Of course this is a pro-EU government, as Ed Davey unremarkably informs the New Statesman. He himself is more Eurosceptical than several, possibly all but one, of his Conservative colleagues in the Cabinet.
From 1st April, appropriately enough, we are now subject to the regime of European Citizens' Initiatives. Any committee of seven, each from a different member-state, can, as it were, initiate such an Initiative calling for legislation. On securing one million online signatures, it will be presented to the European Commission. Which will presumably place it in the round filing cabinet in the corner, insofar as even that is necessary in this digital age. But that is hardly the point.
Except from Malta or Luxembourg, can there be a Member of the European Parliament with fewer than one million constituents? So, why not permit any MEP to do this thing? Or any government of a member-state? Or a resolution of any national parliament? At least the second and third of those ought certainly to be the case.
Speaking of national parliaments, each member-state needs a European Legislative Council elected by and from among those national parliamentarians who owed their positions to direct popular election. Each of the European Legislative Councils would have the power to propose amendments which the European Parliament would then be obliged to consider, and half or more of them would have the power, both to refer back the final text with the requirement of two-thirds majority among MEPs, and before that text went on to the Council of Ministers to require that it be subject to unanimity there rather than to Qualified Majority Voting.
Seat-taking MPs would organise themselves into caucuses. The largest caucus would elect five by voting for one candidate and with the top five getting in, the second-largest would thus elect four, the third-largest three, the fourth-largest two, and the fifth-largest one. All of the seat-taking MPs would then elect a further 10 by each voting for one candidate and with the top 10 elected at the end. Giving 25 members in all. Any tie would be settled by a run-off ballot.
There should also be a European Senate, again with the power to propose amendments which the European Parliament would then be obliged to consider, and again with the power, both to refer back the final text with the requirement of a two-thirds majority among MEPs, and before that text went on to the Council of Ministers to require that it be subject to unanimity there rather than to Qualified Majority Voting. The Senate would also have the power to initiate legislation which would then pass to the European Parliament and thence (including back to the Senate) as if it had been initiated there.
Each of the Europarties, currently 11 in number, would appoint one Senator from each member-state at the same time as the elections to the European Parliament; as much as anything else, that would be a powerful insight for British and other voters into who has always been legislating for us at EU level and always will be.
Each member-state would name two permanent offices the occupants of which would always be European Senators, one representing the country's secular and humanist sources of moral sense and cultural identity, and the other representing the country's religious and spiritual sources of moral sense and cultural identity, with neither office able to be changed except with the approval of all of the other Senators in the same category.
And each of the Europarties would also nominate a further two Senators, at the same time as its other appointees, one representing the secular and humanist basis of its philosophy, policies and support, and the other representing the religious and spiritual basis of its philosophy, policies and support. Again, quite an eye-opener, not least in view of quite how many of those figures might very well be British, and quite who those Britons would be.
That would be a start, anyway.
Ed Miliband, over to you.
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Fight For Freedom
With yet more secret courts, and the mind-blowing surveillance of our every doing, both now being proposed, the market is open for a party of liberty. (Oh, and forget any blather about our intelligence relationship with the Americans. We tell them everything, most of which they already knew because we have cravenly made ourselves dependent on their facilities in order to obtain it, while they tell us almost nothing.)
Light sentences and lax prison discipline are both expressions of the perfectly well-founded view that large numbers of those convicted, vastly in excess of the numbers that have always existed at any given time, are in fact innocent. We need to return to a free country’s minimum requirements for conviction, above all by reversing the erosion of the right to silence and of trial by jury, and by repealing the monstrous provisions for anonymous evidence and for conviction by majority verdict. And we need to return to proper policing. Then we could and should return to proper sentencing, and to proper regimes in prison, with no suggestion that prisoners should have the vote. But only then.
We need to return to preventative policing based on foot patrols, with budgetary sanctions against recalcitrant Chief Constables. We need police forces at least no larger than at present, and subject to local democratic accountability though police authorities composed predominantly of councillors, not by means of elected sheriffs, which, like directly elected mayors, have no place in a parliamentary rather than a presidential res publica, and are wholly incompatible with the defence, restoration and extension of the powers of jurors, magistrates and parliamentarians.
