Nosemonkey's EUtopia

Missed this yesterday – the always readable, always EU-sceptical Anatole Kaletsky’s latest:

“the sudden revival of economic and political self-confidence in Europe, which seemed to be in an almost existential crisis as recently as last autumn, was a genuine surprise… Last January I started my work for 2005 with a very bearish column about the euro and the European economy, and I then got even more pessimistic as the year progressed. For most of 2005 this view, which contrasted sharply with the perennial optimism of politicians and central bankers, turned out to be right.

“So why have Europe�s prospects suddenly brightened?”

An ill-considered piece on The War on Terror and the like from me, over at The Sharpener…

A quick plug – the English language version of AgoraVox, the rather good French blog aggregator type thing, is pretty much up and running after a few months in a password-only beta testing phase. It’s still not officially launched, but should be worth checking out. And yes, this humble blogger is indeed a contributor.

Another radical new healthcare initiative! Yep, a new drive to create “care campuses” providing medical services in the community – which is, of course, UTTERLY different to the concept of General Practice, isn’t it? They’re spewing out crap faster than that kid in The Exorcist these days…

Oh, and apparently “The GP market could also be opened to the… voluntary sector to help fill gaps in under-doctored areas” – even though the reason those areas are “under-doctored” (bloody ridiculous term) is largely because no doctors want to work there. Asking them to do it for no money ain’t going to solve the problem, chum – doctors all come out of training these days saddled with upwards of �30,000 debt, so is it any wonder the majority try and stick around the major hospitals, where they’ve got a chance of becoming an over-paid consultant or getting spotted by a private practice, rather than buggering off to the sticks where they get to be moaned to by little old ladies and threatened by teenage thugs in hodded tops, all for far less pay (in real terms) than their forebears were getting three decades ago.

The report also includes the wonderous news that those “health MOTs” (stupid enough anyway) are going to be called “life checks” (“Right, that’s OK MRs Prendergast, you ARE still alive after all…”), and that the government hope to have them available in Tesco. Yes, really…

Much like Tesco Value sausages, Labour’s latest healthcare wheeze seems to be made of the discarded offal of fifty years of health policy, hastily re-packaged and flogged to the braindead public at a knock-down price.

Because, children, it has to be at a knock-down price. I can exclusively reveal to you today the real problem at the heart of the NHS – it’s simply too bloody expensive to provide free healthcare for all at the point of use in a country with 60 million people and a rapidly aging population.

Every politician in Westminster knows this full well. But the NHS is the sacred cow of British politics – we can’t slaughter the bastard even when it does start stomping through the back garden, munching on the geraniums, and costing us far more than it’s worth. And so, instead, we’ll get the same “new ideas” regurgitated every few years as if they’re some brilliant cure-all, while the NHS infrastructure continues to creak under the strain and all the best medics defect to the private sector to earn some real money.

You see, the thing in medicine is that there are no magic potions to cure all ills. Sometimes a body is so racked with disease that little can be done – bits may yet be salvagable, but in order to do so, other parts must be amputated, or the body will be wasting precious energy supplying blood to limbs which no longer have any chance of survival.

This is the modern NHS – a lurgy-racked near-cadaver, covered with a liberal dosing of make-up to disguise the scars of the pox that has been ravaging it for decades; still recognisable, but in need of some major surgery if it is to survive. Adding some extra blusher around the endges to try and give the impression of health is no longer going to do the trick.

The NHS is a great idea, but much like swimming the Channel in lead pyjamas it’s also insanely impractical. But no one is going to have the guts to take on the inevitable cries of “murder” that are always hollered when the sheer impracticality of such an insanely expensive drain on government resources is raised.

Radical new health initiative launched! Known as “going to the doctor for a check-up every now and then”, the government have made the shock discovery that serious illnesses are – incredibly – MORE likely to be discovered quickly by a qualified healthcare professional than by an average member of the Public merely sitting on their obese backsides, watching Hollyoaks and chainsmoking.

