Turkey votes

Events in Turkey are becoming extremely interesting with the EU, as usual, flapping on the sidelines. It was always clear to anyone who managed to think about it for two consecutive minutes – which means not the EU foreign policy makers – that Turkey needs to be treated quite carefully. Otherwise, we may find ourselves facing the choice of either an Islamist government or a military dictatorship. Well, that time may have come.

This week-end saw another enormous demonstration in Istanbul of opponents of political Islam. According to the police there were well over a million people there.

A couple of weeks ago there was a smaller demonstration of only 300,000 also in favour of retaining Turkey’s prized secular status. At the time there were dark mutterings of the demonstration having been organized by the army and possibly it was not entirely untrue. Developments this week-end show that the support for secularism is more widespread than just in and around the military.

The immediate cause of this excitement is the forthcoming presidential elections and we have written about this before. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Islamist AK Party was thought to have been eyeing the presidency for himself but was put off by the first demonstration. Instead he promoted the present Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gül, a close ally and also an Islamist. One of the complaints against Erdogan and his decision was that he did not consult the opposition parties as is customary over the question of presidential candidates, relying, one assumes on his majority in parliament to get his man in.

The opposition Republican People's Party has presented the Constitutional Court with a petition to suspend the presidential election, claiming that Erdogan had acted unconstitutionally and that putting someone like Gül into the presidential palace would undermine the secularist state of Turkey.

Prime Minister Erdogan, on the other hand, has claimed that far from introducing political Islamism, his government has been very pro-Western and reformist. Though, as he did not add, this may well have been because of the barely hidden threat by the army to overthrow any government that pushes Turkey towards an Islamic state and because of a secularist President who managed to control or overrule many of the proposals.

There have been various attempts to criminalize adultery, restrict the sale of alcohol and lift the ban on the wearing of headscarves in government offices. The fear is that with an Islamist President and an Islamist Prime Minister these attempts will be successful.

In fact, Abdullah Gül is finding it more difficult to achieve the presidency than it had been expected. In the first round he failed to win the necessary number of votes and, it is expected, that he will not get in till the third round, due to take place (Constitutional Court permitting) on May 9.

The army, which considers itself to be the guardian of Atatürk’s settlement, has quite openly threatened to deal with the situation if the government moved towards political Islamic structures and this has caused an immediate flap among the great and the good in Europe.

One effect of the crisis was almost predictable:

The turmoil unsettled traders in Istanbul, where the benchmark index, the IMKB-100, was down 4.01 percent at 44,984.45 points by closing, after opening down 7.99 percent. Turkey's currency, the lira, slid against foreign currencies and was trading at 1.36 against the U.S. dollar, compared to Friday's close of 1.33.

Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership, has been steadily recovering from a financial crisis in 2001, curbing inflation and pushing ahead with banking reform and other initiatives backed by the International Monetary Fund. The country has huge foreign debt but is attractive to foreign investors.

Analysts said the markets will likely recover if the government defuses tension by agreeing to early elections for Parliament, a move that could appease critics and clear the way for more vigorous implementation of economic reforms once a new government is in place. But they warned that sustained political uncertainty would take its toll.

The Turkish press, as Deutsche Welle reports, is not taking sides but calling on both the government and the military to sort the problems out for the country’s sake. The point several journalists make is that, while the military may be there to protect the secular structure, the idea that it should do so by overruling a democratically elected government (as it has done on several occasions in recent years) is not all that appealing either.

The Turkish press on Sunday was unanimous in calling on the government and the army to resolve their differences democratically and said early elections were the only way to prevent the country from plunging into chaos.

"Turkey either giving up on secularism or suspending democracy are two doomsday scenarios impossible to choose between," the popular daily Vatan said.

The liberal daily Milliyet said the army's warning had "cast a shadow on the credibility and respectability of civilian institutions."

"The latest developments show that the current term of parliament has reached the end of its natural life. Elections should be held at once," it added.

Prime Minister Erdogan has addressed the nation, appealing for unity and calm. However, it seems that, although the address was broadcast today, it was actually recorded on Saturday, that is, before the mass demonstration. Earlier the government’s spokesman, Çemil Çiçek, said this:

It is inconceivable in a democratic state based on the rule of law for the General Staff, which is under the orders of the prime minister, to speak out against the government. The primary duty in protecting the basic tenets of the state falls on the government. The Chief of the General Staff is answerable to the Prime Minister.

It is a difficult situation to understand and the EU having not helped matters by creating endless difficulties over negotiations for Turkey’s membership of the EU (while not making it clear that this is an impossible idea, either) and having behaved with less than total honesty in Cyprus, is now making grandiloquent statements.

Both the European Union and the Council of Europe have rushed in to demand that the army stay out of Turkish politics, an impossible notion, given modern Turkey’s history. Terry Davies, the Council of Europe’s Secretary General said:

I am very anxious about this statement from the Turkish military. It sounds like an explicit attempt by the armed forces to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

Then again, these days the Council of Europe has members like Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation, so its attachment to human rights may not be as strong as it used to be.

For the European Union Ollie Rehn, the Enlargement Commissar opined:

It is important that the military leaves the remit of democracy to the democratically elected government. This is a test case if the Turkish armed forces respect democratic secularism and the democratic arrangement of civil-military relations.

He is quite wrong. The test case will come if Turkey, the only more or less democratic secular Muslim state is taken over by political Islamism. What will all the great and the good say then? The European Union, one assumes, will heave a sigh of relief. All negotiations with Tukey can be abandoned. The Council of Europe will bleat on. But a reliable Western ally will disappear.

Of course, the crisis may pass and Erdogan may stay on a secularist path, not least because he still has some hope that the EU will open its doors to Turkey. The most likely reason for that, however, will be the threat expressed by the army and a large part of the populace.

COMMENT THREAD

Global warming denial

We did it a little while back but now The Times has picked up that Mars is being hit by rapid climate change.

Writing for the paper, Jonathan Leake says it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap. This is according to scientists from Nasa, who have noted that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars, adds Leake, it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

Meanwhile, Telegraph correspondent Melissa Whitworth in her clog (corporate blog) on the paper's site, equates scepticism about the human role in global warming with holocaust denial.

I kid you not.

COMMENT THREAD

Last word?

Could the story of the Bronze soldier and his peregrinations together with the Russian deliberate over-reaction be coming to an end? One can but hope, though, if past history is anything to go by, President Putin or his ministers will find some other excuse to try to stir up trouble in the former Soviet republics.

Both the BBC Russian Service and RIA News have reported that the statue would be open to visitors today in its new place. The latter is ahead of the Beeb with a photograph (it looks real) of the Bronze Soldier in the new position though the wall has not been reconstructed behind him. The official opening will be on May 8, VE Day or the eve of Victory Day, depending on where you are.

Meanwhile, the accusations have started flying back and forth. The Estonian Foreign Ministry has accused the Russian government of deliberately fomenting the protests in Tallinn and Narva and has protested against the continuing picketing of the Estonian embassy in Moscow, in the process preventing the Estonian ambassador from leaving the building.

The same news item on the BBC website tells us that the coffins of 12 Soviet soldiers have been found near to where the memorial had stood until this Friday.

Meanwhile the Russian parliamentary delegation has arrived in Tallinn. According to the Estonians discussions will centre around the scores of Russian citizens who were arrested during the riots and the one Russian citizen who has died of knife wounds.

The delegation seems to have a different view:

The Russians will call on Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip to resign, delegation chief Nikolai Kovalyov told the Baltic News Service before leaving Moscow.

They also want the statue of the Bronze soldier at the centre of the row to be returned to the central Tallinn site from where it was removed last week, he added.

Since neither of these things are likely to happen, they might as well discuss what to do about the various Russians from Russia.

The EU has finally noticed that something is going on around its eastern border. Chancellor Merkel has spoken to President Putin about the Estonian problem among other matters and Ilkka Kanerva, the Finnish Foreign Minister has called for the maintenance of a joint line on the subject. Of course, that begs the question of what that joint line might be and, it would appear, that the attitude of the new intake, especially the Baltic States and Finland could be somewhat different from that of other member states. But that’s just attitude.

When it comes to the joint line, it seems to consist of a general agreement that this is a bilateral problem (aren’t they all?) and the EU need not interfere. So much for a common foreign policy though the German Foreign Minister is desperately warning about a renewed Cold War. Given what has been going on in the last few weeks and months, the words horses, bolting and stable doors spring to mind.

The oddest reaction came from Javier Solana, though this seems to have been reported only by RIA:

The EU's leading foreign policy and security official said Saturday he was concerned by the use of force against protesters following the removal of a WWII statue in Tallinn Friday.

In a telephone conversation with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana urged Estonia to avoid violence and defuse tensions, Solana's press secretary said.

Apparently, Solana confirmed that he did not think this was an EU issue but a bilateral one between Estonia and Russia (just as he thought Poland’s problems with Russia were no concern of his). The question is why Solana? If the story is true he was commenting on something that is not part of his portfolio. He deals with the EU’s foreign policy while the behaviour of the Estonian police is internal EU policy.

Is Solana making noises because this is, after all, a matter for the Common Foreign Policy Supremo, there being the problem of Russia interfering with the internal matters of an EU member state? If so, why not say so? Or, perhaps, he did but RIA did not report it. Then again, no-one else seems to have reported him either.

COMMENT THREAD

The MoD strikes (not) again

Given that the MoD has been savagely attacked, not least on this blog (most recently here, for its failure to adopt in both Iraq and Afghanistan the widespread use of what the US are now calling the Mine Resistant and Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAP), you would think that it would be quick to make a public announcement when it responded to the criticisms and actually did something that could be applauded.

But this is the MoD we are talking about here, so it is to the European Defence Agency Website that we must go to find that the Ministry is planning to order 180 of what it terms the "Medium Protected Patrol Vehicle" (MPPV).

With a contract value of between £20-100 million, it is specifying wheeled vehicles for likely delivery into service in early 2009 with an approximate gross vehicle weight of 14 ton, capable of carrying up to seven crew members. It should provided protected mobility and offer very high levels of protection against a number of known and emerging threats of a varied nature including Ballistic, Blast, Mine and Fragmentation.

Says the MoD, MPPVs are principally required for a wide range of patrol tasks and are normally expected to operate on roads and rough tracks in urban, semi-urban and rural environments; however they need to be sufficiently agile to provide a degree of cross country mobility.

Furthermore, the requirement is considered to be "Warlike" in nature and hence the contract will not be subject to the normal EU procurement directives. And, although the programme is currently unfunded, the initial stages of selection have the necessary financial authorisation and the programme is expected to be formalised under normal procurement procedures.

This is actually seriously good news, bringing into the inventory a vehicle of the size and range of the RG-31, Bushmaster or Dingo II types. The betting is, however, that it is more likely to be the four-wheel version of the Cougar (pictured) – the six-wheel version forming the basis for the Mastiff – in order to ensure commonality and to simplify maintenance.

Furthermore, this is not the only good news. An otherwise unpublished announcement from the Defence Procurement Agency asks for bids for what it terms "Indirect Fire Locator, Alarm and Intercept System" (IFLAIS) equipment, for delivery to Basra, Iraq, at a total cost of £9 million.

This sounds like, by another name, C-RAM (Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar) equipment, the guns based on the naval Phalanx system, which can shoot down incoming mortar bombs, thus substantially enhancing base protection. At that price, it looks like possibly three systems are on order. At last, troops in Basra are going to get the protection they deserve.

There is, of course, a security element to the ordering of this equipment but the information on both orders is in the public domain, with the information on the MPPVs now published Defense-aerospace website.

Why the MoD should not thus publish the same the same details on their website is, frankly, incomprehensible.

COMMENT THREAD

Down but not out

Though the Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey is down, he is not out. Here is a fascinating interview with Atlas Shrugs, in which he talks about developments in Egypt and the Middle East in general (not good), the lack of Western pressure that means even less likelihood of democratic development and, hilariously if it weren't so sad, the effect of Nancy Pelosi's ludicrous road to Damascus with the aftereffects. Read the whole piece.

Back in the self-referential bubble

We did not really want to revisit the "Great Dustbin Debate" so soon, but Janet Daley’s return to the country, after a brief sojourn in the USA, and her own entry into the debate, in the op-ed page of the The Daily Telegraph, makes it almost compulsory.

The debate, she says, "exposes flawed politics", bemoaning the fact that, while in the States they are discussing "big arguments, big issues, big world out there…" here, everybody is "talking rubbish."

She then ruminates on "how on earth would I have explained to any visiting American first, how an apparently slight matter of domestic convenience had become a national issue of tremendous electoral magnitude". Secondly, she asks, "how on earth central government was implicated in a policy that in the US would be determined at a level so local as to be microscopic on the political spectrum?"

This, though, is a cue for several yards of extruded opinion. Rubbish, it occurs to the great Daley, "is a totemic symbol of the Great Public Services Scam in which you are consistently charged more and more for less and less." In this way, rubbish becomes, "the final straw: it is the ultimate outrage which captures the essence of what people feel to be wrong about the way they are governed."

Thus does she continue in this vein:

It should seem absurd that Whitehall has any influence (except perhaps in enforcing broad public hygiene standards) on how and when your bins are emptied. It should be risible that national party leaders are pronouncing on the practices and policies of day-to-day refuse arrangements. These things should be entirely in the hands of locally accountable officials who may be free to engage directly in as much debate with their communities over environmental vs public health priorities as they wish.

But, you have guessed it – not a single mention of the "elephant in the room". EU diktats have so inflated the cost of waste collection and disposal that, in the run-up to a major local election, councils are seeking ways of economising and keeping down the headline level of the most sensitive of all taxes, the local council tax.

Thus, while Daley thinks that it "should be risible that national party leaders are pronouncing on the practices and policies of day-to-day refuse arrangements," she has no opinion on the fact that our supranational masters in Brussels have created the situation where rubbish collection has become the issue it has.

Nor thus, does she pronounce on the extra £3 billion in taxes and fines it is going to cost local taxpayers – no small issue – or the £12 billion infrastructure costs that it is going to cost local councils to conform with the broader requirements of the Waste Framework Directives.

By now, though, the EU link is hardly a secret so the refusal to recognise what is staring them in the face absolutely typifies this type of London-centric "chattering class" columnist that Daley really is.

I don't suppose they care one whit how they invite the utter contempt of many of their readers. In their self-referential bubbles, they can continue to hold sway at the fashionable dinner parties and that is all that matters to them. But there is a political cost. From the Daley tendency comes the vapid, shallow "doctrine" of Cameronism and, come this Thursday's local elections – outside the magic M25 circle – we can at least give him a kicking.

COMMENT THREAD

Losing the war

In entirely good faith, yesterday, we published a commentary on the US activities in the Helmand province of Afghanistan – an area under British responsibility - suggesting that our own High Command is blighted by a lack of aggressive spirit.

Today, however, we learn that more than 2,000 NATO and Afghan troops began an operation before dawn "to drive Taliban fighters from another swath of their opium-producing heartland in southern Afghanistan".

It turns out that this is a British-led operation, code-named "Silicon" involving some 1,100 British troops, 600 U.S. soldiers and more from Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia. More than 1,000 Afghan government troops are also taking part.

We also learn that the troops are targeting Helmand's Sangin Valley, an area near Afghanistan's strategic ring road that has "for too long been under the semi-control of the Taliban." This latter statement is a quote from Lt.-Col. Stuart Carver, "a British commander", who then says: "It is all part of a longer-term plan to restore the whole of Helmand to government control."

But, incredibly, we learn this not from the MoD website but from the Associated Press via the Canadian Globe and Mail.

The latest item from the MoD is the unfortunate death of a soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles but, before that, the last two entries, both on 27 April, are about – respectively – "An Armed Forces Muslim Community Conference and an Armed Forces Buddhist Community Conference" and a firefighting simulator. On the front page, there is not even a link to our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is simply not good enough. At one level, it is grossly unfair to our troops who are putting their lives on the line. What price morale when their own MoD cannot even recognise their efforts and post details of what they are doing on the web site?

At an equally important level, this represents a complete failure to understand the nature of the war we are waging. As we have written so often on this blog (most recently in relation to the Israelis), there are, in fact, two wars: the shooting war and the propaganda war. We have to win both, which means that we must show our own people and the world that our forces are making progress and securing real gains.

Not least of the problems is that, in the absence of real information about the activities of our Armed Forces, the MoD website ends up dangerously unbalanced. By far the predominance in the coverage is on casualties, which reinforces the Independent newspaper's agenda – that we are taking pain for no gain.

Inevitably, too much "gung ho – derring do" on the site would lead to charges of propaganda, but there is a balance to be struck. No coverage at all – or a very little, very late – is not an option. The site must reflect properly what we are doing in these vital areas.

On the other hand, the MoD cannot complain about the venality of the media if it, itself, cannot publish, sober, well-written (and illustrated) accounts of our own forces' achievements. And neither can we, who broadly support the government's aims, act as a counter to the incessant triviality of the media if we ourselves are unable to obtain information from authoritative sources.

After the debacle of the handling of the Iran hostages, this is yet another example of how the MoD media operation is letting down our armed forces and the nation. As a matter of urgency, it must up its game. We are losing the propaganda war and it is a war we cannot afford to lose.

COMMENT THREAD

European politicians v. Wolfowitz

Today's Wall Street Journal has another interesting editorial about the players in the Wolfowitz saga. The ad hoc committee that was supposed to decide whether Wolfowitz has acted unethically is dominated by Europeans most of whom are former politicians and they decided before hearing either him or Ms Riza that he was guilty, despite the evidence, and had to go.

On Saturday, the Washington Post cited "three senior bank officials" as saying that the committee has "nearly completed a report" concluding that Mr. Wolfowitz "breached ethics rules when he engineered a pay raise for his girlfriend." The Post also reported that, "According to bank officials, the timing of the committee's report and its conclusions have been choreographed for
maximum impact in what has become a full-blown campaign to persuade Wolfowitz to go." So there it is from the plotters themselves: Verdict first, trial later.

The timing is crucial in another way. President Bush is about to meet Commission President Barroso and Chancellor Merkel in a summit. He will, presumably, be put under some pressure from them to rid the World Bank of Wolfowitz and let it lapse back into its cosy, corrupt cronyism.

The article is scathing about certain Dutch politicians in particular:

The "ad hoc" chairman is Herman Wijffels, a Dutch politician who has his own blatant conflict of interest in the case. One of the main "witnesses" against Mr. Wolfowitz is Ad Melkert, another Dutch politician who had previously run the bank board's ethics committee that advised Mr. Wolfowitz to give the raise to his girlfriend that is now the basis for the accusations against him. Whom do you think Mr. Wijfells is going to side with: His fellow countryman, or an American reviled in Europe for wanting to depose Saddam Hussein?

Mr. Melkert has played an especially craven role by running from his own responsibility in the case. As head of the ethics committee in 2005, he refused to let Mr. Wolfowitz recuse himself from dealings with Shaha Riza, who had been long employed at the bank. Then Mr. Melkert advised him to ensure that Ms. Riza got a new job that included some kind of raise or promotion to compensate for the disruption to her career. Now, however, Mr. Melkert claims he was an innocent bystander who knew nothing about Ms. Riza's raise.

How very European. This is the same Ad Melkert, who on October 24, 2005, after Ms. Riza had been told of her new job and salary, wrote in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz that "Because the outcome is consistent with the [Ethics] Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed."

And it is the same Ad Melkert who absolved Mr. Wolfowitz after inspecting two whistleblower emails from an anonymous "John Smith" that circulated around the bank in early 2006 and charged malfeasance. A January 21 whistleblower email included a reference to Ms. Riza's "salary increase of around US$50,000" and was sent to the entire bank board.

Oh and one more point. Ms Riza, details of whose employment and salary were leaked to the media against all rules, has not had a chance to give her side of the story. Until now.

COMMENT THREAD

Shush fund

They're not only milking the taxpayer to the tune of £8 million a year to finance their second pensions, they're also trying to prevent the public knowing who they are.

And who are "they"? The Daily Telegraph has the answer.

COMMENT THREAD

Burying the dead

On my last visit to Moscow some years ago I went with a friend to a church and the nearby graveyard. It was explained to me that the graveyard was now minute because of the huge construction efforts throughout the Soviet period but before that it had been a large military cemetery where many of the Russian and allied soldiers and officers were buried during the First World War.

In the post-Soviet years attempts had been made to put up monuments to various Russian officers of that period. It was an interesting experiment since the fate of the various men had been different. Some had joined the Red Army and some the White; some went abroad and died there or, possibly, were handed over for belated settling accounts at the end of the Second World War; some disappeared in Stalin’s purges in the thirties and some actually survived to die in bed to be buried with honour.

This applied to a few senior officers only. For the most part no trace was left of the several hundred Russian and allied soldiers who had been buried in that military cemetery during World War I.

This does bear some relevance to the present problems that surround the question of the Bronze Soldier and the Soviet soldiers buried in the nearby graves (though there is some talk of there being older burials there) and this rather peculiar picture supposedly of the desecrated memorial, though it is obviously photoshopped.

Graveyards and cemeteries do not remain untouched for ever. Anyone who has ever worked on an archaeological dig would know that the dead had been dug up and unceremoniously reburied or simply dumped in the past. One may argue about the rightness of it but not about the facts.

The problem is not so much Estonia as Russia. As I have pointed out before, there was never any suggestion that the Bronze Soldier should be destroyed or that the exhumed soldiers should not receive proper re-burial. It would have been perfectly possible for the Russian government to insist on full military honours for them. Instead, this seemed like a good opportunity to stir up hatred against the West and particularly against the countries that have definitely got away, the Baltic ones.

A longer piece on what has been going on in Russia and Estonia can be found here.

COMMENT THREAD

A game worth the playing

"Killing people and breaking things". That, as one Army officer engagingly put it, is the primary role of the armed forces. Everything else is secondary.

It is those functions which the current opposition defence spokesman cannot seem to get his head round which is why his speeches on defence seem to convey the impression that he regards the MoD as a cross between a branch of the NHS and a social services department – a fully paid-up component of the welfare state. Never once has he got to grips with the efficiency of the forces in their primary role, or asked how that efficiency might be improved.

The piece in The Sunday Telegraph today, therefore, comes as a salutary reminder of that role, at which it seems, US Apache crews are excelling in Afghanistan.

Written by Gethin Chamberlain - and for once a good piece of journalism – the title certainly conveys the flavour of what is going on: "US aircrews show Taliban no mercy", the story telling us how a Taliban ambush team had been caught in the open by a pair of Apache gunships and systematically exterminated. And, to prove the point about "breaking things", in another action when the helicopters had finished with the men, they went about destroying the equipment the fighters had been using.

This more aggressive stance is almost certainly the work of General Dan McNeill, who recently assumed command of Nato forces in Afghanistan, taking over from Gen David Richards, the British officer who – notoriously – saw the way forward as making local peace deals with tribal elders, to keep the Taliban out.

This much is affirmed in another piece by Gethin Chamberlain, who has the American forces claiming they have blocked the Taliban's planned spring offensive by overriding British deals with the insurgents and launching an aggressive air and land campaign.

We are told that American officers have said they could no longer stand by and watch as the Taliban picked off British soldiers who had been left "isolated" in their bases in Helmand province. Chamberlain thus cites Lt Andrea Anthony, the intelligence officer for the 82nd Airborne Division's Task Force Corsair - which includes the Apache helicopter gunship force – who says that American commanders had adopted a more aggressive approach, out of concern for what was happening on the ground. Writes Chamberlain, citing the officer:

"It was difficult for the Brits to have the support they needed," she said. "The ground elements in Helmand were so isolated that they would get shot at and mortared.

"That has changed now. It was a case of having friendly guys there, and we needed to go out and take care of them. You can only lose so many guys before you say, 'This is ridiculous, we are going to do something about it'."

What also comes over from the first piece is the high morale of the US aircrew. Although they have lost 50 helicopters since the start of the war in Iraq, they are not losing any sleep over it. Says one pilot, Lt Jack Denton "When you are on top of the enemy you look, shoot and it's, 'You die, you die, you die' … The odds are on our side. I really enjoy it. I told my wife, if I could come home every night then this would be the perfect job."

The Americans at least have come to terms with the objectives of fighting an insurgency. You do not negotiate with your enemies. You kill them.

This makes such a contrast with the defeatist whingeing from Private Paul Barton, to whom most of the daily newspapers have given space, after he telephoned his local newspaper, the Tamworth Herald to give vent to his feelings.

Interestingly, none of the newspapers picked up the fact that Barton was by no means the first soldier to have aired his woes to a local newspaper. Back in December last, Lance Corporal James Larsen, recently returned from Basra after serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, gave his account to the North West Evening Mail.

Having, like Pte Barton, been based at the Shatt al Arab Hotel, his account was eerily similar to that of Barton’s, he claiming that he had survived more than 1,000 bomb attacks on his base and had been just 70 metres from a colleague who was killed by a mortar bomb. He added:

My friends have been thrown on top of me and I have been mortared from 25 metres away when the tent got hit. We had breeze blocks going round our beds. I would roll off the bed and go under it next to the breeze blocks. I soon stopped sleeping on the bed and just lay with the breeze blocks.

Perhaps the seminal difference between Lt Denton and the Barton/Larsen duo is that Denton was dishing it out while the British soldiers were on the receiving end without, it appears, any (or much) opportunity to hit back.

That is possibly the greatest indictment of the British Army High Command to date - the way they neglected force protection while allowing insurgents to take risk-free pot-shots at our troops.

Frankly, anyone who really knows soldiers, and has talked to them at length, will understand that this lies at the root of the problem in Basra. It is not the danger they fear – there is no lack of serving soldiers volunteering for action, wanting to get "stuck in". Barton put his finger on it when he said: "We were just sitting ducks". Being sniped and bombed when out on patrol and mortared and rocketed when back at base – by an enemy whom they are told to treat with kid gloves - is not what any soldier signs up for.

Effectively, it seems that the High Command of the British Armed forces (with some notable exceptions) is blighted by a lack of aggressive spirit.

That much seems evident in the treatment of the Prince Harry, where there is much beating of breasts over the young man being put at risk or, variously, putting the troops around him at risk as he becomes targeted by insurgents.

Rather than his high profile presenting a problem, however, a more robust – dare one say masculine – society (of which the Army is a part) might look upon this as an opportunity.

Much of the difficulties in dealing with insurgencies is that the enemy is hidden. In order to prevail against it, it must be brought to battle. And, if Prince Harry is up for it, his presence in theatre would be an ideal bait, drawing out the enemy whence it can be systematically slaughtered, much in the manner in which Lt Denton so enjoyed doing.

Therein, however, lies the real problem. With its current array of equipment and tactics, the Armed Forces are probably not capable of baiting a trap and ensuring that the tethered goat is not consumed by the tiger before a shot is fired.

Not least of those problems is the absurd equipment – the Scimitar light tank - which Price Harry is expected to operate. Long obsolescent, its thin armour is proof only against heavy machine gun fire (and then only just), while its ballistic profile renders it highly vulnerable to IEDs. It is hardly a surprise that, on 19 April, a Scimitar was blown up by a roadside bomb, killing two more soldiers and seriously injuring a third. Under current conditions, the Army could not guarantee that Harry would not suffer the same fate.

Here, we are seeing an element of (procurement) chickens coming home to roost.

Introduced in 1971, the Scimitar - or Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) as it is known – was long due for replacement by a more capable vehicle through the TRACER programme, only for that to be cancelled and then, in part, replaced by the utterly useless Panther Command/Liaison Vehicle.

In the absence of any other suitable alternative (although the US Army uses modified Bradleys – equivalent to our Warriors - for the role) this equipment (literally) soldiers on, despite its manifest unsuitability for its current (or any) role and its obvious vulnerability.

Then there are the other inadequacies, not least the lack of airborne surveillance and the lack of assault helicopters. If the Army got its BN Defenders back up in the air, leased a dozen Bell 212 "Hueys" and then started using techniques like environmental exception mapping to detect IEDs and – if need be – drafted a squadron of Challengers into the area, together with a company of Warrior-borne armoured infantry, then we would have the makings of a game plan.

For sure, there are risks. For the Prince to be killed or captured would be a tremendous blow – but there is also the opportunity to inflict a decisive defeat on the insurgents, which would reflect hugely on the prestige of our Armed Forces and our nation. If our High Command could take a little time out from writing up their risk assessment manuals, they might actually see that there is a game afoot, worth the winning.

COMMENT THREAD

No wonder they don't want to talk about it

Anyone listening to BBC Radio 4's Any Questions yesterday would not have gained the impression from the panellists, dealing with the question of fortnightly refuse collection, that the issue was anything other than a tussle between central and local government.

Between the patronising Patricia Hewitt, health secretary Hazel Blears, and the braying of the Lib-Dim MP, Susan Kramer, the decision was either local or dictated by central diktat. Not once did any of the panellists mention the elephant in the room – the EU and its framework waste directive.

It thus takes Booker, today, to write that, in all the acres of newsprint devoted in recent days to the chaos engulfing our rubbish disposal system, one crucial ingredient has been almost entirely lacking. This is, he tells us, a proper explanation not only of why we have got into this mess but why it is soon going to cost us billions of pounds, including huge fines to Brussels, which alone, on official figures, will soon total more than £1 billion.

And so we get the story:

When in 1999 the EU decided to phase out the landfilling of waste with its Landfill Directive, this was always going to hit the UK much harder than anyone else, because we have traditionally put much more of our rubbish into holes in the ground than other countries. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with that, since it has been used to reclaim large areas of land which might otherwise serve no useful purpose.

Two main instruments were used to enforce this policy. The first was that, under the directive, each country was set targets for reducing landfill, with hefty fines by the EU for anyone failing to meet them. By 2010 these will amount to £150 for every ton of waste by which each local council exceeds its target.

The second instrument, to encourage us to meet our targets, was the landfill tax, which Gordon Brown has just increased over the next two years to £32 a ton, a rise by next year of 33 percent. The Local Government Association has just released figures showing that, over the next four years, this will cost council taxpayers a staggering £3 billion.

Despite this, however, we will still be so far short of our EU target that, by 2013, the National Audit Office estimates that we shall be paying £205 million a year in fines to Brussels. Within ten years those fines (again payable by council taxpayers) will have amounted to well over £1 billion; in addition to the billions of pounds we shall be paying in landfill tax.

Unlike any other country in Europe, in short, we shall be hit by the Landfill Directive by a massive double-whammy. Hence all the ridiculous measures now filling the newspapers which councils are now taking, in a desperate effort to increase "recycling" and reduce our dependence on landfill. In fact, as I reported last month, much of this is based on bureaucratic humbug and statistical juggling. Much of what is shown as being collected for "recycling" is not being recycled at all. It is either being shipped out to the Far East, or is still being quietly put into tips here in Britain, but in such a way that it doesn't show up in the official figures as "landfill".

If the newspapers currently running campaigns on "bin chaos" really want to do something about it, they could begin by explaining just how this disaster has arisen. It does seem rather crazy that we should all be having to pay £3 billion in the next four years, in a vain bid to avoid having to pay a further £1 billion in fines as a free gift to our EU partners - all because our politicians should never have agreed to this dotty system of waste disposal being imposed on Britain in the first place.

To be fair, Vicki Woods in The Telegraph yesterday wrote a stonking piece, attacking the chaos over refuse collection, under the title, "Recycling? Admit it, it's all just rubbish".

It's the EU that tells Gordon Brown to increase the price of every ton (or is it a "tonne"?) of household rubbish dumped in landfill sites, she writes. Gordon Brown says OK, sure, why not? and promises to fine councils up to £150 per ton (or tonne) if they go over their EU-arranged landfill-site allowance. So we must, must, must recycle, d'you hear?

The EU, she observes, hates landfill. Woods lives in the countryside and likes landfill. She prefers it to incinerating rubbish, and well she might. The pictures in this piece are a collation of landfill practice, from lining the pit to spreading and in-situ compaction. The final picture shows the cell structures and the covering of the refuse with inert material.

It's modern, sanitary, environmentally friendly and produces large quantities of methane which is used to produce electricity, helping us meet our renewable energy quota. Furthermore, there is more than enough capacity in this country to meet any foreseeable need. But – courtesy of the EU - we must pay a ransom of over £3 billion for using the system.

No wonder the politicians don't want to talk about it.

COMMENT THREAD

The Euroticket cometh

Shame on all of you who didn't know it was the first ever European Road Safety Day yesterday. We are amazed that the forum wasn't flooded with angry demands for us to do a post on it.

It might also have been European Union propaganda day as well – except that that is every day. The Eurospin médecins were certainly out in force extolling the virtues of the "European Road Safety Action Plan" launched in 2001 with the aim of reducing the total number of deaths from almost 50,000 to 25,000 by 2010.

According to the EU commission press release, Le Plan "continues to deliver results" and the target of saving 25,000 lives on Europe's roads by 2010 is "attainable".

Of course, one is not supposed to look up what they said last year, but it was in February 2006 that a rather subdued EU transport commissioner, Jacques "Wheel" Barrot conceded that the plan was not not likely to achieve its 2010 goal. "At present rate," the commission noted, "road deaths in the European Union in 2010 are likely to stand at 32,500".

Conveniently, the latest set of figures are not available on the EU website but the commission is claiming the last 12 months have seen an eight percent reduction in the annual fatality rate.

In 2006, nearly 12,000 lives were saved in the European Union in comparison with 2001, an achievement, the commission says, which shows clearly the "ambitious objective" of halving the death rate "was justified". "Thanks to the concerted efforts of the European Union we can reach our target in 2010, provided we stay on course,” purrs Barrot.

Now, the programme started in 2001 and is six years in, with four to run and has produced less than fifty percent of the projected reduction. And this means the commission is going to meet its target?

Anyhow, buoyed with his success Barrot is now proposing an EU-wide law for the more serious road driving infringements allowing a culprit to be fined or otherwise brought to justice in one member state when the incident happened in another. Thus, a German driver caught speeding in France could be fined according to French law even after he had returned home. Under consideration are speeding, drink-driving and not wearing a seat belt.

"We need to give a European dimension to the fight against danger on the roads," says Barrot. The Euro-ticket cometh.

COMMENT THREAD

Another one down

The anonymous Egyptian blogger, who posted on the site Rantings of a Sandmonkey has decided to quit. Well, so what, you might say. Bloggers give up all the time.

Sandmonkey's reasons for stopping are deeply depressing, though. He does not feel that he is safe in Egypt any more. Not that he ever thought he was safe but he is convinced that his anonymity has been pierced what with State Security agents lurking around his street and asking questions about him.

There has been tightening up of control in Egypt and free-thinking people like Sandmonkey were unlikely to escape the attention of the agents (or, for that matter, of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom we are now supposed to take seriously as a force for good).

He also adds an interesting comment about the Egyptian blogosphere, which has become, in his opinion, too inward-looking, engaged, it seems, in perpetual navel-gazing and mutual admiration. This does not surprise me. The same phenomenon could be observed with the dissidents of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Isolated from the rest of their society, they spent a lot of time talking to each other and writing for each other, having better links with Western groups than with others in their own countries. It was one reason why many of them found the post-Communist world more disturbing than one would have expected.

Read Sandmonkey's last post in full (and then go back to his previous ones). The blog will be missed and another scalp can be added to the forces of oppression.

The credibility of the BBC

The MoD announced yesterday, the findings of the Board of Inquiry held to determine the cause of the loss of a Lynx helicopter in Basra last year, an event that caused the death of five service personnel – including the first woman to be killed – and triggered a rather nasty riot.

It comes as no surprise to learn that the aircraft was shot down and, to counter any similar incidents, the BoI has made a number of recommendations which, for reasons of operational security, it has not published.

What is remarkable, however, is the BBC's response on its website. It shows a picture of a Lynx helicopter, with the caption, "The Ministry of Defence says the Lynx is a deadly tank killer." But the picture shows not the Mk7 – which is the utility/land attack version which actually got shot down – but the Mk8. This is the naval, anti-shipping/anti-submarine version – a completely different beast, even down to its different colour scheme.

Alright, this may be a small point, which would only be picked up by nerds. But we are talking about our national broadcasting organisation here – with all the inherent authority that that conveys. Its staff should know these things and its lack of attention to small detail strikes of a sloppy, inadequate organisation.

It would be easy to conclude from this (and many other examples) that if you cannot trust the BBC on the small details, that they are equally untrustworthy on the big issues – but that is not necessarily the case. However, such unforced errors certainly do not enhance the credibility of the BBC.

COMMENT THREAD

The Saturday "toy"

Did I say I was bored with pics of rubber boats?

I lied.

But then, there are rubber boats, and there are rubber boats - this one is from the Greek Navy. Doncha just love that colour scheme! Eat your heart out, Mr Bean.

COMMENT THREAD

Cartoon physics revisited

There are two pieces on the op-ed page of The Daily Telegraph today, one from Jeff Randall and the other by Tory MEP Daniel Hannan. Although not apparently linked, read together, they tell a single story.

In the latter piece, Hannan is hyperventilating over a letter written by Angela Merkel, to her fellow EU heads of government. In fact, says the man, "I am clutching in my hot, trembling hands the most extraordinary document I have come across in eight years of Euro-politics. It is a letter from the German Chancellor."

In it, says our Daniel, she proposes a scheme to bring back the European Constitution under a new name - or, as she artlessly puts it, "to use different terminology without changing the legal substance".

Hannan is so excited by this "discovery" that he equates his feelings with how our code-breakers at Bletchley must have felt when a fully operational Enigma machine fell into their hands. After months of guesswork, he quivers, "we finally understand the enemy's intentions… This single providential discovery could represent the turning point of the entire campaign."

It seems our role always to be raining on little Danny boy's parade – likeable fella though he is - but the letter doesn't actually say that. The phrasing to which he refers comes in one of twelve questions which Merkel addresses to her fellow heads of government, in this one asking them as follows:

How do you assess in that case the proposal made by some Member States to use different terminology without changing the legal substance for example with regard to the title of the treaty, the denomination of EU legal acts and the Union's Minister for Foreign Affairs?

This, of course, puts it into a completely different context. With the other eleven questions, it demonstrates no more than Merkel sounding out the "colleagues". And, at this late stage, with only two months to go to the end of the presidency, it perhaps suggests that she is not as far forward as she might have hoped. It might even suggest she is floundering.

Hannan, as you might expect, sees this as a justification for a referendum but, even if he is right about the document, he is but one of a few who can drum up enough energy to be excited about the prospect. In the wider world, there is simply no interest in the machinations of the EU.

By coincidence, it is in the other piece, by Jeff Randall, that the explanation lies. Unlike Hannan, with his day job as an MEP and his equally lucrative writing career, we are, according to Randall’s headline: "Up to our eyes in debt we can't see". And ain't that the truth.

Millions of consumers are shooting for the stars, or going for broke, depending on your viewpoint, he writes. They're borrowing every penny that's available - and then a bit more. Some are deep in debt through necessity: they cannot survive on what they earn. Many are in hock to live the dream: the Chelsea tractor and a Marbella mansion. Others are "eating" their homes, ie, remortgaging to fund essentials such as 50in plasma televisions and sunbeds in the loft. Average interest paid by British households is £3,500 a year, according to Creditaction, a debt charity.

Typical mortgages, these days, are six times the buyers' salary, and house prices keep increasing in price at a rate of more than twice income growth. Some 34 per cent of mortgages taken out in January this year were "interest-only" and buyers are relying on house price inflation to bail them out.

Randall describes the current situation as "hocus-pocus economics" yet, when he raises the prospect of rising interest rates, higher mortgage payments, creeping unemployment and the possibility of falling house prices, "fingers are stuffed in ears, eyes are tightly shut and heads shake wildly: 'No, no, no. Go away!'"

Living in their own unreal bubbles, the majority of people do not really have time for "politics" or any real interest in them – much less EU affairs. Real political issues are, in any case, too close to reality and, when you are in denial, it is much safer to stick to the "soap opera" version of life, populated by Royals, celebrities, tat and gossip.

It is not so much that people are too well off, too comfortable and too secure. Largely, it is the very reverse – we have a population living on the edge of a debt precipice.

In fact, many have gone over the edge, playing out their own version of cartoon physics, akin to Wile E. Coyote forever running off the edge of a cliff, but only plunging to the ground when he notices that he has gone too far. In fact, according to the laws of cartoon physics, he will never fall until he looks down and sees nothing underneath him.

This, of course, cannot last. Recently, I was discussing with Booker whether anyone living in the early 1920s could have predicted that, before the end of the fourth decade of the Century, Germany would be in the grip of a totalitarian regime of monstrous savagery and that the world would be embroiled in another war.

That no one could have made such rash predictions says one thing – that when history moves, it moves very fast. Since the war we have had stability in the western part of Europe for over 60 years – which the integrationalists have exploited for their own ends. But, even within a decade, all that could change. Then, perhaps, we shall take an interest in real politics again.

But, however much Hannan hyperventilates about what is in his "hot trembling hand", the time is not now.

COMMENT THREAD

A lost battle?

Long gone are the days when the routine fare of this blog was a diet of edited agency reports and rehashed newspaper stories. We have tried to set our own agenda with our own particular "take" on the world and, where we do deal with current news stories, we try to add value, through offering either more comprehensive coverage or analysis – or both.

The process of writing in this matter, with the discipline of running a daily blog, ends up being an enormously educative experience and, if our readers benefit from our work, we as authors possibly benefit even more. On a whole raft of issues we can count ourselves better informed, arising purely from the process of having to research and write for the blog.

That said, the accumulation of knowledge and information (if these two things are different) does not make the process of writing any easier. If anything, as we follow some issues, more of the underlying complexities become apparent and matters which, initially, looked black and while, assume degrees of ambiguity which make analysis and understanding more difficult as time goes on.

Such is the situation in Basra and the continued presence of British troops, holding the line against what seem – to some at least – overwhelming odds in a futile attempt to bring peace and stability to that corner of a benighted country.

That would certainly be the impression if one was to take at face value the report in The Independent today, which retails the thoughts and experiences of a serving British soldier recently returned from Iraq who, according to the newspaper, "exposes horror of war in 'crazy' Basra".

This is 27-year-old Private Paul Barton of 1st Battalion, the Staffordshire Regiment, who paints a picture of troops under siege, "sitting ducks" to an increasingly sophisticated insurgency. "Basra is lost, they (the militias) are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face," he says.

What immediately suggests caution, however, are two things. The first is, rather uncompromisingly, that if you were to seek a strategic overview of the situation in Basra, it would be unwise to rely on the testimony of a single soldier, much less a 27-year-old Private. Then, secondly, the account is carried by a newspaper which is totally opposed to our presence in Iraq and is pushing an avowedly withdrawalist agenda.

This notwithstanding, some of the unvarnished details offered by Barton are disturbing. He recounts how, during his recent tour in Iraq, his regiment lost one soldier, Pte Johnathon Wysoczan, 21, but 33 more were injured. "I was the first one to get to one of the tents after it was hit, where one of my mates was in bed," he says. "The top of his head and his hand was blown off. He is now brain damaged."

He then adds: "We were losing people and didn't have enough to replace them. You hear about the fatalities but not the injuries. We have had four who got shot in the arm, a bloke got blown up twice by roadside bombs and shot in the neck and survived." Most, he said, endured at least one "lucky escape" during their tour. "I had a grenade chucked at me by practically a five-year-old kid. I had a mortar land a couple of metres from me."

The regiment was based in the Shatt al-Arab hotel base, which was handed over to the Iraqi army on 8 April. Of the 40 tents in the base, just five remained unscathed by the end of the tour, he said. "We were just sitting ducks ... On the last tour we were not mortared very often. This tour, it was two to three times a day. Fifteen mortars and three rockets were fired at us in the first hour we were there."

He added: "Towards the end of January to March, it was like a siege mentality. We were getting mortared every hour of the day. We were constantly being fired at. We basically didn't sleep for six months. You couldn't rest. Psychologically, it wore you down. Every patrol we went on we were either shot at or blown up by roadside bombs. It was crazy."

To conclude his account, Barton then offers his view that the insurgents appeared to be considerably better trained, funded and equipped than had been the case during their first tour of duty. "Last tour, I never fired my rifle once. This time, I fired 127 rounds on five different occasions. And, in my role [providing medical support], I shouldn't have to fire." He added: "We have overstayed our welcome now. We should speed up the withdrawal. It's a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits."

What we are to make of this is anyone's guess. One could take with a pinch of salt the Private's view that the battle is lost and that we should pull out, but what does come over clear – and seems reliable – is his account of the "siege mentality". As we have remarked so many times on this blog (for instance here), base protection seems woefully inadequate and has been putting our troops seriously at risk – with the inevitable consequences on morale.

However, Private Barton's former base at Shatt al Arab Hotel has now been handed over to the Iraqis and, while Basra Palace is also taking a hammering, that too will be gone by June. That will leave Basra Air Station, and base protection measures there may be substantially better than have been provided elsewhere.

Whether troops based so far out of town, with limited (and therefore vulnerable) access roads to trouble spots, will perform any useful function remains to be seen but, harrowing though Barton's experience was, it is no longer strictly relevant to the strategic picture. But what exactly that picture is, we could not even begin to say. And that is also disturbing.

COMMENT THREAD

Calling all left-wing feminists

This picture has done the rounds of the Iranian blogs as a symbol of the latest activity by the Iranian government and police. There are more pictures and a video of police rounding up women who are not veiled in a "summer campaign against immodesty".

