The Migrant Crisis

I note with interest that the media and various government ministers use the term 'migrant' now to cover everyone trying to enter Britain or, for that matter, Europe. Very occasionally the word 'refugees' creeps into a report, but is quickly replaced in all further references by 'migrant'. What's the difference? In my dictionary a 'migrant' is one who leaves one country/town/ or the land and 'migrates' to find work away from his/her roots or origins. Karl Marx argued for the 'right' of workers to do this, saying in effect that it should be the right of a worker to move to where his work will be adequately rewarded.

A 'refugee', by contrast, is one escaping a war, oppression or some other event which may be a 'natural' one such as a volcanic eruption. But herein lies the rub -- if our media and political masters apply the word 'refugee' to the 2 or 3 million people currently in holding camps in various countries in the EU (800,000 in Germany alone), a whole raft of so-called 'International Laws' will kick in and with them the armies of 'Human Rights lawyers' who feed off contesting any and every attempt to remove those who don't qualify for admission anywhere.

Let's also admit that it is also the case that our various bureaucracies are often biased, frequently unfair, and usually so 'rule bound' as to be utterly uncaring, unfeeling and pretty nearly reduce the people they deal with to a point of being no longer 'human', but just cyphers in the system. An article in The Spectator addresses several of these points, but, as ever, attracts comments from those who see only a threat to their own comfort, have never been in a position where they cannot remain in their homes, and who comment from a perspective of ignorance of the realities of the world. Many of those who have commented on the article seem to have missed the author's point completely. Stephano Hatfield makes the telling point that there is a difference between an 'economic migrant' and a 'refugee', yet Theresa May, the current UK Home Secretary, seems to conflate them, linking 'migrants' from other EU States with the refugees pouring in from the failing Islamic States of the Middle and Near East, North Africa and the Civil wars in several West African states with the undoubted groups migrating for economic reasons.

Then there is the hysteria stirred up by the British Press and politicians, about the 'siege' of the Channel Tunnel, and the migrants trying to board trucks, cars and anything else heading for Britain. This is, it must be acknowledged, in part due to the last Labour government's drive to open the immigration doors to all manner of immigrants from cultures which bear no relationship whatever to that of Europe, much less Britain. What gets lost in all this, is that while the UK goes into an almost ludicrous frenzy over fewer than ten thousand 'migrants' trying to enter the UK by these means, Germany is dealing with 800,000, Italy with another 250,000, Greece (remember the ones with the financial problems) over 100,000 and France with numbers approaching those of Germany. Yes, there is unhappiness about it, but they are dealing with it quietly and efficiently. Yes, it is a political football in most countries, but much less so, it seems, than in the UK -- which is dealing with a fraction of the numbers everyone else is coping with.

More worrying is the very point the author of The Spectator article is making with his link to the family of Anne Frank. Vilifying the refugees simply creates an atmosphere in which it becomes easy to isolate them and then turn them into an 'enemy' - which, alarmingly, seems to be happening already if when one reads the UKIP and similar minded parties and their supporters rants and comments. Another Spectator article published today points to the fact that almost 10 million people in Syria are now 'displaced', and trapped because the borders around that benighted land are now closed. The 2 million or so in camps in Jordan are trapped as well. Forbidden to work, families are dependent, children are rebelling and teenagers are defying their parents and sneaking off to join militias 'at home' because that is better than sitting around waiting for the next handout.

To those who argue these folk should have stayed where they were and fought back against the oppression, consider this; if your family home were reduced to a pile of rubble, and the attacker threatens to behead you, your children and rape your wife and daughters - would you 'remain in place'?

We should be concerned at the Home Secretary's deliberate linking of the refugee crisis with the European freedom of movement for workers. The freedom of movement within the EU of workers is NOT the problem, but linking it to the 'migrant/refugee' crisis gives opponents of such movement (and the UK does have a bit of a 'history' there) gives the politicians and the media the chance to whip up antipathy against ALL migrant workers, especially those from EU countries. By calling workers from other EU countries 'migrants' and in the same breath calling those fleeing Africa, the Levant and all the other countries suffering massive conflict or grinding social poverty 'migrants' she is setting them all up to be vilified and hounded out of the UK.

I'm inclined to agree with the latest Spectator article, in that we may have an obligation to 'rescue' people, but we do not have an obligation to house, feed, clothe and employ them here. We do have some responsibility for ensuring they are supported in all efforts to improve the situations which have driven them to flee their homes. In places like parts of Libya and Syria or Iraq, I would suggest there is a need to find ways to make the refugee camps more like functioning societies rather than a 'waiting area'. Why can't the refugees be given employment looking after their own needs in the camps? Why should this be forbidden? Why bring in teachers from the local area, when you have qualified people sitting around idle?

To solve this problem we need to do more to provide something meaningful for those who have escaped, which will encourage them to stay in the camps. We also need to look very carefully at how we can break the cycles of corruption, abuse and conflict which bedevil so many lands and are causing this tide of human misery. Only then can we hope to even begin to deal with it.

War on European Culture

In a recent post I looked at the apparent assault on western civilisation by the forces of fundamentalist Islam. The post, entitled The Assault on Western Civilisation has now received from a reader the following pertinent observations.

While I share all the views you have expressed, an additional matter appears to be the fundamental distinction between Judaism and Christianity on the one hand, and Islam on the other, in respect of the relationship between religion and the secular power. The former explicitly acknowledge a dichotomy ( Caesar and God of the New Testament; the prophets and kings of the Old Testament); while the latter sees only a seamless web. Consequently, the creative tensions of Europe ( Emperor and Pope; Puritans and the Stuarts) do not significantly exist; and politics in the Islamic world is either mimicry ( Nasser Socialism) or the barbaric Gulf states with primitive and confused tangles of religion and secular power. The static ( regressing?) societies in the ME and Pakistan confirm Islam’s stultifying influence, in contrast to the supple societies in India and China, with the capacity to adjust and advance.   

Europe’s fundamental error was to uncouple immigration from culture, because of the lazy reaction on the Continent to Nazism; and in Britain because the country could not break free from the lie of empire (when it was on its last legs) that there was one big rainbow family; and at the end of World War 2 no politician could admit that victory was concurrent with the collapse of the empire, so the rag bag Commonwealth had to be presented as a better, modernised empire. It has to added that the pretence had, of course, the most hideously lethal consequences in Asia and Africa where a premature and botched partition in the subcontinent saw a million die, and in colonies that were not partitioned ( happy families!) the massacres were postponed, as in Sri Lanka. 

As for Africa, colonialism could not have been more destructive than if the powers had set out to re-enact Carthage ( “they make a desert and they call it peace” – from Tacitus’ seems still peerless). Out of the most primitive societies in the world, 19^th Century countries were carved which completely ignored organic and fluid tribal perimeters. And out of these, in turn, came independent Bismarkian states, given the apparatus of armies, governments, police and treasuries: for what? As instruments of incompetence, barbaric oppression and confusion on innumerable occasions. In the organic tribal societies the power to create harm was relatively small: the very backwardness of the societies limited damage, and because they operated in a prescriptive framework, the tribesmen were sane, whole ( albeit backward) people with transmitted codes of behaviour.

I find his observation regarding the difference of approach to 'government' and human authority particularly pertinent. Having discussed this very point with several Muslim friends, there is a stark difference in their view of 'democratic' government and that of everyone else. When teaching a Leadership course in the Middle East, I asked the students to think of some remarkable leaders in their own history and culture who provided good examples of inspiring leadership. I expected to get at least something on the likes of Cyrus the Great, Saladin and one or two others. I got one. The Prophet, in their view the ONLY valid example of 'perfect' leadership. That should tell us everything we need to know. It should also scare the living daylights out of those who loudly demand the contradiction of 'no religion in public' and simultaneously welcome any non-Christian religion to indulge in full on displays on the grounds it is a 'minority culture'.

Nor is Europe alone in the error of uncoupling immigration from culture. In their haste to prove their 'inclusive' and non-racial credentials post war, many liberal thinkers preached the mantra that mono-culture was evil, that it promoted racism and many other ills. Now they try to promote the concept of a 'rainbow' culture that is all things to everyone, and yet it is not, and can never be. As my correspondent says, it has its roots in the myth, created at the end of the war, to promote the idea that the Empire had been a 'family' and that it was simply changing shape to be even more inclusive as it became the 'Commonwealth'.

But the Commonwealth is itself a game of smoke and mirrors. Recent exchanges I have had elsewhere with what I shall call 'Little Englanders' who wish to sever all ties to Europe, are loud in claiming that 'we have the Commonwealth; we don't need Europe.' It is interesting to note that, to them, 'The Commonwealth' is Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Bermuda and very little more. Mention that it includes Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Zambia and various other basket cases and you get the response of 'Oh, well, they don't really count, and besides, they buy our goods ...' The truth is, that they don't., but that's alright, because we're still part of that great big 'rainbow family' of the Empire. Aren't we?

