Schlagwort-Archive: United Kingdom

almost a diary, compulsory reading

Does Dennis MacShane really want to decapitate Tony Blair?

The British Minister for Europe, Dennis MacShane, apparently tried to appeal to the British public by telling the FT earlier this week that

“… the German position [of enhancing the EU commission’s president powers as opposed to the Franco-British position of electing a president from within the European Council ] is for giving all power to a new kind of European kaiser, a Commission president who will tell all the other European institutions what to do. I had long discussion with Gerhard Schröder on this and I explained that 350 years ago we separated a king’s head from his body because we didn’t want to take orders from one individual.”

I am not too firm in English history but if I remember correctly, the story of the decapitation of Charles I is slightly more complicated than alleged by Mr MacShane. He died because he lost against Chromwell’s army in a religious power struggle. Decapitating a king may have been a fundamental democratic experience, but at least the immediate consequences were limited.

Shortly thereafter, Oliver Chromwell became Lord Protector. I am certainly not trying to reduce the English/British democratic/parliamentary innovations in any way – after all, I did have the opportunity to work for an MP in the mother of Parliaments myself.

But I do find it funny that a British minister talks about the veto-prone European decision process as some sort of absolutist government given that he is part of a governmental system which many scholars of British politics have (ironically, but with slight concern) called an “elected dictatorship” because of the centrality of Prime Ministerial power and the problematic legal doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty [ by the way – this evil fascist dictator test, apparently put online by an Oxford student, gives you the opportunity to test your Prime Ministerial potential.

Apparently, according to the test’s scoring guide,

I will be a corrupt, ruthless, but surprisingly effective figure on the world stage.

[ Not bad for this time of the day, I have to say ;-) ]

But anyway – the British must have learnt to take orders from one (elected) individual by now, for I don’t think Mr MacShane is actually after Tony’s head. He’s definitely even more dependent on his employer’s goodwill than most of his compatriots.

Standard
Economics

The Spam Way Of Life.

I just realised to which extent the ever increasing amount of spam has already led me to develop instant deletion reflexes.

I just deleted today’s Wired News without even looking at the sender, because the subject line begins with “Korean Housewives want…”. Housewives has definitely become a keyword for instant deletion. Just like the the three daily emails trying to tell me that “someone has a crush on me” or those from, eg Mrs. Mariam Mobutu Seseseko with subjects like – Urgent Assistance Needed PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL / Amount: US$ 18 MILLION.

This so called 419-spam, where a complete stranger who received your email address “through a mutual firend” tells you that he/she is a relative/close friend/doctor/pet of the now dead previous strong man of [put sub-saharan country of choice here] who was able to steal zillions of development aid and now needs your account as a laundry shop, seems to have some sort of celebrity status, as this Belgian collector’s website indicates – Google did not find a single collection of spam concerned with erectile dyfunction or breast enlargement.

I wonder if this kind of communication should actually be collected somewhere, if only to document for future generations what happened in our mailboxes in the post-millenium-years. An all-spam-encompassing collection could also help answer the ultimate question behind the phenomenon – how many people do actually react to spam? And why? Sending spam is certainly cheap, but it clearly does cost something: Someone has to be paid for collecting all those email addresses and then handling the sending process. Given the amount of spam I receive every day I have to draw the conclusion that it must somehow be profitable.

Thus, there must be people who pay money for the services promoted by spam.

While I can imagine people being interested in breast or penis enlargments, I have serious difficulties to understand how their interest could be sparked by a spam email or why they would believe that a product/service which is advertised in the cheapest way available could solve their problems. Remember my previous entry about covers that reveal something about the content of a book? Doesn’t a spam cover scream “click on me and I’ll rip you off”? However, its mere existence reveals that demand for those products and services promoted must be attributable to the emails sent out.

One more entry on my list of things that I will never understand.

PS: The Korean housewives simply wanted “a speedy net”. Sometimes looks do deceive, even with respect to spam – but it’s luckily rare.

Standard
Allgemein

Blair on Europe’s future: A Confederation – including Turkey?

A BlairiteOn November 28 Tony Blair gave a speech in Cardiff outlining his and Britain’s “clear course for Europe”, indicating the British stance on several important issues for the final round of institutional reform debates of the EU framework including the Convention preparing a European constitution in preparation for the actual execution of the Eastern European enlargement. You can find the speech here – I am only commenting on a few parts of it.

