European Political News

Back in early December I posted a run-down of the list of weekly columns on the Wardman Wire, using the excuse that the site “has been a bit of a building site recently with a lot of changes”. I’m pleased to say that the move from a personal political blog to a site with a wider team of writers is nearly complete - so there may be a bit more stability round here for the next few months (at least in terms of who is writing). This is an extra Blog Platform column to map out where we are and where we may be going. What Happens each Week I’m doing a rundown by day this time. There’s more to say, but I’ll keep this post as short as I can manage. Now that the rate of change on the blog is slowing down (at least in terms of new and guest writers), I’ll see if I can be more reliable at making sure that things appear on the right day. Our practice is - with one or two exceptions - to publish the column each day at 11:00am, to give time for the article to hit the RSS feed in time for the lunch break. Then nothing else appears until perhaps 4pm. As ever, the best way not to miss anything is to subscribe to our RSS feed. Nearly Every day “The Daily Roundup” is currently a roundup of 10 or a dozen newspaper stories designed to provide “blog fodder” for our readers. It focuses on interesting and occasionally unusual stories. On good days it is published around 1am; on not quite so good days with breakfast or a little later. As you can see from the podcast player in the sidebar, we experimented with a daily podcast - I hope to take that forward, but I’m thinking about a practical approach. The “Morning Funny” (which needs a better name) is a cartoon or joke which appears at the start of the day - usually at around 9:00am. There are agreements in place with 5 or 6 different cartoonists to reproduce their work, and I sometimes re-recycle a joke from the Adam Smith Institute Jokester; make that “used to re-recycle” - he has retired. Monday “The Day Job” is about what bloggers do when they are not blogging. I have only done one of these, and intend to increase the frequency. Tuesday “Politics Decoded” is Garbos weekly political comment column - running for 6 months now. Garbo publishes his “bon mots” before lunch on a Tuesday with the reliability of Mr Gordon asking Mr Cameron questions at PMQs instead of answering them. (more…)

George couldn’t decide whether it had been a nightmare about Evil Oona and the Battle of Bethnal Green, or a dream about a night of passion with a traffic warden to whom he had given a ticket … Inspired by Friday Lolcats meme. Tags: george galloway mp, respect, bethnal green, stop the war

The Egnatia Motorway across the north of Greece is one of the ‘largest road construction projects in Europe’. Six hundred and eighty kilometers long and 24.5 meters wide, it requires the construction of 1,650 bridges, 74 tunnels, 50 interchanges, 43 river and 11 railway crossings. A modern Greek marvel in the making where at least half of the costs are financed by the European Union. In Greece today, a plethora of public works are completed or in progress thanks to the generous aid of the EU. Billions in funds have been transferred southward to the EU’s only Balkan state member since its entry in 1981. By the 1990s, that assistance averaged about 3.5 per cent of GDP yearly. To put it in perspective, it would be as if the U.K. received around $87 billion from the EU in 2007. For almost a quarter of a century, Greece has been the beneficiary of a European willingness to become one cohesive whole, but despite all the bridges, ports, tunnels, roads and agricultural subsidies, Greece remains as far away from the European core as it did when it joined the Union.

 

There is always some optimism when a grand public project is announced. The Athens underground was supposed to solve the city’s traffic problems, the Olympic Games were supposed to revitalize tourism, and the Egnatia Motorway is supposed to make Greece the economic tiger of the region. There are pronouncements of great hopes when a project is planned, followed by more pronouncements when the project begins, more pronouncements during the construction and a couple more at the opening or numerous openings. Finally pessimism seems to overtake everything. These public projects are like miracles without miraculous ends. The great leap forward is always postponed for a later day.

European assistance has been to Greece what oil has been to the Middle East; the lifeline of poor government, mischievous habits and exasperated hopes. Kathimerini, an authoritative daily newspaper, reported what the cotton subsidies have done in agriculture: there was cotton production of good quality in Greece, cultivated efficiently in the most suitable fields at a good price – now farmers receive subsidies that are up to three times the market price of cotton. Cultivation of cotton has expanded in millions of unsuitable acres. Excess well drilling has drained the valleys of their underground water, and pollution from the senseless use of fertilizers has been linked to serious health problems in the adjacent residential areas. This year the cotton farmers are to receive 690 million euros in subsidies. Since this amount is based on an agreed-upon quantity to be produced, farmers will produce more and attempt to get the national government to make up the difference. The common practice is to block major motorways with tractors; then the negotiations start.

Farming is associated with independence and self-sufficiency but the subsidy farmer is a new breed. He is entirely dependent on the political process, which he thoroughly cultivates, and his connection to the land is shallow. If the farmers are not out fighting for their ‘rights,’ then someone else will be: The teachers who do not want to be evaluated, contract civil servants who want to become permanent, policemen who do not want to police, students who do not want to learn. The list is long, reflecting a Greece cut to pieces with each faction trying to impose its absurd demands on the rest. The pre-eminent action of civic participation is to demand employment in the public sector, or to defend retirement at 50, to illegally build houses in the forest, or to fully exploit one’s state-sanctioned monopoly.

For the local intellectual class, this is the triumph of politics. For decades now, progressive ideas are the only ideas in Greece. They have been so thoroughly instilled in everyone, from the first grader up to the Prime Minister, that they permeate everything. Any movement in a different direction is anti-social, reactionary, liberal, or an Anglo-Saxon barbarity. Under the tutelage of progressive ideas there are privileges without duties, advantages without merit, crime without punishment and hard work with no reward. Can a society flourish under these conditions? What is the character and the purpose of the nation? Important questions, but in Greece they were decided years ago. The only questions remaining are who gets what, when and how. Not long ago I watched a TV report about an explosion in an illegal propane station in a residential area in Athens. The illegal market for fuel is thriving thanks to exorbitant taxes. The journalist reporting the incident mentioned the illegality without a shred of emphasis. It became worse when the owner of the station talked to the camera. I could not discern any expression of shame. She had just broken the law in a dramatic way and in the process put the lives of her neighbours in danger. None of this seemed to matter to her or anyone else. It was the noise and the spectacle of explosion that counted the most; a story reported for its cinematic value, where causes and consequences are unimportant.

This is the relativism of everyday life. The most important thing is what you can get away with. It is the tragedy of the commons writ large; a public sphere where the private and the public meet under the most disadvantageous terms. Someone would expect that decades of policies intended to foster social cohesion would produce a society of benevolent people. Instead we have narrow-minded, cynical, egotists gyrating in alternate states of self-satisfaction and self-hatred.

It is not surprising that between 1991 and 2001 deaths exceeded births by more than 40,000. The rearing of a family involves an unconditional commitment to another person, an undertaking whose emotional and financial costs are obvious and direct while many of the benefits are spread out in society and over time. A family man would say that nothing could compensate for the joys of family, but in a society where the individual perceives himself as the centre of the universe committed to the proposition that all joys and pleasures are equal, the family becomes just another choice among others. When duty and virtue have become antiquated terms that one only finds in books no one reads, we have a declining society entangled in the most petty and ephemeral affairs. Unburdened by the past, unimpeded from posterity, there stands the modern Greek: a person free of any civic and moral duties. The coming of the welfare state brought the monetarization of civic responsibilities and gradually degraded them to special interest sloganeering.