We need to restore the pre-1968 committal powers of the magistracy, restore the pre-1985 prosecution powers of the police, and restore the network of police stations and police houses placing the police at the very heart of their communities. We need each offence to carry a minimum sentence of one third of its maximum sentence, or of 15 years for life. And we need a single category of illegal drug, with a crackdown on the possession of drugs, including a mandatory sentence of three months for a second offence, six months for a third offence, one year for a fourth offence, and so on.
We need to abandon the existing erosion of trial by jury and of the right to silence, the existing reversals of the burden of proof, conviction by majority verdict (which, by definition, provides for conviction even where there is reasonable doubt), the admission of anonymous evidence other than from undercover police officers, conviction on anonymous evidence alone, both pre-trial convictions and pre-trial acquittals by the Crown Prosecution Service, the secrecy of the family courts, the anonymity of adult accusers in rape cases, identity cards or any thought of them, control orders or anything like them, police confiscation of assets without a conviction, stipendiary magistrates, Thatcher’s Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Civil Contingencies Act, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, and the Official Secrets Acts.
We need to raise the minimum age for jurors at least to 21. We need to extend to the rest of the United Kingdom the successful Scottish extension of the right to serve on a jury without compromising its restriction to those with a tangible stake in society. We need to repeal the provision for “no win, no fee” litigation, while at the same time protecting, restoring and extending Legal Aid. We need the current judicially imposed arrangement on privacy to be enacted into the Statute Law, but with the burden of proof in libel actions placed on the plaintiff.
We must insist on a return to the situation whereby a Bill which ran out of parliamentary time was lost at the end of that session. On the restoration of the power of a simple majority of the House of Commons to require a General Election, whether by rejecting a motion of confidence or by approving a motion of no confidence. On the restoration of the supremacy of British over EU law. On the requirement that EU law apply in the United Kingdom only once it has passed through both Houses of Parliament exactly as if it had originated in one or other of them. On the requirement of a resolution of the House of Commons before any ruling of the European Court of Justice, or of the European Court of Human Rights, or of the Supreme Court, or pursuant to the Human Rights Act, can have any effect in the United Kingdom. On the restoration of British overall control of our defence capability. On the removal of all foreign forces and weapons from British territory, territorial waters and airspace. On the repeal of one-sided extradition arrangements. And, especially now that Norman Baker is a Minister, on the coroner’s inquest that has mysteriously never been held into the death of Dr David Kelly.
There must be an extension to Scotland of the historic liberties, largely as set out above, which have never applied in that far more oligarchic country, where middle-class institutions and upper-middle-class power have been defined as the esse of national identity, a situation which has been made even worse by devolution’s weakening of the Labour Movement. While this might have been a factor contributing to the retention of more rigorous minimum qualifications for jurors in Scotland, criteria which should be applied nationwide as surely as should be the Scots Law requirement of corroboration of evidence, nevertheless it means that, while there is an automatic right to trial by jury for serious offences in Scotland, the decision on which way to proceed in an ‘each-way’ case lies with the prosecution rather than with the defence. The police have no power to caution, and they proceed entirely under the direction of the locally unaccountable Procurator Fiscal, who does not prosecute unless it is in the public interest to do so, which it is for the prosecution alone to decide and for which it does not have to give any explanation. It is extremely difficult to bring a private prosecution, far in excess of the necessary restrictions on that practice which rightly exist elsewhere. These profoundly illiberal arrangements must change.
That would be a start, anyway.
Ed Miliband, over to you. You can read all about it in a book available here.
Light sentences and lax prison discipline are both expressions of the perfectly well-founded view that large numbers of those convicted, vastly in excess of the numbers that have always existed at any given time, are in fact innocent. We need to return to a free country’s minimum requirements for conviction, above all by reversing the erosion of the right to silence and of trial by jury, and by repealing the monstrous provisions for anonymous evidence and for conviction by majority verdict. And we need to return to proper policing. Then we could and should return to proper sentencing, and to proper regimes in prison, with no suggestion that prisoners should have the vote. But only then.
We need to return to preventative policing based on foot patrols, with budgetary sanctions against recalcitrant Chief Constables. We need police forces at least no larger than at present, and subject to local democratic accountability though police authorities composed predominantly of councillors, not by means of elected sheriffs, which, like directly elected mayors, have no place in a parliamentary rather than a presidential res publica, and are wholly incompatible with the defence, restoration and extension of the powers of jurors, magistrates and parliamentarians.
