What a frustrating day. We’re very sorry that you’ve been unable to publish to Blogger for the past 20.5 hours. We’re nearly back to normal — you can publish again, and in the coming hours posts and comments that were temporarily removed should be restored. Thank you for your patience while we fix this situation. We use Blogger for our own blogs, so we’ve also felt your pain.
Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring.
Again, we are very sorry for the impact to our authors and readers. We try hard to ensure Blogger is always available for you to share your thoughts and opinions with the world, and we’ll do our best to prevent this from happening again.
COMMENT THREAD
You might have thought that good use might be made of the time suddenly made available from the unexpected demise of blogger, and the enforced inability to blog - with the system having been down for some 18 hours. But the human mind does not work that way.
Released from the tyranny of the blog – albeit temporarily – one simply frets at the absence of chains, and peers anxiously at the bulletins for some sign that one's serfdom might soon resume. In such a fretful condition, one is reduced to a state of complete inertia. Productivity plummets.
Nevertheless, by a supreme act of will, one forces oneself to write, my preferred option being what I call the Bailey Bridge technique. Those who have witnessed the construction of this remarkable piece of British engineering will know instantly what I mean.
One builds the bridge on one bank and then rolls it out to the other side. But, if it was the bridge alone, once it is extended more than halfway, the centre of gravity is unsupported and the bridge tips into the water. Thus, one attaches a "nose" to the leading edge of the bridge, (pictured above) slightly longer than half the length of the bridge, so that that the centre of gravity stays over the nearside bank until the structure has the support of both banks.
Once the bridge is safely in place, the now redundant "nose" is removed and the bridge can be put to use. Such is my writing, where I start pounding the keyboard, almost with random thoughts, until the theme starts to emerge. One continues to the end, and then chops off the opening passages. The piece is now ready for publication.
The ruminations, though, occasionally survive where they serve to lead in gently to complex themes, or where the thinking is not yet clear and the process of writing is itself being used as a way of crystallising the thinking.
Such is the case here, and the themes are the concept of "serfdom" and the voluntary assumption of chains. Bloggers accept the "chains" for a variety of reasons, but primarily because of the perceived benefits – which will vary from person to person. And so it is with another, more onerous government control. – we accept that constraints imposed by them because of the perceived benefits, and thereby voluntarily carry the chains and the status of serfdom.
Here, the crucial issue is the idea of our status being voluntary. It can be argued thus, simply because we have within us the power to reject the status, but choose not to exercise it.
Largely, this comes down to the balance of utility. The effort – and exposure to danger – required to liberate us from the chains is too great, compared with the disutility brought about by wearing the chains. We are comfortable as slaves, and are not disturbed enough by the status to want to change it.
Now, if that is a tenable argument, then it changes completely the perception of politics and political campaigning. Or perhaps it does not. Perhaps it simply reinforces the aphorism that we get the governments we deserve. We deserve them because we are not prepared to make to effort to change them, or the system in which it operates.
Where it does change the perception is in respect of campaigners. Their essence, in relation to the current political system, is to undertake a series of activities which provide entertainment and even employment for the participants, but is calculated never actually to achieve anything of significance.
Into this general category can be shoehorned the entire eurosceptic movement which, in misdiagnosing the problem, and then focusing energy in the wrong direction, ensures that no resolution is ever possible. But, in the trying – and in the guarantee of continuous failure - endless activity is required. By this means, for the fortunate few, lucrative employment is assured.
The corollary, of course, is that if such campaigners ever came across anything that had some prospect of working, they would shun it. A strategy that promised to resolve the problem would be seen as a far greater threat than the problem itself, threatening to bring the gravy train to a juddering halt.
So it is, methinks, with the formalised eurosceptic campaign under the UKIP banner. It is not so much that it has been ineffective. Rather, as structured, failure is inevitable. The campaign cannot succeed and, within the current framing, nothing done can ever succeed.
The reason for this is actually quite straightforward – once one realises the enormity of it. Simply, the European Union is not the problem which eurosceptics would have us believe. Our membership, and the trials that attend upon it, are a symptom of a larger problem. That resides with our elites and political masters here at home. The enemy is not in Brussels. The enemy is within.
Clearly, to deal with the true enemy requires a different focus, and a wholly different strategy to anything that has so far been associated with the eurosceptic movement. And that very fact underlines the propensity to fail. Thus, the last place to look for ideas to resolve our problems is within the eurosceptic movement. It is like asking the Jesuits for ideas on how to abolish the Catholic Church.
