Mostly I despair

Mostly but not always. Mostly I despair of the eurosceptic movement and all who sail in it, particularly when questions outside their tiny little world come up. Or, in other words, I do not think the overwhelming proportion of eurosceptics can or want to understand what is going on in various parts of the world. It is all too difficult and, therefore, they relate everything to what they think they know (but actually rarely do as nothing happens in isolation). So, just as the left has to relate everything to the evil American empire so a large proportion of eurosceptics has to relate everything to the EU, whether that benighted organization is of any relevance or not. As a consequence, the insanely anti-American left and right (a smidgeon more insane than the left), a number of Conservative politicians who have learnt nothing from the second half of the twentieth century and a very large proportion of self-accredited eurosceptics have been cheering for President Putin and his jolly Chekists as they invaded Ukraine, took away a part of it, Crimea and sent in more troops in funny clothes to link up with local separatists in order to destabilize parts of eastern Ukraine.

You'd think that people who are in favour of national sovereignty, especially based on an agreement that was created when a forcibly united multi-national state based on ideology fell apart, would actually support one of them when it is under attack. Well, you'd be wrong. A curious misreading of what happened in Ukraine has led a number of eurosceptics helter-skelter into the ranks of the Putinistas who appear to be in favour of the recreation of a new Soviet Union in the shape of the Eurasian Union. (Fortunately for many of us, not to mention the people of the former Soviet Union, Russia as led and destroyed by Vlad and his mates is not in a fit state to impose its rule on the others though it is quite capable of the aforementioned territorial invasion and destabilization.)

Why am I not in total despair? Well, it always cheers me when I read an article that clearly understand the issues and does not mince its language. Such an article is in July/August's issue of Standpoint and it is by my good friend (full disclosure) Michael Mosbacher.

He lambasts the insane and Stalinist left and insane right in equal measure but what is particularly painful from my point of view is his well-argued and fully justified attack on the Bruges Group that, in my absence from its counsels, seems to have gone slightly mad.

Whether intentionally or not, the Eurosceptic Bruges Group has become an apologist for Putin. The group was established in 1989 to support the views expounded by Margaret Thatcher in her Bruges speech of the previous year calling for an end to the federalist project and a more decentralised Europe. It has now produced Someone Had Blunder'd, a 30-minute film attacking UK and EU policy on Ukraine for provoking Russia, indeed for being the cause of the current crisis. It is fronted by Bruges Group director Robert Oulds and features Conservative MPs Peter Bone, Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood, twice a leadership candidate, as well as erstwhile party chairman Lord Tebbit. They are now exploring a follow-up film with Sir Bill Cash MP.

The argument of these critics is that, in the phrase of Bernard Jenkin, the Euro-neocons — surely as mythical a beast as any yet imagined — running the EU have pursued an aggressive policy of eastward expansion which has encroached on Russia's sphere of influence and thus made it feel threatened. In their view it is the EU's rather than Russia's expansionism which has provoked conflict. Jenkin argues that the EU has been "fomenting divisions in order to bring Ukraine into the European orbit". Redwood says: "It was EU action seeking to expand their empire to the West [sic] which first started the reaction of Russia."

To be honest none of the participants of the film are people to whom I would turn for elucidation of any question of foreign affairs, let alone those to do with the former Soviet Union. What the egregious John Redwood might have meant by his comment is anybody's guess as is Bernard Jenkin's invention of the mythical and meaningless Euro-neocons.

Mr Mosbacher explanation of what happened and what role the EU played at the very beginning of the crisis (after which it became irrelevant as I have mentioned a few times before) is accurate:

It is true that the demonstrations against Yanukovych began last November when he announced that he would not be signing an Association Agreement with the EU but would instead throw in his lot with Putin's Eurasian Customs Union.

The critics are right that the Association Agreement is much more than a free-trade agreement. In Article Seven it commits Ukraine to "promote gradual convergence in the area of foreign and security policy". Article Ten of the agreement provides for "increasing the participation of Ukraine in EU-led civilian and military crisis management operations" and exploring the potential of military-technological cooperation.