Almost all of the current upheaval around the world can be traced to Imperial meddling, carving up of land in order to impose European ideas and nations out of diverse and disparate peoples. This is why Turkey has resorted to force against it's Kurdish population, and why the Kurds dream of a nation state of their own that includes territory currently part of Northern Syria, Northern Iraq and Eastern Turkey. It is why Syria is falling apart, and why Iraq is ungovernable.

Studying the history of major population migrations, one quickly realises that Roman culture fell, and their empire failed, when 'migration' reached a point at which there were more 'alien' cultures in their towns and cities than those who followed the Roman pattern. Those who claim that 'Britain has absorbed migrants throughout its history' fail to recognise that the vast majority, until the 20th Century, were European and held similar cultural values and ideals. That is no longer the case, particularly those migrants that 'follow the Prophet'. To them a separation between the Temple and Caesar is unthinkable, so is any 'democratic' decision which flies in the face of their Faith.

History buffs will also know that Byzantium was not conquered overnight, it died by a million small cuts as the Arabic conquerors first learned to manipulate the populace to their line of thought, and then to accept the imposition of a new culture. So it will be with us - thanks in large part to well meant, but hideously misguided, attempts to find simple and pleasing solutions to very complex human problems.

We can but hope that sense, reason and ultimately democracy will prevail. 

Some Interesting Reading

My reading list lately has included a hefty tome by Prof Jane Humphries of Oxford University entitled Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution, and another book entitled The Establishment - And how they get away with it by Owen Jones. Both are not easy reading, but they are certainly eye opening. The first exposes how Britain's wealthy and Middle Classes benefited from the mass exploitation of children in the 18th and 19th Centuries. It describes how children from the age of six or less were employed in mines and mills at absolute minimum wages, often putting in 16 hour shifts in the mines where they hauled the waggons, or gathered the coal from spaces too small for an adult. In the cotton mills, children were used to gather waste beneath the machines while they were operating. Deaths and injuries were too numerous to count, and the resistance in Parliament to any restrictions, or the imposition of any safety measures was unbelievable.

Which leads me to the second book. Written by an angry young man I found I have observed many of the things he speaks of at first hand. "The Establishment" is a very well organised 'clique' of the wealthy and the powerful, and, if this book is to be believed, they exercise some very far reaching control over the civil service, the political landscape and the access to wealth. As I said, I can attest to having witnessed certain aspects he mentions, but not being a part of the "Establishment" myself, cannot say whether everything he mentions is as he says. I have long suspected much of this, and I would agree the circumstantial evidence points to it, but I cannot see anyone actually provided proof 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

The first book I found difficult because of the emotions it stirred. After all, the vast majority of us, born two hundred to a hundred years ago, would have followed at least some of the 'career path' described in it. As Prof Humphries points out, in many of the 'trades' a boy would be lucky to reach 25, and as for reaching a 'retirment age' - well very few did. For the girls it was as bad if not worse in some aspects. I felt a deep sense of thankfulness for the efforts of my great grandparents, grandparents and their antecedents for their efforts to break out of that mould and give my brother and I a chance of something better. Her book prompted me to look into the whole 'Workhouse' and Poor Law administration and the manner in which orphans were handled. Some of it made so angry I had to stop, and to me the worst aspect is that the modern 'Benefits' system is administered by the same mindset and the same 'social class' that set up the Workhouses. Worse, they seem to have the same motivation as their forebears - don't 'improve' anything, as the recipients might then break the cycle of patronage ...

What is fascinating about the revelations in both books is just how far those who do hold the keys to wealth and power will go to defend their control, and the lengths they will employ to ensure that they and their families, friends and close associates remain in control. Students of history will know how the Roman aristocracy used Circuses, 'free bread' and other populist handouts and entertainments to keep the populace 'happy' and unwilling to challenge the status quo. We can see a similar pattern in our own society, with 'football' extravaganzas and other 'sporting' entertainments. The 'arts' are funded to the hilt because they keep a population from asking awkward questions, and there is also that wonderful stand-by, fear of the 'enemy'. Here we can take our pick of a wide range, from 'being overwhelmed by immigrants', through 'runaway climate change' and 'loss of sovereignty' right down to all the 'something'-phobias we are constantly told we engage in.

Anything and everything to make sure we don't ask questions like, 'how does a man enter the political 'career' as a penniless graduate struggling to pay his loans become, in a few years, a millionaire property owner?' Or how a company with no expertise in some technical area get awarded huge contracts to perform work in that field? Or, Why does the Treasury have a list of 'preferred bidders' who can bypass the tendering process, but who all seem to be major companies with links to MPs, senior civil servants or other 'power' figures?

It is said that history is written by the victors, but I suspect this is not always true. What is true is that those in power have always been very good at manipulating our thinking, and in redirecting our attention away from their activities. Hence "Climate Change" (take a look at who the main promoters really are), or the Anti-Eu or any other convenient 'enemy'. As Owen Jones points out "Sovereignty" is, today a total illusion. The agenda is set by unelected officials in the UN, the EU and numerous other 'international' bodies. Once signed up to, parliaments have little scope for adjustment.

In the UK much is made of the 'unelected' nature of the Commission and the Council of Ministers, yet the politicians will argue that both are 'indirectly' elected bodies - the Council by National electors voting for the Party or Minister on the Council and the Commission by virtue of the fact its appointees are 'elected' by the Council and approved by the European Parliament.Mr Jones argues, and I believe he has a point, that this is a sham, since the Ministers are representatives of the political elites of the various member countries, the Commissioners are drawn from their ranks and the Parliament is also stuffed with members of the same political class.

The problem is, of course, that they can and do argue that we, the gullible voters, voted for them.

What is very clear is that in any age, and in every age, the wealthy and powerful will look after each other first and last. If there is any benefit lower down it is usually because some have managed to break out of the mould and claw their way upward by their own efforts, not because anyone in power made it easier or even helped them. This is where the Trades Unions have, in my view, gone badly wrong. The leaders of the Unions have joined the Establishment and become a part of the problem. No, I am not calling for a more radical Union movement, I am calling for a better understanding of what the working people - everyone who has to earn a salary or a wage to pay the bills - really want and need. Stuff the ideology where the sun doesn't shine. Let's recognise that for our society to prosper as a whole we need less division, less isolation and a damned sight more recognition of the partnership between 'worker' and 'manager/investor/owner'.

Yes, reading this made me angry at the abuse and the duplicity, but it also made me very proud of the boys, girls, men and women who managed to claw their way out of the pits of the slums, the poverty, the exploitation - and give their children a better chance. For the record, my paternal grandfather - the youngest of four children and the only surviving male - was apprenticed as a coffin-maker at 13. His future wife, the daughter of a small holder, apprenticed as a seamstress at 12. My maternal great grandfathers were respectively Colour Sergeant in the Royal Irish Rifles and a farmer. Great grandmother Heron's father was a Gardener on the Mount Stewart Estate. Their children managed to rise to become a Postmistress and to run his own business. My paternal grandfather finished his schooling on his own, taught himself accountancy and worked as a bookkeeper well past retirement age. I salute them all.

I commend both these books to my readers here, some of this is what inspired my latest book, due out soon. Limehouse Boys follows the paths of a trio of orphans in the 1830s East End of London. Watch this space for more details of its release.

Captains and Kings

The Greek drama continues. Mr Tsipras may have hoped he'd get an easy ride when he came back to Brussels and presented the original proposals as 'his'. He hasn't had it. The Belgian PM went for him in no uncertain terms, and several of the other national leaders have made it clear he's really going to have to deliver this time round. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious and hurting so many people. As the Belgian PM pointed out, Greece has had a better deal than many others, in fact it has enjoyed benefits and bailouts no one else has got and it has failed to deliver anything so far.

He isn't getting an easy ride at home either. His own Party is split between those who want to bite the bullet, and the hardliners who still think they can get away with robbing the bank and not paying the penalty. And the populace are angry, with most demanding he find a solution that lets them stay in the EU and the €uro - there seems to be little liking now for the concept of returning to the Drachma and the freefalling economy not reforming anything promises. I think Mr Tsipras is learning at first hand Abraham Lincoln's dictum - you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

I suspect that a deal will be struck, but Mr Tsipras is going to have to accept some things he won't like, and Brussels/the ECB will make some small concessions to sweeten the pill, but there will be some big penalties if the reforms aren't delivered. And in the meantime the 'little people' - the voters - continue to suffer the consequences of successive regimes that thought they could give handouts endlessly in pursuit of popularity in the polls. For a government to balance its books, it needs to have a realistic income, and that can come only from tax. If you don't collect them, you can't expect to get everyone else to fund you.

