All shook up

Boris 'The Animal' Johnson's speech at the Centre for Policy Studies, a thinktank co-founded by Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph - a man who believed that the deltas and epsilons ("social classes 4 and 5") of society excessively bred lowering the IQ stock of the population - shows he still has a chip on his shoulder for getting a 2:1 at Classics at Oxford whereas David Cameron got a 1st in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).  He has dismissed Cameron in the past as just a swot to make up for his own failings, a strange exaltation of English anti-intellectualism given his speech (but when did BoJo make sense?  He also confuses aspiration with greed).
It has been said by those on the right that BoJo is articulating 'what we are thinking' and on the 'spiritual right right' and the left as a rallying cry defending an unequal order, that is far from meritocratic.  But I think that underlying it is a deeper insecurity, further adduced by his metaphor that by shaking a packet of cornflakes, the easier it will for some to get to the top i.e. a small tinkering here or there but nothing much towards lowering a ladder to the able.  He obviously sees of himself that, no matter his academic achievements, he will get to the top because of his IQ (let's not wallow on all the benefits he had to allow him and his ilk to alight there).
The cornflakes analogy is worthless, even as a bit of colour because shaking such a box is not a natural activity past the age of three, risks a spillage and some of those with high IQ will sink to the bottom, while some incredibly thick people will rise to the top.  His thumbing of his nose to social mobility is not attractive - a kid with a poor inner-city background and familial breakdown will not have the same IQ as another kid in an affluent, stable family because intellectual quotient tests ignore the barriers to mental acquisition and are not in any way a clue to what we have when we are born.  BoJo seems to think otherwise and that this natural order cannot be changed.
This argument was most cruelly skewered when a 58-year old Japanese man found out that his parents and brothers were not biologically linked and that the midwife had accidentally swapped him with another baby at the hospital when giving the two a bath.  He endured a life of pauperism, living in cramped conditions, taking menial jobs and attending night school while the other child had a very comfortable lifestyle, with a private tutor, university education and now head of a large real estate company.  What would the most unfortunate of the two Japanese men have done with all the same advantages?  IQ had no bearing on either's life chances.  Though the hospital disgracefully tried to have the case thrown out saying it had exceeded the 10-year statute of limitations (a country that needs this limitation has deeper seated problems with their judicial system), the man, now 60, sued for £1.5 million (Yen equivalent) though only got £272,000, with the option for the hospital to appeal.  Saddest of all, neither man never knew their parents as all four are now dead.  This of course compounds the pain of the poverty-enforced man, though at least his biological brothers want to get to know him.  As the poorer man would have been the eldest of his brothers, by rights he should have inherited the family business and it would be interesting how he interacts with the man who was swapped with him.  But try telling him he belongs where he is because of his IQ.

The Beatles versus the ill-thought out and ideology

When Russell Brand was bearding Jeremy Paxman more effectively than the great interrogator's own attempt at facial fuzz, when not defending his right not to vote, Brand babbled about revolution, environmentalism and income redistribution.  For the last two, the Green Party exists as a conduit for such ambitions.  If not enough people vote for it to become a party of power, surely that will should be recognised (no matter the manifest flaws of the electoral system) - Brand should relocate to Brighton Pavilion and vote to keep Caroline Lucas as the voice of green conscience in Westminster.  As for revolution, despite being chosen as The Beatles' 1960s representative, Brand is clearly unfamiliar with all but their most famous oeuvre, though Revolution is hardly unknown.
In his Paxman interview (and subsequently), Brand refused to outline any schematics or concrete proposals for how this revolution will be achieved or what would occur after it, hoping his mellifluous verbosity would bamboozle and carry him through.  But The Beatles had a charlatan like him skewered half a century before his 2013 outburst.  "You say you've got the real solution, we-ell, you know, we'd all love to hear the plan."
In the second part of third verse, of Revolution, there's the line, "If you carry around pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow."  That's unless you keep them in captivity for 30 years after entering your Maoist cult.  The Maoist form of communism was always the most destructive, sowing misery and chaos in pursuit of ideological purity and Mao's own megalomaniac designs.  There was the most bizarre alliance in world history between The People's Republic of China and Enver Hoxha's Albania in 1964.  There was also a pocket of Maoist fanaticism in London, although unknown to Beijing, but equally determined to being ideologically rigid while taking what they want.  It is said that revolutions eat their own children but this London variant produced one and then, in keeping with their psychotic behaviour, along with the other brainwashed members, kept them trapped even though there were no handcuffs.  I cannot think of any post-World War Two communist alignment that would have produced such a suffocating hold, other than that of Maoist doctrine.  It is all most comparable to Jim Jones but thankfully this time, the people survived.

