Montenegro erupts but who is to blame

When the KGB archives were opened after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, it caused much discomfort for some leading figures on the left, showing the likes of Romano Prodi (who would become President of the European Commission and Italian prime minister) and the British trade union leader ‘Emperor’ Jack Jones to be on the payroll, despite their protestations to the contrary. These days, Russia under Putin has fostered many links with nationalist parties including Jobbik in Hungary and even extending loans to Front National in France. Yet just as George W Bush’s War on Terror provided cover for autocrats to shut down protests as combatting terrorism, Russia’s fall from favour has allowed certain leaders to tar any protest as puppets of the Kremlin, irrespective of whether this is the case.
In late September in Montenegro, the main opposition parties staged protests on a daily basis demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Milo Đukanović and the creation of an interim government until fresh elections could be held. Under the umbrella group Democratic Front, thousands turned up in the main square of the capital, Podgorica, at 6.30 pm. The culmination of a campaign since May, with a slogan ‘Milo the thief’, it remained largely peaceful until 25th October when clashes between the activists and the police, led to the latter firing teargas into the crowds to break them up and the demonstrators responding with flares and fireworks, leading to dozens of casualties on both sides, concluding with police driving armoured cars at the rally. Later that evening, Đukanović claimed the hand of the Kremlin at work, with “nationalist circles in Serbia and Russia” seeking to change the Balkan country’s pro-western orientation. He added that the protests were nothing less than an attempted coup d’etat.
The Russian Foreign Ministry was quick to deny a role, saying Đukanović’s claims were groundless and he had produced no evidence to say that Russia had encouraged clashes between demonstrators and police. The Montenegrin government replied that the Russian statement mentioning ‘peaceful protestors’ confirmed Đukanović’s claims of Russian involvement, accusing the demonstrators of initiating the violence.
Milo Đukanović is a controversial character who has been either prime minister or president of Montenegro - barring two brief interludes - since 1991 (before independence in 2006 as part of the federation of Yugoslavia). Since 2012, he has embarked on his fourth stint as prime minister. In 2003, the prosecutor's office in Naples linked Đukanović with an organised crime racket involving tobacco smuggling in the 1990s worth billions of euros, only finally dropping the case in 2009. The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) named Đukanović as joint runner-up (with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán) to Vladimir Putin for the 2014 Person of the Year award, recognizing "the person who does the most to enable and promote organized criminal activity.” This was primarily for Đukanović’s government bailing out First Bank, one of Montenegro’s major financial institutions which just happens to be majority owned by himself, two siblings and a friend. Through properties and company shares, the International Consortium of Investigative Reporters (ICIJ), estimated his wealth at nearly $15m while his government salary never topped $1,700 a month, the latter the only source of income he has declared. According to the ICIJ, his brother is worth $167m and his sister $3.5m. Whereas the president, Filip Vujanović, refuses to have bodyguards, Đukanović has an extensive security detail.
Now, it may well be that Russia has stoked public dissent against Đukanović’s administration. Unable to invade Montenegro and shake its territorial integrity, as the Kremlin did in Georgia and then Ukraine in order to forestall European Union and NATO membership for these countries, Putin and his team may be trying a more subtle approach to derail Montenegro’s accession bids with these organisations. Moscow has frequently said that Podgorica's NATO ambitions are in opposition to hundreds of years of "fraternal relations" between the two.
But as the Kremlin press secretary said in a separate statement, “It is a well-known amusement of many states to search for the devil everywhere and to continue demonizing Russia.” Much of the anger of the demonstrators was about fraud and corruption, with Đukanović having fingers in many pies despite promising to divest himself of his businesses. Such concerns extend beyond Montenegro’s borders as the EU is also starting to become worried about corruption and organised crime. As Milka Tadić, editor of the country’s influential Monitor magazine, told OCCRP, “Montenegro is a lawless country and if you are part of the government or close to its circles, you can do whatever you want.”

