Nosemonkey's EUtopia

The Obscurer on the upcoming Cheadle by-election:

“I don�t know just how stupid the Tories think I am, but it seems they think I am very stupid.”

Newsday – Getting EU on track would help U.S.:

“Before the French and Dutch votes in late May and early June, the EU was discussing the possibility of expanding to include the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Ukraine and Turkey.

“The United States has important interests in all three. It fought wars in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s and still has troops in both. Ukraine is a country of more than 50 million people that, after peaceful protests against a rigged election, has installed a genuinely democratic albeit shaky government. Its fate will affect prospects for democracy in the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine’s huge neighbor, Russia, which retains enough nuclear weapons to destroy the United States.

“Turkey is a longtime American ally, the mostly Muslim country with the oldest tradition of democratic governance, and one whose political future will influence neighboring countries where the U.S. is deeply engaged – the Arab Middle East.

“The United States has a powerful interest in encouraging political stability, human rights and political liberty, free elections and economic prosperity in all three places. EU membership has a track record of helping to foster precisely these things.”

EUpolitix – EU budget row continues ahead of British presidency – It’s been same old same old for a couple of weeks now. Without something new to fire up interest and controversy the EU will once again slip back into the sidelines, and the radical changes that are needed will once again remain little more than a wistful dream. The longer it continues without getting anywhere, the more the press loses interest; the more the press loses interest, the more the public lose interest; the more the public lose interest, the more likely it is some bland and imperfect compromise will be reached without anyone really noticing.

If you are reading this from the main Europhobia blog, rather than an RSS feed or someone’s later cut’n’paste, I can see you.

I can see your IP number. I can track your service provider. I can see what operating system you’re using, what web browser, what screen resolution you have your monitor set at. I can tell roughly where in the world you live – down to the nearest town or city at least. With a bit of cunning I would likely be able to find out who you are and precisely where you live, what street, what house. With the power of Google and various targetted search engines I would often be able to track down even more information – perhaps a photo, perhaps names of your friends and family, perhaps a phone number or a CV. From this I could build up a profile and piss around with your life. Your internet service provider can doubtless do the same – especially as they have the head-start of knowing who you are and where you live.

If you own a mobile phone, your provider can listen in on your calls. They can, with some newer models, track your location. They can tell who you are phoning, when, and for how long. They also will have your bank details. From this they could build up a profile and piss around with your life.

If you leave where you are now and walk down the road (especially in Britain), these days you will likely be picked up on a number of CCTV cameras. From the central control room someone could trace your every move – what shops you visit, what paper you read, what clothes you wear. From this they could build up a profile and piss around with your life.

If you go to any shop and buy something on your credit or debit card, your bank can peek into your lifestyle. Mine would see I buy far too many cigarettes and spend rather too much in several pubs scattered around London, occasionally splash out on a spree of book or DVD buying, like going to the cinema and prefer bitter to lager. From this they could build up a profile and piss around with my life.

We are already under constant surveillance. Thanks to the power of computers and the endemic penetration of other largely benign types of modern technology we already have little ability to protect our lives from prying eyes. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere, never use the net or the phone or any other service or utility (including mains water and electricity) and work purely with cash all the time, you cannot escape the prying eyes of Big Brother.

But, at the moment, Big Brother is not a single entity. He is a series of Little Brothers – perhaps loosely connected, but nonetheless not yet working as one. The occasional judder in the system may cause us problems, but we remain protected by law from too much deliberate, malicious intrusion from these various and disparate spies.

Now imagine someone collecting all this information together. All these little profiles compiled, indexed, and accessible at the click of a button. With your biometrics included as well… and your tax history… and your medical history… and as much more as they can think of to add over the years. It’s not too pleasant, even if that someone has no hostile intent, is it?

And what would happen if that information came into the hands of someone with hostile intent? Or society became so reliant on that information being THE TRUTH that if yours became corrupted you ended up unable to obtain basic goods and services, or treated like a criminal by the police, now unable to verify who, precisely – down to your fingerprints – you are.