Pragmatic Persia

The first step towards a comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and the West may have been described as a ‘historic mistake’ by Israeli Prime Minister Binymain Netanyahu (note not by ‘Israel’; when he was in the wilderness after his first tenure as premier, Netanyahu, who was raised by an ultra-Zionist father, was described as racist), but it is only a mistake if the USA had secretly green-lighted an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear installations, as now the diplomatic cover for that has vanished.  Israel has little regard for international law, sometimes justifiably so, as when destroying a nuclear powerplant in Iraq in the 1980s.  Yet, as with the Stuxnet virus or assassination of Iranian nuclear technicians, any military attack would have only postponed the attainment of a ‘bomb’, while potentially unleashing a firestorm in the Middle East and making Tehran all the more determined to acquire the ultimate protection.

Iran is not North Korea.  Its practices may be tyrannical and his rhetoric apocalyptic but the former land of the Shahs is not capricious.  Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei had a rise similar to Stalin, others thinking he could be controlled but ultimately coming to dominate everyone, but like Stalin in the 1920s and 30s, Khamenei is pragmatic (and has called for such a foreign policy) and is determined to preserve his ‘revolution’.  Whether that means with a nuclear weapon capacity or legal guarantees of protection from the West is still open to question but it may not be the end of the world were Iran to possess the ‘bomb’ (as the late neorealist Kenneth Waltz believed).  However, it would be simpler were for Iran to have just nuclear energy generation, safeguards and seals in place and sanctions lifted.  It could even snowball to an agreement on Syria.  Khamenei may prove to be the grey of Brehnev’s character rather than Stalin’s and détente reached as in the 1970s.

As with all conflict resolution, there will be spoilers from those with vested interests in continued confrontation, not just the administration in Tel-Aviv and Saudi Arabia’s monarchy but also hardline conservatives in both the USA and Iran.  Obama is stronger after the default crisis and Khamenei probably has the authority to face down even the staunchest of resistance from the Republican Guards.  But this communiqué that prevents an escalation of curbs while ensuring that Iran has given up some of its demands is the compromise that engenders goodwill and good faith on both sides to reach something more comprehensive.

A S.P.E.C.T.R.E. is haunting Europe

And globally.  But not the spectre of communism.  The organisation that owns the James Bond rights have resolved the legal dispute with Kevin McClory’s estate and now Ernst Stavro Blofeld can return, along with the SPecial Executive for Crime, Terror, Revenge and Extortion.  This is a moment I have waited for a long, long time.  The relaunch of Bond in 2006 had the omnipresent group Quantum standing in for S.P.EC.T.R.E. but it could now be written that Quantum is just a front for the original criminal empire.  Though legally, S.P.E.C.TR.E. and large parts of Thunderball was the intellectual property of McClory, Blofeld was not, named as he was after the cricket commentator and Ian Fleming friend, Henry Blofeld.  But after an initial proposal to have a group of nihilists to depose Blofeld as head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.  in The Spy Who Loved Me was shelved because the ongoing court battle might have delayed the release date past the 15^th anniversary, all references were cut, to the extent that there is a an oblique reference in the pre-titles sequence in For Your Eyes Only, where, after Bond lays flowers on his wife’s grave, there is just a bald guy in a wheelchair and neck brace, with white cat, who is dropped down a chimney in pre-development London Docklands (sans cat).

