Nosemonkey's EUtopia

In search of a European identity

May 10, 2007
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Blair’s resignation speech (yawn)

The version on the Labour website is slightly different to that emailed out to the “Labour supporters network”, the latter seeming to be a transcript of what was actually said, rather than merely the notes.

Still, a couple of interesting admissions that reveal a lot: First, Blair only reached “political maturity” in his mid-30s (a tad late, one might think), and secondly (only in the email version) he admits that “none of it [pre-1990s British politics] made sense to me”. Quoting the full paragraph (as it’s not on the website) will show amply just how little he understood:

“I looked at my own country. A great country with a great history and magnificent traditions, proud of its past. But strangely uncertain of its future. Uncertain about the future, almost old fashioned.

“And all that was curiously symbolised you know in the politics of the time. You, you had choices, you stood for individual aspiration and getting on in life, or a social compassion of helping others. You were liberal in your values, or conservative. You believed in the power of the state or the efforts of the individual. Spending more money on the public realm was the answer, or it was the problem. And none of it made sense to me.”

Not only does he seem to have confused pre-Blair British politics with late-20th century American politics (liberal vs. conservative rather than socialist vs. capitalist, etc.), but also please note how none of the words “unions”, “workers”, “democracy”, “the poor” or “socialism” appear even once in the entire speech… (“Iraq” appears once, “education” once, “the NHS” not at all…)

Update: The Times has the full version

May 9, 2007
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

Another new look

The main content’s now dark on light, which should be rather more readable.

I’ve added a linklog (sparse at the moment, but won’t be for long), because I rarely have time for full posts these days but keep spotting interesting stuff – it’ll probably be a mixture of news, comment and blog posts worth a look. No idea how the RSS feed works for that, but will look into it.

Also, you’ll notice that the proboscis monkey I’ve been using as a kind of logo for a while has now vanished, to be replaced by a monkey that’s hardly a nasalis larvatus, but still. This is partially because I was contacted by the person who had taken the image (one Dirk Petzold, for those who want to check out his work), letting me know that it was under copyright, partially because I felt like a change.

There will no doubt be a few glitches (like the confusion at the end of each post, where it’s tricky to tell whether the comments section is for the one above or below), as the template I’ve been fiddling with is somewhat complex, and I haven’t worked it all out yet. But still – nicer, I think. Spot any problems, let me know – ta!

(Oh yes, and I can’t decide – does this look better in Firefox or Internet Explorer? The rounded edges don’t show up in IE, but I can’t tell which I like more…)

May 9, 2007
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

Metric morons

Well THERE’s a surprise – the European Commission has announced that the Imperial system of weights and measures can continue to be used indefinitely. This was always going to be the outcome – though it would have been nicer if the announcement had come sooner, if only to shut up the idiots.

Contrary to popular belief amongst certain sections of the Europhobe community, Imperial measurements have never been banned – there has merely long been an attempt to introduce the simpler metric system (since the Hodgson Report back in 1950, long before the EU even existed) by attempting to get shopkeepers etc. to display both systems of measurement side by side.

This, for anyone born from the 1970s onwards, makes a lot of sense, as successive governments have so poorly introduced the metric system over the last four decades that a sizeable chunk of the population between the ages of 20 and 40 understand a mishmash of both systems – I measure my own weight in stones, flour in grammes, and meat in pounds, but can’t visualise a kilogramme or an ounze, while in terms of volume I think of pints and litres side-by-side, and length can work with yards, metres, feet, inches, centimetres and miles quite happily, but have no idea how far a kilometre is – but don’t understand either system perfectly.

And in any case, it’s not like the “Martyrs” didn’t have plenty of warning – and it’s not like it’s really anthing much to do with Brussels, considering that Britain has been moving towards the metric system for over half a century. Hell – it’s been official government policy since 1965, eight years before the UK joined the EEC (and, incidentally, a year after the group’s leader, Steve Thorburn, was born).

