US BOWS TO HURRICANE 'SANDY'

Many years ago I used to listen to the wonderful 'Round the Horne' on Radio 4 or, more probably then, the Home Service. One of the mainstays of the programme was a sketch piece involving the eponymous Kenenth Horne with Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick as 2 camp fellows introduced by Williams with the line "I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy".

 

Few living on the eastern side of the United States will be considering their 'Sandy' to be a freind this morning as the storm-cum-hurricane of that name does its best to bring huge parts of the country to a halt. Airports and subways are closed, the streets are deserted and thousands have evacuated their homes. That mighty bastion of US society, the New York Stock Exchange, was closed yesterday and will remain closed today, the first time since 1888 that it has failed to open for 2 consecutive trading days. Some have no doubt lost their lives, many will suffer personal, business and financial loss and the Presidential election campaigning has been brought to an abrupt halt. What the eventual costs will be cannot even be guessed at, though the overall effect on the global economy may eventually be positive as repair and restoration work gets underway. Only the future will tell us.

 

This is not the first hurricane to strike the US and it will not be the last; they are battered by 10 or 20 every year but this one has hit its most important centre of population and finance in devastating fashion. At a time when the human race and, in particular, the United States, believes itself to be all-powerful, this storm has issued a salutary warning. Not only are we, and they, not all-powerful, in the face of nature in all its pomp, we are all but powerless.

SCOTLAND : INDEPENDENCE NIGHTMARE.

The agreement on a referendum to determine whether or not Scotland should become independent raises far more questions than it will ever resolve.

 

The agreement gives everyone who lives in Scotland and is aged over 16 an opportunity to vote on the independence question; this will include many non-Scots who happen to live there and exclude many Scots who live elsewhere. The inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds raises issues about their possible involvement in elections in the future, something which I consider to be ludicrous. Given that Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom and that breaking the Union apart will have a dramatic effect on the rest of the Kingdom, why isn't the rest of the population being given an opportunity to voice its opinion on the matter ?

 

These basic points aside, there would be many far more complex political questions. Would an independent Scotland retain the British monarch as head of state ? Would they retain sterling as their currency; in fact, would they even be able to ? The word seems to be that if Scotland became independent it would then have to apply for membership of the EU as it could not simply ride in on the coat tails of its UK association, and would then be required to adopt the Euro. There would be serious issues regarding border controls, overseas links and representation, defence and so on.

 

Scotland's population is around 5.25m, obviously larger than many already independent nations but hardly a giant; in fact, Scotland would be one of the smallest contries in the western world. Given that it is the western nations which are under most pressure in the conomic woes of our time, would independence really make sense ? It was the UK Government that 'bailed' out both the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland when they became insolvent, not the Government in Edinburgh. Future similar problems would have to be resolved by Scotland alone and we all know what's happened in Ireland, Greece, Spain and the rest, when governments found this to be impossible.

 

Alex Salmond is a fanatic who leads a party of fanatics. His determination to break away from a 300 year old Union is so strong that he will happily ignore all of the difficulties in order to achieve his aim. He uses statistics in a way that is highly selective and he ignores the high level of subsidy which Scotland currently receives from the UK Government but which, in reality, comes from English taxpayers. He has talked nebulously about Scotland joining other small northern economies in some sort of economic resurgence - Ireland and Iceland, 2 countries which have experienced almost total economic collapse, have been mentioned in the past. Can Salmond truly believe his own spin ?

 

If Scotland becomes independent, it will have a permanent socialist government, while England will benefit from the removal of a raft of Scottish Labour Members of Parliament and will probably become permanently Conservative as long as immigration is brought under proper control. The potential benefits to England, which will no longer have to support a weak Scottish economy and unsustainable spending by the Scottish Government, are huge; the disbenefits to Scotland, which will then have to balance its own budget and try to compete on its own merits, will be enormous and debilitating.

 

Separating the 2 countries will have its issues. Resiting defence capabilities, potentially separating controls over defence forces, railways and public utilities and, worst of all, separating the finances of the 2 nations will be far from simple although, no doubt, the civil service will cobble something together. Salmond really doesn't care about all of this, he just wants to be the leader of an independent country. Cameron, in agreeing to the referendum, no doubt believes that the Scots will vote to remain in the Union; let's hope he's right, although, as an Englishman, I might be encouraged to think that getting rid of these troublesome neighbours would not be an entirely bad thing.

TEBBIT SLAMS INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT.

It's good to know that that Grand Old Tory, Norman Tebbit, is in tune with my thinking.

Lord Tebbit is reported to have said that David Cameron, reputed to be the Prime Minister of our benighted nation, has allowed "this dog of a coalition government" to look incompetent. He was apparently speaking with particular reference to the saga over the now-departed Andrew Mitchell but his remarks come after a series of blunders by senior ministers.

 

Tebbit has also suggested that it is high time that Cameron started introducing some genuinely Conservative policies - tougher rules on immigration and crime, for instance; of course, his Liberal partners wouldn't like this and, probably, neither would Dave. It seems that the words of the 'Chingford Bovverboy' will continue to fall on deaf ears until the Conservative Party realises that it's best approach is to return to its true roots, rather than trying to appeal to the ridiculously named 'Middle Ground' which is, of course, a euphemism for being mildly socialist.