Unlike any other foe the Greeks faced in the past, the one that they face now has no armies laying siege to any walls. There are no occupiers trying to impose their customs and language, no military junta to imprison, torture or banish anyone. It is a foe that does not challenge their strengths but rather assuages their weaknesses. Instead of attacking the culture, it merely trivializes it by draining it of any transcendent qualities. There is no need to assail honesty, merit and hard work; they have simply been rendered irrelevant.

A commentator recently disclosed the slogan that the army is planning to use to attract recruits: ‘A career with the security of the public sector.’ In Pericles’ funeral oration you find no such catch phrase. Pericles talks of ‘the spirit in which we faced our trials and also our constitution and the way of life which has made us great,’ of a city that is ‘open to the world’ and of ‘men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard.’ He reminded Athenians that ‘happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.’ In such a city, the soldiers met danger ‘with a natural rather than state-induced courage.’ And they did so not because they knew they would return to some secure government job, but because they wanted to preserve a city they were proud of, a city that ‘future ages will wonder at’.

In the many narrow dirty sidewalks planted against ancient ruins, the many cars that flock the busy, gray streets of Athens, the cold boxy apartment buildings, the dim image of a city emerges, a gap reveals itself. A distance greater than the passage of time, of what we were once and the way we live now.

 
This article was originally published in The Salisbury Review.

Ljubljana, Slovenia. -- As I gaze out on the prosperous and exquisite "old town" of this ancient city, now in the European Union, it seems far removed from the country of Yugoslavia of which it was part until 1991 when, after a brief battle, Slovenia won its independence. The tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, the final remnants of Yugoslavia, are felt not much more deeply here than in most other parts of the EU.

Most of the EU countries have endorsed the independence of Kosovo, but Spain and few others remain — so much for the common EU foreign policy. Slovenia will formally endorse Kosovo's independence, while many of its citizens, including most of those of Serbian heritage, remain opposed.

Thus, it is a bit ironic that the current president of the Council of the EU — which rotates every six months — is the president of Slovenia, which was the first of the former communist states to be a member of the EU in 2004 and also adopt the euro as its currency at the beginning of 2007.

By almost any measure, Slovenia has been an economic success during the last 18 years, and now enjoys a per capita income (on a purchasing power parity) almost equal to that of the average EU country, and about 60 percent of that enjoyed by the average American.

Despite Slovenia's success, it now faces many of the same problems found in the larger EU countries. Back in 1991, Slovenia, tucked up against the Austrian Alps, had the goal to be a little Switzerland with its economic prosperity and personal liberty. Yet, two decades later, the economic system in Slovenia looks more like that of France than Switzerland.

The attitude toward foreign capital at best is mixed, and in some cases outright hostile. Many Slovenian politicians argue, as do the French, that there is a "national interest" in keeping many Slovenian companies out of foreign hands. Like in much of "old Europe," unemployment is stubbornly high — more than 7 percent— because of very rigid labor markets, the reluctance to make it easier for foreign companies to invest, and bureaucratic impediments to the formation of new businesses.

The intellectual divide can be seen in the tension between the low-tax rate countries in the EU, consisting primarily of the former communist Central and East European countries with their new flat and low-rate taxes on personal incomes and corporations, and the old high-tax rate, and rigid labor market countries, typified by Germany, France, Italy and Belgium.

Last week, we saw this struggle played out in the rather unseemly conflict between Germany and Liechtenstein. The German government paid multimillion-dollar fees or bribes, depending on one's view, to a former employee of a bank in Liechtenstein to report German citizens who might be trying to evade German taxes.

Some in Europe were appalled at the German government's behavior, recalling that the original Swiss bank secrecy laws were put in place in the 1930s to keep the Gestapo from bribing Swiss bank employees, a few who had revealed the ownership of flight money placed in these banks by German Jews and other anti-Hitler Germans. Other Europeans have sided with the Germans against Liechtenstein, arguing it is wrong to use financial privacy provisions to protect tax flight funds.

The Germans and other high taxers ignore the fact that humans quite naturally tend to move their companies, funds, and even their bodies from high-tax to low-tax-rate jurisdictions. This is the major reason low-tax-rate states in the United States, such as Texas, Florida, Nevada and New Hampshire, grow much more rapidly than high-tax rate states, such as New York, New Jersey and California.

As the free movement of people and companies speeds up within the EU, and also with its neighbors, the old statist countries are going to find themselves increasingly disadvantaged. Will they resort to the rather questionable German-type reactions, or take constructive actions like reducing destructive tax rates as the Irish have done, and freeing their labor markets as the Danes have done?

Slovenia and many other EU countries are torn between these choices. Will those with an old socialist mentality win out, or will those like the young people connected with Slovenia's leading free market think tank, the Free Society Institute, with their dynamic, optimistic view of what is possible, win the struggle for Europe's future?

This article was originally published in The Washington Times, 27 February 2008 

From The Telegraph via Fleet of Worlds and Samizdata, a suggestion for a long overdue statue of Keith Park, one of (in my view) the two key figures in winning the Battle of Britain. The other was Hugh Dowding for fighting a political and bureaucratic battle to rebuild the RAF with modern equipment in the late 1930s, and for putting in place the best air control system in the world. From the Telegraph: A city philanthropist has called for the controversy over the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square to be permanently resolved by offering to fund a statue in tribute to the man who played a key role in saving Britain from Nazi invasion. on Keith Park’s role in the Battle: It was only after the war that the RAF officer’s pivotal role in defending Britain against Luftwaffe attacks was recognised by Lord Tedder, the RAF chief. “If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did. I do not believe it is realised how much that one man, with his leadership, his calm judgment and his skill, did to save not only this country but the world,” he said in 1947. It’s those Scots again: The New Zealand-born son of a Scottish geologist, Sir Keith fought in the bloody battles of Gallipoli and the Somme before an injury forced him to join the Royal Flying Corps where he achieved at least 20 kills against the Germans. It was the pilot’s astute tactical awareness of modern air warfare that saw him lead the defence of London and the south-east. If Alex Salmond will put up a statue in Edinburgh, then I will think slightly less unkindly of him. So… A statue: yes. In Trafalgar Square: yes On the Fourth Plinth: no. That has proved its value as a place for “guest statues” - both the inane and the fascinating. Tags: keith park, biggin hill, defender of london, ok1

Why do individuals and countries engage in self-destructive behavior? Many books have been written on the topic, but given the U.S. election campaign, it is worth examining why some politicians and other opinion leaders advocate policies contrary to both good theory and empirical evidence.

During the last quarter-century, most countries on the globe went through an economic renaissance as Austrian and Chicago school economists gained the upper hand from the old Keynesian and socialist policymakers. This was due to the political triumphs of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and their many disciples around the globe.

The successes of lower tax rates, deregulation, privatization, and freer trade are obvious to all who care to look, yet both in Europe and the United States many in the political class are running from these successful policies.

