Grumbling in the ranks

The European journalists are not happy. This has little to do with their colleagues being persecuted in various countries, though there is a little stirring about Romania going on.

The European Federation of Journalists is protesting at the closure of a couple of Portuguese newspapers owned by a Spanish syndicate, apparently for purely commercial reasons.

Aidan White, General Secretary of the EFJ opined that

“It is vitally important to convince the management that these journals have a future and that they should invest in them. What is at stake is not just a matter of profit and loss; there are questions of culture, democracy and pluralism that must also be addressed.”

Well, I don’t know. Profit and loss do come into the newspaper business somewhere and, short of government subsidies there seems no solution to that. Government subsidy, on the other hand, as even the European Federation of Journalists must know, involves government control. Do they really want that?

But they do have a gripe against the British presidency as well. Apparently, each presidency sets its own rules for accreditation to various events, even though, as Mr White points out:

“Journalists already have accreditation at national and European level and this should be respected throughout the European Union.”

The British rules seem particularly bizarre. In order to have accreditation to the meeting of foreign ministers in Newport in early September, journalists, who have and are covering other events, have to fill in a completely separate form, which asks, among other essential pieces of information, the names of their parents. Understandably, the journalists are balking at this.

Whether they will balk far enough not to go to Newport (after all, they are not likely, on past record, to find out what is really agreed), remains to be seen. They should count themselves lucky they do not have to answer questions in English and in Welsh.

Aidan White also said:

“If the European Union wants to connect properly with citizens it must at the very least get its approach to working journalists right and not oblige them to follow rules that are bizarre and inexplicable.”

Well yes, one of the aims the Commission keeps setting in its never ending battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Europe is to work closely with journalists. On the other hand, finding out what it is like to have to follow rules that are bizarre and inexplicable is surely good for the hacks. This will give them a much better understanding of the European project.

Sleaze German style

An interesting commentary in The Business catalogues what amounts to a tidal wave of corporate sleaze emerging in Germany.

It is not only Volkwagen, about which we wrote earlier, but a whole raft of firms, from the state television company, Hessischer Rundfunk, and the Commerzbank, where it was revealed that a number of former and current bank employees are under investigation for laundering money from Russian telecom assets.

Then there's Infineon. Management board member Andreas von Zitzewitz resigned after reports he collected a quarter of a million euros in bribes, and at least one other manager has been named in the probe.

However, notes The Business, a slew of federal, state and local politicians on the payroll of big German corporations were not even admonished earlier this year despite criticism from public and press. In addition, no change to this policy is under consideration.

It seems that the ones who make laws are also the ones who are profiting from corporate cash. A German manager cannot take money from interests that may interfere with his judgement or illegally pad his bank account, but politicians can accept a virtually unlimited amount of pay from former employers or consulting fees from those who would affect policy.

Neither are politicians and top managers alone in their greed. Defrauding the state by hiring black market workers has become a national pastime, the result of a slow economy and massive labour costs driven up by high taxes and employer contributions. Hiring "under the table" for a fraction of the quotes from above-board contractors is rife.

Therein lie the seeds of damnation. Clearly, when politicians and business are corrupt, and the law oppressive, the ordinary "Fritz in the street" takes the same view of the law – an inconvenience to be circumvented whenever possible. But, once you take an à la carte view of the law, the very fabric of society starts to break down.

Those in this country, and their brethren in Brussels who rush to create laws at a moment's notice, would do well to note. There comes a point when the disadvantages of more law outweigh the advantages. The law of diminishing returns applies to the law as well.

Of course, the lessons will not be learned. They never are. Welcome to Sleazeville.

Well, someone likes the EU model

The someone is South African President Thabo Mbeki, whose recent pronouncements on economic matters have included a hint that he might send financial help to his neighbour Robert Mugabe (having consistently refused to critcize the man’s tyrannical and murderous policies) and a reiteration of “black empowerment”.

The latter is something of a problem since under Nelson Mandela race definitions were removed from the South African constitution. So, who are the blacks who will be empowered, if they cannot be defined constituonally? There has been much talk that the empowerment goes to any friend and relation of President Mbeki.

Speaking at Sandton at a conference of Progressive Governance President Mbeki made it clear that he envisaged even more government intervention in economic matters. “Market fundamentalism”, whatever that might be, in his opinion, has proved to be ineffective in fighting poverty.

Well, not quite, as he acknowledged, since China seems to be advancing rather rapidly and attracting a great deal of investment. But that would not work in Africa.

“People will talk about China and so on, which has received vast quantities of capital from the rest of the world, but not many of us are China.”

That is undeniably true. So, the Chinese way is not for South Africa. The one to follow, according to Thabo Mbeki is that of the European Union, which “has used massive resource transfers to fight underdevelopment”.

President Mbeki seems not to have noticed that on the whole the European Union has not been a huge economic success, most of the economic development having taken place before various countries joined.

As for transfer of funds aiding development, here is what Marian Tupy of Cato Institute says:

“Unfortunately, the European aid programs fuel the perception that aid is instrumental to reducing poverty if only it is targeted well. That is a myth.When the main bulk of the EU regional aid started to be disbursed in 1975, 44 percent of the EU population lived in the regions that qualified for it. By 1997, however, that percentage increased to almost 52 percent. Clearly, the program failed in its main task of reducing the differences between rich and poor European regions.”

It is, indeed, curious how rarely we hear of the fact that as the European Union developed, so the proportion of poor regions in need of hand-outs increased. That had not been the original idea behind the regional aid and various structural funds.

Dr Tupy then cites the example of Ireland as one showing that aid is not what leads to development but sensible tax policy:

“Even more tenuous is the link between more aid and faster economic growth. When Ireland joined the European Economic Community in 1973, it was one of Europe's poorest nations. By 2001, Ireland could boast one of Europe's highest per capita incomes of $27,170. What went right? It sure wasn't European aid. In fact, the Irish growth rates increased at the same time that European aid was decreasing in proportion to the size of the Irish economy.”

Ireland remains rather a problem in these discussions. Undoubtedly it is the tax cuts that have led to its economic development and growth in personal income. But would the government have so gaily introduced tax cuts if it had not known that there was European aid coming and they did not have to take any hard decisions? Somehow, I doubt it.

European aid may well have decreased in proportion to the size of the economy but it remains very high and Ireland is not about to give it up any time soon.

Then again, South Africa is not about to emulate Ireland in its tax policy. This is a country which, with a catastrophically high level of AIDS and other diseases, taxes at the retail end medical drugs that come in from the large pharmaceutical companies free or at a very low price.

For the moment Thabo Mbeki is talking of emulating the EU by transferring money from the richer part of South Africa to the poorer one, though he also says that he does not want to weaken or destroy the richer parts, not wishing, perhaps, to follow the EU's example in every way. But the prognosis on his ideas is not too good.

Booker

Especially now, with so much going on of great importance, it is difficult to focus on what might or might not happen in 20 years time. But that is the genius of the European Union.

Whatever is the current preoccupation, however, integration goes marching on. And, with no electoral cycle to concern them, and nothing serious in the way of accountability, the "colleagues" can make their plans over an extraordinarily long time-scale – beyond the vision of democratically elected politicians and the media – and then let the plan roll out.

It could only be in Booker's column, therefore, that there could be space to continue with the theme of European defence integration, continuing on from last week, when Booker broached the subject of my then incomplete paper on the issue

"In 20 years time," he writes, quoting from my study "almost the only thing British about Britain's armed forces will be the men and women serving in them, and the Union Jacks sewn on their Chinese-made uniforms to distinguish them from their EU colleagues."

Adds Booker: A wealth of further evidence has come to light to show how, over the next two decades, the British Army will have been almost wholly reorganised and re-equipped to become a fully integrated part of the European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF), directed from Brussels, using equipment supplied almost entirely by other countries in the EU.

No longer will it be technically or politically possible for Britain’s armed forces to fight independently, or in alliance with those of the USA. Yet the scale and speed at which this astonishing transformation is coming about has been deliberately hidden from view by the Ministry of Defence, to the point where British firms are already being instructed to buy foreign-made defence equipment, which can be relabelled to look as though it is British made.

This is the startling picture, he continues, which emerges from an exhaustive study of current British and EU defence planning carried out by political analyst Dr Richard North, for a paper to be published this autumn on "The Secret Realignment of UK Defence Policy".

The cue for Britain to abandon our military co-operation with the USA in favour of integration with our European ‘partners’ has been the forthcoming revolution in warfare centred on satellites, electronics and a new generation of vehicles, unmanned aircraft and weapons systems. Almost across the board, the MoD is now turning its back on joint defence projects with the US, even where these involve British firms, to purchase instead equipment supplied or developed by firms in France, Germany, Italy and Sweden.

Under the plan to integrate our contribution to the 60,000 strong ERRF, with its command centre in Brussels, the key to co-ordinating future warfare will be largely French-built satellite systems, led by Galileo, the EU’s planned rival to the US GPS system. British troops will no longer be transported by US-built C-130 and C17 aircraft, but by the A400M "Eurolifter". Under the £14 billion project known as FRES (Future Rapid Effect System), their armoured fighting vehicles will be supplied by Sweden, armed with French guns, using French-made ammunition.

Joint US-British bids to supply £1.6 billion-worth of trucks were rejected in favour of a fleet of German-built trucks, adding the name of the former British firm ERF to imply a British contribution. US and other non-EU reconnaissance vehicles were rejected in favour of an obsolescent and much more expensive version made by the Italian firm Iveco, although their origin is again to be disguised behind the name of the British firm BAE Land Systems.

A joint project with the US to develop a 155mm howitzer has been abandoned in favour of a French gun firing German-designed shells. Battlefield radar systems are being built in Germany and Sweden. Development of unmanned aircraft - a vital element in future tactics - is being led by France, while the RAF's main strike aircraft will be the Eurofighter, firing French-made missiles.

So the list continues, for projects large and small: not forgetting the three giant carriers to be shared between the Royal Navy and France, with the French firm Thales playing a central part in their design and construction. The one consistent pattern in all this MoD procurement policy is that, wherever possible, US firms are being excluded, even where this means excluding British firms associated with them.

Such a gulf is now opening up between the US and EU defence forces that, on the satellite and electronically co-ordinated battlefields of the future, it will be impossible for them to work alongside each other. Yet, although the evidence for what is going on can be pieced together by anyone who knows how to use the internet, our politicians have so far remained astonishingly silent. In this respect our opposition is almost as culpable as the ministers themselves.

Booker writes three other good stories, including one which provides an intriguing but unsurprising insight into the character of Ted Heath, all available from this link.

If anyone wants a copy the final report (44 pages long in pdf format), please e-mail me from here.

Digging deep

At the recent Heritage Foundation seminar in Washington, one speaker observed that, while EU military ambitions for new and increasingly expensive hardware matched those of the United States, member states were unwilling to find the funding develop it.

That was Yossef Bodansky, former Director, Congressional Task Force Against Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. His view was that, China was hungry for new military technology and was willing to enter into co-operative arrangements with the EU. China, therefore, would become the paymaster – and beneficiary – of the project to equip the European Army.

No better example of this dynamic can be found than the EU's €3 billion Galileo satellite positioning system, upon which the EU is relying to give its European Rapid Reaction Force "autonomy" of action. Without Galileo, it would have to rely on the US "Navstar" system, which could be closed down if the US felt its national interests were being threatened.

Yet, despite the importance of the project to the "colleagues" – which the EU commission claims will "definitely" become operational in 2008 – when it actually comes to paying for the thing, they are proving a tad reluctant to put their hands in their pockets.

So far, Galileo has been funded jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the commission, which has been raiding the research budget. But, on 1 July, the project moved out of the research phase and into the first of four development phases, managed by the Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU).

In order give firm contracts to the consortium building the satellites and ground facilities, the ESA thus needed to put some money on the table but, when it put its hand out, enthusiasm for the project suddenly evaporated.

At the heart of the argument is the fourth and final phase of the project. This follows the deployment of the full constellation of 30 satellites, when the operating costs will be in the order of €220 million a year and revenues will be minimal. To tide the operating concessionaires over this lean period, the commission proposed bunging them €1 billion for the period 2007-2013. It is this sum that the member states have not approved.

Yet, without a guarantee of future revenues, the earlier phases are at risk because the contractors are unwilling to sign a contract until they know that a funding stream has been secured. That was supposed to have been agreed on 18 June and no the commission is setting a September deadline for the member states to come up with the dosh.

By contrast, one of the most sources of funding has been the Chinese government, which has now committed €242 million (up from its original stake of €200 million) to the project. It may therefore be no coincidence that, last week, the commission signed contracts with a group of Chinese companies to develop a range of "commercial" applications for the satellite system.

In what smells distinctly like a "sweetener" to keep the Chinese locked into the project, the companies have been asked to "develop a land transport system based on accurate navigation information provided by Galileo", while another contract focuses on upgrading communication and navigation for China's fishing vessels.

The announcement is likely to ruffle feathers at the US Defense Department, which like this Blog, strongly suspects that the Chinese will be using the system for military purposes. With the present contracts, few imagine that the "land transport system" will not find its way into a fleet of green-camouflaged, tracked vehicles, while the "fishing vessels" will be painted grey, with turrets and pointy things sticking out the fronts.

Anyhow, as long as the Chinese are kept happy, the "colleagues" will not have to dig so deep in their (our) pockets, and Yossef Bodansky can at least have the satisfaction of telling us, "I told you so".

Fingerclickin' good

Yesterday evening I listened to a talk given by Franklin Cudjoe, the Director of a Ghanaian thnk-tank, Imani and one of the most articulate opponents of the “Make Poverty History” brigade. He has expressed forceful and well-substantiated opinions about “rock-star economics”, which this blog has written about.

In his talk he referred to the oft-repeated assertion by Bono, Bob Geldof, Kate Moss and all the other brainless luvvies who clicked their fingers vapidly in front of the cameras, that a child dies in Africa every three seconds.

Well, that’s interesting, said Franklin to Geldof at some meeting, but do you realize that $4,700 gets stolen by African governments every second?

Click, click, click.

Kilroy quits

According to the BBC, Robert Kilroy-Silk has quit as leader of Veritas - just five months after founding the party. Facing a challenge from disillusioned members, he said it was clear from the general election voters were content with the older parties. More to the point, he said it was impossible to run the party without significant cash and a proper structure.

In a statement he said: "It was clear from the general election result - and more recently that of the Cheadle by-election - that the electors are content with the old parties and that it would be virtually impossible for a new party to make a significant impact given the nature of our electoral system. We tried and failed."

He added: "It is also the case that it is impossible to have an effective political party without a central administration and significant financial support. We have neither. In the circumstances, I would be misleading the members of the party and the public if I pretended that we could make progress. I'm not prepared to do that. We must face up to the truth."

The question is, having given up now on his party, and not having been seen in either Brussels or Strasbourg for many a month, is he now going to give up his eat as an MEP as well, or is he still going to draw down his generous salary and expenses, for doing precisely nothing?

Control freaks

After Kyoto, with EU member states determined to drive their economies into recession in pursuit of meaningless targets, the EU is at it again, seeking to frame more meaningless targets.

According to the BBC website, having learned of a voluntary agreement to reduce emission using on new technology, between the US and five Asia-Pacific, the EU has thrown a hissy fit and is demanding legally enforceable standards.

The newly signed agreement will allow signatories - currently the United States, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan - to set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions individually, with no enforcement mechanism. The core approach is to develop clean technologies, such as low-emission coal-fired power stations, which can be used in developing countries as their energy needs increase.

And, speaking at the announcement, which came during the Regional Forum of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) in Laos, US Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, said the six nations "view this as a complement, not an alternative" to Kyoto.

Both the US and Australia have refused to ratify Kyoto, which came into effect earlier this year - partly, they say, because big developing countries like India and China escape emissions limits. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says: "Our view is you really need to focus on technological change to solve the climate change problem... and you do have to involve the major developing countries, which are very substantial emitters." A Chinese spokesman called the pact a "win-win solution" for developing countries.

Needless to say, environmental groups argue that the new agreement undermines the Kyoto Protocol, and will make the process of agreeing a successor treaty more difficult. The Geneva-based NGO, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) says: "A deal on climate change that doesn't limit pollution is the same as a peace plan that allows guns to be fired."

Predictably backing the NGOs, EU commission's environment spokeswoman Barbara Helferrich says that the EU remains committed to further legally binding reductions in emissions. "If it is simply technology and clean coal, it is no substitute for agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and we do not expect it to have a real impact on climate change. There will have to be binding global agreements, but on what scale and what basis is yet to be decided."

They just can't stand the thought of anyone doing anything voluntarily, or get their heads round the idea that technology rather than crazy, economically damaging statutory emission limits might be the answer. These are not environmentalists. They are control freaks.

Berlusconi hits out at "Prodi's euro"

Things are hotting up in the Italian electoral campaign. Nothing is sacred any more, not even the euro.

Prime Minister Berlusconi announced to all and sundry that the euro, in his opinion, “screwed everybody”. By everybody he meant Italy, as his main complaint is that his chief rival, Romano Prodi, leader of the soft-left coalition, had negotiated bad terms for the country.

“There are categories of Italians which face difficulties because of the incursion of Prodi's euro,” – Berlusconi explained helpfully.

This is not the first serious criticism of the euro and its effects on the Italian and European economy. Back in June the Northern League demanded that Italy start looking at ways of leaving the currency but Berlusconi responded by stating firmly that it was not in Italy’s interest to do so.

The Northern League wants a referendum on the subject conjointly with next year’s elections but it seems unlikely that the Prime Minister will agree to anything like that.

Berlusconi has, in the past, blamed the euro for Italy’s economic problems and this particular statement seems more of a blast at Prodi than at the single currency. Still, it is another straw in the wind.

The comment did drive the euro down a bit but the biggest effect at the moment is the relative strength of the dollar.

Asked about Berlusconi’s statement, Commission spokesman, Michael Mann said at the daily press conference.

“We think the euro has not caused those problems and is an extremely good thing for Europe.”

While we could not possibly agree with the last part of that statement, we have to reiterate our previous comments on the subject. The euro has not, in itself, caused the problems, which lie deep in the structure of most European economies. On the other hand, having interest rates set for all the eurozone members does not help matters.

The biggest issue is psychological. The euro was going to solve the problems not exacerbate them. Even if it simply left things as they are, it would be perceived as a very bad thing as it did not produce the effect it was supposed to.

Of course, given that it was always a political project, another step on the path to European integration, its economic benefits could not be but minimal at best (and the best has not happened).

The problem for the euro-elite that drives the project is the time gap. Having promised economic benefits they have to point to them and there are none to point to. But the political integration that would have made the destruction of the single currency an impossibility is not happening nearly fast enough. Somewhere in that gap, the project might disintegrate and the people escape.

Mercs for jerks

"Live 8 will merely finance 'Mercs for jerks'," says Roy Bennet, the former farmer thrown into a filthy prison by Mugabe for pushing a fellow Zimbabwean MP, as cited in the features section of The Daily Telegraph today (no link).

I wish I had said that, but then I probably will. Of course, we have our own version of "Mercs for jerks". These vehicles are the favourite chariots of EU commissioners (and MEPs when they are in Brussels - they get Renaults in Strasbourg), so I suppose we are all guilty.

The great divide

A story in The Times today announces that Europe's largest aerospace manufacturer EADS raised its profit growth target to 18 percent, on the back of its main subsidiary Airbus. which is doing particularly well at the moment. It turned in 7 percent jump in interim earnings before interest and tax of €1.54 billion. Its net profit has more than doubled to €816 million.

Before the Europeans start preening themselves, however, The Times also reports that shares in Boeing, which is being heavily challenged by Airbus in the civil aircraft market, hit a four-year intraday high despite the company reporting a 7 per cent drop in quarterly profits yesterday. This was because of a unexpected increase in Boeing's second-quarter net profit, which reached $566 million (£325 million), ahead of expectations.

What is not generally realised though is that Boeing – long famous for its airliners – is no longer just – or even mainly – an airline builder. Ranking number two in the world's listings of defence contractors, its defence sales account for nearly 60 percent of its $52 billion turnover. One of its biggest money-spinners is the $120 billion Future Combat System project, aimed at re-equipping the US Army - for which it is the "systems integrator".

That is the scale of the divide. EADS, trailing in seventh place in the rankings, is nowhere near the might of the US giant. The Europeans have a long way to go.

Those British values in full - 2

Britain, and England in particular, have been in the fortunate position throughout large swathes of history of not having to define her identity. You simply knew what it was to be British (or English, often interchangeable to the great fury of the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish).

When there were definitions, they tended to be contradictory, as Orwell noted so perceptibly in The Lion and the Unicorn. The British are peace loving and domesticated, yet adventurous, warlike and conquerors of the greatest empire in the world.

They are practical and indifferent to abstract ideas yet almost all modern political philosophy was produced in England and Scotland. (In fact, one could argue that the tragedy of the twentieth century was that German political ideas overtook British ones, but that is for another time.)

The British are tolerant of other people but have historically disdained all habits but their own and have cheerfully spread their own ideas to far corners of the world. (Now, of course, they complain that Americans do the same in a far less intrusive fashion.)

The English invented the idea of common law, the sense of property and a civilian police force, yet for centuries England was acknowledged to be effectively ungovernable outside certain areas.

The British are individualistic and eccentric yet love the idea of order and similarity.

One can go on for ever and, indeed, on could argue that most nations hold in themselves very similar contradictions.

The definition of Britishness or Englishness has always been difficult. Shakespeare did a good job at a time when the country was going through various severe crises. Kipling, especially in his Puck of Pook’s Hill and Rewards and Fairies stories and poems, created a certain image of Englishness, one that he struggled to define in other works as well.

Kipling was, in many ways, an outsider in England and it is often outsiders who pay more attention to the definitions of the society that has adopted them. I recall having an extremely interesting conversation at the IEA with Lawrence Hayek and a Dutch gentleman. The three of us had been born in other countries and come to Britain at various times of our lives and various periods of its history.

The two things we agreed on were that England was the most wonderful country in the world and that the English did not appreciate it. Buchan, too, would have supported that conclusion.

Consider that most English of all English characters, Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel. He was created by a Hungarian writer, Emmuska Orczy. The film of the book was scripted by Lajos Biró, a Hungarian, produced and directed by Alexander Korda (need I say what nationality he was) and the part was acted by Leslie Howard, who had been born in England to Hungarian parents.

The film came out in 1934 and was seen as a jolly adventure story. During the war (when Howard worked hard for the British cause and was killed when a plane he was travelling in was shot down by the Luftwaffe) there was something of an attempt to define Englishness.

It was easy to say what Britain was fighting against but what was it fighting for? The two directors who worked hardest to answer that question were Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger, the latter being, yes, you’ve guessed it, a Hungarian who, according to one website

“In 1938, [he] joined the Hungarian coterie of Alexander Korda, and like his compatriots he had much to invest in the dream of England as an outpost against tyranny and beacon of decency in a Europe turning to fascism.”

What he invested was his imprint on films like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (though, as a matter of fact, I understand why Churchill wanted to ban it), Canterbury Tale, I know where I’m going (this one about Scotland) and various others.

The attempt to define Britishness was not always successful but the films are consistently interesting.

It seems we have no useful Hungarians around at the moment. So, it is left to the Daily Telegraph to produce a list of ten (why not twelve?) elements of what the core British values are.

One cannot help admiring the attempt (even if The Scarlet Pimpernel is probably more fun) especially as it is wonderfully free of the sort of mawkishness that seemed to overwhelm the British media in the wake of the London bombs.

“Many countries try to codify their values in law. Some oblige their citizens to speak the national language; others make it a criminal offence to show disrespect to the flag. But statutory patriotism is an intrinsically un-British notion. We prefer simply to set out, in general terms, the non-negotiable components of our identity - the qualities of the citizenship that Muktar Said Ibrahim [one of the bombers of July 21] applied for.”

The ten components are :

The Rule of Law
The Sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament
The pluralist state
Personal freedom
Private property
Institutions (non-statutory)
The family
History
The English-speaking world
The British character

Very nice, too, and about as hard to assess as they were in Orwell’s day. The British character is impossible to define as everyone will do so differently. I have been told by eurosceptics that unlike those nasty Europeans, all the British ever wanted to do was to be left alone.

No doubt, the greatest empire in history was created by people wanting to be left alone. And what of the fact, as the old song had it, “every war we fought we won”? None of those wars were on British soil.

Furthermore, time was the British character was defined as a “can-do” one. Would that sill be true now, I wonder.

The English-speaking world has, of course, grown out of England and her ideas. What people talk of as the Anglosphere is that: freedom, justice, rule of law and other issues: small government, enterprise, individualism. How much of that has survived successive twentieth century governments, not to mention the great European project?

As one gets to the more specific values, one sees a wish-list. I wish this were still true (if it ever was, of course).

No one is above the law? Well, I am not sure that is true about this government in itself and in the ideology of group politics. As I said in my previous posting, Cherie Blair QC would have been horrified if the sort of “rights” she thinks are essential to Muslim girls were applied to Anglican ones.

That applies to the third item as well.

But, of course, the one that is particularly ridiculous is item number 2. Really the leader writers of the Daily Telegraph should know better. “The Lords, the Commons and the monarch” have not constituted “the supreme authority in the land” for decades. There is the small matter of the European Communities Act 1972 and ECJ judgements.

Personal freedom? Private property? Tell that to the people who can no longer own or sell handguns or run well regulated clubs; or to the foxhunters; or to the businessmen whose scales were confiscated because they disobeyed the diktats of the metric regulators; or to the farmers whose animals were slaughtered even though there was no sigh of foot and mouth disease anywhere near them.

It is not that I object to any of those core values. Far from it, though I would like to see some of them a little better defined. And, naturally, I agree wholeheartedly with number 8, history. The teaching of history is absolutely essential. The advantage of British history is that through its imperial aspect (warts and all but good things and all, too) they can incorporate and provide a “story” for all those who come to live here.

It is just that until we deal with our problems they will remain a wish-list. England is, of course, in many ways an idea and it is the idea that those who come here often subscribe to. But the idea has been tarnished and there is no point in providing definitions until it is bright and shining again.

And, one has to sympathize with the leader writers of the Daily Telegraph. How many of them are Hungarians? In the circumstances their effort is very creditable.

Those British values in full - 1

It is always a joy to have Cherie Booth QC a.k.a. Mrs Blair, the Prime Minister’s wife, in the news. Normally, they keep her locked up to prevent her from spreading her own particular brand of foot and mouth disease. (Every time she opens her mouth she puts her foot in it.)

She has been holding forth about civil liberties and warning the government not to undermine our civil liberties in its pursuit of the terrorists. Let us get away from the inevitable MSM story – PM’s wife opposes government – and the immediate reaction to her statement – does she not want to fight terrorism, then – and look at why exactly the government has seen no choice but to pass endless legislation that constrains all our liberties.

One reason is that Mr Blair, Ms Booth’s husband, is something of a control freak and does not like the idea of liberties at all.

His party, in either its old or its new version has never been much of a friend to liberty, either. In its new version it has no knowledge of British history and, therefore, cannot understand how the concept of liberty, civil or otherwise, can be part of it.

But in practical terms, the most immediate reason is the fact that since the introduction of the Human Rights Act, a contentious piece of legislation and one that has given Ms Booth QC a good deal of highly paid work, it has been impossible to do what needs to be done: target, isolate and, if needs be, imprison or deport specific individuals who are a danger to our country, our people and our society.

Furthermore, we cannot deport certain citizens of other countries who preach death and destruction here and who are badly wanted in their own homes. Well, we could, of course, but we have signed up to endless international humanitarian agreements that forbid us to do so, if those countries do not promise to treat people well. (Yes, I know, France has signed up to those agreements, too, but Nicolas Sarkozy sees that between international humanitarian agreement and the protection of one’s own country there can be no contest.)

As a consequence, the government needs to crack down on all of us, to make sure that there is no discrimination between the guilty and the innocent. That is, indeed, undermining our few remaining civil liberties.

The answer is clear. Repeal the Human Rights Act and pass a piece of legislation that allows a country defend itself against those who wish to destroy it, if needs be, despite certain previous agreements that were never meant to apply to people who preach mass murder, anyhow.

The virtue of the western legal system as it was developed in the twelfth century or thereabouts is that it is individuals who are accused, tried and punished, not whole communities. It is the likes of Cherie Booth QC who make it impossible to maintain the legal system, civil liberties and defend the country simultaneously.

But then, Ms Booth QC seems to have a short memory, in any case. Not so long ago, I seem to recall, she appeared on some platform or another rejoicing in the fact that the women of Afghanistan were no longer forced to wear a burqua in the post-Taliban era.

Indeed, she showed with her hands how small the gap was through a which a woman in a burqua could see and invited us to be horrified about it.

Let us move two years forward. Cherie Booth QC is now the lawyer who defends Shabina Begum’s “right”, strongly advocated by her brother and another bullying male member of her family, to wear a full jilbab at school, once again using the Human Rights Act as her base.

Not a burqua, perhaps, but hardly an outfit for a modern girl in a British school that had managed to work out a uniform that was sensible and did not offend anyone’s religions feelings.

It seems that when it comes to Britain and British Muslim women, then what their menfolk happen to say is the right thing for them to do, according to Ms Booth QC. She would be horrified if similar ideas were announced for English girls. But the notion that the law is the law and rules defined by certain institutions for themselves apply to all, regardless of creed, do not seem to appeal to this particular “leading” barrister.

Incidentally, whatever happened to Shabina Begum? She was, as I recall, 16 and, therefore, this was her last compulsory year at school. Is she going to go back to do A levels or will she be forced into a marriage with someone chosen by her brother? What of her human rights then?

Which brings me to this morning’s Daily Telegraph and its entirely laudable attempt to define the core values of British identity, which I shall discuss in the next posting.

The modernizers' champion

Bombs may come, bombs may go but the Conservative Party leadership elections trundles on with the relentlessness of a determined snail.

Today it was once again the turn of David Cameron, the darling of the modernizers, to come up with what are laughingly known as ideas. He spoke at the Carlton Club and proclaimed the need for constitutional reform, in order to win back the alienated electorate.

The public, in his opinion, viewed all politicians as being the same because the parliamentarians had lost so much power to the government. Indeed, both of those statements are true. I, for one, find it hard to tell a Conservative modernizer apart from an old-fashioned Labour socialist quite often, but maybe a constitutional reform will sort my problem out.

So what are these reforms:

The first is a fixed term parliament so it is not left to the prime minister to decide when to call an election. A reasonable point, though I cannot see that it makes much difference one way or another.

“The failure to scrutinise laws effectively, the power of the whips and patronage, a second chamber, which performs well in so many ways, but which has been left in limbo and the unchecked growth of government by bureaucrats - in Britain and in Brussels.”

A little more detail might be in order and the answer he provides, select committees chosen by members rather than whips is not exactly going to set the electorate’s pulse racing. It is such a niggling little suggestion, as is his other one for cross-party alliances.

There is nothing in the British constitution that prevents cross-party alliances, which existed for centuries until the parties became more set institutions in the second half of the nineteenth century. No reform is needed to restore that situation if it keeps Mr Cameron happy but I would like to hear him trying to explain it on the doorsteps of his constituency.

According to the BBC website he called

“… for the dilution of government control of the Commons timetable, limits on the numbers of bills that can be introduced and restrictions on numbers of ministers and special advisers.

He is also pushing for "sunset clauses" which would mean new laws and regulations automatically have to be revisited after fixed periods of time.”

None of this is constitutional. It is all procedural. If the MPs want to introduce all these ideas, they can do so at any time by some very straightforward legislation.

There is nothing in the British constitution that gives the government unlimited time to introduce unlimited number of Bills. Neither is there anything that can stop them doing it.

Then he got to the nub of the real constitutional problem as he saw it: the House of Lords. It must be elected because, although, he said rather superciliously, the life and remaining hereditary peers have made an “invaluable contribution” to politics,

“… real legitimacy in politics flows from elections, and we in the Conservative Party must make clear our commitment to a majority elected house.”

Says who? Real legitimacy stems from doing one’s constitutional duty, which in the case of the legislature is to legislate carefully and meticulously and to hold the executive to account.

On all those counts the House of Lords, unelected though it is, has done far better work than the apparently “legitimate” elected, though on an ever smaller vote, House of Commons.

Since this is the only real proposal for a constitutional reform, one would like to hear some details (at present in the development stage, one assumes).

How would the peers be elected? On the same basis as the Commons? Then what is there to stop the second chamber simply replicating the problems of the first and become enmeshed completely in party politics? What is to happen to the cross-bench peers and how are we to ensure that the present independence is maintained? Through those rather inadequate suggestions Mr Cameron makes for the House of Commons?

If not on the same basis as the Commons then how will the House of Lords be elected?

What of payment? At present the peers receive expenses only. If they are elected they will have to have the same not ungenerous salaries and expenses that the MPs get.

And, of course, they will no longer consider themselves to be a revising chamber only but will demand the same rights in parliament as the Commons have. Governments can say good-bye to one of their much favoured method of legislation: the Parliament Act.

Above all, is this really the most important issue that this country faces on the constitutional front?

Although there is a brief mention of the bureaucrats of Brussels, there seems to be a certain absence of the “E” word. Would it be too much to expect a man who wants to be Leader of the Opposition to refer to the fact that, according to the government, 50 per cent of our major legislation and 80 per cent of the total comes from Brussels and the Westminster Parliament has no right to reject any of it?

Indeed, most of it does not even come before their eyes, as it is introduced through secondary legislation (not mentioned either) or implemented by such bodies as the Food Standards Agency that is accountable to nobody.

Am I missing something here? To me the concept of legislation coming from Brussels and being superior to the British one is very clear. Why do our politicians find it difficult to grasp it?

Have they really not heard of the European Communities Act 1972 with all its amendments?

How does Mr Cameron think Parliament will be brought back to the centre of political life if it legislates in ever fewer spheres of that political life and cannot reject laws and regulations imposed on it by a completely separate body?

And why does he think that anybody should take him and his political, since they are not really constitutional, ideas seriously if he cannot quite bring himself to discuss the central crucial constitutional problem: that to all intents and purposes this is not an independent country any more?

Shutting down terrorists?

Straight out of the school of "seen to be doing something", the EU Commission is proposing that banks throughout the EU be required to register the name, address and bank account of anyone making an international money transfer.

This is according to the International Herald Tribune, although the Financial Times also runs the story, the aim of the new law being to disrupt the financing of terrorist activities.

Having listened to a number of experts on this subject, and read an authoritative book, one is immediately aware that organised terrorists - and criminals – have highly inventive and sophisticated means of moving their money around the world. They will, therefore, be completely unaffected by these proposals.

Despite this, Céu Pereira, a commission official in Brussels burbles: "Money is the nerve of war, and at present there are few possibilities to trace funding sources," telling us that the commission wants Council approval by December and rapid EU parliament approval, so the law can come into effect in January 2007.

Meanwhile, honest citizens will have another raft of bureaucracy thrust upon them, all in the name of public safety, although one recalls that one of the most egregious money laundering scams in recent history was carried out by EU officials working for Eurostat. They were salting away huge sums of public money in Swiss banks, in what was described as "a huge enterprise in looting".

One also recalls a certain transport commissioner, by the name of Jacques "Wheel" Barrot, was convicted by the French courts for laundering illegal party donations through Swiss Banks. However, we are not supposed to mention that.

What's the betting that this new law – which will be passed by the gormless "colleagues" in double-quick time – will have no effect on these sterling public servants (none of whom have been punished for their offences), while Blair and his fellow travellers will argue that this is another good reason for carrying identity cards.

Incidentally, the EU has got another trick up its sleeve, proposing stricter controls on explosives manufacturers to improve the traceability of their products – which is actually not a bad idea, but should be done on a global scale - and restricting the sale of farm fertiliser, which can be used to make bombs.

On the latter, the British will attest that the most stringent controls in the world never stopped really determined Irish terrorists getting hold of sufficient quantities of Ammonium Nitrate, although they did make it more difficult for ordinary people to acquire it.

Perhaps that is who the EU are after. It is getting to the point where even law-abiding people are beginning to dream about alternative uses for fertiliser.

The New European Army

Dawn breaks. Out of the belly of an Airbus A400M "Eurolifter" military cargo transport whines a squat armoured vehicle. Powered by an innovative diesel-electric motor, this Swedish-built "SEP" vehicle is equipped with a high-power French built cannon and turret, and the magazine is stacked with French shells, manufactured to EU CEN standards. The vehicle bristles with high-tech sensors and threat detectors, also Swedish built, and is protected by a new generation of "electric armour", made by an European armament consortium.

The "Eurolifter" took off from Eindhoven, the headquarters of the European Air Transport Command, under commands issued through the EU military headquarters Command Information System (CIS), the Permanent Joint Headquarters for EU military operations, in Northwood, North London, and was guided en route by the EU's Galileo satellite global positioning system.

To reach its destination, it was refuelled from a European-built Airbus A330-200 and its passage was safeguarded by Eurofighter patrols, each aircraft armed with next-generation European medium-range air-to-air Meteor missiles. Tranche 2 Eurofighters now fly overhead, launching French-built Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG air-launched cruise missile at targets over the horizon.

Already, in the distance, Italian-built Panther reconnaissance vehicles are roaming the countryside, while French-built, high-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) scour the hinterland for potential threats. As more "Eurolifters" land, they disgorge from their holds the first of many German-built MAN tactical supply trucks, which immediately move to the designated positions shown on their in-cab, German-built logistics support system screens.

