Not a good beginning

Let us be fair to Mr Sadiq Khan: he has not been the Mayor of London for very long and is probably dazzled by his sudden transition from a little known mediocre politician (for that is what he is) with a penchant for turning up to left-wing meetings into the politician who walks on water. The last time we had the media getting into such a state over a politician's slightest move was in the first few months of Tony Blair's premiership. (For some reason Conservatives never walk on water.) There were pictures of Mr Blair riding a bicycle and smiling at the same time, which caused ooohs and aaahs from the assembled hacks; there were pictures of him and Cherie in Beijing kicking a football and eating with chopsticks though not at the same time, causing even louder ooohs and aaahs from the self-same hacks. Well, we know the ending of that story and it is not pretty.

At the moment it is Mr Khan who is walking on water. Melanie McDonagh thinks that a Great Smug has settled on London but, actually, it is only on the media and those who take their cue from them. Most of us are waiting to see what will happen.

The omens are not good. Pace Ms McDonagh Khan's campaign was not that much better than Goldsmith's and involved several apologies for past actions that he had conveniently forgotten as well as the suspension of one adviser who had tweeted extremely unpleasant homophobic, racist and sexist comments. And, of course, we heard a great deal about him growing up on a council estate and his father being a bus driver. With hindsight, one realizes that the Conservatives should have picked Syed Kamall as a candidate not because he is far more conservative in his politics and economics, which he is, but because his father was a bus driver, too, though not from Pakistan but Guyana.

In so far as Hizonner the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has made any political statements they have been rather worrying even when somewhat vague. He proposed to crack down on Uber, to introduce rent controls, something that has never worked in favour of those who rent and never will, and has been rather vague on how he would deal with the transport unions.

Since his election he, understandably, has been putting together his ream (all of whom are very highly paid and get very generous expenses so let them not fool you when they talk about inequalities in London) but also having various photo opportunities and making statements. There were photo ops with him arriving at City Hall, being accompanied by ecstatic supporters (representatives, one assumes of the 25% of the electorate that voted for him in first and second preference) and a very important one of him attending Holocaust Memorial Service. I was roundly attacked by some of the Great Smuggers when I laughed and reminded people that Ken Livingstone, whose views on Jews are reasonably well known, also shed crocodile tears at the annual Holocaust Memorial in the Great Glass Egg (a.k.a. City Hall) in January. One year, as I recall, he even quoted from the Hitler diaries, long ago proved to be a forgery. How could I be so cynical, I was asked. It's very easy to be cynical about politicians, especially mediocre ones, I replied.

The Mayor's second public act was to produce a wish list of what he would like to do for London, has promised to fight with David Cameron to keep Britain in the EU, has met the Mayor of Paris (that must have been entertaining) and has taken on Donald Trump. Admittedly, it was not particularly bright of Trump to suggest that when he is elected Hizonner the Mayor of London can have an exemption from the ban on Muslims but for the said Mayor to launch into a major attack on a potential presidential candidate was not that smart either. He was elected to be Mayor of London and will be getting a handsome salary as well as even more handsome expenses to do that job. It does not involve comments about other countries' political events or personalities. Ken Livingstone used to do that a great deal and it was usually the US he attacked and especially the Republicans. Does Sadiq Khan aim to be another Ken Livingstone? I hope not. It would be disastrous for London.

One thing I can predict for certain: if Hizonner the Mayor, apparently intoxicated by the media hailing his as a kind of a Saviour, thinks that this will last, he will very soon become a sadder and wiser man. Any more travelling with a huge team to meet different Mayors of different cities and the grumbling will start.

The world seems to have gone mad

That title is the sort of hyperbole that usually makes me snort with disgust but, for once, I can see no other way of describing what is happening in the political and media world. People come up with the most ridiculous comments. Unfortunately, yes I do mean the reactions to what is going on in Greece, though I really had not intended to write about it again so soon.

The number of people who seem to have discovered all of a sudden that "the EU has a democracy problem" is quite spectacular. Apparently, all those discussions about the EU's "democracy deficit" have passed them by; apparently they did not notice what happened when countries voted in a referendum against implementing certain treaties and were made to vote again (with Greece always a reliable cheer-leader for the EU pack and against any change or reform); apparently they have no idea at all how the EU is governed - not through politics but management.

Well, I have news for all these people: the EU has no democracy problem; it was never intended to be a democracy (that is assuming the people in question can actually define democracy). Furthermore, democracy is of little use when you are seriously in debt and are relying on somebody else to fund your lifestyle. Back in the days I had to deal with bailiffs because of money I owed to the local council or the water board, I routinely consulted my household of fluctuating number of humans and cats and each time we voted unanimously against the proposals the bailiffs made about the payment of debts. Sadly, each time our democratic decision was overruled and pay it all we had to.

Then we come to the lunacy of #itsacoup, which people can read on Twitter even if they are not signed up for that particular form of social media themselves. I can only assume that it was started by someone who has no idea what a coup means and has no idea how the EU works (see above). It is, however, rather depressing when one gets a leading eurosceptic like Daniel Hannan coming up with rubbish of that kind.

I managed to miss his article in the Daily Mail on July 6 in which he congratulated the brave Greek people on standing up to the EU bullies and voting no to the proposed bail-out conditions (very similar to the ones they are about to accept). Ha-ha, he said, the Greeks are being threatened with all sorts of nasty things, like not having salaries, pensions and other expenses paid but they said boo to that and if they can do it, so can we. There is a difference between threats of that kind being made by the people who are doing the paying and those who are not. If Mr Hannan really proposes to compare Britain to Greece during the Brexit referendum campaign, we really are doomed: the reaction to that argument will be a colossal support for the staying in side.

He has now produced a film on YouTube in which he pretends to be a broadcaster during the Second World War or the Cold War and tells everyone that yes, this was a coup. As someone who actually was involved in Cold War broadcasting I find this pretentiousness ridiculous but that is what YouTube is for (as well as watching old episodes of The Avengers and listening to various adventures of Paul Temple, which is my preference). No, I really do not think so and, curiously enough, there are people actually in Greece (oh my!) who agree.

Take this article by Andreas Souvaliotis, a Social Entrepreneur (I think I know what that is) who says that au contraire,  Greece: Here Is Why #ThisIsNotACoup. 

That tiny little daily violation of each other's rights is perfectly symbolic of the prevailing national culture in Greece: My freedom does not end where yours begins; it extends indefinitely, unless I'm caught or stopped. It is considered perfectly normal to jump ahead of you at the traffic lights, to smoke where I'm not supposed to smoke, to cheat on my taxes, to cook the nation's books in order to qualify for a currency union, to renege on every single election promise. Those who insist on respecting the rules are considered a little less smart, a little less "Greek" -- and they're often told they are the losers.

