Private Eye, number 1253:

From: mredfellow@gmail.com
Subject: Crispin Odey (page 8, current edition)
Date: 7 January 2010 17:33:00 GMT
To: strobes@private-eye.co.uk

The Gnome coffers should not have been greatly depleted in securing the story about Crispin Odey and his political donations.

The material (and a bit more) has been available, via Malcolm Redfellow's websites, this last trimester:

• http://redfellow.blogspot.com/2009/09/second-war-of-irish-independence-in.html
• http://redfellow.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/tory-co-treasurer-finances-libertas/
• http://redfellow.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/how-believing-need-a-tory-be/
• http://redfellow.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/a-convenient-ignoral/

What your present story omits is that Odey was triple-tonguing it: as well as George Hargreaves' vanity project, Odey also gave Declan Ganley's Libertas £16K. In the closing days of campaigning on the Lisbon Referendum, Brian Lenihan, the Fianna Fail Minister for Finance, made a fuss. Ganley claimed the money had been used in Britain. That means either Odey and Ganley were in breach of Irish electoral law, or Odey, a "Co-Treasurer" of the Tory Party, was contributing to *three* UK party campaigns.

Message ends Sphere: Related Content

Just because they're paranoid ...

... doesn't mean they're entirely wrong

Malcolm followed the frothings and maunderings on the Tory web-sites, defending or bemoaning Cameron's U-turn over the Lisbon Treaty. It became v-e-r-y repetitive and v-e-r-y boring. Even so, it had its moments of provocation.

It obliged him to re-appraise his own assumptions.

The level of mindless abuse

First and foremost, the sound and fury was proof positive that there are many angry people out there. Most of them are window-lickers (© Paul Staines). They see the EU as the natural successor to the Whore of Babylon, and all her sisters in terror.

Malcolm may think they're sadly misguided. Even so, he concedes that he himself is a reformed anti: he came round to being, at best, ambivalent over Europe after full embroilment in the early '60s in Dublin, and campigning in the 1975 British Referendum. There are those who suggest all that was a long while ago: poor old Malcolm's eyesight, hearing and hair all testify to that. Yet Malcolm recognises similarities between 1975 and now: the antis of 1975 were acutely aware and warned then, as Brutus does in Julius Caesar:

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.

That's a specious argument, and Shakespeare intended it to be heard as such; but it has its superficial merits.

The great British public saw through such claims; and voted two-to-one against the antis' warnings.

Nuff said.

Malcolm, though, had the wit to recognise that the argument against the EEC had been well-and-truly trounced. Since when, while never being a whole-hearted Euro-fanatic, he has warmed to the notion.

Were one to believe the vitriol of Tory loyalists on the Tory websites (such as Iain Dale's), those who argue still from a hard-line anti- perspective are "trolls" or "NuLiebor stooges". Abuse, and hackneyed and concocted insults are the norm in such dark corners. It's pot-and-kettle stuff, with very little light. Clearly, those using such terms do not comprehend what "trolling" involves (and, ahem! Malcolm in his cups will quietly admit to have done his bit under at least three pseudonyms.) Nor are they exclusively UKIPpers.

Something has gone sadly, badly, madly wrong in the relationship between the great British public and the EU when so many misrepresentations and misconceptions are prevalent. The EU has a vast budget to expend on its own image: but the message does not get through. Instead we have the bar-room fantasies of straight cucumbers, unbent bananas and EU-standard condoms. That is largely because the Murdoch machine and its fellow travellers have been so successful in distorting and disseminating their black propaganda.

Anti-Labour hysteria

One does not have to venture too far into the undergrowth of Europhobic monomania to be told it's all a plot: Gordon (inevitably "Gorgon") Brown is a paid-up member of the Illuminati, who fixes the ballot boxes while decent folk are a-bed. Or some such.

The present Government, for all its faults, is no where near being a guilty party. Everything that has occurred in the long and involved (and occasionally honourable) relationship of Britain and the EU is a natural consequence of such developments as:

• What we knowingly endorsed in 1975. By that time, it should be remembered, the ERM, proposed in 1970, created in 1972, was already in place.
• The recognition that we couldn't continue to pump out mega-tonnes of acid rain to poison Scandinavian forests, nor hoover the seas of all marine life. The "Green Agenda' took time to evolve; but the basic concepts have been there a while.
  
