Blogoir: May

As the European Parliament elections loom, the sheer horror of the Conservative Party's idea of leaving the 'mainstream' EPP party bloc comes to the fore.

I have written about this here.

But behold now this onslaught from Tory Grandees, no less. The Independent is scurrying to catch up.

The argument goes that if the Conservatives pull out of this EP bloc all sorts of horrible things will happen, made all the worse by Conservative intentions to Do Something about the Lisbon Treaty.

Much of the portentous warnings about the UK calling into question the Lisbon Treaty seem to miss one significant point, namely that the Treaty is not in effect until everyone has ratified it finally.

So a referendum could be called in the UK before that happens, if only to give a probably huge political mandate to a new British government and future governments to oppose further federalistic integration. And if a massive No vote in the UK by some chance deterred others from finally ratifying the Treaty, the result appears to equal ... no Treaty.

What is intereresting about these articles is that they have literally not a single word on why this Conservative move might be a good or at least popular idea.

Nothing on the way the EP works. Nothing on the advantages of having in the EP a sizeable new bloc with different views about the European future. Nothing about how in practice that bloc might be effective by using its voting weight well. Nothing on the odious people represented in the current EPP bloc or in the bloc hosting Labour MEPs.

Nothing!

For that we have to look to an MEP, Dan Hannan. Here. And (in more detailed form) here:

At present, every political alliance in Europe - the Communists, the Socialists, the Liberals, the Greens, the Christian Democrats - supports the euro, the constitution, a common foreign policy and an EU criminal justice system.

Indeed, the EPP goes further than the others, demanding a single EU seat at the United Nations, a European army and police force and - my particular favourite, this - a pan-EU income tax to be levied by MEPs.

Once there is a mainstream conservative bloc positing a different kind of Europe, the cartel will be broken. From that moment, Euro-federalism will cease to be inevitable, and become one among a series of competing ideas. 

As almost none of those policies is popular with UK voters, why stay in that club? Maybe an argument worth at least a word by one or other Tory Grandee?

These Grandees are supported by a couple of FCO Grandees in the form of two former Permanent Under-Secretaries (ie top FCO officials), Lord Kerr and Lord Wright. (Note: all these people quoted are Lords, ie no-one needing to get out there and win votes from taxpayers.)

Lord Kerr:

"I do not understand a rigid commitment to impotence," he said. "I do not understand why [the Czech and Polish parties who will form a new group with the Tories] are preferable to Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy, or why they think the route to influence lies that way ...

The Tories owe it to us to tell us what they mean, because they will have to tell the world at the end of the first European council they attend, when they discover there is no majority for calling the intergovernmental conference to change the treaty as they propose."

That last point is a sound one. If there is no heavyweight EU support for reopening the Treaty (and there won't be, for all sorts of reasons) does David Cameron meekly back down? Or try to force the issue by increasing the cost to his partners of not looking at this question, in part through escalating UK obstinacy?

In other words: Foreign Office concern that Cameron will trigger the worst crisis yet in Britain's relations with the EU

What is studiously ignored by almost everyone opining on this subject is that in fact it is all mainly about one thing.

Money.

Who gives. And who gets/

The UK is a generous net contributor to the EU pot. Should we carry on paying generously for policies and institutions we dislike? Is the price of 'European solidarity' and the inexorable 'further and deeper integration' demanded by eg the EPP too high for UK taxpayers to accept?

The best way to force change in the EU is to cut the Budget. Tony Blair blinked on that in 2005. When the next Financial Perspective negotiation comes round in a couple of years' time, the next UK government will be facing grim public finance constraints at home, so enthusiasm for spending more at the EU level will be zero.

That is where the main battle will come. And, as before, the UK will be 'isolated'.

For the simple reason that there are far more EU Getters than Givers. The Getters gracelessly line up to whinge that the Givers are being mean.

Not a situation likely to impress UK voters, mopping up the mess created by years of British and EU-level collectivist profligacy.

So is signalling now heartfelt dissatisfaction with all this a bad negotiating tactic for Cameron Conservatives, even if lots of people grown plump on EU processes are predictably rattled? Not obviously.

