Nosemonkey's EUtopia

Or did I just hallucinate the opening sequence of This Week? Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo dancing and singing like maniacs and the like. Could the programme have finally realised its inherent ridiculousness?

Oh bollocks, now it turns out Benjamin Zephaniah’s on it. Christ…

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

For those of us who really wish we could all get over this pathetic us vs. them thing that’s supposedly been going on with Europe and America over the last few years, this new site, set up by some Daily Kos people, may be worth keeping an eye on:

“New European Times is a small part of the effort to increase dialogue amongst the citizens of the newly enlarged Europe and with those of the United States. It serves as a meeting place to share and exchange information and opinion on developments in our individual countries and to discuss common global issues.”

Sounds promising. Until its forums (fora?) get packed out with flamers and morons, that is…

Utterly unrelated to the usual Europhobia fare, but Diderot’s Lounge has a great series of posts from one of their bloggers from a recent trip to Afghanistan, with more promised, which are well worth a look:

• Afghan Trip I – Getting There
• Afghan Trip II – Kunduz, Mazar, but not Bamian
• Afghan Trip III – My thoughts on this fight, all fights and shopping
• Afghan Trip IV – Children in Kabl and Mercenary Barbeque
• Afghan Trip V – Trying to Leave
• Informal versus Formal Posts and Russia versus the Taliban
• The difference between the US and the UK (Afghan Style), or why NATO has a ways to go towards integration

A couple of bits which caught the eye:

“There was a lot of traffic, like in all Afghan cities, and everyone was driving like a maniac, again like everywhere in Afghanistan. The convoy has to stay together, but this one little Corolla insisted on passing and cutting them off. This makes them nervous, and they would pass it and try to get together again. It got between the car behind us and my car (the first one) and then started tail-gaiting us to speed up (it was a part of the road where it couldn�t pass). The guy sitting next to me solved the problem by opening his window and sticking his AK-47 out.”

“We then went to the airport to meet the ISAF commander, a nice Turkish guy who showed us his guest book. Hillary Clinton signs like a 7th grader and Condoleezza Rice signed in the wrong place, crossed it out, and then signed again in the right place. We then went to the airport to meet the ISAF commander, a nice Turkish guy who showed us his guest book. Hillary Clinton signs like a 7th grader and Condoleezza Rice signed in the wrong place, crossed it out, and then signed again in the right place. Hamid Karzai has a nice signature. Condoleezza Rice had been there the day before, but I was mad at her for coming to Afghanistan. She made some PR stops just for the day, closed all of the downtown roads and in the city of Kandahar (almost always the worst place), a bomb went off where she was supposed to drive an hour alter. She wasn�t even there, but 5 passers-by were killed and 32 were injured. I hope she thinks her visit was worth it.”

Tim Worstall’s latest Britblog roundup is here for the browsing.

Then, following these posts from the other day, The Observer has an interesting piece on French EU constitution referendum problems.

In other news, the current anti-Japanese protests in China may be worth keeping an eye on (more from the BBC here). After the submarine incident last November and the recent shifts in China towards getting tougher about Taiwan, could the People’s Republic be planning something, or is this just yet another example of thuggish nationalism?

For background on the re-writing of Japanese history for school textbooks, which is the supposed cause of the Chinese protests, see here, and for the importance of the Rape of Nanking – or whatever you want to call it – to Sino-Japanese relations, this is a superb primer.

In addition, Publius Pundit has more interesting, if unrelated, stuff on China and the Catholic Church. Who is the unnamed Cardinal? Sounds like the sort of thing you’d get in one of those piss-poor Dan Brown novels…

Following the round-up at the General Election Blog, the ongoing worries about the dodginess of the system and my post from the other day asking whether the general election is going to happen thaks to Birmingham Lib Dem councillor John Hemming’s calls for a judicial review of voting systems, I’ve just noticed that Hemming has a blog. On it he summarises his proposals, plus has a take on the MG Rover shambles.

I’ve started another new blog, currently full of some fairly dodgy film reviews I’ve been getting paid to do for the last few months (my journalistic career, for those who don’t know, started off in film criticism).