• The establishment of democratic regimes, first in Iberia and Greece, and then in Eastern Europe needed to be supported, sustained -- and kept democratic and honest. This implied implied European-wide "rights" and obligations. Similarly, Article 9 of that German Basic Law, which Cameron and Hague now hail as a model, derives from the benefits that British TUC-men, such as George Woodcock and Vic Feather, despatched by Walter Cirine and Ernie Bevin, invented for the de-nazified West German trades unions. Such rights became demanded -- quite properly -- by the workers of other nations. There is some irony that only the British Tories wish to cop out of the deal.
  
• The Single European Act of 1986 was one of the achievements for which Margaret Thatcher, despite having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, deserves credit. What the British Tories wanted was full and free access to the wider European marketplace. What they didn't fully appreciate is that our EC fellow-members expected a level-playing field, which meant full harmonisation of all operating practices.
  
• This led on to Maastricht in 1992, creating the EU, with the UK giving assurances on currency, foreign and security policy, justice and internal affairs. Again, the hang-up for the Tories was not just over "sensitive" matters of defence and foreign policy, but that the "social chapter" (another part of that harmonisation) granted rights to British employees. That was the issue on which Labour and Liberal MPs (with the held of anti-EEC Tories) broke the Major government.
  

So, by the time of the present Labour Government, with the EU at 25 (and then at 27) members, consolidation was overdue: which is where Lisbon comes in.

In the immediate future the entry of Croatia and FYR Macedonia will need to be settled. An educated guess is that will happen in the life-time of the next Parliament; but not involve a Referendum, come what may. One might equally assume, too, that any UK Government will make cooing noises about Turkish entry; but be none too energetic in pressing it.

Any sane person, with any breadth of vision, should feel that what we've got here, now, is, on balance, better than the alternatives. Those who sweat buckets over "ever-closer union" might care to look back beyond the last couple of decades or so, when "ever-wider disunion" was the only game in town.

"A cast-iron promise"

When Cameron gave his "cast-iron" promise, he was in a corner. His polling figures put him not far off the electoral ropes. He and his Svengali, Andy Coulson, were set on wooing Murdoch. That meant paying Danegeld and surrendering a large degree of control over European policy to Wapping. Hence Cameron's "cast-iron promise" and the recent negotiations to wriggle out from under it. The full story of that will, doubtless, provide a chapter in somebody's memoirs at a later date.

Probably Cameron (or was it Coulson, holding his writing hand?) went a bit further than second-thoughts might have suggested. If so, Cameron was either:

• presuming he would not have to deliver. In which case he was being casuistical and equivocating: not an unusual characteristic (or even a cardinal sin) in a politician;

or

• assuming that the Irish, the Poles, the Czechs or A.N.Other would already have rubbished Lisbon before he had to honour the "cast-iron promise". In which case he was being calculating: again, not necessarily unknown among political minds.

Neither implies a cuddly, endearing personality: both are the norms in the trade, however.

It transcends human understanding that Cameron would have wanted to be in the position of leading a newly-elected UK Government into the rôle of wrecker of the present European settlement. Or that he genuinely wanted a full-blown referendum on EU membership (which, undoubtedly, is what he would have been expected to offer). The natural support of the Tory Party, in the City and business, could not countenance the UK leaving the EU -- especially when "Exit" is clearly, even invitingly, sign-posted for the first time in the Lisbon Treaty.

These, then, are the measures of Cameron's weaknesses:

• At the time the "cast-iron" promise was put together, he prostrated himself before the Great God Rupert.
• He then had to seek a pontifical pardon and absolution from the Great God Rupert (as The Sun tacitly and smugly recognised) before he could withdraw the promise, address his Parliamentary Party (where the Whips and loyalists were dragooned into orchestrating the applause), and then go before the cynical Press. That is a most peculiar order of business for a "leader".
  
• His reconstructed assurances to the Tory Party have to promise more than he has just withdrawn, to attempt to gloss over his present moment of apparent self-contradiction. At the key moment of that Press conference Malcolm heard in Cameron the impotent Lear:

I will do such things,--
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.

All in all: A Mad World, My Masters.

Sphere: Related Content

Pathetic and bathetic

There are bad arguments, deceitful arguments, and there is the kind of raving nutcase stuff peddled by the Europhobic fringe.

Let's be positive to begin:

The estimable Slugger O'Toole ran a series of threads, all of which derive from the Irish Referendum campaign and its aftermath. If the blogosphere needed a monument, look around Slugger's essays on the Lisbon Treaty, published over recent weeks.

