by David Steven | Oct 30, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, UK
The Tory blogosphere is convinced climate change is a scam (its party leader thinks differently). This morning, Conservative Home is leading with the claim that “14% of your electricity bill is due to (ineffective) state policies on climate change.” Instead of capping carbon, Matthew Sinclair argues, we should ensure “developed and developing countries are rich, free and democratic enough to deal with whatever nature throws at them.”
The editor of LabourList, meanwhile, is warning David Miliband that he even thinks of taking the job of EU foreign minister, he’ll be dead to the Labour Party:
After Miliband’s failed soundings for the leadership in 2008, and his failure to support his friend James Purnell by stepping down from the cabinet last June, he can ill-afford even the perception of any more jockeying or inaction.
Labour members would never forgive Miliband if he bailed on the party so close to the general election; like Hazel Blears, he would become an instant pariah.
Ah – the joys of tribal politics.
by David Steven | Oct 11, 2009 | Europe and Central Asia
What on earth does the German government think it’s doing? According to the Sunday Times, its diplomats are briefing journalists that it trying to ensure Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, is impeached for failing to ratify the Lisbon treaty.
In recent years, Klaus has carved out quite a niche for himself, trolling other governments on climate change, European integration and a host of other issues. His latest trick is declare that Lisbon will leave the Czech republic open to legal claims from 3.5 million ethnic Germans expelled at the end of the second world war – a red line he somehow forgot to mention before now.
As he clearly hoped, other European governments have responded furiously. But the German reaction must be beyond his wildest dreams – an insane suggestion that he should be impeached on the grounds of, wait for it, high treason.
The Times has even managed to find a German diplomat dumb enough to give the following quote (whose idiocy is such that I wonder whether the paper simply made it up)::
If the president is obstructing the democratic process and opposing the decision of parliament as well as the will of the people, he is moving beyond the law and will need to face the consequences.
Assuming the quote checks out, I can’t even begin to imagine why the Germans would allow themselves to be caught so obviously bullying a neighbour.
After all, it’s not as if they don’t have form. As the Times points out, “A comparison is being drawn in Prague [between Klaus and] Edvard Benes, the pre-war Czech leader who in 1938 had to flee to Britain after refusing to cede territory to Hitler under the Munich agreement.”
by David Steven | Sep 4, 2009 | Europe and Central Asia, Global system
Over at Slugger O Toole, I have an essay in a series on the Irish Lisbon referendum. My conclusion: we need a ‘yes’ vote so that the EU can begin the process of turning itself into a platform for managing global risks. There’ll be further contributions every day between now and the vote next month. (more…)
by David Steven | Apr 21, 2009 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia, North America
I’m honoured to be Mark Steyn’s reader of the day, chosen for pointing out that he “delights in weaving a sick fantasy for his audience”!
Steyn is author of the jaunty and thuggish rant, America Alone, a book that George Bush loved and to which Michael Gove, Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, gave a gushing review:
No writer I can think of manages to combine utter bleakness about mankind’s prospects with a genius for one-liners like Steyn… Steyn has done us all a service… ensuring that questions some would prefer to pass over are posed in a way it is impossible to ignore.
So what does Steyn tell his eager audience to expect from its European allies in 2030? A whole lot of trouble. The continent will be in flames, he believes, overrun by ‘darker forces’, with ‘Native Europeans’ beset by a Muslim youth that has fused Western licentiousness with European fanaticism.
Non-Muslims will face three choices: fight, surrender or flee:
Well, my view of Europe in 20 years’ time is that you’ll be switching on the TV, you’ll be looking at scenes of burning and conflagration and riots in the street. You will have a couple of countries that are maybe in civil war, at least on the brink of it.
You will have neofascists’ resurgence in some countries and you’ll have other countries that have just been painlessly euthanized in which a Muslim political class has effectively got its way without a shot being fired — and large numbers of people, particularly young people, have left those countries and have moved on to whoever will take them.
You know, the Dutch are going to Australia, Canada, and New Zealand and some of them, no doubt, would have liked to have gone to the U.S., but the U.S. doesn’t really have a legal immigration program. So, if you need to get out in a hurry, it’s no good going to the U.S. embassy.
(more…)
