000 words, represented a huge investment in time of dozens of MPs and their staffs, the minister and his staff and – from first reading – raised matters of great public interest.

While we are all quick to condemn and deride our politicians, you can imagine that not a few are more than a little disconcerted that, despite the expenditure of such huge effort, the debate merited not a single mention in the media. The Telegraph Commons Sketch, for instance, witten by that incurable lightweight Andrew Gimson, devoted its space to a jokey account of the earlier Defra debate - this in a newspaper that found space for a full page on the account of some boring divorce case.

It would be wrong, however, to single out just the Telegraph for this neglect. The whole of the MSM is as bad. But, if the media do not take the time and effort to report serious issues, can they then be surprised that MPs – to whom publicity is lifeblood – devote their time to more newsworthy items. When it comes to "dumbing down", the media are in the vanguard of the march of the morons.

We are at least fortunate that so many MPs are indeed focused on such issues – no thanks to the MSM – and we will be posting a detailed report of the debate later today.

COMMENT THREAD

Intellectual debate?

From The Daily Telegraph leader this morning:

Those Muslims who cannot tolerate the openness and robustness of intellectual debate in the West have perhaps chosen to live in the wrong culture.

Intellectual debate? Yea… Right.


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Cartoon wars

So, after beef wars, and bra wars, we now have "cartoon wars", an entirely Danish issue in November, that has snuck up to occupy centre stage in a way that no-one could possibly have predicted – and we certainly did not.

Strangely though, it is only The Times and the Israeli blog Israpundit that have adopted the "cartoon wars" moniker, despite its obvious attractions and the possibility that, with armed men who might or might not finally take over the EU office in Gaza, and/or carry out their threat to bomb it and other EU member state buildings, it might become a real war, of a sorts.

So frenetic has become the issue that The Times is reporting that western governments are appealing for calm, conscious that Friday prayers today could trigger a storm of Muslim anger, escalating the situation beyond control.

And while Danish, Norwegian, German and French papers have published some or all of the offending cartoons, no British newspaper has yet bitten the bullet, although the BBC broadcasted them on its main evening bulletins – albeit as glimpses to illustrate the story - while the Channel 4 News, The Spectator and The Guardian have shown them on their websites.

Even the editor of the Jordanian Al-Shihan newspaper was drawn into the fracas, suggesting Muslim anger was unreasonable, and then sacked by his publisher after he had run the cartoons - the second editor to suffer such a fate. But the point he made was difficult to argue: “What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim?”

But what continues to amaze is the range of "actors" being drawn in. Blair is distancing himself, saying it would be wrong of him to tell the media what to do – not that that has stopped him in the past. Peter Mandelson has intervened, and all sorts of Muslim worthies are getting stuck in.

A spokesman for the Muslim Association is picking on the BBC, saying it is “inciting racial hatred and not conducting a serious debate on freedom of speech,” and a senior figure in Hizb-ut Tahrir has said: "It's become open season by media to insult Islam."

Behind all this, though, there is perhaps a glimmer of a backlash from the non-Muslim communities. This is not so much a question of "freedom of speech", still less of insulting Islam. Who cares? It seems more a reaction to being bullied – the response to a group that thinks it can tell people what they can and cannot do, that same group that seems to feel it can ignore our rules, conventions and constraints, yet it expects us to respect theirs.

You may gather this Blog's response from the fact that we have published two of the offending cartoons, albeit one slightly modified by our own in-house genius, Anoneumouse.

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There is another way

The media focus on the Blair speech this evening in Oxford centres on British ambivalence towards the European Union, and his view that the time is right for Britons to embrace Europe.

"Europe has emerged from its darkened room, it has a new generation of leaders, a new consensus is forming,” he is cited as saying by Reuters, reflecting the general “take” on his speech. “Yes, there is still a debate to be had, but the argument in favour of an open Europe is winning."

But that is the "up front" message. The sub-text is more important and I do not know which scares me most. It is a toss up between Blair's overwhelming ignorance of the nature of the European Union he professes so much to love, or his absolute, dogmatic rejection of the Eurosceptic case, and his determination that, come what may, we are staying in "Europe".

