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Posts Tagged ‘British Interests’

This picture of the G8 Leaders sitting around a table together, is very symbolic because whilst they can arrange a meeting and deliver a conference, the one thing that they can’t do is deliver their electorates.

Solving the Euro crisis would be simple if either the Eurozone countries opted for a “United States of Europe” where all resources are pooled, both assets and liabilities or, Germany accepted ‘funding’ such a programme without such a structure. The real problem as the election of Hollande in France and the non-election of any kind of government in Greece demonstrates is that the average European voter is not prepared to face reality.

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All Socialists are Pond Life…but so too are their equivalents on the political Right, both are stuck fast in “nostrums and remedies” based upon political dogma from the past that have little to no relevance in today’s world. The biggest problem when faced with the failure, real or apparent of one course of action, is to immediately correct it by steering sharply in the opposite direction which seems to be the reaction of the French people in electing Hollande to the Presidency.

Whilst this is natural, when it comes to nations and economies, perhaps this is not the wisest course of action to take in fact, it is most likely the wrong one and can lead to lots of unintended and nasty consequences.

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I returned to the “Britain and the EU” theme recently only because of an article in The Economist on the subject of a proposed UK Referendum on the topic. I posted a comment against the article and as a result got some interesting replies. Often most replies on this topic are a waste of time because both the For and the Against mob consider their opposites heretics that should be burnt at the stake, never a basis for rational debate.

However sometimes, debate is possible and it teases out the various threads to the subject which is a good thing so the following are really various ‘one sided conversations’ which may work in covering some ground, this may or may not work, I offer it as is…

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Apparently the former ‘Dark Lord’, an European Groupie if ever there was, Peter Mandleson has put forward the idea that we should hold a UK Referendum on an IN or OUT basis. As someone wryly commented, a proposition that only a person no longer seeking elected office could make. Of course it is more likely that as the EU isn’t a burning issue with the British public, his guess is that confronted with a straight choice, they could be easily intimidated by tales of what they might lose by leaving the EU, a very Brussels stance if ever there was.

However and even for those of an “Visceral Anti-EU” posture, the fact that someone like Mandy proposes it, of itself might indicate that there is no need for an “IN/OUT” Referendum because the EU as we currently know it, is unlikely to survive it’s Nemesis the Euro.

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The French have that lovely expression: “Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose”- The more things change, the more they stay the same and I suspect that that is the case with the election of Francois Hollande as the new French President. The truth is that for all the noises and echoes of the election trail, as things currently stand, there is little prospect of significant change.

None of the key elements have changed, the problems are the same and frankly as the UK Coalition Government knows, having power under these circumstances is a bit of a poisoned chalice, being in Opposition is safer. The only problem then of course as in the case of Mr Hollande, is when you stop being the Opposition and are now in power ! Alors ! Merde and other such words…

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Whichever political party is in power, they always accuse the BBC of reporting and briefing against them which looked at dispassionately, would seem to indicate that they (BBC) must be doing something right. Unfortunately, I don’t think that matters are quite as simple as that and whilst Leveson is about the past, it does give us an opportunity to examine how all media outlets function which includes the BBC.

The Music and Film industries have failed to establish a successful business model to deal with the digital age, Newspapers are no different and if Murdoch is right that that they will have disappeared completely within 20 years, we really should be projecting our thinking forward towards a totally digital age and asking questions about both news delivery and news management within the UK. In this context because the BBC is paid for from taxation, this is where we need to start, both the staff and management need to know that the party is over, change will have to come.

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Reforming the Lords is always a “biggie” for the Left simply because they are called “Lords” but the reality is that today they are just the “Village Elders” in a very peculiar and British way. Broadly speaking and in an advisory capacity with no real powers, they do a good job as a revising chamber.

There have been calls for over 100 years to abolish or radically to reform the Lords but all attempts have come to nought largely. In fact the most radical thing to have happened apart from reducing their powers to delaying legislation only, was the Blair Government banishing most of the hereditary Peers from sitting in the House of Lords. As things currently stand there is no case for reform of the Lords, it would be a retrograde step in terms of governance.

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One of the key things about the whole issue of the Falklands is the outright bemusement the British people generally, have towards the stance and attitude of the Argentinian Government. For the British, the sovereignty of the islands is non-negotiable until/unless the Falkland Islanders want to look at the possibility. It is for the Argentinians to persuade the Islanders that they would have a better future as part of Argentina, it is not for the UK Government to “tell” the Islanders what they must do, after all, this isn’t Argentina is it ?

Hilariously and after apparently a 3 year gap which I suspect no one noticed over here, we have a new Argentinian Ambassador called Alicia Castro who set out her stall with an article in The Telegraph, it is rather dire to say the least but a good example of how NOT to take up your new post in a foreign capital I suspect. It is also quite amazing how out of touch the Argentinians are to even consider publishing this in the Telegraph, The Guardian or Independent would have been a far better bet ! To know how wrong they were, a quick look at the readers comments will make the point. It couldn’t be a delayed April Fools prank could it ?

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There were a number of interesting articles in The Economist on Scottish Independence and one was quite amusing: http://www.economist.com/node/21552572 “The economics of home rule: Scotland could probably go it alone now, but the economics of independence are steadily worsening”.

Quite hilariously I got involved in a “comments war” in the reader’s comments section but I must confess that whilst Scots Nats always have a chip on their shoulders, I really didn’t realise what had set them off until the next day. Because I read on line, I didn’t see the “tongue in cheek” map of Scotland the Economist had put on its cover which along with the headline “It will cost you…” also renamed it Skintland…

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For an exercise in soft and weak minded liberalism, it would be hard to beat an editorial in The Independent that prattles on about youth unemployment. Whilst they sketch out some of the issues rather as plotting dots on a chart, they totally fail to join those dots up. The current levels of unemployment are distressing in all sorts of ways but what this Editorial like most politicians seem to miss is the key point about these figures…

This is not the disease, it is just a symptom of the real underlying ailment that is not local but global in nature. If you want to read it yourself, here is the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-we-allow-joblessness-to-rise-at-our-peril-7627537.html

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