Bringing attention to bad news

My eye was just caught by a Europeam Commission press release.

Statement by the European Commission on Belgium

Ooo thinks I what's all that about,

The reports in the media this morning on the Commission's position on the state of the Belgian government and the economic situation are unfounded.

What on earth is all that about? well according to Bloomberg it is this,

The EU will tell Belgium that it needs to make important structural reforms to encourage economic growth that can’t be decided by an interim government.

From the Soir.

Seems to me that they protest just that little too much.

Is this really a good look?

This photo could well end up a hostage to fortune.

The photos were sent out this morning from the email of Cathy Ashton, the EU Foriegn Minister. I wonder who those chaps are holding automatic weapons and the EU flag. Which faction do they support, how many prisoners have they killed and so on?

The EU, like everybody else has no idea how things are going to work out, or who will become the new leadership in Tripoli.

Book my tickets now

I have just recieved a fascinating invitaton,

European Broccoli Conference 

This is taking place as part of Fruit Attraction 2011

My breath is baited, it's chief selling point seems to be,

The conference begins with a show cooking & cocktail presented by the prestigious chef Pierre Wind in which broccoli is the main element. 

Isn't that sprouts?

Cold, Colder, Coldest

Dang that weather (not Climate of course just weather).

This summer has been the UK's coolest since 1993, provisional Met Office figures indicate.


The figures cover 1 June to 29 August. But while this summer has been wetter than 2010, it has not been as wet as 2007, 2008 or 2009.

And after that winter,

In the UK it was the coldest December ever, since Met Office records began in 1910, with a mean temperature of -1°C. It broke the previous record of 0.1°C in December 1981.

December 2010 has the lowest CET, -0.7 °C, since a CET of -1.1 °C was recorded for February 1986. December 2010 can also be confirmed to be the coldest December for 120 years, since a monthly CET of -0.8 °C was recorded for December 1890 and the second coldest December since records began in 1659. Probably the most notable record of the winter so far is the new all time record low for Northern Ireland, of -18.7 °C recorded on the 23rd of December at Castlederg, County Tyrone. In addition, all of these sites recorded their all time record lows since recording began, this winter:

It all just shows that weather has nothing to do with climate, nor the need for massive subsidies for wind farms and tax and price rioses for the foolish masses.

Little bit of Politics

The Edinburgh Fringe is off and running. And in its normal way the wannabe comics. But something I noticed this morning in the reviews is that UKIP is becoming a traget.

Both Andrew Maxwell, an Irish comic and Juliet Meyers referenced the party in their acts, enough so that watchuing critics felt the need to mention it. OK, so you are not going to get anything positive about UKIP from a 'edgy' comic performance now are you. After all Maxwell shows his grasp of global politics in his comment about the London bombings,

"I was in South Africa when the London bombs happened, and it was Muslim this, Muslim that. It's nothing to do with Muslims, it's a psychopathic billionaire who's waging a despotic war against working-class people all over the world."

Anyhow here is Maxwell in the Guardian,

To a Ukip politician who approvingly cited Belfast as a precedent for turning the British army against British citizens, Maxwell tartly replies: "That's exactly what we need right now – a black IRA."

And here is Myers from the Scotsman review site.

she's much more likable than the portrait she paints of her UKIP-voting, Iraqi Jew father.

To my mind this is a departure and the point where by raising in the public view and by argueing a cogent point UKIP is becoming a target. Fine and bring it on. After all no comic, not even Ben Elton in his Red Wedge pomp ever converted a voter, but reflected the eddies and currents of society. Our day is coming.

Makes me feel a little cold

Wandering round local media outlets as I do I happened across the website of the Tameside Reporter and Glossop Chronicle.

They look a pair of decent local papers, having been churning out the local news for well over a hundred years each.

But scroll down to the bottom of the page,

Supported by the Single Regeneration Budget, European Regional Development Fund & The Tame Valley Initiative

I don't know about you but I would find it hard to believe that, independently minded and local as they are, they would be comfortable writing up stories that are critical of EU legislation and so on. It is very hard to bite the hand that feeds you.

"Europeans now see the union as undermining their ability to control their destiny"

So says Charles A. Kupchan from The Washington based Council on Foriegn Relations.

It is apparent to him that while the EU is getting stronger - in relation to the creation of of fiscal/transfer/debt union, it is losing any popular support it ever had,

On the economic front, Europe’s leading members – even if belatedly – are likely to take the necessary steps to stabilize the eurozone. The stakes are simply too high for France and Germany to let the euro fail. The likely outcome in the long run is greater convergence on fiscal policy – which the introduction of the euro should have entailed to begin with – and debt instruments backed by the collective eurozone. Deeper integration on fiscal policy will ultimately strengthen the EU – even if it means the consolidation of a multi-speed Europe and convinces members like Britain, which is determined to maintain its monetary and fiscal autonomy, to keep their distance from the common currency.

He says, which is undoubtedly true and no doubt is warming the cockles of those who have always striven for one country called Europe. Sucess is in their grasp... But, but...

The core of the problem is that the EU is becoming increasingly divorced from the European street. Since its inception, the project of European integration has primarily been an elite effort. Publics have been either disengaged or passively supportive.

But no longer; the EU has been politicized. In beer gardens in Munich, cafés in Paris, and tavernas in Athens the electorate is finally animated by the project of European integration. The EU, however, is the object of scorn, not affection. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, enlargement, immigration and the desirability of open borders, the financial downturn and the costs and benefits of a shared economic destiny – these developments have provoked considerable public ire. The EU is no longer a distant and elitist – even if benign – undertaking; many Europeans now see the union as undermining their ability to control their destiny.

Indeed. Of course without democratic and popular support, without legitimacy, then the peoples of Europe will not feel they have consented to the great strides in European integration being accomplished over the next few months. and if they have not consented, then what sort of ocracy have we got within the EU? If it isn't democracy, what is it?

And if it isn't democracy, how do the people change the elite's decisions?