Turning to the latter, this comes at the end of what is a long speech by modern standards – over 4,000 words – where he tells us that we are part of a mythical construct he creates during his speech, a "new Europe". "We are part of it," he says, "in at the ground floor. It's where we should have always been. Now we're there, we should stay there." Taking no prisoners at all, he continues:

There is no other way for Britain. Britain won't leave Europe. No Government would propose it. And despite what we are often told, the majority of the British people, in the end, would not vote for withdrawal. So we are in it. And it is changing. And in a way we have sought and fought for. The manner in which we originally joined the European project has dogged us for too long. From now on, let the manner of our staying in define us.

Note the definitive sentence, unequivocal in its meaning: "So we are in it". It has an air of finality that says, like it or not (and I really don't care which) we're in it for keeps. And, although he confidently declares that the British people "would not vote for withdrawal", there is not even the slightest hint that he is prepared to put that assertion to the test. Our ruler has spoken.

As to his lamentable ignorance of the construct, this is the defining issue, as he bases his vision for the future on his knowledge of the European Union of the past, and its origins – to which he devotes the first part of the speech.

"From the beginning," he says, bemoaning the focus in institutional reform, "the drive in Europe was always for more institutional integration." That much is true, but Blair goes on to say that, although this was not just natural but necessary at the outset, "it is worth recalling: the political vision of a single market was articulated first; the change in powers then fashioned to deliver it."

Therein lies his fatal misunderstanding of the very nature of the beast. It was never the case that there was a "political vision" of a single market. The original Salter/Monnet design was not a "single market" but a customs union, for the same reason that Bismark elected for one – his zollverein. In order to administer common external tariffs, a central government was needed. In Bismark's case, this was his instrument for uniting Germany, in the case of the founding fathers of the EU, it was their instrument for uniting Europe.

In other words, what Blair calls a "single market" was and remains a means to an end, using economic mechanisms that had as their ultimate objective, political union – the process that academics call neo-functional integration.

But, based on his fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the "project", Blair's thesis is that, as was the "single market" considered first and the rules then devised to make it work, so too should a "new Europe" operate in the same way.

Give people "a Europe-wide programme to beat organised crime coming in from Europe's borders and they will support it," he declares. "People will not buy more Europe as an end in itself. They will ask; why and what for? But answer those questions well and they will buy it as a means to an end they understand."

The trouble is that all too many of us understand that in the "real" Europe, the Europe of the European Union, there is only one core policy – political integration. Everything on offer is designed either to sweeten the pill, or smooth the process towards that ultimate goal. Blair might think that we can "co-operate" – and he uses that word often - to produce "a Europe-wide programme to beat organised crime", but the colleagues will always measure it in the light of how far it progresses the integration agenda.

Co-operation, of course, is not on that agenda. The transition of powers from member states to the commission, via the "gateway" of the Council of Ministers, might need co-operation, but it is the co-operation of the damned. Once the powers are given away – in perpetuity - co-operation is no longer needed. The commission is in a position to instruct, demand and sanction. Co-operation becomes compulsion.

Therefore, it does not matter whether there is a "new consensus", as Blair asserts. This just means a different set of people at the table, but the game goes on as before – the steady attrition of the power of the member states, and its gradual accumulation by the commission. Like it or not, "Open Europe" is not winning - it does not even exist. The pace might have slowed a little, and the direction is more uncertain, but the integration agenda remains.

But that does not mean we have to accept Blair's prescription. He may be blind. He may be ignorant. And while, in his ignorance, he can assert that "there is no other way for Britain," he is wrong. There is another way.

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Victory in Europe

Following the despatches from the front by our intrepid reporters, datelined 24 January, this Blog can report that the war is over. After stiff resistance by Poland, parties meeting in a railway carriage just outside Versailles have agreed that reduced VAT rates on hairdressers and restauranters, and even minor construction works, can continue until 2010.

A reporter from EU Observer, who did not witness the ceremony, bravely filleted the press release from the former warring parties, produced in the run-up to the armistice. Austrian finance minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, after the talks with his Polish counterpart Zyta Gilowska and EU tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs in Vienna, was cited as saying: "It's a victory for Europe."

Our reporters, covering the exuberent street scenes, throughout the capitals of Europe, say "it's just wild out there". There has been non-stop celebrating and street parties galore. Said one of our front-line staff, "Heaven knows what would happen if they reduced VAT on underpants."