As with part of the plot of Diamonds Are Forever, there was always the prospect that even this person was just another Blofeld double.  Now that Never Say Never Again is being talked of being made ‘official’, that intriguing prospect makes the Blofeld double argument plausible as he pops up again two years later, played by Max von Sydow (in yet another change of appearance, in accordance with the novels).  Whether this addition to the canon would be after or before Octopussy is largely immaterial but Bond does have to retire and then come back.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was the replacement for Smersh (an abbreviation of Smiert Spionem – death to [foreign] spies), the Soviet spycatchers, as peaceful co-existence between the West and the Soviet bloc seemed ever more likely in the wake of de-Stalinisation in the USSR.  A mafia of mafias with its tentacles stretched around the world was seen as a neutral replacement (though with obvious subtext).  I still believe it was a play on Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto tract by dedicated anti-communist Fleming, so S.P.E.C.T.R.E. became a convenient stand-in for Smersh as Quantum did for the former.  Now it can flourish again in all of its malignancy with the Bond villain sans pareil heading it up once more.

Over-egging the pudding

The European debate (or rather the EU debate) is an obsession of the right-wing where the split is not between pro-EU advocates and anti-EU proponents, but between genuine EU-sceptics like David Cameron and EU-phobes in the boondocks of the Conservative Party and in UKIP.  Ed Miliband hasn’t committed to a referendum and for that he is lambasted as being a ditherer.  However, Miliband knows that were he to do so, he would get a kicking in the polls in mid-term blues rather than the actual question of our place in Europe, the UK would exit and he might not recover in time for the next general election – he has precious little to gain and almost everything to lose on an issue only 3% of the British public view as their top priority.  Secondly, the fringes of Labour are really just that – the EEC/EC debate was settled in the Labour Party during the 1980s.  So Miliband shouldn’t gratify the internal divisions of the Tories – he just has to make other issues take centre-stage.

In the echo chamber of the right, moderate voices work themselves into a lather as they talk to each other.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, comically, has been predicting the death of the Euro for four years (or, occasionally, sounding warning signs of a Chinese slowdown), stretching his licence as an economist and even J.K. Galbraith’s quip that economic forecasters were put on this earth to make weather forecasters look good.  But you expect it of him and one might as well humour the guy, as where else would he be able to get if off his chest to the masses.  Jeremy Warner though I hold in far higher esteem but recently he has become something of a crank on Europe, having the temerity to question the credentials of the CBI just because they expressed that Britain was better inside the tariff barrier helping make the rules, rather than outside and being forced to adopt them anyway.  The Telegraph editorial has always been sympathetic to those bitterly opposed to the EU project of ever closer union, but hitherto has always kept itself on the right side of the facts.  Yet it shows the level of the debate when it talks of the “European-imposed Human Rights Act.”  The HRA was adopted by a British (Labour) government of its own free will, irrespective that the European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU (and therefore a referendum on the EU) and that the European Convention of Human Rights (which the HRA was the vehicle for its effective incorporation into British law) was, in fact, largely drafted by the British after World War Two.  It is right to keep the heat on the EU as it is on all bureaucrats and politicians but a tone of moderation (and even, shock horror, listing positive EU and ECHR achievements from time to time) would win far more friends than is currently the case.  This is unlikely because, ironically, The Telegraph doesn't go far enough for those further on the right in print.

Relax, don't do it. Don't relax the age of consent

Though I am not always in accordance with David Cameron, especially as the 2015 election approaches and he launches attacks on The Guardian over the Snowden files (in my view a public service) and the UNITE union over a stunt they did related to Grangemouth refinery (when the management shut down the plant, demanding a no-strike agreement for three years, which they got), while protecting the bosses of the energy companies (green levies - instead of scrapping them, make it illegal for their cost to be passed on to the consumer), at the end of this long-winded sentence, I can say I feel very strongly that the age of consent should not be lowered from 16 years of age to 15.

Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said that to combat under-age sex between teenagers and reduce sex between those under 15, we should follow the example of some other 'mature' countries.  He himself exposes the arbitrary nature of his conclusions, by saying he is opposed to lowering it to 14-year olds (why not? Other countries do so.  Ah but that undermines his sense of probity).  It is estimated that a third of boys and a quarter of girls have lost their virginity before they turn 16 (the imbalance in the totals probably indicates both that boys exaggerate their prowess and the girls in that quartile are fairly free with their favours).  But many children also fall prey to the drug nicotine before they can buy it legally, by that argument we should lower tobacco purchases to 15, to remove its 'adult prestige' and not criminalise youngsters.  The idea that 14-year olds will suddenly not have sex because they will wait does not stand up to scrutiny.

Prof Ashton's argument is fallacious.  Just because it works in some countries doesn't follow automatically that it will work here.  24-hour drinking legislation was supposed to eliminate the closing-time binge which was followed by drink-fuelled rage, turning us into more civilised drinkers as on the continent.  It didn't.  Moreover, Prof Ashton is under the wrong impression that those who have sex under-age cannot tell any adults about it, when their are clear guidelines banning such stigmatisation.  Further, he has completely ignored the threat to young people from predatory elders.  We shouldn't whip up hysteria about paedophiles around every corner when most reside within families, as it leads to the burning to death of an innocent man all because of whispered rumours and incompetent policing, but the law is there to protect until teenagers have some understanding of what is expected in a relationship.

Virginity is ultimately a state of mind, as its loss does not precipitate any physical changes.  Indeed, its transformation from a virtuous concept into a derided one is a pernicious 'development' in Anglo-Saxon societies.  It is often boys pushing girls to have sex and this will not change whether the age of consent is 15, 16 or 18 (as the latter is in the USA).  What is needed is better sex education (despite the Department of Education's sniffy refusal to change their protocols), not just at schools which are frequently treated as a dumping ground for parental social problems but at home as well.  A change in the latter would be an example of the 'mature' society, Prof Ashton envisages.

Well, if the Bolsheviks could do it while in a minority...

The legal proposal to remove the Christian ceremonial from the Coronation when the proto-regency ends and Charles becomes king in his own right is another step to push expression of religion underground.  The National Secular Society, launching the action, claims that when only 2% of the population regularly attend church on a Sunday, it is offensive to everyone else to have a Christian Coronation, even if the monarch and her heirs are quite happy to continue the practice themselves.

This is all cant of course, from a group that always appears on the news as moaning minnies.  It is stretching the boundaries beyond the realm of truth to say that 98% of the population desire a secular ceremony for the crowning of the future king (for that is what it will be for at least the next three generations).  It is already been ruled by a High Court judge that Sunday church attendance is not the definition of what it is to be a Christian, thereby sweeping the claims of the NSS from under their feet before their lawsuit has even begun.  There are many who identify with being a Christian beyond those actually popping along on a Sunday to a formal church building.  Even an Honorary Associate of the NSS, David Starkey, calls himself an ‘Anglican’, for the cultural connotations it contains, including religious roots.  Interesting that he is an Honorary Associate, as if he doesn’t want to pay the membership fee.

This brings the debate to numbers.  2% sounds a very small number by turn it into hard numbers and it becomes more impressive.  A million people take Holy Communion on a regular basis, the origin of the NSS’s 2% figure – this does not include all those who go to church but are not confirmed, who are children or simply those who do not wish to receive Communion.  Contrast that with the agitators at the NSS, who number 10,000 individuals in their organisation.  So it is pretty rich to complain about Christianity representing a role in public life for 2% of the population, when your own grouping accounts for 0.02% (or accurately 0.0163%) of the United Kingdom.

Moreover, it is only a fraction of atheists at large who kick up a fuss.  The vast majority do not have such obsession, continuing their lives with out such agitprop behaviour to define themselves.  And other faith groups are happy for Christianity to play its historical role in this country.  The only people who object are Islamic extremists who want to end the House of Windsor anyway.  These are the bedfellows the NSS keeps but it seems strangely appropriate, in their abuse of the Human Right Act.

