Brexit and free trade: between the devil and the deep blue sea

The EU has forgotten its mission, and we haven't worked out ours.

The European Union began as a common market, gradually abolishing tariffs internally while agreeing on external tariffs, so economically it was about the Four Freedoms (goods and services, capital and labour) among its members and protectionism in their collective relations with the rest of the world.

This would work so long as the members were largely similar. When the European Economic Community was first formed in 1957, its members were the Benelux countries plus France, Germany and Italy: a contiguous grouping of modern industrial nations. They could realistically aim for freedom of movement without risking potentially destabilising levels of migration. Having said that, Southern Italy lagged behind in its economic development and there was a long history of migration from there to northern Italian cities and abroad to the USA; yet otherwise, there were not such stark inequalities as to threaten chaotic mass population flows.

But the EU and its antecedents were not merely or even principally about establishing a trading bloc, and as its membership grew so did the tensions between its disparate objectives. For example, the founders of the EU aimed to prevent another war in continental Europe, yet the EU has interfered in the now-divided Ukraine in a way that threatens a direct confrontation between major global military powers. Also, the ambition to steer the EU into becoming a single nation via (among other things) fiscal union led the EU to welcome Greece into the Eurozone despite disqualifications that Goldman Sachs helped the Greeks to disguise and the EU's leadership pretended not to see; with distressing consequences for the Greek nation. Again, though the underlying philosophy of the EU is socialist, the admission of countries with far lower systems of wages and prices opened the way for economic competition that depressed the wages and conditions of the working classes of the more advanced EU members - a process both warned about by the late Sir James Goldsmith in 1994 at the time of the GATT talks and also now admitted  in a recent publication widely misreported as contradicting such claims:“Some evidence that migration reduces employment and raises unemployment of some groups (e.g. the young and less well-educated)… Some evidence that migration has reduced earnings growth for the lower-paid… Evidence that migration, especially lower-skilled, has reduced the prices of [i.e.wages earned in] personal services… Evidence that migration has raised house prices, more in areas where housebuilding is more restricted.”

Enlargement was not the initiative of the EU only; other nations had to decide whether it was in their interest to apply for membership. In this context it is worth noting that the British Prime Minister who decided that this was the future for the UK was not Harold Wilson or Ted Heath but Heath's former boss, Harold Macmillan, who had set Heath on to explore the constitutional implications of membership. Lord Kilmuir replied to Heath in  December 1960 (see end of linked document) warning of the many difficulties involved.

By the way, it has been said that the British electorate were not told, later, in 1975, of the concomitant loss of sovereignty. Not so; but there was an orchestrated campaign to bury the bad news in verbiage and drown it in talk of "FOOD and MONEY and JOBS."

Yet the then PM decided to go ahead: "On 26 July 1961, Harold Macmillan, the UK prime minister, informally told the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, that his government had finally come to a decision to join the EEC as a full member. With respect to this hotly-debated issue, Macmillan wrote that: 'after weighing all the considerations we have reached the conclusion that the right course for us is to seek to enter into negotiations with the Six'." 

In turn this threatened Ireland's existing economic arrangements with the UK: "In brief, Ireland exported agricultural products to the UK without restrictions and exported industrial products under a preferential arrangement; in turn, the UK had recourse to cheap agricultural goods and a market for its industrial goods. Of course, if such an agreement was to continue indefinitely, Ireland would have been economically protected, though at the same time, it would also still be in a position of acute, even reinforced, dependence. However, the prospect of losing these arrangements, first to EFTA and now to the EEC, had a remarkably sobering effect upon Irish policy-makers." In the event, Ireland and the UK joined at the same time in 1973, thus getting round the hard-border problem of its day.

But Ireland's difficulties did not end there. She joined the Eurozone in 1999, prompting an influx of money that not only filled the pubs for Sunday lunches but also inflated the housing market; and the fallout from the property-related Global Financial Crisis less than a decade later broke her two biggest banks, despite the Irish Government's underwriting their losses. In the interests of monetary conservatism the European Central bank then required Eire to repay the €31 billion of failed emergency support, financing the operation with a huge loan from the ECB. The still-ongoing process of withdrawing such a large amount of money from circulation (over €10,000 per registered voter, ignoring the "money multiplier" effect) plus paying the interest, has crippled Ireland's economy with deflation.

In short, the inconsistent aims of the EU have led to difficulties that no-one would have wished; difficulties compounded by an organisational structure designed to foster "ever-closer union" at the cost of suppressing democratic feedback; a structure reminiscent of the 1871 Wilhelmine Constitution of Germany, as I said some time ago, and which similarly has the potential to provoke social unrest, and the defiance and possibly even secession of some member states.

Resistance to Britain's membership of the EU came from the patriots of the British Left as well as from those of the Right. Coldly glared at by Ted Heath, Peter Shore delivered a stirring pre-Referendum speech to the Oxford Union in 1975, speaking not only of the deliberate and unwarranted undermining of national confidence but also of our deteriorating trade and financial balance as a consequence of having joined. Whether or not the imbalance (e.g. in the coal and steel markets) was deliberately planned by the EU, as some allege, the accumulated losses plus the financial support we contributed to the Union have cost us dearly, not merely in money but in domestically-owned productive capacity.

Over 40 years ago, Peter Shore referred ironically to misconceptions of our "tottering about" the world stage, but it is now a moot point whether we can indeed stand on our own two feet any more. Much of our manufacturing, even of our infrastructure, is multinational- or foreign-owned, as Alex Brummer detailed five years ago in his book "Britain For Sale." We have lost so many levers of our economic power and it will be a major battle to recover them, to rebuild. Do we have the stomach for the fight?

Some in the pro-Brexit camp offer as an alternative to EU serfdom, the freedom to trade globally. Now if this means without any carefully-considered system of tariffs and mutually beneficial trade agreements, it could be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. We could, for example, import cheaper food from the Third World; but what would that mean for what is left of our farming and fishing industries?

