Nosemonkey's EUtopia

In search of a European identity

May 24, 2008
by Nosemonkey
6 Comments

Belated Eurovision liveblog

Eurovision 2008 logoForgot it was on, damn it. The perfect illustration of how Europe can come together to ridicule cheesy pop. And be expanded to include the likes of Turkey, Israel, Russia and Azerbaijan… (Why can’t we get Japan in there? The only possible way Eurovision could be improved is with a bit of J-pop.)

Highlights of what I’ve seen so far – Croatia’s superb Balkan Godfather piece and Iceland going all out for the traditional Europop vibe. Perfect stuff – if Iceland’s entry isn’t played on a constant loop in G-A-Y down at the Astoria for the next few weeks, I’ll eat my hat.

The only thing to have unduly concerned me so far (bar Israel’s muscle-bound out-of-tune semi-Arabic oddness) is that Turkey’s entry appeared to be sung by Sylar from Heroes… Is this yet another example of how the eeeeeevil muslims are going to invade and create Eurabia, slice open our heads and then steal our superpowers? (Can any of the nutty right-wing islamophobes who believe in the Eurabia nonsense fill me in on what I’m supposed to be scared of again? It’s all so silly I’ve forgotten…)

More to come, no doubt. Plus videos, when I find them… Any chance of anyone telling me what I missed in the first 45 minutes or so?

Update: Wow. Portugal’s entry’s being sung by a squashed Princess Eugenie in full goth gear. Result!

Croatia’s entry – the Balkan Godfathers:

Iceland’s super-gay Europop genius: (albeit with a far less gay outfit in this video)

9:05pm update: Hmmm… Latvia have gone for a pirate theme. Very bland, though – and a good couple of years too late to ride on the Johnny Depp in dreadlocks vibe.

9:07pm update: Jesus! What in the hell happened to that poor Swedish woman’s face? Looks like Cate Blanchett after she’s been put through a mangle and stamped on a few times…

I love Eurovision.

9:11: Actually, scrap that. Denmark’s entry’s so blandly unimaginative it’s bored me rigid in the first 30 seconds. Derivative and uninspired’s the order of the day with Eurovision, but this is entirely the wrong kind of cheesy – wearing a flat cap and braces while prancing around doesn’t make you a cheeky chappie, it makes you like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, and thus worthy of no more than a bullet to the brain.

9:14: Now THIS is more like it. Georgia’s gone for the weird bleached blonde men doing bizarre dances while a seemingly blind female dwarf trying (and failing) to do an impression of Audrey Hepburn somehow manages to switch from an all black to an all white costume for no discernible reason. Good effort! (This video nowhere near as stupid as the end result, sadly…)

9:18: Now come on, Ukraine – you’ve made far, far too much effort. A genuinely saucy-looking female lead singer, rather than the usual slightly deformed or dumpy types that normally get to sing Eurovision entries? A song that sounds like someone actually put some effort in? Shame on you! It’s like Ruslana all over again – and she’s gone on to appear in GTA IV. You don’t get more Western than that – and that’ll never do while you’re still in the middle of a geopolitical tug of war between Russia and the EU. Tut! Less effort next time – far less, if you know what’s good for you…

9:23: France have done it as well – made an effort and come up with a genuinely decent little song. I’d forgotten about old Sebastien Tellier (he of the “oh noes! He am singing in teh English! Teh lingua franca est finis!” controversy). Top stuff – good effort, and once again I find myself rooting for France at Eurovision (just as I will be in Euro 2008):

9:26: Scrap that. Azerbaijan to win! Brilliantly over the top rubbish, topped off with dancers in g-strings. Result! Give them immediate EU membership to boot! Whether they want it or not!

9:31: Oh dear. Greece, Greece, Greece – where did it all go wrong? You guys invented European culture, and now you’re reduced to a fielding a sub-par brunette Britney Spears doing a Beyonce pastiche. Yawn. (Still, at least she follows the unwrittten Eurovision rule of lead female singers not being as attractive as they’re evidently supposed to be…)

9:35: The Spanish. Not known for their sense of humour. Shame.