Reduction in both maximum individual tax rates and corporate rates for the world's freest and most successful countries, such as Singapore, New Zealand, Ireland, the US, and others has resulted in much greater tax revenues for the governments as tax impediments to work, save and invest are diminished.

Despite this evidence of success, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to increase the top tax rates, though there is no evidence that raising the top rates will result in any more revenue but there is evidence it will result in slower growth.

The "rich" they want to tax have more options than most people as to how much they make and in what form they take their income, and history shows they will go to great lengths to avoid paying high rates.

The United States now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world (including the average of the states" corporate tax rates) and is increasingly noncompetitive, yet only the Republican candidates are arguing for a reduction.

In Europe, we find a similar situation where, despite the success of the tax rate reductions, many politicians and opinion leaders are pushing for higher taxes. The reason politicians get away with putting forward economically counterproductive proposals and often just plain nonsense is that many student textbooks, particularly in Europe, and only to a lesser degree in the U.S., have a strong anti-capitalist, pro-government or socialist bias.

Business people are often portrayed as greedy and evil, rather than the providers of the goods and services most people want. In European textbooks, one can easily find capitalism described as "brutal," "savage," "neo-liberal" and "American." Some American college economic textbooks (and left-leaning professors) still ignore key issues, such as revenue and welfare-maximizing tax rates, cost-benefit analysis applied to government spending programs, regulatory costs, etc.

So is it no wonder that when politicians and others propose "economic stimulus" spending programs there is little discussion of the cost of sucking the revenue out of the private sector for the "new spending," or serious cost-benefit analysis of how the money should be spent?

Since education in almost all countries these days is chiefly in public institutions, except for relatively small numbers of students educated in U.S. private schools and universities, it should come as no surprise that the government employees doing the "educating" are biased toward the public sector and are anti-business.

The most risk-adverse individuals in society naturally seek out positions where there is little chance of job loss (tenure or civil service protections). Given human nature, they are envious and resentful of those who, by willing to accept higher risks, earn more. They naturally infect students with their own risk-adverse and pro-government security blanket attitudes. This, in turn, results in an economically ignorant electorate.

As Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher showed, all is not lost. Knowledgeable and strong political leaders can educate the public. Business leaders, business associations, and public policy organizations also can teach the public the importance and virtues of free enterprise.

Anti-business, anti-free market politicians gain control of political bodies when those who know better fail to put enough of their own time and money into educating the public.

Argentina, in the first decades of the 20th century, had the third-highest per capita income on the planet; but its politicians, starting with Juan Peron seven decades ago, ran from success by imposing destructive economic policies. Argentina now ranks number 86 despite being rich in resources.

Switzerland, by contrast, has ranked near the top in per capita income for several decades despite having few natural resources.

What does this tell us about the long-run perspective and commitment of the Swiss business and civic leaders to sound economic policies versus those in Argentina? 

This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on 18 February 2008.

A quote from Victor Davis Hanson in the German weekly Junge Freiheit, 27 February 2008

[A]fter the fall of the Soviet Union, you [=Europe] diverged onto a secularized, affluent, leisured, socialist, and pacifist path, where in the pride and arrogance of the Enlightenment you were convinced you could make heaven on earth – and would demonize as retrograde anyone who begged to differ. Now you are living with the results of your arrogance: while you brand the U.S. illiberal, it grows its population, diversifies and assimilates, and offers economic opportunity and jobs; although, for a time you’ve become wealthy – given your lack of defense spending, commercial unity, and protectionism – but only up to a point: soon the bill comes due as you age, face a demographic crisis, become imprisoned by secular appetites and ever growing entitlements. […]

If we [=America] withdrew our troops, and cut the E.U. loose, then it would see that in a world without America at its side, creepy people like Putin, Ahmadinejad, and Dr. Zawahiri are not just bogeymen of a U.S. President. […] The irony is that while Europeans periodically chest-pound and loudly vie with each other in hating the United States for various alleged sins (fill in the blanks from global warming to Iraq), slowly, insidiously we in the U.S. are drifting away from Europe, […]

[Americans] are the naive ones. They spend billions trying to jump start democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, while being blamed as “imperialists.” They keep the peace on the high seas, whether in the Persian Gulf, the Aegean, or the Korea Sea, and run up enormous deficit in the international free commerce that ensues. And they open their markets to almost anyone, and run on enormous massive debts that encourage a China or India to enter the international system of commerce and trade. […]

[Europe’s] present notion of utopia – minimal defense, socialism, atheism and agnosticism, continental governance – is a prescription for disaster. When the individual believes in nothing transcendent, has no allegiance to a notion of nationhood, and believes nothing is worth sacrificing for, stasis sets in, lethargy follows, and an effete citizenry becomes as vocal in condemnation as it is impotent in matching deed with word. […]

Being powerful and rich, but weak militarily means all your eggs are in the U.N. basket, and such multilateral associations are as corrupt as they are weak – rusty chains that reflect the vulnerability of their autocratic weak links. So you offer low-hanging, enticing overripe fruit to anyone who chooses to pick it – whether radical Islam, Iran, Putin’s Russia, or China.

And you demonize the United States for our skepticism of such questionable multilateral institutions; but we suspect that your critiques are not based on principle, but the necessity of collective defense and decision-making in lieu of a credible military. How sad that you hate the liberal nation that defends you, and appease the illiberal forces who would intimidate or destroy you.

A quote from The Daily Mail, 29 February 2008

You can get away with a lot as President of the French Republic. […] But one thing is absolutely out of the question. You cannot make the entire nation feel foolish. And yet that is how millions of French voters feel […] Already [Nicolas Sarkozy’s] behaviour has become so unpredictable that one Spanish newspaper has described the French President as "sick", while the media coverage at home has accused Sarkozy of "turning the country into a magnificent toy for a child" or of "staging Desperate Housewives at the Elysee Palace". […] [Sarkozy’s] characteristically impulsive behaviour confirmed [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel’s low opinion of the President, whom she considers to be disrespectful, overfamiliar, hyperactive and boastful. When she heard about his passion for Carla Bruni she even nicknamed him "President Duracell", after the long-life battery.