Sadly, though, change is not going to be imminent. For all their protests, most of the slaves are comfortable with their chains, and will not seek to remove them. They may cry for the occasional tub of salve, to ease the chaffing, but that is as far as it goes. The front organisations that exist, ostensibly to address our concerns, have far too much to lose by actually succeeding in what they were set up to do.
COMMENT THREAD
A man who deliberately broke the rules, ostensibly to protect his privacy, did not make a "mistake". Motivation is not an issue, no matter what the clever and sophisticated Mr Montgomerie might say.
The fact is that David Laws knew exactly what he was doing when he broke the rules, and neither are we talking about trifles. This, from an analysis of the Parliamentary report, was theft. He was claiming over the odds for "rent" and adding a generous amount for repairs and maintenance as well.
Further, a man who then tells the House of Commons: "If, by my actions, I've contributed in any way to further undermining the reputation of this House then I can only apologise without reservation," is not making an unreserved apology.
The structure of the sentence itself – starting with "if" - is conditional. But is he really suggesting that he does not know whether his actions have undermined the reputation of the House? He cannot make a reasonable guess? Then there is the further qualifier: the use of the world: "contributed". He is not taking full responsibility for his actions – he seeks to share the blame and the guilt with others.
If this man is taken back into the administration, it will be a travesty. He should not even be an MP. That the Cleggerons are still weighing their options tells you all you need to know about them. They lack even the scintilla of moral principle, or political nous. Outside the bubble, this stinks. But that is the curse of the bubble ... those inside it cannot smell their own stink.
The interesting thing is, though, that Mr Plod may take a different view, in which case the Cleggerons could have egg all over their faces. In their rush to excuse their luvvie mate, they have lost sight of the fact that they are consorting with a criminal.
COMMENT: "NOTHING HAS CHANGED" THREAD
Such was the mood of the nation in the late 1930s that, but for the intervention of the Second World War, we could well have seen a repeat of the great Chartist movement of the mid-19th Century.
The 1939-45 conflict brought with it the promise of "war aims" – rejected by Winston Churchill but embraced by the Socialists and projected as the promise of a "New Jerusalem" after the war ended. But, instead of the promise, the people of Britain got Atlee, partial nationalisation, a sterling crisis, and even more rationing. By 1951, they had had enough of the socialist experiment and voted Churchill back in for a "bonfire of controls".
The burgeoning prosperity of the '60s and led to the tensions of the '70s and then the false dawn of Thatcherism, which led to the belief that the nation had turned the corner – only for the people to discover that first unrestrained capitalism and then failed socialism had been replaced by corporatism, on a national and international scale. Without their even noticing it, the slender gains of the Chartists had disappeared.
One – of six - of the key demands of the Chartists, though – the one which was never granted – was the annual parliaments, a means of presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation. With universal suffrage, no man could afford to buy an annual election.
But, if that was an interesting idea, it was also wrong-headed. As we see now, the greater political and emotional energy is vested in choosing our representatives than is on ensuring the proper administration of the nation. It was not annual elections which were needed but – as we now assert – the annual referendum on the budget.
The Chartist movement was not an immediate success, but it did awaken the interest of the working class in politics, and eventually all but one of the six demands were conceded. But the reforms have run their course.
The elites, having been forced to concede the universal franchise brought about by the suffragettes, have simply moved government up to the supranational level. There, as it was before, it is again out of the reach of the masses and unaffected by the popular vote. We have returned to the situation in the mid-19th century, where disenfranchised masses are ruled by a largely unelected elite.
Hence, we need the revolution which the Chartist movement nearly was, the General Strike of 1926 could have become, and which might have happened but for the war and the 1945 election of the Labour government. Thus, 173 years after the public launch of the Charter – almost to the day (21 May) - we offer our own six aims for a Referist movement:
The Chartists brought their campaign to a head with a massive rally at Kennington Common on 10 April 1848 (pictured). A third petition was then presented to parliament, claimed to hold 5,706,000 signatures, although others claimed it had only 1,975,496 names, with many forgeries.
Then, of course, the Chartists were handicapped by not having the internet. The Holy Gore had not yet invented it. But their great advantage was in not having the BBC. Nevertheless, despite that handicap applying to us, over the next six days I will add more clothes to the six points, ready for presentation of a complete document on 21 May, at a virtual launch.
The power of the idea is unstoppable.
COMMENT: REFERISM THREAD
The Daily Mail is telling us that Britain could face a £3.2billion bill to bail Greece out of its latest financial crisis. Well, that may or may not be the case – the Greek economy may implode before the deal can be stitched up.