Commissioner Margot Wallstrom, referring to her communication from her command bunker in Brussels, told a BBC reporter, "Citizens expect Europe to offer them prosperity, solidarity and security...". We have delivered on our promise to deliver. "Plan D", she said, "means more than 'democracy'. It also means 'delivery'.

Shortly before she left for the clinic, Wallstrom told EU Referendum, "For us, in the Commission, this is VD-Day".

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A retreat from defence

So it came to pass that yesterday, 18 months behind schedule and hugely over cost, that the first of the Type 45 Destroyers HMS Daring was launched on the Clyde, to fanfares and applause, in front of an audience of 11,000.

But, if the most expensive white elephant in the history of the Royal Navy has just been launched, you would have got no hint of that from the media, and especially from The Times, which headlined, "Navy launches deadliest and most expensive warship". And, according to The Times, it was "on time and within budget".

Even within the framework of its own story, The Times could not manage to be consistent, declaring in the first line that HMS Daring was "the first of the Royal Navy's £6 billion fleet of six Type 45 Destroyers", then stating further down that it had "a price tag of £605 million".

It then went on to state that the Type 45s "will be the most powerful, advanced and deadly warships in the world when they come into service in 2009", something which is simply and demonstrably not true.

For sure, it will have a highly advanced anti-aircraft system, based on the costly French-built PAAMS missile and British designed Samson radar, but very little else. It will have only a very limited land attack capability, mounting a 4.5 inch gun, and – apart from its single helicopter - an anti-submarine capability that amounts to no more than a self-defence system, and no anti-shipping capability.

Compare and contrast with the US equivalent, the DG Arleigh Burke class, which, in addition to its perhaps not quite as effective anti-aircraft capability (with nearly double the number of missiles) has a significant land attack capability - being able to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles - an anti-shipping capability and world-beating anti-submarine warfare equipment.

And not only is it truly a formidable, multi-purpose warship, it comes in, as the Australians found, at £400 million less than the £1 billion price tag for the Type 45.

But if The Times report was useless, it was matched in fatuity by the BBC, although it did manage to confine its hyperbole to describing HMS Daring as the UK's most powerful destroyer – which, when it comes into service, will be true, as it will be the only type of destroyer we have. The BBC too bought the "price tag of £605 million" line, but later giving the total programme cost for the six ships as £5.5bn.

The Sun, totally out of its depth, reported the cost as £6 billion – but for eight ships, not six, describing HMS Darling as "the deadliest ship ever built".

Even the dour Scotsman described it as "one of the world's most advanced warships" and then went on to call it a "multi-role ship", which it clearly is not in any realistic sense of the world.

As for The Telegraph, it called the ship, "the most powerful frontline warship since the Second World War", but at least limiting the description to "the world's most advanced air defence ship," then – for heaven's sake – calling it a boat, claiming that, according to BAE Systems, its builders, its "hugely powerful radar and missile system, has left American visitors to the yard 'shaken and shocked'". I think not.

It took Jane's to point out that this class of ship should have been in service in 2000, delayed by the abortive French-Italian co-operative venture, which cost us a small fortune when we had to refit the obsolescent Type 42s which should have been replaced.

The average MSM reader, however, will walk away thinking that Britain has been well served, not realising that, in a Navy that is shrinking faster than a bank balance in the hands of a shopaholic, we cannot afford the luxury of overpriced, effectively single-purpose ships. We could have had far more capable, multi-purpose ships, for a saving on six vessels of £2.4 billion – the price tag for a new carrier.

If we had a grown up media, these issues would have been raised but instead, in its infantile, pathetic way, all it has been able to do is affirm that its has retreated from reporting intelligently on defence issues.

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State of the Union

We do not consider it necessary to analyze President Bush’s State of the Union Address, or the preposterous behaviour of the Moonbat Mom Cindy Sheehan (soon to be a senatorial candidate if things go the way one wishes them).

Nor is it necessary to analyze the reactions to it – much as one would have predicted: those who suffer from “Bush derangement syndrome” hated it, sensible Dems liked some but disliked other aspects, Republicans and those on the right mostly liked it. Well, what do you expect?

