Posting rate has risen sharply this month. For much of this year the sense of not having much to say has been strong. Well, not not much period but not much that’s not already been said. After all the financial drama of 2008 it feels as if the spirit of the age has swept by leaving me trailing in the dust.
Today’s thoughts are not original but I feel them strongly so here goes.
The not so original topic to write about is the Treaty of Lisbon and the post of President of its Council.
But first I’d like to give a brief glimpse of the pages of my never-to-be-written autobiography. Years ago, say about 25 to 30 years ago, I thought the European Union was a great idea. I can’t remember if I voted for it in the referendum but I think I did. Now I’m very disillusioned with the EU. This isn’t utter disillusionment; it’s reversible, but as an institution the EU seems to have lost its way. I don’t warm to eurosceptic politicians and neither do I like the bland reassurances the government issues on the subject. I even blame the Liberal Democrats for not seeming to mind more that the EU is such a mess.
The EU in general still has its uses but the treaty and the debate about the presidency show that none of our politicians, Brown, Sarkozy and Merkel know where to take it. They’ve lost sight of the greatest thing about the EU, that it really is a club for democracies and freedom lovers. How true is it to say that as if it was a fact rather than an aspiration? I still think it’s partly fact but there’s a worm eating away in the core of this apple – an acceptance of the theory that the only way to make the EU effective is to have an oligarchy of leaders and bureaucrats.
About a year ago Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted using the phrase, apropos joining the euro, ‘the people who count in the United Kingdom’ and contrasting them with the bulk of UK voters. This may have been mis-speaking on the part of Sr Barroso but it certainly sums up the impression that the EU’s leaders have given in the course of the treaty negotiations.
The EU leaders seem to be on the look-out for someone who counts as their new President of the Council. It’s not difficult to see why Tony Blair looks like an attractive candidate. He has big-hitter status and he probably would be effective in chairing those meetings. He might not hi-jack the role for self-glorification.
However, all of this is beside the point, he’s still a big-hitter for all the wrong reasons and he’s still unpopular with a larger section of the UK public than just the eurosceptics. Gordon Brown’s decision to black Mr Blair looked like ineptitude similar to the TA cuts or perhaps a vindictive attempt to push along his candidacy but knowing all the while that it’s bound to fail and that his predecessor would be humiliated in the process. In fact, it seems most likely that it’s an effort to leave awkward legacy for David Cameron.
Whatever it is the government doesn’t seem to realise that they are trivialising the EU issue and the leaders of the other major European states seem to be encouraging them. None of them seem to realise that there may well be no more floors above the current one – national democracies rubbing along together. And if there is a higher level of integration, those same national democracies need to find it through democratic means. Every member state should have had a referendum. Until the leaders of the EU come to realise that their trajectory is going to be like a kind of long lasting bungy jump and in the end they’ll end up just where they started – if their lucky.
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Not much else to report this week. I had a local walk, Eashing Bridge to Lombard Street and back earlier in the week. The fine weather seemed to bring out lots of people to enjoy themselves and almost everyone was friendlier.
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I’ve enjoyed the first of Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain although the shots of him in black and white seem rather odd. I remember when I was a lot younger, a relative telling me about an election hustings they attended and the candidate (presumably a Liberal) held up two loaves, a free trade loaf and a protection loaf, which was, of course, noticeably smaller. I guess that was the general election of 1906 and the relative would have been an eleven year old. I also enjoyed ‘Defying Gravity’ enough to watch it again. Finally, Evan Davis interviewing Warren Buffett was an excellent programme. It conveyed the combination of Buffett’s likeableness with the clear suggestion that there’s more to his strategy than his principles would lead one to believe.
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Talking of investment gurus, it looks as if the long awaited correction in the markets may be starting. Possibly, I’m not too pessimistic but I wonder if the lack of any revolutionary fire to lend to business and create jobs may be behind investors’ current confidence. Institutions and big private investors are breathing a sigh of relief and hoping that 2006 really will come around again. Meanwhile the rest of are hoping for something humbler.