We need to restore the pre-1968 committal powers of the magistracy, restore the pre-1985 prosecution powers of the police, and restore the network of police stations and police houses placing the police at the very heart of their communities. We need each offence to carry a minimum sentence of one third of its maximum sentence, or of 15 years for life. And we need a single category of illegal drug, with a crackdown on the possession of drugs, including a mandatory sentence of three months for a second offence, six months for a third offence, one year for a fourth offence, and so on.
We need to abandon the existing erosion of trial by jury and of the right to silence, the existing reversals of the burden of proof, conviction by majority verdict (which, by definition, provides for conviction even where there is reasonable doubt), the admission of anonymous evidence other than from undercover police officers, conviction on anonymous evidence alone, both pre-trial convictions and pre-trial acquittals by the Crown Prosecution Service, the secrecy of the family courts, the anonymity of adult accusers in rape cases, identity cards or any thought of them, control orders or anything like them, police confiscation of assets without a conviction, stipendiary magistrates, Thatcher’s Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Civil Contingencies Act, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, and the Official Secrets Acts.
We need to raise the minimum age for jurors at least to 21. We need to extend to the rest of the United Kingdom the successful Scottish extension of the right to serve on a jury without compromising its restriction to those with a tangible stake in society. We need to repeal the provision for “no win, no fee” litigation, while at the same time protecting, restoring and extending Legal Aid. We need the current judicially imposed arrangement on privacy to be enacted into the Statute Law, but with the burden of proof in libel actions placed on the plaintiff.
We must insist on a return to the situation whereby a Bill which ran out of parliamentary time was lost at the end of that session. On the restoration of the power of a simple majority of the House of Commons to require a General Election, whether by rejecting a motion of confidence or by approving a motion of no confidence. On the restoration of the supremacy of British over EU law. On the requirement that EU law apply in the United Kingdom only once it has passed through both Houses of Parliament exactly as if it had originated in one or other of them. On the requirement of a resolution of the House of Commons before any ruling of the European Court of Justice, or of the European Court of Human Rights, or of the Supreme Court, or pursuant to the Human Rights Act, can have any effect in the United Kingdom. On the restoration of British overall control of our defence capability. On the removal of all foreign forces and weapons from British territory, territorial waters and airspace. On the repeal of one-sided extradition arrangements. And, especially now that Norman Baker is a Minister, on the coroner’s inquest that has mysteriously never been held into the death of Dr David Kelly.
There must be an extension to Scotland of the historic liberties, largely as set out above, which have never applied in that far more oligarchic country, where middle-class institutions and upper-middle-class power have been defined as the esse of national identity, a situation which has been made even worse by devolution’s weakening of the Labour Movement. While this might have been a factor contributing to the retention of more rigorous minimum qualifications for jurors in Scotland, criteria which should be applied nationwide as surely as should be the Scots Law requirement of corroboration of evidence, nevertheless it means that, while there is an automatic right to trial by jury for serious offences in Scotland, the decision on which way to proceed in an ‘each-way’ case lies with the prosecution rather than with the defence. The police have no power to caution, and they proceed entirely under the direction of the locally unaccountable Procurator Fiscal, who does not prosecute unless it is in the public interest to do so, which it is for the prosecution alone to decide and for which it does not have to give any explanation. It is extremely difficult to bring a private prosecution, far in excess of the necessary restrictions on that practice which rightly exist elsewhere. These profoundly illiberal arrangements must change.
That would be a start, anyway.
Ed Miliband, over to you. You can read all about it in a book available here.
Spreading The Spring
Over in The First Post/The Week, Neil Clark writes:
He won because he shamelessly pandered to Muslim voters' "religious passions" and "prejudices about conflicts abroad". He won because there were outstanding local issues and widespread dissatisfaction with Bradford City Council. He won because... well, he's a showman and a good public speaker.
Britain's political and journalistic elite have come up with a variety of reasons to account for George Galloway's stunning by-election win in Bradford West last Thursday, but the majority agree that his win was both (a) a terrible day for democracy and (b) a one-off that thankfully won't be replicated in a general election.