When De Gaulle was President of France, he opposed Britain's entry into the EU partly because he saw us as a Trojan horse for American exports to Europe. This was the protectionist face of the EU and up to a point that is justifiable.

If tariffs are merely a wall, then they risk a trade war - and if President Trump overplays that hand that is what he may get from China. But what if agreements on tariffs and trade were not the free-for-all sought by GATT, but designed as a kind of braking and steering system? In a globalised economy there is so much risk of lurching about and crashing that something has to be done to slow the rate of change. If import duties are calibrated to give the domestic labour force a fighting chance, then there is the possibility of all of us raising our game; otherwise, all we face here is abject defeat.

We have an over-large population in the UK, one that we cannot adequately feed from our own land and shores, and one whose prospects of gainful employment is undermined by the Internet and robotics as much as by faraway foreign labour that is paid a tenth of our hourly rate. We need a national plan for increasing our ability to survive in a world that is becoming more chaotic and in which energy is becoming more expensive.

Getting free from the gear-grinding, self-wrecking machine of the EU is not the end of the story, but the very beginning.
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file:///C:/Users/Welcome/Downloads/901-686-1-PB%20(1).pdf
https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/2355/5/CHAPTER3.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/740991/Final_EEA_report_to_go_to_WEB.PDF#page=115
file:///C:/Users/Welcome/Downloads/RP10-79%20(1).pdf
https://www.facebook.com/Lukemingflanagan/videos/2347861728575077/
https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-selmayr-scandal-straight-and.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoO6146qM5g
http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm
https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/brexit/1975
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Britain-Sale-British-Companies-Foreign/dp/1847940765

BREXIT: The Left Has Forgotten Its Business

In response to an avowedly left-wing blogger on the tenth anniversary of the Lehman-led Crash:

I was with you all the way until you started on the because-Brexit riff.

Surely you are aware that Cameron promised a referendum because (a) he didn't think he'd have to make good on it, since he expected to lead another coalition government and (b) he thought it would finally expose and shut up a vocal minority of fruitcakes and loons in check shirts and corduroy trousers - below-stairs people.

He then spent millions of public money to urge Remain, and brought over that poseur Obama to add his thumb to the scales. And when Cameron saw the result, he left, because it looked too much like hard work and Etonians do not labour.

Since then Theresa May has played a blinder, busting a gut to make sure that anything like a meaningful Brexit doesn't happen.

Why?

Because the EU is a model village of globalism, which has kept down workers' wages and hugely benefited the traders and large businesses you so rightly criticise. Why do you think that practically everywhere in England and Wales except for the rich South-East had a clear majority for Leave? Frank Field made the class-economic issue clear in a clip still circulating on the Internet, before the vote. And the late Sir James Goldsmith forecast the potential for growing inequality and social unrest, way back in 1994 when the GATT talks were on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI

And then there's the matter of democracy. The more you look at the EU the more you will see how it is part of a move towards global managerialism and the silencing of the ordinary person. The sneerocracy acts as though it thinks the commoners should never have been allowed a vote in the first place.

I simply do not understand why the Left - not the I'm-all-right-jack Blairites - has not run up its flag for democracy and the interests of the working class.

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Ayoub Sisters, by JD

During a brief review which the Beeb showed of Proms in the Park, I saw the Ayoub Sisters performing on Glasgow Green playing 'Misirlou'. It was enough to make me find out more about them because they were excellent.

Sarah and Laura Ayoub were both born in Glasgow to Egyptian parents. They were classically trained, Sarah on cello and Laura on violin and Laura currently uses a 1810 J.Gagliano violin which is kindly loaned to her by Florian Leonhard, the London based violin maker and restorer. https://www.florianleonhard.com/instrument/violin-nicolo-gagliano/

 They began their musical adventure as youngsters playing in a ceilidh band. Further information can be found here - https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2018/7/13/the-ayoub-sisters-egyptian-scottish-musical-duo-know-no-bounds

The Road To Damascus - Stopping Military Adventurism in Syria

Peter Hitchens is asking us to write to our MPs to avert war.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2018/09/please-write-to-your-mp-now-without-delay-war-terrible-war-may-be-on-the-way-again-.html

I have emailed mine, anyone else want to do the same?

Here is my effort, please feel free to copy/adapt if you think it of any use:
_______________________________________________

Would you be willing to ask a question at PMQs about false flag attacks in Syria?

I read recently that America was warning the Syrian Government that if there is another use of chemical weapons there then a military response will be launched.
Sample article: https://www.timesofisrael.com/assad-has-been-warned-against-chemical-weapons-use-in-idlib-us-says/

This has been interpreted by some as an encouragement to IS and other rebel forces to stage or fake one so as to give the US a pretext for an attack on Syrian government forces and installations, so effectively helping terrorists. It is alleged that this has happened before:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russia-claims-child-doused-liquid-12389365

A US Senator is now claiming that MI6 are involved in planning something like this for the near future.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/syria-chemical-weapons-virginia-senator-richard-black-uk-mi6-assad-russia-a8529681.html

Can you please seek a clear and unequivocal assurance from HMG that if a chemical weapons use happens or is alleged, the UK will send a team to obtain conclusive forensic proof of its use and the identity/affiliation of the perpetrators, before making any statement in support of further US intervention in Syria or offering any assistance from HM Armed Forces?
_________________________________________________________________________________

By coincidence, yesterday I came upon an extended illustrated BBC blogpiece by the documentary-maker Adam Curtis (essentially a plan of his programme):

The aggressive incompetence of the very divided UK intelligence community is certainly not limited to offloading a full pistol magazine into the face of a terrified Brazilian electrician. Reading Curtis, the scales fall from our eyes with the clatter of spent shells.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460

And now, as we see above, it is alleged that MI6 are helping lay the groundwork for another US air attack on Syria.

