Nosemonkey's EUtopia

In search of a European identity

September 5, 2006
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

John Reid ignores the law

Erm… “John Reid will sanction the forced removal of up to 32 Iraqis today after telling the high court he would ignore any last-minute legal challenge to their deportation.”Yes, that’s right – the Home Secretary has announced that he will ignore legal challenges to his decisions.Yes, that’s right – the same Home Secretary who is in charge of the criminal justice system.

And that’s ignoring the issue of whether or not we should consider deporting people to a country plagued by indiscriminate daily violence and kidnappings, arguably in a state of civil war, with an inadequate policing and justice system, severely damaged infrastructure, which the Foreign Office advises against travel to, and which is so dangerous that previous deportations have had to sneak into the country on a roundabout route in chartered planes…

August 31, 2006
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Hurrahs all round!

This sounds like it was fun. (Unlike this alternative protest…)

I particularly approve of protesting against the lack of hat wearing in public life – some blame the last few decades’ collapse of civil society and boom in crime on the welfare state, some on wishy-washy 1960s liberalism. Me, I blame the decline in hat wearing and the lack of well-groomed facial hair amongst today’s menfolk (and no, baseball caps and scraggly goatees most certainly do not count – a trilby or bowler coupled with a fine Kaiser Bill is very much the order of the day).

I would have joined Rachel, Justin, Tim, Davide and D-Notice, but my protest would have been that “Political protests are a waste of time and effort”. That and I had work to do this evening…

Nonetheless, I eagerly await post-match analysis from all involved – though Justin already has a few pics up here

Update: A couple of screengrabs – first of our Rachel with her “7/7 inquiry now” sign, second of our Justin with his “Legalise everything” one. Both times they’re on the left (fnarr fnarr) of my old friend, BBC London’s Gareth Furby (the chap who interviewed me during that St John Ambulance piss-up I set up last year):

What japes, eh?

Update 2: Piccies via Justin and Davide.

August 31, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Charles Clarke: hypocrite

Charles Clarke: hypocrite

Today: “Infighting within the Labour Party will help the Conservatives at the next general election, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke has said.”Two months ago: “In what amounts to one of the most public rows among senior Blairites since 1997, Mr Clarke rejected claims that recent bad publicity showed he had lost control of his department. ‘I disagree. I argue that the way it’s gone is a direct consequence of the way the current home secretary has conducted his responsibilities,’ he said.”

Nice to see he’s just as much of an inconsistent, loud-mouthed moron out of office as he was in…

August 30, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on “Une sorte de maladie de langueur, de fatigue generalisee”

“Une sorte de maladie de langueur, de fatigue generalisee”

Thus spake France’s Minister for European Affairs, Catherine Colonna, giving her opinion of the state of the EU to the assembled ranks of the French Ambassadorial elite. Packed with (if we’re honest, fairly astute) criticisms of the current way the EU works, this seems to be a new approach from France, the country which more than any other has driven European integration and reform during the last half century.

(A little something from me over at The Sharpener)

August 29, 2006
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Koizumi and dictators

Koizumi and dictators

Considering that Japan’s own Tony Blair, Junichiro Koizumi, is due to step down as Prime Minister in a few weeks, it’s hard to know what impact his current sucking up to murderous Central Asian dictators will have on the constitutionally pacifist nation’s future foreign policy.Nonetheless, the fact that any supposedly liberal, westernised democracy would even consider attempting to build closer relations with the perpetrators of last year’s Andijan massacre, or a state which routinely employs threats of bottle-assisted anal rape in an attempt to silence political opponents, is concerning to say the least.

Update: More in-depth analysis of Koizumi’s trip from the always top-notch Registan (and part 2, and again) and neweurasia.

August 29, 2006
by Nosemonkey
9 Comments

God and the EU

Colman is spot on about Angela Merkel’s suggestion that God should have a place in any new EU constitution. Merkel contests that

“[the constitution] should be connected to Christianity and God, as Christianity has forged Europe in a decisive way”

As Colman points out, this means

“we should include references to absolute monarchy, discrimination against women and anti-semitism, all of which have also forged Europe in decisive ways.”