Meanwhile, officers, schooled in tactics and European doctrines at the EU Military college, gather in their hastily set-up command centre, consulting the latest intelligence from the GMES earth observation satellite, beamed via the European Union Satellite Centre in Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain, while awaiting final orders from Force Command in Brussels.

Above the command centre flutter two flags. One is blue with a ring of 12 yellow stars, symbolising the first full-scale deployment of the European Rapid Reaction Force. The other is a Union Jack. It is only this flag - which was made in China, as were the soldiers' uniforms – that identifies the British Army contingent, in action circa 2020 as an integral part of the ERRF, the New European Army.

That is the reality of what awaits us - not fiction, not a Eurosceptic fantasy but fact, based on my analysis of current MoD equipment procurement plans and co-operation agreements. The result will be that, as British armed forces undergo major re-equipment and transformation over the next decade, not one of the major systems will be of British design or manufacture.

In physical as well as organisational terms, the British Army will be wholly integrated into the European Rapid Reaction Force - the New European Army - no longer able to act independently without permission from Brussels.

More to follow.

France and democracy

Yesterday evening I attended a talk by a Spanish expert on terrorism – ETA, IRA and the new-fangled Islamic variety. He was superlatively knowledgeable and I shall cull his talk for various comments in the next few postings.

The first and rather amusing comment that needs sharing is his description of what happened for some years between Spain and France over the question of ETA and ist leadership who tended to escape the Spanish police after some terrorist outrage or assassination and find shelter in France.

It was, the expert said, very difficult for the Spanish police, because France did not want to co-operate, publicly doubting for years after King Juan Carlos installed a democratic system that Spain was a democracy. Not till the late eighties did that attitude change and not till very recently have the French started arresting ETA “dignitaries”.

This was slightly puzzling to all listeners since France has never been known as a protector of democracies, as was confirmed by article in today’s Daily Telegraph, which tells us that France has unilaterally decided to end a European Union embargo against Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba.

Presumably, the hope is for fattish commercial deals in the future but in the present this has brought some (though not too much) embarrassment as well as a certain lack of communautairisme.

As the article puts it:

“Apparently emboldened by the French overture, Cuban authorities responded by launching the largest wave of dissident arrests since 2003, when almost the entire dissident leadership of the Communist-ruled island was rounded up.”

Of particular embarrassment was the fact that a number of the arrests were made outside the French embassy as the demonstrators protested against the deal. 19 of those arrested are still in prison.

One of those arrested and later released, the 60 year old economist Marta Beatriz Roque said that

“… the aborted protest was organised after France broke the EU embargo and invited the Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque to a Bastille Day celebration at the French embassy, from which dissidents and democracy activists were excluded.”

What was that slogan? Something about liberté came into it, as I recall.

Ship ahoy!

Slovakia and Hungary are being served notice that the Commission is about to take them to the European Court of Justice for not complying with certain parts of EU legislation.

Apparently, neither country has implemented a number of directives on maritime safety. Slovakia is being warned about having no legislation to do with passenger ships and prevention of pollution.

Hungary has no “availability of port facilities for ship-generated waste”. Actually, Hungary has no ports or ships, being land-locked, as is Slovakia. That, apparently, is not the point.

Slovakia has about 20 ships that fly its flag but trade elsewhere, though they are not passenger ships and, therefore, do not come under the relevant directive.

As for Hungary, according to the Commission:

“Though it has no maritime ports, Hungary has a maritime register. Transposition of the directive by Hungary is therefore needed in view of the obligations on masters of ships.”

How this can be done if there is no physical facility, like a sea shore, remains a mystery, but the Commission may well take these two countries to court, which may well impose various fines. Since these are never paid by countries like France or Italy, this may not worry anybody too much.

What may have confused the Commission is the historic fact that for 25 years between the two wars, Hungary was ruled by Admiral Horthy, though it had no navy and no seashore. He was also the Regent, though Hungary had ceased to be a monarchy in 1918.

The Slovak spokeswoman at the London embassy has clearly understood how the EU operates:

“We have no coastline but it looks as if we are going to have to implement all these laws anyway.”

Not that different from the old Communist system, really, in its illogicality.

However, one question does arise. What of countries like the Czech Republic, Austria and, indeed, Luxembourg? Have they implemented all the directives?

Update on the oil-for-food scandal

SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo) is promising yet more reforms. He will do such things etc etc.

This time round he is promising something more substantial, that is a UN definition of terrorism and some effort to deal with it. How, we do not know. Perhaps, he will divert them all into profitable business activity.

More to the point, his promises remain extremely vague, and attempts on the part of British diplomats to get some definitions, have so far failed. The chances they will go on failing because in order to deal with the terrorism issue the UN is going to have to do some thinking about the Middle East and about suicide bombers in every country, not just Britain.

Meanwhile, the oil-for-food scandal will not go away, much as the SecGen would like it to. Investigators have found a whole network of accounts in different countries that were operated by Benon Sevan, the former head of the programme, who is the subject of a criminal investigation in New York.

So far as anyone knows Mr Sevan still maintains that the $160,000 he received on top of his extremely handsome salary and even more handsome perks was a legacy from an aunt.

Oh yes, and SecGen Annan is still suffering from selective memory loss.

A little light relief

This is somewhat off topic, though not completely, as we have written before about the G8, Live 8 and other suchlike jamborees.

I cannot resist passing on the following figures from this week’s Private Eye:

6.6 million: Average UK TV audience for Live 8, described by the great and the good as the “greatest spectacular ever seen”.

6.2 million: TV audience for East Enders, deemed to be disastrous enough for the BBC to overhaul the entire series and, indeed, threaten it with the chop.

5.5 billion: Potential global TV audience for Live 8, according to organizers.

4.8 billion: Total population of the world with access to electricity.

Good to know they can all count.

The war of French yoghurt

In case anyone has any doubts on the subject, the food business is very big, indeed. There are very few small kitchens producing hand-made cakes or equally hand-made yoghurts.

And the food trade wars can be quite big. The war of the French yoghurt (suspended for les vacances annuaires) may turn into something big. Or, of course, it may fizzle out like the famous drink (no, the other one, Pepsi) that is involved.

I read the first intimation of this potentially earth-shaking conflict on John Rosenthal’s Transatlantic Intelligencer blog. In a couple of postings he quoted some of the more fatuous comments made by French politicians eager to muscle in on the potential bid that might be made by PepsiCo for Danone, the French producer of yoghurts and other dairy produce, as well as owner of BSN, in itself a huge conglomerate.

It seems, that in a particularly Gallic political way, everyone went slightly ballistic at the rumours (both companies are denying that anything is happening – a sure sign of feverish activity).

Predictably, the egregious Prime Minister, admirer of Napoleon and self-styled poet, Dominique de Villepin jumped in, announcing that Danone is the flower of French industry and his government is going to defend French economic interests.

Jacques Chirac sounded the trumpet of mobilization:

“I don’t want to comment on rumors in the financial markets, but, nonetheless,since it is a matter of a big French firm like Danone, I am, like the government, particularly vigilant and particularly mobilized.”

La patrie est en danger. Les ennemis sont partout.

Patrick Ollier, the chairman of the Economic Committee at the French Assembly, waxed lyrical or, at least, pompous:

“I find it scandalous to see the jewels of French industry going overseas,especially under the banner of Pepsi-Cola, when we are talking about Danone, the symbol of French dairy products and French quality.”

Could have been worse. Could have been Disneyworld setting up in Paris. Woops, that has happened already. Well, never mind. As it happens, nobody is suggesting transporting Danone anywhere and, in any case, nobody quite knows where the actual goods are produced.

Of course, as both Rosenthal and today’s article in the business section of the Sunday Telegraph (the bit that did not have the overdressed police officers in it) point out, all this fluttering in the dovecots is largely the result of heavy-handed lobbying on the part of the Danone management.

The shares, on the other hand, had been shooting up as soon as rumours of the take-over bid started circulating, taking a dip only as a result of some of the apparent political interference.

Danone is that favourite of the French political elite, a national champion. It is a French company, created in France (more or less), grown in France and one that has expanded across the world, particularly once it merged with BSN, the glass, beverage and baby food company that owned Evian.

The geographical and market placing of the two companies – PepsiCo and Danone – would make the merger extemely advantageous, according to various analysts, including French ones.

(When one looks at the French business world one finds a remarkably large number of highly sensible people who say very sensible things. How come none of them go into politics?)

Danone, unlike PepsiCo is also known for producing healthy goods that are popular everywhere. That is mostly true – the sugar content of some of their puddings does not bear too much examination. PepsiCo’s snacks are popular, but do not claim to be healthy.

PepsiCo is big in the US, Mexico and the UK. Danone has a large market in Europe and is spreading aggressively into some of the emerging economies.

Naturally, the bid and the merger may not happen. Danone might decide to protect itself by joining another, European, company like Nestlé; other American companies might try to muscle in.

The French government may well find that they cannot protect the flower of French economy within the EU rules. After all, they do not precisely complain when French companies go on shopping sprees, mostly in the UK.

French analysts shrug their shoulders in a Gallic fashion and point out that the hysteria is already dying down, probably because most of the politicians are on the beach. But who knows what will happen in September?

Is it here already?

Having been warning, through this Blog and the pages of The Sunday Telegraph, courtesy of Christopher Booker, of the accelerating pace of European Defence integration, I have been under enormous pressure to produce a properly researched and referenced paper, setting out the evidence for what amounts to a real but carefully concealed programme of absorbing the British armed forces into the structures of a European Army.

Hence, not only have I been totally immersed in the project for well over a week, neglecting not only this Blog but everything else, including sleep, I have been viewing the amazing events unfolding in London with an air of surreal detachment. It came as something of a shock, therefore, to look bleary-eyed at this morning's papers – and in particular the large colour photograph on the front page of The Sunday Telegraph. To all intents and purposes, I thought, my paper is too late. The "Euro-army" is already here, on our streets.

What the picture showed was a squad of armed men in black uniforms and flak jackets, bearing German-designed sub-machine guns, with coal-scuttle helmets adorned, Rommel-style, with oversize goggles, pistol holsters strapped round their thighs, advancing purposefully on their target. And, in the background, a BMW "troop carrier", in the guise of a 5-series saloon car.

Yes I know it's fanciful and entirely inappropriate, and not worthy of this mature, carefully balanced Blog, but that does not stop me thinking that, had we actually been invaded back in 1940-41, by men in black uniforms with coal-scuttle helmets and sub-machine guns, would today's pictures in the newspapers have looked any different?

I, for one, have always felt that the rot started in the police when, some many years ago, they changed from wearing blue shirt and adopted white. While there is something comforting about blue, when you put a man in a smart black uniform with silver badges, and give him a white shirt, it does something to his character. It transforms him.

Then put this man in a group of similar men (all the "storm-troopers" in the photograph were men), detach them from the public, give them a great deal of power and authority, loosen the strings of accountability and then, to top it all, give them powerful guns, you have a dangerous cocktail. That, in my far from humble but probably ill-informed opinion, makes tragedies like the death of the unfortunate Brazilian youth, not so much accidental as inevitable.

Anyhow, from that rant from an emergent North, back to the subject of the Euro-Army, which – if we are not careful (and perhaps even if we are careful) - will exhibit some or all of the characteristics of the current occupying force. Today, Booker, in his column , has given a "taster" of the work to date, which is nearing completion.

It would be otiose for me to reproduce the story here – and three other fine stories – when our readers have already read them or can look them up on the link provided. Suffice to say that all Booker writes, and much, much more can be backed up by copious evidence, all of which gives unarguable proof that, stealthy step-by-step, our armed forces are being taken from us and ceasing to become our own, independent forces.

Thus, while we look back in history at Heath, who gave away our fishing, we may find that when we look back at Blair, it will be he who becomes known as the man who gave away our Army.

I am in the final stages of this project – which builds on the researches I have been conducting for some years – and hope to have a draft paper ready in the next day or so. I will be quite happy to sent it by e-mail to anyone who wishes to see it, and you can contact me through the link on the sidebar. One it is finished, I will do a series of posts, setting out the gist of my findings.

In the meantime, I must thank Helen for keeping the Blog going, and our faithful band of readers who keep visiting the site.

Desperation or what?

With the German federal elections finally in train, Chancellor Schröder needs to think of something quickly to catch up with Angela Merkel, whose CDU/CSU party by 17 per cent.

There is some talk that he will resuscitate his anti-American stand over Iraq and make that the central plank of his election campaign, claiming that had the CDU been in power, there would have been German troops somewhere in Iraq.

The hope is that with the wave of terrorist attacks that has rolled across various countries, not least Britain, and the ongoing terrorism in Iraq, the Germans will feel grateful that they are not involved and are, therefore, not subjected to any bomb attacks. Not yet, anyhow, though experience shows that the terrorists hit out where they think the opposition is weak for whatever reason.

Joschka Fischer, who has spent much of the last year travelling round the world, trying to drum up support for a permanent German seat at the UN, an idea that was neatly squashed by Secretary of State Rice, has also announced that opposing the war in Iraq was one of the SPD-Green coalition’s achievements to be proud of.

Unfortunately, he did not have time to list the other achievements.

It seems unlikely that the tactic will succeed. Angela Merkel has already announced that she would put Germany on a friendlier footing with the United States, though there would be no German troops sent to Iraq. This pronouncement has done her no harm at all in the polls.

The problem from Schröder’s point of view is that the people of Germany are, understandably, preoccupied with domestic issues, what with unemployment growing and the economy being in recession.

And, although, as we have already said, Merkel’s policies do not seem to be all that radical, for many people, anything might seem better than Schröder’s tired old rhetoric.

Frattini has the answer

Commission Vice President Franco Frattini has announced that the London bombs have proved that effective action needs to be taken against Islamic terrorists. And that is?

They should all be made to swear an oath of European citizenship, “so that they recognise our basic rights”. It is not clear whether those who are already citizens of member states would also have to swear this oath or only those who come in.

After all, if a British citizen does not recognise other people’s basic rights to surviving a journey on a London Underground train or a bus, it is not entirely clear why he should suddenly have a change of heart on becoming a European citizen.

Signor Frattini’s idea is “a mature intercultural and antireligious dialogue”. That should go down well in the one or two madrassahs and mosques.

And just to show his tremendous broad-midedness, he expressed worry about the case of Oriana Fallaci, the highly regarded Italian journalist who faces a two-year sentence in Italy for “offending” Islam by a book she published last year. In it she argued that western Europe has given up the fight for its principles and has allowed the creation of a Eurabia.

Signora Fallaci is in her seventies and seriously ill. She cannot return to her home because of the looming sentence and has to stay in the United States. Still, I am sure she will agree that if all the Muslims in Europe will take an oath of European citizenship, the problems she has outlined and the problems that have made her life so difficult will disappear in a puff of smoke.

A crisis is not necessarily beneficial

Far it be from me to disagree with the great and the good who have been pontificating on the subject, but it is not back to normal in London.

Half the underground system is not working with lines still out of action after the real bomb attacks of 7/7. As Andrew Gilligan pointed out in yesterday’s Evening Standard, [no link] it is not precisely good for morale to have the lines still out of action two weeks after the event.

When, on top of that, we are told that the Piccadilly line has been suspended between Uxbridge and Rayner’s Lane because of the events of July 7, we, seasoned London Transport watchers start pulling faces. There were no “events” between Uxbridge and Rayner’s Lane, which is rather a long way out west.

The events of 21/7, insignificant though they were, gave London Underground the excuse to close down some of the remaining lines and several stations.

On top of which, large areas around the three stations where the detonators went off are still closed off, making life difficult and infuriating some of us with the sight of police officers standing around guarding empty spaces.

We now have the rather disturbing story of the Stockwell shooting and although everyone, including Hizonner the Mayor rushed in to congratulate the police for its prompt action, some of the eyewitness accounts make one uneasy.

One Londoner said to me this evening that she became worried for the first time when she heard about the shooting because it made her realize that the police were not in control. Perhaps that is not so, but trigger-happy police officers do not make for peaceful living.

Now we are told by Deutsche Welle that European leaders are standing together with the people of London. Never thought I’d be saying this, but, maybe I should go and live somewhere else.

Still, the crisis is not precisely beneficial to the blessed EU, despite all those leaders standing together. (Sorry to be harping on it, but it is rather a revolting thought.)

Spain, it seems, is a tad miffed about the German decision not to extradite Mr Darkanzali, the German-Syrian businessman, suspected of being one of the money launderers for terrorist groups.

In fact, the German authorities are not too happy with the Constitutional Court’s decision either. For one thing, it puts Germany into an awkward position with regards to the rest of the EU and its drive to achieve a common anti-terrorist fight or, at least, a European Arrest Warrant.

More importantly, actually releasing Mr Darkanzali shows a certain reluctance to tackle the problem that is, undoubtedly, spreading across western Europe as well as many other countries.

In a spirit of European solidarity, the Spanish magistrates are threatening to retaliate. No, it seems they are not going to invade Germany but they may well refuse to extradite Spanish citizens to that country.

As a matter of fact, this does not sound too unreasonable. If the Germans insist that their citizens cannot be tried in any other court, no matter what they are wanted for, they cannot expect co-operation from other countries. It is a little surprising that they got it until now.

According to yesteday’s Financial Times:

“Brigitte Zypries, German justice minister, had said on Monday that newlegislation to bring Germany's law back in line with the EU arrest warrant would take four to six weeks to be drawn up.”

But that may not solve this particular problem. In fact, it will produce the usual situation of a completely unnecessary legislation that aims at integrating European laws, without achieving the supposed aim.

“Mrs Zypries said she feared that Mr Darkazanli would flee Germany to "some thirdstate" in order to avoid a further extradition attempt when the German law wasrevised. German, Spanish and US newspapers reacted angrily this week to therelease of an alleged terrorist, only days after the first London bombings,and pointed to the shortcomings in EU anti-terror co-operation.”

The problem, as we have said before, is lack of political will. A European Arrest Warrant is completely unnecessary, since most countries have extradition agreements. If these do not apply, as they do not seem to in Germany, or, at least, the cases need to be heard in a German court first, then so be it.

On the one hand it is interesting to see that the Karlsruhe court is so intent on not accepting the European Arrest Warrant that it is prepared to show itself to be soft on terrorism. One wishes they had been quite as tough over Maastricht and the euro.

On the other hand this is precisely what those pushing judicial integration need. Now they can point to the fact that individual countries are not prepared to fight terrorism and cross-border co-operation is severely flawed.

Only one answer they will say: more integration.

That Communication Action Plan

This morning I received a phone call from a journalist at EuropeTV, which is based in Lyons. He was organizing a discussion on Britain and the euro and wanted to know if I would take part. He did agree with me that the euro was not precisely top priority at the moment but, it seems, editors of programmes periodically decide that another discussion is needed about the euro and whether Britain will join.

I am not sure what will come of this programme as he had not found anyone who would speak in favour of such a proposition and was not too hopeful about it.

He did, however, mention that his colleagues (the station receives a certain amount of funding from the EU) spend a lot of time agonizing about how to present the EU in a better light. There is something wrong with the method of presentation. It seems, they could not imagine that, perhaps, it is the substance that is problematic.

As it happens and, as we have mentioned before, the Commission is also agonizing about the same subject and as is its wont, producing all sorts of documents on it.

To date we have a 21 page Action Plan to Improve Communicating Europe by the Commission (a catchy though somewhat illiterate title), a Communication Annex that lists 50 necessary actions and provides a helpful timetable for when the actions need to be completed, and a European Commission Memorandum that sums all these weighty matters up.

This is how the Memorandum explains the grandiose plan:

"Connecting with the citizens of European Union is one of the strategic objectives of the Commission for this term of office. The Commission's seminar on communication on 23 April highlighted the vital importance of a renewed commitment to communication with European citizens. It also acknowledged that this is a taks that goes beyond the Commission's remit. Its success depends fundamentally on a partnership with all other key players in European politics."

You notice there is no mention of what it is they are going to communicate. It seems not to occur to any of these highly paid officials or their minions and hangers on, that you need to have something to communicate.

They are clearly all post-Marcusians and believers in the medium being the message. Unfortunately, the vast bulk of the population seems unimpressed by that sort of thinking.

Anyway, the first priority is listening. Apparently, they should stop just informing EU citizens and start listening to them and taking their views into account. The first one they might like to take into account is the extreme reluctance on the part of many to be anything but citizens of their own country.

Then they will communicate how EU policies affect citizens’ everyday life [sic]. The problem with that, apart from the grammar, is that there are very many people at the national level who do not want them to communicate anything of the kind, not wishing to admit how much power had been handed over to the Union.

The third intention is connecting by going local

“… that is by adapting messages to target audiences in each Member State and conveying them through the channels those audiences prefer in the language they understand”.

It is hard to tell what that will mean in practice (labels on wine bottles in France and packs of drinking chocolate in Spain, perhaps) but we are back to the same problem. The policy may be one size fits all but the message must not be.

The first phase of this grand plan has been achieved by the production of the internal action plan.

The next one will be a White Paper

“… to engage all stakeholders, setting out the policy vision and the initiatives to be undertaken in the medium and long-term, in co-operation with the other institutions and actors, and particularly the Member States governments”.

We are back with that old project – the construction of a civil society and through it a European identity, this time through “communication” with the chosen few stakeholders who will then carry the message to others. If past experience is anything to go by, this is not going to work terribly well, as the stakeholders are rarely capable of a coherent message.

Or, to be quite precise, their message is coherent as long as nobody challenges it.

The actual actions that come under the plan range from involving Commissioners more (somewhat counterproductive if the fragrant Margot’s efforts are anything to go by) to streamlining the various communication agencies, more dialogue and transparency, use of focus groups, assessing impacts (and presumably more focus groups after that), using the internet, contact centres and information relays, all the way to Action 49:

“A qualitative and quantitative communication assessment and screening will be carried out throughout the Commission so as to implement this action plan with maximum effectiveness. To that effect, a screening task-force will be set up, with a particular focus on cost-effective use of resources on a permanent basis.”

You have all been warned.

Prodi's logic

It is never going to come into force and that is why it should be put into force. That is, more or less, what fomer Commission President Romano Prodi told journalists on Wednesday.

“It is difficult to think that it will be approved, but it is important to go ahead with the ratification process to show that the position expressed by the majority of the French and Dutch is not prevalent.”

Well, of course, the position expressed by the majority of the French and the Dutch is of little importance compared to the position voted through by various parliaments, but let us suppose the ratification process throws up a few more positions, say, in Denmark and the United Kingdom, that are quite similar? Then what? Presumably, push ahead with the ratification process, regardless.

And what, according to this attitude, is to be done about the French and the Dutch? Make them vote again? Ignore them? Pretend that they actually voted yes? Fraught with difficulties, whichever course you choose.

Signor Prodi, who now heads a centre-left coalition in Italy and is preparing for the next presidential elections, dismissed the somewhat eurosceptical views expressed by the government, particularly by members of the Northern League.

“The government and parts of the coalition are displaying a self-satisfied anti-Europeanism. Lacking any deep convictions, they are going along with whatever suits them at the time, most recently making a pathetic and sly move to the British position as if that would put a respectable face on their lack of ideas.”

Well, obviously, nobody could display a convinced and principled anti-Europeanism or believe that coming out of the euro might be good for the Italian economy. In fact, nobody principled could even contemplate that something is to be approved of because it is good for one’s country’s economy. Principled positions are reserved for the integrationists.

Still, at least Signor Prodi acknowledged that there is some amount of disenchantment. And he had the remedy:

“I remain convinced that the response to the disenchantment and to the challenges Europe faces in the globalised world is more Europe, not less Europe.”

Presumably, this is what his former colleague, the fragrant Margot calls investing in listening. Signor Prodi listens and decides that what he is told is completely wrong and should be disregarded for the people’s own good, naturally.

Finally, that old mantra:

“Integration remains the only strategy for growth in Europe. Europe can only participate effectively in the global system when it speaks with one voice -- in other words when there is a political Europe.”

How wonderful. And what is Europe going to say with that one voice? Could it be something along the lines that Signor Prodi and his various colleagues think? After all, the European peoples’ opinion, separately or together is of little consequence.

Sidetracked

No, no, not this blog, but the Lisbon Agenda. I expect our readers will recall that its purpose was to turn the European economy into the fastest growing, most dynamic one with the best IT base in the world by 2010.

Well, one or two things have gone wrong. In fact, they were never right. In the first place, of course, there is no such thing as a European economy. There are economies in the various countries and they manage in various ways (mostly badly).

Furthermore, economic growth depends on economic initiative and enterprise. The idea that you can somehow create enterprise, initiative and entrepreneurship, thus producing growth, by a set of rules, lists of things to do and tables on which things done are ticked off, is laughable. But that is the mindset of the people who run our countries. They believe in management not politics, in corporatism not business and they are absolutely convinced that nothing and nobody can function without a set of rules provided and executed by the politicians, civil servants and regulators.

So much for the basis of the Lisbon Agenda. Alas, some of the details have not been too hopeful, either.

In order to encourage investment in R&D;, the Commission has established a European Research Council. Well, that should solve our problems without the slightest difficulty.

According to the BBC website:

“The ERC is envisioned as an independent, quality-driven funding body run by scientists, modelled on the US National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health.

Supporters argue that it will help drive up the competitiveness and, by extension, the quality of scientific research within Europe by giving a clearer focus to the way funding is distributed.”

Well, of course, supporters would argue that, wouldn’t they. The rest of us might find it difficult to make that logical connection between a pan-European institution, made up of scientists, who happen to be good at politicking (the two British membes are, we are unsurprised to find, Professor Wendy Hall, head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, at the University of Southampton and Lord May of Oxford, the outgoing president of the Royal Society, Britain's academy of science) and competitiveness or quality of scientific research, pure or applied.

The unfortunate fact is, that, as the BBC so nicely puts it:

“Europe is now on track to miss the so-called Lisbon objective of boosting its spend to 3% of GDP by 2010.”

Quite so. In fact,

“The figures show the bloc devoted just 1.93% of its wealth (GDP) in 2003 to this important area - compared with 2.59% in the US and 3.15% in Japan.

Some emerging Asian countries, such as China, are now increasing their R&D investment to a rate where they will soon catch and overtake Europe.”

One rather interesting and worrying aspect of it all is that while R&D expenditure by EU firms in the USA has increased by 54% between 1997 and 2002, expenditure by US companies in the EU in the same period increased by only 38%.

This would indicate that it is the European or, more precisely, EU environment that is slowing down research and development. I am not convinced that creating a pan-European agency is quite the answer to that problem.

Another jolly for the fragrant Commissioner

Her fragrancy, Margot, the Commissar for Truth and Reconciliation is really on the job. Her idea of “communicating Europe” to the long-suffering people of the European Union is to jet off on another little holiday …. Ooops … I mean, another fact-finding mission … to Sri Lanka.

The place, she tells us, is in trouble. And if it wasn’t before her visit, it is now.

She went to look at how the post-tsunami reconstruction was proceeding. Not very well, apparently, though she does not quite say that, being careful not to be rude to her hosts, the Sri Lankan authorities.

Instead, she waffles (there’s a surprise):

“Food is still being handed out once a week in too many places where housing and rehabilitation work is delayed. That involves a risk of creating a dependency culture among people who should be able to support themselves. Everything put in the soil grows quickly in this tropical climate…

But the political culture is so different from ours, including remains of cast and class-categories, that it becomes almost impossible to understand. And it seems too easy for the political establishment to forget about all those people who lost everything to the ocean on Boxing Day 2004. The logic of certain political positions and decisions escapes us Europeans…”

Would that mean that large-scale aid is not such a great idea, as it prevents proper reconstruction and development? Who can tell?

Is that second paragraph a tiny little hint at the colossal corruption that has bedevilled Sri Lanka in general, and the distribution of post-tsunami aid in particular? Maybe. Or maybe being European by culture I cannot see “the logic of certain political positions and decisions”.

Mind you, I find it difficult to understand the logic of having a highly paid Commissar together with an extended staff of minions and hangers on, whose job it is to explain the joys of the European Union and its constitution to us, numskulls, but who prefer to spend our money to gawp at people who have lost everything in a natural disaster.

On second thoughts, looking at pictures of Sri Lanka and remembering its climate, I understand all too well.

The fragrant Commissar is off on her real hols, this time to see her family in Sweden. She will do her blog when she gets back, though she does not exactly do her blog all that assiduously when she is not on holiday. No entries between July 8 and July 20? But, of course, she is frequently travelling on some other trip, which is definitely not a holiday but just happens to be in a very nice part of the world.

One more thing before the hols, though: new measures have been announced to sharpen the Commission’s message and to banish “eurojargon”. Of course, some of us think, the message probably needs changing but that is too radical for our Margot and her colleagues.

With her usual aptitude for the meaningless phrase, the fragrant Commissar explained to the Financial Times:

“We have not been efficient enough in communicating the EU. We have not invested in listening.”

I love the idea of investing in listening. A vision of a giant hearing aid with the ring of stars on it looms before one. And all to hear one tiny word of two letters.

To those of us who have been watching the EU and its attempts to communicate the message, this latest one seems vaguely familiar:

“Among the measures are plain-language summaries of the benefits of European policies and a rapid rebuttal unit to counter false claims.

This team would be able to fend off outlandish stories about the effects of Brussels regulations, which have famously included claims that smoky bacon crisps faced a ban, or cucumbers had to be straight.”

Don’t know about smoky bacon crisps but before they rush into rebutting the one about cucumbers, they might like to have a look at Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 of 15 June 1988 laying down quality standards for cucumbers, which says, inter alia:

“Cucumbers are classed into the four classes defined below:

(i) 'Extra' class

Cucumbers in this class must be of superior quality. They must have all the characteristics of the variety.

They must:

- be well developed
- be well shaped and practically straight (maximum height of the arc: 10 mm per 10 cm of length of the cucumber)
- have a typical colouring for the variety
- be free of defects, including all deformations and particularly those caused by seed formation.”

It then goes on to describe and define all the other classes of cucumbers.

While we are on the subject, I may point out that there are many pages of regulations on various fruits and vegetables, including those famous bananas.

Why nobody in the fragrant Commissar’s cabinet bothered to find this out before giving out information to their favoured newspaper, the Financial Times and, furthermore, why the journalist of that newspaper could not be bothered to do some elementary checking, remains a mystery.

There are other aspects to this new initiative:

“The EU executive is also planning to recruit communications specialists and encourage its staff to speak more openly to personalise policies.”

And we all know what happens to staff that speak out more openly. Just ask Marta Andreasen or Dorte Schmidt-Brown.

It would seem that even the FT journalist remained somewhat sceptical:

“However, despite the pledge to cut back on the sometimes baffling eurojargon, old habits clearly die hard. The plans include phrases such as "horizontal issues," "policy outcome" and "evaluation function."”

Personally I think that the evaluation function of the various horizontal issues will at the end of the day influence policy outcome. What’s so difficult about that?

Normal service will not be interrupted

There will be no postings about this latest attempt to reconstruct London’s transport system (and boy, does it need some reconstruction), even though one of the “devices” went off quite locally to me and has made life hereabouts reasonably difficult.

The only time I became worried was when Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of Police and a man who gives the word incompetence a bad name, said that everything was under control. Yikes! That bad?

Wot, no North?

Perspicacious readers would have noticed that my colleague has not been as present on the blog as he usually is.

Let me reassure everyone: he is alive and well and not in prison. Nor have we fallen out.

Dr North is deeply involved in one of his research projects to do with defence procurement and at times like that he breathes, eats, drinks and, for all I know, sleeps the project.

Suffice it to say that the story should rearrange our thoughts on many matters that happened in the last couple of years in defence thinking and defence procurement. You think politicians have lied? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

He will be back on the blog with parts of that story and other matters very soon.

Putting a name to the fight for freedom

As the debate about what is and is not moderate or extreme Islam continues and becomes more ferocious, as various extremely ignorant people like Hizonner the Mayor of LondON make ever more ridiculous pronouncements (as far as I can make it out Our Ken thinks it is all the fault of Lawrence of Arabia), the need to show solidarity with the fighters for freedom within the Muslim world becomes more acute.

It is, however, very difficult to show solidarity unless there is a name, a face, a personality. Stalin’s millions of victims made less impact in the West than one single personality like Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky or Vladimir Bukovsky.

We do, in fact, have a name and his face (before the gaolers of Iran had a go at him) was published in today’s Wall Street Journal Europe. He is Akbar Ganji, an Iranian journalist, who has just been rushed into hospital on the 40th day of his hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin prison.

This is how the newspaper sums up the saga of Ganji:

“A journalist by trade, Mr Ganji was arrested in 1997 for giving a lecture on “the theoretical foundations of fascism”, for which he spent three months in prison. Three years later, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attending a Berlin conference deemed “anti-revolutionary” and “anti-Islamic” by the Iranian authorities. An appellate court reduced Mr Ganji’s sentence to six months, but Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi intervened to impose a six-year sentence on other charges, such as his possession of photocopied foreign newspapers.”

Oh my. How it takes me back to the years of Soviet dissidents who were imprisoned for having copies of forbidden material (not photocopies as these were banned but typed and re-typed ones).

Mr Ganji has been active in prison. He produced a “Republican Manifesto” in 2002 and expanded it last May. In it he called on Iranians to boycott the recent sham elections in order to achieve genuine democracy.

His trenchant musings on freedom can be found in English on a special blog devoted to him and his writings. Clearly, somewhere there are other equally courageous people, whose names we do not know, who smuggle Ganji’s writings out, copy them, translate them and publish them on the net.

President Bush has spoken up for him as has the organization Journalists Without Borders. They have also called on the 25 EU foreign ministers and Javier Solana to pusue the case.

There seems to be some problem with the UN. GenSec Kofi Annan (father of Kojo of the food-for-oil scandal) has announced:

“I have not enough information on this case and, thus, cannot comment on it.”

The things SecGen Annan has no information on beggars belief. Since the information is readily available, would it be too much to ask him or someone close to him to spend some time reading it up?

And what happened to Solana? He is endlessly making statements about all sorts of things but try as I might, I cannot find any evidence that he has called for the release of Mr Ganji.

What of the foreign ministers of the three countries that have been conducting “a constructive dialogue” with the Iranian mullahs over nuclear matters for several years, getting nowhere fast? In matters of human rights, one of those European values that is supposed to be the basis of the common foreign and security policy, the representatives of Britain, France and Germany have resembled the three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil about the nastiness of the Iranian regime.

As I said above, Mr Ganji, the name and face of the fight for freedom, has been rushed to hospital though neither his family nor his lawyer are allowed to visit him.

Interestingly to those of us who maintain that intellectual oppression will become more and more difficult as the internet becomes more powerful, this is what Reporters Without Borders said on May 30:

“Pressure from international organizations, and from bloggers and other Internet users who have been constantly relaying developments about Ganji's state of health, almost certainly played a key role in this decision by the Iranian authorities.”

The decision being to release Mr Ganji temporarily for treatment.

The EU is said to have added its protests. But where and when? Whispering quietly in rooms behind locked doors?

So what are we to make of Edward Heath?

Well, at least he did not outlive his “nemesis”, whom he had managed outsit in the House, Margaret Thatcher. She, in her inimitable way, produced a “eulogy” that was about as backhanded as it can be:

“Ted Heath was a political giant. He was also, in every sense, the first modern Conservative leader - by his humble background, his grammar school education and by the fact of his democratic election.

As prime minister, he was confronted by the enormous problems of post-war Britain.

If those problems eventually defeated him, he had shown in the 1970 manifesto how they, in turn, would eventually be defeated.

For that, and much else besides, we are all in his debt.”

Wonderful stuff. There she is, praising the man, while making it quite clear that he was a complete failure and the person who managed to put the right policies into action was herself. What would we do without the Lady?

The reason, I venture to suggest, why there is so much description and analysis of other aspects of his policy, not the Common Market, is because it was all the rest that was important at the time.

As his obituaries bring back the full horror of his completely unsuccessful premiership, it becomes ever more comprehensible why so many people thought at the time that membership of the Common Market may well be the answer to Britain’s problems. Why anyone should think that membership of the EU is the answer to her problems now, of course, remains a mystery.

Edward Heath himself was a passionate believer in the whole idea. This is very important. He genuinely thought it was the best thing for Western Europe and the best thing for this country.

I do not go along with the idea that he was a traitor or that he was somehow paid for his “treachery”. The evidence for the large sums he was supposed to have received has never been shown and the fact that “everyone knows” something they could not possibly know is of little import.

At this point it is worth noting that a man who has a good salary and ever increasing expenses (as all MPs did and do), who also manages to earn well for his books (mysterious though it is why anyone should want to read them) and gets the odd Charlemagne prize but has no family to feed, clothe, educate and amuse, can live extremely well.

The obituary in the Daily Telegraph summed up the problem of Edward Heath and his failure well:

“… the “Grocer” was pilloried as a heartless automaton, contemptuous of the poor and unemployed. In reality, his administration twisted and turned because the kind of Conservatism which Heath espoused – and which appealed to his instincts far more than did the prescriptions of the market-place – was corporatist rather than political, dirigiste rather than democratic.”

Clearly, a man with that sort of outlook would rather approve of the concepts outlined by Monnet and Schumann, concepts that he actually understood better than almost anyone in Britain. But the idea that managerialism rather than messy politics is the answer was the mantra of the sixties and seventies.

Indeed, it has not disappeared from public life. This government, in particular, is adept at setting up various groups of “experts” to tackle problems that ought to be the province of democratically elected and accountable politicians.

