Nosemonkey's EUtopia

I was wondering a couple of weeks back why no one seems to be interested in the protests in Kyrgyztan. Well, against all expectations the opposition protestors seem to be getting somewhere:

“The opposition in Kyrgyzstan says it has taken control of the capital, Bishkek, after overrunning the president’s palace.”

This could turn nasty… But, fresh from their Orange Revolution (see “Ukraine” section to the right), the new Ukrainian government has offered to step in as intermediaries.

Watch this space.

The Guardian have sorted out their Weblog Awards thing, so now it seems clearer which one I am. As such – vote for me!

There’s a lot of catch-up to be done to get up there with Lib Dem Watch after their storming early lead (even though they haven’t updated in nearly a fortnight – has no one told them there’s an election coming up?) – so get voting etc. Or not, whichever’s easier…

My fellow Guardian Political Weblog Awards nominee, the bastion of the “pro-war left” that is Harry’s Place, has a post up on the decision to delay lifting the embardo on arms exports to China, following a piece by Timothy Garton-Ash – the pundit of choice for pretty much everyone who wants a quick Euro hit, by the looks of the blogosphere. Can’t say I rate him overly highly myself (always seems a tad overly simplistic), but I suppose I should be nice as we went to the same school and all…

Anyway, that’s beside the point. Harry (for it is he) argues that

“There hasn’t been much noise about the scandalous position taken by the EU on this issue. It would surely have been different if it were the other way round and the EU had a tough line of not arming a dictatorship which has long been making war-mongering grumbles against a small neighbouring state and it was the US who unilaterally announced it was going to break the agreement and start selling weapons to the free-market Stalinists?”

It may be worth pointing out once again that, despite US protestations about EU plans, 6.7 percent of Chinese defense imports come from the United States and only 2.7 percent from Europe.

This is not, of course, to defend the EU’s plans to bunk arms to China on any moral level (as morality isn’t really a factor and it does, after all, make perfect economic sense) – and I am certainly uncomfortable with the idea that we might be aiding any future attack on Taiwan.

But come on, people – what’s with all these weak comparisons between the US and EU? They are not, as much as many from both the Eurosceptic and Europhile camps may like us to believe, actually sensibly comparable. There are vague, broad similarities, certainly – but there are far, far more differences in their structures and ways of working than anything else. If you start making silly comparisons in particular areas you can make a convincing-sounding argument about pretty much anything.

The Guardian Backbencher’s Political Weblog Award shortlists are out. It would appear Europhobia has made it through.

I would ask for your votes – but sadly another, similarly-titled blog, EUrophobe, has also been nominated in the single-issue campaigns section. The Guardian, that bastion of subediting genius, has managed not only to bugger up the capitalisation of this site’s name, but also their HTML.

Ten English pounds to the person who can tell me who I should click by to give myself a vote:

1) The site listed as EUrophobia – which links here but is described as a “‘Europhobic’ blog written by a European parliament employee. Scarily un-PC, but very funny in exposing EU wastefulness and bureaucracy.” (Europhobe‘s description)

OR

2) The site down as “Europhobe” – which links there but is described as “A former eurosceptic turned pro-European on politics and international relations in Europe and the rest of the world. Good stuff.” (the description for this place)

I have to confess, I have no idea which of us is which… Still – thanks for the thought, Farringdon guys. Nice to see that I can have my first “Oh look the ‘MSM’ has got it wrong” moment in another one of these bouts of blog navel-gazing…

So, as I say – a correction and/or clarification might be in order – if only so I can work out just how badly I’m losing.

(By the way, am I on a single issue campaign? News to me… Oh, and thanks to Jarndyce&Jarndyce of The Pseudo Magazine for pointing this out – and the kind words and all.)

Can’t be bothered at the moment – it’s sunny and I’m overworked and knackered. Have a picture of me to cheer yourself up:

Thanks to efforts by The Guardian, the Zimbabwean opposition’s newspaper now has its own website, launched yesterday. The Zimbabwean is more than worthy of patronage from anyone who professes to be a supporter of democracy and freedom, standing up to the insanity and ruthlessness of Mugabe. With “elections” due on the 31st, it should prove to be a valuable source of information – and one well worth helping out with a few donations, should you be inclined to put your money where your principles are…

According to the latest ICM opinion poll (.pdf file), at least.

