Flying a kite?

Once again there are rumblings that, perhaps, the IN/OUT referendum will be earlier than 2017, possibly as early as June of next year, a month after the Scottish and Welsh Assembly elections. Rumour, as peddled by the Independent on Sunday, says that he had intended to have the referendum at the same time but was dissuaded by various MPs and other advisers. He would probably have been dissuaded, had it ever come to a crunch, by the Electoral Commission, who expressed the view in the past that referendums, which are essentially cross-party exercises, should not be held at the same time as elections, which are essentially party exercise.

Of course, there is no possibility of any serious change in the treaties being negotiated, agreed on and implemented before June of next year, so there are three possibilities;

1.      Cameron really does think that his own and his party's popularity is such that they will carry the yes vote just on that, aided by the mess the Labour Party seems to be in and by the fear engendered by the Greek crisis. That sounds a little odd to me. I can see why he might want to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible and he, presumably, knows as well as we do on this side that the sooner the referendum takes place, the less likely the NO side to produce a set of coherent ideas and arguments.

On the other hand, the party's popularity is not quite as overwhelming as all that. They did win the election decisively and the Labour Party is in a mess over the leadership election. If it ends up with Jeremy Corbyn, they may well split and if they end up with one of the others they will spend a good deal of time patching up their various differences. In any case, they are not going to campaign for an OUT vote. But that does not make the Conservatives truly popular and while at the moment popular opinion (not least thanks to the UKIP shenanigans) seems to be on the side of staying in, that can change, especially if it can be shown that Cameron's "changes" and "reforms" amount to less than Wilson's did in 1975. (I have to admit that it will be hard to prove that, given the joy with which the media and the public manages to misunderstand everything that comes out of Brussels and the readiness with which they are prepared to give the PM, any PM, the benefit of the doubt.)

2.      It is possible though not very probable that Cameron is leading towards a NO vote or, at least, a situation in which he can threaten his friends and colleagues with that vote to get what he sees as a better deal though if the article is correct about what he would like from the EU we have to accept that he has little imagination.

3.       He is flying a kite. That would not be the first time. Choose a time when news are slow and the silly season is in full swing and come out with some kind of an idea, get it to some hack, let it be published and see what the reaction is. Then act according to what anyone says in response. So far the response has been a little apathetic and one cannot blame people. After all, none of it is of the slightest interest until there really is some kind of a negotiation and not just endless threats or promises of one. As a corollary of that, it is entirely possible that the Prime Minister is trying to wrongfoot the eurosceptic movement, in so far as it exists, and create even more schisms. That I can well believe.

Good luck with that

It seems that Mr Cameron who sometimes masquerades as the Prime Minister of this country has told a BBC interview that he wants to remove the words "ever closer union" from the Preamble of the Consolidated European Union Treaty. Here are those words on p. 10:

RESOLVED to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity,

They have been there in the Preamble and ignored by British negotiators, civil servants, politicians and sundry members of the commentariat ever since the Treaty of Rome, signed by the six in 1957 and certainly given scant attention since 1972.

Though I am pleasantly surprised to hear that there  is a Prime Minister and, indeed, a leader of a main party in this country who has noted this item and has expressed a desire to get rid of it, I cannot help wondering exactly how he thinks he will go about achieving this.

I wish I could leave the subject alone

There was this vague hope that I might be able to write about something that is not Syria today but that will have to wait. There were too many articles, blogs and columns as well as cartoons in the media for me to link to them all or even most but one or two stand out in interest.

First of all, however, I should like to express some surprise and annoyance with the hacks, both as writers and as cartoonists, who appear to think that being voted down by the House of Commons is a shameful thing for David Cameron to have to endure. From being Obama's poodle (untrue) he is being described as going on to being the Commons' poodle. That is a curious view of what representative democracy and a balance of power between the legislative and the executive might be. In fact, we do not have proper balance of power but last week's vote made a tiny step towards creating one, a tiny step in the centuries' long struggle that our media hacks do not seem to have heard of.

I am even less impressed by the suggestion that once Congress has voted (I am coming to that) and voted the "right" way, the Commons should be asked to vote again. Perhaps they would have changed their minds by then. Ahem. Isn't there a political construct that does just that: makes people vote again and again until they come up with the required answer? Is that what representative parliamentary democracy is in these people's opinion?

In yesterday's posting I wrote at length that I do not think our position in the world requires us or depends on us rushing into every war or civil war that happens to have good photographers around (even if the photos sometimes get muddled like those of the bodies in Syria .... ahem ... Iraq did), adding that, despite John Kerry's posturings and President Obama's obvious dislike of this country, the Anglo-American special relationship is likely to survive and flourish in the future.

Which brings me to a curious development. It would appear that President Obama is following in the Boy-King's footsteps, possibly hoping for the same outcome. Although it is not required by the US Constitution and although the President has stated that the US was about to launch an attack on Syria, he is, nevertheless, going to seek Congress's approval on September 9. Apparently, this last-minute decision surprised his advisers, who told him that he can go ahead without consulting Congress. How will this affect the forthcoming fiscal negotiations with Congress? There was a suggestion in The Hill that the strike on Syria would help the President "to reverse the automatic spending cuts to the Pentagon known as sequestration". That, however, was written before the decision to seek Congress's approval for military intervention of whatever kind.

Fraser Nelson says that President Obama's decision to consult Congress is a compliment to David Cameron who went to Parliament. Possibly. It could easily be the action of a desperate man who simply cannot make up his mind what to do.