Despite these essays, for and against, having a consistent balanced and thoughtful tone, such decency, intelligence and logic didn't rub off on the more drooling window-lickers. One searing late example has to be from Dave @ 07:52 PM, yesterday:

... membership of the EU is not in the UK’s national interest, costing it circa £118 billion a year

Malcolm wonders if Dave @ 07:52 PM could cite an authenticating source for that figure; and, if so, would he even defend it.

It comes, perhaps predictably, from our old innumerate friends, the Taxpayers Alliance. To help Dave @ 07:52 PM and others taken in by this guff, it appeared on the Daily Telegraph website last 18th March:

The UK-based lobby group says that, annually, the total cost of British membership of the 27-member club is £118 billion.

This contrasts sharply with Commission statistics which show that in 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available, Britain’s net contribution to the EU totalled some £3.8 billion.

A Modest Proposal

Somehow Malcolm doubts that Dave has actually read the document from which that bit of proselytising derives -- David Craig and Matthew Elliott, The Great European Rip-Off, How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of our Lives. The moderate, nay -- modest, nature of this title assures us that the content will be equally scholarly and equitable. As does the blurb on the back cover:

David Craig and Matthew Elliott smash through the secrecy and disinformation that are the Brussels hallmark to reveal what our European rulers are really getting up to. The result is a horrifying story of bureaucracy, hypocrisy and kleptocracy – and how we are all suffering as a result.

Well, perhaps not.

It goes without saying that this seminal text comes highly self-recommended via the likes of ConHome.

How did David Craig and Matthew Elliott achieve this convenient mega-inflation? Well:

The Taxpayers’ Alliance bases its figures on what it considers the “real, underestimated and hidden” costs of EU membership.

These include Britain’s direct contributions to the EU, the cost to UK business of complying with and administering EU regulations, EU administration costs and also higher food prices, said to result from implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy.

Even the polemic’s authors do not endorse Dave @ 07:52 PM's reading:

'The book tries to find a total cost of the EU but does not suggest that it is all waste or that it could be eliminated overnight.

“However, an estimate of the total cost provides an important guide to the burden placed on member countries’ economies and their citizens due to EU membership.”

So: €4.1 Bn in real life = "circa £118 billion a year" in TPA money. And Declan Ganley’s financial accountancy is said to be opaque!

But—hey!—if a lie is big enough,
and repeated often enough,
someone will be daft enough to believe it.

Malcolm posted the bulk of that to the Slugger O'Toole thread noted above. Sphere: Related Content

As Donegal doesn't go, so goes the nation

That one's adapted from US politics. It was coined in 1888, reflecting the circumstance that the State of Maine (which held its elections in September rather than November) had been the bell-weather for every Presidential election since whenever. In 1936 Maine went for Alfred Landon over FDR. Only one other state voted the same way, ensuring FDR's record sweep of all but eight votes in the Electoral College. That gave FDR's campaign manager, James Farley, the line:

As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.

Today's two-to-one "Yes" vote across Ireland has a similar flavour. So we can say:

As goes Donegal NE, so goes Donegal SW.

Even there were only 848 and 171 votes, respectively, in it.

So, Malcolm proposes a message for every Europhobic Ozymandias. Of late you bestrode the earth so arrogantly, and were impertinently loud in demanding Ireland toe your English Tory line. As you troop off to the Conservative Party Conference, remember Shelley:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Sphere: Related Content

A news-worthy détente?

Mary Fitzgerald, last Thursday, put up a neat piece in the Irish Times:

Eurosceptic line of Irish editions of UK papers more muted this time around

That must be a harbinger of numerous academic studies. Fitzgerald looked back:

In the postmortems that followed last year’s No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum, the Government and several Yes campaigners were quick to seize on what they considered to be the nefarious role played by Irish editions of British newspapers noted for their Eurosceptic editorial slant.

According to some, it was not only the Sun “wot won” it for the No side, but its sister titles in Rupert Murdoch’s News International stable. These included the Sunday Times and News of the World, with a little help from the Irish edition of the Daily Mail.

Certainly the hysteria this time round has been moderated, even though the essential postures have not changed. Witness Gerald Scarfe for last week's Sunday Times, Irish edition (above, left)

The rest of Fitzgerald's piece identifies Declan Ganley's gross misrepresentation of the position of the Financial Times and, to a lesser extent, of the implicit stance of Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. Cool and clear, the article is well worth the trip, and rightly is an Editor's Choice for the week.

What the journos had spotted was strident English-based Europhobia was not going to work this iteration. The electorate were in a chastened, more receptive mood. Opposition parties (excepting Sinn Féin) were actively, even aggressively on board, while last outing they had been prepared to leave the running to a labouring Fianna Fáil (and didn't Bertie and Co. gripe about that). The "No" campaign, and not just Ganley, went stratospheric: when some jokester used Photoshop to parody Cóir's efforts (see right), many could hardly tell the difference.