Another point on which all those Grandees and ex-PUSs seem oddly ... silent?

Craig Murray writes approvingly of the zany survey of political opinions run by Political Compass. But it was posted at 0200 hrs, so maybe baby Cameron Murray was stopping him getting a much needed rest.

Read the Political Compass FAQs. They are a hoot.

See eg this description of why Hitler was Right-wing (their exclamation mark):

Under the Reich, corporations were largely left to govern themselves, with the incentive that if they kept prices under control, they would be rewarded with government contracts. Hardly a socialist economic agenda !

Er, wrong. It is a blatant socialist economic agenda - one which makes private economic activity hostage to collectivist manipulation. It's just not an all-out communist agenda.

And isn't it the way some of the current Democrat policies are heading? Liberal Fascism and all that?

What attracted me to Craig's posting was this passage:

... right wing libertarians, though a theoretical possibility, do not actually exist in any significant number.

I think the reasons probably come down to the psychological motivation of most right wingers; they are just really nasty people. Right wingers tend to be psychologically incapable of not wishing power over others in what they view as the lifelong struggle for personal economic advantage.

Paul Staines is a good example. Paul and Charles Crawford are two of the better known alleged right wing libertarian bloggers who in fact, should they answer the questions honestly, would fall in the George Bush quadrant.

Wo!

First I find myself joined in a single sentence with Camille Paglia.

And now with Guido Fawkes (although we libertarian purists might have some doubts about the theoretical soundness of his idea of using spare piano wire to string up wayward MPs from passing lamp-posts).

So I did the silly survey and, yes, Craig's bold prediction as to where I would end up was just wrong.

I have posted a comment on Craig's site, concluding thus:

So, yet again, you're talking rot.

Is a Nutter someone who talks rot inadvertently? Or someone who knows he's talking rot but just carries on doing so?

Craig's asserts that right wing libertarians ... do not actually exist in any significant number.

This bestseller?

This is so grisly an analysis of how President Obama is whittling the Clintons down to very little, it might almost be true.

Hence Hillary Clinton's tentative responses on North Korea?

Have a look at the excellent analysis by Max Atkinson of Hillary Clinton trying to sound robust while also not being too specific on the subject of how the USA might respond to North Korea.

As the video clips show, she is choosing her words so carefully that it all ends up looking more evasive than convincing.

Why is she ending up so hesitant?

See this other Max posting and the shrewd comments which pretty much sum it up:

The disparity between Clinton's words as written down and the immensely eye-shifting, umming and emming delivery as she sought the precise (albeit empty) language that she used, is immense. She's obviously very uncomfortable with the concept of standing up there and basically saying nothing ... the immediate impression is of a lady who would rather not be on that podium.

The problem she faces is that she is having to say something 'live' and significant which is credible on several levels of Negotiation at the same time (US v N Korea, US v China/Russia, Multilateralism v Unilateralism, Democrat v Republican, Tough v Weak, Jaw-Jaw v War-War).

This is impossible to accomplish without a clear line, and as she has no clear line (because the issue is bewilderingly difficult and unpredictable) she ends up looking unhappy.

Plus, even if the Americans plus/minus Chinese can come up with some 'um, consequences' for North Korea, it is better not to say what they are.

The striking thing about this saga is that if anything falls under the rubric of a 'threat to international peace and security' as per Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it is the acquisition by North Korea of nuclear weapons.

Yet, perversely, because the threat is so significant there is no top table consensus on how if at all to respond to it.

Such is the UN we have.

On the subject of the UN and Consequences, see how calling for Jewish books to be burned is not necessarily a bad career move.

Does the very presence of US forces in South Korea encourage South Korean complacency and North Koream truculence, a version of the moral hazard problem?

Some pertinent thoughts from Johnathan Pearce at Samizdata on this subject, plus some excellent comments from Subotai Bahadur (my emphasis):

There is the additional possibility, raised by documented instances of nuclear cooperation between Iran and the DPRK; that the test we just watched was in fact an Iranian test using a Korean locale to avoid a response from the West. After all, they know that the world will do nothing for a Korean test; but an Iranian test would provoke a response from Israel, and once again as an extremely distant outlier, possibly by the US.