As the Belgian PM pointed out rather forcefully, the Greek populace enjoy a generous set of benefits the Belgians and everyone else is paying for. Their 'Minimum Wage' is almost twice that of five other EU states, and they enjoy a pension age at least 17 years younger than anyone else. Time to reform, and more important, time to actually do what they have talked about for the last five years,

Tragedy? Comedy? or Farce?

I can't quite make up my mind on the latest move by the Greek government. It seems they have said 'NO' to the Troika's proposals on the grounds that they were 'bad' for Greece and 'democracy' and have now come back to the negotiating table with a set of proposals for the reform of their economy, benefits, pensions and so on that look amazingly like those they said 'no' to just a week ago. How anyone is able to keep a straight face on it is beyond me.

So it looks as if the Greeks will be staying in the €uro. I suspect there will be no end of disappointment in the UK Media and certain US based news media, all of whom have spent the last week telling us how 'evil' the proposals were, and how a 'Grexit' was the only way forward. I imagine they weren't too impressed by the tens of thousands that besieged the Greek Parliament on Wednesday and Thursday demanding that Greece STAY in the €uro and secondly, that their government sort things out. I suspect that may have given Mr Tsipras a bit of a message.

Reading the Telegraph, the FT, The Spectator and the Washington Post articles on the crisis, one could be excused for thinking they were actually trying to orchestrate an exit and would like to see the €uro swept away. That made me wonder why? What is it about the EU and the €uro these commentators are so afraid of? Or is there some other agenda?

Reading Christopher Clark's monumental works Iron Kingdom and The Sleepwalkers, I begin to suspect there is a deep seated fear in sections of the British populace and perhaps mindset, that cannot accept the thought of a powerful and successful European unit, whether we call it a 'Union' or a 'Federation'. It is interesting that Prussia was one of our principle allies until 1871 and the unification of the German States. From the moment of unification onward, the British Press briefed against Germany, and slowly incited a mindset that equated the German people with enmity. It led to an arms race, diplomatic attempts to isolate Germany and finally war. It is amusing to note that one aspect of this misfired spectacularly. Parliament demanded that all German goods had to be labelled 'Made in Germany' and got it. The idea being that this would encourage people to boycott such goods. The opposite happened. The Label Made in Germany immediately became the stamp of quality.

What has this to do with the current Greek farce? Simply this - reading the UK and US Media reports on it, the EU has become synonymous with 'Germany' - and of course, that means it must be bad. The fact the EU was the brainchild of the French, Dutch, Belgians and one or two others seems to have escaped them. They have forgotten that it began with the 'Benelux' countries forming a Customs Union, which then expanded. The German were then divided between West and East Germany, and only the West German Federation was initially a part of the enlarged EU. Funny then, that so many today in the UK media seem to be convinced that the entire EU project is the brainchild of an expansionist Germany trying to take over the world by stealth.

It would be funny, if it wasn't so small minded and frankly stupid.

For the moment, however, it looks as if the Greeks will now accept the proposals they originally rejected, but are now proposing as their own. They'll sort out their economy (they say) and behave from now on. So, to the disappointment of many anti-EU commentators we will not see the €uro 'unravelling' or the EU tearing apart.

Never mind, there's bound to be some new thing they can whip up a storm about in a week or so ...

Left? Right? Centre?

In the interests of clarity, I'd just like to check. The 'Troika' is under fire from both the 'left' and the 'right' and both claim to be doing it in defence of Greek democracy. The Left claiming that the demands to reform the Greek economy before any 'relief' package can be handed over, is 'damaging the economy and denying vital services', while the right claim it is undemocratic to demand any controls at all. Both, presumably, would like the Greeks to be allowed to continue on their merry way, funding their corruption with everyone else's money.

Once you add in the UK Media which seems to simply put a negative spin on anything to do with the €uro or the EU and one rapidly comes to the conclusion that the 'Troika' (which I understand to be the German Federal government, the European Central Bank and the EU Commission) may actually be right. That they aren't popular with the Left or the Right is a given. The Right love to hate them as being about 'stealing sovereignty' and trying to create a 'Fourth Reich' to use the populist UKIP label, and the Left love to hate them because they won't allow freewheeling spending. The Greeks currently hate them because they want to keep on with their freewheeling spending - using the rest of Europe's money as the former Latvian PM said on our television recently. Funny how the media love to show us all the hard Right and hard Left banging on about the 'evil' EU restricting Democracy on the one hand, and the 'evil' Troika on the other for imposing controls on free spending handouts.

The irony is that both sides earnestly believe they are defending the 'democratic' rights of everyone to determine their own affairs. Both seem to forget that the currency is currently the world's second largest 'Reserve' currency and has actually proved reasonably stable in the sixteen years since it was created. The Greek government actually cooked their books to get in in 2000, joining at a Rate of 340.75 Drachma to the €uro. What we now know is that they did so because the Drachma was on the point of collapse, and perhaps Brussels and the Commission should have looked at the glossy figures a little more thoroughly when they were presented by a rather large UK based international accountancy firm that handles major corporate tax affairs for several companies who pay little or no tax to the countries they operate in.

The argument advanced by Mr Farage in an interview aired last night is that the Greeks have 'lost their sovereignty' because they are unable to 'adjust their economy' be devaluing their currency. I got the impression he felt that, to help Greece, everyone else in the Eurozone should allow the Greek government to run the printing presses, flood the market with devalued €uros and allow runaway inflation everywhere else. Ironically, this is what Die Linke and their fellow 'socialist' supporters in the Greens and other 'left' parties want.

Just so the Greeks can carry on doing the spending they are doing. Not unnaturally that suggestion has the more prudent Finance Ministers - and Hr Schauble is just one (though he happens to control the largest €uro based economy, and does it rather well) - rather cross. Especially the Baltic States, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.

Having lived in a country where printing money was used to address economic downturns, and devaluation employed to improve export trade, my own feeling is that those who feel this is the right way are either mad, or they are deliberately and dangerously trying to ruin the whole European economy. I'm starting to believe the latter in fact. Which makes me think that none of them have any concept of the misery it will inflict. As I said, I have lived through it. I have lived with an 'official' inflation rate of 12.5% year on year and the consequences were that though my salary was automatically 'adjusted for inflation' and I usually got at least 5% annual increments - my actual spending power decreased annually by a minimum of 7 - 10%.

Why? Because the 'official' inflation rate was roughly half the actual. That is what allowing Greece to 'devalue' the €uro would produce in the longer term. Thank you all the Left wing commentators in the UK and US media trying to talk the €uro out of existence, or talk it into devaluation. I can't use the expression here that I would say to their faces, but I will use the Shakespearean curse - A pox on all your houses.

Perhaps it is time for a reality check for the ideologues of the 'left' and the 'right' - and maybe the 'centre' as well. Economies are built on trade, productivity, goods, services, savings and prudent management of the resources of any nation or group. The EU isn't perfect, but it is doing a remarkable job of holding together a very disparate group of people and cultures. As Josephus has reminded me from time to time, one of the biggest problems is the divide between the frugal and industrious 'northern' nations and the more laid back and less industrialised southern ones. That is perhaps most evident when one looks at the divide between Southern Italy and Northern Italy, or those South Eastern States once part of the Austrian Empire and those that were run by the Ottomans.  A similar divide almost tore the US apart in the 1860s, less than a hundred years after its Founding.

The Germans are very, very touchy about inflation and falling productivity. They remember all to clearly how runaway inflation in the 1920s and early 30s brought a certain Party to power that plunged them into almost total destruction, and they won't allow anyone to take them there again. In the last weeks the Greek government has repeatedly come to the table with the same proposal - no cuts, no immediate reform, just give us the money and we'll see what we can do. Understandably, Hr Schauble is angry, after all Germans are going without some of the benefits they are paying for the Greeks to enjoy. It might pay the UK Media to be a little less 'anti-German' and get their heads out of the 1940s mindset. The German economy is remarkably stable, partly because they don't have the same lurching from 'socialist' to 'neo-socialist' and 'capitalist' economic dispensations and flights of fancy as we do. They aren't the threat, and neither is Brussels - the real threat is the idiocy that says fragmenting Europe into a myriad small states with parochial politics is the right way to go in the world as it is developing today.

As for the current crisis, Mr Tsipras is going to have to come up with a bit more than rhetoric and lots of glad-handing people like Mr Farage to get any change from the Troika and no amount of Farage Fulmination and Leftist whinging is going to change it.

Who really owns the money?

