Every day is Groundhog Day

I no longer wake groggily from my drunken slumbers wondering what day of the week it is. Because now every day is Groundhog Day.

The evidence that we are trapped in a time loop is evident in the headlines: Greece battling with its never-ending financial crisis, doctors wanting to tax sugar, and idiots proving incapable of reading the warnings at the end of the Holy Island causeway.

The Greek people thought they had been offered a way out through a referendum, giving them the opportunity to say “no” to EU-imposed austerity.

Ignoring the evidence of all previous history that votes against the EU have no relevance, and cannot be allowed to stand.

The plain fact, obvious to all intelligent observers from the outset, is that you cannot have a successful single currency without a fiscal union, which in turn demands a full political union.

This sort of “beneficial crisis” was always part of the plan to bring that glorious day closer, though if it is happening at all it seems to be doing so in slow motion.

Partly, no doubt, because all pro-EU national governments feel themselves under threat, whether from the growth of left-wing anti-austerity parties in the poorer south or the parallel rise of right-wing Farageiste nationalist ones in the richer north.

Source: www.statista.com

The latter show little appetite for wealthier countries subsidising the poorer ones, as political union would inevitably entail. And who can blame them, considering the ungracious response of poorer countries like Scotland to the fiscal transfers they receive in the political union called the UK?

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sir John Major and Gordon Brown for keeping us out of the continuing euro mess, at any rate up to now. Though if we vote to distance ourselves even further in our promised in-out EU referendum, remember that the political elite reserves the right to ignore results it does not like.

Meanwhile the British Medical Association proposes a fiscal transfer of another kind, by taxing the sugary drinks beloved of poor people to subsidise the fresh fruit and vegetables favoured by the middle classes.

I can still remember the first time my mother asked me to nip to the greengrocer and buy her a cabbage, more than 50 years ago. Used as I was to forking out sixpence (2½p) for a bar of chocolate, I queried whether the half crown (12½p) she had handed me would be enough for something so huge. I think it cost tuppence (less than 1p).

I was staggered by what great value fresh vegetables were then, and have been ever since. Their place in the forefront of the supermarket price war pretty much guarantees that this will continue.

We could all feed our families cheaply and more healthily if we bought cheap cuts of meat, and fresh fruit and vegetables when in season (or frozen ones when not), and cooked proper meals from scratch.

But we live in a topsy-turvy world where the poorest in our society are also likely to be the fattest, because they are the most reliant on takeaways and convenience food.

Might better education rather than new complexes of taxes and subsidies not be the answer to this conundrum? And if that is not feasible, why not simply invoke the terrorist threat to declare a state of emergency and reintroduce the ration book, which did so much to improve the health of the nation during World War 2?

There is zero evidence from around the world that attempts to tax particular foods will have any effect at all on their consumption.

But why bother with evidence when you are on a mission, whether that be to create a United States of Europe or to build a healthier, slimmer, fitter society in which doctors would be out of a job. (Has the BMA really thought this through, I wonder?)

It’s surely much more fun to take the approach of those bold individuals approaching the Holy Island causeway to find it underwater.

All previous attempts to cross it under these conditions may have resulted in cars being written off and their occupants ignominiously rescued from refuges. But this particular Groundhog Day will be different, won’t it?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Enjoy the Jubilee - and try not to think about what comes next

As one of Britain’s more fanatical monarchists, I am greatly looking forward to celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – one of the very few genuine “once in a lifetime” events.

I have vivid memories of driving to London on an old A-road during the Silver Jubilee celebrations of 1977, passing through village after village hung with bunting that must have been carefully put away after the Coronation, judging by the number of South African and pre-maple leaf Canadian flags on display.

Now that's what I call a street party. Salford, 1977, according to The Guardian.

These may have finally succumbed to moths by the time of the Golden Jubilee in 2002, but the left’s eager predictions that the public would refuse to celebrate half a century of Elizabeth II turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

The Mall in 2002. The Guardian predicted a total lack of public interest.

My hopes are accordingly high for the week ahead, even if the weather forecast sounds dubious and we can no longer afford to turn out the Gold State Coach for a grand procession to St Paul’s.

But will the positive impact on my personal morale be reflected across the nation as a whole? On the one hand, we have Sir Mervyn King warning that the loss of GDP caused by an extra bank holiday may be enough to tip the UK into recession for a further quarter.