The determinative data point will be the analysis of the data collected on the detonation in the West. The DPRK makes its devices using plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor by the implosion method. The success of the test is NOT good news as it indicates that they have some mastery of the harder but more efficient method.

The Iranians use the U-235 gun type device. Their thousands of centrifuges are being used to cascade-separate and concentrate the U-235 to the 70%+ enrichment needed to make a weapon. For the record, depending on reactor design, fuel grade is 3-5%. The fissile material furnished by the Russians, it is reported by some, was already 7-9% enriched which puts paid to the idea of it being for peaceful use.

If we find that the device just detonated was plutonium based, we can make a working assumption that it was an indigenous effort. If it was U-235, we can make a similar working assumption that it was a joint Iranian-DPRK effort; with all the implications for the Middle East and the world. I also note that there is a significant incentive for the governments of the West to falsify or suppress the data if it is U-235.

Both Iran and the DPRK are operating largely under doctrines that are not rational or subject to modification by discussion in our terms; the "12th Imam" and "Juche" respectively. Their doctrines view the use of third parties to inflict deadly damage on the West as a feature not a bug.

Precisely.

Could a 'bolt from the blue' catch North Korea's attention?

Probably. But that requires South Korea to sign up to it, and the likely vast damage ensuing to South Korea.

Which takes us back to the beginning. Does the US military presence in South Korea have the huge benefit of letting South Koreans have decent lives, but at the price of creating a zany stalemate in which North Korea does what the hell it likes?

Conventional wisdom has it that China can bring down the North Korean regime whenever it wants. But that creates risks and costs for China.

And who will cover those risks and costs? Who pays for what?

And in which currency?

Maybe this is the real Negotiation?

The goings-on in and around North Korea and its nuclear ambitions takes us back to our old friend Negotiation.

See eg this early piece I wrote in April last year about Power and Purpose:

Part of getting what you want is projecting a sense of Power and Purpose, so that when a negotiation starts others feel cowed by your self-confidence. You establish up-front a psychological initiative. You evince inexorable success.

It helps to be Powerful to start off with. US diplomats enter a room armed with self-belief, to the point sometimes of sheer obnoxiousness. But there is only one USA. The rest of us have to make do with more modest means. 

The Russians too are outstanding negotiators, but in a different sense. They are taught negotiating technique in a way which is quite foreign to British and European methods.

Russian diplomats' First Rule of Negotiating is simple and profound: "Never move position, even when you agree with someone, without trying to extract something first."

This attitude gives them all sorts of advantages. Above all they usually convey the impression (a) that they are tough, and (b) that they move only on their terms. Plus they come over as (c) ready to take considerable pain in defending their principles, while (d) being ready, nay keen, to hit you harder (and if possible below the belt) than you hit them.

Which is why Russian diplomats are rarely kidnapped or humiliated. Even the dimmest terrorist out there knows that if he does something bad to the Russians, they will not hesitate to something Very Bad, and preferably very personal, to him - and his family.

I can't find a copy of the cartoon itself for you, but James Thurber in 1938 drew a lady brightly asking "Who is this Hitler and what does he want?"

Same now with North Korea. Who are they and what do they want?

Here is a folksy analysis on the BBC by an academic expert in that part of the world, which asserts that "everyone is fed up" with North Korean posturing:

The view that North Korea is a rational actor - if only we are patient and avoid upsetting them - looks, let's face it, increasingly threadbare.

Measuring someone else's rationality is always tricky. By most people's standards it may be irrational to collect shoelaces, but if someone decides to do just that then ensuing obsessive moves in that direction have at least some internal logic for the collector.

North Korea's 'rationality' makes sense to them, if not to us. Once the regime started to run out of road once the Cold War ended and other Asian neighbours started to get richer without too much pluralism, the cabal who control North Korea seem to have decided (maybe accurately) that their regime could not withstand much liberalisation.