Why must we always have such second-rate minds in charge of working out where to go with the EU project?

God can only be a unifier when everyone’s worshipping the same one. So let’s ignore the Reformation and the countless variations of Christianity that arose following Luther’s piece of petty vandalism (sparking a good few centuries of violence, bloodshed and persecution). Ignore the lack of doctrinal agreement even within the Roman Catholic Church, let alone the Church of England and all the various Protestant offshoots.

What’s more, by codifying a Christian god into an EU-wide constitution, how exactly are community relations with non-Christian groups going to be helped at this time of ever-growing religiously-inspired division, mistrust and violence?

The EU is – in its idealised form – supposed to STRENGTHEN the ties that bind us, to emphasise and build upon the areas of similarity amongst a culturally-diverse continent which has seen more than its fair share of mistrust, division and war over the centuries.

All religion has ever done – and in Europe’s history more than that of pretty much anywhere else in the world – is enhanced the “us versus them” idea, heightening perception of differences, and created hostility through the insurmountable believers versus non-believers dichotomy.

We already have enough alienated and annoyed non-believers in the EU – they’re called Eurosceptics – let’s not add to their number, eh?

August 28, 2006
by Nosemonkey
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A reminder

Our man Worstall reminds me that our man Barlow is still slogging away on his John O-Groats to Land’s End walk in aid of the Brain Research Trust (follow his progress here) – which reminded me that I had a bunch of charitable donations from Europhobia readers from ages ago which had got frozen when my PayPal account briefly died.

That’s now been fixed so, combined with advertising revenue from the last few months, I’ve just bunked the boy a hundred nicker. Donate yourself here (and don’t forget to do Gift Aid if you’re a UK taxpayer…)

August 28, 2006
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

Two years of near-daily blogging

And to celebrate, a redesign!

Here’s where I started properly – and since then it’s been near-daily updates all the way.

I liked the old design, but although it worked fine in Firefox and Safari, I’d been getting a few complaints that it didn’t show up properly in Internet Explorer – the sidebars weren’t working properly and ended up overlapping the posts.

This should now be fixed – although the second sidebar still doesn’t sit right in IE, for reasons that utterly escape me (any suggestions much appreciated, etc.). Trackbacks and Linkbacks also never seemed to work, which was annoying – I’m going to try and add those in during the next few days, if I can work out how.

Still, not bad for a coding novice, eh? Constructive criticism in the comments, if I can get them working in the next few minutes before I go to bed (they seem to have vanished at the moment, and I don’t know why…) – ta!

August 24, 2006
by Nosemonkey
18 Comments

The politics of hope (but mostly fear)

Finally, an admission from the government, in Ruth Kelly’s speech launching Britain’s own Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Commission on Integration and Cohesion:

“Muslims feel the reverberations from the Middle East. Wider global trends have an impact.”

So despite all the previous denials, foreign policy DOES affect British muslims’ attitudes? Glad we’ve finally got that one sorted.

There’s also a nice nod to Godron Brown’s recurring desire to define what it means to be British with questions about “who we are and what we are as a country” – and even an acknowledgement that multiculturalism may encourage “separateness” to keep the Daily Mail on board. There’s also a subtle adoption of one of the Tories’ most controversial slogans from the last General Election:

“We must not be censored by political correctness”

In other words,

“It’s not racist to talk about immigration”

The only trouble is, of course, that despite Kelly’s assurances that this new Commission “is not, and must not be, a talking shop… [but] a practical exercise”, it’s incredibly hard to think of this government having done anything genuinely practical in the last few months (at least). All we seem to have had is talk and pointless shows of state strength – be they endless assurances about the state of the NHS or high-profile (but ultimately proven to be mis-timed and mis-placed) counter-terrorism raids.

Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to be able to find something positive in politics again, but for the last few years there’s been nothing about HOPE in the rhetoric of any of the parties, merely fear. Fear of the Tories, fear of terrorists, fear of Europe, fear of economic collapse, fear of immigrants. The few times our politicians have appealed to our aspirations rather than our night terrors, their promises have proved to be either empty or ill-founded, their policies soon either abandoned or altered in the face of adversity.