There are only two other links I want to put up. One to a somewhat unimpressive article by Charles Moore, who thinks the world has not become a better place because of Thursday's vote, a ridiculous and meaningless statement. The world is never a good place and rarely becomes better as a result of political decisions by a country. But then, he also says

Yesterday morning, Britain woke up and found it no longer had a functioning foreign policy. “We might as well turn all our embassies into car showrooms,” one Cabinet minister told me bitterly.

Dear Mr Moore, we have not had a functioning foreign policy for quite a long time and, as long as we stay in the EU, we do not need or require embassies. If there were not so many people in the FCO who need appointments abroad we could have closed them down long ago with nobody noticing the difference. In the end, Mr Moore seems to come to no obvious conclusion as to whether the vote and the control it exerted over the Prime Minister and the Royal Prerogative was a good thing or a bad.

Finally, there is a well argued though very angry piece by Caroline Glick, with whom I do not always agree but whose thoughts in this case are very well worth reading. Interestingly, she along with numerous Israeli commentators, does not think that an American strike would be a good idea. Supporting the rebel groups is not in anyone's interests and one cannot strike at Assad without doing that.

Which brings me very neatly to my last point. This afternoon I took part in a programme on the BBC Russian Service, a large part of which was a discussion of Syria and the various reactions to the crisis, including that vote. I had a good deal of fun explaining that to Russian listeners.

There was also a long discussion with a Syrian journalist who lives and works in Beirut but keeps in close contact with his home country and who could speak good Russian as well as an Israeli journalist who spoke excellent Russian.

Neither of them could explain clearly the various groups and divisions in Syria, especially as far as the rebels were concerned. The Syrian expressed the view that Assad's rule was highly unpopular and people served in his forces only for financial reasons. Nevertheless, he repeated several times, nobody wants Western intervention either. This has been echoed by other Syrian commentators as well.

The Israeli journalist talked of the situation in her country, which is not, she maintained, nearly as difficult as the media makes out. The mobilization has been on a very small scale and, while there are queues in shops and for gas masks, the atmosphere was no longer one of panic. To the question of whether the Israeli government preferred Assad to stay as many of the rebels were Islamists and linked to Al-Qaeda she said two interesting things, one of which I have heard before.

As has been said in various places, people with wounds of various kinds have been crossing the Israeli border to be treated in their far superior hospitals by their far superior doctors. Treatment is given to all and no questions are asked as to where the particular fighters had come from. I would like to think that, while doctors ask no questions, other people in different uniforms also turn up to find out one or two things about what really goes on in Syria.

Secondly, she said that it is well known that the Israeli government has been making contact with one or two of the bigger rebel groups' leaders. That is hardly surprising. Unlike Western governments and commentators the Israelis will have to live with the outcome of the present crisis, whatever it might turn out to be. They can have no exit strategy.

Too much emotion

There are times when emotion is appropriate. I am certain that I shall feel very emotional when I attend Professor Minogue's Memorial Service towards the end of September and so will everybody else there. In fact, I shall fill my bag and pockets with tissues just in case I tear up more than once. But that is what funerals and memorial services are for. Politics, on the other hand, ought to dispense with emotionalism as far as possible. Yet it was clear on Thursday,  in the wake of the Parliamentary debates about possible military intervention in Syria and the close vote [scroll down for Main Question] in the House of Commons against it that there is just too much emotion about the whole subject on both sides and for reasons I cannot quite understand. (Here is the full text of the debate in the House of Commons and here of the one in the House of Lords, where no vote was taken but the sense of the House was very clear.)

Almost immediately after the result was announced one started seeing and hearing weeping and gnashing of teeth among those who thought we should intervene though they were still unable to specify how and for what purpose we should do so and equally insane rejoicing among those who were against it, not to mention those who thought that this would signal the end of Cameron's leadership for reasons I fail to understand. I am, of course, glad that we are not going to be engaged in this open-ended, badly defined, ill-thought out military adventure but I see no particular reason for jumping up and down with joy. (A reminder of what I wrote about it a couple of days ago.)

A couple of days ago Brendan O'Neill put up a piece on Spiked in which he argued that

War used to be the pursuit of politics by other means. Today, if the statements made by the Western politicos and observers who want to bomb Syria are anything to go by, it’s the pursuit of therapy by other means. The most startling and unsettling thing about the clamour among some Westerners for a quick, violent punishment of the Assad regime is its nakedly narcissistic nature. Gone is realpolitik and geostrategy, gone is the PC gloss that was smeared over other recent disastrous Western interventions to make them seem substantial, from claims about spreading human rights to declarations about facing down terrorism, and all we’re left with is the essence of modern-day Western interventionism: a desire to offset moral disarray at home by staging a fleeting, bombastic moral showdown with ‘evil’ in a far-off field.

I could not help agreeing with him and thought of the article again as I waded through the acres of sticky emotionalism last night and today or tried to engage in some rational discussion. The reasons as to why the MPs betrayed us all, betrayed the people of Syria and of every other country you could name and created a world-wide desolation were various but all displayed a "nakedly narcissistic nature". All arguments about the nature of the rebels, the lack of British interest, the lack of clear understanding as to what is going on or what we might achieve were swept aside in a general cry of "Assad is such a terrible man" or, in one case (I kid you not) "MPs can now watch the Syrian children suffer". (I did say rather coolly that if it was about the children we should go in against both sides since there is good evidence of children being maltreated by the rebels. There was no response.)

The whole discussion reminds me of the endless arguments about foreign aid in which all rational objections of any kind are brushed aside with an highly emotional and at the same time self-centred cry of "but we cannot just sit back". It is all about us not about them.