From many comments on the current financial crisis in Greece - and from the utterances of the Greek PM and his so-called Finance Minister - I get the impression that a majority of people have no idea of how Banks operate, and even less idea of where they get the money. It doesn't seem to register that the 'money in the bank' is actually 'owned' by the people who deposit it there, not the Bank. Nor do they seem to appreciate that the friendly 'High Street' banker is in a totally different league to the so-called 'Merchant Banking' operations in the City. For one thing your High Street manager doesn't get to play with Fund Investment - probably the worst he can do is lend a client a bit too much or allow to big an overdraft.

The guys in the city are another world. These are the guys who can move billions at the touch of a button, the men who lend huge sums to companies and to governments. But there are also limits to how much and whose money - and again, it isn't theirs or the banks. Once again, it is money entrusted to them by investors and depositors. The trick is that the Banks work for their investors and their shareholders - famously a court in the US decreed in the 1930s that the sole function of a corporation is to make a profit for its shareholders. That is what banks do when they lend anyone money, which is also why most of us don't borrow any more than we need to. After all, why pay more than you absolutely have to for the privilege.

There is much fulminating about the Banks having lent too much, or the Banks making profits at the expense of the people - but who forced anyone to borrow the money in the first place? Until the 1990s, Bank Regulation meant they had to 'hold' in their vaulty a considerable portion of the money deposited with them. Then, presumably in the belief this would bring 'growth', governments decided to allow a bank to lend almost everything it held on deposit. Thus, if a depositor put in §100, the bank could lend a borrower §90, and when he paid that into his bank account, they could lend up to §81 of that, and so on ... That fueled the 'credit boom'.

The next problem is that of governments themselves. They have, in reality, only the money they can gather in taxes to spend. If you push tax to high, the big money leaves and tax revenue falls, so goivernments are forced to balance spending and income by taking loans usually organised by the IMF. The alternative is to simply 'print more' a trick that saw the value of the British Pound collapse under the free spending Labour governments of the 1970s. Those who scream about how the €uro has 'denied nations their democratic right' to resort to the printing presses forget that the value of the money is only as good as the gold, trade or whatever that underwrites it. Bank of England notes still contain the legend 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand ...' and technically you could take your Bank Notes to the Bank that issued them and demand the hard cash in coin, preferably gold.

For years now the Greek crisis has been brewing and all the other countries caught up in it have managed to find solutions. Some, like Ireland, took the pain, fixed their overspending problem, and are now recovering, others lag, but are dealing with it. Greece alone has refused any reform. Their PM and Finance Minister have caused enormous frustration by repeatedly coming to the table with the same empty hands. As one Minister put it, they smile, they shrug, and say, you make a proposal, we'll consider it. Now they claim they want the debt written down - in other words, they want to stick their hands into the pockets of every taxpayer, depositor and investor yet again, and take even more out of everyone else's pockets while still refusing to reform their freespending.

More worrying is the fact that many of those asked, on leaving the Polling Stations, say they voted No to 'punish the banks' or to 'punish Brussels'. Fine, but tomorrow, when the banks have nothing to offer, or when Tsipras and his henchmen print Drachmas and try to pass them off on a 1 for 1 basis, it will probably take less than 24 hours for the value to crash.

Well, the people have spoken. Whether they stay in the €uro or not is a moot point. Some believe Europe will bend over backwards to keep them in. I'm not so sure they will, Mr Tsipras and his Finance Minister have annoyed everyone. So they refuse to pay their debts? Greece will find it incredibly hard to get fuel, medical supplies and a whole range of other things they can't make themselves. Countries having to work on 'cash up front' generally run into massive problems very quickly.

Will it 'kill the €uro' as so many British commentators and media 'experts' seem to hope? I doubt it. That would cause a much, much bigger problem economically for the International community than many realise and it will hurt everyone. It might be a good idea for all those journalists, campaigners and the rest, calling for Europe to 'write off the debt' or 'give emergency aid' to back off a little and consider. The Greek Referendum has been used to 'send a message' and to cover up the fact the Greek government refuses to carry out meaningful reform of an economy based on other people's money.

The Greeks have been living on and spending everyone else's money since they cheated their way into the €uro. They were eager enough in the early days to get into the €uro for the very simple reason the Drachma was shot to ribbons and only just still viable. They wanted the €uro then, because it gave them, they thought, a limitless source of funds to cover their profilgacy. They've made no effort to collect their own taxes, they allowed capital to vanish, and even the EU subsidies to disappear into projects that were just to boost the wealth of a few. They've been refusing to reform for the last five years, and now its caught up with them. Mr Tsipras wants 30% of government debt written off - which means the rest of the EU, the depositors and taxpayers must pick up his bill, presumably so he can carry on spending.

I know what my answer would be if I were a bank manager and a debtor approached me with that sort of demand. This argument is not about 'democracy' or even control of their own economy, it is about paying your own way, and paying your debts. They don't 'own' the money supply, neither does Brussels or anyone else - it belongs to us, the taxpayers, depositors, and investors.

An Interesting Question

I read that Mr Putin is to 'review' the legality of the independence of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. One can only wonder at what the NATO/US/EU response will be. Another Munich Accord a´la Chamberlain's 1938 agreement with a certain gentleman with similar ambitions for his country and people? Perhaps everyone should demand a 'review' of Russia's occupation of East Prussia, the so-called Kaliningrad enclave.

Mr Putin plans, apparently, to review the legality of his county's recognition of the three small states who, as historians will know, have been overrun and occupied by just about everyone in  the neighbourhood in the past. Their brief breath of freedom between 1919 and 1939 saw them first occupied by Nazi forces, then by the Soviets. Neither occupying power earned much love or respect. Stalin's deportation of 'natives' was followed by the implanation of native Russians, so now all three countries have fairly large ethnically 'Russian' populations - just as was the case in East Ukraine, parts of Georgia and several other parts of the former Soviet empire Mr Putin has 'reclaimed' in the interests of 'protecting the ethnic Russian population' ...

In 1939 Britain, France and the Empire went to war with Germany over the invasion of Poland. Now the question hangs in the air over whether or not we will stand up for the three small Baltic States. Is their membership of NATO and the EU worth the paper it is presumably written on? Maybe, maybe not.

One problem that I can see is that Russia is far better armed now than NATO, and far less restrained by concerns of 'sovereignty', morality or international sentiment. Should Mr Putin decide the 'recognition' is illegal, what then? Another Ukraine? Very likely, although, with his army already massed on the doorstep, I suspect it will all be over in a matter of hours -- long before any of our western leaders can even get their heads round the question of a response.

Which leaves them with the same option Chamberlain faced in 1938. Oooh, we'll impose 'sanctions' and then more 'sanctions' as we watch Mr Putin roll over Finland, Poland and perhaps even the Eastern States of Germany. Do anything to stop him? Oooh, can't do that, it would be unpopular in the ballot box, and we no longer have the means anyway.

So much for 'Peace' and the 'Peace Dividend'. So much for 'Peace in our time' at any price and at all costs. We seem to have forgotten the important mxim - Si vis pacem; para bellum.

Human Migrations

Humans have been migrating, I suspect, since the dawn of time. There have been many reasons for it I suspect, starting with the need to move when a familiar area can no longer support the tribe, clan, family and going all the way up to conflict and the need to escape. Individually the reasons can range from the desire to find a sexual/breeding partner to the desire for wealth and power. Then there are those who can see no hope of leading a life of hope or fulfilment in the place of their birth, and need to move to find employment even of the most basic once they reach adulthood. And when even that is denied them through war, discrimination, crime and corruption or lack of any viable opportunity, they are forced to take desperate measures.

This is where we see the sort of tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean at present. As the latest death toll rises, we hear all the usual politicians wringing their hands and saying all the usual things about ‘addressing the problem at its roots’ but doing nothing.

Reading all the usual twaddle from politicians, ‘aid agencies’, UN officials (many from the countries that ARE the problem) and commentators on various news shows, one is struck, very forcibly, by the lack of any workable solution being proposed by any of them. The UN and various ‘humanitarian’ groups all want Europe to throw open its borders and let the hordes in. No checks, no restrictions - just take them in and presumably house, feed and clothe them. Our political leaders want to give more ‘aid’ or send ‘advisers’ and, of course, the Aid Agencies and NGOs all want more money so they can do more to ‘lift people out of poverty’. All very laudable, but none of it actually addresses the root of the problem - incompetent and utterly corrupt governments.