Remembrance Day

It was very touching that the two minute silence was well-observed at my office.  I was prepared for the moment but in the plethora of work, it escaped my attention until I heard the cannon being fired from nearby Fort Amherst, echoing across the Chatham valley.  For a split-second, it puzzled me but the sound's significance was total after that and I fell silent, stopping work and looking away from my screen.  In a call-centre, one cannot account for every worker and one person was wrapped up in their call as to forget for a full 40 seconds that the rest of the workplace had descended into respectful quiet.  Another person was oblivious as this immediate hush and twenty seconds pondered aloud, "I can't find anything in The Daily Mail about the typhoon," before I stared angrily at her, pointing at my watch and she blushed.  There was no Last Post sounded as in church but in a way, taking this break, the chattering of the modern world drawing to a halt, this is a worthy tribute to all who perished on the battlefield in the last 100 years (and before).

A promise kept

When, on occasion, I happened to examine the lower qualifying divisions of European football in a July newspaper, I always hone in on teams that hail from places that I have at least visited, if not lived in - Finnish teams for example.  FC Sheriff fell into this category and when its name cropped up, I always willed it to progress to the main section of at least the Europa League (European football's second-string competition) - I made a promise to myself that should this club escape the snares of obscurity and come to these isles, I would go to see them.
This all stems from a journey I made to Moldova in 2005 - whilst I was living in Romania - in which I sojourned in the sliver of territory that is the breakaway land of Transdniestr (AKA Transnistria).  It has a twilight existence, de facto independent but recognised by no other country in the world, not even Russia, whose 'peacekeepers' ensure that this conflict remains frozen (as it extends the Kremlin's zone of influence, with a major military base in its 'Near Abroad).  Only the other post-Soviet breakaway states of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, who are almost totally lacking in international recognition themselves, have accorded it the status of a state.  I was only granted a three-hour visa such are the Ruritanian ways of this place, but it was ample time to visit the second city, Bendery and the capital, Tiraspol.  If Moldova is the poorest country in Europe, than Transdniestr bids fair to be the poorest corner of the continent.  90% of the economy in this Soviet throwback is controlled by the Sheriff organisation, whose chief executive just so happens to be the son of the former long-term president, Igor Smirnov, who fell from grace from the Kremlin and thereby power in 2011 (though Smirnov's successor was elected, Freedom House still rates Transdniestr as one of the least free places in the world).  Despite wishing to have nothing to with reintegration into Moldova, the only club of note, Sheriff Tiraspol, competes in the Moldovan league, thereby representing Moldova in European competition.  Thanks to the vast sums pumped into the club to buy foreign players (to the detriment of ordinary Transdniestrians until 2011), Sheriff regularly wins the Moldovan championship.  Transdniestr was rather touchy about photography of the stadium back in 2005, as it was a state asset.  A group of Chinese tourists were arrested as spies for having their photograph taken outside (before later being released).  I, however, snapped away from a moving car.  This subterfuge and the sheer otherwordliness of Transdniestr fired my imagination about the club and my ardour to see them play.
That location was not at Newcastle United, but at the august surrounds of White Hart Lane.  Tottenham Hotspur would rather have wished to have not played this match, believing their rightful berth is the Champions League, a competition they feel has been denied them in the past two seasons rather unjustly.  But here they were and so was I.
There has been much controversy over a term to describe Jews that Spurs' fans have appropriated to break its negative power.  There was a brief rendition fifty yards ahead of me on the approach to the ground, though to my fallible ears it sounded like 'Green Army' (though of course I knew what it was), raising the unlikely prospect of vocal Plymouth fans in this part of north London on a Thursday night.  Inside the stadium, the chants were delineated and were a variety on a theme, a y-word theme.  As they enunciated the single syllable version in union, it came across as quite sinister, which may cause problems should Tottenham play any team from Israel or Ajax (the latter is subjected to hissing from other fans in the Dutch league to signify the gas chambers, Ajax also having a long Jewish past).  It's all highly ironic that, despite the Jewish heritage and owners, that Spurs were founded by a local Anglican priest as a Christian boys sports club.
Other songs proliferated.  There was a sweet ditty about the love affair between Stefan Freund and the Lane faithful, along the lines of 'Land of Hope and Glory'.  Feelings of a diametrically opposed kind surafced towards another ex-player, as Spurs fans desired to know why, in their opinion, Sol Campbell was a delicate piece of the female anatomy.  The warnings on language affixed to the back of every seat fell on blind eyes.  Even though he has just joined Arsenal, Mesut Ozil has joined the ranks of villainy, with his eyes criticised as off-set.