So, instead, they opted to play for time and cause trouble. Something might turn up.

Given that what the North Korean regime wants is to be Difficult for the Sake of Being Difficult, they are a formidable negotiating adversary:

President Barack Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said North Korea’s rhetoric will only bring the nation further isolation. “Threats won’t get North Korea the attention it craves,” he said.

Is this true? No.

North Korea seems to getting lots of attention precisely because it is making threats.

There are layers of negotiation going on here:

• North v South Korea: one day the country will unify - but on whose terms?
• USA v China/Russia: the Chinese and Russians despise North Korea, but anything which makes the USA look less than effective is OK by them. They will be keen to see the Americans getting more annoyed with North Korea, suspecting that in practice Washington dares do little without their support, for which their price is rising nicely.
• USA v North Korea: behind the scenes all sorts of tough games must be going on to try to disrupt flows of technology into - and out from - North Korea. Sooner or later that can be done only by some sort of blockade, maintained by the threat of force. And who is bluffing whom here?

A classic. See also Iran.

One big loser is the argument that negotiating in good faith with people like this eg via the UN is the best way forward. All that happens is you risk being strung along and made to look weak. 

But, hey, you can warn in stern terms about writing a very strong letter saying "Cooperate - or else..."

Which prompts the reply ... 

The claim by the defence of Radovan Karadzic that he had a deal with Richard Holbrooke ("This is it - leave public and political life in Republika Srpska and you won't have to go to the Hague." "OK...") is back in the news again.

Back in mid-1996, only a few months after the Dayton Peace deal, I was in London for a senior meeting to discuss how the Karadzic issue should be managed. I was HM Ambassador-designate for Sarajevo, and was allowed to sit at the back.

Carl Bildt (High Representative) plus senior American and European diplomats argued crossly to and fro in the FCO Map Room about how far the international community in Bosnia could and should press to force Karadzic from the forthcoming Dayton elections.

The issue came to a head over election posters. Should posters supporting Karadzic's political party with his picture on them be tolerated? Or should OSCE (led by US diplomat Bob Frowick) ask NATO for the support needed to stop them?

The Americans (no doubt with a view to Bill Clinton's re-election campaign) argued forcefully that Karadzic had to be forced from the scene. How could we accept an ICTY indictee being glorified?

The Europeans with (alas) the Brits to the fore countered that we had to proceed with caution; being too assertive with the Serbs could collapse the elections and wreck Dayton.

This was my first serious encounter with a hard Bosnia negotiation - I had missed the immediate policy decisions of the conflict while on a posting in Moscow. Watching it as a newcomer to the deeper issues and the psychology of some of the top diplomats involved, I thought that the Americans won the intellectual and moral argument hands down. The British arguments were clever but technical - they seemed nervous and unconvincing.

Anyway, it was decided to press for Karadzic to withdraw fully from the elections. So what did the Americans then proceed to offer him by way of inducements to do so? Anything?

The Karadzic defence claim that he was offered ICTY immunity soon after that London meeting:

He says Mr Holbrooke, then the US envoy to Bosnia, agreed to provide him with immunity at a meeting in Belgrade on 18-19 July, 1996.

Mr Karadzic does not claim to have attended the meeting, but says the former Bosnian Serb assembly speaker, Momcilo Krajisnik, and foreign minister, Aleksa Buha, were there and could testify to Mr Holbrooke's alleged promise. 

Thus, Questions.

Is the Karadzic claim plausible?

Yes. Very much so.

Is it of any legal consequence? Probably not.

No US diplomat could offer a promise of immunity binding on the Tribunal without being armed with the highest and explicit authority of the Tribunal to do so, which it surely did not give.

Is this unfolding saga potentially fascinating and embarrassing for Holbrooke and Mrs Clinton, whose husband must have been involved in this power-play in part for his own political purposes?

Yes. Although if it comes to it they will surely brush aside proof of any promises which the then Clinton team may have made as being purely a ploy for the Greater Good...

Is here.

