We must, indeed, remember

Raoul Wallenberg was one of the great heroes of the Second World War, a man who selflessly and courageously saved thousands of Jews (particularly Jewish children) in Hungary from an appalling death and one who was eventually kidnapped and, one way or another killed, by the Soviet authorities, with the West doing nothing to help. Indeed, his story is a paradigm of mid-twentieth century history down to the suggestion that the Communist government in Hungary was planning a show trial in 1953 that would tell the tale of Wallenberg being murdered by the Zionists. And you know what? People in the West would have believed it. The idea was abandoned along with many similar ones after the death of Stalin and the fall of Beria.

So I was rather pleased to see an article in the Economist about Wallenberg and the need to remember him and his achievements. I was also pleased to see that another memorial to Wallenberg was unveiled yesterday the anniversary of the Nyilas (Arrowhead - the local Hungarian Nazis) take-over in 1944 on the wall of the building he had used as a sanctuary for Jewish children. Apparently it is now the British embassy, which has a pleasing symmetry. It is impressive that public contribution paid for the memorial. But I do wonder why it is still impossible to point out on it what actually happened (so far as we know) to this man.

There are other memorials to him in Budapest, there is a park, a statue and another plaque on the street that is named after him. But that is irrelevant except that I think the Economist article ought to have mentioned this as well.

What the article does is to use the Wallenberg theme to rant on a bit about its fear of growing right-wing politics in Eastern Europe, particularly Hungary.

In Hungary, like much of Europe, intolerance, racism and xenophobia is on the rise. The far-right Jobbik party, no friend of Hungary’s Jews or Roma minorities, won 16.7 per cent of the vote in April elections, making it the third-largest party in parliament.

We have a problem here. It is called a muddled approach, whether deliberately or otherwise. The Jobbik party is undoubtedly a very unpleasant, openly anti-Semitic and racist party with rather incoherent ideas: on the one hand they want Hungary to take its proud position in the world, on the other hand they want to shut Hungary away from the world. It has a support of around 16 per cent of the electorate.

However, the argument about the intolerance, racism and xenophobia being on the rise (surely that cannot be true while we are all members of the benevolent EU?) rests largely on calling such parties as the Sweden Democrats and Geert Wilders's Freedom Party as being far-right, though their openly expressed concern is with groups of people who arrive in Western Europe and refuse to adjust to its enlightened social and political structures, demanding that these should be abolished.

Today's Financial Times Magazine has a very silly article by Simon Kuper, who is wondering what happened to the Holland he knew that has now become so intolerant and full of nasty murders such as that Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, which is all, somehow, the fault of all those intolerant people for whom Geert Wilders is a hero. A somewhat muddled and patronizing piece that is unlikely to please anyone. (I seem to be using the word "muddled" a lot.)

Charlemagne in last week's Economist even excelled that, garnering some very serious attacks from readers, I am glad to say. Geert Wilders, then still on trial, is a false prophet, the article opined and was mildly amused that Mr Wilders chose not to speak at a certain point in his trial. And he a champion of free speech. Tee-hee-hee. Clearly, the author had no understanding of what constitutes defence in court and reserving said defence.

Then came the muddled arguments:

Maybe the state should not be in the business of prosecuting politicians for their offensive views. But these are highly charged times in the Netherlands. The threat of murder hangs over the traditionally tolerant country. In 2002 Pim Fortuyn, an earlier anti-immigrant politician, was killed. Two years later so was Theo van Gogh, an anti-Islamist film-maker. Mr Wilders now moves only with a posse of bodyguards, and lives at a secret location.

Even more importantly, he has become the political kingmaker. His party came third in June’s general election, winning 15% of the vote, and will now prop up a minority government of the liberal VVD with the centre-right Christian Democrats. In exchange, Mr Wilders has secured the promise of tighter immigration rules, a ban on some Islamic garb and more money for care of the elderly. Newspapers are calling this the “Wilders 1” government.

The implication is that probably the state should be in the "business of prosecuting politicians for their offensive views" (something that a number of readers took exception to) if the times are, for some unexplained reason, "highly charged". The fact that two people have been murdered rather publicly and several people, including Mr Wilders, are under protection is, according to this argument, a good enough reason for prosecuting Mr Wilders for his opinions. And to think that once upon a time the Economist was, in every sense of the word, a liberal publication.

When it comes to Hungary, the muddle becomes even worse. Fear of the right is routinely extended to FIDESZ, the party that won a two-thirds majority in April, the first time any party managed to do this with Hungary's complicated election procedures. The reason for that is not terribly mysterious: the previous Socialist government was extraordinarily inefficient, corrupt and stupid even by East European standards. To some extent, the Jobbik rode into Parliament on that wave of disaffection, too.

FIDESZ is not an extreme right-wing party but a fairly muddled, vaguely centre-right one. They did flirt with the Jobbik for obvious electoral reasons (no longer necessary) and have announced that all Hungarians wherever they happen to live have a right to Hungarian citizenship, something that is viewed as a provocation to the surrounding countries.

