Europhobia: 02/05/2006

Friday, February 10, 2006

No leader + sex scandals = less of a liability than having Blair in charge as Dunfermline and West Fife turns orange. I find that rather funny. Well done, Lib Dems - turning a Labour majority of 11,500 into a Lib Dem one of 1,800 is no mean feat, even if that constituency had rather special circumstances at the last election. Maybe you chaps would be better off staying without a leader?

Thursday, February 09, 2006

In the name of Christ/Allah/Buddha/Krishna/whoever

Stop it already with this stupid nonsense over those bloody cartoons... Now some bright spark - aka the EU's Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini - seems to be caving in to the barmy religious fundamentalist brigade. He's called for a meeting of media leaders to be hosted by the Commission in May, the result of which he seems to have pre-determined:

"The press will give the Muslim world the message: we are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression, we can and we are ready to self-regulate that right"

At least he acknowledges that "any kind of unilateral imposition coming from institutions should be avoided", but what the hell? If the EU gets involved in the media in any way, shape or form it should be to enforce a complete lack of governmental interference in media content, breaking the ability of the likes of Silvio Berlusconi to build up propaganda machines to advance their dodgy political ends.

Of course, Frattini was Berlusconi's choice as Commissioner - after the original option, Rocco Buttiglione, had to withdraw after unsavoury, supposedly religiously-motivated comments about women and homosexuals.

Could this, despite nominally being aimed at diffusing the current cartoon controversy (which, following revelations that the offending scribbles were published in Egypt back in October looks more manufactured by the day), actually be another attempt by the EU's Italian contingent to protect the more old-fashioned aspects of Catholicism?

Back in November 2004, Buttiglione attempted to launch a campaign to highlight what he saw as an EU-wide discrimination against religions (i.e. Catholic) beliefs. He failed dismally in his efforts to start up a debate over the place of God and religion in a continent which has seen more than its fair share of religiously-motivated violence over the centuries. Could his replacement now be heading down the same route?

Labour super-happy-funtime reformation mania!

Is there anything Blair and co AREN'T going to announce major "reforms" of before the local elections kick off? (Note that in the councils going to the polls, Labour only had 69 more seats than the Tories last time around...) Or was it all for the benefit of today's by-election?

We've already had that "Respect" nonsense, attempting to reform civil society; we've had proposals for fairly major healthcare reforms; there's been quite a bit of fuss about pensions and the like; the Education White Paper has been causing a lot of excitement; now the Child Support Agency and the Prison Service are both in for headline-grabbing overhauls. Have I missed anything? It's getting quite hard to keep track...

Labour really do seem to be terrified of getting wiped out in elections at the moment. (Which would tend to suggest they're not quite as stupid as they appear...) Or is their alleged plan to scrap next year's local elections entirely innocent?

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

John Reid - erm, we should do what now?

Where has this latest rubbish sprung from? Who, exactly, is condemning our troops? (Well, other than the Ministry of Defence that Reid heads, which still isn't supplying them with all the equipment they need and is about to send another vast chunk of our already stretched armed forces to Afghanistan).

Meanwhile, let us not forget that the enemy our brave boys face are EEEEEEVIL, without "any legitimacy, any morality, any international convention". It's classic wartime tactics - up there with the cartoons of German soldiers eating babies from WWI (echoes of which can be traced back to the middle ages and various pieces of simplistic propaganda from all the various sides of the interminable continental conflicts). EVIL EVIL EVIL. Not one ounce of a legitimate grievance. EVIL.

(Shush now about the foreign troops occupying what they see as their soil - shush. The enemy are EEEVIL. Even if we don't know precisely who the enemy are, and even if the enemy isn't a homogenous group with shared objectives. Shush. They're all EEEVIL.)

But taking his quote in full, the implications of what Reid is saying run rather deeper and into rather more dodgy territory than the ongoing (rather unnecessary) efforts to make a bunch of psychopaths who strap bombs to themselves seem even worse:

"We can't continually have an uneven battlefield for our troops, where we are facing an enemy, unconstrained by any legitimacy, any morality, any international convention and at the same time, subject our troops to a level of scrutiny, accountability, media intrusion, questioning and every conceivable opportunity to criticise them...