But are they right – or could the political elite be in for the biggest shock of their lives?
What those within the Westminster 'bubble' have yet to understand is that ordinary people, regardless of whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, have fallen spectacularly out of love with British 'democracy' as it is currently constituted. Galloway's victory was actually a great day for genuine democracy and we shouldn't bet against the 'Bradford Spring' spreading to other parts of the UK.
A YouGov survey for the Daily Mail revealed that a whopping 17 per cent of Britons are now expressing their support for parties other than the 'Big Three', while the main party leaders "are collectively the least popular in the history of polling".
David Cameron's rating stands at minus 27. Ed Miliband, who yesterday announced the launch of Labour's local election campaign, is at minus 41. While Nick Clegg, who, lest we forget, was rivalling Winston Churchill in the popularity stakes during the 2010 general election campaign, is down to minus 53.
"I stand to be corrected, but I cannot find a period in modern UK political history when all three leaders have registered such poor numbers at the same time", says Mike Smithson of Political Betting.
The disillusion is not just with our political leaders, but also with the parties they front. In a separate internet poll being run by the Daily Mail, 86 per cent of respondents have answered 'Yes' to the question 'Do you want new political parties to replace the ones we're disillusioned with'.
What's going on?
The basic problem is that the political elite's enthusiasm for economic and social liberalism - and what is euphemistically described as a 'liberal interventionist' foreign policy, i.e., military intervention against other sovereign states - is not shared by most ordinary people.
While the elite seem to think that the most pressing issues facing Britain today are selling off the Royal Mail, relaxing the Sunday trading laws, taking an ever more threatening line towards Iran, and backing anti-government rebels in Syria, the general public's main concerns are jobs, sky-high utility bills, rip-off train fares and record petrol prices - and not getting Britain involved in any more costly Middle East wars in which their children do the dying.
So when an outspoken 'outsider' politician comes along who rejects the phoney elite consensus - as George Galloway did in Bradford West - he/she can expect to reap the rewards.
Yes, it's true that Galloway is a persuasive public speaker and, yes, it's true he is a man of charisma. But the main reason he is successful is very simple: he puts forward policies which appeal to the majority of the electorate.
Far from being an 'extremist', as he's been labelled by his critics within the Westminster bubble, Galloway's political outlook, which combines a moderate social conservatism, rooted in his Roman Catholic beliefs, with a rejection of the policies of war, privatisation and free market excess, is in fact far closer to the centre of public opinion than those of his detractors.
As the comedian Mark Steel commented on Twitter: "Someone tells me Galloway only appeals to one part of the community. Yes, the part against cuts and wars and banker's bonuses. How divisive".
While the elite accuse Galloway of playing the politics of sectarianism, the reality is that the one-time Labour MP actually fought Bradford West on a classic Old Labour manifesto - social justice at home and peace abroad. Most members of the old, pre-Blairite Labour party would have been happy to endorse this.
It's not Galloway whose political positions have changed down the years, but Labour: the party that once stood unequivocally for social justice, public ownership and a pacific foreign policy, presided when last in office over growing social inequality, further privatisation and wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Galloway's victory is a sign that the electorate have had enough of the pro-privatisation, pro-austerity, pro-war consensus and that they want something radically different.
It's also worth noting that while Galloway received votes from all sections of the community - and all ages - he seems to have struck a particular chord with young voters. These young voters, many of whom are struggling to find jobs, will, unlike their parents, have no lingering loyalty towards any of the three main parties - and will instead look for new, anti-establishment parties who can do something about their everyday concerns.
In short, the future lies with those who can break free from the failed policies of the past and offer policies which ordinary people - and not wealthy party donors or special interest groups - are calling for. In the years to come, George Galloway could well be remembered not as "a dangerous enemy" of British democracy, but as the man who helped save it.
Salma Yaqoob tried valiantly on Woman's Hour earlier this week to explain that, far from being a victory of the Pakistani clan system, Galloway won precisely because many women and youths from that community had cast their own votes for the first time, rather than having their husbands and fathers fill in their postal voting forms for them. On that same basis, she herself is now well on course to become the MP for the Birmingham Hodge Hill seat to be vacated by the ludicrous Liam Byrne. The complaints about postal voting fraud have been made by Galloway against Labour, not the other way round.
