DUFF & NONSENSE!

So what do you think of it so far, Vlad?

And how does Ulster compare with Hawaii, Mr. President?  Oh dear, if there is any chemistry going on between these two then it's about to explode!  Meanwhile, 'Dim Dave' bimbles about, oozing old Etonian charm like an ineffectual maitre d' at some posh restaurant, all of which has zero effect on the various 'house guests' who are as ripe a collection of crooks, killers, liars, cheats and reprobates as you could ever wish to avoid.  Yesterday, I had Sky News playing for most of the day with the sound off because I was buried in a book (more on that later*).  Glancing occasioanlly at the screen was quite interesting because, of course, without the sound you watch the body language.  There was an hysterical press conference between 'Vlad 'n' Dave' in which Dave pursed his little lips, furrowed his brow in order to look really, really serious and appeared to say absolutely nothing.  Vlad simply stood there looking as though he would rather have a winter in Siberia than two days in Ulster (he may not be wrong there!) and from the expression on his face as Dave waffled on I began to suspect that he was fantasizing about one day getting Dave down in the cellars at the Lubyanka!

What a colossal waste of time and money this whole farrago has been!  Nothing has been solved or even inched forward.  It reminded me of Chamberlain rushing off to lick Hitler's boots and then coming back and waving his useless bit of paper and promising "peace in our time".  I also thought of my own personal 'hero' in the world of foreign policy, Sir Edward Grey, who in his eleven years as Foreign Secretary never set foot abroad - and quite right, too!  And if you doubt the ridiculousness of this whole travelling circus let me tell you that the most hilarious sight was that of the Laurel and Hardy of the European dis-Union, Herman Achille Van Rompuy and José Manuel Durão Barroso.  What they added to the proceedings God only knows - a few surreptitious giggles, possibly.

(* The book which has captivated me is the one on which I bestowed a rave review last Sunday despite having only reached page 79, but now I am up to page 449 and it has already gained my Corker of the Year Award.  It is ideal holiday reading, a good meaty plot culminating in a tense court trial and written impeccably, the author has the knack of writing dialogue in the style of the speaker concerned.  The revelations, as they come one by one, are not so much clues concerning the murder but more about about the psychology of the people involved, not least the 'hero'.  Do not miss: Defending Jacob by William Landay)

 

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Waiting for the second European shoe to hit the floor!

Is he cleverer than a really clever thing, that Mario Draghi, chairman of the European Central Bank (ECB), or is he just too clever by half?  Alas, we shall not find out until after September when the German Constitutional Court, delaying its decision until after the German election, decides whether or not Draghi's "cunning plan" to buy up government bonds in "unlimited quantities" (his words!) from any euro-member state is legal - under German law.  Thus, this week we have the extraordinary spectacle of a European institution, in effect, standing 'trial' in a German court.  They do so, of course, because if Draghi's 'Ponzi scheme' goes broke it will be German tax-payers who will have to pick up the tab.

It might be said that Draghi has earned his title as "a really clever thing" because his plan of action taken to save the euro has worked - without him actually doing a single thing!  He simply issued a press statement last year promising to do whatever it takes and the markets instantly subsided  but to date there are no hard and fast details of his policy, but as Spiegel points out, this is deliberate:

Monetary policy and legal objectives tend to clash, as witnessed by the judges' attempt to find out from the central bankers exactly what lies behind Draghi's nebulous announcement to buy unlimited quantities of sovereign bonds -- and a lack of information about when the purchasing is slated to begin. The ECB is treating the decision as a classified matter. "Until now, we have had to make do with a press release," complains someone closely involved with the case.

This air of secrecy is maintained on purpose: Monetary policy relies on psychology, and precision is generally damaging.

Bluffing, as every poker player will tell you, only lasts for so long.  This court action could be the beginning of a real test of the ECB's will and power.  Of course, the German court cannot rule on the behaviour of a Eurpean institution as such but it can force its government not to support policies considered inimical to German tax-payers, as the WSJ points out:

The Karlsruhe
court has ruled in favor of all crisis-fighting measures to date. The ECB
doesn't fall within the court's jurisdiction, so it can't technically halt OMT
even if the program is deemed unconstitutional. A ruling isn't likely before
September.

Yet the German
court will be considering important questions about the commitments of
taxpayers across the euro zone. For now, those commitments remain as
theoretical as OMT itself, and so the justices may well conclude that they
can't rule on a hypothetical.

But if the ECB
does have to go all in for Spain or Italy, it could be too late by then for the
court to rule on the constitutionality of German involvement. If it ducks the
issue now, Mr. Draghi will be pleased, but German taxpayers may pay the price down the road.

It is necessary to constantly remind oneself that since the recent alarums and excursions within the euro zone - nothing has changed - nothing has been really solved - there is still no, er, 'final solution!

 

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The Sunday Rumble: 26.5.13

I discover Dexter:  A delightful day yesterday.  Off to Salisbury in the sunshine with the 'Memsahib' and a lady friend to see a production of Rattigan's Less Than Kind; written in 1944 it has more or less been lost to view in the intervening years.  Billed as a light comedy, 'light' was exactly the word!  It lacked that dark thread that all great comedy requires but Rattigan was still in his 'apprentice' years as a playwright so we cannot judge him by this early work.  However, there was a bonus.  As the ladies chatted in the sunshine whilst we waited for curtain time, I sloped off in to the shopping centre and stumbled upon 'The Works', a shop that is difficult to define but which always has piles of cheap 'pulp fiction' for sale.  The sign said "3 for £5" so, natch!, I had to find at least three books which I might enjoy.  Actually, it was hard going (I know it's hard to believe given my prediliction for pulp fiction but I do have some slight standards!) and I couldn't find a third.  There were one or two on this character Dexter who now has a TV series to himself.  I remember reading the blurb on them but as the eponymous, er, hero was a psychopathic killer I gave it a pass.  Big Fail!  I started reading it on the train home and didn't stop laughing the whole way.  It is very, very funny; dry, sardonic, bloody and cynical and the good news is that Mr. Jeff Lindsay has written several of them so there is more, er, fun to come.

 

No wonder they're rioting in Yerdie-Burdle-Land:  It's funny how one tiny item of news can change your mind, well, my mind, at any rate.  As you know, if you read this blog regularly as I'm sure you do, I remarked earlier on the literally non-stop riots in Stockholm which have destroyed their reputation as a nation of 'Peace 'n' Love' dollops forever.  Because I am somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun I instinctively sided with the forces of law and order without knowing any of the details.  However, today I learn via those rascals at IHTM that the Swedish police are busy, not with clamping down on rioters, but issuing parking tickets to the owners of the burnt out wrecks of cars left in the streets:

Were I the owner of one of those cars I suspect that I might feel like throwing a few bricks at 'the Plod', or, 'the Ploddle-loddle-lurbles' as they are know in Yerdie-Burdle-Land - er, how's my accent coming along?

 

For God's sake, give Dave a break!  I gather there is a certain amount of grumbling in the prints today because Dave has done a bunk to the Mediterranean with his family for a holiday, and this, just after Drummer Rigby was slain.  I would suggest that the 'shocked and appalled' engage their brains.  The death of a single soldier is not enough to disrupt a Prime Minister's schedule, nor should it be seen to do so.  Let's face it,  Dave is definitely not the brightest PM we have ever had and I would prefer to have him operating his minimal skills whilst relaxed and rested rather than the flustered and flummoxed condition he normally appears to be in.  I am reminded of Montgomery who informed his staff in no uncertain terms that he was not to be disturbed for anything whilst he took his usual four or five hour nap every night.  It was essential, he reckoned for a commander to be always refreshed and alert, not ragged, bagged and shagged - well, perhaps not those exact words but you know what I mean!

 

Well, that's the last time I use Sainsburys!  For the benefit of my foreign readers I should explain that Sainsburys is a nation-wide supermarket chain and I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, to learn that they are about to start selling Krug champagne, which is Good News, but the Bad News is that they are limiting sales only to stores in more affluent, up-market areas like Chipping Camden (sole prop: D. Cameron Esq.)  Naturally, I assumed that my nearest store in frightfully posh Sherborne, jewel of the south west, would be chosen, particularly in view of the fact that I grace its portals at least once a week where it is reckoned that I could get a shopping trolly round their aisles quicker than Lewis Hamilton!  But no, for some inexplicable reason the grocers at Sainsburys think we're not good enough for Krug champagne.  Well, Tescos are attempting to open a supermarket in ancient Sherborne and the residents are up in arms but they'll get my vote!

 

Campus culture rules:  One of the Fox News commentators, I forget who, remarked apropos the current scandals miring and wiring the American body politic that it was the culmination of campus culture at work.  From everything I read and hear about American (and British!) universities that is exactly right.  They are no longer centres of excellence attempting with humility to edge their way towards truths, instead they have become bastions of politically correct, Left-wing dogma which will allow no dissenting voice.  The alumni of these establishments have gradually risen over the past 30 or so years to the highest levels in the government machine and now their blind fanaticism is clear to all, well, at least it's clear to those who do not share their views.  How America is to rid itself of this metastasizing malignancy I do not know.

 

Here endeth the Sunday Rumble

 

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Oh, no, the Yerdie-Durbles are revolting!

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!  I just caught a mention over at Drudge that there has been four days of rioting in Yerdie-Durble-land, er, that would be Sweden to you!  As usual, according to the brick-tossers it was 'the cops wot dunnit' because they inadvertantly, or perhaps, not quite so inadvertantly, shot dead an elderly man who was threatening them with a machete.  The cops, needless to say, have a different view.  Anyway, the Husby district of Stockholm, which is about 80% immigrant, erupted and it has been going on for four nights.  Before you indulge your anti-immigrant views the rioters are a mixture of all sorts and ages according to the police as reported by the BBC:

The Stockholm police spokesman said rioting had occurred in both deprived
parts of the city and parts that would be considered "normal".

"My colleagues say the people on the streets are a mixture of every kind of
people you can think of," he added.

"We have got Swedes, we have got very young people, we have got people aged
30 to 35. You can't define them as a group.

"We don't know why they are doing this. There is no answer to it." [My emphasis]

Oh yes there is, just lend them 3 Para, they have experience in dealing with riots which are, I admit, a tad bloody - but bloody effective!

 

 

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It's time the French had another revolution

I suggest this because of the various bits and pieces of, mostly bad, news seeping across the channel and also a very interesting article by Joseph A. Harriss in The American Spectator today.  He is their Paris correspondent so presumably he knows whereof he writes.  He describes the almost literally crushing taxation inflicted by the socialist doctrinaire, Francois Hollande.  Like all socialist regimes, his policies, whilst complying with Marxist dogma, lead to nothing except unemploymant, poverty and recession.  The French tend not to put up with that sort of thing for too long:

I suspect that France is on the edge of something big and unpleasant. As the
late philosopher and political scientist Raymond Aron put it after the historic
riots of May 1968, “There is no evolution in France. Once in a while we have a
revolution.” This May marks the 45th anniversary of the uprising that rocked the
country for six weeks and brought Charles de Gaulle’s eventual downfall. It’s
impossible to say what might ignite the next explosion, or when.

To which, as I wait impatiently for the EU to implode, I can only say, "Tôt, mes amis, pas plus tard!" which roughly translates as 'sooner, my friends, not later!'

 

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The Sunday Rumble: 19.5.13

In which, during the course of the day, I will emit sundry burps and belches on anything that catches my beady eyes.

'Swivel-eyed plebs':  By their unguarded, flabby-mouthed remarks shall you know them!  And actually, I am rather pleased when it happens because suddenly in the fog and mists of PC-speak you catch a rare glimpse of the truth, or at least, the truth as perceived by the "swivel-eyed loons" who run this country of ours.  In this latest case it was some Tory toff referring to the grass-roots suckers workers who volunteer their time and efforts to get these oily rascals up the greasy pole, however, it is an attitude of mind that stretches effortlessly to encompass all of us "plebs" who actually vote.  Even as they grovel, they despise us.  But you should not think that this attitude is confined to Tory toffs; the grandees of, say, the Trade Unions who swill their champagne in the best hotels and restaurants in the land think the same way about the real-life "plebs" who are daft enough to volunteer their union dues every week in order to keep the champagne flowing.

  

 A poem:  An old and dear friend gave me a rather beautiful book of war poems for my birthday last week.  Very nicely produced in folio size, it contains war poems from all ages not just the usual and well-rehearsed WWI poems.  Here is one that struck me as I was flicking through the book.  It is reminiscent of Rupert Brooke's famous "That there's some corner of a foreign field/ That is forever England" but this was written by Thomas Hardy who lived and wrote in Dorset just a few miles south of here and the particular "corner of a foreign field" to which he refers is somewhere on the veldt in South Africa.

Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest

Uncoffined – just as found:

His landmark is a kopje-crest

That breaks the veldt around;

And foreign constellations west

Each night above his mound.

 

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –

Fresh from his Wessex home –

The meaning of the broad Karoo,

The Bush, the dusty loam,

And why uprose to nightly view

Strange stars amid the gloam.

 

Yet portion of that unknown plain

Will Hodge forever be;

His homely Northern breast and brain

Grow to some Southern tree,

And strange-eyed constellation reign

His stars eternally.

 

Oliver Kamm misses the point:  A week ago on his Times blog Oliver Kamm (you can read it via my link or something called 'Tumblr', whatever that is!) took issue with Nigel Lawson over Lawson's urging that we leave the EU.  In his usual concise and logical manner he laid out the economic advantages of us remaining in, although he admitted that we would instantly be £8bn a year better off for no longer having to pay into the EU budget.  As an economist/banker by trade (before he fell into Grub Street) it is not too surprising that he sticks to economic arguments but 'the dismal science' is not the primary one in this particular and fractious matter.  It's politics, innit?  We, that is the royal 'we', in case you're wondering, simply do not wish to be ruled by European politicans and bureaucrats - it's as simple as that!  I don't care if our standard of living drops 0.75% or whatever, or even if it goes up by the same amount, I just want the United Kingdom to run itself, make its own laws, make its own mistakes, make its own way - c' est tout!  (See, bloody French get everywhere!)

 

 Albert Finney's Big Fail:  I have just had lunch in my kitchen and the 'Memsahib' was watching Murder on the Orient Express with Albert Finney playing Hercule Poirot.  I nearly murdered Albert Finney!  That has to have been his worst performance - ever.  He shouted his lines from somewhere at the back of his throat because in his effort to look plump, which he was not at the time, he kept his chin buried in his neck in an effort to show a double chin.  I have admired Finney for years, for just one example, his performance as Sir Donald Wolfit in The Dresser was superb.  I suppose from time to time even the best get it wrong - the worst do so constantly as my past performances bear witness!  Anyway, no-one does Poirot better than David Suchet.

 

The Bookaholic's Tale:  I got lucky last week.  I wrestled with my conscience, with which I had sworn never, not ever, to buy another book until I had reduced the pile of 'waiting-to-be-read' books - and lost!  So in I went to Waterstones without even a pang of regret and ended up in front of the American History section which was surprisingly small.  I am still waiting to come across a book on Lincoln which is biography and not hagiography.  There was one on the shelves but reading the reviews my suspicions were aroused.  However, when I replaced it I noticed The American Civil War written, I was re-assured to notice, by a Brit and a damned good historian at that - the late Sir John Keegan.  It was half the size of Lincoln's biography so that helped, too!  Anyway, a warning to my American e-pals, sometime in the next 10 years I will be an expert on your civil war about which, at the moment, I know next to nothing.