In our haste to ‘de-colonise’ Africa in particular, we overlooked something rather important. Very few of the new ‘nations’ we left south of the Sahara had any ‘tradition’ of settled civilisation prior to colonisation, and even fewer were actually homogenous peoples. Most included more than one tribal group, and most of those tribes were traditional enemies who preyed on each other until forced to stop by the colonial power. The Mashona were happily enslaving all their neighbours and selling them to Arab slave traders at Mombasa and Dar Es Salaam right up until the British - at the behest of none other than Cecil John Rhodes (whose statue has just been attacked and now removed from the campus at University of Cape Town) sent in the Army to put a stop to it in 1898. That’s right, 1898! Robert Mugabe, take note.

Southern Africa is the classic example of historic migrations, since ALL the current ‘Bantu’ tribes now claiming it as their ‘homeland’ actually only arrived there after 1700 - around 40 years after the Dutch established their trading post at the Cape. They displaced the indigenous peoples, the Khoi folk, who formed three groups, a coastal people known to the Dutch as Strandlopers, the ‘Bushmen’ who inhabited the drier inland regions, and the Hottentot peoples of the western Cape. Another group who inhabited the central plateau - now the Free State and Northern Cape - have vanished entirely, their only traces being dry stone constructions of cattle pens and strange ‘beehive’ houses entered on hands and knees through an angled tunnel entrance. Like the Khoi peoples, they were driven out, driven into the deserts, and eventually killed on sight by the invading Bantu. Though to hear it now, it was the Europeans ‘wot done it’. Sadly, for the builders of the stone huts, the White explorers that found their remains were about fifty years too late.

So what is driving today’s mass migrations? 

To a very large extent it appears to be the failure of the post-colonial governments of almost all the African states to provide any sort of stable government. Plus the total lack of any prospects for employment, education, or to house, feed, and clothe oneself decently. Almost certainly one of the most powerful drivers is overpopulation. There simply aren’t the natural resources to support the populations now trying to subsist on them. Water is an obvious one, but so is arable land. I suspect that one reason sub-saharan Africa has not produced any settled cities or permanent agriculture is that the soil and the water available cannot sustain them. 

Thus, until fairly recent ‘colonial’ history, the agriculture tended to be slash and burn, farm it until the soil and the water was exhausted - then move on. Most of Africa is not covered by dense jungle or forest - by far the largest portion of it is desert or semi-desert, and most tribal systems prior to the colonial rush, were hunter gatherer and nomadic. Neither of these systems is suited to the massive expansion of the populations all over Africa, and the lack of industries, and lack of commercial traditions (in the western sense) means that most now have to find ways to make a living independently of the sort of system the developed countries enjoy. Nor is it likely that these will develop in the short term, given that corruption is rampant, nepotism, tribalism and sometimes xenophobia reach into every aspect of daily life.

Only those folk who have seen the shanty towns, the lack of infrastructures, the sewerage running in the streets and the lack of even the most basic services in these countries can begin to understand the desperation many feel. Only when our political classes, who burble on about ‘poverty’ and ‘economic development’ as if throwing money at it will change it, even begin to understand how their approach is simply enriching the most corrupt, and grinding the poorest even further into the mire will we begin to find a solution. Tanzania’s President has recently sold almost the entire Masai Mara off to the Sultan of one of the Gulf States. One point 6 MILLION square kilometres of land, as a ‘private’ safari park. Pity about the Masai who are now being driven from the land their forefathers first settled around the time the ‘Prophet’ the Sultan follows was hiding out in the mountains. 

Mozambique is selling huge tracts of land to the Chinese and to Western entrepreneurs for ‘development’ - and turning to small subsistence farmers off, forcing them into squatter camps, or into the hands of people traffickers so they end up on overloaded boats drowning in the Med or elsewhere in their efforts to find a decent life somewhere. The same thing is happening all over Africa, and while the IMF, the UN and other applaud these deals and approve the funding on the grounds it will help ‘develop’ the country, the reality is that most of it finds its way straight back into Swiss and other bank accounts held by - you guessed it - the ‘governing’ families and Parties who sold land they don’t ‘own’ in the first place.

Is it any wonder then that everywhere you look in Africa there are conflicts, armed and otherwise? Everywhere you look there is grinding poverty that can never be addressed? Is it any wonder the people resort to such desperate measures as to board unsuitable vessels and take the risk of catastrophe to reach what our prosperity projects as the land in which the streets are paved with gold, and everyone is a millionaire?

Easy for idle protesters, many on State handouts, to ‘demand’ we simply open the borders and take them in. Easy to scream, rant and shout that ‘more must be done’ to save the boat people, but what do we do with them once they are here? We have unemployment, we have people in poverty, we have people in need of assistance, and much as we’d like to, we simply can’t take in all those we’d like to. The solution lays in Africa itself, and though it may be painful, that is where it has to be addressed. Not on the open sea between Europe and North Africa, and not in Italy, Southern France, Britain, Greece or anywhere else in Europe.

I would suggest it has to start with stripping the ill-gotten gains from those in power there, and, perhaps under international supervision, the construction of proper infrastructures, proper services and the founding of proper industries, commerce, and, of course, education. That would be the sensible way to go — but since we’re dealing with politicians (with their own peccadilloes to protect) I will not be holding my breath to see it happen.

Weapons of Mass Disruption

Any nation, people, or organisation has a range of 'weapons' at its disposal, ranging from those of obvious and deadly purpose, to the more subtle ones that most people do not recognise as 'weapons'. Few think of attempts to reduce, restrict or damage another countries economy as a 'weapon', or as an act of war. Yet, arguably, it is both.

Those who call for 'economic sanctions' or 'boycotts' or 'disinvestment' do so in the belief that these are alternatives to sending in the military to change a country. They fondly believe that their 'sanctions' offer an alternative to war, but is it? Is it not a weapon deployed in exactly the same manner as deploying a Trident missile would be? OK, the visible damage is not going to be as great, and perhaps you won't kill several hundred thousand people in achieving your objective  - to change a regime or a national culture - with 'sanctions/boycotts/disinvestments'. Or will you?

The unpleasant truth is that an economic blockade of a country can be just as damaging - over a longer term admittedly - as a short sharp 'little' shooting match. While bullets kill people, sanctions destroy livelihoods, they destroy opportunities, and they create hardships for the very ordinary people those who call for them claim to want to help. So those who want to impose them are, in the long term, likely to cause as much hardship as a 'hot' war will do. Why do I say this?

I have several reasons, one being that I have lived in a country under 'international sanctions'. The most observable effect was the steady increase in unemployment. Disinvestment was something of a two edged sword, many companies who did, walked away having 'sold' their holdings in local companies which simply found other sources of capital (a lot of it ironically, from the Far East and 'Communist' countries), while others simply pulled out, abandoning massively expensive infrastructures and leaving thousands unemployed in an already saturated employment market. Crime rates climbed steeply, with violent crimes such as murder and violent assaults becoming everyday.

And all the while, those imposing the sanctions talked of bringing the country to its knees economically in order to impose their vision of what the country should look like. When I had the opportunity to challenge someone who was a determined and very vocal advocate of sanctions, boycotts and disinvestment, they admitted it was a 'weapon' to be used 'for the good of the oppressed'. But when I pointed out that the 'oppressed' were suffering more than anyone else, the answer astonished me; "Well, some must suffer hardship for the good of the majority and the future."

Quite, as long as it is not the 'advocate' who suffers.

A flip through history reveals a number of interesting things about past 'sanctions' campaigns. Perhaps the most telling is the example of the sanctions against Japan in the 1930s. Intended to 'damage' Japan's ability to sustain its war in Manchuria, it actually convinced the Japanese that their only option was to go to war in order to secure the resources they needed to sustain their economy and population. Some historians still argue that the US policy may well have been deliberately designed to provoke exactly that response. At the very least, something those who advocate sanctions, boycotts or disinvestment should consider is that the response almost invariably invoked in the people on the receiving end, is a hardening of attitudes.

That can be seen today in Iran, in Russia, in Zimbabwe and in Israel.

Then there is the question of what happens once you have succeeded in destroying someones economy. Does it produce the happy smiling face you wanted to see? Or does it produce a failing state, struggling to stay afloat and unable to pay its way in the world economy? If some recent examples are anything to go by, the latter seems to be more likely. Iraq, having had sanctions imposed which ruined its currency and internal economy, then had 'regime change' imposed by a war, is a basket case. Even without the IS lunatics and all the other factions vying for power, it is a country in ruins because its economy is ruined - and it is likely to stay that way for a very long time.

Zimbabwe's economy all but collapsed toward the end of the long UDI government, so when Mugabe came to power, those who love this form of warfare, thought there would be a 'magic' recovery. There wasn't. The AID they poured in was stolen, then the banks were grabbed by Mugabe's thugs, and then the farms. Now? It is a subsistence economy at best. The same thing almost happened in South Africa, though it was better placed to survive, and the economy is at least now stable - but the corruption and white collar crime, coupled with a few other problems, is crippling any rebuilding of the economy. Yet another 'triumph' for the sanctions, boycotts and disinvestment advocates to rejoice over.