Today the London School of Economics published its study of the British government’s proposed ID card scheme – an idea so old that Yes Minister did an episode about this very issue back in 1982.

It is, perhaps, an indication of just how used we have already become to the surveillance culture in which we live that the thing most likely to scupper Blair’s plans is not the fact that our biometric details are going to be stored on these things, effectively making us all mere entries on a national crime database and allowing any amount of exploitation should some unscrupulous person hack into the system, but the cost.

After all, I can find out about you merely by you visiting this site (and I could find out a lot more if I knew anything about computers beyond how to use a keyboard) – but you don’t mind too much because should I choose to pry into your life at least I don’t then send you an invoice for an invasion of your privacy which you never requested and probably somewhat resent. If I started doing that, you may take rather more interest in the cookies this site tries to set on your computer. You may install some software to make it more difficult for me to do it again. You would, in other words, wake up to how easy it is for people to trace your movements online and relay this back to the real world.

But what if there was nothing you could do? What if I could continue to pry into your life and continue to charge you every time you made the slightest change? What if you had no option other than to pay me every time I tell you to?

If anything is going to scupper Blair’s ID cards, it is not the concerns about invasions of privacy – most people think that this will never affect them. It’s not even the statistically incredibly likely chance of errors ocurring – even today’s Downing Street Press Conference was delayed by 20 minutes thanks to a security computer bug (multiply that inconvenience by 58 million and you’ll get an idea of the difficulties a glitch would create in the national ID database) – as most people simply reckon that, again statistically, it’s unlikely to happen to them.

It’s money, plain and simple.

So, for those of us who are utterly opposed to this abject nonsense (which appears to be the majority of the British blogosphere, from whatever political background), human rights group Liberty‘s slogan ID cards are Mr Blair’s poll tax needs to be made a well-known reality. It is only when they are seen by the majority of the politically uninterested public as yet another tax that these hideous plastic watchmen will be finally defeated, not before. And – thankfully – they are simply too damn expensive for the government to intruduce them without getting us poor chumps to stump them the cash.

Increase awareness of the cost, ID cards will once again fade away. We need to ensure that studies like that by the LSE are not brushed off as nonsense as the government is already trying to do. And we all need to phone our MPs before tomorrow’s vote to drive home our concerns.

The Guardian – Interview with British Europe Minister Douglas Alexander – interesting stuff. Assuming, that is, that he actually gets any say whatsoever in British relations with the rest of Europe…

The Dear Leader seems to be rather too hands on to let anyone else get a look-in, the last Europe Minister used primarily as a mouthpiece to deliver news liaible to cause a stir among the sceptics and so draw fire away from Blair. His reward? Being sacked straight after the election and being used as an unofficial government spokesman on various news programmes during the “constitution crisis” when none of the big boys could be bothered to come and play. Will Alexander have any more luck? Well, we’ve heard little from him so far – and the last month has been one of the most contentious in EU affairs for years…

Reuters – France’s Sarkozy urges freeze on EU enlargement – this is naturally being interpreted as another French anti-Turkey thing. But he’s certainly got a point that the EU’s various institutions need updating before expansion can take place. The constitution should have all been sorted and agreed before the most recent ten member states joined. We’re seeing the fall-out of relying on old systems after new accessions at the moment, and it’s causing a fair few problems – unless something is done this will only get worse with further expansion.

Today’s Honourable Award for Stating the Bleeding Obvious goes to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Congrats, Don!

Whisky’s great. The Highlands, when it’s sunny, are great. Castles are great. Getting up at 6am and not going to bed until past midnight for several days in a row (and having to maintain the public face of the company the entire time) is not so great. But copious quantities of a broad range of excellent free single malts tends to make up for it.