It links to Brian Barder arguing against the very idea of any UK referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and being struck that even many Labour List readers do not agree with him (Note: Barder long sentence advisory warning)

Over on the always interesting Labour List blog, this post (reproduced there) has attracted  a sizeable volume of comments, all of them hostile, many savagely so. 

Even when you put aside those which are merely hysterical or scurrilous, there’s still a sizeable body of opinion (represented in a blog designed for “Labour minded people” to debate issues and exchange views) which is viscerally hostile to the European enterprise of which Britain is a part, which wilfully blinds itself to the likely consequences for our country and for the rest of Europe of a British referendum on the Lisbon treaty resulting in its rejection, and which has persuaded itself that if Britain alone is out of step with the rest of the EU on the procedural reforms made necessary by EU expansion, the rest of Europe will just have to come round to the British point of view — and will meekly do so. 

How adults can indulge themselves with this kind of fantasy is a rather worrying mystery, but there it is.

Mysterious indeed.

Someone once put it to me that the issue is rather simple.

Would the UK rather be Canada, or Illinois? An independent but (relatively small) next-door neighbour to a Big Power, or part of that power but with only an intermittent regional and almost non-existent international voice?

Maybe part of the problem is that people here on all parts of the political spectrum just aren't sure, but would like the chance to talk it through and take a vote?

Is that really so mysterious? Or 'viscerally hostile to the European enterprise'?

I previously posted on one way in which our government decides that many people should be killed for the Greater Good.

This essentially philosophical question - how to measure Costs v Benefits of policy - is what government is all about.

Especially when it comes to grand scale environmental policy.

Which counts the most? Likely environmental gains in a century's time, or jobs or even lives now? And how to decide between likely modest environmental gains in a century's time and possible larger environmental gains? And what gains are worth having anyway, all things considered?

In the USA they try diligently to measure such things in a coherent way.

Look at this interesting expert analysis of the likely impact of President Obama's new environmental standards for cars across the USA:

Again, the point is not the precise estimates.  It’s the order of magnitude.  Please don’t tell me this model is flawed.  If you disagree with these calculations or this model, give me some numbers you think are better, and that lead to a different conclusion.

Imagine if the President had instead said today, “This new fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions rule will slow the increase in future global temperature seven thousandths of a degree Celsius by the end of this century, and it means the sea will rise six tenths of a millimeter less than it otherwise would over the same timeframe.”  It loses some of its punch, no?

The author is Keith Hennessey, a former senior adviser to President Bush on economic issues. He is now blogging about the general policy process as seen from a (former) top insider's perspective. Worth following.

An interesting article in the Guardian about the use of hi-tech tracing technology to help put pressure on Uzbekistan to stop forced child labour in the vast Uzkek post-Soviet cotton fields:

"We became aware of real problems in Uzbekistan," said Alan Wragg, Tesco's clothing technical director. "Government-organised forced child labour literally forced kids out of school into vans. It's awful. The fact that its industry is sponsored by the government and there's 40% unemployed in the country makes it worse. So when we became aware of this, we told our suppliers not to use Uzbeki cotton in the supply chain."

 ... new technology developed by Oxford-based firm Historic Futures now offers retailers the ability to track and trace all items that make up a garment. By uploading receipts on individual components within entire supply chains onto a secure network, retailers can accurately trace where their products come from.

Of course, as the article fairly points out it is one thing identifying a problem, quite another to get sustained substantive compliance with reasonable standards even after they are agreed by all concerned.

Still, this is how to effect change in repressive regimes if the use of force is ruled out: patient official and unofficial pressure of all shapes and sizes, plus a willingness to engage in a subtle way to offer respectable alternatives.

It just takes a very long time, with millions of lives being ruined irreparably as the wheels of change slowly turn. Part of the stunning cost of not 'intervening'.

Here is the Historic Futures site. Interesting.

Via a couple of Dizzy postings about Nadine Dorries and her blog (being taken down), I stumble via some acrimonious comments into the jungle of claims and counter-claims involving various leading British bloggers (including Iain Dale, Guido and Tim Ireland) feuding with each other.

When such online rows start, they typically mutate and grow far beyond what the original point(s) might have been.