But my good fortune did not end there.  Going to the Pay Desk I noticed a bookcase of books at knock-down sale prices.  Amongst them was The Information by James Gleik.  I have two of his books on my shelf, one on Richard Feynman and the other on chaos theory.  Gleik is excellent at writing science for dummies without actually insulting our intelligence.  The book had a tear in the cover and slight damage to the spine but was only reduced by £2.  My second-hand car dealer persona took over and I asked the man at the desk if that was the best he could do given the damage.  Not only did he sell it to me for a fiver, he noticed a very slight tear in the cover of the American Civil War book and knocked two quid off that, too!  Well done, Waterstones!

That's my lot for today.

 

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"In, out, in, out, shake it all about"

Thus sayeth the lyric for that happy-clappy 'toon', "Do the Hokey Cokey".  It also might apply to the seemingly never-ending wrangles over our in/out membership of the EU.  My commenters, Richard, Paul and BOE are giving me grief over my view that it is now necessary to don the bio-chem suits and vote for 'Dim Dave' (or perhaps, 'Devious Dave') at the next election.  I fear they are allowing their disdain, verging on dislike, for Dave to cloud their judgment.

So let me begin by agreeing with their general opinion that Cameron is useless, devious, weak and untrustworthy.  Also, he's not much of a Tory!  However, none of that alters the facts of the current situation.

First Fact: A large swathe of the electorate either wants out of the EU or a very much looser connection.  Whether that "large swathe" actually constitutes a majority no-one knows and that state of ignorance will continue until a referendum is held.

Second Fact: However, it is a fact that Tory MPs have realised with a start that a dangerous part of that "large swathe" are prepared to ditch Tories and vote UKIP unless they see some change of direction from the government.

Third Fact:  The electorate knows now for an absolute fact that neither Labour nor the Lib-Dems will give them a referendum.  (Perhaps the best outcome from the debate on the Private Member's bill yesterday was that it confirmed Lib-Dem intransigence and pinned Labour to the 'no referendum' ground, so hurrah to all those rebel Tories.) 

So, I ask my critics, if you are given a three-way bet in which the odds are respectively zero, zero and 50/50, which bet would you take?  You will have noticed that I have not included the possibility of UKIP gaining any parliamentary seats because I simply do not believe they can do it - oh, alright then, maybe Farage could do better than he did last time against that ghastly little midget, Bercow, but that's all.

One crucial element is missing.  As Sherlock Holmes pointed out in a different circumstance, the interesting thing about the dog in the night was the fact that it failed to bark!  As James Forsyth reminds us in The Coffee House, so far Cameron has given no hint as to what outcome he is seeking in his forthcoming negotiations with Europe:

If you ask what’s the problem with David Cameron’s European strategy, a
cacophony of voices strike up. But it seems to me that most of their complaints
are tactical when the fundamental problem is strategic: what does Cameron
actually want back from Brussels? [My emphasis]

Some of those involved in preparation for the renegotiation tell me that this
is the wrong question to ask, that what Cameron is seeking is a systemic change
in the way the European Union works. But I’m still unclear on what their
strategy for achieving this is.

Of course, it is not unreasonable to hold back on the exact details of your negotiating aim.  The Eurocrats will be all too eager to humiliate any British prime minister by sending him home with 'a piece of paper' to wave at the airport - there's precedent for that!  But Forsyth hints that detail is not something No.10 dwells upon.  The way they were bounced into agreeing (sort of) with their rebel MPs at the very last minute is not an indication of a man in command and control of events.  I'm not saying for absolute certainty that Cameron (or whoever leads the Tory party!) will stick by his promise but as it stands today that is the best offer on the table.  Actually, I think it would now be hideously difficult for any Tory leader to rat on that promise.

All of which leads me up to what will happen if we do get a referendum.  For sure, the EU leaders will be aware of the referendum sword pointing in the middle of Dave's back and so they will be minded to give him just enough in the way of baubles, bangles and beads to help him win a vote.  With the combined forces of Brussels, a Tory government, Labour and Lib-Dems, the TUC and Big Business, I think UKIP and the rump of the Tory party will find it hard going to achieve an 'Out' vote.  Our main hope must continue to lie in the chances, between now and 2017, of the EU self-destructing in some way.  In that case, all the cards would be thown up in the air to fall where they may.

In the meantime, my recommendation is to vote Tory at the next election.  Half a chance is better than no chance! 

 

Seriously, do you think 'Dave' could fry a chip in a chip shop?

I ask in light of the current left turn, right turn, about turn, state of the parliamentary Conservative party led by the intrepid Capt. Mainwaring ooops, sorry, I mean David Cameron as they march, or rather, stumble their way towards Europe.  Good job Cameron wasn't in charge of the D-day invasion force, we would probably have attacked America!

This whole shambles must have them falling off their chairs with laughter in Brussels.  How they must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of 'Dim Dave', assuming he wins the next election, coming over to renegotiate Britain's links with the EU.  By the time it's over he'll be lucky to come back clutching his Y-fronts to hide his nakedness!  It is a typical example of what ensues when you have a problem of geo-political importance and the man in charge has absolutely no idea of what to do because he has no fundamental beliefs to guide him.

Even so, that leaves us, the pbv (the poor bloody voters) with a problem.  Let us suppose that Dave and his party, between them, make a pretty definite pledge of an in/out referendum if they win the next election.  I use the phrase 'pretty definite' because we all know what lying liars they are.  Also, it assumes that Dave will still be leader by the next election - definitely not a given!  Well, let's suppose, in which case the question is - who do we vote for?  We all know deep in our hearts that UKIP will not win enough seats to form a government so a vote for them will punish the Tories but likely achieve a Lab-Lib coalition which will definitely not give us a referendum.  Equally, it may result in yet another Tory-Lib coalition and again, coalition politics being what they are - crooked! - that will give Dave an excuse because the Lib-Dems will oppose him.  So the question is, should we all hold our noses and vote Tory?

I have a sinking feeling that might be the only answer.

 

 

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No Monday Funny, instead, a Monday Mumble

Well, I only produce my Monday Funnies to cheer up all you wage-slaves as you start the week but today being a Bank Holiday, and a sunny one as well, you are all, no doubt, lazing about in your gardens watching the weeds grow!  Anyway, I will leave you a Tuesday Funny later tonight because I have an early start for 'Londinium' again tomorrow, so no posts on Tuesday.  Anyway, today, as I keep taking shelter indoors from this unbelievably fierce sun, I will leave you the occasional mumble.

 

Euro founder calls for break-up:  Not so much a case of chickens coming home to roost as 14-year old dead turkeys hitting the floor to rot!  Courtesy of Ambrose E-P in The Telegraph, allow me to remind you of a long-lost name - Oscar Lafontaine - remember him?  He was yet another in a long line of swivel-eyed Germans with a fanatical idea - a common currency for a United States of Europe:

Mr Lafontaine was labelled "Europe's Most Dangerous Man" by The Sun after he called for a "united Europe" and the "end of the nation state" in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.

Ah, but that was yesterday, or to be precise, back in 1999.  Today, that nasty old real-politik has stuck its oar in and poor old Oscar has had to face reality:

Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable.  "Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain," he said, adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a "catastrophe".

He foresees a resurgence of extreme anti-German sentiment across southern Europe including France.  Whodathunkit?  Well, lots of people, actually, but no-one listened.

 

Mary Bousted, edukatanist, earns an 'F' for Fail:  According to this particularly dim light in the 'edukatanist' firmament, pupils should be allowed to skip the "slow", "boring" openings to the plays because they leave them "gritting their teeth" with boredom.  I can only assume that Ms. Boustead teaches 'Media Studies' or 'Japanese Paper Folding' or some such vital subject because it is obvious that she hasn't a clue concerning Shakespeare and his plays.  Happily, Ms. Bousted's terminal stupidity has permitted her to, er, rise well above mere class-rooms and reach the exalted heights of being general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.  Yeeeees, quite!

 

Could Adam Smith be proven wrong?   A truly fascinating article in Der Spiegel sent to me by the ever alert, 'SoD' - well done, my boy!  In it, two economists and directors at the MIT Center for Digital Business dare to forecast the complete overturning of one of the central beliefs of free market capitalism, that is, that no matter if new technology (trains, for example) puts workers in outdated industries (farriers, stablemen, coachmen, etc) out of work, the increase in productivity will provide alternative jobs.  According to these two swots this may no longer be the case because the rate of increase in computer controlled automata is such that human work is decreasing.  For example, pause and consider for a moment the possible impact of driverless autos which have just been given licences to be tested.  The implications, if true, are awesome!  A fascinating article, worth reading.

 

Maybe, just maybe, Obama is nearing a 'Gotcha' moment:  I must admit that one of the crucial events which convinced me that Obama would lose the election was the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi followed by the most obvious and disgusting programme of lies and obfuscation put out by his regime.  He made Nixon look like a vicar!  I thought at the time that American patriotism would be so enraged that they would slaughter Obama at the polls in much the way the American victims were slaughtered in Benghazi.  But it didn't happen.  Just like the outrage of 'Operation Fast & Furious' in which a Federal government sting took place and went hopelessly wrong leading to the death of an American border guard, a systematic barrage of foot-dragging and out-and-out lying went on and no-one, least of all the Attorney-General, paid a price for it.  The deliberate docility of the Obama-lovin' lickspittles in the media was an enormous help, of course.  But, as Michael Walsh points out at PJMedia, this time the people feeling betrayed by Obama's inaction at the time and his lying ever since are hard-bitten intelligence and Special Ops types who are thirsty for revenge on behalf of their friends.  New Congressional hearings are due and the brown stuff is likely to hit the fan.  Obama will be well and truly splattered but so also will 'Hillbilly'.  Allow me to mention one word, perhaps more in hope than expectation, but even so - impeachment!

 

Critics - don'cha lurve 'em?  Well, actually I do, at least, some of them.  Take for example, Lloyd Evans in The Spectator, I love him because he has just saved me 'loadsa' money!  I was trying to work out an underhand way of getting past that implacable backstop, normally referred to here as 'The Memsahib', in order for me to pay over the odds to get a ticket for the ROYAL National Theatre (I like to rub their proper title under their rotten republican noses) production of Othello.  I don't have Evans' erudition but I just know that I would share a great many of his views - and his view of this production was exceedingly dim.  So, money saved, time better spent and terminal grumpiness avoided - thanks Mr. Evans.  And that's the end of this Monday Rumble.

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So what would you do if you were in Dave's hand-made brogues?

Even 'Dim Dave' can no longer pretend that the light at the end of his tunnel is anything other than a high-speed express driven by Nigel Farage.  So the urgent question of the day is what to do, starting, of course, with the politician's favourite - do nothing!  And that option should not be ignored.  It could be said, and probably is by some of his smooth courtiers, that Farage is a blow-hard who will eventually run out of puff.  If, Prime Minister, they will be whispering, we simply make the right, er, that's right as in Right, noises towards Brussels which the 'colleagues', knowing our position, will understand and ignore that will take much of the wind from Farage's sails and 'the people' will trust us to look out for British interests, ahem, whatever they might be at the time, of course.  And, Prime Minister, if we just make noises without actually doing anything then the Lib-Dems will whinny a bit but trot along obediently because they know that come the election they will be massacred.  Thus, the only choice will be for 'the people' to summon up the courage to actually trust Labour with the economy (polite laughter all round).  By and large, Prime Minister, whether they enjoyed the experience or not, 'the people' have now learned a few basic economic truths concerning government borrowing and spending and so long as Ed Balls remains shadow Chancellor he is our greatest weapon.

But then another courtier will demur and warn that what we are seeing now is the deadly calm before the electoral tsunami hits.  Now is not the time to shift the deckchairs around on the beach but instead we should make for the high hills and dominate the view.  The one certain action which will lead to a mass return of Tory voters (and even a considerable number of Labour ones, too) is an 'in/out' referendum before the next election.  Let Labour and the Lib-Dems oppose it as loudly and as hysterically as possible, it will merely serve to strengthen our appeal to the electorate and as we know that a bill for such a referendum is unlikely to pass the Commons then we lose nothing!

An even more suave and subtle adviser is John Redwood.  He reminds Dave that whatever else the country voted for at the last election it was for a European federalist parliament.  They might not have seen it in quite those terms but that is the reality.  Since then, however, the mood has been changed by "events, dear boy, events" and the Tories need to respond.  He suggests a private member's bill, supported by the Tory part of the government, to hold a fairly immediate referendum asking the country if they approve of HMG immediately setting in train efforts "to negotiate a new relationship with the EU based on free trade and political co-operation?”  That would neatly skewer the other parties who would be forced to chose between going along or going against a huge swathe of public opinion.  Equally, a British prime minister would have a very strong hand in dealing with the 'colleagues' if it was known that the end result would be placed before the electorate for approval - or not!

The problem with that is two-fold.  First, I don't trust 'Dim Dave' who is no Maggie Thatcher to be capable of such a tough re-negotiation, and I trust even less the Europhile creeps in the 'Office for Foreigners' who would be advising him.  Second, within days of an agreement being reached the great creep would begin, by which I mean that in exactly the same way that what started (allegedly, according to the lying liars of the day) as a free trade agreement turned gradually under the slow, silent pressure from the apparatchiks in Brussells into almost political federation.  The same process will begin all over again.

So, if you were Dave, what would you do?

 

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Sorry to bore on - again!

But I do find these election results fascinating.  The fact that, with one by-election for a parliamentary seat excepted, the remainder were concerned with voting in sundry county councillors who are for the most part a complete waste of oxygen, makes the results, which have produced national reverberations, all the more interesting and several random thoughts occur, and to be honest, not all of them are mine, but then, who expects original thinking around here?!

My first thought, if such you can call it, was the joy in discovering that personality still counts in a political world in which almost all of the participants from all parties appear to have been manufactured in a factory somewhere in China!  Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, is undoubtedly a man we Brits would call 'a character'!  Like all such 'characters' one meets in life, one is not sure whether, in the words of Sellers & Yateman, that is "A Good Thing" or "A Bad Thing".  Only time will tell.  Churchill was 'a character' and a thoroughly detested one up until he 'got lucky' and a world war came along which eventually ended with him placed firmly upon a plinth of national reverence.  Of course, I don't put Mr. Farage in the same mold as Churchill but undoubtedly he has proved determined to stick to his own political course through good times and bad whilst making every effort to distinguish himself personally from the factory-produced muppets in the mainstream parties.  These sorts of 'characters' arise from time to time and usually they are found out and sink back into the obscurity they deserve - one thinks of the likes of Arthur Scargill.  However, there is no doubt that Mr. Farage is an exceedingly intelligent political operator which he combines with a remarkable skill in political eloquence - his speeches in the European parliament are small classics - and an equal expertise in public relations.  A man to watch, not just for the politics but for the fun!

Another thought occurs and this one really is mine.  I wonder if the British people, or at least, the English, have at last discovered a subversive way of exerting their pressure on the seemingly invincible political class who so resolutely ignore them?  The Lib-Dems used to be a sort of "party of protest" but they were so much part of the establishment that they were ineffective, and now that they are part of government they are well and truly hog-tied to the two main parties.  The Greens were, are and forever will be, a sort of religious sect which most voters would avoid like a dog-pile on a pavement.  But the UKIP has, under Farage's leadership and also under the pressures emanating from Berlin-Brussels, developed from its beginnings as a single-issue party into something much wider and therefore much more interesting.  It is no longer necessary to be possessed of swivelling eye-balls in order to vote UKIP - as I discovered last Thursday!