MI6 has form in this kind of caper - remember that two of their officers were found with a bunch of SAS men in Libya as the West started boiling the pot there:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/07/sas-mi6-released-libya-rebels

And then there is the long history of governments exploiting foreign factions and forces for short-term advantage and as often as not, long-term disaster. Think of the King of Leinster inviting the Normans (not "the Saxon foe across the water") into Wexford in 1169; the Germans smuggling 50 million gold marks plus Lenin into Russia to help foment revolution there, so German divisions could be transferred to the Western Front in WWI; the British encouragement of Islamic revivalism in the Middle East in the early 20th century, to push back against Communist influence; and so on and on.

A propos, like many others I used to think that the Allies hanged the German High Command at Nuremberg for their atrocities against Jews and others. No: it was for "Crimes against peace", as in:

i. Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
ii Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

Will we at some point try neoconservative hawks, or shamefacedly and posthumously pardon Nazis?

UPDATE (16.09.18):

Mr Hitchens has repeated his call in his MoS column today. I fear that the plan is to arrange the false-flag attack before Parliament reopens so as to prevent opposition to Western acts of war on Syria.

"Yet all shall be forgot": Brazil museum fire

Tragedy.

The tribes have gone; the archaeological evidence has gone and their voices have gone; soon enough the memory of them will have gone.

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/07/inenglish/1536314750_865530.html

Perhaps some scraps can be recovered, if the public helps:
http://dealanexmachina.tumblr.com/post/177855537222/folks-theres-nothing-left-from-the-linguistics
_________________________________________________________________________________

I don’t think enough people really understand yet exactly how horrific this fire was. This was a loss to our world and species.

This is the kind of fire we think of thousands of years later as the deepest of tragedy. On the scale of the Library of Alexandria. It’s worse than that really. The Library of Alexandria kept copies of books in other locations so historically very little was lost in individual fires over the centuries.

This? We lost so goddamn much in one night.

If you want to help… if you have ANY vacation photos, videos, anything documenting the contents of the museum: You may in fact be the sole owner of a slice of humanity’s soul.

Please send a copy to:

https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1037066123869483008

Or:

https://twitter.com/bhavani_castro/status/1036626001143455745

More details on the fire here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/09/05/heres-how-you-can-help-document-rios-national-museum-collections-after-the-catastrophic-fire/#5469542f3dac

UK POLITICS: What We Did After Our Holidays

Political coincidences...

PM Theresa May's woeful weakness in EU negotiations has had the Tory membership enraged all summer and calling for her to go, so suddenly...

Our intelligence services have named two Russians who are definitely responsible for the Skripal poisonings, probably, you'll see, trust us, usual suspects etc...

Vigorous, thrusting young Jeremy Hunt announces approval for the NHS to use a massively expensive new drug treatment for child leukaemia, isn't it time he got an even bigger job?...

The Daily Mail print edition splashes a really important front-page story - "man has sex with woman", something like that - about Boris Johnson, once and future contender for the Premiership...

"The readers of the Boston Evening Transcript

Sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn."

- T S Eliot

Mathematics - the crumbling foundation of US wealth and security, by Paddington

Let's start with a simple syllogism:

Modern society requires cheap energy and lots of technology to function.

Technology relies on basic science.

Mathematics is the language of science.

Civilization requires large numbers of technicians to maintain our technology, engineers to solve problems and develop new technology, and scientists to do both basic and applied research to develop new ideas.

Most of the higher-paying jobs now require higher levels of both Mathematics and applied technology.

Therefore, it is good for society as a whole, and the individuals concerned, if we improve Mathematics education.

Our politicians have gotten the gist of this logic several times in my life, beginning in 1957 with the Sputnik scare. Most of the American public saw the resultant Space Race as a matter of US pride. Those able to think knew that the USSR had the one-sided capacity to launch missiles at the US. What was presented as a bold exploration venture was an exercise in self-preservation.

Today, the fear is on the vulnerability of our many computer-based systems. It is just as real a danger as nuclear war, but not quite as obvious. The attitude seems to be that, “if it breaks, somebody else will fix it.”

There is also the small matter of repeated studies showing that success in any higher education is directly correlated with performance in College-level Mathematics.

This awareness led to several rounds of attempts at Mathematics teaching reform, at least four of which happened in my career as a Mathematics professor. I was even involved in a couple of them, trying to do the right thing.

We had the 'New Math' of the late 1960's, which attempted to put the subject on a firm theoretical footing. Next was the 'lean and lively Calculus' movement in the early 1990's, to have students learn 'deeper', using more graphical methods and less Algebra. Then came project-based teaching, which had students working in groups to 'learn' Science, Mathematics and English. Most recently, we have had the push for 'flipped' classrooms, in which students watch videos to teach the lessons, then sit in the classroom while the teacher helps them solve problems.

All of these reforms shared a few features:

The instigators were energetic, enthusiastic, honest and delightful, and were absolutely convinced that they held 'the answer'.

Every such approach wanted to use technology, starting in the 90's with graphing calculators, followed by laptops. Later it was computer Algebra systems.

Every approach ignored human nature.

Each approach showed initial gains, in what is known by Psychologists as 'The Novelty Effect'
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect ).

Each reform had an obvious flaw built into it.

The New Math failed in large part because the teachers didn't understand what they were teaching.

The graphical/Algebra-light Calculus left students able to generate (sometimes) correct answers, with no understanding of where they came from, and no ability to interpret them. In extreme cases that I experienced with some top students, they could no longer tell the difference between subtraction and division.

In the project-based models, students rarely learn anything significant, but get the impression that they have learned everything. That makes them ready for management, not so much for productive work.

The flipped classroom model ignores human nature. We learn by mimicry, for the most part. In teaching martial arts, I have noticed that, if you give verbal instructions, and do something else with your body to demonstrate, most students will attempt to do what you did, not what you said. Except for the most talented, people learn Mathematics in that way, by watching a teacher solve a problem, then solving several just like it, with numbers changed, then having more of the concept explained.

Every single reform ended up with worse results than when we began. Even more depressing is the fact that, instead of returning to the original ideas, the system just tried the next new model. When I started teaching in 1978, students either mastered their Algebra in Calculus I, or they failed. Now, the bad Arithmetic and Algebra has penetrated as far as Differential Equations (Calculus IV in some systems), because the bad habits are just so ingrained. I once had 2/3 of a class of Honors Calculus III end up with the equation '2x=3', then write 'x=3-2', so 'x=1'. And these were the select of their year.

