Nosemonkey's EUtopia

is that although it’s still August (just), I’ve managed to catch a cold. We should move the entire country further south. Somewhere in the Bay of Biscay should do it.

A halfway decent short summary of Britain’s problem with Europe.

The Guardian reports that the right-wing thinktank Civitas is launching its own primary school to preserve “British culture”.

It’s a primary school. Yet apparently “The final aim of education is the formation of strong moral character, good manners, and the develop�ment of well-informed judgement. Good citizenship is not a subject of the school curriculum, but an aspect of conduct and behaviour that arises from knowledge of the foundations of the culture, its history, values, and institutions.” The children are 4-5 years old. Are they actually aware of their own national identity at this age? I’m pretty certain I wasn’t.

This is not to mention Civitas’ record on pronouncing against immigration (pdf), Europe and single parent families in statistic-ridden pamphlets designed to appeal to the Daily Mail‘s leader writers and confuse the actual facts.

Now is it just the liberal in me, or does this sound just a tad like they want to brainwash these little kiddies at a nice early age, and produce a generation of little Oswald Mosleys?

Yep, the Republican convention kicks off in New York, and the G.O.P. announces it’s going to repeatedly remind everyone about September 11th.

Is this reminding everyone about the intelligence failures that led to the threat being overlooked? The national security failures that led to the terrorists being able to get into the country and onto the planes without being challenged once? The immense loss of life? The resultant wars that have led to even more loss of life?

What they’re blatantly trying to do is remind everyone what a strong leader Bush has been in the aftermath. But what they could end up doing is reminding everyone how weak he was in the run-up. And with Michael (not as intelligent or insightful as he’d like to think) Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 still in theatres, hinting at conspiracy, wouldn’t they be better focussing on Bush’s achievements, rather than his single most obvious failure? His was, after all, the man who was supposed to be responsible for protecting the US, and he failed.

Is this going to be another example of a Republican plan backfiring, like their mindless attempt to alter the constitution to ban gay marriage? It’s highly insulting to the families of the dead, and to the survivors. To do this in the middle of New York itself seems remarkable callous.

But then again, maybe they’ve got a decent gameplan this time. Perhaps they’ve actually thought things through. Kerry’s lead in the polls, though modest, is still a major blow, considering Bush’s levels of popularity in the aftermath of 9/11. Perhaps the G.O.P. has some kind of cunning plan to remind everyone how much they were behind the President back then. It’s possible. Just…

It’s also worth pointing out that Rudolph Giuliani’s plans to liken Bush to Churchill could also backfire for anyone who knows their history: “Winston Churchill saw the dangers of Hitler when his opponents and much of the press characterized him as a warmongering gadfly. George W. Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is, and he will remain consistent to the purpose of defeating it while working to make us ever safer at home.”

Of course, the fact that pretty much all of Churchill’s military plans during WWII were disasterous, causing more harm to the Allies than good, is beside the point. As is the fact that he was also a pretty useless peacetime Prime Minister during the 1950s. Churchill is a name that resonates with Americans as symbolising great leadership. What he actually was was a great figurehead for more sensible people to work through from behind the scenes. So maybe the Bush analogy isn’t too far off…

With all the focus on Mandelson’s dodgy appointment, I don’t think many in the UK have realised.

The new chap who ends up being one of the most powerful men in Europe is Jos� Manuel Barroso. Ever heard of him? He’s the former Prime Minister of Portugal, yet must have done some other stuff. But Google for him and that’s pretty much all you can find out on the first page of results. At least in English. It takes a bit more patience to find a more in-depth biography.

It turns out he was a communist. Which is always encouraging. Plus supported the invasion of Iraq. Which was nice of him.

Anyway, here’s a breakdown of the rest of the new commissioners. I might hunt around for dirt on them – we already know Mandelson’s hardly the best choice if the Commission wants to rid itself of the image of corruption and nepotism it has built up over the last few years, so it’d be interesting to find out the pasts of the rest of them.

Yep. In an effort to keep this thing up to date, I’ve recruited myself some people to help out. Assuming any of us remember, expect posts to become more frequent from now on.

(Oh, and as you can hopefully see, I worked out how to add a links section as well. Nothing fancy, but does the job. This will be added to as and when I come across things – if you want your site / blog linked, let me know.)

Hence no updates. But I think I may have found some renewed motivation.

The first part of this came thanks to browsing through the utterly unpolitical website of themanwhofellasleep, a telented chap whom I met via b3ta, and with whom I may shortly be working on a book project. He’s kept his site going for years – I’ve known of it for at least three, probably more – and has built up a decent cult following.