Why is no one mentioning that Bradford West was a Conservative target seat in 2010, whereas that party is now nowhere there? And how about a body of MPs economically in the post-War social democratic tradition, socially conservative in the way that so often accompanied that position, and patriotic in relation to each and all of European federalism, separatism in any part of the United Kingdom, international capitalism, the accompanying cultural globalism, unbalanced immigration, hostility towards the Commonwealth, and subjugation, not least in the form of wars or the threat of them, to any or all of the United States, the State of Israel, and the Gulf monarchies? But reaching that parts that Respect, with its student Trotskyist canvassers and its heavily Pakistani or Bangladeshi core vote, is never going to reach.
That combination of Pakistanis or Bangladeshis and students should give Respect 15 to 20 seats in 2015, when every seat will be new. They and around the same number of Campaign Group MPs on the Labour benches need to be matched by 15 to 20 of ours, plus around the same number of allies within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Together, we could keep Ed Miliband's Labour to the principles on which it would either have won outright, or else become the largest party in a hung Parliament.
Their start has been made at Bradford West, and will be continued at Birmingham Hodge Hill. Ours needs also to be made. Perhaps, if Gisela Stuart does become West Midlands Police Commissioner, then we could make our start just up the road at Birmingham Edgbaston? Also a Conservative target seat. Until then, anyway.
He won because he shamelessly pandered to Muslim voters' "religious passions" and "prejudices about conflicts abroad". He won because there were outstanding local issues and widespread dissatisfaction with Bradford City Council. He won because... well, he's a showman and a good public speaker.
Britain's political and journalistic elite have come up with a variety of reasons to account for George Galloway's stunning by-election win in Bradford West last Thursday, but the majority agree that his win was both (a) a terrible day for democracy and (b) a one-off that thankfully won't be replicated in a general election.
But are they right – or could the political elite be in for the biggest shock of their lives?
What those within the Westminster 'bubble' have yet to understand is that ordinary people, regardless of whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, have fallen spectacularly out of love with British 'democracy' as it is currently constituted. Galloway's victory was actually a great day for genuine democracy and we shouldn't bet against the 'Bradford Spring' spreading to other parts of the UK.
A YouGov survey for the Daily Mail revealed that a whopping 17 per cent of Britons are now expressing their support for parties other than the 'Big Three', while the main party leaders "are collectively the least popular in the history of polling".
David Cameron's rating stands at minus 27. Ed Miliband, who yesterday announced the launch of Labour's local election campaign, is at minus 41. While Nick Clegg, who, lest we forget, was rivalling Winston Churchill in the popularity stakes during the 2010 general election campaign, is down to minus 53.
"I stand to be corrected, but I cannot find a period in modern UK political history when all three leaders have registered such poor numbers at the same time", says Mike Smithson of Political Betting.
The disillusion is not just with our political leaders, but also with the parties they front. In a separate internet poll being run by the Daily Mail, 86 per cent of respondents have answered 'Yes' to the question 'Do you want new political parties to replace the ones we're disillusioned with'.
What's going on?
The basic problem is that the political elite's enthusiasm for economic and social liberalism - and what is euphemistically described as a 'liberal interventionist' foreign policy, i.e., military intervention against other sovereign states - is not shared by most ordinary people.
While the elite seem to think that the most pressing issues facing Britain today are selling off the Royal Mail, relaxing the Sunday trading laws, taking an ever more threatening line towards Iran, and backing anti-government rebels in Syria, the general public's main concerns are jobs, sky-high utility bills, rip-off train fares and record petrol prices - and not getting Britain involved in any more costly Middle East wars in which their children do the dying.
So when an outspoken 'outsider' politician comes along who rejects the phoney elite consensus - as George Galloway did in Bradford West - he/she can expect to reap the rewards.
Yes, it's true that Galloway is a persuasive public speaker and, yes, it's true he is a man of charisma. But the main reason he is successful is very simple: he puts forward policies which appeal to the majority of the electorate.
Far from being an 'extremist', as he's been labelled by his critics within the Westminster bubble, Galloway's political outlook, which combines a moderate social conservatism, rooted in his Roman Catholic beliefs, with a rejection of the policies of war, privatisation and free market excess, is in fact far closer to the centre of public opinion than those of his detractors.