One can probably isolate several formative influences. First and foremost there was the fact, noted by Thatcher, that he was the son of a manual worker (a carpenter), who made it to Oxford, became an officer in the socially exclusive Honourable Royal Artillery Company, and rose in the Conservative Party at a time when family background mattered a great deal.

He was, thus, something of an outsider who had made good through his own remarkable but somewhat pedestrian talents.

However, and this is important, he was not really outstanding. Pace Bill Deedes, also in the Daily Telegraph he was not a star, or, at least not one of the first magnitude. (One might say that this reflects in his music-making – always scrupulous and pernickety but with no heart or feeling. He is supposed to have conducted like a metronome.)

Getting to a good school and Oxford from his background was admirable but he did not get that coveted scholarship (though, eventually, he got an Organ Scholarship). He left with a Second Class degree – very respectable, indeed, in those days but hardly brilliant.

He was a good administrator, a reasonable Whip but never a good, let alone great, politician. That must have hurt, particularly as his hated successor became such a shining star.

The other formative influences were his precocious understanding of the reality and threat of Nazi Germany and his view of Europe at the end of the War.

At Oxford Heath was an anti-appeaser and campaigned for A.D.Lindsay against the official Conservative candidate, Quintin Hogg, who supported Munich.

He visited Franco’s Spain and Hitler’s Germany. Astonishingly, for a young man in his early twenties he grasped the significance of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and immediately started to make his way back to England, returning before the declaration of war.

He had what used to be called “a good war”, saw a good deal of active service, was mentioned in dispatches and given a wartime MBE. Again, that meant something in 1946. As his regiment rolled across Europe in 1944-5 he witnessed what had become of the places he had visited in 1939. Many of those who saw the same thing accepted the need for European unification to avoid such a catastrophe again.

His other great belief, also the result of his essentially managerial attitude to politics, was in size. Units had to be big to survive and thrive. Again, this was a mantra of those years.

Size was one of the arguments used in favour of the comprehensivization of English and Scottish education, a process that was started under Wilson and continued relentlessly under Heath.

Size was the reason for the destruction of the old counties and London boroughs. Local government had to be conducted in large units.

Size was the reason for the similar destruction of the old police forces.

It was not till well into the eighties that the words “small is beautiful” and the understanding that political and social structures cannot function if they lose their contacts with the human members of it, became widespread, though not actually put into action.

As one thinks of Heath’s premiership, one remembers the bright promise: the Selsdon Park meeting adopted a number of policies that might, if pushed through relentlessly, have solved some of Britain’s problems. They were ditched at the first difficulty with the unions, partly because Heath lacked the necessary ruthlessness but partly because he did not really believe in them.

His premiership also began with the expulsion of 94 Soviet agents, a welcome relief after the determined flirtation with the Soviet Union that had characterized Harold Wilson’s attitude.

But it collapsed into failure. The battle with the unions seemed relentless and catastrophic; the country endured annual power cuts, three-day weeks, legislation that was supposed to curb wage demands but never worked; Northern Ireland disintegrated. By the time Heath left office there seemed no hope anywhere and the second Wilson and Callaghan governments continued the downward spiral.

In the midst of it all came the continuing negotiations for Common Market membership and the battle to push through the European Community Act. There is no question that Heath lied a great deal about the realities of the Common Market and the agreements he had made.

In particular, he lied about the agreements on the fisheries and the lies were subsequently repeated by Harold Wilson. The truth about the betrayal of the fishermen was not revealed till many years later.

Heath was economical with the truth about his understanding that a single currency was being planned. But the terms of the Treaty of Rome and of the European Community Act were publicly available. The no campaigners in 1975 referred to the first document continuously. If their warnings were not taken into account, that was a serious oversight on the part of the electorate and the politicians.

This is not the place to go into the details of the referendum campaign, in which Heath, together with most senior Conservative politicians took part, as he was not by then the Prime Minister. He was not even the Leader of the Opposition.

Despite the fact that the two 1974 elections produced very respectable results in terms of popular vote, the truth remained that he had lost them. In fact, he had lost three of the four elections he fought, a fact that he, rather incomprehensibly, never acknowledged, apparently even to himself.

It all became much worse after 1975. His “great sulk” against Mrs Thatcher meant that he effectively tried to sabotage a number of her policies and rejoiced with unseemly delight when she was finally forced to resign.

His joyous support for all aspects of European integration, even as it became more and more obvious that the effects on this country were appalling, grated more and more.

Worst of all was his ever more obvious power mania. The man who began his government by expelling all those Soviet agents, now spent a great deal of time cosying up to the Chinese leadership, even accepting various consusltancies.

He publicly justified the Tiananmen Square massacre and showed his “statesmanship” by defending Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait. The man who, as an undergraduate, campaigned against appeasement, went off to “negotiate” with the Iraqi tyrant, explaining that the latter regretted his rather precipitate action in Kuwait. Eventually, I expect, he did regret it.

One has to assume that he was rather a lonely man and yet many people who knew him speak highly of his kindness. He was re-elected until 2001 when he decided to step down because he was a good and popular constituency MP. He was often a funny and entertaining speaker.

He was also rude and brusque and managed to antagonize most of his colleagues, the entire corps of journalists and most people who came across him.

There seems no way of reconciling many of his contradictions. At a much lower level, his personality, motivation and behaviour resemble those of Marshal Petain. In the end, they were both failures on a grand scale, though Heath failed, probably, more spectacularly than Petain. After all, he could not have missed in his last months that even his beloved EU is showing severe signs of straining and fraying.

Going down

Although, in the wake of the Luxembourg referendum, the "colleagues" were chirping that the majority (no less than 13) of the 25 member states had ratified the EU constitution, as always, they are being a little bit previous.

There was, of course, that minor issue on 15 June when German president Horst Köhler decided not to append his signature to the final ratification document, pending a ruling from the German constitution court as to its validity.

And now, the Slovak constitutional court has put its own blockage on the Slovakian ratification, despite it being overwhelmingly approved by its parliament last May.

This, according to Euractiv, is after a group of 13 citizens turned to the court with a protest that the parliamentary ratifcation violated their right to take part in political life, as guaranteed in the constitution. They also argue that, by approving the EU constitution, Slovakia has agreed to join another state formation, and for such a move the Slovak constitution requires that a referendum be held.

This report is amplified by the Slovak Spectator, which says that the constitutional court has actually issued a preliminary measure banning president Ivan Gašparovič from signing the ratification instrument, after it had accepted a complaint by the M R Štefánik Conservative Institute, which argued that there should be a referendum on the issue.

Court officials have said a final verdict on the complaint would be issued this year and, although legal experts believe it is possible that the court could reject the complaint, according to lawyer Radoslav Procházka, the fact that the court accepted the complaint for evaluation means that "there may be some doubts about the parliamentary proceedings" in approving the EU treaty.

Either way, the planned final approval by Gašparovič will have to await the ruling from the court which means that the number of countries that have actually ratified the EU constitution is going down, and now stands at eleven.

Germany and the European Arrest Warrant

The news that the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the European Arrest Warrant was invalid when it came to German subjects will be received with mixed feelings by most people.

On the one hand, as this blog has always argued and continues to argue, legislation at all levels should be carried out by the organs of individual states and the attempt to use the war against terror to further European integration should be resisted. After all, as we have said over and over again, only about four of the 32 items on the European Arrest Warrant and on the forthcoming European Evidence Warrant have anything to do with terrorism. The others are matters criminal and, sometimes, not even that as the ill-defined “xenophobia”.

Therefore, if the German constitution says that no German citizen should be extradited to another country, no matter what he (or she) is wanted for, then it is up to the people and government of Germany to make a decision about that.

We suspect that the Commission urging the German government to bring its legislation in line with European will have little effect on the German lawyers, who are getting understandably angry about the disregard for the German constitution that the government has shown in blithely signing all sorts of documents and agreements.

As the case concerns Mamoun Darkazanli, a half-Syrian, half-German businessman, whose Import-Export Company is suspected of being a front for a money-laundering operation to provide funds for terrorists, it is inevitable that regrets at the decision are voiced.

The funds of the Company were frozen by the United States after 9/11 together with many others who are seen as funders of terrorism or “pure criminality” as Hizonner, Ken the Mayor of LondON, friend of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi would put it.

The indictment against Mr Darkazanli, apparently a close acquaintance if not a friend of several of the 9/11 bombers, was issued in Spain by Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is notorious for his scatter-shot indictments.

His list of 41 is headed by Osama bin Laden. A nice gesture but seems a tad impractical. Who is actually going to serve the documents on the man, assuming he is still in the land of the living?

At present, all European countries seem to be blaming each other for the lack of progress in the war against terror. High on the blame list is the UK, which has become the home for some of the leading international terror masters and theoreticians of terror. (Actually, mostly what those theoreticians say is go out and kill as many Jews/Hindus/Infidels/Muslims-who-do-not-agree-with-you as you can. If it means killing yourself in the process, so much the better. As theories go, I have heard more complicated ones.)

There have been numerous complaints from other European countries that the UK has refused to extradite various suspects, including one the French wanted in connection with the bombing of the Paris metro.

French officials, on the other hand, have been indulging in their favourite pastime of undermining all and sundry. In the wake of the July 7 bombings Scotland Yard brought together anti-terrorist officers from a couple of dozen European countries and the United States for a conference.

All seemed to go well until July 11 when a far-ranging interview was published in Le Monde with Christophe Chaboud, France’s new anti-terrorism co-ordinator, in which he leaked a good deal of information about the meeting, as well as expressing his own highly politicized opinion that Britain was attacked because of her involvement in Iraq. This, rather conveniently, overlooked the attacks in France and French complaints that the British were not handing over terrorist suspects.

The British security services sent a note to the other countries’ organizations, bitterly suggesting that the French were putting out “bad information” on purpose. So, you might argue, it is business as usual in the Entente Cordiale.

But Germany is not doing too well in the blame game, either. Too many suspects have been arrested and released on various fiddly technicalities that the men in question are taught to exploit.

All this provides the EU with that famous beneficial crisis. We are the only ones, who can deal with the problem, they say. We need to introduce more integrated legislation and set up pan-European agencies and organizations. That will solve the problem.

Well, no, that will solve nothing at all, except the perennial problem of how to get the pesky courts in different member states to insist that their law applies and never mind what European law is.

This description does not apply to British courts, by and large, though we, too, have been slow at extraditing people who are wanted on charges of terrorism or aiding and abetting terrorism.

What it boils down to, probably, is our old friend, lack of political will. For reasons that are deep in the European psyche and has to do, possibly, with resentment of the United States and dislike of Israel or, possibly, some other serious disorientation, the fight against terror, despite the clear evidence that the other side means what it says, continues not to figure high on anybody’s agenda.

In the UK, despite our long and relatively successful fight against our own terrorists, we seem unable to cope with what is happening. If it is true that an unofficial agreement was made between the security services and the various disparate jihadist and Al-Qaeda groups, a story that is surfacing ever more insistently in various reports, then one has to wonder at the sanity of the people who authorized this.

Not only is it highly immoral and disloyal to our many allies to make an agreement to allow these people to stay here if they do not attack Britain, it is also rather stupid. Who on earth trusts men whose proclaimed aim is to kill the infidel?

If that particular story is untrue then there has to be another explanation for the presence of people Abu Qatada, Abdullah El Faisal, Hassan Butt and many, many others. And we still have not had an explanation for the surprising fact that a high-ranking international terrorist arrived at Felixstowe, left some time later from Heathrow with nobody apparently the wiser about what he did and whom he saw while he was here.

So where do we go from here? More integration, more European legislation? That is the inevitable answer that comes from our politicians and, understandably enough, the European Commission.

On the other hand, we could try another route. For example, the British security services might like to stop telling everybody that they are better than anyone in the world and start using all that energy to follow up the information they have been provided by agents, often at great risk to themselves.

The German legal authorities and police might like to start investigating some of the accusations about their own citizens (since it is entirely possible that German, like British, citizens are involved in terrorist organizations) and, maybe, arrest them, presenting one or two completely watertight cases in court.

And all European countries might like to review their attitude to extradition. We do not need a European Arrest Warrant to send people from Britain to gaols in Greece or wherever because they may have uttered some phrases that might be interpreted as being “xenophobic”. What we need is political will and determination. But then, if we had that, would we be in the mess we are in?

Ten green bottles

In another of Mr Heath's legacies, courtesy of The Daily Telegraph we find today that not so much ten but hundreds of thousands of tons of green bottles collected for recycling are building up around the country because there is not enough demand for green recycled glass.

You do not have to look very far for the cause of this problem – another of those wonderful EU laws, this one being the Packaging Waste Directive that requires recycling of waste glass. However, the government has admitted that it is unlikely that the surplus will be taken up and the glass mountains are likely to grow.

A leading industry body is concerned that Britain could end up in the European court if it does not reprocess the glass. Simply collecting it does not count as recycling.

Steven Gough, the chief executive of Valpak, the organisation set up by industry to recycle packaging waste, said: "We are in a strange situation. "To meet government targets we need to recycle more plastics, metals and clear and amber glass but we don't know what to do with the green glass mountains."

By 2008, when the next legally-binding EU target for recycling glass is reached, half a million tons of green and amber glass is expected to be surplus to requirements and sitting around in heaps. They are taking up valuable space, said Mr Gough, and are tying up capital for recycling companies, which invest in collecting the glass.

Of 1.1 million tons of jars and bottles collected for recycling last year, 190,000 tons had nowhere to go. Gluts of green glass have happened before and gone away when demand improved but now the Government has to comply with its own commitment to recycle a quarter of the dustbin by the end of the year the amount of glass collected is shooting up.

And all this because Mr Heath wanted "peace in our time". All the same, it does seem an odd way of going about preventing Germany from invading France - or vice versa.

The legacy of Heath

He took us into "Europe" to give us peace in our time and prosperity. Instead, we got an unelected, technocratic bureaucracy which spends its time devising more and more insane rules, of such increasing complexity that no one can even begin to understand them all.

However, as Booker pointed out in his piece yesterday about the food supplements directive, there is always someone who benefits from them – usually big business, at the expense of small traders and the public.

How appropriate, therefore, that on the same night that Heath died, the Google news service should offer this piece as a news item – a puff for extremely expensive "mains suppression filters", to help you all "implement the protection specified in EU Directive 89/336/EEC (the electromagnetic compatibility directive) as well as machine guideline 98/37/EC" – laws most of you didn't even know existed.

Readers will be pleased to know that the European supplier, Murrelektronik, is making available these MEF mains suppression filters (at a price), to provide (in summary):

...reduced emitted interference and improved immunity from internal and external interference on mains and power-supply cable to enable conformity with Class B interference emission limits defined in EN 55022 and 55011, so offering high energy absorption and wide-band damping behaviour up to 30Hz, designed to suppress the essentially symmetrical interference (differential mode) that occurs in conventional motor drives and between the lines in the low frequency range because of inductivity without interference suppression.

However, the pièce de resistance is the name of the manufacturer. Based at 899 Heidelberg Road, Ivanhoe, 3079 Victoria, Australia, it rejoices under the title Sick Pty Ltd. Rather like the EU, the company claims its products "touch people's lives every day, making their lives easier, protecting from danger and providing them with better service."

Says it all, really.

He's dead

Edward Heath died peacefully in his bed this evening. The best that can be said of him is that there will never be another one like him.

Edward Heath "nearing end of life"

According to The Telegraph website and other sources, Ted Heath's health has weakened and he is "nearing the end of his life". So said a spokesman for the former prime minister today.

Sir Edward is "resting quietly at home" where he is receiving medical attention, the spokesman said. The development comes just a week after the ex-Tory leader was well enough to celebrate his 89th birthday with a party. Says the site, "In more than half a century in the House of Commons, Sir Edward's crowning achievement was to lead Britain into Europe."

"Achievement", of course, is only one way of putting it. Stand by for the fawning obituaries. But, as far as this Blog is concerned, conforming with the tradition of "not speaking ill of the dead" is going to be very problematical.

You can't have everything

It is perhaps a refection of my totally distorted news values that the most interesting article I found today in the press was the Sunday Telegraph piece reporting that: "Soldiers forced to shout 'bang' as the Army runs out of ammunition".

This contrasts rather neatly with some bizarre information unearthed by one of our readers (thank you) about the British Army's new Command and Liaison Vehicle, the Panther, subject of our previous posting.

It turns out that this grossly over-priced piece of Italian machinery, a cool £413,000 each – even before you add the "go-faster" accessories and the machine gun – is based on the Lamborghini LM002. This was a failed attempt by the parent company Fiat to capture the US military light utility vehicle market, that was eventually taken by the General Motors Humvee.

Having failed to interest the Yanks, the LM002 re-emerged as high-priced boy-racer "wheels", a version of which was marketed in Russia under the name of "Rambo", illustrating perhaps its intended market.

It then metamorphosed again to become an Italian Army runabout, complete with its three-litre engine, six-speed, automatic racing gearbox and all the trimmings, and thence to the FCLV contender. No wonder the boys in the MoD loved it. Now the brown jobs can go racing around the countryside in their glamorous new "wheels", at a cost to the taxpayer of half a million quid each – by the time the accessories have been added, and the tank has been filled.

And of course, adorning the rig is the latest "must have" fashion accessory, the "Enforcer", remote controlled weapon station, fitted with a 7.62mm or 12.7mm machine gun (Doncha just luv the macho name).

Of course, given the parlous state of defence spending, the MoD won't be able to afford any ammunition for it, so the brown jobs will have to tear around in their shiny new Lamborghinis shouting "bang! bang!" at the nasties. But then, if you are shelling out near-on half a million quid for your "wheels", you can't have everything.

Merkel again

Angela Merkel has been talking a bit more about her plans, this time to the Berliner Zeitung yesterday. She has repeated that she wants to have better relations with the United States but will not, should she become Chancellor, send troops to Iraq. On the other hand, Germany will continue with training of Iraqi troops in the United Arab Emirates. (It is actually not clear how many they are training but the programme is in place.)

Curiously, she seems to have caught the French disease of assuming that whatever she does in Germany is actually for the whole of Europe. We have already quoted her sayings about European economic problems (and her non-solutions). Now, she has announced that she intends to

“…put Europe's relations with the United States on a proper footing again”.

Well, how nice. But, of course, Europe has no relations with the United States. Individual countries do. Some of them are good and some bad. Recently, Germany’s relations have been bad and clearly Frau Doktor Merkel wants to change this. An admirable aim but it has little to do with Europe.

She has also announced that her proposed increase of VAT will be an excellent idea as it would cut labour costs, boost economic growth and create jobs.

“By raising VAT by two percentage points we'll be able to quickly cut the supplemental wage costs by two points. You can't look at only the increase. Looking at the whole picture you can see clearly why we're doing it.”

It seems not everyone in Germany shares her rather curious view of economic development. Ludolf von Wartenberg, head of the BDI German industry federation, wondered:

“Why do they have to start off by raising the VAT? Cutting spending should take priority. There are huge potential savings to be found by reforming the social welfare system.”

The FDP, the CDU/CSU’s potential coalition partner, has criticized the plan as one that is likely to have a negative impact on growth and spending. Even the SDP party leader, Franz Müntefering, has called the plan “a killer” that would damage the economy.

And even murkier…

At the risk of offending some of our readers, who might prefer shorter, snappier posts and a diet of trivia, we return once again to the saga of the MoD procurement of the British Army "Panther" vehicles, featured in yesterday’s post - with some truly mind-blowing additional revelations.

As we left the story, the MoD had pushed a British manufacturer, in preference to its own product, to enter the Italian Iveco Panther into an MoD trial aimed at selecting the best Future Command and Liaison Vehicle (FCLV), after the short-list had been closed and the competitors had already been chosen.

Then, against world class competition, this untried, untested design was selected – by the same MoD which had insisted on its inclusion. It then went on to order 401 vehicles at a cost of £166 million - working out at £413,000 each – with an option for another 400 vehicles. Afterwards, it pretended that they were British-built, until forced to admit that the vehicles were wholly Italian-built, with the exception of minor roof modifications (necessary to fit a machine gun).

In our previous post, we also observed that, at the time, the clear favourite – which was expected to win the order - was the South African built RG32M, produced by a company which now calls itself Land Systems OMC, previously owned by Vickers Defence Systems and now a subsidiary of BAE Systems – the premier British aerospace and defence manufacturer.

What we lacked, when this post was written, was any idea of cost comparison which, in the defence equipment sector, is notoriously hard to obtain. However, with further research, the Swedes have come to our rescue as it now transpires that in May of this year, the Swedish Defence Force placed an order for 102 RG32s.

Interestingly, the version supplied - the RG32M, the same model as intended for the British Army - had been extensively customised to meet customer and regulatory quality standards, including "homologation" for Sweden and Europe. Modifications included changes to axles, wheels and tyres, bonnet and louvres, steering wheel and instrument panel. The vehicle was also given "winterisation" for Sweden's –35°C temperature extremes.

But what is absolutely devastating is the cost, the total contract coming to "almost" 180 million Rand. At current conversion rates, this equates to a contract value of £15.49 million, working out at £152,000 per vehicle as opposed to £413,000 for the Panther. On a directly equivalent basis – without any discount for quantity – buying 401 RG32Ms would have cost the MoD £60.78 million, as against the £166 million it is paying for the Italian vehicles.

Now – as we all know - cost, especially in terms of military equipment, where performance is crucial, is not everything. If there were significant performance benefits to the Panther, then there could be a case for buying the more expensive vehicles.

Here, however, it must be recalled that, at the time of the selection, the Panther was a new, untried vehicle, with no combat record. That is not the case with the RG32 and its similar but larger cousin the RG31. With the latter vehicle, for instance, its capability is endorsed by none other than the US armed forces. Despite their notorious reluctance to "buy foreign", in February last they bought 148 vehicles (at £289,000 each, i.e., £124,000 less than the Panther).

The order came after an incident in 2004 in which a RG31 in Afghanistan was destroyed by a mine. Five US soldiers in the vehicle were able to exit with only light injuries. The soldiers wrote a letter of thanks to Land Systems OMC, saying the vehicle had saved their lives. "If it was not for its superior design and manufacturing we would not be able to write this letter today," the soldiers wrote.

Land Systems MD Johan Steyn responded by saying that, "This order simply confirms what we have always known - that in its class the RG-31 is the best mine-protected vehicle in the world." That is what you would expect from the MD of the company that makes the vehicle, but no military expert would disagree. It simply is the best in its class.

As for the RG32, 75 were recently purchased for United Nations use in Kosovo, with a further 20 for service elsewhere, and the vehicle has seen service in Malawi, Mozambique, Georgia, Israel, the Lebanon, Tajikistan and Burundi, attracting the same high reputation and glowing testimonies.

All that affirms that Land Systems has a strong track record, and is an acknowledged leader in mine protection and light armoured vehicles. Furthermore, the company itself has a good record for the "Africanisation" of its workforce. It has an 25 percent local equity partner in South Africa, DGD Technologies (Pty) Ltd, a local "Black Economic Empowerment company". Furthermore, its component purchases support a considerable number of local South African firms, making it a key industry in an under-developed country, and just the sort of enterprise that Tony Blair should be supporting.

Furthermore, when in June 2001, Vickers Defence Systems announced it had won the contract for the MoD assessment phase of the FCLV, being one of three companies paid £500,000 for entering the trials, it offered a choice of the RG31M and the RG32M, stating that the RG31M exceeded the load carrying and mine protection requirements whilst the RG32M offered "the stealth attributes associated with a compact design combined with anti-tank mine protection."

As yet unexplained is, at the time, the MoD's total requirement was for "more than 500 vehicles", and it was offering not a direct purchase contract but a PFI deal – which would have included in-service maintenance, at a total programme value of £370 million. Somehow, in between nominating the shortlist and selecting the Panther, the contract turned into a direct purchase arrangement, with £166 million being allocated to buying outright the 401 Iveco vehicles.

However, had the proven RG32M design been bought, the MoD would have saved the taxpayer over £100 million and if it takes up the additional 400 Panthers on option, the taxpayer will be over £200 million out of pocket.

Looking at the images of the three vehicles, the RG32M, the RG31M and the Panther, with what we already know, it is very hard to see an adequate reason why the MoD is, to all intents and purposes, throwing £200 million down the drain on Italian vehicles, manufactured by a firm whose parent FIAT is, incidentally, on the brink of financial collapse.

Meanwhile in Germany

Well, it is not going to happen during the British Presidency. The EU is not going to be reformed and become a liberal-minded, outward looking, free-market oriented collection of independent states.

Actually, we haven’t exactly been promised all the above but we were told by Prime Minister Blair a.k.a. saviour of the world and friend of all moderate Muslims, wherever they may be (unless they are in Iraq or Israel) that his presidency will produce reforms and change the course of history.

It is true that he did not actually specify what those reforms were going to be but they were definitely going to change something or other.

The first hurdle was going to be CAP and its reform or, even, abolition. We know what has come of that. Indeed, French politicians are openly and gloatingly proclaiming that CAP benefits every single citizen of the European Union. So much for outward looking reformism. Most of us haven’t noticed the benefits and there are many people both inside and outside the European Union who have noted some serious disbenefits.

Budget reform was never a starter and institutional reform, the essential prerequisite, was not even mentioned. My own suspicion is that Blair does not understand how the EU works and how its legislation is passed and implemented. If so, he is at one with all members of the House of Commons, many of the civil servants and almost all commentators.

Well, if not the presidency, then maybe the new German government (on assumption that Merkel will get in, forming a CDU/CSU government, possibly with some input by the Free Democrats).

We have already seen that the uninspiring CDU electoral platform with an almost complete lack of serious reform. Maybe, they are thinking of just getting in and introducing reform then, but I am not holding my breath.

Merkel herself has been giving interviews to non-German publications in which she has been enunciating the sort of waffle that would make even Blair proud:

“We in Europe are unfortunately at a point where a great many decisions aren’t being reached, and a standstill is the worst thing for Europe. For me it’s not about the balance of power, but about an effective Europe that can reach the goals it has set itself.”

She did comment that 20 million unemployed is “anything but social” and that is as far as we go with any ideas about change.

Thursday's Wall Street Journal Europe [subscription only] carried an article by the German journalist, Michael Miersch, who with his colleague runs an unusual and self-confessedly “optimistic website”.

Mr Miersch’s analysis of German politics is far from optimistic. He points out that as between the SDP and the CDU the German electorate will have a choice

“… this September between two major tax-increasing parties”.

This is not a pleasing prospect in itself but the situation is complicated by the manoeuvrings of Oskar Lafontaine, erstwhile “Red Oskar”, whose

“…. recipe is protectionism, economic management, and – of course – tax increases”.

Lafontaine has usurped both the socialist left and the nationalist right position. Apart from his emphasis on strengthening the existing state controls, he

“…. calls for reserving German jobs for Germans. In foreign policy, America is the No. 1 enemy. Where Mr Schröder merely manoeuvred strategically, Mr Lafontaine has made his opposition to the Atlantic alliance crystal clear. To top it off, he shows sympathy for Iran, saying it has a right to nuclear weapons because Israel has them too. Functionaries of the radical right-wing NPD have already applauded him. Some of them have already called on their supporters to join the leftist alliance.”

In slightly farcical replay of the gruesome problems of the late twenties and thirties, the political commentators have got it wrong again. They have been looking fearfully for an extreme right-wing figure to play the nationalist card. Instead, it is an extreme left-wing done that does.

“What belongs together is growing together – a movement combining fear of the future and resentent of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and technological progress [a particularly odd one, that for modern Germany] with support for all-around state protection from all the vagaries of life.”

Of course, Mr Miersch does not suggest that Lafontaine will win the election, but he may take a large number of votes from Schröder. This will ease Merkel’s passage to power but at what cost, one wonders. Just how high will be that proportion of votes, especially in the east of the country?
The real problem, however, according to Mr Miersch is that these politicians are largely in tune with the public mood.

“Free trade, a trimmed-down state and strengthening the individual’s rights and responsibilities are generally considered rich people’s hobbies. Make no mistake: Clinging like this to the welfare state is an entirely rational and economic decision. After all, the large nmajority of voters in Germany are paid by the state, whether as civil servants, public sector employees, pensioners, unemployment or welfare recipients. They have no interest in a leaner state. The only question is, who will keep paying them if the productive sector continues to shrink?”

It seems to me that we have little to feel superior about. The situation, as described here, applies to Britain and with news coming in that the public sector employment is increasing with salaries rising well above inflation rate or the rate of salary increase in the private sector, things are not getting better.

At least, there is a good deal of discussion going on in the country (not that the Chancellor is listening). In Germany, Mr Miersch informs us,

“The anti-change consensus is broken only by a few economists and a handful of journalists. Among the smaller parties, the Greens, too, have forced their liberal wing off the stage in this campaign.”

Rather a shame that, as most of us had not realized the German Greens had a liberal wing until it was forced off the stage.

Nor are the Free Democrats benefiting from the political stagnation with a non-changing 7 per cent of the vote.

“Civil society, the educational system and the cultural scene are dominated by a leftist, green ethos. The major media are either left-wing or statist-conservative. Liberal positions appear occasionally in the business secitons, but almost never make it onto the opinion pages that determine the political debate. ‘Hatred of liberalism,’ Ludwig von Mises wrote already in 1927, ‘is the only point on which the Germans are united.’”

This is slightly odd since several of the most important liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century were Germans. What happened to their ideas? Died, it seems, in the way they died in France (Who in that country reads Bastiat?). Sadly, they do not seem to be doing all that well in Britain, either.

Mr Miersch’s explanation is that

“After a short heyday, German liberalism was taken to task by both the Käiser’s faithful Chancellor Bismarck and the Socialist opposition. The derogatory term ‘Manchesterism’, invented by one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party,Ferdinand Lassalle, was applied to anyone advocating free markets and reining in the power of the state.

The demand for free trade was seen as a deception concealing British interests. Eugen Richter, the greate 19th-century German liberal predicted the dire future socialism and the welfare state will bring about more clearly than anyone. But after his death a new generation of liberal politicians began to flirt with ‘centralized economic planning’, in accordance with the zeitgeist of the early 20th century. Some embraced aggressive nationalism. Richter’s liberal legacy was lost.”

Widen that analysis to the whole of Europe, substitute America for Britain, as in this respect modern Britain is not that different from the modern Europe and you have a clear picture of the famous “European model”. A model that is doomed to sit on the creator’s work bench and never take off.

Fantasy island

According to Ireland Online, seven European presidents have urged Europeans "to rebuild their trust in the EU" and plugged the benefits of the continent's (sic) integration in a joint opinion piece published in major newspapers across the EU.

These are presidents of Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Portugal, who have acknowledged the recent rejection of the proposed EU constitution by French and Dutch voters showed that "many citizens feel European policy falls short of their expectations".

Europeans, they said, believed the EU was too bent on regulations and took decisions without consultation. They fear for their futures since Europe is troubled by high unemployment and low growth, the seven wrote. "Now, the most important task is to increase trust in European policy," the article said. "We have to make sure everyone can understand the benefits of integration."

The seven said EU integration had already brought safety from war, prosperity and economic strength. They said the euro, which many Europeans blamed for price hikes, had contributed to low interest rates, monetary stability and lowering of transaction costs.

"Only together will European nations be able to hold their own in competition and successfully negotiate with countries like the USA, but also with China and India," they wrote.

For once, we believe, no comment is necessary. However, we do note that President Blair is not a signatory.

A dark and murky tale

In a posting at the end of June we drew attention to an extraordinary deception perpetrated by the Ministry of Defence, in relation to the procurement of a new type of armoured vehicle for the British Army, then known as the Multirole Light Vehicle (MLV).

With its announcement in July 2003 of the "preferred bidder" – and subsequently – the MoD sought to give the impression that the vehicle was British-made. It was only through persistent questioning from Conservative back-bench MP Anne Winterton that it emerged that the vehicle was not only entirely Italian-designed but was also to be manufactured (all bar the roof) by the Italian firm Iveco in Italy.

Not least of our concerns was the extraordinary price of each vehicle, at £413,000 – twice the price of a Rolls Royce limousine – but what particularly aroused our suspicions were the lengths to which the MoD had gone to conceal the European origin of the vehicle. After the award of the contract to supply trucks for the British Army to the German firm MAN-Nutzfahrzeuge, this we felt might be more evidence of what appears to be a covert quest by the MoD (at the behest of the Blair government) to achieve European defence integration.

What has since emerged is the depth of the deception, evidenced by the press release issued by the MoD at the time of the final contract award on 6 November 2003. It states, "The Ministry of Defence today signed the contract for the manufacture of the new Future Command and Liaison Vehicle (FCLV)…", then continuing: "The contract, worth £166 million, will see Alvis Vickers Ltd manufacture an initial order of 401 vehicles, with an option for up to 400 more."

Lord Bach, then defence procurement minister, was cited as saying that: "The award of this contract to Alvis Vickers Ltd (wich had been formed when Alvis acquired Vickers Defence) is excellent news both for our Armed forces and the defence industry. It will sustain approximately 35 highly skilled jobs at the Alvis Vickers Ltd factory at Telford, and a further 25 within other UK companies."

But an even more deceptive press release was issued by Alvis Vickers Ltd, (link above) which announced that it had been awarded "a prime contract" for the project, then stating that the company had signed a sub-contract with Iveco SpA "to supply major vehicle sub-assemblies" - er... like the whole damn vehicle.

A year later, Alvis Vickers was acquired by BAE Systems, to form a new armoured vehicle manufacturing company called BAE Land Systems, and this company has taken over the contract.

From here, the plot thickens. When we explored the British Army truck contract awarded to the German firm, we found that it had been awarded in preference to two other bids from two American-led consortia, both of which had a much higher British manufacturing component, and both of which appeared to be technically superior.

Curious as to whether something similar was at play here, Ann Winterton put down another parliamentary question (12 Jul 2005: Column 861W), asking what other designs were considered in the assessment phase of the contract.

According to defence minister, Adam Ingrams, three designs were considered, from three companies: Alvis Vehicles Ltd proposed the Iveco vehicle; Vickers Defence Systems proposed a vehicle called the RG32M, and United Defence Limited Partnership proposed the ACMAT "Ranger", otherwise known as the VLRB – a French armoured vehicle.

However, that was at a very late stage of the process. In the initial phases of the selection, six companies were invited to tender by the MoD. Alvis Vehicles was one, but not with the Iveco vehicle with which it was to win the contract. Initially, it submitted its own private venture design called the Scarab (and here). First launched in September 1999, the Scarab had its origins in a collaborative development with Mechem from South Africa; a company respected for its expertise in mine protection technology. A British manufactured vehicle, it was later to win a Belgian Army contract.

Vickers Defence Systems submitted the RG32M, Hunting Engineering (later to be re-named Insys) fronted the ACMAT "Ranger" and Iveco was in the bidding on its own account, with a completely different vehicle called the Puma. The final contender was NP Aerospace, a Coventry firm which is believed to have been offering an armoured Land Rover.

Also considered at an early stage seems to have been the Turkish-built Cobra, manufacturered by Otokar, with the significant advantage of incorporate the mechanical components of the US HMMWV vehicle.

On 15 June 2001, though, the MoD announced that the competition had been whittled down to three. According to its own news release in June 2001, it placed contracts with Hunting Engineering, Alvis Vehicles, and Vickers Defence, worth about £500,000 each, for a year-long Risk Reduction and Trials programme, from which the winner would eventually be selected.

The clear favourite at the time was the RG32M, and rightly so. Actually designed and manufactured by BAE Systems SA – the South African subsidiary of BAE Systems – over 1,000 had been produced and were in service, a testament to a firm which is the world leader in the production of mine hardened vehicles. In a website dedicated to the British Army, it was obvious that this vehicle was expected to get the contract.

However, as early as 14 May 2001, Janes Defence Weekly intimated that there might be another contender, reporting that the MoD Defence Procurement Agency were pushing Alvis Vehicles or Vickers Defence Systems to take on the Iveco MLV "Panther" which at the time was undergoing trials in Italy. In the event, Alvis did the deal and by September had signed an agreement with Iveco Defence Vehicles to offer the Panther (together with the Scarab) as an FCLV contender.

With that in place, on 31 January 2002, the MoD was able to announce the unveiling of the contenders for its "new fleet of armoured cars". The three original firms are named, but the picture in its press release shows not three but five armoured vehicles. Although the picture is poor definition, one is clearly the Iveco Panther. In the text of its release, the MoD states: "The prime contractor will be expected to have a UK base and, although place of manufacture is yet to be decided, it is expected that the programme will have significant British content." It also stated: "The FCLV will play a leading role in the Joint (i.e., EU) Rapid Reaction Force."

Back in June 2001, therefore, we had a situation where the MoD had limited its choice to three vehicles from three companies. One was wholly British designed and built, based on South African experience, one a world-leading South African design from a British-owned company, and another a French design, to be built by a British company.

Less than three years later, the contract goes to an untried Italian design, a vehicle that was not even in the original selection - entered at the specific behest of the MoD. And instead of being entered by its Italian manufacturer, it was fronted by a British firm - again at the behest of the MoD - that had its own vehicle rejected, and had since been acquired by another firm which had also submitted a world leading design that had also lost out.

Somebody please try and convince me that everything was above board and the best vehicle was chosen. Otherwise, it looks suspiciously like a covert "work sharing" arrangement, whereby contracts are being shared between members of what is intended to be a European Army using common equipment.

And, as a coda, when Ann Winterton asked the defence minister how much BAE Land Systems are paying for the Panther vehicles they buy from Iveco (at the instigation of the MoD) and sell on to the British Army, she was told that "the information requested cannot be provided given the confidential nature of the contract…".