My thought that the English electorate has discovered a useful weapon with which to threaten the 'Westminsterites' is developed with much greater historical analysis by John Redwood, the title of whose blog post (worth reading!) says it all:

The Ancien regime of the EU is under pressure but not about to collapse

He points out the difficulties faced by anti-EU groups in their efforts to achieve a pan-European opposition to Brussells for the simple reason that there is still no European-wide, European government.  Now there's an irony for you!  Instead, opposition is limited to various national groups fighting within their own frontiers, just like UKIP.  So Mr. Redwood does not expect a sudden revolution leading to the overthrow of 'Rumpey-Pumpey & Co' but what he does foresee is a sort of latter-day Reformation:

I do not think there will  be a single trans EU revolution. The forces
against the EU are very split by geography, preoccupation, language and
political affiliation. One of the ironies of the situation is that because the
EU has not succeeded in making a single European demos, there is no single
political community to unite against it. 

           This does not mean, however, that the current EU is stable and
proof against opposition. I suspect rather the change will come as it did in the
Reformation in sixteenth century Europe. Peoples in different parts of the
Catholic empire had different reasons for disliking Catholic authority. They
adopted different means of getting out from the Catholic yoke, and did it at
different times. Although the Catholic powers at the beginning seemed to have
all the cards, they lost much of their empire in a devastating thirty years. The
Catholics started with the intellectuals, the lawcodes and the armies all on
their side. They ended by losing most of Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands,
and the UK . The fault lines from this can still be seen in modern EU
negotiations. 

 I wonder if the impact of UKIP is actually the beginings of another Reformation in British politics.  As a shrewd commentator (whose name I have completely forgotten!) said on TV or radio, the tiny SDP who broke away from the Labour party in 1981 and then dissolved into the Liberal party seven years later had a huge impact on British politics.  Remember, Labour then were dominated by extreme Leftists and the rupture hit them below the waterline allowing 'that woman' a more or less free run over three general elections.  You could say that the SDP defection eventually brought Tony Blair to power with an electable, soft-Left, social democrat party instead of the sub-Trotskyite rabble it had been hitherto.

I am hoping that even more people will realise the effectiveness of using the UKIP to discipline the Tory party in general, and Dave and his Old Etonians in particular. This could lead next year to a huge win for UKIP in the European elections and an equally huge spanking for the Tories.  It might even, with a bit of luck and a following wind, get rid of Cameron if enough of the Tory MPs see the direction the wind is blowing.

 

 

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This is 'trop, trop délicieux'!

Here is a simple question for you all: would you trust a politician who was a former plastic surgeon?  I mean, when you think about it both occupations involve disguising the truth so our French neighbours should not be too shocked - not that I have ever detected shock of any sort amongst les Français - to discover that their former Budget Minister, no less, had tax-avoiding bank accounts around the world.  According to Der Spiegel, this chancer lied, lied and lied again before he was forced to admit the truth and resign.  It has all gone down like a shit sandwich with the French people who, like everyone everywhere in Europe are living in straitened(*) times:

As budget minister, Cahuzac was tasked with cleaning up France's state finances. The former plastic surgeon was supposed to use his scalpel to make precise cuts to pensions as well as health and social expenditures. In the meantime, however, he clandestinely multiplied his own capital income. For two decades, the self-proclaimed spearhead in the fight against tax evasion dodged taxes by having his money in undeclared accounts in Switzerland and Singapore.

You couldn't make it up!  But there is more merde emerging from the woodwork:

And now a completely fresh accusation against a high-ranking politician is coming fast on the heels of the latest scandal: The Süddeutsche Zeitung, a leading German daily, has reported that Jean-Jacques Augier, Hollande's campaign manager, has two shell companies on the Cayman Islands. The report notes that Augier denies that there is anything illegal about this, quoting him as saying that he has "neither an account on the Caymans nor (has he) directly invested there."

I wonder if Google Translate can mange 'Nothing to see here, move along!'  In the meantime, the 'collateral damage' to Hollande's socialist administration is enormous, to say nothing of the insidious distrust for their ruling caste building up amongst ordinary French people:

In the eyes of many in France, this group includes the members of an elite that, despite all the public rivalries between opposition and ruling parties, is joined into a secret conspiracy to pursue its members' own private interests. Widespread public suspicion focuses on the caste of high-level public servants, politicians and company executives who are often alumni of the same elite universities. This upper crust of the upper class is seen as continuously and incestuously striving to perpetuate their control over the country.

Hang on a minute!  What does that remind me of  . . . ?

(*) Spelling corrected - see Comments

 

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The Sunday Rumble: 31.03.13

Rhinoceros:  Should a friend, or more likely, an enemy, suggest that you trot off to the theatre to see a production of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionescu make your excuses and volunteer to paper the mother-in-law's living-room.  Alas, I cannot provide you with a detailed critique of this, er, play because I only lasted to the end of Act One before making my escape.  The only 'Good Thing' to be derived from this dire evening was that I have achieved what I had hitherto thought was impossible by finding a worse playwright than Samuel Becket and Harold Pinter.

Stop the cuts!  I have just watched a young mother being interviewed by Sky News on the subject of the so-called 'bedroom tax' in which people on welfare inhabiting council properties will have their benefits cut if they have spare, empty bedrooms.  The camera roamed around and filmed the spare bedroom possessed by this lady.  It closely resembled a toy shop at Christmas!  I have never seen so many toys crammed into one room!  Thinking back, I would reckon that there were more toys in that room than I ever possessed in my entire childhood!  As always, I have the sound turned off but her mouth was opening and closing rapidly so I assume she was moaning and groaning about cruel, black-hearted Tories- if only! -  cutting her benefits.  Well, if it cuts her 'toy-bingeing' then so much the better for her and her brat!

I hadn't thought of La France:  Apparently Slovenia is the next Cyprus.  Pity because I remember with great fondness a week's holiday up around the Lake Bled area which is stunningly beautiful.  Their stupid politicians only joined the suckers club (aka: the euro zone) five years ago and already they are flat broke and about to be gang-banged by 'Mr. Rumpy-Pumpy' and his gauleiters.  However, Slovenia, lovely as it is, remains a minnow in the great scheme of things European.  But I keep picking up nudges and winks concerning La France!  President Hollande appears to be a rarity amongst politicians in that not only does he possess an ideology but he actually believes in it and is determined to enforce it.  Thus, like socialist countries throughout history, France, too, is likely to go broke.  Apparently the hitherto unbreakable(!) link between Paris and Berlin lies in pieces and Frau Merkel is not amused!  I had always relied on Italy to be the game breaker but apparently it might be France.  Quell dommage!

Eric Hobsbawm VEP:  That stands for Very Emminent Prat!  One of the more useful things to have occurred in the 20th century is the rise of (at least) two murderous, psychotic regimes which killed people on an industrial scale.  Of course, that is to be excoriated and the victims pitied but for those of us fortunate enough to have been missed it provides a litmus test by which contemporaries of those bloody times, particularly those on the Left, may be judged with unerring accuracy.  Such a man was Eric Hobsbawm, an eminent and respected historian, or so I am told, who despite his fanatical communism was pleased to accept the bauble of becoming a Companion of Honour.  As Bruce ('the brute') Anderson writes in last week's 'Speccie', this is all very odd given that Hobsbawm lived through Stalin's mass murders but continued to give his unwavering support, indeed, he reckoned the deaths of 20 million people was a small price to pay for completion of the socialist wet dream, er, that's 'wet' as in dripping with blood!  I would suggest that Hobsbawm (along with, incidentally, Miliband senior!) failed his litmus test in the biggest possible way so why anyone would take his history books seriously is beyond me.  Incidentally, as he recounts, 'Brute' Anderson has earned the high society award, equivalent of the VC, by being the target for a glass of wine thrown over him by Polly Toynbee.  Good man, that Anderson, steady under fire!

 

This inconsequential load of twaddle will continued on Monday in the post above . . .

 

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Plus ça change mais everything stays the same!

I am obliged to 'my man in Moscow' - er, no, no, please, no names, discretion, old boy, toujours la discrétion!   Let's just say he's a friend currently living in Moscow - poor bugger! - who passed on this vital piece of financial intelligence:

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance."

And no, those are not the latest words from the Italian Finance Minister because, well, as it happens, Italy does not yet have a Finance Minister.  These words are somewhat older, in fact, truth be told, 'my Man in Moscow' is a bit out of date with his intelligence reports these days but, as I told the PM the other day, what else do you expect with all these bloody cuts!  Anyway, the author of those prescient words was, er, well, Cicero in 55BC, actually.  'Not a lotta people know that'!

 

The mighty European Union trips over a Cypriot twig

So, the EU apparatchiks cleared the Irish hurdle, they scaled the Portuguese cliff, they ran the race with Spain, jumped over Italy, and there before them was the winning tape and just as they thought they had won - crash, bang, wallop - down they went, face first into the merde and scheisse, and all because of a  little Cypriot twiglet.  Whodathunkit?

And now the Cypriots, ungrateful, olive-eating peasants that they are, have rushed off, not to Brussels, but to Moscow where that very nice man, Mr. Putin, welcomes them with an open wallet in one hand and a cosh in the other behind his back!  Even Frau Merkel is squawking in alarm that Russia might step in with a load of dosh and buy out all the natural gas fields that lie off-shore from Cyprus.  That would allow the Cypriots to stick two fingers up to Brussels!  And how long would it be before the Russians put pressure on the Cypriots to rid themselves of British/NATO bases leaving us without a foothold in the eastern Med just as Egypt, too, hovers on the brink of bankruptcy and chaos.

The two biggest Cypriot banks are absolutely and definitely broke and it doesn't matter how long their authorities keep them closed, the minute they re-open there will be a run that will finish them off.  Spanish banks are in a similar condition and any sensible depositor in Spain will already be considering different options.  In the meantime, Italy staggers on without a government, although, on consideration, that might be an advantage given that European politicians couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery!

Could 'plucky little Cyprus' be the catalyst that brings about the downfall of das neue fränkische Reich?  A man may hope, so as we wait, why not join me in a little song:

The party's over

It's time to call it a day
They've burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid

The party's over
The candles flicker and dim
You danced and dreamed through the night
It seemed to be right just being with him
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party's over It's all over, my friend.

 

 

The cracked European edifice

In a comments thread further down, my e-pal, Ortega, provided me with a link to a YouTube film of a seminar at an American university (Harvard, I think) given by a distinguished French professor of politics on the subject of the EU.  It is, I think, a little out of date on small details, and also, whilst the Professor's English is excellent, his accent is not!  Even so, I persevered to the end and it was worth it.  You may watch it here but bear in mind it lasts well over an hour: http://youtu.be/ERRJyd5doXc

I'm not sure I learned anything new but it was good to hear my own suspicions confirmed by a man who obviously had studied the history of the EU from its inception.  He ran through the obvious - well, obvious to anyone who is not a European fanatic - that the whole set-up is riven with internal contradictions as a continent made up of proud individual nations attempts, in a ludicrously short spell of time, to become one nation.  In his (paraphrased) words, the result is an EU 'constitution' that is both too strong and too weak.  Since its very beginning, the men driving this construction upwards and onwards have been blinded by their own vision and only now is reality, already huge and growing more ominous by the day it seems, exerting pressures undreamt of by these dreamers!

An indication of their blind faith is the constant repetition of their mantra that the European Union has brought peace to Europe.  Nonsense!  It was the Russian and American armies with a little (comparitively) help from Britain that brought peace to Europe.  The nation-states that existed in 1945 were far too wrecked and ravaged to contemplate war with anyone and ever since the first moves were made to form the EU these nations have chosen material comfort over standing armies which is why today we can barely manage to drop a few bombs on Libya or Mali!  Today, under the pressure of financial (not military) events it is more clear than ever before that the fundamental fault at the centre of this construction has not be solved, that is, the balance between central European authority and the individual power of the nation states.  The emotional heart of this 'union', of course, was the engagement followed by the marriage between France and Germany.  Alas, like all marriages Time has wrought his changes.  A defeated, humiliated and shameful Germany was embraced by victorious La France and all past sins forgiven; but today, it is Germany that is all-powerful and an enfeebled France, about to be made even more anaemic by a strong dose of socialism, has no more power over Germany than good manners dictate.  As the good Professor put it, with a likely split between north and south Europe, the only decision France has to take is which side to join!

Like the Central Committee of the old Soviet Union with their mad idea of unifying countless different peoples in different countries with different histories, one must not make the mistake of thinking the pseudo-'religiosity' of the fanatics who dream a similar dream of a United States of Europe will give up easily.  In the last few days they agreed to steal money from citizens by means of edict.  How long before they back up their monstrous demands with tanks?

 

The Sunday Rumble: 17.03.13

Another Sunday rumble, or perhaps 'grumble' is a better word, as I awake to yet more global warming falling gently from an iron grey sky and settling nicely, thank you for asking!  As usual, I shall add to this litany of moans and groans as the day goes on, so if you are actually feeling rather happy today, then read no further!

'And then they came for your bank savings':  So now you know, and you must be deaf, dumb, blind and lacking a sense of smell if you didn't know it already, that to the apparatchiks who run the Berlin-Brussels axis nothing is sacred, least of all your hard-earned savings which you have entrusted to your local bank.  The Cypriots have just found that out - the hard way - with banks closed until Tuesday whilst the authorities rip off up to 10% of their savings.  Of course, they put it about that what they're really after is the untaxed il-gotten gains of various Russian crooks oligarchs who decided that Cyprus with its, er, Mediterranean banking laws was a haven of first resort.  Call me 'Mr. Cynical' but I wonder how much Russian 'moolah' was shifted electronically on Wednesday and Thursday when, in return for a nice bung, various apparatchiks quietly tipped them the wink?

Mother Russia is a murderous old bitch!  When I read Tom Rob Smith's best-selling book, Child 44, I promised myself never to read another book by him on the subject of Russia - well, I didn't have to really because Child 44 nauseated me - not, I hasten to add, that Mr. Smith isn't a first-rate writer, he's terrific!  He seems to capture exactly the fear and loathing that existed within Stalin's Soviet Union in which everyone is seeking either to denounce others, or desperately trying not to be denounced themselves.  Anyway, being a hopeless 'bookaholic' I wasn't too surprised to find that somehow, in some mysterious way - nuffin' to do wiv me, honest guv! - someone had slipped a copy of his book Agent 6 into my shopping bag.  I only reached page 25 and already I could feel the nausea returning - when will I ever learn?  Anyway, I was reminded of this by a review at The Atlantic by Benjamin Schwartz of a book called Moscow 1937 written by Prof. Karl Schlögel:

Schlögel’s book is a fragmentary yet meticulous social history of Moscow in the grip of the Great Terror—the period from the summer of 1936 to the end of 1938, when the already sanguinary Bolshevik regime let loose on itself its apparatus of suppression, purging, in waves, all Soviet institutions and at all levels of society, from the nomenklatura, the highest echelons of administrative, cultural, and scientific life, through the high command of the Red Army, to the engineers and apparatchiks, down to the factory workers and peasants. It is an almost impossibly rich masterpiece. [...]