In the first question, “Which of the following issues will be most important in your decision on how to vote in the next general election?”, there was a singular lack of interest in anything other than domestic issues. As per usual.

Asylum and Immigration – 8% see it as important
The fight against terrorism – 4%
Europe – 4%

A grand total of just 16% interested about anything beyond our shores – and immigration is primarily considered a domestic issue anyway. So the fact that the Tories are considered to have the best policies on Asylum and Immigration (30% to Labour’s 24% – Table 5) will be small comfort.

For those of us who hoped Blair might get a bloody nose in these elections thanks to being a filthy liar who misled us all over Iraq and wants to lock us all up and throw away the key, Table 9 shows we might be in trouble – 36% think Labour have “the best policies on The fight against terrorism”. Equally, Table 11 shows that 33% “much prefer Blair to Howard”, with an additional 18% preferring Bliar “on balance”.

We could be in trouble.

As for the EU (Table 6) – for us supposed Europhiles, it appears that 30% think Labour have the best policies on “Europe” – 30% to the Tories’ 27%. Add in the Lib Dem lot as well, and 39% think that a primarily pro-European line is the “best”.

Of course, you can prove anything with statistics. For another take on this poll, check out the always interesting UK Polling Report.

An article in The Sunday Times yesterday was a prime example of the easy cop-out of buck-passing to the EU whenever a government department makes a cock-up.

Basic story? A moronic official at DEFRA vetoed a food advertising campaign because he thought the images were “too British” (fields, cows, farmers – the sort of thing you’ll find all over Europe):

“One photograph, headlined One Day with Daisy, was deemed to be too obviously of a British landscape and thus risked breaching articles 20 and 28 of the Treaty of Rome, designed to curb illegal state subsidies.”

Erm… Here’s the Treaty of Rome. Let’s see:

“Article 20. The duties applicable to the products in List G shall be determined by negotiation between the Member States. Each Member State may add further products to this List to a value not exceeding 2 per cent of the total value of its imports from third countries in the course of the year 1956.
“The Commission shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that such negotiations shall be undertaken before the end of the second year after the entry into force of this Treaty and be concluded before the end of the first stage.
“If, for certain products, no agreement can be reached within these periods, the Council shall, on a proposal from the Commission, acting unanimously until the end of the second stage and by a qualified majority thereafter, determine the duties in the common customs tariff.”

The official at DEFRA even explicitly referred to article 28: “many of the proposed articles [in the advertising leaflet] would breach article 28 of the treaty because of their focus on the British origin of the product”.

“Article 28. Any autonomous alteration or suspension of duties in the common customs tariff shall be decided by the Council, acting by a qualified majority on a proposal from the Commission.”

Yep – LOADS there about places of origin for foodstuffs, isn’t there? Christ…

As the Commission has noted, this whole thing is simply a load of old bollocks:

“The European commission said it ‘never’ regarded pictures of national landscapes as posing a breach of state aid rules. A spokesman said: ‘That is wrong.'”

For a change, this is not a press distortion, but a deliberate propagation of a Euromyth by a civil servant desperate to pass the blame elsewhere. Mention a few random articles or subclauses from some European treaty, the assumption is that no one can be bothered to check because these things are all so dull. Most of the time, this seems to be a safe assumption to make.

But it sounds good, doesn’t it? Meddling Brussels bureaucrats interfering with or way of life, wasting our money, etc. Who cares if it’s a load of old nonsense?

When it turns out to be one of our own bureaucrats, generally speaking everyone stays rather more quiet. As I’ve tried explaining numerous times, both here and over at Commissioner Wallstrom’s blog, there’s really not much difference between our own civil service and the Commission’s various workers (note: not the Commissioners themselves). The only real difference is that the Commission doesn’t have the luxury of being able to pass the buck…

Yesterday’s budget promised a �200 council tax rebate to pensioners. A handy bribe, with an election coming up. As Labour’s Blogging Bromwich East MP notes, “Gordon Brown just gave 12,980 pensioner households in my constituency an additional �200, it’s these days that make me realise just how lucky I am”.

Yep, being in government is certainly an easy way to speed through bribes and corruption. The current issue of Private Eye notes the ongoing drama over postal vote fraud in Birmingham, noting that in last year’s local elections “in the ward of Bordesley Green, up to 3,000 people had their postal votes forged and stolen by Labour supporters. The party won the ward with a majority of 441.” The judge investigating has apparently stated that “I might come to the conclusion that this was a Birmingham-wide Labour party activity.” Shades of Florida 2000, eh?