Facing up to the 21st century

Responding to the news that Craig Mackinlay, one of the founding members of UKIP (and originally an Anti-Federalist League parliamentary candidate in 1992), has decided to join the Conservative Party, Francis Maude, the Party Chairman said that this move underlined the

“… growing conviction that the Conservatives are the only party properly equipped to tackle the challenges of the 21st century”.

Well, if so, it is not showing its equipment to its best advantage. They have just lost at Cheadle, a by-election they were reasonably confident about and they have not won a single by-election seat for twenty-one years.

While they were in power there was some excuse as people routinely vote against the government in by-elections. But, in case Mr Maude has not noticed this, the Conservatives have not been in power since 1997.

They have lost catastrophically three elections, getting about 1 million votes fewer in the third one of these than in the first, at a time when the government remains highly unpopular.

What has Mr Maude said that would make one believe him that under his chairmanship the party is “properly equipped to tackle the challenges of the 21st century”?

Have we heard anything sensible on the question of the London bombs and the identity of the bombers? I think not.

Do they know how to deal with the ever more insistent issue of Britain and the European Union?

Have the Conservatives uttered a single word (apart from Ann Winterton’s questions) on the subject of defence procurement, which, as my colleague has shown, is spinning out of control?

Come to think of it, have they said anything as to the role of Britain in the twenty-first century and its complex conflicts? Not that I recall.

All we get is endless speeches and presentations about how the Conservative Party must be facing/is facing/will be facing the twenty-first century. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the century is with us and its problems are already multiplying. How about actually facing up to them instead of talking about it?

What a total, utter farce

No sooner has Beckett admitted that there will be no changes to the CAP until 2014 then, right on cue, in weighs Jacques Chirac declaring that he is not willing to make any concessions on EU agricultural policy as part of discussions on the EU budget.

On this, he could not have been more unequivocal. Speaking yesterday in a television interview on the occasion of the Bastille Day national holiday, L'Escroc said: "I am not prepared to make the smallest concession" on CAP, adding that the EU had two problems to resolve: To fix the next budget and to emerge from the crisis brought about by the "no" votes in the EU referendums. He said he was defending the CAP "not only to defend the interests of French farmers."

Not a month ago, Blair was making his song and dance about reforming the CAP and then talking about abolishing it. Now, it is all over – the CAP will remain unchanged for the next nine years and probably for many more years thereafter.

For sure, Chirac may be gone by 2007, but anyone who thinks that Sarkozy – or any other French leader – is going to take a different line had better think again. Electorally, farmers in France are still too important to be ignored. Likewise, you cannot expect anything drastic from Angela Merkel – the CDU is in hock to the powerful Bavarian farmers so she is not going to budge.

For all the acres of print, the torrent of extruded verbal material from the broadcast media, and the fine words from Blair and his henchmen, the idea of "reform" has run into the sand. The whole CAP drama was nothing but a total, utter farce.

A missed opportunity

It was not only Charles Clarke who was over in Brussels yesterday. Separately, the great caravanner, Margaret Beckett was there too, telling (not) the EU parliament’s agriculture committee about the British government's plans for CAP reform.

According to The Independent and others, she had a rough time of it as some MEPs, stunned by the utter vacuity of her presentation, walked out in disgust. That must have been some achievement. Anyone who has been to these committees can attest that watching paint dry, by comparison, is the equivalent of driving a Formula 1 racing car at high speed.

What particularly upset these MEPs were Beckett's evasions – something to which British MPs are inured. Although repeatedly challenged to give some detail, her responses were "insubstantial or misleading", whence at least five MEPs walked out. This apparently left a flustered Beckett, pleading for MEPs to remain in their seats.

What did emerge, of substance, however, was confirmation of that which we all knew – that Blair's rhetoric on reforming the CAP was completely empty. According to Bloomberg, Beckett revealed that: "All people are talking about is the next financial perspective beginning in 2014." In other words, nothing is going to happen until after the 2006-2013 budgetary period, and the current CAP settlement is locked into place until then.

All of this goes to support the general impression that Blair was using the CAP gambit as a counter to Chirac's attack on the British budgetary rebate, and Beckett has no genuine plans for reform or change.

The lack of ideas - from a Minister who rarely attends farming or country events, has never been known to visit a farm and who recently said that, if she needed to know what farmers thought, she would ask her officials - is a great pity. The current "reforms" from the so-called "mid-term review" are very far from satisfactory, and entirely unsustainable.

Based on the principle of "decoupling", completely breaking the link between subsidies and the production of crops or livestock, farmers are to be paid on the basis of their "historic payments", regardless of whether they produce anything. When the great British public realise that farmers are being paid to do nothing, there will be even more hostility towards farming than there already is.

Yet, while there is no case for subsidising food production, there are valid reasons for continuing public support – albeit in entirely different forms. One such is borne out by a remarkably simple equation: although the farm-gate value of food produced is in the order of £12 billion annually, the value of rural tourism, which is reliant on the scenery that farmers produce, is in the order of £13 billion.

In other words, the scenery produced by farmers as a by-product of producing food is actually worth more than the food they produce, and is of genuine economic value to the nation. Yet, while they are paid for producing food, there is no mechanism for rewarding farmers for maintaining or improving the scenery.

Even the most ardent, free-market economist would recognise this as a "market failure". State intervention in this context is regarded as justified. An "amenity payment" to farmers, based on their contributions to the visual amenity of the countryside would be entirely valid. Also, there are good precedents for "environmental payments" where farmers suffer losses or incur costs in providing "added value" to the environment, improving or maintaining the biosphere.

Further, there is too much emphasis on farmers as producers of food. Crop developments and technology improvements could allow farming to make significant contributions to the UK energy demand. And while the Greens are critical of farming subsidies, they are happy to see huge subsidies given to wind farms (one 2.2 Mw turbine attracts nearly £500,000 in subsidy, annually). Yet the same or less subsidy paid to farmers to grow energy-producing crops could yield higher net gains, without the visual and other damage caused by wind farms.

Then, under certain circumstances, in addition to producing the crops, farmers could generate electricity themselves from them, selling the surplus to the National Grid.

There are, therefore, exciting ways that agriculture could break away from producing excess food, reliant on CAP subsidies, and provide positive economic and other benefits to society which would justify continue public support. Such schemes could even resolve the damaging EU sugar regime, by encouraging farmers to produce beet for ethanol, used for transport fuel.

And keeping farming healthy is important to the nation for, while currently there is a world surplus of food, the year before last the world consumed more grain that it produced. As demand from China increases, we may find that we enter a period of global food deficit, so food security is a vital. Land laid down to energy production at the moment can be quickly turned to food production should the need arise. But if farming is allowed to decay – as Mrs Beckett seems to want – then would could be storing up serious trouble.

None of the above, of course, can be done under the current CAP regime – other than environmental payments, through a scheme that is so bureaucratic as to be unwieldy and often counter-productive – which means that Beckett had every incentive either to seek reform (which is unlikely to happen) or push for abolition, which Blair claims to favour.

But all we got from the great caravanner was the same empty rhetoric for which her boss is rightly derided. At the very least, it was an opportunity missed. In reality, it was a betrayal of our nation and those many farmers who recognise the damage done by the CAP and want to restore agriculture to its former position of glory.

A denial of politics

What must qualify as one of the most fatuous statements of the week – against fairly stiff competition – is the comment by Matthew d’Ancona, who has broken out from his usual slot in the Sunday Telegraph to write an op-ed in the Daily.

Headed, "How are we going to fight this war?", d'Ancona wiffles about possible responses to the London bombing, and of Blair who has "pointedly left the door open to further legislative measures", warning that "the normal processes of law will not be enough". D'Ancona continues:

Therein lay the seed of a huge and necessary debate on the proper balance between security and liberty in this country. But that debate will now be carried out in the proper context. This is not about party politics, Mr Blair's future, or the Iraq war.

What an utterly stupid comment. How can you have a meaningful debate if there are no opposting views, and where will those opposing views come from other than within the framework of party politics?

Of course this is about party politics. That is what party politics is all about and is - in theory at least – at the heart of the British parliamentary system, as against stultifying, anti-democratic continental ethos of "consensus" politics. How else will you get a proper debate about the "proper balance between security and liberty?"

D'Ancona's denial of politics is in fact an illustration of the malaise in modern politics, resulting in an opposition that has been strangely silent and ineffective, while ministers run around like headless chickens looking for more laws to impose upon us, outside "the normal processes of law...".

Well, is anybody going to say it?

We have a Prime Minister who sees himself as a colossus bestriding the world, solving everyone’s problems. It fools some people, particularly some journalists.

We have a Home Secretary, whose immediate instinct after the terrorist attacks last week is to chair an EU Council of Ministers of Justice, to discuss legislation that would impose the duty on all internet providers and servers, all businesses and organizations to retain e-mail and telephone data for months. This would cost billions of pounds, seriously hamper work and would not help the police at all, as there would be too much information.

Plans are being made and demanded by the Foreign Secretary and, for some reason, the Chancellor of the Exchequer to introduce EU-wide optometric documents that are far beyond anything in use anywhere in the world.

Tough legislation is promised and more powers to the police but, above all, EU-wide anti-terrorist laws are going to be enacted.

And somewhere amidst it all, there is Her Majesty’s Opposition that appears to have no opinions on the subject at all.

Of course, given that the simplest government IT system breaks down constantly, none of this is likely to work but all of it will make ordinary people’s lives difficult.

Yet, what precisely is the reason for all this EU-wide activity, apart from the desire to integrate as much as possible?

There is the probability that the explosives were brought into the country through European countries. If this is so, the matter is for the police forces of the various countries to sort out by official and unofficial co-operation.

It is entirely possible that the recruiter and organizer(s) of the attack came in from another counry and has (have) fled. Again, this is a matter for police co-operation, perhaps beyond the boundaries of the European Union.

At the heart of the horror is the fact that the first apparent suicide bombers on European soil are British born, British reared, reasonably privileged young men, who got up one day, said good-bye to their families, strapped on rucksacks full of explosive, travelled down to London and separated in order to blow up themselves and four different vehicles full of people.

This is a serious domestic crisis. There are people in this country, who, having lived all their lives here, feel that they want to do this to other people in the same country.

How can further European integration solve the problem?

And should not our ministers be concerned with the domestic crisis instead of rushing round the world or negotiating with their colleagues in Brussels?

Getting the government we deserve?

Strangely unreported by the media is a speech given by home secretary Clarke to the EU parliament, when he told MEPs that, in the fight against terrorism, "security must take priority over citizens' rights".

Clarke was addressing the Civil Liberties Committee to present the programme of the UK presidency, whence he gave support to moves to speed up draft EU legislation to allow data retention from phone calls and emails to help fight terrorism, a plan rejected by MEPs in June when they sent the proposal back to the parliamentary committee for further debate.

Taking the MEPs head on, he asked, "How is the right balance between security and freedom to be found? ... The point I want to make is that the human right to travel on the underground in London on a Thursday morning without being blown up is also an important right", Clarke said.

So, once again we have a British politician pleading "necessity", to which William Pitt the Younger had the answer (cited by my co-editor on her blog last November). On 18 November 1783, in his response to the East India Bill, put together by Edmund Buke and introduced by Charles James Fox on behalf of the Fox-North coalition, he declared:

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves.

One could also quote US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, from her speech on 20 June of this year in Egypt, when she said: "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East - and we achieved neither."

In a different context, what Clarke is effectively saying is that he is determined to pursue security at the expense of civil liberties and, employing the clinical logic expressed by Condoleezza Rice, he will achieve neither.

Nevertheless, when confronted with a crisis, politicians just cannot resist the temptation to go rushing in to make new laws, just the dynamic about which I warned in my Sunday post.

But hey! Who am I to talk? If the readers of the Manchester Evening Post (online edition) are any guide, most people would support Clarke. Asked in a poll (numbers unspecified), "Should civil liberties be curtailed in order to fight terrorism?", 67 percent answered "yes" and only 33 percent said "no".

One can only observe that, as a rule, people get the government they deserve. But, do we deserve the government we've got?

The BBC again

There will come a time when I shall be able to write something positive about the BBC but that time is not yet.

I understand that Radio 4 (something I have not listened to for some time) has decided not to broadcast part 2 of Greenmantle, as it would be “insensitive” after Thursday’s bombings (oh what the heck, let the PC brigade arrest me: terrorist bombings).

Insensitive to whom, precisely? As I recall the novel, it is all about a dastardly German plot to use Islamic fundamentalism in a fight against the allies in the First World War. The plot is masterminded by Hilda von Einem and is eventually foiled by Richard Hannay and his various colleagues, including and especially, Sandy Arbuthnot.

Interestingly enough, our heroes express great admiration for most of their enemy, including the Arab fighters who swarm in battles, dressed in green, and for Hilda von Einem. There is one German officer Hannay tangles with, whom he finds repulsive. He is a brutal thug with a rather effeminate aspect to his personality.

How is this venerable but excellent thriller insensitive? Who is about to get upset by it? Is the BBC not going to dramatize or broadcast any work of literature in which there is any kind of a conflict between members of different nationalities, religions, races or ethnic groups?

Are they going to eschew any novel in which there is a villain of some particular national, religious, ethnic or racial group? If so, their choice of books will be limited.

Several of Buchan’s books have villains who are not British (though most of the heroes are not precisely British either and certainly not English). What are we to do about “Oliver Twist”? Or “The Way We Live Now”?

There are Arab slave traders in various adventure stories by Jules Verne and G. A. Henty. There are baddies of different description in novels by Alistair McLean, Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie (though her murderers are usually of impeccable English middle class background).

And, of course, there are sinister Hungarians swarming through world fiction.

Clearly, anything by Dostoyevsky and quite a lot by Joseph Conrad will have to be banned.

I could go on but I shall not. The point I am trying to make here may not be entirely relevant to the general theme of the blog but there is a connection. A knowledge and understanding of the past is necessary to appreciate the present and the future. It is also essential to prevent a wallowing in some sort of utopian vision of the past. And we are sadly apt to fall into one difficulty or another.

Let me quote one of the greatest of the twentieth century poets, an American immigrant who settled in Britain and made his home, T. S. Eliot:

Time present and time past
And both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

An alien culture in our midst

As a child, through to developing into an ungainly teenager, growing up in North London, I had a unique experience. For a long time, I was the only Christian child (apart from my brother and sisters) in a street populated by Jews – mostly second-generation Eastern and Central Europeans – within a larger community that was almost entirely Jewish.

The area, as you might have guessed, was Stamford Hill, wedged between Stoke Newington to the south and Tottenham to the north, the latter being predominantly Irish Catholic.

Currently, however, I live in Bradford, another area famous for its immigrant population, but this one largely Muslim. When I tell people from outside that I live in Bradford, a common reaction is that we must be living in "little Pakistan" or some such, dominated by the ethnic community.

Such an impression, however, is wrong. We live in an urban village in the south of the city and it is uniformly and rigorously white. We are a white enclave, a tiny minority but wholly separated and distinct from the rigorously and uniformly Muslim communities that border us. There is no mixing and no integration. Apart from couple of businesses – a taxi firm and a general store - there are no Asian-owned businesses in our community.

It was that which set me thinking, and pondering about the differences between the immigrant-dominated community in which I was brought up, and the one in which I currently live. And, although there are many, many differences, one singular distinction struck me, which may be highly significant. Where I live now, there is no small-scale economic integration.

That was not the case in my childhood. Although the Jews lived separately, they did business everywhere, and with anyone. They also employed goys – even myself, who profited hugely from their generosity towards my pocket-money-making enterprises – and they traded with goys. And it was through those enterprises, often started by the sons of the first generation immigrants, that the mixing, and significant integration occurred.

But this is not so much the case in Bradford, apart from the town centre and the famous curry houses. But those are the exceptions. A little way out of the town centre, the Asians not only live together in their own areas, to a greater extent than before, they trade only with each other and exclude the indigenous populations. In the Asian areas, the shops are exclusively and aggressively Asian. The signs are in Urdu script – the labels and advertisements are likewise. And the goods are geared mainly to the Asian community.

Moreover, whole streets are like that. The banks are Asian, the cinemas are likewise, and the areas make no concessions at all to the host country. There are, effectively, huge if invisible signs saying "whites keep out". And if you do not get the message, there are other, more dangerous ways of learning. No white person with any sense – even the police unless they sally out in force, from their fortress-like police station – comes into these areas after dark.

Here, perhaps, is another singular point. Not only are these areas culturally and economically segregated, the writ of British (and European) law does not run. And it is not only the "high level" offences that are ignored – like the "honour killings", under-age marriages and even female genital mutilation (which are all illegal in this country) but also the administrative laws applying to businesses.

Forget hygiene laws. During the last Muslim festival, I was driving round a Muslim area and happened on a street market. And I do mean a street market. Blankets were laid out on the pavements and foodstuffs piled high in all directions, with enthusiastic buyers milling around. Every law in the book was broken. No protective clothing in sight, not a wash-basin to be seen, no protection for open food, no "clean and washable surfaces", no nothing.

Had these traders ventured out of their enclave, into a "white", more regulated area, they would have been assailed by environmental health officers and other council officials, and undoubtedly the police. The market would have been shut down in a flash. But in "little Pakistan", they were safe and untroubled.

The same goes for health and safety and even housing law. My son, when he first left home to set up his own flat, sought accommodation in a bedsit in an Asian area, this being so much cheaper than others. But, exercising what little parental authority I had, I inspected the premises first and refused to allow him to move there. I had no problems with the area but the dwelling had no means of escape and no fire protection. The house, and the flat, was a death-trap. In the "white" area, however - his next choice - the fire regulations were obviously observed.

Herein lies my tentative thesis, a factor that may – and I do suggest may - be instrumental in the failure of our communities to integrate. Basically, the first step of integration in immigrant communities is for many of them to set up small businesses. Firstly, they service their own people and then they spread out, doing business with the wider community. And, in doing business, they mix, from which cultural integration develops.

Where you have ghetto communities and the writ of law does not apply, the cost of setting up business is cheap. But, when it comes to moving into the highly regulated indigenous areas, the full force of increasingly bureaucratic and intrusive laws immediately apply and the cost of breaking out of the ghetto is prohibitive. Administrative law, therefore, becomes a barrier to economic and then cultural integration.

This also works the other way round. The traders (and population in general) in the "white" areas, see the Asian traders getting away with ignoring the law, and resent it, thus fuelling antagonism between the communities. It is made even worse by well-meaning "community" projects run by our council, which have sought to bring some Asian businesses into the regulatory fold by giving them (and only them) grants and special treatment. "They" get help to obey the law – the white traders just get prosecuted.

And so to our previous post on the new food supplements directive. This will outlaw thousands of preparations and put hundreds of British enterprises out of business. But there are thousands of very specific Asian "food supplements" that would otherwise be caught under this law. My guess – based on past experience – is that they will continue on sale, and not one Asian business will be affected.

While some of these supplements might be lethal (some of the cosmetics used, which contain arsenic, certainly are), many are tried and tested and cause no problems. But under the EU regime which is about to come into force, very few if any would ever be able to conform with the "positive list" requirements.

Under existing British law, however, few would have a problem. The traditional British "tolerant" approach to such products – and food in general – is that anyone may market a product and it is up to the authorities to prove it is unsafe. That system has sufficed for over a century but now we are to have an alien culture in our midst – the continental dictum that assumes a product is dangerous, and therefore prohibited from sale, until its supplier can prove it is safe.

It is this alien culture, one of overweening bureaucracy, that may be creating greater obstacles to integration than the many more obvious issues about which so many contemporary commentators are writing. In so far as it is part of that culture, and driving much of it, the EU, therefore, in its pursuit of political integration, may actually be partly responsible for preventing the full integration of immigrant communities.

Merkel disappoints

That much-expected plan for reviving the German economy, should the Christian Democrats under Angela Merkel come into power, has been revealed – cautiously.

It seems to be not a whole lot of ideas and is, therefore, rather disappointing to those, such as the Wall Street Journal Europe and, possibly, other commentators who somehow expected that a potential CDU led government will put Germany onto her feet and turn the EU into a flourishing, forward-looking free-market institution.

The main points of the programme are:

- Companies will be allowed to opt out of nationwide pay deals – a radical proposal by German standards and one that may help a few firms to negotiate rational deals that will help employer and employee.

- Job-protection laws will be relaxed, which may have some sort of an economic effect.

- Low-wage jobs will be subsidized.

- Federal corporate tax rate to be cut from 25 per cent to 22 per cent (with regional taxes remaining as they are, presumably).

- Payroll taxes to be cut and the “shortfall” to be subsidized by a VAT raised to 18%.

- Income tax to be cut, the top rate reduced to 39 per cent and tax breaks to be scrapped to make up the difference. As the loopholes will be closed a year before the proposed tax cuts (even marginal ones) the whole exercise will look like a tax hike.

- Health care to be funded in future from a flat-rate insurance premium.

It seems that the CDU policy is to take the tax burden off business, which seems a very sensible approach, given the problems the German economy faces, and to pass it on to the consumer. There is no suggestion that in some way the whole tax burden should be lessened and less money taken in by the government.

Nor is there any suggestion of reforming the expensive and creaking welfare system. The argument is, presumably, very similar to the one used by both the main parties here: there is not a great deal of money to manoeuvre with and the welfare system is enormously popular. Anyone who suggests changing it is looking at an electoral oblivion.

Is that really so? German unemployment has been running at more than 10 per cent for some time. The country is stagnating in every sense and the majority of the public, if the opinion polls are to be believed, expect radical reforms from the CDU, which, neverheless leads by 20 points in the same opinion polls.

The German public, it seems, expects in vain.

Too much to handle

An indication of the breadth of activity of this construct we call the European Union comes in a story in The Times today.

One minute we are having to come to terms with internal affairs ministers getting to grip with terrorism, on another plane of existence we are troubling ourselves about the arcane, technical issues involved in defence integration, then we are exploring the role of aid in the relief of poverty in Africa, and now what to we get? Vitamin supplements.

According to The Times and other media sources, health groups who had taken the new EU "food supplement directive" to the ECJ have finally lost their appeal. The law now comes into force on 1 August, which means that thousands of preparations will become illegal and hundreds of shops – mainly health food stores – will go out of business.

A "positive list" of 112 substances passed fit for consumption has been drawn up, which includes vitamin C, calcium and iron. But many popular substances, such as selenium yeast, tin, manganese and vitamin K2, have been omitted and are subject to 505 separate appeals.

Interestingly, the ECJ had previously found in favour of the apellants so this final decision came as a surprise to politicians and campaigners. The ruling went against the opinion of the court's advocate general, who said in April that the directive should be scrapped for contravening basic EU principles of "legal protection, legal certainty and sound administration".

To a lot of people, this is a very important issue, and typifies the encroachment of EU law into every "nook and cranny" of our lives. The trouble is, how does one keep a sense of perspective? How can objectionable interference of the EU, eroding civil liberties in the name of tackling terrorism, be put on a par with banning vitamins and other preparations, regarded as a gross and unnecessary interference in people's right to make free choices of essentially harmless and often beneficial products?

That is the problem sometimes with the EU – it is all too much. No wonder people want to ignore the "elephant in the room". Once you see all the crap on the carpet, you have to do something about it.

But one thing does come over. An organisation that deals with such a wide range of issues is effectively impossible to monitor, and if you can't do that, you can't hold it to account or control it. For that reason alone, it is time for the EU to butt out of our lives, allowing us to return things to a more human scale, that we can deal with on our own terms.

There's no place like Home

In London earlier today, having gone down by train to Kings Cross. The tube lines there – with the exception of the Metropolitan line – were still closed down so we all trudge down to Euston to pick up the tube there.

On the hoarding outside Kings Cross are pinned hundreds of photographs, many duplicates, asking for help tracing missing persons – every nationality you could think of. We then pass the site of the bus blast – the road closed off and screened from public sight with huge tarpaulins on a scaffold frame. A press tent, with TV cameras, is set up and positioned outside the screen, boarded journalists smoking and chatting, lounging on folding chairs.

On the tube there is a young man, smartly dressed, and definitely foreign-looking, with a rucksack wedged between his knees. Irrational perhaps, but the twinge of nervousness is definitely there and I am glad when he gets off a few stops before mine.

Then to business, talking to a group of farmers about agriculture in a "post-CAP world". Even a year ago, such a theme would be laughed out of court, but they all listen intently, and ask many questions. If this gathering is any guide, the tide is turning. I will post on this theme when I have some time.

Back on the streets, the newspaper billboards are proclaiming the news that possibly four "bombers" were involved, three from Leeds – all of them British born. It is too early to make pronouncements, but it raises all sorts of questions about the "international dimensions" of this incident. These lads, and hundreds like them, I will have passed in the streets countless times, and would not have given them a second glance.

The thinking seems now to be that the explosives were possibly Chinese and, on the face of it, it would seem probable that there was an "expert" bomb-maker who made the devices. There the trail leads abroad, but there is by no means any EU dimension, and the emphasis on "little European" cross-border co-operation seems misplaced.

One other thought intrudes – and won't go away. We hear a great deal about the radicalisation of the young Muslim community, with all sorts of links made with Iraq, the American action and the rest. But frankly, living in the areas of Leeds that were raided today is enough to radicalise anyone – "mean streets" hardly describes them.

But also, there are the West Yorkshire Police. For a long time now, it has been obvious that that Force (it calls itself a "service") is out of control - or elements of it. Racist in parts, violent and truculent, and regulated under a complaints system that does not work, those of a mind can indulge in quite unacceptable behaviour – knowing they will get away with it unpunished.

Even as a white, middle class professional, I have come up against the thuggish element - and seen gratutitous violence on the streets. But for the veneer of civilisation, innate cowardice and the fact that I simply have too much to lose, there have been times when I could cheerfully have contemplated firebombing the local police station after encounters with West Yorkshire's finest. The Asian lads get it far worse, and have no chance of any redress. If you want causes of radicalisation, I would not entirely discount the behaviour of some of the police.

And what is the point of this posting? Well, I wrote on Sunday that "security begins at home". It ill-behoves Clarke to be rushing off to Brussels tomorrow with a briefcase full of ideas for EU initiatives on terrorism. There are things back here on which he would be better employed. At this stage, EU discussions are, at best, a distraction and, at worse, a dangerous diversion.

So, Mr Clarke, if security does begin at home, can we have a Home Secretary that stays at home and deals with it? There is, after all, no place like home.

Not even in London

Some time ago we had a discussion on the blog about terrorists being called terrorists in London but not in many other places. Well, no need to worry. They are not terrorists here either.

The BBC, always careful in its phraseology (except when it comes to such beyond the pale individuals as eurosceptics, free-market Tories and members of the Countryside Alliance) has decided to stop calling the people who planted the bombs last Thursday “terrorists” and call them “bombers” instead.

What’s in a name, you might say? The word “terrorist” has been a difficult one and most news agencies have tried to get round it somehow, arguing that one man’s terorist is another man’s freedom-fighter.

In particular the problem are around the Israel (where many of the attacks on the transport were far worse), Palestine, Chechnya and Iraq, where a new expression, “insurgents”, has appeared to describe people who plant bombs in markets and queues.

A member of the Spanish embassy in London has once expressed his (in my opinion justified) displeasure that Reuter’s described ETA “bombers” as nationalists. That was an insult, he said, to those Basques who were nationalists but were trying to achieve their aims through peaceful, democratic means.

If the word “terrorist” cannot be used, at least describe ETA as the people who planted a bomb here and there and murdered so-and-so. But that would prejudice the viewers and listeners. I guess it would, at that.

At least, the BBC is not referring to the “bombers” as “freedom fighters” or “insurrectionists”. We ought to be grateful for that.

In the meantime, HMG is pushing ahead with the terrifying law that will make “race hate speech” to be defined by the putative victim, as crime, thus ensuring that even less discussion about the roots of Islamic terrorism will be possible.

The law, as Mark Steyn points out today, will also hit the few Muslim writers who are emerging from the reign of terror imposed by the various imams and not properly fought against by such organizations as the Council of British Muslims, to make clear statements against terrorism and to demand that Muslims turn against them.

One little noted fact is that the law will bring us into line with some of our European friends. In Italy there is a law that forbids vilipendio, that is the vilifying another religion.

One of its first victims is the highly regarded journalist Oriana Fallaci, now in her seventies and seriously ill. Two years ago she wrote a book, “The Force of Reason”, in which she accused Europe of giving in to militant Islam and allowing the subcontinent to be turned over to the “Sons of Allah”.

In Italy she faces two years in prison and prefers to remain in New York, where she is protected by the First Amendment. At present, people in Britain can be silenced only by our extraordinary libel laws (more of that in another posting) but if this law goes through, our writers, too, will be prevented from expressing their opinions on certain subjects that just happen to be vitally important.

It was bad enough during the Cold War that the then politically correct point of view, expounded by academics and the dear old BBC, was that one must not be too nasty about the Soviet Union. After all, its leaders were no different from ours. At least, there were no laws that would have imprisoned the writers who disagreed with those ridiculous statements.

In this war we shall be handicapped by our own leaders, who seem to be determined to destroy the freedoms we are supposed to be fighting for.

But let me finish this posting on a positive note. We have had a bit of stick from both sides of the Atlantic about our reaction to some of the American comments. Let me, therefore, point to what I consider a thoroughly dignified show of solidarity, that needs few words (and not a bulldog in sight). We are, indeed, together in this war.

By-passing the system

A huge rat has just leapt out of the woodwork, with the news that home secretary Clarke is going to Brussels tomorrow to press, inter alia for EU-wide rules requiring phone and e-mail records to be held for up to a year.

Officials are saying that Clarke wanted the EU to adopt the UK's voluntary code for internet service providers requiring most internet data to be held for six months and some phone data for 12 months. Such records are seen as important intelligence and detection aids.

Predictably, and sensibly, the industry, in the form of the Internet Services Providers' Association, is lobbying heavily against the idea, saying that it will not only cost billion but will also clutter their systems by retaining data of no interest to criminal investigations, making it harder to extract relevant data.

This was very much the argument put about the statutory reporting of data relating to money laundering, where the net was drawn so tight that professional advisors have to tell the authorities of even vague suspicions of illegality, on pain of criminal penalty.

The fears have proved well-founded as so much data has been given to the authorities that only a fraction has been investigated and the flow is so huge that very little will be.

That, in itself, is bad enough, but that is not the real story. This comes by comparing details in the Financial Times and from a report in The Times.

The FT tells us that the government hopes that the London bombing "will act as a catalyst for getting agreement to the scheme, which draws on proposals put forward by the UK, Ireland, France and Sweden after last year's bombings in Madrid." The UK wants the proposals, held up by industry lobbying, legal wrangles and the lack of consensus among member states, to be agreed by the end of its six-month EU presidency.

From The Times, however, we learn that tomorrow's meeting of EU justice and interior ministers is an "emergency session", when Britain intends to bypass "the cumbersome proposals" put forward by the EU Commission "which will run into the obstructive meddling of the European Parliament." Instead, it seems, the UK will secure a "quick intergovernmental agreement".

This, at first sight, looks like a rather weak arrangement. An intergovernmental agreement would lie outside the acquis communautaire and would neither be enforceable by the EU commission nor judicable by the ECJ. There would, therefore, be no mechanism for ensuring that other EU member states properly implemented the agreement.

Then the penny dropped. This is exactly the mechanism that was used to introduce the European Defence Agency - originally intended as part of the EU constitution but implemented by way of a Council Decision within the framework of the Maastricht Treaty, as amended by Nice and Amsterdam.

By invoking this mechanism, Clarke can come back to the UK with his new "EU law" and ask for it to be ratified by Parliament on the basis of a single vote, with no scope for amendment, which he will get "on the nod" with the government's in-built majority. He can then implement it at will in the UK.

The central point, of course, is that if Clarke went through the normal legislative system, he would have to resort to an Act of Parliament, which would have to go through all the stages of Readings and Committees, in both Houses. Given its contentious nature, it would take a great deal of Parliamentary time, with no guarantee of success.

By using the "intergovernmental procedure" within the framework of the EU treaties, therefore, Clarke not only bypasses the EU parliament, but our own legislative system, effectively bypassing our own parliament as well. And therein lies one of the greater problems with these treaties – they hand greater power to the executive and reduce the scope for accountability and scrutiny. They are, in effect, a democracy bypass.

Amazingly, The Times argues that: "This is surely right". So much for the media as the guardians of our liberties.

One for Juncker

Having studiously avoided analysing the uniquely irrelevant Luxembourg referendum result (although there is a good report in The Times today), the plight and ambitions of dear old Jean-Claude Juncker came flooding back this evening, as I watched an episode of the science-fiction series Stargate SG1 on television.

With the SG1 team in yet another dire predicament, leader Colonel Jack O’Neil turns to his 2 i/c, Major Samantha Carter, and the following dialogue ensues:

O’Neil: Time for Plan B!
Carter: We have a Plan B?
O’Neil: No. But it's time to put it into action.

One for Juncker, I believe.

That special relationship

Although my post over the weekend, which touched on the special relationship, attracted a modicum of dissent, such is the importance of that relationship that, breaking away from the ocean of triviality that infests our media and also the internet, I thought I would return to this grown-up subject again.

If this suggests an element dyspepsia, so be it, but in one thing we share an element of agreement with this Blog's favourite troll, Christina Speight, in that she sometimes wonders whether the people of this great nation are actually worth saving.

That thought occurred to me – not for the first time – while reviewing the traffic on the Eurosceptic e-mail groups in the immediate aftermath of the London bombing. With a speed that was quite stunning, the net was cluttered with conspiracy theories of increasingly fantasmagorical proportions. Some, if they are allowed full flight, would have it that president Bush took time off from the G8 summit – no doubt leaving his exact double behind – personally to plant the bombs on the London Underground and the No. 30 bus.

The point, of course, is that the great weakness of many Eurosceptics – some might say the fatal weakness – is their willingness to chase after any and every running hare, instead of staying focused on the issue at hand. Underlying that also, within a wide swathe of the Eurosceptic community, is an element of irrational anti-Americanism, which seems sometimes more fervent and vitriolic that the antipathy towards the European Union.

This is reflected in routine traffic, where I would venture to suggest that the number of Eurosceptic posts expressing hostility to the US involvement in Iraq far exceed in number those critical of all aspects of the EU's activity. Furthermore, when it comes to crucial issues like the defence of this still sovereign nation, and the growing threat of European defence integration, interest is slight outside the domain of this Blog. In fact, such is the general lack of interest that it is noticeable that defence-orientated posts on even this Blog attract fewer comments than on other subjects.

Trying to make sense of this, one conclusion that can be drawn is that, since the First World War, our defence interests have been so intimately bound up with the United States that defence and American co-operation have come to mean the same thing. As a result, the nascent anti-Americanism in our community precludes concern over what amounts to a deterioration in our defence capability, as this also means a weakening of our trans-Atlantic ties, which is seen as a desirable objective.

In this paradigm, increased European defence integration is seen as the lesser of the two evils, and even desirable if its means increased detachment from the Americans.

That the "special relationship" is given substance by its military dimension is affirmed by its author, none other than Winston S. Churchill who, in his famous “iron curtain speech” delivered in Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri on 5 March 1946, sought to define it as part of "realising our overall strategic concept".

The crux of that concept was, Churchill said, what he called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. "This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States," he declared, adding:

This is no time for generalities, and I will venture to be precise. Fraternal association requires not only the growing friendship and mutual understanding between our two vast but kindred systems of society, but the continuance of the intimate relationship between our military advisers, leading to common study of potential dangers, the similarity of weapons and manuals of instructions, and to the interchange of officers and cadets at technical colleges. It should carry with it the continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the world.

It was to this that I was alluding in my own speech in Kings' College last October, when I noted the historical similarity in equipment between the British and the US forces, arguing that, "the equipment is defined by the purpose, the purpose is defined by the thinking and the thinking is the same." I went on to state:

The Royal Marines train alongside the US Marines, the SBS train alongside the Seals, the SAS alongside the US Special Forces, RAF pilots alongside USAF pilots. Ditto Navy personnel, where cross-postings on nuclear submarines are an essential part of the manning rostas. Both forces have an active programme of exchange postings, so that a US-badged aircraft could just as easily have a British as an American pilot. We share equipment, intelligence and, at a strategic level, work as one. The early warning system in Fylingdales is part of the US network of global early warning radars, the AWACs system is an integral part of the US system – and uses US equipment. US fighters based in Britain form an integral part of the British air defence system.

It terms of commonality of equipment, this is why the purchases by the MOD of German trucks and Italian command vehicles (highlighted in Booker yesterday) – to say nothing of the Eurofighter – are so important. This is not a "little Englander" objection. Taking the cue from Churchill, the adoption of European rather than US (or British) equipment is an outward manifestation of a shift from the "special relationship" to favouring the "European Defence Identity".

With this, however, we also come across another problem – technophobia. So sophisticated and complex has military technology become that many erstwhile commentators, unable to deal with it, have given up analysing military affairs. Hence the Conservative front bench defence spokesmen who insist on describing FRES as medium-weight armoured vehicles rather than acknowledging that it is a whole new battlefield concept, with phenomenal political implications.

That phenomenon has, in my view, definitely affected the debate on the German truck decision. The supplier, MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG, (as I remarked in another post) is not just a another truck manufacturer. It also produces a sophisticated electronic fleet management system, called "Telematics" which has been incorporated into the military programme, thus enabling what it calls "Network Centric Logistics".