The behaviour of the police has been such that even conservative Iranians including prominent politicians like Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi have protested (though the latter simply thought the methods were counterproductive).

150,000 women were arrested in the first four days and all but a handful have signed an admission of guilt and a formal apology. 13 will stand trial and an unspecified number has been given psychological counselling.

Unsurprisingly, ministers have been jumping up and down and praising both the idea and the execution of it as right and proper. 203 members of the Majlis (Iranian parliament) have signed a letter to General Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, which praised the police and blamed the United States and Israel for inciting Iranian women to defy what they see as the Islamic dress code.

The courageous Iranian blogosphere (or blogistan) has been running the story in English but, especially, in Farsi with citizen journalists taking photographs and videos.

Oh, by the way, has anyone seen a comment from left-wing feminists of either sex?

COMMENT THREAD

Interesting twist to the Wolfowitz saga

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the Wolfowitz saga. Mr Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution (there are two listed on its website, so it is hard to work out which one wrote the article) points out that the recipients of World Bank assistance, particularly if they are interested in reforming their countries want Paul Wolfowitz to stay.

At a press conference during this month's World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here's how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia's finance minister, responded:

I would say that Wolfowitz's performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions ... In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us ... We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general ... into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing.

She was supported by the deputy prime minister for Mauritius, Rama Krishna Sithanen, who pointed out that Mr Wolfowitz had been supportive of reforms in the country.

Zambian Finance Minister N'Gandu Peter Magande said:

We should keep positive that whatever happens to the president, if, for example, he was to leave, I think whoever comes, we insist that he continues where we have been left, in particular on this issue of anticorruption. That is a cancer that has seen quite a lot of our countries lose development and has seen the poverty continuing in our countries. And therefore . . . we want to live up to what [Wolfowitz] made us believe" that "it is important for ourselves to keep to those high standards."

There are one or two interesting points in the article. Paul Wolfowitz, as has been noted before, has demanded results from his staff and has concentrated on the poorest areas of sub-Saharan Africa. (Though some of the countries in that list are extremely rich in resources.)

He has emphasized the need for reform and an end to the culture of corruption. Now, this may be just talk but, clearly, those who have viewed the World Bank as a sinecure for themselves are more than a little worried. So, maybe, this time the talk was going to be translated into action.

After all, it seems to be something of a shock to the system having the President of the World Bank appointing two African-born women as Vice-Presidents. Then there is this problem of results. As the article says about those working for the organization:

the World Bank has always been a sinecure for developed-world politicians. They get handsome salaries, tax free, and their performance is measured not by how much poverty they cure but by how much money they disperse.

The fate of Africa and her people come very low down on their list of priorities. And if the Bank acquires a President who wants to change that situation, a concerted effort is needed to get rid of him.

Imagine how much could have been achieved if the World Bank officials had spent half the time they have wasted on trying to get rid of Wolfowitz on what they are supposed to be dealing with: solving the problems of African countries.

COMMENT THREAD

Update on the Bronze Soldier

According to the BBC Russian Service website (usually more reliable than the rest of the BBC) there were 44 demosntrators injured and 13 police officers, most the wounds being caused by flying glass. One man is dead, a victim of a knife fight between two gangs of demonstrators, according to the Estonian authorities. 273 people have been arrested.

At an extraordinary meeting the government decided that the Bronze Soldier needs to be removed immediately as in "police custody". Presumably the excavations will carry on when the situation calms down.

It is not quite clear whether this is what the Russian authorities wanted. At the moment there is a great deal of huffing and puffing, with the Foreign Ministry thundering on about "sacrilege" and "inhumanity" and the Speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, accusing the Estonian authorities of mocking the dead and those who had liberated them from fascism.

On all sides there are suggestions that the President should break off diplomatic relations with Estonia. The Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper and it is, kind of, though not as much as it used to be) says that there will be a meeting outside the Estonian embassy in Moscow. No doubt one of those old-fashioned "spontaneous" meetings.

Actually, there is no pretence even that this is spontaneous. It is being organized by the Moscow City Council and the participants will be activists from the "Young Guard" movement (presumably called after the well-known and somewhat turgid novel by the Soviet hack, Konstantin Fadeyev, about a group of youngsters who organized a resistance movement to the German invaders in Krasnodar) and from "One Russia" party.

MORE

Kommersant quotes the Estonian newspaper Postimees, which said that "activists from Russia's Nashi movement have moved into the Meriton Grand Hotel Tallinn (69 euros a night) a few hundred meters from the monument". One wonders (though not too hard) who paid for this indulgence. It would appear that there is considerably less support for the "Night Watch", the self-appointed defenders of the Bronze Soldier, among the Estonian Russians.

COMMENT THREAD

The saga of the Bronze Soldier goes on

Not so long ago we wrote about the plan to move the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn, the memorial to the Soviet Liberators (or, as all these memorials are popularly known, to the Unknown Rapist). The plan seems to be to excavate the nearby grave of 14 Soviet soldiers (we do not know for certain that they are actually Russian) and to move them together with the memorial to a military cemetery.

This has upset the local Russian population and the big neighbour to the East, where Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister and Mikhail Kamynin, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman warned Estonia, no later than today that the dismantling of the monument, excavating of the graves and moving the whole lot will cause serious problems between that country and Russia. Russian newspapers have been writing continuously about the outrageous attitude of the Estonian authorities who are denigrating the great achievements and sacrifices of the Soviet army in the Second World War.

Even the Chief Rabbi of Russia has been roped in:

We know that extremist forces are raising their heads in some European countries, nursing plans to rehabilitate the Nazi ideology. We know that totalitarian regimes, among them the Ahmadinejad regime in Iran, have made the negation of Nazi crimes a central tenet of their propaganda.

One wonders how much of this Rabbi Berel Lazar believes. After all, it is his own government that has been particularly friendly and helpful towards the Ahmadinejad regime.

The problem of the Bronze Soldier illuminates the difficulty of assessing twentieth century history and, in particular, the events of the Second World War in the eastern half of Europe. The truth is that the two halves of the Continent had different experiences throughout the century.

To the Russians (and, let’s face it, some Balts and East Europeans) the various monuments to the Soviet soldier symbolizes the great sacrifices and achievements of the Great Patriotic War and the glory of the liberation the Red Army brought to various European countries. The truth is that the sacrifices were enormous and the achievement was astonishing. It is the liberation that has become problematic.

To many East Europeans and the Balts in particular the monuments are symbols of near-fifty years of oppression afterwards as well as the horrors of that liberation. The Baltic States were invaded by the Red Army in 1940, followed by the NKVD, then by the German Army, followed by the Gestapo, then again by the Red Army followed by the NKVD. All in all, it has been estimated that a third of the three countries’ population disappeared into Soviet prisons, camps and exile.

At the same time one cannot help feeling that some agreement could have been reached on the fate of the Estonian Bronze Soldier, if Putin and Lavrov did not see this as a wonderful opportunity to wind up Russian nationalism in Estonia and to play on that feeling of victimhood that is never far from the surface of Russian thinking. The Estonian authorities have emphasized over and over again that they do not intend to destroy the Soldier, merely move him.

Yesterday, the monument was covered with a huge tent, the square cordoned off and the border with Russia temporarily closed to prevent possible trouble. Work was due to start. Instead the police had to deal with about 1,000 demonstrators who screamed “fascists” at the Estonian police and refused to move, despite accounts in the Russian press of their determination to keep the demonstration peaceful.

The police used tear gas, water canons and stun grenades, eventually having to break the windows of cars in which the demonstrators locked themselves in. It is, as yet, not clear why it was necessary to use all this weaponry against 1,000 people.

Some of the crowd broke away and (accidentally, according to Izvestiya) broke the windows of the National Library, taking their revenge to other windows, shops and cars. Eventually, they were rounded up. One of the buildings targeted was the headquarters of the Reform Party.

There were several arrests and a number of people, including police officers, were hurt. Here is a video of some of the goings on, the general impression being of hooligan behaviour (as the Russians would put it). Interestingly enough those involved seem to be too young to care very much about what happened at the end of World War II.

COMMENT THREAD

Global rip-offs

The trouble with "global warming" is that it is now a major industry in its own right, forming a huge constituency in support of controls and regulation, from which it is making lucrative incomes.

One of these, what might be called "rip-off merchants" – although the Financial Times is far too polite to use that term – is an outfit called MyCarbonWorld, which has been offering "EU phase one" carbon offsets to industry at £6.40 per tonne.

However, courtesy of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – the organisation which found BSE in sheeps' brains, only to discover it had been testing cattle brains all along – such a cock-up has been made in the allocation of these "carbon offsets" that their price has now plummeted to £0.34 per tonne.

Faced with a profusion of offset schemes on the market, and misleading advice from Defra, however, it seems that many British companies have bought the full-priced offsets, paying far more than needed.

Unabashed, Defra has not admitted any responsibility for this debacle. Instead, it has blithely set about proposing a new set of guidelines for the next phase of the EU-inspired scheme, telling all and sundry that: "We believe that businesses and consumers are looking for increased clarity in the offsetting market".

At least they got that last bit right, although one cannot have much confidence that anybody needing "clarity" will get it from this benighted Department. In the meantime, MyCarbonWorld is happily telling its gullible punters that is system "is regulated by the EU and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs in the UK".

That should surely want to make you run a mile.

COMMENT THREAD

Counter-insurgency in the House

From the defence debate today, Ann Winterton speaking (albeit to a somewhat less than packed House):

I came across a quotation the other day that seemed especially apt for this debate on the UK's defence. In his "The Art of War", Sun Tzu wrote:

"And as water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions."

That succinctly describes the dilemma facing those charged with the procurement of arms, vehicles and systems for our armed services on active duty on behalf of the UK.

In order to plan comprehensively for the defence of the UK, one has to predict future difficulties and conflicts that could threaten, directly or indirectly, our nation and its interests. It would seem that the present counter-insurgency challenges facing our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan—part of the war on terrorism—have not been accurately predicted by the military or by politicians. The Home Secretary recently talked about splitting the responsibilities of the Home Office to improve prospects in the war on terror. Perhaps the MOD needs to give a higher priority to counter-insurgency work, and to the necessary procurement for it, because the war on terror will most certainly not go away.

I am often reminded of the phrase "boys and toys" when I hear about the huge expenditure on procurement in the UK's defence budget, not least because I have always believed that it is not what we spend but how we spend it that is more important. For example, the RAF's budget is haemorrhaging because of the Eurofighter—that fantastically expensive creation of European integration—and if we enter into tranche 3, which will provide for ground attack, the aircraft will be too fast to be of any use as close air support in counter-insurgency work.

Similarly, the Royal Navy is besotted with the idea of its two future aircraft carriers, which inevitably absorb most of its funding. However, should not we ask whether those vessels will fit the requirements of the future? They will certainly be of limited value in counter-insurgency work, where the requirement is often as simple as inshore patrol vessels. The Army has been painfully restructured to fulfil the original concept of FRES—the future rapid effect system—to wage war against a conventional army at a distance, as part of the European rapid reaction force, double-hatted with NATO; yet that unattainable pipe dream seems to have been downgraded to the provision of medium-armoured vehicles.

The three examples I have briefly described, with the extra parts bolted on to form the complete packages, are very large funding projects indeed. During the Westminster Hall debate I secured on FRES, the Minister announced that its cost had risen, almost overnight, from £6 billion to £14 billion and I believe that it has now gone up to £16 billion in only a short time. Once again, the question has to be posed: can the UK afford such expensive procurement without compromising lesser but equally important projects with immediate needs, such as those to provide maximum protection and support for our troops on active service in Iraq and Afghanistan? The final question is the $64,000 one: will a future British Government be prepared to continue funding those expensive projects?

The MOD is making great strides in base protection from indirect fire, which includes the introduction of counter rocket, artillery and mortar—C-RAM—about which I asked an oral question on 22 January, following a tragic incident at Basra palace camp. Improved body armour has been supplied. The VIPIR thermal imager is excellent. Mastiff and Bulldog vehicles have been introduced and there are improved electronic counter-measures against improvised explosive devices. As has been said, there are additional medium-lift helicopters: eight mark 3 Chinooks, which are to be downgraded to mark 2s, to ensure that they actually work, and six Merlins from Denmark, which are exceptionally expensive aircraft. In addition, among other items, we now have the underslung grenade launcher and better communication kit.

Where we might be going wrong, however, is that the military, or perhaps even politicians, seem to want advanced technical toys that cover 100 per cent. of all possible requirements. I have already mentioned tranche 3 of the Eurofighter, but there is also the joint strike fighter, the Merlin helicopter and electric armour on new vehicles. Then, on cost only rather than technology grounds, there are the two carriers, Astute submarines, A400M transport aircraft, air-to-air refuelling replacement and the MARS—military afloat reach and sustainability—programme to replace all the Navy’s ageing supply ships. They are all incredibly expensive, and often need massive logistical back-up, yet we simply do not have the manpower to service them without taking personnel from other duties. Nor could we contemplate their potential loss, because we have insufficient financial resources to replace them, even if they could be procured at short notice, which is nigh on impossible.

Over the past three years, I have consistently pursued the issue of counter-insurgency, where the enemy is unknown and is indistinguishable from the local population. That was the main reason I was so sceptical about the original concept of FRES. It is essential for counter-insurgency work to have aerial surveillance, yet I am not entirely convinced of the reliability of unmanned aerial vehicles, which do not come cheap by any means, especially when the Iraqi air force has at least 12 SAMA CH2000 small aircraft fitted with XM15 electro-optical surveillance turrets for less than the price of one Lynx helicopter. However, the Minister will be relieved to hear that it is pleasing that the Army Air Corps now has four Britten Norman Defender 4S AL Mk1 aircraft, which I trust are still in Iraq. I recently tabled a written question on that point. They operate at a fraction of the hourly cost of other aircraft and are no doubt doing a superb job.

With the correct surveillance equipment, an expensive platform is not necessary to deliver results. With the contraction of UK forces in Iraq to Basra air base, for example, the limited routes into Basra should be under aerial surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as should those routes going south to protect the supply lines from Kuwait. That should not be too expensive, but I wonder if the Royal Air Force and the Army Air Corps would work together and co-operate on such a project.

Moreover, insurgents are upping the ante, as it were, by taking out Warriors and Challengers, but it takes them considerably longer to lay the much larger charges needed than to lay an IED—improvised explosive device—against a Snatch Land Rover. That provides the golden opportunity, if there is adequate surveillance, to catch and deal with the insurgents.

There should not be a shortage of helicopters, as there are plenty of Bell helicopters—commonly known in the American slang as "Hueys"—which can be leased at a 10th of the hourly cost of a Lynx. They can also operate well in the heat of Afghanistan and fly when conditions ground the Lynx.

At present, many of the requirements in the field of defence arise from dealing with insurgents resisting democracy and the UK simply cannot afford to fight that kind of a war by using the most expensive equipment, which is not always the best for the conditions. We can succeed, however, by using practical, cost-effective means such as the electro-optical surveillance turret within a simple platform. We can build vehicles with a balance between protection, speed and manoeuvrability, although it has to be said that reports about the Panther Command and Liaison vehicle have not been all that encouraging. As it seems that many, if not most, future conflicts will have to deal with insurgency, Britain needs a force that is both equipped and trained for insurgency work, which can be achieved at a fraction of the defence budget.

I end my brief contribution by saying that I believe the Secretary of State acted properly and appropriately in announcing an inquiry into the incident involving the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines on 23 March. I trust that the inquiry will have a beneficial long-term effect on counter-insurgency work and that the UK will be better equipped in future to deal with these extremely difficult situations.

I don't know where she gets her information from, but this MP seems remarkably knowledgeable.

COMMENT THREAD

Mr Solana doesn't like fences

So, as my co-editor tells us, Mr Solana says: "A wall that separates one country from another is not something that I like or that the European Union members like … We don't think walls are reasonable instruments to stop people from crossing into a country … The EU believes immigrants should be treated like people, not like criminals."

Cut to Wikipedia and the Ceuta border fence (pictured above):

The Ceuta border fence is a separation barrier between Morocco and the Autonomous City of Ceuta, in Spain. Constructed by Spain, its stated purpose is to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.

Construction of the €30-million razor wire barrier was financed by the European Union. It consists of parallel 3-metre (10-foot) fences topped with barbed wire, with regular watchposts and a road running between them to accommodate police patrols or ambulance service in case of need. Underground cables connect spotlights, noise and movement sensors, and video cameras to a central control booth.

Morocco has objected to the construction of the barrier since it does not recognize Spanish sovereignty in Ceuta.

Er… construction was financed by the European Union?

Hypocrite does not even begin to describe this loathsome man. But then that's the EU for you.

COMMENT THREAD

Motes and beams

A few days ago AP reported that Javier Solana was criticizing the United States for building a fence along its border with Mexico in order to control illegal immigration. What it has to do with Solana is anybody’s guess and, unsurprisingly, at least one blogger was somewhat unhappy.

Of course, neither he nor the people who commented on the blog know what the EU’s own policy on immigrants is. Otherwise they might have found the following, how shall I put it, a little hypocritical:

"A wall that separates one country from another is not something that I like or that the European Union members like," Solana said at a news conference in Mexico City. "We don't think walls are reasonable instruments to stop people from crossing into a country."

The EU believes immigrants should be treated "like people, not like criminals," he said.

Oh really? So, ahem, what is Frontex with its rapidly accumulating military power all about? Allow me to remind our readers what the Director of Frontex said:

We can only be happy having assets from 21 Members State, among them 21 fixed wing aircrafts (sic), 27 helicopters, 116 vessels, mobile radar units and other special technical equipment. Of course we will welcome warmly any new assets…

Nor should we forget the planned force of 450 rapidly deployable border guards that will be able (theoretically) to rush to the aid of any country that is having problems with immigrants.

Presumably, all this is needed simply in order to invite the illegal immigrants to a tea party.

It seems that Javier Solana managed to forget about several things. Frontex, of course, but also the agonizing discussion of the porous Spanish border and the various camps for immigrants created by the Spanish government with EU approval in it enclaves in North Africa. (Maybe that is what they want Gibraltar for.) We have covered the story recently here and here, mentioning the curiously inhuman approach by the EU to potential immigrants (as well as the policies that lead directly to this problem).

In fact, now that I think of it, we have written a great deal of the way the EU treats the poorer countries and the immigrants from them. What is the Spanish for motes and beams?

COMMENT THREAD

Defence debate

The Independent newspaper ran on its front page the legend "Lest we forget", noting that, this week, Kingsman Alan Jones was killed in Iraq, aged 20. He was, says the newspaper, just one of the 145 British soldiers who have died in this ill-conceived conflict. It notes also that his death went largely unnoticed in the bloodiest month endured by British soldiers - another grim statistic, another coffin sent home, another grieving family, another young man who died in vain.

If the headline sentiment is noble, less so is the tawdy use of the images and memories of fallen soldiers to pursue a withdrawalist agenda, although it is balanced by an authored piece by Major General Julian Thompson who writes on "We must not forget why our soldiers are dying".

By coincidence, no doubt, there was a defence debate in the House of Commons today and, while it would be grossly unfair to assert that one group which had forgotten why our soldiers were dying is our MPs, the picture of the House tells its own story. For sure the debate was held on Thursday afternoon, which is always difficult for MPs who have onerous constituency commitments (and local elections to fight). But it cannot help but send a message to the world at large about the priority afforded to defence issues by our representatives.

And, as is so often the case, these debates end up rambling and unstructured affairs, largely because of the general, entirely non-specific titles given. This one is no exception, with the title: "Defence in the UK". The way thus becomes open for MPs to air their hobby-horses, rehearsing so many issues that no coherent theme emerges, with nothing useful served.

With the debate still in progress, one watches and listens, more in hope than expectation, but we will report anything interesting in a post later today.

COMMENT THREAD

It ain't all bad

Despite, or perhaps because of, global warming, polar bear numbers are increasing (click the pic to see the animation).

And yes, we know polar bears come from the North and penguins from the South. Have you never heard of globalisation?

How the media partnered with Hezbollah

A Harvard University report on the role of the media in last summer's Lebanon war (although dated February) has just been published. Snapped shot and Little Green Footballs offer their own commentary.

The closing passage of the report reads thus:

The Lebanon War produced a bumper crop of stories both good and bad, growing out of a new kind of asymmetrical warfare waged by a state on the one side and a religious, nationalistic guerrilla force on the other side. Will Israel seek to change the ground rules for coverage of the next war? And even if the effort were made, could it succeed?

In an open society, ground rules may be announced, but they are not likely to be observed or enforced. During the 2006 summertime war in the Middle East, it was Israel versus Hezbollah, led by the charismatic Hassan Nasrallah, and because Israel did not win the war, it is judged to have lost.

In Iraq, in the not too distant future, it may well be the United States versus the Mahdi Army, led by the equally charismatic Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr. The challenge for responsible journalists covering asymmetrical warfare, especially in this age of the Internet, is new, awesome and frightening.

The only thing that can be virtually guaranteed, however, is that the media will not rise to the challenge. Generally, it believes it covered the war well and has nothing to learn from its own actions. And, almost certainly, in the British media, this report will never see the light of day.

COMMENT THREAD

The Fluffy Commissar mis-steps

While little enough attention was paid to the Fluffy and Fragrant Commissar, Margot Wallström deciding to do a bit of moonlighting in Swedish politics, the latest posting on her blog has raised a few eyebrows.

The most notable pair of eyebrows belong to Joseph Daul MEP, Chairman of the EPP-ED Group (yes, yes, that is the one our own Conservative MEPs belong to). Of course, it is unlikely that M Daul was issuing a statement and lodging a complaint with Commission President Barroso out of pure faith in the importance of impartiality for Commissioners. He is, presumably, a Sarkozy supporter.

The odd thing is that, by her standards, the Fragrant Margot has not done anything too bad. In her latest posting she goes a bit mushy about Ségolène Royal (and a few other things).

First she tells us that she cheered for the political candidate belonging to her political family, which is almost acceptable, though as a European Commissioner she is not supposed to have a political family.

Then, launching into French, the fragrant Margot produces a paragraph of ra-ra-ing for the first female to get through to the second round of the French Presidential elections. She scrupulously notes that there have been several women politicians in Europe who had reached high position. (One wonders whether she would have cheered for Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps not. Female solidarity can go only so far.)

This, in itself, is not political interference but the matter is made worse by her posting a picture of la Royal on the blog, which comes close to endorsement. Whatever political family one belongs to and however anxious one is to see women advance in politics, Commissars are not supposed to get involved in national politics in any of the member states. On the other hand, there is nothing terribly new about them doing just that.

Is Nicolas Sarkozy likely to have any sleepless nights because his rival is being semi-endorsed by the most derided of all European Commissioners?

COMMENT THREAD

We are not alone

While tales of woe about the parlous state of the armed forces abound in the media, it seems we are far from alone in having problems.

According to a report publicised by the Dutch Telegraaf newspaper, summarised in English by Aviation Week, maintaining the 2,000-strong contingent in Uruzgan province and Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, is creating serious stress in the Dutch military.

The report, produced by the Defence Staff in The Hague, suggests that, after years of continuous deployments and contingency operations in the Balkans, the Horn of Africa, Iraq and now Afghanistan, the Dutch military is now beginning to run out of steam. So serious, in fact, is the situation that, if the currently-planned deployment in Afghanistan is continued beyond the phased mid-2008 end date, the country's military will come close to collapse.

General problems identified are scarce personnel such as helicopter aircrew, maintenance engineers, logistic and medical specialists. These are in such demand that they are hardly ever at home, resulting in many experienced operators leaving the service.

Additionally, supplies of spare parts and other materials are running out, the wear and tear of vehicles and equipment deployed in Uruzgan is higher than expected and a spending freeze mandated by the new Dutch Government (where have we heard this before?) means that it is hard to order new spare parts.

More specifically, the 192 Mercedes-Benz 4x4 vehicles used in Uruzgan face serious trouble as the supply of spare drive trains and axles is running out; heavy trucks (essential to keep the supply between Kandahar Air Field and the Dutch bases in Uruzgan running): need to be replaced by fresh ones brought in from the Netherlands. Flying them in will be extremely costly. Shipping them by sea will require the secure communications kit to be removed and will take a long time. Up-armoring each new truck will cost €20,000

Other problems n the pipeline are the new Bushmaster armoured patrol vehicles (procured from Thales Australia under an urgent operational requirement in mid-2006 - pictured). These may face a maintenance problem if the current service contract with Thales is not extended post mid-2008.

Then there are the Patria 6x6 armored wheeled vehicles. These are expected to suffer huge problems after mid-2008 because they are quickly running out of spare power packs, engines and forward axles. A budget of €2.32 million is needed to order 15 power packs.

Even light weapons are having their problems. The Minimi light machine guns (also used by the British Army) have major problems with the serviceability. If there is to be an extension of the Dutch deployment, the Minimis in theatre may have to be replaced by a different weapon.

As to larger more sophisticated items like the Apache, Chinook and Cougar helicopters, in case of an extended stay, the availability of only two Apaches can be guaranteed. Chinooks will have to be provided by another nation and Cougars will become a problem, all because of a shortage of personnel.

Concluding the litany of woes, the report then goes on to say that the military have completely run out of spares for radios, ICT systems, night vision and optical equipment, 120-mm mortars, forward air control and Aladin mini-UAVs. If things break down in the field, the report says, they cannot be replaced

Needless to say, the Dutch defence minister, Eimert van Middelkoop, denies there is a problem. He describes the issues identified as "bottlenecks" which are "being addressed," adding: "There are no personnel, equipment and technical problems for the present operation that cannot be solved and that hinder the operation or its tempo."

COMMENT THREAD

Doing the unforgiveable: criticizing tranzi officials

Back in October we reported what was promising to be a juicy scandal, the tale of Commissar Verheugen and his lady friend, Petra Erler, whom he had appointed to be chef du cabinet, giving her in the process a hefty salary rise from €9,045 to €11,579 a month (€138,948 a year).

Commissar Verheugen and Ms Erler were photographed walking round hand in hand and, at one point, wearing nothing at a nudist beach, unless you count a baseball hat as clothing.

At the time there were two theories advanced. Verheugen had taken on the job of Vice-President of the European Commission with great promises to reform the institution and to have a bonfire of red tape and regulations. (At least I think he was the one with the bonfire.)

When this did not work, he complained about obstructionism among Commission officials. As the Wall Street Journal Europe put it recently:

Mr. Verheugen announced plans in 2005 to do away with scores of economically burdensome and antiquated regulations, which he thought could help lift economic growth. When his efforts went nowhere, he gave an interview to the press blaming the failure on the opposition he'd encountered within the Brussels bureaucracy. The Commission's staff union reacted predictably, by calling on him to apologize and suggesting he resign. Not coincidentally, it was around the same time that stories of his special relationship with Ms. Erler, and of her new job, came to the attention of the press and the public.

A coincidence? Maybe. The machinery of bureaucracy does not like anyone who tries to tamper with it. Not least of the coincidental news stories were the suggestions that, in fact, it was all the other way round. Verheugen knew that the embarrassing pictures were about to surface and launched a pre-emptive attack at the bureaucrats in order to blame them for the publication.

However one looks at it, neither Commissar Verheugen nor Ms Erler have suffered. His various colleagues rushed to his defence on professional grounds with great proclamations of the need for privacy, though his behaviour had clearly undermined the Commission’s code of conduct.

Try as I might I cannot find any motions of censure in the European Parliament or calls for the Commission and Verheugen’s office, in particular, to regain its dignity by sacking the man.

The reason this old story is being rehashed by Brett Stephens in the WSJE, among others is because there are certain similarities with the ongoing Wolfowitz saga, he being the man, whom the World Bank officials did not want, whose attempts at cutting corruption they have undermined and whom they are now managing to smear quite effectively.

There are also certain differences:

“Now consider the Wolfowitz saga. Superficially, the similarities with Mr. Verheugen rest with the details of their respective scandals: a close lady friend on staff, a suspiciously generous pay raise, allegations of nepotism and conflicts of interest.

But aside from the facts that Mr. Wolfowitz is unmarried and prefers his clothes on, the substance of the cases could not be more different. Mr. Verheugen seems to have obscured the nature of his relationship with Ms. Erler; Mr. Wolfowitz acknowledged his relationship with Shaha Riza before he took the job as Bank president. Mr. Verheugen sought to use the power of his office to bring Ms. Erler nearer to him; Mr. Wolfowitz sought to use the power of his to move Ms. Riza away. Ms. Erler moved into a better job; Ms. Riza was forced into a lesser one. Mr. Verheugen ignored his own code of conduct; Mr. Wolfowitz followed the instructions of his ethics committee, whose chairman later praised him for acting in a "constructive spirit."”

There is also another difference. The same people who have huffed and puffed about Verheugen, his professional achievements and the need for privacy, are demanding that Paul Wolfowitz resign, whether his is guilty of inappropriate behaviour or not, in order to restore the World Bank’s good name (in itself something of a joke).

Even the European Parliament (called completely incorrectly by Reuters and others "the European Union's legislature") has voted 332 votes to 251 to call for Wolfowitz’s resignation, though this is not, in any sense of the word, their concern.

Apparently, the resignation is necessary in order not to undermine the World Bank's anti-corruption policy. The trouble is that it is the anti-corruption policy that has brought about the President's problems.

COMMENT THREAD

Stupidity is infinite…

As Einstein said, there may be a limit to the universe but human
stupidity is infinite.

COMMENT THREAD

Herding cats

Any hope that the "colleagues" might have had that they are getting their acts together, singing from the same hymn sheet (even if it is Ode to Joy) seems to have been somewhat shattered by el presidente Barroso, who looks determined to do his own thing.

According to Ireland online the commission president is to host special "closed-door talks" with other EU leaders in Portugal next month on the EU constitution. Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen says Barroso is organising two-day talks to take place 12-13 May in Sintra, on the outskirts of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon.

"The agenda is wide open, it's a brainstorming," she says, refusing at the same time to say whether all 27 EU leaders would be invited to the informal summit. Invites, she says, have been sent to "a limited number of participants".

So, if Frau Merkel has got the new treaty – or whatever – already sewn up, what does Barroso think he's playing at? And does that nice Mr Sarkozy know?

It is perhaps getting to the point where, rather than producing a new treaty, herding cats might be a better option.

COMMENT THREAD

Truckers' lament

Via its transport correspondent, Ben Webster, The Times has come up with an interesting story which is perhaps more important than most of us appreciate.

Webster reports, under the headline, "Half of foreign lorries tested on Britain's roads found to be dangerous," that half the foreign lorries checked on British roads last year had serious safety defects that could have resulted in crashes.

This is according to official figures published by the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa), which carried out 34,500 roadside checks on lorries on international journeys in the South East last year, double the previous year. These show that eastern European lorries are the worst offenders. Prohibition notices were served on 62 percent of those from the Czech Republic, 61 percent from Romania, 55 percent from Latvia, 52 percent from Bulgaria and 49 percent from Poland.

Additionally, foreign lorry drivers were more than twice as likely as British drivers to have breached rules on the maximum time spent behind the wheel without a break. But the big disparity was with Greek drivers (quelle surprise. More than 37 percent had exceeded that limit, compared with 9 percent of British drivers.

Nor does it stop there. Foreign lorries were more likely to be dangerously overloaded, with a third of those from Spain, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland found to be over the weight limit.

This seriously disadvantages the British truck industry, which is already losing the battle against Continental firms which can hire drivers at cheaper rates than their British counterparts, while paying for diesel which is a third cheaper on average. But, with trucks having been demonised for so long by a broad coalition of Greens, car drivers and just about everybody else, there is scant sympathy for the industry.

Thus, under our noses, so to speak, we have seen our roads taken over by a surge of foreign lorries. Three quarters of all lorries crossing the Channel last year were registered overseas. A decade ago, half were British. On a typical day 12,000 foreign and 95,000 British lorries are on the country's roads.

Apart from the fact that these truck pay no road tax (and also top up with diesel before coming over here, and thus pay little if any fuel duty either), there are significant safety issues. There were more than 1,100 crashes involving foreign lorries in 2005, including 450 side-swipes in which drivers on the left of the cab pulled out into the path of another vehicle.

Here, there is most decidedly an EU element for, as we reported in September last, EU law prevents the UK authorities requiring blind-side mirrors to be fitted to left-hand drive trucks.

The disparities, however, go beyond safety issues. While Vosa is able to impose substantial fines on British lorries, foreign lorries usually escape any penalty, something again which aggrieves British operators.

To counter this, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced plans a year ago to introduce on-the-spot fines for foreign lorries and clamp those that refused to pay. But a DfT spokesman said the new enforcement system would not be introduced until early next year. Thus we get Ben Webster citing the Freight Transport Association, accusing the DfT of dragging its feet, an accusation which seems well founded.

In many ways, therefore, British truckers seem to be in a situation analogous to that suffered by our farmers and fishermen – only with less recognition of their plight and less sympathy. Beset by a massive and growing burden of regulation, they are forced to compete with their EU rivals who enjoy a much lighter touch (often from our own officials), while able to operate with much reduced overheads.

Whether you have any sympathy for truckers or not, this does not seem right.

COMMENT THREAD

All at sea in Strasbourg

Probably only the Greens could get away with it, so we can enjoy their little swipe at the EU parliament, where they point out that the monthly pilgrimage from Brussels to Strasbourg is producing 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

This, apparently, is equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced by 13,000 round-trip flights from London to New York, and compares rather unfavourably with the 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide produced annually by the entire populations of the Pacific island nations of Kiribati and the Cook Islands.

The study, reported in the IHT, was carried out by professor John Whitelegg of the University of York, presumably for something less than the €200 million annually that is costs to run the white elephant in Strasbourg, which is used for 12 four-day sessions a year and stands empty for the rest of the time (barring security staff and cleaners).

Needless to say, even the prospect of the EU parliament being responsible for a rise in sea levels by a zillion feet is unlikely to have much impact on the French, whose baby this second seat is. Chirac made sure of that, by locking the requirement to use the building into the Nice Treaty and even that nice Mr Sarkozy is unlikely to risk the wrath of the otherwise agreeable Strasbourg restauranters by challenging the status quo.

So, while the MEPs huff and puff, be they green or a lighter shade of brown, they are still going to have to put up with the knackering journey to Strasbourg each month. The one consolation is that they can catch up on their sleep when they get there – dreaming, no doubt, of rising sea levels.

COMMENT THREAD

Then there were two

Now it is the turn of massive Shaibah logistics base, south of Basra, to see the Union Jack lowered for the last time. It was handed over in a ceremony to the Iraqi Army yesterday, for use as a training base.

First it was The Old State Building and then, following in short order was Shatt al Arab Hotel and now Shaibah. That leaves two bases in southern Iraq under British control, the Basra Palace complex – under almost daily attack – and Basra Air Station (BAS), formerly Basra International Airport.

Shaibah is the base the Americans did not want the British to relinquish. From here, patrols were mounted to protect the road from Kuwait to Baghdad, the vital artery through which the bulk of US (and British) supplies flow. Basra Palace is in no position to supply patrols and troops in BAS are the wrong side of town – vulnerable to attack as there are few roads which can be used.

However, the deed is done. The Danish contingent also joins the exodus, having acquitted itself well (although getting little recognition in the British press), leaving Iraqi troops to celebrate. One hopes that, unlike Abu Naji in Al Amarah, they can keep hold of it. Many millions of British taxpayer's funds have been invested in the infrastructure.

Needless to say, this is not a retreat. It is a tactical repositioning – or so it is claimed. Time will tell whether it is also a dreadful mistake. Certainly, the Pizza Hut staff will be regretting the move.

COMMENT THREAD

Which way will it go in Turkey?

We did not write about the horrific news from Turkey last week of the three Christians tortured and murdered not because we do not think it was important but because it was adequately (if sometimes lamely) discussed in the media and there was nothing we could add.

We do not think it is likely that the criminals were "ultra-nationalists" and, judging by those arrested, neither does the Turkish police, though it seems to have been the line taken by some journalists in Britain. One cannot judge a country by appalling crimes of this kind but only by the way they are dealt with. So we wait and see.

Meanwhile, the presidential elections are coming up there, as well, though the President is not elected directly but by the Parliament. There was some worry that the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would run for President, a largely ceremonial position though with some power to prevent legislation. The outgoing President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, has vetoed a record number of bills and appointments to protect Turkey's cherished (well, by some) secular order.

Mr Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK) is more Islamist and there has been some worry, especially in the army that sees itself as the guardian of the secular state as created by Kemal Atatürk, that he would run for President. Secularists, including those who came out to demonstrate earlier this month against Erdogan, see him as entirely unsuitable for the position.

As Der Spiegel reports Mr Erdogan has tried to defuse the tension by announcing that the party's nominee (and, given the parliamentary majority, a certainty for the postion) will be the current Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gül (seen with Secretary of State Rice in an official State Department picture above).

The solution is not totally satisfactory from the secularists' point of view as Mr Gül's views are seen as similar to Mr Erdogan's.

Like Erdogan's wife, Gül's wife Hayrunisa wears a headscarf and secularists are opposed to the idea of Islamic attire in the presidential palace. Head scarves have been banned in public offices and on university campuses since Atatürk's Western-style reforms in the 1930s.

"His mind-set is no different than Erdogan's," Mustafa Ozyurek, deputy chair of the main opposition party, Republican People's Party, told the AP. "There is no evidence that he is sincerely loyal at heart to the secular republic and principles of Atatürk."

To be fair, Mr Erdogan's government did not turn out to be as strongly Islamist as was feared but that may have been because of control exercised by the President, something that will disappear now. Meanwhile, the army is watching keenly for any signs of backsliding from the Kemalian settlement.

COMMENT THREAD

Being a conservative

First Libertas, then La Shawn Barber. When two of one’s favourite blogs discuss a particular article, attention needs to be paid. So I linked to Andrew Klavan’s article in the City Journal and, as an extra bonus, found his personal website that told me about thrillers that he has written. Memo to self: go and read one or more of Andrew Klavan’s books.

Meanwhile, I suggest our readers enjoy this wonderfully realistic piece, called “The Big White Lie”. Its basic argument is that leftism, having failed in real life, exists because it is more polite than gimlet-eyed conservatives.

His examples are American, which means some of our readers will not be interested. But others might find the piece clever and amusing, as well as capable of being translated to other countries.

The space-fillers strike again

Given the difficulty the media have in handling simple issues like the bombing of a Challenger tank, it comes as no surprise that newspapers like The Daily Mail cannot even begin to grasp more complex matters, like what is happening to our weekly refuse collection.

In today's edition (front page – pictured) it invites us to join the "great dustbin revolt" protesting against the proposed law that is being drawn up "which will give town halls the power to switch entire refuse collection services to unelected bodies".

This will mean, says the newspaper, that councils will no longer be answerable through the ballot box for cuts in their waste services.

The proximate cause of the Mail's ire is the creeping programme of reducing weekly refuse collections to fortnightly, brought about by the spiralling costs of domestic refuse collection.

But nowhere, either on the front page or the first of two whole pages devoted to the issue (and a three-quarter page editorial), is mentioned the causes of the spiralling costs – the EU's paranoid antipathy to landfill and its obsession with recycling, even though it may be more damaging to the environment and cause more problems than it solves.

It took a gimlet-eyed reader to spot a reference to the EU, downpage on the second of the two main pages devoted to the issue. We get a reference to town halls being having to pay fines if they miss their "EU recycling targets" and a second reference, this one to "EU legislation against landfill". So deeply buried is it that I missed it on the first read.

But then, this is typical. The media generally, both national and local seems to find it extraordinarily difficult coming to terms with EU involvement, something its shares with many politicians.

It is rather appropriate, though, that, since our perfectly adequate refuse collection system has been destroyed by the unelected politicians of the EU, the government is looking to create unelected bodies to manage the resultant mess, to avoid local politicians having to suffer the fallout.

It would be nice, however, if the space-fillers of the media could, just occasionally, tell us what is actually happening, up front, and put the blame where it really belongs.

COMMENT THREAD

Inquiry details announced

Following the statement by defence secretary Browne on 16 April about the Iran hostages affair, details of the promised media review have now been announced to Parliament.

The review will be led by Tony Hall, the Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House and formerly the BBC's Director of News and Current Affairs for 12 years, who is also a non-executive member of the Board of Channel 4. The other members of the panel will be Patrick Turner, a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, and Major General Andrew Stewart, Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Policy) in the Ministry of Defence.

The review is not confined just to the issues relating to the Iran hostages affair, but is also taking a much wider (and much needed) look the MoD's publicity operations.

We have no view on the possible outcomes of this review. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The report of the panel will be published in around six weeks and there will then be plenty of opportunity to pick over the bones.

And no, I'm not going to publish a picture of a rubber boat to go with this post. I'm sick of pictures of rubber boats. At the suggestion of one of our readers, therefore, we've put up this one - dedicated to Mr Bean (aka Seaman Arthur Batchelor). Now, however, it has been suggested that, perhaps, HMS Cornwall should have these (second picture) as well, now that it has re-commenced boarding operations.

NB: This is getting silly. We are supposed to be a serious blog - ed.

COMMENT THREAD

Where sheep may safely graze

I cannot leave the saga of the bomb attack on the Challenger tank, reported two weeks ago by Michael Yon without noting that every single national newspaper covers the story today, many at some length.

Almost to a man, they quote Professor Michael Clarke from King's College's Defence Studies Centre, with the Daily Mail picking out the phrase describing the tank's armour as, "usually inviolable" – entirely unconscious of the simple grammatical issue that "inviolable" is an absolute. It either is or it isn't. "Usually inviolable" means it isn't.

The idea that a tank is "inviolable" - or "invincible" as some newspapers put it - is, in any event, laughable, straight out of the comic books. The life-expectation of an MBT in Northern Europe, had the balloon gone up and the Soviets invaded, was 15 minutes from reaching the start line.

Most of the newspapers run a picture of a Challenger, but most are old stock photographs. One of them is, recognisably, from the invasion of Basra in 2003. None of them can be bothered to print an up-to-date picture of the beast, heavily modified with skirts and slatted armour.

Rarely do we get such a graphic example of the sheep mentality of the MSM, and their utter idleness. In folk memory, we all have the impression of fiercely independent newspapers, all diligently searching out news, each striving to be the first with a breaking story.

In fact, we have corporate drones, feeding off a diet of press releases and official statements, all lifting each other's quotes – without the faintest idea of what they mean - slapping in meaningless stock photographs to fill up the space.

On the other hand, such is their arrogance that nothing is "news" until they have printed or broadcast it, but they will not run the story until they have the comfort blanket of an official confirmation, and the safety of the flock around them, knowing they are all grazing in the same paddock.

That, dear readers, is the MSM for you. Space filling it is – journalism it ain't.

COMMENT THREAD

Many a slip

Even through the medium of the dry, printed word, you can sense a certain excitement in the demeanour of the "colleagues" as they absorb the results from the first round of the French presidential election.

That much comes over from an AP report, via The Hindu (don't ask), which retails how German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was in a buoyant mood at yesterday's meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU member states in Luxembourg.

He welcomed the poor showing of the "far-right" leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who finished a weak fourth with 10.5 percent of the vote. Chirped Steinmeier: "I'm quite satisfied that the more radical groups, like Le Pen, have fallen behind very clearly."

Unspoken is the relief that the presidential race is bedding down to a straight "right-left" contest which will deliver an establishment politician who can be house-trained in the ways of the Union.

That is articulated by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists, who happily declared that, "The French people opted for a straight choice between left and right. A straight choice between social democracy and liberal-conservatism, between a social Europe and a solely free-market Europe."

The hope is, of course, that the coming of the new president will break the constitution deadlock and thus we get AP reporting that the "EU capitals" are waiting for a new French president and government to see what can be salvaged of the draft constitution that French and Dutch voters rejected in national referendums in 2005.

With Sarkozy in the lead and looking to be the outright winner, however, the "colleagues" may be in for a surprise. Our readers will recall the great man delivering his European agenda to a crowd in Strasbourg in February, where he announced that he would propose a new, simplified treaty that would scrap decision-making by unanimity and create the position of an EU president that would rotate every 2½ years.

That, we remarked at the time, would go right against the grain of Merkel's "treaty-lite" and would involve changes that would require the signing and ratification process to start all over again – a huge can of worms for the "colleagues".

Yet, even in his honeymoon period, Sarkozy will face a volatile nation and he displayed his awareness in Strasbourg that his fellow citizens were not entirely happy with the way the EU is going. With stresses building up as the euro increases in value and the unfinished business of Turkish enlargement, he is unlikely to take a victory as a mandate to climb further into bed with the "colleagues".

Having already stated that "Europe" was in a "serious, profound crisis", he could instead "do a de Gaulle" and attempt to re-assert French dominance over the EU – possibly in the name of "protecting the victims of globalisation."

The other possibility, of course, is that he could after all roll over and go all communautaire but, as my co-editor is always quick to remind us, Sarkozy is of Hungarian immigrant stock. And, as that old English proverb goes, there is many a slip twixt cup and revolving door.

COMMENT THREAD

Boris Yeltsin 1931 - 2007

There will be many exhaustive obituaries of Boris Yeltsin, the first elected President of Russia and the man who oversaw with variable success the transition into the post-Soviet era. All we can do on this blog is to make a few points about him that others might miss.