In this chapter and throughout his book, Schlögel is the master of the chilling counterpoint. He subtly makes clear to readers that the 1936 Directory [the equivalent of our Dictionary of National Biography] is brimming with the names of people destined for the abattoir, and he notes that this edition of the Directory was, perforce, the final one: “No editorial board could have kept pace with the frantic rate at which people were driven from their posts and destroyed while their places were taken by others.” Completed on the eve of the Terror, this last Directory “encapsulates a moment in time in which the accusers and the accused, the perpetrators and the victims, the executioners and the executed of the morrow, still sit side by side.”

Once again, and not for the first time, I fall to my knees and thank the Gods of Good Fortune that I was born English!

There's no fool like an educated fool:  And here I give you - no, no, please, there's no charge and he's all yours - Prof. Geoffrey Miller, not just a fool but a dangerous one, to boot.  In a (thankfully) short article at Edge, this eye-swivelling maniac urges on us the advantages of Chinese eugenics:

There is unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state. Given what I understand of evolutionary behavior genetics, I expect—and hope—that they will succeed. The welfare and happiness of the world's most populous country depends upon it.

I cannot be bothered to take up all the hideous nonsense this man writes but I would remind him that there is nothing unusual about "close cooperation in China" because, you stupid, master-race theorist, it's a one party dictatorship in which everyone does what they're told - or else - so if you admire it that much, Prof. Miller, why don't you fuck off and live there!  (Apologies for my language but I haven't read this sort of vile vomit since the late Herr Hitler did us all a favour and topped himself!)

How are your alkenones hanging?  I ask, not that I have the remotest idea what an 'alkenode' is when it's at home, but because some less-than-scientific HAF called Marcott has just published a paper indicating 'The Hockey Stick' of all 'hockey sticks'!  He and his little helpers base their record of galloping global warming in the last century by using ocean core samples as proxies.  Very good, you might think, and quite rightly you will be alarmed at the way that temperatures have rocketed up, up and away such that the end of the world really must be nigh.  Unfortunately, that meddlesome nuisance, Steve McIntyre, decided to take a closer look and - whodathunkit? - it appears that the HAFs concerned altered the dates of some of their data.  This, shall we call it, carelessness with regard to dates had rather a significant result, as this diagram, courtesy of McIntyre's Climate Audit site shows:

 

'Les flics' finally spiral out of action:  Yes, yes, I know it's a rather heavy-handed sub-title but last night Spiral 4 came to an end on BBC4 which is a personal catastrophe for me because the other two women in my life will be no more - unless they bring it back for a fifth serial.  You have days left to watch most of the episodes on your I-Player-thingie (whatever that it is) or perhaps there are DVD sets available.  Most of the time I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on in the series - so no change there, then! -  but I didn't care just so long as my two ladies kept appearing.  First, Caroline Proust whom I hope fervently will one day handcuff me and throw away the key!

 

And then there is the sexiest 'lawyer' I have ever come across - no, I admit, not a hard test - the gorgeous Audrey Fleurot.  Whenever I am in legal trouble, and assuming that Ms. Anna Raccoon is unavailable, then this is the lady I want to defend me - and quite honestly I won't care very much if I lose!

Now I have a problem!  What on earth am I going to do with my empty Saturday nights?

 

Zis iss ein German yoke:  Which probably means you won't get it!  However, as the new Gauleiters of Greater Germany (er, that's Europe to you and me) set about stealing money from people's bank accounts in order to teach them fiscal discipline so that they can be loaned more money - vich zey vill pay back on time viz interest - sorry, that's enough cod German - an article on the DW.de site will give you a smile.  According to the story:

Highly indebted, without access to capital, viewed suspiciously by creditors - . Half the country's debts were canceled 60 years ago this week - the foundation of the "economic miracle." [...]

It was only with the London Debt Agreement of 1953 that the German economy was given room to breathe again, says historian Ursula Rombeck-Jaschinski of Stuttgart University: "One could even argue that the economic miracle would have been impossible without the debt agreement."

Ah, yes, now remind me, what exactly is the German for 'don't do as we did just do as we tell you - or you will be shot'?

 

I am now out of rumbles for today!

 

This blog prides itself on its consistency!

Oh, yes, indeed, this blog has been consistently wrong about almost everything for almost as long as it has been running which, in six day's time, will be 8 years!  Today, I am proud to announce that it has been completely wrong about Europe.  Well, actually, I wasn't really wrong about Europe, it's just that those slippery continentals cannot be relied upon to act rationally, that is, in the way that I forecast - silly people!  The other day I remarked to my regular commenter, Ortega, that I was amazed that the Spanish were failing to throw all their politicians into the bullrings of Spain and then set the bulls loose.  Equally, the Italians have let me down badly by displaying the sort of phlegmatic stoicism that we British consider to be solely  ours by right, even if nowadays we are given to behaving like a bunch of Hollywood starlets caught wearing out-of-date fashion.

Mr. Beppe Grillo, the, er, well-known Italian comedian - I hesitate to define him thus because he has enormous competition as a comedian from the entire Italian political community starting with the most hilarious of them all, 'Bunga-Bunga' - won a surprisingly large vote in their recent election and now he is proposing that Italy should leave the EU altogether.  However, a recent poll (sorry, I cannot recall where I saw it) indicated that whilst Italians are fed up with the Berlin-Brussels axis they are not prepared to leave it.  It is understandable, I suppose, if you follow Belloc's aphorism, "And always keep a hold of [German] nurse, For fear of finding something worse".  So my faith in a new Italian risorgimento has been disappointed and I am forced to look elsewhere for someone, anyone, with the strength of purpose and the political courage to drive a stake through the heart of this monstrous conglomoration.

To my considerable surprise I find myself doing a fast, unbelieving double-take and looking at - Germany!  Oh yes, Germany, as Ambrose E-P tells us in The Telegraph, has seen the birth of 'UGIP' - no, no, not 'UKIP' (United Kingdom Independence Party) but 'UGIP' ('United German Independence Party').  Of course, they don't actually call themselves that, instead they have adopted the rather stodgy name of 'Alternative for Germany', perhaps it sounds more exciting in German!  Anyway, these stalwarts are giving Mrs. Merkel the same sort of problem that Cameron gets with UKIP - the threat that they will outflank her to the Right:

The latest ZDF poll shows that 65pc of Germans think the euro is damaging,
and 49pc think Germany would be better outside the EU. This is no doubt "soft",
yet what is clear is that the all-party consensus on EMU gives voters nowhere to
turn.

The rebels may struggle to cross the 5pc threshold for seats in the
Bundestag, but they do not have to take seats to plague Angela Merkel over the
next six months. She is already in trouble. Her Free Democrat (FDP) allies have
crashed to 4pc in the polls.

In the same way that UKIP has forced elements inside the Tory party to shift Cameron slightly to the Right, so to Mrs. Merkel may be forced to take an increasingly hardline attitude to the 'Meds' - starting with Cyprus which is seen in Germany as merely an illicit haven for Russian oligarch funds.  Der Spiegel takes a cautious view as to the likely electoral success of 'Alternative for Germany' but does not underestimate its power to create considerable leverage from the sidelines:

Even if the party does get on the ballot, it remains unclear whether it will attract significant support. So far, it remains a single-issue party -- and even on that single issue there is a lack of clear consensus on exactly how to proceed.  

Still, with concern in Germany growing that the country has become the de-facto paymaster for the rest of the euro zone, Alternative for Germany could attract a fair number of protest votes from frustrated conservatives. Judging by the increasing difficulty Merkel has faced in pushing euro bailout packages through parliament in Berlin over the last 15 months, the level of frustration on the center-right could be growing. Indeed, Lucke has said that he is in touch with a handful of euro-skeptic parliamentarians from the Free Democrats, Merkel's business-friendly junior coalition partner.

So, with considerable surprise I find myself turning East and muttering fiercely a paraphrase of Claudius' fervent plea in Hamlet: 'Do it Germany!'

 

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'A farewell to arms'

A depressingly accurate editorial in this week's 'Speccie' (no link to the editorial) entitled "Little Britain".  Perhaps 'Miniscule Titchy Britain' might have been even more accurate.  The writing on the wall, or perhaps, the writing down of our armed forces, has been evident since 'Dave' cut the defence budget but simultaneously increased the Foreign Aid budget by exactly the same amount.  What bullets will not achieve, apparently bedpans and blankets will!  Anyway, it is now clear that it is not just that Britain has no appetite for foreign adventures/projecting power (you choose!), the fact is that today we are incapable of it.  The French, with a little help from their friends(!), managed to fly a few troops to Mali in order to shoot up some 'Fuzzie-wuzzies' who quickly ran away but who, once reorganised, now appear to be coming back.  In the meantime, nos chers alliés, having run out of real bombs, were forced to drop concrete bombs during their recent Malian campaign.  And 'Dave', with all the dexterity of a card-sharp, has now reversed his earlier policy by ear-marking part of the Aid budget to the military.  By jingo, it's this sort of clear, decisive thinking that has got us where we are today! 

We're fucked, the French are fucked, NATO is fucked - and Obama doesn't give a fuck!  He, of course and not without cause, is fed up with defending Europeans who refuse to cough up a reasonable amount of dosh for the service provided, and anyway he has turned away to face what he considers to be a truly grand strategic problem - China.  Given the potential riches already flowing from shale oil, his interest in the Middle East is also waning.  If Europe is still highly dependent on Arab oil then, he will let it be known, let them take on the burden of providing the security for it.  It is now clear beyond doubt that he has no intention of lifting a finger to stop Iran gaining nuclear capability.  All those many Europeans and Brits who moaned and groaned about 'irresponsible American adventurism' now have what they wished for.  Let's hope they enjoy it!

 

A view from Spain

In response to one of his comments, I asked my regular commenter, Ortega, to provide a 'sitrep' on current Spanish affairs.  He was kind enough to send in this as a comment to a post down below but I thought it worthwhile publishing it as a guest post because I think some of you will find it interesting.  I should add that I have slightly altered one or two bits of Ortega's excellent English in order to make it more fluent.  Muchas gracias, Ortega.

So you choose knowledge of the Spanish situation over kitchen pleasures? Well, I can't say that in neither one case nor the other I'm the most appropriate man, but I'll try to do my best.

First, about Spain, as about anything else, I'm afraid, do not believe what you read in the papers or see in TV. My trust in the BBC (please, do not laugh) was shaken many years ago when I saw its information about Spain and I guessed they do the same all over the world.

The crisis here is the usual case that comes when cheap credit (the rates went down when we became EU members) does not force devaluation of the money, since the peseta had left place for the euro. That brings always some bubble of one kind or another, and in Spain it went to the house market, because of historical reasons (here the houses are seldom rented and the construction business was a well prepared one). Prices went up at 15% year after year while the credits were actually free (interest rate being equal to inflation rate), making everyone think: why not? After all, house prices never fall, as everybody knows. Of course, the Government, who  were making a lot of money in taxes from this situation (plus dubious money coming from allowing to build on land previously not permitted), was able to expend as a mad man. No idea of saving for hard times: that does not give you votes.

When all that ended, as all bubbles eventually do, it brought the bankruptcy not of the banks themselves alone (they became the owners of hundreds of thousands of houses nobody wanted) but of the State, who, lacking the money coming from taxes, had to borrow at a rate higher every passing day and to reduce the expending. Somehow people felt less sympathetic to that than to the previous madness.

On the other hand, you must have in mind that here the jobless rate is always high. In the best of times, it was still about 7 or 8%. And so, while the British GDP has fallen as much as the Spanish one, you have today the same employment level as before the crisis while our jobless rate is today above 25% of the working population (wich is always lower here than in other European countries).

So, it is true that many people are having a hard time. Many do not have a job and quite a lot of them are losing the houses they bought with money they didn't have (the original idea was: even if I can't pay, I shall sell the house at a higher price and still make money). But the contrary is happening. After the Spanish law, when you cannot pay your debt, the bank takes your home, but you still owe the bank if the house price is lower than the whole amount of the debt. In this way, you found yourself homeless and still owing money.

Why not a revolution then, you seem to ask. Well, contrary to the general idea, Spain is a middle class country (that is Franco's regime only lasting legacy) and revolutions usually happen when people feel they have nothing to lose (as counter revolutions when rich people feel they have everything to lose). And you must add also what we call 'black economy', that  can represent as much as a 20% of the Spanish GDP. I do not know anybody, and I know quite a few, that while receiving money for being jobless is not working at the same time.

The question, in my opinion, rests more in the long term and the way the EU will go. Today, it is seen as a bad marriage: nobody would do it again but the divorce is even worse. Maybe will come the day when the option will be: Germany paying (forever) a part of its GDP to the EU  (including the already falling France) or the economies in the south will keep on going as bad as today for a long, long time. Then we will see.

Maybe next time I'll explain you how to make a decent paella. Less reason to cry there, even if you are a begginer.

The information concerning the black economy confirms my suspicions because I could not believe that a nation suffering the sort of reported levels of 'unemployment' would put up with it for so long.  I guess the same thing is happening in Greece.

Now the spotlight shifts to Italy which, in effect, finds itself without a government.  I guess there will be another election soon - or Brussels-Berlin will step in and appoint another 'Governor-General'!  I still believe that Italy is the keystone to the EU edifice - take it away and the whole thing collapses.  'Do it Italy!'

Do you have that eerie feeling that things are too quiet?

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not knocking quiet times, I like them - boring is good in my book, especially when it applies to international affairs.  But still, somehow, in some way, it don't feel right!

Take Europe for example.  Nothing has changed fundamentally, half of them are flat broke, they haven't managed to take even faltering steps towards unification, and yet the markets seem supine.  Sky News are running some adverts for a forthcoming report on conditions in Spain and the other 'Mediterranean' countries and they are truly appalling.  Whole families sitting linked arm to arm round their homes in an effort to thwart the bailiffs coming to repossess them.  I do realise that it is necessary to take statistics from such places with due caution but on the other hand all reports indicate massive youth unemployment of the sort that set off revolutions in countries on the southern side of the Med.  And yet ... and yet ... I read somewhere in the last few (for me, hectic!) days a report based on polling evidence that although the populations concerned - Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Irish - are on the rack, support for remaining inside Europe and the euro is still strong.  Apparently they are all terrified of reverting back to their own currencies which is, of course, their only real chance of prospering again reasonably quickly.  They might not like the German boot on their necks but they are prepared to shut their eyes and kiss it!

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the globe - thank God! - the North Koreans are proving yet again that the loonies are in charge of the asylum, first firing an ICBM and then letting off a nuclear firework.  Happily, for the moment at any rate, this seems to be more of a Chinese problem than anyone else's - although South Koreans and Japanese might think differently!  It is now crystal clear that either China is unable to control N. Korea, or, is secretly quite happy for them to kick sand in the face of their opponents who are mostly China's opponents as well.  My trusty 'intel operators' at NightWatch sum it up thus:

US and Allied deterrence measures have prevented war for six decades, but lately have had no measurable influence in deterring North Korean provocations, preventing the development of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems or in stopping sales of North Korean missiles and conventional weapons to Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Libya. The US also has shown itself recently to be slow or unable to respond to provocations in a timely fashion. As a result, the new North Korean leader seems less intimidated by the US than were his forbears.

China cannot or will not restrain North Korea. [My emphasis]

What is even more worrying is that the pompous, ignorant and arrogant dimwit in the White House appears to have no concerns and instead concentrates what passes for his mind on how to spend more and yet more dollars he does not possess on utter futilities like so-called 'green industries'.  Even if 'sequestration' does not occur in a few weeks, he still intends to slash and burn defence spending whilst he diverts funds towards the Democrat voters of America.  In the meantime, North Korea either sells to, or advises on, nuclear weaponry and delivery systems to every enemy of the USA, Iran being one of the first in the queue.  Back in Washington, 'Mr. Smug 'n' Mighty', with his nose raised, concentrates on delivering ponderous speeches concerned almost totally with American domestic politics.  He is Wilson and Roosevelt combined.