The agreement may indeed undermine Ukrainian sovereignty, but surely is nothing compared to the Russian-dominated Eurasian Customs Union. While the latter may on paper be nothing more than a customs union does anyone seriously believe that it will remain as such? Has Putin's aggression in Ukraine not rather proven the point that Ukrainian sovereignty is not high on his list of priorities?

Clearly, it is not high on the average eurosceptic's list of priorities either (that is, assuming, they know where Ukraine is, something I am doubtful of).

There is also a well deserved attack on the Conservatives and their allies in the Council of Europe and its preposterous Parliamentary Assembly.  Read the whole piece.  The title? Putin Has His Useful Idiots on the Left and the Right.

So you think the West is too materialistic? Well, let me tell you ...

Yesterday evening I went to the British Museum and saw its exhibition Germany Divided: Baselitz and his generation. One assumes that the BM sensibly decided to remember the 1914 anniversary of the beginning of what used to be known as the first German war by looking at what that event wrought in Europe and, especially, in the Continent's central part. More power to their elbow.

The six artists whose work is now either in the British Museum collection or been lent for this exhibition by the Duerckheim Collection were all born under the Nazis, have childhood memories of Germany's defeat and the large-scale destruction and are also people who, having found themselves in the eastern section, eventually made their way to West Germany where their career flourished. The art exhibited is, as one would expect variable though the Baselits's chiaroscuro achieved through two or three coloured woodcut blocks create an interesting link with a recently closed Royal Academy exhibition of works created by similar techniques in the Renaissance era.

The artists' personal experience of the Cold War and their knowledge of the two contrasting artistic and cultural worlds clearly contributed to a certain crisis in their identity, both personal and artistic. This is not a particularly clever idea of mine: it is, in fact, the theme of the exhibition, seen through the works of art and through various pronouncements by the artists in question. Having left East Germany behind (most by choice though one, A. R. Penck, through force majeure in the eighties when dissidents were routinely exiled by the DDR) the artists in question continued to feel discontented, though now with the West and, particularly, with Western materialism and consumerism.

It is, of course, the role of the artist in the modern (post-Enlightenment) world to be discontented so we cannot complain about that too much but the particular cause is of interest. as it has been for some time and still is a favourite defence of the indefensible, the Communist system. We all know how it goes: there were, of course, some nasty aspects to it and one would not want to deny that but at least you did not get the obsessive materialism and consumerism of the West. Whether the real horror of those grudgingly acknowledged "some nasty things" is quite balanced out by the often tiresome obsession with the latest gadgets and clothes, yet another holiday and the emptiness of reality TV is questionable. Would people who say that prefer to live in fear of that unexpected yet expected late night or dawn ring of the bell or knock on the door with all that entailed? I think not.

Let us look at the argument: at least they are not obsessed with materialism and consumerism. To start with, what is the basis of Communism and Marxist Socialism but materialism, dialectic or otherwise? The whole political ideology, the whole basis on which state and society are to be built, purport to be materialistic, discarding religion, spiritual entities and "empty" intellectualism. Not only were the ideas discarded and banned, their proponents and practitioners were arrested, exiled, murdered or forced to convert to the worship of Materialism. Socialist Realism from which the artists in this exhibition fled one way or another is the glorification of materialism in art and its apotheosis heralded (or was meant to herald) the trampling down of all non-realist, non-materialist expression.

So much for the underlying ideological basis of Communism. The problem was that it could not provide the material goods that materialism promised to all. While theoretical materialism remained a good thing, its practical assumption had to become a bad thing since it did not exist in the workers' paradise. In particular, it had to be pronounced as bad by Western supporters (at a distance) of that non-materialistic materialist workers' paradise as they could not hide indefinitely behind the lie that consumer goods in the West were available to very few people. In fact, there is an odd correlation between growing contempt for consumerism and materialism and the wider spread of the actual goods.