Trust Nigel Farage and his UKIPpers to make matters worse. Using funds (intended to support political parties) provided by the European Parliament to produce and distribute leaflets to every Irish home was definitely not a good idea. Nor was it diplomatic to deploy an image of a turkey (left): the memory of Dustin's Eurovision performance still rankles. UKIP MEPs were lucky to be called nothing worse than "racists".

Ireland is a mature nation, and tolerates a great deal of outside "advice". Ireland is also less than three human generations of age, so 1922 and all that is still a sore topic. Anglo-Irish relations are going to be long troubled (at least from the Irish point-of-view) by the "previous", all the way back to 1169. A Thatcher-admiring ex- City broker, turned MEP for South-East England, was bound to incense (Farage was lucky nobody spotted that Strongbow was also a Kentish Man). Farage was so successful that the dung fell alike on Declan Ganley. Ganley (who was a late-comer this time) found himself summarily discounted, unfairly, as another "English" interloper.

Now that the argy-bargy ought to be over, those same UK papers will be turning their "minds" to the Conservative Conference. It will be interesting to see what their Irish editions say about Cameron's predicament, now the Referendum result has dished his previous position. Sphere: Related Content

Things not to say (number 94)

It is three days before the vote on the Referendum. You are billed to speak at the UCD Law Society on the Lisbon Treaty. The Chair is Bertie Ahern. It's in the vast O'Reilly Hall. Primetime and RTÉ are recording it. No Dublin journo of a political bent will miss this one. They've signed up a speaker from every main interest group: all the main (and less so) parties, Ganley himself, Cóir, ... This is stellar stuff.

Mission Impossible

Your task, should you chose to accept it, is to be Mary Lou McDonald (right, as the ventriloquist's dummy). Once you were Sinn Féin's golden girl: now the gilt's wearing off, and the guilt's showing through. Your seven minutes comes immediately after Ross Maguire of Generation Yes. He plays a stormer. This is a young feller (and a movement) to watch.

Now, you, Mary Lou, rise and begin:

Call me a simple soul, but ...

End to end, O'Reilly Hall resonates to a snort: part recognition, part total dismissal.

Cometh the hour ...

Cometh the man.

To rub salt in the wound, following poor little lost Mary Lou, up strides Garret Fitzgerald, heading into his ninth decade, but still capable of that machine-gun delivery. If Maguire rocked them, and McDonald lost them, Garret socked them and slew them. They loved it.

Payout

Boylesports, the bookies, have already paid out on the assumption that it will be "Yes". Paddy Power is now soliciting bets on the percentage of "Yes" votes: as of writing the odds are:

Yes 55%+ - 60%: 11/4
Yes 60%+ - 65%: 5/4
Yes 65%+ - 70%: 5/2.

It's all over bar the tallying? Sphere: Related Content

The second War of Irish Independence?

In the sense that the sky hasn't fallen on them yet again, and nobody has dumped them in a load of pig-slurry, the Fianna Fáil-led Irish government has had a good referendum campaign. In large part that's because the opposition parties, bar Sinn Féin, are on side.

So, it looks as if the Yes team will take this one. Perhaps even comfortably.

To add a bit of spice to the closing days, Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Finance, has gone ape. The story seems to go like this:

Declan Ganley took a trouncing in the Euro Elections in June. He then flounced out of politics:

Conceding defeat tonight, Mr Ganley said: “I will not be involved in the second Lisbon campaign, I’ve said that upfront. I’ve got to get back to work,” he said.

“I sought a democratic mandate and I didn’t get one, and that’s how democracy works. And as I said I can take no for an answer.”

It was, of course, merely a pale imitation of Tricky Dicky Nixon circa 1962: which is irrelevant here, but always worth a gloating revisit:




Ah, the old ones are the best ones.

Then Ganley was back; and this time he was really mad:

“It’s anybody’s right and privilege to change their mind,” he said yesterday. The Yes side were asking the Irish people to change their mind on Lisbon. “I didn’t want to re-engage in this debate. It wasn’t something that I relished.”

But he continued: “This isn’t about me, I’m not important in this. This is about Ireland’s place in the European Union . . . it’s about my country, a country that I love and it’s about standing up for the truth when people are telling huge lies, and the truth does not require a mandate.”