That, as I noted, started ringing alarm bells. At the forefront of modern military technology is the concept of "digitising the battlespace", which underpins the FRES concept, providing command and control capability throughout the force, with – in the jargon of the speciality – "a horizontally and vertically integrated digital information network that supports warfighting systems and assures command and control decision cycle superiority."

What very few people understand, however, is how this impenetrable jargon links with an apparently straightforward decision to buy something like trucks. But, shorn of jargon, the concept is actually very simple.

Imagine, if you will, a World War II artillery battery, which like as not would fire from fixed lines, with a relatively low fire rate of say, 3-5 rounds a minute. Now go to the near-future, and you find single guns, employing a much wider range of ammunition, not only firing at a rate of 90 rounds a minute – an extraordinary expenditure of munitions – but also up with the fighting formations and moving after every shoot to avoid counter-battery fire.

Where resupply was difficult enough 60 years ago, keeping modern guns supplied is a logistic nightmare, requiring trucks fitted with advanced electronics systems – oddly, similar to the supermarket EPOS systems – backed by satellite location and communication. And, since the logistics systems must mesh with the combat systems, once a logistics system has been mapped out, the combat system must conform in order to be usable.

Thus, a decision to buy German trucks could well presage a decision to buy German logistic electronics, which in turn will dictate the choice of combat electronic systems. The decision to go "European", therefore, is being dictated not by the politicians but by the technicians. Then, because the European systems will not be compatible with US systems, perforce, the "special relationship" comes grinding to a halt.

Nor is the luxury of "going it alone" an option. Given the expense of modern battlefield systems, in order to procure a modern war-fighting capability, we must engage in joint development. This can either be with the "Europeans" or the US, but it cannot be with both as the two are mutally incompatible. We must therefore make the choice.

In this, we can make a choice between an old and reliable ally - who just happens to be the technology leader - or we can go with second-division and distinctly dubious Europeans. The choice should be a no-brainer but the process of integration by stealth means that key decisions are being taken out of our hands, without anyone being fully aware of what is happening.

One would like to think that, had he been alive today, Churchill would have recognised the danger – as he did in the 30s with German re-armament – but, clearly, no contemporary mainstream politician or commentator is past first base. Instead, we get that fatuous analysis from Heritage, which completely and dangerously misses the point.

Not for nothing did I write, last September, that we were sleepwalking into disaster. The real problem, though, is that no one seems to give a damn.

Perpetuating the insult

Readers might have wondered why we did not join this weekend’s celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Second World War, pictures of which dominate the newspapers this morning, not least the dropping of a million poppies by a Lancaster over Buckingham Palace and the Mall.

The answer, however, is quite simple. The date of 10 July is a wholly artificial construct, picked for administrative convenience (and to save Ministers having to break into their holidays) by a Blair government which seems to have little understanding of history, and cares less.

The 10th July does not mark the end of the Second World War. The official end, marked by VJ-Day, was on 15 August 1945, although the surrender documents were not actually signed by the Japanese government until 2 September.

In the July, men and women were still at war. The British 14th Army, who rightly complained of being the "forgotten Army", were still mopping up in Burma and, in the Pacific, attention was focusing, after the bruising battle of Okinawa, on preparations for a land invasion of Japan. Over 40,000 tons of bombs had yet to be dropped on that country, culminating in the dropping on A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August. And the Russian campaign in Manchuria did not start until 8th August.

By 10th July 1945, hundreds of thousands people were still to die, and much misery was to unfold before the world saw the temporary cessation of hostilities.

To celebrate the end of the Second World War on an arbitrary date, with no historical anchor, is therefore to perpetuate the insult to those people who were still fighting and dying, people who, like the 14th Army, felt they were being forgotten. That is why we did not join in the celebrations. Unlike some others, we have not forgotten.

They all want to tax financial transactions

You’d think with the EU and the eurozone in particular in economic doldrums, they would start thinking of ways that would encourage the financial sector among others.

Not a bit of it. All we hear is about wonderful projects that could be funded by taxing international financial transactions. First we had President Chirac telling us that such a tax should be levied to fight against AIDS. A worthy cause, naturally, but how would slowing down economic growth in the west help it remains a mystery.

Would money raised from a tax on financial transactions overcome Thabo Mbeki’s inexplicable attitude to the whole subject, he announcing periodically that the various diseases were simply a western plot against Africans, as were the treatments that must not be used?

Would such a tax prevent numerous African governments from taxing drugs, supplied for free or at cost price, at the retail level?

Austrian President Schüssel, who is already looking to taking over the Presidency from Blair in January, has found an even better cause: the EU.

It is intolerable, he explained to the German Bild am Sonntag that the EU should rely on member states for its budget. It should have its own source of cash and what better source than a tax on international financial transactions.

Of course, it is unlikely that financial markets or the United States, or, for that matter, Britain or, presumably, Switzerland, would agree to such a tax. Still, it is an interesting foretaste of what we can expect from the Austrian Presidency – a fight with France, perchance, about what to do with a non-existent and completely unacceptable tax.

A cautionary tale

At first sight, there would appear to be nothing in common with the story in today’s Sunday Telegraph, headed, "EU hygiene regulations threaten traditional French cheeses", and last week's London bombing. However, there are serious and important parallels, from which we can learn a great deal.

Turning to the SunTel story first, this reports how a picturesque French alpine farm, in the village of Abondance, tucked into a valley close to the Swiss border, is having problems with EU hygiene regulations.

The farm, a family enterprise run by 73-year-old Céline Gagneux, creates speciality Vacherin d'Abondance cheese using milk from a small herd of cows, a breed developed by monks in the Middle Ages. For as long as anyone can remember, the women of the Gagneux family have produced the rounds of creamy cheese, wrapped in wood from local spruce trees. However, thanks to Brussels bureaucrats, the Sun Tel reports, Madam Gagneux will be the last.

The Association Fromages de Terroir, a group set up to protect the 1,000 different cheeses traditionally made in France, says that at least 50 varieties have disappeared in the past 30 years and many more are on their way out. Véronique Richez-Lerouge, the association's president, blames draconian EU regulations for strangling the production of cheeses made with unpasteurised milk. "Of course there have to be hygiene standards but you can't produce cheese in a laboratory," she says. "Brussels says this or that is dangerous and encourages bacteria and France trembles and introduces the rules. It's an enormous problem."

Richez-Lerouge is actually right, but it is interesting to note that, although this news report is dated July 2005, the actual Directive doing the damage is 92/46/EEC. It was therefore, as its number indicated, promulgated in 1992 - and it did not come into force until 1995. Thus, it has taken ten years for the law to do its damage to Madam Gagneux, demonstrating an all too-familiar phenomenon, the extremely slow pace of implementation. Years after it first came into force, the reasons for it have long been forgotten, yet it carries on having its malign effect.

What is also interesting is that the Directive was brought in on the back of a real problem, the emergence of a strain of bacteria known as Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) which, from the early 1980s through to the early 1990s, caused a number of serious outbreaks of illness and a few fatalities, as well as causing spontaneous abortion in a small number of women.

Such was the atmosphere of the time, however - with first salmonella and then BSE dominating the headlines - that Listeriosis (the technical name for the illness) escalated from a discrete, small scale problem to a major food scare in 1989. And, on the back of that scare came Directive 92/46/EEC, rushed in to address the problem, imposing a blanket ban on the presence of all Lm in milk, and milk products such as cheese.

That, on the face of it, seems a sensible response, except for two singular facts. Firstly, Lm is a commonly found in the environment and is thus virtually impossible to exclude it from milk (and many other foods).

Secondly, the name Listeria monocytogenes does not describe a single bacterium, but a whole family of bacteria, grouped in what are known as "serovars". The illness that appeared in the 1980s was, in fact, caused by one serovar (actually, a few strains within that group) classified as Serovar 4b. Virtually, it is only the strains within that group that are pathogenic and, with many of the others, there has never been any evidence of the organism causing illness.

This, I had cause to demonstrate myself in a famous case in 1994 involving Lanark Blue cheese, made by Humphrey Errington. That December, some £54,000-worth of his product had been seized by Clydesdale District Council environmental health officers (EHOs), who claimed that high counts of Lm made it unfit for human consumption.

However, the strains identified in Lanark Blue were not from Serovar 4b – which had been associated with the recent epidemics – but from the Serovar 3a group. This had never before been implicated in human - nor even animal - disease. Furthermore, over 63,000 people had been estimated to have eaten Lanark Blue "contaminated" with this bacterium and, despite the best efforts of what was claimed to be one of the most sophisticated infectious disease surveillance systems in the world, not one case of listeriosis had been linked to the cheese.

At the time, Directive 92/46/EEC was not in force and the Council had to use existing legislation in the Food Safety Act. In a series of hearings that took over nine months – including two High Court appearances – we demonstrated that Clydesdale EHOs had no evidence whatsoever that the cheese was harmful. The Lanark Sheriff eventually agreed and Errington was able to claim substantial compensation for what amounted to an unlawful seizure.

Had the Directive been in force, however, there would have been no case. Sale of any cheese in which Lm was present would have been an offence and the EHOs could have seized the cheese and destroyed it with impunity, without offering any compensation.

So, where are the serious and important parallels with the London bombing? If you had not already worked them out, they are these.

In the case of Listeriosis, that was – and still is a problem – but the 1989 hysteria escalated it into a full-blown scare. In the nature of scare, the problem is invariably genuine, but what defines it as a "scare" is the disproportionate response. And, in the latter stages of a scare usually comes the regulatory response which, in the nature of things, is long-lasting. Yet, all to often, it either fails to resolve the original problem, or does so much damage that the cure is worse than the disease.

In the case of the London bombing, terrorism is a serious and real problem. But "terrorism" is being escalated, like Listeriosis, into "scare" status. There is a very real risk, therefore, that the "regulatory response" will do more lasting damage (particularly to our civil liberties) than the original problem and, almost certainly, will fail to effect a cure.

Then, as was demonstrated by the Lanark Blue case, the existing law was a perfectly adequate tool to protect public health and there was actually no need for new laws. All that was needed was for the existing law to be properly enforced. With very few exceptions, our previous posting seems to illustrate precisely that.

However, the hysteria that accompanies a "scare" makes it very easy for legislators to rush in new – and very often bad - laws. On the back of the London bombing, that is an ever-present danger. But, in ten years time, when things are different, and the terrorism threat may have receded, any laws passed now might still be in place, still restricting our freedoms. Whatever the situation looks like today, therefore, we must not let last week's "incidents" – appalling though they were – legitimise another legislative orgy.

Luxembourg "backs EU constitution"

According to Reuters, with results in from 93.5 percent of the constituencies, voters in Luxembourg have backed the EU constitution by a margin of 56.45 to 43.55 percent.

Security begins at home

In a quite extraordinarily naïve and ill-informed op-ed in The Business today – a piece an otherwise sterling newspaper should be ashamed of – Nile Gardiner and John Hulsman of the Heritage Foundation offer the thesis that the "Anglo-US alliance" is the bulwark of our western civilisation (a re-vamp of their paper which my colleague so effectively fisked in her her earlier post).

With Britain universally acknowledged as America's closest ally, an attack on London is no different than an attack on Washington or New York, they write, declaring that, "at Britain's hour of need, the United States will stand shoulder to shoulder with her British allies, who are bloodied but unbowed." They then conclude:

This latest terrorist attack will only succeed in bringing the British and American people closer together. The terrorists' fatal conceit is similar to that of the Kaiser, Hitler, and Stalin: underestimating the power and determination of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. The US-British alliance is a strikingly successful partnership of two great powers built on the solid foundations of a common heritage, culture and vision. The two nations have fought alongside each other in seven major wars in the past 90 years, from the First World War to the second Gulf war. The war on terror is a global conflict that may last for decades but will ultimately be won by the two nations that stand at the forefront of defending freedom and liberty on the world stage.

Quite what inspired this pair to write such sanctimonious drivel is beyond reckoning. But they need only look at the mainstream press, such as the piece in today’s Sunday Times, for a contradiction of their own thesis. There, they would read that one of the first responses to the London bombing has been for Charles Clarke, our Home Secretary, to convene a special meeting on 13 July of EU interior ministers in Brussels to discuss the response to the London outrage. In other words, it is to the European Union rather than the US that the British government is looking.

They might also look at Booker's lead piece in The Sunday Telegraph, where he writes of the galloping Europeanisation of the British armed forces and they could also spend a little time listening to the proceeds of the conference organised by their own Foundation in Washington two weeks ago, where the breakdown of the "special relationship" was discussed.

Not least, they would hear one security expert recount details of incidents where US authorities has passed down intelligence on the whereabouts of terrorists in European cities, only to have the local authorities "buy off" the individuals, rather than taking action against them. This, with the "leakage" of intelligence to non-authorised recipients, and the misuse of the information, has made US intelligence agencies increasingly reluctant to share intelligence with European agencies.

Furthermore, since the UK is immersing itself in EU initiatives, British agencies are increasingly being regarded as untrustworthy, and the flow of intelligence from US sources is drying up. So bad has this situation become that one informed Washington "insider" recently said that, to all intents and purposes, the "special relationship" is already dead.

More crucially, from the point of view of our own domestic security, it is not the international dimension of terrorism that should be our most immediate priority, but what is happening on our own doorstep. Lurching from the ridiculous to the sublime, this is highlighted by the excellent editorial in The Business, which is as good as the Gardiner/Hulsman piece is bad.

Headed “the new thirty years war”, it reminds us that London has become the regional headquarters for Islamo-fascism in Europe. The process is now so advanced that some in European and American security circles even refer to the British capital as "Londonistan". Our capital has become the home to a large number of extremists and hard-line recruiting agents, pouring poison into the ears of susceptible young British Muslims with their hate-filled preaching, seminars, pamphlets, DVDs. Furthermore, it has become the nexus for links to the worst madrassas (religious colleges) of the Middle East and Pakistan.

Last week, says The Business, one American security expert said that Europe had become a "field of Jihad" thanks to Londonistan; and a Spanish MP accused Britain of having become "the world's biggest hotbed of radical Islamic thought" (not true: but it is probably the worst hotbed in Europe). The French and Spanish security services regularly express private amazement and anger at Britain's continued toleration of this enemy within.

Then, in Washington, more and more intelligence voices are warning that one of the greatest terrorist threats to America comes not from their own domestic sleeper cells or from immigrants but from British citizens visiting on the Visa Waiver Programme.

And so it goes on. The fact that Abu Hamza al-Masri only went on trial in the Old Bailey last Tuesday, charged with encouraging the murder of non-Muslims, even though he has been known to the security and intelligence services as a threat for years shows how deep the problem - and how inadequate Britain's response to a clear and present danger. His old Mosque in Finsbury Park, North London, has been linked to terrorists as important as Zacarias Moussaoui, who has pleaded guilty to being a 9/11 plotter.

The failure of the government in general and the security services in particular to act earlier is a national scandal which threatens British allies as well as British citizens. For what can only be assumed to be reasons of political correctness the British government has desisted from cracking down hard on domestic terrorist cells and supporters. The result is a list of prominent terrorists who are also British citizens as long as your arm. This not only includes Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber who almost managed to blow up a plane in 2001; but:

...Saajid Badat, who pleaded guilty earlier this year of plotting to use another shoe bomb device in late 2001; Ahmed Omar Sheik, who orchestrated the 2002 beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl; the suicide bombers who destroyed a jazz club near the US embassy in Israel in 2003; Abu Issa al-Hindi, one of 12 suspects arrested last year, accused by the US of being involved in the surveillance of key targets, including the International Monetary Fund; Abu Doha, held in Belmarsh prison and fighting extradition to the US for allegedly plotting to bomb Los Angeles airport. Many more leading terrorists or suspected terrorists have made London their base: Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri and Umar Abd al-Hakim, alleged ringleader of the Spanish attacks, lived there in the 1990s (and perhaps more recently); he is wanted by the US, which has slapped a bounty on his head.

When terrorists killed 58 tourists in Egypt in 1997, Cairo issued a list of 14 people accused of inspiring the attacks. Half lived in London; none was handed over. Mohamed Guerbouzi, who has been sentenced in his absence to a 20-year prison sentence in Morocco over his alleged involvement in a suicide bomb campaign, is thought to have been living in the UK for a decade.

In April, Kamel Bourgass was jailed for murdering a British policeman and plotting poison attacks with ricin produced in a makeshift laboratory in a British flat. Three other men are fighting extradition to Spain from a London prison. Dozens of highly suspect characters have claimed asylum in the UK, protected by the human rights industry, which rallies to their cause at every turn, easily intimidating a Blair government from doing its proper job of defending the realm from those that would do it harm. Because even suspected mass murders cannot be sent back to countries where there is a death penalty or where they cannot be assured fair trials, the government has repeatedly turned down extradition requests from countries such as Egypt or Algeria; even requests from the US have been refused because it has the death penalty

Add to this list of home-grown terrorist the many preachers of hate at large in Britain, some of them based in a handful of extremist Mosques, others using the internet and pamphlets to indoctrinate impressionable and alienated youths, calling for a jihad against the West, applauding 9/11 (and now 7/7 no doubt) and even recruiting young people to go and fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. One preacher, Abu Qatada, who was freed from detention this year, is believed to be the spiritual head of al Qaeda in Europe (yes, he was freed - thanks to the clamour of the human rights' lobby and a deeply-flawed judgement by the Law Lords).

Remember, says The Business, this rollcall of shame the next time some British security or intelligence jobsworth tells you that Britain is in the forefront of the fight against Islamic terror. Ask them how that squares with London's fully-deserved and shameful reputation as a haven for international Islamic terrorists. The time for a massive crackdown on those in Britain who promote Islamo-fascism and call for mass murder is long overdue.

Yet, what do we get? Little Clarke poncing off to Brussels to discuss "security co-operation" with his EU "colleagues" who, according to Deutsche Welle are only too keen to build another tranche of institutions and bring our more laws to counter the threat of terrorism.

One cannot help but think that Clarke would be better employed spending his time at home, attending to the manifest deficiencies in the British response, on the basis that, like charity, security begins at home. And, if he has any spare time, he would be advised to go to Washington and try to rebuild the "special relationship", if it is not already beyond repair.

Sooner or later we pay

It is an interesting coincidence (or, perhaps, not) that the London bombings occurred just as we are preparing to remember the tenth anniversary of the biggest single massacre in Europe since 1945: Srebrenice. That word has entered the roll-call of shame in European history and is one of the many dark blots on the UN’s score card.

Just to remind our readers: In 1993, in the midst of the brutal war in Bosnia, Srebrenice, a Muslim town whose population had increased because of Bosniaks (Muslim Bosnians) fleeing from other parts of the country or being forcibly “cleansed” from their homes, became the first UN-guarded "safe" enclave.

One condition the UN forces, whose track-record in that war left a great deal to be desired, tried to impose is that complete disarming of the Bosniaks. This was not entirely successful and there were various skirmishes.

The main role of the UN troops in various parts of Bosnia seemed to be to be taken hostage by the Serb army and militia and the release of those hostages was predicated on no air strikes. That may well have been part of the reason for the events of June-July 1995.

Radko Mladic’s troops surrounded Srebrenice, which was “protected” by 600 Dutch peace keepers. They were supposed to have requested air protection but this was not forthcoming. In effect the peacekeepers abandoned the population of Srebrenice, many of whom tried to escape and were shot as they did so.

The most horrific development followed in July, when men and boys aged 14 and above were separated from the rest of the population and marched off. With the exception of one or two survivors they were never seen again.

Their bodies were, though. They had all been shot and recently discovered video tapes have given chilling evidence of the brutality of those killings.

The whole sequence of events caused a good deal of anguish in the Netherlands, where there was an enquiry and the government resigned in the wake of a damning report. The UN, as expected, just shrugged the whole episode off.

The Srebrenice massacre was the worst episode in what was a peculiarly nasty war during which Yugoslavia fell apart. Throughout the various manifestations: short war in Slovenia, a rather longer one in Croatia and the long and brutal one in Bosnia, the EU and the member states effectively supported Milosevic and the Serb government.

From the very beginning of the disintegration (1989) the EC, as it then was, assured the Americans gleefully that they should not interfere. As the Luxembourg Foreign Minister, the egregious Jacques Poos, put it: “This is Europe’s hour.”

And a very dark hour it was, too.

The European countries stuck to the arms embargo, which guaranteed that the Serbian army had supremacy in arms, as it simply took over whatever the Yugoslav army had had.

It was worse than that. The EC for several years maintained, as the conflict raged, that Yugoslavia must stay together as a federal state. The leaders were, of course, in the throes of turning the EC into the EU, another federal state and they did not take kindly to the fact that both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were disintegrating.

It was not until 1992 that Slovenia and Croatia were recognized as separate countries at the insistence of Germany, which had broken ranks with the other EC member states, who were busy working out a common foreign policy at the expense of the people of former Yugoslavia.

This did not, incidentally, start the war, which had been raging in Croatia for several months before that. By the time of the recognition, Vukovar had been bombed to smithereens and when the city was taken, the notorious Arkan’s irregular forces cleansed it thoroughly.

The Serb army retreated from Croatia and, effectively, handed over its arms to the Bosnian Serb militia. In an EC-supervised referendum the Bosnians voted for independence and in April 1992 it was recognized as such by the EC.

And then? And then the EC, which transmogrified into the EU, did nothing while the Serb army and various militias conducted a war of attrition. The arrival of UN troops did not mitigate the situation as my account at the beginning indicates.

Calls for the lifting of the arms embargo were rejected, among others by the then Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, who wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph, explaining that it would be a bad idea to have “level killing fields”. That phrase probably marks the nadir of British foreign policy and diplomacy.

Mr Hurd, incidentally, on retiring from politics and taking up an exalted postion with NatWest, returned to Serbia with the intention of negotiating a loan to Slobodan Milosevic.

These sorry events have come back to haunt us, not just because of the anniversary of Srebrenice but because of the fact, mentioned by Mark Steyn in an article on Friday, that many of the British and European Muslims who have been involved in recent terrorist activity, were radicalized by the events in Bosnia.

As far as these young men were concerned, the Bosnian Muslims had been abandoned to their fate by the Europeans. Ironically, of course, it was eventually the Americans leading a NATO contingent who imposed some kind of order in the region and stopped the bloodletting.

The Europeans, on the other hand, who now posture as the friends of Islam, stood back and even aided Milosevic.

Mark Steyn is not entirely accurate in his assertion that nobody could have predicted that the events of Bosnia would radicalize Muslims in many parts of Europe. Not only did some people realize the danger but they wrote about it at the time. We paid no attention. Now we are paying in another coin.

Booker is back

Following the loss of the column last week, displaced by a "souvenir edition" on the Live8 concert, Booker is back with a vengeance, this week leading with a story on European defence integration.

The issues raised, however, will be entirely familiar to Blog readers, having been rehearsed last week in this blog. However, given that the MSM seems to have almost given up reporting on defence issues, Booker's coverage – which focuses on the hike in the costs of FRES, from £6 to £14 billion - is both timely and necessary.

Booker also manages to raise the issue of the Panther and also the purchase of German trucks for the British Army.

Frankly, I find it worrying how little attention is given to these defence issues for, even if there is no interest in the hardware and the broader political implications, the government is commiting to enormous expenditure. As Booker points out, the procurement cost for FRES now equates to £600 for every taxpayer in the country.

Furthermore, as we pointed out, the system originally involved 900 vehicles with a total "lifetime cost" over 30 years of £49 billion. Booker last week asked the MoD for the "lifetime cost" of the 3,500 vehicles now proposed (which pro rata should be over £100 billion), but they failed to reply.

In what must rank as one of the most bizarre events in the history of British defence policy, therefore, Booker observes that what makes it even more startling are the lengths to which our Government seems to be going to hide all this from view. Mind you, the way the media is behaving, they need not have bothered.

Booker's second story is a weird tale about a Dorset village funeral director – OT for this blog, but worth a read. Story three is an update on the Lindstrand HiFlyer and the struggle to get it certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the fourth story points out that there was unhappiness recently when, in the Solent, the Queen had to review the fleet from a "bus shelter" perched on top of the Antarctic survey ship Endurance.

To provide her with a new Royal Yacht would have cost £60 million, observes Booker. This equates to two days-worth of Britain's £11.5 billion a year payments into the EU budget – or less than 15 of the Army's new FRES vehicles.

Smoke and mirrors

It would perhaps be a little too cynical to suggest that one "silver lining" to emerge from the London bombing is that media coverage of the G8 summit has been somewhat truncated. Even then, the Google news service yields some 2,564 related stories from a "G8" search.

Predictably, the main players are spinning like mad, to put as positive a gloss on the affair as they can, reflected in the coverage in The Times, which headlines: "Blair backs G8's 'big progress' on poverty and Aids."

Clearly, though, "environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners" are not so happy, and have already begun to condemn the summit as a failure, claiming that Blair has failed to live up to expectations he had created. But none seem to be as outspoken as Peter Hardstaff, the head of policy at the World Development Movement. He declared that: "The final communiqué is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of campaigners who listened in good faith to the world leaders' claim that they were willing to seriously address poverty in Africa."

Perhaps the strongest condemnation, though, was unintended, with South Africa’s Independent online reporting that: "Low-key Bush gets what he wanted at G8 summit". That, of course – for most campaigners – is the kiss of death. In the demonology of the age, anything which satisfies Bush must automatically be wrong.

More interestingly, the London bombing, in political terms, seems to have backfired, in that it allowed Bush to push the "war against terrorism" up the agenda and to side-track attention from the twin issues of aid for Africa and climate change.

Nonetheless, the view is that Bush gave just enough leeway to these two "delicate" subjects to allow Blair to claim a victory. Thus, he formally recognised that: "Climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe" and doffed his cap to Kyoto, although still asserting that "uncertainties remain in our understanding of climate science".

On aid to Africa, Bush had announced before the summit a $1.2 billion plan to fight malaria, promising to double the $4.3 billion of US aid to $8.6 billion by 2010. Washington did not want precise figures to be written into the G8 declaration but finally agreed that the G8 and "other donors" would commit to increasing aid to Africa by $25 billion by 2010 double that of 2004, giving a figure for the headline writers of $50 billion.

Even then, campaigners has dismissed this "doubling of global aid to $50 billion" as a "statistical illusion" – which it probably is – leaving Blair in the uncomfortable but familiar position of defending a deal that relies more on smoke and mirrors than substance.

Other "touchy-feely" promises include debt relief for the poorest countries, a commitment to Aids treatment for all, immunisation against polio and other killer diseases and an extra 20,000 trained troops for a peace-keeping force for Africa. But, to illustrate quite how wispy the agreement really is, "African leaders" promised in turn to "promote democracy, the rule of law, human rights and an end to corruption." Yeah… and the pigs are lining up for take-off at Harare Airport.

One of the least substantial commitments, however, is a promise to end agricultural exports subsidies, the lie given to the promise by the inability (or refusal) of the G8 leaders to give a date for their cessation.

According to Reuters, they also renewed their political backing for a further phase of trade liberalisation under the so-called Doha Round of negotiations by the end of next year. Understandably, trade analysts in Geneva, home to the WTO, said they doubted the G8 declaration would have much impact on the negotiations and, sadly, they are probably right.

Adriano Campolina Soares of ActionAid accused Bush and the EU of playing "a cynical game of bluff." "The U.S. has no intention of giving up or lowering the massive subsidies it gives to cotton farmers, that are forcing 10 million farmers in West Africa out of business," she said.

Still, at least The Times has got some measure of the beast, with an authored article by Michael Holman, former Africa Editor of the Financial Times. Headed, "Welcome to the aid business," he notes that: "Business is booming for NGOs in Africa while skilled Africans leave to work abroad," asking, "Is the aid business contributing to Africa's problems rather than solving them?"

As Africa's crisis has deepened and its problems have multiplied, he writes:

…so the number of foreign NGOs has risen. There were a few hundred in the 1960s. There are thought to be well over 25,000 today, their staff swelling the continent's army of outsiders. And they don't come cheap. An estimated $4bn is spent annually on recruiting some 100,000 expatriates.

The result is that there are more foreigners in Africa than there were at independence, some five decades ago. They are helping to run everything from ministries to mines, working as behind-the-scenes policy makers or performing heroics on the front line in the battle against poverty. This in itself need not be cause for concern, were it not for another statistic: as foreigners arrive to take up short term contracts, skilled Africans are leaving, in their droves, to work abroad - some 70,000 a year.

There are grounds for challenging the role of NGOs in one of Africa's most encouraging developments in recent years, adds Holman: the growth of civil society.

Far from being in the vanguard of two policy shifts reluctantly introduced by African governments, many foreign NGOs have played only a modest part: the deregulation of state controlled TV and radio, and the privatisation of the telecommunication sector. More information became available, and mobile phone ownership soared.

But for the most part NGOs are still rooted in an ideological past, fighting battles on African soil which have been long lost at home, in which privatisation, profit and the private sector are treated with deep suspicion.

Holman believes this adds up to a prima facie case for an independent inquiry which would help provide the answer to a critical question: should the people who will be rattling their collection boxes in Gleneagles be sharing in the credit for persuading the world to respond to Africa's needs? Or should they be sharing the blame for the continent's development disaster?

On this blog, I do not think we would have any difficulty in framing our answer.

Pass the sickbag

[Health warning: This will be another seriously angry posting. Some of our readers do not like it when I get angry. They might not want to go on reading.]

Naturally enough, the fragrant Commissar has had to get in on the act. Her latest posting has astonished even me, used as I am to the shamelessness of the Commissariat.

After some incredibly trite comment about the way an ordinary morning in London was transformed by horror, she tells us what she and her colleagues did in response. Yes, indeed, they

“… met at the Schuman roundabout for a few minutes together in silence to show our solidarity with people in the UK and to demonstrate against violence and terrorism.”

And there is a picture to prove it.

I am glad I know that. It makes me feel a whole lot better. I am also glad that the people who are watching by their relatives’ bedside, mourning the dead or still frantically searching for people, do not know about this utterly nauseating self-promotion.

It is quite difficult to work out what upsets her most. It seems that the terrorists chose to attack London, “a city full of innocent people from all over the world” on the day the G8 was meeting “to talk about Africa and climate change”.

I don’t know about the fragrant Commissar’s experience but I have always assumed that most cities were full of innocent people and where they are from is irrelevant. This comment ranks on a par with Hizonner’s about the attack being on ordinary working class Londoners.

As for the nonsense about the G8 meeting, we have already heard Prime Minister Blair on the subject. It seems a terrorist attack is that much worse if it takes away attention from politicians' blathering.

Are these people incapable of talking in a straightforward manner? Do they have to waffle inanities?

Then comes dear Margot’s pièce de résistance. Before telling us with almost audible Peksniffian sniffs (I seem to refer to that worthy gentleman rather a lot) that this is not a day for politics, she finds it necessary to … well, talk about politics, I suppose.

“Some of you have asked me what issues require cross-border and inter-institutional cooperation. Fighting terrorism is at least one. Next week the Commission will discuss concrete measures like trans-border police cooperation, improved rapid crisis reaction and also how to prevent recruitment of terrorists.”

Apart from the total shamelessness of using a terrible tragedy in this way for her own political agenda, this shows remarkable ignorance.

Does the fragrant one really think that there is not trans-border co-operation without the say-so of the Commission? Does she not know that Spanish police officers who had worked on the Madrid bombing are in London to help their British colleagues?

Has she not noticed that police officers from all over the world, not just the blessed European Union, fly to each others’ assistance as and when their specialist knowledge is required?

Or does she think that the London emergency services would have reacted better and faster had they been reporting to an EU committee headed by the Justice and Security Commissar or the anti-terrorist "czar"?

But that is not what she means. It is not trans-border co-operation she wants but an integrated police and legal system, run by her and her colleagues with her ghastly little minions doing the work.

As I put on my comment, I can’t wait to hear the bleating her minions and stageurs, including the Moderator, who does not moderate but responds to the comments, will emit on this subject.

The rest of us will have to go on experiencing serious nausea.

The most futile referendum in history?

At the very least, the most futile in the history of the EU – that is one of the options considered by The Times today, which reviews the campaign which will lead to the Luxembourg referendum on Sunday.

Like other media reports (for example, this one from the BBC) it focuses on Jean-Claude Juncker and his threat to resign if he does not get a "yes" vote. But if Luxembourg does say "no", even Juncker will admit that the constitution will be dead.

Until recently, the idea that Luxembourg could reject an EU treaty was risible, although there were signs of sentiment turning as early as 1 June, immediately after the French referendum.

Despite his failure at the European Council to broker an EU budget settlement, Juncker – 11 years prime minister of Luxembourg – remains popular in the Duchy, although his threat to resign has not gone down well, and is seen by some as blackmail.

A satirical website is urging voters to take him at his word and to treat the referendum question as: "Do you want Juncker to resign?", and vote "yes", which would have course have the opposite effect.

According to The Times, though, Lucien Kayser, one of Luxembourg's most respected intellectuals, has pleaded in an open letter to Juncker not to take voters hostage. "Let them have a really free choice on what they are being asked," he writes.

There are local – unreported – indications that Juncker is taking his plea to heart. According to reports from observers on the ground, Juncker has been touring the 999 square mile Duchy (less than twice the area of Greater London), arguing that a "yes" vote is needed to restore the honour of the country, and make up for the failed European Council.

There are some indications that this approach might be succeeding, although in the absence of any polls for a month, the most commentators are prepared to concede is that the vote will be close.

However, rallies organised by the "no" camp have been well attended – where a message similar to that offered in France is being rehearsed - while the major political parties - which all back a "yes" vote - have struggled to attract big crowds.

If Luxembourg does support the constitution, Juncker insists that the entire project would be brought back to life. "In the case that Luxembourg did say 'yes', this could be the signal that the process is still alive," he says.

He is getting some support from Karel de Gucht, the Belgian foreign minster, who is demanding that France and the Netherlands should be made to vote again. "We can create a climate in which the treaty could finally be adopted in France and the Netherlands. We have to proceed with a second vote," he says.

Luxembourg foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, agrees that a "yes" vote will send a "positive signal" to the rest of the EU. Recorded by the AFX agency, he says he wants "to ensure that Luxembourg does not become the constitution's undertaker."

The media are offering mixed messages. Laurent Moyse, editor of La Voix du Luxembourg newspaper, says that the government is trying to remind people of the gains the country has made from the EU: "The main message is that Luxembourg has gained from Europe and cannot go against it now," he says.

By contrast, the co-editor of the Luxembourg political and cultural monthly Forum, Jürgen Stoldt told Le Monde in an interview that: "the European Constitution is dead and buried. Even if the European Council on 16 and 17 June did not officially put an end to the ratification process, the treaty has no more than historical value."

Nonetheless Luxembourgers will be out in force on Sunday, attending the polling stations. On this, they have no choice. Futile or not, voting is compulsory.

Hartz and Mindz?

I couldn't resist the pun, particularly recalling the late president Johnson's quip during the Vietnam War era, when he is alleged to have said, "when you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will soon follow".

Well, it seems the German media has got scandal-ridden Volkswagen by the balls, and personnel chief Peter Hartz, at least, has followed – offering to resign following reports that he had allowed senior member of the works council to use company funds for overseas "jollies", prostitutes and – in one case – to build a house for his mistress.

According to Bloomberg, Hartz is offering to fall on his sword in order to preserve the carmaker's tattered reputation, saying. "It is self-evident that I now must take responsibility for the events that have happened in my area of supervision and suffer the consequences."

Interestingly, this news was not at all badly received by the markets. Shares of Volkswagen in Frankfurt rose 88 cents, or 2.3 percent, to €38.78, valuing Volkswagen at €15.6 billion.

But the political fall-out from this affair can hardly be over-estimated, as the company is under criminal investigation, while Peter Hartz remains pre-eminent as Schöder's principal advisor on economic reforms. Putting it in context, the relationship between Schröder and Hartz is roughly analogous to that between Margaret Thatcher and professor Alan Walters.

In 2002, Hartz led a government panel that recommended labour-policy changes for Schröder to spur economic growth and reduce unemployment by half by 2005 (See here). The latter part of the programme – known as Hartz IV came into force on 1 January of this year, sparking widespread demonstrations - the so-called new Monday demonstrations - while the unemployment rate increased, from 9.8 percent in June 2002 to 11.7 percent last month.

Schröder is still standing by his man, saying that Hartz "deserves, without doubt, credit for his innovative wage policy," and official federal government spokesmen are refusing to comment on Hartz's offer to resign. However, as new revelations are appearing daily in the German media, it is hard to see how Schröder can avoid being dragged down by the scandal. The media has got his Hartz, and the German voters' "mindz" can only follow.

Do as I say…

Guardian of the environment, Stavros Dimas, the Greek EU commissioner was waxing lyrical about his portfolio to MEPs in the EU parliament at Strasbourg, earlier this week, making a lofty declaration about the "Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution".

We should remember, he said, "that Environment is one area that Europeans consistently support and where they see clear value in Community action. Action in the field of air pollution will have direct benefits for the European citizens."

It is a pity, however, that his own colleagues in the Greek government do not seem to share his exalted values. Not two days later, according to Kathimerini, the ECJ found Greece guilty of failing to take adequate measures to protect the environment from the pollution caused by an electricity plant on the island of Crete.

The court agreed with the EU commission that Greece had breached EU guidelines by not preparing or implementing policies that allow for the plant to adjust to the best available technology. The electricity plant is located at Linoperasmata and is owned by the Public Power Corporation (PPC).