Anyway, I’ve been out of web contact and out of news contact. All I know that’s happened is floods at Glastonbury (my brother, driving security guards around, is fine – there has been no word from Europhobia’s Steve, so I can only assume he has been swept to his untimely doom somewhere amidst the plains of Somerset to join those foolhardy ancients who attempted to assault the fabled Isle of Avalon). Oh, and Britain is once again massively overly optimistic about both its tennis and rugby skills.

So, a quick flick, and Tim Worstall’s latest britblog roundup points me in the direction of Infinitives Unsplit, which may or may not be written by our dear semi-regular comments chappie Hew BG (who may or may not himself have connections to a certain region of Scotland, which is also a somewhat stereotypical Scottish name, through which I passed the other day). Good stuff – witty and in character throughout, so have a gander.

Thanks to a combination of blog-tracking site Technorati‘s recent changes being RUBBISH and the dear semi-anonymous blogger neglecting to link here on invoking my wondrous pseudonym I’ve only just become aware of having been “tigged” for that book meme – ’twas a fair while back now and all, and entirely possible someone else did as well, but Technorati’s recent changes are, as I believe I pointed out not overly long ago, RUBBISH.

Anyway – the whisky seems to have caused some rambling (currently supping on a wonderful 16 year old Mortlach – a beautifully smooth, amber-hued Speyside single malt which slips down an absolute treat). To wit, and in the absence of any knowledge of global events of the last four days, books:

1. How many books do I own?

At my London townhouse (aka crummy flat with no sodding space for more shelves) I’d estimate in the range of 900-1,200, with a similar number at the parental abode down south. Most are decent, but at the parental pad there is a sizable collection of trash fantasy – some of which (Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, David Eddings etc.) is actually surprisingly good.

2. What�s the last book I bought?

Some regulars may recall I was at Hay-on-Wye a few weeks back, and I have refrained from buying any more since then. Thusly, I got a whole bunch at once:

• Swift – A Critical Edition of the Major Works (in the Oxford Authors series – good edition).
• Sterne – The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (because it’s about time I got around to reading that, really).
• Livy – The History of Rome From its Foundation (Books XXI-XLV, split in the 1970s Penguin Classics range edited by Betty Radice into The War With Hannibal and Rome and the Mediterranean – I’m on the lookout for the complete set).
• Goethe – Faust (Norton Critical Edition, 1976 – rather well annotated and with a selection of essays on the text and some of Goethe’s letters at the back).
• The Mabinogion – a bunch of rather quaint Welsh myths, handed down orally over the centuries and plagiarised quite horribly by the likes of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Thomas Mallory in creating the Arthur legends. Quite fun.
• R.B. Mowatt – The Diplomatic Relations of Great Britain and the United States (Edward Arnold & Co., 1925) – a random spot while wandering, but at only 50p I couldn’t resist finding out what everyone reckoned about the “Special Relationship” before that term had even – as far as I’m aware – been coined.
  
• Prefaces to Peace, A Symposium consisting of the following: One World by Wendell L. Wilkie, The Problems of Lasting Peace by Herbert Hoover and Hugh Gibson, The Price of Free World Victory by Henry A. Wallace and Blue-print for Peace by Sumner Welles (a fascinating collection of post-WWI essays published in the midst of WWII – rather unusual, and a bargain at only 50p).

3. What�s the last book I read?

Homer – The Iliad – Martin Hammond’s transaltion for Penguin. It seemed OK to start with, but then got turgid fast (the translation, I mean, not the book itself, obviously). It was, however, the first time I’d read it (ridiculous, I know – especially as I’ve technically got a classical education), so I reckoned that I needed something fairly straightforward (prose rather than verse etc.) to keep tabs on what was going on. Wolfgang Peterson’s take, I reckoned, would not quite be enough to prepare me for leaping into Chapman. Chapman is, however, sitting waiting on the shelf. If Keats liked that version enough to write a poem about it, I reckon it must have something going for it.

4. What are the five books that mean the most to me?

Rather than content, I’ll go for the collection.

