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It seems British Prime Minister Tony Blair can hide his love for the European single currency no longer. On Tuesday’s Newsnight television programme on the BBC channel, Blair claimed it would be a ‘betrayal of national interests’ for Britain to stay out of the €uro for political reasons and said he would persuade voters to join.
Well, it looks like the grinning insurance salesman/trendy vicar character who has been our Prime Minister these last five years has decided to plunge Britain into the €uro at a time when developments in Euroland make it even less attractive as an idea. The rise of the Far Right in France, the murder of Dutch leader Pim Fortuyn in Holland, high unemployment and worries about massive unfunded pension obligations make the idea of shackling ourselves to the euro mighty unattractive.
Of course the creation of the euro has made it easier for big firms to tap into a pan-European bond and equity market and made prices of goods and services on the Continent more transparent, which are benefits not to be sneered at. But I very much doubt whether Blair is going to flog this risky venture to the public on the grounds that it makes it easier for his Big Business chums to tap the world’s capital markets. Not very touchy-feely, is it? In an age of Visa and Mastercard, instant cash withdrawals and sophisticated derivative markets, it no longer is much of a hassle to operate in a multi-currency world as €uro-protagonists claim.
All in all the case for the €uro is weak and Blair is going to have a fight on his hands. Blair wants his place in history. But by staking his future on the €uro, he could become history.
Hello again. I’ve had a long day. I had to get up early this morning to welcome The Man Who Was Coming To Mend My Computer, but as it turned out he overslept and only got here two hours later than he said – although to be fair, when he did get here he did mend the computer or you wouldn’t be reading this masterpiece of the blogger’s art. But he took all day and as soon as he’d finished I had to depart for a Putney Debate. These are the second Friday of the month events run by Tim Evans. This turned out very good. I’ve just now got back, and would in the normal course of things be going straight to bed. But Samizdata’s Big Cat Perry is away, and he gave strict e-mailed orders that we mice must play a lot in his absence.
I was going to do something about how the new Euroflag is a big mistake, but I fear that this is wishful thinking. True, the new flag won’t be as easy for school-children to draw (which was going to be my heading for this), what with all the different coloured pencils they’ll now need, but I don’t suppose that will stop them and they might even like that. And in general I think the new design could prove very clever. You can imagine all kinds of variants. Sticky tape. The Union Jack done with strips of the thing. All sorts of Euro-objects dancing about in front, with the stripes as a background. No, I think it could work very well, more’s the pity. And it will adapt very prettily as more nations are engulfed.
Adriana, please could you add some links from this to the two previous flag articles, i.e. this one and that one. Thanks. If she hasn’t done it yet, they were, I don’t know, whenever they were. Scroll down and find them.
This is better, although a complete change of subject. The Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen’s husband, is famed in these islands for saying something offensive every time he opens his mouth in public. But I came across this item of dialogue from the Queen Husband which I thought genuinely amusing. It was from a book I was reading (while waiting for the Man Who Was Going Eventually To … etc.).
The D of E has just got home from an airplane journey, and one of his flunkeys asks him obsequiously:
“And how was your flight, Your Royal Highness?”
The Duke sighs. You know how it is when you’re really tired. Everything seems harder to deal with. Even the simplest question can only be answered with a great effort. Finally HRH says:
“Have you ever been on an airplane journey?”
“Why yes, Your Royal Highness, many times.”
“Well it was like that.”
The European Union continues its march into self parody with the planned introduction of a giant barcode as the new flag of the would-be superstate.
Suddenly one of my favourite shows of the moment, Dark Angel, starts to take on a whole new symbolic meaning… for those of you who do not watch this excellent series, the heroine named Max (played by the lithe Jessica Alba) is a transgenic transhuman on the run from a clandestine US government genetic engineering operation called Project Manticore. Max is assisted by a streaming video samizdata called ‘Eyes Only’. Significantly, all the escaped transgenics like Max have an identifying barcode tattooed on the backs of their necks.
Are the grey suited faceless ones in Brussels sending us all a message?
Yes, the EU does indeed look different depending on where you look at it from. Daniel Antal and his Greek friend sees a source of a more ‘liberal’ order, seeing Brussels as a fountain of civil rights to refresh the stagnant pools of Greek and Hungarian polity.