Credit where it's due

After the House of Lords voted to defer judgement on George Osborne's proposals to cut working tax credits and child tax credits, Nos. 10 and 11 were furious, especially as Osborne's burgeoning reputation as the next leader of his party took a severe knock.  Lord Strathclyde, now tasked with 'reining in' the Lords, said the upper chamber had acted deplorably - another example of muddled thinking at the top of the government in that this meant he also condemned the millionaire lords and ladies of new and old money who voted to hit the working poor hard, all to save face for the government; you may say that then Strathclyde was right but that's more than deplorable - it's despicable.
It all stems from the Tories pledge to cut 'welfare' by plucking £12bn out of the air, confident that post-election they would be in coalition again with the Liberal Democrats and, in negotiations, lower that figure drastically.  It was an election pledge to cut £12bn from welfare (cuts to welfare being always popular until individual measures are spelled out) and it was another election pledge to ring-fence pensions from being eaten into.  So the only way was to cut tax credits - the raising of the minimum wage to a living wage not fully compensating for the loss of income for those on the lower rungs of earnings, with such people losing to the tax man 93p in the pound for any overtime they did - even though this was not in the manifesto and Cameron had ruled it out in a leaders' debate.  The Tory leader of the Lords said that everyone assumed that tax credits would be cut after the election as if the nation were supposed to read the minds of Cameron and Osborne (they would have drawn a blank as £12bn was never meant to be cut).
Yet the Lords, in postponing the government's plans, have not acted unconstitutionally.  They were not voting on a finance bill, they were voting on secondary legislation and by that very definition it was not of primary importance (of course, it was but Osborne was trying to inveigle it on to the statute books with the minimum of debate).  Further, the Lords were not voting on something connected directly to the nation's finances, they were voting on a welfare measure with a financial component - a component that was non-essential (in that other aspects could have been taken e.g. pensions, hypothetically) except to Osborne's political fortunes.  Had it been in a finance bill, it is inconceivable that the Lords would have voted to stop it in its tracks but Osborne's chicanery once more came off the rails (as it did in the failed attempt to remove the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow).  Finally, it was not in the manifesto.  Again, had it been in the manifesto, I am confident the measure would have been passed. 
The Little Napoleons of the Treasury have egg all over their faces and it is richly deserved.  They, more than anyone else, loathe having their authority checked and challenged.  Typically mean-spirited, much of this country's decline in the past century can be traced to those and their predecessors who frequent the Treasury corridors of Whitehall.  Maybe their own salaries should all be slashed to the living wage and see how they cope (it is to cut the deficit, honest!).  Over 100 years ago, they had obstructed Lloyd George's 'People's Budget', that tried to help the ordinary people; this time, they were on the side of protecting hard-working people, poor through no fault of their own.  It should be fully elected but the world isn't perfect.  It is not the House of Lords that has acted deplorably but the bulk of the Conservative Party in the Houses of Parliament.

The last reel

While Philip French's death has not come as a surprise given his age of 82, it means another magisterial critic has left us so soon after Brian Sewell's death.  French though was more in the realm of Sewell's late colleague at The Evening Standard, Alexander Walker, Walker and French being pillars of the film critic establishment in Britain.  French's 35-year tenure at The Observer showed that he served his profession well.
But he was not simply immersed in film to the exclusion of most other cultural pursuits.  Reviewing Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 2, many respected film critics, like Peter Bradshaw, were both mystified and slightly disappointed that the writer-director had only one captivating monologue when compared to the "wit and gutter poetry" (in French's words) of his previous output.  French though showed the power of reading widely and deeply; not to disparage other critics who will be well-rounded in their cultural knowledge, but French had such a depth on which he could draw.  So, he exposes Tarantino as much as if French had ripped the clothes off the auteur, in the scene where the eponymous Bill delivers an exegesis on how all superheroes have their alter ego as the super-powered version bar Superman whose alter-ego hides among humans as Clark Kent.  In a few short words regarding this speech, French is devastating, "This has been lifted almost verbatim from Jules Feiffer's 1965 book, The Great Comic Book Heroes."  Tarantino often plunders other genres but here he is little more than a plagiarist rather than profound.
In his review of The Dark Knight Rises, French said Bane's seizure of the CIA plane at the start reminded him of the space capsule theft in You Only Live Twice.  A charming analogy that illuminates both films to their benefit.  French justifies his critiques of being more then ephemeral value.
In the last two years, he had hung up his critical glasses but still voraciously consumed cinema (though he could longer employ the critic's standard refrain on a poor motion picture - I'm being paid to watch this, you aren't).  He also had a weekly sideline in The Observer, intent on keeping his mind - and ours - sharp to the end.

