A force for good - by Richard... Monday, August 24, 2009

A force for good - by Richard... Monday, August 24, 2009

We hear so much about the good intentions of the trans-national EU and how much it helps Africa – like when it steals its fish in highly dubious deals on fishing rights. What African littoral states need though, more than anything, is practical help in policing their own waters, better to protect their fish from predatory fishing fleets and to support artisan fishermen.

In small measure, that help is there – not enough, but it is something. But it is not the EU that steps up to the plate ... it could not and, even if it could, it would not. No, the help comes from another nation state, the United States.

Pictured is the Yu Feng, a Taiwanese-flagged fishing vessel suspected of illegal fishing activity, moves through the water off the coast of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 17 August, before being boarded by US Coast Guardsmen from USCGC Legare (WMEC 912) and representatives of the Sierra Leone armed forces maritime wing, Fisheries Ministry and Office of National Security. 

Legare is on a three-month deployment as part of Africa Partnership Station, an international initiative developed by US Naval Forces Europe and Africa to work with U.S. and international partners to improve maritime safety and security in Africa. (DoD photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn Eggert, US Coast Guard/Released.)

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Not unrelated - by Richard...

A piece in The Guardian today (yes, another one) has our Mandarins launching an attack on Labour, criticise the party's record on cabinet government.

Doubtless, there is an element of special pleading here as the Sir Humphries are complaining that Labour has abandoned cabinet government during its time in power and routinely bypassed the civil service to exert greater political control over Whitehall.

So concerned are these "Rolls Royce" minds that four former cabinet secretaries – who served three prime ministers over 26 years – have warned that the presidential style of both leaders is a threat to Britain's constitutional settlement.

In particular, they complain that Britain's "great institution" of joint cabinet government is threatened by the growing power of the prime minister. Both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, they say, have shown little understanding of cabinet government; they operate as a "small unit" and hold "cards rather close to their chest". And, last but not least, Whitehall has been politicised with Blair and Brown presiding over a "massive increase" in special advisers.

Read alongside the interview with Lord Salisbury, which we summarised in late July, this paints an interesting if disturbing picture of the breakdown of our fundamental structures of government.

Salisbury, you will recall, was worried about the "parliamentary muscle" having atrophied, leaving us with "a vast, complicated, self-referential bureaucracy." He warned that, when Cameron tried to implement his own agenda, "He will go into Whitehall and pull the levers and find that nothing works." "I don't think he realises how Whitehall has become so broken," said the noble Lord.

When the civil servants are also complaining, there is clearly something amiss – especially as, with the growing power of the European Union, it is the bureaucrats who have gained most, at the expense of both ministers and parliament.

Probably, what is happening is that, in the areas dominated by EU policy – such as agriculture and environment – the civil servants are left to run their affairs alongside our masters in Brussels, with very little interference from ministers or MPs. On that, the Mandarins are silent.

Of those policy areas where there is less interference from Brussels, however, ministers seem to be taking a far greater managerial role, cutting out the traditional structures, hierarchies and lines of demarcation, leaving many of their senior civil servants in the dark as to what is going on.

On the other hand, though, in by-passing the Mandarins, ministers are clearly finding it more and more difficult to enforce their wishes and diktats, as the two sides are no longer talking to each other freely, or working together. And while even senior civil servants cannot make and enforce their own policies, they have an endless capability to sabotage anything a government might wish to implement, should they be so minded.

This may be one of the dynamics affecting defence, about which we have so recently written, where ministers (and the prime minister) are no longer in the thrall of their civil servants but are increasingly finding it difficult to impose their collective wills. The levers of power have indeed become disconnected.

If the dysfunctional performance of the current administration is not unrelated to these developments, then this further reinforces the view that there are serious repairs to the system required, before government can begin to function effectively again – if indeed that is possible, given how much power has drained elsewhere.

The retired mandarins, however, want to see a return to the tradition in which the cabinet office and the cabinet secretary acted as "guardians of collective responsibility of government" with the prime minister not a presidential figure but first among equals. This may be the civil services' ticket to restoring some of its own power over government, but since so much of that power is simply now exerted on behalf of Brussels, this will not necessarily improve matters.

Short of that, though, we are left with a situation where, increasingly, no one is really in control and the machinery of government will continue to deteriorate. That which has been so easily broken cannot be so readily mended.

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I can't wait - by Richard...

John Prescott has landed his most bizarre job yet - as professor of climate change at a Chinese university. Prezza (pictured) has confounded his critics with his new role at Xiamen University on the south east coast of the country where he will give occasional lectures on global warming.

The honour is seen as recognition of the former Deputy PM's role in negotiating the 1997 Kyoto Treaty to combat climate change. A friend said: "He's delighted. These professorships are awarded only to senior statesmen and Nobel prize-winners." On Wednesday, he will launch a New Earth Deal campaign to highlight the impact of climate change ahead of a key conference in Copenhagen.

Prezza, who failed his 11-plus, will accept his professorship in China on 9 September and deliver his first lecture. He is also working on an eco-film along the lines of ex-US vice president al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

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Stop whining and love Europe - by Richard...

It is relatively rare for The Guardian to take up cudgels on behalf of the British population against the over-arching might of the Socialist Republic of the European Union, but even this revered newspaper seems to think there is a limit to how far European integration should go.

Its focus here is the dark case of Dr Daniel Ubani (pictured) who in February killed David Gray, 70, by giving him an overdose of a painkiller. As a citizen of Germany, and a registered medical practitioner there, Ubani was entitled to practice in the UK under EU law, without the General Medical Council or the Royal College of General Practitioners being permitted to test his competence.

Now, it appears, the two professional bodies "are on a collision course with the government and the EU commission" after calling for all doctors coming to work in Britain from Europe to face tests to prove they are fit to practice in this country.

Both the heads of the respective bodies, Finlay Scott and Steve Field, want a rewriting of the rules for recognising medical qualifications across the EU. They say all doctors from the EU and other European countries must face tests on their knowledge and skills before working in Britain, "just like doctors from other parts of the world."

However, they are all wrong. The benefits of the current system are manifest – as Booker recalled a couple of years back. 

We are, for instance, protected from Australian and New Zealand doctors, who claim English as their mother tongue. With their impenetrable accents and arcane slang, they are rightly required to prove their proficiency in English before they can practice in the EU – of which the UK is an enthusiastic part.

That foreign nationals of EU member states – totally unable to speak English - can "waltz in and waltz out of this country without appropriate safeguards for the public," is neither here nor there. That is our own fault for not being good Europeans and learning German ... French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Serbo-Croat ...

The system, of course, is vitally necessary to prevent Germany invading France – or vice versa - and therefore, as you might expect. ministers have rejected pleas from Gray's family for a review of the out-of-hours system and "seem satisfied with the pan-European system of recognition for medical qualifications."

As troops mass on the German border, we can see their point – after all, it was only 70 years ago (nearly) that they were doing it for real – and it is quite obvious that, unless we let the Germans over to slaughter our patients, they will be storming into Paris to kill Frenchmen in their stead. To lose a few old-age pensioners and sundry others is but a small price to pay to avoid such a catastrophe.

It is thus a shame that The Guardian cannot point out those huge benefits of European integration and stop giving publicity to a few dissident doctors whining about patient safety.