That's exactly the country that became financially insolvent recently. My beautiful birth country continues to be the Eurozone's most adolescent, rebellious, blindly self-defeating society. Greece didn't get into all this trouble because its European partners took advantage of it; it went bankrupt because, after more than a generation as a member of a rules-driven, respect-based tight economic community, it never figured out how to play fair, how to fit in and how to build real value. It enjoyed the spoils of membership without ever trying to live up to its end of the bargain; it cheated, squandered, abused, begged for more... and the cycle continued until the financial crisis suddenly brought the entire country to the brink of bankruptcy. And even then, on the strength of charm and an endless stream of fake reform promises over the past half-dozen years, the money kept flowing in from its badly tricked Euro partners in the form of bailouts. And nobody was even humiliated or angry about that. Until now, of course.

Mr Souvaliotis exaggerates the extent to which the eurozone is rules-driven and respect-based, let alone tight economic community but he is spot on about the Greek attitude to it. I have no particular objections to a completely libertarian attitude to life, which is what the Greeks might say they have but I do feel that it is not compatible with an enormous government sector, high pay and pensions and demands that someone else, preferably other countries fund all that. That is all.

Mr Souvaliotis advocates "tough love" and adds this extremely fine sentence that needs to be quoted to a good many people:

Mercy on the Greek state, as a lot of bleeding hearts and newly minted euro-experts have been advocating these past few days, would have only fed a bad culture and perpetuated the problem.

As someone said on another forum: I am looking at you, BBC journalists. Well, yes, the BBC hacks are suddenly dissatisfied with the way the EU has been behaving towards gallant little Greece (unlike the way it had behaved towards gallant little Denmark or Ireland). Again, I can only wonder what their attitude would have been if there had been a right-wing government in that country.

I am also looking at some eurosceptics, led by Mr Hannan and his many acolytes. Mind you, none of these people are quite as hilariously funny as the egregious Owen Jones who has suddenly decided that if the wonderful, extreme left wing government in Greece who just want to get lots of money from everybody else and never pay any of it back is bullied by the nasty EU and even nastier Germany then it is time for us to get out. The Left, he says, must reclaim the eurosceptic cause. All we need is that born-too-late student agitprop purveyor from the SNP, Mhairie Black to decide that the EU is not such a good idea after all. We can but hope that the likes of Owen Jones will swing back to being an idiot on the europhiliac side not an idiot on our side. Still, I am more than a little amused by the unholy alliance of Daniel Hannan and Owen Jones. Way to go, lads.

It seems that Luxembourg IS a tax haven but who cares?

Well, the self-righteous EU, the equally self-righteous media (whose employees make sure that they avoid as much tax as possible) and, as of now, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, whose main political achievement has been the premiership of that little, highly successful state.

Governments in Europe and all over the world have missed out on billions of euros of potential tax income because companies channeled their profits through Luxembourg, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media across 32 countries has found.

A total of 343 companies, including Swedish furniture maker Ikea, German financial institution Deutsche Bank, and American technology company Apple have put in place complex financial structures to pay as little tax as possible.

These schemes were approved by the tax office of Luxembourg at a time when Jean-Claude Juncker was the duchy's PM.

On Wednesday (5 November), the investigative journalists published 548 leaked Luxembourg tax rulings from 2002 to 2010.

Goodness me, how sad. Governments not getting the money they and their employees think they are fully entitled to. It seems that Mr Juncker has always defended his country's banking laws in the past. Astonishingly, I have to admit that I agree with the Commission President or something. Unless, of course, he decides to do a volte face on it.

Gloomy election discussions

As we are coming to the end of the last serious conference season before the next General Election (those extras, like the winter conference or the spring conference are unnecessary extras and of little importance) everyone outside UKIP seems to be rather gloomy.

The choice, one must admit, is not particularly scintillating but it is my opinion that as things stand Labour has no chances of winning the election. Their own particular conference and the farce of the Leader's Speech, billed for 80 minutes but lasting for only just over 60 because two of the most important subjects were simply not mentioned though they were clearly there in the text handed out to the media, did not exactly inspire any one except those so committed to the party that casting their vote for anyone else would be like walking barefoot on broken glass.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are deemed by the media to have had a bad week-end because of losing Mark Reckless and because of the Brooks Newmark scandal. Until this story broke I had not heard of Brooks Newmark but the biggest scandal of all, in my opinion, is that we have such a thing as a Minister for Civil Society. What on earth is that?

On the other hand, I was pleasantly suprised to hear that the Mirror's sting operation (whose author, a free-lance hack has, as of this moment, not revealed his name) had been directed at several young Conservative MPs and only one was foolish enough to fall for it, the aforementioned former Minister for Civil Society. It is good to know that the others had enough brains or just an instinct for self-preservation to steer clear of the whole fracas. That, of course, leaves us with the unfortunate young women, whose body parts were used to create the fictional twitter character without their permission and the fact that other newspapers, such as the Sun are virtuously explaining that the idea had been offered to them but they turned their noses up. Also, we have the first case to come before the new Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) and it does not involve a Murdoch newspaper. How they must be laughing.

Will any of this really help the Labour Party whose opinion poll results are nowhere near good enough to predict a victory next May? Somehow, I doubt it. There is far too much talk about "New Old Labour", which anyone with any kind of political memory will know to have been unelectable. Ed Miliband is seen as far too left-wing but also incompetent in the simplest political acts like delivering a speech at a party conference. It is particularly unfortunate that his flub should have come so soon after Gordon Brown's highly praised performance in Scotland towards the end of the referendum campaign.

We do, of course, have another "New Old Labour Party" now and that is UKIP who clearly intends to compete for that limited and ever decreasing vote.

Incidentally, the Boss and I discussed Patrick O'Flynn's speech that outlined those preposterous economic policies including the one about raising VAT on "luxury goods". Setting aside the obvious question as to what is defined as "luxury goods" and the obvious comment that a good many people from working class background like to be able to buy them, one cannot help asking why UKIP should be so supportive of VAT, an EU tax that is open to a great deal of fraud and is not particularly useful for the economy. Why not call for its abolition (and if you cannot do that within the EU well you know what we ought to do) and for competitive local sales tax? I seem to recall that the present UKIP parliamentary candidate for Clacton co-authored a book some years ago with one, Daniel Hannan, in which that was one of the policies outlined. One wonders how he felt having to applaud the economic spokesman of his new party who was making it quite clear that neither he nor the party were interested in any serious radical ideas.

Fun for those who follow the news on the Russian media

This is rather a Soviet story though it does have the flavour of just ordinary corruption such as the one we have been seeing in President Putin's Russia on a very large scale.

In the dear old USSR (still late and unlamented except by President Putin and his Chekists) people who achieved anything in, let us say, sport or literature or any other field, were "elected" to the national or the federal (one gets a little tired of all those quotation marks) Supreme Soviets. Alexander Tvardovsky, of whom I wrote recently, describes in all seriousness in his diaries one such "election campaign" that, oddly enough, resulted in an overwhelming victory for him.