Veeps keep off the presidential lawn

There seems to be a new paradigm in US politics.  Usually, two-term presidents give way to let their vice-presidents have a crack at running for the office of chief executive.  Sometimes they succeed as George H W Bush did in 1988 and sometimes they fail as with Richard Nixon in 1960 or Al Gore in 2000 (the Supreme Court deciding that latter election).  It usually is a one-term presidency as the public get fed up with one party occupying the Oval Office and the incumbent party gets complacent - witness Bush the Elder looking at his watch during a presidential debate, alienating an evangelical conference by declaring, "Looks like I'm the only person here born once," and slapping aid restrictions on Israel to force them to the peace table with the words, "Jewish widows in Florida don't vote Republican anyway" (ironically in 1992, he won the state of Florida).  Although technically Calvin Coolidge was a one-term presidency, taking over midway through a term after the timely (given how disastrous his rule) death of Warren G Harding, Coolidge's successor, Herbert Hoover took over just as the Great Depression was about to strike and then made about every mistake possible to turn a dire situation even worse.  Franklin Delano ushered out 12 years of Republican rule and instituted 19 years 10 months of Democrat rule (for during FDR's tenure, inauguration shifted from March to January).  Jimmy Carter's running mate on the ticket, Walter Mondale practised a sui generis approach.  Becoming vice-president in 1977, he lost with his boss in 1980 to the victorious Ronald Reagan and so with two elections as a running mate behind him, he stood as the Democratic Party candidate of 1984 - it was a virtual wipeout, Reagan taking 49 out of 50 states.
But things have changed.  Dick Cheney was the first vice-president who serves two terms under a two-term president not to run for the presidency since Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's Veep between 1913 and 1921, so almost 100 years.  In fairness, for a lot of the time, Cheney was the de facto POTUS (President Of The United States) and thus had already exercised supreme power.  Also, his 9% approval ratings (where 91% did not approve of him) threatened a humiliation had he sought the Republican nomination, let alone pitched battle against the Democrats in 2008 (the first time since 1952 in which the election was not contested by a sitting president or vice-president).
Now, Joe Biden, 'the happy warrior', has ruled himself out of running in the 2016 election and, given his age, effectively future presidential contests.  He is still recovering from the devastating loss of his son from brain cancer and this is the official reason why he is not making a run.  He knows better than most how his gaffes could come back to haunt him (after becoming Barack Obama's running mate in 2008, he told a journalist that Hillary Clinton would be a better vice-president than he).  Also, I think he was irked by being the ABC candidate (Anyone But [Hillary] Clinton) rather than being wanted on his own merits and would have hated being the candidate who stopped the most electorally credible woman in US presidential elections from assuming the historical mantle of first female president of the United States of America.
So very different reasons for the two vice-presidents since 2001 to serve as back-up for two terms but not to seek the highest office.  Presidential candidates tend to seek running mates who will not serve as a counterpoint to their authority if they are fairly confident of victory - it will be interesting if the pattern is repeated in 2024 (or 2028 if the next president is only one term).