Boris Yeltsin came from the Urals, whose people are among the most difficult in Russia and he certainly lived up to that. Born in 1931, he went through the trauma of seeing his father arrested at a very young age, Yeltsin senior being one of the victims of the Great Purge of 1936 – 39, arrested together with millions in 1937. Unlike many, he survived.

Yeltsin graduated from the Urals Polytechnic Institute and became a construction engineer in Sverdlovsk (now, once again, Yekaterinburg). Subsequently, after a relatively late membership of the CPSU, he became the senior party official for the region.

That, as some commentators have already pointed out, put him in charge of one of the country’s most important industrial areas but it is another episode from that period of his career that most Russians remembered.

Yekaterinburg, as every schoolchild knows or should know, was the city where Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family were slaughtered in 1918, as the White Army was rapidly advancing towards it. It was Yakov Sverdlov, then Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK), in effect, the country’s President, who ordered the slaughter (no, it was not an execution) and was, in gratitude, honoured posthumously by having Yekaterinburg named after him. What goes around, comes around.

For some strange reason Ipatiev’s House where the murders took place survived the Civil War and subsequent development, becoming in the seventies a place of pilgrimage to many people. Yeltsin’s response was swift and unequivocal: the house was knocked down in 1977. In the post-Soviet era a church was built on the spot.

It was Gorbachev who pushed Yeltsin forward, putting him in charge of construction in the Soviet Union, only to have the man complain about the slow pace of economic reform (perestroika) in the country. This was done at a closed meeting of the Central Committee (not that much glasnost there wasn’t) in October 1987 and within a month Yeltsin was fired as Moscow party chief, his position at the time.

He had a heart attack (as who wouldn’t) and spent some time in hospital. For all of that he was dropped from the Politburo. The “great liberal” Gorby did not like people criticizing him.

From then on Yeltsin went from strength to strength because he grasped an essential truth. The time for keeping rows and debates within the Party behind closed doors had passed. One had to go to the people.

As a matter of fact, that time had never really existed. As long ago as the late twenties, Stalin’s rivals found themselves outmanoeuvred largely because they did not have the courage to appeal to the populace beyond the Party. Possibly they knew that the populace hated them all impartially.

In March 1989 Yeltsin was elected to the Soviet Parliament and in 1990 he became Chairman of the Russian Parliament, the Republic’s effective President, the first one to be elected.

You would think that by this stage it would have become clear to the experts in the West that the Soviet Union was probably doomed. Not so but far from it. While many of us, interested in the country, realized this, the solid cohort of Foreign Office experts and academic sovietologists continued to extol Gorbachev as the country’s hope. Yeltsin was apparently dismissed from too many calculations even though he obviously represented the future with Gorbachev unable to keep up with him.

Then came August 1991 and the attempted hard-line coup, supposedly against Gorbachev. A good deal about that episode remains murky but the winner does not: Boris Yeltsin, who defied the hard-liners in his stance atop a tank.

December 1991 saw the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, announced oddly enough, on the same day (8th) as the final agreement had been reached at Maastricht, though the treaty was not signed till early 1992. As one of the new developments in the Treaty on European Union (TEU) was the elaborate notion of a common foreign and security policy, it is worth noting that the supposed reason for that cannot be correct.

The collapse of the Soviet Union did not force “Europe” into trying to assume the role of the second great power as the negotiations had been going on for some years while the USSR was very much alive though not always kicking.

It is hard to summarize the Yeltsin years in a few paragraphs but looking back, we may be able to describe that period as the height of democracy and liberalism in Russia. At the time it looked like a bit of a mess, politically and economically, what with Yeltsin often indisposed (a good deal of that was genuine illness); the state monopolies privatized at extraordinarily low prices with many shares going to people who had been near the centre of power themselves; the first Chechnyan war started and ended ignominiously with no political development following it; prime ministers hired and fired with remarkable speed; and finally the promotion of an unknown middle-ranking KGB agent, Vladimir Putin.

Yeltsin’s re-election was rather shoddy, with a good deal of money being pumped into his campaign from all sources but such was the fear of resurgent Communism that this was not much questioned at the time inside or outside of the country.

The growing power of the “oligarchs”, most of them former Soviet officials, now Russian biznyesmeni, who were asset-stripping the whole country soured Russian attitudes to capitalism and, sadly, to democracy, as too many of the so-called democrats, zealous in privatization, were linked in various ways to the new rich or “new Russians” as they were known.

Bringing them to heel was the basis of Putin’s popularity, though it is the completely unnecessary and still continuing second Chechnyan war that propelled the man into real prominence. Of course, all that happened was that Putin substituted the previous oligarchs with his own, but these are, in one way or another, state officials.

There we shall leave the subject of this extraordinary man, not least because he, in the end, lived to the age of 76, unusual for Russian men, anyhow, but particularly unexpected for someone who has had quite so many health problems, self-inflicted or not.

One more comment needs to be made. In my opinion, the best way of understanding Russia in the twenty-first century is to look at her history in the eighteenth. The country has no political parties and did not really have them under Yeltsin either; what it has is a number of high-ranking officials whose rise and fall takes their followers up or down, all presided over by a powerful and unaccountable ruler (except through assassination in the past).

As then, so now, Russia is centralizing and integrating power and flexing her muscles, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so, but always uncertainly against the West. She will never be a true friend, no matter what any Western politician thinks but, one day, she might become a reasonable and close acquaintance.

COMMENT THREAD

People get paid for this?

This item comes to us from one of the blog's readers. It seems that when asked to comment on the French elections, Roland Cayrol, head of pollsters CSA, made the following profound observation to Le Parisien newspaper:

Essentially the results will be dictated by the behaviour of his voters. They are the ones who will make a difference.

No kidding. You mean that the way people vote will decide who will win the election. Sheesh, I wish I had thought.

Not to be outdone, this blog makes another prediction. The winner of the French presidency race will be a citizen of France and either a male, whose initials are NS or a female with initials SR. There! I have stuck my neck out.

Nelson would not be amused

The rumour has long been that the announcement of the long-awaited aircraft carrier orders has been held in abeyance, until just before the Scottish Parliament elections in May. With a substantial amount of the building work slated to go to Scottish yards, a deftly-timed announcement would – or so the rumour goes – do wonders for Labour's electoral prospects.

The Financial Times, however, seems to have a different "take" on the reasons for the delay. Their journalists, James Boxell and Peggy Hollinger, are suggesting that a deal could be in the offing for Britain and France to share the construction of the ships, in a bid to make them more affordable.

There is, of course, a possibility that this is moonshine, as the source of the information appears to ve the French defence contractor Thales, which has submitted a proposal along these lines to the British government – with the approval of the French naval industry.

Not only would this seriously hack of BAE Systems though (in itself, no bad thing), the MoD could find this political dynamite as it has never commissioned warships from abroad before.

That does not stop Denis Ranque, chief executive of Thales, saying: "Building the ships together would be in the best interests of British and French taxpayers," while senior French industry officials are saying that the UK was "sympathetic" to the approach.

The plan is based on the assumption that the MoD wants to build two carriers and the French one, in which case the a French yard could build one-third of the hull for each ship of the three ships while British yards could build the other two-thirds.

Put that way, no British yards would lose out, but BAE Systems is said to be unhappy about the problems associated with managing an international three-ship programme. Based on the experience of previous multi-national defence programmes, the complexities could certainly erode projected costs savings - in the order of £80m - but the political fall-out could be even greater.

The public may have tolerated German trucks for the Army, but Frog ships (or even bits) for the Navy may be another story altogether.

Mind you, we do need some rubber boats.

COMMENT THREAD

News as it happens

On the BBC and from The Times is news of a British Challenger tank being damaged by an IED. The driver was very badly injured, losing his legs.

It turns out, however, that this occurred on 6 April and was reported shortly afterwards by Michael Yon, from whom we picked up the details, commenting on them on 14 April, over a week ago.

Such is the hubris of the MSM, however, that the Independent glibly announced that "Details of the attack on the Challenger only emerged today." That is the MSM for you – nothing is "news" until they report it.

We've said it before, but it is worth repeating. When it comes to important news and developments – especially in respect of the British campaign in southern Iraq – the media is often behind the curve.

Typical of the genre, the BBC goes to Professor Michael Clarke from King's College's Defence Studies Centre, for a quote (as does The Telegraph). He tells the BBC that the Challenger 2 tank's armour is usually "inviolable", adding: "Most of the things on a battlefield are not much of a threat to a tank, usually."

The expert then continues: "This is worrying, because if there are many of these sorts of very heavy penetrative Improvised Explosive Devices around in the area then no vehicle is safe." The Sun thinks it is ahead of the game here, claiming by way of an "exclusive" that the bomb was an explosively formed projectile - denied by the MoD.

As to Clarke's comments, they are not true either. The armour on Main Battle Tanks is optimised to protect from hits from other tanks (and anti-tank weapons). The underside armour on the Challenger is relatively thin, with no ballistic shaping, which makes it vulnerable to mines and buried IEDs.

The last tank to have had ballistic shaping to the underside seems to have been the M-60, which first entered service in 1960 (and was still in service in 1991) – another example of lessons learned and forgotten.

However, that shaping is to be found in the Mastiff, at last being introduced into Iraq. Based on US experience, there is a possibility that it could have protected its crew from the blast. But you wouldn't expect the BBC to know that.

That said, you do wonder why Challengers are still being deployed in Iraq. Their main armament, the 120mm gun, is of very limited use in the sort of urban warfare that our troops are fighting, which leaves a single GPMG (machine gun) with which it can fight. These tanks could be far more use to us in Afghanistan.

COMMENT THREAD

St George's Day

It is somehow very English to have a national day, marked by a saint's day which celebrates a man who may or may not have existed – and probably did not (and if he did was certainly not English) – which we then largely ignore.

If I could be bother to look, no doubt there are some worthy and tortured articles in the blats on English identity, the meaning of life and everything (Philip Johnston has a good go). But, in my typically superior English way, I take the view that we are so confident in our own identity that we need neither celebrate it nor parade it. We know who we are, and that is good enough.

As to our "identity", searching for a definition is rather like hunting for that fabled crock of gold at the end of a rainbow. As you get close to it, it disappears (the rainbow, that is). Bit like the legend of St. George really. Perhaps he is the right patron saint for us, after all.

COMMENT THREAD

A country divided?

One of the many problems with the United States, and George W. Bush's presidency in particular, we are told at length by British and European commentators, is that he has "divided the country". By this, one assumes, they mean that his victory was relatively narrow in terms of votes (the first one achieved by the number of votes in the Electoral College, not unknown in American history).

Setting aside the fact that it was the Clintons (he and she) who had really "divided" the nation, one wonders why that ought to be a problem and whether it would be seen as such if there were a very narrow Democrat victory in 2008?

After all, in a democracy, votes are often narrow with people choosing various candidates, according to what they perceive to be the right policies or, at least, the least wrong ones. Or they might choose for tribal reasons or on the basis of personalities. The point is that where there is a real choice there will be a division between the choosers. Sometimes one gets enormous majorities even in democracies but that is not as frequent as all that.

What is it the critics of a "divided nation" want? Majorities of 99.8 per cent? Well, perhaps.

The problem arises only when the losing side (the Democrats for a long time and even now, with a working majority in the House of Representatives) refuses to acknowledge the results. In some countries that leads to revolutions and dictatorships, in others like the United States, it can lead to a severe undermining process, which can be dangerous in times of war. If one looks at the American, never mind the European media, the shenanigans in the Democratic Party, in the House of Representatives and, even, sad to say, the State Department and the CIA one can perceive clearly that the Republican wins of some decades have simply assumed to be somehow illegitimate. The reason? Oh well, because Bush has divided the country.

What are we to say about France, a country seriously divided if the votes in the first round of the presidential elections are to go by?

The results were not as close as predicted but close enough with Sarkozy getting 30.49 per cent of the vote, according to the preliminary count, and Royal 25.03 per cent. They go through to the second round where, no matter who wins, half or thereabouts of the voting population will remain severely dissatisfied, not least because, despite a certain lack of clear policies on both sides, the two candidates represent two different ideas about French politics.

Don't get me wrong. Neither is a liberal free-marketeer and both believe in the benign influence of the state. But, it would appear, that Sarkozy wants to use the state to push France into some sort of reform while Royal wants to use the state to promote more distributionist socialist policies. In practical terms neither will be able to achieve what they purport to want but when the voters go to the booths on May 6 these will be the choices they face.

If the vote is close, as it may well be, are we going to hear cries of "foul" and "we wuz robbed"? Shall we be told that France is "a country divided" and, therefore, some illegitimacy is attached to the duly elected President? I suspect not.

COMMENT THREAD

Don't you love this global warming?

Via American Thinker, we learn of reports that the pack ice off Newfoundland's northeast coast and southern Labrador is so unusually thick that 100 sealing vessels have been trapped and some are at risk of foundering. Even a Canadian icebreaker, drafted in to help, is in trouble, and helicopters may have to be used to rescue stranded crews.

This is a nice contrast with the dire predictions from the global warming scare industry. Says American Thinker:

Al Gore and other thought leaders (Cameron Diaz) keep telling us the ice caps are melting and lower Manhattan will be under 20 feet of water before we know it. I understand Bob DeNiro is so afraid he's selling his Tribeca real estate.

And that idiot Miliband is arranging for all schools in England and Wales to receive a copy of Gore's film, "Inconvenient truth".

As to the current, very inconvenient truth, the Canadian Globe and Mail is reporting that at least 10 vessels, in an area off Fogo Island, are in "extreme difficulty" with the risk that ice could pierce their hulls. There are also three vessels in a similar predicament off southern Labrador, in the Strait of Belle Isle.

Local fishermen say the ice conditions are the worst they've seen in more than 20 years.

Brian Penney, a superintendent with the coast guard in Newfoundland and Labrador, says helicopters could be called in to rescue stranded crews as a northeast wind continues to jam the ice floes together. "There's vessels disabled, there's vessels damaged. There's crews that are out on the ice because there's quite a possibility that their vessels may sink or the vessels are out on their sides," he says.

He adds: "There's a strong possibility that there will be other crews we may have to rescue by coast guard ship or helicopter."

Earlier in the day, a helicopter airlifted the crew from the Dad and Sons, which was damaged by ice off Fogo Island. Mr. Penney said the stricken vessel is in danger of sinking. "She's damaged and just listed out on the ice, and once the ice pressure comes off there's a good possibility the vessel will sink," he said.

And so on the report goes. I wonder if the Coastguards will be flying out copies of Gore's film for the stranded crews to watch, while they are waiting to be rescued.

Pics courtesy of the Canadian Coast Guard

COMMENT THREAD

The economics of war

It is a given that Reagan "won" the Cold War by outspending the Soviet Union, forcing it to compete in the arms race and thus driving it into bankruptcy, this precipitating its collapse.

Inevitably, things were more complex than that, and some might argue that the economic effects of the arms race were an unintended, if beneficial effect of a the "Star Wars" policy, in which Reagan actually believed.

Nevertheless, the idea is enough of a "hook" to remind us that there is always a significant economic aspect to most wars, and to assert that, as Reagan used the economic weapon against the USSR, so too – even if unwittingly – insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are using the same weapon against us.

This is brought home by Booker, today, in his column who picks up on our piece about the relative costs of Army helicopters.

At least now, a much larger number of people will be aware that the Army Lynx helicopter, designed for use in northern Europe and hopelessly unsuited to hot conditions, is costing £23,000 an hour while the upgraded Vietnam-era Hueys - known as the Bell 212s (pictured top left) – are much better suited to hot conditions and able to carry a bigger payload, and cost a mere (by comparison) £2,000 an hour.

The issue here, however, is far wider that just cost of individual pieces of kit. At stake here is capacity – the ability to deploy enough resources in counter-insurgency operations to have a decisive effect, without breaking the bank.

Short of total war, as in the Second World War, where military spending takes priority over everything, the military will always have to compete for funds against other public spending priorities. And, where there are other more popular (or potentially vote-winning causes) there will always tend to be a shortage of funds.

Shortfalls, therefore, are a fact of life and, while lobbying can have an effect, it will not always be successful. Therefore, if it is to prevail in operational theatres, the military has to find ways of maintaining or improving its capabilities at less cost.

The use of cheaper Hueys is a good example of how this can be done, and we are talking about real money. Although we have already bought the Lynx helicopters (example pictured right), the Army (and Royal Marines) only have 86 Mk7s (less now after losses) on its inventory and they have to last a long time – until at least 2012.

Each aircraft consumes spares and has only so many airframe hours. Once they are used up, the aircraft must be scrapped or very expensively re-built. And, while the Army is heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, it still has many other commitments, and much continue to train for conventional warfighting. It cannot afford to use up its entire fleet simply on its counter-insurgency operations.

What applies to helicopters, though, also applies to other kit. Already, we established the huge cost of operating Warrior MICVs, at £250 per mile.

While we have been unable to establish the costs of running vehicles like the Mastiff, it is likely to be around the quarter of the cost per mile of running tracked equipment. Furthermore, even Thomas Harding of The Telegraph are prepared to concede that the Mastiff armoured trucks are "more resilient against mines". Their utility is easily confirmed by the US Marine Corps which recently reported that, in more than 300 attacks since last year, no Marines have died while riding in what are now termed Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP).

But where some of the really big bucks are spent is not by the Army, but by the RAF in providing air support. In addition to the figures on helicopter operations, therefore, Tory MP Ann Winterton also obtained data on some of the RAF's costs.

In particular, she asked for the costs of the primary (and only) close air support aircraft provided by the RAF in Afghanistan, the £14 million Harrier. The results again are staggering. According to defence minister Adam Ingram, the cost per hour averaged over the six GR7 and two GR9 Harrier aircraft operating is no less than £37,000. This includes forward and depth servicing, fuel, the cost of one Flight Lieutenant pilot, training support costs and the cost of capital charge and depreciation. It does not include, however, the cost of the ordnance. Bombs are extra.

One issue here is that, in Afghanistan, the targets are very often of low economic value, either small clusters of Taliban armed with cheap weapons, or converted civilian vehicles, often worth considerably less than the cost of the bomb used to target them, much less the cost of delivery.

This problem can confronted by the United States in Vietnam, and was one of the reasons why the famous piston-engined Skyraider was returned to service. Other reasons were its ability to fly slowly and thus deliver ordnance with greater precision than fast jets, and its considerable endurance, enabling it to loiter over the battlefield and deliver ordnance within minutes of a target being identified.

It modern terms we already have an aircraft on the register that could do an equivalent job. This is the Short Tucano, operated as a basic trainer by the RAF. Already, however, a ground attack version has been developed. Notionally, it can only carry a third of the Harrier's load (although the Harrier usually has to carry underwing fuel, reducing its carrying capacity) but that still amounts to five Paveway 540lb bombs.

Unlike the Harrier, which has such pitifully short endurance that it can only be despatched, once a target has been positively identified, the Tucano has a massive 6 hours 30 minutes endurance.

As to the costs, the RAF paid just over £1 million for its aircraft and the total cost per hour is £5,411. For every Harrier hour, you could fly six Tucanos and still have change. That would allow you to have aircraft continually orbiting the battlefield, ready to deliver ordnance in the style of the WWII "taxicab" Typhoons, as and when needed. For sure, that would erode your cost advantage, but the capability enhancement would be significant.

The thing is, such ideas are not new. We applied them in WWII, in the Korean War and the US in Vietnam. Every time the shooting dies down, however, the military forgets the lessons and goes back to buying expensive new toys.

Those lessons, it seems, must again be re-learnt. War, as much as anything, is an economic enterprise and the military (and its political masters) might do well to devote more time and energy to getting more bangs for our bucks.

COMMENT THREAD

France votes

As my colleague has pointed out there seems to be a heavier turn-out for the first round of this year’s presidential elections than might have been expected from a fairly lacklustre campaign on all sides.

What we have seen from the main candidates is empty vapourizing (not unusual in politics) and precious little of substance. The French economy has very serious problems. What to do? Eh bien, it must be reformed, bien entendu, but we cannot give up the special French/European (delete as applicable) social model and become like those villainous Anglo-Saxes. We must have more state intervention to prevent that.

Law and order? Eh bien, there are problems, bien entendu, and we must deal with those problems (no longer scumbags, except in the mouth of Le Pen, possibly) and we must have dialogue and we must have more state intervention.

European constitution? Eh bien, we have a problem, bien entendu, and we must face up to it. Naturellement we cannot stop Europe from moving on (especially, if it is in the directions we want it to move) but, there is no denying, another referendum could be trés difficile.

And so on, and so forth. No-one I have read or heard can give a good a summary of any serious candidate’s policies. The exception, one assumes, must always be Le Pen and it will be interesting to see what his vote will be like. My guess is higher than the polls suggest since very many in France would not admit to voting for the man.

Until two days ago when the last polls were taken around 40 per cent proclaimed themselves to be undecided, which is historically very high, just as the turn-out seems to be.

In the first place this was going to be an exciting election, what with the two leading contenders being almost outsiders by French political standards. Nicolas Sarkozy describes himself in his best-selling book “Testimony”, published in the UK by Harriman House so:

Being the son of an immigrant – of the first generation through my father, who came from Hungary after the dramatic Yalta partition, and of the second generation through my mother whose father was a Jew from Salonica – has certainly influenced me. In the France of the 60s, as our country rallied all its resources in the cause of modernisation and development, no doubt it was easier than it is today to be the son of an immigrant. But we loved France. Nobody forced us.

Sarkozy is clearly claiming the heritage of Europe’s difficult twentieth century as well as proclaiming his love for his country. It is a potent mixture and may well appeal to a lot of people who see their country losing standing in the world (actually the standing was lost some time ago but there has been a concerted campaign to deny this).

In keeping with this, the early part of electoral campaign seemed to consist of visits abroad and meetings with politicians of other countries. As Ségolène Royal made one mistake after another in the sphere of foreign policy, Sarkozy could present himself as a statesman in the present and the future.

Furthermore, he is not an enarque, a product of the prestigious Ecole Nationale d’Administration, the alma mater of most French politicians and officials.

The book, incidentally, is fascinating and I can quite understand why it sold so well and why Sarkozy’s long-standing and clearly indicated presidential ambitions seemed to so many of his countrymen like a breath of fresh air. Pity about the subsequent campaign and lack of any definite ideas of what he would do if elected, which is at odds with the image of the can-do politician, always on the go, always ready to get about, to meet people, to discuss, to make decisions, to demand action that “Testimony” presents.

It is a picture of a Gallic Churchill, demanding “action this day” and proclaiming from the rooftops. Unlike Churchill, however, Sarkozy is not clear on who the enemy is and where it is, though latterly he seems to have decided that it is America and globalization, not necessarily in that order.

Ségolène Royal is clearly an outsider by virtue of her sex. Though there have been high-flying women politicians in France (we shall disregard that apology for a Prime Minister, Edith Cresson) and the present Defence Minister is one, this is the first time there is a female presidential candidate with a realistic chance of winning.

To be fair, the chance was more realistic at the beginning of the campaign than it is now, but the last opinion polls suggest that she will come second in the first round and not too far behind Sarkozy.

Royal, too, has written various books. As it has been pointed out, you are not considered to be a serious politician in France if you do not write or pretend to do so. It is, however, her biography by Robert Harneis, also the translator of “Testament”, that has been published in the UK, again by Harriman House.

The story he tells is of

a tough, clever girls from a village in Lorraine who grew up in the traditional world of a French Catholic family with a proud military and bourgeois heritage.

Then she became a Socialist and spurned that heritage.

The book tells us a lot about Royal’s education (she is an enarque, as is her partner, leader of the Socialist Party and something of an electoral embarrassment, François Holland), her political career and relationship with other political figures, the most interesting and mysterious one being with Mitterand, whose apprentice and follower she has always proclaimed herself to be.

What we do not get all that much of is any sense of political ideology though a good deal of fascinating information about the shenanigans behind the political scenes. She is a socialist and believes in the state sorting all the problems out. Is that any different from her rivals, Sarkozy and Bayrou, the only real intellectual among the whole lot of them? Not really.

She thinks education is supremely important as is the family. Many in France feel that both are in a state of crisis (though they have not seen our education). What is Royal suggesting to deal with that? Hmmm. Funny you should ask that. She is not precisely suggesting anything.

As we have pointed out before, she seems to want to solve various problems by throwing a great deal of money at it but also thinks that taxation is too high. A bit of a conundrum, all of it, and Robert Harneis’s book, understandably, does not solve it.

Possibly, it is the strong personality of the two main contenders that has brought out so many voters. On the other hand, there is some indication that it is the “third man”, François Bayrou the voters find most attractive though not the most likely to become President. He has some pretensions to being an outsider – clearly a sine qua non in this year’s presidential elections – not being an enarque but as we have pointed out before, that is only skin deep.

In fact, he is part and parcel of the political class with, apparently, even fewer political ideas than his two main contenders about badly needed changes. He has made a virtue of it, proclaiming that Sarkozy’s and Royal’s extravagant promises made them unfit for the presidency while his own modest (or negligible, depending on your point of view) ones are just the ticket.

The real outsider, despite his formidably long political career, remains Jean-Marie Le Pen, the surprise second choice in the first round of the 2002 presidential election. And this time? Well, we shall see.

French turnout unusually high

According to AP, French voters have turned out in force today for the first round of the presidential election. Early turnout, we are told, reached levels not seen since 1981, soaring in the first four hours of voting to one-third of France's 44.5 million-strong electorate.

COMMENT THREAD

Confusion reigns

There is an extraordinarily silly piece by Leo McKinstry in today's Sunday Telegraph. He compares the behaviour of former England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher, who resigned after the lacklustre performance of the English team, with that of defence secretary Des Browne over the Iran hostages affair.

Part of the McKinstry thesis is that "a national humiliation should be followed by resignation," which is fair enough. But he wants Browne to fall on his sword and, because he does, his argument fails, even in its own terms. He is simply not comparing like with like.

While there might be parallels, the relationship between the English team and Fletcher is roughly that as between the Cornwall's boarding party and the Captain of HMS Cornwall or, perhaps, Commodore Nick Lambert.

On the other hand, the relationship of Des Browne to HMS Cornwall is closer to that of David Collier, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, with the English team. Thus, only if McKinstry wants to keep Fletcher in place, and howl after the blood of Collier, does his argument stand.

A similar, although almost certainly unintended confusion exists in the Sunday Times piece by Mick Smith on the Nimrod, which we flagged up earlier.

The story is a sound piece of journalism, reporting that the fleet of Nimrod surveillance aircraft currently undergoing major upgrades to MR4 standard will contain the same ageing and leaking fuel systems that caused last year's disaster in which 14 crew died.

As with McKinstry, though, the confusion arises with allocating the responsibility. The headline (written by the subs) reads, "MoD accused of cost-cutting on crash plane," while Smith's piece starts: "The defence secretary, Des Browne, is facing accusations that the government has put cost-cutting before the welfare of the services by failing to remedy safety faults…".

Smith points out that the fuel pipes that leaked in the disastrous Nimrod crash last year are single skin, and they are being retained in the upgraded aircraft. Yet modern versions are double skin. Keeping the single skin pipes "to save money" is described by an anonymous pilot as "totally reckless.

Raising such an issue is perfectly responsible journalism and it is right and proper that Smith should have written his story in this way. But there are limits to what you can get in and the issues are far more complex than can be allowed for in one piece.

Firstly, the Nimrod upgrade project is already in trouble. In 2004, the MoD was heavily criticised because it was then £400 million over budget and 71 months late. Retro-fitting new fuel systems would add to the costs and delays, forcing the existing MR2 models to be kept in service even longer than their now much-extended phase-out date of 2010. That, of course, would create its own problems.

Secondly, double skinning is not a panacea. An outer skin can make inspection of the inner pipework more difficult, concealing corrosion or stress fractures. Then, differential stresses between the two skins (and their fixings) can actually induce fractures that would not have occurred in a single pipe. The combination of this phenomenon and inspection difficulties could lead to precisely the sort of catastrophic failure that double-skinning is designed to prevent.

In a new aircraft, these issues would be considered very carefully, and the design team would eliminate any such problems. But the Nimrod is not a new aircraft and introducing a new system in an old airframe is a laborious and expensive exercise that carries no absolute certainty of success. All or any combination of strengthening the pipe material (or making sections more flexible), changing the design of fixings and/or couplings, increasing inspection access (and inspection frequency) and reducing design life, may be a valid option.

Keeping the single skin, therefore, may be "totally reckless", but it may not. It may not even be motivated, in whole or part, by the need to save money. Delay and the consequences of delay on operations may be an equal or greater consideration.

Either way, Des Browne is neither competent nor qualified to make the decision, which will have rested on detailed and complex technical evaluations, conveyed to him by his advisors. That is the nature of so much modern government. On issues such as these, the minister has to trust his "experts".

It would help if we had an independent technical capability – say through the House of Commons Select Committee system – to second-guess these decisions, but as it stands, we have to rely on the technical competence of the contractors, the RAF and the MoD. And mistakes do happen. But to pin them solely, or at all, on a politician – a layman in engineering terms – does not seem to be the complete answer.

Herein lies a fascinating conundrum which goes to the heart of the nature modern government – as to whether the systems of accountability developed in the 18th Century and before are still adequate.

Looking at the Nimrod project as a whole, this, as we pointed out on Thursday, was commissioned in 1996 - by a Conservative defence secretary, Michael Portillo. The original proposal had been for a brand-new (American-built) airframe but the prime contractor, BAE Systems, played the "jobs" card and an unpopular Tory government caved in and bought British.

Anyone looking dispassionately at the project could have seen problems. A new-build was always a better option. So, at the heart of Browne's current travails is a poor, politically motivated decision by the Tories. But it could have been overturned in 1997 by the incoming Labour government, when the new defence secretary, George Robertson, took over.

Two other defence secretaries, Geoff Hoon and John Reid have since been involved in the project and only now is Browne in the hot seat. If the current incumbent is to be held responsible, this is the equivalent of the party game, "pass the parcel". The last one holding the post gets the blame. Who, under those circumstances, would be willing to take on a portfolio?

On the other hand, what more usually happens is that, with so many people sharing the responsibility, the blame is diluted and no heads roll. Not least, because the decision was originally made by a government which is now in opposition, the politicians are compromised and criticism is thus muted.

In these circumstances, therefore, how we manage the process of government, minimise failure and hold people to account when they do fail, are serious issues and need answers. They are ones, though, that newspapers can hardly handle – although the occasional, thoughtful op-ed would not go amiss. Think-tanks might make a contribution, but nothing seems forthcoming, and you cannot expect anything currently from an opposition which is more interested in political point-scoring than serious politics.

That leaves the blogs. We at least are free from editorial constraints – which frustrate serious defence correspondents – and, if some writers could get past "tee-hee" political gossip and "pub talk", the blogsphere could make a contribution to a debate that we badly need to have.

Such ruminations, however, do not have a big market. Smith's piece will be read by, perhaps, a million people. McKinstry's stupidity will get an audience of several hundred thousand. This piece will get no more than two or three thousand readers. It may be enough – quality rather than quantity - but, although unlikely, it would be nice to see a broader debate.

A trip to Karachi

A quick scan of the online newspapers today reveals a meagre crop of stories of any great interest to the blog, but we will have a look at some of the more interesting later today – not least a Sunday Times story about the Nimrod.

Just as interesting, though, are the omissions in the UK media. One is flagged up in a Karachi based newspaper, with the somewhat pedestrian name of The News. It retails the latest attempts by the EU to curb the rising flood of VAT fraud, which is costing EU member states billions.

We have covered this issue consistently on this blog, most recently here, but its is only sporadically dealt with in the MSM and rarely in British blogs. Yet, given the sums involved, and the way the issue so graphically illustrates fundamental flaws in a core EU system, you would have thought that it would get a lot more attention than it does.

However, thanks to the miracle of the internet, we can still keep abreast of what is happening, even if we have to take a virtual trip to Karachi to do so – which is definitely worth the trouble.

COMMENT THREAD

Creeping Metrication?

In the "Honest John" feature of the motoring column in The Daily Telegraph today, reader M.T. of Frodsham writes:

I took delivery of a new Yamaha Bulldog motorcycle from my local dealer in Chester. Later that day I was riding the motorcycle in the dark and noticed that I couldn't see how quickly I was going because the speedo is calibrated in kilometres per hour. The dial has miles per hour marked in small figures but they aren't illuminated. Riding at night is a bit hit and miss in terms of my speed. I have contacted the dealer, who, in turn, has contacted Yamaha UK. It responded that recent legislation changes mean they are not obliged to fit a mph clock. If I really want one, I'll have to find an extra £150. Being unaware of one's speed in the dark is a major safety issue, surely?

Errr?

I am not aware of any recent changes and the Department for Transport seems pretty clear on the standards required. Have we (or they) missed something?

Not that "Honest John" was any help. His answer was: "You don't have to be Einstein to convert kph to mph. For the record, 50kph = 31.25mph, 65kph = 40.6mph, 80kph = 50mph and 100kph = 62.5mph."

COMMENT THREAD

Hedging its bets

Remember the EU Space Policy? Inserted into the EU constitution at the last minute, at the insistence of Chirac, the "colleagues" wasted no time setting up their "Space Council", the first meeting of which was held on 25 November 2004 - even before the French and Dutch referendums.

Such was the hubris that, to mark the occasion, European Space Agency director general Jean-Jacques Dordain presented EU commissioner for enterprise and industry, Günter Verheugen with an EU flag, which was flown aboard the international space station during the Delta Soyuz mission in April 2004 (pictured).

Of course, the French and the Dutch did for the constitution and, you would think, that also ended the EU space policy. But not a bit of it. Only recently we learned that that EU seemed close to unveiling its definitive policy, with Germany aiming to launch it before its six-month term as EU president expired at the end of June.

The nearest parallel, perhaps, is the spoilt child in a supermarket, who takes sweeties off the display rack, only for the parent to return them, whence the child takes them again, and so on, until the parent eventually weakens and pays for them at the till. Like that spoilt child, the EU keeps coming back, and back and back… until it finally gets what it wants.

In an interesting development this week, however, the British National Space Centre (BNSC) signed a memorandum of understanding with NASA on space co-operation. Amongst the first projects to be considered is a collaborative lunar robotic explorer.

Commenting on the agreement, Dr Andrew Coates, a leading planetary scientist at University College London, says: "We would hope from this agreement that we would get to fly more instruments on more US missions - to the Moon, to Mars and beyond; as well as working with our usual partners within the European Space Agency."

BNSC receives most of its funding from the new Science and Technology Facilities Council and the council's chief executive officer, Professor Keith Mason, justifying the linkage, said: "We have unique expertise in small satellites and miniaturised instruments which could provide a low-cost lunar telecoms capability, whilst simultaneously deploying probes to the Moon's surface in order to characterise the surface and interior."

That, itself, may be so much moonshine. A leading US commentator on space issues told us that, while some of the partnership makes sense, the idea that the UK's space industry has "unique expertise" in small satellites and miniaturised instruments is "silly". There are plenty of US firms with the same expertise, Swales, Ball, Aeroastro, Orbital and General Dynamics to name a few, not to mention all the other countries with similar skills.

The real significance of this deal, he suspects, is that BNSC wants a separate line of communications with NASA. British investors, it seems, are getting nervous that, with the advent of an EU space policy, too much will be controlled by Brussels and have been calling for an arrangement where they would not have to depend on ESA for all activities beyond Earth orbit.

Not for the first time, therefore, the UK – while making all the right noises in the direction of the EU – seems to be hedging its bets behind the scenes.

COMMENT THREAD

Wailing and gnashing of teeth

Otherwise known as “ritual huffing and puffing”, as my colleague so eloquently put it. And it does not come just from the Conservative Party either. Here are a couple more examples from organizations we have written about before. Well, three, to be precise and all from organizations that claim to be the leading eurosceptic one and raise money on those grounds.

First off, here is Open Europe, whose representative, I understand, was on yesterday’s World at One, demanding that Tony Blair call a referendum on whatever it is that is going to be agreed in June.

Their media summaries yesterday, understandably, paid a great deal of attention to Blair’s various interviews in which he promised to sign up to “a new treaty”, which will not be a constitutional treaty and, therefore, will not need a referendum.

One wonders how this is going to work. A new treaty requires an IGC, a European Council not being the body in which this is decided. So, whatever it is that Blair will be signing up to, it will not be a new treaty, though, probably just as dangerous as other agreements he and his predecessors have signed up to.

In any case, Open Europe and the other two organizations I shall deal with in a moment, were warned by those “extremist” eurosceptics, in whose presence they hold their noses, that this was a likely scenario. Various parts of the constitution will be pushed through in ways not necessarily noticeable to the political community and a small new document will be presented instead of the constitutional treaty with the assertion that it does not need a referendum.

Try believing us, ladies and gentlemen of Open Europe. We have a good track record of being right. Neil O’Brien’s comment remains somewhat inadequate:

This is a disgraceful attempt to wriggle out of the promise of a referendum. Tony Blair knows that the overwhelming majority of people would vote against giving away more powers to EU officials, so now he is going to take away our right to a vote.

More powers are given away to EU officials all the time and many of those officials, whether Mr O’Brien recognizes this or not, are our own civil servants and quango officials.

The only way of solving this conundrum is by beginning negotiations for exiting and then remodelling our own system. However, I am not sure that Mr O’Brien has changed his views on it from the time he and I were both on 18 Doughty Street and he made it clear(ish) that he would not vote for a withdrawal from the EU. I guess he and his organization are still hoping for that nebulous EU reform that will change the organization to something it was never intended to be.

Then we have the European Foundation, the “leading EuroRealist think-tank”, which describes itself thus:

The European Foundation has been at the forefront of debate on the European Union since it was established by Bill Cash MP in 1993. We advocate an overall policy of “yes to European trade, no to European government.” We believe that greater democracy can only be achieved among the various peoples of Europe by the fundamental renegotiation of the EU Treaties. The Foundation does not advocate outright withdrawal from the European Union, rather its thoroughgoing reform into a European Free Trade Area with political cooperation.

More tales of porcine aviation, in other words. Their chairman, Bill Cash MP, incidentally, is still blathering on about a German Europe as he has been for the last ten years. He could try reading "The Great Deception" but that seems an unlikely development.

They, too, are upset at the apparent development, which, so far, has consisted of Blair giving interviews. Like Open Europe, the European Foundation probably foresaw a great and glorious role for itself during a referendum campaign and this might not happen. (Maybe I am being over-cynical.)

The European Foundation, however, in its own words attached great and unsustainable hopes to the “new” treaty negotiations and the subsequent referendum, without, it would appear, realizing that any negotiation will bring in all sorts of demands from all sorts of member states.

The Prime Minister’s position in preventing public referendum on the EU Treaty is fundamentally wrong and democratically illegitimate. To make the European Union an institution which is beneficial to Britain and the other Member States, and thereby achieve greater democracy among European nations, it is essential for the UK to hold a public referendum and thereby renegotiate its position on the binding treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice. Now is the time for the European Union’s thoroughgoing reform, not more mismanagement at the hands of a Labour government which has officially turned its back on the British electorate.

Give me the Commission any day of the week. At least, it knows what it is doing (mostly).

And so, with a heavy heart because I like the people involved and know what their private opinion is, I come to the shining new “business backed campaign” Global Vision. They, too, put out a press release yesterday.

They, too, as our readers will recall, hoped for some new negotiations during which Britain would be able to change the treaties and her own membership of the EU to a series of free-trade agreements. Sadly, this, as predicted at their launch, is not going to happen.

Ruth Lea is absolutely right when she says:

There is no doubt that any new EU treaty will affect this country significantly - especially if qualified majority voting is to be extended. Every treaty means further political integration in Europe and it is disingenuous or dishonest to suggest otherwise.

Of course, it may have escaped her attention that the biggest surrender of policies to QMV came with Maastricht, signed, sealed and delivered without any suggestion (from the government) of a referendum by the Conservatives.

There is no harm in demanding a referendum on whatever is agreed at whatever time through whatever channel but it would be terribly nice if these organizations looked at the whole problem a little more realistically and did not attach that many hopes to questionable contingencies.

COMMENT THREAD

The Saturday "toy"

No idea where this pic came from, but it comes from a time when men were men, arms deals were as crooked as the day is long (nothing changes there) and no one would dream of putting ladies into rubber boats and sending them off to war.

They are, of course, Lockheed F-104 Starfighters. Spanish markings? Nah, mucky Italian, possibly. But hey! Who cares? Nice pic.

COMMENT THREAD

They're serious

From Reuters, via Defense News, we learn that "interior ministers" of the EU member states yesterday agreed "a rapidly deployable force" of 450 border guards to help states such as Spain cope with sudden influxes of illegal migrants.

The pool of border guards is to be placed by EU states at the disposal of the EU's border agency Frontex for emergencies such as massive numbers of migrants arriving by sea, and should be fully staffed by the end of the year. Wearing EU-flagged armbands, the guards will be deployed within 10 days of a member state requesting help, provided the EU border agency's director gives his green light to the request.

What is fascinating about this is that, last year, at the height of the Canaries illegal immigration crisis, the EU border agency struggled to gather a handful of boats, helicopters and experts for its first joint operations.

Now, however, Ilkka Laitinen, Executive Director of Frontex is positively purring. "The number of assets offered so far by Members States is really satisfactory," he says, adding:

We can only be happy having assets from 21 Members State, among them 21 fixed wing aircrafts (sic), 27 helicopters, 116 vessels, mobile radar units and other special technical equipment. Of course we will welcome warmly any new assets…

No one, it seems, could dispute that the EU is serious about keeping blacks out of Europe. If EU member states could put that sort of resource into peacekeeping operations, though, (in the Northern Arabian Gulf, for instance) the rest of the world might take them seriously.

I suppose we could always send some rubber boats from HMS Cornwall, to show them how its done.

COMMENT THREAD

You have to laugh

What we said:

Concern has been expressed that this will badly affect the freedom and rights of bloggers to express themselves but, since no right-minded person would seek to indulge in denying Mr Hitler's schemes (or anything similar), the limitations are fairly academic.

What The Daily Telegraph says we said:

This will badly affect the freedom and rights of bloggers.

Sort of reminds you of the critics' quotes on billboards outside theatres.

COMMENT THREAD

Read and groan inwardly

As recounted by England Expects, we really did discuss the parlous state of investigative journalism in this country – where virtually no resources are expended on in-depth investigations.

But Elaib seems to have discovered the exception to the rule. When it comes to digging for dirt on UKIP, it seems that no expense is spared. The only problem was, it was amateur's night out.

COMMENT THREAD

Iranian students protest

Via Gateway Pundit we get news of continuing student protests in Iran and the growth of student blogging. He also links to Kamangir, who advises caution when interpreting what those blogs say. There are links to the blogs themselves. Well worth reading.

Of particular interest, in my opinion, is the protest by 700 female students against the requirement to wear a veil.

Female students at Tehran Polytechnic University, where students protested against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a visit last December crying 'dictator go away' and throwing firecrackers, are staging a major protest against new regulations enabling police as of 21 April to arrest women who do not abide by the Islamic dress code. A group of 700 female students organized a rally on campus and signed a letter to the dean calling the new rules "an offence to the dignity of women" and accusing him of "wanting to extend to academia the sexual apartheid imposed by the government on Iranian society."

Not to worry, the authorities are responding. Firstly, they have withdrawn all the protesting students' ID cards and secondly will make them face a disciplinary commission.

COMMENT THREAD

Dog bites man

It is so much of a "dog bites man" story that it scarcely warrants a mention, the confirmation from Blair that, whatever changes are made to the EU treaties through Mrs Merkel’s current initiative, there is not going to be a referendum in the UK.

We could join the crowd, I suppose, and utter the ritual protests. The Tories have been doing this, accusing Blair of trying to introduce elements of the constitution "by the back door". But then, I don’t see any commitment from them to hold a referendum, should they get into power. Hague simply talks the talk, saying, "This would go against the government's previous assurances and be totally unacceptable to the people of Britain."

Blair's rationale, according to an interview with the Financial Times is that the changes being proposed – whatever they are – are not a "constitutional treaty". They do not alter the basic relationship between "Europe" and the member states, then there isn't the same case for a referendum."

He concedes that the British government is "going to get attacked whatever we do," but then argues that "Europe" needs to do it to move forward. In other words, it doesn't matter a stuff what you think, chuck. "Europe's" needs are greater than yours.

This, of course, is the classic hubris of our ruling class but, by and large, not enough people actually care enough to make the difference. There will be ritual huffing and puffing, but not much more. When the EU goes, it will be entirely unrelated to any public opposition to minor amendments to already massive treaties.

But, we can have a bit of fun while it lasts.

COMMENT THREAD

Millions wasted on "junk" helicopters

Millions of pounds are being frittered away on operating inadequate helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan, when more capable helicopters are available at a fraction of the cost. The Army is paying £2.3 million per hundred hours of flying operations, on one helicopter type, when it could be paying £200,000.

This has emerged from a series of Parliamentary questions asked by Tory MP, Ann Winterton, who tabled questions on the operating costs of Army Lynx tactical helicopters compared with Bell 212 (Huey) helicopters, which are also operated by the Army.

According to defence minister Adam Ingram, the baseline costs per hour of operating Lynx Mk7s are a staggering £23,000. This includes both fixed and marginal costs incurred in using the aircraft, comprising servicing costs, fuel costs, crew capitation and training costs, support costs and charges for capital and depreciation.