The seating rows, my section at least, were atrocious, seemingly designed for a person no taller than 5”5’.  Some on the aisle’s edges took to sitting sidesaddle.  When planted myself, my legs were splayed widely apart and wedged.

The match was fairly dull for the first hour, with Brad Friedel so bored he looked like he would take a throw-in.  Sheriff parked the bus, with 90% of the play in their half but they did have a few buccaneering counter-attacks thrown in.  Indeed, in the first half, they had the three best chances.  A wry laugh went up when the stadium announcer at half-time asked the assembled crowd to look up at the screens for the (Spurs’) highlights of the match to date.  It last less than a minute.  It was so enervating that the eight-year old in front of me fell asleep in his father’s arms.  One could well understand why Spurs were so anaemic in front of goal in the Premier League.  Technically excellent with all their tippi-tappiness.  Like Arsenal were when at Selhurst Park (I was in attendance for the that Crystal Palace match, which the Gunners – eventually – won 2-0) but no cutting edge.

On 58 minutes, Andres Villas Boas was frustrated too and substituted Paulinho, replacing him with Etienne Capoue.  It paid almost instant dividends with Spurs scoring two minutes later as Erik Lamela bundled home.  The gate opened, the flood could commence and sure enough, Jermain Defoe slotted home from a penalty.

In doing so, Defoe surpassed Martin Chivers’ European goal exploits in a Spurs shirt.  Chivers had been the half-time guest.  A jovial figure, whose voice sounded like Roy Hodgson’s but without the speech impediment, Chivers related how the WAGs (wives and girlfriends) dreamt of trips to Madrid or Rome when Spurs won their UEFA Cup semi-final.  They had paid much attention to the other side of the draw clearly, as Wolverhampton Wanderers won the other semi-final to make it to the (two-legged) final.  Chivers noted that few of the WAGs made the trip to the Midlands.  The pitchside presenter poorly juxtaposed his own pitch for, after lauding Chivers as a guest, he then demanded that Chivers record be broken in front of the man (who had graciously said in the course of his interview that it would fall).

Returning to the football, two minutes after Defoe had converted the penalty, Villas Boas substituted Gylffi Siggurdson, with an eye on Sunday’s Premier League, wishing to keep the Icelander fresh.  Youngster Harry Kane went on in Siggurdson’s place.  After all, at 2-0 the game had been put to bed and these minutes would be useful game-time for Kane.  Sheriff had other ideas to dozing off.

Just as a Spurs’ substitution has presaged one side to score, so, maybe coincidentally, it prompted the other to break their duck.  Two minutes after Kane neter the field of play, Sheriff grabbed a goal back, Friedel parrying the first attempt but failing to keep out the rebound. 

For the next eight minutes the game was quite fluid.  As the match entered the 80^th minute though, it seemed that Spurs decided to hold on to what they had.  One moment, another substitute, Lewis Holtby, hovered on wing, tarrying with the ball while four of his own white-shirted compatriots loitering on the edge of the Sheriff penalty area.  None looked like a making a dash forward but Holtby didn’t fire it in either so they could not beat the offside trap of Sheriff’s defensive line.  A simple expedient would have been for Holtby to sprint to the byline and cut it back, obviating the offside rule (it is only activated when passed ahead) but the young man lacked such guile.

And so it played out, with even Sheriff bizarrely displaying a lack of urgency at the switching of players of their own (no. 90 for no. 99!).  In the dying seconds, Sheriff had a corner and the goalkeeper, as is traditional with a one-goal deficit, went up but it was forlorn.  Spurs held on to remain top of their group.