Meanwhile, the Asian systems are churning out Engineers, while we busily criticize their education systems as not 'inspiring creativity'. There is some justification for this, and many in Asia agree. Students there are taught by rote, and not allowed to stand out. On the other hand, the successful have actually learned something. By contrast, I have met many students who have been labeled as 'creative' who consistently generate ideas and solutions which are as practical as oars on a spaceship.

There is a way to generate more people with talent in Mathematics and the subjects which rely on it: Select them at say age 12, and put them together in special schools. It reduces bullying, and their natural competition will drive them to succeed.

FRIDAY MUSIC: How Tango Took Off, by JD

"The tango is a direct expression of something that poets have often tried to state in words: the belief that a fight may be a celebration. " 
“El Tango es la directa expresión de lo que comúnmente los poetas han tratado de definir en palabras como: la creencia de que la lucha puede ser un festejo”
- Jorge Luis Borges.
http://www.argentina-tango.com/index.htm

Tonight, Sept 7th, on BBC4 is the first ever Tango Prom. It is to be a celebration of the music and dance which came out of the low life bars and brothels of Buenos Aires.

In reality the tango began in Montevideo - Tango is a rhythm that has its roots in the poor areas of Montevideo around 1880. Then it was extended to other areas and countries. As Borges said: "...tango is African-Montevidean [Uruguayan], tango has black curls in its roots..." He quoted Rossi, that sustained that "...tango, that argentine people call argentine tango, is the son of the Montevidean milonga and the grandson of the habanera. It was born in the San Felipe Academy [Montevideo], a Montevidean warehouse used for public dances, among gangsters and black people; then it emigrated to underworld areas of Buenos Aires and fooled around in Palermo's rooms..." This also implies that different forms of dance were originated in the neighborhoods of Montevideo, Uruguay in the last part of the 19th century and in the early 20th century that was particular from that area and different from Buenos Aires. It consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions of Argentina and Uruguay. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_tango

I listened to the concert on Radio 3 on Tuesday night and it is a chronological presentation of the evolution of the styles of tango down the years including a little known side-track into Finnish Tango which proved to be one of the highlights of the show. The final number is the well known tune La Cumparsita (you will know it as soon as you hear it!) which was written by Gerardo Matos Rodríguez in Montevideo in 1919. Montevideo has a Tango Museum as does Buenos Aires.

I am looking forward to seeing the Tango Prom, it is difficult to see the dancers on the radio!

Meanwhile here is a selection, some of whom are featured in the Prom and some not. There was a comment beneath one of the videos I looked at which said-

1. Carlos Gardel
2. Astor Piazzola
3. Gotan Project

Can't argue with that assessment: Gardel was the first tango 'superstar' who added song to the music and dance, Piazzola revolutionised the music with his Nuevo Tango in the 1950s and wasn't immediately popular, the Gotan Project has brought the form right up to date for the 21st century by adding electronic/techno to the music but without losing the essential 'duende'!-

"hay milonga de amor
hay temblor de Gotan
este tango es para vos"

THE SELMAYR SCANDAL: Straight and Crooked Law

'I'm a very qualified lawyer, that's why I feel very confident. The European Commission has broken no laws.' That was Mr Selmayr's response when doorstepped by the Daily Mail about his controversial nine-minute double promotion on 21 February this year, first to deputy Secretary-General of the European Commission, then to Secretary-General.

Selmayr is almost certainly right correct, but I shall come to his point later.

Dutch MEP Sophie in 't Veld  - featured in Daily Mail and Daily Express online editions - may splutter -



- but it merely shows that many who work inside the EU system do not understand how it operates, and to what end. They think that the EU stands for justice, brotherhood, democracy, openness and so on and expect its governance to reflect their illusions. One day it may; but not now.

The European Union is about power - not because its intentions are evil, but because it is trying to bind together very different countries into a single State. Such a project cannot succeed in a factious democracy. So in the European Union directives and legislation come from above and their Parliament is largely a talking shop and rubber stamping operation.

In some ways it is like Germany in 1871. Prussia - the permanent leader of the federation - centred power on the Kaiser, with the aristocratic Herrenhaus naturally inclined to support him. Representation in the lower chamber or Landtag was skewed towards economic power: one-third of seats went to representatives of the very richest and another to the middle-class; the last third gave a feeble voice to the masses - 82.6% of the population in 1849. Bills were proposed by the Kaiser - or, if it suited his purposes, not proposed; but certainly not by the commoners. The Constitution of Germany was, said Wilhelm Liebknecht, "eine fürstliche Versicherungsanstalt gegen die Demokratie" - a princely company providing insurance against democracy.

The EU manages its people in a similarly autocratic manner, and the chart below shows the flows of its power - and the source of its proposals:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Political_System_of_the_European_Union.svg

As with Newton's Third Law, antidemocratic force creates democratic reaction. The semi-suppression of the people fostered the development of the German Social Democrats; when the old German order fell apart in 1918 the new Weimar Constitution addressed the unfairness of the voting arrangements with a system of proportional representation. It was a disastrous solution: little could be decided among the squabbling factions, so that by 1933 the Chancellor could seize control in an "emergency" - tragically undefined by the Constitution and therefore open to his own judgment.

We are now seeing similar tensions between centre and periphery in the EU. If matters cannot be rectified within the system, it will ultimately face extra-systemic reactions and possibly end in tyranny, as the organisation seeks to preserve its existence.

Martin Selmayr is a lawyer; in German, a "Rechtsanwalt" - an authority, a manager, an advocate in law. The German for law is "Gerecht", its root "recht" or in English, "right." The soul of law is a sense of what is right (whose opposite is "wrong", a word rooted in the notion of twisting, like other "wr-" formations - wrist, wring, wry etc).