In addition to that, costs are incurred as a result of the operational use and particular climatic conditions experienced in theatre. These costs cover additional wear and tear, additional spares and additional equipment and are paid for by the Conflict Prevention Fund. A total of £11 million has been claimed against the fund in financial year 2006-07 for additional operating and capital costs for Lynx Mk7's operating in Iraq, of which six are believed to be in service.

By contrast, the cost per hour of operating the Bell 212 helicopter (pictured below), which the Army uses in Belize and Brunei, is a mere £2,000. Furthermore, this is the total cost, as the machines are provided through lease contracts and are not owned by the MoD.


The price is based on firm monthly charges which are inclusive of all costs (less fuel) associated with the provision of serviceable helicopters. The monthly charge payable by the MoD includes leasing and operating costs. Approximately one third of this monthly charge is attributable to operating costs.

As to performance, although the Bell 412 is based on the Vietnam era Huey, it has been substantially upgraded and was selected specifically by the Army because of its - according to the Army Air Corps's own website - "unique abilities include flying in hot and often humid conditions whilst also being able to carry considerable loads." That includes the ability to lift up to 13 troops.

By contrast, the Lynx is an aircraft optimised for high speed anti-tank operations in temperate Northern Europe. While it once held the world speed record for helicopters, it performs poorly in hot and high conditions – either or both of which are found in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both theatres, there are times when it has been unable to operate between dawn and dusk, leaving troops without air cover. Additionally, as opposed to the 13 troops that the Bell 212 can carry, the Lynx is limited to nine.

Overall, the cost differentials are staggering. For a typical flying profile of 100 hours per month for Lynx Mk7s, the Army is paying £2,300,000 for each machine, when it could be paying £200,000 to operate a Bell 212. Annualised, this works out at £27.6 million for each Lynx, equating to £25 million more than operating a Bell 212. With a fleet of six Lynx helicopters in theatre, this works out £150 million in unnecessary costs, on top of which there is the £11 million Conflict Prevention Fund payment for the Iraqi fleet alone. Potentially, the Army could save over £160 million a year by leasing Bell 212s in Iraq or, more importantly, could operate 100 of these aircraft and still have change.

As we pointed out as recently as yesterday complaints of "underfunding" have been a constant refrain in the defence debate. And, while we would not disagree that there are serious shortages of funds in some areas, the answers to these questions reinforce our argument that we are not always getting value for money.

In the continuous pursuit of more complex machines, we actually end up getting less capability at considerably greater cost. We need, therefore, to reframe the debate and look in more detail at what we are actually getting for our money.

COMMENT THREAD

Suing Yahoo

Not that I would ever dream of dismissing the dangers to free speech (and already existing controls) that we face in this part of the world, having written many thousands of words about the latest piece of legislation on racism and xenophobia to come from Brussels. But other people in other parts of the world are facing far worse problems and it is our duty to highlight them and to show support for the very brave people who face imprisonment and worse for doing what we take for granted.

Our readers will recall the scandalous development whereby Yahoo HK, a wholly owned Yahoo subsidiary based in Hong Kong helped the Chinese police to identify several bloggers and posters on the internet, who were voicing criticism of the government and the system.

As Jim Cullinan, a spokesman for Yahoo puts it:

Companies doing business in China are forced to comply with Chinese law.

Obeying the law is one thing, one might say, and needless officiousness that results in the imprisonment of bloggers and journalists is something else.

According to this morning’s International Herald Tribune, one of those imprisoned together with his wife who is in California, has decided to sue Yahoo.

A Chinese political prisoner and his wife have sued Yahoo in a U.S. court, accusing the company of abetting acts of torture by helping Chinese authorities identify political dissidents who were later beaten and imprisoned.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, may be the first of its kind against an Internet company for its activities in China.

Wang Xiaoning, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence in China, according to the lawsuit; his wife, Yu Ling; and other unidentified plaintiffs seek damages and an injunction barring Yahoo from identifying dissidents to Chinese authorities.

We shall watch this potentially important precedent with great interest.

COMMENT THREAD

Xenophobia comes to town

Our regular readers will know that we do not have a very high opinion of the British blogosphere. When a small corner of it sounds the alarm over a particular EU measure, therefore, we are inclined to ignore it.

However, the issue is the Council Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia, which the Justice and Home Affairs Council agreed yesterday. This is something we would have reported anyway.

That the groupescules are getting excited about it now, therefore, is of little importance – although we could ask where they were in 2004 when we warned of the Hague Programme and the coming of this and other EU initiatives, or even in January when we were warning of its impending arrival.

Anyhow, according to the Council communiqué (link above) the text now agreed (subject to the lifting of some EU parliament reservations) establishes that certain intentional conduct will be punishable in all EU member states.

This includes publicly inciting to violence or hatred, even by dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.

It also makes an offence publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes "as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (Articles 6, 7 and 8)" directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin, and – crimes defined by the Tribunal of Nuremberg (Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, London Agreement of 1945).

Effectively, this will make Holocaust denial a criminal offence throughout the 27 EU member states, but it will also include denial of atrocities like the Rwanda massacre. Demands from Baltic nations that major Stalinist atrocities be included were rejected.

The communiqué goes on to say that member states may choose to punish only conduct which is either carried out in a manner likely to disturb public order or which is threatening, abusive or insulting. Crucially, it also states that the reference to religion is intended to cover, "at least", conduct which is a pretext for racism.

The conduct defined has to be punishable by criminal penalties of a maximum of at least between 1 and 3 years of imprisonment.

However, we are also told that the Decision will not have the effect of modifying the obligation to respect fundamental rights and fundamental legal principles, including freedom of expression and association, as enshrined in Article 6 of the Treaty of the EU. Furthermore, member states will not have to modify their constitutional rules and fundamental principles relating to freedom of association, freedom of the press and the freedom of expression.

We have made our views well known on this blog, and have no hesitation in condemning the utter fatuity of this new attempt to make Holocaust denial a crime throughout the EU. But, acknowledged by the limited media reporting, the current draft is considerably watered down from the original proposal in 2001.

We had been concerned that the reference to religion would outlaw such activities as publishing the Danish cartoons. But the offence kicks in only when religion is used as a pretext for racism, so there seems to be no problem here. By no measure can an attack specifically on Islam be considered racism.

What really offends us though is the very fact that the EU is legislating in this sphere (Not that we are "unoffended" by other legislation, although laws on the sizes of rear-view mirrors are in a somewhat different league). We are totally opposed in principle to the idea that the EU should have any power in this area. However, since it is a Framework Decision, it had to be agreed unanimously. Once again, therefore, this is not so much an imposition by the EU as something imposed by our own government. It could have blocked the measure if it had so wished.

That said, there are so many caveats on the application of what will have to be transposed into UK law that it is very difficult to see what it adds to the existing code, other than making an offence egregious examples of Holocaust (and like) denial.

Concern has been expressed that this will badly affect the freedom and rights of bloggers to express themselves but, since no right-minded person would seek to indulge in denying Mr Hitler's schemes (or anything similar), the limitations are fairly academic.

In fact, the overall applications of the Decision are so heavily circumscribed that it is difficult to see how they will have much impact at all. Once the lawyers have finished with it, and it has been taken apart by civil liberties groups, and indeed national parliaments – making a mockery of the good intentions - it may well turn out that the EU has shot itself heavily in the foot.

COMMENT THREAD

It's all too complicated

There are two good readers' letters in The Daily Telegraph which, in more innocent times, would have us storming the barricades, exuding righteous indignation at the way our troops are being let down.

The first letter, on the face of it, is straightforward enough, from the father of a senior NCO serving in Afghanistan in an infantry unit. He – the NCO, that is – complains about a continuing shortfall of equipment. This is not the expensive equipment like helicopters but Land-Rovers, heavy machine-guns and radio equipment, all basic stuff.

This has come by way of a letter from the soldier himself, he being cited as writing: "You do not deploy on the ground unless you have the right kit and enough of it, but it does mean that, instead of three patrols going out, only two can, because they have had to rob/borrow equipment from the third patrol, which then becomes undeployable."

And from this, the soldier's father – a Mr Edward Trinder from Plymouth – concludes, of the MoD: "Only a grossly incompetent and underfunded government department could expect well trained and loyal soldiers to carry out their duties effectively under such circumstances."

Undoubtedly, the problems identified exist, but simply to put shortages down to "underfunding", much less "incompetence", may be over-simplistic – and even grossly inaccurate.

In the first instance, we do not know whether these are local shortages, or more widespread, indicative of major, structural inadequacies. And if they are widespread, we also know – not least from a much more open (and adult) Canadian media that military equipment in Afghanistan is taking a battering, suffering far more wear and tear than was anticipated, in the exceptionally rigorous conditions in which the troops have to operate.

Even the fabled RG-31 Nyalas have had their share of problems and, at one stage, more than a quarter of the fleet was in the shop with maintenance problems.

On top of this, we know from diverse sources that the Army is having trouble recruiting and keeping trained vehicle mechanics. As a result, field repair facilities are constantly stretched, with units suffering backlogs and excessive delays in getting their vehicles serviced and repaired. One could say, here that this is an Army problem except that, if you talk to major civilian fleet servicing operations in the UK, they will also tell you they have considerable difficulties recruiting and keeping staff.

As to the machine guns, there have also been serviceability problems here, in part due to the heavier rate of use than was originally anticipated.

When it comes to radio equipment, we are talking Bowman here – something of a procurement disaster, although there are other factors. Part of the problem is the speed of technological development and the continually changing demands on such equipment, with the result that, throughout its development, the Bowman project has been plagued with constantly changing specifications.

This is not to say that the MoD is not incompetent, or that there is no underfunding, although it would be hard to sustain a claim that Bowman has been kept short of cash. The project is grossly over-spent. What it does say is that there is often more to an issue than can be explained by a few simple buzz-words. The reality is often much more complex, and the solutions equally so.

Cue, therefore, the second letter, this one from Dan Lewis, Research Director of the Economic Research Council in London. He writes:

It's just not enough to say we need to spend more on defence. We have to get value for money, too. This won't happen until the MoD scraps the civil service's indifference to the costs of procurement in the face of political-industrial pressures. Otherwise, Britain will continue to obtain the wrong equipment, at inflated prices and a terrible cost in service lives.

This was more or less one of the points that Ian Liddell-Grainger, the Tory MP for Bridgwater, tried to make in a Westminster Hall debate last Tuesday, picking up on the upgrade programme for the RAF's Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft – heavily delayed and massively over budget.

Liddle-Grainger questioned why the Comet airframe had been retained, an aircraft they stopped flying commercially, he said, "when I was in short trousers". But the minister, Adam Ingram, had an easy answer. The contract was placed in 1996, he said. "That is something for which I do not have responsibility," he noted, then adding for further emphasis, "I am referring to 1996, a date before the present Government came into office."

That points up another major complication – that procurement processes are now so long that, quite often, they transcend the normal electoral cycle. New administrations have to take on commitments agreed by their predecessors, and then make commitments that have to be fulfilled by their successors. Opposition spokesmen are often compromised because, in office, their parties have been involved in the decisions of which they would wish to complain.

All of this makes military procurement one of the most difficult subjects both governments and oppositions have to deal with, and one of the most difficult to follow from outside the loop.

But now for the good news. Although it has been evident for some time, we now learn that the Conservative opposition, under the Boy Cameron, has set its face against tackling any hard-edged defence issues. Its spokesmen have been instructed to concentrate on the "soft" issues like service family housing, medical facilities and the like. We need no longer be troubled with debates and question on matters like procurement. It's all too complicated for the likes of the Boy.

COMMENT THREAD

Order! Order!

One of the better known rituals of British Parliamentary life is the weekly joust known to one and all as Prime Minister's Questions (or PMQs to the cognoscenti), where the prime minister of the day presents himself to the House (always spelt with a capital "H"), theoretically to allow himself to be held to account by our dedicated elected representatives.

Of course, it isn’t like that. The ritual is simply an opportunity for the opposing parties to score points off each other, generating some heat but very little light. And, if the truth was told, it was ever thus.

However, even allowing for that, there are certain rules that apply – or should apply – to the conduct of MPs. These are enforced by the Speaker, currently the Rt. Hon Michael Martin. Unlike the US system, where the Speaker is elected by the majority party and takes an overt partisan line, the British speaker is elected by the whole House and is supposed to be strictly neutral, applying the rules of the House in a fair, non-partisan manner.

That, however, is not for Speaker Martin, or G. Mick as he is known. A dour, working-class Scot, he has a chip on his shoulder larger than the Titanic's iceberg and just as deadly – at least to the good order of the House.

That, at least, is the opinion of the Daily Mail's Parliamentary sketchwriter, Quentin Letts, although he did not use those words. In his column today (no link) he complains long and bitterly about Martin who, yesterday, allowed PMQs to degenerate into a bear garden.

Letts's proximate cause for complaint is Martin's treatment of two Lib Dem MPs when they tried to speak. The first was Norman Baker who, when he stood to ask his pre-allotted question to the prime minister, was assailed by prolonged heckling from the Labour benches.

The noise was astonishing, writes Letts. Even though Mr Baker had a microphone nearby his voice was lost in the clamour. There were shouts of "prat!", "cheer up, Norman", "oh no!" and "siddown!". Letts continues with his narrative:

Given the noise, Mr Baker was understandably taking it slowly. "Too long!" yelled Labour voices. There must have been 100 Labour MPs shouting at him, some of them going red in the face.

Come on, come on, you say, it was only a bit of fun. I don't agree. I suggest it must have been physically frightening for Mr Baker to stand there, separated by only a few feet from so many top-volume voices and so much flying spittle

Mr Blair could not hear clearly what was going on. Nor could the Speaker. He was screwing up his eyes and leaning towards his own loudspeakers. So why didn't Mr Martin call "order"? Why did he not stop the thugs? Was it not his duty to do so?

This was only the first of two, and when Lib-Dem MP Simon Hughes stood up, he too was heckled beyond any acceptable level. Letts recounts, "Labour MPs even hissed him. Hissed! He was asking a serious question about pensions."

But did Martin intervene? Letts tells us that he not only let it happen but also sided with the hecklers, telling Mr Hughes (who had been struggling with the interruptions) that his question had been going on too long. Yet moments earlier, the same Speaker had allowed a sycophantic Labour MP, Kitty Usher, to ask a question that was at least as long.

The Mail's sketchwriter is by no means alone in his complaints. Opposition MPs routinely get the rough end of the stick, being harried by the Speaker when they try to put questions to errant ministers, while allowing long, rambling and often irrelevant questions from Labour backbenchers.

It was notable last year, when Martin was in hospital being treated for a heart attack, and the deputy Speaker, Sir Alan Hazelhurst took over, how much better ordered questions were. It also came as something of a shock to ministers as well, as opposition MPs we able to ask their questions, without the Speaker running interference.

For the average punter though, who perhaps sees only the shortest of clips on Parliamentary proceedings on the television news, the partisanship of the Speaker does not come over. What they do see, though, is the unregulated bear garden, which reflects badly not only on MPs but on the institution of Parliament itself.

All good theatre, some might say, but it does add to the growing disillusionment with politics, diminishing still further the one institution which, in theory, is the bastion of our liberties. Speaker Martin should, therefore listen to that most famous of all his injunctions, "Order! Order!".

Of course, he will not.

COMMENT THREAD

One must support the EU for moral reasons (not!)

Let us not forget that one reason of the fifty listed by the Independent last month for liking and supporting the European Union was its ability to unite and put pressure on bloodthirsty thugs like Robert Mugabe. Well, if not exactly put pressure, at least prevent them and their best friends and relations from visiting European countries.

As we have seen, this does not always work out, what with people not giving their full names when asking for visas and what not. The question of Mugabe himself coming to Europe has come up again.

A report by Africast says that the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Luis Amado, is muttering that the EU is determined that there will be an EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in December and if that means asking Mugabe, so be it. He will be asked, given visa and welcomed, undoubtedly with all pomp and circumstance.

The EU, according to this, wants to carry on bilaterally with Zimbabwe in order to exert pressure (can’t see why they should bother as they have been so totally unsuccessful) but, as it has been made clear by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the South African Foreign Minister, that there can be no summit without Zimbabwe’s participation, the EU will have to swallow its objections.

Incidentally, recent rumours in various publications that the South African government was about to put some pressure on Mugabe or try to replace him by someone else, have clearly not corresponded to anything resembling reality.

The report is quite helpful in explaining the difference between bilateral and multilateral negotiations:

This issue in some ways illuminates two contrasting approaches to analyzing Africa’s problems: the one identifies internal causes as paramount; the other, external causes.

Usually, as here, bilateral approaches stress internal causes while multilateral approaches stress external causes.

The EU prefers, as a matter almost of principle, multilateral approaches, though, to be fair, those could stress internal causes a bit more with all African countries, especially Zimbabwe. Incidentally, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Robert Mugabe has proclaimed joyfully that he has managed to beat off another attempt by Tony Blair to turn Zimbabwe back into a British colony. The reaction of his audience (after the tumultuous applause died down) is not recorded.

Why is it so important to hold this summit, apart from the EU’s need to show that it does have a common foreign policy towards other parts of the world?

One of the main strategic concerns that is now motivating the EU towards holding this summit is the flood of illegal African migrants to Europe in the last few years and the eruption of rioting among African immigrant communities already in Europe.

Amado said the EU and AU were already working on a joint strategy to be ratified at the summit that would include a tripartite approach to the migration problem.

This would be: increased security to address illegal immigration; better integration of legal migrants; and more and better development aid in Africa (to reduce the push factor, presumably).

This does not sound very promising to me. Given the security situation across most of Africa the first one seems all but impossible, unless a huge security fence is built round the European Union, including its sea-shores. It would dwarf the Israeli security fence, so much disliked by the transnational great and the good.

Better integration of legal migrants has precious little to do with the African Union and not a whole lot with the European Union. Each member state has to deal with that separately, not least by working on definitions of national identity, something the EU actually dislikes and tries to undermine.

There seems to be no suggestion that trade, fishing and agricultural policies might be changed in order “to reduce the push factor”. So, we are left with more development aid money that goes to kleptocratic African tyrants, who then continue the wrecking of their countries, thus forcing more people to flee.

It is hardly worth undermining one’s moral standing over Robert Mugabe over this.

COMMENT THREAD

The failure of a system

Imported toys, according to The Times, have never been more dangerous.

In fact, the number of deadly toys found on sale in Britain doubled last year, attributable to the increasing volume of Chinese imports. This has brought an influx of games and gifts with the potential to poison, suffocate or choke. And so bad has the situation become that trusted brands such as Mattel and Ladybird, and retailers such as Argos, have been forced to withdraw products deemed to put children at serious risk.

This should not be. In 1988, the EU promulgated the Toy Safety Directive, tied in with the now familiar CE marking system, the system in its entirety requiring toys to be subjected to stringent testing at the point of production, following which the CE label is attacked.

The crucial part of the system is that, provided the product bears the magic symbol, it cannot be inspected at the port of entry into the EU, and must be permitted entry on the basis of the paperwork, without further checks. By such means did the EU commission "sell" the system to third country producers, arguing that it would "bring about cost savings".

Simply, all the producers must do is ensure that the product meets EU standards - assessed by a process of self-certification, with no independent checks. Then the CE mark can be affixed and importing member states "may not prohibit, restrict or impede the placing in the market or putting into service of the product." Thus, claims the commission, "CE marking can be regarded as the products trade passport for Europe."

Indeed, that is what it has become - at the price of emasculating domestic controls over the safety of imported toys. In the absence of physical checks at the port of entry, any non complaince with EU safety standards has to be picked up by Trading Standards Officers, but only on the basis of consumer complaints. By then, it is often too late – the damage has already been done.

What we are seeing, therefore, is the failure of a system, which now puts our children at risk. Oddly enough though, The Times neglects in any way to mention this in its report. So, even when the EU fouls up, it goes unnoticed, simply because the media has no real idea how the EU system of government actually works.

The failures, it seems, are not confined to the EU.

COMMENT THREAD

Progress?

Even against the appalling news in Baghdad today, the formal hand-over of Maysan province from British to Iraqi responsibility is still regarded as a landmark.

Although largely symbolic at this stage, with the British presence unchanged, patrolling the border region, it could be taken either way – evidence of a premature retreat by the British, or a reflection of the growing confidence of the Iraqi security forces and, in particular, the Iraqi Army's 10th Division.

Do we know which way it will go? Hardly, but then, does anybody? But, when you see ranks of Iraqi soldiers marching in step, all gripping their flag-staffs the same, regulation way (pictured), it is clear that some progress has been made.

Even (or especially) in this highly technical age, discipline counts for a great deal. The outward manifestations of that are good drill and military bearing – something the Captain of HMS Cornwall might like to reflect upon.

And if you want to argue with that, have a word with the Brigade of Guards.

COMMENT THREAD

Another language

It is not possible to assert with any confidence that these people come from another planet, but they certainly sound as if they do.

According to German government spokesman, Ulrich Wilhelm, chancellor Angela Merkel, the current EU president, and Czech president Vaclav Klaus, have struck broad agreement on the way forward for the EU constitution. Thus we are told: "They agreed that at the European summit in June there needs to be consensus not only on a roadmap but on the orientation of the content (of the treaty)."

With that, EU experts from the German government, it now seems, are touring European capitals trying to build consensus and identify potential obstacles. Having softened up the opposition (they hope), Merkel will take over in mid-May and attempt to schmoozle her "fellow European leaders" with the idea of getting something "concrete" by the June European Council.

He hope she has better luck understanding her own official spokespersons than we do. Even when they speak English, it comes out as another language.

COMMENT THREAD

The nature of the problem

Simon Heffer, in today's Telegraph op-ed tells us that the first round of the French presidential elections is on Sunday. Having been slightly obsessed with other issues (can you be "slightly" obsessed?), it would be fair to say that this point had not really registered. In mitigation, though, one could hazard a guess that, if you asked around in the high streets of England, not one in ten would be aware of the election either.

You can take Heffer's analysis any which way but, for ourselves, we would dispute his opening assertion, that "probably" the only fact we need to know about the election is that approximately 45 percent of the 44 million electorate still haven't decided, or won't admit to pollsters that they have decided, how they might vote.

The one fact we should all know – but no one in the media or the political classes will rush to tell us – is that, on Sunday, the French are starting the process of electing not only a president but a member of our government as well. Through the wonders of the European Union, the new head of state of the French Republic will also become a fully-paid up member of the European Council, that elite supranational institution that decides many of our laws and policies.

In that context, the difference between us and the French is that they get a vote and we don't … but then they didn't get to elect Blair either.

It is rather timely, nevertheless, that we should see in this month's European Journal (no link yet) an article by Anthony Coughlin entitled "Why national politicians are so Europhile". In it, he sets out to explain why national politicians take so readily to the supranational scene.

Coughlin's main thesis is that, since so much of the law of the EU member states is now made at EU level, when national ministers wants to get something done they must enlist the support of their EU "colleagues" and must therefore conduct their politicking at a European level. Unwittingly, they are drawn into an oligarchy, a committee of lawmakers, bound by a mutual dependence that owes nothing to national loyalties or electorates.

Thus, writes Coughlin, ministers tend to identify ever more with the great EU project, seeing themselves as political architects of a coming world power. They come to regard the EU (rather than the national) stage as providing the most exalted for their future careers – the place for historic photo-opportunities – and see one of their key functions as delivering their own national electorates in support of further European integration.

Behind the grandstanding of the politicians, however, Coughlin points out that there is another dynamic. The shift of policy areas from the national to EU level frees the national civil servants from the scrutiny of their actions by elected national parliaments. It increases their bureaucratic power as they interact with their opposite numbers in Brussels in drafting and often deciding on EU legislation and policy.

As he reminds us, the great bulk of EC/EU laws are never debated a ministerial level and are simply rubber-stamped if there has been an agreement reached at official level.

Coughlin observes, citing former German president Herzog, that the EU offers scope for the natural tendency of civil servants everywhere to pursue power and influence. Thus, he concludes:

EU integration has therefore become not just a process of depriving Europe’s nation states and peoples of their national democracy and independence. Within each member state it represents a gradual coup by government executives against legislatures, and by politicians against the citizens who elect them. It hollows out the nation state, sucking its power from its traditional government institutions, while leaving these still formally in existence.

That is Coughlin's argument and it is a good one, as far as it goes. The reality, of course, is far more complex – and he almost certainly knows that. There is only so much you can write in a short article.

Much of the technical EC/EU legislation to which Coughlin refers is, for instance, not decided by the EU – either officials or politicians - but on a higher level, coming only to the EU officials though that fabled beast, the dual international quasi-legislation/comitology mechanism.

However, even at that higher level, it is still largely the officials who decide so, in effect, what the EU does is simply give an additional dimension to the tyranny of the officials.

But the power of the officials is also exerted at national level, even without supranational influence. With the continued trauma and crises in the Home Office, can anyone really suggest that the Home Secretary is in charge? Given its resistance to reform, can one really say that it is possible even for any secretary ever to be fully in control?

Nor, indeed, as recent events have shown, could it be said that the secretary of state for defence is fully in control of the Ministry of Defence. And, although we initially fell into the trap of blaming the "government" for the "cash for stories" debacle, as events showed, the reality was far more complex.

Therein lies another major problem. Not only have the officials assumed farm more power than is healthy in a democratic (or any) society, we the people are in denial. We cling to the fiction that the politicians are still in control. Thus we continue to demand high-profile resignations or sackings when things go wrong, and we demand remedies for our ills from our politicians that they simply cannot deliver. Too many people simply cannot cope with the idea that their politicians are mere ciphers.

The politicians, of course, go along with it, even claiming authorship for policies which are quite obviously of EU origin – the phenomenon, to which we have drawn attention, of "hidden Europe". Purely for their own self-esteem, they cannot admit how powerless they actually are – how the levers of power are no longer connected to anything and how so much of the political apparatus of power is simply an empty shell.

And that points the way to the first step we must take to restoring our own power – for it is the politicians, not the officials who hold it in trust for us. Ninety-five percent of problem solving, it is said, is defining accurately the nature of the problem.

The ironic thing is – and we're seeing a lot of irony on this blog – the charade will continue on Sunday, when the French go to the polls. And no one will notice.

COMMENT THREAD

Under their noses

Very few people know this but, on 2 April of this year, consultation closed on the draft regulations implementing the EU's third money laundering directive. For those who are at all interested, the result will be the Money Laundering Regulations 2007.

But, with the consultation document running to 110 pages of extremely complex detail, it is hardly surprising that it has not exactly soared up the best-seller lists.

This, though, is a classic "sledgehammer to miss a nut", imposing labyrinthine rules on virtually every enterprise where money is handled in any quantity, reaching right down to the treasurer of the local stamp club who, these days, finds it virtually impossible to open a bank account.

That, however, is the EU way – to bind millions of law-abiding people with a skein of rules of ever-increasing complexity, while criminals and terrorists completely ignore them, creating their own parallel economy, under the noses of the financial regulators.

But what is rarely understood is the huge scale of this economy, so it was useful to have yesterday an illustration of what we are dealing with when, in Bradford Crown Court, a local travel agent, Shahid Nazir Bhatti, was jailed for three years for his part in what was described as a £500 million scam.

This was the BBC’s description, but it went on to use the words "money laundering", for that is what it was.

Bhatti was the 11th to be convicted, his crime to use what is known as the "hawala" system of transferring cash abroad, an ancient form of money exchange, used in Asian countries, which bypass the ordinary financial regulatory system. Bhatti alone is believed to have laundered more than £42m of illegal money.

Much of the money stems from the drug trade, which is collected by couriers working for criminal gangs from all drug traffickers and dealers around the UK and delivered to other premises in Leeds for counting and sorting. It is said that literally hundreds of thousands of pounds in "dirty cash" is being ferried up the M1 – the main north-south motorway – every day.

The money is then deposited into business and personal accounts at various banking outlets, converted into foreign currencies, then transferred to accounts in the United States, the United Arab Emirates and across Europe. However, it is not only organised crime that taps into this network, but terrorist networks such as al Q’aeda, financing such outrages as the London bombing.

Almost certainly, the £500 million is the tip of the iceberg, but what is evident from this affair is that it was not EU directives that brought – so far – eleven criminals to book. It was the local police working within a framework of national law, targeting criminal activity. When it comes to having any impact on the problem, the EU is in this – like in so many other of its enterprises – a complete waste of space.

Now where have you heard that before?

COMMENT THREAD

Just one little niggle…

We can take a break from the Iran hostages issue, I wrote yesterday. Well, we could, but we won't, not yet. There is just one little niggle …

In his statement yesterday, defence secretary Des Browne offered us some new details relating to the ill-fated boarding party. The relevant (to this post) part of the narrative went as follows:

At 07.53 Cornwall launched two boats, with a Lynx helicopter in support, with the intention to board MV Tarawa, a merchant vessel that had evaded a boarding the day before. En route, the Lynx flew over a different vessel, MV al-Hanin, and reported a suspect cargo. A decision was made to board the al-Hanin. The position was well inside Iraqi waters.

The boarding team boarded the vessel and, at 08.46, the Royal Marine boarding officer reported the ship secure. The Lynx was tasked to return to Cornwall. By 09.00 the helicopter was back on board and put at 30 minutes' notice to fly.

Now, the impression gained to date is that the Cornwall boarding party initially set off to inspect the al-Hanin, from which it was then to be seized. But, as we now see, it was actually tasked to look at another one first. From the narrative, therefore, it seems the first time that the MV al-Hanin came to the notice of the Royal Navy was after the boarding party had departed. There would have been no earlier opportunity to film it.

However, on the evening of the 23 March, after the boarding party had been seized, the BBC ran a clip – which was also posted on the website - showing aerial photographs of the MV al-Hanin, obviously taken from a helicopter.

The clip, possibly, could have been taken by the Lynx's on-board equipment, except that the specification for the Lynx Mk8 does not include video surveillance equipment. Nor does the clip look as if it originated from military equipment – you would normally expect to see embedded graticule markings, time stamps and other coding. It looks to be normal commercial video.

From this, of course, stem the questions of when the clip was taken and by whom. Here, we know that there was a BBC camera crew on the Cornwall on the fateful day. We also know that the BBC showed the clip but we originally thought this might be stock footage taken a day or so previously. But, we now think it must have been taken on the day of shooting, by the BBC crew from the Cornwall's Lynx.

As to when it was taken, it seems inconceivable that, after the boarding party had been seized, a BBC crew would have been allowed to travel on the Lynx. In that case the inference is that the film must have been taken before that event. Necessarily, we are led to conclude that there must have been a BBC film crew on board Cornwall's Lynx when it accompanied the boarding crew on 23 March.

That raises some more interesting questions, one of which is that, if the helicopter was carrying a film crew, could it also have been carrying a machine gun?

The most important question though would seem to be whether the presence of the BBC crew was the reason the Lynx turned back to the ship. The BBC correspondent, Ian Pannell, it seems, was due to interview Commodore Lambert that morning, in which case that does suggest a reason for the helicopter's return. The camera crew was needed for the interview.

Looking at the broader issues, we now know that HMS Cornwall was on an extended PR mission for the Royal Navy and the presence of the BBC crew was part of that effort. This raises the possibility that the boarding exercise on the morning of the 23 March was, in fact, set up for the cameras - with LS Turney being included in the party for that very reason.

How horribly ironic it would be if this whole drama arose from a misconceived PR exercise that went badly wrong, especially if, as we are led to believe, Channel 5 might have alerted the Iranians to the Cornwall's presence in the first place.

COMMENT THREAD

A correction

In January last year, we ran a straightforward little story based on one from The Sunday Times (Scottish edition).

Headed, "This is where your money goes", the story was about how money from the European Regional Development Fund had been dolled out to a tiny Scottish community in the picturesque Coigach peninsula in Western Scotland, to refurbish the community hall.

Although we cited it as a classic example of "Brussels waste", alas the story was not true. We have just heard from the former chair of Coigach Community Hall (things move slowly in sleepy Coigach) who tells me that The Sunday Times later issued a correction, admitting that the hall received no European money.

The heart sinks. Where is this much-vaunted MSM, with its legions of fact-checkers? But then, perhaps this is a question of the biter bit. What was it we were saying about never believing anything you read in the newspapers? Or blogs, for that matter.

COMMENT THREAD

Life still goes on

Heigh-ho, another list of European documents arrived the other day. Still yellow and still A5 but only 9 sides this time. Let us see what delights it has.

The first side lists 4 Volumes of the C Series of the Official Journal of the European Union (Information and Notices) and 4 volumes of the L Series (Legislation). Those publications continue to be useful to anyone who is really interested in how legislation is done throughout the European Union, including Britain, though this fact is a little hard to explain to people sometimes.

An item about Tenders and we come to the Working Documents. Most of these seem to be connected with the work (if that is the right word) of the European Parliament. The first one, however, is quite interesting:

A6 – 0052/2007 5th March 2007 – Report on the initiative by the Republic of Austria with a view to adopting a Council decision amending Decision 2002/348/JHA concerning security in connection with football matches with an international dimension.

Ah yes, something hovers around my consciousness about the Austrian Presidency wanting to sort out football hooliganism for the World Cup. Undoubtedly, this initiative will go on to emerge with various unenforceable Regulations.

We have three Reports on proposals, to wit:

A6 – 0055/2007 6th March 2007 – I Report on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the civil liability and financial guarantees of shipowners.

A6 – 0062/2007 7th March 2007 – I Report on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics

A6 – 0065/2007 13th March 2007 – Report on the proposal for a Council Decision on the Community participation in the capital increase of the European Investment Fund.

That last one, I suspect, is another way of throwing taxpayers’ money into something that should be done entirely by the private sector.

After this we get one Oral Question for Question Time during the European Parliament Plenary in March and lots and lots of Motions. Motion for a Resolution on EU restrictions on liquids that passengers can carry on aircraft; Motion for a Resolution on Euro-Mediterranean relations; Motion for a Resolution on a possible reform of EU trade policy instruments; Motion for a Resolution on non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament; and other suchlike goodies. All this takes up the time of various MEPs and I would not object to it particularly, as it keeps them off the streets. But we are paying for this rubbish. Each MEP costs us something in the region of £1 million a year. Are they really necessary?

As we have just had a plenary sitting of the European Parliament (well, something like three weeks before this document was published but that is “just” for the EP) there are several volumes of verbatim reports of the proceedings and Minutes of meetings as well as three lots of texts adopted during the sittings. Of course, most of the EP’s work (if that is the right word) goes on in committees so plenary sessions are of marginal importance.

Draft Legislation this time round consists of 25 items but someone are not really in the right section, though it is hard to tell where you would put

7550/07 EUROJUST Annual Report 2006?

I suspect it could be an interesting read, though.

Anyway, in no particular order, here are six examples of draft legislation, which will, probably, in the fullness of time lose the “draft” bit:

6313/1/07 REV 1. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down procedures relating to the application of certain national technical rules to products lawfully marketed in another Member State and repealing Decision 3052/95/EC.

7413/07. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on quarterly statistics on Community job vacancies.

7525/07. Communication from the Commission – State of progress with the project to implement the new generation European air traffic management system (SESAR).

7615/07. Communication from the Commission to the Council in accordance with Article 19(1) of Council Directive 2003/96/EC (operation of private pleasure craft and private pleasure-flying).

Hmm. Shouldn’t all that private flying be banned to prevent greater global warming? Oh no, sorry, we wouldn’t get people flying around telling us to switch off our central heating and get all our energy from windmills.

7628/07. Proposal for a Council Regulation on the financial Regulation applicable to the Euratom Supply Agency.

7750/07. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning meat and livestock statistics.

All right, so it is all very dull. Of course, it is dull. And there is plenty more where that came from, also very dull. But it is these bits of dullness that have created the spider's web that has entangled this country to the point when even coming out of the European Union will be so fraught with difficulty as to be almost unmanageable.

COMMENT THREAD

Reflections

Three weeks and days, and this blog has been banging on since it happened. Now we have the inquiries, which will be six weeks in reporting, we can take a break from the Iran hostages issue. But, before moving on, we felt we had earned the small indulgence of reflecting on recent events.

There can be no doubt about it – the abduction of British sailors and marines was a major humiliation. It was not, though, a military catastrophe in the manner of the fall of Singapore, when a whole Army surrendered virtually intact to the Japanese, to be led off into slavery, many soldiers never to return. But there are parallels.

As did defeat by the numerically inferior Japanese show up the rot at the heart of the Army – its complacency, poor leadership, bad tactics, inadequate materiel – so too have a clutch of Iranian Revolutionary Guards exposed the rot in the once proud and still powerful – for all the cuts – Royal Navy. We can count our blessings this time that we did not have to suffer the slaughter of thousands of innocents to find out how deep it had gone.

What had the makings of a disaster, however, were the early indications that the Navy was going to set its face against examining its own failures, as a precursor to putting them right. Instead of setting up a formal Board of Inquiry – the minimum necessary to put this in train – it opted for the softer, amorphous "lessons learned" inquiry, which was never going to come up with anything but the most anodyne conclusions.

It says something of the political system in this country that this ploy was seen for precisely what it was, and multiple voices were raised in protest.

What gave rise to the utmost gloom, however, was the "cash for stories" debacle. Right from the very start, it had the potential to drown out the growing clamour for a thorough inquiry on the substantive issue, of why the boarding party from HMS Cornwall had been so easily captured.

It was entirely predictable that the media would be distracted by the soap opera – its venality comes as no surprise. But, while we feared that the opposition parties might also climb aboard this bandwagon in the hope of extracting party political advantage, this was not a foregone conclusion.

A Conservative Party of old – the Party of Margaret Thatcher - would have looked first to the national interest, and put country before party. It was that very guiding instinct which made it so great and so powerful, the natural party of government.

But this is the New Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, a party which he says eschews Punch and Judy politics – and then indulges in them at the first and every opportunity. This is the party that could not see (or did not care) that the Royal Navy was in crisis – and that its fate affected the prestige and the security of our very nation.

It saw in the media-induced clamour attending the "cash for stories" an opportunity for political point-scoring, stoking it up by demanding the resignation of the defence secretary.

Building up what they imagined to be a "perfect storm" in the media over the weekend – but one actually lacking depth, breadth or intensity – these New Conservatives plotted their strategy, in the expectation of walking away from Parliament yesterday with a political scalp hanging from their belts.

It was never going to be – the idea of such an easy victory existed only in their foetid minds, trapped in the Westminster "bubble", long divorced from anything even approaching reality.

Their play collapsed before it had even started, on sight of an advance copy of the secretary's statement. The inquiries proposed were better than we expected and more than we dared hope. The choice of Lt. General Rob Fulton for chairman of the operations inquiry was inspired – rumoured to be the personal choice of the Chief of the General Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, a man who has grown in stature throughout this affair.

Unlike the Iranians, Fulton – a former Commandant General of the Royal Marines and once Deputy Chief of Staff – does not take prisoners. Nor would you utter the word "whitewash" to his face – not if you want to live. He is one of the few men with the seniority, experience and credibility to conduct such an inquiry, yet totally beyond the reach of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band.

The commitment by Browne to deliver the report, unexpurgated, to the House of Commons Defence Committee was precisely the right thing to do, a clear signal that he accepted that it is Parliament to which he is ultimately accountable.

Such subtleties have been lost on the media and, it seems, are totally beyond the comprehension of the former family doctor turned politician, Dr Liam Fox, the man who would be defence secretary. Even now, as he and his tribe drag what comfort they can from partial and partisan press reports, they do not realise quite how completely they have been outflanked by a man they would so sneeringly dismiss as the provincial Scottish solicitor he once was.

In a world dominated by spin, we should at least be grateful that, for once, the system worked. From the tatters of the reputation of a ship of the line, HMS Cornwall, we may yet see something good come. The world is still far from being right. There is much pain and tragedy, even today dominating the news. And there is much to do, with no certainty at all of success.

But yesterday, at least, in one tiny corner of the world, it was a good day.

COMMENT THREAD

Another demonstration in Iraq

No matter which way you look at it, one can only rejoice in the fact that Iraqis feel that they can demonstrate their political views publicly and as a crowd, whether it is the 10,000 or so in Najaf who called for Americans to pull out or several other thousands who called for the cessation of terrorist violence.

News comes of yet another demonstration in Basra and this time we can all sympathize.

Thousands of Iraqis marched peacefully through the streets of Basra on Monday, demanding the provincial governor's resignation over the poor city services, despite calls by top government officials a day earlier to call off the protest.

If they achieve this, could they possibly come and do something about our city services?

COMMENT THREAD

The Browne Statement

It all started here on 23 March when HMS Cornwall, known as the "ice-cream frigate" from its F99 pennant number, despatched a mixed Royal Navy and Royal Marine boarding party in two Rigid-hulled Inflatable Boats (RIBs), escorted by a Lynx helicopter. Its task was to inspect an Indian-registered freighter moored in the shallow waters of the Northern Arabian Gulf (NAG), not far from the mouth of the Shatt al Arab waterway, between 8 and 11 miles distant from the Cornwall. It was not to return.

Today, the first available opportunity for him to do so, the secretary of state for defence, Des Browne, made a statement to the House of Commons on the event, and the issues relating to it. If we were to believe the hype, largely whipped up by a Conservative Party opposition looking for political scalps, Browne's job was on the line, wholly dependent on his performance on the day. It was not to be.

"Let me be clear with the House, I made a mistake ... something I profoundly regret," said Browne.

Getting stuck in, he told the House that payments must not happen again. On the capture, the Governor General of Gibraltar, Major General Rob Fulton, Royal Marines - former Commmander of the Royal Marines - is to head an inquiry. It will take six weeks and will be presented to the Parliamentary Select Committee in full. Browne is also asking a small team to look at the media handling, led by an independent figure with wide media experience.

Fox responded, asking some operational questions but, as expected, spent most of his time asking about the media handling. But, he bottled out of asking for Browne's resignation. His position was "becoming untenable", was the best he could manage, suggesting but not demanding a resignation. This was to be Fox's "big moment" but it was empty rhetoric. Browne apologised but the opposition wanted more - it wanted the "S" word. They wanted it, they got it. Browne said he was "sorry". The Fox was shot.

Nick Narvey, for the Lib-Dems, formerly the "opportunist party" came in behind Browne, declaring that the central issue was why the boarding party had been captured - the statesman that Fox wasn't. That was the real issue, he said, not the payment for the stories.

Malcome Rifkind questioned the conduct of the captives and asked whether the Browne was taking action to discover whether the personnel had been given adequate training. Browne responded by stating that all but one of them had been given the appropriate training. But, the view of experts in interrogation was that the captives behaved "well within the appropriate bounds". There was no legitimate criticism to be made of these young people and the way they were opportunisticly exploited by the Iranians, said Browne.

Robert Key stated the real losers of this are the men and women of the Royal Navy, who are hanging their heads in shame. He wanted Browne to confirm whether the Second Sea Lord had tendered his resignation. The answer, which Browne used several times, was: this does not help my accountability to this House.

The view is that Browne has handled the statement well and the opposition have scarcely laid a glove on him. Appointing Fulton was a master-stroke, a man who commands immense respect. No one will be able to complain of a cover-up, and the commitment to give the full report to the Select Committee was precisely right. Parliament is seen to be at the helm.

The full statement is now up on the MoD website. There can be no complaints about the scope of the operational inquiry. It will cover all operational aspects, including risk and threat assessment, strategic and operational planning, tactical decisions, rules of engagement, training, equipment, and resources. On Wednesday, during prime minister's questions, Cameron has nowhere to go.

COMMENT THREAD

A world upside down

It comes to a pretty pass when you find yourself agreeing with The Guardian. Read, especially, the last paragraph. Tim Worstall makes some good points as well.

This is what the BBC website says the Tories want to know ... with a "helpful" commentary by the BBC.

STATEMENT IN PARLIAMENT AT 3.30 PM. We'll be live blogging it.

COMMENT THREAD

Journalism is as journalism does

Courtesy of The American Muslim, we get this fascinating story:

Three articles published in The Milli Gazette (MG) print and online editions have been nominated for the European Commission’s prestigious media award ‘Lorenzo Natali Prize 2006’ for journalism given for writings on Human Rights and Democracy issues in the developing countries.

Well, first things first. What is the Lorenzo Natali Prize? Come to think of it, who is or was Lorenzo Natali? Fear not, the information is available:

The Natali Prize for journalism is a price for excellence in reporting on human rights, democracy and development issues. It was created in 1992 by the European Union to promote quality in journalism and to commemorate the devotion of Lorenzo Natali, the former Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of development cooperation between 1985 and 1989. His work and commitment contributed significantly to increase the importance of development cooperation within the policies of the then European Communities.

The Natali Prize emphasizes that the right to information is a prerequisite for freedom of expression. Freedom of information is a prerequisite for democracy, and for sustainable and balanced social and economic development.

And so on, and so on. Well, I wouldn’t argue with the second paragraph – freedom of expression, which, sadly, is not encouraged in a very large number of countries, all of them in the UN, is a prerequisite for all those things.

However, I do wonder why a journalism prize is called after an Italian (or any other) politician who eventually fetched up as a Commissioner, a Vice-President of the Commission, no less. What does his career have to do with freedom of expression?

According to the website there were 1,500 nominations so it is not clear how important the news story in The American Muslim is. In fact, it might be worth having a look at The Milli Gazette, which turns out to be the Indian Muslims’ leading English newspaper, full of stories on such matters as “One Million Iraqi Deaths” on the basis of some very dodgy calculations, though, you could argue that is no worse than articles in The Lancet, and a seriously incompetent account of what they call “a Hindu-Jewish Summit”.