9:40: *Yawn* Sorry… I think I nodded off during Serbia’s entry. What is it with Eurovision and identikit ballads? If you like that kind of toss so much, go and buy the back catalogues of Boyzone and Westlife, and leave the rest of us to the sort of nonsense we expect from Eurovision. This is no place for competently-sung blandness – we want over-the-top cheese and rampant idiocy, or our money back, damn it.

9:43: Christ – Russia’s gone for another one. This one featuring a massive-nosed ice skater on the smallest (round) ice rink ever – so bonus points for stupidity of presentation (with a couple of extra for the pretty-boy singer opening his shirt at the end to try to bring in the gay vote – though gay people in Russia are more likely to be punched in the head by fascists than allowed to have a say in anything…), even if the song itself has no merits whatsoever.

9:47: And wrapping it up comes Norway – a perfectly passable pop song, well sung – of the kind that you can hear on Radio One every day of the week (should you be so inclined). So what the hell’s it doing in Eurovision?

9:53: Judging by the recap, the only thing that it was possibly a shame to miss was Bosnia’s effort – one of those “ho ho ho! Aren’t we wacky?” efforts that surfaces every year, hoping for the kinds of votes that Labour supporters assume are the only reason Boris Johnson became mayor of London:

Final analysis – if France don’t win, there’s something deeply wrong.

The voting: Yawn. Macedonia – third to vote – gives 10 points to Serbia, 12 to Albania. Can I really be bothered to point out the politics behind it? Ukraine’s up fourth – 8 points to Azerbaijan, 10 to Georgia and (surprise surprise) 12 points to Russia.

You could have knocked me down with a feather.

The only surprising thing after five countries voting is that Greece (bland Britneyalike) has got two lots of 12 votes – from Britain and Germany. After Estonia (also 12 points to neighbour Russia, unsurprisingly) the UK is still on nil points. Because everyone hates us and our song was shit.

10:55 update: Voting’s still going, and still utterly predictable. So much has been said about the political nature of Eurovision voting it’s barely worth mentioning again.

One thing that is nice, though, is how neighbour always seems to vote for neighbour – even when those neighbours haven’t necessarily been getting on via the usual diplomatic fronts (Estonia voting for Russia? ALL the Balkan countries doiong happy vote exchanges, where a decade ago they were murdering each other?).

It all gives scope for hope, surely? Yes, Cyprus may well have voted for Greece and Armenia in a nice two fingers to Turkey after that invasion business (with Greece giving 12 points to Armenia to boot), but still… Turkey gave 10 points to Armenia to make up for that whole genocide thing, so that was nice of them.

(Oh, and Fistful have also been liveblogging – have a gander…)

And Russia take it – with votes from ex-colonies and neighbours like Ukraine, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Belarus, etc. etc. etc., the amazement isn’t that Russia’s won, it’s that Russia doesn’t win EVERY SINGLE SODDING TIME. As good old Terry Wogan so accurately points out, this is no longer a song contest – and there’s little point in Western European nations even turning up any more.

So, is Eurovision really a vision of Europe’s future? Is this where our fates lie? Dominated by Russia and the east?

Well, ermmm… Quite possibly yes, as it happens.

May 23, 2008
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Labour’s dismal electoral strategy

Labour’s dismal electoral strategy

(Originally published on The Sharpener)

So Labour have lost the Crewe and Natwich election, the Tories winning their first by-election in 26 years. Huzzah.

At last Labour seem to be getting the kind of kicking they’ve long deserved – a kicking I’m hoping might finally shake them out of the complacency that’s seen a supposedly left-wing, pro-EU government with no viable opposition and a massive majority in the Commons (that could have seen it pass pretty much any legislation it wanted during the last decade from joining the Euro to scrapping the idiocy of taxing state pensions and benefits, raising the rate of the tax-free allowance to renationalising the railways) sit back on its fat, hairy arse and do bugger all significant for its last two terms in office.

