Puff Puff Politics

Looking at the EU and Eurozone crisis to day reminds me of the past. Going back to the 1960’s and beyond one of the main causes of problems on the railways and difficulties in operation was trying to keep all the freight moving as well as providing the passenger services that people wanted to have.

What happened in this juggling was that too many compromises had to be made for the whole system to work properly with bottlenecks all over the place and the differing requirements of the various kinds of traffic.

So British Railways came to regard passengers as a necessary nuisance whilst trying to keep hold of its freight traffic against the competition of roads and then motorways. It did not succeed.

At that time a lot of freight was coal when much of the economy and household heating depended on it. This was carried in five ton wagons which did not have air braking; had four wheels, often in poor condition and were prone to derail in the bumping and banging involved in halts or crossing complex points, especially when in a train of “empties”.

So it could take only one small truck at the wrong point in the network to cause chaos because it came off the track in routine working. This problem had been known for nearly a century yet neither the railways companies, the government nor in its first years British Railways been able to sort it out.

Going into the 1960’s British Railways were faced with major conflicting issues and one of the keys to this was dealing with the problem of the five ton coal trucks.

The EU today reminds me vividly of one of those coal trains with a long line of trucks clanging and banging as they start, stop and try to change direction. Such coal trains because of their lack of effective braking could not go at any great speed, indeed 30 mph was high risk over much of the track.

In short the model of the EU and the Eurozone and its place in the network of global finance and politics has become unworkable in the conditions of the second decade of the 21st Century. It may have served up to a point through until the 1990’s but has become increasingly prone to chaos in its routine working.

It cannot go at speed, it takes up far too much time to move from one place to another, it is continually derailed by basic working failures, it is a traditional way of functioning that is hopelessly out of place in modern conditions and it is now in state when it prevents any satisfactory solution to communication or other problems.

I recall working on the platform when a coal train was going through and seeing one of the trucks suddenly jump the track and everything stopped. We had express trains due and worse with major cross country parcels trains following. I said to the foreman “How does this work?” He replied “It never expletive does.”

Looking over the Channel I have exactly the same feeling.

Dance To the Music Of Time

Shuffling my way back in after the first interval with a lot of others there was this big bloke by my side. It was worrying; if he trod on one of my best trainers he could get an earful that might spoil his family occasion. My trainers are expensive footwear. Because of my feet I need to have those designed for athletes and such.

Then I realised who he was. So now I may claim to be a source close to George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer and indeed might have had his ear. For a fleeting moment the thought came to say something. It would on the lines of the Soothsayer in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. “Beware the endogenous growth theory!”

Then I remembered it is probably written in the blood of a Special Adviser on the walls of his office at The Treasury, left from the time of the last Chancellor, Alastair Darling. Perhaps it had been written by his predecessor, Gordon Brown, as a change from throwing hardware about and left by Darling as a dreadful reminder of hubris.

That might have spoiled the occasion even more. George was escaping from the fantasy world of Europe of the last few days and all the strange and improbable stories he had been told by other ministers and experts there. It would have been good to be away from all the posturing and demands for attention and approval and craving for an audience.

We too found it refreshing to be at a performance which mingled expert attention to detail with comparatively social realism and an appreciation of the true moral imperatives that should underlie human conduct. Where the Good might be paramount and the squalid selfishness and greed of others denied.

It was The Royal Ballet “Sleeping Beauty” at Covent Garden. It was clear that they had been doing a bit of quantitative easing of their own in that the costumes were new, more highly coloured and with subtle changes. The last time the costumes for this signature production were renewed was when the Royal Ballet went to the Kennedy Arts Centre at Washington DC and did a gala for President Clinton.

Famously, back stage when being introduced to the Principal who had danced the Lilac Fairy, the character who sorts it all out and puts both things and people right, he said that “We need a Lilac Fairy at the White House.” Unluckily, the US Media being short on humour and ballet plots and long on speculation came to some very strange conclusions over the meaning of this. It went down badly in Texas.

But the meanings of it all, what were the signs and portents? Red Riding Hood’s coat was much redder. Does this mean more EU regulation and control of credit such as those of the mid 20th Century? The wolf was clearly of a more Russian, even Siberian type and not one of the previous Yellowstone breeds. Is Europe going to be forsaken by the US and needing to turn to Russia?

The Lilac of the Fairy I am expertly advised had a costume that was magenta rather than Lilac. Whereas the colour lilac was associated with Empress Eugenie of France who popularised silks made with the new synthetic chemical dyes, magenta was the prime colour of the banner of the old Holy Roman Empire that finally ended with World War 1 after its major decline in the 19th Century.