Although the court recognized that Greece had taken some steps to reduce pollution created by the plant, it said the country did not have a complete strategy in place. It rejected Greece’s excuse that it cost too much to make the electricity plant more environmentally friendly, saying that the economic condition of PPC, which has 6.7 million customers, did not support this argument.

Still, at least there is the consolation that: "Environment is one area that Europeans consistently support".

Beware the bicycle shed

Not for the first time – but probably in common with many of our readers – I am struggling to make sense of recent events, and am finding it difficult to marshal my thoughts into a coherent order.

Somewhere in the kaleidoscope is the observation that, possibly for the first time in its history, The Daily Telegraph carried less news on its front page than The Sun. Both carried full-page photographs illustrating aspects of yesterday's carnage, but The Sun also carried a short paragraph of text. Presumably the editorial staff of The Telegraph thought their readers were not up to the task of actually looking at words, and we were treated to a full colour photograph adorned only by a headline.

It would be churlish, however, to argue with the editorial judgement which dictated that virtually the whole newspaper should be turned over to the events in London, except that it should go on record that it was page 26 before the paper thought fit to print anything else, and then one of the three stories – and the larger of the three – was on the Chanel fashion house.

This would not be so bad if saturation coverage was the rare exception but, by a curious combination of circumstances, we have been treated to just such coverage for the best part of a week, with Live8 followed by the Olympics followed by this dreadful bombing.

What in the population is so often derided – the phenomenon of the "single issue group" - is now becoming the province of the media which now, it seems, are able only to concentrate on one issue at a time, and then to "do it to death" in a way that readers tire quickly of the coverage, whence the media drop the issue as fast as they espoused it, never to follow through.

It is not wholly untoward, therefore, to suggest that The Telegraph editors, and media people in general, read the column written by Patrick Bishop, headed: "Remember that normality is the only civilised response to terror".

Bishop advances the sad but obvious thesis that yesterday proved that the security services are unable to defend the public, all along Baldwin's line that "the bomber will always get through". But he then offers the realistic and in a way uplifting observation that, "The dead will be buried, the injured will heal and life will go on," but adding the caution that: "Normality is the only civilised response to terror. That is something that the terrorists will never understand. That is why they will strike again."

Most certainly, they will strike again – although not necessarily in London as their next target, but the words to emphasise are: "life will go on". Life must go on, as near normal as possible, and that injunction must also apply to the media, who are in great danger of losing the plot.

In his book, Northcote-Parkinson – he of Parkinson's Law – wrote of a scenario where a planning committee in a small rural authority was presented with two items on its agenda – a nuclear power station and a bicycle shed. Because members were all familiar with the latter and knew nothing of the former, virtually the whole session was spend on animated discussion of the shed and, in the last few remaining moments of the session, the nuclear power station was passed "on the nod".

Without being too critical of today's coverage, therefore – as the events were truly exceptional (one hopes) - we must be conscious of the danger of a "single issue media" which spends so much time on headline issues that it ignores the more mundane events – many of which have greater long-term impact on our lives. The danger is that while the the media are focusing on their versions of the "bicycle shed", the "nuclear power stations" are going though without notice.

It would be comforting – but also self-deluding – to say that this is where the Blogs come in, except that, even collectively, our readership is still minuscule. On what was a good day, by recent experience, yesterday we took 1,700 hits. The BBC website took 1.7 million. Others of the MSM took similar numbers.

On that basis, it is still vital that the media remain focused, because – whether they recognise it or not - life does go on. While they indulge in an orgy of introspection, absorbed in those issues which they find so fascinating, a lot else is happening. Perhaps, unlikely though it may be, we should hope that some media moguls would have the sense to pin this warning on their office walls: "Beware the bicycle shed".

West London

I am delighted to inform our readers (many of whom will perhaps not be all that delighted to hear this) that all the Muslim owned shops, cafes and restaurants in this corner of West London were open last night and doing excellent business, helped by the fact that many, though not all, of the chain supermarkets, bars and cafes were closed.

The reason for the latter must have been staff shortages or worry how the late evening shift would get home. Otherwise, one would have to conclude that they were not showing the proper spirit.

Actually, they lost rather a lot of money. Bombs or no bombs, we in West London want to do our shopping at nine o'clock in the evening because we did not get round to it before. That’s just the way it is.

It seems that Muslims around here did not really obey the instructions to stay at home but, on the other hand, there seemed to be nobody after threir blood either. The mosque round the corner was quiet and the North Africans were drinking their coffee and discussing football as usual.

This rather unexpected situation did not develop because we are particularly dopey (well, actually, some of us are, but we'll draw a veil over that) but because most people understand quite clearly that the waiters in the Lebanese restaurant or the Moroccan café or the cashiers in the Pakistani shop (that bears an Arabic name for good business reasons) have little to do with the murderous thugs who planted those bombs.

The pubs and bars are full and those that decided to close early have missed out on the usual evening bonanza. (If any Al-Qaeda operative is reading this: hey guys, you are not going to stop us going out.)

I must admit the streets do seem a tad quieter than usual. It maybe a reaction to the shock or it maybe due to the fact that many people are very tired having spent hours not getting to work today.

Tomorrow will probably be quiet as well, especially as the transport situation remains unclear. (Well, that is nothing unusual in London but this time it will be more unclear that the norm.)

In fact I did not realize how tense, emotional and triumphant the situation is until I got home and read some of the American websites, all of whom salute the British spirit and are certain that we shall overcome. Thanks guys.

Somebody on the National Review blog quoted the song "There'll always be an England" and the latest Heritage Foundation paper talks of the British bulldog rising to the challenge. I am not sure bulldogs rise to anything, being rather barrel-chested and much more likely to sink their teeth into somebody's calf, but it is a nice thought.

The paper goes on to extol the virtues of the Anglo-American alliance, maintaining that it will go from strength to strength. Those of our readers who have been following our postings on defence might have noted that the alliance is being sundered by many cuts and the fact that Britain is unlikely to follow Spain's example after the bombs is not so important from that point of view.

I do fear that today's events may have raised Tony Blair's standing in American eyes. This may result in unnecessary agreements from President Bush tomorrow at Gleneagles, but fortunately the most important one, Kyoto is not in his gift. The Senate has to decide and it did vote the whole shebang out once already.

Let us also hope that President Bush will not depart from his line on aid and the need for democracy in Africa either.

However, we may no longer be able to explain to our American friends just exactly what Tony Blair is doing in his dealings with the European Union. One can but hope that as the dust dies down on today's appalling tragedy, political clarity will assert itself.

And that, dear readers, is that. Unless something dramatic happens overnight or in the morning (and one hopes it will not happen), normal service will resume. In the well known words: "That's enough bombs. Ed."

Spitting images

The Prague Daily Monitor conjures up some rather graphic images in describing a recent meeting between Czech prime minister Jiri Paroubek and former president Vaclav Havel.

According to the paper, they enjoyed a private lunch in a Prague pub on Tuesday, held to agree their positions on the EU and the EU constitution. "We mostly discussed the EU. Our opinions are identical, including those concerning the EU constitution," Paroubek said.

Havel supported the continuation of the ratification process, saying that: "We'd spit in our own face if we halted the process all of a sudden." Amplifying that remark, he went on to declare: "Not to hold it… would amount to spitting on our own signature. I think that it should continue."

No information was given as to how Havel could in any case achieve what at first sight seems impossible – spitting in his own face - although I guess you do it upwind in a stiff breeze. But that would then make spitting on his own signature a tad difficult, unless an alternative venue was chosen. However, the whole process sounds so laborious that you can understand why Havel thinks it's much better just to ratify the damn constitution.

However, the very live president Vaclav Klaus thinks the constitution is a dead document, so spitting on the signature would be rather like spitting on someone's grave – which is somewhat uncouth and therefore undesirable.

But equally undesirable, if not impossible, is trying to resuscitate a rotting corpse. Never mind though - Havel has the answer. Even if the constitution is postponed, he says, that will not stop European integration, which is "fortunately a train moving too fast for anyone to stop it." If that is the case, though, both Havel and Paroubek are only spitting on the people - a much easier option.

This is all they needed

With its economy already in deep mire, the last thing the Germany needs is a major corruption scandal involving Volkswagen, one of its largest and most prestigious carmakers. Yet, that is precisely what is happening. And, with Schröder already weak in the polls, a financial scandal that taints him is also exceedingly unwelcome.

After numerous rumours that something was amiss, the story itself broke late last month, which had Deutsche Welle on 1 July headlining: "VW Faces Bribery Scandal". Then, it was reported that the head of the general works council at Volkswagen had stepped down in the midst of an alleged bribery scandal.

This was a figure largely unknown in Britain, Klaus Volkert, who had been head of VW's general works council – one of the most powerful councils in Germany - since 1990. He also sat on the company's supervisory board and, in the 1990s, he was involved in the introduction of the four-day week in VW.

Yet, at the age of 62, he announced told workers he was resigning "due to reasons of age", which did nothing to dispel rumours that he was leaving his post in connection with a bribery scandal at VW's Skoda unit involving Skoda's former head of personnel, Helmut Schuster.

Suspicions were reinforced when Der Spiegel reported that internal auditors at VW were looking into allegations that Volkert and Schuster had been involved in a company that had been bidding to win a contract from Skoda. Schuster, who had already resigned in May, was being investigated by prosecutors on allegations he had received bribes from potential suppliers.

CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder immediately promised a full investigation of the allegations against other VW employees and complete cooperation with the judiciary. However, then the German economic magazine, Wirtschaftwoche, pitched in. It claimed that the Skoda bribery scandal had much wider implications and that Volkert's resignation was by no means the end of the affair. The magazine also claimed that certain politicians, including the former president of Lower Saxony, Sigmar Gabriel, and Schröder, were aware of the wrongdoings in the Skoda unit.

By 5 June, Deutsche Welle was reporting that the scandal was deepening, as accusations kept piling up. The company was also reportedly putting certain expansion plans on ice while rumours of further resignations abounded.

Amongst the new accusations was the claim that VW staff had set up a global network of six front companies to get supply contracts, and that former staff had sought "kickbacks" for work in India and Angola. German newspapers had been reporting that the scandal had caused VW chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder to postpone making a decision on the planned construction of a new factory in India, as well as an assembly plant in Angola.

Then, the German state of Lower Saxony called for investigators to get to the bottom of the allegations and VW called in auditors KPMG to review the matter. "There apparently was criminal energy at work and that's why it is very important that the audit runs parallel to the investigations of the Brunswick state prosecutor's office," said Lower Saxony economics minister, Walter Hirche, also a member of VW's supervisory board.

For Lower Saxony, the issue was doubly embarrassing as the länd owns around 18 percent of Volkswagen and now the magazine Wirtschaftswoche was claiming that the works council chief, Klaus Volkert was simply the "tip of the iceberg". More resignations - including that of VW's head of personnel and overseer of the German government's economic reforms, Peter Hartz - would follow.

Joining in the fray came Reuters, citing VW as declining to discuss a report by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the company for years had offered improper inducements to senior labour representatives in return for their support on key issues.

Then The Financial Times Deutschland came into play, citing a "press source" claiming that Peter Hartz had ordered a budget to be allocated to the works council, partly for business travel, but that use of the budget had not been controlled. The newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung was more graphic, accusing Volkswagen's management board of paying for "pleasure trips" to Brazil and other countries, which included visits to prostitutes, for the leaders of the works council.

Hartz was reported to have clearly instructed the human resources department to support works council head Klaus Volkert in the organisation of foreign travel, and not to examine whether the journeys were necessary for the functions of the works council. A management source has said that, furthermore, this budget "was not controlled subsequently in the course of the provision of accounts."

Coming right up to date, Die Welt is reporting that German prosecutors are focusing their attention on a VW plant project in India, suggesting that an unnamed VW employee received about €3 million from the Indian city of Visakhapatnam in the province of Andra Pradesh, where VW had planned to set up a factory for trucks and buses. At that time, the province was one of several competing as a site for the VW project, the newspaper said.

This had the New York Times (from this site), reminding us that Schröder had once sat on Volkswagen's supervisory board and, with the company "up to its axles in a bribery and corruption scandal", this could harm the chancellor's election plans.

Not least, the "VW affair" has become fodder in Germany's heated political debate with the Christian Democrats seizing on the issue as typifying Germany's dangerously outdated industrial policies. Whether true or not, the scandal is set to dominate the headlines in Germany for months to come, right into the autumn when the German general election is expected to be held.

Have they no shame?

Via Bloomberg, we learn that the EU is drafting a "rapid response" plan to cope with terrorist attacks like today's London bombings.

This is from EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini who says the commission will next week outline "a proposal for a terrorism-related rapid response mechanism, enabling the EU to respond more efficiently and in a coordinated way to terrorist attacks such as happened today."

Have these people no shame? The dead are not even buried and here we have the commission exploiting the incident. All it is to them is yet another example of the "beneficial crisis".

Update

For those of our readers who are not following the news as intently as we are, the latest figures are 37 dead and about 700 injured, though not all of the latter seriously.

According to the BBC website there were 35 fatalities in the tube and 2 on that bus. If the latter is accurate it is surprising, given the state of the bus. But one must not grumble. Let us hope that the figures are accurate.

It is no help to those who have died, lost relatives or are injured or whose friends and relatives are injured to say that it could have been much much worse. But it could. And it may be yet.

While the emergency planning has been extremely good (then again, as I have said before, we have had some experience), questions will be asked about intelligence reports and how solid any information was.

Ever since 2001 we have been warned in almost hysterical terms on a weekly basis that there will be an attack any minute but when it came, the tale of the boy who cried wolf sprang to mind.

No doubt there will be an enquiry into intelligence and security, though, to be completely honest, there can be no full security on the transport, as the Israelis found.

And, of course, when the perpetrators are tracked down as we all sincerely hope they will be, we shall see how many of them are recent immigrants, how many third or fourth generation, ill served by our education system and how many converts to Islam.

The meek shall inherit the earth

While the dreadful news pours in from London, life must go on. To take any other view is to give into these terrorist scum.

Not quite in the same league (and many might take exception to me implying even the slightest of parallels) but scum nevertheless in their own domain, are the judges of the so-called European Court of Justice, and the various officials and EU commissioners involved in the Dorte Schmidt-Brown case, the latest twist of which was reported by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard yesterday.

Dorte Schmidt-Brown is, of course, the lady who lifted the lid off the Eurostat scandal, where upwards of £3 million of taxpayers' money was diverted into illegal accounts in a scam described as a "vast enterprise of looting" by investigators. So far, no Eurostat official has been punished for the diversion of the money and all the accused - mostly French officials - are still working for the EU or have retired with full pensions.

Schmidt-Brown's reward, however, was to be subjected to a campaign of threats and harassment. And, despite the assurance of Neil Kinnock - then commissioner responsible for cleaning up EU corruption – that "whistleblowers" would be properly treated, she was still left to fend for herself when it came to redress, which she sought personally from the European Court of Justice.

Predictably – and it always was predictable – the court not only refused to intercede, it actually ordered her to pay her own costs, which are estimated at several thousand euros.

Equally predictably, MEPs are cited as expressing their "outrage" at her treatment, the name Chris Heaton-Harris, described as "a Tory MEP and leading anti-fraud campaigner", cropping up, as it did in 2002 and again in 2003, when the story also hit the headlines.

Of course, this is always good for the likes of Heaton-Harris, who never knowingly missed an opportunity to get himself in the headlines, and the media wax rich on "whistleblower" stories as a good source of copy. But, when push comes to shove – from bitter personal experience, the bitterness diminished only by the passage of time – one finds that, if you stick your neck out, you are on your own.

Very much in the category: "been there, done that one", my experience came on 14 March 1977 when, as a working environmental health officer, I was also the press officer for the local branch of my professional association. On that day, I had been sent a press release on NHS hospital kitchen hygiene, claiming that a confidential survey carried out by my association showed that hygiene conditions were improving.

This actually contradicted our own experience, at a time when hospital food poisoning was epidemic and NHS hospitals were exempt from the law under the doctrine of "Crown immunity".

By some strange quirk of fate, I then happened on the original (confidential) report, on which the press release was supposedly based, only to find that the actual report said precisely the opposite – that conditions were not only very bad, but had deteriorated. It transpired that senior officials of my association had "done a deal" with the NHS, agreeing to suppress the report in exchange for a "promise" to improve conditions.

We had, in fact, been hearing those "promises" for years and so – as one does – instead of releasing the press release to the media, I published the confidential report, which made the top slot on local television that night and the local media.

The next day, when I went into work as normal, I found the boss waiting outside the lift as I got off at my floor and I was not even allowed to go to my desk. I was suspended. Then fate intervened again, with a food poisoning outbreak in the baby unit of the local hospital, and the story went national. In the full glare of national publicity, the Council was forced to reinstate me. But it was not to last.

Soon, I discovered I was being "monitored". Papers went missing, my work was under extra scrutiny and people I talked to were questioned about what I had said to them. Then, one day I was summonsed to the boss's office, to be accused of discarding official papers instead of progressing them. From the office cleaners later, I discovered that the boss had been waiting behind each night until I had gone, and then going through my waste bin looking for incriminating evidence.

With that, I decided it was time to go - on my own terms while I still could. In the restaurant of a local department store, I crafted my resignation letter with the help of the political editor of the leading evening paper. It went to my boss at exactly the same time as it appeared on the front page of the local evening paper and I had that once-in-a-lifetime buzz of walking up the high street seeing all the newspaper vendor boards proclaiming "health man resigns", knowing it was me.

The next day, though, all those papers were fish and chip wrappers - the day after, not even that. I had kissed goodbye to a job for life and a generous pension to boot. That is the price a whistleblower pays. As for the media, the dogs barked and the caravan moved on. It was no longer news. I was on my own.

That is now something Schmidt-Brown is learning. The media have had their fun and Heaton-Harris has got his name in the newspapers. But for Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, there would not even have been a report on this latest travesty, as it was only the Telegraph that carried to story. She is on her own.

It shouldn't be thus, of course, and if we had an adult media, it would not be. There was a time when newspapers ran serious campaigns and kept worrying away at issues until they were resolved. Now they are part of the entertainment industry.

And Mr Kinnock? He now rejoices in the title Lord Kinnock, enjoying a handsome pension to add to his bank balance already inflated by all the "damages" he has received when his overpriced lawyers found the media had put a foot wrong. But hey! Didn't you know? The meek shall inherit the earth.

We've been here before

I have spent much of the morning answering worried phone calls and e-mails as well as phoning people myself. We Londoners are grateful for people's interest and support. Forgive us for being a little blasé. We have been here before and we like to think that we can cope with bombs and emergencies. And no, I am not talking about the Blitz but the IRA bombing campaign that went on for many years.

Still, this one is horrible in its co-ordination. These bombs were not randomly planted. If you look at the map you will see that there was a carefully worked out plan to cause as much mayhem as possible though, luckily, it seems not as many casualties as was feared at first. We are still holding our breath on that, but it would appear that the early panicky rumours flying around the internet were wrong. (Of course, this may be wrong as well.)

The bombs went off in a line around the City and the West End as people were coming in to work. (In a rather bitter fashion I have to ask myself how the terrorists knew that the trains and lines they selected would actually be working, as several were not this morning as any other morning.)

Apart from the updates on casualties and suchlike, I have been following the statements made by various worthies. The biscuit must go to the Lib-Dim Simon Hughes who said that it was particularly unacceptable to have these bombs the day after we celebrated getting the Olympic Games. Would they have been acceptable otherwise?

Tony Blair, having first said he was staying in Edinburgh, has clearly been told that it might be a good idea to put in an appearance. Not that it matters, but proprieties must be observed and, at least, he has said that we are all united in our determination to defeat terror. One hopes that means we shall not see a Spanish-style caving in, but one can never tell.

Statements condemning the attacks have come from all sources. The G8 leaders have called it barbaric and have vowed to carry on with their meeting. Much as I think it is a waste of time, it is important to carry on with life as far as possible. The alternative is handing the victory over to the terrorists.

I have no doubt tomorrow London Transport will carry on as before with stoppages, faulty trains, non-working points and signals.

Quite priceless comments have come from Singapore. Ken Mills, chief executive of the London bid team has said that he is totally distraught. Well, what a shame. What a good thing people in London, including the emergency services, who deserve nothing but praise, are not distraught.

As for Hizonner, he has surpassed himself. Unable to do his Giuliani act because he is still in Singapore, possibly worried that people might remind him of his friendship with, and taxpayer-funded hospitality to Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who shamelessly praises terrorism and suicide/homicide bombing, Our Ken has come out with a corker of a statement:

I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners.

Right. So, if we find out that most of those killed and injured were middle class or non-Londoners then it will not matter.

Hizonner then went on:

That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it's mass murder. We know what the objective is. They seek to divide London.

Well, no. I don't pretend to know precisely what goes on in these people's minds, not having been all that chummy with terrorists, unlike Hizonner, but I would guess that dividing London is not the primary objective. Killing people, spreading mayhem, trying to frighten Londoners and others in this country, undermining the economy – I can imagine all these thoughts flitting through their diseased brains. But dividing London? Hizonner must get a better scriptwriter.

Charles Clarke has been his usual unimpressive self. How soon will he say that this proves the need for ID cards? Will the Conservatives attack him over that? Let us hope so.

Menawhile, Sir Ian Blair, speaking the first sensible words of his recent career, has asked the media to be careful with their reports and on the whole they have obliged. Only hard facts and reasonable stories are being reported.

Sky News, according to Deutsche Welle, did say that the Army was moving in to restore order in London but if they did, they speedily left because there was nothing to do. There is no disorder in London at the moment. The anarchist battles are in Scotland and even there the police seem to be coping.

I have no doubt the army has moved into a position of readiness, just in case, but that is not the same as restoring order in a city where people are too busy calling each other to find out that they are all right and, if they are at work, wondering how they will get home, to riot.

An anonymous US law enforcement official seems to have stated that there were 40 dead. He wanted to stay anonymous because he had heard this from his British counterparts and no official statement has been made. If this US official does exist and has not been invented by a journalist, he presumably was also told by the British counterparts that they would rather not have news filtering out until there is an official announcement. So what was he thinking of, blabbing to the media like that? If, as I say, he exists.

The Metropolitan Police has now confirmed 33 deaths. You might say that the anonymous US official was not far wrong, but I still maintain he should have kept quiet.

And so to the rumour mill. Looking at some of the websites and e-mail lists, one would think the place has disappeared into a giant crater. Number of casualties are being estimated in their thousands and a complete shut-down of London is described.

I understand from others, who have read more of this rubbish than I have, that conspiracy theories are flying round. Of course, it could not have been Al-Qaeda according to these people, even if some unknown branch of it has claimed responsibility and it bears all the hallmarks of that nasty organization.

It had to be the British/American/Israeli security services for incomprehensible reasons of their own. Well, whatever keeps people happy.

Whoever is responsible (and, I think, we shall find out reasonably soon), London will survive. And all of us will hope that some effort will be made to deal with the actual perpetrators.

We shall be posting updates on the blog as and when it will appear to be necessary.

Bombs in London

Our heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families affected by this barbarous incident.

Now is not the time to make political points but there will undoubtedly be issues which emerge in the aftermath. Helen is safe and will be posting shortly on her immediate reactions.

Not really talking Turkey

Back in January, when I attended the Euromoney plc conference on EU enlargement in Vienna, one of the most interesting statements was made by the high-ranking representative of the ruling party in Turkey.

He explained to his listeners that what many people in his country valued was the process of becoming more European and acquiring European standards. The attempt to negotiate a membership of the EU was part of that process but if the aim was not achieved it did not matter all that much.

This curious but, in many ways, logical argument surfaced in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Europe [subscription only]. While “the majority of Turks remain committed to EU membership”, writes Dan Bilefsky, there is a growing “scepticism”. (Presumably, Mr Bilefsky feels that anyone who is doubtful of the EU is a eurosceptic.)

The feeling that, perhaps, membership of the EU is not absolutely essential, as long as Turkey acquires some or most of the European standards in politics, law and economics, has many roots.

There is, above all, a resentment that Turkey is not considered to be good enough to join the club. The strong anti-Turkish sentiments voiced in a number of the member states and in the referendums of France and the Netherlands have excited a reciprocal anti-EU feelings that could easily lead to general anti-European ones.

The nationalist Umit Ozdag is being listened to more carefully than before and his party’s popularity has gone up by 5 per cent in the last few weeks, though the article does not say what it has gone up to.

Mr Ozdag’s analysis of Turkey’s relationship with the EU has a curious air of a folk tale:

“If you buy a pair of shoes for $100 and the salesman says, ‘Sorry, I need to check with theowner whether you can take the shoes home,’ or offers you a different pair of shoes you didn’t want, would you like that? That is the relationship between Turkey and the EU, and we have had enough.”

Mr Ozdag seems pretty clear that it is the EU he is talking about, not Europe. Would that other politicians and commentators were equally clear.

There are more tangible resentments. While the various EU regulations are being imposed as part of the preliminary stages of the negotiations the advantages are less visible.

“A May poll by the Istanbul-based Economic Development Foundation showed a 31% drop in Turkish support for EU membership, to 63% from 94% a year earlier, as Turks tire of grappling with conditions heaped on the EU bid. These include a ban on the cross-border movement of Turkish workers into EU nations, even after Turkey joins. That prohibition also has angered Turkish companies, which want to be able to move their turkish workers around the world’s biggest trading bloc.

… Even though Turkey isn’t yet in the EU … steel companies are being forced to limit the amount of steel they can produce to satisfy EU policymakers who don’t want cheap Turkish steel to flood the EU market. The company also has had to upgrade its steel plants’ environmental standards to EU specifications. Meanwhile, rising wages in Turkey – spurred by the accession process – have made it more difficult [for Turkish steel companies] to compete against rival producers in low-cost countries such as China, Ukraine and Iran.”

Unexpected people voice doubts. Onur Oymen, former ambassador to numerous European countries and to NATO, who had helped draft Turkey’s customs union with the then EEC, is now deputy leader of the main opposition party.

He is openly wondering whether it would not be better for Turkey to have close economic links with the EU like Norway or Switzerland.

And, he reminded the journalist, there is another option: the Middle East and a possible leadership of the Islamic world.

Mr Oymen is so incensed by the anti-Turkish sentiments expressed in Europe that he is proposing that Turkey should retaliate

“… by denying use of its military assets in NATO to countries that try to obstruct its EU membership.”

Given Turkey’s important role in NATO and pivotal geographical position, that could be a serious threat, as could the other one of depriving those countries of lucrative oil contracts.

Then again, there is another sentiment, expressed by a somewhat sceptical Ugur Dalbeler, managing director of a large steel producing company. In ten or fifteen years’ time the EU might need Turkey more than Turkey needs the EU. Given various economic and military factors, that could be all too true.

Leave it to the élites

The Maltese parliament has unanimously ratified the EU Constitutional, becoming the twelfth member state to do so, following Cyprus into the fold. All 35 government (Nationalist) members and all 30 opposition (Labour) members voted in favour of a motion by prime minister Lawrence Gonzi authorising the Maltese government to ratify the treaty.

Only three MPs spoke in the debate leading up to the ratification: foreign minister Michael Frendo, opposition leader Alfred Sant and prime minister Gonzi. Frendo said that it was important for the treaty's ratification process to continue until all 25 member states had their say, to enable the EU to draw its conclusions at the end of the process. "After all, each country has to decide in full sovereignty, and should not be influenced by decisions taken by other member states," Frendo insisted.

Sant said his Labour Party, unlike the Nationalist Party, had carried out a thorough internal debate on the implications of the EU Constitutional treaty and had decided to vote for ratification, even though it had opposed Malta's entry. "It is time to close the debate on the European Union so that Malta can move ahead," he added.

Gonzi welcomed the unanimity. "This vote is a proud and historic moment for Malta, which brings to an end decades of division on this issue between the two major parties," he said. "The Constitutional treaty is the consolidation of 50 years of progress and development of the European Union, and this is why it deserves to be ratified."

There we are: see what happens when the political élites speak. So much cleaner than having a messy referendum, and you do get the right result at the end of it. Now why didn't Chirac think of that?

Postscript: In Brussels, there was, of course, great cheer. Applauding the move, the EU commission celebrated the occasion by launching infringement proceedings against Malta for failing to implement the "denied boarding" directive.

Deafening silence

Iran was Europe's project. For months and months France, Germany and Britain negotiated with the mullahs, giving a little here and a little more there and not getting much in return either on the all-important subject of nuclear build-up or on the somewhat less important one of human rights.

Then came the elections, in which a large proportion of the candidates were banned from standing, thus proving without any doubt that the EU’s soft foreign policy of spreading democratic and European values quietly works. Well, it may have proved it to some people.

The final run-off, in which the army and the security forces were heavily involved (they need to exercise their political rights of preventing people from voting, ensuring that they voted for the right person and generally imposing order) produced an unexpected president.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was, according to the BBC and other media outlets, an obscure figure when he became Mayor of Teheran in 2003 and not much better known in the presidential race. The one thing that was known about him was that he was a hard-liner, who had managed to roll back some of the very mild reforms in his official capacity.

“He reportedly spent no money on his campaign - but he was backed by powerful conservatives who used their network of mosques to mobilise support for him, the BBC's Iran analyst Sadeq Saba says.

He also has the support of a group of younger, second-generation revolutionaries known as the Abadgaran, or Developers, who are strong in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis.”

Since his election we have found out a little more. He is likely to be of one mind with the Grand Ayatollah on the subject of reforms and human rights.

He has also made unequivocal statements about Iran’s nuclear programme that he has always supported. In his view Iran’s national pride is at stake and the country must not give in to the Europeans’ demands. Whether Iran’s pride is also at stake in supporting various terrorist groups like Hizbollah, has not been specified.

There has been very little response from the Europeans, apart from a mild finger-wagging from Jack Straw.

Then came other revelations. Several of the American hostages captured immediately after the Iranian revolution maintain that Mr Ahmadinejad was among those who captured them. He denies it, as do some of the others who had been involved in the operation but are now his political opponents.

Mr Ahmadinejad maintains that he joined the Revolutionary Guards after the revolution. He is reported to have been involved in covert operations during the Iran-Iraq war.

Still, we have heard nothing from the European politicians, usually so quick to condemn certain people.

A new problem has surfaced. Mr Ahmadinejad is being accused of masterminding the assassination of Adbel Aahmane Ghassemlou, an Iranian Kurdish leader in Vienna in 1989.

Peter Pilz, an Austrian Green Party politician and defence expert maintains that he has been given evidence by an Iranian journalist that Ahmadinejad travelled to Austria just before the assassination to hand over the weapons to the “commandos” who carried out the assassination.

Ghassemlou and his two associates were lured to their death by promises of negotiation about autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan. Instead, they were murdered and their bullet-riddled bodies were found by the Austrian police the following day, who also found the murder weapon and arrested two suspects, identifying a third one.

According to Iran Focus:

“One of the detainees was Brig. Gen. Mohammad Jaafar Sahraroudi, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Ramezan Garrison in western Iran. The second suspect was Amir Mansour Bozorgian, an under-cover officer of Iran’s secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

It was Sahraroudi who had recruited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a team leader for the operation. While Sahraroudi commanded the “on-site” team that carried out the killings in the flat where the talks with the Kurdish delegation were being held, Ahmadinejad was leading the support team that took care of logistics and escape routes. He received the weapons and ammunition for the operation from the Iranian embassy in Vienna, after they were smuggled to Vienna in diplomatic pouches.”

True or not, the full story was never evaluated, as it never came to court. Austria had been negotiating various trade agreements with Iran and when Teheran exerted some pressure the suspects were put on a plane and sent home.

Now the story has resurfaced via the so far unidentified Iranian journalist, Der Standard, other media outlets and Peter Pilz, who is demanding a full investigation and an indictment of the new Iranian President. He has put the whole story up on his website, adding:

“Now the Iranian president has something to clear up before a court in Vienna.”

The Austrian government is in something of a quandary. On the one hand, the Justice Ministry maintains that it is trying to verify the story, despite the fact that the Austrian ambassador in Teheran, Michael Stigglebauer, has been summoned by the Iranian Ministry of Interior.

On the other hand, according to Baztab, the state-run Iranian website, a number of Austrian corporations, afraid that Iran may break off trade contracts, have called on the government not to pursue the case.

“Baztab quoted a director of an Austrian company, “which exports 35 million dollars worth of equipment and machinery to Iran annually,” as saying that after approaching the Foreign Ministry, he was told no government official had as of yet stated any official position regarding the case.

“The Austrian government is looking to strengthen ties with Iran. Two years ago, its chancellor travelled to Iran and met with Iranian heads of state in a very amicable environment”, the company director was told.”

In the meantime, there has been a deafening silence from the rest of the EU. What do the French, British and German negotiators think of the way matters are developing? Why is the European Parliament not demanding something or condemning somebody? I think we should be told.

The Euro-Army cometh

Back on 13 June - three days before the European Council in Brussels that was so spectacularly to fail - the General Affairs Council met. This is the name given to the most senior of the Council of Ministers' committees, this one comprising the foreign affairs ministers of the EU. But then, entirely understandably, the world's attention was on two issues: the response to the Dutch and French referendums and the EU budget.

It was then that the news came out that the constitution was to be "ditched" at the European Council, without any formal announcement. Unsurprisingly, this caught the media imagination, and was also the focus of attention on this blog.

But, as is so often the case with Community affairs, while the headline issues grab the attention, there are so often other issues down the agenda which have as much, if not more long-term importance, that never get noticed.

In this case, one such was Council Document 10032/05, dated 13 June 2005: the Presidency report on the ESDP - otherwise known as the European Security and Defence Policy – which was approved by the Council at the same meeting. It sets out the short to medium-term strategy for European defence integration. At 28 pages, this document is not on the official Council site as it is marked "limite", meaning restricted circulation. A review of the contents reveals why.

The document starts with a review of current EU operations. While we have covered some, if not all, in previous postings, to see them all listed together brings home quite how far the tentacles of the EU actions, including security mission, have spread. There are, have been recently, or are projected, forces or initiatives in the following areas:

1. The EU force deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the framework of the ALTHEA military operation.
2. During the first half of 2005, the EU Police Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM).
3. The EUPOL PROXIMA operation in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.
4. The EUJUST THEMIS mission in Georgia.
5. The EUPOL Kinshasa – the first civilian crisis management mission in Africa, officially launched on 12 April 2005.
6. The EU mission to provide advice and assistance for security sector reform in the DR Congo, known as EUSEC, contributing to integration of the army in the DRC.
7. The Integrated Rule of Law mission for Iraq, EUJUST LEX.
8. Support for the African Union mission in Sudan (AMIS).
9. An EU support office for the Palestinian Police (EU COPPS).
10. EU support for the Georgian authorities in the follow-up to the OSCE border monitoring mission, with an EUSR office in Tbilisi.
11. Support for the Crisis Management Initiative in relation to the peace process in Aceh.
12. Preparations for responding to the African Union request for a putative African Union mission in Somalia.

However, the first real meat of the report comes on page 9., with the news that "work has continued on establishing EU battlegroups which are part of the rapid response capability. A Battlegroups Coordination Conference was held on 11 May 2005 when it was noted that the commitments made by the member states will enable the objective set for the initial period of operational capability for 2005 and 2006 to be met."

One battlegroup will be permanently available for the first two years of full operational capability, 2007 and 2008, except in the second half of 2007, for which a contribution is still awaited. Preliminary indications were provided on the availability of Battlegroups for the period beyond 2008.

Crucially, conceptual work on battlegroups has continued, with standards and criteria which will apply from 1 January 2007. This is when full operational capability begins. Initial command and control systems for the battlegroups have been developed, and work is continuing on training and certification, on logistics and on strategic mobility. Additionally, work has been conducted on "the acceleration of the decision-making and planning process for EU rapid response operations". The idea to launch a battlegroup within five days from approval of "the crisis management concept" by the Council.

The Council also approved a "requirements catalogue" which set out "strategic planning hypotheses", the five "illustrative scenarios" and an initial list of the capabilities required to meet the aims set in the 2010 Headline Goal. Here, the reference to the "2010 Headline Goal" is interesting, as this sets out in general terms the military shortfalls that the EU considers it needs to address. That document is available here.

Work has begun on the development of an information collection system and an operational analysis instrument for the EU's needs and other work will be carried out "in compliance with the EU capability development mechanism" to examine options and to ensure that "these tools provide the best possible response to specific EU requirements."

Then we have a "European Capability Action Plan (ECAP)". An evaluation was completed, which the Council approved. This contained "a detailed review of the Project Groups" which will in future work more closely with the European Defence Agency. Now, an updated "Capability Improvement Chart" has been drawn up, to "keep the public and media informed."

It is this document, available here which really illustrates the extent of the EU’s appetite. It is a "shopping list" of some 64 military capabilities, which include: attack helicopter battalions; carrier-based air power; tactical ballistic missile defence; light/medium armoured squadrons; mechanised infantry battalions and field artillery battalions.

With that, work on the "global approach on deployability" has continued, with a view to improving the ability of the EU to deploy forces. And, in a masterpiece of jargon, we get:

The Presidency presented a non-paper on the maritime dimension of the 2010 Headline Goal including a proposed road map. The purpose of this non-paper was to initiate a process to define the terms of reference and methodology of a study designed to improve information on the Member States' maritime requirements and forces.

Much is then made of the European Defence Agency (EDA), which has started work on four flagship projects in its four areas of operation: C3 (command, control and communications) in the area of capabilities; combat armoured vehicles in the armaments area; the European defence equipment market, in liaison with the European Commission, for the area of industry and the market; and drones for the research and technology area.