Sanctions/Economic Blockades do work. Again, if we consider history, we can see many examples. Britain's blockade of France during the Napoleonic wars crippled France's economy. Napoleon's 'Continental Blockade' of closed ports and trade bans in Northern Europe almost destroyed the British economy by smashing the Baltic Trade - worth over 42 million Pounds Sterling in 1809 and only 5 million Pounds Sterling five years later. The dramatic loss of market share almost destroyed the British economy in the middle of the war. The British blockade of German trade in 1914 - 18 smashed the German economy, and millions of Germans starved (so did millions of other Europeans caught between the 'Great Powers', what one might call 'collateral damage' today), and gave rise (as some always hope will happen when they demand sanctions) to mass civil unrest in German towns and cities. Communists seized town halls and other government buildings, but more crucially, the sanctions/blockade coupled with the demands of the Allies in the Versailles treaty, resulted in the rise of the National Socialists as a counter to the Communists.

Again and again we see the result of destroying an economy to compel regime change, and each time we see a situation resulting that is, if anything, worse than the first state. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are few and very far between.

Those who call for sanctions, boycotts or disinvestment against a country need to think very carefully about what they are doing. In essence they are declaring war on another country, another people, and they are deploying a very dangerous Weapon of Mass Disruption with the deliberate intent of destroying a people's ability to feed and house themselves.

It often strikes me as ironic that those who always advocate the deployment of this weapon are usually also anti-war, anti-military, but none I have ever spoken to seem to see the contradiction.  

Debating Europe

I was interested today to see an item from Sir Richard Branson, stating his belief that the UK needs to stay in Europe. He makes a good economic case for it, and he is not alone. I note that the body that represents the major British companies makes the point that thousands of jobs and a large amount of the UK's income would be in danger if the UK decided to leave the EU. Not unexpectedly, on such a polarised subject, the comments appended to Sir Richard's well thought out argument range from the downright rude and typically 'anti-wealth' sort, full-on anti-EU in any form, through the 'it's-all-a-Nazi-plot-and-we'll-beat-them-again-in-a-fight-for-our-freedom', to the supportive.

We do need to get a more balanced debate going on this. I note most of the extreme anti-EU/anti-anyone-pro-EU comments seem to come from typical 'tabloid' type readers, but I dare say this is a generalisation which may be unfair. There are, of course, some very well informed people on the anti-EU side of the argument, and they are worth reading and engaging. At the other end of the spectrum there are others who feel the debate can't be had at all, and shouldn't be, and the whole does seem to be complicated by our politicians inherent ability to obfuscate, conceal motives and generally not play with a straight bat. Plus, the Whitehall penchant for using every EU Directive to 'gild the lily' and gold plate their badly written and often conflicting 'regulations'.

There are good arguments on both sides of the debate, not least being that the Pound Sterling is a very strong currency at present, and any attempt to bring it into the €uro is likely to cause major problems. There is also the problem of England's, in particular, ancient legal system which is at odds with the systems in use in Europe. The funny part of that is that many in the UK think that the European systems do not have the same 'protections' built into them as is the case with English Common Law - and they are wrong. If anything most European systems are stricter and more demanding on standards of evidence and protection of the innocent. Some even give the victims of any crime a say in court with the victim having counsel alongside the Prosecutor. Where there is a misunderstanding on this in the US and the UK is that there are no Juries, but there is an extremely rigorous review of the evidence for a prosecution at each step of the way - so when someone is finally accused and brought to trial, the evidence is generally pretty strong. Of course there are failures - but show me how the English or the US system is free of error.

Put simply, the UK system allows the courts to determine what the relevant law means in most cases, and builds up a body of 'Case Law' which is used in all future cases involving that legislation. In Europe the law means what it says and the application of it is left to local enforcement, with the court acting in a more refereeing capacity to determine the 'degree of guilt' involved in the breach of it. Thus, while most EU member states take a 'directive' and paste it into their statute books, in the UK a two page Directive can become a hundred page document full of if, but, maybe and 'wriggle' space. As a lawyer friend once remarked, it is the principle of English Law that if it isn't specifically forbidden, it is permissible, and regulations are always read looking for a way to avoid compliance. I suspect this is what frightens many on the 'anti-EU' side of the debate - they don't want to give up being able to evade complying with anything they can.

Recently there has been much debate about the UK taking the same position as Switzerland or Norway and being 'affiliated' to the EU as part of a trading bloc, but not within it. That does overlook a couple of elements, the first being that Switzerland is now having to open up more of its activities to scrutiny, without really having much influence in the affairs of those demanding it. The reason is that they have enjoyed being a Tax Haven, and now the chickens have found a roost. Germany bought a CD quite openly and discovered the extent of tax evasion by people who, frankly, should know better. One has now been convicted and will spend three years in jail, and repay the €28 million he evaded. Even Norway is finding itself having to comply with EU regulations in return for its 'special' status, and I am convinced that they and the Swiss will eventually join up fully.

A part of the argument that, for me, makes much more sense, is that of sheer size as a trading bloc. Britain has lost almost all of its heavy industrial capacity, for reasons I won't enter into here, and is no longer self-sufficient in food or energy production. It is possessed of a welfare system that is more generous and more expensive than anyone else's and its politics and the penchant for boycotts, sanctions and so on among sections of its body politic, have isolated it from many of the markets it enjoyed up to the 1950s. Yes, we are a nuclear power, and we have the four ISBN submarines to prove it, even though, under Mr Blair, and now Mr Cameron, we don't have a full outfit of missiles for all of them and none actually carry a full complement of warheads anyway. Our Fleet has been run down and reduced to the point, almost, of being a coastal defence force, with fewer Type 45 destroyers than we actually need, and most of its ships so specialised they are probably not suited to the types of operation they are now called upon to conduct - such as anti-piracy patrols. Our Army is being further reduced, from 102,000 to 82,000 and the plan is to increase the 'part-time' soldiers of the TA to 30,000 to make up the difference. Then there is the question of the RAF. Some of their aircraft cost almost as much as a small ship, and they've been cut as well.

So how do those who argue that 'Britain will stand alone again against the Fourth Reich' propose to do so? With what? The days we could turn just about anyone into a sailor, soldier or airman, churn out destroyers, frigates and aircraft carriers, tanks, bombs, shells and aircraft in weeks or months are gone. The shipyards, factories and resources are gone, and even in WW2 Britain never actually stood alone - she had all her colonial and Dominion and Empire Forces totalling almost a million men, plus their factories and resources to call on. It really is time to drop that particular pipe dream. Those days are over, we are a small, overcrowded, and probably over governed island, a small and increasingly insignificant fish in a world which sees one of our former 'possessions' now operating a larger and more powerful fleet than our own.

As I see it, Britain needs to think again about our relationship with Europe. We can be a part of it, and yes, it does need to be restructured and reformed, or we can be a small and largely annoyingly irrelevant offshore refuge for tax evaders and destination for tourists. True, we have some oil and gas reserves offshore (and possibly on land) but then there is that welfare bill to pay. If we join Europe properly, and play it to our advantage, we can continue to exert a powerful influence in the world alongside the rest of Europe. Together Europe has a better punch in terms of Defence, in economic clout (why do we think the US finacial markets expend so much effort talking down the €uro?), in terms of political punch and in manufacturing output. But, we need to look very carefully at what does work for everyone in the UK, and what could be made better. Our biggest problem is we think in the short term only, this month, this quarter, this year - we need to break that mould and find a better way to think and plan. We need a vision.

Sir Richard's 'vision' (with many other entrepreneurs and businessmen) is to stay in Europe and to find a way to make a United Europe work for everyone. We can embrace that, or we can turn inward, to a pre-Tudor "Little England". I know which one I prefer.

Blinded by the Bias ...

Sometimes one reads an article online which makes one sit back and wonder whether one is living in a parallel universe to the author. Some of the articles and comments on the subject of 'climate change' are a good example, but politics and, at the moment, the events in Ukraine and Crimea are fuel for many such. Today's prize must, I think, go to the Iranian Ministry of (Mis)Information which has announced that the US 'shot down' the missing Malaysian airliner in order to disrupt Iran's relations with China, Malaysia and Korea ...