Either way, it is going to cost a lot more than that, as the knock-on effects are going to do serious damage to every economy in Europe, including our own. You would think, therefore, that the UK would be battening down the hatches, trying to minimise the effects of the fall-out. But not a bit of it. We are still chasing hair-brained schemes that can only do more damage to the economy.
Still, at least we don't have to comment about the Irish. They have acquired their own commentator, who is asking many of the questions we have posed – albeit with not quite the same style. Unfortunately, much of this also applies to the English.
COMMENT: GREEK THREAD
We thought he might have waited until Obama blew the whistle, but he cannot even wait that long. Then, Cameron has his little venture in Libya to feed, in order to keep the Kermits happy, and we cannot afford this war as well ~(or either).
And while the military want to maintain a presence, one can actually understand the reluctance to accept their assurances as to what is necessary, not least when we learn that "serious intelligence failures meant British commanders were unprepared for the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan".
One has slight difficulty with this. It seems more likely that these were not so much intelligence failures, as the complete absence of intelligence ... amongst the High Command who planned and executed this operation.
From this distance, briefing MPs on likely developments, we were able correctly to anticipate Taliban moves which these brave and highly-paid soldiers, with all their resources and staff, could not detect, even some time after the enemy had made their play. Yet, now these same military geniuses want their current advice to be taken seriously.
Through gritted teeth, we have to concede that Cameron is right to pull the plug. In fact, the move is long overdue. But now he has the convenient excuse of the OBL death narrative, he should get the troops out as fast as possible. Our only consolation is that he is probably doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
COMMENT: AFGHANISTAN THREAD
... all this will be yours - and this: a superb sequence from Zerohedge. The summer hasn't even started yet, but the Greeks are on (another) general strike, and the government is even flogging off the tea towels in a bid to avoid default. This is NOT going to succeed, and we are not insulated from it, any more than we are from the growing crisis in Ireland, or the impending disaster in Portugal.
But such is the situation in Greece, that even the Huns are beginning to think that the Greek government pulling out of the euro would be a good idea. It really is that bad. And behind that, default is only a matter of time.
Meanwhile, the New York Times paints more of the picture, this regarding international trade. In Ireland, imports were still falling as this year began. Greek exports began to recover last summer, but import volumes continue to plunge and are nearly a third lower than they were at the peak in 2008. And still Greece exports only about a third as much as it imports. That is a measure of the lack of competitiveness of its economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in uncharted waters here. History is being made, none of it good. Is it really believable that the British media is still mainly concerned with outing slebs on Twitter?
COMMENT THREAD
Slowly, but with the force of a mudslide, it is gradually dawning on the Irish quite what a mess they are in. Some have known for a long time, but we are talking here of the "collective", and the cold, hard, sober facts had still not percolated during the general election, otherwise Labour would never have been elected.
Even now, it is impossible to say quite how deep the knowledge has spread, but the reality could not be more simple to understand. The Irish Government is on track to owe a quarter of a trillion euros by 2014 and a prolonged and chaotic national bankruptcy is becoming inevitable. By the time the dust settles, Ireland's last remaining asset, its reputation as a safe place from which to conduct business, will have been destroyed.
That is the view of Morgan Kelly, a professor of economics at University College Dublin – not that professors of economics mean much these days. They and their ilk got us into the messes we're in, and you sometimes wonder whether some of them have enough wit to tie their own shoe laces. This is why, perhaps, they so often wear slip-ons once they've left home.
Anyhow, this one is writing in The Irish Times, and he seems to know what he is talking about. That is not quite a first, but it is a refreshing change, especially as the man seems to know his politics as well as his economics.
It is not for me, therefore, to replicate the great man's work. It is best read cold and fresh, for those who have not already read him. Ireland is facing economic ruin, he writes, and tells us exactly why, and what to do about it. The solution is not pretty, especially for the political classes. But it is about time the Irish people grew up and did to their politicians exactly what they have been doing to their electorates for the past decades.
What is not said – and nor could it be – is that we're next. The Irish may owe a quarter of a trillion euros by 2014, but we'll owe one trillion pounds by next January. That is not quite as big as our GDP, but it's getting there, and Mr David Cameron's government is increasing the debt, day-on-day, month-on-month, year-on-year.
What is also not said is the misery this is going to cause when the bubble bursts. Paul Krugman,yesterday, was talking about chastising the elites that had caused this mess. Some might look nervously to 28 April 1945 for an insight into what happens when a crowd gets really ugly. Some would be well-advised to be booking their passage to a quieter spot. In fact, if Kelly is only half right, they had better start packing now.