  A cartoon from Indexed. Tags: cartoon, indexed

Here is today’s roundup of stories. Blogs Economist (Economist) - Montana’s problem with new drivers’ licences Montana is larger than Germany or Japan"around 150,000 square miles. But the cities are small and scattered widely across the state, and this time of year the roads tend to be icy and treacherous. Comment Ali Eteraz (Comment is Free) - The prophet and politicsThe Prophet Muhammad was the first person to establish an Islamic state - and he should have been the last NYT (NYT) - For Obama, a Taste of What a Long Battle Holds If Mr. Obama becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, he is sure to face an onslaught from Republicans and their allies that will be very different in tone and intensity from what he has faced so far. Ben Macintyre (Times Online) - The Arts as Religion Art is our new secular religion. Just look at the motives of the criminal and the benefactor News BBC (BBC) - The most spied upon people in Europe Germany’s highest court has ruled that spying on personal computers violates privacy, but governments across Europe are under pressure to help their security services fight terrorism and organised crime. Here, BBC reporters give a snapshot of the extent of surveillance across Europe. James Mcintosh (FT) - Hedge Fund Implodes One of Londons most successful hedge funds imploded Thursday when Peloton Partners put the assets of its $2bn flagship fund up for sale and froze its remaining fund after geared mortgage bets left it unable to meet lenders demands. Guardian (Guardian) - McLaren rally round unsackable Dennis after Italian police raidsMcLaren last night dismissed rumours that their chairman Ron Dennis could be fired in the wake of the continuing Italian criminal investigation into the team’s involvement in the acquisition of confidential Ferrari design information. Richard Tyler (Telegraph) - Sting in the tail of CGT changes The Government has decided on the most severe way of introducing its new capital gains tax regime by insisting on a controversial measure that will catch thousands of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs who have already sold businesses. Scotland BBC (BBC) - Clegg sets target for Lib Dem MPsThe Liberal Democrat leader is to set his party the task of doubling its tally of Scottish MPs within six years. BBC (BBC) - Trump disappointed over inquiryThe US tycoon Donald Trump has described as disappointing the decision to hold a public inquiry into his ?1bn golf resort application. Wales BBC (BBC) - Best practice of E.coli butcher A butcher at the centre of an E.coli outbreak had featured in an Welsh Assembly Government publication promoting local businesses.

Last month, the exhibition Roma e i Barbari, opened at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. The curator, Jacques Aillagon, a former French minister of culture, says that the aim of the exhibition is “to illustrate centuries of conflictual co-existence leading to the cultural integration of Barbarian populations into the pre-existing Roman fabric.” Aillagon says “Europe at the start of the third millennium is living through a cultural revolution not unlike that of the first.” The Economist, which reviewed the exhibition, writes that “the Romans decided that assimilation was the best form of defence.”

The underlying but clear message is that we should not worry: if Europe assimilates all newcomers, things will be OK, even if they arrive in massive waves, because the Barbarians were nowhere as bad as historically depicted in the Roman propaganda. The Economist even comes up with the example of a seemingly peace-loving Attila forbidding his troops to sack Rome. Yet, when it comes to how much or how little things changed for the better when after the fall of Rome the Barbarians were in charge, the Economist says merely “historical evidence became scarce. Unlike the Romans, the Barbarians did not build for posterity...”

So should we rehabilitate the Barbarians and review Rome’s futile attempts to control immigration?

In How the Irish saved Civilization Thomas Cahill argues that when the Roman Empire fell apart and Europe descended into chaos, it was in Irish monasteries that classical texts continued to be copied and preserved during the dark period of the 5th and 6th centuries.

This is an interesting thesis which contradicts or complements politically correct wisdom that classical Greek texts came back to Europe via the Arabs, partly through Al Andalus – Spain. But the first half of the book, in which Cahill describes the mindset of your typical Roman and your typical barbarian around the fall of the Roman Empire is more relevant for the question above.

For almost one thousand years, Roman military technology and organisation was so superior and the Roman armies so determined to win that the mere sight of their battering rams outside city walls was usually enough to cause the besieged city to surrender. Although Roman armies suppressed uprisings brutally, the benefit of Roman occupation was that inside the Roman Empire reigned Pax Romana, a rule of law which enabled commerce and culture to blossom. People’s life expectancy was higher than ever before (and higher than for a long time after the fall of the Roman Empire). In the words of Ken Dark the Roman empire was “a Europe-wide state, […] with a single currency, a centralised military and legal system, and an elite connected to a transnational culture spanning western Europe and the Mediterranean with Latin as its official language.” Rome was the first multicultural empire: as long as he spoke Latin, any man could get to the top. Some have even called the Roman empire the first multinational corporation.

The Roman empire seemed the promised land to those outside: the Vandals and other barbarians across the Rhine and the Donau. For centuries a trickle of them had managed to cross that natural barrier. Earlier immigrants, such as the Gauls, had settled and integrated into the multicultural and multi-religious melting pot which was Rome and some prospered. But the idea that one day a trickle could suddenly turn into an uncontrollable flood, pushed by population pressures on the other side and swamping the oldest and mightiest empire ever in Europe seemed inconceivable to the Romans.

Yet by the fourth century AD, the empire was falling apart, although few realised an irreversible process had started. Its territories in North Africa had been abandoned to the barbarians. The military were by now held in low esteem and most recruits were non-Romans or half-Romanised barbarian mercenaries. Cahill observes that “Rome fell gradually and that Romans for many decades scarcely noticed what was happening.” The barbarian would-be immigrants were looked upon as riffraff, but their immigration was not perceived as a threat until it was too late.

Then during the winter of 406, the Rhine froze solid, and thousands of waiting Vandals, Alans and Suebians crossed into the Roman Empire without being stopped. In 410, Rome was sacked for the first time in 800 years. Only 23 years later an army of 80,000 Vandals crossed the Strait of Gibraltar

Rome fell because of internal rather than external weakness, primarily the loss of purpose, identity and the will to stand up, if necessary militarily. Libraries have been written about the causes. Kenneth Clark in Civilisation puts it like this: “Civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity – enough to provide a little leisure. But, far more, it requires confidence – confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws.” Another commentator summarises it as “Reviewing the sequences of Germanic infiltration into Roman military, administration, and society, it seems that rather than falling, the Roman state in the West willingly gave up, letting day to day control of its holdings slip from its fingers without so much as a spasm, delegating itself out of existence.” Note that the invading Barbarian armies were in fact small compared to the total population. They were just more motivated.

The world which followed the fall of Rome can really only be described as “chaos” or a “world of darkness.” There was hardly any trade, no currency, no learning anymore. Cities depopulated and life expectancy dropped. The population of Rome fell to some 100,000 during the 6th century, down from one million a few centuries earlier. In Britain the population fell by 50% between 400 A.D. and 700 A.D. In Egypt, Greece and the Balkans, it took 1,000 years for population numbers to again reach the levels of the Roman empire. In Britain, for 2 centuries following the fall of the Roman empire, the minting of coins and the use of money ceased and all trade became barter trade. It is probably no exaggeration to state that the fall of the Roman empire set Europe back at least 500 years in many ways.

Cahill compares the situation of the Roman empire in its final days to that which exists between Mexico and the US: a border with, on one side impoverished masses, trying to cross into what seems the promised land. He overlooks a much more striking parallel: that of Western Europe. Forced to give up its North African colonies it successfully integrated a first wave of immigrants such as Italians, Portuguese, but then, against all evidence, came to believe that the constant flow of immigrants from Eastern Europe and North Africa can somehow be assimilated limitlessly. The loss of belief in its own civilisation, the increase in crime, the delusional faith in a multi-cultural society, payments made to foreigners in the hope they will stay at home while at the same time legalizing any immigrants that have already moved in, the reliance on immigrants in the military, these are all clear parallels between the last century of the Roman empire and contemporary Europe.

If the Vandals could transport 80,000 across the Strait of Gibraltar 2000 years ago, why do we reject the possibility that what looks like a trickle today can suddenly become a flood, encouraged by repeated legalisations of illegal immigrants? Imagine a North-African dictator lending his naval fleet to African fugitives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Would European border guards dare to shoot at boats with women and children in the full glare of the international media? Probably not (anymore). So the trickle could turn into a flood sooner or later.