And that’s not even to mention the conference of English-speaking countries of 1959 that redefined Imperial measurements by their metric counterparts, or the fact that Commonwealth countries South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Canada also all went metric towards the end of the 1960s. (And it’s also, by the by, not as if remaining under the Imperial system allows us to trade more easily with the United States, as they use slightly different definitions for a lot of their units, refusing to cave in to the Commonwealth.)

So although the “Metric Martyrs” have often been made out to be staunch defenders of British rights and values (“save our pint!” and all that nonsense), and while some of the people heading the campaign are entirely sensible, the actual “Martyrs” themselves were not only pig-headed idiots, but would also STILL be penalised under this new agreement, despite the group’s claims that this is a victory.

For why? Well, because of the original convicted metric martyrs – Steve Thoburn, Colin Hunt, John Dove, Julian Harman – the major offence for three of them was not refusing to display prices for metric units, as has repeatedly been claimed by their supporters, but refusing to use a legal set of scales. Thorburn, Dove and Harman were all convicted of this, with Hunt handily proving the point of how suspect using illegal scales can be by being convicted of supplying a lesser quantity of goods than that claimed – an offence dating back the medieval period and the age of the guilds. You use illegal scales, the suspicion is you’re short-changing people. You refuse to get legal ones, you go to gaol. Simple.

This newly-announced extension to the existing agreement that both Imperial and metric can be used would not, therefore, have saved Thoburn, Hunt, Dove or Harman, because they were convicted while the same conditions were in place – not for a principled stand for John Bull and Britannia, but for being too tight to update their equipment. You might as well refuse to use “new money” (the decimal system introduced back in 1971 for similar reasons to the introduction of metric measurements – because it’s easier) and then complain bitterly when people refuse to provide you with goods and services while you hand over great piles of shillings and groats.

In other words, the metrication battle was lost – without much of a fight – back in 1965, and had nothing to do with the European Union. So can we shut up about it already?

May 7, 2007
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Euroblog Roundup 4

Well, Sarkozy’s in, John Reid’s out, and this is a day late. My bad. Let’s try it country by country this time, for the sake of clarity…

Armenia

You’d think they had enough to worry about with Turkey, but now it looks like Britain’s playing a somewhat suspect role in Armenian politics (and part 2)

Estonia

That statute crisis explained – and a first-hand account of the rioting (with a translation here).

France

DJ Nozem has probably the best advice for how to approach the aftermath of Sarkozy’s victory – though the excellent France Decides is typically canny while looking at the possible implications for Sarkozy and Royal.

Germany

Promising new Euroblog A European View looks at Germany’s difficulty in coming to terms with her Nazi past, while Registan has a gnader at the current conflict between Germany and the rest of the EU over how to act towards Uzbekistan.

Greece

What with the riots in Estonia (and Paris last night, following Sarkozy’s victory) and protests in Turkey, it looks like most people missed the riots in Greece…

Poland

Fistful calls for blogging solidarity thanks to the latest nonsense from the increasingly nutty Polish government.

Romania

The excellent Soj is back at last, with a handy guide to Romanian etiquette.

Russia

Isn’t it about time the EU acted over the bully to the east?

Serbia

Still without a government, three months after the elections… But is it the fault of Kosovo?

Turkey

Jon Worth has a good stab at summing up the difficulties the EU is facing over the current Turkish constitutional crisis.

The UK

England Expects on some dodgy incidents in the recent UK-wide elections.

The EU

Some sensible advice to Eurosceptics from No Guiding Light. Aimed at Finnish ones, but can easily be applied more generally. Meanwhile, over at Eurozone Watch, a look at the possible implications of the current record strength of the Euro, while Aapo looks at the rather odd and confusing concept of “Europeanness“, Jan attacks Barroso’s ineffectiveness, and Nanne has a great overview of the sheer weirdness of the EU’s legal system.

Next roundup in a fortnight, most likely. Help me out here, people – see something decent? Bung me a heads-up to EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com.