Well I certainly understand that. Croatian politics and aspects of civil society are just as ghastly for many of the same reasons. And thus many people in Croatia also look west to the EU and see something hopeful, something better, something more prosperous. Croatian businesses, like Hungarian businesses, salivate at the idea of getting access to the huge EU market… and like our friends in Budapest, they are just as wrong.
Just ask your Greek friend to point out how the Greek economy is going from strength to strength now that it is a member of the EU. Only it isn’t. Greece is stuck on the lower tier of the EU and is going to stay there. Countries like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, have large ‘welfare’ states but they do so by parasitically drawing wealth out of their large wealth creating capitalist economies… Hungary and Greece do not have proper modern economies and by joining the EU they will never develop them.
Hungary will never develop a dynamic wealth generating capitalist economy because Brussels will have thrown a smothering blanket of EU regulations over it, regulations which will be welcomed with open arms by the half-wit socialists which pervade Hungarian polity. Hungarian labour costs will rapidly loose any advantage over French or German ones and even high levels of unemployment will not move them downwards because of the regulatory cost floor that will be put underneath the price of employing someone. This will have the effect of keeping the playing field tilted towards existing producers and economic structures… and the reality is those economic producers and structures are overwhelmingly in the west.
Read the small print. Unless you are an existing large business located in the west and who wants regulatory barriers to reduce the chance of new market entrants competing with you, or are a Trade Unionist working in cahoots with such a company, then the EU is not your friend. The EU is stasis incarnate. For Christ’s sake WAKE UP!
If you go to the home page of Talk Sport Radio you’ll find lots of stuff about sport, and only non-sport news if it’s sport related. Someone let off a bomb in Spain yesterday and the Talk Sport Radio homepage notices, because it happened near a football ground. Interesting priorities. On the radio show itself, however, non-sport news does get regularly mentioned, and even talked about a bit.
I never listen to Talk Sport unless I’m on it, but I will be listening to it just after 10 am this morning because I will be on it. I’m to discuss the fact that according to some insane new law it is now, according to the researcher who’s just rung me, illegal to have a compost heap within 270 yards of your house. My memory is surely playing games with me. Our government would never dream of making a law like that. It has to be 270 metres, surely. Either way, we’re in barking fruitbat territory here, with every suburban gardener with a compost heap now breaking yet another idiot law.
The chances are that this particular item of fruitbattery is the result of the idiot collision between the separately sane – but when combined in Britain fruitbatarian – legal traditions of Britain and of Continental Europe. Some Euro grandee says, in some directive or proclamation or fatwa or whatever, that people shouldn’t have violently smelly compost heaps too near their kitchens. Fair enough. Why taxpayers need to pay someone to say things like this isn’t clear, but that’s the price of living in Europe, which by and large is a very fine place as places on this planet go. You nod your head, and get on with your life. You continue to keep your compost heap, if you have one, in the same place as before. All is serene. The big Euro-fromage continues to collect his salary, and God’s in his heaven.
Except in Britain. When Brussels says something, it becomes in Britain the basis of the law. This vague piece of Brussels sermonising is taken away and “clarified”. How smelly? An answer is made up. 94 smelibels. How far away? 270 yds/metres. (Not 250, by the way, which was the number the radio researcher originally supplied to me. 250 would be too round a number. That would sound like they just made it up.) Never mind that about a quarter the suburbanites of Britain have compost heaps stinking to the tune of at least 300 smelibels, and within about 10 yards of their back doors. The point is to abide by our European treaty obligations. And so this law is duly composed, with no more thought given to it than Talk Sport gives to non-sport news, in fact a lot less. Nobody thinks about it. Nobody can be held individually responsible for it. Not the twat who made it up, not his superior (who had 412 new laws to think about that morning alone), certainly not the Undersecretary of State at the Fruitbat and Related Creatures Office who is supposedly in charge of this process. So, the new law of compost heaps, together with all the other laws made up that day, is driven over to the House of Commons in a convoy of articulated lorries, and a few months later the Queen signs something and it’s the law for real.
Members of Parliament? Aren’t they supposed to have “readings” of these things? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that anyone actually reads the stuff. Laws in Britain nowadays are like academic papers in America. The overwhelming majority of them are not actually read by anybody except the drones who write them. Nobody at all.
The remarkable thing about this law is not that it passed, but that someone did eventually read it, pointed out that it was insane, and turned it into a media ruckus and an excuse for me to be on the radio.