Actually, there's a bit there that's debatable. Ganley's country, a country that he no longer loves, was the Hertfordshire Gaeltacht. His wealth came from trading in Russian aluminium and timber, with a side-line in emergency and military telecomms. He took one beating in the Albanian Ponzi-funds based on privatisations, and another when his Irish on-line trinkets business went belly-up.

Somehow, his vanity vehicle, Libertas, started to be underwritten by London hedge funds. Back to Brian Lehihan, who:

told a press conference in Dublin that “one of the main backers of Mr Declan Ganley, who has lately taken up the cudgels against Lisbon again, is a London-based hedge fund which could hardly be described as being interested in the economic wellbeing of this country.” In fact, “quite a number of these hedge funds have taken out specific bets” on the insolvency of Ireland , Mr Lenihan said.

Swift choking intake of breath: no Borough Treasurer, no Company CFO, and certainly no Minister of Finance, anywhere in the world, at any time lightly even whispers of possible insolvency. This is reaching for the big red nuke button.

What confirmation there is for Lenihan's blockbuster comes via the UK Electoral Commission's website. This showed Crispin Odey had divvied up £3,000 in cash and £13,964 otherwise to Libertas:

It also lists contributions to Libertas of £10,000 from an Adam Fleming and £25,000 from Richard Carss. Mr Carss is a director of Mauritius-based MCB Investment Management and a manager with London-based Genesis Investment Management.

Odey has previous political form:

Hedge-fund Boss Crispin Odey has threatened to move his firm out of Britain to avoid the 50% income-tax rate on high-earners...

“We are seriously considering leaving,” said Odey, who runs the £3 billion Odey Asset Management. “This government is not interested in keeping London alive as a financial centre. Hedge funds are not yet flying but they are fluttering. Everyone is thinking about leaving.”

There's also the curious business that:

he had added £28million to his personal wealth in a year that his £3billion fund management group had been among those short selling the stocks of failing banks - notably Bradford & Bingley.

It would, of course, be invidious to note that Odey's wife, another banker, just happened to have been on the board of Northern Rock, with -- doubtless -- insights into other boardrooms. Odey is co-treasurer of the Tory Party (which may be relevant here), and believes Britain is going to hell in a handcart:

Foreigners have been busy selling gilts and the Bank of England busy buying them. The answer is that if you carry on, that is called Zimbabwean and that is monetisation. Probably we are going to have a visit to the IMF.'

Obviously Mr OIdey reckons himself an authority above mere national governments.

Adam Fleming, also mentioned in that report, is a gold bug. He made his name with Fleming Family & Partners, and was up to his neck in South Aftrican Harmony Gold, conveniently bailing out shortly before Bernard Swanepoel hit the wall. Mr Fleming, though, sailed magnificently on, with a new venture, Wits Gold, and heavy investment in property in Johannesburg. A true son of the oul' sod.

There also seems to be a South African connection for Richard Carss, through MCB Investment Management, which operates out of Mauritius. Another Irish patriot, then.

One thing is clear: the Brits have been happily mucking around in the fray of the Irish Referendum. So let's hear it from Mr Nigel Farage of UKIP, and another made man (well, he made £2m over 10 years out of EU expenses, on his own admission) of the City of London mafia:

"We have really stirred things up with the leaflet delivered to every Irish home," he said.

"There were protests outside the venues I was speaking at when I was over there and people were getting very hot under the collar.

"But the EFD Group is really making inroads for the 'No' vote supporters and the result of the Irish referendum is certainly no foregone conclusion."

Now, why do some people not recognise the 1922 settlement?
Sphere: Related Content

Cameron's boomerang

It hardly keeps Malcolm awake at night, except for the occasional snigger, but David Cameron's self-impalement on the issue of the European Parliament is worth a passing thought.

The story so far:

When campaigning for the Tory leadership, the only firm pledge Cameron made was to withdraw his MEPs from the EPP-ED group, "within months". That, in itself, tells us a great deal about the state of play in his Party.

The EPP-ED is/was the most effective of the trans-national alliances. The Tory problem is that the EPP is Euro-friendly, and believes in a common electoral system, European defence forces, a EU Constitution without national vetoes, an EU seat at the UN (rather than national representation) and an EU income tax (which means tax-raising powers for the European Parliament): all of that is anathema to Tories, let alone the ultra Europhobes.

Even so, both of Cameron's immediate predecessors could live with the EPP:

• William Hague went on record: "I simply cannot afford to have my political opponents in the House of Commons suggesting that I am isolated from the mainstream Conservative parties on the continent of Europe."
• Michael Howard committed himself to "consolidate close co-operation between Conservative and Christian Democratic Parties and the EPP, particularly in the light of European integration".