See what I mean?  It's all just too damned quiet!

 

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There's filthy lucre, and then there's rotten rubles!

A few posts down I drew attention to Putin and his 'thugocracy' as they hammered yet another harmless opposition blogger.  Obviously when it comes to applying the full force of the state against the hapless and the harmless, the security police apparat suddenly finds reserves of efficiency.  Needless to say, when it comes to actual large - and I mean eye-wateringly huge - crimes that severely damage the state, they are too busy beating up bloggers!

This from the Interactive Investment site:

The amount of dirty money flowing in and out of Russia has more than doubled over the past eight years, robbing the country of productive capital and driving a massive underground economy, a new report has found.

Global Financial Integrity, a Washington think tank that studies illicit money flows, estimates that an average of $61.72 billion in money earned from corruption, human trafficking, arms smuggling and other illegal activities has entered or left Russia each year since the start of 2004, a 228 percent increase from the $27.06 billion in illicit funds seen annually on average in the prior decade.

This sort of thing is like a slowly metastatizing cancer in a society.  Slowly but irrevocably it spreads through the system weakening and in the end destroying the sinews of state.  Given that this is Russia and it's Putin's regime, then good luck to the crooks, I say!

Still, Russia only ranks fifth among developing economies for total illegal
money flows, far behind China, which GFI estimates has lost $3.79 trillion
between 2000 and 2011.

China saw an estimated $764.27 billion in dirty money between 1994 and
2011, GFI said in its report "Russia: Illicit Financial Flows and the Role
of the Underground Economy," released on Tuesday.

The dirty money feeds a massive underground economy, equivalent to 46
percent of Russia's national economic output and 3.5 times more than the
average for other major industrialized nations in the Group of Eight.

The shadow economy fueled by illicit flows enriches a small business and
criminal elite at the expense of the broader citizenry, and it flourishes
because Russia's government institutions are weak, with corruption and
accountability measures worsening, GFI said.

What a festering pit of a country! 

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And no, I am not referring to non-existent global warming.  Instead, I give you, courtesy of the WSJ, the latest example of Putin's iron fist, this time covered carefully in a velvet glove! - not, I hasten to add, that this is due to any delicacy on his part but more because of his desire to avoid bad international publicity in the run-up to the 2014 Winter Olympics.  So, a certain Mr. Sergei Udaltsov, apparantly a constant critic of the Kremlin, has been ordered into home detention and forbidden to contact the outside world:

Speaking before the order was issued, Mr. Udaltsov called it the latest in a
series of small steps that the Kremlin hopes will pass unnoticed in Russia and
the west but that are silencing Russia's opposition.

The order will last until April, pending the outcome of a criminal
investigation against Mr. Udaltsov for allegedly plotting to incite mass
unrest.

"It's the same as if I were in a jail cell, but for the authorities this
doesn't look as bad as if they threw me in jail," said Mr. Udaltsov, who said it
would effectively block him from any political activity.

He is but the latest and will certainly not be the last.  Putin and his apparat in the Kremlin truly are a disgusting bunch of mobsters.  The only good thing to be said about them is that their blatant gangsterism is inimical to the growth of Russian strength and progress.  Instead they are constructing a corrupt, shaky, inefficient edifice likely to collapse sooner rather than later due to - irony alert! - its 'internal contradictions'!

Can we rely on the stupidity of the European parliament?

Apparently, some German cove by the name of Martin Schulz, described by Mary Ellen Synon at The Coffee House as "the unpleasant German socialist president of the European Parliament", is plotting to take advantage of EU rules which would allow MEPs to vote in secret on a motion to reject Dave's hard won EU budget cuts.  All I can say is 'alle Macht Ihnen, Martin, old boy' ('all power to you') and I offer those words of encouragement for two reasons.  First, you will confirm my suspicion that European politicians are even more stupid than ours; and second, you will do more to aid the departure of Britain from your rotten edifice than any other single act.

Of course, my readers, being by definition more intelligent than average (yes, I know, flattery will get me anywhere!), will already suspect the existence of personal motivations lying behind Herr Shulz's machinations.  As Ms. Synon informs us:

So, as I say, the parliament trying to veto Cameron’s ‘triumph’ is something stronger than a rumour. But if it’s rumour you want, try this: a confrontation with the Council is part of Schulz’s plan to be the next president of the European Commission. He appears to want to present himself as the champion of – typical left-winger – solidarity, which he calls ‘the key value underpinning the European Union’. If he can line himself up as the anti-Cameron, there are enough ‘anti-nationalists’ who would want him to lead the Commission as insurance against any increase of Council powers at the expense of the Commission.

Well, go to it, 'Shultzy', old lad, I'm behind you all the way.  The collapse of this budget and its replacement by one that increases in size should guarantee a 2-to-1 vote in favour of withdrawal at our referendum.

 

Old traitors never die, they linger on in history

But of course, some 70+ years on when traitors are unmasked, everyone shrugs and mutters, "Alger who?" or "So what?" before changing the subject.  Almost no-one pauses to cogitate upon the possibility that if it was like that then, why wouldn't it be like that today?  Even so, a recent book [1], reviewed in The American Spectator, undertakes the unpleasant task of raking the muck that surrounded and infected the government of FDR during WWII. The authors retread the path laid bare by the Venona Project in which the American and British intelligence services combined to decrypt tens of thousands of messages sent by the various Soviet agencies.  The result was to bury a lance of truth into the Leftist myth that Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White were patriots, the Rosenbergs were innocent and that Whittaker Chambers was a liar.  It is now indisputable fact that the exact reverse was true.  Even more, the deeply unpleasant Sen. McCarthy was, in essence, right and the equally unpleasant Richard Nixon was right to defend Whittaker Chambers.  All those attending the Yalta Conference were either knowingly or unknowingly dancing like Russian puppets as Stalin jerked their strings. To be fair to Roosevelt, which he barely deserves, he was by this time in failing health and was thus well and truly in the manipulative hands of the likes of Harry Hopkins.  Thus, half of Europe was handed over, bound and gagged, to a monster.  To those, like Enoch Powell and Andrew Alexander, who maintain that the Cold War was totally unnecessary I can only suggest that 'there is none so blind as them wot is determined not to see'!  If Stalin could have grabbed more of Europe he would have done - and he worked hard enough at destabilising both Italy and France to say nothing of the Berlin blockade.

Today in the USA, the Left have no need of foreign powers to assist in their planned destruction of their democracy.  They subverted the main organs of society decades ago and thus today they have the overwhelming support of the MSM, the universities, most of the professions, a gargantuan - and growing - civil service and, via the schools, the hearts and what passes for the minds of the young.  Home run, really!

1:  Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government
By M. Stanton Evans and Herbert Romerstein
(Threshold Editions, 294 pages, $26)

Where's Kelvin McKenzie and The Sun when we need them?

Der Spiegel has been kind enough to provide a summary of German views of Dave's Europe speech.  Most of them are thoughtful and also totally dependent on their own internal political stance - so no difference from our press then!  However, Bild, which is a German tabloid, has its own idiosyncratic take on us Brits and offers eight reasons why they don't need us or want us:

"… because they drink stale beer +++ because they drive on the wrong side of the road. +++ because they consider black pudding, Marmite and vinegar and chips to be delicacies +++ because their electrical plugs are different from those on the Continent +++ because they don't use the metric system +++ because Germany's currywurst (sausage) tastes better than fish and chips +++ because they have greater debts than Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland together +++ because even without your bagpipes, we will still have plenty of idiots in Brussels."

Fair enough, can't argue with too much of that, although at least we don't go around dressed in tight-fitting leather shorts (well, outside Brighton, that is), but anyway, it's auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and do try not to kick off on one like you did the last two times we left you on your own!

 

'Por favor, donnez-moi ein Feigenblatt'

Waddya mean, what's a 'Feigenblatt'?  It's a 'fig leaf', for goodness sake, and if you can't speak the language of our European friends and allies - and stop that sniggering now! - how can you expect to follow the nuances of the forthcoming European debate which Dave started this morning with an almighty, er, well, bang isn't quite the word but you know what I mean!

Anyway, I'm sure our friends and allies - I'm not going to tell you again! - understood the message Dave was sending them which was, roughly translated: Look, give me something, OK, it doesn't have to be much, just something that I can drape over my weeny bit of political capital so that I can be seen in public at the next election.  Meanwhile, our European friends and allies - right, that's it, you will all stay in tonight for detention - are forced to hold each other up because they are so helpless with laughter!  They now have Dave exactly where they want him.  He was asked twice by reporters if he would campaign for an 'OUT' if he failed to get anything meaningful from 'Brussels-Berlin' and twice he dodged an answer.  So, if they think he's worth saving all they need do is toss him a political scrap which he can then inflate and take to the country as he campaigns for an 'IN'.  On the other hand, if they don't fancy him much, and who would?, they can play hard ball, give him nowt for his troubles and watch him lose the next election because anyway they would much rather deal with young Miliband especially if he's in coalition with Clegg and his bunch of Euro-fanatics.

If Dave really had any sort of core belief in his being he would tell the Europeans that he intended to change the arrangement between us and them, without being specific at this early stage, and that if they failed to produce something worthwhile he would throw himself and his party wholeheartedly into a 'OUT' campaign.  That, more than anything else, would improve his chances at the next election and would provide a big stick with which to beat up Labour if, as seems likely, they refuse to contemplate a referendum.

As it is he has chosen a weak central positon which is the worst of all possible worlds, not just for him (which he deserves) but for all of us.

 

Is Mrs. Merkel in the Scheisse?

I can just imagine that little rat-trap mouth of Mrs. Merkel practically disappearing as it tightened in displeasure at the news that her party had been pipped to the post in yesterday's election in Lower Saxony.  She had expected an easy win given that the leader of the opposition party, the Social Democrats (SPD), simply does not have enough mouths to put his feet in!  The man, Peer Steinbrück, is a practitioner of the art of 'opening mouth and letting belly rumble' - for which this blog extends its admiration given that it is commonplace here!  Anyway, his party stumbled down the polls with every utterence but ... but ... it still won!

According to Spiegel, Herr Steinbrück at least owned up to his gaffes:

He went further, saying that the party had done well despite him, rather than because of him.  "I'm very aware of the fact that there wasn't much tailwind from Berlin and I'm also aware that I'm partly responsible for that," the notoriously outspoken former finance minister, who has confounded his party with a series of gaffes in recent months, told party supporters as the results came in on Sunday night.

Well, there's a novelty, a politician and truth in the same room!  This man bears watching:

Steinbrück's pet projects are tax and finance policy. He proved his worth as a crisis manager during the 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis when he was finance minister under Merkel in her first term.

But his no-nonsense pragmatism and focus on finance are at odds with the working class idealism of the party which is proud of its roots in the 19th century labor movement. Part of his charisma is that he doesn't avoid a fight, which sets him apart from the far more cautious Merkel. But his combative nature sometimes makes him speak out without immediately thinking of the consequences. He can come across as arrogant.

So he appears to understand finance and economics and is not lost in a welter of sentimentality of the sort indulged in by Lefties everywhere (see: Obama, Barack; inaugeration of.)  Hopefully, he is equally clear-eyed when it comes to matters European.  The election is due next September (I think!) andit may be more interesting than observers thought.  In any case, one important result of this local election is that the SPD now control the Upper House outright which means that Madame Merkel cannot pass any programmes without their approval.  What's the German for 'interesting times' - can't be arsed to Google Translate it.

 

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Ach, ach, oh mein Gott, wot a bloomin' lot!

Needless to say, in the finest traditions of this blog that title has very little connection to the content of this post except that it is concerned with the warning words of Herr Jens Weidmann,' ze boss of ze' German Bundesbank and therefore a man of whose opinion on financial matters one should take seriously.  And he, himself, is being very serious according to the FT which reports that Herr Weidmann is concerned that politicians are increasing their efforts to subvert the independence of their central banks with the aim of bringing about a devaluation of their currencies in order to give their nations a distinct advantage in the competition for overseas markets.  You might call it 'the Lance Armstrong effect'!  He points the finger at Hungary and Japan but warns that it could spread.

Mario Draghi, the boss of the European Central Bank needs to be watched like a hawk because one suspects that the likes of 'Mr. Rompoy-Pompoy' would love to shove his hand up the back of Draghi's beautifully cut Italian suit and pull his levers!  Meanwhile, I can't wait to bid good riddance to Mervyn King, our useless and compliant Governor of the Bank of England who had about as much fight in him as a soggy sandwich!  Now all eyes are on Mr. Mark Carney, the most famous Canadian since, er, well, I can't think of any famous Canadians, who is about to take over at the BoE.  He shouldn't have much trouble slapping those posh public schoolboys into place but how will he stand up to 'Bruiser' Balls in a couple of years time?

Suffice to say that even the possibility of a global exchange rate war makes me shiver!

Thanks to Drudge for the pointer.

 

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Why would the 'Euros' bother to do a deal with Dave?

Golly-gosh, the disappointment on hearing that Dave's big speech - no, really, I mean, like, really BIG speech - on Europe has been postponed was, well, barely discernible!  However, it gives us time to do what very few of the denizens of the Westminster village do which is to look at it from the point of view of Berlin-Brussels.  Just imagine - oh, go on, give it a try - that you were 'Mr. Rumpoy-Pumpoy' and you knew that Dave was on his way to renegotiate the British agreement with the European Union, what would be your re-action?  Probably, to issue forth a stream of profanities because it's not as though you haven't at least a dozen other seriously huge problems needing your attention without some smoothy-chops, Old Etonian twit coming over and adding to them!

However, given that he is unlikely to be put off how would you deal with him?  Well, first of all you would work out what his plan is.  Clearly, from what he has already let slip, he intends to negotiate a new deal to be ready to display proudly to the British public just in time for the next election with an absolutely, definitely, word of honour, cast-plastic guarantee that the British people will be offered a referendum on it after his party is re-elected.  So, the first and obvious thing to do is kick the negotiations as far as possible, not just into the long grass, but better still into the forest!  As the election date draws closer, Dave will become increasingly desperate to take something - anything, really - back to his voters, so his resolve will gradually weaken.

But then you - still playing the part of 'Mr. Rompoy-Pompoy' - might ask yourself exactly what the chances are of Dave actually winning the next election?  No need of hugely expensive - and mostly useless - pollsters, simply go to Bet Fred, or Paddy Power, or any of the major bookies and they will tell you now that Dave's chances of winning are miniscule.  Possibly even Dave knows this in his heart which is why he carefully promises a referendum only after the next election.  So why not just leave him to kick his heels in your ante-room whilst you get on with more important and pressing matters?

And of course, one of the most pressing items on your agenda is your plan to drive Europe in exactly the opposite direction from that desired by Dave, that is, into even closer union than hitherto.  So tell your secretary to give him a sweetie if he bursts into tears!