Will Europe end like the Roman empire? Unlikely (although not totally impossible either). But an exhibition to rehabilitate the Barbarians and the impact of immigration on the Roman Empire seems an ill-judged effort to convince us of the merits of present day immigration.

The roundup is a compendium of last week’s outstanding posts in the British Blogosphere. Britblog Roundup No. 138 (25-Feb-08) is hosted at Redemption Blues. There was a 5 minute spot on Radio 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs show 26 February 2008: Download audio file (20080227-britblog-review-podsandblogs.mp3). For the full shownotes of the Pods and Blogs Show, and to download the whole show (well worth it), visit Chris Vallance’s site. The roundup is a compendium of last week’s outstanding posts in the British Blogosphere. I have a couple of posts in this week - but you’ll have to go there to find out which ones. Welcome to the 158th edition of the Britblog Roundup, which, in affectionate homage to Mr Eugenides, master of the witty title, I shall dub the When Worlds Collide edition. Without further preliminaries let us proceed to the substance. A cup of tea is recommended for full enjoyment. Tags: britblog roundup, britblog Tags: britblog roundup, britblog, audio, podcast, bbc pods and blogs, bbc podsandblogs, chris vallance, matt wardman

I have just created a 468×60 banner for anyone wanting to link back to the Wardman Wire: Click through for the full size version. You can include a hosted copy in your site from here: http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/host/ww-banner-468×60.jpg This banner is a bit rough and ready, as it was created in 2 minutes - I’ll be updating this file in due course with better lettering for the slogan - so you won’t need to uddate your web page. If you use the banner, please link back to: http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/ I’d like to thank in advance any readers who kindly use the banner to link back. Tags: wardman wire banner, banner advert  

In the old days the BBC used to delight in prefacing anything to do with South Africa with the adjective ‘racist’ – the ‘racist government of South Africa’, for example. Well now comes the time when we may properly return the compliment and begin to refer to the BBC (al-Beeb to its many fans) as ‘the racist BBC’.

I am prompted so to do by the news that the BBC has on offer ninety positions on what it calls a ‘mentoring programme’. Of these forty-five are reserved for persons from ethnic minorities. Al-Beeb has denied that this amounts to illegal positive discrimination.

Well, an institution which has denounced itself as ‘institutionally racist’ and has demonstrated time and time again its hostility to and hatred of Britain would say that, wouldn’t it?

It does not matter how you cut the mustard, there are forty-five posts on offer from the BBC for which I as a white person cannot apply. That is unlawful discrimination pure and simple, discrimination against me because I am white and for no other reason whatsoever.

A quote from Srdja Trifkovic at the Chronicles website, 26 February 2008

The Palestinians “should follow Kosovo’s example and unilaterally declare independence” if peace talks with Israel fail, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide to the PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared on February 20. “Kosovo is not better than Palestine,” he added. If the United States and the majority of the European Union “have embraced the independence of Kosovo, why shouldn’t this happen with Palestine as well?”

Dr. [Condoleezza] Rice, Mr. [Under-Secretary of State Nicholas] Burns et al would reply “because we say so,” but Israeli analysts are not impressed. Col. Shaul Shay, an expert on Islamic radicalism at BESA (Begin-Sadat) Center at Bar-Ilan, thus notes that when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended, terrorist infrastructures remained there and served as a basis for the Islamic terror activities in Kosovo:

Today, the Balkans serve as a forefront on European soil for Islamic terror organizations, which exploit this area to promote their activities in Western Europe, and other focal points worldwide ... [T]he establishment of an independent Islamic territory including Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania along the Adriatic Coast, is one of the most prominent achievements of Islam since the siege of Vienna in 1683. Islamic penetration into Europe through the Balkans is one of the main achievements of Islam in the twentieth century.

The main danger, as he and other prominent Israelis see it, is that the U.S. recognition of Kosovo endorses the principle that a solution to an intractable political and territorial quarrel can and should be imposed by outside countries,
 
 
A quote from Julia Gorin at politicalmavens.com, 22 April 2007
 
Below is an exclusive report from Tuesday’s open hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs:
 
At the hearing, titled “The Outlook for the Independence of Kosova” (the Islamic and dhimmi spelling of the province), Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) – Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee – said the following:

Just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led government[s] in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. The United States’ principles are universal, and in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.

[...] Clinton holdover Nicholas Burns, State Dept. Under Secretary for Political Affairs, was the special Witness. He reiterated the U.S. position that immediate independence without standards or compromise is the only acceptable solution, because the growing violence is what guides our Kosovo policy:

It’s our view that we have now [to] act resolutely in the coming weeks…we looked at this very carefully with our European friends. And we said, are we better off supporting a solution in the spring of 2007 or delaying a year or two? We became convinced in looking at it, all of us, that the prospects for violence would be greater if we waited. Because 92 to 94 percent of the people who now live in Kosovo are Albanian Muslims. They have been waiting a long, long time…And so we the international community must act.

The State Dept. representative has just asserted that explosive Muslims will attack if we don’t give them what they want – now. He also didn’t miss the opportunity to invoke the usual Nazi imagery in reference to the Serbs — who have been getting hacked to pieces over the past eight years by Albanians — while praising the Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku, an indicted Serb-slaughterer, as “impressive” and “worthy”.
 
[...] Amid this theater of the absurd, Diane Edith Watson (D-CA) stood out as a rare voice of dissent on Kosovo:

I know the undersecretary will probably stress how unique the situation regarding Serbia and Kosovo is. But I would ask my colleagues to reflect on this for a moment and think about the reality of this statement. There are a dozen such unique situations around the globe, yet I do not see the United States advocating the independence of Somaliland from Somalia, the independence of Taiwan from China, nor the independence of Kurdistan from Iraq or Turkey […]

Burns’ appalling response to Watson’s concerns:

…Kosovo is different… and we believe that achieving the independence of Kosovo will not lead others to justify similar treatment from the United Nations or from the United States itself.

 
[…] As Sherrie Gossett wrote recently in The New Individualist magazine:

In October 2005, some six years after Kosovo became a UN protectorate, Norwegian Ambassador to NATO Kai Eide published a review of how Kosovo was meeting UN-set standards. “With regard to the foundation of a multi-ethnic society,” Eide wrote, “the situation is grim.” …The report also cited “widespread illegal occupation of property.” Prosecution of serious crimes was said to be hindered by “family or clan solidarity and by the intimidation of witnesses as well as of law enforcement and judicial officials.” Failure to prosecute crimes targeting minorities was said to result in a climate of “impunity.”

The piece de resistance on Tuesday came from Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY):

And I want to in a bipartisan fashion commend President Bush and the administration, President Clinton as well. Both presidents understand that this issue needed and needs to be resolved. And the president, President Bush, has been steadfast in saying that this really needs to be done now.
 
…And I couldn’t agree with you more, Mr. Burns, that the possibility of violence if we delay is something that increases as we delay. People there have been waiting for years, and now really is the time.