There is some evidence (admittedly from the Sunday Times) that the reaction among Tory MEPs to Cameron's ex-cathedra utterance was fury, which may have been orchestrated (or, at least, "leaked") by none other than William Hague. Fortunately for Cameron, that discontent was subsumed by the flannelling demand for a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Remember, that bit of Tory policy was primarily for internal consumption: the pledge may not be renewable after a General Election, no matter what the Irish result eventually is.

"Within months"?

What is it, some forty months later?

The trap-door is now due to spring after the June elections. Then, in Cameron's scenario, the newly-elected Tory MEPs will enter a new conservative grouping. So far, so good. However, a recognised group in the European Parliament will need to have 25 MEPs from at least seven countries. The Tories may well make the first of those qualifications, but seem not to have any hope at all of the second.

So far it seems that Cameron has rounded up some strange potential bed-fellows. As last week's Economist summed it:

The full list of allies is secret. One, the Czech Civic Democrats, has just lost power at home; and its founder, Vaclav Klaus, is noisily sceptical about climate change, a cause dear to Mr Cameron. Detective work uncovers more presentationally tricky cases. The international secretary of the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom Party, Janis Tomelis, recently met William Hague, the Tory shadow foreign secretary, to discuss an alliance. As it happens, the party’s leader in Strasbourg, Roberts Zile, is a mild-mannered economist. But his party includes hardline nationalists who attend ceremonies to commemorate a Latvian unit of Waffen SS troops. Latvian nationalists insist that these were patriots fighting the Soviets, not Nazi war criminals. Good luck explaining that distinction in a British election campaign.

At one stage, Ireland's Fianna Fáil were touted as coming into the tent. Now, sorry, says Malcolm: you're having a laugh there! In fact, FF are bunking from:

that ragtag European Parliament group, the Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN). It has applied to join the European Liberals and is expected to become a member of its political faction in the European parliament after the June elections.

Fine Gael seem not too unhappy to stay with EPP-ED.

At the moment, Cameron's MEP crew include the mouthy Daniel Hannan and the largely-detached ultra-sceptic Roger Helmer: both sit with the Non-inscrits. The core-membership here was the scary "Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty" right-wing nationalist group, until it collapsed with the withdrawal of the xenophobic, homophobic, anti-semitic fruitcakes from the Greater Romania Party. That leaves the Non-inscrits trying to hold their noses while sharing space with Le Pen's French National Front.

However, consider this, from Michael White (as shrewd a political observer as any) in this week's New Statesman:

Some Labour MPs fear the breakthrough grouping this June may be the British National Party, whose nostrums may appeal in hard times. At his now notorious Tory chairman’s reception on Monday night (no ruckus when I left), Eric Pickles warned against Labour bigging up the BNP threat and dismissed ministerial talk of them getting four or five MEPs.

But two, perhaps, he conceded.

Now, think hard: where would that lot go? So, Cameron's funk-hole with the Non-inscrits is blocked.

Back to square one?

One of Cameron's recent repositionings (they come round at the regular Monday Press conference) was highly instructive:

Mr Cameron said the new grouping would "work closely with the EPP on all sorts of areas where we agree", adding: "We will be happy neighbours rather than unhappy tenants."

What that decodes into is that Cameron has already given up real hopes of having a separate, stand-alone conservative group. The best he can hope for is a sub-let from the EPP-ED franchise (perhaps something as trivial as a re-branded name). That might get him off his hook. In terms of prestige, though, it would only become sellable if the German Christian Democrats were prepared to forgo their numerical precedence and a British Tory was elected as president of the group:

Each Group appoints a leader, referred to as a "president", "co-ordinator" or "chair", who decides which way the Group should vote in Parliament. The chairs of each Group meet in the Conference of Presidents to decide what issues will be dealt with at the plenary session of the European Parliament. Groups can table motions for resolutions and table amendments to reports.

Ooh, er, matron! The screens!

That only leaves the one further difficulty. No matter what, the EPP (or its successor) reflects the thumping majority of its MEPs: it is and will remain generally pro-EU. The British Tories are most definitely not of that persuasion. Then there is the rest of the Parliament's Rule 29, with which a lot of mischief can be made:

a Group['s] ... MEPs must have a common political affinity.

Cameron's Euro-difficulties may just be about to start.

Sphere: Related Content

Who killed Cock Robin?

For those who missed it, the Irish Times has a full review of the aftermath of the Referendum vote on the Lisbon Treaty.