Thus, try as I might I just can't fathom out what this open letter from Tim to the editor of Private Eye is trying to say. Although I note with interest that a senior British diplomat has a walk-on role.

I tip-toe back to my own little world. A bit sadder, and not a whit wiser.

Here is a fascinating article about the evolution of legal standards in tackling piracy several hundred years ago:

Out of this unfolding of events emerged the Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy, initially introduced by parliament in 1700. This act permitted colonial governments to try and execute pirates on location. (It also eliminated jury trials for pirates, placing their fate in the hands of colonial-appointed commissioners, but continued to permit accomplice testimony). No longer constrained by the need to send pirates to England for trial, the 1700 law proved to be a critically important legal change for bringing pirates to justice.

The initial act was set to expire seven years after its introduction but was made permanent in 1719 when the pirate population began exploding and when various additions to the act, such as rewards for capturing pirates, and punishments for pirate consorters, were also introduced. In 1721 further modifications were made, including a provision for punishing armed merchantmen that refused to fight their pirate attackers.

The effect of these early 18th-century legal changes was to significantly increase the risk, and thus the cost, of pirating after 1719 and 1721 in particular. Whereas only 31% of all pirates hanged between 1704 and 1726 (for which I have data readily available) were hanged in the 15 years spanning 1704-1718, 69% were hanged in the mere seven years spanning 1719-1726 (with the vast majority of these occurring in the years spanning 1721-1726).

This posed a significant problem for pirates because as the legal cost of piracy rose, pirates’ ability to find willing recruits declined, threatening the viability of their criminal enterprise.

Gripping stuff. See also the lively role in all this of C17 newspaper advertisements!

I have posted a Comment there to say that it is not quite clear that these results were achieved by 'bringing more pirates to justice'.

Surely the (difficult) policy point is that to deal with piracy the quality of justice available to those charged with that offence was watered down to help get convictions?

And the ambitious idea of punishing people who did not fight back against pirates? Try bringing in that law in the context of the War on Terror ... 

Well done the Internet in general and Wrinkled Weasel in particular for bringing to wider attention the expression drooling ochlocracy.

It turns out that it means ... us! In the context of the collective national eyebrow-raising on the subject of MPs' expenses.

William Wordsworth too chips in:

Craig Murray is included on Brian Micklethwait's list of UK libertarian bloggers and, ingrate that he is, starts moaning about the list - emphasis added:

In the vast majority of cases, libertarian here plainly means "right wing conservative" or "neo-con" ... The peculiar thing is, that these neo-con "Libertarians" have, by and large, little or no concern for civil liberties. Very few of these "Libertarians" blogged about the shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, against detention without trial for 42 days, about police violence at the G20 summit. These "Libertarians" do not want to see Guantanamo closed, and are quite happy with extraordinary rendition and the use of torture.

Not only will you search the large majority of them in vain for any condemnation of the use of torture in the "War on Terror", but some of them - like Charles Crawford, for instance - have actively blogged in favour of the use of torture...

Plainly the word "Libertarian" is being misappropriated by these people, and stretched beyond any natural meaning in the English language.

So, folks, unless you accept Craig's definition of what the word means and his little list of the Ishoos which define moral rectitude, you're not only not libertarian - you're a Nasty Neocon. Sorry, but there it is.

Craig reminds me of my favourite P G Wodehouse line:

He expressed the opinion that the world was in a deplorable state. I said, 'Don't talk rot, old Tom Travers.' '

I am not accustomed to talk rot,' he said.

'Then, for a beginner,' I said, 'you do it dashed well.'

Update:  Welcome readers from Iain Dale and Craig Murray and anywhere else.

One of the comments below from ayewecan asks if this posting is my defence.

Defence to what? To the wild swing of Craig's fist as it flails through a non-existent target? He of course gives no link on his site to anything I have written to bear out his assertion.

The Search function on this site (type in torture) handily takes anyone interested to a number of postings I have written on this subject. Read away and identify if you can where I have "actively blogged in favour of the use of torture".