 
At the height of the March, 2004 Kosovo pogrom against Serbs, in which another 4,000 Serbs fled the province and scores of homes, churches and monasteries were set ablaze, Engel – who has said he wants to be the first U.S. lawmaker to stand on independent Kosovo soil – addressed the House of Representatives:

When there is no resolution of the final status, the people in a country become restless because they see no future… Right now there is rampant unemployment. Right now there is very little hope for a future…Self-determination and, ultimately, independence for the people of Kosovo is the only solution. When people do not see a chance for self-determination, tensions fester beneath the surface when you do not move to resolution… What we have seen…is this ridiculous plan called standards before status.

These are the same words used to excuse or justify terrorism against Israelis. For a Jewish congressman to be advocating statehood before standards is interesting indeed. Let the record show that Engel is for rewarding terror with independence. Palestine, take note.
 
Also from Engel at Tuesday’s hearing: “[T]he Kosovars are pro-American, so pro-American it isn’t funny, and they will be a strong ally of the United States and of NATO and of the European Union.”
 
But an officially sanctioned narco-terrorist gangster state that was won with material help from al Qaeda will hurt us as much as it will pretend to help. Are we really supposed to operate under “the illusion that concessions to violence and the threat of violence can promote the creation of a moderate Muslim democracy?” asks Jim Jatras of the American Council for Kosovo.
 
Burns joined in this charade:

…There’s a street named after President Clinton; there’s a street named after Congressman Engel, and I hope there’ll be a street… named after President Bush because this has been a bipartisan effort, Democrats and Republicans.

There are also avenues named for Bob Dole and Wesley Clark, two highly prized Albanian purchases. But when good will is acquired by doing someone’s bidding, pro-Americanism is won for the wrong reasons, and the gratitude will turn on a dime the moment we stop furthering that party’s agenda. In Kosovo, it began happening as early as 2000, when the Kosovars started calling for the UN and NATO “occupiers” to get out. Nor do the American and British flags hanging upside-down from Pristina’s Victory Hotel bode well for the future of pro-Americanism in “Kosova”.

A quote from Carl Mortished in The [London] Times, 27 February 2008

Your greed is not good, say Britain and Germany, pointing accusing fingers at thousands of very wealthy clients of LGT, the Liechtenstein bank at the centre of a row over tax havens. But bend your ear and you might just hear, beneath the cries of moral indignation over alleged tax evasion, a compromise – sotto voce. Greed is not good, say Europe's finance ministers, unless we can have 40 per cent.

The state is on the march, in search of ever more cash to oil its creaking machinery. It will even buy stolen property – in this case the client details of thousands of LGT customers, hawked by a thieving employee – if it leads to another treasure trove. Britain invented income tax to pay for the war against Napoleon. Two hundred years on, money is again needed to finance foreign wars, to fund the distribution of bread to the poor and to pay for Olympic circuses that entertain. The hunger of government for more of the national cake is acute and it is becoming a problem.

A rather complacent comment from a member of the piccolo (8% market share) army of smug Mac users: Easy peasy. Now, be a good kid and go buy a Mac! reminded me that I had a Steve Jobs edition of “Double Trouble” in the cupboard waiting to be rolled out. Every time I see a picture of Steve Jobs being cool I think of Yoffy, who used to run a BBC TV Children’s Programme called “Fingerbobs“: Yoffy Steve Jobs   Incidentally, I also think of the Sheriff of Nottingham from the latest postmodern version of Robin Hood. That would be the one where Frodo Baggins Robin says to his Merry Men Socially Unacceptable Inebriated Persons of Questionable Legality who Make Their Living by Alternative Means: “If we do this, we will do it as a Team”. Sheriff of Nottingham Fingermouse By the way, this is Fingermouse (with Scampi): Wrapping-Up Probably Not Wrapping Up Cue a wave of outrage from Apple fans. Ooops. Tags: steve jobs, fingerbobs, fingermouse, yoffy, sheriff of nottingham, apple, apple mac

Now that I have the links between my different websites in place, I have been looking at the amount of traffic being generated over the last month, and the most popular articles. Total Raw Traffic On this occasion I’ve processed all the raw log files using the free version of a utility called Deep Log Analyser, rather than relying on the data generated by a Wordpress Plugin. However, once caveat is that at least 4 of the sites (those which aggregate Parliamentary blogs - www.senedd.me.uk, www.holyrood.me.uk, www.europarl.me.uk and www.parliament.me.uk) are all less than a week old. So I have had to include some judicious estimates in the figures. Another difference is that certain files that are not part of the Wordpress installation are included in the numbers. The raw total of page impressions is 376,000 across all the 13 sites (the twelve in the toolbar and www.mattwardman.co.uk). More than half of these relate to www.mattwardman.com. The Impact of Files that shouldn’t count These are the top 5 files listed for www.mattwardman.com and what they are: Page Views - Filename - What is it? 14,880 Page Views. polls-js.php. This is used for in page polls which are refreshed without reloading the page. This should be excluded. 14,452 Page Views. podpress_js.php Part of the Podpress wordpress plugin. Not actually used on this blog. I should really find a way to exclude this. 13,872 Page Views. /blog/feed/index.php This is the home page for the RSS feed. This could be included or excluded depending on which statistics I am interested in. 11,747 Page Views. clickmanager.cgi This is the redirector programme “bounced off” when I need to count clicks on a link. This indicates 11,747 clicks on links in 30 days. I use it, for example, to count the clicks on the toolbar (hover over a button and see the “double” web address), and the clicks on stories in the Daily Roundup. This should be excluded. 10,710 Page Views. /blog/index.php At last one that counts. This is the Blog home page. It counts for very few impressions out of the total. I will return to this - it is a sign of how important blog archives are for attracting traffic. So - just to exclude 4 of these top 5 reduces the traffic to www.mattwardman.com by roughly 50,000 page impressions over the raw log files. Counting from inside Wordpress are cleaner, but still have a lot of “gunge” in the data. So what is a Reasonable Total? I am happy to quote a total number of page impressions for this 30 day period of “around 250,000” - a reduction of a third. But having done that - 250,000 page impressions in a month on a set of sites that are mainly only 8 months old is OK. The figure for the main www.mattwardman.com site is around 130,000-140,000 page impressions (with approximately another 30,000 or so for www.mattwardman.co.uk). These figures themselves roughly tally with the numbers given by the Slimstat-EX Wordpress plugin (140,000 and 35,000 respectively - also probably containing some search crawling). The Real Top Ten Pages on www.mattwardman.com After filtering out the noise, the following are the Top Twelve pages on the site in the last 30 days. Go and have a look at the links, and write down your conclusions - then read my notes below. Page Views - Date - Title and Link 3942 Page Views - 20070912 - In memory of free speech - Jesus and Mo - serious 3825 Page Views - 20070501 - Double Trouble - Posh Spice and Ananova - humour, morning funny 2130 Page Views - 20071010 - Wordpress Plugin - Category Images - tech tip 1616 Page Views - 20080213 - ABC Rowan Firestorm was started by the BBC - serious analysis 1422 Page Views - 20070904 - New Scottish Government launches official website - satirical 1280 Page Views - 20070905 - This posting may contain nuts - serious but funny - health and safety series 998 Page Views - 20070404 - Double Trouble - Guido Fawkes and Zorro - humour, morning funny 995 Page Views - 20070411 - Double Trouble - Morgan Lifecar and Thomas the Tank Engines - humour, morning funny 849 Page Views - 20071016 - Lib Dem leadership contest to replace Ming Campbell - humour, Lib Dems = box of ferrets 817 Page Views - 20070609 - Video Game Battle between Sony and Church of England - serious analysis 812 Page Views - 20080211 - Britblog Roundup - Ideas for Avoiding the Archbishop - serious 709 Page Views - 20070815 - Do Health and Safety Professionals Get too Much of a Kicking - serious - health and safety series (more…)