Outside the stadium, they were selling ‘friendship’ scarves.  I would have bought one but for two reasons – (a) I had a lack of ready cash and I couldn’t espy any chip-and-pin machines on the stalls; and (b) the word ‘Superspurs’ was emblazoned on it, a sentiment with which I disagreed and made the scarf less one of friendship and more one of looking down on the opposing team.

I wouldn’t say I’ll never make the effort to attend another match that Sheriff plays in England but my hunger is sated.  I may have wished for a memento or two of the night (the absence of loose change prevented a programme purchase as well – I didn’t know where around the Lane there were cash machines), but I have a Sheriff scarf already from my visit to Transdniestr (I chose not to wear it on Thursday as that would be impolitic in the home end) and the ticket for the night I’ll be retaining as a keepsake.  Most important of all though, I that I can say, “I was there.”

Empire gone, still searching for an identity

The news of – effectively - the closure of the shipbuilding yards Portsmouth Dockyard was inevitable as the lack of an overarching industrial strategy that has characterised post-World War Two Britain claims another victim.  It used to be a treasonable offence - and therefore punishable by death – to set fire to one of his/her Majesty’s dockyards.  This was abolished in 1998 along with other treason charges as bringing about the death penalty on conviction but soon it would become irrelevant should Britain ever restore it (necessitating a leaving of the European Convention of Human Rights).

South Korea and other places around Europe have had a consistent industrial strategy over decades whereas Britain has contented itself with ever greater focus on the service sector, bringing higher average economic growth than the late Victorian era and the first half of the twentieth century but rather pathetic in comparison to other countries devastated by the Second World War.  Unions and management splurging profits on themselves rather than reinvestment played crucial parts but the politicians, even still, lack the guts and imagination to set out a comprehensive long-term strategy in conjunction with the main opposition.  An Ed Miliband government would be just as bad – make do and mend and shuffle through.  Britain likes to pride itself on the Whiggish version of history that the country acquired an empire by accident, but between 1700 and 1900 there was a very clear view of where the leaders wanted to take the United Kingdom – even the anti-imperialist prime minister William Gladstone sent troops to occupy Egypt.  This more-or-less single-mindedness has been lacking after the divestment of empire and has been the causal acceptance that not just Germany and France would overtake the UK but also the likes of Japan, Italy, China and soon India and Brazil (which the latter did briefly in 2009); it’s the natural order of things, except it never needed to be, at least so quickly.  While the UK is still 2% below its 2008 peak, Germany is 2% above their 2008 figures and being inside the EU doesn’t harm its ability to export to the like of China.

But to return to shipbuilding.  Wikipedia as of today still boasts that the construction of two new aircraft carriers has secured the base’s future for the next forty years and revitalised shipbuilding in Portsmouth.  This proves to be a mirage.  The Byzantine Empire suffered many shattering military defeats in its long history but a self-inflicted wound that it never recovered from was the closure of the shipbuilding docks in Constantinople (round about the same time Richard I was commissioning Portsmouth), losing all the talent that went with it and farming out their contracts for new ships to Venice (seeking vengeance after being humiliated by Constantinople).  This was a key reason why the Empire found the Fourth Crusade (carried in Venetian ships) irresistible and after that the Byzantines were in a death spiral.  When shipbuilding ceases at Portsmouth, within a generation that talent will be lost forever, irrespective that the times seem to dictate an emphasis on cyber-warfare than ships.

The shrinking of the Royal Navy led to the closure of Chatham Dockyards in 1984, though the riverine mud flats (so useful to defence prior to 1914) also contributed to relocating away when ships with deeper displacements became commonplace.  Now it is just a tourist attraction as Chatham Historic Dockyards – that will be the legacy for Portsmouth now (whose tourism board will increase its operations) as the service sector increases its stranglehold on the economy.

