Britannia Radio

Booker: the lady's for turning   Saturday 13 April 2013 Millions of words have been written and spoken in recent days, writes Booker trying to pick out the good, the bad and the ugly in the record of the prime minister who dwarfed all others in modern times.  But one soundbite was used again and again to symbolise what seemed to make her such a dominating force of nature in the shifting sands of our politics – her line in 1981: "You turn if you want to, the lady's not for turning". It was meant to convey the unshakeable conviction and indomitable will that allowed her to push through all those extraordinary changes that transformed Britain from the "sick man of Europe" she inherited in 1979 into the infinitely more confident, competitive and prosperous country it had become when she was ousted from power in 1990. Ironically, however, one thing missing from all the tributes paid to her since last Monday – along with that ludicrous upwelling of hatred so eagerly seized on by the BBC – has been any recognition of how, on two of the most momentous issues with which she became identified, she herself ended up making a massive U-turn. Although in each case it was too late to undo the damage done earlier, before she came to understand the real nature of the problem, she ended up with a view diametrically opposed to that she began with.  The first of these was her entanglement with "Europe". In the 1975 referendum, as the Tories' new leader, she was happy to front the Yes campaign, fondly imagining that "Europe" was no more than an idealistic and prosperity-boosting move towards closer cooperation and freer trade with our neighbours. As prime minister in 1979, she embarked on a painful learning curve, beginning with the five years she spent wrangling with her new European colleagues over the peculiar deal whereby Britain was about to become the largest single contributor to the Brussels budget. But from 1985, she awakened to what had all along been the real agenda of the "European project": that drive towards full political and economic union based on handing over ever more of the powers of national parliaments to a wholly new supranational system of government.  When she was ambushed into accepting a new treaty, the Single European Act, she tried to pretend that it was about little more than creating a more effective "single market". In fact, as its name indicated, this was another major step towards building "a single Europe". From now on, she found herself increasingly isolated in her opposition to the relentless integration, as was reflected in her Bruges speech of 1988. In 1989, this became still more obvious as her fellow leaders, driven by Jacques Delors, prepared for the ambitious leap forward to be embodied in the Maastricht Treaty, including that supreme symbol of a "single Europe", a single currency. Knowing she would have a veto, the Europhiles saw her as the last huge obstacle to their ambitions. We recall in October 1990 her impassioned response to Delors's hubristic claim that within ten years Europe would be ruled by a new government, with the Commission as its executive, the European Parliament as its chief lawmaking body and the Council of Ministers as its Senate. To each of his points she famously replied "No, no, no". Both abroad and at home, the Europhiles now knew she had to go. Two weeks later, Geoffrey Howe's poisonous resignation speech, designed to allow his ally Michael Heseltine to challenge for the leadership, had done the trick. It was not the poll tax that brought her down but "Europe". From that time on, her contempt for the "European project" and all it stood for knew no bounds. In 1996, I and my family were with her at a house party in Scotland. She suggested one evening that the teenagers present, including my son Nicholas, should be given a chance to ask her questions. Nick asked her: "Lady Thatcher, do you think we should leave the European Union?" She replied: "There are five reasons why we should leave it". Ticking them off on the fingers of her hand, she spent 20 minutes outlining them. When this flight of oratory ended, Nick said: "Lady Thatcher, you've only given us four reasons. What is the fifth?" "You're quite right", she said, holding up her little finger. "The fifth reason why we should leave" – dramatic pause – "is that THEY STOLE OUR FISH". Six years later, in her last book, Statecraft, she couldn't have put her view more succinctly. She wrote: "…that such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European superstate was ever embarked on will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era. And that Britain, with her traditional strengths and global destiny, should ever have become part of it will appear a political error of the first magnitude". The second momentous issue on which Mrs Thatcher played a far more influential role than is generally realised was global warming. When the scare erupted in 1988, she was the first world leader who not only adopted it as the last great cause of her premiership, but made moves that helped to push it rapidly towards the top of the international agenda. She made passionate speeches to the Royal Society and the United Nations. Even more significantly, she gave full backing to one of the most fervent evangelists for the belief that the world was threatened by human emissions of carbon dioxide, Dr John Houghton, then head of the Met Office. No one played a more crucial role than Houghton in setting up in 1988 the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This was the body that was to become the central driver in promoting the worldwide scare over global warming through a series of mammoth reports, the first three of which Houghton did more