 

When our main electoral choice is between 3 parties whose difference is merely their degree of socialism, for whom are right wing believers to vote ?

BBC TAKES 'PETER PRINCIPLE' TO THE LIMIT.

I've just been watching the third part of Andrew Marr's 'History of the World' recorded last Sunday. A more pompous and ludicrous programme is hard to imagine.

 

Marr is a former BBC political broadcaster who has moved on to grander things; these days he presents programmes such as 'Start the Week', an unashamed piece of advertising from an organisation which is not actually allowed to advertise and which is an increasingly awful load of rubbish.

 

What Marr's qualifications are for presenting a world history are unknown; that his presentation is a mish-mash of semi-mythical stories with little historical basis seems to be obvious. The programme was interspersed with some supposed true accounts but these also seem to be dubious; an account of the affair between Casesar and Cleopatra was presented as recorded by Plutarch who was not born until almost 100 years after their deaths. The death of a woman named Perpetua was recounted according to an account of a supposed eye-witness although this person was not named and whether or not it was truly an eye-witness account was not challenged. This was no history but a piece of romanticized nonsense. The rest seemed mostly to be a repeat of an assortment of well known facts with nothing new being added. We jumped from India to China to Rome to Arabia with barely a pause for breath; how this was any sort of coherent history escapes me.

 

Why does the BBC persist with producing such rubbish ? Programmes about history should be presented by historians, in the same way as programmes about nature are presented by biologists and natural historians. Marr is acceptable, just, as a political commentator, but as a presenter of programmes such as this latest effort he simply doesn't have the wherewithal. Sadly the BBC seems to have a current policy of promoting newsreaders and commentators to greater things without actually bothering to assess their suitability for the more exalted roles. Humphreys, Bruce, Vine and others now including Marr and the egregious Balding, are everywhere and do nothing but convince me that they are well beyond their areas of expertise and ability.

 

If ever there was a perfect example of the operation of the 'Peter Principle' this is it.

 

 

OBAMA OR ROMNEY; DOES IT MATTER ?

We are often told that the US PResident is the most powerful person in the world and, therefore, the identity of the postholder is of enormous importance. I wonder if this is really true.

 

The notion of 'power' is inevitably associated with military capability and, in particular, with possession of nuclear weapons. The US has both in abundance and probably has the world's most extensive security and intelligence operations; I would be far from surprised to discover that they have a file on me, for instance, even though I am not a US citizen, have never been in the US nor even tried to go there. I have, however, occasionally expressed my views on certain issues on the internet which may well have been sufficient to gain their interest. The US also has the world's largest economy by some distance and, on the face of it, the US President does, indeed, preside over a pretty powerful setup.

 

However, in reality, what actual power does the President have ? Obama has largely failed to implement policies which are dear to his heart due to opposition in the Senate, House of Representatives or both. The involvement of his country in overseas ventures, notably Afghanistan, has been a continuing disaster though admittedly not of his making. The US economy is continuing to struggle and is currently weighed down by a far greater burden of debt than it had when he came to office. US diplomacy has failed totally to achieve any solutions to the problems affecting Israel, Syria and Iran, while interventions in Egypt and Libya have produced highly uncertain outcomes.

 

While the President may have had to 'sign-off' on the overseas military campaigns, his ability to influence much of the rest seems to be very limited. Indeed, apart from committing military forces it is difficult to deterrmine exactly what a modern President can really achieve. Perhaps this is because Obama is a weak President or perhaps it is simply because of the nature of the United States today.

 

One has the feeling that the Presidents of a few decades ago genuinely wielded power. Roosevelt in the 1930s, Kennedy for a brief period and even Nixon until he was caught, but more recent incumbents seem to have been increasingly emasculated. Ford was generally seen as a joke, and Carter likewise, although both may have been rather better than theywere  credited with being. Reagan stands out principally due to his charismatic presence and oratorical skills rather than for any great political ability, while Bush, senior, probably wasn't up to the job and his Presidency will be one of the forgotten ones. Once we reach the era of Clinton and 'George W', I truly begin to wonder who was in charge. Clinton was certainly a smooth operator while Bush minor was an imbecile, but both seem to have been backed by powerful organisational interests which pulled all of the strings.

 

Given the history, whether the winner of November's poll is Obama or Romney isn't what will matter. The important thing is who are their backers and what are their policies and desires ? Additionally, will the next President have enough control of the Senate and House of Representatives ? If Obama wins, we can expect more of the same; much rhetoric and little action leading into at least 2 years of a 'lame-duck' administration until the election of 2016. If Romney wins, things may change or they may not; he and his backers may find that their cherished policies are blocked by a hostile Congress and they have 4 years of stalemate while the economy continues to pile up debts.

 

Personally, I would never vote for anyone who has fought so hard and spent so much money in order to be 'top dog'. Anyone who is so desperate for power almost always turns out to be incompetent or worse, so I vote for the White House gardener who has no such ambitions but would do a better job simply because he would feel obliged to do his very best rather than worrying about satisfying his backers and winning a second term in 4 years time.