This habit was replicated in the People's Democracies (is that where UKIP got its recent slogans from?). Members of the famous Hungarian football team, for instance, were not just officers in the People's Army but deputies in the People's Parliament.

One wonders whether people who keep telling us that we ought to have politicians who have achieved things in other walks of life first would like to emulate that habit though, I must warn them, all these things are so much easier if there is nobody to oppose you in the election. (Mind you, I suspect that Major Puskás would have been elected in a free and fair contest as well.)

Now we find out that Alina Kabayeva, a former Olympic gymnast and President Putin's supposed girl-friend, has been an MP for his United Russia party. Just to remind us of the dear old days:

Kabayeva spent more than six years as an MP, one of many high-achievers in the sports and entertainment fields to represent Putin's United Russia party, before announcing on Monday she was stepping down from parliament to take up control of the media holding.

For that is what Ms Kabayeva going to do: take up controlling position in the National Media Group, which "owns 25% of Channel One, Russia's main state-controlled television channel, and also owns stakes in other channels and newspapers, including a majority share of the influential Izvestia daily. The group is controlled by Yuri Kovalchuk, a longstanding friend of Putin who was sanctioned by the US earlier this year due to his closeness to the Russian president".

A spokeswoman for the group confirmed Kabayeva's appointment but did not give details about when she would start, or what qualifications she had for the role. She previously hosted a television chat show but is not thought to have any experience in media management.

Undoubtedly, this should be welcomed by all those people in the West, many of them in the Eurosceptic community (whatever that might be these days) who prefer to take their news from the Russian state controlled media.

Apparently the internet and the blogosphere still count for nothing.

For another blog I received a review copy of Steven Fielding's A State of Play - British Politics on Screen, Stage and Page from Anthony Trollope to The Thick of It. An interesting subject and one that I have toyed with myself in my mind not least because of my perplexity why there should be so few good political novels these days.

It is very much an academic book, aimed at other academics, an attitude that has unfortunate effects on the book's style, not to mention the fact that the Introduction consists of a long list of references to and quotations from other academic studies without which no academic book can exist these days.

In between those references, though, there are some interesting nuggets. I was not fully aware, for instance, how many programmes for young children and teenagers have as their message that parliamentary democracy is a bad and corrupt system. This will have to be followed up for surely some of that subliminal propaganda stays with people though having met a number of people who have grown up with Dr Who, I would say that programme's opposition to Margaret Thatcher has not taken much hold among the fans.

Professor Fielding gives a very brief history of British parliamentary democracy, explaining as he does why it has never quite lived up to its promises though not really explaining what those were. In the process he does not mention that a number of political and social institutions existed prior to their submission to central authority, which might be Parliament or it might the the civil service or, and this is a singular omission since he lays some emphasis on the electorate's disillusionment, the role of the European Union and various other quangos in present-day governance. (He does, however, mention that in the 1970s Dr Who supported Britain's entry into the EEC. Really, I seem to have missed out on rather a lot by not watching that programme.)

The theme of the book is the image of politics as it is perceived by the general populace and the sources of that perception, a theme well worth analyzing and discussing.

The public is certainly conscious of the role played by the news media. When asked in 2004 what influenced their opinions about politics, the top two sources people mentioned were television news (eighty-two per cent) and newspapers and magazines (sixty-three per cent). So far as we can tell, nobody mentioned even one work of fiction. If its power is more subtle and harder to quantify than that of newspaper or television news, fiction does, however, play a role in shaping views of politics. Qualitative research suggests fiction can inform how people think about themselves politically and influences how they understand political issues. As fewer people read newspapers or watch television news it is likely fiction will become an even more important source of information about politics. Most students of British politics nevertheless continue to favour focusing on official forms and processes: for them, these are what really matter in a democracy. But as a result they only have a one-sided and superficial view of the subject, such that, as one expert conceded, political scientists do not yet know 'what politics means to citizens'.

You see what I mean about the style? Mind you, I have read worse.

First about people not mentioning fiction either on the page or on TV as a source of information. It is quite likely that they are not aware of it and do not want to be aware of it. Nobody really wants to admit that they get their notion of how MPs behave from some TV comedy show; nor do they want to start analyzing what might be reasonably accurate and what is not. (For example, I know enough about political processes to maintain that Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are completely accurate and in this I have the backing of people who have worked in the Cabinet Office. Other series I am not so sure of, entertaining though they might be.)

It is also possible that people do not always know the difference between news programmes and fiction. I am not sure I can blame them for that mistake.

What is so interesting in that paragraph is the complete absence of any mention of the internet or the blogosphere, both of which were already important in 2004. Nor is there any mention of the social media, especially Twitter, a great source of information, correct or otherwise. Does that mean people do not think about those sources or that they prefer not to mention them or, and this is rather a worrying thought, political scientists have not quite worked out their importance? As they used to say in examination papers: discuss.

Have the Ralph Milibands won?

The  Miliband saga rolls on. Yesterday's Evening Standard carried a heartfelt plea from the Leader of the Opposition and potential Prime Minister, Ed Miliband not to drag the next election into the gutter, that being where it is now thanks to the nasty attacks on him by the Daily Mail and their persistent assertions that Ed's father, Ralph Miliband, was a highly influential left-wing Marxists who had little time for British democracy or, indeed, democracy of any kind, considering that to be a bourgeois construct.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ed Miliband the sensitive and honourable politician who sees nothing wrong in having his photograph taken in the company of a young supporter whose t-shirt is ... ahem ... not very nice about a previous Prime Minister. An odd companion to take to the moral high ground, which little Ed seems to want to occupy at the moment.

It is more than possible that non-British readers of this blog do not know what all the fuss is about though British ones may well feel that they have heard more than they ever wanted to about the Miliband family. So here is a brief summary of the whole brouhaha.

Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition and a potential Prime Minister who seems to be reinventing himself as a firebrand socialist is the younger son of the highly influential, extreme left-wing Marxist thinker and writer, Ralph Miliband, who came to Britain as a refugee from the Nazis in his teens. Before we go any further, let me remind everyone that neither being a refugee from the Nazis nor serving in Her Majesty's forces is a guarantee of a person's loyalty to the country or to the political regime of (relative) freedom, democracy and constitutionalism. The history of the second half of the twentieth century bears me out.

The row of the father of the Leader of the Opposition started on Saturday when Geoffrey Levy wrote an article about him and his possible influence on his son, whom the Daily Mail does not like, being on the other side politically speaking. The article was not about the personal life of any Miliband and dealt exclusively with political matters, which, one would think was entirely reasonable when you are writing about a leading politicians and a leading political theorist who happens to be his father. Not so but far from it.

Ed Miliband reacted furiously at the aspersions cast at his father and demanded apologies, withdrawals, resignations, for all I know, sentences in the Gulag. How dare the Daily Mail sink so low as to write the truth about smear his father? This, despite the fact, that, as the Labour supporter and son of Labour MP Dan Hodges has pointed out, little Ed tends to drag his father and his mother into his speeches rather a lot.