But law is also law as arbitrarily issued by the ruler ("le Roi re veult"), law that is written down and codified, law as procedure. So, technically, Selmayr's promotions by Junker (ratified by Commissioners attentive to their own advantage) were allowable within the letter of the EU's law; but not right, not straight.

Yet those rules have been fashioned for a purpose, one quite alien to the British sense of what is right, and also (it seems) coming as a surprise to some others in the EU who have misunderstood the destination to which they are heading. It is a rough and crooked road, leading to the termination of government by (and possibly one day, also of government for) the people.

Whereas the EU Constitution, like Prussia's, was designed to give power to the executive, the British Constitution - learning from centuries of bloody internal conflict - has evolved to restrain it. This is why we should leave the Union and should never have joined it in the first place: there is a total incompatibility between our respective political philosophies and habits.

Did Macmillan, Heath and the other conspirators who manoeuvred us into this federation not understand?
_____________________________________________

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6140383/The-arrogance-Junckers-Monster.html
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEX-18-1021_en.htm
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/03/a-very-eu-coup-martin-selmayrs-astonishing-power-grab/
https://www.politico.eu/article/martin-selmayr-became-eu-top-uncivil-servant/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_three-class_franchise

One nation?

I'd like to suggest a topic, word it how you will: does the Labour Party actually work for the interests of the labouring person?

A genuine question - is there a plan for a thriving British economy rather than getting votes for benefits (and soft jobs for professional pols)?

Can Labour get away from the infighting and present a manifesto that is a credible alternative to the globalism foisted on us by both Conservatives and New Labour? Democratic and therefore not EU, and aiming at a sustainable economy, increased self-sufficiency in essential food and power, as the world heads for a long slump and peak cheap energy has passed?

Or is it just a case of either:

(a) one lot popping in when the other pops out, like the little man and woman in the weather house?

(b) Tweedledum and Tweedledee ripping the country into two, instead of saving it?

Fire!

Funny how buildings go on fire at times when no-one is supposed to be there - late at night, weekends... and especially school holidays -
https://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pages/reports/pdf/arson_in_schools.pdf

Glasgow's School of Art, near midnight on Friday 15 June 2018:



Liverpool's Littlewoods Pools building, Sunday 2 September 2018:



Brazil's National Museum - same time as Liverpool:



There's now a database of fires in UK heritage buildings:

https://www.fireprotect.me.uk/fires2018.html

And then there are the textile warehouses that combust when there's a recession...

And in Birmingham (UK) a decade or two ago I seem to recall empty warehouses on the ring road that were listed buildings but stood in the way of some local authority development plan and - whoof! up they went in flames, nobody caught.

I suppose that if I composed a pamphlet titled "Arson for Fun and Profit" I'd be in trouble?

Is Ukraine to be the new Guernica?

Pic: South China Morning Post
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2162391/ukraine-peace-plan-ice-after-pro-russian-rebel-leader-killed-cafe

Last Friday (31.08.18) Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the "Donetsk People's Republic" (in eastern Ukraine) was killed in a bomb blast, along with his bodyguard. It is claimed that the killers, who are still being hunted, work for the Ukrainian security service.

Unlike in the western part of Ukraine, the population of Donetsk is predominantly Russian-speaking and/or of Russian descent. The breakaway state declared its independence four years ago, but so far has only been formally recognised by South Ossetia.

Under the 2015 Minsk II agreement, Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany brokered a ceasefire and progressive demilitarisation. But the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has now cancelled ongoing treaty negotiations, claiming that the assassination is "an open provocation aimed at hindering implementation of the Minsk agreements" and linking it to the recent increase in US sanctions against Russia (announced 8 August) in the wake of the Skripal poisoning case in Britain, which has been blamed on Russia (denied by the latter and not yet forensically proven.)

The Kiev administration has failed to implement Minsk II and last year the United States was saying that the US did not wish to be limited by the agreement and suggested that Kiev should seek an accommodation directly with Moscow. Now the US special envoy for Ukraine has said that Washington could increase arms supplies to Kiev to buttress the country’s naval and air defence forces.

There is some evidence to suggest that the Ukraine has become a testing ground for Western weaponry. A "Ukraine based" firm called LimpidArmor has just announced the extension of a battlefield sensor system from fighter planes to tank warfare:

"The Land Platform Modernization Kit uses four cameras positioned strategically around the tank to create a seamless display of the environment surrounding the vehicle. Crew members wearing the HoloLens headgear would then be able to look around their environment without being hampered by the tank’s heavy armor while also not having to potentially expose themselves to enemy fire."

Although run by a Ukrainian, Mikhail Grechukhin, and conducting its research and development in Kiev, LimpidArmor's headquarters are in Walnut Creek, California. And in March this year the Ukrainian Defence Minister said that the US' supply of anti-tank missiles "opened the door for closer military cooperation in the face of Russian aggression."

Anti-Russian rhetoric was a major feature of Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign in 2016, to the extent that Russians were getting nervous. When Trump won, it appeared to be a chance to normalise relations and shortly afterwards he was tweeting "Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad!" But since then the US President has seemed to row back, perhaps in response to the sustained campaign by the Democrats to paint Russia as in collusion with Trump to get him his election victory.

Doubtless there is a deep geopolitical game being played, but aside from Mrs Clinton's disappointed hopes one has to wonder what the real motivation may be. Is it really a cold, then a hot war with Russia - now no longer a Communist country, thanks to its people who have every reason not to wish the return of the Reds?

Or is it to rehearse weapons and tactics for war - perhaps by proxy - against another, still Communist, mightier and clearly expansionist potential foe: China? If so, the increasing sophistication of China's defence capabilities ought to give the three-dimensional chess players of Washington pause for thought - see for example this article on the PRC's development of next-generation unmanned aerial vehicles.

