The Bewilderness

Budgeting for failure

The real difficulty arriving for Cameron is coalescing on the budget. He cannot say one thing to his fellow leaders in Europe: I hobnob with you but unless my parliamentarians swallow the biscuit, you can forget agreement of a budget. Still, it is a proud moment that the Mother of Parliaments rather than the Bundestag is forcing the pace in Europe for once. 

Cameron is caught between a Europhile coalition partner, restive backbenchers and opportunistic Labour. Miliband has called for a freeze, co-operating with Mark Reckless and the neo-bastard wing of the Conservative Party. The Prime Minister's instinct for compromise has led him to be outflanked by Eurosceptic rivals and the Opposition. Voting paralysis on European developments is a real possibility.

If Cameron is boxed into a veto, this will give an impetus to set up separate institutions for the Eurozone outside of the EU. Integration will then take place outside of the current formal structures. The accepted given of British disengagement and withdrawal will come ever closer to reality. And faced with Janus administrations of pro and anti-Europeans, our influence will be weakened whatever governments do. Romano Prodi is correct: Britain will face grave difficulties if we opt to stay in the EU and attempt to maintain parity with an integrated core; we will be outvoted every time. This is not an option.

When the next election occurs, integration around a core single currency will leave us on the sidelines. The Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party will have severe difficulties explaining why they shoudl give up what little power they have left for the ability to squeak and be overruled. I think we can expect a further revolution in attitudes to Europe on the Left. 

Cow kills man story

Is this a man bites dog story? As a walker I am aware that cows can kill. One minute placid creatures chewing the cud, then moooo and splat. A lonely hiker disappears across some misty feld and we all sagely nod our heads: "It was the cows wot done it".

So, no surprise when a cow kills a man on the Muslim Festival, Eid. The cow was a sacrificial dinner and wised up. A Far Side homicide

De Generation Game

They will have to write off the debt from each state on the debt generation game as they travel along the conveyor belt from realisation to depression. In a bathetic reversal of what we see, a journey from the ridiculous to the sublime. 

Yet Sweeney Todd in the economic guise of Debt is about to swing his razor and impose a swinging haircut on all Greek debtors. Most frightening of all, for those who chose to march to the funeral tune of the 'Day of the Dead', is that the haircut will decapitate the myth that taxpayers are inoculated from credit writedowns.

Those taxpayers will not be happy... 

Cameron faces up to the clerisy

The challenges that developments within the European Union's political framework pose to the coalition are now arriving more frequently. Despite favourable statements supporting a banking union and greater integration for the Eurozone, the Conservatives find that their unforgiving stance on the European budget acquires greater opprobrium. They face a concerted effort on the part of poorer countries to use development budgets as a tool of redistribution.

This firm stance (with an elaborate and symbolic utterance of veto, echoing Thatcher's handbag rhetoric) seems to combine domestic rhetoric with an aggressive demand for the repatriation of certain powers. The repatriation has focused upon areas of criminal justice and the repeal of the European Arrest Warrant. Yet, such rhetorical tactics are known to harden the resistance of other European politicians and rarely meet the expectations of the radical backbenches. So why do it? Why cause yourself so much pain?

Perhaps European negotiations are zero sum games: to win, one must trade some perks for others. To allow a European budget, perhaps Cameron is signalling that he wishes to obtain concessions in other areas. Yet repatriation is such a betrayal of ever closer union that Angela Merkel of Germany does not seem to be able to entertain the notion, preferring cancellation of the summit.

Could Cameron have overplayed his hand? He may not be dealing with rational players (also known as politicians), willing to horsetrade for their goals. His counterparts could be described to ideologues, determined to foster further integration and unable to countenance any deviation in that ideology. Cameron is no longer viewed as a trader but as a heretic and deviant, head of a schismatic sect. This latter view may help Brexit, since the troublesome critics are expelled.  

The thick red line

The BAE Systems- EADS merger always invited scepticism in its goals and impact. The complex slew of profit, politicians and national interest set a very high bar. Yet, gratifying to hear that a red line for Britain was executive control. 

The core of Europe's rotten apple begins to harden

During Cameron's interview on the Andrew Marr show, the Prime Minister endorsed teh development of a second and separate budget for the Eurozone. Such a pot of money would ease pressure on Britain to appease the hard core if all decisions were channelled through the current institutions.Short term political expediency and the advantage of diverting integration to a new set of parallel institutions prove attractive to all political parties in Britain.