So where are we now? First of all, that vote was not, in my opinion, catastrophic for David Cameron. Intervention in Syria is not core government policy and there is no particular reason why a government should not be defeated from time to time. It used to happen in the past and can happen again. In fact, it has just happened. The defeat was not exactly surprising (and neither were the arguments expressed in the House of Lords). It does not take a great deal of political nous to realize that the proposed military adventure is highly unpopular in the country and the arguments for it have not been presented at all cogently.

Then again, wars are never popular but until recently, declaration of them had not needed parliamentary approval (and Blair had it in full over Iraq) because it is issued, as this article explains, under a Royal Prerogative that is now effectively vested in the government of the day. David Cameron did not have to go to Parliament over the Syrian adventure but he could not really avoid it for political reasons. He can now, with some justification, proclaim himself to be a true parliamentarian who does not act in a high-handed fashion but listens to the people and to Parliament. Indeed, he has already done so and the chances are he will play on it in future.

The Opposition could now call for a vote of no confidence but I doubt if they will as they might win, in which case there will be an election, which they have not a chance of winning at the moment. Actually, the government would win that vote. Governments usually do.

The Lib-Dims came out rather poorly. Having consistently opposed the war in Iraq they (like a number of leftie luvvies in this country and in the US) have suddenly become bellicose and anxious to see a nasty tyrant punished though, presumably, not toppled. Nick Clegg is now of even less importance than he has been until now.

The other losers are UKIP and, for once, it is not their fault. Nigel Farage has made it clear that their policy was strong and absolute opposition to any intervention in Syria. A number of UKIPers then produced the usual statist, socialist mantra about the money spent on any foreign adventure and how it is needed to build more hospitals, schools and so on. Even the Labour Party stopped saying that.

A number of analysts (not all of them UKIP members) said before the debate that if the Commons vote for military action, UKIP's popularity would go up. That would not necessarily be true as the Lib-Dims had not benefited from their opposition to the Iraq war even when that became unpopular. As it happens, the vote went against military intervention and UKIP is once again on the sidelines, calling for a confidence vote, resignations and assuring anyone who will listen that they were the ones who achieved this result.

While Mr Cameron is reported to be contemplating a few enforced resignations in his Cabinet and a general reshuffle, we are getting an emotional chorus of people in and around politics, led by the Lord Ashdown, about Britain's diminished role in the world and the death of the special relationship with the United States. All absolute piffle. If Britain has any sort of a role to play in international politics it is not likely to be enhanced by a Pavlovian need to get embroiled in any war and civil war that happens to have good photographers around.

At the height of Britain's power and influence it managed to keep out of numerous wars and even more civil wars, not considering it necessary to become embroiled unless there was some interest in doing so. The man who is generally thought of being the strongest imperialist among political leaders and one who always had his eye on promoting Britain's role and interests, Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield, can be said to have had his finest hour when he refused to involve the country  in a Balkan war but negotiated a peace to its advantage. When Bismarck was congratulated on achieving agreement after days of difficult negotiations in 1878 in Berlin, he insisted that the achievement was Disraeli's, famously and admiringly saying: "Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann."

In fact, all those rather over-wrought individuals who are comparing Assad with Hitler and saying that we should go to war as we did in 1939 as well as those who displaying fears that this might another 1914, should study the events of 1876 to 1878 when, in the wake of atrocious behaviour by the Turks in response to an uprising in the Balkans Mr Gladstone, the Leader of the Opposition, published his highly influential Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East. Even then there were pictures and reports from some parts of the world and many people became angry.

However, the situation was different. For one thing, those massacred were Christians and Gladstone, himself a devout man, could appeal to feelings of solidarity for co-religionists. If there is any of that around in the discussions about Syria, they cannot be on the side that is calling for the punishment of Assad as it is the far more Islamist rebels who seem to have attacked, murdered and generally abused the Syrian Christians.

Secondly, Gladstone could point to the British government as being partially at fault. Disraeli was determined to retain the alliance with the Ottoman Empire against the Russians and Gladstone, whose campaign was considerably more popular than any calls for intervention in Syria are now, called for a change in policy. He did not call for direct military intervention (which Russia was supplying in any case) but for a change in foreign policy. Even in 1876, at the height of Britain's strength and power, it was not considered to be necessary to become militarily involved in every war going, not even for a good cause. In the end, as we have seen, Disraeli won and the Treaty of Berlin stabilized the region but did not precisely punish any wrongdoers.

In the meantime, President Obama, unlike his much maligned predecessor seems unable to build a coalition of the willing and may decide to go it alone, largely because he, foolishly in most people's opinion, drew those lines in the sand or red lines or whatever lines and can now either bomb Syria with no-one to back him or climb down on his threats. Neither is a good option for him or for the United States.

To be fair, it looks like France is ready to support any action and even become involved in it though not for the purpose of overthrowing Assad, merely to punish him (and to ensure that some Raffaele Rafale planes are bought by somebody in the regions).

Secretary of State John Kerry, who, in the not too distant past voted for the Iraqi war before he voted against it, made a speech in which he called France America's oldest ally, which is technically correct, as France helped the winning side in the War of Independence. Not sure it means anything really as the special relationship whose death is once again proclaimed by all and sundry is a somewhat more complicated affair and exists on many more levels than politicians can grasp. If it survived Harold Wilson's government, it will survive President Obama's posturing.