May 5, 2007
by Nosemonkey
5 Comments

Final local election results

I was a bit wrong in my premature analysis, it would seem:

The SNP did rather better than I thought, as did the Tories. Labour still did a lot better than everyone was expecting, though. Apart from the Scottish situation (which was hardly a disaster, even if the SNP do have one more seat than them), they’ve got off lightly. They should all be breathing a big sigh of relief. (Good Scottish elections analysis at The Select Society, by the by.)

(Image stolen and swiftly spliced together from the BBC’s three maps of the English, Welsh and Scottish results. For non-Brits, red is Labour, blue Tory, orange Lib Dem, yellow the Scottish National Party, green the Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, and black is no overall control.)

May 4, 2007
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

Local election results – an immediate analysis before even half the results are in (from someone who doesn’t really care anyway and didn’t vote thanks to being in London)

Slight winners? Labour, I’d say. In real terms, at least. They’ve still got the Scottish Parliament (despite – or perhaps because of – dire warnings about the rise of the SNP). They’ve still got the Welsh Assembly. In both cases, it looks like they haven’t lost anywhere near as many seats as everyone was expecting. That, under their present circumstances, is a major victory.

Losers? The Tories – they look not to have made anywhere near the gains that they should have done, considering just how God-damned AWFUL and unpopular Labour have been for the last few years. Hardly any progress, once again, outside England – meaning that all other parties can paint any Tory attacks on Gordon Brown thanks to the West Lothian Question as mere sour grapes because the Scots and Welsh don’t like Tories. (Not that that will stop them.)

The major losers? The Lib Dems (bar our very own Nick Barlow – long-time blogger and contributor to both The Sharpener and Fistful). Looks so far like both Labour and the Tories have increased their overall share of the vote at the Lib Dems’ expense. The last couple of General Elections were, after all, an aberration. As the Tories begin to be taken more seriously again, little surprise that the third man of British politics is forgotten once again – people like to back the winner.

More major losers? The Electoral Reform Society. In Scotland it’s being claimed that “tens of thousands” of ballot papers have ended up spoiled – in (at least) one constituency with so many spoiled ballots that they outnumbered the votes of the winning candidate. This doesn’t appear to have been a coordinated “None of the Above” effort, but sheer confusion at the experimental and muddled electoral system north of the border. Which will, for years to come, be used by politicians across all parties to show that proper electoral reform is silly, and shake off all calls for a better system of electing Westminster MPs. This is a very bad thing.

The major winners? The electorate. Despite problems in Scotland, by the looks of things they didn’t allow themselves to get carried away with anti-Blair and anti-Iraq war nonsense, nor with ill-considered nationalist rhetoric in Scotland. The voters of the (still) United Kingdom would, it would appear, generally have based their local votes on local issues – just as they should have done. They also aren’t stupid enough to have got so annoyed with Labour that they’ll vote for the Tories in a landslide, as so stupidly and damagingly happened the other way around in 1997. This is A. GOOD. THING. – replacing a Blair with a massive majority with a Cameron with a massive majority is just about the worst thing that could happen to this country (bar Charles Clarke in charge*)

* Note how the Sun was the only paper stupid enough to interpret Clarke’s comments praising Brown as “faint praise” indicating a last-ditch challenge. No one else (who noticed) did. What a bunch of idiots.

May 3, 2007
by Nosemonkey
8 Comments

UK local elections today

Please note: LOCAL. Pissed off with Tony Blair? Think David Cameron’s a nob? Don’t like the way the Lib Dems got rid of Charles Kennedy? Against the Iraq war? Fine. Don’t take it out on your local councillors – unless they deserve it.

For non-Brits, you may have missed the whole “the United Kingdom could come to an end” scare story that’s been one of the major space-fillers for journos in the run-up to this election – because it looks like the Scottish National Party may become the largest in the Scottish Parliament, which could lead to an end of the Union, a little bit over 300 years after Scotland and England became (legally) as one.

A scare story is all it is. There’s no way the SNP will be able to get a Scottish “independence” referendum bill through the parliament, and it’s highly doubtful the Scottish people would be silly enough to vote for it even if they did – not even all supporters of the SNP are after full “independence”, after all.