Even Kelly’s speech, which seems to be trying to promise a brave new world of cross-cultural harmony, focusses more on the current negatives than the possible future promises. She asks about “who we are and what we are as a country”. I’m rather worried that the answer to both may be “distrustful wannabe-isolationists” – and that refers as much to the Don’t Attack Iraq brigade as the Little Englanders…

August 17, 2006
by Nosemonkey
15 Comments

Are A-levels getting easier?

Well let’s just say that when nearly a third of Northern Irish students can receive an A-grade in the things, with a UK-wide average of a quarter getting As, the thing starts to look a tad suspect. Being in the top 33 or 25 per cent does not, in my books, mean you have excelled, which is what I always thought an A-grade was supposed to indicate.

Personally I have no doubt whatsoever that the A-levels my partents took were significantly harder than the ones I did, because they kept their exam papers and I was able to compare them at the time. If you’ve made the mistake of speaking to a recent school-leaver with lots of A-grades, you’ll also be hard-pressed to understand just how they managed it with such a woeful lack of knowledge and understanding of pretty much anything.

Now, however, Matt T has produced a handy chart to help you work out what grades you’d have got had you sat the exams with today’s young whippersnappers. Hurrah! Does this mean I can change my CV?

August 17, 2006
by Nosemonkey
8 Comments

Oh, come on… (again)

It’s bad enough when a teacher who supports the BNP gets sacked for their (decidedly repellant) political beliefs, despite no evidence that those beliefs were being propagated in the classroom. But suspending someone for being a right-wing Tory and writing an intermittently amusing but hardly either original or offensive article for a blog? Come off it…

The spectrum from Iain Dale on the right to Justin McKeating on the left are somewhat miffed (and Guido has the relevant correspondence here and here) – and so they should be.

It must be said that it’s getting increasingly tedious how often the word “thoughtcrime” springs to mind, but it’s becoming ever more common. We’ve got innocent Muslims being effectively accused of supporting terrorism because they’ve never taken to the streets with a placard stating “murder is wrong”, we’ve got people being arrested for wearing t-shirts bearing slogans slagging off the Prime Minister, and now people having their very livelihoods threatened for a bit of (vaguely) comic exaggeration.

Hell, I may disagree with this Inigo Wilson chap’s opinions – I disagree with most people’s opinions. But vindictively trying to get someone fired for an opinion expressed outside of the office and in their own time is significantly more offensive than anything contained in that article. He hasn’t broken the law, he hasn’t incited violence or hatred, and – most importantly – unlike those who have got him suspended he hasn’t harmed anyone.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, who I don’t think I’ve ever heard of before but who have orchestrated this little witch hunt, apparently aims to

“open an avenue for rational dialogue and re-education of the individual on the street regarding Islam and Muslims. The aim is make the all-too-common misrepresentation of Islam a thing of the past”

All very well and good – but considering that one of the most common representations of Islam is that it is intolerant of nonbelievers and far too quick to over-react when criticised, you’d think that they’d realise that by going to Wilson’s employers (who, lest we forget, have nothing to do with his article or with the Conservative Home blog on which it appeared) rather than to Wilson himself or his online publishers, they’ve just stirred up a wonderful bit of negative PR that makes them out to be just as intolerant and quick to take offence as the “Islamophobes” they want to “re-educate” always make them out to be.

Why is it that in modern Britain the consensus seems to be that to prove your opponents wrong about you, you have to go and do precisely what your opponents accuse you of? Say the government are cutting down on civil liberties, they deny it before cutting down on civil liberties; depict muslims as violent in some cartoons, they deny they are violent before issuing death threats; accuse the Tories of having no real policy alternatives, they deny it before issuing a pamphlet with no real policy alternatives; say the Home Office is useless, they deny it before sacking the Home Secretary and announcing the Home Office is useless.

Like Inigo Wilson’s article, this is hardly an overly original or amusing observation, but Christ, it’s pathetic…

Update: Having said all that, I have a moderate amount of sympathy for this take on the matter.