As the comedian Mark Steel commented on Twitter: "Someone tells me Galloway only appeals to one part of the community. Yes, the part against cuts and wars and banker's bonuses. How divisive".
While the elite accuse Galloway of playing the politics of sectarianism, the reality is that the one-time Labour MP actually fought Bradford West on a classic Old Labour manifesto - social justice at home and peace abroad. Most members of the old, pre-Blairite Labour party would have been happy to endorse this.
It's not Galloway whose political positions have changed down the years, but Labour: the party that once stood unequivocally for social justice, public ownership and a pacific foreign policy, presided when last in office over growing social inequality, further privatisation and wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Galloway's victory is a sign that the electorate have had enough of the pro-privatisation, pro-austerity, pro-war consensus and that they want something radically different.
It's also worth noting that while Galloway received votes from all sections of the community - and all ages - he seems to have struck a particular chord with young voters. These young voters, many of whom are struggling to find jobs, will, unlike their parents, have no lingering loyalty towards any of the three main parties - and will instead look for new, anti-establishment parties who can do something about their everyday concerns.
In short, the future lies with those who can break free from the failed policies of the past and offer policies which ordinary people - and not wealthy party donors or special interest groups - are calling for. In the years to come, George Galloway could well be remembered not as "a dangerous enemy" of British democracy, but as the man who helped save it.
Salma Yaqoob tried valiantly on Woman's Hour earlier this week to explain that, far from being a victory of the Pakistani clan system, Galloway won precisely because many women and youths from that community had cast their own votes for the first time, rather than having their husbands and fathers fill in their postal voting forms for them. On that same basis, she herself is now well on course to become the MP for the Birmingham Hodge Hill seat to be vacated by the ludicrous Liam Byrne. The complaints about postal voting fraud have been made by Galloway against Labour, not the other way round.
Why is no one mentioning that Bradford West was a Conservative target seat in 2010, whereas that party is now nowhere there? And how about a body of MPs economically in the post-War social democratic tradition, socially conservative in the way that so often accompanied that position, and patriotic in relation to each and all of European federalism, separatism in any part of the United Kingdom, international capitalism, the accompanying cultural globalism, unbalanced immigration, hostility towards the Commonwealth, and subjugation, not least in the form of wars or the threat of them, to any or all of the United States, the State of Israel, and the Gulf monarchies? But reaching that parts that Respect, with its student Trotskyist canvassers and its heavily Pakistani or Bangladeshi core vote, is never going to reach.
That combination of Pakistanis or Bangladeshis and students should give Respect 15 to 20 seats in 2015, when every seat will be new. They and around the same number of Campaign Group MPs on the Labour benches need to be matched by 15 to 20 of ours, plus around the same number of allies within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Together, we could keep Ed Miliband's Labour to the principles on which it would either have won outright, or else become the largest party in a hung Parliament.
Their start has been made at Bradford West, and will be continued at Birmingham Hodge Hill. Ours needs also to be made. Perhaps, if Gisela Stuart does become West Midlands Police Commissioner, then we could make our start just up the road at Birmingham Edgbaston? Also a Conservative target seat. Until then, anyway.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Thirty Years On
It had been Jim Callaghan who had positively prevented an invasion of the Falkland Islands. But when Margaret Thatcher's incompetence brought one on, the Royal Navy had to stage a sort of coup for the duration of hostilities, or else the hopelessly out-of-her-depth Prime Minister would have ensured that those Islands were Argentine to this day. Until they had been invaded, she had not even known where they were.
This seems to have been perfectly well understood at the time, since, far from experiencing a "Falklands bounce", the Conservative Party took fewer actual votes in 1983 than it had done in 1979, and far fewer than the two Opposition formations combined, both of which had in any case supported the war.
Argentina overplayed her hand in 1982, which is why there will never now be the deal that there otherwise would have been before 1990. However, David Cameron has promised her a share of the oil revenue without any concession on the question of sovereignty. The previous Labour Government strongly condemned that promise by the Heir to Blair, but his Blairite media bodyguard killed off what ought to have been, and ought still to be, that enormous story.