Still, it makes for nice “what if?” type articles – some based on a Mel Gibson-style view of the land of Sir Walter Scott, others a little more objective, some comparing it to local issues, yet others blatantly party political, and others making the case for maintaining the Union – something increasing numbers of English people are, apparently, not overly keen on what with the perceived over-representation of Scottish MPs in Westminster, tales of £10 billion per year subsidies for the land north of the border, etc. etc.

Personally, I’d be quite happy with a UK-wide referendum on independence – not Scottish, though: for Northern Ireland. A bloody chain around our ankle for far too long, that one – and anywhere about to be run via a power-share between a raving psycho and a known terrorist sounds to me like the sort of place it’s best to have very little to do with. Scotland, on the other hand, is great – it may be my Scottish ancestry (my great-gandmother being a Colquhoun, and great-grandfather a Kirkpatrick), but haggis and good single malt remain two of my favourite things. It’d be a shame if they went independent, but meh. The joy of the EU is that it’d probably mean that I’d be able to get whisky cheaper here in the south…

Update: From the comments, this strikes me as the best election day ever. I am quite insanely envious.

May 2, 2007
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

Poland, witch-hunts and Solidarity

Anyone even slightly familiar of the chain of events that led to the fall of the Soviet Union and European communism will be aware of the importance of the Solidarity movement. Short version: it was one of the sparks that helped bring the entire system crashing down – a popular, grass-roots protest against the repression of the communist state that showed beyond all doubt that the dictatorship of the proletariat was little more than dictating TO the proletariat.

As such, you’d think that any suggestion that either Tadeusz Mazowiecki – one of Solidarity’s leaders, imprisoned for his crime of freedom of expression, and Poland’s first non-communist Prime Minister after the Second World War – or Bronislaw Geremek – another leading member of Solidarity who went on to become Poland’s Foreign Minister in the 1990s – would have pretty impeccable credentials as opponents of communism, right?

Not according to the current Polish government.

I’m late with this, and had been meaning to do something earlier – not least after Alex Harrowell called for a blogland attempt to show solidarity with Solidarity a few days ago.

In short, the Polish government has passed a law demanding – not for the first time – that “leading public figures” (journalists and academics as well as politicians) sign an oath stating that they are not, nor ever have been communists, and that they never “collaborated” with the old communist regime.

Yes, this is a way of disposing of political enemies. No, it should not be allowed. In fact, I’m pretty damn certain that under the terms of Poland’s EU membership, it isn’t.

That, however, has not prevented this controversial Polish law from depriving Geremek of his – democratically elected, please note – seat in the European Parliament – depriving not only his constituents of their democratic representative, but the EU as a whole from benefiting from his decades of political experience. This press release gives some of the background (and three cheeers to British MEP Graham Watson for being the one to bring up the question.

There are all kinds of potential ramifications for the working of the EU if this is allowed to go unchallenged – after all, it means that any member state could unilaterally decide to disqualify its sitting MEPs and keep replacing them until it has ones it likes, which is hardly democratic.

But Geremek is just the most high-profile tip of the iceberg, thanks to holding elected office (Mazowiecki is currently less prominent outside Poland, despite being co-founder of one of Poland’s most prominent liberal political parties and the author of the preamble to the current Polish constitution).

Hundreds – thousands, even – of Poles are also being forced to sign this declaration. Politicans, civil servants, journalists. Even ignoring the distasteful nature of such forced declarations and the stupidity of such a thing in a country in which anyone working in the public sector aged over the age of about 35 most likely had to work with the old communist authorities at some point, this law is spreading beyond Poland in its effect. It is not just a national issue.

Because not only has an MEP now been deprived of his seat thanks to devious and distasteful machinations within his own nation state, now people who are not even Polish nationals – indeed, who were not even in Poland during communist rule – are being forced to sign. How do I know? Because the chap who runs the Poland-centred Beatroot blog has been told he has to if he wishes to continue working as a journalist in the country.