 

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Britain to drift out of European Union without reforms: PM - Reuters

A faction without a leader is a rabble

And rabbles tend to be defeated!  There is, I sense, a very large faction in this country made up of those who have always known, and those who have recently realised, that membership of the EU is not only a disadvantage but coming close to a disaster.  Events of the past four years have certainly added to their numbers.  However, we - oh yes, I was against it from the off! - suffer one crippling weakness - we lack a leader.  Every movement needs a focus upon whom we, and our opponents can concentrate, someone who can direct our attacks and counter-attacks against that great, amorphous, squidgy, conglomoration of fudge that is the British establishment.  It cannot, I think, be Nigel Farage of UKIP.  Somehow, in someway, he is not yet considered a serious political figure - although that could change particularly if his party follows through on their poll ratings at the ballot box in the forthcoming European elections at the expense of the Tories.  Thus, it is incumbent on us all to vote UKIP in our European consitituencies if the Tories look as though they might win - only a huge, headline-winning, Tory defeat will frighten Westminster Tories into rebellion against 'Dim Dave'.  No-one with more than three brain cells believes Dave's heart is in the fight against the Berlin-Brussels axis, least of all those apparatchiks who inhabit that region.  He will go through the motions and like Tory prime ministers before him will come back and wave a bit of paper claiming peace and prosperity in our time!  My guess is that most Tory MPs already realise that they are not going to win a majority at the next general election but if enough of them realise that they, personally, will definitely be on the casualty list because of UKIP running interference, then maybe, just maybe, they will rebel - now!  And if one or two suitably heavyweight hitters from the Tory front bench come out and declare for the anti-European movement we will have the sort of leadership we need and given my suspicion concerning the yellow streak running up Dave's back, he might well change course accordingly.  Today's headlines are full of blather from past Europhiles like Heseltine and Clarke who, despite being completely wrong all those years ago, are still peddling the same old guff.  We need concentrated, co-ordinated counter-fire from some 'big guns' - and we need it quick!

Read Trevor Kavanagh below!

 

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'Uncle Sam Obama' should mind his own damned business!

In an unusual example of prescience - highly unusual on this blog! - I intimated a few days ago that the  calibre of foreign service officers with the American State Department was beginning to make the members of our very own 'Ministry for Foreigners' look positively bright by comparison.  I still remember the slight shock I felt when 'Hillbilly' was given the job of Secretary of State and upon arrival at the office she was met by a large crowd of cheering (so-called) public servants.  Hang on a minute, I thought at the time, you are supposed to be politically-neutral civil servants not cheer leaders for the Democrat party.  (Yes, yes, I know, how pathetic to still be a silly naive boy at the age of 73!)

Anyway, one of these third-raters, the US assistant secretary for European affairs Philip Gordon, opened his mouth and let his belly rumble, in public, by telling Britain it should remain in the EU.  Now, the United States has every right to hold an opinion on foreign affairs which it is fully entitled to express in private but only in the most extreme of cases should it voice that opinion out loud.  Whether or not this worthy did so on orders from his master in the White House I do not know, so perhaps the stricture contained in the title to this post is unwarranted.   It could well be the case because I don't think President Obama has an opinion one way or the other about Britain and the EU except, possibly, that he prefers the latter to the former!

So what did Mr. Gordon think he would achieve by his public arm-twisting?  Apart, that is, from stiffening the resolve of all those anti-EU Tories and placing Cameron in a position which will allow Mr. Farage of Ukip to call him an American puppet if he fails to come out of the EU.  Needless to say, this country, like just about every other country in the world, possesses in its population a brooding body of anti-American opinion which is normally quiescent but can be quickly revived by the sort of crass interference perpetrated by the likes of Mr. Gordon.  If my American readers are somewhat bemused by all of this (I doubt it because they are too bright) then they should ponder on what their re-action would be if Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the USA was to advise the White House publicly on how to conduct its proposed gun law legislation, or, how it should behave in order to control its debt, or any number of other matters which are no damned business of the UK!

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Hard to believe, I know, but I was wrong!

But at least I am consistently wrong!  No chance of any nasty surprises here, at D&N, like getting things right.  I still cannot quite believe that the American people ignored me and voted in that Marxist-socialist, a man who gives politics an even worse reputation than it already possesses. Ah well, like the glutton who orders every course on the menu and then explodes when presented with the bill, so they, too, will eventually learn the hard way the truth of Dickens' saying: “Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 and six, result happiness. Annual  income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds, nought and six, result misery.”  In the case of Obama's America you may change the "20 pounds" to 20 trillion dollars because that is roughly what they will owe in four years' time and the socialist trap will have sprung shut!  Then they will learn the truth of that wise old American saying, "Never give a sucker and even break!"

I was also spectacularly wrong about Europe.  I made the classic mistake of under-estimating the fanatical determination of the Euro apparatchiks.  I had forgotten their propensity for dying in bunkers as the world outside goes up in flames.  For the next nine months or so they will be desperately firefighting one emergency after another - 'Bunga-Bunga' Berlosconi and his dead broke country might make a come-back - as they hang on grimly for the German election results which Frau Merkel seems, for now, likely to win.  Once she's back in, the final moves towards a total political and fiscal union will go ahead.  Even so, "there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip", and there is one player, or rather, a set of players, who have yet to make a decisive move - I mean, of course, that rather smelly, unreliable, emotional multitude known as The People!  So far they have been fairly quiescent, the odd riot or two here and there but nothing that any semi-efficient state machinery could not put down easily.  I gather that youth unemployment is at enormously new highs in southern Europe and surely anything that the Tunisians and Egyptians can do with their misnamed 'Arab Spring', our European lads and lasses should be able to do even better.  Unfortunately, any eruptions are likely to be national and what is needed in order to really shake the Brussels-Berlin apparat is a continental uprising.  Alas, European-wide co-operation is not easy, unless, dread thought, the unions decide to get their act together.  Now that could be a game-changer!

Anyway, tomorrow, New Year's Eve, this site will once again regale you with some spectatcularly wrong predictions!

 

Liberty or Democracy? You choose!

Actually, don't bother because you began losing your liberty before WWI, you lost a whole lot more after WWII and now, in the era of the 'United States of Europe' with the Global Government of the United Nations hovering in the wings merely awaiting its entrance, you have no liberty at all!  Instead you have a chimera called democracy, invented by the political class and constantly waived before your eyes in much the same way that pick-pockets distract your attention before pulling your wallet out of your backpocket.  Or perhaps a more suitable metaphor would be to imagine that you have been tempted by a lover into indulging in some S&M practices, and as the manacles and handcuffs appear to be made of fluffy, pink fur you agree to be bound, and then discover that the whips and lashes are all too real.  That, it seems to me (and to others much more intellectually able than me) seems to be the situation we find ourselves in today.

It may come as a surprise to some of you that there is a choice between liberty and democracy; that one, so to speak, precludes the other.  Surely, you might reply, they are more or less the same thing.  If that is your response then truly, like an addict, you are utterly lost to the controlling power of your neighbourhood drug dealer!  The Founding Fathers of the United States understood exactly and precisely that liberty and democracy are inimicable foes which is why you will find no mention of the word 'democracy' in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States.  The framers understood, as we do not, that rule by the majority is inherently dangerous.  Thus, in their Bill of Rights the only 'right' they have been granted is the right to trial by jury.  The remainder of the 'rights' listed are protections for the citizen against encroachment by their government. Like us 'over here' who relied on English Common Law as our defence against state interference, the Americans enjoyed a little over a century of liberty, and democracy was hogtied by the immensely cunning contradiction of powers written into the Constitution which stopped any one branch of government gaining over another despite so-called 'popular acclaim'.

Then, with grim inevitability, or so it seems in retrospect, along came the 20th century and the Age of the Masses.  It was the masses who fought the wars and who were mutilated and killed in their hundreds of millions and with their increased political strength of numbers deployed via universal suffrage they demanded new 'rights' and the political class, seeing their chance, seized the opportunities to pour forth a torrent of benefits which, irrespective of any longterm good or harm they might cause, possessed the inestimable virtue, in the eyes of the political class, of ensuring their re-election.  Needless to say, those rare politicians with longer vision and a broader intelligence who saw the inherent dangers were swept aside by the 'popular vote', or, if you prefer an old cliché, the charge of 'the Gaderene swine'!

To all intents and purposes there is today no real organised opposition to democracy.  Rule by the majority, or the masses, if you prefer, is well and truly entrenched.  The effect, of course, is that there is no longer any real difference between the main political parties, they simply compete to promise ever more benefits without ever explaining that eventually these will have to be paid for.  Even when a financial disaster hits the world's economies and nations, like ours, deeply in debt for promises made when times were (allegedly) good, still jib at taking back the 'goodies' bestowed on the masses for fear of electoral punishment.  I sense, and perhaps it is merely a flight of fancy on my part, that there is the beginning of an inchoate unease amongst part of the electorate - mostly those who pay through the nose for the political classes to indulge themselves and their clients - who sense the truth that the political class is not divided between Labour/Tory or Republican/Democrat but is, itself, a monolithic entity that considers itself not part of the nation but above and beyond the nation.  So attractive are the benefits of being part of this political class that the need for yet bigger, wider and higher forms of government is essential to cater for all those wishing to jump aboard the bandwagon, hence the birth and growth of malignacies like the European Union.

Undoubtedly I shall return to this subject - and whether you consider that a threat or promise I do not know!

 

"This debate about Europe is a debate about David Cameron himself"

Thus spake, or wrote, Benedict Brogan in The Telegraph yesterday.  In essence he poses an unanswerable question; what, exactly and precisely, does our prime minister think should be our policy towards Europe?  Or, more succinctly, what's his plan?  Do you know?  Does anyone know?  Does David Cameron know?  Well, I don't know about you and anyone else but I am now absolutely convinced that Cameron hasn't a clue!  He steers his canoe downstream, it requiring far too much effort to actually paddle upstream, and by dextrous use of his paddle attempts to keep the rickety craft more or less in the centre of the flow so as to avoid being entangled in the nasty, rough banks on either side in which lurk hidden rocks and over-growing brambles.  That 'policy', if you can call it that, helped him take the leadership of the Conservative party, allowed a coalition with the Euro-fanatical LibDems and until recently has kept the subject out of the headlines.  But now, alas for him, the stream is narrowing and the water is flowing dangerously faster.

Massive and irrevocable changes are afoot in Europe forced on them by current economic and fiscal woes.  At long last the truth is slowly seeping out in Germany despite the very best efforts of muddling Merkel who is determined to cloud Greek issues until after the German election next autumn.  You only need to skim the headlines in Der Spiegel over recent days to get the flavour:

Self-Deception in Berlin Impedes Greece Strategy

Coalition Parties Demand Clarity from Merkel

Germany's Trouble With the Truth

At last the German people, as opposed to the obfuscating politicians, are beginning to realise that they have to pay for Greece, or, Greece has to go!  And even if it is the latter, they will still have to pay because they and their banks have lent fortunes to the Greeks.  Amazingly, according to Spiegel, Merkel personally still rides high in the polls although her party has tanked.  But at least you can discern what she wants and how she intends to get it.   She will keep prevaricating up until she wins the next election and then she will join forces with those who want a United States of Europe.

Compare that to Cameron where no-one can discern anything.  He is due to receive a bloody nose at the European budget meeting this week.  He will come back and proudly wave his veto whilst knowing full well that the 'colleagues' will simply raise the budget anyway under emergency procedures and the UK will probably pay more than if they had agreed to a compromise increase in the first place!  Of course, he might claim that his hands are tied by his coalition partners but he, himself, has stated that he would never vote in favour of Britain leaving the EU.  And so, like the sulky kid with no friends, left alone in the playground sadly kicking a stone round in circles, he will be ignored as the 'colleagues' carry on regardless knowing that he lacks the will to do them any damage.  Pathetic isn't really the word but I can't be arsed to look for a better one.  Too, too depressing!

 

Frack me - this is serious!

It’s hard enough predicting the future but it’s just as hard predicting the outcome when the future becomes the now!  I confess to suffering severe ‘gobsmack’ when I read the editorial in the current edition of The Spectator (no link to the actual piece).  The opening paragraph gives you your first smack – unless you are an energy expert:

For decades, America has dreamed about becoming self-sufficient in terms of energy, and ending its reliance on unsavoury Arab regimes.  Now this dream seems within reach.  The International Energy Agency this week forecast that America is undergoing a fuel revolution, and that it will overtake Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer by the end of this decade.  [My emphasis]  By 2035, America should be able to meet all of its own energy needs.  Energy prices are already plummeting and global manufacturers have started to pullout of Europe and relocate to the southern states to cut bills.  An economic miracle is on the way.

This arises from the enormous and so far barely tapped shale oil fields from which oil and gas can be extracted by 'fracking', the use of water under immense pressure.  I confess immediately my inability to work out the full implications of this.  The Spectator helps by reminding us that the US Navy spends $80 billion – I’ll repeat that, shall I? - $80 billion a year patrolling the sea lanes in the Gulf in order to protect the free flow of oil.  How long they will keep that up when they have no need of the wretched stuff is anyone’s guess?  Of course, we will still need it, as will the Europeans, bedeviled as we are by a Green lobby whose stupidity is only exceeded by its wickedness.  Thus, we will be spending more and yet more on ridiculous and mostly useless wind farms and other fantasies from the ‘Green Fruitcake Fraternity’ as they do everything in their not inconsiderable power to stop any efforts to exploit the shale oil reserves in Lancashire which are lying there like a golden lake.

Still, it’s an ill wind that fails to blow off someone’s hat and give us all a laugh so two sets of rascals will feel a chill.  Obviously some of the worst regimes in the Middle East will come under enormous pressure as revenues drop, most especially, Iran.  Also, that nice Mr. ‘Pouty’ Putin, who live off the hog of petrodollars flowing in from the Caspian could slowly but inexorably find himself – and his people – reliving austerity times just when the Russian people were beginning to enjoy the ‘Good Life’.

Meanwhile, according to The Spectator, international companies are ‘up and offing’ to America to take advantage of cheap energy whilst ‘Dim’ Dave remains wedded to soppy Green policies that will ruin us all.  It is no consolation to know that the Germans are in an even bigger bugger's muddle over energy policy than us!  In the meantime China will take full advantage of lower energy costs and grow even more powerful so we must be grateful that if the USA does not turn fully socialist it should be able to keep ahead of China.

No doubt there are other eventualities and I just hope that in the West there are some clever and sophisticated geo-strategists working them out.  Well, a man can hope, can't he?

 

Is there a juicy divorce in the offing?

First of all, an apology to my regulars.  I should have warned you that visitors to Chateau Duff would slow my rate of posting this weekend but in fact they brought it to a complete halt.  Not that there is anything much to blog about given that from a political viewpoint we are currently in a state of suspended animation.  'Over there' the result of the most important election in my lifetime will not be known until Wednesday, and 'over here' the EU budget meeting will not take place until the 22nd of this month.  I have already bored on written about the American election but the EU meeting could? might? maybe? cause a major upheaval in British politics.

Ian Martin in The Telegraph suggests that the coming EU imbroglio could test the coalition government to destruction, not just because of its own difficulties but because it is combined with other fundamental disagreements such as Trident renewal and so-called 'Green Energy'.  ‘Dave’ now knows without any doubts that his own party is prepared to revolt against him if he fails to push through Tory policies.  He cannot afford to become known as a Tory prime minister utterly dependent on the good favour of the Lib-Dems because that would lead an increasingly irritated public to dismiss him with the contempt he deserves at the first opportunity.  He might be, as we all now know, a bit on the dim side but even he must be able to see the catastrophe of being tagged as a Lib-Dem muppet with Nick Clegg’s hand up the back of his suit.