Politics as painting-by-numbers

David Cameron, outlining his reasons for calling for a referendum on EU membership in the next parliament (an incredible constitutional demand in a genuine democracy), said that national support for the EU was "wafer-thin."  It puts me in the mind of Monty Python's Meaning of Life, when John Cleese's maitre d' serves Terry Jones' Mr Creosote a "waffer-thin mint."  After a few rejections, Mr Creosote gives in to the argument that it is just "one waffer-thin mint," eats it and explodes.  Cameron fits the maitre d' image but contrary to the film, he is trying to stop his Tory backbenches exploding with bile towards him.
Is it any wonder though that support is allegedly 'wafer-thin' when figures in politics from the left and the right attack the EU with vehemence and even figures who are friendly to the EU, such as Tony Blair, used to kick it if to do so served his domestic electoral interests.  Like a punchbag, the EU can be repeatedly bashed with little if any damage to the person doing the attacking.  Talk of red lines, defending the national interest and so on is a language of antagonism that colours people's judgement about.  Some of this is of course dictated by the need to avoid being savaged in the newspapers, many of whom invariably interview politicians hostile to the EU to serve their anti-continental European agenda when they publish how 'bad' the EU is.  The lower leagues of the tabloids portray the EU as a monstrous behemoth that is itching to crush British freedom, whereas the higher-brow anti-European press strive for more credibility in describing the EU as merely a vehicle for French and/or German interests.  The tabloids obsession with Germany and World War Two is amusing in that they often accuse the Germans of the same - this is to the extent that when perverting the course of justice, security guards for News International used a call-sign in a text message that referenced Where Eagles Dare, a film more than forty years old at the time.
When good news is announced for the EU, it comes out almost inadvertently.  This morning on the Today programme, Sir Andrew Green, head of the strident Migration Watch, had to admit that EU immigration actually benefits the UK more than it hurts it, though he added the caveat that this is largely the influence of the fifteen EU members that comprised the club in 1995.  But you won't hear that from most newspapers and almost no politicians.  To admit to being a Europhile in this country is almost like to saying one is a Christian - a deeply unfashionable status that many times has to have a few criticisms of failures thrown in to justify oneself in polite society e.g. the EU is a force for good in making us more cosmopolitan but they need to get their budget in order (recently failed its 19th consecutive annual audit).  People here don't express their support for the military but caution "the MoD needs to fill in that budgetary black hole [which costs Britain far more than the EU's budgetary lapses]."  If they feel minded to, they just express their support for the military.  The more Cameron talks about support for EU membership being wafer-thin (which incidentally, I do not think it is, rather there is a grudging reluctance that it is in our best interests to keep within the tariff barrier and have a say on how the rules are made), the thinner it will become.

Insubordination

The news that the Conservative Party are selecting army veterans of Afghanistan to counter the perception of career politicians (going from departmental policy wonks straight into safe party seats) dominating Westminster is a smart move  not just for the ostensible reason.  The army is one of the few institutions left in this country which has retained its standing down the years (the police have had a precipitate fall in respect over the last decade for a series of scandals and cover-ups).  I agree that people with ‘life experience’ outside Portcullis House is vital to the health of a democracy and to the efficiency of whatever government is in power.  But the comments of one prospective MP was telling.

Thomas Tugendhat, a former aide to the Chief of the Defence Staff who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, said that politicians with military backgrounds would ensure leaders remain accountable for their actions.  Actually, a soldier’s duty is to follow unquestioningly their superior officer’s orders.  A court-martial would determine whether a leader overstepped the mark or not.  Mr Tugendhat added further sulphur to the mix by stating “when you’re on operations, you live with the consequences of political decisions [my italics] every minute of every day,” This all seems to suggest he is a rebellious Tory MP in the making.  This could explain why the 2010 intake for the Tories, when the party made a committed effort to select from ‘ordinary’ people, has caused such ructions for David Cameron.  Coming from small domains in which they rule supreme, be they small business owners, doctors, etc. they believe it is their inalienable right to be independent and not just lobby fodder.  The Conservatives need to select more carefully if they are not to appear divided.