This Government is at least building the airport on Saint Helena, which is essential to the defence of the Falkland Islands, which are in turn essential to the defence of the United Kingdom, there being no deep sea harbour at either Saint Helena or Ascension Island from which to cut off the North Atlantic if need be.
As for the Americans, of course the republic founded to banish British influence from the Americas supported Argentina very actively in 1982, and of course she would do so again. That was and would be as predictable as the strong French, Portuguese and Norwegian support for Britain. Any relocation of the American experiment within a deeper and wider British tradition such as Burkeanism would have to be extremely critical of the Founding Fathers, at least as much so as anything produced by, for example, Marxists or Black Nationalists has been.
This seems to have been perfectly well understood at the time, since, far from experiencing a "Falklands bounce", the Conservative Party took fewer actual votes in 1983 than it had done in 1979, and far fewer than the two Opposition formations combined, both of which had in any case supported the war.
Argentina overplayed her hand in 1982, which is why there will never now be the deal that there otherwise would have been before 1990. However, David Cameron has promised her a share of the oil revenue without any concession on the question of sovereignty. The previous Labour Government strongly condemned that promise by the Heir to Blair, but his Blairite media bodyguard killed off what ought to have been, and ought still to be, that enormous story.
This Government is at least building the airport on Saint Helena, which is essential to the defence of the Falkland Islands, which are in turn essential to the defence of the United Kingdom, there being no deep sea harbour at either Saint Helena or Ascension Island from which to cut off the North Atlantic if need be.
As for the Americans, of course the republic founded to banish British influence from the Americas supported Argentina very actively in 1982, and of course she would do so again. That was and would be as predictable as the strong French, Portuguese and Norwegian support for Britain. Any relocation of the American experiment within a deeper and wider British tradition such as Burkeanism would have to be extremely critical of the Founding Fathers, at least as much so as anything produced by, for example, Marxists or Black Nationalists has been.
No Liberty, No Respect
David Davis was subjected to merciless ridicule and abuse by whoever was the presenter of the Today programme this time (does anyone care anymore?), but it was notable that no Lib Dem was on to try and explain the remaining point of that party when the Government of which it was part, on which it could pull the plug at any time and end the lifelong dream of an entire generation of Conservatives who assumed themselves born to rule, could come up with a proposal such as this. Nor was there anyone from the Official Opposition, lest the electorate become aware of the existence of a non-Blairite alternative.
They are aware of such a thing, however, in Bradford West. It is now established that George Galloway won every ward there, Asian and white, working-class and middle-class, including 85 per cent of the vote in the university ward, beating the anointee of the Pakistani patriarchs into the ground while also blowing away the 2010 swing to the Conservatives. There have been complaints below the line on things like Coffee House about the amount of coverage that he has received there. But to Westminster Villagers he is a thing of terrifying fascination, a man who can get himself into Parliament while neither one of them nor with any aspiration to become so, but rather actively opposed by and to their entire subculture.
Galloway will not be repeating the moment of madness that cost Respect half a dozen to a dozen seats in this hung Parliament. If he continues to play his cards right, then there could be 15 to 20 seats in the next hung Parliament for that alliance of at least wannabe Trotskyists and at least wannabe Islamists, which has such a manifest appeal to middle-class white youths and to working-class or poorer British Pakistani or British Bangladeshi youths, but under the infinitely shrewder leadership of a pro-life Catholic with Old Labour economic, civil libertarian, Eurosceptical and Unionist views. How about 15 to 20 more for a formation capable of reaching very different sections of society on much the same actual basis but with no need to pretend otherwise, also keeping Ed Miliband's coming, and urgently needed, Labour Government from doing anything silly under pernicious media influence? Where is that formation?
Just do not expect to hear about either of them on the Today programme.
They are aware of such a thing, however, in Bradford West. It is now established that George Galloway won every ward there, Asian and white, working-class and middle-class, including 85 per cent of the vote in the university ward, beating the anointee of the Pakistani patriarchs into the ground while also blowing away the 2010 swing to the Conservatives. There have been complaints below the line on things like Coffee House about the amount of coverage that he has received there. But to Westminster Villagers he is a thing of terrifying fascination, a man who can get himself into Parliament while neither one of them nor with any aspiration to become so, but rather actively opposed by and to their entire subculture.