However, ‘Cleggie’, too, is feeling the squeeze of being between a rock and a hard place.  If ‘Dave’ plays a hard hand at the EU budget meeting tossing out vetoes left, right and centre and comes back to cheers from his party in parliament, will ‘Cleggie’ and his MPs, most of whom would be obliterated in the next election, have what it takes to walk away from the coalition and vote down the Tory government?  In my not very expert opinion, I think they might well walk away away from the coalition but then remain steadfastly neutral in major votes in order to show their disapproval but not to the extent of forcing an election by bringing down the Tories.

There cannot be much doubt that relations between us and Europe are coming to a head.  The ‘colleagues’ are determined on a new and closer integration which no British government could accede to given the current state of British public opinion.  From the European view, their inherent dislike of Britain will be more than satisfied if we eventually decide to leave.  Roll on, say I!

Is there any reality behind the smoke and mirrors?

The particular plumes of smoke and the various mirrors I refer to were on view yesterday in Parliament when 54 Tory rebels, with a little help from their, er, ‘friends’ in the Labour party, defeated ‘Dave ‘n’ Nick’ over the subject of the EU budget.  The motion enjoins the government to actually cut the budget rather than, as ‘Dave ‘n’ Nick’ want, to freeze it at current levels with inflation increases only!  ‘Dave’ flexed his pecs (neither a pretty nor a convincing sight) and assured us that when it comes to ‘the colleagues’, “they don’t like it up ‘em” and that he is the man to stand his ground against any real increase they might insist on.

Well, we all know that he will get precisely nowhere in Europe because he will be outvoted, and now we also know that he will not get very far with his own party.  The rebellion counts for little in actual political terms today but longer term I wonder.  For how much longer, as the next election looms, will the Tory party put up with a muppet for a prime minister with a Lib-Dem hand up the back of his suit pulling his strings?  The next and more serious embarrassment facing ‘Dave’ will be the Commons vote on whatever budget deal is eventually struck by ‘the colleagues’ despite the Brits sulking in the corner.  If he has to come back with a real budget increase will Labour join the Tory rebels and defeat it and the government again?

It is, of course, pathetic that ‘Dave’ cringes behind the line that one must be realistic and that any effort to cut the budget would be doomed to failure.  Good job ‘that woman’ didn’t take that feeble line when she went over and hand-bagged the Europeans into giving us our money back – which Tony Blair promptly returned with no benefit to us at all!  If ‘Dave’ knows he is on a loser with even holding the budget to an inflation-rising increase then he might as well have gone in all guns blazing and looked a bit of a hero when he was sunk by Euro torpedoes.  Instead he looks like another  wishy-washy, hand-flapping, all-things-to-all-men weakling, or, a Lib-Dem, as I call ‘em!

Tin Man vs. Iron Lady

This will be worth watching!  According to a financial newspaper I will not name because it refuses me permission to copy and paste despite my habit of always providing links, Dave Tin 'Iron-man' Cameron is going head-to-head with 'die neue Iron Lady', Frau Merkel.  I know who my money's on!  Dave has stated clearly (well, sort of) that he will not countenance any increase in the EU budget whilst Britain is (allegedly) cutting our own.  If you detect a hint of doubt it arises from his actual words, “If there isn’t a deal that’s good for Britain, there won’t be a deal" and, of course, it's amazing how an increase in the EU's budget could be sold as a good deal for us, it's just a question of finding the right form of words.  In the meantime, Frau Merkel has telephoned him and threatened to call off the the next EU budget meeting entirely if Britain is determined to veto any increase at all.  Irresistible force meets immovable object!  And the EU polit-bureau has warned Britain of massive amounts of incoming diplomatic brown stuff if 'Tin Iron Man' Dave puts a spoke in their well-oiled wheels.  In the meantime, the Luftwaffe is preparing to drop its versionof the 'Bouncing Bomb' when it delivers Frau Merkel to London early next month for talks with Dave.  Done deal, I reckon!

 ADDITIONAL:  However, this from Isabel Hardman at The Coffee House: 

The problem for the German Chancellor is that if Cameron vetoes a deal, it will be good for him politically, but bad for Merkel as Germany will lose its rebate and therefore will have to contribute more.  If that threat was supposed to worry Number 10, it doesn’t seem to have had the desired effect. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said this morning:

‘We don’t see a case for increases in spending above the rate of inflation.’

This suggests that there could be a small increase in the budget that is below inflation. What is most likely is that an agreement is reached to freeze the budget, rather than Cameron vetoing any other deal. But it’s important for the Prime Minister to be clear that he’s keen for more veto moments to keep his party on side.

 

Honestly, Sir, I'm doing my prep

I am, so to speak, girding my loins, or, if that is too inflammatory an image, I am doing my homework before I undertake my in-depth investigations of Messrs. Disraeli & Gladstone, former 'Managing Directors of Great Britain Inc'.  As I indicated down below, whilst I know a fair bit about the early decades of the 19th century when Bonaparte provided some excitement for those of us who enjoy vicarious thrills, and the latter decades provided Bismarckian and Prussian mischief and venom to keep keep me amused, all the inbetween seems deadly boring by comparison.  But, as the 'cousins' say, all this is my 'bad' and I am determined to rectify my ignorance.  However, before launching into biographies of these two 'giants' of British history I had a quick look at my book shelves to see if their was something that might set the scene, so to speak.  Hey-ho and hoorah, there was an old paperback entitled, rather forbiddingly, "The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918" by A. J. P. Taylor.  I have a soft spot for Taylor because once, as a callow youth, I had the impertinence to joust with him at a meeting of CND when he was a guest speaker in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament.  I can't remember the details but I am fairly sure he squidged me like an irritating mosquito.  See, I was an argumentative sod even then!

I suppose I must have read this book at sometime - it was first published in 1954 and my paperback version was printed in 1971 - but for the life of me I cannot remember it.  Anyway, yesterday, in between meeting old friends, I managed to begin reading his Introduction which is superb.  Clear, straightforward English that directs the reader immediately to the crucial factors involved but which does not avoid some dry wit.  Hence, in a footnote he writes: "It becomes wearisome to add 'except the Italians' to every generalization.  Hencefort it must be assumed." 

Oh boy, am I going to enjoy this one!

What does it take?

I have been pondering over a comment to my last Sunday Rumble by 'RogerH' in which he suggested that the key requirement for a successful national leader, or a Foreign Secretary, was 'character'.  I was in a hurry this morning and could only leave a somewhat cryptic response in which I edged towards that tiresome phrase "it all depends on what you mean by ..."  which is usually a precursor to tedious semantic nit-picking.

However, in an effort to avoid that particular quagmire I have been thinking about three great statesmen and what, if any, characteristics they shared.  Talleyrand, a great hero of mine, was famous for his womanising, his corruption, his treachery - and his finely-honed shrewdness.  He might have betrayed various governments of France, including especially that of Bonaparte, but did so always in what he saw as the higher interests of the nation rather than the current Jack-in-office.  I seem to remember from the biography by Duff Cooper (no relation, alas) which I read decades ago that Talleyrande always possessed a very clear view of his objectives and resisted any attempts to confuse him with too much detail.  He instructed his clerks, who were wont to pile paperwork upon him, "pas trop de zèle!"  He understood, I think, that it was essential to keep clear objectives in a clear mind even if you had to duck and dive en route to reach them!

I have discussed that dreadful old Prussian bully, Bismarck, many a time and 'oft.  His is an epic tragedy.  His success in welding a new nation-state out of hundreds of mini-statelets all of which succumbed to Prussian leadership was outstanding.  Again, the old brute never lost track of his ultimate aim and thus, despite the multi-dimensional complexity of European politics in the 19th century, he achieved his ambition.  The tragedy was that in creating the new Germany under a Prussian system he built into it the massive flaws that eventually brought about its collapse.

Sir Edward Grey was about as different from those two as it is possible to be.  A Victorian/Edwardian gentleman of the 'old school', a man of impeccable manners and deportment, happy to avoid at almost any cost (except duty) what were for him the horrors of London society by returning as often as possible back to his beloved Northumberland for the excitement of - bird watching!  Throughout his career as Foreign Secretary he never went abroad.  Like the others, he never lost sight of his ultimate aims and objectives.

Of course, in all these three examples, one might criticise them for choosing the 'wrong' set of objectives, but alas, that brings us back to semantics and what you mean by 'wrong'?  Unsuccesful?  Immoral?  Impossible?  Because one might be tempted to suggest that up until 1941 Hitler's policy objectives had been reached with absolute mastery but do we admire him?  Somewhat cynically, one is forced into a position of suggesting that the first three were brilliant and steadfast - and what made them truly great was that they lived to die in their own beds! 

 

Come on, people, anybody have any ideas?

I ask because it is obvious that our homegrown politicians have none.  This is a real problem given that the Euro-pols definitely do have some ideas and I do not care very much for any of them.  Gradually, centimetre by centimetre, they are being 'dragged' along the path to fiscal union.  I use inverted commas round the word 'dragged' because of course some of them are only pretending to be dragged and in fact are delighted with the direction the markets are taking them.  The absolutely key player in this game of pretence is, was and forever will be, the Chancellor of Germany, at the moment, Frau Merkel.  There is now no doubt that she is happy to be dragged along but she puts up a fine show of resistance lest a hint of her real eagerness frightens the German 'horses', otherwise known as her electorate.  They, poor (er, well, fairly rich, actually) wretches have no power at all.  Both of their main political parties might huff and puff at the dishonest extravagance of their Mediterranean neighbours but they both remain firmly wedded to the euro currency without which the profit on their Mercedes and BMWs would shrink as fast as a new Deutschemark would rocket up the exchange rates.  So in essence, they have no where to go and in fact, even if they were offered a genuine chance of voting to come out of the European Union, I don't think a majority would.

And that brings me back, handkerchief covering my nose, to the GBP (Great British Public).  It is now virtually certain that there will be a referendum in Britain sometime in the next year or two or three.  The indefatigable Richard North, a man who seems to spend every waking minute - and I'm beginning to think he never goes to bed! - analysing the shifting sands of European politics, warns that any Euro-sceptics thinking they will be offered a straightforward 'In or Out' proposition need to take a very cold reality shower!  The catalyst for a referendum will be a new EU treaty formalising the fiscal pact that the markets are demanding.  Now - and at this point I must ask you to brace up and act like a true Brit - obviously our chaps at the FO under the inspired leadership of a our Prime Minister with the very able - and apologetic - Deputy Prime Minister will be undertaking a vigorous campaign to ensure that British interests are safeguarded - look, I told you to brace up - and even though we are the odd man out I'm sure all those Euro-pols and bureaucrats will be eager to listen - oh, for God's sake, the sick bag's over there - so really, no, really, there's nothing to worry about - oh dear, suddenly I don't feel too well either . . .

Ah, that's better, where was I?  So the choice you will be offered will be between joining up as a full member or signing on as subsidiary member, or a spare part, if you like, in which all the full members will delight in venting their cherished historical spite on a nation they think of as a sort of America in disguise.  But Richard North goes further and confirms my long-held uneasiness that even if we Euro-phobes push and shove for an 'In/Out' referendum we will get nowhere with the GBP if we simply assume they share our visceral dislike for the whole rotten edifice.  To make any headway, it is crucial that we offer an alternative.  In other words we need that "vison thang".  And it is precisely at that point that Dr. North points out, with typical 'Yorkie' bluntness, that virtually none of us sceptics can agree with each other on an alternative.

Oh dear, there will be tears, let's hope there will not be blood as well!

 

The Ides of September!

I expect the chaps at the FO are doing 24-hour shifts this month (not!) given the potential turbulence building up in foreign affairs.  Tomorrow the German Court pronounces on Merkel's efforts at European tap-dancing.  One looks to Supreme Courts for clear, straightforward rulings but as the American equivalent showed just recently they can be more slippery than the warranty contract from a second-hand car dealer!  Whilst I would stand on the table and sing the German national anthem if they were to stamp their legal jackboots all over the current confection, I am not bothering to learn the words because I expect the usual pile of fudge.

Meanwhile, back East, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their government are readying themselves for change at the very top.  Needless to say, this is all done with absolute secrecy behind closed doors which used to work but, in this day and age of personal and global communications, does not anymore.  For example, Xi Jinping, the man slated to be the next Party Secretary, has apparently gone missing, or at least, he has not been seen in public for a week or so and has cancelled various scheduled meetings with foreign visitors, including 'HillBilly'.  Needless to say, the Chinese internet has gone viral with unsubstantiated rumours which have now been picked up by the western media.

I was struck by an item in Ferdinand Mount's superb book, Full Circle (of which, more later - you have been warned!), in which he describes the way in which the ancient Greeks and Romans used to call in the populace in their tens of thousands in order discuss and decide on political matters.  Today, the internet is the equivalent of those forums and the CCP is floundering in its efforts to control it.  Apart from anything else, the CCP have long suffered with a credibility problem given their lack of political 'legitimacy'.  Corruption and misrule is rife throughout the regions, as the recent Bo Xilai affair demonstrated.  Times are getting hard again in China due to the global economy and the Party is struggling to deal with it.  Their banks are broke and several regional governments are getting out of control.  There are factions within the CCP who yearn for a return to Mao-ism and they will do their best to whip up nationalism over Chinese claims to various islands in the South China Sea.  One piece of information I picked up from those old 'Intel-hands' at 'NightWatch' was the incredible fact that a law was passed in 2005 which would inflict the death penalty on any Chinese leader who allowed any part of Chinese territory to be ceded - and that includes those islands that the Chinese think they own!

"Beware of interesting times" - now who said that?  Oh yes, some Chinese chap!

 

Dear Mr. Berezovsky/Abramovich (delete as necessary)

You don't know me but I am a frightfully respectable and honest - well, alright, I did once, through force of circumstance, have to spend time in the second-hand car trade but none of it brushed off on me, I assure you - English gentleman of the old order in whom you may place absolute trust.  Now I know you must be spitting nails/drinking Dom Pom (delete as necessary) at the decision of the 'Cocklecarrot' who adjudicated on your dispute but equally obviously this is only round one!  The Appeal Court, the Supreme Court, the European Court, all beckon and your ratbags lawyers will be urging you on to stay the course.  Well, of course they will, at anything from £250 to £700 per hour!!! who wouldn't?  If these are indeed the sort of fees you have grown accustomed to paying then I think that somehow, in someway, I could be of service to you.  For example, whilst I realise that you probably have several delicious secretaries to carry your papers, do you not require someone utterly reliable to carry your, no doubt, hugely expensive pen?  I mean, such a tedious business having to reach inside your jacket each time - and it ruins the cut of your suit - so think how useful a pen-carrier would be.  And let me quickly assure you that my fees are strictly commensurate with the responsibility of the task - a mere £50 per hour - oh alright then, to you, £40 per hour because I have it on very good authority that you are an excellent tipper.  Anyway, I'm sure we can come to some form of agreement of mutual benefit to both of us.  I mean, if you are daft enough can afford around £150 mill in legal fees then my very reasonable stipend in return for the onerous responsibility of carrying your pen is a mere nothing - tell you what - my last offer - call it £30 an hour  - and I'll give the pen a bit of a polish each time - I can't say fairer than that!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19413359

 

A Spanish perspective on Orwell and Trilling

In a comment thread down below somewhere, my Spanish e-pal, Ortega, obviously an Orwell admirer, offered some terrific links to the Orwellian ouevre and I encouraged him to come back with his own thoughts on this idiosyncratic (I choose the word carefully) intellectual whose influence, or at least, whose repuatation, still stands tall today.  Obviously a busy man, Ortega sent instead a translation of an essay on the subject of Lionel Trilling's Introduction to Homage to Catalonia by a friend of his, Gregorio Luri.  I thought it was worth reprinting it as a guest post.  I have taken some liberties by correcting it for English usage and clarifying (I hope!) certain passages.  Ortega you must feel free to come back and correct me if I have changed anything into a different meaning. You can see Ortega's original comment here without changes.