COMMENT THREAD
COMMENT THREAD
Under the headline: "Experts write for the Mirror on the EU ruling", we get: "The judges in Strasbourg have got it right". They are, of course, talking about the Court of Human rights. It is not and never has been an EU institution. But these people simply do not have the ability to understand that.
Laughably, the paper talks about "freedom of speech". One wonders why it, and the rest of the media, bother about it. They are incapable of using the freedom they have.
UPDATE: The offending headline has been replaced - the infamous silent edit to cover up the inability to fact-check. As always, being the MSM means never having to admit you are wrong.
COMMENT THREAD
You can never completely write off Heffer. He may occasionally lose his touch – as do we all (the only thing that is ever truly consistent is mediocrity) – but he retains the capacity to come up with a few gems. Thus, in his paying haunt, the Failygraph, he today observes with interest that "we rush to have a referendum on something the Lib Dems feel strongly about, but there is no scope for one on matters that aggrieve a substantial, and not exclusively Conservative, number of people in this country".
There is nothing new in that observation, of course. We have passed it many times, as have many others – that the political classes rejected our calls for a referendum on the EU's Lisbon treaty and instead frittered away £100 million on the AV vote. They will not be forgiven easily – or ever – for that insult. But, says Heffer, breaking interesting if not entirely new ground:Referendums are a powerful means of participating in democracy, but they happen only when it suits those who rule us. They fear what the rights of majorities, if exercised on important issues, would mean to them and their power. Yet the exercise of such rights would be mainly to try to undo the mess that venal and incompetent politicians have created. That process has not even begun; but who can say the people will not, one day, will it to do so?
Therein lie the roots of Referism. To go cap-in-hand to The Man and ask Him, "pretty please", for a referendum, and then leave it to Him as to whether he abides by the result, is a form of participation. Equally, setting up campaigns, which nicely ask for change and give you a little voicy in the "corridors of power" are all very well. But, in truth, they are "Uncle Tom democracy".
Referism, on the other hand, is about the transfer of power, releasing people from the bondage of the elites and vesting in them control over their own government. It is about changing the relationship between government and the people, one in which the government says please.
This is achieved by the annual referendum – a mandatory, unchanging part of the constitution. Itrequires the administration to go to the people each year to ask them for money, and it empowerspeople to say "no". That is real power. Anything else is play-acting.
In that corner is this weekend's Rally against debt, a well-intentioned if entirely fruitless exercise, not least because it will attract no more than a few hundreds, that may stagger into four figures. Such activities are not helpful because, in the scheme of things, they are a demonstration not of strength but of weakness. They send a message – one of comfort to The Man, that he has no opposition that need trouble him.
Most of all, though, these things don't work. They don't have any traction because they are sterile. They do not set demands of any substance. They are playing around the margins, dealing with peripheral issues, and asking rather than telling. They are the stratagems of the weak.
On the other hand, if there is to be real change, there is only one issue worth talking about, and only one worth fighting for - power. That was the thinking behind my "million angry people" (MAP) concept. Until and unless we are able to put a million people on the streets of London, we are nowhere. But what was missing there was the "ism" - the "vision" that is so necessary to drive a movement.
The need for large numbers recognises that any worthwhile power is never given away. It has to be taken. The nobles at Runneymede did not ask King John for Magna Carta, they summonsed him. Then they demanded his acquiescence. Had they not got it, they would have killed him. We do not wish to slay our masters. Therefore, we must project our will through force of numbers.
The more immediate problem, though, is the slaves are used to their chains. They have grown to like the comfort, stability and security afforded by them. And the Uncle Toms have ambitions to sit at the table with the Masters, and share crumbs from their plates.
For this reason, you will not see an immediate surge of support for any idea which gives power to the people. But the power is there for the taking, if there is a leadership willing to take that bold step. And, as Heffer didn't quite write: "who can say the people will not, one day, will it to do so?"
The power of the idea is unstoppable.
COMMENT: REFERISM THREAD
Methinks the pontiff is getting his religions mixed up. He should stick to the one he's already got. That is in far more need of care and attention than the climate.
COMMENT THREAD
Even when the MSM tries to be serious, they can't quite cut it, although some mild entertainment is afforded watching them try. Toby Young is in the frame in the Failygraph, offering his wisdom about the "meltdown" of the Left throughout Europe.
This is not offered as a comedy routine, or political satire, so we must assume the man is serious when he suggests that across Europe we are seeing the fracturing of both the state and the super-state as sources of tribal identity.
The EU, he says, has only ever commanded the loyalty of the liberal middle classes. As their political alliance with traditional working-class voters collapses it seems increasingly unlikely that the EU will survive the current economic crisis, at least not in its present form.