John Kerry's speech (analyzed here and published in full here) appears to be using language and arguments that are very familiar. I was not the only one who was transported back to 2003 when similar arguments were given by President Bush and Secretary of State Powell for an attack on Iraq (which I still think was the right thing to do but that is for another time) and which was later furiously attacked by Democrats and their left-wing supporters, some of whom are now finding time to attack Parliament for that vote. Well, if you lost Mia Farrow, you have really lost your position in the world. Or so she thinks, I have no doubt.

Could John Kerry suddenly be against the military adventure (it is hard to know what to call it after all the chopping and changing) after he is for it?

Tomorrow will bring new developments, I've no doubt. At least, I hope so as I am due to discuss them on the BBC Russian Service in the afternoon. But as things stand, President Obama has not built his coalition of the willing and has found himself in a pickle as a result of his more than confused policy in the Middle East. Britain is not going to be bombing Syria and that is not a bad thing as open-ended, ill-defined military adventures whose purpose is unclear and which are likely to help someone equally nasty are a bad idea. This does not mean that Britain's position in the world will change or that the special relationship with the US is over. Maybe it will mean that there will be an effort to define what that position might be but I do not have high hopes of that. However, the rather emotional rejoicing about the vote is equally insane. The situation in Syria and the Middle East is not such as to bring joy to anyone. In fact, it has become considerably worse than it was in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected and promised to sort out all the nasty problems that his predecessor had allegedly created. And the moral of that story is that no politician should ever believe the hype produced by the media.

Draft Referendum Bill to be published

In order to avoid a possible small rebellion in the Conservative ranks, we are told, David Cameron, acting as Leader of the Conservative Party is to publish a draft In/Out Referendum Bill. As before, the plan is to have a referendum in 2017, assuming the Conservatives are back in government by then. If they are not, there is not a great deal they can do.

It seems that "around 100" Tory MPs are so unhappy about the fact that the referendum was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech that

they will propose an amendment, expressing "regret" at the decision not to include an EU referendum bill in the government's plans for the next year.

There is little chance of this succeeding, as the Liberal Democrats, Labour and pro-European Tories oppose it, but a significant vote in favour would be an embarrassment for the prime minister.

Around 100 Conservative backbenchers and ministerial aides are expected to back the amendment or abstain, but the party leadership are hoping to reduce this number by publishing its own draft bill on Tuesday.

Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC that publishing the draft bill was a "demonstration of our commitment to a referendum".

The draft legislation is being published by the Conservatives with the idea that it could be brought to the Commons for debate by one of the party's backbench MPs in the form of a private member's bill, rather than one sponsored by the government.

The ballot to choose who can bring forward private members' bills will be held on Thursday and, although they have little chance of becoming law, there is non-government parliamentary time available for them to be debated.

Presumably, whoever wins the ballot (unless it is fixed) will be pressured into putting forward the Referendum Bill and government time will be found for it some time in the coming session.

As readers of this blog know, I am not in favour of a referendum and especially not in favour of an early referendum, partly because plebiscites are not political weapons I particularly support but, more importantly, because we are likely to lose one and the earlier it is held, the more likely we are to lose it.

ADDENDUM: Curiously enough I have received an e-mail from one David Cameron with his picture on the side, which tells me the following:

In January, I set out our party’s position on Europe. I made clear that the EU needed fundamental, far reaching change - and that Britain would lead the way in negotiating that reform.

I also promised an In-Out referendum once those negotiations were complete, and at any event by the end of 2017. That's the right time to have a vote - it is wrong to ask people whether to stay or go before we have had a chance to put the relationship right.

But make no mistake - my commitment to a referendum is absolute. If I am Prime Minister after the next election, there will be an In-Out referendum. No ifs, no buts. And before the 2015 election, we will do everything we can to make it the law.

That’s why today the Conservative Party is publishing a draft bill that would legislate for a referendum by the end of 2017. We understand that we are in a Coalition government - but we are going to examine every opportunity to bring it before Parliament and try to get it on the statute book.

For too long the British people have had no say about their future in Europe. I am absolutely determined to put that right. Our action today is further proof we’re serious.

It then asks me to pledge my support for the Bill. I cannot quitte see what difference that would make to anything.

Oh no, not another "victory"

The Daily Torygraph is all excited: the Boy King has won another victory in Brussels. Woo-hoo! Red tape will be cut because our fearless David has vanquished Goliath. Well, sort of. I mean, Goliath isn't actually dead. In fact, he is doing rather well.

Over dinner in Brussels last night, EU leaders agreed a to bring forward "concrete" plans to cut bureaucracy by June.

Decisions on which regulations will be abolished are then expected to be discussed in the autumn.

In a joint statement at the European Council summit, the leaders said: "Further action is required to reduce the overall burden of regulation at EU and national levels, while always taking account of the need for proper protection of consumers and employees."

The statement promised detailed talks in the autumn on "the withdrawal of regulations that are no longer of use" and "the consolidation of existing legislation".

That's it. That is the great victory: a definite promise of some discussions that will bring forward concrete proposals to consolidate existing legislation.

There will be more of this

What with Popes resigning for the first time in nearly 600 years and kings being found after nearly 430 years as well as the horse meat scandal that the Boss is dealing with superlatively well, little attention is being paid to the EU Budget or for the ongoing shenanigans around it. When I say little, I mean less than usual and I do not blame anyone. From my perspective, all the above stories are more interesting.

We all know that the Budget is not really being cut merely the growth is slowing down, that our contribution will probably go up and that the European Parliament has still to vote on it and might actually do so in a secret ballot.

