EU membership is a democracy issue

"If democracy is destroyed in Britain, it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights."

Tony Benn, speaking in the House of Commons on 20th November 1991 (7.56 pm onward)

(htp: James Higham)

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Are you dynamic?

Idleness, then, is so far from being the root of all evil that it is rather the true good.
Søren Kierkegaard

Are you dynamic, bone idle or somewhere in between?

I’m certainly not dynamic but not quite bone idle either – well not all the time. I’m not sure where human dynamism comes from, but I don’t have it. Or want it if I’m honest.

Yet success seems to be closely related to a certain kind of dynamism. Not necessarily hard work, although that comes into it, but ferocious self-centred, persistence usually dressed up as something else.

It seems to be a matter of goals and effort, although the effort may well be largely networking, sucking up to the right people, cultivating the image, softening a regional accent, personal appearance, the right point of view, an urbane manner, the arts of delegation, knowing the value of anger and politically correct disdain, artistic flim-flam, a second language, name-dropping, credentials, a suitable partner and so on.

It all sounds too much like hard work though doesn’t it? Presumably it is, or grossly time-hogging if not physically demanding.

No – it’s not for me.

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Moving home

Although we’ve had modular houses for a long time, somehow the advantages never seem to make it into the political arena to any serious extent. The wartime UK prefab served its purpose and was discarded, although some have lasted for decades. My aunt and uncle lived in one in Derby.

Grade II listed Phoenix prefabs

Wake Green Road, Birmingham
From Wikipedia

 Yet today it is presumably even more feasible to mass-produce all the bits and pieces that go to make up a comfortable and energy efficient dwelling. So why don’t we do it and get rid of the housing shortage forever?

Caravans for example. Modern caravans are produced on factory production lines and a big one can cost as little as £20-30k. Comfortable, easy to heat in winter and needing little maintenance, what’s not to like about them? They can even be quite posh.

From leftbracket.com

Caravans are easy to move of course, so if we all lived in them, moving house would merely be a question of towing the thing from one plot to another. Hook up the utilities and job done. If anyone needs more living space I’m sure they could be designed to attach extra modules.

A big advantage is cost. Caravans are comparatively cheap, so the whole idea might highlight the cost of each plot of land. Maybe we could simply rent plots from the local authority, even making this the main tax base for the whole country. Westminster wouldn’t like it, so that’s another benefit.

We’d get rid of a load of other taxes and pensioners would just tow their homes to a cheaper plot of land on retirement, leaving city life to younger people with jobs and families.

The roof of the caravan could be an array of solar panels and because caravans have batteries, they could even be reasonably effective in a low-power caravan environment. In fact caravans with 12v lighting and gas cylinders for cooking and heating might cope quite well with intermittent power from wind turbines.

The practical stuff is easy enough for anyone to work out for themselves, so why don’t such ideas find their way into the political arena? After all, it's hardly a new or original notion.

Okay I know we aren't at all likely to go down this road. There are lots of reasons – there always are. Maybe the global warming brigade will push it, but somehow I don’t think it is close to their middle class hearts.

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Hooray for pubs!

Research shows that drinking in pubs is good for you. We knew this - but still don't know how to get onto the research team.

Chaucer's Tabard Inn, as it was in the 19th century

The Bull Inn, Rochester (visited by Dickens' Mr Pickwick)

 

The Mayflower, Rotherhithe - built c. 1550 as The Shippe - known as the Spread Eagle and Crown when the Pilgrim Fathers visited it.

"POST OFFICE PUB"

British Pathe (1949) - how the Spread Eagle and Crown was nearly lost

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The plagiarism of ourselves

But what we call experience is merely the revelation to our own eyes of a trait in our character which naturally reappears, and reappears all the more markedly because we have already brought it into prominence once of our own accord, so that the spontaneous impulse which guided us on the first occasion finds itself reinforced by all the suggestions of memory. The human plagiarism which it is most difficult to avoid, for individuals (and even for nations which persevere in their faults and continue to aggravate them) is the plagiarism of ourselves.

Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu

Of course Proust is merely noting how subjective our notions of experience can be, how quickly we lapse into habitual responses. Hardly unfamiliar territory, but do we make use of such insights?

Well surely Proust's point is that we generally don't - it is too difficult. Even nations don't and these days we may add bureaucracies to the list.

So political promises about reforming the EU from the inside are empty for this reason. External events may cause habitual responses to be changed, but it is almost impossible for internal events to initiate similar changes. 

As Proust says - this isn't how we are made.

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Ukraine: daft quote of the week

"London - wear the fox hat?" (from the Daily Telegraph, 22 March 2014)

"Everyone can see that the West has no idea what to do about Russian power in the Ukraine. Britain, in particular, is at the margins. It is time for the Mayor of London to fulfil his historic role of stealing a march on more conventional politicians. Boris should take a leaf out of President Putin’s book and call a referendum of Londoners. He should ask them whether they would like all Russian housing in London to be seized, and be inhabited, instead, by British families. I predict a Yes vote whose percentage would exceed even that of the recent Crimean plebiscite. Obviously the Mayor, unlike Putin, has no military forces to implement such a measure (which is just as well), but the vote would make us feel a bit better."

Charles Moore, in this week's Spectator.

I'd have thought Mr Putin would be the first to vote "yes" to the expropriation of the emigre mega-crooks who have plundered his country and flashed their cash in Londongrad.

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Battle for the Black Sea

(From Google Maps)

"The Balkans, and southeastern Europe more generally, present the major hurdle toward the creation of a Europe “whole and free” from the Baltic to the Black Sea. [...] Although U.S. Navy and Marine forces generally operate on a regular cycle of deployments to European waters, they rely on a network of permanent bases in the region, especially in the Mediterranean. These should be retained, and consideration given to establishing a more robust presence in the Black Sea. As NATO expands and the pattern of U.S. military operations in Europe continues to shift to the south and east, U.S. naval presence in the Black Sea is sure to increase."

From pp 15-17 of  "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (Thomas Donnelly and others, September 2000)

Before the fall of Communism:

 

Warsaw Pact countries, 1988 (Wikipedia)

 

Comecon, plus former Yugoslavia (pic source)

Greece has also had a history of struggle with Communism and the EU's crippling economic interference has recently re-raised tensions between (and support for) Left and Right. In this context it's worth noting that last May there was a Greek Communist Party rally in Thessaloniki. This is Greece's second largest city and a major hub for the eastern Mediterranean. Colour northeast Greece the same as Yugoslavia in the above map and the West's only ally on the shores of the Black Sea would be Turkey - which also (currently) controls the Bosphorus, the Black Sea's door into the Med.

Now:



The spread of NATO (Wikipedia)

 

The spread of the EU (pic source)

To the above map can be added the Ukraine, for which the EU has been outbidding Russia with help from the IMF (secured yesterday). It all looks like shoving Russia into a corner, as far as the Black Sea is concerned.

America has a habit of fighting wars on other people's soil. This push-and-pushback needs to be tempered with extreme caution, which appears lacking in the case of people like Cathy Ashton. The (unelected) EU foreign policy minister is so keen to drive the EU's agenda that her only response to hearing of the snipers who shot both sides in the Ukraine is to say "Interesting. Gosh." and barge on with her program:



We are ruled by the mad. To quote Cathy: "Byee."

UPDATE re sniper claim (31 July 2014):

"But questions remain, especially about the role of snipers. In an intercepted telephone call, Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet told the EU's Catherine Ashton that, while in Kiev, he had heard that snipers had used the same type of bullets on both protesters and police. This suggested that the snipers were provocateurs, possibly hired by the protesters. Paet's source was one of Ukraine's most admired people, the singer, songwriter and physician Olga Bogolomets, who helped organize emergency medical services for the protestors. She says that Paet misunderstood what she told him. She never saw the dead policemen or the bullets that killed them, she told Canada's Globe and Mail. "What I saw were people who were killed by snipers and on [protesters'] side." "

- Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News (4 April 2014)


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