I’m also very much hoping this is the end to the pathetic Labour “we hate posh people, you hate posh people – come on, vote based on outmoded class antagonisms, petty misplaced jealousies and negatives, negatives, negatives, never positives” electoral strategy. They tried it in London with Boris, and it failed dismally; they’ve tried it in Crewe and it’s failed even more. Serves them right – replace “posh people” with “darkies” and all they’re doing is repackaging the BNP’s electoral strategy from the 70s/80s. Deeply unpleasant – I agree with David Cameron 100% on that one. (Not a phrase you’ll often find me using…)

And yes, yes I do say this in part because by Labour’s standards I’d count as posh. They’re effectively saying “piss off, chum – we don’t want your vote”, and rather neglecting to realise that in the process they’re saying the same thing to all the New Labour-voting middle classes that switched en masse from blue to red in 97, giving them a decade in Number 10. The fucking idiots.

Like it or not, parties are dependant on the middle classes to gain power – part of the reason why both main parties are so blandly indistinguishable these days, because us middle classes all shop equally in Habitat and Ikea and aspire to the same blandly inoffensive faux-original, entirely interchangeable approach from our politicians as we do from our flat-pack interior design. To stick two fingers up to the middle classes ahead of an election is going to do about as much good to your chances as being televised at a children’s party naked and smothered in jelly while raping a teddy bear.

(It’s also perhaps worth reminding press/blog pundits that this was a local election. To ascribe the defeat entirely to either the apparent growing disillusionment with Brown/Labour or the jitters in the economy (as everyone everywhere seems to be doing) is unfair – it ignores the central problem that the local Labour candidate was an arse. Based on every bit of footage I’ve seen of her, and every interview on the radio and in the papers, Dunwoody Jr isn’t even close to being a shadow of her late mum, and repeatedly came across as a lary, unpleasant cow throughout the whole process. If you want to win elections, pick people who are actually worth voting for to fight them for you – not just someone who happens to have the right surname. It’s simple.)

May 21, 2008
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Nosemonkey is not dead, honest

In lieu of anything original from me (far too busy and knackered at the moment, so lengthy pieces on the latest round of repetitive and doubtless unproductive CAP reform discussions, likely Russia-EU relations under Medvedev, the ongoing tensions in EU-Serbian relations and all the rest must wait, I’m afraid…), have a book review like wot I done for this week’s TLS ahead of the imminent Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

We the Peoples of Europe
by Susan George
(Pluto Press, £11.99)

Originally written in the run-up to the 2005 French and Dutch referenda on the (then) EU Constitution, and revised ahead of the Irish referendum on the (now) Lisbon Treaty, We the Peoples of Europe is a political polemic of the old school. Nonetheless, it is a refreshing and mostly well-written read for anyone used to the standard British brand of centre-right euroscepticism, for Susan George is of the unreconstructed, 1968-era, Marxian variety of eurosceptic, whose thought has become such a rarity in the UK as to have been all but forgotten.

Packed with emotional assertions (officials promoting the Lisbon Treaty are “despicable”, the Bolkestein Directive, designed to liberalize the EU’s service industries, aims to “annihilate all social progress made in Europe since the Second World War”) and repeated references to class warfare and the supposed evils of “neo-liberalism”, the result is occasionally – unintentionally – hilarious. Indeed, by this interpretation of the new Lisbon Treaty, Britain’s eurosceptics appear to have got every concession they wanted,for in George’s analysis this is the latest step in a vast capitalist conspiracy of shadowy political elites and big business interests to promote precisely the kind of free trade association that has long been the dream of the British right.