In addition, the Council "received with satisfaction" the action plan on the creation of a European defence equipment market, while the Steering Board of the EDA approved a plan to transfer of the research and technology responsibilities of the Western European Armaments Organisation to its own organisation.

Then there is "the concept of EU training in the field of ESDP". Courses were organised in the EU Training Programme in ESDP for the years 2005 to 2007. The pilot course – a high-level ESDP course – of the future European Security and Defence College ended in March, and an orientation course on the ESDP was organised in Brussels from 28 February to 4 March. On that basis, a final report on training in the ESDP area and an analysis of requirements in this area have been drawn up and approved by the Political and Security Committee. Thus the arrangements for the functioning of the European Security and Defence College have been defined. The necessary conditions to establish the College have been fulfilled in preparation for the 2005/2006 academic year.

And, "in order to ensure that security and defence aspects are taken into account in the European space programme," inter-pillar exchanges of information took place. An initial road map was established for the effective implementation of the stages identified in the document on European space policy entitled "ESDP and Space" approved by the Council in November 2004.

Together with a forward action plan for the UK presidency, and much more, this whole report forms a template for a comprehensive "war fighting" capability. This is no mere peacekeeping force – the Euro-Army cometh.

Well, we are saddled with the Olympics

Hizonner, the Mayor of LondON, has got his wish and has been grandly thanking everyone for supporting him in his efforts to bring this unwieldy, expensive and corrupt event to London.

We, who will have to suffer from the ensuing chaos, started but unfinished constructions, endless shut-downs on the tube, not to mention rocketing council tax, hope that Hizonner will now, in a spirit of solidarity, move back to London to share the joys and pains and, above all, the expenses. Who wants to be in Brighton when the excitement of the Olympic Games overwhelms the capital? The Mayor of LondON, that’s who.

The same applies to all those other endearing personalities: Mr & Mrs Blair, who will, no doubt escape to their well-deserved freebie holidays in the next few years, Mr & Mrs Beckham, the male of whom looked more fatuous than usual grinning in his white track suit. (Where was she? No idea. Who cares?)

And dear old Lord Coe? Will he live through the next six-seven years with us in London? Will he pay the higher taxes for decades afterwards? (Note please that Montreal is still paying for those Games of 1976.) Unlikely. He will appear from time to time to cheer the people on and retreat to wherever he spends his time.

Now look at it from the Olympic organizers’ point of view. Some of the teams must be wondering what on earth got into the IOC. London has no stadium. Where, oh where is Wembley Stadium?

Nowhere really, unlike the Dome, which is there, costing money, doing nothing. That, too, was once upon a time a great opportunity for somebody or other, mostly Our Tone, to parade his credentials as a forward-looking statesman.

London has an appalling transport system. Hizonner knows little about that. He uses taxis unless a camera crew happens to be around when he hops into the nearest tube train, regardless of where it might take him.

Mr Blair knows even less about the London transport system or about the traffic in London (at least that taxi must sometimes get into a traffic jam) as the roads are cleared when his limousine sweeps from Downing Street to Parliament or wherever he happens to be going.

Frankly, I cannot even begin to imagine how Lord Coe and Lord-Beckham-to-be travel.

The fact remains that the rest of us have to use what must be the least efficient and most expensive underground system in the world or hope that a bus or two turns up at the stop they are meant to come to.

London, of course, does not need any more tourists. We are overrun with them, anyway, for, contrary to the many idiotic statements about the Olympic Games putting it on the map, London has been on the map for some centuries. (When our history corner is started on the website, I shall write to Lord Coe and suggest that he reads it.)

On the other hand, experience in Australia and Greece shows that the arrival of the Olympic razzmatazz drives away the other tourists (as well as many of the local inhabitants). That is something in its favour, though whether the various hotel keepers and restaurant managers will think that is doubtful.

London’s record on building new things and staying within something vaguely resembling the original budget is not good. Think Crossrail, Wembley Stadium, the Dome.

So what is it that made the IOC decide in London’s favour? Of course, we do not know precisely what all that feverish last-minute lobbying involved but shall, no doubt, find out eventually, when the country’s debt skyrockets.

Let us not forget the African vote. The Chancellor has been playing fairy godmother with our money or, at least, promising to do so, just as soon as he can count the pumpkins in his home.

As things stand, we are about to hand over yet more whopping great dollops of our money to kleptocratic and bloodthirsty African dictators and, in return, we must assume they voted for London as opposed to Paris. After all, what did Chirac promise them? Well, now you mention it, the same thing as Brown promised: our money.

And finally, the most unexpected blow of all: Chirac’s supposed gaffe. We all wondered about the reason for that torrent of abuse of British food, compared to which even les hamburgers are haute cuisine.

I, too, went along with the notion that the old man has lost it. But I also thought that Paris lost it, too. Chirac’s attack ensured London’s victory.

Now I am not so sure. Whatever those pictures of sad Parisians might suggest, a goodly proportion of them must be breathing a sigh of relief for many of the same reasons that we are grinding our teeth. (Except that they already have a stadium and a functioning transport system.)

Could it be that far from blowing it, Chirac has won this round by making sure that the poisoned chalice of the Olympic Games passes Paris by and lands squarely in London? Zut alors, you can’t rely on anyone these days.

A shift of emphasis?

Two days ago, an anodyne, apparently routine written question on the "EU defence contribution" appeared in Hansard, with an apparently anodyne response from defence minister John Reid.

Asked by Labour MP Chris Bryant, there is nothing in his general cv that would indicate that the man had any special interest in defence issues and, apart from the fact that he is a rabid Europhile (as well as a former BBC executive, which amounts to the same thing) there is nothing either on his general website that indicates that he has any special interest in EU defence issues.

The question, therefore, had all the hallmarks of being "planted" – i.e., placed at the request of a minister. This is a not uncommon device by which means ministers can claim to have kept Parliament "informed", in the certain knowledge that few if any MPs will actually read the question and answer, and even fewer will understand them or appreciate their significance.

Thus, when challenged later about a "cover-up", on some issue that might in time prove contentious, the minister can always blithely claim that he (or she) informed "the House" on such and such a date, through a written answer in response to a question put down by the Hon. Member for so and so. Collapse of stout party.

If this device is being used in this case – and in any event, the question itself was innocuous to the point of being invisible. Bryant simply asked the Secretary of State for Defence: "what steps he is taking in the EU to press for a greater defence contribution from EU states". (4 Jul 2005: Column 40W [8675])

Reid's answer was also seemingly innocuous: "During the United Kingdom's EU presidency." He wrote, "we will promote a European Security and Defence Policy which is more capable, more coherent and more active. As presidency we are pressing ahead with the Headline Goal 2010 capability development process, aiming to deliver the final military Requirements Catalogue 2005." He continued: "The UK also continues to play a leading role in the EU rapid-response Battlegroups initiative, to which 22 member states have so far declared commitments."

To the uninitiated, this is so much of the usual routine jargon which infests parliamentary replies and ministerial statement, that the eyes glaze over as one quickly moves down the text for something more comprehensible. But, within the answer was an unfamiliar phrase: "…aiming to deliver the final military Requirements Catalogue 2005."

So, what is this: "final military Requirements Catalogue 2005"? Our trusted friend Google – one of the greatest enhancements to the democratic process since the invention of parliaments – provided but one link. For once, though, it was diamond quality rather than quantity. The link was Council Document 10032/05, dated 13 June 2005: the Presidency report on the ESDP - otherwise known as the European Security and Defence Policy – as approved by the Council at its meeting on 13 June 2005.

Strangely, while the document is clearly official, the site is not on the main Council server, nor on the Presidency site, but on the Danish parliament EU information site, the Folketing. Interestingly, the front page starts with the message: "Access to EU information can be a difficult task, especially if you do not know where to begin. Therefore, the Folketing has set up the EU Information Centre..." God bless the Danes.

Should the link subsequently disappear, the document has been downloaded on to this blogger's computer and, as an added precaution, stored as a hard copy – all 28 pages of it.

Turning to page 20, it is there that can be found the startling news that the EU has already finalised plans for the "future European Security and Defence College", mentioned in previous post.

The document tells far more than that, however, and effectively sets out the strategy for further European defence integration, which is galloping ahead tremendous speed. The next post from me will deal with the detail.

Before that post appears, however, I will leave you with an observation. Those familiar with EU history – particularly those who have been sensible enough to read The Great Deception - will know that the period of the mid-late 1970s were characterised in the development of the "project" as a period of "sclerosis" when the grand political ambitions of the "colleagues" appeared to have stalled.

However, that period was in fact a time a great progress in what we call "low politics", with the EU commission churning out hundred of obscure, technical harmonising directives, which form much of the power base of the contemporary Union.

Now, we seem to have a reversal. While, as one of our recent posts might indicate, the "low politics" dimension of European integration is stalling, the "high politics" dimension is storming ahead at breakneck speed – aided and abetted by a media and political process that is quite happy to feed off a diet of trivial "bent banana" stories but which has ceased to be concerned in any meaningful way with serious issues like defence.

In a sense, there is a feel of the Blizkrieg in the EU's approach, where an attack is made on multiple fronts but only one is the "main thrust". But, should that thrust be blocked, the commander shifts the weight of the attack to another front. Here, perhaps, we are seeing a shift in emphasis from one front to another – but still the tanks of integration are storming ahead.

Clear the decks

Did you know that the plans for an EU military staff college were well advanced and that "the arrangements for the functioning... have been defined"? Or that "high level courses" are already being held (and will continue) on the European Security and Defence Policy?

Anyone with an inkling of knowledge of military affairs will immediately recognise the vital significance of this, as it is the staff colleges which define the "doctrines" of the armed forces and indoctrinate potential general staff officers. Without passing the courses, middle-rank officers cannot aspire to promotion to the senior ranks.

What this means, therefore, is that EU indoctrination is being built into the heart of the military establishments - including our own - forming a "fifth column" to control and shape military thinking.

All this and much more in a post later today, based on a stunning official document just obtained, which sets out the whole plan for onwards European military integration, amounting to a take-over of our armed forces - from within.

A straw in the wind?

Following our post last night on the software patent directive, it now appears that the EU parliament is set to reject the commission’s proposal when it comes up for a vote today. According to Reuters this is despite a warning from the EU commission that it would not submit fresh legislation.

The news comes after political group meetings yesterday evening when members of the PSE and the EPP – the two dominant groups in the parliament - both decided to throw out the directive, saying it would be safest to kill a bad proposal that pleased nobody. The two groups combined have 468 MEPs, easily passing the threshold needed to kill legislation in the 732-member parliament.

Earlier in the day, the smaller ALDE liberal group, with 89 members, said it would also vote to reject the bill and it also seems that the Greens/ALE, with 42 MEPs will join the opposing forces. That should make the vote almost unanimous.

To add to this, two days ago the commission, braving the ire of environmental groups, announced that it had decided to postpone the adoption of a sweeping package of measures to fight air pollution after an internal study suggested that the measures could cost member state economies about €12bn (£8bn) a year.

The plan, drawn up under Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner, was to tighten up emissions legislation not only for vehicles but also small combustion plants, ships and aircraft. It would also promote scrapping schemes for older road vehicles. Other measures included a "crackdown" on petrol station emissions that contribute to ground level ozone, and charging drivers according to the amount of air pollution damage they cause.

Then, just over a week ago (27 June), the transport council failed to reach agreement on a proposed new EU-wide credit card-shaped driving license. A compromise proposal had been hammered out between the commission and the EU parliament in February, but a political agreement between the transport ministers of the member states became "impossible", according to Luxembourg's transport minister, Lucien Lux, who chaired the meeting.

Within the space of less than two weeks, therefore, each of the three EU institutions responsible for the legislative process will have rejected (or postponed) a major piece of proposed EU legislation. And, while all the institutions at various times have done this – not least, famously the Council's recent rejection of the Services Directive - for all three to have done so in such a short space of time is unprecedented.

This may be a coincidence, but it could also be a straw in the wind. Is the EU, following the French and Dutch rejection of the constitution, losing the will to legislate? Or is it just keeping its head down?

Software patent directive

We have not done justice to this issue at all, which comes up for a vote in the EU parliament tomorrow. One blog that has been following the story is Groklaw which has some useful and interesting observations.

Focus groups debunked

Norman Lamont, in an op-ed today in The Daily Telegraph has penned a storming piece about focus groups which encapsulate much of what is wrong with modern politics.

Entitled, "Focus groups? I thought we elected politicians to make big decisions", he observes that "politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have created an entire industry devoted to telling them what to say," adding that, "Bill Clinton has called members of focus groups the most powerful people in America."

Lamont then goes on to note that Lord Ashcroft, a major funder of the Conservative Party, has called for "better use" to be made of focus groups, then expressing his concern – which he then goes on to elaborate at some little length – that these groups are distorting the whole political process.

The comments are well worth reading, not least when he draws on industry’s experience of these groups, suggesting that every advertisement, every new brand has the blessing of a focus group – yet most new products still fail. Even BA's disastrous ethnic tail designs were focus group-tested.

This brings to mind my own experience with a multi-national group that produced air-fresheners, which relied extensively on focus groups. They were quite happy if one in ten of their product launches succeeded, this being enough to keep the cash-flow healthy. But political parties cannot afford a one-in-ten success rate, otherwise they could end up seeing power only once in every 40 or 50 years.

However, back to Lamont, he thinks that focus groups have outlived their usefulness – and we agree. It was during that last election that the Conservatives not only made maximum use of these groups, but concentrated entirely on "swing voters" in marginal seats to tell them how to frame their messages.

This meant that the Party was going to the people who were least committed to any political ideology, in areas which had no settled political loyalty, to tell them how to address the nation. Predictable, their messages lacked coherence and failed utterly to inspire the nation to flock behind the Party and vote it into power.

In this context, it is entirely the "focus group" mentality which tells the parties that "schools 'n' hospitals" agenda is the dominant - nay, exclusive - concern of the voter, and which has led the major parties to concentrate on this above all else. It also meant that crucial subjects like defence, like the environment and, dare I say it, "Europe" – or even road charging - were not rehearsed during the general election campaign.

An important flaw in the focus group mentality, therefore, it that it robs politicians of the opportunity to set their own agendas and to pick issues which they believe are important. It forces them into a conformist mould which dampens down debate and originality.

Perhaps even more damaging is that reliance on focus group opinions means that the politicians are ignoring their own core voters. This was very much the experience of the general election, where voters (and campaigners) in safe seats were ignored by the centre, as the "big beasts" went haring off after the marginal seats. Yet they left behind them a residue of ill-feeling, a realisation that the centre was taking too many things - and people - for granted.

And it is here that "Europe" will come to the fore. Down on the constituencies, the European Union is and will remain an important issue, yet the focus groups and, to the same extent, the opinion polls tell the politicians its is not an issue.

But, while you can argue about its extent, the UKIP effect undoubtedly cost the Conservatives some seats in the general election. And, if UKIP is still around at the next election – which may well coincide with the Euro-elections – the effect could even cost the Conservatives the whole election.

Thus, Lamont is right about focus groups having outlived their usefulness. But he hints also at alternatives, citing – of all people - Enoch Powell, who referred to "the mysterious chemistry of public opinion". Margaret Thatcher, says Lamont, certainly knew when to disregard market research. In the 1980s, opinion polls regularly showed that voters preferred public spending to tax cuts. Despite that, she insisted on cutting income tax, and the voters rewarded her. In the same way, Norman Tebbit, a different sort of political genius, used to spend hours studying his constituents' letters.

I can perhaps offer another option. For the first time in a long time, the Party could start listening to its activists on the ground.

Whose money is it, anyway?

Many of our readers are well ahead of me in their daily perusal of newspapers. They have already read Mark Steyn's hilarious analysis of rock star economics as practised by them as opposed to preached.

Nevertheless, there is some sense in going through the article and adding a comment or two.

I must admit that there was a good deal of information in it that was new to me. I did not know, because I never really cared to find out, that Linda McCartney set up a "qualified domestic marital trust" in the State of New York before she died, although she had not lived there for several decades. As a result, her family paid no death duties on her considerable fortune, which would have brought £60 million to the Exchequer.

That reminded me of the fact Steyn does not mention: "Sir" Bob Geldof, though resident in this country, pays taxes in Ireland, not for any nationalistic reasons but for cold, hard-headed, pragmatic ones: taxes are lower there. And I bet he has managed to tie up as much as possible of his money in trusts that would involve no taxes at all.

As Steyn says:

Don't get me wrong. I love old rockers - not for the songs, which are awful,but for their business affairs, which so totally rock. In 1997, David Bowie became the first pop star to hold a bond offering himself. How about that? Fifty-five million dollars' worth of Bowie "class A royalty-backed notes" were snapped up in minutes after Moody's in New York gave them their coveted triple-A rating.

Once upon a time, rock stars weren't rated by Moody, they were moody - they self-destructed, they choked to death in their own vomit, they hoped to die before they got old. Instead, judging from Sir Pete Townshend on Saturday, they got older than anyone's ever been. Today, Paul McCartney is a businessman: he owns the publishing rights to Annie and Guys & Dolls. These faux revolutionaries are capitalists red in tooth and claw.

I agree with his sentiments. The money you earn is your own and as much as possible should stay in your hands, if for no other reason than the obvious one that money individuals or private organizations spend are more likely to achieve something than money spent by governments with no need to account for it to anyone.

However, I cannot help objecting very strenuously when I am told that my taxes should, if necessary, be put up in order to send some more gadzillions over to the people who have already wrecked Africa's economy possibly beyond redemption, while those who do the telling make very sure that their money stays in their own clammy little (or not so little) hands. But then, they can afford good tax lawyers.

Mark Steyn has done us all a favour by quoting some choice snippets from the "faux revolutionaries". Who could be so heartless as not to snigger at Madonna rushing from her expensive country home to stand up in Hyde Park to urge us all, or maybe just the people of Africa, "to start a revolution"?

Revolution is the one commodity Africa has had a surfeit of in the last forty years and there seems to be no end to it. Well, Madonna is not likely to know that.

Or there is Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd (whose reassembling I salute, as long as I do not have to listen to the outcome). His great contribution to the debate was:

I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the Third World. It's crazy that America gives such a paltry percentage of its GNP to the starving nations.

Setting aside the well-proven point that aid has not only not helped anyone in the Third World but has been actively harmful, one cannot help asking, who is Dave Gilmour to demand that governments flush large amounts of taxpayers' money down the political lavatory? Not someone who knows what words mean, obviously, or he would not use a meaningless phrase like "starving nations".

How much of his own money has Dave Gilmour given to any cause whatsoever? How much have any of the other aged rockers?

Which brings me to another interesting point. An article in this Sunday's Business referred back to several reports that showed how much private money is given in aid by Americans. Not the government, that gives away other people's money, but private individuals, churches, charities, trusts, businesses.

Paying your taxes and hoping that someone else will be generous with them is not generosity; not paying them à la McCartney or Geldor or paying them somewhere else is even less generous.

US Church collections, philanthropic donations and company giving amounted to $22bn (£12bn, €18bn) a year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute think-tank, easily more than the total $16.2bn in overseas aid sent by the US government. American churches, synagogues and mosques alone gave $7.5bn in 2003 – a figure which exceeds the government totals for France ($7.2bn) and Britain ($6.3bn), according to OECD numbers for official development aid.

How much of that private money came from Linda McCartney's estate, one wonders.

The relevant EU figure was $1.5bn from the private sector.

As the article points out, the benchmark for state aid is the UN figure of 0.7 per cent of GNP to be donated as government aid to developing countries. Apart from the obvious point that government to government aid is about the worst possible kind of aid, one must ask how does the UN envisage the money being transferred.

There has been no real explanation of the plans in question but the assumption is that it will flow through the various UN structures that will have to be enlarged enormously to cope with the extra work.

In other words, if the plan ever goes through, the UN will acquire its own income that will be independent of separate contributions given by member countries. And we all know how good the UN is at running such grand schemes. The words "food" and "oil" spring to mind.

Let us take our eyes off "Sir" Bob, Sir Paul, Madonna and others of that ilk and look at another extremely rich man, who also made his own money.

Here is a quick summary of what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are doing:

The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, a major effort to achieve scientific breakthroughs against diseases that kill millions of people each year in the world's poorest countries, today offered 43 grants totaling $436.6 million for a broad range of innovative research projects involving scientists in 33 countries. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to create "deliverable technologies" - health tools that are not only effective, but also inexpensive to produce, easy to distribute, and simple to use in developing countries.

Other Institutes and Foundations from various countries are adding money in support and work has already started.

I have no desire to be pollyannaish on the subject (it would not suit my carefully acquired reputation) but I cannot help feeling that a well researched and targeted effort is more likely to produce some result than endless largesse from the reluctant taxpayer through NGOs including the grandest of them all the UN, all of whom will take off a huge slice and will ensure that certain political dues are paid before anyone can benefit.

And the final question has to be: if Bill Gates can set up a trust and put his money where his mouth is, why cannot "Sir" Bob or Sir Paul or Bono or Madonna?

Housekeeping

For the tecchies amongst you, we have made some alterations to the RSS feed on this site. This is to facilitate the forum development which is now getting close to the point of usability.

On a related point, its has been suggested that we produce a logo – something which we had been considering. If anyone has any ideas or offerings, we would appreciate them. You can e-mail them to us through the "contact" link on the sidebar.

The "winner", I suppose, should be rewarded, so we'll send a signed copy of the new edition of The Great Deception to the person who comes up with the most useable idea.

A little entertainment

I did actually wonder why we were not getting a flow of opinion poll data from Luxembourg, which goes to the polls this Sunday on the EU constitution. But at least that mystery is solved by The Daily Telegraph which tells us today that opinion polls are banned a month ahead of the vote.

Thus, says the Telegraph, the result is impossible to predict. Voting is compulsory. A "no" vote should be unthinkable - per head Luxembourg receives more EU money than any other country, most of it to fund a half-dozen major institutions housed there. Yet the last national poll showed the "no" vote at 45 per cent and rising fast, despite a threat by the "well-liked" prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, to resign if the "yes" camp did not win.

Actually, Juncker has twice threatened to resign if the vote does not go his way and, according to an article in Le Figaro last month which we reviewed on this blog the "blackmail" has not gone down well. The response was a 13 point fall in support for the constitution, according to an Ilres survey published on 25 May, although – by general standards – it remained high, at 60 percent. Nevertheless, the "no" vote had increased nine points which, as Le Figaro pointed out at the time, "feeds the concerns of the political leaders".

Now, says the Telegraph, sentiment may be different as the Juncker is felt to have handled the European Council well, and its failure is thought to have helped the "yes" camp. That of course, remains to be seen, but the result on Sunday should provide us with a little entertainment.

Chirac blows it

At the grand old age of 73 in November, it looks like L'Escroc is finally going gaga. Short of that, what else can explain the extraordinarily inept jibes during a meeting with Schröder and Putin in Kalingrad last Sunday, which have just emerged after being published by the Libération newspaper.

The French president apparently fired a broadside at traditional British cuisine by joking: "The only thing the British have given to European farming is mad cow disease." He added: "You can't trust people who cook as badly as that. Apart from Finland, [Britain] is the country where you eat the worst."

When Putin objected to Chirac's suggestion that British cuisine was the lowest of the low, asking, "What about hamburgers?", L'Escroc replied: "No, no, hamburgers are nothing [by comparison]."

This, of course, is from the country that brought us JCB disease, the French equivalent of BSE, named after the eponymous digger after the habit of quietly burying the carcases of affected cattle while denying that any had been stricken.

Not content with being utterly rude about British cooking, Chirac also attributed France's differences with Nato began after its Scottish former secretary general Lord Robertson offered him a local Scottish speciality, believed to be haggis.

In making these "private" jokes, Chirac seems to have known exactly what he was doing, and they appear to have been intended for a wider audience. French journalists said he knew that microphones were lurking nearby.

The British government, however, has retained a stiff upper lip, a spokesman stating that, "There are some things better not commented on." Perhaps indeed it would have been undiplomatic to remind Chirac that a search on Google for "French military victories" puts this site at number one.

Free for all

The Brown-Blair-Geldof troika is not going to have it all its own way at the G8. Others will pile in.

Chancellor Schröder is making his bid for immortality (apart from being the least popular Chancellor of modern times). He is going to want to discuss international hedge funds.

According to Deutsche Welle:

“German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, facing a likely battle for re-election this fall, has seized on fears of globalization by calling for pressure on international hedge funds, in face of reservations by Washington.

On a visit to the US capital last month, Schröder renewed his pledge to take up the issue of establishing a unified set of minimum international standards for speculative hedge funds with his fellow leaders at the meeting July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland.”

It seems a little unlikely, given Germany’s economic situation, that anyone is going to take seriously Schröder’s demands on anything whatsoever. However, as my colleague has pointed out repeatedly, these various demands and statements are not made in order to achieve anything but to posture to the domestic audience.

Explaining his position

“The aim is to "better improve the market transparency of hedge funds" in what is now a largely unregulated market. We need stable financial markets," Schröder told his audience at the US Chamber of Commerce, echoing a call to his party,the Social Democrats. "To achieve that, we need effective supervision worldwide."”

The German financial markets are, indeed, very stable, almost comatose, in fact, but this may not be a desideratum. One imagines that the members of the US Chamber of Commerce were too polite to snigger until they left the room.

Nevertheless, here is another reason why the United States should watch the EU with some attention. Not satisfied with wrecking its own economy through over-regulation, the Union wants to spread the misery world-wide.

The EU's efforts are acknowledged

Well, somebody likes Commission President Barroso. He was greeted warmly at the fifth ordinary summit of the African Union. The AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare pronounced some very fine words:

“In the name of the African Union I pay tribute to the presence of the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Baroso and EU Commissioner Louis Michel (that) proves the EU's constant commitment alongside us.”

As ever, it is hard to work out who the “us” are, but one must assume that it is the leaders of the various African states, functional or otherwise, that Mr Konare was referring to.

He cannot possibly mean the people of Zimbabwe, whose plight under the murderous Mugabe has been dismissed by the AU as being internal matter, of no significance to other Africans.

Nor can he possibly mean the people in various civil-war ridden and massacre-filled parts of Sudan, which was supposed to have been sorted out by the AU some time ago. It did not happen.

Presumably, he does not mean the people in the other African countries, who have been steadily getting poorer under the benign gaze of the AU and its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

So what is it that the EU has helped the AU or, indeed, Africa achieve? What can the “strong partnership”, “built on equal footing” “in the mutual interest of the two neighbours” boast of?

That last phrase should give a clue. For no African state is actually the neighbour of any European state. What the AU wants to do is integrate in imitation of the European Union and with the help of EU money, which, before you ask, will not go to build hospitals or educate children but to create political structures of integration.

As AFP reported:

“Since it took over from the Organization of African Unity (OUA), created in 1963 just after African nations gained independence, the AU has drawn on the experience of the European Union in its ongoing attempt to foster African union.

Konare also emphasized that Africa requires more financial resources and needs to find the means to finance its large-scale infrastructure projects.”

One of the constant themes commentators have mentioned about the problems African countries face is the proliferation of large-scale infrastructure projects that are not maintained: roads and railways that do not carry enough load, buildings and bridges that collapse.

One of the accusations levelled at the African political elite by Moeletsi Mbeki was that they

“undertake loss-making industrialisation projects that were not supported by the necessary technical, managerial, and educational development”

while

“36 per cent of the region’s population lives in economies that in 1995 had not regained the per capita income levels first achieved before 1960”.

Good to know that the EU is helping the AU in its successful efforts to help impoverish the continent.

Oh yes, there is one more thing that Barroso is getting involved in.

“Baroso [sic] will also address the several dozen African heads of state who have converged on the Libyan town of Sirte for this meeting focused on African representation within a revamped UN Security Council and on the demands of the continent formulated ahead of the July 6-7 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.”

Of course, the revamping of the UN Security Council is of vital importance to most Africans. And was there not something about changing the Human Rights Commission, the primary complaint being that its members included Sudan and Libya? How are the EU and AU going to solve all this? More to the point how much of that money Chancellor Brown keeps talking about will go on these projects?

Glasnost and perestroika EU style

Some of our readers seem to think that “Sir” Bob Geldof has been enormously successful but when pushed all we can agree on is that he is good at getting publicity for himself and whatever idiotic cause he may be sponsoring. By definition, even those who have rather soulfully watched the week-end extravaganza must agree, none of those causes will be sensible or well argued.

Having gone from a tearful “We must have another go, even if the governments have not changed much” to “What do the critics want – see starving children every night on TV?”, he ended up with “I don’t listen to critics, they are all stupid.” Since many of the critics were explaining carefully about the politics and economics as well as the governance of those African countries that are soooooo dear to “Sir” Bob’s heart, that sort of attitude argues a certain lack of rational thought. So, no, I don’t think he will take up the eurosceptic or the free-market cause.

The problem with those cause that in order to succeed, they need to be argued through. They are not easily susceptible to sloganization.

“Forward into the bright future.” “Make Poverty History.” How can we rival the triteness and sparkliness of those sentences?

We can respond to them. I remember translating a poem by Nizametdin Akhmetov, who had spent half his life (he was 38 at the time) in Soviet camps, prisons and psychiatric hospitals. His work was very powerful and one poem began with the line: “I spit upon the bright future”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

We can also call on somebody or other to “make stupidity history” or to “make corruption history”. But the devil has the best slogans these days. (The last good one was that produced by some of the Russian radicals about the Polish Revolutionaries of 1861. Alexander Herzen and others drank “To your freedom and ours”.)

Which brings me to the main point. The most successful sloganeer of the last quarter of the twentieth century was Mikhail Gorbachev, quondam Secretary General of the CPSU.

Of course, like “Sir” Bob he succeeded in nothing that he was supposed to achieve. But he got a great deal of publicity. In fact, some rather weak-minded journalists and conference organizers still run to Mr Gorbachev for a comment or analysis in connection with various developments in the world that has long ago passed him by.

His greatest achievements were the popularization of two words: glasnost (openness, publicity) and perestroika (transformation, reconstruction). These two were going to save the Soviet Union and make it into a forward-looking, radically new, reformist economy. (You may have heard something similar recently.)

Actually, in the first place the solution was going to be tri-partite. The economy was going to be speeded up (uskoreniye), to achieve which, one needed a reconstruction (perestroika), which did not really come about unless there was an open discussion (glasnost). Makes sense, when you think about it. The problem was the initials. It did not take the Moscow wags long to work out that these spelled GPU, the second name of the Soviet secret police, that had started off as the Cheka.

Uskoreniye was not really happening, anyway, so the word was quietly dropped. Glasnost and perestroika have stayed with us, achieving little of what Gorbachev had intended. Those of us who said the system was unreformable and would either go on as is or collapse turned out to be right, though no apology has been heard.

So much about the language and the concepts the European Union and its minions use remind one of the “wooden language” of the USSR. Take this question of creating endless systems to overtake the United States. Did we not hear that and threats to bury it from Soviet leaders from Khrushchev onwards?

At least, we do not quite have to go along with the old Soviet joke: “By all means, let’s catch up with the Americans but we mustn’t think of overtaking them. If we do, they will see that our pants have holes in them.”

Our pants may be all right but the Lisbon Agenda has numerous holes in it. In fact, there is precious little material left, what with the holes and the darning as well as the darning on the darning.

The EU, Lisbonization or whatever, is about as successful at overtaking the more vibrant economies of the world as the Soviet Union was. So, we shall console ourselves with the same runner-up prize: space exploration for no good purpose.

Meanwhile, we have to have our own slogans and our catchwords. Tony Blair has helpfully provided us with the meaningless repetition of modernization as our own form of perestroika, it being impossible to achieve Lisbonization (uskoreniye) but can we achieve modernization without transparency (glasnost).

MLT, perhaps? I think we’ve got it. By George we’ve got it.

A question of blunt scissors

Once again, according to The Financial Times, a government taking on the EU presidency is to reassert its ambition to cut EU red tape. This time it is the British government but it might just as well have been the Dutch, which also made "cutting red tape" the priority for its presidency.

But so twitchy are the "colleagues" that John Hutton, the cabinet office minister in charge of "deregulation", will use a speech to the Fabian society in London today to reassure them that the drive is not an attempt to foist an "alien eurosceptic agenda" on the rest of Europe.

"We must seek to persuade member states that better regulation in Europe does not mean cuts to health and safety in the workforce, nor does it mean [cutting] social standards," Mr Hutton says. "It means finding more efficient ways of delivering those standards so they do not place unnecessary burdens on business."

The diplomatic language deployed by Mr Hutton, says the FT, reflects the political hurdles that could thwart the UK's ambitious targets for changing the Brussels culture of regulation. The government this month argued it would be "very dangerous" to allow EU red tape to continue growing unchecked, saying business could be saved billions of euros in costs through reform.

The government also claims that it will use its EU presidency to attack the flow of new regulation and cut the stock of existing rules. It wants to strengthen the systems used to check whether the benefits of draft regulations outweigh their costs, using a new independent body to scrutinise proposals.

Needless to say, the presidency cannot actually achieve anything without the direct and active support of the commission, as only the commission can table proposals to remove any law from the acquis communautaire. And, to judge from past performance, whenever the commission is confronted with the idea of "cutting red tape", it invariably finds that its scissors to too blunt to achieve the task.

Still, it makes good copy for the media – and this blog, I suppose.

Hoist by their own petard

Many readers will remember how Gibraltar has been "integrated" with the United Kingdom for the purposes of the Euro-elections, its votes having been added to the South-West Region when electing MEPs.

But the EU commission now seems to have carried this logic a step too far by insisting that Gibraltar is in fact a region of the UK and therefore not entitled to devise its own, independent tax regime, forcing the Gibraltar government to challenge the commission in the ECJ.

According to The Daily Telegraph, therefore, it is insisting that Gibraltar cannot offer a more favourable tax regime than the UK.

This spat broke out after Gibraltar announced tax reform proposals in July 2002 to the EU commission, which were rejected in March 2004. Brussels argued that if it offered a corporate tax regime more favourable than the UK system, it would constitute state aid.

The original proposals included the abolition of tax on profits for all companies and introduction of a profit tax for financial services providers as well as the introduction of a payroll tax. It is estimated a blend of these measures would lead to an overall tax rate of less than 10 percent for all companies, with some paying less. Gibraltar had wanted the abolition of its corporation tax, which is currently 35 percent. UK corporation tax is 30 percent of a company's taxable profits above £1.5m.

No hearing date has been set for the ECJ but Gibraltar's chief minister, Peter Caruana, says: "The EU Commission case works on the proposition Gibraltar simply is a region of the UK. You do not need to be a scholar to know that Gibraltar is not part of the UK - it has British sovereignty but is not part of the union of the UK."

He added: "If the Commission wins, Gibraltar would not be able to have a different tax system to the UK. The tax laws would have to mimic the UK's... We would have to wait for the Chancellor's Budget and do the same. It is an absurd proposition."

Separately, Gibraltar is also driving a cart and horse though the EU's fabled "savings tax directive". It has emerged that, because the commission believes that Gibraltar is part of the UK, as opposed to an independent territory, banks in Gibraltar are not obliged to disclose the details of UK based offshore depositors to the UK tax authorities – as those in the Channel islands and the Isle of Man are obliged to do.

The other offshore havens are complaining bitterly that this "loophole" is giving Gibraltar an unfair advantage, which gives the commission an unenviable problem – albeit of its own making. To enable the "savings tax directive" to work, it must acknowledge that Gibraltar is an independent territory but, if it does, then it cannot enforce its ruling that the territory cannot apply its own tax regime.

This is what they call in the trade, being hoist by your own petard.

EU rules come before patient safety

Picked up by the BBC today is a report about concerns expressed by the General Medical Council about doctors' English language skills. Patients' lives, says the GMC, are being put at risk because thousands of doctors working in the UK may not have sufficient skills.

What this boils down to is that all medics from outside the European Economic Area are tested by the GMC before being allowed to work in the UK, but those from within these areas are exempted. That means that English-speaking New Zealanders have to pass an English language proficiency before being allowed to practice, while Germans, Spaniards or Greeks, with not a word of English, cannot be tested. This is to prevent, or so the EU believes, national discrimination.

Now, concerned by the poor language skills, The BMA is seeking legal opinion on whether this principle – enshrined in the original Treaty of Rome - can be overturned.

There are more than 230,000 doctors registered with the GMC, of which 162,000 are UK nationals, 12,000 from the European Economic Area - the EU countries plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein - and 60,000 from the rest of the world.

Dr Surendra Kumar is president of the British International Doctors Association and a former member of the GMC's registration committee, which determines the requirements doctors need to fulfil to show they are fit to practise. She says: "Quite often doctors from outside Europe have better language skills than those from within Europe because they may have trained in English. But the problem is that we cannot test those from Europe."

Dr Edwin Borman, chairman of the BMA's international committee added: "It's essential that all doctors, whether from Europe or outside Europe, can communicate effectively, both with patients and colleagues. We know that hasn't always happened under the present system."

Needless to say, our communautaire government does not share the GMC's concerns. At the moment, it says, NHS trusts have responsibility for ensuring the doctors they employ are proficient in English and department of health's code of practice recommends that foreign doctors demonstrate a level of English language proficiency "consistent with safe and skilled communication with patients, clients, carers and colleagues".

That rather evades the point that the trusts cannot actually test doctors' language skills and neither – as it law is currently understood - can a citizen from an EEA member state be refused a job on the basis of poor language skills.