Could the "military-industrial complex" (as Eisenhower called it) be endangering us with its hubris?

http://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica

_________________________

• https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2162391/ukraine-peace-plan-ice-after-pro-russian-rebel-leader-killed-cafe
• https://sputniknews.com/world/201809011067667072-rusia-us-sanctions-dialogue/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_II
• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ukraine-idUSKBN19H19M
• https://thenewsrep.com/107709/ukrainian-company-testing-f-35-style-helmet-to-see-through-tanks-in-combat/
• https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=uk&u=https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimpidArmor&prev=search
• https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-defence/ukraine-says-weapons-decision-heralds-new-era-of-cooperation-with-u-s-idUSKCN1GE27X
• https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/the-kremlin-really-believes-that-hillary-clinton-will-start-a-war-with-russia-donald-trump-vladimir-putin/
• http://thesaker.is/chinas-dark-sword-uav-program/

FRIDAY MUSIC: Jazz from Big Easy Street, by JD

More jazz on the street, not all of it in New Orleans, but all of it the spirit of the music of the 'Big Easy' and including some fine clarinet playing by local legend Doreen Ketchens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doreen_Ketchens

The Public House, by Wiggia

The demise of the public house, one of the cornerstones of the British way of life, has been going on for some time now. In some ways it is inevitable: with so many other ways of entertaining available and the price differential for beers between pubs and supermarkets, there was always going to be a fall-out.

The more far-sighted of the breweries and the publicans saw the writing on the wall way back and started to cater for a larger clientele by offering food at a standard a long way from the sweaty cheese roll under a plastic dome that many pubs exhibited as their only food option, apart from pork scratchings and crisps. Many of these have thrived but position and investment are crucial to success: many pubs still fail as the footfall does not rise owing to the pub's poor location.

Since 2000 10,500 pubs have closed and the closure rate is currently running at roughly two a day, but the rate is slowing as the number of pubs that will never make a profit in the modern age dwindles.

The days of the public bar, the saloon bar and the snug may be no more, which is shame as those clandestine meetings in the quiet of the upmarket saloon bar were part of the life in those not so far off days; a lot of business was also carried out in those surroundings as well.

All that has gone, fortunately despite some sad closures most of the old coaching inns remain, maybe not in their original form but they remain nonetheless.

A wonderful example of the coaching inn is the George Inn in Borough High Street, Southwark. It is owned by the NT - I have no idea if that is a good thing for a pub - but it is run by Greene King and very successfully. It is Grade 1 listed, hence the NT involvement no doubt, and boasts the only galleried frontage on a pub in London, used in the past by players to entertain.

The list even today of historic watering-holes in London runs to a lot more than be encompassed here so I will just select a few that I have visited personally, even if it was a while back.

The Prospect of Whitby was built in the 1520s on the Thames in Wapping. It is now a trendy waterside area: Sir David Owen - of the Gang of Four fame! - lives a few doors away. I was taken there by my father originally when it had a curiosity factor but was not on the tourist trail and the view from the back terrace showed cranes and wharves; a very different scene now.

Pubs like the above would fill a book even today. Other areas have seen a decline for other reasons. When I left school, Fleet Street where I worked was awash with pubs: it seemed everyone connected with the Press spent most of their time in the myriad of pubs that existed there' Just round the corner at Smithfield market was an all-night pub so you could slake your thirst twenty-four hours a day - that one still exists, The Hope - but even Smithfield has changed. The Hope is no longer twenty-four hours and the other pubs are struggling, impacted by the way the market is run and by drink-drive laws. The death knell for the Fleet Street pubs sounded when Murdoch moved to Wapping and the rest of the papers followed.

I always liked The Red Lion in Crown Passage, St James. It is old, simple and in reality hasn’t a lot going for it: it does no food to speak of, the beer is and always has been average. It is the classic suits-at-lunchtime pub, a standing-room-only real pub in a fantastic location. It also has the advantage for those that imbibe of being round the corner from another institute, Berry Bros and Rudd the wine merchants, whose own premises are worth a look.

A good example of the work-related pub was the Kings Head. What was unusual about this place was not the rather boring building but its location in the middle of the giant Lathams wood yard on the River Lea, not far from where I lived as a youngster at the time. Lathams was a huge place. The barges would deliver great logs from the Thames ships that brought them here, and they would be planked on site; no more, though the yard is still there. To get to the pub you would walk through the giant sheds and avoid the cranes and fork lifts on the way. It closed in the nineties and was demolished for housing, along with some of the yard.

Other work-related pubs were slightly different, such as the Coach and Horses in Greek Street, Soho. This pub had the same landlord for 63 years, Norman Balon, and he revelled in the title of “the rudest landlord”, though the pub's fame in later years came from the almost permanent incumbent Jeffrey Bernard, Private Eye and Spectator columnist and permanently drunk - his life was immortalised by Peter O’Toole in the play Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell. Balon's memoirs “You're Barred, You Bastards” followed. The place has now added "Normans" to its name and has a vegetarian and vegan menu !

The Lamb and Flag in Covent Garden used to be a favourite watering-hole for the market workers and previously Dickens and John Dryden but of course the market has moved so along with its rival pub the Cross Keys they cater for a very different clientele now with the revitalisation of the area. All markets had their own pubs not just in London but across the country. Many of the best pubs were associated with the markets they served.

The Black Friar pub was always a favourite of mine, simply because of the art nouveau interior In Queen Victoria Street the place itself has a strange wedge-shaped exterior backing onto the railway viaduct. In the sixties it faced demolition  but a campaign led by Sir John Betjeman quite rightly saved the place. The sixties may have been a wonderful era to live through but it was an appalling era for the destruction of notable buildings.

There is no way I could include all my favourites, this is just a random dip into nostalgia. For London I will finish with one of the iconic pubs of North London, the Spaniards Inn in Hampstead. The area boasts a number of pubs frequented by artists, actors and the like, but the Spaniards is hard to miss as the road pinches into a bottleneck as you approach, as the old toll booth on the other side of the road deliberately restricts the traffic. There were attempts to demolish the toll house in the sixties, again, but fortunately it was resisted.