The division commenced when the fiscal treaty was signed by most Member States last year. Britain vetoed and then stood to one side. Now early critics like the French socialists have passed the treaty: the Eurozone emergency proving more persuasive than principle.

Now, the core and periphery, so successfully modelled in the currency union, will be replicated in the EU's arrangements. Enthusiasts are still attached to the term 'two speed', but the reality is a inner and outer zone. Given current troubles, stop and reverse appear attractive directions when confronted with the Eurozone. Britain, France and Germany all, for different reasons, support this development. 

Yet, is this a permanent development or flotsam discussed and soon to be blown away under the pressure of events. I regard all current proposals as temporary, subject to deformation, and hostage to the fortunes of the single currency

Seeking redemption

Every morning, before commencing work, I take time out to read a text. In the past few years, I have ploughed through Montaigne, Skinner, Hume, Locke, Adam Smith and Rawls. My choice has been the books that we ought to have read on this coil.

My current wrestling partner is Robert Nozick's "The Examined Life", a set of philosophical meditations that the philosopher set down as he placed his concerns within a thematic setting. Much of the book is a curiosity: an alternate perspective that never quite compels the reader to take up cudgels or cast scales from their eyes. Until we come to the chapter on the Holocaust. Like many of his generation, Nozick viewed this event as a uniquely evil occurrence. Its significance was a matter of kind, rather than degree. Such a claim is contested by many, but I do not wish to engage with that debate. Such value judgments are invariably subjective, particular to each individual and usually impervious to persuasion.

For me, Nozick's interpretation of the Holocaust in terms of Christian theology was compelling. He compared this atrocity to the original Fall and argued that Christ's time on Earth had come to an end. The sins for which Christ redeemed himself on the Cross were overwhelmed by the charnel houses. The horror of this evil washed away the promised redemption of Christian myth. Nozick then takes this one step further and states that if mankind were become extinct, then the lack of being redeemed rendered our existence as naught.

For Nozick, the Holocaust removed the value of humanism. As such, it is an argument from despair since this evil overwhelms all other aspects of western civilisation. Perhaps only distance and the erasure of memory can counter the stench. But the question that the philosopher posed is still unanswered, perhaps not taken up: Have we fallen and do we need to seek redemption 

 

The appearance of cuts....

George Osborne was buoyed along by reprising the reheated rhetoric of 2010 calling for further cuts in spending and no new taxes. Apart from one gimmick, the speech was light and lean, reflected the paucity of ideas at the heart of this administration. By invoking the prospect of further benefits cuts (their only popular policy?), Osborne flew into Liberal Democrat flak: the one political party that eschews popular coalition policies for their own idea of what people want (think Left!). Clegg was quick to chew his fat: cuts for taxes, rich for poor, mansion tax for reducing welfare.

However, in happier news, the OECD leading indicators appeared to show Britain decoupling from Europe and enjoying economic growth whilst the Eurozone plunged....

Multishambles

The European Parliament is unhappy with the lack of consultation by the Council of Ministers and the Commission in regards to the proposals for economic and monetary union. Talk of a new treaty to achieve this goal is viewed as an attempt to sideline all Parliamentary assemblies (how does this tally with the dominant role of the Bundestag?). Some of the usual suspects like Elmar Brok and Daniel Cohn-Bendit have been agitating for a seat at the table. This development comes as the Commission's budget dries up under the twin pressures of overspending and austerity. The coffers have run dry.  

Meanwhile, Cameron appeared on the BBC to rile Eurosceptics further with his list of empty promises. He will try and keep increases in the Commission's budget to a minimum and look at reducing immigration from the European Union (shooting himself in the foot on defending the single market) On, and the next election could be a plebiscite on membership instead of acknowledging the People's Pledge. A good example of how to forsake friends and irritate people. He is a shambles! 

National Hell Service (for some)

When the Labour conference worshipped the National Health Service, their acts of exaltation and their accusations of sacrilege by the Tories (for daring to allow the wicked heresy of price to prevail), left them blind to its failings. And failings there are. Over a hundred and fifty people died of starvation or thirst in NHS wards last year. These are the most extreme cases. Underlying this is a cast of hundreds dying of malnutrition and thousands dying of infected wounds.

So, we have an elderly or incapacited person in the care of a profession, whose name defines their purpose as giving aid and comfort. Neither are achieved. Yet, we never hear of individual nurses or managers brought to account or struck off for this rollcall of daily neglect. How can teh sick, supposedly supervised and cared for on a daily basis, die of neglect? We know the root cause: a lack of accountability at a professional and at an institutional level. The Grauniad does not appear to cover the story.