The USP? I hadn’t seen any of the films when I wrote the bloody things. Could be fun for any movie buffs out there to rip me to pieces about my wrong judgements, and I may well end up expanding its remit – after all, the name’s The Unseen Movie Review, so it could end up spreading to all sorts of things – films that were never made; alternative versions of movies (with preferred stars – Tom Selleck for Indiana Jones, Tom Cruise for Edward Scissorhands etc.); films that should be made.

Let me know what you think, and whether it’s worth pursuing.

(Oh, and there are some “reviews” there of films not released until later this month – don’t worry, they are all spoiler free)

Martin Stabe has a good roundup of how US “liberal” bloggers are beginning to respond to the UK election. In short – they can’t decide between backing the Lib Dems or Labour. Much like many on the left on this side of the pond…

Perhaps the most intriguing link from Stabe’s post, however, is this post from major lefty US blog the Daily Kos, which seems to suggest that the blog’s editor Markos Moulitsas Z�niga, who managed to raise over $500,000 for the Democrats in the 2004 Presidential elections (more details here), may be heading over to the UK.

Labour have already recruited one of John Kerry’s former webmonkeys (as m’colleague reported here), and claim to have raised upwards of �50,000 in 24 hours after an email appeal – where might the mighty Kos with his hundreds of thousands of daily readers chuck his weight, and will US tactics translate for the UK market?

(Also posted on the General Election Blog)

Robin Grant of Perfect.co.uk has a nice summary of the way the campaigning potential of the interwebnet seems finally to have been picked up on by the parties for this election in a piece over at Brand Republic.

It’s not just the parties, however. The traditional media (I hate that “MSM” thing us bloggers are apparently meant to use – nearly as bad as “txt spk”) are also getting in on the act, with election blogs from The Guardian, The Times, Channel 4 News, Red Pepper and the BBC, with more to follow.

Because – hey! The web’s where all the cool kids hang out, right?

Everyone seems to be getting very excited about the internets, largely because of the widely-reported victories of various US political bloggers. But whether their excitement is in any way justified remains to be seen, and many Britbloggers are probably inclined to agree with Martin Stabe’s analysis of why the US bloggers’ successes are unlikely to be replicated in the UK. And in any case, the fact that even media behemoths the BBC and The Times are cottoning on to blogging as a cheap way of publishing should be an indication that the British use of the interweb is a very different one to that of America, where most blogs are genuinely trying to uncover the distortions of the press (often while creating their own).

And in any case, the whole thing can easily backfire – the internet is a double-edged sword. Googlebombing and spamming can rapidly destroy a reputation, or just be used for a cheap joke (searches for “liar”, “fuckwit” and “swivel eyed loons” for example). And lack of web/legal savvy could ensure that for some MPs – once parliament is dissolved and they are simply candidates once more – their web presence could cause far more harm than good.

(Also posted at the General Election Blog)

Via The Returning Officers and The Honourable Fiend comes news that Birmingham council Liberal Democrats leader John Hemming wants a judicial review of electoral procedures following the Birmingham vote rigging scandal. This could potentially delay the general election.

Hemming says: “What I’m asking for is for small changes to the law of procedure for elections.

“I’m not trying to defer the General Election but if the judge determined it was unlawful and ordered the Prime Minister to change the law and he didn’t and that started bouncing around … there are a lot of interesting constitutional implications.

“If it is declared unlawful, the question is ‘what happens?’.”

Indeed.

(Also posted on the General Election Blog)

I’m still trying to keep one eye on the other side of the Channel while following the election run-up in the UK. Thusly:

Yesterday the European Commission made a pitch for its budget, asking for 1.14% of the combined gross incomes of all EU nations. Some countries – unsurprisingly those with the biggest economies (including Britain, France and Germany) want to limit this to just 1%. As such, it’s time for another clash:

“The differences in billions of euros between these two positions are not large, especially when compared with the size of national economies. At one level, the debate is about politicians playing to national galleries, engineering disputes to deliver victories down the line.

.

“But there is also a more substantive clash between those whose vision of Europe is one where national barriers fall and where economies of scale are best served and cross-border problems are best solved by working together – on the environment, transport, crime, immigration, even defense – and those who are resisting the transfer from national capitals of money, and power, to Europe’s center.