"I say in that kind of world, where we are facing that kind of enemy, let us be very slow to condemn our troops, our forces, and very quick to support and understand them."
(my emphasis)

You see, you follow the logic of that, what Reid's argument seems to be is the following:

"We're fighting an enemy with no principles, so we should have no principles"

Reid seems to be suggesting that breaches of the established rules of warfare are excusable in a situation in which the warfare is abnormal. That breaches of the Geneva Convention should be ignored, because the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is "special" in some way. In other words, that when fighing an enemy that uses terror tactics, terror tactics should be used in return. Fight fire with fire, and all that.

In a small-scale strategic sense, he may have a point. Nothing like a bit of midnight kidnapping, months of solitary detention and a wee touch of vicious beating and torture to keep the peasants in line.

But really - what the fuck, John? We're British, for Christ's sake - we don't hold with that sort of thing. We may well get other people to do it for us, but one British soldier gets directly involved, that's a direct slur on the good name of the country - and of Her Majesty, whose armed forces they still remain.

Of course, the other question is, why is Reid saying this now? No one has condemned the troops - public support for the troops themselves remains high, bolstered by positive, supportive media, who (almost universally) see the soldiers as unwitting yet brave victims of politics and maniacs. What is condemned is the political decisions that lead to our troops getting killed.

So, what's going on? Has Reid got wind of another Abu Ghraib-style war crime? Is he trying to cut something off at the pass?

Or is he just an idiot who should think a bit more carefully before opening his mouth and prompting this sort of speculation?

Oh well, only another three and a bit years until the next chance to boot these morons out of office. And who knows - we might even have a viable opposition by then. (I doubt it, but stranger things have happened...)

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Why do we need new laws against inciting hate and violence again? They seem to be working OK to me - once the political climate finally got to a favourable position for prosecuting the nutter, that is...

Oh, and - erm... why don't we need an enquiry into the 7th July bombings again?

"British officials were told by the FBI and New York police before the July 7 attacks of a warning that suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan 'was trouble' and should be 'checked out'"

Tony Blair in "clueless idiot" shocker. Apparently The problem with the West Lothian Question isn't that Scottish MPs can provide the votes needed to impose policies on England which will not affect Scotland thanks to its separate legal and political systems, it's that to NOT allow them to override the auld enemy to the south would "create two classes of MP" and this would create "all sorts of problems".

Problems for who, Tony? For your party, which got 600,000 fewer votes than the Tories in England, by any chance?

"We have got a UK Parliament. In the end I totally understand why people think it's a good idea from other political parties, but in the end, if you try to divide MPs up into two categories and then you have to define the legislation they are able to vote on, you will find it very hard"

No Tony, it's not very hard. You look at the legislation and ask "is this going to affect England only?" (e.g. quite a chunk of education and health policy) - if the answer's "yes" then Scottish MPs shouldn't vote... If you find that "hard" you're a moron, Tone.

Standard lazy "I'm a bit busy" post no. 406. The amusing Google search result:

This blog is No.1 Google search for "BBC is great" - discovered thanks to someone landing here from the BBC at quarter past five this morning from that search. Presumably they needed cheering up at that ungodly hour.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Is David Cameron a Whig? I mean, no true Tory would ever attack the monarchy, surely? But he's apparently teaming up with Tony Benn, of all people.

What next? Renationalising the rail system? Disestablishing the Church? Raising inheritance tax?

Good work! Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, going to give evidence at the trial of a man accused of pelting her with eggs, is pelted with eggs. Hurrah!

Erm... I mean... How childish and irresponsible. *snigger*

Sunday, February 05, 2006

We're clogged with blogs - moderately amusing, from the Chicago Sun Times:

"The universe has nothing on the blogosphere, which is expanding at the speed of gossip and spits on the concept of substantiated facts. A friend of mine estimates that there are 65 million blogs, which averages out to 2.3 blogs for every literate person in America. The first problem with that figure is that no one is left to actually read the blogs. The second problem with that figure is that I'm pretty sure my friend made it up."