There are several articles which all deserve consideration.

When all is said and done, the two outstanding questions are (from the pro-Euro view):

• what went wrong?
• what next?

The "what next?" case was effectively dealt with by the cover-article in The Economist (from which the graphic above is shamelessly thieved). So, say no more.

The post-mortem "why?" argument is dealt with by a piece by the Irish Times's Jamie Smith:

No campaign convincing -- Yes voters

EVEN PEOPLE who voted in favour of the Lisbon Treaty thought the No campaign was more convincing than the Yes campaign, a survey shows.

Some 57 per cent of Yes voters said they thought the campaign against the treaty was more convincing than the Yes campaigns managed by the Government, the Opposition parties and other pro-European groups.

Overall, 68 per cent of voters felt the No campaign was more convincing, raising serious questions over the strategy and commitment of the Yes campaign.
Asked about the Government's lacklustre campaign yesterday, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said he accepted responsibility for the result.

A post-referendum Eurobarometer survey published yesterday by the European Commission, also shows that 80 per cent of No voters say they support Irish membership of the EU. Some 98 per cent of Yes voters and 89 per cent of all voters said they supported EU membership. Despite the referendum defeat, 42 per cent of voters told pollsters they thought the treaty would be good for Ireland, compared to 41 per cent who said it would not.

The survey of 2,000 voters found that over half the people who did not vote in the referendum said this was due to a lack of understanding of the issues. Some 45 per cent of people who did not vote said they did not have time on the day of the referendum.

Young people were much less likely to participate than older people. They were also much more likely to vote against the treaty with 65 per cent of voters between the age of 18 and 24 rejecting the treaty. Older people were more likely to support the treaty, with 58 per cent of over 55s voting in favour of the treaty. One-fifth of No voters pinpointed a lack of information on the treaty as the primary reason why they rejected it. The second most popular reason for voting No was a desire to protect Irish identity. Other reasons for voting no were: a lack of trust in politicians in general; a wish to safeguard Irish neutrality, the desire to keep a commissioner in every commission and the need to protect the Irish tax system.

The survey found just 1 per cent of respondents said they rejected the treaty to avoid an influx of immigrants, despite anecdotal claims made by TDs in the wake of the referendum defeat that immigration was a factor.
Most Yes voters (32 per cent) supported the treaty because they felt it was in the best interests of Ireland or because the EU had benefited the State.
Almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of manual workers voted against the treaty, while 60 per cent self-employed people supported the treaty. Most people (57 per cent) who left education after tbe age of 20 voted for the treaty, while 58 per cent of people who left school at the age of 15 voted against it. But most (69 per cent) students rejected the treaty.

Just over three-quarters of No voters also thought it would be easy to renegotiate the treaty to accommodate their concerns.

Malcolm is instinctively suspicious of a piece like that: it seems to ignore the realities in favour of blaming the medium for the message.

Anyway, that article is accompanied by a "post-referendum survey in Ireland. Eurobarometer, preliminary results", which looks like this:


So, pick the bones out of that. Sphere: Related Content

Several stops beyond Barking


Back at the time of the 1975 Referendum campaign, when the grass was greener and so was he, Malcolm spoke from anti-EEC platforms. After one such evening, where the platform panel out-numbered the audience and its dog, Malcolm began to question what the antis were about.

That re-appraisal led to him not voting in the Referendum itself (the only time Malcolm has not used his vote).

Today, while not rabid, he is a sincere believer that the European project deserves more than a degree of support. He is confirmed in this by any open debate on the issue. For example, today's Daily Telegraph has a typically inflammatory piece, Brussels dictatorship will face day of reckoning, by Charles Moore, which concludes:

The European project now resembles the state of the eastern European Communists after 1968, when party members gave up believing in their doctrine and just settled for comfortable jobs. They shored up their power and ignored their unpopularity. After 20 years, it all collapsed, because people started to take down the Berlin Wall, and no one quite dared stop them. The EU is not such a sharp oppression as was Soviet Communism, but it is similar in this respect - it tries wherever possible to avoid the democratic judgment of the people it rules. When that judgment does come, therefore, it will be merciless.

Pick the factual bones out of that dog's dinner.