A quote from AnsaMed, 27 February 2008

Israel's largest circulation daily, Yediot Ahronot, has apologized for having published last week the controversial Danish caricature showing the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban about to explode. The picture was part of a report from Denmark. But, at the same time, some dozens of Arab readers wrote to the newspaper that they felt offended by the publication and threatened to cancel their subscriptions. "Yediot Ahronot respects the Muslims and their faith," editor Shilo De-Ber wrote to Arab representatives in Israel. "The editorial staff regrets and apologizes to those who have felt hurt by the publication".

 

 

 

 

Here we go again. We have a government demanding that we let the power exist to lock people up for 42 days, and making “it won’t happen very often” an excuse, and we have a police force demanding that the crimes that have been solved because of 5 million records on the DNA database and nearly as many CCTV Cameras justify putting us under more and more control. Signally, the Association of Chief Police Officers is calling for: a debate on whether to expand the current database - of DNA details taken from crime suspects - to cover all people in the UK. This is the wrong place to focus that debate. The question should be whether we scale the DNA database down so that it does not impinge on the human rights of individuals. As things stand, we have the rights of the innocent being routinely abused in DNA samples being retained. The same goes for the guilty - it is wrong to routinely keep DNA records when the sentence for a crime has been served. There are exceptions to this, but not many. Meanwhile we have a challenge in the European Court to the right for the police to retain the DNA of the innocent, purely because they happen to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time when an enquiry was in progress. The argument is based on how many crimes have been solved using DNA techniques. Solve the Problem not the Symptom However, we know that treating the symptoms of crime will not ultimately fix the problem. It did not fix it when Michael Howard told us “prison works”, and it has not worked for the 2 N million extra fixed penalty notices handed out to increase the safety of drivers who were not trained properly originally. We must address the causes, and that requires members of our society to take decisions not to commit crime in the first place. So where does that leave us? In short, at present we are on a helter-skelter to greater and greater state control of the individual - in a rush to be seen to address a panicky fear of crime in ways that are unlikely to fix the root cause anyway. (more…)

When France ratified the EU’s Lisbon treaty, President Sarkozy went on television the following evening (10 February) to tell the French people that his refusal to submit the treaty to a referendum had been part of a “deal” with the other EU states.
 
“In order to convince all our partners to accept this new simplified treaty which we were proposing and which was no longer a constitution,” Sarkozy said, continuing with his pretence that the Lisbon treaty is more simple than the constitution, which it is not, “we had to promise to ratify it in parliament if we reached an agreement. If the condition had not been fulfilled, no agreement would have been possible.” [The allocution of the president of the Republic was posted on the Elysée Palace web site, 10 February 2008.]
 
In other words, the heads of state and government of the EU colluded with one another to ensure that no referendum was held in France on the new constitution. It is difficult to imagine a more flagrant demonstration of the deliberately anti-democratic political culture and practice of the EU.
 
In the eyes of the other EU states, France counted as an unreliable partner after the rejection of the EU constitution in 2005, and after it broke ranks (with Germany) against the Iraq war in 2003, a war supported by the majority of EU states and by all the then candidate countries (now members) in Eastern Europe. The other EU states regarded Jacques Chirac’s decision to submit the constitution to a referendum as irresponsible. Nicolas Sarkozy said in his television address that France had managed to restore some its credit with its European partners by concocting the Lisbon treaty in such a way that it could be ratified without recourse to a new popular vote.
 
However, it is not, in fact, France which has been the most unreliable country where the ratification of new treaties is concerned. Surprisingly, that honour goes to Germany. Germany was the last country to ratify the Maastricht treaty in 1993 and it never ratified the European constitution either. In both cases, the reason was the same: the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. When permitting the ratification of Maastricht, the Court imposed severe restrictions on the terms of that ratification, while for the Constitution it suspended it altogether. It is possible (though unlikely) that the same thing may happen again where Lisbon is concerned.
 
In 1993, the Eurosceptic Manfred Brunner, a former official of the European Commission and leading light in the FDP Liberal party, took the Maastricht treaty to Karlsruhe saying that the abolition of the deutsche mark was unconstitutional. The court agreed to permit the ratification of the treaty only on the basis that currency stability would be as well protected by the European Central Bank as it had been by the Bundesbank. It also ruled that the role of the European Court of Justice in protecting human rights in Germany could be exercised only as long as it did not conflict with its own rulings on human rights. Theoretically, therefore, Germany could even now revoke its membership of the euro on the grounds that the terms of the ratification had not been respected (if there was substantial euro inflation, for instance).
 
In the case of the defunct constitution, the German president, Horst Köhler, promised in 2005 not to sign the instrument of ratification until Karlsruhe ruled on an appeal against the constitution which had been lodged with it by a Bavarian member of the Bundestag, Peter Gauweiler (an old friend of Brunner’s, who by then had left politics) who had claimed that it transferred too much power to Brussels and Luxemburg. Following the rejection of the constitution by France and the Netherlands, Karlsruhe kicked the matter into touch by saying that in view of the ongoing political discussion about what to do next, it did not see any reason to rule on the appeal. Eventually, as we know, the constitution was dropped anyway.
 
Might any dormant reservations about Lisbon and the constitution resurface when the new treaty is ratified? There will definitely be new appeals against it by the Nuremberg jurist, Karl-Albrecht Schachtschneider, one of Germany’s foremost Eurosceptics and the mastermind behind the previous appeals. There are indeed some grounds for saying that the ratification of Lisbon might prove problematic in Germany in 2008. There is dissatisfaction among the governments of Germany’s Länder that their rights will be bulldozed by the new treaty, and this has already led to a postponement of the ratification of the treaty by Germany’s upper chamber, the Bundesrat, composed of the Länder governments. [Report, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 February 2008.]
 
Germany’s attachment to its internal federalism means that the centralisation of power in Brussels is a touchy subject. But even national politicians are worried about it too. According to one German newspaper [Handelsblatt, 25 February 2008], the German government is preparing to change the constitution in order to facilitate the ratification of the Lisbon treaty (usually referred to as “Reform Treaty” in Germany): the treaty provides for national parliaments to appeal against decisions by the European Council, but the proposed provision for one third of members of the German Bundestag to make such an appeal is nowhere to be found in the existing German Basic Law. In other words, the government wants to highlight its claim that the Lisbon treaty increases the participation of national parliaments in EU decision-making by making this change (although in reality the treaty restricts the right of appeal to cases where the EU acts according to a “special legislative procedure”, while greatly centralising power in Brussels in all other cases).
 