There goes the phone. Excuse me while I dazzle the nation …
It turns out that it is illegal to have a compost heap within 270 yards (it is yards) of your house without a license. This is actually just as insane, but a bit more subtle. The insanity will only get seriously under way when the Compost Heap Office opens, and gets swallowed up in financial scandal, and when people with bona fide Compost Heap Licenses, which they just went and got, for seventeen quid, start keeping totally unregulated compost heaps in their kitchens (which used to be sort of illegal). Why has the Minister for Fruitbats not taken immediate action to curb this malpractice? … Why have more resources not been set aside? (That’s spent, to you and me.) Why? … Why? … Why? …
Another radio call. Busy day. Next up: I’m on BBC Radio Scotland at lunchtime, on whether Britain needs twenty three new laws to curb the British National Party. Here’s my plan. Keep a few of the laws we already have against being seriously nasty. Punish people if they break them. Apply them vigorously to the BNP, and to everyone else.
Another call. LBC Radio. Cannabis march on Saturday, you’ve heard about that? (No, being a libertarian these days means that you miss things.) Okay. 2 pm tomorrow.
All this chat radio excitement probably results from Sean Gabb being on BBC Radio 4‘s Today Programme, yesterday morning. Unlike most of the stuff I do, that’s a big one.
Hungarian economist Daniel Antal has read various anti-EU articles on the Samizdata and wonders how differently the EU looks depending on where you look at it from
We Europeans keep on asking from each other time to time a question, always and always again, and we find no answer. A Greek lawyer has asked me this question again about two hours ago: Why the hell are the British still in the European Union? Why can’t they quit? They seem to hate it, we seem to like it, they always block its evolution, we always complain on their obstruction… David Carr, can you explain to me, why won’t the British quit? Wouldn’t it benefit both sides?
Tony Blair keeps on lying about it all the time, because he could never sell the European federation to the public. Last time he returned from the summit with the lie that Europe is getting a new shape after Britain. He keeps on saying that Britain will never give up sovereignty, although she already has. In the meantime, the Convention has gathered to finish the European constitution…
I come from a country where the case law of the European Court of Justice, a source of the new constitution, is hopelessly liberal for my fellow citizens. I come from a country which could never dream of such a liberal legal order like the European Community law, and which would never get such a liberal constitution as the European one will be. Human rights groups and civil liberty groups are counting back the days when we’ll be members of the Union, by that time the European Bill of Rights, the new declaration on European human rights will be legally binding.
For many European countries European jurisdiction means liberalism. And there are many countries which would love to join in. I think many countries would love to be members instead of the British. So, why not?
Daniel Antal (London/Budapest)
[Editor replies: Daniel asks some interesting questions which I think demonstrate the profound difference between the Anglosphere and much (though not all) of continental Europe.
The EU’s “liberal” order is nothing of the sort (unless you use the word in its debased sense as code for ‘socialist’ which I suspect Daniel is not doing). For Hungary, with its recent communist past still a vivid memory, perhaps it might look that way but the truth is rather different. The EU offers the political classes of eastern Europe their best chance of clinging to a vestige of power by preventing the change and prosperity that a less statist capitalist order would bring… and as some eastern European societies are still wracked with the corrupting legacy of communism, the EU might seem vastly preferable.
Yet I suspect Daniel says much when he says “and there are many countries which would love to join in”… yes, but I am not a country Daniel and neither are you. People need to understand that the interests of a ‘country’ usually means the interests of the political class of a state, not the people within that country. The EU has nothing to offer except mediocrity and well funded structural unemployment.]
Romano Prodi may be a hackneyed old Eurocrat but he is definitely onto something when he says that the British are afraid of full engagement in the EU.
According to The Great Protuberant One, Britain is:
“…constantly on the defensive, putting the brakes on, dragging its feet on vital issues, fighting a rearguard action that can hold up, but cannot stem, the tide of history.”
Sadly, that’s not how it looks from where I sit. And would that we could ‘stem’ this particular ‘tide of history’. Unfortunately, we can’t. The only thing we can do is save our nation and watch from the sidelines as this ‘tide of history’ drowns all those it engulfs.
Nonetheless, credit where it is due. Prodi is on an honesty roll as he notes:
“I wonder what makes this great nation happy to be a junior partner in a transatlantic relationship, but afraid to take its rightful place alongside its European allies?”