Galloway will not be repeating the moment of madness that cost Respect half a dozen to a dozen seats in this hung Parliament. If he continues to play his cards right, then there could be 15 to 20 seats in the next hung Parliament for that alliance of at least wannabe Trotskyists and at least wannabe Islamists, which has such a manifest appeal to middle-class white youths and to working-class or poorer British Pakistani or British Bangladeshi youths, but under the infinitely shrewder leadership of a pro-life Catholic with Old Labour economic, civil libertarian, Eurosceptical and Unionist views. How about 15 to 20 more for a formation capable of reaching very different sections of society on much the same actual basis but with no need to pretend otherwise, also keeping Ed Miliband's coming, and urgently needed, Labour Government from doing anything silly under pernicious media influence? Where is that formation?
Just do not expect to hear about either of them on the Today programme.
A Price Worth Paying?
With 90 per cent of prescriptions not subject to charges anyway, why do we retain the other 10 per cent, now raised to the point of obscenity and of positive threat to public health?
Oh, of course, we have to cut David Cameron's Christmas card list's income tax somehow. And then there is whichever war the Israelis order up next, although heaven forfend that one of the most militarised societies on earth, the Zionist of the three societies in Israel, should actually fight any of these wars.
Remember that it is in order to excuse them from that, and in order to save Cameron and Osborne embarrassment at high society weddings and such like, when next you pay for a prescription, or have to go without one because you can no longer afford it.
Oh, of course, we have to cut David Cameron's Christmas card list's income tax somehow. And then there is whichever war the Israelis order up next, although heaven forfend that one of the most militarised societies on earth, the Zionist of the three societies in Israel, should actually fight any of these wars.
Remember that it is in order to excuse them from that, and in order to save Cameron and Osborne embarrassment at high society weddings and such like, when next you pay for a prescription, or have to go without one because you can no longer afford it.
Eyes On The Prize
The Templeton Prize for the Dalai Lama?
There has never been an independent state of Tibet, and before 1959 it was run, by permission of successive Emperors of China, by the lamas and from the feudal landowning class from which alone the lamas were and are drawn. "Dalai" is a family name; only a member of the House of Dalai can be the Dalai Lama.
Life expectancy was half what it is today, with more than 90 per cent of the population belong to the serf class that provides the background of the people now running Tibet. That Han Chinese, always numerous there, are now more so than ethnic Tibetans can only be by the latter's choice, since the one child policy does not apply to them. But whatever the cause, Han Chinese, always numerous in Tibet, are now more so than ethnic Tibetans. That is just the reality on the ground.
Huge numbers of Tibetans, likewise, have always lived further east, whence they migrated to the Tibetan plateau in the first place. The Dalai Lama is not the spiritual leader of huge numbers of Tibetan Buddhists, and he is vicious in persecuting many of them. In keeping with the decidedly unpacific history of Tibetan Buddhism, among many other forms, the Dalai Lama has never condemned the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. No wonder that the Templeton Foundation loves him.
Grow up, you old hippies still living in Shangri-la. Or, as you are otherwise known, neoconservatives.
There has never been an independent state of Tibet, and before 1959 it was run, by permission of successive Emperors of China, by the lamas and from the feudal landowning class from which alone the lamas were and are drawn. "Dalai" is a family name; only a member of the House of Dalai can be the Dalai Lama.
Life expectancy was half what it is today, with more than 90 per cent of the population belong to the serf class that provides the background of the people now running Tibet. That Han Chinese, always numerous there, are now more so than ethnic Tibetans can only be by the latter's choice, since the one child policy does not apply to them. But whatever the cause, Han Chinese, always numerous in Tibet, are now more so than ethnic Tibetans. That is just the reality on the ground.
Huge numbers of Tibetans, likewise, have always lived further east, whence they migrated to the Tibetan plateau in the first place. The Dalai Lama is not the spiritual leader of huge numbers of Tibetan Buddhists, and he is vicious in persecuting many of them. In keeping with the decidedly unpacific history of Tibetan Buddhism, among many other forms, the Dalai Lama has never condemned the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. No wonder that the Templeton Foundation loves him.
Grow up, you old hippies still living in Shangri-la. Or, as you are otherwise known, neoconservatives.
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