Were people in Communist countries really not interested in consumer goods? Were they heck. No-one who has ever lived in those countries especially the Soviet Union and managed to communicate with the indigenous population can forget not just the queues for goods that might appear or might not but also the obsessive discussions of what might be available and where, what might be acquired at home or - blissful idea - abroad.

In Soviet cities directions were given by shops. Get off the bus at such and such a shop, turn right, walk to another shop, then right again and it's the second entrance. That sort of thing. Naturally, one had to ask the driver where such and such a shop was, which would cause great excitement on the bus: why were you going to that shop? Was there anything being sold there?

That is materialism and consumerism on the lowest possible level. It did not stop there. With no rights to real property, people competed in ownership of consumer goods: clothes, shoes, make-up, furniture once that became possible and cars when that became possible in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

One of the comedy sketches I recall from my childhood in Budapest was a discussion between two men, played by well known comedians, over breakfast in a cafe about a third one who is assumed to be the owner of a car that is outside. "Where does Kropacsek get his car from?" became one of the oft-repeated lines by people who watched the sketch and sympathized. For about ten minutes there was a discussion about the hapless Kropacsek who ought not to be able to afford a car but seems to have done. How did he do it? Where did he get the car from? Eventually, one of the men realizes that the car is not Kropacsek's but someone else's, whose name might be Moritz. Relief all round. Silence. Well, you can hear the punchline ahead: "where does Moritz get his car from?". Not materialistic at all. Not obsessed with consumer goods. Certainly not.

Even tickets for particularly well thought of plays and films, especially if they were a little daring, books that you could buy only if you had connections, all had become part of a febrile competitive consumerism. Yes, people smuggled in dissident literature but even more they smuggled or just took in all sorts of goodies, basics and luxuries, for themselves, for their families, their friends. Obsessive materialism and consumerism prevailed everywhere in the Communist world with it being considerably stronger and more obsessive in the Soviet Union than in Eastern Europe, particularly countries like Hungary where certain economic reforms made life a little easier, a little more like the West (though only a little).

Communism in its Soviet form has gone and what we see in the post-Soviet states is yet more obsessiveness as well as absolute selfishness in the accumulation of wealth and of consumer goods on a scale that is truly stunning to us in the West. That and the lack of any non-materialist ideas and controls are not the result of the collapse of the Soviet system but of its existence, of its materialist ideology, of the destruction of all other ideas and the contrasting material poverty.

It would be quite funny if it were not so sad

Either Lady Warsi's minions in the civil service have learnt nothing and forgotten none of their ridiculous and frequently disproved statements from the past or they have decided that parliamentary questions are of so little importance that recycling old and meaningless answers is a perfectly adequate way of behaving. Lady Warsi herself, of course, has not the capacity to understand either the questions or the answers so she must be absolved of all sin except the one of not knowing exactly what her limitations are. Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked a perfectly reasonable question that required some kind of a reasonable answer:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Prime Minister’s comments in Brussels on 27 May that Brussels was “too big and too busy” indicate that they intend to oppose any further expansion of the European Union.

After all, we know from experience that widening is not the opposite of deepening and the bigger the EU becomes the more powers are centralized as, quite clearly, a large and ramshackle collection of member states that could never work as one union need to be forced to do so. Does Baroness Warsi understand this? I very much doubt it. Do her minions in the civil service? Well, that is the big question as I asked at the beginning of this posting. In any case, their reply would be quite funny if it were not so sad:

The Prime Minister, my Rt. Hon Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron)’s comment was that Brussels is “too big and too bossy”. He was referring to the need for the EU to reform to become less interfering and more competitive, flexible and democratically accountable. He was not pronouncing on the EU’s territorial size.

The UK continues to be a strong supporter of enlargement based on firm but fair conditionality, focusing on key concerns shared by many Member States, particularly around the rule of law. Enlargement has proved a huge driver of peace, prosperity and progress across our continent.