Not a whole lot about democracy though or free speech. Still, there might have been a few articles on the subject. What does The American Muslim tell us?

The three articles are: ‘Muslims are trying to integrate, despite New Labour’s best efforts’ by Nasser Amin, a postgraduate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London (MG, 15 September 2006); ‘Peoples’ Democratic Front holds first open meeting’ by Masood Hasan, a Lahore-based columnist (MG, 06 June 2006); and ‘Pope’s attack on Islam was no casual slip’ by Abdus Sattar Ghazali, Executive Editor of American Muslim Perspective (MG, 16 September 2006).

Human rights, democracy and development? Anything, for instance, on the lack of any of those three in most Muslim countries? Well, errm, no, not this time. I shall wait for the results, to be published on the internet in May, with bated breath.

COMMENT THREAD

Unfit for government

Some of our more frequent American visitors must wonder whether they are intruding on private grief, as the thrust of the posts on the Iran hostages drama moves from operational aspects to narrow UK party political issues.

However should the politicians currently masquerading as Conservatives – the Party of Margaret Thatcher – actually achieve power in the next general election, it will be them upon whom the US will rely for its continuing support in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Party that is making the political running over the hostages issue may, therefore, determine the shape of the future alliance.

Why that might concern both US and British citizens is that, as we get to know the Party as it is led by the Boy King, David Cameron, it looks increasingly to be wholly unfit for government – not that we had any doubts right from the start. "New Conservatives – New Nightmare", might be an appropriate slogan.

In this post, therefore, we offer another example of why the Conservatives are unfit – an apparently minor issue but one which is potent in its symbolism and profound in its implications.

The example itself appeared in yesterday's Mail on Sunday claiming that three former minesweepers, converted into patrol boats, were currently mothballed in Portsmouth Harbour. Had they been available in the Gulf, the paper claims, they could have prevented HMS Cornwall's boarding party from being abducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

If the story sounds familiar, that's because it is. We ran it on 3 April after it had been raised in a letter to The Daily Telegraph on the same day. So much for the MSM being on the ball.

The points made, however - in the letter and in the Mail article are spurious. There is no need for three, rather ancient patrol boats – which would need substantial upgrading before they were suitable for operations in the Gulf – when there were already 12 warships in the area, including two British minehunters and the Cyclone-class fast patrol boats.

What is particularly relevant here, though, is that the Mail article cited Tory shadow defence minister Dr Julian Lewis, in support of the point it was trying to make.

Now, Lewis could have said that shortage of patrol vessels was not an issue. Precisely the point we have made above, HMS Cornwall was part of a coalition task force, under the command of a British officer, and there had been – on the face of it – no shortage of vessels. They crucial question appears to be one of how they were (or were not) deployed.

Instead, Lewis used the opportunity to promote the party political line, saying: "The main problem is the massively reduced number of vessels in the fleet as a result of its dogma that numbers do not matter in the age of powerful ships. But numbers do matter, and Gordon Brown's defence cuts mean we do not have significant vessels for duties like this."

Lewis does have a point, of course. It is one which we rehearsed on this blog last June, commenting on information sent to us by a reader on a (then) recent conference. "It is all very well," we wrote

…having the hugely sophisticated and expensive Type 45s, geared to knocking advanced fighters and bombers out of the sky, or massively costly aircraft carriers to support the European Rapid Reaction Force, but much of the Navy's work is in low intensity tasks such MIOPS (maritime interdiction operations – i.e., challenge, board and search potential smugglers) or deterring piracy and other forms of maritime crime. For this, we are told, there is an urgent need for a number of fast, armed patrol vessels.

Those comments look rather prescient now, except that, in May 2005, the prestigious Naval Review published a paper (no link) in which the author deplored the lack of definition of the role for inshore patrol vessels (IPVs). And this was hardly surprising. Then, and now, there were no IPVs on the Royal Navy's inventory. The Jamaica Defence Force is better equipped than we are (the picture shows, ironically, the JDF inshore patrol vessel HMJS Cornwall).

But, while defence spokesman Liam Fox set out his thinking for the strategic role of the Royal Navy in June last year , this was not an issue he mentioned specifically (or at all) and we are not aware of Dr Julian Lewis having mentioned it before either. But the need is there. We cannot always rely on coalition forces.

Yet, the likelihood is that neither of them did because, to remedy a major gap in the Royal Navy's capability, would require a spending commitment – and that is the one thing that Boy Cameron's team is not allowed to do.

Thus we have the familiar Tory opportunism, but possibly ignorance as well – and either would be worrying. But if Lewis did not know the background to the operations in the Gulf, then he is not fit to be the opposition spokesman. And, if he is not fit for opposition, he is not fit for government. Nor is the defence team under the tutelage of Dr Fox, if it cannot commit itself to remedying capability shortfalls in the Royal Navy.

COMMENT THREAD

Can't wait to see this one

Our readers might recall that not so long ago I wrote about the German film “The Lives of Others” that, contrary to expectation as it showed the East German Communist system in a bad light, won the Oscar for best foreign film, having won various other awards besides.

A week or so ago I was told by a friend who lives in the United States (for those who are interested in such matters, he calls himself English of Irish descent if he bothers to define himself at all) that the film was going to be remade, substituting Bush’s America for Hoenecker’s German Democratic Republic. We spent some time discussing as to who might play the Berlin Wall but came to no conclusion. Surely, I thought, this was just a rumour.

Alas, no. According to an article by Sheila Johnston in the Daily Telegraph last Saturday, the film has been acquired for remake by American movie moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Well, acquired for remake does not mean being remade but it is an ominous message.

There is a longish piece on the subject here.

COMMENT THREAD

Return of the undead

Most of us, I suspect, have forgotten about the existence of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the UK and Ireland. They were the people who, back in the sixties and seventies, prevented the publication of newspapers if any journalist refused to tow their rather left-wing line, tried to make journalism into a closed shop and, indirectly, led to the newspapers vacating Fleet Street. As time went on, more and more journalist refused to join the dinosaur-like establishment of the NUJ, with its talk of chapels and fathers of chapels and its adherence to a pro-Unions, pro-Soviet, anti-American line. Either they joined the British Association of Journalists (BAJ) or stayed out of the Unions altogether.

Like others, I assumed that the NUJ has more or less disintegrated, having not heard much about it for some time. Not so and far from it. This week-end the NUJ is celebrating its 100th birthday in style.

They gathered in Manchester and proclaimed various matters. Firstly, they gave the General Secretary, Jeremy Dear a standing ovation as he pledged to fight low pay and raise respect for journalists and journalism. Good to know that important matters come first – their own pay. In fact, on November 5, anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot and the day on which the Society of Editors meet, members of the NUJ will have a nation-wide Day of Action.

As Mr Dear put it in ringing tones:

What I will say is that we will make it understood, loud and clear, that we will not tolerate the low pay which blights the lives of thousands in our profession, the stress from under-staffing, the lack of work-life balance and the bullying by mangers to achieve unrealistic targets.

Then they congratulated themselves on their “hugely successful” campaign Journalism Matters last year, though they did not actually ask to whom. Nor does there seem to be any indication that when they are defending journalism and telling us that it matters, a certain word, “quality” might be useful to remember.

The outgoing President, Chris Morley, and succeeding speakers managed to remind his listeners of the dear old days that sidelined the NUJ once and for all:

Outgoing President Chris Morley called on the union to embrace the next 100 years by insisting that journalists and journalism are valued, and that we recruit more and more members to the union in order to ensure that it remains a strong fighting force far into the future.

As debate got underway, the burning issue of integration immediately became the subject of discussion. Conference was strongly committed to fighting the widespread loss of staff that has come under the guise of serving the multi-media agenda. Delegates welcomed the exciting new opportunity for the profession but insisted that staff terms and conditions and quality of work must be maintained.

Interestingly enough, news of all this came through somebody live-blogging at the conference, though, presumably, the new media is rather frowned upon, as few of its members are or have ever been or are ever likely to be members of the Union.

On to the various motions. Condemnation was issued of the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza correspondent, whose prolonged absence coupled with no demands for any kind of ransom is beginning to look slightly odd. The latest AFP report suggests that he may have been murdered by a little-known Islamic group but there is no confirmation and no apparent reason for such a development. It would appear that the NUJ Conference was unaware of this but then his kidnapping had not been on the agenda in the first place.

What has exercised a lot of people on the blogosphere and, to be fair, a lot of journalist is the motion passed rather narrowly of a call for the boycott of Israeli goods. So far even the NUJ has not actually said that the Israelis had kidnapped Mr Johnston but, undoubtedly, many of them believe that it was their fault.

The Jerusalem Post, which reported the story (good to know somebody is paying attention to the NUJ) gives the figures. The NUJ has 40,000 members – somewhat surprisingly high but, obviously, not nearly all journalists in Britain and Ireland. The motion was carried by 66 votes to 54. Clearly, the overwhelming majority of British and Irish journalists found something better to do on a warm April week-end.

The whole complicated saga of the Motion is described by Little Green Footballs and the JP. It seems that the boycott was part of a composite motion proposed by the South Yorkshire branch and opposed by the Cumberland branch. (Don’t these people have anything better to do on a warm April week-end? Are there no stories about man-made global warming to write?)

The boycott motion was the third clause of a larger anti-Israel resolution proposed by the union's South Yorkshire branch that condemned Israel's "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon" last summer and the "slaughter of civilians in Gaza" in recent years.

Motion 38 also called for supporting the NGOs Jews for Justice, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and the Council for the Advancement of British-Arab Understanding.

After an hour of debate, a motion to sever the boycott clause from the condemnation motion was adopted. The motion condemning Israel's "savage" behavior toward Palestinian civilians in the wake of "the defeat of its army" by Hizbullah passed by a wide margin.

It’s not simply the insane bias I object to but the complete ignorance of what actually happens in the Middle East. One wonders about those brilliant reports by Alan Johnston.

After this display of journalistic fireworks, which demonstrated how much journalism matters, there was several abortive hand counts on the call for a boycott motion with the eventual far-from-brilliant result.

There were immediate words of disgust and disapproval from journalists who feel that they are not exactly represented by the lefties who are setting the agenda in the NUJ (as if that were some kind of a surprise). Others asked whether the NUJ was now going to call for a boycott against such places as Saudi Arabia because of its oppression of women and the possibility that women broadcasters will be forced to wear the veil on TV; or against Russia, which has been described as the second most dangerous country for journalists in the world, after Iraq and without the insurgency; or against China because of its suppression of free speech; or many others. It seems not.

Another suggestion by one commenter on the Press Gazette story was that the journalists might like to start by giving up all the electronic goods they possess that had been made fully or partially in Israel (and refuse all medical treatment that has been made possible by Israeli research). That, too, is unlikely to happen.

There is another delightful note in the Jerusalem Post, who seems to have the story largely from the Guardian, which fills me with nostalgia. It appears that among other motions, whether passed or not is unclear, were a condemnation of the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay (but not of the imprisonment of Cubans in other parts of that country for such crimes as displaying copies of the UN Human Rights Charter) and support for Hugo Chávez.

That would be Hugo Chávez, who refuses to renew the license of TV stations that criticize him, controls most of the rest of the media and has been described as being somewhat uncomfortable with press freedom. Just the sort of chap the National Union of Journalists ought to be supporting, especially as part of their Journalism Matters campaign.

COMMENT THREAD

How could they do otherwise?

I do wish I was clever, like those Sunday Telegraph journalists, who can waft effortlessly through life, delivering their ex deus pronouncements with such easy authority that one can only fall to one's knees and thank the Almighty that such gifted people walk the Earth amongst us.

How else would we find out, other than from the mighty pens (or keyboards) of those giants of modern journalism, Sean Rayment and Patrick Hennessy, who have "revealed" that a catalogue of "inexcusable" errors in the office of the Defence Secretary led to the story-telling fiasco over the sailors taken hostage in Iran?

Faced with such penetrating insight, need one read a single word more to know, without one scintilla of doubt or expending one nanosecond of thought, where the guilt lies?

However, for us lesser mortals, who are slower on the uptake than the towering intellects of the Front Page, the Great Gods of the Leader Writing Department have descended from Upon High to deliver unto us their mighty judgement. "We do not need an inquiry," they intone,

…to establish whose fault it is that the hostages were allowed to sell their stories. The controlling doctrine of British ministerial office is that "officials advise, ministers decide". The duties of Mr Browne's office do not require him always to be right. They do require him to ensure he is able to make well-informed, reasonable choices given the information that is available. It is clear that Mr Browne failed to meet that elementary demand.

Thus does the Leader pronounce its verdict: "Mr Browne has no defence". He is guilty as charged, m'lud – tried in absentia and found wanting in the air-conditioned offices of The Sunday Telegraph. Resignation is the least he can do. If a firing squad on the quarterdeck of HMS Cornwall was an option, this too might have been demanded.

It is not enough, of course, that one small voice, in the form of Christopher Booker's column, might actually demur. Who is this right wing demagogue – cast in the unlikely role of defender of a Labour secretary of state (which just goes to show how unreliable he is)? Who is he to cast doubt upon the Judgement of the Great Leader Writer?

However, a defence of sorts also comes from a slightly more substantial source – in circulation terms at least – no less than The Sunday Times. Buried in its Focus piece – so deeply that it did not fully lodge on first reading - is an account that matches and thereby completely supports the Booker view, with added detail that puts the whole affair in context.

Written by Michael Smith (for whom we have no love) and Maurice Chittenden, it tells of how the Royal Navy, sidelined by the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, feeling unloved and unwanted, has been struggling to keep its place in the (taxpayer-funded) sun. Thus do Smith and Chittenden set the scene:

Fearing further decline, navy chiefs ordered a publicity drive centred around HMS Cornwall, a frigate sent to take over last month as flagship of Task Force 158, the allied flotilla protecting the Iraqi oil installations and territorial waters.

Television crews from Sky and the BBC were flown on board the ship to film the crew at work monitoring the northern Gulf; Cornwall was to be the front-page story in Navy News, the navy's in-house journal. But from the start the publicity drive went awry.

Cornwall, known as "the ice-cream frigate" because of its designation F99, travelled to the Gulf via Barcelona, Malta and Croatia. Along the way the crew engaged in a series of sporting events with local teams; they lost every match (shown above is a "happy snap" of the hockey team in Valetta and below is some of the crew having a jolly time in a boat race with locals in Vela Luka).

The holiday atmosphere seems to have continued when Cornwall arrived in the Gulf, amid suspicions that the crew were also distracted by the presence of the television cameras.

Despite the rants of armchair admirals, many senior figures accept that the poorly armed patrol had little choice but to surrender when it was surrounded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards while checking a ship in Iraqi waters.

However, there is fury that their only real protection, a Lynx helicopter with a heavy machinegun, was pulled off apparently without consulting or even informing them.

And there is bewilderment at the complete failure of Cornwall, with its sophisticated radar and signals intelligence equipment, to detect the Iranian vessels operating in the Iraqi territorial waters that the ship was supposed to protect.

With that, we come to the beef:

As questions mounted over the operational failings after the 15 sailors and marines were captured, the navy frantically cast around for some way of retrieving the situation….

Lieutenant Colonel Andy Price, head of the navy's media operations … began drafting a strategy for the return of the sailors and marines… His hope … was to deflect attention away from the failings of Cornwall's operation and to concentrate instead on the treatment of the captives by the Iranians.

Price and the media centre advised that the captives give a press conference and interviews where they talked only about their arrest and subsequent treatment.

Like it or not – and the Tory Tribe will hate it (see the comments) – here is corroboration of the very thesis expounded in the Booker column and on the blog, that the Navy mounted an elaborate media operation to divert attention from the operational failings of HMS Cornwall and, although he is not named, Commodore Nick Lambert.

Furthermore, what begins to be clearer from this account is something that has been puzzling us for some time – the apparent involvement of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jonathon Band. In the ordinary course of events, one might expect that, when a mere Commodore had fouled up (hardly a unique event in the history of the Royal Navy), the head of the Navy would simply throw him to the wolves (aka a Board of Inquiry) and distance himself from the events.

In this case, however, we have remarked earlier that Lambert, in focusing on his PR efforts, might have taken his eye off the ball when it came to controlling the operations of Coalition Task Force 158, and might even have ordered the fateful boarding operation specifically as a media opportunity. If, in so doing, he was acting directly or indirectly under the orders or directions of the Admiralty, then the buck does not stop with Lambert. It goes much higher – hence the nervousness of Band.

We now turn to the main charge of the God-like duo in the The Sunday Telegraph, that Des Browne went "Awol" at the crucial time when publication of the marines’ and sailors’ accounts were being considered. Rayment and Hennessy have it that Browne "was out of touch with his advisers and most senior aides for almost 24 hours as naval chiefs drew up plans".

At best, that is an unsubstantiated charge (where is the evidence - where is the quote from either the advisors and aides, or Browne himself, admitting it?). But, in the broader scheme of things, frankly, this is laughable. In modern government, with wall-to-wall communications, is it actually conceivable that a secretary of state for one of the "hot seat" departments would actually be out of touch with key personnel for so long - or at all?

Then, we are told, the details of the Navy's "controversial plans" were emailed to dozens of computers within the MoD but remained unread overnight. It was only the next day, Friday April 6, that they were finally seen by or read to Mr Browne and up to 30 of his officials.

Therein lies an important clue – the plans were emailed to "dozens of computers…". Were they specifically sent to the secretary of state's official e-mail address, for his personal (and immediate) attention or was this a generic e-mailing of which hundreds flow through ministerial offices each day?

In fact, anyone who has been in this game knows the score here. If you want to do something and have to notify your superiors – who you think might intervene – you send them details, nominally, but you make no efforts to ensure that they actually get to see them in time. Such is the classic ploy of, say, an Army headquarters, where a message will be sent to higher command, but the despatch rider is instructed to take the long way round – and have a puncture on the way.

Any one of us who might send an e-mail conveying important detail which needs to be acted upon urgently would, in the normal course of things, telephone the recipients to warn them of its despatch, and to flag it up for attention.

Such a procedure certainly applies in the civil service and, especially in relation to ministerial communications. I know this to be true – I have used the system myself when I have had need to communicate urgently with ministers. One is given an unlisted telephone number and instructions to call when anything urgent is sent. Usually, you are asked what it is and why it is so urgent and, if it truly is urgent, it can be in front of the minister within minutes. By the same token, has anyone recently tried sending an e-mail to an MSM journalist in the expectation of an immediate response?

Here, thus, the game has been updated. You send your missive to a generic e-mail account that you know will not be constantly monitored, and tell no one you have sent it. When the brown stuff hits the fan, you can claim that, "the minister was informed".

Now, finally – albeit briefly – to the doctrine so easily enunciated by the Great Leader Writer, that "officials advise, ministers decide".

There is a slight problem here, a thing called the Rule of Law. Ministers and government officials may not make arbitrary decisions. They must work within the framework of law, as approved by Parliament. Further, they may only exercise powers specifically granted to them and they may not interfere (unless the law specifically provides for it) with decisions properly taken by officials who are acting within the powers conferred on them.

The law, in this case, is Queen's Regulations, by which the secretary of state is as much bound as are any of his military officials. This is precisely the limitations of power to which I was alluding in my previous piece. In the context, the operative rules are set out in Annex A(J) to Chapter 12 and J12.022, headed: "Payments for Broadcasting, Lecturing or Writing for Publication." I quote that Article in full:

Broadcasts by serving personnel acting as official spokesmen and speeches and lectures on official subjects will normally be undertaken as part of their official duty and, as such, covered by their Service pay; no question of extra payment to individuals will therefore arise. If, however, all or part of the preparatory work and delivery of the broadcast, speech or lecture is done during the individual's off duty time he may retain the whole or part of any fees payable, as appropriate. This provision also governs the retention of any fees payable for the writing of books or articles on official matters or involving material or experience. Details of any payments should be sent to the appropriate Public Relations or Publication Clearance authority (see Annex A to this Chapter) to consider what proportion should be credited to public funds.

Clearly, this Regulation did not foresee the media scrum over the "cash for stories" but it is on that slender rule that the Navy had to rely. A fair reading might indicate that, once the fifteen had been given permission to speak to the media, they were actually entitled to payment, provided the delivery was done in their own time. It would seem that no one had the power to prevent them from being paid – not the Navy and, especially, not the secretary of state.

One can thus see immediately how us mere mortals got it so wrong. Lacking the innate wisdom and knowledge of the Chosen Ones, we had to rely on boring little details like the Regulations. But such things do not matter when you are a Leader Writer for The Sunday Telegraph. Imbued with their Greater Wisdom, they "hope" the Great Leader on Earth, the Boy Cameron himself, will call for and procure Des Browne's removal from his post. They also hope Labour MPs will "put politics aside and do what is best for Britain".

With such hopes delivered from on high, from such an authoritative source, how could they do otherwise but comply?

COMMENT THREAD

The cult of personality

In 1994, Christopher Booker and I wrote a book called "The Mad Officials", sadly out of print now – although copies are still available. In it, we did a virtual tour of Great Britain, telling stories of mad regulations and the even madder officials who enforced them (and sometimes invented them).

One of our themes, to which we have returned many times – not least on this blog - is how this country in many ways is no longer run by the politicians we elected to do the job, but by a growing band of those "mad officials", who were both unaccountable and unresponsive to the normal strictures of a democratic society. They were, so often, a law unto themselves.

Very much later, I had cause to meet a Minister to complain, on behalf of the trade group I represented, about a regulatory "reign of terror" which was effectively destroying an industry. She was flanked by civil servants and, as I spelled out the tale of woe, giving more and more examples of the damage that was being caused by "her" officials, my narrative was punctuated by her exclamations as she turned to civil servants, demanding: "Why wasn't I told that?"

I saw then a sense of shock, outrage even, from a person who – shorn of ministerial rank and trappings – was a genuine, caring individual, deeply concerned about what she had been told. Nothing happened of course and, for me, the meeting simply reaffirmed that which I knew already - so well portrayed in Yes Minister - the essential powerlessness of ministers in the administration of their departments.

Elsewhere on this blog, I recall telling the tale of my meeting another minister, this one a senior cabinet minister who, standing in his grand office, overlooking Horse Guards, likened his position with that of a signalman in an old-fashioned signal box, lined with all the gleaming brass levers. "I have all these levers," he lamented, "the levers of power". Turning to me he then said, rather sadly, "the trouble is that they are not connected to anything."

It is that background, the baggage I carry, which brought me the position we find ourselves today. To the frustration and anger of many of our readers and at odds with almost all the media and other commentators, we are refusing to dump all the blame for the Iran hostages debacle – not even the "cash for stories" issue – on the secretary of state for defence, especially on the basis of media speculation and largely anonymous sources.

Having learned the hard way the limits of power, I am not inclined to take the easy way out, especially in the context of the Ministry of Defence, where the military hierarchy and their bureaucrats have an extraordinary degree of autonomy. In many areas, they are beyond the reach of the secretary of state - any secretary of state.

As before, we have pointed this out and people nod wisely, as if they understood. But, at the first opportunity, they join in the hue and cry for the sacking of a minister, heedless of the possibility that, perhaps, he had little power to control events for which he is being held responsible. This is the cult of personality gone mad.

Thus we see the momentum build, with selective leaks to the media from an organisation which would make a colander look positively seaworthy, to be grabbed uncritically by all and sundry.

Such is the naïvety that people, who tell us gravely that they never believe anything they are told in the newspapers, lap up the often unsubstantiated detail, treating it as gospel. Anything offered which runs contrary to the narrative, of course, is dismissed as "spin" – as if it was only politicians who indulged in the practice.

However, sacking the secretary of state is the easy option. Furthermore, it is undoubtedly the one preferred by the guilty officials, many of them in uniform, who could then rest easy as blood lust will have been sated.

Rather, we want to see an inquiry (or inquiries) starting at the bottom of the food chain and working steadily upwards, covering all the issues which, by now, have been almost completely marginalised by the soap opera. Rarely has such a torrent of extraneous detail obscured such a vital issue as the operational efficiency of the Royal Navy, the actual reasons why the Cornwall's boarding team were left so vulnerable barely mentioned in passing.

We do not want the "closure" that a high profile resignation would bring. We want a process which will identify all those responsible for the operational failures, who would otherwise hide behind the smokescreen of a ministerial resignation.


It is about the original smokescreen that my colleague Christopher Booker writes in his column today (copied above – click to enlarge to readable size) where he sets out the details as best we have been able to establish of the extraordinary smokescreen put up by the Royal Navy in an attempt to conceal the incompetence of some of its officers.

For us, this is something of a defining moment. We could go with some of our readers, and join in the baying for blood, or we could stand by our principles, holding out for a process that will bring the guilty men to book – and thereby risk losing some of our readers.

Frankly, our principles are more important. We are not going to bow to people who cannot get to grips with the realities of power – and its limitations – and cannot cope with the fact that ministers are not the all-seeing, all powerful entities of myth. And we are certainly not going to fall in with an agenda set by the MSM and opportunist politicians who are more interested in adding a ministerial "scalp" to their belts than finding out (or even reporting) the truth. If nothing else, the events of the last few days demonstrate that they are not in the least bit interested in discovering why the Iranians (remember them?) were able to abduct our sailors and marines so easily.

Ours then is the battle with the "mad officials" – in and out of uniform – who let that happen. For once, there is an opportunity to bring some of them to account and repair some of the damage they have caused. The hunt for the ministerial "scalp" is a distraction, mere bread and circuses compared with the vital issue of improving the fighting efficiency of the Royal Navy. For the rest, let the responsibility lie where it falls, when we have sorted out that vastly more important detail.

COMMENT THREAD

Some quiet pride

While far too much time and attention is being devoted to a rather inadequate part of the Royal Navy – and its attempts to cover up its own incompetence – we can all share some quiet pride in the way the Army is now acquitting itself in Basra.

This is not just the robust action taken last week, when up to 30 Shi'te gunmen were killed, for no losses of our own. Today, according to Reuters, British forces again killed some gunmen, eight this time, who had been found laying IEDs, close to where the four British service personnel had been murdered earlier this month.

The report retails that British forces in southern Iraq are "pursuing a more aggressive policy towards Shi'ite militias", to which we can only say, about time too.

For too long now, it has looked as if British Forces were a soft touch. Now, unlike the pansy tendency in the Navy, it looks as though the Army has decided that a group hug is not the answer and the way to deal with terrorists is to kill them.

The more aggressive stance has come just in time. I was truly shocked to read in Michael Yon's report on British troops in Basra that, days after the four had been murdered, a Challenger tank had been destroyed by an explosion that also cost the driver his legs.

This, some experts warned would happen if we started introducing heavier armoured vehicles into theatre – put as an argument for keeping "Snatch" Land Rovers in place. The terrorists would simply build bigger bombs. But, as was pointed out, this is not a zero sum game. Bigger means fewer, they are more difficult to transport, they take longer to place and the bombers are thus at greater risk of detection.

Without knowing any details of today's gun battle, there is a possibility that these factors came into play.

It remains to be seen whether the MSM actually report this incident, but we do hope so. That the Army, at least, can still do its job, is something that should be widely known. I am all in favour of "quiet pride" – that is the British way. But it should not be so quiet that no one hears.

COMMENT THREAD

Gosh, some people have useful and interesting jobs

I don't, as it happens, mean that of the Second Sea Lord, in whose naval shoes I would not like to be, or Des Browne. I mean Trevor Thomas,

a member of the fly-tipping crew at the city council, who was called in to investigate the contents of a recycling bag outside Mr Reeves' flat on June 8.

Michael Reeves, that hardened criminal (good to know they have no real crime in Swansea) has lost his appeal against a conviction of ... shock, horror .... putting paper in the bottles and cans recycling bag. Bill Sikes had nothing on this chap, I tell you.

Anyway, he

must now pay an extra £350 costs in addition to the £100 fine and £100 costs imposed by Swansea magistrates last October

and his general opinion is that all this recycling is not worth the paper it is printed on and he will do nothing about it in future. If you believe that recycling is a good thing, that is not the outcome that you want but I have no doubt that the Trevor Thomases of this world will use this terrible example to frighten children with and to demand the legal right to go through people's rubbish bins inside as well as outside their homes to ensure that they recycle and do it the way they are told to do.

But hey, don't some people have useful and interesting jobs. Puts blogging and political research into perspective.

COMMENT THREAD

Fools rush in

Desperate to force the resignation of the defence secretary over the Iran hostages, Conservative politicians are now making spurious claims about his involvement in the "cash for stories" debacle. The political treatment of an issue vitally important to the Armed Forces and the nation has, thereby, been turned into high farce.

In what is clearly an orchestrated initiative, they have regaled both The Times and The Daily Telegraph with a wild charge that the secretary, Des Browne, has breached military regulations (known in this country as Queen's Regulations). These, they claim, required him to make the decision to allow the hostages to publish their story, on which basis, he is committing two unpardonable sins – giving "misleading information" and wrongly blaming the Navy for the decision.

In The Times, Browne is thus "accused of breaching Navy rules" and, from The Telegraph we learn that, "New evidence piles pressure on Browne". That paper tells us:

Des Browne suffered a severe setback in his battle to survive as Defence Secretary as it emerged that he - and not the Navy - should have taken the final decision on whether freed British hostages could sell their stories to the press.

Clear evidence that Mr Browne should have either actively approved or blocked the sale of stories is contained in the Navy's official rule book, the Queen's Regulations for the Navy, which the Ministry of Defence has been at pains all week to keep secret.

The revelation severely undermines Mr Browne's attempts over the last five days to deflect the ultimate blame for the "cash for stories" fiasco away from the MoD and onto the Navy.

Now, what is spectacularly evident is the thinness of the "evidence". The heart of that story is a quotation from the regulations which relate to obtaining permission to speak to the media. According to the paper, the relevant part reads:

Normally permission to express views on politically controversial issues will be refused. For any exception to this rule the Director of Information Strategy and News (at the Ministry of Defence) will seek the prior approval of the Secretary of State for Defence.

This is the authority the Tories cite to support their claim that Browne should have approved the decision to allow publication. And, in "unearthing the document", they have intensified the pressure on Mr Browne. Says Liam Fox (pictured): "It's very clear that the Royal Navy's own rules show that the ultimate decision is a Ministerial one."

Turning to The Times, we see a slightly different account. This time, Browne appears to be in breach of the regulations because he should have given explicit approval to the Navy's decision to let the hostages speak on controversial issues, rather than "note" it.

Again though, we get the quotation of the regulations, with the supposedly damning sentence that "permission to express views on politically controversial issues will be refused", and the caveat that the news director at the ministry "will seek the prior approval" of the defence secretary for any exception to this rule.

And so to the beef. Astute readers will note that the full text of the regulation includes the phrasing "...to express views on politically controversial issues". But, as we are all fully aware to the point of nausea, the hostages who did speak did not "express views". They simply gave an account of their experiences.

By any normal construction of the English language, to tell a personal story is wholly different from "expressing views" on an issue. The hostages' actions do not fall within the scope of the regulation cited.

Further, had Browne really breached his own department's regulations, the Navy's Second Sea Lord, Admiral Johns, would also have to be in the wrong. He says he made the crucial decision. On top of that, the MoD officials who briefed the secretary of state would also have been wrong. Failing to understand their own regulations, they must have given him the wrong information.

Any which way you cut it, Liam Fox's arguments are wholly spurious.

So obvious is this that one can scarcely credit the fact that two major newspapers have actually taken the trouble to print the story. And in each case senior political correspondents have added their by-lines. Such is their meat and drink.

Given the nature of the story though – and the importance of the main issue - is it any wonder that we hold so many politicians and journalists in utter contempt? More especially though, the Tories have nailed their colours to the wrong mast and are making complete fools of themselves.

COMMENT THREAD

National or European?

One of the most boring points that is always thrown at active eurosceptics is the grand assumption made usually by people who have never been outside this country except on holiday that we are all now Europeans rather than British, French, Germans or whatever. It is an easy point to dispose of but it is dull beyond belief.

Another category of people who are preoccupied with being “European” are the eurocrats and, sad to say, would-be eurocrats, the youngsters who have already planned their career in transnational bureaucracies.

It is, therefore, of some interest to discover that, as it happens, the most pre-eminent eurocrats of all, the Commissioners, think more highly of national politics than of European.

We can all recall Romano Prodi all but retiring from being Commission President (though not, one suspects, giving up the handsome salary and even more handsome perks) when the siren song of Italian politics began to sound.

Not so long ago we wrote of the fragrant Margot deciding to do a bit of moonlighting as a Swedish politician, having avowed as a Commissar to serve the interests of the European Union disregarding all national ones.

She is not alone. Louis Michel (he is the one not in uniform in the picture) is going on a month’s sabbatical in order to take part in the Belgian elections. The European Parliament, we are told, is not happy about it but, hey, who is listening to them?

It seems that Commissar Michel will be on unpaid leave (can this be true?) from May 12 when the electoral lists are submitted until June 10 when the election takes place. Any campaigning he might do before that will be strictly at the EU’s expense. No need to declare it.

According to the Rwanda Information Exchange (no, I don’t know either why they bother with this, except that, of course, Commissar Michel is source of aid funding):

The President has decided on Commissioner Olli Rehn as a temporary replacement for Mr Michel. Mr Rehn will provide continuity and good management for Mr Michel's portfolio.

Whatever that last phrase might mean.

Commissar Michel says that he agreed to stand on his party’s list for the Senate on condition that his name is the lowest-placed on the list. Why do it at all, one asks oneself, except for the nagging suspicion that national politics matters a good deal more than European even to the über-eurocrats.

COMMENT THREAD

Glory on the cheap?

As the Iran hostages saga progresses, the very worst of British politics is coming to the surface. It has descended into a party political squabble, with the main Conservative opposition party trying to extract sectional advantage, largely ignoring the serious operational issues in favour of trying to pin as much blame as possible on the political head of the Armed Forces.

However, it remains the case that, at the heart of this issue were serious operational failings, the responsibility for which must reside with Royal Navy commanders. And, at the heart of these lie failures in command and control, with the man in the frame being Commodore Nick Lambert, commander of Coalition Task Force 158.

Failure though, is rarely one-dimensional and, behind most headline events (such as the abduction of the personnel from HMS Cornwall) lie a complex chain of interlinked events and circumstances – some apparently unrelated to the proximate cause - which, collectively, gave rise to that event. In my studies of complex failures elsewhere, I came to call this the "event cascade", a term I have not seen used in other studies.

Some of those events have been raised on this blog, and in our forum where some of our more knowledgeable commentators have made interesting points, and raised important questions. Other points have, of course, been made elsewhere.

Some of these bring to light issues which have been touched upon earlier but have not been fully explored and may help to explain (if not excuse) some of the more egregious command failures.

Looking first at a few of those issues, questions have been raised about the Lynx helicopter – and the fact that only one was boarded when a Type 22 frigate can carry two - about the apparent communications difficulties between HMS Cornwall and the boarding party and, right up front, why Commodore Lambert seems to have taken his eye off the ball.

Oddly enough, all those disparate issues may be linked, and in an unexpected way – resting with the single fact that HMS Cornwall, in addition to being an active part of the Coalition Task Force, was also providing the "command platform" for Lambert as task force commander. It had, therefore, a dual role.

Now, as we know, batch III Type 22 frigates – of which HMS Cornwall is an example - are equipped to carry out flagship duties, being fitted with "excellent command and control and communication facilities".

However, there are flagship duties and flagship duties. Commanding a multinational task force, which is itself part of a larger multinational maritime effort, is in the upper end of the spectrum of capability requirements. In addition to the major communication load, there is a substantial staff needed to fulfil the range of duties – the US Navy had 50 of their own staff, plus the liaison officers, etc. – which may well have imposed an excessive burden on a mere frigate, which was also tasked with operational duties.

Certainly, when it came to providing the command function – in the absence of a capital ship (such as an aircraft carrier) in the northern Gulf, the United States Navy chartered a capacious sea-going barge called Ocean 6 (pictured). This was designated as an "Afloat Forward Staging Base" and features all the information and coordination capabilities of a coalition warship's Combat Information Centre. It also had berthing areas to house expeditionary forces, a galley to rival many warships and even a helicopter landing pad.

Additionally, says the US Navy (link above), "the barge will meet the quality of life goals of the Navy by providing Sailors and Marines serving arduous security assignments on the oil platforms in the NAG, wireless internet, flat screen televisions and crew lounges."

When it came to the British take-over of command on 7 March, however, the functions were moved to HMS Cornwall. As best, accommodation must have been cramped and facilities fully stretched. This may explain why a second helicopter was not carried – much of the hanger space would have been devoted to dealing with the overspill from the command function. It could also explain why the helicopter was pulled back from the "overwatch" for the boarding team – it was needed for task force duties.

The question must arise, therefore, as to whether HMS Cornwall was suitable for such an exacting task – in addition to carrying out her operational duties. And this may put a different perspective on the apparent failures of Commodore Lambert. Was he - and his staff - simply being asked to do too much with inadequate facilities?

If this is an issue, it would bring a new and highly political dimension to the Iran hostages drama. It might suggest that the Labour government, anxious for the prestige that command of the Coalition Task Force would bring, allowed (or even required) the Royal Navy to take on the role, without providing the necessary facilities – glory on the cheap once again, some might say. On the other hand, did the Admiralty take on more than it could chew, without informing its political masters of the possible consequences?

COMMENT THREAD

The faces of Britain

The picture shows two servicemen, of similar age, both having been stationed in Iraq. The soldier, photographed by Michael Yon* - unnamed and unrewarded by the media – is still there and actively engaged in operations. He, unlike his Navy contemporary, Arthur Batchelor – who blubbed because the nasty Iranians stole his Ipod - we would like to think is the representative face of the British military.

The soldier pictured had recently taken part in a vicious gunfight in Basra, and the strain shows on his face. And not for him is there mummy and auntie to hold his hands.

The action is one on which we reported briefly and which has been clothed with more detail by Thomas Harding of The Daily Telegraph, based in part on MoD reports.

But what brings the account to life is the superb report by Michael Yon who is entirely open in his admiration for the skill and professionalism of the soldiers engaged in the action. There would be no better way of returning the compliment than going to his site and reading the graphic narrative in full.

At a different level, Yon also conveys the constant indirect fire harassment of the soldiers at their base in the Basra Palace complex, something about which we have written many times. Another issue is the absence of helicopter support (although fixed wing surveillance would have been just as useful), which again we have written on many times.

Clearly, neither of these issues have been resolved and, if there was to be criticism of the MoD, it is there that the attack should lie. Better that than the unremitting scattergun approach that relies on the constant, tedious repetition of the sacred mantras "overstretch" and "underfunding".

For instance, in terms of airborne surveillance – the lack of which Yon points out - whatever happened to the Britten Norman Defenders which were purchased for Basra and would be admirable for the purpose? Despite extensive enquiries, no one to whom I have spoken - who has been to Basra recently - has seen them.

The more immediate issue, however, is the damage to the reputation of Britain and the Armed Forces, arising from the abduction of the "frightened fifteen" and their subsequent behaviour. It becomes imperative that the issues surrounding that incident should be given the most thorough examination. This time, there should also be a clear commitment to addressing the defects revealed, at all levels.

From the extensive investigations we have conducted, and reported in this blog, we are convinced that the heart of the problem lies with serious operational failures on the part of serving, senior naval officers, going to the very top of the Navy.

For the rest, we are seeing a media frenzy, powered by journalists about whom in the past we have complained so bitterly, for their lack of understanding of things military and for their constant trivialising of serious issues. They are no different now. They will find no end of inconsistencies in accounts we have heard, and blather in their self-important ways about their little discoveries, but what they are producing is meaningless fluff.

Buoyed by self-serving politicians, they are striving to extract political embarrassment, for no other reason than to promote their own idle interests. However much they may wrap themselves in Union Jacks, or parade the coffins of dead servicemen, they are not acting in the national interest and they are no friends of the military.

On Monday, we will see the Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, stand up in Parliament and give account of himself and his actions. He is not a brilliant Parliamentary performer by any means but, despite the air of sleaze and corruption that surrounds this present administration, we believe he is an honourable man, trying to do his best in an extremely difficult situation.

We ourselves have attracted no end of vitriol for expressing that view but we – both of us – stand by it. The man should be given a hearing and if, as we confidently expect, there are announced on Monday one or more inquiries, they should be allowed to conduct their work and deliver their reports, so that urgent remedial action can be put in place. Then will be the time to dissect the detail and apportion blame, where it is due.

That is the imperative. That we owe to the unnamed solider, pictured at the top of this post, him and the many brave, dedicated service personnel, who deserve a better deal than they are getting from the media and opposition politicians. With the reputations of the Armed Forces and the nation at stake – on which lives depend - this is no time for partisan sniping or self-serving bickering.

* used with permission. Thank you.

COMMENT THREAD

One would have expected a little better…

The extraordinarily inept intervention by William Hague, shadow foreign secretary, on this morning's BBC Radio 4's Today programme, almost beggars description. So off the wall was it that one was tempted to ignore it as the posturings of an ignorant fool, evident as such to any sensible person who listened to it. However, such is the "Blair derangement syndrome", and the desperation of the Tory Tribe to see Blair as the fount of all evil, that it is being taken seriously in some quarters. Hague's irresponsiblity, therefore, cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.

In his interview, what Hague was very clearly seeking to do was to make political capital out of the Iran Hostage affair. There is no political mileage in rooting out the operational failures by the Royal Navy - at the heart of the crisis - so he is instead focusing on the secondary issue of the publication of the hostages' stories, part we believe, of the smokescreen laid down by the Navy to obscure its own inadequacies (and to divert blame).

His tactic is to insinuate that No. 10 Downing Street (and thereby the prime minister) was in the loop, in the making of the decision to allow publication, the inference being that this was all some part of a greater conspiracy, the nature of which has yet to be defined. The plan is to make mud stick.

In pursuit of that, said Hague, "The accounts given in the last couple of days by Des Browne and by the Prime Minister are carefully chosen words which do leave the impression that you haven't really got the full picture." He added: "In a very centralised administration where Number 10 are routinely consulted by all government departments, it seems very odd that the Prime Minister read of this in the Sunday newspapers, they say, when David Cameron (the Conservative leader) and I and Liam Fox (the shadow defence secretary) all knew about this on Saturday."

The facts, though – and even a very basic knowledge if how government works – tell a very different story.

As it stands, it is a wholly undisputed fact that the decision to allow publication was made by the Second Sea Lord, Admiral Johns. Furthermore, it was made in the context of his interpreting Queens Regulations and, as such, was within his power to make.

In the context, this was not a civil servant, proposing a course of action, with the decision made nominally by the Secretary of State. The decision was made by a senior naval officer. It needed no endorsement or further approval. Thus, as is entirely normal in these situations, the Secretary of State was notified but he was not required to endorse the action - simply to "take note".

For the decision not to have been put into effect, the Secretary of State would have had, actively, to have countermanded it. Yet this was a decision by a senior naval officer - which incidentally had the approval of the First Sea Lord. That, is something any Secretary of State would do only reluctantly, with a great deal of thought and discussion. It is not surprising, therefore, that he took the weekend to do it. To do otherwise would have opened him to the charge of eroding the independence of the military.

Now, given that the decision to allow publication was a naval, rather than a political decision, there was no reason why Downing Street should have been involved, or even informed. In fact, there was every reason why it should not have been. There would be the most enormous row if military decisions, made by ranking officers, had routinely to be referred to Downing Street for approval.

Referrals are normally only made if a decision has been flagged as "politically sensitive". But there, the route is via the Chief of the Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup. He is the link between the Secretary of State and the Armed Forces. He also has a direct line into Downing Street. It would have been his job to alert the secretary of state on the issue, and through him the prime minister, if needed. But, as we know, Stirrup was not consulted.

If Downing Street had intervened, it would have been via and in consultation with Stirrup and the Secretary of State. The Military do not take orders from "Downing Street" and the Chief of the Defence Staff can see off interference by invoking his right of direct access to the prime minister in person – even over the head of the secretary of state. This is a privilege which is jealously guarded and remains to this day.

It is thus very far from unbelievable, therefore, that prime minister Blair would have been unaware of a decision made by a Second Sea Lord. Ordinarily, he is not told of such decisions and would not be expected to be aware of them. Only if they had been flagged up first by Stirrup and then the Secretary of State would it have become a "political" rather than an operational matter, and brought formally to his attention.

Hague's intervention, therefore, is simply ignorant, political posturing. He clearly does not have the faintest idea of how the chain of command works in the military, how the MoD itself works - which is very different from other departments of state - or how decisions are made.

As such, therefore, he has no credibility. His speculation is of no significance, other than to show him up as a rather stupid little man, who is doing more harm than good.

His action, however, is beginning to typify the Conservative approach to this affair. Instead of concentrating on the main issue – why the Cornwall's boarding party was left so vulnerable, it is trying to make mischief for party political gain.

Unsurprisingly, it is being supported by The Daily Telegraph in this mischief, but the Daily Mail is also buying in to the attack on the secretary of state, with its graphic headline today. However, it should be noted that, when it came to the publication of Leading Seaman Turney's story, it offered a fee of £20,000 above anything any other bidder paid. Turney, however, turned it down. And, as we know, hell hath no fury like a newspaper scorned.