My oldest is a guidebook to the shires of England dating from the mid 17th century (1648 if I recall – a rather odd time to be knocking out that sort of thing, not to mention very early), but was sadly mutilated by some idiot many moons ago and is thus missing all the illustrations, maps etc. Nonetheless, it remains a little piece of history, still has its original leather binding and only cost me a fiver.

The most valuable I own – and a superb, if somewhat overly pompous read to boot – is probably the two-volume 1820 leather-bound pocked-sized collected edition of Samuel Johnson’s The Rambler, in rather fine condition – a near runner-up being the two volume edition of Vanity Fair, complete with the original illustrations from the author’s own hand, which I picked up for four quid about ten years ago from an unsuspecting bric-a-brac shop. Oh, and my first edition (with perfect dust jacket) of Under Milk Wood. (Which I accidentally – honest – stole while a schoolboy… but it did help spark the book collecting bug.)

Other than that, my first editions (English language) of Solzhenitsyn’s Lenin in Zurich and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being – both complete with near-mint dust jackets – and my signed copies of Umberto Eco’s Baudolino and Alan Clark’s history of the Conservative Party (sadly not the Diaries, but it is personalised, which is nice). Oh, and my growing collection of Thomas Carlyle – in particular the 1849 one-volume edition of his Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches with Elucidations – oh, and if anyone comes across volumes VI, VII and VIII of his History of Friedrich II of Prussia (Chapman and Hall Limited, London, 1897 – blue/green cloth cover), let me know.

I suppose I really should add on to that the two I’ve written, but that would involve revealing my utterly uninteresting real-life identity. (No, you haven’t heard of me or them, although they should be available in most decent-sized branches of Waterstones and both received good reviews.) Well, that and the fact that I’ve done far more than merely five. Ho-hum.

At which juncture I am supposed to nominate five other people to do this, but everyone’s already done it weeks ago, so I shan’t bother. Instead I shall point you to the discussion of Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and invite you to join in – it seems somewhat to have stalled while I’ve been away.

Back to more political type stuff tomorrow, probably. For now – Richard Whiteley’s died. (Europhobia: Bringing you the news that matters…)

For some people, the General Election went all Return of the King, as the damn thing just refused to end despite all known dictates of good taste and common decency. For some reason though, Nosemonkey gave up his live-blogging in early May, the horrific weed. So here’s a quick postscript.

Sir Patrick Cormack, everyone’s favourite tory Knight of the Shire (albeit there’s only about two of the buggers these days, him and Sir Peter Tapsell) was returned for South Staffordshire with an increased majority. Hurrah.

(In other electoral news, the BNP lost a council seat. Again hurrah, this time for Mr Warren Northover, the Labour candidate. However, there will soon be another bye-election for the same council on 14 July. If you can, why not pop along and help keep the latter-day Mosleyites down?)

I’m off to Scotland. It’s always cold there, so should be much better. I’m going to spend the next few days touring whisky distilleries, getting pissed and staying in castles. My job occasionally has its perks… See you Monday.

Tony Blair: “Ich bin leidenschaftlicher Europ�er”

Pffft… German always sounds rude. Tony’s a leidenschaftlicher… heh! And it remains nearly as amusing when you find out that translates as “passionate” (according to Babelfish, at any rate – my German’s terrible…)

If you can read the linked article, it’s basically Blair’s pitch to the people of Germany. Sadly, though, it comes across as all “me me me”, not even acknowledging that Germany pays more than everyone, and that that’s unfair too. That’s the way to get ’em onside, Tony old boy. I’d have thought it was obvious.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schr�der’s on a bit of a rant:

“There is a special European social model to protect that has developed on the continent… Those who want to destroy this model due to national egotism or populist motives do a terrible disservice to the desires and rights of the next generation”

But considering he’s gone come Germany’s September elections, who cares what someone so out of touch with the next generation thinks? But what of his successor? What Would Angela Merkel Do as Chancellor?

EU Rota – EU Agriculture: Modern and Dynamic – Blair’s figures over the CAP have been challenged, now so have Chirac’s assertions (with the aid of graphs and everything).