The pub has had famous clients such as Joshua Reynolds, Byron and Keats and famously Dick Turpin the highwayman. This area with the toll booth was a favourite place for highwaymen to hold up coaches and the tree from which those caught were hanged was only a couple of hundred yards from the Spaniards.

For many years my frequenting of pubs waned, I really didn’t visit many, and only when we moved to Long Melford in Suffolk did my interest perk up again. For reasons unknown and unexplained Melford is inundated with pubs, when we lived there nine existed and they still do, and there had been five more. How these were supported by a large village I have no idea but they were. Today the tourist industry keeps them going in the summer months as Melford is a big local attraction, but in the winter the lights are on but few people are buying. The Bull is the main pub, more like a hotel, and with its studded exterior it looks the part in this type of village - a village that has the presence of two stately homes on different sides of the green, another rare occurrence.

Though the Bull Hotel largely caters for the hotel side and weddings you are hardly short of alternatives in the village. The Black Lion can be seen here with the wonderful Holy Trinity church in the background.

The area is rich with pubs of all types. I will finish with one of those places everyone who comes across goes into. Up the road a few miles from Long Melford, Bury St Edmunds boasts what is reputed to be (and according to the Guinness Book of Records is, depending how you measure these things) the smallest pub in Britain, The Nutshell, with an interior of 15’x 7’. It is a tight squeeze for more than ten people. Its survival is almost guaranteed by its position, you can’t miss it, and the footfall is constant.

Whilst in Bury I cannot leave there and finish this without a mention of not a pub but the bar at the Theatre Royal. This theatre is the sole surviving playhouse from the Regency era and has again been saved and renovated. A wonderful place, much visited when we lived down the road. Amazingly the old bar which creaked under load and was so tight you had to order in advance has been replaced by Greene King who run the place and the NT who own this Grade 1 listed building. How the hell they got permission to put in this modern bar in such a historic building I have no idea, so I finish with something that has lost a historic bar but not its wonderful interior.

The public house may be going through a difficult time, more will be lost but I am sure the historic and the weird and wonderful will survive for a good few decades at least, and hopefully longer, so that future generations can come to appreciate a very important part of their social history.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Jim White, by JD

One of the comments beneath the first video here (Alabama Chrome) describes Jim White's music as "outsider art, bluegrass style" and that sounds to me like a very good assessment  although it is not all bluegrass, there is a lot more to it than that.

His first album, released in 1997, had the strange title of "The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong Eyed Jesus." A title like that is enough to make everyone sit up and take notice and some details of the effect the album had is explained lower down the page before the final video, 'Christmas Day' which is from the film and was also on the album No Such Place.

I first came across his music in 2001 when I bought the album "No Such Place." Can't remember how or why it came to my attention but I'm glad it did because the music is very different as well as being very good. The difficulty with choosing these songs was wondering what to leave out!

http://jimwhite.net/#section-home



















In 2003 the BBC commissioned a documentary based on the 'Wrong Eyed Jesus' album. Why the BBC and not an American producer is a mystery. The film is currently on the BBC iPlayer (I think it is still available) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074qfn If not then it can be found on YouTube and it is worth watching.

"Searching for The Wrong-Eyed Jesus" is a captivating and compelling road trip through the creative spirit of the Southern U.S. Director Andrew Douglas's film follows "Alt Country" singer Jim White through a gritty terrain of churches, prisons, truck stops, biker bars and coal mines. This is a journey through a very real contemporary Southern U.S., a world of marginalised white people and their unique and home-made society. Along the way are road-side encounters with modern musical mavericks including The Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, 16 Horsepower and David Johansen; old time banjo player Lee sexton; rockabilly and mountain Gospel churches - and novelist Harry Crews telling grisly stories down a dirt track.

It is a collage of stories and testimonies, almost invariably of sudden death, sin and redemption: Heaven and Hell, with no middle ground. And all the while a strange Southern Jesus looms in the background. Jim White reflects upon what it is about this baffling place that inspires musicians and writers, or as he puts it "trying to find the gold tooth in God's crooked smile."

It is an elegy to and a requiem for a world we have all lost.

Alderney: secret WWII Channel Island nerve gas launching base?

Former London Times journalist Guy Walters' thriller "The Occupation" (2004) describes the development by the Nazis of missile launching batteries on the island of Alderney, which was just a few miles off the coast of NW France. According to the plot, when fully ready the site would be capable of saturation-bombing London at the rate of 300 rockets an hour.

The Daily Mail published an article on the Alderney fortress last year - "Hitler's British Death Island", 5 May 2017 - reporting that at least 40,000 imported slaves were killed in the process of constructing the site, which according to former military officers Richard Kemp and John Weigold was to target the southwestern coast of Britain from Weymouth to Plymouth with sarin-filled warheads.

However the newspaper's claims were swiftly contradicted by the Aldernese historian Trevor Davenport. Even the Mail's story admits that such a project would have been against the Germans' policy regarding V1 emplacements, as being more vulnerable to naval gunfire and commando raids than mainland installations.

The real underground tunnels can be seen here:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/a/alderney/water_lane_ho5/index.shtml

Curiouser and Curiouser, by Wiggia

I have for reasons unknown other than a curious mind been drawn to items - buildings, whatever - that are out of the ordinary or have a strange fascination. Items like follies that are built for no other reason than they can, relics of the past in all forms and downright peculiar and baffling. Most apart from the follies have history of value or purpose for when they were built and some still fulfil or could the original function.

The industrial revolution has left many engineering marvels that are still with us and some still working. Anyone who has travelled on the canals will have come across the likes of the Anderton Lift or the remains of the Foxton Inclined Plane, a method of boat lift that did away with slow and cumbersome locks - the story is seen here:



The Foxton Inclined plane was a prototype for many similar examples, many of which are still in operation elsewhere in Europe, and modern versions of boatlifts using the same ballast principle are also working on the big canals in Belgium, for example.