We need not dwell on this muddy thinking, other than then to observe that Young finds "more surprising" the "decline of the state as a unit capable of commanding people's loyalty".
Why, when we have had the political classes throughout the EU, the EU itself and the bulk of the "liberal" media working for the last fifty years or more to undermine the concepts of nationhood and nationalism, is Young at all surprised by this? With states now unable to provide a focus for the aspirations and needs of their peoples, why on earth should it be a surprise that they no longer command loyalty?
However, one should never fear. What the Left needs, says Young, "is an intellectual colossus, someone capable of articulating a vision that re-unites the liberal intelligentsia with the traditional working class and persuades them to put the interests of the collective – whether the nation state or something larger and more abstract – before those of their family and their tribe".
This is interesting, and makes it worth reproducing, as it offers the notion that a political renaissance of the Left should have an intellectual base. With that, I cannot disagree, although there is no sign of any intellect in the ranks of the Left, much less a "colossus". Young then goes on to say that this person should then articulate a "vision", and again I cannot disagree.
Even when we have a man incapable of analysing what is happening, therefore, we still have someone who seems capable of identifying the core of a solution. Across the board, that is what we need, exactly the idea of the "ism" to which we have devoted so much effort.
One thus, almost begins to warm to Young, when he asserts that, ultimately, the reason for the left's political failure is the "intellectual vacuum" at the heart of the Left-wing project, the absence of "an intellectually robust alternative to free-market capitalism". He then spoils it all by concluding that, in the meantime, "Right-wing and nationalist parties will keep on making gains at the Left's expense".
The joke here, of course, is that the so-called "nationalist" parties are largely left wing, soaking up the traditional working classes who are sick to the teeth with their betrayal by the political elites.
That we have been betrayed by them comes from no less than Paul Krugman, an archetypal member of the elite, who offers his own analysis in The New York Times. Take it or leave it as you will, but his view is that our present predicament is caused by the bad judgment of the elite (singular).
The real story of Europe's crisis, he writes, "is that leaders created a single currency, the euro, without creating the institutions that were needed to cope with booms and busts within the euro zone. And the drive for a single European currency was the ultimate top-down project, an elite vision imposed on highly reluctant voters".
While Krugman is in part right, his view of the euro is typical of the crass clever-dick, the man who thinks he knows everything but knows nothing. For sure, the euro was "top-down", but it was a political project. Creating the necessary institutions to manage a single currency were simply not politically feasible at the time. Thus the euro was born to fail, waiting for a beneficial crisis which would then legitimise the "economic government" that the project needed.
Krugman actually talks about the need to avoid making up stories about our current predicament that absolve the people who put us here there. In so doing, we cut off any chance to learn from the crisis, says. Thus, we need to place the blame where it belongs, to chasten our policy elites. Otherwise, they'll do even more damage in the years ahead.
And there he is so wrong. Our "policy elites" are shameless. They admit no wrong, and there is no one to bring them to book. They are powers unto themselves and attempting to blame them is going to achieve nothing. We need to bring them back under control. And there Young does at least have a point – there is that lack of an intellectually coherent vision to inspire the masses. We need to fill that "intellectual vacuum". Then we chasten the guilty.
COMMENT THREAD
But the man is still a liar and a thief. Nothing has changed between then and now - it is just more obvious. But that he is even being considered for a ministerial post, depending on the precise nature of the report from the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, is a disgrace.
That, though, still illustrates the divide between us and them. They just can't stand clear of the bubble and see how it looks from outside.
COMMENT THREAD
This is General James Bucknall, in an "exclusive interview" with The Guardian. One can't help but smile at the self-importance of the newspaper, retailing nothing more than a statement of the bleedin' obvious. After all, even without the benefit of a brass hat and knitting badges, just this morning, we were able to say:As coalition forces move out and Afghan security forces take over, the Taliban will move in. We will end up with a north-south split, and civil war – within a year of our departure.
But God knows why the paper thinks we should be impressed by a general who has nothing more to offer than what we can work out for ourselves. What might be impressive is a soldier or a diplomat who actually understands something of the geopolitics and comes up with a plan that has a chance of succeeding.
In days of Empire, we had such men – even Abdur Rahman was impressed with Curzon. In this piece, The Guardian does enlist Sir William Patey, Britain's ambassador to Kabul, but he does not strike one as a man of vision, any more than is Bucknall. We are doomed to be served by midgets, attended upon by newspapers which could not even recognise greatness if they saw it.
COMMENT: AFGHANISTAN THREAD