Poland is in sore need of its own version of Edward Murrow at the moment. The web might be the answer. Clamp down on freedom of speech and freedom of association? No thanks, chum.

Poland is increasingly becoming a continent-wide problem – and if the current Polish government isn’t challenged soon, the damage may take years to fix. So, as the Beatroot asks, sign the petition in support of Geremek, and make some noise about what’s happening to both him and others in Poland. Write to MPs, write to MEPs, blog about it, whatever. We may all be powerless as individuals, but the whole point of Solidarity was that together we can achieve great things. It’s increasingly beginning to look like it’s time for a new, Europe-wide Solidarity movement in support of Polish freedom from the new lot of nutjobs they’ve got in charge.

Added Polish unpleasantness, just to emphasise the point:

“Police raided the house of ex-construction minister in the previous SLD government, Barbara Blida, investigating allegations she had been involved in corruption when allocating building contracts. Blida went to the toilet, accompanied by a female police officer, when, somehow, she put a hand in a drawer in the bathroom, pulled out a gun and shot herself dead through the chest.”

Nice lot, eh?

May 2, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on A Turkey mini roundup

A Turkey mini roundup

Bloomberg and the Associated Press have good roundups of yesterday’s events – the constitutional court blocking ex-Islamist presidential nominee Abdullah Gul and all that, plus the various threats to re-write the constitution. The best place to start, however, is probably EurActiv’s overview, followed by the Economist.

Still, if you want to get a real feel, check out our very own Erkan – on the spot in Istanbul – who has a good roundup of reactions to the court’s decision and current state of play, with several other posts over the last few days, which will give you a far better idea of what’s going on than my ramblings of yesterday.

May 1, 2007
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Military dictatorships are brilliant – FACT

(Hey, it’s May Day after all, and the fancy parades of Soviet military might are a thing of the past (oh yes, you still get them, but they’re nowhere near as cool) – I thought I’d get a bit of May Day militarism going on in blogland.)

Current events in Turkey seem, from what I can tell of mainstream news coverage during the last few days, to merit practically no attention at all. I mean yes, there has been the occasional article, but buried in the back somewhere and normally fairly small, but despite having the 24 hour news channels on pretty much constantly while I’m working, I don’t recall hearing anything whatsoever about what’s going on.

So while the riots in Estonia (still escalating, that situation, by the by) have got a bit of coverage – people smashing things making good telly – massive protests in Turkey seem not to be worth mentioning.

For why? Well, because everyone’s a bit confused. To cover the current crisis in Turkey, journalists have to get their head around the idea that by supporting democracy, they’re supporting nutty Islamists – and that by opposing a possible military coup they’re opposing the maintenance of Turkey as a secular state.

Tricky, you see. Turkey is one of the few secular and democratic Islamic states, and could be the West’s best hope of calming the situation in the Middle East, acting as mediator / cultural translator between the two systems. But it’s still a bit odd and occasionally nutty – with a suspect (if improving) record on human rights and a pretty shoddy attitude towards its minorities (be they Kurdish or Armenian or whatever) that gives the EU just enough justification to say “sorry, old chap – you’re a bit too unstable to join, that’s all – we’re not being racist or Islamophobic, honest” with a straight face.

Still, it’s been a decade since the Turkish military last got involved in politics (although only via a series of increasingly harsh warnings to then Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, which eventually made him back down) – which means we’re overdue, as the country used to have military coups bang on every ten years (1960, 1971, 1980).

If a coup happens this time (which is possible) it’s going to be fascinating to see how all those pundits – especially the right-wingers who normally hide their anti-Islamic prejudices behind veils of supporting the spread of democratic freedoms – manage to keep a straight face while supporting a military dictatorship in the name of democracy. Much like in Pakistan, I suppose (military dictatorship in the name of democracy for seven and a half years and counting).