That a tabloid newspaper should act in such a fashion is hardly a surprise. But one would have expected a little better from Her Majesty's Opposition. There is too much at stake here for the Conservatives to indulge themselves in party politics. They are adding to an already thick smokescreen, hampering rather than assisting in the search for the truth.

COMMENT THREAD

Now he's asking

They get (nearly) there in the end … or some of them do.

Nick Robinson, BBC political editor, offered these words on the Today programme, this morning:

The issue … is did they (the government) fail to see the controversy over payments or did they regard the controversy as a price worth paying in order to get those stories told in that way, as against what might have been the alternative … which is very heavy scrutiny of why these soldiers (sic) were taken prisoner when they were and whether that could have been prevented.

Inevitably though, caught in the Westminster "bubble" as he is, Robinson is thinking in terms of "the government" – i.e., ministers. But why would ministers want to avoid scrutiny of the events which led to the capture of the sailors and marines? These are operational issues and the primary responsibility rested with operational commanders in the field.

The one thing on which ministers could be tasked is on the vexed question of rules of engagement, but even then it is up to the military to make ministers aware of whether they are appropriate, or put service personnel unnecessarily at risk.

If it could be shown that representations had been made to ministers, and they had been over-ruled, then there would be something for ministers to cover-up, but then it would be in the interests of the Navy to make sure that that little gem emerged. So far, though, it is the Navy which has set its face against a formal Board of Inquiry.

So who is really covering up and why?

COMMENT THREAD

A spot of blackmail

Remember the European Union? It's that uniquely useless, parasitic organisation we used to write about, the affairs of which are so utterly tedious that even we have difficulty dealing with them.

Well, apparently, it still exists and, for the rest of its miserable life, I suppose occasionally we will have to break away from watching what the grown-ups are doing, and have a look at it.

Its latest little trick, perpetrated by what Reuters so quaintly calls the EU "Head Office" – i.e., the EU commission – is preening itself on its .eu domain having clocked up more than 2.5 million web addresses since it was launched just over a year ago.

Never mind the chaos of the launch, the details of which only emerged months later, after strenuous denials from the commission that anything was amiss. The EU media commissioner, Viviane Reding, is trilling that, "After just one year .eu has become a well-established part of Europe's cyberspace".

It has become the third most popular European top level domain name since it launched on April 7, 2006, pipped only by Germany's .de and Britain's .uk. It is the seventh most popular domain worldwide.

Of course, what la Reding does not tell you is that many website owners had no option but to register their own names under the .eu banner, simply to prevent cyber-squatters acquiring them and either holding them to ransom or misusing their names. In effect, millions of owners were blackmailed, being forced to buy into the EU vanity exercise, simply to protect their own interests. For them, the cost of the domain registration is nothing more than a hidden EU tax.

This is borne out by the fact that, while 80 percent of .eu names registered are linked to a functioning website or e-mail server, many of those are simply mirror sites, carrying exactly the same content as their national or generic originals. In a fifth of the sites, owners don't even bother with that, and simply redirect users to another address.

But hey! That's the EU for you – all smoke and mirrors. We'll return to grown-up issues later this morning.

COMMENT THREAD

Good to know he is on the job

Shane Richmond is not this blog’s favourite journalist. My colleague had a number of run-ins with him back in the days of Qanagate. He has just cropped up again (well, I expect he has been around but not writing anything worth quoting).

In today’s Daily Telegraph, Mr Richmond is reporting on a row that has been going on in the blogosphere and providing a rather vacuous opinion column on the subject. The row has bubbled up after a certain, supposedly non-political, which usually means vaguely left blogger, called Kathy Sierra became so upset by the various vicious attacks on her by e-mail that she pulled out of a conference and repaired to the withdrawing room with her smelling salts in her hand.

As I pointed out yesterday, there has been a good deal of viciousness in the way right-wing bloggers are attacked, particularly if they happen to be female and/or of ethnic minority, who are never, never allowed to stray off massa liberal’s plantation.

There have been plenty of attacks on the left-wing blogs on right-wing black achievers, like Condi Rice (described as Brown Sugar and worse), Colin Powell and Justice Clarence Thomas (best not to read what was said about him or wished on him).

Michelle Malkin has had to put up with abuse of the first order. Other right-wing bloggers have been abused in no uncertain terms. Jeff Goldstein of ProteinWisdom was stalked by a demented left-wing academic for quite a long time before he finally managed to deal with the situation. (I have read some of the stuff the woman posted and it is indescribably disgusting.)

None of this bothered the great and the good and it still does not bother Shane Richmond, who merely reports that in the wake of the Sierra incident, as if it were the beginning of it all, doomed attempts are being made, not least by the BlogHer women bloggers’ network, who has been remarkably quiet about Malkin or LaShawn Barber, to control the blogosphere and its commenters.

Anyone who wants to see an entertaining discussion on the subject might like to watch this tape of Mary Katharine Ham of Townhall.com taking on Arianna Huffington of HuffingtonPost. (And to think that I can remember Ms Huffington when she was right-wing and Republican.)

Tim O'Reilly, an American publisher, has asked readers of his blog to help him create a set of rules for online debates. But leading bloggers have dismissed the initiative as well-meaning but misguided. They argue that such a code would be unenforceable and restrict free speech.

The story is not new and Mr O’Reilly has had numerous replies, some more polite than others to his suggestion. If Mr O’Reilly wants to create rules on his blog, he is welcome to it but his rules will not be the same as anybody else’s. What he and his cohorts would like to see, I suspect, though Mr Richmond makes no mention of it, is legislation to control the way the blogosphere develops.

As it happens, there are plenty of examples that could be followed and if Mr Richmond is really looking for news on the subject of cyberspace he might like to think about what is happening in Russia.

Bloomberg News reports that last month’s Russian presidential decree, which set up a new agency to supervise the media and the internet is beginning to bite. The internet and the burgeoning blogosphere (seriously behind such countries as China or Iran) remained the only part of the Russian information industry that was not under government control. No longer.

In December, a court in the Siberian region of Khakassia shut down the Internet news site Novy Fokus for not registering as a media outlet. The site, known for its critical reporting, reopened in late March after it agreed to register and accept stricter supervision.

Antikompromat.ru, which wrote about Putin's pre-presidential business interests, had to find a U.S. Web server after a Russian service provider pulled the plug March 28, saying it had been warned by officials to stop hosting the site.

Last year, the authorities shut down a Web site called Kursiv in the city of Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow, that lampooned Putin as a "phallic symbol of Russia" for his drive to increase the birthrate.

Looks like the presidential campaign in Russia is gearing up as early as that in America though developments are slightly different. President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has denied that any of it has anything to do with trying to control the internet, goodness me, how could anybody even think of that.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia was not restricting media freedom and that the new agency was not aimed at policing the Web.

"If you watch TV, even federal TV channels, you'll hear lots of criticism of the government," Peskov said in an interview. "This new agency will be in charge of licensing. It's not about controlling the Internet."

Hmm. I wonder what Mr Richmond will say about it, if anything, maybe on his excruciatingly dull blog.

Meanwhile Der Spiegel has an interesting article about bloggers in the Muslim world who are trying to speak on such subjects as civil society and women’s rights. The last of these means, in the first place, not being murdered by their families when they had been raped, possibly by another relative. (Western left-wing feminists, are you listening?)

Read the whole piece about these extremely brave people, men and women, bloggers and journalists, who dare to speak out against a powerful and oppressive system. Maybe Mr Shane Richmond and the people he finds so fascinating will take up the cause.

COMMENT THREAD

A very brave lady

If you can, watch this tape provided by MEMRI (and translated by them) of Buthayna Nasser, a Saudi newscaster, socking it (there can be no other way of putting it) to a Saudi cleric on the subject of women's equality as a given and on the brainwashing that passes for education in that country.

She is an astonishingly courageous lady, given what has happened to women who have claimed the right to work professionally in Muslim countries. I do have one question but I suspect I know the answer. Will the Western left-wing feminists speak up for her and support the fight she and others wage? Hmmm, let me think about it.

A failed attempt

This morning, we saw a cynical attempt by the Conservative Party to extract party political capital from the Iran hostage situation. Fronted by the increasingly lacklustre Tory defence spokesman Dr Liam Fox, the attack started on the Tory Party website, and went from there.

Silent on the substantive issues, the website homed in on the "soap opera" of the "government incompetence over returned hostages", pointing the finger of blame at government ministers, following the "appalling" decision to allow the Britons held hostage in Iran to sell their stories to the media.

The bleating was picked up by the BBC although even it could not cope with the limited focus of the Tory "attack". It led its piece with the news that Fox was calling for an inquiry into the circumstances of the hostages' capture. But the thrust of the report was nevertheless on the "cash for stories" issue, with a demand that defence secretary should give "details of who was involved in the decision" and when.

The report had Fox squawking about "complete ministerial incompetence", charging that "New Labour's obsession with news management trumped issues of dignity, professionalism and discipline."

This was backed up by a turgid editorial in The Daily Torygraph which could have come straight out of the Janet and John book on Tory defence policy. It too homed in on the "fiasco following the release of the service personnel captured by Iran", asserting that "the sailors and marines were … enlisted as part of a despicable spin operation" by the government.

Pointing to where the Tory attack would lie, it then declared that, when Parliament returned next Monday, "Mr Browne had better go to the Commons and give a full and honest account of what led him to sanction the selling of the captives' stories to the media."

The Dail Mail also fell into line, with a ridiculous commentary, citing that great political commentator, General Sir Michael Rose (now fortunately retired). Sir Michael, who provokes derision even in his own former Service, also had it that the decision to allow the captives to sell their stories was "part of a crude government spin operation".

By lunch time, however, the attack was contained. On the BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, Browne was on the air, accepting "full responsibility" for the decision. It had, he said, been made originally by the Navy on Thursday, when the hostages had been released and endorsed by him on the Friday, following a briefing by an MoD official. Browne's full statement is here.

The secretary of state was followed by Labour MP David Crausby, a member of the defence select committee, who affirmed that it was "pretty clear" that it was a decision taken by the Navy. He had questions on whether Browne should have vetoed the Navy but, he said, the central question was whether the marines and sailors should have been captured in the first place. The controversy over the payments "should not allow this to overshadow this", he declared.

Interestingly, Lib-Dem spokesman Michael Moore agreed with this line. A lot of questions remain, he said, but the payments issue was "a major distraction". It was "in danger of distracting us from how on earth we got into this situation in the first place."

That left Liam Fox with nowhere to go. Even the BBC interviewer, Sean Ley, was by then looking at the bigger picture, pointing up the tension "between military independence and political decision-making".

In a later interview, though, the Boy Cameron still tried to pander to the tendency which prefers to see its politics in soap opera terms. Asking for the "equivalent" of a Board of Inquiry on the wider issues, he then went on quickly to the payments issue. The government's "cheap and tatty" focus on short term headlines could cause long-term damage to the armed forces, he said, desperately trying to up the ante by declaring that "the buck stopped with the prime minister". Tory Diary has the full statement.

Browne, however, had already shot his Fox. He was waiting for reports on the wider question of the hostages' capture and would make a statement on Monday to Parliament.

Then, this blog trusts, we will begin to deal with the substantive issues and, if the Tories want to bleat from the margins, they will consign themselves to irrelevance. Perhaps, in the manner of the "frightened fifteen", they should book a group hug and then get out of the way, to let the grown-ups get on with it.

COMMENT THREAD

Did France betray its principles?

Every country’s, every nation’s view of itself is illogical; every country’s dealings with other countries exhibits quirks and incomprehensible peculiarities. But it often appears that France is the least logical and most quirky of all the European states in its self-perception and its foreign policy.

Some of it is straightforward enough. It is not Britain that has experienced difficulties in finding a role after losing an empire so much as France. The end of its empire was prolonged and agonizing, involving as it did, two expensive and destructive wars that left deep scars on the country. (In the former British Empire the wars came after the British had left, which, one might argue, shows how sensible or, alternatively, how perfidious they are.)

Before that came the French defeat in 1940 and the occupation with all its moral and social problems that have not yet been worked out properly, as we have written on different occasions.

We have also written about French reaction to the political catastrophe of the Suez adventure and the American role in it. This is covered extensively in “The Great Deception”.

So, a good deal of French behaviour can be attributed to a desire to restore the country’s pre-eminent position in at least some parts of the world, a position that was last in evidence in 1814 despite subsequent French colonial wars. Coupled with it is that strong feeling of resentment against les Anglo-Saxes, the British and, particularly, the Americans. In fact, there are times when it seems that the sole purpose of French foreign policy is to annoy the government and people of the United States.

There are, however, complications. One is the European Union, perceived by many of the French elite as the weapon through which France will dominate European politics and become a great power again. Many of its political structures, economic policies and attempts at foreign policy appear to be largely French in their origins. But they are, as it happens, problematic. To a great extent EC rules can be ignored but not totally and France has been suffering economically from her own policies and from those enshrined in the European Union’s legislation. This has contributed to the rather vicious problems in the banlieus, inhabited largely by North African and Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants.

Another complication is French self-perception, at least, as it manifests itself among the political elite (though, as we know in this country, what the elite thinks does percolate down to the people in one form or another). Part of that self-perception is French political superiority because of certain events in the second half of the eighteenth century. No need to argue about that here but, it is worth noting, that many of our ideas of equality and democracy grew out of those events. So the French do have a great deal to be proud of. But have they, themselves, lived up to those great ideals? David Pryce-Jones, the historian, journalist, novelist, expert on the Middle East, thinks otherwise and marshals his evidence in “Betrayal – France, the Arabs and the Jews”.

The rest of this longish piece about this excellent book can be read here.

Coincidence?

After the bomb attack in Basra last week, in which four British service personnel and their translator were murdered while travelling in their Warrior infantry combat vehicle, another major incident in Basra has been reported – mercifully with no loss of life amongst coalition forces.

This was a street battle in Basra's southwestern Qibla district yesterday where, according to Reuters, British troops were engaged in a major gun battle after coming under fire during a routine search operation.

Army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Stratford-Wright confirmed the action, saying that "ten of the enemy were hit", although he did not know whether they had been wounded or killed. "There was a substantial exchange of gunfire," he added.

According to his account, gunmen had opened fire on the British force from alleyways and rooftops with machinegun fire and several rocket-propelled grenades. The soldiers returned fire from machineguns mounted on armoured personnel carriers.

There have been very few such reports of fighting on this scale – where the fighting has been initiated by the insurgents - and, although there have been concerns about the growing intensity of attacks on British forces, this appears to be a significant escalation.

Coming so soon after the release of the fifteen naval hostages from Iran, in a display of weakness that has repeatedly been aired on Arab television throughout the region, one can only ask if the hostage-taking is in some way linked to what appears to be the growing confidence of the largely Iranian-backed insurgents.

It is perhaps too early to tell and, with the paucity of western journalists in the city, the flow of news may not be sufficiently reliable to judge from future reports.

However, no one can say that the compliant behaviour of the navy hostages in Iranian hands and the ease with which they were captured has actually enhanced Britain's reputation abroad. Therefore, the possibility that the yesterday's attack on British troops is related cannot be dismissed.

The MoD will, of course, deny any linkage but it will be tragic if it is the Army which pays the price for the Navy's carelessness.

COMMENT THREAD

The Anglosphere helps out

Putting European nations to shame which, with the exception of Poland have refused to provide any more troops for combat in Afghanistan, Australia has stepped up to the plate with an announcement from prime minister, John Howard, that Australian troop numbers are to be doubled, bringing the total to about 1,000.

The troops will be sent to the volatile Oruzgan province in the south of the country, their task to enhance the area's security and disrupt Taliban command and supply routes.

Interestingly, according to another report, the force includes 300 special forces troops, returning for a second tour, and Australia will also send air force radar crews to Kandahar, plus extra logistics and intelligence officers. It will also extend the deployment of a team providing protection and security.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the Australian Defence Force Commander, said the special forces would hunt Taliban commanders. "Essentially their operations will be targeted on the Taliban, disrupting Taliban operations and going after the Taliban leadership," he said.

In his press conference at which the announcement was made, Howard aimed a none too subtle dig at his European allies, "We're not losing the war, but we will not win it without renewed and increased effort," then expressing a wish that some European countries would place fewer caveats on their troops' deployment.

His pleas are likely to go unheeded.

COMMENT THREAD

Political acumen

The Tory Tribe – or, at any rate, a voluble part of it – is, as usual, displaying the political acumen of the Forth Form Remove, falling over itself to applaud Michael Heseltine, who writes a piece in today’s Daily Mail on the fallout from the Iranian hostage situation.

On the strength of his comments on yesterday's BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Heseltine had been given license to comment in this tabloid, coming up with the predictable, politically motivated assessment that the whole blame for this current PR fiasco must rest with the secretary of state for defence, Des Browne.

Technically, Heseltine is right – in that the buck stops on the secretary's desk. But there is more depth to this former defence secretary's comments. Firstly, he asks for a public inquiry (which must surely now be needed) to "look into the exact circumstances of the detention of the Royal Navy party, studying in particular the alleged lack of support from the nearby task force headed by HMS Cornwall."

He also wants that inquiry to find out who actually took the decision to allow the personnel to sell their stories, asking at what level was it made in the MoD and whether the defence secretary or the prime minister was consulted, and indeed whether the chief of the defence staff was consulted.

These are valid points, and show some understanding of the complexities of decision-making in the MoD, but the thinking is too sophisticated for the "Tribe". It wants political blood and chooses to home in on the mantras raised by Heseltine of "underfunding" and "overstretch". It forgets, of course, that it was Heseltine who made the disastrous decision to buy the Eurofighter. Yet it is that white elephant which is currently soaking up a disproportionate amount of the defence budget, making absolutely no contribution to the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan, where resources are so desperately needed.

However, the best report so far of the events leading up to the publication of (some of) the hostages' accounts comes from Michael Evans, Defence Editor of The Times.

He reports that decision to let them sell their stories was taken only hours after the 15 sailors and marines landed at Heathrow last Thursday, after a submission had been sent to the MoD by Vice-Admiral Adrian Johns, the Second Sea Lord, who is responsible for all personnel issues in the Royal Navy.

According to Evans, citing "defence sources", Admiral Johns "judged that it was appropriate" for those released captives who wished to do so to be allowed to receive money. He sent the MoD a memorandum that outlined his reasons for giving permission to the Marines and sailors to tell their stories.

Des Browne, we are told, noted its contents, but took no further action. Adds Evans, again citing an anonymous defence source, "He was not required to make a decision. The decision had already been taken by the Navy and all he had to do was note it." That source acknowledged that as the political boss of the department he could have reversed Admiral Johns's decision but he felt it was a Navy matter and considered it right to leave it to the military.

A suggestion that Tony Blair had approved the proposal as a public relations strategy to counter Tehran's propaganda was dismissed by a senior MoD official as nonsense. There was, though, surprise that Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff and the most senior military adviser to Mr Browne, was not consulted.

This account is entirely compatible with our earlier assertion that the publication was orchestrated entirely by the Admiralty and does not in away way contradict our contention that it was part of a broader attempt at a cover-up, throwing the hostages to the media "wolves" as a way of diverting attention from the operational failures resulting from decisions made by senior officers.

That there were such failures is endorsed in The Daily Telegraph today by Allan Mallinson, a soldier for 35 years and former commander of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars. The affair started with a straightforward but entirely avoidable tactical military cock-up, he writes, adding:

The 15 sailors and Marines were operating in sensitive waters, with unclear rules of engagement, no reserve and inadequate military intelligence. For this, the local tactical commanders must answer. There must be a board of inquiry and the results nailed to the mast, signalled round the fleet, read out to troops on parade - as would have happened in braver days.

However, further up the chain of command, in the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) in Northwood, and in the MOD itself, some very senior officers indeed must answer this question: why, when our troops are in daily and deadly contact with Iranian-supported insurgents in Basra, and with the experience of the 2004 abduction of the Marines on the Euphrates, were these boarding operations being conducted so casually?

The Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Commitments), Vice-Admiral Charles Style, the MOD officer directly responsible for issuing the operational directives to the forces through the PJHQ, said on television last week that it was because they had conducted so many boardings recently without incident. This is breathtaking complacency that betrays a lack of understanding of the most elementary principles of force protection, the first duty of any commander, and even more of the unawareness of tactical-strategic linkage…

Having been placed in an absurd situation, the boarding party chose to surrender. This tactical decision should not be loosely criticised, but there are legitimate questions: what were the orders "on contact" with Iranian patrol boats, and were they followed? Was the decision not to offer armed resistance in any part due to the presence of a female sailor? The party's conduct after capture also begs questions, but again it needs cooler examination.

Mallinson then picks up on "the rush to judgement" by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, who endorsed the hostages' action in a painful interview with John Humphrys on Friday's Today programme, and by personally shaking hands with the returning sailors and marines. This, he writes, "is puzzling to say the least", asking: "Was it embarrassment at the failures at the strategic (MOD) and operational (theatre) levels?"

It is this behaviour, above all, that has raised our suspicions. Any sensible First Sea Lord should, one would have thought, have distanced himself from the incident, and relied on a Board of Inquiry to elucidate the details of what had transpired. His unprecedented decision to waive the Board and to rely on a watered-down "lessons learned" inquiry, plus this "rush to judgement", shrieks of a guilty man with something to hide.

The behaviour of Band, of the MoD operations' staff and of subordinate commanders like Commodore Nick Lambert, must therefore be subject to the most rigorous scrutiny. Only then, if it can be shown that the officers involved were handicapped by political rather than operational considerations, or were genuinely constrained by issues which only the politicians had the authority to resolve, should the blame be directed at the secretary of state.

There is, however, one important proviso. It is Des Browne's responsibility to find out what went wrong and to take steps to ensure that the necessary remedial actions are taken. Thus, demanding his resignation – as some of the Tory Tribe are doing – before even blame has been properly apportioned, is premature. But, if he fails in his own responsibility, he should go.

In the interim, the sensible Tory move would be to avoid political point-scoring (which simply irritates people) and demand – as indeed has Michael Heseltine – a full inquiry. That would be real political acumen.

COMMENT THREAD

Hate mail

Lucky or unlucky? Hard to tell. On the one hand my colleague and I can think ourselves lucky in that we get very little personal abuse in the cyberspace. We get plenty of spam or attempted spam but there is nothing personal in that. There is the odd comment about right-wing europhobes but that is par for the course. (They rarely try the europhobe one on me. Can't think why.)

On the other hand, it is possible that we get so little abuse because the left-of-centre, basically europhile, anti-American and anti-Western establishment together with its followers on the blogosphere, does not take us seriously enough. Then again, it is possible that the abuse is out there (I believe it was during the Blog of the Year Award brouhaha) and we just do not read it.

Still, I am quite glad I do not get the sort of sick, sexist, racist and downright violent pornographic abuse that, for instance, Michelle Malkin has to put up with day in day out. Sometimes one can be grateful for politically correct attitudes that may prevent this sort of garbage. Or maybe it is British reticence. Or maybe nobody cares enough, though it is true and has always been true that even in Britain the left, in its own well-behaved fashion, can be excruciatingly racist and sexist without anybody batting an eyelid as long as the comments are aimed at people on the right.

A new installment in left-wing hate mail has been added, as described and quoted by Deroy Murdock on National Review Online. [Warning: some of the quotations from the hate e-mails are truly disgusting and, I must admit, pathetic in their vicious stupidity.]

This all has to do with the fact that

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) recently generated headlines when it announced that former Vice President Al Gore’s Nashville estate “devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours” of electricity in 2006, “more than 20 times the national average.” This free-market think tank’s phones lit up when it analyzed Nashville Electric Service’s public records and identified an inconvenient gap between Gore’s conservationism and his energy consumption. TCPR’s one-page press release was greeted with enough megawatts of hatred to power the South.

We covered the story as well because it is more than just a domestic American squabble. Gore's hypocritical and hysterical pronouncements are affecting our politicians who are likely to legislate on that basis and make our lives extremely difficult.

If there was anything that would make me disbelieve the man-made global warming hysteria it is this attack on the personnel of the the TCPR. I presume that must be the only arguments, hate-filled and viciously pornographic as they are, that Gore's supporters possess.

Now tell me what the difference is between these people and those hate-filled fanatics who demonstrated outside the Danish embassy.

Exposed and vulnerable

It must now be evident to knowledgeable defence watchers that the position of First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band (seen here playing with one of his toys), is untenable. His authority is spent.

Earlier Naval careers have foundered over mishaps with capital ships, as was the fate of the martinet Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon when 358 crew were drowned after the sinking of HMS Victoria in 1893. By contrast, the proximate cause of Admiral Band's demise is the loss of two rubber boats and the temporary detention of their crews by a hostile nation.

In fact, though, it is now coming clear that his greater sin has been to orchestrate a cover-up, attempting to obscure the reasons why the boats and their crews were captured.

But, in giving permission to the "frightened fifteen" to sell their stories to the media, bouncing his political masters into acquiescence, Band went too far. Yesterday, the secretary of state for defence, Des Browne, struck back, rescinding the permission with only the tiniest fig-leaf to spare the Admiral's blushes.

Even then, that was considerably more than he deserved, as his public support for the "frightened fifteen" and then his permission to publish their stories has produced such gut-wrenchingly sickening copy that it has made a laughing stock of the Royal Navy and our nation. Forget Leading Seaman Turney and her appearance in The Sun yesterday, followed by her "star" performance on ITV1, and dwell for a moment on an extract from the account of the youngest crew member, Seaman Arthur Batchelor, published in The Daily Mirror:

Arthur said: "I missed Topsy [Leading Seaman Faye Turney] most of all. I really love her, as a mum and a big sister. Not seeing her and not knowing if she was safe was one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. Then on the sixth day, when I was just about giving up hope, I was pulled from my bed in the early hours of the morning. They led me down a corridor and into a room, where I saw Topsy in a corner. I can't describe how that felt... just every emotion rolled into one. I ran up to her, threw my arms round her and cried like a baby. When I'd calmed down, she asked, 'Do you need another hug, a mother hug?' and I said, 'damn right'.

Des Browne may yet regret declaring that the Navy, in allowing this drivel to reach the public domain, was making a "tough call". Not even Admiral Byng managed to humiliate the nation so comprehensively, especially now as the Iranians have retaliated by releasing more video footage purporting to show how well the hostages were treated. Little Green Footballs has the link (video "grabs" below).

Such is the utter fatuity of the media, however, that – with only a very few honourable exceptions – most journalists have not even begun to wake up to the underlying issues, and the reinstatement of the publication ban is still being treated on the level of a soap opera.

But, with the "human interest" element now cut off at source – and the story unresolved – we may now see some of the media turn to the substantive issue as to why the boarding crew was put in such an exposed and vulnerable position. Gradually, the truth may emerge.

All of that puts the Navy itself in an exposed and vulnerable position. Expected imminently is an announcement on the building of the two aircraft carriers, for which the Senior Service has mortgaged its future, at an expected cost of £3.5 billion.

Such is the perception of weakness the Navy has brought upon itself, however, that there would be barely be any public protest if the order was not to materialise. After all, on current form, the Navy would simply hand over the ships to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at the first opportunity.

Possibly, the situation may be recoverable, but the politicians are going to have to act fast. Robust action to rid the Navy of some of its dead wood is needed as an immediate confidence-builder, plus measures to restore a fighting spirit into a Service that seems to have gone soft.

COMMENT THREAD

The price we shall go on paying

One wonders which part of "appeasement does not pay" is so hard for so many people at all levels (just have a look at the few British blogs that bothered to write about the "frightened fifteen" and the comments thereon, if you don't believe me) to understand. I hereby make it clear that any ignorant reference to Chamberlain and Munich on the forum will be ignored or, possibly, traduced. I am sick of hearing rubbish about those events.

Now, let me recover my good humour and do a small round-up of recent news. First off the Sunday Telegraph, which I do not read but to which I was directed by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. The title of the article is clear enough: "Buoyant Tehran warns of further kidnappings". No, really? How frightfully unexpected.

Amidst all the sabre-rattling (there is no explanation as to whom they intend to kidnap and of what nationality), the British civil service comes through:

However, a British Government official familiar with the negotiations said that while the abductions had provided Ahmadinejad with a platform from which to humiliate the West, such behaviour would have undermined Iran's ambitions for its nuclear programme. Countries which might otherwise have supported Iran would now be questioning whether a regime that took hostages could be trusted with sensitive nuclear technology.

Oh good. We are so delighted.

Mind you, it is not quite what the news is on Al-Jazeera, which says:

Iran has begun producing nuclear fuel on "an industrial scale", the president announced during a speech to mark the first anniversary of the country's enrichment of uranium.

Well, I guess Ahmadinejad may be lying or exaggerating. That is not impossible. Nor is it impossible that all other statements on the subject are lies and exaggerations as well:

Ahmadinejad's speech confirmed an announcement by the head of the country's atomic energy organisation, who alo said that Iran had started mass-producing the centrifuges needed for the enrichment of uranium.

"Today, with the start of mass-producing centrifuges and the start of uranium enrichment on an industrial phase, another step was taken for the flourishing of the Islamic republic," Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said.

Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, told reporters that 3,000 centrifuges were being used to enrich uranium at the facility.

At the very least, however, the British civil servants who have made this country what it is, should be a little careful with their boastful pronouncements.

Another item from Al-Jazeera, confirms what we have already suspected. Daniele Mastrogiacomo's Afghan translator has been murdered by his kidnappers because President Karzai has put a stop to any further exchanges with Taliban prisoners.

No news yet on the two French aid workers, their three Afghani staff or the five Afghani health officials.

Meanwhile, Iran has released more videos of the "frightened fifteen", which purport to show that they were having a very jolly time, indeed. Of course, it is never possible to tell what goes on behind the camera, the pictures do sound staged and it is a natural instinct to make the best of any situation, but, surely, here is another reason why there should be a Board of Inquiry held: the sailors and marines say that those earlier videos were propaganda produced through psychological pressure but the Iranian government says nothing of the kind but the press conference is propaganda. Let the truth be established in such a way that the world can see it.

Meanwhile, all we know is that the BBC has decided not to commission a play about Johnson Beharry VC and his heroism because, it seems, that it might just be a tad too positive and might antagonize members of the audience who oppose the war in Iraq. My guess is that it is not those nice middle-class audience in Islington or wherever that they are afraid of but one cannot be sure, of course. May one point out that in a country that is finding it difficult to define its national identity, where there are serious problems with some members of various ethnic minority communities a play about one such young man fighting courageously, doing his duty and much beyond it, and receiving the highest honour available, might just be a useful tool. Especially, if it is then followed by a programme about the Empire and Commonwealth soldiers of all Britain's twentieth century wars.

COMMENT THREAD

The heroes of not long ago

Sometimes it is hard to believe that my generation can recall a time, not so long ago, when the United States had a great President, the United Kingdom a great Prime Minister and the Catholic Church a great Pope. As it happens, I am an admirer (without being a Catholic, so no accusations of conspiracy, please) of the present Pope and think that the Catholic Church will probably do well under his leadership. I have less faith in the incumbents of the other two positions.

John O’Sullivan’s book “The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister”, subtitled “Three Who Changed the World”, published last year in the US is now available in Britain. It covers the last years of the Cold War, the period when, with extraordinary fortuity, the West was led by three giants.

There is, as O’Sullivan points out in the book (and did so again at the British launch last week), a curious parallel between the three. For various reasons they and all around them were convinced that they would not be able to reach the top position in their chosen field for somewhat peculiar reasons. Partly the reasons had to do with age (Reagan) or sex (Thatcher) but partly it was because they were too much of what they were supposed to represent. Reagan was “too American”, Thatcher was “too Conservative” and Karel Wojtyla was “too Catholic”. Not much room for the middle ground there.

The three achieved their positions of power and responsibility within a relatively short time. Karel Wojtyla was elected to be Pope in October 1978 and took the name of John Paul II; Margaret Thatcher was elected in May 1979 becoming Britain’s first woman Prime Minister on May 4; Ronald Reagan was elected in November 1980, taking office in January 1981.

There were other parallels, not least the fact that all three narrowly escaped with their lives in assassination attempts. John O’Sullivan describes what might be viewed as a series of coincidences, though he chooses to see it otherwise at the beginning of Chapter Three, entitled “Did God Guide the Bullets?”

If life were a supernatural thriller, the next plot twists would have been expected. Twenty-six months separated the elections of John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher began her premiership roughly in between. Fewer than three months (to be precise, seventy days) separated Reagan’s election and the attempt on his life by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981. John Paul II narrowly survived an attempted assassination a mere forty-three days later, in May 13. And three years later Thatcher escaped unharmed when an IRA bomb intended to kill her exploded in the Grand Hotel in Brighton on October 12, 1984, killing five people and wounding many others, including her close friend and ally Norman Tebbit.

There is an almost cinematic neatness about this series of crimes. In The Omen or The Exorcist they would be readily explained as the forces of Satan seeking to destroy the apostles of hope before they could do too much good (though a more formulaic film director than God would have insisted that Satan move his attempt on Thatcher’s life up to 1981). This slightly eerie impression is reinforced by the extraordinary narrowness of the escape of all three intended victims. At least two of those intended victims believed that God had intervened to preserve their lives, and guided their later action by the light of that belief.

Assassinations have sometimes altered the course of history; the First World War arose from one. On these occasions, it was the failure of assassination that may have altered history.

The book traces the preceding and subsequent careers of the President, the Pope and the Prime Minister, laying special emphasis on the Cold War and the fight against the Soviet Union with its many tentacles. It is worth reading this book if only to remind oneself of the many, seemingly disparate problems, crisis, upheavals and wars, that were, in reality, caused by the activity of the Soviet Politburo and its minions in various countries.

It is, as it happens, worth reading the book, anyway. Some time ago, on another site, I described it as the “must-read” for all conservatives. Actually, it will be the “must-read” for all those who are interested by the way the Cold War was won (even if we do seem to be losing the peace) and to whom the ideas and ideals of the West are dear even when the actual events seem to be going the wrong way.

The story weaves its way through public and private events, relying on written accounts and personal reminiscences, not least those of O'Sullivan himself, former Daily Telegraph journalist and former speech writer to the Iron Lady. In case we have forgotten, there is a good deal about the sheer venom that all three had to suffer from throughout the years of political power and, in the case of Reagan and Thatcher, afterwards. The whirligig of time brings its own. Who will remember all those silly snobbish comments about Thatcher being a grocer's daughter and, therefore, rather vulgar or Reagan being nothing but a second-rate Hollywood actor (which is untrue in itself - he was much better than that)?

One of the extraordinary aspects of this book, and it is a tribute to the author, is that I found it an exciting read, despite remembering very clearly all the major and many of the minor events described in it. What is going to happen next, one keeps asking oneself, while knowing full well the answer.

Let me quote some words of Ronald Reagan’s (observant readers of this blog know that I am something of a fan of his) from the speech he made to a group of World War II veterans at Pointe du Hoc, on June 6, 1984:

Here in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Who could put it any better? As it happens, one of the Great Three is still around and was present at the launch, looking extremely well in a purple outfit, ready to talk to anyone who wanted to and equally ready to sign the book for anyone who plucked up courage to ask. (Oh yes, the author did get a look-in.)

It is, I cannot help feeling, up to us to ensure that the legacy of the President, the Pope and the Prime Minister is not dissipated. Yes, I know, the first question that will be asked is "who is this we, paleface".

A catastophic error?

Kelvin Mackenzie, former editor of The Sun, calls the decision to allow publication a "catastrophic error" and Lord Heseltine, former defence secretary, is fuming. All rules, regulations, discipline and traditions had been thrown aside in ways that were quintessentially New Labour, he said.

That man then went on to say that there must be an inquiry into who made the decisions to put the boats into such a vulnerable position and this blog's world is now turned upside down, finding ourselves in some agreement with the Lord High Europhile himself.

Mackenzie, on the other hand, retails how the Number 10 spin doctors were contacting all the main media offices last week, offering "help with their editorials". Looking through the prism of his relationship with No. 10, however, he thinks that the concern was that they were losing the propaganda war with Iran, and that is how he then sees the publication of the boarding team's stories.

The indications are, though, that both Mackenzie and Heseltine have got it wrong. The decision to allow the "frightened fifteen" to publish looks more like "old Navy" than "New Labour". To judge by the reaction of the CGS, Richard Dannatt, this was very much a Navy "do", orchestrated not by Downing Street - nor even by the MoD - but by the Admiralty.

This does suggest that the real agenda is still about saving the skins of a few over-paid, under-performing officers like Commodore Nick Lambert and, ultimately, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jonathon Band. It seems that the Navy brass, in their rush to cover their own backsides - and hide the real catastrophic errors - are holding the entire political establishment to ransom, and causing inestimable damage to the Navy in the process. Funny, not even the Iranians did that.

COMMENT THREAD

Another one down…

The Union Jack was lowered for the last time in another bit of Basra yesterday, this time the British Army base at the Shatt al Arab Hotel – the northernmost of our bases in the city – as it was handed over to the Iraqi Army's 10th Division.

A number of Middle East papers carried the news, and the CNN website ran it but, at the time of writing, no mainstrean British news media had reported it. Thus does our inexorable retreat continue unremarked, leaving the British population largely ill-informed.

The Old State Building in the centre of Basra went on 20 March, also to the 10th Division of the Iraqi Army – although there are no reliable reports as to its fate. The massive Shaiba logistics base, to the south of the city – based on an old Iraqi Air Force air base – will go later this month and Basra Palace is expected to follow by late summer.

That will leave Basra Air Station, five miles to the west of the city, in which British forces will concentrate for as long as our government feels the Shia militias need target practice.

In command is Major-General Jonathan Shaw, who seems well-versed in Blair-speak. He decribes this process as a "repositioning" rather than a withdrawal, and denies hotly any suggestion that his troops have been "bombed out" of their other bases.

Nevertheless, there is recognition that the situation on the ground is not secure, so there is no longer any talk of handing over control of Basra province by the spring.

The human cost of the retreat, however, is high and likely to increase. As others have done before, The Sunday Telegraph reports fears that, hemmed into their single, isolated base (with very few roads into the city), troops will be prey to ambushes, leading to a significant increase in casualties.

Even now, virtually every time patrols venture onto the streets, they are attacked by heavily armed insurgents, or roadside bombs. And, with easily observable routes from Basra Air Base into the city, insurgents are able to observe military movements and set up their ambushes in good time. British commanders, The Telegraph says, now admit that the number of attacks against coalition forces are beginning to escalate dangerously.

Movement by military convoys around the city is also becoming increasingly more difficult and even the shortest journey borders on being a major operation, with routes having to be cleared by Army dog handlers checking "vulnerable points" - such as areas where roads narrow - for hidden explosives.

Thus, we are told, the eight miles to the airport can take more than five hours to travel because it is no longer possible to take a direct route in and out of Basra. And, says one officer, "it is only going to get worse."

On the back of the Iran hostage debacle, however, even strong supporters of the British presence in Iraq – like this blog – are losing faith in the military's ability and will to contain the situation. Public support – fragile at best – is ebbing fast and military morale, already low, has plunged even further as troops come to terms with the humilation dealt to them by the kidnap of the British hostages.

With the Iranian-backed Shia militias emboldened by Ahmadinejad's propagada coup, and a British new prime minister shortly to take over the reins - himself not an enthusiast for military adventures - it can only be a matter of time before the inevitable happens, and the "repositioning" does become a complete withdrawal.

Marking the end of the road for Britain as a credible military power, as it stands, the situation does not look to be recoverable.

COMMENT THREAD

"We apologize"

"I'm here to tell you we did it right, no apologies necessary on our part."
Lt. Shane Osborn, USN, Commander of EP-3E Mission.


A reader drew our attention to the incident on 1 April 2001 when Lt. Shane Osborn, USN and his 24 crew were held captive by Chinese authorities for 11 days after a Chinese fighter aircraft had collided with their EP-3E Orion surveillance aircraft near that country's coast. They had been forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan island in China and endured threats of endless imprisonment and demands for public apologies.

Reconstructed from a number of reports (here, here, here, here and here), the accounts tell of Chinese soldiers surrounding the aircraft after the emergency landing, the Chinese pilot having crashed into the sea, presumed dead. One crewmember later described the face-to-face standoff with the Chinese as tense, with confusion on both sides about how to react.

The accounts also have Osborn saying that his crew quickly vowed to resist to the best of their ability, for as long as humanly possible. "The blood was not going thin on my watch," he said. "We were nowhere near our breaking point. We still had a lot of fight left in us."

On the 10th day of captivity, the Chinese even told Osborn he and his crew could go home that day if they confessed to violating Chinese airspace, a fact Osborn and the U.S. denied. He gathered his crew together and shared the Chinese offer.

"We were all scared, unsure how long we'd be there," he said. "But I told them that there have been a lot of people who have been through a hell of a lot worse than we had been. I said I'd be old and gray before that [apology] happened. It was clear from the crew's faces that that was not a deal we were going to make."

"You don't want to be used for propaganda, if you can help it," he said. "You certainly don't want to take responsibility for something you are not responsible for."

Co-pilot Lt. Patrick Honeck said, "The first day or so, we didn't know if we were going to be roughed up or anything, but as the time went on, we realized that they were more into the psychological aspect of it, trying to get us to talk," he said. "And we weren't really too afraid for our physical being."

Throughout the detention, the Chinese warned the US crew that they were carrying out a detailed investigation of the incident and there could be a trial depending on the outcome. Officials pressed constantly for information about the equipment aboard the aircraft, said Navy Lt j.g. Richard Payne. "Every interrogation I was in, they asked about the equipment," he said.

Payne said they didn't know they were being released until they were moments from boarding the chartered jet to Guam. Afterwards, he told reporters, "You all knew before we did." But, he said, when they (the crew) finally were told, "nobody showed any emotion at all. The first outburst came when the Continental jet took off."

A website at the time mocked up an apology for Lt. Osborn and his crew (above). "We returned with honor," said Osborn. And the US Navy got its aircraft back.

COMMENT THREAD

Balls

Illustrating the continued unease at the behaviour of the "frightened fifteen", it is today the turn of The Sunday Express to deliver a snub to Leading Seaman Turnoff and her cohort of warriors (not), fresh from their diabolical torture at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition Iranians.

Yet it goes further than the Daily Mail yesterday and ignores completely the fifteen, focusing on its front page on the death of the two women soldiers from the bomb in Basra last Wednesday. In so doing, however, it also highlights the sister of the murdered officer, Holly Dyer.

She is also an officer, on leave from Iraq. And, after attending the funeral of her sister, she must complete her tour of duty in that country. Like Mrs Thatcher before her, it seems some of our "finest" women – as The Express calls them - have more balls than some of the men around them.

This is all the more reason why there must be a proper inquiry into the events surrounding the abduction on 23 March of our boarding team from the Northern Arabian Gulf, and while there has been a robust discussion on our forum as to the meaning of courage and cowardice, there is no disagreement that the senior officers involved in this debacle are displaying the highest form of cowardice.

By setting up their "lessons learned" cover-up instead of a properly constituted Board of Inquiry, and throwing their junior ranks to the media wolves, these officers are creating a smokescreen which obscures the more important issues. Effectively, they are hiding behind the skirts of Leading Seaman Turnoff – if she ever wears any.

It is precisely this "lessons learned" technique to which Christopher Booker turns in his column today, telling us:

The best way to cover up a catastrophic official blunder, as Tony Blair showed us after the 2001 foot and mouth disaster, is not to allow an independent inquiry but instead to stage a carefully-controlled "lessons learned" exercise. The same technique will be used, it appears, to bury the serious questions arising from the way the Royal Navy exposed a boarding party to humiliating abduction by the Iranians.

Booker too wants to know why Commodore Lambert did not make proper use of the forces under his command, including helicopters, when the Iranians had given plenty of warning that they were looking for a chance to interfere. Was he too preoccupied with the presence on his ship of a BBC film crew, Booker then asks, or was the chance to show off the British mounting a boarding exercise on their own, and with a woman in the front line, too good to miss?

Certainly, he concludes, there could be no better way to ensure that such questions are not publicly asked than by keeping the whole thing firmly "in house" and under wraps. A 2001-style "lessons learned" inquiry would ensure that the rest of us need learn nothing that the Navy and the government don't want us to know.

It is here that we need a really robust opposition, to prevent the government getting away with this transparent ploy. But – as we have already remarked – there is little sign of a masculine response from the Conservative's defence spokesman, Liam Fox.

But if Fox himself is limp-wristed, what price The Great Leader, none other than the Boy King, David Cameron? On the Conservative Party website, he welcomes the release of the hostages and then says that "both sides should learn lessons for the future". Both sides? Now there's a stirring call to action for you, from the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition.

Balls? Forget it!

COMMENT THREAD

Sunday's quotation

I expect we shall have some alternative quotations, all or most of military nature and that is fine with me. However, I thought I'd get in there first.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first anarchist thinker, who came up with that fatuous statement about all property being theft is not usually somebody I quote freely. He was unusual in one respect: unlike the overwhelming majority of anarchist and socialist thinkers he did come from a poor family. His parents were peasants and he worked as a cow-herd in his childhood.

He did get some education through his parents' efforts, worked as a printer and taught himself many things, including Latin. He emerged as a leading thinker on the left in his thirties.

The following comment seems to me to encapsulate a good deal of truth.

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, and commanded by beings who have neither title, knowledge, nor virtue.