If they really believe the idiocy of that last sentence or the idea that making the EU ever larger is somehow compatible with it surrendering powers (not that there is the slightest indication of that possibility except in the Prime Minister's pronouncements) than the calibre of our civil service has clearly sunk to an all-time low. If, on the other hand, they do not believe it or do not care whether they believe it but think that any old rubbish will do in reply to a member of Parliament, albeit, the Upper House, then we need to think very seriously about the relationship between the civil service and Parliament, which will be of enormous importance when we start negotiating our way out.

The Bill is back

Lord Pearson of Rannoch has once again presented his European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.  First Reading, which is a formality, as readers of this blog know full well, was yesterday.

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.

Politkovskaya's killers sentenced

This is not really the end of the story as we still do not know (officially) who ordered the murder but the five people who were found guilty after three had been acquitted but a retrial ordered by the Supreme Court, have now been sentenced.

Rustam Makhmudov was given a life sentence for pulling the trigger.

His uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, one of those found guilty of organising the murder, was also jailed for life.

The three others convicted of the killing - two of whom are Makhmudov's brothers - were given between 12 and 20 years in prison.

Last year a former police officer, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who was first produced as a rather odd witness for the prosecution, was found guilty of supplying the gun and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. So far as anyone knows he is still serving that sentence.

Meanwhile, Politkovskaya family is threatening to continue campaigning until the person who actually ordered the assassination is identified and tried. In the past the Russian Investigative Committee stated [in Russian] that the time for that revelation had not come. Now they give a slightly different opinion:

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, said that "unfortunately much depends on our foreign colleagues, especially from Great Britain and Turkey. We have sent a number of inquiries, but have never received any response."

This is a little mysterious. To whom had they sent those inquiries and what about? Perhaps if they made the names of the recipients public, pressure could be put on them to provide some kind of response? Hmmmm?

This account in Deutsche Welle is more detailed but there is no mention as to who in Great Britain or Turkey might be in position to provide the answers to the questions Politkovskaya's family and colleagues are still asking.

Comments policy

By and large this blog gets fewer comments than many others, particularly EUReferendum, but what there is tends to be of high quality. Sometimes people agree, at others they do not; sometimes they pursue the line raised in a posting further, at others they mention related issues; sometimes I reply, at others there seems no point in it as the comments stand by themselves or a discussion develops between readers. All well and good.

My policy on comments is quite straightforward. They are not to be used for advertising of any kind, not even promoting blogs that are not relevant. A reader saying about a UKIP posting that this is very interesting and here is what he or she said on the subject is absolutely fine. That is part of the dialogue and neither I nor any other blogger can keep up with every blog so we are grateful for links. But a reader saying about a posting on Russia, for instance, that this is very interesting and here is a link to his or her blog on sportswear is deleted on the spot (or as soon as I see it). That is advertising

I do not mind disagreements, criticisms or attacks though I draw the line at overtly personal comments, open racism and anti-Semitism as well as conspiracy theories. 9/11 Truthers or World Government obsessives in any form are discouraged from posting and if that does not work, deleted. I am happy to say there have been very few of those in the history of this blog possibly because they see it as being unimportant. May that last.

There is another rather pestilential incursion and that is the Anonymous attacker. In the past I have made it clear that I shall ignore people who have not the guts to put a name to their posting, especially if it is an attack on the blog or on me (the Boss can look after himself but on my blog he, too, is defended). I understand that some people prefer to use their initials or some other moniker on the internet or the blogosphere and consider that to be a signature as well. Some of those people occasionally tell me in private e-mail who they are and that is fine, too. It has also been drawn to my attention that sometimes people seem to be unable to sign into the blogger comments, something that I can neither explain nor understand. But it is perfectly reasonable for someone in that position to sign a posting or a comment. None of this is Anonymous within the meaning of the word. However, people who think it is acceptable to attack while hiding behind complete anonymity are not people one wishes to have any dealings with. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, contemptible. They should be ignored though I may well, in future, simply comment on such a contribution to point out that here is another cowardly anonymous attack. Or I may ignore it. We shall see.