Most of the speech was devoted to the international situation and the developments in Iraq (after three successful elections and talks on a coalition government, the President can afford a certain amount of pride). It is, we think, worth quoting a couple of paragraphs to remind our readers that being a strong power or wanting to be a strong power carries certain responsibilities:

“In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline.

The only way to protect our people, the only way to secure the peace, the only way to control our destiny is by our leadership.

So the United States of America will continue to lead.
….
Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer, and so we will act boldly in freedom's cause.

Far from being a hopeless dream, the advance of freedom is the great story of our time.

In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today there are 122.

And we are writing a new chapter in the story of self-government, with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom.

At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Iran -- because the demands of justice and the peace of this world require their freedom as well.”

Obviously, I do not know who wrote the speech, who edited it and how much input the President had. But at its lowest one can say that he recognized resounding words when he saw them. We hear a great deal about the man’s stupidity, tongue-tiedness and about Blair’s superior understanding of the language and its use. I, for one, would like to hear words of this kind from Tony Blair or his self-appointed successor, the Boy-King of the Conservative Party.

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Mutatis mutandis

David Frum writes on the American Enterprise Institute website today about the new Canadian government’s first challenge in international affairs: how to deal with the newly elected Hamas led government in the Palestinian territories.

Of course, reading the paper one realizes that the real challenge is not in Ramallah but in Ottawa, where, predicts Frum, officials will try to persuade the new Prime Minister that business should be as usual in order to “retain credibility”, “influence the terrorists to stop being terrorists” and “help the people of Palestine”.

Most of the arguments in favour of dealing with terrorists and mass murderers (not least of their own people) who have not the slightest intention of changing their spots, are specious. We have heard them all before. Appeasement did not even work with IRA/Sinn Fein and there, at least, some indication of a change of policy was granted. With Hamas there is none.

So what’s Canada to us, you might say. Well, mutatis mutandis, can you not hear the same arguments being used by officials in the EU and various European countries?

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A cause for celebration

On 1 July 1916, the British Army launched its "great offensive" in what became known the Battle of the Somme. It is famous chiefly on account of the loss of 58,000 British troops, of which third were killed, on the first day of the attack.

It is also the battle in which the "Pals" were slaughtered, local regiments which had been formed in response to Kitchener's call to arms, not least the Accrington Pals – a regiment lodged in my memory as I have visited the site in Northern France where they met their untimely deaths.

The site is isolated but well preserved and what is so chilling about it is that you can see the "jump-off" trenches at the start line and then look up to the crest of a hill, on the brow of which were the German lines, not more than a few hundred yards distant. And, exactly between the two is a row of neat, walled cemeteries, marking the point at which the "Pals" fell. Under the hail of machine-gun fire and artillery, that is as far as they got.

We do well to remember this slaughter and, if I had my way, I would make it compulsory for all schools to bring their children to these sites – and in particular the moving memorial at Thiepval (pictured above) to show them what sacrifices were made – real sacrifices – for our freedoms.

It would also put into perspective somewhat the front page of The Telegraph today, which dedicates half the page to a single photograph, against a black background, of Cpl Gordon Alexander Pritchard, the 100th solider to be killed in Iraq.

The Telegraph is by no means the only newspaper to afford such lavish treatment to the death and, while we can agree that every death is a tragedy, there is something maudlin and excessive about the coverage, which bodes ill for this nation if this is representative of general sentiment.

This is one hundred deaths in three years, compared with, say, 3,500 road deaths each year, a large proportion of whom were testosterone-driven young men who seem willingly to slaughter themselves for the temporary thrills of the tarmac. These are senseless deaths, whereas the 100 soldiers who died did so in a noble cause. Their deaths had meaning.

Anticipating the howls of protest at my brutal attitude, let me recount an experience I had as a young man when, with a group of my fellow officers, I was taken to visit an operational RAF station. When we walked into the Officers' Mess, mid-afternoon, we were somewhat startled to see a frenetic, uproarious party in progress, with drink flowing like water. Inquiries soon revealed the reason. A pilot had just been killed in a crash and his friends and colleagues were celebrating his passing.

As a young pilot officer, I too was flying jets and knew it was dangerous. In fact, I knew more than most. Having worked on an airfield before joining the RAF, I had experienced that loathsome moment when an aircraft had dropped out of sight at the end of the runway, to be marked by a pall of oily smoke and the death of a fine young man.