The second is thanks to another bloke met via b3ta, the lovely Tim Ireland, often better known as Manic, who is the highly dedicated man behind Bloggerheads. He took the piss out of me, I called him rude names, then I started actually reading his site properly, having been aware of it for ages. It is irritatingly good.

Third, I checked out the often interesting and superbly named A Fistful of Euros, and found this blog linked there. Under the “left wing” category. Which confused me briefly, but then I suppose I do link to The Guardian rather a lot… Either way, the fact someone had noticed this and thought it worth linking to made me think it might be worth pursuing.

Finally, I checked the blog of a real-life friend of mine, which was started about the same time as I first experimented with blogging a couple of years ago. Disgustingly, he’s kept it going all this time, while I have let umpteen blogs vanish into the ether (there are about three I can’t even remember the addresses of).

As I’ve been moderately successful in keeping my jokey, nonsensical b3ta blog going for the last few months (it takes far less time to keep going than this one due to far less thinking), I reckon it’s time to start this one up properly again.

Anyway, I’ve given it a redesign (in lovely EU colours, no less), and added comments and post linking, just in case anyone’s interested. I would put in a links section down the side, but I can’t for the life of me work out how. If anyone does actually read this, let me know either via comments or email (nosemonkey (AT SYMBOL) gmail.com) – I’d appreciate it.

From the Guardian again, an opinion piece by the amusingly-named Jeffery Titford, UKIP MEP: “I am picking up a strong sense that voters have not only had enough of seeing their country being pushed around by Brussels but, interestingly, they are just as disillusioned with the big three parties and want to use this election to raise a metaphorical two fingers at them.”

“Dissillusioned with the big three parties” actually has a lot of validity to it. The first part may or may not. Until we have a referendum, it’s all guesswork. No matter how many polls from the notoriously unreliable You Gov you commission, until everyone in the country has a chance to express their views once and for all, no one has a clue.

Some things are for sure: lots of people are pissed off with Labour, and with Tony Blair in particular; many people still don’t think the Tories should be allowed back into power; and a sizable chunk of the population won’t vote for the Lib Dems because they don’t think they’ve got a chance of getting in.

Sadly, in this country people no longer vote as they should: for the individual candidate that best represents their views and desires. Instead, we vote for parties. I wouldn’t be surprised if a sizable number of Labour councillors lose their seats in the upcoming local elections not because they have done anything wrong, but because the country has fallen out of love with Mr Blair.

No updates in a while due to work and life getting in the way. I’ve missed a lot of developments. Ho-hum.

Discovered the Guardian has a Euroblog today. Thought I’d check it out. It’s updated somewhat more regularly than this one, but then again, someone’s PAID to do it. Lucky bastard.

Anyway, today’s entry is from Tory MEP Roger Helmer. The man seems to be a bit of an idiot. I quote:

“The key difference, and the reason why Eurosceptic voters should vote Conservative, is that UKIP is a fringe, single-issue party with no hope at all of ever forming a government. UKIP can’t deliver! Only a major national party like the Conservatives, with an excellent prospect of forming the next government, can actually deliver a radical change in Britain’s relationship with the EU.”

A fringe party with no hope at all of ever forming a government. I seem to recall similar things were being said about the Tories a few years back. The UKIP are crypto-fascist scum, and are indeed a single-issue party. Sadly, that does not mean they would be incapable of achieving something in Europe. They could balls the whole thing up royally, and the scary thing is they’d be doing it out of a genuine desire to do what they think is best for this country. It’s true that they aren’t going to be able to form a government, but if enough people put in their protest votes for them, a message might be sent. At least it’s mildly better than the BNP, but I really do despise the UKIP.

To be fair, Helmer makes some valid points on the UKIP’s record with the limited power it has managed to attain. Here, as in their inherent racism and xenophobia, they are much akin to the BNP, whose few councillors have consistently failed to achieve anything for the communities they claim to represent.

UKIP MEPs “have a well-below-average voting record… often have no idea how to vote… rarely show up in committees, where key decisions affecting British interests are debated and effected.” All true.

The trouble with the Eurosceptic parties is that when they gain any kind of power within Europe, doing anything with that power goes against all their instincts. They don’t believe MEPs should have any say in what happens in the UK, so when they become MEPs they frequently fail to fulfill their duties to the people who elected them and actually do any work.

Yay for Martin Bell! Although he’s kept a fairly low profile for the last few years, he’s still got enough name recognition and a good enough reputation to raise the profile of the European elections through his decision to stand as an independent candidate:

“European politics is a mystery. Few people know who their MEPs are. Who, for instance, represents Norfolk and Suffolk in Brussels and Strasbourg?