The end result therefore ironically shows what a successful compromise the EU Constitution-cum-Lisbon Treaty must be (George, like many commentators, never quite makes the distinction between the two), inspiring as it does opposition from both extremes of the political spectrum. But this also helps to prove George’s main contention, because underneath all the Marxian rhetoric lies the major point that the various EU treaties, laws and bodies are so complex and impenetrable as to have locked out the ordinary citizen from a European Union whose purpose and direction is increasingly unclear. What George advocates, at its heart, is something all Europeans should be able to support – a genuine, thorough reassessment of what the European Union is for, taking into account the views of the people for the first time in the project’s history. Only that way, she argues, will a lasting, viable union be constructed – whatever its political slant.

Oh, and while I’m at it, here’s a report on that UACES-Reuters award thing I got shortlisted for, and a lovely piccie of the shiny trophy itself:

UACES-Reuters award

Finally, in other news – remember The Sharpener, like wot I used to help run and write for? Well, it’s back. Huzzah! Have a gander – lots of good stuff in the archives, plus a vague possibility that we all might get off our arses and start adding new content sometime soon… (And yes, the same does go for this place. Promise…)

May 3, 2008
by Nosemonkey
18 Comments

Mayor Boris, eh?

Gordon Brown, 2000: “Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter”

Boris JohnsonThe same has repeatedly been said about the man Johnson over the last four weeks along with a number of wild allegations based largely on out of context quotation – much the same as the whole “Ken’s an anti-Semite” nonsense.

More worrying have been the unsupported assertions based on little more than the outdated 1980s belief that all Tories are evil – my parents are Tories, and I can assure you that they are not. More to the point, people were voting in the mayoral elections who weren’t even born when Thatcher was in power. Using her as the all-conquering bogeyman simply isn’t a viable electoral strategy any more. (It’s a bit pathetic it ever was, if you think about it – after all, it was the Tories, not Labour, who got rid of her…)

Ken did a halfway decent job over the last eight years , along with a bunch of very impressive achievements. I have little reason to believe that Boris can’t do similarly – and no reason to think he’ll be a disaster. His acceptance speech certainly started on the right bipartisan (even tripartisan) note, and he’s blatantly not a typical Tory no matter the colour of his rosette, educational history and accent. I’m hopeful.

Furthermore, anyone who thinks that Boris and Boris alone will be calling the shots in London simply doesn’t get how politics works. Or how the Mayor’s office works, for that matter – it simply doesn’t have as much power as everyone seems to think. Ken was just very good at giving the impression that all the successes were thanks to him and him alone.

All this hyperbole being spewed about Johnson from normally sensible left-wing sources* – not to mention the dismissal of over a million Londoners who picked him as their first choice as merely “doing it for a laugh” – is doing the British left no good at all.

Boris Johnson is not some monster – by painting him as such when he blatantly is not is going to rub off badly on you, not him. Just as it rubbed off on Labour badly when they tried the same trick with Ken back in 2000. (That certainly helped push me towards voting for the guy…)

If the left/Labour can’t get over the snide remarks, personal attacks and class prejudice that seems to imbue every aspect of their relationship with the Conservative Party – and, ideally, come up with some practical left-wing policies rather than populist and ill-considered appeals to the middle-classes and big business – they are going to continue to slide in the polls to the point of embarrassing defeat.

And serve them right. (Labour promising cuts to corporation tax while the Tories run to the defence of impoverished single mothers? Come on, guys…). The worry is the knock-on effect – not just driving people who care to the extremes of right and left, but meaning that the Tories don’t have to fight for power.

Boris had to fight, and fight hard – because Ken was a formidable and principled oponent. He’s not going to forget that in a hurry; he’s going to be fully aware that a sizable chunk of the capital don’t like him and that a sizable chunk of the country want him to fail. And it’s going to make him work even harder.