There is another aspect of the whole story and I was reminded of it and I was reminded of it when, the other evening I did not sprint across the kitchen fast enough in order to switch off the radio, thus having to listen to the Prime Minister's dulcet tones telling me that his achievement demonstrated that "with allies we could reform aspects of the EU". Like hell, we can, though I, then recalled that several people who ought to know better and organizations who are supposed to be on our side have been pronouncing in a similar portentous way.

This, they are saying, can be achieved if we threaten to leave the EU (which we have not done); we can deal with the others if we just take the firm line (which is exactly what anybody decides it is).

There will be a great deal more of it: phony victories, faux vetoes, elusive alliances to achieve non-existent reforms. All grist to the mill to persuade the populace to vote for staying in when we get that referendum.

Well, what about THAT speech

I  have spent a good part of the day watching the British political scene exploding with excitement because the Prime Minister made a speech in which  he said very little and that already predicted. The Conservatives are either whooping with joy or having a cat fight in the case of Louise Mensch and Nadine Dorries.

Whoopee, they are saying, we have a truly eurosceptic Prime Minister who has shown the way out of the European Union; and, whoopeee, they are saying with more justification, we have just outmanoeuvred UKIP. Others seem to think that he might have destroyed the Conservative Party or as good as won the next election. Blah-blah-blah!

Thank goodness for Mary Ellen Synon who points out in the Spectator

What the Commission won’t come out and say – because it would hand another weapon to eurosceptics – is that it is legally impossible for any EU institution or EU member states to hand back powers to Britain, even if they want to.

Legal mechanisms for handing back powers – ‘competences,’ in the jargon – do not exist. A whole new treaty would have to be created, re-jigging the legal basis of the EU. Is that going to happen? No. Anyway, it would be the work of a generation, not of the few years between now and the middle of the next Government.

Or, in other words, the talk about handing back powers or negotiating them back or whatever one wants to call it is fudge. I am not sure that admitting it would hand another weapon to eurosceptics since, as far as I can tell, many eurosceptics or people who call themselves that have not understood this.

We are, however, being given a slight indication as to how the forthcoming campaign to keep Britain away from negotiating her way out will be run. The Telegraph has an article on the front page, entitled  Merkel hints at deal for Cameron after EU referendum promise. Actually, I had already seen a gleeful comment about this by the highly esteemed Matthew d'Ancona who suggested that the other side had blinked. I responded by suggesting in turn that this is the projected campaign: there will be hints of compromise, faux vetoes and cosmetic changes (as real ones are not possible), all to convince us to vote to stay in. So far, I have had no response.

Meanwhile, what of UKIP? Well, they seem to be stuck in two modes, both unhealthy and unhelpful. Nigel Farage is telling all and sundry that the promise of a referendum, maybe, in 2017 is a victory for UKIP. This is being repeated ecstatically by his acolytes. Others are snarling that one cannot believe anything "Dave" says. The second one may be true but since he said nothing much of substance it matters little. The first one is rubbish. By focusing on a campaign for a referendum instead of an exit strategy UKIP has been comprehensively outwitted by the Boy-King (and what a sorry state of affairs that is).

In the past, the argument "vote UKIP - get Labour" could be answered with "and so what?". No longer. Vote UKIP - get Labour and no referendum has changed the game. It is entirely possible that for the first time in its twenty year existence UKIP will actually lose votes in the next general election.

That leaves the one or more organizations who were set up to campaign for a referendum and in that name have muddied the waters, fudged the issue and siphoned off resources. They should now declare victory and retire from the field. I see a squadron of pigs taking off in the distance. The main purpose of every organization is to prolong its existence beyond any need for it. We shall hear many and excuse from the likes of the People's Pledge (or the East European Furniture Polish, as I like to call them) why they should carry on "with their work".

I find that having written all that, there is no need for me to quote from the speech at all. Well, really everyone knows what he said.

No clashes

David Cameron will make THAT speech on Wednesday morning, thus avoiding any clashes with President Obama's second inauguration. Of course, something else might turn up. I am losing interest.

Latest on THAT speech

Word is that it will be delivered on Monday, one day before it was scheduled in the first place, which will be the 50th anniversary of the Franco-German peace accord, the Elysée treaty. As the New Statesman points out, the timing remains slightly unfortunate as it will clash with President Obama's second inauguration ceremony. On the other hand, nobody who will be paying attention to that will want to know what Mr Cameron says, anyway.

Am I surprised?

The BBC gives us some extracts from the postponed speech. Yes, THAT speech.

Extracts from Mr Cameron's speech released on Thursday night reveal he had intended to set out a "positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part".

Gosh! Not a positive vision. I was fully expecting him to give us a negative one. (Sorry, that is a bit lame but what can you expect?)

He planned to stress the EU's structures were undergoing "fundamental change", adding: "There is a gap between the EU and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is - yes - felt particularly acutely in Britain."

I seem to recall that being the reason for the Laaken Convention, which resulted in the Constitution for Europe.

"If we don't address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit," he was to say.

"I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success and I want a relationship between Britain and the EU that keeps us in it."

Maybe that speech is not worth making.

This may be out of date

Attentive readers of this blog would have noticed that I have not been analyzing the many comments, statements, reports and other forms of advice or threat that poured over us because of THAT speech. I reasoned that those who are interested would have read the Boss's updates and cogent postings. Why do what he does so much better?

We  have, independently, laughed at the ridiculous proposals by Fresh Start and noted that, apart from the odd sound bite, there has been a deafening silence from UKIP.

However, I did do an analysis for EUObserver, which was put up before the news of the postponement of the speech came through.