TTIP of the iceberg

Europe has seen its fair share of protests this year, ranging from that of anti-austerity to those displaying anti-migrant/asylum seeker sentiment. Germany has seen recently an upsurge in attendance of Pegida demonstrations in Dresden and its offshoot Legida in Leipzig, against Islam in German society, a return to popularity derived from immigration to the European Union on an unprecedented scale. It’s fair to say that a German Nadiya Hussain would not get their vote in Das Grosse Backen (Germany’s version of The Great British Bake-off).
These issues have high resonance with electorates around the European Union. Which makes it all the more impressive that protest groups can mobilise hundreds of thousands to descend on Berlin on Saturday 10th October to protest the esoteric provisions of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP, in one of the largest acts of this kind since the Iraq invasion of 2003. TTIP is a trade deal being negotiated between Washington D.C. and Brussels to create one of the largest free trade areas in the world and should be implemented, if current timetables on the haggling are met, next year. This comes hard on the heels of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which united the USA with other Pacific rim nations in a free-trade zone and which has already drawn the ire of Democratic presidential hopefuls like Hillary Clinton. A free-trade zone between Canada and the EU (known as Ceta) is concurrently under discussion too.
There are forceful advocates and critics for TTIP, the former saying it will increase the economic growth of European nations and boost job creation (Businesses hope the trade deal will deliver over $100 billion of economic gains on both sides of the Atlantic), the latter claiming it will do exactly the opposite, plus undermine the sovereignty of national parliaments, exposing them to be sued by multi-national corporations when policies impact their profits (e.g. private health companies suing the NHS for being ‘unfairly’ state-subsidised). The biggest issue for detractors of TTIP is that it is being conducted largely in private (and in direct correlation allows conspiracy theories to proliferate). TTIP will also harmonise regulations between the USA and the EU, which in the wake of the Volkswagen emissions cheating may not be quite so welcome (the ‘defeat device’ was discovered almost by accident).
Organisers say a quarter of a million people marched in Berlin but even if the lower police-sanctioned of 100,000 was accepted, it is just the tip of the iceberg, with an online petition drawing more than 3 million people signing up (half a million from the UK alone). Asked to turn out by political parties, trade unions, anti-globalisation and environmental groups, the protestors gathered at the German capital’s main train station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, engaging in a march that took in the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag.
While many demonstrators fear a dystopia when corporations have ever more control over our lives (than they do already). In a full-page letter published in several German newspapers on Saturday, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned against "scaremongering". "We have the chance to set new and goods standards for growing global trade. With ambitious, standards for the environment and consumers and with fair conditions for investment and workers. This must be our aim," Gabriel wrote.
There were similar concerns when the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) was signed by Bill Clinton in 1994, creating a zone encapsulating Mexico, Canada and the USA. Unions in the USA claim it has undermined blue-collar wages and led to lay-offs as companies relocate south of the Rio Grande. TTIP between the developed EU and the developed America should prove as damaging in this regard. It should also be asked the degree of anti-Americanism present in the crowds in explaining their opposition to something as dry as TTIP (not to say dull things are not important, on occasion). When the European Community became the European Union with the common market in 1995 and the ‘Big Bang’ expansion east in 2004, few demurred.
Perhaps another motivation is also the shattering of faith in politicians and financial institutions following the Great Recession in 2008-09 and the subsequent anti-democratic ideology of austerity. Trust in politicians was always low but their competence and integrity are now also under extra scrutiny and many are not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, not just the usual suspects of the anti-globalisation movement and the far-left. The democratic deficit of bureaucrats from Brussels negotiating on behalf of (mostly) willing governments is also a legitimate concern. Ultimately though, TTIP seems a juggernaut that can only judder to a halt if talks between the parties irretrievably break down. But what marches like the one through Berlin can underscore is the level of anger at such things being done in their name and it will give elected politicians pause for thought and maybe push for additional safeguards for ordinary people and sovereignty. That the likes of Angela Merkel are rattled is illustrated by Gabriel’s high profile letter.

Harper's Ferry across the political Styx

Though The Telegraph has squirrelled away coverage of it to a lowly place in in its World News section, probably disappointed at the result, The Guardian proudly proclaims it as the main story.  I am, of course, talking about the Canadian General Election result.
Stephen Harper, a nastier version of George W Bush, has lost in a landslide comparable to John Major's wipeout in 1997 in the UK or John Howard in Australia ten years later.  Justin Trudeau, son of long-serving former prime minister Pierre, leader of the Liberals, has guided his party from third in the polls at the start of the astonishingly long 12-week campaign to a thumping majority.  His accession also creates another dynasty of the democratic left-wing, in the manner of the Kennedys.  Hopefully, he is more lucky.
History does appear to be on his side.  With a briefing paper at the United Nations recommending an end to the War on Drugs, Trudeau has proposed legalising marijuana.  The Keystone XL pipeline from the Canadian tar sands that Obama has repeatedly blocked is now dead.  He is also withdrawing from expensive military commitments and promises to run a budget deficit for three years to boost the economy.  No wonder The Telegraph is downplaying it - it sounds very familiar to a Jeremy Corbyn platform...