to shape than anyone. Without their influence, we would not have had the Rio Earth Summit, the Kyoto Protocol, and all those political responses to the scare that, in the past two decades, have had such a dramatic impact on international energy policy – nowhere more disastrously and at greater cost than in the European Union, with Britain's suicidal Climate Change Act potentially the most damaging consequence of all. The fiasco of that mammoth Copenhagen conference in 2009 may have marked the moment when, politically, the panic over climate change finally began to crumble apart, as it became clear that the fast-growing countries of the developing world, led by China and India, were simply not going to buy into a treaty that would have landed mankind with the biggest bill in history. But seven years before that, again in her last book, Lady Thatcher had already written, under the heading "Hot air and global warming", what amounted to a complete recantation of her earlier views, voicing precisely those fundamental doubts over the warming panic that were later to become familiar. Pouring scorn on what she called "the doomsters", she questioned all the main scientific assumptions that had been used to drive the scare, from the conviction that the main force shaping the world climate is CO2, rather than natural factors such as solar activity, to exaggerated claims about rising sea levels. She mocked Al Gore and the futility of what she recognised as "costly and economically damaging" schemes to reduce CO2 emissions. She cited the 2.5 degree rise in temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period as having had almost entirely beneficial effects. She pointed out that the dangers of a world getting colder are far worse than those of a CO2-enriched world growing warmer. She recognised how distortions of the science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, Left-wing political agenda that posed a very serious threat to human progress and prosperity. Thus, long before it became fashionable, Lady Thatcher was converted to the view of those who on both scientific and political grounds have become ever more sceptical of the entire climate change ideology. How odd it is that, even today, so few people realise what a key role she played in helping to promote that scare in the first place. But even fewer realise how she eventually came to make as great a U-turn on this issue as any in her life. Many people have noticed how, in trying to assess this force of nature who exploded to the centre of our national life 34 years ago, one so often has to balance the positives and the negatives in all she stood for. The upsides in the end far outweighed the downsides. But the fact that on these two great issues she came so radically to change her mind is yet another measure of the difference that has set her apart from all those political pygmies who have followed. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 13/04/2013

EU politics: nothing worth cheering about   Saturday 13 April 2013 One might have thought that, if Mr Cameron's weekend jolly to Frau Merkel's schloss was at all important, the German press would have been all over it. But as far as I can see, only Die Ziet is taking it seriously enough to offer a report. Reading the report, you can see why so few bothered. It is an amalgam of the same old, same old: the British prime minister wants Angela Merkel's support for EU reform but, as always, is at pains to assure the German chancellor that the Britain will continue to participate fully in Europe and has no intention of leaving the EU. Whatever is agreed at this meeting, you can bet your sweet life that there will be no crowds waiting at the airport for Mr Cameron's return. There would be little point in his waving a piece of paper – nobody is in the least bit interested. Actually, I tell a lie. Andrea Leadsom MP is brown-nosing in the loss-making Guardian, burbling about "eurosceptics" in the Conservative party being "willing to compromise over their demands for European Union reform". There is no one in the party, she says, who wanted Cameron to "lay down the law" to Britain's EU partners and that compromise was "essential". Elsewhere, we get a report that the Tories are planning to build a "secret alliance" with the AFD. Given that this new German group is pro-EU and anti the euro, it fits exactly with the official Tory view. All these less than scintillating developments are doing, therefore, are reinforcing the europhile credentials of David Cameron, who seems to have abandoned any attempt to woo the outers, and is thus no longer concerned to capture the lost ground from UKIP. That much in itself is something of a development. In the past, Tory leaders at least used to pretend that they wanted the eurosceptic vote. But now, Cameron seems not to be concerned in the slightest that his party is haemorrhaging support, even to the extent seemingly being prepared to throw away the coming local elections. In truth, though, there is very little Cameron can do. Despite comments to the contrary, Die Zeitmakes it very clear that Merkel will not countenance a treaty renegotiation, and nor will she consider treaty amendments until her re-election is safely in the bag – should that happen. Thus, says this paper, Cameron's only real option is to put a "yes/no" referendum to the country, without first having sought treaty revisions. And since there is no chance of him even considering that, he is left with the wholly unconvincing ritual of talks with European leaders about reforms that are never going to happen. Missing from the feast, of course, is Ed Miliband. The earlier presumption that he would follow in the path of Mr Cameron has not materialised. There is no sign at all that he is prepared to commit to an EU referendum.  Perversely, it is almost exactly 25 years from Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech, and 75 years since the Munich agreement, when Chamberlain returned to Heston Airport to wave his infamous piece of paper, neither of which anniversary of our former prime minister lived to see. Thus do we return to a strange no-man's land, where the actuality of a referendum is receding and the "Europe" issue is still no closer to a resolution. Let us hope that we do not have to wait for the hundredth anniversary of Munich before we see a prime minister returning from a meeting with a German chancellor with a piece of paper worth cheering about. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 13/04/2013