However, no less a person than the head of the Constitutional Court himself, has expressed his concern at the new treaty. Judge Hans-Jürgen Papier welcomed the Lisbon treaty when it was ratified, but also said that the text was so unclear that it was in danger of not being accepted by people. [Tagesspiegel, 14 December 2007] He also said specifically that the treaty had failed clearly to delineate the powers of Brussels, still less restrict them as would have been desirable. “Substantial legislative must remain with the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.” He has called for the financial autonomy of the Länder to be strengthened in order to protect their rights.
 
Would Papier and his fellow judges ever reject the Lisbon treaty on this basis? I very much doubt it. His predecessor, Paul Kirchhof, who was president of the Court at the time when Maastricht was ratified, wrote eloquently on the necessity to retain sovereign states as the indispensable protectors of human rights and democracy. The treaty was ratified all the same, because the Court said it could not stand in the way of the clearly expressed will of the two chambers of the German parliament. But each of these concessions made to the principles of national rights will leave its mark. Maastricht passed the Court’s scrutiny only by a whisker; Lisbon will create new dissatisfactions. However, we are a very long way from reaching the point where either the political class in Germany or the judges on its constitutional court will actually turn against the European project itself over which, for the most part, Germany continues to exercise a decisive influence. I therefore do not believe that discontent among the Länder government will be sufficient to override party political discipline in favour of the new treaty and, under those circumstances, the treaty will go through the Courts as easily as it will go through the Parliament.

We have been waiting for this since TEBAF Margot first announced them, and now we have the answer. The first funding for the new European Political Foundations will be 5 million Euro per annum, starting in 2008, just in time for funding campaigns in the 2009 European elections. This is to be paid for out of your money, via the good offices of the European Parliament.

The President of Parliament, Mr Pöttering has written to to Reimer Böge, Chairman of the Budget Committee to free up the cash at the Committee meeting on the 28th February.

Another budget line who cares, you might say. What the hell is one of those anyway?

The EPFs are the latest in a long line of organisations designed to gainfully employ the European political elite using taxpayer's money to tell them that Europe is wonderful.

You see they are a direct offshoot of European Political Parties, which are according to the regulation that created them in November 2003,

Joachim Véliocras writes at Islamisation, a website devoted to monitoring the steady Islamization of France. He has recently posted several articles on the projected Grand Mosque of Bordeaux, and questions the judgment of Alain Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux, who supports the project. Juppé, a member of President Sarkozy’s UMP party and the former French Prime Minister (1995-1997), is running again for mayor of Bordeaux in the upcoming municipal elections:

The Grand Mosque of Bordeaux project is spearheaded by the Association of Muslims of la Gironde (AMG), a member of the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France). The project, approved by the city in 2005, will be situated on the Garonne River and will house a prayer room for 2500 persons, a cafeteria, a cultural center with an amphitheater, a library, classes in the instruction of Arabic open to non-Muslims, and guest rooms.

Tariq Oubrou, mufti of the mosques operated by the AMG, will be the Sheik of the Grand Mosque. Oubrou, an intellectual pillar of the UOIF since its inception, has given lectures in the past on Hassan Al-Banna (1906-1949), in which he praises the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood for whom “it is in the nature of Islam to dominate, to impose its law on all nations and to spread its power throughout the entire world.”

Véliocras has some quotes from the lectures, including one where Oubrou accuses Mustapha Kemal of being a “Jew” disguised as a Muslim who abolished the Caliphate in 1925 adding that:

The Caliphate is an obligation, and the union of Muslims around the Caliph is an obligation.

In another quote Oubrou declares:

Islam, as directed by the Koran, touches all domains of life. It is a State, a country. It groups the whole community in one geographical entity. There are no borders. A border between two countries is a contemptible heresy in Islam. The Muslim Brothers do not recognize borders between Muslim peoples.

Still another quote from Oubrou:

Caliph directs people's lives through religion, he directs relations between men through religion. And when we say religion, it is not in the ecclesiastical or Judaic sense of the term. Religion in Islam has a completely different meaning, it is a way of life, a conception of things, a way of life according to the will of Allah. Others, non-Muslims... Alain Juppé is therefore the target of Sheik Tariq Oubrou.

 
It turns out, however that Mayor Juppé has a very good rapport with the promoters of the Grand Mosque of Bordeaux. In a “chat” held by Le Monde, readers asked the incumbent mayor some questions:

Question: When will the Grand Mosque of Bordeaux be built?
 
Juppé: We are in discussions with the Muslim community. We have excellent relations with the main leaders. I have already indicated that land would be offered to them. They are now working on the planning which, I hope, will materialize in the next few years.

Véliocras explains:

The city of Bordeaux purchased 11,000 square meters of land from the RFF [Rail Networks of France, a public establishment that owns, manages, and develops French railroads], only to turn them over to the Association of Muslims of la Gironde, in the form of a long-term lease and a symbolic rent, as is customary in cities run by UMP Party mayors, who wish to get around the law of 1905 separating Church and State.

 
In the same “chat” Mayor Juppé expressed his desire to develop the largely Islamic market place now situated at the foot of the magnificent Saint-Michel Basilica, in the heart of the historic district:

Juppé: I have repeatedly and clearly indicated that what makes Saint-Michel stand out, most notably the presence of a very colorful market on Saturdays and Sundays, will be preserved and even developed.

 
Véliocras differs with the mayor:

“Very colorful”? No. Ethnically very homogenous. On the square and the adjacent streets, there are ten halal butcher shops, no French butcher shop. Two Islamic bakeries where the saleswomen are veiled. Insurance agencies, banks, groceries, clothing stores... Everything is Muslim. It happens that I have lived in Bordeaux and witnessed directly the Islamic colonization of the city. One Saturday morning, I visited the market and took these photos.

There follows a series of photos of the market, two of which are posted here. To view all of them click here.

At Galliawatch I have spoken numerous times about long-term leases as a device for building mosques. Click here for an expanded explanation.

A quote from The Daily Telegraph, 26 February 2008

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali [the Anglican bishop of Rochester], who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed that he will continue to speak out. His claim that Islamic extremism has turned some parts of Britain into “no-go” areas […] led to threats that he and his family would be harmed.

Yet, in his first interview since the sinister calls were made to his home, the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced. “I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out," he says. "The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out.”

He arrived in Britain in the 1980s and seems to have taken up the mantle for defending the country's values he fears are being threatened by a loss of its Christian heritage. […]

Shortly after being made a bishop in Pakistan - at 35 he was the youngest in the Anglican Church - he was forced to flee to Britain to seek refuge from Muslims who wanted to kill him. He says that he never expected to suffer the same treatment in Britain and expresses concerns over recent social developments.

“The real danger to Britain today is the spiritual and moral vacuum that has occurred for the last 40 or 50 years. When you have such a vacuum something will fill it. If people are not given a fresh way of understanding what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a Christian-based society then something else may well take the place of all that we’re used to and that could be Islam.”

[…] While the archbishop received widespread support f