My Blog
Well, everyone else seems to becoming a blogger so what the heck......
Tuesday June 28th - Glasto ...
Ok I didn't go, I didn't get anywhere near going. I could witter on about how it's not what it was, that festival died at the battle of the beanfield, blah blah, but that would all be a load of rubbish the reality is I just can't face trying to control two uncontrollable kids in the middle of 150,000 other out of control people.
But I did catch quite a bit on TV and as blown away by Kasabian. I'd never heard of them before, and OK they weren't exactly the most vigorous band on-stage, but the music bought back memories of the best of the whole Baggy era. So I'm now sitting here listening to more Kasabian & loving it.
Tuesday June 21st - The Gift Horse ...
Working up in Glasgow for a few days. This meant an early morning start on Monday to catch the early flight, whichalways puts me out for the week. But this Monday turned out not too bad after all. One of the guys I was working with turned out to have some spare U2 tickets (I hadn't even realised they were playing in Glasgow), so for once I didn't look that gift horse in the mouth and grabbed one of them.
The Glasgow weather threatened to put a dampener on things, but in the end it came up trumps and some sun cut through. I had high expectations of U2, "The biggest rock band in the world" is a hard one to live up to. And they were pretty damn good, not earth shattering, but a damn site better than another hotel room. They even played quite a bit of old stuff like Bloody Sunday for old gits like me.
Tuesday June 14th - The Trouble with Europe ...
All the news has been full of nothing by Europe over the last few days. Mainly about the debacle of the summit and so many massively bruised massive egos trying to bruise each other. I find myself in the curious position of actually supporting my government (hasn't happened much of late). I do want Britain to be in Europe, and I do think that there's more to the European project than just economics. But on the other hand I do think that the EU economics are so fundamentally flawed that they can't just keep on.
Anyway, what do we have. well for starters huge kudos to the French people. the whole point of the constitution was to end debate on where Europe was going by providing something we all could agree on. the French questioned whether they could agree on it. they had a long, passionate and informed debate on it (come on, when would hat ever happen in the UK?), and in the end they said Non! I personally think this was the right answer, whether the answer was right or not the way to get there certainly was. So not only does one of the foundation stones of the European project kick back big time, but the Netherlands does too.
So far so good, but then the continental egos kick in. Chirac is profoundly wounded by the french rejection of the constitution. So was does he do, he kicks out. And who was it tat put in im the position of having to do such a ludicrous thing as hold a referendum, it was perfidious Alboin, with Tony Blair's agreement to hold a referendum in the UK. And let's face it, kicking teh UK is always good for french politician's popularity (and funnily enough it works the other way round for UK politicos too). So Chirac starts grandstanding about the British rebate to the EU funding. This is regardless that a British citizen contributes twice as much to the EU as a French citizen even after the rebate. Anyway, it takes some of the heat off France for their torpedo to the constitution.
If Chirac had seriously wanted to get the British rebate on the table the last thing to do is to shout about it, as to be seen as giving away Maggie's legacy due to French pressure wuld be political suicide for any British government. So by shouting from every pulpit he could find Chirac know full well that he was making it more certain that the Brits wouldn't do it. But that was one continental ego able to feel that at least he wasn't the only one being bruised.
And bruised Tony Blair certainly was, but no politician gets to the top of the ladder without being able to take a few bruises, and being able to give a few back too. So with his back against the wall Tony goes back to why the rebate was put in place, the crazy policy of devotring 40% of the EU budget to 5% of the citizens, in the form of the CAP. Now coincidentally th amount France benefits from the CAP each year dwatfs the British rebate, so this is one sacred cow that the French can't back down on, no matter how ludicrous it really is in the current global economy.
But they're all past the point of no return now. Neither can give anything without severely wounding themselves in the eyes of the people who really matter, their electors. So the game goes on, and guess what - there are no winners only losers.
So what's the point? The point is that if Europe is going to continue it needs a better way of decision making than this. Tony Blair is right, the CAP is unjustifiable and can't continue in it's current form. When it goes, then the British rebate can die with it. but the national egos involved mean changes to either move slower than tectonic plates. So how do we get past this, well how about defining a more stream-lined decision making process. Isn't this the sort of thing the constitution was supposed to provide in the first place?