But the way the rest of the Labour party is going, the next election is going to be handed to the Tories on a plate. They won’t even need to bother knocking on doors at this rate. And power gained that easily is never going to engender respect – either from politicians or public. Labour have had a free run for most of the last decade or more, and just look what happened to them…

* I won’t link to any specifics as I hope they’ll see how silly they’re being soon, but have a gander at some of the tripe the Guardian’s been spewing over the last few days for an idea of the tone and content

May 1, 2008
by Nosemonkey
5 Comments

London elections – my vote, for those interested

Due to hating the party system, today I shall take great pleasure in not voting based on the colour of the rosettes – not least because the Lib Dems have inexplicably adopted UKIP’s colour scheme of yellow and purple, making things both aesthetically repulsive and slightly confusing – but on individual candidates’ policies, personalities and potential.

This entertainingly means that I will end up voting for the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems all on the same day.

Huzzah for elections where I get four votes! (Boo, however, for party list systems, which means my fourth vote is going to be very difficult to allocate – hence not having voted yet… I may even say sod it and go for the Greens, just so I can vote for four parties at once…)

In other news: Congrats to the BBC’s Alan Little, who won last night’s UACES-Reuters Reporting Europe Award, like wot I was up for. I ended up with a shiny award anyway, though, with a Jury’s Commendation, which was nice. I can also report that Reuters lay on very drinkable wine, and that Mark Mardell makes for good company at the dinner table. Ta to all involved, etc.

Edit: Oh, and sorry for the lack of posts recently. Still very busy – but there’s still a rather fun discussion going on in the comments to that democratic deficit post, though. One to which I will return soon. I hope.

April 23, 2008
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

St George’s Day

Busy, sorry – in the meantime, why not check out last year’s St George’s Day post (still all nice and relevant and stuff, just like George himself), as the self-same moron that inspired that one left a comment yesterday to the same effect. (It seems that I’ve become part of his St George’s Day tradition – bless!)

Also have a gander at the comments to that democratic deficit post – some interesting stuff’s appeared there, albeit along with a number of fresh points being missed on both sides (why is it that in discussions about the EU everyone always seems to misunderstand each other all the time?) so it looks like I will have to return to that soon to explain myself at more length.

Bugger…

April 21, 2008
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

links for 2008-04-21

April 19, 2008
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

Foreigners smell!

It’s official:

The Met Office’s Sarah Holland said: “Basically, over the last few days, we’ve had fresh, strong winds from an easterly direction. As a result some of our air is coming from continental Europe.”

…Helen Chivers of the Met Office said the origin of the smell had been narrowed down to the area of Europe roughly bordered by Holland, Germany and Belgium.

Ah, centuries of English xenophobia confirmed through one slightly pongy morning. London smells of manure? It’s those smelly Johnny Foreigners over the Channel! they never wash, you know. They sleep with their livestock, and use manure as perfume. And look like monkeys.

I shall be writing to my MP demanding that we leave the EU forthwith.

April 18, 2008
by Nosemonkey
57 Comments

On the EU’s “democratic deficit”

I’ve been planning a long piece on this for months, ever since that whole openDemocracy thing I did back in the autumn (which is, it turns out, what got me shortlisted for that Reuters award thing, rather than this place), but haven’t quite found the time.

The short version (guaranteed to rile the eurosceptics): nope, the EU’s not democratic – and nor should it be if Britain’s interests are going to be maintained. (I’ll try and explain in more detail at some point, but it’s unlikely to be overly soon…)

Anyway, back to the original starting point for this post. Amongst the usual stuck record of eurosceptic complaints under Timothy Garton-Ash’s latest offering about the EU over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free yesterday (I sometimes read these things just to remind myself why I’m not slipping back into full-on eurosceptic mode, despite the repeated disappointments, annoyances and embarrassments that come with being pro-EU*), this little beauty leapt out, by poster “tooter”. It’s one of the best succinct rejoinders to the perennial “the EU’s not democratic” complaint I’ve seen in quite a while, and echoes many of my own views:

I think this “democratic deficit” thing is overdone. The appointees you are on about are put there by people we elect. Great chunks of our government is run in the same way – the House of Lords being the most glaring example, but there are others, Quangos, the Judiciary (!), the PM (!) to name but a few.