What little Ed and in his wake the Labour Party, left-wing journalists and twitterati, even the right-wing commentariat objected to was the Daily Mail expressing the view (and refusing to apologize for it) that Ralph Miliband, to whom this country gave shelter, responded by hating it and every institution in it, particularly those that prove so attractive to refugees. Untrue, sobbed little Ed; untrue shouted his Labour Party chums; untrue shrieked the left-wing commentariat; really not nice muttered the right-wing commentariat. Time was a real socialist would have been proud if he were described as someone who hates his country in the name of international socialism but socialists ain't what they used to be.

Ralph Miliband wrote at length of the need to adopt Marxist ideas; he chastised the Labour Party for not being radical enough; and while he expressed some reservation about Stalin and the Soviet system in general, he supported and advocated the destruction of capitalism and western bourgeois democracy. Does this mean he was not a patriot? One could argue so and argue successfully. One could say as Tim Montgomerie, an impeccably right-wing columnist, does [no link as the Times is behind a pay wall] that wanting to change a country is no proof that you hate it. To which one can reply that surely it depends on how much one wants to change and how deep those changes are intended. In the case of Miliband senior the changes he advocated were wholesale. He did not like anything about this country's political and cultural set-up.

But he served in the Royal Navy during the war, comes the plaintive response. How can anyone who does that be unpatriotic? Quite easily, as it happens. A good many people served in the forces during the war, among them, I dare say a number of the maligned Daily Mail journalists of the day. Many Communists served in the armed forces though usually after June 22, 1941. Before that they and their rag, the Daily Worker, called on members of the armed forces to desert and decried the capitalist war waged on their great leader's buddy, Hitler. Unlike the British Union of Fascists, the CPGB was not made illegal despite clearly expressed treason and their rag not shut down because Churchill did not want to antagonize the unions.

Even after the German invasion of the Soviet Union it was often not patriotism  or love of freedom that motivated the Communists who were serving but a desire to use the situation to forward their own cause, which just happened to be that of the other vile regime of the mid-century, the Soviet Union. Anyone who is interested in the subject could do worse than read Evelyn Waugh's magnificent trilogy Sword of Honour, especially the last novel, Unconditional Surrender (or listen to its dramatization on Radio 4 on Sundays at 3 pm).

Ralph Miliband would have been too young to join the forces before Barbarossa, so we do not know whether he would have done but his subsequent pronouncements show quite conclusively that he was on the enemy's side in the Cold War, as Benedict Brogan points out. His views were well known and something that in the past the left accepted with some pride.

In 2004 the Guardian wrote:

Ralph Miliband died in 1994 as arguably Britain's most charismatic and influential leftwing intellectual. His books about the unequal relationship between business and politicians, and in particular about the tendency of the Labour party, and parties like it, to overcompromise with capitalism have been taught in universities in Britain and far beyond since the 1960s. His teaching is vividly remembered by former students. Outside academia, he also spent countless dogged hours as an activist, trying to establish more genuinely socialist alternatives to the Labour way of doing things. He did not soften with age. "The last conversation I had with Ralph," says a close friend, "he was savage about Blair."

Being savage about Blair is not, I suppose, particularly controversial until one realizes that the savagery is caused by Blair's failure to implement extreme socialist policies and, probably, by his getting rid of that infamous Clause 4. It would appear that Miliband senior's allegiance to the cause predates his service with the Royal Navy:

One boiling afternoon during his first summer in London, he [Ralph Miliband] went to Highgate cemetery, found Karl Marx's grave and, standing with his fist clenched, swore "my own private oath that I would be faithful to the workers' cause". Not that he intended to remain a worker himself: he found clearing bombsites "an arduous business" and felt a distance from his fellow labourers that was partly a matter of nationality but also a matter of aspirations. He wanted to be an intellectual. In 1941, he applied to study politics at the London School of Economics. He was accepted.

The rest of the article gives an interesting and cogent account of Miliband senior's activity in the name of Marxist socialism though it gives no thought to the question of whether he was patriotic or not. Each reader can decide for himself or herself.

All this is straightforward and ought to be the usual coin of political rows and discussions. Yet the whirlwind raised by that article among the commentariat and twitterati has been astonishing and to the Daily Mail gratifying. Day after day they have maintained that they would not apologize (having withdrawn one rather tasteless photograph which was not quite as tasteless as the one of little Ed above) and that they would continue to proclaim the evil legacy of people like Ralph Miliband. If that ensures that his son never becomes Prime Minister, well, the Daily Mail is not going to shed any tears over that.

Yesterday they gave space to Michael Burleigh, a highly respected historian of Nazi Germany and of terrorism. This time round he wrote about Stalin's left-wing apologists who saw nothing terribly wrong with the Gulag or the numbers murdered, tortured and imprisoned as long as it was done in the name of social justice. After describing the horrific camps and their extent as well as some other aspects of the Soviet rule and the terror which was the essential core of it, he adds:

Such a system — whose goal was ‘social justice’ — relied on any number of Western apologists to deny what others had witnessed first-hand.

Many of these were British academics, intellectuals and journalists. Among them were the founders of the London School of Economics, Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

They merely said of Stalin’s terror famine: ‘Strong must have been the faith and resolute the will of the men who, in the interest of what seemed to them the public good, could take so momentous a decision.’

When Stalin decided to purge entire swathes of the Communist party in the mid-1930s — resulting in 600,000 or so people being tortured and shot — Western apologists lined up to excuse actions that had been motivated by his envy, paranoia, hatred and spite. The fact that the vengeance extended to the families and children of the Soviet butcher’s victims, and blighted the lives of others down the generations, was no hindrance to putting a rosy gloss on mass murder.

For Stalin established a few model prisons especially to show visiting Western dupes such as Professor Harold Laski, the mentor of Ralph Miliband at the LSE and chairman of the Labour Party.

Laski, who was seemingly not shocked by prisoners having their teeth smashed out with iron bars, reported back: ‘Basically, I did not observe much of a difference between the general character of a trial in Russia and in this country.’

Ralph Miliband may be tangential to the story but his views fit in well though, to be fair, he occasionally disapproved of his friend Eric Hobsbawm's slavish admiration for Stalin.

So why should there be such a fuss at the Daily Mail's possibly slightly intemperate but not wholly inaccurate and politically understandable attack on the two Milibands (David having left the British political scene)? Ed's slightly ridiculous self-righteousness is understandable, given the mood of present-day politics. Those nasty journalists are attacking is just the sort of plaintive cry one would expect from him with lots of references to smear tactics and gutter journalism. The same goes for the left in general, and the Labour Party in particular. While their own methods of throwing muck at everyone they disagree with and going on at length about David Cameron's education are not perhaps of the highest order, they are quick to take offence when the "extreme right-wing nutcases" point out obvious truths about them.