On the other, retailers tell us that they are looking forward to an £800 million spending spree that may partially make up for the thoroughly depressing 2012 they have endured so far. True, their other hopes are pinned on the generation of a “feelgood factor” by sustained good weather, a strong showing by England in the Euro 2012 football championships and a series of British triumphs in the Olympics. None of which looks massively more plausible than my decision to base my retirement strategy entirely on a big win in the National Lottery. Though I do at least usually remember to buy a ticket, thus raising my chances by a mathematically insignificant degree.

Above all, I greatly need some happy memories of the Jubilee to banish from my mind the defining image of 2012 in Britain so far: the team of 50 paramedics, firemen and police officers half demolishing a house in South Wales in a £100,000 operation to release a 63 stone teenager from her bedroom.

Image from The Sun

It is hard to imagine the sheer dedication to gluttony that must have been required to achieve a weight gain on this scale. Indeed, the only positive spin I have been able to put on it is seeing some encouraging parallels with the Eurozone, where Greece similarly finds itself trapped in an impossible position as the result of years of overindulgence.

It clearly won’t be easy to extricate it from its dilemma, but given the will and the resources perhaps it may yet be done. If not, who can tell what may await the Greeks and all the rest of us just around the corner?

When Britain last celebrated a Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the country was at the apogee of its imperial power and could look back on 80 years of global pre-eminence, rising if unevenly distributed prosperity, and relative peace.

Note how closely the soldiers stood together in those days ...

You don’t have to be a big Downton Abbey fan to know what happened 17 years later.

Today we may be sadly diminished as a power, but can similarly look back on more than 60 years of increasing wealth and the avoidance of large scale conflict. For the sake of our collective sanity, I suggest that we do not dwell too much on what may happen next, but simply reflect on our good fortune in having a head of state who has undoubtedly given us a much higher international standing than any politician would have managed.

And while enjoying the cakes and ale, remember also the personal moderation for which Her Majesty has always been renowned, lest more of us ironically end up requiring a bulldozer to release us from our homes when this “great summer of sport” finally comes to an end.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The European earthquake that could change our lives forever

How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and found that Britain had ceased to exist, and become part of another country?

You would be a touch surprised, I imagine. Yet within living memory, on 16 June 1940, just such a development was announced by no less a patriot than Churchill himself: “France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations but one Franco-British Union”.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and this was Britain’s last throw to keep France fighting Germany. It did not work. The French capitulated and the “indissoluble” union was consigned to the footnotes of history.

Why bring this up now? Because we are similarly balanced on the edge of a precipice and might find ourselves rudely shocked by the speed and radicalism of the proposed solutions.

We watch the unfolding catastrophe in Greece in much the same detached way as most people in Britain observed the Czech crisis of 1938, memorably described by Prime Minister Chamberlain as “a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing”.

Yet what is going on in southern Europe now has the potential to cost us far more financially than the Second World War ever did, and it is not just money that is at stake. If governments default, banks collapse, wages cannot be paid and cash machines stop working, it does not take a particular pessimist to see the potential for civil unrest on a scale that will make last summer’s riots look like a nursery school sports day.

It is particularly galling that all this was deliberately set up by the euro enthusiasts who realised that their dream of a single European state could never be realised through democratic consent. So they decided to build it by creating a monetary union that they knew full well would be inherently unstable, but could advance the cause of political union through “beneficial crises”.

As crazy Bond villain master plans goes, this one has worked an absolute treat – to the extent that we even have traditionally Eurosceptic politicians in the UK urging closer union on the members of the Eurozone as the only way to resolve their problems.

But why should even that work? The smart money at the time of writing seems to be on Greece being ejected from the euro and unimaginably large sums of money being splurged to keep Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy within the club. Though it is hard to see what ultimate purpose this will serve, other than saving the faces of the shining-eyed true believers in the European project.

Should they succeed, we would end up with the German-dominated Continent that two world wars were fought to avoid – with the difference that the Germans would not be an all-conquering master race, but the hard-working suckers paying to keep their southern neighbours in the comfortable style to which they have become accustomed. Given the resentments that would be generated on both sides, it is hard to see that as a durable arrangement.

There is absolutely no good outcome to this almighty mess. If you were planning on getting richer any time soon, I would forget it. But the least bad denouement is surely one through which we can see emerging from the dust of the earthquake not more Europe, but less - particularly for those of us in Britain, who are blessed by our geography and history with the ability to explore wider horizons than just looking longingly over the garden fence.