Is Merkel grabbing at straws?

Okay, so I wasn't prepared for Angela Merkel to so swiftly contradict me, promising to speed up Turkey's moribund application to the European Union in return for keeping refugees within Turkish borders.  And on that basis, David Cameron might just have won the treaty change he has so desperately craved.  Because if the refugees are to stay in Turkey, then one of the four freedoms of the EU - the Free Movement of Labour - will have to be amended; the East-Central Europeans will grit their teeth but as they are in despair about taking in such numbers of refugees, they may have to accept it.
If the EU can tolerate a Hungary run by the authoritarian Viktor Orban (and before him, Austria possessing a government coalition that included the fascist Freedom Party), the Erdogan's cult of personality and Putin-like tendencies should prove little problem.  Indeed, by failing to win enough seats in parliament to change the constitution (unlike Orban), Erdogan occupies a rather emasculated position as Turkish president, proving there is no substitute for the real Putin.
The EU could look the other way on the turmoil of the Middle East until it came knocking on its door.  For those in the halls of power in Europe's capitals, it was a case of Schrodinger's Refugee - the refugee could be considered simultaneously alive and dead as long as they remained in Syria/Middle East, allowing the EU to ignore what happened there.

Double standards

The European Court of Justice has ruled that a Turkish man was falsely imprisoned after he publicly denied the genocide of Armenians in World War One in Geneva, Switzerland.  That around two million Armenians was killed in a variety of means by the Ottoman authorities and was a direct inspiration to Hitler for the Holocaust of the Jews (Winston Churchill at the time said this was 'an administrative holocaust') was of no consequence to the court - it was upholding the Turkish man's right to free speech.
That's fine and dandy and in a manner of reciprocal appreciation the government of Turkey should repeal the ban on people saying that there was a genocide of Armenians at that time (not to mention all the pogroms beforehand).  The law falls under the jurisdiction of 'insulting Turkishness' but if we're into free speech, an open airing of the facts should prove no problem.
Of course, Turkey will not allow people free speech - it locks up more journalists than Russia - and, from a pragmatic perspective than an irrational Islamophobic one, is one of the major stumbling blocks to its entry into the European Union; that along with its continued occupation of northern Cyprus (an EU member) and treatment of the Kurds as second-class citizens (such ingratitude after Kurdish irregulars did much of the Ottoman dirty work in wiping out so many Armenians).
It is no wonder that the arrested Turkish man was trenchant in his views - the whole Turkish education is skewed towards propaganda.  Japan is often accused of soft-pedalling its atrocities in World War Two and many approved school history books talk of a war of self-defence.  But Turkish extremism in schools would make a nationalist Japanese politician blush.  Here, Turkish children are not only told of the 'righteousness' of the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, protecting a Turkish minority when tens of thousands of settlers moved in after the invasion with lucrative incentives from Ankara; they are taught that equal numbers of Turks and Armenians died (if they're lucky) or that Armenians were the ones massacring the Turks - in the context, a deliberate lie.  As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, surviving Armenians did indeed take their revenge for the killing of millions of their kinsfolk but it was on a microscopic level compared to the crimes done to their 'nation'.  At the moment, Turkey is moving incrementally away from the norms of democracy and the rule of law, so don't expect changes soon, just as, despite the refugee crisis, Turkey can kiss EU membership goodbye for the foreseeable future.