This applies to all parties and all political systems (so, please, no displays of Blair Derangement Syndrome), though it was particularly apposite for mid-nineteenth century France.

Of course, Proudhon, being an anarchist did not bother to discuss too much what government should be like, wanting to dispose of it completely and have life run by various forms of co-operatives, syndicates and mutural societies instead.

A loathsome ploy

This is very, very clever. But it also represents the very nadir of a loathsome government which is more interested in spin and its own survival than it is the welfare of the nation and the safety of its own troops.

According to the BBC, the "frightened fifteen" are to be allowed to sell their stories to the media and keep the money.

The Ministry of Defence has said their experiences amounted to "exceptional circumstances" that allowed its usual ban on such payments to be lifted. We are told that the MoD has said: "Serving personnel are not allowed to enter financial arrangements with media organisations. However, in exceptional circumstances such as the awarding of a Victoria Cross or events such as those in recent days, permission can be granted by commanding officers and the MoD."

What a disgusting parallel this is – to equate the action of these people with the winners of Victoria Crosses. But how deviously clever it is of a totally unprincipled MoD. Instead of seeking "closure" as I first thought, the spin meisters have evidently sussed the continued public interest in this issue.

By thus opening the gates to the "human interest" dimensions, it will feed the soap opera aspects of the Iranian hostage incident, drowning out the substantive issues in a torrent of irrelevant detail. And you can be assured that the stories will be very carefully vetted to exclude operational detail, for reasons of "national security", to ensure that nothing embarrassing leaks out.

The media, of course, will fall in with this ploy. Whatever distaste any particular newspapers might have had, greed will take over and we will see a bidding war for the rights to do the MoD's dirty work. Up front is LS Turney, who can command a premium for being the "plucky mum" in uniform.

This is far more skilful than a mere cover-up. It has been difficult enough to try to get people focused on the circumstances which led up to this episode and now it will be even more difficult. Commodore Nick Lambert can sleep easy in his bed in the coming nights in anticipation of the next honours list when he will receive his knighthood in recognition of his services to a grateful government.

Thus the rot which infects the very top of our Armed Forces will go unrecognised and unchecked. The weaknesses will remain unaddressed and the guilty will go unpunished.

For the rest, the thousands of brave and unassuming service personnel who do their duty by their country – their jobs will be inestimably harder and dangerous. And more will die.

By comparison with this government, Ahmadinejad is an honourable and principled man. As for the Navy (I can't bring myself to call it Royal), we might as well scrap it, for all the use it is.

UPDATE

According to The Sunday Telegraph, Turney is understood to have agreed a lucrative deal with ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald for a special programme to be broadcast tomorrow evening. It is thought the deal will also involve an interview with a tabloid newspaper. A source at the MoD said it involved a "life-changing sum".

The paper says it is understood that she was offered more than £100,000 to describe exclusively her experiences of the hostage crisis and the deal with ITV and the newspaper, believed to be The Sun, is thought to be worth a substantial amount.

The Sunday Times has it that critics are claiming that it (the aftermath) had become a media circus, with one former British commander saying the released hostages were behaving like reality TV contestants. The paper continues: "Others said they were being used as pawns in the propaganda war with Iran. But some former soldiers said it was a shrewd move by the MoD to control publication of the captives' stories."

Given the amount of money being paid, I suppose that's inflation for you ... it used to be 30 pieces of silver. Nelson would have hidden his head in shame. Never mind, though. Liam Fox has expressed his "concern".

COMMENT THREAD

The political dimension

It is unlikely that the prominence of the front page content of The Daily Mail this morning was entirely dictated by news values. And, if the message is not clear enough, the implied snub is made that much clearer by the headline spanning pages two and three (pictured below).

Its declaration, "An absolute credit to the Army", referring to the two women soldiers who were killed by a bomb in Basra on Wednesday night makes a marked contrast to the relegation of the Iran hostages story, which has to wait for pages six and seven for treatment.

Mercifully, none of the newspapers seem to have used the AP photograph of Seaman Batchelor, one of the captured boarding party (below left), who was snapped holding hands with not only mummy but auntie as well, a picture which does not exactly convey the martial values of this once great nation of ours. It is some small compensation that The Daily Telegraph and others carry an account of what our servicemen are still capable of doing.

In terms of news management, one can now see a certain amount of logic in the way the MoD spin meisters are handling the Iran hostages issue. By not holding back with an official Board of Inquiry, and holding a high profile news conference, objectionable though it may be, they have achieved a sort of "closure" and will now hope that the media circus will move on without looking too closely at the underlying, and even more embarrassing issues.

Here, of course, the blogs could come into their own, pursuing the aspects of the incident that the media have neither the patience nor the capability to follow but, throughout the whole affair. And, although that is precisely what we intend to do – although not with the same intensity of the least two weeks - it is quite remarkable how little comment there has been from the British blogosphere, and how superficial and ill-informed has been such comment as has found its way onto the net.

For robust and informed comment, you have to cross the Atlantic, where Michelle Malkin and her Hot Air blog, plus Redstate, National Review and others have led the way. Little Green Footballs, meanwhile, has the video showing how badly the hostages were treated.

Matching the silence of the (British) blogs has been a distinct lack of comment from the main political parties. In the early stages of the incident, this was understandable, as none would want to be seen to be handicapping the process of freeing the hostages. Now, however, when it is quite evident that the government is intent on burying the issue as fast as is humanly possible, the opposition should be in full cry, demanding answers to the hundred and once questions raised by the affair.

For sure, with Parliament in recess for the Easter holidays, the opposition is robbed of the opportunity to grandstand in the Commons, but, in some ways, getting your message into the media is actually easier. With mainstream government business in temporary suspension, the media is short of political copy and there is a good market for robust comment from opposition spokesmen.

The problem is though that, like the British blogs, the opposition – and especially the Conservative Party – has nothing interesting or original to say. We saw a taster of the line defence spokesman Liam Fox is going to take, when in his one and only BBC interview, the point to which he gave his main emphasis was the "shortage" of helicopters, which is by no means the most important of the issues to emerge and nor is it particularly relevant.

The limp-wristed response may be a function of the "girlie boy" line taken by the Boy King, who does not want his Green-Blue party to be associated with such nasty, manly issues like defence (even if women are getting killed and captured) but there must be millions of voters out there who have been appalled by this incident and want answers which the government is quite evidently unwilling to deliver.

There is, therefore, an opportunity for the opposition to shine, demonstrating an ability to get to grips with serious issues of the day and to back the government into a corner on matters that are of real interest to a very large number of potential Conservative voters. Unfortunately, it looks as if the Party is going to duck the challenge, projecting an image that is closer to Seaman Batchelor with his mummy and auntie than to one of a party which is fit and ready to govern.

COMMENT THREAD

Life goes on

Amidst all the excitement of last week and the visible disintegration of Britain’s reputation across the world, one thing remained certain: the European Union carried on producing documents.

Last week I received, as I do every fortnight, a House of Lords form that lists all the European Printed Papers that have become available in the period of time that elapsed from the previous form. This document is yellow, to distinguish it from the pink one that lists all the Parliamentary Printed Papers. They are both A5 in shape.

The form dated 30th March 2007 has just over 10 sides of A5 for the listing of European documents and another side or so for Explanatory Memoranda, produced by our own civil servants, to explicate documents that had been in the previous list. With me so far?

Let us go into a little detail because these are the documents that have enabled Britain “to punch above her weight” and “to have a greater influence on world affairs”.

The first side of A5 merely lists fifteen editions of the Official Journal of the European Union, in itself a compilation of Information and Notices (Series C) and Legislation (Series L). A careful perusal of these interminable Journals will give anyone a clear (though mudlike in complexion) view of what is coming in from the European Union into this country by way of legislation, regulation and just general mayhem. I recommend a course of it to anyone who thinks the “European issue” is of little significance.

Moving right along, we come to Tenders and there is only one document listed, Contrax Weekly, Part One, undoubtedly of importance but I may have lost the will to live as I tried to find it on the internet.

Then there are the Working Documents. On 30th March there were 26 listed. It is not possible for me to copy all the titles, so I shall give a few examples, in order that our readers appreciate what a valuable contribution all this makes to our well-being and how far it all enhances our standing in the world.

A6-0019/2007 5th February 2007 - *Report on the Proposal for a Council Decision on authorising Member States to ratify, in the interests of the European Community, the 2006 Consolidated Maritime Labour Convention of the International Labour Organisation.

Then we get three reports, proposals and recommendations from the European Parliament on the EU negotiating for various agreements with the Andean Community and its members, the countries of Central America and something to do with Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is just in case anybody thinks that individual countries in the European Union can negotiate by themselves.

A6-0032/2007 8th February 2007 – Report on Biotechnology: Prospects and Challenges for Agriculture in Europe.

A6-0033/2007 8th February 2007 – Report on a Roadmap for equality between women and men (2006 -2010)

A Roadmap, one must assume, will lead to Decisions and Recommendations, possibly to Regulations, there being plenty of Directives on the subject.

The next one is rather sinister as, theoretically, the Charter of Fundamental Rights has no powers until the European Constitution has been ratified and implemented.

A6-0036/2007 12th February 2007 – Report on compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Commission’s legislative proposals: methodology for systematic and rigorous monitoring.

A6-0036/2007 1st March 2007 – Report on the future of professional football in Europe.

The next one is a real corker. How anyone can doubt that this will improve Britain’s standing in the world, I cannot understand.

A6-0038/2007 1st March 2007 - *Report on the Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No. 1883/78 laying down general rules for the financing of interventions by the European Agricultural Guidance and guarantee Fund, Guarantee Section.

A6-0039/2007 1st March 2007 – Report on local authorities and development cooperation.

I am going to skip a few Working Documents as I do not want to be held responsible for the fatalities among our readers. A bit further down we get the following four:

A6-0043/2007 2nd March 2007 - ***I Report on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning integrated pollution prevention and control (codified version). [That means a Directive to bring together all previous Directives on the subject with a few additional points.]

A6-0044/2007 2nd March 2007 – Report on the islands and natural and economic constraints in the context of the regional policy.

A6-0045/2007 2nd March 2007 - ***I Report on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the identification of controls, tell-tales and indicators for two- or three-wheel motor vehicles (codified version).

A6-0046/2007 2nd March 2007 - ***I Report on the amended Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on injunctions for the protection of consumers’ interests (codified version).

Of course all these proposals for Directives will, in the fullness of time, become just that, possibly in a version that is even less palatable than the original proposal. And Parliament will not be able to do anything about it, though, I have no doubt, there will be much wailing about the lack of scrutiny.

As I am now rapidly losing the will to live I shall quote only three more Working Documents before going on to Draft Legislation:

A6-0054/2007 5th March 2007 – Report on a Thematic Strategy for the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources.

C6-0011/07 Commission Staff Working Document – summary of the Impact Assessment: Inclusion of Aviation in the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

C6-0061/07 Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 98/70/EC as regards the specification of petrol, diesel and gas-oil and introducing a mechanism to monitor and the introduction of a mechanism and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the use of road transport fuels and amending Council Directive 1999/32/EC, as regards the specification of fuel used by inland waterway vessels and repealing Directive 93/12/EEC.

No, I know that last one makes no sense at all but I have copied it as it is written and can only surmise that whoever was putting together this document became catatonic with boredom.

So let us pass on to Draft Legislation. Only 25 in this lot and some of them are of secondary importance. This one, for instance:

5553/07 ADD1 Commission Staff Working Document – “Joint Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion 2007” – Country profiles.

Or this one:

5553/07 ADD2 Commission Staff Working Document – “Joint Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion 2007” – Supporting document.

There are several documents to do with military operation in DR Congo (well, not so much military as sort of being around, though not too close to the scene of action during the elections) and the establishment of a possible International Civilian Mission in Kosovo.

Still, here is an honest to goodness Regulation:

7291/07 Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No. 527/2003 authorising the offer and delivery for direct human consumption of certain wines imported from Argentina which may have undergone oenological processes not provided for in Regulation (EC) No. 1493/1999.

And another one:

7371/07 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation No. 11 concerning the abolition of discrimination in transport rates and conditions, in implementation of Article 79(3) of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and Regulation (EC) No. 852/2004 of the European Parliament and the Council on the hygiene of foodstuffs.

And one honest to goodness Directive, the only part of all this taradiddle that is actually going to have to go through Parliament though, probably, only as secondary legislation:

7292/07 Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators, as regards the implementing powers conferred on the Commission.

Anyone interested in embarrassing any MP might like to ask about this proposal and what it might entail.

One more Directive and I shall let you all go:

7512/07 Proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 2003/96/EC as regards the adjustment of special tax arrangements for gas oil used as motor fuel for commercial purposes and the coordination of taxation of unleaded petrol and gas oil used as motor fuel.

So it goes, week after week, month after month, year after year, regardless of elections, parliamentary sessions and world events.

COMMENT THREAD

Heads must roll

The kindest thing one can say of the press conference organised by the MoD yesterday afternoon, to show off the released Iranian hostages, is that it should never have happened.

If the Navy was actually serious about carrying out an inquiry – even if it is of the watered-down "lessons learned" variety – then the last thing it should have done was expose some of the key witnesses to media scrutiny, with carefully pre-prepared and rehearsed statements. Although the issue is not formally sub judice the same general provisions must surely apply, in order not to prejudice any findings.

However, by his behaviour this morning (see also here) before the statement by the two recently captive officers, Lieutenant Felix Carman RN and Royal Marine Captain Chris Air, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band has already delivered his judgement on the conduct of the boarding crew. That rather makes any findings which may emerge from any inquiry redundant, and the inquiry itself a charade.

And, by delivering his injunction not to second-guess "decisions that operational commanders and other people make," defence secretary Des Browne has effectively given carte blanche for the charade to continue.

This is a very foolish move which he may have cause to regret. He could have (and should have) stood aloof from the fray, behind the scenes insisting on a properly constituted Board of Inquiry, then announcing that he would stand by the findings. That way, he could rightly disown any responsibility for what in fact were operational decisions.

All that said, with the benefit of the press conference transcript to hand, we can agree with the officers' decision not to resist the Iranians – in the circumstances in which they found themselves.

It makes an interesting contrast with the December 2004 incident, where the boarding team remained on the ship they were inspecting, when challenged by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, while their boat(s) returned to the mother ship – the team eventually being lifted out by helicopter.

Since the officers have put their own conduct up to the bar of public opinion, we can have no problems with judging them. In that they appeared to have seen, from the vantage point of the boarded freighter, the approach of two Iranian boats, and decided then to return to their boats, this seems to be an unforced error. Like the 2004 crew, they might have been better off remaining on the freighter, sending their own boats away to avoid capture.

That apart, it seems more clear than ever that the capture could not have happened had a warship been standing off to protect them. It is even questionable whether it would have happened had the Lynx remained on guard, as it seems – according to the new narrative – that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards only approached after the unexpected departure of the helicopter.

It also seems, according to Carman and Air, that the boarding team contacted the ship to ask why the helicopter had gone, and was in contact when the Iranians approached. Here, therefore, there appears to be a conflict between this account and that offered by Commodore Nick Lambert.

Shortly after the event, he told the BBC that the boarding had been compliant and that the leader of the boarding party cleared the captain to continue with this business. After that, said Lambert, "we lost communications with the boat, but we did have a helicopter in the air – we always have a helicopter flying top cover – and our understanding is that the boarding party returned to its boats and was promptly arrested by a group of Iranian patrol boats…".

It is precisely to resolve such conflicts that there should be a Board of Inquiry and, for exactly the same reason, the boarding officers' evidence should not have been rehearsed in an informal context before it had been properly heard and evaluated.

That said, we are by no means alone in our criticism of actions taken in relation to this incident and, on yesterday's BBC Radio 4 PM programme – after the press conference – Max Hastings was insistent that the key question must now be how the boarding party was put in the position of being so vulnerable.

He was also highly critical of the lax attitude of the Navy, remarking that the Army had been fighting a "proxy war" with Iran for the last three years, yet the Navy did not even seem to be on a war footing. The operation, he said, had been treated, "apparently as if it were a Sunday stroll".

This in fact was Hastings repeating much of what he had written in The Daily Mail yesterday morning, in a piece headed, "Why there must be sackings over Iran".

The Royal Navy has blundered, he wrote. "It seems unlikely that Commodore Nick Lambert, the local commander off Iraq, will gain promotion to admiral, or deserve to." And, he adds, "Blame must go higher than the Commodore … Some naval heads must roll for the Iranian fiasco. It will not do merely to let officers 'retire with honour' at the end of their present postings. When a fiasco of this magnitude takes place in any walk of life, those responsible must not only be sacked, they must be seen to be sacked."

It was at that point that Hastings was under the impression that there would be a Board of Inquiry and his own fears of a "naval whitewash" now look exceedingly likely to be realised. But, with Band leading the cover-up attempt, apparently endorsed by Des Browne, it appears that they too are putting their careers on the line.

They should know that, in the way of these things, it is often the attempt to cover-up, rather than the original events, which destroy the players.

COMMENT THREAD

Compare and contrast

From a statement of the freed British sailors and marines, read out by their two most senior members, Lieutenant Felix Carman, 26, and Royal Marine Captain Chris Air, 25.

...we were flown to Tehran and transported to a prison where the atmosphere changed completely. We were blindfolded, our hands were bound and we were forced up against a wall. Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure.

Later we were stripped and then dressed in pajamas. The next few nights were spent in stone cells, approximately 8ft by 6ft, sleeping on piles of blankets. All of us were kept in isolation.

We were interrogated most nights, and presented with two options. If we admitted we had strayed, we would be on a plane back to the UK soon. If we didn't we faced up to seven years in prison. We all at one time or another made a conscious decision to make a controlled release of non-operational information.

From the Wikipedia entry for Lance Peter Sijan (April 13, 1942 – January 22, 1968), a United States Air Force Officer and fighter pilot. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military award, for his selflessness and courage in the face of lethal danger.

Sijan was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1942 from a Serbian father and Irish mother. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1965, and after attending pilot training, was assigned to the 366th Wing at Da Nang Air Base, Vietnam.

On his 52nd mission, on the night of November 9, 1967, Sijan and pilot Lt. Col. John Armstrong were tasked with a bombing mission over North Vietnam. As they rolled in on their target to release their ordnance, their F-4C was engulfed in a ball of fire, due to the six bomb's fairly new fuses which malfunctioned causing a premature detonation soon after the release point.

The jet then entered a banking climb before plunging into the jungle below. Sijan ejected from his aircraft, and a search-and-rescue crew, radioed to Sijan that they were attempting a rescue. After almost a whole day of locating his position and softening up air defences in the area, the SAR forces were finally able to get one of the big Jolly Green Giant helicopters roughly over Sijan's position (during this operation over 20 aircraft were disabled, due to the anti-aircraft fire, and had to return to base.

Another aircraft was also shot down, though its pilot was rescued with ease by one of the Jolly Greens on station.) Sijan, refusing to put another person in danger, insisted that he crawl in to the jungle and have a penetrator lowered by the helicopter, instead of sending down the helicopter's Para-Jumpers to carry him. However, he couldn't reach the penetrator quick enough, and after 33 minutes the rescue team, which faced enemy fire and the growing darkness, had to return to base. Although search efforts continued the next day, they were called off when no further radio contact was made with Sijan, due to his unconscious state, and he was placed in MIA status.

With a fractured skull, mangled right hand, compound fracture of the left leg, without food and little water, and no survival kit, Sijan evaded enemy forces for 46 days (all the time "crawling" or rather scooting on his back down the rocky limestone karst on which he landed, causing even more wounds) before being captured on December 25, 1967.

Although emaciated and in poor shape, he managed to overpower his guard and escape, but was recaptured within hours. He was transported to a holding compound in Vinh, North Vietnam, where he was put into the care of other American POWs. Here, in even more pain from his wounds, he suffered beatings from his captors, but never gave any information other than what the Geneva Convention allowed. After further travel to Hanoi, Sijan suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease, died in captivity on January 22, 1968.

Sijan was promoted posthumously to captain on June 13, 1968. His remains were repatriated on March 13, 1974 and positively identified on April 22, 1974. He is buried in Arlington Park Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

* * * *

"As a professional set of Armed Forces – and you can't get a more professional set than the United Kingdom..."

First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathon Band. 6 April 2007.

COMMENT THREAD

Armchair generals

According to Reuters, defence secretary Des Browne has "castigated armchair pundits" who criticised how the naval personnel behaved. He is said to have told Sky News, "We ought to be very careful about commenting from the comparative comfort of wherever we are, when we are not out there on operations, about decisions that operational commanders and other people make."

This of course, is the line the military often takes, thus arguing for a license to do whatever they deem fit, whether competently or not, free from the inconvenience of being held responsible for their actions.

The killer phrase is more usually "armchair general", although "pundits" will serve. This is calculated to defuse criticism, especially from "gobshite civilians" whose role in the greater scheme of things is to pay the bills (such as for transporting 15 marines and sailors from Heathrow to Devon in not one but two helicopters ... how much did that cost, I wonder?) and keep their mouths shut.

When it comes to comfort and "armchairs", however, we would have a long way to go to match the splendour of the MoD.

Amongst other gems in their £2.3 billion head office refurbishment, was the purchase of 3,100 luxury Herman Miller Aeron chairs — the kind used by David Dimbleby on the BBC's Question Time — which have been described as "the most comfortable office chairs in the world". The cost is reputed to be more than £1,000 each, and not a few of these will be polished by well-upholstered uniformed rumps.

And dare we wonder what sort of chair Des Browne has in his office?

COMMENT THREAD

This whitewash won't wash

Although one would not hold out The Sun to be the fount of all wisdom, it is certainly the bellwether for a significant sector of public opinion. And, while the "frightened fifteen", clutching their "lucky bags" revel in the warm embrace of their mummies and daddies, and sundry other "loved ones", the redtop has made it clear it sees a link between the bomb in Basra and what it calls the "Tehran tyrant".

Its leader acknowledges that it was "good to see our 15 sailors and marines back on British soil yesterday" but, for all the cheers and champagne, avers that "this was not Britain's finest military hour".

John Humphrys put that very point to First Sea Lord Jonathon Band this morning. He responded: "This incident was a most extraordinary act conducted in those waters and I would not agree at all that this wasn’t our finest hour. I think our people have reacted extremely well in some very difficult circumstances."

Band then went on to justify his force's lack of preparedness by telling us to look at the boarding "in context", defining the threat in terms of protecting the Iraqi oil terminals in the Gulf from "criminals and terrorists and certainly not the Iranians". The Iranians are not the enemy, he averred. In no way are they considered the enemy. The Iranians "are not part of the scene".

Asked whether he considered the possibility that our service people might be captured by the Iranians, Band virtually squawked with indignation. "As a professional set of Armed Forces – and you can't get a more professional set than the United Kingdom – we are always assessing the balance between force protection and the task we are doing… the decision to go ahead with the boarding was entirely proper."

When Humphrys suggested that the "little boat was out of sight of the mother ship" and that "... it was a pretty cavalier approach," Band showed the ranks were truly closing, resorting to the time-honoured defence of the bureaucrat: "The procedure was correct for the situation on the ground as the commander saw it."

If that does not stink of minds already made up, I don't know what does, but the First Sea Lord could have at least waited until his "lessons learned" charade has run its course before being so confident. Now that he has made so public a claim, it will be exceedingly difficult for him to go back on his words and then admit to any major defects - thus does the cover-up progress.

Needless to say, Band dismissed any parallel between the 2004 incident in the Shatt al Arab, when three boats manned by Royal Marines were seized by the Iranians, but he is undoubtedly assuming that we know nothing about the later incident. Let me reproduce the narrative from Hot Air here:

I don't think it was widely reported, but the last time the 'wood was in the NAG' (North Arabian Gulf) (from roughly Oct '04 until Jan '05) the Brits had a standoff with the Iranians. It was early December '04 if I remember correctly when for a reason we could never ascertain, something like 5 or 6 merchant vessels ran aground trying to enter the Shatt al Arab, which is roughly the dividing line between Iranian and Iraqi waters (depending upon who you ask, as you might imagine). A British Boarding Team boarded one of the aground vessels to try to figure out why so many vessels ran aground at the same time. While in the merchant vessel, small boats from the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) surrounded the vessel and the British small boat standing by. The picture I believe is classified, but you can imagine the reaction of the guys in the RHIB when there were two IRGCN RHIBs within 20 feet, pointing AK-47s and an RPG at them. Needless to say the RHIB backed off and returned to the ship. The Boarding Team hunkered down and the diplomacy started. It ended with the Boarding Team getting lifted off the merchant via helicopter, a needlessly dangerous operation, because the Iranians gave them permission to do so by air but only until sunset. After that all bets would be off.

Then there are the more recent incursions reported by CNN, there was the Iranian attempt in September last to abduct US soldiers, the bellicosity of recent statements, the fact that the CIA had warned the British to expect reprisal attacks from Iran after America detained five suspected Iranian intelligence officers in Iraq. And there was also the Iranian action against the Iraqi naval forces in January 2006.

From all this and the activity of Iranians against land forces, taking it in its totality (plus, undoubtedly, much more that we do not know about) and potential threat emerges with the greatest of clarity. If Band is really trying to convey to us that there was no conceivable possibility of an Iranian abduction, then he is either incredibly stupid, or believes us to be. Either way, surely he cannot expect us to swallow the line that the Iranians were "not part of the scene".

However, given even the remotest possibility of Iranian action – and the very serious consequences that might ensure – we did not expect Band (and his subordinate commanders) to pawn the Crown Jewels to protect our servicemen (or even for our servicemen to take unnecessary risks.) Simply - in view of the vulnerability of the British boats - we believe it is entirely reasonable to expect the commanders on the spot to have used the assets they had available – which included other coalition warships.

Thus, we maintain that the central issue is and must remain the question of why the commanders on the spot sent two lightly armed rigid-hulled inflatable boats on their mission on that fateful day, without a warship escort. Everything else is, in our view, peripheral. Until that is resolved, for Band to pretend that, "the decision to go ahead with the boarding was entirely proper" simply won't wash.

COMMENT THREAD

The rot starts at the top

Having listened with growing incredulity to a long interview of Sir Jonathon Band, First Sea Lord, on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, the suspicion of a cover-up grows apace.

With the supposed inquiry still under way, Band denied any fault, applauding his brave young men (and woman) who did things "exactly right". You came away with the impression that everything had been done for the best, in the best possible way.

Crucially, despite the Army having to suffer their personnel being slaughtered by Iranian-backed militias, using arms supplied by the Iranians, the Band played the tune that "Iran is not an enemy". This justified the (lax) Navy attitude to the operations.

Whatever sympathy one might have for the Royal Navy is fast evaporating. Band may think that toughing it out is the way to go, but there is too much evidence of failure to brush under the carpet. All the First Sea Lord has managed to do with his denials this morning is confirm that, when an organisation starts to decay, the rot starts at the top.

COMMENT THREAD

Start of a cover-up?

We learn from the BBC's Radio 4 World Tonight programme that, contrary to expectations, there is going to be no formal Board of Inquiry into the events surrounding the Iranian hostage incident. This is from Paul Adams, the BBC's defence correspondent, who reports that the Navy is instead to carry out a wide-ranging "lessons learned process".

In the meantime, British boarding operations in the northern Gulf have been suspended and HMS Cornwall has been stood down. The command of Coalition Task Force 158 has been transferred to another (unspecified) vessel – possibly American. This probably means that Nick Lambert, the current force commander has also relinquished his command.

In the same programme, opposition defence spokesman Liam Fox was interviewed, only for him to display his (usual) lamentable lack of detailed briefing. He queried the rules of engagement, the equipment and procedures but gave most emphasis to the absence of helicopter cover, questioning whether we had sufficient helicopters and whether the absence of air cover was an effect of "the cut in the helicopter budget".

After a brief word from Lib-Dim leader Menzies Campbell, who wanted all British forces to pull out, former First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Allan West was interviewed. He complained that dealing with Iranian forces which might capture our boats at any time was "not the basis on which we have been operating over the last three years" and to cope with it would require "a completely new force mix".

It was West, however, who got closest to explaining that the Cornwall was part of a coalition force and that there was also available a "one Iraqi patrol boat and a US coastguard cutter". That, as we know, is a gross understatement - although West did also say that we had two minesweepers - but even that was not picked up by the BBC interviewer, Robin Lustig. He failed to ask the obvious question – why one of these vessels was not tasked to escort the boarding team.

The BBC, however, is by no means the only media source completely to miss the international force dimension and the extent of the assets that were available to Commodore Lambert.

For instance, in a wide-ranging piece reporting that a Navy inquiry was under way, The Times also failed to pick up this dimension.

It listed "a catalogue of errors", from poor intelligence to inadequate training and lack of firepower, and cited "naval sources" which said that clear failings had already been identified. It is also understood that a thorough review of the rules of engagement and standard operating procedures is already under way to prevent another ambush, "the second of British naval forces by Iranian vessels in three years." It has not even got that right for, as we know, this is – at the very least – the third.

The paper also focuses on the absence of the Lynx helicopter, an issue which is developing into something of a red herring as, if there had been a warship escort, top cover would hardly have been necessary.

All The Times could manage in relation to the availability of suitable vessels was to convey "doubts about whether Britain has the right ships to conduct the operations required in the shallow waters of the northern Gulf." HMS Cornwall, it said, "is a Type 22 frigate that was designed to combat Soviet submarines during the Cold War."

She is too large to operate in the confined waters of the northern Gulf coast. As a result she was several miles from the boarding party when they were ambushed and so was powerless to help.

The obligatory "expert" was then wheeled on - Jason Alderwick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who said that the Navy needed a warship more appropriate for the job, such as a small, fast and heavily armed corvette with a shallow draft that could operate right up to the Gulf coast-line.

That may be true of the Royal Navy but it is not true of the Coalition Task Force as a whole, which was more than adequately equipped – the two Cyclone-class patrol vessels being especially suitable – (USS Whirlwind pictured above – the other pictures show respectively one of the two Mk38 25mm machine guns and one of the twin .50 cal machine gun mounts - plus an Iranian Revolutionary Guard launch ... "make my day, punk!").

Thus, for all the torrent of words and the earnest study, all but The Daily Telegraph has missed the point. There was no shortage of vessels – simply that Commodore Lambert failed to deploy his assets in such a way as to afford protection to the Cornwall's boarding party.

A combination of the idleness of the media and now the absence of a formal Board of Inquiry means that this central issue is closer to being glossed over in what is looking suspiciously like the start of a cover-up.

COMMENT THREAD

No more goody two-shoes

It had to happen. Chancellor Angela Merkel, known all over the world as being immensely charming and diplomatic or, alternatively, completely character-less, seems to have been hitting out. As Blogger News Network puts it rather admiringly:

In a constructive move that is widely seen as a great step forward in increasing Germany’s international credibility, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spent the past few days pissing off [sic] and offending practically anybody she can get her hands on.

Mind you, all the victims are remarkably easy to offend: the Palestinians, the Syrian government and Irish politicians. I hasten to add that, in my experience, the Irish people are no more easy to offend than anybody else but when it comes to their politicians, tears seem to flow with great readiness.

First off, there were the Palestinians, though it is a little unclear what Chancellor Merkel has done apart from refusing to become part of their propaganda machine. Oh, silly me, that is about as offensive as one can get.

According to the Jerusalem Post

"She did everything to provoke the Palestinians during her visit," said one official. "She showed no understanding for the plight of our people. On the other hand, she appeared to be very biased toward Israel."

The official claimed that while Merkel refused to meet with families of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, she focused during her talks with Abbas on the need to release kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit, who has been held in the Gaza Strip since last June. In addition, he noted, Merkel met with the families of missing IDF soldiers during her visit to Jerusalem.

At the joint press conference with Abbas, Merkel refused to answer a question about the Palestinian prisoners in Israel, the official added. "She appeared to be obsessed with the case of Gilad Schalit," he said. "But she refused to even acknowledge the fact that we have more than 10,000 prisoners in Israel."

Another PA official described Merkel's visit to Ramallah as "extremely negative and a total disappointment." He revealed that Abbas had originally requested that the meeting take place in Bethlehem, where Christians are celebrating Holy Week.
"We were hoping to show her the wall that Israel built around Bethlehem, but she refused to go there," he said. "President Abbas was hoping to draw parallels between Israel's wall and the Berlin Wall. He wanted to remind Merkel of the days when she lived in East Berlin."

Merkel, according to the official, also turned down a request to meet with church leaders and representatives of Palestinian civil societies. "Almost all the European leaders meet with Christian leaders and representatives of civil societies," he pointed out. "But Merkel refused to do so. She did not offer any explanation and that's why we are very disappointed with her and the German government. This behavior is completely unacceptable."

Put another way, she refused to equate terrorists with a kidnapped soldier, whose fate remains unknown; completely refused to accept that the Israeli fence, built to protect the country’s people is in any way similar to the Berlin Wall, built to keep the people of East Germany prisoners; refused to listen to the propaganda of the carefully chosen “leaders” of the fast disappearing Christian community.

Let’s face it, the lady grew up under Communism. What she does not know about propaganda is not worth writing on the back of a postage stamp. No doubt, that is why she is the first of the European leaders to take this line and, while meeting Mahmoud Abbas and other politicians, to refuse a starring role in the latest episode of Pallywood.

It gets worse. On a one-day visit to Lebanon Chancellor Merkel proclaimed that Germany wanted to see an independent Lebanon and urged Syria "to cooperate with international efforts to put the suspected killers of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri on trial".

Even worse, she said that Syria should recognize Lebanon diplomatically, demarcate the border between the two countries and stop smuggling weapons into the country.

One could argue that this can be described as interference in another country’s domestic affairs (which is the way Syria regards Lebanon quite often) but it is no worse than Nancy Pelosi’s grandstanding in Damascus.

So much for the Middle East. It would appear that Angela Merkel has managed to annoy some Fianna Fail politicians by appearing to back Fine Gael.

In what Irish media interpreted as a snub to Fianna Fail leader, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, Merkel made it clear in a letter to Fine Gael she favoured a change of government.

"I hope that Fine Gael will be successful and will emerge as the strongest force from the election in May and will take over the responsibility of government," Merkel, who holds the EU's rotating presidency, was quoted as saying.

Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Fine Gael are allies in the same Christian Democratic grouping in the European Parliament.

Officially Fianna Fail cares not a jot but a few politicians, such as Martin Brady, have been making the obvious comments, advising Chancellor Merkel to stick to German politics and leave Ireland alone. I hope they and all their British colleagues will remember this when the American elections finally roll around and there will be no cheering for the Democrat candidate, whoever he or she may be or weeping, should the Republicans win.

As it happens, Merkel does not seem to have done anything heinous and the Irish politicians are being thin-skinned. Most politicians support parties in other countries they think they have something in common with.

Socialists from across the world address the Labour Party Conference and right-wing politicians used to address the Conservatives. These days it is Al Gore, the Party Formerly Known As Conservative listens to, but that is a separate issue.

Private letters to leaders of friendly parties are usually non-controversial, unless they are used as electoral weapons. But then, it is very easy to upset Irish politicians.

COMMENT THREAD

The price we continue to pay

When the Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, friend of Romano Prodi’s spokesman Silvio Sircano was released in a controversial deal that involved the release of five Taliban fighters, there were warnings that the case would serve as a precedent. (It also served as an indication of the value placed on Afghani life – Signor Mastrogiacomo’s driver was murdered and his interpreter has not appeared. Reminds one of the fact that when British and, less so, American soldiers go out on any mission or patrol they get heavy air cover. Afghanistani troops do not. Nor do their wounded get helicoptered out.)

The latest news from Kabul is that two French aid workers and their three Afghani staff have been kidnapped by the Taliban, just a week after a five-strong Afghan medical team had been kidnapped in the same area.

One presumes that little attention will be paid to the Afghanis in question, though they are more likely to be in danger, if, indeed, they are still alive. But, I expect a great deal of fuss about the two French aid workers. Will anybody ask the obvious question of what all these NGO aid workers are actually doing in Afghanistan apart from demanding a great deal of protection from the military?

COMMENT THREAD

Is this the price?

As the "frightened fifteen" were whisked away in military helicopters from Heathrow, after their arrival from Tehran this morning, we heard news that the "Arab street" is rejoicing in Basra after a roadside bomb killed four British service personnel and their interpreter, and seriously injured another soldier.

Two of the dead were women, from the Intelligence Corps and the Royal Army Medical Corps. The two male soldiers were from the Royal Army Medical Corps and 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.

Pictures of the scene (above) show locals cheering and rejoicing, parading with a soldier's helmet and fragments of the Warrior, in Hayaniya, a slum area on the northwestern outskirts of Basra - known as a stronghold of local (Iranian-backed) Shia militias.

According to a more detailed report in The Times the personnel died when a convoy of armoured vehicles was attacked by two devices last night. The patrol then came under attack from small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Witnesses tell of the British patrol having repulsed an earlier ambush by five insurgents in a different district of the city, wounding one of the attackers. During the second ambush, British forces returned fire while trying to evacuate the wounded.

Photographs of the scene showed a large crater in the road that was at least a three feet deep and several yards wide. Iraqi children (and adults) were taking away pieces of burned wreckage.

The Times (and others) also report than, after the attack, a British patrol was seen storming an Iraqi checkpoint close to the scene of and disarming the police there.

This now brings to six the number of British soldiers killed in Basra since Sunday, making it, as the paper observes, one of the deadliest weeks of the Iraq war for UK forces.

No commentators are making any link between the bomb incident and the Royal Navy hostages, but the loss of face embodied in the humiliating capture of the British personnel and their subsequent behaviour can only have emboldened attackers, who could see for themselves the weakness of British forces.

Appeasement brings its own penalties and, in the greater scheme of things, no one can argue that the events of the last 14 days have in any way improved the prestige of British forces, where winning the respect of the local populace is a vital precursor to dealing successfully with an insurgency.

COMMENT THREAD

Let me get this straight…

The Cornwall had too deep a draught – at just over 20 feet - to provide line of sight cover for the boarding party, which meant that Commodore Lambert sent in a boarding team in two rigid-hulled inflatable boats, without a warship escort.

Never mind, Lewis Page in a commentary piece in The Telegraph - of Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs fame - has the answer. He would send in "something with a lot of well-armed helicopters, boats and troops: for instance an amphibious assault ship."

"Such ships are useful for lots of missions which often crop up," chirps Lewis. "They can do disaster relief, evacuate non-combatants, or invade troublesome countries - all things which have needed doing in the last few years. If you need to fight submarines, they can also act as a base for anti-submarine helicopters."

Ships, one assumes, like HMS Ocean (pictured), which draw nearly 22 feet, displacing 22,500 tons - with a crew of 285 and embarked aircrew and marines bringing her complement to 1,275 – yet still only capable of 18 knots. And all that to inspect one small freighter parked in shallow water, guarding against a clutch of Iranian motorboats, when there were plenty of other warships available to do the job?

Is one allowed to use the word "prat" on a family blog?

COMMENT THREAD

The Royal Navy has a lot to answer for

Extracts from this morning's Daily Telegraph leader:

"…the satisfaction of a diplomatic challenge eventually handled with skill is soured by the string of psychological humiliations that Britain has suffered.

First, there is the apparent incompetence of the Royal Navy in providing insufficient protection to lightly armed inflatables, at a time when relations between Iran and the West were particularly volatile following the imposition of UN sanctions.

…

No one would pretend that it is easy to deal with a nation that, since 1979, has shown itself prepared to treat norms of diplomatic behaviour with contempt. However, the steps that led to the seizure of the 15 on March 23 must be thoroughly investigated.

It appears that the Royal Navy has a lot to answer for."

And, from a piece by Thomas Harding:

"While Cornwall had too deep a draught to provide line of sight cover for the boarding party, there were many other ships that could have given immediate back-up. Cdre Lambert has 12 warships under his command in Coalition Task Force 158, including several US Navy patrol boats capable of 35 knots and bristling with machineguns that would have outgunned the Iranians.

It has been suggested he could have ordered any one of these to "overwatch" the boarding party."

COMMENT THREAD

It's all the Americans' fault

If only they would stop behaving in such a barbaric manner.


ARABIAN SEA (Nov. 10, 2006) - Sailors from guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio's (CG 68) rescue and assistance team provide aid to the motor vessel SINAA, a 35 meter Iranian-flagged dhow. Anzio supplied the dhow with water, fuel and food to sustain themselves for the transit home after receiving a distress call from the dhow.

Anzio is deployed as part of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKE CSG) supporting Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the 5th Fleet area of operations. MSO seek to preserve the free and secure use of the world's oceans by legitimate mariners and prevent terrorist from attempting to use the maritime environment as a venue for attack or as a medium to transport personnel, weapons or other material that could support their efforts.

COMMENT THREAD

You pays your money…

… and you takes your choice. There is virtually something for everybody in the media coverage of the release of the Iranian hostages. But they can't all be right.


The BBC:

President Ahmadinejad announced the release of the 15 British naval personnel like a card player flinging down his hand to scoop the pool. Iran had good cards and played them well.

It made its point about defending its borders, dominated international television with pictures of its prisoners and their "confessions" and, when it perhaps judged that it had got as much as it could expect to out of the confrontation, ended it with a flourish.

Iran will project this as a victory (the medals given publicly to the officers who led the operation was an immediate example) against a country still viewed with suspicion in Iran because of its past interventions.

The Times:

The surprise release of 15 Royal Navy personnel on the orders of President Ahmadinejad was the result of a fierce debate within the Iranian regime rather than the product of negotiations with Britain.

When the Iranian leader suddenly announced that he was letting the British sailors and marines go, no one was more surprised than the officials involved in securing their freedom at Downing Street, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence.

The Metro:

The British sailors held captive by Iran were told they can fly home, after being released as a 'gift' to Britain – but not before Tehran humiliated them one more time.

The 14 men and one woman were paraded in front of TV cameras and were even asked by a clearly delighted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 'How are you? So you came on a mandatory vacation?'

The Daily Mail

Wearing broad smiles and shiny suits, the 15 sailors and Marines seized by Iran lined up for a farewell propaganda parade yesterday. Moments earlier, hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had dramatically freed them as an Easter "gift" to Britain.

The slick, stage-managed performance provided the final flourish to a spectacular PR coup for Tehran which left Britain humiliated in the eyes of many. The hostages, held captive for almost a fortnight, are expected to fly home today to the delight of their families and "profound relief" voiced by Tony Blair.

The Herald (Scotland)

The release of the 15 British Navy personnel in Tehran is a triumph for diplomacy. Yet to be completely successful it must now be seized as an opportunity to open genuine talks between London and Tehran. Yesterday the delighted smiles and heartfelt relief of relatives of the captured sailors and marines expressed the positive outcome to an alarming and distressing incident which should never have happened. However, a disturbing mirror image was the smiling satisfaction of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he played out the final moves in this unsavoury display of manipulation for the benefit of the cameras and microphones of the international media.

Hardblogger (MSMBC):

The Iranians have decided to release the 15 British sailors and Marines they have held hostage for over 12 days. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that he had “pardoned” the British during the celebration of the birth of the prophet, which this year almost coincides with Easter. To the world, he appears to have made a magnanimous gesture.

Good news, of course, but now comes the post mortem. There are many questions to be answered, not the least of which are what did the British give to secure the release of their service members, and will Iran pay a price for their action?

Islamic Republic News Agency:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the decision to release British sailors was made by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a present to the people of Britain.

The president, who was speaking at a press conference here Wednesday, was responding to a question by a western reporter who asked if the release of British sailors had been the result of a deal between the two governments.

President Ahmadinejad rejected the idea of 'compromise or concession' in the issue and stressed that the British naval troopers were released due to Islamic goodwill and a decision made by the Islamic Republic of Iran on the auspicious occasion of the birth anniversary of the Great Prophet of Islam Muhammad (PBUH).

He said," When we do something due to Islamic goodwill, we do not expect to receive any rewards."

NewsMax:

Washington cautiously welcomed Wednesday's announcement that Iran was releasing the 15 British soldiers and sailors it has held for nearly two weeks. Vice President Dick Cheney said "it was unfortunate that they were ever taken in the first place."

Associated Press (via The Washington Post):

With the announcement that 15 Britons were going free, Iran's hardline president retook his favorite spot on the international stage - delighting in Tehran's rising power and lecturing Western powers on their misdeeds.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad kept an unusually low profile for most of the international standoff, prompting speculation that he had been sidelined by more pragmatic figures in Iran's government, whose ultimate authority is supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Daily Telegraph:

When fighters from Iran's Revolutionary Guard seized 15 British sailors and marines in the northern Gulf 13 days ago, they ignited a diplomatic crisis in one of the world's most dangerous waterways.

On Tuesday night, two of the most powerful yet anonymous men in their respective countries quietly reached agreement to defuse the tension and free the captives.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the Prime Minister's foreign policy adviser, held secret talks with Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's national security council and his country's chief negotiator on nuclear issues. This telephone call between the two officials was the breakthrough encounter.

The Guardian:

It makes Tehran look generous rather than grudging, enabled President Ahmadinejad to project a smiley rather than a scowling persona, and may go a long way to remove the sour taste left by the whole incident in the international arena.

In the west, meanwhile, it arguably strengthens the hand of the diplomats in the ceaseless debate with the hawks over what to do about Iran. After all, the doves can say, patient negotiation won the day. After scoring an own goal, Iran can claim to have come out of the game with at least a draw.