Afghanistan: delusion and wishful thinking   Saturday 13 April 2013 Following on from the lamentably inadequate Defence Committee report on Afghanistan, which we reviewed earlier this week, the best that one newspaper was able to offer was the view that there was "plenty of time to get the recalcitrant parties to engage in peace talks". This was Con Coughlin talking, a man who actually seems to believe that the "insurgents" can be prevailed upon to lay down their arms and that some sort of peace deal can (or should) be brokered. However, cutting through the delusion and wishful thinking (two sides of the same coin) is The New York Times which brings news of "a serious blow to one of the Afghan Army's most highly regarded units". A border post in the Narai district, close to Pakistan, has been over-run by about 200 Taliban fighters, killing thirteen soldiers from the Third Battalion, as they sought to interdict insurgent infiltration in this rugged, mountainous area. This, we are told, is but one of a series of bloody attacks by the insurgents during their current spring offensive. As a result, Afghan security force deaths have reached the highest level of the war - soldier and police dying at a rate more than double that of a year ago. The death toll among Afghan security forces has been steadily climbing in recent years and, by 2012, it had topped 1,000 dead for the army for the year. The Afghan National Police (ANP), which often functions as a para-military force, was hit even harder, suffering an estimated 1,400 dead. AFP reports that 1,800 police and 1,183 soldiers lost their lives from March 2012 to March 2013. The numbers, says the NYT, underscore how much more of the fighting has been handed over to Afghan forces. But it also raises questions about their readiness for the increased responsibility, and their capabilities to deal with battle-hardened insurgents. One point raised by the Defence Committee was the shortage of organic (i.e., Afghani) air support, an issue we have discussed many times, and now chickens are coming home to roost. Many a time, US, British and other coalition forces in circumstances similar to those in which the Third Battalion found themselves, have been rescued by the timely intervention of air power. But, with the coalition winding down its activities, the same degree of (mainly US) air support is no longer available, and the ANA is unable to take up the slack. Within the next few months, NATO will have passed over complete responsibly for internal operations to the Afghan security forces. NATO and US forces will be restricted to a support and training role, and their numbers will be dramatically cut. Small wonder, the Taliban seem uninterested in negotiating a peace deal. But why should they be interested? They have the measure of the Afghan security forces and, when the coalition forces depart, show every sign of being prepared to deal with them at their leisure. There remains in British circles, therefore, only that delusion and wishful thinking. After the loss of 441 military lives and the expenditure of billions of pounds, we have nothing to show for our adventure. As the US forces depart, and we scurry out behind them, the Taliban will move back in. Nothing of any lasting value will have been achieved. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 13/04/2013

UK politics: gloom and doom   Friday 12 April 2013 This winter has gone on too long. Hoping for a bright spring day, instead we wake to a cold, sullen morning, more like November than April. It is ringing wet after a night's rain – no mere showers, these - the fog limiting visibility to no more than a couple of hundred yards. The human psyche was not designed to cope with this prolonged miserable weather, and I am sure it is colouring our political attitudes. There is a listlessness and a lack of direction to our politics which seems to go beyond the norm. That said, there is a lot to be listless about, to the extent of being positively morose – not least the affairs of the eurozone which seem to defy description and which have pundits retreating in disarray, trying and failing to work out where we are going, and what really is happening. Then we get this bizarre event, of Cameron packing up is wife and kids to have a cosy little chat with Frau Merkel and her hubby in the family residence in Meseberg, outside Berlin, all to have jolly little chats about "all aspects" of European reform as well as the forthcoming G8 summit and the situation in Syria. This wouldn't be so farcical if – according to the loss-making Guardian, France and Germany hadn't already decided to block Cameron's plan for a new EU treaty, which means that "reform" on the Cameron model is never going to happen, not that it ever was. That makes Cameron's little jolly nothing more than gesture politics, and insulting at that. Anyone who takes his wife and kids on the trip isn't really engaging in real politics. One