And as Chicken Yoghurt notes, this �200 to pensioners is a one off payment, purely for this electoral year.

In Tom Watson’s constituency alone, this bribe is going to cost �2,598,000. How is this loss of income going to be covered without other ratepayers picking up the slack? Council Tax rises all round, then…

So, if they think about it for a moment, constituents will quickly twig that taxes will go up after the election and they’ll end up worse off.

The pensioners in question will also realise that the payment is a one-off and they’ll get hit for full-whack Council Tax next year (doubtless including above inflation increases, as per usual, to cover their earlier vote-winning bribes) with no corresponding increase in their pensions.

Nice one… Perhaps the words of Harold Wilson in the October 1974 Labour Manifesto might bear repeating: “We do not believe in electoral bribes – these are an insult to the intelligence and realism of the public.”

The current Labour government, insulting the intelligence and realism of the public? Surely not!

(And this coming from someone who quite likes Gordon Brown…)

In a comment to this post, a chap by the name of Ronnie in New Orleans, who has visited the site before on and off to have a few arguments with a wishy-washy liberal Brit, has a rather good summary of the attitude of many in the US to British exasperation over the lack of condemnation of the IRA as terrorists. As I’ve suddenly been inundated with work, I’ll reproduce it here in lieu of any time to knock up something original. It deserves to be read more widely than just by those who click the comments link, after all:

It’s not really hypocrisy, it’s just reality.

As a French-Spanish Catholic with no historic or emotional stake in the situation in Ulster let me try to explain some of the problems that arise when you equate Arab terrorism against the US with Britain’s problems with Ireland; and with expecting a proportional reaction from our government.

I don’t think Brits in general have a real appreciation of the pure hatred, rancor, dislike, disdain, disgust, and just plain unfriendly feelings that many, and maybe most, Irish-Americans have for England. You could spend oceans of electronic ink explaining and deconstructing many of the arguments used to justify this dislike, but it won’t change many minds. We have a large Irish Catholic population in New Orleans, one of our major old city areas is called the Irish Channel, but I had never really felt the weight of this animosity until I grew up and got into discussions with friends and acquaintances of Irish descent about issues related to the troubles.

It is also true that although many of the claims made regarding systematic genocide, forced starvation, and other government sponsored acts of slaughter are often exaggerated or untrue, Britain spent about 350 years or so cultivating this hatred by treating Irish Catholics as less than human. You got where you are the old fashioned way; you earned it. I don’t think the same can be said for the US history with the Arabs. As a matter of convenience we have just become the hated symbol and religious whipping boy for the existence of Israel. If we would have attacked Tel Aviv instead of Baghdad all references to the Great Satsn would have disappeared as quickly as Europe’s Jews.

I’ve been in a bar where people of Irish descent clapped and cheered when hearing of British ships being sunk in the Falklands. I’ve heard well educated people assert that Irish Catholics starved while the English refused to unload the grain ships sitting in Irish harbors, or sold the food on the European market… of orders given to British soldiers to crush the heads of Irish babies. And this is the “G” rated list.

At the local Celtic bar in the French Quarter rebel songs are sung with passion and meaning. I love the music but references to a “Thompson gun” sort of spoil the atmosphere. The music is good but the theme can really get tiresome. British friends come often to the bar with me because they like Celtic music, and comment that “nobody cares about that stuff anymore” though one of them did say the amount of it sung during the show was “sort of extreme.” Wish it had been. Come back next week.

And this is in Southern, Conservative, Red State Louisiana. The Irish here are almost all Democrats, and represent a good portion of the Kerry support in the city during the last election. These are the folks the Brit media seems to think has all of the good sense and political nuance. Let me assure you they are not well intentioned toward Britain. Judge for yourself if that’s good sense.

And there lies the problem. This is a visceral political issue for these folks, and they represent a substantial voting block, one that any politician, especially a Democrat, offends at his peril. Give some kudos to George Bush… he snubbed the IRA and in so doing forced the hand of Ted Kennedy, who would have looked to be a boot licker if he would have entertained Adams. The pull of the old hatreds is so great, however, that other members of the Kennedy clan did visit with Adams, I’m sure to tell him to lay low until the heat is off.