Two days ago Der Spiegel also had a long article about the horrors of growing xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Hungary, particularly in Budapest. It is a curious piece, that starts off by asserting that Jews are being openly intimidated but presenting no evidence; going on to detail a number of disturbing episodes, some true, some not or just threats; interviewing various people but no-one, as one comment puts it, from the main-stream right or even centre-left; and finishing, after several divergences, with an interview with the far-left (which we are not told, this being less important than the fact that he is Jewish) philosopher and politician Gáspár Miklós Tamás, whose view is that Hungary is pretty well finished because the Socialists lost control even of the cities. (In Central Europe cities are traditionally more likely to have Socialist local government than the countryside.)

Somehow, I cannot agree that a completely feckless and dishonest Socialist government losing heavily in a free and fair election necessarily indicates a situation in which there will soon be a need for another Wallenberg.

Cameron will survive this unimportant quasi-rebellion

As I pointed out before I was not overwhelmed by the behaviour of Conservative (or any other) MPs on the question of the EU budget. A lot of pother about very little though, undoubtedly one must honour the 37 Tories and 5 others who did have the gumption to vote for Douglas Carswell's Amendment.

Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal to whom I have referred before (here and here) is of a different opinion. He is all excited and thinks that David Cameron a.k.a. the Boy-King of the Conservative Party and through some strange historical joke the Prime Minister of this country, must be getting worried.

Occassionaly, when hardly a soul is watching, it is still possible to see something in the Commons that might, just might, suggest interesting developments years hence. “We’re the ipod generation of Euroskeptics,” said one MP. “Younger, more moderate and determined to decontaminate the Euroskeptic brand.”

Just how many years hence and what kind of an idiot makes comments about ipod generations of eurosceptics, hoping to get away with it? Do they have mush for brains? (OK, don't answer that.)

Apparently, a number of those mysterious non-voters who made those astonishingly courageous speeches (yes, I am being sarcastic here) had to leave because of prior engagement. Well, well, well. Is this how a rebellion is to be conducted? By people having prior engagements when the important vote actually rolls around? I suppose Ms Pritti Patel just could not cancel or postpone that engagement, knowing how important this vote was? No, of course not.

Anyway, I agree with Witterings from Witney: this will give Cameron no headache, not even a twinge.

Iain Martin's supposition that the Conservative Eurosceptic MPs may bring down the Coalition has a touch of 'pie in the sky' about it - especially when accepting that Cameron has more iron in his grip on his party than he has in his guarantees! Which probably accounts for the fact that Conservative Eurosceptic MPs seem able to 'talk the talk' but unable to 'walk the walk'.

For once, I even agree with Roger Helmer who wrote before this vote that the Cleggeron Coalition has lost the plot as far as the EU is concerned. Nothing that happened in the last couple of days has disproved that.

Not guilty!

Through the Corner on the National Review website to Dutch News.nl

The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.

Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.

Why they could not have done that careful reading and viewing before, instead of trying to ban the film, I cannot imagine. Then again, Geert Wilders has acquired a great deal of political clout recently and, just possibly, this has been noticed.

Of course, he will still have to have round the clock protection as his life is still in danger.

It's the way you tell 'em

A glass half full or half empty? Half full says ConHome, definitely. Tim Montgomerie is excited, poor chap, by the fact that 37 Conservative MPs (thirty-seven!) defied the Whip and voted for Douglas Carswell's Amendment yesterday to reduce contributions to the EU at a time when everybody is tightening belts. Well, goody-goody.

On the other hand 12 MPs who also signed the Amendment decided for whatever reason not to vote for it. (I must admit I am a little surprised at Philip Davies.)

The really joyous news as far as ConHome is concerned is that

The overall debate was a festival of Euroscepticism with particularly strong contributions from younger, newer Tory MPs. One got the sense that the baton of opposition to the European superstate was passing to a new generation. Priti Patel, in particular, was on great form.

Ms Patel, I may add, was also one of the MPs who, having signed the amendment, did not bother to vote for it. Justine Greening, who apparently made some "robust" statements, did not bother to vote for the amendment. But then, she is on the front bench, not that she was particularly courageous when she had no official position.

As a matter of fact, I was rather impressed by Gisela Stuart's intervention:

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She says that this debate demonstrates the importance that the Government attach to giving the House a say. Can she tell us whether a vote on the matter, either way, would make the slightest bit of difference?

Indeed. And the answer from the "robust" Ms Greening?

The hon. Lady is assuming that those Members who have tabled amendments will press them to a vote. Perhaps she is prejudging the outcome of the debate. We welcome the debate because, tomorrow, I shall be in Brussels pressing our case in respect of the European Union budget, and it is vital that we are able to say that we have scrutinised the document thoroughly in our European Parliament.

In our "European" Parliament? A Freudian slip, perchance? And, in any case, scrutinizing it, however thoroughly, and I doubt very much that any MP even looked at it, is not the same as making a difference.

So, exactly, how is this good news from a eurosceptic point of view?