In Memoriam Royal Oak

Today is the 76th anniversary of the sinking of the battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow by U-Boat, killing 833 people, including a distant relative of mine (my grandmother's cousin).  It is strange to read it with some personal attachment in Geoffrey Regan's The Guinness Book of Naval Blunders, where the shocking failings to defend the home of the Grand Fleet is recounted.
The latter was out at sea when the German submarine, commanded by Captain Günther Prien, managed with not too much difficulty to waltz into the heart of the harbour on 14th October 1939, with the war not much more than a month and half old.  Due to failings with magnetic torpedoes that affected the entire U-Boat fleet for a considerable time, all of Prien's torpedoes failed to explode, let alone hit the target and the crew took the risky decision to reload the torpedo bays in what should have been perilous surroundings.  With this, they sunk the World War One vintage ship with such a terrible death toll.  In the context of World War Two, especially on the Eastern Front and in the camps, it may not seem much, but 833 lives snuffed out, never to go on to innumerable scenarios, it would be inconceivable today.
Prien himself was only 31 at the time, a seemingly ridiculous young age to command a submarine and at the equivalent age that I am now, he would have been dead some weeks already and, though it is not certain, probably through attacking a convoy rather than the cracking of the Enigma code.  Prien and his crew are hardly figures of sympathy, given the number of people killed, ships sunk and the regime he served but it was war at root and he was doing his duty, like British submariners.  The true scandal was the Treasury being skinflints until almost the last moment and though Scapa Flow had been viewed as vulnerable in 1914, cost-cutting inter-war measures left it similarly exposed in 1939.  With a parsimonious Treasury and a country led by men 'broken' by WWI, Prien's attack was an inevitability when with proper arrangements it should have been an impossibility.

Free at last, from bureaucratic madness

After a round-the-clock operation costing more than £10m, the Metropolitan Police have decided that years camping outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in the hope that Julian Assange might venture out in a moment of rashness, is now disproportionate in terms of resources expended.  Finally, the scales have fallen from their eyes.  They once were blind but now can see.  Julian Assange is a wanted man, who would be picked up when he had gone not more than ten minutes outside the embassy.  He certainly could not flee to Quito as his picture would be at all airports and other points of departure.
Instead, as a political show of 'doing something' to mollify the implacable Swedish prosecutor (and possibly Washington D.C. to boot), the Met confined Assange to the most expensive house arrest in history, the embassy a prison in all but name.  It's like letting Rudolf Hess rot all by himself in Spandau Prison (though Assange would object vigorously to such a comparison, it is an analogy between the situation rather than the two men).  The Met, ominously, say they will now use 'covert means' to apprehend the quarry of Sweden - this is even more worrying than blowing £10m on an utterly pointless operation - the police budget is unprotected from government cuts after all.

