Britannia Radio

19 June 2010 7:25 PM

Footie for euroseptics

For reasons too complicated to explain here, yesterday I found myself pinned outside the European Parliament in the Place Luxembourg next to a mob of German fans watching the Germany-Serbia match on an outdoor wide-screen television.

It really, really wasn't where I wanted to be. In fact, in between shouting scraps of conversation -- damn those vuvuzela, which have made their way into the German population of Brussels -- about the Belgian elections to the Flemish lawyer I was meeting for lunch, I was grousing loudly that I had no idea who was playing Germany but I was about to start cheering for them.

A shout came from the next table: 'Serbia. They are playing Serbia, and I am supporting Serbia.'

'So, you're a Serb?' I asked.

'No, I'm a Slovenian, but out of solidarity with a member of the former Yugoslavia, I'm supporting the Serbs.'

Okay, so I started cheering for Serbia. I have to like any nation that breaks up a fake supranational 'state' such as Yugoslavia to re-establish itself as a sovereign country.

And my Flemish lawyer friend? He decided to join the cheers for Serbia, too. After all, as a decent Flemish democrat, he wants Belgium to split up, just as Yugoslavia split up (though with less blood, obviously). He wants Flanders to take its place as a sovereign country. So, cheers from him for the secessionist team.

Then there was a Finnish diplomat nearby. He joined in our exclusive corner of Serbian supporters: Finland once had to break free of the Russian empire, so Id say he knew all about a nation regaining its sovereignty.

All of which rather raised the heart: it was a reminder that European history isn't really about ever closer union. It's about nations, time and again, throwing off empires. And I'll always cheer for that. Where's my vuvuzela?

17 June 2010 7:13 PM

Dave's first time

After listening to David Cameron at his press conference following today's European Council, a line came to mind from an American political mover with more than 40 years experience on Capitol Hill: 'The first job of conspiracy,' he said, 'is to convince the world that conspiracy does not exist.'

What made me think about it was the ease with which Cameron sailed through his first go at a Council meeting. It was all English breakfast sausages with José Manuel Barroso and, as you can see at the left, loving looks -- errk! -- with Nicolas Sarkozy.

The EU leaders even let him go home with a little prize, like a child leaving a birthday celebration with a party favour. They let him think he had 'won a battle' -- because no one put any pressure on him to agree to the so far half-baked scheme to have national budgets vetted in Brussels.

Yes, he did indeed agree to do a show'n'tell with the budgetary plans. But what the other EU leaders did was give him six words' worth of wriggle room: Cameron agreed to the scheme on the understanding that this vetting would only go on while 'taking account of national budgetary procedures.'

Cameron at his press conference seemed to think made him and the British budget safe from the plans by Sarkozy -- kiss, kiss, Dave, mon petit chou! -- to put in place an economic government for the EU.

Cameron is new in town, so he doesn't know that's not the way it works. The British have now conceded the principle that other nations have a right to interfere in the United Kingdom's budget procedures. Now Sarkozy and his allies wait for the next European Council in October. There will no doubt be another crisis going on then; if not, Sarkozy and Angela Merkel can declare Spain or Portugal or Greece or Ireland a crisis at the time. Then insist the solution is -- as it always is -- 'more Europe.' Which means, more European control of national economies. That is when the real pressures on Cameron to get going with the EU economic government will start.

The first job of any EU power grab is to convince the world -- or at least the British -- that an EU power grab does not exist.

Dangerously friendly

Now for the bad news. It doesn't look like there is going to be a row between David Cameron and any of the other European leaders today. And the reason that is bad news is that there is plenty he ought to be rowing about.

But, no. So far it looks like the British Government 'theme for the day' is emollient cooperation. Which is to say, greasy go-along. One suspects Cameron wants to come away from his first European Council beaming about how 'positive' it has been, about how much there is for all the leaders to agree on. Given that the Government is now soaked in LibDems, that is more horribly true than one can bear to think about.

I'd say that even if the most sticky question of the day - the question as to whether Britain will agree to submit its budget to the European Commission and the finance ministers of the other 26 member states for vetting before the Commons is allowed a look at it won't even be pushed by the Germans and others who want it in the name of 'economic government.' It'll be pushed off to the agenda of the next meeting. That way there can be all kinds of faked-up comradely handshakes for the cameras when this meeting breaks up today.

The only genuine comrade-like behaviour I've seen here so far today is the sincere warmth being shown to Nigel Farage, the UKIP member of the European Parliament. Today is the first time many in the Press corps have seen him since he survived that aeroplane crash last month.

Farage seems surprised and touched by all the good wishes from the reporters. What maybe he doesn't know is that most of us are thinking, 'Crikey, that was a close call. We almost lost the only MEP who keeps Strasbourg from being entirely boring.''

Anyway, I'd say the crash has given UKIP a new election slogan for their man: 'Gravity can't kill him, Brussels can't stand him and the Tories can't stop him.'

Reinfeldt: My kind of guy

It seems Fredrick Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister and David Cameron's new best friend here at today's European Council meeting in Brussels, may have the kind of useful talent I've been looking for in European leaders: word has just reached the British press corps that Reinfeldt once served in the Swedish special forces.

Which has already prompted the kind of Brit pack conversation I usually associate with late-night council meetings, and not with breakfast while waiting for the off: A: 'Does that mean Reinfeldt could kill Sarkozy during this council meeting?'

B: 'Certainly.'

A: 'I mean, with his bare hands and nobody seeing?'

B: 'No, somebody would certainly notice. But Herman [Van Rompuy] will be glad to know it can be done.'

Heaven only knows where thoughts will lead by lunch time. I shall report back then.

