"Far right may benefit in EU poll"

"Far right may benefit in EU poll"

Extremist parties may capitalise on voter disillusionment at the forthcoming Euro elections, Scottish secretary Jim Murphy has warned.

According to the Press Association, he has been joined by "religious leaders" to encourage greater turn out for this summer's European vote.

The participation level in the UK in the last Euro elections was below the European Union average. And a survey last year found 32 percent of people in the UK said they will "definitely not vote" in the June 2009 elections compared with 14 percent across the EU as a whole. 

"Extremist parties"? Now, I wonder who they can be thinking of. Certainly ain't the BNP - they're far left.

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A price worth paying for our success

That is the view of Lieutenant-General John Cooper, expressed in The Times today, referring to the death of 179 troops in the abortive campaign in Iraq. Britain, he says, deserves its share of the credit for what has been achieved, and its achievements vindicate the losses suffered by its troops there.

There speaks a man of such monumental ignorance, or stupidity that one wonders how it is that he is let out on his own. That he has risen to the elevated rank of Lieutenant-General demonstrates with utmost clarity that very little has changed since the Boer War – and even before. Stupidity is no bar to holding high rank in the Army.

For sure, Gen Cooper is right when he says that, "When our mission ends in Basra, we will be leaving behind a city that is in far better nick than it was when we arrived in 2003. It's more stable and the people have faith in, and a vision for, the future." But, despite the brave – at times desperately so – actions of the troops on the ground, that happy situation has very little to do with the British Army.

Apart from anything else though, Cooper displays a myopic xenophobia – or the insularity of his breed – in ignoring the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis who lost their lives under the British occupation. Their deaths were as a direct result of the failure of the Army to honour its obligations under international law as an occupying power, "to restore and ensure as far as possible public order and safety".

There are many reasons why the Army failed. Some of them were entirely out of its control and little blame thereby attaches to those on the ground who put their lives on the line trying to do the impossible. But for the likes of Cooper then to claim a "success" and thence to so airily to equate the loss of British life as a reasonable exchange – which is what he is doing – is utterly intolerable.

One is tempted to scream: "You failed, Dickhead! Admit it!", except that such mild words could hardly begin to convey the depth of the despair and frustration.

Amazingly, Cooper, in his cloistered, smug, self-referential little world believes that, "Our losses will be vindicated in the same way our losses in Northern Ireland were." He adds that, "Part of Service life is to make sacrifices. We accept it and live with it. We don't wring our hands but we never forget those we leave behind."

He has, already, forgotten the corpses of the Iraqis he leaves behind and of the 179 killed, 136 in action, one has to note that Gen Cooper was not the one making the sacrifices. It is all very well to applaud other people's sacrifice when, on their backs, you are making quite a comfortable living. Let's see now, the starting salary for a Lieutenant-General is rather more that £122,000 a year – plus a comfortable pension and perks. Not much sacrifice there!

The stupidity of the man is highlighted by the fact that he was in command of the Multinational Division Southeast, encompassing Basra, in 2006, before the "deal" was negotiated to allow the last 500 British troops in the city to leave in 2007 without being attacked. "In 2006 there was increasing violence and there was a fear that it was going to slip into civil war, although this proved unfounded. But it was a tough time," he says.

This proved unfounded?! There was a civil war going on. The militias were openly bearing arms in the streets and setting up military parades, the Mahdi Army – and its many splinter groups – were also taking on the Iraqi Army and the police. Basra was becoming a war zone, punctuated by a series of running battles.

Sectarian violence had continued unabated and the process of creating an Islamic independent state was continuing apace, with the murder of "westernised" women widely reported. The city was descending into anarchy. Even the attacks on the last British base were to recommence. It was not until Maliki launched Operation Charge of the Knights that the city was recovered.

Tucked up securely in their base, however, the British seemed – as always – to be oblivious to events. Gethin Chamberlain, then writing for The Sunday Telegraph observed that British forces were getting their information from local newspapers and from the Iraqi army, although one battalion was isolated inside the city and the other was in training outside.

To all those outside the foetid little world of the British High Command, there was definitely a sense of Basra being a powder keg waiting to blow. A final all-out battle was seen as inevitable. Despite this, the Chief of the Defence Staff, Jock Stirrup, chose the fifth anniversary of the invasion, on 20 March, to publish a "tribute to the sacrifice and achievements of the British forces". He then wrote:

More and more people in Basra are turning from violence on the streets to politics. Not all of them, and not as quickly as we would like. But those who continue to practise violence are being dealt with increasingly effectively by the Iraqi security forces.

The British commander was now Maj Gen Barney White-Spunner. He too thought the situation inside the city was getting better. "No one is saying it is ideal," he said, "But the indications are that the militias are losing some of their influence, and there are divisions appearing among them." The "divisions" were not among them – the 10th and 14th Divisions of the Iraqi Army had not yet fully deployed. Stirrup and White-Spunner both were in the land of the fairies.

After the failures of the Boer war Kipling wrote, "Its a difficult thing to admit it, but as a grown-up nation we should; we've had a hell of a beating, it will do us no end of good." What Cooper demonstrates though is that, in common with his superiors, he is in the land of the fairies. Despite his exalted rank, he has yet to grow up.

Such men are dangerous.

I am cross-posting this on Defence of the Realm.

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Brussels calling!

There was always something a bit suss about our provincial government's indecent rush to close down our analogue television services and force many unwilling viewers to invest in new equipment simply for the dubious privilege of watching the same old trash.

Needless to say, there is nothing of the real agenda on the government propaganda site, but the game is given away by a short piece today from Reuters via Forbes.

This tells us that "all European Union member states apart from Poland are on track to complete their switchover from analogue to digital television, a step that will free up radio waves for new pan-EU services, the bloc's executive said on Monday."

They mean, of course, the EU commission, butReuters has never been able to get its head round that simple phrase and invariably resorts to that formula.

However, we are nevertheless informed that "Twenty-six out of 27 member states are ready to complete the transition to digital by 2012," according to EU commission spokesman Martin Selmayr. He adds, "We hope that Poland, which has not set a date, will be following the other countries of the European Union."

Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden and the Netherlands have already completed their switchover and digital television is available in 21 EU states. In Poland the final switch-off is 2015 at the latest. 

"The digital dividend from this switchover will only be fully achieved if all EU member states move together. We hope Poland can speed up the process," Selmayr concludes. And this "digital dividend" is precisely what? It would appear that the purpose is to "free up radio waves for new pan-EU services".

Already, you will be pleased to learn, "Europeans are enjoying the benefits of digital TV in ever growing numbers," according to EU Telecoms and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.

But one can now barely wait for the thrill of turning on the wireless and hearing the dulcet tones of a BBC-trained announcer declaring: "Brussels calling!"

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