Allow me to clue you in, Prodi: it’s because the Channel is wider than the Atlantic. Across the Channel are friends, across the Atlantic is family.
Do you live in the EU? In Britain? Well you have been nationalised… super-nationalised in fact. Yes, I mean you. You do not own your own labour, it is no longer yours to give or not give, as you see fit.
Do you need a bit more money to take your family on holiday later in the year? Want a bit of a boost to buy a slightly bigger car this time? Well if you ask your boss for some overtime to pad out the ol’ pay packet, the European Union has a message for you: tough shit. They know what is best for you and you do not… and they want the British state to use force against both you and your employer if you will insist on contributing to economic growth for longer than 48 hours in a week.
Do NOT cooperate. If you need the money, conspire with your boss and become economic ‘criminals’, it is an entirely honourable thing to do.
I seem to recall that one the tasks undertaken by our Cold War fighters was the smuggling of Bibles into the former Soviet Union. Looks like their services may be required again before too long.
A British EU judge has warned that distribution of Bibles could violate proposed EU Anti-Racism Laws.
Unfortunately, subscription is required in order to read the article in full but this is the opinion of Lord Scott of Foscote:
“The proposed offense would include ‘public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures, or other material containing expressions of racism or xenophobia. So distribution of, for example, literature containing expressions of belief in race, color, national origins, etc. as a factor determining aversion to individuals or groups would be a criminal offense.
Among the literature that could fall foul of this definition, according to Lord Scott, is the Bible and also ‘Biggles’, novels about a fictional WWII fighter pilot.
Looks like Perry was rather prescient when he decided to call this blog ‘the Samizdata’.
In protest at the electoral success in France of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French EU commissioner speaking in Brussels, Bertrand Maginot has expressed his outrage and concern.
“This is unacceptable and contrary to all democratic European principles” said Monsieur Maginot who took the opportunity to formally announce the imposition of trade sanctions on himself.
Camped in his apartment in Brussels Monsieur Maginot has refused all food, provisions and even a change of clothing. He is forced to stay in Brussels because he also banned himself from travelling.
Asked how long he intends to persist with the sanctions, Monsieur Maginot replied:
“Until I come to my senses”
I always enjoy a hearty guffaw when American enviro-mentalists claim that they are warring against big business and ‘greedy’ corporations. Those guys should just go over to Europe where they can enjoy working hand-in-glove with corporations in a real partnership for a ‘greener’ Europe (not to mention a more expensive one).
Don’t believe me? Well, take a look this latest ‘triumph’ of green ideology as the EU has passed a law requiring all electrical goods to be recycled
“The new rules, which would come into force in 2005, would require individual companies to pay to recycle their electrical products once the family home no longer had use of them
Mais Naturellement it all got rubber-stamped through the EU parliament without so much as a hitch nor a blink and is being roundly welcomed as a tool for ‘changing behaviour’. That’s what these guys love more than anything on earth; changing behaviour. They get a swelling in their loins at just the thought of it. Our behaviour is very bad you see. We’re all naughty children despoiling the earth and ruining it for future generations of EUnuchs. We must be smacked firmly across the backs of our chubby little legs.
Well, we have been smacked; smacked with the bill for paying for all this recycling which Europe’s state-backed monopoly giants will simply pass onto us consumers. Thankyou, chaps. I wasn’t paying anywhere near enough for my washing-machine. But what is my comfort when compared to the happiness of the greens, the Eurocrats and, above all, Europe’s quasi-state corporations
“The Parliament’s decision was applauded by Electrolux, the Swedish white goods maker, which called on EU Governments to adopt a similar approach. “What MEPs have done is good news for producer responsibility and is constructive,” Viktor Sundberg, a director, said.
Certainly its ‘constructive’. Its helping to construct a wall of protection for the likes of Electrolux from competition both domestic and foreign. Smaller non-state backed companies will not be able to handle the regulatory burden and non-EU suppliers will fall foul of the new laws.
This is why greens were invented; as a ‘black op’ for corporatists who need to protect their patch while fooling the public into thinking they are defending themselves against a ‘radical’ anti-corporate opposition. Still, you’ve got to admit that it works.
Scene: EU Commission in Brussels. A urgent meeting of EU Officials.
LOUIS: This is an outrage!!
HANS: It is totally unacceptable.