Is the IRA a terrorist organization? Of course.
Are they a bunch of armed criminals? Yeah.
Is Sinn Fein a political front for a gang of thugs? Sure.
Is Gerry Adams a murdering scumbag with a slick image? Absolutely.
Should SF/IRA be banned from fundraising in the US and have all of their assets seized? Yep.

But George Bush has only so much political capital to spend, and I doubt he will find it prudent to invest a large portion of it into an issue as peripheral to US interests as the Ulster/IRA/SF/GB problem, which most Americans who aren’t Irish don’t care about anyway. The most he can do is keep up the symbolic gestures. It will have some effect. I would sum up the prevailing independent opinion over the years as “they deserve each other.”

I hope that’s changing and I think it has to some degree. The stupid criminal acts by the SF/IRA coalition are having an effect on US public opinion since they can equate it to a criminal organization rather than a terrorist group. Americans are familiar with government limiting and punishing criminal organizations. It is all to the good that this is the way it is presented. Americans have long ago separated Italians from the Mafia, and the pursuit of the criminals no longer stigmatizes all Italians by association. Painting the IRA criminals as criminals is neither inaccurate or dishonest and will serve to separate the current crop of mobsters from Collins and Childers, as well as from good ole Paddy down the street. They’re more like Capone. These guys are not insurgents, freedom fighters, or latter day avengers. These guys give rebels a bad name. They’re just common crooks.

Up the Irish!
And the rule of law.

By -ronnie in new orleans-

That’s how much the “War on Terror” has cost, according to the budget. �4.9 billion. That’s �4,900,000,000 – a lot of zeros.

Would you look at that? This money could have been used to fund ID cards for every citizen, and still leave the government with at least �1.965 billion change.

In addition, the defence budget is being increased by �400 million. That could have paid for a new “super-hospital”.

Taken as a whole, that �4.9 billion could have paid, let’s face it, for a whole load of nice stuff. How about a digital set-top box for every British citizen plus change for a couple of pints? Actually, sod the digital box – how about 33 pints each?

They haven’t quite got the right idea, this government. Who cares about far-off lands of which we know nothing? Get us all pissed – that’s how you win votes.

Update: Well, I suppose it could be worse…

Following this old piece of mine, an article in today’s Times does much to help explain to Americans precisely why Britain has the attitude it does towards this whole “War on Terror” malarkey. I don’t usually like Simon Jenkins much, but this is spot on.

I’ll post the whole article in a comment in case it goes to the subscription site at some point.

That’s all the Commission has allocated EU-wide for pro-constitution propaganda. (�5.5 million divided by an EU population of 456 million.)

Of that, �86,000 has been allocated to the UK (one tenth of one penny per British citizen, taking current UK population as 58.7 million). That is just about enough to buy two and a bit 30 second slots on primetime weeknight ITV (�36,000 for 30 seconds on Carlton) – only there wouldn’t be any money left over to actually make the advert…

Oh, and lest we forget, Jack Straw has in any case ruled out any possibility of the government accepting any of this paltry sum.

Yep, we’re simply inundated with pro-EU propaganda, aren’t we? (The first link there is yet another wonderful example of the rabidly Eurosceptic Bruges Group spouting abject nonsense.)

More on this new drive (if such insignificant amounts of money can really be termed a “drive”) here.

Well, it looks like the election will probably be called between April 4th and 7th. If you’ve been following the polls (latest: CON 34% (+4) LAB 39%(-3) LD 19%(+1)) or working out the odds (or taking others’ odds), you’re no doubt getting a tad confused.

There have been all kinds of scare stories that if you Back Blair, Vote4Peace, vote strategically or for someone else then the Tories may get back in. And that would, so everyone keeps telling me, be a disaster. Because yeah – Blair’s crap and all, but the Tories MUST be worse than Labour, right? (Because, erm… you know, the sinking of the Belgrano was… erm… obviously far worse than anything Blair’s been responsible for…)

Never fear. The Tories haven’t got a hope in hell. Here – in insane detail – is why. Feel free to vote tactically, people. Give Blair all the bloody noses you want – votes is the only language politicians understand.

Oh and for the record, I am well nigh certain that – despite everything – Labour will still be returned with a majority in excess of 100 seats. And no, I haven’t done the maths on that. It’s just a slightly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.