What this blog and in a rather different way Craig's blog do is look at public policy issues through the eyes of a former senior diplomatic practitioner. Both of us have served in countries under violent repressive regimes. The question then becomes, how to deal with the moral and practical policy dilemmas which necessarily arise?

The Torture issue brings to a head a lot of these dilemmas. In part because it in fact is a number of different but usualy overlapping questions:

• is it always wrong in a democracy to use any sort of force against prisoners to try to extract information for a wider public good?
• what if any use should a democracy make of such information extracted by non-democracies?
• even if you think it is reasonable to use some of this information in some extreme circumstances, what about the risk that innocent people have been tortured as part of that process?

It is not immoral or a sign of complicity in torture or 'to blog in favour of the use of torture' to pose these questions and try to pick one's way to a defensible conclusion.

This is precisely what raving neocon President Obama is now doing, as former President Clinton did before him - and why eg Nancy Pelosi has ended up in such a tangle.

Anyway, a good summary of my own views can be found here and here.

Finally, back to Craig. He does land some good punches now and then.

This is a powerful posting, for example. Here is more of a glancing blow on Guido, trying to set up an argument that a youthful Guido's contacts with the BNP discredit his libertarian positions now. (Guido responds in the comments.)

Note that here Craig cites as an example of his own moral worthiness his former membership of the Anti-Nazi League, a group of lumpenly aggressive Trotskyists. Nothing to be proud of.

My view? Craig has a different political view to mine. We argue fiercely. But he is illogical and inconsistent, and I rather like him.

Sounds familiar?

My birthday today. Hurrah.

22 May does not have too many really famous people born on it.

But two people (other than myself) stand out.

Ted Kaczynski, Unibomber (22 May 1942).

And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (22 May 1859).

Sir Arthur would be 150 today. Here is an account of how in his later years he plunged rather too deep into Spiritualism.

Now, where are all those presents..?

My guess?

As much as anyone else.

Here is a description of Arabs themselves discussing their problems:

“We Arabs are at the bottom of everything — at the bottom of every index: literacy, capitalism, the rights of women. Everything. In our countries, we have cults of personality, dictatorships, dynasties . . . Where is democracy? Where is rotation in office?

“In the past, extremist Islam was unusual; now it is usual. In the Soviet Union, South Africa, South Korea, there was restructuring. But not in our region. We have no Gorbachev, we have no de Klerk, we have no Kim Dae-jung.

The vast majority of our people are chromosomally reasonable and moderate. And the human spirit must be unleashed here.”

More:

An Arab intellectual says, “In our region, we have those who are hardliners for reform and those who are against reform; and we have hardliners against peace and those who are willing at least to consider peace. Unfortunately, the hardliners for reform are also the hardliners against peace.”

In other words, these are Islamists — as I understand it — who want to shake up entrenched regimes and make government more accountable to the people. They also, of course, want to make war.

The intellectual says, “Those who are both hardline for reform and hardline for peace are in a tiny, tiny minority.”

Which alas explains a lot.

You come from Africa. Now you are an American.

Are you an African-American?

Yes, but only if your skin is dark enough!

What's worse, if your skin happens to be not-so-dark and you put yourself in the new category of 'white African-American' as nothing else seems to fit, dark-skinned people who are less African than you are but who call themselves African-Americans can claim to be offended.

And get you into big trouble.

Look, this one is easy.

There is a simple test for African-Americanness.

Put a pencil in someone's hair.

If the hair is curly enough to hold it, that person is an African-American.

If not, sue the hell out of someone impertinently and insultingly claiming that noble status.

Hey, that pencil test thing is cool. Where did you get the idea? 

California voters say a hefty NO to higher taxes and other ingenious schemes designed to prop up its bloated public sector.

Excellent.

The other day I heard a UK trade union official talk sensibly about a package of recommended shorter hours and pay-cuts for a few months to help a car manufacturer through its problems.

Not so for California:

If the budget proposals failed, Gov Schwarzenegger warned, California's deficit would swell to $21.3bn.

If that happened, deeper cuts would mean the school year being shortened by 7.5 days and an end to health care for 225,000 low-income children.