So where are we?

First Al-Jazeera, quoting Reuters and before that the Algerian state TV, then the BBC reported that the siege in Algeria is over with appalling results.

At least 30 hostages and 11 members of an al-Qaeda-affiliated group were killed when Algerian forces stormed a desert gas plant to free the captives, Reuters news agency has quoted an Algerian security source as saying.

Eight Algerians and seven foreigners, including two British, two Japanese and a French national, were among the dead, the source said.

Algerian state television reported earlier that four foreigners had been killed after the end of the operation was announced late on Thursday.

Communication Minister Mohamed Said said troops had been forced to act after talks with the kidnappers failed.

He said many fighters had been killed in the operation at the In Amenas gas field.

Earlier, a spokesman for the group holding the hostages said 34 of the captives had been killed along with 15 kidnappers as a government helicopter attacked a convoy transporting hostages and their captors.

Somebody asked me on another forum whether the Algerian security services were worse than Spetznaz. They don't seem to have killed as many hostages as Spetznaz did in the theatre siege in Moscow and in the school in Beslan so, perhaps, not.

The BBC gives the older numbers of victims but points out that the site is still being searched whether for victims or militants is not clear. In fact, nothing is clear. The government is awaiting precise information about the fate of the British hostages.

An earlier piece in the Financial Times said that

UK officials said they were not informed about the operation before it was launched. David Cameron, UK prime minister, postponed a long-awaited speech on Britain’s relationship with Europe, describing the crisis in Algeria a “difficult, dangerous and potentially very bad situation”.

The implication is that they are not best pleased either as the operation does not seem to have been particularly well planned or carried out. In the meantime, what of THAT speech? Can the Prime Minister not make it in London?

Postponed again

David Cameron will not be delivering THAT speech tomorrow, after all, but chairing a COBRA meeting in London because of the Algerian crisis that seems to be the outcome of the Mali crisis rather recklessly made worse by France. Or should one not be saying that about our "mistrusted allies" as Sir Humphrey Appleby once put it?

It's been brought forward

Yes, that speech. You know, the one that has been trailed like some blockbuster movie for weeks on end. The one that will be made in the Netherlands. That one. What's his name's speech on you know what. Got it, David Cameron's speech on ... well, we really don't know what it will be on as it has been trailed variously as being on Europe, on Britain's "relations with the EU", on the referendum and on David Cameron's political future. (Well, OK, I made the last one up.)

The Boss is ahead of me, as usual. (I suspect he does not drink quite as much coffee as I do.) But I, too, noticed that the reason for moving the speech from January 22nd to the 18th was that somebody realized that the original date was "the 50th anniversary of the Franco-German peace accord, the Elysée treaty, the formal ratification of the coal and steel agreement that led to the formation of the EU". As the Guardian adds: "A speech attacking the current shape of the EU on such a day was seen as diplomatically unwise."

Mind you, those attacks are likely to be very mild and more like a slap on the wrist then a real blow.

I assume this means that the Boy-King and his advisers have finally worked out what he will say though I still assume that it will be an anodyne speech that will please nobody. At least, he will have no excuse for not being in the Chamber for the Second Reading the Succession to the Crown Bill 2012 - 13. Unless he considers celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Elysée treaty is more important than a serious change in this country's constitutional set-up.

Will that be in Dutch or Double Dutch?

It seems certain now that David Cameron will make his much-postponed speech on "Europe" or Britain's role in the European Union, to give it its proper title as he is unlike to refer to the possibility of Britain being out of said Union on January 22 during a visit to the Netherlands. Why on earth the Netherlands? I have nothing against that country or its people but why is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom making a supposedly important speech about the politics and constitution of this country somewhere else? One can't help wondering whether it is likely to be in Double Dutch.

James Forsyth in the Spectator gives a preview of what he thinks will be in the speech. It is uninspiring enough to make one think that Mr Forsyth does, for a change, know what he is talking about.

I understand that he intends to argue that Britain needs to remain inside the single market. But he will commit to a renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership, starting after the next election. Once this process is complete, the British people will be offered a refendum between staying in on the new terms Cameron is confident he can negotiate or leaving the European Union altogether.

This means that Cameron intends for the Conservative party to campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, albeit on new terms. If he is going to persuade his party to do this, then he is going to have to bring back terms of membership very different than Britain’s current ones. Exempting the NHS from the working time directive or repatriating regional funding can only be the beginning. But if this is all Cameron can get, the Tory party will face its greatest split since the Corn Laws.

My own guess, based on general knowledge of politics and politicians, is that Mr Cameron has no idea of what he is going to say as he has so many people and constituencies to reassure. Nor has he ever shown the slightest understanding of what the EU was, how it was structured, what Britain's role was in it and what the alternatives are. Indeed, as the Boss has shown repeatedly on EURef, he has actually lied about what the possibilities are for countries in the EEA. (Actually, he may not have lied in the technical sense that he believed what he was saying, having been told so by his advisers.)

Meanwhile, let us have a look at what he will be missing in Parliament (we have all been alerted to this by His Grace, Archbishop Cranmer in a tweet): the Second Reading of the Succession to the Crown Bill 2012 - 13.

I don't think it means what he thinks it means

The word the Boy-King who, for some unfathomable reason, is the Prime Minister of this country keeps using is "moral". I do not think it means what he thinks it means. He clearly thinks it means "whatever I happen to think of as policy on any day that might appeal to the media and all those who tend to vote with their emotions rather than their brains".

