Hannan and Sorkin: arch-ideologues?

We have Dan Hannan, the Peruvian Irishman, claiming to be dictating Cameron's agenda:

What’s better than leading a political party? Getting to determine its manifesto without any of the hassle of actually, you know, leading it. I’ve observed before that, line by line, chapter by chapter, The Plan: Twelve months to renew Britain is becoming official Tory policy. My friend and co-author Douglas Carswell is miffed at the lack of acknowledgement, and you can see his point: David Cameron’s policy wallah, Steve Hilton, has cut and pasted bits of our text with neither alteration nor attribution.

Creepy,what?

Then, from way out in left field, the Pert Young Piece lobbed in a fast one.

What was George W. Bush's first substantive action as President?
Err ... The No Child Left Behind plan for wholesale education reform?
Where did the idea originate?
Dunno.
In the fertile mind of Aaron Sorkin, perhaps.

As is inevitable, she offered some evidence. Equally inevitably, it came from the script of The West Wing. Series One, episode Twelve, to be precise (and she always is):

TOBY: The era of big government is over.
BARTLET: You want to cut the line?
TOBY: I want to change the sentiment. We’re running away from ourselves, and I know we can scorepoints that way. I was the principle architect in that campaign strategy, right along with you, Josh. But we’re here now. Tomorrow night, we do an immense thing. We have to say what we feel. That government, no matter what its failures are in the past, and in times to come, for that matter, the government can be a place where people come together and where no one gets left behind. No one... gets left behind, an instrument of... good. [pause] I have no trouble understanding why the line tested well, Josh, but I don’t think that means we should say it. I think that means we should... change it.

No Child Left Behind was a mere squeak compared to Sorkin's notion of an all-embracing ... well, "socialism" if one must. After all, what else is a concept of egalitarian, all-embracing social involvement? In place of something that grand, Bush's proposal (which went to Congress on 23 January 2001) amounted to:

• testing regimes in schools;
• loosening the Federal restraints on the use of educational monies;
• a few pilot schemes;
• a worthwhile, if nugatory, $600 million for literacy schemes across the whole US (i.e. about $2 per capita);
• the usual bleat on improving the quality of the teaching force.

What goes around, comes around

Neither Hannan nor Sorkin -- not Bush, nor Obama -- operate in a vacuum. They are acquiring and recycling received ideas from elsewhere. In the case of No Child Left Behind, there were obvious and acknowledged borrowings from Australia, via Britain. Equally so with the sound-bites.

Similarly, and ignobly, Hannan's Twelve months to renew Britain is a rag-bag of rightist rubbish. At one intent, it borrows from Ted Heath's Selsdon Conference of January 1970 (and look where that went). There also is infection from the ga-ga world of the UKIP Little Englanders. It lifts a catch-penny title from Tony Blair's 1997 pre-election Stockton speech. Even the cover (right) looks like something from the Ministry of Information, circa 1947.

Fortunately, Hannan's ends are impossible in any practical politics:

• His recipe starts by the UK squelching the Human Rights Act, ditching the European Convention of Human Rights. Both achieved by diktat under the Royal Prerogative: no messy legislation or Parliamentary approval needed.

So there's a good democratic start.

Short of retrospective legislation (more good democracy!), that means, for a further decade, legal actions under the earlier dispension would have to grind their Jarndiced way through the courts of the land, on the way to the EC of HR. And, when their actions reach the EC of HR, British citizens would be seeking redress in a court where no British representation remains! Weird, that.

• Then the UK pulls out of the European Union for all practical purposes, save as a detached trading partner and for occasional over-the-fence discussions with the lot next-door.

Of course, the others in the EU are going to accept that like true Mensches: we take what we can get; and render nothing except spittle in return.

After all, goes the Little Englander argument, Mexico has a trading arrangement with the EU, so why not a detached UK? Well, apart from the 10.9% of UK exports to Germany, the 10.4% to France, the 7.1% to Ireland , the 6.3% to the Netherlands, the 5.2% to Belgium, and the 4.5% to Spain 4.5% (2006 figures), not a lot! It might be worth recalling, though, that a substantial element there are those Japanese car-assemblies, which might be re-sited in Hungary or Poland, rather than compete across an unnecessary trade-barrier.

As a comparison, the EU imports from Mexico (beer and guano?) were worth €11.9 billion in 2007: exports were €20.9 billion. Compare that with the total value of UK Exports (2008): £234,178,000,000. Positive thinking, chaps!

Do we also close the Channel Tunnel or just have customs controls at Folkestone and Coquelles: "All out! Passports! Open your cases for inspection!" The Daily Mail and its ex-pat owner will love that. And we'd have to armour-plate 300+ miles of the land frontier with the EU, of course.

Thanks to the Pert Young Piece, Malcolm reckons he now values one aspect of Dubya way above anything yet to buzz out of the fevered bonnet of Hannan. Sphere: Related Content

There is a case for Europe

First things first: confession time.

Malcolm freely admits that, in the 1975 referendum campaign, his alter-ego took the Eurosceptic line, spoke on platforms to urge rejection, and was quoted on the topic. During that campaign, he reconsidered and re-appraised the arguments, and found his own (and the others of the antis) wanting.