The state government would take $2bn from local governments, which could have an effect on local police and fire departments, while thousands of undocumented illegal immigrants held in state facilities would be released into federal custody.

Trite blackmail.

Why not just cut the wages of everyone on the state payroll by 5%? Then start systematically to reduce staff numbers and state-run functions?

Because the state budget exists for state employees, not for California taxpayers.

Look at this amazing piece on the accelerating decay in the heart of ObamaLand:

Tent cities of displaced homeowners have sprung up in the state's Central Valley--even in the capital, Sacramento ... The squatters living in abandoned homes are a greater threat to the economy than unemployment and crashing housing, Lashinsky says. "The damage done to the homes makes the ultimate resolution of foreclosed properties even more expensive to investors and banks."

In Riverside suburb Lake Elsinore, families of bobcats have taken up residence in vacant homes. The cats miss just as many mortgage payments, but at least they don't steal copper pipes...

... Santa Cruz, along with larger cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, helped lead the screwball state to its worst performance ever in our annual rankings of Best Places for Business and Careers. Without Flint, Mich. competing, California would have had a stranglehold on the bottom six positions on our list. High business costs, negative job-growth projections, high unemployment and high crime make this a scary place.

California. The world's most dire example of avoiding Reality - but not avoiding the consequences of avoiding Reality.

Update: Whoever is to blame, the state was bound to go broke one day, and hey, today's that day!

Here is BBRU 222 hosted by a Very British dude aka Jackart.

It led me to diamond geezer's wonderful site about all things London.

And the "usual gaggle of terrifyingly illiberal post from feminists".

Next BBRU is hosted by Liberal England.

Suggestions to britblog[at]gmail[dot]com

My latest droll article for DIPLOMAT magazine on the strange twilight world of Diplomatic Expulsions is available here:

You know the story. Only too well. Your spouse yells at you for what you have done. Or for what you have not done. Or for what you have come to represent in the tumultuous relationship. Frustrated and cross, you yell at your children. And in their frustration and crossness, your children kick the cat.

So it is with foreign ministries. Taking heat from public opinion and the prime minister/president on an awkward foreign policy problem? Frustrated and/or cross? No local cat available? Find a foreign one! Kick (out) a diplomat!

From the start, diplomats and their pseudo-detached patronising privileged ways have made a plumply tempting target for local anger and indignation. Take Aesop, a mere 2,500 years ago. He was sent to Delphi as the ambassador of King Croesus. But things went wrong.

One version has it that in an innovative gesture of bilateral munificence – these days called ‘international development assistance’ – he dispensed gold coins to the local population. So struck was he by the recipients’ ingratitude that he decided to dispense no more – a noble, principled stance, alas not adopted by today’s international developmentalists.

Another version has it that he was cheating on his expenses.

One way or another, the citizens of Delphi reacted with no little zeal to his impiety and hurled him over a cliff – the first example of an ambassador departing a posting by air after being expelled? But it turned out alright in the end, as they then suffered years of plague and pestilence and were advised by the Oracle to build a pyramid in Aesop’s honour...

And so on to contemporary examples, including a couple of good ones from my own career (as previously described here and here).

The fate of expellees:

The expelled diplomat acquires some fleeting fame and expects to be welcomed home as a hero. The reality is different.

Back at HQ, expelled diplomats merely cause a lot more work for cynical HR and press departments, who think they have enough work already. Plus, whereas other diplomatic colleagues are politely sympathetic, there is always a curious suspicion that whatever they have heard from the media and through the internal grapevine, the ‘full story’ will never be known.

Maybe there was just a hint of, horror, personal misjudgement somewhere along the line?

For whatever reason, the expellee has failed to complete a mission, and got in a personal tangle. People do not like to be associated with that: just a tad too much bad luck for comfort.

The cool Nick Lowe song I’m a Mess comes to mind:

The smart set I used to run around with are invisible now. They all cut me loose when one said that what I’ve got might just rub off on them somehow…

But beware. The DIPLOMAT website keeps the latest articles up for only a short time.

So read quickly.