But standing on your own is tough. Even Churchill was tempted to gamble his country’s independence to keep an ally on side. As the crisis across the Channel deepens, we must maintain a hawk-like watch on our current leaders. Otherwise, who knows what we might find ourselves signed up for in a doomed attempt to mitigate the short term pain of change?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Few things give us more cause to rejoice than being left behind

We all surely knew that the non-campaign for elected mayors was running into serious trouble when its supporters started bleating about the dangers of Newcastle being “left behind”.

I have been left behind all my life, from the earliest egg and spoon races at my primary school, and it has never done me any harm. In fact, I rejoice in it.

How many of us wake up in the morning full of regret that we ignored all those powerful politicians and economic gurus who warned us that we would be “left behind” if we did not join the euro? But there the parallel ends.

A lemming: no doubt cursing its luck at being left behind

Elected mayors were a half-baked idea that no one seemed capable of explaining coherently, let alone selling to an electorate that clearly had other issues much closer to its heart.

I await with keen interest a protest march chanting: “What do we want? More highly paid elected politicians! When do we want them? Now!”

The euro, on the other hand, while economically illiterate, is a very well-thought-through cog in that great political project designed to deliver a single European state. And even as the voters of France and Greece reject the parties of austerity, the cheerleaders of the new Europe like Lord Mandelson declare that the only answer to the crisis is – yes, you guessed it – more European integration.

Lord Contra-Indicator of Hartlepool and Foy

As a small-c conservative, I naturally take heart from the great British public’s tendency to reject gratuitous change, whether in the form of a regional assembly, the alternative vote or elected mayors, whenever anyone consults us directly.

I am also conscious, however, that the real victor in last week’s local elections and referenda was the Apathy Party, which kept more than two thirds of potential voters away from the polling stations.

If we don’t like Messrs Cameron and Osborne now, we are surely going to hate them when all the belt-tightening measures they have announced but not enacted actually start to impact on our lives.

It seems implausible that we would turn so soon to the comedy double act of the Two Eds, who were right at the epicentre of the Gordon Brown Fan Club that got us into our current mess in the first place.

Miliband and Balls: Ssshhh, don't mention Gordon

Though memories are remarkably short, as one can judge from the chorus of boos on any discussion programme when Coalition ministers attempt to pin the blame on the huge deficit that Labour ran up.

We cannot register a protest vote with the usual third party, since Nice Nick is enjoying a threesome with those other posh kids, so where does that leave us? With Nigel Farage, Caroline Lucas, George Galloway and Nick Griffin, plus others who would make their policies look like positively mainstream.

In short, pretty much where the Greek people have ended up today. Time will tell whether the net result is to be the collapse of the euro project or the extinction of democracy in Greece and any other country where the electorate has the temerity to challenge the wisdom of the European elite.

My money, I regret to say, is on the latter. But, either way, we face a period of acute economic and political turbulence across the Channel that isn’t going to do any favours for prosperity or stability here.

I would relish a referendum that gave Britain the opportunity to start extricating itself from this European car crash. The result is far from easy to call: our innate conservatism and shortness of memory surely militate against apparently radical action to put the clock back and reclaim our independence.

But when you are perched on the edge of a cliff with a forest fire advancing behind you, there is no easy choice.

Who will give us the chance to vote on something that actually matters? If nothing else, it might help to push the Apathy Party back into the minority where it rightfully belongs.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Greeks have done nothing wrong

Who is the most influential Briton in the important field of global financial regulation? Chancellor George Osborne, perhaps? Bank of England Governor Mervyn King? No, I’m afraid not.

Ed Balls, then? Robert Peston? That bloke from the FSA, or whatever it’s called this week?

No. Do you give up? It’s Sharon Bowles.

Our top financial expert. Apparently.

“Who?” do I hear you ask? Let me enlighten you. She is a Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England. (Hmm, not sure about that “England”, bit – more work clearly required on constituency names in the interests of integration. How about “Very North West France”?) She also chairs the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.

Ms Bowles “has fast made her name as a financial expert” according to the BBC, or at any rate according to the BBC as quoted on her own website. And last week she shared some of that expertise with listeners to Radio 4’s The World at One when she pronounced that “the demise of the euro is far too expensive for all member states to contemplate.”

So far, so predictable. The sacred goal of “ever closer union” requires the euro to be preserved at all costs. Because, while the Eurofanatics and their useful idiot allies banged on about the huge economic advantages it offered, and why Britain was mad to pass up the opportunity to join, the reality has always been that it is a strictly political project designed to drag the countries of Europe into a single state.

While anyone with the vaguest understanding of economics (and I did not even get as far as ‘O’ level) correctly predicted that the attempt to bind wildly disparate economies within a single currency would end in tears.