This blog has already pointed out that he and his Chancellor think we all have a moral duty to pay as much tax as this or any other government want to land on us as long as they pronounce it to be fair. He (Mr Cameron, Boy-King and Prime Minister), on the other hand, has a moral obligation to squander our money by handing chunks of it over to various kleptocrats who oppress their people and prevent their countries from developing economically. It is called foreign aid and is, according to the same source, entirely fair as well as moral.

Returning to the question of tax avoidance, Mr Cameron has once again pronounced, that

foreign companies like Starbucks and Amazon which have avoided paying large corporation tax bills in the UK lack "moral scruples".

As opposed to politicians, one presumes, who see no problems about feathering their nests at the taxpayer's expense without contributing anything to the economy unlike the said foreign firms. I love the way he has decided to use the word "foreign" to whip up discontent. Apparently "international" will no longer do.

According to the article, Britain has a very low corporate tax and it is a fair tax, so people should not avoid it and there will be a war waged on companies that do. As a matter of fact, it is not particularly low at 24 per cent (the lowering to 21 per cent is not due till next year) and as to whether it is fair, we have already discussed that. Who decides what is fair? A government that is incapable of reining in spending or reforming the public sector or even thinking of reducing the extent of government activity might not be the best set of people to discuss fairness. A politician who seems unable to grasp that a large international business contributes a great deal to the economy and, in one way or another, pays a lot of tax is not the best person to talk about fair levels of taxation. Just what did that PPE course consist of when David Cameron was at Oxford? Not basic philosophical or economic ideas, clearly.

There is something very worrying about a politician who keeps using the word "moral" to describe his policies, however ramshackle they might be.

Lasting Legacy - part 3,765

To listen to some people, especially politicians and their acolytes but some others as well, you'd think this was an event that happens about once a century and the world has changed beyond recognition after the two weeks that have just passed.

Errm, no. Olympic Games happen every four years and each time they are claimed to be the best ever, assuming that not too many people get disqualified (the process has just begun), not too many people get killed (only one unfortunate cyclist this time) and they finish on time. The world has not changed despite so many unexpected British medals and despite the weather more or less obliging. Britain is no different from the country she was two weeks ago and the world has not suddenly noticed that this strange little group of islands exists.

Der Spiegel thinks that the Olympic Games gave Britain a much-needed boost, presumably because uniquely of all countries in the Western hemisphere Britain was in the doldrums. For some reason particular praise is extended to what sounds like a spectacularly naff and ridiculous closing ceremony which affirmed beyond any question that British culture consists of pop music and one or two TV programmes with Eric Idle of Monty Python fame representing cultural history.

The Evening Standard has been hysterical about the Games for the last two weeks, occasionally interrupting itself to bring the odd piece of bad news. What I should like to know is how its own readership has done. My impression is that far fewer people have been reading the Standard in the last two weeks and far more copies are left in piles on stations at the end of the day. But getting accurate figures from newspapers these days, especially the freebie ones, is past hoping for.

Today we were told that the rush for the Paralympic tickets is on. If true (a big if) we might find ourselves in the odd situation of having seen empty seats at Olympic events and none at the usually far less popular Paralympic ones.

Then, of course, there is the obligatory story of the Olympic afterglow that will give the West End shops a boost. They will need it in the light of the losses they must have made in the last two weeks when they were half empty. So far the rush was not very visible whereas the pre-Olympic one, which, I see, was slipped into the article in a rather sly fashion, was. We all noted how many people were in London in the weeks before the Olympics and how few during them. Will the promised £250 million "afterglow" be sufficient for that and for the undoubted emptiness during the Paralympics? We shall see when the Q3 results come out.

What else? Well, Amol Rajan tells us that the spirit of 2012 will revive the Big Society, an idea whose time did not come last time round and is not likely to do so now. I understand that the various embassies in London studied the PM's confused burblings on the subject and produced reports for their governments. We shall definitely need to have a look at them if the idea is to be revived.

Patience Wheatcroft thinks that the Olympic success has bolstered Britain's self-confidence enough for the country to get out and seek out new markets beyond the eurozone. This woman is supposed to be our leading economic commentator and has, for that reason, been given a peerage by the admiring Prime Minister. Yet, she appears not to have noticed that Britain has always, throughout her history, had markets beyond what might be called the countries of the eurozone.

In fact, even according to official statistics that are usually skewed by the reluctance to separate out the Rotterdam effect or to analyze lost opportunities, Britain's main export market is now outside the EU. Not just the eurozone but the EU as a whole and it was all done before the Olympics.

Incidentally, I have been told quite seriously on another site that Britain coming third in the gold medal count will mean that the world will now take us seriously. Are we not all pleased that this historically, politically and economically insignificant country has finally been placed on the map?

Never mind all that. What are the real aspects of the Lasting Legacy?

To start with, Lord Coe is getting a new and exciting job complete with his own quango, I've no doubt. Figures of how much it will all cost have not, so far as I can make out, been announced but perhaps the TPA will get on to that subject. He might even become the President of the one of the world's most corrupt organizations the IOC, which has temporarily been proclaimed by our media as the greatest of all great organizations whose aim it is to save the world from ... well, just about everything.

Meanwhile, David Cameron, obviously frustrated by the feel-good factor that has accrued to Hizonner the Mayor, called together another World Hunger Summit, which will get rid of world hunger as part of the Olympic Legacy. Well, to be absolutely precise it will squander huge amounts of taxpayers' money on more summits and meetings, transnational organizations, good will visits and aid handed over to the bloodthirsty kleptocrats who prevent the Third World from having any kind of economic development, which is the only way hunger can be overcome.