So republican France may be forced to give way to the German inheritors of the old authoritarian imperial tradition? There was worse. The four suitors for the hand of the Princess Aurora in the Rose Adagio showed those of the East being more stylish and strikingly attired than the overdressed and out of date clothing for the period of those of the West.

However, Princess Florine and the Bluebird were much the same. Was this to assure the Chancellor that the Royal Ballet is on his side? There are other mysteries difficult to unfold. At least the happy ending was the same. But George will go away with much to discuss and to consider in his dealings with Europe.

Let us hope that he doesn’t get caught in a “Nutcracker”.

Deutschland Unter Alles

The net and other media are full of stuff about Germany at present. Something to do with Europe and having to find the money to keep it in the style to which it has become accustomed.

Then reading around, I discovered that the Reichstag (or is has it changed?) were alleged to have coughed up the money to save us all, but first the Greeks, then the French and other banks who had lent Greeks a lot of money, then the governments who were propping up the banks and incidentally the European Union in passing.

Perhaps the media in general felt that this was a little too complicated to explain to a public who needed more important information about a deceased American singer who died in tragic circumstance and an English footballer who was terribly upset when a lady of close acquaintance told all or nearly all.

But what was not clear was that what the Germans had decided was that they went along with the deal agreed a few days back but that this was likely to be “thus far but no further”. As we are being told that another big bill is on the way five times larger than the last one that this might be problematical was not discussed.

From time to time one or other members of the UK Cabinet chime in with passing comments about as useful as the helpful advice given to referees by the crowd standing behind the home side’s goal at a football match. They may offer insights in what is going on in front of them but not to any real purpose.

Meanwhile, David Cameron was spotted in the director’s box at the Queen’s Park Rangers game at the weekend. Whilst I was glad to see he was supporting his home side as opposed to slumming it at Arsenal or Chelsea it was intriguing that Lakshmi Mittal, one of the leading magnates of India was there beside him.

He may have been trying to explain the offside rule to Cameron, whose politics lead me to assume that this is not one of his strengths, but there may be other matters. If the UK is going to need all the help it can get if the Reichstag goes up in flames again then it is to Asia he will have to look.

One particular talent that Mittal has to offer is how to ride a gathering inflationary storm of the kind that is now going on in India. Another is that he is so involved already in the UK economy and property that he is a key player in any decisions relating to our economy. Ed Balls we recall, relied greatly on the advice and help of Sir Fred Goodwin, let us hope that Mittal can do better than that.

So there we go then. If Europe collapses and takes Germany with it the UK may just about survive the storm with the support of Asia, notably India. What might Mittal suggest? A new company created, perhaps to preside over the remains of Europe?

Call it the Honourable West Europe Company and allow it to put in Governors, District Officers, Political Advisers and small forces of troops, the Bengal Lancers would do very well with a few regiments of Guides. It might just work, if so then perhaps Sir Paul McCartney could knock out an oratorio or two as a change from ballets and stuff, to be premiered in Hamburg where his band performed not long after Western Germany were given back their sovereignty.

They could now be about to lose it. I was there at the time and when giving the opinion that it would never last was derided for my lack of belief in the future. One reason for that was that the value of the mark rose against that of cigarettes and I still believe that ciggie’s are a more reliable currency.

Start stocking up and soon.

Infectious Or Contagious?

When I was in the British Army of Occupation in Germany the European Unity idea seemed a good thing as long as the Americans and the Brit’s were directly in charge. At the time we even thought that if the locals were allowed to work together on their coal and steel production it would be of use to us.

Sadly, our period of direct control ended and when it did The Treasury cut the rate of exchange for the UK Armed Service personnel in pounds to the new DM in Germany by 40%. We should have regarded this as a bad omen. Since then it has all gone down hill and down market.

After our failure to rebrand the Empire as a Commonwealth held together by The City in the Sterling Area and to compete with the USA in the America’s and other places we surrendered to the New Europe in the 1970’s and dumped The Commonwealth.

More by accident than design we kept the pound sterling if not the Sterling Area and this was kept afloat by the discovery of North Sea Oil and Gas. In the meantime our neighbours invented the Euro.

This was because it was apparent that even a united Europe could not stop the French, Italians and Spanish from serious mismanagement of their currencies. At the time I suggested that the Euro was essentially a vehicle without a reverse gear or reliable steering and brakes.

Like others who shared my view I was dismissed as an ignoramus entirely lacking in vision and belief and with a tawdry attitude of expecting things to work properly. This is why I regarded those hyping the Euro as about as reliable as salesmen selling British cars of the 1970’s.