That still does not explain why the Conservatives are tut-tutting and the right-wing commentariat is calling for smelling salts at the vulgarity of it all. It could be, as Benedict Brogan says, that we have forgotten the Cold War, which ended technically 25 years ago. I think the reason is a little more profound and has something to do with the phenomenon described by Michael Burleigh. The truth is that the Ralph Milibands of this world have won this battle and to reverse that victory we need to fight hard. They have made it unacceptable across the political spectrum to criticize anyone with a left-wing tendency even if that tendency involves supporting some of the worst tyrannies, some of the most savage political systems of world history.

Allow me to remind my readers of something that happened in 2008 when Max Mosley, younger son of Sir Oswald Mosley, the one-time member of practically every political party and the one-time leader of various fascist organizations in Britain. Mr Mosley who was not a politician but a man deeply involved with Formula 1 racing and thus unknown to most of us was caught out in some unsavoury sexual behaviour. If memory serves me right, the girls in question were blackmailed by the late unlamented News of the World newspaper to give them stories about Mr Mosley. When he won his court case on the grounds that his privacy had been invaded, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the dreadfulness of controlling the press when it was merely doing its duty of purveying smut about a little known individual, which was of no public value at all.

The other thing I recall is that there were numerous articles about Mr Mosley's father and mother, all describing at great length and with no reference to the case in question their political activity. That, apparently, was acceptable, yet describing the political activity of the father of the Leader of the Opposition and his possible influence on the son is "beyond the pale".

Would anyone care to dispute my assertion that the Ralph Milibands have won?

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.

Can't help laughing

Politicians' self-importance is always a matter of great amusement; Western politicians's self importance when they pronounce on matters they know nothing about and can do nothing about is even more amusing; but nothing can beat the self-importance of EU politicians pronouncing on many subjects, none of which they understand or could possibly affect. As it happens, there is something a little funnier even than that: the media taking these people seriously.

Let us look at the High Panjandrum of EU foreign policy, the Lady Ashton or, as she prefers to be known nowadays, Cathy Ashton. This morning I received by e-mail the following selection of headlines about the lady's activity:

EU foreign policy chief praises 'calm' presidential vote in Mali. Well gosh, that must have cheered them up in Mali no end. Would they even have heard of the lady or known that neither she nor any one of her colleagues, including the several Presidents, have been elected?

After that, it's a joyous festival of irrelevance:

EU foreign policy chief arrives in Egypt to meet with leaders

EU's Ashton on mediation mission to Egypt, which, to be fair, became Egypt sides defiant as EU envoy seeks compromise. Is she the High Panjandrum, a mere envoy or, as the article describes her, Europe's top diplomat who fruitlessly shuttles between the various factions?

Al-Arabiya said that EU's Ashton headed to Cario for talks while according to Fox News EU's Ashton arrives in Cairo as crisis deepens. Post hoc is not necessarily propter hoc.

Then we have EU's Ashton in Egypt for Second Time in Two Weeks, not a definition of success; EU's Ashton visits Egypt, calls to return to civilian rule and EU's Ashton on mediation mission to Egypt post Cairo violence.

And all the time they know and we know and they know that we know that it makes no earthly difference to anyone or anything what that incompetent and grossly overpaid woman says or does.

We have abandoned the real soft power

On Tuesday I attended a talk at CRCE (Centre for Research into Post-Communist Economies) given by Masha Karp, formerly of the BBC Russian Service Features Department (do they even have such a department nowadays?) on what she termed "Unilateral Disarmament" that is the West's surrender in the information war with Russia.

Russia, one may add, has not followed suit but has been spending ever larger sums of money on media outlets to the West, which happily chirrup away their Kremlin propaganda and take in a surprisingly large number of people here. Inside the country there is practically no independent, that is non-Kremlin controlled, media outlets left and only a minority of the country has access to the internet, particularly broadband or reads blogs though it must be said that the growth of the Russian blogosphere has been one of the few hopeful developments there in recent years.

Masha, who is a good friend, spoke of the appalling evisceration of both the BBC Russian Service and of Radio Liberty, the latter taking place within the last year. I am glad to say that Radio Liberty appears to be recovering somewhat as the people who put in the changes that pleased the Russian authorities so much, have gone and a number of the hard-headed and knowledgeable journalists who had been fired last autumn have been reinstated. We shall watch developments keenly.

Meanwhile, here is the text (more or less) of the talk, first published by Human Rights in Russia. It is well worth reading.

It is extraordinary that our politicians, media and analysts are always rabbiting on about "soft power", influence and other suchlike matters, whether through the EU and the egregious Cathy Ashton, the incompetent and highly paid Lord High Panjandrum of European Foreign Affairs or through millions given in aid that is then wasted, misused and stolen yet the one thing that does give us influence and soft power: highly professional and informative broadcasting, both Britain and the United States are doing their best to destroy.

My solution is simple: shut down DFID and actually lay off all its civil servants both at home and in various comfortable hotels around the world. Stop all development aid and make humanitarian post-disaster aid strictly limited and well accounted for, distributed by the military or people who know what is going on in particular locality. The amount of money saved will be stupendous. One tenth of it will restore the BBC Russian, Ukrainian and Belarus Services as well as the various Central Asian ones to their former glory. And while we are at it, separate the World Service from the domestic BBC; the World Service is part of our international relations and a very successful one at that (or used to be). Otherwise the still far better World Service news will turn into the pathetic excuse for it that the domestic news broadcasts are.

What Cameron ought to have said

A friend who is a true Conservative in every way reminded me of a recent article in the Daily Mail though he did not have the link.

Newly released documents show that in 1981, Bruce Forsyth asked Margaret Thatcher to do the same [ as Hugh Grant was asking.] She replied: ‘I share your feelings about the need to maintain standards... but equally it is of crucial importance to keep the press in this country free from government interference. I do not think it is possible to draft a law to deal with these matters. The real sanction, of course, is not to buy the offending paper or magazine.’

And that ought to be the real Conservative attitude.

There is a slight problem, though. The real reason for the sanctimonious demands for state control is the fact that a very large number of people do buy the "offending paper and magazine" and the more offending, the better.

Some headlines I liked

First about Cyprus. There really is very little I can add to the avalanche of analysis that has hit the fan in the last couple of days except to suggest that maybe, just maybe those oligarchs knew in time to withdraw their money and take it somewhere else. I am guessing, mind you, but there are other countries near there, such as Turkey and Turkish Cyprus. It's the others wot got caught.

Anyway, here is my favourite headline on the subject: RAF plane flies to crisis-hit Cyprus with a MILLION euros for British forces in case cash machines stop working. Another Berlin air lift, forsooth. Except that this crisis was not created by the enemy outside but the enemy within.