Well, that's two legacies. What are you complaining about?

I take it we no longer need a Prime Minister

Somehow I managed to miss this tremendous piece of news. David Cameron who, I believe, is still the Prime Minister in this country (a source of constant surprise to me) has been asked to chair a UN committee to oversee development goals. I was under the impression that a Prime Minister's first task is to be ... well, a Prime Minister of the country he has been elected to lead. It is not as if there were no problems to deal with here. What exactly does he think he is doing chairing ridiculous UN committees? Even Tony Blair, lover of multilateralism and transnationalism par excellence did not do anything so stupid.

The invitation, accepted by the prime minister, represents a political coup for Cameron, who has stuck to the government's commitment to increase overseas aid to 0.7% of UK GDP, despite the recession.

Cameron's agreement makes certain that he will resist any rightwing efforts to cut UK aid, but it may also mean a significant reshaping of the millennium development goals.

The goals decide the international targets of global aid channelled bilaterally and multilaterally through organisations such as the World Bank and the IMF.

The current eight goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/Aids and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015. Many will be missed.

I wonder if coup is quite the word to be used here.

Of course, the goals will not be met. How can they be? The whole idea that aid is the way out of poverty has been disproved over and over again and with developed countries need to tighten belts as well as concentrate on their own economic growth, something this excuse for a government is singularly incapable of doing, the hand-outs will slow down. That may not be such a bad thing if it will turn the developing countries' attention to developing their economies through reforming tax systems, creating free trade agreements and making their countries attractive for investment. After all, aid does little beyond keeping bloodthirsty kleptocrats in power and prevent economic development in recipient countries.

Meanwhile, the new World Bank President has been announced and he is, to nobody's particular surprise, President Obama's nominee, Jim Yong Kim, President of Dartmouth College. I have little sympathy for people who moan about the fact that the World Bank presidency always goes to an American (or, in this case, a Korean American). The US puts in the largest slice of money, followed by the European countries. As long as we have a World Bank (and there are very good arguments for its abolition or, at least, scaling down) it will be run by those who pay for it and so it should be.

We have been told endlessly about the way certain rapidly developing countries, of whom Nigeria, the home of the other candidate, is supposed to be one overtaking the West. Fine. Let them do so. Let them stop taking aid from us and pay a larger share of those tranzi organizations they are so in favour of. Then we can talk about the next World Bank President not being American.

Of course, not everyone in the developing world is enamoured of the World Bank, its condescending attempts to run the world economy (as if that were possible) and endless new ideas of how to solve poverty, which can be solved only economic growth and investment.

Franklin Cudjoe, the Founding Director and President of IMANI, the Ghanaian Center of Policy and Education, wrote this:

Part of Dr. Jim Yong Kim's acceptance speech as the new World Bank President read "My discussions with the Board and member countries point to a global consensus around the importance of inclusive growth. We are closer than ever to achieving the mission inscribed at the entrance of the World Bank – Our Dream is a World Free of Poverty" NO! We ordinary citizens of the developing world want you and the World Bank to map out an exit plan to get out of the way for poverty to be solved by entrepreneurs without governmental borders!

Why do I have the feeling that neither Dr Kim nor the Boy-King will listen to those sane words?

In the meantime, do we just assume that we no longer need a Prime Minister?

Apparently the veto is not exactly a veto

Well, well, who would have believed it? Who would have credited it? It seems that when the rejoicing nation was told that the Boy-King had vetoed the treaty he, well, ahem, hadn't actually vetoed anything very tangible. Did you ever? Certainly Iain Martin did not ever. He is rather worried that Mr Cameron, the man who by some freakish historical development has become the Prime Minister of this country, might be going back on that veto that seems not to have played much part in anybody else's consideration.

In December, we are told,

David Cameron sought assurances that he could protect the City of London from various measures that EU bodies overseeing the financial sector want to impose. No such undertaking being forthcoming, Cameron refused to sign up. The other 26 members of the EU indicated that they would press ahead despite Britain’s veto. But afterwards Cameron said he would block them from using the EU’s institutions – such as the Commission in Brussels and the European Court of Justice – to enforce any new arrangements. This infuriated the Europhile Nick Clegg.

Never mind, Nick Clegg. He is an irrelevance. Why exactly did David Cameron not insist that a change of that kind needed a completely new treaty to be decided on by an IGC, something the colleagues feared? Then he would have had a treaty to veto. At the moment he has nothing.

 Back in December he was basking in glory and even Mr Martin has to admit that the man did not know what to do with that glory.

The problem is that different groups interpreted the veto differently. For Eurosceptics, it was a joyous moment which they thought signalled that the Prime Minister wanted to negotiate a looser relationship with the EU. For Mr Cameron, it was a welcome popularity boost, but it was not clear if he saw it as anything beyond that. For the mandiranate in the Foreign Office, and its outpost in Brussels, it was a disaster, undermining their traditional approach of always getting a deal done that maintained good links with their counterparts in France and Germany. They got to work watering down the British line.

The real problem is that a veto would have meant not fiscal treaty. It would have been vetoed as this blog said a little while ago. The real problem is that not only Britain did not veto any treaty because it did not exist, but the Prime Minister actually gave up his right to veto any forthcoming treaty. He is, one assumes, looking for a way to make the truth palatable to his party and is, once again, using his preposterous Deputy as and excuse.

In the meantime, may I have an apology (and the Boss should have a few as well) from all those who attacked me (and the few others) because we did not join the mass hysteria about the phantom veto?