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Well, as in answer to your request I had translated something that Gregorio Luri, a friend of mine and a much more clever thinker than I ever will be (what? what do you mean it is easy?), wrote about Trilling and Orwell, I copy it anyway. Maybe it will interest you anyway. Of corse, you may also simply delete it!

Please note that any silly point comes from my poor translation:

 "Just start reading 'The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent', a selection of essays by Lionel Trilling. Those who have read Orwell in catalan may recall that he is the author of the introduction of Homage to Catalonia, also in the first American edition of this book.

Trilling interest me so much, for different reasons. He belongs to that generation of leftist intellectuals who appeared in New York in the first decades of the twentieth century (the New York intellectuals), which has had a so important impact on the subsequent development of the intellectual history of the United States. He was one of its most representative and influential members and certainly one of the most determined to pawn our intelligence in a critique of totalitarianism, without much regard for those who considered him an enemy in his time for this. Unable to have more faith in history than in intelligence, he had no qualms about openly dissent from the Orthodox dissent. The collection of essays published in 1950 under the title of 'The Liberal Imagination' is a great example of this.

The book 'The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent' takes its title from an essay by John Erskine (1914) and it is a declaration of faith in the intelligence. An intelligence, it must be added, freed from the bonds that usually hold it to utilitarian ends, let's say, to happiness. Innocence and purity bored him as much as he hated bigotry. He knew that things are always more complex than what those in need of comfort at all costs want to imagine. In that sense, he was very much a Nietzschian and was profoundly suspicious of the dangers lurking surreptitiously after our best intentions. His ultimate goal: not to disappoint himself.

Trilling was, before anything else, a literary critic. It is no exaggeration to add that he was one of the fathers of modern American literary criticism, as clearly illustrated in 'The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent'. He was convinced that contemporary moral imagination had been shaped by the novel of the last three centuries that had managed to shroud the reader in a moral atmosphere and to further encourage his critical eye into an examination of the underlying reasons for his actions, beyond what conventional education had taught him. In this sense, the history of the modern novel would be the history of contemporary moral sense and a competent literary critic could not be anything but a historian of morality. The novel would have been the great educator of the present.

Death caught him writing an essay on Jane Austen, representative, in my view, of that fraction of literarature morally defeated by the apologists of nihilism, led by Tolstoy, who reveals to us the trivial fall of Ivan Ilyich into an unremarkable death.

About Lionel Trilling on Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. I've just re-read it and I think it is still in full force, for its ability to continue to illuminate the problems of today.
Trilling, who read with great interest Ortega's 'Rebellion of the Masses', knew that Europe had relinquished command in the world. But he also knew that in politics there is no vacuum. Abstention is also a form of political activity and, therefore, it does not relieve us from responsibility in the progress of the world. This is one of the ideas that 'Homage to Catalonia' points out.

Orwell was highly critical of what he called "the English left-wing intelligentsia". He satirized them with some ruthlessness, stating that their entire ideology could fit in half a dozen newspaper articles and they showed a striking inability to offer any real alternatives to the real problems. "There is little substance in it, except for the irresponsible criticism from people who has never been and never will be in a position of government."

Finally, Orwell was particularly interested in preserving the commonsense of ordinary people from the erosion of the apostolic enlighteners of the masses. Moreover, he was convinced that the ingenuity with which ordinary people cling to their values is a real vaccine against the influence of abstract ideas and their potential nihilism. In everyday prejudices, he could sense an unconscious (and no less natural) will for healthy society. If this is so, if political life on its surface shows a profound truth, intellectuals bent on liberating the people no matter what, may be less lovers of the truth than what they proudly and enthusiastically assume."

 

Fuck me, I don't believe it! Oooops, sorry . . .

I do apologise for my bad language which I normally try, with varying degrees of success, to avoid but I just went downstairs to make a cup of tea and I saw Sky News reporting that the Norwegian judges have given that murdering swine, Breivik - 21 years in prison with a minimum sentence of just 10 years.  This is a man who deliberately set off a bomb to distract the police which killed and maimed several people and who then went on a literal man and woman hunt to shoot down in cold blood 69 more people most of them teen-agers.  And for that he gets 21 years max and possibly 10 minimum?

This particular post is going to dribble away into nothingness because I simply do not have the words.  The Norwegian judges are a bunch of contemptible cowards and fools not fit to sit in judgment on a motoring offence. Were I a parent of one of those youngsters shot in cold blood I would be setting off now with my rifle to see if I could even the score by taking out some of those judges.  Norway is a lunatic asylum and the loonies have taken it over.

ADDITIONAL:  Quite properly I have been taken to task by my e-pals, 'Webbers' and 'W', who chastise me for my harsh and inaccurate words with regard to the Norwegian judges who were simply following the letter of their ludicrous and insulting law - insulting, that is, to the dead and the bereaved and the maimed.  To clarify matters, which my ill-tempered rant did not, here are the details from Wiki:

• The indeterminate penalty, called "containment" (Norwegian: forvaring), is set at 21 years imprisonment, and the prisoner is required to serve at least 10 years before becoming eligible for parole. If the prisoner is still considered dangerous after serving the original sentence, the prisoner can receive up to five years additional containment. If the additional time is served, and the offender is still considered dangerous, a prisoner can continue to receive up to five years additional containment, and this, in theory, could result in actual life imprisonment. "Containment" is used when the prisoner is deemed a danger to society and there is a great chance of committing violent crimes in the future.^[2] However, the offender can be paroled or released at any time if it is determined that the offender is no longer a danger to society.

By any standard of civilised justice Breivik should never see the light of day except through prison bars.

El President Rafael Correa is a something beginning with 'c'!

Not too much time for one of my usual beautifully composed, elegantly written and highly intelligent posts - er, sorry, did you say something? - because some dear friends are taking me and the Memsahib out to lunch on the coast.  So, only a moment to enjoy the sight and the stench of prime humbug in the deeply unwholesome person of El Presidente Rafael Correa of Ecuador.  If you have never seen anything beginning with 'c' before, here is a picture of one:

This brave torreador of a South American president waved his red cape in the face of the mighty USA and then stuck his puny little lance into it its backside by granting that nasty bit of Australian offal, Julian Assange, political asylum in his London embassy, thereby scoring a double hit by annoying los Británicos cringos.  Needless to say, within the day all the grunt-snufflers of the extreme Left were out on the streets in support.  Apparently their deeply felt support for 'wimmin's rights does not extend to the two Swedish ladies who claim they suffered sexual assaults from Assange.  El Presidente's picture went round the world and his reputation as the new Nelson Mandela grew.  Well, it grew up until yesterday when unfortunately it slipped up on a Belorussian turd!

The turd in question is President Alexander Lukashenko and here he is in a fairly typical pose.  According to most reports he makes Putin look like your favourite old uncle:

Recently he sent a high-powered trade delegation to Ecuador during which, no doubt, various, er, deals were discussed but - and surely this was entirely coincidental - shortly after the visit a Belorussian dissident who had fled to Ecuador and been granted asylum was arrested by the Ecuadoran police and has languished in jail ever since.  The process of extraditing him back to Belorussia is well on its way and when he is returned to the tender mercies of President Lukashenko he will almost certainly be shot.  For murder or treason, you ask?  No, no, for blowing the gaff on a high-level corruption racket with links to the very top of the Belorussian government.  So much for El Presidente's credentials as a principled upholder of the Rights of Man!

Our government should simply break off diplomatic relations with Ecuador and then arrest Assange as soon as he leaves the embassy.  The chances of that are pretty remote given Dave's lack of backbone so I can only hope that Mark Wallace's shrewd campaign, as reported by Guido, comes off.  Mr. Wallace has offered £6,500 if anyone can succeed in setting off the fire alarm in the Ecuadoran embassy.  What a wheeze!  Anyone got a match?

 

'What's it all about, Georgie?'

With apologies to Bert Bacharach, Lilly Rose Allen and Greg Kurstin, the creators of that splendid song Alfie because I have reproduced part of it here but replaced their hero's name with Georgie, as in Georgie Osborne, our none too bright Chancellor of the Exchequer

What's it all about, Georgie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Georgie?
Are we meant to take more than we give

I ask the questions, Georgie, because I note that in July, a month in which the Exchequor is normally expected to be in surplus, you actually had to go out and borrowed a few quid, well, £600 mill to be exact, and I can't help wondering, Georgie, if you really have quite got a grip of things, I mean, one asks, and it hurts me to do it, but are you quite up to the job?  Or, to put it another way, do you think you might be better employed doing your part-time job as (and I'm trying hard not to giggle here) 'political strategist' to the Tory party full-time rather than wasting half a day everyday pretending to be our Chancellor and losing my our money hand over fist?

Well, I will avoid an early death by not holding my breath waiting for an answer.  It is now quite clear that Georgie and 'Dim Dave' have no coherent policy for steering us through these austere times not least because they have no knowledge or interest in economic philosophy and therefore no ideas beyond the commonplaces of second-raters like that old fool at the Bank, Sir Melvyn 'Plank', who advise them.  Exactly how the coming crash will develop no one can be certain but one thing is dead sure, the future of the 'Stupid Party' is grim beyond belief.  There are a variety of reasons why the Tories are known as the 'Stupid Party' but perhaps the most recent is the fact that they elected 'Dave' as their leader and also, perhaps, because they allowed themselves to be drawn into the viperish embrace of the 'Even Stupider Party', the il-Lib-non-Dems'.

'Dave 'n' George' between them seem to have set out deliberately, not just to upset their natural followers, but to actively attack them!  High speed trains straight through the normally Tory-voting heartlands, wind turbines forced into beautiful countryside inhabited by Tory-voters, planning rules eased so that any get-rich-quick merchant can slap up makeshift houses for the untermenschen to live in even if it's the Tory-voting Home Counties, refusing even to consider leaving the EU, forcing the churches, which by and large are filled with Tories, to accept gay marriage . . . the list goes on.  In fact as I write this I am trying to think of a single idea that they have produced and which I can support wholeheartedly.

So, the chances are, given the extreme unlikelihood of Tory MPs giving the pair of them the boot, that the Tories will lose the next election which means that we will have 'Edenoidal Ed' Milliband as prime minister and 'ur wee Gordie's' very own, personally-trained Big Spender, Ed 'Testicles', as Chancellor.  That could well occur just as the final ramparts of the European dis-Union are crashing all around us and, be honest, if you look long and hard at 'Edenoidal Ed', does he give you a warm feeling of confidence?  Take that as a 'no', shall I?

My prognosis?  I think it's probably very gloomy if only I could see through all that fog.  Or, to put it another way, life's a bitch and then it rains!

 

The man who told the 'emperors' they were bollock naked!

An interesting historical footnote by Samuel Cregg in The American Spectator the other day in which he paid a fulsome tribute to Wilhelm Röpke (1899-1966) - and, no, me neither!  He was a German economist and one of the leaders of the German 'miracle' following the end of WWII when the nation moved from apocalypse to opulence.  This was achieved by policies based on the so-called 'Austrian school' of economics which, despite their obvious and enormous success have been resolutely ignored by European governments ever since - although 'that woman' did have a go and we did enjoy a brief period of real prosperity before the rats and the weasels returned.

But Mr. Cregg is provoked into paying his tribute to Herr Röpke by the imminent crashing and smashing of Europe which is precisely what he forecast and warned about decades ago:

[N]ot many know that Röpke was also one of the very few free market economists who loudly and publicly criticized what would eventually become today's European Union even before the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957. [My emphasis] Röpke was in short a "euroskeptic" long before the term was coined.

And remember, this was also long before the euro common currency was introduced.  However, Röpke not only understood economic theory and practice but also the ways of politicians:

It's striking just how much Röpke got right about the consequences of the present European integration model. In 1958 [my emphasis], for instance, he predicted it would eventually pit a minority of relatively market-orientated European economies (particularly Germany) against a majority of strongly étatiste-inclined countries. Those nations that ran disciplined fiscal and monetary policies, Röpke argued, would eventually be pushed to "sacrifice" their rectitude "on the altar of Europe" in order to assist less-disciplined nations.

He also possessed a keen eye on the certain multiplication of European civil service bureaucracies until they became powerful enough to be pillars of the new state on their own account:

Röpke also forecast that the precursor to today's European Union, the European Economic Community (EEC), would exacerbate the bureaucraticization that plagued much European economic life. Foreshadowing what would later be called public choice theory, Röpke noted that every single postwar creation of supra-European institutions had produced armies of civil servants with a strong self-interest in expanding their numbers and influence. Less than 6 years after the EEC's creation, Röpke observed that its executive bodies had become "an enormous administrative machine" churning out thousands of growth-stifling regulations. Even worse, he added, the EEC's various departments had already been captured by "socialists and ingrained interventionists."

Sound chap, that Röpke, so if that plinth is still empty in Trafalgar Square we could do a lot worse than put his statue on it.  Or perhaps better still, put it in Parliament Square with him pointing a warning finger at the reptiles inside.

 

'Ello, 'ello, why are the crew getting the lifeboats ready?

Honestly, living in Europe these days is a bit like being a passenger on one of those Italian-owned liners with a Greek captain which seem to sink with monotonous regularity.  Yesterday, Martin Hesse in Der Spiegel reported on the efforts being made by European banks and financial institutions to ready themselves for the collapse of the euro:

Banks, investors and companies are bracing themselves for the possibility that the euro will break up -- and are thus increasing the likelihood that precisely this will happen.

There is increasing anxiety, particularly because politicians have not managed to solve the problems. Despite all their efforts, the situation in Greece appears hopeless. Spain is in trouble and, to make matters worse, Germany's Constitutional Court will decide in September whether the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is even compatible with the German constitution.

September!  Thank God for that, you can hear the euro pols muttering, at least it won't interfere with our summer holidays.  Money, however, never goes on holiday!  Apparently, the amount of inter-bank lending has reached new lows in Europe especially when such lending is required to cross borders.  Absolutely none of the banks trust the others and even the trans-national banks are reluctant to lend to their own branches in other European countries:

In addition to scaling back their loans to companies and financial institutions in other European countries, banks are even severing connections to their own subsidiaries abroad. Germany's Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank apparently prefer to see their branches in Spain and Italy tap into ECB funds, rather than finance them themselves. At the same time, these banks are parking excess capital reserves at the central bank. They are preparing themselves for the eventuality that southern European countries will reintroduce their national currencies and drastically devalue them.

Nor is this nervousness confined only to banks and financial institutions:

The fear of a collapse is not limited to banks. Early last week, Shell startled the markets. "There's been a shift in our willingness to take credit risk in Europe," said CFO Simon Henry.

He said that the oil giant, which has cash reserves of over $17 billion (€13.8 billion), would rather invest this money in US government bonds or deposit it on US bank accounts than risk it in Europe. "Many companies are now taking the route that US money market funds already took a year ago: They are no longer so willing to park their reserves in European banks," says Uwe Burkert, head of credit analysis at the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, a publicly-owned regional bank based in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

"Crikey!" said the look-out on the Titanic, "What's that bloody big white thing?"