EU

Clear up soon?
If you have had enough of Nick Griffin and the BNP to last a lifetime, there's been a lot of it about, then spare yourself the following. Go out into the fresh air and do something. If on the other hand you, like many others, have spotted that we are into new territory then perhaps you are curious as to which way things will go. Rather like clearing up the mess after a children's party let's tidy up after the British National Party, you never know what you might find.

Prism distorting the light
There is an ongoing fuss about the Tories and the EU, it is instructive on several levels. It confirms the generally held opinion that it will be the Tories who form the next government; otherwise why bother with it all? It also shows us how ill suited the UK is to be part of the EU. The UK approach to politics with its first past the post system (FPTP) is ideal if you wish to reinforce a sense of triumphalism. The Anglo Saxon attitude along with FPTP has its advantages, if you like to fight and win that is. But what if you lose? Well the fear of losing is no bad thing if it makes you smart, for it's then you learn other skills. True blue Brits, maybe some others too, may look askance at diplomacy, negotiation and compromise seeing these things as, Jeremy Clarkson might say, 'girlie'. That's stupid and über-blokeish and why we in the UK always come off worst in matters EU.

A fiddle
It seems that Afghanistan will have to vote again as the first result was 'wrong'. This happens in the EU too. For example the voters in France, Holland, Denmark and Ireland have all had to do it again. The reasons are very different I hear you say, well if you insist. However, do remember that no EU country that first voted yes has been asked to vote again. Is this a fiddle funny or what? Election fiddles take many forms, Hamid Karzai has been caught out on the classic election fiddle but there are far better ways of working than this old style. He should take a leaf out of the Nulabour book on how to do things and introduce postal voting. The Nulabour run North Birmingham postal vote scam shows the way.

Has there been an accident?

When Sun reporter Trevor Kavanagh wrote up his interview with Tony Blair in June of this year it carried the Blair quote:

"I would rather nail my testicles to a speeding train than be President of the European Union,"

this was a generous gift of Blair to the tabloids, if not the world. For then we could all wonder if Blair was talking bollocks yet again. This was a trait that served him well when in power, why should the old dog bother to learn new tricks?

This one?

It is said that a large number of voters in the recent Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty voted yes because they felt more secure as part of the EU. What was haunting them where the bank problems seen in Iceland and the thought that this could happen to Irish banks and cause another meltdown. So the Irish pulled the security blanket over their heads and hoped the EU would continue to pay them to be Irish. Not much of a way to earn a living you may say, what about the horse trader's sixth sense of deal making, surely this will see them through as it has before? Ah, perhaps those days are long gone, anyway one 'lovable rogue' in the shape of Michael O'Leary is enough to be going on with for now! But if it's comfort you seek, then look out dear Hibernians, for regulating banks and looking after your 'own' money is not as simple as it was. And the reason for this is the very organisation whose coat tails you have sought to hide behind, is making it hard to regulate 'foreign' banks.