Now the fuses are blowing in European finance and the Euro is under stress we wonder what is going on. If you ask what will become of it and feel that at present none of it is quite logical and that those at the top are mostly distraught or drunk, then you are not alone.

In fact, there is expert opinion on the matter:

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5913

It is titled “The Eurozone In Bad Need Of A Psychiatrist”.

Not quite in the best of taste but indicative, as they say.

Europe, A Brief History

If you have about five minutes to spare have a look at this Youtube clip which shows 1000 years of European History as a changing map.

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/11/1000_years_of_e.html

This was seen on the Economic Road Map web site from the USA via Infectious Greed asking the question whether or not we could be due for another major upheaval and rewriting the map of Europe.

I wonder just how much territory will soon be named Gazprom.

Europe - The Return Of The Habsburgs

Well, after all that, we are now agreed that basically, taking everything into consideration, and looking at all the options the Habsburgs were right. It is now admitted by our leaders in Europe, not all of them elected, that after about six hundred years, all those wars of ideologies, wealth and empire seeking, dynastic disputes, and sundry fighting between other groups with particular agendas were a waste of time, men and money.

If only those misguided people our forebears trusted with power in the past had just let the Habsburgs, their Emperors, Princes, Dukes and the rest get on with running the show, religion, trade, and everything we could all have lived happily ever after. Perhaps Herman van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton do not much resemble King Philip II of Spain, and Queen Mary Tudor of England who married at Winchester in July 1554 (above), but they are the best Europe can do for the time being. Tony and Cherie would have been a little too Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

I will skip the slightly complicated history of the Habsburgs, it is all there on the web and Wikipedia serves for starters. Nor do I suggest that the various descendants of Habsburg’s line scattered about the world should be elevated to high positions in Europe. They seem to be a sociable lot, but their heritage has meant exclusion from politics. They could almost claim to be an ethnic group who have suffered social and political isolation and apply for the relevant grants from Brussels.

The point is that the Habsburgs, Holy Roman Emperors and all that, not only ruled much of Europe and beyond, but in the parts they did not have direct rule, exercised a profound influence over what went on. Moreover, many went in for micro management to an astonishing degree, complaining that they were slaves to their peoples. We can also ignore their foibles and eccentricities, difficulties in personal relationships, and consequences of genetic inbreeding. They are minor compared to those of many of the current European and UK leaders, and as for the UK we can substitute “political” for “genetic”. The effects of that are infinitely more serious and damaging to the business of ruling than the odd twitching of the DNA.

The Europe of the Habsburgs was a sprawling regime with its many parts rarely functioning in connection with the others. It was a massive tax and wealth gathering entity which spent vast sums on prestige projects, personal palaces, and in enforcing the doctrines of which they and only they determined and defined. It was multi layered to a bewildering and complicated degree. Most of the time of its functionaries was spend in working out who they were and what they were supposed to be doing. If they found that out, then someone higher up would confound it, and it will all start again.

Public decrees would be made, laws and regulations issued, but how they came to be or why would be shrouded in deep secrecy, and only the powerful or the proximate would be party to any of it. This meant that as you went down through the levels of administration, matters became slower and slower, and more uncertain. Nobody quite knew what decisions might be made and when, unless, of course, they paid good money to find out and obtain the right result.

There was a proliferation of senior, high paying, posts to satisfy the many clients of the state, and as many of the highest gathered so many of them to themselves, then there was extensive delegation to much cheaper and junior officials whose only hope of survival was to extract as much income and as quickly as possible. The Empire had a monopoly of policing and military matters that were closely combined and under the instruction of the doctrinal and legal administrative classes, so that rebellion was prevented, and any reformers or opposition would be classed as rebellion or heresy and dealt with accordingly.

At the highest levels it was necessary to have connections and background that were absolutely correct. Without the sixteen quarterings of the right families you could neither be admitted to nor held worthy of rule. Then it was ancestral because that was held to the test of rightness or wrongness. Today there are other tests of political correctness that amount to the same thing. The are boxes that contain the right configurations of display, beliefs, and membership.

Nobody really knew where the money went, and accounting was simply an exercise in writing fiction. Who was supposed to getting the money was one thing. Who really benefited was quite another, sometimes completely random in effect, and at others going to people who had abused every office they held. There were some political jurisdictions which held out against the Habsburg system, but in the 21st Century by the more effective methods of modern communications and means of propaganda they have been suborned and defeated.

For almost a century Europe was freed of the last of the Habsburg heritage. But it has been too difficult to shake them off. They may not be back in person, but their political tradition has triumphed. Their system is back, bigger and better than ever and we are all now subject.

At least we will not have dynastic or other wars, if you forget Afghanistan. Well, not for a year or two.