On a more basic level I was taken by my uncle when visiting with my cousin to see the strange Trinity three-way bridge at Crowland in the Fens. Now stuck on a traffic island, it originally spanned the river Welland and a tributary that was later re-routed, leaving this very curious structure from the 1300s just, well, sitting there. It was an ingenious way of spanning the rivers and saved building three separate bridges and provided much joy to me as a child rushing up and down the different exits and entrances.

Trinity Bridge, Crowland, Lincolnshire

I have written before about some of these oddities but always as individual items.

Another is the almshouses in Clapton, east London that had the smallest (claimed) consecrated chapel in the country. Sadly the almshouses have now been sold off and turned into small houses, including the chapel. I lived nearby and this was always a place to stop and wonder at. No one I know ever got in to see the chapel which was a shame, but it was there. My great grandfather lived in the house the other side of the road behind the chapel, so I saw a lot of the place.

http://davehill.typepad.com/claptonian/2014/09/what-will-take-the-almshouses-place.html

During the mid seventies/early eighties we lived in Essex not far from Billericay. It was brought to my attention that there was a rather special hospital out near the village of East Hanningfield: it was a leper hospital. Hard to believe that something like that would exist in the UK but there it was, a few miles up the road. The hospital itself was just a series of low buildings, many of the prefabricated variety. The hospital still functioned up to ‘86 and although there was nothing remarkable about the place it did have its sad side: there existed on the other side of the road its own graveyard. Its history was quite interesting.The second part of this account is the best description I have found of the place.

http://www.ezitis.myzen.co.uk/jordan.html

Severalls Hospital had a reputation for being haunted. As a mental institution it was a rather foreboding place on the outskirts of Colchester. Despite being a mental hospital it did have some general wards and other facilities, and for better or worse I was sent there by my GP for a review of something I have now forgotten. I had no idea what the primary purpose of the place was but later when it closed all was revealed. Later after many years of dereliction, part was demolished and housing built on the site but certainly until recently - and maybe still - it was a decaying memorial to another age, and became the haunted relic of old. Many photographers have found a way in and many photographs have been taken of the eerie place, as examples show here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415036/Severalls-Hospital-Edwardian-mental-asylum-Colchester-patients-held-50-years-demolished.html

The last place of interest in one that I came across on the south coast near Brighton just a couple of years back. Pure chance meant that someone had told me of a well that was very deep in the area, there is little to see other than capped top but the history is very interesting. The Woodingdean Well is the deepest hand dug well in the world, a quite astonishing achievement: the six-foot-wide well finished up deeper than the height of the Empire state building. It is difficult to believe that humans could dig something like that, and all initially to save money and employ people at the local workhouse: no benefits without work, it was that simple. So old young men and women, all with candles for light, embarked on this amazing project. It didn’t have the desired effect of saving money but they carried on regardless.

Woodingdean Well, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex

https://www.wellmasters.co.uk/well-history/woodingdean-well/

Depth and geological layers, Woodingdean Well

Humans of course are a rich source of the odd eccentric and downright loony. When I was in my late teens / early twenties I used to travel to work in central London by bus and tube. The tube I caught was Manor House station near Finsbury Park, and it was here that I saw what appeared to be a hoax. At first I laughed and forgot about it but the man involved was not indulging in a hoax, this was the real thing. As regular as clockwork with all the other commuters he would turn up on the platform dressed in a double-breasted raincoat, shirt and tie, hair slicked back and was to all intents and purposes a toned-down version of Arthur English (the post war comedian, if anyone can remember).

But there was a difference: in the middle of his forehead on a suction cup he had a kitchen tap - I do not make it up - and as he appeared every morning on the platform he would shout the words “Everyone is on the tap!” a reference in cockney to the phrase "tapped up" i.e. wanting something, usually for nothing. I have never found out what he was about but there he was, as regular as clockwork, getting on the tube with his tap on his forehead. He must have been going somewhere, perhaps to work, who knows? He may have been a plumber. The mystery was never solved.

Ras Prince Monolulu was an institution from the thirties on, a racing tipster who would not only frequent the tracks with his cry “I Got an 'Orse!” but also attended Petticoat Lane market on Sunday mornings in full regalia and shouting his lines as in this video:



and here with Groucho Marx on "You Bet Your Life" (from 15:56 on):



They don’t make em like that anymore…………...

FRIDAY MUSIC: Tuba Skinny, by JD

This week's music comes from the streets of New Orleans with Tuba Skinny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuba_Skinny

Their leader, unofficially but musically everything seems to revolve around her, is cornet player Shaye Cohn. She also plays piano and violin among other things. She is also the granddaughter of Al Cohn who was one of a quartet of tenor sax players in the Woody Herman band. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Cohn



















Like? More here! -

http://www.nourishingobscurity.com/2014/09/tuba-skinny/

World War One: two snippets

From Phil Baker's biography of Dennis Wheatley:

"The RFC [Royal Flying Corps] was still in its infancy, having only just got past the stage of using hand-held revolvers in aeroplanes, but it was now rapidly expanding. In May 1915 it comprised only 166 planes in total, but within eighteen months it was losing fifty planes a week. Parachutes were not issued; senior Army staff believed pilots would try harder without them." (p.100)

"The man who commanded Wheatley's division, General Sir Oliver Nugent, had boasted that a double decker London omnibus would hold all the men he intended to bring home alive." (p.139)

Lest we forget.

Boxed in: BoJo opposes burqa ban, gets hounded by bien-pensants!

The controversy continues...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/05/denmark-has-got-wrong-yes-burka-oppressive-ridiculous-still/

“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.” 
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

"Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it."
 ― Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides

FRIDAY MUSIC: Two Sisters (Ravi's Daughters), by JD

The late Ravi Shankar is remembered as one of the best-known proponents of the sitar in the second half of the 20th century and he influenced many other musicians throughout the world. He was also the father of two daughters who have also been successful in their very different musical careers:

Norah Jones was born in 1979 and became a jazz singer and pianist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Jones

Anoushka Shankar was born in 1981 and followed her father in learning to play the sitar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoushka_Shankar

I suppose it was inevitable that these two half-sisters would eventually record together and with their father so here is a selection of their music, both individually and together.