The same applies, incidentally, to veterinary surgeons, many of whom are employed under contract to work in British slaughterhouses. For a long time, abattoir owners have suffered the extraordinary situation of being forced to accept supervision from Spanish and other EU country veterinarians, with extremely poor English language skills, so bad that they cannot adequately perform their duties – which also include law enforcement.

We had exactly the same problem with the government when we pointed this out, meeting a wall of indifference. Now that patients' lives are actually at risk, we might see something done about doctors, but it is still a pretty weird situation that the government, up to press, is prepared to put EU rules above the safety of its own people.

Happy birthday!

Independence Day in the US of A. One of these years, we will have one as well. How about reserving 9 May, to celebrate our liberation from the EU when it finally happens?

Looks like fun

It isn't only Blair who is playing fast and loose with the CAP, it seems. After his declaration last week that he wanted to see all farming subsidies abolished, now, according to The Times Bush is willing to abolish US farming subsidies as well – but only if the EU reciprocates.

Bush's challenge, which came in an interview with Trevor McDonald screened by ITV last night, was in response to a direct question. When asked if America would drop its subsidy system if the EU abandoned the CAP, Bush said: "Absolutely. And I think we have an obligation to work together to do that."

Of course, this challenge does not have even the slightest chance of being met, as it is certain to be rejected not only by France and Germany, but by many in the US, where farmers are equally wedded to their subsidies. But, as a negotiating ploy it is superb as it completely wrong-foots the EU, especially as – like Blair – Bush has linked it to the quest to alleviate poverty in Africa.

Needless to say, a senior source close to the British G8 negotiating team last night welcomed Bush's comments, saying he had delivered a "major challenge to the European Union". He added: "Mr Bush has just upped the pressure. The seeds are there of a potential breakthrough."

That latter statement is, on the face of it, wildly optimistic, but it is more probably part of the game-playing rhetoric which will, no doubt, have Chirac fuming. Expect a strident response in the near future. Suddenly, the G8 summit looks like being fun.

Compassion is soo yesterday…

At the height of the tsunami crisis in January, Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra told the international community that, rather than giving financial aid, it could help Thai tsunami victims directly by giving back tax and trade concessions for Thai exports, including shrimps.

It was not money his country wanted but technical assistance. Even better, Shinawata said, the EU could restore the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for marine exports to EU countries. Prior to 1997, fresh shrimp and preserved shrimp from Thailand enjoyed a tariff rate of about 4.2 per cent and 7 per cent respectively. However, in 1999 tariff rates were increased to punitive levels of 12 and 20 per cent, respectively.

As a result, Thai shrimp exports to the EU have collapsed, from 33,000 tons in 1995 to 5,000 tons in 2003. Thailand's market share now stands at a meagre 0.7 percent of the EU's total shrimp imports of about 700,000 tons a year. The restrictions have cost the Thai economy over £3 billion since the higher rates came into force. This is considerably more than the £1.5 billion aid pledged to the tsunami relief fund to cover the whole region.

Of course, then, back in January, the compassionate ones were falling over themselves to "care" for the victims of the tsunami. But no one listened to Shinawatra as they poured out their compassion and shook the collecting tins, although Peter Mandelson did make some noises about easing trade restrictions.

All those months later, however, and nothing has happened. Hence a story in Monday's Bankok Post which bemoans the fact that there is "no relief in sight".

It appears that hatchery farmers hit by the tsunami are still struggling to rebuild, complaining of insufficient state aid, falling shrimp prices and other negative factors. In fact, Taweesub Chuayjun, owner of the Lamduan Farm shrimp hatchery farms in Khao Lak district in Phangnga and president of Andaman Shrimp Hatcheries Club, said the plight of hatchery farmers has grown progressively worse since 26 December.

In addition to the tsunami destruction, the price of shrimp has been in continuous decline because of the US anti-dumping penalties. And now they have been further set back by an EU decision to delay until early next year the announcement of which countries will receive reduced tariff rates under the GSP. These were supposed to take effect last week, and last for three years. Instead, the EU has delayed their introduction until the beginning of 2006.

However, it is not all the EU. Farmers are also fretting over a new customs bond requirement by the United States. The US Department of Commerce announced the 5.95 percent anti-dumping tariff on Thai shrimp last December. Then, on March 15, US Customs adopted the new bond rule, requiring higher bonds, amounting to full collateral for the possible punitive dumping tariff. The rule applies across the board to imports of all agriculture or aquaculture products liable to anti-dumping duties.

To comply with the rule, an importer of Thai shrimp must post a bond to the value of the previous financial year's imports multiplied by 5.95 percent, the rate of the anti-dumping duty. The bonds are valid for a year, but cannot be redeemed until after three years, creating a situation where companies need to have two or three bonds running concurrently, which few can afford. As a result, exporters are trimming orders from shrimp farms, which in turn has hurt hatcheries.

According to Mr Taweesub, his farm now sells one million shrimp fry for about £275, a significant decline from £1,200 in the recent past. Worse still, he said, because of the poor market, shrimp farms are delaying or refusing fry purchases, forcing the hatcheries farms to offer them at least four months' credit as an incentive.

"Over the last six months, we have tried our best to stand on our own feet," he said. "We have formed the Andaman Shrimp Hatcheries Club to create greater bargaining power. Despite that, we are now in a terrible plight and are all deeply depressed." According to Mr Taweesub, the hatchery farmers, most of whom do not own the land on which they operate, find it difficult to access loans to rebuild their farms.

"The [financial institutions] generally require collateral, but most of us just lease the property," he said. "Once we apply for loans at the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives (BAAC), we have to form a group with at least five people for a maximum loan of £4,000 each, and act as one another's guarantor." But £4,000 will only keep the average hatchery running for three or four months, he said.

Phangnga's hatchery farmers were the hardest hit by the tsunami. They account for about 50 percent of the shrimp fry supply. Shrimp farmers along the Andaman also were critical of the state financial aid of just £275 per person, and called it insignificant compared with the losses the farming industry sustained. Mr Taweesub said the affected hatchery farmers appealed for more financial aid but had yet to see any help.

But hey! Doesn’t Mr Taweesub know that the caravan has moved on? The tsunami is sooo yesterday, dahlings. We're all into Africa with that lovely Mr Gandolf.

Who gives a rat's bottom?

If the media had managed to tear itself away from the Live8 crap for even a second this week, they might have noticed that a junior minister in parliament coolly revealed that, in less than a year, the cost of a key government project had increased from an horrendous £6 billion to an absolutely staggering £14 billion.

This was in a debate in Westminster hall last Tuesday – a place where journalists rarely venture and thus means by which the government can claim to have addressed an issue while ensuring that no one takes the blindest bit of notice. And, of course, our lamentable, trivial media duly obliged, by ignoring it completely.

The debate in question was on the new Army equipment that goes under the name of Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), and was brought by Ann Winterton, Conservative MP for Congelton – a back-bencher who is proving to be more effective than the entire Tory front-bench on defence questions.

It was in fact, nearly a year ago (28 July to be precise) that I first wrote on this Blog about FRES which, according to Geoff Hoon in his strategic defence review, was a new generation of medium-weight armoured vehicles for the British Army that was going to equip it for the 21st Century.

In a second piece, the following day, I explored the political implications of the decision to procure this equipment and ventured the opinion that we have a debate about it.

So it has come to pass that, 11 months later, we have had a debate, triggered by a back-bench MP in a side hall to the Parliament, on a day when all the defence team, bar the unfortunate who had to answer Ann Winterton, was at the Naval Review in Portsmouth.

In the meantime, with the exception of Booker and a few mentions in The Business, the project has been virtually ignored by parliamentarians and the media alike, as indeed they have all ignored last week’s debate.

Yet, it was in that debate that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Don Touhig, revealed that the FRES system would involve the acquisition of 3,500 vehicles rather than the 900 originally planned, at a cost of £14 billion rather than £6 billion. Yet, until we heard this from the mouth of a junior defence minister, nothing of this had been revealed to the public.

That, incidentally, still makes for an average unit price for each vehicle at something like £4 million and, while Touhig did not specify the total costs of ownership, for a mere 900 vehicles it was about £50 billion. We must expect a proportional increase for the increased number of vehicles.

Anne Winterton, however, did not call the debate to complain about the increased costs – about which she had no information until the minister responded to her – but to air the concerns about the implications of the system with regard to European defence integration, and to question the military validity of the system.

Her speech, therefore, which admirably sums up the issues, can be read from this link (Col. 390WH et seq).

Needless to say, Touhig ignored most of the points raised but, on the possibility that the system would be built in co-operation with other nations' armoured vehicle programmes was not denied. But the minister did deny that FRES would be dependent on the European satellite navigation system, Galileo, repeating that stale old lie that it is "a civil programme under civil control".

Still, a minister lying these days is nothing new – hardly worth bothering about when the media cannot even get off its backside to report a little matter like a £8 billion hike in costs for yet another defence project.

But, with the man lying about the nature of Galileo, there can be no confidence that he is not lying about further European involvement especially when the last two Army procurement contracts, the supply trucks and the Panther command and liaison vehicle, went to European manufacturers.

Incidentally, the Panther story was one Booker would have run this weekend had not the new Sunday Telegraph editor, Sarah Sands, lost her marbles and junked the column in favour of the Live8 crap, but then who gives a rat's bottom about real news these days when there's a whole continent to save?

An historic day?

That is the drivel offered by the gormless Sunday Telegraph, gushing over the extravaganza organised by a collection of witless, clapped-out rock stars, excused by Saint Gandolf, who bleats: "Even if it doesn't work, what do they (his detractors) propose? Every night forever watching people live on TV dying on our screens?"

There it is, "the answer is simple, something must be done" school of rationality. Better known as the "road to Hell is paved with good intentions" brigade, it is thus armed that dimwits like Gandolf, with their simplistic, brainless mantras, do more harm than good.

As always, the only grown-up newspaper in the sorry collection today is The Business which offers a front-page comment headed, "Live8: a triumph for sentiment, not results". Written by Allister Heath, it sums up this whole putrid display of maudlin sentimentality, pointing out that the concert will have "zero impact" on world poverty.

The paper's main story then clothes the argument with facts, not least the singular and damning statistic that: "A one percent increase in aid (to Africa) produces a 3.5 percent drop in real per capita GDP growth". If there is anything killing Africa, it is morons like Gandolf and his fellow travellers, whose brains are firmly lodged in their behinds.

Crucially (print version only) the paper points out that the problem for developing countries is that they are "usually locked out of the formal, legal economy." They have houses but not titles; crops but not deeds; businesses but not statutes of incorporation. All too often, what passes for ownership is a system of informally evolved and acknowledged property rights, rather than the real thing.

And it is those deficiencies, more than anything else, which explain the impoverishment of Africa. Because the poor lack legal title to their properties, they are unable to use their assets as collateral. They cannot get bank loans to expand their businesses or improve their properties – and there is no point anyway as they have no remedy against arbitrary expropriation.

Governments in developing countries must, therefore, devise a detailed plan to transform the current, extra-legal ownership of assets into real property rights, and to recognise the informal arrangements that function within the communities of the poor. Not said, but equally essential, is a network of honest, accessible courts which can at one settle disputes and uphold property rights, making those rights enforceable against the depredations of the robber barons and the state.

There are few "magic wands" in this world, but there are a few simple, unbreakable principles which, if ignored, bring disaster. But implementing these changes is not "sexy" – they does not have the same cachet as poncing about on a stage in Hyde Park, hectoring an audience of 200,000 and millions more on television, with the moronic slogan, "Make poverty history".

I do wish someone would make Gandolf history. That would be an historic day.

Not the Booker column

One of the stories that would have appeared in the Booker column this week, had not the new Sunday Telegraph editor, Sarah Sands, lost her marbles and junked the column in favour of the Live8 crap is one that is quite horrific in its own right, and makes us wonder how much of a police state this once proud and free nation has become.

Featured on the front page of Fishing News this week, the headline only hints at the real story: "Skipper held at gunpoint". This is skipper Andrew Leadley of the Whitby trawler Success III but the gang of desperados who held him at gunpoint were no ordinary criminals or even terrorists. They were in fact members of the Royal Navy from the fisheries protection vessel HMS Mersey, a River Class offshore patrol vessel acting under the orders of our own Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), enforcing the EU's Common Fisheries Policy.

The incident happened last week when skipper Leadley was fishing on the Dogger Bank, alongside a fleet of German and Dutch trawlers, when he was stopped by the Mersey and boarded by an inspection team from the vessel. After being asked to haul, the boarding officer found everything to be in order with the gear and the fish room. He signed the log book, indicating his satisfaction with what had been found, and gave Leadley his permission to shoot the gear.

Then, while waiting on deck to be picked up, the officer, without warning returned to the wheelhouse and demanded, without giving any explanation, that Leadley haul immediately. Skipper Leadley at first refused, at which point, he says, "all hell broke lose".

He was warned that if he did not haul immediately, the Mersey – armed with a 20 mm cannon and two machine guns – would fire a shot 200 yards ahead of the boat. If that brought no response, it would be followed by one 100 yards ahead; the third would go through the funnel and the fourth through the wheelhouse.

When the gear was hauled, and again without any explanation, Leadley was ordered to steam his vessel to Grimsby. While steaming, which took 48 hours, three armed guards were placed in his wheelhouse and Leadley and his crew were placed under arrest and forbidden to communicate with anyone via the satellite phone.

The captain of the Mersey who, throughout, had refused to give his name, ordered Leadley to follow a set course, and refused thereafter to speak to him over the RT, even when Leadley pointed out that the course set would have grounded him ashore at Withernsea. He even refused him permission to hold off at the entrance to the estuary of the Humber, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world – which was at the time cloaked in dense fog – until Grimsby lock gates were opened, thus forcing Leadley to dodge shipping for several hours while he waited.

On landing, Leadley had his gear confiscated and has been refused permission to return to sea. He has been interviewed at length by Defra officials, but no charges have been laid and no explanation has been given to the vessel owners as to why the unprecedented action had been taken.

Interestingly, Leadley had two Russian crewmen on board and, during the arrest, they said this was worse than anything they had experienced during the worst days of the Soviet dictatorship, it was so threatening.

In the same week that the Royal Navy was celebrating the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar, with the review in Portsmouth – this is what it has come down to. No longer faced with any real enemy, the Navy is turning its guns on its own people, acting in a manner that not even the Soviet dictatorship countenanced, all at the behest of a foreign power in Brussels which has become our government.

Nelson must be turning in his grave.

Sour Krauts?

There is an intriguing piece on the Deutsche Welle website about the erosion of the Franco-German relationship.

Entitled, "When Love Across Borders Fades", it seems that it is not only political relations that are under stress. More worrying, says Deutsche Welle, is that the people of France and Germany also seem to be drawing not closer together but further apart.

This is despite superficial appearances. For instance, every year, 200,000 young people are ferried from France to Germany and from Germany to France on exchange programs run by the Franco-German Youth Office. France is the biggest market for German goods and vice versa. Even the head of Airbus is German. The Franco-German relationship seems a model of European integration.

But, deeper down, things are not so good. The problem, says Paris-based political scientist Hans Stark, is French "ennui". The French are less interested in Germany, Stark says. "That's because they are not scared about Germany any more. German theatre, German literature, German classical music is less attractive for a broad spectrum of society. So, for them, Germany is a country which is very, very far away."

A further measure of the widening distance between the two peoples is the falling popularity of the German language in France. This spring a rather desperate television advertisement trying to lure the French to learn Deutsch - featuring pink Birkenstock sandals, kinky lederhosen and a beautiful, blond German teacher -- illustrated that the German language is in a crisis in France.
Indeed, German is hardly heard on the streets in France, except maybe among tourists in Paris.

A recent report commissioned by the French government showed that in just five years, the percentage of French children learning German in state schools had dropped from 30 to 10 percent. According to the report's Franco-German author Heinz Wismann, German is fast becoming like Latin - dead for all but a tiny elite.

"We have more and more private schools where people from the higher classes of society send their children," says Wismann. "And there, they learn German, they learn Latin. Greek and Latin and German - it's become the secret sign of belonging to the higher classes in France."

Deutsche Welle adds to this tale of woe with a story about German food which I had not heard before. Not only is the German language becoming such a rarity in France - German food hardly has any takers any more. Gerhard Weber, the head chef at the Stubli, Paris's one and only German restaurant, uses traditional German ingredients to make a new German cuisine. But, he says, French attitudes haven't much changed since Napoleon's first encounter with black German bread.

"When Napoleon arrived in Germany he asked people 'bread?' so they give him black bread," said Weber. "Napoleon looked at the black bread and said "that's bon pour Nickel" because his horse was called Nickel. Germans understand 'bon pour Nickel'... pumpernickel. So today the black bread's called pumpernickel."

After all these years, says Weber the French still harbour these stereotypes when it comes to German food. "They think German food is too fat... only sauerkraut, sausage - and it's all heavy." Heavy or 'lourd' is an often used pejorative term in French meaning clumsy, slow, boring and stupid. Light or 'léger', on the other hand, means subtle, quick, witty and bright. The idea that French is 'léger' and German is 'lourd' seems to be deeply ingrained in the French psyche. This hauteur, it seems, also runs to German literature, where the French are largely oblivious to developments in the German literary world.

For whatever reason, the French are closing themselves off to German culture and ignorance about Germany is on the rise. Statistics compiled by the French foreign ministry on the number of its nationals who have gone to live abroad show that there are now nearly three times more French people living in Britain than in Germany. That is despite the much stronger business links between Germany and France.

No matter, therefore, how many German washing machines the French buy and treaties they sign or how many government initiatives push them towards their bigger neighbour, concludes Deutsche Welle, Germany is slipping from the French national consciousness.

Actually, I think it goes both ways. Staying in Strasbourg, on the Franco-German border, it really is amazing how few people venture across the border into Germany and, as we know from recent experience, when German taxi drivers venture into France, they get an extremely hostile reaction.

But what struck me, when we did venture over the border into Germany, was how German it was. While in Strasbourg, there are obvious German influences, a few miles over the Rhine and you could have been anywhere in Germany. There was not a hint of cultural mixing.

What the DW piece seems to do, therefore, is confirm personal experience: while the French and Germans are quite happy to live peaceably alongside each other, they do not really share the enthusiasm of their political masters for integration. Or, as the French might have said, vive la différence.

An unimportant little detail

With the British media totally obsessed with the Live8 crap, it seems we have to go to the Taipei Times to find out what is happening in our own damn country (excuse the French).

Anyhow, on that crucially important question that MSM finds so unimportant, it is from the said Taipei Times that we learn that Jack Straw is hinting that the EU arms embargo will stay until at least December.

This follows the news that the US congress has passed another law attempting to control the access of EU companies to US technology – something else that the British media thought so unimportant that it did not bother to report it. It now seems that Jack Straw, speaking on behalf of the EU presidency, has decided that there is little chance of the EU lifting its ban on arms sales to China.

Straw said there was still considerable opposition in Europe, given China's human-rights record and tension between China and Taiwan. "That is reflected in a series of resolutions in the European Parliament. So that is the difficulty at the moment," he told a group of journalists from across the EU. "My guess is that there is still no consensus" to end the ban, he added.

Incidentally, one wonders how the whole issue of lifting the China embargo squares with the sentiment offered by Barroso in his speech, reported by us yesterday, where he glibly states that the EU must build "on our indispensable partnership with the United States, for example, working together to promote democracy, stability, peace and security around the world."

Given that the EU is built on a foundation of anti-Americanism and is doing its best to undermine the Nato alliance, one really does wonder what planet that idiot lives on.

Lose equals win - maybe

In the Alice in Wonderland world of European politics, we have just about got used to the idea that "no" votes in referendums actually mean "yes" but now, courtesy of Gerhard Schröder, we now find that losing a no-confidence vote actually means winning it.

This came yesterday the when the German chancellor scored a victory that can only be described as "bizarre", having put to the Bundestag a no-confidence vote that he wanted to lose, this being the only way his government could be dissolved early and a new election held.

Of the 601 members in the lower house, 296 voted against Schröder – that is for him – mostly from his own party (even the ones who detested him), while 151 of the opposition voted for him, and therefore against him.

There has, however, been some controversy about whether this vote is constitutional as, more normally, a chancellor who had lost the confidence of his own party would simply resign (as did Adenauer) and another member of the same party would take over.

In this case though, Schröder's ego is so huge that, if he goes down, he wants to take his party with him, hence his tactical ploy to dissolve the government and seek a new election. That way he remains as candidate for chancellor, a postion which he will surely lose.

On that basis, although by losing the confidence vote he has won it, since he has no chance at the election, winning also means losing. And they said Irish politics were complicated.

Yet it gets even more complicated. Because of the constitutional doubts, president Horst Koehler is studying the situation and will decide whether to accept the vote before dissolving parliament. He could decide not to do so, in which case Schröder's loss which became a win is in fact a loss, which it was going to be anyway, saving him the humiliation of losing the election as he will probably have to resign.

Anyhow, he can take comfort in the old adage of the gambler: "Some you win and some you lose" – although no one, least of all Schröder, can work out which is which these days.

Die!

Barroso believes that "the time has come to listen to our citizens' concerns and reflect more generally on what Europe is for." So said he yesterday in a speech at the National Forum on Europe in Dublin, kick-starting his "Plan D of dialogue and democracy".

Reading his words, however (fortunately, I did not have to listen to them) does nothing more than bring to mind a wonderful scene in the 1996 film, Independence Day, starring Bill Pullman as US president Thomas J. Whitmore.

After his White House has been trashed by a gang of murderous aliens, along with most of the world’s cities, Whitmore ends up in Area 51 where he comes face to face with a captured alien. A translation machine is hooked up and the president asks the alien – a hideous creature – why their kind is wreaking such havoc? He gets no answer.

Trying another tack, our Bill suggests there is a way to co-exist, and asks it: "can't we negotiate?" Again, there is no answer. In desperation, the president asks, "Well, what do you want us to do?" This time, he gets a response. The hideous alien croaks out one word: "Die!"

This, essentially, is the only rational response to Barroso's plea to the "citizens" to reflect what "Europe" is for. Interestingly, he avoid the words "European Union", but the answer is the same. We don't want "Europe" to do anything. We want it (the European Union, actually) to go away and die.

Why there can be no "negotiation", much less co-existence, is amply illustrated in Barroso's own speech. While he talks at length about improving the "democracy" of the EU, this ex-Maoist clearly demonstrates that he has very little idea what democracy actually is.

Therein lies the core problem. Representing a political construct that is inherently anti-democratic, he is trying to sell us a bill of goods that is essentially fraudulent. No amount of trimming round the edges can turn the EU into anything approaching a democracy.

In fact, Barroso is not even attempting to "trim". From the very outset, he rejects any idea of changing the EU constitution. "Why is this?" he asks rhetorically, then answering his own question with the claim that "paradoxically, the Constitution is already designed to address the very issues that the 'no' campaigners have been using as arguments against it." The constitution, he claims, goes a long way to resolving the democratic deficit:

It gives the European Parliament a much greater role in decision-making, allowing it to amend and approve almost all new legislation. It throws open the doors of the Council when it is acting as a legislator, making it easier for citizens and national parliaments to monitor government positions. In fact, participatory democracy acquires a new status, with an entire title of the Constitution (Title VI) devoted to "The Democratic Life of the Union".

…the Constitution reconnects Europe with both citizens and national parliaments. It gives citizens the right to invite the Commission to introduce proposals on appropriate issues, if they can gather one million signatures in a significant number of Member States. And it gives national parliaments important new powers to enforce subsidiarity. They will be given early warning of all new legislative proposals from the Commission and the possibility to send them back
for a rethink.

With that, he says, the constitution is already the best possible compromise. It represents a delicate balance of competing views, which contains many improvements to the way in which the EU carries out its business. That is why there is no plan B.

Deconstructing these claims, we find again the use of that word "reconnect". This is part of the self-deception – delusion, even – of the élites , whereby the project was in the past somehow in tune with the "needs of the citizen" but has lost its way and must now be brought back on track. The lie is, of course, that the EU has ever "connected". It has always been an élite project and, therefore, any suggestion of a "reconnection" is a fraud.

Then, says Barroso, the constitution: "gives the European Parliament a much greater role in decision-making, allowing it to amend and approve almost all new legislation." The lie here is in the implication that the EU parliament is democratic.

Some people (and many who should know better) make the genuine error in believing that, because MEPs are elected, the institution to which they belong is necessarily democratic. But this, as we have pointed out before, is to confuse form with substance.

For an institution to be democratic, its members must be elected within the framework of a demos and, as we all know, there is no European demos. Far from being democratic, the EU parliament is a supranational institution which takes power from nation states – the reservoir of true democracy. It is inherently anti-democratic.

For Barroso’s next trick, opening the doors of the Council, for sure that is an improvement - but not one of substance.

Next, tucked into Barroso's speech is a fleeting reference to "participatory democracy", passed by so quickly you might miss it. But this is at the heart of what the constitution proposes and its very existence undermines our own democracy. We live under a parliamentary democracy, where we elect our MPs, who then represent (in theory at least) our views. In other words, it is a representative democracy. What the EU is trying to do is by-pass our representatives by appealing direct to the "citizens" – and thereby destroy our form of democracy.

Such is the claim that the constitution "gives citizens the right to invite the Commission to introduce proposals on appropriate issues, if they can gather one million signatures in a significant number of Member States." This, in essence, means that a million citizens, from other countries, can seek to impose their will on citizens of other sovereign nations. That is not democracy.

And then there is the usual canard. "It (the constitution) gives national parliaments important new powers to enforce subsidiarity. They will be given early warning of all new legislative proposals from the Commission and the possibility to send them back for a rethink."

There are two lies here. Firstly, there is no power to "enforce" subsidiarity. National parliaments can only request the Commission to rethink. It is not obliged then to change its mind. Secondly, national parliaments already have this power. By taking "ownership" of the power – and by imposing conditions on it – the constitution seeks to demote otherwise sovereign parliaments to the position of subordinate institutions. Again, that is not democracy.

There you have it. Under the guise of offering "Plan D of dialogue and democracy" the man is peddling lies. You need go no further with the speech. You really cannot debate with a man who bases his appeal on a platform of lies. As far as his institution goes, the alien has it: "Die!"

This is all so depressing

There are days, especially rainy ones, when one has to ask oneself whether there is any point in carrying on writing, posting, making points, trying to get them across. After all, do we deserve freedom? I can hear that resounding no among our readers.

The news that Christopher Booker’s column has been suspended to make way to an all-singing, all-dancing spread on the G8 and the moronic Live8 is enough to make one weep copiously, for two reasons.

Firstly, of course, there is the thought of a Sunday without the Booker column, a thought that is probably incomprehensible to our readers who are resident outside Britain. Suffice it to say that with the dumbing down of most of the British media (The Business remaining an honourable example on Sunday) one can do no more but look for the odd column for serious news and analysis.

If the Sunday Telegraph under its new editress really is going to dump all those serious writers then another nail is going into the coffin of the British MSM. The idea that people who read the Sunday Telegraph want pages and pages of breathless prose about Geldof, Madonna or U2 is so seriously flawed that one cannot help wondering where the woman spends her waking hours.

This comes at the end of a week during which we found out that German television covered the Trafalgar celebrations at greater length than the BBC and to my certain knowledge the International Herald Tribune had a clearer and more informative caption about the battle, what it was about and who won it, than any of our own newspapers, except for the Daily Mail. (The Daily Telegraph after much huffing and puffing produced mealy mouthed descriptions that carefully avoided any information about what the celebrations were actually celebrating.)

All of which makes me think that my project of an academy that teaches British history is an extremely good one. I have, incidentally, had very positive responses, including one from a South African friend of Scottish extraction, who demanded clear and detailed accounts of the Scottish contribution. I am not likely to argue with that.

Another friend of long standing, who immediately signed up his entire family, suggested that I call it after my father. That would make sense, as he taught me English (and Scottish) history first. So, we may yet see the Tibor Szamuely Academy of British History.

There is a possibility of linking in with the new Anglosphere project that is beginning to develop in the United States and is taking in other Anglophone countries that subscribe loosely to the Anglospheric ideas in law, politics, economics and constitution. Alas, it is this country, the fons et origo of it all, that will be left out.

The most likely beginning of the project will be on our forthcoming website that is being discussed at the moment.

But to return to the Sunday Telegraph. What is also depressing is the thought that the newspaper should become part of what can only be described as Live8 hysteria. Despite carefully argued pieces in its own sister paper and other publications, including the Guardian; despite well attended conferences and talks given by people from every continent, who have studied the subject; despite papers produced by experts in various fields to do with development the fragrant editress of the Sunday Telegraph seems not to have grasped something that is patently obvious to most of this country’s and many other countries’ population.

Aid does more harm than good. Forty years of aid have helped to reduce African countries to chaos and their people to complete poverty.

Aid helps the political elites of Africa, who are the problem, and the NGOs, who have a vested interest in not seeing any real development. Aid means that people spend their time filling in forms and applying for money from various donors instead of participating in the economy.

I could go on. Instead, let me quote two people on the subject, who, astonishingly enough, express similar views.

“At the root of Africa’s problems is ruling political elites that have misused the economic surplus generated by the African continent over the last 40 years. African political elites have exploited their position in order to

- bolster their standard of living to Western levels,

- undertake loss-making industrialisation projects that were not supported by the necessary technical, managerial, and educational development, and

- transfer vast amounts of money from agriculture and mineral extraction to overseas private bank accounts, while borrowing vast amounts from developed countries.”

All this was eased by the perpetual aid giving, debt writing off and more aid giving that seems to have been the West’s only response for a long time. The G8-Live8 farce, to be lovingly covered in this week’s Sunday Telegraph perpetuates this vicious circle.

Here is the second quote:

“Economic development is not something we do four countries; it is something they achieve with us. Their leaders, by definition, must play the main role as agents of reform and progress, instead of passive recipients of money.”

Money that is then mis-spent in a system where the donors know nothing about the ultimate destination of the money and the people who are in the power of the “leaders” have no way of calling them to account.

The two quotes say make very similar points, despite the vaguely Marxist phraseology of the first one. That was made by Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of Thado and deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs. The paper was first published by Cato Institute in Washington DC and, just two days ago, by the London based International Policy Network, who also organized a meeting that Mr Mbeki addressed. Clearly nobody attended from the Sunday Telegraph.

The second quote is from President Bush. It is part of his explanation why American aid is being targeted to certain particular projects and is tied to democratic development.

Are you listening Ms Sands? Silly question.

Here we go again (and again)

Britain, we are told by all and sundry, including journalists on the Continent, in this country and in the United States, is interested in reforming the EU's economic model and making it more free-market.

As Press Association sums it up:

Britain has frequently been accused of trying to ditch the "social model" of Europe favoured by nations such as France which gives workers generous working conditions and benefits.

The UK has been accused of favouring a so-called "Anglo-Saxon model" which gives workers fewer rights.

The last comment would be news to most small and medium sized businesses, as well as to the CBI, the Forum of Private Businesses and the various Chambers of Commerce. (Why do journalists keep repeating this rubbish, without checking their facts first? Why do I even ask?)

Still, free market is as free market does, as we have noted about Señhor Barroso’s supposedly outward looking, reforming Commission that has turned out to be not that different from any other old-fashioned, common or garden Commission.

Mr Blair is calling what he describes as a "mini summit" in the autumn. It will be informal but it is only a matter of time before the informal mini summit becomes a very formal another European Council. We have been there before.

Anyway, this one will concentrate on the EU's future development. Are we going down the route of the "French" social model or are accepting the "British" free-market one?

A bit of both, really, according to that famous fence-sitter, Prime Minister Blair. Before the meeting the Commission will prepare a paper on

… the sustainability of the social model in Europe in the light of the changes that are happening all around us today.

An elevated discussion will follow.

A break in tradition

Since 1990, with the exception on one week in the following year, Christopher Booker has provided The Sunday Telegraph with an uninterrupted flow of columns – up until this week.

Earlier today, Booker was informed that the new editor, Sarah Sands, had decided to dispense with the column for this Sunday, as she wished to dedicate the entire paper to a "souvenir edition" to celebrate the Live 8 concert and the following G8 summit.

The idea that an outrageous and ill-considered publicity stunt organised by a faded rock-star – personally responsible for the deaths or more Africans than many a dictator – should warrant such attention shall pass without comment. But readers may wish to acquaint the letters column of the newspaper with their views of Mz Sands' editorial judgement.

From the cutting edge

Readers will be interested to note that the EU Parliament has a Committee called "Comité pour la Prévention et la Protection au Travail".

Alas, given the current unemployment rates in France and Germany, the committee seems all too successful in its endeavours.

The grip tightens

Such is the concern in the US Congress about the threat of China and the leakage of technology via European enterprises that further controls have been imposed on technology transfers, aimed at discouraging EU from lifting its arms embargo on China.

These controls are embodied in The East Asia Security Act of 2005, which was passed on 29 June, authored by Republican U.S. Representative Henry Hyde. The Act was introduced after an uproar that followed the EU's announcement last December that it was considering lifting the embargo.

Although action on lifting the embargo has stalled, congressional officials are saying that the Hyde bill adds a measure of insurance. "This bill is intended to show that the US Congress intends to encourage the EU to keep its commitment to maintain its arms embargo, and not to falter in this commitment," a senior aide to Hyde said.

The particular concern is that technology sales could proceed indirectly via various loopholes, since some European firms which reportedly have aided Beijing's military build-up are also participants in leading-edge US weapons programs.

Amongst other measures, the legislation calls Bush to make an annual report to Congress "identifying every foreign person of the EU that has exported to China any arms or dual use technology for military end use since 1 January 2005." The legislation would also require any entity seeking to export US weapons technology to China to obtain special permits from the US State Department.

While this initiative has been generated by Congress, Pentagon officials are also considering whether further restrictions are needed. At the moment, they are struggling to define the level of controls applicable to dual-use technology after it was discovered that a minor component used in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was also being offered to China by a European company.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency described the part as a "non-descript circuit board." It is not top secret and not even particularly high-tech, but its fate is causing the US much heart-searching as it provides evidence that technologies used in American weapons could find their way to China through partnerships with European companies.

Officials are worried that there are not enough safeguards in place and want to know more about European companies' business dealings with China. But there also concern that tightening controls may hamper normal commercial exchanges and some officials are anxious to resolve differences over which technologies may and may not be sold to the China.

The most serious possible scenario is the transfer of stealth technology and tech-transfer restrictions created for the JSF's development phase need to be re-examined as foreign firms in the JSF partnership move into production, which will require more technology sharing.

More restrictions would not be welcome news to non-US companies, which are saying that the United States is already being too restrictive with technology and information — a complaint raised by several JSF partners that have spent or will spend billions on the programme. BAE Sysytems, which is a key technology partner, is even hinting that Britain's continued participation may turn on the US attitude toward sharing more technology.

"It is fundamentally important for UK sovereignty that technology transfer should take place related to the JSF to ensure that the UK has the ability to provide sovereign support and to maintain and upgrade the aircraft during its long in-service life," says Mike Turner, the CEO of BAE Systems.

Lt. Gen. Kohler is less than sympathetic, asserting that partner companies are getting the information they need to do their assigned work. "What do they want us to do - turn over the blueprints, the stealth technology or the radar we've been working on for the last 10 years? We don't need to," he says. The JSF program is not meant to be a stealth technology seminar, he adds, "The U.S. has made 10 times the investment into JSF [than its partners]. I think there are limits to what we should share."

Although Kohler claims he has not received complaints from governments involved in the project, sources in the UK disagree. "The British government has two main issues over JSF production: work share and technology transfer," one source said. "They may not be aired in the media - the British prefer diplomacy and bilateral talks - but behind closed doors, the concerns are real and strongly voiced."

Partners say they need more access to information to maintain and modify the aircraft. Tightening the rules, they say, could increase costs and create headaches. Britain and Italy are interested in hosting JSF regional maintenance centers and final assembly lines, both of which will require extensive transfer of technology.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Britain's chief of the air staff and soon to become chief of the Defence Staff, obliquely outlined his concerns last October. "The effect I want to see is an ability to adapt the aircraft quickly and affordably when we need to," Stirrup told the Defence Select Committee. "If the system of adapting, modifying, the aircraft is so cumbersome that we cannot do it in operational time scales, then that will be a serious encumbrance."

US industry representatives are none too keen on the idea of tightening restrictions either, especially as commercially available components may be caught in the net. Some are suggesting that the US government is controlling too much and not focusing attention on the things that ought to be controlled.

The US is also being told that over-rigorous controls might alienate its allies and irritate its friends – and undermine its industrial and economic interests. But it has such good evidence of technology leakage to the Chinese from Europe that it does not seem minded to give European companies the benefit of the doubt.

That is what happens when trust starts to break down and, with the UK working ever-closer with EU member states on defence issues, British access to US technology is likely to suffer. This could be damaging for the projected aircraft carrier project, being undertaken in co-operation with France, especially as the US suspects the designs will be passed on to China, which has ambitions to build her own aircraft carrier fleet to challenge US naval supremacy in the Pacific.

We could, therefore, find ourselves in the position of seeking to build carrier to fly US aircraft – in this case the JSF – without access to the technology which enables us to operate them, prejudicing the viability of the whole project.

Thus, as the US grip tightens, we are drawn ever closer to that point when our government is going to have to decide whether who its real allies are. The traditional rôle of the UK providing a "bridge" between Europe and the US no longer looks sustainable.