Blair may be a Europhile, but above all, he’s a Blairite, of course. Thus, it is no wonder that the “clear course for Europe” is not so clear in all respects, especially concerning the anticipated debates about the Common European Foreign and Security Policy. Admitting that Britain has “chosen to follow” rather than to lead in Europe for the last 50 years and expressing the clear determination to change her role and perception among her partners –

“First, we must end the nonsense of “this far and no further”. There are areas in which Europe should and will integrate more: in fighting crime and illegal immigration; to secure economic reform; in having a more effective defence and security policy. Britain should not be at the back of the file on such issues but at the front. On the Euro we should of course join if the economic conditions are right. A single currency with a single market for Europe makes economic sense.”

– he also leaves no doubt that more multilateral decision making in some areas will have to be offset by a straightforward implementation of the (somewhat elusive) subsidiarity principle and a clear constitutional statement that the Union has no will to become federal in any sense for some time –

“… we do need a proper Constitution for Europe, one which makes it clear that the driving ideology is indeed a union of nations not a superstate subsuming national sovereignty and national identity. This should be spelt out in simple language. A new Constitution for Europe can bring a new stability to the shape of Europe – not a finality which would prevent any future evolution, but a settlement to last a generation or more.”

– thus, only a slight change of attitude with respect to the above mentioned “this far and not further” position. A recognition of the dynamic nature of the process and some linguistic modernisation rather than a fundamental change in the underlying position.

Concerning the question of an appointed/elected Chairman of the European Council, he proposes a “team presidency” in which different councils would be led by different nations following a rotation scheme like the one currently used for the Council presidency. While the smaller nations will naturally be wary of a long-term Chairman of the European Council, the idea of splitting the presidency will likely appeal to many, as it seems to be a way to increase the number of national representatives without increasing the number of decision making bodies.

But I presume the biggest rows will concern the Common Foreign and Security Policy, especially after the recently floated Franco-German ideas about the Common European Defense. In the end, it’s all about Nato and the currently strained trans-Atlantic relationship. It’s a question of cultural ties as well as of history and of military ability. Very difficult to project any outcome apart from increased defense spending in Europe to somewhat close the apparent capability gap to the US. Realising that foreign policy is again much more related to military engagement, albeit of a very different kind, than it has been for European nations during the cold war years, Blair is favouring European cooperation, but ruling out a communised foreign policy – and he’s got some point there –

I favour the strengthening of European foreign policy, step by step, from the Balkans, to Europe’s “near abroad” and then beyond. In this area, however, the lead responsibility should remain with the Council of Foreign Ministers. Britain cannot agree to the communitisation of defence or foreign policy. It is not practical or right in principle. Foreign policy can only be built by gathering a consensus among the Member States who possess the resources necessary to conduct it – the diplomatic skills, the bulk of aid budgets, and of course the armed forces.”

It will be very hard to come to an agreement regarding extended multilateral decision making in this area. Even Germany, long standing propagator of multilateral decision making is pursuing a unilateral course of (verbal) non-participation regarding a possible US-led attack on Iraq.

In this speech, Blair only slightly touched one of the most difficult things to solve in the future – Turkey. He somewhat confusingly states with respect to Europe’s borders –

“Stretching from Lapland in the north to Malta in the south, from the coast of County Kerry in the West to the Black Sea, and ultimately – yes – to Turkey’s borders in the East, it will contain over 500 million people, a political and economic entity bigger than the USA and Japan put together.”

I haven’t counted if Europe contains over 500 million people without Turkey’s 80 million. But I like the way of getting around the subject by claiming that “Europe will extend to Turkey’s borders” without saying whether he means those with Greece or those with Iraq. That leaves a lot of room for discussion – all of Anatolia, actually.

My guess is, Europe will not be any simpler after this round of institutional changes. It will probably be a lot more complicated.

Standard
Allgemein

I like Britain.

Seriously, I do. Some very good friends of mine are from the island and I lived in their capital and volunteered in the mother of Parliaments.

Nontheless, I have to quote this article from the Observer. It’s an old one, but given the Anglo-German tradition of (in these days) humorous bashing, there was no way to avoid it. The article is called “Why the Germans are right about us” and deals with a story the German magazine Stern had published about the abysmal public services in the UK.

In the end, it’s all a matter of productivity differences – there’s an absolute and relative difference in output per hour per worker relative to the US/JP/GER/FR. Thus not all – although quite a lot – can be explained by Tory government-induced lack of money for public goods. I might post more on the details after I read the 128 pages of Nick Crafts latest essay (pdf) on the relative British economic performance from 1870-1999.

Standard