Germany falling - by Richard... Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Germany falling - by Richard... Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Guardian is reporting that Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition government looks to be close to collapse, weakened by a string of disagreements and intense infighting over austerity cuts, policy reform and the departure of senior conservatives.

Merkel called at the weekend for the government partners to bury the hatchet over their disagreements after a week when relations reached such a low that members of her government had variously referred to each other as "wild pigs" and "gherkin troops" (rank amateurs).

But much of the mistrust and anger is being directed at Merkel herself. This week's Spiegelmagazine called her the Trummerfrau, a reference to German women who cleared away the rubble after second world war bombings. It painted a picture of a woman presiding over a government in ruins and used its title page to request the government in one word to "Aufhören!", or stop.

It just couldn't happen to a nicer government ... and sets a wonderful precedent for The Boy.

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Belgium - by Richard...

The non-country just got even more fragmented. Subrosa tells the story. 

People don't realise just how desperate the situation is there. Not so very long ago, I took a taxi from Brussels to the Catholic University of Leuven, in the heart of Flemish country. The taxi driver (French-speaking), had no idea where to go, but rather than ask the way, got me, an English-speaker, to ask for directions. 

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Our mission is doomed - by Richard...

So, "Call me Dave" made a statement to the Commons yesterday, his first since his trip to Afghanistan as Cleggeron leader, supposedly spelling out his administration's approach to the ongoing conflict.

Heavily trailed as paving the way for a change in strategy, it followed extensive talks with Karzai at Chequers and meetings with US defence secretary Robert Gates and Gen David Petraeus in Downing Street – all on the back of a delegation of three Cabinet ministers being sent to Afghanistan to see the situation on the ground for themselves.

But, if there were expectations of a change in strategy, they were not fulfilled. One even wonders why The Boy actually bothered with a statement. He offered nothing new, nothing different. All he really wanted to do was emphasise why, in his view, our troops were in Afghanistan. It was all about national security. Afghanistan was not strong enough to look after its own security and without our presence it could emerge again as an al Qaida base.

What had changed then, one might ask, to which The Boy provided the answer: we needed to be clear on national security perspective. 

Our route home was to put security first. We were six months in to the surge and had to give it time to take effect. We would not stay a day longer than necessary – the key was in training the Afghan security forces so that we could transfer the security responsibility, but based on facts on the ground not pre-determined timetable. Then we could come home, job done, heads held high.

And that was it. In a sparsely attended chamber there was no hint of the huge controversy which has been raging over the weekend, with the likes of Matthew Parris asserting that Cameron and Clegg "must know our mission is doomed", up against the controversial General Dannatt who believes the war can be won.

Of these two, soldier Dannatt is ostensibly better qualified - but Parris has the advantage of consistency. He has always been against the Afghan adventure, right from 2006, when he decided that the mission could not work with 3,000 or even with 30,000 men, in June 2008, when he declared we couldn't win and now, when he thinks we are simply sacrificing soldiers to keep the US on-side.

Parris is too sincere and his case too well argued for it to be dismissed as cynical, while Dannatt is too stupid for his case to be considered at all. He trots out the bog standard "exit strategy" meme, arguing that the Afghans must run their own security and "the Afghan economy must be converted as quickly as possible from one based on the illegal opium trade, to one profiting from traditional cash crops, such as wheat, saffron and pomegranates."

If pigs could fly and politicians could think coherently, the world would be a very different place, but either is about as likely as Dannatt's nostrums for Afghanistan. And then you realise that the General is offering exactly the same prospectus as "Call me Dave". The mission is indeed doomed.

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What will it take? - by Helen... Monday, June 14, 2010

New readers of this blog may not be aware of my existence and that is fine with me. Occasionally, however, some communication needs to be established. So, with the Boss's consent and encouragement I place a link to my latest posting on Your Freedom and Ours where I try to put the boot into another Conservative front organization. Enjoy.

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Weaker is stronger - by Richard...

Defence cuts will be "ruthless and without sentiment", warns Liam Fox. The military will have to bear its share of the cuts needed to reduce the record deficit. But, insists the defence secretary, Britain's security would end up "stronger" by ensuring its military approach was relevant and realistic - with a "clean break" from Cold War-legacy thinking.

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Journalist ignorance soars - by Richard...

"Mole population soars due to poison ban," writes Laura Roberts for The Daily Telegraph, telling us that the mole population has soared across Britain due to the ban on the poison used to kill them. Pest controllers (sic) have said they could number up to 40 million although the most recent estimate is currently 33 million.

What the lovely Laura doesn't tell us, though, is that the poison concerned – strychnine – was banned by the loathsome EU, on 1 September 2006. This intelligence also evades Emily Dugan, who writes a similar story inThe Independent - so similar in fact that it probably came from an agency report, which doubtless also didn't mention the EU. And without the prompt, the little girlie reporters wouldn't know diddly squat about where the ban came from.

Funnily enough, local papers have covered the story, not least the Oldham Chronicle. Last year it told the tale of Peter Brown, the "mole man" who had his business wiped out by the ban and took to the road with a suitably decorated van to express his views of his tormentors.

Peter staged many a protest outside Oldham MEP Chris Davies' office as well as writing countless letters, which got him precisely nowhere – as one might expect. He then resorted to painting "deception and corruption rule" and "unjust bureaucratic parasites" on his van in a bid to spread the message of his protest as far and wide as possible. 

But, a year on, he reckoned without the girlies of the national papers, who have about as much idea of how the government works and who actually rules us as "Call me Dave". Confronted with ignorance such as that, there is no hope and no solution. The girlies - of both sexes - are taking over.

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