cannot imagine Thatch taking Dennis and her brood to meet Herr Kohl und Frau over a weekend in a Black Forest schloss. To an extent, this means that the British eurosceptic movement has nowhere to go. The likelihood of even a watered-down referendum on a watered-down reform programme is retreating before our very eyes, which is possibly why Farage is seeking to reinvent UKIP as a general purpose political party and distancing himself from EU issues. Turning then to the foetid swamp of domestic British politics, we even have the brazen Blair seeking to instruct his successor on how to win the next election. The centre has not shifted to the left, says Blair. Labour must resist the easy option of tying itself to those forces whose anti-Tory shouts are loudest. Labour must search for answers and not merely aspire to be a repository for people's anger. Terrifyingly, though, Mr Blair does not actually offer any high-flown, inspirational nostrums. Labour politics now comes down to considering what developments around DNA could do to cut crime, and the right balance between universal and means-tested help for pensioners. The issue isn’t, and hasn’t been for at least 50 years, whether we believe in social justice, Blair adds. The issue is how progressive politics fulfils that mission as times, conditions and objective realities change around us. Having such a modern vision elevates the debate. It helps avoid the danger of tactical victories that lead to strategic defeats. Those that know of politics as they used to be must be listening out for Keir Hardy turning in his grave, but when politics has descended to turgid managerialism on the one hand, and nauseating gesture politics on the other, there really is not much hope. Today, though, just a bit a sunshine would make all the difference. With that bright orb in the sky and some warmth in the air, things might look very different. Somehow I doubt it, but you never know. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 12/04/2013

EU politics: revolting parallels   Friday 12 April 2013 There is too much "noise" attending the progress of the euro for there to be any sensible analysis or comment at the moment – the net is awash with speculation and hyperventilation, with very little hard fact to go on. As for the British political scene, this has been rendered sterile by the media incontinence over Lady Thatcher's death. And when one newspaper carried a eulogy from David Beckham, that really did signal that it was time to depart the field and find a suitable bunker. It's worth having a look at Bill Jamieson though. He is one of the few commentators who actually has something interesting to say, and he is by no means alone in his view that the saturation coverage is way over the top. Meanwhile, UKIP and its leader are still getting a modicum of coverage so it is interesting to reflect on the coverage of the German equivalent, Alternative für Deutschland (AFD), which is beginning to make serious waves in the Fatherland. Amongst others, FAZ is giving the party a fair dose of publicity, reporting that it now has 7500 members, about 2,500 more than two weeks ago. "The influx is huge," says party co-founder Hamburg economics professor, Bernd Lucke. What is probably significant is that among the new members are also some deserters from establishment parties, including some regional politicians from Merkel's CDU. By far the must substantial source of new members is in fact the CDU, and many of the members are academics, middle-aged or older, and mostly male. The Left seems to be poorly represented. There are, therefore, some parallels with UKIP and, as we observed on Sunday, the current popularity of the British eurosceptic party may owe more to a general, Europe-wide disillusionment with traditional politics than to any specific British phenomenon. If this is the case, the effect of the AFD on this September's general election may be quite significant. Lucke is quite confident that the party can surmount the hurdles necessary for it to stand in the elections and, with the media interest in the AFD every bit as strong the British media interest in UKIP. How the AFD performs could be a signpost for UKIP's expectations. Not least, the AFD could damage Merkel's vote, sufficient to let some Socialists in, replicating the "UKIP effect" on the Conservative Party. Interestingly, with commendable speed, AFD is getting its electoral programme together and, unlike UKIP, it is heavily promoting democracy reform, calling for more elements of direct democracy. It also argues that MPs should be banned from "all paid outside activities". AFD, though, remains in favour of European integration. It opposes the euro because it believes it splits Europe. "The peaceful unification of Europe needs no common currency", says Lucke. But not all is plain sailing. The party has by mid-July to collect signatures - up to 2000 in each province in order to be eligible for election. And they have to put up respectable candidates and organise a campaign. The momentum of the new grassroots movement is great but the obstacles to success are much greater. Lucke has high expectations of the party. "If things go well", he says, "it can get a big boost". But he also knows that the party is still very young, inexperienced and heterogeneous - and thus prone to dispute. "The 1500 people have no party experience. There is also a risk that they aggravate each other". And there is probably another similarity with UKIP. Small party politics is particularly prone to strife, and there is no shortage of that in UKIP. Very often small parties need no external enemies – they create them from within their own ranks. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 12/04/2013