You never can tell

Apparently, according to mainstream media outlets, there is a majority in this country in favour of retaining Trident, the 'independent' nuclear 'deterrent' (just as American support for the Second Amendment for the right to mount bear arms on their walls is on the rise).  Jeremy Corbyn is badgered on whether he would 'press the button', but no-one asks David Cameron if he would (Radio 4's PM did ask Downing Street for a response but it was met with a wall of silence).
My viewpoint doesn't come from pacifism or wishy-washy CND idealism but hard-headed realism.  At a time when a few million here and there are saved on the removal of working and third child (and more) tax credits are scheduled to be withdrawn, yet the government is prepared to blow £100bn on renewing a white elephant (or, given its submariner nature, perhaps it should be a white whale).  It is the same with the Tories giving a £2bn guarantee to a solitary atomic mill to produce ridiculously expensive electricity, while removing £500m subsidies to renewables that is seeing a swathe of nascent enterprises bite the dust (especially in solar) or never get off the ground in the first place (Drax's cancellation of its carbon capture facility).  It is truly heinous and an indirect crime against humanity given how important is the battle against man-made climate change.  Like New Labour's PFI's in health it is mortgaging the future to the hilt - we gave your tomorrows so we could have our political todays.
Who will we use Trident against?  Terrorists won't be deterred, nor the fanatics in Daesh and a MIRV won't open up and obliterate Raqqa or Mosul.  Despite the very real nuclear deterrents of the USA and France and China's fury at the violation of sovereign borders, Russia still has engaged in land grabs in Georgia and the Ukraine with more or less impunity.  Oh yes, I mentioned the American arsenal, the guaranteed nuclear umbrella to all NATO members - so if the Americans are already protecting us, it may be uncomradely but we can free-ride on them without them ever being in position to withdraw it.  I have little problem if the Americans want to station nuclear missiles in our land because Britain would be automatically be a target if ever America got involved in World War Three.  And of our four submarines, three are laid-up/mothballed at any one time.  So all of our deterrent resides in single boat - how pathetic.  In a contest of willy-waving at the urinals, Britain would use a locked-door cubicle.  And it's not really independent as America supplies the warheads and would tell Britain how to hold its willy.
I have been quite strident on voting, given that I even vote in police commissioner ballots.  Those who don't fulfil their civic duty (or at least spoil their ballot) that was fought for by our ancestors should be relocated to North Korea to see how its like to live in a system where there isn't a plurality of candidates on offer (Kim Jong-Un has recently said hereditary succession is best for the leadership of socialist states).  Given the political vogue, perhaps we should have a referendum on whether to keep Trident - the cost of staging such and election would be a miniscule fraction of the cost of Trident.  The big argument in favour of renewal is that you never know what the future may hold.  I agree and if a vote is in favour of keeping Trident, everyone who supported it should be compelled to build 40ft-50ft deep with reinforced concrete nuclear bomb shelters under their property out of their own funds (landlords and tenancy agencies are not exempt, if a majority of their tenants voted in favour).  Expensive?  Yes.  Unnecessary?  Yes.  But you never know...

The dead sheep has the last laugh

Geoffrey Howe, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose style of delivery was once mocked by Dennis Healey as akin to "being savaged by a dead sheep," in a parliamentary exchange had a certain satisfaction until his death last night.  Although he was 88 and Healey was ten years older, he got to see his bete noire shuffle off the mortal coil before he, the dead sheep, did.  There is irony there that Healey himself would admire.

Scottish nationalists get their wish

There are many Scots who want their nation to go its separate way from the rest of the UK (rUK) and now in the football qualifying for the Euro 2016, their wish has been realised, in being eliminated by drawing with Poland - the Poles equalising in the last minute - as another result went against them.  Euro 2016 is being staged in France (though whether UEFA boss Michel Platini will be watching it from a prison cell is another matter) and Northern Ireland will be there, following a memorable 3-1 win over Greece; Wales will be there once they beat uber-minnows Andorra; and England are already guaranteed to top their qualifying group.  Even Ireland (which James Joyce and others, sometimes derisively, sometimes patriocally, called 'West Britain') is in with a shot of automatic qualification after beating World Champions Germany 1-0 - this is the result that cast Scotland adrift in qualifying.  Meanwhile, Scots will only be able to curl up on their couches and cheer on whoever are England's opponents.  The Tartan Army's long exile from international tournament finals since France World cup '98 goes on (then again, they'd probably be eliminated before the knockout stage once more).  Cheer up Scotland; at least you'll be able to take out your frustration on Gibraltar - even if the part-timers of the latter take the lead as they did in the previous reverse fixture in Scotland, a hammering is surely in prospect.  Take what you can.

Bilderberg mourns

Denis Healey may never have become Foreign Secretary, Prime Minister or Labour Party leader (anyone for Denis), but he did bold and necessarily uncomfortable things as Defence Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.  These two roles and his unabashed support for NATO (during his active political life controversial within the Labour party) probably earned him his place on the Steering Group of the Bilderberg Group, with regard he became very bad-tempered when interviewed by Jon Ronson in Them: Adventure with Extremists.  That said, his words in 1959 could serve just as true 46 years later: "There are far too many people who want to luxuriate complacently in moral righteousness in opposition ... We are not just a debating society. We are not just a socialist Sunday school. We are a great movement that wants to help real people at the present time. We shall never be able to help them unless we get power. We shall never get power until we close the gap between our active workers and the average voter in the country."