The thing is, of course, what all us Westerners still really think – if we’re honest and ignore the self-righteous “weeee! democracy!” crap for half a minute – is that these foreign johnnies really just need a firm guiding hand. After all, it worked in the good old days, didn’t it? Nice white man’s army marches in with its better technology and superior ideas of how to run a country, gradually imposes it with the aid of a great big stick, and soon you’ve got a bunch of loin-cloth-wearing natives running around fawning at your feet, peeling you grapes, calling you “Sahib” and fanning you in the midday sun. All they need’s a bit of discipline. They’re not ready for democracy – they can’t handle it. (“They”, of course, being anyone remotely dusky-skinned – be they knocking about on Europe’s fringe, wandering around the Middle East, South Asia, South America, East Asia, wherever.) And, of course, should you happen to be a maharajah / friendly dictator who doesn’t do what your white masters says, you can expect to be smacked down now just as then.

Imperialist paternalism* lives on – dark-skinned chaps in far-off hot and dusty places need a strong military presence to keep them in check, and someone with authority to tell them what to do. They can’t be trusted to rule themselves, or to decide for themselves what’s best – hence various Western governments being able to happily condemn the democratically-elected Palestinian and Venezuelan governments while simultaneously supporting the corrupt quasi-dictatorships of Central Asia.

This goes for Turkey, too. If the EU was honest about the general attitude to Turkish membership, they’d bluster a bit and then use similar reasoning to that used by Churchill in the 1930s when he was leading the campaign to block India from being granted Dominion status – these wogs simply can’t look after themselves.

Which is, I’d guess, part of the reason for the Turkish situation having received so little attention in the European (and American) press, despite the potential ramifications of further escalation being absolutely massive – if Turkey fails to maintain itself as a democracy, all our little prejudices will have been proven right. Plus, rather conveniently, it’ll give the anti-Turkey lot in the EU a perfect excuse to tell them to bugger off permanently. The fact that we’d have replaced a secular and stable Muslim neighbour with an unstable and potentially increasingly religiously fanatical one may be a bit of a downer – but hey, we’d have also managed to get rid of one of the few inconvenient examples of Muslim states that aren’t absolutely insane that all those damned liberals keep using to prove our theories about Muslims not being able to handle statehood are wrong. Bonus!

So, let’s just let Turkey get on with it and pretend nothing’s happening. Because whatever the result we can confirm our prejudices and feel all superior at our cozy Western systems of government that increasingly seem to provide precisely no check on the executive doing what it wants, allowing us to sleepwalk into illiberal constitutional reforms and wars with shadowy enemies based on little or no evidence.

Personally, I rather envy Turkey.

* Hey, it’s May Day – and although I’m not a socialist, it’s traditional to have a bit of socialist rhetoric spewed at this time of year. Cue various one-off visitors in the comments accusing me of being a communist who thinks Stalin was great, etc. etc. – And no, I can’t be arsed to turn this into anything other than a glib off-the-top-of-my-head thing. I took my copies of Edward Said’s Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism off the shelf, as well as a few on Latin America in the 1970s, a bit of Chomsky, a spot of Kipling, various books on the Raj, a bit of Mill (volume 6 of his collected works), etc. – but then I realised that I had proper work to do, and couldn’t be arsed, leaving a long and rambling post, the point of which even I’m not too sure of any more. Sorry.

April 27, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Chechnya – a(nother) crisis brewing?

Chechnya – a(nother) crisis brewing?

Helicopter crash, 17 dead – all military. “Involved in a major military operation against separatist rebels at the time, Russian military sources are quoted as saying.” May have been “shot down” – no confirmation yet. If it was, expect a smackdown.

In utterly unrelated news *ahem*, yesterday Vladimir Putin reiterated that he will step down at the end of this term as president, meaning that there will likely be a fight in the presidential elections of early next year for the first time in ages. Not to mention the Duma elections later this year…

Not, of course, that I’m suggesting that Chechnya has been used as a convenient place to have a bit of a national security crisis in the run-up to (at least) the last couple of Russian elections in order for the shadowy powers that be to ensure that the people they want gain power. That’d just be silly. Obviously. *ahem*

Still – keep your eye on Chechnya over the next year. Something’s going to kick off. I can smell it.