.

“‘There is a discrepancy between the bulk of legislation that the European Union is now responsible for, the many projects, the many ambitions, and the small budget it is given to deliver the goods,’ said Guillaume Durand, a policy analyst at the European Policy Center, a Brussels think tank that is generally pro-integration. ‘There is no willingness to give the EU the financial means.'”

In other words, as we all know, we all want the potential benefits, but we’re not willing to pay for them. Germany, with its increasingly poorly-looking economy and insane levels of unemployment, is increasingly getting pissed off at the amount of cash it has to bunk to Brussels. France is also beginning to worry about loss of influence since enlargement – part of the reason for the increasing anti-constitution trend there. Britain… well, Britain simply remains as it’s always done – a tad wary, and worried about losing its entirely unfair rebate.

In any case, if an agreement cannot be reached there could be all sorts of problems which would only give further fuel to the anti-EU brigade:

“Without an agreement in June for the 2007-2013 budget round, preparing the legal bases for the new programme could run late meaning ‘these programmes will come to a halt and money cannot be spent’.

“Practically, that would amount to 40 per cent of the EU budget not being able to be used – the only payments being made would be to farmers and for administration, part of the so-called compulsory spending category in the EU.

“‘That means’ said Mrs [Dalia] Grybauskaite [EU budget commissioner] summing it up ‘direct payments and salaries for bureaucrats’.”

Hurrah! If that doesn’t get our dear Eurosceptic friends pissed off, nothing will. But at the same time, they’ll probably be fairly satisfied: Cut the EU down to just CAP subsidies and eurocrats, it finally becomes what they always claim it to be. It also makes it impossible to support or defend.

In other words, they need to sort this out, pronto – but there’ll only be a month post-election for Britain to stop pissing around (no one’s going to be stupid enough to risk an EU debate pre-election again, surely?), and France is holding its referendum on the constitution on 29th May, giving no time at all over there. A concession from Chirac to give more cash to Brussels just before that referendum will be the final clincher for the French “No” campaign. So this will be going to the wire. Fun fun fun!

In other EU news, Italy has ratified the constitution. Which wasn’t much of a surprise, really.

About bloody time. This follows this.

Could make his plans to stand as an MP in West Yorkshire a tad buggered.

Good.

(For more on that particular constituency, see Ilkley Rocks.

A re-edited splice of a couple of posts of mine from the General Election Blog:

The Times has now launched its own election blog. Considering the current confusion about which way Times owner Rupert Murdoch will swing, it could prove interesting – even if there don’t appear to be comments yet.

The BBC’s Today Programme will apparently also be launching an election blog soon – perhaps even today. And we all know how the government feels about the Today Programme…

There’s also the BBC Election Blog and Red Pepper Election Blog, as well as the previously-mentioned Election 2005 Blog from The Guardian. Let me know if you spot more.

In other blog news, after the success of Thank You Tony, I’m on the lookout for previously unlikely supporters of a “Labour” leader who are coming out in support of our Tony for this election. A couple of examples:

• The American Patriots, who announce “Ladies and Gentlemen, This is a historic moment, I am supporting a leftist for the first time in my entire life.” This coming from a blogger who, in another recent post, announces very simply that “I don�t like liberals”. Not exactly Old Labour…
• Then Daimnation! – “Because of Blair’s brave support for the ouster of Saddam and the war against Islamofascist terror, this is the first British election I can remember in which I, an unrepentant Thatcherite, would likely vote Labour.”

If you spot any more, let me know – I simply love the idea of a bunch of people who would have been calling Blair a Communist if they’d been aware of him twenty years ago suddenly thinking he’s a hero…

Also, for any dear readers from across the Channel, I’d be grateful if you could point me in the direction of any interesting opinion pieces (blog or otherwise) from the European continental press – I’m keen to get an idea of how this little bit of democracy is going down overseas. Either email me on my nosemonkey AT gmail.com address, or whack a link in the comments, or get in touch with the team at the General Election Blog at generalelection@gmail.com. Ta.