Here, on the other hand, is the story as it is developing with the Cyprus Parliament rejecting legislation on the levy:

Cyprus’s finance minister arrived in Moscow on Tuesday night to try to wrest vital economic assistance from the Kremlin as his country’s parliament rejected a €10bn EU-led bailout that requires €5.8bn to be seized from Cypriot bank accounts.

The 11th-hour attempt to tap funds from Russia as an alternative to the deposit levy stunned leaders in Brussels, who said they were taken aback by the resistance of Cypriot lawmakers to shifting the tax’s burden exclusively on to deposits over €100,000 – many of which are held by wealthy Russians.

What will the Russians demand as guarantee? And should they not try to tap Belarus as well? It seems that some of Luakashenka's cronies may have been caught out. Well, like the Russian ones, possibly. Then again, maybe not. I am still guessing.

As to the other big story, the intended licensing and regulation of the media (not just the press, as the newspapers keep saying), I liked several headlines but this one really takes the biscuit. Peter Oborne has suddenly woken up to the endemic nastiness of the NUS. That's it, he says, he is resigning from the NUS.

It is a sad moment, but today I have decided to resign from the National Union of Journalists. It is the second time I have done so. The first was in the mid 1980s when (as a young journalist who was very proud to be an NUJ member) I was appalled to read in the NUJ newspaper an account of a trip by some union officials to Moscow. They favourably compared free speech in Soviet Russia to free speech in Britain. It was sickening, and showed a catastrophic failure to understand free speech and why it matters. I felt it was morally wrong to remain a member of such an organisation, so I quit.

He then went back, for whatever reason, but has now once again decided to leave.

For some time, however, I have been increasingly disturbed by the NUJ's growing sympathy for state control over the press. If the union represented journalists, as it claimed to do, it would have been up in arms at yesterday's squalid deal which has granted politicians power over newspapers for the first time in more than 300 years. It would have fought all the way. Instead the NUJ has been a largely silent and shamefaced collaborator with Hacked Off and its rich and powerful backers. I tried to warn the union's secretary Michelle Stanistreet about this, but she would not listen. Yesterday she threw her weight behind the stitch up between the political parties.

I should have thought the two attitudes are two sides of the same coin but that is probably why I am not a highly paid hack.

Oh and how can one resist this headline on Guido Fawkes's blog? Among the various donors for that nauseating organization of tenth-rate celebrities outraged that they cannot control their own publicity, there is ... a Russian oligarch, to wit Yevgeny Lebedev, owner of the freebie Evening Standard, where he has a weekly vanity column (well, he is bankrolling the rag and it is no worse than other columns by Polly Filler and her like of both genders) and of the Independent.

The elite club of multi-millionaires with an axe to grind have confirmed however that they are “due to receive soon a grant from the Journalism Foundation of over £20,000″. The Journalism Foundation was former Indy editor-in-chief Simon Kelner’s £600,000 vanity project bankrolled by billionaire Russian oligarchs and Indy owners Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev. The former KGB agent set up the Foundation to promote “free and independent journalism”, pulling the plug on it after less than a year. Seemingly not before they channelled a chunk of the cash to those freedom lovers Hacked Off…

This gets funnier by the minute.

We have a free media now?

Before I get on to the disgraceful behaviour by most of our legislators in adding an amendment during the Third Reading of the Crime and Courts Bill (which will now go back to the Lords for consideration of that and other amendments), which would allow them to license and regulate all (and I mean all) media outlets, let me just make a waspish comment.

So we have a free media? What about libel laws and anti-hate laws? What of the EU's framework directive on combating racism and xenophobia?

What's so difficult ....

.... about understanding that the European Parliament, regardless of its phony name are NOT the European Union lawmakers? The Wall Street Journal has a large staff and many researchers, yet they seem unable to grasp this simple fact.

Is Al-Jazeera going the way of our media?

This is rather bad news. According to Der Spiegel, Al-Jazeera journalists are resigning because they do not think its editorial independence is being honoured any more. Actually, it is an uncharacteristically muddled article but the money quote, if I may put it that way, is:

The network broadcast messages from Osama bin Laden, prompting outraged criticism from the US, where it was referred to as a "terror network." At the same time, it was the only Arab medium that regularly invited Israeli politicians to debates. Its correspondents didn't hesitate to call former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a "dictator" -- and Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak a "wimp." What's more, the network's journalists reported on dissidents, including members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, who were forced to rot in prison for years under Mubarak's regime. Such courage and informative journalism earned Al-Jazeera a number of awards.

Since the Arab Spring, though, many former dissidents have risen to power across the region -- and these fledgling leaders often show little respect for democratic principles. Al-Jazeera, however, has shamelessly fawned upon the new rulers.

Today, when Egyptians protest against President Mohammad Morsi and the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Jazeera is often critical of them, in the style of the old pro-government TV station. Conversely, according to ex-correspondent Suliman, Al-Jazeera executives have ordered that Morsi's decrees should be portrayed as pearls of wisdom. "Such a dictatorial approach would have been unthinkable before," he says. "In Egypt we have become the palace broadcaster for Morsi."

So the former dissidents, now in power (well some of them) do not have any time for democratic principles. Well, well. Where have we seen that before?

I have always had a great deal of respect for Al-Jazeera. They may have started from a different point but their reports tended to be informative, scrupulous and as fair as any media reporting can be. Considerably more so than our own BBC for instance. I would hate to see Al-Jazeera becoming just like our own media.

This is worth reading

Roger L. Simon, PJ Media CEO gave a speech to the Roanoke Conference, — the annual gathering of Washington state Republicans — on January 25, 2013 and the text was published, appropriately enough, on PJ Media. It is an excellent and fascinating speech, which tells of his involvement with the New Left and the Black Panthers, his gradual realization about the reality of that politics, his change from left to right, the founding of PJ Media, the need to conduct cultural wars as "politics is downstream for culture" and his immediate plan.

Here are a few quotes:

All right, here are five words that should make you smile: You don’t live in California…. I would imagine that saves many of you ten thousand dollars a year or more right there. There’s something to be happy about. Speaking of which, since I live in L.A. but spend a lot of time in this state, I’ve always been perplexed why everything seems to work better up here… the roads are better, the services are better… but we pay the ridiculous amount of state income tax. I don’t have to tell this crowd — don’t ever go there.

As an illustration, a significant number of people changed their views of global affairs immediately after September 11, 2001. Our country was attacked by an ideology that was misogynistic, homophobic, anti-democratic, racist, xenophobic, and religiously intolerant and that sought world domination — in short was the enemy of all classically liberal society since the Enlightenment.

Yet all around me I saw split personalities, still do. The prototypical Hollywood (and DC) liberal lives two disparate lives, one public and one private. In public he or she is the greatest of altruists, in private the greediest and most ambitious of persons. The former acts as a cover for the latter, to themselves and to others.

This system is so enduring, so entrenched, that it makes political change exceptionally difficult to achieve. How do you change someone so successful, someone who has so much wealth and power while feeling so inordinately good about him or herself?