The Irish, treated to the low interest rates appropriate for Germany, would inevitably go on a lunatic property spending spree, and even my two-year-old knows what happens to bubbles.

While certain southern Europeans would continue their proud national traditions of lying in the sun, drinking retsina, dodging taxes and moaning about certain national treasures currently residing in the British Museum, while the Stakhanovites of the north got on with some work.

A Greek tradition: no wonder they need help from China

But here’s the insight from Sharon Bowles that I had not expected. None of this is the fault of the Greeks, who were just doing what Greeks do. No, the root cause is the “macro-economic imbalances” caused by those pesky Germans working too hard and making their economy grow too fast. They were the ones who lent money to the Greeks so that they could all buy BMW cars. Even worse, the scheming “Germans save a lot of money and those savings also went hunting around Europe for higher returns, which is all part and parcel of the banking crisis”.

Thanks for that, Sharon. I like it when it’s all the Germans’ fault, as we used to say during those little misunderstandings in 1914 and 1939. It makes life simpler. I suppose we could try to resolve the problem in the traditional way, but Bomber Harris is long dead and the RAF is down to a couple of squadrons, patched up with gaffer tape, which seem to be currently fully engaged in Libya and Afghanistan.

At least, thanks to that towering genius Gordon Brown, we can stand on the sidelines watching the unfolding fate of the euro rather than being trapped in the burning building ourselves. But I imagine that it is probably going to be like being a spectator at one of the legendary Fred Dibnah’s chimney demolitions. Listen out for the siren and be prepared to run like hell.

In the meantime, reassured by our leading financial expert that our Greek friends have done nothing wrong, I’m going to chuck all future correspondence from HM Revenue & Customs on the fire and uncork another bottle. Glass of retsina, anyone?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Are they really all the same?

Once again I am proud to bring you a column that is spectacularly out of touch with the mood of the region, the nation and quite possibly the entire human race.

I fear this must be so because I spent last Tuesday evening doing a badly co-ordinated jig of glee in front of the television while the helicopters hovered over Downing Street. Between swigs from my celebratory glass, I loudly enquired why the departure of the Browns could not be more like that of the Ceausescus, while my wife murmured soothingly “He’s gone now, love. Just let it go.”

Then David Cameron arrived outside the famous front door and blow me down if almost his first words were not a glowing tribute to his predecessor: “Compared to a decade ago, this country is more open at home and more compassionate abroad and that is something we should all be grateful for.”

Really? More open to all those immigrants who hoovered up most of the new jobs created in the New Labour years, certainly, but how else? And what exactly do our major foreign policy initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan have to do with compassion?

My mystification only deepened when I turned, for light relief, to a social networking site, and found a friend reporting that she had wept over Gordon Brown’s departure, even though she is not a Labour voter. It must have been those well-scrubbed children that brought a lump to the throat, I guess. At least Lord Mandelson and Alastair Campbell have not lost their touch.

A myth is being constructed in which Gordon Brown was all along simply a dedicated public servant who strove to do his best for his country, was unluckily wrong-footed by a global financial crisis that blew up on his watch, and finally departed with dignity. This is untrue in every particular.

Right from the start, with the cut-price sale of our gold reserves, the destruction of our private pension system and the introduction of divided, “light touch” financial regulation, Mr Brown’s 13 years in Downing Street were a disaster. Only one great service to the nation stands out to underpin his claim to a place in Westminster Abbey, and that is his success in keeping Britain out of the euro, without which our financial predicament would be even closer to that of Greece.

While giving due credit for this, it should perhaps be qualified by the suspicion that it owed less to sound economic principles than to a determination to deny Tony Blair his bizarre but sincere wish to go down in history as the man who abolished the pound.

Now, it can be argued that I should indeed let all this go. When the Titanic was sinking, it doubtless made more sense to focus on saving as many lives as possible, rather than sitting down in the crazily tilting first class saloon for an in-depth discussion of who was responsible for the ship’s defective design.

Given the depth of the financial hole in which we find ourselves, it is perhaps right for our politicians to put aside their differences and pull together, as Messrs Cameron and Clegg have already done. Were Dave’s emollient words uttered with a view to the possible need to draw Labour into a new National Government if the crisis should deepen, as it well might?

The downside of this, along with the clustering of every party around the “centre ground”, taking their core supporters for granted so as to focus on luring in the wet and naïve floating voter, is that it fuels the suspicion graphically put to me by one elderly neighbour: “They’re all the same. They’re all in it for what they can get.”

Because if no major issues of principle divide our mainstream political parties, what other explanation can there be?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.