This comes hot on the back of the amazing new crime-fighting revolution of “community calls to action”, or “phoning the police”.

Exhibit A: EDM 1496, congratulating the Parliamentary Labour Party on its centenary, tabled by Ann Clwydd yesterday and already signed by 147 other MPs by 10am the next day.

Exhibit B: EDM 1500, calling for increased government funding for children’s hospices to enable them to die with some kind of dignity, tabled by Bob Spink yesterday and – despite apparently having been inspired by a campaign by The Sun – signed thus far by only 2 other MPs.

We’re going to be winning the war on terror in a seven times kickass manner pretty soon! You thought we were beating terrorism before? Just wait until British troop numbers in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan?) increase from 800 to 5,700! Watch out Taleban – we’re coming for you! (Again, apparently…)

Yawn… Interesting wording, though:

“I am perfectly willing to say I have had both homosexual and heterosexual relationships in the past.”

Of course you are, Simon, you’re a politician, so perfectly willing to say anything that might get you a little bit of power and/or positive attention. There’s also a nice attempt to head off any Oaten/Kennedy-style tabloid revelations at the pass:

“I do not believe that anything that I have done has impinged upon my capacity to serve my constituents or fulfil any of the roles that I have sought, undertaken or am seeking for the future”

But the end result is the same – he’s a Lib Dem, so no one cares.

Forgotten Wars – a “brief synopsis of the Top 10 ‘hot’ wars on the planet as well as the unstable, ‘frozen’ conflicts which could erupt into fighting.” Complete with handy maps and everything, and apparently the start of a new series. Top stuff, as ever, from Soj.

Oi, police – piss off and do your jobs, stop interfering in public affairs.

Oi, government – stop being so sodding hypocritical over whether or not we should listen to the police’s views.

(Don’t you just love the way that, bar the odd pointless sex scandal, the news in the UK has been EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME EVERY DAY FOR A YEAR?)

(For a day when I haven’t posted due to being busy and stuff)
Via

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. Finally get fluent in Japanese
2. Earn (or win) a million
3. Spend that million
4. Earn (or win) a vast amount more
5. Lose heat intolerance
6. Buy a tropical island. With a pub.
7. Stop stressing

Seven Things I Cannot Do
1. Vote Labour (again, currently)
2. Vote Tory (again, currently)
3. Vote Lib Dem (again, currently)
4. Remain loyal to a party
5. Understand religious faith
6. See a monkey without chuckling
7. Do basic arithmatic without using my fingers

Seven Things That Attract Me to� a pub
1. Good range of bitters
2. Being able to smoke throughout
3. No loud music
4. Friendly, but not overly friendly, staff
5. No one under the age of 50 – other than my immediate company
6. A sheltered beer garden for the summer
7. No loud-mouthed knobbastards who are so confident that their tedious job in the City or in some wankhole business consultancy or in sales or in whatever the fuck it fucking is is the most fascinating and wonderful thing in the world that they feel the constant need to broadcast their “success” in becoming a mindless automaton in a pointless profession at full volume to everyone else in the sodding place while occasionally making mysoginistic comments about the barmaids and any other female unfortunate enough to have wandered within a ten yard radius and getting vaguely agressive towards anyone male they happen to make eye contact with despite being too cunting pussy to actually risk getting in a proper fight in case Big Dave who sits in the corner by himself all the time decides to get involved and ruins their cosmetic dentistry with one artful backhand to cheers from all present, the pissing smug twats

Seven Things I Say
1. Pissing shit
2. Cunting fuck
3. How come that talentless fuckhead earns more than I do, the cunt?
4. I’ll have it done by tomorrow, honest
5. Cockbollocking wankers
6. I seem to be suffering from a severe case of writers’ block at the moment
7. Gah…