Come the day, he did not even vote: the only time in his franchised life he failed to do so.

Since then, he has reversed his position, and now believes in a full and sincere commitment to the EU.

The problems

Of course there are serious issues to be resolved: notably, the "democratic deficit" which renders the image of a faceless, manipulative bureaucracy more apparent.

What is not a solution is repatriating powers to national parliaments. All that achieves is transferring responsibilities from one bureaucracy to another. It does not give the citizen any greater involvement or responsibility. The citizen is only "empowered" if and when decisions are delegated to the lowest level possible, to local options, and financed fairly. Alternatively, e-voting and referenda need to be deployed to involve more voters on a regular basis. Underlying all that should be the recognition that no political party, anywhere in the UK, engaged even 10% of the electorate at the recent MEP elections:

• the Tories took 36.2% of the seats
• on 27% of the vote,
• or nearly 9¼% of the electorate.

This was hailed, not least by the Tories and their media claque, as a great success. In passing, it took 167,935 votes to elect each Tory MEP, 183,212 for each Labour one, 189,146 for each LibDem, 472,799 for the two neo-fascists toe-rags, and a staggering 611,651 for each Green MEP. That will not, of course, stop the Tories whining about the "unfair" electoral system.

The UK "nation-state"

In the UK the "nation-state" issue is clouded by our inability to clarify what is the "nation-state".

The three "home" countries, plus the six counties, are no longer a settled entity. At some stage in the not-too-distant future, the status of Scotland as something more than a northern appendage needs to be properly recognised. "Northern Ireland" has persisted as a uniquely "conditional" part of the union ever since 1920 (or even since 1912). There seems to be little logic in the differential settlements for Scotland and Wales. Beyond that, the fissures in the Saxon empire deserve consideration: those regional assemblies, granted enhanced powers, might regain traction.

At the moment we have a total lack of consistency. Voting arrangements, financial settlements, even the naming of places on road signs, varies according to the different parts of the union: why does the M4 suddenly lose "Llundain" as a direction at a vague moment east of Cardiff/Caerdydd? Does the Welsh language never venture beyond Junction 23?

Beyond that, we have all the hysteria about the EU transmogrifying into a "superstate". In this weird mind-set, anything and everything can become a spine-chilling, salutary warning. Typical of this is the letter in today's Irish Times, obviously taking dictation from Daniel Hannan, and bewailing that:

when the new European Parliament session opened in Strasbourg recently a detachment of combat troops, from various EU member-states led the ceremony and raised an EU flag -- twice the size of the national flags around it -- to the accompaniment of a military bugle call.

We really need to watch the heel-clicking, imperialist tendency in the Luxembourgois army, don't we?

A positive European

To think European is to reject this narrowness. It's worth listing the "gains" that the Lisbon Treaty represents:

• the Charter of Fundamental Rights is given its due place in the Treaty
• so, too, the powers of the EU, and the limitations thereon are clearly drawn
• while greater powers accrue to the European Parliament, national assemblies have greater powers of scrutiny and to block EU legislation
• for the first time, the route to the exit is clearly indicated
• dealing with the threat of climate-change, and therefore energy policies are declared a prime objective
• the European Parliament gains a say in trade agreements ...

A new place in the world

Dean Acheson, as far back as 5 December 1962, famously opined that:

Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.

The furore this provoked was entirely limited to the London chattering classes and the Tory press, and all the greater because its basis was patently true.

Similarly, if the last year or so should have taught us something, it is that the EU, too, faces eclipse. Power in the world is now economic: we are rapidly moving into a new dispensation which is dominated by two economic colossi: the United States and China. The nation-states of Europe have little clout in that league (as Iceland, Ireland, Spain and the new East European democracies have discovered, the hard way). Only as Europe, a fully-functioning integrated European economy, is there hope of standing our ground:

David Miliband today described China as the 21st century's "indispensable power" with a decisive say on the future of the global economy, climate change and world trade.

The foreign secretary predicted that over the next few decades China would become one of the two "powers that count", along with the US, and Europe could emerge as a third only if it learned to speak with one voice.

Malcolm wishes he had the felicity of Timothy Garton Ash saying something very similar, and urging us to see:

the wider context: an increasingly non-European world, shaped by rising powers like China and global threats like climate change, where even the largest European states can only hope to make a difference if we all combine forces and work together.

Even Garton Ash borrowed from that supreme exponent of language, Famous Seamus himself:

Recalling a memorable evening five years ago in Dublin's Phoenix Park when Ireland's EU presidency welcomed 10 new nations into the union, Heaney observes: "Phoenix renewed itself, just as the Union was renewing itself and continues to need to renew itself." Before reading aloud the poem (Beacons at Bealtaine) he wrote on that occasion, Heaney says, in a video clip recorded for last weekend's launch of the new Ireland for Europe campaign: "There are many reasons for ratifying the Lisbon treaty, reasons to do with our political and economic wellbeing, but the poem speaks mainly for our honour and identity as Europeans." And then he reads his verse, which includes this great line: "Move lips, move minds and make new meanings flare."

The mealy-mouthed legions of the lost, the "better off outers", the UKIPpers, the Broken Men who still require confirmation:

How stands the old Lord Warden?
Are Dover's cliffs still white?

have no vision to match that. 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