“Most of the voters neither know nor care. They feel powerless. It is no wonder that the turnout in the last Euro election was a dismal 24%. We can, and shall, do better.”

The less said about the racist moron Robert Kilroy-Silk standing for the quasi-fascist UKIP the better.

Nonetheless, having big names stand as MEPs is a good thing. It might convince people that the European Parliament actually matters. They’e always happy to complain about how Brussels is ripping them off with unreasonable legislation, but they never bother to vote in European electons.

Considering European elections generally have a turnout well below 30%, perhaps the vociferous Eurosceptic crowd might better turn their attention to drumming up votes. If the majority of the British public support them as they routinely claim, it should be a doddle to clean up at every Euro election going.

Bloody hell – no updates in a while due to being busy and out of London (Lake District last weekend and Cornwall for a four day weekend from Thursday last week, as if anyone cares), and it’s all change. The EU is now 25 members strong, and Blogger has had a complete redesign. Only time will tell if either of these is a good development.

More in a bit – if I remember and can find the time in amongst this irritating “work” thing they keep making me do…

“Il est vraiment regrettable, en effet, si l’on croit que la Grande-Bretagne doit occuper une place centrale dans la conduite de l’Europe, ce dont je suis intimement persuad�, que la question ait �t� pr�sent�e sous un jour aussi faux dans mon pays ces derni�res ann�es. Il est impossible de raisonner intelligemment quand le d�bat porte non pas sur les m�rites de la Constitution envisag�e, mais sur le fait de savoir s’il y a lieu de consulter le peuple � son sujet. C’est pourquoi j’ai jug� que le moment �tait venu de mettre cartes sur table – d’obliger les eurosceptiques et les proeurop�ens � faire valoir leurs vues, et de demander au peuple de trancher.”

I’d forgotten to mention anything about Blair’s article in Le Monde on Wednesday. “It is impossible to reason intelligently when the debate is conducted not on the merits of the proposed Constitution, but on whether or not we should consult the people on the subject.”

Considering the results of the You Gov poll released today (admittedly a not especially reliable polling organisation, if one believes Private Eye as I do) that 51% of the population would vote not to the proposed Constitution and about 75% (can’t remember the precise figure off-hand) admit to not having any idea what it’s all about, “the people” cannot be trusted to make an informed choice.

We need an enlightened despot to make these decisions for us. Unfortunately, we’ve got Tony Blair. Poor chap. He tries his best…

Speaking of the Tories, Duncan-Smith’s replacement, good old Michael “Poll Tax” Howard, is launching the Tory manifesto today in preparation for the European elections (which, thanks to the ineptitude of Camden Council, I don’t believe I will be eligable to vote in, which is nice).

According to the Guardian the basic points are as follows:

� Federalist countries given a green light to integrate, but others would not be compelled to join them

� Provision for a “red card” to allow a third of the EU’s national parliaments to block European legislation that offends the “subsidiarity” rule

� EU commission should lose its sole right to initiate legislation

� The six month rotating presidency should be replaced with team presidencies of one year

� Make free trade the central objective of EU treaties

� Subject all EU proposals to cost assessment

� Defence cooperation must be under a Nato umbrella

Interestingly, all of this is very sensible. Apart from the fourth point, about the nature of the EU presidency, everything else is pretty much contained within the current draft of the proposed Constitution.

Howard’s a clever man. Despite the way the press has been reporting it, and despite my post of a few days ago, the Tories are being very moderate on the issue, and choosing their words with expert precision. Eurosceptics can read into them a rejection of Europe full-stop if they like, but that’s not what Howard’s actually saying.

Howard wants to block the creation of “a country called Europe”. He knows full well that this is not going to happen – at least, not within the next century or so. Even the most ardent eurofederalists have accepted that a “United States of Europe” is somewhat unrealistic, and even under the proposed majority voting of the draft constitution there would not be enough support for this within the EU.

Howard also pledged today that “The Conservatives are promising to the British people that we will hold a referendum on every future treaty agreed by the EU which transfers significant powers from Britain to Brussels.”

The “significant powers” is the important bit here. Blair’s original argument for not needing a referendum on the Constitution was that “significant powers” were not being transferred – and they wouldn’t be. What constitutes a “significant power” anyway? The people who decide will be those in government at the time powers are going to be transferred.

If Howard was PM and another EU treaty came up, he hasn’t pledged to hold a referendum no matter what (as some sections of the press are suggesting), but only if he thinks it’s significant. He could quite happily do a John Major and sign up to another Maastricht in the face of overwhelming opposition from press and public alike, and not be breaking any pledges he has made today, simply by arguing that powers being transferred are not “significant”.

He’s not a barrister for nothing, that Howard. Still not enough to make me vote for them though…