Here is the debate in full. And here is the vote (you have to scroll down a bit).

It needs to be said

Of course, we are all rejoicing with the people of Chile, the miners and their families and extolling the achievement of their engineers (with a little help, gratefully accepted, from other countries. A truly wonderful news and, I have to admit, enthralling TV, which I stayed up far too late to watch.

Let us not forget, though, that, as Daniel Henninger says, 25 years ago they would have been dead. They have been saved by innovation made possible by free-market capitalism. That is the truth and amidst the rejoicing we need to say it over and over again.

AV or not AV

My, my, how times have changed. AV used to mean Authorized Version, the glorious King James Bible, the only good thing ever produced by a committee though they did have the advantage of living at a time when the English language was at its most beautiful. Oh dear, I digress.

AV now means Alternative Vote and is that funny system that the Cleggeron Coalition is trying to substitute for the present First Past the Post, which has many faults but is, at least, clear and understandable.

Alternative Vote, on the other hand, is completely incomprehensible and, as a recent paper by Policy Exchange shows, not particularly better on the various counts, such as fairness and proportionality that opponents of FPTP have been campaigning for. It is also the funny system that produced that very strange result in Australia not so long ago.

So far this blog has kept out of the discussions (such as they are) apart from the odd snide comment because it seemed completely unimportant how we elect our powerless politicians while they can do nothing but implement EU legislation. However, this evening I attended a discussion of the whole issue with various arguments presented for and against; it occurred to me that it might be a good thing to have some kind of a working constitutional structure albeit one that needs reforming in various ways or restoring to previous versions for when we are rid of the European incubus.

However, the first thing to note about AV is that it is not popular in the world and is not one that anyone in this country wants or has argued for. It was not mentioned in any electoral manifesto, not even that of the Lib-Dims. The idea just suddenly appeared. The Cleggeron Coalition decided that they would push legislation through Parliament, using up badly needed parliamentary time to have a referendum on the AV system. After that, badly needed time and, especially, badly needed money will be wasted on campaigning and the actual referendum. On past experience it might have to be re-run if the result is not quite what the government wants though we don't actually know what this brokeback government does want.

On top of that the referendum, assuming the legislation goes through in time, will be held at the same time as some but not all local elections are held as well as those for the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. This sort of thing should not happen - referendums should not be mixed up with elections as that makes campaigning and reporting well-nigh impossible. Turn-out is likely to be very patchy because some places will not have any other elections. London is one of them and that is a lot of voters.

So what are the arguments for AV? I listened to them this evening and they are as follows:

1. It is better than FPTP in various unspecified way mainly because FPTP has many faults. (Those faults are undeniably true but there is no evidence whatsoever that AV of all systems will correct them.)

2. Single member constituencies elected by FPTP have been the norm in Britain only since the 1880s, introduced mainly because the newly formed parties found it hard to control their members and electorate any other way. (That is an acceptable argument in general. What we have now is not written in tablets of stone and can be changed. But AV is not necessarily the way we want to change it. Perhaps a return to multiple members or an introduction of real primaries rather than the farce of the Conservative ones might be thought about.)

3. We must move away from FPTP and even though AV is not what we want it is a step forward in the way granting women over 30 suffrage was a step towards equality in voting. (This is complete nonsense. Widening the suffrage to women over 30 after the First World War was a step in a clearly defined direction as is every step in the widening of suffrage from the Second Reform Bill onwards. AV is not a transitional step between FPTP and complete PR but a step into a completely different direction.)

4. We must move away from FPTP and let AV fail so we can move on to what we really want which is proportional representation of some kind as there are many varieties. (Another non sequitur. In the first place, what on earth makes these people think that AV will be considered a failure by those who have a vested interest in keeping it. We lose FPTP and acquire a system nobody wants, nobody likes, which is going to be a complete failure and we shall be stuck with it.)

5. We must move away from FPTP and vote in AV in order to change it eventually to PR. (That's going to play well. Why don't you vote for this so in a few years we can change it all to something completely different that you did not vote for and might not want? I wonder why this sounds so familiar?)

Thus, I remain unconvinced that there are any merits in AV at all. In any case, what does it matter how exactly the chairs are arranged on the deck of the Titanic?

Partial victory

I still have not caught up quite with developments in various EU member states such as the Netherlands, Sweden and France (where public sector strikes over pension reforms are in their second day). However, it is good to be able to report that there is a partial victory in the Geert Wilders case.

Through Atlas Shrugged I have found the Radio Netherlands report that informs us of the Dutch Public Prosecutors dropping the charge group defamation.

Public prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman now say his comments on the Qur’an referred to Islam and its holy book, and not to Muslim people.

In explaining their call for acquittal on the defamation charges, the prosecutors also explained that statements contained in the MP’s film, Fitna, referred to Islam as a religion and not to its followers. Even though the statements could hurt the feelings of Muslims, that was not the same as defamation of the group.

On Friday we shall see whether the charge of inciting hatred and discrimination (in effect exercising free speech as Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains in her article in the Wall Street Journal) will be pressed.