April 25, 2007
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Presidential problems – France and Romania

Presidential problems – France and Romania

At one end of Europe, the invective is beginning to rise again in the French elections, as today is the day third-placed centrist Francois Bayrou is expected to announce who – if anyone – he’s going to throw his support behind.

Bayrou’s party may largely consist of people who have drifted to the centre from the right, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he (or they) will lump in with Sarkozy – because the frontrunner from the first round is doing anything but embrace Bayrou’s multi-partisan spirit of co-operation, his team telling the Financial Times that he’s thinking of splitting his own party in two to capitalise as much as possible on the two factions – Gaullists/rightwingers and centrists. Last night, Sarkozy even attacked the very basis of Bayrou’s inclusive approach to French politics, announcing in a speech that

“I will not seek to build artificial coalitions… I will not negotiate any compromise that would run contrary to my convictions and the commitments I have taken and for which 11m French had confidence in me in the first round.”

Me Sarkozy! Me strong leader! Sarkozy CRUSH! (etc.)

Royal, meanwhile has taken a very different approach – softly, softly, touchy-feely, calling for an open and formal alliance to build a strong “Stop Sarko” cross-party group.

But despite this, the “kingmaker” title bestowed on Bayrou by some pundits after Sunday’s first round results came through is looking increasingly increasingly unlikely to be born out by events.

Sarkozy’s all but publicly telling the centrist that he can go screw himself shows there is much doubt as to whether Bayrou really did achieve something new but, more importantly, the right-winger also has a point about the coalition that Bayrou had managed to build – it WAS artificial, inasmuch as it was based around the vague hope that party politics could be jettisoned for a change, and it centred almost entirely on the figurehead leader that had formed it. Now that the figurehead no longer has a chance of getting elected, the most likely outcome is that Bayrou’s coalition will splinter, and that he will have little control over how his erstwhile supporters vote next.

The French elections are, in other words, still all up in the air. Although judging from Sarkozy’ recent rhetoric, the best bet for Royal is to allow him to dominate the airwaves with his self-important rhetoric, and hope that the French public get utterly sick of his overinflated ego by the time of the next vote in a week and a half… (See also OpenDemocracy, the Washington Post, the Economist and Charles Bremner on the struggle to win over Bayrou’s supporters.)

—

Then, over on the other side of the continent, Romania has opted for a nation-wide referendum to decide whether to chuck out their president, following his recent suspension for violating the constitution. (*cough* Tony Blair *cough* Jacques Chirac *cough* pretty much any political leader you don’t like who’s done some dodgy stuff *cough*) Kosmopolit has a handy roundup of what’s going on and reactions – note particularly Jon Worth on the place (or lack thereof) of the EU in this rapidly escalating little domestic crisis.

April 24, 2007
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

Bye, Boris

Expecting insightful analysis about Yeltsin’s place in history? Sorry – my computer crashed again and ate that one. (And I’d been loosely working on it since I first heard the news yesterday afternoon and all…)

Instead, have a couple of clips that work as perfect encapsulations of both Yeltsin and Russia – the first, amiable lack of comprehension, but keenness to be seen to be in on whatever it is everyone else is banging on about ; the second, the initially entertaining unpredictability which is all good fun until you realise that this guy had his finger on the big red button…





Yep – Yeltsin was the perfect leader for Russia: drunk, a bit stupid, highly unpredictable, almost certainly extremely dangerous, and practically impossible to work out. Just like Russia itself.

Update: Go on then, have a mini roundup of good reactions – Ruminations on Russia puts him in context (though sadly no permanent link that I can find to the post, so check quickly), Blood and Treasure is somewhat dry (unlike Boris, of course), Sean is very good too, while Robert Amsterdam has a roundup of press reactions, and the Flying Rodent is – as so often – pretty much spot on.

April 23, 2007
by Nosemonkey
20 Comments

St George’s Day

One of my most unrelenting (and occasionally nutty) eurosceptic visitors popped up the other day reckoning that I must hate St George’s Day because I’m pro-EU (yes, he’s one of those who rarely reads/understands what I write, so has me down as a slavering, unthinking, traitorous Europhile, rather than someone who’s, you know, thought about it quite a lot and can see all the problems).