The one that really caught my attention this week, however, was an article on a blog which asserts that the EU's 'interference' and 'breech of faith' in 'forcing' the Ukrainian government to sign up to full membership of the EU 'forced' Mr Putin to act to 'protect' Russia. The fact that this was written by someone who lives and works in the UK, and is an otherwise intelligent person (as I judge from the erudite articles he posts) I found a little disturbing. Though I know he is very anti-EU, this was stretching things in my mind. It didn't take me a lot of searching the find numerous articles from sources outside the EU (and therefore 'tainted' in the minds of the anti-Europe lobbies) that present a more balanced picture. It goes back a few years, and the Ukrainian 'dream' of joining the EU begins during the Presidency of Mrs Timoshenko, though it could predate her. It was the Ukrainians who, no doubt looking west over their border and seeing how standards of living in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Roumania and the Baltic States has risen far more rapidly than to their East, who wanted to join up and share this improvement.

Not unnaturally, the EU Heads of State (not the Commission), were cautious. Suggestions that they could also join NATO were dismissed, but not, it seems in the more rabid minds of some parts of the British and Russian Press. A 'Trade Agreement' was proposed by Brussels, but the Ukrainian government wanted more and that triggered unease in Russia. Timoshenko was swept from power in what is now said to have been the most massively 'rigged' election in a 'democratic' country and a pro-Russian (He is in fact an ethnic Russian whose family were 'transplanted' during the Stalin years) declared President. The negotiations with the EU promptly stalled and that rubbed salt in the wounds, made far worse when Mrs Timoshenko was dragged into court on what now seem to be very flimsy charges and jailed. Not unnaturally, the ethnic majority of Ukrainians made their feelings known in no uncertain terms, which provoked a Moscow directed response of suppression.

Listening to Ukrainians on our television, and reading their letters in the local press, one gets a different picture to that painted by some UK bloggers whose hatred of the EU seems to blind them to the realities of Moscow's very clear intention of retaining control of Ukraine no matter what. As Josephus pointed out in a previous post here, the Russians wish, for a variety of reasons, to retain a 'buffer' of satellite states between them and the west. There may well be historic reasons for this, but it does ignore the desires and wishes of the majority ethnic populations in all these countries. Stalin's relocation of entire populations are remembered with a great deal of anger, and in some areas that is further fuelling the problems. That is the situation in Crimea (which was never originally part of Ukraine) where the Crimean Tartar population was moved or suppressed and replaced by Russians (the Tartars still form 16% of the population), and it is mirrored in the eastern regions of Ukraine where Russian families were forcibly relocated to displace Ukrainians.

Many reports suggest that the 'citizens militias' that seized control of government buildings in Crimea and set up their own 'autonomous' government were Russian troops out of uniform and acting under orders from Moscow. As evidence it is said they behaved in a disciplines and co-ordinated manner, knew exactly who and what to target and blockaded the Ukrainian troops and ships with a precision that speaks of very careful planning. The Ukrainian Navy is, in fact, trapped in its harbour because a Russian naval vessel has been deliberately sunk across the entrance. The order to do that can only have come from Moscow.

But all of this seems to be ignored by the anti-EU press and bloggers in the UK. To them the 'enemy' is Brussels, the EU commission and everything to do with the EU. I can only wonder what they may be seeing in this that I am not. To me what is very clear is that Mr Putin is determined to expand the 'Russian Federation' back to the borders of the former USSR, to keep the former Soviet Republics firmly in Moscow's control and to restore control of the governments of the former Warsaw Pact countries to politicians 'friendly' to Moscow. He is ruthless enough to stop at nothing as the west should have learned from Chechnya, Georgia and now the Crimea.

One thing I have learned since I moved to live in Europe is that much of what is blamed on the EU in the UK, is in fact arising in Whitehall. It is Whitehall that deliberately (or perhaps incompetently) misinterprets, gold plates, abuses or extends every EU Directive. It is Whitehall that uses every Directive to extend their power and interference - and then blames the EU. Yes, there are some problems with the differences between European Legal systems and the English and Scottish systems, but these are constantly compounded in Whitehall - not in Brussels. It would be nice, just once, to see some balance in this debate, and a little truth in Whitehall, but I fear that will never be possible.

Maybe we need a Mr. Gorbachev. Some 'Glasnost' in the bureaucracies on both sides of the channel would be nice, but perhaps more importantly, some factual and unbiased reporting in the UK media would help as well. I suppose I can dream ...

Tension in the East

At present the world is focused on the tension between the Russian Federation and the Ukrainian people, and, as ever, there is a long history here, and a lot of deceit, passion and ambition. If one looks back in history, the Ukraine has had some very varied fortunes. It straddles one of the 'High Roads of History' and has seen waves of invaders from time immemorial. It has been 'occupied' by Ghengis Khan's hordes, it was once divided between the Ottoman Empire, Poland and Lithuania. Even the Hungarians have held parts of it at times, and from about 1400 onwards, the Russians have gradually absorbed more and more of it.

The people who identify themselves as Ukrainian have been deported, relocated, supplanted and suppressed, but they remain an ethnic and linguistic group. And they have, over the years held onto that no matter where they are, and, if possible, have drifted back to their land. The Crimea is a complicated problem on all sides, since it was not, except geographically, part of the original Ukraine, and its people were the Tartars, a largely Muslim group. Enter 19th Century politics, and the desire of Britain and France to prevent Russian influence spreading into the Middle East, and now we have the Crimean War in support of the dying Ottoman Empire. The outcome is probably best descriobed a stalemate, since Russia retained possession of the Crimea, the Ottomans lost territory and Britain and France got no more than a halt in Russian expansion. Add to this our support (by Naval bombardment) for the White Russian forces in the Black Sea and Ukraine-Crimea and you begin to see the background to the present difficulty.

Like the Georgians, the Tartars and the Ukrainians weren't too keen on the Bolsheviks who were mainly Russian, and fought for the White Russians, probably hoping to win their freedom from the Russian hegemony. Lenin and then Stalin exacted a ferocious revenge for that. Particularly under Stalin, large numbers of Ukrainians were deported from the eastern areas and replaced by ethnic Russians. The Tartars resisted, got 'cleansed', and then deported, and replaced by ethnic Russians again. Post 1945 western leaders - according to Josephus the Correspondent on this blog - may have been naive when they forcibly returned to Russia the captured Georgians and Ukrainians who had joined the German Nazi SS to fight against Stalin. The 40,000 Georgians were executed almost as soon as they landed, and the Ukrainians (some reports refer to two 'Divisions') simply vanished. No doubt some of the skeletons that turn up from time to time are all that remains of them.

The Ukrainians hoped, when the USSR broke up, to be able to restore their independence - lost since around 1600 - and become a part of the western European family of nations with which they identify themselves. They reckoned without the fact that the ethnic Russians, transplanted into their midst, would have none of it. Russia depends on the Ukraine for its supply of wheat. The Ukraine is not called the 'Bread Basket of Russia' for nothing. The problem for the Ukrainians is that, under the treaties binding them to Russia, it is the Kremlin that sets the price they get for it, and determines who they can sell to. Having all but exhausted the oil and gas reserves in the Ukraine, the Russians are now the suppliers of both commodities to that country - and again, the Kremlin dictates the terms, prices and conditions. Every winter in the last few years, the Kremlin has 'turned off' the supply to the western parts on one pretext or another, usually to prevent the sort of overthrow of their puppet regime we have just seen. And then there is the Russian military presence.

The Crimea is a complication. Until Kruschev placed it under the administrative control of Kiev in 1954 it was never a part of the Ukraine. Now, of course, it is essentially an armed camp, bristling with ethnic Russians and Russian troops. Not surprising, of course, since it is the base for the Black Sea Fleet, and the place where all the Russian Duma members have their holiday homes.

Josephus, in an email to me recently, summed it up like this -

I've been reading the BBC news pages on this topic and find some of the usual half-truths and blinding ignorance on display. 

However, they show maps of the ethnic demographic and the votes in the EU/Russia referendum.  The split is almost exactly linked to the ethnic identity in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.  Basically, those with EU neighbours wish to be closer to the EU and those with Russian neighbours whish to be closer to Mother Russia.  I find this totally understandable.

Putins actions, however are being misrepresented, yes he wishes Ukraine to remain a buffer state between him and NATO, it prevents him having a hostile boundary to "police".  The USSR had its buffer states, but they are now mostly EU, most notably Poland and the former GDR.

Putin has (knowing full well he would not be opposed directly) flooded Crimea with troops.  Bearing in mind that 58% of the population identifies as  ethnically Russian and that the Naval lease on the Sevastopol base runs until 2042 this will have been quite easy, it is also rumoured that officials are handing out Russian passports like sweeties.

BUT!  Crimea is not Ukraine, yes Kruschev handed it to the Ukraine Oblast in 1954 but it is a very separate region.  Ukraine could give Putin Crimea and hardly notice the difference.

The real question is "Can Ukraine consider itself one united country when 70%+ of the Eastern populace voted to stay East and 70%+ of the western to go West?"