Take one example, the European Central Bank. I read over and over again, as an argument against the Euro, about sinister “faceless bureaucrats” who will run our economy for us from Frankfurt. Well the ECB is accountable to no less than FOUR of the European institutions.

Who is the Bank of England accountable to? Can anybody name even two members of the MPC without googling? Are they not, therefore, “faceless bureaucrats” running our economy from London?

What do the europhobes think we are living in now?

He/she later came back with a quick, even snappier follow-up, reiterating the point:

“We British have something called a “Parliamentary Democracy”, as do most of Europe. We never elect our Prime Minister, we elect Members of Parliament. It is these Members who choose the PM. The PM is an appointee. As are the entire House of Lords. As are the Judiciary. As are the Generals, senior civil servants, heads of Agencies and othe Quangos, the Cabinet, Chief Constables, Bishops etc etc

So, europhobes, how “undemocratic” is the EU again?

I too am intrigued by the answer to this. Because the arguments against the EU employed by eurosceptics who have moved beyond petty patriotism (which, to be fair, is an increasingly large proportion these days – and to be clear I mean patriotism in the strict sense, with no nasty connotations) increasingly revolve around criticisms of inefficiencies and failures that are also invariably present at a national – even local – level of government. Because, after all, no system of government ever devised is perfect.

Yet when it comes to the EU, for the eurosceptics it seems that nothing less than perfection will do.

Or am I being incredibly unfair and/or missing the point?

—-

* By the way, I really, really need a better term than “pro-EU” to describe my attitude to the whole thing. Because as should be clear to regular readers I’m not a loyal cheerleader for the EU by any means, and advocate fairly radical reform. I remain a supporter of a European Union of some kind, and of close cross-border political and economic co-operation – and in some case integration – of the kind the EU helps facilitate, but not necessarily this European Union.

In the good old days, this would have labelled me a eurosceptic in the true sense (inasmuch as I am sceptical of the benefits of a number of things the EU is doing) – but now that that term has become synonymous with “anti-EU”, what’s left for those of us who are neither europhiles nor eurosceptics, but occupy that vague middle-ground of being largely in favour of EU membership while wishing the whole thing was just a bit, y’know, better? Because that does, after all, account for the attitude of the vast majority of the British population – it seems very odd that there’s not a term for us all…

April 17, 2008
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on links for 2008-04-17

links for 2008-04-17

April 16, 2008
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

links for 2008-04-16

April 15, 2008
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Blogging about blogging

Someone got in touch to ask some questions about citizen journalism and the July 2005 London terrorist attacks. My response ended up getting rather lengthy as I went off on one, so I reckoned I may as well post it. Could prove interesting to some, even if it is another of those blogging about blogging things I thought I’d stopped doing. Continue Reading →

April 15, 2008
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

Berlusconi’s back – huzzah!

Aaaaah! Silvio… How I’ve missed you.

Italian politics had simply got a bit too dull under Prodi, what with him not holding a near monopoly in the Italian media, not trying to blatantly advance his own commercial interests through his high office, not re-writing the country’s electoral laws to give his own party an advantage, never having compared a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard, having no connections to the Sicilian mafia, not bribing the husband of a British cabinet minister to help him launder money and give false evidence in a trial, and not having been brought to trial countless times for corruption, false accounting, tax fraud and the like – nor ever being found guilty of perjury in a case involving the freemasons.

Great entertainment value, is Silvio. Gloriously inappropriate as a national leader for pretty much any European country other than Italy.

(Apologies for not covering the Italian elections much, by the way – great fun, but far too complicated for a non-expert to attempt to explore in the sort of detail they deserve without spending far more time than I’ve currently got doing the research… Here’s a handy bit of background, though.)