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. St George is, after all, one of the ultimate symbols of Britain’s pan-European ties.

He was a Roman soldier (much like St Alban, in fact, the chap some have suggested would be more appropriate as England’s patron saint), so part of that vast organisation which united Europe from the Forth to the Nile, Portugal to the Caspian Sea – and which has helped shape the look and feel of Europe’s geography and culture for so much of the last 2000 years.

He was born in Anatolia, modern Turkey (although probably more like present day Armenia – with his mother having been born in what is now Israel/Palestine), showing how the links between Turkey and Europe have stretched back for millennia – and is the patron saint of Istanbul as well as of England.

He is venerated as an Islamic martyr as well as a Christian one, showing once again the links between the two faiths that so many on both sides seem to have forgotten in recent years (but hey, if you believe in a great big bearded fairy living up in the clouds, don’t expect too much rationality, eh?)

He remains the most venerated saint in the Orthodox Church, so popular on Europe’s eastern fringes – the dominant religion in, for example, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Georgia and Russia.

No doubt due to this Orthodox connection, he is also the patron saint of Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia and Moscow (Istanbul, of course, was formerly Constantinople / Byzantium, the seat of the Orthodox Church after the great schism, hence George’s patronage there – Constantine the Great, the founder of Constantinople / Istanbul, having been crowned Roman Emperor in the pleasingly English city of York in July 306 AD).

George is also patron saint of Catalonia – a land originally colonised by the ancient Greeks, then taken over by the Carthaginians, then the Romans, then the Visigoths, then the Moors, then the Franks and, after a period under the rule of Aragon (of English king Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon fame), Spain. A near perfect encapsulation of the various waves of European civilisations.

Then there’s Portugal, another country with George as Patron (I won’t bother going into detail about Canada and Ethiopia, don’t worry) – and one of the few European countries with whom England has never (officially) gone to war. Portugal’s history is similar to that of Catalonia – only with the added excitement of trade with the Phoenicians (much like pre-Roman Devon and Cornwall) and a sizeable Celtic community – just like the Celtic fringe of the British isles. They may have been conquered by the Moors while England was being conquered by the Vikings, but otherwise the two nations’ histories are remarkably similar – invasions, consolidation, exploration, innovation, empire and decline.

Saint George certainly never killed a dragon, and there is little historical evidence to show that he actually existed.

He is, however, a perfect symbol for both England and Europe – an amalgamation of numerous other myths that epitomise an appeal to civility, chivalry and toleration, yet with a militaristic edge in the dragon legend that is not only perfect for a continent which has seen as many wars as Europe has done, but also warns “if you attack us, we will fight”. His historical nature is pretty doubtful, yet – much like England has King Arthur, the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Norman Yoke, Robin Hood and that nonsensical “1000 years of history” – the lack of historicity merely makes him that much more powerful as a symbol, as he can become anything we want him to be. He is revered across Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, yet – like so much European culture – originated from the Middle East, demonstrating once again that the diversity of this continent is never so great as people may think.

In other words, as the European Union hunts around for a new direction and a new unifying ideal, it could really look to no better a symbol than Saint George, a truly pan-European figure – and one well worthy of a drink or two in the pub tonight, whether he existed or not.

(Want more Saint George? Try Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopaedia)

Update: Forgot to mention, today is also William Shakespeare’s reputed birthday, and likewise the date recorded for his death. This most influential, most English of poets – as we all know – drew heavily on continental European subjects and history for his many plays, from Romeo and Juliet to Othello, The Merchant of Venice to Macbeth. But he also died on the very same day – 23rd April 1616 – as that other great 16th/17th century writer, Miguel Cervantes, the author of the wonderful Don Quixote – one of the founding texts of modern western civilisation, and another fine example of something typically European: the futile search for something better.

Shakespeare, Cervantes and Saint George – all united by 23rd April, all quite gloriously European.