But we knew what we were doing. We did not embrace death but we were aware that it was our companion, and took it in our stride. Unfortunately – I thought at the time – I failed the flying course, an event that probably saved my life as, with the best will in the world, I would never have made anything more than a second-rate pilot. My chances of survival would have been slim.

It ill-behoves the media, therefore, and the rest of us, to indulge in maudlin sentiment at the death of one soldier, because he happens to be the 100th, or for whatever reason.

These fine young men were soldiers. They were volunteers. They knew the risks and were nevertheless prepared to do their duty. That we still have such young men, in a society that seems so increasingly rootless and without values, is a cause for celebration.

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A dangerous place

A disturbing report was published in the Jerusalem Post yesterday, suggesting that Iran has already enriched enough uranium fissionable material to manufacture at least one or two atom bombs

Their source is Rafi Eitan, a former Israeli intelligence chief who believes that Ahmadinejad "would not have dared come out with his declaration that Israel should be wiped off the map," unless he already had the means to do so. Eitan was involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981.

Although he is now eighty, Eitan is still active and still in touch with the intelligence community, so it would be unwise to ignore completely his views. Furthermore, other sources report rumours of an Iranian "experiment" in March. But one does wonder.

Putting various strands together, for Iran to pose a credible threat to Israel, it must not only have a functioning bomb, but also a reliable means of delivery. And here, not all the pieces are falling into place.

The most likely delivery vehicle is the Shahab 3 missile, a much modified version of a North Korean missile, developed with Russian and Chines technical assistance. There are later versions, running to the Shahab 6 series, but only this model seems to have the reliability to pose a credible threat.

Then, although the distance between Tehran and Tel Aviv is just under 1,000 miles, at the limit of the missile's range, firing from either the western provinces of Ilam or Khuzesatan, close to the Iraqi border, would shave 200 miles off that distance and bring the missile well within range.

However, what is interesting is that the Iranians have opted for a uranium rather than a plutonium bomb, which means that they can refine the material without recourse to a nuclear reactor (the latter being the only source of Plutonium). The down-side of this is that a uranium bomb is heavier (and also produced a lower explosive yield).

Using uranium would also simply the design, enabling the relatively crude "gun" arrangement of the type employed in the first atomic bomb dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Bit what must be remembered about that bomb is that it weighted in at 9,700 lbs, with a length of 10 ft and a diameter of 28 in. It also contained 140 lb of uranium.

Clearly, such a crude weapon could not be delivered by an intermediate-range missile like the Shahab 3, which has a maximum payload of a ton and serious dimensional limitations.

To enable missile delivery, the Iranians would have to produce a much more compact implosion device, which could be engineered to fit the limited warhead space of their missile.

However, the first design of this type was the American "Fat Boy", used on Nagasaki, and that weighed in at 10,800 lbs, with a length of 10 ft 8 in and a diameter of 60 in.

With all their skills and experience, the resources of the nation and no outside restriction placed upon them, it than took the Americans until 1966 to produce a lightweight implosion bomb, the B61 (pictured left). At 700 lbs, a length of 10 ft and a diameter of 10.75 in - with the actual nuclear device considerably smaller, this is the sort of development needed before the Iranians could fit out their missile. And, bearing in mind that this is a plutonium weapon, a uranium weapon would be heavier.

The technology required to produce this bomb is fearsome, not least the highly complex array of conventional explosives needed to trigger it, and to produce it would stretch Iranian capabilities and resources to the limit. Furthermore, such is the complexity that the Iranians would at least on live test to prove the design.

Even then, there have been doubts expressed as to whether the warhead dimensions of the Shahab 3 are sufficient even to accommodate a lightweight bomb, which raises further questions about Iranian preparedness.

Despite Rafi Eitan's concerns, therefore, an Iranian nuclear strike – or the acquisition of deliverable bombs - may be less than imminent, which raises questions as to why Eitan has gone public with his fears.

This could, of course, be part of the war of words, aimed at speeding up the reference to the UN Security Council, but it could also be part of the process of preparing Israeli and world opinion for a strike shortly after the Israeli general election, which is to be held on 28 March.

Whatever the truth, it looks like the possibility of an early Israeli strike cannot be ruled out, making the world of much more dangerous place than it was even a few months ago.

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