13 June 2010 11:21 PM

Barbie's Glock is not the firearm to protect the Queen

How 'diversity' can cost lives: according to a report in today's Mail, police bodyguards protecting members of the Royal Family and the Prime Minister are being armed with girly guns -- the less powerful, less reliable Glock 26, the so-called Baby Glock -- so that female detectives with hands too small and arms too weak to hold the proper-for-the-job Glock 17 can join Scotland Yard's elite protection squad.

Here's Barbie's Glock below on the left, and the 9 mm Glock 17

on the right. The problem, whatever the 'diversity mentoring' officials say at Scotland Yard, is that the Baby Glock is designed for the American concealed-carry market. That means its great benefit is that it is a light firearm you can keep for personal protection hidden in, for example, an ankle holster.

My man on the firing range tells me it is a gun which would not be appropriate for an armed protection unit, where, obviously, the need to hide the firearm is not the top priority.

Because the Baby Glock has a shorter barrel and is a lighter gun, muzzle flip (that is, how violently the gun flips up in the hand while firing) is significantly increased. This is a bad thing. An officer should be able quickly to 'double-tap,' or fire multiple rounds one right after the other, at a particular target without having the gun fly around erratically. A heavy, longer slide/barrel --look at the picture of the Glock 17, with a barrel more than an inch longer than the Baby Glock - usually equals less muzzle flip. In general, a gun with a shorter barrel is much harder to keep on target while firing quickly.

Also, magazine capacity is important when an attack is underway. Often when someone is being shot at, their automatic reaction is just to shoot back, firing multiple rounds. Yes, the armed protection officers are trained. But who knows how many rounds they may have to fire off, and how quickly, if the individual they are protecting comes under attack? Why not make sure the officers carry a firearm with a higher-capacity magazine to minimise the need to change magazines? The Baby Glock has a single magazine with just 10 bullets; the Glock 17 is a semi-automatic pistol fed by 17 rounds of ammunition.

All this ought to be a concern to the bosses at SO1, the specialist protection unit. Indeed the choice of firearm ought to be a no-brainer for them. But they appear to have decided to ditch the right firearm in the interests of getting 'under-represented groups with smaller hands' to join. Their new protection strategy appears to be based on the hope that any terrorist group attacking members of the Royal Family or the Prime Minister will also be made up of 'under-represented groups with smaller hands' carrying girly guns with minimal firepower and fewer bullets. What do you think the chances of that are?

Here is the fact: if a police officer cannot handle the right weapon for the job, the police officer shouldn't get the job. And the right weapon for protecting the Queen and other important figures is a heavy-calibre gun with high-magazine capacity, using the latest cartridge technology with the most stopping power and barrier blindness (that means the bullet an penetrate car doors, windscreens and other barriers without becoming ineffective on the other side). And none of that describes Barbie's Glock.

PS: Another shooter has offered more thoughts on the disadvantages of SO1, the specialist protection unit, using a smaller gun such as the Baby Glock. He says that with a gun with a shorter barrel, there will be more muzzle flash, that is 'more powder will burn, or "flash," outside the gun because there is less room for it to burn inside the barrel. Muzzle flash can have a very bad effect on a police officer's ability to see movement and targets, even after just the first shot.'

Also, the decrease in the length of the barrrel/slide (as on what I'm beginning to think of as 'the pink lip gloss Glock') can also mean further loss of accuracy: a shorter barrel means 'the distance between the rear-sight and front-sight post is shortened, which tends to affect accuracy negatively.' This is why many competitive shooters use front-sight post extenders -- they extend the front sight post beyond the end of the barrel, which helps in taking accurate aim.

And other shooters could go on no doubt about the significant decrease in bullet energy if a barrel is shortened, as in the Baby Glock, but really, there is no doubt that the Baby Glock is not fit for a specialist protection squad.

So just one question remains: is the new Government really going to let the 'diversity agenda' inherited by the police from the Blair/Brown years turn Scotland Yard's elite protection squad into a wrongly equiped experiment in bijou-sized officers?

11 June 2010 8:35 AM

Obama on 'British Petroleum': how can Cameron be surprised?

You can't be surprised at President Obama's poisonous attitude towards 'British Petroleum,' not if you keep up with this blog. As I wrote last March: 'Obama is the first US president who was raised without cultural or emotional or intellectual ties to either Britain or Europe. The British and the Europeans have been so enchanted with "America's first black president" that they haven't been able to see what he really is: "America's first Third World President."'

'Here is what is happening, though the British Government seems oblivious of it. The Obama administration is ready to dump the Old World in pursuit of the One World. Britain is being dumped. The special relationship, whatever is left of it, is over.'

First there was 'the kick in the teeth he gave Britain over the Falklands just a few weeks ago.' Obama sent his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Buenos Aires to give American support to President Kirchner's call for international negotiations over the sovereignty of the islands. The Foreign Office then assured us that it didn't mean anything. Oh, yes it did: and yes it does -- it was evidence of the same anti-British attitude that has resulted in Obama's sneering attacks on 'British Petroleum.'

'What we have shaping up,' I wrote, 'but what the British Government doesn't yet grasp, is that Obama has a conscious policy of down-grading America's relationship with, first, Britain and then with the rest of Europe.'

Obama 'is a man from an Asian-Pacific [childhood] background bred to no admiration for the ancient constitutional history which, until now, has reached across the Atlantic to bind America and Britain. The president actually feels that the US Constitution, which grew out of Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights, is "inadequate."'

'Obama has made it clear he despises both the US Constitution and the British tradition from which it springs.'

'His vision is for the US to abandon its Constitution and its laws, which are tied to Britain, the country for which he has shown such disdain.'

All that and more was in this blog on March 22nd. Cameron can't say he wasn't warned.