Should Ukraine split itself along ethnic and language lines?

Bohemia certainly seems happy as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, such splits have been made within recent memory, the Balkans also provide examples, although not perfect ones.

Josephus has found the following images which explain something of the population split rather well.

 

The western powers find themselves caught on the horns of a dilemma here. Should Mr Putin get away with 're-incorporating' Ukraine into the Russian Federation as he evidently would like to do, who among the former Soviet satellite states will be next to be targeted? I suspect that this is a question many are asking privately, and many of the former Russian vassal peoples must be worried. We have seen his enforced partition of Georgia, and there has been a similar 'grab' of part of Moldova. Always the excuse is the same  - to 'protect' the interests of ethnic Russians. 

Funny how no one seems to make the link between these and a certain 'leader' in the 1930s and 40s who made similar claims. Nor does there seem to be any acknowledgement of the right of the majority populations to choose who their governors should be. The fact is that the Russians have consistently flouted the Geneva Convention articles which forbid ethnic transplantations and the seizure of territory from sovereign states by military force. If they are permitted to continue in this manner, what is to stop everyone else from doing the same? There has to be a line drawn in the sand somewhere - but I can't see the present collection of western politicians doing it.

Capitalism or Communism?

The polarisation of this question generally provides only the answer the particular protagonist wants and that is an absolute. Sadly this always masks several important points, one being that neither is actually 'perfect' for everyone or for every economy. Both have serious flaws in practice. So I was recently very pleased to see the following answer to an online debate.

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Eivind Kjørstad, 

Communism and Capitalism are abstract ideas. None of them can function in a hypothethical "pure" form, because both of them carry in them the seed to their own destruction: "pure" capitalism unhampered by restrictions or government oversight would lead to crises and excesses that makes the current financial crisis seem like peanuts; you'd have people starving on the streets, and a handful of people owning everything. We already live in a world where the wealthiest 85 people on the planet own more than the poorest 3.5 billion. A world where it instead was the wealithest 10 people on the planet owning 99% of everything would not be desirable. 

But pure communism is also unworkable: attempting to remove the profit-motive never works, and if it did, the result would be a catastrophic fall in productivity and a world of poverty as a result.

Real economies are a mixture of ideas from many different inspirations, including communism and capitalism. Good governance is not about finding the ONE TRUE ANSWER and then implement it in it's purest form. Good governance is about finding a reasonably good balance between the many competing priorities.

Enough capitalism to make people productive. Enough communism to avoid having people starve on the streets. Enough capitalism to make it worthwhile to start businesses, yet also enough of a social security-net that even if the business fails, you'll still not need fear for your basic nessecities.  

It's not always a conflict, sometimes there's synergies: A good social security-net makes it easier to start a business, because that's always going to be a risky thing to do (most businesses fail in their first 5 years), and knowing that you'll still be fed even if you fail, makes it easier to accept that risk. 

So the question should not be: What is better, capitalism or communism ? 

The question should be: What is the right balance of ideas ? What are the good parts of communism, and how can we incorporate them, while minimizing the downsides ? What are the good parts of capitalism, and how can we benefit from them while reducing the downsides as much as possible?

I find this writer has summed up my own feelings on this question perfectly, the only problem is that, at present, both the 'capitalist' and 'socialist' political party types are too close to, if not in thrall too, the absolutist proponents of both philosophies.

Immigration: Positive or Negative?

No matter where you are in Europe, 'immigration' is somewhere on the political and media agenda. Both tend to play on the negative aspects, such as the ghetto building and benefit claiming, fraud and crime, but is the reality? The most recent example of the media-political bias on this subject surfaced with the recent integration of Romania and Bulgaria into the EU. The Daily Fail trumpeted imminent the arrival of 25 million benefit scroungers 'just waiting to invade' Britain. We had similar headlines in some sections of the German Press, and naturally we now have Ministers all proclaiming their 'determination' to restrict access to 'benefits' for immigrants. What all the newspapers and other media have failed (and so have the politicians) to mention is that the "25 million" number represents just about the entire populations of Romania and Bulgaria, the vast majority of whom have absolutely NO intention of moving countries.

In fact, the Home Office has now revealed in answer to a Freedom of Information request that the number of Romanians who have taken up residence in the UK since the beginning of the month is less than 24, and all of them have jobs. And before anyone squeals 'stealing our jobs' they have been recruited to jobs that couldn't be filled 'locally' for reasons best known to the employers and the local jobless. There are a number of independent reports pointing to the fact that the vast majority of immigrants from the EU arrive in the UK (and elsewhere) to take up employment local people either didn't want, or didn't have the skills for. Yes, 'benefit tourism' (in Germany it is called Sozialtourismus) does exist, and there will always be those who take advantage of a system, but they are a small minority.

Those who know me, also know that I immigrated to the UK in 1988. Yes, I am an immigrant. I didn't come cap in hand looking for a slice of the benefit system, I came to take up an offer of employment, and the first ten years in the UK were anything but fun, and anything but easy. I earned too much to qualify for assistance in anything, and too little to have any spare cash for luxuries for me, my family or anyone else. I supported my retired mother whose pension fund was non-existent until her death in 1999, I paid maintenance to my ex-wife until I retired in 2006, and I paid into both a pension fund and the UK tax system for all of that time. In fact I still do, though I am now retired on the very small pension I did manage to build. I am not untypical. The vast majority of those like myself, who migrated seeking a better life for their families, or a different political culture, better opportunities or simply a better life often find they have to make huge sacrifices in order to realise their goals. It isn't easy even if you are moving to the 'land of your fathers' and speak the same language, think you share the same culture and so on. As you quickly discover, you will always be an 'outsider', a stranger betrayed by the little nuances, the little differences in understanding or approach to dealing with life.

The current hysteria in the UK over 'immigration' betrays a deep seated insularity in a section of the British mindset, and what is most interesting is that it is often those who burble on about the benefits of 'multi-culturalism' who foster these fears. As an immigrant I made the conscious decision to leave behind anything and everything I was used to. I did everything I possibly could to integrate myself and my family into the society we moved to. We joined the local church, the children went to the local school (with hindsight, the choice of their first school was a disaster), we deliberately did not start every conversation with 'when we were in ...' and made light of answering questions prefaced 'when you were in ...'

I know very few people who have immigrated who haven't made the same effort and for very similar reasons. We wanted to be a productive part of our new country, and we didn't want to bring all the baggage of the old one with us. Sure, there are some little family things that you keep, but on the whole, you put the old aside and try to fit into the new. Everyone I have met with a similar background, whether from my former home, or from anywhere else in the EU or the world, came to a pre-arranged job, is in employment, pays tax and contributes to society, the economy and the life of their community. So why are ALL immigrants now regarded as freeloading spongers by the media, politicians and Whitehall?

I do believe that a large part of this is down to resentment in some sections of the population. They see some immigrants choosing to set up closed communities in enclaves in our cities, bringing with them a different culture and perpetuating it instead of adopting the hosts. They hear rumours, or there are well reported cases of fraud involving someone labelled an immigrant by the media, and fall for the assumption that this is 'representative' of all immigrants. It is not helped by attempts by the Multi-Culturalist brigade to stifle any debate on the grounds of 'racism' or any other '-ism'. Somewhere in all of this some other aspects get lost as well. Often immigrants take on jobs in parts of their host countries that the 'native' workers refuse to move to in order to take the employment. Or taking the job would cost them their benefit provisions. There are many reasons underlying the problem of pools of unemployment and immigrants 'taking jobs' the locals won't.

The annoying thing is that the media, politicians and civil servants completely ignore the fact that the majority of immigrants - even those whose family roots, heritage and culture is not rooted in Europe or the UK - are hardworking, extremely productive (if you've no alternative but to work hard, that's what you do) and nett contributors to the economy, society, the NHS and the benefit system. Most are also nett contributors (as I was) to pension funds. We've made our homes here, and we (most of us) come from societies which demanded that one stood on ones own two feet and didn't expect to be bailed out by the taxpayer, or provided for by the state.

As a senior adviser to the Treasury has told the Treasury Select Committee, immigrants are, overall, good for the economy. Perhaps it is time someone in the Media and in Whitehall acknowledged that and made more of it, instead of labelling us all as scroungers. Yes, I am retired. Yes, I am in receipt of a small pension, but I am still paying tax, and I am still doing odd paid work - and paying tax on the remuneration - to keep my end up. Nor am I alone in that. Overall, I am firmly of the opinion that I have made a positive contribution and I am very sure the same can be said of the majority of those, like myself, who have worked, are working, and will work extremely hard to the overall benefit of UK and European society. It would be nice to see that acknowledged occasionally!