The Face of Europe

The old quote about the EU, attributed to Kissinger, was this: "Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?"

Let us not dwell on whether Baroness Ashton of Wimmin is capable of accurately reflecting the consensus foreign policy opinions and ambitions of all 27 member states (but my hunch is that she won't even attempt to do so; this will be, as with all other things in Europe, a stitch-up by the snail murderers and sausage-noshers).

No, what I worry about is that this person will be the Face of Europe on all those occasions when X invades Y, or A shoots down B's supply plane by mistake, or when the next tsunami heads beach-ward.

And I hope you will not think me ungallant when I suggest that this is a Face that does not show Europe in her best light; that it is a face only a mother could love; that, if it were to launch a thousand ships, that those ships would be crammed to the gunwales with fleeing emigrants, keen to start another life several hundred miles away from That Face.

It is, in short, a loathsome visage. It takes on an even grislier hue when one reflects that it has never submitted itself to popular selection, to democratic vote. It is the face of someone who has climbed the greasy pole of unrepresentative politics in the way that only a slug could.

I fear that the World will think less of us when it sees and hears this thing.

The New EU Cabinet Appointments in Full

President of the Council: Herman Van Rompuy-Pompuy (Belg)
Foreign Minister: Baroness Ashton of Wimmin (GB)

Defence Minister: Sgr Whooza Zat (It)
Farming Minister: M Nevair-Erdovim (Fr)
Environment Minister: Herr Vossisnayme (Ger)
Sports Minister: Mr Avin Alaff (Au)
Arts Minister: Miss Pula Zeeuzzerwun (Por)
Social Justice Minister: Mr Paddy Gray-Veetrain (Ire)

More Mellow

The Tuscan recently featured a very cool dude who was quite unruffled by a near-death experience. This is different, insofar as it is staged. But he looks the sort of chap you wouldn't mind sharing a trench with.

Box Size

http://irishsoccerinsider.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/french-and-irish-fall-out-over-box-incident/

A modern sporting-politico-diplomatic classic. Read it.

To the Breaker's Yard

RIP Edward Woodward. Good man and a fine actor, sadly too much telly not enough films. Breaker Morant and the not-exactly shabby The Wicker Man are his highpoints.

I loved Breaker Morant. Part war film, part courtroom drama. Shades of Zulu and l'affaire Dreyfus. You never saw a more cheerful and stoic wronged man.

Look into the true story of HH "Breaker" Morant. A wonderful romantic type. Hard-as-nails Aussie drover and friend of one of Idle's favourite poets, AB "Banjo" Paterson, he of Clancy of the Overflow fame:

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago;
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow."

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar);
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

etc

Where All That Tax Goes.....

...... and why a Conservative victory at the next election won't make a whole heap of difference.

Being no longer idle, I fall behind on my discretionary reading, so it was only last night in the bath that I read Rod Liddle's piece on Jeanie Lynch from last week's Speccie. Jeanie is ‘Lead Officer for Equality in Children and Young People’s Services for Devon County Council’.

I can't think of any other example which illustrates quite so clearly why we have a national debt of £1.3 trillion, unfunded liabilities of another £2 trillion on top of that, and a government that consumes 50% of GDP.

Jeanie's week: Monday - Value the Difference course; Tuesday - "Building resilience for our Gypsy, Roma Traveller Achievement Services"; Wednesday - Day Off; Thursday - "Children and Sex" speech; Friday - "pulling together diversity data".

Liddle: "‘Building resilience for our Gypsy, Roma Traveller Achievement Services’. What does that mean? God knows, but she concludes, in her diary, that gypsies and Roma and travellers need to improve their ‘resilience skills’. You wonder for a moment if this cheerful middle-aged woman is teaching gypsies how to fight. ‘Grandmother’ and ‘sucking eggs’ is the first response which comes to mind. You wonder also if the people of Devon wished that their local council was instead teaching gypsies to be a bit less resilient, all things considered, or perhaps to have the requisite resilience to pack up their caravans and move to Cornwall or Somerset or Dorset. But Jeanie has only contempt for the people who pay her salary (let’s be honest — the gypsies don’t, do they?): she says the travellers face horrible discrimination from ordinary people in the wider world. Those awful people in the wider world."

Liddle discovers that there is a veritable platoon of Acts of Parliament (that would be Westminster AND the European one, natch) that makes all this worthless guff a requirement. It is not so much a matter of choice as the Law of the Land. Jeanie probably pulls in around £30,000 for this stunt. But Devon is a big old area, so she'll need a car. Call it another £3,000 on autolease. There will be expenses of course, and petrol, and oodles of stationery costs as Jeanie publishes all those glossy handouts on anal sex for 8 year olds and pamphlets telling the policemen of Tavistock not to be beastly to pikeys. And, when Jeanie finally retires to her cottage by the sea, aged 60, there will be her pension. For ever. And it's unfunded. The children she teaches anal sex to next week will be paying Devon County Council's taxes in ten years' time, partly to fund Jeanie's final salary, index-linked pension scheme. Come to think of it, a good few of them will be employed by the Council, too. Outreach Co-ordinators, probably. Or Clotted-Cream Safety Standards Invigilators.

Devon County Council is run by the Conservatives. Liddle concludes that even if they wanted to, they are buggered:

"And so, if you’re the newly elected ruling group of Devon County Council you may well be tempted just to sigh and let Jeanie go about her work.

This stuff, this ludicrous nonsense, has become unavoidable. We cannot get rid of it. And my guess is there’s a Jeanie doing her business for every county and borough council up and down the land and a Gypsy, Roma, Traveller Achievement Service in every relevant council up and down the land and a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans (sic) History Month coming to a school near you very soon. They want kids, incidentally, to celebrate the life of a famous LGBT person from history and suggest computer science would be a good place to start. Poor Alan Turing, once known as a brilliant mathematician. Now known as an unhappy homosexual."

Read the whole thing. You'll laugh and cry.

My Thoughts Entirely

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