Then consider the tone of the reader responses:

• The fact that we now have a leader who is acting like a dictator by giving away something our forefathers fought and died to protect. I honestly believe that this will lead to insurrection, it may not happen now, but 10 or 20yrs from now. The English are always slow to react, but we always do react in the end.
• I don't suppose anyone in the Military is of a mind for some serious action? like rounding the whole lot of this lying government up and finding somewhere to keep them for a few years (the Tower).
• AT LAST - the truth behind the political smoke screen. Charles Moore has graphically expressed the cynical way the politicians and beaurocrats who benefit from the European Treaty continue to ignore public opinion. Democracy really is under threat. If, as seems likely Mr. Brown does deny the British people the referendum that was promised we must be prepared to embark upon a national display of civil disobedience. The people's will must prevail. Remember Britons, never, never, never shall be slaves.
• Sudden death - or the death of a thousand cuts - Gordon has chosen.
• We, once a independent Great Britain, would be dragged into it a new "soviet super state" with out so much as a whimper or a bang by Noolabour fuelled with lies, spin and more lies. We are it appears being lead to our certain demise, also it seems by political "inbreeds" with a low intellect toeing the party line with an appetite for absolute power. It looks as if Trotsky and Lenin live on in Brussels, and London.
• I suppose We could have a military coup, but the army is away on other business, in a corner of a foreign field. There is going to be a reckoning, and Brown's name will go in the same category as all those puppet communist leaders of satellites eastern European states.
• A region of Britain in the future disagrees with a ruling from Brussels. Civil disobedience and refusal to obey the ruling follow. Troops are sent to restore order. They will not be British troops. Never happen? Has any federation of sovereign states survived without bloodshed? Because daily life appears to go on as normal, we sleepwalk further into submission. But there will be a tipping point one day, most likely over something unexpected. How long until the "freedom fighters" commit the first outrage? Hopefully the ultimate collapse and disintegration of the EU will not be accompanied by the wars between member states as happened when Soviet Communism ended.Referendum now or Revolution later - and that is a promise.
• we are sleepwalking to a civil war

Malcolm, for once, ventured into this mad-house, along these lines:

Most of these contributions (and even parts of the original article) seem to come down to:
• either a genuine criticism of and chronic complaint against the EU,
or
• a prescience of the Apocalypse.

The first should be complained seriously, the second is a serious complaint.

On what basis, apart from paranoia, can one presume the EU must fracture into an armed conflict? Or that there must be blood in the gutters when the poraille rise against their masters? Yet many of the plaints above show total surety of either or both.

Now to the real issue: how is the democratic deficit in the EU to be compensated?

It is valid to ask how an institution with 25 operating languages can become trans-national. That's a problem of comprehension at and of the organisational centre. Since so many of those petty nationalists represented above work for, shop with, deal with trans-national mega-corporations, they already know the answer there.

The other solution is devolution. Funnily enough, the EU is in favour of that principle, the UK Government welcomes it, but the little Englanders resist it equally on principle. Yes, very funny, were it not serious.

For some reason, perhaps on grounds of spelling, punctuation or good taste, Malcolm's comment was not immediately worthy of inclusion (though, after an interim of several hours -- presumably the electrons of cyberspace were going slow in sympathy with the CWU, it eventually did).

So, to the voice of reason, the first leader of today's Irish Times,

The new treaty is a substantial document which ushers in significant new offices, powers and procedures in the EU’s political system. A president of the council of ministers will be elected for two and a half years, renewable once. A High Representative for foreign and security policy will be appointed, and there is a new mutual defence clause. The European Commission’s size will be capped and a strict rotation of membership introduced, so that not all states will have representatives on it at any one time. Majority voting will be extended to 40 more areas, including justice and home affairs from which Ireland and Britain are opting out for the time being. The European Parliament will gain influence through the consequential extension of co-decision with the commission. So will the European Court of Justice. National parliaments will get more time to scutinise EU legislation. The EU gains new competences to deal with energy policy and climate change. The Charter of Fundamental Rights will have legal effect. And there is for the first time a right of exit from membership.

Now, to Malcolm, that is an exemplary and cool summary. If that is the treaty (and he has not yet gone to any original text), Malcolm finds it difficult to quibble too much.

Surely, he says, there should be a direct challenge to the antis:

• Endorse the treaty as quickly as possible.
• Go for a Referendum to exercise that right of exit from membership.

That is not going to happen, because the Conservative Party could never agree on withdrawal. The braying about a referendum on the treaty is a ploy to conceal that. Their friends in Big Business would not allow such a thing, and the ordinary bloke and doll would be allowed to bite into the real meat ...

For the record, last time (June 1975) it was 67% to 33% in favour on a 65% turnout. And, no, the Great British Public were not deceived; at enormous expense, they simply, sanely, coolly got it right. Sphere: Related Content