Seven Books That I Love
1. The Invisibles – Morrison
2. War and Peace – Tolstoy
3. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls – Biskind
4. Immortality – Kundera
5. Brewer’s Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics – Donaldson
6. Collected Fictions – Borges
7. London: The Biography – Ackroyd

Seven Movies That I�ve Loved (at different times and in no particular order)
1. Once Upon a Time in the West
2. Mallrats
3. Casablanca
4. Commando
5. The Magnificent Ambersons
6. Caddyshack
7. Braindead

Seven People To Tag (in no particular order)
1. Tim W
2. Dave W
3. Sunny
4. Guy
5. Soj
6. Katie
7. Sean

Or, in this case (as in Soviet Russia), the government.

In case you missed it amidst all the sordid sex scandals – there’s been another leak. It was in yesterday’s Sunday Times, apparently:

“The new evidence, uncovered in the trawl ordered by the Home Office of all relevant documents at Scotland Yard and MI5, shows the intelligence services knew far more about Khan and Tanweer than the government has publicly admitted”

But it’s OK, kids – it”ll all come out in the official history! Honest!

“Hundreds of pages of transcripts obtained from the surveillance are contained in secret files being prepared by MI5 and Scotland Yard. Clarke has asked for the files to be collated so the government can prepare the official narrative of events.”

The heading quote for this post comes from Churchill – a man who, in his Nobel-winning History of the Second World War, successfully propagated the still-perpetuated myth that he was almost single-handedly responsible for first highlighting the Nazi threat and then for fighting it off. As meticulously detailed in David Reynolds’ In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, Churchill – like our dear leaders today – also managed to prevent potential rivals from accessing documents which may have disputed his claims, and even used his position and connections to help ridicule alternative takes on his self-serving history.

And so, just as Churchill still gets voted the “Greatest Briton” despite being a barking, racist idiot and strategic incompetent, the lack of an independent enquiry will ensure that the “there was nothing we could do” story over the 7th July attacks will continue.

Hell, there probably wasn’t anything they could do – a bunch of innocent civilians were likely to get blown up by terrorists at some point no matter what, largely because it’s not that difficult to launch a terrorist attack.

But what surely could have helped prevent those specific attacks was to continue to monitor two of the eventual bombers for longer than the two months they were being investigated.

An independent enquiry might be able to determine the precise reasons why the “quick assessment” of the security risks posed by bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan incorrectly determined that he was not a threat before he went on to kill seven people at Edgeware Road, even though

“[in] the summer of 2003… Khan visited a terrorist training camp in northern Pakistan. It has established that the camp was set up by Al-Qaeda soon after Tony Blair sent British troops into Iraq.”

Oh look, it’s the “I” word again… There’s a surprise…

Perhaps another couple of Churchill quotes may be more appropriate for the Blair government: “There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion”, and, it would seem, “History will be kind to me – for I intend to write it.”

Now for some REAL journalism – biometric ID by the back door:

“The UK is to go ahead with a biometric-backed system of ID verification this year, whether or not the ID Cards Bill is passed by parliament… most of the significant components of the ID card scheme already exist or are being built…

“The ID Cards Bill is simply one (albeit wide-ranging and high-profile) implementation of Government policy on national identity management, killing it without also overturning the strategy would at best slow up implementation. And, probably, make it more likely that other components of implementation would be put into place without parliamentary oversight and regulation…

“Passports are issued under Royal Prerogative, effectively executive powers of the monarch which are exercised by Government Ministers. These powers include the right to grant and revoke passports, exercised by the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. Three years ago Parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee suggested that this and other aspects of the Royal Prerogative (starting wars, that kind of stuff) be put on a more formal statutory basis, but the Department of Constitutional Affairs declined to pursue the matter, observing on passports that ‘successive Governments have taken the view that the non-statutory system has worked well and that change is not required.'”

This revelation that passports will also include biometrics is not new. The level of detailed research and analysis, however, as well as the conclusions of the route the government is likely to take to implement the scheme, is. Read. (Hat tip Tim)