I am speaking obviously about the so-called thought leaders here — the elites of New York, Washington and Los Angeles who dominate our media and entertainment and tell the hoi polloi how to live and think. These people have little incentive for change, even though in some cases their careers are in jeopardy. The New York Times is hemorrhaging reporters, last time I looked. Still, it’s hard for them to make a connection between the current economic uncertainty and the system that nurtured them for so long.

My disaffection with Communist China and the Soviet Union was probably step one in my political evolution. Step two was, of all things, the OJ trial. The mega-circus took over my home city of Los Angeles back in 1994-1995. In fact it dominated the country’s media and in the process changed the face of media as we know it. I wanted to attend the trial myself. It was the hottest ticket in the city and every writer I new wanted to be there.

After I finally got to see it, sitting in the surprisingly small room in L.A.’s Superior Court, I was mightily depressed. The miscarriage of justice was overwhelming. I had been a civil rights worker in the South in the sixties and was appalled to see racism turned on its head with obvious DNA evidence disdained. In this one case at least, the blacks were worse than the whites. The great lie of political correctness stalked the land and I was just beginning to see it, even though I didn’t want to. Change, as I said, is hard.

But when step 3 happened, 9/11, all the scales dropped from my eyes. There was no longer any way I could hold them up.

I started writing about this change online — and that is some of the reason PJ Media, now called PJ Media, was born.

Read the whole piece. It is very well worth it.

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.

The media and "European values"

There is a flurry of excitement, which some of this blog's readers may have noticed. It stems from an article by Bruno Waterfield, entitled Leveson: EU wants power to sack journalists. The Financial Times, whose journalists also picked up the story, gave it a more sedate headline: Brussels tables tighter EU media laws. Whichever way you look at it, this is not a pleasant story, not least because the dreaded oppressive EU is taking a leaf out of the British rule book. Who owns the Leveson Committee and its report? Not Latvia or Germany.

The subject of all these articles is a report produced by a "high-level group" that was set up in October 2011 to discuss freedom and pluralism of the media across the EU. The report was welcomed by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission with special responsibility for the digital agenda on her blog. One could argue (and in the case of this blog, one does argue) that such a position is a ridiculous joke and a scandal at the same time, the scandal being that it costs an enormous amount of our money, both in the sums received by Commissar Kroes and her staff and in the problems they inflict on business including the media.

Over the week-end, Commissar Kroes tells us, she read the report and has not presented it to the Commission. The next step, she tells us, is an EU-wide discussion and she gives a link as to where people can send their feed-back to. Here it is, in case anyone is interested: CNECT-TASKFORCE-MEDIA at ec dot europa dot eu. (Oh well, I suppose they want to be protected from difficult correspondents but it is not hard to deal with that.)

After recent events concerning media freedom and pluralism, for example in Hungary but really in quite a few Member States, many – including indeed many journalists – complained that the EU was not doing enough, and does not have sufficient powers to act to protect freedom and pluralism. On the other hand, I am also aware that there are risks to freedom and pluralism from having too much power, or acting too much. And that is exactly why I would like a political debate, with all stakeholders contributing.

The report contains recommendations for consideration by a number of Commissioners on matters such as appropriate EU powers in this field, regulator independence, competition and media pluralism, journalist codes of conduct and net neutrality.

I am afraid I can believe that even journalists have complained that the EU was not doing enough to preserve their freedom. They clearly do not know the numerous fables that tell of complaints against existing oppression to a higher power and what happens when the higher power takes it upon itself to deal with the situation. Actually, they simply do not know how regulatory capture works or think that, somehow, they are outside the rules.

Here is the link to the actual report, which I have not yet read through (not having the week-end at my disposal or the kind of income Commissar Kroes gets to read such things) but I object to the title: A Free and Pluralistic Media to Sustain European Democracy. How many times does one have to repeat this: there is no and there can be no European democracy? Some European countries have democracy (though even that needs definition), others not so much. The European Union as a whole has none. The fact that a report of this kind, commissioned by a Commissioner who is not only unelected but is unaccountable, would indicate a certain problem with one part of the process. The additional fact that the EU thinks it has some kind of a right to decide on how the media can or should operate would indicate that the concept of a free media is simply incomprehensible to these people.

Let us have a look at Section 5.2 European Coverage. [Scroll down in the index panel and click.] We have a problem, apparently.

In the context of the current economic and financial crisis and the steps the European Union has taken to address it, the need for democratic legitimacy at the EU level has become an even greater priority. The democratic legitimacy of the European Union is closely dependent, however, on the emergence of a public sphere which is informed about European issues and able to engage in debates about them. This requires, in turn, adequate media coverage of European issues and politics.

The political challenges the Union has faced in tackling the crisis have also highlighted the extent to which the European dimension of certain issues has been insufficiently internalised in the national public spheres. This insufficient Europeanisation of national politics has affected both national debates on EU issues and decision-making processes at the EU level. In the long run, it risks undermining both national democracy and European democracy as a whole.

The very idea of promoting a European public sphere, the possible emergence of European media, increased European awareness within the national public spheres, or increased national coverage of European affairs, is still controversial in many quarters. More importantly, there is a fear that policies to increase European coverage by the media would be guided by some particular conception of the value of European integration, rather than just encouraging broader discussions. This does not mean, however, that the Union and its Member States should abstain from any policy or action aimed at promoting increased media coverage of EU affairs. On the contrary, in the same way that EU and State actions (including funding) may be necessary to promote pluralism at the State level, it is equally appropriate for the Union and its Member States to undertake actions to promote pluralism in the form of increased coverage of EU affairs.

European coverage means more than just the coverage of European Council meetings or Commission activities. It requires a deeper understanding by media of the European dimension of multiple national policies, even when these are being covered at a national level. It also requires for genuinely European politics to be more closely followed and reported on, but this requires both human and infrastructure resources, including high-quality investigative journalism. In the case of small countries, or those particularly hard-hit by the prevailing financial and economic crisis, such resources may simply not be available.

Among possible concrete measures that might offer a partial remedy to this situation, the European Commission could explicitly and emphatically include journalism in the existing Jean Monnet Programme.Higher Journalism Schools, Universities with Journalism programmes and their Professors could then respond to the calls for proposals published every year by the Commission. This would be valuable in increasing their opportunities to address cross-border issues and broaden the pool of those with special competencies in EU affairs.

So there we have it. The problem is not that the EU appears to be messing up the areas it already controls but wants to control some others, not that the eurozone is an economic disaster area for most of its members, not that democratic structures are undermined or that national governments and legislatures are deprived or their rightful powers. Goodness me, no.

The problems is that the EU is not being discussed the way it should be in the national media and, therefore, the answer is to promote a European public sphere with the possible emergence of a European media, which would, obviously, be subsidized by the European tax payer or, at least, those Europeans who bother to pay tax.