SVEN: Intolerable.
DIRK: We cannot allow it.
LOUIS: To be scorned by such a shitty little country.
HANS: Don’t they realise who we are?
DIRK: How important we are?
LOUIS: We are World Leaders after all. First it was the Balkans, now the Middle East. We are in danger of not being taken seriously again.
SVEN: You mean, we are taken seriously now?
LOUIS: OF COURSE WE ARE, YOU SWEDISH OAF!!!
DIRK: Okay, okay. Let’s calm down. We must present a united front.
LOUIS: The Americans, the Israelis. Is there anybody else out there who is going to humiliate us?
SVEN: The Russians?
LOUIS: Shut up, Sven! We cannot allow this to stand.
HANS: Absolutely.
DIRK: We must put our foot down.
HANS: For sure.
DIRK: Show that we cannot just be pushed around.
LOUIS: Bravo! We must hit back.
HANS: Retaliate.
SVEN: How about a military response?
LOUIS: What with, Sven, what with?
SVEN: Oh yes. Good point.
DIRK: We must do something.
HANS: To show them we mean business.
LOUIS: I know, I’ve got it……!!
SVEN: What?
LOUIS: We will impose immediate trade sanctions on the Israelis.
HANS: Excellent idea.
SVEN: Louis strikes again.
DIRK: That is perfect, perfect.
HANS: That will teach them a lesson.
SVEN: They will never cross swords with us again.
LOUIS: We will prohibit all movement of goods, all travel and all banking transactions to and from Israel.
DIRK: Will I still be able to buy bagels?
HANS: Dirk, you are being very unharmonious today.
DIRK: Sorry.
LOUIS: One week of this and they will be begging, begging us to intervene and impose a solution on the Middle East.
HANS: So are we all decided?
DIRK: Definitely.
SVEN: I vote yes.
HANS: Good. I will prepare an immediate proposal on behalf of the whole Commission.
[Pause]
DIRK: Er…aren’t we…perhaps, being a bit hasty here?
LOUIS: What do you mean?
DIRK: Well…er…maybe it might make things worse.
SVEN: Oh yes, yes. Dirk has a point here. Maybe it could inflame the situation.
DIRK: Cause all manner of reprecussions.
HANS: Hmmm…well, we must avoid being confrontational I suppose.
LOUIS: But we must appear strong.
SVEN: But the Israelis are rather sensitive, just now.
DIRK: And they have a big army.
LOUIS: They do?
SVEN: And nuclear missiles!
LOUIS: Mon Dieu!! [Presses Intercom] “Francois, book me on a flight to New Zealand…”
HANS: And then of course there is the Americans.
DIRK: Oh yes, the Americans…..
SVEN: There is not telling how they might react.
LOUIS: They are a bunch of cowboys….
HANS: Unsophisticated.
DIRK: Savages, really.
SVEN: They might take this very badly.
HANS: Who knows what they might do?
DIRK: And then, of course, there’s Tony.
LOUIS: Tony won’t like it.
SVEN: No, he definitely won’t like it.
HANS: He’ll make trouble for sure. I have an election this year.
DIRK: I’m very frightened of him, actually.
LOUIS: Oh pull yourself together, Dirk.
DIRK: Sorry (sniffle).
SVEN: Er…maybe…maybe we could put the matter on the agenda for a later date.
LOUIS: Yes.
DIRK: For discussion…
HANS: For debate…..
SVEN: As a way of sharing our concerns.
LOUIS: We will think about it.
DIRK: Consider it as a possibility.
HANS: As an idea….
SVEN: One of a number of options.
LOUIS: We can mention it in passing.
HANS: So, we are all agreed on that then?
ALL: Yes.
HANS: So. The matter is settled.
[Long Pause. Somewhere in the building a door slams. Outside a car backfires. In the distance, a dog is barking]
SVEN: Ahem…clears throat…I…I have some proposals regarding the standardisation of milk cartons.
DIRK: Milk Cartons! Excellent!
HANS: Now you’re talking.
LOUIS: Why didn’t you say so before?
DIRK: We must do something on this burning issue.
HANS: At last, we can address this festering sore in our body politic.
LOUIS: We must give the matter our utmost attention.
DIRK: Now we’re cooking with gas. Three cheers for Sven.
HANS: Louis, order some more white wine and cheese nibbles. We’re in for a long session.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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