The Independent:

This is a possibility everyone's missed - maybe the Iranians, in an effort to show the West how modern they've become, thought they'd put our marines in a house they couldn't escape from and show them each day on television in an Anglo-Iranian Big Brother. Now we've seen all of them, it will be time to start voting them off. The next broadcast will start with a voice telling us: "It's 4.57pm and Faye is still smoking in front of the map."

This could be used to recruit young people into the armed forces in a celebrity culture. Billboards will be put up showing the captives making their statement, with the slogan: "Join the Marines and get your own slot on TV." Maybe a deal can be reached with Ayatollah Khamenei, that the next lot have to perform their statements in a show called "Hostage Academy".

COMMENT THREAD

UPDATE

Last updated 20:03

Here is a link to a short film of President Ahmadinejad, happily smiling as befits the winner, meeting two of the sailors, who are shown only from their backs.

Later we see all the marines and sailors together - they are all (including LS Turney) wearing suits, which look to be reasonably good fits. Are they bespoke and, if so, how long did it take to do the tailoring? And does that beg the question as to when the decision was made to release the team?

For international comment, see the Telegraph website. Two interesting contributions were:

US defence secretary, Robert Gates: "We welcome the release of the 15 British sailors. It's too bad they were seized in the first place. It's pretty clear they were in Iraqi waters. Letting the diplomatic process work in this case was the best way forward."

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox: "We all look forward to welcoming them home as soon as possible.

"There will be questions to be asked about this whole episode, but I think it would be prudent to restrict our comments and our questions until all our personnel are back in the UK."

COMMENT THREAD

More sensitivity is required

As discussions in Britain on how to teach “emotive and controversial history” (on which there will be a posting, I promise), the subject takes a slightly different airing in other parts of the European Union.

The BBC reports that the Greek Orthodox Church, well-known for its sensitivity to others and its firm adherence to historical truth, is up in arms about a new history book. It would appear that, in order to improve relations with Turkey, the authors of a new history school textbook (you mean they have textbooks over there?) have softened the language in describing Turkey and its people.

This, according to the critics, particularly the Church, will corrupt children’s understanding of Greek history and Greek identity.

They are worried about the lack of imprecation and description of violence in two episodes of modern history: the Greek War of Independence and the Greek invasion of western Turkey after World War I followed by the successful reconquest of it by the Turkish army under Kemal Atatürk.

On the first one, the BBC says:

Once a year Greeks gather to celebrate independence. The ceremonies mark the day in 1821 when the war of liberation began and Greeks rose up against their rulers, the Turkish Ottoman empire.

It is a day of oral history for the young participants, when the country's elders recount details of Greek heroism and Turkish barbarity.

One assumes that even the elders no longer speak from memory about those battles.

The second episode is glided over:

But the new text book, which is devoid of animosity towards the Turks and omits stories of violence, takes a different approach.

This is obvious especially when it refers to the war of independence and what the Greeks call the great catastrophe of 1922 when they were driven out of western Turkey.

"There won't be any clear identity of what the Greek fights were all about and why did we want to rebel against the Turks," Jeni Tutsis, a teacher, told the BBC.

For those of our readers who are interested in that little episode let me recommend a fascinating account of it by Margaret Macmillan in her book “Peacemakers”. I doubt if the Greek Church will approve of that either.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has made a comment to the effect that the study of history was essential in order that the mistakes of the past not be repeated. Critics of the new textbook have taken it to mean that he is now siding with them but that is not altogether clear.

Failures and complacency

As the Iranian hostage situation moves into its final climax, my co-editor is covering the latest developments which appear to have resulted in an Easter release.

We must not forget, however, how these hostages came to be captured. And, in this morning's Daily Telegraph we have an article by defence correspondent Thomas Harding, which does take us a little further forward in our attempts to understand how the boarding team from HMS Cornwall fell such easy prey to the marauding Iranian revolutionary guards.

An examination of that crucial issue must not be allowed to lapse, buried in the relief and euphoria that will prevail for the next few days. The Navy and the politicos would be only too happy to see embarrassing detail forgotten.

Harding's piece itself gives good reason why the issue must not be forgotten. It is headed, "Navy accused of failures and complacency" and he has it that, according to serving officers, "Royal Navy intelligence gathering has been criticised as being 'poor' for allowing 15 personnel to fall into the hands of the Iranians".

This may have more than a germ of truth in it and, if it is the case, I suspect much of this lies at the door of Commodore Nick Lambert. As we unearth more about him, he comes over as one of those "media warriors", who runs his command with more than a weather eye on the media opportunities afforded. Thus we see (top left) another one of many media shots, this time our Nick entertaining a Sky News television reporting team, and another (right) as he addresses Cornwall's company.

Of course, having made such good friends with the media, they are now less likely to point the finger at him, which might also explain why he is being given such an easy time.

Anyhow, returning to Harding's Telegraph piece, he also conveys accusations that the training of boarding parties was also "inadequate", with insufficient funding or time for proper instruction. Others, according to Harding, have also accused the Cornwall's crew of "complacency" for not picking up the Iranian fast boats on radar and not heightening its "threat posture" after the detention of five Iranians by US forces in January.

One officer, recently returned from the Gulf, is cited as saying: "The Government has to realise if they want to carry out gunboat diplomacy then they really need to start spending money on warships that they are willing to use."

It has been suggested, writes Harding, that commanders became complacent without any serious incidents during the 66 searches in three weeks before the Cornwall's final search. But, he adds, with the American capture of five Iranians allegedly helping the insurgency in Iraq a few weeks earlier, the Navy operating in the Gulf should have been "significantly more wary" of Iran

Officers have also complained that they were never passed intelligence on what the possible Iranian navy plans were. "This was either because it was deemed that we did not have enough security clearance or that they simply did not have the any intelligence in the first place," a Navy source is also cited as saying.

The US link may well be significant – not one that we have fully explored – and that may explain the increase in Iranian naval activity reported by CNN, where Iranian boats were actually filmed in Iraqi waters.

But what is fascinating about Harding's report is the claim he records that "commanders became complacent without any serious incidents during the 66 searches in three weeks before the Cornwall's final search."

This is slightly at odds with the earlier Navy claim (also conveyed by Harding) that the Iranians had been playing "cat and mouse" for some months.

If the picture Harding offers is accurate, then it sounds deeply suspicious. After elevated activity, the Iranians, in the lead-up to the Security Council resolution – which was due the Saturday (i.e., the day after) following the Cornwall team's kidnap – an unexplained fall-off in activity, far from being reassuring, might well have triggered alarm bells.

Thus, in the last part of Harding's piece, we see him record that there was criticism "that the Cornwall's boats were sent close to the Iranian border without enough firepower or support." He then goes on to say that American boarding parties usually "have four patrol boats with at least two standing off to provide covering fire," adding that one defence expert asked why the Iranian boats were not detected more rapidly on the frigate's radar as they closed in on the Navy vessels.

On the American practice, I am not sure the claim stands up. I have reviewed now hundreds of photographs and articles on US activities in the Gulf and elsewhere, and see no evidence whatsoever of four-boat parties being used. I do see some evidence of boats standing off while the party is aboard though, but in all cases there is always a warship standing off, in visual contact and in weapons range, guarding the boarding team. That seems even the case with French Navy boarding practice (pictured).

Nevertheless, Harding gives the final word to the Royal Navy, citing a spokesman claiming that "its training was among the best in the world".

Meanwhile, adding to the growing body of evidence that the Navy was operating in very dangerous waters is this piece from January 2006 which reports on an incident where Iranians had killed an Iraqi sailor after a skirmish with "Iranian coast guard forces" which had attacked at one of its vessels. Additionally, Iran had detained at least eight other sailors, who were returned to Iraq on shortly after the incident.

Whatever else, there was clearly no room for complacency.

COMMENT THREAD

An Easter present?

If I were the Iranian government or whoever is handling the hostage situation, I was saying the other day, I would announce that as a measure of special generosity and because Britain is celebrating an important religious festival this week and week-end (several important religious festivals, as it happens) we are relasing the hos .... I mean .... captured marines.

Neat, eh? If they do that, they will not have to acknowledge anything at all; they can express their sorrow at British and Western duplicity; they can probably win in the shame/honour competition; and they can defy anyone who dares to criticize them in the near future.

Maybe they were listening. President Ahmadinejad has just announced that he will order the release as soon as the press conference is over (which must have happened by now, unless his idea of press conferences equals that of Fidel Castro's).

He has also expressed his sorrow at Britain's perfidy and the ease with which Europe, correcting himself to European Union, thus showing that he knows more than many of our journalists and commentators, blamed Iran and pinned medals on three brave Iranian Coast Guards for their courage in capturing the British "invaders".

Of course, an announcement is not the deed. We shall be watching events as they unfold.

What sort of story do these tell?

Pajamas Media links to a series of pictures of some of the 15 hostages. The pictures vary, some showing the familiar laughing groups, some faces that look considerably less happy. It is not entirely clear whether the whole group is there or whether some are missing. I thought some of our readers might like to follow the links and look through all the pictures on Farsi news. It would be interesting to know what it is those lads are looking at off camera so intensely.

How lucky we are

Remember that rebate?

Even when it was agreed, way back, Gordon with his Treasury hat on was niggling about the details, a sum of about £90 million which he reckoned should come off the annual £1 billion which Tony had given away.

This is because the deal also included lump-sum refunds to four other countries which pay considerably more into the EU budget than they get out - Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Gordon argued that the UK should get a rebate on its contributions to those refunds, as well as to the rest of the EU budget, and there has been a dispute ever since last June as to whether he should get the money

Anyhow, according to the BBC website, the EU still believes in “give and take” – we give and it takes. Gordon has given up the claim and the money will be paid into the EU coffers.

With the sudden cave-in, dark rumours are circulating that the promise to pay was in some way linked to a French agreement to VAT changes to reduce fraud, the so-called reverse charge scheme. The rumours have been vehemently denied by EU officials, which means they are almost certainly true – that is certainly the view of the Treasury.

So there it goes – in order to implement much-needed changes to the EU’s VAT system to aid the battle against fraud which since 1990 is estimated to have cost the Exchequer at least £20bn, we have to hand over another £90 million a year. The ridiculous thing is that the VAT changes were all supposed to have been agreed in December last.

Nevertheless, aren't we lucky we belong to this magnificent organisation. If they didn't keep taking all this money off us, we might be tempted to spend it on defence - and that would never do.

COMMENT THREAD

Flawed choices

The combination of the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War and the current Iranian hostage crisis – all on the top of the festering sore of the Iraqi insurgency – has prompted The Daily Telegraph to commission a YouGov poll on how the public sees the role of Britain in the world.

The results do not make happy reading. A substantial majority of Britons would clearly like to see this country scale down its world role and begin to function internationally "more like Sweden, Canada or even Belgium". The mood, writes Anthony King for the paper is "markedly post-imperial - reluctant to see Britain maintain even its present overseas commitments and totally opposed to seeing them extended further."

"If capabilities are to be matched to commitments," King continues, "most voters would prefer to see Britain's commitments reduced rather than its capabilities expanded. With the Empire now a distant memory, people evidently believe that it is time for Britain to abandon its great-power pretensions."

What immediately strikes one of this survey, of course, is the limited scope. Not least, in what we are constantly told by the political classes is an interdependent world, the options are wider than simply whether to increase or reduce our commitments.

For instance, the Europhiles would have it that we could extend our global reach by working more closely with the European Union, striving for a common foreign policy and a European defence identity, gradually moving to a single European Army in all but name.

It has to say something of how far these options have moved down the political agenda that they are not even considered in the survey, yet – if we are to believe the propaganda – the one sure way of increasing our influence in the world, for no greater expenditure, is to pool our resources with the other EU member states.

Instead, the options offered are firmly cast within a national framework, one being that, if it was accepted that Britain’s armed forces are overstretched, “what do you think this government or any other government should do?”

Depressingly, some 60 percent want Britain's commitment overseas reduced "so that British forces do not become involved in crises overseas", while a mere 30 percent want spending increased so that the forces can continue to be deployed effectively.

What makes this so depressing is that, even within the limited national framework, the options are still hopelessly limited – and based on what could well be a false premise, that our forces are indeed deployed effectively.

Taking the last proposition first, if the arguments on this blog have any merit, no one could begin to argue that the soldiers, for instance, that the marines and sailors despatched to inspect that freighter on 23 Match were in any way "deployed effectively".

Arguably, this is but one small instance. The disastrous retreat from Camp Naji in al Amarah, abandoning an expensive asset to the militias can again hardly be regarded as the effective deployment of troops, and neither can the policy of soaking up punishment for daily mortar and rocket attacks on British bases, without any effective response.

Equally, through lack of suitable vehicles and helicopters, in a deteriorating security situation in Basra, troops venturing out of their barracks have to do so in large numbers, limited the scope of operations and the reach of British forces.

One example might be that, for lack of fast, light utility helicopters to deploy small packets of troops to key locations in the city, commanders have to detach slow-moving and vulnerable convoys comprising at least two Warriors and four Snatch Land Rovers (or other vehicles such as Bulldogs). Thus, where eight or ten troops might be employed, , to great effect, upwards of 40 might be tasked to do the same job, more slowly and less effectively.

Looking at the other proposition – the argument that the options offered are too limited – respondents are asked to link capacity and expenditure so that any increase in capacity is necessarily linked with more spending.

Time and time again on this blog, however, we have sought to show that these two issues are not linked. Most recently, we argued that significantly cheaper fixed-wing aircraft could do a crucial part of the job of a £14 million Lynx helicopter, at a fraction of the operating cost. Inasmuch as they have much great endurance, they could actually do a better job, as they would still be flying when a Lynx had returned for refuelling.

Add up the millions that could be saved from operational efficiencies and from dealing with the billions wasted on misguided and – frankly – insane procurement decisions and a case could be made for improved capacity at less or equal cost.

Now, standing back from the Telegraph survey, one can only speculate what the response would be if, instead of two options, respondent were given the choice of three: reduced capacity at current or less costs, increased capacity but at increased costs, or increased capacity with the same or less expenditure.

Alas – and it says much for the inadequacies of the media and the politicians – the case for better spending has not been made. Even on our own forum we read comments which demonstrate that their authors necessarily regard more spending as a given, to the extent that the debate is lost before it has even run its course.

However, there is one more element to this debate which should be a central part of it. When the hostage crisis broke, we observed that, while we are spending a King's ransom on our subscription to the EU – devoted in part to increasing our global influence – we might be better advised to spend our money where it really matters.

What would have been the response, one wonders, if the Telegraph survey had given respondents the choice of diverting our EU subscription to increasing our defence capacity and effectiveness.

COMMENT THREAD

Not the half of it

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, Lt-Cdr Mike Critchley RN Rtd, editor of Warship World makes some interesting points about the Iranian hostage debacle.

Under the heading, "Navy needs to get its laid-up patrol vessels into the Gulf", he suggests that it is madness to have laid up at Portsmouth three vessels (Brecon – pictured - Dulverton and Cottesmore) that were converted at great cost as patrol vessels to intercept suspect shipping.

He notes that we deployed one of our remaining frigates in the fleet (HMS Cornwall), armed with the latest sensors and weapons (Goalkeeper, Harpoon, Seawolf and torpedo tubes) to protect oil flowing from Iraq, but were humiliated by small craft with the simplest small arms.

Critchley writes: "our multi-million-pound vessel was unable to join the action and defend our men for lack of water under her keel, whereas something smaller would have been appropriate."

From this he concludes that, once again, the Treasury is not giving our servicemen the kit to do the job asked of them. He thus asks that these three vessels at Portsmouth should be returned to service as soon as possible for deployment to the Gulf or even the Straits of Dover - wherever the terrorist threat exists.

That is good stuff, and it does point up the theme which we have been addressing on this blog, but Lt-Cdr Critchley does not seem to be aware that we already have two modern minesweepers out in the Gulf, HMS Blyth and HMS Ramsey.

Furthermore, Critchley does not seem to realise (or, at least, acknowledge) that we are in the Gulf working as part of a coalition team. As we reported yesterday, whatever problems Commodore Nick Lambert might have had, he had no shortage of naval assets on which to call. It was not for lack of shallow draught patrol vessels that the two boats from HMS Cornwall were sent unescorted to their rendezvous with the Iranian revolutionary guard.

However, if we do take Crichley's point that there is a general shortage of shallow-draught patrol vessels, then the situation is even worse than he makes out. Of the 12 Sandown class minesweepers built for the Royal Navy - represented by HMS Blyth and HMS Ramsey - only eight are still in service.

Three of the vessels were decommissioned following the 2003 Strategic Defence Review (another was used as a training ship) and sold to Estonia in September 2006, an episode not dissimilar to the sale of the Army's armoured Mambas to Estonia, only for them to reappear alongside unarmoured British Land Rovers in Afghanistan.

One way or another, British defence policy is looking increasingly surreal.

COMMENT THREAD

It can't get anything right…

Courtesy of The Times this morning, we learn that the amount of greenhouse gas pumped into European skies rose by up to 30 million tons last year despite the EU's pledge to lead the world in tackling climate change.

The paper cites EU commission figures which show that the much-heralded emissions trading scheme failed to achieve the cuts in industrial pollution needed to hit Kyoto targets. In 18 of the 27 EU countries, European companies and power generators produced 1.79 billion tons of greenhouse gas last year, largely because too many permits were issued under the scheme.

However, the commission is now planning to impose deep cuts in national allocation plans for 2008-12, with Slovakia cut by 50 percent and Poland by 26 percent. The Polish cut should be fun though. If that ever starts to bite, we should have an interesting little argument between the Polish government and its EU masters. More likely, the Poles – like every other country – will go through the motions and fail to meet the target.

We are so fortunate that these emissions have nothing to do with global warming – otherwise we might be in trouble.

COMMENT THREAD

The party's over

That's the view of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writing the "Monday view" in the business section of The Daily Telegraph today. The scare of a (European Union) superstate has passed.

He charts the growth of the "project" and its support from Washington but then argues that it had second thoughts in the 1980s. This turned to deep suspicion in the 1990s when Brussels acquired power ambitions, launching the euro as a challenge to dollar hegemony and the Galileo satellite network as a rival to America's GPS monopoly in space.

Now, fifty years after the Treaty of Rome, the Euro-imperialists defeated themselves by over-reaching on so many fronts. According to Ambrose, it began to fall apart in 1995 when Sweden, Finland, and Austria joined the club, eroding Rheinland supremacy. English displaced French as the Lingua Franca. The British and their allies quietly took control of key levers in the EU's engine room.

He continues:

Free market ideas won the argument, as they were bound to do given the Anglo-Saxon revival of the late 20th century. The dream expired in May 2004 with the arrival of escapees from the Warsaw Pact. To the astonishment of France and Germany, only Luxembourg and Belgium joined in denouncing the Iraq war. Washington's game paid off.

Brussels tried to ram through the European constitution before the East Europeans arrived, knowing it would be impossible afterwards. That act of hubris brought to a head the long-simmering revolt of Europe's peoples. France said No, and Holland delivered the shattering blow from which there could be no recovery.

Europols may prattle on about a fresh vote. Are they not listening to Nicolas Sarkozy, next strongman of France? Such a course would "tear Europe apart", he said, or threatened. It is unthinkable to override French, Dutch, British and Polish objections. Talk of expelling the Refusniks is preposterous.

Ambrose does not dismiss the fears of the Eurosceptics though. But, he says, the scare has passed. We are not in the euro; the EU army never got off the ground; there is no supreme court. The union has become too big to manage. Europe is now in the grip of an even faster demographic collapse than in the fourth century. And he predicts a grim future for the "project":

The most Brussels can do is to hold on to the powers it has and prevent the euro disintegrating as Club Med and the Teutonic bloc pull apart. As the Commission itself admitted in its quarterly report last week: "Persistent differentials in price competitiveness and concomitant widening current account imbalances have built up since the inception of monetary union." Rectifying this will require wage compression in the laggard countries and will be a "major challenge", it said.

Yes, EMU can keep going, but only if a resurgent Germany is willing to tolerate higher inflation. If not, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and France must deflate. Will Latin democracies swallow that?

Brussels knew from the outset that the euro could not survive hard times without an EU treasury and debt union to back it up but they assumed this would work to their advantage: a crisis would force the pace of integration. It was a calamitous miscalculation, as we may see if the euro reaches $1.40. Germany can withstand the pain: the Latins cannot.

Thus Ambrose tells us, rather than fret about an EU superstate that is withering on the vine, it is time to ponder what might happen if monetary union breaks down in acrimony. "Do we want to lose the EU altogether?" he asks.

Is the Pope a Catholic?

COMMENT THREAD

Is this quite the time?

The one thing that is not in any doubt in the entire mess of 15 British sailors and marines being captured or, more correctly, kidnapped by the Iranians is that the European Union has not distinguished itself. Far from being a bulwark of strength, it has done little more than mentioned how nasty the Iranians are, refusing to “flex its economic muscles” as Timothy Garton Ash, the leading “perestroika” Europhile of this country sadly concludes in the Los Angeles Times.

Europe, he notes, has not even realized there is a crisis. Well, possibly because it is not their crisis. (Why the British government has not realized there is a crisis is something else.)

The EU is by far Iran's biggest trading partner — more than 40% of Iran's imports and more than a quarter of its exports are with the EU. Remarkably, this trade has grown strongly in the last years of looming crisis. Much of it is underpinned by export credit guarantees given by European governments, notably those of Germany, France and Italy. According to the most recent figures available from the German economics ministry, Iran is Germany's third-largest beneficiary of export credit guarantees, outdone only by Russia and China. Iran comes second to none in terms of the proportion of German exports — up to 65% — underwritten by the German government. As the squeeze grows on Iran from U.N. sanctions, and as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fails to deliver on his populist economic promises, this European trade becomes ever more vital for the Iranian regime.

In the House of Commons earlier this week, a former foreign secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, asked if Britain's European friends, and Germany, France and Italy in particular, might be prevailed on to convey to Iran, perhaps privately in the first instance, the possibility that such export credit guarantees would be temporarily suspended until the kidnapped Europeans are freed. I gather that if such private pressure is not forthcoming, Britain might be tempted to raise the suggestion more formally at a meeting of European foreign ministers in Bremen this weekend.

So here's a challenge for the German presidency of the EU. Will you put your money where your mouth is? Or are all your Sunday speeches about European solidarity in the cause of peace and freedom not even worth the paper they are written on?

Well, we know the answer to that and sad though it makes me to watch Professor Garton Ash sobbing his heart out, I suggest it is time that he took some kind of a reality check. Why in goodness name should the Europeans do anything to help the British if they cannot see that the war the terrorists, armed, trained and funded by Iran, are waging is a war against us all?

Another serious Europhile has been sobbing into his cups this week-end. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has gone beyond speaking in the Commons. In this week’s Observer he has noted sadly that “Europe has failed us in the Iran crisis”.

There was, however, one other approach that would have a good chance of succeeding. The members of the EU aspire to having a common foreign policy. What better issue could there be on which our French, German and Italian allies and partners could show solidarity with the UK and demonstrate the benefits of joint action?

The best means of pressure would have been the export credit guarantees that are given to assist trade between Iran and western Europe. These, together with banking and other financial facilities are the soft underbelly of the Iranians and their withdrawal could do significant damage to Iran's already weak economy.
Such measures have already been canvassed by the Americans in respect of Iran's nuclear defiance.

The firm statement made by EU foreign ministers calling for the 'immediate and unconditional' release is welcome. But the apparent lack of any agreement over economic pressure has two serious consequences. First, it makes it very unlikely that Britain will be able to secure the release of the service personnel in the short term. Second, it is now almost inevitable that Iran will try to impose conditions from the international community and, in particular, the US, on their ultimate release.

This lack of agreement shows how hollow are the aspirations to a common European foreign policy. France and Germany should be ashamed at their refusal to assist their European partner in a humanitarian cause of this kind. If there had been a political will, there could already have been agreement.

Indeed. But, of course, that is not how the European Union views such crises. A crisis is not there to be solved, it is there to be utilized ex post facto in the great project for further integration. After all, exactly what does a common foreign policy mean among 27 countries who have no common interests?

Meanwhile Ségolène Royal has continued to make tough statements about Iran and has insisted that there should be European sanctions on Iran until the sailors are released. Her chief rival, Nicolas Sarkozy has expressed himself horrified but did not actually manage to suggest any course of action.

Our readers will be glad to hear that the European Foreign Policy Supremo, Javier Solana takes a more sanguine view of the situation as a whole.

In his overview of the European Union’s foreign policy in 2007 to the European Parliament, Solana identified various issues as likely to cause problems: Arab-Israeli dispute, Darfur, Iranian nuclear stand-off and Kosovo. He condemned the seizure of the 15 British marines and then announced

that there was "major desire" around the world for a strong EU foreign policy and reminded them that the EU has 10 international military missions and plans more in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Later in the debate Joseph Daul of the European People's Party took up this theme when he said that EU foreign policy should encourage freedom around the world.

It is not entirely clear how that “major desire around the world” is expressed as most commentators either have no idea that such a thing is possible or express some puzzlement at its failure to do anything whenever there is a crisis. No amount of international missions will make up for a complete lack of purpose, encouraging freedom around the world not being particularly high on anybody’s agenda in the European Union. Especially not the freedom of 15 British captives in Iran.

COMMENT THREAD

Sigh, deep sigh

It is not so much the big issues like the performance of the British navy in Iraq that make me despair. After all, a casual reading of, say, Pepys’s diary will indicate that there have been ups and downs in British naval and military history before. I am never impressed by people on the forum who throw examples of past glory at me, shouting that we have reached an unprecedented low point. Those examples are always selective.

No, it is the smaller things that are infinitely more depressing. The feeling that one goes round and round in circles and nothing one does makes the slightest difference in the way matters are seen and comprehended.

Take this question by the infinitely well-meaning Baroness Byford put to HMG last Thursday:

Whether they will take steps to increase the amount of British food which is publicly procured.

I speak as someone who has, on occasion, tried to explain to the good lady that legislation to do with the public procurement of anything when the contract’s value is over £100,000 comes under EU legislation, namely the Public Procurement Directive. I might as well have spared myself the trouble. Neither she, now anyone else who took part in that short debate, including Lord Rooker who was replying on behalf of HMG seemed to be aware of this interesting piece of legislation.

It is true that there are certain ways of getting round it when it comes to food for some institutions not by using the term “local” but by making freshness and, possibly, organic quality a condition laid down in the contract. Of course, whether small producers can supply enough food to cater for a largish public department is a separate question. As is the rather wild assumption that British produced food is always better. This view, I can assure our readers, is not shared by a very large proportion of the British population, never mind the rest of the world. (Though I, personally, maintain that if you know where to shop you can get the best.)

Getting back to the Starred Question in the Lords. Lord Rooker’s reply was masterly in its lack of precise information:

My Lords, the Government are continuing to take steps to encourage and help public bodies to increase opportunities for small and local food producers, as shown by the guidance tools, the case studies and other information published on the public sector food procurement initiative website.

He was reminded by Baroness Byford that precious little progress has been made on this issue with HMG not knowing precisely which department in Whitehall sources British food and which does not. That is not altogether surprising. After all, HMG never knows what any Whitehall department does in any way.

Lord Rooker became quite huffy:

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a bold allegation, which I do not think is borne out by the evidence. In 2006 we produced Selling to the public sector—a guide to the Public Sector Procurement Initiative for farmers and growers; we produced the red tractor scheme for safe, assured and traceable food for the public sector; and this year we published the DIY guide to implementing the PSFPI—advice for practitioners, which is full of modules and case studies for farmers and local producers to get a grip on this.

The record of Whitehall departments is not perfect. Most departments know the percentage of British food served in 2005-06, but I regret to say that the Ministry of Defence, the Northern Ireland Office and the Home Office state that the information can be provided only at disproportionate cost. That is not good enough. No. 10 does not know. That is not good enough. I have the Prime Minister’s support on that. He said:

“I want the public sector to take a lead on doing things sustainably—through the way we run central Government and through the way we buy goods and services”.

Later this year the Sustainable Development Commission will start publishing these figures for all around Whitehall, and therefore people will be on the spot.

The noble Baroness asked me about the Department of Health, but, looking down the list, it does not appear to be on it. Apart from the departments I mentioned, all the others seem to know. The Scottish Office and the Welsh Office, by the way, do not have in-house catering.

In other words, waffle by any other name.

The debate makes interesting reading and I definitely recommend it, particularly as it is very short. But please note the absence of the words European and Union. Some amount of depression is forgivable, surely.

COMMENT THREAD

The mysteries grow

It was a simple enough mistake to make. After all, it was the BBC in one of its first reports after the Iranian hostage-taking which referred to Commodore Nick Lambert as the captain of HMS Cornwall, the frigate on which the abducted boarding team had been based.

We fell in with the BBC – and many others – although we should have known better – the rank of Commodore is far too senior to command a mere frigate. Her captain is in fact Commander Jeremy Woods, who took command on 20th November 2006.

The distinction is, of course, rather important in the drama of the abduction because Commodore Lambert was using the ship as his flag ship, it providing him with a "command platform" from which he controlled the multinational task force in this area, of which he was the commanding officer.

Lambert assumed command on 7 March 2007 of what is known as Coalition Task Force 158 (CTF 158), a coalition force comprising up to 12 units from the US, UK, Australian and Iraqi navies, taking over from US Navy Commodore Jeffrey Harbeson (both pictured above).

Included in this line-up were significant US Navy assets, including USS Howard (DDG 83), USS Chinook (PC 9), USS Whirlwind (PC 11), USCGC Maui (WPB 1307), USCGC Monomoy (WPH 1326), as well as the Australian HMAS Warramunga (FFG 152) – over which Lambert had overall command.

The US patrol craft (PC) are particularly interesting, of which USS Chinook is a typical example (pictured right). It is the ninth of the Cyclone-class patrol coastal boats: length, 170 feet, displacement 331 tons and – all importantly – a draught of 7.5 feet (compared with the Cornwall's 20.7 feet). She has a maximum speed of 35 knots and is armed with two 25mm Mk38 machine guns, two .50 cal machine guns, two Mk19 automatic grenade launchers and six stinger missiles.

She also carries a rigid-hulled inflatable boat, launched and recovered from a stern ramp (pictured left) and a complement of eight special forces personnel to man it.

This, as you may imagine, puts an entirely different light on the additional detail that emerged yesterday, when the Scotsman on Sunday reported that the Cornwall's boarding crew "had even more protection nearby; an American military helicopter and patrol boat were within striking distance, ready - and willing - to help…".

Rather than wait until after the event, Lambert, had he so chosen, could have tasked any one of twelve vessels - including the USS Chinook or one of the other patrol boats – to carry out the freighter inspection, instead of despatching Cornwall's boats, from a distance of eight miles. Equally, he could have asked – no, ordered - any one of those vessels, to provide overwatch – and, clearly, the US Navy knows how to do it, as this illustration of one of its own boarding exercises shows, the gunner keeping a "sharp eye out" for the inflatable (centre frame).

Furthermore, it is not as if Lambert can have been unaware of an Iranian threat. Thanks to one of our sharp-eyed readers, we have picked up this report from CNN, dated 19 February this year, recording multiple incursions by Iranian patrol boats into Iraqi waters.

Crucially, they had been filmed operating near the Iraqi offshore oil terminals, Khor Al Abdullah (Amaya) and Mina Al Bakr, which are close to the position recorded for HMS Cornwall on 23 March when its boarding party was abducted by Iranians in very similar patrol boats. This can be seen from the MoD chart, showing the position of the frigate, and another chart which shows the position of the oil terminals (below). One really does wonder why this has not been publicised more, and why no formal protests were made at the time, especially as the incursions had continued.


However, according to the CNN report, the United States at the time did not see the Iranian moves as "aggressive or provocative". Its assessment was that the probes were "part of an Iranian effort to raise its military presence in the gulf". But officials did say that activity had increased. On at least two days, Iranian patrol boats had crossed into Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. The boats remained inside Iraqi waters for several minutes before Iraqi security forces (pictured below) told them to leave.

At that time (February) Iraqi security forces had recently taken over the main responsibility for guarding the terminals, although the task force assets remained nearby, as back-up. But, had Lambert so elected, he could have directed Iraqi naval forces to back up his own forces, or even to carry out the freighter inspection.

With so many forces at his disposal, this rather does beg the question as to why Lambert deployed two highly vulnerable Royal Navy craft, sending them on a mission when he knew the Cornwall could not provide back-up. And, one wonders whether other coalition forces in the areas were even told of the despatch of the boarding party.

To be fair to Lambert, though, that morning he had far more important things on his mind. With a BBC television crew on board the Cornwall, he was scheduled to give an interview to the BBC's Ian Pannell for a news backgrounder regarding operations in the North Arabian Gulf. Then, incidentally, Pannell got his job description right, giving him the label "coalition task force commander".

However, with a Royal Navy photographer close at hand to take publicity stills (example right) when his sailors and marines had been despatched to their fateful rendezvous, one wonders whether our Nick had taken his eye off the ball.

Would it be too much to speculate that the presence of LS Turney on the boarding party might have had something to do with the presence of the BBC – even to the point of this being the reason why the team was despatched on what, in hindsight, looks to be such a foolhardy mission?

Could that also explain why, after the event, the BBC downplayed Lambert's role, "demoting" him to captain of HMS Cornwall? After all, we would not want the public to know that, when it came to the Royal Navy boarding party, their journey was not exactly necessary.

COMMENT THREAD

It is, probably, too late

There is nothing wrong with Philip Johnston’s article in today’s Daily Telegraph, “Who will defend our free speech?”, except for the fact that it comes too late. In fact, his description of the House of Commons Scrutiny Committee, which gave Joan Ryan, the Home Office minister responsible for European matters, rather a hard time makes one feel that the whole meeting was too late.

Let us get one basic point out of the way. Scrutiny is not the same as legislation. When Michael Connarty, chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, fulminated that “the privileges and rights of Parliament were being ignored”, he was talking through his hat.

The privileges and rights (and, allow me to add, duties) of Parliament to legislate and to hold the executive to account have long ago disappeared. Partly, the problem lies in the excessive use of secondary legislation and, partly, naturally enough, with the fact that European legislation supersedes national. In other words, just in case some journalist or politician reads this, Parliament cannot throw out legislation that originated in Brussels and went through the often years-long process there until it became law.

This process pays no attention to such insignificant matters as elections either at the national or the European level. If a particular piece of legislation is stuck somewhere in the European Parliament when there is an election, the new and, possibly, different body simply picks up where the previous one left off. Incomplete legislation does not die with elections.

In any case, the only body where legislation can originate, according to the Consolidated Treaties, effectively this country’s constitution, is the Commission, which puts together a Work Programme every year and proceeds to put as much of it as it can into place. Anything that is pushed over, is put into the following year’s programme.

This whole process is so boring that most journalists, even very sensible ones like Philip Johnston, cannot be bothered to write about it. Even if they wanted to, it is unlikely that their editors would agree, citing terminal boredom and fall-off in readership.

Politicians are even less likely to pay attention. Some time ago I attended a Bruges Group meeting at which Gisela Stuart fulminated, with a great deal of justification, at the con-trick that the Convention she was part of, which was supposed to put the ideas of the Laeken Declaration into some form of an agreement, was turning out to be.

During the discussion she showed some interest in the whole process of European legislation and, therefore, I was a little surprised to discover that she did not think debating the Commission’s Annual Work Programme was a good idea but preferred the pointless and blood-pressure raising debates to take place when the legislation has passed all the EU hurdles and was being implemented in Britain, by which time it is way too late.

Mr Johnston is, of course, absolutely correct in his statement that if there is a scrutiny reserve placed on a particular subject, the minister in question has not right to agree to it. However, this particular rule is honoured more often in the breach than in the observance.

In any case, once we have signed up to the European Arrest Warrant and the European Evidence Warrant, both subjects covered by this blog a while ago, the details become less relevant. The time to stop it is when the European legislation is still being discussed, but apart from several insistent questions in the House of Lords, little was made of the two pieces of legislation.

By the time we get down to individual agreements, it is way, way too late to argue about implementation. We are duty bound to do so and all the Scrutiny Committee can do is to fulminate.

In another posting I shall cover the work of the House of Lords European Union Select Committee, whose indefatigable work is not even known, let alone appreciated.

For the time being I should just like to point out that Philip Johnston makes the very common mistake of assuming that European legislation consists of directives only, that have to wing their way through Parliament, however fast. I am afraid, the bulk of it is regulations that do not necessarily touch that building in Westminster at all. The situation is even worse than Mr Johnston thinks though some of us have known that for some time.

COMMENT THREAD

Twenty-five years on

It was pictures such as these that determined that there should be a task force. There was a palpable sense of outrage as we saw the Royal Marines of Naval Party 8901 surrendering outside Government House in Port Stanley. These were Royal Marines and there was no way that mere foreigners were going to treat them in that way. Nothing less than national pride was at stake.

Now, 25 years to the day, when the Argentineans were rash enough to invade the Falkland Islands, our Royal Marines are in peril again. Worse still, they are being humiliated again, paraded in front of television – this time the detachment leader Royal Marine Captain Chris Air.

This video grab taken from the Iranian Arabic-speaking television station Al-Alam shows Captain Air speaking in front of a chart of the Gulf waters, purporting to show that the British boarding party on 23 March was abducted in Iranian waters. Another officer, Lieutenant Felix Carman, was also forced to make an admission that the party strayed into Iranian waters.

Back in 1982, under Thatcher at the height of her powers, there was no question about public support for military action. Today, after four years of haemorrhaging lives in Iraq under a very different prime minister, now serving out the fag-end of his term, there is no appetite for similar action. In fact, the public - to say nothing of the British blogosphere - seems to be struggling even to take an interest in such matters.

We are a sadder, diminished nation as a result.

COMMENT THREAD

Convincing only himself

The Boy King has been at it again, sounding off in the low-circulation Sunday Express on what he believes to be the key issues of the day in defence.

I had intended to publish an analysis yesterday but we gave the forum something of a bashing, with a robust debate on the Iranian hostages - which absorbed some considerable time. Hence the fisking will have to be the overnight piece (which we call the Horlicks). You can read it here.

COMMENT THREAD

More detail emerges

The Scotsman on Sunday adds an intriguing layer of detail to the incident on 23 March when the Iranian revolutionary guards abducted our marines and sailors.

According to Brian Brady, the political editor, the British boat crews "should have been only minutes from safety. "It now emerges," Brady writes, "they had even more protection nearby; an American military helicopter and patrol boat were within striking distance, ready - and willing - to help as the sailors were taken prisoner by Iranian Revolutionary Guards."

Sources in the US, he adds, have even suggested they were alerted to the drama by the sound of gunfire, though British authorities have refused to say if their forces were fired upon. As it was, it was only after the pair of rigid inflatable boats slipped out of contact with HMS Cornwall that the Americans were summoned - and by then it was too late.

Unfortunately, Brady then repeats the myths, stating that:

Moments after the British boats had been surrounded and captured by an Iranian force superior in numbers and weaponry, their commanders called on their allies, asking them to try to contact their crew. A British Lynx helicopter, charged with protecting the vessels, sighted one of them charging towards the Iranian coastline, with the seized seamen sitting in the front and Iranians at the wheel.

When the Cornwall finally established radio contact with one of its boats, it was confronted with a stranger speaking broken English. The crew were in no harm, he insisted - they were being "taken to a safe place". When the Cornwall's commanders protested, the radio went dead.

But what we have learnt – and it would be so refreshing if paid journalists kept up – is that the initial ambush was carried out by two Iranian vessels, light launches armed with machine guns.

On the face of it, the British actually outnumbered the Iranians in the first phase of the incident, and – in terms of number of weapons – outgunned them. Further, if the Iranians did strike, as we have been informed, as the British were disembarking from the freighter they were inspecting, the tactical advantage rested with the British.

With men on the freighter deck, they had the advantage of height, of a stable platform and, from the steel decks, some cover – and the ability to disperse, presenting multiple targets. From their vantage point, even with SA80s, they could have shredded the light, unarmoured Iranian launches.

Further, had the British craft been tactically deployed, only one of them at any time would have approached the freighter, the other standing off, guarding the embarkation/disembarkation process and keeping watch. Similarly, the embarked crew on the freighter should have been keeping watch, covering both the launches and the personnel carrying out the search.

Iranian vessels approaching the freighter, therefore, should have been confronted with aimed assault rifles from the freighter deck – each capable of automatic fire – and at least one of the Navy boats with armed personnel on board, capable of running interference.

The Navy craft – known as Rigid-hulled Inflatable Boats (RIBs), produced by VT Halmatic - are extremely fast (40 knots) and highly manoeuvrable. They were easily a match for the light Iranian launches and, handled skilfully, would have made extremely difficult targets.

Of course, we will not know exactly what happened until the British crew members are released – and perhaps not even then – so we cannot be too critical of them. On the other hand, though, on the facts as we know them, there are no grounds for suggesting that marines and sailors (or their officers) can be entirely exonerated.

What does come into focus, however, is a point we raised in the forum – that the policing of the Gulf is a coalition task, involving US, British, Australian and Iraqi assets. Since – or so we are told – the Cornwall could not stand off because of the shallowness of the water, did Commodore Lambert consider asking any of his coalition partners to provide cover, bearing in mind, as we are now so helpfully informed, that there were US naval and air assets in the vicinity?

Or was this yet another case of the soooo superior British military not needing help from the uncouth, gung ho Yanks?

COMMENT THREAD

It's taken them long enough

I suppose they were going to get around to it eventually, and at last they have. The Sunday Times devotes its "Focus" piece to the issue of "Fifteen sailors snatched and publicly humiliated without a single shot fired," looking at "a shambles Britain could have avoided".

The newspaper refers to this incident in September where a small group of American and Iraqi soldiers had been patrolling near the Iranian border at Balad Ruz, 75 miles east of Baghdad. They had been "bounced" by Iranian soldiers but, fearing capture, the Americans had fought back and escaped unhurt, averting a potential hostage crisis.

By contrast, says the newspaper, the 14 British servicemen and one woman "proved humiliatingly vulnerable to a low-tech Iranian naval manoeuvre that has provoked mocking headlines around the world."

But, it adds, they should have been alerted months ago by the Balad Ruz clash and could even have read subsequent warnings – reported in The Sunday Times as recently as two weeks ago – that Tehran was threatening to kidnap "a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers". The paper continues:

Such is the shambles that senior Royal Navy officers at the fleet's operational headquarters have been directed to review the rules of engagement for naval boarding parties. If necessary they will recommend changes to ensure Britain's forces are never again seized so easily without a shot being fired.

And, while there was no doubting the outrage shared by British ministers, it was equally clear by Thursday's cabinet meeting that Britain's big mistake was to have allowed the sailors to be captured in the first place.

With diplomatic efforts apparently stalling, attention is likely to return this week to how the Royal Navy, pride of Britain for at least 350 years, allowed this disaster to happen in the first place. Have we really sunk so low that we cannot fight off a few Iranian thugs in what amounted to little more than militarised speedboats?

The paper then cites John Pike, "one of America's leading military analysts", who "was similarly baffled that the sailors' home ship, HMS Cornwall, was up to 11 miles away, too far to offer immediate cover as the British inflatables searched an Indian freighter in a routine antismuggling check."

Despite all the evidence that Iran was looking to capture "blue-eyed officers", Pike is cited as saying, "there seems to have been a loss of situational awareness on the part of the folks on Cornwall that their boarding party could be snuck up on like that".

The British lapse was all the more surprising because the same thing happened in June 2004, when eight sailors and marines were seized in the same area and released three days later. The defence ministry compiled a "lessons learnt" paper to ensure that those mistakes were not repeated.


The Sunday Times says it has learnt that the paper highlighted the need for "top cover" for boarding parties, which should always have been covered from the air by the presence of a helicopter. The Cornwall's Lynx – armed with a .50 machinegun that could have caused serious damage to the Iranian fast boats – had apparently been overhead when the sailors boarded the Indian freighter.

Thus the paper asks, "Why did it turn back, leaving the sailors exposed?" The ministry initially said last week that it needed to refuel before retreating behind an insistence that there was no standard procedure for keeping a helicopter in place.

It also remained a mystery how the Cornwall's advanced radar and sonar systems failed to alert its crew to a problem. As a type22 frigate, the Cornwall has the capability to track ships up to 200 miles away. One recently retired naval officer said even basic navigation radar should have picked up motorboats at shorter range, assuming someone was looking out for them.

An official board of inquiry will ultimately be charged with examining the incident and establishing, among many other things, why no immediate effort was made to intercept the Iranians as they departed with their captives.

So much for The Sunday Times, but we also get a reference in The Sunday Telegraph which cites Maj Gen Julian Thompson, a former Falklands War commander, expressing fury at how the sailors surrendered to Iranian gunboats without a fight.

He is calling for a review of the Navy's rules of engagement. "In my view this thing is a complete cock-up," he says. "I want to know why the Marines didn't open fire or put up some sort of fight. My fear is that they didn't have the right rules of engagement, which would allow them to do this."

That plus Booker and the penny is beginning to drop, although the papers are well behind the curve. They have a lot of catching up to do.

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Booker

If I could summon up enough energy (and interest), I would really have torn into Defra's utterly crass handling of the single farm payments subsidy scheme.

Fortunately, I do not have to. Booker has done it in his column in The Sunday Telegraph today – that and much more, including a commentary on our very own Iranian hostage situation.

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