I cannot quite understand why neither Bruno Waterfield, nor Toby Young, nor the FT journalists mentioned this. I suppose we have heard all this before but what if this time they really mean it and the sums that will be pumped into the "European media" and the training of "European journalists" will be quite substantial?

What these journos seem to have read (or one of them read and the others simply lifted the story as Toby Young admits to have done) is Section 4.4 Enforced Self-Regulation. The report suggests a list of desiderata that can be enforced on the media companies.

Because the trust that the general public places in the media is an asset to them, media organisations themselves should justify this trust by being more proactive in matters of selfregulation. Each media outlet should follow clearly identifiable codes of conduct and editorial lines, and it should be mandatory for them to publish these on their website or to state explicitly where the organisation follows common international codes of conduct and ethical guidelines. While there must be flexibility in the choice of the code of conduct an organisation decides to follow, a number of key domains can be identified in which the position of the organisation should be set out, including:

 A clear enunciation of the ethical principles it has decided to follow;

 An explicit affirmation of the principle of editorial independence;

 Transparency in divulging final ownership along with a listing of other media interests held by the same owners;

 Potential conflicts of interest between outlets belonging to the same owners should be noted;

 The general working terms and conditions for their journalists should be available for public scrutiny, including the proportion of full-time workers as against levels of freelancing;

 Any commitment to pay a ‘fair wage’ should be publicised;

 In case of a change in ownership, the rights of those journalists differing from the new editorial line should be stated;

 Policies on training and qualifications, if any, should be clearly enunciated;

 Adopted approaches to, and/or available statistics on, workplace diversity, including ethnicity (where appropriate) and gender should be available on demand.

That is quite a set of rules there with some of them being vague enough to catch out any media company that is deemed to be somewhat unreliable.

Some indication of this may be found in Section 2.1 EU competences in protecting media freedom and pluralism.

It goes through the various existing legal bases on which the EU is already entitled to interfering protecting media freedom and pluralism. There are four recommendations.

Recommendation 1: The EU should be considered competent to act to protect media freedom and pluralism at State level in order to guarantee the substance of the rights granted by the Treaties to EU citizens, in particular the rights of free movement and to representative democracy. The link between media freedom and pluralism and EU democracy, in particular, justifies a more extensive competence of the EU with respect to these fundamental rights than to others enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Recommendation 2: To reinforce European values of freedom and pluralism, the EU should designate, in the work programme and funding of the European fundamental rights agency, a monitoring role of national-level freedom and pluralism of the media. The agency would then issue regular reports about any risks to the freedom and pluralism of the media in any part of the EU. The European Parliament could then discuss the contents of these reports and adopt resolutions or make suggestions for measures to be taken.

Recommendation 3: As an alternative to the mechanism suggested in the previous recommendation, the EU could establish an independent monitoring centre, ideally as part of academia, which would be partially funded by the EU but would be fully independent in its activities.

Recommendation 4: All EU countries should have independent media councils with a politically and culturally balanced and socially diverse membership. Nominations to them should be transparent, with built-in checks and balances. Such bodies would have competences to investigate complaints, much like a media ombudsman, but would also check that media organisations have published a code of conduct and have revealed ownership details, declarations of conflicts of interest, etc. Media councils should have real enforcement powers, such as the imposition of fines, orders for printed or broadcast apologies, or removal of journalistic status. The national media councils should follow a set of European-wide standards and be monitored by the Commission to ensure that they comply with European values.

I am not sure any of it actually says that the EU will have powers to sack journalists but what it does say is quite ridiculous and dangerous enough. The purpose is quite clearly to create an overall structure that media outlets would have to adjust to or expect more stringent legislation as none of this can be enforced at the moment.

The concept of those European values is, this blog and EUReferendum have discussed on occasions too numerous to link to, is interesting. There is, according to this, something called European values (many of which are actually Anglospheric ones, but let that pass) that have nothing to do with European history, which, as every school boy and girl ought to know, has produced many values of varying attractiveness. In other words, the EU's duty is to use those nebulous European values to save Europeans from their own history for it is only European values that can prevent a repetition of the nasty events created by Europeans at various times.

My last growl of the year

So many things to complain about when it comes to 2012 and so many I have complained about. No doubt, some will have to be revived next year. However, let me leave this year with an almighty growl about two institutions, one expected, one not so much.

First the UN. Can anyone seriously explain to me why we should still put up with that noxious and highly expensive organization? Some years ago I made similar comments to a shocked Indian acquaintance who immediately exclaimed that he knew for a fact the UN did many good things. Name one, I challenged him. He went very silent and promised to think of some really excellent examples. I am still waiting.

The excellent UN Briefing has come up with a list of the UN's ten worst decisions in 2012. That does not mean there were no other bad decisions; these are merely the worst and pretty terrible they are, too. Some have been covered by this blog, some not. Do read through them if you want to spoil your New Year's Eve.

The unexpected organization that I am growling about is Radio Liberty, until recently one that I admired and placed great hopes in as the BBC Russian Service has been gutted of much news content. Alas, no more. This is a subject I shall have to return to in the new year as the general collapse of the broadcasting of news and analysis to Russia as more and more of that country's media is gathered up by the Kremlin is one of the most disgraceful recent developments. In the meantime, here is an excellent article by John O'Sullivan (yes, yes, he is a great friend and has appeared on this blog a few times) who knows the story in great detail. Warning: it is truly shocking.

What else? Oh yes: let me wish all my readers a happy and prosperous (well, as prosperous as possible) 2013. See you in the new year.

Statements

I fully intend to do a day's blogging, just as soon as I sorted out some aspects of that difficult concept called life (not all of it, just some). However, here are a couple of preliminary statements:

On UKIP and today's by-elections in Croydon North, Rotherham and Middlesborough (on which I shall write later):

As UKIP's co-founder and the first person to be purged from that party I would be delighted if UKIP could finally achieve the results it ought to achieve in the current political climate, no matter how low the turn-out might be. However, past experience tells one that results rarely live up to predictions and it might, on the whole, be better to wait for those results before celebrating or predicting (yet again) that the political scene is about to change. 

On the forthcoming report from Lord Leveson:

Who didn't know that the purpose of the exercise was to recommend legislation that would introduce state control of the media? Then again, such legislation will  have to pass through two Chambers in Parliament and is likely to get bogged down in both of them, thus ensuring that Parliamentary time is taken up by this preposterous bit of legislation. 

The assumption that this is going to be a spectacularly new departure for the British media, which is, allegedly free to publish what it likes at the moment ignores our still unreformed libel laws that control journalism to a far greater extent than most people realize. Suffice it to say that in the US they had to pass legislation to protect the right of American authors to publish certain information in their country and not be hassled by British courts.

Finally, as a blogger, I find it hard not to laugh at the travails of the MSM and not to hope that any legislation that comes out of the Leveson report might finally encourage the British public to turn to the genuinely free part of the media. 

More later, after I have given the benefit of my opinions to the listeners of the BBC Russian Service.